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| He further proceeds notably to interpret the language of the Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word,” and “Life” and “Light,” and “The Word was made flesh,” which had been misinterpreted by Eunomius; and overthrows his blasphemy, and shows that the dispensation of the Lord took place by loving-kindness, not by lack of power, and with the co-operation of the Father.
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§3. He further proceeds notably to interpret the language
of the Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word,” and
“Life” and “Light,” and “The Word was
made flesh,” which had been misinterpreted by Eunomius; and
overthrows his blasphemy, and shows that the dispensation of the Lord
took place by loving-kindness, not by lack of power, and with the
co-operation of the Father.
But he puts his strength into his idle contention and says,
“From the facts themselves, and from the oracles that are
believed, I present the proof of my statement.” Such is his
promise, but whether the arguments he advances bear out his
professions, the discerning reader will of course consider. “The
blessed John,” he says, “after saying that the Word was in
the beginning, and after calling Him Life, and subsequently giving the
Life the further title of ‘Light,’ says, a little later,
‘And the Word was made flesh1047
| 1047 Cf.
S. John i. 4 and 14. | .’ If
then the Light is Life, and the Word is Life, and the Word was made
flesh, it thence becomes plain that the Light was incarnate.”
What then? because the Light and the Life, and God and the Word, was
manifested in flesh, does it follow that the true Light is divergent in
any degree from the Light which is in the Father? Nay, it is attested
by the Gospel that, even when it had place in darkness, the light
remained unapproachable by the contrary element: for “the
Light,” he says, “shined in darkness, and the darkness
comprehended it not1048
| 1048 S. John i. 5 (A.V., following the Vulgate). The word κατέλαβε is perhaps better rendered by “overtook.”
“As applied to light this sense includes the further notion of
overwhelming, eclipsing. The relation of darkness to light is one of
essential antagonism. If the darkness is represented as pursuing the
light, it can only be to overshadow and not to appropriate it.”
(Westcott on S. John ad loc.) | .” If then the
light when it found place in darkness had been changed to its contrary,
and overpowered by gloom, this would have been a strong argument in
support of the view of those who wish to show how far inferior is this
Light in comparison with that contemplated in the Father. But if the
Word, even though it be in the flesh, remains the Word, and if the
Light, even though it shines in darkness, is no less Light, without
admitting the fellowship of its contrary, and if the Life, even though
it be in death, remains secure in Itself, and if God, even though He
submit to take upon Him the form of a servant, does not Himself become
a servant, but takes away the slavish subordination and absorbs it into
lordship and royalty, making that which was human and lowly to become
both Lord and Christ,—if all this be so, how does he show by this
argument variation of the Light to inferiority, when each Light has in
equal measure the property of being inconvertible to evil, and
unalterable? And how is it that he also fails to observe this, that he
who looked on the incarnate Word, Who was both Light and Life and God,
recognized, through the glory which he saw, the Father of glory, and
says, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of
the Father1049
”?
But he has reached the
irrefutable argument which we long ago detected lurking in the sequel
of his statements1050
| 1050 The
passage has already been cited by S. Gregory, Book V §3 (p. 176
sup.). | , but which is here
proclaimed aloud without disguise. For he wishes to show that the
essence of the Son is subject to passion, and to decay, and in no wise
differs from material nature, which is in a state of flux, that by this
means he may demonstrate His difference from the Father. For he says,
“If he can show that the God Who is over all, Who is the Light
unapproachable, was incarnate or could be incarnate, came under
authority, obeyed commands, came under the laws of men, bore the Cross,
let him say that the Light is equal to the Light.” If these words
had been brought forward by us as following by necessary consequence
from premises laid down by Eunomius, who would not have charged us with
unfairness, in employing an over-subtle dialectic to reduce our
adversaries’ statement to such an absurdity? But as things stand,
the fact that they themselves make no attempt to suppress the absurdity
that naturally follows from their assumption, helps to support our
contention that it was not without due reflection that, with the help
of truth, we censured the argument of heresy. For behold, how
undisguised and outspoken is their striving against the Only-begotten
God! Nay, by His enemies His work of mercy is reckoned a means of
disparaging and maligning the Nature of the Son of God, as though not
of deliberate purpose, but by a compulsion of His Nature he had slipped
down to life in the flesh, and to the suffering of the Cross! And as it
is the nature of a stone to fall downward, and of fire to rise upward,
and as these material objects do not exchange their natures one with
another, so that the stone should have an upward tendency, and fire be
depressed by its weight and sink downwards, even so they make out that
passion was part of the very Nature of the Son, and that for this cause
He came to that which was akin and familiar to Him, but that the Nature
of the Father, being free from such passions, remained unapproachable
by the contact of evil. For he says, that the God Who is over all, Who
is Light unapproachable, neither was incarnate nor could be incarnate.
The first of the two statements was quite enough, that the Father did
not become incarnate. But now by his addition a double absurdity
arises; for he either charges the Son with evil, or the Father with
powerlessness. For if to partake of our flesh is evil, then he
predicates evil of the Only-begotten God; but if the lovingkindness to
man was good, then he makes out the Father to be powerless for good, by
saying that it would not have been in His power to have effectually
bestowed such grace by taking flesh. And yet who in the world does not know
that life-giving power proceeds to actual operation both in the Father
and in the Son? “For as the Father raiseth up the dead and
quickeneth them,” He says, “even so the Son quickeneth whom
He will1051
,”—meaning obviously by
“dead” us who had fallen from the true life. If then it is
even so as the Father quickeneth, and not otherwise, that the Son
brings to operation the same grace, how comes it that the adversary of
God moves his profane tongue against both, insulting the Father by
attributing to Him powerlessness for good, and the Son by attributing
to Him association with evil. But “Light,” he says,
“is not equal to Light,” because the one he calls
“true,” and the other “unapproachable.” Is then
the true considered to be a diminution of the unapproachable? Why so?
and yet their argument is that the Godhead of the Father must be
conceived to be greater and more exalted than that of the Son, because
the one is called in the Gospel “true God1052
,” the other “God1053
” without the addition of
“true.” How then does the same term, as applied to the
Godhead, indicate an enhancement of the conception, and, as applied to
Light, a diminution? For if they say that the Father is greater than
the Son because He is true God, by the same showing the Son would be
acknowledged to be greater than the Father, because the former is
called “true Light1054
,” and the
latter not so. “But this Light,” says Eunomius,
“carried into effect the plan of mercy, while the other remained
inoperative with respect to that gracious action.” A new and
strange mode of determining priority in dignity! They judge that which
is ineffective for a benevolent purpose to be superior to that which is
operative. But such a notion as this neither exists nor ever will be
found amongst Christians,—a notion by which it is made out that
every good that is in existent things has not its origin from the
Father. But of goods that pertain to us men, the crowning blessing is
held by all right-minded men to be the return to life; and it is
secured by the dispensation carried out by the Lord in His human
nature; not that the Father remained aloof, as heresy will have it,
ineffective and inoperative during the time of this dispensation. For
it is not this that He indicates Who said, “He that sent Me is
with Me1055
,” and “The Father that
dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works1056
.” With
what right then does heresy attribute to the Son alone the gracious
intervention on our behalf, and thereby exclude the Father from having
any part or lot in our gratitude for its successful issue? For
naturally the requital of thanks is due to our benefactors alone, and
He Who is incapable of benefiting us is outside the pale of our
gratitude. See you how the course of their profane attack upon the
Only-begotten Son has missed its mark, and is working round in natural
consequence so as to be directed against the majesty of the Father? And
this seems to me to be a necessary result of their method of
proceeding. For if he that honoureth the Son honoureth the Father1057
, according to the Divine declaration, it is
plain on the other side that an assault upon the Son strikes at the
Father. But I say that to those who with simplicity of heart receive
the preaching of the Cross and the resurrection, the same grace should
be a cause of equal thankfulness to the Son and to the Father, and now
that the Son has accomplished the Father’s will (and this, in the
language of the Apostle, is “that all men should be saved1058
”), they ought for this boon to honour
the Father and the Son alike, inasmuch as our salvation would not have
been wrought, had not the good will of the Father proceeded to actual
operation for us through His own power. And we have learnt from the
Scripture that the Son is the power of the Father1059
.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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