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| He also ingeniously shows from the passage of the Gospel which speaks of “Good Master,” from the parable of the Vineyard, from Isaiah and from Paul, that there is not a dualism in the Godhead of good and evil, as Eunomius' ally Marcion supposes, and declares that the Son does not refuse the title of “good” or “Existent,” or acknowledge His alienation from the Father, but that to Him also belongs authority over all things that come into being.
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§2. He also ingeniously shows from the passage of the
Gospel which speaks of “Good Master,” from the parable of
the Vineyard, from Isaiah and from Paul, that there is not a dualism in
the Godhead of good and evil, as Eunomius’ ally Marcion supposes,
and declares that the Son does not refuse the title of
“good” or “Existent,” or acknowledge His
alienation from the Father, but that to Him also belongs authority over
all things that come into being.
Not even Marcion himself, the
patron of your opinions, supports you in this. It is true that in
common with you he holds a dualism of gods, and thinks that one is
different in nature from the other, but it is the more courteous view
to attribute goodness to the God of the Gospel. You however actually
separate the Only-begotten God from the nature of good, that you may
surpass even Marcion in the depravity of your doctrines. However, they
claim the Scripture on their side, and say that they are hardly treated
when they are accused for using the very words of Scripture. For they
say that the Lord Himself has said, “There is none good but one,
that is, God976
.” Accordingly, that
misrepresentation may not prevail against the Divine words, we will
briefly examine the actual passage in the Gospel. The history regards
the rich man to whom the Lord spoke this word as young—the kind
of person, I suppose, inclined to enjoy the pleasures of this
life—and attached to his possessions; for it says that he was
grieved at the advice to part with what he had, and that he did not
choose to exchange his property for life eternal. This man, when he
heard that a teacher of eternal life was in the neighbourhood, came to
him in the expectation of living in perpetual luxury, with life
indefinitely extended, flattering the Lord with the title of
“good,”—flattering, I should rather say, not the Lord
as we conceive Him, but as He then appeared in the form of a servant.
For his character was not such as to enable him to penetrate the
outward veil of flesh, and see through it into the inner shrine of
Deity. The Lord, then, Who seeth the hearts, discerned the motive with
which the young man approached Him as a suppliant,—that he did
so, not with a soul intently fixed upon the Divine, but that it was the
man whom he besought, calling Him “Good Master,”
because he hoped to learn from Him some lore by which the approach of
death might be hindered. Accordingly, with good reason did He Who was
thus besought by him answer even as He was addressed977
| 977 i.e.as man, and not as God. | .
For as the entreaty was not addressed to God the Word, so
correspondingly the answer was delivered to the applicant by the
Humanity of Christ, thereby impressing on the youth a double lesson.
For He teaches him, by one and the same answer, both the duty of
reverencing and paying homage to the Divinity, not by flattering
speeches but by his life, by keeping the commandments and buying life
eternal at the cost of all possessions, and also the truth that
humanity, having been sunk in depravity by reason of sin, is debarred
from the title of “Good”: and for this reason He says,
“Why callest Thou Me good?” suggesting in His answer by the
word “Me” that human nature which encompassed Him, while by
attributing goodness to the Godhead He expressly declared Himself to be
good, seeing that He is proclaimed to be God by the Gospel. For had the
Only-begotten Son been excluded from the title of God, it would perhaps
not have been absurd to think Him alien also from the appellation of
“good.” But if, as is the case, prophets, evangelists, and
Apostles proclaim aloud the Godhead of the Only-begotten, and if the
name of goodness is attested by the Lord Himself to belong to God, how
is it possible that He Who is partaker of the Godhead should not be
partaker of the goodness too? For that both prophets, evangelists,
disciples and apostles acknowledge the Lord as God, there is none so
uninitiated in Divine mysteries as to need to be expressly told. For
who knows not that in the forty-fourth978
| 978 Ps. xlv. 7, 8. (The Psalm is
the 44th in the LXX. numeration, and is so styled by S.
Gregory.) | Psalm
the prophet in his word affirms the Christ to be God, anointed by God?
And again, who of all that are conversant with prophecy is unaware that
Isaiah, among other passages, thus openly proclaims the Godhead of the
Son, where he says: “The Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over
unto thee, and shall be servants unto thee: they shall come after thee
bound in fetters, and in thee shall they make supplication, because God
is in thee, and there is no God beside thee; for thou art God979
.” For what other God there is Who has
God in Himself, and is Himself God, except the Only-begotten, let them
say who hearken not to the prophecy; but of the interpretation of
Emmanuel, and the confession of Thomas after his recognition of the
Lord, and the sublime diction of John, as being manifest even to those
who are outside the faith, I will say nothing. Nay, I do not even think
it necessary to bring forward in detail the utterances of Paul, since
they are, as one may say, in all men’s mouths, who gives the Lord
the appellation not only of “God,” but of “great
God” and “God over all,” saying to the Romans,
“Whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh,
Christ came, Who is over all, God blessed for ever980
,” and writing to his disciple Titus,
“According to the appearing of Jesus Christ the great God and our
Saviour981
| 981 Cf. Tit. ii. 13. The quotation is not verbal; and here the rendering of the
A.V. rather obscures the sense which it is necessary for S.
Gregory’s argument to bring out. | ,” and to Timothy, proclaims in plain
terms, “God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit982
| 982 1 Tim. iii.
16 (reading Θεός, or, if the
citation is to be considered as verbal, ὁ Θεός). | .” Since then the fact has been
demonstrated on every side that the Only-begotten God is God983
| 983 Reading τοῦ
Θεὸν εἶναι
τὸν μονογενῆ
Θεὸν for τοῦ Θεοῦ
εἶναι κ.τ.λ. The reading of the texts does not give the sense required for
the argument. | , how is it that he who says that goodness
belongs to God, strives to show that the Godhead of the Son is alien
from this ascription, and this though the Lord has actually claimed for
Himself the epithet “good” in the parable of those who were
hired into the vineyard? For there, when those who had laboured before
the others were dissatisfied at all receiving the same pay, and deemed
the good fortune of the last to be their own loss, the just judge says
to one of the murmurers984
| 984 Compare
with what follows S. Matt. xx. 13;
15.
S. Gregory seems to be quoting from memory; his Greek is not so close
to that of S. Matthew as the translation to the A.V. | , “Friend, I do
thee no wrong: did I not agree with thee for a penny a day? Lo, there
thou hast that is thine985
: I will bestow upon
this last even as upon thee. Have I not power to do what I will with
mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am good?” Of course no one
will contest the point that to distribute recompense according to
desert is the special function of the judge; and all the disciples of
the Gospel agree that the Only-begotten God is Judge; “for the
Father,” He saith, “judgeth no man, but hath committed all
judgment unto the Son986
.” But they do
not set themselves in opposition987
| 987 This
seems a sense etymologically possible for καθίστανται
with a genitive, a use of which Liddell and Scott give
no instances. The statement must of course be taken as that of the
adversaries themselves. | to the
Scriptures. For they say that the word “one” absolutely
points to the Father. For He saith, “There is none good but one,
that is God.” Will truth then lack vigour to plead her own cause?
Surely there are many means easily to convict of deception this quibble
also. For He Who said this concerning the Father spake also to the
Father that other word, “All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine,
and I am glorified in them988
.” Now if He
says that all that is the Father’s is also the Son’s, and
goodness is one of the attributes pertaining to the Father, either the
Son has not all things if He has not this, and they will be saying that
the Truth lies, or if it is impious to suspect the very Truth of being
carried away into falsehood, then He Who claimed all that is the
Father’s as His own, thereby asserted that He was not outside of
goodness. For He Who has the Father in Himself, and contains all things
that belong to the Father, manifestly has His goodness with “all
things.” Therefore the Son is Good. But “there is none
good,” he says, “but one, that is God.” This is what
is alleged by our adversaries: nor do I myself reject the statement. I
do not, however, for this cause deny the Godhead of the Son. But he who
confesses that the Lord is God, by that very confession assuredly also
asserts of Him goodness. For if goodness is a property of God, and if
the Lord is God, then by our premises the Son is shown to be God.
“But,” says our opponent, “the word ‘one’
excludes the Son from participation in goodness.” It is easy,
however, to show that not even the word “one” separates the
Father from the Son. For in all other cases, it is true, the term
“one” carries with it the signification of not being
coupled with anything else, but in the case of the Father and the Son
“one” does not imply isolation. For He says, “I and
the Father are one989
.” If, then, the
good is one, and a particular kind of unity is contemplated in the
Father and the Son, it follows that the Lord, in predicating goodness
of “one,” claimed under the term “one” the
title of “good” also for Himself, Who is one with the
Father, and not severed from oneness of nature.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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