論聖三一對話錄 第 1 章 第 3/23 段

A: And what else will this be but nonsense—truly a little fable fit for old women? For if they devise for him some intermediate nature, and on this account say, most senselessly, that he must be called 'mediator,' I for my part do not see what sort of theory, or what kind of reasoning, results from this;

but you yourself might explain it, since I am most gladly willing to learn.

B: What could I say to this? A: Ask, then, and be eager to learn whether the mediator is created or uncreated, truly God, or himself also numbered among creatures.

For as to what he is, according to them—neither purely God nor plainly a creature—I could not even grasp what place he would receive from them among existing things, not even so much as in bare thought, though I should try.

B: The one in between both, I mean between God and creation;

for this, indeed, is why they say he is called 'mediator.'

A: They will speak most obscurely and will hold a most ignorant disposition, thinking in this way.

For it is not possible—it is not possible—even by turning the mind about above and below, and inquiring minutely into the whole nature of existing things however it may stand, to see, even in thought and reason, such a nature as this—one that has stepped outside the bounds of true deity, yet will swim clear of the arguments for having been made, and will display to us an existence better than that which is called into being through generation.

Is there, then, something in between the created and the uncreated, the unmade and the made thing? B: I for my part would not grant it;

there is the nature of that which exists and subsists always and in the same manner;

and another, again, the nature of those things that have obtained being through creation;

and I hold that the nature of that which exists uncreatedly is set above and rises over all things, and soars aloft through its ascending superiorities toward what is higher and greater;

And you will know this quite clearly from Christ himself, when he declared to the crowds of the Jews:

'I am from above.' And that the Only-Begotten has come to us from above, the wise John also made clear, saying:

'He who comes from above is above all.' For he thought it necessary to attribute, in respect of substance, to him who is truly God by nature, and who has sprung forth from the God who is God by nature, the utmost transcendence, one that attains to the very highest degree.

For that 'from above' signifies not spatial heights, but rather indicates the very substance of God the Father—how is this not beyond dispute, since one of the holy disciples has clearly declared:

'Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning'? For whether one passes through the angels, or indeed through all the higher orders and everything in between, and comes even to the Seraphim themselves, and beholds the highest glories, one still does not leap beyond the nature of created things.

For either a thing is 'from above,' that is, from the Father of lights, and is therefore God;

and the Son alone is the one who is 'from above';

or else it is conceived as something 'below' and 'from below,' that is, creation, and from creation;

but between the two there is nothing whatsoever.

But if someone should question those on the opposing side, and, eager to learn, should ask, saying:

'What, then, my good sirs, do you tell us? Is this Son and mediator of yours created, or uncreated? For this, somehow, always appears to admit no middle ground'—

what, then, would they say? B: I think they would be at a loss, and quite reasonably so.

For truth lives and prevails, according to what is written.

But let us ourselves, examining the path that leads toward both alternatives, consider well what is reasonable concerning this.

For if they should grant that this so-called mediator is uncreated, thereby assigning to him what is proper to deity alone according to nature, they would be showing him to be beyond the bounds of 'in-betweenness,' and, in consequence, existing in a greater rank than is fitting;

God in glory and in nature, to whom, wholly and in every way, the uncreated would belong as a proper good;

and for this very reason such a nature would be neither reckoned among, nor ranked together with, the things subject to generation and corruption.

But if, on the other hand, setting this aside, they say that he is created, how could that which is of the same kind as creation be conceived by anyone as unrelated to creation? How, then, is he any longer a 'mediator,' being at once less than God by nature, yet greater than a mere creature in glory and nature? For if, through his being uncreated, he ascends toward the glory of deity and leaps far beyond the measures of mediation to that which is beyond, but through his being created he will walk toward the lower realm, and will sink down into the place of such an 'in-betweenness,' being reckoned among the things that have come into being—

then, since what is created is of the same kind as everything else that is created, in respect of the very principle of having come into being, what is this absurd and most unwise sophistry, which brings forward the unattainable as though attainable, and fashions for us regions of nature which, I think, no mind could ever attain? For the doctrine is novel and unintelligible;

but I say it is necessary that a clear demonstration should accompany the arguments made concerning these matters.

and one might perceive that their piece of villainy has been ingeniously and cleverly polished for the purpose of deception.

For since, acting most impiously and thinking most irrationally, they have raged drunkenly against the Son, recklessly casting him out of consubstantiality with the Father <and> God, they by their shamelessness somehow filch for him a small measure of glory, while quietly bringing him back to the paltriness of created things;

and shutting him out, as it were, from ascending to the highest place, lest he be conceived as God by nature, they allot him a middle position, measuring out to him just so much glory as they themselves might choose;

and having set themselves up as lawgivers and arbiters of such matters, they deliberate and determine in what rank it would be fitting for the Son to be placed.

For in the very way, I think, that makers of statues, having won renown for their skill in this craft, carve out in wood, perhaps, or in stone, the shape of a human form, and afterward adorn it with borrowed refinements, either overlaying it with gold, or beautifying it with certain other fine colors;

and thus having bewitched the mind of the beholders, they do not, by their artifice, allow them to smile at the material hidden within, but rather, all but fawning upon them, persuade them to delight instead in the fleeting and more outwardly conspicuous glitter of the ornament;

in this same way, I think, these men too, sketching out very cleverly and skillfully the phantom image of a 'mediator,' plunder the minds of the more simple, and hold as spear-won captives those who are unable to examine precisely the things maliciously contrived and devised through their own wickedness.

{A.} It was therefore necessary for them, if it seemed to them worthy of any reason to think rightly and to hold an opinion not open to reproach, not to imagine impossibilities about him and attempt to fabricate things which no reasoning knows, and which have their expression only, and quite implausibly, in bare notions — but rather simply and without artifice to allow the Son to be conceived within the natural heights of the Godhead, taking into account that, having been begotten of the Father, that is, of his very substance, he will possess the exact and unfalsified principle of consubstantiality with him, since indeed God and the Father has truly acknowledged him as Son, and as nothing other than this, when he says:

'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' And yet why is he not seen rather crying out:

'This is the mediator' — if he knew him, according to their view, to be a mediator, even though he might most excellently have spoken thus as well? For he would thereby have shown that he had already become a mediator;

for it was to the Son who had become man that God and the Father would fittingly have uttered such a word.

— a thing which they deem right to accept and conceive of as natural.

{A.} They therefore persuade both themselves and others to think that the name of 'sonship' and that of 'generation' are, as it were, feigned.

For, as you see, they remove him from the substance of God and the Father, shaking off the true manner of generation, and indeed also stripping the Only-begotten of being Son by nature.

But though they are bitter and precise reasoners, as indeed they suppose themselves to be, and pride themselves on what they say, how then did even this point slip by and escape them? For, in all likelihood, they do not perceive that in this they also dishonor together with him the very nature of God and the Father, if indeed they insist that it does not possess the power of bearing fruit, and strip it of the ability to beget — that nature from which the nature of created things drew its patterns into itself, conceiving and bearing fruit.

{B.} But perhaps they will say to this as well, that if the name 'generation' is in every respect and altogether true of whomever it is applied and predicated, it would be necessary to admit and hold that countless multitudes have been begotten of God the Father.

For it is somewhere also said concerning those of Israel:

For if the Son were, admittedly, by nature something other than what he is and is believed by us to be, and then shared with us the appellation of both sonship and generation alike, there would then be nothing to prevent these same terms being spoken and applied to him in a rather more figurative sense.

But since, doing violence to the truth and maliciously transferring him, so far as lay in their power, under some other nature, they called him 'mediator,' and then, babbling foolishly, fabricated a fiction about this very matter, they are refuted no small amount;

why do they not cease from thrusting him out of the inherent and substantial superiority that is his, and do the wretched men not grow numb at outraging with certain, as it were, spurious dignities him who is truly of the Father? For the Only-begotten has not been called to the glory of adoptive sonship in the same portion and rank as we, nor even on an equal footing with created things; nor indeed does his title procure for him an adventitious superiority — far, indeed, from it.

For he would then be an adopted son, and numbered among the sons by grace, if this were indeed so, and would be circumscribed by the measures of creation.

But these things are nothing but nonsense and vain babbling and a mass of blasphemies, and nothing else.

But that the Only-begotten did not deem it fitting to measure himself among sons by adoption, but knows himself to possess a divine and ineffable superiority over all things and the true dignity of sonship, you might easily learn from what he said to the Jews concerning Moses and the holy prophets:

'If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, "You blaspheme," because I said:'

For if, since the word of God came to them, it made them gods and sons, how would not he himself be Son and God in a better and truer way — he on account of whom those others are gods and sons? Therefore 'Son' is not something imported for the Only-begotten, but the name would be significant of his actually being such, just as, of course, 'Father' is for God and the Father himself.

For the Father is Father because he has begotten the Son;

and the Son, in turn, is Son because he has been begotten of the Father.

For this reason, I think, it is that, although with very many and various expressions we interpret the good things that belong to the divine nature, and although we have thereby arrived at a moderate knowledge concerning it, I would say that the name of 'sonship' and that of 'fatherhood' are not classed together with those other terms, even though the rest are rightly and blamelessly predicated of both alike.

{B.} What do you mean? {A.} I would most gladly explain it to you, since you are eager to learn.

We are accustomed, I think, to make manifest in a twofold manner the excellences that belong essentially to the divine nature.

For it is always recognized by us either from what it is, or from what it is not.

For when we say that it is life, and call it light, we speak truly from what it is believed to be.

But when we say that it is not corruptible nor visible, we speak from what it is not.

— superior even to being beheld by anyone — this is what the force of these expressions suggests to us;

{A.} If, then, someone should say that the Father and God is life and light, and moreover that, besides these, he is incorruptible and invisible, we would surely not think that such a person acts inappropriately if, thinking rightly, he should also choose to attach these same terms to the nature of the Son, so as, by the same names, to honor most fittingly God the Word who is of the Father? {B.} Yes.

{A.} And if he should also call him King, and wish to honor him with every kind of glory by which the divine nature would be exalted among us, shall we not say that the Son too has a share in these things? {B.} How could he not? {A.} It is therefore altogether ignorant even to hesitate at all over the fact that the excellences pertaining to glory and superiority are common to both.

For the Father could not be otherwise than what he is, that is to say, Father;

for he remains Son, and could not be conceived of as Father.

{A.} Most rightly and truly indeed, O Hermias.

You will therefore agree and join in contending for the argument which clearly demonstrates that the name of fatherhood will not be for the Father merely significant of a dignity — for I think one must speak thus even here, having preferred, above what is seemly, the necessary clarification of the matter — nor likewise will the title of sonship be so for the Son, in the way that those terms predicated of both, namely 'life,' 'light,' and the things ranked with these, are;

but the name belongs properly to each, indicating how each of them actually is.

{A.} For the fact that this force somehow shakes off the diffuseness of the common terms, and, as it were, demands for itself a stable seat, assigns to each of them, without falsification, the property of being what it is.

For the Father is Father, and not Son, because he has begotten;

and the Son, again in turn, is Son, and not Father, because he has been begotten.

Come then, if you please, let us, for a moment, in thought and argument, set aside the term 'Father' from the Father, and likewise 'Son' from the Son, and let us consider, my good friend, by what means one could then, separately, signify to us the person of each.

Would it be, perhaps, by saying 'God,' or 'life,' or 'incorruptible,' or 'invisible,' or 'king'? But from these the thing signified would not be easily distinguishable.

For how could that which is true of both make a clear indication of that which belongs to each specifically? The Father is signified solely and truly by understanding that he has begotten;

and the Son is likewise signified solely and truly by being understood as begotten.

Each, therefore, has as his own that which belongs to him alone, even though the other terms are predicated of both without distinction.

For those other terms have been received into the rank of natural attributes;

but these are not so, but rather show the one to be begetter, and the other to be begotten.

'How sweet are your words to my throat, sweeter than honey to my mouth!' {B.} Yes.

I too would agree that the word of truth is altogether simple, and sweeter than the honeycombs themselves;

in what manner, then, should this way of speaking be understood by us? {A.} For what else would show us that this discourse concerning the truth is simple, than its being free from tangled speculations, and from a way of thinking that presents something grim and unsmiling in appearance, maliciously put together, whose inherent vigor is displayed not for what would profit the discovery of truth, but for what would inflict no small harm upon the hearers? And it is possible, if you think fit, to see clearly, as it were on a tablet, that my discourse has not erred from what is fitting, if you examine closely the heresy of Arius and those around him, concerning whom I think it right to say well:

'Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then you also could do good, who are accustomed to doing evil.' For I think the mind of those in opposition differs in nothing from that of a leopard.

For the leopard, variously spotted, bears upon its back a completely mixed and multiform concourse of colors;

and these men likewise have a mind that is lawless and disjointed, and they send forth from their heart a discourse aimed upward against God.

For their tongue is a wounding dart, according to what is written; the words of their mouth are deceitful.

'He speaks peaceably to his neighbor, but in himself he harbors enmity.' For they pretend in no way to be opposing the glory of the Only-begotten;

but they wound, as with a sharp dart, sending forth from their tongue words that are contradictory and grievous.

{B.} What sort of things do you mean? {A.} For while quite rightly naming the only-begotten Word of God 'Son,' and indeed not refusing to confess together that he has been begotten, they do violence to the word of truth, impiously overturning the opinion held concerning him into its complete opposite, and transferring him into some other nature besides the one conceived in the Father, as though he were of alien authority and of a different nature, or rather, as though he stood entirely outside the natural relation to the one said to have begotten him, no longer, according to them, having truly begotten him.

And that they are wont to arrive at such a degree of folly in this matter, I myself would say is brought about for them by nothing else than the following.

{B.} What, then? {A.} That of raising their eyebrows exceedingly, and supposing that they know and can think and speak of certain things more esoterically than others, and of having trained themselves in contests of words, and moreover of having been reared in arts that merely seem wise, and of being able, by the ready twisting of their notions to whatever end, to overpower by force those who have chosen to live by simple understanding; and having, as it were, propped up their own souls on a reed staff — the wisdom of this world — and gathering together heaps of adulterated notions, they reckon, I think, that they cannot possibly fail at all in the rightness of their doctrines.

For they do not consider that the sacred pair of the sons of Aaron were burned up, because they did violence to what seemed good to God and brought strange fire to the altar; nor, indeed, do they any longer, it seems, endure to give heed to the law, which cries aloud:

'And you shall not bring an abomination into your house, lest you become accursed like it also.'

'You shall utterly detest it as a detestable thing, and abhor it as an abomination, for it is accursed.' For truly a fervent movement of the mind that is alien and discordant with God, filled to the brim with demonic wisdom, and not kindled at all from the sacred Scriptures, is 'strange fire.'

And, again, an 'abomination' is an image fashioned in the likeness of God.

And it is just such a thing that these men also fashion the Son to be: adorned indeed with honor and with a glory that is brilliant and befitting God {and in a godlike way}, yet not true, but a 'god' given form, as it were, by counterfeit names and expressions befitting divinity.

For to say that he has been begotten, and to call him Son, yet no longer to think that he has truly been begotten and is Son by nature — what else, in the end, could this be than the very thing described above? But for us, the treasure is in earthen vessels, and truth, bare of worldly wisdom and demonic deceit, is dear.

{B.} Yes, dear indeed, and you have spoken most excellently.

But you might now proceed also to the testing of the things supposed by them concerning both the Father and the Son.

For this above all I would gladly offer, as most conducive to the benefit of those who will read it.

A: I know that this indeed would be of the greatest benefit.

As the poets say, let us cast off the mooring rope, and, as those setting sail from the shore and the harbor, launch our vessel, that is, our discourse, out upon the open sea.

A: We have already firmly established, through what has been worked out above, that 'Father' is the proper name and reality of God the Father, for no other reason than that he has begotten the Son from himself; and again, that 'Son' is proper to the Son, the reason being adduced that he has been begotten of God the Father.

And it seemed to us that such a view appeared as far removed as possible from every calumny.

B: Indeed, so it seemed, and very much so.

Suppose that the perverse man would surely say something like this:

'If \"Father\" is the proper name and reality of God the Father because he has begotten, and \"Son\" is proper to the Son because he has been begotten, and it is true to say that the things thus signified admit no interchange with one another — for the Father will always be Father, never being transformed into the Son, and likewise the Son will always be Son, never being changed into the Father —'

'then unbegottenness will be proper to the Father, since begottenness is proper to the Son.'

'And since to exist unbegottenly is truly other than to exist begottenly, they themselves will likewise differ, and could not be conceived as identical, undifferentiated beings of the same kind.'

A: What, then, could such men do but counterfeit the beauty of that simplicity conceived in Christ, just as those who adulterate golden coin? For observe how they twist aside the straight path of truth, and glory in the inventions of a spurious wisdom;

and speaking bombastic words, they suppose they can terrify the assembly of the Lord, after the manner of the braggart Goliath.

But know that they will say this, and will insist on the very points I have just now set forth.

A: But surely anyone can now see that they have been dislodged from due reasoning and from a sound mind, and ought rather to bewail their own ignorance, if they insist these things are rightly held; and they will resemble those of whom it was fittingly said:

'We have made a lie our hope, and by falsehood we shall be sheltered' [cf. Isaiah 28:15]. For they have failed to realize, I think, first of all, that 'unbegotten' and 'father' are not the same thing, nor would they carry a similar signification.

For it is not the case that whatever is a father must, in every way and altogether, also be unbegotten;

nor indeed, if something is unbegotten, is it thereby also a father.

Or if this is not so, then there would be many unbegotten things, since there are many fathers.

And countless as fathers are, the scrutiny of our concepts would show us that unbegotten things are just as numerous.

For if we were to examine the nature of existing things and discern, as far as possible, the principle proper to each, we would find that not all things have come into existence through begetting.

Even though the argument of these perverse men is utterly cold and feeble, since 'unbegotten' does not properly signify one single thing —

for there are many unbegotten things, differing from one another in nature according to their specific differences —

what, then, would they perhaps say, if someone were to ask this:

'What would the name \"father\" wish to signify? Either that he has not been begotten by anyone, or rather that he has begotten?' B: 'I think, that he has begotten.'

A: 'If, then, the law of fatherhood, in every way and altogether, is bent on raising fathers to the status of existing unbegottenly, why do we ourselves not likewise soar to existing unbegottenly, seeing we too have been shown to be fathers? But if the ordinance of nature tends in no way toward that, but rather toward having what is begotten come from the parents themselves — and it could not be otherwise — why, then, in perverting the truth, do they say that unbegottenness is proper to God the Father, even though the appellation \"father,\" even in our own case, can indicate nothing else than only that he has begotten?' B: 'Do you think, then, that we ought to say anything, if someone should think fit to ask whether God the Father is begotten or unbegotten?' A: 'I would say that, according to a mind free of fault, he is indeed unbegotten — yet not because, being a father, he is thereby altogether also unbegotten, but because he was not begotten by anyone;'

'but as he exists unbegottenly, having his own Son begotten from himself and in himself — for it is precisely on this account that he is also named Father.'

'In distinction from \"begottenly,\" it will hold differently, and could not be understood as the same thing.'

'For if it is not one thing and another, but you suppose them to be the same, then let the interchange between the two proceed without any distinction, and let the propriety of the names belong equally to the Father and the Son, just as also \"incorruptible\" and \"invisible\" and the rest.'

A: 'To exist unbegottenly is, without doubt and by common consent, something other than to exist begottenly;'

'for we shall not dissolve the order of what is fitting and true.'

'Yet in such cases, the difference of names would not imply a difference such as pertains to God qua God, but signifies only that he is not in that mode, that is, not begotten.'

What, then, do those who jumble all things together in confusion say to this — men who, though they think themselves clever in these matters, are exceedingly haughty and puffed up with pride? B: 'The unbegotten, then, is an accident belonging to God the Father.'

For as soon as God is conceived, all that belongs to him is conceived together with him, and nothing could be conceived in him as an accident.

And do not be surprised at this, since it is quite evidently so even in our own case, for those willing to see it without difficulty.

For although we have received our existence in time, we are born together with those things that inhere in us essentially and are inseparably attached to us.

Nothing, therefore, could reasonably be conceived as an accident belonging to God.

And if accidents, or even things naturally inherent in the substances of certain beings, do not at all exist altogether by themselves in their own separate and distinct existence — as we conceive in the case of a man, or indeed of any other existing thing, but rather are seen to be around the substances of existing things, or rather within them — then what place must we suppose the unbegotten to hold in God? For if the unbegotten is something existing by itself, subsisting in its own distinct existence —

and this, as they say, is proper to God the Father —

then it would be something other than that of which it is the property.

For whatever belongs to something and subsists as its own distinct entity is surely altogether other than that to which it belongs.

And thus the simple nature of the Father has now been doubled, being composed, according to them, of 'father' and 'unbegotten.'

But we must attend, not to their pretended wisdom, but to the words of the Savior, who knows perfectly well both his own nature and the nature of the One who begot him.

For he never once called him 'unbegotten,' but named him to us as 'Father.'

B: 'Squeeze out milk, and it will become butter' [Proverbs 30:33] — so Solomon's word sings to us, and a wise saying it seems to me, this oracle.

For to provoke a mind that is intoxicated with ineffable conceptions and filled to overflowing with divine teachings, into saying something further that is necessary, would, in my own judgment, be nothing other than this: to desire, not moderately, to be filled to the full with words that pertain to piety, as it were with a kind of milk.

So then, if you allow it, I shall be such a person, always inserting, as it were, a kind of invitation to your eagerness for understanding, by way of what seems to be an objection.

Answer me, then, this question also:

'Does not the Son know,' he asks, 'that the Father is unbegotten?' A: 'Yes, I shall by no means deny it; nor could I ever be caught disputing what is self-evident;'

'yet he knows him to be unbegotten in the same way as he knows him to be incorruptible and immortal and invisible;'

'but he made mention of none of these terms; instead he called him by name, saying, \"Father\":'

'Holy Father, keep them in your truth' [John 17:11]. And again:

'I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth' [Matthew 11:25]. And indeed also:

...as conceived, though not yet distinctly signifying the person of any one in particular.

But in saying 'Father' and 'Son' and 'Holy Spirit,' he does not thereby make known the whole nature of the Godhead without distinction, but rather those names by which the Holy Trinity is recognized as being the same in essence within distinct hypostases — the reasoning assigning to each of the persons conceived the name proper to it, and setting within distinct hypostases those things that are essentially united.

For you will conceive the Father as the highest root, beyond which you can imagine nothing whatsoever; and you will receive the Son as having sprung forth and been begotten from that highest root — not ranked in the same order as the things that have been made, which received their genesis in time, nor yet in any lesser degree than that in which the Father displays the beauty of his own nature, but as existing together with him, co-eternal, and equal in measure in every conceivable respect, save only in begetting;

for this belongs to God the Father alone.

And you will call 'Holy Spirit' that which naturally flows forth from God the Father through the Son, and which, as though in the pattern of breath exhaled from the mouth, signifies to us its own proper existence; and thus, while preserving clear and unconfused the distinct property of the three hypostases in their own particular subsistences, you will worship the one, consubstantial nature that is queen over all things —

for there is no way that things could be otherwise for us.

They say, however, that by the term 'unbegotten' the nature of God the Father is specifically defined, and thus, without any trouble, it will henceforth be evident that the Son is of a different nature, since the begotten is not the same as the unbegotten.