駁歐諾米 第 1 章 第 32/56 段

Did He, then, make and name these appellations, or did He from the beginning so ordain them to come to be and to be so called—so as to call such-and-such a seed 'grain,' and to name its pith 'fine flour,' and to call the surface, membranous, spread-out portions of the cakes 'wafers,' and to command that such a vessel, in which the moisture of the dough is baked out and dried, be named a 'griddle,' and to decree that so great a quantity of the liquid be designated by the name of the 'hin' or the 'nebel,' and that the drier fruits be measured out by the 'gomor'? These things are nonsense and Jewish vanity, falling utterly short of the loftiness of Christians—to think that the great and most high God, who is above every name and thought, who by the power of His will alone upholds the universe and brings it into being and preserves it in existence, sits like some petty schoolmaster splitting hairs over such assignments of names.

But just as, with the deaf, we make signs by gestures and hand-motions to indicate what is to be done—not because we ourselves lack our own voice when we do this, but because verbal instruction is altogether useless to those who cannot hear—so too, since human nature is in a manner deaf and perceives none of the lofty things, we say that the grace of God, speaking in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, shapes the tongues of the holy prophets according to what is readily perspicuous and familiar to us, and through these leads us by the hand to the understanding of lofty things—not framing its teaching according to its own greatness (for how could the great be contained in the small?), but condescending to the smallness of our capacity.

And just as, when God gave the animal its power of movement, He does not still fashion its individual steps (for nature, having once received its origin from its Maker, moves itself and conducts itself, performing the movement as seems good to it on each occasion—though it is said that a man's steps are directed by the Lord), so too, having received from God the ability to speak and to utter sounds and to declare the will by voice, nature proceeds along its way through affairs, imposing certain signs upon things by means of the particular differences of the sounds.

And these are what we call words and names, by which we signify the power of things.

And even if, by Moses, the fruit is spoken of before the coming-to-be of fruits, and the seeds before the coming-to-be of seeds, this does not refute our argument, nor does the intention of the Lawgiver conflict with what has been said concerning conceptual invention.

For that which we name the 'end' of the past cultivation, calling it fruit, and address as the 'beginning' of the coming cultivation, calling it seed—this thing, the subject underlying the names, whether wheat or any other of the things that multiply through sowing, is taught not to have come to be spontaneously, but to have sprung up by the will of Him who made it, together with this power.

so that the same thing becomes fruit, and again produces itself, becoming seed, and by its surplus nourishes man.

So that the thing which subsists in reality is the work of the Maker's power, while the voices that make things known—by which the discourse marks out particulars for accurate and unconfused teaching—these are the works and inventions of the rational faculty; but this very rational faculty and nature is the work of God.

And since the rational faculty is in all men, the differences of names are necessarily beheld also according to the differences of nations.

If, then, anyone should say that light or heaven or earth or the seeds were named in a human manner by God, he will assuredly be establishing his argument on the basis that this came to be according to some one particular idiom of language.

For it is by no means outside probability that one who knows the one should not be ignorant of the other.

For indeed, both at the Jordan after the descent of the Spirit, and again in the hearing of the Jews, and at the Transfiguration, a voice comes from above, teaching men and a certain figure, not to think only of what appears, but also to believe that the beloved is truly the Son of God.

Such a voice was fashioned by God in the airy body for the understanding of the hearers, coming to be according to the mode of utterance then prevailing—God, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, having articulated the word in the air toward the aim of the salvation of the hearers; even as the Lord also says to the Jews, who supposed that thunder had occurred (because the sound was formed in the air), 'This voice came not because of Me, but because of you.'

But before the constitution of the universe, when there was nothing to receive the word, nor any corporeal element able to form the articulate voice, how will he who says that God made use of words render his argument probable? He Himself is bodiless; creation did not yet exist; the word does not permit us to conceive anything material about Him; those who might have been benefited through hearing did not yet subsist.

And since men did not exist, neither had any mode of dialect been shaped according to the idiom of any particular nation.

By what reasonings, then, does he who looks to the bare letter arrive at such a notion as that God uttered these words and names? Indeed, even from these considerations one might recognize the emptiness of those who say such things.

For just as the natures of the elements, being the work of the Maker, appear the same to all, and there is no difference perceptible to men in the participation of fire or air or water, but the nature is one and unchanging in all, operating in the same way and altered in no respect according to the differences of those who partake of it—so also the imposition of names, had it been fitted to things by God, would have been the same for all.

But as it is, the nature of things, being fixed by God, remains unchanging, whereas the voices that signify them have been split up into so many differences of languages that it is not easy even to number the multitude.

And if anyone brings forward the confusion at the tower-building as opposing what has been said, there too God is not said to make the tongues of men, but to confound the one that existed, so that not all might understand all.

For as long as life was the same for all, and they had not yet been divided into the many differences of nations, the whole fullness of mankind lived together with one voice.

But when, according to the divine will, it was necessary that the whole earth be inhabited by men, then, being torn asunder in respect of their community of speech, they were scattered one in one place and another in another, and were transformed to one and another character of words and voice, having received a common speech as a certain bond of concord among themselves—not disagreeing as to the knowledge of things, but differing in respect of the form of names.

For the stone or the wood does not appear to be something else among different peoples; but the names of the material differ among each, so that our argument stands firmly, defining the human voices to be the inventions of our own understanding.

...we have learned neither from the Scripture that any teaching of words on God's part came to be for men, nor that, when they were divided into the various differences of tongues, a divine law presided over how each should utter speech.

But God, having willed that men should come to be in other tongues, let nature proceed along its own way, articulating the sound as was pleasing to each, toward the clarity of names.

Moses, then, having been born many generations after the tower-building, made use of one of the tongues that came after it, narrating to us the creation of the world in a historical manner, and he attaches certain voices to God, recounting these things in his own tongue, in which he had been trained and accustomed, and not altering the voices of God with some strange and foreign character of speech—so as to establish, through the strangeness and departure of the names from custom, that the voices are God's own—but using the customary tongue, he recounts alike both his own words and those of God.

And some of those who have followed the divine Scriptures more carefully say that the Hebrew tongue is not even ancient, after the likeness of the rest, but that, along with the other marvels, this too was wrought as a wonder for the Israelites: that this tongue was all at once improvised for the nation after Egypt.

And there is a certain saying of the prophet that confirms such a thing.

For 'when he went forth,' it says, 'out of Egypt, he heard a tongue which he had not known.'

If, then, Moses was a Hebrew, and the tongue of the Hebrews was the last of the rest, does not he who was born so many thousands of years after the constitution of the world, and who narrated the sayings of God in the tongue of his own day, clearly teach that he does not record on God's behalf such a voice as is shaped after the manner of man, but that he says these things because it is not even possible to express what is conceived otherwise than by human voices, and that he signifies through what is said some meaning befitting God and of greater grandeur? For to think that God made use of the Hebrew tongue, when there was none to hear such a voice, is something I do not know how one who reasons could concede.

In the Acts we have learned that for this reason the divine power was split into many tongues, so that none of those of other languages might be deprived of the benefit.

But God, before creation, when He conversed in human fashion, whom was He going to benefit by such a voice? For that the word should be adapted to the capacity of the hearers, toward the aim of benefit, no one would suppose to be anything unworthy of the divine love for mankind—since even Paul, the imitator of the Lord, knows how to handle the word fittingly according to the states of his hearers, becoming milk to babes and solid food to the perfect.

But that, when no aim is being accomplished through such a use of speech, God should thereupon frame such words to recite to Himself—there being none who needs the signification conveyed by such voices—I do not know how this is not both ridiculous and, at the same time, blasphemous to suppose.

Neither, then, is the voice of God Hebrew, nor is it uttered according to any other pattern of those customary among the nations.

But all the words of God that were written down by Moses or the prophets are indications of the divine will, shining forth in one way and another according to the worthiness of those who partake of the grace, upon the pure and governing part of the saints.

Moses, therefore, spoke as was natural to him and as he had been trained, but he attributed these voices to God, as has often been said, on account of the childishness of those who were but newly being led to the knowledge of God—for the clear presentation of the divine will, and that he might render his hearers more obedient, being awed by the trustworthiness of the one who spoke.

But Eunomius does not agree—he who brings forward such revilings against us, the heir and advocate of the established custom—for, having transformed his insult into praise, I will greet him with his own words.

...(that God gave) to men the use both of the things named and of the names, and that the naming of the things given is prior to the origin of those who use them—saying all this word for word thus.

If, then, he possesses some private Moses of his own, from whom he learns these wise things, and, setting out from that source, takes courage for such assertions—that God legislates, as this man says, the sayings of men, commanding thus and forbidding otherwise the voices that are to be assigned to things—let him make use, for his own satisfaction, of such nonsense, having his hidden Moses as an ally.

But if there is only one Moses, whose Scripture is the common lesson for those who have been instructed in the divine word, we will accept the condemnation, if we are convicted by the words of Moses.

Where, then, did he find the law concerning verbs and names? Let him set it forth from the very things that are written.

The creation of the world, and the genealogy of the men who followed thereafter, and the history of certain events, and the varied legislation concerning both the matters of worship and the observances pertaining to daily life—these are the chief heads of Moses' Scripture.

But if this man says that there is some legislation of words, let him show the law, and I will hold my peace.

But he would not be able to say it.

For he would not, forsaking the more evident proofs, have gone through those things by which he appears to his hearers ridiculous rather than persuasive.

For to think that this is the chief point of piety—to ascribe the invention of words to God, to whom the whole world and the marvels in it are but a small thing for His praise—how is this not the utmost silliness: to forsake the great and, out of human things, to magnify the Divine? A command of creation led the way, spoken indeed by Moses in a human manner, yet coming to pass in a manner befitting God.

This accurate expert of the Scriptures, then, declares that the will that produces the things which subsist by divine power is a 'teaching of words'; and, as though God had said, 'Let a word come to be,' or 'Let a discourse be constituted,' or 'Let this thing receive such-and-such an appellation,' he puts forward, in defense of his own words, the constitutive movement of creation that lies in the divine will—not knowing even this, out of his much attention to and experience of the Scriptures: that an impulse of the mind is also often called a 'voice' by Scripture.

And of this, Moses himself is a witness, whom he has in many places distorted, being ignorant in this respect.

For who, of those who have in any way at all conversed with the book, does not know that the Israelite people were suddenly panic-stricken in the wilderness at the onset of the Egyptians, having but newly fled from Egypt, and, with terrors appearing to them on every side—the sea walling off their passage on that side, and the enemy behind cutting off their flight—they gathered against the prophet and laid the blame for this helplessness upon him?

And as he was comforting those who were crouching in fear and heartening them to eagerness, there comes a voice from God, calling the prophet by name.

'Why criest thou unto me?' And yet, in what precedes these words, Scripture makes no mention of any spoken utterance of Moses; rather, the prophet's inward thought directed toward God was named a kind of 'cry,' being cried out in silence within the hidden intention of the heart.

If then Moses cries out without uttering a sound, with Him as witness who hearkens to groanings that cannot be spoken, what is strange if the prophet also, having come to know the divine will, made it manifest—so far as he was able to speak and we to hear—through words familiar and customary to us, sketching out a dialogue of God in a more bodily manner, one accomplished not by spoken words but proclaimed through the very works themselves? 'In the beginning,' he says, 'God made'—not the name of heaven and earth, but the heaven and the earth;

and 'He said, Let there be light'—not the appellation 'light';

And having divided the light from the darkness, 'God called,' it says, the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.

It is likely that those who oppose us rely upon these passages for support.

'God called,' it says, the firmament Heaven, and the dry land He called Earth, and the light Day and the darkness Night.

'How then,' they will say, 'when Scripture confesses that these names were imposed by God, do you assert that the names are of human devising?' What, then, is our reply to this? Again we take refuge in plain speech and say that He who brought the whole creation from nonbeing into the substance of things is the Maker of things contemplated in their concrete existence, and not of insubstantial names that consist in the sound of the voice and the noise of the tongue;

but things are named, according to the nature and power inherent in each, by means of some significant sound, the appellation being fitted to the underlying realities in accordance with the usage prevailing among each nation.

But since many of the things contemplated in the creation do not have a simple nature, such that the underlying reality could be comprehended in a single word—as in the case of fire, where the underlying thing is one in nature but the name signifying the thing is another (for the one is that which gives light and burns, is dry and heating and consuming of whatever matter it lays hold of, while the name is a certain brief sound uttered in a single syllable)—for this reason the reason which distinguishes names each of the powers and qualities contemplated in fire proper to itself, as we said before;

and no one would say that a mere name has been imposed upon fire, when one calls it either 'bright' or 'consuming' or any other of the properties contemplated concerning it;

for such utterances are significative of the powers naturally inherent in it.

In the same way, also in the case of 'heaven' and 'firmament,' although a single nature is signified in each of the names, the difference of the names presents something proper to what is known in this creation, so that we, looking to this, learn one thing through the appellation 'heaven,' and another through 'firmament.'

For when the account describes the limit of the perceptible creation—beyond which the intelligible and supramundane realm succeeds—by comparison with that which is intangible and incorporeal and formless, the beginning and the limit of all material existence is called 'firmament';

but when we examine the enclosure of the underlying realities, by which the whole material nature is encompassed, we call this 'heaven,' which becomes the boundary of all visible things.

In the same way also in the case of 'earth' and 'dry land': since the downward-tending and heavy nature was divided into these two elements—I mean into earth and the waters—the appellation 'dry land' is in a certain way distinctive of the corresponding quality;

for it was named 'dry' by contrast with the moist, when, having by the divine command put off the water poured around it, it appeared in its own proper quality;

but the name 'earth' no longer indicates the signification of some one of the qualities pertaining to it, but by the impression contained in it comprehends everything conceived in the element—such as the solid, the dense, the weighty, the resistant, and that which is fit for the nourishment of all fruits and living things.

The dry land, therefore, was not renamed by the account to the last name imposed upon it (for it did not lay aside, by the second name, being and being called 'dry'), but, both this appellation and that remaining, there underlies each of the names its own proper signification—the one distinctive of the nature and property of a different kind, the other comprehensive of all the power contemplated in it.

Thus also in the case of 'light' and 'day,' and again of 'night' and 'darkness,' we find that no sound of syllables was fashioned by the Maker of all upon these things, but through these appellations we recognize the substance of realities.

By the will of God the darkness which prevailed at the first creation is dispelled by the entrance of the light;

and while the light passes through in one region, the earth, blocking it by its own mass on the opposite side, leaves behind a certain portion of darkness by way of its shadow; and since the ever-moving revolution of the celestial pole necessarily carries around with it also the gloom that results from the shadow, God appointed this circular period to become the measure of temporal extension;

and this measure is day and night.

For this reason Moses, according to his own wisdom, explaining such doctrines to us in a more narrative manner, named the gloom that comes on from the earth's obstruction the 'separation' of light and darkness, and the ever-recurring, measured succession of light and darkness around the region near the earth he called 'day' and 'night.'

So that light was not called 'day' by a superadded appellation, but just as light came to be and not a bare appellation of light, so also the measure of time came to be, and the name followed upon the measure—not coming into being by the Maker in the noise of spoken words, but the very nature of the thing itself drawing to itself the signification through the voice.

And just as if it had been plainly stated by the lawgiver that everything which appears and is named is not self-originating nor uncreated, but has its existence from God, we should of ourselves have inferred that God made the whole world and its parts and the order contemplated in it and the power that makes known the things that are—so also, through what he said, he leads us to this understanding, that we may believe that none of the things that are is without beginning.

And looking to this, he goes through what follows in method and order, enumerating the sequence of the things that came to be.

But these things could not otherwise be set forth by the account, except by making the signification through the names that make known.

Since, therefore, it is written that 'God called the light Day,' it must be understood that God made out of the light a day, which is something different according to its own account.

For you would not give the same account of light and of day, but light is that which is conceived as opposite to darkness, while day is the measure of such-and-such an interval within the light.

In the same way you will understand 'night' and 'darkness' too, according to the same distinction of the account, defining darkness as that which is conceived as opposite to light, and naming 'night' the such-and-such delimitation of the darkness.

Our argument, then, is sound throughout, even if it has not been artfully framed as a question according to the figures of dialectic, showing that God is the Maker of realities, not of bare words.

For not for His sake, but for ours, are the names attached to things.

Otherwise it is not possible for memory to be kept unconfused for us, unless the signification of names distinguishes from one another the things laid up in the understanding.

But to God all things are present, and He has no need of memory, since all things are encompassed and contemplated by His all-seeing power.

What need, then, in His case, is there of spoken word or name, when the very wisdom and power in Him comprehends the nature of the things that are, unconfused and distinct? Therefore, from God are all things that are and that subsist, but for the sake of our own guidance the names that signify realities are attached to the things that are.

And whoever says that these come about according to what pleases the customs of men will in no way transgress against the doctrine of providence.

For we do not say that the nature of the things that are comes about from us, but that the names do.

The Hebrew names 'heaven' in one way and the Canaanite in another, yet each conceives it in the same way, in no way, by the difference of sounds, being in doubt concerning the understanding of the underlying reality.

...the example of Moses that has been recalled to us.

For to Moses himself, who imposed the appellation? Was it not the daughter of Pharaoh, naming him from what had befallen? For 'Moses' means 'water' in the language of the Egyptians.

Since, then, according to the tyrant's command, those who begot the infant placed him in an ark and gave him to the streams (for so some of the historians have narrated the things concerning him), and she, by the divine will, having been tossed up by the eddy of the waters, was borne to the bank and became the finding of the queen who was at that moment brightening her body in the bath—since the child was thus acquired by her out of the water, the name is said to have been given to the child as a memorial of the encounter; and this name God Himself did not decline to use in the case of His servant, nor did He judge it unworthy to leave the appellation given by the barbarian woman as authoritative for the prophet.

So, before this, Jacob, having laid hold of his twin's heel, was called 'supplanter' from the posture with which he was brought forth;

for that the interpretation of 'Jacob' amounts to this, when rendered into the Greek tongue, those who have understood such matters teach.

And Perez, again, the midwife named from what happened at the birth, and no one, after the manner of Eunomius, was jealous of her as though she were more authoritative than the authority of God.

But indeed the mothers also impose the names upon the patriarchs—Reuben and Simeon and Levi and upon all the rest in like manner—and no one, according to the present scribbler, appeared in those times as a guardian of divine providence, so as to prevent, through the imposition of names, the women from becoming more authoritative than God.

And why should one recount from the history the several instances—Water of Contention, and Place of Mourning, and Hill of Foreskins, and Valley of the Cluster, and Field of Blood, and all such names, which were indeed imposed by men, yet are often mentioned even from the person of God—through which it is possible to learn that neither is the signification made through spoken words upon realities beyond human worth, nor does the power of the divine nature have its testimony through these things?

But the rest of his idle babblings, which he has prated against the truth, I shall pass over as having no force against our doctrines, judging it superfluous to linger over vanities.

For who is so heedless of the more serious concerns as to spend his zeal upon senseless words and to contend against those who say: 'We declare the care of men to be more authoritative and more lordly than the guardianship of God, and we transfer to His providence the negligence that troubles those who are more careless'? Such, word for word, is the utterance of the one who slanders us.

But I count it all one, both to be zealous about such things and to occupy oneself with old wives' dreams.

For to suppose that in the stamp of certain sounds the divine nature preserves the dignity of rule and lordship, and to demonstrate in this the great guardianship of God; and again to hold that God neglects and is careless of the providence befitting Him, and to slander us because men, having received the rational faculty from God, then use words by their own authority for the disclosure of realities—what else is such a thing than an old wives' tale or the dream of men in a drunken stupor? For the true power and authority and rule and lordship of God, according to our doctrine at least, does not have its being in syllables—else in this way anyone whatsoever who became an inventor of words would come into equality of honor with God—but boundless ages, and the beauties of the world, and the radiance of the luminaries, and the wonders on earth and in the sea, and armies of angels and supramundane powers, and whatever else we hear from Scripture, through riddles, to be in the realm above—these are the things that bear witness to God as being above all power.

But whoever ascribes the sound of a voice to those whose nature it is to speak will in no way commit impiety against Him who gave the voice.

For neither do we think this to be any great thing—the devising of sounds significative of realities.

He imposed the name 'man' upon the creature that is according to us; this same one Job names 'mortal,' and some of those outside call 'phos' and others 'merops'—to say nothing of the differences of this name according to nation.