駁歐諾米 第 2 章 第 1/4 段

CONCERNING THE SON. Having, then, in his discourses about the God of all, laid the groundwork as best he could for his blasphemies against the Son of God, he next let his tongue loose against the Only-begotten God himself.

For what does he say? {Eun.} "And there is one Son,

the Only-begotten. Concerning him it was open to him to set forth the utterances of the saints, by which they proclaim him Son and offspring and thing-made, and so, by the differences of names, to make plain also a difference of essence, and thus be rid of his cares and labors;

but on account of those who suppose the begetting to be bodily, and who stumble over the ambiguity of terms, it is perhaps necessary to speak briefly about these matters as well."

{Bas.} These, then, are Eunomius' words.

But as for me—if one ought to regard the whole discourse as a mere fiction, of the sort that is set before lads in the schools of vanity as an exercise in plausible falsehood (for indeed, just like those exercises, the whole thing resembles shadow-boxing:

a battle against accusers who do not exist;

a defense against a charge that was never brought;

and a speech addressed to judges who are nowhere to be seen)—

if it is in this way that one must listen to these things too, then I myself dismiss the examination, and I counsel everyone to busy himself with none of what has been said.

But if his claim is something greater, and many have come to suspect that there is in him some real concern for the truth, then it is altogether necessary to set right, as far as possible, each of the things he has said.

What manner of examination, then, could be more just than to compare his discourse with the teachings given to us by the Spirit, and to accept whatever we find in harmony with them, but to disbelieve whatever is contrary to them and to flee it as an enemy? First, then, let him show this: which of the saints called Christ "offspring" and "thing-made"? What utterances of the Scriptures does he have to prove it? For if he relies on that saying of the blessed Peter recorded in the Acts of the Apostles,

where he says:

"Let all the house of Israel know that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified"—

in the first place, the testimony has nothing pertinent to the question at issue.

For having promised to show that the Son was called "thing-made" by the saints, he produces a testimony about God the Father—namely, that he "made."

For surely he would not say this—that in discourses about matters so great he is permitted to devise certain twistings and refashionings of the names.

For if we shall render account even for an idle word on the day of judgment, surely innovating about matters of such magnitude will not be left unaccountable for us.

For perhaps we have been taught by the divine word what may fittingly be said of God the Father;

but what does not suit the Only-begotten, the Holy Spirit has indicated by the very things he passed over in silence.

How, then, is it safe, by reshaping the word "made," to call the Maker of all things a "thing-made"? For if such an appellation befitted him, it would not have been passed over in silence by the Spirit.

But in the case of the creation we have found the appellation "thing-made" derived from "he made";

but in the case of the Son of God, no longer so.

For "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth";

and, "On the things made by your hands did I meditate";

and, "For his invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things made."

Thus, in cases where the name is fitting, Scripture employs it; but in the case of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as not befitting the majesty of his glory, it passed it over in silence.

And yet now Scripture is not ashamed to call the Lord of glory an "axe," and a "cornerstone," and a "stone of stumbling," and a "rock of offense," and other such things, in which there seems to be little that is of good repute, at least to those who do not penetrate to the meaning of the names;

yet "thing-made" it nowhere at all named him.

And yet this man asserts that he received this name from the saints themselves, in order that by his slanders he might entangle not only those of his own day, but also the saints who lived long ago.

Apart, however, from the fact that one ought not, because of the peril, to venture upon such things, and to refashion the Lord's names on one's own authority—

furthermore, the Apostle's intention does not even set before us the pre-eternal subsistence of the Only-begotten, which is the subject of our present discourse.

For he is not speaking about the essence itself of God the Word, who was in the beginning with God, but clearly discoursing about him who emptied himself in the form of a servant, and became conformed to the body of our humiliation, and was crucified out of weakness.

And this is plain to everyone who has paid even a little attention to the intent of the apostolic expression: that he is not handing down to us a mode of theology, but is making clear the words of the economy.

For he says, "God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified," by the demonstrative phrase all but resting his words upon his humanity, which was visible and manifest to all.

But this man transfers the word "he made" to the begetting of the Only-begotten from the beginning.

Nor does even this give him pause: that "Lord" is a name not of essence, but of authority.

So that he who said, "God made him both Lord and Christ," is speaking of the rule and dominion over all things that was entrusted to him by the Father; he is not recounting his coming into being.

These things, then, we shall demonstrate a little later, when we convict him of adducing testimonies from Scripture contrary to the intention of the Spirit;

but for now let us proceed to what follows in the discourse.

What, then, does this name mean for him? And why, pray, does he undertake to call the Maker of all things a "thing-made"? Having deceived himself with a counterfeit sophism, he supposes that, along with the differences of names, a difference of essence too is co-revealed.

And yet who in his right mind would assent to this argument—that of those whose names are different, the essences too must necessarily differ? For of Peter and Paul, and quite simply of all human beings, the appellations are

different, yet the essence of all is one.

Wherefore in most respects we are the same as one another;

but only in the individual properties observed about each one do we differ from one another.

Hence the appellations too are not significative of the essences, but of the properties that characterize each individual.

Whenever, then, we hear "Peter," we do not from the name conceive of his essence (and by "essence" I now mean the material substrate, which the name in no way signifies), but we have stamped upon our minds the notion of the properties observed about him.

For at once, from this word, we conceive of the son of Jonah, the man from Bethsaida, the brother of Andrew, the one called from among fishermen to the ministry of apostleship, the one who, for the excellence of his faith, received upon himself the building up of the Church;

none of which is essence, in the sense in which subsistence is understood.

So that the name defines for us the distinctive character of Peter;

but nowhere does it set forth the essence itself.

Again, on hearing "Paul," we understood a concurrence of other properties:

the man of Tarsus, the Hebrew, the Pharisee according to the law, the disciple of Gamaliel, the persecutor of the Churches of God out of zeal, the one led into knowledge by the fearful vision, the apostle of the nations.

For all these are circumscribed by the single name "Paul."

And yet, if it were true that those whose names differ have essences contrary to one another, then surely Paul and Peter and quite simply all human beings would have to be of different essence from one another.

But since no one is so unlearned and so unobservant of the common nature as to be brought to say this—

for it says, "For out of clay you too were fashioned, as was I"—

the saying signifying nothing other than the consubstantiality of all human beings;

false, therefore, is he who sophistically argues that a difference of essence follows upon a difference of names.

For it is not the case that the nature of things follows upon the names, but rather the names were devised later than the things.

For if this were true, then it would be necessary that those whose appellations are the same should also be one and the same essence.

Therefore, since those who are perfect in virtue have been deemed worthy of the appellation of "God," human beings would be consubstantial with the God of all.

But just as to say this is manifest madness, so too that other argument is gripped by an equal derangement.

It is plain, then, from what has been said, that even in the case of Father and Son the names do not set forth essence, but are indicative of the properties;

so that there is no room at all for the argument that introduces a contrariety of essences from the difference of names.

And in this way he would, before all others, throw down his own position.

For if "thing-made" and "offspring" differ, then the essences of the Only-begotten will be different, following upon the difference of names.

But if to say this belongs to men out of their senses, neither does that other view belong to men in their right minds.

Yet he both pretends to have countless demonstrations that the Son was called "thing-made" by the saints;

and, as though hastening on to certain other and more pressing matters, he forsooth defers for the present the mention of them.

And this too is an artful piece of mischief: in matters where he is at a loss for arguments, to prefer silence.

For if he had even the shadow of a testimony calling the Only-begotten a "thing-made," our ears would by now have been deafened, dinned about with it.

Then he says that, on account of those who suppose the begetting of the Lord to be bodily, and who stumble over ambiguous terms, it is necessary for him to speak briefly about these matters too.

And yet what hindered him from first confirming his own argument by testimonies from the Scriptures, and so coming to the correction of the weaker, and assuaging the harm arising from ambiguity, if indeed such harm has ever come, or will come, to any? For who is so utterly carnal in his thinking, and so inexperienced in divine words, that, hearing of a divine begetting, he is carried down to bodily fancies—in which there is the union of male with female, conception in the womb, the molding and shaping, and the coming forth at the appointed times? Who is so brutish that, hearing that God the Word came forth from God, and hearing that Wisdom was begotten of God, he sinks down in his reasonings to the

passions of the body? But this too, along with the rest, has been devised by him as a specious figure of speech, that he may seem, for the sake of his compassion toward the foolish among the brethren, to take upon himself the labor of teaching.

And the bodily suppositions that arise upon this appellation he forsooth sets right;

but the harms arising from the Lord's being named a "thing-made" he does not deprecate.

And yet he who fancies the begetting to be bodily, the same man would also be carried down to the material modes of making.

For surely the weak-minded man will not, from the word "to beget," conceive of some partition and transference and flowing-out of the essence of the begetter;

yet not be led to suppose that matter from outside, brought in out of non-being into the subsistence of the "thing-made" (as you say), is what is involved.

For what reason, then, does he heal the ailments of the brethren's reasonings only by halves, and, while caring for those who suppose the begetting to be bodily, overlook those who stumble at the appellation of "thing-made"? Because he knows that being begotten is hostile to his own doctrines—since the begotten must in every respect be intimately and unalterably related to the one who begot;

but that being made is a friend and ally to his own hypotheses, because it presents the notion of something foreign and alien and wholly unrelated to the one who made it.

Then to these things he adds, saying:

{Eun.} "We say, then, that the Son is an offspring, according to the teaching of the Scriptures;

not conceiving the essence to be one thing and the thing signified to be something else beside it, but holding that the very subsistence which the name signifies is itself [the essence], the appellation being true to the essence."

{Bas.} In these statements, then, he manifestly fights against the truth, yet nevertheless speaks consistently with himself.

For just as in the foregoing discourses he was defining "unbegotten" to be significative of the essence of the God of all, so here too he says that "offspring" signifies the essence of the Son;

in order that, in the opposition of the begotten to the unbegotten, he may show the Only-begotten to be contrary to the Father in respect of essence itself.

For these reasons he lays down as law words that are outside the usage of the divine Spirit, naming the Son an "offspring."

Where did he get it? From what teaching? From what prophet? From which of the apostles who attached this designation to him? For I, for my part, have found this expression nowhere so laid down in Scripture.

And yet this man boasts that he has taken these appellations from no other source than the teaching of the Spirit.

For it is a small contest for him to provide men, if he were not also to make bold against the Spirit himself.

For that the Father has begotten, we have been taught in many places;

but that the Son is an "offspring" we have not even to this day heard;

for it says, "For unto us a child has been born";

and his name is called not "offspring," but "Angel of Great Counsel."

And yet, if "offspring" were significative of essence, we would not have been taught by the Spirit any name other than that which was destined manifestly to set forth his essence.

And again Peter—he who, for his knowledge of the truth, was deemed worthy of those beatitudes—did not say, "You are the offspring";

but, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

And Paul, who filled all his writing with the appellation of "Son," will nowhere be found to have made mention of "offspring";

which this man, out of great confidence, brings forward as though he had taken it from the divine school.

For neither here is it to be conceded to him, that, reshaping and refashioning the word "he begot," which is applied to the Father, he should call the Son of God an "offspring."

For it does not befit one schooled in the divine fear to leap lightly upon whatever may be suggested by the sequence of words; but rather to be content, abiding in the names laid down in Scripture, and through these to fulfill the doxology in a manner worthy of God.

For if those who originally translated the Hebrew tongue into the Greek language did not dare to interpret certain names, but transferred the very Hebrew word over—

[the very Hebrew word] they brought over;

such as "Sabaoth," and "Adonai," and "Eloi," and any such thing, displaying this reverence not only with regard to the divine names, but also with regard to many others;

how great, then, ought our fear to be concerning the names of the Lord? Indeed, when would those men ever have endured to fashion any of the names on their own authority, seeing that they did not even venture upon the interpretation of certain names, lest they should dissolve the vividness of the meaning by an unsuitable rendering of what is signified? "But if," he says, "God begot, how is it not necessary to call the begotten an 'offspring'?" Because it is fearful for us to address by our own names him to whom God granted the name that is above every name.

For it says, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you."

And yet, according to their argument, it would have been more consistent, because of his having been begotten, for him to be called "offspring," and not "Son";

Wherefore he who has before his eyes the judgment-seat of Christ, and who knows how great is the peril of taking away anything from, or adding anything to, what has been handed down by the Spirit, must not, of his own ambition, make innovations, but must rest quiet in the things proclaimed of old by the saints.

That, then, which neither common usage nor the usage of the Scriptures has admitted—how is it not the utmost folly to venture upon it? For what father or mother, kindly and gently disposed toward the one born of them, would, forsaking the addressing of him as "son" or "child," call him an "offspring"? For it says, "Child, go into the vineyard";

"God will provide for himself a sheep for the slaughter, my child";

"Who are you, my child?"; and, "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord";

and, "A wise son makes a father glad";

but nowhere is anyone shown to have called the one born of him an "offspring,"

because "son" and "child" are names of living beings, but "offspring" by no means always so.

For even that which is cast out in miscarriages, before it has been fully formed, can be called an "offspring";

yet such a thing is not worthy of the appellation "child."

And the fruits of the earth are "offspring" (produce), but these are no longer "children."

For it says, "I will not drink of the produce of this vine."

And we have found this appellation but rarely applied to living beings.

And wherever it has been used, it is to be seen applied to an animal that is being denounced and taken up as an image of wickedness.

For it says, "Serpents, brood (offspring) of vipers."

For this reason, I think, common usage has held this appellation in dishonor, and the divine Scripture is seen to shun it, and most of all in the case of the only-begotten Son of God.

But even the appellation "child" it did not admit, as having too much of the human about it.

And the Apostle makes this plain, calling the Lord "Son" up and down, and hymning him by various other appellations—"firstborn," and "image," and "effulgence";

but the appellation "offspring" he avoided.

But if this man, or any other of the champions of the doctrine, can point it out, then we will grant them leave to erase everything;

unless, indeed, imitating the impious Marcion, he would excise some of the divine oracles, and interpolate others.

In this way, then, the word "offspring" has been refuted as foreign both to common usage and to the usage of the Scriptures.

But let us now see whether it is possible for this name to be ranged against the very essence of the Son.

{Eun.} "It is impossible to conceive the essence to be one thing and the thing signified to be something else beside it, but [it is necessary to hold] that the very subsistence which the name signifies is itself [the essence], the appellation being true to the essence."

{Bas.} Worthy indeed, in truth, of the judges whom you have invented, are these dogmas of yours.

For as though in a market of dreams, or in an assembly of drunken men, with no one either hearing or comprehending what is said, you legislate with great impunity, supposing that, in place of any demonstration, it suffices that you yourself have said it.

Since who does not know that, of names, some, uttered absolutely and by themselves, are significative of the things underlying them, while others, said in relation

to other things, make plain only the relation to those things in relation to which they are said? For instance, "man," and "horse," and "ox" each presents the very thing named;

but "son," or "slave," or "friend" are indicative only of the connection with the name to which they are conjoined.

He, therefore, who hears "offspring" is not borne in his mind to some essence, but understands that it is joined to something else.

For the offspring is said to be the offspring of someone.

That, however, which does not produce the notion of any subsistence, but signifies only the relation to another—to legislate that this is essence, how is it not the height of derangement? And yet a little earlier it was demonstrated by us that even the absolute names, however much they may seem to make plain some underlying thing, do not set forth the essence itself, but define certain properties about it.

But this most wise man, who has spent his whole life in vain artifices, does not blush to say that "offspring" signifies the very essence of the Only-begotten.

But consider how great an absurdity this involves.

For if the essence is offspring, and conversely, if whatever is offspring is essence;

then all offspring will be consubstantial with one another.

From this, then, what will follow, according to this man's argument? The Creator of all things will be shown to have the same essence as all those who partake of begetting.

For surely he will not say that in the case of the Son "offspring" signifies essence, but in the case of the rest that partake of generation it no longer preserves the same meaning.

Otherwise, let him state some clear and irrefutable reason why the same appellation does not have the same force equally in all cases.

For whatever account of "offspring" he may devise, that account will fit equally all begotten things.

And the greatest proof of the truth of the argument is the very understanding of each one of the hearers.

For let each one ask himself, whenever he hears, "So-and-so is the offspring of So-and-so," what notion is stamped upon him.

Is it that the begotten is the essence of the one who begot? Or is this ridiculous, while the truth is that he was brought into being from him by way of begetting?

This, then, will be fitting to be said alike in the case of the Only-begotten and in the case of any whatsoever of the begotten.

And let no one (because the matter of relation is common) suppose this to be a debasement of the dignity of the Only-begotten.

For it is not in the matter of standing in some relation that the difference belongs to the Son over against the rest, but it is in the propriety of essence that the surpassing excellence of God over against mortal things shines forth.

Consider, however, to what absurdity this man's argument carries.

If the offspring is said to be the offspring of another, as both common usage confirms and no one will gainsay, and yet this same thing also, in the case of the Son, signifies essence, according to their argument—

then it will be the essence of that one whose offspring it is also said to be.

There will result, then, from this sequence, that the appellation "offspring" no longer signifies the essence of the Only-begotten—which is what these men strain to maintain—but rather the essence of the God of all.

For if it is not possible to conceive the essence to be one thing and the offspring to be something else beside it, and "essence" and "offspring" have equal force,

and the Son is the offspring of God, then it will be the essence of God, if indeed "offspring" makes plain the essence.

And in this way the "offspring" will be shown, according to this man's argument, to be the essence of the Unbegotten.

But if what is gathered is ridiculous, let him who laid down the premises inherit the shame.

For an argument seems, somehow, once it has been carried aside from the truth, to be borne off, by the consequence that attends upon error, into many perilous absurdities.

These things, then, are as it were certain preliminary skirmishes and preparations for the blasphemy;

but the chief point of the mischief he brings on in what follows, saying:

{Eun.} "The essence of the Son was begotten, not being before its own constitution, but, having been begotten, existing before all things by the will of the Father."

{Bas.} He still clings to the same contrivances.

He discourses to us about the essence of the Son, as though saying something other beside the Son himself, and in this way he gently tames our hearing to the blasphemy;

not openly saying that the Son was begotten out of non-beings, but that his essence was begotten, not being [before].

Before what was it not? Tell me.

What a sophism! He compares it to itself, so that what he says may seem to all to be tolerable—saying that it was not before the ages, nor simply that it was not, but [that it was not] before its own constitution.

But the essence of the Father, tell me, do you assert it to be older than its own constitution? For if, on the one hand, he does not subject the essence of the Son to times, nor according to this argument conceive any "before," then his argument is vain and idle for him, and on that very account not even worthy of an answer.

Nevertheless, it will hold no less in the case of the God of all, for those who wish to transfer the vanity.

For to say that God was not before his own constitution, and to say that he was before himself, belong to the same folly.

But if he takes the "before" temporally in the case of the essence of the Son, then he will say that his essence—or rather the Son himself—was begotten out of non-beings;

for it makes no difference at all, with respect to the very meaning, to say it in this way or in that;

first, he posits a time [or times] as second, and, if you will, ages too, as second to the Maker of the ages;

then, following upon his own blasphemies, he will say that the Father too was not Father from the beginning, but afterwards came to be such.

And yet, if it is good and befitting to the blessedness of God to be Father, how was that which befits him not present from the beginning? For they will surely attribute the deficiency either to ignorance of the better, or to inability:

to ignorance, if he discovered the better only later; to inability, if, though knowing and understanding, he failed to attain the best.

But if (which it is not lawful to say) it is not good for him to be Father, for what reason did he, by way of change, choose the worse? But let the blasphemy turn back upon its authors;

the God of all is Father from infinity, never having begun to be Father.

For neither was he hindered by any lack of power from accomplishing his will, nor did he wait for the revolution of certain ages, so that—just as in the case of human beings and the rest of the animals, after the completion of their age, when the power to beget had come to them—he might thus attain what he sought (for to conceive and to utter these things belongs to madmen), but he has, coextensive with his own eternity, (if I may so name it) fatherhood.

Therefore the Son too, being before the ages and being always, did not at some time begin to be; but from the time that there is a Father, there is also a Son, and immediately, together with the notion of the Father, the notion of the Son enters in.

For the Father is plainly the Father of a Son.

Of the Father, then, there is no beginning, but the beginning of the Son is the Father;

How, then, was he not from the beginning (for this is what is meant by their sophistical phrase "before his own constitution")—he who has nothing conceived as prior to himself, except the one from whom he has being, who is set before him not by an interval of priority, but ranked first by reason of causation? If, then, the Son's fellowship with God and Father has been shown to be eternal, our mind passing from the Son to the Father through nothing empty, but conjoining the Son to the Father without any interval, then he who is bounded by no intervening medium—what avenue of entry does he yet leave to the wicked blasphemy of those who say that he was brought from non-being into being? And then, moreover, it is worthwhile to marvel at their senselessness, in that they do not understand that, in saying the Son is from non-beings, they declare him younger not only than the Father, but also than that by which they divide off the Only-begotten from the Father.

For it is necessary, if there were anything between Father and Son, that this be older than the existence of the Son.

What, then, could this be? What else but an age, surely, or time? For he who conceives the Father's life to be more abundant than that of the Only-begotten—by what else would he measure it, that he might say he had found the surplus, if not by an interval of certain ages or times? But if this is true, then false is the Scripture which says that the ages came to be through him, and which teaches that all things came to be through him;

the ages, manifestly, being included among all things.

But if they shall say that they do not deny that the Son was begotten before the ages, let them not fail to notice that what they concede in word, they take away in truth.

For let us ask those very men who bring the essence of the Only-begotten out of non-beings:

as you say, what was that interval? What appellation will you devise for it? For common usage subjects every interval either to times or to ages;

since what time is among sensible things, that the nature of the age is among supramundane things.

But if these men conceive some third thing out of their own wisdom, let them say it.

But so long as they keep silent, let them not fail to notice that they are positing the essence of the Only-begotten as second to the ages.

For if there were some interval older than the Son, coextensive with the life of the Father, it was plainly one of these two things.

But neither is there, nor can there come to be, any notion older than the subsistence of the Only-begotten.