Against Eunomius

INTRODUCTION

those lines needed for an adequate representation of his opponent's viewpoint.132 In rare cases Basil omits parts of Eunomius's text,!33 or alters it.l34 But for the most part Basil cites EunomlUS accurately and even paraphrases him fairly. 1" Prec~dents for such a methodology in both Christian and philosophiCal sourcaction against Eunomians. Seeing them as a threat to the imperial government, he outlawed the Eunomian community. In the summer of 389, Theodosius had Eunomius arrested, and, in the spring of 390, exiled to Cappadocian Caesarea, though he resided outside the city at an estate called Dacora because of the hatred of Caesarea's citizens for him. Despite his confinement, Eunomius still received visitors and oversaw the Eunomian community.!" One of his visitors was a twenty-year-old

Philostorgius, who later wrote a pro-Heteroousian history of the fourth-century church. 1'. es include Origen's Against Celsus, Marcellus of Ancyra's Again~t

Asterius Eusebius of Caesarea's Against Marcellus, and Iambhchus's On the Mysteries. Each author conducts his refutations in the same way as Basil, alternating citation and refutation. After Basil's death, Gregory of Nyssa refuted Eunomius's Apology for the Apology in much the same manner as Basil had. refuted the original Apology. Accordingly, Basil's Against Eunomlus stan.ds m

Though it is hard to imagine, Eunomius's fortunes took a turn for the worse when Theodosius died in 395. The new eastern a long tradition of polemical literature and ne.eds to be mt~r preted as such.136 As a consequence, the. do.ctnne of the Tnnemperor Arcadius, a seventeen-year-old boy, fell under the 1nfluence of the eunuch Eutropius, who began a crackdown on Eunomians. In 396 he ordered the expulsion of Eunomians from the cities. Eunomius was transferred from Caesarea to a rustic monastic community in Tyana, where, as an old man now in his seventies, he died soon afterwards, perhaps during the winter of 396-397.1'1 By this time all three of his Cappadocian opponents were dead. As mentioned earlier, Basil died in 378. Gregory of Nazianzus died in 390, and Gregory of Nyssa in 394 or 395. Eunomius may have outlived them all, but their efforts had ensured the bleak circumstances of his twilight years and the abiding notoriety of his name after his death. ity that Basil develops in Against Eunomlus IS not. the product of dispassionate "academic" reflection but an e.mot1o~ally laden defense of Christian truth (as Basil perceived It) agamst one of its chief detractors.

The polemical character of Against Eunomius is m~st apparent in the sarcasm and ad hominem attacks on EunomlUs, mtertwined with real engagement with his opponent's ideas. While such invective typically featured in polemical texts fr?m antIquity, Basil displays a certain gusto in his vitriol: Ac~ord~ng to Basil Eunomius is nothing more than a schemmg, ImpiOUS charla~n who attempts to trick people into denying the divinity of the Son of God. He is "lying, stupid, wanton, dissembling, and blasphemous."I37 Basil blasts Eunomius again an~ ag,~in for the arrogance he displays in so many ways: for wantmg to be pro-

IV. THE POLEMICAL AND THEOLOGICAL

CONTENT OF AGAINST EUNOMIUS

The Genre of Against Eunomius Basil's Against Eunomius is a polemical treatise, a point-bypoint refutation of the methodology and main tenets of Eunomius's Heteroousian theology as presented in his Apology. Basilproceeds by citing a few lines of Eunomius, then arguing at length against the suppositions or ideas expressed in the quotation. He does not cite every line of Eunomius's text, but only

132. See Dreco1148-55 for a discussion of Basil's use ofthe Apology, esp. the chart on p. 50.

133. E.g., in Eun. 2.18, Basil cites Apol. 15.3-7 (EW 50-52) but omits parts efit.

134. E.g., in Eun. 2.20, Basil cites Apol. 15.14-15 (EW 52) but adds napa ~OVO\) to Eunomius's text.

135. E.g., in Eun. 2.31, Basil paraphrases Apol. 2~.13,-~.5 (~W 60).

136. Drecoll 58 characterizes the Eun. as a.n antlhareusche Refu.ta~lOn~~ schrift." The specific rhetorical~dialectical techmques employed by BaSil In Ius polemic are discussed by Drecoll 56-63 and Hildebrand 150-60 .

12g. Vaggione 355-57.

131. Vaggione 357-60.

130. Philostorgius, h.c. 10.6.

137. Eun. 1.1.

INTRODUCTION

claimed the pioneer and the patron of the entire heresy,"I'S for verse in as many ways as Basil's caricature makes him out to be,

~avmg ~n o;erblown sense of self-importance, 189 for introducing mnovatlOn mto the faith of the fathers,14o for claiming to know the substance of God,141 and so forth. Basil attacks Eunomius with biting sarcasm. For example, he calls Eunomius's apology

"b '11'

"142 H C n lant. e re,ers to Eunomius as "an unconquerable and I 't "14' d dd . c ever wn er an a resses hIm repeatedly as "the wisest of "144 H k h'

. h . men. e moc s 1m WIt such declaratIOns as: "How noble he is for providing us with this theology of the begetting of the Only-Begotten!"14' and "There is no thought that you don't have a knack for expressing!"14' According to Basil, Eunomius is a liar in whom the devil speaks. I" Basil over and Over again accuses Eunomius of stupidity, craziness, insanity, madness, derangement, and utter foolishness.14s On one occasion, Basil even goes so far as to call Eunomius a "whore,"1'9 though in this it would be hard to account for Eunomius's many successes and his appeal to his followers.

Yet the tendency to be uncharitable in polemical literature becomes significant when one interprets such texts. Basil not only depicts Eunomius's character uncharitably, but sometimes he also interprets his Apology uncharitably. In other words, even if Basil for the most part cites and paraphrases Eunomius accurately, when he interprets Eunomius, he at times can twist Eunomius's words to indicate something their author never intended. It is difficult to determine whether such misinterpretations are willful or not; it is, however, best in such cases to be prudendy suspicious.I'1 Therefore, when reading Against Eunomius, the interpreter needs to be aware that Basil may be purposely misinterpreting or distorting the meaning of Eunomius's text.

Basil does this to score debating points against his opponent, to depict him in the worst possible light, and to set up a "strawman" in contrast to which he can present his own ideas. This is not to say that Basil always or even for the most part interprets

Eunomius uncharitably; in many cases, or even most, Basil astutely points out the flaws in Eunomius's arguments. The point here is that the validity of any of Basil's interpretations of Eunomius cannot be judged solely on what Basil says but must be supplemented by constant reference to the text of Eunomius's

Apology itself. c~se he couches his abuse in the words of scripture. Perhaps he dId so to forestall criticism for using such a nasty expression.

Some modern readers of Basil may find such insults and sarcastic language unsuitable for a person whom some consider a saint and father of the church. Others, however, may find Basil's vituperation, or at least some of it, effective and even hilarious.!'o But, more to the point, Basil's depiction of Eunomius is a willful distortion of the truth, and his ancient readers, familiar with the polemical genre, would have known this, not been SUrprised by it, and in fact expected it. If Eunomius were so perBesides the polemical vitriol, the juridical character of the work also bears upon its interpretation. Basil constructs his

138. Eun. 1.1.

139. Eun. 1.3.

140 . Eun. 1.1, 1.40 and 1.9.

141. Eun. 1.12, 1.13, and 2.30.

142. Eun. 1.1.

143. Eun. 1.2. treatise as a written response to an oral defense that Eunomius claims to have made before a certain ecdesiastical court. This construction is a mocking response to Eunomius's choice to present his teachings under the form of an apology (Ct7tOAoy[a).

A common genre in ancient rhetoric, an apology was meant to 144· Eun. 1.2. 1·5, 1.21,2.10, and-2.24; cf. "noblest of men" (~tA:n<1n:). Eun.

2.23· 145· Eun. 2.1+ 146. Eun. 2.21.

147· Eun. 1.3, 1.9. and 1.16.

148. One example suffices: "If this is the case, what need is there to respond to such stupidity? For it would be just as' if we were fighting against someone whom delirium has deprived of reason" (Eun. 2.21). defend its author when impugned or the author's views when they had come under attack. Basil suspects that Eunomius chos~ the genre of apology in order to provide a pretext for an exposItion of his impious teachings. In claiming to write an apology,

149· Eun. 1.23: "So, then, let us state a response to him using the words of the prophet: You've acquired the face of a whore; you have no shame before anyone Ger 3.3]."

150. Georgios Tsananas, "Humor bei Basilius clem Grossen," in Anastasios Kallis, ed., Philoxenia (Miinster: Aschenclorff, 1980), 259-79 at 272-73, sees a few of Basil's zingers in Eun. as evidence that Basil had a sense of humor.

151. E.g., in Eun. 1.5. Basil cites Apol. 7'9-11 (EW 40) and misinterprets the phrase CtKOAou8ei 1"oirnp. See Anastos, "Basil's Kanx EVVOfliov," 78-80.

INTRODUCTION

Eunomius implies that it is legitimate and necessary for him to defend his views against slander. l52 Basil doubts that Eunomius was ever compell~d to. deliver his apology orally. He compares the Apology to an ImagInary school exercise and to shadowboxing. lss his entire objection stricken from the record if Eunomius can produce scriptural evidence for his dai~.159 Sometim~s Basil refers to Eunomius in the second person SIngular and directly addresses questions to him, as if he is examining him; sometimes

Basil refers to him in the third person singular (or third plural, . Ba~il's chief basis for accusing Eunomius of such duplicity is his failure to name his attackers. He denies that Eunomius could have delivered his Apology at one of the two recent councils in the East: Seleucia in late 359 or Constantinople in January 360 ..

In each case, Basil argues, Eunomius had no need to defend his views against opponents. Hence, he concludes, the Apology is a hterary fictio~.l54 Despite Basil's denials, Eunomius probably dehvered .the Initial form of his Apology at Constantinople in 360.155

In making ~ontrarydaims, Basil is more concerned with depictmg EunomlUs as a har than establishing historical fact.

D~spite his denial that the Apology was actually delivered in a Jundlcal context, Basil "plays along with" the document's apolinduding his fellow Heteroousians), as if ~e is speaking abo.ut

Eunomius to the jury.l60 And so, when readmg Against Eunomlus one must keep in mind that, in line with judicial oratory, Basil is concerned with furnishing incontrovertible proof of Eunomius's impiety. He seeks to highlight Eunomius's err?rs ~n logic or doctrine; prove that they are in fact dangerous, ImpIOUS errors; and refute them. Basil is not primarily presenting his own theology of the Trinity, but developing a Trinitarian theology to disprove the validity of his opponent's.

As for the impieties of Eunomius, Basil is so horrified at them that at times he cannot even bring himself to utter them. On two occasions he refrains from expressing what he considers a terrible blasphemy by purposely omitting to state the ~podosis of a conditional or to draw the inference from premises, saying something like: "It is better for us to l~ave this blasp~emous statement incomplete."I'1 On other occasions he alerts hiS reader that he is about to say something irreligious or begs God for mercy for saying such a thing. l62 According to Bernard Sesboiie, ogetl': genre and refutes it as such. l56 The treatise is a pointby-pomt refutation of Eunomius's Heteroousian theology and seeks to conVInce the reader that Eunomius has distorted the C~risti~n faith and is a danger to believers. As the ancient genre ofJudlClal oratory calls upon the audience to render ajudgment

In a court of law, Against Eunomius is best viewed as a Christian adaptation of the genre. l57 Basil constructs his reader as a member of the jury. He at times even uses the language of the law courts. For example, in a mocking paraphrase Basil puts the following words into Eunomius's mouth to demonstrate his arrogance: "Why do you judge me harshly, gentlemen of the jury?

For I have ascended to the very pinnacle of virtue, transcended earthly matters, and transferred my entire way of life to heav- "this scruple ... attests to the strength o.f the lin~ that exists among theological discourse, the profeSSIOn of faith, and the adoration of mystery. It witnesses as well to the value of every utterance, even if the one who said it explains that it does not reflect his own thought."I63 It also serves a rhetorical purpose: as a pious Christian, Basil will not even dare to whisper the blasphemies that the impious Eunomius publicizes to t?e world and blurts out to everybody. I" Basil's constructIOn ofhlmse1fas a PI1"158 I h'

. en. n anot er Instance Basil says that he is willing to have 152. Eun. 1.2.

153. Eun. 2.1.

154· Eun. 1.2; cf. 2·9· 155. See n. 110 above, 156. In his Apology for the Apology, Eunomius appears to have interpreted this as an admission on the part of Basil that the Apol. was not a literary fiction; see

Gregory of Nyssa, Eun. 1.86 (GNO 1.5 1 ).

159. Eun. 2.8.

160. E.g., Eun. 1.24. Drecoll's analysis of the verbal for.ms BasIl u~es to address his audience in part leads him to argue that the Eun. IS not a umfied text, but a hodgepodge of reworked texts (Drecoll 48-55)' It seems to us that Drec011 has overlooked that Eun. is an adaptation of juridical oratory.

161. See Eun. 1.17 and 2.15' The citation is from 1.17· 162. See Eun. 2.12 and 2.33.

163. SC 299.233 n. 1.

157· On judicial oratory, see GeorgeAKennedy, Greek Rhetoric Under Chris~ tian Emperors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 6-19.

158. Eun. 1.3.

164. See Eun. 1.13·

INTRODUCTION

at high noon.!68 .Basil surmises that Eunomius engages in such specious argumentation to enhance his reputation as virtuoso ous Christian in contrast to the impious Eunomius is but one of his polemical ploys to sway the 'jury." rhetot: "It seems to me that he boasts along with his followers that he is shrewd and subtle in mind, quick to spot an absurdity and even quicker to demolish it once detected, and it is for this reason that he takes pride in how his arguments take twists and turns, and so puts on a fine show."!69 Finally, Basil employs

One final element may be operative in Basil's refutation of Euno.mius: anti-rhetorical polemic. Richard Vaggione has provocatIvely argued that echoes of "a war of rival asceticisms" in the fourth century are heard in the vituperation of pro-Nicene, anti-Eunomian polemics.!65 The pro-Nicenes drew on triedand-true anti-rhetorical tropes that philosophers had leveled for centuries against rhetors. Nicene controversialists who championed the more rigorous, monastic form of asceticism that emerged in the fourth century lampooned as "rhetorical profligacy" the traditional asceticism of "studied moderation" practiced by Eunomius, Aetius, and others of their circle. They present Eunomius and Aetius as rhetorical elites who cultivated the rich and famous and frequented "the cocktail-party circuit," and smear that circle as dedicated urbanites who participated in traditional civic life. But Nicenes claim to have opted out of the traditional structures of power and influence and to have disdained rhetorical fluff, withdrawing from the world to practice strict asceticism in monastic seclusion (even if still a metropolitan bishop!). However more complex the situation was, the invective of this "war of rival asceticisms" drew on themes from the pre-existing debate between philosophy and rhetoric. a stock feature of anti-rhetorical polemic when he mocks the fatuity of rhetorical speechifying: "as if dreaming that you're in a forum or addressing an assembly of drunkards, where no one can hear or understand what is being said, you legislate on the basis of your full indemnity, thinking that it is sufficient to say,

'I have spoken,' instead of providing a full demonstration."!~O Accordingly, it appears that Basil has employed features of ant!rhetorical polemic against Eunomius, a polemic that his successors Gregory of Nyssa and Theodore of Mopsuestia employed as well.l71 Therefore, because of its multiform polemics and juridical oratory, Basil's Against Eunomius is neit a systematic work on Trinitarian theology, nor should it be interpreted as if it were.

The structure of Basil's treatise and the arrangement of topics is for the most part governed by the order of Eunomius's Apology.!" Basil's scorn for Eunomius and the distortio~s inhere~t in his character assassination at times carry over to hiS theological refutations. Basil is more concerned with proving Eunomius wrong than with formulating a systematic account of how the Basil may be drawing on the anti-rhetorical features of this debate in his polemical characterization of Eunomius. He repeatedly accuses Eunomius of employing sophisms rather than substantive arguments.!66 Such moves on Eunomius's part are deceptive, a use of trickery and scare-tactics to establish his own teaching.!67 Basil, for example, describes Eunomius's bogus "proof' that God is unbegotten (a concept that even Eunomius said to be self-evident) as tantamount to someone atFather and the Son are related. One can still recover a more or less consistent doctrine of the Trinity from Against Eunomius, even if it is not as seamless and integrated as a modern researcher would like. Doing so requires an analysis of the accuracy of tempting to argue that the sun is the brightest star in the sky

168. Eun. 1·5· ,69. Ibid.

170. Eun. 2.9; see Vaggione 184-85. for the anti~rhetorical trope of the 165. See Vaggione 181-97; idem, "Of Monks and Lounge Lizards: 'Arians,'

Polemics and Asceticism in the Roman East," in Michel R. Barnes and Daniel H. Williams, eds., Arianism after Anus: Essays on the Development olthe Fourth Cen~ rhetar's penchant for drinking parties.

17 1 . On Gregory and Theodore, see Vaggione 185-86; idem, "Of Monks and Lounge Lizards," 184. tury Trinitarian Conflicts (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 181-214172. Only in Eun. 2.30-31 does Basil cite Eunomius out of order; see Drec~

166. E.g., Eun. 2.11.

167. See Eun. 2.28.

0115°·

INTRODUCTION

Basil's various interpretations and refutations of Eunomius and how they connect with each other. tion of Eunomius's Apology opens with a brief and rather bland creedal statement, which Basil cites. 175 Eunomius claims that this statement is the inerrant rule and criterion governing theological assertions. Accordingly, he claims that the more controversial theological claims are in keeping with this statement. Basil's response is instructive: he does not oppose the content of ct:e c~eed.

Rather, he argues that it is illogical to hold that somethmg IS an inerrant criterion and that it needs correction or supplementation. Of course, Basil's interpretation is malicious. When Eunomius fleshes out the bare bones of the creed with his theological proposals, he is not claiming to correct or supplement his criterion, but merely to explicate it. Basil surely goes too far m. attacking Eunomius on this point. But he is not wrong .to perceive that Synopsis: The Major Arguments of Against Eunomius

When one considers the contentious and unsystematic character of this text, it is easy to assume that Basil simply talks past

Eunomius, making counter-assertions rather than arguments.

There is certainly some of that in this text. Indeed, when he denounces Eunomius's ideas as insane and his arguments as based on false pretenses, Basil himself lends support to the notion that the opposition's theology is so warped as to be incommensurable with what Basil takes to be right thinking.

And yet, this line of interpretation only goes so far. The two sides in this debate appeal to the same sources: both claim to base their views on scripture and common notions. 173 As Richard Vaggione has noted, this claim is itself a rhetorical move that one should take with suspicion in that both portray themselves as simply reporting the "obvious" teaching of the Bible and common sense.n' Nonetheless, it indicates the profound areas of common ground in this debate. Eunomius and Basil share a scriptural vocabulary, interwoven with long-standing traditions in Christian theology such as emphasizing (over against Gnostics and pagans) the idea that God is without origin or "unbegotten." The debate between them is not about whether to use names like Father, Son, and Spirit, or whether to apply the term 'God' to Father and Son (as we will see, the case of the Spirit is trickier). The debate is primarily about how to divide up or, to switch metaphors, how to map the territory: it is about what is meant when God is said to be unbegotten or Father or good, not whether one should say these things in the first place.

Therefore, the major themes and arguments of Against Eunothe debate is not about the words of the creed Itself, but about how they are interpreted through additional, more con~oversial claims. The debate is not, then, a clash of creeds, but of mterpretations of creeds (which are in tum assumed to be interpretations of scripture). Of course, Basil and Eunomius ultimate.ly ~ndors.e different creeds, but we should not be distracted by Vlewmg thiS as a debate about the famous catchwords like homoousios ("same in substance") or homoiousios ("like in substance") versus hetrMOusios ("different in substance"). This would mistake the rhetoriC of Against Eunomius. Basil cites the profession of faith offered by Eunomius as in broad strokes acceptable to both of them.

So how does Basil propose we interpret the complex terr~in of scriptural and creedal language? It will be helpful first to give an overview of four fundamental themes in Basil's response to Eunomius:

(1) the role of human conceptualization in th~ology; .

(2) the distinction between positive and negative theological terms; (3) the distinction between names said in common of the Father and Son and names said specifically of each; and mius are attempts on Basil's part to redraw the map of the common ground shared even with his opponent.

(4) the distinction between what is true of God in seand from eternity and what God has done on behalf of humans whose perspective is inherently temporally structured.

An example can illustrate the "second-order" character of the debate (it is language about language). The substantive por173· On common notions, see p. 91 n. 34- '74Vaggione 85-93· 175· Eun. 1.4·

INTRODUCTION

Mter walking through each of these, we will be able to see how that God is unbegotten. For him, that would be like denying that the sun is the brightest heavenly body at high noon. 178·He does, however, reinterpret unbegottenness as a concept devised through human conceptualization, rather than as the essence of GodY' We do not state the definition of God's substance, the logos tiis ousias of God, when we say God is 'unbegotten.' This term is merely what we say when, reflecting on the life of God and casting our minds backwards, so to speak, we note that this life has no beginning. It makes sense within a temporal framework to deny that God's life has a beginning and an end; such a these general theological themes enable Basil to articulate a new understanding of the eternal origin or "begetting" of the Son and to reclaim key disputed passages in scripture-his fundamental source-from Eunomius's interpretation ofthem. We will also see that it is unclear how the Holy Spirit fits into Basil's theological vision at this point in his career.

First, according to Basil, we need to be aware that some of the things we say about God are devised through a process called

'conceptualization' (in Greek, epinoia) and that this is not necessarily a bad thing. This observation is in direct contradiction to Aetius and Eunomius, who argued that any theological idea devised via conceptualization must be false. Both sides agree on what it is to engage in conceptualization: it is subsequent redenial serves a useful function in purifying our minds. But it is mistaken to claim that terms derived from time-bound perspectives state God's very essence. Indeed, Basil famously claims in this text and elsewhere that humans cannot know what God is.

'Unbegotten' merely tells us "what God is like"-not "what God is. "180 flection on an initial concept. Basil cites the instance of grain.

Everyone has the natural concept of grain. But this common notion can be broken down into a variety of concepts based on one's perspective: "It is 'fruit' as the result of farming that has been completed, 'seed' as the beginning of farming to come, and 'nourishment' as what is suitable for the development of the body of the one who eats it."I76 Moreover, 'unbegotten' only tells us what God is not, not what God is. This brings us to the second major theme in Basil's theological cartography: the distinction of positive and negative theological terms. When we say God is unbegotten, we are simply saying that God is not begotten; we are removing an inappropriate concept from our thinking about God.l8l For Basil, we point to no positive state with this term. This contrasts again with Aetius and Eunomius, who argued that 'unbegotten' is not The term 'conceptualization' comes to denote both the act of reflection and the concepts devised from it. When mythological poets invented the conceptualization of the hippocentaur, they did so by imaginatively combining the concepts of horse and human. Aetius's and Eunomius's worry is that using this kind of reflection in theology will necessarily yield fictions along the lines of the hippo centaur. They propose instead that we conform all our thinking about God to God's real, essential attribute, which for them is unbegottenness. a privative term in meaning (that is, that the sense of it is not merely 'not-begotten'), but indicates God's substance.

There are of course other negative terms besides 'unbegotten' (such as 'invisible'), but not all adequate theological terms are negative. We call God 'light,' 'good,' Just,' and so forth.

These terms function in a different way than the negative terms because positive terms do not simply remove inappropriate noBasil has concerns with the word 'unbegotten.' It is not in scripture, and so it is better to stick with terms like 'Father' and tions from our thinking but somehow give us positive content.

There has been a great deal of debate over how to take these terms: are they all derived through conceptualization? Are they predicated of God's substance or merely God's activities (energeiaz)? These debates must be left to the side for now, except

'Son,' which have biblical pedigree and connote a mutual relation. 177 Moreover, if this is the definition of 'God,' then obviously the only-begotten Son is not God, at least not in the same way the Unbegotten is. But, importantly, Basil does not deny

178. Ibid.

180. Eun. l.15.

179· Eun. I.7.

176. Eun. 1.6.

177· Eun. 1.5.

181. Eun. log.

INTRODUCTION

to note that Basil does predicate these positive terms of God's substance in this text, saying that they indicate God's "distinguishing feature."I82 ture. The second use of terms based on '(15lO<; can be thought of roughly along the lines of differentiating features. When Basil is speaking about unique features of the second kind in Against Eunomius, he even uses the standard philosophical examples of differentiae of the genus of "animal": being winged or footed, aquatic or terrestrial, rational or irrational.l86 These features distinguish various species within this genus. Of course, Father and Son are not species under a cornman genus. Nonetheless, the relation of differentiae to cornman features provides a useful model for thinking about the relation of the distinguishing marks of Father and Son to the properties they share in cornman. Like all models, it is ultimately inadequate. But it does help us dimly see that there can be distinguishing marks that do not undermine unity of substance.

And that leads to the third theme, which is the division of things we say about God into those that are said in cornman of the Father and Son (leaving to the side the question of the Spirit) and those that apply uniquely to each. Again, Basil divides up the territory differently from Eunomius, who would deny that there are any terms said in cornman of the Unbegotten and the Begotten-let alone the Spirit-with the same signification. He argues that terms that scripture uses of both the Unbegotten and the Begotten, such as 'light,' mean different things in the two cases.

Perhaps Basil's single greatest contribution to Trinitarian theology in Against Eunomius is his argument that there are terms predicated of Father and Son in cornman and with the same sense. IS'

These terms name what Basil calls "the commonality of the substance," and they are the same set of terms that, as mentioned above, name the "distinguishingfeature" of God's substance.ls4

Basil argues that only when we grasp simultaneously both the cornman and the distinguishing features do we begin to understand the Father and the Son. So the Father is best thought of as "unbegotten light," while the Son is "begotten light."ls7 As begotten light who qua light differs in no way from the Father, the Son is able to illumine human minds with the knowledge of the Father.lss So, when the Bible says that the Father dwells in unapproachable

( light (1 Tim 6.16), and that the Son is the true light (Tn 1.9), the term 'light' means the same thing in both instances.

But Basil also holds that some terms refer just to the Son and others just to the Father. For instance, the Son is 'begotten' and the Father 'unbegotten.' These terms name the "distinguishing marks" of the two. ISS The language here can be confusing: Basil uses the same family of terms, all based on the adjective '(OlO<;, for both what is unique to a cornman nature or substance and what is un\que to each individual that shares that cornman naWe corne now to our fourth theme, the distinction between those things we say of God that are not direct references to God's provident and incarnate involvement in the temporal and material conditions of the world and those things we say of God that are. This is the sense of Basil's distinction, which is less systematic in his works than in some of his interpreters, between things said in scripture "in the mode of theology" and ( ture. The first can be thought of along the lines of what Porphyrian logic (drawing on Aristotle) called propria. These are features peculiar to a kind but which do not define the kind.

So, for instance, laughing is peculiar to humans, but does not define the essence of humanity. In the same way, the divine power, goodness, light, and life ,are proper to the divine nathose in which a biblical author "intimates the reasons of the economy."I89 It is important to be precise here: Basil neither upholds two "phases" of God, nor does he distinguish between an economic and an immanent Trinity. As Lewis Ayres says, "Basil generally uses eeoAoyla of a mode of insight into the nature of God that comes as a result of an ability to see beyond material reality, or beyond the material-sounding phraseology of some

182. Eun. 2.29.

183. See Drecoll's account of 'light' as common term, pp. 103-11.

18+ Eun. 1.1g.

185_ Eun. 2.28.

( 186. Ibid.

188. Eun. 1.17; 2.16.

187. Eun. 2.28.

18g. Eun. 2.3.

INTRODUCTION

scriptural passages."I" So, for instance, when Scripture speaks of the Father "begetting" the Son, it is not referring to a temporal event performed for our sakes; it is speaking "theologically."

But when Scripture speaks of Christ taking the form of a slave, being born, and being crucified, it is speaking "economically."

Begotten before the ages" or with "the very substance of God the Word." The text is not about "theology," but rather "intimates the reasons of the economy. "193 In other words, the passage is not spinning a metaphysical myth about the Word's origin from the Father, but is speaking about the rule and power of Jesus, which the Father has granted to him in time.

Basil uses this scheme to explain the different approaches of the four canonical evangelists. Whereas the authors of the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) focused on Christ's origins "according to the flesh" and "approached the theology by going through the corporeal origins," John began directly with the eternal origin of the Word from GOd.191 Since John

If the begetting of the Son is outside of time and space, then the kind of subordination Eunomius argued for cannot stand. In the context of interpreting the key disputed passage Jn 14.28, in which Christ says, The Father is greater than I, Basil concedes that the Father is greater than the Son in the way a cause is greater than its effect, This kind of superiority, however, does not imply that the Father is greater at the level of substance. Nor is the Father greater in power, since, according to 1 Cor 1.24, Christ is the power of God.194 Basil envisions the Son as standing in a relation of causal dependence upon the Father, but a relation that is outside of time and space and hence utterly incomprehensible to human minds.19'

"left behind all corporeal and temporal notions as lower than his theology, he surpasses the preaching of the preceding evangelists on account of the nobility of his knowledge."19' With this move, Basil can separate the Gospel accounts of the Son's origins into the economic and the theological and can focus solely on the latter. John's Gospel thus provides an entry-point into speaking of the Word's origin in a way not bound to temporal or spatial sequences. This serves his purpose in arguing against Eunomius, though Basil never suggests that the synoptic Gospels, which narrate Christ's origins "according to the flesh," are less valuable in other regards or that John's masterpiece has rendered them obsolete.

In closing, some comment is needed on the theology of the Holy Spirit, which appears principally in the third book of Against Eunomius, Just as Basil was prepared to speak of the Son as inferior qua caused by the Father, so too does he speak of the Spirit as lesser-or, more precisely, "third"-in dignity and rank than both Father and Son. l96 But he does not believe that this ranking justifies speaking of the Spirit as belonging to a third nature "foreign" from the nature of the Father and the Son.197 To the contrary, the Spirit, just like the Father and the Son, possesses holiness by nature, and not by participation and good deeds, as created, angelic powers possess holiness. It is unclear, however, to what extent here Basil wishes to extend to the Spirit the logic of common terms said of the shared nature of The economy-theology distinction also helps Basil deal with Eunomius's claim that, just as the Father's essential title is 'unbegotten,' the Son's essential titles include the terms 'something begotten' (ytvv~f!a) and 'something made' (rrol~f!a). The titles are not explicitly scriptural, though they could be drawn from a text like Acts 2.36: God has made him Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. By a simple grammatical transformation, one could move from "God made him" to calling him

"something made." But Basil counters by arguing that the Acts passage has nothing to do with "the subsistence of the Onlythe Father and the Son; later he explicitly does SO.198 For Basil, the Holy Spirit's goodness is clearly not a matter of acquiring a quality from some external source; goodness is simply who the 190. Ayres 220. See also Behr 291, and Christopher A. Beeley. Gregory of Naz.ianzus on the. Trinity and the Knowledge of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2008),296.

19+ Eun. 1.22-25'

196. Eun. 3.1.

198. Ep. 236.

193· Eun. 2.3.

195. Eun. 2.11-14197· Eun. 3·3· 191. Eun. 2.15.

192. Ibid.

INTRODUCTION

tivities of the Father and the Son. Basil always retained something of the reticence and sense of unfathomable mystery we see in the third book Against Eunomius. He also retained the conviction that one can go on glorifying the Father, Son, and Spirit, the divine mystery whom the worshiper only imperfectly knows.203

Spirit is. He does not specifY how this relates to the Father and the Son, for whom the same can be said.

Though the Spirit's inherent goodness separates him from the created realm (Basil is indeed adamant to deny that the Spirit is created through the Word), Basil's vision of the role of the Spirit in the divine activity of creating nonetheless remains unclear. He argues, through a reading of such texts as Ps 32.6, that the Spirit does not create, but perfects the created realm.l9' And yet Basil enumerates several activities the Spirit does perform: adopting the faithful as sons of God, teaching them, distributing spiritual gifts, scrutinizing the depths of God,'oo giving new life to Christians in Christ, and making them the dwelling-place of God. He appeals to the practice of glorifying the Spirit and counting him along with Father and Son, particularly in the baptismal formula. So, in sum, the Spirit's nature is in some sense divine. And yet the Spirit's dignity and rank remain lesser than

v. AN INQUIRY INTO BASIL'S SOURCES

Scripture and Basil's Exegesis of Scripture One of Basil's primary sources in Against Eunomius is scripture. His use of scripture includes explicit citations, verbal reminiscences, and allusions. Like most theologians of his era, Basil develops his doctrine of God by reflecting upon and interpreting scripture. For Basil, good theology cons~sts i? e~plicating what scripture reveals about God and standmg m silent adothe Father's and the Son's, and the Spirit's activities are distinct from theirs. There are many questions Basil admits he cannot answer about the Spirit or even about created phenomena. We can end our overview, then, with Basil's own question: "So, then, why is it shocking that we are not ashamed to confess our ignorance even in the case of the Holy Spirit, but we still render him the glorification for which there is undeniable testimony?"20! ration before the mystery of what it does not reveal. Scnpture not only reveals the content of theology, but also instructs the theologian in how language operates.204 Scripture dictates what the theologian can and cannot say. This is not to say that BaSil did not approach the scriptures with metaphysical assumptions about God. He would have seen these assumptions confirmed by scripture. For Basil, scripture is the foundation and touchstone for all theology.

Basil's teaching on the Spirit continued to develop throughout his career. He later distanced himself from Eustathius of Sebasteia, who apparently continued to exclude the Spirit from Scripture for Basil meant of course the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament. Nonetheless, he was aware of other translations of the Old Testament the divine activity of creating.'o, Yet Basil never went as far as his brother or Gregory of Nazianzus in opposing the "Pneumatomachian" or "Spirit-fighting" followers of Eustathius and affirming the Spirit'S divinity and equal involvement in the ac- (both Greek and Syriac) and of textual variants in both the Old and the New Testament.'o, Sometimes he preferred one alternative over the other if it suited his purposes; otherwise, he found meaning in both.'o, Only the Gospel of Matthew in Basil has been subjected to a detailed text-critical study and was found to be the earliest known witness to the Byzantine text199· Eun. 3-4200. Already in Eun. 1.14, Basil states that the Holy Spirit-like the Son and unlike created rational beings-comprehends the substance of God.

201. Eun. 3.6.

202. This denial of the Spirit's involvement in the activity of creating is cen· tral to the "Pneumatomachian" position that Gregory of Nyssa opposes in the early 3805 in his work against followers of the then·deceased Eustathius. See

Gregory's works To Eustathius On the Holy Trinity (written to a different Eustathius) and Against the Macedonians On the Holy Spirit.

• 203. See Ep. 234204See Rousseau 113-14- .

205. Other Greek translations: Eun. 1.20, 37-44; Ps. 59·4; Ps. 32 .5. Synac translations: Hex. 2.6. Textual variants: Eun. 2.19; Hex. 4·5; Ps. 28.1206. See Hildebrand 112-14 for more details.

INTRODUCTION

the ut!nost respect to each word of scripture because it is nothing less than a word of the Spirit.

, .

At the same time, in Against Eunomlus Basil appears to ~c knowledge degrees of inspiration. He recognizes that the scnptype, though not in all of its details.'07 Nonetheless, in Against Eunomius, Basil's citations for the most part correspond to the standard Greek text as established by modern textual criticism

(Rahlfs and Nestle-Aland"). At times his scriptural citations are tures are not merely words about God that are inspired by the Spirit, but that the Son speaks for himself in the scr.iptures.

~ctu~l1y conflations of two passages.'o, At times his citations vary m mmor ways from the standard texts, but only rarely do they diverge significantly. '09

Such passages have extraordinary importance for Ba~11. He also places Paul and John in a special cat~gory of p~rtlc.ularly mspired authors."o In Basil's understandmg of ".'s'p~ratlon the~e

. Basil pla~ed such a high value on scripture because he VIewed It as mspired. Like most patristic authors, he offers little sustained reflection on the meaning and implications of a doctrine of scriptural inspiration. But like most early Christians, he understood. ins,Pira.tion primarily in prophetic terms, meaning that the SpIrIt msplred the scriptural authors when they spoke or wrote."o The scriptures are a product of the Spirit's activity 211 B '1

~s: ~~mparesthe autho~s of scripture to flutes played by th; SpIrIt.

In Against Eunomlus, he says that the "saints" (Basil s term for the scriptural authors) spoke "in the power of the Spirit"'I' or "in the Spirit of God."'14 But inspiration for Basil remains an unresolved tension between the Spmt s authorship and the role of the human authors."! Nonetheless, because

Basil believed that the scriptures were inspired, they were for him the authoritative and true "divine scripture,"'" "divine orI

"223 or "divine word,"'" the basis for all Christian theologiac es, .

." h cal reflection and knowledge of God. For him the Bible IS t e rule of life it is the standard of faith and morals, it is the source

, .

II h "225 of doctrine. It constitutes the supreme regula m a sp eres.

Basil's hermeneutical assumptions and exegetical methodology in Against Eunomius have not been the subjec~ of detailed wa~ not. only a question of the Spirit's activity in the scriptural study. It cannot simply be assumed that he subs~nbed to On~

~nters; It was also a question of the quality of the scriptural text Itself. In Against Eunomius Basil repeatedly refers to the words of sC~lpture as the very words of the Holy Spirit.2l' Scripture is nothmg other than the teachings of the Spirit. '16 What is not explicitly said in ~cripture indicates the silence of the Spirit, that gen's principles of exegesis, st~tements ~f w.hiCh c~nst~tute the bulk of the texts compiled m the Ongeman flonleglUm, the Philocalia. Basil may owe to Origen his belief that proper exegesis can occur only within the context of an ascetic way of life, which ensures the necessary attention ~or readin~ and interpreting scripture.226 And he certainly believes that mte~ pretation demands the assistance of the Spirit.'" But these attlis'. what the scnptures do not intend to teach.217 S'cripture contams no Idle syllable; each word is significant.218 Basil accords

207. Jean-Fran~ois Rac~n~, The, Text of Matthew in the Writings of Basil of Caesarea (Atlanta: Society of Blbhcal Literature/Boston: Brill, 2004).

21g. Examples from Book 1: Eun. 1.17 and 1.18.

220. Eun. 1.12 (Paul); Eun. 2.15; Hom. 16.1 Uohn).

T· ck "Basil of Caesarea" 98-101 provides insuffiClent eVldence for 221.

Ie , '

. d h his claim that "Basil leaves no doubt that he conceives of the Inspire aut or~ ~s being in full possession of their judgmen~ and faculties',!he illapse of the Spmt

208. See Eun. 1.14 (1 Cor 2.10-11 + 1 Cor 2.12); 3.3 (Lam +20 + Ps 56.2).

209· See Eun. 1.17 On 14·9); 3.3 (Lam 4-20).

21~. Wi~liam A. Tieck, "Basil of Cae sa rea and the Bible" (Ph.D. diss" ColumbIa Umverslty, 1953), 92-101; Hildebrand 10g-10.

211. See Ps. 1.1; Spiro 21.52; Hex. 1.l.

212. See Ps. 29.7; see also Ps. 45.1 and 48.2; Hex. 8.8.

213. Eun. 1.2l.

214. Eun. 2.19.

215. See Eun. 1.17, 1.18, 2·7, 2.8, 2.14. 2.15. 2.17, and 2.24216. See Eun. 1.1, 1.8, log, 1.12, 2.1, 2.7, and 2.16.

21 7. See Eun. 2.2 and 3.7; Hex. g.l.

218. See Hex. 6.11; Hom. 16,4- ~ does not displace their individuality and mdependence (100).

222. See Eun. 2.8.

223· See Eun. 1.6 and 2.8.

224See Eun. 1.7 and 2.2.

225. Tieck, "Basil of Cae. sa rea, 127-28.

226. Peter W. Martens, "Interpreting Attentively: The Ascetlc. C~aracter of B '\ f C " Oriuemana octava Biblical Exegesis according to Origen and asl 0 aesarea, I:> (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003), 2. 11 15-21 .

I 227. Tieck, "Basil of Cae sa rea," 101-5·

INTRODUCTION

the latter of his eternity."! In addition, following an exegetical tradition already ancient in Basil's day, he interprets the Old

Testament theophanies as appearances of the Only-Begotten.'32 tudes are hardly unique to Basil. Most studies of Basil's exegesis con.centrate on other writings in his corpus and focus on the dichotomy between historical and allegorical methods, or Antiochene and Alexandrian schools of exegesis, viewing Basil as a kind of proto-Antiochene who anticipates modern scientific exegesis.'28 But such categories make no sense of Basil's exegesis in Against Eunomius. Stephen Hildebrand has attempted an Furthermore, Basil cites Ps 32.6 (By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power) as a statement about the creative activities of the Son and the Spirit.

Second, Basil takes part in exegetical traditions. The Trinitarian controversies of the fourth century, whatever else they may have been, were at their core debates over the correct exegesis of scripture. Adherents of the various theological trajectories collected scriptural passages that were thought useful for arguing their position, and it was incumbent upon their opponents to refute their interpretations.'34 Some of these exegetical traditions preceded the fourth century; others emerged in the early part of it. Basil is a participant in both the older and the more recent traditions. His indebtedness to the former is seen, for example, in his interpretation of the Old Testament theophanies (mentioned alternative approach of identifying "scriptural centers"-particular sets of passages or scriptural ideas used to interpret others-in Against Eunomius as well as On the Holy SPirit."9 Useful investigations of Basil's exegesis have appeared in recent Italian scholarship, which take Against Eunomius into account.'30 Nonetheless, a thoroughgoing study of Basil's exegesis in Against Eu- . nomius remains a scholarly desideratum. Here we mention three brief points about Basil's exegetical assumptions and methodology in Against Eunomius.

First, Basil believes in the unity of the scriptures. In other words, the Old and New Testaments narrate a single story of salvation history that begins with creation and culminates in Jesus above); his awareness of the latter is detected in his interpretation of disputed texts such as Acts 2.36235 and PrY 8.22.

Third, Basil continually applies scriptural passages to Eunomius himself and his fellow Heteroousians. This sort of interChrist. But such an assumption is hardly unique to Basil and can be found in most church fathers. Nonetheless, it means that, for Basil, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are revealed in both pretation sees the scriptures as prefigurations or predictions of his opponents, their activities, and their attitudes. For example, when Basil rebukes the Heteroousians for disbelieving what was beyond their own powers of reasoning, he says: the Old and New Testaments. A few examples suffice to demonstrate this. Ps 109.3 (From the womb before the daybreak I have begotten you) is as important for understanding the Son asJn 1.1 (In the beginning was the Word) is: the former speaks of his begetting,

Why did the nations become futile and their senseless heart darkened [Rom 1.21]? Wasn't it because they followed only what was apparent to their reasoning and refused to believe the proclamation of t~e ~pirit:

Whom does Isaiah mourn for as lost? Woe to those who are wzse zn tkezr 228. Hugo Weiss, Die grossen Kappadocier Basilius, Gregor von Nazianz und Gregor von Nyssa als Exegeten (Braunsberg: A.Martens, 1872); Tieck, "Basil of Caesar~ ea," 157-78; Richard Lim, "The Politics of Interpretation in Basil of Cae sa rea's own eyes and smart in their own sightf [Is 5.21] How can it not be men such as these?237

Hexaemeron," Vigiliae Christianae 44 (1990): 351-70; Hildebrand 122-39. For further bibliography, see Charles Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis

231. Eun. 2.17.

232. Eun. 2.18.

233· Eun. 3-4- .

234. Vaggione, 383-95, collects theologically significant passages of scnpture used by non-Nicenes.

(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), 740-47.

22g. Hildebrand 160-72 and 178-87.

230. Mieczyslaw Celestyn Paczkowski, Esegesi, teologia e mistica. Ii prologo di Giovanni neUe opere di S. Basilio Magno Uerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press,

1995), and Mario Girardi, Basilio di Cesarea interprete della Scrittura. Lessico, principi ermeneutici, prassi (Bari: Edipuglia, 1998). The former incorporates Eun. in its study of Basil's exegesis ofJn 1.1-18; the latter comments on Basil's exegesis of Pry 8.22 in Eun.

235. Eun. 2.2-3· 236. Eun. 2.20. See Mark DelCogliano, "Basil of Cae sa rea on Proverbs 8.22 and the Sources of Pro-Nicene Theology," JTS n.s. 59 (2008): 183-90.

237. Eun. 2.24·

INTRODUCTION

According to Basil, the Heteroousians are like the "nations" about whom Paul spoke; they are those upon whom Isaiah pronounced woe. In another good example, Basil chides Eunomius for basing himself on Aristotle instead of scripture: finds connections between their views and Eunomius's. He specifically likens Eunomius to Mani, Marcion, and Montanus.239

Such passages are merely polemical and designed to insinuate that Eunomius is nothing more than a disciple of such impious heretics. Nonetheless, they reveal Basil's familiarity with the church's anti-heretical literature. In addition, Basil identifies a vague creed cited by Eunomius as that which Arius presented to A1exander.'40 Yet the creed is not found in any of Arius's extant writings or fragments. Nor does Basil display much knowledge of Arius's theology itself, though perhaps he alludes to Arius's infamous jingle: "He was not before he came to be.""1 Basil is also well aware of Aetius's influence upon Eunomius and possibly alludes to his work, the Syntagmation, in one passage.'42

To prove that he speaks not on the basis of the Spirit's teaching, but accordmg to the wzsdom of the ruler:s of this age [1 Cor 2.6],it is enough that we quote a psalm verse against him: Transgressors told me garrulous tales, but it is not as your Law, Lord [Ps 118.85 LXX]. Realizing that his statement is not based on the teachings of our LordJesus Christ, it suffices to recall that sarng of bis: Whenever he tells a lie, he speaks on his own authority Un 8.44].23

Both the psalmist and Paul predicted the non-scriptural methodology of the Heteroousians. Basil even goes so far as to compare

Eunomius (implicitly) to the devil, who is the subject ofJn 8,44 in its original context. Such a use of scripture is polemically and rhetorically effective because it situates the controversy between Basil and Eunomius within the biblical world, within the cosmic conflict between God and the powers of evil that culminates in the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. Basil paints his dispute with Eunomius as but another instance of the oppression of the holy by ungodly men, so often lamented in scripOrigen In his survey of Origen's influence upon Basil in AgainstEunomius, Bernard Sesboue makes two general points.'43

First, Basil uses Origen quite selectively and prudently because theology had developed significantly in the century. that se~a rated Origen and Basil. Second, it is difficult to establIsh preCIS: textual reminiscences between the two authors. In most cases, It is impossible to determine whether Basil draws up~n Origen directly or through intermediate sources. The foIlowmg Ideas lIsted by Sesboue and found in Against Eunomius are broadly Ongenian: the Creator can be known through his creatures,'44 the Son as image of God reveals the Father,'" the eter~al bege~~ng of the Son,''' the necessity of a purified understandmg of dlVlne begetting,'" and the unity of angelic nature despite differences in ranks.'" With the exception of the last of these, all these Ongenian themes are found in many theologians between Origen and Basil and thus could have come to Basil through mtermedlate channels. ture. The scriptures are actualized and realized before Basil's eyes in the person, activities, and opinions of Eunomius and the Heteroousians.

Ecclesiastical Authors In Against Eunomius, Basil does not name his ecclesiastical influences. Therefore, tracing his sources is a matter of identifying parallels between him and earlier authors and determining the likelihood of Basil's usage of them. Building upon the work of earlier scholars, we have detected Basil's use of Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius of Alexandria, and the Homoiousians Basil of Ancyra and George of Laodicea. As this list shows, the sources of Basil's theology in Against Eunomius are eclectic.

In other cases, however, we can discern Basil's direct use of Origen, particularly in Basil's understanding of conceptualization

240. Eun. 1.4.

242. Eun. 1.1 and 2.22.

244. Eun. 1.12, 1.14, and 2.3 2 .

246. Eun. 2.14-17.

248. Eun. 3.1.

239. Eun. 2.8 and 2·34241. Eun. 2.14·

243. SC 299.65-74'

245. Eun. 1.18, 1.26, and 3·1.

247. Eun. 2.22-24In contrast to his practice vis-a..vis the sources of his own theology, Basil does name several notorious heretics when he

238. Eun. log.

INTRODUCTION

(epinoia). Basil affirms the positive role of conceptualization in theology in response to Eunomius's denigration of it. '49According to Bas!l, conceptualization allows real knowledge of objects, especially simple objects, without comprehension of their essence.

Like Ori?en, he views. the conceptualizations of Christ as naming the ways m whICh Chnst acts toward and relates to humanity; they do not reveal Christ's substance.'" Origen and Basil interpret names for Christ like 'light' and 'bread' similarly, but differ over Eusebius of Caesarea The influence of Eusebius upon Basil has attracted little, if any, scholarly attention. But in Against Eunomius we have detected a striking example of Basil's use of Eusebius in his interpretation ofPrv 8.22. The interpretation of this verse was one of the most fecund sites of theological reflection and debate in the course of the Trinitarian controversies. Various members of the Eusebian alliance based their claim that the Son could be called a 'creature' on this verse, as Eunomius did as well. But Eusebius is conspicuous among his fellow Eusebians for generally avoiding calling the Son a 'creature' and rejecting

'vine. "" Basil, however, adapts Origen considerably. While Orig~n i?entifies th~ scriptural names for Christ with the conceptuahzatIOns of ChrIst, Basil uses the scriptural names for Christ and God to derive conceptualizations about them. For example, accordmg to Basil 'unbegotten' is a conceptualization derived from the scriptural designation of God as 'life."" Scriptural terms are productive of conceptualizations; they themselves do not refer to them. Hence Basil's appeal to Origen's positive use of conceptualization is, at least in part, polemical, an attempt to situate his doctrine fully within longstanding ecclesiastical traditions against the innovations of Eunomius. this interpretation ofPrv 8.22. In refuting Eunomius's interpretation of this verse, Basil draws upon Eusebius of Caesarea, not upon Athanasius as one might have expected.'" Basil advances three separate arguments against calling the Son a 'creature' by appeal to Prv 8.22: (1) when the teaching of a scriptural hapax legomenon contradicts the predominate teaching of the rest of scripture, it should be ignored; (2) because of the genre of Proverbs, no interpretation of a verse from this book can be convincing; and (3) the Greek phrasing is an incorrect translation of the Hebrew. Basil adopts the first and third points directly from Eusebius's Ecclesiastical Theology.'" When citing Gn 4.1 as There are several more examples of Basil's use of Origen: the argument for the eternity of God's Fatherhood based on the fact that the goodness and blessedness of God require it;'" the use of Jn 1. I-and specifically the verb 'was,' as in In the beginning was part of his argument, Basil even misattributes the verse, as Eusebius did, to a masculine speaker (Adam) when in fact it is Eve who speaks it.'" The fact that Basil has so closely followed Eusethe Word~to argue for the eternity of the Word;'" the praise of John as the most profound of the evangelists based on an examibius in his interpretation ofPrv 8.22 should prompt us to reassess more widely the influence of Eusebius on Basil. nation of the opening lines of all four gospels;'" and the interpretation of a lacuna in Eph 1.1 found in some manuscripts."6

Even m these four examples, Basil shows himself to be well versed in Origen's writings and able to weave arguments and inAthanasius Recent scholarship has increasingly contested the traditional assumption that Athanasius was a major influence upon Basil.'60 We concur with this assessment. Basil's reliance terpretations of his theological forebear seamlessly into his own.

257. Eun. 2.20, 258. E. tho 1.10.2,3.2.15, and 3.2.21-23. See Mark DelCogliano, "Basil of Caesarea on Proverbs 8:22 and the Sources of Pro-Nicene Theology," Jrs n.s.

59 (2008): 183-g0.

259. Basil makes the same error in Spir. 5.12, explicitly attributing the verse to 'Adam.'

249· Eun. 1.6-11. Basil's understanding of conceptualization is discussed in more detail on pp. 48-49 and 68-70 .

250. See especially Prine. 1.2.1, 1.2.13;Jo. 1.52-57, 1.118-28, and 1.153-57.

251. Eun. 1.7· 'Light':jo. 1.158-80, 1.267. 2.133-70. 'Bread': ]0. 1.130-31, 1.205-8,6.223.10.99-101. 'Vine':Jo. 1.130-31, 1.205-8.

252. See Eun. 1.15 and 2.29· 253. Eun. 2.12; Prine. 1.2.9-10.

254· Eun. 2.14-15;JO. 2.8-1 I.

255. Eun. 2.15;Jo. 1.21-22.

256. Eun. 2.19; Fragmentsfrom the Commentary On the Epistle to the Ephesians 2.

260. See Ayres 221, and StephenM.Hildebrand, The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press,

, 2007), 80 n. 10.

INTRODUCTION

jection of the "old-Nicene" position of Athanasius in favor of upon Athanasius needs to be demonstrated rather than assumed. One of the difficulties in assessing Athanasius's influence upon Basil is that Basil draws heavily upon the Homoiousians, who in turn drew heavily upon Athanasius. Indeed, it is easier to demonstrate ideas that Basil does not derive from Athanasius than to prove that Basil did in fact borrow from Athanasius. We have noted above that Basil preferred Eusebius's approach to Prv 8.22, completely ignoring Athanasius's interpretation. In addition, Marina Silvia Troiano has argued that the third book of Against Eunomius, which is devoted to the Holy Spirit, bears no trace of influence from Athanasius's Letters

Homoiousianism, which in its turn was a modified form of Arianism. Harnack provocatively stated that the church's official doctrine of the Trinity, as understood in the 380s, owed more to Basil of Ancyra than to either Athanasius or Basil of Caesarea."i3

The Harnack thesis has continued to be debated in scholarship to the present day, and scholarship shaped by Harnack's categories has portrayed Basil as more or less making a choice between Athanasian and Homoiousian positions. This approach is flawed, however, not least of all because of its inaccurate assessment of Homoiousian theolOgy and its view of Cappadocian theology as a unity. to, Serapion. 261

In reaction to Harnack and other nineteenth-century currents, Jaakko Gummerus took a more nuanced, though lesser known, approach to the question. He argued that Cappadocian theology did not simply restate Athanasius but modified the Alexandrian bishop along Homoiousian lines.";' Taking Gummerus's thesis as his starting point, Jeffrey Steenson, in an unpublished dissertation, explored Homoiousian theology in relation to both

Athanasius and Basil of Caesarea's Against Eunomius.21;; He conNonetheless, we have detected one instance of Basil's direct use of Athanasius. Basil draws upon Athanasius's interpretation of Acts 2 '36, a verse cited by the early Eusebians and Eunomius as the basis for calling the Son 'something made.' Like Athanasius, Basil claims that the text does not refer to the substance of the eternal Son, but to the inca,rnate Christ.'62 Hence, though

Athanasius's influence upon Basil is no longer held to be axiomatic, there is some evidence for Basil's knowledge of Athanasius's writings and undoubtedly more to be found. cluded that the Homoiousians are greatly indebted to Athanasius, and Basil to the Homoiousians. We concur with Steenson's general assessment. Basil is influenced by the Homoiousians in significant ways but not beholden to all features of their thought.

Furthermore, while Basil engaged Athanasius directly, the Athanasian tradition is for the most part mediated to him through The Homoiousians: Basil of Ancyra and George of Laodicea The influence of the Homoiousians upon Basil of Caesarea has long been recognized, although subject to misunderstanding. The connection between them was initially made in the course of debates over the meaning of the Nicene homoousios. As mentioned above, traditionally the Cappadocians were thought to have rooted their theology in Athanasius. Reacting against this, the nineteenth-century scholars Theodor Zahn and Friedrich

Loofs placed a wedge between Athanasius and the Cappadocians, arguing that they understood homoousios differently.

Building upon their work, Adolf von Harnack argued that the "neo-Nicene" position of the Cappadocians amounted to a rethe modifications of the Homoiousians.

An introduction is not the place to conduct a detailed analysis of the relations between Basil of Caesarea and the Homoiousians because of the complicated methodology that it demands. It requires distinguishing between Basil's direct use of Athanasius, his mediated use of Athanasius through Homoiousians, his direct

263. Adolf Harnack, History of Dogma, translated from the 3d German ed. by Neil Buchanan (New York: Russell and Russell, 1958),4.80-1(>7. On the "Harnack thesis," see Ayres 237-38.

261. Marina Silvia Troiano, "II Contra Eunomium III di Basilio di Cesarea e Ie Epistolae ad Serapionem I-IV di Atanasio di Alessandria: nota comparativa," Augustinianum 41.1 (2001), 59-91. She refutes the claims of Athanasian influence in Eun. 3 made by Drecoll 138-39.

264Jaakko Gummerus, Die homousianische Partei bis zum Tode des Konstantius (Leipzig: Helsingfors, 1900).

265. Jeffrey N. Steenson, "Basil of Ancyra and the Course of Nlcene Ortho~ doxy" (DPhil. diss., Oxford University, 1983).

262. Eun. 2.3; Athanasius, At: 2.11-18.

INTRODUCTION

use of the Homoiousians, and his use of sources common to him and .Homoiousians. Though Steenson has posited thirteen areas of theological connection between Basil and the Homoiousians, he focuses only on similarities between Basil and the Homoiousians and sidesteps more complicated source-critical issues."5 Despite the usefulness of Steenson's contribution, a detailed analysis of the relation between Basil's thought in Against Eunomius

Philosophical Authors When asking about Basil's debt to non-Christian philosophical traditions in Against Eunomius, an initial distinction must be made. On the one hand, Basil explicitly refers to philosophers, their texts, or their ideas. He does this rarely in the three books, and while these explicit references reveal Basil's acquaintance with philosophy, they tell us little about his use of it. Moreover, and Homoiousian theology remains a scholarly desideratum. these references to philosophy in this treatise are uniformly hostile, intended to link Eunomius with modes of thinking foreign to unperverted biblical faith.''' Accordingly, Basil accuses the Heteroousians of relying on the syllogistic methods of ArisNonetheless, we offer a few areas in which Basil's direct dependence on the Homoiousians seems likely. First, the names

'Father' and 'Son' give rise primarily to notions; that is, they do not reveal substance as the Heteroousians had taught. '57

Similarly, Basil's understanding of 'Father' and 'Son' as relative terms-a fairly widespread position-seems more indebted to the Homoiousians than anyone else.'5' Basil's argument against 'Unbegotten' and in favor of 'Father' has a Homoiousian provenance even though the Homoiousians themselves drew upon Athanasius for this argument.'5' This is a classic example of the Homoiousian modification of Athanasius. Athanasius had advanced three distinct arguments preferring 'Father' to 'Unbegotten' as names: (1) scriptural usage, (2) the ambiguous meaning of 'unbegotten,' and (3) the greater accuracy of correlatives 'Father-Son' than 'Unbegotten-Begotten."70 Basil of Caesarea adopts George of Laodicea's three arguments: 'Unbegotten' (1) is unscriptural, (2) lacks the comprehensiveness of 'Father,' and (3) is not a relative term. Both Basil of Caesarea and George rejected two of Athanasius's three arguments, declining to view 'Unbegotten-Begotten' as relative terms and totle and Chrysippus to prove a point that is perfectly obvious, namely, that the God who is without origin is unbegotten. ,73 Later in the treatise, he shows that Eunomius's notion of privation is dependent on Aristotle's Categories, referring to the treatise by name and summarizing its account of privation.'74

These are the only explicit references to philosophical traditions in the three books Against Eunomius, and they give us exactly the impression Basil wishes to convey: that non-Christian philosophy has influenced only one participant in the debate, namely, Eunomius, in any significant way. But, on the other hand, Basil cannot but be influenced by the traditions he knows quite well. Indeed, in his later treatise On Faith, which was. addressed to a sympathetic monastic audience, he admlts-m a likely reference to the books Against Eunomius-that while I was compelled to fight the heresies that arose from time to time I thought it appropriate to the specific nature of the tmplety soWC: by the Devil that I should check or confute if I could the blasphemies which were brought forward [by the opposing sidel-and.m thIS

I was imitating my predecessors-by arguments gleaned, from vanous 'Unbegotten' as ambiguous. Basil even cites some of George's scriptural testimonies for 'Father' and 'Son.'271 Future research should reveal further points of contact between Basil and the sources as the need of those weak in faith required; and In many cases

Homoiousians. these were not written, yet were not out of harmony with sound Scriptural teaching,275

266. Steenson, "Basil of Ancyra," 313-31.

267. Eun. 2.4, 2.9-10, 2.28-29; Epiphanius, Pan. 73.3.1-3.

268. Eun. 2.9; Epiphanius, Pan. 73.3.4-5 and 73.19.3-4269. Eun. 1:5; Epiphanius, Pan. 73.1+5-6, 73.19.1-3, and 73.20.1-2.

270. Athanasius, AT. 1.30-34; Deer. 28-31; Syn. 46-47· 271. Eun. 2.7; Epiphanius, Pan. 73.20.3-+

272. For another example in Basil's rhetoric of the incompatibility of scrip~ ture and philosophy, see Ps. 32.7 (PG 29·341a3-b4)·

273. Eun. 1.5· 274Eun. 1.9· .

275, Basil, Fid., trans. Sr. M. Monica Wagner, C.S,C., St. Baszl: Ascettcal Works,

INTRODUCTION

Basil does not tell us exactly which arguments he has in mind, or what his sources were in developing these arguments. Still, this statement certainly justifies us in looking for the influence of philosophical concepts within Against Eunomius, even where they are not explicitly attributed. The following paragraphs survey philosophical influence in four areas of Basil's thinking: his defense of conceptualization (errlvOla), his understanding of substance, his theory of the semantics of names, and his refutation of Eunomius's definition of time. be subdivided or dissolved into such qualities "through conceptualization alone." The appearance of this phrase together with verbs of division or distinction is quite common in the thirdcentury Aristotelian Alexander of Aphrodisias,276 and appears in Platonists like Plotinus277 and Dexippus278 and the fourthcentury Aristotelian Themistius.'79 In all such cases, the phrase is used, as it is by Basil, to point out that even naturally inseparable items or properties can be distinguished mentally.

As for (2), Basil does not speak, as philosophical tradition had done, of items existing "through conceptualization alone." But he does speak of similar cases, referring to the items under question as being "considered by conceptualization" (KaT' errlVOlav 8ewPllTCt).

This includes imaginary beings such as centaurs, but it also inBasil's dependence upon philosophy is perhaps easiest to ascertain in the first area. In Against Eunomius 1.6, he appeals to the way in which "conceptualization" is defined in "customary usage of language" (auv~8ela) or "common usage" (KOlV~ Xp~

Ol<;). Basil is clearly less interested in ordinary layman's language than in reflective philosophical usage of the term "conceptualization," though not necessarily in any single school's account of the term. Basil believes that Eunomius is careless in his denunciation of "conceptualization" since he never clearly defines it and cludes diverse perspectives on the concept of a real item. He gives as examples the ideas of "fruit" and "seed" as perspectives on the basic notion of "grain." When Basil says that all these, the imaginary creatures of mythology and the uses of grain, are

"considered by conceptualization," he means that they are all mind-dependent; that is, they depend for their existence on creative human reasoning. While one cannot identify a single source for Basil's usage, there are many parallels in philosophical texts. For instance, at the beginning of his introduction to Aristotelian logic, the Isagoge, the Neoplatonist philosopher the way he uses it runs afoul of how it is used both in "common usage" (that is, philosophy) and in the tradition of interpreting the Christian scriptures.

In spelling out what "conceptualization" means in common usage, Basil focuses on the phrase "through conceptualization alone" (emvolq. fl6vn), which was quite common in late ancient philosophy. The phrase was used most frequently in connection with two ideas: (1) to be divisible and (2) to exist. Let us take the two in turn. As for (1), something can be divisible in reality or merely in thought; if the latter, then it is divisible "through conceptualization alone." For instance, every body has resistance and color. In fact, no body can continue being a body without these, and so they are naturally inseparable from it.

Porphyry refers to the nominalist position that universals (that is, genera and species) "depend upon bare conceptualizations alone.""o Often, existing "by conceptualization" and "in reality" are contrasted-the latter being specified with words like hyparxis, hypostasis, and energeia.'81

276. In Metaph. 661. 6; 683,1-2 Hayduck; deAn. 6, 20 Bruns.

277. Enn. 6.2.3.23; cf. 6.3.7.8 and 2·9·1.40£1'.

278. In Cat. 26, 6; 50, 13ff.; 59, 33 Busse.

279. In Ph. 125,3' Schenk!.

280. Porphyry, [ntr. 1 Busse; trans. Jonathan Barnes, Porphyry: Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 3 [altered]; see Barnes's helpful comments on conceptualization at pp. 40-43. Cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias, in One can, however, mentally separate these qualities from the body and reflect upon them on their. own. Hence, the body can

FOTe 9 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1962), 58.

"Not written down" means "not mentioned explicidy in scripture": Emmanuel Arnand de Mendieta, The 'Unwritten' and 'Secret' Apostolic Traditions in the TheologiMetaph. 483, 27; 636, 20; 677, 2; 792, 20 Hayduck.

281. See Philo Judaeus, Migr. 192; Sextus Empiricus, M. 8.453; Origen, Fragmenta in evangeliumJoannis, ed. E.Preuschen, Origenes Werke, vol. 4, GCS 10 cal Thought of St. Basil of Caesarea, Scottish J ourna! of Theology Occasional Papers, no. 13 (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1965), 17-21.

(Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1903)), fro 121; Diogenes Laertius (reporting Posidonius),

INTRODUCTION

In sum, to say that some idea depends upon conceptualization did not necessarily mean that it is false, but merely that it is an idea dependent on human reasoning. Basil has drawn on the philosophical koine of his day, rather than on any particular school's doctrine, for his positive assessment of conceptualization within theology. matter. For Hiibner, Basil is intentionally rejecting the generic account of shared properties found in the broadly Aristotelian tradition that includes much of late ancient Platonism. This tradition accounted for shared properties among members of a kind by invoking an immaterial genus or species. When Basil uses the phrase "material substrate" in Against Eunomius, however, it is unclear whether he intends his readers to think of Stoic metaphysics as a suitable tool for describing the relation of the Son to the Father. In both passages where the phrase occurs, Basil is speaking of human beings. In one, the "material substrate" of the biblical character Adam is supposed to provide the answer to the question "What is he?" The other instance of "material substrate" is ambiguous, referring either to the particular man Peter or to the common human nature.285 Finally, thinking of material substrate as one of the senses of "substance" is not at all foreign to Aristotle or late ancient Platonism.'86 The assumption that the mere appearance of .the phrase is meant to signal Stoicism is questionbegging.

In Against Eunomius Basil also subdy draws upon non-Christian thought in his use of the language of "substance" (ousia, hypostasis, and hypokeimenon). This language is of obvious importance given its controversial status in the Trinitarian debates. But what does it mean? It has been claimed that Basil's understanding of substance is fundamentally and exclusively Stoic, but here again we see far greater complexity in the way Basil handles philosophical traditions than such a source-hypothesis would allow.28' The "Stoic" interpretation of Basil is based largely on Basil's equation of "substance" (oucrlu) with "material substrate" (Ttl UAlKOV uJtoKEL/l£VOV) twice in Against Eunomius.283 The Stoics used the latter phrase to denote both the first and the second categories or genera of their metaphysics: unqualified matter and commonlyqualified material objects.'84 That is, they used the phrase when describing objects simply as lumps of matter without specification or as lumps of a certain kind of matter-for instance, clay. A jar qua material substrate is a bit of matter or a bit of clay.

Basil also invokes language drawn from the Aristotelian and Platonist tradition in explicating his notion of common substance. First, he speaks of something's substance as answering the question "What is it?" In Aristotle and the tradition of interpreting him, an object's genus or species was the uniquely appropriate answer to this question."7 "What is Socrates?"-the best answers would be "a human being" or "an animal." Moreover, Basil uses Aristotelian language in speaking of a "formula

According to Reinhard Hiibner, the principal proponent of the "Stoic" interpretation of Against Eunomius, Basil intends readers to think of the shared properties of the Father and the Son along the lines of Stoic material substrate, simply stripped of the of being" (Myo.; TOD elvw) or "formula of substance" (Myo.; Tii.; oucrlu.;) as the content of one's response to the question "What is it?"288 Basil believes that the "formula of substance" is identical for the Son and the Father, which accounts for their "commonality of substance."'" Finally, when Basil attempts to explain the Vitae philosophorum 7.135; Themistius, in Ph. 125, 31; 157, 17-18; 162,25-26

Schenkl.

282. Reinhard Hubner, "Gregor von Nyssa als Vorfasser der Sog. Ep. 38 des Basilius: Zum unterschiedlichen Verstandnis der ouala bei den kappadozischen

Brudern," in Jacques Fontaine and Charles Kannengiesser, eds. Epektasis: Melanges Patristiques Offertes au Cardinal Jean Daniilou (Paris: Beauschesne, 1972),

463-90. For criticism, see David C. Robertson, "Stoic and Aristotelian Notions of Substance in Basil of Caesarea," Vigiliae Christianae 52 (1998): 393-417.

285. Eun. 24. For discussion, see Paul Kalligas, "Basil of Caesarea on the Semantics of Proper Names," in Katerina lerodiakonou, ed" Byzantine Philosophy and its Ancient Sources (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 31-48,

286, See, e,g., Aristotle, Metaph. 8.1, I042a26-b8.

287. On the "question test," see Jonathan Barnes, Porphyry: Introduction, 65, 283. Eun. 1.15; 24.

28+ See David Sedley, "Hellenistic physics and qletaphysics," in Keimpe Algra, et aI., The Cambridge Hi.5tory of Helleni.5tic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2005), 355-411 at 407-8.

85--92 .

288, See, e.g" Aristotle, Cat. la2ff.

289. Eun. 1.19.

INTRODUCTION

vidual.29' His theory of proper names is crucial for his understanding of what 'Father' and 'Son,' which Basil treats as proper

"distinguishing marks" (iolwflUTa), which account for the distinctness of the Father and the Son without undermining their shared formula of substance, he invokes the properties that had been discussed in the Platonist and Aristotelian tradition as the exemplary differentiae of the genus of "animal": being winged or footed, aquatic or terrestrial, rational or irrational.,9Q

So there is much of the broadly Aristotelian notion of substance in Against Eunomius. But just as it would be wrong to see Basil as simply reproducing Stoic metaphysics in his Trinitarian theology,· we must beware of a similarly reductionist account of Basil's Aristotelianism. Basil has appropriated language that could names, mean when applied to God.

Basil also writes about relative and absolute terms, another perennial topic of philosophers.29' Once again, he formulates his theories to undermine Eunomius's theory of names. Reinforcing the point he made concerning proper names, he teaches that relative terms-like 'father' and 'son'-do not communicate substance, but rather distinctive features, namely, a relative property. In other words, each term entails the other.

'Son' implies 'father' and vice versa. Nor do absolute termslike 'horse' and 'ox'-communicate substance, even though be used in both traditions for his own purposes and with little regard for fidelity to either tradition. these terms might seem to indicate substances. Rather, they disclose distinctive features much like Porphyrian propria.'96 Basil's understanding of relative terms is ultimately indebted to Stoicinspired grammatical discussions rather than Aristotelian sOurces.'" At the same time there was by Basil's day a long Christian tradition of viewing 'Father' and 'Son' as relative terms. Basil's own theory of relative terms has much in common with that of the Homoiousians.'98

Basil also discusses the semantics of proper, relative, and absolute names.29! He develops a unique theory of proper names that reflects an eclectic and heavily adaptive use of earlier philosophical theories concerning what differentiates individuals and what information proper names communicate about the individuals that bear them. He advances this theory for the sole purpose of refuting Eunomius's theory of names. According to Basil, proper names reveal, not substance as his opponent claimed, but an individual's distinctive features (tOlQ-tl]W;) .29'

An individual's name brings to mind a concurrence of distincThe final major passage we shall discuss in which philosophical concepts have surreptitiously shaped the argument of Against Eunomius is the explication of time in Book One. At 1.1g, Basil quotes Eunomius's definition of time as "a certain kind of motion of the stars." For present purposes, there is no need to examine the context of this claim, merely its philosophical pedigree and the nature of Basil's response. Eunomius's definition of time closely parallels one given in the fourth-century Commentary tive features that enables one to distinguish that individual from others. Basil's "bundle theory of individuals" has precedents in Platonist sources. While Porphyry viewed individuals as both constituted and identified by distinctive characteristics, Basil maintained that individuals were only recognized by means of them.'93 Thus it is highly unlikely that Basil was influenced by the Stoic theory of the proper name, wherein a proper name communicates the single peculiar quality that defines the indion Job attributed to a Julian whose precise identity is unknown,

294. Paul Kalligas, "Basil of Caesarea on the Semantics of Proper Names," in Katerina Ierodiakonou, ed., Byzantine Philosophy and its Ancient Sources (Ox· ford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 31-48; David C. Robertson, "A Patristic Theory of Proper Names," Archiv for Geschichte der Philosophie 83 (2002): 1-1 g.

290. Eun. 2.28. Plato, Sph. 22oa-222b, Ti. 3ge-4o; Aristotle, Cat. Ib18-1g, 14b38, lsa2-3, Part. an. 697b2-3. For the commentary tradition, seeJaap Mansfeld, Heresiography in Context: Hippolytus'Elenchos as a Source for Greek Philosophy,

Philosophia Antiqua 56 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 80--81.

295. Eun. 2.g; cf. 1.5 and 1.22.

296. See pp. 50--51297. David C. Robertson, "Relatives in Basil of Caesarea," Studia Patristica 37

(2001): 277-87. Sesboiie SC 299.78-86, Dreco1l65 n. 56, and Ayres 202 n. 53 suggest an Aristotelian background for Basil's theory of relatives.

291. See DelCogliano. Basil of Caesarea~ Anti-Eunomian Theory of Names, 189260.

292. Eun. 2.4.

293. Porphyry, in Cat. 129,9-10 Busse; Porphyry, Intr. 7.19-26 Busse, 2g8. On Basil's indebtedness to the Homoiousians, see pp. 64-66.

INTRODUCTION

Perhaps what is most interesting, however, is not identifying exactly which philosophical position Basil held on time, but how he responds to Eunomius's definition. He does not point out that Eunomius's notion is beholden to Plato and leave it at that. In fact, he does not mention any source at all. Rather, he engages in the same kind of philosophical refutation of the "astral interpretation" of the Timaeus that he has encountered in the philosophical tradition without explicitly linking his project with this tradition. the contents of which reflect a Heteroousian theology. Julian says that "time is a certain kind of motion of the stars going along with the sun and the moon" and explicitly attributes this view, which he obviously endorses, to Plato.'99

The definition does not appear verbatim in Plato. Nonetheless, it faithfully reflects one of three major interpretations of the account of time found in Plato's Timaeus. According to this

"astral interpretation," time begins with the formation of the world, since time is closely identified with the motion of the stars, which in some sense cause time. Critics of this reading of the Timaeus noted that Plato speaks of a kind of disorderly time before the world's formation, that is, before the orderly time

This brief survey does not exhaust the subject of philosophical influence in Against Eunomius. 302 But it suffices, we hope, to delineate in broad strokes how philosophy has influenced the treatise. Without question, many of the important passages invoke philosophically significant terms, and it is crucial for the interpreter to ask which sense(s) of these terms Basil has in mind. Yet answering this question involves more than a simple source-critical appeal. It is not merely that Basil's philosophical lexicon is too diverse for this. It is also that he has transformed the doxographical heritage for his own purposes. His refutation of Eunomius is, at least at times, a philosophical exercise in its own right, rather than merely a report on previous thinkers. governed by the stars' regular motions. Moreover, Aristotle had criticized the identification of time with motion. Even if time measures motion, the two are not identical.

Basil draws on this tradition of criticizing the idea that the stars cause time and that their motion is identical with time in AgainstEunomius 1.21. He asks how this could be, since the heavenly bodies are not said to be created until the fourth day: how could there be time before their creation if they are responsible for time? Moreover, Basil argues that motion is not identical with time, since time measures motion. He offers his own definition of time as "the extension coextensive with the existence of the cosmos." He specifies the interrelation of motion and time: it is not that the stars' (or anything else's) motion causes time, but that "all motion is measured in time." In defining time as "extension" (oLuaTllfiu), Basil links himself with Middle Platonic authors like Philo Judaeus and Arcinous, who themselves drew on an eclectic mix of sources including the Stoics.3°O In spelling out the interrelation of time and motion as he does, Basil is remarkably similar not only to Middle Platonic

VI. A.GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL VOCABULARY

IN AGAINST EUNOMIUS

iivupx0<;: without beginning, uyevvllalu, TO uytvvllTov: without origin UVOfiOLO<;: unlike uvofio[oTIl<;: unlikeness U1lUpaAAuKTo<;: unbegottenness uytvvIlTo<;: unbegotten CirOLO<;: eternal u"ioLOTIl<;: eternity uhla: cause a'lnov: cause uiwv: age UiWVLO<;: everlasting indistinguishable U1lUPUAAaKTW<;: tradition but also to his contemporary, the Aristotelian Themistius, who was himself influenced by Platonism.30l indistinguishably uPX~: beginning, origin 299· Julian, Commentary onJob 38.7. ed. Dieter Hagedorn, Dcr Hiobkommentar des Arianers Julian, Patristische Texte und Studien 14 (Berlin: De Gruyter,

302. See, e.g., his account of the proper objects of the five senses at Eun, 1.12, which owes something to Aristotle's De anima 2.6-11 or commentaries or handbooks summarizing it. Also see his rejection at Eun. 2.17 of the classical etymology that derives the term 'age' (aion) from 'always existing' (aei einaz) , found in both

'973), 254300. Philo, Aet. 54; Alcinous, Intr. 14.6; Chrysippus apud Stobaeus 1.106,

5-23; Aetius, Plac. 1.21.2.

301. Themistius, in Ph. 154,8-13 Schenkl.

INTRODUCTION

rist edition by Julien Garnier, which was first published in '72 i and reprinted by J-P. Migne in his Patrologia graeca."J4 In rare cases we diverge from Sesboue's text, preferring the readings of the manuscripts or Garnier. We note these departures in the footnotes. In our translation we have at times been assisted by aOUYKprro<;: incomparable aaDv9no<;: incomposite axpovo<;: non-temporal axpovw<;: non-temporally yevvaw: to beget Myo<; T~<; ouola<;: formula of substance Movoyev~<;: Only-Begotten oiKe[('lT~<;: affinity OlKelWat<;: affinity olKovoflia: economy OflOlO<;: like yi:vv~lla: something begotten both Garnier's Latin translation and Sesboue's French translation. Ours is the first complete translation to appear in English. yi:vv~at<;: begetting yevv~To<;: begotten In the "Note to the Reader" that precedes his translation of Porphyry's Isagoge, Jonathan Barnes writes: "My translation purports to be written in English. It also purports to be faithful to the Greek-that is to say, to convey in English all and only what

Porphyry conveyed in Greek. These two commonplace ambiOflOl6T~<;: likeness ovofla: name ouoia: substance rroL'1 f1a: thing made O~lll0upY~f1a: created work O~f1l0upyO<;: creator olaoT~f1a: interval, extension Mvafll<;: power EvavTlo<;: contrary, opposite Evi:pYeLa: activity "vvola: notion i:rrivola: conceptualization rrol'1T~<;: maker rrpooayopeuw: to designate tions are, as every translator knows, mutual enemies .... "::IO!)

Barnes' words well express our own experience. Basil's Against Eunomius is in content a treatise of technical theology and in form a rhetorical tour de force. It is not easy reading. At times rrpoo~yopla: designation OTEP'1at<;: privation . ouvaiolo<;: co-eternal geoT~<;: divinity Basil is obscure. In our translation we have attempted to render Basil as clearly as possible in English without making him clearer than he is in Greek. At the same time we have tried to capture Basil's nuanced explanations, his theological distinctions, his polemical tone, and the sarcasm with which he treats

Eunomius and his ideas. aDYKPlOl<;: comparison OXEat<;: relation iOl6T~<;: distinctive feature loiwfla: distinguishing mark Ta~l<;: order, rank KOLVOC;: common KOlvwvla: communion KTimc;: creation KTlofla: creature UTIOKel~EVOV: substrate, subject, referent urrocrTWJtC;: subsistence <pUat<;: nature In our translation we have aimed to satisfy two distinct audiences at opposite ends of the reading spectrum. The first is the reader without knowledge of Greek who reads our translation without recourse to the original. The second is the reader who f1el~wv: greater than AOyO<; TQU elvm: formula of xapaKT~p: character Xpovo<;: time being knows Greek and reads our translation while constantly comparing it to the original. For our first reader, we strived to produce English prose that is understandable, idiomatic, and felicitous. We have added explanatory footnotes to help when Basil is murky. For our second reader, we endeavored not to stray into paraphrase so that the words and phrases of our translation could be matched with the Greek on which they are based.

Even though our second reader may not always agree with our choices, we believe that he or she will understand them. We

VII. A NOTE ON THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION

Our translation is based on the critical edition of the text established by Bernard Sesboue and his collaborators GeorgesMatthieu de Durand and Louis Doutreleau for Sources Chretiennes in 1982-1983.'0' We have also had recourse tothe MauAristotle, Cael. 1.9 (279'27-28), .nd Plotinus, En. 3·7·4, 43 (cf. 3.7.6), 32-33, and often repeated by Aristotelian and Neoplatonist commentators.

303. Bernard Sesboue. Georges-Matthieu de Durand, and Louis Doutreleau, Basile de Gfsarie, Contre Eunome suivi de Eunome Apologie, SC 299 and 305 (Paris:

Cerf,19821983)·

304· PG 29.497-67°'

305. Barnes, Porphyry: Introduction, xxv.

INTRODUCTION

hope that the combination of these principles satisfies readers at both ends of the spectrum as well as the majority who fall somewhere between these two extremes.

A few words on the style and format of our translation are necessary. While the division of the treatise into three books goes back to Basil himself, the subdivision into numbered sections stems at least from Garnier's edition and was adopted by Sesboiie. In our translation these are signaled by a number within square brackets, for example [2.4], which indicates Book 2, section 4Sesboiie further divided the numbered sections into unnumbered paragraphs. Our translation also subdivides each numbered section into unnumbered paragraphs, but not always in accordance with Sesboiie's divisions. Our paragraphing aims to follow modern English practice.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS

Italics are used in the translation for scriptural citations or reminiscences; these are always followed by the scriptural reference in square brackets, for example, Un 1.1). References to scriptural allusions are given in the footnotes. Note that the Psalms are referenced according to the Septuagint version. On rare occasions italics are used for emphasis or for other purposes explained in the footnotes. In a few places words are inserted in square brackets to improve the sense. Double quotation marks

(",") signal a non-scriptural citation; long citations appear as block text without quotation marks. Since Basil's treatise is so concerned with terminology, inverted commas (',') are used to signal when he is talking about a linguistic term as opposed to the thing or concept to which the term refers. For Basil, there is a difference between Father and 'Father.'

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