Against Eunomius 10.839–10.851

For up to now we have not been able to see from what he has said whether he thinks the begetting to be a thing contemplated in its own hypostasis, or whether through the name he is slipping in his concepts toward something without hypostasis. For the unstable and rootless argument is carried equally toward either supposition, leaning to whatever the interpreter pleases. But the grievous points of the blasphemy have not yet been examined, which the sequence of his writings now adds; let us consider what he says, word for word. I do not know how one can dare to bring through one’s mouth the horrible and godless writing of this enemy of Christ. For I fear lest, like deadly poisons, it should leave behind in the mouth through which the words pass some remnant of its destructive bitterness. “Whoever comes to God,” says the apostle, “must believe that he is.” So the proper mark of Godhead is truly to be. But he makes out that he who truly is either is not properly or is not at all—which is the same as not being at all. For what is not properly is not at all. So one who in the fancy of a dream imagines himself running hard is said to run; but since the fancy falsely feigns the appearance of real running, it is not running, and even if it is so called by misuse, it is named by a false name. So he who dares to say that the Only-begotten God either is not or is not properly plainly erases faith in him from doctrine. For who would still believe in one who is not? Or who would attach himself to one whose being has been shown by the enemies of the true Lord to be improper and without substance? And so that our argument may not seem to be made against our opponents by slander, I will set out the very words of the impious, which run thus: “Not being, nor being properly,” he says, “he who is in the bosom of him who is, being in the beginning and being with God—even though Basil, neglecting this distinction and addition, removes the appellation ‘being’ contrary to the truth.” What do you say? He who is in the Father is not; and he who is in the beginning and is in the bosom is not, for the very reason that he is in the beginning and is in the Father and is seen in the bosom of him who is; and for this reason he is not properly, because he is in him who is? Oh, empty and absurd doctrines! Now for the first time have we heard this empty chatter, that the Lord, through whom are all things, does not properly exist.

And this is not yet the terrible part; still more absurd than this is not only to say that he is not, or is not properly, but that he is seen in a compound and varied nature. For “not being,” he says, “nor simple either.” But that to which simplicity does not belong is plainly declared varied and compound. How, then, is the same one both not at all and compound in substance? For one of the two is necessary: either those who testify to his complete non-existence should not call him compound, or those who charge him with compoundness should not remove him from being. But so that their blasphemy may be manifold and varied, it goes wrong in all its godless thoughts: by comparison with him who is, it says the Lord is not; by relation to the simple, it says he has no share in simplicity—“not being, nor simply, nor properly being.” Which of those who have transgressed the word and forsworn the faith was ever so lavish with words denying the Lord? He has set out to rival the divine preaching of John: as often as John testified “was” of the Word, so often has this man striven to set “was not” against him who is. And he fights against the holy mouth of our father, bringing these charges against him: that Basil neglects these distinctions when he says that he who is in the Father and in the beginning and in the bosom is—as though such an addition, of the beginning and the bosom, struck out the existence of him who is. Oh, empty teachings! What things the teachers of deceit teach! What doctrines they introduce to their hearers! They teach that what is in something is not. Then, since your heart and your brain are within you, Eunomius, by your definition neither of them exists. For if the Only-begotten God does not properly exist for the reason that he is in the bosom of the Father, then everything that is in something is wholly excluded from being. But the heart is in you and not by itself; so by your argument one must say either that it does not exist at all or that it does not exist properly. But the ignorance and the blasphemy in what he has said are so great and of such a kind as to be plain to those with sense even before our words; yet so that his folly, together with his impiety, may become still more evident, we will add the following to what has been said.

If it is possible to say “properly is” only of him whose being Scripture testifies to as absolute and without relation, why is it that, like water-carriers who perish of thirst with the power to drink, this man too, having ready to hand the antidote to his blasphemy against the Son, shuts his eyes and runs past it, as if afraid of being saved? And he charges Basil with wrongdoing because, keeping silent about the additional qualifications, he spoke of the “was” of the Only-begotten by itself alone. And yet it was possible for this man too to see what Basil knows and what everyone who has eyes sees. It seems to me that the lofty John was moved prophetically, so that the mouths of the enemies of Christ, who on account of these additions reject Christ’s proper being, might be stopped, to say simply and without qualification that the Word was God, and was life, and was light—not only that he was in the beginning and with God and in the bosom of the Father, so that by such relation the Lord’s proper being might be taken away; but by saying that he was God, with this unrelated and absolute expression, he cuts off every evasion of those who run toward impiety in their reasonings. And there is something besides this which refutes our opponents’ malice even more. If they make being in something a sign of not being properly, they certainly agree that the Father too does not properly exist, since they have learned in the Gospel that, as the Son is in the Father, so the Father also abides in the Son, according to the Lord’s word. For to say that the Son is in the bosom of the Father is the same as saying that the Father is in the Son. Let us examine this too in passing: when the Son was not, as they say, what did the bosom of the Father contain? For they will certainly either grant that it was full or suppose that it was empty. If the bosom was full, the Son was certainly the fullness of the bosom. But if they see some emptiness in the Father’s bosom, they testify that he has nothing else than a perfection that came by growth, as he passed from emptiness and lack to fullness and perfection. “But they did not know, nor did they understand,” says David of those who walk in darkness. For one who has made war on the true light cannot have his soul in light. That is why, as if struck with blindness like the men of Sodom, they did not notice what is set down in the sequence of the text to correct this impiety.

He also says that the substance of the Son is ruled by the Father, speaking thus in so many words: “For he who is and lives because of the Father does not appropriate this dignity, since the substance that rules him too draws to itself the notion of ‘being.’” If, then, this seems right to one of the wise men of the outside world, let the Gospels not be troubled at all, nor the rest of the teaching of the God-inspired Scripture. For what communion has the Christian word with the wisdom that has been made foolish? But if he leans on the Scriptures, let him show such a saying from the saints, and we will be silent. I hear Paul crying out, “One Lord, Jesus Christ.” But Eunomius cries out against Paul, calling Christ a slave. For we recognize no other mark of slavery than being subject and ruled; whoever is ruled is certainly a slave. And one who is a slave by nature cannot be Lord, even if he is called so by misuse. And why should I bring Paul’s words as witness to the Lord’s lordship? For Paul’s Master himself says to the disciples that he is truly Lord, accepting the confession of those who name him Teacher and Lord; for he says, “You call me Lord and Teacher, and you speak well, for I am.” And he ordained that the very same title be used by them of the Father, saying, “Call no one master on earth; for you have one master, the Father in heaven.” To whom, then, should we attend, caught between these? On the one side the Lord himself, and he who has Christ speaking in him, bid us not to think of him as a slave, but to honor him as the Father is honored; on the other side Eunomius brings an indictment of slavery against the Lord, saying that he who holds the power of the universe is ruled. Is the choice of what we should do doubtful, then? Or is the discernment of what is more profitable a close call? Shall I dishonor Paul’s counsel, Eunomius? Shall I not hold the voice of the truth more trustworthy than your deceit? “If I had not come and spoken to them,” he says, “they would not have sin.” Since, then, he himself spoke to them, saying that he truly is Lord and is not falsely so named—“for I am,” he says, not “I am called”— … what must one do whose punishment is inescapable because he was told beforehand? But perhaps he will again put forward his usual wisdom against us and say that the same one both serves and is Lord, ruled by the one who rules, but ruling the rest.

These wise sayings are hawked about at the crossroads by the lovers of deceit, who strengthen their vain suppositions about the divine from human circumstances. For since the happenings of this life give us examples of such things—as one can see in a wealthier household the more energetic and loyal of the fellow slaves set over the carrying out of the master’s orders, having gained precedence over his equals—they transfer this way of thinking to the divine doctrines, so that the Only-begotten God, yoked under the sovereignty of the superior, is in no way hindered by the authority of the sovereign from ruling over the lesser. But we, bidding farewell to such wisdom, will consider the matter according to the measure of our own understanding. Do they confess that the Father is Lord by nature, or that he came to this by some election? I do not think anyone with any share of understanding would come to such madness as not to testify that lordship belongs by nature to the God of all. For what is simple by nature, without parts and uncompounded, whatever it happens to be, it is wholly and throughout, not becoming it from something else by some change, but abiding for ever in what it is. What, then, do they suppose about the Only-begotten? Do they confess that his substance is simple, or do they conceive some composition in it? If they think he is something varied and of many parts, they will certainly not even grant him the name of Godhead, since they transfer the doctrine of Christ to material and bodily suppositions. But if they agree that he is simple, how can one see a concourse of opposites in the simplicity of the subject? For as the opposition of life and death admits nothing in between, so lordship is unmixed with slavery and estranged from it in its properties. For no one who contemplates each of these by itself will fit the same definition to both; and things whose definition is not the same certainly differ in nature too. If, then, the Lord is simple in nature, how could a doubleness of opposites come about in the subject, with slavery blended into lordship? But if he is confessed to be Lord according to the teaching of the saints, the simplicity of the subject testifies that he has no share in the opposite. And if they declare that he serves, they testify to the name of lordship in him in vain. For what is simple by nature is not split toward opposite properties. But if they say that he is the one thing and is called the other—a slave by nature, but Lord in name—let them show such a saying openly, and they will give us rest from long labors of rebuttal. For who has so much leisure for vanities as to refute by reasonings what is plain and beyond doubt? If anyone denounces himself for the pollution of murder, no labor is left for his accusers in bringing the bloodshed to conviction by proofs. So we too will no longer bring a refutation by examination against our opponents, once they have gone so far in impiety. For he who calls the Only-begotten God a slave by nature makes him, by what he says, his own fellow slave, and from this a double absurdity will necessarily follow. Either he will despise his fellow slave and deny the faith, shaking off the yoke of Christ’s mastery; or he will bow down to the slave and, turning away from the self-ruling and masterless nature, will in a way worship himself instead of God. For if he sees himself in slavery and sees the object of his worship in slavery too, he is simply looking at himself, seeing another self in the object of his worship. But what account could count up all the other things that are necessarily seen together with this wicked doctrine? For who does not know that one who is a slave by nature, being occupied under his master’s compulsion, would not be free of the passion of fear either? For fear is somehow yoked to the nature of slavery; and the divine apostle is witness to this when he says, “You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.” So, as with human beings, they will din the passion of fear into their fellow-slave God as well.

But so much for the God of the heresy. We, who according to the apostle have been called to freedom by Christ, who set us free from slavery, will set out briefly what we have been taught by the Scriptures to think. For, starting from the divine teaching, I boldly declare that the divine word does not wish even us to be slaves, since our nature has been changed for the better. And he who took all that is ours in order to give us his own in exchange—diseases, and death, and the curse, and sin—so took slavery too: not so as to have what he took, but so as to cleanse our nature of such things, since what was ours has been made to vanish in the pure nature.

As, then, in the life we hope for there will be no disease, no curse, no sin, no death, so slavery too will pass away to destruction along with these. And that I speak the truth, I call the Truth itself to witness, who says to the disciples, “No longer do I call you slaves, but friends.” If, then, our state will one day be free of the reproach of slavery, how is the Master of the universe enslaved by the madness and insanity of these deranged men? By consequence they certainly also determine that he does not know what belongs to the Father, because of the statement about slaves, which says that “the slave does not know what his lord is doing.” But when they say this, let them hear that the Son has in himself all that is the Father’s, and sees all that the Father does, and none of the Father’s goods lies outside the knowledge of the Only-begotten. For how could he lack anything of the Father’s, when he has the whole Father in himself? So if a slave does not know what his master does, while he has in himself all that is the Father’s, let those who are carried away by drunkenness at last become sober and look up, now at least, to the truth: that he who has all things is Lord of all and not a slave. For how could he bear the stamp of slavery, and how could he who reigns over the universe not have a form equal in honor to himself? Or how could dishonor shine forth from the true glory? For slavery is dishonor. And how is the King’s Son born into slavery? These things are not so; they are not. But as he is light from light, and life from life, truth from truth, so also is he Lord from Lord, King from King, God from God, masterless from masterless. For having the whole Father in himself, he certainly has whatever the Father has in himself; and since all that the Son has is the Father’s, it is wholly necessary, by the account of the enemies of God’s glory, that if the Son is a slave the Father too be brought down into slavery. For there is nothing of what is contemplated in the Son that is not certainly the Father’s. For “all that is mine,” he says, “is yours, and yours is mine.” What, then, will the wretches say? Which is more reasonable: that the Son, who said, “Yours is mine, and I am glorified in them,” is glorified in the Father’s kingship, or that the Father is outraged by the dishonor of the Son’s slavery? For it is not possible that he who contains in himself all that is the Son’s, and is himself in the Son, should not also be wholly in the Son’s slavery and have the slavery in himself. These are the achievements of Eunomius’s wisdom, by which he outrages the Lord with slavery and fastens the same dishonor on the pure glory of the Father.

But let us run back again to the sequence of his writings. What does Eunomius say about the Only-begotten? That “he does not appropriate this dignity”; for he calls the appellation “being” a dignity. Oh, absurd philosophy! Who of all the men who have ever lived, whether among the Greeks or in barbarian philosophy, who in our own day, who in all time, ever gave the name “dignity” to being? For the common usage of all who use speech says “is” of everything contemplated in a hypostasis, and the appellation “being” has been formed from “to be.” But now the word “dignity” is newly invented against the meaning of “being.” For he says that the Son, who is and lives because of the Father, does not appropriate the dignity of being, having neither a Scripture to put forward in support of his statement nor any sequence by which he has led his argument to this folly. Rather, as if he had put some windy food in his stomach, he belches out his blasphemy like a foul-smelling wind, unconstructed and unsyllogistic. “He does not appropriate,” he says, “this dignity.” Let it be granted that being is called a dignity. What then? Does he who is not appropriate being? “Because,” he says, “he is because of the Father.” So do you say that he who does not appropriate being is not? For not appropriating signifies the same as being estranged, and the opposition of the meanings is plain: for what is one’s own is not foreign, and what is foreign is not one’s own. He, then, who does not appropriate being is certainly estranged from being; and what is a stranger to being is not in being. But he brought in the necessity of this absurdity when he said, “since the substance that rules him too draws to itself the notion of being.” Let the incoherence of its phrasing be passed over in silence; but let what he is aiming at in the words be examined. What argument has shown that the Father’s substance rules the Only-begotten? Again he belches at us from his surfeit. What evangelist stood surety for this statement? What dialectical method? What premises?

What constructions have shown, by any sequence, that the Only-begotten God is ruled? “But the substance that rules the Son,” he says, “draws to itself the notion of being.” What does this “drawing” of being mean to him? And how did the word “draw” come to be thrown into what he said? Anyone who has studied the force of words will certainly judge. But we will be silent about this too, and take up again that other statement: that he does not grant being, according to substance, to him whom the name of “being” does not leave. And why does he shadow-box in vain, fighting about what is not as though it were of such and such a kind? For what is not is certainly neither like anything nor unlike. But while granting being, he forbids it to be named. Oh, empty precision, to concede the greater point and haggle over the sound of a word! And how does he who rules the Son, as he says, draw to himself the notion of being? If he says that the Father draws his own substance, this drawing is superfluous; for being is present to him even without being drawn. But if he says that the being of the Son is drawn by the Father, how being will be torn away from what is and pass over to the one who draws it, I cannot see. Is he imagining the error of Sabellius, as though the Son did not exist by himself but were merged into the hypostasis of the Father? And is this what he means by “the notion of being is drawn by the substance that rules the Son”? Or, while not denying that the Son exists in a hypostasis, does he say that he is cut off from the meaning of “being”? And how can “being” be disjoined from the thought of “to be”? For as long as anything is, whatever it may be, it has no nature not to be what it is.