Against Eunomius 4.627–4.641

And he shows this plainly by what he adds in contention to what has been said, saying that the substance of the Son was begotten by the Father, “not put forth by extension, not torn away by flux or division from the natural union with the begetter, not perfected by growth, not formed by alteration, but having obtained its being by the will alone of the begetter.” Who, among those who have not altogether closed the senses of the soul, does not know that through these words Eunomius establishes that the Son is a part of creation? For what prevents us from saying all these things, word for word as they stand, of each of the other things seen in creation as well? If you will, let us fit the statement to one of the things that appear in creation; and if it does not run in the same way, we will bring the verdict against ourselves, as examining the statement maliciously and not with the care that befits the truth. Changing the name of the Son, then, let us read the statement word for word: we say that the substance of the earth was begotten by the Father, “not torn away by extension or division from the natural union with the begetter, nor perfected by growth, not put forth by alteration, but having obtained its being by the will alone of the begetter.” Is anything said here unsuited to the existence of the earth? I think no one would say so. For neither did God put forth the earth by extending himself, nor did he give its substance existence by flowing or cutting himself off from union with himself; nor did he bring it to completion from small to great by gradual growth; nor did he undergo any change or alteration and take the form of earth; rather, his will sufficed him for the existence of the substance of the things that came to be. For “he spoke, and they were begotten,” so that even the name of begetting does not jar with the existence of the earth. If, then, it is true to say these things of the countless things of the world, what doubt is left about our opponents’ doctrine? That, naming him Son only so far as words go, they make him out to be one of the things that came into being by creation, set before the others only by precedence of rank. Just as one can say of smithing that all the things made of iron come from it, but that the tools of tongs and hammer, by which the iron is shaped for use, came into being before the making of the rest; yet because this comes first, there is not therefore any difference in material between the tool that shapes and the iron shaped by the tool: this and that are both iron, but one form came into being before the other. Such is the heresy’s theology about the Son: to think that the Lord himself and the things that came into being through him do not differ at all in substance, except for the difference of rank. Who, then, of those who belong in any way at all among Christians agrees that the definition of substance is the same for the parts of the world and for the one who made the world? For my part I shudder at the blasphemy, knowing that things whose definition is the same certainly do not differ in nature either. For as the definition of substance is common to Peter and John and the rest of men, and the nature is one, so in the same way, if the Lord were alike in nature to the parts of the world, they would necessarily confess that he too is subject to whatever they observe in them. But the world does not endure forever; so on their account the Lord too will pass away with heaven and earth, if he is of the same kind as the world. But if he himself is confessed to be eternal, it is altogether necessary to think that the world too has a share in the divine nature, if it agrees with the Only-begotten in respect of being created. You see where the argument is carried by this fine sequence, like a stone broken off from a mountain ridge and driven down the slope by its own weight. For it is necessary either that the elements of the world appear worthy of worship, as in Greek vanity, or that the Son not be worshipped either. Let us consider it thus. We say that creation came into being from what was not, both the intelligible creation and all that belongs to sensible nature; they proclaim this of the Lord as well. We say that all things that came to be were established by the will of God; they relate this of the Only-begotten as well. We have believed that neither the angelic creation nor that in the world is from the substance of the one who made it; they likewise estrange him from the substance of the Father. We confess that all things are subject to the will of the one who made them; they hold this same view of the Only-begotten. Necessarily, then, they will apply to the Only-begotten all the other things they think about creation, and whatever they believe about him they will suppose about creation too; so that if they confess the Lord to be God, they will deify the rest of creation as well.

But if they define these things as having no share in the divine nature, they will not deny the same supposition about the Only-begotten either. Yet no sensible person attributes Godhead to creation. Then neither… I keep silent about what remains, so as not to lend my tongue to the enemies’ blasphemy. Let those whose mouths are well trained for blasphemy say what follows from the sequence; the conclusion is plain even when we are silent. For one of two things will necessarily follow: either they will openly vote the only-begotten God out of office, so that among them he no longer both is and is called this; or, if they attribute Godhead to him, they will attribute the same to all creation as well. Or, what remains, fleeing the impiety that appears on either side, they will take refuge in the pious account and will certainly agree that he is not created, so that they may confess him to be truly God. Why need one spend time telling the other blasphemies that necessarily follow from this starting point in their account? For one who looks to the consequences will understand from what has been said that even the father of the lie, the maker of death, the inventor of wickedness, though created in an intellectual and bodiless nature, was not prevented by his nature from becoming, through change, what he is. For a changeable substance, moved freely to either side, has the power of its nature following the inclination of its will, so as to become whatever its will leads it to. They will define the Lord, then, as capable of opposites too, dragging him down by creation to equal honour with the angels. But let them hear the great voice of Paul, how he says that he alone has been called Son, because he is not of the angels’ nature but of the better one. “For to which of the angels did he ever say, ‘You are my Son’?” And when again he brings the Firstborn into the world, he says, “And let all the angels of God worship him.” And of the angels he says, “Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire”; but to the Son, “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of your kingdom,” and whatever else the prophecy goes through with these in speaking of God. He adds also from another hymn what is suitable: “You, Lord, in the beginning founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands,” and all that follows down to “But you are the same, and your years will not fail,” by which he describes the unchangeableness and eternity of his nature. If, then, the Godhead of the Only-begotten lies as far above the angelic nature as the master differs from the slaves, how do they put the Lord of creation on a common level with sensible creation, or the one worshipped by the angels with the nature of the angels, when, concerning the manner of his existence, they go through things that will properly fit each of the things seen in creation, as we have already shown that the account of the Lord given by the heresy fits the making of the earth naturally and suitably? But so that nothing may be left doubtful to those who read our labours, since there are some who offer advocacy for the heretical doctrines from the divinely inspired Scripture, it would be worthwhile to set this too beside what we have examined. For perhaps they will say, from the very apostolic words we have mentioned: “How could he have been named firstborn of creation, if he were not what creation is? For every firstborn is firstborn not of things of a different nature but of things of the same kind; as Reuben, preceding in birth those counted after him, was a man firstborn of men; and many others are called firstborn of the brothers counted with them.” They say, then, that whatever substance we understand the whole of creation to have, we say that its firstborn is of the same. “If, then, the whole of creation is of the same substance as the Father of all, we will not deny that its firstborn is so too. But if the God of all differs in substance from creation, it is altogether necessary to say that its firstborn does not share God’s substance either.” Such is the construction of the objection, set against our argument by us, I think, no less nobly than our opponents would likely have brought it against us. What one must know in answer will now be made clear in our discussion, as far as we are able. The name “firstborn” is used four times by the Apostle in all his writings, but he mentions this name in different ways and not in the same manner. Now he says, “Firstborn of all creation”; again, “Firstborn among many brothers”; then, “Firstborn from the dead.”

In the Epistle to the Hebrews the name “firstborn” is mentioned absolutely, by itself. For he says thus: “When again he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, ‘And let all his angels worship him.’” Since these uses are distinguished in this way, it would be well to examine each of them separately by itself: how he is firstborn of creation, how among many brothers, and how, mentioned by himself apart from each of these, when he is brought again into the world he is worshipped by all his angels. Let us, then, if you will, begin our contemplation of these passages from the last. “When again,” he says, “he brings the firstborn into the world.” The addition of “again” shows by the meaning of the word that this is not happening for the first time; for we use this word for the repetition of things that have happened once already. By the saying, then, he signifies his fearful appearing at the end of the ages, when he is no longer seen in the form of the slave, but sits majestically on the throne of the kingdom and is worshipped by all the angels around him. For this reason he who once entered the world, becoming firstborn from the dead, of brothers, and of all creation, when he enters the world again as the one who “judges the world in righteousness,” as the prophecy says, does not cast off the name of firstborn which he once accepted for our sake; but as every knee bows in the name of Jesus, the name that is above every name, so too the whole fullness of the angels worships the one who has come in the name of the firstborn, rejoicing over the recall of human beings, whom, by becoming our firstborn, he called back again to the grace that was from the beginning. For since there is joy among the angels over those who are saved from sin (because until now that creation groans and travails together with our vanity, judging our perdition its own loss), when the revealing of the sons of God takes place, which they always eagerly await and look for on our behalf, and when the sheep is brought back safe to the hundred above (and all of us, human nature, are this sheep, which the good shepherd brought back safe by becoming firstborn), then especially, with heightened thanksgiving on our behalf, they will offer worship to God, who through being firstborn called back the one who had left his father’s hearth. When these things have been understood by us in this way, no one could any longer doubt about the rest, for what reason he becomes firstborn of the dead, or of creation, or among many brothers. For all these look to the same aim, even if each displays some meaning of its own. He becomes firstborn from the dead who first by himself loosed the pangs of death, so that he might make a way for all to the birth from resurrection. Again, he becomes firstborn among brothers who was born first, in the water, of the new birth of regeneration, whose pangs the flight of the dove brought to delivery; through which he makes those who share with him in a like birth his own brothers, and becomes firstborn of those born after him from water and the Spirit. In short, since there are three births in us by which human nature is made alive (one from the body, one according to the mystery of regeneration, and one through the resurrection from the dead for which we hope), he becomes firstborn in all three. Of the twofold regeneration, worked through both baptism and resurrection, he himself became the leader in each; and in the flesh he becomes firstborn, the first and only one who made new in himself, through virginity, the birth unknown to nature, in which no one in all the generations of men had gone before him. If these things have been rightly understood, then neither will the meaning of the creation of which he is firstborn be unknown. For we have come to know a twofold creation of our nature: the first, by which we were formed, and the second, by which we were formed anew. But there would have been no need of our second creation had we not made the first useless through disobedience. Since that one had grown old and vanished, there had to be a new creation in Christ, as the Apostle says. He does not allow us to look any longer at anything that has grown old in the second creation, saying, “Having stripped off the old man with his deeds and desires, put on the new man created according to God”; and, “If anyone is in Christ,” he says, “he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come to be.” For one and the same is the maker of human nature both at the beginning and afterward: then, taking dust from the earth, he formed man; again, taking the dust from the virgin, he did not simply form a man, but formed a man around himself.

Then he created; afterward he was created. Then the Word made flesh; afterward the Word became flesh, so that he might transform our flesh into spirit by sharing with us in flesh and blood. Of this new creation in Christ, then, which he himself began, he was named firstborn, having become the firstfruits of all, both of those born into life and of the dead who are made alive through resurrection, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living, and through the firstfruits in himself sanctify the whole lump. For that “firstborn” is not fitted to the Son in respect of his pre-eternal existence, the appellation “Only-begotten” bears witness. For one who is truly only-begotten has no brothers. How, then, could anyone be only-begotten while counted among brothers? But as he is called God and man, Son of God and Son of Man (for he is form of God and form of a slave, the one being his by the nature he has, the other having come about by the economy of his love for humankind), so too, being only-begotten God, he becomes firstborn of all creation: Only-begotten, being in the Father’s bosom, and among those saved through the new creation both becoming and being called firstborn of creation. But if, as the heresy would have it, he is called firstborn because he was made before the rest of creation, the name does not agree with what they establish about the only-begotten God. For they do not say that the Son and all things came into being from the Father alike; they say that the only-begotten God is the Father’s thing made, and all other things are his. By the same reasoning, then, by which, teaching that the Son was created, they name God the Father of the creature, they would certainly, in saying that all things were made by the only-begotten God, name him not firstborn of the things that came into being through him but, more properly, Father, since the same relation to the creatures in both cases produces, by consequence, the same appellation. For if the God over all is properly named not firstborn but Father of his own creature, by the same reasoning the only-begotten God too will properly be named Father, not firstborn, of his own creatures; so that the appellation “firstborn” is in every way improper and superfluous, having no place in the heretical notion. But we must return to those who join passion to the divine begetting and for this reason deny that the Lord was truly begotten, lest they should think of passion. For to say that passion is yoked with the begetting of all things, and that for this reason we must think of the Son as foreign to the notion of begetting, so that the Divine may remain purely outside passion, might perhaps seem to have some reason to the easily deceived; but for those instructed in the divine mysteries the refutation is ready from what is agreed. For who does not know that there is a birth that leads us up to the true and blessed life, not the same as the one constituted from blood and the will of the flesh, in which there is flux and change and gradual completion and whatever else is seen in that birth? The other is from God and heavenly and, as the Gospel says, is believed to be from above, and it does not admit the passions of flesh and blood. Or let our opponents dare to declare one of two things: either that there is no birth from above, or that it is through passion. But they agree that it exists, and they find no passion in it. So not every birth is naturally joined with passion: the material is passible, but the immaterial is pure of passion. What necessity is there, then, to rub the properties of the flesh onto the pure begetting of the Son, and, by mocking the lower birth with an indecent natural science, to shut the Son out of kinship with the Father? But if even in our case a birth leads off each life, the one through flesh, of a passible life, the other spiritual, of a pure life (and no one counted in any way among Christians would contradict the account), how can one who thinks of begetting in the pure nature reckon passion in with it? Let us examine this too in addition to what has been said. If because of the passion connected with the flesh they disbelieve the impassibility of the divine begetting, then on the same examples, I mean those in us, let them not believe God to be an impassible creator either. For if they judge the divine by our things, they will confess that God neither begets nor creates, since neither of these is effected in us without labour and matter. Let them, then, either separate both from the divine nature, creating and begetting, so as to keep God’s impassibility in both, and cast faith in the Only-begotten altogether out of their doctrine, so that the Father may be kept outside passion, not defiled in begetting; or let them grant that the one is effected impassibly by the divine power, and not quarrel about the other.

[…let them not] quarrel. For if he creates without labour and matter, he certainly also begets without labour and flux. And again I have Eunomius himself as my advocate for this argument too. I will state his nonsense briefly, running over his whole meaning in a few words: “Human beings do not make materials for us, but only devise the form for the material.” This is the meaning of what they have said with so much nonsense. If, then, thinking of conception and formation in the lower begetting, he forbids for this reason the pure notion of begetting, then consistently, by the same reasoning, since making here below labours over the form but cannot supply matter along with the form, let him for this reason forbid us to think that the Father is a creator either. But if he will not think of creating in God according to the measure of human power, let him not slander the divine begetting on the basis of human things either. That his exactness and circumspection in what he says may be made more evident, we will take up again a little of what they have said. He says that what acts and what is acted upon share nature with each other, and after begetting from bodies he sets out the craftsmen’s making from materials. Let the shrewd hearer consider, then, how he falls away from his own aim, wandering after whatever turns up at each moment. In things that come to be through flesh he sees the agent and the patient in the same substance, the one imparting the substance and the other partaking of it. So well does he know how to see the truth exactly in the nature of things that he separates the one who imparts and the one who partakes from the substance, and says that each of them is another, by himself, apart from the substance. For the one who receives or imparts is certainly other than what is shared and given; so that one must first be understood by himself, seen in his own hypostasis, and only then may one say of him that he gives, or has, or receives what he did not have before. And having spat out this argument so ridiculously, the wise man does not notice that he overturns himself again by what follows. For one who shapes the underlying material by art as he pleases certainly does something by his activity, and the material receives the shaping from the one who exercises the art by being acted upon. For the material does not receive the form from the art while remaining impassive and resistant. If, then, even in things effected by art nothing could come to be unless passion and activity concur with each other toward what comes to be, how can one think that the writer pays attention to his own words, when, by declaring community of substance in passion and activity, he runs the risk not only of somehow attesting for the begotten the community of substance with the begetter, but also of making all creation consubstantial with its maker, if indeed he defines agent and patient as being of the same kind by nature? By the very means by which he constructs what he wishes, then, he overturns what he is striving for, making the doctrine of the consubstantial stronger by his own fighting. For if begetting from someone shows the substance of the begetter in the begotten, and craftsmanship, accomplished through activity and passion, on his account brings the maker and what comes to be into community of substance (and the writer establishes in many places of his writings that the Lord was begotten), then by the very means by which he estranges the Lord from the Father’s substance he attests his connection with it. For if on his account a separation of substance is seen neither through begetting nor through making, then whatever he grants the Lord to be, whether created or offspring, he has attested his kinship in substance through both, having argued technically for community of nature in agent and patient, begetter and begotten. But let us turn to what follows in his discourse. I ask my readers not to be annoyed at the exactness of the examination, which brings our discussion to an unintended length. For the danger is not about trivial matters, such that, if we hurried past something that needed more laborious contemplation, we would suffer only a small loss; we are in danger concerning the very sum of our hope. For the choice before us is either to be Christians, not carried away by the heretical ruin, or to be dragged down altogether into Jewish and Greek suppositions. So that we may suffer neither of these forbidden things (neither agreeing with Jewish doctrines by denying the truly begotten Son, nor falling with the fall of the idolaters by worshipping the creature), we must first spend time on the account of these things, setting out Eunomius’s statement itself, which runs thus: “These things being so distinguished, one might reasonably say that the most proper and first and only substance that subsists by the activity of the Father receives into itself the appellations of offspring, thing made, and creature.”