Against Eunomius 2.509–2.521

These, then, are the ways of begetting, that is, of things that exist from a cause, known in our usage and also taken up by Holy Scripture for teaching about transcendent things, so that each of them is reverently transferred, as is fitting, to presenting divine notions. It would be time to consider also in what meaning Eunomius’s statement takes the implication of begetting. “True Son,” he says, “not unbegotten, and truly begotten before the ages.” The maliciously tampered sequence in the contrast it is fitting, I think, to pass over, since it is known to everyone. For who does not know that, while the contrast is of Son with Father and of begotten with unbegotten, this man passes over the Father and sets the unbegotten in contrast with the Son? He ought, if he cared for truth, not to have turned the statement away from the relational sequence, but to have said “true Son, not Father.” In this way godliness too would have been preserved along with the sequence of the statement, the nature not being split along with the distinction of the persons. But he replaced the true and scriptural use of “Father,” handed down by the Word himself in the formula of faith, and named him “unbegotten” instead of Father, so that, separating him from the natural intimacy with the Son that is seen in the title of Father, he might make him common to all the things that appear in creation, which are equally contrasted with the unbegotten. “Truly begotten,” he says, “before the ages.” By whom, let him say. He will certainly say, “by the Father,” unless he is shameless toward the truth. But since the Son’s eternity cannot be separated from the eternal Father, the meaning of “Father” certainly showing the Son as well, for this reason he rejects the title of Father and shifts the statement to “unbegotten,” since the meaning of this name has no relation to the Son and nothing in common with him. And so, leading the hearers astray so that they do not contemplate the Son together with the Father, by the exchange of the name he opened a road for malice, paving the way for impiety by inserting “unbegotten.” For those who, according to the Master’s command, have their faith in the Father, as soon as they hear “Father,” have received the Son together with him in thought, the mind not stepping across any empty interval from the Son to the Father. But those who have been carried off to the title “unbegotten” instead of Father take up the bare notion of this name, learning only that he did not come to be, not that he is Father.

Even so, for those who understand intelligently, the faith remains unconfused even with this sense. For “not having come to be” is said equally of the uncreated nature, and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are equally uncreated, since the whole creation, perceptible and above the world, is believed by those who follow the divine words to have its existence from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For whoever has heard that “by the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power” has not taken the Word to be a spoken word nor the Spirit a breath, but has formed through these words an image of God the Word and of the Spirit of God. And the same thing cannot both create and be created; but, existing things being divided in two, into what makes and what comes to be, each is by nature other than the other, so that neither is what comes to be uncreated, nor is that created which works out the nature of the things that come to be. For those, then, who have believed, according to the Master’s statement of the faith, into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, it is equally confessed that none of these came to be, and the meaning of “unbegotten” in no way harms the sound faith. But for the thick-skinned and undiscerning this name becomes the start of a turning away from the sound doctrine. For not understanding the true implication of the name, that the word “unbegotten” signifies only not having come to be, and that not having come to be is common to everything that is above creation, they set aside faith in the Father and put the name “unbegotten” in the Father’s place; and since, as has been said, the hypostasis of the Only-begotten is not shown together with this name, they set a limit to the Son’s being from some fixed beginning, saying what this man has now added to what was said: “not named Son without a begetting before he existed.” What is this empty marvel-mongering again? Does he know that he is speaking about God, who was in the beginning and is in the Father, and there is no time when he was not? He does not know what he says.

nor about what he makes his assertions, but, as though tracing the genealogy of some human being, he tries to apply to the Master of all nature what is properly said of nature here below. For Ishmael, say, was not before his begetting into being, and before their begetting there is certainly, I mean, an interval of time. But in the case of the radiance of the glory, “before” and “after” have no place. For before the radiance there was certainly no glory either; for as soon as the glory exists, the radiance certainly shines out with it, and it is not in the nature of things that the one be separated from the other. Nor is it possible to see the glory by itself before the radiance; for whoever says this makes out the glory by itself to be lightless and blind, if the radiance from it does not shine out with it. This is the malice of the heresy: to remove the only-begotten God from his unity with the Father by means of what is thought and said of human beings. That is why he says, “Before his begetting into being he was not Son.” But the sons of rams, whom the Prophet mentions, are not they too called sons after they have come to be? What the word sees in the sons of rams, then, that before their begetting into being they were not sons of rams, this the reverend theologian now ascribes to the maker of the ages and of all creation, who has the eternal Father in himself and is contemplated in the eternity of the Father, as he himself says, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” But those who cannot see through the malice in the statement, and have not been trained in any understanding of logical consequence, follow these disjointed phrases, taking what is put before them as consistent. For he says “come into being before all creation”; and as though this word did not suffice to show his impiety, he keeps the blasphemy in reserve for the next words, saying “not uncreated.” How, then, does he call one who is not uncreated a true Son? For if it is fitting to call what is created a true son, the heaven too is certainly a true son, for it too is not uncreated; so too the sun is a true son, and everything that creation contains, small and great, is certainly worthy of the title of true Son. And how does he call one who came to be only-begotten? For all things that have come to be are certainly brothers of one another, I mean in respect of the very principle of coming to be. And by whom did he come to be? For all things, whatever has come to be, certainly came to be by the Son. For so John testifies, saying, “All things came to be through him.” If, then, according to Eunomius’s statement the Son too came to be, he too is certainly in the nature of the things that have come to be. If, then, all the things that came to be came to be through him, and the Word is one of the things that came to be, who is so senseless as not to see the absurdity of what has been laid down: that this new dogmatist declares the Master of creation to have come to be as his own work, by saying outright that the Lord, the maker of all creation, is not uncreated? Let him say where he gets this boldness. From what inspired utterance? What evangelist, what apostle let fall such a word? What prophet or lawgiver or patriarch, or anyone else of those borne along by the Holy Spirit, whose utterances are written down, led the way in such a saying? Did we learn from the Truth, in the handing down of the faith, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, or that we ought to believe him to be created? How did the Truth, handing the mystery down to us, lay down faith in the Son and not in the creature? And how does the divine Apostle, who worshiped Christ, rule that those who serve the creature rather than the Creator are idolaters? For either he would not have worshiped him if he were created, or he would not have ranked with idolaters those who serve the creature, lest he too seem to be an idolater by offering worship to what is created. But he knows that the one he worships is God over all; for so he names the Son in his letter to the Romans. Those, then, who cut the Son off from the Father’s substance and call him created, why do they mockingly grant him the falsely named title, vainly attaching the word “God” to one foreign to the true Godhead, as to Bel, or Dagon, or the dragon? So let those who define him as created either not confess him God, so that they may be shown to be judaizing, or, if they confess that the created one is God, let them not deny that they are idolaters.

But they will certainly bring forward the saying of Proverbs, which says, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways, for his works.” How this stands could be set out more clearly at length, but it would also be possible to convey the meaning in a few words to the fair-minded. For some of those accurately educated in divine things say this too, that “created” is not written among the Hebrews; and we have read in older books “acquired” written instead of “created me.”

And “acquisition,” through the proverbs and riddles, certainly points to the slave, who for our sake took up the form of a slave. But if anyone puts forward the reading that prevails in the churches in this passage, we do not reject the word “created” either. For this too, through the riddle, looks to the meaning of slave, since “all creation serves,” as the Apostle says. For this reason we say that this word too has a reverent sense. For he who for our sake became as we are was truly created in the last of the days, he who in the beginning was Word and God, and afterwards became flesh and man. And the nature of the flesh is created; he shared in it in all things according to likeness, without sin. And he was created according to God, not according to man, as the Apostle says, in a new way and not according to human custom. For we have learned that it was from the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High; yet this new man was created, whom Paul, the guide into ineffable mysteries, bids us put on, naming the garment in two ways: now saying, “Put on the new man, created according to God,” and again, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” For so, for us who have put him on, he who said “I am the way” becomes the beginning of the ways of salvation, so that he may make us works of his own hands, refashioning us from the evil formation of sin to his own image again. The same becomes our foundation before the age to come, according to the word of Paul, who says, “No one can lay a foundation other than the one that is laid”; and “before the springs of waters came forth, and before the mountains were set in place, and before he made the depths, and before all hills, he begets me.” For each of these, taken in the manner proper to proverbs, can be applied to the word in a figurative sense. For the great David calls righteousness the mountains of God, and the judgments depths, and the teachers in the churches springs, saying, “Bless God the Lord from the springs of Israel”; and he calls hills the innocence that he showed by the skipping of the lambs. Before these, then, the man created for our sake is born in us, so that the creation of such things too may find room in us. But I think we must pass over the discussion of these things, the truth having been sufficiently shown in a few words to the fair-minded.

Let us go on to what follows in Eunomius’s words. “Being in the beginning,” he says, “not without beginning.” Oh, how he understands the divine words, he who thinks himself wiser than others! He interprets “being in the beginning” as “having a beginning,” and does not know that if he who is in the beginning has a beginning, the beginning too certainly has another beginning. For whatever one says of the beginning, he will necessarily confess also of him who is in the beginning. For how will what is in the beginning be separated from the beginning? And how will anyone conceive “was not” before “was”? For however far one stretches his mind upward to grasp the beginning, he certainly grasps together with it the Word who is in it, who cannot be separated from the beginning in which he is, and never either begins or ceases to be in it. But let no one split the doctrine into two beginnings because of this. For the beginning is truly one, in which the Word, united with the Father through all things, is inseparably contemplated. Whoever thinks this will give the heresy no entry to harm godliness through the novelty of the name “unbegotten.”

In what is set out next, his statement is like bread with much sand mixed in. For mixing heretical notions with what is soundly said, he makes even the nourishing part inedible by the stone mixed in. For he calls the Lord “living wisdom, and active truth, and subsistent power, and life.” Up to here it is nourishing; but he puts the venom of the heresy into what has been said. For calling the life “begotten,” by its contrast with the unbegotten life he means something else and does not suppose the Son to be the life that truly is. Then he says: “As Son of God, giving life to the dead, true light, light that enlightens every man coming into the world, good and supplier of good things.” Holding out all these to the simpler sort like honey, he hides the poison under the sweetness of these words. For he immediately adds his destructive thought, saying: “Not sharing his dignity with the one who begot him, not sharing the Father’s substance with anyone, but become glorious from his begetting, and Lord of glory, and receiving glory from the Father, not partaking of his glory; for the glory of the Almighty is incommunicable, as he said, ‘My glory I will not give to another.’” These are the drugs of death, which only those discern who have the senses of the soul trained.

Their deadly wickedness is uncovered more plainly in the last of the words: “Receiving glory from the Father,” he says, “not partaking of his glory; for the glory of the Almighty is incommunicable, as he said, ‘My glory I will not give to another.’” Who is that other, of whom God said, “My glory I will not give”? The prophet speaks of the adversary, but Eunomius refers the prophecy to the only-begotten God himself. For the prophet, having said in the person of God, “My glory I will not give to another,” added, “nor my praises to carved images.” For since human beings, through deceit, were offering to the adversary the service and worship owed to God, revering God’s enemy in the statues of carved images, he who took many forms among human beings through the idols, he who heals the sick took pity on human ruin and foretold through the prophet the loving-kindness that he would show at a later time in the destruction of the idols, saying: “When the truth has been made manifest, my glory will no longer be given to another, nor will my praises be offered to carved images; for human beings will no longer serve those that by nature are not gods, once they have recognized my glory.” Whatever, then, the prophet says in the person of the Lord about the adverse power, this the fighter against God refers to the Lord himself, who uttered these words through the prophet. What persecutor of the faith among the tyrants is recorded to have been such? Who ever constructed this: that he who appeared through flesh for the salvation of our souls, as we have believed, is not true God, but the adversary of God, who works deceit against human beings in carved images and idols? For what was said of that one through the prophet Eunomius transfers to the only-begotten God, not understanding even this, that the Only-begotten himself is the one who uttered these words in the prophet, as he himself says in what follows, that this is the one who spoke in the prophets.

Why should I go through these things at greater length? For what was said before them clings to the same blasphemy: “Receiving glory from the Father,” he says, “not partaking of his glory; for the glory of the almighty God is incommunicable.” For my part, even if the statement were about Moses, who was glorified in the ministry of the law, not even so would I have tolerated such a statement, even granting that he had no glory of his own and appeared suddenly glorious to the Israelites through the gift that came to him from God. For the very glory that came to the lawgiver was not another’s but God’s own, which the Lord in the Gospel bids all to seek, when he blames those who make much of human glory but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God. For in commanding them to seek the glory from the only God, he promised that what is sought can be obtained. How, then, is the glory of the Almighty incommunicable, if one must ask for the glory from the only God, and everyone who asks receives, according to the Lord’s word? And whoever says of the radiance of the glory that it has the glory by receiving it says nothing other than that the radiance of the glory is in itself without glory and needs to receive glory from another, so that thus at some time he too may become Lord of some glory. Where, then, shall we put the words of the Truth, both the one that says that he will be seen in the glory of the Father, and again, “All that the Father has is mine”? To whom should the hearer attend: to him who says that he who is heir of all that is in the Father, as the Apostle says, has no share in the Father’s glory, or to him who confesses that he has all that the Father has? And among “all” the glory too is certainly included. But he says that the glory of the Almighty is incommunicable. This neither Joel testifies nor the great Peter, who made the prophetic word his own in his address to the Jews. For both the prophet and the apostle say in the person of God, “I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh.” He, then, who did not begrudge all flesh fellowship in his own Spirit, how does he not share his own glory with the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father and has all that the Father has? Or perhaps one might say that Eunomius speaks the truth in this, even without wishing to? For “communicating” is properly said in the case of one who does not have glory of his own, to whom having it comes from elsewhere and not from nature; but where one and the same nature is grasped, he who is by nature what the Father is believed to be does not need someone to communicate each thing to him. Or rather, it is well to say it more clearly and plainly:

What need of the Father’s glory has he who has the whole Father in himself, nothing that is seen in the Father being taken away? And what is the dignity of the Almighty in which Eunomius declares that the Son has no share? Let those who are wise in their own eyes and understanding in their own sight speak their earthly doctrines, those who, as the Prophet says, speak from the earth. But let us, who worship the Word and are disciples of the truth, or rather pray to be, not pass this word by either without examining it. For we know that of all the names by which the divine is signified, some indicate the divine majesty, being said and understood by themselves, while others are named from the activities toward us and the whole creation. For when the divine Apostle says, “to the incorruptible, invisible, only wise God,” and the like, he indicates by these names the thoughts that present the transcendent power. But when the Scriptures say “compassionate and merciful,” “abounding in mercy,” “true,” “good,” “Lord,” “physician,” “shepherd,” “way,” “bread,” “spring,” “king,” “creator,” “maker,” “protector,” “he who is over all and through all,” “who is all in all,” these and the like contain the implication of the things worked in creation by the divine loving-kindness. The name “Almighty,” then, is found by those who examine it accurately to signify nothing else in the divine power than this: the implication of “Almighty” shows that the activity that holds sway over the things seen in creation stands in relation to something. For as he would not be a physician except for the sake of the sick, nor be called merciful and compassionate and the like except because of one who needs compassion and mercy, so neither would he be Almighty unless all creation needed one to hold it fast and preserve it in being. So as a physician is a physician to one who needs healing, so Almighty to one who needs to be held; and as those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, so it is consistent to say that he whose nature is unerring and unfailing no longer needs one to hold him. So when we hear the word “Almighty,” we understand this: that God holds together in being all things, both those that are intelligible and those of material nature. For this reason he holds the circle of the earth, for this reason he has the ends of the earth in his hand, for this reason he encloses the heaven with his span, for this reason he measures the water with his hand, for this reason he contains the whole intelligible creation in himself: he is Almighty so that all things may remain in being, held fast by his embracing power.

Let us examine, then, who it is that works all things in all. Who made all things, without whom nothing that exists is? Who is it in whom all things were created and in whom existing things have their continuance? In whom do we live and move and have our being? Who has in himself all that the Father has? Do we still not know from what has been said that the Almighty is the God over all, as Paul so names him, our Lord Jesus the Christ? He, having in his hand all that is the Father’s, as he himself says, certainly grasps all things with his capacious palm, and holds what he grasps, and no one snatches from the hand of him who holds all things in his hand. If, then, he has all things and holds what he has, how is he who holds all things anything other than Almighty? But if the heresy says that the Father holds the Son and the Spirit too, let them first show that the Son and the Holy Spirit are of changeable nature, and then let them set the one who holds over what changes, so that, by help coming from above, what is held may remain without falling into evil. But if the divine nature does not admit evil, is unchangeable and unalterable and always the same, for what will it need one to hold it? It holds all creation by itself, while itself needing no one to hold it, because it is unchangeable. For this reason at the name of Christ every knee bends, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth; for it would not have bent unless it certainly recognized him who holds it for its salvation.

To say that the Son was begotten by the goodness of the Father is nothing other than to set him in equal honor with the lowest things of creation. For what did not come to be through the goodness of its maker? To what is the formation of human nature to be reckoned, to the wickedness or to the goodness of its maker? And to what the coming to be of animals, the nature of plants and shoots?