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| He then shows the unity of the Son with the Father and Eunomius' lack of understanding and knowledge in the Scriptures.
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§6.
He then shows the unity of the Son with the Father and
Eunomius’ lack of understanding and knowledge in the
Scriptures.
What he adds next after this is
as follows:—“Having no sharer,” he says, “in
His Godhead, no divider of His glory, none who has lot in His power, or
part in His royal throne: for He is the one and only God, the Almighty,
God of Gods, King of Kings, Lord of Lords.” I know not to whom
Eunomius refers when he protests that the Father admits none to share
His Godhead with Himself. For if he uses such expressions with
reference to vain idols and to the erroneous conceptions of those who
worship them (even as Paul assures us that there is no agreement
between Christ and Belial, and no fellowship between the temple
of God and idols290
) we agree with him. But if by these
assertions he means to sever the Only-begotten God from the Godhead of
the Father, let him be informed that he is providing us with a dilemma
that may be turned against himself to refute his own impiety. For
either he denies the Only-begotten God to be God at all, that he may
preserve for the Father those prerogatives of deity which (according to
him) are incapable of being shared with the Son, and thus is convicted
as a transgressor by denying the God Whom Christians worship, or if he
were to grant that the Son also is God, yet not agreeing in nature with
the true God, he would be necessarily obliged to acknowledge that he
maintains Gods sundered from one another by the difference of their
natures. Let him choose which of these he will,—either to deny
the Godhead of the Son, or to introduce into his creed a plurality of
Gods. For whichever of these he chooses, it is all one as regards
impiety: for we who are initiated into the mystery of godliness by the
Divinely inspired words of the Scripture do not see between the Father
and the Son a partnership of Godhead, but unity, inasmuch as the Lord
hath taught us this by His own words, when He saith, “I and the
Father are one291
,” and “he that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father292
.” For if He
were not of the same nature as the Father, how could He either have had
in Himself that which was different293
? or how could He
have shown in Himself that which was unlike, if the foreign and alien
nature did not receive the stamp of that which was of a different kind
from itself? But he says, “nor has He a divider of His
glory.” Herein he speaks in accordance with the fact, even though
he does not know what he is saying: for the Son does not divide the
glory with the Father, but has the glory of the Father in its entirety,
even as the Father has all the glory of the Son. For thus He spake to
the Father “All Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine294
.” Wherefore also He says that He will
appear on the Judgment Day “in the glory of the Father295
,” when He will render to every man
according to his works. And by this phrase He shows the unity of nature
that subsists between them. For as “there is one glory of the sun
and another glory of the moon296
,” because of
the difference between the natures of those luminaries (since if both
had the same glory there would not be deemed to be any difference in
their nature), so He Who foretold of Himself that He would appear in
the glory of the Father indicated by the identity of glory their
community of nature.
But to say that the Son has no
part in His Father’s royal throne argues an extraordinary amount
of research into the oracles of God on the part of Eunomius, who, after
his extreme devotion to the inspired Scriptures, has not yet heard,
“Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the
right hand of God297
,” and many
similar passages, of which it would not be easy to reckon up the
number, but which Eunomius has never learnt, and so denies that the Son
is enthroned together with the Father. Again the phrase, “not
having lot in his power,” we should rather pass by as unmeaning
than confute as ungodly. For what sense is attached to the term
“having lot” is not easy to discover from the common use of
the word. Those cast lots, as the Scripture tells us, for the
Lord’s vesture, who were unwilling to rend His garment, but
disposed to make it over to that one of their number in whose favour
the lot should decide298
. They then who thus
cast lots among themselves for the “coat” may be said,
perhaps, to “have had lot” in it. But here in the case of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as Their power
resides in Their nature (for the Holy Spirit breathes “where He
listeth299
,” and “worketh all in all as He
will300
,” and the Son, by Whom all things were
made, visible and invisible, in heaven and in earth, “did all
things whatsoever He pleased301
,” and
“quickeneth whom He will302
,” and the
Father put “the times in His own power303
,” while from the mention of
“times” we conclude that all things done in time are
subject to the power of the Father), if, I say, it has been
demonstrated that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit alike are in
a position of power to do what They will, it is impossible to see what
sense there can be in the phrase “having lot in His power.”
For the heir of all things, the maker of the ages304
,
He Who shines with the Father’s glory and expresses in Himself
the Father’s person, has all things that the Father Himself has,
and is possessor of all His power, not that the right is transferred
from the Father to the Son, but that it at once remains in the Father
and resides in the Son. For He Who is in the Father is manifestly in
the Father with all His own might, and He Who has the Father in Himself
includes all the power and might of the Father. For He has in Himself
all the Father, and not merely a part of Him: and He Who has Him
entirely assuredly has His power as well. With what meaning, then,
Eunomius asserts that the Father has “none who has lot in His
power,” those perhaps can tell who are disciples of his folly: one who
knows how to appreciate language confesses that he cannot understand
phrases divorced from meaning. The Father, he says, “has none Who
has lot in His power.” Why, who is there that says that the
Father and Son contend together for power and cast lots to decide the
matter? But the holy Eunomius comes as mediator between them and by a
friendly agreement without lot assigns to the Father the superiority in
power.
Mark, I pray you, the absurdity
and childishness of this grovelling exposition of his articles of
faith. What! He Who “upholds all things by the word of His
power305
,” Who says what He wills to be done,
and does what He wills by the very power of that command, He Whose
power lags not behind His will and Whose will is the measure of His
power (for “He spake the word and they were made, He commanded
and they were created306
”), He Who made
all things by Himself, and made them consist in Himself307
, without Whom no existing thing either came
into being or remains in being,—He it is Who waits to obtain His
power by some process of allotment! Judge you who hear whether the man
who talks like this is in his senses. “For He is the one and only
God, the Almighty,” he says. If by the title of
“Almighty” he intends the Father, the language he uses is
ours, and no strange language: but if he means some other God than the
Father, let our patron of Jewish doctrines preach circumcision too, if
he pleases. For the Faith of Christians is directed to the Father. And
the Father is all these—Highest, Almighty, King of Kings, and
Lord of Lords, and in a word all terms of highest significance are
proper to the Father. But all that is the Father’s is the
Son’s also; so that, on this understanding308
| 308 “If this is so:” i.e. if Eunomius means his words in a
Christian sense. | ,
we admit this phrase too. But if, leaving the Father, he speaks of
another Almighty, he is speaking the language of the Jews or following
the speculations of Plato,—for they say that that philosopher
also affirms that there exists on high a maker and creator of certain
subordinate gods. As then in the case of the Jewish and Platonic
opinions he who does not believe in God the Father is not a Christian,
even though in his creed he asserts an Almighty God, so Eunomius also
falsely pretends to the name of Christian, being in inclination a Jew,
or asserting the doctrines of the Greeks while putting on the guise of
the title borne by Christians. And with regard to the next points he
asserts the same account will apply. He says He is “God of
Gods.” We make the declaration our own by adding the name of the
Father, knowing that the Father is God of Gods. But all that belongs to
the Father certainly belongs also to the Son. “And Lord of
Lords.” The same account will apply to this. “And Most High
over all the earth.” Yes, for whichever of the Three Persons you
are thinking of, He is Most High over all the earth, inasmuch as the
oversight of earthly things from on high is exercised alike by the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So, too, with what follows the
words above, “Most High in the heavens, Most High in the highest,
Heavenly, true in being what He is, and so continuing, true in words,
true in works.” Why, all these things the Christian eye discerns
alike in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. If Eunomius does
assign them to one only of the Persons acknowledged in the creed, let
him dare to call Him “not true in words” Who has said,
“I am the Truth309
,” or to call
the Spirit of truth “not true in words,” or let him refuse
to give the title of “true in works” to Him Who doeth
righteousness and judgment, or to the Spirit Who worketh all in all as
He will. For if he does not acknowledge that these attributes belong to
the Persons delivered to us in the creed, he is absolutely cancelling
the creed of Christians. For how shall any one think Him a worthy
object of faith Who is false in words and untrue in works.
But let us proceed to what
follows. “Above all rule, subjection and authority,” he
says. This language is ours, and belongs properly to the Catholic
Church,—to believe that the Divine nature is above all rule, and
that it has in subordination to itself everything that can be conceived
among existing things. But the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost
constitute the Divine nature. If he assigns this property to the Father
alone, and if he affirms Him alone to be free from variableness and
change, and if he says that He alone is undefiled, the inference that
we are meant to draw is plain, namely, that He who has not these
characteristics is variable, corruptible, subject to change and decay.
This, then, is what Eunomius asserts of the Son and the Holy Spirit:
for if he did not hold this opinion concerning the Son and the Spirit,
he would not have employed this opposition, contrasting the Father with
them. For the rest, brethren, judge whether, with these sentiments, he
is not a persecutor of the Christian faith. For who will allow it to be
right to deem that a fitting object of reverence which varies, changes,
and is
subject to decay? So then the whole aim of one who flames such notions
as these,—notions by which he makes out that neither the Truth
nor the Spirit of Truth is undefiled, unvarying, or
unchangeable,—is to expel from the Church the belief in the Son
and in the Holy Spirit. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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