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| He proceeds again to discuss the impassibility of the Lord's generation; and the folly of Eunomius, who says that the generated essence involves the appellation of Son, and again, forgetting this, denies the relation of the Son to the Father: and herein he speaks of Circe and of the mandrake poison.
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§4. He proceeds again
to discuss the impassibility of the Lord’s generation; and the
folly of Eunomius, who says that the generated essence involves the
appellation of Son, and again, forgetting this, denies the relation of
the Son to the Father: and herein he speaks of Circe and of the
mandrake poison.
We must, however, return to
those who connect passion with the Divine generation, and on this
account deny that the Lord is truly begotten, in order to avoid the
conception of passion. To say that passion is absolutely linked with
generation, and that on this account, in order that the Divine nature
may continue in purity beyond the reach of passion, we ought to
consider that the Son is alien to the idea of generation, may perhaps
appear reasonable in the eyes of those who are easily deceived, but
those who are instructed in the Divine mysteries640
have an answer ready to hand, based upon admitted facts. For who knows
not that it is generation that leads us back to the true and blessed
life, not being the same with that which takes place “of blood
and of the will of the flesh641
,” in which are
flux and change, and gradual growth to perfection, and all else that we
observe in our earthly generation: but the other kind is believed to be
from God, and heavenly, and, as the Gospel says, “from above642
,” which excludes the passions of flesh
and blood? I presume that they both admit the existence of this
generation, and find no passion in it. Therefore not all generation is
naturally connected with passion, but the material generation is
subject to passion, the immaterial pure from passion. What constrains
him then to attribute to the incorruptible generation of the Son what
properly belongs to the flesh, and, by ridiculing the lower form of
generation with his unseemly physiology, to exclude the Son from
affinity with the Father? For if, even in our own case, it is
generation that is the beginning of either life,—that generation
which is through the flesh of a life of passion, that which is
spiritual of a life of purity, (and no one who is in any sense numbered
among Christians would contradict this statement,)—how is it
allowable to entertain the idea of passion in thinking of generation as
it concerns the incorruptible Nature? Let us moreover examine this
point in addition to those we have mentioned. If they disbelieve the
passionless character of the Divine generation on the ground of the
passion that affects the flesh, let them also, from the same tokens,
(those, I mean, to be found in ourselves,) refuse to believe that God
acts as a Maker without passion. For if they judge of the Godhead by
comparison of our own conditions, they must not confess that God either
begets or creates; for neither of these operations is exercised by
ourselves without passion. Let them therefore either separate from the
Divine nature both creation and generation, that they may guard the
impassibility of God on either side, and let them, that the Father may
be kept safely beyond the range of passion, neither growing weary by
creation, nor being defiled by generation, entirely reject from their
doctrine the belief in the Only-begotten, or, if they agree643
| 643 Reading εἰ
for εἰς, according to
Oehler’s suggestion. | that the one activity is exercised by the
Divine power without passion, let them not quarrel about the other: for
if He creates without labour or matter, He surely also begets without
labour or flux.
And here once more I have in
this argument the support of Eunomius. I will state his nonsense
concisely and briefly, epitomizing his whole meaning. That men do not
make materials for us, but only by their art add form to
matter,—this is the drift of what he says in the course of a
great quantity of nonsensical language. If, then, understanding
conception and formation to be included in the lower generation, he
forbids on this ground the pure notion of generation, by consequence,
on the same reasoning, since earthly creation is busied with the form,
but cannot furnish matter together with the form, let him forbid us
also, on this ground, to suppose that the Father is a Creator. If, on
the other hand, he refuses to conceive creation in the case of God
according to man’s measure of power, let him also cease to
slander Divine generation by human imperfections. But, that his
accuracy and circumspection in argument may be more clearly
established, I will again return to a small point in his statements. He
asserts that “things which are respectively active and passive
share one another’s nature,” and mentions, after bodily
generation, “the work of the craftsman as displayed in materials.”
Now let the acute hearer mark how he here fails in his proper aim, and
wanders about among whatever statements he happens to invent. He sees
in things that come into being by way of the flesh the “active
and passive conceived, with the same essence, the one imparting the
essence, the other receiving it.” Thus he knows how to discern
the truth with accuracy as regards the nature of existing things, so as
to separate the imparter and the receiver from the essence, and to say
that each of these is distinct in himself apart from the essence. For
he that receives or imparts is surely another besides that which is
given or received, so that we must first conceive some one by himself,
viewed in his own separate existence, and then speak of him as giving
that which he has, or receiving that which he has not644
| 644 It is
not quite clear whether any of this passage, or, if so, how much of it,
is a direct quotation from Eunomius. Probably only the phrase about the
imparting and receiving of the essence is taken from him, the rest of
the passage being Gregory’s expansion of the phrase into a
distinction between the essence and the thing of which it is the
essence, so that the thing can be viewed apart from its own
essence. | .
And when he has sputtered out this argument in such a ridiculous
fashion, our sage friend does not perceive that by the next step he
overthrows himself once more. For he who by his art forms at his will
the material before him, surely in this operation acts; and the
material, in receiving its form at the hand of him who exercises the
art, is passively affected: for it is not by remaining unaffected and
unimpressionable that the material receives its form. If then, even in
the case of things wrought by art, nothing can come into being without
passivity and action concurring to produce it, how can our author think
that he here abides by his own words? seeing that, in declaring
community of essence to be involved in the relation of action and
passion, he seems not only to attest in some sense community of essence
in Him that is begotten with Him that begat Him, but also to make the
whole creation of one essence645
with its Maker, if,
as he says, the active and the passive are to be defined as mutually
akin in respect of nature. Thus, by the very arguments by which he
establishes what he wishes, he overthrows the main object of his
effort, and makes the glory of the coessential Son more secure by his
own contention. For if the fact of origination from anything shows the
essence of the generator to be in the generated, and if artificial
fabrication (being accomplished by means of action and passion) reduces
both that which makes and that which is produced to community of
essence, according to his account, our author in many places of his own
writings maintains that the Lord has been begotten. Thus by the very
arguments whereby he seeks to prove the Lord alien from the essence of
the Father, he asserts for Him intimate connexion. For if, according to
his account, separation in essence is not observed either in generation
or in fabrication, then, whatever he allows the Lord to be, whether
“created” or a “product of generation,” he
asserts, by both names alike, the affinity of essence, seeing that he
makes community of nature in active and passive, in generator and
generated, a part of his system.
Let us turn however to the next
point of the argument. I beg my readers not to be impatient at the
minuteness of examination which extends our argument to a length beyond
what we would desire. For it is not any ordinary matters on which we
stand in danger, so that our loss would be slight if we should hurry
past any point that required more careful attention, but it is the very
sum of our hope that we have at stake. For the alternative before us
is, whether we should be Christians, not led astray by the destructive
wiles of heresy, or whether we should be completely swept away into the
conceptions of Jews or heathen. To the end, then, that we may not
suffer either of these things forbidden, that we may neither agree with
the doctrine of the Jews by a denial of the verily begotten Son, nor be
involved in the downfall of the idolaters by the adoration of the
creature, let us perforce spend some time in the discussion of these
matters, and set forth the very words of Eunomius, which run
thus:—
“Now as these things are
thus divided, one might reasonably say that the most proper and primary
essence, and that which alone exists by the operation of the Father,
admits for itself the appellations of ‘product of
generation,’ ‘product of making,’ and ‘product
of creation’:” and a little further on he says, “But
the Son alone, existing by the operation of the Father, possesses His
nature and His relation to Him that begat Him, without community646
| 646 This
seems to be the force of ἀκοινώνητον: it is clear from what follows that it is to be understood
as denying community of essence between the Father and the Son, not as
asserting only the unique character alike of the Son and of His
relation to the Father. | .” Such are his words. But let us, like
men who look on at their enemies engaged in a factious struggle among
themselves, consider first our adversaries’ contention against
themselves, and so proceed to set forth on the other side the true
doctrine of godliness. “The Son alone,” he says,
“existing by the operation of the Father, possesses His nature
and His relation to Him that begat Him, without community.” But
in his previous statements, he says that he “does not refuse to
call Him, that is begotten a ‘product of generation,’ as
the generated essence itself, and the appellation of Son, make such a
relation of words appropriate.”
The contradiction existing in these passages being thus evident, I
am inclined to admire for their acuteness those who praise this
doctrine. For it would be hard to say to which of his statements they
could turn without finding themselves at variance with the remainder.
His earlier statement represented that the generated essence, and the
appellation of “Son,” made such a relation of words
appropriate. His present system says the contrary:—that
“the Son possesses His relation to Him that begat Him without
community.” If they believe the first statement, they will surely
not accept the second: if they incline to the latter, they will find
themselves opposed to the earlier conception. Who will stay the combat?
Who will mediate in this civil war? Who will bring this discord into
agreement, when the very soul is divided against itself by the opposing
statements, and drawn in different ways to contrary doctrines? Perhaps
we may see here that dark saying of prophecy which David speaks of the
Jews—“They were divided but were not pricked at heart647
| 647 This is
the LXX. version of the last part of Ps. xxxv. 15, a rendering with
which the Vulgate version practically agrees. | .” For lo, not even when they are
divided among contrariety of doctrines have they a sense of their
discordancy, but they are carried about by their ears like wine-jars,
borne around at the will of him who shifts them. It pleased him to say
that the generated essence was closely connected with the appellation
of “Son”: straightway, like men asleep, they nodded assent
to his remarks. He changed his statement again to the contrary one, and
denies the relation of the Son to Him that begat Him: again his
well-beloved friends join in assent to this also, shifting in whatever
direction he chooses, as the shadows of bodies change their form by
spontaneous mimicry with the motion of the advancing figure, and even
if he contradicts himself, accepting that also. This is another form of
the drought that Homer tells us of, not changing the bodies of those
who drink its poison into the forms of brutes, but acting on their
souls to produce in them a change to a state void of reason. For of
those men, the tale tells that their mind was sound, while their form
was changed to that of beasts, but here, while their bodies remain in
their natural state, their souls are transformed to the condition of
brutes. And as there the poet’s tale of wonder says that those
who drank the drug were changed into the forms of various beasts, at
the pleasure of her who beguiled their nature, the same thing happens
now also from this Circe’s cup. For they who drink the deceit of
sorcery from the same writing are changed to different forms of
doctrine, transformed now to one, now to another. And meanwhile these
very ridiculous people, according to the revised edition of the fable,
are still well pleased with him who leads them to such absurdity, and
stoop to gather the words he scatters about, as if they were cornel
fruit or acorns, running greedily like swine to the doctrines that are
shed on the ground, not being naturally capable of fixing their gaze on
those which are lofty and heavenly. For this reason it is that they do
not see the tendency of his argument to contrary positions, but snatch
without examination what comes in their way: and as they say that the
bodies of men stupefied with mandrake are held in a sort of slumber and
inability to move, so are the senses of these men’s souls
affected, being made torpid as regards the apprehension of deceit. It
is certainly a terrible thing to be held in unconsciousness by hidden
guile, as the result of some fallacious argument: yet where it is
involuntary the misfortune is excusable: but to be brought to make
trial of evil as the result of a kind of forethought and zealous
desire, not in ignorance of what will befall, surpasses every extreme
of misery. Surely we may well complain, when we hear that even greedy
fish avoid the steel when it comes near them unbaited, and take down
the hook only when hope of food decoys them to a bait: but where the
evil is apparent, to go over of their own accord to this destruction is
a more wretched thing than the folly of the fish: for these are led by
their greediness to a destruction that is concealed from them, but the
others swallow with open mouth the hook of impiety in its bareness,
satisfied with destruction under the influence of some unreasoning
passion. For what could be clearer than this contradiction—than
to say that the same Person was begotten and is a thing created, and
that something is closely connected with the name of “Son,”
and, again, is alien from the sense of “Son”? But enough of
these matters.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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