Book One
From our holy father Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, the refutation of the Apology of the impious Eunomius
BOOK ONE ALL THOSE UPON WHOM the name of our God and Savior Jesus Christ had been invoked had preferred
not to tamper with the truth of the gospel and to content themselves with the tradition of the apostles and the simplicity of the faith,' there would be no need for our present treatise. Instead, we would have maintained even now the complete silence we have honored from the beginning. But the enemy of truth ceaselessly proliferates evil, adding to the weeds he sowed in the church of God at the beginning.' Finding at present instruments for executing his entire scheme' all at once, he introduces on the pretext of Christianity the denial of the divinity of the Only-Begotten. With this empty external wisdom' he disturbs what is pure and simple in the teaching of the divine Spirit and misleads the innocent through the use of plausible arguments5
So, on account of Your Charity, who enjoins us to do this,6 and 1. Gr. ~ a.TIA(rr'l~ T~C; TILOlEWC;. See also Ep. 258. 2 and Fid. 1. Similarly. 1'0 Cl1lAOUV
T~C; nicrn::wc; at Hex. 1.10 and Eun. 1 + 2. See Mt 13.25.
3. Gr. T£XVTl· 4. That is, external to ecclesial teaching.
5. See Col 2.+ Note that "the use of plausible arguments" (m9avoAoyia.) lacks the rigor and certitude of "logical demonstration" (6.TC6S£L~tC;),
6. "Your Charity" is a title of politeness, found often in Basil's letters and usually employed to address bishops (e.g., Ep. 47); see Agnes C. Way, The Language and Style oj the Letters of St. Basil (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1927), 161. The recipient of the treatise is probably Eustathius of Sebasteia, and it probably took its initial form as stenographic notes taken when Basil dictated objections to Eunomius when Eustathius was preparing for the council of Lampsacus in 364 (see Introduction, p. 33 above).
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.1-2
for the sake of our own well-being,7 it is necessary for us to accept the responsibility of allying ourselves with the truth and refuting this falsehood. Giving no heed to our weakness for this task and although we are altogether untrained in such a form of speaking, we undertake this task insofar as the Lord apportions was roused to publicize the blasphemy so long spoken under his breath,13 striving with all his might to be proclaimed the pioneer and the patron of the entire heresy. Therefore, he is the one we propose to set straight in the present work. But since there is a single evil in the pair,I' it is clear that if we refute the fully-trained knowledge to us.s In our opinion, we will not fail to attain at least one of three goods. Our refutation will either remedy the evil for those already taken in by it or provide an adequate safeguard for the healthy. Failing that, we ourselves will earn the reward for offering our brothers the best things. 9 disciple l5 we also refute along with him his teacher, the sower of the seeds of the impiety. May it be possible for us through your prayers to receive such a great power for argument that, like the zealot Phinehas, we can strike down both of them-this pair intertwined with one another in impiety-with the single stroke of refutation,I6 As far as I can tell, the first one who dared to declare openly and teach that the only-begotten Son was unlike the God and Father in substance was Aetius the Syrian. I will not mention in what sort of customs he was reared from the beginning of his life and how, when he grew up, he intruded perniciously into the churches of God, lest I seem to focus on abusing him and appear to neglect the refutations. lO But the one who has taken up the impiety and brought it to perfection is Eunomius the Galatian." He has acquired for himself a notoriety of the most shameful sort-for it says their glmy is in their shame [Phil 3.g]-preferring the infamy of writing things that no one else ever dared to say rather than the goods reserved for the pious. In this brilliant handbookl ' he
So, then, even though I have plenty of material to demonstrate in this treatise that Eunomius is lying, stupid, wanton, dissembling, and blasphemous, I will consider mentioning all these as secondary and focus on the blasphemy he has uttered regarding the grandeur of the glory of the Only-Begotten. Mter
I have revealed the devices he uses to conceal his scheme, I will attempt to make his blasphemy as clear as day for all.
[1.2] So now I will proceed to the refutations, beginning with the very title of his work. He contrived the first of all his tricks to be the very genre he gives to his arguments, in that he organizes his teaching in the form of an apology. He does this to avoid the appearance of intentionally giving an exposition of the doctrines of his impiety and to give the impression of coming to these arguments out of necessity. By any means whatsoever he wanted to circulate this evil and godless proclamation
7· On Basil's "well-being," see n. 9 below.
8. See Mt 7.'; Mk 4.'4; Lk 6.38. g. Interestingly, both Basil and Eunomius (see Apol. 1, esp. 4-5 and 13-14) justify their treatises as being for the good of both themselves and others. A few and bring into public view the blasphemy which he long ago conceived and gave birth to. Yet he realized that if he openly sat in the teacher's chair, besides being most vulgar and distasteful to his audience, he would still remain unconvincing and suspect to many on the grounds that he had come to innovate out of a desire for glory. But if he puts these arguments of his in the form of an apology, he escapes the suspicion of innovation.
Instead, his audience is somewhat drawn to him, as by nature all human beings are accustomed out of kindness to side with those at a disadvantage. This is why he alleges that he has accuslines above, Basil spe<;lks of his own "well-being" ("to eXa<paAtc;) and Eunomius speaks of the "well-being" (acr<pCtAEta) of others when they enumerate their reasons for writing. Sesboue (SC 299.143 n. 4) attributes this parallel to a similar formation in the laws and themes of rhetoric.
10. Basil may have known about the early life of Aetius from a letter by George of Laodicea (d. 359) that was later used by Gregory of Nyssa, Eun. 1.37.
11. Eunomius was actually a Cappadodan like Basil, from the town of Oltiseris in the extreme northwest of the province near the border of Galatia. Vaggione surmises that Basil's tagging of Eunomius as a "Galatian" is an instance of Cappadocian chauvinism (Vaggione 2). Van Dam suggests that Basil was trying to keep Cappadocia free from the stain of Eunomius's heresy (Becoming Christians, 29), Eunomius complained of the epithet, but Gregory of Nyssa defended it (Eun. 1.105).
14. That is, Aetius and Eunomius.
16. See Nm '5.7-8.
13. Lit., "under his teeth,"
15. See Lk 6.40'
12. Here Basil adopts a mocking, sarcastic tone toward Eunomius, a tone which continues throughout the treatise.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.2
ers and denouncers, and lays the blame for his treatise on them. slandering him? From what part of the world do they come?
Who are the judges before whom he brought his case? In what There is no better way of making his scheme plain to all than by listening to the prologue of his text. This is what it says: court of justice did he enter this document? At what place on earth or sea did it convene? Indeed, what would he say? At Se1eucia?l8 But those convicted there were convicted by their silence.
For they did not appear in court when the assembly summoned them time and again to inquire into the charges they had made against some of its members. They were promptly condemned on these grounds.'· My explanation is equally applicable to the entire group:20 due to their communion with impiety they were cut off from the church as a diseased limb is amputated from a healthy body. Perhaps at Constantinople?" But at that council
We know that denouncing and slandering people because of a loose tongue and a senseless mind is the business of knaves and squabblers.
Yet when deemed wicked out of slander, attempting with all zeal to ward off the falsehood with refutations is the task of discreet men and those who by means of their own prudence place a high value on the well-being of the manyl'
So, then, the form of the treatise is such as would come from someone who acts neither straightforwardly nor without dishonest intent. For he obscures the suspect character of his innovation under the cloak of an apology and seeks favor from his audience, making it seem as if he came to make these arguments under the compulsion of being slandered. there was no need for either an apology or a discourse. For after winning over to their side the imperial courtiers and the rest of the most influential figures, they dealt with the council's agenda from a position of great superiority. They themselves were the accusers, the judges, the executioners, and everything whatsoever they wanted to be. Some bishops they deposed. Others they installed in their place. They threatened the lives of others.
They divided up the cities among themselves, making the most of their great power. One of them who had been ousted from the cities of Syria seized control of Constantinople to tyrannize it'2 That unconquerable and clever writer with whom we are
Yet his deceptive tactic of employing apology is refuted because the drama of his apology is staged without any characters, as he cannot name the accuser against whose charge he makes a pretense of fighting. It is not on account of magnanimity that he refrains from mentioning his harassers by name. If this were the case, how could he cudgel his opponents with such abuse?
Rather, suspecting that his falsehood would become manifest, he is ashamed to name definite persons as his accusers. If he had been able to name anyone, he certainly would have spoken up and stated who they were. Even if doing this would not have allowed him to give free rein to his own anger, at least he would have provided for "the well-being of the many"-those for whom he proclaims to have such great care. Mter all, a concealed wickedness is more damaging than one revealed. Hence if we had known who his denouncers were, we would have easily escaped
"their loose tongues and senseless minds"-yes, I will use the very words of that wisest of men.
18. The Council of Seleucia was held in September 359; see Introduction, pp. 30-31. There is no evidence that Eunomius was present at Se1eucia. Aetius, however, was present with Eudoxius either during or shortly after the council: see Philostorgius, h.e. +11, with Kopecek 202-5 and 225-27 and the corrective ofVaggione 223 n. 140.
19. Acacius of Caesarea and his supporters had accused Cyril of Jerusalem and other deposed bishops of various crimes. When the council decided to re~ view the depositions and to hear the accusations as a kind of court of appeal,
Acacius and his supporters refused to attend and were themselves summarily deposed.
Since he has maintained silence until the present (whatever his reason may have been), it is now time for him to be interrogated. It is now time for him to answer some questions. Who are the accusers that compelled him to make an apology by first
20. Basil means all the supporters of Acacius, nol all the bishops at the council.
21. The Council of Constantinople met in January 360; see Introduction, pp. 9-11 and 31-32. For Basil's view of the council, see his Epp. 9.3 and 51.2.
Eunomius first delivered his Apology here; see EW 5-9 and Vaggione 226-27.
22. Basil is here referring to Eudoxius, bishop of Antioch since 358, who was made bishop of Constantinople at the council, replacing the deposed Macedo~
'7· Eunomius, Apol. 1.'-5 (EW 34)·
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.2-3
concerned carried off Cyzicus as the prize of his impiety." The church of Sardis was presented to Theosebius after his refutations in defense of the unutterable blasphemies." I pass over in silence Bithynia, Pam phlagonia, Cilicia, and all the lands upon which this evil, swirling all around, encroached. So, then, at that time was there still anything to be gained by making some sort of apology? I think it was impossible for a gain to be made by him presenting one: he is intentionally lying. Hence it is truest of all that he devised the form of the treatise for the purpose of deceit. So much for this subject." the eyes of our soul once and for all, banish from our mind the memory of every saint, and then each of us take his own heart, now empty and swept-clean [Mt 12.44; Lk 11.25], and hand it over to your misleading and sophistical arguments? You would indeed have obtained great authority, if it turned out that by a word of command you obtained what the devil could not attain by his various wiles [Eph 6.11)! Furthermore, if we were persuaded by you, we would have to judge the tradition that has prevailed in every time past due to so many saints as of less worth than your impious fabrication." In addition, he is not Advancing a little, let's look at what he writes. Before refuting his impiety, it would perhaps not be useless to give a few indications of how conceited he is. only satisfied with snatching away the thoughts of his current audience, but he also expects those who will later read his treatise to hold the same opinion. What arrogance! He thinks that his treatise will endure for posterity and that his memory will be
[1.3] Above all I implore you, both my current audience and those who will read this work later: do not attempt to distinguish truth from falsehood by numbers, associating what is better with the majority party; do not cloud your judgment by focusing on positions of dignity; do not close your ears to those who come after by giving more attention to the contingent of those who have'gone before.26 cherished as immortal for all time to cornel
And then, a little further on, he adopts an affected tone before his audience, pretending that he does not care at all about self-conceit. It is thus that he speaks to the judges in his imagined drama and dares to say the following:
What are you saying? That we should not give more attention In addition, do not judge us harshly, if we do not care about selfto those who have gone before? That we shottld not respect the multitude of those who are currently Christians and those who have been Christians from the time when the gospel was first proclaimed? That we should not consider the honor of those enlightened with manifold spiritual gifts? You have indeed inaugurated this road of impiety as an act of hatred and hostility against people such as these! Or should each of us do this: shut conceit and fear, seeing that we value indemnity in the world to come more highly than present favor or security, and we deem the punishments determined for the impious a cause for more fear than any earthly misery or temporal death, and so we expound the truth stripped of every covering.28
Could any arrogance be more excessive than this? Could any arrogance surpass this bombast? He compounds his dissimulation by being insolent toward his judges. For he implies that what is good displeases them, making them scarcely able to refrain from harshly judging someone who does not care about stubbornness and self-conceit, who values indemnity in the world nius. He had "been ousted from the cities afSyria" soon after becoming bishop of Antioch when Basil of Ancyra convinced Constantius to expel him, but he was rehabilitated at the Council of Seleucia, to come more highly than security in the present, and who deems punishment hereafter a cause for more fear than temporal death. But this amounts to: "Why do you judge me harshly,
23. Eunomius, still a deacon, replaced the deposed Eleusius of Cyzicus; see Sozomen, h.e. +25. Aetius met the opposite fate: he was banished.
24. From Sezomen, h.e. 4.24. we learn that Heortasius, bishop of Sardis, was deposed at the Council of Constantinop~e on the grounds that he had been ordained without the sanction of the bishops of Lydia, but Sozomen does not record his replacement, for which Basil is our sole source.
27. Gr. btivOlQ. For the dispute over this term, see Eun. 1.6-11. Since Eunomius argues against epinoia, there is some irony here in Basil accusing Euno25. Gr. Kat Tafrra flE.v d<; TOcrOUTOV. This is one of Basil's usual phrases for signaling the completion of one section and the beginning of another. mius of having one.
28. Eunomius, Apol. 3.1-5 (EW 36).
26. Eunomius, Apol. 2.1-6 (EW 36).
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.3-4
gentlemen of the jury? For I have ascended to the very pinnacle of virtue, transc~nded earthly matters, and transferred my entire way oflife to heaven!" Who has ever heard such arrogance!
With the very words he uses to pretend that he does not care very words of the fathers, and especially that he can be impious without it being noticed. Therefore, even if he were to be detected, he would appear to be blameless seeing that he has said nothing of his own or on his own authority, but was expounding the ideas of someone else. Yet in doing this he did not notice that he actually makes an utter fool of himself. For after he showered so much praise upon the faith, a little further on, he in turn heaped upon it the most shameful reproaches. about self-conceit he exalts himself to the height of pride. For if he is claiming that his actions merit forgiveness on the grounds that he is merely observing the chief points of the gospel way of life, he is letting himself be portrayed as the kind of man appropriately numbered among those who act rightly. So, then, such statements give clues to his overall purpose. Though we have passed over many of them in silence, enough has been said for us to recognize that when he lies, it is the father of lies Un 8.44] who speaks in him and to ascertain from his arrogance the one with whom he is condemned. For the Apostle plainly says that To make my point clearer, I will examine his text by dividing it into sections. Let's first consider the faith he puts forward, by citing his very words:
Having already set forth the pious tradition, which has prevailed from the beginning and has come down from the fathers, as a kind of norm and rule, let us use this precise criterion for judging what is said.30 whoever is swollen with pride falls into the condemnation of the devil [1
Tm 3.6]. At long last, then, let us pass to the refutations of the impiety.
To these words he adds the faith which goes as follows:
We believe in one God, the almighty Father, from whom are all things [1 Cor 8.6], and in one only-begotten Son of God, God the Word, our
LordJesus Christ, through whom are all things [1 Cor 8.6], and in one Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.31
[1.4] First, he sets out a faith composed of simple and undefined terms that even some of the fathers used. They did not concern themselves with the questions suggested by the terms, but spoke in this way imprecisely for themselves" in their simplicity of heart. And even if it is said that Arius proposed this faith to Alexander in order to deceive him (for this is what is claimed),
Then immediately he adds:
This, then, is the faith that is simpler and common to all who are concerned with either appearing to be or actually being Christians, so that .
one can say the more Important pomts m a summary:
Eunomius nonetheless proposes this faith as if it agrees with his own opinion. He does this for two reasons: (1) that he might escape the suspicion of innovation by accepting the faith of the fathers as being correct, and (2) that all who place their trust in the simplicity of these terms might unexpectedly fall into the snares of his sophisms. But at the same time he also knows that he can introduce his opinion in an attractive manner by expounding the A little later on we will talk about the contradictions in his statements and how they battle shamelessly against each other. But first let us remember that he is the one who in his above-mentioned words promised us so pompously "to expound the truth stripped of every covering." Now somewhere it is written: "We believe that unbegottenness is the substance of the God of the universe," or "We believe that the Only-Begotten is unlike the Father in substance."" Such is what he would have written if he
29· Gr. t<p' Euuni>v. The sense of this phrase seems to be that each father who used such "simple and undefined terms" spoke informally and privately, intending neither theological precision nor public, binding statements, but rather
"off the cuff' or "off the record" comments, as it were. Thus their statements were not authoritative "for others." See Rousseau 118-19. Gamier suggests (PC
30. Eunomius, Apol. 4.6-g (EW 36-38).
31. Eunomius, Apol. 5.1-5 (EW 38).
32. Eunomius. Apol. 6.1-3 (EW 38).
33. Here Basil is summarizing what he thinks are the tvo/O ~ain theses of .the Heteroousian doctrine advanced by Aetius in his Syntagrnatton; see L. R. WICkham, "The Syntagmation of Aetius the Anomean," jTSn.s. 19 (1968): 53 2 - 69.
29·509d) that the phrase means" sponte naturae, hoc est, primo mentis impelu, id quod agitur quasi non cogitantes," but translates it as a seipsis. Sesboiie apparentlyJollows Garnier: "selon leur premier mouvement."
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.4-5
Mter all, those who place more value on being called Christians had kept his promise and not obscured his ideas with a veil of deceit. I think everything he says is part of his plot. On the .one hand, he keeps silent about his own ideas lest he make himself unconvincing and hard to accept by actually presenting them to untrained ears. On the other hand, he puts forward the faith of the fathers as a defense. Because this faith contains ambiguous words, it will not be an obstacle to the argument of his own treatise and will easily lend itself to having its meaning changed by him, under the guise of explaining it, to whatever he wants. rather than truly being Christians, who don this false mask to deceive the many, are far from all correctness and truth. So, then, as the Preacher says, neither will what is perverted be made correct [Eccl 1.15], nor will the criteria of the truth apply to those who have chosen falsehood during their life, as Eunomius thinks it will.
[1.5] For the reasons Ijust mentioned he has been led into such blatant contradictions. In some statements he praises the faith sO that he might seem to be in a communion of piety with The truth of this is evident from the fact that as soon as he has set forth the faith of the fathers, he immediately rushes into its interpretation on some other pretext, [namely,] that it is the fathers. In other statements he in turn finds fault with it so that he might sneak open for himself a way to his own interpretation. This is why he asserts that the faith is both a rule and stands in need of something more precise to supplement it. But this assertion will be a sign of the utmost stupidity if anyone would like to analyze it. For, surely, 0 wisest of men, the rule and the norm, as long as they do not fall short of being the rule and the norm, do not need any supplementation for their precision. Additions are made, after all, when something is missing. But if the rule and the norm should be imperfect, there would be no justification for designating them as such. So much for this subject. insufficient for the resolution of the accusation made against him. Why, then, did you bother to cite this faith rather than directly advancing to those precise statements which would have cleared you of the accusations? Instead he offers this faith as an inerrant criterion, then in turn corrects it as if it were unsound.
Now everyone can recognize that he is wrapping the simplicity of this faith around his ideas like bait around a fish-hook that drags its catch to death. And so, when the less experienced run after the appearance of good, they are caught off-guard and hooked by the evil of impiety. Wanting to avoid the appearance of attempting, without being compelled, to correct the faith which he himself extolled with extravagant praise, it is as if he forgot his own words. Look at how he ridicules it: "This, then, is
But now let us examine for ourselves the arguments that Eunomius sets out concerning God:
Therefore, it is in accordance with both the natural notion34 and the the faith that is simpler and common to all who are concerned with either appearing to be or actually being Christians, so that one can say the more important points in a summary." teaching of the fathers that we have confessed that God is one and that 3+ In Stoic and Epicurean epistemology, a "common notion" (Ko(V~ EVVOLo.) or a "natural notion" (cpUO'lK~ Evvota) is any ordinary, naturally well-founded concept that is available to the mind as a "precon~eption" (npoATjl.IIlC;). A preconception is the innate concept of a thing that makes discussion, investigation, and understanding of it possible. Preconceptions are the necessary foundations and principles of all further knowledge that arises from rational inquiry. For Tell me: is the pious tradition of the fathers, the rule (as you yourself have called it), the norm, and the inerrant criterion, now to be designated in turn an instrument of deceit, a scheme of pretense, and things such as these? If it is not such a thing, then what else ought we understand it as? For it does not apply to those who are really Christians; but to those who place more value on seeming to be rather than actually being Christians!
Who, then-unless he is completely crazy!-would claim that an~ient testimonies, see Cicero, ND 243 and Acad. 2.30; Diogenes Laertius
7.54; Epictetus, Disc. 1.22; and Sextus Empiricus, M. 8·331a-332a. According to Michael Frede, common notions "provide us with an antecedent general understanding or grasp of the things which as rational beings we perceive and think about, and which even in perceiving them we represent in terms of these conceptions" ("Stoic epistemology," in K.Algra et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy [Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, the rule of correctness applies to those whose souls are perverted? That the norm of truth applies to enemies of the truth?
'999],295-322, at 3' 9).
, , , i\::
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.5
he did not come into existence either from himself or from another. against the truth from within the church itself, ifuntil today not even one of either group has become so severely paralyzed in his mind that he holds the unbegottenness of the unbegotten in dispute, I do not see what he seeks to gain by making these arguments. Do we really need the syllogisms of Aristotle and Chrysippus" to teach us that the unbegotten was not begotten, either by himself or by another? That he is neither older nor younger than himself? So what is he trying to do when he makes
~ach of these alternatives, you see, is equally impossible, since accordIng to truth the maker must pre-exist what comes into existence and what is m.ade m~st be secondary to the maker. A thing cannot be prior or postenor to Itself, and no other thing can be prior to God. If there were such a thin~, it, rather than the second, would surely have the dignity of divinity. 5
Why have I cited all this text of his? To expose the garrulity of the man throughout the entirety of his discourse. After claiming that on account of the common notions of all people it is self-evident" that God is unbegotten, he makes an attempt to supply us with the proofs for this. In doing this, he resembles the man who at high noon wants to use rational argumentation to teach those who can see things quite well for themselves that the sun is the brightest of the stars in heaven. Now if someone who uses rational argumentation to prove what is already quite well known through sense perception is considered to be utterly absurd, how could the person who teaches what common these statements?
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. Hence he takes pride in how his arguments take twists and turns, and so puts on a fine show in proving that the unbegotten was begotten neither by himself nor by another. In what follows, however, he has not forgotten his schemes. In the course of wasting his time discussing what everybody already agrees on, he slips in for his own purposes certain things as the building blocks for the arguments that follow. For it is not without purpose that he makes the point that "according to truth the maker must pre-exist what comes into existence." He hopes in his arguments about the Son that everyone will have already conceded that the Son comes into existence secondarily and posterior to the Father, since the maker is older than the one who comes into existence. Moreover, 'he wants to have it taken as a consequence of this thin the Son was begotten from nothing. But our refutation of this impiety toward the Son will be postponed for now and conducted later in the suitable place."
bl preconceptIOns ena e us all to agree upon not be considered g~ilty of the same foolishness? For people of sound judgment gIve far more credence to these realities than to those visibly manifested. Therefore, if anyone were shamelessly attacking thIS truth and adamantly insisting that the unbegotten was begotten either by himself or by another, then perhaps the vanity of Eunomius's words should be pardoned. But of all those who are unconcerned with our doctrine or who have risen up
35· Eunomius, Apol. 7.1-7 (EW 40).
36. Acc,ording to some Hellenistic philosophers, ,"self-evidence" (tvapycia) was the bruns for all knowledge, and no argument could be discovered that would be cl~~rer than what was tvapyb:;, "self-evident." See Cicero, Acad. 2.17; Sextus
Empmcus, M. 7.216-218. Hence, any argument attempting to prove what was claimed to be self·evident would be considered superfluous.
For my part, I would say that we would be justified in passing over the designation 'unbegotten' in silence, even if it seems to harmonize particularly well with our notions, on the grounds that it is nowhere to be found in Scripture and furthermore is the primary building block of their blasphemy. The term 'Fa37· In Stoic and Epicurean epistemology, a "preconception" (1Cp6ATl'Vl~) is related to natural notions (see n. 34 above), and is the innate notion ofa thing that makes discussion, investigation, and understanding of it possible. See Ci. cero, ND 1.43; Diogenes Laertius 7'54; Epictetus, Disc. 1.22. On the difference
38. Aristotle (384-322 BCE) was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy, while Chrysippus (c. 282-206 BCE) was considered to have devel· oped the Stoicism he inherited from his teachers into its classic form. Both were held in high regard for their contributions to logic. ben:e;,~ a notion and a preco~ception, see F. H. Sandbach, "Ennoia and pro. lepsls, III AA.Long, Problems m Stoicism (London: The Athlone Press, 197 1),
22-37, and MattJackson-McCabe, "The Stoic Theory of Implanted Preconcep. tions," Phronesis 49/4 (2004): 323-47.
39. Book Two refutes Eunomius's views on the Son.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.5
ther' means the same as 'unbegotten,' yet it has the additional advantage of implying a relation, thereby introducing the notion of the Son. For the one who is really Father is the only one who is from no other, and being 'from no one' is the same as being 'unbegotten.' Accordingly, we should not designate him the 'unbegotten' instead of 'Father,' at least if we are not going to claim a wisdom superior to the teachings of the Savior, who said: Go, baptize in the name of the Father [Mt 28.19], but not in the name of the unbegotten.40 So much for this subject. quences of his propositions had brought his line of reasoning around to the opposite of what he intended. For if "God's being unbegotten is consequent to God,"" it is clear that his unbegottenness is externally concomitant to him. And what is external to God is not his substance-this is the reason why his ploy is destined to fail.
What does he do to avoid suffering this fate? Giving little thought to the ridicule to which he would subject himself for stating non-sequiturs, he corrected what he previously had said in order to redirect his line of reasoning toward his intended conclusion, saying: "rather, that his unbegottenness is unbegotten substance." But this does not agree at all with what precedes it! For how can God have unbegottenness as consequent to him and simultaneously not consequent to him and contained in the formula of his substance?" Even so, he still does not admit that we have completely destroyed his sophism. For if he had brought his arguments to an end after saying that "God's being unbegotten is consequent to God," he would then have had no way of saying that unbegottenness is the substance of the God of Now let's look at what comes next in his treatise. If we advance a few lines, we see that he writes the following as if making a summary of what he has already said:
So then, if it has been demonstrated that God neither pre-exists himself nor that anything else pre-exists him, but that he is before all things, then it follows from this41 that he is unbegotten, or rather, that his unbegottenness42 is unbegotten substance.43
We detect in these words a captiousness quite easy to recognize, I think, even for one with slight knowledge. But making this captiousness evident to the many proves to be no easy task.
Nevertheless, we must make an attempt, placing our hope in the one who gives a word to those who proclaim good news with great power [Ps 67.12]. After saying "if neither God pre-exists himself nor anything else pre-exists him, then God's being unbegotten is consequent to him,"" Eunomius then realized that the consethe universe, or of proving that the only-begotten Son is alien to him according to substance. The reason for this is that nothing externally consequent to Father and Son is able to rupture their affinity according to substance. As a matter of fact, byadding: "rather, that his unbegottenness is unbegotten substance,"
Eunomius indicated that unbegottenness is precisely what God is. How this prepares his road to impiety, I shall demonstrate a little further on in my treatise."
40. cr. Athanasius, Ar. 1.34; Deer. 31; George of Laodicea, Ep. Dogm. (apud Epiphanius, Pan. 73.14-5-6 and 73.19.1-2).
41. Gr. CtKoAou8ei'roimp, "it follows from this." By "this" Eunomius means the three premises he has set out in the protasis of the conditiomil whose truth he thinks he has already demonstrated. Below Basil misinterprets (mistakenly or otherwise) the TOtJl'q> as a reference to God.
So, then, there are two things in this passage: one which he claimed from the outset and showed on the basis of the truth sil has construed Eunomius's TOIJl(1' as a reference to God, it necessitates translating CtKOAougei a bit differently to capture his interpretation of Eunomius.
42. Gr. mho. Eunomius had written airroc;, "he,"
43· Eunomius, Apol. 7·g-11 (EW 40). Cf. Aetius, Synt. 28: "If everything that has come to be has come to be from another, but the unbegotten subsistence
45. Gr. CtKOAouBei 1"41 8e41, "is consequent to· God." See n. 41 above.
46. Gr. AOYOC; 1"~C; ouatac;. Basil uses this phrase and its synonym, "formula of being" (AOYOC; 1"0i) elvm) , to denote the account that defines a thing's substance.
Objects that are of the same substance have the same formula of substance.
This terminology comes from Aristotle: see APo. 97a19; Cat. lal-12; GA 71SaS, (imouTaO"L<;) has not come to be either from itself or from another subsistence, then unbegottenness must reveal substance (ouaiav)" (Wickham 543), Basil would say that the Aetian passage has the same problem as the Eunomian passage: it concludes too much from its premises. Aetius,like Eunomiu5, only proves that God is unbegotten, but Aetius, like Eunomius, claims that it also proves that unbegottenness is the substance of God.
731b1g; GC335b7; Metaph. gg8b12 and 1018a1O.
47. In Eun. 1.16-18, Basil speaks of how the views of Eunomius result in blasphemy.
44· Gr. o.KoAou8ei nunp, "is consequent to him." See n. 41 above. Because Ba-
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.5-6
of the matter and according to the logical consequence of his propositions," the other which this so-called writer tossed in with a heretical intention as his concluding statement when he ing, being merely a noise escaping from the tongue? But such a thing is not called conceptualization, but rather craziness and babbling!" Now what if Eunomius were to concede that a conceptualization does in fact signify something, but something completely false and non-existent, like the fictional centaurs and demonstrated unparalleled shamelessness in suddenly shifting his position in order to correct his argument." For how is the same thing both consequent to God and identical with him, seeing that it is already obvious to everyone that what is consequent is different from that of which it is a consequence? As if committing himself to travel along a certain road, he starts with a line of reasoning meant to deceive, and advances toward establishing the proposition that unbegottenness is the substance of the God of the universe, so that, once this has been demonstrated, it may be conceded that the Only-Begotten is unlike the Father in substance.
Chimaera that appear in the mythologies? If this were the case, how does the falsehood, once it is spoken, dissolve together with the noise of the tongue, seeing that the false concepts remain in the mind after the voice is entirely dissipated into the air? For whenever the soul has become filled with utterly false and vacuous fictions, either the impressions received during sleep or simply the idle movements of the mind, and the soul retains these fictions in its memory but then willingly chooses to make them known with the voice, it is not the case that these mental impressions dissolve together with the words that expressed them.
Speaking falsehoods would in fact be very worthwhile if it truly were the nature of a falsehood to be destroyed with the spoken words. But a falsehood does not have such a nature.
But let's have a look at what he says:
When we say 'unbegotten,' we do not intend to honor God in name alone by human conceptualization; rather, we intend to repay him the most necessary debt of all, namely, confessing that he is what he is.
Things said by way of conceptualization, you see, have" an existence in It still remains to demonstrate not only how and for what sort of realities customary usage of language" employs the term name alone and when they are being pronounced, and by nature are dissolved together with the sounds used to say them.5o
'conceptualization,' but also how the divine oracles admit of its usage. Therefore, let us first look at common usage: whatever seems simple and singular upon a general survey by the mind," but which appears complex and plural upon detailed scrutiny and thereby is divided by the mind-this sort of thing is said to be divided through conceptualization alone. For example, at first glance the body may seem to be simple, but when reasoning is used it reveals that the body is complex, dissolving
He denies that unbegottenness can be considered in the case of God by way of conceptualization. For he thinks that this denial will make it easy for him to prove that unbegottenness is his substance, and, once this is proved, to demonstrate incontrovertibly that the only-begotten Son is unlike the Father in substance.
This is the reason why he attacks the term 'conceptualization' as signifying absolutely nothing but having subsistence only when it is being pronounced. Also, he pretends that honoring God with conceptualizations is unworthy of God. As far as I am con51. Basil here plays on epinoia and paranoia ("craziness").
52. In Stoic language theory, the "customary usage" «(JUV~e£la) and "common usage" (KOlV~ XP~O"l~) of language referred to natural operations of the min4 by which human beings communicate. cerned, any affirmation or denial of whether unbegottenness can be considered through conceptualization must wait until an inquiry into the word itself has taught us something about it.
53. Gr. Tai~ a9p6aL~ btl~OAai~ TaU vou. The phrase "general survey" (a9poa bnpoA~) has a long philosophical pedigree. In Epicurean epistemology an bu- [1.6] So I am glad to raise the question: what in the world is a conceptualization? Does this term signify absolutely nothPOA~ referred to the application or focusing of the mind upon an external image that resulted in a sensory or mental impression (e.g., Epicurus, Ep. Her. 4653 [Diogenes Laertius 1°-46-53]; d. Lucretius 4.722-822). Epicurus himself used the phrase a9p6a empoA~, meaning "general survey," in a context similar to Basil, making a distinction between a detailed investigation of a subject and a general overview (Ep. Her. 35 [Diogenes Laertius 10·35])'
48. That is, that God is ui1begotten.
49. That is, that God's substance is unbegottenness.
50. Eunomius, Apol. 8.1-5 (EW 40-42).
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.6-7
it through conceptualization into the things out of which it is constituted: color, shape, solidity, size, and so forth. Another example would be completely non-existent things envisioned only by a sort of conceptual portrait-painting and imagination, such as is marvelously done by myth-writers and painters to astound their audience: according to customary usage of language, such things are said to be considered by way of conceptualizatio·n.
[1. 7] The usage of conceptualization that we have learned from the divine word is actually quite close to the way of using the term that we outlined above. Though there is much I could say, I will only mention a single case, the most pertinent, leaving all the others aside. When our Lord Jesus Christ spoke about himself to make known both the Divinity's love of humanity and the grace that comes to humanity from the economy, 55 he did so by means of certain distinguishing marks'" considered in connection with him. He called himself 'door,' 'way,' 'bread,'
Eunomius has made no mention of these points, either through ignorance or captiousness, and has confined the philosophical account he gave us only to the topic of the conceptualization of non-existent things-and he does not even explain this as it really is. He does not claim, you see,'that a conceptualization signifies something, albeit something false, but that the term is completely meaningless and has subsistence only when it is being pronounced. The term 'conceptualization,' however, is far from being restricted only to vain and non-existent imaginations. Mter an initial concept has arisen for us from sense perception, the more subtle and precise reflection on what we have conceived is called conceptualization. For example, the concept of grain exists in everybody as something simple, by means of which we recognize grain as soon as we see it. But when we examine grain in detail we come to consider more things about it and use different designations to indicate the different things that we have conceived. For the same grain can be called at one time 'fruit,' at another time 'seed,' and again at another time 'nourishment.' 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. Now each one of these things mentioned is considered by way of conceptualization: each of these is not dissolved together with the noise of the tongue, but rather the concepts remain settled in the soul of the one who has conceived them. Generally speaking, all things recognized
'vine,' 'shepherd,' and 'light,''' even though he is not a polyonym." All these names do not carry the same meaning as one another. For 'light' signifies one thing, 'vine' another, 'way' another, and 'shepherd' yet another.'" Though our Lord is one in substrate, and one substance, simple and not composite, he calls himself by different names at different times, using designations that differ from one another for the different conceptualizations. On the basis of his different activities and his relation to the objects of his divine benefaction, he employs different names for himself. For instance, when he calls himself 'the light of the world,' he points out the inaccessibility of the glory in the divinity. He also calls himself this because he illuminates those who have purified the eye of their soul with the splendor of his knowledge. He calls himself 'vine' because he nurtures those who have been planted in him by faith so that they may bear the fruits of good works. And 'bread' because he turns out to be a 55. Gr. T~V e~ o!1(Ov0!1[ac; xaplv Toie; CtVeptimoLC;. The "economy" refers to God's saving acts in the world, especially those acts performed (and suffered) in the incarnation of Christ. See also Eun. 1.12, 2.3, and 2.15. For discussion, see
Ayres 220-21 and Behr 290-93.
56. Gr. i8u,Oflucri l"l0l. This is the first occurrence of a term crucial for Basil's
Trinitarian theology in Eun.
57. SeeJn 10.g, 14.6.6,51,15.1,10.11, and 8.12, respectively.
58. Porphyry (in Cat. 69, If. Busse) explains-that "polyonyms are things that have several different names, but one and the same account, such as 'sword,' through sense-perception and which seem simple in substrate but which admit of a complex account upon further consideration are said to be considered through conceptualization.54
'sabre,' and 'blade,' and in the case of clothing, 'coat' and 'cloak'" (trans.
Strange 50). Christ is not a polyonym for Basil because the diverse names given to him have different accounts.
59. Cf. Origen's discussion of the conceptualizations of Christ in the first two books of his Commentary on the Gospel of John, especially Jo. 1.22, 1.52-57,
54At Eun. 1.6, 57 (SC 299.188). we read ernvoLQ. for emvo[u, clearly a mis~ print.
1.126,1.154; see also Cels. 2.64 and 7.16.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.7-8
rational being's most appropriate nourishment, since he maintains the soul's constitution, preserves its distinguishing mark, and, always filling up from himself what is lacking, does not allow it to be dragged down to the weakness that enters it from irrationality. And if anyone should examine each of the names one by one, he would find the various conceptualizations, even though for all there is one substrate as far as substance is concerned. Who, then, has so sharpened his tongue for blasphemy that he dares to say that these conceptualizations are dissolved together with the sound of the words? when we designate him 'unbegotten,' but rather that we "repay him the most necessary debt of all" when we "confess that he is what he is."6' What could we say that would fittingly describe this wily duplicity? He attempts to alarm the more simple by claiming that they fail to render what is owed to God unless they confess that unbegottenness is his substance. In addition, he calls his own impiety the payment of a debt, so that he appears not to be saying something on his own authority, but to be fulfilling the debt we are constrained to pay to God. And to others he indicates that, once they have placed unbegottenness in the substance of God, they will be discharged as innocent.
But if they understand the matter differendy, in the pious way, they should expect inexorable wrath, on the grounds that they failed to repay the most important and the most necessary of all obligations.
So, then, what is absurd about having a similar understanding of terms used by way of conceptualization for the God of the universe, even the very term that first motivated our entire treatise?60 We will discover that the name 'unbegotten' is said in no other way. For we say that the God of the universe is 'incorruptible' and 'unbegotten,' designating him with these names according to various aspects.61 Whenever we consider ages past, we find that the life of God transcends every beginning and say that he is 'unbegotten.' Whenever we stretch our mind forward to the ages to come, we designate the one who is without boundary, infinite, and comprehended by no terminal point as Gladly, then, would I scrutinize him to see if he similarly sticks to this prudence in the case of all that is said about God, or if he does so only in the case of this word." For if he does not consider anything at all by way of conceptualization so as to avoid the appearance of honoring God with human designations, then he will confess this: that all things attributed to God similarly refer to 'incorruptible.' Therefore, just as 'incorruptible' is the name we give him because his life is without an end, so too is 'unbehis substance. But how is it not ridiculous to say that his creative power is his substance? Or that his providence is his substance?
Or the same for his foreknowledge? In other words, how is it not ridiculous to regard every activity of his as his substance? And if all these names converge upon a single meaning, each one has to signify the same thing as the others, such as is the case with polyonyms, as when we call the same man 'Simon,' 'Peter,' and gotten' the name given because his life is without a beginning, when we consider each through conceptualization."' What reason could there be, then, for denying that each of these names is conceptualized and that they constitute a confession of what truly belongs to God? But Eunomius separates the two-what is said "by way of conceptualization" and what repays God the confession he is due, namely, "that he is what he is"-as if they were opposed to one another and utterly incompatible.
'Cephas.'6' In the same vein, whoever has heard that God does not change will also be led to his unbegottenness, and whoever has heard that he has no parts will also be brought to his creative power. What is more absurd than this confusion? Each of the names is deprived of its proper signification, and conventions are established that contradict both common usage and the teaching of the Spirit. And yet, when we hear it said about God that in [1.8] Let's not pass by the fact that he makes a show ofreverent caution only to bring those who listen to him to ruin. For he says that we do "not honor God by human conceptualization"
60. That is, 'unbegotten.'
61. Gr. KUTCt 8LOcp6pouc; empoi\ac;.
62. Gr. Tfi EmVOtc;t 8ewpolJ"TWV ~!lwv ixo:rEpa. We follow the reading of CVBFKRXZ and other russ., a reading also witnessed to by Gregory of Nyssa, Eun. 2.507.
63. Eunomius, Apol. 8.1-3 (EW 40-42).
64. That is, 'unbegotten.'
65See n. 58 above.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.8-9
wisdom he made all things [Ps 103.24], we learn of his creative art.
When it is said that he opens his hand and fills every living thing with [l.g] Look at what comes next in his treatise. Mter he thinks he has demonstrated that it is impossible to comprehend unbegottenness through conceptualization, he adds: deZzght [Ps '4+ 16], it is a question of his providence that extends everywhere. When it is said that he made the darkness his hiding.place
More?ver,. in .no way [is God said to be unbegottenl by way of privanon, If pnvauons are ~n fact pnvatIOns of natural attributes, and secondary to possessions.66
[Ps '7.'2], we are taught that his nature is invisible. Furthermore, when we hear what was said by God himself, As for me, I am and do not change [Mal 3.6], we learn that the divine substance is always the same and unchanging. So, then, how is it not sheer madness to deny that a proper signification underlies each of the names, and to claim in contradiction to their actual meaning that all names mean the same thing as one another?
It is not difficult to show that he chatters on and on about these matters based on the wisdom of the world. Perverted by this wisdom, he proposes innovative arguments such as these. The claims about possession and privation come from Aristotle, as those who have read him can attest, in his book entitled CategoNev~rtheless, even if we were to concede this point, not even then Will they come any closer to reaching their goal. For if all these names which are used for our God and Father signify his nes, where he says that privations are secondary to possessions."
To prove that he speaks not on the basis of the Spirit's teaching, but according to the wisdom of the rulers of this age [1 Cor 2.6], it is enough that we quote a psalm verse against him: Transgressors
~ub~tance-~ mean. 'unchangeable,' 'invisible,' and 'incorruptIble -then It IS baSIcally clear that they will also be indicative of substance in the case of the only-begotten Son and God. For we also call the. only-begotten Son 'invisible,' 'unchangeable,' 'incorruptible,' 'partless,' and all such names. And thus will their cleverness come back to refute them. For they will be no more capable of demonstrating that the Son is unlike in substance because of a single different designation than compelled by the very necessity of the terms admitted to confess his likeness because of many shared designations. If he were to say that he has employed this reverent caution only in the case of the term
'un begotten,' whereas in the other cases he is careless, let us once more put a question to him: why this arbitrary selection?
When there are so many things that are said about God, why does he opt to be exact in this one case alone? And if in the case of this name he is paying his debt of "confessing that he is what he is," why in the case of other names does he not refrain from honoring him with the whole multitude of human conceptualizations? For the one who has many debts but repays only one
IS not prudent for repaying this one but rather exceedingly imprudent for withholding the repayment of all the rest. Therefore: as ifth~y were traps set for wild beasts, Eunomius is caught by h,S own wlies: the more he attempts to escape from them, the more he is refuted by them. 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 Lord Jesus Christ, it suffices to recall that saying of his: Whenever he tells a lie, he speaks on his own authority On 8,44]·68
In this way we are able to curtail the bulk of our own arguments, as we have now made it plain to all with these statements that we have no communion with them. For what agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what does a believer share with an unbeliever?
[2 Cor 6.15] But lest lack ofrefutation imply that we are taking refuge in silence, come, let's briefly discuss these matters.
Note, Eunomius, that many of the things said about God are expressed with terms of a similar formation, for example, 'incorruptible,' 'immortal,' and 'invisible.' We maintain that 'unbegotten' has the same formation.'" So, then, if some call such names
'privatives,' this way of speaking is of no concern to us. For we know nothing about the technical jargon for terms, nor are we
. envious of those who do know. Nonetheless, in whatever category 66. Eunomius. Apol. 8.7-8 (EW 42).
67. Aristotle, Cat. 10, u~a26-13a37· 6S. Basil is implicitly comparing Eunomius to the devil, who is the subject ofJn 8·4469. In Greek all these'terms are formed with an alpha-privative, the Greek equivalent of the prefixes inor un-.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.9-10
term with the same formation? None of the others assists him in achieving his impiety! For this reason he does not mention the rest of them, notwithstanding the fact that there are countless things that we say about God. one may put the other terms we have listed, we say that the designation 'unbegotten' also belongs in the same. Just as 'incorruptible' signifies that no corruption is present to God, and 'invisible' that he is beyond every comprehension through the eyes, and [ 1.101 Such is the situation. There is not one name which encompasses the entire nature of God and suffices to express it adequately. Rather, there are many diverse names, and each one contributes, in accordance with its own meaning, to a notion that is altogether dim and trifling as regards the whole but that is at least sufficient for us. Now some of the names applied to God are indicative of what is present to God; others, on the contrary, of what is not present. From these two something like an impression of God is made in us, namely, from the denial of what is incongruous with him and from the affirmation of what
'incorporeal' that his substance is not three-dimensional, and 'immortal' that dissolution will never happen to him, so too do we also say that 'unbegotten' indicates that no begetting70 is present to him. So, then, if none of the former terms is privative, then neither is the latter. But if you grant that the former terms are privatives without conceding this for the designation 'unbegotten,' then tell me, what is the preceding possession whose privation is revealed by 'incorruptible'? Why can't 'unbegotten' have the same force? He practices his evil art on this term alone because the foundations of his impiety depend upon it.
To make his deception plain, do this: take the arguments that he uses for 'unbegotten' (that it is not reasonable to speak about God either "by human conceptualization" or "by way of privation"), and notice what happens when you transfer them to some of the other things said about God. You will discover that the arguments he uses are perfectly suited for each term. If you like, we can do this for 'incorruptible,' substituting it into his own text: "When we say 'incorruptible,' we do not intend to honor God by human conceptualization; rather, we intend to repay him the most necessary debt of all, namely, confessing that he is what he is. Moreover, in no way [is God said to be incorruptible 1 by way of privation, if privations are in fact privations of natural attributes, and secondary to their possessions."
Why is it more fitting to give this philosophical account for belongs to him.
For example, whenever we call him 'incorruptible,' we are implicitly saying to ourselves or to those who hear us: "Do not think that God is subject to corruption." Whenever we call him
'invisible': "Do not suppose that he can be comprehended by the perception that comes through the eyes." Whenever we call him 'immortal': "Do not think that death happens to God." It is the same whenever we call him 'unbegotten': "Do not believe that the being of God depends on any cause or principle." On the whole, we learn from each of these names not to fall into' inappropriate notions in our suppositions about God. So, then, in order that we may come to know the particular distinguishing mark" of God, in our statements about God we forbid each other to lower our thoughts to the level of what is not appropriate. We do this so that human beings will never consider God to be one of the things that are corruptible, or one of the things that are visible, or one of the things that are begotten. Forbidding all these names results in something like a denial of what is foreign to him, since our minds articulate distinctly and cast aside the suppositions concerning what is not present to him.
I, ;1 :1
'unbegotten' than for 'incorruptible' and in general for each 70. Gr. ytvvllcrtv. Mss. BKRXZ witness to the alternative reading ytvEOlV, "coming to be," The alternative reading accords much better with Basil's thought elsewhere. At Eun. 1.7.43 and 1.15, 25-26, Basil argues that unbegottenness is synonymous with "without origin" (avapxov). In other words, it is a tenn that rules out the notion that God came to be in any way, not simply through begetting. Perhaps more importantly, Basil elsewhere affinns that there is begetting
Again, we say that God is 'good,' Just,' 'Creator,' Judge,' and all such things. So, then, as in the case of the terms we just spoke about which signified a denial and rejection of what is foreign
(ytVV'lOlC;) in God in the sense that the Father generates the Son, who is God: see, e.g., Eun. 2.6. At Eun. 1.10,37, however, Basil repeats his claim that the tenn
'unbegotten' is a denial of begetting (ytvv'lcrt<;), which leads us to believe that the alternative reading ofYEvecrtv in the present passage is a learned correction.
71. Gr. T\J E~a[pETov iolw\-la.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.10-11
to God, so here they indicate the affirmation and existence of what has affinity with God and is appropriately considered in (so he thinks) into the substance itself and says concerning the God of the universe that "it must be unbegotten substance." As for me, I too would say that the substance of God is unbegotconnection with him. Accordingly, we learn from each of the two forms of designation either that what is present is present or that what is not present is not present. Now 'unbegotten' is indicative of what is not present. For it reveals that there is no begetting present to God. But it makes no difference to us if someone wants to designate this a 'negation' or a 'rejection' or a 'denial' or some such thing. I think that what I have said has sufficiently demonstrated that 'unbegotten' is not indicative of what belongs to God. Now the substance is not one of the things not present, but is rather the very being of God; indeed, it is the pinnacle of insanity to count it among that which does not have being. For if the substance is among that which does not have being, then it could hardly be the case that any of the other things we have mentioned has being. So, then, it has been demonstrated that 'unbegotten' is classed with what is not present." Therefore, whoever holds that this term is indicative of the substance itself is a liar. ten, but I would not say that unbegottenness is the substance.
Moreover, it is worthwhile to remind him that partlessness and simplicity are the same thing as far as the notion is concerned.
For that which is not composed from parts is partless; similarly, that which is not constituted from many elements is simple. Yet Eunomius divides these two from one another as if their refer- .ents were different. Then he issues an injunction, saying that we ought not divide God, supposing that some part of him is unbegotten and another begotten. Nor ought we think that unbegottenness is located in him as one thing in another.
I hesitate to describe the foolishness of these claims. For whoever speaks against foolishness somehow or other seems to resemble the one uttering such nonsense. I think this is why the wise Solomon recommends not replying to a fool according to his folly [Prv 26.4]. At any rate, Eunomius has classified some words, which have been neither said nor spoken at any time, in order to appear to be making this discovery: that of the many ways he has enumerated, there is only one appropriate way to say 'unbegotten.' We would perhaps need a longer argument to expose his fallacy and show that unbegottenness is not the substance of God, if we had not already provided a clear refutation of the ways enumerated by him in his classification. For even if one were to grant his claim that 'unbegotten' is understood
"neither by way of conceptualization, nor by way of privation," his conclusion would still not follow. Why would unbegottenness have to fall under one of the ways he enumerated? The truth, however, is otherwise: since he introduces this statement as if it necessarily follows from what went before-"therefore, if neither by way of conceptualization, nor by way of privation," nor according to another one of the ways he enumerated, "then it must be unbegotten substance"-Iet us retort: "Therefore, since 'unbegotten' is considered by way of conceptualization and is privative, unbegottenness is not the substance of God."
You see, as long as he does not refute what we have said and [1.11] Since he cannot bear that anything is said about God by way of privation, on the grounds that it is absurd, he has recourse to something more pious: he situates unbegottenness in the substance itself. Here is how he summarizes his argument:
So then, if [God is unbegottenl neither by way of conceptualization, nor by way of privation, nor in part (for he is without parts), nor as something else in him (for he is simple), nor as something else alongside him (for he is the one and only unbegotten), then it" must be unbegotten substance.74
His argument is now exactly where he wants it to be. Mter dragging unbegottenness away from all other senses, he shoves it
72. Basil's statement here is elliptical: in light of what he has just argued, he must mean that 'unbegotten' is among those terms that signify what is not present. It signifies that being begotten is not present. Basil is not saying that being unbegotten is not present.
73. Gr. a:lJT(), The referent of al)TC) should probably be understood as TO a.yevvrrrov, "unbegouenness." Eunotnius is claiming that the only way in which 'one can make sense of calling God 'unbegotten' is as a definition of the substance of God, that is, that unbegottenness is the substance of God. does not confirm his own propositions, his conclusion will have no place to stand.
74. Eunomius, Apol. 8.'4-18 (EW 42).
ST; BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.12
[1.12J Generally speaking, how much arrogance and pride would it take for someone to think he has discovered the very substance of God above all? For by their bragging" they nearly eclipse even the one who said: Above the stars I will set my throne fable words which are impossiblefor a person to utter [2 Cor 12.2-4].80
What teaching did he bequeath to us about the substance of God? He is the one who peered into the particular reasons for the economy''' and cried out with this voice, as if the vastness of what he contemplated made him dizzy: 0 the depth of the riches
[Is 14.13]. Yet these men are not insolently attacking the stars or heaven, but are bragging that they have penetrated the very substance of the God of the universe! Let's ask him from which source he claims to have comprehended it. So, then, from a common notion?'6 But this tells us that God exists, not what God is." Perhaps from the Spirit's teaching? Which one? Where is it located? Isn't it clear that the great David, to whom God manifested the secret and hidden things. of his own wisdom,'8 confessed that such knowledge is inaccessible? For he said: I regard knowledge of you as a marvel, as too strong-I am not able to attain it and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments, and how unsearchable are his ways! [Rom 1 1. 33] If these things are beyond the understanding of those who have attained the measure of the knowledge of Paul, how great is the conceit of those who profess to know the substance of God?
I would like to ask them about the earth upon which they stand and from which they come-what do they say? What do they tell us is its substance?" If they were to argue incontrovertibly about what lies on the ground and under their feet, we
[Ps 138.6]. And when Isaiah came to contemplate the glory of God,79 what did he reveal to us about the divine substance? He is the one who testified in the prophecy about Christ, saying:
80. Gr. a OUK ~#)V 6.v9pW1((.p AaA~aat [2 Cor 12-4]. While this passage is normally translated "which no one is permitted to speak," E~OV can also mean "it is possible" and the context in which Basil cites this verse warrants understanding it in this way. It is not the case that Paul grasped the "ineffable words" he heard regarding the substance of God but was not permitted to speak them; rather, since Paul did not even understand what he heard, it was impossible for him to say anything definite about the substance of God. Such is precisely how both
Gregory of Nyssa (Hom. in Cant, 3 and 5) and Gregory of Nazianzus (Or. 27'9, 28,3, and 28.20) understand this verse.
81, Gr. TOUC; flEpl1COUC; T* olKovOfllac; J..6yolJC;. On the economy, see n. 55 above.
82. Basil here is not thinking primarily of what we call the planet earth, but of the element earth; if he is thinking of the former, it is because it is made of the latter. The present passage is a close parallel to Basil's Hex. 1.8: "Let us make the same resolutions for ourselves concerning earth: not to inquire meddlesomely what its substance might be, nor to spend our time investigating by reasoning its very substrate, nor to seek some nature devoid of qualities, existing without qualification in its own account, but rather to know well that all the Who shall tell of his begetting? [Is 53.8] Then there's Paul, the vessel of election [Acts 9.15], who had Christ speaking in him [2 Cor
13·3] and was snatched away up to the third heaven and heard inif75· That is, the bragging of Eunomius and his associates.
76. On common notions, see p. 91 n. 34 above.
77· According to both the Epicureans and Stoics, one of the common notions was that God exists; for the Epicurean view, see Epicurus, Ep. Men. 123-24 .
(Diogenes Laertius 10.123-24); Cicero, ND 1.43-49; Sextus Empiricus. M.
9·43-47; for the Stoic view, see Cicero. ND 2.12-16 and 75-76; Plutarch, Comm. not. l075e; Diogenes Laertius 7.147; Sextus Empiricus, M. 9.133-36. For both
Epicureans and Stoics, the common notion of God was not limited to the content that God exists but included a set of specific attributes of God. According to the Epicureans, God was, for example, eternal, blessed, immortal, and imperishable; according to the Stoics, immanent, providential, rational, and active. These attributes were discerned through reason and a general observation of the universe. Basil expresses a similar view in a letter (Ep. 234) written to Amphilochius of !conium in January 376, where he says that the notion things which are observed in connection with it are set down in the formula of its being, being complements of its substance. If you tried to remove by reason each of the qualities that exist in it, you would end up with nothing. For if you take away blackness, coldness, heaviness, solidity, the qualities that exist in it ffith respect to taste, or any others which are observed in connection with it, the (evvOlu) of God is formed by reflecting on God's attributes revealed in scripture, such as his greatness, power, wisdom, goodness, providence, and justice, but that God's substance is incomprehensible. Hence, for Basil, while the nosubstrate ffill be nothing" (Giet 122-24; our translation). The point is that one cannot through reasoning abstract an unqualified substance (ouota) for earth, since the qualities of earth are its essential complements: take th~m away. ~nd you destroy earth. A further assumption seems to be that .an essentlal defim~lOn tion of God tells us far more than simply that God exists, it still does not grant us knowledge of the divine substance.
78. See Ps 50.8.
79· See Is 6.1-3. would exclude qualities on the grounds that they are aCCIdental. These nouons inform the logic of the argument Basil makes in Eun. 1.U~-13·
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.12-13
would believe them even when they concern themselves with the things beyond every notion. What, then, is the substance of the earth? What is its mode of comprehension?" Let them respond and tell us whether it is a rational account or sense-perception that attains comprehension.s, If they claim sense-perception, by which' of the senses is it comprehensible? By sight? But sight apprehends colors. Perhaps by touch? But touch can distinguish between hardness and softness, between hot and cold, and such things, none of which anyone would call substance-unless he had been. carried away to the utmost insanity! As for taste and smell, what do we need to say about these senses? The former apprehends flavors; the latter, odors. And as for hearing, it is perceptive of noises and voices, things which have no relationship to the earth." Therefore, the only option left to them is to say that they have discovered the substance of the earth by a rational account. What sort of rational account is this? Where is it located in the scriptures? Which of the saints handed it down? ing it sufficient to state who made the earth and set it in order, he has refused to waste his time investigating what the earth's substance is, on the grounds that such an endeavor is pointless and useless to his audience. Hence, if knowledge of the earth's substance is established neither by the testimony derived from sense-perception nor by the teaching derived from the rational account, on what basis do they still claim to possess comprehension of it? Insofar as the earth is perceptible to the senses, it is either color or mass or lightness or heaviness or density or rarity or hardness or softness or coldness or hotness, or the qualities pertaining to flavor, or shape or magnitude-none of which they can say is its substance, not even if they were to affirm all of them readily. Yet none of the wise and blessed has provided a rational account which has made it possible to consider the earth's substance. Therefore, what mode of knowledge still remains? Let them answer us, seeing that they despise all things under their feet, transcend the heaven and all the supercosmic powers, and join themselves to the first substance itself through their intellect.86 But it seems that self-conceit is the most difficult of all the passions in human beings since in actual fact it envelops those whom it affects in the condemnation of the devil.87 Hence those who have no understanding of the nature of the earth on which they trample go so far as to brag that they have penetrated the very substance of the God of the universe!
[1.13] The one who gave us an account of creation taught us only this much: In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth; now the earth was invisible and without farm [Gn 1. 1-2]. Think83· Gr. Ka-rCtA'1'Vl<';, "comprehension." According to Stoic epistemology. "comprehension" is the kind of knowledge that stands betvv'een "opinion" (56~a) and "scientific understanding" (EmaT~!l'1). Opinion is the grasp of an individual proposition in such a way that it could be false and is thus a kind of knowledge that is unreliable and subject to error. Comprehension is the grasp of an individual proposition in such a way that it cannot be false and is thus a kind of knowledge that is certain, reliable, and impregnable to any reasoning aimed at producing a change of mind. SCientific knowledge is based upon comprehension, in that it is a systematic comprehension of a whole body of interrelated propositions. For ancient testimonies, see Cicero, Acad. 1.41-42; 2.145; Sextus
Empiricus, M. 7.151-57; Stobaeus 2.73.16-7+3. Here and in Eun. 1.13-14, Basil is using the Stoic technical term "comprehension" to demonstrate that Eunomius does not have certain, reliable knowledge of the substance of the earth, to say nothing of the substance of God.
God said that he was the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, for this is my everlasting name and my memorial to generations of generations [Ex 3.15]. When he said this, he was placing a high value on being named the God of such men due to their perfection in all virtue, considering being thus named as something proper and fitting to his majesty. Yet God did not even disclose his name to these saints, namely, to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob, and much less88 did he reveal what his
8+ Here the disjunction is bet\.veen achieving comprehension of something by "sense-perception" (atcr9Ilmc;) or by a "rational account" (A6yoC;). The term
A6yoC; here has the sense of "reason" but also the sense of an expression of reason, such as one might find in the Scriptures; hence our translation, "rational account."
86. Basil's rant against the intellectual arrogance of Eunomius and his followers is reminiscent ofPlotinus's against Gnostics in En. 2.9. The accusation of arrogance became a topos in anti-Eunomian literature; see Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 27.
87. See 1 Tm 3.6. Basil makes a similar point in Eun. 1·3.
88. At Eun. 1.13.32 (SC 299.218). we read ~TIOl) for ~TIOl).
85· Basil's enumeration of the proper objects of each of the five senses is ultimately based on Aristotle, de An. 2.6-11.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.13-14
PQsite is the case. It is tQ be expected that the very substance of GQd is incQmprehensible tQ everyone except the Only-BegQtten and the HQly Spirit. But we are led up fmm the activities of GQd and gain knQwledge Qf the Maker thmugh what he has made, and SQ C9me in this way tQ an understanding Qf his gQQdness and wisdQm. FQr what can be known about God is that which God has substance is! For he said: I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham and baac andJacob, as I am their God, and I did not disclose my name to them [Ex 6.2-3]. Clearly, he said this because his name is too great for human ears. Yet it seems that to Eunomius God has manifested not only his name, but also his very substance! This great secret, which was not manifested to any of the saints, he makes public by writing it in his books, and blurts it out to all people recklessly. While the promised blessings stored up for us89 are beyond all human knowledge, and the peace of God surpasses all intelligence [Phil 4.7], he does not admit that the very substance of God is beyond all intelligence and beyond all human knowledge. manifested [RQm 1.19] tQ all human beings.
Since whatever the theologians seem to have recorded about the substance of God has been expressed in figurative language or even in allegQfies, the wQrds transPQft us to Qther nQtiQns.
Hence if someQne shQuld C9ntentiously stand by the mere letter, taking it in its Qbvious interpretation withQut duly examining it, he has strayed into the myths of the Jews [Ti 1.14] and silly
[1.14] I think that comprehension of God's substance transcends not only human beings, but alsQ every rational nature.
NQW by "ratiQnal nature" here, I mean Qne which belQngs tQ creation. FQr the Father is knQwn by the SQn alQne, and by the Holy Spirit, because: No one knows the Father except the Son [Mt old wives' tales [1 Tm 4-7], and he will gmw old in abject PQVerty, devoid of WQfthy C9ncepts abQut God. FQf in addition tQ thinking that the substance Qf GQd is sQmething material and thereby agreeing with the Greek atheists, he will alSQ supPQse that it is complex and C9mpQsite. FQf example, the pmphet describes God as like amber from his loins upward and composed of fire
11.27], and: The Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
For no one knows what belongs to a man except the spirit that is in him, below [Ezek 8.2]. Whoever dQes nN ascend, by means Qfthe letter, tQ the loftier nQtiQns and sQmehQw sticks tQ the cQfPoreal descriptiQns of the passage learns fmm Ezekiel that this is what the substance Qf God is like. Then again, he will hear from Moses that God is fire [Dt 4.24]. In additiQn, the wise man Daniel will lead him to other supPQsitiQns93 Hence when he reads the scriptures he will find in them images which are not Qnly false and no one knows what belongs to God except the Spirit that is from God [1 CQr 2.1 Q-11]. 90 What, then, will remain distinctive abQut the knQwledge that the Only-BegQtten m the HQly Spirit has, if indeed theygl themselves have C9mprehensiQn Qf the very substance? Even though they dQ not attribute tQ the Only-BegQtten the cQntemplatiQn Qf the PQwer and gQQdness and wisdQm of GQd, they have nQnetheless made the apprehension Qf GQd's substance CQmmensurate with themselves.92 In fact, the exact QPbut alSQ in conflict with Qne another.
TherefQfe, putting aside this idle curiQsity abQut the substance since it is unattainable, we ought to Qbey the simple advice of the ApQstle, who said: One must first believe that God exists
89. This expression is often repeated elsewhere by Basil, but only here are the promised blessings said to be beyond human understanding; cf. Epp. 2.1, 8;
23.1,16; 277.1, 29; 314.1,11; Spir. '5.36.7. go. Gr. d fl~ TO ITveu!la 1'0 EK TOU 8EQu, "except the Spirit that is from God."
This wording is borrowed from 1 Cor 2.12 and conflated with 1 Cor 2.10-11, which in the standard text reads: et f1~ TO IIveu!lu 8eoO, "except the Spirit of and that he rewards those who seek him [Heb 11.6]. FQr it is nN the investigation Qf what he is, but rather the confession that he is, which prepares salvatiQn for us. TherefQfe, since it has been demQnstrated that the substance Qf GQd is incomprehensible
God." Basil makes the same conflation in Spiro 16-{0. tQ human nature and cQmpletely ineffable, it remains that we must thQmughly examine unbegNtenness itself, bQth what it is
91. That is, Eunomius and his followers.
92. The thought here is that while Eunomius and his followers grant to the OnlYABegotten neither the contemplation of God's substance nor even the contemplation of the attributes of that substance, they themselves arrogantly claim to have apprehended God's substance.
93. See Dn 7.9-10.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.14-16
"5 who, when asked, "What is the substance of Adam? What is his and how it is considered in the case of the God of the universe. nature?" replies that he is not formed from the copUlation of a man and a woman, but rather by the divine hand. The recipient of such a reply may object: "I am not seeking the manner of his subsistence but rather the material substrate of the man him- [1.15) So, then, when we reflect upon the matter, we find that our notion of unbegottenness does not fall under the examination of 'what it is,'94 but rather-and here I am forced to speak this way-under the examination of 'what it is like.'9' When our mind scrutinizes whether God who is over all [Rom 9.5) has some cause superior to himself, then, unable to conceptualize any, it designates the fact that his life is without beginning as 'unbegotten.' When we talk about human beings and say that this person
. has come from that person, we are not relating the 'what it is' of self. Your response has not answered my question."" So, then, this is how it is for those of uS who have learned from the term
'unbegotten' what God is like rather than his very nature.
[1.16) Generally speaking, if anyone wants to understand the truth of what we are saying, let him examine what he does when he wants to get some idea of the things concerning God and see if he arrives at whatever is signified by 'unbegotten.' As I see it, when we stretch our mind toward the ages to come, we say that each but the 'from where he has come.' Similarly, when we talk about God, the term 'unbegotten' does not signify his 'what' but that he is 'from no source.' the life not limited by any boundary is 'without end.' Similarly, when we ascend in our thoughts to that which is beyond the My point can be clarified as follows. When Luke the evangelist recounted the genealogy of our God and Savior Jesus Christ according to the flesh, he worked his way backwards from the last to the first9 ' He began with Joseph, saying that he was the son of Heli, who was the son of Matthan. He traced the lineage similarly all the way back to Adam. When he reached the end, ages and peer upon the boundlessness of the life of God as if upon some vast ocean, we are unable to apprehend any origin from which he has come. Rather, we think of the life of God as always outside of and exceeding whatever we can conceive, and call the fact that his life is without beginning 'unbegotten.' For the notion of 'unbegotten' is this: that it does not have the origin of its being from another source. he said that Seth came from Adam but that Adam came from God, and stopped there. In narrating the begetting of each person, he did not indicate the substances of those enumerated but recounted the proximate origin from which each cine came. So, just as Luke said that Adam came from God, let us ask ourselves:
But since 'unbegotten' is considered only with respect to the God of the universe, Eunomius has seized upon the most harmful thing of all for his blasphemy against the Only-Begotten.
What does he say next?
"Did God come from anyone?" Isn't it obvious in each one of our minds that God came from no one? Clearly, that which is
'from no one' is 'without origin,' and that which is 'without origin' is 'unbegotten.' Therefore, just as being 'from someone' is not the substance when we are talking about human beings, so too when we are talking about the God of the universe it is not possible to say that 'unbegotten' (which is equivalent to saying 'from nO one') is the substance. Whoever says that being
But if God is unbegotten as in the preceding demonstration, he could never admit a begetting which would result in his giving a share of his own proper nature to the one who is begotten, and he would escape all comparison or fellowship with the one who is begotten,98
What a shameless and wicked blasphemy! What hidden deceit and subtle villainy [Acts 13.lO)! It is exactly as though he speaks with the very wiles of the devil [Eph 6.11)! Since he wants to show
'without origin' is the substance equates himself with someone that the only-begotten Son and God is unlike the God and Father, he keeps silent about the names of 'Father' and 'Son,' and 94Gr. TO Ti Ecrnv. The expression is Aristotelian, and refers to the substance ofa thing (see, for example, Metaph. Z, 4); the phrase was ttanslated into Latin as essentia, whence our English word 'essence.'
97. On "material substrate," see Eun. 2·4. and the note there.
98. Eunomius, Apol. 9.1-3 (EW 42).
95. Cr. TO 01IWC; EOl(V.
96. See Lk 3.23-38.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.16-17
simply discusses the 'unbegotten' and the 'begotten.' He conceals the names that belong to the saving faith and hands over the doctrines of his blasphemy unveiled. He does this so that, once he has practiced his impiety first with things and then shifted to persons,99 he might not seem to have said anything slanderous while maintaining that his blasphemy has been proven, as if it follows as a consequence of his reasoning. of the Only-Begotten. lOo So if "he could never admit a begetting which would result in his giving a share of his own proper nature to the one who is begotten," then God is not Father and there is no .... It is better for us to leave this blasphemous statement incomplete. lOl For the former has nothing to do with begetting, and the latter does not have a share in the nature of the one who has begotten him.
"But if God is unbegotten," he says, "he would escape all comparison or fellowship with the one who is begotten." He did not say 'Father' and 'Son' but 'unbegotten' and 'begotten.' This great misdeed of his is one thing, but look at what the second is like: "But if God is unbegotten," he says, "he could never admit a begetting." And he adds: "which would result in his giving a share of his own proper nature to the one who is begotten." The phrase "he could never admit a begetting" has two meanings: (1) that begetting is not applicable to his proper nature, since it is impossible for an unbegotten nature to come under begetting, and (2) that he does not admit of generating another. Eunomius used the phrase according to the second meaning, but he seizes the masses by the first notion. That this is his plan is clearly shown by what follows. For after he said that "he could never admit a begetting," he added: "which would result in his giving a share of his own proper nature to the one who is begotten." This is the consequence of the second notion: he does not admit of becoming Father, and so he does not "give a share of his own proper nature to the one who is begotten."
What could be more bitter than this impiety? Who has ever spoHe next tries to outdo himself, inventing a new way to prove his blasphemy. He does not issue anything close to a retraction, but contentiously uses what comes after to conceal what he mentioned before. What did he dare to say? "He would escape all comparison or fellowship with the one who is begotten." If there is no comparison of the Son with the Father and no fellowship with the one who has begotten him, the apostles are liars and the gospels are liars. But our Lord Jesus Christ is the Truth itself.
As for me, I once again shudder at the blasphemy, yet it is easy for everyone to recognize it. If he has no comparison whatsoever with the Father, how could he say to Philip: Have I been with you jor so long a time and you do not see me, Philip Un 14.9] ?102 How could he say: The one who sees me sees the one who sent me Un 12.45]? How could the Son show in himself the one who neither admits comparison nor possesses any fellowship with him? That which is unknown is not comprehended through that which is unlike and foreign to it, but it is natural for something to become known by what has affinity with it. l03 In this way the features of a seal are perceived by means of its impression, and the archetype is known through its image, since by comparing them, it is clear that there is identity in each.104 ken such wickedness to heaven? [Ps 72.8]
[1.17] For my part, I fear that if we put another's blasphemies on our lips, we might defile our own mind and come to share in their condemnation. But there is a passage in the gospels that comforts me. When the Holy Spirit reports the blasphemy of the Jews against the Lord, he does not refuse to transmit it to future generations and publicly records their blasphemy for all time without inflicting any blasphemy on the immaculate glory
100. See Mt 26.65, Mk 14.64, Lk 5.21, andJn 10.33.
101. See Eun. 2.15 for another example of Ba~il's horror at expressing what he considers a terrible blasphemy.
102. Basil's citation replaces the standard reading "you do not know me"
(OUK eyvwKU<; 11£) with "you do not see me" (oux £wpaKa<; !le).
103. Basil is not merely stating the ordinary meaning of the idea that "like is known by like," in which the knowing agent must be like the object of knowledge in order for the agent to acquire knowledge of the object. Here Basil is saying that that which makes the unknown thing known to us must be like that thing.
99· In other words, Eunomius first speaks in terms of "things" or "impersonal objects" (1tpity~QTa), that is, the 'unbegotten' and the 'begotten,' and then switches to speaking in terms of persons (llpoawna), that is, 'Father' and 'Son.'
10+ Gr. I5T]Aovon 't~v tv EKa'tepc.p 'tau'tO'tT]'ta. The phrase means either that there is something identical in each or that they are identical. We prefer to rev tain the ambiguity of the Greek.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.18-19
the opposition between these words, Ill" thereby transferring this opposition to the very substance of the Father and the Son.
[1.18] Hence, through this one blasphemy he rejects all the terms handed down by the Holy Spirit for the glorification of the Only-Begotten, even though the gospel teaches that the Fa- [1.19] In order to keep our treatise from becoming excessively long by going through each of his blasphemies and trying to correct everything he said, we will omit those passages whose impiety is obvious and immediately manifest to those who read them. Instead, we will adduce those passages which ther, God, has set his seal upon him Un 6.27], and the Apostle that he is the image of the invisible God [COlLIS]. He is not a lifeless image, nor handmade, nor a product of art or conceptualization, but a living image, or rather self-existent life which always preserves the indistinguishability, not by likeness of shape, but in his very substance. In my opinion, I say that existing in the form need some argument for their refutation. Mter he established in manifold ways that the Father's substance has no fellowship with the Son and demonstrated the absurdity in every way (or so he thinks) ,107 he adds: of God [Phil 2.6] means the same as "existing in the substance of God." For just as having taken up the form of a slave [Phil 2.7] signifies that our Lord was begotten in the substance of humanity, so too saying existing in theform of God [Phil 2.6] certainly reveals the distinctive feature of the divine substance. The one who sees me, he says, sees the Father Un 14-9].
Now they would certainly not say the following: that while the substance is common to both, it is due to order and to superiorities based on time that the one is a first and the other a second. This is because the cause of pre-eminence must be present in that which is pre-eminent, but neither time nor age nor order has been joined with the substance of God.
For order is secondary to the orderer, but nothing which belongs to When Eunomius alienates the Only-Begotten from the Father and utterly separates him from fellowship with the Father, he cuts off (insofar as he can) the way upward to knowledge lOS that occurs through the Son. While the Lord says: All that the Father has is mine Un 17.10], Eunomius says that the Father has no fellowship whatsoever with the one who comes from him. In addition, the Lord himself has taught us that as the Father has
God has been ordered by another. Time is a certain kind of motion of the stars, but the stars came into being not only later than the substance of the unbegotten and all the intelligibles, but also later than the primary bodies. Do we even need to speak about ages? For scripture clearly declares: Before the ages God exists [Ps 54.20].108
In the course of the treatise he has presupposed whatever he wanted and drawn what follows from his presuppositions. Then, life in himself, so he has granted also to the Son to have life in himself Un 5.26]. But what has Eunomius taught us? That the one who is begotten has no comparison with the one who has begotten him. Through this one statement he once and for all does away with the account of the image and denies that the Son is the Father's radiance and the character of his subsistence [Heb 1.3].
Now it is impossible to conceive an image of something that is incomparable or for there to be a radiance of something with which it has no fellowship by nature. But once again, he persists diving headlong into absurd notions, he thinks that from this reasoning he has demonstrated the necessity of accepting his own doctrines. He says: "they would not say the following: that while the substance is common to both, it is due to order and to superiorities based on time that the one is a first and the other a second." So, then, ifhe is speaking of the commonality of the substance, conceiving it to be a kind of doling out and division of pre-existent matter into the things that come from it, this in the same kind of scheme, saying that "the unbegotten has no comparison with the begotten." He does not say "the Father has no comparison with the one from him" in order to demonstrate
106. That is, 'unbegotten' and 'begotten.'
107. That is, the absurdity Eunomius believes to result from attributing com~ monality of substance to Father and Son. In the part of Apol. 9 which Basil skips,
Eunomius sets up the consequences that follow from making the substance common, which according to him results in "many absurdities, or rather, blas~ phemies" (Apol. 9.6-7 [EW 42]).
105. Gr. T~~ yvwoewc; avo6ov. There are possible allusions here to Plato, R 517h5 (the upward journey from the cave to the sun of the intelligible realm) andJn 1+6 (Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life").
108. Eunomius, Apol. 10.1-9 (EW 44)·
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.19-21
understanding is unacceptable to us. God forbid! We declare that those who speak in this way (if indeed anyone really does) are no less impious than those who affirm the 'unlike.'1O' But if someone takes the commonality of the substance to mean that one and the same formula of being is observed in both, such that if, hypothetically speaking, IlO the Father is conceived of as light in his substrate, then the substance of the Only-Begotten is also confessed as light, and whatever one may assign to the Father as the formula of his being, the very same also applies to the Son. If someone takes the commonality of the substance in this way, we accept it and claim it as our doctrine. For this is how divinity is one. Clearly, their unity is conceived to be a matter of position of countables,113 and the relation of causes to their effects. (Now it has already been agreed upon that God is Maker and Creator of nature itself.) On the other hand, order comes about by deliberation and art when it is a question of structures that are built, subjects of learning, logical propositions,I" and such things. But Eunomius concealed the first kind of order and mentioned only the second kind, saying that one ought not to posit order in the case of God since "order is secondary to the orderer." He has either not understood or purposely concealed the fact that there is a kind of order which is not established by our imposing it but which is found in the natural sequence of things. An example of the latter is the kind of order between fire and the light which comes from it. In these cases we say that the cause is prior and that which comes from it is secondary. We do not separate these things from one another by an interval, but through reasoning we conceptualize the cause as prior to the effect. So, then, in the case of things in which there is a prior and a secondary, how is it reasonable to deny that there is an order which exists not by our imposing it, but from the natural sequence that exists in them? the formula of the substance. Hence while there is difference in number and in the distinctive features that characterize each, their unity is observed in the formula of the divinity.
[1.20] Now that we have determined in what way we need to understand the commonality of the substance, let's closely examine what comes next to see if it has any connection with what carne before. He says: "it is due to order and to superiorities based on time that the one is a first and the other a second."
In the case of things whose substance is common, why is it necessary for them to be subject to order and to be secondary to time? For it is impossible that the God of the universe has not co-existed from eternity with his image who has radiated light non-temporally, that he does not have a connection with him that is not only beyond time but also beyond all ages. And so he is called the radiance [Heb 1.3] that we may understand his connection, III and the character of his subsistence [Heb 1.3] that we may learn that he is of the same substance.ll2
Why, then, does he refuse to accept that there is order in God? He thinks that if he has demonstrated that priority in God is conceivable in no other way, then he is demonstrating that the only remaining option is that God has pre-eminence according to the substance itself. But we say that the Father is ranked prior to the Son in terms of the relation that causes have with what comes from them, not in terms of a difference of nature or a pre-eminence based on time. Otherwise, we will deny even the very fact that God is the Father since difference in substancell5 precludes their natural connection.
Furthermore, there is an order which is natural and another which comes about by deliberation. On the one hand, order is
[1. 21] Since this man who is wise in everything has proceeded to give us a definition of the nature of time, let's investigate whether his thinking on the matter is solid and circumspect. He natural when it is a question of the order which is arranged for created beings according to the rationales of their creation, the says that "time is a certain kind of motion of the stars," clearly meaning the sun, the moon, and the rest of the stars in which 109. Basil here refers to Eunomius and his Heteroousian associates.
110. Cr. KaB' imoBE-atv.
Ill. Gr. TO aUVll!.qlEVOV. That is, the Son's connection with the Father.
112. Gr. TO of100UOtov. This is the only place in Eun. where Basil describes the Son as homoousios with the Father.
113_ That is, the numbers used to count have a natural sequential order.
114. Gr. 6.~lwf1aOl. Or, "axioms."
115. Gr. KaTa. T~V ouo-lav CtAAOTPICrr'lC;.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.21-22
beetles.121 For what he says is no different from this, except for the dignity of the names. So much for this subject. there is the power to move by themselves. W):J.at, then, will this expert in astronomical phenomena declare is the interval from the coming-to-be of heaven and earth until the making of the stars? For the one who in the power of the Spirit recorded the cosmogony clearly said that the great lights and the rest of the stars came to be on the fourth day."6 Therefore, it seems as if Let's look at what follows:
[1.22] Moreover, it is not possible for anything to exist within the sub· stance of God,122 such as form or mass or size, on account of the fact that God is completely free from composition. But if it neither is nOr ever could be lawful to imagine any of these things or others like them as being linked with the substance of GOd,123 what sort of accoun~ will still allow for likening the begotten to the unbegotten? For neIther likeness nor comparison nor fellowship in substance allows for any preeminence or difference, but rather they clearly bring about equality, and along with the equality they show that one likened or compared is unbegotten. But no one is so stupid or so defiant of piety as to say that the Son is equal to the Father! For the Lord himself explicitly declared: there was no time during the preceding days. The stars, you see, were not moving yet. For how could they, when they had not come to be at the beginning? And again, when Joshua the son of Nun was waging war against the Gibeonites, and the sun, constrained by a command, remained unmoved, and the moon stood still, Il7 was there not time in these circumstances? What, then, should we call the interval of that day? What designation have you dreamt up for it? If the nature of time has failed, clearly an agell8 takes its place. But if you designate a small part of the day as an age, is there any excess of folly left to surpass? It seems that because of his great sagacity he thinks that day and night happen by a certain kind ormotion of the stars, but that these are parts of time. For this reason he declared that "time is a certain kind of motion of the stars," not realizing what he said.
It was more appropriate to say, not "a certain kind of' motion,ll9 but rather (if I may) "a certain amount of' motion.120 But who is so completely childlike in his thinking so as not to know that days and months and seasons and years are measures of time, not parts? Rather, time is the extension coextensive with the existence of the cosmos. All motion is measured by time, whether of the stars, of living creatures, or of anything else that moves.
On the basis of time we say that one thing is quicker or slower than another. The quicker is what traverses a longer interval in less time; the slower is what moves a shorter interval in more time. But since the stars move in time, he declares that they are the creators of time. Therefore, it follows from the reasoning of this wisest of men that, since dung-beetles also move in time, we should define time as a certain kind of movement of dungThe Father who sent me is greater than I Un 14-24 and 28]124
And again, a little later:
But even though many points have been left in abeyance, I believe that what I have already said is sufficient for demonstrating that the one
God of all things is unbegotten and incomparable. l25 Whenever he is about to launch into some wicked argument, he anticipates it by making statements with which everyone agrees so that through his prudence in these matters no one will disbelieve him with regard to the rest of what he says. He says: "Nothing can exist within the substance of God, neither form nor mass nor size, on account of the fact that God is completely free from composition." Up to this point he is prudent, but in what follows he returns to himself.126 For he tacks on his blasphemy as necessarily following from what he has set forth: "But if it neither is nor ever could be lawful to imagine any of these things or others like them as being linked with the substance of God, what sort of account will allow for likening the begotten to the 121. Dung~beetles were vvidely detested in antiquity; see, for example, Porphyry, Abst. 4·9, 46-48.
122. Gr. "Tn ouO'[~ TaU Swu. As Garnier noted (PG 29.561 n. 56), BasIl has simply specified the referent of Eunomius's Tau-rn (Apol. 11.1 [EW 46]).
123. Basil adds "of God" to thetext of Eunomius (Apol. 11·5 [EW 46]).
116. See Gn 1.14-19.
118. Cr. atwv.
117· SeeJos 10.12-13_ 119. Gr.1toiav.
124. Eunomius, Apol. 11;1-12 (EW 46).
125·Eunomius,Apoi.l!.15-17 (EW 46).
126. In other words, "he takes up his old tricks once again."
120. Gr. 1wa~v.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.22-24
unbegotten?" What sort oflogical sequence do tbese statements have with each other: "if God is incomposite, then tbe Son does not admit of likeness to him"? Well, tell me: will you not more or less also be affirming that the Son has neither form nor mass nor size in himself and that he is completely free from composition? rather they clearly bring about equality." How does this allow for no difference? Not even the difference that exists between causes and their effects? Then he adds: "But who is so stupid or so defiant of piety as to say that the Son is equal to the Father?"
So, tben, 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 Uer 3.3]. The ill repute of these women besmirches
[1.23] For my part, I do not think that even you are so crazy that you would defiantly affirm that the Son is anything other than incorporeal and witbout form and without figure and all things whatsoever you would affirm in the .case of the Father.
How, tben, is it not in line with piety to compare tbe one without form to the one without form? The one witbout size to the one without it? The one without composition to the one without composition? But Eunomius considers likeness to be a question of form, and equality a question of mass; as for size, whatever he thinks it is besides mass he will have to explain more properly. I"
"For this reason," he says, "he is neither equal nor like, since he is both without quantity and without form."'28 But for my part, I consider their likeness to consist in tbis very tbing,I29 since just as the Father is entirely free from composition, so too is the Son altogether simple and witbout composition. Furthermore, one does not consider likeness according to the identity of form, but rather according to tbe substance itself. On the one hand, in all tbose things that are associated with shape and figure, likeness is considered to be a question of identity ofform. On the otber hand, all that remains for the nature tbat is witbout form and without shape is that it has likeness in the substance itself, and in this case equality is not a question of comparing masses, but rather of identity of power. Christ is the power of God [1 Cor 1.24].
It is clear tbat all tbe Fatber's power is contained in him. Hence, whatsoever he should see the Father doing, these same the Son does those who have lived honorably, and Eunomius stigmatizes as stupid and defiant of piety those who desire to exalt the glory of the Only-Begotten, showing harshness toward them for the same reasons that also provoked the Jews when they said: He makes himself equal to God Un 5.18b].
[1.24] And yet-and let no one think what I am saying here is paradoxical-tbese people I'" somehow or other seem to perceive the logical consequence of what Jesus said. For they were angry that he called God his father Un 5.18a]. They inferred what follows from this on their own, namely, that he makes himself equal to God Un 5.18b]. For "he has God as his father" necessarily entails tbat "he is equal to him." Eunomius agrees with the first and denies the second, adducing for us the voice of the Lord, who says: The Father who sent me is greater than I Un '4.24 and 28]. But hasn't he heard the Apostle, who said: He did not count being equal to God a thing to be grasped [Phil 2.6] ?I3I According to your account, if unbegottenness were the substance and tbe Lord had wanted to indicate pre-eminence according to substance, he would have said: "The Unbegotten is greater than
I." But in your account, tbe designation 'Father' signifies activity and not substance. So, then, when you say that the Father is greater tban the Son, you allege that the activity is greater than the product. There can be no doubt that every activity corresponds proportionally to what is produced from it: from a great activity come great products, and from a small activity smaller products. So in their account, when these people confess that tbe Father is greater than the Son, it means nothing other than that they posit that the activity is disproportional to the product likewise Un 5.19].
But he says: "Neither likeness nor comparison nor fellowship in substance allows for any pre-eminence or difference, but 127. Here Basil mocks Eunomius's philosophical understanding, since "size" and "mass" refer to the same aspect of a corporeal entity.
130. That is, the Jews.
131. Sesboue punctuates this sentence as indicative (SC 299.256), but it seems better to take it as interrogative.
128. This is not an exact quotation, bUla paraphrase.
129. That is, being without quantity and vvithout form.
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.24-26
ST. BASIL
will show from the very words of the gospel. For after he said and allege in vain that God has moved in proportion to the magnitude of his activity without being able to make the end-result be equal to his activity. Hence one of the two following alternatives is necessarily mistaken. (1) 'Father'I32 does not indicate an activity but rather a substance. If this is the case, their conconcerning believers: No one will snatch them from my hand Un
10.28] and: The Father who gave them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them from the hand of my Father Un 10.29], he added: I and the Father are one Un 10.30]. Clearly, he takes this one as equality and identity in power. Furthermore, if the trived account of the likeness is destroyed. For it posits that the Son is like the Father, that is, like his activity. It claims that the Father did whatever he wanted. I33 That's why they also named
'throne of God' is a name of dignity (as we ourselves believe it to be), 136 what else does this seat reserved for the Son at the right hand of the Father signity if not the equal honor of their rank? The Lord also promised that he would come in the glory of the Son the image of his willY' (2) But when they stick to this position,135 they cannot also declare that the Father is greater.
For every activity, provided that nothing external opposes it, is proportional to its own end-results. So, then, let these things be said to refute the contradiction in their teachings. the Father [Mt 16.27].
All that remains, then, is that greater than is said here according to the account of cause. Since the Son's principle comes from the Father, it is in this sense that the Father is greater, as cause and principle. For this reason too the Lord said the following: The Father is greater than I Un 14.28], clearly meaning insofar as he is Father. But what else does 'Father' signity, other than that he is the cause and the principle of the one begot-, ten from him? Generally speaking, a substance is not said to be greater or lesser than a substance, even according to your wisdom.!37 Hence, according to them1" and truth itself, there is no way in which the present account of greater than can indicate pre-eminence according to substance. I" In addition, Eunomius himself would not claim that the Father is greater according to [1.25] Is there anyone in the world to whom it is not clear that greater than Un 14.28] is said either according to the account of cause, or according to excess of power, or according to preeminence of dignity, or according to superabundance of mass?
So, then, Eunomius himself has already said that greater than is not to be understood according to mass. Now this is reasonable, since greater than is a question of magnitudes to the same extent that both 'lesser than' and 'even more so' are. Who would compare with one another things uncircumscribed by magnitude, or rather things without magnitude and completely without quantity? In what way would superiority be detected in things whose comparison is impossible? mass, since he has declared that one must not suppose magnitude in connection with God. I40 So, then, all that remains is
Saying that Christ the power of God [1 Cor 1.24] is deficient in power characterizes those who are altogether infantile and have not heard the voice of the Lord, who said: I and the Father are one the way of being greater than that we have stated, I mean that of principle and of cause.HI So, then, such is how he attempted to blaspheme against greater than.
Un 10.30]. The Lord takes this one as equality in power, as we [1.26] It is worthy of astonishment that in such a short time he has come around to saying things that are as contradicto132. Gr. TOV IIan~pa. But Basil seems to be using 'Father' as a term, i.e., TO Ilmepa.
136. See Mt 5.34.23.22; Heb 12.2; and Rv 7.15. 22.1,22·3· 137. See Aristotle, Cat. 5 (gb33-¥9): ouoLa does not admit of a more and 133. A paraphrase of Eunomius, Apol. 23.22.
134. Designating the Son as "the image of the will of the Father" goes back to the earliest stages of the fourth-century Trinitarian debates. It was a teaching of Asterius; see Fragment 10 (Markus Vinzent, Asterius von Kappadokien: Die theologischen Fragmente [Leiden: Brill, 1993J, 86). It is also affirmed in the Second
Creed of the Dedication Council held at Antioch in 341 (preserved in Athanasius, Syn. 23.3). a less.
138. That is, Greek philosophers.
139. That is, there is no way the account of greater than according to the account of cause can indicate pre-eminence according to substance.
140. See Etinomius, Apol. 11.1-3, discussed in Eun. 1.22-23· 141. Cf. Athanasius, Ar. 1.58.
135. That is, that 'Father' indicates activity.
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1.26-27
ST. BASIL
remove the knowledge of the way which leads to him. l43 For the Jews also think they glorify God, and anyone can listen to Greeks who wish to say something great about God. Nevertheless, no one can say that they magnify God [Lk 1.46] without faith in Christ, through whom there is access to knowledge. ry as possible, as if he had been struck in the eyes of his soul with a certain blindness and was unable to perceive the conflict among his statements. Thus he appears to be so utterly foreign to the peace of God-which peace our Lord left with those who genuinely and sincerely believe in him, when he said: Peace I [1.27] So, then, he says that God is incomparable in order to indicate that the Son is equal to creation, in that he falls short leave with you; my peace I give to you Un '4-27]-that he contends not only with others, but even with himself! For after he said of the glory of the Father to a similar degree. For things that are inferior by an equal measure are necessarily equal to one another.l4' In the account of Eunomius, the only-begotten Son is inferior to the God and Father to the same extent that all other things are inferior to the God and Father. That which is incomparable is such that it is unapproachable and unattainable by all to a similar degree. But if the Son faUs short of the Father to an extent equal to other things, then he is equal to those things along with which he falls short. What, then, could the Jews say that would be worse than this blasphemy? Could we hear anything worse from the Greeks? These men 145 do not even blush when they make a pretense of honoring the Word of God while that the God and Father is greater than the only-begotten Son and accused of being mad those who claim that he is equal, as if he had incontrovertible proofs of this, look at what sort of things he writes a little further on:
But even though many points have been left in abeyance, I believe that what I have already said is sufficient for demonstrating that the one
God of all things is unbegotten and incomparable. 1 •• Now let this question be put to him: if God is incomparable, on what grounds can one comprehend his superiority? For that which is greater than is considered to be so by' comparison with things that are inferior. So, then, how can the same one be both greater than and incomparable? On the one hand, to demonstrate that the substance of God differs from that of the Son, he accepts that greater than is said as a comparison between different substances. On the other hand, to bring the Only-Begotten once again down to equal honor with the creation, he lays it down as a law that the Father is incomparable, fabricating a novel and truly incomparable road to blasphemy! Indeed, Oll the pretense of elevating the God and Father and making him unique, he belittles the glory of the only-begotten Son and God, even though the Lord testifies against this, saying: The one who does not honar the Son does not honor the Father Un 5.23], and: The one who denies me does not deny me but rather the one who sert me [Lk 10.16]. expounding teachings that Jews and Greeks would find agreeable and acceptable! If the Son cannot be compared with the Father,just as the angels cannot, nor the heavens, nor the sun, nor the earth, nor any of the animals or plants on it, how will he be different from creatures with which he has affinity? Then again, on what basis will he have affinity with the one who has begotten him? He says: I and the Father are one Un 10.30 ].
Let's think about this text once more. TeU me this: aren't these the words of someone comparing himself? What do I mean by "someone comparing himself'? I mean that he is making himself one .(so to speak) with the Father and by these wo~ds expressing their indistinguishability of nature. But EunomlUS
But the enemy of truth, who causes them to say and write such things, has seen that if he can blind them with respect to their understanding of the glory of the Only-Begotten, he will also remove along with it the knowledge of the God and Father himself. Hence, even if they seem to attribute certain superiorities to the God and Father, it is of no benefit to those who declares that God is incomparable. Now the goodness of our
God and Sa.vior Jesus Christ leads human beings (insofar as we are capable of it) to likeness to the God of the universe through 143. SeeJn 14.6.
14+ Basil here draws on the mathemaucal pnnclple that two thmgs equal to some third thing are equal to each other: if A=C and B=C, then A=B.
145. That is, Eunomius and his associates.
142. Eunomius, Apol. 11.15-17 (EW 46).
ST. BASIL
p~actice and training in good works-when he was among us he sa~d: Be perfect "': your heavenly Father is perfect [Mt 5.8l. But Eunomms depnv.es (Insofar as he is able to do so) the Only-Begotten of the af~mty that he has by nature with the one who has begotten hIm. And yet even on this point his account will come around to a contradiction. For if the Father is incomparable, where wIll he find a basis to advance proofs for the unlikeness of the Son? If he says that he has found the unlikeness by companng the substances with one another, then how is such a one
Incomparable? And if he is utterly incomparable, then how was he able to recognize the difference? Thus it seems that evil is opposed not only to the good but also to itself.
On the Son BOOK TWO ow THAT HE HAS secretly prepared his blasphemies
against the Son of God in his arguments about the God of the universe (at least to the extent that he was able to do so), it remains for Eunomius to unleash his tongue against the only-begotten God. What does he say, then?
The Son is also one, for he is the Only-Begotten. Now it would be possible to get rid of all concern and trouble associated with this stlbject simply by quoting the sayings of the saints in which they declare that the Son is both something begotten and something made, thereby making the difference in substance clear by the distinctions in the names. Yet because of those who assume that this begetting is corporeal and stumble over homonymies,! it is perhaps necessary to speak briefly about these matters too.2
That's what F,unomius says. But as I see it, if it is necessary to think about his entire discussion as a fictitious exercise such as those assigned to boys in schools of vanity for practice in making a lie plausible-for Eunomius acts quite similarly to these people, and everything he does resembles shadowboxing: he picks a fight against accusers who do not exist, makes an apology against an accusation which has never been made, and delivers a discourse for judges who are nowhere to be foundnow if it is necessary to take his words in this way, for my part
1. Gr. "'[aic; o~wVUI1(aLC;. According to Aristotle, "those things are said to be homonyms that have only their name in common, and have a different account of the substance corresponding to the name" (Cat. 1, lal-2; trans. Strange 40).
Eunomius does hot make a distinction benveen homonyms and homonymy as some Neoplatonist commentators do; see Porphyry, in. Cat. 61,1-2 Busse.
2. Eunomius, Apol. 12.1-6 (EW 46-48).
'3 '
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.1-3
'33
I choose to forgo the investigation and advise everyone to pay no attention to what he has said. But if he is promising to do something more than this and many have come to ~uspect that he has some concern for the truth, then it is altogether necessary to correct each of his statements as best we can. What kind of investigation, then, would be more just than a comparison of his arguments with the teachings that the Spirit gave us? We will accept whatever we find that agrees with them, but give no credence to what is contrary to them and flee from such things as from an enemy. ger?' If such a designation had been suitable for him, the Spirit would not have passed over it in silence. When scripture refers to creation, we do find the designation 'something made' derived from 'he made,' but when referring to the Son of God, we no longer find it. In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth [Gn 1.1]. And again: I meditated on the things made by your hands [Ps 142.5]. And: From the creation of the world his invisible things have been clearly perceived, understood by the things that have been made [Rom 1.20]. Thus scripture employs the term in those cases in which it is useful; in the case of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ it is passed over in silence as unsuitable for [2.2] First of all, then, he needs to show us the following:
Which of the saints called Christ 'something begotten' and the splendor of his glory. Now scripture is not ashamed to designate the Lord of glory [1 Cor 2.8] as axe [Mt3.1O] and cornerstone
'something made'?' What scriptural passages demonstrate this?
If he bases his claims on the statement of blessed Peter recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, where he says: Let all the house of Israel know that God has made him Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified [Acts 2.36], first of all this testimony has no connection to the issue at hand. For though he promised to show that the saints called the Son 'something made,' he furnishes testimony about the God and Father; that he has made [Acts 2.36].
Mter all, not even Eunomius would claim that it is legitimate for [Eph 2.20] and a stone that will make men stumble and a rock that will make themfall [1 Pt 2.8; Is 8.14] and other such things which do not seem be very reverential when apprehension of the signification of the names is lacking. But nowhere at all does scripture call him 'something made.' Eunomius, however, says that he took this word from the saints themselves, in order to implicate through his chicanery not only the saints from his own f time but also those from long ago. him, in discussions of such great importance, to dream up any derivations and tninsformations of terms. 4 If we will suffer chastisement on the day ofjudgment even for an idle word [Mt 12.36], there can be no doubt that we will have to render an account for innovation in matters of such great importance.
[2.3] The danger of such ventures is not the only reason he should not change the form of the names of the Lord on his own authority. There is another: it was not the intention of the Apostle to communicate to us the subsistence' of the OnlyBegotten before the ages, which is the subject at hand. Clearly, he is not talking about the very substance of God the Word, who was in the beginning with God Un 1.2], but about the one who emptied himself in theform ofa slave [Phil 2.7], became simiPerhaps the divine word has taught us that something is said fittingly in the case of the God and Father, but the same is not applicable to the Only-Begotten-a fact which the Holy Spirit indicates by his silence. So, then, when he alters the form of the phrase he has made [Acts 2.36] so as to call the Maker of the universe 'something made,' how is this not fraught with dan- ( lar in form to the body of our lowliness [Phil 3.21], and was crucified through weakness [2 Cor 13.4]. Everyone who has paid even marginal attention to the intent of the Apostle's text recognizes that he does not teach us in the mode of theology, but hints at the reasons of the economy.7 He says: God has made him Lord
3· Gr. YE:VVTU1U Kat 1toLllfla. We have chosen to translate these terms in this way in order to make Basil's grammatical argument clearer. They could also be translated, respectively, 'offspring' and 'product/work.'
5. Basil claims that Eunomius has derived the word poiema ("something made") from epoiise ("he has made").
+ Gr. rrapaywyac; llVUC; Kat rrapaaX'lflunoflouc:;. Basil here uses technical gram~ matical vocabulary. "Derivation" (rrapaywy~) is the formation of one word from another by altering its ending through the appendage of component. "Trans~ formation" (napaaxrUJ.a.TlO"\l6c:;) is the change ofa word's grammatical form. r 6. Gr. imoOlamv.
7. To engage in theology, for Basil, is to think of Christ's eternal divine be~
'34
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.3-4
the distinguishing marks14 that are considered in connection with him is impressed upon our mind. For as soon as we hear and Christ, :hisjesus who~ you crucified [Acts 2.36]. By using the demonstratlve pronoun he makes a clear reference to his humanity and to what all saw. But Eunomius transfers the expression 'he made' to the original begetting of the Only-Begotten.
In addition, it causes him no shame that the term 'Lord' does not name a substance but rather is a name of authority. Hence, the sound of this designation, we immediately think of the son ofjonah,15 the man from Bethsaida,16 the brother of Andrew,!' the one summoned from the fishermen to the ministry of the apostolate,18 the one who because of the superiority of his faith was charged with the building up ofthe church. l9 None of these is his substance, understood as subsistence. Hence the name determines for us the character of Peter. It cannot ever communicate the substance itself. Likewise, when we hear 'Paul,' we think of a concurrence of other distinguishing marks:'o the ~e who ~aid: God made him Lord and Christ [Acts 2.36] is speakmg of h,s rule and power over all, which the Father entrusted to him. He is not describing his arrival at being. We will demonstra~e these points a little later when we refute him for adducing testlmomes drawn from the scripture in a way contrary to the intention of the Spirit.' man from Tarsus,'! the Hebrew," as to the law a Pharisee," the disciple of Gamaliel," the zealous persecutor of the churches
Let's now proceed to the next point in his treatise. So, then, why is this name of interest to him? Why in the world does he of God 25 the man who was brought to knowledge by a ternfying visi~n,'6 the Apostle to the Gentiles."' All these things are attempt to designate the Maker of the universe as 'something made'? Self-deceived by his dishonest sophism, he thinks that "the difference in substance is made clear by the distinctions in the names."10 [2.4] But what sane person would agree with encompassed by the single term 'Paul.'
Moreover, if it were true that the substances of thmgs whose which no name can ever signify" (Eun. UII5·22 [GNO 2: 168.2-3))'. One fa~ this logic that there must be a difference of substances for those things whose names are distinct?For the designations of Peter and Paul and of all people in general are different, but there is a single substance fO.r all of them. For this reason, in most respects we are the same as one another, but it is only due to the distinguishing marks" Considered in connection with each one of us that we are different, each from the other. Hence the designations do not signify the substances, but rather the distinctive features" that characterize the individual. So whenever we hear 'Peter,' the name does not cause us to think of his substance-now by 'substance' I mean the material substrate which ily of manuscripts for Basil's Eun. makes the same "learned" correction of thiS passage, though this family is generally less reliabl~. Furth~rmore, on~ ms .. of Gregory's Eun. omits the QU. The textual problem IS not Without doctnnal 1~ port: some scholars have taken Gregory's emendation to reflect a gene:al ~If ference betw"een Basil and Gregory in how they understand the term ousw, v.:th
Basil's view being more Stoic and Gregory's more Platonist. This inte~pretatlOn of the philosophical background to Basil and Gregory on substance IS, accordin to us, mistaken. For discussion, see Reinhard Hubner, "Gregor vo~ Ny~sa als
V~rfasser der Sog. Ep. 38 des Basilius: Zum unterschiedli~hen Verstandms der ouaia. bei den kappadozischen Brudern," in]acques Fontame ~nd Charles I~n nengiesser, eds., Epektasis: Melanges Patristiques Offertes au C~rdtn.al Jean D~nzelou
(Paris: Beauschesne, 1972),463-90; David G.~o~e~~on, ~t~IC and Anstote~ Han Notions of Substance in Basil of Caesarea, Vtgllzae Chr:;ttan.ae. 52 (~998).
393-4 17' At p. 4 15, Robertson comments on Eun. 24 that If thiS l~ Sto~c conceptuality, then it is either confused or heavily adapted.". ~ote that 10 hIS early letter to Apollinarius (assuming authenticity), Basil expltCltly rules out a matethe name itself cannot ever signify13-but rather the notion of ing in abstraction from his works. He distinguishes this from thinking of the economy of Christ's saving actions. On this distinction, see Eun. 2.15 and lotroduction,pp·5 1-53· rial substrate in the case of God: Ep. 361 .17.
14. Gr. -rwv t8LW)lo:rwv.
15· See Mt 16·17'
16. See]n 1.44.
17· See Mt +18.
18. See Mt4.18-19.
19· See Mt 16.16-18.
20. Gr. e:rtpwv UiLwl-u):rwv.
21. See Acts 22·3· 22. See Phil 3·5· 23· See ibid.
25. See Gal 1·3· 27. See Rom 11.13· 24. See Acts 22·3'
26. See Acts 9.3-4; 22.6-8; 26.12-19. g. See Eun. 2.14-15'
8. That is, thisJesus. la. Eunamius, Apol. 12.3-4 (EW 48).
1 1. Gr. Toi~ t6tWflOOl.
1 2. Gr. TlOV i8tOT~TWV.
13. There are textual problems with this parenthetical phrase. When Gregory of Nyssa quoted it in his own Against Eunomius, he inserted an ou, making the phrase negative: "now by 'substance' I do not mean the material substrate
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.4-5
~ames differ are opposed, then Paul and Peter and all people he had had even a sliver of evidence that they called the OnlyBegotten 'something made,' wouldn't he have already deafened our ears with his verbiage?
In general must be different in substance" from One another.
But there is no one so stupid and so inattentive to the common nature that he would be led to say this-after all, the passage: You. have been formed from clay, as also have I Ub 33.6] signals nothing other than that all human beings are of the same substance." This being the case, whoever evasively argues that difference In substance follows upon difference in names is a liar. For the nature of realities is not consequent to their names, but names are found posterior to realities. 30 If the former were true, where designations are the same, the substance would also have to be one and the same. Accordingly, since those perfect
He says next that "because of those who assume that this begetting" of the Lord "is corporeal and stumble over homonymies, it is necessary" for him "to speak briefly about these matters too.""
But what prevented him from confirming his argument by testimonies drawn from scripture, by which he could go on to correct the weaker and assuage the damage caused by homonymy, if something like this ever has happened or will happen to anyone?
Who is so utterly fleshly in his thinking and so ignorant of divine words that when he hears about the divine begetting, he is brought down to the level of corporeal impressions? At this level
In Virtue have been counted worthy of the designation 'god,"J human beings would be of the same substance with the God of the universe." But just as saying this is sheer madness, so too is his logic here equally crazy. there is sexual intercourse of a male with a female, then conception in the womb, then construction, then formation, 'and then at the right time passage to the outside world." Who is such a brute that when he hears that God the Word came forth from God," when he hears that Wisdom was begotten from God," he sinks
[2 ·5] So, then, what I have said makes it clear that in the case of both 'Father' and 'Son' the names do not communicate substance but instead are revelatory of the distinguishing marks."
J::Ience there is no place for an account that introduces opposinon of substances based on diversity of names. If this were the case, he would refute himself in the presence of all. For if 'something made' and 'something begotten' are different, the subdown in his thoughts to the level of the body's passions?
34. Eunomius, Apol. 12.4-6 (EW 48).
35. Gr. (JUI11tAOK~ \lEV appevoc; npoc; 1"0 8flAU, KUIlO'l(; &E tv ll~TPq., Kat tiICt1tAUmc;.
Kal jlopq>wmc;. Kat Toie; Kae~K01)Ol XPOVOlf:; np6otSoc; de; TO ~~w. "Construction" (01anAQOlC;) refers to the seed's development into the embryo, and "formation" stanc~s of'the Only-Begotten will be different in consequence of the difference in names. But if only the deranged say this, only those who are out of their minds would accept the premise.
(Ilop<pwcnc;) to the articulation of the embryo into a recognizably human fetus.
Basil's description and vocabUlary of gestation have much in common with that of a mid-fourth century Christian commentator on the biblical book of job known as.Julian the Arian, probably due to similarities in their secular education: "the beginning [of the process of one living creature coming from a,nother) is the sowing of the seed (T~V KaTapoA~V TaU an:e:PllaToc;), and next the coagulation of the seed (T~V TOUtOU n:f\~LV), then ~e succe.ssive construc~ion. (-c~v Eunomius alleges that he has innumerable proofs that the saints called the Son 'something made.' But as if hastening onto other more important matters (I guess), he defers mentioning them for the moment. This is all part of his scheming captiousness: when he is at a loss for arguments, he prefers silence. If Ka-Ca flEPOC; cStan:Aaaw) of skin, flesh, bones, and smews, thIrd the formatlOn Itself
(1l0P<PWOlV Qi.lTT'lv), and finally the animation by Cod (-c~v napa aEOU 'VUxwow), . , .
After the construction (-co TIAaa8f\vat) and the formation (-co E~E1KovLaaf\vat) of 28. Gr. En:pouo(ouC;.
29· Gr. TO 0IlOOUOlov rravn,Ov av8pw1twv.
30. cr. Athanasius, Ar. 2.3.2.
31. See Jo 10'35, 3 2 . Gr. OJlOOUOlOl Civ eh:v lip Seq, ni'>v OAWV 01 av8pw1i0l. Here Basil accuses Eunomius of failing to account for homonymy, something which Eunomius himself had claimed to be keenly aWare of. the embryo, the soul is received from God, , . . Sexual intercourse (1l[~lC;) is fir~t, then conception (OUAATl'VtC;), and third construction (OUITtAumc;), then after thiS, formation (flOP<pWOlC;), and lastly animation ('¥uXWO'lC;)" (Julian the Arian, Commentary onJob 10.1o-U~; Dieter Hagedorn, ed., Der Hiobkommentar des Arianers
Julian, Patristische Texte und Studien 14 [Berlin: De Cruyter, 1973], 79, 15-18, and 80, 3-4 and 8-9)' Also see Galen, On the Construction (8ubrAaa/C;) of the Embryo 652-702 Kuhn; and Soranus, Gynecology 17·
33. Gr. TWV Uhw~ul;rwv.
36. SeeJn 8.42.
37· See Pry 8.25·
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.6-7
ST. BASIL
. [2.6] He concocts this specious form of argumentation along Wlth the others so that he appears to be compassionately taking on the burden of instructing the brothers who lack understanding. Even though he "corrects" (so to speak) the corporeal suppositions that arise because of this designation,38 he does not seek to make amends for the damages that stem from calling the 'something begotten' to 'unbegotten' that the Only-Begotten is contrary to the Father with respect to substance itself. For these reasons he legislates the use of terms which are external to the usage of the divine Spirit, calling the Son 'something· begotten.' Where does he get this from? On what sort of teaching is it based? Which prophet's? Which of the apostles applied this name to him? For my part I have not found this term used in this way anywhere in scripture.
~ord 'something made.' Indeed, whoever imagines that begetting IS corporeal can also devolve to material ways of understanding making. For isn't it true that when a weak-minded person hears the term 'to beget,' he thinks of a certain division and a change and an effluence coming from the begetter's substance?
Will he not be led to suppose that material is introduced from an external source in order to bring what you call 'something made' from nothing into existence? So, then, why does Eunomius heal only half of the diseased thoughts of the brothers?
Why does he care only about those who suppose that the beget- [2.7] Eunomius pretends that he has taken these designations from no other source than from the teaching of the Spirit.
It is a trifling matter for him to pick a fight with people [Is 7. 13] when he can insolently attack the Spirit himself! Now from many passages we have learned that the Father has begotten, but never to this day have we heard that the Son is something begotten. Far a child is begotten to us, and a son is given to us. And his name is called-not 'something begotten' -but the angel of great counsel [Is 9.5]. If 'something begotten' did signify substance, the Spirit would not have taught us a name different from one which would clearly indicate his substance. Furthermore, Peter, who was deemed worthy of those blessings because of his knowlting is corporeal but disregard those who stumble over the designation 'something made'? It's because he knows that 'to have been begotten' is hostile to his own teachings. For the one who has been begotten must have complete and indistinguishable affinity with the begetter. But 'to have been made' is amenable to and allied with his own suppositions because it communicates the notion that something made is alien and foreign to its maker, and altogether lacking in affinity with him. edge of the truth,'o did not say: "you are something begotten," but rather: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God [Mt 16.16].
And no passage can be found in which Paul, who filled all his writings with the designation 'Son,' mentions 'something begotThen he adds to this by saying: ten'-the very term which Eunomius proposes with great boldness, as if he took it from the divine instruction.
Therefore, we say that the Son is 'somethinK begotten' in accordance .... with the teaching of the scriptures. We do not conceive of his substance
Nor should we concede the point to him that he can change and alter the form of the phrase 'he has begotten,' which is used with reference to the Father, in order to designate the Son of God as 'something begotten.''' For it is inappropriate for him to be quick to clutch at what may be hinted at by the natural sequence of the words, as anyone trained in the fear
~s one thin.g and what his name signifies as something else alongside of It. Rather, It IS the subsIstence that his name signifies, since the designation truly applies to the substance.39
And so, with these words he openly fights against the truth. Nevertheless, he says things consistent with his own purpose. Just as he determined in his earlier arguments that 'unbegotten' in the case of the God of the universe signifies his substance, so too here he says that 'something begotten' signifies the substance of the Son. He does this to indicate by the opposition of of God knows. Instead, one should be content with abiding by the names employed in scripture and use them to glorify God appropriately. The translators who first rendered Hebrew mto
40 . See Mt 16.17. Eunomius refers to this same verse in Apol. 26 in defense 38. That is, 'begetting.'
39· Eunomius, Apol. 12.6-10 (EW 48).
. of his appeal to Acts 2.36.
A 41. The change is from eytvv'l<J£ (egennese) to yevv'lJ.lu (gennema).
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.7-8
ST. BASIL
is no indication anywhere that someone addresses his offspring as 'something begotten.' The reason is clear: 'son' and 'child' are the names of living beings, but 'something begotten' is not necessarily such a name. For that which is expelled in miscarriages that occur before full formation can be called 'something begotten,' and such a thing is assuredly not even worthy of the designation 'child.' The fruits of the earth are also 'things begotten,' but they are not 'children.' It says: I will not drink from Gree~ did not audaciously attempt to interpret certain names, but simply transliterated the Hebrew pronunciation into Greek, such as 'Sabaoth' and 'Adonai' and 'Eloi' and other words like these. If they showed such respect not only to the divine names but also to many others, then how much fear should we have with regard to the names of the Lord? When did these translators trust themselves to form one of the names on their own authority? Mter all, they did not even have the confidence to translate some of these names, lest they water down the clarity of the term's force by introducing meanings that did not fit them. what is begotten of this vine [Mk 14-25).45 On rare occasions, however, we do find that this designation is adopted and used for living beings. But wherever it is used, one can see that it is a question of an offensive animal employed as an image of wickedness: You sfff/1ents! You things begotten of vipers! [Mt 23·33)46 I think it is for this reason that common usage disdains this designation and the divine scripture manifestly avoids it, especially in the case of the only-begotten Son of God. But scripture does not even admit the designation 'child'47 since it has something too human about it. The Apostle makes this clear when over and over again he calls the Lord 'Son' and praises him with various other designations, 'first-born'" and 'image'" and 'radiJ2.8) "Bu~ if God has begotten," he says, "how is it inappropnate to deSignate the one who was begotten as 'something begotten'?"" Because it is a dreadful thing for us to address him by one of our own names when God has bestowed on him the name which is above every name [Phil 2.9). He says: For you are my Son, today I have begotten you [Ps 2.7). Designating him here as 'something begotten' because he was begotten and not 'Son' would have been more consistent with their reasoning. But that's not what has been said. Therefore, whoever keeps before his eyes the tribunal of Christ and sees how dangerous it is to subtract from or add anything to what the Spirit handed down should not endeavor to innovate on his own, but acquiesce to what the saints announced beforehand." ance,'50 but avoids the designation 'something begotten.' If he does use this term, let Eunomius or some other advocate of his doctrine show us, and we will let them strike our entire objection from the record. But he will not be able to do this, unless he imitates the impious Marcion, removing some texts from the divine oracles while interpolating others.51 So, then, in this way the term 'something begotten' has been exposed as foreign to both common usage and scriptural usage.
How is it not sheer madness to venture upon what neither common usage44 nor scriptural usage exhibits? What father or mother kindly and gently disposed to his or her offspring would neglect to designate him 'my son' or 'my child' and address him instead as 'my something begotten'? For it says: My child, go to the vineyard [Mt 21.28). And: God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my child [Gn 22.8). And again Isaac: Who are
45. Basil's text ofMk 14.25 reads yeVV~lla:t'Oc; ("thing begotten") in pla~~ of the yEv~tJ.aToc; ("thing produced, fruit") found in most ross. and modern cntlCal editions. you: my child? [Gn 27.18) And: My son, do not think lightly of the 46. The traditional English translation is of course: "brood of vipers."
47. Gr.1:£KVOV.
48. See Col 1.15. 18.
49. See Col 1.15; 2 Cor 4+ 50. See Heb 1.3· 51. Marcian, born in Sinope in the province of Pontus in Asia Minor, came to Rome around 140, from whose church he was soon excommunica,ted for his teachings. Mardon accorded scriptural status only to expu:gated ver~lOn~ of the Gospel of Luke and select letters of Paul. Basil also menUons MarclOn m Eun. traznzng of the Lord [Pry 3.11). And: A wise son makes his father glad [Prv 10.1). There are more passages like these. But there
42. This is not a citation of Eunomius; rather, Basil is imagining what Eunomius's response might be.
43. See Rv 22.18-19.
44. See Eun. 1.6.
2.34; see p. 183 n. 144 below.
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.9-10
'43
'42
ST. BASIL
how absurd this is! For if the substance is something begotten, and vice versa, if anything that is begotten is substance, then all things that are begotten are of the same substance with one another. What results from this line of reasoning? The Creator of the universe appears to have the same substance as all those who participate in begetting! Surely, he will not claim that 'something begotten' signifies substance only when it is used for the Son, hut that when it is used for the other things that participate in begetting, it no longer preserves the same notion. So let him give us a clear and incontrovertible explanation why the same designation does not mean the same thing in every case similarly. But he won't be able to do so. For whatever the formula of 'something begotten' he dreams up, Eunomius shonld apply it similarly to all things that are begotten.
[2.9] Now, then, let's see if this name can be applied to the very substance of the Son. Eunomius says that it is impossible to "conceive of his substance as one thirig and what his name signifies as something else alongside of it. Rather, it is the subsistence that his name signifies, since the designation truly applies to the substance. "52 Your doctrines here are truly worthy of the judges that you have invented! As if dreaming that you're in a I 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.
Who does not know that some names are expressed absolutely and in respect of themselves, signifying the things which are their referents, but other names are said relative to others,. expressing only the relation to the other names relative to which they are said? For example, 'human being' and 'horse' and 'ox' each communicate the very thing that is named. But 'son' and The truth of our account finds its greatest proof in how each of those who hear the word understands it. Let each one ask himself what notion is impressed upon him when he hears that "such-and-such is 'something begotten' of such-and-such." Is it
'slave' and 'friend' reveal only the connection with the associated name. So when anyone hears 'something begotten,' he is not brought in his mind to a certain substance, but rather he understands that it is connected with another. For that which is something begotten is said to be 'something begotten' of someone else. So, how is it not the peak of insanity to decree that that which does not introduce a notion of any subsistence, but only signifies the relation to another, is the substance? In addition, we indicated a little before that, even if absolute names seem most of all to reveal some referent, they too do not communicate the substance itself, but delineate certain distinguishing marks" in connection with it.55 that the one who was begotten is the substance of the begetter?
That's ridiculous! Is it that the one has been brought into being by the other through begetting? That's the truth of the matter. So, then, it is appropriate that this term be said similarly of the Only-Begotten and of any of those who have been begotten.
Let no one suppose that being in relation, which is common in both cases, diminishes the glory of the Only-Begotten in any way. For the difference between the Son and other things does not reside in being related to something. 56 Rather, the superiority of God with respect to mortals is seen in the distinctiveness" of his substance.
Look how their account brings them to such absurdity! If that which is begotten is said to be 'something begotten' of an- [2.10] But this wisest of men, having devoted his entire life to futile scheming, is not ashamed to say that 'something begotten' signifies the very substance of the Only-Begotten. Look
56. Gr. rrpoc; tl TIWC; EXELV. The phrase is Aristotelian in origin: see Cat. 8a32, bl-3. and APr. 41rut. For him it just means "being related to something." While
52. Eunomius, Apol. 12.7-10 (EW 48).
53. A mocking reference to the Pythagon~~ans, who habitually cited Pythagoras, whose authority did not need to be demonstrated, with the words: Auto~ ecpa, "The Master has spoken." the Stoics did adopt it to name their fourth "category," the "relatively disposed," it was commonplace in late ancient philosophy and grammatical theory. It should not be taken as evidence of Stoic influence in late ancient texts, for the reasons given by Jonathan Barnes, Porphyry: Introduction (Oxford: Clarendon
5+ Gr. t6Lwflum.
55. Cf. Eun. 2 ·4· Press, 2003), 52 n. 9, and 3 1213.
57. Gr.16L6T~"
'44
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.10-12
'45 other, as is established by commOn usage and denied by no one, but if according to their account this same word also signifies substance, then it would be the substance afthe one afwhom it is said to be 'something begotten.'58 The consequence of this will be that the designation 'something begotten' no longer sigDo you see his sophism? He judges the Son's substance with respect to itself so that his statements have the appearance of being tolerable to everybody, saying neither that it did not exist before the ages nor that it simply did not exist, but that it "did not exist before its own constitution." Tell me, are you claiming that the substance of the Father is older than its own constitution? If he does not subject the substance of the Son to temporality, nor conceptualize priority in this sense, his argument is vain and idle, and for this reason unworthy of a reply. Moreover, nifies the substance of the Only-Begotten-which is what these men contend-but rather that of the God of the universe. For if it is impossible to "conceive of his substance as one thing" and something begotten "as something else alongside of it,"'9 then saying 'substance' or 'something begotten' means the same if one wishes, it is no less possible to transpose this foolishness to the God of the universe. For saying that God does not exist
"before his own constitution" and saying that he exists before himself is characteristic of the same stupidity. But if Eunomius takes priority in the case of the substance of the Son as temporal and claims that the Son's substance has been begotten from nothing, or rather that the Son himself has been-for saying it the one way or the other makes no difference in the meaning-he posits first of all that the Son is posterior to time, and thing. Now the Son is something begotten afGod. So he would be the substance afGod, if in fact 'something begotten' reveals substance. And thus it would appear that according to the account of Eunomius 'something begotten' is the substance of the unbegotten! But if this conclusion is ridiculous, let him who proposes the premises inherit the shame. For it seems that once his reasoning diverges from the truth in any way, his error has a logical consequence that results in.many dangerous absurdities.
(if he so wishes) also posterior to the ages, even though he is the Maker of the ages.6l But if he then pushes his blasphemies to their logical conclusions, he will claim that even the Father has not been the Father from the beginning, but only later became such.
[2.11] So, then, while this serves as a kind of opening act and prologue for his blasphemy, it is in what follows that he introduces the chief point of his evil when he says:
The substance of the Son was begotten but did not exist before its own constitution, yet it exists after it was begotten before all things by the will of the Father.60
[2.12] If being Father is good and fitting to the blessedness of God, how is that which is fitting for him not present in him from the beginning?" For the lack will certainly be considered either a matter of ignorance of what is better or a matter of inability. All a matter of ignorance, if he discovered what is better only later; as a matter of inability, if while knowing and understanding it he failed to attain what is best. But if-now saying this is irreligious-being Father is not good for him, why did he change, choosing what is worse? May this blasphemy return to its originators! The God of the universe is Father from infinity; he did not at some point begin to be Father. For a deficiency in power did not prevent him from fulfilling his will, nor did he wait for the passage of a certain number of ages to arrive at what
He still depends on the same scheming tricks. He discusses the substance of the Son with us as if claiming that the Son is something different alongside of it, and in this way he prepares our ears for his blasphemy. He does not openly say that the Son has been begotten from nothing, but rather that his substance "was begotten but did not exist." Did not exist before what? Tell me!
58. The argument of this sentence is almost impossible to capture in English. It relies on the use of the Greek genitive, which we have rendered with an italicized of The argument runs as follows:' to say "X is begotten" implies "X is begotten o/some Y." But, on Eunomius's hypothesis, "begotten" is equivalent to "substance." Therefore, by substitution, we can say "X is the substance o/some
Y." But this is absurd: no begotten entity can be the substance of its begetter.
59· Eunomius, Apol. 12.7-8 (EW 48).
60. Eunomius, Apol. 12.10-12 (EW 48).
61. See Heb 1.2.
62. Basil's argument in this section draws upon Origen, Prine. 1.2.9-10.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.12-14
he wanted, as is the case for human beings and other living creatures who each attain the power to beget after reaching maturity. Only the insane would think and utter such things! On the contrary, he has a Fatherhood (if! may give it such a name) that is coextensive with his own eternity. Therefore, it is also the case that the Son, who exists before the age and always, did not at some point begin to exist. From whatever point the Father exists, the Son also exists, and the notion of the Son immediately enters along with the notion of Father. For it is clear that the Father is a father oja son. So, then, though the Father has no origin, the Son's origin is the Father; there is no intermediary between them." So, then, how could that which is from the beginning not exist-for this is what is meant by their sophism,
"before his own constitution"-when he has nothing that can be conceptualized prior to himself except the one from whom he has being, who is not beyond him due to an interval but is ranked prior to him in terms of causality? So the communion of the Son with the God and Father is revealed as eternal, seeing that our understanding advances from the Son to the Father without passing through a void and connects the Son with the Father without any interval between them. For no intermediary separates the Son from the Father. This being the case, what opening still remains for the wicked blasphemy of those who say that he is brought into being from nothing? through him the ages came into existence [Heb 1. 2] and teaches that all things came into existence through him Un 1.3]. For it is clear that the ages are included among the all things. If they claim that they do not deny that the Son came to be before the ages, they should not forget that in reality they are denying that to which they are verbally agreeing.
In fact, let us pose a question to those who make the substance of the Only-Begotten come from nothing: What was the interval "when he was not," as you say? What designation will you dream up for it?" Common usage classifies every interval under either time or age, for that which is time among the sensory realities corresponds to the nature of age among the supercosmic realities. So let these people tell me if they can imagine a third kind of interval based on the resources of their own wisdom. AI; long as they keep silent, they should not forget that they have placed the substance of the Only-Begotten posterior to ages. For if there were any interval prior to the Son that is coextensive with the life of the Father, it would clearly have to be one of these two. But there isn't. Nor can there ever be a notion prior to the subsistence of the Only-Begotten. For one will find that the existence of God the Word who was in the beginning with God Un 1.2] is beyond everything that could conceivably be called primordia1. 66 Even if the mind, by deceiving itself through innumerable fantasies and devoting itself to nonexistent fabrications, has contrived things that do not exist, it will not discover any means at all by which it could extend itself beyond the beginning of the Only-Begotten, leave behind the life of Life Itself as lower than its own movement, transcend the beginning of God the Word by its own rational word, and contemplate ages that are deprived of the God of the ages.
[2.13] Our astonishment at their foolishness is justified. For they fail to realize that when they say that the Son is from nothing, they not only proclaim that he is posterior to the Father, but also that he is posterior to that by which they separate the OnlyBegotten from the Father. If there is anything between the Father and the Son, this must be prior to the existence" of the Son. So, then, what could this be? What else could this be besides an age or a time? If someone thinks that the life of the Father surpasses that of the Only-Begotten, by what interval would he claim to have discovered the superiority other than that of an age or a time? But if this is true, scripture is clearly lying when it says that [2.14] Mter denying the Only-Begotten the glory he is due, notice what sort of words Eunomius uses to extol him: the substance of the Son, he says, "was begotten before all things by the will of the God and Father."67 He attributes this great thing to the Son, that he is prior to creation and pre-exists the things
65. Basil asks a similar question in Eun. 1.21.
66. Gr. Ei, apxaloT~To, Myov.
67. Eunomius, Apol. 12.11-12 (EW 48).
63. "Origin" here translates apx~; in the next sentence (and in the first sen~ tenee of Eun. 2.12) the same word is translated as "beginning."
64Gr. um\p~l"
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.14-15
'49 he himself has made. He supposes that it suffices for the glory of the Creator of the universe that he is ranked prior to the things he himself has created. Mter he alienates (insofar as he is able to do so) the Son from communion with the God and Father, Eunomius testifies to his glory by honoring him above creatures. Then, spouting his blasphemy to the point of impudence, he hems us in on all sides with arguments so forceful that no one can escape them-or so he thinks. with God, and God was the Word Un 1.1)." It is impossible to conceptualize something prior to a beginning. Mter all, a beginning would not still be a beginning if it were to have something anterior to it. Nor is it possible for them to use reason to go beyond 'was' to 'when he was not.' For the conceptualization 'that he was not' is the denial of 'was.' If 'beginning' is one of those things said relative to another, such as is the case for the beginning of wisdom [Sir 1.14) and the beginning ofa good way [PrY 16.7) and in the beginning God made [Gn 1.1]," then it would perhaps be possible to use reflection to go beyond the begetting of what subsists from this kind of beginning. But since the meaning of F(IT' God has begotten the Son either when [the Son) existed (IT' when he did not exist. But if it occurred when he did not exist, no one should accuse me of audacity. But if it occurred when he did exist, this reasoning is not only the pinnacle of absurdity and blasphemy, but also utter silliness. For that which exists has no need ofbegetting.68
'beginning' here, being absolute and non-relative, reveals the supreme nature, how isn't it utterly ridiculous when he contrives things anterior to this beginning or attempts to use reasoning to go beyond it?
So, then, here is that notorious sophism which others discovered long ago but which these people have now brought to perfection on their shameless and impudent tongues. 69 First of all, let us remind the pupils of Eunomius that he feels compelled to make these arguments on account of the ignorance of the many who understand the begetting of the Son in a human way. He is the one who brings unschooled souls froin corporeal notions up to spiritual contemplation. Since begotten animals did not exist before they were begotten and the one begotten today did not exist yesterday, he transfers this notion to the subsistence of the Only-Begotten. "And since he has been begotten," he says,
"he did not exist before his begetting."'· Furthermore, 'was' is coextensive with the insurpassibility of this beginning. For 'was' does not suggest temporal existence, as is the case for: There was a man in the land of Uz Ub 1. 1), and:
There was a man from Armathaim [1 Sm 1.1), and: The earth was invisible [Gn 1.2). In another book the evangelist himself showed us the meaning of 'was' in this sense when he said: I am the one who is and who was, the Almighty [Rv 1.8). The one who was is just like the one who is: both are eternal and non-temporal alike.
Saying that the one who was in the beginning Un 1. I) was not does not preserve the notion of beginning and does not connect the existence of the Only-Begotten to it. For something prior to the beginning is inconceivable, and the being of God the Word is inseparable from this beginning. Hence as far back as you wish to run by the busy curiosity of your mind, you are unable to transcend 'was' and use reasoning to go beyond it.
How noble he is for providing us with this theology of the begetting of the Only-Begotten! Through such arguments he heals the infirmities of our brothers, though he is worthy, if anyone is, of hearing the proverb: Physician, heal yourself! [Lk 4.23) Still, what remedy can we offer for this absurd sickness that has infect- [2.15) Let us now pose him a question: was God the Word with God in the beginning Un 1.1) or did he supervene later? If he was, then keep your tongue from evil [Ps 33.14], that is, from ed his arguments, if not what the Holy Spirit said to us through the blessed John: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
68. The words in italics are actually a paraphrase of Eunomius-and a faith~ ful one at that; see Apol. '3.'-7 (EW 48).
71. Basil's use ofJn 1.1 to argue for the eternity of the Word draws upon Origen,jo. 2.8-11. Basil developed this argument more fully in Hom. 16.
69. Here Basil is probably accusing Eunomius of refonnulating the notorious statement of Arius: "He was not before he came to be" (aUK ~v nplv ytvlltm); see
Athanasius, AT. 1.5. This statement was anathematized at the Council of Nicaea.
72. Presumably Basil understands Gn 1.1 to mean: "in the beginning of the . world God made .... " Otherwise, it is difficult to see how "beginning" here is said relatively.
70. This is a paraphrase of Eunomius, not a citation.
I 1.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.15-16
the blasphemy of saying 'he was not.' But if ... (for saying this is irreligious)," then I will use your own words against you in a more fitting manner: this account of yours is the pinnacle not was it? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Un 1.1]. The Son's existence from eternity. His begetting without passion. His connaturality with the Father. The majesty of his nature. AIl these points he covers in a few words." By including was, he guides us back to the beginning. It is as if he is putting a muzzle on the mouths of the blasphemers who say that 'he was not,' and circumventing in advance any chinks whereby such sophisms may enter. only of blasphemy but also of insanity." Here we have human beings demanding an account of the words of the Spirit, claiming to be disciples of the very same gospels against which they rise up in rebellion.
Look how exactly and clearly the divine sayings testify to the Son's begetting" before the ages. Matthew explained the Son's begetting?6 according to the flesh, as he himself said: The book of Then, after sketching by his theology a kind of outline, a clear one, of the nature of the Only-Begotten,BO he alludes to this with the following phrase as if speaking to those who already know: He was in the beginning with God Un 1.2]. Here once again by including the phrase' was' he connects the begetting of the Only-Begotten to the eternity of the Father. There's more:
He was life, and the life was the light of humanity Un 1.4]. And: he was the true light Un 1.9]. Despite the fact that all these passages that include phrases indicative of eternity thereby confirm this account, Eunomius has rejected all the testimonies of the Spirit and does not seem to have heard the one crying out to us over and over again that he was. For he says: "He was begotten when he was not. When he was not, he was adventitiously begotten later on."81 But if, as you claim, this begetting was not in the beginning, co_uld there be a more conspicuous fight against the sayings of the gospels in which we believe? the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David [Mt 1.1]. And Mark made the preaching of John the beginning of the gospel, saying: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as is written in Isaiah the prophet: a voice of one crying out [Mk 1.1]. Luke for his part also approached the theology" by going through the corporeal origins. The evangelist John was the last to write. Because of what the others did, he needed to raise his mind above every sensory thing and time (which is concomitant to such things).
Or rather he had to be lifted up in the power of the Spirit and be brought near the one who is beyond all things, all but bearing witness that even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, but now we know him thus no longer [2 Cor 5.16]. Since he apprehended the beginning itself and 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." According to him, the beginning was not from Mary, nor from the times mentioned above. What, then,
[2.16] What sensible person would not agree that, just as an eye that passes out of clearly illuminated places must stop its activity because of the absence of light, so too the mind that is forced outside of true being by imaginations, as if the truth lacked a kind of light, becomes confused and stupid and desists from thinking? So, then, an eye is not able to use its power of sight when there is no light, and a soul led away from the notion of the Only-Begotten is not able to have use of its thinking.
For falling away from the Truth makes the mind unable to see and blind. When the mind is empty and demented, it lacks true understanding and thinks that it comprehends things prior to 73. As in Eun. 1.17, Basil refrains from expressing what he considers a terrible blasphemy.
74See Eunomius, Apol. 13.6-7.
75. At Eun. 2.15, 11 (SC 3°5.58), we read yEvV~(1El instead of yevEaet. The change to yevtael is likely a harmonization with the following citation ofMt 1.1.
Also this is not Basil's normal use of the term yeveael.
76. At Eun. 2.15, 12 (SC 3°5.58), we read y~vv~aewc; instead ofyevtaewc;, for the same reasons mentioned in the previous footnote.
77. On "theology," see p. 133 n. 7 above.
78. Basil's esteem for John as a theologian more profound than the other three evangelists and his discussion of the first lines of the gospels to prove this point echo Origen,jo. 1.21-22.
79· That is, inJn 1.1.
80. That is, inJn 1.1.
81. This is a paraphrase of Eunomius, not a citation.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.16-17
the Only-Begotten. It is as if someone testifies that an eye staring at dark objects can see them clearly. For it says: in your light we shall see light [Ps 35.10]. But when Eunomius asserts that he has come to comprehend a point when the light did not yet exist, he resembles the delirious who imagine that they see what is not present. For·one cannot conceive anything beyond the Son, since what perceptible light is to the eye, God the Word is to [2.17] No one should quibble over our account here, if none of the examples harmonize completely with the matter at hand.
For trivial and insignificant things cannot be adapted exactly to divine and eternal realties. They are used only insofar as they refute the false pretenses of those who cannot apprehend begetting with their mind in a way that does not involve passion. Now the Son is said to be and is the begotten image [Col 1.15; 2 Cor
4-4], the radiance of the glory of God [Heb 1.3], and God's wisdom, power [1 Cor 1.24], and righteousness [1 Cor 1.30], though not as a possession," nor as a faculty. On the contrary, he is a living and active substance and the radiance of the glory of God [Heb 1.3]. For this reason, in himself he reveals the Father in his entirety, as he is the radiance of his glory in its entirety. So isn't it utterly absurd to claim that the glory of God is without its radiance? That at some point the wisdom of God was not with God? "But if he was," says
Eunomius, "then he has not been begotten. "84 So let us answer that it is because he was begotten that he was. He does not have unbegotten being, but he always is and co-exists with the Father, from whom he has the cause of his existence. So, then, when was he brought into being by the Father? From whatever point the Father exists.85 Eunomius says that the Father is from eternity. So the soul. For it says: The true light that enlightens every human being was coming into the world Un 1.g]. Hence the unenlightened soul is incapable of thinking. So, then, how could one comprehend that which is above the generation of light?
I think anyone with even a slight concern for the truth would dismiss corporeal comparisons, avoid s)lllying the notions about God· with material imaginations, and follow the theological teachings transmitted to us by the Holy Spirit. Instead of posing these questions, which have no lack of conundrums, in which either of the options contains a risk, they should, on the one hand, conceive of a begetting that is worthy of God, one without passion, partition, division, and temporality, being led to the divine begetting in a way consistent with the radiance that shines forth from light. They should, on the other hand, conceive of the image of the invisible God [Col 1.15], not as that which is produced later than the archetype like those images produced by human skill, but as that which is co-existent with and subsists alongside the one who brought him into subsistence. For the image exists by virtue of the fact that the archetype exists.82 The image is not formed through imitation, since the whole nature of the Father is manifest in the Son as in a seal. It may help you if we say that it is like a teacher inculcating the full reality of an art in his disciples: the teacher loses nothing, and the disciples attain the fullness of the art. But this example surely does not exhibit an exact resemblance because of the temporal interval.
It is more suitable to say that it is like the nature of concepts the Son is also from eternity, being connected in a begotten way to the unbegottenness of the Father.
To prove to them that we are not responsible for this argument, we will cite the very words of the Holy Spirit. So, then, let us take the line from the gospel: In the beginning was the Word
Un 1.1], and the line from the Psalm spoken in the person of the Father: From the womb before the daybreak I have begotten you
[Ps 109.3]. When we combine both of these, we can say both that he was and that he has been begotten. The phrase I have begotten signifies the cause from which he has the origin of his being.
83. Gr. !,.,.
84This is a paraphrase of Eunomius, not a citation.
85. Basil says much the same in Eun. 2.12; see also Gregory of Nazianzus, Or.
29.3. Though both Garnier (PG 2gb.605c) and Sesboiie (SC 305.66) punctuate this sentence as interrogative, the argument Basil is making seems to require that his sentence be the premise for the conclusion drawn in the final line of , the paragraph. Therefore, we punctuate the sentence as indicative.
that co-exist non-temporally with motions of the mind.
82. Gr. 6.Xxu auvumlpxouaav Kat TIapU<j>EOl"'lKUIUV 1"4' imoal'~aaYn, 1"(9 elvm n) apXETU7tOV ouaav. At Eun. 2.16, 36 (SC 3°5.64), we have excised the Kat before Tip Elval since there is no support for this reading in any extant Greek ms. (the addition is based on the Syriac translation).
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.17-18
that it always exists (ad einai) .88 But we consider it a mark of the same insanity to ascribe eternity to creation and yet refuse to acknowledge eternity in the case of the Master of creation.
The phrase he was signifies his non-temporal existence even before the ages.
Striving to promote his own deceit, Eunomius thinks he has reduced this argument to absurdity when he says: "For if the Son was before his own begetting, he was unbegotten."" As for that which is "before his begetting," you poor fool, there are two options. Either (1) it is something utterly non-existent and a mental fabrication without any foundation. 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
[2.18] What does Eunomius say upon bringing his argument to this point of impudence?
For our part, clinging to that which has been demonstrated by the saints of old and even now by us, since the substance of God does not admit begetting and since there is no other substance existing which serves as the substrate for the begetting of the Son, we assert that the Son was begotten when he did not exist.s9 deprived of reason. Or (2), if Eunomius is thinking of something that exists, he will be led to the notion of the ages. But if all ages are understood to be below (as it were) the begetting of the Only-Begotten, being, as they are, things that he himself made,87 then the one who looks for things prior to the subsistence of the Son is a fool. His question is no less inappropriate than if he were to inquire whether the Father existed "before his own constitution" or not. Forjust as in this case it is stupid to seek something beyond the one who is without beginning and unbegotten, so also in the case of the one who is with the Father from eternity and has no intermediary between himself and his begetter, it is truly of equal insanity to ask about priority in a temporal sense. Seeking what exists "before the begetting" of the eterhal one resembles asking what will exist after the end ofthe immortal one.
Who is eager for distinction in piety in this way? Who has made as great a show of being a lover of Christ as these men have, even though they boast of their arrogant and dishonorable words that go so far as to destroy the glory of the Only-Begotten? You godless man! Please stop saying that he does not exist when he is the one who truly exists, the one who is the source of life, and the one who produces being for all that exists. Didn't he find a designation well-suited for himself and fitting for his own eternity when he named himself He Who Is in his oracle to Moses his servant? He said: I am He Who Is [Ex 3.14]. No one will object when
I say that these words were spoken in the person of the Lord, at least no one who does not have the veil of the Jews upon his heart when he reads Moses [2 Cor 3.15]. It is written that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the bush burning with fire." MSince the Father's being without beginning is called 'eternal,' these men declare that 'eternal' is the same as 'without beginning.' Since the Son is not unbegotten, they do not confess that he is eternal. But the notional difference between these two terms is great. For 'unbegotten' is said of that which has no beginning and no cause of its own being, while 'eternal' is said of that which is prior in being to every time and age. Therefore, the Son is eternal but not unbegotten. Now some people have previously judged even the ages worthy of the designation
88. An example of classical etymology, found in Aristotle (alwv ... a:no TOU atEi dVaL l~V En:wvulliav dA'l<PW~; Cael. 1.9 {27ga27-28]) and Plotinus (<<twv yap
1mb TOO Ixel OVTO,; En. 3·7 [45]-4,43; cf. En. 3·7 [45].6, 32-33) and often repeated by Aristotelian and Neoplatonist commentators. While Aristotle says that the term aion is derived from the fact that it always exists (aiei einat) , Plotinus says that the-term aion is derived from the term "always existing" (aei on). Here Basil follows Aristotle.
8g. Eunomius, Apol. 15.3-7 (EW 50-52). The citation has omissions. The full text reads: "For our part, clinging to that which has been demonstrated by the saints of old and even now by us, since the substance of God does not admit begetting (as it is unbegotten), nor separation or partition (as it is incorruptible), and since there is no other substance existing which serves as the substrate for the begetting of the Son, we assert that the Son was begotten when he did not exist."
'eternal' since they derive the term 'age' (aion) from the fact 86. Eunomius, Apol. 13.15 (EW 50).
87. See Heb 1.2. go. See Ex 3.2; Acts 7.30.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.18-19
ter mentioning the angel at the outset of the narrative, scripture introduces the voice of God when it says that he saId to Moses: ing t~:t they dare to call God "he who does not exist." I suppose that It s because they realize that not even the demons themI am the God of your father Abraham [Ex 3.6]. A little furth~r o~, the same one said: I am He Who Is [Ex 3.14]. So, then, who IS thIs one who is both angel and God alike? Isn't it he whom we have learned is called by the name the angel of great counsel [Is 9·5]? selve~ deny that God exists" that, when they return to the point bter m the treatIse, they give free rein to their own impious deSIre. There ~hey blaspheme by saying that at some point the Son does not eXIst, on the grounds that he does not exist by his own nature but has been brought into being by God through grace.
For my part, I don't think that this needs much ~emonstra tion;just mentioning it suffices for the lovers of ChrIst. But the incorrigible are not going to derive any benefit from a flurr: of words. Even though the angel of great counsel comes. late~, It remains true that previously he did not disdain the deSIgnatIOn
Here IS what Paul said about the idols: You served the gods who by nature do not eXlst [Gal 4-8]. And there's Jeremiah: And they swore by the gods who do not exist Uer 5.7]. There's also the most wise Esther: 0 Lord, do not relinquish your scepter to those who do not 'angel. '91 You see, it is not only in this passage that we find the scriptures naming our Lord both 'angel' and '?od.' For when
Jacob narrated an appearance to his wives, he SaId: ~nd the ~ngel eX15t [Est C.22 LXX~ '4.' RSV]. When these men"' apply the sa~e .phrase to the true God, how can they still be justified in claImmg the designation 'Christian'? Somewhere in another letter of t?is same Apostle, speaking in the Spirit of God, he calls the natIons "that which does not exist" because they have been deprived of the knowledge of God: God chose that which does not exist [1 Cor 1.28]. Given the fact that God is both Truth and Life, I think it is to be expected that those who were not united by faith to the God who exists, but affiliated themselves with ?on-existent falsehoods through the error of idolatry, are desIgnated as 'not existing.' For they have been deprived of the Truth and have alienated themselves from Life. Furthermore, when he was writing to the Ephesians, whom he treated as people genuinely united through knowledge to He Who Is, he gave them a peculiar name, "those who exist," when he said: to the of God said to me [Gn 3" 11]. And a little further on, it was saId:. I am the God who appeared to you in the place where you anointed a plllar to me [Gn 31.13]. In addition, it was said toJacob as he stood before the pillar: I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac [Gn 28.13]. The one who is called 'angel' i~ ~e former passage [Gn 31.1 1] is the same as the one who SaId m the latter passage [Gn 31.13] that he appeared to Jacob. So, then, it is clear to all that, where the same one is .designated both 'angel' and 'God,' it is the Only-Begotten who ~s revealed, manifesting himself to human beings from gene~atIo? to generation and announcing the will of the Father to hIS saInts. Consequently, when he naIlled himself He Who Is before Moses, he is understood to be none other than God the Word, who was ln
~aints who exist and are faithful in Christ Jesus [Eph 1.1]. For this IS how our ancestors have transmitted the verse to us and how we ourselves have found it in the oldest copies.'" But Eunomius the beginning with God Un 1.2].
[2.19] But these men who speak what is wrong from on hlgh [Ps 72 .8] have not shrunk from saying that the Son does not exist. Though the fool has said in his heart: there 15 no God [Ps 13.1],
92. SeeJas 2.19.
93· Eunomius and his associates.
94· Basil witnesses to a textual variant of Eph 1.1 found in several important mss. that lacks the words "in Ephesus" after "to the saints who exist" or "who are." See Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2d ed. (New York: United Bible Societies, 1994),532. Basil's interpretation of the lacunate version ultimately stems from Origen, Fragments from the Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians 2, 1-6: "In the case of Ephesians alone we find the phrase to the sai~ts who exist. We ask what the phrase who exist can mean, if it is not redundant when added to the saints. Consider, then, if not as in Exodus he these men not only scoff but also speak with malice .[Ps. 72 .8], showing no restraint when they pass on to all posterIty m wnt9 1. Here Basil seems to be countering the argument that: if the Lord has only been called 'the angel of great counsel' in Isaiah, who hved after Moses, then there is no basis for arguing that the God of the burning bush is the Lord.
In what follows Basil demonstrates that the Lord was called 'angel' even before Moses. i i
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.19-20
could not even bring himself to judge our God worthy of the designation in which the servants of Christ participate. On the contrary, he calls the one who brings creation into being from nothing 'non-existing.' necessarily has over the things he himself has made." He did not say "we comprehend" or "we are of the opinion" as would have been suitable. when speaking about God, but rather "we allot" as if he himself were responsible for the measure of the distribution. How much superiority does he give him? "As much as the maker necessarily has over the things he himself has made." This falls short of providing evidence for a difference in substance.
Though human beings are superior to their own products by virtue of their artistic skill, they are nevertheless of the same substance with them. Examples include the potter and his clay, and the shipbuilder and his lumber." Both" are similarly bodies.
Both are similarly perceptible by the senses and made of earth.IOO His contempt is all the more perceptible from how he pretends to glorifY the Lord:
We do not construe the Only-Begotten as having a substance in common with those which have come to be from nothing. For that which is nothing is surely not a substance. Rather, we allot him as much superiority as the maker necessarily has over the things he himself has made.95
Mter much groundwork to bring his account to this point, with [2.20] Mter admitting only this much difference between the Son and creation, he immediately also does damage to the notion of the Only-Begotten: these words he shows his love for humanity, saying that he does
"not construe the Only-Begotten as having a substance in common with those which have come to be from nothing." But if the God of the universe, because he is unbegotten, is of necessity distinct from those which have been begotten, and if all those who have been begotten have it in common that they subsist from nothing, how is it that the latter are not necessarily joined in nature? For just as in the former case God's inaccessibility" distinguishes the natures, so too in the latter case their equality in honor joins them to one another as identical in this respect.
Though they say that the Son and those which he has brought into being are from nothing, and construe them" as having a nature in common in this respect, they deny that they attribute to him a substance that is like those who are from nothing.
For this reason he is the Only-Begotten, since he was begotten and created by the power of the unbegotten, as only one from only one, thereby becoming his most perfect minister. lol
I don't know with which of these statements I should be more enraged. On the one hand, he cunningly damages the name
'Only-Begotten' in order to use it in a sense contrary to both the customary usage of people and the pious tradition of the scriptures. For in common usage 'only-begotten' does not designate the one who comes from only one person, but the one who is the only one begotten. On the other hand, there's the blasphemous term 'creature.' He has maliciously linked this term with "was begotten" so that he might indicate that the Lord participates in the designation 'has been begotten' no differently than creatures do. He thinks that the Lord has been named . Son' in the same way as in the passages: he has begotten sons and raised
There's something else: as if he himself were Lord, Eunomius provides as much dignity as he wants to the Only-Begotten, writing as follows: "We allot him as much superiority as the maker who utters the words He who Is to Moses speaks his own name [Ex 3.14], so those who participate in He Who Is become those who exist, called, as it were, from non-existence into existence" a.A.F.Gregg, "Documents: The Commen98. By "clay" and "lumber" Basil must mean the clay that the potter has formed into an object and the lumber fitted together to construct a ship, not the raw materials before they are shaped into a product. The artisan transcends the product as cause to the effect. tary of Origen upon the Epistle to the Ephesians," jTS 3 [1902]: 234-44.398420, and 554-76; trans. [~odifiedl Ronald E.Heine, The Commentaries of Origem. and Jerome on St Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians [Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2002], 80).
95. Eunomius. Apol. '5.7-" (EW 52).
96. See 1 Tm 6.16.
97. That is, the Son and those he has brought into being.
99· That is, the artisan and his products.
100. That is, the element earth, n'ot the planet.
101. Eunomius, Apol. 15.14-15 (EW 52). Note that "from only one" is an addition.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.20-21
them [Is 1.2] and Israel is my firstborn son [Ex +22], and that he does not have the name which is above every name [Phil 2.9], but has been deemed as equally worthy of the designation as the others. acquired a man through God [Gn 4.J] clearly used this term, not because he had created Cain, but rather because he had begotten him.106
[2.21] Let's return to the beginning of the passage. "For this reason," says Eunomius, "he is the Only-Begotten, since he was begotten and created as from only one, thereby becoming his most perfect minister."107 So if he is called 'only-begotten' not because he is the only one begotten, but because he is begotten from only one, and if in your view being created is the same thing as being begotten, why didn't you also name him the 'only-created'? For there is no thought that you don't have a knack 'for expressing! At any rate, according to your account it seems that no human being is only-begotten since everyone is begotten as the result of sexual intercourse. Not even Sarah, in your view, was the mother of an only-begotten child, for she did not produce him by herself, but together with Abraham108
If your opinions were to prevail, it would be necessary for the entire world to re-learn this term, that the name' only-begotten' does not indicate a lack of siblings but the absence of a pair of procreators.
These men have recourse to the text of Solomon, and from it, as if from a base of military operations, they launch an assault on the faith. On the basis of that passage said in the person of Wisdom: the Lord created me [pry 8.22], they have supposed that it is permissible for them to call the Lord a 'creature.' But for my part, I have many things to say about this line.!02 First of all, this is said only once in all the scriptures. Second, in this book a great deal of the meaning is hidden and on the whole it proceeds by means of proverbs, parables, dark sayings, and enigmas,103 such that no one may take anything from it that is either indisputable or crystal-clear. I'll refrain from saying more lest I prolong this treatise by making lengthy digressions. Elsewhere in the proper place we will conduct the examination, deferred for now, of what they have understood in an evil way; in that place, if God grants it, the correct understanding of this verse will be found. At any rate, I think that, whatever is said with God's help, the sense will be much more consistent with Furthermore, creation is already inferior in dignity to God the Word because he is its cause. For creation falls short of being only-begotten insofar as the Son joins the Father in creating it. lo9 But these men would still not concede this point. For they name him "his most perfect minister." So, then, how in your the text in question and will bring no danger when it is clarified by the investigation.!04 But in the meantime let us be sure not to let the following point go unnoticed: that other translators, who have hit upon the meaning of the Hebrew words in a more appropriate way, render it as "he acquired me" instead of he cre106. Basil attributes this verse to a masculine speaker, presumably Adam, even though in Gn 4-1 it is Eve who speaks this line. Basil makes the same error in Spiro 5.12. Once again, Basil is summarizing Eusebius, who explicitly attri~ butes the verse to Ad~m; see E. tho 3.2.21-23. ated me.!O' This is going to be a great obstacle for them against their blasphemous term 'creature.' For the. one who said: I have
107. Eunomius, Apol. 15.14-15 (EW 52). Note that Basil omits "only one" and adds "from only one" (as before).
102. For a discussion of Basil's comments on Pry 8.22 in this section, see Mark DelCogliano, "Basil of Caesarea on Proverbs 8.22 and the Sources of ProNicene Theology," fTSn.s. 59 (2008): 183-90.
108. See Gn 21.2.
109. According to Basil, Eunomius thinks that what comes from more than one source cannot be only~begotten, but that the world comes from two sourc~ es, the Father and the Son. It is for this reason, then, that Eunomius thinks the world cannot be only~begotten. In what follows, Basil counters Eunomius by pointing out that Eunomius does not believe that the world comes from two sources, since the Son is merely an instrument of the Father. Therefore, accord~ ing to Basil, Eunomius does not adequately distinguish the created order and the Son.
103. See Pry 1.6.
104. Basil never returns to the exegesis of Pry 8.22, either in Eun. or else~ where in his corpus.
105. Here Basil summarizes Eusebius, E. tho 3.2.15 and 20. Eusebius cites the three alternative renditions of Pry 8.22 on the part of the three post-Septuagint translators of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, Aquila, Symmachus, and The· odotion, all of whom translate "he acquired me" (EKT~oaTo Ile) instead of the LXX's "he created me" (EKTLOEV Ile).
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.21-22
view has creation not come to be from only one when you give stance of the Father has no communion with that of the OnlyBegotten. This is why he pompously makes distinctions between names. We have not bothered with such things. For it is not the case that whenever the form of a word is the same, the meaning is the same, such that he can deny, for instance, that God is the Father of the Son because of those named 'fathers' upon the earth.
God the Word to the Father as a kind of lifeless instrument?
This will be the case unless someone is going to deny that only the shipbuilder has made the ship because he has used instruments to construct it. As a consequence of your view, creation and its parts are only-begotten: not only the invisible powers, but also perceptible bodies, even the most worthless of these, wood-boring insects, locusts, and frogs. For God commanded
As I see it, while there is much that distinguishes Christianity from Greek error and Jewish ignorance, I think there is no doctrine in the gospel of our salvation more important than faith in the Father and the Son. For even schismatics, whatever their error might be, agree that God is the Founder and the Creator,u' Now in which group should we put Eunomius? He declares that 'Father' is a pseudonym and that 'Son' only goes so far as a mere designation." 2 He thinks that it makes no difference whether one confesses 'Father' or 'founder,' and whether one says 'Son' or 'something made.' So in what party should we count him? Among the Greeks or the Jews? For whoever and they came to be CPs 148.51. Mter all, what ministering could have been needed by the one who creates by will alone, seeing that creation came into existence simultaneously with his willing it? What, then? How do we say that all things come to be through the Son? In this way: the divine will, taking its origin from the Primal Cause as from a kind of spring, proceeds to activity through his own image, God the Word. But Eunomius has designated the only-begotten Son as a minister, attributing to him this great thing: that he is well-suited for administering the things that have been assigned to him. But if he possesses glory not in virtue of being perfect God, but in virtue of being a reliable minister, how will he be different from the ministering spirits denies the power of piety and the distinctive character (so to speak) of our worship will not affiliate himself with Christians.
For we have not put our faith in the Creator and something made. Rather, we have been sealed in the Father and the Son through the grace received in baptism. Hence when he dares to deny these terms, he simultaneously takes exception to the whole power of the gospels, proclaiming a Father who has not [Heb 1.141 who blamelessly accomplish their task of administering? He has linked "was created" with "was begotten" so that on this basis he might show that there is no difference between the Son and a creature.
[2.221 The exhortation he gives also deserves a hearing: begotten and a Son who was not begotten.
When one attends to the designation 'Father and Son,' one must not "But I say these things," says Eunomius, "in order to avoid the notion of passion that term 'Father' introduces."lI3 He who knows for certain how to live a pious life repudiates whatever is incongruous in how we understand these words'" (if there even is such a thing in them). He understands that he should not think of his begetting as human, and one must not start from genera
M tion among human beings and subject God to the names and passions of partnership.llo His exhortation amounts to this: one must not think of any likeness of substance between the Son and Father. For this is his intent when he forbids the term 'partnership,' as if the subIll. Cr. KrlO"l"IlV KaL 61l~.uoupy6v. Only here and in the next sentence does
Basil speak of Cod as the Kl"lal"ll~ (,Founder'). Elsewhere he employs the terms
110. Eunomius, Apol. 16.1-3 (EW 52). The term "partnership" (!lecouota) referred to any kind of fellowship or union. Eunomius used it in the sense of the sexual "partnership" of a man and a woman. But this term also had a technical meaning of "participation" or "the sharing of substance." It is this sense that Basil exploits, understanding the tenn as referring to the ontological fellowship or union (i.e., the sharing of substance) between a father and a son.
61lllLoupy6e; and 1l0llll"~e; ('Creator' and 'Maker').
112. Cr. IlEXPL llpoO"llYopiae; 'VLA~e;. Cf. Aetius, Synt. 8: EWe; 'VLA~e; llPOollyop[ae;.
113. This is not a citation of Eunomius, but a resume of his thought in Apol.
16 and 17.
. 114. That is, the words 'Father' and 'Son.'
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.22-23
reject the entire term once and for all because, if he does so on the pretext of inappropriateness, he may also discard whatever is useful in it. He knows that when it is a question of doctrines about God he should purify words of lowly and fleshly concepts and think of the begetting that is suitable for the holiness and impassibility of God. On the one hand, he must lay aside as ineffable and incomprehensible the manner in which God has beFurthermore, it should not be said that we attribute these names to God in an improper sense l16 on the grounds that they are used in the proper and primary sense for human beings. For our Lord Jesus Christ leads us back to the principle of all things and the true cause of beings when he says: Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven [Mt 23.9). So, theu, how can Eunomius believe that we ought to reject these terms because they principally indicate the passions of the flesh, when the Lord transfers them from human beings to God as fitgotten. On the other hand, he must be mentally conveyed from the designation 'begetting' to likeness in substance. Indeed, it is clear to anyone who examines these names, I mean 'Father' and 'Son,' that they do not in their proper and primary sense naturally give rise to the notion of corporeal passions. On the contrary, when they are said by themselves they indicate only their relation to one another. ll5 The Father is he who provides to another the beginning of being in a nature similar to his own, whereas the Son is he who has the beginning of his being from another in a begotten way. ting for his impassibility? Even if he is also called the Father of creatures, this still does not conflict with our account. For according to the saying of Job, he who gave birth to the drops of the dew Ub 38.28) did not give birth to the drops and the Son in a similar way. Nonetheless, if they dare to make this claim, such that they call the substance of the dew a 'son' who is equal in rank, then it is no longer incumbent upon us to provide anyargument against them. For in this case they would have brought their blasphemy to the point of the most obvious shamelessness.
[2.23) So, then, when we hear that a man is a father, at that time the notion of passion occurs to us as well. But when we hear that God is Father, we reason our way back to the cause that is without passion. Since Eunomius has become accustomed to using this designation for the nature that is subject to passion, he denies what is beyond the comprehension of his own reasoning as an impossibility. It is inappropriate to refuse to believe in the impassibility of God because of attention to the passion of corruptible beings. And it is inappropriate to compare the immutable and inalterable substance with the transient nature that is subject to coundess changes. The following thought is also not to be entertained: since mortal animals beget through passion, God too begets in this way. On the contrary, the following consideration must be our guide to the truth: since corruptible beings beget in this way, the incorruptible one does so in the opposite way.
When God is called the 'Father of us all,' he is not our Father and the Father of the Only-Begotten in the same way. If their impiety is based on the fact that the Lord is designated the firstborn of all creation [Col 1.15) and the firstborn among many brothers
[Rom 8.29], they should learn from the gospel that the Lord gives the designation 'his own mother and brothers' to those who come into affinity with him by the works of virtue. For he says: Who is my mother, and who are my brothers, other than those who do the will of my Father in heaven? [Mt 12.48-50) Hence God is named our Father not in an improper sense, nor metaphorically, but in the proper, primary, and true sense. For he brings us into being from nothing through corporeal parents and into affinity with him by caring for us. If God has been truly called our Father since he had judged us worthy of adoption as sons by grace, what argument will deny that he is not unfittingly designated the Father of the one who is his Son by nature and has proceeded from his substance?
115. In other words, 'Father' and 'Son' are by their very nature relative lenTIs. cr. Eun. 2.9. This distinguishes them from terms which are not relative in themselves, but which can be used relatively. For example, 'God' can be used on its own, but it can also be used relatively, such as: 'the God ofIsrael.' A term like
'father' is by nature relative because it always indicates the existence of a child, whether explicitly stated, as in 'father of a son,' or not.
On account of "the designation of Father and Son," says Eu116. Using words KU1"axpllo"TlKW~, "in an improper sense," is the opposite of using them KupiwC;, "in the proper sense."
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.23-24
nomius, "one must not think of the begetting of the Lord as human."I!? Even I would say this. But what prevents the pious from believing in a begetting that is divine and without passion? I think he uses these words not in order to show that God has begotten him without passion, but to show that God has not begotten at all. So, then, how was it that you declared in your words above, 0 noblest of men, that the substance of the said in a bodily manner. Why shouldn't we also inquire into the notions of this term, so often employed by the Spirit, that are appropriate for God? Or shall we expunge only this term from the scripture, denouncing it on the basis of how humans use it?
Let's examine the issue in this way. According to customary usage here below, the designation 'to beget' signifies two things: the passion of the begetter and the affinity to the one begotten.
This being the case, when the Father says to the Only-Begotten:
From the womb before daybreak I have begotten you [Ps 109.3] and:
Only-Begotten is something begotten? For if he has not been begotten, on what basis does 'something begotten' belong to him in your account? Because of the opposition between 'begotten' and 'unbegotten,' he strives to show that the substance is something begotten. Then again, when he sees how affinity of substance is signified by this term, he deprives the one who is something begotten of being begotten.n8 You are my Son; today I have begotten you [Ps 2.7], which of these two do we say is communicated by means of this word? That begetters are subject to passion? Or that there is an affinity of nature between begetter and the one begotten? For my part, I claim the latter. I can't imagine that these men would ever contradict me, unless they have been reduced to manifest delirium.
And so, if the term is proper to God, why do you dishonor it as Furthermore, if he refuses to use this term on the grounds that it indicates passion, what prevents him from not admitting for the same reasons that God is the Creator? For a certain fatigue always accompanies all corporeal activities, which is of greater or lesser intensity in proportion to the power of the maker and the various magnitudes of its tasks. Saying that the divine and blessed nature is constrained by weariness is no less impious than subjecting it to dishonorable passions. So if he creates without passion, you should also admit that the begetting is without passion. if it were foreign? Since it has been transferred from human affairs, latch onto its sound sense and put aside the meanings that are less good. When it is a question of a polyvalent expression, it is surely possible to be guided by the word to its correct notion and thereby go beyond its lowly and dishonorable meanings.
Do not say to me: "What is the begetting? What kind of thing is it? How could it happen?" Even now we are not going to repudiate the solid foundation of our faith in the Father and the Son because the manner of the begetting is ineffable and utterly inconceivable. If we are going to measure all things by comprehension and suppose that that which is incomprehensible to our reasoning does not exist at all, the reward of faith will be gone, the reward of hope will be gone. How could we still be worthy of the blessings stored up for faith in invisible realities, if we trust only in that which is evident to our reasoning? 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 [2.24] So, then, there has been sufficient discussion of the fact that God is called Father in the proper and suitable sense, and that this is not a name of passion but of affinity, affinity either by grace as in the case of human beings, or by nature as in the case of the Only-Begotten. Now let us grant that even this term, like so many others, is figurative and is said metaphorically. But when we hear that God becomes angry, falls asleep, and flies,1I9 and other descriptions like these which produce meanings that are not suitable when taken in their obvious sense, we neither strike out the words of the Spirit nor take what has been reasoning and refused to believe the proclamation of the Spirit?
Whom does Isaiah mourn for as lost? Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and smart in their own sight! [Is 5.21] How can it not be men such as these?l20 117. Etinomius, Apol. 16.1-2 (EW 52). Basil adds "of the Lord."
118. At Eun. 2.23, 62 (SC 3°5.96), we read YEYEvv~a8at instead of Yl1yEvv~cr8al, presumably a misprint.
I1g. Such language is frequent in the Psalms.
120. That is, Eunomius and his associates.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.24-25
I will pass by many things Eunomius says in the meantimeeverything he openly puts forth about the Son not being begotten and everything he says by way of pretense about how the Only-Begotten admits of being a creature and something made-because I want to get to the most important part of his
. impiety. I will indicate only the following about what we are ing very similarly to those who accuse a murderer of an insult Or a punch or some such misdemeanor.
[2.25] So, then, let's pass on to his capital offense. Eunomius saw that there is a common preconception that exists similarly in all Christians-at least in those who are truly worthy of this designation. It concerns the fact that the Son is the begotten light who has shone forth from the unbegotten light, that he is life itself and goodness itself that has proceeded from the lifegiving source and the paternal goodness. Then he noticed that, unless he threw these notions of ours into confusion, there would be nothing left of his sophisms. For the one who confessleaving out: wishing to conceal with his words the blasphemy he prepared earlier in the treatise and to soften the shamelessness of his account, he said that he does not construe the OnlyBegotten as something in common with creation.12J But he has forgotten his own doctrines which he expounded above with naked and undisguised expressions. Because of them he once again falls into a shameless contradiction that is as obvious as can be. So, then, this is what he writes: es that the Father is light and that the Son is light will spontaneously be led, because the notion of light is one and the same, to the confession of their affinity in substance. According to the very <;lefinition of light, there is neither a verbal nor a· notional difference between a light and a light. So, then, in order to Let no one be disturbed when he hears that the Son is something made, as if a common substance were construed for them by the commonality of the names.122 take this away from us, E unomius casts the nets of his scheming tricks around the account of faith. He teaches that these lights are absolutely incomparable and have nothing at all in common with one another, saying that the opposition between the unbegotten and the begotten is the same as that between light
So, then, 0 wisest of men, if diversity of substance necessarily follows upon difference in names-for you surely recall that he uttered these words in his earlier argumentsl23-how is it not true even in this case that commonality of substance follows upon the commonality of names? For he clearly did not make this statement just once or incidentally. As soon as he says that the commonality of names does not mean there is a substance in common, a little further on, as if regretting what he just said, he adds the following to attack his opponents: and light. If we deny his claim, he says that we are obligated to confess that God is composite.
But let's hear it from his very text:
Does light, when said of the unbegotten, signify something different from the unbegotten, or does each 125 signify the same thing? On the one hand, if one thing and another, then it is perfectly clear that that which is compounded from one thing and another is itself composite, and that which is composite is not unbegotten. But on the other hand, if the same thing, then, as much as the begotten differs from the unbeIf in fact these people had any concern for the truth, they should confess that when names are different, the substances are also different.124
How could anyone use language more carelessly? In short measure, he switches between contrary positions: now he says that a gotten, so much must the light differ from the light, and the life from the life, and the power from the power.'26 difference in names necessarily intimates diversity in substance, now he says that commonality of names does not mean that there is a substance in Common. But here I think we are behavBehold and grasp the horrible blasphemy! "As much as the begotten differs from the unbegotten," he says, "so much will the light differ from the light, and the life from the life, and the power from the power." So let's put a question to him: How far
121. See Eunomius, Apol. 15.7-11 (EW 52); cf. Eun. 2.19.
122. Eunomius, Apol. 17.8-9 (EW 54).
123. See Eunomius, Apol. 12'.3-4 (EW 48), discussed in Eun. 24.
124Eunomius, Apol. 18.13-14 (EW 56).
125. That is, 'light' and 'unbegotten.'
126. Eunomius, Apol. 19.9-15 (EW 56-58).
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.25-27
apart is the begotten from the unbegotten? Isit just a little bit, and just enough so that they will sometimes be able to come together at the same point? Or is this utterly unfeasible and even more impossible than the same person being alive and dead at the same instant, being healthy and sick at the same time, and being simultaneously awake and asleep? These sorts of states are set against one another in such an extreme opposition that when one is present the other is necessarily absent, being by nathinks that the begotten is opposed to the unbegotten by way of contrariety, he holds that the same opposition obtains between light and light in order to show in every way that the substance of the Father is antagonistic and hostile to that of the OnlyBegotten. Such is the reason for this novel legislation of doctrines: "as much as the begotten differs from the unbegotten, so much must the light differ from the light." On the one hand, there is a certain opposition, as they themselves affirm, between the unbegotten and ·the begotten according to the imposition of the words, even if not according to the nature of the realities.
On the other hand, between light and light no one can conceptualize either a verbal or a notional opposition. ture absolutely incapable of coexisting and coinciding.!27
[2.26] So, then, given that the opposition between the begotten and the unbegotten is like this, consider the one who names the Father 'light' and the Son 'light' and says that the one light differs from the other light as much as the begotten differs from the unbegotten. Isn't it clear that, even if he makes a verbal show of his concern for humanity when he pretends to name the Son 'light,' he is on the contrary leading the notion of light to its opposite by the force of his words? See for yourself. What is opposed to the unbegotten? Is it another unbegotten or the begotten? Clearly, it is the begotten. But what is opposed to the light? Another light, or darkness? Surely, it is the darkness. So, "if as much as the begotten differs from the unbegotten, so much must the light differ from the light," then who in the world can fail to see his impiety? He introduces that which is opposite to light when he desigmites him as 'light' and So he appears to mislead himself through his deceptive sophisms. For he thinks that things that follow upon contraries have the same conflict with one another that the things that entail them also have, and that whenever a contrary is present to one of a pair of contraries, the contrary of it will in every case follow in the other member of the pair. For example, if light follows upon vision, then darkness must follow upon blindness. If perceiving by the senses follows upon being alive, then not perceiving by the senses must follow upon being dead. But anyone with even a little understanding recognizes that such conclusions are feeble and errant. Just because being alive follows upon being awake, being dead does not in every case follow upon being asleep. Nor is the begotten contrary to the unbegotten. If they are contraries, they are also destructive of one other-may this be on the head of the blasphemers! On the contrary, they are not hostile in nature. Nor will that which follows upon them necessarily have the same interval between them as the things that entail them have been shown to have. thereby suggests that the substance of the Only-Begotten is contrary to the nature of the light.
Let him show us a light that is opposed to light and has the measure of opposition that exists between the begotten and the unbegotten. If this light does not exist and Eunomius himself cannot conceptualize it, no one should remain unaware of the scheme he uses in secret to construct his blasphemy. Since he
[2.27] So you have two choices: either retract your words or stop denying your impiety. This is what your blasphemy says: "as much as the begotten differs from the unbegotten, so much must the light differ from the light." Therefore, just as the begotten one will never participate in unbegottenness, so too you will never grant him participation in the light. In your view the 127, Eunomius said that the light predicated of the unbegotten differs from the light predicated of the begotten by as much as the unbegotten differs from the begotten. Basil interprets the difference between the begotten and unbegotten as that between two items that are not only contradictory of one another, such that if one exists, the other cannot exist, but are actually contraries. Whereas Eunomius envisioned a difference of degree between the two, Basil understands it to be a qualitative difference. substance of the Only-Begotten will be equally distant from both being unbegotten and being conceived as and named 'light.'
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.27-28
!73
Even though John cries out to you with the piercing voice of the Spirit, saying: He was the true light Un 1.9], you do not have the ears to hear or the heart to understand.!28 Instead, with your sophisms you drive the substance of the Only-Begotten over to the nature that is antagonistic to the light and cannot coexist with it. You cannot claim convincingly that you do not deprive of the divine nature. None of these have acquired opposition to the good according to their substance. If so, the blame would redound to the creator. It is by their own freewill that they have fallen away into evil, depriving themselves of what is good. Giving
God a tongue-lashing, Eunomius endeavors to bring the nature of the Only-Begotten over to this very class. When he posits that the substance of the Father is light, he certainly cannot say that it is superior in glory and in splendor, supposing that the su.bstance of the Only-Begotten itself is also light but dimmer and, as it were, obscured. Such claims do not belong to a pious way of thinking because they deprive the image of its likeness by making it faint. We are justified in wishing to accuse him of holding these opinions, for it would not require much effort on our part to correct him. the Only-Begotten of the designation 'light.' For piety is not a matter of producing empty noises in the air, but concerns the force of what is signified.
Eunomius did not stop with these claims, but also makes both the life and the power have the same measure of separation when he says: "as much as the begotten differs from the unbegotten, so much must the light differ from the light, and the life from the life, and the power from the power." Therefore, in your view, the Only-Begotten is neither life nor power. Would you edit the Lord himself when he says: I am the life Un 14.6]? Would you edit
Paul when he says: Christ the power of God [1 Cor 1.24]? The demonstration above fits the present case as well. For no one would claim that life is opposed to life and that power is opposed to power. It is death and powerlessness which constitute the most complete opposition to them. With respect to these points, Eunomius hides his cunning in the craftiness of his words, secretly and altogether hiddenly preparing his horrible impiety. He removes the nature of the Only-Begotten to that which is contrary to the Father by means of his verbal trickery, retaining only the reverent honor of the names.
[2.28] As it is, the difference between the unbegotten and the begotten is not in terms of a more and a less, as if between a lesser and a greater light. On the contrary, there is an interval between them as great as that between things which are completely incapable of coexisting with one another. It is unfeasible that the one paired with the other will ever be transformed into the opposite state by changing, such that either the unbegotten becomes begotten or, vice versa, what is begotten is transformed into something unbegotten. So he who once declared:
"as much as the begotten differs from the unbegotten, so much must the light differ from the light," cannot even retain this argument as an escape route. On the one hand, the light that is pure is the same in kind as the light that is (so to speak) fading and dimmer, differing only in intensity. On the other hand, the unbegotten is not an intensification of the begotten, and the begotten is surely not a kind of attenuation of the unbegotten. On the contrary, they stand apart from one another (so to speak) in diametrical opposition. So, then, those who posit the begotten and the unbegotten as substances are faced with the following absurd consequences, and even more than these: the contrary will be begotten from the contrary, and instead of a natural affinity, a certain necessary discord between them will be revealed in their very substances. But it is more ignorant than impious to say that the substance is contrary to anything whatsoever, as So, then, what is our position? When we confess that the Father is unbegotten and the Son is begotten, how can we avoid implying that they are contrary according to being itself? What do we say? We say that he is the good Son of the good Father, the eternal light that has shone forth from the unbegotten light, the lifegiving source that has proceeded from the true life, and the power of God that has appeared from power itself. But darkness and death and weakness are classed with the ruler of this world, with the warld rulers of the darkness [Eph 6.12], with the spirits of wickedness [Eph 6.12], and with every power that is an enemy
128. See Mt 11.15 and 13.15.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.28-29
was acknowledged long ago even by the wise men outside of the faith. Whenever these men 129 could not find support for their blasphemy in them, they paid no attention to their arguments
It is the nature of the distinguishing marks to show otherness in the identity of the substance. And as for the distinguishing marks themselves, while they are often contradistinguished from one another such that they are separated to the point of being contraries, they certainly do not rupture the unity of the substance, as with the winged and the footed, the aquatic and the terrestrial, and the rational and the irrational. 133 Since there is one substance that underlies all of them, these distinguishing marks do not make the substance foreign to itself, nor are they persuaded to join each other in a kind of rebellion. They implant the activity of the things they identify as a kind of light in our soul, and guide to an understanding attainable by our minds. But Eunomius, having transferred the opposition of the distinguishing marks to the substance, takes from this the starting-point of his impiety, scaring us with sophisms as if we were children: if the light should indeed be something other than unbegottenness, then we will necessarily demonstrate that God is composite. as if they were of no worth. At any rate, it is unfeasible that contrariety exists in the substance. ISO
If anyone wants to accept that which is true, namely, that begotten and unbegotten are distinctive features that enable identification and are observed in the substance,l3l which lead to the clear and unconfused notion of the Father and the Son, then he will escape the danger of impiety and preserve logical coherence in his reasoning. The distinctive features, which are like certain characters and forms observed in the substance, differentiate what is common by means of the distinguishing characters and do not sunder the substance's sameness in nature. For example, the divinity is common, whereas fatherhood and sonship are distinguishing marks: from the combination of both, that is, of the common and the unique, we arrive at comprehension of the truth. Consequently, upon hearing 'unbegotten light' we think of the Father, whereas upon hearing 'begotten light' we receive the notion of the Son. Insofar as they are light and light, no contrariety exists between them, whereas insofar as they are begotten and unbegotten, one observes the opposition between them. 1"
[2.29] What do I claim? I say that unless the light is something different from unbegottenness, then one can no longer attribute it to the Son,just as one cannot attribute unbegottenness itself to him. The following teaches us how the meanings of the words differ. God is said to dwell in light [1 Tm 6.16] and to be robed in light CPs 103.2], but nowhere does the Word say that he dwells in his own unbegottenness or that unbegottenness surrounds him externally-for such things are ridiculous. Rather, begottenness and unbegottenness are distinctive features that 129. That is, Eunomius and his associates.
130. The wise man outside of the faith is Aristotle, Cat. 3b24-25. Yet Ba· sil equivocates between Aristotle's point that there is nothing contrary to sub· stance (ousia) , whether primary or secondary substance, and the mistaken point that the defining characteristics of two substances cannot be contrary to one an· other. The latter is inconsistent not only with Aristotle, but also with Basil's own account below in Eun. 2.28 of contrary differentiating properties like aquatic and terrestrial, rational and irrational, which mark off species within a common generic substance. enable identification. If there were nothing that characterized the substance, there would be no way for our understanding to penetrate it. Since the divinity is one, it is impossible to receive a notion of the Father or the Son that distinguishes each, unless
131. Gr. yVWPl<ITlKUC; i8L(lT'lTCt<; tm8ewpou\lEvae; Tn oUO'[q.. For similar language, see Porphyry, Sent. 38: "And in general they [i.e., the ancients] have made its nature clear [i.e., the nature of Being] through the positing of the most contrary characteristics, assuming both of them simultaneously, in order that we may eliminate from it conceptions fabricated from the corporeal realm, which serve only to obscure the particular features which serve to identify Being ("'rae; yvwpLO"nKUe; i8uJTllTUe; TOU OVTOe;) n (Luc Brisson, ed., Porphyre. Sentences [Paris:
J. Vrin, 2005], 360; trans. John Dillon in Brisson 824).
Apollinarius (assuming authenticity). For a discussion of Basil's correspondence with Apollinarius, see Drecoll 21-37 and Hildebrand 37-41.
133. The examples Basil gives are standard examples of the differentiae of the genus "animal." They originate with Plato (Sph. 22oa-222b, Ti·3ge .... 4o), are discussed by Aristotle (Cat. IbI8-1g, 14b38, 15a2-3; PA 6g7b2-3). and are taken up in the late ancient commentaries on Aristotle. SeeJaap Mansfeld, Heresiography in Context: Hippolytus' Elenchos as a Source Jor Greek Philosophy, PhilosophiaAntiqua 56 (Leiden: Brill, 1992),80-81.
132. Basil's ideas in this paragraph found earlier expression in Ep. 361 to
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.29-31
our thinking is nuanced by the addition of the distinguishing marks. as possible, in virtue of a law of nature, its comparison with another thing.'"
Our response to the objection that God will be revealed as composite unless the light is understood as the same thing as unbegotten goes as follows. If we were to understand unbegotDoes he not clearly indicate that he has been deemed worthy of receiving a revelation of inexpressible realities because he has brought his mind to God with goodwill? For this reason he has thrust aside the Only-Begotten as far as possible from COmmunion with the Father, not counting him worthy of being admitted into comparison. Yet he also says that by a law of nature the substance of the Only-Begotten is separated from that of the Father. Why does he say this? Because the God of the universe, even if he willed it, could not admit the Only-Begotten into affinity of substance. For this connection with him is precluded by a law of nature. And so, it would seem that God is not the lord of himself, but subject to the limits of necessity. After all, tenness as part of the substance, there would be room for the argument which claims that what is compounded from different things is composite. But if we were to posit, on the one hand, the light or the life or the good as the substance of God, claiming that the very thing which God is is life as a whole, light as a whole, and good as a whole, while positing, on the other hand, that the life has unbegottenness as a concomitant, then how is the one who is simple in substance not incomposite? For surely the ways of indicating his distinctive feature will not violate the account of simplicity. Otherwise, all the things said about God will indicate things that are compelled by a law of nature are such as to be conducted not by choice towards whatever seems good to the nature. Just as the heat of the fire belongs to it by nature and not by choice, and by necessity does not admit of coldness, being deprived of communion with it by a law of nature, so too to us that God is composite. And so, it seems that if we are going to preserve the notion of simplicity and partlessness, there are two options. Either we will not claim anything about God except that he is unbegotten, and we will refuse to name him 'invisible,' 'incorruptible,' 'immutable,' 'creator,' Judge,' and all the names we now use to glorify him. Or, if we do admit these names, what will we make of them? Shall we apply all of them to the substance? If so, we will demonstrate not only that he is composite, but also that he is compounded from unlike parts, because different things are signified by each of these names. Or shall we
Eunomius wants the God and Father to have a substance that is foreign to the Son by a law of nature. But the laws of nature suggest, not a mutual distance between the Son and the Father, but a necessary and unbreakable communion. Now if Eunomius were to say that the God of the universe established by his will that which has no communion with him, not even in this way would the principle of the goodness of God allow Eunomius to take them as external to the substance? So, whatever account of attribution they dream up for each of these names, they should apply the designation 'unbegotten' in the same way. be persuasive when he says that no communion in the things that belong to the Father is granted by him to the one who is from him. Nonetheless, the statement would be logically consistent. But the one who has investigated the nature of things perceptible to the senses would not say that there is estrangement by a law of nature; in this nature, each entity naturally produces things which are not foreign or contrary to it, but things that have affinity and kinship with it.
[2.30] At this point, his argument is packed full with empty nonsense. He has disparaged in one fell swoop all those who have ever been devoted to the knowledge of God, as if he has hewed out a new and novel path [Heb 10.20] leading to God that none of his predecessors discovered. And so, last of all he introduces the blasphemy against the Son, as if he has been taught by the very substance of God:
[2.3.1] So, then, here again he has not perceived that his stateThe [substance] that transcends kingly power and admits of no generation whatsoever, which gives instruction in these matters to the mind that approaches them with goodwill, exhorts us to thrust aside as far
134Eunomius, Apol. 20.11-14 (EW 58-60). On Eunomius's understanding of "goodwill" (£uvoiu). see Vaggione 87-88.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.31-32
'79 appropriate to its own dignity."I36 While he has said this to demonstrate the Only-Begotten's estrangement from the Father, it actually confirms our account. For if the substance of God
"permits one to understand that its activity is consistent with and appropriate to its own dignity," then unbegottenness is a dignity (as Eunomius thinks). Yet in their view unbegottenness is also substance, and the Only-Begotten is either an activity of God or an image of an activity. All this agrees with their account, and they cannot contradict these statements. Otherwise,
I would place a high value on their renunciation of the same blasphemy. ments are self-contradictory. For a little before this, irritated with those who say that the Only-Begotten is like the Father in substance, he wrote as follows:
To begin with, these men, who dare to compare the substance which is without a master, superior to every cause, and free from all laws, to the begotten substance that submits to the laws of the Father, seem to me either to have completely failed to investigate the nature of the universe or to have failed to make judgments on these matters with a pure mind,I3s So, then, how does the substance which is without a master and free from all laws now appear to be incomparable, not voluntarily, but because it is predetermined by a law of nature and precludes, not by free choice, the begotten from communion with itself, such that for this reason it turns out to be unapproachable even to the Only-Begotten himself? Such is the great discord between his statements. But how great is his impiety? On the one hand, he designates the substance of the Father as 'without a master' and 'free,' if, that is, the substance that submits to the law of its nature is truly without a master. On the other hand, he declares in contrast that the substance of the Only-Begotten is servile, and on this basis deprives his nature of equality in honor. Now there are two realities, creation and divinity: while creation is assigned to the rank of service and submission, divinity rules and is sovereign. Isn't it clear that the one who deprives the OnlyBegotten of the dignity of sovereignty and casts him down into the lowly rank of servitude also by the same token shows that he is co-ordinate with all creation? Indeed, there is nothing noble about him being set at the head of fellow-servants. Rather, unless one confesses that he is king and sovereign, and that he accepts submission not because of the inferiority of his nature but because of the goodness of his free choice, this is objectionable and horrible, and it brings destruction upon those who deny this.
Since it is they who made these statements, let us draw an inference from their own words: if unbegottenness is a dignity of God, and the same is also substance, and if the activity of God is consistent with and appropriate to his dignity, and according to their supposition Christ is this activity, then he will have affinity and propriety with the substance of God. None of these premises comes from us: combining their very own statements, we have made our demonstration on the basis of their claims. The dignity, says Eunomius, is consistent with the substance of God; his activity is proportional to the dignity; the Only-Begotten is an image of the activity. And vice versa, if the Only-Begotten is an image of the activity, and the activity is an image of the dignity, and the dignity is an image of the substance, then the Only-Begotten will be an image of the substance. So in this way even these men who often produce falsehood, when compelled by the evidence, testify to the truth, albeit not willingly. The demons similarly did not perform the work of the evangelists; rather, unable to look directly at the light of truth, they cried out: We know who you are, the Holy One of God [Mk 1.24].
[2.32] Let's see what follows:
If someone were to base his investigation on the created works, from them he would be led up to the substances, discovering that the Son is something made by the Unbegotten, whereas the Paraclete is something made by the Only-Begotten. Convinced on the basis of the suEunomius adds: "Since the substance of God follows upon the laws of nature, it does not even admit of comparison with another, and it permits us to understand that its activity is consistent with and 136. Eunomius, Apol. ~w.13-15 (EW 60). The words in italics are additions on the part of Basil-and faithful ones at that.
'35. Eunomius, Apol. 20.1-5 (EW 58).
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.32-33
periority of the Only-Begotten that their activities are different, he accepts their difference in substance as indisputably demonstrated. 137 if he were to draw his images from human affairs, he would discover that it is not from the products of the artisan that we comprehend the artisan's substance, but that it is from that which has been begotten that we come to know the nature of the begetter. Mter all, it is impossible to comprehend the substance of the house builder from the house. But on the basis of that which is begotten it is easy to conceive of the nature of the begetter.
First of all, how is it possible to reason back from created works to substance? This is something which I for my part fail to see.
For things which have been made are indicative of power and wisdom and skill, but not of the substance itself. Furthermore, they do not even necessarily communicate the entire power of the creator, seeing that the artisan can at times not put his entire strength into his activities; rather, he frequently attenuates his exertions for the products of his art. But if he were to set his whole power into motion for his product, even in this case it would be his strength that could be measured by means of his products, not his substance that could be comprehended, whatever it may be.
Consequently, if the Only-Begotten is a created work, he does not communicate to us the substance of the Father. But if he makes the Father known to us through himself,l39 he is not a created work but rather the true Son, the image of Cod [2 Cor 4.4], and the character of his subsistence [Col 1.15]. So much for this subject.
[2.33] Look how much he adds to his blasphemy! Mter disdaining the warning which the Lord extends in the gospels to those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit,14O which is as fearful as could be, Eunomius says that the Spirit is a created work.
He barely concedes that he is alive, since this designation for the most part applies to lifeless things. Surely, his inclusion of the Lord in this blasphemy does not justify slackening our irritation one bit. For this does not nullify his impiety but adds to his condemnation. The Lord has allowed the blasphemy against himself on account of his goodness, whereas he has declared that the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable for those who dare to do it. So, of all those who have attacked the truth from the time when the proclamation of piety was announced, Eunomius is the first to dare to utter this term about the Spirit. We have certainly never heard anyone, even unto today, calling the Holy Spirit a created work, nor have we found this designation in the treatises they have bequeathed to US.141
If, because of the simplicity and incompositeness of the divine nature, Eunomius were to posit that the substance is concurrent with the power, and if, because of the goodness that belongs to God, he were to say that the whole power of the Father has been set into motion for the begetting of the Son, and the whole power of the Only-Begotten for the constitution 138 of the Holy Spirit, so that one may consider the power of the OnlyBegotten simultaneously with his substance on the basis of the Spirit, and comprehend the power of the Father and his substance on the basis of the Only-Begotten, note what the consequence of this is. The very points he uses to try to confirm the unlikeness of the substance actually confirm its likeness! For if the power has nothing in common with the substance, how could he be led from the created works, which are the effects of power, to the comprehension of the substance? But if power and substance are the same thing, then that which characterizes the power will also completely characterize the substance. Hence the created works will not bring one to the unlikeness of substance, as you say, but rather to the exactness of the likeness. So, once again, this attempt confirms our account rather than his.
139Jn 17.26.
140. Mt 12.31-32; Mk 3.29; Lk 12.10.
141. Basil cannot be claiming that Eunomius is the first to affirm the creaturely status of the Holy Spirit. For example, both Origen (e.g.,Jo. 2.73-75) and Eusebius of Cae sa rea (e.g., E. tho 3.6.1-2) held that the Holy Spirit was created.
Basil must be objecting to Eunomius's explicit use of the term 6rUlloupY'lflu (and probably TCotrHJ.a), translated as "created work" and "something made," to desig~ nate the Spirit. Neither Origen nor Eusebius employs these terms for the Holy
Spirit; in fact, Origen explicitly denies that scripture permits them (see Prine.
Either there is no basis on which to demonstrate his claims, or, 137. Eunomius, Apol. 20.15-19 (EW60).
138. Gr. un6crramc;.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.33-34
Then he says: "If someone should base his investigation on the created works in order to comprehend the substances, he would discover that the Son is something made by the Unbegotten, while the Paraclete is something made by the Only-Begotten."'"
Here is a different kind of impiety, uttering two blasphemies with a lowly manner about the Spirit to keep from deflating his own self-importance. We will speak of this when we have the time.
Isn't it clear to everyone that no activity of the Son is severed from the Father? That none of all the existing things that belong to the Son is foreign to the Father? For he says: All that
a single statement! Mter taking his contempt of the Holy Spirit as granted, he proceeds from this to the demonstration of the inferiority of the Only-Begotten. While the heavens proclaim the glory is mine is yours, and all that is yours is mine Un 17.10]. So, then, how does Eunomius impute the cause of the Spirit to the OnlyBegotten alone and take the creating of the Spirit as an accusation against the Only-Begotten's nature? If he says these things to introduce two principles in conflict with one another, he will be crushed along with Mani and Marcion. l44 But if he makes the beings depend on a single principle, that which is said to come into being from the Son has a relationship with the first cause.
Hence, even if we believe that all things have been brought into being through God the Word, we nevertheless do not deny that the God of the universe is the cause of all. of God [Ps 18.2), it appears that the Holy Spirit announces the inferiority of the glory of the Only-Begotten. When the Lord was speaking about the Paraclete, he said: He will glorifY me Un 16.14], whereas that evil-speaking tongue declares that he prevents the Son from being compared with the Father. For Eunomius says that the Son is the maker of the Spirit-have mercy on us, 0
Lord, for saying these things! But this adds no nobility to the one who has created him. Therefore, he is not even worthy of being compared with the Father, since the worthlessness of what he has made has deprived him of that dignity of his which is equal to the Father's in honor.
How is it not an unmistakable danger to separate the Spirit from God? On the one hand, the Apostle hands down to us that they are connected, saying now that he is the Spirit of Christ, now that he is the Spirit of God. For he writes: If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him [Rom 8.9]. And again: You have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that comes from God [1 Cor 2.12]. On the other hand, the Lord says
[2.34] Have you ever heard a blasphemy more insidious?
Has anyone fallen so conspicuously into the inescapable judgment for having blasphemed against the Holy Spirit? Only Montanus raged to such an extent against the Spirit, insulting him with lowly names and disparaging his nature to such an extent
Montanists' high regard for the Paraclete, it is difficult to understand Basil's characterization of their views on the Spirit. But Ep. 188.1 provides us with some hints. Here Basil reports that the Montanists had called Montanus and Priscilla that he said that the Spirit brought ignominy on the one who had made him.'" Eunomius should have avoided speaking in (an associate of Montanus) by the name 'Paraclete.' Basil sees this as blasphemous because it either elevates humans to divine status or compares the Holy
Spirit to a human being. While this explains what Basil meant when he said that Montanus insulted the Spirit "with lowly names," the basis for the remainder of his charges remains unclear.
3.3.3). In Eun. 2.2-7 Basil makes a similar argument about applying the terms 'something made' and 'something begotten' to the Son.
142. Eunomius, Apol. 20.15-17 (EW 60).
143. Montanus flourished in the last quarter of the second century. in Phrygia in Asia Minor. He gained a reputation for prophecy inspired by the Spirit, and attracted a following. The movement, known by its adherents as the "New
Prophecy," quickly spread throughout the Roman world. Perhaps its most fa144· On Marcion, see p. 141 n. 51 above. Marcion's doctrines were perceived by mainstream Christians as dualistic. He did not identify the Jewish God of the Old Testament with the Christian God of the New Testament, seeing the former as an evil and ignorant creator God and the latter as the true God revealed by Jesus. Mani, who was from southern Mesopotamia and died a martyr mous devotee was Tertullian of Carthage, who came under its influence in the early third century. Montanism can be understood as a protest against the laxity of the ecclesiastical organization. Rather than to ecclesial structures and officials, the Montanists ascribed authority to the Paraclete, who reinforced church discipline and was thought to be the guarantor of correct scriptural interpretation. The New Prophecy was rejected by mainstream Catholics primarily because of its rigorism in ecclesial practice, not doctrinal aberrations. Given the in 276 at the hand of Persian authorities, was the founder of a quasi-Christian sect that espoused a radical dualism of light and darkness. The religion particularly flourished within the Roman Empire, the young Augustine being its most famous adherent. By the fourth century, Christian polemicists routinely employed Marcionism and Manichaeism as paradigmatic examples of dualism.
ST. BASIL
that he is the Spirit of truth Un 15.26]-since he is himself the Truthl45-and that he proceeds from the Father Un 15.26]. But Eunomius, in order to diminish the glory of our LordJesus Christ, separates the Spirit from the Father and imputes him exclusively to the Only-Begotten in order to diminish his glory, insulting him (or so he thinks) without any anticipation of the recompense for his wicked words and ideas on the day of retribution.
On the Holy Spirit
BOOK THREE
'45· SeeJn 14·6.
FTER NEARLY GORGING HIMSELF with blasphemies against the Only-Begotten, Eunomius shifts to the Holy
Spirit, making claims about him as well that are consistent with his whole intention. Here's what he writes:
Now if we are satisfied with these arguments about the Only-Begotten, the next logical step would he to speak about the ParacJete, not by following the unquestioning opinions of the multitude, but by guarding the teaching of the saints in all matters. Since we learn from the saints that the Holy Spirit is third in dignity and in rank, we have come to believe that he is third in. nature as well,l
This statement adequately shows that Eunomius does not think that he must abide by the simple and un contrived faith of the multitude, but believes instead that he should redirect the truth through scheming and sophistical arguments to that which seems good to him. By dishonoring the opinion by which the multitude glorifies the Holy Spirit,' he makes a pretense of guarding the teaching of the saints. Yet even now he keeps silent about who transmitted this teaching to, him,just as he did in his arguments about the Only-Begotten (as we have shown).
Eunomius says next that while he has learned on the authority of the saints that the Holy Spirit is third both in rank and in dignity, he has come to believe on his own authority that the Holy Spirit is third in nature as well. Who are the saints that taught this? In what treatises have they expressed it? Has there ever been someone so audacious as to introduce innovations
1. Eunomius, Apoc 25.1-5 (EW 66).
2. Here Basil employs an untranslatable pun with "opinion" (o6~nv) and "glorifies" (80~a.~OtlOl).
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3.1-2
about the divine doctrines? If the Spirit is third in dignity and in rank, is there some necessity that he be third in nature as well? Perhaps the word of piety' transmits that he is second of the Llffd is encamped around those who fear him [Ps 33.8]. And:
The angel who rescued me from my youth [Gn 48.15-16]. There are other passages similar to these. to the Son in dignity.' But we have not learned from the holy scriptures that a third nature is necessary. Nor do the preceding
In addition, Moses taught us in the song that certain angels preside over entire nations: "When the Most High divided the nations, when he scattered the sons of Adam, he fixed the limits of the nations acclffding to the number of his angels [Dt 32.8]. In his vision of the angel, the wise Daniel heard him saying: The prince of the kingdom claims make it possible to infer such a conclusion.
The Son is second to the Father in rank because he is from him. He is second to the Father in dignity because the Father is the principle and cause by virtue of which' he is the Son's
Father and because we approach and access the God and Father through the Son.6 Even so, the Son is not second in nature, since there is one divinity in both of them. Likewise, it is clear of the Persians has made a stand before me, and behold! Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of the Persians [Dn 10.13]. A little further on, the same one says: And the prince of the Greeks was coming [Dn 10.20]. But the one who appeared to Joshua the son of Nun at the Jordan is called commander oftheflffce of the Llffd Uos 5.14]. Then again, some are called legions of angels, as when the Lord said to his that, even if the Holy Spirit is below the Son in both rank and dignity-something with which we too are in total agreementit is still not likely that he is of a foreign nature. What follows will make this conclusion clear. disciples: Do you think that I cannot ask my Father, and he will provide
Just as all the angels share a single designation, so too they share a nature that is absolutely the same. Yet some of them preside over the nations, whereas others accompany each individual believer. An entire nation, however, is more honorable than a single person to the same extent that the dignity of the nationleading angel is necessarily greater than that of the angel who has been entrusted with the care of a single individual. No one will deny that every believer has an angel that accompanies him, acting like a kind of pedagogue and shepherd and directing his life, if he calls to mind the saying of the Lord: Do not despise one me with more than twelve legions of angels? [Mt 26.53] So it is clear that the prince is the one who is the commander of the angels that are ranked into legions.
[3.2] So, then, what is the point of this argument? It is this: if something is second or third in rank and dignity, it does not in every case have a different nature. For in the case of angels, one is a prince, another a servant, and yet all are angels in nature: while they differ in dignity, there is communion in nature. Indeed, star dijJers from star in glory [1 Cor 15 .4'], but all the stars have a single nature. And there are many places to live in the Father's house Un 1+2]; that is, there are differences in dignity, whereas the nature of those who are glorified is similar. Likewise, the same clearly holds true for the Holy Spirit, even if he is subordiof these who are least of all, for their angels continually behold the face of my Father in heaven [Mt 18.10]. And the Psalmist says: The angel
3. That is, the scriptures.
4. At this point several mss. add: "having his being from him and receiving from him, announcing to us and entirely dependent upon this cause." This text is not original to BasiL On this controversial addition, see PC 29.655 n. 79;
SC 3°5.146-47 n. 1; M. van Parys. "Quelques remarques a propos d'un texte nate in dignity and rank, as they claim. "For we have gathered," says Eunomius, "that he is numbered third after the Father and the Son, seeing that the Lord himself taught this order when he taught the baptism of salvation, saying, Go, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit [Mt 28.19].'" But we have never learned from anywhere that the Holy Spirit is cast controverse de saint Basile au Concile de Florence," Irenikon 40 (1967): 6-14;
G. M. de Durand, "Un passage du IIIe livre contre Eunome de S. Basile dans la tradition manuscrite," lrinikon 54 (1981): 36-52; and Anastos, "Basil's KaTcX
EVVOfliov," 112-13 n. 153. out into some sort of nature third from the Son and the Father.
It is said that there are two realities: divinity and creation, sov5. At Eun. 3.1, 32 (SC 305.146), we read T<P with some mss. and Garnier in· stead of TOU.
7. This is not a citation of Eunomius but an imagined objection to Basil.
6. See Eph 2.18.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3.2-4
'189 ereignty and servitude, sanctifying power and sanctified power, that which has virtue by nature and that which achieves virtue by freewill. In which class shall we rank the Spirit? Among those who are sanctified? But he is sanctity itself. Perhaps among those who come to possess virtue by good deeds? But he is good by nature. Among those who minister? But the ministering spirits sent
Spirit has been judged worthy of the designation 'holy,' which is peculiar to him and distinctly identifies him.
[3·3] So, then, if holiness is the Spirit's nature, as it is for the Father and the Son, how does he have a nature that is third and foreign to theirs? I think that Isaiah recorded the Seraphim crying out "Holy!" three times' for this reason: because holiness in nature is observed in three subsistences. lO Not only does the Spirit have the name 'holy' in common with the Father and the Son, but he also has the very designation 'Spirit' in common with to minister [Heb 1.14] are different. So it is unrighteous either to say that he is our fellow-servant, as he is a leader by nature, or to number him along with the creatures, as he is counted in the divine and blessed Trinity. It would make no sense to say that the principalities and powers and all such creatures, which have holiness from diligence and attention, are holy by nature. Mter all, yearning for the good, they receive a measure of holiness proportionate to their love for God. them. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth Un 4.24]. The prophet says: The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord, of whom we said, "in the shadow of his wings we will live" [Lam 4.20]." The Apostle refers to the Lord with the designation 'Spirit,' saying: The Lord is the Spirit [2 Cor 3.17].
These testimonies make it clear to everyone that the communion of the names does not communicate the Spirit's estrangement of nature, but rather his affinity with the Father and the Son. Furthermore, God is said to be and is good." The Holy Spirit is also good, possessing a goodness that is not adventitious, but coexistent with him by nature. Otherwise, it would be possible to say the most irrational thing of all: the one who is holy by nature does not have goodness by nature, but as something supervening and accruing to him from without. When the Lord said: I will ask
Furthermore, when iron is placed in the middle of fire, while it does not cease to be iron, it is nonetheless inflamed by the intense contact with the fire and admits the entire nature of fire into itself. And so in both outward appearance and activity the iron is transformed into fire. Likewise, the holy powers, from their communion with that which is holy by nature, possess a holiness that pervades their whole subsistence, and they become connatural with that which is holy by nature. The holy powers and Holy Spirit differ in this regard: for the latter, holiness is nature, whereas for the former, being made holy comes from participation. Those for whom the good is adventitious and introduced from another possess a nature that can change. Indeed, Lucifer who rises at dawn would neither have fallen nor been cut down to the earth [Is 14.12] if by nature he was not capable of admitting that which is worse. So, then, how is it pious to rank the Spirit together with creation, when he is separated from creation by such a great distance? It is the nature of creation to have holiness as the prize for its progress and for becoming well-pleasing to God. By its nature it employs self-determination my Father, and he will give another Paraclete to you Un 14.16], he indicated that the Spirit is also our Paraclete. Hence the designation
'Paraclete' also contributes no small amount to the demonstration of the glory of the Holy Spirit.
[3-4] Such are the names that indicate the magnificence of the nature of the Holy Spirit. But what are his activities like? By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power [Ps 32.6]. So, as God the Word is the creg. See Is 6.3.
10. Gk. tv TplOll'aT~ urro<JTaaemv. This is 'the only time in Eun. that Basil speaks of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three hypostases. and is capable of moving itself toward either direction by choosing the good or the bad. But the Holy Spirit is the source of holiness. Just as the Father is holy by nature and the Son is holy by nature, so too is the Spirit of truth' holy by nature. Hence the II. Basil slightly alters the LXX version of Lam 4.20, which reads: "The spir. it of OUf face {or: the breath of our nostrils], the Christ of the Lord, was taken by their destruction, of whom we said: 'In his shadow we will live among the nations.'" Basil adds the phrase "of his wings" from Ps 56.2.
12. See Mk 10.18; Lk 18.19.
'90
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3.4-5
ator of the heavens, so too the Holy Spirit bestows firmness and steadfastness upon the heavenly powers. Again, when Job said: of the Holy Spirit is even better shown by what is added a little further on. Indeed, what does he say? All these things are worked
The Spirit of the Lord who made me Ob 33.4], I do not think he was referring to when he was created, but to when he was perfected in human virtue. In addition, when Isaiah was speaking in the person of the Lord, it was clearly in his human aspect that he said: The Lord and his Spirit sent me [Is 48.16]. Furthermore, the psalm communicated that the power of the Spirit pervades the universe: Where can I go from your Spirit, and where can I flee from by the one and the same Spirit, who distributes to each individual as he wills [1 Cor 12.1 1]. This testifies that he has nothing other than authoritative and sovereign power.16
This is why the prophets in the New Testament cried out:
Thus says the Holy Spirit [Acts 2 L 11]. On what basis does it belong to the Spirit to scrutinize the depths of God? No one knows the things that belong to a human being except the human spirit that is in him; likewise, no one knows the things that belong to God except the Spirit of God [1 Cor 2.11-12]. No one who is strange or foreign to the soul can examine its internal reasonings; likewise, if the Spirit truly has any of the secret things in common with God, it is clear that he is able to scrutinize the depths of the judgments of God only because he is neither strange nor foreign to God. your face? [Ps '38.7] As for the benefits that proceed from him to us, what are they like? How great are they? Just as the Lord himself gave to those who received him the power to become children of God Un 1.12], so too the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of adopted sonship [Rom 8.15]·13
Just as our Lord is the true teacher according to the following Next, God lavishes life upon us through Christ in the Holy
Spirit. As Paul says, God gives life: I charge you before God who gives statement: Call no one your teacher on earth, for one is your teacher,
Christ [Mt 23.9-10]/4 so too the Lord himself testified that the Holy Spirit teaches all those who have come to believe in the name of the Lord, when he said: The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, life to all things [1 Tm 6.13]. Christ gives life: My sheep hear my voice, he says, and I give them everlasting life Un 10.27-28]. We are given life through the Spirit, as Paul says: The one who raised whom the Father will send, will teach you all things Un 14.26]. Just as it is said that the Father distributes the activities to those who are worthy of receiving the activities and that the Son distributes the services by the worth of the service, so too it is testified that the Holy Spirit distributes the spiritual gifts to those who are worthy of receiving the spiritual gifts: Now there are distributions of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are distributions of service, but the Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you [Rom 8.11].
[3.5] Eunomius, who is audacious in every way, does not cower before the impending danger faced by those who have audaciously fired a blasphemous word against the Holy SpiritY He declares that the Spirit has no share of divinity when he writes as follows: same Lord; and there are distributions of activity, but it is the same God who works all of them in all people [1 Cor 12.4-6]. Do you see how here too the activity of the Holy Spirit is ranked with the activity of the Father and the Son? The divine statusl5 of the nature
He is third in rank and in nature, since he was brought into existence by the Father's commandment and by the Son's activity. He is honored in third place, as the first and greatest of all, and the only thing of this kind made by the Only-Begotten, bereft of divinity and creative power. IS
13. Gr. uioSwia. The word literally means "adopting as a son (ui6C;) ," a nuance that the normal English translation, "adoption," does not capture. For Basil and many other Greek fathers, the title "Spirit of adopted sonship" shows the Spirit's intimate connection with the Father's adoption of sons in Christ.
He who says this seems not to believe that the divinity is in us, as John says about God: From this we know that he is in us, from the Spirit whom he has given us [1 Jn 3.24]. And the Apostle: Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in 14Here Basil has condensed Mt 23.g-10, which in full reads: Call no one your father on earth,lM one is your Father who is in heaven; nor be called teachers, for one is your
16. Cf. Athanasius, Ep. Serap. 1.30; Didymus, S'jJir. 96-97.
17. See Mt 12.31-32; Mk 3.29; Lk 12.10.
18. Eunomius, Apol. 25.22-26 (EW 68). teacher (KaSTJYll"T~C;), Christ. Basil has replaced father with 'teacher' (0l8uOlCuAoc;).
15. Ck. 1"0 8elov. In Hom. 24-7 Basil defends calling the Spirit "divine" on the basis ofJb 334 and Ex 35.21.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3.5-6
'93 you? [1 Cor 3.16] And again: In whom the whole structure is joined belong to our bodily existence. Let's take vision as an example: does apprehension of visible things happen when we receive their images? If so, when we see gigantic objects, such as the immense earth and the boundless sea and even the heaven itself, how are the images contained in the tiny space of our pupil?
Or is it the case that perception of visible things happens when we send out from ourselves something that draws near to the visible objects? If so, what is this thing and how great would it together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are integrated into a habitation of God in the Spirit [Eph 2.21-22].
So, if God is said to dwell in us through the Spirit, how is it not blatantly impious to say that the Spirit himself has no share in the divinity? And if we call those who are perfect in virtue 'gods,' and this perfection comes through the Spirit, how does he make others gods if he is himself bereft of divinity? Moreover, it is impious to say of the Spirit, as one can say of human beings, that the divinity honored in him comes by participation and does not coexist with him by nature. For the one divinized by grace possesses a nature subject to change and falls away from the better state whenever he is careless.
j :1
;~ have to be, such that when it is spread over earth and sea, there is enough of it to traverse the space between earth and heaven and to come into contact with the heaven itself, moving with such great speed that both the surrounding body and the stars in heaven are perceived at the same time?" What need is there to speak of other things? But as for the very movements of the mind,'! is
This claim of Eunomius is clearly opposed to what has been handed down about the saving baptism: Go, baptize in the name of the Father; and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit [Mt 28.19]. Baptism is the seal offaith, and faith is an assent to divinity. For one must first believe, then be sealed with baptism. Our baptism accords with exactly what the Lord handed down: it is in the name of the 20. The two theories Basil mentions appear to be those of Epicurus and Plato, respectively. For Epicurus, vision results from images that emanate from objects to our eyes. These images share the color and shape of the object from which they come, but are of such a size as to fit our visual capacities (a point that Basil's summary ignores). See Epicurus, Ep. Her. 46-53 (Diogenes Laertius
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. In this formula, no creature or servant is ranked together with the Father and the Son, as if the divinity becomes complete in a Trinity. Everything external to them is a fellow-servant, even if generally some are valued more than others on account of their superior dignity.
10.46-53). The first theory may be Stoic, however, since the Stoics also believed vision occurred through impressions upon the soul from external reality. By contrast, for Plato, vision occurs when the internal fire passes out through the eyes and meets with the object of vision, or perhaps with rays of light emanating from these objects. Ti. 45b-d, 67c-68d. Aristotle reports that Empedocles held both theories at different times: Sens. 2, 437b25-438a4' Basil employs the same argument in Hom. 24.7.
[3.6] Once again, the following wisdom is not mine:
21. By "the very movements of the mind" (auto. -co. -cou vou Klv~~aTa) Basil seems to mean "deliberations" or "choices." In Ep. 233.1 Basil describes the mind (6 vou<;) as ever-moving (aetKlvll-cO<;) such that it variously imagines nonexistent things and attains the truth. Then Basil claims that there are three activities of the mind, each of which corresponds to one of the three states of life: the virtuous, the indifferent, and the wicked. In describing the latter he says: "For it is either the case that our practices are wicked and so the motions of our mind ("ra TOU VOU KIV~flaTa) are clearly wicked, for example: instances of adultery, theft, idolatry, extortion, quarreling, wrath, selfishness, arrogance, and all such things that the apostle Paul numbered among the works of the flesh" (Courtonne 3,39-40). Here Basil appears to root our outward activities or "practices" (TO. E1tITll5euflaTa) in our interior choices, or "movements of the mind." A similar idea can be found in Evagrius of Pontus, whom Basil ordained a lector. He calls both a "choice" (npoaip€at<;) and a "deliberation" (~OUA~) "a kind of movement of the mind" (nOla vou Ktvllai<; eonv); cf. Scholia 10 on Ecclesiastes (Paul Gehin, ed., Evagre Ie Pontique. Scholies a l'Eccfisiaste, SC 397 [Paris:
If he is not a creature, therefore he is something begotten or unbegotten. But there is one God who is without a beginning and unbegotten.
Nor again is he something begotten. So, then, it remains that he is to be named 'creature' and 'something made.'19
For my part, if I were to declare that our knowledge can comprehend all things, I would probably be embarrassed to confess ignorance. But the truth of the matter is that there are countless things of which we do not have clear and incontrovertible knowledge-not only those things reserved for us in the age to come and those now hidden in the heavens, but also those things that 19. This is not a citation of Eunomius, but a resume of his thought in Apol.
25-26.
ST. BASIL
AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3.6-7
'95 it the nature of the soul to create or beget them?" Who can say with precision? prophet's text does not refer to the Holy Spirit, but rather to ordinary wind, which is to say the current of air." This is clear from the following: he did not say, "the one who has created spirit," but rather, the one who creates spirit [Am 4.13]. For thunder is not created once for all as a particular corporeal entity, but its nature is to be continually actualized and dissipated, effected by the will of God to scare human beings, and this holds
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? The teaching transmitted by the scripture sufficiently communicates to us that he is beyond creation. For it is impossible for the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified to be of the same nature. The same holds true for the one who teaches and those who are taught, and the one who reveals and those who are in need of revelation. No one is so completely out bf his mind as to dare to designate anything other than the God of the universe as 'unbegotten.' The same goes for 'Son' since the Only-Begotten is unique. So, then, what should we call him? Holy Spirit,23 Spirit of God," Spirit of truth sent from God and bestowed through the Son," not a servant," but a holy," good," and guiding" Spirit that gives life," Spirit of adopted sonship,31 the one who knows all that is God's." Indeed, the account of singleness will be preserved in the Trinity in this way, by confessing one Father and one Son and one Holy Spirit. true for spirit as well. At one time it comes into being as a flowing river of air; at another time it stops and the air that was earlier moving now comes to rest. All this happens according to the will of the one who administers all things for the well-being and maintenance of the universe. Hence thunder, winds, and the rest of the created works announce the Creator throughout all creation. Thus, after saying, The one who gives strength to thunder and who creates spirit, he says, and who proclaims his Christ to humanity [Am 4-'3]. For just as the heavens proclaim the glory of God [Ps 18.2] for those who can reason back from them to the skill of the Creator, so too do the claps of thunder and the movements of the winds proclaim their Creator.
Perhaps this text is even a prophecy that refers to the incarnation of the Lord. The voice that came from heaven, thought to be thunder by those who heard it," was sentby God the Father to proclaim Christ to humanity through it. There are also the spirits that moved and stirred up the sea and then abated at the commandment of the Lord." Clearly, they too proclaimed his
[3.7] They cite two proofs that the Holy Spirit should be called a creature. The first is from the prophet, when he says: the one who gives strength to thunder and who creates spirit [Am 4.13].
The second is from the gospel: All things came to be through him Un 1.3].'3 As for ourselves, we have been convinced that the Christ to humanity.
As for, All things came to be through him Un 1.3], this text in no way communicates to us that the Holy Spirit is created, as if the Cerf, 1993], 74) and Scholia 23 on Proverbs (Paul Gehin, ed., Evagre i.e Pontique. Scholies auxProverbes, SC 340 [Paris: Cerf, 1987], 116).
Spirit were numbered among all things. For if there is only one Holy Spirit, how can that which has the singular nature" be included among all things ? Furthermore, no one should think that denying that the Spirit is a creature nullifies his subsistence. For it is a mark of a pious mind to beware of attributing to the Holy
22. Basil seems to have made up his mind later. In Hom. 16.3 Basil speaks of the human word as "something begotten of the intellect" (PG 31.477d). In Ep. 140.2 he speaks of human ideas as "things begotten of the mind" (Courtonne
2.61).
23. E.g.,Jn '+26.
2+ E.g., Rom 8.g.
25· SeeJn 15.26.
26. See Rom 8.15· 27. See Ps 50.13.
28. See Ps 142.10.
2g. See Ps 50.14; 142.1O;Jn 16.13· 30. SeeJn 6.63· 31. See Rom 8.15.
32. See 1 Cor 2.1O-1l.
33. On Basil's interpretation of these two verses here, see Mark DelCogliano, "Basil of Caesarea, Didymus the Blind, and the Anti-Pneumatomachian Exegesis of Amos 4"3 andJohn l:3,"jTSn.s. 61 (2010): 644-58.
3+ The Greek text of Am 4.13 reads: K'd~wv 1tveu~a. In Greek the word 1tVEU~a can mean either "spirit" or "wind."
35. SeeJn 12.28-2g.
36. See Mt 8.26-27; Mk 4.39-4'; Lk 8.24-25.
37. Gk. T~, ~ova6tK~, 'I'UOEW,.
ST. BASIL
Spirit those things that the holy scriptures omit in silence," and to be convinced that experience and exact comprehension of him is reserved for us in the subsequent age, when, passing beyond the vision of the truth that comes dimly in a mirror, we will be deemed worthy of contemplating face to face [1 Cor 13.12].
INDICES 38. The point here is that we should not say that the Spirit is a creature be· cause the scriptures never call the Spirit a creature (KT[aflu).