But what need is there in our discourse to reveal his hidden deceit by mere guesses at his intention, and possibly to give our hearers occasions for objection, on the ground that we make these charges against our enemies untruly? For lo, he sets forth to us his blasphemy in its nakedness, not hiding his guile by any veil, but speaking boldly in his absurdities with unrestrained voice. What he has written runs thus:—“We, for our part,” he says, “as we find nothing else besides the essence of the Son which admits of the generation, are of opinion that we must assign the appellations to the essence itself, or else we speak of ‘Son’ and ‘begotten’ to no purpose, and as a mere verbal matter, if we are really to separate them from the essence; starting from these names, we also confidently maintain that the essences are variant from each other.”
There is no need, I imagine, that the absurdity here laid down should be refuted by arguments from us. The mere reading of what he has written is enough to pillory his blasphemy. But let us thus examine it. He says that the essences of the Father and the Son are “variant.” What is meant by “variant”? Let us first of all examine the force of the term as it is applied by itself’, that by the interpretation of the word its blasphemous character may be more clearly revealed. The term “variance” is used, in the inexact sense sanctioned by custom, of bodies, when, by palsy or any other disease, any limb is perverted from its natural co-ordination. For we speak, comparing the state of suffering with that of health, of the condition of one who has been subjected to a change for the worse, as being a “variation” from his usual health; and in the case of those who differ in respect of virtue and vice, comparing the licentious life with that of purity and temperance, or the unjust life with that of justice, or the life which is passionate, warlike, and prodigal of anger, with that which is mild and 666 The whole passage is rather obscure, and Oehler’s punctuation renders it perhaps more obscure than that which is here adopted. The argument seems to be something like this:—“The generated essence is not compared with any of the things made by it, or after it, because being only-begotten it leaves no room for a common basis of comparison with anything else, and the operation of its maker is also peculiar to itself (since it is immediate, the operation in the case of other things being mediate). The essence of the Son, then, being so far isolated, it is to it that the appellations of yévvnua, moinua, and xtioua are to be assigned; otherwise the terms ‘Son’ and ‘Only-begotten’ are meaningless. Therefore the Son, being in essence a notnya or Ktioua, is alien from the Father Who made or created Him.” The word napnAAdxGan, used to express the difference of essence between the Father and the Son, is one for which it is hard to find an equivalent which shall suit all the cases of the use of the word afterwards instanced: the idea of “variation,” however, seems to attach to all these cases, and the verb has been translated accordingly.
667 Following Oehler’s suggestion and reading ég’ Eavtijc.
He proceeds to show that there is no “variance” in the essence of the Father...
peaceful—and generally all that is reproached with vice, as compared with what is more excellent, is said to exhibit “variance” from it, because the marks observed in both—in the good, I mean, and the inferior—do not mutually agree. Again, we say that those qualities observed in the elements are “at variance” which are mutually opposed as contraries, having a power reciprocally destructive, as heat and cold, or dryness and moisture, or, generally, anything that is opposed to another as a contrary; and the absence of union in these we express by the term “variation”; and generally everything which is out of harmony with another in their observed characteristics, is said to be “at variance” with it, as health with disease, life with death, war with peace, virtue with vice, and all similar cases.
Now that we have thus analyzed these expressions, let us also consider in regard to our author in what sense he says that the essences of the Father and the Son are “variant from each other.” What does he mean by it? Is it in the sense that the Father is according to nature, while the Son “varies” from that nature? Or does he express by this word the perversion of virtue, separating the evil from the more excellent by the name of “variation,” so as to regard the one essence in a good, the other in a contrary aspect? Or does he assert that one Divine essence also is variant from another, in the manner of the opposition of the elements? or as war stands to peace, and life to death, does he also perceive in the essences the conflict which so exists among all such things, so that they cannot unite one with another, because the mixture of contraries exerts upon the things mingled a consuming force, as the wisdom of the Proverbs saith of such a doctrine, that water and fire never say “It is enough,” expressing enigmatically the nature of contraries of equal force and equal balance, and their mutual destruction? Or is it in none of these ways that he sees “variance” in the essences? Let him tell us, then, what he conceives besides these. He could not say, I take it, even if he were to repeat his wonted phrase°™ , “The Son is variant from Him Who begat Him”; for thereby the absurdity of his statements is yet more clearly shown. For what mutual relation is so closely and concordantly engrafted and fitted together as that meaning of relation to the Father expressed by the word “Son”? And a proof of this is that even if both of these names be not spoken, that which is omitted is connoted by the one that is uttered, so closely is the one implied in the other, and concordant with it: and both of them are so discerned in the 668 Cf. Prov. xxx. 15 (LXX.).
669 The sense given would perhaps be clearer if we were to read (as Gulonius seems to have done) dovvrjOn for ovvOn. This might be interpreted, “He could not say, I take it, even if he uses the words in an unwonted sense, that the Son is at variance with Him Who begat Him.” The ovvrj8n would thus be the senses already considered and set aside: and the point would be that such a statement could not be made without manifest absurdity, even if some out-of-the-way sense were attached to the words. As the passage stands, it must mean that even if Eunomius repeats his wonted phrase, that can suggest no other sense of “variance” than those enumerated.
He proceeds to show that there is no “variance” in the essence of the Father...
one that one cannot be conceived without the other. Now that which is “at variance” is surely so conceived and so called, in opposition to that which is “in harmony,” as the plumbline is in harmony with the straight line, while that which is crooked, when set beside that which is straight, does not harmonize with it. Musicians also are wont to call the agreement of notes “harmony,” and that which is out of tune and discordant “inharmonious.” To speak of things as at “variance,” then, is the same as to speak of them as “out of harmony.” If, therefore, the nature of the Only-begotten God is at “variance,” to use the heretical phrase, with the essence of the Father, it is surely not in harmony with it: and inharmoniousness cannot exist where there is no possibility of harmony°””, For the case is as when, the figure in the wax and in the graying of the signet being one, the wax that has been stamped by the signet, when it is fitted again to the latter, makes the impression on itself accord with that which surrounds it, filling up the hollows and accommodating the projections of the engraving with its own patterns: but if some strange and different pattern is fitted to the engraving of the signet, it makes its own form rough and confused, by rubbing off its figure on an engraved surface that does not correspond with it. But He Who is “in the form of God®’” has been formed by no impression different from the Father, seeing that He is “the express image” of the Father’s Person”’“, while the “form of God” is surely the same thing as His essence.
For as, “being made in the form of a servant’ °,” He was formed in the essence of a servant, not taking upon Him the form merely, apart from the essence, but the essence is involved in the sense of “form,” so, surely, he who says that He is “in the form of God” signified essence by “form.” If, therefore, He is “in the form of God,” and being in the Father is sealed with the Father’s glory, (as the word of the Gospel declares, which saith, “Him hath God the d°’4»__whence also “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father®””,”) then “the image of goodness” and “the brightness of glory,” and all other similar titles, testify that the Father seale essence of the Son is not out of harmony with the Father. Thus by the text cited is shown the insubstantial character of the adversaries’ blasphemy. For if things at “variance” are not in harmony, and He Who is sealed by the Father, and displays the Father in Himself, both being in the Father, and having the Father in Himself®”®, shows in all points His close relation and harmony, then the absurdity of the opposing views is hereby overwhelmingly shown.
670 The reading of Oehler is here followed: but the sense of the clause is not clear either in his text or in that of the Paris editions.
He proceeds to show that there is no “variance” in the essence of the Father...
For as that which is at “variance” was shown to be out of harmony, so conversely that which is harmonious is surely confessed beyond dispute not to be at “variance.” For as that which is at “variance” is not harmonious, so the harmonious is not at “variance.” Moreover, he who says that the nature of the Only-begotten is at “variance” with the good essence of the Father, clearly has in view variation in the good itself. But as for what that is which is at variance with the good—“O ye simple,” as the Proverb saith, “understand his craftiness®’’!”
677 Prov. viii. 5 (LXX.).
Then, distinguishing between essence and generation, he declares the empty...§9. Then, distinguishing between essence and generation, he declares the empty and frivolous language of Eunomius to be like a rattle. He proceeds to show that the language used by the great Basil on the subject of the generation of the Only-begotten has been grievously slandered by Eunomius, and so ends the book.
I will pass by these matters, however, as the absurdity involved is evident; let us examine what precedes. He says that nothing else is found, “besides the essence of the Son, which admits of the generation.” What does he mean when he says this? He distinguishes two names from each other, and separating by his discourse the things signified by them, he sets each of them individually apart by itself. “The generation” is one name, and “the essence” is another. The essence, he tells us, “admits of the generation,” being therefore of course something distinct from the generation. For if the generation were the essence (which is the very thing he is constantly declaring), so that the two appellations are equivalent in sense, he would not have said that the essence “admits of the generation”: for that would amount to saying that the essence admits of the essence, or the generation the generation,—if, that is, the generation were the same thing as the essence. He understands, then, the generation to be one thing, and the essence to be another, which “admits of generation”: for that which is taken cannot be the same with that which admits it. Well, this is what the sage and systematic statement of our author says: but as to whether there is any sense in his words, let him consider who is expert in judging. I will resume his actual words.
He says that he finds “nothing else besides the essence of the Son which admits of the generation”; that there is no sense in his words however, is clear to every one who hears his statement at all: the task which remains seems to be to bring to light the blasphemy which he is trying to construct by aid of these meaningless words. For he desires, even if he cannot effect his purpose, to produce in his hearers by this slackness of expression, the notion that the essence of the Son is the result of construction: but he calls its construction “generation,” decking out his horrible blasphemy with the fairest phrase, that if “construction” is the meaning conveyed by the word “generation,” the idea of the creation of the Lord may receive a ready assent. He says, then, that the essence “admits of generation,” so that every construction may be viewed, as it were, in some subject matter. For no one would say that that is constructed which has no existence, so extending “making” in his discourse, as if it were some constructed fabric, to the nature of the Only-begotten God®”®. “If, then,” he says, “it 678 This whole passage, as it stands in Oehler’s text, (which has here been followed without alteration,) is obscure: the connection between the clauses themselves is by no means clear; and the general meaning of the passage, in view of the succeeding sentences, seems doubtful. For it seems here to be alleged that Eunomius considered the katackevn to imply the previous existence of some material, so to say, which was moulded by generation—on the ground that no one would say that the essence, or anything else, was constructed without being existent. On the other hand it is immediately urged that this is just what would be said of all created things.
Then, distinguishing between essence and generation, he declares the empty...
admits of this generation,’—wishing to convey some such meaning as this, that it would not have been, had it not been constructed. But what else is there among the things we contemplate in the creation which is without being made? Heaven, earth, air, sea, everything whatever that is, surely is by being made. How, then, comes it that he considered it a peculiarity in the nature of the Only begotten, that it “admits generation” (for this is his name for making) “into its actual essence,” as though the humble-bee or the gnat did not admit generation into itself®”’, but into something else besides itself. It is therefore acknowledged by his own writings, that by them the essence of the Only-begotten is placed on the same level with the smallest parts of the creation: and every proof by which he attempts to establish the alienation of the Son from the Father has the same force also in the case of individual things. What need has he, then, for this varied acuteness to establish the diversity of nature, when he ought to have taken the short cut of denial, by openly declaring that the name of the Son ought not to be confessed, or the Only-begotten God to be preached in the churches, but that we ought to esteem the Jewish worship as superior to the faith of Christians, and, while we confess the Father as being alone Creator and Maker of the world, to reduce all other things to the name and conception of the creation, and among these to speak of that work which preceded the rest as a “thing made,” which came into being by some constructive operation, and to give Him the title of “First created,” instead of Only-begotten and Very Son. For when these opinions have carried the day, it will be a very easy matter to bring doctrines to a conclusion in agreement with the aim they have in view, when all are guided, as you might expect from such a principle, to the consequence that it is impossible that He Who is neither begotten nor a Son, but has His existence through some energy, should share in essence with God. So long, however, as the declarations of the Gospel prevail, by which He is proclaimed as “Son,” and “Only-begotten,” and “of the Father,” and “of God,” and the like, Eunomius will talk his nonsense to no purpose, leading himself and his followers astray by such idle chatter. For while the title of “Son” speaks aloud the true relation to the Father, who is so foolish that, while John and Paul and the rest of the choir of the Saints proclaim these words,—words of truth, and words that point to the close affinity,—he does If the passage might be emended thus:—iv’, Honep Ev UmoKeEevw Tivi Mpdypati Nioa KataoKEevN SewpeEttat, (0b yap &v tic £1m01 KatacKebacdar 8 UH UPgotNKEV), OTWS CiOV KaTASKEVdGLATI TH TOO UOVoyEvots PUGET Tpotetvy TH Adyw trv Moinow—we should have a comparatively clear sense—“in order that as all construction is observed in some subject matter, (for no one would say that that is constructed which has not existence) so he may extend the process of ‘making’ by his argument to the nature of the Only-begotten God, as to some product of construction.” The force of this would be, that Eunomius is really employing the idea of “receiving generation,” to imply that the essence of the Only-begotten is a kataokevaoua: and this, Gregory says, puts him at once on a level with the physical creation.
679 Oehler’s punctuation seems faulty here.
Then, distinguishing between essence and generation, he declares the empty...not look to them, but is led by the empty rattle of Eunomius’ sophisms to think that Eunomius is a truer guide than the teaching of these who by the Spirit speak mysteries who bear Christ in themselves? Why, who is this Eunomius? Whence was he raised up to be the guide of Christians?
But let all this pass, and let our earnestness about what lies before us calm down our heart, that is swollen with jealousy on behalf of the faith against the blasphemers. For how is it possible not to be moved to wrath and hatred, while our God, and Lord, and Life-giver, and Saviour is insulted by these wretched men? If he had reviled my father according to the flesh, or been at enmity with my benefactor, would it have been possible to bear without emotion his anger against those I love? And if the Lord of my soul, Who gave it being when it was not, and redeemed it when in bondage, and gave me to taste of this present life, and prepared for me the life to come, Who calls us to a kingdom, and gives us His commands that we may escape the damnation of hell,—these are small things that I speak of, and not worthy to express the greatness of our common Lord—He that is worshipped by all creation, by things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, by Whom stand the unnumbered myriads of the heavenly ministers, to Whom is turned all that is under rule here, and that has the desire of good—if He is exposed to reviling by men, for whom it is not enough to associate themselves with the party of the apostate, but who count it loss not to draw others by their scribbling into the same gulf with themselves, that those who come 681 who blames us 681 who blames us after may not lack a hand to lead them to destruction, is there any one for our anger against these men? But let us return to the sequence of his discourse.
He next proceeds once more to slander us as dishonouring the generation of the Son by human similitudes, and mentions what was written on these points by our father, where he says that while by the word “Son” two things are signified, the being formed by passion, and the true relationship to the begetter, he does not admit in discourses upon things divine the former sense, which is unseemly and carnal, but in so far as the latter tends to testify to the glory of the Only-begotten, this alone finds a place in the sublime doctrines. Who, then, dishonours the generation of the Son by human notions? He who sets far from the Divine generation what belongs to passion and to man, and joins the Son impassibly to Him that begat Him? or he who places Him Who brought all things into being on a common level with the lower creation? Such an idea, however, as it seems,—that of associating the Son in the majesty of the Father,—this new wisdom seems to regard as dishonouring; while it considers as great and sublime the act of bringing Him down to equality with the creation 681 Reading apd tic for &pa tic of Oehler’s text. 682 Thatis, by S. Basil: the reference seems to be to the treatise Adv. Eunomium ii. 24 (p. 260 C. in the Benedictine edition), but the quotation is not exact.
Then, distinguishing between essence and generation, he declares the empty...
that is in bondage with us. Empty complaints! Basil is slandered as dishonouring the Son, who honours Him even as he honours the Father®®?, and Eunomius is the champion of the Only-begotten, who severs Him from the good nature of the Father! Such a reproach Paul also once incurred with the Athenians, being charged therewith by them as “a setter forth of strange gods®**,” when he was reproving the wandering among their gods of those who were mad in their idolatry, and was leading them to the truth, preaching the resurrection by the Son. These charges are now brought against Paul’s follower by the new Stoics and Epicureans, who “spend their time in nothing else,” as the history says of the Athenians, “but either to tell or to hear some new thing™>.” For what could be found newer than this,—a Son of an energy, and a Father of a creature, and a new God springing up from nothing, and good at variance with good? These are they who profess to honour Him with due honour by saying that He is not that which the nature of Him that begat Him is. Is Eunomius not ashamed of the form of such honour, if one were to say that he himself is not akin in nature to his father, but has community with something of another kind? Ifhe who brings the Lord of the creation into community with the creation declares that he honours Him by so doing, let him also himself be honoured by having community assigned him with what is brute and senseless: but, if he finds community with an inferior nature hard and insolent treatment, how is it honour for Him Who, as the prophet saith, “ruleth with His power for ever,” to be ranked with that nature which is in subjection and bondage? But enough of this.
Book V Book V.
§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 be- 687 The words referred to are those in Acts ii. 36.
688 _ S. Basil: the passages discussed are afterwards referred to in detail.
The fifth book promises to speak of the words contained in the saying of...come 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 ether 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 689 With the following passage may be compared the parallel account in the Book of Wisdom (ch. xiii.). 690 Cf. Is. xli. 4, xliv. 6, xlviii. 12 (LXX.). If the whole passage is intended to be a quotation, it is not made exactly from any one of these; the opening words are from the second passage referred to; and perhaps this is The fifth book promises to speak of the words contained in the saying of...
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