Against Eunomius 2.491–2.505

Is anyone, then, so foolish as not to see the irrationality of the doctrine? “Not dividing,” he says, “his own substance in begetting.” Whose own substance is divided in begetting? For substance in the case of human beings is human nature; in the case of irrational animals it is, generically, the irrational nature, and specifically, in cattle and sheep and all the irrational animals, it is considered according to the differences of their properties. Which of these, then, divides its own substance through giving birth? Does not the nature in each of the animals always remain intact through the succession of those that come after? Then a human being, bearing a human being from himself, does not divide the nature; it is whole both in the begetter and in the begotten, not split off from the one and transferred to the other, nor maimed in the one when it becomes complete in the other, but being entire in the one and found entire in the other. For before begetting the one from him, the man was a rational animal, mortal, capable of mind and knowledge; and when he begot such a man, so that all the properties of the nature were shown in him, he did not lose being a man by begetting a man from himself, but what he was before he remained after, having lessened nothing of the nature from him by the coming to be of the man from him. A man, then, is born from a man, and the nature of the begetter is not divided; but Eunomius does not accept that the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, is truly from the Father, fearing that he might mutilate the pure nature of the Father through the hypostasis of the Only-begotten. But after saying “not dividing his substance in begetting,” he added, “or himself begetting and begotten, or himself becoming Father and Son,” and thinks by these disjointed words to weaken the true word of godliness or to supply some strength to impiety, not knowing that by the very means with which he means to build up an absurdity he is found an advocate of the truth. For we too say that he who has all that is his own Father’s is that whole, except being Father; and he who has all that is the Son’s shows the whole Son in himself, except becoming Son. So the absurdity that Eunomius now builds up becomes an ally of the truth, once the thought has been distinguished more clearly by us, following the guidance of the Gospel word. For if he who has seen the Son sees the Father, the Father begot another himself, neither going out of himself and yet appearing whole in him. So, through these things, what seems to have been said against godliness has been shown to be an ally of sound doctrine.

“But neither,” he says, “dividing his own substance in begetting, and himself begetting and begotten, or himself becoming Father and Son. For he is incorruptible.” What a compelling conclusion! What are you saying, most wise one? Because he is incorruptible he does not divide his own substance in begetting the Son, nor beget himself and be begotten by himself, nor become at once his own Father and Son, since he is incorruptible! So, if anyone is of corruptible nature, he cuts his substance in begetting, and is begotten by himself, and begets himself, and becomes father and son of himself, because he is not incorruptible. But if this is so, Abraham, because he was corruptible, did not beget Ishmael and Isaac, but begot himself through the slave girl and the lawful wife; or, by the argument’s other piece of trickery, he divided his own substance among those begotten. First, at the birth through Hagar, he is divided into two pieces, and in one of the halves becomes Ishmael, while in the other half Abraham remains. After this, what was left of Abraham’s substance was divided into Isaac’s twin offspring, so that an eighth came to be in each of the grandchildren. How could one chop it up into parts among the twelve patriarchs, thinning out the eighth, or among the seventy-five souls with whom Jacob went down into Egypt? And why do I say this, when one ought to refute the folly of these words from the first man? For if it belongs only to the incorruptible not to divide its nature in begetting, and Adam, to whom it was said, “Earth you are, and to earth you will go,” was corruptible, then according to Eunomius’s argument he certainly divided his own substance, being cut up among those born from him. And since by the multitude of descendants the piece of substance found in each was necessarily divided by the number of those born, Adam’s substance was spent before Abraham’s hypostasis came to be, used up beforehand among the countless myriads from him, scattered through those thin and indivisible particles; and no remnant of substance would any longer be found to have passed from Adam to Abraham and those from him, through the fineness of the pieces into which the nature was cut among the myriads who came before him.

See the folly of one who does not know what he says, nor about what he makes confident assertions. For in saying that, since he is incorruptible, he neither divides his substance, nor begets himself, nor becomes his own Father, he has granted, by consequence, that in everything subject to corruption there happen in begetting all those things which he insisted do not belong to the incorruptible alone. But though there are many other things able to show the emptiness of what he says, I think what has been said suffices to prove his folly. This, at any rate, is entirely agreed among those who know how to look to the consequence: that by attesting incorruptibility to the Father alone, he makes everything conceived after the Father corruptible by its contrast with the incorruptible, so as not to show even the Son free of corruption. If, then, he sets the Son over against the incorruptible, he not only defines him as corruptible, but also builds up about him all the other things which he says do not belong to the incorruptible alone. For necessarily, if the Father alone neither begets himself nor is begotten by himself, everything that is not incorruptible both begets itself and is begotten by itself and becomes father and son of itself, its substance being shifted to each of the two. For if being incorruptible belongs to the Father alone, and it is proper to the incorruptible not to be these things, then according to the argument of the heresy the Son is certainly not incorruptible, and all these things are certainly true of him: dividing the substance, bearing himself and being begotten by himself, becoming father and son of himself.

But perhaps it is vain to linger longer over senseless things; let us pass on to what follows in the statement. For he adds to these: “Not needing, in making, matter or parts or natural instruments; for he is in need of nothing.” This thought, even though Eunomius sets it out rather feebly in its wording, we nevertheless do not reject as foreign to godliness. For having learned that “he spoke and they came to be, he commanded and they were created,” we know that the Word is the maker of matter, at once bringing about the qualities together with the matter, so that for him the impulse of his all-powerful will is everything and stands in place of everything: matter, instrument, place, time, substance, quality, whatever is conceived in creation. For at the same moment he willed what ought to come to be, and the power that works out existing things ran together with the thought, making the will a deed. For so the great Moses teaches about the divine power in the account of the world’s coming to be, ascribing the making of each of the things that appear in creation to words of command. “For God said,” he says, “Let there be light, and there was light”; and about the others likewise; he mentioned neither matter nor the service of instruments. So in this part Eunomius’s statement is not to be rejected. For God, in creating whatever had its coming to be by creation, needed neither any underlying matter nor instruments for its construction; for the power and wisdom of God needs no help from another. And Christ is the power of God and the wisdom, through whom all things came to be and without whom nothing that exists is, as John testifies. If, then, all things, visible and invisible, came to be through him, and the will alone suffices for the existence of things (for the will is power), Eunomius has stated our doctrine, in feeble wording. For he who bears all things by the word of his power, what instrument and what kind of matter would he need in bearing the existence of things by his all-powerful word?

But if what we have believed about the Only-begotten with respect to creation he builds up with respect to the Son, as though the Father had created him in the same way as creation came to be from the Son, we take up again now the argument stated earlier: that such a view is a denial of the Godhead of the Only-begotten. For we have learned from the great voice of Paul that it is the mark of idolaters to revere and serve the creature rather than the Creator; and David says, “There shall be no new god in you, nor shall you worship a foreign god.” This rule and measure we use for recognizing what is to be worshiped, so as to be convinced that that is truly God which is neither new nor foreign. Since, then, we were taught to believe that the only-begotten God is God, by believing that he is God we also confess that he is neither new nor foreign. If, then, he is God, he is not new; and what is not new is certainly eternal. So the eternal is neither new nor foreign to the true Godhead, since he is from the Father, and in the bosom of the Father, and has the Father in himself. Therefore whoever splits the Son off from the Father’s nature either sets worship of him aside altogether, so as not to worship a foreign god, or reveres an idol, setting up a creature and not God as the object of his worship and giving the idol the name of Christ.

That this is the thought he has in view in his notion of the Only-begotten will become clearer from what he sets out about the Only-begotten himself, which runs as follows: “We believe also in the Son of God, the only-begotten God, the firstborn of all creation, true Son, not unbegotten, truly begotten before the ages, not named Son without a begetting before he existed, come into being before all creation, not uncreated.” I think the mere reading of what has been set out suffices, even without our examination, to reveal the impiety of the doctrine. For having called him firstborn, so as to leave the hearers no doubt that he is created, he immediately added “not uncreated,” so that the meaning of “Son” might never be understood as it naturally is and some reverent thought about him arise in the hearers. For this reason, having first confessed him Son of God and only-begotten God, he immediately, by what he adds, turns the judgment of the hearers away from the reverent view to the heretical sense. For whoever hears “Son of God” and “only-begotten God” is necessarily led up to the loftier implications, guided by the meaning of these words, since no difference of nature is brought in by the word “God” or by the meaning of “Son.” For how could he who is truly Son of God, and himself God, be thought of as anything other than the Father’s nature? But so that the thoughts of godliness might not first be imprinted on the hearers’ hearts through these names, he immediately calls him firstborn of creation, “not named Son without a begetting before he existed, coming into being before all creation, not uncreated.”

So that it may be plain, then, that the evildoer holds out his first words to people as bait, so that the poison may be accepted, sweetened as with honey by the more reverent names, let us dwell a little on the statement. Who does not know how great the difference in meaning is between “only-begotten” and “firstborn”? For neither is the only-begotten conceived of with brothers, nor the firstborn without brothers. The firstborn is not only-begotten, for he is certainly the firstborn of brothers; and the only-begotten has no brother, for he would not be only-begotten if counted among brothers. Further, of whatever substance the brothers of the firstborn are, the firstborn will certainly be of the same. And this word signifies not only this, but also that both the firstborn himself and those who come after him have their being from the same source, the firstborn contributing nothing to the begetting of those after him. So by these things the word of John, which testifies that all things came to be through him, is made out to be false. For if he is firstborn, he certainly differs from those who came to be after him only by seniority in time, there being another through whom both he and the rest received the power to be.

But so that we may give no slanderer ground to suspect that we do not accept the inspired words against which we argue, we shall first set out the understanding we have of these names, and then leave the judgment of the better to the hearers. The great Paul, knowing that the only-begotten God, who has the first place in all things, is the author and cause of every good, bears witness to him not only that the creation of existing things came to be through him, but that when the ancient creation of human beings had grown old and vanished, as he himself calls it, and another, new creation had come to be in Christ, no other led the way in this either; of all the creation of human beings that came about through the Gospel he himself is the firstborn. And so that the thought about this may become clearer, we shall treat the matter thus. The divine Apostle mentions this word four times: once saying, “firstborn of all creation”; again, “firstborn among many brothers”; a third time, “firstborn from the dead”; and after these he sets the word down by itself and without a pairing, saying, “And when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, ‘And let all the angels of God worship him.’” Whatever sense, then, we perceive in the other pairings of this name, we shall consistently apply the same to the firstborn of creation as well; for since the word is one and the same, the meaning signified must necessarily be one as well. How, then, does he become firstborn among many brothers, and how firstborn of the dead? Is not this entirely plain? Because we had become blood and flesh, as Scripture says, he who for our sake became as we are and shared flesh and blood, intending to transform us from the corruptible to the incorruptible through the birth from above, through water and Spirit, himself led the way in such a birth, drawing the Holy Spirit upon the water by his own baptism, so that he became firstborn of all who are spiritually reborn and called brothers those who have shared in a birth like his through water and the Spirit.

And since he also had to deposit in our nature the power of the resurrection from the dead, again he becomes the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep and the firstborn from the dead, the first to loose by himself the pangs of death, so that for us too the rebirth from death might be made a road, the pang of death in which we were held having been loosed through the Lord’s resurrection. As, then, by sharing in the rebirth through the washing he becomes firstborn of brothers, and again, by making himself the first fruits of the resurrection, he is called firstborn from the dead, so, having the first place in all things, after all the old things have passed away, as the Apostle says, he becomes firstborn of the new creation of human beings in Christ through the twofold rebirth, that of holy baptism and that of the resurrection from the dead, becoming for us in both the author of life, the first fruits and the firstborn. This firstborn, then, also has brothers, of whom he says to Mary, “I am going to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.” For by these words he sums up the whole aim of the economy for humanity. For human beings, having revolted from God, served those that by nature are not gods, and, though they were children of God, attached themselves to the evil and falsely named father. For this reason the mediator of God and human beings, having taken up the first fruits of all human nature, sends his brothers the message not as in the divine person but as in ours, saying: “I am going, to make through myself the true Father, from whom you were separated, your Father, and to make through myself the true God, from whom you revolted, your God; for through the first fruits that I have taken up I bring all humanity in myself to the God and Father.” Since, then, the first fruits made Him who is God its God, and the good Father its Father, the good is accomplished for the whole nature, and through the first fruits he becomes the Father and God of all human beings. “And if the first fruits is holy,” he says, “so is the lump.” And where the first fruits is, Christ (and Christ is the first fruits), there also are those who belong to Christ, as the Apostle says. In the places, then, where he has mentioned the firstborn in a pairing, mentioning the dead and creation and brothers, he suggests that we understand these things and the like. But where he says without such an addition, “And when he again brings the firstborn into the world,” the addition of “again” foretells the appearance of the Master of all that will take place at the end. For as at the name of Jesus every knee bends, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, although the Son does not have the human name, being above every name, so he says that the firstborn, so named for our sake, is worshiped by all the creation above the world when he enters the world again, when he judges the world in righteousness and peoples in uprightness.

Thus the meaning of “firstborn” and that of “only-begotten” are distinguished by the word of godliness, each of the names keeping its appropriate sense. But he who carries the name “firstborn” back to the existence before the ages, how does he preserve the notion of “only-begotten”? Let the intelligent hearer consider whether these agree with each other, since the firstborn is not conceived of without brothers, nor the only-begotten with brothers. For when he says, “In the beginning was the Word,” by this we understood the Only-begotten; and when he adds, “The Word became flesh,” by this we received the Firstborn in thought. And so the word of godliness remains unconfused, keeping for each of the names its proper meaning, so that in “only-begotten” we see what is before the ages, and through “firstborn of creation” the manifestation through flesh of him who is before the ages.

Let us take up Eunomius’s statement again, word for word: “We believe also in the Son of God, the only-begotten God, the firstborn of all creation, true Son, not unbegotten, truly begotten before the ages.” That he shifts the implication of begetting to the meaning of creation is plain from his expressly calling him created, saying that he came into being and is not uncreated. But so that his heedlessness and lack of education in doctrines may be shown most clearly, we will leave off complaining of the obviousness of the blasphemy and treat the matter by a methodical division. For it seems to me right to examine with more careful scrutiny the very meaning of begetting. That this name presents being from some cause is plain to everyone, and I think there is no need to contend about it. But since the account of things that exist from a cause differs, I think it fitting to clarify this by a methodical division. Of things that have come to be from some cause, then, we have grasped these differences. Some are from matter and art, like the construction of buildings and other works, which come about through the matter suited to each, with some art leading the way and bringing what was proposed to its own aim; others are from matter and nature.

For nature builds up the births of animals from one another, working its own work through the material substance in bodies. Others are from material efflux, where what goes before remains as it is and what flows from it is seen by itself, as with the sun and its ray, or the lamp and its brightness, or with spices and perfumes and the quality given off from them. For these, while remaining undiminished in themselves, at once have accompanying them, each, the natural property given off from them: the sun its ray, the lamp its brightness, the spices the fragrance they produce in the air. There is also another kind of begetting besides these, whose cause is immaterial and incorporeal, while the begetting is perceptible and through bodies: I mean the word born from the mind. For the mind, being incorporeal in itself, brings forth the word through the organs of sense. So many are the differences of begetting that we have observed, in a kind of survey of begetting.

These ways of begetting being thus distinguished by us, it would be time to see how the loving economy of the Holy Spirit, in handing down the divine mysteries, gives the teaching that is beyond reason through things we can grasp. For all the kinds of begetting that human understanding knows the inspired teaching takes up for presenting the ineffable power, without admitting along with them the bodily implications of the names. When it speaks of the constructive power, it names such activity begetting, because the word must come down to the lowliness of our capacity; yet it does not also indicate all that is seen together with constructive begetting among us (not place, not time, not preparation of matter, not the help of instruments, not the aim in what comes to be), but, leaving these to us, it attests to God the coming to be of existing things grandly and loftily, where it says, “He spoke and they came to be, he commanded and they were created.” Again, when it interprets the ineffable existence of the Only-begotten from the Father, which is beyond reason, because human poverty cannot contain teachings beyond reason and thought, there too it uses our terms and names him Son, the name our usage gives to those born of matter and nature. But just as the word, speaking of begetting by creation in the case of God, although among us it comes about through some matter, did not add the substance of matter and place and time and all such things, declaring that the power of God’s will is these, so here too, in saying “Son,” it let go all the other things that human nature sees in begetting here below (I mean passions and dispositions, and the cooperation of time, and the need of place, and above all matter), without all of which begetting below from nature does not take place. And since all such material and extended substance is left out of the meaning of “Son,” the nature alone remains. For this reason the word “Son” expresses, in the case of the Only-begotten, the intimacy and genuineness of his manifestation from the Father. And since such a kind of begetting was not enough to give us an adequate image of the ineffable existence of the Only-begotten, it also includes the other kind of begetting, that from material efflux, to signify the theology of the Son, and says “radiance of glory,” and “fragrance of ointment,” and “vapor of God,” which in the classification we have set out our usage calls material efflux. But as in what was said before neither the begetting of creation nor the meaning of “Son” admitted time or matter or place or passion, so here too the word, setting aside every material notion from the meaning of “radiance” and of the other things mentioned, takes only what befits God in such a kind of begetting and shows by the implication of this expression that he must be thought of as from him and with him at once. For neither does “vapor” present the spreading into the air from an underlying matter, nor “fragrance” the passing into the air from the quality of the ointment, nor “radiance” the efflux from the body of the sun through the rays; but this alone of all, as has been said, is shown through such a mode of begetting: that he is from him and is thought of with him, with no interval between the Father and him who is from him.

Since, out of greater loving-kindness, the grace of the Holy Spirit arranged that divine notions about the Only-begotten should come to be in us from many sides, it added the remaining kind of those seen in begetting, that from the mind and the word. But here the lofty John uses greater forethought, so that the hearer may not, through weakness and smallness of soul, sink to the common notion of word, so that the Son should be thought a sound uttered by the Father. For this reason he testifies that the Word exists substantially in the first and blessed nature itself, proclaiming the message thus: “In the beginning was the Word, and with God, and God,” light and life; and all that the Beginning is, he too was.