駁歐諾米（反駁篇） 第 1 章 第 1/6 段

Of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa: A Refutatory Discourse Against the Exposition of Eunomius. The faith of the Christians, which was proclaimed to all the nations by the disciples according to the command of the Lord, is neither from men nor through men, but through our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who, being Word and Life and Light and Truth and God and Wisdom and all things that truly are according to nature, for this reason above all came to be in the likeness of man and partook of our nature in every respect according to likeness, without sin — and according to likeness in that he took up the whole man together with soul and body — so that through both, salvation might come to be for us.

He was seen upon the earth and lived among men, so that men might no longer form opinions concerning him who is according to their own private judgments, making a doctrine of the conjectures that arise in them from certain speculations, but, being persuaded that God was truly manifested in flesh, might believe that alone to be the true mystery of piety which was delivered to us by the Word and God himself, who spoke to the apostles through himself.

As for the teaching concerning the transcendent nature that comes from the more ancient Scripture — from the Law and the Prophecy and the proverbial wisdom — we receive it, as through a mirror and an enigma, as testimony to the truth revealed to us, piously taking the sense of the sayings so that it accords with the faith set forth by the Master of all things, which we guard, word for word, pure and unaltered, just as we received it, judging even a slight deviation from the words handed down to be the utmost blasphemy and impiety.

We believe, then, just as the Lord set forth the faith to the disciples, saying: 'Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'

This is the discourse of the mystery, in which, through the begetting from above, our nature is transformed from the corruptible to the incorruptible, being renewed out of the old man according to the image of him who fashioned, in the beginning, the God-formed likeness.

Since, then, this faith was delivered by God to the apostles, we make of it neither subtraction nor alteration nor addition, knowing clearly that whoever dares to pervert the divine utterance through sophistic villainy belongs to the father who is the devil, who, abandoning the words of truth, speaks out of his own store, becoming the father of a lie.

For everything said contrary to the truth is altogether a lie and not truth.

Since, then, this doctrine is set forth by truth itself, if the inventors of wicked heresies contrive anything for the setting aside of this divine utterance — as, instead of 'Father,' naming him Creator and Maker of the Son, and instead of 'Son,' work and creature and product, and instead of the Holy Spirit, creature of a creature and work of a work, and all that seems fitting to these fighters against God to say concerning him — we call all such things a denial of the deity revealed to us in this doctrine, and a transgression.

For we have learned once and for all from the Lord that toward which the mind must look, through which the transmutation of our nature from the mortal to the immortal comes about;

and this is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We say, then, that it is a fearful and ruinous thing to reason falsely about these divine utterances, and to devise in their place others contrived for their overthrow, as though correcting God the Word, who legislated these very utterances for us to hold concerning the faith.

...and it becomes for Christians the law of truth and of piety.

For though there are many other names as well, by which the divine is signified in history and prophecy and law, the Master Christ, leaving all these aside, sets forth these words as more able to lead us to faith concerning him who is, declaring it sufficient for us to abide in the appellation of Father and Son and Holy Spirit for the comprehension of him who truly is, which is both one and not one.

For in respect of the account of essence he is one, wherefore the Master also ordained that we look to one name;

but in respect of the distinguishing properties of the hypostases, it is divided into faith in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, being distinguished without separation and united without confusion.

For when we hear 'Father,' we take up this understanding: that this name is not conceived with reference to itself alone, but also signifies, through its own implication, the relation to the Son.

For a father could not be conceived as separate, by himself, without the Son being conjoined through the very utterance of 'father.'

Having learned 'Father,' then, we were taught together, by that same word, faith in the Son as well.

Since, then, the divine by nature — being what it is, precisely as it is — always remains the same, never at any time being what it now is not, nor ever going to be what it now is not, and since the true Father was named 'Father' by the true Word, and the Son is co-signified together with the Father, we necessarily believe that he who admits no change or alteration in his nature is altogether, always, what he now is; or, if he was not at some time something, he is altogether not now that thing either.

Since, then, he is named 'Father' by the true Word, he was, and is, and will be, altogether and at every time Father, as he was.

For indeed it is not lawful to say that the good is not always present about the divine and undefiled nature.

For if it was not always what it now is, it altogether turned, either toward the worse from the better, or toward the better from the worse;

and of these, the impiety is equal in either case, whichever be said of the divine nature.

But surely the divine is incapable of admitting turning and alteration.

Therefore whatever is fair and good is always contemplated round about the fountain of the fair;

and fair, and beyond every fair thing, is the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father — being in the bosom, not having come to be in it.

It has therefore been demonstrated through these things that the Son is beheld from eternity in the Father, in whom he is, being Life and Light and Truth and every good name and concept; to say that the Father ever existed by himself apart from these is a matter of the utmost impiety together with madness.

For if the Son, as Scripture says, is the power of God and wisdom and truth and light and sanctification and peace and life and such things, then before the Son existed — as the heretics suppose — none of these existed either, altogether.

And if these did not exist, they will altogether conceive the paternal bosom as empty of such goods.

In order, then, that the Father may never be conceived as bereft of his own goods, and that the doctrine may not fall into this absurdity, faith concerning the Son is necessarily contemplated together with the eternity of the Father, in accordance with the utterance of the Master.

For this reason, leaving aside all the other names that are used to indicate the transcendent nature, he sets forth for us in the faith the appellation of Father as more indicative of the truth — which, as has been said, by its relational sense signifies the Son together with itself.

[...] any interval to conceive between Christ and the anointing, or between the king and the kingdom, or between wisdom and the spirit of wisdom, or between truth and the spirit of truth, or between power and the spirit of power) — but the Son being beheld together with the Father from eternity, who is Wisdom and Truth and Counsel and Might and Knowledge and Understanding, the Holy Spirit too is beheld together with him from eternity, which is the Spirit of Wisdom and Truth and Counsel and Understanding, and all the other things that the Son both is and is called.

For this reason we say that the mystery of piety was handed down to the holy disciples both conjoined and distinguished at once: that it is necessary to believe in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

For the peculiarity of the hypostases makes the distinction of the persons clear and unconfused, while the one name set at the head of the exposition of the faith clearly interprets to us the unity of essence of the persons named in the faith — I mean of Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

For through these appellations we are taught not a difference of nature, but only the distinguishing properties of the hypostases;

so that we know that the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Father, nor the Holy Spirit the Son or the Father, but that we recognize each in the mark peculiar to its hypostasis, contemplated in unbounded perfection both in itself and as not divided from that with which it is conjoined.

What, then, does the unnamed name signify, concerning which the Lord, saying 'baptizing them into the name,' did not add the significant word that would be indicated by the name? Our understanding concerning this is that all things existing in creation are comprehended through the signification of names.

For he who says 'heaven' leads the mind of the hearer to the creature signified by the name, and he who mentions 'man' or some other one of the living creatures by name at once imprints the form of that creature upon the one who hears; and all other things likewise, through the names applied to them, are pictured upon the heart of the one who has received through hearing the appellation applied to the thing.

But the uncreated nature alone, which is believed to be in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, is greater than every signification by name.

For this reason the Word, saying 'the name' in the tradition of the faith, did not add the 'what' (for how could a name be found for a thing that is above every name?), but gave license, so that, as our mind, moving piously, is able to find some name indicative of the transcendent nature, it should apply this equally to Father and Son and Holy Spirit — whether 'the good' or 'the incorruptible' — whatever each one shall judge worthy to be taken for the indication of the undefiled nature.

And this too, it seems to me, the Word legislates through this exposition: that we should be persuaded that the name of the divine essence is ineffable and incomprehensible;

for it is evident that the appellation 'Father' is not indicative of essence, but signifies the relation to the Son.

Therefore, if it were possible for human nature to be taught the essence of God, he who wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth would not have kept silent the knowledge concerning this.

But as it is, by saying nothing about the essence, he showed that knowledge of it is unattainable, and that, having learned what we can comprehend, we have no need of what is incomprehensible, possessing as sufficient for our salvation the faith of the teaching handed down.

For to learn that he is the one who truly is, in whom, through the relational conception, the majesty of the Son is manifested together with him, is the most perfect teaching of piety — the Son, as has been said, jointly signifying together with himself the Spirit of life and truth, since he himself is both life and truth.

We confess, together with this faith, also the dispensation carried out by the Master of creation on behalf of mankind: he who, existing in the form of God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be seized, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and, having been made flesh in the holy Virgin, redeemed us from death, in which we were held, having been sold under our own sin, giving as the ransom for the redemption of our souls his precious blood, which he poured out through the cross;

and, having made the way for us through himself for the resurrection from the dead, he will come, in his own times, in the glory of the Father, to judge every soul in righteousness, when all who are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have practiced evil, to the resurrection of judgment.

But lest the heretical corruption now being sown abroad by Eunomius, falling unexamined upon some of the more simple, should harm the innocent, we shall of necessity set forth, part by part, the exposition circulated by them, and endeavor to refute the wickedness of their doctrine.

The wording of their doctrine, then, runs thus:

[Eunomius' Confession:] We believe in the one and only true God, according to the teaching of the Lord himself, honoring him not with a lying voice (for he is without falsehood), but as one who truly is, God one both in nature and in glory, without beginning, eternal, without end, alone.

[Gregory's Reply:] Let him who professes to believe according to the teaching of the Lord not pervert the exposition of the faith made by the Master of all things to suit his own opinion, but let him follow the words that come from the truth.

Since, then, the discourse of faith there contains the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, what agreement do the things now set forth have with the words of the Master, that such a doctrine should be referred back to his teaching? Where, then, did the Lord say in the words of the Gospel that we must believe in the one and only true God? They would not be able to show this, unless there is some new gospel among them.

For the Gospels that have been read in the churches by succession from ancient times until now do not contain this saying, that one must believe or be baptized into the one and only true God, as these men say, but into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

But as we have been taught by the voice of the Master, we say this: that 'one' does not signify the Father alone, but also indicates the Son together with the Father, since the Lord said thus: 'I and the Father are one.'

Likewise, too, the name 'God' is applied equally both to the beginning in which the Word was, and to the Word who was in the beginning (for he said, 'And the Word was with God, and the Word was God'), so that in the signification of deity also the Son is beheld together with the Father in like manner.

Moreover, 'the true' cannot be understood as anything other than the truth.

And that the Lord is the truth, no one will altogether contradict, unless someone should be a stranger to the truth.

If, then, the Word is both in the 'one' and is God and is truth, as is proclaimed in the Gospel, to what teaching of the Lord does he refer his doctrine who employs these distinguishing terms? For the contrasting distinction of 'alone' is against 'not alone,' and of 'God' against 'not God,' and of 'true' against 'not true.'

If, then, they, looking to the idols, make this contrasting division of terms against those, we too agree;

for the name of deity is applied to the idols of the nations only equivocally;

for 'all the gods of the nations are demons' [and elsewhere:

he sets 'alone' in contrast to the multitude, and 'the true' against the false, and the gods that are not against the God who is].

But if the contrasting distinction is made against the only-begotten God, let these wise men learn that truth has its contrast only against falsehood, and God against him who is not God.

But since the Lord, who is truth, is God, and is in the Father, and is one with the Father, these distinguishing terms have no place in the doctrine.

He who believes in the One sees in the One him who is united with him through all things — in truth and deity and essence and life and wisdom and altogether in all things; or, if he does not see in the One him who is these things, his faith is directed to nothing.

For apart from the Son there neither is nor is spoken of a Father, nor indeed is the powerful one powerful apart from power, nor the wise one wise apart from wisdom;

for Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God;

so that he who imagines that he sees something apart from power or wisdom or truth or life or the true light either sees nothing, or altogether sees evil.

For the removal of good things becomes the positing and existence of evil.

'Not with a lying voice,' he says, 'honoring him' —

I could wish that Eunomius would abide by this statement, bearing witness to the truth that it is free of falsehood.

For if he should think in this way, that everything spoken by the Lord is separated from falsehood, he will certainly be persuaded that he who said, ‘I am in the Father and the Father is in me’ — that is, wholly in wholly, the Father not exceeding in the Son nor the Son falling short in the Father — speaks truly; and that the Son must be honored in the same way that the Father is honored; and that ‘he who has seen me has seen the Father’; and that ‘no one knows the Son except the Father’; and that ‘no one knows the Father except the Son.’

By all these words, no difference — whether of glory, or of essence, or of anything else — is to be supposed between Father and Son by those who receive these sayings as true.

‘One God,’ he says, ‘who truly exists, both by nature and by glory.’

That which truly exists is distinguished in contrast to that which does not truly exist.

Now each of the things that exist truly exists insofar as it is.

But that which, up to a certain point of imagination and supposition, seems to be, yet is not, this does not truly exist — as, for instance, the phantom of a dream, or the man depicted in an image.

For these things, and things like them, existing only up to the point of imagination, do not possess true being.

If, then, they contend, according to the Jewish supposition, that the only-begotten God does not exist at all, they do well to attribute true being to the Father alone.

But if they do not deny that the Maker of all things exists, let them be persuaded not to deprive him who truly exists of true being — he who, in the theophany that occurred to Moses, named himself as the one who is, saying, ‘I am the One who is’ — just as Eunomius, in the words that follow, agrees with this, saying that it was he who appeared to Moses.

Then he says, ‘one God, both by nature and by glory.’

If, then, God exists without being God by nature, let him who says these things know it himself.

But if that which is not God by nature is not God, let them learn from the great Paul that those who serve gods that are not gods by nature do not serve God; but we serve the living and true God, as the apostle says — and he whom we serve is Jesus Christ.

For the apostle Paul boasts of serving him, saying:

‘Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.’

We, therefore, who no longer serve those that are not gods by nature, have come to know the God who exists by nature, to whom every knee bows, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth.

We would not have served him, had we not believed that he is the living and true God, to whom every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

‘One God,’ he says, ‘alone — without beginning, eternal, without end.’

Again, ‘Understand craftiness, you who are innocent,’ says Solomon — lest, being deceived, you fall into a denial of the deity of the only-begotten.

That which is without end is that which admits neither death nor corruption; and likewise that which is not temporary is called eternal.

Whatever, then, is neither eternal nor without end, this is altogether to be reckoned within a corruptible and perishable nature.

Therefore, he who attributes ‘without end’ to the one and only God, without including the Son within the signification of ‘without end’ and ‘eternal,’ by such an argument establishes that he who is set in contrast to the eternal and endless is corruptible and temporary.

But we, even when we hear that God alone has immortality, understand the Son through that immortality (for immortality is life, which is the Lord, who said, ‘I am the life’).

Again, we do not doubt that the true light, which is inaccessible to falsehood, is to be understood as the only-begotten, in whom we have learned from the Truth itself that the Father is.

From these things, let the hearer choose the more pious course — whether one ought to glorify the only-begotten in this manner, in a way befitting God, or to say that he is corruptible and temporary, as the heresy teaches.

‘Not,’ he says, ‘divided or partitioned as to the essence in which he is one into several, nor becoming at one time one thing and at another time another, nor changing from what he is; nor split from one essence into a threefold hypostasis.’

‘For in every way and once for all he is one, remaining alone according to the same things and in the same manner.’

From these citations, it is fitting for the intelligent hearer, first, to distinguish the empty words thrown into the discourse without thought from those that seem to have sense, and after this to examine whether the meaning found in the remaining statements agrees with piety concerning Christ.

Now the first of the passages cited is altogether devoid of any meaning, whether good or bad.

For what meaning does the phrase ‘not divided as to the essence, in which he is one, into several, nor becoming at one time one thing and at another another, nor changing from what he is’ possess? Neither could he himself say, nor do I think any of those who fight on his side could discover even a shadow of meaning in what has been said.

‘Not divided as to the essence, in which he is one.’

Does he mean that he is not divided from his own essence, or does he mean that the essence is not partitioned in his case? This meaningless statement is a mere noise and a vain sound, composed at random.

And why should one linger over the examination of these unintelligible words? For how could anyone, having been severed from his own essence, remain in being? Or how is the essence of anyone shown to be partitioned in itself? Or how is it possible for one who has stepped outside that in which he is to become another, having come to be outside himself? ‘But,’ he says, ‘neither is he split from one essence into three hypostases.’

‘For in every way and once for all he is one, remaining alone according to the same things and in the same manner.’

The unintelligibility, then, in what has been said is, I think, evident to everyone even before our own arguments.

Let anyone who supposes there is some sense or meaning in what has been said contradict this.

For one who has examined how to judge the force of an argument will disdain to entangle himself with things that have no substance.

For what force does it have against our doctrine to say that he is not divided or partitioned as to the essence, in which he is one, into several, nor becomes at one time one thing and at another another, nor is changed from what he is, nor is split from one essence into three hypostases — things which are neither said by Christians, nor believed, nor understood as a consequence of what is confessed among us? For who has ever said this, or heard anyone say it, in the Church of God — that the Father is either divided or partitioned as to essence, or becomes at one time one thing and another at another, coming to be outside himself, or is split into three hypostases? Eunomius speaks these things to himself, not contending against us, but spinning out his own idle babble, mixing much folly with the impiety of what is said.

For we say it is equally impious and atheistic both to call the Master of creation a creature, and to suppose that the Father, insofar as he is, is divided, or cut apart, or displaced from himself, or split into three hypostases, as though he were some clay or wax being molded into different shapes.

But let us examine the words that follow.

‘For in every way and once for all he is one, remaining alone according to the same things and in the same manner.’

If he says this concerning the Father, we too agree with this.

For the Father alone is truly one, and in every way, once for all, is in the same state and in the same manner, and never — being what he is — either not being, or not going to be.

If, then, such a statement looks to the Father, let it not fight against the doctrine of piety, since on this point it agrees with the Church.

For he who confesses that the Father, being one and alone, always exists in the same state and in the same manner, strengthens the doctrine of piety, seeing the Son in the Father, apart from whom the Father neither exists nor is so called.

Let him argue with the Jews, or with those called Hypsistarians, whose difference from Christians is this: that they confess there is some God, whom they call the Most High or the Almighty, but do not accept that he is Father.

But the Christian, if he does not believe in the Father, is not a Christian.

What he adds next to these things is this:

‘Having no partner in his deity,’ he says, ‘no sharer of his glory, no fellow-heir of his authority, no co-enthroned one of his kingdom.’

‘For he is the one and only God, the Almighty, God of gods, King of those who reign, Lord of those who rule.’

I do not know with whom in view Eunomius solemnly asserts that the Father does not share his deity with him.

For if he says such things with a view to the vain idols and the erring supposition of idolaters, as also Paul proclaims that there is no agreement of Christ with Belial, nor communion of the temple of God with idols, we too agree.

But if by these words he separates the only-begotten God from the paternal deity, let him learn that he thereby constructs against himself a two-horned charge of impiety.

For either he denies altogether that the only-begotten God is God, in order to preserve for the Father his non-communication in deity with respect to the Son, and by this he is convicted as a transgressor, having denied the God of the Christians; or, if he should grant that he too is God, but not agreeing in nature with the true God, then it is altogether necessary that he confess himself to be proclaiming gods, split apart from one another by a difference of natures.

Let him choose whichever of these he wishes — either to deny the deity of the Son, or to introduce gods into his doctrine.

For whichever of these he chooses, it amounts equally to impiety.

For we, being initiated by the God-inspired words of Scripture, see in the Father and the Son not a communion of deity, but a unity — the Master himself having taught this through his own words, in which he says, ‘I and the Father are one,’ and, ‘he who has seen me has seen the Father.’

For if he were not of the same nature, how could he have had in himself that which is alien to him, or how could he have exhibited in himself that which is unlike, since a nature that is foreign and alien does not admit the character of what is of a different kind? He also says that he has no sharer in his glory.

This he states as it in fact is, even though he does not know what he is saying.

For the Son does not divide the glory with the Father, but possesses the whole glory of the Father, just as the Father also possesses the whole glory of the Son.

For thus he said to the Father: ‘All that is mine is yours, and all that is yours is mine.’

Therefore he also says that at the time of judgment he will appear in the glory of the Father, when he is about to render to each according to his works.

By this statement he shows the union of nature.

For just as the glory of the sun is one thing and the glory of the moon another, because the nature of these elements does not agree with one another (for if the glory of both were the same, no difference of their nature would have been supposed), so he who foretold that he himself would appear in the glory of the Father showed, through the identity of glory, the communion of nature.

The statement that the Son is not co-enthroned in the kingdom with the Father bears ample witness to Eunomius’ study of the divine oracles — he who, out of his excessive attentiveness to the God-inspired Scriptures, has not yet heard that ‘you are to set your minds on the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of the Father,’ and that ‘he has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God,’ and many other such sayings, the number of which one could not easily enumerate.

Not yet having learned these things, Eunomius forbids the Son to be co-enthroned with the Father.