駁歐諾米 第 1 章 第 45/56 段

And in addition to these they held it as a doctrine that the aether itself, and the air spread out beneath it, and the earth and the sea and the region beneath the earth, and of the earth itself all that is useful and necessary for human life—that none of these is excluded from a share in the divine nature; but they bowed down to each of them, enslaving themselves through some single object made manifest in creation to all the successive parts of creation. Whereas, had it appeared to them from the beginning unlawful to look toward the creation, they would never have been led astray into this polytheistic delusion.

In order, then, that we too should not suffer the same fate—we who are taught by Scripture to look toward the true Godhead—we have been schooled to regard everything created as outside the divine nature, and to worship and reverence the uncreated nature alone, whose characteristic mark and token is that it neither ever begins to be nor ceases to be. So the great Isaiah, by his lofty voice, uttered a theology concerning these doctrines, who from the divine Person says: 'I am the first, and I am after these things, and before me there was no God, and after me there shall be no God.'

For this great prophet, more accurately than all others knowing the mystery of gospel godliness—he who declared that marvelous sign upon the Virgin, and brought the good tidings of the Child's birth, and clearly set forth to that former age the name of the Son—this man, then, who through the Spirit had comprehended within himself the whole truth, in order that the character of the divine nature might be made especially plain to all, by which we distinguish that which truly is from that which has come to be, says this in the person of God: 'I am the first, and I am after these things, and before me there has come to be no God, and after me there shall be none.'

Since, then, neither that which is before God is God, nor that which is after God is God—for that which is after God is creation, while that which is beyond God is nothing, and the nothing is not God; or rather, that which is beyond God is He Himself, bounded by nothing in His eternal blessedness—since, then, this voice is God's, this spiritual voice spoken in the prophetic mouth, we learn through it this doctrine: that the divine nature is one, continuous with itself and indivisible, admitting in itself no before and after, even though it is proclaimed in a Trinity, having nothing among the things contemplated in it that is either older or later.

Since, then, it is God's voice—whether you grant the word to belong to the Father or to the Son—the doctrine of godliness is equally established through either.

For if the Father says these things, He bears witness to the Son that He is not after Him;

for if the Son is God, and everything after the Father is not God, it is plain that the word bears witness that the Son is in the Father and not after the Father.

And if one should grant that this voice belongs to the Son, the phrase 'there has come to be none before me' will be a clear teaching that He who is contemplated in the beginning is comprehended together with the eternity of the Beginning.

If, then, anything is after God, it is found by what has been said to be creation and not God.

For 'that which is after me,' He says, 'is not God.'

Now it was said by Peter to the Jews that 'God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.'

But it is said by us that it is not godly to refer the word 'made' to the divine nature of the Only-begotten, but to the form of the servant which came to be dispensationally at the appointed time of His coming in the flesh.

But those who wrest the passage to the contrary say that the pre-eternal begetting of the Son is what is signified by the Apostle through the word 'made.'

Setting the argument, then, in the midst, and examining both suppositions with accuracy, we shall leave to the hearer the judgment of the truth.

But of the meaning of our opponents Eunomius himself may be a sufficient advocate, having contended over these matters not ignobly, so that, going through his argument word for word, we may thoroughly set forth the case on behalf of those who contend against us.

And for our own doctrine we shall, as far as possible, stand forth as champions, following as best we can in the footsteps of what has been previously set out by the great Basil.

And let those who judge the truth by their reading, as one of the prophets says, 'Judge righteous judgment,' awarding the palm of victory not to contentious prejudices but to the truth demonstrated through examination.

And let the accuser of our position come forward first, as in a court of law, speaking what has been written.

In addition to what has been said, refusing also to take the word 'made' as applying to the essence of the Son, and at the same time being ashamed of the cross, he lays upon the Apostles things which not even one of those bent on blaspheming them into wicked deeds would lay upon them; and he plainly introduces two Christs and two Lords into his own doctrines and words;

for he says that God did not make Lord and Christ the Word who was in the beginning, but rather Him who emptied Himself into the form of a servant and was crucified through weakness.

And he writes expressly as follows:

Moreover, neither does the mind of the Apostle set before us the pre-eternal subsistence of the Only-begotten, concerning which is our present discourse;

for it is not concerning the essence itself of the God-Word who was in the beginning with God, but concerning Him who emptied Himself in the form of a servant and became conformed to the body of our humiliation and was crucified through weakness, that he plainly discourses.

And yet this is manifest to everyone who has given even a little attention to the intention of the apostolic wording: that he is not handing down to us a mode of theology, but is introducing the terms of the economy.

For 'God,' he says, 'made him Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified,' resting by the demonstrative expression clearly upon His human and visible aspect, plainly to all. These things, then, are said by the man who has substituted his own mind for the intention of the Apostles—for it is not permitted to say that he has attended to it;

may no one ever condemn men who are holy and chosen for the proclamation of godliness of such madness, as to leave their teaching lapsing into so great an excess of insolence.

Those who refer their own nonsense to the memory of the saints—of what confusion are they not full? Of what absurdity are they not laden—those who hold the opinion that man was emptied into man, and thereby maintain that He who humbled Himself out of obedience into the form of a servant was conformed to men even before He took up this form? And who, O most sluggish of all men, having the form of a servant, takes up the form of a servant? And how could anyone empty himself into that which he already is? You will certainly find no device for these things, bold though you are to say and to think impossibilities.

...form; but He who emptied Himself into the form of a servant emptied Himself into the coming-to-be of a man—the visible man emptied himself into the coming-to-be of a man.

But the very nature of things fights against these notions, and he too who in his theology celebrated this economy openly cries out to the contrary, saying that it was not the visible man, but the very Word who was in the beginning and who is God, that took up flesh—which in other words is equivalent to taking the form of a servant.

If, then, you consider these things trustworthy, depart from your error; cease holding the opinion that man was emptied into man.

But if you are not competent to persuade the unbelieving, then dissolve their unbelief by another voice and a second vote.

Call to mind him who said: 'Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.'

For there is no one among men who will appropriate this saying to himself.

None of the saints who ever came to be was Only-begotten God, having become man.

For this is what it is to take the form of a servant while being in the form of God.

If, then, the blessed Peter discourses concerning Him who emptied Himself into the form of a servant, and He who was in the form of God emptied Himself into the form of a servant, and He who was in the form of God is the Word who was in the beginning and the Only-begotten who is God, then the blessed Peter discourses concerning Him who was in the beginning and who is God, and teaches that this One has become Lord and Christ.

This battle, however, Basil turns against himself, and is plainly shown neither to have attended to the intention of the Apostles nor to have kept the consistency of his own words;

from which either, perceiving the inconsistency, he will concede that the Word who was in the beginning and who is God has become Lord, or, joining contradictions to contradictions and contentiously abiding by them, he will add other things still more hostile, establishing that there are two Christs and two Lords.

For if the God-Word who was in the beginning is one, and He who emptied Himself and took the form of a servant is another, and yet the God-Word through whom are all things is Lord, and this Jesus who was crucified after all things came to be is also Lord and Christ, then according to him there are two Lords and Christs.

No argument, then, will excuse this man from so manifest a blasphemy.

But if anyone, taking his side, should say that He who was the Word in the beginning and who became Lord is the same, but that according to His coming in the flesh He became Lord and Christ, he will be compelled altogether to say that before His coming in the flesh the Son was not Lord.

But indeed, even if to Basil and to the unbelievers of his sort two Lords and Christs are falsely proclaimed, yet to us there is one Lord and Christ, through whom all things have come to be—not become Lord by advancement, but subsisting as Lord before all creation and before all ages, Jesus, through whom are all things; this being the fairest of doctrines which all the saints teach us with one accord and have proclaimed.

For the blessed John teaches that the God-Word through whom all things came to be came to be in flesh, saying: 'And the Word became flesh'; and the most admirable Paul, leading those who give heed to him into humility of mind, calls Christ Jesus Him who, being in the form of God, emptied Himself into the form of a servant and was humbled unto death, even the death of the cross; and again elsewhere he names the crucified One the Lord of glory.

'For if they had known,' he says, 'they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.'

And, still more nakedly than this, he names the essence itself 'Lord,' saying: 'Now the Lord is the Spirit.'

If, then, the Word who was in the beginning, inasmuch as He is Spirit, is Lord and Lord of glory, and God made this Lord and Christ, then God made the Spirit itself and the God-Word, and not some other Lord whom Basil dreams up.

Such, then, is the accusation.

May the writing against us be well remembered, against which we must make our defense, and may we too, in order and in sequence, resolve each of the charges.

He says that we are ashamed of the cross of Christ, and that we speak ill of the saints, and say that man was emptied into man, and suppose that before His coming through the flesh the Lord had the form of a servant, and attribute the redemption to a man, and speak in our doctrine of two Christs and Lords; or, if not this, then that before the passion we do not say that the Only-begotten was both Christ and Lord.

In order, then, that we may escape this blasphemy, he says it is necessary to confess that the essence of the Son has been made, as if the Apostle Peter also confirmed such a doctrine by his own voice.

These are the chief points of the accusation;

for all the labor he has expended on his abuse against us, as contributing nothing to the purpose, I will pass over in silence.

For perhaps such a torrent of words is, according to some technical theory, customary among rhetoricians, devised for a greater weight of accusation.

Let the sophist, then, for the sake of his art, heap insult upon us and revel in his reproaches against us; let him, parading amid his contests with his invectives, call us triflers, call us the most sluggish and most pitiable of all men, full of confusion and absurdity, and whatever else he pleases;

let him disparage us at his pleasure, and we will bear it;

for it is a shame, to one who has sense, not to hear the reviler, but to turn one's attention to what has been said; and perhaps there is even something useful in his having employed his nature against us;

for perhaps, by occupying his slanderous tongue against us, he will grant at least a little truce from his battle against God.

Let him, then, gorge himself at his pleasure with insults, and there will be no one to contradict him.

For not even if someone should breathe out something foul and evil-smelling, by reason of a bodily distemper or some pestilent and malignant sickness, would he provoke the healthy man to emulation of the misfortune, so that one should choose to requite the unpleasantness of the malodorous with an equal evil through a disease of his own.

For common nature counsels us to pity, not to imitate, such persons.

Passing over, then, all such things as he has diligently mingled into his discourse—mocking, complaining, indignant, reviling—let us examine only the argument concerning the doctrines.

Taking up the matter, then, from the beginning, we shall take our stand in turn against each of the charges.

The beginning of the accusation was that we are ashamed of the cross of Him who for our sakes accepted the passion.

Will he perhaps also charge us with maintaining that which is unlike in essence? For the charge would more properly belong to those who have been turned aside to such a supposition, than to those who make the cross a matter of shame.

For if the economy according to the passion is believed alike by both parties, and we hold that we ought so to honor the God made manifest through the cross as the Father is honored, while to them the passion becomes an obstacle to glorifying the Only-begotten God equally with the Father who begot Him, then surely the charges are turned about to the contrary against the sophist, and through the things by which he thinks to accuse us, he publishes abroad his own impiety against the doctrines.

For it is plain that for this reason he sets the Father above the Son and exalts Him with the greater honors: because the shame connected with the cross is not seen about Him; and for this reason he stoutly maintains that the nature of the Son has been altered for the worse, because the reproach of the cross is referred to Him alone, not touching the Father.

And let no one suppose that I say these things merely following the sequence of thought in his composition.

For after going through beforehand all the blasphemy laboriously compounded in his discourse, I found in what follows this same blasphemy plainly set forth by him in bare words.

And, if it seems good, I shall set alongside the sequence of my own arguments the things written by him, which run as follows.

'To conduct Himself in human fashion, to bear the cross'—let him then declare Light to be equal to Light! Who, then, is he that is ashamed of the cross? Is it the one who, even after the Passion, worships the Son as equal to the Father, or the one who, even before the Passion, insults Him—not only by ranking Him on a level with the creation, but also by contriving that He belongs to a nature subject to suffering, on the ground that He would not have come to the experience of the sufferings unless His nature were capable of such things? For we, on the contrary, declare that even the body in which He received the suffering was made, through its commingling with the divine nature, to be that very thing which the assuming nature is.

So far are we from entertaining any mean thought concerning the Only-begotten God, that whatever of the lower nature was assumed on account of His loving-kindness in the divine economy, this too we believe was transformed into that which is divine and undefiled.

But he who has made the suffering about the cross a sign of a change downward in essence toward what is lowlier—I do not know how, in making the surpassing operation of that power, by which even this was made possible, into a proof of weakness, he fails to perceive even this: that nothing which moves according to its own nature is wondered at as a marvel, but rather those things which go beyond the bounds of nature—these above all become an object of wonder, and toward these every ear is turned and every mind is stretched, marvelling at the paradox.

Wherefore also all who preach the word declare the wonder of the mystery in this: that God was manifested in the flesh, that the Word became flesh, that the Light shone in the darkness, that the Life tasted of death; and all such things the heralds proclaim aloud, whereby the wonder is increased of Him who, through the things beyond nature, displayed the exceeding greatness of His own power.

But even if to those men it seems, on account of these things, that we do Him insult, and if because of the economy concerning the cross they cut off the Son from equality of honour with the Father, we, according as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered to us, have believed through the holy Scriptures that God, who was in the beginning, 'afterward,' as Baruch says, 'appeared upon the earth and had His conversation among men'; and having become a ransom for our death, He loosed by His own resurrection the bonds of death, and made a way of resurrection for all flesh through Himself; and being one who shares the throne and the glory with His own Father, He will, according to the desert of the lives that have been lived, cast the vote upon those who are judged in the day of judgment.

These things we have believed concerning the Crucified One; and on this account we cease not, according to the measure of our own power, to exalt Him supremely, because He who is containable by none—by reason of His unspeakable and unapproachable majesty—save by Himself and the Father and the Holy Spirit, this very One was able also to descend to a fellowship with our weakness.

But those men make this into a demonstration of the estrangement in nature of the Son from the Father—namely, that the Lord was manifested through flesh and cross—as though the nature of the Father remains purely in impassibility and can in no way admit fellowship with suffering, while the Son, because His nature has been altered toward what is lowlier, is not unable to come to the experience of flesh and death; as though no great transposition takes place, but rather it moves in a certain way from like to like, to what is kindred and of the same tribe—by supposing the human nature to be created, and likewise the nature of the Only-begotten also to be created.

Who, then, is with good reason charged with being ashamed of the cross—he who says lowly things about Him, or he who contends for the loftier truths? I do not know whether the accuser has ever heard of the loud-voiced Paul, he who thus belittles the God made known upon the cross, considering what great things and how many that man, with his lofty mouth, sets forth concerning the cross.

For he who was able to make himself known through so many and such great wonders says: 'God forbid that I should glory in anything else save in the cross of Christ'; and to the Corinthians he speaks the word, that 'the message of the cross is the power of God to those who are being saved.'

He writes of the cross in terms wherein he desires them, being uplifted, to know the surpassing glory of this power, naming height and breadth and depth and length; calling by their own proper names each of the beams contemplated in the figure of the cross—so that he calls the upper part 'height,' and 'depth' that which lies beneath after the point of intersection, while by the names of 'length' and 'breadth' he indicates the transverse beam on either side; that thereby the great mystery might be made manifest: that the things heavenly and the things beneath the earth and all the limits of existing things are held together and comprehended by Him who displayed this ineffable and mighty power in the figure of the cross.

But I think there is no need to contend at greater length against these charges, judging it superfluous to spend one's zeal upon refutations of calumny, since the truth has been shown even in a few words.

Let us, then, pass on with our discourse to another accusation.

But if he himself has heard it, let him state the words of the slander;

and if he says he has spoken it to others, let him prove the charge to be true through witnesses;

and if he demonstrates it from what we have written, let him read out the things said, and we will accept the charge.

But he would not be able to bring forward any such thing;

for it lies open to everyone who wishes to subject our writings to examination.

But if it has neither been spoken to him, nor has he heard it from others, nor has he the proof through the things written, I think that he who is making a defence on these matters ought to keep silent.

For against a groundless accusation, the wholly fitting defence is silence.

Peter the apostle says: 'God has made both Lord and Christ this same Jesus, whom you crucified.'

We, having learned these things from him, say that the whole connexion of the things spoken looks toward one object: both the cross itself, and the human name, and the demonstrative force of the phrase;

for the word of Scripture declares that two things came to pass concerning one Person: from the Jews, the suffering; but from God, the honour—not as though one had suffered, but another had been honoured through the exaltation.

And he interprets it still more plainly, saying in what follows:

'For, being exalted,' he says, 'by the right hand of God.'

Who, then, was exalted—the lowly one, or the Most High? And what is the lowly, save the human? And what else besides the divine is the Most High? But surely God, being the Most High, has no need to be exalted.

Therefore the apostle says that the human was exalted; and it was exalted by becoming Lord and Christ.

And for this reason it came to pass after the Passion.

Accordingly, the apostle does not by the word 'made' set forth the pre-eternal existence of the Lord, but the transformation of the lowly into the lofty, which came to pass through the right hand of God; for through this word too the mystery of godliness is made clear.

For he who said, 'Being exalted by the right hand of God,' plainly reveals the ineffable economy of the mystery: that the right hand of God, which is the maker of all existing things—which is the Lord, through whom all things came to be, and without whom nothing of the things that are came into being—this right hand raised up to its own height the man that had been united to it, having, through the commingling, made him also to be that which it is according to nature;

and this right hand is Lord and King;

for Christ is named 'King.'

For just as, coming to be in the Most High, He was supremely exalted, so also all the other things came to pass: in the Immortal, immortal; in the Light, light; in the Incorruptible, incorruptible; in the Invisible, invisible; in the Christ, Christ; in the Lord, Lord.

For it is natural, even in the case of bodily commixtures, that when the one part exceeds by a great measure, the part that is diminished is wholly transformed toward that which prevails.

This we are also plainly taught, in the case of the mystical word, through the voice of Peter: that the lowly belongs to Him who was crucified out of weakness;

and the weakness signifies the flesh, according as we have heard from the Lord.

'Lord,' instead of subject; 'Christ the King,' instead of lowly; 'Most High,' instead of the human; 'God,' instead of man.

What handle, then, has he who feigns to war against us on behalf of the apostles found from the Scriptures against the saints? But let this charge too be passed over in silence;

for I think it a petty and ignoble thing to take one's stand against the false and undemonstrated assertions among the things said.

But let us pass on to the more vehement part of the accusation.

He says that we assert man to have been emptied into man, and that He who out of obedience humbled Himself in the form of a servant was conformed to men even before He took on this form.

Nothing of the wording has been altered, but the very words have been carried over by us from his discourse into ours.

If, then, there is any such thing in what has been written by us (for I call the teacher's words ours), let no one charge the orator with calumny;

we too will bear witness to his every care for the truth.

But if of these things there is nothing in what has been written, and yet the discourse does not bring a bare charge, but is indignant and enraged as at things conspicuously demonstrated, calling them 'monstrosities' and 'nonsense' and 'full of confusion' and 'irregularity' and such things, I do not perceive what one ought to do.

For just as those who are at a loss before the pretextless rages of the frenzied know not what they shall resolve to do, so neither can I myself devise any expedient against this perplexity.

The teacher says (for again I shall take up his words verbatim) that he delivers to us not the manner of theology, but the accounts of the economy. But the accuser, setting out from these, says that we contrive to teach that man was emptied into man.

What fellowship have these things with those? If we say that the apostle has delivered to us not a manner of theology, but has pointed out in his discourse the economy according to the Passion, are we on that account slandered as saying that there is an emptying of man into man, and a pre-eternal form of a servant, and that the man from Mary is older than the presence in the flesh? But I think it superfluous to dwell upon things confessed, since the truth itself releases us from the charge.

For then must one oppose the accusers, when someone gives the slanderer a handle against himself;

but where there is no danger of any absurdity being suspected, the accusation becomes a proof, not of the calumniated one's culpability, but of the accuser's madness.

But just as, in the matter of being ashamed of the cross, we showed through the things examined that the charge was turned back upon the accuser into its opposite, so also shall we show this charge to recoil upon the accusers themselves, since it is they, not we, who dogmatize the transposition of the Son from like to like in the economy according to the Passion.

For let us examine, setting side by side under headings the things said by each party.

We say that the Only-begotten God, having through Himself brought all things into being, holds together all things in Himself; and that one of the things that came to be from Him is also the human nature, which, having flowed away toward evil and having on this account come to be in the corruption of death, He again drew back through Himself toward the immortal life; having, through the man in whom He tabernacled, taken up to Himself the whole of humanity, and having mingled His own life-giving power with the mortal and perishable nature, and having, through the commingling with Himself, transformed our deadness into life-giving grace and power.

And this we say to be the mystery according to the flesh of the Lord: that the Unchangeable comes to be in the changeable, in order that, having altered and transmuted it toward the better out of the worse, He might make to vanish the evil that had been mingled with the changeable disposition, consuming the evil in Himself out of the nature.

For our God is a consuming fire, in whom is made to vanish all the matter of evil.

...to Himself and of the same tribe: not that out of a superior nature He crept beneath a lowlier nature on account of loving-kindness, but becoming that very thing which He was.

For by the generic force of the appellation, the name of 'creation' is one and the same over all the things that have subsisted out of non-being; but the particular differences of the things contemplated within the creation are distinguished, one from another, by the variations of their proper attributes;