Against Eunomius 1.4–1.9

[4] First he sets out a faith composed of simple and undefined terms, which some of the Fathers too used, not aiming at questions under debate, but simply conversing among themselves in simplicity of heart. Even if Arius too, as they say, put it forward to Alexander with sophistical intent (for this too is said), he nevertheless puts it forward as agreeing with his own opinion, for two reasons: first, to escape the suspicion of innovation by accepting the faith of the Fathers as correct; second, so that all who trusted in the simplicity of these words might fall unawares into the snares of his sophisms. At the same time he also saw that he would be able to slip in his own opinion with a good face, as one supposedly explaining the teaching of the Fathers, and so above all escape notice as impious, or, if he were caught, be thought blameless, as saying nothing of his own or from himself, but only having become the interpreter of another's thought. In this he fell into something most ridiculous without noticing it. For after praising it greatly and at length, a little further down he heaps the most shameful reproaches on it again. But to make what I mean clearer, I will divide his discourse into parts and examine it. First let us learn the faith he puts forward, setting out his very words.

EUNOMIUS: "Setting forth beforehand the pious tradition that has prevailed from of old from the Fathers as a kind of gnomon and rule, let us use it as an exact criterion for judging what is said." …

EUNOMIUS: "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, from whom are all things; and in one only-begotten Son of God, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things; and in one Holy Spirit, the Paraclete."

BASIL: Then he immediately adds:

EUNOMIUS: "This, then, to speak summarily and in passing, is the simpler faith, common to all who care to seem or to be Christians."

BASIL: About the contradiction in what he has said and the shameless conflict of his statements with one another we will speak a little later. But this … who in his earlier words so pompously promised us [the bare] truth … Here, then, it ought to have been written: "We believe that ingeneracy is the essence of the God of the universe," or, "We believe that the Only-Begotten is unlike the Father in essence." He would have written this if, as he promised, he had not shrouded his own mind in any deceitful curtain. But, I think, since he uses his words treacherously in everything, he keeps silent about his own views, lest by assailing untrained ears he make himself unconvincing and hard to accept …; and he puts forward the faith of the Fathers, which, because of the neutrality of its words, would raise no objection to the whole construction of his discourse, and would easily follow him as he steered the argument, in the form of an explanation, toward what he had chosen. That this is true is plain at once. For having set it out, he immediately leaps to its explanation, using as a pretext, among other things, that it is not sufficient for refuting the charge. Why then did you put it forward, instead of coming at once to those arguments that were exact and would deliver you from the charges? As it is, he puts it forward as a safe criterion, and then corrects it again as having nothing sound in it. And this is known to everyone: as on a hook that drags to death, he [wraps] the simplicity of the faith around his own opinion like a bait, so that the simpler … may unguardedly [fall] into the evil of impiety. And so that he might not seem to undertake the correction of the faith without necessity, the very faith he extolled with excessive praise, look how, as if he had forgotten his own words, he [disparages] it:

EUNOMIUS: "This, then, to speak summarily and in passing, is the simpler faith, common to all who care to seem or to be Christians."

BASIL: Tell me: is the pious tradition of the Fathers, the rule, as you yourself named it, the gnomon and the safe criterion, now to be called an instrument of deceit, an art of pretense, and the like? For if it fits not those who are truly Christians but those who have valued seeming above being, what else ought one to suppose about it but this? Who, unless completely out of his mind, would say that the rule of what is straight [fits] those whose souls are twisted, and the gnomon of truth the enemies of the truth? For those who have valued being called Christians above truly being so, and who put on this pretense to deceive the many, are far from all straightness and truth. So neither will what is crooked be made straight, as the word of Ecclesiastes says, nor will the criteria of truth fit those who have chosen falsehood in their way of life …

[5] But for the reasons I mentioned, he was carried into such obvious contradictions, so that by praising the faith he might seem to share the piety of the Fathers, and by finding fault with it again he might open for himself the road to his explanation. That is why he calls the same thing a rule and also says that it needs a more exact addition. Let this too be a sign of the utmost ignorance, if anyone cares to look into this as well. For a rule, most wise sir, and a gnomon, so long as they lack nothing of being a rule and a gnomon, admit no addition for the sake of exactness, since addition is made for what is lacking. And if they are incomplete, they would no longer rightly bear these names. So much for this. Now let us also examine the arguments he sets out about God.

EUNOMIUS: "There is, then," he says, "one God, acknowledged by us both according to natural notions and according to the teaching of the Fathers, who came to be neither from himself nor from another. For each of these is equally impossible … must exist before, and what is made must be second to its maker. Nor can a thing be prior or posterior to itself, nor can anything else be prior to God; for then that thing would have had the dignity of divinity before the second."

BASIL: Why, then, have I quoted this whole passage of his? So that the idle chatter the man uses throughout his treatise might become plain. For though he himself said that it is evident to the common notions of all that God is unbegotten, he tries to bring us proofs of it. He does much the same as someone who at high noon wished to teach people with healthy eyes, by argument, that the sun is the brightest of the stars in heaven. If one who shows by argument what is known to the senses is ridiculous, how is one who teaches what is agreed in our common preconceptions not guilty of the same folly? For surely, to sensible people, these are far more trustworthy than what appears to the sight. If, then, there were someone shamelessly opposing this truth and contending that the unbegotten had been begotten either from himself or from another, the vanity of what he says might perhaps have some excuse. But if to this day no one, either of those outside our teaching or of those from the church itself who have risen against the truth, [has raised a dispute] about the ingeneracy of the unbegotten, I do not see what gain there is in these arguments. Did we really need the syllogisms of Aristotle and Chrysippus to learn that the unbegotten was not begotten, neither by himself nor by another, and that he is neither older nor younger than himself? What, then, does he mean by these things? He seems to me, on the one hand, to be preening himself on his reasoning, as a shrewd man of surpassing intellect, quick to suspect an absurdity and quicker still to dissolve what he has detected, and for this reason to take pride in the twists of his arguments and to labor subtly over the proof that the unbegotten was begotten neither by himself nor by another. On the other hand, not even here does he forget his craft, but in his discussion of what is agreed he slips in for himself something like elements for the arguments that follow. For it is not idly that he holds that, in truth, what makes … so that in the arguments about the Son he may have it agreed in advance that the Son came into being after the Father, if indeed what makes is older than what comes to be; and that he may take it as a consequence of this that the Son was begotten from things that are not. But let the refutation of his impiety against the Son wait for its proper place. For my part, I would say that even the name "unbegotten," however much it may seem to agree with our notions, nevertheless deserves rightly to be passed over in silence, since it occurs nowhere in Scripture and is the first element of their blasphemy. The word "Father" has the same force as "unbegotten," and besides, through the relation, it brings in along with itself the notion of the Son. For he who is truly Father, and he alone, is from no other; and "from no one" is the same as "unbegotten." We should not, then, call him "unbegotten" rather than "Father," unless we mean to be wiser than the teachings of the Savior, who said, "Go, baptize in the name of the Father," not "of the unbegotten." So much for this. Let us examine what follows in his discourse. For a little further on, as if summing up for himself what he has said, he writes thus:

EUNOMIUS: "If, then, it has been shown that neither he himself nor anything else exists before him, but that he is before all things, the unbegotten follows upon this; or rather, it is itself unbegotten essence."

BASIL: The [knavery] we have caught here is, I think, very easy to see for anyone who pays even a little attention, but not easy to make plain to the many. Still, we must try, setting our hope on him who gives a word to those who proclaim good news with great power. Having said that if neither he himself nor anything else exists before him, the unbegotten follows upon him, he then saw that, by the logic of his premises, his argument had turned around against him (for if the unbegotten follows upon God, it clearly accompanies him from outside; and what is outside God is not his essence; and so his clumsy contrivance would melt away and be gone). To avoid this, what does he do? Caring little for the laughter he was going to incur for saying inconsistent things, he led his argument by a correction where he wanted it to go, saying, "or rather, it is itself unbegotten essence." This has no agreement with what precedes. For how could God, upon whom the unbegotten follows, … be contained in [one and the same] statement? Even so, he does not let his sophism be completely destroyed. For if, after saying that the unbegotten follows upon him, he had stopped his argument there, he would have had no way either to call ingeneracy the essence of the God of the universe or to show that the only-begotten Son is alien in his very essence, since nothing that follows from outside can break up the kinship of Father and Son in their very essence. But now, by adding, "or rather, it is itself unbegotten essence," he has indicated that the very thing that God is, is ingeneracy. How great a running start this gives him toward his attempt at impiety I will show when the argument has gone a little further. So then, what he said at first came to light from the truth of the matter, following from the premises; what he added at the end was tossed in from his heretical mind, the speechwriter leaping most shamelessly of all to correct his argument. For how can the same thing both follow upon God and be identical with him, when it is obvious to all that what follows is other than that of which it is the consequence? But he, as if he had found a road in the statement he had snatched by sleight of hand, proceeds from there to establish that ingeneracy is the essence of the God of the universe, so that, once this is shown, he may have it agreed that the Only-Begotten is unlike the Father in essence. Look at what he says:

EUNOMIUS: "When we say 'unbegotten,' we do not think we ought to honor him in name only, by human conceptualization, but to pay him the most necessary debt of all, the confession that he is what he is. For things said by conceptualization, having their existence in names and utterance only, naturally dissolve together with the sounds."

BASIL: He denies that "unbegotten" is contemplated in God by conceptualization, thinking that from this his attempt to prove that ingeneracy is the essence of God would be easy, and that from this he would show beyond contradiction that the only-begotten Son is unlike the Father in his very essence. That is why he attacks the word "conceptualization," as if it signified nothing at all but had its existence in utterance alone, and he pretends that it is unworthy of God to honor him with conceptualizations. For my part, whether or not "unbegotten" is contemplated by conceptualization I do not yet affirm, until we are taught by the examination of the argument itself.

[6] But this very thing, what conceptualization is, I would gladly ask him. Does this name signify nothing at all, and is it merely a noise falling from the tongue? But such a thing would be called not conceptualization but derangement and nonsense. If he grants that conceptualization signifies something, but that this is entirely false and nonexistent, like the fabrications of centaurs and chimeras in myths, how does the false thing signified vanish along with the noise of the tongue, when the sound is poured out into the air but the false notions remain in the mind? For when the soul has been filled with entirely false and empty images, whether in dreams or otherwise in the idle motions of the mind, and keeps them in memory and then chooses to report them aloud, the images do not vanish together with the spoken word. It would be worth a great deal to tell lies, if the nature of falsehood perished along with what is spoken; but this is not its nature. It remains to show how ordinary usage employs conceptualization and for what sort of things, and how the divine oracles have received its use. We see, then, that in common usage things that seem simple and single to the mind's comprehensive glance, but on detailed examination appear complex and are divided by the mind into many, are said to be divisible by conceptualization alone. For example, the first encounter says that a body is simple, but reason, going over it, shows it to be complex, resolving it by conceptualization into the things of which it is composed: color, shape, solidity, size, and the rest. Again, things that have no subsistence at all, but are only imprinted in the mind by a kind of mental picturing and imagination, such as the marvels that mythmakers and painters contrive to astonish those who meet them, are also said in common usage to be contemplated by conceptualization. Mentioning none of these, this man, whether from ignorance or from malice, has philosophized to us only about the conceptualization of things that do not exist, and not even this does he explain as it really is. For he does not say that conceptualization signifies something, though something false, but that the name is wholly without meaning and has its existence in the mere uttering. Yet the name "conceptualization" is so far from being applied only to vain and unsubstantial imaginings that, after the first notion arising in us from sense perception, the subtler and more exact reflection on what has been thought is called conceptualization; hence ordinary usage calls it "reckoning," though not properly. For example, a simple notion of grain is present in everyone, by which we recognize it when it appears; but in a precise examination of it the consideration of more aspects comes in, together with different designations that signify what has been thought. For the same grain we call now "fruit," now "seed," and again "food": fruit, as the end of the farming that is past; seed, as the beginning of the farming to come; food, as suited for growth to the body of the one who takes it. Each of these designations is contemplated by conceptualization, and it does not pass away with the noise of the tongue; rather, the notions are settled in the soul of the one who has thought them. In short, all things known by sense that seem simple in their substrate but admit a complex account when considered are said to be contemplated by conceptualization.

[7] We have been taught a use of conceptualization close to this kind by the divine word also. I will pass over the other examples, though I could mention many, and recall only the most pertinent. Our Lord Jesus Christ, in his words about himself, making known the love of the Godhead for humanity and the grace that comes to human beings from the economy, indicated it by certain distinctive features contemplated in him, calling himself door, and way, and bread, and vine, and shepherd, and light, though he is not a thing of many synonymous names; for not all the names carry the same meaning as one another. What "light" signifies is one thing, what "vine" signifies another, "way" another, "shepherd" another. But being one in substrate, one essence, simple and uncompounded, he names himself now in one way and now in another, fitting to his conceptualizations designations that differ from one another. For according to the difference of his activities and his relation to those who receive his benefits, he gives himself different names. He calls himself light of the world, signifying by this name both the inaccessibility of the glory in his Godhead, and that he illumines with the brightness of knowledge those who have purified the eye of the soul; vine, because he nourishes those rooted in him by faith to bear the fruit of good works; bread, because he is the most proper food of the rational creature, sustaining the constitution of the soul and preserving its distinctive character, always filling up from himself what is lacking and not letting it sink into the weakness that comes from irrationality. And so, if one goes through each of the names, one will find various conceptualizations of what is in essence one substrate for them all. Who, then, has so sharpened his tongue for blasphemy as to dare to say that these conceptualizations dissolve with the sounds? What is absurd, then, in taking some things in the God of the universe too according to conceptualization, and this very thing first of all, about which our whole discussion has been set in motion? For we shall find that "unbegotten" is said in no other way. We say that the God of the universe is incorruptible and unbegotten, addressing him by these names according to different ways of directing the mind. When we [direct our view] to the ages behind … the life of God, we call him unbegotten; when we stretch our mind forward to the ages to come, we call him incorruptible, the one who is unbounded and infinite and grasped by no end. As, then, the endlessness of his life was named incorruptible, so its being without beginning was named unbegotten, since we contemplate each of these by conceptualization. What argument, then, will deny both that each of these names is conceived by conceptualization and that it is a confession of what truly belongs to God? But he sets these apart from each other as conflicting and wholly incompatible: that something is said by conceptualization, and that it renders to God the confession that he is what he is.

[8] Let us not pass over this either: what sort of … show of reverence he has devised for the ruin of his hearers, when he says:

EUNOMIUS: "Not to honor God by human conceptualization with the name 'unbegotten,' but to pay him the most necessary debt of all, in the confession that he is what he is."

BASIL: What words could do justice to the crookedness of these tricks? He tries to frighten the simpler people, as if they were not paying God what is owed unless they confess that "unbegotten" is essence; and he calls his own impiety the payment of a debt, so that he may seem to say nothing of his own, but to be fulfilling what is necessarily owed to God. And he indicates to the rest that if they place "unbegotten" in the essence they will be let go without being called to account, but that if they understand it otherwise, in the pious way, they will receive inexorable wrath, as though the payment fell short. I would gladly ask him, then, whether he keeps this scrupulousness equally in all that is said of God, or only for this one word. For if he contemplates nothing at all by conceptualization, lest he seem to honor God with human [conceptualizations], he will confess that everything said of God is equally essence. How then is it not ridiculous to say that "creative" is essence, or again that "provident" is essence, or "foreknowing" likewise, and in short to make every activity essence? And if all these tend toward one meaning, the names must all have the same force as one another, as with things that have several names, when we call the same man Simon and Peter and Cephas. So the one who hears that God is unchangeable will be led to "unbegotten," and the one who hears that he is without parts will be carried off to "creative." What could be more absurd than this confusion: to take away from each of the names its proper meaning, and to legislate against both common usage and the teaching of the Spirit? Yet when we hear of God that he made all things in wisdom, we are taught his creative art; when we hear that he opens his hand and fills every living thing with good pleasure, we learn the providence that reaches through all things; when we hear that he made darkness his hiding place, we are instructed in the invisibility of his nature. Again, from the words spoken in the person of God, "I am, and I have not changed," we learn the ever-sameness and immutability of the divine essence. How is it not plain madness to say that no proper meaning underlies each of the names, but that, against their force, all the names are to be defined as meaning the same thing? Then, even if we grant this, they will gain nothing more toward their aim. For if all these, when taken of God the Father, signify his essence (I mean "unchangeable," "invisible," "incorruptible"), they will clearly in the same way indicate essence in the case of the only-begotten Son of God as well. For we also name the only-begotten Son invisible, unchangeable, incorruptible, without parts, and everything of the kind. And so their cleverness will turn around to the opposite. For they will not be more able to prove him unlike in essence because of a difference in one designation than they will be forced, by the very necessity of their premises, to confess him like because of the sharing in many. But if he should say that he uses this reverence only for the word "unbegotten" and is unguarded about the rest, let us ask him again: what is this arbitrary choice, when so many things are said of God, to show exactness in this one alone, and while rendering him in this one the confession that he is what he is, not to refuse to … in the others? For one who owes many debts is no more to be thanked for paying one than he is surpassingly ungrateful for withholding the many. So, like the cunning among beasts, he is caught by his own tricks, refuted all the more by the very means by which he tries to escape notice.

[9] Look at what comes next in his argument. Having shown, as he thinks, that "unbegotten" cannot be taken by conceptualization, he adds:

EUNOMIUS: "Nor indeed by privation, since privations are privations of what belongs to nature, and are posterior to the possessions."

BASIL: That he chatters about this out of the wisdom of the world, by which he was thrown headlong and took to such innovations in argument, is not hard to show. For the discussions of possession and privation belong to Aristotle, as those who have read him would say, in the work entitled the Categories, where he says that privations are posterior to possessions. For us it would have been enough, having shown that he speaks not from the teaching of the Spirit but from the wisdom of the rulers of this age, to say to him the words of the psalm, "The lawless have told me idle tales, but not as your law, O Lord"; and, having learned that what he says is not from the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, to remember his own word, "When he speaks the lie, he speaks from his own"; and in this way to cut short most of the argument for ourselves, making it plain to all from this that we have no fellowship with them. For what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever? But lest we seem to take refuge in silence for want of refutations, come, let us discuss these things briefly too. Many of the things said of God, Eunomius, we see expressed in the same form, for example "incorruptible," "immortal," "invisible." We take "unbegotten" also to be of the same form. If, then, some call such terms privative, our argument is not with them; for we neither know the technicalities of words nor envy those who do. Only this we shall say: wherever the other words we have listed are placed, there also belongs the designation "unbegotten." As, then, "incorruptible" signifies that corruption does not belong to God, and "invisible" that he surpasses … every apprehension through the eyes, and "incorporeal" that his essence is not extended in three dimensions, and "immortal" that dissolution will never befall him, so we say that "unbegotten" also shows that begetting does not belong to him. If, then, none of these names is privative, neither is that one. But if you grant that those are said by way of privation, but do not concede it in the case of the designation "unbegotten," tell me: of what prior possession does "incorruptible" show the privation? And how does "unbegotten" not have the same force as it? But he plays his tricks about this one word alone, because on it the starting points of his impiety depend. To make his trick plain, do this: take the arguments he exercises on "unbegotten," that it is reasonable to say it of God neither by human conceptualization nor by privation, carry them over to another of the things said of God, and look: you will find them fitting each one exactly. If you like, let us say them of "incorruptible," carrying over his very wording: "When we say 'incorruptible,' we do not think we ought to honor him by human conceptualization, but to pay him the most necessary debt of all, the confession that he is what he is; nor indeed by privation, since privations are privations of what belongs to nature and are posterior to the possessions." Why is it more fitting to philosophize in this way about "unbegotten" than about "incorruptible," and in general about every word expressed in the same form? But none of the others helps him toward his impiety; that is why he does not mention the rest, though the things said of God are countless.