Against Eunomius 3.609–4.623

So he is properly and truly named Son of God in both respects: his nature has the good in itself, and his will is not broken away from the better, so that this word would not be applied to him by a stretched use. The things, then, which we set against ourselves in the person of our opponents have no place at all to be brought forward by them to discredit the natural kinship. But I do not know how, or why, hating and turning away from the truth, they name him Son, yet, so that community of substance may not be attested by this word, they separate the word from the meaning contained in the name and leave to the Only-begotten the name of Son empty and meaningless, granting him only the noise of the word. That I am saying what is true, and am not missing our opponents’ aim, may be learned plainly from the very arguments with which they attack the truth. For this is the kind of thing they bring forward to establish their blasphemy: that we have been taught by the divine Scripture many names of the Only-begotten (stone, axe, rock, foundation, bread, vine, door, way, shepherd, spring, tree, resurrection, teacher, light, and many others like them), but none of these is it pious to say while understanding it of the Lord in its ready sense. For it would be most absurd to think that what is bodiless and immaterial, simple and without shape, is given form by the meanings that some of the names display; so that on hearing “axe” we should think of iron of such a shape, or of “light” as the light in the air, or of “vine” as the plant grown from cuttings, or of each of the others as custom suggests. Rather, transferring the implications of these names to what better befits God, we understand something else, even if we name him so, not as if he were any of these things in the definition of his nature, but as being called these things while something else besides them is understood through what is said. And if such names are truly applied to the only-begotten God and do not contain an indication of his nature, they say that it follows that we should not take what “Son” signifies, according to prevailing custom, as an interpretation of his nature either, but should find for this word some meaning other than the common and ready one. These and such things they philosophize in order to establish that the Son is not what he both is and is called. Our discourse was hastening toward something else: to show Eunomius’s recent writing to be false and incoherent, agreeing neither with the truth nor with itself. But since, through what we are accusing in their doctrine, a kind of advocacy for the blasphemy has been brought into the discussion, it would be well to treat this briefly first, and then to return to the sequence of what was written. What, then, can we say to such things without missing what is fitting? That though the names which Scripture applies to the Only-begotten are many, as they too say, none of the others, we say, has a natural fitness in reference to the one who begot him. For we do not speak of him as stone, or resurrection, or shepherd, or light, or any of the others, with reference to the God of all, as we speak of him as Son of the Father. One can, as by a kind of art and rule, divide the meaning of the divine names in two. Some show the lofty and unspeakable glory; others show the variety of the providential economy, so that, by hypothesis, if there were no one benefited, the words that show the benefaction would not have been assigned to him. But all those that express what befits God are fitted naturally and properly to the only-begotten God even apart from the things administered. That such a doctrine may be revealed to us more clearly, the contemplation will be on the names themselves. The Lord would not have been named vine, except for the planting of those rooted in him; nor shepherd, unless the sheep of the house of Israel had been lost; nor physician, except for the sake of the sick; nor would he have accepted the rest of the names for himself, unless he made the words his own suitably for those benefited through some providential activity. Why need one lengthen the discussion by going through them one by one in matters that are agreed? But Son, and Right Hand, and Only-begotten, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and all such names as are said in relation to something, are said of him as named together with the Father in a kind of relative pairing. For he is named power of God, and right hand of God, and wisdom of God, and Son of the Father, and Only-begotten, and Word with God, and the like. It follows, then, from what has been said, that we should see in each of the names a meaning corresponding and fitting to its subject, so that we may not offend against the account of godliness by missing the right sense.

Just as, then, in transferring each of the others to what befits God, we reject their ready sense, so as to think of neither material light, nor a trodden way, nor bread from farming, nor a word made of sounds, but instead of these the things that present the majesty of the power of God the Word, so if anyone rejects the customary and natural meaning of “son,” by which we learn that he is from the substance of the one who begot him, he will certainly transfer the name to some interpretation more befitting God. For since the transfer of each of the others to what is more glorious fitted them to show the divine power, it certainly follows that the meaning of this name too should be transferred to something loftier. What sense more befitting God could there be in the appellation “Son,” if the natural relation to the begetter were rejected, as our opponents argue? For presumably no one is so bold in impiety as to think that, in speaking of the divine nature, what is low and grovelling is more fitting than what is lofty and great. If, then, they find some sense more magnificent than this, so that it seems unworthy to think of the Only-begotten as being from the nature of the Father, let them say whether they know anything, by their secret wisdom, loftier than the Father’s nature, so that by raising the only-begotten God to that they may lift him above his relation to the Father. But if the majesty of the divine nature lies above every height and surpasses every power of wonder, what reason is left that could carry the interpretation of the calling “Son” to something greater? Since, then, it is admitted that every word signifying something about the Only-begotten, even if it is named from lower usage, is properly said when transferred in meaning to what is more majestic, and it is shown that no sense more magnificent can be found for the appellation “Son” than the one that presents his genuineness toward the one who begot him, I think there is no need to linger on this point any longer, since it has been sufficiently shown by what has been said that the appellation “Son” ought not to be reinterpreted like the other names. But we must bring our examination back to the book. It is not for the same people both not to refuse to call the begotten “offspring” (for I will use their own words), “since the begotten substance itself and the name of Son make such a relation of the names appropriate,” and again to transfer the natural names into figurative shifts of meaning. So one of two things follows: either the first of their arguments has collapsed, and they take refuge in vain in the order of nature to establish that the begotten must be called offspring; or, if this is said rightly, the other argument will be dissolved by what was established before. For he who, according to them, is called offspring because he was begotten cannot, for this very reason, be called a thing made and a creature. For the meanings of these two names surely differ very greatly, and one who uses words reasonably ought to use his terms with an eye to the subject, so that we may not fall into some confusion of notions by exchanging words unsuitably for the things they signify. For this reason we name what is produced by art a craftsman’s work, but we call one born from a man that man’s son. No sensible person would call the work a son, or the son a work. For this belongs to one who confuses and muddies the true meaning by a wandering use of names. So one of these two things must be true of the Only-begotten: if he is Son, he is not called a creature; if he is created, he is estranged from the appellation of Son, just as heaven and earth and sea and all particular things, being creatures, do not take the calling of son. But since Eunomius bears witness that the only-begotten God is begotten (and the testimony of enemies is the stronger for establishing the truth), by saying that he is begotten he has also borne witness that he is certainly not created. So much on these matters. For since many arguments flood in upon us, we shall be content with these on the points proposed, lest their number run to excess.

It would be profitable also to examine in our discussion the natural science of “offspring” which he has philosophized with such care. He says (I will quote word for word the statement he has written so elegantly against the truth): “For who is so careless, and so unobservant of the nature of things, as not to know that, among the bodies on earth that are considered in begetting and being begotten, in acting and being acted upon, the begetters impart their own substance and the begotten naturally receive the same, since the material cause is common, and the supply flows in from outside; and the begotten are begotten by passion, and the begetters do not have their activity pure by nature, because their nature is yoked with passions of every kind?” You see how fittingly he who examines the nature of things with exactness takes in, in his contemplation, the pre-eternal begetting of God the Word who was in the beginning: bodies on earth, material cause, the passion of begetters and begotten, and all such things, at which a person of sense would blush even if they were said about us, our passible nature being pilloried by the account. Such, then, is the writer’s brilliant natural science about the only-begotten God. But let us leave off complaining (for what more could our groaning contribute toward undoing the wickedness of our enemies?) and, as far as we are able, make public the sense of what has been said. About what kind of begetting was the inquiry proposed: the one that subsists according to the flesh, or the one that concerns the only-begotten God? For since the contemplation is twofold, concerning the divine, simple, and immaterial life and concerning material and passible existence, and since begetting is said alike of both, it would be necessary to make a clear and unconfused distinction of the meanings, lest the shared name “begetting” mislead the truth. Since, then, the one proceeds through passion, while what is bodiless, intangible, formless, and free of material admixture is foreign to every passible condition, we should consider which begetting the inquiry was about, the pure and divine or the passible and defiled. But no one would say that it was not the pre-eternal existence of the only-begotten God that was set before the discussion. Why, then, does he linger over this bodily natural science in the foul arrangement of his discourse, defiling nature and making public the passions of human begetting, leaving the subject proposed? For we did not need to learn about this animal begetting that takes place through the flesh. Who is so foolish that, seeing himself and understanding within himself that the passage of human flesh into being is something material and through passion, he would seek another interpretation of his own nature, and need to learn the necessary passions that are seen with the begetting of the body: that the one who bears is in passion in one way and the one born in another, so that a man might learn from this teaching that he himself begets through passion and that passion began his own birth? For these things are the same whether kept silent or spoken: whether one goes through them making secret things public or covers the unspeakable in silence, we have not been ignorant that our nature proceeds through passion. But what we seek is to have the account made clear of the lofty and unspeakable existence of the Only-begotten, by which he is believed to be from the Father. While this is the inquiry before us, the new theologian adds to his discussion flux and passion and material cause and an activity not pure of defilement and a supply flowing in from outside and all such things. I do not know what has come over him: he who says that by the surpassing greatness of his wisdom he has left nothing incomprehensible outside his own knowledge, and who promises to explain the unspeakable begetting of the Son, has departed from the subject and plunges like an eel into the slimy mire of his reasonings, like that Nicodemus who came by night, who, when the Lord was teaching the birth from above, was dragged down in his reasonings to the bosom of the womb, and was at a loss how one could come again a second time into the womb, saying, “How can this happen?” He thought that because an old man cannot be carried again in a mother’s bowels, he could prove the spiritual birth untenable. But the Lord corrects his mistaken supposition too, saying that the properties of the flesh and of the spirit do not mix. Let this man too, if he will, correct himself in similar matters. For one who cares for truth must, I think, consider the subject from what belongs to it, and not slander the immaterial with a charge against material things. For if a man, or an ox, or any other creature born through flesh is not pure of passion in begetting or being begotten, what has that to do with the impassible and pure nature? Neither does our being mortal annul the immortality of the Only-begotten, nor does the turning of human beings toward vice make the unchangeableness of the divine nature doubtful, nor is anything else of ours transferred to God; rather, the property of human life and that of the divine is unmixed and without communion, and their distinguishing marks are altogether different, so that neither are these perceived in that, nor, conversely, those in this.

How, then, does Eunomius, when the divine begetting is the subject of the discussion, leave the subject and go through things on the earth, about which we have no dispute with him? But the craftsman’s aim is plain: to annul the Lord’s begetting by slandering it as passion. In this matter, setting aside its blasphemy, I marvel at the man’s shrewdness: how well he remembers his own effort! Having established by what he said before that the Son must be and be called offspring, he now strives to show that one must not think of begetting in his case. For if every begetting, as he thinks, has the condition of passion yoked with it, it must altogether be admitted through these words that what is foreign to passion is certainly foreign to begetting as well. For if these two, passion and begetting, are understood as joined with each other, what has no share in one of them could have no communion with the other either. How, then, does he call “offspring,” because of his begetting, one who is shown by what he now says not to have been begotten? And on behalf of what does he fight against our teacher, who counsels us not to venture on coining names in the divine doctrines, but to confess that he was begotten while not remodelling this notion into the form of a name so as to call the begotten “offspring,” since this word is assigned by Scripture properly to lifeless things or to those taken as an image of wickedness? But when we say that the word “offspring” should be left unsaid, he brings out that invincible rhetoric, taking grammatical frigidity also as an ally; and by the technical derivation of names, or paronymy, or whatever these things ought to be called, he concludes his syllogisms, not refusing to call the begotten “offspring.” But when, accepting this, we consider the sense of the name as showing at the same time the community of substance, he takes back his own words and maintains that the offspring was not begotten, annulling the pure, divine, and impassible begetting of the Lord by the defiled natural science of bodily childbirth, as though, in his view, the two cannot meet in God, genuineness toward the Father and impassibility of nature, but if there is impassibility there is no begetting, and if anyone confesses genuineness he must certainly accept passion along with the begetting. Not so the sublime John, not so that voice of thunder which proclaims the mystery of theology: he both names him Son of God and cleanses the proclamation of every passible supposition. See how he prepares our hearing beforehand in the opening of the Gospel! How great is the teacher’s forethought that none of his hearers should fall into low suppositions, slipping through ignorance into absurd notions! For to lead the untrained hearing as far as possible from passion, he did not say “Son” in the opening, nor “Father,” nor “begetting,” lest anyone, hearing “Father” first, should be dragged down to the ready implication of the name, or, learning that a Son is proclaimed, should understand the name according to usage here below, or should stumble at the word “begetting” as at a stone of stumbling. But instead of “Father” he names “the beginning”; instead of “was begotten,” “was”; and instead of “Son,” “the Word”; and he says, “In the beginning was the Word.” Tell me, what passion is there in these: in “was” and in “Word”? Is “the beginning” passion? Is “was” in passion? Is “the Word” through passion? Or, since there is no passion in what is said, is kinship not shown in the proclamation either? And yet how could the community and genuineness of substance, and the Word’s co-eternity with the beginning, be shown more clearly than through these words? For he did not say, “The Word was begotten from the beginning,” lest he should separate the Word from the beginning by some notion of extension; but he proclaimed him together with the beginning, saying “was” of the beginning and of the Word in common, so that the Word might not come later than the beginning, but might reach the hearing in the proclamation first, coming together with faith in the beginning, before the beginning could be received alone by itself. Then he says, “And the Word was with God.” The Evangelist still fears our lack of training; he still fears our childish and uninstructed state. He does not yet entrust the appellation “Father” to our hearing, lest someone more fleshly, learning “Father,” should consequently picture a mother in his mind as well. Nor yet does he name a Son in the proclamation; for he still suspects our habit of mind toward the lower nature, lest anyone, hearing “Son,” should humanize the Divine through a passible supposition.

For this reason, resuming the proclamation, he named him “the Word” again, explaining these things from nature to you, the unbeliever. For as your word appears from your mind and is not mediated by passion, so there too, hearing “Word,” you will understand that he is from something, and will not understand passion. For this reason, taking up the proclamation again, he says, “And the Word was with God.” Oh, how he measures the Word alongside God; or rather, how he extends the infinite alongside the infinite! “The Word was with God”: the whole Word, certainly, with the whole of God. As great, then, as God is, so great plainly is the Word who is with him; so that if God is bounded, the Word too is certainly within a boundary. But if God’s infinity passes beyond every boundary, neither is the Word who is contemplated with him enclosed by boundaries and measures. For no one would say that the Word is not contemplated with the whole Godhead of the Father, as though part of God were in the Word and part were shown to be bare of the Word. Again the fatherly voice of John; again the Evangelist nurses the hearing of infants with his proclamation. We have not yet grown so much through the first words that on hearing “Son” we would not slip through its customary implication. For this reason the herald, crying out again in the third phrase, still proclaimed “Word,” not “Son,” saying, “And the Word was God.” First he said in what he was, then with whom he was; now he says what he is. By the third repetition he completes the aim of his proclamation. “For I proclaim,” he says, “not a word of the kind ordinarily understood, but God, under the title of the Word.” For this Word, who was in the beginning and was with God, was not something other than God, but was himself God. And the herald, constantly rising through the repetition to greater sublimity, says that this is the God made known beforehand in the proclamation: that it is he through whom all things came into being, and he is life, and the light of men, and the true light shining in the darkness and not dimmed by the darkness, coming to his own and not received by his own, and becoming flesh, and through the flesh tabernacling in human nature. Only after going through so many such things does he say “Father” and name the “Only-begotten,” when there was no longer any danger that one cleansed by so much would slip into some defiled notion from the meaning of “Father”: “For we beheld,” he says, “his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father.” Say to this, to the Evangelist, say these wise words of yours, Eunomius: “How do you name a Father and an Only-begotten in your account, since every bodily begetting is effected through passion?” The truth certainly answers you on his behalf: the mystery of theology is one thing, the natural science of flowing bodies another. These are walled off from each other by a great distance. Why do you join by your argument things that do not mix? How do you pollute the purity of the divine begetting with a defiled argument? How do you systematize the bodiless through the passions of the body? Do not make the things above a matter of natural science drawn from those below. I proclaim the Lord Son of God, because the Gospel from heaven also proclaimed it so through the bright cloud: “This is my beloved Son.” Yet because I have been taught “Son,” I have not been dragged down by the name to the meanings of “son” here below; rather, I know that he is from the Father, and I do not know passion. And I will add this too to what has been said: that I know also a bodily birth pure of passion, so that in this point too Eunomius’s natural science of bodily begetting is shown to be false, if a birth of a body is found that did not admit passion. Tell me, did the Word become flesh or not? You would not say that he did not. He became so, then, and there is no one who denies it. How, then, was God manifested in the flesh? “Through birth,” you will certainly say. What birth, then, would you mention? Surely that of virginity: that what was begotten in her was from the Holy Spirit, that the days were fulfilled for her to give birth, and she gave birth, and incorruption was nonetheless preserved together with the birth. Do you, then, believe that the birth from a woman was pure of passion (if indeed you believe it), and yet not accept the divine and pure begetting from the Father, lest you should think of passion in connection with the begetting? But I know clearly that it is not passion he is avoiding in his doctrine, which he does not see at all in the divine and pure nature; rather, in order that the maker of all creation may be thought a part of creation, he constructs these things to deny the only-begotten God, using his feigned reverence about passion as a helper.