Refutation of Eunomius 1 part 5/6

Then he graciously ascribes to him the destruction of men by water in the days of Noah, and the rain of fire upon Sodom, and the just punishment of the Egyptians, as though attributing some great things to him who holds in his hand the ends of the inhabited world, in whom all things consist, as the Apostle says — as if not knowing that, for him who contains all things and who leads and bears, as he sees fit, both the things already come to be and the things yet to be, two or three miracles that are mentioned do not so much add to his glory as the silence concerning the rest constitutes a subtraction and a loss.

But even were these things passed over in silence, the single utterance of Paul suffices to show forth all things comprehensively by itself — the utterance that calls him [the one who is] over all things, and through all things, and in all things.

"Then he legislates," he says, "according to the command of the eternal God."

Who is the eternal God, and who is his minister with regard to the establishment of the Law? But this is clear to everyone: that God legislates through Moses to those who receive the Law.

Of the ages? But this learned and mindful man seems to me to have forgotten that Paul says all these things concerning himself, proclaiming among men the preaching of the gospel according to the command of God.

What the apostle relates concerning himself, then, Eunomius is not ashamed to attribute to the Lord of the prophets and apostles, so as to render the Lord of equal honor with Paul, his own servant.

And why need I bring a multitude [of examples] into my argument, refuting each one point by point? In these matters, the one who reads what he has written more simply will suppose that he is saying what is granted by Scripture, while the one who is able to examine each point closely will demonstrate that nothing is free from heretical malice.

For both the churchman and the heretic say, "The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son"; yet each understands what is said differently;

for through these very same words, the churchman understands authority over all things, whereas this man establishes thereby inferiority and subjection.

But this must be added to what has been said, which they make a kind of foundation for their impiety in their account of the [divine] economy: they maintain that it was not the whole man that was saved by him, but only the half of man — I mean the body.

Their purpose in this malicious handling of the doctrine is to show the more lowly utterances, which the Lord makes on account of the human [element], as though they seemed to have arisen from the Godhead itself, so that through this they might make their blasphemy appear stronger, being confirmed by the Lord's own confession.

For this reason he says that [the Lord], having become man in the last days, did not take up the man [composed] of soul and body.

But I, having searched through the whole of the divinely-inspired and holy Scripture, do not find this statement written anywhere — that the Maker of all things, in the time of the economy according to man, took upon himself the flesh alone, apart from the soul.

I shall therefore, of necessity, looking both to the purpose of our salvation and to the doctrines of the Fathers and to the divinely-inspired utterances, endeavor to refute the impiety being fabricated on this point.

The Lord came to seek and to save that which was lost; but it was not the body that was lost, but the whole man, compounded of soul and body; and if the truer statement must be made, the soul was lost before the body.

For disobedience is a sin of the will, not of the body; and the will belongs properly to the soul, from which the whole calamity of our nature had its beginning, as God's unfailing threat testifies in these words: that in whatever day they should touch the forbidden things, death would be joined to the eating without delay.

For the death of the body is the extinguishing of the senses and the dissolution into the kindred elements;

"But the soul," it says, "that sins, it shall die."

and sin is estrangement from God, who is the true and only life.

Did not, then, the first-formed man live on for many hundreds of years after his disobedience? Yet God did not lie when he said, "In whatever day you eat, you shall die the death."

For by his being estranged from the true life, the sentence of death was ratified against him that very same day.

After this, in the course of time, bodily death also followed upon Adam.

He, therefore, who came for this reason — that he might seek and save that which was lost, which in the parable the shepherd names "sheep" — both finds that which was lost and takes up upon his own shoulders the whole sheep, not merely the sheep's hide, that he might make whole the man of God, mingled together with the Godhead through soul and body.

And thus he left out nothing of our nature which he did not take up — he who was tempted in all things according to our likeness, yet without sin.

But the soul is not sin, but became receptive of sin through lack of good counsel.

…himself to commingling, that by the firstfruit he might sanctify the whole lump together.

For this reason also the angel, informing Joseph of the destruction of the Lord's enemies, says: ‘They who sought the child's life are dead.’

And the Lord says to the Jews: ‘You seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you.’

Now ‘man’ is not said of the body of man alone, but of that which is composed of both.

And again he says to them, ‘Are you angry with me because I made a whole man well on the Sabbath?’ He made manifest the meaning of ‘whole’ in the other Gospels, when, to the man let down on his bed in their midst, he said, ‘Your sins are forgiven you’—which is the healing of the soul—and ‘Rise and walk’—which looks to the flesh.

But in the Gospel according to John, after giving health to the body, he also freed the soul from its own sickness, in the words where he says, ‘You have become well; sin no more.’

From this we see the one who was healed through both—I mean, in soul and in body.

For thus Paul also says:

‘That he might create the two in himself into one new man.’

And thus, at the time of the Passion, he foretells that his own soul would willingly depart from his own body, saying: ‘No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself.’

‘I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.’

For the Godhead, both before the flesh and in the flesh and after the Passion, is ever the same, being always by nature what it was and abiding forever; but in the Passion of the human nature it fulfilled the dispensation on our behalf, separating for a time the soul from the body, yet not being separated even from the other element with which it had once been commingled, and again joining together the things that had been parted, so as to give to the whole of human nature the sequence and the beginning of the resurrection from the dead, that all that is corruptible might put on incorruption, and the mortal, immortality—our firstfruit having been transformed into the divine nature through its commingling with God.

as Peter said: ‘God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.’

And many things can be adduced from the holy Gospels in support of such a doctrine, showing how the Lord, in the humanity that belongs to Christ, reconciling the world to himself, apportioned to the soul and to the body the benefit that came from him upon mankind, willing through the soul, but touching through the body.

But it would be superfluous to go through everything and burden the argument with a crowd of examples.

But having added this one further point to what has been said, I will pass on to what follows.

‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’

Just as we, through soul and body, become a temple of him who dwells in us and walks in us, so too the Lord calls the union of both a temple, whose destruction signifies the dissolution of the soul from the body.

But if they cite the Gospel's word that ‘The Word became flesh,’ arguing that, since the soul is not mentioned together with it, it establishes that the flesh assumed was without a soul, let them learn that it is the custom of holy Scripture to comprehend the whole under the part.

For he who said, ‘To you all flesh shall come,’ does not mean that flesh separated from souls will be presented before the Judge.

And hearing from the history that Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy-five souls, we understand the flesh to be included together with the souls.

So then, the Word, having become flesh, assumed together with the flesh the whole of human nature; whence hungering and thirsting, being fainthearted and fearing, desiring, sleeping, being troubled, weeping, and all such things found a place in him.

…does the soul by its own nature undergo any such passion, nor does the flesh come to be in those states by itself, without the soul being disposed together with the body.

So much, then, concerning the blasphemy against the Son.

Let us now examine also what he sets forth concerning the Holy Spirit.

‘After him,’ he says, ‘we believe in the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth.’

I think it is clear to all readers with what aim he distorts the exposition of the faith handed down by the Lord, since this absurdity has already been refuted in our discussion of the Son and the Father.

Nevertheless, even now I shall try, in a few words, to expose the aim of his malice.

For just as there he did not say ‘Father,’ lest he should thereby signify along with it the Son's coeternity with the Father, nor did he name ‘the Son,’ lest by that word he should also imply the kinship according to nature, so also now he does not say ‘Holy Spirit,’ lest by this name he should acknowledge together the majesty of his glory and his being united in every respect with the Father and the Son.

For since the title ‘Spirit’ and that of ‘Holy’ apply equally to the Father and the Son according to Scripture—for ‘God is Spirit,’ and ‘the Lord Christ is the Spirit before our face,’ and ‘the Lord God is holy,’ and ‘there is one Holy One, one Lord, Jesus Christ’—lest, then, there should arise in those who hear ‘Holy Spirit’ some pious inference arising from its sharing, together with the Father and the Son, in that glorious title, for this reason, beguiling the hearing of the unwary, he alters the words of the faith previously set forth by God in the handing-down of the mystery, as though by this device paving for himself the way to impiety against the Holy Spirit.

For if he had said, ‘We believe in the Holy Spirit’—and God is Spirit—one trained in divine matters would have retorted that, if one must believe in the Holy Spirit, and God is called Spirit, it is assuredly nothing other in nature than that which is properly designated by the same names.

For whatever things are designated by the same names, not falsely nor by misuse of terms, but properly, of these it is altogether necessary to confess one and the same nature—that which is signified by the same names.

For these reasons, having kept silent about the word ordained by the Lord in the confession of faith, he says instead, ‘We believe in the Paraclete.’

But I have learned from the divinely inspired Scripture that this very name too is common to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

For the Son names both himself and the Holy Spirit alike ‘Paraclete.’

And the Father, by the very things through which he works the consolation, altogether makes the name ‘Paraclete’ his own.

For surely one who performs the work of the Paraclete does not disdain the name that belongs to the work.

And John, in one of the catholic epistles, expressly names the Son ‘Paraclete.’

And the Lord himself, in saying that another Paraclete would be sent to us—speaking of the Spirit—has thereby already acknowledged this name of himself as well.

Now since the meaning of ‘to console’ is twofold—one through honorific words and gestures, by which, when we happen to be in need of something, we move him to sympathy; the other, the notion of a therapeutic remedy for the sufferings of soul and of body—holy Scripture bears witness, equally in both senses, that this notion applies to the divine nature of the Paraclete.

‘We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us.’

‘We beg on Christ's behalf: be reconciled to God.’

This being so, then, however you understand the name ‘Paraclete’ as applied to the Spirit, you will not thereby remove it from communion with the Father and the Son, in respect of either of the two senses signified.

Thus, in this particular, even had he wished it, he has not been able to diminish the glory of the Holy Spirit, since he thereby attests to it that very thing which holy Scripture also ascribes to the Father and the Son.

In saying ‘Spirit of truth,’ Eunomius himself, I think, wished by such an expression to present the Spirit as a subordinate thing, since Christ is Truth, and he named the Spirit ‘of truth,’ as if one were to say it is a possession of the truth and something subject to it—not realizing that God is called ‘righteousness,’ and yet we have by no means understood God to be a possession of righteousness.

So too, having learned this, we received from the phrase ‘Spirit of truth’ the sense befitting God, being led by the hand toward the better understanding through the very word that was adduced against it.

For the Lord, having said ‘the Spirit of truth,’ immediately added, ‘who proceeds from the Father’—a thing which the Lord's word has attested of none of the things conceived within creation: not of things visible, not of things invisible, not of thrones, not of principalities, not of powers, not of dominions, nor of any other name that is named, either in this age or in that which is to come.

That of which, then, all creation has no share, it must surely be clear that this belongs properly and exclusively to the uncreated nature.

But this man bids us believe in a mere guide of piety.

Then let him believe also in Paul and Barnabas and Titus and Silvanus and Timothy, and all those through whom we were guided to the faith.

For if that which guides toward piety must be believed in along with the Father and the Son, then all the prophets and lawgivers and patriarchs, the heralds, evangelists, and apostles, the pastors and teachers, hold equal rank with the Holy Spirit, since they too became guides of piety for those who came after them.

‘Having come into being,’ he says, ‘by the only God through the Only-begotten.’

In these words he recapitulates the whole of his impiety.

Again he names the Father alone ‘God,’ who used the Only-begotten as an instrument for the making of the Spirit.

What shadow of such a notion has he found in Scripture, that he dares this? From what starting-point has he, by logical sequence, carried his impiety forward to such a conclusion? Which of the evangelists says it, which apostle, which prophet? On the contrary, quite the reverse: the whole of divinely inspired Scripture, written through the inbreathing of the Spirit, testifies to the Spirit's divinity—for example (for it is better to demonstrate the point through the very testimonies themselves), those who received the power to become children of God testify to the divinity of the Spirit.

For who is unaware of the Lord's saying, that those begotten of the Spirit are children of God? For thus he expressly attests to the Holy Spirit the begetting of the children of God, saying that, just as that which is born of the flesh is flesh, so also that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

And as many as were begotten by the Spirit were called children of God.

So too, when the Lord had given the Holy Spirit to the disciples through his breathing upon them, John says: ‘Of his fullness we have all received.’

And the great Paul solemnly testifies that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in him; but further, concerning the theophany that came to the prophet Isaiah, when he saw the One seated upon a throne high and lifted up—while the older tradition says that it was the Father who was seen, the evangelist John refers the prophecy to the Lord, saying, of the unbelieving Jews, the words spoken by the prophet concerning the Lord: ‘These things Isaiah said when he saw his glory and spoke of him.’

He further attested this in the speech he delivered to the Jews at Rome, when he says: ‘Well did the Holy Spirit speak concerning you, saying, “By hearing you shall hear and shall not understand”’—showing, I think, by this very passage of Scripture, that every more divine vision, every theophany, and every word spoken in the person of God is understood of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit alike.

But those who, by such doctrines, keep noising it abroad that we worship three gods have perhaps not even yet been taught to count.

For if the Son and the Father are not divided from one another into a duality (for they are one, and not two, according to the Lord's word), and the Holy Spirit is likewise one, how does the one, added to the one, split apart into a number of three gods? Or rather, is it not altogether clear that no one could charge us with a number of three gods, unless he himself were first constructing a duality of gods in his own doctrine?

For it is the addition of the one to the two that produces the triad of gods.

But among those by whom one God is worshiped in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, what place is there for the charge of three gods? But let us take up again the whole statement of Eunomius.

‘Having come into being,’ he says, ‘by the only God, through the Only-begotten’—this too.

What proof, then, is there that this too belongs among the things that came into being through the Only-begotten? They will no doubt say that all things came into being through him, and that this too is comprehended among ‘all things.’

To this we shall reply that ‘all things came into being through him,’ whatever came into being; and, as Paul says, these came into being visible and invisible—thrones, principalities, authorities, dominions, powers; and among those enumerated under ‘thrones’ and ‘powers,’ the Cherubim and the Seraphim are included by Paul.

But the Holy Spirit, as being above the nature of things that came into being, Paul passed over in silence in his enumeration of existing things, showing us by his own words neither that it came into being nor that it is subject to another.

But just as the prophet calls the Holy Spirit good, upright, and princely, indicating by ‘princely’ its governing character, so too the apostle, by declaring that the Spirit works all things in all as he wills, thereby attests the sovereign authority belonging to the dignity of the Spirit.

But the Lord makes manifest the Spirit's self-determining power and operation in his discourse to Nicodemus, when he says, "The Spirit blows where it wills."

How then does Eunomius define this too as one of the things that came to be from the Son, condemned to eternal subjection? For, he says, it is subjected once for all — by what kind of subjection, I do not know, having yoked under it that which is ruling and governing.

For such a word is many-signified in holy Scripture, and is understood and spoken of in many ways.

"Every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

When this comes to pass, the great wisdom of Paul affirms that the Son — who is present in all things — is himself subjected to the Father through the subjection of all the things in which the Son is present.

What kind of subjection, then, Eunomius keeps bruiting about as belonging once for all to the Spirit cannot be learned from the expression he has flung out — whether it is the subjection of irrational creatures, or of captives, or of servants, or of children being disciplined, or of those being saved through subjection.

For the subjection of human beings to God is salvation to those who are subjected, according to the word of the prophet, which says that the soul is subjected to God, since salvation comes from him through subjection, so that subjection is a defense against destruction.

Just as, then, medicine is diligently sought by the sick, so also subjection is sought by those in need of salvation.

But of what life is the Holy Spirit, who gives life to all things, in need, that it should obtain salvation for itself through subjection? Since, then, he can neither bruit such a thing about the Spirit from any divine utterance, nor has he put forth this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit from any sequence of plausible reasoning, it must be clear to those who have understanding that he sets forth his impiety against him unsupported, strengthened neither by any scriptural testimony nor indeed by any sequence of reasoning.

And to these he adds that it is neither according to the Father, nor numbered together with the Father;

for the God who is over all is one and alone the Father; nor is it made equal together with the Son;

for the Son is only-begotten, having no one of the same kind.

For my part, if he had added to his statement only this — that the Holy Spirit is not the father of the Son — I should have thought it vain even so to dwell upon what is disputed by no one, forbidding one to think concerning him things which not even the most senseless of men would ever suppose.

But since through things irrelevant and inapplicable he attempts to construct his impiety, by which he says that the Holy Spirit is not the father of the Only-begotten, thinking that through this he demonstrates that it is subjected and in subordination — for this reason, for the refutation of his folly, I have made mention of these words of his, who supposes he demonstrates the Spirit to be subjected to the Father because the Spirit is not the father of the Only-begotten.

For by what necessity is such a thing established, that if one is not father, one is necessarily also subjected? If, then, it had been demonstrated that "father" and "tyrant" signify the same thing, it would follow, when tyranny is conceived with respect to the Father, to say that the Spirit is subjected to him who is preeminent in authority.

But if by "Father" only the relation to the Son is signified, and no notion of tyranny or authority is introduced by this term, how does it follow, from the Spirit's not being father of the Son, that the Spirit is subjected? "Nor," he says, "is it made equal together with the Son."

How does he say this? For that which is incorruptible and unchangeable and receptive of no evil whatsoever, and which always remains in the same way in the good, admits of no variation between the Son and the Spirit.

For equally the incorruptibility of the Spirit is estranged from corruption, and likewise that which is good by nature is separated from its opposite, and that which is perfect in every good thing is likewise without need of anything more.

That all these things are said of the Spirit, the God-inspired Scripture teaches, testifying that all lofty and God-befitting concepts and names — good, wise, incorruptible, immortal — belong to the Spirit.

If, then, the Spirit is diminished in none of these, in what does Eunomius measure out the inequality between the Son and the Spirit? "For the Son," he says, "is only-begotten, having no brother of the same kind."

But we have already discussed, in the discourse concerning the firstborn of all creation, that the Only-begotten ought not to be thought of together with brothers.

But it is fitting not to pass over unexamined what has now been maliciously flung into the argument by him.

...proclaiming glory and all such things, save for the difference according to the hypostases — this man, whenever he wishes to make the essence of the Only-begotten common with creation, calls him "firstborn of all creation" with respect to his pre-eternal existence, thereby declaring through this expression that all things conceived to be in creation are brothers of the Lord;

for the firstborn is by all means firstborn not of things of a different kind, but of things of the same kind;

but whenever he cuts the Spirit off from its conjunction with the Son, he calls him only-begotten, having no brother of the same kind — not in order to think of him as without brothers, but in order that through this he may establish, concerning the Spirit, its alienation according to essence.

For that Scripture does not call the Holy Spirit "brother," we have learned from Scripture itself;

but that the Spirit ought not to be called of the same kind as the Son is nowhere demonstrated from the divine words.

For if the life-giving power is demonstrated in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, according to the word of the Gospel; if the incorruptible and unchangeable and receptive of no evil; if the good and the upright and the sovereign and that which operates all things in all according to its will; if all such things are equally to be seen in Father and Son and Holy Spirit — how is it possible, through the identity in these, to conceive of a difference of kind? Therefore the reasoning of true religion agrees that one ought not to consider any brotherhood concerning the Only-begotten; but that the Spirit is not of the same kind as the Son — upright with the upright, good with the good, life-giving with the life-giving — this has clearly been demonstrated, by the sequence of the argument, to be the malicious contrivance of heresy.

In what way, then, is the majesty of the Spirit curtailed by these things? For there is nothing among the God-befitting concepts capable of producing either excess or diminishment, since all of them are equally applied by holy Scripture to both the Son and the Spirit; and he would not be able to say in what he sees the inequality.

but he brings forth his impiety against the Holy Spirit naked, unsubstantiated, and dependent on no logical sequence whatsoever.

"Nor indeed," he says, "is it ranked together with anything else;"

"for it has ascended above all the things made through the Son in origin and nature and glory and knowledge, being the first and mightiest work of the Only-begotten, the greatest and most beautiful."

As for the uneducated and slovenly character of his diction, I shall leave it to others to ridicule, judging it unbecoming to my elderly gray hair to bring up the crudeness of expression against one who commits impiety in the matter now before us.

But I shall add this to my examination:

If the Spirit has ascended above all the works of the Son (for I shall use his solecistic and senseless expression — or rather, for the sake of greater clarity, I shall set forth the sense through my own wording), if it excels all things that have come to be through the Son, then the Holy Spirit is not ranked together with the rest of creation;

and if it has the advantage, as Eunomius says, by having come into being before the others, then it is altogether necessary to acknowledge, with respect to the rest of creation as well, that the things which precede in order of origination are more honorable than those that follow.

But indeed, the nature of irrational creatures came into existence before the formation of man.

Therefore he will altogether establish, through these premises, that irrational essence is more honorable than rational essence.

Thus also Cain will be shown, according to Eunomius' argument, to be better than Abel, since he preceded him in time by birth; and thus also the nature of the stars will be shown to be lesser and inferior to all the things that spring up from the earth;

for the latter sprang up from the earth on the third day, while the great luminaries and all the stars are recorded by Moses to have come into being on the fourth.

But surely no one is so senseless as to reckon the earthly grass more honorable than the wonders of heaven on account of the seniority of time, or to award the victory to Cain over Abel, or to subject to irrational creatures the man who came into being after them.

Therefore what is said by him — that because the Spirit came into being before the others it has a nature more honorable than that of the things which came into being afterward — has no sense at all.