Against Eunomius 2.475–2.489

But as we were taught by the Master’s voice, this is what we say: that “one” does not signify the Father alone, but shows the Son together with the Father, since the Lord said, “I and the Father are one.” Likewise the name of Godhead too is applied equally both to the beginning in which the Word was and to the Word who was in the beginning; for he said, “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” so that in what Godhead signifies the Son too is contemplated equally with the Father. Besides this, “true” cannot be understood as anything other than the truth; and that the Lord is the truth no one at all will dispute, unless he is a stranger to the truth. If, then, the Word is in the One, and is God and truth, as is proclaimed in the Gospels, to what teaching of the Lord does he refer his doctrine who uses these distinguishing expressions? For “only” is contrasted with one who is not only, “God” with one who is not God, and “true” with one who is not true. If, then, they make this opposition of words looking to the idols, we too agree; for the name of Godhead is given to the idols of the nations by equivocation, “for all the gods of the nations are demons,” and in that case the word rightly sets the one over against the many, the true over against the false, and those who are not gods over against the God who is. But if the opposition is made against the only-begotten God, let these wise men learn that truth is contrasted only with falsehood, and God with one who is not God. But since the Lord, who is truth, is God, and is in the Father, and is one with the Father, these distinguishing expressions have no place in the doctrine. For whoever truly believes in the One sees in the One him who is united with him through all things, in truth and Godhead and substance and life and wisdom, and in everything whatever. Or, if he does not see in the One him who is these things, he has his faith in nothing; for without the Son the Father neither is nor is called Father, nor indeed is the powerful one without power, nor the wise without wisdom; for Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. So whoever imagines that he sees the One apart from power, or truth, or wisdom, or life, or the true light, either sees nothing or certainly sees evil; for the removal of the goods becomes the positing and existence of evil.

“Not honoring him with a false name,” he says, “for he does not lie.” I pray that Eunomius may abide by this statement, bearing witness to the truth that he does not lie. For if he thinks thus, that everything said by the Lord is free of falsehood, he will certainly be persuaded that he speaks truly who said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me,” that is, whole in whole, the Father neither exceeding in the Son nor the Son falling short in the Father; and that “so the Son must be honored as the Father is honored”; and that “he who has seen me has seen the Father”; and that “no one has seen the Son except the Father”; and that “no one knows the Father except the Son.” Through all these, those who have received these words as true suspect no difference of glory, or of substance, or of anything else between Father and Son.

“Being truly,” he says, “one God in nature and in glory.” What truly is is contrasted with what does not truly be. Each existing thing truly is in so far as it is; but what seems to be only as far as some appearance and supposition, and is not, does not truly exist, like a dream, a phantom, or the man in a picture. For these and the like, existing only as far as appearance goes, do not truly exist. If, then, in line with the Jewish supposition, they argue that the only-begotten God does not exist at all, they rightly testify that the Father alone truly is. But if they do not deny that the maker of all exists, let them be persuaded not to deprive him who is of truly being, he who in the theophany given to Moses named himself “He who Is,” saying, “I am He who Is,” as Eunomius in his following words agrees, saying that it was he who appeared to Moses. Then he says “one God in nature and in glory.” Whether God exists apart from being God by nature, he who says this may know; but if one who is not God by nature is not God, let them learn from the great Paul that those who serve beings that by nature are not gods do not serve God. But we serve the living and true God, as the Apostle says; and he whom we serve is Jesus the Christ.

For the apostle Paul too boasts of serving him, saying, “Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ.” We, then, who no longer serve those that by nature are not gods, have come to know him who is God by nature, to whom every knee bends, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And we would not have served him had we not believed that he is the living and true God, to whom every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

“One God,” he says, “without beginning, eternally, without end, alone.” Again, “understand cunning, you simple ones,” says Solomon, lest you be deceived and fall away into denial of the Godhead of the Only-begotten. Without end is what does not admit death and corruption; likewise what is not temporary is called eternal. Whatever, then, is neither eternal nor without end is certainly seen in the corruptible and perishable nature. So whoever ascribes being without end to the one and only God, but does not include the Son in the meaning of “without end” and “eternal,” by such a statement makes out the one he contrasts with the eternal and endless to be corruptible and temporary. But we, even if we hear that God alone has immortality, understand the Son by “immortality,” for immortality is the life. And if it is said that he dwells in unapproachable light, again we do not doubt that the true light, which falsehood cannot approach, means the Only-begotten, in whom we have learned from the Truth itself that the Father is. From these let the hearer choose the more reverent: whether one should hold this opinion about the Only-begotten, as befits God, or call him corruptible and temporary, as the heresy teaches.

“Not,” he says, “separated as to the substance by which he is one into several, nor becoming now one, now another, nor departing from being what he is, nor shaped out of one substance into a threefold hypostasis. For he is one altogether and once for all, remaining alone in the same respects and in the same way.” From these quoted words the intelligent hearer ought first to distinguish the empty words thrown into the statement without sense from those that seem to have some meaning; then, after this, to examine the sense found in the remainder of what was said, to see whether it agrees with godliness toward Christ. The first of the quoted words are wholly devoid of any sense, good or bad. For what sense has “not separated as to the substance by which he is one into several, nor becoming now one, now another, nor departing from being what he is”? I think neither he himself could say, nor could any of his allies find, a shadow of sense in what is said. “Not as to the substance by which he is one”: does he mean that he, being separated from his substance, is not separated, or that the substance is not parted from him? This meaningless statement is a noise, an empty sound put together at random. And why should one linger over the examination of these senseless words? For how can anyone separated from his own substance remain in being? Or how is someone’s substance, once parted, displayed by itself? Or how is it possible to go out from that in which one is and become another, having come to be outside oneself? “Nor,” he says, “shaped out of one substance into three hypostases. For he is one altogether and once for all, remaining alone in the same respects and in the same way.” That what is said is senseless is plain to everyone, I think, even before our words; but let whoever thinks there is some mind or sense in the words dispute them. For whoever has made a study of judging the force of a statement will disdain to grapple with things that have no substance. For what force has it against our doctrine to say, “Not separated as to the substance by which he is one, or parted into several, or becoming now one, now another, or departing from being what he is, nor shaped out of one substance into three hypostases”? These things are neither said by Christians, nor believed, nor understood as following from what we confess. For who ever said this, or heard anyone say in the church of God, that the Father is separated or parted as to substance, or becomes now one, now another, coming to be outside himself, or is shaped into three hypostases? Eunomius says these things to himself, not fighting against us but stringing together his own nonsense, mixing much folly into the impiety of what he says. For we say that it is equally impious and godless both to call the Master of creation created, and to think that the Father, as he is, is separated or cut, or goes out of himself, or is shaped into three hypostases, like some clay or wax molded into different forms. But let us examine the words that follow: “For he is one altogether and once for all, remaining alone in the same respects and in the same way.”

If he says this of the Father, we too agree. For the Father is truly one, alone, and altogether once for all the same in the same respects and in the same way; and there is no time when he either was not or will not be what he is. If, then, such an expression looks to the Father, let him not fight against the doctrine of godliness, since in this part he agrees with the church. For whoever confesses that the Father is always the same, being one and only, strengthens the word of godliness, seeing in the Father the Son, without whom the Father neither is nor is called Father. But if he fashions some other God besides the Father, let him argue with the Jews or with the so-called Hypsistarians, whose difference from Christians is this: they confess that there is a God, whom they call the Most High or the Almighty, but do not accept that he is Father. But a Christian, unless he believes in the Father, is not a Christian.

What he adds next is this: “Not having,” he says, “a partner in the Godhead, nor a sharer in the glory, nor a co-heir of the authority, nor one enthroned with him in the kingdom. For the almighty God is one and alone, God of gods, King of those who reign, Lord of those who rule.” Since no strange and alien nature is admitted, I do not know whom Eunomius has in view when he protests that the Father shares the Godhead with no one. For if he says such things with reference to the vain idols and the deluded supposition of idolaters, as Paul too cries out that there is no agreement of Christ with Beliar, nor fellowship of the temple of God with idols, we too agree. But if by what he says he cuts off the only-begotten God from the Father’s Godhead, let him learn that he is building against himself a dilemma that convicts him of impiety. For either he denies altogether that the Only-begotten of God is God, so as to keep the Father’s Godhead unshared with the Son, and by this he is convicted as a transgressor, having denied the God of the Christians; or, if he grants that the Son too is God, though not agreeing in nature with the true God, he must necessarily profess and confess gods split apart from one another by the difference of their natures. Let him choose which of these he wishes: either to deny the Godhead of the Son, or to bring gods into the doctrine; for whichever of them he chooses is equal in impiety. For we, initiated by the inspired words of Scripture, see in Father and Son not a sharing of Godhead but a unity, as the Master taught by his own words, in which he says, “I and the Father are one,” and “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” For if he were not of the same nature, how could he either have had in himself what is alien, or how could he have shown in himself what is unlike, the character of what is of another kind?

He says that he has no sharer in the glory. This he says as it is, even if he does not know what he says. For the Son does not share out the glory with the Father, but has the whole glory of the Father, as the Father too has all the glory of the Son. For thus he said to the Father, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine.” Therefore he also says that at the time of judgment he will appear in the glory of the Father, when he is to repay each according to his works; and by this word he shows the unity of the nature. For as there is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon, because the nature of these elements does not agree with each other (so that if there were the same glory in both, no difference in their nature would have been supposed), so he who foretold that he would appear in the glory of the Father showed, by the identity of glory, the sharing of nature.

To say that the Son is not enthroned with the Father in the kingdom bears witness to Eunomius’s great study of the divine oracles! From his excessive attention to the inspired Scriptures he has never yet heard, “Set your minds on the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of the Father,” and that he has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, and many other such things whose number one could not easily count; not yet having learned them, Eunomius forbids that the Son be enthroned with the Father. As for “co-heir of the authority,” one should pass it by as senseless rather than refute it as impious. For what sense the word “co-heir” has cannot be found from the common use of language. They cast a lot for the Lord’s clothing, as Scripture says, not wishing to tear the Master’s tunic but to make it the property of one of them, whomever the lot favored.

Those, then, who cast lots with one another for the tunic may perhaps be called co-heirs. But here, in the case of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the authority lies in the nature. For the Holy Spirit blows where he wills and works all things in all as he wills; and the Son, through whom all things came to be, visible and invisible, in the heavens and on the earth, has done all that he willed and gives life to whom he wills; and the Father has set the times by his own authority, and from “the times” we understand that all things that have come to be in time are under the Father’s authority. If, then, it has been shown, as we said, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have authority to do what they will, what sense has the expression “co-heir of the authority”? It cannot be seen. For the heir of all things, the maker of the ages, who shines out with the glory of the Father and expresses in himself the hypostasis of the Father, is all that the Father himself has, and is Lord of all authority; the dignity does not pass from the Father to the Son, but both remains with the one and is in the other. For he who is in the Father is clearly in the Father with all his own power, and he who has the Father in himself contains all the Father’s authority and power. For he has the whole Father in himself, and not a part of him; and he who has the whole certainly has his authority too. What, then, does Eunomius have in mind when he declares that the Father has no co-heir of his authority? His disciples in folly might perhaps say; for whoever knows how to understand words confesses that he cannot make sense of what is said without sense. “The Father,” he says, “has no co-heir of the authority.” Who is it that says the Father and the Son contend with each other, casting lots for the authority as co-heirs? Between them the holy Eunomius mediates by a friendly settlement and, without any lot, assigns the precedence in authority to the Father alone! See how ridiculous and childish this groveling statement of doctrines is. Does he who bears all things by the word of his power, who speaks what he wills to come to be and makes what he wills by the power of his command, whose power runs together with his will and whose will becomes the measure of his power (“for he spoke,” it says, “and they came to be; he commanded, and they were created”), who made all things through himself and holds them together in himself, without whom nothing that exists either came to be or remains in being, does he wait to obtain his authority from some casting of lots? Judge, you who hear, whether the one who says these things is in his right mind.

“For the almighty God,” he says, “is one and alone.” If, then, by the title “Almighty” he points to the Father, he states our doctrine and not a foreign one; but if he means some other almighty besides the Father, let him, the champion of Jewish doctrines, proclaim circumcision too, if he pleases. For the faith of Christians looks to the Father. And the Father is everything: Most High, Almighty, King of those who reign, Lord of those who rule; and all that belongs to exalted meaning is proper to the Father. But all that is the Father’s is the Son’s. So, this being so, we accept those titles too. But if, setting the Father aside, he speaks of another almighty, he says what the Jews say, or else follows the words of Plato. For they say that that philosopher too says there is a creator and maker high above certain lower gods. As, then, in Jewish and Platonic doctrines one who does not accept the Father is not a Christian, even if he holds to some almighty in his doctrine, so Eunomius too bears the name falsely, judaizing in his thinking, or holding the doctrines of the Greeks while slipping on the name of Christians.

The same argument will apply to what is set out next. For he says, “God of gods.” Adding the name of the Father, we make the expression our own, knowing that the Father is God of gods. And all that is the Father’s is certainly the Son’s. And “Lord of those who rule”: the same argument applies to this. And “Most High over all the earth”: for whichever of them you take in thought, he is most high over all the earth, since oversight of earthly things from above comes equally from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And also what is placed next: “Most high in the heavens, most high in the highest, heavenly, true in being what he is and remaining so, true in words, true in works.” All these the eye of Christians sees equally in Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

If, then, Eunomius assigns these to only one of the persons handed down in the faith, let him dare to say that he is not true in words who said, “I am the truth,” or that the Spirit of truth is not; or let him refuse to agree that he is true in works who executes judgment and righteousness, or the Spirit who works all things in all as he wills. For if he does not attest these to the persons handed down in the faith, he cancels the faith of Christians altogether. For how will anyone think worthy of faith one who is false in his words and not true in his works?

But let us go on to what follows in the statement. For he says, “Higher than all rule, subjection, authority.” This statement is ours and proper to the catholic Church: to believe that the divine nature is higher than every rule and has under its hand everything conceived among existing things. And the divine nature is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But if he attests this power to the Father alone, and if he declares him alone free of turning and change, and if he calls him alone pure, what is built up from these is plain: that whoever does not have these things is certainly subject to turning and corruptible and changeable and perishable. This, then, is what Eunomius lays down as doctrine about the only-begotten God and the Holy Spirit; for he would not have used the contrast, setting the Father over against them, unless he had this thought about the Son and the Spirit. For the rest, brothers, test whether one who thinks thus is not a persecutor of the faith of Christians. For who will consent to judge what turns and changes and perishes worthy of his worship? So the whole aim of one who builds up such notions is to cast faith in the Son and the Holy Spirit out of the Church; by these notions he makes out that neither the truth itself nor the Spirit of truth is pure, or unchanging, or unalterable.

Let us see also what sort of thing he adds to what has been said. “Not,” he says, “dividing his own substance in begetting, and himself begetting and begotten, or himself becoming Father and Son; for he is incorruptible.” Such perhaps is what the prophet says of the ungodly, that they weave a spider’s web. For as with that there is the shape of a woven thing but no substance in the shape (whoever touches it touches nothing that subsists, since the spider’s threads perish at the touch of the fingers), such too is this unsubstantial weaving of empty expressions. “Not,” he says, “dividing his own substance in begetting, and himself begetting and begotten.” Should one call what is said a statement, or rather a mass of phlegm coughed up from some dropsical overflow? For what is “dividing one’s own substance in begetting” and “being the same”? Who is so out of his mind as to make this statement, against which Eunomius thinks he is fighting? For the Church believes that the true Father is truly Father of his own Son, as the Apostle says, not of another’s. For so he declared in one of his letters: “who did not spare his own Son,” by the addition of “own” distinguishing those who have been granted adoption by grace and not by nature. But what does he say who slanders this view of ours? “Not dividing his substance in begetting, nor himself begetting and begotten, or the same becoming Father and Son; for he is incorruptible.” Who, hearing of the Word who was in the beginning, and that the Word was God, and of the Word who came forth from the Father, thinks thus of one begetting and begotten? Who is so deranged? Who so defiles the pure doctrine with these shameful and stinking notions, saying, “He does not divide his substance in begetting”? Oh, the loathsomeness of these shameful and filthy notions! How does one who says such things not understand that God, when he was manifested through flesh, did not admit the passion of human nature for the formation of his own body, but a child was born to us from the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High; and neither did the Virgin suffer, nor was the Spirit diminished, nor was the power of the Most High divided off? For the Spirit is whole, and the power of the Most High remained undiminished; and the child was born whole and did not spoil his mother’s incorruption. So flesh was born from flesh without passion; yet Eunomius will not have the radiance of the glory be from the glory itself, since glory, in begetting the light, is neither diminished nor divided! And a human word is born from the mind without division, but God the Word cannot be born from the Father unless the Father’s substance is divided!