藥箱（駁八十異端） 第 1 章 第 71/82 段

For having from the beginning made these things perfectly, needing no addition, he ordained by the law of wisdom that the things still budding forth from them should grow -- these being the things among which are those that came to be and are coming to be in succession, such as, so to speak, heaven, earth, water, air, sun, moon, stars, and the things generated from the waters, down to man himself.

He did not make heaven imperfect, nor earth utterly imperfect, but made the earth perfect, and heaven perfect, though invisible and unformed at that time, on account of the ordering he was about to make;

and water, together with the first-created light, having made all things through the true light -- the uncreated and life-giving light;

and then the things that sprang up from the earth;

and before this the firmament did not come to be as something half-finished, but everything came to be in perfection;

For he says, 'Let the earth bring forth vegetation, herb yielding seed after its kind upon the earth, and fruit tree bearing fruit, whose seed is in itself after its kind, upon the earth.'

And you see how the things that came to be needed no additional increase at all, but are found immediately, through the command, to be, so to speak, full-grown and perfect.

But the things given over to man -- those under him and, together with him, in seed form, for his dominion -- were not handed over as perfect, so that man might always know the one who does good and gives being to all, and who, being over all, also supplies the increase of every creature for the maintenance of the things useful to him.

He gave over the earth to him in seed form, having set it forth, so to speak, as a foundation, and having handed it to him as a womb, so that, from the yield of the things made perfect by God, the things which are, in seed form, cast down upon the earth by him with understanding -- such as, for instance, wood and other produce -- he himself, having gathered as it were a tiny grain, finely divided, from among the perfect things, and depositing this in the earth, might receive the addition unto growth from the perfect God, so that the things sown by him might be increased from outside; lest, being ignorant of the one who supplies the increase, he should suppose himself to be the creator, and fall away from the truth.

For even though Noah planted a vineyard, it is not written that he was a 'planter,' but that he became a husbandman.

For one is he who supplies the original causes to the things that shall be, and another is man, who has received his being from him and has been entrusted with his husbandry, so that the one might cultivate the things that need increase toward perfection, while the other might supply perfection, through his own bestowal, to the things created by him and growing toward perfection through that bestowal.

So too with the animals and the birds, so also with the cattle and creeping things and creatures of the sea -- all things at the beginning came to be perfect through him who commanded, but now, by the will of wisdom, they need increase, for the sake of the benefit, according to his purpose, of man who rules over the earth, so that he might come to know the God who is above all, who is the supplier of the seed-powers and, being God and Lord, of the increase of their growth.

Wherefore the things in heaven, being sown not by the hands of man and neither begetting nor being begotten, God left in a state of perfection;

for they did not intrude upon the mind of man toward scheming and the smoke of vainglory, as, for example, one might say concerning the sun and moon and stars.

For it is not because the moon is 'begotten,' or wanes, or waxes, that it is changed in its manner; rather, it exists for the establishment and provision of the seasons, which God ordained for the luminaries.

Did he beget one in need of something? Cease, then, O Aetius, bringing us empty and Aristotelian phrases, since we have enough, and are not deceived away from the true teaching of our Lord, who says, 'I came forth from the Father, and I have come'; and this expression is not used improperly as regards its force, but signifies the essence with the perfection and dignity of God.

If the Offspring was perfect, then it is an offspring within the category of the begotten, and not from that out of which the Unbegotten begot it.

For it is not possible for a begotten nature to exist within an unbegotten essence.

For the same thing cannot both be and not be.

For an offspring is not unbegotten; and being unbegotten, it would not have been an offspring -- since the 'unlike-in-part,' applied to God, involves a pattern of blasphemy and outrage.

Aetius introduces this by way of antithesis, wishing to comprehend God from syllogistic terms of human invention, and attempts, as it were, by mere words, to mutilate the sure hope of the manifest faith, clashing unlike against unlike and inserting word against word in a subversive manner, so as thereby to force the conclusion that this signifies the unlikeness of the Son to the Father -- which is impossible.

For by the very syllogisms with which he taught the world, he himself shall be refuted.

If the Offspring was perfect, then it is an offspring within the category of the begotten, and not from that out of which the Unbegotten begot it.

For it is not possible for a begotten nature to exist within an unbegotten essence;

For the same thing cannot both be and not be.

For an offspring is not unbegotten; and being unbegotten, it would not have been an offspring -- since the 'unlike-in-part,' applied to God, involves a pattern of blasphemy and outrage;

So that in every way the falsified parts of these arguments are refuted, showing that it is not possible for the Son to be unlike the Father, nor unequal, as regards his perfect Godhead.

For even if he asserts this altogether by force, yet the very statements he expounds turn back against himself, since he always asserts 'begotten' and 'unbegotten' in opposition; let him learn from this to set 'created' and 'uncreated' likewise in opposition, and to see that the one cannot share with the other in that dignity which consists in being altogether an object of worship.

For if the unlike is altogether an object of worship, being made equal to the other unlike, then reason will no longer distinguish the One from all the rest, since a nature that is unlike cannot be ranked in the order of its own proper dignity -- even if that which, being one out of all the unlike things, should surpass the rest in glory, it still could not equal the One, on account of the unlikeness which does not allow the one of all things to share dignity with the One.

And then sun and moon and stars and earth, and things still lower than these, will be objects of worship, and no longer the One together with the one Spirit, which is one Trinity and one Godhead and one worship.

If, then, this must be reasoned by this logic, it will indeed hold true in one respect -- since the one Word is not like all other words, nor is the one Son equal to all those who are called sons by way of figurative elevation;

for he is not numbered together with all things, but is the one through whom are all things.

That which, then, was set forth by Aetius himself from the outset as impossible, and as involving outrage and a pattern of blasphemy -- namely, that the 'unlike-in-part,' as he called it, should not exist in God -- is in fact not a matter of difference but of equality; the Godhead being neither divided, but ever most perfect, three being perfect, one Godhead;

Rather, the term 'unlike' has secured for us the establishment of the true faith, so that we should neither suppose nor be persuaded by those unworthy Greeks who stumble through the presumption of rashness, and who are condemned for worshiping all creation -- creation being unlike the Father who is worshiped in the Son, the Son in the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, to whom be glory unto the ages.

If God the Almighty, being of an unbegotten nature, does not know himself as of a begotten nature, while the Son, being of a begotten nature, knows himself to be what he is, how would 'consubstantial' not be a falsehood, since the one knows himself as unbegotten, and the other as begotten? Refutation:

He claims to know -- yet this knowing is not according to the order of Scripture, but from the syllogisms of mortal reasonings -- that God the Almighty, being of unbegotten nature, does not know himself to be of a begotten nature.

But always, and from the very beginning of his argument, no longer as the ancient Arians did, does he wish to call the Only-begotten 'Son,' even in a hidden manner.

But observe in all things, O sons of truth, how he wishes him to be altogether alien to the Father and in no way at all a partaker of the divine essence -- as is plain from the things he always boldly pronounces.

For to say that God knows himself as unbegotten, and does not know himself to be of a begetting nature, is said by him in vain, and solely for the purpose that the Son should not even be called 'Son' by a mere word.

But his argument shall be overturned.

For indeed the Father is unbegotten, and he has eternally begotten the Only-begotten, being of a nature fitting to himself, in that he alone has begotten the one Only-begotten and has brought forth the Spirit -- the sole Spirit coexisting solely with the sole Begetter in respect of the Only-begotten, which coexists together with the Son who was begotten without beginning, being Spirit, having begotten Spirit, and not being a body divided in a bodily manner, nor waning and waxing, nor undergoing division.

Wherefore, among all other begetters and begotten... but in the case of many, need admits of it; whereas here, the dignity of the One in relation to the One is not like that of all existing things.

Wherefore also he who was begotten in an exceptional manner from him who begot in a wondrous way, having been begotten, as it were, from the Unbegotten, being fitting to the Begetter, likewise does not himself beget -- no longer, I say, according to essence -- so that, from the fact that the Son no longer begets according to essence, and from the fact that the Father was not begotten, the whole glory of this dignity might be preserved on both sides in the one unity of the dignity of God: Father perfect, and Son perfect, and the Holy Spirit perfect.

And for this reason, divine Scripture does not know 'consubstantial' to be a falsehood, nor does the pious reasoning concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit -- reasoning that has piously learned to glorify and worship, having received grace from God.

If 'unbegotten' does not represent the hypostasis of God, but the incomparable name is a matter of human invention, then God owes gratitude to those who devised it, on account of the invention of 'unbegotten,' since he does not bear the excellence of that name in his essence.

And 'unbegotten,' as we said in addressing Aetius, we do confess and do not deny, even though it is not found in divine Scripture, because it has been piously devised.

And declaring the Father to be unbegotten, we confess him also as unbegotten; and we do not deny the Son to be begotten, but not created.

For neither, if we define the Son as begotten, can we thereby deny that he has his essence from God the Father;

for he begot him in the manner of begetting, and did not create him.

For just as, thinking crookedly about all things concerning the begotten and the unbegotten, you wish to turn yourself aside -- for it is nothing other than this -- so also you yourself must hear, concerning human syllogisms and syllogistic contradiction and human vanity of mind, the word: 'the mind of man is set diligently on evil things from his youth.'

But we too shall say that it is far more unfitting for God, who is uncreated, to create the things that are created, and for him who is unmade, to make;

for it is not possible for the uncreated to create, nor for him who did not come into being to make the things that shall be -- if, according to Aetius's reasoning, it is not fitting for the Unbegotten to beget.

But since the creatures are visible, and the greater part of the existing substance appears to us, while it is not fitting for the uncreated God to be implicated, on the ground of what has been created by him -- lest the incomparable nature, being carried over into the mutability of the things that have come to be, should, instead of the fitting, be reckoned by Aetius as rather unfitting -- then it will be sought that there is one God who is uncreated, and another who was created and is able, in proportion to himself, to create.

But since the one who was created and has the power to create is not self-originated but was himself created, another will again be sought as the cause of this one, and from this yet another will be devised.

Such is the vain talk of these notions, the mind no longer standing firm, but fulfilling what has been said: 'the servants of God were made fools,' and 'every man became foolish, bereft of knowledge.'

For no one lives for himself, nor dies for himself, nor will anyone know anything except from God, who has revealed to us his true faith, and who says, 'This is my beloved Son; listen to him,' and from him who was begotten of him, who revealed to us his Father, and said, 'I came forth from the Father, and I have come.'

Neither did God derive his incomparableness from names given by men, nor will the dignity of the true, hypostatic God the Word — begotten of the Father without beginning and consubstantially — be diverted on account of that incomparableness, nor does either name owe its grace to the inventions of men.

For the Divine receives no accession of dignity or addition, but the Divine itself supplies all things from its own fullness, ever remaining in selfsame identity and suffering no diminishment, but ever bearing in its own essence the dignity of name, of power, and of essence.

If the unbegotten is observed in God as something external, added from outside, then those who made the observation are better than the one observed, having procured for him a name superior to his nature.

'No one is better than God' — this is my word against Aetius, who has devised his argument thus, just as the truth actually stands.

For how could anyone be better than God, seeing that all things have received their being from God? And since God is the cause of the rational and irrational, visible and invisible beings created by him, he himself is better than all — even should the rational creatures, with right understanding, come to piety and honor the Better One, it would still be only in part, not at all wholly, even if all were gathered together as one and had conceived of extending beyond countless things toward the hymning of God, able to contain within themselves the perfection of his glory — for the nature of the Better One always surpasses the conception of those who are lesser, even should they, according to their power and beyond their power, extend themselves in hymnody toward the Better One.

For he is better not in word alone, but in power and name and reason.

But the glorification offered to the Better One by those who are inferior will not make one incomparable thing differ from another incomparable thing.

For it recognizes the Better One in the Father through his unbegottenness, and the Better One who was begotten from him.

Therefore the right understanding graciously given to men from God confesses the consubstantial, lest, by devising a difference of substance, it should create a division between Son and Father in that better and unmixed perfection through which it knows him to have been truly begotten by the one who begot him incomparably, surpassing every conception because of that better nature.

'If the unbegotten nature does not yield to generation' — this is what is stated:

but if it does yield to generation, then the passions attendant on generation would prove superior to the hypostasis of God.

To attribute passions of any kind whatsoever to God is most impious;

for the Divine is in no wise encompassed within passions, being utterly above such things as fall, in us, under divisible conceptions; and in every way the argument of Aetius shall be overturned.

For all things that occur in us in a passible manner exist in God impassibly.

For in us, in some part, willing is itself a passion — I do not mean the willing to be pious, but the willing to do something that is beyond nature, on account of not being able to accomplish what is fitting to the will, as for instance to say of a man 'to fly,' 'to be borne into the air,' 'to comprehend the veins of the deep,' 'to know the depths of the earth,' and things similar to these.

But whatever exists in me held together passibly, that same thing exists in God impassibly.

For this reason he is able to do all that he wills, since his nature does not act contrary to his will — whereas our nature within us does act contrary to our wills, to the extent that we extend ourselves toward what is impossible for us.

And not because we have said that God does what he wills should anyone by all means say that he therefore does things that are unfitting.

For he wills those things which he also does, in accordance with his own dignity, his will not being thwarted by inability, nor his ability being opposed to his willing — and if a thing is not done, it is not on account of inability, but on account of not willing.

After such impassibility as exists in God, while in us and other creatures there is a passible nature — if it should happen that one thinks in this way, then again another passion must, according to the truth, be confessed:

and after the second, a third also may be conceived.

We beget and are begotten with passion, since our nature and that of others who beget and are begotten undergoes division and experiences flux, expansion and contraction, swelling and diminishment, and all the other things that are held together by passion for this same reason.

But in God none of these things existed when he begot the Son.

For if any one of these things existed in God — according to the pretextual suspicion devised to overthrow their doctrine of the begotten Son — then, from our side, it must in turn be said against them: that in us, who beget and are begotten amid passion, there is a second passion also in the act of creating, for we suffer both in begetting and in being begotten. But God, whom you conceive of only as creator and not as begetter — to him, for the sake of his begetting, you tendentiously attribute passion, so as to deny the genuineness of the Son, while you consign to oblivion the passion involved in his creating — which itself, indeed, does not exist as a passion in God either. God forbid!

For we neither attach passion to him, while confessing him to be the creator of all things, nor again do we conceive of another passion concerning him, while confessing him to have truly begotten the true Son, without beginning and without time.

Therefore we know his nature to be incomprehensible and not held together by passion.

For this reason we confess him to be both an impassible begetter and an impassible creator.

For he begot the Only-begotten without suffering, and sent forth from himself his Holy Spirit without undergoing division, and he created the things that were created and are being created, without suffering harm or being seized by passion; and he does what he wills, in a manner befitting his own deity — not first deliberating, so as to learn by reflection whether the thing to be accomplished ought to come to pass, nor willing to act and yet, through some passion, being unable to furnish the will with what is needed to bring the deed to completion.

For he has together the willing and the doing — the having begotten the Only-begotten, the having created all things — the divine nature and dignity being far above the syllogistic conception of Aetius and of all mankind; God being better than every contrivance, not yielding to passion, but being far above all passions and every suspicion.

If the begotten is unchangeable in nature on account of the one who begot him, then the unbegotten is an unchangeable essence, not on account of a disposition, but on account of the dignity inherent in its essence.

How long will this man come bringing us the same thing to say, overstepping nothing of what has already been laid down? For all that he has said from beginning to end are the same things about the same subjects, and he has related nothing else — he has shown us no mysteries, he has not taught God as he professes to do, nor faith, through which the apostles, working and naming the firm confession of the truth, raised the dead and cleansed lepers, and did all the other deeds of that good harmony, from which shone forth the tokens of true working; but instead vain and boastful syllogisms that go no further than the utterance of tautology, relating those very same things and nothing else.

Therefore we beg that none of our readers blame us, if we too should be carried along toward the same things, being compelled to speak against his tautology.

For the begotten is unchangeable, as befits deity, and the begetter is unchangeable, as befits, proportionately, his own unchangeable nature.

[We are] to know the one who has been begotten, and his perfect Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and receives from the Son.

And this befits the dignity of God's essence: not to need any dignity by way of acquisition, but to possess it eternally in its own self-sameness.

If the unbegotten is indicative of essence, it is reasonably distinguished in contrast to the essence of the begotten;

but if the unbegotten signifies nothing, then much more does the begotten indicate nothing.

But how could nothing be distinguished from nothing? And if the utterance 'unbegotten' is distinguished in contrast to the utterance 'begotten,' with silence succeeding utterance, it happens that the hope of the Christians comes to be and ceases to be, since it would be situated in a shifting utterance, rather than in natures that truly exist in the way the meaning of the names would have it.

How is it that those who have learned to astonish the understanding of the unlearned are accustomed to anticipate the very testimonies that stand against themselves? For Aetius, who possesses his hope in mere utterance and not in truth, has come forward boldly to proclaim this to us, not being ashamed himself to confess that the Son of God and God the Father differ by bare word alone — while we, above all, confess that the Father is Father by nature, and the Son is Son by nature, and the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit by nature;

for nothing else will be compared to the Trinity.

And for this reason the foundation of our confession is truly consubstantial, and not built upon an utterance that is annulled by coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be, as is Aetius' opinion concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

For there truly is a real Father, and a truly real Son, and a truly real Holy Spirit, even should he sow countless vain syllogisms — as the divine word says concerning such men: 'I will destroy the understanding of the prudent,' and 'the Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain,' and so forth.

If the unbegotten allots nothing more to the superiority of essence over the begotten, then the Son, being surpassed only in utterance, will know those who so named him to be better than himself, and not know the one thus named as his God and Father.

No pious reasoning would allow — even should Aetius stage countless dramatics for us — that those who have received their being from the One who Is are better than the Son.

for he himself also confesses that these same beings came to be through him.

For those who have been benefited by him, and deemed worthy to be called Christians, do not know how to call him 'begotten' merely as a form of words, but as truly begotten from the True One — knowing him in truth, and having been taught this through the Father and not from flesh and blood; and for this reason they are rightly blessed, even as was he who acknowledged him as Son of God with the addition 'of the living God.' Nor are they examined spiritually in the way that he who is Spirit and Only-begotten examines the unspiritual Aetius, who does not receive the things of the Spirit.

even should he say, 'I am going to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God' —

these two designations being unable to be equated with names of a different kind, the truth ever remaining, and each necessary order in the Son of God truly teaching what is clear.

For 'my Father and your Father' is not to be applied to them according to the flesh — for how could God, who did not put on flesh, be a father of flesh? Nor is 'my God and your God' to be fulfilled according to the deity of the Son and according to the adoption of the disciples, in the same sense for both;

but by saying 'my God and your God,' he who is truthful in all things was, in mysterious fashion, assuring the disciples concerning his own becoming man for our salvation;

and by saying 'my Father and your Father,' through the word 'my' he signifies the communion of God with him according to nature, and at the same time with us — a communion of which, he says, 'I, having sojourned among you according to my love for mankind, granted you to attain, according to the saying:'

'he gave them authority to become children of God.'

This communion consists in identity and does not pass over into confusion — the sons of men being changed, through participation in God, unto incorruption, yet not united into consubstantiality; and he who took the form of a servant, by the word 'took' indicates what was newly assumed, while by the phrase 'existing in the form of God' he does not pass over into change.

These things being so, and being wisely confessed in perfect knowledge by those taught of God, neither 'my God and your God' nor 'my Father and your Father' will, on account of the reasonable communion effected through the shared name, differ from the pure essence, nor from the superiority of that unique unity of the Father with the Son, and of the Son with the Father, and likewise of the Holy Spirit.

If the unbegotten essence is better than generation, having this superiority from itself, then the unbegotten is essence itself, self-existent.

For it is not by an act of willing — that is, because it wills to be so — that it is better than generation, but because it is so by nature.

Therefore God, being himself the unbegotten essence, permits no reasoning to conceive of generation with respect to himself, but drives every inquiry and every reasoning to be directed against begotten things instead.

Aetius has surrounded us with the same vexations, forcing us, as I said, to repeat the same things many times over, on account of his tautology concerning the same matters from beginning to end.

For the faith that saves every believer was never constituted from the syllogistic suspicion of men;

since the minds of men are precarious, and unable to extend themselves toward the infinity of God's essence.

For indeed the whole life-giving mystery of Christ, which is our salvation, is to Jews a stumbling block, and to Greeks foolishness, but to us who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

How then could one not place Aetius among the Jews, on account of the stumbling block of his syllogisms, or reckon him a Greek, because, out of his own self-devised wisdom, he regards the truth of God as foolishness? For indeed the one Creator and Maker of all things, being better than all creation and workmanship, does not, on account of being better than the things brought into being by him, therefore refrain from making and creating the things that come to be through him;

for he does not begrudge through his own goodness.

For he has from himself the self-good, which is better than all things.

For he is not enclosed within passions, nor did he, out of envy or jealousy, bring the things that are into perfect existence out of things that are not.

For the things that came to be through him, though inferior to his incomparable deity, were not devised as things set over against himself — the things created by him — but for his own glory, in order to show the ungrudging generosity of his deity;

being self-goodness itself and self-essence itself, he communicated being to the things created by him out of non-being, having willed both that they should exist, and that each of the created things should partake of him, according to the proportion of the gift belonging to each particular case:

to the luminaries he has granted light; to heaven, the beauties of its adornment; to earth and to the other things, according to his own will, he granted portions of excellence; to angels and the other holy powers, the giving to them of incorruption; and to man, the dignity of the image, and the gift of life and knowledge and the endowment of reason.

And this did not come to be for him merely from an act of will, as one might say — hesitantly, or out of regret, or by deliberative reasoning — but according to his self-goodness.

For he is by nature good-in-himself, having, doing, and working all things in a manner fitting to himself.

Just as, then, he did not procure for himself unseemliness in this by his goodness, but rather glory and the knowledge of the praise of his unstinting bounty, having come to knowledge and perception among those who came into being by him, so also glory is not something additionally acquired by his deity.

...being eternal, he might co-exist as a fountain — himself a fountain from a fountain, and God from God, and Light from Light — not having begun to be, nor having fallen under time, but at once truly possessing the Father, and the Father at once truly possessing him as Son; not being unbefitting to the Father, nor effacing his incomparability.