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| The seventh book shows from various statements made to the Corinthians and to the Hebrews, and from the words of the Lord, that the word “Lord” is not expressive of essence, according to Eunomius' exposition, but of dignity. and after many notable remarks concerning “the Spirit” and the Lord, he shows that Eunomius, from his own words, is found to argue in favour of orthodoxy, though without intending it, and to be struck by his own shafts.
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Book
VII.
§1. The seventh book
shows from various statements made to the Corinthians and to the
Hebrews, and from the words of the Lord, that the word
“Lord” is not expressive of essence, according to
Eunomius’ exposition, but of dignity. and after many notable
remarks concerning “the Spirit” and the Lord, he shows that
Eunomius, from his own words, is found to argue in favour of orthodoxy,
though without intending it, and to be struck by his own
shafts.
Since, however, Eunomius asserts that the word “Lord” is used
in reference to the essence and not to the dignity of the
Only-begotten, and cites as a witness to this view the Apostle, when he
says to the Corinthians, “Now the Lord is the Spirit811
,” it may perhaps be opportune that we
should not pass over even this error on his part without correction. He
asserts that the word “Lord” is significative of essence,
and by way of proof of this assumption he brings up the passage above
mentioned. “The Lord,” it says, “is the Spirit812
.” But our friend who interprets
Scripture at his own sweet will calls “Lordship” by the
name of “essence,” and thinks to bring his statement
to proof by means of the words quoted. Well, if it had been said by
Paul, “Now the Lord is essence,” we too would have
concurred in his argument. But seeing that the inspired writing on the
one side says, “the Lord is the Spirit,” and Eunomius says
on the other, “Lordship is essence,” I do not know where he
finds support for his statement, unless he is prepared to say again813
| 813 It is
not quite clear whether πάλιν is to be
constructed with λέγοι or
with κεῖσθαι, but the difference in sense is slight. | that the word “Spirit” stands in
Scripture for “essence.” Let us consider, then, whether the
Apostle anywhere, in his use of the term “Spirit,” employs
that word to indicate “essence.” He says, “The Spirit
itself beareth witness with our Spirit814
,” and “no one knoweth the things
of a man save the Spirit of man which is in him815
,” and “the letter killeth, but
the Spirit giveth life816
,” and “if
ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live817
,” and “if we live in the Spirit
let us also walk in the Spirit818
.” Who indeed
could count the utterances of the Apostle on this point? and in them we
nowhere find “essence” signified by this word. For he who
says that “the Spirit itself beareth witness with our
spirit,” signifies nothing else than the Holy Spirit Which comes
to be in the mind of the faithful; for in many other passages of his
writings he gives the name of spirit to the mind, on the reception by
which of the communion of the Spirit the recipients attain the dignity
of adoption. Again, in the passage, “No one knoweth the things of
a man save the spirit of man which is in him,” if
“man” is used of the essence, and “spirit”
likewise, it will follow from the phrase that the man is maintained to
be of two essences. Again, I know not how he who says that “the
letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life,” sets
“essence” in opposition to “letter”; nor,
again, how this writer imagines that when Paul says that we ought
“through the Spirit” to destroy “the deeds of the
body,” he is directing the signification of “spirit”
to express “essence”; while as for “living in the
Spirit,” and “walking in the Spirit,” this would be
quite unintelligible if the sense of the word “Spirit”
referred to “essence.” For in what else than in essence do
all we who are alive partake of life?—thus when the Apostle is
laying down advice for us on this matter that we should “live in
essence,” it is as though he said “partake of life by means
of yourselves, and not by means of others.” If then it is not
possible that this sense can be adopted in any passage, how can
Eunomius here once more imitate the interpreters of dreams, and bid us
to take “spirit” for “essence,” to the end that
he may arrive in due syllogistic form at his conclusion that the word
“Lord” is applied to the essence?—for if
“spirit” is “essence” (he argues), and
“the Lord is Spirit,” the “Lord” is clearly
found to be “essence.” How incontestable is the force of
this attempt! How can we evade or resolve this irrefragable necessity
of demonstration? The word “Lord,” he says, is spoken of
the essence. How does he maintain it? Because the Apostle says,
“The Lord is the Spirit.” Well, what has this to do with essence? He
gives us the further instruction that “spirit” is put for
“essence.” These are the arts of his demonstrative method!
These are the results of his Aristotelian science! This is why, in your
view, we are so much to be pitied, who are uninitiated in this wisdom!
and you of course are to be deemed happy, who track out the truth by a
method like this—that the Apostle’s meaning was such that
we are to suppose “the Spirit” was put by him for the
Essence of the Only-begotten!
Then how will you make it fit
with what follows? For when Paul says, “Now the Lord is the
Spirit,” he goes on to say, “and where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty.” If then “the Lord is the
Spirit,” and “Spirit” means “essence,”
what are we to understand by “the essence of the essence”?
He speaks again of another Spirit of the Lord Who is the
Spirit,—that is to say, according to your interpretation, of
another essence. Therefore in your view the Apostle, when he
writes expressly of “the Lord the Spirit,” and of
“the Spirit of the Lord,” means nothing else than an
essence of an essence. Well, let Eunomius make what he likes of that
which is written; what we understand of the matter is as follows. The
Scripture, “given by inspiration of God,” as the Apostle
calls it, is the Scripture of the Holy Spirit, and its intention is the
profit of men. For “every scripture,” he says, “is
given by inspiration of God and is profitable”; and the profit is
varied and multiform, as the Apostle says—“for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness819
.” Such a boon as this, however, is not
within any man’s reach to lay hold of, but the Divine intention
lies hid under the body of the Scripture, as it were under a veil, some
legislative enactment or some historical narrative being cast over the
truths that are contemplated by the mind. For this reason, then, the
Apostle tells us that those who look upon the body of the Scripture
have “a veil upon their heart820
,” and are
not able to look upon the glory of the spiritual law, being hindered by
the veil that has been cast over the face of the law-giver. Wherefore
he says, “the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life,”
showing that often the obvious interpretation, if it be not taken
according to the proper sense, has an effect contrary to that life
which is indicated by the Spirit, seeing that this lays down for all
men the perfection of virtue in freedom from passion, while the history
contained in the writings sometimes embraces the exposition even of
facts incongruous, and is understood, so to say, to concur with the
passions of our nature, whereto if any one applies himself according to
the obvious sense, he will make the Scripture a doctrine of death.
Accordingly, he says that over the perceptive powers of the souls of
men who handle what is written in too corporeal a manner, the veil is
cast; but for those who turn their contemplation to that which is the
object of the intelligence, there is revealed, bared, as it were, of a
mask, the glory that underlies the letter. And that which is discovered
by this more exalted perception he says is the Lord, which is the
Spirit. For he says, “when it shall turn to the Lord the veil
shall be taken away: now the Lord is the Spirit821
.” And in so saying he makes a
distinction of contrast between the lordship of the spirit and the
bondage of the letter; for as that which gives life is opposed to that
which kills, so he contrasts “the Lord” with bondage. And
that we may not be under any confusion when we are instructed
concerning the Holy Spirit (being led by the word “Lord” to
the thought of the Only-begotten), for this reason he guards the word
by repetition, both saying that “the Lord is the Spirit,”
and making further mention of “the Spirit of the Lord,”
that the supremacy of His Nature may be shown by the honour implied in
lordship, while at the same time he may avoid confusing in his argument
the individuality of His Person. For he who calls Him both
“Lord” and “Spirit of the Lord,” teaches us to
conceive of Him as a separate individual besides the Only-begotten;
just as elsewhere he speaks of “the Spirit of Christ822
,” employing fairly and in its mystic
sense this very term which is piously employed in the system of
doctrine according to the Gospel tradition. Thus we, the “most
miserable of all men,” being led onward by the Apostle in the
mysteries, pass from the letter that killeth to the Spirit that giveth
life, learning from Him Who was in Paradise initiated into the
unspeakable mysteries, that all things the Divine Scripture says are
utterances of the Holy Spirit. For “well did the Holy Spirit
prophesy823
,”—this he says to the Jews
in Rome, introducing the words of Isaiah; and to the Hebrews, alleging
the authority of the Holy Spirit in the words, “wherefore as
saith the Holy Spirit824
,” he adduces
the words of the Psalm which are spoken at length in the person of God;
and from the Lord Himself we learn the same thing,—that David
declared the heavenly mysteries not “in” himself (that is,
not speaking according to human nature). For how could any one, being
but man, know the supercelestial converse of the Father with the Son?
But being “in the Spirit” he said that the Lord spoke to
the Lord those words which He has uttered. For if, He says,
“David in the Spirit calls him Lord, how is He then
his son825
| 825 S. Matt. xxii. 45; Cf. Ps. cx.
1. | ?” Thus it is by the power of the Spirit
that the holy men who are under Divine influence are inspired, and
every Scripture is for this reason said to be “given by
inspiration of God,” because it is the teaching of the Divine
afflatus. If the bodily veil of the words were removed, that which
remains is Lord and life and Spirit, according to the teaching of the
great Paul, and according to the words of the Gospel also. For Paul
declares that he who turns from the letter to the Spirit no longer
apprehends the bondage that slays, but the Lord which is the
life-giving Spirit; and the sublime Gospel says, “the words that
I speak are spirit and are life826
,” as being
divested of the bodily veil. The idea, however, that “the
Spirit” is the essence of the Only-begotten, we shall leave to
our dreamers: or rather, we shall make use, ex abundanti, of
what they say, and arm the truth with the weapons of the adversary. For
it is allowable that the Egyptian should be spoiled by the Israelites,
and that we should make their wealth an ornament for ourselves. If the
essence of the Son is called “Spirit,” and God also is
Spirit, (for so the Gospel tells us827
), clearly the
essence of the Father is called “Spirit” also. But if it is
their peculiar argument that things which are introduced by different
names are different also in nature, the conclusion surely is, that
things which are named alike are not alien one from the other in nature
either. Since then, according to their account, the essence of the
Father and that of the Son are both called “Spirit,” hereby
is clearly proved the absence of any difference in essence. For a
little further on Eunomius says:—“Of those essences which
are divergent the appellations significant of essence are also surely
divergent, but where there is one and the same name, that which is
declared by the same appellation will surely be one
also”:—so that at all points “He that taketh the wise
in their own craftiness828
” has turned the
long labours of our author, and the infinite toil spent on what he has
elaborated, to the establishment of the doctrine which we maintain. For
if God is in the Gospel called “Spirit,” and the essence of
the Only-begotten is maintained by Eunomius to be “Spirit,”
as there is no apparent difference in the one name as compared with the
other, neither, surely, will the things signified by the names be
mutually different in nature.
And now that I have exposed this
futile and pointless sham-argument, it seems to me that I may well pass
by without discussion what he next puts together by way of attack upon
our master’s statement. For a sufficient proof of the folly of
his remarks is to be found in his actual argument, which of itself
proclaims aloud its feebleness. To be entangled in a contest with such
things as this is like trampling on the slain. For when he sets forth
with much confidence some passage from our master, and treats it with
preliminary slander and contempt, and promises that he will show it to
be worth nothing at all, he meets with the same fortune as befalls
small children, to whom their imperfect and immature intelligence, and
the untrained condition of their perceptive faculties, do not give an
accurate understanding of what they see. Thus they often imagine that
the stars are but a little way above their heads, and pelt them with
clods when they appear, in their childish folly; and then, when the
clod falls, they clap their hands and laugh and brag to their comrades
as if their throw had reached the stars themselves. Such is the man who
casts at the truth with his childish missile, who sets forth like the
stars those splendid sayings of our master, and then hurls from the
ground,—from his downtrodden and grovelling
understanding,—his earthy and unstable arguments. And these, when
they have gone so high that they have no place to fall from, turn back
again of themselves by their own weight829
| 829 Altering Oehler’s punctuation slightly. | . Now
the passage of the great Basil is worded as follows830
| 830 S.
Basil adv. Eunomium II. 4 (p. 240 C.). The quotation as here given is
not in exact verbal agreement with the Benedictine text. | :—
“Yet what sane man would
agree with the statement that of those things of which the names are
different the essences must needs be divergent also? For the
appellations of Peter and Paul, and, generally speaking, of men, are
different, while the essence of all is one: wherefore, in most respects
we are mutually identical, and differ one from another only in those
special properties which are observed in individuals: and hence also
appellations are not indicative of essence, but of the properties which
mark the particular individual. Thus, when we hear of Peter, we do not
by the name understand the essence (and by ‘essence’ I here
mean the material substratum), but we are impressed with the conception
of the properties which we contemplate in him.” These are the
great man’s words. And what skill he who disputes this statement
displays against us, we learn,—any one, that is, who has leisure
for wasting time on unprofitable matters,—from the actual
composition of Eunomius.
From his writings, I say, for I
do not like to insert in my own work the nauseous stuff our rhetorician
utters, or to display his ignorance and folly to contempt in the midst
of my own arguments. He goes on with a sort of eulogy upon the class of
significant words which express the subject, and, in his accustomed
style, patches and sticks together the cast-off rags of phrases: poor
Isocrates is nibbled at once more, and shorn of words and figures to
make out the point proposed,—here and there even the Hebrew Philo
receives the same treatment, and makes him a contribution of phrases
from his own labours,—yet not even thus is this much-stitched and
many-coloured web of words finished off, but every assault, every
defence of his conceptions, all his artistic preparation, spontaneously
collapses, and, as commonly happens with the bubbles when the drops,
borne down from above through a body of waters against some obstacle,
produce those foamy swellings which, as soon as they gather,
immediately dissolve, and leave upon the water no trace of their own
formation—such are the air-bubbles of our author’s
thoughts, vanishing without a touch at the moment they are put forth.
For after all these irrefragable statements, and the dreamy
philosophizing wherein he asserts that the distinct character of the
essence is apprehended by the divergence of names, as some mass of foam
borne downstream breaks up when it comes into contact with any more
solid body, so his argument, following its own spontaneous course, and
coming unexpectedly into collision with the truth, disperses into
nothingness its unsubstantial and bubble-like fabric of falsehood. For
he speaks in these words:—“Who is so foolish and so far
removed from the constitution of men, as, in discoursing of men to
speak of one as a man, and, calling another a horse, so to compare
them?” I would answer him,—“You are right in calling
any one foolish who makes such blunders in the use of names. And I will
employ for the support of the truth the testimony you yourself give.
For if it is a piece of extreme folly to call one a horse and another a
man, supposing both were really men, it is surely a piece of equal
stupidity, when the Father is confessed to be God, and the Son is
confessed to be God, to call the one ‘created’ and the
other ‘uncreated,’ since, as in the other case humanity, so
in this case the Godhead does not admit a change of name to that
expressive of another kind. For what the irrational is with respect to
man, that also the creature is with respect to the Godhead, being
equally unable to receive the same name with the nature that is
superior to it. And as it is not possible to apply the same definition
to the rational animal and the quadruped alike (for each is naturally
differentiated by its special property from the other), so neither can
you express by the same terms the created and the uncreated essence,
seeing that those attributes which are predicated of the latter essence
are not discoverable in the former. For as rationality is not
discoverable in a horse, nor solidity of hoofs in a man, so neither is
Godhead discoverable in the creature, nor the attribute of being
created in the Godhead: but if He be God He is certainly not created,
and if He be created He is not God; unless831
| 831 Altering Oehler’s punctuation. | , of
course, one were to apply by some misuse or customary mode of
expression the mere name of Godhead, as some horses have men’s
names given them by their owners; yet neither is the horse a man,
though he be called by a human name, nor is the created being God, even
though some claim for him the name of Godhead, and give him the benefit
of the empty sound of a dissyllable.” Since, then,
Eunomius’ heretical statement is found spontaneously to fall in
with the truth, let him take his own advice and stand by his own words,
and by no means retract his own utterances, but consider that the man
is really foolish and stupid who names the subject not according as it
is, but says “horse” for “man,” and
“sea” for “sky,” and “creature” for
“God.” And let no one think it unreasonable that the
creature should be set in opposition to God, but have regard to the
prophets and to the Apostles. For the prophet says in the person of the
Father, “My Hand made all these things”832
,
meaning by “Hand,” in his dark saying, the power of the
Only-begotten. Now the Apostle says that all things are of the Father,
and that all things are by the Son833
, and the
prophetic spirit in a way agrees with the Apostolic teaching, which
itself also is given through the Spirit. For in the one passage, the
prophet, when he says that all things are the work of the Hand of Him
Who is over all, sets forth the nature of those things which have come
into being in its relation to Him Who made them, while He Who made them
is God over all, Who has the Hand, and by It makes all things. And
again, in the other passage, the Apostle makes the same division of
entities, making all things depend upon their productive cause, yet not
reckoning in the number of “all things” that which produces
them: so that we are hereby taught the difference of nature between the
created and the uncreated, and it is shown that, in its own nature,
that which makes is one thing and that which is produced is another.
Since, then, all things are of God, and the Son is God, the creation is
properly opposed to the Godhead; while, since the Only-begotten is
something else than the nature of the universe (seeing that not even
those who fight against the truth contradict this), it follows of
necessity that the Son also is equally opposed to the creation, unless
the words of the saints are untrue which testify that by Him all things
were made.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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