Against Eunomius 6.717–6.729

If, then, we have learned to think this from the God-inspired teaching, how do we attribute the cause of our salvation to a common man? And if we determine that the word “made” used by the blessed Peter looks not to the existence of the hypostasis before the ages but to the recent economy, what has this to do with the charge? For this great apostle says that what was seen in the form of the slave was made, through the assumption, that which he who assumed it was by his own nature. For in the Epistle to the Hebrews too one can learn the same from Paul, who says that Jesus was made apostle and high priest by God, “being faithful to him who made him.” For there too, having named as high priest him who made priestly propitiation for our sins by his own blood, he does not declare the first hypostasis of the Only-begotten by the word “made”; rather, wishing to set forth the grace customarily named at the appointment of priests, he says “made.” For Jesus—as Zechariah says, the great high priest—who offered his own lamb, that is, his own body, as a priest for the sin of the world; who, for the sake of the children who share in flesh and blood, himself likewise partook of blood—not inasmuch as he was in the beginning, being Word and God, and existing in the form of God, and being equal to God, but inasmuch as he emptied himself in the form of the slave and brought an offering and sacrifice for us—he became a priest, many generations later, according to the order of Melchizedek. Whoever has studied the Epistle to the Hebrews with care certainly knows the mystery concerning this. In the same way, then, he is said here to have been made priest and apostle, and there Lord and Christ: the one with regard to the economy on our behalf, the other because of the change and transformation of the human into the divine; for the apostle calls the transformation a making. So the slander of our opponents is plain, who spitefully snatch the words of the economy and apply them to the hypostasis before the ages. For we have learned from the apostle not to know Christ in the same way now and before, since Paul says, “Even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer”—as if that knowledge denoted the temporary economy, and this the everlasting existence.

Our discourse, then, has made a sufficient defense against the charges: that we neither think there are two Christs or two Lords, nor are ashamed of the cross, nor hold that a common man suffered for the world, nor think that “made” bears on the constitution of the substance. And for this view of ours the argument receives no small support from the accuser himself, where, in the midst of lashing us with his tongue, he also puts forward this: “Basil, however, brings this conflict upon himself, and is clearly shown neither to have attended to the intention of the apostles nor to have kept the consistency of his own words; from which, either, perceiving the inconsistency, he will grant that the Word who was in the beginning and was God became Lord, or he joins contradictory things to contradictory.” For this is our doctrine too, which Eunomius also states when he says that the Word who was in the beginning and was God became Lord. For being what he was—God and Word, and life and light, grace and truth, and Lord and Christ, and every lofty and divine name—in the man who was assumed, who was none of these, he became both the other things that the Word was and, with the others, Christ and Lord as well, according both to the teaching of Peter and to the confession of Eunomius. This is not because the Godhead took on anything by progress, since every lofty dignity is seen in the divine nature. He thus becomes both Lord and Christ, not by his Godhead coming to an addition of grace—for the nature of the Godhead is confessed to lack no good—but by bringing the human into participation in the Godhead, which is what is signified by “Christ” and “Lord.”

Enough on these matters. As for what Eunomius says to slander our doctrine—that Christ was emptied into himself—it has already been examined sufficiently in what was said, where it was shown that he is fastening his own blasphemy onto our doctrine. For it is not he who confesses that the unchangeable nature entered the created and perishable nature who speaks of a passing from like to like, but he who conceives of no passing from the greatness of the nature to what is lowlier. For if, according to their account, he is created and the man is created, the wonder of the word is altogether stolen away, and there is nothing paradoxical in what is said, since creation has simply come to be in itself.

But we, having learned from the prophecy of “the change of the right hand of the Most High,” say that the right hand of the Father is the power of God that makes all things, which is the Lord—not as a part hanging from the whole, but as being from him, yet contemplated by itself in its own hypostasis. This we say: that neither does the right hand differ, in the principle of its nature, from him whose right hand it is, nor can any other change of it be spoken of besides the economy of the flesh. For the right hand truly was God himself manifested in the flesh, seen through the flesh itself by those of keen sight. Inasmuch as he did the works from the Father, he both was and was understood to be the right hand of God; but in that he was enveloped in the veil of the flesh, as far as sight went, he was seen as other than he was by nature. That is why he says to Philip, who was gazing only at what had been changed: “Look through what was changed at the unchanged, and if you see this, you have seen the Father himself, whom you seek to see. For he who has seen me”—not the one appearing in the change, but truly me, who am in the Father—“will have seen that very one in whom I am,” because the same stamp of the Godhead is seen in both. Since we believe, then, that the pure and impassible and uncreated nature came to be in what is passible in creation, and understand the change from this, how are we accused of saying that he was emptied into himself, by those who din their own doctrine into ours? For the communion of the created with the created is no change of the right hand. To call the right hand of the uncreated nature created belongs to Eunomius alone, and to those who think as he does. For whoever has an eye that looks to the truth will see the right hand of the Most High to be such as he sees the Most High to be: uncreated of uncreated, good of good, everlasting of everlasting, its being in the Father by way of begetting in no way impairing its everlastingness. So the accuser has failed to notice that he is using his own reproaches against us.

To those who stumble at the suffering, and by it establish the difference of the substances—as though the Father, because of the superiority of his nature, does not admit suffering, while the Son, because of his inferiority and difference, comes down to share in sufferings—I wish to add this to what has been said: that nothing is in truth suffering except what leads to sin. Nor would anyone properly call the necessary sequence of nature suffering, seeing the composite nature proceed on its way in a certain order and sequence. For the concourse of elements of different natures with one another in the structure of our body is a kind of composition fitted together out of many unlike things. And when, at the due time, the harmony that binds together the concourse of the elements is dissolved, the composite is resolved again into the things of which it was made up. This, then, is rather a work of nature, and not a suffering of it. For only what is understood as the opposite of the impassibility that consists in virtue do we properly call suffering; and we believe that he who grants us salvation remained without share in this even in his communion with our nature, he who “was tempted in every respect according to likeness, without sin.” In true suffering, then, which is a disease of the will, he had no share; for “he committed no sin,” it says, “nor was deceit found in his mouth.” But in the properties of our nature, which by a certain custom and misuse of language are called by the same name “sufferings,” we confess that the Lord shared: birth, and nourishment, and growth, sleep and toil, and whatever the soul is naturally disposed to feel along with the burdens of the body, as the desire for what is lacking stretches the appetite from the body to the soul; and the sense of grief, and fear in the face of death, and all such things—except whatever leads on to sin.

As, then, when we consider his power pervading all things, in heaven and air, and earth and sea, and whatever is in heaven and whatever is under the earth, we believe that he is everywhere and through all things, yet we say that he is none of the things in which he is—for he who has enclosed heaven in the span that grasps the universe is not heaven, nor is he who holds the circle of the earth earth, nor again is he who encompasses the liquid nature water—so too we do not say that he is passible because he passed through what are called the sufferings of the flesh. Rather, as the cause of all that is, who has grasped the universe, and by the ineffable power of his own majesty steers all that moves and keeps what stands firm on its fixed base, we say that he also came to be among us to heal the disease of sin, fitting the working of his medicine to the suffering and applying the cure as he knew would profit the ailing part of creation; and it was profitable to heal the suffering by touch, and so he healed it.

Yet he is not thought to have become passible himself because he heals the infirmity. For even in the case of human beings common usage does not allow us to say such a thing. For of one who touches a sick person to heal him we do not say that he himself shares in the infirmity; we say rather that he grants the sick person a return to health and does not share in the infirmity. For the suffering does not touch him; on the contrary, he touches the illness. If, then, one who by his skill works some good for bodies is called not sluggish and sickly but a lover of humankind and a benefactor and the like, why do they slander the economy on our behalf as lowly and inglorious, and use it to establish that the substance of the Son is different, as though the Father’s nature were above sufferings while that of the Only-begotten is not pure of suffering? For if the aim of the economy through the flesh was not that the Lord should become passible but that his love for humankind should be shown, and no one doubts that the Father too loves humankind, then the Father stands in the same case as the Son, if one is willing to look to the aim. And if it was not the Father who wrought the destruction of death, do not be surprised at all. For he has also given all judgment to the Son, himself judging no one—not because he is unable either to save the lost or to judge the sinner, and so does these things through the Son, but because he does these things too through his own power, through which he works all things; and the Son is the power of the Father. Those, then, who were saved through the Son were saved by the power of the Father, and those who are judged by him undergo judgment by the righteousness of God. For Christ is the righteousness of God, which is revealed through the gospel, as the apostle says. Whether you look at the whole world or at the parts of the world that make up the whole, all these are works of the Father, since they came about as works of his power; and so the Word speaks truly in both statements, when it says both that the Father works all things and that without the Son nothing that exists came to be. For the working of a power is referred to him whose power it is. Since, then, the Son is the power of the Father, all the works of the Son are works of the Father. That he came to the economy of the suffering not by weakness of nature but by the authority of his will, countless sayings could be adduced from the Gospel; I will pass them over in silence because the matter is plain, so that the discourse may not be lengthened by dwelling on what is agreed. If, then, what took place is evil, not only the Father but the Son too must be kept apart from the evil. But if the salvation of the lost is a good, and what took place is not suffering but love for humankind, why do you estrange the Father from the thanksgiving for our salvation, he who through his own power, which is Christ, wrought for human beings their freedom from death?

But we must return again to our vehement speech-writer and take up once more that strenuous rhetoric of his against us. He blames us for not saying that the substance of the Son was made, as though we contradicted Peter’s words, “He made him Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” He is long in his indignation and abuse on this point, and builds up arguments by which he thinks he refutes our doctrine. Let us see, then, the force of his attempts. “And who,” he says, “O most careless of all men, having the form of a slave, takes on the form of a slave?” No one in his right mind, we will say to him, would say such a thing, unless some are wholly estranged from the hope of Christians. And such are you, who accuse us of carelessness because we do not admit that the Creator is created. For if the Holy Spirit does not lie when he says through the prophet, “All things are your slaves,” and “All creation serves,” and if, according to you, the Son is created, then he is certainly a fellow slave with all things, since by sharing in creation he is dragged down with them to share in slavery. And you will certainly put the form of a slave on one who serves; for those who confess him a slave by nature should not be ashamed of the mask of slavery. Who, then, O keenest of orators, is it that moves the Son from the form of a slave into another form of a slave: he who bears witness that he is uncreated, which at the same time proves that he does not serve, or rather you, who cry out openly that the Son is the Father’s slave and is ruled by him even before the form of the slave? I need no other judges; I leave the vote on these matters to you. For I do not think that anyone is so shameless toward the truth as to oppose, out of sheer impudence, what is agreed.

For what is said is plain to everyone: that what is a slave by nature is marked by the properties of slavery, and to be created is a property of slavery. He, then, who says that the Son, being a slave, entered our form is certainly the one who moves the Only-begotten from slavery into slavery.

But he presses his attack on what was said, and says a little further on (for the matters in between I will now pass over, since they were examined sufficiently in what precedes), slandering us as reckless in saying and thinking impossible things, and calling us “most pitiable,” he adds this: “For if the blessed Peter is speaking not about the Word who was in the beginning and was God, but about the one who was seen and who emptied himself, as Basil says, and the man who was seen emptied himself into the form of a slave, and he who emptied himself into the form of a slave emptied himself into the birth of a man …” Perhaps the malice and the folly in the construction of the argument have already been detected at once, from what has been read, by the judgment of the hearers. Yet we too will add a brief refutation of what was said, not so much to overturn the uneducated sophism, which has overturned itself among those who have ears, as so that we may not seem to leave what was proposed unexamined under the pretext of despising the cheapness of the argument.

Let us examine the argument, then, in this way. What are the apostle’s words? “Let it be known,” he says, “that God has made him Lord and Christ.” Then, as if someone had asked about whom such grace had come to pass, he points out the subject as if with a finger, saying, “this Jesus whom you crucified.” What does Basil say about this? That the demonstrative word of the speech says that he was made Christ and Lord who had been crucified by the hearers themselves. “For you crucified,” he says; and it was likely that those who had demanded his murder were hearers of the speech, for the time from the cross to Peter’s address to the people was not long. What, then, does Eunomius put forward against this? “If the blessed Peter is speaking not about the Word who was in the beginning and was God, but about the one who was seen and who emptied himself, as Basil says, and the man who was seen emptied himself into the form of a slave—” Stop! Who says that the man who was seen emptied himself again into the form of a slave? Or who argues that the suffering of the cross took place before the appearing through the flesh? For neither was the cross before the body, nor the body before the form of the slave. Rather, God is manifested in the flesh, and the flesh that showed God in itself, after fulfilling through itself the great mystery of death, is transformed by the blending into what is lofty and divine, becoming Christ and Lord, transferred and changed into that which he was who had manifested himself in that flesh.

But if we were to say these things, [would it follow] that the one shown on the cross had been emptied into the birth of another man—which this champion of the truth makes out that we say, putting his sophism together, word for word, thus: “If the man who was seen,” he says, “emptied himself into the form of a slave, and he who emptied himself into the form of a slave emptied himself into the birth of a man, then the man who was seen emptied himself into the birth of a man”? Oh, how well he remembers the task before him! How much to the point he concludes his argument! Basil says that the apostle said that Christ was made with respect to the man who was seen; but this clever and shrewd overturner of what was said says: “If Peter does not say that the substance of the one who was in the beginning was made, the man who was seen emptied himself into the form of a slave; and he who emptied himself into the form of a slave emptied himself into the birth of a man.” We are beaten, Eunomius, by this invincible wisdom! It has been mightily refuted that the apostle’s word looks to him who was crucified out of weakness—by arguments from which we have learned that, if we believe this is so, the man who was seen becomes someone else again, being emptied into another human birth! Will you never stop making sport of what should not be dared? Will you not blush at loosening the fear of the divine mysteries with such ridiculous sophisms? Will you not turn now at least, if not before, to recognize that the Only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, being Word and King and Lord and every lofty name and thought, needs to become none of the goods, since he is himself the fullness of all goods? Into what, then, is he changed, so as to become what he was not before? As, then, he who knew no sin becomes sin, that he may take away the sin of the world, so again the flesh that received the Lord becomes Christ and Lord, being transformed by the blending into what it was not by nature.

From this we learn that God would not have been manifested in the flesh had the Word not become flesh, nor would the human flesh that was about him have been transformed into the divine had what appeared not become Christ and Lord. But they spit upon the simplicity of our preaching, those who intrude upon the substance of God with their syllogisms and want to prove that he who brought all things that are into being is himself part of creation; and as an ally in such an effort to establish their blasphemy they drag in the words of Peter, who said to the Jews, “Let all the house of Israel know that God has made him Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” This they put forward as their proof that the substance of the Only-begotten God is created. What, then, tell me? Were the Jews, to whom the word was spoken, before the ages? Was the cross before the world? Was Pilate before all creation? Was Jesus first, and the Word afterward? Is the flesh older than the Godhead? Does Gabriel bring the good news to Mary before the world began? Does not the man in Christ take his beginning by birth in the time of Caesar Augustus, while the Word who was in the beginning is God, “our King before the ages,” as the prophet testifies? Do you not see what confusion you bring into the argument, stirring everything upside down, as the proverb says? It was the fiftieth day after the passion when Peter addressed these words to the Jews, saying, “This one whom you crucified God has made Christ and Lord.” Indeed, “whom you crucified,” he says, “him God has made both Christ and Lord,” so that it is clear from this that Peter speaks not of what was before the ages but of what was after the economy. How is it, then, that you do not see that the whole sense of the passage turns on the one pointed out, but play the clown with the childish plaiting of your sophism, saying, “If we have believed that the one who appeared was made Christ and Lord by God, the Lord must be emptied again into a man and undergo a second birth”? How is your doctrine strengthened any further by this? How does what has been said prove that the substance of the King of creation is created? For my part I say the opposite: that our position is supported by those who fight against us, and that the orator, out of excessive attention, has not noticed that while he pushes the argument, as he supposes, into absurdity, he is fighting on the side of those he wars against by the very means through which he tries to overturn them. For if we must believe that the passing of Jesus took place from the transcendent to the lowly, and only the divine and uncreated nature is above creation, while man is created, then perhaps, seeing the truth through his own argument, he will change sides and agree that the uncreated came to be in the created out of love for humankind. But if he thinks he proves the Lord created by showing that, being God, he took part in human nature, many such passages will be found that establish the same thing and lend his argument the same support. For since he was the Word and was God, and afterward, as the prophet says, “he was seen on earth and lived among human beings,” it will be proved by this that he is one of the creatures! But if this is far from the point at issue, then neither are things like it at all suited to the matter before us. For it is the same in meaning to say that the Word who was in the beginning was afterward manifested to human beings through the flesh, and that he who existed in the form of God entered the form of the slave. If one of these is useless for establishing the blasphemy, the other must be thrown out with it.

But he kindly advises us to turn from our error, and points out the truth that he himself establishes: “The Word who was in the beginning and was God,” he says, “this one the apostle Peter teaches to have been made.” Now if he were interpreting dreams for us and professed the divination of dreams, there would perhaps be no danger in allowing him to bring the riddles of fancy round to whatever he pleased. But since he says he is expounding the divine words, it is no longer safe for us to give him free license to misinterpret the sayings. What does Scripture say? “That God has made this Jesus whom you crucified Lord and Christ.” Since, then, everything concurs on this one—the demonstrative word, the name given in human fashion, the accusation of those who had stained their hands with murder, the suffering on the cross—the meaning necessarily looks to what appeared. But he says that Peter says these things, yet indicates the substance before the ages by the word “made.” It is harmless to let nurses or old women play with children and bend the images of dreams to whatever they like; but when the God-inspired word is set before us for interpretation, the great apostle forbids us to admit old wives’ empty chatter.