Against Eunomius

Contents

Migne Books 1–10 are published; Books 11–12 are still to be staged.

Reading pages: 1.247–1.261 · 1.265–1.279 · 1.283–1.297 · 1.301–1.315 · 1.317–1.333 · 1.335–1.351 · 1.353–1.367 · 1.371–1.383 · 1.387–1.401 · 1.405–1.419 · 1.423–1.435 · 1.439–1.451 · 1.455–2.473 · 2.475–2.489 · 2.491–2.505 · 2.509–2.521 · 2.525–2.539 · 2.541–2.555 · 2.559–3.571 · 3.575–3.589 · 3.593–3.605 · 3.609–4.623 · 4.627–4.641 · 4.643–4.657 · 4.661–4.673 · 5.679–5.693 · 5.697–6.713 · 6.717–6.729 · 6.733–7.749 · 7.751–8.767 · 8.769–8.783 · 8.787–9.801 · 9.803–9.817 · 9.819–10.835 · 10.839–10.851

1. 1.247Gregory explains why he, Basil's brother and heir, takes up the defence of the dead Basil against Eunomius's reply to him.
2. 1.251Gregory mocks the laboured, rhyming style of Eunomius's work and says he will pass over its rhetoric and answer only its substance.
3. 1.255Gregory declines to follow Eunomius's long narrative of his trials and his abuse of bishops, and will answer only the heads of his blasphemy.
4. 1.257Gregory ridicules Eunomius's complaint of exile to Phrygia and tells, on the word of Athanasius of Ancyra, the low early career of Aetius.
5. 1.261Gregory sketches how Aetius rose through syllogistic debate and court connections, and how Eunomius left his father's farm to follow him.
6. 1.265Gregory argues that Eunomius's 'Apology for the Apology' rests on a falsehood, since by his own account he made no defence at his trial.
7. 1.269Gregory shows that Eunomius contradicts himself, claiming both to have made a defence at his trial and to have kept silent there.
8. 1.271Gregory defends Basil against the charge of cowardice at the council, noting that Eunomius himself kept silent there.
9. 1.275Gregory notes that Eunomius was silent at his trial yet faults Basil for late reply, and refuses to answer abuse with abuse.
10. 1.279Gregory turns Eunomius's abuse back on him, contrasting Basil's continence and charity in the famine with Eunomius's teaching and gain.
11. 1.283Gregory contrasts Basil's slip about Eunomius's homeland with Eunomius's lie about the Son, and mocks his syllogism on the 'prize' of Cyzicus.
12. 1.285Gregory turns the 'prize' argument against Eunomius and begins to show Basil's courage under the persecution of Valens.
13. 1.289Gregory recounts Basil's defiance of the prefect Modestus, who threatened and then flattered him to drop the word homoousios.
14. 1.293Gregory shows how Basil's stand kept Cappadocia safe under Valens, then turns to Eunomius's doctrine and quotes his account of the three substances.
15. 1.297Gregory finishes quoting Eunomius and objects that he replaces the names Father, Son, and Spirit with ranked 'substances' to deny their real kinship.
16. 1.301Gregory argues that the Son's and Spirit's goodness is infinite and admits no more or less, and that priority in time would not make the Father's substance 'higher'.
17. 1.303Gregory argues that substance admits no more or less, so Eunomius's 'less proper' substance of the Son and Spirit amounts to denying they exist.
18. 1.307Gregory examines what Scripture means by 'subjection' and shows that the Spirit's third place in the baptismal order implies no inferiority of nature.
19. 1.311Gregory argues that order in counting implies no difference of nature, and questions how 'activities' can 'accompany' substances in Eunomius's scheme.
20. 1.315Gregory objects that Eunomius assumes, without proof, the disputed point that the Son and the Spirit are works of an alien kind.
21. 1.317Gregory argues that Eunomius's 'three substances' are asserted without proof and that degrees within the Trinity would make God composite.
22. 1.321Gregory shows that Eunomius's 'simple according to its own dignity' grades the simplicity of the three, so that the Son and Spirit become composite.
23. 1.325Gregory shows that if an 'activity' produced and bounds the Son, either it is the real Father or, being unsubstantial, it makes the Son nothing.
24. 1.329Gregory argues that the Anomoean scheme leaves the Son and Spirit without real subsistence and judges it worse than Jewish unbelief.
25. 1.333Gregory sets out the Church's view: created beings vary in goodness by choice, while the uncreated Trinity is distinguished only by the properties of each hypostasis.
26. 1.335Gregory shows that the Spirit is distinct from creation by unchangeable goodness, and that a Son or Spirit good only by participation could not give good to others.
27. 1.339Gregory argues that a Son or Spirit growing in goodness could neither save nor transform us, and begins his answer on 'The Lord created me' (Prov 8:22).
28. 1.343Gregory argues from John 1:3 and Col 1:16 that the Son and the Spirit are not among created things, Paul's list of creatures omitting them on purpose.
29. 1.347Gregory explains that Paul's 'Thrones' and 'Powers' include the Cherubim and Seraphim, so only the Trinity, named singly, stands outside his list of creatures.
30. 1.351Gregory argues that Eunomius's claim that energies differ as much as their works differ is incoherent when applied to creation and impious when applied to the Son and the Spirit.
31. 1.353Since Scripture commands that the Son be honored as the Father is, and honor is wholehearted love, there can be no greater or lesser honor among the persons of the Trinity.
32. 1.357Gregory argues that if the Father's life is older than the Son's by any finite interval, then the Father himself must have a beginning, which is absurd.
33. 1.361To place an interval between Father and Son would give the Father a beginning; the Son is from the Father as cause yet with him eternally, while only creation is measured by the ages.
34. 1.363The divine nature is beyond time and place, measured by nothing and known only as incomprehensible, while creation alone has a beginning and is measured by the ages.
35. 1.367Father, Son, and Spirit are conceived together without interval in the uncreated nature, unlike creation; Gregory then begins to refute Eunomius's claim that the same energy always produces the same works, using the example of fire.
36. 1.371Fire, the sun, digestion, and the hand show that one energy produces very different works, and in any case the identical energy of Father and Son would prove that Son and Spirit share one substance.
37. 1.375Since God made the whole varied world by one energy of command, Eunomius's claim that differing works prove differing energies fails, and his talk of an 'unbroken connection' among unequal substances is a dream.
38. 1.377Gregory argues that an 'order natural to the realities' cannot exist among beings Eunomius makes products of choice rather than of nature, and that substances cannot be proved from unrelated works.
39. 1.381Gregory argues that works reveal only the measure of an energy, not the substance behind it, so that on Eunomius's own premises the Spirit, the Son, and the Father all become unknowable.
40. 1.383Unknown substances cannot explain one another, but the identical providence of Father and Son shows, as fire is known by its light and heat, that they share one nature.
41. 1.387As trees are known by their fruit, the same providence shows Father and Son to share one nature; Eunomius's formula that the manner of likeness follows the manner of generation is meaningless whether applied to birth or to making.
42. 1.391Eunomius abandons his own rule of knowing substances from works and makes the manner of generation depend on the begetter's dignity, a rule that fails everywhere; the divine dignities belong to the Son as to the Father, except being without beginning.
43. 1.395The Son is without beginning in every sense except that he has the Father as cause; Gregory objects that Eunomius singles out unbegottenness among God's many names, and quotes Eunomius's dilemma against the common substance.
44. 1.399Gregory mocks Eunomius's ornate style and turns the first horn of his dilemma back on him: it is Eunomius, who denies the Son's true generation, whose view would make the Son unbegotten.
45. 1.401One common substance in Father and Son no more implies self-generation than Adam and Abel's common humanity; John 10:30 shows both the distinction of persons and the unity of nature against Sabellius and Arius.
46. 1.405Gregory argues that making unbegottenness and generation into opposed substances leads to Manichaean dualism, since the begotten would have to bear marks opposite to the goodness and holiness of the unbegotten God.
47. 1.409If unbegotten and begotten are opposite substances, the Son must bear the opposites of the Father's goodness and holiness, which makes Eunomius's doctrine worse than Manichaeism, since it derives evil from the good God himself.
48. 1.411A created Son ruling his fellow creatures would be a tyranny and would contradict John 1:3; the Son is rather of the divine nature, and Father, Son, and Spirit are like light from light, a sun from the unbegotten sun.
49. 1.415After a word on the Spirit as light from light, Gregory defends Basil's advice to avoid the unscriptural word 'unbegotten' while keeping its sense, since God judges the heart rather than the words.
50. 1.419As Paul gave up meat for the sake of the weak, Basil rightly advised avoiding the word 'unbegotten' while keeping its sense; Gregory answers Eunomius's syllogism that if 'Father' meant 'unbegotten' it could not also signify the begetting of the Son.
51. 1.423Gregory shows that Eunomius cut Basil's sentence short to make it refutable, and that 'Father' can signify both being from none and the relation to the Son, as Eunomius's own father was both a man and his father.
52. 1.425Some divine names are absolute and some relative, and some, like 'God' or 'Father,' can be both, so 'Father' can mean both the begetter of the Son and the one who is from none; Gregory then begins on Eunomius's 'converted' syllogism.
53. 1.429Gregory answers the claim that God was not unbegotten before begetting the Son: it implies God was once not Father and lacked the good, whereas all that is piously said of God belongs to him together and eternally.
54. 1.431God's fatherhood is eternal like his goodness and immortality, since God has no succession or composition; all that is the Father's is the Son's except being Father, and Gregory turns to Eunomius's mocking substitution of 'unbegotten' for 'Father.'
55. 1.435Gregory mocks Eunomius's repetitions and answers his quip 'unbegotten of a Son' with the example of a king, who is both subject to none and ruler of his subjects, and with a parody about Adam.
56. 1.439Gregory turns Eunomius's word-play back on him: if 'Father' does not include 'unbegotten,' the Son is not Son of the unbegotten and the Father becomes begotten; and names applied to God carry meanings far removed from their human use.
57. 1.441Names like 'master of the house' or 'father' are used of God and of men alike but mean different things; divine generation involves no passion, matter, or time, so the Son has the Father as cause but no beginning of existence.
58. 1.445Since the Son is in the Father and the Father always is, there was no time when the Son was not; like Levi in Abraham's loins and like radiance with glory, the Son was begotten and always was.
59. 1.449Eunomius gives 'unbegotten' a new meaning as a positive name of the substance, though like 'invisible' and 'impassible' it only denies something of God, and as a negation it is logically posterior to 'begotten.'
60. 1.451Gregory defends Basil's objection that if unbegottenness 'follows' God it cannot also be his substance, and shows that Eunomius's attempted clarification of the phrase leaves the incoherence in place.
61. 1.455God's everlastingness, like a circle with no beginning or end, is expressed jointly by 'unbegotten' and 'endless'; Eunomius has no reason to make one of these the substance and the other something external.
62. 1.459If 'without beginning' and 'endless' were both made God's substance, God would be composed of opposites; rather God is simple and above every name, and these words express his everlastingness, not his substance.
63. 1.461The Son is everlasting from the everlasting Father yet not unbegotten, since he is from the Father as cause without any interval, and the same holds for the Spirit; Book 1 closes with a doxology to the Trinity.
64. 2.465Gregory sets out the faith handed down by Christ in the baptismal formula, rejects Eunomius’s substitute names for Father, Son and Spirit, and explains that the one name signifies one substance while the titles mark the hypostases.
65. 2.469Because God does not change, the Father was always Father, so the Son is eternally in the Father and the Spirit eternally with the Son; the one name in the baptismal formula shows one substance, the titles the distinct hypostases.
66. 2.473The unnamed “name” of the baptismal formula shows that the divine substance is beyond naming and knowing; Gregory confesses the incarnation and judgment, then quotes the opening of Eunomius’s creed and objects that the Lord never taught faith in “the one and only true God.”
67. 2.475Gregory argues that “one,” “God,” and “true” in Eunomius’s creed cannot exclude the Son, who is one with the Father, is God and truth, and is “He who Is” who appeared to Moses.
68. 2.479Gregory shows that calling only the Father eternal and endless makes the Son perishable, and dismisses Eunomius’s denial that God is divided or “shaped into three hypostases” as meaningless, since no Christian teaches it.
69. 2.481Gregory accepts Eunomius’s words if they mean the Father with his Son, but shows that denying the Son a share in the Father’s Godhead, glory and throne either denies his Godhead or makes two gods, against Scripture.
70. 2.485Since Father, Son and Spirit each have authority by nature, Eunomius’s talk of no “co-heir” is senseless; titles such as Almighty and Most High, if they mean the Father, belong also to the Son, otherwise Eunomius sides with Jews or Platonists.
71. 2.489Gregory argues that Eunomius’s titles, if given to the Father alone, make the Son and Spirit changeable and perishable, and mocks his claim that the Father does not divide his substance in begetting, since even the virgin birth and the human word involve no division.
72. 2.491Human begetting shows that a nature passes whole from parent to child without division; Gregory ridicules Eunomius’s reasoning by showing that it would make Abraham and Adam split up their substance among their descendants.
73. 2.495Gregory shows that calling only the Father incorruptible makes the Son corruptible, accepts Eunomius’s statement that God creates without matter or instruments as true of the Word, and warns that if the Son is made in that way, worshiping him is idolatry.
74. 2.499Eunomius calls the Son “firstborn of creation” and “not uncreated”; Gregory shows that “firstborn” and “only-begotten” mean different things, and that Paul calls Christ firstborn of the new creation, of the reborn in baptism, and of the dead.
75. 2.501Christ is firstborn of the dead and of the new creation, bringing humanity in himself to his Father and God; “firstborn” belongs to the incarnation, “only-begotten” to his existence before the ages; Gregory then begins to classify kinds of begetting.
76. 2.505Gregory distinguishes four kinds of begetting (by art, by nature, by efflux, and of a word from the mind) and shows how Scripture uses each for God and the Son while stripping away everything material, so that the Son is from the Father and with him without interval.
77. 2.509Gregory charges Eunomius with replacing “Father” by “unbegotten” so as to detach the Son from the Father, explains that “unbegotten” means only “not come to be,” which is true of Father, Son and Spirit alike, and rejects the claim that the Son’s being had a beginning.
78. 2.511Gregory argues that the Son, as radiance of the Father’s glory, has no before and after, and that calling him “not uncreated” makes him one creature among many and his worshipers idolaters; he then turns to Prov 8:22, noting the reading “acquired” for “created.”
79. 2.515Gregory reads Prov 8:22 of the incarnation, the Word created as the new man and born in believers, refutes Eunomius’s “in the beginning, not without beginning,” and quotes his claim that the Son receives glory but does not share the Father’s glory.
80. 2.519Gregory shows that “My glory I will not give to another” (Isa 42:8) refers to idols and the devil, so Eunomius applies to the Son what was said of God’s adversary; the Son, who has all that the Father has, needs no glory communicated to him.
81. 2.521Gregory explains that “Almighty” names God’s activity of holding creation in being; since Christ holds all things in his hand, he is Almighty, while the unchangeable divine nature needs no one to hold it.
82. 2.525Gregory welcomes Eunomius’s admission that the Son was glorified before the ages as proof of his eternity, accuses him of ranking the Spirit with the creatures who glorify God, and shows that Scripture calls Christ obedient only in his incarnation and cross.
83. 2.529Gregory ridicules Eunomius’s picture of a Son who obeys by nature like a tool and is mediated to by other “words,” and shows from the Gospels that even in his passion Christ kept his sovereign authority.
84. 2.531Gregory explains the mediator of 1 Tim 2:5 as God become man who unites humanity to the one Godhead, then sorts the senses of “like”: deceptive resemblance, the image of God in man, and the likeness of nature between Adam and Seth.
85. 2.535Gregory shows that Eunomius’s qualifications of the Son’s “likeness” to the Father amount to unlikeness, explains that the pair “unbegotten/begotten” is meant to imply two natures with the Son subject to the Father, and quotes Eunomius’s definition of the Son as “image and seal of the activity of the Almighty.”
86. 2.539Gregory argues that an activity has no existence of its own, so calling the Son “seal of the activity of the Almighty” makes him the likeness of nothing, against John 1:1 and Heb 1:3, which call him God and the very character of the Father’s hypostasis.
87. 2.541Gregory mocks Eunomius’s praise of the Son for a few miracles and his phrase “legislates by command of the eternal God,” which Paul used of himself, then turns to Eunomius’s claim that the Son took a body without a human soul, arguing that the soul, as the seat of sin, needed saving first.
88. 2.545Gregory shows from Scripture that Christ took a human soul as well as a body: Adam died spiritually on the day of his sin, the shepherd carries the whole sheep, Christ healed soul and body, laid down his own soul, and his soul was not left in Hades.
89. 2.549Scripture speaks of the whole by the part, so “the Word became flesh” includes a human soul; Gregory then shows that Eunomius avoids the name “Holy Spirit” and that the name “Paraclete” is given in Scripture to Father, Son and Spirit alike.
90. 2.551Gregory argues that Christ’s words “the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father” place the Spirit above all creation, rejects Eunomius’s claim that the Spirit was made by the Father through the Son, and shows that Scripture ascribes to the Spirit the divine new birth and the words God spoke through Isaiah and David.
91. 2.555Gregory turns the charge of “three gods” back on Eunomius, argues that Paul’s list of created things omits the Spirit, who rules and acts as he wills, and examines the senses of “subjection,” none of which fits the life-giving Spirit.
92. 2.559Gregory shows that not being Father implies no subjection, that the Spirit shares every divine attribute with the Son and so is of the same kind, and that Eunomius’s own claim that the Spirit surpasses all creatures sets him apart from creation.
93. 2.561Gregory shows that priority in time does not make a creature nobler, and that if the Spirit does the Father’s saving work and shares one will with the Son, he shares their nature; Eunomius’s titles reduce him to the level of human teachers.
94. 2.565Gregory goes through Eunomius’s list of the Spirit’s works, mocking “echoing to those who pray,” and shows from Scripture that guiding, strengthening, enlightening, healing and comforting are works of God, so that Eunomius witnesses against himself to the Spirit’s Godhead.
95. 2.567Gregory shows that raising the fallen and restoring the weary are God’s works, ridicules Eunomius’s picture of the Spirit as a spectator shouting advice to athletes, and ends the book with a doxology.
96. 3.571Gregory opens the third book with the image of a third fall in wrestling and begins to show that the sayings of Proverbs 8, including “The Lord created me,” must be read for their hidden sense, not their surface.
97. 3.575Gregory shows that the surrounding verses of Proverbs 8 make no sense if read literally, so “The Lord created me” must not be read literally either.
98. 3.579Gregory argues that Solomon spoke prophetically in Proverbs 8, so that “The Lord created me” refers not to the eternal Wisdom but to the humanity the Word took on.
99. 3.583Gregory explains “The Lord created me” as Wisdom’s words about the incarnation, the “new man created according to God,” and reads the rest of Proverbs 8 as the forming of wisdom in believers.
100. 3.585Gregory finishes his spiritual reading of Proverbs 8 and concludes that Scripture gives no ground for calling the Son a creature, so Eunomius’s own talk of a Son begotten by nature should be kept and his “creature” language rejected.
101. 3.589Gregory turns Eunomius’s phrase “the begotten substance” against him: “begotten” and “substance” name different things, and as Abel, though begotten, has the same substance as unbegotten Adam, the Son’s begetting does not make his substance different.
102. 3.593Gregory argues that God is eternally Father, so that to say the Son once was not is to strip the Father of every good, and that the Son, like Abel from Adam, is of the same substance as the one who begot him: light from light, true God from true God.
103. 3.595Gregory argues that Eunomius’s own admission that the names express a natural relation proves the community of substance, as Christ is truly Son of Man by his flesh and therefore truly Son of God by his substance.
104. 3.599Gregory argues from wine, the “offspring of the vine,” that an offspring shares the nature of its source, and then defends the confession that God’s substance cannot be grasped or named against the Eunomian taunt “You worship what you do not know.”
105. 3.601Gregory turns “You worship what you do not know” back on the Eunomians, who enclose God in the name “unbegotten,” and then states the strongest form of their objection: Scripture calls things “sons” that do not share the nature of what they are named from.
106. 3.605Gregory answers that Scripture uses “son” both by nature and by choice, but the second, figurative use applies only to changeable creatures, not to the unchangeable Son of God, who is Son by nature.
107. 3.609Gregory reports the Eunomian argument that “Son,” like “vine” or “door,” is a figurative name, and answers that names of Christ’s providential work are figurative but relational names such as Son, Word, and Wisdom are proper to him in relation to the Father.
108. 3.611Gregory concludes that no meaning of “Son” loftier than natural sonship can be found, and that Eunomius cannot call the Son both “offspring” by nature and a “thing made” and “creature.”
109. 4.617Gregory quotes Eunomius’s argument from the passions involved in bodily generation and replies that the impassible divine begetting of the Son must not be judged by the generation of bodies, as Nicodemus misjudged the birth from above.
110. 4.621Gregory shows that Eunomius contradicts himself by calling the Son “offspring” while denying him a true begetting, and explains how John’s prologue (“In the beginning was the Word”) presents the Son’s eternal, impassible relation to the Father without bodily images.
111. 4.623Gregory explains how John’s prologue leads the reader step by step from “Word” to “God” before naming “Father” and “Only-begotten,” and answers Eunomius’s argument from passion by pointing to the virgin birth, a bodily birth without passion.
112. 4.627Gregory shows that Eunomius’s description of the Son’s begetting by the Father’s will alone fits the making of the earth word for word, so that it makes the Son a creature differing from other creatures only in rank.
113. 4.629Gregory argues that if the Son were a creature he would be changeable like the fallen angel, whereas Hebrews 1 sets him above the angels, and then states the Eunomian objection drawn from “firstborn of all creation.”
114. 4.633Gregory explains that Christ is called firstborn not in his eternal existence but for our salvation: firstborn when he returns in glory, firstborn from the dead, firstborn among brothers in baptism, and firstborn of the new creation begun in his virgin birth.
115. 4.637Gregory shows that “Only-begotten” excludes reading “firstborn” of the Son’s eternal existence, and that, since even human spiritual rebirth is without passion, Eunomius cannot use bodily passion to deny the Son’s true begetting.
116. 4.641Gregory turns Eunomius’s argument about agent and patient against him: if acting and being acted upon imply community of nature, then both begetting and making would make the Son share the Father’s substance; he then introduces Eunomius’s claim that the Son’s substance receives the names “offspring,” “thing made,” and “creature.”
117. 4.643Gregory sets Eunomius’s statement that the Son’s relation to the Father is shared with nothing beside his earlier admission of a natural relation, and mocks his followers, who, like Circe’s victims, follow every turn of his argument without noticing the contradiction.
118. 4.647Gregory argues that Eunomius, by calling both the Father’s and the Son’s substance “most proper,” bears unwilling witness to their equality, and objects that Eunomius assumes, without proof, that the Son is a creature.
119. 4.651Gregory objects that Eunomius builds on the unproved assumption that the Son exists by an activity of the Father and so is a thing made, while the Church’s faith rests on the tradition received from the apostles, and that lumping “offspring” together with “creature” hides the difference between them.
120. 4.655Gregory argues that “offspring” and “creature” are relative terms with different correlatives (begetter and creator), so one nature cannot be both, and that Eunomius confuses them by listing them together.
121. 4.657Gregory argues that relative names cannot be mixed, that Eunomius’s “offspring, thing made, and creature” would make every creature a son, and that the Son’s begetting is without mediation, with no interval, not even an instant, between him and the Father.
122. 4.661Gregory shows that Eunomius spoils his phrase “without mediation” by speaking of the Son’s relation to his “maker” and “creator,” compares the Son, on this view, to a smith’s hammer made first as a tool, criticizes Theognostus for a similar view, and points out that being “incomparable” is true of every creature.
123. 4.665Gregory compares Eunomius’s pious-sounding names for the Son to a covered hunting pit and poisoned bread, insists that faith is judged by its sense, not its sound, and begins to examine Eunomius’s claim that the substances of Father and Son are “at variance.”
124. 4.667Gregory examines the senses of “at variance” (of bodies, character, contrary elements) and shows that none can apply to the Son, who fits the Father as wax fits the seal that stamped it, since he exists in the form of God and is the express image of the Father’s hypostasis.
125. 4.671Gregory argues that the Son, sealed by the Father and his image, fits the Father and cannot be at variance with him, and that Eunomius’s phrase “the substance that receives the begetting” really means that the Son was constructed like any creature.
126. 4.673Gregory ends the fourth book by defending Basil against Eunomius’s charge of dishonouring the Son’s begetting, comparing the Eunomians to the Athenians who called Paul a preacher of strange gods, and explaining his anger at the insult to Christ.
127. 5.679Gregory opens the fifth book, on Acts 2:36, by showing that Scripture forbids worshipping any creature, that worshipping a created Son would open the way to polytheism like that of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Greeks, and that Isaiah’s “I am the first… and after me there is no God” marks the uncreated nature.
128. 5.683Gregory draws from Isaiah the doctrine that the divine nature is one, without before or after, and then sets out, for judgment, Eunomius’s attack on Basil’s reading of Acts 2:36 (“God made him both Lord and Christ”) as referring to Christ’s humanity.
129. 5.685The quotation of Eunomius continues: he argues that Basil’s reading of Acts 2:36 makes a man empty himself into a man and implies two Lords and two Christs, and maintains that God “made” the pre-existent Word Lord and Christ; Gregory then lists the charges he will answer.
130. 5.689Gregory brushes aside Eunomius’s abuse and answers the first charge, that Basil is ashamed of the cross: it is rather Eunomius who makes the cross a reason to rank the Son below the Father, while the wonder of the gospel is that God was manifested in flesh and the life tasted death.
131. 5.693Gregory answers the charge that Basil is ashamed of the cross by pointing to Paul’s boast in the cross and his reading of its four arms (Eph 3:18) as the power that holds the universe together, dismisses the charge of slandering the saints, and explains Acts 2:36 as the exaltation of Christ’s humanity.
132. 5.697Gregory explains that in Acts 2:36 God’s right hand, the Word, raised the humanity united to him to his own height, making it Lord and Christ, and then answers the charge that Basil made a man empty himself into a man by stating the true doctrine of the incarnation.
133. 5.699Gregory sets the true doctrine, that the unchangeable God took up changeable human nature to destroy its evil, against Eunomius’s view, which makes a created Son pass from servitude into servitude, and answers the charge of teaching two Christs.
134. 5.703Gregory shows that Eunomius’s own confession that “the Word became flesh” does not make him teach two Words, any more than Basil teaches two Christs, and explains how the properties of Godhead and flesh remain distinct in Christ while each shares the other’s names, illustrating the resurrection with air rising through water.
135. 5.707Gregory concludes that in the resurrection the Godhead, like fire hidden in wood, rekindled the body and made the humanity what the Word is, Lord and Christ, so that Peter’s “made” refers to this transformation, not to two Christs.
136. 6.709Gregory denies that he makes a mere man the author of salvation and argues that Scripture assigns Christ's sufferings to his flesh and his divine works to his Godhead.
137. 6.713Gregory turns Eunomius's argument from the word “made” (Acts 2:36) against him with 2 Cor 5:21 and explains how Paul assigns lofty names to Christ's Godhead and suffering to his humanity.
138. 6.717Gregory explains “made” in Acts 2:36 and Heb 3:2 of Christ's priesthood and the exaltation of his humanity, and uses a quotation from Eunomius to support his own view.
139. 6.719Gregory explains the “change of the right hand of the Most High” as the Son's appearing in the flesh, and argues that only sin is suffering in the true sense, so that Christ's sharing in human weaknesses does not make his divine nature passible.
140. 6.723Gregory argues that healing the sick by touch does not make the healer sick, that the Son's saving work is also the Father's, and that it is Eunomius, who makes the Son a creature and so a slave, who has him take “the form of a slave” twice.
141. 6.725Gregory answers Eunomius's syllogism that Basil's reading of Acts 2:36 makes the visible man empty himself twice, explaining that the flesh that was crucified was transformed into Christ and Lord.
142. 6.729Gregory argues that Acts 2:36 speaks of the crucified Jesus after the incarnation, not of the Son before the ages, and turns Eunomius's own syllogism against him.
143. 6.733Gregory shows that even on Eunomius's own reading of Acts 2:36 “made” refers to lordship and kingship, not to the Son's substance, and that the exaltation belongs to the human nature united with the Word.
144. 7.739Gregory refutes Eunomius's use of 2 Cor 3:17 to argue that “Lord” names the Son's substance, showing from Paul's other uses of “spirit” that the word never means “substance.”
145. 7.741Gregory explains 2 Cor 3:17 as Paul's teaching that the Holy Spirit speaks in all Scripture and is found when the veil of the letter is removed, and turns Eunomius's reading against him: if “spirit” is substance, Father and Son share it.
146. 7.745Gregory turns Eunomius's own rule about names against him, quotes Basil's argument that names signify properties rather than substances, and mocks Eunomius's borrowed rhetoric.
147. 7.749Gregory takes up Eunomius's example of calling one man a horse to argue that if the Son is God he cannot be created, since Scripture sets all creation over against God and calls the Son by the Father's names.
148. 7.751Gregory exposes Eunomius's inference that what is not unbegotten is not God, and then quotes his “stronger argument” that different names, like fire and water, signify different substances.
149. 7.755Gregory argues that the divine names Father and Son share prove their common substance, that “begotten” and “unbegotten” are shared even with frogs and fictions, and that Eunomius's analogy of fire and water would make Father and Son destroy each other.
150. 7.759Gregory argues that all names are given by human beings, that “unbegotten” describes what is contemplated about God rather than his substance, and that no name comprehends the divine nature.
151. 7.761Gregory argues that “unbegotten,” like “judge,” tells what is contemplated about God, not his substance, and that one substance can belong to things of which some are corruptible and others not, as with souls and the angelic ranks.
152. 8.767Gregory turns to Eunomius's teaching that the Son came from non-being and argues from Exod 3:14, Isa 44:6, and other texts that true Godhead is everlasting, so that worship of a God who “once was not” is idolatry.
153. 8.769Gregory argues from John 1 and the image of the sun and its radiance (Heb 1:3) that the Son, being in the Father in every respect, shares his everlastingness and has no beginning.
154. 8.773Gregory argues that the Father's will does not set an interval between Father and Son, illustrating with a flame that could will its own brightness and with an eye that wills to see.
155. 8.777Gregory quotes Eunomius's claim that the Son's substance did not exist before its begetting and begins his answer by distinguishing the kinds of begetting: by art, by nature, by outflow, and the word from the mind.
156. 8.779Gregory explains that Scripture speaks of the Son's begetting in human terms, as it speaks of God's hand or eye, but strips away matter, time, and interval, keeping only that the Son is from the Father and with him.
157. 8.783Gregory argues that the title “Only-begotten” excludes every feature of ordinary birth, including not existing beforehand, and that the images of radiance and fragrance show the Son cannot be later than the Father.
158. 8.787Gregory argues that if the Son, the radiance and stamp of the Father, once was not, then the Father too once was not, so that Eunomius's position leads to atheism; he then begins to quote Eunomius's attack on Basil's argument from the Father's good will.
159. 8.789Gregory answers Eunomius's objection that an everlasting Son would imply an everlasting creation, showing that the beginning of creatures is time, while the Son, who made the ages, shares none of the marks of creation.
160. 8.793Gregory argues that a beginning is a mark of creation, which has beginning, middle, and end, so that to give the Son a beginning is to make him mortal, and he turns to the objection that souls and angels, though created, are endless.
161. 8.797Gregory answers the objection from the endless life of souls and angels: creatures live by participation and can fall into the death of separation from God, while the Son is life itself and, like the Father, everlasting.
162. 9.801Gregory turns Eunomius's praise of God as the highest good into a witness to the Son's Godhead, argues that temporal words like “then” cannot apply to God before the ages, and attacks Eunomius's phrase, borrowed from Philo, that God “has mastery over his own power.”
163. 9.803Gregory shows the absurdity of a God who masters his own power and asks what could have delayed the Son's begetting, mocking Eunomius's answer that God begot the Son when he willed and no one should ask why not earlier.
164. 9.807Gregory argues that the divine nature, being the fullness of every good, always has the Son, turns Eunomius's “he begot when he willed” into proof of the Son's eternity, and quotes Eunomius's syllogism that every begetting has an end and therefore a beginning.
165. 9.811Gregory answers Eunomius's syllogism by showing that beginnings and ends belong only to bodily births and constructions in time, not to the Son's birth without interval, and accuses him of borrowing Plato's language about the soul.
166. 9.813Gregory ridicules Eunomius's argument from the Sabbath that the Son's birth had a beginning and an end, and argues that “then” and “when” imply time, which did not exist before the Son.
167. 9.817Gregory rejects the charge that he calls the Son unbegotten and argues that non-existence before birth is as much non-being as death after it, so that the Son, who is life itself, can have no non-existence at either end.
168. 9.819Gregory explains “I am in the Father and the Father in me” as excluding any non-existence before the Son, and argues that if the Son, who is light, truth, and life, came into being later, their opposites must have existed with the Father beforehand.
169. 9.823Gregory answers the objection that before heaven existed there was nothing opposed to it: the Son is the good, and a good that came into being later implies an earlier darkness, so the Father must always have shone forth the Son.
170. 10.825Gregory challenges Eunomius, who claims the knowledge of beings, to explain even the nature of an ant, and shows that Christ's words “I am the door” do not make God's substance comprehensible.
171. 10.829Gregory explains that Christ's many names, such as door, way, and light, describe his benefits to us rather than God's substance, and condemns Eunomius's claim that the believer's mind rises above the Son to seek eternal life in the Father.
172. 10.833Gregory argues that denying eternal life to the Son reduces him to temporary life and denies the faith, laments Eunomius's followers as exiles from the Church like Israel taken to Babylon, and turns the charge of Sabellianism back on Eunomius.
173. 10.835Gregory argues that Eunomius's separation of “begetting” from the Father either makes begetting a second Father or makes the Son self-begotten, and compares his random arguments to children building in sand.
174. 10.839Gregory quotes Eunomius's statement that the Son, being “in” the Father and “in the beginning,” does not properly exist and is not simple, and shows its absurdity: on that reasoning nothing that is in something else exists.
175. 10.843Gregory argues that John's absolute “was God” refutes Eunomius's claim that the Son does not properly exist, that the Father's bosom cannot have been empty, and that Eunomius makes the Lord a slave, against Paul and Christ's own words.
176. 10.845Gregory argues that the Son, being simple in nature and confessed Lord, cannot also be a slave, that calling him a slave makes him a fellow slave of his worshipers, and that Christ took our slavery in order to abolish it.
177. 10.849Gregory argues that slavery, like death and sin, will pass away for believers and cannot belong to the Son, who has all that is the Father's, and mocks Eunomius for calling “being” a dignity that the Son does not appropriate.
178. 10.851Gregory ends the book by exposing the incoherence of Eunomius's phrase that the Father's ruling substance “draws to itself the notion of being,” which either merges the Son into the Father, as Sabellius did, or denies being to what exists.