Against Eunomius 7.751–8.767

For he says that no one who cares for the truth either names anything begotten “unbegotten” or names the God over all “Son” or “begotten.” This no longer needs words of ours to refute it. For he does not cover his deceit with veils, as is his habit, but treats the inversion of his absurd statement as equivalent, saying that neither is anything begotten called unbegotten nor is the God over all named Son or begotten. He sets apart nothing that is distinctive of the only-begotten Godhead of the Son from the rest of begotten things, but makes the distinction between God and all things that have come into being without distinction of rank, not excepting the Son from “all things.” And by his supposed inversion of the absurdities he openly removes the Son from the divine nature, saying that neither is anything begotten called unbegotten nor is God called Son or begotten, and by this contrast he plainly uncovers the horror of his blasphemy. For having distinguished the things that have come into being from the unbegotten, in the converse inference he said that it is impossible to call, not the unbegotten, but God, “Son” or “begotten,” showing by these words that what is not unbegotten is not God, and that the Only-begotten God, because he is begotten, is as far from being God as the unbegotten is from being, or being called, begotten. For it is not from ignorance of logical sequence that he makes an inversion of the terms laid down that is so discordant and incongruous; rather, maliciously corrupting the doctrine of piety, he sets the Godhead over against the begotten, establishing by what he says that what is not unbegotten is not God. For what would the true sequence of the argument have been? Having said that nothing begotten is unbegotten, he should have inferred that neither can anything that is by nature unbegotten be begotten. Such an argument both holds the truth and is free from blasphemy. But as it is, by premising that nothing begotten is unbegotten and inferring that neither is God begotten, he clearly excludes the Only-begotten God from being God, establishing from his not being unbegotten that he is not God either. Do we, then, need further refutations to prove this outrageous blasphemy? Is this alone not enough to stand as a monument against the enemy of Christ, who by these words establishes that the Word, who was God in the beginning, is not God? Why, then, should we grapple any longer with such people? For we do not engage in argument with those who busy themselves with idols and the gore of altars—not because we consent to the destruction of those mad for idols, but because their disease is too heavy for our treatment. As, then, the deed itself exposes idolatry, and the evil dared openly forestalls the refutation of its accusers, so here too I think the advocate of piety should keep silent toward one who loudly and openly proclaims impiety against himself, just as with those gripped by a cancerous disease treatment remains of no effect, because the disease overpowers the art.

However, since after this he promises to say something even stronger, let us examine that too along with what has been said, so that we may not seem to give up our rebuttal out of fear of stronger arguments. “I ought,” he says, “to leave everything aside and go on to the stronger argument. This I would say: that even if the names he put forward for refutation were granted, our argument will none the less be shown to be true. If the variation of the names that signify properties shows the variation of the things, it is surely necessary to grant that with the variation of the names that signify substances the variation of the substances is shown as well. And one would find this to be so in all cases—I mean of substances, activities, colors, shapes, and the other qualities. For we signify fire and water, which are different substances, by differing appellations, and air and earth, and again cold and hot, white and black, or triangle and circle. Why need one speak of the intelligible substances, in listing which the apostle showed the variation of the substances by the difference of the names?” Who would not be struck dumb before this irresistible force of attack? The argument outruns the promise; the trial is more fearsome than the threat. “I will come,” he says, “to the stronger of my arguments.” What is it? That since the difference of properties is known through the names that signify the properties, it is surely necessary, he says, to grant that the differences of substances too are expressed in the variations of names. What, then, are the appellations of the substances by which the variation of nature in Father and Son has been taught? He speaks of fire and water, air and earth, cold and hot, white and black, triangle and circle. He has won with his examples! He has prevailed mightily with his argument! For neither do I deny that names wholly without anything in common indicate along with them the difference of natures.

But this alone the man of sharp and keen mind did not see: that here the Father is God and the Son is God, just and incorruptible, and all the names of theology are said equally of Father and Son; so that if the variation of appellations signifies the difference of natures, the community of names will certainly indicate the community of the substance. And if we must agree that the divine substance is made known by names, it would be fitting to apply these lofty and God-befitting words to the divine nature rather than the designations “begotten” and “unbegotten.” For “good” and “incorruptible,” “just” and “wise,” and all such terms fit naturally only the nature that surpasses every mind; but “begotten” shares its name with the meanest things of the creation below: we call a dog begotten, and a frog, and everything that comes on the scene by birth. And the name “unbegotten” too is said not only of what subsists without cause, but also has a fittingness to the nonexistent: the scindapsus is called unbegotten, the Minotaur is unbegotten, and Scylla, and the Chimaera—not by existing unbegottenly, but by never having come to be at all. If, then, the more divine names are common to the Son with the Father, while those that share their name with the nonexistent or the lowly are what differ, Eunomius’s strong attack against us itself strengthens the doctrine of the truth, testifying that there is no difference in nature, since no variation is seen in the names either.

But if he places the difference of substance in begotten and unbegotten, as in fire and water, and thinks the names stand toward each other as in his examples, like fire and water, then again the horror of the blasphemy will become plain even if we keep silent. For fire and water have natures destructive of each other, and when each comes to be in the other, it is destroyed, perhaps, by the prevailing of the one that is greater. If, then, he teaches that the nature of the unbegotten stands apart from that of the Only-begotten in this way, he certainly grants by consequence that this destructive opposition too is present in the variation of the substances, so that their nature is thereby incompatible and incapable of communion, and the one is consumed by the other if both should come to be in or with each other. How, then, is the Son in the Father and not destroyed, and how does the Father, being in the Son, hold out for ever without being consumed, if the property of fire toward water is preserved in the relation of the begotten to the unbegotten too, as Eunomius says? But neither does reason see any communion of earth with air: the one is stable, solid, resistant, downward-tending, and heavy, while the nature of air is the opposite. Likewise white and black are found in the opposition of colors. And it is agreed that the circle is not the same as the triangle; for in the definition of the figure each is what the other is not. But in God the Father and God the Only-begotten Son, in what respect he sees the opposition I cannot find. Goodness is one; and wisdom, righteousness, prudence, power, incorruptibility, and all the other names of lofty meaning are said in the same way of each, and in a certain way each has its strength in the other. For the Father makes all things through the Son, and the Only-begotten, being the power of the Father, accomplishes everything in himself. What need, then, do fire and water serve in proving the estrangement in substance between Son and Father, and what is that strong and unspeakable argument that is proved by them?

But he calls us reckless for having set forth both the unity of the nature and the difference of the hypostases, and says that we dare terrible things if we lead the argument toward the contemplation of intelligible things by material examples. Well done, corrector of our stumbles! Well do you charge us with recklessness, who interpret the divine through material things! What, then, will you say about the elements, you steady and circumspect man? That earth is immaterial, fire intelligible, water bodiless, and air beyond the grasp of the senses? Is your mind so well arrayed for its aim, are you so sharp-sighted on every side, conducting your argument so unassailably for your opponents, that you do not see in yourself the charges you bring against the accused? Or shall we grant it to you when through matter you establish what is foreign in substance, while we, who show the kinship of nature through examples within our grasp, are to be cast out?

“But Peter and Paul,” he says, “were named by human beings, and for this reason it was possible for their appellations to be changed.” But which of the things that exist has not been named by human beings? I call you yourself as witness to this. For if you make the change of names a sign that things were named by human beings, you will certainly agree by this that every name was given to beings by us, since the same appellations of the subjects have not prevailed among all. For as Paul was formerly Saul, and Peter came from Simon, so earth and heaven and air and sea and all the parts of creation are not named alike among all, but are named one way among the Hebrews and another among us, and by different appellations among each of the nations. If, then, Eunomius’s attempt holds good when he argues that Peter and Paul were renamed because their appellations were given them by human beings, our argument too, starting from similar premises, will certainly hold good when it says that all things were named by us, since the appellations of all things vary according to the differences of the nations. And if all things are so, then certainly “begotten” and “unbegotten” are not otherwise either; for these too are among the things that are renamed. For taking the concept of the subject that arises in us as a kind of stamp of a name, we announce what we have conceived at different times in different words, changing not the thing but the words by which we name it. For things remain by themselves as their nature is; but the mind, laying hold of beings, uncovers its concept through whatever words it can. And as the substance of Peter was not changed along with the change of his name, so neither is anything else among the things contemplated changed in the exchange of names. That is why we say that the word “unbegotten” was applied by us to the true and first Father, the cause of all, and that no harm comes to the meaning of the subject if we make the same thing known by another word. For instead of saying “unbegotten” one may call him “first cause,” or “Father of the Only-begotten,” or “subsisting from no cause,” and many such expressions that lead to the same thought.

So by the very words with which he accuses us he strengthens our doctrines: that we have not learned a name signifying the divine nature. That it exists we have been taught; but as for the force of an appellation such as would comprehend the ineffable and boundless nature, we say either that there is none at all or that it is wholly unknown to us. So let him leave aside his usual mythologizing, show the appellations that signify the substances, and split the subject along with the variation of the names. But as long as the word of Scripture is true, that Abraham and Moses did not attain to the knowledge of the name, and that “no one has ever seen God,” and “no human being has seen him or can see him,” and that the light around him is unapproachable, and of his greatness there is no end—as long as these things are spoken and believed by us, every argument that promises some comprehension and interpretation of the boundless nature through the meaning of a name is like a man who thinks he can enclose the whole sea in his own palm. For what the hollow of a hand is to the whole ocean, that is all the power of words to the ineffable and incomprehensible nature. We say this not as denying that the Father is unbegottenly, nor as refusing to agree that the Only-begotten God is begotten. The one has been begotten, and the other has not been begotten. But what in his nature he is who is without birth, and he who is believed to have been begotten, we have not been taught from the meaning of being begotten and not being begotten. For when we say “this one has been begotten” or “has not been begotten,” we form a twofold impression through the words: by the demonstrative of the phrase we look to the subject, and by “has been begotten” or “has not been begotten” we are taught what is contemplated along with the subject—so that one thing is understood about what is, and another about what is contemplated in addition to what is. Indeed, with every name said of the divine nature “is” is certainly understood—for example, just, incorruptible, immortal, and unbegotten, and anything else that is said—even if this word does not happen to accompany the utterance. The mind of the speaker and of the hearer certainly fits the name to “is,” so that if this were not added, the appellation would fall on emptiness. For example (it is better to set forth the argument by an illustration), when David says, “God is a righteous judge, strong and long-suffering,” if “is” were not understood with each of the names used, the enumeration of appellations would be a vain and unsubstantial notion, resting on no subject; but when “is” is understood with each of the names, what is said will certainly hold, being contemplated about what is.

As, then, when we say that he is judge, we understand through the judging an activity concerning him, and through “is” we direct the mind to the subject, being clearly taught by this not to think the account of being the same as the activity, so too, from saying that he is begotten or unbegotten, we divide the mind toward a twofold conception: through “is” understanding the subject, and through “begotten” or “unbegotten” grasping what belongs to the subject. As, then, when we were taught by David that God is judge or long-suffering, we learned not the divine substance but one of the things contemplated about it, so here too, hearing that he has not been begotten, we have not come to know the subject through the negation, but have been guided as to what we must not think about the subject; while what it is in its substance remains no less unknown. So too holy Scripture, while predicating the other divine names of him who is, hands down to Moses “he who is” itself without a name. Let him, then, who would uncover the nature of what is not recount the things about what is, but make the nature itself plain to us by what he says. For every name you may utter is about what is, not that itself—good, unbegotten—but “is” is absent from none of these. Anyone, then, who promised to render the account of this one who is good and is unbegotten, as he is, would be vain, speaking of what is contemplated in addition and keeping silent about the very substance that he promises to interpret in his account. For being unbegottenly is one of the things contemplated in addition to what is; and the account of being is one thing, the account of how one is another. The former remains, up to now, unspoken and uninterpreted by anything that has been said. So let him first make plain to us the names of the substance, and then cut the nature apart by his fallacy about the appellations. As long as what is sought remains unuttered, his technical arguments about the names have been worked out in vain, since the names do not exist.

Such, then, is Eunomius’s stronger hold against the truth—many of the doctrines in this part of his writing having been passed over in silence. For it seems to me fitting for those who run this armed race against the enemies of the truth to arm themselves against those who are in some measure fenced about with the plausibility of falsehood, but not to soil the discourse with ideas that are dead and stinking. For take the notion that all things united in the account of substance are certainly also yoked together in bodily corruption—this, which he says in this part, I will gladly pass over like the stench of a corpse; I think anyone with sense can see at a glance how dead and fallen to pieces the argument is. For who does not know that the multitude of human souls is countless, yet one substance underlies them all, and the substrate in them is free of bodily corruption? So it is plain even to infants that bodies are corrupted and dissolved not because they are of the same substance with one another but because they have received a composite nature. The account of the composite is one thing, and that of the substrate of the substance another. So it is true to say that corruptible bodies are of the same substance, but the converse is not true, that everything of the same substance is certainly corruptible—as is shown in the case of souls, which have one substance, and yet corruption does not attach to the community of substance. And the account given of souls would apply fittingly to every intellectual hypostasis contemplated in creation. For the words listed by Paul for the powers above the world do not, as Eunomius would have it, signify certain natures differing from one another; rather, the meaning of the appellations clearly shows that what is set forth in the passage is not differences of natures but the various properties of the activities of the heavenly host. For “principalities,” he says, “and thrones, and authorities, and powers, and dominions”; and these names are such that it is at once plain to everyone that what they signify is ranked according to some activity. For ruling, exercising authority, being lord, and being someone’s throne—no reasonable person would apply any of these to differences of substances, since each of the names plainly signifies the activity. So he who says that differences of natures are signified in the names listed by Paul deceives himself, as the apostle says, understanding neither what he says nor the things about which he makes confident assertions; for the meaning of the names clearly shows that the apostle knows differences of certain ranks among the intelligible powers, and does not indicate properties of substances by the names.

Such are the strong points of Eunomius. For my part, since the powers he promised have been shown by the argument to be so rotten and unsubstantial, I think I ought to keep silent about the rest, since the others have been refuted, in their force, along with the refutations of the strong ones—just as happens in wars: when the strongest has fallen, the rest of the army is no longer of any account to those who have overcome the strong. But the chief point of the blasphemy, set out in what follows in his treatise, does not allow me to keep silent. For the passage of the Only-begotten from non-being into being—that horrible and godless doctrine of Eunomius, more to be shunned than any impiety—is now built up in the sequence of the treatise. And all who have been bewitched by this deceit have ready on their tongues, to establish that the Only-begotten, who made the whole creation from nothing, is himself from nothing, the saying, “If he was, he was not begotten; and if he was begotten, he was not.” The deceit has a great ally in this, since the more faint-hearted are hemmed in by its superficial plausibility and led on to assent to the blasphemy. It is necessary, then, not to pass over the root of bitterness of the doctrine, lest, as the apostle says, it spring up and cause trouble. First, I say, we must consider the argument by itself, apart from the battle with our opponents, and then go on to the examination and refutation of what has been set out.

The word of holy Scripture shows one mark of the true Godhead, which Moses was taught by the voice from above when he heard him who said, “I am he who is.” We think, then, that we must believe that alone to be truly divine which is apprehended as everlasting and unbounded in being; and everything contemplated about it is always the same, neither added to nor taken from. So if anyone were to say of God that he was before but is not now, or that he is now but was not before, we judge each of these statements equally godless. For by both the account of everlastingness is equally mutilated, cut off on either side alike by non-existence—whether one contemplates non-being before being or declares that being ends in non-being; and it is no relief to the impious supposition about the divine whether the non-existence is dinned into God at the beginning or at the end. That is why we determine that the argument that he who truly is once was not is a denial and rejection of the true Godhead. For he who showed himself to Moses through the light names himself “being,” saying, “I am he who is”; and Isaiah, having become as it were the instrument of the one speaking in him, says in the person of him who is, “I am first, and I am hereafter,” so that by this the everlastingness of God is understood in both directions. Likewise the voice that came to Manoah indicates by the meaning of the name that the divine is incomprehensible. When Manoah asked to learn the name, so that, when the promise had come to pass, he might glorify his benefactor by name, he says to him, “Why do you ask this? It too is wonderful”—so that we learn from this that there is one name signifying the divine nature: the wonder about it that arises ineffably in our soul. In the same way the great David too cries out the same thing in the words about himself—that all creation was brought into being by him, while God alone always is the same and abides for ever—where he says, “But you are the same, and your years will not fail.” Hearing these and similar things from the God-inspired men, how shall we not leave what is not from everlasting, as recent and foreign to the true Godhead, for the idolaters to worship? For what is now, but before was not, is certainly recent and not everlasting; and to look to anything recent Moses calls the worship of demons, saying, “They sacrificed to demons and not to God, to gods whom their fathers did not know; new and recent ones have come.” If, then, what is recent, held in reverence, is the worship of demons and is estranged from the true Godhead, and what is now but was not always is recent and not everlasting, then, looking of necessity to what is, we number those who contemplate non-being together with being and say that “once he was not” among the servants of idols. For the great John too, proclaiming the Only-begotten God in his own preaching, secures his word in every way, so that the supposition of non-being may gain no access against him who is.