駁歐諾米 第 1 章 第 25/56 段

'If I declare to you,' he says, 'the things that come to pass daily, I will call to remembrance to recount the things from of old.'

What will the slave of the letter say to me against this utterance—he who sits in Jewish fashion at the mere sound of the syllables? Does not the construction seem to produce a strangeness in the hearing of the more attentive?

'If I declare to you the things that come to pass daily, the Lord created me'—as though, if He should not declare the things that come to pass daily, then, by consequence, He would altogether deny even His having been created.

For he who said 'If I declare, I was created' has given us to understand, by what is left unspoken, that 'I was not created, if I do not declare.'

'The Lord created me,' he says, 'as the beginning of His ways for His works; before the age He established me in the beginning, before making the earth, before making the depths, before the springs of the waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, and before all the hills He begets me.'

What is this novel order in the fashioning of this creature? First it is created, and after this it is founded, and then it is begotten.

'The Lord made,' he says, 'both regions uninhabited and the inhabited extremities of the earth under heaven.'

What Lord does he say is the maker of the uninhabited and the inhabited region? Assuredly the very One who also made Wisdom;

for both this word and that proceed from the same person—both the one saying 'the Lord created me' and the one adding 'the Lord made regions both uninhabited.'

Therefore the Lord will be equally the fashioner of the two—of Wisdom herself, and of both the inhabited and the uninhabited region.

Where, then, is the 'All things came to be through the Son, and without Him not one thing came to be'? For if the same Lord both creates Wisdom—whom they counsel us to understand in place of the Son—and each particular thing that the creation possesses, how does the sublime John speak truly when he says that all things came to be through Him? For this Scripture speaks in contradiction to the utterance of the Gospel, attributing to Him who created Wisdom the making of the uninhabited and inhabited region.

And so likewise with all that follows;

for it says that a throne is set apart upon the winds, and that the clouds above become strong, and that the springs under heaven are made secure, and the connexion of the passage contains many such things, which require much of the meaning that is found in the things set before us only by a subtle and penetrating mind.

What is the throne set apart upon the winds? What is the security of the springs beneath heaven? How do the clouds above become strong? For if one should judge the statement by appearances, one will find much conflict of the facts with the things said.

For who does not know that the extremities of the region under heaven are uninhabited, either because they consort too closely with the sun's heat or because they stand off exceedingly far—on account of the excess in either direction: the one becoming dry and scorched beyond measure, the other abounding in moisture and frozen by congealing—while those places alone are inhabited that are equally removed from the extremity of either of the opposites? But if the middle of the earth has been apportioned among men, how does the proverb say that the extremities of the region under heaven are inhabited? And what strength could be contemplated in the clouds, so that the statement should be true according to the surface notion, which says that the clouds above have become strong? For the nature of a cloud is a somewhat rarefied vapour diffused throughout the air, which is borne aloft upon the aerial breath, becoming light on account of its great tenuity, but when it flows together upon itself through condensation, it falls through the sustaining breath, becoming a heavy drop.

What strength, then, is there in these things, in which no resistance is offered to those who touch them? For the rarity of the air and its ready diffusion may be seen also in the case of the cloud.

And how again is the divine throne set apart upon the unstable nature of the winds? And what account could one say the following have that agrees with the common and ready notions: that a thing is first created, and at the end is said to be begotten, and in between these is founded? And besides these, the difficulty raised earlier in the discourse: how does the declaring of the things that come to pass daily, and the remembrance of the reckoning of the things from of old, become as it were a cause of saying that Wisdom was created by God? Since, therefore, it has been clearly shown through what has been said that there is nothing of such a kind in these passages as to warrant receiving the statement without examination and without contemplation, it would be well, in likeness to the rest, to interpret also the 'The Lord created me' not according to the meaning that arises in us immediately from the word, but to seek, with all attention and diligence, that which is piously understood through what is said.

But to have accurately grasped the meaning of the things set before us would belong only to those who search out the depths by the Holy Spirit and know how to speak in the Spirit the divine mysteries;

but for our part, the discussion will occupy itself with the things before us only so far as not altogether to overlook the aim contained in them as something uncontemplated.

What, then, is our argument? It is not possible, I think, for the wisdom that comes to be in someone from divine illumination to be present alone, apart from the remaining gifts of the Spirit, but there must by all means enter in together with it also the grace of prophecy.

For if it is proper to wisdom to grasp the truth of the things that are, while prophecy comprises the clear knowledge of things to come, one could not be in the perfect gift of wisdom without having, through the co-working of prophecy, embraced together with knowledge also that which is to be.

Since, then, Solomon attests to himself no merely human wisdom—he who said that 'God taught me wisdom,' and who ascribes his every word to God in what he says, that 'my words have been spoken from God'—it would be well to search out, in this part of the proverb, the prophecy that is mingled with the wisdom.

We say, therefore, that in the words before this, having said that Wisdom built for herself the house, he hints through the discourse at the fashioning of the flesh of the Lord;

for the true Wisdom did not dwell in a building belonging to another, but built for herself the dwelling-place out of the virgin body.

That is to say, out of the human element and out of the Godhead that was commingled with the man; and to each of these she fits the corresponding and befitting utterances, as one may see happening also in the Gospels, in which the discourse, being carried through in a manner suited to its subject, indicates through the higher and God-befitting signification the divine, and through the lowly and humble the human.

So one may see also in this part that Solomon is moved prophetically and has handed down the whole mystery of the economy.

For he speaks first of the pre-eternal power and energy of Wisdom, in which he in a certain manner concurs with the evangelist even in the very words.

For as the latter, by his comprehensive utterance, proclaimed Him the cause and fashioner of all things, so Solomon says that each of the particular things numbered in the universe came to be through Him.

For he says that God by Wisdom founded the earth, and prepared the heavens in prudence, and whatever, by consequence, follows upon these, holding to the same meaning.

And that he might not seem to overlook, unremembered, the gift of virtue among men, again from the person of Wisdom he goes through those things which we mentioned a little before—the 'I encamped counsel and knowledge and understanding,' and whatever pertains to intellectual and scientific teaching.

Having gone through these and such things, he brings in also teaching concerning the economy with respect to man—wherefore the Word became flesh.

For since it is manifest to all that the God who is over all has nothing in Himself created or introduced from without—not power, not wisdom, not light, not word, not life, not truth, nor at all any of the things contemplated in the fullness of the divine bosom, all of which the Only-begotten God is, He who is in the bosoms of the Father—the name of 'creation' could not reasonably be fitted to any of the things contemplated in God, so as to say that the Son who is in the Father, or the Word who is in the beginning, or the Light who is in the Light, or the Life who is in the Life, or the Wisdom who is in the Wisdom, 'the Lord created me.'

For if the Wisdom of God is created, and Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, then God assuredly had His wisdom as something introduced from without, having later, by a process of fashioning, taken in addition that which He did not possess at the first.

But surely He who is in the bosoms of the Father never gives us to conceive of the paternal bosom as empty of Himself.

Therefore He is not among the things that have come to be in the bosom from outside, but, being the fullness of every good, He is at all times conceived of as in the Father—He who is in the beginning, not waiting to come to be in Him through creation, lest ever the Father should be conceived as empty of good things; but He who is conceived of as existing in the eternity of the paternal Godhead is always in Him, being power and life and truth and light and wisdom and the like.

It follows, then, that the utterance 'He created me' does not proceed from that which is divine and undefiled, but, as has been said, from that which was mingled, according to the divine economy, with our created nature.

How then does the same Wisdom both lay the foundations of the earth and prepare the heavens and cleave open the deeps—being called wisdom and understanding and divine perception—and here be 'created' for the beginning of works? Not without great cause, He says, is such an economy brought to pass.

But since men, after receiving the commandment concerning the things they were to keep, cast the grace from their memory, and through disobedience fell into forgetfulness of the good things, therefore, that I might again proclaim to you the things done daily for salvation, and might remind you by recounting the things from the beginning which you had forgotten:

For I do not now proclaim some new gospel, but I am effecting your restoration to the ancient state.

For this cause was I—who ever am, and who need nothing of being created in order to exist—'created,' that I might become the beginning of ways unto the works of God, that is, unto men.

For when the first way had been corrupted, it was needful that a fresh and living way should again be made new for those who had gone astray—namely I myself, who am the Way,

even Jesus Christ; and in addition to this, where, taking up the same discourse, he says, 'Put on the new man, who was created according to God.'

For if there is one garment of salvation, and this is Christ, no one could say that the new man created according to God is other than Christ; but it is plain that he who has put on Christ has put on the new man created according to God.

For this One alone is truly and properly called the new man—He who appeared in the life of men not through the familiar and customary ways of nature, but in whom alone a strange and peculiar creation was fashioned anew.

For this reason, looking to the marvel of the birth, he names the same One 'the new man created according to God'; and looking to the divine nature that was mingled with the creation of this new man, he calls Him 'Christ'—so that the two names, I mean that of Christ and that of the new man created according to God, are applied to one and the same.

Since, then, Christ is Wisdom, let the intelligent hearer examine both the argument of those who war against us and our own, and let him judge which is the more reverent, and which the better preserves conceptions worthy of God in the text: he who determines that the Maker and Lord of all has been made, and sets Him on a level with the creation that is in bondage, or rather he who looks to the economy and preserves what is fitting both in his conception concerning the divine and in that concerning the human—great Paul bearing witness to the doctrine, who in the new man beholds the creation, but in the true Wisdom beholds the authority over the creation.

And the order of the discourse also agrees with the contemplation of the doctrine.

For if the beginning of the ways had not been created in us, the foundation of the ages that are looked for would not have been laid, nor would the Lord have become for us the Father of the age to come, unless, according to Isaiah, a child had been born to us and His name had been called all the other things that the prophet named, and, above all, 'Father of the age to come.'

First, then, came to pass the mystery according to the virginity and the economy concerning the passion; and then the wise master-builders of the faith laid the foundation of the faith.

And this One is Christ, the Father of the age to come, upon whom is built the life of the ages that have no end.

For He who is in those who have received Him has not yet been born in those who are without faith.

In order, then, that these things may come to pass in us also, the Maker of them must be born in us.

And in this way let us understand what follows these things according to their proper sequence.

For if wisdom be born in us, then by God there is prepared in each of us both the land and the uninhabited region: the land, that which receives the sowing and tilling of the word; the uninhabited region, the heart that is separated from wicked inhabitants; and thus shall our dwelling be at the utmost parts of the earth.

Wisdom is present with him who prepares this in place of the land.

And when he makes strong for himself the teaching of the clouds above, bringing the precepts into practice; and when, marking off the great and broad sea of wickedness by an exact manner of life as by some shore, he restrains the passionate water from issuing forth from the mouth, and confines it, as it were, within springs, pouring forth with safety, by the gift of teaching, the stream of the word, so as not to furnish any man, instead of pure water for drink, a turbid overthrow; and when, lifted up above every earthly footing, he becomes as one moving through the air in his manner of life, having taken his stand upon the spiritual conduct which the text has named 'winds,' until he is set apart as a throne for Him who is seated within him (such as was Paul, set apart unto the gospel, so as to become a chosen vessel, to bear the name of God—who by another figure became a throne, bearing Him who was seated upon him)—when these and suchlike things have been accomplished, so that he already rejoices who has brought to completion within himself the world of God, rejoicing that he has become father not of certain beasts and irrational creatures, but of men (and these would be the God-like reasonings that are shaped according to the divine image through faith in Him who was created and born and founded in us; and faith, according to Paul's word, is understood as the foundation, through which wisdom is born in the faithful and works all the things that have been mentioned)—then truly blessed becomes the life of him who has thus accomplished it, with whom Wisdom is fitly joined and rejoices at every season, in him who day by day delights in her alone.

For the Lord rejoices over His holy ones, and there is joy in heaven over those who are being saved, and the kindly Father keeps festival over the son who has been restored.

But since these things have been said by us in passing, let the diligent reader, having read the passages of the divine Scripture, fit the enigmas to these contemplations, having tested whether it is not by far better to think that the meaning of the enigmas looks to this, and not to what is offhandedly supposed.

For it is not possible that the theology of John should be reckoned true—that theology which sang that all created things are the work of the Word—if here it be believed that He who created Wisdom made all other things together with her.

For all things would no longer be through her, but she would be numbered together with all the things that have come into being.

But that the enigmatic utterances look to this is plainly disclosed by the discourse that follows, which says, 'Now therefore, O son, hearken to me,' and 'Blessed is he who keeps my ways'—meaning by 'ways,' clearly, the approaches unto virtue, of which the creation becomes the beginning of wisdom.

Who, then, looking to the divine Scripture, will not agree that the enemies of the truth are at once both impious and slanderers? Impious, because so far as in them lies they cast down the ineffable glory of the only-begotten God and join it to the creation, contending to demonstrate that the Lord—whose might over all things is 'only-begotten'—is one of the things that have come into being from Him.

And slanderers, because, though Scripture furnishes them no starting-point whatever for such suppositions, they nevertheless arm themselves with testimony against true religion as though drawn from that source.

Since, then, they are unable to point to any utterance from any of the saints which counsels us to view the pre-eternal glory of the only-begotten God together with the creation that is subject to Him, it would be well, now that these things have been demonstrated by us, that the victory over falsehood should be attested to the word of true religion; and that, thrusting aside all these verbal artifices of theirs, by which they join the created thing to the Creator and the thing made to the Maker, we should confess, even as the gospel from heaven teaches, a beloved Son—not spurious nor supposititious—and, receiving together with the name of the Son all the natural kinship, should call Him true God who is from the true God, and should likewise believe concerning Him all that is beheld in the Father; because they are one, and the one is discerned in the other—not overpassing, not being diminished, not in any manner altered or changed in any God-befitting and good character.

Since, then, Eunomius's conflict with himself has become manifest, in that he has been convicted of saying things contrary to himself—now saying that He must be named Son because of His being begotten according to nature, but again, because of His being created, that He must no longer be called Son but a thing made—it is fitting, I think, for one who listens with sense and attention, since it is not admissible that in two arguments that war with one another the truth should be found equally in each, to reject from both what is impious and blasphemous, I mean what is according to 'creature' and 'thing made,' and to lay hold only of that which looks toward true religion, that which confesses the appellation of Son to belong by nature to the only-begotten God—so that, even through the utterance of the enemies, the word of true religion may have its establishment.

But I will speak again, taking up the statement of his which I set forth at the beginning.

'That the Son is begotten,' he says, 'and an offspring, we do not decline to say, since the very begotten essence and the appellation of the Son appropriate to themselves such a relation of the names.'

For the present, then, let him who hears critically what is said bear this in mind: that by speaking of the 'begotten essence' in the case of the only-begotten, he has granted, as a consequence, that one may speak also in the case of the Father of an 'unbegotten essence'—so that no longer is either unbegottenness or begottenness taken in place of essence, but the essence is taken by itself, while its being begotten or not begotten is understood through the properties contemplated in connection with it.

But let us consider the argument concerning this more diligently.

He says that an essence has been begotten, and that 'Son' is the name of the begotten essence.

But in these very statements our argument will refute the opposing argument on two counts: on the one, the wickedness of his attempt; on the other, the feebleness of his attempt against us.

For he works mischief by speaking of a begetting of essence, in order that he may establish the mutual opposition of the essences, as though they were cleft asunder—the begotten and the unbegotten—into a diversity of nature.

But the feebleness of his attempt is convicted by the very means through which his mischief is constructed.

For he who says that the essence has been begotten clearly defines the begetting to be something other than the essence, so that the thing signified by 'begetting' cannot be fitted to the account of the essence.

For he has not done in this part what he constructed in many places—namely, to say that the begetting is itself the essence; but he confesses that the essence has been begotten, so that a distinct conception may arise in the hearers with each utterance; for one notion arises for him who hears 'it was begotten,' and another through the name of 'essence.'

But the argument would become clearer to us through examples.

The Lord said in the gospel that when her travail draws near the woman is in sorrow, but afterward she rejoices with joy because a man has been born into the world.

As, then, in this passage we learn from the gospel two distinct notions—one, the birth-pang, which we conceived through the begetting; the other, the very thing that comes to be from the birth-pang (for the birth-pang is not the man, but through the birth-pang comes the man)—so also here, when Eunomius has confessed that the essence has been begotten, by the preceding word we were taught the 'from something,' while by that which follows we conceived the very subject itself, in which the substantial existence is 'from the something.'

If, then, the thing signified by 'essence' is one thing, and the utterance 'begetting' suggests another thing to be conceived, their clever contrivances have suddenly fallen to pieces, like earthen vessels dashed against one another and shattered through one another.

For it will no longer be permitted to them, in transferring the distinction of the begotten from the unbegotten to the essence of the Son and of the Father, to transfer along with it onto the realities themselves the mutual conflict of the names.

—dogmatizing the diversity of the essences through such utterances.

But that the argument concerning these things may be disclosed to us most clearly, let us take up the matter before us again in this way.

He who constituted the whole made human nature at the beginning together with all things, and after Adam had come into being He then enacted for men the law of begetting one from another, saying, 'Increase and multiply.'

Since, then, Abel came into existence by way of begetting, who of those who think rightly would not say that, according to the very meaning of human begetting, Adam came into existence without being begotten? And yet the first man had in himself the whole definition of human essence, and he who was begotten from him is likewise described under the same account of essence.

But if the begotten essence were constructed as some other thing beside the unbegotten, then the same account of essence would not fit both.

For of those whose essence is different, neither is the account of the essence the same.

Since, then, the essence of Adam and that of Abel are characterized by the same properties, it is altogether necessary to agree that there is one essence in both, but that the one shown to be in the same nature is different from the other.

For Adam and Abel, in the account of nature, being two are one; but in the properties contemplated in each of them they have an unconfused distinction one from another.

It is not, then, proper to say that Adam begot an essence other than himself, but rather that from himself he begot another self, into whom passed the whole account of the essence of him who begot.

That, then, which we have learned in the case of human nature, through the guidance shown us in due sequence by the argument, this I think we must take as guidance also unto the undefiled apprehension of the divine doctrines.

For having shaken off every fleshly and material conception of the divine and lofty doctrines, we shall have, through the conception that remains when it has been purified of such things, the most secure guidance by the hand unto the things lofty and unapproachable.

For it is confessed even by our adversaries that the God who is over all both is and is called Father of the only-begotten; but they also name the only-begotten God, who is from the Father, 'begotten' because of His being begotten.

Since, then, among men the name of 'father' carries with it certain associated connotations from which the undefiled nature is estranged, it is fitting to leave aside all the material notions that enter in along with the fleshly signification of 'father,' and to imprint upon God and Father some God-befitting conception, expressive of genuineness alone.

Since, then, not only is all that the flesh suggests to be conceived comprehended along with the notion of a human father, but a certain notion of interval is also assuredly co-conceived with human fatherhood, it would be well, together with the bodily defilement, to cast away also the notion of interval in the case of the divine begetting—so that, the material property having been everywhere washed away, the transcendent begetting may be kept pure of every notion, not only of passion, but also of interval.

Therefore he who calls God Father will, along with the notion of God's being, comprehend also His being what He is.

For that which has its being from some beginning has also its being-what-it-is altogether beginning from something;

but in the case of that whose being did not begin, neither does anything else contemplated concerning it have its beginning from anything.

Therefore He is from everlasting that very thing which He is;

for He did not come to be, but He is Father;

for in the case of God, that which was, both is and shall be.

But if anything at any time was not, neither is it nor shall it be;

for He is not believed to be Father of any such thing, apart from which it would be pious ever to say that God is by Himself.

For the Father is Father of life, and of truth, and of wisdom, and of light, and of sanctification, and of power, and of all such things as the only-begotten both is and is named.

When, therefore, it is maintained by the enemies that there was once when the light was not, I do not know whose loss is the greater—whether that of the light itself, when the light is not, or that of Him who has it, when He does not have the light.

—of all the other things which fill the Father's bosom, the only-begotten God being all things in His own fullness.

For the absurdity is equal in both directions, and the impiety against the Father is counterbalanced by the blasphemy against the Son.

For in saying that there was once a time when the Lord did not exist, you will not merely grant that the Power did not exist, but you will be declaring that the Power of God, of the Father of that Power, did not exist.

Therefore the argument you construct, that there was once a time when the Son did not exist, does nothing other than establish that the Father was destitute of every good.

See to what end the shrewdness of the wise brings itself down!

How true, even by these arguments, is the voice of the Lord which says, 'He who rejects me rejects him who sent me'! For by the very means through which they reject the eternal being of the Only-begotten, they dishonour the Father, having stripped from the Father's glory, by their reasoning, every good name and every good conception.

So then, through what has been said, the feebleness of the pamphleteer's mischief has been clearly exposed: for while attempting to establish an opposition between the essence of the Only-begotten and that of the Father—by naming the one 'unbegotten' and the other 'begotten'—he was refuted, trifling with incoherent notions.

For it was shown, by his very own words, first that the name of the essence and the name of the begetting are two different things; and next, that no new and altered essence, differing from the essence of the Father, came to subsist in the Son, but that what the Father is in the account of nature, this also is he who is from him—the nature not having been changed into otherness in the subsistence of the Son—according to the truth of the argument we demonstrated earlier in the consideration of Abel and Adam.