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| His elaborate account of degrees and differences in 'works' and 'energies' within the Trinity is absurd.
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§24. His elaborate
account of degrees and differences in ‘works’ and
‘energies’ within the Trinity is absurd.
Now let us see what he adds, as
the consequence of this. After saying that we must perforce regard the
Being as greater and less and that while137
| 137 τὰς μὲν,
i.e. Οὑσίος.
Eunomius’ Arianism here degenerates into mere Emanationism: but
even in this system the Substances were living: it is best on the whole
to translate οὐσία ‘being,’ and this, as a rule, is adhered to
throughout. | the
ones, by virtue of a pre-eminent magnitude and value, occupy a leading
place, the others must be detruded to a lower place, because their
nature and their value is secondary, he adds this; “their
difference amounts to that existing between their works: it would in
fact be impious to say that the same energy produced the angels or the
stars, and the heavens or man; but one would positively maintain about
this, that in proportion as some works are older and more honourable
than others, so does one energy transcend another, because sameness of
energy produces sameness of work, and difference of work indicates
difference of energy.”
I suspect that their author
himself would find it difficult to tell us what he meant when he wrote
those words. Their thought is obscured by the rhetorical mud, which is
so thick that one can hardly see beyond any clue to interpret them.
“Their difference amounts to that existing between their
works” is a sentence which might be suspected of coming from some
Loxias of pagan story, mystifying his hearers. But if we may make a
guess at the drift of his observations here by following out those
which we have already examined, this would be his meaning, viz., that
if we know the amount of difference between one work and another, we
shall know the amount of that between the corresponding energies. But
what “works” he here speaks of, it is impossible to
discover from his words. If he means the works to be observed in the
creation, I do not see how this hangs on to what goes before. For the
question was about Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: what occasion was
there, then, for one thinking rationally to inquire one after another
into the nature of earth, and water, and air, and fire, and the
different animals, and to distinguish some works as older and more
honourable than others, and to speak of one energy as transcending
another? But if he calls the Only-begotten and the Holy Spirit
“works,” what does he mean by the “differences”
of the energies which produce these works: and what are 138
| 138 κᾀκείναι αἱ
ἐνεργείαι
αὖται. | those wonderful energies of this writer which
transcend the others? He has neither explained the particular way in
which he means them to “transcend” each other; nor has he
discussed the nature of these energies: but he has advanced in neither
direction, neither proving so far their real subsistence, nor their
being some unsubstantial exertion of a will. Throughout it all his
meaning hangs suspended between these two conceptions, and oscillates
from one to the other. He adds that “it would be impious to say
that the same energy produced the angels or the stars, and the heavens
or man.” Again we ask what necessity there is to draw this
conclusion from his previous remarks? I do not see that it is proved
any more 139
| 139 τῷ
παρηλλάχθαι,
κ.τ.λ. This is Oehler’s
emendation for the faulty reading τὸ of the editions. | because the energies vary amongst
themselves as much as the works do, and because the works are not all
from the same source but are stated by him to come from different
sources. As for the heavens and each angel, star, and man, or anything
else understood by the word “creation,” we know from
Scripture that they are all the work of One: whereas in their system of
theology the Son and the Spirit are not the work of one and the same,
the Son being the work of the energy which ‘follows’ the
first Being, and the Spirit the further work of that work. What the
connexion, then, is between that statement and the heavens, man, angel,
star, which he drags in, must be revealed by himself, or some one whom
he has initiated into his profound philosophy. The blasphemy intended
by his words is plain enough, but the way the profanity is stated is inconsistent
with itself. To suppose that within the Holy Trinity there is a
difference as wide as that which we can observe between the heavens
which envelope the whole creation, and one single man or the star which
shines in them, is openly profane: but still the connexion of such
thoughts and the pertinence of such a comparison is a mystery to me,
and I suspect also to its author himself. If indeed his account of the
creation were of this sort, viz., that while the heavens were the work
of some transcendent energy each star in them was the result of an
energy accompanying the heavens, and that then an angel was the result
of that star, and a man of that angel, his argument would then have
consisted in a comparison of similar processes, and might have somewhat
confirmed his doctrine. But since he grants that it was all made by One
(unless he wishes to contradict Scripture downright), while he
describes the production of the Persons after a different fashion, what
connexion is there between this newly imported view and what went
before?
But let it be granted to him
that this comparison does have some connexion with proving variation
amongst the Beings (for this is what he desires to establish); still
let us see how that which follows hangs on to what he has just said,
‘In proportion as one work is prior to another and more precious
than it, so would a pious mind affirm that one energy transcends
another.’ If in this he alludes to the sensible world, the
statement is a long way from the matter in hand. There is no necessity
whatever that requires one whose subject is theological to philosophize
about the order in which the different results achieved in the
world-making are to come, and to lay down that the energies of the
Creator are higher and lower analogously to the magnitude of each thing
then made. But if he speaks of the Persons themselves, and means by
works that are ‘older and more honourable’ those
‘works’ which he has just fashioned in his own creed, that
is, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, it would be perhaps better to pass
over in silence such an abominable view, than to create even the
appearance of its being an argument by entangling ourselves with it.
For can a ‘more honourable’ be discovered where there is
not a less honourable? If he can go so far, and with so light a heart,
in profanity as to hint that the expression and the idea ‘less
precious’ can be predicated of anything whatever which we believe
of the Trinity, then it were well to stop our ears, and get as quickly
as possible out of hearing of such wickedness, and the contagion of
reasoning which will be transfused into the heart, as from a vessel
full of uncleanness.
Can any one dare to speak of the
divine and supreme Being in such a way that a less degree of honour in
comparison is proved by the argument. “That all,” says the
evangelist, “may honour the Son, as they honour the Father.140
” This utterance (and such an utterance
is a law to us) makes a law of this equality in honour: yet this man
annuls both the law and its Giver, and apportions to the One more, to
the Other less of honour, by some occult method for measuring its extra
abundance which he has discovered. By the custom of mankind the
differences of worth are the measure of the amount of honour which each
in authority receives; so that inferiors do not approach the lower
magistracies in the same guise exactly as they do the sovereign, and
the greater or less display of fear or reverence on their part
indicates the greater or the less worshipfulness in the objects of it:
in fact we may discover, in this disposition of inferiors, who
are the specially honourable; when, for instance, we see some
one feared beyond his neighbours, or the recipient of more reverence
than the rest. But in the case of the divine nature, because every
perfection in the way of goodness is connoted with the very name of
God, we cannot discover, at all events as we look at it, any
ground for degrees of honour. Where there is no greater and smaller in
power, or glory, or wisdom, or love, or of any other imaginable good
whatever, but the good which the Son has is the Father’s also,
and all that is the Father’s is seen in the Son, what possible
state of mind can induce us to show the more reverence in the case of
the Father? If we think of royal power and worth the Son is King: if of
a judge, ‘all judgment is committed to the Son141
:’ if of the magnificent office of
Creation, ‘all things were made by Him142
:’ if of the Author of our life, we know
the True Life came down as far as our nature: if of our being taken out
of darkness, we know He is the True Light, who weans us from darkness:
if wisdom is precious to any, Christ is God’s power and Wisdom143
.
Our very souls, then, being
disposed so naturally and in proportion to their capacity, and yet so
miraculously, to recognize so many and great wonders in Christ, what
further excess of honour is left us to pay exclusively to the Father,
as inappropriate to the Son? Human reverence of the Deity, looked at in
its plainest meaning, is nothing else but an attitude of love towards
Him, and a confession of the perfections in Him: and I think that the
precept ‘so ought the Son to be honoured as the Father144
,’ is enjoined by the Word in place of
love. For the Law commands that we pay to God this fitting honour by
loving Him with all our heart and strength and here is the
equivalent of that love, in that the Word as Lawgiver thus says, that
the Son ought to be honoured as the Father.
It was this kind of honour that
the great David fully paid, when he confessed to the Lord in a
prelude145
of his psalmody that he loved the Lord, and
told all the reasons for his love, calling Him his “rock”
and “fortress,” and “refuge,” and
“deliverer,” and “God-helper,” and
“hope,” and “buckler,” and “horn of
salvation,” and “protector.” If the Only-begotten Son
is not all these to mankind, let the excess of honour be reduced to
this extent as this heresy dictates: but if we have always believed Him
to be, and to be entitled to, all this and even more, and to be equal
in every operation and conception of the good to the majesty of the
Father’s goodness, how can it be pronounced consistent, either
not to love such a character, or to slight it while we love it? No one
can say that we ought to love Him with all our heart and
strength, but to honour Him only with half. If, then, the Son is to be
honoured with the whole heart in rendering to Him all our love, by what
device can anything superior to His honour be discovered, when such a
measure of honour is paid Him in the coin of love as our whole heart is
capable of? Vainly, therefore, in the case of Beings essentially
honourable, will any one dogmatize about a superior honour, and by
comparison suggest an inferior honour.
Again; only in the case of the
creation is it true to speak of ‘priority.’ The sequence of
works was there displayed in the order of the days; and the heavens may
be said to have preceded by so much the making of man, and that
interval may be measured by the interval of days. But in the divine
nature, which transcends all idea of time and surpasses all reach of
thought, to talk of a “prior” and a “later” in
the honours of time is a privilege only of this new-fangled philosophy.
In short he who declares the Father to be ‘prior’ to the
subsistence of the Son declares nothing short of this, viz., that the
Son is later than the things made by the Son146
| 146 The
meaning is that, if the Son is later (in time) than the Father, then
time must have already existed for this comparison to be made; i.e. the
Son is later than time as well as the Father. This involves a
contradiction. | (if
at least it is true to say that all the ages, and all duration of time
was created after the Son, and by the Son).E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
