Against Eunomius 1.265–1.279

But the reason we have mentioned these things is this: just as Aristotle’s perverse craft was for Aetius a source of gain from impiety, so for his fully trained disciple too, on a par with his teacher, the simplicity of those he deceived provided the means of living in plenty. What great wrong, then, did Basil by the Euxine Pontus, or Eustathius in Armenia, do him, about whom the long digression of his history spreads itself out? How have they hurt his aim in life? Did they not rather nourish their novel reputation to greater size? For how did they come to be known, and named so widely? Did it not come about through those men — if indeed the accuser is telling the truth about them? For the fact that those men, being of good repute, as the writer testifies, judged as worthy opponents people who had no claim to be known from any quarter naturally became an occasion of pride for those who had been ranged against men thought to be above the rest. And from this they gained that the lowness and namelessness of their former life was overshadowed, and that thereafter they were well known: things to be shunned by people of sense (for no right-thinking person would pray to be thought great for evil), but to such people the very height of good fortune. So they say that a certain obscure and lowly man in Asia, wishing to become famous among the Ephesians, did not even put into his mind any great and brilliant deed — for he could not — but became more notable than those known for the greatest deeds by inventing an extreme of harm against the Ephesians. They had a public building admired for all its splendour and costliness; the man destroyed that great work by fire, and when he was tried for his daring he confessed the passion of his soul: that, making much of being known by many, he had devised that his name, as the one who dared it, should be remembered along with the greatness of the evil. Such too is the basis of these men’s fame, except that it differs in being greater in evil. For it is not lifeless buildings but the living building of the Church itself that they ruin, throwing into it, like a fire, the derangement of doctrine. But the discussion of doctrine I shall put off to its proper time.

Meanwhile let us now consider how the man who complained in his prologue that he is hated by the unbelieving for telling the truth makes use of the truth. For it is perhaps not untimely, having learned also from his statements outside doctrine how he stands toward truth, to use this as evidence for his doctrines. For “He who is faithful,” it says, “in very little is faithful also in much, and he who is unjust in very little is unjust also in much.” Being about to write the apology for the apology — this novel and absurd title and subject of his discourse — he says that the cause of such a paradox came from no other source than from the man who had spoken against his earlier discourse. That discourse bore the name Apology; and our teacher had taken him up on it, on the ground that an apology fits only those who are accused, and that if someone writes on his own initiative and at will, what he writes is something else and not an apology. That one ought not to make an apology without a prior accusation, because the absurdity is obvious, he does not dispute; but he says that, having been accused on the gravest charges, he made his defence against the judgment brought on him. How much falsehood there is in this will, I think, become clear from his own words. He has complained that many and unbearable sufferings came upon him from those who condemned him; and this one may learn from what he himself has written. How then did he suffer these things, if he had made his defence on the charges? For if he used his apology to escape the charges, that whole tragedy is altogether false and fabricated in vain; but if he suffered what he has told, clearly he suffered without having made a defence. For this is the aim of every defence: not to allow those who have power over the verdict to be misled by slander — unless he will try to say that he did put forward his defence at the trial, but, unable to win over those who had been appointed to judge, he was worsted by his opponents. But he said nothing of the sort at the trial, nor was he going to. How could he? He confesses in his treatise that he refused to accept hostile and inimical judges: “For we confess,” he says, “that we were convicted while silent, since wicked and evil men had pushed their way into the judges’ place.” There, as I think, struggling violently, with his mind on other things, he did not notice the solecism neatly woven into his speech, very pompously Atticizing with the word eisphrēsantōn, whose usage is one thing among those who have mastered the language — as those familiar with the orator’s speeches know — and was taken to be another by the new Atticist. But this has nothing to do with our aim.

A little further on he adds this as well: “For if he thinks that because I did not accept my accusers as judges he thereby does away with the apology, he has failed to notice that he is very naive.” When, then, and before whom has this shrewd man made his defence — he who objected to the judges because of their enmity, and, as he himself affirms, kept silent at the trial? Look at the vehement champion of truth: how after a little he turns round and deserts to falsehood, honouring truth in word and opposing it in deed! But this is delightful: he even contends for the defence of the falsehood itself. For how can the same man both have justly made his defence against the judgment brought on him, and again have wisely kept silent because the trial was among enemies? And yet by the very discourse he entitled the Apology it is plainly shown that no court was ever convened for him at all. For the prologue of the discourse is addressed not to definite judges but to certain indefinite people, both those living at that time and those who would come after. On this I myself agree with him: he needed a great defence — not like the one now written, which needs yet another apology to support it, but a comprehensive and sensible one, able to persuade his hearers why he wrote as though he were convening a court for himself of people neither present nor perhaps even born, made his defence to those who did not exist, and begged those who had not come into being not to distinguish falsehood from truth by numbers, attaching the better to the greater part. For truly it befits him to put such a defence before such judges, those still in the loins of their fathers, and to think he speaks justly in that he alone has resolved to oppose the opinions of all, and thinks the deluded fancy of his own soul more trustworthy than all those throughout the world who glorify the name of Christ.

Let him write, if he likes, yet another apology for the second apology; for the present one is not a correction of his errors but rather a proof of the charges. For who does not know that every lawful defence aims at removing the charge brought? Thus one who is accused of theft or murder or some other offence either denies the act entirely, or shifts the blame for the evil to another, or, if he can do none of these, will ask pardon and mercy from those who have power over the verdict. Here the discourse contains neither a denial of the charges nor a transfer to others; it neither takes refuge in mercy nor promises good conduct for the future; but the very charge he is accused of is strengthened by a more laborious argument. For what is alleged, as he himself says, is an indictment for impiety, which brings against him no vague charge but states the very form of the impiety; and the defence argues that one must be impious, not removing the charge but confirming the accusation. If the doctrines of piety were obscure, it would perhaps be less dangerous to venture on novelty; but when the teaching of the theologian is firmly rooted in all pious souls, does the one who shouts the opposite of what is commonly acknowledged by all defend himself against what he is charged with, or does he rather draw on himself the anger of his hearers and stand forth as his own more bitter accuser? I say the latter. So, if there are, as the writer says, either hearers of his defence or accusers of what he has dared against piety, let him say himself either how the accusers will insult him, or what verdict the judges will bring in about him, when the offence is established beforehand by the defence.

But these things have somehow fallen out of the sequence of the argument, because the sequence was not well conducted; for what lies before us now is not to examine how he ought to have defended himself, but whether he made any defence at all. Let us return to what was proposed: that he is plainly caught by his own words, as follows. The man who is so annoyed at falsehood says that he was tried, met with lawless judges, and was led over land and sea, suffering hardship under the blaze of the sun and in the dust. Then again, covering up the falsehood, he drives out one nail with another, as the proverb says, correcting this falsehood with another falsehood. For since everyone knows, as he does, that he uttered not a single word in court, he says that he refused the court of his enemies and was convicted while silent. How could anyone be more clearly refuted as at odds both with the truth and with himself? When he is called to account for the title of his discourse, he puts forward the trial as the necessity for his apology; when he is refuted for having said nothing before the judges, he denies the trial and rejects the judges. Do you see how stoutly the vehement champion of truth stands against falsehood? Then, being such a man, he dares to call the great Basil wicked, malicious, and a liar, and besides these, rash, ignorant, a counterfeit, uninitiated in divine things; and to the catalogue of abuse he adds derangement and madness and countless things of the kind, scattering them through his whole discourse, as if he thought that his own bitterness would be enough to outweigh the testimony of all people, who are awed at the very name of the great man as at one of the ancient saints.

and he thinks he can damage the one who is unwounded by blame by abuse alone. The sun is not so low that the one who throws stones or anything else at it can reach it; the missiles turn back again on the one who sent them, while the target remains higher than the throw. And if someone slanders the sun as dull, he has not dimmed the light of its ray by his jibes; the sun, even when mocked, will be the sun, while the one who reviles its ray as lightless will be exposed for the blindness of his organs of sight. And however much he may wish, after the fashion of that apology of his, to persuade those who will hear and read him not to join in the opinions of all about the sun, nor to make the experience of the many more authoritative than his own supposition, attaching the better to the greater part, he will babble in vain before those who see.

Let some well-wisher of Eunomius, then, persuade him to put a bridle on his mouth, not to bolt in the disorder of his speech, not to kick against the goads, not to speak insolently against the honoured name, but to fill his soul with reverence and fear merely on calling the great Basil to mind. For what more will he gain from this immoderate ribaldry, when Basil is regarded by all as such as his life, his word, and the common testimony of the world proclaim him, while the one who tries to revile him displays his own character, as one who, as the Gospel says somewhere, cannot speak good things because he is evil, but speaks out of the abundance of his heart and brings forth from his evil treasure? That the words of abuse are bare and do not touch the truth of the facts is proved from what he has written. He has posited a certain place, in which he says the contest about the doctrines took place, but it is nameless and indicated by no known sign, so that the hearer has to guess at random at what is obscure. In this place, he says, there was an assembly of the elite from everywhere, and he swells his discourse youthfully, as though bringing the setting of the events before our eyes. Then he says that a race for the highest stakes was set before certain judges — whom he does not name either — and that our guide and father was present and prompting them; but when the trial shifted the victory to his opponents, Basil fled the place, deserting his post, and went after “some smoke of his homeland.” And he is profuse in disparaging the man in his sketch of his cowardice, as anyone who wishes may learn from what he wrote; for I have no leisure to spill all the vomit of his leisure through my words. I shall pass, rather, to the reason I mentioned these things.

What is that nameless place in which the discourse about the doctrines is examined? What is the occasion that calls the best men to the contest? Who are the people who hurried over land and sea to share the labours? What world does he mean that hung in suspense over the outcome, awaiting the verdict of the vote? Or who was the one who presided over the contests? Or let these things pass, according to the custom of boys in the schools, of contriving in such inventions some bulk and grandeur for the discourse; but let him say this one thing: who was that invincible combatant with whom he says our teacher was afraid to grapple? If this too is fabricated, let him win once again and have the larger share of vanity; we will be silent. For in shadow-boxing to no useful purpose, the true victory is to yield such a victory willingly. But if he is speaking of what happened in Constantinople, and means that synod, and inflames his discourse over the tragedies there, and names himself the great and unrivalled athlete, we accept the charge that, though present at the time of the contests, we did not grapple with the contestants. Then let him who reproaches the other with cowardice show whether he himself came down into the midst; whether he uttered any word for his own piety; whether he held forth vigorously; whether he contended brilliantly against those ranged against him. But he could not say so, or else he plainly fights against himself; for he has confessed that he received in silence the verdict brought by the judges. If, then, one ought to speak during the contests — for this is the law he now lays down in his treatise — why is he condemned for being silent then? But if he did well in honouring quiet before the judges, what is this partiality, that he is praised for keeping silent while our quiet is made a matter of slander? What could one devise more unjust than this absurdity: that when both of them made their discourses after the contests, he says that he himself made his defence in good time, though he came so long after the time, but reviles the one who answered his discourse as having come too late for the contests? Or perhaps one ought to have refuted beforehand, by a reply, a discourse that was still to be spoken?

For this, it seems, is all that is missing from the charge: why did Basil not refute at the time of that trial what the other was going to write, since he foresaw it? That he did not make this apology at the trial is clear from what he has confessed; I will recall the same words again. “For we confess,” he says, “that we were convicted while silent”; and he adds the reason: because wicked men had obtained the office of judging — or rather, as he himself puts it, “had pushed their way into the judges’ place.” And that, again, he testifies that the apology came at the proper time is clear from other things he said. The passage runs thus: “But that I was led to the apology at the proper time and in the proper manner, not inventing it but compelled on behalf of my sureties, has become clear both from the facts themselves and from this man’s words.” What, then, will he say, who turns his argument round so easily in every direction? That one ought not to keep silent at the contests? Why, then, was Eunomius voiceless at those very contests? But for him an apology after the contests was timely? How, then, was the battle against what had been said untimely for the other? But truer than all, it seems, is the word of the holy man: that under pretence of an apology he made a construction of his own doctrines as he pleased. And the true zealot of Phinehas, who destroys with the sword of the word everyone who has gone whoring from the Lord, drew the sword that heals the soul and slays impiety — I mean the refutation of the blasphemy. If this man resists and does not accept the cure, having killed his own soul by apostasy, the fault is his who chose the evil, as the outside learning too says.

Such, then, is Eunomius against the truth and against us. As for us, it would be open to us, under the more ancient law that allows one to repay aggressors in kind, to hurl the reproaches back at him unsparingly, and with great ease to lavish abuse generously on the one who has grieved us. For if he found so many words of insult and abuse against one who had given blame no opening, how many such words would those be likely to find who satirize his own august life! But since we were trained from the beginning by a disciple of the truth to be disciples of the Gospel, we neither knock out an eye in return nor exchange tooth for tooth, knowing that evil deeds are by nature undone by their opposites, and that nothing evil said or done would advance to the incurable if something better, falling in between, should cut off the continuity of the chain of evils. So the chain of reviling and insult is stopped from going further by patience; whereas if one should repay insult with insult and abuse with abuse, he will certainly increase the absurdity, feeding it with its like. Therefore, leaving aside all the intervening discourse — which is insult, mockery, abuse, and jibes — I shall hasten my discourse on to the examination of the doctrine.

If anyone says that I decline to revile because I have no experience of such repayments, let him look at himself and see how great is the readiness for the worse, slipping of itself into sin without any effort. For becoming evil lies in choosing alone, and the will has often been enough to complete wickedness; and the ease is far greater in the sins of the tongue. The other sins need time, circumstances, and help from outside in order to come about; but the faculty of speech is free to offend at will. A proof of what I say is this very discourse of Eunomius in our hands: whoever studies it with some attention will find the downhill slope of sin in words, which is the easiest of all things to imitate, even for one wholly unpractised in the experience of blasphemy. For why must one toil to coin insults, when one may use his own words against the one who insulted? For in this part of his discourse he has stitched together all the false and blasphemous things, modelled on the patterns found in himself, and there is nothing absurd that is not written there. “Clever,” he says, “contentious, an enemy of truth, a sophist, a deceiver, opposing the opinions and memories of the many, not ashamed of refutation by the facts, heeding neither the fear that comes from the laws nor the blame that comes from men, not knowing how to distinguish truth from cleverness.” To these he adds shamelessness and readiness to revile; then he says he is discordant, full of conflicting notions, fitting together a discourse of ill-fitting parts, fighting with his own words, and uttering contradictions. And wishing to say many bad things about him, but then unable to satisfy the bitterness of his soul with any novelty of insults, since he has nothing to say, he comes back to the same things again and again; having said a thing once, he circles round and says the same a third time and a fourth; and beyond this, doubling back in his discourse as in a double race-course, he runs up and down through the same insults and the same abusive drivel, so that one no longer grows angry at the shamelessness of his insults, since the surfeit of what is said dissolves one’s anger.

One would sooner be disgusted than angry, so servile and graceless are the jibes, straight from the crossroads, no different at all from those of some old woman in her cups, grumbling under her breath. What then? Must one go after each item, without even regard for his venerable standing, and make a laborious defence on everything said in insult, to show that the man against whom it was fabricated was not such? In that way we too would seem to join in insulting him who shone as a luminary to his generation, if we were content to prove by words that he is not a criminal and a condemned man. But I remember that divine voice of his, how prophetically it uttered the words of the prophecy about this man, where it likens him to the shameless among women, who throw their own reproaches at the chaste.

For whom do these words proclaim an enemy of truth? Whom do they proclaim as opposing the opinions of the many? Who is it that asks those who read his treatise not to look to the number of witnesses, but to incline in their judgment to what deserves belief among those supposed to be better? Is it the same man’s part to write these things and to bring those charges — to seek that his hearers follow his own innovations, and then again to disparage others for opposing common assumptions? As for “not ashamed of refutation by the facts” and of human blame, and all such things that he goes through in the same place, I leave it to the judgment of the hearers to consider of whom it is true to say them. Is it of the one who prescribes self-control and decorum and all purity of soul and body through the most exact continence, alike for himself and for those who come near him? Or of the one who bids men not to trouble nature as it goes after what it likes through the appetites of the body, nor to resist pleasures, nor to be exact about such a pursuit in life — for, he says, no harm comes to the soul through such things, but the heretical faith alone suffices a man for perfection? If he denies that their teachings are so, I would pray, and so would every right-minded person, that he speaks the truth in denying such things. But his genuine disciples will not let his denial succeed; otherwise his greatest tenet will fall, and the stage of those who attend on the doctrine chiefly for its sake will be broken up.

And “shameless,” and “not heeding human blame”: shall we consider this from the life lived in youth, or from what came after? From both you would find the reproach of shamelessness coming back upon him; for neither youth nor later life bears the same witness to each of the two. Let the writer remind himself of the life he lived in his native country in the time of his youth, and in Constantinople, and let him hear from those who know what they know of the man he slanders. If one wishes to consider it from their later pursuits, let him say himself who deserves such a name: the one who spent his father’s substance unsparingly on the poor even before his priesthood, especially in the time of the famine, during which he was in charge of the Church while still serving as a priest in the rank of the presbyters, and who afterwards did not spare even what was left, so that he too might boast the Apostle’s word, “I did not eat bread for nothing”? Or the one who has made his championship of the doctrine a source of income? The one who slips uninvited into houses, not even covering up by his manner of life the unpleasantness of his disease, nor taking account of the natural aversion of the healthy toward such people — the one who under the old law would be set apart outside the camp of the inhabitants because of the mark of the plague?

Then again Basil is called rash, insolent, and on both counts a liar by the man who patiently instructs his opponents in meekness! For so he gives himself airs in his treatise with his words about him, he who leaves out no excess of bitterness wherever he is able to bring a charge. From where, then, and from what facts does he prove his insolence and rashness? “Because,” he says, “he called me, a Cappadocian, a Galatian; and then, though I have my home on the border between the countries, in some nameless corner of Carniaspina” — if, instead of a man of Oltiseris, he called him a Galatian; if indeed he can show that he said this at all, for I did not find it in our books. But let it be granted that it was said. For these things is he called rash and insolent and every most dreadful name? And does the wise man not understand that an accusation over small matters from a slanderer furnishes a great defence of the accused man’s uprightness? For a man stirred to accuse would not spare the greater faults and spend his malice on the smaller. On these he is profuse, exalting and exaggerating the offence and philosophizing solemnly about falsehood, judging it equally absurd whether the matter concerns greater or smaller things.