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| He proceeds to show that there is no “variance” in the essence of the Father and the Son: wherein he expounds many forms of variation and harmony, and explains the “form,” the “seal,” and the “express image.”
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§8.
He proceeds to show that there is no “variance” in the
essence of the Father and the Son: wherein he expounds many forms of
variation and harmony, and explains the “form,” the
“seal,” and the “express image.”
But what need is there in our
discourse to reveal his hidden deceit by mere guesses at his intention,
and possibly to give our hearers occasions for objection, on the ground
that we make these charges against our enemies untruly? For lo, he sets
forth to us his blasphemy in its nakedness, not hiding his guile by any
veil, but speaking boldly in his absurdities with unrestrained voice.
What he has written runs thus:—“We, for our part,” he
says, “as we find nothing else besides the essence of the Son
which admits of the generation, are of opinion that we must assign the
appellations to the essence itself, or else we speak of
‘Son’ and ‘begotten’ to no purpose, and as a
mere verbal matter, if we are really to separate them from the essence;
starting from these names, we also confidently maintain that the
essences are variant from each other667
| 667 The
whole passage is rather obscure, and Oehler’s punctuation renders
it perhaps more obscure than that which is here adopted. The argument
seems to be something like this:—“The generated essence is
not compared with any of the things made by it, or after it, because
being only-begotten it leaves no room for a common basis of
comparison with anything else, and the operation of its maker is also
peculiar to itself (since it is immediate, the operation in the case of
other things being mediate). The essence of the Son, then, being
so far isolated, it is to it that the appellations of γέννημα, ποίημα,
and κτίσμα are
to be assigned; otherwise the terms ‘Son’ and
‘Only-begotten’ are meaningless. Therefore the Son, being
in essence a ποίημα or κτίσμα, is
alien from the Father Who made or created Him.” The word
παρηλλάχθαι, used to express the difference of essence between the
Father and the Son, is one for which it is hard to find an equivalent
which shall suit all the cases of the use of the word afterwards
instanced: the idea of “variation,” however, seems to
attach to all these cases, and the verb has been translated
accordingly. | .”
There is no need, I imagine,
that the absurdity here laid down should be refuted by arguments from
us. The mere reading of what he has written is enough to pillory his
blasphemy. But let us thus examine it. He says that the essences of the
Father and the Son are “variant.” What is meant by
“variant”? Let us first of all examine the force of the
term as it is applied by itself668
| 668 Following Oehler’s suggestion and reading ἐφ᾽
ἑαυτῆς. | , that by the
interpretation of the word its blasphemous character may be more
clearly revealed. The term “variance” is used, in the
inexact sense sanctioned by custom, of bodies, when, by palsy or any
other disease, any limb is perverted from its natural co-ordination.
For we speak, comparing the state of suffering with that of health, of
the condition of one who has been subjected to a change for the worse,
as being a “variation” from his usual health; and in the
case of those who differ in respect of virtue and vice, comparing the
licentious life with that of purity and temperance, or the unjust life
with that of justice, or the life which is passionate, warlike, and
prodigal of anger, with that which is mild and peaceful—and
generally all that is reproached with vice, as compared with what is
more excellent, is said to exhibit “variance” from it,
because the marks observed in both—in the good, I mean, and the
inferior—do not mutually agree. Again, we say that those
qualities observed in the elements are “at variance” which
are mutually opposed as contraries, having a power reciprocally
destructive, as heat and cold, or dryness and moisture, or, generally,
anything that is opposed to another as a contrary; and the absence of
union in these we express by the term “variation”; and
generally everything which is out of harmony with another in their
observed characteristics, is said to be “at variance” with
it, as health with disease, life with death, war with peace, virtue
with vice, and all similar cases.
Now that we have thus analyzed
these expressions, let us also consider in regard to our author in what
sense he says that the essences of the Father and the Son are
“variant from each other.” What does he mean by it? Is it
in the sense that the Father is according to nature, while the Son
“varies” from that nature? Or does he express by this word
the perversion of virtue, separating the evil from the more excellent
by the name of “variation,” so as to regard the one essence
in a good, the other in a contrary aspect? Or does he assert that one
Divine essence also is variant from another, in the manner of the
opposition of the elements? or as war stands to peace, and life to
death, does he also perceive in the essences the conflict which so
exists among all such things, so that they cannot unite one with
another, because the mixture of contraries exerts upon the things
mingled a consuming force, as the wisdom of the Proverbs saith of such
a doctrine, that water and fire never say “It is enough669
,” expressing enigmatically the nature
of contraries of equal force and equal balance, and their mutual
destruction? Or is it in none of these ways that he sees
“variance” in the essences? Let him tell us, then, what he
conceives besides these. He could not say, I take it, even if he were
to repeat his wonted phrase670
| 670 The
sense given would perhaps be clearer if we were to read (as Gulonius
seems to have done) ἀσυνήθη for συνήθη.
This might be interpreted, “He could not say, I take it, even if
he uses the words in an unwonted sense, that the Son is at variance
with Him Who begat Him.” The συνήθη would thus be the senses already considered and set aside: and the
point would be that such a statement could not be made without manifest
absurdity, even if some out-of-the-way sense were attached to the
words. As the passage stands, it must mean that even if Eunomius
repeats his wonted phrase, that can suggest no other sense of
“variance” than those enumerated. | , “The Son is
variant from Him Who begat Him”; for thereby the absurdity of his
statements is yet more clearly shown. For what mutual relation is so
closely and concordantly engrafted and fitted together as that meaning
of relation to the Father expressed by the word “Son”? And a proof of
this is that even if both of these names be not spoken, that which is
omitted is connoted by the one that is uttered, so closely is the one
implied in the other, and concordant with it: and both of them are so
discerned in the one that one cannot be conceived without the other.
Now that which is “at variance” is surely so conceived and
so called, in opposition to that which is “in harmony,” as
the plumb-line is in harmony with the straight line, while that which
is crooked, when set beside that which is straight, does not harmonize
with it. Musicians also are wont to call the agreement of notes
“harmony,” and that which is out of tune and discordant
“inharmonious.” To speak of things as at
“variance,” then, is the same as to speak of them as
“out of harmony.” If, therefore, the nature of the
Only-begotten God is at “variance,” to use the heretical
phrase, with the essence of the Father, it is surely not in harmony
with it: and inharmoniousness cannot exist where there is no
possibility of harmony671
| 671 The
reading of Oehler is here followed: but the sense of the clause is not
clear either in his text or in that of the Paris editions. | . For the case is as
when, the figure in the wax and in the graying of the signet being one,
the wax that has been stamped by the signet, when it is fitted again to
the latter, makes the impression on itself accord with that which
surrounds it, filling up the hollows and accommodating the projections
of the engraving with its own patterns: but if some strange and
different pattern is fitted to the engraving of the signet, it makes
its own form rough and confused, by rubbing off its figure on an
engraved surface that does not correspond with it. But He Who is
“in the form of God672
” has been
formed by no impression different from the Father, seeing that He is
“the express image” of the Father’s Person673
, while the “form of God” is
surely the same thing as His essence. For as, “being made in the
form of a servant674
,” He was formed
in the essence of a servant, not taking upon Him the form merely, apart
from the essence, but the essence is involved in the sense of
“form,” so, surely, he who says that He is “in the
form of God” signified essence by “form.” If,
therefore, He is “in the form of God,” and being in the
Father is sealed with the Father’s glory, (as the word of the
Gospel declares, which saith, “Him hath God the Father sealed675
,”—whence also “He that hath
seen Me hath seen the Father676
,”) then
“the image of goodness” and “the brightness of
glory,” and all other similar titles, testify that the essence of
the Son is not out of harmony with the Father. Thus by the text cited
is shown the insubstantial character of the adversaries’
blasphemy. For if things at “variance” are not in harmony,
and He Who is sealed by the Father, and displays the Father in Himself,
both being in the Father, and having the Father in Himself677
, shows in all points His close relation and
harmony, then the absurdity of the opposing views is hereby
overwhelmingly shown. For as that which is at “variance”
was shown to be out of harmony, so conversely that which is harmonious
is surely confessed beyond dispute not to be at “variance.”
For as that which is at “variance” is not harmonious, so
the harmonious is not at “variance.” Moreover, he who says
that the nature of the Only-begotten is at “variance” with
the good essence of the Father, clearly has in view variation in the
good itself. But as for what that is which is at variance with the
good—“O ye simple,” as the Proverb saith,
“understand his craftiness678
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