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| This third book shows a third fall of Eunomius, as refuting himself, and sometimes saying that the Son is to be called Only-begotten in virtue of natural generation, and that Holy Scripture proves this from the first; at other times, that by reason of His being created He should not be called a Son, but a “product,” or “creature.”
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Book
III.
§1. This third book
shows a third fall of Eunomius, as refuting himself, and sometimes
saying that the Son is to be called Only-begotten in virtue of natural
generation, and that Holy Scripture proves this from the first; at
other times, that by reason of His being created He should not be
called a Son, but a “product,” or
“creature.”
If, when a man “strives lawfully522
,” he finds a limit to his struggle in
the contest by his adversary’s either refusing the struggle, and
withdrawing of his own accord in favour of his conqueror from his
effort for victory, or being thrown according to the rules of wrestling
in three falls (whereby the glory of the crown is bestowed with all the
splendour of proclamation upon him who has proved victorious in the
umpire’s judgment), then, since Eunomius, though he has been
already twice thrown in our previous arguments, does not consent that
truth should hold the tokens of her victory over falsehood, but yet a
third time raises the dust against godly doctrine in his accustomed
arena of falsehood with his composition, strengthening himself for his
struggle on the side of deceit, our statement of truth must also be now
called forth to put his falsehood to rout, placing its hopes in Him Who
is the Giver and the Judge of victory, and at the same time deriving
strength from the very unfairness of the adversaries’ tricks of
wrestling. For we are not ashamed to confess that we have prepared for
our contest no weapon of argument sharpened by rhetoric, that we can
bring forward to aid us in the fight with those arrayed against us, no
cleverness or sharpness of dialectic, such as with inexperienced judges
lays even on truth the suspicion of falsehood. One strength our
reasoning against falsehood has—first the very Word Himself, Who
is the might of our word,523
| 523 The
earlier editions here omit a long passage, which Oehler
restores. | and in the next place
the rottenness of the arguments set against us, which is overthrown and
falls by its own spontaneous action. Now in order that it may be made
as clear as possible to all men, that the very efforts of Eunomius
serve as means for his own overthrow to those who contend with him, I
will set forth to my readers his phantom doctrine (for so I think that
doctrine may be called which is quite outside the truth), and I would
have you all, who are present at our struggle, and watch the encounter
now taking place between my doctrine and that which is matched with it,
to be just judges of the lawful striving of our arguments, that by your
just award the reasoning of godliness may be proclaimed as victor to
the whole theatre of the Church, having won undisputed victory over
ungodliness, and being decorated, in virtue of the three falls of its
enemy, with the unfading crown of them that are saved. Now this
statement is set forth against the truth by way of preface to his third
discourse, and this is the fashion of
it:—“Preserving,” he says, “natural order, and
abiding by those things which are known to us from above, we do not
refuse to speak of the Son, seeing He is begotten, even by the name of
‘product of generation524
,’ since the
generated essence and525
| 525 Inserting καὶ, which does not appear
here in Oehler’s text, but is found in later quotations of the
same passage: αὐτῆς is also
found in the later citations. | the appellation of
Son make such a relation of words appropriate.” I beg the reader
to give his attention carefully to this point, that while he calls God
both “begotten” and “Son,” he refers the reason
of such names to “natural order,” and calls to witness to
this conception the knowledge possessed from above: so that if anything
should be found in the course of what follows contrary to the positions
he has laid down, it is clear to all that he is overthrown by himself,
refuted by his own arguments before ours are brought against him. And
so let us consider his statement in the light of his own words. He
confesses that the name of “Son” would by no means be
properly applied to the Only-begotten God, did not “natural
order,” as he says, confirm the appellation. If, then, one were
to withdraw the order of nature from the consideration of the
designation of “Son,” his use of this name, being deprived
of its proper and natural significance, will be meaningless. And
moreover the fact
that he says these statements are confirmed, in that they abide by the
knowledge possessed from above, is a strong additional support to the
orthodox view touching the designation of “Son,” seeing
that the inspired teaching of the Scriptures, which comes to us from
above, confirms our argument on these matters. If these things are so,
and this is a standard of truth that admits of no deception, that these
two concur—the “natural order,” as he says, and the
testimony of the knowledge given from above confirming the natural
interpretation—it is clear, that to assert anything contrary to
these, is nothing else than manifestly to fight against the truth
itself. Let us hear again what this writer, who makes nature his
instructor in the matter of this name, and says that he abides by the
knowledge given to us from above by the instruction of the saints, sets
out at length a little further on, after the passage I have just
quoted. For I will pretermit for the time the continuous recital of
what is set next in order in his treatise, that the contradiction in
what he has written may not escape detection, being veiled by the
reading of the intervening matter. “The same argument,” he
says, “will apply also in the case of what is made and created,
as both the natural interpretation and the mutual relation of the
things, and also the use of the saints, give us free authority for the
use of the formula: wherefore one would not be wrong in treating the
thing made as corresponding to the maker, and the thing created to the
creator.” Of what product of making or of creation does he speak,
as having naturally the relation expressed in its name towards its
maker and creator? If of those we contemplate in the creation, visible
and invisible (as Paul recounts, when he says that by Him all things
were created, visible and invisible)526
, so that this
relative conjunction of names has a proper and special application,
that which is made being set in relation to the maker, that which is
created to the creator,—if this is his meaning, we agree with
him. For in fact, since the Lord is the Maker of angels, the angel is
assuredly a thing made by Him that made him: and since the Lord is the
Creator of the world, clearly the world itself and all that is therein
are called the creature of Him that created them. If however it is with
this intention that he makes his interpretation of “natural
order,” systematizing the appropriation of relative terms with a
view to their mutual relation in verbal sense, even thus it would be an
extraordinary thing, seeing that every one is aware of this, that he
should leave his doctrinal statement to draw out for us a system of
grammatical trivialities527
| 527 Oehler’s punctuation here seems to admit of
alteration. | . But if it is to the
Only-begotten God that he applies such phrases, so as to say that He is
a thing made by Him that made Him, a creature of Him that created Him,
and to refer this terminology to “the use of the saints,”
let him first of all show us in his statement what saints he says there
are who declared the Maker of all things to be a product and a
creature, and whom he follows in this audacity of phrase. The Church
knows as saints those whose hearts were divinely guided by the Holy
Spirit,—patriarchs, lawgivers, prophets, evangelists, apostles.
If any among these is found to declare in his inspired words that God
over all, Who “upholds all things with the word of His
power,” and grasps with His hand all things that are, and by
Himself called the universe into being by the mere act of His will, is
a thing created and a product, he will stand excused, as following, as
he says, the “use of the saints528
| 528 Reading τῇ
χρήσει τῶν
ἁγίων for
τῇ
κρίσει τῶν
ἁγίων, the reading
of Oehler: the words are apparently a quotation from Eunomius, from
whom the phrase χρήσις τῶν
ἁγίων has already
been cited. | ” in
proceeding to formulate such doctrines. But if the knowledge of the
Holy Scriptures is freely placed within the reach of all, and nothing
is forbidden to or hidden from any of those who choose to share in the
divine instruction, how comes it that he endeavours to lead his hearers
astray by his misrepresentation of the Scriptures, referring the term
“creature,” applied to the Only-begotten, to “the use
of the saints”? For that by Him all things were made, you may
hear almost from the whole of their holy utterance, from Moses and the
prophets and apostles who come after him, whose particular expressions
it would be tedious here to set forth. Enough for our purpose, with the
others, and above the others, is the sublime John, where in the preface
to his discourse on the Divinity of the Only-begotten he proclaims
aloud the fact that there is none of the things that were made which
was not made through Him529
, a fact which is an
incontestable and positive proof of His being Lord of the creation, not
reckoned in the list of created things. For if all things that are made
exist by no other but by Him (and John bears witness that nothing among
the things that are, throughout the creation, was made without Him),
who is so blinded in understanding as not to see in the
Evangelist’s proclamation the truth, that He Who made all the
creation is assuredly something else besides the creation? For if all
that is numbered among the things that were made has its being through
Him, while He Himself is “in the beginning,” and is
“with God,” being God, and Word, and Life, and Light, and
express Image, and Brightness, and if none of the things that
were made throughout creation is named by the same names—(not
Word, not God, not Life, not Light, not Truth, not express Image, not
Brightness, not any of the other names proper to the Deity is to be
found employed of the creation)—then it is clear that He Who is
these things is by nature something else besides the creation, which
neither is nor is called any of these things. If, indeed, there existed
in such phrases an identity of names between the creation and its
Maker, he might perhaps be excused for making the name of
“creation” also common to the thing created and to Him Who
made it, on the ground of the community of the other names: but if the
characteristics which are contemplated by means of the names, in the
created and in the uncreated nature, are in no case reconcilable or
common to both, how can the misrepresentation of that man fail to be
manifest to all, who dares to apply the name of servitude to Him Who,
as the Psalmist declares, “ruleth with His power for ever530
,” and to bring Him Who, as the Apostle
says, “in all things hath the pre-eminence531
,” to a level with the servile nature,
by means of the name and conception of “creation”? For that
all532
| 532 Substituting πᾶσαν for
the πᾶσιν of
Oehler’s text. | the creation is in bondage the great Paul
declares533
,— he who in the schools above the
heavens was instructed in that knowledge which may not be spoken,
learning these things in that place where every voice that conveys
meaning by verbal utterance is still, and where unspoken meditation
becomes the word of instruction, teaching to the purified heart by
means of the silent illumination of the thoughts those truths which
transcend speech. If then on the one hand Paul proclaims aloud
“the creation is in bondage,” and on the other the
Only-begotten God is truly Lord and God over all, and John bears
witness to the fact that the whole creation of the things that were
made is by Him, how can any one, who is in any sense whatever numbered
among Christians, hold his peace when he sees Eunomius, by his
inconsistent and inconsequent systematizing, degrading to the humble
state of the creature, by means of an identity of name that tends to
servitude, that power of Lordship which surpasses all rule and all
authority? And if he says that he has some of the saints who declared
Him to be a slave, or created, or made, or any of these lowly and
servile names, lo, here are the Scriptures. Let him, or some other on
his behalf, produce to us one such phrase, and we will hold our peace.
But if there is no such phrase (and there could never be found in those
inspired Scriptures which we believe any such thought as to support
this impiety), what need is there to strive further upon points
admitted with one who not only misrepresents the words of the saints,
but even contends against his own definitions? For if the “order
of nature,” as he himself admits, bears additional testimony to
the Son’s name by reason of His being begotten, and thus the
correspondence of the name is according to the relation of the Begotten
to the Begetter, how comes it that he wrests the significance of the
word “Son” from its natural application, and changes the
relation to “the thing made and its maker”—a relation
which applies not only in the case of the elements of the universe, but
might also be asserted of a gnat or an ant—that in so far as each
of these is a thing made, the relation of its name to its maker is
similarly equivalent? The blasphemous nature of his doctrine is clear,
not only from many other passages, but even from those quoted: and as
for that “use of the saints” which he alleges that he
follows in these expressions, it is clear that there is no such use at
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