Against Eunomius 4 part 1/2

OF THE SAME, A REFUTATION. And against Eunomius: difficulties and solutions from the God-inspired Scriptures, concerning the things disputed about the Son in the New and the Old Testament. Section 4.

If the Son is God by nature, and the Father also is God by nature, the Son is not God in one way and the Father in another, but in like manner;

but if the Son is not God by nature, he is so called as those falsely called gods, and is not God.

If the Son is one Lord by nature, and the Father also is Lord by nature, plainly it is not by a different nature.

And so, even if the Father is called one God, and the Son also is God, it is not by another nature, but by one.

If there is one Lord by nature, while many are called so by appointment, and one Son by nature, while many are named sons by adoption, then the “by appointment” is spoken of in imitation of the “by nature”;

for nothing would be spoken of “by appointment” unless the “by nature” came first.

If, then, we are sons of God by adoption, it is necessary that the Son by nature pre-exist.

Further, names are truly the tokens of the essence of those things whose names they are.

And both the Father and the Son are truly Lord and God.

The essence, then, is the same, just as also the names are the same.

If “only-begotten” is not from begetting, but on account of being incomparable, the Father also is only-begotten;

what is unlike any other is only-begotten;

there are then many only-begottens, and the Son of God is not one.

But if the Son is not simply only-begotten, but an only-begotten Son, and only-begotten from the Father, then the Son is also only-begotten, and not an only-begotten created thing.

If the Son is creator by imparting and concession from the Father, and not by nature, then nothing of the things created by him would be by nature.

For of those whose creator is not by nature, how are the things created by nature? If God works as no other, he will also beget as no other begets;

for God is incomparable to all things in all respects.

That which is made is not from the essence of the maker, but that which is begotten is from the same essence as the begetter;

to make and to beget, then, are not the same.

If the Son is from God, yet not as from a Father, but as from another, while God is the cause of being also for us;

then God is not the Father of the Son in one way and of us in another, but in like manner.

And how is this not absurd? If nothing is like and equal to God except the Son, then nothing among the examples can be said to be without variation;

That which is in the form of God is in the essence of God.

For form is not one thing and the essence of God another, lest he be composite.

He, then, who is equal according to form, is equal also according to essence.

If the begotten is less than the begetter, this is no reproach to the begotten, but a weakness of the begetter.

For either, out of envy, he did not make him equal, or, being unable, he did not beget him like.

If the Father existed before the Son, he was surely the father of some other one;

for apart from a son one could not be called father.

If he who knew the Son according to essence knew also the Father (for, “If you had known me,” he says, “you would have known my Father also”);

the Son, then, is of one essence (homoousios) with the Father.

For nothing incorporeal can be known from an unlike essence.

If believing that Christ is the Son of God has eternal life, then disbelieving has of necessity death.

Of those whose activities are the same, of these also the essence is one.

And the activity of the Father and the Son is one, as in, “Let us make man”;

For whatever the Father does, these things the Son likewise does;

therefore also the essence of the Father and the Son is one.

If the knowledge of the Father and the Son is eternal life, it is necessary that they also be of one essence.

For things of different essence are not apprehended by one knowledge, nor are they able to give life in like manner.

If the Son is truly an image of the Father, and every image is an image of essence, or of form, or of figure, or of shape and color, while God is in none of these, but in essence alone;

the Son, being an image of the essence, is of one essence (homoousios) with the Father.

If the Father is incomparable in all respects with the Son, and in all respects also with the creation;

not in one way with the Son and in another way with the creation, but in like manner;

then the Son is not only unlike the Father, but also like the creation.

And how is this not absurd? If, calling the Son a created thing, they do not speak of him as one of the created things;

why, when we say “offspring,” do they understand him as one of the offspring? If God does not beget, lest he undergo flux;

neither does he create, lest he grow weary;

but if he creates without suffering, much more does he beget without suffering.

If the radiance of any light is begotten from the light, yet never at some point in time, but timelessly and co-eternally with it (for there is no light without radiance);

the Son also, being radiance, will never come to be, but co-eternally, since God is light, as David says:

“In your light we shall see light”;

And the light is with him.

If, according to them, the offspring is an essence, just as also the unbegotten is, and the Son of God is an offspring, then the Son of God is also an essence.

If God begot the Son by will and not by nature, then either, having once willed, he is thereafter without will, or, willing again, he begot again.

But if his will is not one, but various, he is no longer simple, nor the maker of one thing, but he both wills and makes as he pleases.

If God does not beget, it is altogether either because he is unable, or because he is unwilling.

But if he is unable, he is inferior to a generative and perfect nature, in addition to being powerless;

but if, being able, he was unwilling, then what he had by nature, he withheld by will.

So that, even if he has not yet begotten, then having willed it he will at some time beget.

If there was once when the Son was not, that very “once” will be after the begetter, but before the begotten;

the Son is before all things apart from the Father, yet he will be found even after the “once.”

When we say that, the Father always existing, it is necessary that the Son also always be, those people say:

Then, since the Son also is always creator, the creation too will always be, and thus the creation also will be co-eternal with the Father and the Son.

But he who says “creator” does not at the same time also assert the creation.

For the building does not co-exist with the builder, nor the boat with the shipwright.

For the creative power is in the creator, but that which is created comes after the creator.

But it is impossible to say “Father” when there is no Son.

And he who says “Father” does not say “Father” simply, but father of someone.

God, and Lord, and Almighty, and Sabaoth, and He-who-is, and Adonai, and Eloi—God is so called in the Scriptures;

But if anyone should concede even this, that “unbegotten” and the foregoing names also fit Jews and all people;

yet to Christians alone belongs “Father of Christ.”

If, then, the one thing that separates us from the others is false and not true, a name by appointment and not a thing by nature;

then our faith is false, and our hope is vain.

For that whose beginning is insecure, its end too is without strength.

Whether the Son was begotten when existing, or when not existing—

their question being obscure and maliciously contrived.

For being ashamed to ask “when” and “in time,” they say “when existing.”

Did God the Father beget the Son while being Father, or while not being Father? For if while being Father, then existing he begot one existing;

but if while not being Father, then he is begotten and not Father by nature.

But the divine Scriptures shut out all their contentiousness, Moses crying aloud concerning the Son, “HE-WHO-IS sent me”;

and the Evangelist, “In the beginning was the Word.”

And not once is the “was,” but four times.

“He who is in the bosom of the Father”;

“He who is, and who was, and who is coming”;

“Who being the radiance of the glory”;

“Who existing in the form of God”;

“He who is over all, God blessed.”

If the Son is true God, and light, and unchangeable, and good, and holy, and Lord, and the Father being these same things, is not so in like manner but in a greater degree;

this is not by superiority of essence, but by excess of quality.

For one essence is not said to be more than another essence, but one quality more than another quality.

For one man is not said to be more than another man;

but one good man more than another good man, and one just man more than another just man.

The nature of those begotten is the same as that of the begetter, even if the begotten has its being in a different manner.

For neither was Abel, who was begotten from union, of a different nature from Adam, even though Adam was not begotten but formed.

If the cause is greater than and different in essence from that which is caused, and every father is a cause, and every son is something caused, then fathers are greater than and different in essence from their sons, and not of one essence.

If, having begotten the Son, the Father ceased from begetting him;

and even if they should grant that he ceased, they infer:

For everything that has an end also has a beginning;

therefore the Son did not always exist.

If that which ceases must of necessity also have a beginning, and that which has a beginning must of necessity also cease;

then the angels and all incorporeal beings, having a beginning of their being, will of necessity also have an end of their being.

It is possible, then, both for that which has begun to be not to cease, and for that which has ceased not to have begun.

But if not, then even the Son himself, if he has a beginning of being, also of necessity has an end according to them;

since they will that everything which has a beginning also have an end.

And how is this not blasphemous? And the foreknowledge of God too, having no beginning, after the things he foreknew come to pass, has an end.

Hence, that which has an end does not of necessity also have a beginning.

Among incorporeal beings, the term "one" is predicated either with respect to activity, or to will, or to essence.

When He said, "I and the Father are one," He spoke according to one of the senses written above.

Now if they say it is according to activity, they must necessarily say it is also according to essence;

for the activity of beings of different essence could not be alike.

But if they are one according to will, then not only must the Son will whatever the Father wills, but the Father must also necessarily will whatever the Son wills.

The Son, then, will also give commands to the Father concerning what He wills—if indeed He too gives commands.

But if He only receives commands, then He serves under compulsion and not willingly.

And if it is neither by activity nor by will, then it remains, even on their own terms, that they are one according to essence—that is, the Father and the Son are of one substance (consubstantial).

That "unbegotten" is the indication of a certain mode of existence, and not of essence.

If "unbegotten" is essence, and "begotten" is essence, and on this account the Father and the Son are not consubstantial, then every offspring is necessarily of one and the same essence;

the offspring would therefore be consubstantial with the Son of God.

And how is this not blasphemous? If "unbegotten," set in contrast to the begotten Son, is essence, then "uncreated," set in contrast to creation, is also essence.

There will therefore be both an unbegotten essence and an uncreated essence.

God, then, would be two, and not one essence.

Moreover, all creation too will be one essence;

for there is one creation, yet the essences are diverse.

In this way His immutability, His being without beginning, and many other attributes will likewise be essences.

If one who calls the Father unbegotten and the Son begotten has thereby indicated their essences, then how could anyone who wishes to state the mode of their existence say it otherwise than thus? "Unbegotten," therefore, is a mode of existence, and not a name of essence.

If things that have a different existence of being also have a different essence, then not even human beings would be consubstantial with one another.

For the existence of Adam, formed from earth, is one thing; that of Eve, who came from a rib, another; that of Abel, who came from the union of the two, yet another;

and the existence of Him who was from Mary, born of a virgin alone, is yet another.

And it is likewise also in the case of birds and four-footed beasts.

If the Father is unbegotten because He was not begotten, while the Son is begotten through being begotten, then the unbegotten One comes after the begotten One.

For He would have had no one in relation to whom He might be called unbegotten.

For contrasting distinctions belong to things that exist, not to things that do not exist.

If there was a time when He was God, but was not Father, then in becoming Father He acquired the attribute "father."

So that He is God as unbegotten, but Father as begotten (acquired);

the same simple being would therefore be at once begotten and unbegotten.

If "impossible" is contrary to "possible," and "unwise" to "wise," and all contrasted distinctions are contrary to one another, then "unbegotten" is also contrary to "begotten."

The Father, then, would be contrary to the Son in essence—if indeed "unbegotten" is not a mode of existence but an essence.

If the Son is a creature and not offspring, and all existing things are creatures, then it is in vain that the Father is called unbegotten, since there exists no offspring at all in relation to which He is called unbegotten.

It would therefore be more correct to call Him uncreated rather than unbegotten.

"Unbegotten," if it is a name, is not essence.

For names are significative of essences; they are not themselves essence.

But if "unbegotten" is essence itself, let them state the name of that essence.

For it is not from essences, but from names and activities, that we come to knowledge—and especially of incorporeal things.

If "unbegotten" is the name of God's essence, then either God, knowing His own essence, was ignorant of the name of His essence, or, knowing the name, He deceived those who heard.

And when He was asked by Moses, "What is His name?" He says:

"The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

But the name "unbegotten" neither did He apply to Himself, nor did any of the saints utter it.

But if He neither deceived nor was ignorant (for to say either of these is impious), then "unbegotten" is not His name.

"Unbegotten" is either an essence or an accident (for apart from these there could be nothing else);

but it is not an essence, for neither is that which is set in contrast to it;

for the Son is begotten not in respect of being essence, but in respect of His having been begotten;

but if it is an accident, then either it is naturally concomitant, or it admits of being present and being absent.

But if it is naturally concomitant, then it is necessary that God have both an essence and an accident.

For such things of necessity befall those to whom they belong as accidents.

But if it is present contingently, then He will at times be both unbegotten and begotten.

If they call God unbegotten because He was not begotten, they are not saying what His essence is, but what it is not.

But no essence is made known from what it is not, but from what it is.

For "immortal," "incorruptible," and "immutable" do not declare His essence, but that He does not die,

nor is corrupted, nor changes as creatures do.

Let them therefore teach what God is, not what He is not.

If "unbegotten" is not a name of essence but is essence itself, and the Son too is essence,

then the Son too is unbegotten, and every essence is unbegotten.

If the unbegotten is the essence of God, and the offspring is the essence of the Son,

then the creature or thing made is not His essence.

For the Son is one essence and not many.

One who says "man," or "stone," or "wood" indicates a certain essence;

but one who says "offspring" does not simply indicate an essence;

since every offspring would then be one essence.

But if "offspring" is not significative of any essence, then clearly neither is "unbegotten."

If God is unbegotten because He was not begotten,

so too He is incorruptible because He is not corrupted.

Just as "incorruptible," then, declares His being without end, so too "unbegotten" declares His being without beginning.

But if He is unbegotten yet not incorruptible, then He will be without beginning yet not without end;

"Unbegotten," therefore, is not essence, but a declaration of His not having been begotten.

If the Father is unbegotten by nature, then the Son too is begotten by nature.

But if He is offspring by nature, then He is no longer a creature.

Since, then, there is an offspring by nature, the begetter must also necessarily exist;

for there could be no offspring apart from a begetter.

Let them then name the begetter, if the Father did not beget.

If God is unbegotten in essence, and the Son is begotten in essence, and the Paraclete is a creature in essence, then "Father and Son and Holy Spirit" are mere names without essences.

Let them therefore baptize into an unbegotten, a begotten, and a creature.

For realities are stronger than names, and things that exist are more profitable for activity than things merely spoken.

"If the Father is unbegotten," they say, "and the Son begotten, they are not of the same essence."

"For unbegotten and begotten could not be of one essence."

But we do not say these things of essence; rather, they are names declaring the existence of each of them.

Now nothing prevents one essence from having different names, just as, conversely, the different essences of creation have one name.

"If the Son," they say, "is consubstantial with the Father, and the Father is unbegotten while the Son is begotten,

then the same essence is both unbegotten and begotten."

But we do not say that the Son is a part of the Father, as though the essence were divided into unbegotten and begotten; rather, the whole is begotten of the whole, the whole Son from the whole unbegotten—two complete realities, and not two parts out of some one thing.

If the Saviour has come in the name of the Father, as He Himself says, "I have come in the name of My Father,"

then whatever the Father is called, the Son too must necessarily be called.

He will therefore also be called unbegotten, if this too is a name of the Father.

But if "unbegotten" as a name is an honour of the Father, and the Son too must be honoured likewise, according to His own word which says:

"That all may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father"—

then the Son too must necessarily be called unbegotten, so that one honour of the Father and the Son may be preserved.

If the Son has made manifest the name of the Father to men, as He Himself says, "I have manifested Your name to men," and the proper name of His essence is "unbegotten,"

let them show where the Saviour called Him unbegotten.

If God is greater than all, is He greater in essence, or by being the cause of all while Himself begotten of none? For if it is qua essence, then all essence too is greater than all;

but if it is qua unbegotten, then essence and unbegotten are not the same.

If "unbegotten" is something, then "immortal," "endless," "free from sickness," and "ageless" will each also be something.

Therefore by being unbegotten He will surpass all, but in the other respects He will be the same as angels and spirits and souls.

For these too are immortal and endless.

But if He surpasses not by what He is not, but by what He is (for neither is a man better than an irrational beast by not being soulless and senseless—

for the irrational beast too is these—but by being rational),

so too God will be greater not by being unbegotten, but by being the cause of all.

If the unbegotten is set in contrast to the begotten,

and the unbegotten is a simple essence,

then by His immutability, immortality, and formlessness too, and by all these, He will be set in contrast to the begotten.

For if He is set in contrast in one respect, but not in the rest, then He is composite and not simple.

[They say] God is unbegotten; he who has accurately known whatever God is has known [Him]; and there is nothing greater than to know God according to His own nature, but this is eternal life. He who taught us that God is unbegotten will be found greater than the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.

For none of those things is it possible for one who is a man to know;

things which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man.

Yet indeed even sinners have heard the name "unbegotten."

Therefore, in teaching sinners the greater thing—whether through Himself or through another—God has reserved the lesser, which contributes nothing to eternal life, for the righteous.

And how is this not absurd? "Unbegotten" is neither a definition of God nor a property.

For these convert with those things of which they happen to be the definition or property.

For man is a rational, mortal animal, capable of mind and knowledge;

and whatever is a rational, mortal animal capable of mind and knowledge—that is a man;

and the property of man is the capacity for laughter, and whatever is capable of laughter is a man.

But "unbegotten," even if one were to grant that it is predicated of God alone, [it does] not [follow] that whatever is God is at the same time also unbegotten.

The Son, then, although He is God, is not unbegotten.

"Unbegotten," therefore, is neither a definition nor a property.

If the Son is a creature of God, and every creature is a slave of the Creator,

then Christ is a slave, and not the Son of God.

He did not, then, take the form of a slave while being Lord, but was a slave.

The thing made does not share the same power with its maker;

there is therefore nothing in common between the Son and the Father;

not even creation, if indeed the Son is a thing made and not offspring.

If the Son is offspring, as one among offspring, and every offspring is a creature, then the Son is not a creature;

for neither is He offspring as those are.

If God was unable to create anything less than the one Son, because it was not in His nature to do so,

then neither will the Son create diverse things, but only some one thing.

If lesser things are created by a lesser, and greater things by a greater,

then creation is through many, since not all of it is equal.

If God is creative by nature, He will be [the creator] not of one thing, but of many.

For either He does not make anything else out of weakness, or out of envy and ill will.

If the power of the Father created through the Son, then it is the Father and not the Son who is the creator, just as it is not the tool that is the craftsman.

It is not, then, a more lowly thing—a thing beneath the Father's dignity—to create the things that were made by the Son.

If God was ashamed to make the fashioning of existing creation by Himself, then neither will He accept its doxology.

For what He was ashamed to make, He will not be willing to have reckoned as His own once made.

If for God to create and to beget are the same, since He is simple,

then His saving and destroying, His giving life and putting to death, are also the same.

But if this is so, then salvation and destruction, life and death, are the same.

If Christ is the power and wisdom of God, and these are uncreated and coeternal with God (for He was never without wisdom and without power),

then Christ is uncreated and coeternal with God;

but if He is called the power and wisdom of God only insofar as He is an activity, then we too could be called the power and wisdom of the Lord, just as He is of God.

If the Son is not eternal God, then of necessity He is recent;

and it is the mark of the impious to worship things recent, false, and not [gods] by nature.

"For there shall be no recent god among you," He says;

"But at that time, not knowing God, you served those who by nature are no gods."

Either, then, those who thus worship Christ are impious;

or He is God by nature and truly, and they are pious.

If the Son is a work of activity and not offspring, then He is neither the one who acted nor the thing acted upon (for the activity was something other than these), but is even without subsistence;

for no activity has subsistence.

But if He is the thing acted upon, then He is third from the Father, and not without a mediator.

For the one who acts is first, then the activity, and so the thing acted upon.

If the Son is only-begotten because He alone was begotten of the Father alone,

then He would more properly be called "only-created," being truly a creature according to Eunomius, but falsely named offspring.

If the Son alone is a thing fashioned by the Father, but all things belong to the Son, then in saying, "All that is Mine is Yours," He could rightly say it;

but in going on to add, "and what is Yours is Mine," according to Eunomius He no longer speaks rightly.

For He could not be His own.

[It is clear,] then, that He was discoursing concerning the likeness and the in-all-respects-invariable and similar essence belonging to them, not concerning creatures.

If God creates and begets in like manner, then Christ is likewise both our Creator and our Father;

for He is God, and there is no need of the adoption that is through the Holy Spirit;

just as neither [is there need] of our having been brought into being through some other in order to be His creatures;

and yet indeed many of the creatures do not even have the nature to receive the Spirit of adoption, such as the irrational and the soulless.

If we, being creatures, become sons through the adoption of the Holy Spirit, let them say—if the Son too is a creature—through whom He came into the adoption of the Father. If all that the Father has is also the Son's, but the Father has nothing apart from the things that came into being through the Son—unless, according to them, [He has] only Himself—

then He must possess even Himself.

If the image is in every respect like [its original], in whatever way the Son is an image,

but creation is in no respect like the One who created it, but is in all respects unlike;

then, being the image of the Father, the Son could not be His creature.

If that which is incorporeal, when it begets, begets of necessity as a body does,

and when it sees, will see as a body does,

and when it hears, will hear as a body does,

and will perform every activity as a body does;

but if these things are otherwise, then clearly when it begets it will also beget otherwise.

That which one does not himself possess, he cannot bestow on others;

if, then, the Son is a creature and a slave, He cannot make others free.

That which is by nature a mean between two extremes touches each of the extremes;

if, then, Christ is by nature a mediator between God and us, and not according to the dispensation, then God and creation are joined by nature.

If the Son is like the Father, but not according to essence, then it remains that He is so either according to form or according to activity;

but according to form it is impossible (for nothing incorporeal exists in form);

and if according to activity, then He could not have produced anything of a different kind, but would have produced such things as He Himself is—if indeed He is a thing made by the Father and not offspring.

But it has also been said in another way that what is like in activity must of necessity also be like in essence.

If the works of God are [received] in faith and not by demonstration, according to David, who said:

"And all His works are in faithfulness"—

how much more is the begetting of the Son from the Father before the ages [received] in faith and not by demonstration? If God made the Son out of nothing, and the Son too [made] all things out of nothing,

then the power and activity of those who are able to create out of nothing whatever they will is the same, no difference being observed in any way among the things created.

Since, indeed, although creation differs in many respects and in many ways, the creators are not different, but the Son is one, through whom all things came into being.

If Christ is the first thing made by God out of nothing, and it is thus believing in Him that the Arians worship Him;

but Job says that the devil is the first thing made by God, saying:

"This is the chief of the creation of the Lord"—

then unawares they are worshipping the devil, and not the Son of God.

But if they say that He called Him the first thing made of the Son [i.e., among the Son's works], then according to them the Spirit of the Lord is no longer a thing made, or else will be found to have come into being even after the devil.

If our faith in the Son is a work of God (for "This," He says, "is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent"), then He Himself cannot be a work of God.

For faith in Him and He Himself are not the same.

On the text: "But when all things shall be subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also shall be subjected." If the Son is subjected to the Father in a divine manner, He would have been subjected from the beginning, from the time He was also God.

But if He was not subjected, but will be subjected later, then it is in a human manner, as on our behalf, and not in a divine manner on His own behalf.

On the text: "Therefore God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name which is above every name." If it was after the incarnation, on account of His obedience, that the Father bestowed the name above every name on the Son who is God, and every tongue confessed Him Lord;

then before the incarnation He had neither the name above every name, nor the confession from all that He is Lord.

Therefore He became greater after the incarnation than He was before the incarnation—which is absurd.

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me."

These things, then, must be understood with reference to the incarnation, and not to the Godhead.

"My Father is greater than I." "Greater" is said either in respect of magnitude, or of time, or of dignity, or of power, or as a cause.

But the Father could not be said to be greater than the Son in respect of magnitude;

for the Son is the maker of [all dimensions].

Nor [is He greater] in respect of time; for He did not come into being having once not existed.

For "whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does likewise." Nor [is He greater] as a cause;

since [if so], He is likewise greater than both Himself and us, if indeed He is the cause both of Him and of us.

Accordingly, what was said shows rather the honour of the Son toward the Father, not the diminution of the One who spoke; and furthermore, "greater" does not at all imply also "of a different essence."

For a man is said to be greater than [another] man, and a horse greater than [another] horse.

So that even if the Father is called greater, it does not at once follow that He is also of a different essence.

And in general, comparatives are predicated of things of the same essence, and not of things of different essence.

For a man is not properly said to be greater than an irrational beast;

but rather man [greater] than man, and irrational beast than irrational beast;

the Father, then, is consubstantial with the Son, even if He is called greater.

On the text: "But of that day and hour no one knows." If the Son is the maker of all things, yet does not know the time of the judgement,

then He does not know what He created.

For He did not say that He was ignorant of the judgement, but of the time.

And how is this not absurd? On the same text.

If the Son does not have the knowledge of all that the Father has, then He spoke falsely when He said:

"All that the Father has is Mine";

and, "As the Father knows Me, I also know Him."

But if to know the Father is one thing, and to know the things of the Father another;

and to know the Father is greater than to know the things that are His (inasmuch as each one is himself greater than the things that are his own);

then the Son, knowing the greater thing (for "No one," He says, "knows the Father except the Son"), [could not] have been ignorant of the lesser—which is impossible.

Therefore, because it was not profitable for men to hear it, He kept silent about the time of the judgement.