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| Then, after showing that the Person of the Only-begotten and Maker of things has no beginning, as have the things that were made by Him, as Eunomius says, but that the Only-begotten is without beginning and eternal, and has no community, either of essence or of names, with the creation, but is co-existent with the Father from everlasting, being, as the all-excellent Wisdom says, “the beginning and end and midst of the times,” and after making many observations on the Godhead and eternity of the Only-begotten, and also concerning souls and angels, and life and death, he concludes the book.
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§5. Then, after showing that the Person of the
Only-begotten and Maker of things has no beginning, as have the things
that were made by Him, as Eunomius says, but that the Only-begotten is
without beginning and eternal, and has no community, either of essence
or of names, with the creation, but is co-existent with the Father from
everlasting, being, as the all-excellent Wisdom says,
“the beginning and end and midst of the times,” and after
making many observations on the Godhead and eternity of the
Only-begotten, and also concerning souls and angels, and life and
death, he concludes the book.
I will now once more subjoin the
actual language of my opponent, word for word. It runs
thus:—“While there are,” he says, “two
statements which we have made, the one, that the essence of the
Only-begotten was not before its own generation, the other, that, being
generated, it was before all things—”What kind of
generation does our dogmatist propose to us? Is it one of which we may
fittingly think and speak in regard to God? And who is so godless as to
pre-suppose non-existence in God? But it is clear that he has in view
this material generation of ours, and is making the lower nature the
teacher of his conceptions concerning the Only-begotten God, and since
an ox or an ass or a camel is not before its own generation, he thinks
it proper to say even of the Only-begotten God that which the course of
the lower nature presents to our view in the case of the animals,
without thinking, corporeal theologian that he is, of this fact, that
the predicate “Only-begotten”, applied to God,
signifies by the very word itself that which is not in common with all
begetting, and is peculiar to Him. How could the term
“Only-begotten” be used of this “generation,”
if it had community and identity of meaning with other generation? That
there is something unique and exceptional to be understood in His case,
which is not to be remarked in other generation, is distinctly and
suitably expressed by the appellation of “Only-begotten”;
as, were any element of the lower generation conceived in it, He Who in
respect of any of the attributes of His generation was placed on a
level with other things that are begotten would no longer be
“Only-begotten.” For if the same things are to be
said of Him which are said of the other things that come into being by
generation, the definition will transform the sense of
“Only-begotten” to signify a kind of relationship involving
brotherhood. If then the sense of “Only-begotten” points to
absence of mixture and community with the rest of generated things, we
shall not admit that anything which we behold in the lower generation
is also to be conceived in the case of that existence which the Son has
from the Father. But non-existence before generation is proper to all
things that exist by generation: therefore this is foreign to the
special character of the Only-begotten, to which the name
“Only-begotten” bears witness that there attaches nothing
belonging to the mode of that form of common generation which Eunomius
misapprehends. Let this materialist and friend of the senses be
persuaded therefore to correct the error of his conception by the other
forms of generation. What will you say when you hear of the
“brightness of glory” or of the “savour of ointment881
| 881 Song of Sol. 1.3" id="viii.i.x.v-p3.1" parsed="|Heb|1|3|0|0;|Song|1|3|0|0" osisRef="Bible:Heb.1.3 Bible:Song.1.3">Heb. i. 3, and Cant. i.
3,
referred to above. | ?” That the “brightness” was
not before its own generation? But if you answer thus, you will surely
admit that neither did the “glory” exist, nor the
“ointment”: for it is not possible that the
“glory” should be conceived as having existed by itself,
dark and lustreless, or the “ointment” without producing
its sweet breath: so that if the “brightness” “was
not,” the “glory” also surely “was not,”
and the “savour” being non-existent, there is also proved
the non-existence of the “ointment.” But if these examples
taken from Scripture excite any man’s fear, on the ground that
they do not accurately present to us the majesty of the Only-begotten,
because neither is essentially the same with its
substratum—neither the exhalation with the ointment, nor the beam
with the sun—let the true Word correct his fear, Who was in the
Beginning and is all that the Beginning is, and existent before all;
since John so declares in his preaching, “And the Word was with
God, and the Word was God882
.” If then the
Father is God and the Son is God, what doubt still remains with regard
to the perfect Divinity of the Only-begotten, when by the sense of the
word “Son” is acknowledged the close relationship of
Nature, by “brightness” the conjunction and inseparability,
and by the appellation of “God,” applied alike to the
Father and the Son, their absolute equality, while the “express
image,” contemplated in reference to the whole Person883
of the Father, marks the absence of any
defect in the Son’s proper greatness, and the “form of
God” indicates His complete identity by showing in itself all
those marks by which the Godhead is betokened.
Let us now set forth
Eunomius’ statement once more. “He was not,” he says,
“before His own generation.” Who is it of Whom he says
“He was not”? Let him declare the Divine names by which He
Who, according to Eunomius, “once was not,” is called. He
will say, I suppose, “light,” and
“blessedness,” “life” and
“incorruptibility,” and “righteousness” and
“sanctification,” and “power,” and
“truth,” and the like. He who says, then, that “He
was not before His generation,” absolutely proclaims
this,—that when He “was not” there was no truth, no
life, no light, no power, no incorruptibility, no other of those
pre-eminent qualities which are conceived of Him: and, what is still more
marvellous and still more difficult for impiety to face, there was no
“brightness,” no “express image.” For in saying
that there was no brightness, there is surely maintained also the
non-existence of the radiating power, as one may see in the
illustration afforded by the lamp. For he who speaks of the ray of the
lamp indicates also that the lamp shines, and he who says that the ray
“is not,” signifies also the extinction of that which gives
light: so that when the Son is said not to be, thereby is also
maintained as a necessary consequence the non-existence of the Father.
For if the one is related to the other by way of conjunction, according
to the Apostolic testimony—the “brightness” to the
“glory,” the “express image” to the
“Person,” the “Wisdom” to God—he who says
that one of the things so conjoined “is not,” surely by his
abolition of the one abolishes also that which remains; so that if the
“brightness” “was not,” it is acknowledged that
neither did the illuminating nature exist, and if the “express
image” had no existence, neither did the Person imaged exist, and
if the wisdom and power of God “was not,” it is surely
acknowledged that He also was not, Who is not conceived by Himself
without wisdom and power. If, then, the Only-begotten God, as Eunomius
says, “was not before His generation,” and Christ is
“the power of God and the wisdom of God884
,” and the “express image”885
and the “brightness886
,” neither surely did the Father exist,
Whose power and wisdom and express image and brightness the Son is: for
it is not possible to conceive by reason either a Person without
express image, or glory without radiance, or God without wisdom, or a
Maker without hands, or a Beginning without the Word887
| 887 Or
perhaps “or an irrational first cause,” (ἄλογον
ἀρχήν.) | ,
or a Father without a Son; but all such things, alike by those who
confess and by those who deny, are manifestly declared to be in mutual
union, and by the abolition of one the other also disappears with it.
Since then they maintain that the Son (that is, the “brightness
of the glory,”) “was not” before He was begotten, and
since logical consequence involves also, together with the
non-existence of the brightness, the abolition of the glory, and the
Father is the glory whence came the brightness of the Only-begotten
Light, let these men who are wise over-much consider that they are
manifestly supporters of the Epicurean doctrines, preaching atheism
under the guise of Christianity. Now since the logical consequence is
shown to be one of two absurdities, either that we should say that God
does not exist at all, or that we should say that His being was not
unoriginate, let them choose which they like of the two courses before
them,—either to be called atheist, or to cease saying that the
essence of the Father is un-originate. They would avoid, I suppose,
being reckoned atheists. It remains, therefore, that they maintain that
God is not eternal. And if the course of what has been proved forces
them to this, what becomes of their varied and irreversible conversions
of names? What becomes of that invincible compulsion of their
syllogisms, which sounded so fine to the ears of old women, with its
opposition of “Generated” and
“Ungenerate”?
Enough, however, of these
matters. But it might be well not to leave his next point unanswered;
yet let us pass over in silence the comic interlude, where our clever
orator shows his youthful conceit, whether in jest or in earnest, under
the impression that he will thereby have an advantage in his argument.
For certainly no one will force us to join either with those whose eyes
are set askance in distorting our sight, or with those who are stricken
with strange disease in being contorted, or in their bodily leaps and
plunges. We shall pity them, but we shall not depart from our settled
state of mind. He says, then, turning his discourse upon the subject to
our master, as if he were really engaging him face to face, “Thou
shalt be taken in thine own snare.” For as Basil had said888
| 888 The
reference is to S. Basil adv. Eunomium II. 12 (p. 247 in Ben.
ed.) | that what is good is always present with God
Who is over all, and that it is good to be the Father of such a
Son,—that so what is good was never absent from Him, nor was it
the Father’s will to be without the Son, and when He willed He
did not lack the power, but having the power and the will to be in the
mode in which it seemed good to Him, He also always possessed the Son
by reason of His always willing that which is good (for this is the
direction in which the intention of our father’s remarks tends),
Eunomius pulls this in pieces beforehand, and puts forward to overthrow
what has been said some such argument as this, introduced from his
extraneous philosophy:—“What will become of you,” he
says, “if one of those who have had experience of such arguments
should say, ‘If to create is good and agreeable to the Nature of
God, how is it that what is good and agreeable to His Nature was not
present with Him unoriginately, seeing that God is unoriginate? and
that when there was no hindrance of ignorance or impediment of weakness
or of age in the matter of creation,”—and all the rest that
he collects together and pours out upon himself,—for I may not
say, upon God. Well, if it were possible for our master to answer the
question in person, he would have shown Eunomius what would have become
of him, as
he asked, by setting forth the Divine mystery with that tongue that was
taught of God, and by scourging the champion of deceit with his
refutations, so that it would have been made clear to all men what a
difference there is between a minister of the mysteries of Christ and a
ridiculous buffoon or a setter-forth of new and absurd doctrines. But
since he, as the Apostle says, “being dead, speaketh889
” to God, while the other puts forth
such a challenge as though there were no one to answer him, even though
an answer from us may not have equal force when compared with the words
of the great Basil, we shall yet boldly say this in answer to the
questioner:—Your own argument, put forth to overthrow our
statement, is a testimony that in the charges we make against your
impious doctrine we speak truly. For there is no other point we blame
so much as this, that you890
| 890 Reading ὑμᾶς for ἡμᾶς. If the
reading ἡμᾶς, which Oehler
follows, is retained, the force would seem to be “that you think
we ought not to make any difference,” but the construction of the
sentence in this case is cumbrous. | think there is no
difference between the Lord of creation and the general body of
creation, and what you now allege is a maintaining of the very things
which we find fault with. For if you are bound to attach exactly what
you see in creation also to the Only-begotten God, our contention has
gained its end: your own statements proclaim the absurdity of the
doctrine, and it is manifest to all, both that we keep our argument in
the straight way of truth, and that your conception of the
Only-begotten God is such as you have of the rest of the
creation.
Concerning whom was the
controversy? Was it not concerning the Only-begotten God, the Maker of
all the creation, whether He always was, or whether He came into being
afterwards as an addition to His Father? What then do our
master’s words say on this matter? That it is irreverent to
believe that what is naturally good was not in God: for that he saw no
cause by which it was probable that the good was not always present
with Him Who is good, either for lack of power or for weakness of will.
What does he who contends against these statements say? “If you
allow that God the Word is to be believed eternal, you must allow the
same of the things that have been created”—(How well he
knows how to distinguish in his argument the nature of the creatures
and the majesty of God! How well he knows about each, what befits it,
what he may piously think concerning God, what concerning the
creation!)—“if the Maker,” he says, “begins
from the time of His making: for there is nothing else by which we can
mark the beginning of things that have been made, if time does not
define by its own interval the beginnings and the endings of the things
that come into being.”
On this ground he says that the
Maker of time must commence His existence from a like beginning. Well,
the creation has the ages for its beginning, but what beginning can you
conceive of the Maker of the ages? If any one should say, “The
‘beginning’ which is mentioned in the
Gospel”—it is the Father Who is there signified, and the
confession of the Son together with Him is there pointed to, nor can it
be that He Who is in the Father891
, as the Lord says,
can begin His being in Him from any particular point. And if any one
speaks of another beginning besides this, let him tell us the name by
which he marks this beginning, as none can be apprehended before the
establishment of the ages. Such a statement, therefore, will not move
us a whit from the orthodox conception concerning the Only-begotten,
even if old women do applaud the proposition as a sound one. For we
abide by what has been determined from the beginning, having our
doctrine firmly based on truth, to wit, that all things which the
orthodox doctrine assumes that we assert concerning the Only-begotten
God have no kindred with the creation, but the marks which distinguish
the Maker of all and His works are separated by a wide interval. If
indeed the Son had in any other respect communion with the creation, we
surely ought to say that He did not diverge from it even in the manner
of His existence. But if the creation has no share in such things as
are all those which we learn concerning the Son, we must surely of
necessity say that in this matter also He has no communion with it. For
the creation was not in the beginning, and was not with God, and was
not, God, nor life, nor light, nor resurrection, nor the rest of the
Divine names, as truth, righteousness, sanctification, Judge, just,
Maker of all things, existing before the ages, for ever and ever; the
creation is not the brightness of the glory, nor the express image of
the Person, nor the likeness of goodness, nor grace, nor power, nor
truth, nor salvation, nor redemption; nor do we find any one at all of
those names which are employed by Scripture for the glory of the
Only-begotten, either belonging to the creation or employed concerning
it,—not to speak of those more exalted words, “I am in the
Father, and the Father in Me892
,” and,
“He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father893
,” and, “None hath seen the Son,
save the Father894
.” If indeed our
doctrine allowed us to claim for the creation things so many and so
great as these, he might have been right in thinking that we ought to
attach what we observe in it to our conceptions of the Only-begotten
also, since
the transfer would be from kindred subjects to one nearly allied. But
if all these concepts and names involve communion with the Father,
while they transcend our notions of the creation, does not our clever
and sharp-witted friend slink away in shame at discussing the nature of
the Lord of the Creation by the aid of what he observes in creation,
without being aware that the marks which distinguish the creation are
of a different sort? The ultimate division of all that exists is made
by the line between “created” and “uncreated,”
the one being regarded as a cause of what has come into being, the
other as coming into being thereby. Now the created nature and the
Divine essence being thus divided, and admitting no intermixture in
respect of their distinguishing properties, we must by no means
conceive both by means of similar terms, nor seek in the idea of their
nature for the same distinguishing marks in things that are thus
separated. Accordingly, as the nature that is in the creation, as the
phrase of the most excellent Wisdom somewhere tells us, exhibits
“the beginning, ending, and midst of the times895
” in itself, and extends concurrently
with all temporal intervals, we take as a sort of characteristic of the
subject this property, that in it we see some beginning of its
formation, look on its midst, and extend our expectations to its end.
For we have learnt that the heaven and the earth were not from
eternity, and will not last to eternity, and thus it is hence clear
that those things are both started from some beginning, and will surely
cease at some end. But the Divine Nature, being limited in no respect,
but passing all limitations on every side in its infinity, is far
removed from those marks which we find in creation. For that power
which is without interval, without quantity, without circumscription,
having in itself all the ages and all the creation that has taken place
in them, and over-passing at all points, by virtue of the infinity of
its own nature, the unmeasured extent of the ages, either has no mark
which indicates its nature, or has one of an entirely different sort,
and not that which the creation has. Since, then, it belongs to the
creation to have a beginning, that will be alien from the uncreated
nature which belongs to the creation. For if any one should venture to
suppose the existence of the Only-begotten Son to be, like the
creation, from any beginning comprehensible by us, he must certainly
append to his statement concerning the Son the rest also of the
sequence896
| 896 That
is, he must also acknowledge a “middle” and an
“end” of the existence which has a
“beginning.” | ; for it is not possible to avoid
acknowledging, together with the beginning, that also which follows
from it. For just as if one were to admit some person to be a man in
all897
| 897 Oehler’s emendation, for which he gives weighty ms. authority, is certainly an improvement on the earlier
text, but in sense it is a little unsatisfactory. The argument seems to
require the hypothesis not of some one acknowledging a person to be a
man in all, but in some attributes. The defect, however,
may possibly be in S. Gregory’s argument, not in the
text. | the properties of his nature, he would
observe that in this confession he declared him to be an animal and
rational, and whatever else is conceived of man, so by the same
reasoning, if we should understand any of the properties of creation to
be present in the Divine essence, it will no longer be open to us to
refrain from attaching to that pure Nature the rest of the list of the
attributes contemplated therein. For the “beginning” will
demand by force and compulsion that which follows it; for the
“beginning,” thus conceived, is a beginning of what comes
after it, in such a sense, that if they are, it is, and if the things
connected with it are removed, the antecedent also would not remain898
| 898 i.e.“if the ‘middle’
and ‘end’ are not admitted, at the ‘beginning,’
which is the ‘beginning’ of a sequence, is thereby
implicitly denied.” Oehler’s punctuation has been somewhat
altered here, and at several points in the remainder of the book, where
it appears to require emendation. | . Now as the book of Wisdom speaks of
“midst” and “end” as well as of
“beginning,” if we assume in the Nature of the
Only-begotten, according to the heretical dogma, some beginning of
existence defined by a certain mark of time, the book of Wisdom will by
no means allow us to refrain from subjoining to the
“beginning” a “midst” and an “end”
also. If this should be done we shall find, as the result of our
arguments, that the Divine word shows us that the Deity is mortal. For
if, according to the book of Wisdom, the “end” is a
necessary consequence of the “beginning,” and the idea of
“midst” is involved in that of extremes, he who allows one
of these also potentially maintains the others, and lays down bounds of
measure and limitation for the infinite Nature. And if this is impious
and absurd, the giving a beginning to that argument which ends in
impiety deserves equal, or even greater censure; and the beginning of
this absurd doctrine was seen to be the supposition that the life of
the Son was circumscribed by some beginning. Thus one of two courses is
before them: either they must revert to sound doctrine under the
compulsion of the foregoing arguments, and contemplate Him Who is of
the Father in union with the Father’s eternity, or if they do not
like this, they must limit the eternity of the Son in both ways, and
reduce the limitless character of His life to non-existence by a
beginning and an end. And, granted that the nature both of souls and of
the angels has no end, and is no way hindered from going on to
eternity, by the fact of its being created, and having the
beginning
of its existence from some point of time, so that our adversaries can
use this fact to assert a parallel in the case of Christ, in the sense
that He is not from eternity, and yet endures everlastingly,—let
any one who advances this argument also consider the following point,
how widely the Godhead differs from the creation in its special
attributes. For to the Godhead it properly belongs to lack no
conceivable thing which is regarded as good, while the creation attains
excellence by partaking in something better than itself; and further,
not only had a beginning of its being, but also is found to be
constantly in a state of beginning to be in excellence, by its
continual advance in improvement, since it never halts at what it has
reached, but all that it has acquired899
| 899 Reading κτηθὲν,
with the Paris ed. of 1638. Oehler’s reading κτισθὲν
hardly seems to give so good a sense, and he does not
give his authority for it. | becomes by
participation a beginning of its ascent to something still greater, and
it never ceases, in Paul’s phrase, “reaching forth to the
things that are before,” and “forgetting the things that
are behind900
.” Since, then, the Godhead is
very life, and the Only-begotten God is God, and life, and truth, and
every conceivable thing that is lofty and Divine, while the creation
draws from Him its supply of good, it may hence be evident that if it
is in life by partaking of life, it will surely, if it ceases from this
participation, cease from life also. If they dare, then, to say also of
the Only-begotten God those things which it is true to say of the
creation, let them say this too, along with the rest, that He has a
beginning of His being like the creation, and abides in life after the
likeness of souls. But if He is the very life, and needs not to have
life in Himself ab extra, while all other things are not life,
but are merely participants in life, what constrains us to cancel, by
reason of what we see in creation, the eternity of the Son? For that
which is always unchanged as regards its nature, admits of no contrary,
and is incapable of change to any other condition: while things whose
nature is on the boundary line have a tendency that shifts either way,
inclining at will to what they find attractive901
| 901 Reading
with Oehler, τοῖς κατὰ
γνώμην
προσκλινομένη. The reading προσκινουμένοις, found in the earlier editions, gives a tolerable sense,
but appears to have no ms.
authority. | . If,
then, that which is truly life is contemplated in the Divine and
transcendent nature, the decadence thereof will surely, as it seems,
end in the opposite state902
| 902 Or
(if πάντως be
constructed with ἀντικείμενον), “will end, as it seems, in that state which is
absolutely opposed to life.” | .
Now the meaning of
“life” and “death” is manifold, and not always
understood in the same way. For as regards the flesh, the energy and
motion of the bodily senses is called “life,” and their
extinction and dissolution is named “death.” But in the
case of the intellectual nature, approximation to the Divine is the
true life, and decadence therefrom is named “death”: for
which reason the original evil, the devil, is called both
“death,” and the inventor of death: and he is also said by
the Apostle to have the power of death903
. As,
then, we obtain, as has been said, from the Scriptures, a twofold
conception of death, He Who is truly unchangeable and immutable
“alone hath immortality,” and dwells in light that cannot
be attained or approached by the darkness of wickedness904
: but all things that participate in death,
being far removed from immortality by their contrary tendency, if they
fall away from that which is good, would, by the mutability of their
nature, admit community with the worse condition, which is nothing else
than death, having a certain correspondence with the death of the body.
For as in that case the extinction of the activities of nature is
called death, so also, in the case of the intellectual being, the
absence of motion towards the good is death and departure from life; so
that what we perceive in the bodiless creation905
| 905 i.e.the order of spiritual beings,
including angels and human souls. Of these S. Gregory argues that they
are capable of an ἀκινησία
πρὸς τὸ
ἀγαθόν which is
death in them, as the absence of motion and sense is bodily
death: and that they may therefore be said to have an end, as they had
a beginning: so far as they are eternal it is not by their own
power, but by their mutable nature being upheld by grace from this
state of ἀκινησία
πρὸς τὸ
ἀγαθόν. On both
these grounds therefore—that they have an end, and that
such eternity as they possess is not inherent, but given ab
extra, and contingent—he says they are not properly eternal,
and he therefore rejects the proposed parallel. | does
not clash with our argument, which refutes the doctrine of heresy. For
that form of death which corresponds to the intellectual nature (that
is, separation from God, Whom we call Life) is, potentially, not
separated even from their nature; for their emergence from
non-existence shows mutability of nature; and that to which change is
in affinity is hindered from participation in the contrary state by the
grace of Him Who strengthens it: it does not abide in the good by its
own nature: and such a thing is not eternal. If, then, one really
speaks truth in saying that we ought not to estimate the Divine essence
and the created nature in the same way, nor to circumscribe the being
of the Son of God by any beginning, lest, if this be granted, the other
attributes of creation should enter in together with our acknowledgment
of this one, the absurd character of the teaching of that man, who
employs the attributes of creation to separate the Only-begotten God
from the eternity of the Father, is clearly shown. For as none other of
the marks which characterize the creation appears in the Maker of the
creation, so neither is the fact that the creation has its existence
from some beginning a proof that the Son was not always in the
Father,—that Son, Who is Wisdom, and Power, and Light, and Life,
and all that is conceived of in the bosom of the Father.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
