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| He then exposes the ignorance of Eunomius, and the incoherence and absurdity of his arguments, in speaking of the Son as “the Angel of the Existent,” and as being as much below the Divine Nature as the Son is superior to the things created by Himself. And in this connection there is a noble and forcible counter-statement and an indignant refutation, showing that He Who gave the oracles to Moses is Himself the Existent, the Only-begotten Son, Who to the petition of Moses, “If Thou Thyself goest not with us, carry me not up hence,” said, “I will do this also that thou hast said”; Who is also called “Angel” both by Moses and Isaiah: wherein is cited the text, “Unto us a Child is born.”
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§3. He then exposes the ignorance of Eunomius, and
the incoherence and absurdity of his arguments, in speaking of the Son
as “the Angel of the Existent,” and as being as much below
the Divine Nature as the Son is superior to the things created by
Himself. And in this connection there is a noble and forcible
counter-statement and an indignant refutation, showing that He Who gave
the oracles to Moses is Himself the Existent, the Only-begotten Son,
Who to the petition of Moses, “If Thou Thyself goest not with us,
carry me not up hence,” said, “I will do this also that
thou hast said”; Who is also called “Angel” both by
Moses and Isaiah: wherein is cited the text, “Unto us a Child is
born.”
But that the research and
culture of our imposing author may be completely disclosed, we will
consider sentence by sentence his presentment of his sentiments.
“The Son,” he says, “does not appropriate the dignity
of the Existent,” giving the name of “dignity” to the
actual fact of being:—(with what propriety he knows how to adapt
words to things!)—and since He is “by reason of the
Father,” he says that He is alienated from Himself on the ground
that the essence which is supreme over Him attracts to itself the
conception of the Existent. This is much the same as if one were to say
that he who is bought for money, in so far as he is in his own
existence, is not the person bought, but the purchaser, inasmuch as his
essential personal existence is absorbed into the nature of him who has
acquired authority over him. Such are the lofty conceptions of our
divine: but what is the demonstration of his
statements?….“the Only-begotten,” he says,
“Himself ascribing to the Father the title due of right to Him
alone,” and then he introduces the point that the Father alone is
good. Where in this does the Son disclaim the title of
“Existent”? Yet this is what Eunomius is driving at when he
goes on word for word as follows:—“For He Who has taught us
that the appellation ‘good’ belongs to Him alone Who is the
cause of His own goodness and of all goodness, and is so at all times,
and Who refers to Him all good that has ever come into being, would be
slow to appropriate to Himself the authority over all things that have
come into being, and the title of ‘the Existent.’”
What has “authority” to do with the context? and how along
with this is the Son also alienated from the title of
“Existent”? But really I do not know what one ought rather
to do at this,—to laugh at the want of education, or to pity the
pernicious folly which it displays. For the expression, “His
own,” not employed according to the natural meaning, and as those
who know how to use language are wont to use it, attests his extensive
knowledge of the grammar of pronouns, which even little boys get up
with their masters without trouble, and his ridiculous wandering from
the subject to what has nothing to do either with his argument or with
the form of that argument, considered as syllogistic, namely, that the
Son has no share in the appellation of “Existent”—an
assertion adapted to his monstrous inventions990
| 990 Oehler’s punctuation is here apparently erroneous. The
position of συμπεραστικῷ
is peculiar and the general construction of the
passage a little obscure: but if the text is to be regarded as sound,
the meaning must be something like that here given. | ,—this and similar absurdities seem
combined together for the purpose of provoking laughter; so that it may
be that readers of the more careless sort experience some such
inclination, and are amused by the disjointedness of his arguments. But
that God the Word should not exist, or that He at all events should not
be good (and this is what Eunomius maintains when he says that He does
not “appropriate the title” of “Existent” and
“good”), and to make out that the authority over all things
that come into being does not belong to him,—this calls for our
tears, and for a wail of mourning.
For it is not as if he had but
let fall something of the kind just once under some headlong and
inconsiderate impulse, and in what followed had striven to retrieve his
error: no, he dallies lingeringly with the malignity, striving in his
later statements to surpass what had gone before. For as he proceeds,
he says that the Son is the same distance below the Divine Nature as
the nature of angels is subjected below His own, not indeed saying this
in so many words, but endeavouring by what he does say to produce such
an impression. The reader may judge for himself the meaning of his
words: they run as follows,—“Who, by being called
‘Angel,’ clearly showed by Whom He published His
words, and Who is the Existent, while by being addressed also as God,
He showed His superiority over all things. For He Who is the God of all
things that were made by Him, is the Angel of the God over all.”
Indignation rushes into my heart and interrupts my discourse, and under
this emotion arguments are lost in a turmoil of anger roused by words
like these. And perhaps I may be pardoned for feeling such emotion. For
whose resentment would not be stirred within him at such profanity,
when he remembers how the Apostle proclaims that every angelic nature
is subject to the Lord, and in witness of his doctrine invokes the
sublime utterances of the prophets:—“When He bringeth the
first-begotten into the world, He saith, And let all the angels of God
worship Him,” and, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and
ever,” and, “Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not
fail991
”? When the Apostle has gone through all
this argument to demonstrate the unapproachable majesty of the
Only-begotten God, what must I feel when I hear from the adversary of
Christ that the Lord of Angels is Himself only an Angel,—and when
he does not let such a statement fall by chance, but puts forth his
strength to maintain this monstrous invention, so that it may be
established that his Lord has no superiority over John and Moses? For
the word says concerning them, “This is he of whom it is written,
‘Behold I send my angel before thy face992
| 992 S. Matt. xi. 10, quoting
Mal. iii. 1. The word translated “messenger” in A.V.
is ἄγγελος, which the argument here seems to require should be rendered by
“angel.” | .’” John therefore is an angel.
But the enemy of the Lord, even though he grants his Lord the name of
God, yet makes Him out to be on a level with the deity of Moses, since
he too was a servant of the God over all, and was constituted a god to
the Egyptians993
. And yet this phrase, “over
all,” as has been previously observed, is common to the Son with
the Father, the Apostle having expressly ascribed such a title to Him,
when he says, “Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, Who
is God over all994
.” But this man
degrades the Lord of angels to the rank of an angel, as though he had
not heard that the angels are “ministering spirits,” and
“a flame of fire995
| 995 Cf. Heb. i. 14 and 7. | .” For by the
use of these distinctive terms does the Apostle make the difference
between the several subjects clear and unmistakable, defining the
subordinate nature to be “spirits” and “fire,”
and distinguishing the supreme power by the name of Godhead. And yet,
though there are so many that proclaim the glory of the Only-begotten
God, against them all Eunomius lifts up his single voice, calling the
Christ “an angel of the God over all,” defining Him, by
thus contrasting Him with the “God over all,” to be one of
the “all things,” and, by giving Him the same name as the
angels, trying to establish that He no wise differs from them in
nature: for he has often previously said that all those things which
share the same name cannot be different in nature. Does the argument,
then, still lack its censors, as it concerns a man who proclaims in so
many words that the “Angel” does not publish His own word,
but that of the Existent? For it is by this means that he tries to show
that the Word Who was in the beginning, the Word Who was God, is not
Himself the Word, but is the Word of some other Word, being its
minister and “angel.” And who knows not that the only
opposite to the “Existent” is the nonexistent? so that he
who contrasts the Son with the Existent, is clearly playing the Jew,
robbing the Christian doctrine of the Person of the Only-begotten. For
in saying that He is excluded from the title of the
“Existent,” he is assuredly trying to establish also that
He is outside the pale of existence: for surely if he grants Him
existence, he will not quarrel about the sound of the word.
But he strives to prop up his
absurdity by the testimony of Scripture, and puts forth Moses as his
advocate against the truth. For as though that were the source from
which he drew his arguments, he freely sets forth to us his own fables,
saying, “He Who sent Moses was the Existent Himself, but He by
Whom He sent and spake was the Angel of the Existent, and the God
of all else.” That his statement, however, is not drawn from
Scripture, may be conclusively proved by Scripture itself. But if he
says that this is the sense of what is written, we must examine the
original language of Scripture. Moreover let us first notice that
Eunomius, after calling the Lord God of all things after Him, allows
Him no superiority in comparison with the angelic nature. For neither
did Moses, when he heard that he was made a god to Pharaoh996
, pass beyond the bounds of humanity, but
while in nature he was on an equality with his fellows, he was raised
above them by superiority of authority, and his being called a god did
not hinder him from being man. So too in this case Eunomius, while
making out the Son to be one of the angels, salves over such an error
by the appellation of Godhead, in the manner expressed, allowing Him
the title of God in some equivocal sense. Let us once more set down and
examine the very words in which he delivers his blasphemy. “He
Who sent Moses was the Existent Himself, but He by Whom He sent was the
Angel of the Existent”—this, namely “Angel,”
being the title he gives his Lord. Well, the absurdity of our author is
refuted by the Scripture itself, in the passage where Moses beseeches
the Lord not to entrust an angel with the leadership of the people, but
Himself to conduct their march. The passage runs thus: God is speaking,
“Go, get thee down, guide this people unto the place of which I
have spoken unto thee: behold Mine Angel shall go before thee in the
day when I visit997
.” And a little
while after He says again, “And I will send Mine Angel before
thee998
.” Then, a little after what immediately
follows, comes the supplication to God on the part of His servant,
running on this wise, “If I have found grace in Thy sight, let my
Lord go among us999
,” and again,
“If Thou Thyself go not with us, carry me not up hence1000
”; and then the answer of God to Moses,
“I will do for thee this thing also that thou hast spoken: for
thou hast found grace in My sight, and I know thee above all men1001
.” Accordingly, if Moses begs that the
people may not be led by an angel, and if He Who was discoursing with
him consents to become his fellow-traveller and the guide of the army,
it is hereby manifestly shown that He Who made Himself known by the
title of “the Existent” is the Only-begotten
God.
If any one gainsays this, he
will show himself to be a supporter of the Jewish persuasion in not
associating the Son with the deliverance of the people. For if, on the
one hand, it was not an angel that went forth with the people, and if,
on the other, as Eunomius would have it, He Who was manifested by the
name of the Existent is not the Only-begotten, this amounts to nothing
less than transferring the doctrines of the synagogue to the Church of
God. Accordingly, of the two alternatives they must needs admit one,
namely, either that the Only-begotten God on no occasion appeared to
Moses, or that the Son is Himself the “Existent,” from Whom
the word came to His servant. But he contradicts what has been said
above, alleging the Scripture itself1002
which informs
us that the voice of an angel was interposed, and that it was thus that
the discourse of the Existent was conveyed. This, however, is no
contradiction, but a confirmation of our view. For we too say plainly,
that the prophet, wishing to make manifest to men the mystery
concerning Christ, called the Self-Existent “Angel,” that
the meaning of the words might not be referred to the Father, as it
would have been if the title of “Existent” alone had been
found throughout the discourse. But just as our word is the revealer
and messenger (or “angel”) of the movements of the mind,
even so we affirm that the true Word that was in the beginning, when He
announces the will of His own Father, is styled “Angel” (or
“Messenger”), a title given to Him on account of the
operation of conveying the message. And as the sublime John, having
previously called Him “Word,” so introduces the further
truth that the Word was God, that our thoughts might not at once turn
to the Father, as they would have done if the title of God had been put
first, so too does the mighty Moses, after first calling Him
“Angel,” teach us in the words that follow that He is none
other than the Self-Existent Himself, that the mystery concerning the
Christ might be foreshown, by the Scripture assuring us by the name
“Angel,” that the Word is the interpreter of the
Father’s will, and, by the title of the
“Self-Existent,” of the closeness of relation subsisting
between the Son and the Father. And if he should bring forward Isaiah
also as calling Him “the Angel of mighty counsel1003
,” not even so will he overthrow our
argument. For there, in clear and uncontrovertible terms, there is
indicated by the prophecy the dispensation of His Humanity; for
“unto us,” he says, “a Child is born, unto us a Son
is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name
is called the Angel of mighty counsel.” And it is with an eye to
this, I suppose, that David describes the establishment of His kingdom,
not as though He were not a King, but in the view that the humiliation
to the estate of a servant to which the Lord submitted by way of
dispensation, was taken up and absorbed into the majesty of His
Kingdom. For he says, “I was established King by Him on His holy
hill of Sion, declaring the ordinance of the Lord.”1004
Accordingly, He Who through Himself reveals
the goodness of the Father is called “Angel” and
“Word,” “Seal” and “Image,” and all
similar titles with the same intention. For as the “Angel”
(or “Messenger”) gives information from some one, even so
the Word reveals the thought within, the Seal shows by Its own stamp
the original mould, and the Image by Itself interprets the beauty of
that whereof It is the image, so that in their signification all these
terms are equivalent to one another. For this reason the title
“Angel” is placed before that of the
“Self-Existent,” the Son being termed “Angel”
as the exponent of His Father’s will, and the
“Existent” as having no name that could possibly give a
knowledge of His essence, but transcending all the power of names to
express. Wherefore also His name is testified by the writing of the Apostle
to be “above every name1005
,” not as
though it were some one name preferred above all others, though still
comparable with them, but rather in the sense that He Who verily
is is above every name.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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