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| After this he shows that the Son, who truly is, and is in the bosom of the Father, is simple and uncompounded, and that, He Who redeemed us from bondage is not under dominion of the Father, nor in a state of slavery: and that otherwise not He alone, but also the Father Who is in the Son and is One with Him, must be a slave; and that the word “being” is formed from the word to “be.” And having excellently and notably discussed all these matters, he concludes the book.
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§4. After this he shows
that the Son, who truly is, and is in the bosom of the Father, is
simple and uncompounded, and that, He Who redeemed us from bondage is
not under dominion of the Father, nor in a state of slavery: and that
otherwise not He alone, but also the Father Who is in the Son and is
One with Him, must be a slave; and that the word “being” is
formed from the word to “be.” And having excellently and
notably discussed all these matters, he concludes the
book.
But not yet has the most
grievous part of his profanity been examined, which the sequel of his
treatise goes on to add. Well, let us consider his words sentence by
sentence. Yet I know not how I can dare to let my mouth utter the
horrible and godless language of him who fights against Christ. For I
fear lest, like some baleful drugs, the remnant of the pernicious
bitterness should be deposited upon the lips through which the words
pass. “He that cometh unto God,” says the Apostle,
“must believe that He is953
.” Accordingly,
true existence is the special distinction of Godhead. But Eunomius
makes out Him Who truly is, either not to exist at all, or not to exist
in a proper sense, which is just the same as not existing at all; for
he who does not properly exist, does not really exist at all; as, for
example, he is said to “run” in a dream who in that state
fancies he is exerting himself in the race, while, since he untruly
acts the semblance of the real race, his fancy that he is running is
not for this reason a race. But even though in an inexact sense it is
so called, still the name is given to it falsely. Accordingly, he who
dares to assert that the Only-begotten God either does not properly
exist, or does not exist at all, manifestly blots out of his creed all
faith in Him. For who can any longer believe in something non-existent?
or who would resort to Him Whose being has been shown by the enemies of
the true Lord to be improper and unsubstantial?
But that our statement may not
be thought to be unfair to our opponents, I will set side by side with it the
language of the impious persons, which runs as follows:—“He
Who is in the bosom of the Existent, and Who is in the beginning and is
with God, not being, or at all events not being in a strict sense, even
though Basil, neglecting this distinction and addition, uses the title
of ‘Existent’ interchangeably, contrary to the
truth—” What do you say? that He Who is in the Father is
not, and that He Who is in the beginning, and Who is in the bosom of
the Father, is not, for this very reason, that He is in the beginning
and is in the Father, and is discerned in the bosom of the Existent,
and hence does not in a strict sense exist, because He is in the
Existent? Alas for the idle and irrational tenets! Now for the first
time we have heard this piece of vain babbling,—that the Lord, by
Whom are all things, does not in a strict sense exist. And we have not
yet got to the end of this appalling statement; but something yet more
startling remains behind, that he not only affirms that He does not
exist, or does not strictly speaking exist, but also that the Nature in
which He is conceived to reside is various and composite. For he says
“not being, or not being simple.” But that to which
simplicity does not belong is manifestly various and composite. How
then can the same Person be at once non-existent and composite in
essence? For one of two alternatives they must choose: if they
predicate of Him non-existence they cannot speak of Him as composite,
or if they affirm Him to be composite they cannot rob Him of existence.
But that their blasphemy may assume many and varied shapes, it jumps at
every godless notion when it wishes to contrast Him with the existent,
affirming that, strictly speaking, He does not exist, and in His
relation to the uncompounded Nature denying Him the attribute of
simplicity:—“not existing, not existing simply, not
existing in the strict sense.” Who among those who have
transgressed the word and forsworn the Faith was ever so lavish in
utterances denying the Lord? He has stood up in rivalry with the divine
proclamation of John. For as often as the latter has attested
“was” of the Word, so often does he apply to Him Who is an
opposing “was not.” And he contends against the holy lips
of our father Basil, bringing against him the charge that he
“neglects these distinctions,” when he says that He Who is
in the Father, and in the beginning, and in the bosom of the Father,
exists, holding the view that the addition of “in the
beginning,” and “in the bosom of the Father,” bars
the real existence of Him Who is. Vain learning! What things the
teachers of deceit teach! what strange doctrines they introduce to
their hearers! they instruct them that that which is in something else
does not exist! So, Eunomius, since your heart and brain are within
you, neither of them, according to your distinction, exists. For if the
Only-begotten God does not, strictly speaking, exist, for this reason,
that He is in the bosom of the Father, then everything that is in
something else is thereby excluded from existence. But certainly your
heart exists in you, and not independently; therefore, according to
your view, you must either say that it does not exist at all, or that
it does not exist in the strict sense. However, the ignorance and
profanity of his language are so gross and so glaring, as to be obvious
even before our argument, at all events to all persons of sense: but
that his folly as well as his impiety may be more manifest, we will add
thus much to what has gone before. If one may only say that that in the
strict sense exists, of which the word of Scripture attests the
existence detached from all relation to anything else, why do they,
like those who carry water, perish with thirst when they have it in
their power to drink? Even this man, though he had at hand the antidote
to his blasphemy against the Son, closed his eyes and ran past it as
though fearing to be saved, and charges Basil with unfairness for
having suppressed the qualifying words, and for only quoting the
“was” by itself, in reference to the Only-Begotten. And yet
it was quite in his power to see what Basil saw and what every one who
has eyes sees. And herein the sublime John seems to me to have been
prophetically moved, that the mouths of those fighters against Christ
might be stopped, who on the ground of these additions deny the
existence, in the strict sense, of the Christ, saying simply and
without qualification “The Word was God,” and was Life, and
was Light954
, not merely speaking of Him as being in
the beginning, and with God, and in the bosom of the Father, so that by
their relation the absolute existence of the Lord should be done away.
But his assertion that He was God, by this absolute declaration
detached from all relation to anything else, cuts off every subterfuge
from those who in their reasonings run into impiety; and, in addition
to this, there is moreover something else which still more convincingly
proves the malignity of our adversaries. For if they make out that to
exist in something is an indication of not existing in the strict
sense, then certainly they allow that not even the Father exists
absolutely, as they have learnt in the Gospel, that just as the Son
abides in the Father, so the Father abides in the Son, according to the
words of the Lord955
. For to say that the
Father is in the Son is equivalent to saying that the Son is in
the bosom
of the Father. And in passing let us make this further inquiry. When
the Son, as they say, “was not,” what did the bosom of the
Father contain? For assuredly they must either grant that it was full,
or suppose it to have been empty. If then the bosom was full, certainly
the Son was that which filled the bosom. But if they imagine that there
was some void in the bosom of the Father, they do nothing else than
assert of Him perfection by way of augmentation, in the sense that He
passed from the state of void and deficiency to the state of fulness
and perfection. But “they knew not nor understood,” says
David of those that “walk on still in darkness956
.” For he who has been rendered hostile
to the true Light cannot keep his soul in light. For this reason it was
that they did not perceive lying ready to their hand in logical
sequence that which would have corrected their impiety, smitten, as it
were, with blindness, like the men of Sodom.
But he also says that the
essence of the Son is controlled by the Father, his exact words being
as follows:—“For He Who is and lives because of the Father,
does not appropriate this dignity, as the essence which controls even
Him attracts to itself the conception of the Existent.” If these
doctrines approve themselves to some of the sages “who are
without,” let not the Gospels nor the rest of the teaching of the
Holy Scripture be in any way disturbed. For what fellowship is there
between the creed of Christians and the wisdom that has been made
foolish957
? But if he leans upon the support of the
Scriptures, let him show one such declaration from the holy writings,
and we will hold our peace. I hear Paul cry aloud, “There is one
Lord Jesus Christ958
.” But Eunomius
shouts against Paul, calling Christ a slave. For we recognize no other
mark of a slave than to be subject and controlled. The slave is
assuredly a slave, but the slave cannot by nature be Lord, even though
the term be applied to Him by inexact use. And why should I bring
forward the declarations of Paul in evidence of the lordship of the
Lord? For Paul’s Master Himself tells His disciples that He is
truly Lord, accepting as He does the confession of those who called Him
Master and Lord. For He says, “Ye call Me Master and Lord; and ye
say well, for so I am959
.” And in the
same way He enjoined that the Father should be called Father by them,
saying, “Call no man master upon earth: for one is your Master,
even Christ: and call no man father upon earth, for one is your Father,
Which is in heaven960
.” To which then
ought we to give heed, as we are thus hemmed in between them? On one
side the Lord Himself, and he who has Christ speaking in him961
, enjoin us not to think of Him as a slave,
but to honour Him even as the Father is honoured, and on the other side
Eunomius brings his suit against the Lord, claiming Him as a slave,
when he says that He on Whose shoulders rests the government of the
universe is under dominion. Can our choice what to do be doubtful, or
is the decision which is the more advantageous course unimportant?
Shall I slight the advice of Paul, Eunomius? shall I deem the voice of
the Truth less trustworthy than thy deceit? But “if I had not
come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin962
.” Since then, He has spoken to them,
truly declaring Himself to be Lord, and that He is not falsely named
Lord (for He says, “I am,” not “I am called”),
what need is there that they should do that, whereon the vengeance is
inevitable because they are forewarned?
But perhaps, in answer to this,
he will again put forth his accustomed logic, and will say that the
same Being is both slave and Lord, dominated by the controlling power
but lording it over the rest. These profound distinctions are talked of
at the cross-roads, circulated by those who are enamoured of falsehood,
who confirm their idle notions about the Deity by illustrations from
the circumstances of ordinary life. For since the occurrences of this
world give us examples of such arrangements963
| 963 Oehler’s punctuation seems here to require
alteration. | (thus
in a wealthy establishment one may see the more active and devoted
servant set over his fellow-servants by the command of his master, and
so invested with superiority over others in the same rank and station),
they transfer this notion to the doctrines concerning the Godhead, so
that the Only-begotten God, though subject to the sovereignty of His
superior, is no way hindered by the authority of His sovereign in the
direction of those inferior to Him. But let us bid farewell to such
philosophy, and proceed to discuss this point according to the measure
of our intelligence. Do they confess that the Father is by nature Lord,
or do they hold that He arrived at this position by some kind of
election? I do not think that a man who has any share whatever of
intellect could come to such a pitch of madness as not to acknowledge
that the lordship of the God of all is His by nature. For that which is
by nature simple, uncompounded, and indivisible, whatever it happens to
be, that it is throughout in all its entirety, not becoming one thing
after another by some process of change, but remaining eternally in the
condition in which it is. What, then, is their belief about the
Only-begotten? Do they own that His essence is simple, or do they
suppose that in it there is any sort of composition? If they think that
He is some multiform thing, made up of many parts, assuredly they will
not concede Him even the name of Deity, but will drag down their
doctrine of the Christ to corporeal and material conceptions: but if
they agree that He is simple, how is it possible in the simplicity of
the subject to recognize the concurrence of contrary attributes? For
just as the contradictory opposition of life and death admits of no
mean, so in its distinguishing characteristics is domination
diametrically and irreconcilably opposed to servitude. For if one were
to consider each of these by itself, one could not properly frame any
definition that would apply alike to both, and where the definition of
things is not identical, their nature also is assuredly different. If
then the Lord is simple and uncompounded in nature, how can the
conjunction of contraries be found in the subject, as would be the case
if servitude mingled with lordship? But if He is acknowledged to be
Lord, in accordance with the teaching of the saints, the simplicity of
the subject is evidence that He can have no part or lot in the opposite
condition: while if they make Him out to be a slave, then it is idle
for them to ascribe to Him the title of lordship. For that which is
simple in nature is not parted asunder into contradictory attributes.
But if they affirm that He is one, and is called the other, that He is
by nature slave and Lord in name alone, let them boldly utter this
declaration and relieve us from the long labour of answering them. For
who can afford to be so leisurely in his treatment of inanities as to
employ arguments to demonstrate what is obvious and unambiguous? For if
a man were to inform against himself for the crime of murder, the
accuser would not be put to any trouble in bringing home to him by
evidence the charge of blood-guiltiness. In like manner we shall no
longer bring against our opponents, when they advance so far in
impiety, a confutation framed after examination of their case. For he
who affirms the Only-begotten to be a slave, makes Him out by so saying
to be a fellow-servant with himself: and hence will of necessity arise
a double enormity. For either he will despise his fellow-slave and deny
the faith, having shaken off the yoke of the lordship of Christ, or he
will bow before the slave, and, turning away from the self-determining
nature that owns no Lord over it, will in a manner worship himself
instead of God. For if he sees himself in slavery, and the object of
his worship also in slavery, he of course looks at himself, seeing the
whole of himself in that which he worships. But what reckoning can
count up all the other mischiefs that necessarily accompany this
pravity of doctrine? For who does not know that he who is by nature a
slave, and follows his avocation under the constraint imposed by a
master, cannot be removed even from the emotion of fear? And of this
the inspired Apostle is a witness, when he says, “Ye have not
received the spirit of bondage again to fear964
.” So that they will be found to
attribute, after the likeness of men, the emotion of fear also to their
fellow-servant God.
Such is the God of heresy. But
what we, who, in the words of the Apostle, have been called to liberty
by Christ965
, Who hath freed us from bondage, have
been taught by the Scriptures to think, I will set forth in few words.
I take my start from the inspired teaching, and boldly declare that the
Divine Word does not wish even us to be slaves, our nature having now
been changed for the better, and that He Who has taken all that was
ours, on the terms of giving to us in return what is His, even as He
took disease, death, curse, and sin, so took our slavery also, not in
such a way as Himself to have what He took, but so as to purge our
nature of such evils, our defects being swallowed up and done away with
in His stainless nature. As therefore in the life that we hope for
there will be neither disease, nor curse, nor sin, nor death, so
slavery also along with these will vanish away. And that what I say is
true I call the Truth Himself to witness, Who says to His disciples
“I call you no more servants, but friends966
.” If then our nature will be free at
length from the reproach of slavery, how comes the Lord of all to be
reduced to slavery by the madness and infatuation of these deranged
men, who must of course, as a logical consequence, assert that He does
not know the counsels of the Father, because of His declaration
concerning the slave, which tells us that “the servant knoweth
not what his lord doeth967
”? But when they
say this, let them hear that the Son has in Himself all that pertains
to the Father, and sees all things that the Father doeth, and none of
the good things that belong to the Father is outside the knowledge of
the Son. For how can He fail to have anything that is the
Father’s, seeing He has the Father wholly in Himself?
Accordingly, if “the servant knoweth not what his lord
doeth,” and if He has in Himself all things that are the
Father’s, let those who are reeling with strong drink at last
become sober, and let them now, if never before, look up at the truth,
and see that He who has all things that the Father has is lord of all,
and not a slave. For how can the personality that owns no lord over it
bear on itself the brand of slavery? How can the King of all fail to have
His form of like honour with Himself? how can dishonour—for
slavery is dishonour—constitute the brightness of the true glory?
and how is the King’s son born into slavery? No, it is not so.
But as He is Light of Light, and Life of Life, and Truth of Truth, so
is He Lord of Lord, King of King, God of God, Supreme of Supreme; for
having in Himself the Father in His entirety, whatever the Father has
in Himself He also assuredly has, and since, moreover, all that the Son
has belongs to the Father, the enemies of God’s glory are
inevitably compelled, if the Son is a slave, to drag down to servitude
the Father as well. For there is no attribute of the Son which is not
absolutely the Father’s. “For all Mine are Thine,” He
says, “and Thine are Mine968
.” What then
will the poor creatures say? Which is more reasonable—that the
Son, Who has said, “Thine are Mine, and I am glorified in them969
,” should be glorified in the
sovereignty of the Father, or that insult should be offered to the
Father by the degradation involved in the slavery of the Son? For it is
not possible that He Who contains in Himself all that belongs to the
Son, and Who is Himself in the Son, should not also absolutely be in
the slavery of the Son, and have slavery in Himself. Such are the
results achieved by Eunomius’ philosophy, whereby he inflicts
upon his Lord the insult of slavery, while he attaches the same
degradation to the stainless glory of the Father.
Let us however return once more
to the course of his treatise. What does Eunomius say concerning the
Only-begotten? That He “does not appropriate the dignity,”
for he calls the appellation of “being” a
“dignity.” A startling piece of philosophy! Who of all men
that have ever been, whether among Greeks or barbarian sages, who of
the men of our own day, who of the men of all time ever gave
“being” the name of “dignity”? For everything
that is regarded as subsisting970
| 970 ἐν
ὑποστάσει
θεωρούμενον | is said, by the
common custom of all who use language, to “be”: and from
the word “be” has been formed the term “being.”
But now the expression “dignity” is applied in a new
fashion to the idea expressed by “being.” For he says that
“the Son, Who is and lives because of the Father, does not
appropriate this dignity,” having no Scripture to support his
statement, and not conducting his statement to so senseless a
conclusion by any process of logical inference, but as if he had taken
into his intestines some windy food, he belches forth his blasphemy in
its crude and unmethodized form, like some unsavoury breath. “He
does not appropriate this dignity.” Let us concede the point of
“being” being called “dignity.” What then? does
He Who is not appropriate being? “No,” says Eunomius,
“because He exists by reason of the Father.” Do you not
then say that He Who does not appropriate being is not? for “not
to appropriate” has the same force as “to be alien
from”, and the mutual opposition of the ideas971
| 971 The
ideas of “own” implied in “appropriate,” and
that of incongruity implied in “alienation.” |
is evident. For that which is “proper” is not
“alien,” and that which is “alien” is not
“proper.” He therefore Who does not
“appropriate” being is obviously alien from being: and He
Who is alien from being is nonexistent.
But his cogent proof of this
absurdity he brings forward in the words, “as the essence which
controls even Him attracts to itself the conception of the
Existent.” Let us say nothing about the awkwardness of the
combination here: let us examine his serious meaning. What argument
ever demonstrated this? He superfluously reiterates to us his statement
of the Essence of the Father having sovereignty over the Son. What
evangelist is the patron of this doctrine? What process of dialectic
conducts us to it. What premises support it? What line of argument ever
demonstrated by any logical consequence that the Only-begotten God is
under dominion? “But,” says he, “the essence that is
dominant over the Son attracts to itself the conception of the
Existent.” What is the meaning of the attraction of the existent?
and how comes the phrase of “attracting” to be flung on the
top of what he has said before? Assuredly he who considers the force of
words will judge for himself. About this, however, we will say nothing:
but we will take up again that argument that he does not grant
essential being to Him to Whom he does not leave the title of the
Existent. And why does he idly fight with shadows, contending about the
non-existent being this or that? For that which does not exist is of
course neither like anything else, nor unlike. But while granting that
He is existent he forbids Him to be so called. Alas for the vain
precision of haggling about the sound of a word while making
concessions on the more important matter! But in what sense does He,
Who, as he says, has dominion over the Son, “attract to Himself
the conception of the Existent”? For if he says that the Father
attracts His own essence, this process of attraction is superfluous:
for existence is His already, without being attracted. If, on the other
hand, his meaning is that the existence of the Son is attracted by the
Father, I cannot make out how existence is to be wrenched from the Existent,
and to pass over to Him Who “attracts” it. Can he be
dreaming of the error of Sabellius, as though the Son did not exist in
Himself, but was painted on to the personal existence of the Father? is
this his meaning in the expression that the conception of the Existent
is attracted by the essence which exercises domination over the Son? or
does he, while not denying the personal existence of the Son,
nevertheless say that He is separated from the meaning conveyed by the
term “the Existent”? And yet, how can “the
Existent” be separated from the conception of existence? For as
long as anything is what it is, nature does not admit that it should
not be what it is. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
