Yet even if he has falsely spoken against all other things—for one sun illumines us, but more are the luminaries, and most numerous the stars—at least concerning himself he has not lied; for being one, he is not 'one' in his discourses, but another and contrary to himself.
For he who here contends that God is not one 'by subsistence'—hear what he says above: 'Those things which, to other essences, are said of them in respect of themselves (per se), these, said of God, belong to him as the things around him (peri auton); for it is not possible for them both to be and not to be. If, then, someone should ask you,' he says, 'are these things which you say to be around God non-subsistent, or do they partake of some subsistence?'
1:1732
καίεἰτοῦτο, οὐσίαιεἰσίν ( σελ
「並且若是後者,它們便是本質了(頁……)
'And if this (latter), they are essences (p. ...)
1:1733
πῶςἐκφεύξῃτόκαίμήοὐσίανθείανἀποδεικτήνλέγειν;
)那麼你又怎能逃避『有一個可論證的神聖本質』之說呢?
) how will you escape saying that a demonstrable divine essence also (exists)?
'Since everything is either an essence or an accident, and the things around God are not accidents, therefore they are essences of God; if, then, someone should say that he knows any of these, then he says that the essence of God too is knowable and demonstrable.'
So he who says that God is nothing 'by subsistence,' now in turn says that he is all this 'by subsistence,' forcibly thrusting us toward this, as he thinks, by the all-comprehensive (force) of the division.
Now it was possible to show that not even all beings are comprehended by this division; but even if (they) are comprehended, not even thus is it necessary that 'that which is above being' be comprehended by the division of beings; for God, according to the great Dionysius, is the establisher of these things, but he himself is not constituted by them, nor do the things around God contribute anything to God's being, nor is his nature knowable, so as to have an essential difference, as Basil the Great also says.
For being in the proper sense, and pre-existent, and alone existent, and simply and unitarily existent, he needs no difference in order to be; for those many that are after him need distinction. The things around God, then, are not essences of God, but he himself is the essence of the things around him.
In so far as he himself is essence, he is ineffable and inconceivable; but in so far as he is the essence of beings, and the life of the living, and the wisdom of the wise, and simply the 'beingness' (so to speak) of all that partake of being and of well-being, and a beauty-making power, he is both conceived and spoken and demonstrated—even if not in so far as he is.
And if the things around God partake of some subsistence, it is not as essences, nor as non-subsistent (as you decree), but as being energies of God; and if anyone should call them the effects of the energies, of these too some are essences—yet by no means divine ones.
) But—that I may pass over the multitude of the 'divine essences' so called by him, lest I too fall into a multitude of words—if the things said to be around God are essences of God, but creatures too are said to be 'around God,' as one may find in many places of sacred Scripture, then according to him the essence of God will be created.
And indeed, 'the wise' and 'the good' and 'light' and 'life' and nearly all the things said about him, brought forward by way of names—how could they be essence, since the names, if one examine, are not even in our own case indicative of essences, but of energies?
How, then, could anyone say the names to be essence in the case of God, seeing that not even a word could be found significative of that supra-essentiality?
Since, then, all things are 'around' that thearchic supra-essentiality, and the things around it are, according to you, 'divine essences,' therefore all things, according to you, are 'divine essences.'
Again, since not only the affirmations but also the negations are among the things 'around God,' these too will be 'divine essences' according to you—although they are by nature not such as to signify what (he) is, but what (he) is not.
But if these are not (essences), although they fit God more than the affirmations of the things around God do, how then could the affirmations be 'divine essences'?
But of the things said to be 'around God'—life and essence and power—God is in fact transcendently removed even from all these, and is said, by way of transcendence, 'not to be' these; and the 'not being' of these is more God-befitting and truer than the 'being' of these. Therefore the things around God are not to God what, to other essences, the 'per se' things are.
And not only are contradictorily-opposed things said at once of God, but even contraries; for 'light' is said to be put on 'as a garment,' and he is said to 'dwell in unapproachable light,' yet also 'he made darkness his hiding-place' and 'thick gloom under his feet'; but to other essences it is not possible for contraries to belong 'in respect of themselves' (per se). Therefore it is among the impossibilities that the things around God be to him what the 'per se' things are to others.
Again, of the things around God, some are said 'more' and some 'less,' both in the case of affirmations—for 'life' (is said) more than 'breeze'—and in the case of negations, though inversely—for 'not breeze' (is said) more than 'not life'; and all the negations befit God more than all the affirmations.
But of the 'per se' things belonging to other essences, none belongs to them 'more' and 'less'; for man is not 'more' an animal than rational; since neither is one essence 'more' an essence than another, nor is one essential (predicate) 'more' so than another.
And indeed, 'the per se' being said in four ways, in no way could the things around God be 'per se' (to him); for the Divine is not on account of them, since it is causeless; nor are these (contained) in the account (logos) of 'what God is,' since it is not even permitted at all to inquire 'what God is'; nor again could the Divine be taken in the account of them, since the Divine is above conception.
And since Gregory, the one named after theology, says that we know God not from the things 'according to him' (per se) but from the things 'around him,' it will follow, according to the philosopher's argument, that we know God in the same way as we know other essences; for we know them (other essences) from the things belonging to them 'per se,' and these (per se things), in God's case, are what is said to be 'around him,' from which we know him.
Again, if God knows himself in so far as he is, and the things around God are to him what, to other essences, the 'per se' is, and we know him from the things around him in so far as he is, then we too know him as he himself knows himself. Thus the philosopher, contending to shut us up into speechlessness, away from the supra-established, ungraspable, and unutterable thearchic supra-essentiality of all, has unawares ranked it together with these lower essences.
But if something in this (lower realm) is useful to us, that is no wonder; for from serpents too there is some useful medicine for us—but for those who take them up, dissect, compound, and use them with reason, against the bites of those very creatures.
Now against Plato and the demonstration according to him, Aristotle will suffice us; for he says: 'If the universal is prior to the many, as Plato said, then there will no longer be demonstration (p. ...)
) for it is not possible for that which subsists in a unitary manner, and that prior to all the rest, to be predicated of the many; and without something being predicated, there is no demonstration; nor, again, will there be a middle term, for it would be subordinated to that which is prior to the rest, but this is impossible; and without a middle term there will be no demonstration.'
Against Plato, then, let us set the teachings of that man (Aristotle), willingly opposed; but against Aristotle, his own (teachings)—that is, this philosopher (Barlaam) himself, even if unwillingly so.
But first let us see how he thinks to demonstrate that our arguments concerning divine things are in no way demonstration; and first the first (argument), as the strongest of the rest and put forward as it were unshakable and invincible, recklessly, and with vehement rush, having as it were a whizzing din that re-echoes its reproach: 'What is for the geometers a principle and an axiom, this,' he says, 'is for us the declarations of the Fathers; therefore one must take none (of them) from a syllogism, just as neither do the geometers (take) the principles of their own discipline; and he who does this is unlearned and uneducated.'
But since we hold the declarations of the Fathers as geometrical principles—even according to you—then that which is gathered from these is demonstration for us, just as that which is gathered from geometrical principles is (demonstration) for the geometers.
But the syllogism which is not made from these principles is not theological, just as neither is that geometrical which is not from geometrical principles.
Therefore a theological syllogism is never dialectical, just as neither (is it ever) geometrical; do you see how, unawares, you have become an advocate for us?
For apart from these (theological principles), nothing concerning God is judged worthy of credence by the fullness of the Church, and one must enter into it (the Church/knowledge) through the courtyard, that is, through Scripture; from like (principles), therefore, we shall show these also to be trustworthy—and fittingly so even to the gainsaying heretics themselves: that whereas he who inquires about geometrical principles distrusts the geometers, those who inquire about theological ones—and especially those against whom is our argument—say indeed that they believe the attested theologians, yet are in doubt about certain of the things said by them; if, then, from the things plainly set forth by them and agreed upon by these (our opponents), we consequently gather the thing sought, we have resolved the dispute, and on this account the principles of theology too are shown theologically—unless indeed our argument should be against Greeks (pagans).
And in their case too, having briefly set forth, in a manner suited to them, the probable arguments, we shall then set forth the necessities of the miracles, from which whatever should be concluded will have been demonstrated theologically.
The things, then, which you persist in showing syllogistically concerning divine things—if (they are) from theological principles, then what is shown is demonstration, for, even according to you, it has been shown from demonstrative principles; but if not from the things said by the Fathers, it will from no quarter have credibility.
So that not only do you not show (it) demonstratively, but not even dialectically; sophistically, then, if (you show it) at all syllogistically; thus have you contended against your very self.
The things, then, which from here on you boast of, exalting yourself with grandiloquence as holding the supremacy in argument, I think I will pass over.
For just as above you unawares suffered (to assert) the opposite of your own thesis, so too here, wishing to show yourself both most demonstrative and most theological, you appeared as one of those uninitiated in such matters; for the conversion (of premises)—which, of necessity, most of the premises of theological syllogisms have, in some cases by terms being equal on account of the most singular (nature) of the subject; and again, of the causes in demonstrations, as many as (are) simultaneous, even if in another manner—you were shown to be wholly ignorant of; and that the lesser of the postulates are not 'lesser' whenever they are not also lesser in power; and that the demonstration from fewer postulates does not simply carry off the 'better,' but better than it is the one from more, whenever it has the more knowable premises.
These things, then, and as many as (lie) between these—matters in which, in no laughing matters, you play against your own self—I will pass over; for they would, I think, steal away no one's hearing, and even if they should steal it away, it is no concern of mine.
1:1782
Διὅδετίδόξειαςἄνλέγειν;
再者,你究竟是為著什麼緣故,似乎在說(這話)呢?
And on account of what would you seem to be saying (this)?
'The demonstrative (syllogism) shows through a middle term, and this a cause; but it is very faulty to think anything to be the cause on account of which the Spirit is from the Father alone'; how, then, would you posit the 'being by nature from him' as a cause?
This argument, then, shows not only the demonstration, but also your (syllogisms), O philosopher, and simply all syllogisms concerning God, both those now existing and those to be, to be non-syllogistic and faulty; for without a middle term—and this the cause of the conclusion—there is no safe syllogism; and if the middle term has 'middle' as a fitting name (i.e. is truly a cause/mean), then, according to you, it will be very faulty concerning the Divine.
But I ask you, the only safe God-speaker (as you claim to be): we too are from God (for, it says, 'all things are from God'); the Only-begotten too is from God; we too are 'sons of God' (for it says, 'I said, you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High'); the Only-begotten too is 'Son of God'; but we are from (p. ...)
) God and sons of God the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit—for in these three the Most High has been made known to us; and therefore we are from these (three), but the Son is from the Father alone; is there, then, some cause on account of which we are from the tri-hypostatic Deity, but the Son is from the Father alone?
If there is none, then we too, henceforth, are 'from God' without cause; but if (it is) on account of a cause—the divine goodness, on account of which is the creation and the grace among the creatures; and these are common to Father, Son, and Spirit—for both being and well-being is to all 'from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit'; if, then, by the grace of God we are 'from God,' then that which is not according to grace, but is 'from God' (in another way)—how (is it) otherwise than 'by nature'?
And this 'by nature' shows nothing else than that the Father alone is the cause of those things timelessly brought forth from him; how, then, is it 'faulty' to say this?
But even if someone should call this 'by nature' a cause, neither is this faulty; for, being conjoined to the Father, it shows him to be the cause, and (conjoined) to the Son and the Holy Spirit, (it shows) these themselves to be caused; for instance, why is the Father properly 'Father' of the Son?
It is not faulty, then, to say that here the cause is that which signifies the intimate-relation, while the mode of existence is guarded as ineffable—just as the great Basil also writes to the divine Serapion, explaining to him how the Holy Spirit is said to be 'from God'; thus, to those who speak about the Spirit in the Spirit, he accurately confesses our (teachings).
) (you say that) the God-seers among the Fathers (do not even attain) to encounter (it); rising up shamelessly against both these (Fathers) and that one (Dionysius) like a false witness, and warring against us through those (Fathers)—or rather, to speak more truly, along with them; for the great Dionysius himself says that fire and air and water and earth have 'manifest types of the thearchic propriety,' and the greater than these great ones, Paul, says that 'the invisible things of God, since the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made—both his eternal power and divinity.'
But if this (creation) does not possess some character from that source (God), how could those things (the invisible things of God) be seen by means of the things made?
And so the very inanimate things among the creatures have manifest types of God; but do those among them having a rational, intellectual soul—those who, in contemplation, have outstripped all their fellow-natured beings—not have even a shadow of a shadow of God?
And the Law had a 'shadow of the good things to come'; but when grace appeared and the truth came, is the vision of God belonging to those who have been approved according to it not even 'a shadow of a shadow'?
And the Apostle says to all in common: 'Do you not recognize that Christ dwells in you—unless indeed you are disqualified?'—but you say that those who have ascended above in contemplation do not even encounter a shadow of a shadow?
And the Spirit of God cries in the hearts of those counted worthy through purity, 'Abba, Father'; but you do not grant this recognition and indwelling and intimate-relation to be even so much as a shadow of a shadow?
...(such things you assert), heaping up impieties even against the manifest grace and indwelling of God in the saints, and against the witness of Scripture and the Fathers.
Such and so many things, and even more than these, does the truth of the oracles declare; and do you suppose that those who have transcended even the noetic activities and have been united to the all-radiant rays possess not even a shadow of a shadow of God? Yet can that which possesses not even a shadow of God's shadow be divine?
For it could not even exist among beings at all; for there is no being whatsoever that is utterly deprived of participation in the Good. And how could that which possesses not even a shadow of a shadow not be utterly deprived of the Good?
He who craves the basest life, full of passionate impulse and of thoughtless, materialistic affection—even he, according to the very man slandered by your philosophy, partakes of the Good as a faint echo; whereas those who have not merely desired the best way of life but have been blessed in it, and who have ascended to dispassionate contemplation through a total straining toward the truly Good—do these possess not even a shadow of a shadow of the Good?
Every man is according to the image of God, and perhaps also according to the likeness; but do those who, by clinging to God throughout life with immaterial, purified, and unceasing prayer, and through their unswerving ascent toward God, have already been transformed into angelic dignity—do they possess not even a shadow of a shadow of God?
Rightly therefore did John in the Apocalypse reveal to us that no one can know the things written on the white stone except the one who receives it. For not only can such a man not know it, but unless he lends a believing ear, he does not even think it exists at all, reckoning the truly real contemplation to be blindness—not as something above sense and knowledge, like a kind of sacred darkness, but as in no way and nowhere existing.
For since they—following a tradition handed down from the fathers—told him that beginners must, by certain devices, force the mind back into itself (since it is hard to detach from outward things) so as to turn it from its habitual ways and thus to look toward themselves even with respect to the outer man, he for this very reason set himself against those who teach this.
And Elijah himself, most perfect in the vision of God, having rested his head upon his knees and thus more diligently gathered his mind into himself and into God, dissolved that manifold drought.
But since to this noble man—who in mind underwent the trembling of Cain—our people also counselled to restrain the breath a little, so that he might check his thought even for a brief moment, and not to dart the eye here and there, but to fix it as upon a kind of support, his own breast or navel, and thus through such a bodily posture to send the power of the mind, which is poured outward through sight, back into the heart (for, as one of the great ones in these matters says, after the transgression the inner man is wont to be conformed to the outer postures)—since they laid down these things for him, after a very little while he grew restive, and not only did he desert his post, but he even became a bitter accuser of them before the council, calling them "navel-souls" (omphalopsychoi).
Perhaps too he would call him who said to God, "My belly shall sound like a harp, and my inward parts like a brazen wall which you have renewed" (Isa 16:11), and him who said that "the law of God is in the midst of my belly" (Ps 39:9 LXX), "belly-souls" or "belly-legislators"; and to the one who writes "Let the remembrance of God cleave to your breath" he would attach a like appellation. And he will slander all who through bodily symbols both figure, name, and trace out things noetic, divine, and spiritual.
But by this he will do them no harm at all, while he himself will remain outside the sacred veils and will not be able even to gaze upon the shadows of the truth.
And you will not be at all vexed to hear these things from us; for we make you nearer to God than you make those who are united to God. For we cast you out from the shadows, but you cast them out even from the shadow of the shadows.
1:1816
Ἀλλάνῦν, φησίν, ἐνἐσόπτρῳβλέπομενὁμέγαςΠαῦλόςφησι
他卻說:「但如今我們對著鏡子觀看」,正如偉大的保羅所說(林前十三12)。
"But now," he says, "we see in a mirror," as the great Paul says.
And when someone makes himself a pure mirror of God, and perchance has God propitious within himself and converses with Him noetically, beholding supernaturally light above light in light, the eye that in no way circumscribes the Beholder—how could he then possess not even a shadow of God's shadow?
When the mirror is also a mind—and a mind purified and unstained, an immaterial nature, a light akin (if one may say so) to the highest and first Light—how, being illumined by that first Light itself, would it not appear by participation to be that which the archetype is by causality?
How would it not show forth through itself the loveliness of that hidden beauty, even as the prophet says, "Let the splendor of our God be upon us" (Ps 89:17 LXX)?
A certain other of the true theologians, in muzzling the audacious theologians, calls "shadow" the knowledge of God that appears to the world, and says that those who philosophize among visible things possess the shadow of this shadow, since they do not even have an exact comprehension of creation.
But this man, who is not spiritual yet judges the spiritual, not knowing that the vision of God differs from theology—and most especially from the theology derived from visible things—transferred from the former to the latter that twofold remove of the shadow; or rather, he does not even grant this to the beholders of invisible things. Having by these words shown them to be unhonored, he says that the outward sages have no way of not deeming them admirable, since (as he himself says of them) they have nobly perceived the divine transcendence and insist that, concerning things above us, the vision must come from above and a noetic light must shine forth, through which it is possible to be conjoined with divine things and to possess the simple contemplations in a manner superior to demonstration.
But that what is called by them "light" is a deep and dreadful darkness, and that the vision "from above" is plainly from below and demonic, has been clearly demonstrated against him in the previous discourse; and the prayer which he offers to God—this too we brought into the open and showed to be a godless opinion. It will perhaps be no worse here too to say something briefly about it, in agreement and concord with those former points.
Now David said, "Let the gods who did not make heaven and earth perish" (cf. Jer 10:11); but I would add, saying, that there would perish together with these gods also that "transcendence of God" which is neither prior to the formless matter (as they hold), nor brought forth beings from non-being, nor incomparably surpasses whatever in any way appears among us, nor exercises providence here and over us.
And Pythagoras, in those worthless verses—worthless rather than golden—says that the Divine is everlastingly such as a man might at times become when at leisure: in this way he conceived of the transcendence of God.
And even if they had perceived the transcendence, not even so would they have been enlightened; for they did not glorify as God Him whom they conceived as God—if indeed they conceived Him at all. For the demons too know Christ to be the Most High God, as the spirit of Python said concerning Silas and Paul, "These are servants of the Most High God" (Acts 16:17); yet we shall not on that account call the demons enlightened by God, though there is nothing higher than the Most High, nor anything equal.
As for that "above demonstration" which the wise among the Greeks and this man who follows them suppose to be something great: the things by nature intelligible all, and many even of the things not intelligible by nature but produced by us and by our reasoning, transcend it, as we have also shown before. And if their "demonstration" of things in no way and nowhere existing be refuted, then this "above demonstration" too, having altogether donned the cap of Hades, will be gone.
And indeed, that nothing comes to be from what in no way and nowhere exists is a notion common to all, as Aristotle held; and that the material cause always preexists the formal, and very many other such things hold in this manner. But to us it does not so seem; rather, we hold the wholly contrary opinion about them, both the wise and the unlearned: that all things were brought into being from non-being by God, but that the light of the stars, which is their form, preexisted.
If, then, the things not agreed upon by all are also not knowable by nature, and nothing is agreed upon by all—according both to you and to them—then nothing is knowable by nature; and if the things knowable by nature fail you, demonstration too will utterly fail along with them. For you yourself, in your writings addressed to us, declare that every demonstrative principle and premise must be knowable by nature.
Nothing is found that is at once agreed upon and not contested by all; but there are certain skeptics who contradict even what is held in common by all.
And indeed, that nothing comes to be from what in no way and nowhere exists is a notion common to all, as Aristotle held; and that the material cause always preexists the formal, and very many other such things hold in this manner. But to us it does not so seem; rather, we hold the wholly contrary opinion about them, both the wise and the unlearned: that all things were brought into being from non-being by God, but that the light of the stars, which is their form, preexisted.
If, then, the things not agreed upon by all are also not knowable by nature, and nothing is agreed upon by all—according both to you and to them—then nothing is knowable by nature; and if the things knowable by nature fail you, demonstration too will utterly fail along with them. For you yourself, in your writings addressed to us, declare that every demonstrative principle and premise must be knowable by nature.
Further, the premises must possess necessity, since, according to Aristotle, demonstration in the strict sense bears upon things necessary and eternal—that is, things that always are—from which indeed they draw their demonstrations; for such are things truly necessary. And the ever-existent is without beginning (p. ...)
There is therefore no demonstration concerning anything, since Aristotle too says verbatim, "Of perishable things there is no demonstration," and "the conclusion of a demonstration must be imperishable and eternal."
If, then, knowledge is superior to demonstration—for the knowledge of first principles is indeed superior—yet this very knowledge is fallible, how is demonstration not fallible?
1:1851
Μᾶλλονδέπῶςἀπόδειξιςἥνὑμεῖςἀπόδειξίνφατε;
或更該問:你所謂的「論證」,又怎稱得上論證呢?
Or rather, how is that a demonstration which you call demonstration?
For if, according to Aristotle, demonstration is a firm supposition, but it is impossible to attain this firmness, then demonstration according to Aristotle is not among the things that are.