Book VIII

Book VIII

§1. The Fifth Book Promises to Speak of the Words Contained in the Saying of the Apostle Peter, But Delays Their Exposition. He Discourses First of the Creation, to the Effect That, While Nothing Therein is Deserving of Worship, Yet Men, Led Astray by Their ILL-Informed and Feeble Intelligence, and Marvelling at Its Beauty, Deified the Several Parts of the Universe. And Herein He Excellently Expounds the Passage of Isaiah, “I Am God, the First.”

It is now, perhaps, time to make enquiry into what is said concerning the words of the Apostle Peter , by Eunomius himself, and by our father concerning the latter. If a detailed examination should extend our discourse to considerable length, the fair-minded reader will no doubt pardon this, and will not blame us for wasting time in words, but lay the blame on him who has given occasion for them. Let me be allowed also to make some brief remarks preliminary to the proposed enquiry: it may be that they too will be found not to be out of keeping with the aim of our discussion.

That no created thing is deserving of man’s worship, the divine word so clearly declares as a law, that such a truth may be learned from almost the whole of the inspired Scripture. Moses, the Tables, the Law, the Prophets that follow, the Gospels, the decrees of the Apostles, all alike forbid the act of reverencing the creation. It would be a lengthy task to set out in order the particular passages which refer to this matter; but though we set out only a few from among the many instances of the inspired testimony, our argument is surely equally convincing, since each of the divine words, albeit the least, has equal force for declaration of the truth. Seeing, then, that our conception of existences is divided into two, the creation and the uncreated Nature, if the present contention of our adversaries should prevail, so that we should say that the Son of God is created, we should be absolutely compelled either to set at naught the proclamation of the Gospel, and to refuse to worship that God the Word Who was in the beginning, on the ground that we must not address worship to the creation, or, if these marvels recorded in the Gospels are too urgent for us, by which we are led to reverence and to worship Him Who is displayed in them, to place, in that case, the created and the Uncreated on the same level of honour; seeing that if, according to our adversaries’ opinion, even the created God is worshipped, though having in His nature no prerogative above the rest of the creation, and if this view should get the upper hand, the doctrines of religion will be entirely transformed to a kind of anarchy and democratic independence. For when men believe that the nature they worship is not one, but have their thoughts turned away to diverse Godheads, there will be none who will stay the conception of the Deity in its progress through creation, but the Divine element, once recognized in creation, will become a stepping-stone to the like conception in the case of that which is next contemplated, and that again for the next in order, and as a result of this inferential process the error will extend to all things, as the first deceit makes its way by contiguous cases even to the very last.

To show that I am not making a random statement beyond what probability admits of, I will cite as a credible testimony in favour of my assertion the error which still prevails among the heathen . Seeing that they, with their untrained and narrow intelligence, were disposed to look with wonder on the beauties of nature, not employing the things they beheld as a leader and guide to the beauty of the Nature that transcends them, they rather made their intelligence halt on arriving at the objects of its apprehension, and marvelled at each part of the creation severally—for this cause they did not stay their conception of the Deity at any single one of the things they beheld, but deemed everything they looked on in creation to be divine. And thus with the Egyptians, as the error developed its force more in respect of intellectual objects, the countless forms of spiritual beings were reckoned to be so many natures of Gods; while with the Babylonians the unerring circuit of the firmament was accounted a God, to whom they also gave the name of Bel. So, too, the foolishness of the heathen deifying individually the seven successive spheres, one bowed down to one, another to another, according to some individual form of error. For as they perceived all these circles moving in mutual relation, seeing that they had gone astray as to the most exalted, they maintained the same error by logical sequence, even to the last of them. And in addition to these, the aether itself, and the atmosphere diffused beneath it, the earth and sea and the subterranean region, and in the earth itself all things which are useful or needful for man’s life,—of all these there was none which they held to be without part or lot in the Divine nature, but they bowed down to each of them, bringing themselves, by means of some one of the objects conspicuous in the creation, into bondage to all the successive parts of the creation, in such a way that, had the act of reverencing the creation been from the beginning even to them a thing evidently unlawful, they would not have been led astray into this deceit of polytheism. Let us look to it, then, lest we too share the same fate,—we who in being taught by Scripture to reverence the true Godhead, were trained to consider all created existence as external to the Divine nature, and to worship and revere that uncreated Nature alone, Whose characteristic and token is that it never either begins to be or ceases to be; since the great Isaiah thus speaks of the Divine nature with reference to these doctrines, in his exalted utterance,—who speaks in the person of the Deity, “I am the first, and hereafter am I, and no God was before Me, and no God shall be after Me .” For knowing more perfectly than all others the mystery of the religion of the Gospel, this great prophet, who foretold even that marvellous sign concerning the Virgin, and gave us the good tidings of the birth of the Child, and clearly pointed out to us that Name of the Son,—he, in a word, who by the Spirit includes in himself all the truth,—in order that the characteristic of the Divine Nature, whereby we discern that which really is from that which came into being, might be made as plain as possible to all, utters this saying in the person of God: “I am the first, and hereafter am I, and before Me no God hath been, and after Me is none.” Since, then, neither is that God which was before God, nor is that God which is after God, (for that which is after God is the creation, and that which is anterior to God is nothing, and Nothing is not God;—or one should rather say, that which is anterior to God is God in His eternal blessedness, defined in contradistinction to Nothing ;—since, I say, this inspired utterance was spoken by the mouth of the prophet, we learn by his means the doctrine that the Divine Nature is one, continuous with Itself and indiscerptible, not admitting in Itself priority and posteriority, though it be declared in Trinity, and with no one of the things we contemplate in it more ancient or more recent than another. Since, then, the saying is the saying of God, whether you grant that the words are the words of the Father or of the Son, the orthodox doctrine is equally upheld by either. For if it is the Father that speaks thus, He bears witness to the Son that He is not “after” Himself: for if the Son is God, and whatever is “after” the Father is not God, it is clear that the saying bears witness to the truth that the Son is in the Father, and not after the Father. If, on the other hand, one were to grant that this utterance is of the Son, the phrase, “None hath been before Me,” will be a clear intimation that He Whom we contemplate “in the Beginning ” is apprehended together with the eternity of the Beginning. If, then, anything is “after” God, this is discovered, by the passages quoted, to be a creature, and not God: for He says, “That which is after Me is not God .”

§2. He Then Explains the Phrase of S. Peter, “Him God Made Lord and Christ.” And Herein He Sets Forth the Opposing Statement of Eunomius, Which He Made on Account of Such Phrase Against S. Basil, and His Lurking Revilings and Insults.

Now that we have had presented to us this preliminary view of existences, it may be opportune to examine the passage before us. It is said, then, by Peter to the Jews, “Him God made Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye crucified ,” while on our part it is said that it is not pious to refer the word “made” to the Divine Nature of the Only-begotten, but that it is to be referred to that “form of a servant ,” which came into being by the Incarnation , in the due time of His appearing in the flesh; and, on the other hand, those who press the phrase the contrary way say that in the word “made” the Apostle indicates the pretemporal generation of the Son. We shall, therefore, set forth the passage in the midst, and after a detailed examination of both the suppositions, leave the judgment of the truth to our reader. Of our adversaries’ view Eunomius himself may be a sufficient advocate, for he contends gallantly on the matter, so that in going through his argument word by word we shall completely follow out the reasoning of those who strive against us: and we ourselves will act as champion of the doctrine on our side as best we may, following so far as we are able the line of the argument previously set forth by the great Basil. But do you, who by your reading act as judges in the cause, “execute true judgment,” as one of the prophets says, not awarding the victory to contentious preconceptions, but to the truth as it is manifested by examination. And now let the accuser of our doctrines come forward, and read his indictment, as in a court of law.

"In addition, moreover, to what we have mentioned, by his refusal to take the word ‘made’ as referring to the essence of the Son, and withal by his being ashamed of the Cross, be ascribes to the Apostles what no one even of those who have done their best to speak ill of them on the score of stupidity, lays to their charge; and at the same time he clearly introduces, by his doctrines and arguments, two Christs and two Lords; for he says that it was not the Word Who was in the beginning Whom God made Lord and Christ, but He Who ‘emptied Himself to take the form of a servant ,’ and ‘was crucified through weakness .’ At all events the great Basil writes expressly as follows :—‘Nor, moreover, is it the intention of the Apostle to present to us that existence of the Only-begotten which was before the ages (which is now the subject of our argument), for he clearly speaks, not of the very essence of God the Word, Who was in the beginning with God, but of Him Who emptied Himself to take the form of a servant, and became conformable to the body of our humiliation , and was crucified through weakness.’ And again, ‘This is known to any one who even in a small degree applies his mind to the meaning of the Apostle’s words, that he is not setting forth to us the mode of the Divine existence, but is introducing the terms which belong to the Incarnation; for he says, Him God made Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye crucified, evidently laying stress by the demonstrative word on that in Him which was human and was seen by all .’

“This, then, is what the man has to say who substitutes,—for we may not speak of it as ‘application,’ lest any one should blame for such madness men holy and chosen for the preaching of godliness, so as to reproach their doctrine with a fall into such extravagance,—who substitutes his own mind for the intention of the Apostles! With what confusion are they not filled, who refer their own nonsense to the memory of the saints! With what absurdity do they not abound, who imagine that the man ‘emptied himself’ to become man, and who maintain that He Who by obedience ‘humbled himself’ to take the form of a servant was made conformable to men even before He took that form upon Him! Who, pray, ye most reckless of men, when he has the form of a servant, takes the form of a servant? and how can any one ‘empty himself’ to become the very thing which he is? You will find no contrivance to meet this, bold as you are in saying or thinking things uncontrivable. Are you not verily of all men most miserable, who suppose that a man has suffered death for all men, and ascribe your own redemption to him? For if it is not of the Word Who was in the beginning and was God that the blessed Peter speaks, but of him who was ‘seen,’ and who ‘emptied Himself,’ as Basil says, and if the man who was seen ‘emptied Himself’ to take ‘the form of a servant,’ and He Who ‘emptied Himself’ to take ‘the form of a servant,’ emptied Himself to come into being as man, then the man who was seen emptied himself to come into being as man . The very nature of things is repugnant to this; and it is expressly contradicted by that writer who celebrates this dispensation in his discourse concerning the Divine Nature, when he says not that the man who was seen, but that the Word Who was in the beginning and was God took upon Him flesh, which is equivalent in other words to taking ‘the form of a servant.’ If, then, you hold that these things are to be believed; depart from your error, and cease to believe that the man ‘emptied himself’ to become man. And if you are not able to persuade those who will not be persuaded, destroy their incredulity by another saying, a second decision against them. Remember him who says, ‘Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.’ There is none among men who will appropriate this phrase to himself. None of the saints that ever lived was the Only-begotten God and became man:—for that is what it means to ‘take the form of a servant,’ ‘being in the form of God.’ If, then, the blessed Peter speaks of Him Who ‘emptied Himself’ to ‘take the form of a servant,’ and if He Who was ‘in the form of God’ did ‘empty Himself’ to ‘take the form of a servant,’ and if He Who in the beginning was God, being the Word and the Only-begotten God, is He Who was ‘in the form of God,’ then the blessed Peter speaks to us of Him Who was in the beginning and was God, and expounds to us that it was He Who became Lord and Christ. This, then, is the conflict which Basil wages against himself, and he clearly appears neither to have ‘applied his own mind to the intention of the Apostles’, nor to be able to preserve the sequence of his own arguments; for, according to them, he must, if he is conscious of their irreconcilable character, admit that the Word Who was in the beginning and was God became Lord; or if he tries to fit together statements that are mutually conflicting, and contentiously stands by them, he will add to them others yet more hostile, and maintain that there are two Christs and two Lords. For if the Word that was in the beginning and was God be one, and He Who ‘emptied Himself’ and ‘took the form of a servant’ be another, and if God the Word, by Whom are all things, be Lord, and this Jesus, Who was crucified after all things had come into being, be Lord also, there are, according to his view, two Lords and Christs. Our author, then, cannot by any argument clear himself from this manifest blasphemy. But if any one were to say in support of him that the Word Who was in the beginning is indeed the same Who became Lord, but that He became Lord and Christ in respect of His presence in the flesh, He will surely be constrained to say that the Son was not Lord before His presence in the flesh. At all events, even if Basil and his faithless followers falsely proclaim two Lords and two Christs, for us there is one Lord and Christ, by Whom all things were made, not becoming Lord by way of promotion, but existing before all creation and before all ages, the Lord Jesus, by Whom are all things, while all the saints with one harmonious voice teach us this truth and proclaim it as the most excellent of doctrines. Here the blessed John teaches us that God the Word, by Whom all things were made, has become incarnate, saying, ‘And the Word was made flesh ’; here the most admirable Paul, urging those who attend to him to humility, speaks of Christ Jesus, Who was in the form of God, and emptied Himself to take the form of a servant, and was humbled to death, even the death of the Cross ; and again in another passage calls Him Who was crucified ‘the Lord of Glory’: ‘for had they known it,’ be says, ‘they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory ’. Indeed, he speaks far more openly than this of the very essential nature by the name of ‘Lord,’ where he says, ‘Now the Lord is the Spirit ’. If, then, the Word Who was in the beginning, in that He is Spirit, is Lord, and the Lord of glory, and if God made Him Lord and Christ, it was the very Spirit and God the Word that God so made, and not some other Lord Whom Basil dreams about.”

§3. A Remarkable and Original Reply to These Utterances, and a Demonstration of the Power of the Crucified, and of the Fact that This Subjection Was of the Human Nature, Not that Which the Only-Begotten Has from the Father. Also an Explanation of the Figure of the Cross, and of the Appellation “Christ,” And an Account of the Good Gifts Bestowed an the Human Nature by the Godhead Which Was Commingled with It.

Well, such is his accusation. But I think it necessary in the first place to go briefly, by way of summary, over the points that he urges, and then to proceed to correct by my argument what he has said, that those who are judging the truth may find it easy to remember the indictment against us, which we have to answer, and that we may be able to dispose of each of the charges in regular order. He says that we are ashamed of the Cross of Christ, and slander the saints, and say that a man has “emptied himself” to become than, and suppose that the Lord had the “form of a servant” before His presence by the Incarnation, and ascribe our redemption to a man, and speak in our doctrine of two Christs and two Lords, or, if we do not do this, then we deny that the Only-begotten was Lord and Christ before the Passion. So that we may avoid this blasphemy, he will have us confess that the essence of the Son has been made, on the ground that the Apostle Peter by his own voice establishes such a doctrine. This is the substance of the accusation; for all that he has been at the trouble of saying by way of abuse of ourselves, I will pass by in silence, as being not at all to the point. It may be that this rhetorical stroke of phrases framed according to some artificial theory is the ordinary habit of those who play the rhetorician, an invention to swell the bulk of their indictment. Let our sophist then use his art to display his insolence, and vaunt his strength in reproaches against us, showing off his strokes in the intervals of the contest; let him call us foolish, call us of all men most reckless, of all men most miserable, full of confusion and absurdity, and make light of us at his good pleasure in any way he likes, and we will bear it; for to a reasonable man disgrace lies, not in hearing one who abuses him, but in making retort to what he says. There may even be some good in his expenditure of breath against us; for it may be that while he occupies his railing tongue in denouncing us he will at all events make some truce in his conflict against God. So let him take his fill of insolence as he likes: none will reply to him. For if a man has foul and loathsome breath, by reason of bodily disorder, or of some pestilential and malignant disease, he would not rouse any healthy person to emulate his misfortune so that one should choose, by himself acquiring disease, to repay, in the same evil kind, the unpleasantness of the man’s ill odour. Such men our common nature bids us to pity, not to imitate. And so let us pass by everything of this kind which by mockery, indignation, provocation, and abuse, he has assiduously mixed up with his argument, and examine only his arguments as they concern the doctrinal points at issue. We shall begin again, then, from the beginning, and meet each of his charges in turn.

The beginning of his accusation was that we are ashamed of the Cross of Him Who for our sakes underwent the Passion. Surely he does not intend to charge against us also that we preach the doctrine of dissimilarity in essence! Why, it is rather to those who turn aside to this opinion that the reproach belongs of going about to make the Cross a shameful thing. For if by both parties alike the dispensation of the Passion is held as part of the faith, while we hold it necessary to honour, even as the Father is honoured, the God Who was manifested by the Cross, and they find the Passion a hindrance to glorifying the Only-begotten God equally with the Father that begat Him, then our sophist’s charges recoil upon himself, and in the words with which he imagines himself to be accusing us, he is publishing his own doctrinal impiety. For it is clear that the reason why he sets the Father above the Son, and exalts Him with supreme honour, is this,—that in Him is not seen the shame of the Cross: and the reason why he asseverates that the nature of the Son varies in the sense of inferiority is this,—that the reproach of the Cross is referred to Him alone, and does not touch the Father. And let no one think that in saying this I am only following the general drift of his composition, for in going through all the blasphemy of his speech, which is there laboriously brought together, I found, in a passage later than that before us, this very blasphemy clearly expressed in undisguised language; and I propose to set forth, in the orderly course of my own argument, what they have written, which runs thus:—“If,” he says, “he can show that the God Who is over all, Who is the unapproachable Light, was incarnate, or could be incarnate, came under authority, obeyed commands, came under the laws of men, bore the Cross, then let him say that the Light is equal to the Light.” Who then is it who is ashamed of the Cross? he who, even after the Passion, worships the Son equally with the Father, or he who even before the Passion insults Him, not only by ranking Him with the creation, but by maintaining that He is of passible nature, on the ground that He could not have come to experience His sufferings had He not had a nature capable of such sufferings? We on our part assert that even the body in which He underwent His Passion, by being mingled with the Divine Nature, was made by that commixture to be that which the assuming Nature is. So far are we from entertaining any low idea concerning the Only-begotten God, that if anything belonging to our lowly nature was assumed in His dispensation of love for man, we believe that even this was transformed to what is Divine and incorruptible ; but Eunomius makes the suffering of the Cross to be a sign of divergence in essence, in the sense of inferiority, considering, I know not how, the surpassing act of power, by which He was able to perform this, to be an evidence of weakness; failing to perceive the fact that, while nothing which moves according to its own nature is looked upon as surprisingly wonderful, all things that overpass the limitations of their own nature become especially the objects of admiration, and to them every ear is turned, every mind is attentive, in wonder at the marvel. And hence it is that all who preach the word point out the wonderful character of the mystery in this respect,—that “God was manifested in the flesh ,” that “the Word was made flesh ,” that “the Light shined in darkness ,” “the Life tasted death,” and all such declarations which the heralds of the faith are wont to make, whereby is increased the marvellous character of Him Who manifested the superabundance of His power by means external to his own nature. But though they think fit to make this a subject for their insolence, though they make the dispensation of the Cross a reason for partitioning off the Son from equality of glory with the Father, we believe, as those “who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word ” delivered to us by the Holy Scriptures, that the God who was in the beginning, “afterwards”, as Baruch says, “was seen upon the earth, and conversed with men ,” and, becoming a ransom for our death, loosed by His own resurrection the bonds of death, and by Himself made the resurrection a way for all flesh , and being on the same throne and in the same glory with His own Father, will in the day of judgment give sentence upon those who are judged, according to the desert of the lives they have led. These are the things which we believe concerning Him Who was crucified, and for this cause we cease not to extol Him exceedingly, according to the measure of our powers, that He Who by reason of His unspeakable and unapproachable greatness is not comprehensible by any, save by Himself and the Father and the Holy Spirit, He, I say, was able even to descend to community with our weakness. But they adduce this proof of the Son’s alienation in nature from the Father, that the Lord was manifested by the flesh and by the Cross, arguing on the ground that the Father’s nature remained pure in impassibility, and could not in any way admit of a community which tended to passion, while the Son, by reason of the divergence of His nature by way of humiliation, was not incapable of being brought to experience the flesh and death, seeing that the change of condition was not great, but one which took place in a certain sense from one like state to another state kindred and homogeneous, because the nature of man is created, and the nature of the Only-begotten is created also. Who then is fairly charged with being ashamed of the Cross? he who speaks basely of it , or he who contends for its more exalted aspect? I know not whether our accuser, who thus abases the God Who was made known upon the Cross, has heard the lofty speech of Paul, in what terms and at what length he discourses with his exalted lips concerning that Cross. For he, who was able to make himself known by miracles so many and so great, says, “God forbid that I should glory in anything else, than, in the Cross of Christ .” And to the Corinthians he says that the word of the Cross is “the power of God to them that are in a state of salvation .” To the Ephesians, moreover, he describes by the figure of the Cross the power that controls and holds together the universe, when he expresses a desire that they may be exalted to know the exceeding glory of ibis power, calling it height, and depth, and breadth, and length , speaking of the several projections we behold in the figure of the Cross by their proper names, so that he calls the upper part “height,” and that which is below, on the opposite side of the junction, “depth,” while by the name “length and breadth” he indicates the cross-beam projecting to either side, that hereby might be manifested this great mystery, that both things in heaven, and things under the earth, and all the furthest bounds of the things that are, are ruled and sustained by Him Who gave an example of this unspeakable and mighty power in the figure of the Cross. But I think there is no need to contend further with such objections, as I judge it superfluous to be anxious about urging arguments against calumny when even a few words suffice to show the truth. Let us therefore pass on to another charge.

He says that by us the saints are slandered. Well, if be has beard it himself, let him tell us the words of our defamation: if he thinks we have uttered it to others, let him show the truth of his charge by witnesses: if he demonstrates it from what we have written, let him read the words, and we will bear the blame. But he cannot bring forward anything of the kind: our writings are open for examination to any one who desires it. If it was not said to himself, and he has not heard it from others, and has no proof to offer from our writings, I think he who has to make answer on this point may well hold his peace: silence is surely the fitting answer to an unfounded charge.

The Apostle Peter says, “God made this Jesus, Whom ye crucified, Lord and Christ .”We, learning this from him, say that the whole context of the passage tends one way,—the Cross itself, the human name, the indicative turn of the phrase. For the word of the Scripture says that in regard to one person two things were wrought,—by the Jews, the Passion, and by God, honour; not as though one person had suffered and another had been honoured by exaltation: and he further explains this yet more clearly by his words in what follows, “being exalted by the right hand of God.” Who then was “exalted”? He that was lowly, or He that was the Highest? and what else is the lowly, but the Humanity? what else is the Highest, but the Divinity? Surely, God needs not to be exalted, seeing that He is the Highest. It follows, then, that the Apostle’s meaning is that the Humanity was exalted: and its exaltation was effected by its becoming Lord and Christ. And this took place after the Passion. It is not therefore the pre-temporal existence of the Lord which the Apostle indicates by the word “made,” but that change of the lowly to the lofty which was effected “by the right hand of God.” Even by this phrase is declared the mystery of godliness; for he who says “exalted by the right hand of God” manifestly reveals the unspeakable dispensation of this mystery, that the Right. Hand of God, that made all things that are, (which is the Lord, by Whom all things were made, and without Whom nothing that is subsists,) Itself raised to Its own height the Man united with It, making Him also to be what It is by nature. Now It is Lord and King: Christ is the King’s name: these things It made Him too. For as He was highly exalted by being in the Highest, so too He became all else,—Immortal in the Immortal, Light in the Light, Incorruptible in the Incorruptible, Invisible in the Invisible, Christ in the Christ, Lord in the Lord. For even in physical combinations. when one of the combined parts exceeds the other in a great degree, the inferior is wont to change completely to that which ismore potent. And this we are plainly taught by the voice of the Apostle Peter in his mystic discourse, that the lowly nature of Him Who was crucified through weakness, (and weakness, as we have heard from the Lord, marks the flesh ,) that lowly nature, I say, by virtue of its combination with the infinite and boundless element of good, remained no longer in its own measures and properties, but was by the Right Hand of God raised up together with Itself, and became Lord instead of servant, Christ a King instead of a subject, Highest instead of Lowly, God instead of man. What handle then against the saints did he who pretends to give warning against us in defence of the Apostles find in the material of our writings? Let us pass over this charge also in silence; for I think it a mean and unworthy thing to stand up against charges that are false and unfounded. Let us pass on to the more pressing part of his accusation.

§4. He Thaws the Falsehood of Eunomius’ Calumnious Charge that the Great Basil Had Said that “Man Was Emptied to Become Man,” And Demonstrates that the “Emptying” Of the Only-Begotten Took Place with a View to the Restoration to Life of the Man Who Had Suffered .

He asserts that we say that man has emptied Himself to become man, and that He Who by obedience humbled Himself to the form of the servant shared the form of men even before He took that form. No change has been made in the wording; we have simply transferred the very words from his speech to our own. Now if there is anything of this sort in our writings, for I call my master’s writings ours) let no one blame our orator for calumny. I ask for all regard for the truth: and we ourselves will give evidence. But if there is nothing of all this in our writings, while his language not merely lays blame upon us, but is indignant and wrathful as if the waiter were clearly proved, calling us full of absurdity, nonsense, confusion, inconsistency, and so on, I am at a loss to see the right course to take. Just as men who are perplexed at the groundless rages of madmen can decide upon no plan to follow, so I myself can find no device to meet this perplexity. Our master says (for I will again recite his argument verbally), “He is not setting forth to us the mode of the Divine existence, but the terms which belong to the Incarnation.” Our accuser starts from this point, and says that we maintain that man emptied Himself to become man! What community is there between one statement and the other? If we say that the Apostle has not set forth to us the mode of the Divine existence, but points by his phrase to the dispensation of the Passion, we are on this ground charged with speaking of the “emptying” of man to become man, and with saying that the “form of the servant” had pretemporal existence, and that the Man Who was born of Mary existed before the coming in the flesh! Well, I think it superfluous to spend time in discussing what is admitted, seeing that truth itself frees us from the charge. In a case, indeed, where one may have given the calumniators some handle against oneself, it is proper to resist accusers: but where there is no danger of being suspected of some absurd charge, the accusation becomes a proof, not of the false charge made against him who is calumniated, but of the madness of the accuser. As, however, in dealing with the charge of being ashamed of the Cross, we showed by our examination that the charge recoiled upon the accuser, so we shall show how this charge too returns upon those who make it, since it is they, and not we, who lay down the doctrine of the change of the Son from like lo like in the dispensation of the Passion. We will examine briefly, bringing them side by side, the statements of each party. We say that the Only-begotten God, having by His own agency brought all things into being, by Himself has full power over all things, while the nature of man is also one of the things that were made by Him: and that when this had fallen away to evil, and come to be in the destruction of death, He by His own agency drew it up once more to immortal life, by means of the Man in whom He tabernacled, taking to Himself humanity in completeness, and that He mingled His life-giving power with our mortal and perishable nature, and changed, by the combination with Himself, our deadness to living grace and power. And this we declare to be the mystery of the Lord according to the flesh, that He Who is immutable came to be in that which is mutable, to the end that altering it for the better, and changing it from the worse, He might abolish the evil which is mingled with our mutable condition, destroying the evil in Himself. For “our God is a consuming fire ,” by whom all the material of wickedness is done away. This is our statement. What does our accuser say? Not that He Who was immutable and uncreated was mingled with that which came into being by creation, and which had therefore suffered a change in the direction of evil; but he does say that He, being Himself created, came to that which was kindred and homogeneous with Himself, not coming from a transcendent nature to put on the lowlier nature by reason of His love to man, but becoming that very thing which He was.

For as regards the general character of the appellation, the name of “creature” is one, as predicated of all things that have come into bring from nothing, while the divisions into sections of the things which we contemplate as included in the term “creature”, are separated one from the other by the variation of their properties: so that if He is created, and man is created. He was “emptied,” to use Eunomius’ phrase, to become Himself, and changed His place, not from the transcendent to the lowly, but from what is similar in kind to what (save in regard of the special character of body and the incorporeal) is similar in dignity. To whom now will the just vote of those who have to try our cause be given, or who will seem to them to be under the weight of these charges? he who says that the created was saved by the uncreated God, or he who refers the cause of our salvation to the creature? Surely the judgment of pious men is not doubt-rid. For any one who knows clearly the difference which there is between the created and the uncreated, (terms of which the divergence is marked by dominion and slavery. since the uncreated God, as the prophet says, “ruleth with His power for ever ,” while all things in the creation are servants to Him, according to the voice of the same prophet, which says “all things serve Thee ,”) he, I say, who carefully considers these matters, surely cannot fail to recognize the person who makes the Only-begotten change from servitude to servitude. For if, according to Paul, the whole creation “is in bondage ,” and if, according to Eunomius, the essential nature of the Only-begotten is created, our adversaries maintain, surely, by their doctrines, not that the master was mingled with the servant, but that a servant came to be among servants. As for our saying that the Lord was in the form of a servant before His presence in the flesh, that is just like charging us with saying that the stars are black and the sun misty, and the sky low, and water dry, and so on:—a man who does not maintain a charge on the ground of what he has heard, but makes up what seems good to him at his own sweet will, need not be sparing in making against us such charges as these. It is just the same thing for us to be called to account for the one set of charges as for the other, so far as concerns the fact that they have no basis for them in anything that we have said. How could one who says distinctly that the true Son was in the glory of the Father, insult the eternal glory of the Only-begotten by conceiving it to have been “in the form of a servant”? When our author thinks proper to speak evil of us, and at the same time takes care to present his case with some appearance of truth, it may perhaps not be superfluous or useless to rebut his unfounded accusations.

§5. Thereafter He Shows that There are Not Two Christs or Two Lords, But One Christ and One Lord, and that the Divine Nature, After Mingling with Human, Preserved the Properties of Each Nature Without Confusion, and Declares that the Operations Are, by Reason of the Union, Predicated of the Two Natures in Common, in the Sense that the Lord Took Upon Himself the Sufferings of the Servant, and the Humanity is Glorified with Him in the Honour that is the Lord’s, and that by the Power of the Divine Nature that is Made Anew, Conformably with that Divine Nature Itself.

His next charge too has its own absurdity of the same sort. For he reproaches us with saying that there are “two Christs,” and “two Lords,” without being able to make good his charge from our words, but employing falsehood at discretion to suit his fancy. Since, then, he deems it within his power to say what he likes, why does he utter his falsehood with such care about detail, and maintain that we speak but of two Christs? Let him say, if he likes, that we preach ten Christs, or ten times ten, or extend the number to a thousand, that he may handle his calumny more vigorously. For blasphemy is equally involved in the doctrine of two Christs, and in that of more, and the character of the two charges is also equally devoid of proof. When he shows, then, that we do speak of two Christs, let him have a verdict against us, as much as though he had given proof of ten thousand. But he says that he convicts us by our own statements. Well, let us look once more at those words of our master by means of which he thinks to raise his charges against us. He says “he” (he, that is, who says “Him God made Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye crucified”) “is not setting forth to us the mode of the Divine existence, but the terms which belong to the Incarnation …laying stress by the demonstrative word on that in Him which was human and was seen by all.” This is what he wrote. But whence has Eunomius managed by these words to bring on the stage his “two Christs”? Does saying that the demonstrative word lays stress on that which is visible, convey the proof of maintaining “two Christs”? Ought we (to avoid being charged with speaking of “two Highests”) to deny the fact that by Him the Lord was highly exalted after His Passion? seeing that God the Word, Who was in the beginning, was Highest, and was also highly exalted after His Passion when He rose from the dead, as the Apostle says. We must of necessity choose one of two courses—either say that He was highly exalted after the Passion (which is just the same as saying that He was made Lord and Christ), and be impeached by Eunomius, or, if we avoid the accusation, deny the confession of the high exaltation of Him Who suffered.

Now at this point it seems right to put forward once more our accuser’s statement insupport of our own defence. We shall therefor repeat word for word the statement laiddown by him, which supports our argument as follows:—“The blessed John,” he says,“teaches us that God the Word, by Whom allthings were made, has become incarnate, saying‘And the Word was made flesh.’” Does he understand what he is writing when he adds this to his own argument? I can hardly myselfthink that the same man can at once be aware of the meaning of these words and contendagainst our statement. For if any one examinesthe words carefully, he will find that there is nomutual conflict between what is said by us and what is said by him. For we both consider the dispensation in the flesh apart, and regard the Divine power in itself: and he, in like manner with ourselves, says that the Word that was in the beginning has been manifested in the flesh: yet no one ever charged him, nor does he charge himself, with preaching “two Words”, Him Who was in the beginning, and Him Who was made flesh; for he knows, surely, that the Word is identical with the Word, He who appeared in the flesh with Him Who was with God. But the flesh was not identical with the Godhead, till this too was transformed to the Godhead, so that of necessity one set of attributes befits God the Word, and a different set of attributes befits the “form of the servant .” If, then, in view of such a confession, he does not reproach himself with the duality of Words, why are we falsely charged with dividing the object of oar faith into “two Christs”?—we, who say that He Who was highly exalted after His Passion, was made Lord and Christ by His union with Him Who is verily Lord and Christ, knowing by what we have learnt that the Divine Nature is always one and the same, and with the same mode of existence, while the flesh in itself is that which reason and sense apprehend concerning it, but when mixed with the Divine no longer remains in its own limitations and properties, but is taken up to that which is overwhelming and transcendent. Our contemplation, however, of the respective properties of the flesh and of the Godhead remains free from confusion, so long as each of these is contemplated by itself , as, for example, “the Word was before the ages, but the flesh came into being in the last times”: but one could not reverse this statement, and say that the latter is pretemporal, or that the Word has come into being in the last times. The flesh is of a passible, the Word of an operative nature: and neither is the flesh capable of making the things that are, nor is the power possessed by the Godhead capable of suffering. The Word was in the beginning with God, the man was subject to the trial of death; and neither was the Human Nature from everlasting, nor the Divine Nature mortal: and all the rest of the attributes are contemplated in the same way. It is not the Human Nature that raises up Lazarus, nor is it the power that cannot suffer that weeps for him when he lies in the grave: the tear proceeds from the Man, the life from the true Life. It is not the Human Nature that feeds the thousands, nor is it omnipotent might that hastens to the fig-tree. Who is it that is weary with the journey, and Who is it that by His word made all the world subsist? What is the brightness of the glory, and what is that that was pierced with the nails? What form is it that is buffeted in the Passion, and what form is it that is glorified from everlasting? So much as this is clear, (even if one does not follow the argument into detail,) that the blows belong to the servant in whom the Lord was, the honours to the Lord Whom the servant compassed about, so that by reason of contact and the union of Natures the proper attributes of each belong to both , as the Lord receives the stripes of the servant, while the servant is glorified with the honour of the Lord; for this is why the Cross is said to be the Cross of the Lord of glory , and why every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father .

But if we are to discuss the other points in the same way, let us consider what it is that dies, and what it is that destroys death; what it is that is renewed, and what it is that empties itself. The Godhead “empties” Itself that It may come within the capacity of the Human Nature, and the Human Nature is renewed by becoming Divine through its commixture with the Divine. For as air is not retained in water when it is dragged down by some weighty body and left in the depth of the water, but rises quickly to its kindred element, while the water is often raised up together with the air in its upward rush, being moulded by the circle of air into a convex shape with a slight and membrane-like surface, so too, when the true Life that underlay the flesh sped up, after the Passion, to Itself, the flesh also was raised up with It, being forced upwards from corruption to incorruptibility by the Divine immortality. And as fire that lies in wood hidden below the surface is often unobserved by the senses of those who see, or even touch it, but is manifest when it blazes up, so too, at His death (which He brought about at His will, Who separated His soul from His Body, Who said to His own Father “Into Thy hands I commend My Spirit ,” Who, as He says, “had power to lay it down and had power to take it again ”), He Who, because He is the Lord of glory, despised that which is shame among men, having concealed, as it were, the flame of His life in His bodily Nature, by the dispensation of His death , kindled and inflamed it once more by the power of His own Godhead, fostering into life that which had been brought to death, having infused with the infinity of His Divine power that humble first-fruits of our nature, made it also to be that which He Himself was—making the servile form to be Lord, and the Man born of Mary to be Christ, and Him Who was crucified through weakness to be Life and power, and making all that is piously conceived to be in God the Word to be also in that which the Word assumed, so that these attributes no longer seem to be in either Nature by way of division, but that the perishable Nature being, by its commixture with the Divine, made anew in conformity with the Nature that overwhelms it, participates in the power of the Godhead, as if one were to say that mixture makes a drop of vinegar mingled in the deep to be sea, by reason that the natural quality of Ibis liquid does not continue in the infinity of that which overwhelms it . This is our doctrine, which does not, as Eunomius charges against it, preach a plurality of Christs, but the union of the Man with the Divinity, and which calls by the name of “making” the transmutation of the Mortal to the Immortal, of the Servant to the Lord, of Sin to Righteousness, of the Curse to the Blessing, of the Man to Christ. What further have our slanderers left to say, to show that we preach “two Christs” in our doctrine, if we refuse to say that He Who was in the beginning from the Father uncreatedly Lord, and Christ, and the Word, and God, was “made,” and declare that the blessed Peter was pointing briefly and incidentally to the mystery of the Incarnation, according to the meaning now explained, that the Nature which was crucified through weakness has Itself also, as we have said, become, by the overwhelming power of Him Who dwells in It, that which the Indweller Himself is in fact and in name, even Christ and Lord?

Book VI

§1. The Sixth Book Shows that He Who Came for Man’s Salvation Was Not a Mere Man, as Eunomius, Falsely Slandering Him, Affirmed that the Great Basil Had Said, But the Only-Begotten Son of God, Putting an Human Flesh, and Becoming a Mediator Between God and Man, on Whom We Believe, as Subject to Suffering in the Flesh, But Impassible in His Godhead; And Demonstrates the Calumny of Eunomius.

But I perceive that while the necessities of the subject compelled me to follow this line of thought, I have lingered too long over this passage . I must now resume the train of his complaints, that we may pass by none of the charges brought against us without an answer. And first I propose that we should examine this point, that he charges us with asserting that an ordinary man has wrought the salvation of the world. For although this point has been to some extent already cleared up by the investigations we have made, we shall yet briefly deal with it once more, that the mind of those who are acting as our judges on this slanderous accusation may be entirely freed from misapprehension. So far are we from referring to an ordinary man the cause of this great and unspeakable grace, that even if any should refer so great a boon to Peter and Paul, or to an angel from heaven, we should say with Paul, “let him be anathema .” For Paul was not crucified for us, nor were we baptized into a human name . Surely the doctrine which our adversaries oppose to the truth is not thereby strengthened when we confess that the saving power of Christ is more potent than human nature :—yet it may seem to be so, for their aim is to maintain at all points the difference of the essence of the Son from that of the Father, and they strive to show the dissimilarity of essence not only by the contrast of the Generated with the Ungenerate, but also by the opposition of the passible to the impassible. And while this is more openly maintained in the last part of their argument, it is also clearly shown in their present discourse . For if he finds fault with those who refer the Passion to the Human Nature, his intention is certainly to subject to the Passion the Godhead Itself. For our conception being twofold, and admitting of two developments, accordingly as the Divinity or the Humanity is held to have been in a condition of suffering, an attack on one of these views is clearly a maintaining of the other. Accordingly, if they find fault with those who look upon the Passion as concerning the Man, they will clearly approve those who say that the Godhead of the Son was subject to passion, and the position which these last maintain becomes an argument in favour of their own absurd doctrine. For if, according to their statement, the Godhead of the Son suffers, while that of the Father is preserved in absolute impassibility, then the impassible Nature is essentially different from that which admits passion. Seeing, therefore, that the dictum before us, though, so far as it is limited by number of words, it is a short one, yet affords principles and hypotheses for every kind ofdoctrinal pravity, it would seem right that ourreaders should require in our reply not so much brevity as soundness. We, then, neither attribute our own salvation to a man, nor admit that the incorruptible and Divine Nature is capable of suffering and mortality: but since we must assuredly believe the Divine utterances which declare to us that the Word that was in the beginning was God , and that afterward the Word made flesh was seen upon the earth and conversed with men , we admit in our creed those conceptions which are consonant with the Divine utterance. For when we hear that He is Light, and Power, and Righteousness, and Life, and Truth, and that by Him all things were made, we account all these and such-like statements as things to be believed, referring them to God the Word: but when we hear of pain, of slumber, of need, of trouble, of bonds, of nails, of the spear, of blood, of wounds, of burial, of the sepulchre, and all else of this kind, even if they are somewhat opposed to what has previously been stated, we none the less admit them to be things to be believed, and true, having regard to the flesh; which we receive by faith as conjoined with the Word. For as it is not possible to contemplate the peculiar attributes of the flesh as existing in the Word that was in the beginning, so also on the other hand we may not conceive those which are proper to the Godhead as existing in the nature of the flesh. As, therefore, the teaching of the Gospel concerning our Lord is mingled, partly of lofty and Divine ideas, partly of those which are lowly and human, we assign every particular phrase accordingly to one or other of these Natures which we conceive in the mystery, that which is human to the Humanity, that which is lofty to the Godhead, and say that, as God, the Son is certainly impassible and incapable of corruption: and whatever suffering is asserted concerning Him in the Gospel, He assuredly wrought by means of His Human Nature which admitted of such suffering. For verily the Godhead works the salvation of the world by means of that body which encompassed It, in such wise that the suffering was of the body, but the operation was of God; and even if some wrest to the support of the opposite doctrine the words of the Apostle, “God spared not His own Sons, ,” and, “God sent His own Son ,” and other similar phrases which seem to refer, in the matter of the Passion, to the Divine Nature, and not to the Humanity, we shall none the less refuse to abandon sound doctrine, seeing that Paul himself declares to us more clearly the mystery of this subject. For he everywhere attributes to the Human element in Christ the dispensation of the Passion, when he says, “for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead ,” and, “God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh ” (for he says, “in the flesh,” not “in the Godhead”); and “He was crucified through weakness” (where by “weakness” he means “the flesh”), “yet liveth by power ” (while he indicates by “power” the Divine Nature); and, “He died unto sin” (that is, with regard to the body), “but liveth unto God ” (that is, with regard to the Godhead, so that by these words it is established that, while the Man tasted death, the immortal Nature did not admit the suffering of death); and again; “He made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin ,” giving once more the name of “sin” to the flesh.

§2. Then He Again Mentions S. Peter’s Word, “Made,” And the Passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Which Says that Jesus Was Made by God “An Apostle and High Priest”:and, After Giving a Sufficient Answer to the Charges Brought Against Him by Eunomius, Shows that Eunomius Himself Supports Basil’s Arguments, and Says that the Only-Begotten Son, When He Had Put on the Flesh, Became Lord.

And although we make these remarks in passing, the parenthetic addition seems, perhaps, not less important than the main question before us. For since, when St. Peter says, “He made Him Lord and Christ ,” and again, when the Apostle Paul says to the Hebrews that He made Him a priest , Eunomius catches at the word “made” as being applicable to His pre-temporal existence, and thinks thereby to establish his doctrine that the Lord is a thing made , let him now listen to Paul when he says, “He made Him to be sin for us, Who knew not sin .” If he refers the word “made,” which is used of the Lord in the passages from the Epistle to the Hebrews, and from the words of Peter, to the pretemporal idea, he might fairly refer the word in that passage which says that God made Him to be sin, to the first existence of His essence, and try to show by this, as in the case of his other testimonies, that he was “made”, so as to refer the word “made” to the essence, acting consistently with himself, and to discern sin in that essence. But if he shrinks from this by reason of its manifest absurdity, and argues that, by saying, “He made Him to be sin,” the Apostle indicates the dispensation of the last times, let him persuade himself by the same train of reasoning that the word “made” refers to that dispensation in the other passages also.

Let us, however, return to the point from which we digressed; for we might gather together from the same Scripture countless other passages, besides those quoted, which bear upon the matter. And let no one think that the divine Apostle is divided against himself in contradiction, and affords by his own utterances matter for their contentions on either side to those who dispute upon the doctrines. For careful examination would find that his argument is accurately directed to one aim; and he is not halting in his opinions: for while he everywhere proclaims the combination of the Human with the Divine, he none the less discerns in each its proper nature, in the sense that while the human weakness is changed for the better by its communion with the imperishable, the Divine power, on the other hand, is not abased by its contact with the lowly form of nature. When therefore he says, “He spared not His own Son,” he contrasts the true Son with the other sons, begotten, or exalted, or adopted (those, I mean, who were brought into being at His command), marking the specialty of nature by the addition of “own.” And, to the end that no one should connect the suffering of the Cross with the imperishable nature, he gives in other words a fairly distinct correction of such an error, when he calls Him “mediator between God and men ” and “man ,” and “God ,” that, from the fact that both are predicated of the one Being, the fit conception might be entertained concerning each Nature—concerning the Divine Nature, impassibility, concerning the Human Nature, the dispensation of the Passion. As his thought, then, divides that which in love to man was made one, but is distinguished in idea, he uses, when he is proclaiming that nature which transcends and surpasses all intelligence, the more exalted order of names, calling Him “God over all ,” “the great God ,” “the power” of God, and “the wisdom”. of God , and the like; but when he is alluding to all that experience of suffering which, by reason of our weakness, was necessarily assumed with our nature, he gives to the union of the Natures that name which is derived from ours, and calls Him Man, not by this word placing Him Whom he is setting forth to us on a common level with the rest of nature, but so that orthodoxy is protected as regards each Nature, in the sense that the Human Nature is glorified by His assumption of it, and the Divine is not polluted by Its condescension, but makes the Human element subject to sufferings, while working, through Its Divine power, the resurrection of that which suffered. And thus the experience of death is not referred to Him Who had communion in our passible nature by reason of the union with Him of the Man, while at the same time the exalted and Divine names descend to the Man, so that He Who was manifested upon the Cross is called even “the Lord of glory ,” since the majesty implied in these names is transmitted from the Divine to the Human by the commixture of Its Nature with that Nature which is lowly. For this cause he describes Him in varied and different language, at one time as Him Who came down from heaven, at another time as Him Who was born of woman, as God from eternity, and Man in the last days; thus too theOnly-begotten God is held to be impassible, and Christ to be capable of suffering; nor does his discourse speak falsely in these opposing statements, as it adapts in its conceptions to each Nature the terms that belong to it. If then these are the doctrines which we have learnt from inspired teaching, how do we refer the cause of our salvation to an ordinary man? and if we declare the word “made” employed by the blessed Peter to have regard not to the pre-temporal existence, but to the new dispensation of the Incarnation, what has this to do with the charge against us? For this great Apostle says that that which was seen in the form of the servant has been made, by being assumed, to be that which He Who assumed it was in His own Nature. Moreover, in the Epistle to the Hebrews we may learn the same truth from Paul, when he says that Jesus was made an Apostle and High Priest by God, “being faithful to him that made Him so .” For in that passage too, in giving the name of High Priest to Him Who made with His own Blood the priestly propitiation for our sins, he does not by the word “made” declare the first existence of the Only-begotten, but says “made” with the intention of representing that grace which is commonly spoken of in connection with the appointment of priests. For Jesus, the great High Priest (as Zechariah says ), Who offered up his own lamb, that is, His own Body, for the sin of the world; Who, by reason of the children that arc partakers of flesh and blood, Himself also in like manner took part with them in blood (not in that He was in the beginning, being the Word and God, and being in the form of God, and equal with God, but in that He emptied Himself in the form of the servant, and offered an oblation and sacrifice for us), He, I say, became a High Priest many generations later, after the order of Melchisedech . Surely a reader who has more than a casual acquaintance with the discourse to the Hebrews knows the mystery of this matter. As, then, in that passage He is said to have been made Priest and Apostle, so here He is said to have been made Lord and Christ,—the latter for the dispensation on our behalf, the former by the change and transformation of the Human to the Divine (for by “making” the Apostle means “making anew”). Thus is manifest the knavery of our adversaries, who insolently wrest the words referring to the dispensation to apply them to the pretemporal existence. For we learn from the Apostle not to know Christ in the same manner now as before, as Paul thus speaks, “Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now know we Him no more ,” in the sense that the one knowledge manifests to us His temporary dispensation, the other His eternal existence. Thus our discourse has made no inconsiderable answer to his charges:—that we neither hold two Christs nor two Lords, that we are not ashamed of the Cross, that we do not glorify a mere man as having suffered for the world, that we assuredly do not think that the word “made” refers to the formation of the essence. But, such being our view, our argument has no small support from our accuser himself, where in the midst of his discourse he employs his tongue in a flourishing onslaught upon us, and produces this sentence among others: “This, then, is the conflict that Basil wages against himself, and he clearly appears neither to have ‘applied his own mind to the intention of the Apostles,’ nor to be able to preserve the sequence of his own arguments; for according to them he must, if he is conscious of their irreconcilable character, admit that the Word Who was in the beginning and was God became Lord,” or he fits together “statements that are mutually conflicting.” Why, this is actually our statement which Eunomius repeats, who says that “the Word that was in the beginning and was God became Lord.” For, being what He was, God, and Word, and Life, and Light, and Grace, and Truth, and Lord, and Christ, and every name exalted and Divine, He did become, in the Man assumed by Him, Who was none of these, all else which the Word was and among the rest did become Lord and Christ, according to the teaching of Peter, and according to the confession of Eunomius;—not in the sense that the Godhead acquired anything by way of advancement, but (all exalted majesty being contemplated in the Divine Nature) He thus becomes Lord and Christ, not by arriving at any addition of grace in respect of His Godhead (for the Nature of the Godhead is acknowledged to be lacking in no good), but by bringing the Human Nature to theft participation in the Godhead which is signified by the terms “Christ” and “Lord.”

§3. He Then Gives a Notable Explanation of the Saying of the Lord to Philip, “He that Hath Seen Me Hath Seen the Father;” And Herein He Excellently Discusses the Suffering of the Lord in His Love to Man, and the Impassibility, Creative Power, and Providence of the Father, and Thee Composite Nature of Men, and Their Resolution into the Elements of Which They Were Composed.

Sufficient defence has been offered on these points, and as for that which Eunomius says by way of calumny against our doctrine, that “Christ was emptied to become Himself” there has been sufficient discussion in what has been said above, where he has been shown to be attributing to our doctrine his own blasphemy. For it is not one who confesses that the immutable Nature has put on the created and perishable, who speaks of the transition from like to like, but one who conceives that there is no change from the majesty of Nature to that which is more lowly. For if, as their doctrine asserts, He is created, and man is created also, the wonder of the doctrine disappears, and there is nothing marvellous in what is alleged, since the created nature comes to be in itself . But we who have learnt from prophecy of “the change of the right hand of the Most High ,”—and by the “Right Hand” of the Father we understand that Power of God, which made all things, which is the Lord (not in the sense of depending upon Him as a part upon a whole, but as being indeed from Hint, and yet contemplated in individual existence),—say thus: that neither does the Right Hand vary from Him Whose Right Hand It is, in regard to the idea of Its Nature, nor can any other change in It be spoken of besides the dispensation of the Flesh. For verily the Right Hand of God was God Himself; manifested in the flesh, seen through that same flesh by those whose sight was clear; as He did the work of the Father, being, both in fact and in thought, the Right Hand of God, yet being changed, in respect of the veil of the flesh by which He was surrounded, as regarded that which was seen, from that which He was by Nature, as a subject of contemplation. Therefore He says to Philip, who was gazing only at that which was changed, “Look through that which is changed to that which is unchangeable, and if thou seest this, thou hast seen that Father Himself, Whom thou seekest to see; for he that hath seen Me—not Him Who appears in a state of change, but My very self, Who am in the Father—will have seen that Father Himself in Whom I am, because the very same character of Godhead is beheld in both .” If, then, we believe that the immortal and impossible and uncreated Nature came to be in the passible Nature of the creature, and conceive the “change” to consist in this, on what grounds are we charged with saying that He “was emptied to become Himself,” by those who keep prating their own statements about our doctrines? For the participation of the created with the created is no “change of the Right Hand.” To say that the Right Hand of the uncreated Nature is created belongs to Eunomius alone, and to those who adopt such opinions as he holds. For the man with an eye that looks on the truth will discern the Right Hand of the Highest to be such as he sees the Highest to be,—Uncreated of Uncreated, Good of Good, Eternal of Eternal without prejudice to Its eternity by Its being in the Father by way of generation. Thus our accuser has unawares been employing against us reproaches that properly fall upon himself.

But with reference to those who stumble at the idea of “passion,” and on this ground maintain the diversity of the Essences,—arguing that the Father, by reason of the exaltation of His Nature, does not admit passion, and that the Son on the other hand condescended, by reason of defect and divergence, to the partaking of His sufferings,—I wish to add these remarks to what has been already said:—That nothing is truly “passion” which does not tend to sin nor would one strictly call by the name of “passion” the necessary routine of nature, regarding the composite nature as it goes on its course mankind of order and sequence. For the mutual concurrence of heterogeneous elements in the formation of our body is a kind of a combination harmoniously conjoined out of several dissimilar elements; but when, at the due time, the tie is loosed which bound together this concurrence of the elements, the combined nature is once more dissolved into the elements of which it was composed. This then is rather a work than a passion of the nature . For we give the name of “passion” only to that which is opposed to the virtuous unimpassioned state and of this we believe that He Who granted us salvation was at all times devoid, Who “was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin .” Of that, at least, which is truly passion, which is a diseased condition of the will, He was not a partaker; for it says “He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth ”; but the peculiar attributes of our nature, which, by a kind of customary abuse of terms, are called by the same name of “passion,” —of these, we confess, the Lord did partake,—of birth, nourishment, growth, of sleep and toil,and all those natural dispositions which the, soul is wont to experience with regard to bodily inconveniences,—the desire of that which is lacking, when the longing passes from the body to the soul, the sense of pain, the dread of death, and all the like, save only such as, if followed, lead to sin. As, then, when we perceive His power extending through all things in heaven, and air, and earth, and sea, whatever there is in heaven, whatever there is beneath the earth, we believe that He is universally present, and yet do not say that He is any of those things in which He is (for He is not the Heaven, Who has marked it out with His enfolding span, nor is He the earth, Who upholds the circle of the earth, nor yet is He the water, Who encompasses the liquid nature), so neither do we say that in passing through those sufferings of the flesh of which we speak He was “subject to passion,” but, as we say that He is the cause of all things that are, that He holds the universe in His grasp, that He directs all that is in motion and keeps upon a settled foundation all that is stationary, by the unspeakable power of His own majesty, so we say that He was born among us for the cure of the disease of sin, adapting the exercise of His healing power in a manner corresponding to the suffering, applying the healing in that way which He knew to be for the good of that part of the creation which He knew to be in infirmity. And as it was expedient that He should heal the sufferings by touch, we say that He so healed it; yet is He not, because He is the Healer of our infirmity, to be deemed on this account to have been Himself passible. For even in the case of men, ordinary use does not allow us to affirm such a thing. We do not say that one who touches a sick man to heal him is himself partaker of the infirmity, but we say that he does give the sick man the boon of a return to health, and does not partake of the infirmity: for the suffering does not touch him, it is he who touches the disease. Now if he who by his art works any good in men’s bodies is not called dull or feeble, but is called a lover of men and a benefactor and the like, why do they slander the dispensation to usward as being mean and inglorious, and use it to maintain that the essence of the Son is “divergent by way of inferiority,” on the ground that the Nature of the Father is superior to sufferings, while that of the Son is not pure from passion? Why, if the aim of the dispensation of the Incarnation was not that the Son should be subject to suffering, but that He should be manifested as a lover of men, while the Father also is undoubtedly a lover of men, it follows that if one will but regard the aim, the Son is in the same case with the Father. But if it was not the Father Who wrought the destruction of death, marvel not,—for all judgment also He hath committed unto the Son, Himself judging no man ; not doing all things by the Son for the reason that He is unable either to save the lost or judge the sinner, but because He does these things too by His own Power, by which He works all things. Then they who were saved by the Son were saved by the Power of the Father, and they who are judged by Him undergo judgment by the Righteousness of God. For “Christ,” as the Apostle says, “is the Righteousness of God ,” which is revealed by the Gospel; and whether you look at the world as a whole, or at the parts of the world which make up that complete whole, all these are works of the Father, in that they are works of His Power; and thus the word which says both that the Father made all things, and that none of these things that are came into being without the Son, speaks truly on both points; for the operation of the Power bears relation to Him Whose Power It is. Thus, since the Son is the Power of the Father, all the works of the Son are works of the Father. That He entered upon the dispensation of the Passion not by weakness of nature but by the power of His will, one might bring countless passages of the Gospel to show; but these, as the matter is clear, I will pretermit, that my discourse may not be prolonged by dwelling on points that are admitted. If, then, that which comes to pass is evil, we have to separate from that evil not the Father only, but the Son also; but if the saving of them that were lost is good, and if that which took place is not “passion ,” but love of men, why do you alienate from our thanksgiving for our salvation the Father, Who by His own Power, which is Christ, wrought for men their freedom from death?

§4. Then Returning to the Words of Peter, “God Made Him Lord and Christ,” He Skilfully Explains It by Many Arguments, and Her in Shows Eumonius as an Advocate of the Orthodox Doctrine, and Concludes the Book by Showing that the Divine and Human Names are Applied, by Reason of the Commixture, to Either Nature.

But we must return once more to our vehement writer of speeches, and take up again that severe invective of his against ourselves. He makes it a complaint against us that we deny that the Essence of the Son has been made, as contradicting the words of Peter, “He made Him Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye crucified ”; and he is very forcible in his indignation and abuse upon this matter, and moreover maintains certain points by which he thinks that he refutes our doctrine. Let us see, then, the force of his attempts. “Who, pray, ye most reckless of men,” he says, “when he has the form of a servant, takes the form of a servant?” “No reasonable man,” shall be our reply to him, “would use language of this kind, save such as may be entirely alien from the hope of Christians. But to this class you belong, who charge us with recklessness because we do not admit the Creator to be created. For if the Holy Spirit does not lie, when He says by the prophet, ‘All things serve Thee ,’ and the whole creation is in servitude, and the Son is, as you say , created, He is clearly a fellow-servant with all things, being degraded by His partaking of creation to partake also of servitude. And Him Who is in servitude you will surely invest with the servant’s form: for you will not, of course, be ashamed of the aspect of servitude when you acknowledge that He is a servant by nature. Who now is it, I pray, my most keen rhetorician, who transfers the Son from the servile form to another form of a servant? he who claims for Him uncreated I being, and thereby proves that He is no servant, or you, rather, who continually cry that the Son is the servant of the Father, and was actually under His dominion before He took the servant’s form? I ask for no other judges; I leave the vote on these questions in your own hands. For I suppose that no one is so shameless in his dealings with the truth as to oppose acknowledged facts out of sheer impudence. What we have said is clear to any one, that by the peculiar attributes of servitude is marked that which is by nature servile, and to be created is an attribute proper to servitude. Thus one who asserts that He, being a servant, took upon Him our form, is surely the man who transfers the Only-begotten from servitude to servitude.”

He tries, however, to fight against our words, and says, a little further on (for I will pass over at present his intermediate remarks, as they have been more or less fully discussed in my previous arguments), when he charges us with being “bold in saying or thinking things uncontrivable,” and calls us “most miserable ,”—he adds, I say, this:—“For if it is not of the Word Who was in the beginning and was God that the blessed Peter speaks, but of Him Who was ‘seen,’ and Who ‘emptied Himself,’ as Basil says, and if the man Who was ‘seen’ ‘emptied Himself’ to take ‘the form of a servant,’ and He Who ‘emptied Himself’ to take the form of a servant,’ ‘emptied Himself’ to come into being as man, then the man who was ‘seen’ ‘emptied himself,’ to come into being as man.” It may be that the judgment of my readers has immediately detected from the above citation the knavery, and, at the same time, the folly of the argument he maintains: yet a brief refutation of what he says shall be subjoined on our side, not so much to overthrow his blundering sophism, which indeed is overthrown by itself for those who have ears to hear, as to avoid the appearance of passing his allegation by without discussion, under the pretence of contempt for the worthlessness of his argument. Let us accordingly look at the point in this way. What are the Apostle’s words? “Be it known,” he says, “that God made Him Lord and Christ .” Then, as though some one had asked him on whom such a grace was bestowed, he points as it were with his finger to the subject, saying, “this Jesus, Whom ye crucified.” What does Basil say upon this? That the demonstrative word declares that that person was made Christ, Who had been crucified by the hearers;—for he says, “ye crucified,” and it was likely that those who had demanded the murder that was done upon Him were hearers of the speech; for the time from the crucifixion to the discourse of Peter was not long. What, then, does Eunomius advance in answer to this? “If it is not of the Word Who was in the beginning and was God that the blessed Peter speaks, but of Him Who was ‘seen,’ and Who ‘emptied Himself,’ as Basil says, and if the man who was ‘seen’ ‘emptied himself’ to take ‘the form of a servant’”— Hold! who says this, that the man who was seen emptied himself again to take the form of a servant? or who maintains that the suffering of the Cross took place before the manifestation in the flesh? The Cross did not precede the body, nor the body “the form of the servant.” But God is manifested in the flesh, while the flesh that displayed God in itself, after having by itself fulfilled the great mystery of the Death, is transformed by commixture to that which is exalted and Divine, becoming Christ and Lord, being transferred and changed to that which He was, Who manifested Himself in that flesh. But if we should say this, our champion of the truth maintains once more that we say that He Who was shown upon the Cross “emptied Himself” to become another man, putting his sophism together as follows in its wording:—“If,” quoth he, “the man who was ‘seen’ ‘emptied himself’ to take the ‘form of a servant,’ and He Who ‘emptied Himself’ to take the ‘form of a servant,’ ‘emptied Himself’ to come into being as man, then the man who was ‘seen’ ‘emptied himself’ to come into being as man.”

How well he remembers the task before him! how much to the point is the conclusion of his argument! Basil declares that the Apostle said that the man who was “seen” was made Christ and Lord, and this clear and quick-witted over-turner of his statements says, “If Peter does not say that the essence of Him Who was in the beginning was made, the man who was‘seen’ ‘emptied himself’ to take the ‘form of a servant,’ and He Who ‘emptied Himself’ to take the ’form of a servant, emptied Himself to become man.” We are conquered, Eunomius, by this invincible wisdom! The fact that the Apostle’s discourse refers to Him Who was “crucified through weakness ” is forsooth powerfully disproved when we learn that if we believe this to be so, the man who was “seen” again becomes another, “emptying Himself” for another coming into being of man. Will you never cease jesting against what should be secure from such attempts? will you not blush at destroying by such ridiculous sophisms the awe that hedges the Divine mysteries? will you not turn now, if never before, to know that the Only-begotten God, Who is in the bosom of the Father, being Word, and King, and Lord, and all that is exalted in word and thought, needs not to become anything that is good, seeing that He is Himself the fulness of all good things? What then is that, by changing into which He becomes what He was not before? Well, as He Who knew not sin becomes sin , that He may take away the sin of the world, so on the other hand the flesh which received the Lord becomes Christ and Lord, being transformed by the commixture into that which it was not by nature: whereby We learn that neither would God have been manifested in the flesh, had not the Word been made flesh, nor would the human flesh that compassed Him about have been transformed to what is Divine, had not that which was apparent to the senses become Christ and Lord. But they treat the simplicity of what we preach with contempt, who use their syllogisms to trample on the being of God, and desire to show that He Who by creation brought into being all things that are, is Himself a part of creation, and wrest, to assist them in such an effort to establish their blasphemy, the words of Peter, who said to the Jews, “Be it known to all the house of Israel that God made Him Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye crucified .” This is the proof they present for the statement that the essence of the Only-begotten God is created! What? tell me, were the Jews, to whom the words were spoken, in existence before the ages? was the Cross before the world? was Pilate before all creation? was Jesus in existence first, and after that the Word? was the flesh more ancient than the Godhead? did Gabriel bring glad tidings to Mary before the world was? did not the Man that was in Christ take beginning by way of birth in the days of Csar Augustus, while the Word that was God in the beginning is our King, as the prophet testifies, before all ages ? See you not what confusion you bring upon the matter, turning, as the phrase goes, things upside down? It was the fiftieth day after the Passion, when Peter preached his sermon to the Jews and said, “Him Whom ye crucified, God made Christ and Lord.” Do you not mark the order of his saying? which stands first, which second in his words? He did not say, “Him Whom God made Lord, ye crucified,” but, “Whom ye crucified, Him God made Christ and Lord”: so that it is clear from this that Peter is speaking, not of what was before the ages, but of what was after the dispensation.

How comes it, then, that you fail to see that the whole conception of your argument on the subject is being overthrown, and go on making yourself ridiculous with your childish web of sophistry, saying that, if we believe that He who was apparent to the senses has been made by God to be Christ and Lord, it necessarily follows that the Lord once more “emptied Himself” anew to become Man, and underwent a second birth? What advantage does your doctrine get from this? How does what you say show the King of creation to be created? For my own part I assert on the other side that our view is supported by those who contend against us, and that the rhetorician, in his exceeding attention to the matter, has failed to see that in pushing, as he supposed, the argument to an absurdity, he is fighting on the side of those whom he attacks, with the very weapons he uses for their overthrow. For if we are to believe that the change of condition in the case of Jesus was from a lofty state to a lowly one, and if the Divine and uncreated Nature alone transcends the creation, he will, perhaps, when he thoroughly surveys his own argument, come over to the ranks of truth, and agree that the Uncreated came to be in the created, in His love for man. But if he imagines that he demonstrates the created character of the Lord by showing that He, being God, took part in human nature, he will find many such passages to establish the same opinion which carry out their support of his argument in a similar way. For since He was the Word and was God, and “afterwards,” as the prophet says, “was seen upon earth and conversed with men ,” He will hereby be proved to be one of the creatures! And if this is held to be beside the question, similar passages too are not quite akin to the subject. For in sense it is just the same to say that the Word that was in the beginning was manifested to men through the flesh, and to say that being in the form of God He put on the form of a servant: and if one of these statements gives no help for the establishment of his blasphemy, he must needs give up the remaining one also. He is kind enough, however, to advise us to abandon our error, and to point out the truth which He himself maintains. He tells us that the Apostle Peter declares Him to have been made Who was in the beginning the Word and God. Well, if he were making up dreams for our amusement, and giving us information about the prophetic interpretation of the visions of sleep, there might be no risk in allowing him to set forth the riddles of his imagination at his pleasure. But when he tells us that he is explaining the Divine utterances, it is no longer safe for us to leave him to interpret the words as he likes. What does the Scripture say? “God made Lord and Christ this Jesus whom ye crucified .” When everything, then, is found to concur—the demonstrative word denoting Him Who is spoken of by the Name of His Humanity, the charge against those who were stained with blood-guiltiness, the suffering of the Cross—our thought necessarily turns to that which was apparent to the senses. But he asserts that while Peter uses these words it is the pretemporal existence that is indicated by the word “made” . Well, we may safely allow nurses and old wives to jest with children, and to lay down the meaning of dreams as they choose: but when inspired Scripture is set before us for exposition, the great Apostle forbids us to have recourse to old wives’ tattle . When I hear “the Cross” spoken of, I understand the Cross, and when I hear mention of a human name, I understand the nature which that name connotes. So when I hear from Peter that “this” one was made Lord and Christ, I do not doubt that he speaks of Him Who had been before the eyes of men, since the saints agree with one another in this matter as well as in others. For, as he says that He Who was crucified has been made Lord, so Paul also says that He was “highly exalted ,” after the Passion and the Resurrection, not being exalted in so far forth as He is God. For what height is there more sublime than the Divine height, that he should say God was exalted thereunto? But he means that the lowliness of the Humanity was exalted, the word, I suppose, indicating the assimilation and union of the Man Who was assumed to the exalted state of the Divine Nature. And even if one were to allow him licence to misinterpret the Divine utterance, not even so will his argument conclude in accordance with the aim of his heresy. For be it granted that Peter does say of Him Who was in the beginning, “God made Him Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye crucified,” we shall find that even so his blasphemy does not gain any strength against the truth. “God made Him,” he says, “Lord and Christ.” To which of the words are we to refer the word made? with which of those that are employed in this sentence are we to connect the word? There are three before us:—“this,” and “Lord,” and “Christ.” With which of these three will he construct the word “made”? No one is so bold against the truth as to deny that “made” has reference to “Christ” and “Lord”; for Peter says that He, being already whatever He was, was “made Christ and Lord” by the Father.

These words are not mine: they are those of him who fights against the Word. For he says, in the very passage that is before us for examination, exactly thus:—“The blessed Peter speaks of Him Who was in the beginning and was God, and expounds to us that it was He Who became Lord and Christ.” Eunomius, then, says that He Who was whatsoever He was became Lord and Christ, as the history of David tells us that he, being the son of Jesse, and a keeper of the flocks, was anointed to be king: not that the anointing then made him to be a man, but that he, being what he was by his own nature, was transformed from an ordinary man to a king. What follows? Is it thereby the more established that the essence of the Son was made, if, as Eunomius says, God made Him, when He was in the beginning and was God, both Lord and Christ? For Lordship is not a name of His being but of His being in authority, and the appellation of Christ indicates His kingdom, while the idea of His kingdom is one, and that of His Nature another. Suppose that Scripture does say that these things took place with regard to the Son of God. Let us then consider which is the more pious and the more rational view. Which can we allowably say is made partaker of superiority by way of advancement—God or man? Who has so childish a mind as to suppose that the Divinity passes on to perfection by way of addition? But as to the Human Nature, such a supposition is not unreasonable, seeing that the words of the Gospel clearly ascribe to our Lord iincrease in respect of His Humanity: for it says, “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favour .” Which, then, is the more reasonable suggestion to derive from the Apostle’s words?—that He Who was God in the beginning became Lord by way of advancement, or that the lowliness of the Human Nature was raised to the height of majesty as a result of its communion with the Divine? For the prophet David also, speaking in the person of the Lord, says, “I am established as king by Him ,” with a meaning very close to “I was made Christ:” and again, in the person of the Father to the Lord, he says, “Be Thou Lord in the midst of Thine enemies ,” with the same meaning as Peter, “Be Thou made Lord of Thine enemies.” As, then, the establishment of His kingdom does not signify the formation of His essence, but the advance to His dignity, and He Who bids Him “be Lord” does not command that which is non-existent to come into being at that particular time, but gives to Him Who is the rule over those who are disobedient,—so also the blessed Peter, when he says that one has been made Christ (that is, king of all) adds the word “Him” to distinguish the idea both from the essence and from the attributes contemplated in connection with it. For He made Him what has been declared when He already was that which He is. Now if it were allowable to assert of the transcendent Nature that it became anything by way of advancement, as a king from being an ordinary man, or lofty from being lowly, or Lord from being servant, it might be proper to apply Peter’s words to the Only-begotten. But since the Divine Nature, whatever it is believed to be, always remains the same, being above all augmentation and incapable of diminution, we are absolutely compelled to refer his saying to the Humanity. For God the Word is now, and always remains, that which He was in the beginning, always King, always Lord, always God and Most High, not having become any of these things by way of advancement, but being in virtue of His Nature all that He is declared to be, while on the other hand He Who was, by being assumed, elevated from Man to the Divinity, being one thing and becoming another, is strictly and truly said to have become Christ and Lord. For He made Him to be Lord from being a servant, to be King from being a subject, to be Christ from being in subordination. He highly exalted that which was lowly, and gave to Him that had the Human Name that Name which is above every name . And thus came to pass that unspeakable mixture and conjunction of human littleness commingled with Divine greatness, whereby even those names which are great and Divine are properly applied to the Humanity, while on the other hand the Godhead is spoken of by human names . For it is the same Person who both has the Name which is above every name, and is worshipped by all creation in the human Name of Jesus. For he says, “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father .” But enough of these matters.

Book VII

§1. The Seventh Book Shows from Various Statements Made to the Corinthians and to the Hebrews, and from the Words of the Lord, that the Word “Lord” Is Not Expressive of Essence, According to Eunomius’ Exposition, But of Dignity. And After Many Notable Remarks Concerning “The Spirit” And the Lord, He Shows that Eunomius, from His Own Words, is Found to Argue in Favour of Orthodoxy, Though Without Intending It, and to Be Struck by His Own Shafts.

Since, however, Eunomius asserts that the word “Lord” is used in reference to the essence and not to the dignity of the Only-begotten, and cites as a witness to this view the Apostle, when he says to the Corinthians, “Now the Lord is the Spirit ,” it may perhaps be opportune that we should not pass over even this error on his part without correction. He asserts that the word “Lord” is significative of essence, and by way of proof of this assumption he brings up the passage above mentioned. “The Lord,” it says, “is the Spirit .” But our friend who interprets Scripture at his own sweet will calls “Lordship” by the name of “essence,” and thinks to bring his statement to proof by means of the words quoted. Well, if it had been said by Paul, “Now the Lord is essence,” we too would have concurred in his argument. But seeing that the inspired writing on the one side says, “the Lord is the Spirit,” and Eunomius says on the other, “Lordship is essence,” I do not know where he finds support for his statement, unless he is prepared to say again that the word “Spirit” stands in Scripture for “essence.” Let us consider, then, whether the Apostle anywhere, in his use of the term “Spirit,” employs that word to indicate “essence.” He says, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our Spirit ,” and “no one knoweth the things of a man save the Spirit of man which is in him ,” and “the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life ,” and “if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live ,” and “if we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit .” Who indeed could count the utterances of the Apostle on this point? and in them we nowhere find “essence” signified by this word. For he who says that “the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit,” signifies nothing else than the Holy Spirit Which comes to be in the mind of the faithful; for in many other passages of his writings he gives the name of spirit to the mind, on the reception by which of the communion of the Spirit the recipients attain the dignity of adoption. Again, in the passage, “No one knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him,” if “man” is used of the essence, and “spirit” likewise, it will follow from the phrase that the man is maintained to be of two essences. Again, I know not how he who says that “the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life,” sets “essence” in opposition to “letter”; nor, again, how this writer imagines that when Paul says that we ought “through the Spirit” to destroy “the deeds of the body,” he is directing the signification of “spirit” to express “essence”; while as for “living in the Spirit,” and “walking in the Spirit,” this would be quite unintelligible if the sense of the word “Spirit” referred to “essence.” For in what else than in essence do all we who are alive partake of life?—thus when the Apostle is laying down advice for us on this matter that we should “live in essence,” it is as though he said “partake of life by means of yourselves, and not by means of others.” If then it is not possible that this sense can be adopted in any passage, how can Eunomius here once more imitate the interpreters of dreams, and bid us to take “spirit.” for “essence,” to the end that he may arrive in due syllogistic form at his conclusion that the word “Lord” is applied to the essence?—for if “spirit” is “essence” (he argues), and “the Lord is Spirit,” the “Lord” is clearly found to be “essence.” How incontestable is the force of this attempt! How can we evade or resolve this irrefragable necessity of demonstration? The word “Lord,” he says, is spoken of the essence. How does he maintain it? Because the Apostle says, “The Lord is the Spirit.” Well, what has this to do with essence? He gives us the further instruction that “spirit” is put for "essence. These are the arts of his demonstrative method! These are the results of his Aristotelian science! This is why, in your view, we are so much to be pitied, who are uninitiated in this wisdom! and you of course are to be deemed happy, who track out the truth by a method like this—that the Apostle’s meaning was such that we are to suppose “the Spirit” was put by him for the Essence of the Only-begotten!

Then how will you make it fit with what follows? For when Paul says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit,” he goes on to say, “and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” If then “the Lord is the Spirit,” and “Spirit” means “essence,” what are we to understand by “the essence of the essence”? He speaks again of another Spirit of the Lord Who is the Spirit,—that is to say, according to your interpretation, of another essence. Therefore in your view the Apostle, when he writes expressly of “the Lord the Spirit,” and of “the Spirit of the Lord,” means nothing else than an essence of an essence. Well, let Eunomius make what he likes of that which is written; what we understand of the matter is as follows. The Scripture, “given by inspiration of God,” as the Apostle calls it, is the Scripture of the Holy Spirit, and its intention is the profit of men. For “every scripture,” he says, “is given by inspiration of God and is profitable”; and the profit is varied and multiform, as the Apostle says—“for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness .” Such a boon as this, however, is not within any man’s reach to lay hold of, but the Divine intention lies hid under the body of the Scripture, as it were under a veil, some legislative enactment or some historical narrative being cast over the truths that are contemplated by the mind. For this reason, then, the Apostle tells us that those who look upon the body of the Scripture have “a veil upon their heart ,” and are not able to look upon the glory of the spiritual law, being hindered by the veil that has been cast over the face of the law-giver. Wherefore he says, “the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life,” showing that often the obvious interpretation, if it be not taken according to the proper sense, has an effect contrary to that life which is indicated by the Spirit, seeing that this lays down for all men the perfection of virtue in freedom from passion, while the history contained in the writings sometimes embraces the exposition even of facts incongruous, and is understood, so to say, to concur with the passions of our nature, whereto if any one applies himself according to the obvious sense, he will make the Scripture a doctrine of death. Accordingly, he says that over the perceptive powers of the souls of men who handle what is written in too corporeal a manner, the veil is cast; but for those who turn their contemplation to that which is the object of the intelligence, there is revealed, bared, as it were, of a mask, the glory that underlies the letter. And that which is discovered by this more exalted perception he says is the Lord, which is the Spirit. For he says, “when it shall turn to the Lord the veil shall be takenaway: now the Lord is the Spirit .” And in so saying he makes a distinction of contrast between the lordship of the spirit and the bondage of the letter; for as that which gives life is opposed to that which kills, so he contrasts “the Lord” with bondage. And that we may not be under any confusion when we are instructed concerning the Holy Spirit (being led by the word “Lord” to the thought of the Only-begotten), for this reason he guards the word by repetition, both saying that “the Lord is the Spirit,” and making further mention of “the Spirit of the Lord,” that the supremacy of His Nature may be shown by the honour implied in lordship, while at the same time he may avoid confusing in his argument the individuality of His Person. For he who calls Him both “Lord” and “Spirit of the Lord,” teaches us to conceive of Him as a separate individual besides the Only-begotten; just as elsewhere he speaks of “the Spirit of Christ ,” employing fairly and in its mystic sense this very term which is piously employed in the system of doctrine according to the Gospel tradition. Thus we, the “most miserable of all men,” being led onward by the Apostle in the mysteries, pass from the letter that killeth to the Spirit that giveth life, learning from Him Who was in Paradise initiated into the unspeakable mysteries, that all things the Divine Scripture says are utterances of the Holy Spirit. For “well did the Holy Spirit prophesy ,”—this he says to the Jews in Rome, introducing the words of Isaiah; and to the Hebrews, alleging the authority of the Holy Spirit in the words, “wherefore as saith the Holy Spirit ,” he adduces the words of the Psalm which are spoken at length in the person of God; and from the Lord Himself we learn the same thing,—that David declared the heavenly mysteries not “in” himself (that is, not speaking according to human nature). For how could any one, being but man, know the supercelestial converse of the Father with the Son? But being “in the Spirit” he said that the Lord spoke to the Lord those words which He has uttered. For if, He says, “David in the Spirit calls him Lord, how is He then his son ?” Thus it is by the power of the Spirit that the holy men who are under Divine influence are inspired, and every Scripture is for this reason said to be “given by inspiration of God,” because it is the teaching of the Divine afflatus. If the bodily veil of the words were removed, that which remains is Lord and life and Spirit, according to the teaching of the great Paul, and according to the words of the Gospel also. For Paul declares that he who turns from the letter to the Spirit no longer apprehends the bondage that slays, but the Lord which is the life-giving Spirit; and the sublime Gospel says, “the words that I speak are spirit and are life ,” as being divested of the bodily veil. The idea, however, that “the Spirit” is the essence of the Only-begotten, we shall leave to our dreamers: or rather, we shall make use, ex abundanti, of what they say, and arm the truth with the weapons of the adversary. For it is allowable that the Egyptian should be spoiled by the Israelites, and that we should make their wealth an ornament for ourselves. If the essence of the Son is called “Spirit,” and God also is Spirit, (for so the Gospel tells us ), clearly the essence of the Father is called “Spirit” also. But if it is their peculiar argument that things which are introduced by different names are different also in nature, the conclusion surely is, that things which are named alike are not alien one from the other in nature either. Since then, according to their account, the essence of the Father and that of the Son are both called “Spirit,” hereby is clearly proved the absence of any difference in essence. For a little further on Eunomius says:—“Of those essences which are divergent the appellations significant of essence are also surely divergent, but where there is one and the same name, that which is declared by the same appellation will surely be one also”:—so that at all points “He that taketh the wise in their own craftiness ” has turned the long labours of our author, and the infinite toil spent on what he has elaborated, to the establishment of the doctrine which we maintain. For if God is in the Gospel called “Spirit,” and the essence of the Only-begotten is maintained by Eunomius to be “Spirit,” as there is no apparent difference in the one name as compared with the other, neither, surely, will the things signified by the names be mutually different in nature.

And now that I have exposed this futile and pointless sham-argument, it seems to me that I may well pass by without discussion what he next puts together by way of attack upon our master’s statement. For a sufficient proof of the folly of his remarks is to be found in his actual argument, which of itself proclaims aloud its feebleness. To be entangled in a contest with such things as this is like trampling on the slain. For when he sets forth with much confidence some passage from our master, and treats it with preliminary slander and contempt, and promises that he will show it to be worth nothing at all, he meets with the same fortune as befalls small children, to whom their imperfect and immature intelligence, and the untrained condition of their perceptive faculties, do not give an accurate understanding of what they see. Thus they often imagine that the stars are but a little way above their heads, and pelt them with clods when they appear, in their childish folly; and then, when the clod falls, they clap their hands and laugh and brag to their comrades as if their throw had reached the stars themselves. Such is the man who casts at the truth with his childish missile, who sets forth like the stars those splendid sayings of our master, and then hurls from the ground,—from his downtrodden and grovelling understanding,—his earthy and unstable arguments. And these, when they have gone so high that they have no place to fall from, turn back again of themselves by their own weight . Now the passage of the great Basil is worded as follows :—

“Yet what sane man would agree with the statement that of those things of which the names are different the essences must needs be divergent also? For the appellations of Peter and Paul, and, generally speaking, of men, are different, while the essence of all is one: wherefore, in most respects we are mutually identical, and differ one from another only in those special properties which are observed in individuals: and hence also appellations are not indicative of essence, but of the properties which mark the particular individual. Thus, when we hear of Peter, we do not by the name understand the essence (and by ‘essence’ I here mean the material substratum), but we are impressed with the conception of the properties which we contemplate in him.” These are the great man’s words. And what skill he who disputes this statement displays against us, we learn,—any one, that is, who has leisure for wasting time on unprofitable matters,—from the actual composition of Eunomius.

From his writings, I say, for I do not like to insert in my own work the nauseous stuff our rhetorician utters, or to display his ignorance and folly to contempt in the midst of my own arguments. He goes on with a sort of eulogy upon the class of significant words which express the subject, and, in his accustomed style, patches and sticks together the cast-off rags of phrases: poor Isocrates is nibbled at once more, and shorn of words and figures to make out the point proposed,—here and there even the Hebrew Philo receives the same treatment, and makes him a contribution of phrases from his own labours,—yet not even thus is this much-stitched and many-coloured web of words finished off, but every assault, every defence of his conceptions, all his artistic preparation, spontaneously collapses, and, as commonly happens with the bubbles when the drops, borne down from above through a body of waters against some obstacle, produce those foamy swellings which, as soon as they gather, immediately dissolve, and leave upon the water no trace of their own formation—such are the air-bubbles of our author’s thoughts, vanishing without a touch at the moment they are put forth. For after all these irrefragable statements, and the dreamy philosophizing wherein he asserts that the distinct character of the essence is apprehended by the divergence of names, as some mass of foam borne downstream breaks up when it comes into contact with any more solid body, so his argument, following its own spontaneous course, and coming unexpectedly into collision with the truth, disperses into nothingness its unsubstantial and bubble-like fabric of falsehood. For he speaks in these words:—“Who is so foolish and so far removed from the constitution of men, as, in discoursing of men to speak of one as a man, and, calling another a horse, so to compare them?” I would answer him, —“You are right in calling any one foolish who makes such blunders in the use of names. And I will employ for the support of the truth the testimony you yourself give. For if it is a piece of extreme folly to call one a horse and another a man, supposing both were really men, it is surely a piece of equal stupidity, when the Father is confessed to be God, and the Son is confessed to be God, to call the one ‘created’ and the other ‘uncreated,’ since, as in the other case humanity, so in this case the Godhead does not admit a change of name to that expressive of another kind. For what the irrational is with respect to man, that also the creature is with respect to the Godhead, being equally unable to receive the same name with the nature that is superior to it. And as it is not possible to apply the same definition to the rational animal and the quadruped alike (for each is naturally differentiated by its special property from the other), so neither can you express by the same terms the created and the uncreated essence, seeing that those attributes which are predicated of the latter essence are not discoverable in the former. For as rationality is not discoverable in a horse, nor solidity of hoofs in a man, so neither is Godhead discoverable in the creature, nor the attribute of being created in the Godhead: but if He be God He is certainly not created, and if He be created He is not God; unless , of course, one were to apply by some misuse or customary mode of expression the mere name of Godhead, as some horses have men’s names given them by their owners; yet neither is the horse a man, though he be called by a human name, nor is the created being God, even though some claim for him the name of Godhead, and give him the benefit of the empty sound of a dissyllable.” Since, then, Eunomius’ heretical statement is found spontaneously to fall in with the truth, let him take his own advice and stand by his own words, and by no means retract his own utterances, but consider that the man is really foolish and stupid who names the subject not according as it is, but says “horse” for “man.” and “sea” for “sky,” and “creature” for “God.” And let no one think it unreasonable that the creature should be set in opposition to God, but have regard to the prophets and to the Apostles. For the prophet says in the person of the Father, “My Hand made all these things” , meaning by “Hand,” in his dark saying, the power of the Only-begotten. Now the Apostle says that all things are of the Father, and that all things are by the Son , and the prophetic spirit in a way agrees with the Apostolic teaching, which itself also is given through the Spirit. For in the one passage, the prophet, when he says that all things are the work of the Hand of Him Who is over all, sets forth the nature of those things which have come into being in its relation to Him Who made them, while He Who made them is God over all, Who has the Hand, and by It makes all things. And again, in the other passage, the Apostle makes the same division of entities, making all things depend upon their productive cause, yet not reckoning in the number of “all things” that which produces them: so that we are hereby taught the difference of nature between the created and the uncreated, and it is shown that, in its own nature, that which makes is one thing and that which is produced is another. Since, then, all things are of God, and the Son is God, the creation is properly opposed to the Godhead; while, since the Only-begotten is something else than the nature of the universe (seeing that not even those who fight against the truth contradict this), it follows of necessity that the Son also is equally opposed to the creation, unless the words of the saints are untrue which testify that by Him all things were made.

§2. He Then Declares that the Close Relation Between Names and Things is Immutable, and Thereafter Proceeds Accordingly, in the Most Excellent Manner, with His Discourse Concerning “Generated” And “Ungenerate.”

Now seeing that the Only-begotten is in the Divine Scriptures proclaimed to be God, let Eunomius consider his own argument, and condemn for utter folly the man who parts the Divine into created and uncreated, as he does him who divides “man” into “horse” and “man.” For he himself says, a little further on, after his intermediate nonsense, “the close, relation of names to things is immutable,” where he himself by this statement assents to the fixed character of the true connection of appellations with their subject. If, then, the name of Godhead is properly employed in close connection with the Only-begotten God (and Eunomius, though he may desire to be out of harmony with us, will surely concede that the Scripture does not lie, and that the name of the Godhead is not inharmoniously attributed to the Only-begotten), let him persuade himself by his own reasoning that if “the close relation of names to things is immutable,” and the Lord is called by the name of “God,” he cannot apprehend any difference in respect of the conception of Godhead between the Father and the Son, seeing that this name is common to both,—or rather not this name only, but there is a long list of names in which the Son shares, without divergence of meaning, the appellations of the Father,—“good,” “incorruptible,” “just,” “judge,” “long-suffering,” “merciful,” “eternal,” “everlasting,” all that indicate the expression of majesty of nature and power,—without any reservation being made in His case in any of the names in regard of the exalted nature of the conception. But Eunomius passes by, as it were with closed eye, the number, great as it is, of the Divine appellations, and looks only to one point, his “generate and ungenerate,”—trusting to a slight and weak cord his doctrine, tossed and driven as it is by the blasts of error.

He asserts that “no man who has any regard for the truth either calls any generated thing ‘ungenerate,’ or calls God Who is over all ‘Son’ or ‘generate.’” This statement needs no further arguments on our part for its refutation. For he does not shelter his craft with any veils, as his wont is, but treats the inversion of his absurd statement as equivalent , while he says that neither is any generated thing spoken of as “ungenerate,” nor is God Who is over all called “Son” or “generate,” without making any special distinction for the Only-begotten Godhead of the Son as compared with the rest of the “generated,” but makes his opposition of “all things that have come into being” to “God” without discrimination, not excepting the Son from “all things.” And in the inversion of his absurdities he clearly separates, forsooth, the Son from the Divine Nature, when he says that neither is any generated thing spoken of as “ungenerate,” nor is God called “Son” or “generate,” and manifestly reveals by this contradistinction the horrid character of his blasphemy. For when he has distinguished the “things that have come into being” from the “ungenerate,” he goes on to say, in that antistrophal induction of his, that it is impossible to call (not the “unbegotten,” but) “God,” “Son” or “generate,” trying by these words to show that which is not ungenerate is not God, and that the Only-begotten God is, by the fact of being begotten, as far removed from being God as the ungenerate is from being generated in fact or in name. For it is not in ignorance of the consequence of his argument that he makes an inversion of the terms employed thus inharmonious and incongruous: it is in his assault on the doctrine of orthodoxy that he opposes “the Godhead” to “the generate”—and this is the point he tries to establish by his words, that which is not ungenerate is not God. What was the true sequence of his argument? that having said “no generated thing is ungenerate,” he should proceed with the inference, “nor, if anything is naturally ungenerate, can it be generate.” Such a statement at once contains truth and avoids blasphemy. But now by his premise that no generated thing is ungenerate, and his inference that God is not generated, he clearly shuts out the Only-begotten God from being God, laying down that because He is not ungenerate, neither is He God. Do we then need any further proofs to expose this monstrous blasphemy? Is not this enough by itself to serve for a record against the adversary of Christ, who by the arguments cited maintains that the Word, Who in the beginning was God, is not God? What need is there to engage further with such men as this? For we do not entangle ourselves in controversy with those who busy themselves with idols and with the blood that is shed upon their altars, not that we acquiesce in the destruction of those who are besotted about idols, but because their disease is too strong for our treatment. Thus, just as the fact itself declares idolatry, and the evil that men do boldly and arrogantly anticipates the reproach of those who accuse it, so here too I think that the advocates of orthodoxy should keep silence towards one who openly proclaims his impiety to his own discredit, just as medicine also stands powerless in the case of a cancerous complaint, because the disease is too strong for the art to deal with.

§3. Thereafter He Discusses the Divergence of Names and of Things, Speaking, of that Which is Ungenerate as Without a Cause, and of that Which is Non-Existent, as the Scindapsus, Minotaur, Blityri, Cyclops, Scylla, Which Never Were Generated at All, and Shows that Things Which are Essentially Different, are Mutually Destructive, as Fire of Water, and the Rest in Their Several Relations. But in the Case of the Father and the Son, as Essence is Common, and the Properties Reciprocally Interchangeable, No Injury Results to the Nature.

Since, however, after the passage cited above, he professes that he will allege something stronger still, let us examine this also, as well as the passage cited, lest we should seem to be withdrawing our opposition in face of an overwhelming force. “If, however,” he says, “I am to abandon all these positions, and fall back upon my stronger argument, I would say this, that even if all the terms that he advances by way of refutation were established, our statement will none the less be manifestly shown to be true. If, as will be admitted, the divergence of the names which are significant of properties marks the divergence of the things, it is surely necessary to allow that with the divergence of the names significant of essence is also marked the divergence of the essences. And this would be found to hold good in all cases, I mean in the case of essences, energies, colours, figures, and other qualities. For we denote by divergent appellations the different essences, fire and water, air and earth, cold and heat, white and black, triangle and circle. Why need we mention the intelligible essences, in enumerating which the Apostle marks, by difference of names, the divergence of essence?”

Who would not be dismayed at this irresistible power of attack? The argument transcends the promise, the experience is more terrible than the threat. “I will come,” he says, “to my stronger argument.” What is it? That as the differences of properties are recognized by those names which signify the special attributes, we must of course, he says, allow that differences of essence are also expressed by divergence of names. What then are these appellations of essences by which we learn the divergence of Nature between the Father and the son? He talks of fire and water, air and earth, cold and heat, white and black, triangle and circle. His illustrations have won him the day: his argument carries all before it: I cannot contradict the statement that those names which are entirely incommunicable indicate difference of natures. But our man of keen and quick-sighted intellect has just missed seeing these points:—that in this case the Father is God and the Son is God; that “just,” and “incorruptible,” and all those names which belong to the Divine Nature, are used equally of the Father and of the Son; and thus, if the divergent character of appellations indicates difference of natures, the community of names will surely show the common character of the essence. And if we must agree that the Divine essence is to be expressed by names , it would behove us to apply to that Nature these lofty and Divine names rather than the terminology of “generate” and “ungenerate,” because “good” and “incorruptible,” “just” and “wise,” and all such terms as these are strictly applicable only to that Nature which passes all understanding, whereas “generated” exhibits community of name with even the inferior forms of the lower creation. For we call a dog, and a frog, and all things that come into the world by way of generation, “generated.” And moreover, the term “ungenerate” is not only employed of that which exists without a cause, but has also a proper application to that which is nonexistent. The Scindapsus is called ungenerate, the Blityri is ungenerate, the Minotaur is ungenerate, the Cyclops, Scylla, the Chimaera are ungenerate, not in the sense of existing without generation, but in the sense of never having come into being at all. If, then, the names more peculiarly Divine are common to the Son with the Father, and if it is the others, those which are equivocally employed either of the non-existent or of the lower animals—if it is these, I say, which are divergent, let his “generate and ungenerate” be so: Eunomius’ powerful argument against us itself upholds the cause of truth in testifying that there is no divergence in respect of nature, because no divergence can be perceived in the names . But if he asserts the difference of essence to exist between the “generate” and the “ungenerate,” as it does between fire and water, and is of opinion that the names, like those which he has mentioned in his examples, are in the same mutual relation as “fire” and “water,” the horrid character of his blasphemy will here again be brought to light, even if we hold our peace. For fire and water have a nature mutually destructive, and each is destroyed, if it comes to be in the other, by the prevalence of the more powerful element. If, then, he lays down the doctrine that the Nature of the Ungenerate differs thus from that of the Only-begotten, it is surely clear that he logically makes this destructive opposition to be involved in the divergence of their essences, so that their nature will be, by this reasoning, incompatible and incommunicable, and the one would be consumed by the other, if both should be found to be mutually inclusive or co-existent.

How then is the Son “in the Father” without being destroyed, and how does the Father, coming to be “in the Son,” remain continually unconsumed, if, as Eunomius says, the special attribute of fire, as compared with water, is maintained in the relation of the Generate to the Ungenerate? Nor does their definition regard communion as existing between earth and air, for the former is stable, solid, resistent, of downward tendency and heavy, while air has a nature made up of the contrary attributes. So white and black are found in opposition among colours, and men are agreed that the circle is not the same with the triangle, for each, according to the definition of its figure, is precisely that which the other is not. But I am unable to discover where he sees the opposition in the case of God the Father and God the Only-begotten Son. One goodness, wisdom, justice, providence, power, incorruptibility,—all other attributes of exalted significance are similarly predicated of each, and the one has in a certain sense His strength in the other; for on the one hand the Father makes all things through the Son, and on the other hand the Only-begotten works all in Himself, being the Power of the Father. Of what avail, then, are fire and water to show essential diversity in the Father and the Son? He calls us, moreover, “rash” for instancing the unity of nature and difference of persons of Peter and Paul, and says we are guilty of gross recklessness, if we apply our argument to the contemplation of the objects of pure reason by the aid of material examples. Fitly, fitly indeed, does the corrector of our errors reprove us for rashness in interpreting the Divine Nature by material illustrations! Why then, deliberate and circumspect sir, do you talk about the elements? Is earth immaterial, fire an object of pure reason, water incorporeal, air beyond the perception of the senses? Is your mind so well directed to its aim, are you so keen-sighted in all directions in your promulgation of this argument, that your adversaries cannot lay hold of, that you do not see in yourself the faults you blame in those you are accusing? Or are we to make concessions to you when you are establishing the diversity of essence by material aid, and to be ourselves rejected when we point out the kindred character of the Nature by means of examples within our compass?

§4. He Says that All Things that are in Creation Have Been Named by Man, If as is the Case, They are Called Differently by Every Nation, as Also the Appellation of “Ungenerate” Is Conferred by Us: But that the Proper Appellation of the Divine Essence Itself Which Expresses the Divine Nature, Either Does Not Exist at All, or is Unknown to Us.

But Peter and Paul, he says, were named by men, and hence it comes that it is possible in their case to change the appellations. Why, what existing thing has not been named by men? I call you to testify on behalf of my argument. For if you make change of names a sign of things having been named by men, you will thereby surely allow that every name has been imposed upon things by us, since the same appellations of objects have not obtained universally. For as in the case of Paul who was once Saul, and of Peter who was formerly Simon, so earth and sky and air and sea and all the parts of the creation have not been named alike by all, but are named in one way by the Hebrews, and in another way by us, and are denoted by every nation by different names. If then Eunomius’ argument is valid when he maintains that it was for this reason, to wit, that their names had been imposed by men, that Peter and Paul were named afresh, our teaching will surely be valid also, starting as it does from like premises, which says that all things are named by us, on the ground that their appellations vary according to the distinctions of nations. Now if all things are so, surely the Generate and the Ungenerate are not exceptions, for even they are among the things that change their name. For when we gather, as it were, into the form of a name the conception of any subject that arises in us, we declare our concept by words that vary at different times, not making, but signifying, the thing by the name we give it. For the things remain in themselves as they naturally are, while the mind, touching on existing things, reveals its thought by such words as are available. And just as the essence of Peter was not changed with the change of his name, so neither is any other of the things we contemplate changed in the process of mutation of names. And for this reason we say that the term “Ungenerate” was applied by us to the true and first Father Who is the Cause of all, and that no harm would result as regards the signifying of the Subject, if we were to acknowledge the same concept under another name. For it is allowable instead of speaking of Him as “Ungenerate,” to call Him the “First Cause” or “Father of the Only-begotten,” or to speak of Him as “existing without cause,” and many such appellations which lead to the same thought; so that Eunomius confirms our doctrines by the very arguments in which he makes complaint against us, because we know no name significant of the Divine Nature. We are taught the fact of Its existence, while we assert that an appellation of such force as to include the unspeakable and infinite Nature, either does not exist at all, or at any rate is unknown to us. Let him then leave his accustomed language of fable, and show us the names which signify the essences, and then proceed further to divide the subject by the divergence of their names. But so long as the saying of the Scripture is true that Abraham and Moses were not capable of the knowledge of the Name, and that “no man hath seen God at any time ,” and that “no man hath seen Him, nor can see ,” and that the light around Him is unapproachable , and “there is no end of His greatness ”;—so long as we say and believe these things, how like is an argument that promises any comprehension and expression of the infinite Nature, by means of the significance of names; to one who thinks that he can enclose the whole sea in his own hand! for as the hollow of one’s hand is to the whole deep, so is all the power of language in comparison with that Nature which is unspeakable and incomprehensible.

§5. After Much Discourse Concerning the Actually Existent, and Ungenerate and Good, and Upon the Consubstantiality of the Heavenly Powers, Showing the Uncharted Character of Their Essence, Yet the Difference of Their Ranks He Ends the Book.

Now in saying these things we do not intend to deny that the Father exists without generation, and we have no intention of refusing to agree to the statement that the Only-begotten God is generated;—on the contrary the latter has been generated, the former has not been generated. But what He is, in His own Nature, Who exists apart from generation, and what He is, Who is believed to have been generated, we do not learn from the signification of “having been generated,” and “not having been generated.” For when we say “this person was generated” (or “was not generated”), we are impressed with a two-fold thought, having our eyes turned to the subject by the demonstrative part of the phrase, and learning that which is contemplated in the subject by the words “was generated” or “was not generated,”—as it is one thing to think of that which is, and another to think of what we contemplate in that which is. But, moreover, the word “is” is surely understood with every name that is used concerning the Divine Nature,—as “just,” “incorruptible,” “immortal,” and “ungenerate,” and whatever else is said of Him; even if this word does not happen to occur in the phrase, yet the thought both of the speaker and the hearer surely makes the name attach to “is,” so that if this word were not added, the appellation would be uttered in vain. For instance (for it is better to present an argument by way of illustration), when David says, “God, a righteous judge, strong and patient ,” if “is” were not understood with each of the epithets included in the phrase, the enumerations of the appellations will seem purposeless and unreal, not having any subject to rest upon; but when “is” is understood with each of the names, what is said will clearly be of force, being contemplated in reference to that which is. As, then, when we say “He is a judge,” we conceive concerning Him some operation of judgment, and by the “is” carry our minds to the subject, and are hereby clearly taught not to suppose that the account of His being is the same with the action, so also as a result of saying, “He is generated (or ungenerate),” we divide our thought into a double conception, by “is” understanding the subject, and by “generated,” or “ungenerate,” apprehending that which belongs to the subject. As, then, when we are taught by David that God is “a judge,” or “patient,” we do not learn the Divine essence, but one of the attributes which are contemplated in it, so in this case too when we hear of His being not generated, we do not by this negative predication understand the subject, but are guided as to what we must not think concerning the subject, while what He essentially is remains as much as ever unexplained. So too, when Holy Scripture predicates the other Divine names of Him Who is, and delivers to Moses the Being without a name, it is for him who discloses the Nature of that Being, not to rehearse the attributes of the Being, but by his words to make manifest to us its actual Nature. For every name which you may use is an attribute of the Being, but is not the Being,—“good,” “ungenerate,” “incorruptible,”—but to each of these “is” does not fail to be supplied. Any one, then, who undertakes to give the account of this good Being, of this ungenerate Being, as He is, would speak in vain, if he rehearsed the attributes contemplated in Him, and were silent as to that essence which he undertakes by his words to explain. To be without generation is one of the attributes contemplated in the Being, but the definition of “Being” is one thing, and that of “being in some particular way” is another; and this has so far remained untold and unexplained by the passages cited. Let him then first disclose to us the names of the essence, and then divide the Nature by the divergence of the appellations;—so long as what we require remains unexplained, it is in vain that he employs his scientific skill upon names, seeing that the names have no separate existence.

Such then is Eunomius’ stronger handle against the truth, while we pass by in silence many views which are to be found in this part of his composition; for it seems to me right that those who run in this armed race against the enemies of the truth should arm themselves against those who are fairly fenced about with the plausibility of falsehood, and not defile their argument with such conceptions as are already dead and of offensive odour. His supposition that whatever things are united in the idea of their essence must needs exist corporeally and be joined to corruption (for this he says in this part of his work), I shall willingly pass by like some cadaverous odour, since I think every reasonable man will perceive how dead and corrupt such an argument is. For who knows not that the multitude of human souls is countless, yet one essence underlies them all, and the consubstantial substratum in them is alien from bodily corruption? so that even children can plainly see the argument that bodies are corrupted and dissolved, not because they have the same essence one with another, but because of their possessing a compound nature. The idea of the compound nature is one, that of the common nature of their essence is another, so that it is true to say, “corruptible bodies are of one essence,” but the converse statement is not true at all, if it be anything like, “this consubstantial nature is also surely corruptible,” as is shown in the case of the souls which have one essence, while yet corruption does not attach to them in virtue of the community of essence. And the account given of the souls might properly be applied to every intellectual existence which we contemplate in creation. For the words brought together by Paul do not signify, as Eunomius will havethem do, some mutually divergent natures of the supra-mundane powers; on the contrary, the sense of the names clearly indicates that he is mentioning in his argument, not diversities of natures, but the varied peculiarities of the operations of the heavenly host: for there are, he says, “principalities,” and “thrones,” and “powers,” and “mights,” and “dominions .” Now these names are such as to make it at once clear to every one that their significance is arranged in regard to some operation. For to rule, and to exercise power and dominion, and to be the throne of some one,—all these conceptions would not be held by any one versed in argument to apply to diversities of essence, since it is clearly operation that is signified by every one of the names: so that any one who says that diversities of nature are signified by the names rehearsed by Paul deceives himself, “understanding,” as the Apostle says, “neither what he says, nor whereof he affirms ,” since the sense of the names clearly shows that the Apostle recognizes in the intelligible powers distinctions of certain ranks, but does not by these names indicate varieties of essences.

Book VIII

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