駁歐諾米 第 1 章 第 8/56 段

How could it be possible that what our reasoning apprehends when it busies and meddles itself with things below—setting one thing comparatively above another by some interval of time—should be thought to hold also concerning the uncreated and pre-eternal Essence? In that Essence the Father is conceived as without beginning, unbegotten, and ever Father; and from Him, in immediate and undivided succession, the Only-begotten Son is conceived together with the Father; and through Him and with Him, before any empty and unsubstantial notion can intrude between them, straightway the Holy Spirit also is apprehended in conjunction—not coming later in existence after the Son, so that the Only-begotten should ever be conceived apart from the Spirit, but itself also having the cause of its being from the God of all things (whence too the Only-begotten is Light), and having shone forth through the True Light, cut off neither by interval nor by difference of nature from the Father or from the Only-begotten.

For in the pre-eternal nature there is no interval, and there is no difference whatever according to essence.

For it is not possible to conceive a difference of one uncreated thing from another uncreated thing; and the Holy Spirit is uncreated, as has been demonstrated in the preceding arguments.

Since, then, these things are held to be so by all who accept the plain simplicity of the more unadorned proclamation, what occasion is there to attempt to dissolve the conjunction of the Son with the Father by means of the creation, as though it were necessary that something should be co-eternal with the creation, or even that the Son should be thought of as later in origin? For neither is the begetting of the Only-begotten within the ages, nor is the creation before the ages; so that in no way is it fitting to divide up the nature that admits of no interval, and to insert some notion of interval between the creative cause of all things, by saying that He who has given being to all things once was not.

Therefore the argument previously rendered is true, that with the unbegottenness of the Father the eternity of the Only-begotten is conceived together as begotten.

But if some interval be supposed to lie between, by which the begetting of the Son is cut off from the life of the Father, by this same interval the beginning of the life of the God who is over all will also be defined—which is absurd.

But nothing prevents the creation, which is by its own nature something other than its Creator, from being conceived as having some particular beginning of its own, as we have said, in no respect coinciding with the undefiled and pre-eternal nature.

For to say that heaven or earth, or any other of the things beheld in the creation, came to be out of things that are not, or, as the Apostle says, out of things not seen, brings no dishonour upon the Maker of all; since indeed we have learned from the divine Scripture that these things are neither from eternity nor abide for ever.

But if any of the things believed in the Holy Trinity were believed not always to co-exist with the Father, but there were devised, according to the heretical reasoning, some notion that at some time strips the God who is over all of the glory of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, then God will be shown, according to the heretical reasoning, to be nothing other than separated from every good and divine reality and thought.

But if the Father who exists before the ages is ever glorious, and the pre-eternal Son is the glory of the Father, and likewise the Spirit of Christ, which is ever beheld together with the Son and the Father, is the glory of the Son—from what source, and out of what schooling, does this wise man pronounce upon what is elder among things timeless and what is more honourable among things honourable by nature, setting the one comparatively above the other, and by preferring the one dishonouring what comes next? For the contrast implied in "more honourable" is altogether the more manifest as to what it tends toward.

And observe what sort of things he adds as consequent upon what has been said.

"Inasmuch," he says, "as the same operations bring to completion identity of works, and different works declare different operations."

Nobly has this noble fellow arrived at the irrefutable advocacy of his argument!

"The same operations," he says, "bring to completion identity of works."

Let us then examine the argument in the light of actual facts.

Bronze is melted, clay is hardened, wax is consumed, the rest of living creatures, if they come into fire, are destroyed, while the salamander is quickened to life; tow is burned, but asbestos is as it were washed clean by the flame as by water.

So great is the "identity of works" that comes from the one operation!

And what of the sun? Does it not likewise, out of the same power, warming all things alike, cause some of the plants to grow while it withers others, altering the outcome of its operation in accordance with the material that underlies it? For the same sun dries up what is on the rock, but out of the deep soil it makes it yield a hundredfold.

And if you should enter into the works of nature and behold how many things she accomplishes with skilful artistry in bodies, you would all the more understand the circumspection of him who says that the same operation brings to completion identity of works.

The one operation is the cause of conception, but the compound of what is thereafter administered within is manifold, so that one could not easily enumerate the difference of the qualities in the body.

Again, in infants there is one operation, the drawing of milk; but what discourse could recount the manifold results of such nourishment? For part of it, as through a pipe, passes out from the mouth to the excretory channels, while the transformative power of nature brings the milk suitably to each of the members, dividing the nourishment by digestion into countless differences and rendering to each what is proper to it, of like nature with what underlies it.

For out of the same food are nourished arteries, veins, brain, membranes, marrow, bones, sinews, ligaments, tendons, flesh, skin, cartilage, fat, hair, nails, sweat, vapours, phlegm, bile, and whatever else is superfluous and useless—all depending on the same cause.

And though you should name the members, both the instrumental and the sensory, and whatever else fills out the bulk of the body, out of one and the same operation with respect to nourishment they are transformed into so many differences.

And if one should also take account of the arts, one will find through these too the examined truth of the doctrine refuted.

For in nearly every art we see one operation on the part of those who make something by hand—I mean the movement of the hand itself; but what community is there in the results, let us consider.

What has the construction of a temple in common with a cloak, though in each art the hand's motion is what performs the work? The burglar too moves his hand, and so does the well-digger, and earth is mined, and a man is murdered.

All these are works of the motion of the hand.

For the warrior in battle effects by his hand the slaughter of his adversaries, and the husbandman again with his hand breaks up the clod by means of the mattock.

How then does this doctrinaire declare to us that the same operations bring to completion identity of works? And even if it be granted that what he has said has some truth, again through this too the kinship according to essence of the Son with the Father, and of the Spirit with the Son, is the more firmly established.

For if there were some variation in the operations, so that the Father effected what He purposed in one way and the Son in another, it would have been reasonable to infer, from the variation of the operations, also a variation of the essence wrought by each of these.

But if in the manner in which the Father operates, the Son also does all things likewise—both according to the very voice of the Lord Himself and according to the reasonable account (for it is not that the one works incorporeally and the other through a body, nor that the one works out of this matter and the other out of some other, nor that the one accomplishes what he purposes at a different time or in a different place from the other, nor do differences of instruments produce the variation).

...being separated? For the contrary, as I said before, is established.

Since no manner of variation of the operations is beheld in the Father and the Son, this also shows that there is no separation in the essences of the Son and of the Spirit, within the identity of the power that gave them subsistence; even as the testimony of the writer confirms the argument, running word for word as follows:

"Inasmuch," he says, "as the same operations bring to completion identity of works."

So that if identity of works is accomplished in the likeness of the operations, and a work of the Father is, according to them, the Son, and of Him the Holy Spirit, then the likeness of manner of the operation of the Father and of the Son will altogether indicate the identity of the essence that is brought to completion.

"And," he continues, "different works declaring different operations."

Again, therefore, let us also consider this: wherein the argument has its strength; and if it seems good, let us examine these things through plain examples.

Is not the operation one—that by commanding—of Him who set together the whole world and the things in it by His will alone? For "He Himself spoke, and they came to be; He Himself commanded, and they were created."

Was not the command given substance alike in all cases, and did not the will alone suffice to bring into subsistence that which was not? How then, when from the one operation of commanding so great a diversity is beheld, does this man—as though not seeing the facts—say that the variation of the works indicates the variation of the operation? For, on the contrary, all things in the world ought to have been of one kind, if indeed, according to the doctrinaire, the variation of the operations is manifested by the difference of the works.

Or does he see all these things as alike, and behold dissimilarity only in the Father and the Son? Let him then now consider, if not before, the difference among the elements, and how each of the things that contribute to the constitution of the whole world has been led off to the opposite of its nature.

For some things are by nature light and tend upward, others heavy and sink downward; and some ever stand still, others are wholly in motion; and among those in motion, some have their movement unswervingly in one direction, as the heaven and the wandering stars, whose course revolves in a direction contrary to the whole, while others are diffused in every direction and are ever borne along as it happens, as the air and the sea and every nature of the moist substance.

And what could one say of the opposition of the hot to the cold, or the difference of the moist from the dry, or the distance of the upper from the lower? And as for how many are the dissimilarities among living creatures according to their nature, and the variations among plants in respect of shapes and sizes and the differences of their fruits and qualities—what human discourse could traverse them? Yet this wise man declares to us that different works reveal different operations too—either because he has not yet learned the character of the divine operation, which the Scripture proclaims, namely that by the word of command all things came to be, or because he is dim-sighted with regard to the difference of the things that have come to be.

And thus, uttering his opinions inconsiderately concerning divine doctrines, he lays down the law, having perhaps not yet heard that everything asserted assertively—if it does not universally possess what is incontrovertible and agreed upon concerning the matter in question, but the one who dogmatizes speaks arbitrarily about matters to which none of the thoughtful would assent—differs in no way from those who recount dreams or fables over their drink.

And such being the incongruity in what has been said, just as those who, through the phantasm of a dream, suppose they see something of the things they earnestly pursue when awake eagerly cling to things unreal, and through the deceived vision that persuades them concerning what appears think they possess the object of their desire—so he too, imagining through this dreamlike moulding of his doctrines that these things he has said prevail for him, asserts confidently that they are so, and by means of them attempts to establish the rest.

But it is worthwhile also to set forth his very wording, which runs as follows:

"...since they preserve the connection inviolate by relation, it is surely fitting that those who conduct their examination according to the order that is native to things, and do not force everything into confusion and mixture together, should—if some dispute be stirred concerning the essences—make the proof of what is being demonstrated and the resolution of what is in dispute from the first operations that are proximate to the essences, but should resolve the ambiguity concerning the operations from the essences."

For my part, then, I consider that, to demonstrate the absurdity of what has been said, the very words of his impiety suffice.

For just as one who describes in words a face disfigured by disease would rather display it by stripping the malady of its coverings, so that those who see what appears have no need to learn by discourse, so I consider that this hideous and mutilated character of the heretical doctrine is sufficiently made manifest, even by the mere reading of it, to those keen-sighted in soul, being uncovered thereby.

But since it is necessary, by applying the demonstrative argument like a finger to the rotten parts of the doctrine, to render the corruption embedded in the doctrine more manifest to the many, I will once more take up in sequence what has been said.

"Such things being so," he says.

What does the dreamer mean? Which "such things," and how being "so"? That the essence of the Father alone is authoritative and highest, while the one that follows next is necessarily, by consequence, without authority, and the third yet less authoritative? For these are the things he laid down as law by what he said.

Or that, since a certain operation attends upon the first essence—whose result and work is the Only-begotten Son—He is bound within the measure of the operation that gave Him subsistence? Or that the essences are conceived as lesser and greater by reason of their somehow being placed within one another and the lesser being contained by the more capacious, as happens with jars set within one another, whereby he beholds the essences as greater and lesser—essences which are encompassed by no limit or boundary? Or that the differences of the things made also co-indicate the diversity of their makers, so that it is impossible that diverse creations should be constituted out of like operations? Is there then anyone held in so deep a slumber as to the sensory faculties of his soul that, on hearing such doctrines, he would straightway assent to the one who asserts that "such things being so, and preserving their connection inviolate in their relation to one another"? For it is, I think, of the same derangement both to say such things and to hear those who say them without examination—namely, that by some connection through their relation to one another are set aright the things that are sundered from one another by dissimilarity of nature.

For either they are united through essence, according to our teaching, and thus preserve the connection inviolate in their relation to one another; or they stand apart from one another through the alienation according to nature, as he supposes.

And what connected relation could be found among things that are mutually alien, which preserves the inviolability? And what is that native order of things according to which he legislates that the examination be made? For if he had looked to the doctrine of truth, and reckoned the difference of the things believed in the Holy Trinity according to order alone in its proper sequence—this native order, as he says, rendering the discrimination of the hypostases free of confusion, so that one holds them both to have communion according to essence and to be divided according to the principle of hypostasis—he would by no means have been ranked among the adversaries by saying these things, of which we too are champions.

But as it is, his whole argument, looking to the contrary, establishes that the comprehension of the order here conceived by him is impossible.

For surely there is the greatest difference between the things that result from forethought and deliberate choice, and those that reach their end automatically, out of some natural necessity.

Heat is native to fire, and brightness to the ray, and flowing to water, and to the stone the downward tendency; and many such things one might mention.

...he handled things being set aright, it is not possible properly to say concerning this that some native order attends upon the things done by him.

For according to the will of the one who chooses, and according to the usefulness of the thing being accomplished, the order is imposed by those who operate upon each individual matter.

Here, then, since the heretical reasoning severs the Son from the natural kinship of the Father, and supposes the same things also concerning the Spirit, as being estranged from the union both with the Son and with the Father, and in his whole argument establishes that the Son is the work of the Father, and again the Spirit the work of the Son, and that all works are results of choice, not of nature—how this man defines the work of the will to be some native order of things, I do not know what he has in mind in his argument.

As though the God of all things had created this nature upon the Son and the Holy Spirit, and had made that which transcends the essences to be of such a kind that the one should be subject to the other's hand? And if he thinks this, why did he not make clear what he said—on what principle it is presupposed that these things concerning God are to be known? Is it as though the greater power of God would be displayed in the smallness of the works? And who will assent to this man, who holds that a great cause and power is beheld in the smallness of the results? Or is it as though He were unable to bring into co-subsistence with Himself that which is perfect in all respects, in that which is from Him? And how does the highest and most authoritative bear witness to Him, if indeed He will display a power lesser than His purpose? Or does he say that the account of perfection was not even set forth for that which came to be from Him, lest by all means the honour and glory of the one honoured for His preeminence should be diminished?

And who is so wretched as not even to reckon that the divine and blessed nature is pure from the passion of envy? What then is the seemly cause for these things to have been thus ordained by the God of all things upon the Only-begotten and the Spirit? "But it is not from that source," he says.

From what other source, then, save that they are akin according to nature, is the order native to them beheld? But perhaps by "native to the order" he means the subordination of the essence in the case of the Son and the Spirit.

But I for my part require to learn the very cause of this: on account of what the Son has been diminished according to essence, when the essence and the operation are found in equal and identical marks and properties.

But if the account of the essence and of the operation is not the same, but the thing signified is different in each case, how are demonstrations brought to the things sought by means of strange and alien matters? As if someone, when the human essence is being closely inquired into, and it is being asked whether man is a creature capable of laughter or receptive of grammar, should adduce, for the demonstration of what is proposed, the construction of a house or a ship, which the builder or the shipwright fashioned, and should then insist by this clever argument that "by the operations we recognize the essences, and the operation of man is the house and the ship."

"From these, then, do we apprehend that man is broad-nailed and capable of laughter, my most simple friend?" But this is not what is being sought, one might say, whether man has some motion and operation, but what that which operates is according to its nature.

Which I am far from learning from the answer.

For indeed, if I wished to learn something about the wind, you would not, by pointing out a heap of sand piled up by the wind, or a stack of chaff, or a scattering of dust, have rendered a complete account of what was sought.

For the account of the wind is one thing, and these other things shown in place of what is sought are quite another.

How, then, does this man demonstrate the substances by the activities, and establish the account of the being of the very One who is from the things that have come to be through the One who is? Then let us examine this too: what is the 'work of the Father' through which he says the substance of the One who acts is apprehended? He will surely mean the Son, if indeed he speaks according to his customary usage.

it remains obscure, if indeed activity is, even by your own testimony, one of the things that accompany the first substance.

For this activity is coextensive with the work brought to completion by it, as you yourself say, and is exhibited through the finished product; yet it is not the activity's very nature—whatever it is—that is shown, but only its quantity that is discerned in the work.

For just as it was not the whole power of the smith, set in motion, that produced the drill, but the art, working through the craftsman's hand, exerted only so much as was proportionate to the fashioning of the implement—though it had the capacity to accomplish many and varied things—so the object that comes from that activity displays within itself only the measure of the activity.

But what is being sought is not the quantity of the activity, but the very substance of the One who acted.

By the same reasoning, even if he should say that through the Spirit (which he names as the work of the activity that accompanies the Son) he has apprehended the nature of the Only-begotten, the argument has no standing; for here too the activity is coextensive with its finished product, while it does not display, through what has been wrought, the nature either of itself or of the One who acts.

But that we may concede even this point, let it be granted that substances are known by their activities.

In that case, the first substance is made known through the work that comes from it, and likewise the work that comes from the second substance displays that second substance.

Now tell me, O most wise one, concerning the third: what is it that displays it, when no such work of the third substance is to be observed?

For if, as you say, substances are apprehended by their activities, you will have to confess that the nature of the Spirit is incomprehensible, since you have no proximate activity of this kind and, having set it forth, could use it to reason out the nature of the Spirit.

Either, then, point out some substantial work of the Spirit, through which you say you have apprehended the substance of the Spirit, or the whole spider's web of your argument will collapse at the touch of reason.

For if, according to your account, the substance is known from the proximate activity, and yet there is no substantial activity of the Spirit—just as you say the Son is the Father's and the Spirit is the Son's—then by these very statements it is jointly confessed that the nature of the Spirit is altogether unknowable and incomprehensible, since no activity conceived as belonging to it hypostatically discloses it.

But if this has escaped apprehension, how is the substance that lies above apprehended through that which is not itself apprehended? For if the work of the Son—which, as they say, is the Spirit—is unknown, then neither could the Son himself be at all recognized, being overshadowed by the obscurity of that which is supposed to be his proof.

And if the substance of the Only-begotten in this way remains hidden, how shall the highest and most sovereign substance be made manifest through that which is itself hidden, when the obscurity of the Spirit is by this analysis transmitted through the Son up to the Father? So that from these things it is clearly demonstrated—and by the very testimony of our adversaries—that the substance of the Father is in every way incomprehensible.

Whence, then, does this keen-sighted man, who sees things that have no existence, himself behold the nature of things invisible and incomprehensible each through the other, and enjoin us to do likewise, saying that substances are apprehended from works and works from those substances? But let us examine the argument that follows as well.

And he says that the ambiguity concerning the activities is to be resolved from the substances.

How could one bring him back from vain suppositions to human reasoning? He thinks it possible for the ambiguities concerning the activities to be resolved through the apprehension of the substances. How does he bring what is in doubt into conviction by means of things not apprehended? For if the substance had been apprehended, what need would there be to busy oneself with the activity, as though through it we were to be led to the apprehension of what is sought? But if for this reason the examination of the activity is necessary—so that through it we might be guided to the understanding of the substance that acts—how will the nature not yet known be able to resolve for us the ambiguity concerning the activities? For in every matter that is in doubt, demonstrations proceed from things agreed upon.

If the obscurity lies equally in both of the things sought, how can Eunomius say that things unknown through themselves are apprehended through one another? For while the substance of the Father is in doubt, he says that what is sought is made manifest through the activity that accompanies him and through the work brought to completion by it.

And again, when the substance of the Only-begotten is sought—what it is, whom he calls either an activity or some product of the activity (for he makes use of both terms)—he says that from the substance of the Maker it is easy to resolve the dispute concerning the Only-begotten.

Gladly would I learn this too from him.

Does he say that only in the case of the divine nature is the ambiguity concerning the activities resolved from the substance that works, or that in the case of every thing to which some productive power belongs, one recognizes also the nature of the things that have come to be through the substance of the one who produces? If, then, he lays down such a doctrine only concerning the divine power, let him show how he resolves the dispute about God's works through the nature of the One who acted.

For behold, an unambiguous work of God: heaven, earth, sea, the whole cosmos.

Let the substance of one of these be sought by way of hypothesis, and let heaven be set before the contemplation of our discourse.

Since, then, the substance of heaven is in doubt because of the varied opinions held about it by those who philosophize about nature differently, each according to how it appears to him, how does the contemplation of the One who made heaven bring us the resolution of the ambiguity about what is sought? That One is immaterial, invisible, without shape, unbegotten, abiding forever, remaining unsusceptible of corruption, change, alteration, and all such things.

How, then, will one who has taken up such a conception concerning the One who acted be led to the recognition of the nature of heaven? How will he form his understanding of what is sought from the invisible to the visible, from the incorruptible to that which is subject to corruption, from that which exists unbegottenly to that which has its constitution from time, from that which abides forever to that which has acquired a temporary existence—and from all the opposites? Let the man who has examined beings with precision say, let him say how it is possible for things unlike in nature to be recognized through one another.

And yet, by these very things which he himself says, if only he knew how to follow his own arguments, he would have been guided to assent to the doctrine of the Church.

For if the nature of the Maker displays that which has come to be from it, as this man says, and the Son is, according to them, a thing made by the Father, then surely whoever has understood the nature of the Father has thereby also come to know the nature of the Only-begotten—if indeed the nature of the One who acted signified that which was wrought—so that through this too they have the mark of unlikeness against themselves.

so that the Only-begotten is severed off from the works of providence.

Let there be no meddlesome inquiry into the generation, nor let the unlikeness of the Only-begotten be forcibly extracted as a proof from thence.

For the difference of choices is by itself sufficient to make manifest the diversity of nature.