Apology

Contents

Chapter 4 is incomplete in the scan text (only its first words survive in Greek).

Reading pages: 1–23 · 24–28

1. 1Eunomius explains that he writes his defense because slanderers and the credulous have spread a false report of his beliefs.
2. 2Eunomius asks his hearers to judge his words not by numbers, rank, or seniority but by Christ's teaching and love of the truth.
3. 3Eunomius says he will set out the truth openly, fearing God's judgment more than any earthly loss.
4. 4Eunomius turns to his confession of faith and proposes the fathers' tradition as the standard for judging it.
5. 5Eunomius gives the simple creed he holds to be the common faith of Christians.
6. 6Eunomius says the simple creed does not suffice, since even Sabellius, Marcellus, and Photinus could accept it, and promises a more exact account of his view.
7. 7Eunomius argues that the one God came into being neither from himself nor from another, and therefore is unbegotten, indeed is unbegotten substance.
8. 8Eunomius argues that "unbegotten" is not a mere human conception or a privation but names God's very substance.
9. 9Eunomius argues that the unbegotten God cannot share his substance with what is begotten, whether by division or by comparison, without destroying his unbegottenness.
10. 10Eunomius rejects any priority of the Father over the Son merely by order or time, since neither time nor order touches God's substance, and denies that anything precedes or coexists with the unbegotten.
11. 11Eunomius argues that likeness in substance would make the Son equal and unbegotten, which the Lord's words "the Father is greater than I" exclude.
12. 12Eunomius says the names "Son", "offspring", and "thing made" show the Son's different substance, and that the Son did not exist before he was begotten by the Father's will.
13. 13Eunomius argues that to say the Son was begotten while already existing is absurd, since what exists before its begetting is unbegotten.
14. 14Eunomius argues that a Son begotten while already existing would be a second unbegotten, and that generation by growth or change is absurd.
15. 15Eunomius affirms that the Son was begotten not existing, by the Father's will, yet stands above all creatures as the one through whom all things were made.
16. 16Eunomius argues that "Father" and "Son" no more imply bodily begetting than God's being creator implies pre-existing matter, since words used of God and man share sound but not meaning.
17. 17Eunomius argues that words like "Father" and "Spirit" mean something different of God, so that calling the Son a thing made does not make him like the creatures made through him.
18. 18Eunomius argues that names must follow the realities, and criticizes those who call the Son begotten and made yet teach that he is like the Father in substance.
19. 19Eunomius answers the objection that Father and Son are alike as "light from light": if "light" signifies the substance, the begotten light differs from the unbegotten as much as begotten from unbegotten.
20. 20Eunomius argues that both the study of the substances and the study of their works and activities show that the Son is unlike the Father in substance, and the Spirit unlike the Son.
21. 21Eunomius cites Scripture to show that the Father alone is the one true God, God of the Son, while confessing the Son as God, immortal, wise, and good, caused by the Father.
22. 22Eunomius concludes that the Son is like the Father only in his proper sense, not in substance, and that God's activity is not a motion of his substance, as Greek philosophers held, who made the world eternal.
23. 23Eunomius argues that God's activity, unlike his substance, has a beginning and an end, and that God's will is the activity by which all things come to be.
24. 24Eunomius argues from Col 1:15–16 that the Son is the image not of the Father's substance but of his activity and will.
25. 25Eunomius teaches that the Holy Spirit is third in nature as well as in order, the first and greatest work of the Only-begotten, without Godhead or creative power but with power to sanctify and teach.
26. 26Eunomius sums up: one unbegotten God made the Son, through whom the Spirit was made; the Son is neither "of the same substance" nor "of like substance" with the Father.
27. 27Eunomius confesses the Son as obedient minister of the Father, incarnate, crucified, risen, and coming as judge, subject with all things to the Father, and closes by urging his hearers to judge rightly before Christ's judgment seat.
28. 28A closing creed-like summary: one unbegotten God who by his will made the Son, and through the Son the Holy Spirit and all things.