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| Then, having shown that Eunomius' calumny against the great Basil, that he called the Only-begotten “Ungenerate,” is false, and having again with much ingenuity discussed the eternity, being, and endlessness of the Only-begotten, and the creation of light and of darkness, he concludes the book.
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§4. Then, having
shown that Eunomius’ calumny against the great Basil, that he
called the Only-begotten “Ungenerate,” is false, and having
again with much ingenuity discussed the eternity, being, and
endlessness of the Only-begotten, and the creation of light and of
darkness, he concludes the book.
With regard to his attempting to
show that we say the Only-begotten God is ungenerate, it is as though
he should say that we actually define the Father to be begotten: for
either statement is of the same absurdity, or rather of the same
blasphemous
character. If, therefore, he has made up his mind to slander us, let
him add the other charge as well, and spare nothing by which it may be
in his power more violently to exasperate his hearers against us. But
if one of these charges is withheld because its calumnious nature is
apparent, why is the other made? For it is just the same thing, as we
have said, so far as the impiety goes, to call the Son ungenerate and
to call the Father generated. Now if any such phrase can be found in
our writings, in which the Son is spoken of as ungenerate, we shall
give the final vote against ourselves: but if he is fabricating false
charges and calumnies at his pleasure, making any fictitious statement
he pleases to slander our doctrines, this fact may serve with sensible
men for an evidence of our orthodoxy, that while truth itself fights on
our side, he brings forward a lie to accuse our doctrine and makes up
an indictment for unorthodoxy that has no relation to our statements.
To these charges, however, we can give a concise answer. As we judge
that man accursed who says that the Only-begotten God is ungenerate,
let him in turn anathematize the man who lays it down that He who was
in the beginning “once was not.” For by such a method it
will be shown who brings his charges truly, and who calumniously. But
if we deny his accusations, if, when we speak of a Father, we
understand as implied in that word a Son also, and if, when we use the
name “Son,” we declare that He really is what He is called,
being shed forth by generation from the ungenerate Light, how can the
calumny of those who persist that we say the Only-begotten is
ungenerate fail to be manifest? Yet we shall not, because we say that
He exists by generation, therefore admit that He “once was
not.” For every one knows that the contradiction between
“being” and “not being” is immediate, so that
the affirmation of one of these terms is absolutely the destruction of
the other, and that, just as “being” is the same in regard
to every time at which any of the things that “are” is
supposed to have its existence (for the sky, and stars, and sun, and
the rest of the things that “are,” are not more in a state
of being now than they were yesterday, or the day before, or at any
previous time), so the meaning of “not being” expresses
non-existence equally at every time, whether one speaks of it in
reference to what is earlier or to what is later. For any of the things
that do not exist921
| 921 Reading τῶν
μὴ
ὑφεστώτων, as the sense seems to require, unless we connect
τῶν
ὑφεστώτων with οὐκ
ἔστιν. In this case
the sense will be practically the same, but the sentence will be
extremely involved. The point which S. Gregory desires to enforce is
that “not being,” or “non-existence,” is one
and the same thing, whether it is regarded as past, present, or future,
and that it is, in any of these aspects, an idea which we cannot
without impiety attach to the Divine Person of the Son. | is no more in a state
of “not being” now than if it were non-existent before, but
the idea of “not being” is one applied to that which
“is not” at any distance of time. And for this reason, in
speaking of living creatures, while we use different words to denote
the dissolution into a state of “not being” of that which
has been, and the condition of non-existence of that which has never
had an entrance into being, and say either that a thing has never come
into being at all, or that which was generated has died, yet by either
form of speech we equally represent by our words
“non-existence.” For as day is bounded on each side by
night, yet the parts of the night which bound it are not named alike,
but we speak of one as “after night-fall,” and of the other
as “before dawn,” while that which both phrases denote is
night, so, if any one looks on that which is not in contrast to
that which is, he will give different names to that state which
is antecedent to formation and to that which follows the dissolution of
what was formed, yet will conceive as one the condition which both
phrases signify—the condition which is antecedent to formation
and the condition following on dissolution after formation. For the
state of “not being” of that which has not been generated,
and of that which has died, save for the difference of the names, are
the same,—with the exception of the account which we take of the
hope of the resurrection. Now since we learn from Scripture that the
Only-begotten God is the Prince of Life, the very life, and light, and
truth, and all that is honourable in word or thought, we say that it is
absurd and impious to contemplate, in conjunction with Him Who really
is, the opposite conception, whether of dissolution tending to
corruption, or of non-existence before formation: but as we extend our
thought in every direction to what is to follow, or to what was before
the ages, we nowhere pause in our conceptions at the condition of
“not being,” judging it to tend equally to impiety to cut
short the Divine being by non-existence at any time whatever. For it is
the same thing to say that the immortal life is mortal, that the truth
is a lie, that light is darkness, and that that which is is not. He,
accordingly, who refuses to allow that He will at some future time
cease to be, will also refuse to allow that He “once was
not,” avoiding, according to our view, the same impiety on either
hand: for, as no death cuts short the endlessness of the life of the
Only-begotten, so, as we look back, no period of nonexistence will
terminate His life in its course towards eternity, that that which in
reality is may be clear of all community with that which in
reality is not. For this cause the Lord, desiring that His
disciples might be far removed from this error (that they might never,
by themselves searching for something antecedent to the existence of the
Only-begotten, be led by their reasoning to the idea of non-existence),
saith, “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me922
,” in the sense that neither is that
which is not conceived in that which is, nor that which
is in that which is not. And here the very order of the phrase
explains the orthodox doctrine; for because the Father is not of the
Son, but the Son of the Father, therefore He says, “I am in the
Father,” showing the fact that He is not of another but of Him,
and then reverses the phrase to, “and the Father in Me,”
indicating that he who, in his curious speculation, passes beyond the
Son, passes also beyond the conception of the Father: for He who is in
anything cannot be found outside of that in which He is: so that the
man who, while not denying that the Father is in the Son, yet imagines
that he has in any degree apprehended the Father as external to the
Son, is talking idly. Idle too are the wanderings of our
adversaries’ fighting about shadows touching the matter of
“ungeneracy,” proceeding without solid foundation by means
of nonentities. Yet if I am to bring more fully to light the whole
absurdity of their argument, let me be allowed to spend a little longer
on this speculation. As they say that the Only-begotten God came into
existence “later,” after the Father, this
“unbegotten” of theirs, whatever they imagine it to be, is
discovered of necessity to exhibit with itself the idea of evil. Who
knows not, that, just as the non-existent is contrasted with the
existent, so with every good thing or name is contrasted the opposite
conception, as “bad” with “good,”
“falsehood” with “truth,”
“darkness” with “light,” and all the rest that
are similarly opposed to one another, where the opposition admits of no
middle term, and it is impossible that the two should co-exist, but the
presence of the one destroys its opposite, and with the withdrawal of
the other takes place the appearance of its contrary?
Now these points being conceded
to us, the further point is also clear to any one, that, as Moses says
darkness was before the creation of light, so also in the case of the
Son (if, according to the heretical statement, the Father “made
Him at that time when He willed”), before He made Him, that Light
which the Son is was not; and, light not yet being, it is impossible
that its opposite should not be. For we learn also from the other
instances that nothing that comes from the Creator is at random, but
that which was lacking is added by creation to existing things. Thus it
is quite clear that if God did make the Son, He made Him by reason of a
deficiency in the nature of things. As, then, while sensible light was
still lacking, there was darkness, and darkness would certainly have
prevailed had light not come into being, so also, when the Son
“as yet was not,” the very and true Light, and all else
that the Son is, did not exist. For even according to the evidence of
heresy, that which exists has no need of coming into being; if
therefore He made Him, He assuredly made that which did not exist.
Thus, according to their view, before the Son came into being, neither
had truth come into being, nor the intelligible Light, nor the fount of
life, nor, generally, the nature of any thing that is excellent and
good. Now, concurrently with the exclusion of each of these, there is
found to subsist the opposite conception: and if light was not, it
cannot be denied that darkness was; and so with the
rest,—in place of each of these more excellent conceptions it is
clearly impossible that its opposite did not exist in place of that
which was lacking. It is therefore a necessary conclusion, that when
the Father, as the heretics say, “had not as yet willed to make
the Son,” none of those things which the Son is being yet
existent, we must say that He was surrounded by darkness instead of
Light, by falsehood instead of truth, by death instead of life, by evil
instead of good. For He Who creates, creates things that are not;
“That which is,” as Eunomius says, “needs not
generation”; and of those things which are considered as opposed,
the better cannot be non-existent, except by the existence of the
worse. These are the gifts with which the wisdom of heresy honours the
Father, by which it degrades the eternity of the Son, and ascribes to
God and the Father, before the “production” of the Son, the
whole catalogue of evils!
And let no one think to rebut by
examples from the rest of creation the demonstration of the doctrinal
absurdity which results from this argument. One will perhaps say that,
as, when the sky was not, there was no opposite to it, so we are not
absolutely compelled to admit that if the Son, Who is Truth, had not
come into existence, the opposite did exist. To him we may reply that
to the sky there is no corresponding opposite, unless one were to say
that its non-existence is opposed to its existence. But to virtue is
certainly opposed that which is vicious (and the Lord is virtue); so
that when the sky was not, it does not follow that anything was;
but when good was not, its opposite was; thus he who says that
good was not, will certainly allow, even without intending it, that
evil was. “But the Father also,” he says923
| 923 The
words are probably those of the imaginary objector; but they may be a
citation from Eunomius. | , “is absolute virtue, and life, and
light unapproachable, and all that is exalted in word or thought: so
that there is no necessity to suppose, when the Only-begotten Light was
not, the existence of that darkness which is His corresponding
opposite.” But this is just what I say, that darkness never was;
for the light never “was not,” for “the light,”
as the prophecy says, “is always in the light924
.” If, however, according to the
heretical doctrine, the “ungenerate light” is one thing,
and the “generated light” another, and the one is eternal,
while the other comes into existence at a later time, it follows of
absolute necessity that in the eternal light we should find no place
for the establishment of its opposite; (for if the light always shines,
the power of darkness has no place in it;) and that in the case of the
light which comes into being, as they say, afterwards, it is impossible
that the light should shine forth save out of darkness; and the
interval of darkness between eternal light and that which arises later
will be clearly marked in every way.925
For there would
have been no need of the making of the later light, if that which was
created had not been of utility for some purpose: and the one use of
light is that of the dispersion by its means of the prevailing gloom.
Now the light which exists without creation is what it is by nature by
reason of itself; but the created light clearly comes into being by
reason of something else. It must be then that its existence was
preceded by darkness, on account of which the light was of necessity
created, and it is not possible by any reasoning to make plausible the
view that darkness did not precede the manifestation of the
Only-begotten Light,—on the supposition, that is, that He is
believed to have been “made” at a later time. Surely such a
doctrine is beyond all impiety! It is therefore clearly shown that the
Father of truth did not make the truth at a time when it was not; but,
being the fountain of light and truth, and of all good, He shed forth
from Himself that Only-begotten Light of truth by which the glory of
His Person is expressly imaged; so that the blasphemy of those who say
that the Son was a later addition to God by way of creation is at all
points refuted.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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