Against Eunomius 9.803–9.817

And so he is found to master the power in that respect in which he is not power. Or else God, being power, has another power again in himself, and with this masters the other. And what is this battle and division, that God should divide the strength within himself and wrestle down one section of the power with the other? For he could not master his own power unless some greater and more forceful power fought on his side for this purpose. Such is Eunomius’s God: a being of two natures, or much compounded, divided against himself, having one power out of tune with another, so as to be carried toward disorder by the one and to check the faulty motion by the other. And with what intent does he master the power that rushes toward begetting—lest some evil come about if the begetting is not checked? Or rather, before this, let him explain what the thing mastered is by nature. For what he says suggests an impulsive and voluntary motion, contemplated distinctly by itself; for what masters is one thing and what is mastered is necessarily another. Does God, then, master his power as some self-choosing nature, or as something else besides this, rushing to activity or remaining at rest? If he supposes it to be at rest, what is quiet has no need of one to master it. But if he says that he masters it, clearly he masters something that moves and rushes; and he will certainly say that this is something other in nature than the one who masters it. So let him make plain what he means by this phrase. Something else besides God, contemplated in a hypostasis? And how could anything foreign be in God? Or a certain disposition without hypostasis, contemplated in the divine nature? But he would not say this. For what does not subsist does not exist, and what does not exist is neither mastered nor let go. What, then, is that power which was mastered and held back from its own activity until the time of Christ’s begetting should arrive and let the power go, unhindered, to be carried on to its natural activity? And what is the cause of the delay in between, on account of which God postponed the begetting of the Only-begotten, not yet thinking it good to become Father? And what is this interval inserted between the life of the Father and that of the Son? Not time, not place, not any notion of extension, nothing else of the kind. At what, then, does that sharp and keen-sighted eye gaze when it sees the separation of the Son’s life from the life of the Father? Hemmed in on every side, he himself necessarily agrees that there is nothing in between; yet, though nothing intervenes, he does not admit that the communion is immediate and conjoined. Instead he comes down to our measures of knowledge and talks with us in human fashion, as one of us, quietly confessing the weakness of his reasonings and taking refuge in an argument that Aristotle and his followers did not teach. “For it was good and fitting,” he says, “to beget the Son then, when he willed; and no inquiry arises from this among sensible people: Why not before?”

What is this, Eunomius? Do you too go on foot like us unlearned folk? Leaving your technical periods, do you too take refuge in irrational assent—you who have so often reproached those who attempt to write without logical skill? You who say to Basil, “By saying that it is impossible for human beings to give an account of spiritual words, you prove your own ignorance”; and again, putting forward the same elsewhere, “You make your own weakness common, declaring that what is impossible for you is impossible for all”—you who say these and similar things, is this how you lead along the ears of one who seeks the reason why the Father put off becoming the father of such a Son? Do you think it enough for a proof to say, “He begot when he willed, and let there be no inquiry about this”? Has your cataleptic impression grown so weak in building up your doctrines? Where are the dilemmatic premises? Where the forcible constructions? How have the fearsome and inescapable conclusions of your syllogisms flowed away from your art and vanished, gone and unsubstantial? “He begot the Son then, when he willed, and let there be no inquiry about this.” Are these the results of your many sweats, these the outcome of your overweening promises? What was the question? “If it is good and fitting for God to have such a Son, why is the good not believed to be always with him?” What is the answer that he has given us from the very sanctuaries of philosophy, binding his argument with insoluble necessities? “He made the Son then, when he willed, and let there be no inquiry about this: Why not before?” But if the inquiry before us concerned one of the irrational creatures that act by some natural impulse—why it did not do sooner what it saw fit to do, the spider its threads, or the bee its comb, or the turtledove its nest—

what else could you have said? Would not this very answer have been ready to hand: that it did it then, when it willed, and let there be no inquiry about this? And even of a sculptor or a painter doing what he sees fit by his imitative art, in pictures or in figures, when he is subject to no authority and puts his art into action, I think such a statement would fit, for anyone who wished to learn why he did not put his art to work earlier: that, being under no necessity, he made his own choice the time for his activity. For human beings, because they neither always will the same things nor, for the most part, have power that works together with their will, do any of the things they intend when their choice inclines toward the work and nothing outside hinders them. But to say of what is always the same—to which none of its goods is acquired, in which every difference of purposes, such as arises in the contrary direction through some error and ignorance, has no place, to which nothing comes by change that it did not perceive as good from the beginning—to say of this that it does not always have the good, but later chose to have something it did not choose before: this belongs to a wisdom that surpasses us. For we have learned that the divine is always full of every good; or rather, it is itself the fullness of goods, since it needs no addition for its perfection, but is itself, by its own nature, the perfection of the good. And the perfect is equally foreign to increase and to diminution. For this reason we say that the perfection of goods contemplated in the divine nature is always the same, finding it such wherever we stretch out our thought. So the divine is never empty of good. But the Son is the fullness of every good; he is therefore always contemplated in the Father, whose nature is perfection in every good.

“But,” he says, “let there be no inquiry: Why not before?” To this we will say: It is one thing, wisest of men, to legislate by command about matters of choice, and another to bring people over by reason on matters in dispute. So as long as you have no reason to give for which it is pious to say that the Son was added to the Father later, your command will lie idle among sensible people. In this way, then, Eunomius brings the truth to light for us by his technical method; and we, as is our custom, will appropriate his argument to establish the doctrines of the truth, so that by this too it may become plain that everywhere, compelled by the truth itself, they plead for our doctrine in spite of themselves. For if he begot the Son then, when he willed, as our opponent says, and he always willed the good, and his power runs together with his will, then the Son will be understood to be always with the Father, who always wills the good and is able to have what he wills. And if his next statement too must be brought over to the truth, it is easy to fit this also to our doctrine: that there should be no inquiry about this among sensible people, “Why not before?” For the word “before” has a temporal meaning, contrasted with “after” and “later”; but when there is no time, the names of temporal interval are certainly abolished along with it. But the Lord is before times and before ages; so for those who have sense the inquiry about “before” and “after” is useless when it concerns the maker of the ages. For such names, when they are not said of time, are empty of all meaning. Since, then, the Lord is before times, “before” and “after” certainly have no place in him.

Perhaps this is enough to overturn arguments that need no one to wrestle with them but fall by their own weakness. For who has so much leisure from the cares of life as to give himself up so long to hearing both the vanity of the opposing arguments and our battle against vain things? But since in those who have been taken over by impiety the deceit is like an indelible dye, hard to wash out, and has been burned deep into their hearts, let us spend a little more time on the argument, in case we might somehow wash their souls clean of this wicked stain. For having said what has been quoted, and having added to it, after the manner of his instructor Prunicus, some disjointed and ill-fitting octads of insults and abuse, he moves on to the crowning point of his attempts; and, leaving his unsyllogistic exposition of vanity, he arms his argument again with the goads of dialectic and constructs the absurdity against us, as he thinks, syllogistically. His words run thus: “Since every begetting does not extend to infinity but ends in some end, it is wholly necessary that those who accept the Son’s birth should grant that he then ceased being begotten, and should not be incredulous about the beginning of things that have ceased being begotten; for the cessation confirms the beginning both of begetting and of being begotten; and these things cannot be disbelieved, both from nature itself and moreover from the divine laws.”

Since, then, following the wisdom of those clever at such things, he lays down the universal first and tries to establish the proposition by induction, including the particular proof in the general premise, let us first consider the universal and then examine the force of what is inferred from it. Is it pious to infer the birth of the Son before the ages from every birth? Must we put forward the common nature as the teacher of the existence of the Only-begotten? For my part I would not expect anyone to reach such madness as to imagine such a thing about the divine and pure birth. “Every birth,” he says, “does not extend to infinity.” What is the meaning of “birth”? Does he mean fleshly and bodily bringing forth, or the construction of lifeless things? But the passions of bodily births are plain, and no one would transfer them to the divine birth; and so that the discourse may not seem to drag on describing the works of nature, we will pass such things over in silence, since everyone with sense, I think, knows of himself the causes by which birth is extended, both as it begins and as it ends. For it would be long and superfluous to set out everything accurately: the union of the parents, the forming of the one begotten in the womb, the labor, the delivery, the place, the time, without which the birth of a body cannot take place. All of these are equally foreign to the divine birth of the Only-begotten. For if one of these were granted, the rest would necessarily come in with it in every respect. So, that the divine birth may be pure of every notion of passion, let us not conceive an extension of interval in it either. For what begins and ceases is certainly contemplated in some extension, and every extension is measured by time. But since there is no time, by which we mark both the end and the beginning of a birth, it would be vain to conceive an end and a beginning in the birth that has no interval, since no notion is found that marks either where it begins or where it ends. And if he looks to the lifeless creatures, there likewise place and time and matter and preparation and the craftsman’s power and many such things concur to complete what comes to be. And since time certainly extends along with all things that come to be, and the means of construction for what comes to be are understood together with everything created, whether animate or inanimate, one can find plain beginnings and ends of their constitution in them. For the provision of material becomes the beginning of the construction, and some mark of place and the sequence of time. All these define the beginnings and ends of things that come to be, and no one would say that they have any community with the existence of the Only-begotten God before the ages; so one may not reckon a beginning and an end in that birth from what is observed here.

These things having been thus distinguished by us, let us consider the opponents’ argument again. “Since every birth,” he says, “does not extend to infinity but ends in some end.” Since, then, the meaning of “birth” has been understood in both senses—whether he meant by such a name the bringing forth of bodily things or the construction of creatures, neither of which has anything in common with the pure nature—the premise has been shown to be foreign to the matter at hand. For it does not follow, because every making and birth ends in some limit, that those who accept the Son’s birth must necessarily, as he argues, circumscribe it by two limits, conceiving a beginning and an end in it. For only things marked out by some magnitude both begin to come into being and end in a limit; and the measure of time, extended along with the quantity of what is begotten, separates the beginning from the end by the interval between. But how could anyone measure or divide what is without quantity and without interval? What measure would he find for what has no quantity, or what interval for what has none? How would anyone enclose the boundless by an end and a beginning? For beginning and end are the limits of things that have interval. Where there is no interval, there is no limit either; but the divine nature is without interval; and being without interval, it has no limit; and what has no limit both is and is called infinite. So it is vain to circumscribe the infinite by beginning and end; for what is circumscribed cannot be infinite. Where, then, does this Platonic Phaedrus get the idea of stitching what Plato philosophized there about the soul incoherently into his own doctrines? For as Plato spoke there of a cessation of motion, so this man too has desired to speak of a cessation of begetting, so as to din the ears of those unfamiliar with these things with Platonic fine phrases. “And these things cannot be disbelieved,” he says, “both from nature itself and moreover from the divine names.” But nature, from what has been said, has proved untrustworthy for teaching us about the divine birth.

Nor is it trustworthy if one brings forward the world itself as an example for the argument; for with its creation too, as we learned from Moses in the Cosmogony, the measure of time ran along, measured out to each of the things that came into being by stated days and nights in a certain order and sequence. And this not even our opponents’ argument accepts in the case of the hypostasis of the Only-begotten, since it confesses that the Lord is before eternal times. It would remain to consider the support for the proposition from the divine laws, by which he promises both an end and a beginning of the Son’s birth: “He set a day at the end of the creation, and with it the confirmation of its beginning. For he gave as the reminder of creation not the first day of its birth but the seventh, on which he rested from his works.” Who will be persuaded that this was written by him, and was not inserted by us to discredit his treatise, so that he might seem ridiculous to readers for dragging in, to prove his propositions, things that have nothing to do with the questions? For what was sought was to show, as he promised, that the Son was begotten when he did not exist, and that while being begotten he took a beginning and an end of his birth, as though some labor drew the birth out in time. And what is his construction for this? That the people of the Hebrews by law keep Sabbath on the seventh day! Oh, how well the testimony agrees with the proposition! Since the Sabbath is honored with rest by the Jew, it has been proved that the Lord, as this man says, both took a beginning of his birth and, being born, ceased! How many other testimonies to this the speech-writer passed over, which fall no short of the one he mentioned for establishing what is sought: circumcision on the eighth day, the week of unleavened bread, the mystery on the fourteenth day of the moon’s course, the sacrifices of purification, the observance about lepers, the ram, the calf, the heifer, the scapegoat, the he-goat! But if these are far from the matter at hand, how is that one within the question? Let the zealots of the Jewish mysteries tell us. For we, thinking it petty and unmanly to trample on what lies before us, will look in the sequence of his writings for anything that might make the one wrestling with him break a sweat.

Whatever, then, he goes through in what follows, arguing that nothing is to be conceived as between Son and Father, we will pass over as agreeing in some way with our doctrine. For it would be both undiscerning and unfair not to distinguish in what is said the blameless from the blameworthy. For, fighting with his own statements, he does not follow what he has conceded: he speaks of “immediate,” yet does not accept the conjunction; he conceives that nothing is before the Only-begotten, and supposes that he is Son, yet fights for his having been begotten when he did not exist. Having spent a little time on these points, since the argument has already been sufficiently prepared by what went before, we will keep to the matter in hand. It is not consistent for the same man both to put nothing before the hypostasis of the Only-begotten and to say that he was not before his begetting, but was begotten then, when the Father willed. For “then” and “when” properly and naturally carry a temporal reference, both in the common usage of those who speak correctly and in the meaning found in Scripture: “Then they will say among the nations,” and, “When I sent you,” and, “Then the kingdom will be likened.” And countless such passages can be taken from all Scripture to prove the point, that the usage of Scripture marks time with such parts of speech. If, then, there was no time, as our opponent agrees, the temporal meaning is certainly abolished along with it; and when this is absent, the notion of everlastingness will of all necessity come in instead. For with the word “not being,” “once” is certainly understood. For if he were to say “not being” without “once,” he will not grant that he exists even now; and if they grant “now” and fight against everlastingness, they certainly mean not “not to be at all” but “once not to be.” And since this word is wholly without substance unless it rests on the meaning of time, it would be senseless and vain to say that nothing is before the Son and yet not to maintain that he is always Son. For if there is neither place nor time nor any other created thing in which the Word who was in the beginning is not, the idea that the Lord once was not is removed on every side from the doctrine of piety. So it is not with us but with himself that he fights who teaches that the Only-begotten both is not and is. For in confessing that the Son’s conjunction with the Father is divided by nothing, he has certainly testified to his everlastingness. And if he should say that the Son is not in the Father, we will not answer such a statement ourselves but will set Scripture against it, which says that the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son, not adding “once” or “when” or “then” to the statement, but by this absolute declaration testifying to his everlastingness.

His argument that the Only-begotten God is called unbegotten by us is the same as saying that we declare the Father too to be begotten. For each is a matter of the same absurdity, or rather blasphemy. So if he has decided to slander, let him add the other charge too, sparing nothing by which he might be able to inflame the hearers against us more harshly. But if he does not allege one of the two because the slander would be too obvious, let him drop the other as well; for it is equally impious, as has been said, to call the Son unbegotten or the Father begotten. If, then, any such word is found in our writings by which the Son is named unbegotten, we will pass the extreme sentence against ourselves. But if he fabricates false charges and slanders at will, making up whatever he likes to discredit our doctrines, this too might perhaps be, for those who have sense, a proof of the piety among us: that because truth fights on our side, he has put forward falsehood to accuse our doctrine, constructing an indictment for impiety that is foreign to our teaching. But one can answer these charges briefly. As we judge accursed anyone who says that the Only-begotten God is unbegotten, so let him too curse anyone who declares that he who was in the beginning once was not. For in this way it will be shown who brings his charges in truth and who brings them by slander. And if we deny the charges—if, when we say “Father,” we understand “Son” together with the word, and when we name the “Son,” we say that he truly is what he is called, having shone forth by way of begetting from the unbegotten light—how is the slander not obvious of those who babble that we call the Only-begotten unbegotten?

Yet because we say that he is by way of begetting, we do not on that account accept that he once was not. For who does not know that the opposition in meaning between being and not being admits nothing in between, so that the positing of one of the two is certainly the abolition of its opposite? And that, just as being is the same in every time in which one supposes any being to subsist—for heaven and stars and sun and the other beings are not more now than yesterday and the day before and in all past time—so in the same way the meaning of not being too has non-existence equally in every time, whether one speaks of the earlier or the later. For one of the things that subsist does not fail to exist more now than if it had been non-existent earlier; the account of not being is one and the same for what is not, in every interval of time. That is why in the case of living creatures we signify by different names the non-existence of what has been dissolved into non-being and of what has not yet made its passage into coming to be, saying either that it has not been born at all or that what was born has died; yet by each word we equally present non-existence in our speech. For as the day is enclosed by night on either side, and the enclosing parts are not named alike—the one “after evening,” the other “before dawn”—yet what is meant in both cases is night, so in the same way, if one were to contemplate non-being side by side over against being, he will name differently what is before the constitution and what is after the dissolution of what was constituted, but will understand one meaning through both. For not being is the same for the unborn and for the dead, apart from the difference of names—the account of the hope of resurrection being excepted. Since, then, we have learned from Scripture that the Only-begotten God is the author of life and life itself, and light, and truth, and everything honorable in name and thought, we say that it is absurd and impious to contemplate together with him who truly is what is understood as its opposite, whether dissolution into corruption or non-existence before constitution. Rather, stretching our thought on every side toward what is before the ages, we nowhere come to a stop at non-being in our concepts, judging it equally impious to cut off the divine by non-existence at any time whatever. For it is the same thing to call immortal life mortal, and truth false, and light dark, and being not-being. He, then, who does not grant that he will at some time not be will not agree, by our reasoning, that he once was not either, since he avoids the same absurdity on either side. For as death does not cut short the endless life of the Only-begotten, so neither will non-existence at the upper end check his life as it proceeds toward everlastingness, so that what truly is may be pure on every side of any communion with what truly is not.