Against Eunomius 1.335–1.351

For being neither unbegottenly nor only-begottenly, and yet being in the full sense, presents his special property in relation to those named. Joined to the Father in being uncreated, he is again separated from him by not being Father as he is. United with the Son by their conjunction in being uncreated and in having the cause of their existence from the God of all, he is again set apart by what is peculiar to him: in not having subsisted from the Father as only-begotten, and in having been manifested through the Son himself. Again, since creation came to subsist through the Only-begotten, so that the Spirit may not be thought to have anything in common with it from having been manifested through the Son, the Spirit is distinguished from creation by being unchangeable, unalterable, and in no need of goodness from elsewhere. For creation does not have unchangeability in its nature, as Scripture says in telling of the fall of the Morning Star, concerning whom the Lord too, revealing the mysteries to his disciples, said: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” But by the very things by which he stands apart from creation he has his kinship with the Father and the Son; for the definition of unchangeable and unalterable is one and the same for those things which by nature do not admit the worse.

These things having been said beforehand on our part, it is time now to examine the statement of the opponents as well. “It is necessary,” he says, “that the substances be greater and less,” in his technical treatment of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Let us consider, then, in what sense he conceives the necessity of such a difference: whether by a bodily comparison of things measured against one another, or in the intelligible order, as seen in excess and deficiency of virtue, or according to the substance itself. As to the substance, it has been shown by those who know how to philosophize about such things that no difference can be conceived if one strips it bare of the qualities and properties observed about it and examines it by itself according to the definition of being. And to conceive such a difference in the Only-begotten and the Spirit by intensification and remission of virtue, and therefore necessarily to suppose their nature liable to fall either way, as being equally capable of opposites and lying on the border between good and its opposite, is the height of impiety. For whoever says this will establish that it is one thing in its own definition and becomes something else by participation in the good and the worse. So it happens with iron: when it has been long in company with fire, it takes on the quality of heat while remaining iron; but if it is put into snow or ice, it changes its quality to what prevails, taking the cold of the snow into its own parts. Now as we do not name the material from the quality observed in the iron — for we do not call it fire or ice when it has been given one of these qualities — so, if it were granted, according to the argument of the impious, that in the life-giving power the good is present not by substance but added by participation, it will no longer properly be named by the title of good. Such a supposition will compel us to conceive it as something else, so that the good is neither seen in it eternally, nor is it in itself what it is within the nature of the good, but as though the good once was not in it and at some time will not be. For if things become good by participating in the better, clearly they were not such before the participation. And if, being something else, they were coloured by the presence of the good, then certainly, if they are deprived of it, the good will be thought to be something other than they. If this view prevails, the divine nature will not be thought a provider of goods any more than itself in need of what makes it good. For how could anyone give another what he does not have himself? If, then, it has the good perfectly, we shall conceive no falling short in its perfection, and the one who constructs a “less” in the perfect labours in vain. But if their participation in the good is thought imperfect, and on this ground they speak of the “less,” consider the consequence: what is in that state will not benefit what is inferior, but will be eager to fill up its own lack. So on their account the doctrine of providence is false, and that of judgment, and of the economy, and of all the things believed to have been made and always to be made by the Only-begotten, since he would naturally be busy with care for his own good and would let go his government of the universe. For if this notion prevailed — that the Lord is not perfect in every good — it is no longer hard to see where the blasphemy ends.

For if such things were so, faith would be vain, preaching empty, and hopes without substance, which have their substance through faith. For why are they baptized into Christ, if he has no power of goodness of his own (may the blasphemy depart from my mouth)? And why do they believe in the Holy Spirit, if they reckon such things about him? How are they born again from corruptible birth through baptism, if the power that regenerates them does not, as they think, possess by nature freedom from falling and from need? How does he transform the body of their lowliness, when they think that the one who transforms is himself in need of alteration for the better, and needs in turn another to transform him? For so long as he is in the lesser state, since the good of the transcendent nature naturally implants in inferior things an unceasing attraction toward itself, the desire for more will in no way come to rest. With appetite always stretching on toward what is not yet grasped, what is lessened will always reach for more, will always be altered toward the greater, and will never arrive at the perfect, because it does not find the limit, by grasping which it would stop its ascent. For since the first good is infinite in nature, the participation of the one who enjoys it will necessarily be infinite too, always grasping more, always finding something beyond what has been grasped, and never able to be bounded, because what is participated has no limit and what grows by participation does not stop.

Such, then, are the blasphemies that come to light from the argument about a difference in goodness. And if they view the greater and the less in them according to some bodily preconception, the absurdity of the argument is admitted at once, even without examining each point exactly. For with these suppositions it is wholly necessary that certain qualities, dimensions, bulks and shapes, and all that makes up the definition of a body, should be brought into the divine nature too; and where the composite is spoken of, there the dissolution of the composite is certainly admitted as well. These and similar things follow from the absurdity of a doctrine that dares to declare less and more in what is without magnitude and beyond comparison, as the argument has shown, a few out of many. For it is not easy to uncover in argument all the deceit hidden in the doctrine; but even through the few things said, the absurdity of what appears in the consequences of the blasphemy will be shown no less.

Let us go on to what follows in the argument, after a few further clarifications to establish our own doctrine. Since the God-inspired testimony is a safe criterion of truth in every doctrine, I think it right to confirm our argument too by setting the divine words beside it. We have recognized these differences in the division of beings: first, as regards our own comprehension — first, I mean, the sensible; after that, what is contemplated by the mind with the guidance of the sensible, which we call intelligible; and in the intelligible again we grasped another difference, divided into created and uncreated. We defined the holy Trinity as belonging to the uncreated nature, and all that is spoken of, exists, and is named after it as belonging to the created. So that our definition may not be without proof but secured by the testimonies of Scripture, we will add this to what has been said: that the Lord was not created but came forth from the Father, as God the Word testifies in his own person in the Gospel, according to that ineffable and indescribable mode of his birth or coming forth. And what truer witness could be found than the voice of the Lord throughout the Gospel, calling his true Father Father and not his creator, and naming himself not a work of God but the Son of God? For just as, when signifying his communion with humanity according to the flesh, he called what was seen the Son of Man, showing the natural kinship of his flesh with her from whom it was taken, so too he signifies by the title of Son his true and genuine relation to the God of all, showing by the word “Son” the kinship of nature.

Some bring forward what is said darkly in a parable, through an enigma, in the proverbial saying — bare and uninterpreted, to overturn the truth — and adduce, in support of the perversion of their doctrine, the word “created,” which the author of Proverbs used in the person of Wisdom, saying that “The Lord created me” is a confession that the Lord was created, as though the Only-begotten himself did not deny such a thing by this word. We must not heed their argument. For they offer no proofs that this saying must in any case be referred to the Lord; nor will they be able to show that the sense of the text in the Hebrew Scripture bears this meaning, since the other translators rendered it “acquired” and “established” instead of “created.” Nor, even if the word stood so in the original Scripture, would the sense be ready and clear, since proverbial teaching shows the aim of what it says not openly but with concealment, by oblique suggestion; as one may recognize the obscurity of the passage from the context of what is said around this place, where it says: when “he set apart his throne upon the winds,” and so on.

For what is God’s throne — material or intelligible? And what are the winds? Are they these usual and familiar ones, which those who study nature say are formed from vapours and exhalations, or are they to be understood in some other way, unknown to human usage, since he says that they serve as a base for the throne? And what is the seat of the incorporeal, uncircumscribed, and shapeless God? Who could understand all such things from the usual meaning of these words? It is clear, then, that what is said consists of riddles of some kind, containing a contemplation deeper than the obvious sense; so that, on these grounds, by no reasoning does the notion that the Lord was created arise from this Scripture for those who reason piously — above all for those who have been taught by the lofty voice of the evangelist that all things that have come into being came into being through him and have their consistence in him. For he says: “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being; what has come into being came to be in him.” He would not have defined this if he had believed the Lord himself to be one of the things that came into being. For how do all things come into being through him, and the things that came into being have their consistence in him, unless the maker, being altogether something other than the nature of the things made, wrought not himself but creation? For if creation is through him, but the Lord himself is not through himself, he is certainly something other, and not creation.

So, when the evangelist had said, “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being; what has come into being came to be in him,” and had plainly shown by this that the things that came into being came into being in the Son and had their passage into being through no other, Paul takes up this word; and so as to leave the blasphemous voice no pretext for numbering the nature of the Spirit too among the things that came into being, he brings under enumeration the “all things”: what these “all” are that were spoken and meant by the evangelist. And just as the great David, after saying that all things had been subjected to man, added by kinds what was included in the word “all” — that is, the creatures of land, of water, and of air — so also the interpreter of the divine doctrines, the apostle Paul, having said that all things came into being in him, defines the notion of “all” by the things he enumerates: “visible,” he says, “and invisible” — by “visible,” as has been said, including in the name what is known to sense, and by “invisible” hinting at the intelligible nature. About sensible things there was no need to go through them in detail by name; for no one is so fleshly or brutish as to suspect that the Holy Spirit is among sensible things. But having mentioned the invisible, since the nature of the Spirit too is intellectual and incorporeal, so that no one might suspect that the Spirit subsists among these because of a common invisibility, he makes the clearest division between the things that came into being by creation and the substance that is above creation. For he enumerates the created things in his statement, speaking of certain Thrones, Rulers, Authorities, and Dominions, giving his teaching about these invisible powers by generic and comprehensive names; but what is above creation he separates by his very silence from the number of created things.

It is as if someone in a camp were ordered to name the lesser and subordinate commands — taxiarchs, captains, centurions, and chiliarchs, and any other ranks of particular command that have names — and, after going through them all, made no mention of the command that rules all and directs the whole force; keeping silent about the supreme command not from contempt or forgetfulness, but because he had been ordered, or had proposed, to go through only the subject and subordinate ranks; for he would insult the ruling command by including it in the mention of its subordinates. So, it seems to me, Paul too — who was initiated into unspeakable things in paradise, when he was caught up and was in it, and became a spectator of the wonders above the heavens, and saw and heard things unutterable for men — when he set out to teach the things created by the Lord, and went through them in comprehensive terms, ran through the angelic and supramundane power and stopped his statement at those he had mentioned, dragging nothing of what is above creation into the list of created things. From this the Holy Spirit is clearly attested by Scripture to be above creation. But if someone should overturn the argument on the ground that the Cherubim too are not mentioned by Paul, but are passed over in silence along with the Spirit in his enumeration of things that came into being, and should argue from the omission of any mention of them that either these too are above creation, or else one ought not to think so of the Spirit either, let him consider the meaning of the things enumerated, and he will see that what seems to be omitted, because it was not mentioned by name, is in what was said.

For the one who mentioned Thrones described the Cherubim by another name, putting the obscurity of the Hebrew word into Greek with a more familiar title. Having heard that God sits upon the Cherubim, he named these powers the “thrones” of the one who is seated on them. In the same way the Seraphim in Isaiah, by whom the mystery of the Trinity was clearly proclaimed when, struck with amazement at the beauty in each of those in the Trinity, they cried out in wonder the word “Holy,” are included in the list of those mentioned, being named by the title of “powers” both by the great Paul and before him by the prophet David. For the one says: “Bless the Lord, all his powers, his ministers who do his will.” And Isaiah, instead of saying “Bless,” wrote down the very words of the blessing: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” And that these powers are ministers who do the will of God he hinted through the cleansing of sins performed by one of the Seraphim according to the will of the one who sent him; for this is the ministry of these spirits, to be sent out for the salvation of those who are being saved. Understanding this, it seems to me, and learning that the same thing is signified by the two prophets with different titles, the divine Apostle chose the most familiar of the words and named the Seraphim “powers,” so that the slanderers might be left no pretext to say that the Holy Spirit, like one of these, has been passed over in the list of creation. For some are mentioned, as has been shown, and others are passed over in silence, as one may learn from those listed by Paul, who enumerated all creation in the plural but mentioned in the singular those that are spoken of as one. For this is proper to the holy Trinity, to be proclaimed singly: one Father, one Son, one Holy Spirit. But all those named are listed in the plural — Rulers, Authorities, Dominions, Powers — so as to give no suspicion that the Holy Spirit is one of these.

But Paul keeps silent about unspeakable things, and does well; for he knows how to hear the unspeakable words in paradise and yet to refrain from uttering what may not be uttered when he is discussing lower things. The enemies of the truth, however, dare even the unspeakable, insulting the majesty of the Spirit with the lowliness of creation, as though they had not heard that God the Word himself, handing on to the disciples the mystery of the knowledge of God, said that life is made complete and comes to those who are being born again in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and that for this reason, by ranking the Spirit with the Father and himself, he separated him from the notion of being creation, so that from both a pious and fitting belief about him might arise: from Paul, keeping silent about him when he mentions creation, and from the Lord, joining the Holy Spirit with the Father and himself when he mentions the life-giving power. So our argument, guided by Holy Scripture, places the Only-begotten and the Holy Spirit above creation, and according to the Saviour’s declaration directs us to contemplate them by faith within the blessed, life-giving, and uncreated nature; so that what is believed to be one, above creation, of the first nature, perfect in every respect, admits in no way the account of diminution — even if the champion of the heresy cuts off infinity by his notion of the “less,” docking, as it were, and contracting the perfection of the divine substance by laying down that greater and less are to be seen in them.

Let us consider, then, what he adds in the sequence of what he said. After saying that the substances must of necessity be thought lesser and greater, and that some hold the first rank, placed in precedence by some difference of magnitude and dignity, while others, thrust down because of the inferiority of their nature and dignity, hold the second, he added this: that they reach, he says, to as great a difference as the works reach to. “Since it is not even lawful to say that the activity by which he made the angels is the same as that by which he made the stars and the heaven, or man; but by as much as some works are older and more honourable than others, by so much one who affirms this would say that one activity surpasses another, since the same activities produce works that are the same, and altered works show altered activities.” For my part I suppose that not even the writer himself could easily say what in the world he meant when he wrote this, so muddied is the sense of what is said with the silt of the phrasing that no one could easily see through to the intention in the mire of the expression. For “to reach to as great a difference as the works reach to” one might suspect to be the babble of some Loxias, as in the outside myth, to deceive the hearers.

If, following what has already been examined, we must also guess at what he is establishing here, this is what he indicates: that however great the variation between the works, so great will the difference between the energies be recognized to be. But which works he is speaking of here cannot be discovered from what he has said. For if he is speaking of the things seen in creation, I do not know what connection these have with what went before. When the inquiry is about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what occasion is there to discourse on the nature of earth and water and air and fire and the differences of living creatures, to go through them in speech and describe them, and to say, as though reasoning soundly, that some works are older and more honorable than others and that energy has surpassed energy? But if he calls the only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit "the works," what again does he mean by the differences of the energies through which these works are brought about? And what are those energies themselves, the ones that surpass energies? For he has neither made clear what he means by the surpassing by which, as he himself says, energy surpasses energy, nor has he said anything about the nature of the energies. Up to now his argument has not set foot on anything: it neither establishes that they subsist substantially nor shows them to be some unsubsisting motion of the will. Throughout, the sense of what he says is thrown into the middle between the two suppositions and is blown back and forth toward either view. He adds that "it is not right to say that the energy by which he made the angels, or the stars and the heaven, or man, is the same." Again, from what necessity or what sequence did he bring this in after what had been said, or what does it establish? I for my part do not see how "the energies differ from one another as much as the works differ from one another" establishes that not all things are the works of the same one, but that some came into being from one and others from another. For we have learned from Scripture that heaven and angel and star and man and everything thought of in creation are all the works of one. But the argument of their doctrine establishes that the Son and the Spirit are not the works of one: the Son is the work of the energy that accompanies the first substance, and the Spirit is in turn another work of that work. What fellowship, then, have heaven and man, angel and star, now taken in alongside by his argument, with his construction there? Let him say, or anyone who shares his secret wisdom. For in these words the impiety is plainly carried in what is said, while the construction of the impiety is out of tune with itself. To think that there is as great a difference in the Holy Trinity as one may observe between the heaven that encloses all creation and a single man, or a star appearing in the heaven, has its impiety in plain view; but the coherence of the thoughts and the logical sequence of the construction on this very point, I say, is easy to see neither for me nor perhaps for the father of the blasphemy himself. If he had reasoned thus about creation, that heaven is the work of some superior energy, the star the product of the energy that accompanies heaven, the angel of that one, and man of this one, his argument would have had some means of establishing the doctrine by setting like beside like. But if he too agrees that these things came into being through one (unless he is fighting outright against the voice of the Scriptures), while he defines some other manner for the making of those, what fellowship have the things brought in with what went before? But let it be granted that these have something in common toward proving the variation of the substances, for that is what he desires to establish by what he says. Let us hear how he joined what follows to what was said. "As much," he says, "as the works are older and more honorable than the works, so much one reasoning piously would say that the energy has surpassed the energy." Now if he says this of sensible things, the argument is far from what was proposed. For what need has one who set out to say something about doctrines to philosophize about the order of the things fashioned in the making of the world, and to insist that the energies of the Creator are higher and lower in proportion to the size of each thing that came into being? But if he is speaking of those, and calls the things formed by him (now, in the doctrine, that is, the Son and the Holy Spirit) works older and more honorable than works, perhaps it is better to loathe the argument in silence than, by grappling with it, to make it seem to be an argument at all. For how could a more honorable be found where there is no less honorable?