6. A notice of Aetius, Eunomius' master in heresy, and of Eunomius himself, 
describing the origin and avocations of each. 

    Verily this did great damage to our declamation-writer, or rather to his 
patron and guide in life, Aetius; whose enthusiasm indeed appears to me to 
have aimed not so much at the propagation of error as to the securing a 
competence for life. I do not say this as a mere surmise of my own, but I have 
heard it from the lips of those who knew him well. I have listened to 
Athanasius, the former bishop of the Galatians, when he was speaking of the 
life of Aetius; Athanasius was a man who valued truth above all things; and he 
exhibited also the letter of George of Laodicaea, so that a number might 
attest the truth of his words. He told us that originally Aetius did not 
attempt to teach his monstrous doctrines, but only after some interval of time 
put forth these novelties as a trick to gain his livelihood; that having 
escaped from serfdom in the vineyard to which he belonged,--how, I do not wish 
to say, lest I should be thought to be entering on his history in a bad 
spirit,--he became at first a tinker, and had this grimy trade of a mechanic 
quite at his fingers' end, sitting under a goat's-hair tent, with a small 
hammer, and a diminutive anvil, and so earned a precarious and laborious 
livelihood. What income, indeed, of any account could be made by one who mends 
the shaky places in coppers, and solders holes up, and hammers sheets of tin 
to pieces, and clamps with lead the legs of pots? We were told that a certain 
incident which befell him in this trade necessitated the next change in his 
life. He had received from a woman belonging to a regiment a gold ornament, a 
necklace or a bracelet, which had been broken by a blow, and which he was to 
mend: but he cheated the poor creature, by appropriating her gold trinket, and 
giving her instead one of copper, of the same size, and also of the same 
appearance, owing to a gold-wash which he had imparted to its surface; she was 
deceived by this for a time, for he was clever enough in the tinker's, as in 
other, arts to mislead his customers with the tricks of trade; but at last she 
detected the rascality, for the wash got rubbed off the copper; and, as some 
of the soldiers of her family and nation were roused to indignation, she 
prosecuted the purloiner of her ornament. After this attempt he of course 
underwent a cheating thief's punishment; and then left the trade, swearing 
that it was not his deliberate intention, but that business tempted him to 
commit this theft. After this he became assistant to a certain doctor from 
amongst the quacks, so as not to be quite destitute of a livelihood; and in 
this capacity he made his attack upon the obscurer households and on the most 
abject of mankind. Wealth came gradually from his plots against a certain 
Armenius, who being a foreigner was easily cheated, and, having been induced 
to make him his physician, had advanced him frequent sums of money; and he 
began to think that serving under others was beneath him, and wanted to be 
styled a physician himself. Henceforth, therefore, he attended medical 
congresses, and consorting with the wrangling controversialists there became 
one of the ranters, and, just as the scales were turning, always adding his 
own weight to the argument, he got to be in no small request with those who 
would buy a brazen voice for their party contests. 

    But although his bread became thereby well buttered he thought he ought 
not to remain in such a profession; so he gradually gave up the medical, after 
the tinkering. Arius, the enemy of God, had already sown those wicked tares 
which bore the Anomaeans as their fruit, and the schools of medicine resounded 
then with the disputes about that question. Accordingly Aetius studied the 
controversy, and, having laid a train of syllogisms from what he remembered of 
Aristotle, he became notorious for even going beyond Arius, the father of the 
heresy, in the novel character of his speculations; or rather he perceived the 
consequences of all that Arius had advanced, and so got this character of a 
shrewd discoverer of truths not obvious; revealing as he did that the Created, 
even from things non-existent, was unlike the Creator who drew Him out of 
nothing. 

    With such propositions he tickled ears that itched for these novelties; 
and the Ethiopian Theophilus(8) becomes acquainted with them. Aetius had 
already been connected with this man on some business of Gallus; and now by 
his help creeps into the palace. After Gallus(9) had perpetrated the tragedy 
with regard to Domitian the procurator and Montius, all the other 
participators in it naturally shared his ruin; yet this man escapes, being 
acquitted from being punished along with them. After this, when the great 
Athanasius had been driven by Imperial command from the Church of Alexandria, 
and George the Tarbasthenite was tearing his flock, another change takes 
place, and Aetius is an Alexandrian, receiving his full share amongst those 
who fattened at the Cappadocian's board; for he had not omitted to practice 
his flatteries on George. George was in fact from Chanaan himself, and 
therefore felt kindly towards a countryman: indeed he had been for long so 
possessed with his perverted opinions as actually to dote upon him, and was 
prone to become a godsend for Aetius, whenever he liked. 

    All this did not escape the notice of his sincere admirer, our Eunomius. 
This latter perceived that his natural father--an excellent man, except that 
he had such a son--led a very honest and respectable life certainly, but one 
of laborious penury and full of countless toils. (He was one of those farmers 
who are always bent over the plough, and spend a world of trouble over their 
little farm; and in the winter, when he was secured from agricultural work, he 
used to carve out neatly the letters of the alphabet for boys to form 
syllables with, winning his bread with the money these sold for.) Seeing all 
this in his father's life, he said goodbye to the plough and the mattock and 
all the paternal instruments, intending never to drudge himself like that; 
then be sets himself to learn Prunicus' skill(10) of short-hand writing, and 
having perfected himself in that he entered at first, I believe, the house of 
one of his own family, receiving his board for his services in writing; then, 
while tutoring the boys of his host, he rises to the ambition of becoming an 
orator. I pass over the next interval, both as to his life in his native 
country and as to the things and the company in which he was discovered at 
Constantinople. 

    Busied as he was after this 'about the cloke and the purse,' he saw it was 
all of little avail, and that nothing which he could amass by such work was 
adequate to the demands of his ambition. Accordingly he threw up all other 
practices, and devoted himself solely to the admiration of Aetius; not, 
perhaps, without some calculation that this absorbing pursuit which he 
selected might further his own devices for living. In fact, from the moment he 
asked for a share in a wisdom so profound, he toiled not thenceforward, 
neither did he spin; for he is certainly clever in what he takes in hand, and 
knows how to gain the more emotional portion of mankind. Seeing that human 
nature, as a rule, falls an easy prey to pleasure, and that its natural 
inclination in the direction of this weakness is very strong, descending from 
the sterner heights of conduct to the smooth level of comfort, he becomes with 
a view of making the largest number possible of proselytes to his pernicious 
opinions very pleasant indeed to those whom he is initiating; he gets rid of 
the toilsome steep of virtue altogether, because it is not a persuasive to 
accept his secrets. But should any one have the leisure to inquire what this 
secret teaching of theirs is, and what those who have been duped to accept 
this blighting curse utter without any reserve, and what in the mysterious 
ritual of initiation they are taught by the reverend hierophant, the manner of 
baptisms(1), and the 'helps of nature,' and all that, let him question those 
who feel no compunction in letting indecencies pass their lips; we shall keep 
silent. For not even though we are the accusers should we be guiltless in 
mentioning such things, and we have been taught to reverence purity in word as 
well as deed, and not to soil our pages with equivocal stories, even though 
there be truth in what we say. 

    But we mention what we then heard (namely that, just as Aristotle's evil 
skill supplied 
Aetius with his impiety, so the simplicity of his dupes secured a fat living 
for the well-trained pupil as well as for the master) for the purpose of 
asking some questions. What after all was the great damage done him by Basil 
on the Euxine, or by Eustathius in Armenia, to both of whom that long 
digression in his story harks back? How did they mar the aim of his life? Did 
they not rather feed up his and his companion's freshly acquired fame? Whence 
came their wide notoriety, if not through the instrumentality of these men, 
supposing, that is, that their accuser is speaking the truth? For the fact 
that men, themselves illustrious, as our writer owns, deigned to fight with 
those who had as yet found no means of being known naturally gave the actual 
start to the ambitious thoughts of those who were to be pitted against these 
reputed heroes; and a veil was thereby thrown over their humble antecedents. 
They in fact owed their subsequent notoriety to this,--a thing detestable 
indeed to a reflecting mind which would never choose to rest fame upon an evil 
deed, but the acme of bliss to characters such as these. They tell of one in 
the province of Asia, amongst the obscurest and the basest, who longed to make 
a name in Ephesus; some great and brilliant achievement being quite beyond his 
powers never even entered his mind; and yet, by hitting, upon that which would 
most deeply injure the Ephesians, he made his mark deeper than the heroes of 
the grandest actions; for there was amongst their public buildings one 
noticeable for its peculiar magnificence and costliness; and he burnt this 
vast structure to the ground, showing, when men came to inquire after the 
perpetration of this villany into its mental causes, that he dearly prized 
notoriety, and had devised that the greatness of the disaster should secure 
the name of its author being recorded with it. The secret motive(2) of these 
two men is the same thirst for publicity; the only difference is that the 
amount of mischief is greater in their case. They are marring, not lifeless 
architecture, but the living building of the Church, introducing, for fire, 
the slow canker of their teaching. But I will defer the doctrinal question 
till the proper time comes. 

 7. Eunomius himself proves that the confession of faith which He made was not 
impeached. Let us see for a moment now what kind of truth is dealt with by 
this man, who in his Introduction complains that it is because of his telling 
the truth that he is hated by the unbelievers; we may well make the way he 
handles truth outside doctrine teach us a test to apply to his doctrine 
itself. "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much, 
and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." Now, when he is 
beginning to write this "apology for the apology" (that is the new and 
startling title, as well as subject, of his book) he says that we must look 
for the cause of this very startling announcement nowhere else but in him who 
answered that first treatise of his. That book was entitled an Apology; but 
being given to understand by our master-theologian that an apology can only 
come from those who have been accused of something, and that if a man writes 
merely from his own inclination his production is something else than an 
apology, he does not deny--it would be too manifestly absurd--(3) that an 
apology requires a preceding accusation; but he declares that his 'apology' 
has cleared him from very serious accusations in the trial which has been 
instituted against him. How false this is, is manifest from his own words. He 
complained that "many heavy sufferings were inflicted on him by those who had 
condemned him"; we may read that in his book. 

    But how could he have suffered so, if his 'apology' cleared him of these 
charges? If he successfully adopted an apology to escape from these, that 
pathetic complaint of his is a hypocritical pretence; if on the Other hand he 
really suffered as he says, then, plainly, he suffered because he did not 
clear himself by an apology; for every apology, to be such, has to secure this 
end, namely, to prevent the voting power from being misled by any false 
statements. Surely he will not now, attempt to say that at the time of the 
trial he produced his apology, but not being able to win over the jury lost 
the case to the prosecution. For he said nothing at the time of the trial 
'about producing his apology;' nor was it likely that he would, considering 
that he distinctly states in his book that he refused to have anything to do 
with those ill-affected and hostile dicasts. "We own," he says, "that we were 
condemned by default: there was a packed(4) panel of evil-disposed persons 
where a jury ought to have sat." He is very labored here, and has his 
attention diverted by his argument, I think, or he would have noticed that he 
has tacked on a fine solecism to his sentence. He affects to be imposingly 
Attic with his phrase 'packed panel;' but the correct in language use these 
words, as those familiar with the forensic 
vocabulary know, quite differently to our new Atticist. 

    A little further on he adds this; "If he thinks that, because I would have 
nothing to do with a jury who were really my prosecutors he can argue away my 
apology, he must be blind to his own simplicity." When, then, and before whom 
did our caustic friend make his apology? He had demurred to the jury because 
they were 'foes,' and he did not utter one word about any trial, as he himself 
insists. See how this strenuous champion of the true, little by little, passes 
over to the side of the false, and, while honouring truth in phrase, combats 
it in deed. But it is amusing to see how weak he is even in seconding his own 
lie. How can one and the same man have 'cleared himself by an apology in the 
trial which was instituted against him,' and then have 'prudently kept silence 
because the court was in the hands of the foe?' Nay, the very language he uses 
in the preface to his Apology clearly shows that no court at all was opened 
against him. For he does not address his preface to any definite jury, but to 
certain unspecified persons who were living then, or who were afterwards to 
come into the world; and I grant that to such an audience there was need of a 
very vigorous apology, not indeed in the manner of the one he has actually 
written, which requires another still to bolster it up, but a broadly 
intelligible ones, able to prove this special point, viz., that he was not in 
the possession of his usual reason when he wrote this, wherein he rings(6) the 
assembly-bell for men who never came, perhaps never existed, and speaks an 
apology before an imaginary court, and begs an imperceptible jury not to let 
numbers decide between truth and falsehood, nor to assign the victory to mere 
quantity. Verily it is becoming that he should make an apology of that sort to 
jurymen who are yet in the loins of their fathers, and to explain to them how 
he came to think it right to adopt opinions which contradict universal belief, 
and to put more faith in his own mistaken fancies than in those who throughout 
the world glorify Christ's name. 

    Let him write, please, another apology in addition to this second; for 
this one is not a correction of mistakes made about him, but rather a proof of 
the truth of those charges. Every one knows that a proper apology aims at 
disproving a charge; thus a man who is accused of theft or murder or any other 
crime either denies the fact altogether, or transfers the blame to another 
party, or else, if neither of these is possible, he appeals to the charity or 
to the compassion of those who are to vote upon his sentence. But in his book 
he neither denies the charge, nor shifts it on some one else, nor has recourse 
to an appeal for mercy, nor promises amendment for the future; but he 
establishes the charge against him by an unusually labored demonstration. This 
charge, as he himself confesses, really amounted to an indictment for 
profanity, nor did it leave the nature of this undefined, but proclaimed the 
particular kind; whereas his apology proves this species of profanity to be a 
positive duty, and instead of removing the charge strengthens it. Now, if the 
tenets of our Faith had been left in any obscurity, it might have been less 
hazardous to attempt novelties; but the teaching of our master-theologian is 
now firmly fixed in the souls of the faithful; and so it is a question whether 
the man who shouts out contradictions of that about which all equally have 
made up their minds is defending himself against the charges made, or is not 
rather drawing down upon him the anger of his hearers, and making his accusers 
still more bitter. I incline to think the latter. So that if there are, as our 
writer tells us, both hearers of his apology and accusers of his attempts upon 
the Faith, let him tell us, how those accusers can possibly compromise(7) the 
matter now, or what sort of verdict that jury must return, now that his 
offence has been already proved by his own 'apology.' 

 8. Facts show that the terms of abuse which he has employed against Basil are 
mare suitable for himself. 

    But these remarks are by the way, and come from our not keeping close to 
our argument We had to inquire not how he ought to have made his apology, but 
whether he had ever made one at all. But now let us return to our former 
position, viz., that he is convicted by his own statements. This hater of 
falsehood first of all tells us that he was condemned because the jury which 
was assigned him defied the law, and that he was driven over sea and land and 
suffered much from the burning sun and the dust. Then in trying to conceal his 
falsehood he drives out one nail with another nail, as the proverb says, and 
puts one falsehood right by cancelling it with another. As every one knows as 
well as he does that he never uttered one word in court, he declares that he 
begged to be let off coming into a hostile court and was condemned by default. 
Could there 

43 

be a plainer case than this of a man contradicting both the truth and himself? 
When he is pressed about the title of his book, he makes his trial the 
constraining cause of this 'apology;' but when he is pressed with the fact 
that he spoke not one word to the jury, he denies that there was any trial and 
says that he declined s such a jury. See how valiantly this doughty champion 
of the truth fights against falsehood! Then he dares to call our mighty Basil 
'a malicious rascal and a liar;' and besides that, 'a bold ignorant 
parvenu(9),' 'no deep divine,' and he adds to his list of abusive terms, 
'stark mad,' scattering an infinity of such words over his' pages, as if he 
imagined that his own bitter invectives could outweigh the common testimony of 
mankind, who revere that great name as though he were one of the saints of 
old. He thinks in fact that he, if no one else, can touch with calumny one 
whom calumny has never touched; but the sun is not so low in the heavens that 
any one can reach him with stones or any other missiles; they will but recoil 
upon him who shot them, while the intended target soars far beyond his reach. 
If any one, again, accuses the sun of want of light, he has not dimmed the 
brightness of the sunbeams with his scoffs; the sun will still remain the sun, 
and the fault-finder will only prove the feebleness of his own visual organs; 
and, if he should endeavour, after the fashion of this 'apology,' to persuade 
all whom he meets and will listen to him not to give in to the common opinions 
about the sun, nor to attach more weight to the experiences of all than to the 
surmises of one individual by 'assigning victory to mere quantity,' his 
nonsense will be wasted on those who can use their eyes. 

    Let some one then persuade Eunomius to bridle his tongue, and not give the 
rein to such wild talk, nor kick against the pricks in the insolent abuse of 
an honoured name; but to allow the mere remembrance of Basil to fill his soul 
with reverence and awe. What can he gain by this unmeasured ribaldry, when the 
object of it will retain all that character which his life, his words, and the 
general estimate of the civilized world proclaims him to have possessed? The 
man who takes in hand to revile reveals his own disposition as not being able, 
because it is evil, to speak good things, but only "to speak from the 
abundance of the heart," and to bring forth from that evil treasure-house. 
Now, that his expressions are merely those of abuse quite divorced from actual 
facts, can be proved from his own writings. 

 9. In charging Basil with not defending his faith at the time of the Trials,' 
he lays himself open to the same charge. 

    He hints at a certain locality where this trial for heresy took place; but 
he gives us no certain indication where it was, and the reader is obliged to 
guess in the dark. Thither, he tells us, a congress of picked representatives 
from all quarters was summoned; and he is at his best here, placing before our 
eyes with some vigorous strokes the preparation of the event which he pretends 
took place. Then, he says, a trial in which he would have had to run for his 
very life was put into the hands of certain arbitrators, to whom our Teacher 
and Master who was present gave his charge(1); and as all the voting power was 
thus won over to the enemies' side, he yielded the position(2), fled from the 
place, and hunted everywhere for some hearth and home; and he is great, in 
this graphic sketch(3), in arraigning the cowardice of our hero; as any one 
who likes may see by looking at what he has written. But I cannot stop to give 
specimens here of the bitter gall of his utterances; I must pass on to that, 
for the sake of which I mentioned all this. 

    Where, then, was that unnamed spot in which this examination of his 
teachings was to take place? What was this occasion when the best then were 
collected for a trial? Who were these men who hurried over land and sea to 
share in these labours? What was this expectant world that hung upon the issue 
of the voting?' Who was 'the arranger of the trial?' However, let us consider 
that he invented all that to swell out the importance of his story, as boys at 
school are apt to do in their fictitious conversations of this kind; and let 
him only tell us who that 'terrible combatant' was whom our Master shrunk from 
encountering. If this also is a fiction, let him be the winner again, and have 
the advantage of his vain words. We will say nothing: in the useless fight 
with shadows the real victory is to decline conquering in that. But if he 
speaks of the events at Constantinople and means the assembly there, and is in 
this fever of literary indignation at tragedies enacted there, and means 
himself by that great and redoubtable athlete, then we would display the 
reasons why, though present on the occasion, we did not plunge into the fight. 

44 

    Now let this man who upbraids that hero with his cowardice tell us whether 
he went down into the thick of the fray, whether he uttered one syllable in 
defence of his own orthodoxy, whether he made any vigorous peroration, whether 
he victoriously grappled with the foe? He cannot tell us that, or he 
manifestly contradicts himself, for he owns that by his default he received 
the adverse verdict. If it was a duty to speak at the actual time of the trial 
(for that is the law which he lays down for us in his book), then why was he 
then condemned by default? If on the other hand he did well in observing 
silence before such dicasts, how arbitrarily(4) he praises himself, but blames 
us, for silence at such a time! What can be more absurdly unjust than this! 
When two treatises have been put forth since the time of the trial, he 
declares that his apology, though written so very long after, was in time, but 
reviles that which answered his own as quite too late! Surely he ought to have 
abused Basil's intended counter-statement before it was actually made; but 
this is not found amongst his other complaints. Knowing as he did what Basil 
was going to write when the time of the trial had passed away, why in the 
world did he not find fault with it there and then? In fact it is clear from 
his own confession that he never made that apology in the trial itself. I will 
repeat again his words:--'We confess that we were condemned by default;' and 
he adds why; 'Evil-disposed persons had been passed as jurymen,' or rather, to 
use his own phrase, 'there was a packed panel of them where a jury ought to 
have sat.' Whereas, on the other hand, it is clear from another passage in his 
book that he attests that his apology was made 'at the proper time.' It runs 
thus:--"That I was urged to make this apology at the proper time and in the 
proper manner from no pretended reasons, but compelled to do so on behalf of 
those who went security for me, is clear from facts and also from this man's 
words." He adroitly twists his words round to meet every possible objection; 
but what will he say to this? 'It was not right to keep silent during the 
trial.' Then why was Eunomius speechless during that same trial? And why is 
his apology, coming as it did after the trial, in good time? And if in good 
time, why is Basil's controversy with him not in good time? 

    But the remark of that holy father is especially true, that Eunomius in 
pretending to make an apology really gave his teaching the support he wished 
to give it; and that genuine emulator of Phineas' zeal, destroying as he does 
with the sword of the Word every spiritual fornicator, dealt in the 'Answer to 
his blasphemy' a sword-thrust that was calculated at once to heal a soul and 
to destroy a heresy. If he resists that stroke, and with a soul deadened by 
apostacy will not admit the cure, the blame rests with him who chooses the 
evil, as the Gentile proverb says. So far for Eunomius' treatment of truth, 
and of us: and now the law of former times, which allows an equal return on 
those who are the first to injure, might prompt us to discharge on him a 
counter-shower of abuse, and, as he is a very easy subject for this, to be 
very liberal of it, so as to outdo the pain which he has inflicted: for if he 
was so rich in insolent invective against one who gave no chance for calumny, 
how many of such epithets might we not expect to find for those who have 
satirized that saintly life? But we have been taught from the first by that 
scholar of the Truth to be scholars of the Gospel ourselves, and therefore we 
will not take an eye for an eye, nor a tooth for a tooth; we know well that 
all the evil that happens admits of being annihilated by its opposite, and 
that no bad word and no bad deed would ever develope into such desperate 
wickedness, if one good one could only be got in to break the continuity of 
the vicious stream. Therefore the routine of insolence and abusiveness is 
checked from repeating itself by long-suffering: whereas if insolence is met 
with insolence and abuse with abuse, you will but feed with itself this 
monster-vice, and increase it vastly. 

 10. All his insulting epithets are shewn by facts to be false. 

    I therefore pass over everything else, as mere insolent mockery and 
scoffing abuse, and hasten to the question of his doctrine. Should any one say 
that I decline to be abusive only because I cannot pay him back in his own 
coin, let such an one consider in his own case what proneness there is to evil 
generally, what a mechanical sliding into sin, dispensing with the need of any 
practice. The power of becoming bad resides in the will; one act of wishing is 
often the sufficient occasion for a finished wickedness; and this ease of 
operation is more especially fatal in the sins of the tongue. Other classes of 
sins require time and occasion and co-operation to be committed; but the 
propensity to speak can sin when it likes. The treatise of Eunomius now in our 
hands is sufficient to prove this; one who attentively considers it will 
perceive the rapidity of the descent into sins 

45 

in the matter of phrases: and it is the easiest thing in the world to imitate 
these, even though one is quite unpractised in habitual defamation. What need 
would there be to labour in coining our intended insults into names, when one 
might employ upon this slanderer his own phrases? He has strung together, in 
fact, in this part of his work, every sort of falsehood and evil-speaking, all 
moulded from the models which he finds in himself; every extravagance is to be 
found in writing these. He writes "cunning," "wrangling," "foe to truth," 
"high-flown(5)," "charlatan," 

"combating general opinion and tradition," "braving facts which give him the 
lie," "careless of the terrors of the law, of the censure of men," "unable to 
distinguish the enthusiasm for truth from mere skill in reasoning;" he adds, 
"wanting in reverence," "quick to call names," and then "blatant," "full of 
conflicting suspicions," "combining irreconcileable arguments," "combating his 
own utterances," "affirming contradictories;" then, though eager to speak all 
ill of him, not being able to find other novelties of invective in which to 
indulge his bitterness, often in default of all else he reiterates the same 
phrases, and comes round again a third and a fourth time and even more to what 
he has once said; and in this circus of words he drives up and then turns 
down, over and over again, the same racecourse of insolent abuse; so that at 
last even anger at this shameless display dies away from very weariness. These 
low unlovely street boys' jeers do indeed provoke disgust rather than anger; 
they are not a whit better than the inarticulate grunting of some old woman 
who is quite drunk. 

    Must we then enter minutely into this, and laboriously, refute all his 
invectives by showing that Basil was not this monster of his imagination? If 
we did this, contentedly proving the absence of anything vile and criminal in 
him, we should seem to join in insulting one who was a 'bright particular 
star' to his generation. But I remember how with that divine voice of his he 
quoted the prophet(6) with regard to him, comparing him to a shameless woman 
who casts her own reproaches on the chaste. For whom do these reasonings of 
his proclaim to be truth's enemy and in arms against public opinion? Who is it 
who begs the readers of his book not 'to look to the numbers of those who 
profess a belief, or to mere tradition, or to let their judgment be biassed so 
as to consider as trustworthy what is only suspected to be the stronger side?' 
Can one and the same man write like this, and then make those charges, 
scheming that his readers should follow his own novelties at the very moment 
that he is abusing others for opposing themselves to the general belief? As 
for 'brazening out facts which give him the lie, and men's censure,' I leave 
the reader to judge to whom this applies; whether to one who by a most careful 
self-restraint made sobriety and quietness and perfect purity the rule of his 
own life as well as that of his entourage, or to one who advised that nature 
should not be molested when it is her pleasure to advance through the 
appetites of the body, not to thwart indulgence, nor to be so particular as 
that in the training of our life; but that a self-chosen faith should be 
considered sufficient for a man to attain perfection. If he denies that this 
is his teaching, I and any right-minded person would rejoice if he were 
telling the truth in such a denial. But his genuine followers will not allow 
him to produce such a denial, or their leading principles would be gone, and 
the platform of those who for this reason embrace his tenets would fall to 
pieces. As for shameless indifference to human censure, you may look at his 
youth or his after life, and you would find him in both open to this reproach. 
The two men's lives, whether in youth or manhood, tell a widely-different 
tale. 

    Let our speech-writer, while he reminds himself of his youthful doings in 
his native land, and afterwards at Constantinople, hear from those who can 
tell him what they know of the man whom he slanders. But if any would inquire 
into their subsequent occupations, let such a person tell us which of the two 
he considers to deserve so high a reputation; the man who ungrudgingly spent 
upon the poor his patrimony even before he was a priest, and most of all in 
the time of the famine, during which he was a ruler of the Church, though 
still a priest in the rank of presbyters(7); and afterwards did not hoard even 
what remained to him, so that he too might have made the Apostles' boast, 
'Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought(8):' or, on the other hand, the 
man who has made the championship of a tenet a source of income, the man who 
creeps into houses, and does not conceal his loathsome affliction by staying 
at home, nor considers the natural aversion which those in good health must 
feel for such, though according to the law of old he is one of those who are 
banished from the inhabited camp because of the contagion of his 
unmistakeable(9) disease. 

    Basil is called 'hasty' and 'insolent,' and in both characters 'a liar' by 
this man who 'would in patience and meekness educate those of a contrary 
opinion to himself;' for such are the airs he gives himself when he speaks of 
him, while he omits no hyperbole of bitter language, when he has a sufficient 
opening to produce it. On what grounds, then, does he charge him with this 
hastiness and insolence? Because 'he called me a Galatian, though I am a 
Cappadocian;' then it was because he called a man who lived on the boundary in 
an obscure corner like Corniaspine(1) a Galatian instead of an Oltiserian; 
supposing, that is, that it is proved that he said this. I have not found it 
in my copies; but grant it. For this he is to be called 'hasty,' 'insolent,' 
all that is bad. But the wise know well that the minute charges of a 
faultfinder furnish a strong argument for the righteousness of the accused; 
else, when eager to accuse, he would not have spared great faults and employed 
his malice on little ones. On these last he is certainly great, heightening 
the enormity of the offence, and making solemn reflections on falsehood, and 
seeing equal heinousness in it whether in great or very trivial matters. Like 
the fathers of his heresy, the scribes and Pharisees, he knows how to strain a 
gnat carefully and to swallow at one gulp the hump-backed camel laden with a 
weight of wickedness. But it would not be out of place to say to him, 'refrain 
from making such a rule in our system; cease to bid us think it of no account 
to measure the guilt of a falsehood by the slightness or the importance of the 
circumstances.' Paul telling a falsehood and purifying himself after the 
manner of the Jews to meet the needs of those whom he usefully deceived did 
not sin the same as Judas for the requirement of his treachery putting on a 
kind and affable look. By a falsehood Joseph in love to his brethren deceived 
them; and that too while swearing 'by the life of Pharaoh(2);' but his 
brethren had really lied to him, in their envy plotting his death and then his 
enslavement. There are many such cases: Sarah lied, because she was ashamed of 
laughing: the serpent lied, tempting man to disobey and change to a divine 
existence. Falsehoods differ widely according to their motives. Accordingly we 
accept that general statement about man which the Holy Spirit uttered by the 
Prophet(3), 'Every man is a liar;' and this man of God, too, has not kept 
clear of falsehood, having chanced to give a place the name of a neighbouring 
district, through oversight or ignorance of its real name. But Eunomius also 
has told a falsehood, and what is it? Nothing less than a misstatement of 
Truth itself. He asserts that One who always is once was not; he demonstrates 
that One who is truly a Son is falsely so called; he defines the Creator to be 
a creature and a work; the Lord of the world he calls a servant, and ranges 
the Being who essentially rules with subject beings. Is the difference between 
falsehoods so very trifling, that one can think it matters nothing whether the 
falsehood is palpable(4) in this way or in that? 

 11. The sophistry which he employs to prove our acknowledgment that he had 
been tried, and that the confession of his faith had not been unimpeached, is 
feeble. 

    He objects to sophistries in others; see the sort of care he takes himself 
that his proofs shall be real ones. Our Master said, in the book which he 
addressed to him, that at the time when our cause was ruined, Eunomius won 
Cyzicus as the prize of his blasphemy. What then does this detector of 
sophistry do? He fastens at once on that word prize, and declares that we on 
our side confess that he made an apology, that he won thereby, that he gained 
the prize of victory by these efforts; and he frames his argument into a 
syllogism consisting as he thinks of unanswerable propositions. But we will 
quote word for word what he has written. 'If a prize is the recognition and 
the crown of victory, and a trial implies a victory, and, as also inseparable 
from itself, an accusation, then that man who grants (in argument) the prize 
must necessarily allow that there was a defence.' What then is our answer to 
that? We do not deny that he fought this wretched battle of impiety with a 
most vigorous energy, and that he went a very long distance beyond his fellows 
in these perspiring efforts against the truth; but we will not allow that he 
obtained the victory over his opponents; but only that as compared with those 
who were running the same as himself through heresy into error he was foremost 
in the number of his lies and so gained the prize of Cyzicus in return for 
high attainments in evil, beating all who for the same prize combated the 
Truth; and that for this victory of blasphemy his name was blazoned loud and 
clear when 

47 

Cyzicus was selected for him by the umpires of his party as the reward of his 
extravagance, This is the statement of our opinion, and this we allowed; our 
contention now that Cyzicus was the prize of a heresy, not the successful 
result of a defence, shews it. Is this anything like his own mess of childish 
sophistries, so that he can thereby hope to have grounds for proving the fact 
of his trial and his defence? His method is like that of a man in a drinking 
bout, who has made away with more strong liquor than the rest, and having then 
claimed the pool from his fellow-drunkards should attempt to make this victory 
a proof of having won some case in the law courts. That man might chop the 
same sort of logic. 'If a prize is the recognition and the crown of victory, 
and a law-trial implies a victory and, as also inseparable from itself, an 
accusation, then I have won my suit, since I have been crowned for my powers 
of drinking in this bout.' 

    One would certainly answer to such a booster that a trial in court is a 
very different thing from a wine-contest, and that one who wins with the glass 
has thereby no advantage over his legal adversaries, though he get a beautiful 
chaplet of flowers. No more, therefore, has the man who has beaten his equals 
in the advocacy of profanity anything to show in having won the prize for 
that, that he has won a verdict too. The testimony on our side that he is 
first in profanity is no plea for his imaginary 'apology.' If he did speak it 
before the court, and, having so prevailed over his adversaries, was honoured 
with Cyzicus for that, then he might have some occasion for using our own 
words against ourselves; but as he is continually protesting in his book that 
he yielded to the animus of the voters, and accepted in silence the penalty 
which they inflicted, not even waiting for this hostile decision, why does he 
impose upon himself and make this word prize into the proof of a successful 
apology? Our excellent friend fails to understand the force of this word 
prize; Cyzicus was given up to him as the reward of merit for his extravagant 
impiety; and as it was his will to receive such a prize, and be views it in 
the light of a victor's guerdon, let him receive as well what that victory 
implies, viz. the lion's share in the guilt of profanity. If he insists on our 
own words against ourselves, he must accept both these consequences, or 
neither. 

 12. His charge of cowardice is baseless: for Basil displayed the highest 
courage before the Emperor and his Lord-Lieutenants. 

    He treats our words so; and in the rest of his presumptuous statements can 
there be, shown to be a particle of truth? In these he calls him 'cowardly,' 
'spiritless,' 'a shirker of severer labours,' exhausting the list of such 
terms, and giving with laboured circumstantiality every symptom of this 
cowardice: 'the retired cabin, the door firmly closed, the anxious fear of 
intruders, the voice, the look, the tell-tale change of countenance,' 
everything of that sort, whereby the passion of fear is shown. If he were 
detected in no other lie but this, it alone would be sufficient to reveal his 
bent. For who does not know how, during the time when the Emperor Valens was 
roused against the churches of the Lord, that mighty champion of ours rose by 
his lofty spirit superior to those overwhelming circumstances and the terrors 
of the foe, and showed a mind which soared above every means devised to daunt 
him? Who of the dwellers in the East, and of the furthest regions of our 
civilized world did not hear of his combat with the throne itself for the 
truth? Who, looking to his antagonist, was not in dismay? For his was no 
common antagonist, possessed only of the power of winning in sophistic 
juggles, where victory is no glory and defeat is harmless; but he had the 
power of bending the whole Roman government to his will; and, added to this 
pride of empire, he had prejudices against our faith, cunningly instilled into 
his mind by Eudoxius(5) of Germanicia(6), who had won him to his side; and he 
found in all those who were then at the head of affairs allies in carrying out 
his designs, some being already inclined to them from mental sympathies, while 
others, and they were the majority, were ready from fear to indulge the 
imperial pleasure, and seeing the severity employed against those who held to 
the Faith were ostentatious in their zeal for him. It was a time of exile, 
confiscation, banishment, threats of fines, danger of life, arrests, 
imprisonment, scourging; nothing was too dreadful to put in force against 
those who would not yield to this sudden caprice of the Emperor; it was worse 
for the faithful to be caught in God's house than if they had been detected in 
the most heinous of crimes. 

    But a detailed history of that time would be too long; and would require a 
separate treatment; besides, as the sufferings at that sad season are known to 
all, nothing would be gained for our present purpose by carefully setting them 
forth in writing. A second drawback to such an attempt would be found to be 
that amidst the details of that melancholy history we should be forced to make 
mention 

48 

of ourselves; and if we did anything in those struggles for our religion that 
redounds to our honour in the telling, Wisdom commands us to leave it to 
others to tell. "Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth(6);" and 
it is this very thing that our omniscient friend has not been conscious of in 
devoting the larger half of his book to self-glorification. 

    Omitting, then, all that kind of detail, I will be careful only in setting 
forth the achievement of our Master. The adversary whom he had to combat was 
no less a person than the Emperor himself; that adversary's second was the man 
who stood next him in the government; his assistants to work out his will were 
the court. Let us take into consideration also the point of time, in order to 
test and to illustrate the fortitude of our own noble champion. When was it? 
The Emperor was proceeding from Constantinople to the East elated by his 
recent successes against the barbarians, and not in a spirit to brook any 
obstruction to his will; and his lord-lieutenant directed his route, 
postponing all administration of the necessary affairs of state as long as a 
home remained to one adherent of the Faith and until every one, no matter 
where, was ejected, and others, chosen by himself to outrage our godly 
hierarchy, were introduced instead. The Powers then of the Propontis were 
moving in such a fury, like some dark cloud, upon the churches; Bithynia was 
completely devastated; Galatia was very quickly carried away by their stream; 
all in the intervening districts had succeeded with them; and now our fold lay 
the next to be attacked. What did our mighty Basil show like then, 'that 
spiritless coward,' as Eunomius calls him, 'shrinking from danger, and 
trusting to a retired cabin to save him?' Did he quail at this evil onset? Did 
he allow the sufferings of previous victims to suggest to him that he should 
secure his own safety? Did he listen to any who advised a slight yielding to 
this rush of evils(7), so as not to throw himself openly in the path of men 
who were now veterans in slaughter? Rather we find that all excess of 
language, all height of thought and word, falls short of the truth about him. 
None could describe his contempt of danger, so as to bring before the reader's 
eyes this new combat, which one might justly say was waged not between man and 
man, but between a Christian's firmness and courage on the one side, and a 
bloodstained power on the other. 

    The lord-lieutenant kept appealing to the commands of the Emperor, and 
rendering a power, which from its enormous strength was terrible enough, more 
terrible still by the unsparing cruelty of its vengeance. After the tragedies 
which he had enacted in Bithynia. and after Galatia with characteristic 
fickleness had yielded without a struggle, he thought that our country would 
fall a ready prey to his designs. Cruel deeds were preluded by words 
proposing, with mingled threats and promises, royal favours and ecclesiastical 
power to obedience, but to resistance all that a cruel spirit which has got 
the power to work its will can devise. Such was the enemy. 

    So far was our champion from being daunted by what he saw and heard, that 
he acted rather like a physician or prudent councillor called m to correct 
something that was wrong, bidding them repent of their rashness and cease to 
commit murders amongst the servants of the Lord; 'their plans,' he said, 
'could not succeed with men who cared only for the empire of Christ, and for 
the Powers that never die; with all their wish to maltreat him, they could 
discover nothing, whether word or act, that could pain the Christian; 
confiscation could not touch him whose only possession was his Faith; exile 
had no terrors for one who walked in every land with the same feelings, and 
looked on every city as strange because of the shortness of his sojourn in it, 
yet as home, because all human creatures are in equal bondage with himself; 
the endurance of blows, or tortures, or death, if it might be for the Truth, 
was an object of fear not even to women, but to every Christian it was the 
supremest bliss to suffer the worst for this their hope, and they were only 
grieved that nature allowed them but one death, and that they could devise no 
means of dying many times in this battle for the Truth(8).' 

    When he thus confronted their threats, and looked beyond that imposing 
power, as if it were all nothing, then their exasperation, just like those 
rapid changes on the stage when one mask after another is put on, turned with 
all its threats into flattery; and the very man whose spirit up to then had 
been so determined and formidable adopted the most gentle and submissive of 
language; 'Do not, I beg you, think it a small thing for our mighty emperor to 
have communion with your people, but be willing to be called his master too: 
nor thwart his wish; he wishes for this peace, if only one little word in the 
written Creed is erased, that of Homoousios.' Our master answers that it is of 
the greatest importance that the emperor 

49 

should be a member of the Church; that is, that he should save his soul, not 
as an emperor, but as a mere man; but a diminution of or addition to the Faith 
was so far from his (Basil's) thoughts, that he would not change even the 
order of the written words. That was what this 'spiritless coward, who 
trembles at the creaking of a door,' said to this great ruler, and he 
confirmed his words by what he did; for he stemmed in his own person this 
imperial torrent of ruin that was rushing on the churches, and turned it 
aside; he in himself was a match for this attack, like a grand immoveable rock 
in the sea, breaking the huge and surging billow of that terrible onset. 

    Nor did his wrestling stop there; the emperor himself succeeds to the 
attack, exasperated because he did not get effected in the first attempt all 
that he wished. Just, accordingly, as the Assyrian effected the destruction of 
the temple of the Israelites at Jerusalem by means of the cook Nabuzardan, so 
did this monarch of ours entrust his business to one Demosthenes, comptroller 
of his kitchen, and chief of his cooks(9), as to one more pushing than the 
rest, thinking thereby to succeed entirely in his design. With this man 
stirring the pot, and with one of the blasphemers from Illyricum, letters in 
hand, assembling the authorities with this end in view, and with Modestus(1) 
kindling passion to a greater heat than in the previous excitement, every one 
joined the movement of the Emperor's anger, making his fury their own, and 
yielding to the temper of authority; and on the other hand all felt their 
hopes sink at the prospect of what might happen. That same lord-lieutenant 
re-enters on the scene; intimidations worse than the former are begun; their 
threats are thrown out; their anger rises to a still higher pitch; there is 
the tragic pomp of trial over again, the criers, the apparitors, the lictors, 
the curtained bar, things which naturally daunt even a mind which is 
thoroughly prepared; and again we see God's champion amidst this combat 
surpassing even his former glory. If you want proofs, look at the facts. What 
spot, where there are churches, did not that disaster reach? What nation 
remained unreached by these heretical commands? Who of the illustrious in any 
Church was not driven from the scene of his labours? What people escaped their 
despiteful treatment? It reached all Syria, and Mesopotamia up to the 
frontier, Phoenicia, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, the Libyan tribes to the 
boundaries of the civilized world; and all nearer home, Pontus, Cilicia, 
Lycia, Lydia, Pisidia, Pamphylia, Caria, the Hellespont, the islands up to the 
Propontis itself: the coasts of Thrace, as far as Thrace extends, and the 
bordering nations as far as the Danube. Which of these countries retained its 
former look, unless any were already possessed with the evil? The people of 
Cappadocia alone felt not these afflictions of the Church, because our mighty 
champion saved them in their trial. 

    Such was the achievement of this 'coward' master of ours; such was the 
success of one who 'shirks all sterner toil.' Surely it is not that of one who 
'wins renown amongst poor old women, and practises to deceive the sex which 
naturally fails into every snare,' and 'thinks it a great thing to be admired 
by the criminal and abandoned;' it is that of one who has proved by deeds his 
soul's fortitude, and the unflinching and noble manliness of his spirit. His 
success has resulted in the salvation of the whole country, the peace of our 
Church, the pattern given to the virtuous of every excellence, the overthrow 
of the foe, the upholding of the Faith, the confirmation of the weaker 
brethren, the encouragement of the zealous, everything that is believed to 
belong to the victorious side; and in the commemoration of no other events but 
these do hearing and seeing unite in accomplished facts; for here it is one 
and the same thing to relate in words his noble deeds and to show in facts the 
attestation of our words, and to confirm each by the other--the record from 
what is before our eyes, and the facts from what is being said. 

 13. Resume of his dogmatic teaching. Objections to it in detail. 

    But somehow our discourse has swerved considerably from the mark; it has 
had to turn round and face each of this slanderer's insults. To Eunomius 
indeed it is no small advantage that the discussion should linger upon such 
points, and that the indictment of his offences against man should delay our 
approach to his graver sins. But it is profitless to abuse for hastiness of 
speech one who is on his trial for murder; (because the proof of the latter is 
sufficient to get the verdict of death passed, even though hastiness of speech 
is not proved along with it): just so it seems best to subject to proof his 
blasphemy only, and to leave his insults alone. When his heinousness on the 
most important points has been detected, his other delinquencies are proved 
potentially 

50 

without going minutely into them. Well then; at the head of all his 
argumentations stands this blasphemy against the definitions of the 
Faith--both in his former work and in that which we are now criticizing--and 
his strenuous effort to destroy and cancel and completely upset all devout 
conceptions as to the Only-Begotten Son of God and the Holy Spirit. To show, 
then, how false and inconsistent are his arguments against these doctrines of 
the truth, I will first quote word for word his whole statement, and then I 
will begin again and examine each portion separately. "The whole account of 
our doctrines is summed up thus; there is the Supreme and Absolute Being, and 
another Being existing by reason of the First, but after It(2) though before 
all others; and a third Being not ranking with either of these, but inferior 
to the one, as to its cause, to the other, as to the energy which produced it: 
there must of course be included in this account the energies that follow each 
Being, and the names germane to these energies. Again, as each Being is 
absolutely single, and is in fact and thought one, and its energies are 
bounded by its works, and its works commensurate with its energies, 
necessarily, of course, the energies which follow these Beings are relatively 
greater and less, some being of a higher, some of a lower order; in a word, 
their difference amounts to that existing between their works: it would in 
fact not be lawful to say that the same energy produced the angels or stars, 
and the heavens or man: but a pious mind would conclude that in proportion as 
some works are superior to and more honourable than others, so does one energy 
transcend another, because sameness of energy produces sameness of work, and 
difference of work indicates difference of energy. These things being so, and 
maintaining an unbroken connexion in their relation to each other, it seems 
fitting for those who make their investigation according to the order germane 
to the subject, and who do not insist on mixing and confusing all together, in 
case of a discussion being raised about Being, to prove what is in course of 
demonstration, and to settle the points in debate, by the primary energies and 
those attached to the Beings, and again to explain by the Beings when the 
energies are in question, yet still to consider the passage from the first to 
the second the more suitable and in all respects the more efficacious of the 
two." 

    Such is his blasphemy systematized! May the Very God, Son of the Very God, 
by the leading of the Holy Spirit, direct our discussion to the truth! We will 
repeat his statements one by one. He asserts that the "whole account of his 
doctrines is summed up in the Supreme and Absolute Being, and in another Being 
existing by reason of the First, but after It though before all others, and in 
a third Being not ranking with either of these but inferior to the one as to 
its cause, to the other as to the energy" The first point, then, of the unfair 
dealings in this statement to be noticed is that in professing to expound the 
mystery of the Faith, he corrects as it were the expressions in the Gospel, 
and will not make use of the words by which our Lord in perfecting our faith 
conveyed that mystery to us: he suppresses the names of 'Father, Son and Holy 
Ghost,' and speaks of a 'Supreme and Absolute Being' instead of the Father, of 
'another existing through it, but after it' instead of the Son, and of 'a 
third ranking with neither of these two' instead of the Holy Ghost. And yet if 
those had been the more appropriate names, the Truth Himself would not have 
been at a loss to discover them, nor those men either, on whom successively 
devolved the preaching of the mystery, whether they were from the first 
eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word, or, as successors to these, filled 
the whole world with the Evangelical doctrines, and again at various periods 
after this defined in a common assembly the ambiguities raised about the 
doctrine; whose traditions are constantly preserved in writing in the 
churches. If those had been the appropriate terms, they would not have 
mentioned, as they did, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, granting indeed it were 
pious or safe to remodel at all, with a view to this innovation, the terms of 
the faith; or else they were all ignorant men and uninstructed in the 
mysteries, and unacquainted with what he calls the appropriate names--those 
men who 

51 

had really neither the knowledge nor the desire to give the preference to 
their own conceptions over what had been handed down to us by the voice of 
God. 

 14. He did wrong, when mentioning life Doctrines of Salvation, in adopting 
terms of his own choosing instead of the traditional terms Father, Son, and 
Holy Spirit. 

    The reason for this invention of new words I take to be manifest to every 
one--namely: that every one, when the words father and son are spoken, at once 
recognizes the proper and natural relationship to one another which they 
imply. This relationship is conveyed at once by the appellations themselves. 
To prevent it being understood of the Father, and the Only-begotten Son, he 
robs us of this idea of relationship which enters the ear along with the 
words, and abandoning the inspired terms, expounds the Faith by means of 
others devised to injure the truth. 

    One thing, however, that he says is true: that his own teaching, not the 
Catholic teaching, is summed up so. Indeed any one who reflects can easily see 
the impiety of his statement. It will not be out of place now to discuss in 
detail what his intention is in ascribing to the being of the Father alone the 
highest degree of that which is supreme and proper, while not admitting that 
the being of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is supreme and proper. For my part 
I think that it is a prelude to his complete denial of the 'being' of the 
Only-begotten and of the Holy Ghost, and that this system of his is secretly 
intended to effect the setting aside of all real belief in their personality, 
while in appearance and in mere words confessing it. A moment's reflection 
upon his statement will enable any one to perceive that this is so. It does 
not look like one who thinks that the Only-begotten and the Holy Ghost really 
exist in a distinct personality to be very particular about the names with 
which he thinks the greatness of Almighty God should be expressed. To grant 
the fact(3), and then go into minute distinctions about the appropriate 
phrases(4) would be indeed consummate folly: and so in ascribing a being that 
is in the highest degree supreme and proper only to the Father, he makes us 
surmise by this silence respecting the other two that (to him) they do not 
properly exist. How can that to which a proper being is denied be said to 
really exist? When we deny proper being to it, we must perforce affirm of it 
all the opposite terms. That which cannot be properly said is improperly said, 
so that the demonstration of its not being properly said is a proof of its not 
really subsisting: and it is at this that Eunomius seems to aim in introducing 
these new names into his teaching. For no one can say that he has strayed from 
ignorance into some silly fancy of separating, locally, the supreme from that 
which is below, and assigning to the Father as it were the peak of some hill, 
while he seats the Son lower down in the hollows. No one is so childish as to 
conceive of differences in space, when the intellectual and spiritual is under 
discussion. Local position is a property of the material: but the intellectual 
and immaterial is confessedly removed from the idea of locality. What, then, 
is the reason why he says that the Father alone has supreme being? For one can 
hardly think it is from ignorance that he wanders off into these conceptions, 
being one who, in the many displays he makes, claims to be wise, even "making 
himself overwise," as the Holy Scripture forbids us to do(5). 

 15. He does wrong in making the being of the Father alone proper and supreme, 
implying by his omission of the Son and tire Spirit that theirs is improperly 
spoken of, and is inferior. 

    But at all events he will allow that this supremacy of being betokens no 
excess of power, or of goodness, or of anything of that kind. Every one knows 
that, not to mention those whose knowledge is supposed to be very profound; 
viz., that the personality of the Only-begotten and of the Holy Ghost has 
nothing lacking in the way of perfect goodness, perfect power, and of every 
quality like that. Good, as long as it is incapable of its opposite, has no 
bounds to its goodness: its opposite alone can circumscribe it, as we may see 
by particular examples. Strength is stopped only when weakness seizes it; life 
is limited by death alone; darkness is the ending of light: in a word, every 
good is checked by its opposite, and by that alone. If then he supposes that 
the nature of the Only-begotten and of the Spirit can change for the worse, 
then he plainly diminishes the conception of their goodness, making them 
capable of being associated with their opposites. But if the Divine and 
unalterable nature is incapable of degeneracy, as even our foes allow, we must 
regard it as absolutely unlimited in its goodness: and the unlimited is the 
same as the infinite. But to suppose excess and defect in the infinite and 
unlimited is to the last degree unreasonable: for how can the idea of 
infinitude remain, if we posited increase and loss in it? We get the idea of 
excess only by a comparison of limits: where 

52 

there is no limit, we cannot think of any excess. Perhaps, however, this was 
not what he was driving at, but he assigns this superiority only by the 
prerogative of priority m time, and, with this idea only, declares the 
Father's being to be alone the supreme one. Then he must tell us on what 
grounds he has measured out more length of life to the Father, while no 
distinctions of time whatever have been previously conceived of in the 
personality of the Son. 

    And yet supposing for a moment, for the sake of argument, that this was 
so, what superiority does the being which is prior in time have over that 
which follows, on the score of pure being, that he can say that the one is 
supreme and proper, and the other is not? For while the lifetime of the eider 
as compared with the younger is longer, yet his being has neither increase nor 
decrease on that account. This will be clear by an illustration. What 
disadvantage, on the score of being, as compared with Abraham, had David who 
lived fourteen generations after? Was any change, so far as humanity goes, 
effected in the latter? Was he less a human being, because he was later in 
time? Who would be so foolish as to assert this? The definition of their being 
is the same for both: the lapse of time does not change it. No one would 
assert that the one was more a man for being first in time, and the other less 
because he sojourned in life later; as if humanity had been exhausted on the 
first, or as if time had spent its chief power upon the deceased. For it is 
not in the power of time to define for each one the measures of nature, but 
nature abides self-contained, preserving herself through succeeding 
generations: and time has a course of its own, whether surrounding, or flowing 
by, this nature, which remains firm and motionless within her own limits. 
Therefore, not even supposing, as our argument did for a moment, that an 
advantage were allowed on the score of time, can they properly ascribe to the 
Father alone the highest supremacy of being: but as there is really no 
difference whatever in the prerogative of time, how could any one possibly 
entertain such an idea about these existencies which are pre-temporal? Every 
measure of distance that we could discover is beneath the divine nature: so no 
ground is left for those who attempt to divide this pre-temporal and 
incomprehensible being by distinctions of superior and inferior. 

    We have no hesitation either in asserting that what is dogmatically taught 
by them is an advocacy of the Jewish doctrine, setting forth, as they do, that 
the being of the Father alone has subsistence, and insisting that this only 
has proper existence, and reckoning that of the Son and the Spirit among 
non-existencies, seeing that what does not properly exist can be said 
nominally only, and by an abuse of terms, to exist at all. The name of man, 
for instance, is not given to a portrait representing one, but to so and so 
who is absolutely such, the original of the picture, and not the picture 
itself; whereas the picture is in word only a man, and does not possess 
absolutely the quality ascribed to it, because it is not in its nature that 
which it is called. In the case before us, too, if being is properly ascribed 
to the Father, but ceases when we come to the Son and the Spirit, it is 
nothing short of a plain denial of the message of salvation. Let them leave 
the church and fall back upon the synagogues of the Jews, proving, as they do, 
the Son's non-existence in denying to Him proper being. What does not properly 
exist is the same thing as the non-existent. 

    Again, he means in all this to be very clever, and has a poor opinion of 
those who essay to write without logical force. Then let him tell us, 
contemptible though we are, by what sort of skill he has detected a greater 
and a less in pure being. What is his method for establishing that one being 
is more of a being than another being,--taking being in its plainest meaning, 
for he must not bring forward those various qualities and properties, which 
are comprehended in the conception of the being, and gather round it, but are 
not the subject itself? Shade, colour, weight, force or reputation, 
distinctive manner, disposition, any quality thought of in connection with 
body or mind, are not to be considered here: we have to inquire only whether 
the actual subject of all these, which is termed absolutely the being, differs 
in degree of being from another. We have yet to learn that of two known 
existencies, which still exist, the one is more, the other less, an existence. 
Both are equally such, as long as they are in the category of existence, and 
when all notions of more or less value, more or less force, have been 
excluded. 

    If, then, he denies that we can regard the Only-begotten as completely 
existing,--for to this depth his statement seems to lead,--in withholding from 
Him a proper existence, let him deny it even in a less degree. If, however, he 
does grant that the Son subsists in some substantial way--we will not quarrel 
now about the particular way--why does he take away again that which he has 
conceded Him to be, and prove Him to exist not properly, which is tantamount, 
as we have said, to not at all? For as humanity is not possible to that which 
does not possess the 

53 

complete connotation of the term 'man,' and the whole conception of it is 
cancelled in the case of one who lacks any of the properties, so in every 
thing whose complete and proper existence is denied, the partial affirmation 
of its existence is no proof of its subsisting at all; the demonstration, in 
fact, of its incomplete being is a demonstration of its effacement in all 
points. So that if he is well-advised, he will come over to the orthodox 
belief, and remove from his teaching the idea of less and of incompleteness in 
the nature of the Son and the Spirit: but if he is determined to blaspheme, 
and wishes for some inscrutable reason thus to requite his Maker and God and 
Benefactor, let him at all events part with his conceit of possessing some 
amount of showy learning, unphilosophically piling, as he does, being over 
being, one above the other one proper, one not such, for no discoverable 
reason. We have never heard that any of the infidel philosophers have 
committed this folly, any more than we have met with it in the inspired 
writings, or in the common apprehension of mankind. 

    I think that from what has been said it will be clear what is the aim of 
these newly-devised names. He drops them as the base of operations or 
foundation-stone of all this work of mischief to the Faith: once he can get 
the idea into currency that the one Being alone is supreme and proper in the 
highest degree, he can then assail the other two, as belonging to the inferior 
and not regarded as properly Being. He shows this especially in what follows, 
where he is discussing the belief in the Son and the Holy Spirit, and does not 
proceed with these names, so as to avoid bringing before us the proper 
characteristic of their nature by means of those appellations: they are passed 
over unnoticed by this man who is always telling us that minds of the hearers 
are to be directed by the use of appropriate names and phrases. Yet what name 
could be more appropriate than that which has been given by the Very Truth? He 
sets his views against the Gospel, and names not the Son, but 'a Being 
existing through the First, but after It though before all others.' That this 
is said to destroy the right faith in the Only-begotten will be made plainer 
still by his subsequent arguments. Still there is only a moderate amount of 
mischief in these words: one intending no impiety at all towards Christ might 
sometimes use them: we will therefore omit at present all discussion about our 
Lord, and reserve our reply to the more open blasphemies against Him. But on 
the subject of the Holy Spirit the blasphemy is plain and un-concealed: he 
says that He is not to be ranked with the Father or the Son, but is subject to 
both. I will therefore examine as closely as possible this statement. 

 16. Examination of the meaning of 'subjection:' in that he says that the 
nature of the Holy Spirit is subject to that of the Father and the Son. It is 
shewn that the Holy Spirit is of an equal, not inferior, rank to the Father 
and the Son. 

    Let us first, then, ascertain the meaning of this word 'subjection' in 
Scripture. To whom is it applied? The Creator, honouring man in his having 
been made in His own image, 'hath placed' the brute creation 'in subjection 
under his feet;' as great David relating this favour (of God) exclaimed in the 
Psalms(6): "He put all things," he says, "under his feet," and he mentions by 
name the creatures so subjected. There is still another meaning of 
'subjection' in Scripture. Ascribing to God Himself the cause of his success 
in war, the Psalmist says(7), "He hath put peoples and nations in subjection 
under our feet," and "He that putteth peoples in subjection under me." This 
word is often found tires in Scripture, indicating a victory. As for the 
future subjection of all men to the Only-begotten, and through Him to the 
Father, in the passage where the Apostle with a profound wisdom speaks of the 
Mediator between God and man as subject to the Father, implying by that 
subjection of the Son who shares humanity the actual subjugation of 
mankind--we will not discuss it now, for it requires a full and thorough 
examination. But to take only the plain and unambiguous meaning of the word 
subjection, bow can he declare the being of the Spirit to be subject to that 
of the Son and the Father? As the Son is subject to the Father, according to 
the thought of the Apostle? But in this view the Spirit is to be ranked with 
the Son, not below Him, seeing that both Persons are of this lower rank. This 
was not his meaning? How then? In the way the brute creation is subject to the 
rational, as in the Psalm? There is then as great a difference as is implied 
in the subjection of the brute creation, when compared to man. Perhaps he will 
reject this explanation as well. Then he will have to come to the only 
remaining one, that the Spirit, at first in the rebellious ranks, was 
afterwards forced by a superior Force to bend to a Conqueror. 

    Let him choose which he likes of these alternatives: whichever it is I do 
not see how he can avoid the inevitable crime of 

54 

blasphemy: whether he says the Spirit is subject in the manner of the brute 
creation, as fish and birds and sheep, to man, or were to fetch Him a captive 
to a superior power after the manner of a rebel. Or does he mean neither of 
these ways, but uses the word in a different signification altogether to the 
scripture meaning? What, then, is that signification? Does he lay down that we 
must rank Him as inferior and not as equal, because He was given by our Lord 
to His disciples third in order? By the same reasoning he should make the 
Father inferior to the Son, since the Scripture often places the name of our 
Lord first, and the Father Almighty second. "I and My Father," our Lord says. 
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God(8)," and other 
passages innumerable which the diligent student of Scripture testimonies might 
collect: for instance, "there are differences of gifts, but it is the same 
Spirit: and there are differences of administration, but it is the same Lord: 
and there are differences of operations, but it is the same God." According to 
this, then, let the Almighty Father, who is mentioned third, be made 'subject' 
to the Son and the Spirit. However we have never yet heard of a philosophy 
such as this, which relegates to the category of the inferior and the 
dependent that which is mentioned second or third only for some particular 
reason of sequence: yet that is what our author wants to do, in arguing to 
show that the order observed in the transmission of the Persons amounts to 
differences of more and less in dignity and nature. In fact he rules that 
sequence in point of order is indicative of unlikeness of nature: whence be 
got this fancy, what necessity compelled him to it, is not clear. Mere 
numerical rank does not create a different nature: that which we would count 
in a number remains the same in nature whether we count it or not. Number is a 
mark only of the mere quantity of things: it does not place second those 
things only which have an inferior natural value, but it makes the sequence of 
the numerical objects indicated in accordance with the intention of those who 
are counting. 'Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus' are three persons mentioned 
according to a particular intention. Does the place of Silvanus, second and 
after Paul, indicate that he was other than a man? Or is Timothy, because he 
is third, considered by the writer who so ranks him a different kind of being? 
Not so. Each is human both before and after this arrangement. Speech, which 
cannot utter the names of all three at once, mentions each separately 
according to an order which commends itself, but unites them by the copula, in 
order that the juncture of the names may show the harmonious action of the 
three towards one end. 

    This, however, does not please our new dogmatist. He opposes the 
arrangement of Scripture. He separates off that equality with the Father and 
the Son of His proper and natural rank and connexion which our Lord Himself 
pronounces, and numbers Him with 'subjects': he declares Him to be a work of 
both Persons(9), of the Father, as supplying the cause of His constitution, of 
the Only-begotten, as of the artificer of His subsistence: and defines this as 
the ground of His 'subjection,' without as yet unfolding the meaning of 
'subjection.' 

 17. Discussion as to the exact nature of the 'energies' which, this man 
declares, 'follow' the being of the Father and of the Son. 

    Then he says "there must of course be included in this account the 
energies that accompany each Being, and the names appropriate to these 
energies." Shrouded in such a mist of vagueness, the meaning of this is far 
from clear: but one might conjecture it is as follows. By the energies of the 
Beings, he means those powers which have produced the Son and the Holy Spirit, 
and by which the First Being made the Second, and the Second the Third: and he 
means that the names of the results produced have been provided in a manner 
appropriate to those results. We have already exposed the mischief of these 
names, and will again, when we return to that part of the question, should 
additional discussion of it be required. 

    But it is worth a moment's while now to consider how energies 'follow' 
beings: what these energies are essentially: whether different to the beings 
which they 'follow,' or part of them, and of their inmost nature: and then, if 
different, how and whence they arise: if the same, how they have got cut off 
from them, and instead of co-existing 'follow' 

55 

them externally only. This is necessary, for we cannot learn all at once from 
his words whether some natural necessity compels the 'energy,' whatever that 
may be, to 'follow' the being, the way heat and vapour follow fire, and the 
various exhalations the bodies which produce them. Still I do not think that 
he would affirm that we should consider the being of God to be something 
heterogeneous and composite, having the energy inalienably contained in the 
idea of itself, like an 'accident' in some subject-matter: he must mean that 
the beings, deliberately and voluntarily moved, produce by themselves the 
desired result. But, if this be so, who would style this free result of 
intention as one of its external consequences? We have never heard of such an 
expression used in common parlance in such cases; the energy of the worker of 
anything is not said to 'follow' that worker. We cannot separate one from the 
other and leave one behind by itself: but, when one mentions the energy, one 
comprehends in the idea that which is moved with the energy, and when one 
mentions the worker one implies at once the unmentioned energy. 

    An illustration will make our meaning clearer. We say a man works in iron, 
or in wood, or in anything else. This single expression conveys at once the 
idea of the working and of the artificer, so that if we withdraw the one, the 
other has no existence. If then they are thus thought of together, i.e. the 
energy and he who exercises it, how in this case can there be said to "follow" 
upon the first being the energy which produces the second being, like a sort 
of go-between to both, and neither coalescing with the nature of the first, 
nor combining with the second: separated from the first because it is not its 
very nature, but only the exercise of its nature, and from that which results 
afterwards because it does not therein reproduce a mere energy, but an active 
being. 

 18. He has no reason for distinguishing a plurality of beings in the Trinity. 
He offers no demonstration that it is so. 

    Let us examine the following as well. He calls one Being the work of 
another, the second of the first, and the third of the second. On what 
previous demonstration does this statement rest: what proofs does he make use 
of, what method, to compel belief in the succeeding Being as a result of the 
preceding? For even if it were possible to draw an analogy for this from 
created things, such conjecturing about the transcendent from lower existences 
would not be altogether sound, though the error in arguing from natural 
phenomena to the incomprehensible might then be pardonable. But as it is, none 
would venture to affirm that, while the heavens are the work of God, the sun 
is that of the heavens, and the moon that of the sun, and the stars that of 
the moon, and other created things that of the stars: seeing that all are the 
work of One: for there is one God and Father of all, of Whom are all things. 
If anything is produced by mutual transmission, such as the race of animals, 
not even here does one produce another, for nature runs on through each 
generation. How then, when it is impossible to affirm it of the created world, 
can he declare of the transcendent existencies that the second is a work of 
the first, and so on? If, however, he is thinking of animal generation, and 
fancies that such a process is going on also amongst pure existences, so that 
the older produces the younger, even so he fails to be consistent: for such 
productions are of the same type as their progenitors: whereas he assigns to 
the members of his succession strange and un-inherited qualities: and thus 
displays a superfluity of falsehood, while striving to strike truth with both 
hands at once, in a clever boxer's fashion. In order to show the inferior rank 
and diminution in intrinsic value of the Son and Holy Spirit, he declares that 
"one is produced from another;" in order that those who understand about 
mutual generation might entertain no idea of family relationship here: he 
contradicts the law of nature by declaring that "one is produced from 
another," and at the same time exhibiting the Son as a bastard when compared 
with His Father's nature. 

    But one might find fault with him, I think, before coming to all this. If, 
that is, any one else, previously unaccustomed to discussion and unversed in 
logical expression, delivered his ideas in this chance fashion, some 
indulgence might be shown him for not using the recognized methods for 
establishing his views. But considering that Eunomius has such an abundance of 
this power, that he can advance by his 'irresistible' method(1) of proof even 
into the 

56 

supra-natural, how can he be ignorant of the starting-point from which this 
'irresistible' perception of a hidden truth takes its rise in all these 
logical excursions. Every one knows that all such arguing must start from 
plain and well-known truths, to compel belief through itself in still doubtful 
truths: and that none of these last can be grasped without the guidance of 
what is obvious leading us towards the unknown. If on the other hand that 
which is adopted to start with for the illustration of this unknown is at 
variance with universal belief, it will be a long time before the unknown will 
receive any illustration from it. 

    The whole controversy, then, between the Church and the Anomoeans turns on 
this: Are we to regard the Son and the Holy Spirit as belonging to created or 
uncreated existence? Our opponent declares that to be the case which all deny: 
he boldly lays it down, without looking about for any proof, that each being 
is the work of the preceding being. What method of education, what school of 
thought can warrant him in this, it is difficult to see. Some axiom that 
cannot be denied or assailed must be the beginning of every process of proof; 
so as for the unknown quantity to be demonstrated from what has been assumed, 
being legitimately deduced by intervening syllogisms. The reasoner, therefore, 
who makes what ought to be the object of inquiry itself a premiss of his 
demonstration is only proving the obscure by the obscure, and illusion by 
illusion. He is making 'the blind lead the blind,' for it is a truly blind and 
unsupported statement to say that the Creator and Maker of all things is a 
creature made 

and to this they link on a conclusion that is also blind: namely, that the Son 
is alien in nature unlike in being to the Father, and quite devoid of His 
essential character. But of this enough. Where his thought is nakedly 
blasphemous, there we too can defer its refutation. We must now return to 
consider his words which come next in order. 

 19. His acknowledgment that the Divine Being is 'single' is only verbal. 

    "Each Being has, in fact and in conception, a nature unmixed, single, and 
absolutely one as estimated by its dignity; and as the works are bounded by 
the energies of each operator, and the energies by the works, it is inevitable 
that the energies which follow each Being are greater in the one case than the 
other, some being of the first, others of the second rank." The intention that 
runs through all this, however verbosely expressed, is one and the same; 
namely, to establish that there is no connexion between the Father and the 
Son, or between the Son and the Holy Ghost, but that these Beings are sundered 
from each other, and possess natures foreign and unfamiliar to each other, and 
differ not only in that, but also in magnitude and in subordination of their 
dignities, so that we must think of one as greater than the other, and 
presenting every other sort of difference. 

    It may seem to many useless to linger over what is so obvious, and to 
attempt a discussion of that which to them is on the face of it false and 
abominable and groundless: nevertheless, to avoid even the appearance of 
having to let these statements pass for want of counter-arguments, we will 
meet them with all our might. He says, "each being amongst them is unmixed, 
single, and absolutely one, as estimated by its dignity, both in fact and in 
conception? Then premising this very doubtful statement as an axiom and 
valuing his own 'ipse dixit' as a sufficient substitute for any proof, he 
thinks he has made a point. "There are three Beings:" for he implies this when 
he says, 'each being amongst them:' he would not have used these words, if he 
meant only one. Now if he speaks thus of the mutual difference between the 
Beings in order to avoid complicity with the heresy of Sabellius, who applied 
three titles to one subject, we would acquiesce in his statement: nor would 
any of the Faithful contradict his view, except so far as he seems to be at 
fault in his names, and his mere form of expression in speaking of 'beings' 
instead of 'persons:' for things that are identical on the score of being will 
not all agree equally in definition on the score of personality. For instance, 
Peter, James, and John are the same viewed as beings, each was a man: but in 
the characteristics of their respective personalities, they were not alike. 
If, then, he were only proving that it is not right to confound the Persons, 
and to fit all the three names on to one Subject, his 'saying' would be, to 
use the Apostle's words, 'faithful, and worthy of all acceptation(2).' But 
this is not his object: he speaks so, not because he divides the Persons only 
from each other by their recognized characteristics, but because he makes the 
actual substantial being of each different from that of the others, or rather 
from itself: and so he speaks of a plurality of beings with distinctive 
differences which alienate them from each other. I therefore declare that his 
view is unfounded, and lacks a principle: it starts from data that are not 
granted, and then it constructs by mere logic a blasphemy upon them. It at- 

57 

tempts no demonstration that could attract towards such a conception of the 
doctrine: it merely contains the statement of an unproved impiety, as if it 
were telling us a dream. While the Church teaches that we must not divide our 
faith amongst a plurality of beings, but must recognize no difference of being 
in three Subjects or Persons, whereas our opponents posit a variety and 
unlikeness amongst them as Beings, this writer confidently assumes as already 
proved what never has been, and never can be, proved by argument: maybe he has 
not even yet found hearers for his talk: or he might have been informed by one 
of them who was listening intelligently that every statement which is made at 
random, and without proof, is 'an old woman's tale,' and powerless to prove 
the question, in itself, unaided by any plea whatever fetched from the 
Scriptures, or flora human reasonings. So much for this. 

    But let us still scrutinize his words. He declares each of these Beings, 
whom he has shadowed forth in his exposition, to be single and absolutely one. 
We believe that the most boorish and simple-minded would not deny that the 
Divine Nature, blessed and transcendent as it is, was 'single.' That which is 
viewless, formless, and sizeless, cannot be conceived of as multiform and 
composite. But it will be clear, upon the very slightest reflection, that this 
view of the supreme Being as 'simple,' however finely they may talk of it, is 
quite inconsistent with the system which they have elaborated. For who does 
not know that, to be exact, simplicity in the case of the Holy Trinity admits 
of no degrees. In this case there is no mixture or conflux of qualities to 
think of; we comprehend a potency without parts and composition; how then, and 
on what grounds, could any one perceive there any differences of less and 
more. For he who marks differences there must perforce think of an incidence 
of certain qualities in the subject. He must in fact have perceived 
differences in largeness and smallness therein, to have introduced this 
conception of quantity into the question: or be must posit abundance or 
diminution in the matter of goodness, strength, wisdom, or of anything else 
that can with reverence be associated with God: and neither way will he escape 
the idea of composition. Nothing which possesses wisdom or power or any other 
good, not as an external gift, but rooted in its nature, can suffer diminution 
in it; so that if any one says that he detects Beings greater and smaller in 
the Divine Nature, he is unconsciously establishing a composite and 
heterogeneous Deity, and thinking of the Subject as one thing, and the 
quality, to share in which constitutes as good that which was not so before, 
as another. If he had been thinking of a Being really single and absolutely 
one, identical with goodness rather than possessing it, he would not be able 
to count a greater and a less in it at all. It was said, moreover, above that 
good can be diminished by the presence of evil alone, and that where the 
nature is incapable of deteriorating, there is no limit conceived of to the 
goodness: the unlimited, in fact, is not such owing to any relation whatever, 
but, considered in itself, escapes limitation. It is, indeed, difficult to see 
how a reflecting mind can conceive one infinite to be greater or less than 
another infinite. So that if he acknowledges the supreme Being to be 'single' 
and homogenous, let him grant that it is bound up with this universal 
attribute of simplicity and infinitude. If, on the other hand, he divides and 
estranges the 'Beings' from each other, conceiving that of the Only-begotten 
as another than the Father's, and that of the Spirit as another than the 
Only-begotten, with a 'more' and 'less' in each case, let him be exposed now 
as granting simplicity in appearance only to the Deity, but in reality proving 
the composite in Him. 

    But let us resume the examination of his words in order. "Each Being has 
in fact and conception a nature unmixed, single, and absolutely one, as 
estimated by its dignity." Why "as estimated by its dignity?" If he 
contemplates the Beings in their common dignity, this addition is unnecessary 
and superfluous, and dwells upon that which is obvious: although a word so out 
of place might be pardoned, if it was any feeling of reverence which prompted 
him not to reject it. But here the mischief really is not owing to an, mistake 
about a phrase (that might be easily set right): but it is connected with his 
evil designs. He says that each of the three beings is 'single, as estimated 
by its dignity,' in order that, on the strength of his previous definitions of 
the first, second, and third Being, the idea of their simplicity also may be 
marred. Having affirmed that the being of the Father alone is 'Supreme' and 
'Proper,' and having refused both these titles to that of the Son and of the 
Spirit, in accordance with this, when he comes to speak of them all as 
simple,' be thinks it his duty to associate with them the idea of simplicity 
in proportion only to their essential worth, so that the Supreme alone is to 
be conceived of as at the height and perfection of simplicity, while the 
second, in proportion to its declension from supremacy, receives also a 
diminished measure of simplicity, and in the case of the third Being also, 
there is 

58 

as much variation from the perfect simplicity, as the amount of worth is 
lessened in the extremes: whence it results that the Father's being is 
conceived as of pure simplicity, that of the Son as not so flawless in 
simplicity, but with a mixture of the composite, that of the Holy Spirit as 
still increasing in the composite, while the amount of simplicity is gradually 
lessened. Just as imperfect goodness must be owned to share in some measure in 
the reverse disposition, so imperfect simplicity cannot escape being 
considered composite. 

 20. He does wrong in assuming, to account far the existence of the 
Only-begotten, an 'energy' that produced Christ's Person. 

    That such is his intention in using these phrases will be clear from what 
follows, where he more plainly materializes and degrades our conception of the 
Son and of the Spirit. "As the energies are bounded by the works, and the 
works commensurate with the energies, it necessarily follows that these 
energies which accompany these Beings are relatively greater and less, some 
being of a higher, some of a lower order." Though he has studiously wrapt the 
mist of his phraseology round the meaning of this, and made it hard for most 
to find out, yet as following that which we have already examined it will 
easily be marie clear. "The energies," he says, "are bounded by the works." By 
'works' he means the Son and the Spirit, by 'energies' the efficient powers by 
which they were produced, which powers, he said a little above, 'follow' the 
Beings. The phrase 'bounded by' expresses the balance which exists between the 
being produced and the producing power, or rather the 'energy' of that power, 
to use his own word implying that the thing produced is not the effect of the 
whole power of the operator, but only of a particular energy of it, only so 
much of the whole power being exerted as is calculated to be likely to be 
equal to effect that result. Then he inverts his statement: "and the works are 
commensurate with the energies of the operators." The meaning of this will be 
made clearer by an illustration. Let us think of one of the tools of a 
shoemaker: i.e., a leather-cutter. When it is moved round upon that from which 
a certain shape has to be cut, the part so excised is limited by the size of 
the instrument, and a circle of such a radius will be cut as the instrument 
possesses of length, and, to put the matter the other way, the span of the 
instrument will measure and cut out a corresponding circle. That is the idea 
which our theologian has of the divine person of the Only-begotten. He 
declares that a certain 'energy ' which 'follows' upon the first Being 
produced, in the fashion of such a tool, a corresponding work, namely our 
Lord: this is his way of glorifying the Son of God, Who is even now glorified 
in the glory of the Father, and shall be revealed in the Day of Judgment. He 
is a 'work commensurate with the producing energy.' But what is this energy 
which 'follows' the Almighty and is to be conceived of prior to the 
Only-begotten, and which circumscribes His being? A certain essential Power, 
self-subsisting, which works its will by a spontaneous impulse. It is this, 
then, that is the real Father of our Lord. And why do we go on talking of the 
Almighty as the Father, if it was not He, but an energy belonging to the 
things which follow Him externally that produced the Son: and how can the Son 
be a son any longer, when something else has given Him existence according to 
Eunomius, and He creeps like a bastard (may our Lord pardon the expression!) 
into relationship with the Father, and is to be honoured in name only as a 
Son? How can Eunomius rank our Lord next after the Almighty at all, when he 
counts Him third only, with that mediating 'energy' placed in the second 
place? The Holy Spirit also according to this sequence will be found not in 
the third, but in the fifth place, that 'energy' which follows the 
Only-Begotten, and by which the Holy Spirit came into existence necessarily 
intervening between them. 

    Thereby, too, the creation of all things by the Son(3) will be found to 
have no foundation: another personality, prior to Him, has been invented by 
our neologian, to which the authorship of the world must be referred, because 
the Son Himself derives His being according to them from that 'energy.' If, 
however, to avoid such profanities, he makes this 'energy' which produced the 
Son into something unsubstantial, he will have to explain to us how non-being 
can 'follow' being, and how what is not a substance can produce a substance: 
for, if he did that, we shall find an unreality following God, the 
non-existent author of all existence, the radically unsubstantial 
circumscribing a substantial nature, the operative force of creation 
contained, in the last resort, in the unreal. Such is the result of the 
teaching of this theologian who affirms of the Lord Artificer of heaven and 
earth and of all the Creation, the Word of God Who was in the beginning, 
through Whom are all things, that He owes His existence to such a baseless 
entity or conception as that unnameable 'energy' which he has just invented, 
and that He is circumscribed by it, as by an enclos- 

59 

ing prison of unreality. He who 'gazes into the unseen 'cannot see the 
conclusion to which Iris teaching tends. It is this: if this 'energy' of God 
has no real existence, and if the work that this unreality produces is also 
circumscribed by it, it is quite clear that we can only think of such a nature 
in the work, as that which is possessed by this fancied producer of the work: 
in fact, that which is produced from and is contained by an unreality can 
itself be conceived of as nothing else but a non-entity. Opposites, in the 
nature of things, cannot be contained by opposites: such as water by fire, 
life by death, light by darkness, being by non-being. But with all his 
excessive cleverness he does not see this: or else he consciously shuts his 
eyes to the truth. 

    Some necessity compels him to see a diminution in the Son, and to 
establish a further advance in this direction in the case of the Holy Ghost. 
"It necessarily follows," he says, "that these energies which accompany these 
Beings are relatively greater and less." This compelling necessity in the 
Divine nature, which assigns a greater and a less, has not been explained to 
us by Eunomius, nor as yet can we ourselves understand it. Hitherto there has 
prevailed with those who accept the Gospel in its plain simplicity the belief 
that there is no necessity above the Godhead to bend the Only-begotten, like a 
slave, to inferiority. But he quite overlooks this belief, though it was worth 
some consideration; and he dogmatizes that we must conceive of this 
inferiority. But this necessity of his does not stop there: it lands him still 
further in blasphemy: as our examination in detail has already shewn. If, that 
is, the Son was born, not from the Father, but from some unsubstantial 
'energy,' He must be thought of as not merely inferior to the Father, and this 
doctrine must end in pure Judaism. This necessity, when followed out, exhibits 
the, product of a non-entity as not merely insignificant, but as something 
which it is a perilous blasphemy even for an accuser to name. For as that 
which has its birth from an existence necessarily exists, so that which is 
evolved from the non-existent necessarily does the very contrary. When 
anything is not self-existent, how can it generate another? 

    If, then, this energy which 'follows' the Deity, and produces the Son, has 
no existence of its own, no one can be so blind as not to see the conclusion, 
and that his aim is to deny our Saviour's deity: and if the personality of the 
Son is thus stolen by their doctrine from the Faith, with nothing left of it 
but the name, it will be a long time before the Holy Ghost, descended as He 
will be from a lineage of unrealities, will be believed in again. The energy 
which 'follows' the Deity has no existence of its own: then common sense 
requires the product of this to be unreal: then a second unsubstantial energy 
follows this product: then it is declared that the Holy Ghost is formed by 
this energy: so that their blasphemy is plain enough: it consists in nothing 
less than in denying that after the Ingenerate God there is any real 
existence: and their doctrine advances into shadowy and unsubstantial 
fictions, where there is no foundation of any actual subsistence. In such 
monstrous conclusions does their teaching strand the argument. 

 21. The blasphemy of these heretics is worse than the Jewish unbelief. 

    But let us assume that this is not so: for they allow, forsooth, in 
theoretic kindness towards humanity, that the Only-begotten and the Holy 
Spirit have some personal existence: and if, in allowing this, they had 
granted too the consequent conceptions about them, they would not have been 
waging battle about the doctrine of the Church, nor cut themselves off from 
the hope of Christians. But if they have lent an existence to the Son and the 
Spirit, only to furnish a material on which to erect their blasphemy, perhaps 
it might have been better for them, though it is a bold thing to say, to 
abjure the Faith and apostatize to the Jewish religion, rather than to insult 
the name of Christian by this mock assent. The Jews at all events, though they 
have persisted hitherto in rejecting the Word, carry their impiety only so far 
as to deny that Christ has come, but to hope that He will come: we do not hear 
from them any malignant or destructive conception of the glory of Him Whom 
they expect. But this school of the new circumcision(4), or rather of "the 
concision," while they own that He has come, resemble nevertheless those who 
insulted our Lord's bodily presence by their wanton unbelief. They wanted to 
stone our Lord: these men stone Him with their blasphemous titles. They urged 
His humble and obscure origin, and rejected His divine birth before the ages: 
these men in the same way deny His grand, sublime, ineffable generation from 
the Father, and would prove that He owes His existence to a creation, just as 
the human race, and all that is born, owe theirs. In the eyes of the 

60 

Jews it was a crime that our Lord should be regarded as Son of the Supreme: 
these men also are indignant against those who are sincere in making this 
confession of Him. The Jews thought to honour the Almighty by excluding the 
Son from equal reverence: these men, by annihilating the glory of the Son, 
think to bestow more honour on the Father. But it would be difficult to do 
justice to the number and the nature of the insults which they heap upon the 
Only-begotten: they invent an 'energy' prior to the personality of the Son and 
say that He is its work and product: a thing which the Jews hitherto have not 
dared to say. Then they circumscribe His nature shutting Him off within 
certain limits of the power which made Him: the amount of this productive 
energy is a sort of measure within which they enclose Him: they have devised 
it as a sort of cloak to muffle Him up in. We cannot charge the Jews with 
doing this. 

 22. He has no right to assert a greater and less in the Divine being. A 
systematic statement of the teaching of the Church. 

    Then they discover in His being a certain shortness in the way of 
deficiency, though they do not tell us by what method they measure that which 
is devoid of quantity and size: they are able to find out exactly by how much 
the size of the Only-begotten falls short of perfection, and therefore has to 
be classed with the inferior and imperfect: much else they lay down, partly by 
open assertion, partly by underhand inference: all the time making their 
confession of the Son and the Spirit a mere exercise-ground for their 
unbelieving spirit. How, then, can we fail to pity them more even than the 
condemned Jews, when views never ventured upon by the latter are inferred by 
the former? He who makes the being of the Son and of the Spirit comparatively 
less, seems, so far as words go perhaps, to commit but a slight profanity: but 
if one were to test his view stringently it will be found the height of 
blasphemy. Let us look into this, then, and let indulgence be shown me, if, 
for the sake of doctrine, and to place in a clear light the lie which they 
have demonstrated, I advance into an exposition of our own conception of the 
truth. 

    Now the ultimate division of all being is into the Intelligible and the 
Sensible. The Sensible world is called by the Apostle broadly "that which is 
seen." For as all body has colour, and the sight apprehends this, he calls 
this world by the rough and ready name of "that which is seen," leaving out 
all the other qualities, which are essentially inherent in its framework. The 
common term, again, for all the intellectual world, is with the Apostle "that 
which is not seen(5):" by withdrawing all idea of comprehension by the senses 
he leads the mind on to the immaterial and intellectual. Reason again divides 
this "which is not seen" into the uncreate and the created, inferentially 
comprehending it: the uncreate being that which effects the Creation, the 
created that which owes its origin and its force to the uncreate. In the 
Sensible world, then, is found everything that we comprehend by our organs of 
bodily sense, and in which the differences of qualities involve the idea of 
more and less, such differences consisting in quantity, quality, and the other 
properties. 

    But in the Intelligible world,--that part of it, I mean, which is 
created,--the idea of such differences as are perceived in the Sensible cannot 
find a place: another method, then, is devised for discovering the degrees of 
greater and less. The fountain, the origin, the supply of every good is 
regarded as being in the world that is uncreate, and the whole creation 
inclines to that, and touches and shares the Highest Existence only by virtue 
of its part in the First Good: therefore it follows from this participation in 
the highest blessings varying in degree according to the amount of freedom in 
the will that each possesses, that the greater and less in this creation is 
disclosed according to the proportion of this tendency in each(6). Created 
intelligible nature stands on the borderline between good and the reverse, so 
as to be capable of either, and to incline at pleasure to the things of its 
choice, as we learn from Scripture; so that we can say of it that it is more 
or less in the heights of excellence only in proportion to its removal from 
the evil and its approach to the good. Whereas(7) uncreate intelligible nature 
is far removed from such distinctions: it does not 

61 

possess the good by acquisition, or participate only in the goodness of some 
good which lies above it: in its own essence it is good, and is conceived as 
such: it is a source of good, it is simple, uniform, incomposite, even by the 
confession of our adversaries. But it has distinction within itself in keeping 
with the majesty of its own nature, but not conceived of with regard to 
quantity, as Eunomius supposes: (indeed the man who introduces the notion of 
less of good into any of the things believed to be in the Holy Trinity must 
admit thereby some admixture of the opposite quality in that which fails of 
the good: and it is blasphemous to imagine this in the case either of the 
Only-begotten, or of the Holy Spirit): we regard it as consummately perfect 
and incomprehensibly excellent yet as containing clear distinctions within 
itself which reside in the peculiarities of each of the Persons: as possessing 
invariableness by virtue of its common attribute of uncreatedness, but 
differentiated by the unique character of each Person. This peculiarity 
contemplated in each sharply and clearly divides one from the other the 
Father, for instance, is uncreate and ungenerate as well: He was never 
generated any more than He was created. While this uncreatedness is common to 
Him and the Son, and the Spirit, He is ungenerate as well as the Father. This 
is peculiar and uncommunicable, being not seen in the other Persons. The Son 
in His uncreatedness touches the Father and the Spirit, but as the Son and the 
Only-begotten He has a character which is not that of the Almighty or of the 
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit by the uncreatedness of His nature has contact 
with the Son and Father, but is distinguished from them by His own tokens. His 
most peculiar characteristic is that He is neither of those things which we 
contemplate in the Father and the Son respectively. He is simply, neither as 
ungenerate(8), nor as only-begotten: this it is that constitutes His chief 
peculiarity. Joined to the Father by His uncreatedness, He is disjoined from 
Him again by not being 'Father.' United to the Son by the bond of 
uncreatedness, and of deriving His existence from the Supreme, He is parted 
again from Him by the characteristic of not being the Only-begotten of the 
Father, and of having been manifested by means of the Son Himself. Again, as 
the creation was effected by the Only-begotten, in order to secure that the 
Spirit should not be considered to have something in common with this creation 
because of His having been manifested by means of the Son, He is distinguished 
from it by His unchangeableness, and independence of all external goodness. 
The creation does not possess in its nature this unchangeableness, as the 
Scripture says in the description of the fall of the morning star, the 
mysteries on which subject are revealed by our Lord to His disciples: "I saw 
Satan falling like lightning from heaven(9)." But the very attributes which 
part Him from the creation constitute His relationship to the Father and the 
Son. All that is incapable of degenerating has one and the same definition of 
"unchangeable." 

    Having stated thus much as a preface we are in a position to discuss the 
rest of our adversaries' teaching. "It necessarily follows," he says in his 
system of the Son and the Spirit, "that the Beings are relatively greater and 
less." Let us then inquire what is the meaning of this necessity of 
difference. Does it arise from a comparison formed from measuring them one 
with another in some material way, or from viewing them on the spiritual 
ground of more or less of moral excellence, or on that of pure being? But in 
the case of this last it has been shown by competent thinkers that it is 
impossible to conceive of any difference whatever, if one abstracts being from 
attributes and properties, and looks at it according to its bare definition. 
Again, to conceive of this difference as consisting in the case of the 
Only-begotten and the Spirit in the intensity or abatement of moral 
excellence, and in consequence to hint that their nature admits of change in 
either direction, so as to be equally capable of opposites, and to be placed 
in a borderland between moral beauty and its opposite--that is gross 
profanity. A man who thinks this will be proving that their nature is one 
thing in itself, and becomes something else by virtue of its participation in 
this beauty or its opposite: as happens with iron for example: if it is 
approached some time to the fire, it assumes the quality of heat while 
remaining iron: if it is put in snow or ice, it changes its quality to the 
mastering influence, and lets the snow's coldness pass into its pores. 

    Now just as we cannot name the material of the iron from the quality now 
to be observed upon it (for we do not give the name of fire or ice to that 
which is tempered with either of these), so the moment we grant the view of 
these heretics, that in the case(1) of the Life-giving Power good does not 
reside in It essentially, but is imparted to it only, it will become 
impossible to call it properly good: 

62 

such a conception of it will compel us to regard it as something different, as 
not eternally exhibiting the good, as not in itself to be classed amongst 
genuine goods, but as such that the good is at times not in it, and is at 
times not likely to be in it. If these existences become good only by sharing 
in a something superior to themselves, it is plain that before this 
participation they were not good, and if, being other than good, they were 
then coloured by the influence of good they must certainly, if again isolated 
from this, be considered other than good: so that, if this heresy prevails, 
the Divine Nature cannot be apprehended as transmissive of good, but rather as 
itself needing goodness: for how can one impart to another that which he does 
not himself possess? If it is in a state of perfection, no abatement of that 
can be conceived, and it is absurd to talk of less of perfection. If on the 
other hand its participation of good is an imperfect one, and this is what 
they mean by 'less,' mark the consequence that anything in that state can 
never help an inferior, but will be busied in satisfying its own want: so 
that, according to them, Providence is a fiction, and so is the judgment and 
the Dispensation of the Only-begotten, and all the other works believed to be 
done, and still doing by Him: for He will necessarily be employed in taking 
care of His own good, and must abandon the supervision of the Universe(2). 

    If, then, this surmise is to have its way, namely, that our Lord is not 
perfected in every kind of good, it is very easy to see the conclusion of the 
blasphemy. This being so, our faith is vain, and our preaching vain; our 
hopes, which take their substance from our faith, are unsubstantial. Why are 
they baptized into Christ(3), if He has no power of goodness of His own? God 
forgive me for saying it! Why do they believe in the Holy Ghost, if the same 
account is given of Him? How are they regenerate(4) by baptism from their 
mortal birth, if the regenerating Power does not possess in its own nature 
infallibility and independence? How can their 'vile body' be changed, while 
they think that He who is to change it Himself needs change, i.e. another to 
change Him? For as long as a nature is in defect as regards the good, the 
superior existence exerts upon this inferior one a ceaseless attraction 
towards itself: and this craving for more will never stop: it will be 
stretching out to something not yet grasped: the subject of this deficiency 
will be always demanding a supply, always altering into the grander nature, 
and yet will never touch perfection, because it cannot find a goal to grasp, 
and cease its impulse upward. The First Good is in its nature infinite, and so 
it follows of necessity that the participation in the enjoyment of it will be 
infinite also, for more will be always being grasped, and yet something beyond 
that which has been grasped will always be discovered, and this search will 
never overtake its Object, because its fund is as inexhaustible as the growth 
of that which participates in it is ceaseless(5). 

    Such, then, are the blasphemies which emerge from their making differences 
between the Persons as to the good. If on the other band the degrees of more 
or less are to be understood in this case in some material sense, the 
absurdity of this surmise will be obvious at once, without examination in 
detail. Ideas of quality and distance, weight and figure, and all that goes to 
complete the notion of a body, will perforce be introduced along with such a 
surmise into the view of the Divine Nature: and where a compound is assumed, 
there the dissolution also of that compound must be admitted. A teaching so 
monstrous, which dares to discover a smaller and a larger in what is sizeless 
and not concrete lands us in these and suchlike conclusions, a few samples 
only of which are here indicated: nor indeed would it be easy to unveil all 
the mischief that lurks beneath it. Still the shocking absurdity that results 
from their blasphemous premiss will be clear from ibis brief notice. We now 
proceed to their next position, after a short defining and confirmation of our 
own doctrine. For an inspired testimony is a sure test of the truth of any 
doctrine: and so it seems to me that ours may be well guaranteed by a 
quotation from the divine words. 

    In the division of all existing things, then, we find these distinctions. 
There is, as appealing to our perceptions, the Sensible world: 

63 

and there is, beyond this, the world which the mind, led on by objects of 
sense, can view: I mean the Intelligible: and in this we detect again a 
further distinction into the Created and the Uncreate: to the latter of which 
we have defined the Holy Trinity to belong, to the former all that can exist 
or can be thought of after that. But in order that this statement may not be 
left without a proof, but may be confirmed by Scripture, we will add that our 
Lord was not created, but came forth from the Father, as the Word with His own 
lips attests in the Gospel, in a manner of birth or of proceeding ineffable 
and mysterious: and what truer witness could be found than this constant 
declaration of our Lord all through the Gospel, that the Very Father was a 
father, not a creator, of Himself, and that He was not a work of God, but Son 
of God? Just as when He wished to name His connexion with humanity according 
to the flesh, He called that phase of his being Son of Man, indicating thereby 
His kinship according to the nature of the flesh with her from whom He was 
born, so also by the title of Son he expresses His true and real relationship 
to the Almighty, by that name of Son showing this natural connexion: no matter 
if there are some who, for the contradiction of the truth, do take literally 
and without any explanation, words used with a hidden meaning in the dark form 
of parable, and adduce the expression 'created,' put into the mouth of Wisdom 
by the author of the Proverbs(6), to support their perverted views. They say, 
in tact, that "the Lord created me" is a proof that our Lord is a creature, as 
if the Only-begotten Himself in that word confessed it. But we need not heed 
such an argument. They do not give reasons why we must refer that text to our 
Lord at all: neither will they be able to show that the idea of the word in 
the Hebrew leads to this and no other meaning, seeing that the other 
translators have rendered it by "possessed" or "constituted:" nor, finally, 
even if this was the idea in the original text, would its real meaning be so 
plain and on the surface: for these proverbial discourses do not show their 
aim at once, but rather conceal it, revealing it only by an indirect import, 
and we may judge of the obscurity of this particular passage from its context 
where he says, "When He set His throne upon the winds(7)," and all the similar 
expressions. What is God's throne? Is it material or ideal? What are the 
winds? Are they these winds so familiar to us, which the natural philosophers 
tell us are formed from vapours and exhalations: or are they to be understood 
in another way not familiar to man, when they are called the bases of His 
throne? What is this throne of the immaterial, incomprehensible, and formless 
Deity? Who could possibly understand all this in a literal sense? 

23. These doctrines of our Faith witnessed to and confirmed by Scripture 
passages. 

    It is therefore clear that these are metaphors, which contain a deeper 
meaning than the obvious one: so that there is no reason from them that any 
suspicion that our Lord was created should be entertained by reverent 
inquirers, who have been trained according to the grand words of the 
evangelist, that "all things that have been made were made by Him" and 
"consist in Him." "Without Him was not anything made that was made." The 
evangelist would not bare so defined it if he had believed that our Lord was 
one among the things made. How could all things be made by Him and in Him 
consist, unless their Maker possessed a nature different from theirs, and so 
produced, not Himself, but them? If the creation was by Him, but He was not by 
Himself, plainly He is something outside the creation. And after the 
evangelist has by these words so plainly declared that the things that were 
made were made by the Son, and did not pass into existence by any other 
channel, Paul(8) follows and, to leave no ground at all for this profane talk 
which numbers even the Spirit amongst the things that were made, he mentions 
one after another all the existencies which the evangelist's words imply: just 
as David in fact, after having said that "all things" were put in subjection 
to man, adds each species which that "all" comprehends, that is, the creatures 
on land, in water, and in air, so does Paul the Apostle: expounder of the 
divine doctrines, after saying that all things were made by Him, define by 
numbering them the meaning of "all." He speaks of "the things that are 
seen(9)" and "the things that are not seen:" by the first he gives a general 
name to all things cognizable by the senses, as we have seen: by the latter he 
shadows forth the intelligible world. 

    Now about the first there is no necessity of going into minute detail. No 
one is so 

64 

carnal, so brutelike, as to imagine that the Spirit resides in the sensible 
world. But after Paul has mentioned "the things that are not seen" he proceeds 
(in order that none may surmise that the Spirit, because He is of the 
intelligible and immaterial world, on account of this connexion subsists 
therein) to another most distinct division into the things that have been made 
in the way of creation, and the existence that is above creation. He mentions 
the several classes of these created intelligibles: "(1) thrones," 
"dominions," "principalities," "powers," conveying his doctrine about these 
unseen influences in broadly comprehensive terms: but by his very silence he 
separates from his list of things created that which is above them. It is just 
as if any one was required to name the sectional and inferior officers in some 
army, and after he had gone through them all, the commanders of tens, the 
commanders of hundreds, the captains and the colonels(2), and all the other 
names given to the authorities over divisions, omitted after all to speak of 
the supreme command which extended over all the others: not from deliberate 
neglect, or from forgetfulness, but because when required or intending to name 
only the several ranks which served under it, it would have been an insult to 
include this supreme command in the list of the inferior. So do we find it 
with Paul, who once in Paradise was admitted to mysteries, when he had been 
caught up there, and had become a spectator of the wonders that are above the 
heavens, and saw and heard "thing: which it is not lawful for a man to 
utter(3)." This Apostle proposes to tell us of all that has been created by 
our Lord, and he gives them under certain comprehensive terms: but, having 
traversed all the angelic and transcendental world, he stops his reckoning 
there, and refuses to drag down to the level of creation that which is above 
it. Hence there is a clear testimony in Scripture that the Holy Spirit is 
higher than the creation. Should any one attempt to refute this, by urging 
that neither are the Cherubim mentioned by Paul, that they equally with the 
Spirit are left out, and that therefore this omission must prove either that 
they also are above the creation, or that the Holy Spirit is not any more than 
they to be believed above it, let him measure the full intent of each name in 
the list: and he will find amongst them that which from not being actually 
mentioned seems, but only seems, omitted. Under "thrones" he includes the 
Cherubim, giving them this Greek name, as more intelligible than the Hebrew 
name for them. He knew that "God sits upon the Cherubim:" and so he calls 
these Powers the thrones of Him who sits thereon. In the same way there are 
included in the list Isaiah's Seraphim(4), by whom the mystery of the Trinity 
was luminously proclaimed, when they uttered that marvellous cry "Holy," being 
awestruck With the beauty in each Person of the Trinity. They are named under 
the title of "powers" both by the mighty Paul, and by the prophet David. The 
latter says, "Bless ye the Lord all ye His powers, ye ministers of His that do 
His pleasure(5):" and Isaiah instead of saying" Bless ye" has written the very 
words of their blessing, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts: the whole earth 
is full of His glory" and he has revealed by what one of the Seraphim did (to 
him) that these powers are ministers that do God's pleasure, effecting the 
'purging of sin' according to the will of Him Who sent them: for this is the 
ministry of these spiritual beings, viz., to be sent forth for the salvation 
of those who are being saved. 

    That divine Apostle perceived this. He understood that the same matter is 
indicated under different names by the two prophets, and he took the best 
known of the two words, and called those Seraphim "powers:" so that no ground 
is left to our critics for saying that any single one of these beings is 
omitted equally with the Holy Ghost from the catalogue of creation. We learn 
from the existences detailed by Paul that while some existences have been 
mentioned, others have been passed over: and while he has taken count of the 
creation in masses as it were, he has (elsewhere) mentioned as units those 
things which are conceived of singly. For it is a peculiarity of the Holy 
Trinity that it is to be proclaimed as consisting of individuals: one Father, 
one Son, one Holy Ghost: whereas those existences aforesaid are counted in 
masses, "dominions," "principalities," "lordships," "powers," so as to exclude 
any suspicion that the Holy Ghost was one of them. Paul is wisely silent upon 
our mysteries; he understands how, after having heard those unspeakable words 
in paradise, to refrain from proclaiming those secrets when he is making 
mention of lower beings. 

    But these foes of the truth rush in upon the ineffable; they degrade the 
majesty of the Spirit to the level of the creation; they act as if they had 
never heard that the Word of God, when confiding to His disciples the secret 
of knowing God, Himself said that the life of 

65 

(6) the regenerate was to be completed in them and imparted in the name of 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and, thereby ranking the Spirit with the Father 
and Himself, precluded Him from being confused with the creation. From both, 
therefore, we may get a reverential and proper conception with regard to Him: 
from Paul's omitting the Spirit's existence in the mention of the creation, 
and from our Lord's joining the Spirit with His Father and Himself in 
mentioning the life-giving power. Thus does our reason, under the guidance of 
the Scripture, place not only the Only-begotten but the Holy Spirit as well 
above the creation, and prompt us in accordance with our Saviour's command to 
contemplate Him by faith in the blessed world of life giving and uncreated 
existence: and so this unit, which we believe in, above creation, and sharing 
in the supreme and absolutely perfect nature, cannot be regarded as in any way 
a 'less,' although this teacher of heresy attempt to curtail its infinitude by 
introducing the idea of degrees, and thus contracting the divine perfection by 
defining a greater and a less as residing in the Persons. 

 24. His elaborate account of degrees and differences in 'works' and 
'energies' within the Trinity is absurd. 

    Now let us see what he adds, as the consequence of this. After saying that 
we must perforce regard the Being as greater and less and that while(7) the 
ones, by virtue of a pre-eminent magnitude and value, occupy a leading place, 
the others must be detruded to a lower place, because their nature and their 
value is secondary, he adds this; "their difference amounts to that existing 
between their works: it would in fact be impious to say that the same energy 
produced the angels or the stars. and the heavens or man; but one would 
positively maintain about this, that in proportion as some works are older and 
more honourable than others, so does one energy transcend another, because 
sameness of energy produces sameness of work, and difference of work indicates 
difference of energy." 

    I suspect that their author himself would find it difficult to tell us 
what he meant when he wrote those words. Their thought is obscured by the 
rhetorical mud, which is so thick that one can hardly see beyond any clue to 
interpret them. "Their difference amounts to that existing between their 
works" is a sentence which might be suspected of coming from some Loxias of 
pagan story, mystifying his hearers. But if we may make a guess at the drift 
of his observations here by following out those which we have already 
examined, this would be his meaning, viz., that if we know the amount of 
difference between one work and another, we shall know the amount of that 
between the corresponding energies. But what "works" he here speaks of, it is 
impossible to discover from his words. If he means the works to be observed in 
the creation, I do not see how this hangs on to what goes before. For the 
question was about Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: what occasion was there, then, 
for one thinking rationally to inquire one after another into the nature of 
earth, and water, and air, and fire, and the different animals, and to 
distinguish some works as older and more honourable than others, and to speak 
of one energy as transcending another? But if he calls the Only-begotten and 
the Holy Spirit "works," what does he mean by the "differences" of the 
energies which produce these works: and what are(8) those wonderful energies 
of this writer which transcend the others? He has neither explained the 
particular way in which he means them to "transcend" each other; nor has he 
discussed the nature of these energies: but he has advanced in neither 
direction, neither proving so far their real subsistence, nor their being some 
unsubstantial exertion of a will. Throughout it all his meaning hangs 
suspended between these two conceptions, and oscillates from one to the other. 
He adds that "it would be impious to say that the same energy produced the 
angels or the stars, and the heavens or man." Again we ask what necessity 
there is to draw this conclusion from his previous remarks? I do not see that 
it is proved any more(9) because the energies vary amongst themselves as much 
as the works do, and because the works are not all from the same source but 
are stated by him to come from different sources. As for the heavens and each 
angel, star, and man, or anything else understood by the word "creation," we 
know from Scripture that they are all the work of One: whereas in their system 
of theology the Son and the Spirit are not the work of one and the same, the 
Son being the work of the energy which 'follows' the first Being, and the 
Spirit the further work of that work. What the connexion, then, is between 
that statement and the heavens, man, angel, star, which he drags in, must be 
revealed by himself, or some one whom he has initiated into his profound 
philosophy. The blasphemy intended by his words is plain 

66 

enough, but the way the profanity is stated is inconsistent with itself. To 
suppose that within the Holy Trinity there is a difference as wide as that 
which we can observe between the heavens which envelope the whole creation, 
and one single man or the star which shines in them, is openly profane: but 
still the connexion of such thoughts and the pertinence of such a comparison 
is a mystery to me, and I suspect also to its author himself. If indeed his 
account of the creation were of this sort, viz., that while the heavens were 
the work of some transcendent energy each star in them was the result of an 
energy accompanying the heavens, and that then an angel was the result of that 
star, and a man of that angel, his argument would then have consisted in a 
comparison of similar processes, and might have somewhat confirmed his 
doctrine. But since he grants that it was all made by One (unless he wishes to 
contradict Scripture downright), while he describes the production of the 
Persons after a different fashion, what connexion is there between this newly 
imported view and what went before? 

    But let it be granted to him that this comparison does have some connexion 
with proving variation amongst the Beings (for this is what he desires to 
establish); still let us see how that which follows hangs on to what he has 
just said, 'In proportion as one work is prior to another and more precious 
than it, so would a piers mind affirm that one energy transcends another.' If 
in this he alludes to the sensible world, the statement is a long way from the 
matter in hand. There is no necessity whatever that requires one whose subject 
is theological to philosophize about the order in which the different results 
achieved in the world-making are to come, and to lay down that the energies of 
the Creator are higher and lower analogously to the magnitude of each thing 
then made. But if he speaks of the Persons themselves, and means by works that 
are 'older and more honourable' those 'works' which he has just fashioned in 
his own creed, that is, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, it would be perhaps 
better to pass over in silence such an abominable view, than to create even 
the appearance of its being an argument by entangling ourselves with it. For 
can a 'more honourable' be discovered where there is not a less honourable? If 
he can go so far, and with so light a heart, in profanity as to hint that the 
expression and the idea 'less precious' can be predicated of anything whatever 
which we believe of the Trinity, then it were well to stop our ears, and get 
as quickly as possible out of hearing of such wickedness, and the contagion of 
reasoning which will be transfused into the heart, as from a vessel full of 
uncleanness. 

    Can any one dare to speak of the divine and supreme Being in such a way 
that a less degree of honour in comparison is proved by the argument. "That 
all," says the evangelist, "may honour the Son, as they honour the Fathers." 
This utterance (and such an utterance is a law to us) makes a law of this 
equality in honour: yet this man annuls both the law and its Giver, and 
apportions to the One more, to the Other less of honour, by some occult method 
for measuring its extra abundance which he has discovered. By the custom of 
mankind the differences of worth are the measure of the amount of honour which 
each in authority receives; so that inferiors do not approach the lower 
magistracies in the same guise exactly as they do the sovereign, and the 
greater or less display of fear or reverence on their part indicates the 
greater or the less worshipfulness in the objects of it: in fact we may 
discover, in this disposition of inferiors, who are the specially honourable; 
when, for instance, we see some one feared beyond his neighbours, or the 
recipient of more reverence than the rest. But in the case of the divine 
nature, because every perfection in the way of goodness is connoted with the 
very name of God, we cannot discover, at all events as we look at it, any 
ground for degrees of honour. Where there is no greater and smaller in power, 
or glory, or wisdom, or love, or of any other imaginable good whatever, but 
the good which the Son has is the Father's also, and all that is the Father's 
is seen in the Son, what possible state of mind can induce us to show the more 
reverence in the case of the Father? If we think of royal power and worth the 
Son is King: if of a judge, 'all judgment is committed to the Son(2):' if of 
the magnificent office of Creation, 'all things were made by Him(2):' if of 
the Author of our life, we know the True Life came down as far as our nature: 
if of our being taken out of darkness, we know He is the True Light, who weans 
us from darkness: if wisdom is precious to any, Christ is God's power and 
Wisdom(3). 

    Our very souls, then, being disposed so naturally and in proportion to 
their capacity, and yet so miraculously, to recognize so many and great 
wonders in Christ, what further excess of honour is left us to pay exclusively 
to the Father, as inappropriate to the Son? Human reverence of the Deity, 
looked at in its plainest meaning, is nothing else but 

67 

an attitude of love towards Him, and a confession of the perfections in Him: 
and I think that the precept 'so ought the Son to be honoured as the 
Father(4),' is enjoined by the Word in place of love. For the Law commands 
that we pay to God this fitting honour by loving Him with all our heart and 
strength and here is the equivalent of that love, in that the Word as 
Lawgiver' thus says, that the Son ought to be honoured as the Father. 

    It was this kind of honour that the great David fully paid, when he 
confessed to the Lord in a prelude(5) of his psalmody that he loved the Lord, 
and told all the reasons for his love, calling Him his "rock" and "fortress," 
and "refuge," and "deliverer," and "God-helper," and "hope," and "buckler," 
and "horn of salvation," and "protector." If the Only-begotten Son is not all 
these to mankind, let the excess of honour be reduced to this extent as this 
heresy dictates: but if we have always believed Him to be, and to be entitled 
to, all this and even more, and to be equal in every operation and conception 
of the good to the majesty of the Father's goodness, how can it be pronounced 
consistent, either not to love such a character, or to slight it while we love 
it? No one can say that we ought to love Him with all our heart and strength, 
but to honour Him only with half. If, then, the Son is to be honoured with the 
whole heart in rendering to Him all our love, by what device can anything 
superior to His honour be discovered, when such a measure of honour is paid 
Him in the coin of love as our whole heart is capable of? Vainly, therefore, 
in the case of Beings essentially honourable, will any one dogmatize about a 
superior honour, and by comparison suggest an inferior honour. 

    Again; only in the case of the creation is it true to speak of 'priority.' 
The sequence of works was there displayed in the order of the days; and the 
heavens may be said to have preceded by so much the making of man, and that 
interval may be measured by the interval of days. But in the divine nature, 
which transcends all idea of time and surpasses all reach of thought, to talk 
of a "prior" and a "later" in the honours of time is a privilege only of this 
new-fangled philosophy. In short he who declares the Father to be 'prior' to 
the subsistence of the Son declares nothing short of this, viz., that the Son 
is later than the things made by the Son(6) (if at least it is true to say 
that alI the ages, and alI duration of time was created after the Son, and by 
the Son). 

 25. He who asserts that the Father is 'prior' to the Son with any thought of 
an interval must perforce allow that even the Father is not without beginning. 

    But more than this: what exposes still further the untenableness of this 
view is, that, besides positing a beginning in tithe of the Son's existence, 
it does not, when followed out, spare the Father even, but proves that He also 
had his beginning in time. For any recognizing mark that is presupposed for 
the generation of the Son must certainly define as well the Father's 
beginning. 

    To make this clear, it will be well to discuss it more carefully. When he 
pronounces that the life of the Father is prior to that of the Son, he places 
a certain interval between the two; now, he must mean, either that this 
interval is infinite, or that it is included within fixed limits. But the 
principle of an intervening mean will not allow him to call it infinite; he 
would annul thereby the very conception of Father and Son and the thought of 
anything connecting them, as long as this infinite were limited on neither 
side, with no idea of a Father cutting it short above, nor that of a Son 
checking it below. The very nature of the infinite is, to be extended in 
either direction, and to have no bounds of any kind. 

    Therefore if the conception of Father and Son is to remain firm and 
immoveable, he will find no ground for thinking this interval is infinite: his 
school must place a definite interval of time between the Only-begotten and 
the Father. What I say, then, is this: that this view of theirs will bring us 
to the conclusion that the Father is not from everlasting, but from a definite 
point in time. I will convey my meaning by familiar illustrations; the known 
shall make the unknown clear. When we say, on the authority of the text of 
Moses, that man was made the fifth day after the heavens, we tacitly imply 
that before those same days the heavens did not exist either; a subsequent 
event goes to define, by means of the interval which precedes it, the 
occurrence also of a previous event. If this example does not make our 
contention plain, we can give others. We say that 'the Law given by Moses was 
four hundred and thirty years later than the Promise to Abraham.' If alter 
traversing, step by step upwards(7), the anterior time we reach 

68 

this end of that number of years, we firmly grasp as well the fact that, 
before that date, God's Promise was not either. Many such instances could be 
given, but I decline to be minute and wearisome. 

    Guided, then, by these examples, let us examine the question before us. 
Our adversaries conceive of the existences of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as 
involving elder and younger, respectively. Well then; if, at the bidding of 
this heresy, we journey up beyond the generation of the Son, and approach that 
intervening duration which the mere fancy of these dogmatists supposes between 
the Father and the Son, and then reach that other and supreme point of time by 
which they close that duration, there we find the life of the Father fixed as 
it were upon an apex; and thence we must necessarily conclude that before it 
the Father is not to be believed to have existed always. 

    If you still feel difficulties about this, let us again take an 
illustration. It shall be that of two rulers, one shorter than the other. If 
we fit the bases of the two together we know from the tops the extra length of 
the one; from the end of the lesser lying alongside of it we measure this 
excess, supplementing the deficiency of the shorter ruler by a calculation, 
and so bringing it up to the end of the longer; a cubit for instance, or 
whatever be the distance of the one end from the other. So, if there is, as 
our adversaries say, an excess of some kind in the Father's life as compared 
with the Son's, it must needs consist in some definite interval of duration: 
and they will allow that this interval of excess cannot be in the future, for 
that Both are imperishable, even the foes of the truth will grant. No; they 
conceive of this difference as in the past, and instead of equalizing the life 
of the Father and the Son there, they extend the conception of the Father by 
an interval of living. But every interval must be bounded by two ends: and so 
for this interval which they have devised we must grasp the two points by 
which the ends are denoted. The one portion takes its beginning, in their 
view, from the Son's generation; and the other portion must end in some other 
point, from which the interval starts, and by which it limits itself. What 
this is, is for them to tell us; unless, indeed, they are ashamed of the 
consequences of their own assumptions. 

    It admits not of a doubt, then, that they will not be able to find at all 
the other portion, corresponding to the first portion of their fancied 
interval, except they were to suppose some beginning of their Ungenerate, 
whence the middle, that connects with the generation of the Son, may be 
conceived of as starting. We affirm, then, that when he makes the Son later 
than the Father by a certain intervening extension of life, he must grant a 
fixed beginning to the Father's existence also, regulated by this same 
interval of his devising; and thus their much-vaunted "Ungeneracy" of the 
Father will be found to be undermined by its own champions' arguments; and 
they will have to confess that their Ungenerate God did once not exist, but 
began from a starting-point: indeed, that which has a beginning of being is 
not inoriginate. But if we must at all risks confess this absence of beginning 
in the Father, let not such exactitude be displayed in fixing for the life of 
the Son a point which, as the term of His existence, must cut Him off from the 
life on the other side of it; let it suffice on the ground of causation only 
to conceive of the Father as before the Son; and let not the Father's life be 
thought of as a separate and peculiar one before the generation of the Son, 
lest we should have to admit the idea inevitably associated with this of an 
interval before the appearance of the Son which measures the life of Him Who 
begot Him, and then the necessary consequence of this, that a beginning of the 
Father's life also must be supposed by virtue of which their fancied interval 
may be stayed in its upward advance so as to set a limit and a beginning to 
this previous life of the Father as well: let it suffice for us, when we 
confess the 'coming from Him,(1) to admit also, bold as it may seem, the 
'living along with Him;' for we are led by the written oracles to such a 
belief. For we have been taught by Wisdom to contemplate the brightness s of 
the everlasting light in, and together with, the very everlastingness of that 
primal light, joining in one idea the brightness and its cause, and admitting 
no priority. Thus shall we save the theory of our Faith, the Son's life not 
failing in the upward view, and the Father's everlastingness being not 
trenched upon by supposing any definite beginning for the Son. 

 26. It will not do to apply this conception, as drawn out above, of the 
rather and Son to the Creation, as they insist on doing: but we must 
contemplate the Son apart with the Father, and believe that the Creation had 
its origin from a definite point. 

    But perhaps some of the opponents of this will say, 'The Creation also has 
an acknowledged beginning; and yet the things in it are 

69 

not connected in thought with the everlastingness of the Father, and it does 
not check, by having a beginning of its own, the infinitude of the divine 
life, which is the monstrous conclusion this discussion has pointed out in the 
case of the Father and the Son. One therefore of two things must follow. 
Either the Creation is everlasting; or, it must be boldly admitted, the Son is 
later in time (than the Father). The conception of an interval in time will 
lead to monstrous conclusions, even when measured from the Creation up to the 
Creator.' 

    One who demurs so, perhaps from not attending closely to the meaning of 
our belief, fights against it with alien comparisons which have nothing to do 
with the matter in hand. If he could point to anything above Creation which 
has its origin marked by any interval of time, and it were acknowledged 
possible by all to think of any time-interval as existing before Creation, he 
might have occasion for endeavouring to destroy by such attacks that 
everlastingness of the Son which we have proved above. But seeing that by all 
the suffrages of the faithful it is agreed that, of all things that are, part 
is by creation, and part before creation, and that the divine nature is to be 
believed uncreate (although within it, as our faith teaches, there is a cause, 
and there is a subsistence produced, but without separation, from the cause), 
while the creation is to be viewed in an extension of distances,--all order 
and sequence of time in events can be perceived only in the ages (of this 
creation), but the nature pre-existent to those ages escapes all distinctions 
of before and after, because reason cannot see in that divine and blessed life 
the things which it observes, and that exclusively, in creation. The creation, 
as we have said, comes into existence according to a sequence of order, and is 
commensurate with the duration of the ages, so that if one ascends along the 
line of things created to their beginning, one will bound the search with the 
foundation of those ages. But the world above creation, being removed from all 
conception of distance, eludes all sequence of time: it has no commencement of 
that sort: it has no end in which to cease its advance, according to any 
discoverable method of order. Having traversed the ages and all that has been 
produced therein, our thought catches a glimpse of the divine nature, as of 
some immense ocean, but when the imagination stretches onward to grasp it, it 
gives no sign in its own case of any beginning; so that one who after 
inquiring with curiosity into the 'priority' of the ages tries to mount to the 
source of all things will never be able to make a single calculation on which 
he may stand; that which he seeks will always be moving on before, and no 
basis will be offered him for the curiosity of thought. 

    It is clear, even with a moderate insight into the nature of things, that 
there is nothing by which we can measure the divine and blessed Life. It is 
not in time, but time flows from it; whereas the creation, starting from a 
manifest beginning, journeys onward to its proper end through spaces of time; 
so that it is possible, as Solomon somewhere(9) says, to detect in it a 
beginning, an end, and a middle; and mark the sequence of its history by 
divisions of time. But the supreme and blessed life has no time-extension 
accompanying its course, and therefore no span nor measure. Created things are 
confined within the fitting measures, as within a boundary, with due regard to 
the good adjustment of the whole by the pleasure of a wise Creator; and so, 
though human reason in its weakness cannot reach the whole way to the contents 
of creation, yet still we do not doubt that the creative power has assigned to 
all of them their limits and that they do not stretch beyond creation. But 
this creative power itself, while circumscribing by itself the growth of 
things, has itself no circumscribing bounds; it buries in itself every effort 
of thought to mount up to the source of God's life, and it eludes the busy and 
ambitious strivings to get to the end of the Infinite. Every discursive effort 
of thought to go back beyond the ages will ascend only so far as to see that 
that which it seeks can never be passed through: time and its contents seem 
the measure and the limit of the movement and the working of human thought, 
but that which lies beyond remains outside its reach; it is a world where it 
may not tread, unsullied by any object that can be comprehended by man. No 
form, no place, no size, no reckoning of time, or anything else knowable, is 
there: and so it is inevitable that our apprehensive faculty, seeking as it 
does always some object to grasp, must fall back from any side of this 
incomprehensible existence, and seek in the ages and in the creation which 
they hold its kindred and congenial sphere. 

    All, I say, with any insight, however moderate, into the nature of things, 
know that the world's Creator laid time and space as a background to receive 
what was to be; on this foundation He builds the universe. It is not possible 
that anything which has come or is now coming into being by way of creation 
can be independent of space or time. But the existence which is 
all-sufficient, everlasting, world-enveloping, is not in space, nor in time: 
it is before these, and 

70 

above these in an ineffable way; self-contained, knowable by faith alone; 
immeasurable by ages; without the accompaniment of time; seated and resting in 
itself, with no associations of past or future, there being nothing beside and 
beyond itself, whose passing can make something past and something future. 
Such accidents are confined to the creation, whose life is divided with time's 
divisions into memory and hope. But within that transcendent and blessed Power 
all things are equally present as in an instant: past and future are within 
its all-encircling grasp and its comprehensive view. 

    This is the Being in which, to use the words of the Apostle, all things 
are formed; and we, with our individual share in existence, live and move, and 
have our being(10). It is above beginning, and presents no marks of its inmost 
nature: it is to be known of only in the impossibility of perceiving it. That 
indeed is its most special characteristic, that its nature is too high for any 
distinctive attribute. A very different account to the Uncreate must be given 
of Creation: it is this very thing that takes it out of all comparison and 
connexion with its Maker; this difference, I mean, of essence, and this 
admitting a special account explanatory of its nature which has nothing in 
common with that of Him who made it. The Divine nature is a stranger to these 
special marks in the creation: It leaves beneath itself the sections of time, 
the 'before' and the 'after,' and the ideas of space: in fact 'higher' cannot 
properly be said of it at all. Every conception about that uncreate Power is a 
sublime principle, and involves the idea of what is proper in the highest 
degree(11). 

    We have shewn, then, by what we have said that the Only-begotten and the 
Holy Spirit are not to be looked for in the creation but are to be believed 
above it; and that while the creation may perhaps by the persevering efforts 
of ambitious seekers be seized in its own beginning, whatever that may be, the 
supernatural will not the more for that come within the realm of knowledge, 
for no mark before the ages indicative of its nature can be found. Well, then, 
if in this uncreate existence those wondrous realities, with their wondrous 
names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are to be in our thoughts, how can we 
imagine, of that pre-temporal world, that which our busy, restless minds 
perceive in things here below by comparing one of them with another and giving 
it precedence by an interval of time? For there, with the Father, unoriginate, 
ungenerate, always Father, the idea of the Son as coming from Him yet side by 
side with Him is inseparably joined; and through the Son and yet with Him, 
before any vague and unsubstantial conception comes in between, the Holy 
Spirit is found at once in closest union; not subsequent in existence to the 
Son, as if the Son could be thought of as ever having been without the Spirit; 
but Himself also owning the same cause of His being, i.e. the God over all, as 
the Only-begotten Light, and having shone forth in that very Light, being 
divisible neither by duration nor by an alien nature from the Father or from 
the Only-begotten. There are no intervals in that pre-temporal world: and 
difference on the score of being there is none. It is not even possible, 
comparing the uncreate with the uncreated, to see differences; and the Holy 
Ghost is uncreate, as we have before shewn. 

    This being the view held by all who accept in its simplicity the undiluted 
Gospel, what occasion was there for endeavouring to dissolve this fast union 
of the Son with the Father by means of the creation, as if it were necessary 
to suppose either that the Son was from everlasting along with the creation, 
or that He too, equally with it, was later? For the generation of the Son does 
not fall within time(1), any more than the creation was before time: so that 
it can in no kind of way be right to partition the indivisible, and to insert, 
by declaring that there was a time when the Author of all existence was not, 
this false idea of time into the creative Source of the Universe. 

    Our previous contention, therefore, is true, that the everlastingness of 
the Son is included, 

71 

along with the idea of His birth, in the Father's ungeneracy; and that, if any 
interval were to be imagined dividing the two, that same interval would fix a 
beginning for the life of the Almighty;--a monstrous supposition. But there is 
nothing to prevent the creation, being, as it is, in its own nature something 
other than its Creator and in no point trenching on that pure pre-temporal 
world, from having, in our belief, a beginning of its own, as we have said. To 
say that the heavens and the earth and other contents of creation were out of 
things which are not, or, as the Apostle says, out of "things not seen?" 
inflicts no dishonour upon the Maker of this universe; for we know from 
Scripture that all these things are not from everlasting nor will remain for 
ever. If on the other hand it could be believed that there is something in the 
Holy Trinity which does not coexist with the Father, if following out this 
heresy any thought could be entertained of stripping the Almighty of the glory 
of the Son and Holy Ghost, it would end in nothing else than in a God 
manifestly removed from every deed and thought that was good and godlike. But 
if the Father, existing before the ages, is always in glory, and the 
pre-temporal Son is His glory, and if in like manner the Spirit of Christ is 
the Son's glory, always to be contemplated along with the Father and the Son, 
what training could have led this man of learning to declare that there is a 
'before' in what is timeless, and a 'more honourable' in what is all 
essentially honourable, and preferring, by comparisons, the one to the other, 
to dishonour the latter by this partiality? The term in opposition(3) to the 
more honourable makes it clearer still whither he is tending. 

 27. He falsely imagines that the same energies produce the same works, and 
that variation in the works indicates variation in the energies. 

    Of the same strain is that which he adds in the next paragraph; "the same 
energies producing sameness of works, and different works indicating 
difference in the energies as well." Finely and irresistibly does this noble 
thinker plead for his doctrine. "The same energies produce sameness of works." 
Let us test this by facts. The energy of fire is always one and the same; it 
consists in heating: but what sort of agreement do its results show? Bronze 
melts in it; mud hardens; wax vanishes: while all other animals are destroyed 
by it, the salamander is preserved alive(4); tow burns, asbestos is washed by 
the flames as if by water; so much for his 'sameness of works from one and the 
same energy.' How too about the sun? Is not his power of warming always the 
same; and yet while he causes one plant to grow, he withers another, varying 
the results of his operation in accordance with the latent force of each. 
'That on the rock' withers; 'that in deep earth' yields an hundredfold. 
Investigate Nature's work, and you will learn, in the case of those bodies 
which she produces artistically, the amount of accuracy there is in his 
statement that 'sameness of energy effects sameness of result.' One single 
operation is the cause of conception, but the composition of that which is 
effected internally therein is so varied that it would be difficult for any 
one even to count all the various qualities of the body. Again, imbibing the 
milk is one single operation on the part of the infant, but the results of its 
being nourished so are too complex to be all detailed. While this food passes 
from the channel of the mouth into the secretory ducts(5), the transforming 
power of Nature forwards it into the several parts proportionately to their 
wants; for by digestion she divides its sum total into the small change of 
multitudinous differences, and into supplies congenial to the subject matter 
with which she deals; so that the same milk goes to feed arteries, veins, 
brain and its membranes, marrow, bones, nerves(6), sinews, tendons, flesh, 
surface, cartilages, fat, hair, nails, perspiration, vapours, phlegm, bile, 
and besides these, all useless superfluities deriving from the same source. 
You could not name either an organ, whether of motion or sensation, or 
anything else making up the body's bulk, which was not formed (in spite of 
startling differences) from this one and selfsame operation of feeding. If one 
were to compare the mechanic arts too it will be seen what is the scientific 
value of his statement; for there we see in them all the same operation, I 
mean the movement of the hands; but what have the results in common? What has 
building a shrine to do with a coat, though manual labour is employed on both? 
The house-breaker and the well-digger both move their hands: the mining of the 
earth, the murder of a man are results of the motion of the hands. The soldier 
slays the foe, and the husbandman wields the fork which breaks the clod, with 
his hands. How, then, can this doctrinaire lay it down that the 'same energies 
produce sameness of work?' But even if we were to grant that this view of his 
had any truth in it, the essential union of the Son with the Father, and of 
the 

72 

Holy Spirit with the Son, is yet again more fully proved. For if there existed 
any variation in their energies, so that the Son worked His will in a 
different manner to the Father, then (on the above supposition) it would be 
fair to conjecture, from this variation,a variation also in the beings which 
were the result of these varying energies. But if it is true that the manner 
of the Father's working is likewise the manner always of the Son's, both from 
our Lord's own words and from what we should have expected a priori--(for the 
one is not unbodied while the other is embodied, the one is not from this 
material, the other from that, the one does not work his will in this time and 
place, the other in that time and place, nor is there difference of organs in 
them producing difference of result, but the sole movement of their wish and 
of their will is sufficient, seconded in the founding of the universe by the 
power that can create anything)--if, I say, it is true that in all respects 
the Father from Whom are all things, and the Son by Whom are all things in the 
actual form of their operation work alike, then how can this man hope to prove 
the essential difference between the Son and the Holy Ghost by any difference 
and separation between the working of the Son and the Father? The very 
opposite, as we have just seen, is proved to be the case(7); seeing that there 
is no manner of difference contemplated between the working of the Father and 
that of the Son; and so that there is no gulf whatever between the being of 
the Son and the being of the Spirit, is shewn by the identity of the power 
which gives them their subsistence; and our pamphleteer himself confirms this; 
for these are his words verbatim: "the same energies producing sameness of 
works." If sameness of works is really produced by likeness of energies, and 
if (as they say) the Son is the work of the Father and the Spirit the work of 
the Son, the likeness in manner(8) of the Father's and the Son's energies will 
demonstrate the sameness of these beings who each result from them. 

    But he adds, "variation in the works indicates variation in the energies." 
How, again, is this dictum of his corroborated by facts? Look, if you please, 
at plain instances. Is not the 'energy' of command, in Him who embodied the 
world and all things therein by His sole will, a single energy? "He spake and 
they were made. He commanded and they were created." Was not the thing 
commanded in every case alike given existence: did not His single will suffice 
to give subsistence to the nonexistent? How, then, when such vast differences 
are seen coming from that one energy of command, can this man shut his eyes to 
realities, and declare that the difference of works indicates difference of 
energies? If our dogmatist insists on this, that difference of works implies 
difference of energies, then we should have expected the very contrary to that 
which is the case; viz., that everything in the world should be of one type. 
Can it be that he does see here a universal likeness, and detects unlikeness 
only between the Father and the Son? 

    Let him, then, observe, if he never did before, the dissimilarity amongst 
the elements of the world, and how each thing that goes to make up the 
framework of the whole hangs on to its natural opposite. Some objects are 
light and buoyant, others heavy and gravitating; some are always still, others 
always moving; and amongst these last some move unchangingly on one plan(9), 
as the heaven, for instance, and the planets, whose courses all revolve the 
opposite way to the universe, others are transfused in all directions and rush 
at random, as air and sea for instance, and every substance which is naturally 
penetrating(10). What need to mention the contrasts seen between heat and 
cold, moist and dry, high and low position? As for the numerous 
dissimilarities amongst animals and plants, on the score of figure and size, 
and all the variations of their products and their qualities, the human mind 
would fail to follow them. 

 28. He falsely imagines that we can have an unalterable series of harmonious 
natures existing side by side. 

    But this man of science still declares that varied works have energies as 
varied to produce them. Either he knows not yet the nature of the Divine 
energy, as taught by Scripture,--'All things were made by the word of His 
command,'--or else he is blind to the differences of existing things. He 
utters for our benefit these inconsiderate statements, and lays down the law 
about divine doctrines, as if he had never yet heard that anything that is 
merely asserted,--where no entirely undeniable and plain statement is made 
about the matter in hand, and where the asserter says on his own 
responsibility that which a cannons listener cannot assent to,--is no better 
than a telling of dreams or of stories over wine. Little then as this dictum 
of his fits facts, nevertheless,--like one who is deluded by a dream into 
thinking that he sees one of the objects of his waking efforts, and who grasps 
eagerly at this phantom and 

73 

with eyes deceived by this visionary desire thinks that he holds it,--he with 
this dreamlike outline of doctrines before him imagines that his words possess 
force, and insists upon their truth, and essays by them to prove all the rest. 
It is worth while to give the passage. "These being so, and maintaining an 
unbroken connexion in their relation to each other, it seems fitting for those 
who make their investigation according to the order germane to the subject, 
and who do not insist on mixing and confusing all together, in case of a 
discussion being raised about Being, to prove what is in course of 
demonstration, and to settle the points in debate, by the primary energies and 
those attached to the Beings, and again to explain by the Being when the 
energies are in question." I think the actual phrases of his impiety are 
enough to prove how absurd is this teaching. If any one had to give a 
description of the way some disease mars a human countenance, he would explain 
it better by actually unbandaging the patient, and there would be then no need 
of words when the eye had seen how he looked. So some mental eye might discern 
the hideous mutilation wrought by this heresy: its mere perusal might remove 
the veil. But since it is necessary, in order to make the latent mischief of 
this teaching clear to the many, to put the finger of demonstration upon it, I 
will again repeat each word. "This being so." What does this dreamer mean? 
What is 'this?' How has it been stated? "The Father's being is alone proper 
and in the highest degree supreme; consequently the next being is dependent, 
and the third more dependent still." In such words he lays down the law. But 
why? Is it because an energy accompanies the first being, of which the effect 
and work, the Only-begotten, is circumscribed by the sphere of this producing 
cause? Or because these Beings are to be thought of as of greater or less 
extent, the smaller included within and surrounded by the larger, like casks 
put one inside the other, inasmuch as he detects degrees of size within Beings 
that are illimitable? Or because differences of products imply differences of 
producers, as if it were impossible that different effects should be produced 
by similar energies? Well, there is no one whose mental faculties are so 
steeped in sleep as to acquiesce directly after hearing such statements in the 
following assertion, "these being so, and maintaining an unbroken connexion in 
their relation to one another." It is equal madness to say such things, and to 
hear them without any questioning. They are placed in a 'series' and 'an 
unalterable relation to each other,' and yet they are parted from each other 
by an essential unlikeness! Either, as our own doctrine insists, they are 
united in being, and then they really preserve an unalterable relation to each 
other; or else they stand apart in essential unlikeness, as he fancies. But 
what series, what relationship that is unalterable can exist with alien 
entities? And how can they present that 'order germane to the matter' which 
according to him is to rule the investigation? Now if he had an eye only on 
the doctrine of the truth, and if the order in which be counts the differences 
was only that of the attributes which Faith sees in the Holy Trinity,--an 
order so 'natural' and 'germane' that the Persons cannot be confounded, being 
divided as Persons, though united in their being--then he would not have been 
classed at all amongst our enemies, for he would mean the very same doctrine 
that we teach. But, as it is, he is looking in the very contrary direction, 
and he makes the order which he fancies there quite inconceivable. There is 
all the difference in the world between the accomplishment of an act of the 
will, and that of a mechanical law of nature. Heat is inherent in fire, 
splendour in the sunbeam, fluidity in water, downward tendency in a stone, and 
so on. But if a man builds a house, or seeks an office, or puts to sea with a 
cargo, or attempts anything else which requires forethought and preparation to 
succeed, we cannot say in such a case that there is properly a rank or order 
inherent in his operations: their order in each case will result as an after 
consequence of the motive which guided his choice, or the utility of that 
which he achieves. Well, then; since this heresy parts the Son from any 
essential relationship with the Father, and adopts the same view of the Spirit 
as estranged from any union with the Father or the Son, and since also it 
affirms throughout that the Son is the work of the Father, and the Spirit the 
work of the Son, and that these works are the results of a purpose, not of 
nature, what grounds has he for declaring that this work of a will is an 
'order inherent in the matter,' and what is the drift of this teaching, which 
makes the Almighty the manufacturer of such a nature as this in the Son and 
the Holy Spirit, where transcendent beings are made such as to be inferior the 
one to the other? If such is really his meaning, why did he not clearly state 
the grounds he has for presuming in the case of the Deity, that smallness of 
result will be evidence of all the greater power? But who really could ever 
allow that a cause that is great and powerful is to be looked for in this 
smallness of results? As if God was unable to establish His own perfection in 
anything 

74 

that comes from Him(1)! And how can he attribute to the Deity the highest 
prerogative of supremacy while he exhibits His power as thus falling short of 
His will? Eunomius certainly seems to mean that perfection was not even 
proposed as the aim of God's work, for fear the honour and glory of One to 
Whom homage is due for His superiority might be thereby lessened. And yet is 
there any one so narrow-minded as to reckon the Blessed Deity Himself as not 
free from the passion of envy? What plausible reason, then, is left why the 
Supreme Deity should have constituted such an 'order' in the case of the Son 
and the Spirit? "But I did not mean that 'order' to come from Him," he 
rejoins. But whence else, if the beings to which this 'order' is connatural 
are not essentially related to each other? But perhaps he calls the 
inferiority itself of the being of the Son and of the Spirit this 'connatural 
order.' But I would beg of him to tell me the reason of this very thing, viz., 
why the Son is inferior on the score of being, when both this being and energy 
are to be discovered in the same characteristics and attributes. If on the 
other band there is not to be the same(2) definition of being and energy, and 
each is to signify something different, why does he introduce a demonstration 
of the thing in question by means of that which is quite different from it? It 
would be, in that case, just as if, when it was debated with regard to man's 
own being whether he were a risible animal, or one capable of being taught to 
read, some one was to adduce the building of a house or ship on the part of a 
mason or a shipwright as a settling of the question, insisting on the skilful 
syllogism that we know beings by operations, and a house and a ship are 
operations of man. Do we then learn, most simple sir, by such premisses, that 
man is risible as well as broad-nailed? Some one might well retort; 'whether 
man possesses motion and energy was not the question: it was, what is the 
energizing principle itself; and that I fail to learn from your way of 
deciding the question.' Indeed, if we wanted to know something about the 
nature of the wind, you would not give a satisfactory answer by pointing to a 
heap of sand or chaff raised by the wind, or to dust which it scattered: for 
the account to be given of the wind is quite different: and these 
illustrations of yours would be foreign to the subject. What ground, then, has 
he for attempting to explain beings by their energies, and making the 
definition of an entity out of the resultants of that entity. 

    Let us observe, too, what sort of work of the Father it is by which the 
Father's being, according to him, is to be comprehended. The Son most 
certainly, he will say, if he says as usual. But this Son of yours, most 
learned sir, is commensurate in your scheme only with the energy which 
produced Him, and indicates that alone, while the Object of our search still 
keeps in the dark, if, as you yourself confess, this energy is only one 
amongst the things which 'follow(3)' the first being. This energy, as you say, 
extends itself into the work which it produces, but it does not reveal therein 
even its own nature, but only so much of it as we can get a glimpse of in that 
work. All the resources of a smith are not set in motion to make a gimlet; the 
skill of that artisan only operates so far as is adequate to form that tool, 
though it could fashion a large variety of other tools. Thus the limit of the 
energy is to be found in the work which it produces. But the question now is 
not about the amount of the energy, but about the being of that which has put 
forth the energy. In the same way, if he asserts that he can perceive the 
nature of the Only-begotten in the Spirit (Whom he styles the work of an 
energy which 'follows' the Son), his assertion has no foundation; for here 
again the energy, while it extends itself into its work, does not reveal 
therein the nature either of itself or of the agent who exerts it. 

    But let us yield in this; grant him that beings are known in their 
energies. The First being is known through His work; and this Second being is 
revealed in the work proceeding from Him. But what, my learned friend, is to 
show this Third being? No such work of this Third is to be found. If you 
insist that these beings are perceived by their energies, you must confess 
that the Spirit's nature is imperceptible; you cannot infer His nature from 
any energy put forth by Him to carry on the continuity. Show some 
substantiated work of the Spirit, through which you think you have detected 
the being of the Spirit, or all your cobweb will collapse at the touch of 
Reason. If the being is known by the subsequent energy, and substantiated 
energy of the Spirit there is none, such as ye say the Father shows in the 
Son, and the Son in the Spirit, then the nature of the Spirit must be 
confessed unknowable and not be apprehended through these; there is no energy 
conceived of in connexion with a substance to show even a side glimpse of it. 
But if the Spirit eludes apprehension, how 

75 

by means of that which is itself imperceptible can the more exalted being be 
perceived? If the Son's work, that is, the Spirit according to them, is 
unknowable, the Son Himself can never be known; He will be involved in the 
obscurity of that which gives evidence of Him: and if the being of the Son in 
this way is hidden, how can the being who is most properly such and most 
supreme be brought to light by means of the being which is itself hidden; this 
obscurity of the Spirit is transmitted by retrogression(4) through the Son to 
the Father; so that in this view, even by our adversaries' confession, the 
unknowableness of the Father's being is clearly demonstrated. How, then, can 
this man, be his eye ever so 'keen to see unsubstantial entities,' discern the 
nature of the unseen and incomprehensible by means of itself; and how can he 
command us to grasp the beings by means' of their works, and their works again 
from them? 

   29. He vainly this that the doubt about the energies is to be sowed by the 
beings, and reversely. 

    Now let us see what comes next. 'The doubt about the energies is to be 
solved by the beings.' What way is there of bringing this man out of his vain 
fancies down to common sense? If he thinks that it is possible thus to solve 
doubts about the energies by comprehending the beings themselves, how, if 
these last are not comprehended, can he change this doubt to any certainty? If 
the being has been comprehended, what need to make the energy of this 
importance, as if it was going to lead us to the comprehension of the being. 
But if this is the very thing that makes an examination of the energy 
necessary, viz., that we may be thereby guided to the understanding of the 
befog that exerts it, how can this as yet unknown nature solve the doubt about 
the energy? The proof of anything that is doubted must be made by means of 
well-known truths; but when there is an equal uncertainty about both the 
objects of our search, how can Eunomius say that they are comprehended by 
means of each other, both being in themselves beyond our knowledge? When the 
Father's being is under discussion, he tells us that the question may be 
settled by means of the energy which follows Him and of the work which this 
energy accomplishes; but when the inquiry is about the being of tile 
Only-begotten, whether Eunomius calls Him an energy or a product of the energy 
(for he does both), then he tells us that the question may be easily solved by 
looking at the being of His producer! 

   30. There is no Word of God that commands such investigations: the 
uselessness of the philosophy which makes them is thereby proved. 

    I should like also to ask him this. Does he mean that energies are 
explained by the beings which produced them only in the case of the Divine 
Nature, or does he recognize the nature of the produced by means of the being 
of the producer with regard to anything whatever that possesses an effective 
force? If in the case of the Divine Nature only he holds this view, let him 
show us how he settles questions about the works of God by means of the nature 
of the Worker. Take an undoubted work of God,--the sky, the earth, the sea, 
the whole universe. Let it be the being of one of these that, according to our 
supposition, is being enquired into, and let 'sky' be the subject fixed for 
our speculative reasoning. It is a question what the substance of the sky is; 
opinions have been broached about it varying widely according to the lights of 
each natural philosopher. How will the contemplation of the Maker of the sky 
procure a solution of the question, immaterial, invisible, formless, 
ungenerate, everlasting, incapable of decay and change and alteration, and all 
such things, as He is. How will anyone who entertains this conception of the 
Worker be led on to the knowledge of the nature of the sky? How will he get an 
idea of a thing which is visible from the Invisible, of the perishable from 
the imperishable, of that which has a date for its existence from that which 
never had any generation, of that which has duration but for a time from the  
everlasting; in fact, of the object of his search from everything which is the 
very opposite to it. Let this man who has accurately probed the secret of 
things tell us how it is possible that two unlike things should be known from 
each other. 

   31. The observations made by watching Providence are sufficient to give us 
the knowledge of sameness of Being. 

    And yet, if he could see the consequences of his own statements, he would 
be led on by them to acquiesce in the doctrine of the Church. For if the 
maker's nature is an indication of the thing made, as he affirms, and if, 
according to his school, the Son is something made by the Father, anyone who 
has observed the Father's nature would have certainly known thereby that of 
the Son; if, I say, it is true that the worker's nature is a sign of that 
which he works. But the Only-begotten, as they say, of the Father's 
unlikeness, will be excluded from operating 

76 

through Providence. Eunomius need not trouble any more about His being 
generated, nor force out of that another proof of the son's unlikeness. The 
difference of purpose will itself be sufficient to bring to light His alien 
nature. For the First Being is, even by our opponents' confession, one and 
single, and necessarily His will must be thought of as following the bent of 
His nature; but Providence shows that purpose is good, and so the nature from 
which that purpose comes is shown to be good also. So the Father alone works 
good; and the Son does not purpose the same things as He, if we adopt the 
assumptions of our adversary; the difference then, of their nature will be 
clearly attested by this variation of their purposes. But if, while the Father 
is provident for the Universe, the Son is equally provident for it (for 'what 
He sees the Father doing that also the Son does'), this sameness of their 
purposes exhibits a communion of nature in those who thus purpose the same 
things. Why, then, is all mention of Providence omitted by him, as if it would 
not help us at all to that which we are searching for. Yet many familiar 
examples make for our view of it. Anyone who has gazed on the brightness of 
fire and experienced its power of warming, when he approaches another such 
brightness and another such warmth, will assuredly be led on to think of fire; 
for his senses through the medium of these similar phaenomena will conduct him 
to the fact of a kindred element producing both; anything that was not fire 
could not work on all occasions like fire. Just so, when we perceive a similar 
and equal amount of providential power in the Father and in the Son, we make a 
guess by means of what thus comes within the range of our knowledge about 
things which transcend our comprehension; we feel that causes of an alien 
nature cannot be detected in these equal and similar effects. As the observed 
phenomena are to each other, so will the subjects of those phenomena be: if 
the first are opposed to each other, we must reckon the revealed entities to 
be so too; if the first are alike, so too must those others be. Our Lord said 
allegorically that their fruit is the sign of the characters of trees, meaning 
that it does not belie that character, that the bad is not attached to the 
good tree, nor the good to the bad tree;--"by their fruits ye shall know 
them;"--so when the fruit, Providence, presents no difference, we detect a 
single nature from which that fruit has sprung, even though the trees be 
different from which the fruit is put forth. Through that, then, which is 
cognizable by our apprehension, viz., tile scheme or Providence visible in the 
Son in the same way as in the Father, the common likeness of the Only-begotten 
and the Father is placed beyond a doubt; and it is the identity of the fruits 
of Providence by which we know it. 

   32. His dictum that 'the manner of the likeness must follow the manner of 
the generation' is unintelligible. 

    But to prevent such a thought being entertained, and pretending to be 
forced somehow away from it, he says that he withdraws from all these results 
of Providence, and goes back to the manner of the Son's generation, because 
"the manner of His likeness must follow the manner of His generation." What an 
irresistible proof! How forcibly does this verbiage compel assent! What skill 
and precision there is in the wording of this assertion! Then, if we know the 
manner of the generation, we shall know by that the manner of the likeness. 
Well, then; seeing that all, or at all events most, animals born by 
parturition have the same manner of generation, and, according to their logic, 
the manner of likeness follows this manner of generation, these animals, 
following as they do the same model in their production, will resemble 
entirely those similarly generated; for things that are like the same thing 
are like one another. If, then, according to the view of this heresy, the 
manner of the generation makes every thing generated just like itself, and it 
is a fact that this manner does not vary at all in diversified kinds of 
animals but remains the same in the greatest part of them, we shall find that 
this sweeping and unqualified assertion of his establishes, by virtue of this 
similarity of birth, a mutual resemblance between men, dogs, camels, mice, 
elephants, leopards, and every other animal which Nature produces in the same 
manner. Or does he mean, not, that things brought into the world in a similar 
way are all like each other, but that each one of them is like that being only 
which is the source of its life. But if so, he ought to have declared that the 
child is like the parent, not that the "manner of the likeness" resembles the 
"manner of the generation." But this, which is so probable in itself, and is 
observed as a fact in Nature, that the begotten resembles the begetter, he 
will not admit as a truth; it would reduce his whole argumentation to a proof 
of the contrary of what he intended. If he allowed the offspring to be like 
the parent, his laboured store of arguments to prove the un-likeness of the 
Beings would be refuted as evanescent and groundless. 

    So he says "the manner of the likeness follows the manner of the 
generation." This, when tested by the exact critic of the meaning of any 
idea(5), will be found completely unintel- 

77 

ligible. It is plainly impossible to say what a "manner of generation" can 
mean. Does it mean the figure of the parent, or his impulse, or his 
disposition; or the time, or the place, or the completing of the embryo by 
conception; or the generative receptacles; or nothing of that kind, but 
something else of the things observed in ' generation.' It is impossible to 
find  out what he means. The impropriety and vagueness of the word "manner" 
causes perplexity as to its signification here; every possible one is equally 
open to our surmises, and presents as well an equal want of connexion with the 
subject before us. So also with this phrase of his "manner of likeness;" it is 
devoid of any vestige of meaning, if we fix our attention on the examples 
familiarly known to us. For the thing generated is not to be likened there to 
the kind or the manner of its birth. Birth consists, in the case of animal 
birth, in a separation of body from body, in which the animal perfectly 
moulded in the womb is brought forth; but the thing born is a man, or horse, 
or cow, or whatever it may chance to be in its existence through birth. How, 
therefore, the "manner of the likeness of the offspring follows the manner of 
its generation" must be left to him, or to some pupil of his in, midwifery, to 
explain. Birth is one thing: the thing born is another: they are different 
ideas altogether. No one with any sense would deny that what he says is 
perfectly untrue in the case of animal births. But if he calls the actual 
making and the actual fashioning a "manner of the generation," which the 
"manner of the likeness" of the thing produced is to "follow," even so his 
statement is removed from all likelihood, as we shall see from some 
illustrations. Iron is hammered out by the blows of the artificer into some 
useful instrument. How, then, the outline of its edge, if such there happen to 
be, can be said to be similar to the laud of the worker, or to the manner of 
its fashioning, to the hammers, for instance, and the coals and the bellows 
and the anvil by means of which he has moulded it, no one could explain. And 
what can be said in one case fits all, where there is any operation producing 
a result; the thing produced cannot be said to be like the "manner of its 
generation." What has the shape of a garment got to do with the spool, or the 
rods, or the comb, or with the form of the weaver's instruments at all? What 
has an actual seat got to do with the working of the blocks; or any finished 
production with the build of him who achieved it?--But I think even our 
opponents would allow that this rule of his is not in force in sensible and 
material instances. 

    It remains to see whether it contributes anything further to the proof of 
his blasphemy. What, then, was he aiming at? The necessity of believing in 
accordance with their being in the likeness or unlikeness of the Son to the 
Father; and, as we cannot know about this being from considerations of 
Providence, the necessity of having recourse to the "manner of the 
generation," whereby we may know, not indeed whether the Begotten is like the 
Begetter (absolutely), but only a certain "manner of likeness" between them; 
and as this manner is a secret to the many, the necessity of going at some 
length into the being of the Begetter. Then has he forgotten his own 
definitions about the beings having to be known from their works? But this 
begotten being, which he calls the work of the supreme being, has as yet no 
light thrown upon it (according to him); so how can its nature be dealt with? 
And how can he "mount above this lower and therefore more directly), 
comprehensible thing," and so cling to the absolute and supreme being? Again, 
he always throughout his discourse lays claim to an accurate knowledge of the 
divine utterances; yet here he pays them scant reverence, ignoring the fact 
that it is not possible to approach to a knowledge of the Father except 
through the Son. "No man knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to 
whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him(6)." Yet Eunomius, while on every 
occasion, where he can insult our devout and God-adoring conceptions of the 
Son, he asserts in plain words the Son's inferiority, establishes His 
superiority unconsciously in this device of his for knowing the Deity; for he 
assumes that the Father's being lends itself the more readily to our 
comprehension, and then attempts to trace and argue out the Son's nature from 
that. 

   33. He declares falsely that 'the manner of the generation is to be known 
from the intrinsic worth of the generator.' 

    He goes back, for instance, to the begetting being, and from thence takes 
a survey of the begotten; "for," says he, "the manner of the generation is to 
be known from the intrinsic worth of the generator." Again, we find this bold 
unqualified generalization of his causing the thought of the inquirer to be 
dissipated in every possible direction; it is the nature of such general 
statements, to extend in their meanings to every instance, and allow nothing 
to escape their sweeping assertion. If then ' the manner of the generation is 
to be known from the intrinsic worth of the generator,' and there are many 
differences in the worth of gene- 

78 

rators according to their many classifications(7) to be found (for one may be 
born Jew, Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond, free), what will be the result? 
Why, that we must expect to find as many "manners of generation" as there are 
differences in intrinsic worth amongst the generators; and that their birth 
will not be fulfilled with all in the same way, but that their nature will 
vary with the worth of the parent, and that some peculiar manner of birth will 
be struck out for each, according to these varying estimations. For a certain 
inalienable worth is to be observed in the individual parent; the distinction, 
that is, of being better or worse off according as there has fallen to each 
race, estimation, religion, nationality, power, servitude, wealth, poverty, 
independence, dependence, or whatever else constitutes the life-long 
differences of worth. If then "the manner of the generation" is shown by the 
intrinsic worth of the parent, and there are many differences in worth, we 
shall inevitably find, if we follow this opinion-monger, that the manners of 
generation are various too; in fact, this difference of worth will dictate to 
Nature the manner of the birth. 

    But if he should not(8) admit that such worth is natural, because they can 
be put in thought outside the nature of their subject, we will not oppose him. 
But at all events he will agree to this; that man's existence is separated by 
an intrinsic character from that of brutes. Yet the manner of birth in these 
two cases presents no variation in intrinsic character; nature brings man and 
the brute into the world in just the same way, i.e. by generation. But if he 
apprehends this native dignity only in the case of the most proper and supreme 
existence, let us see what he means then. In our view, the 'native dignity' of 
God consists in godhead itself, wisdom, power, goodness, judgment, justice, 
strength, mercy, truth, creativeness, domination, invisibility, 
everlastingness, and every other quality named in the inspired writings to 
magnify his glory; and we affirm that every  one of them is properly and 
inalienably found in the Son, recognizing difference only in respect of 
unoriginateness; and even that we do not exclude the Son from, according to 
all its meanings. But let no carping critic attack this statement as if we 
were attempting to exhibit the Very Son as ungenerate; for we hold that one 
who maintains that is no less impious than an Anomoean. But since the meanings 
of 'origin ' are various, and suggest many ideas, there are some of them in 
which the title 'unoriginate' is not inapplicable to the Son(9). When, for 
instance, this word has the meaning of 'deriving existence from no cause 
whatever,' then we confess that it is peculiar to the Father; but when the 
question is about 'origin' in its other meanings (since any creature or time 
or order has an origin), then we attribute the being superior to origin to the 
Son as well, and we believe that whereby all things were made is beyond the 
origin of creation, and the idea of time, and the sequence of order. So He, 
Who on the ground of His subsistence is not without an origin, possessed in 
every other view an undoubted unoriginateness; and while the Father is 
unoriginate and Ungenerate, the Son is unoriginate in the way we have said, 
though not ungenerate. 

    What, then, is that native dignity of the Father which he is going to look 
at in order to infer thereby the ' manner of the generation.' "His not being 
generated, most certainly," he will reply. If, then, all those names with 
which we have learnt to magnify God's glory are useless and meaningless to 
you, Eunomius, the mere going through the list of such expressions is a 
gratuitous and superfluous task; none of these other words, you say, expresses 
the intrinsic worth of the God over all. But if there is a peculiar force 
fitting our conceptions of the Deity in each of these words, the intrinsic 
dignities of God must plainly be viewed in connexion with this list, and the 
likeness of the two beings will be thereby proved; if, that is, the characters 
inalienable from the beings are an index of the subjects of those characters. 
The characters of each being are found to be the same; and so the identity on 
the score of being of the two subjects of these identical dignities is shown 
most clearly. For if the variation in a single name is to be held to be the 
index of an alien being, how much more should the identity of these countless 
names avail to prove community of nature! 

    What, then, is the reason why the other names should all be neglected, and 
generation be indicated by the means of one alone? Why do they pronounce this 
'Ungeneracy' to be the only intrinsic character in the Father, and thrust all 
the rest aside? It is in order that they may establish their mischievous 
mode(10) of 

79 

unlikeness of Father and Son, by this contrast as regards the begotten. But we 
shall find that this attempt of theirs, when we come to test it in its proper 
place, is equally feeble, unfounded, and nugatory as the preceding attempts. 

    Still, that all his reasonings point this way, is shown by the sequel, in 
which he praises himself for having fittingly adopted this method for the 
proof of his blasphemy, and yet for not having all at once divulged his 
intention, nor shocked the unprepared hearer with his impiety, before the 
concatenation of his delusive argument was complete, nor displayed this 
Ungeneracy as God's being in the early part of his discourse, nor to weary us 
with; talk about the difference of being. The following are his exact words: 
"Or was it right, as Basil commands, to begin with the thing to be proved, and 
to assert incoherently that the Ungeneracy is the being, and to talk about the 
difference or the sameness of nature?" Upon this he has a long intervening 
tirade, made up of scoffs and insulting abuse (such being the weapons which 
this thinker uses to defend his own doctrines), and then he resumes the 
argument, and turning upon his adversary, fixes upon him, forsooth, the blame 
of what he is saying, in these words; "For your party, before any others, are 
guilty of this offence; having partitioned out this same being between 
Begetter and Begotten; and so the scolding you have given is only a halter not 
to be eluded which you have woven for your own necks; justice, as might have 
been expected, records in your own words a verdict against yourselves. Either 
you first conceive of the beings as sundered, and independent of each 
other(11); and then bring down one of them, by generation, to the rank of Son, 
and contend that One who exists independently nevertheless was made by means 
of the Other existence; and so lay yourselves open to your own reproaches: for 
to Him whom you imagine as without generation you ascribe a generation by 
another:--or else you first allow one single causeless being, and then marking 
this out by an act of causation into Father and Son, you declare that this 
non-generated being came into existence by means of itself." 

 34. The Passage where he attacks the 'Omoousion, and the 
contention in answer to it. 

    I will omit to speak of the words which occur before this passage which 
has been quoted. They contain merely shameless abuse of our Master and Father 
in God, and nothing bearing on the matter in hand. But on the passage itself, 
as he advances by the device of this terrible dilemma a double-edged 
refutation, we cannot be silent; we must accept the intellectual challenge, 
and fight for the Faith with all the power we have, and show that the 
formidable two-edged sword which he has sharpened is feebler than a 
make-believe in a scene-painting. 

    He attacks the community of substance with two suppositions; he says that 
we either name as Father and as Son two independent principles drawn out 
parallel to each other, and then say that one of these existencies is produced 
by the other existence: or else we say that one and the same essence is 
conceived of, participating in both names in turn, both being(1) Father, and 
becoming Son, and itself produced in generation from itself. I put this in my 
own words, thereby not misinterpreting his thought, but only correcting the 
tumid exaggeration of its expression, in such a way as to reveal his meaning 
by clearer words and afford a comprehensive view of it. Having blamed us for 
want of polish and for having brought to the controversy an insufficient 
amount of learning, he decks out his own work in such a glitter of style, and 
passes the nail(2) to use his own phrase, so often over his own sentences, and 
makes his periods so smart with this elaborate prettiness, that he captivates 
the reader at once with the attractions of language; such amongst many others 
is the passage we have just recited by way of preface. We will, by leave, 
again recite it. "And so the scolding you have given is only a halter, not to 
be eluded, which you have woven for your own necks; justice, as might have 
been expected, records in your own words a verdict against yourselves." 

    Observe these flowers of the old Attic; what polished brilliance of 
diction plays over his composition; what a delicate and subtle charm of style 
is in bloom there! However, let this be as people think. Our course requires 
us again to turn to the thought in those words; let us plunge once more into 
the phrases of this pamphleteer. "Either you conceive of the beings as 
separated and independent of each other, and then bring down one of them, by 
generation, to the rank of Son, and contend that One who exists independently 
nevertheless was made by means of the Other existence." That is enough for the 
present. He says, then, that we preach(3) two causeless Beings. How can this 
man, who is always accusing us of levelling and confusing, assert 

80 

this from our believing, as we do, in a single substance of Both. If two 
natures, alien to each other on the score of their being, were preached by our 
Faith, just as it is preached by the Anomoean school, then there would be good 
reason for thinking that this distinction of natures led to the supposition of 
two causeless beings. But if, as is the case, we acknowledge one nature with 
the differences of Person, if, while the Father is believed in, the Son also 
is glorified, how can such a Faith be misrepresented by our opponents as 
preaching Two First Causes? Then he says, ' of these two causes, one is 
lowered ' by us ' to the rank of Son.' Let him point out one champion of such 
a doctrine; whether he can convict any single person of talking like this, or 
only knows of such a doctrine as taught anywhere at all in the Church, we will 
hold our peace. For who is so wild in his reasonings, and so bereft of 
reflection as, after speaking of Father and Son, to imagine in spite of that 
two ungenerate beings: and then again to suppose that the One of them has come 
into being by means of the Other? Besides, what logical necessity does he show 
for pushing our teaching towards such suppositions? By what arguments does he 
show that such an absurdity must result from it? If indeed he adduced one 
single article of our Faith, and then, whether as a quibble or with a real 
force of demonstration, made this criticism upon it, there might have been 
some reason for his doing so with a view to in validate that article. But when 
there is not, and never can be such a doctrine in the Church, when neither a 
teacher of it nor a hearer of it is to be found, and the absurdity cannot be 
shown, either, to be the strict logical consequence of anything, I cannot 
understand the meaning of his fighting thus with shadows. It is just as if 
some phenzy-struck person supposed himself to be grappling with an imaginary 
combatant, and then, having with great efforts thrown himself down, thought 
that it was his foe who was lying there; our clever pamphleteer is in the same 
state; he feigns suppositions which we know nothing about, and he fights with 
the shadows which are sketched by the workings of his own brain. 

    For I challenge him to say why a believer in the Son as having come into 
being from the Father must advance to the opinion that there are two First 
Causes; and let him tell us who is most guilty of this establishment of two 
First Causes; one who asserts that the Son is falsely so named, or one who 
insists that, when we call Him that, the name represents a reality? The first, 
rejecting a real generation of the Son, and affirming simply that He exists, 
would be more open to the suspicion of making Him a First Cause, if he exists 
indeed, but not by generation: whereas the second, making the representative 
sign of the Person of the Only-begotten to consist in subsisting generatively 
from the Father, cannot by any possibility be drawn into the error of 
supposing the Son to be Ungenerate. And yet as long as, according to you 
thinkers, the non-generation of the Son by the Father is to be held, the Son 
Himself will be properly called Ungenerate in one of the many meanings of the 
Ungenerate; seeing that, as some things come into existence by being born and 
others by being fashioned, nothing prevents our calling one of the latter, 
which does not subsist by generation, an Ungenerate, looking only to the idea 
of generation; and this your account, defining, as it does, our Lord to be a 
creature, does establish about Him. So, my very learned sirs, it is in your 
view, not ours, when it is thus followed out, that the Only-begotten can be 
named Ungenerate: and you will find that "justice,"--whatever you mean by 
that,--records in your own words(4) a verdict against us. 

    It is easy also to find mud in his words after that to cast upon this 
execrable teaching. For the other horn of his dilemma partakes in the same 
mental delusion; he says, "or else you first allow one single causeless being, 
and then marking this out by an act of generation into Father and Son, you 
declare that this non-generated being came into existence by means of itself." 
What is this new and marvellous story? How is one begotten by oneself, having 
oneself for father, and becoming one's own son? What dizziness and delusion is 
here? It is like supposing the roof to be turning down below one's feet, and 
the floor above one's head; it is like the mental state of one with his senses 
stupified with drink, who shouts out persistently that the ground does not 
stand still beneath, and that the walls are disappearing, and that everything 
he sees is whirling round and will not keep still. Perhaps our pamphleteer had 
such a tumult in his soul when he wrote; if so, we must pity him rather than 
abhor him. For who is so out of hearing of our divine doctrine, who is so far 
from the mysteries of the Church, as to accept such a view as this to the 
detriment of the Faith. Rather, it is hardly enough to say, that no one ever 
dreamed of such an absurdity to its detriment. Why, in the case of human 
nature, or any other 

81 

entity falling within the grasp of the senses who, when he hears of a 
community of substance, dreams either that all things that are compared 
together on the ground of substance are without a cause or beginning, or that 
something comes into existence out of itself, at once producing and being 
produced by itself? 

    The first man, and the man born from him, received their being in a 
different way; the latter by copulation, the former from the moulding of 
Christ Himself; and yet, though they are thus believed to be two, they are 
inseparable in the definition of their being, and are not considered as two 
beings, without beginning or cause, running parallel to each other; nor can 
the existing one be said to be generated by the existing one, or the two be 
ever thought of as one in the monstrous sense  that each is his own father, 
and his own son;  but it is because the one and the other was a man that the 
two have the same definition of being; each was mortal, reasoning, capable of 
intuition and of science. If, then, the idea of humanity  in Adam and Abel 
does not vary with the difference of their origin, neither the order nor the 
manner of their coming into existence making any difference in their nature, 
which is the same in both, according to the testimony of every .one in his 
senses, and no one, not greatly needing treatment for insanity, would deny it; 
what necessity is there that against the divine nature we should admit this 
strange thought? Having heard of Father and Son from the Truth, we are taught 
in those two subjects the oneness of their nature; their natural relation to 
each other expressed by those names indicates that nature; and so do Our 
Lord's own words. For when He said, "I and My Father are one (5)," He conveys 
by that confession of a Father exactly the truth that He Himself is not a 
first cause, at the same time that He asserts by His union with the Father 
their common nature; so that these words of His secure our faith from the 
taint of heretical error on either side: for Sabellius has no ground for his 
confusion of the individuality of each Person, when the Only-begotten has so 
distinctly marked Himself off from the Father in those words, "I and My 
Father;" and Arius finds no confirmation of his doctrine of the strangeness of 
either nature to the other, since this oneness of both cannot admit 
distinction in nature. For that which is signified in these words by the 
oneness of Father and Son is nothing else but what belongs to them on the 
score of their actual being; all the other moral excellences which are to be 
observed in them as over and 

above (6) their nature may without error be set down as shared in by all 
created beings. For instance, Our Lord is called merciful and pitiful by the 
prophet (7), and He wills us to be and to be called the same;. "Be ye 
therefore merciful (8)," and "Blessed are the merciful (9)," and many such 
passages. If, then, any one by diligence and attention has modelled himself 
according to the divine will, and become kind and pitiful and compassionate, 
or meek and lowly of heart, such as many of the saints are testified to have 
become in the pursuit of such excellences, does it follow that they are 
therefore one with God, or united to Him by virtue of any one of them? Not so. 
That which is not in every respect the same, cannot be ' one' with him whose 
nature thus varies from it. Accordingly, a man becomes ' one' with another, 
when in will, as our Lord says, they are 'perfected into ones,' this union of 
wills being added to the connexion of nature. So also the Father and Son are 
one, the community of nature and the community of will running, in them, into 
one. But if the Son had been joined in wish only to the Father, and divided 
from Him in His nature, how is it that we find Him testifying to His oneness 
with the Father, when all the time He was sundered from Him in the point most 
proper to Him of all? 

              35. Proof that the Anomoean teaching lends to 

                              Manichoeism. 

    We hear our Lord saying. "I and My Father are one," and we are taught in 
that utterance the dependence of our Lord on a cause, and yet the absolute 
identity of the Son's and the Father's nature; we do not let our idea about 
them be melted down into One Person, but we keep distinct the properties of 
the Persons, while, on the other hand, not dividing  in the Persons the 
oneness of their substance; and so the supposition of two diverse principles 
in the category of Cause is avoided, and there is no loophole for the 
Manichaean heresy to enter. For the created and the uncreate are as 
diametrically opposed to each other as their  names are; and so if the two are 
to be ranked as First Causes, the mischief of Manichaeism will thus under 
cover be brought into the Church. I say this, because my zeal against our 
antagonists makes me scrutinize their doctrine very closely. Now I think that 
none would deny that we were bringing this scrutiny very near the truth, when 
we said, that if the created be possessed of equal power with the uncreate, 

82 

there will be some sort of antagonism between these things of diverse nature, 
and as long as neither of them fails in power, the two will be brought into a 
certain state of mutual discord for we must perforce allow that will 
corresponds with, and is intimately joined to nature; and that if two things 
are unlike in nature, they will be so also in will. But when power is adequate 
in both, neither will flag in the gratification of its wish; and if the power 
of each is thus equal to its wish, the primacy will become a doubtful point 
with the two: and it will end in a drawn battle from the inexhaustibleness of 
their powers. Thus will the Manichaean heresy creep in, two opposite 
principles appearing with counter claims in the category of Cause, parted and 
opposed by reason of difference both in nature and in will. They will find, 
therefore, that assertion of diminution (in the Divine being) is the beginning 
of Manichaeism; for their teaching organizes a discord within that being, 
which comes to two leading principles, as our account of it has shewn; namely 
the created and the uncreated. 

    But perhaps most will blame this as too strong a reductio ad absurdum, and 
will wish that we had not put it down at all along with our other objections. 
Be it so; we will not contradict them. It was not our impulse, but our 
adversaries themselves, that forced us to carry our argument into such 
minuteness of results. But if it is not right to argue thus, it 

was more fitting still that our opponents' teaching, which gave occasion to 
such a refutation, should never have been heard. There is only one way of 
suppressing the answer to bad teaching, and that is, to take away the 
subject-matter to which a reply has to be made. But what would give me most 
pleasure would be to advise those, who are thus disposed, to divest themselves 
a little of the spirit of rivalry, 

and not be such exceedingly zealous combatants on behalf of the private 
opinions with which they have become possessed, and convinced that the race is 
for their (spiritual) life, to attend to its interests only, and to yield the 
victory to Truth. If, then, one were to cease from this ambitious strife, and 
look straight into the actual question before us, he would very soon discover 
the flagrant absurdity of this teaching. 

    For let us assume as granted what the system of our opponents demands, 
that the having no generation is Being, and in like manner again that 
generation is admitted into Being. If, then, one were to follow out carefully 
these statements in all their meaning, even this way the Manichaean heresy 
will be reconstructed i seeing that the Manichees are wont 

to take as an axiom the oppositions of good and bad, light and darkness, and 
all such naturally antagonistic things. I think that any who will not be 
satisfied with a superficial view of the matter will be convinced that I say 
true. Let us look at it thus. Every subject has certain inherent 
characteristics, by means of which the specialty of that underlying nature is 
known. This is so, whether we are investigating the animal kingdom, or any 
other. The tree and the animal are not known by the same marks; nor do the 
characteristics of man extend in the animal kingdom to the brutes; nor, again, 
do the same symptoms indicate life and death; in every case, without 
exception, as we have said, the distinction of subjects resists any effort to 
confuse them and run one into another; the marks upon each thing which we 
observe cannot be communicated so as to destroy that distinction. Let us 
follow this out in examining our opponents' position. They say that the state 
of having no generation is Being; and they likewise make the having generation 
Being. But just as a man and a stone have not the same marks in defining the 
essence of the animate and that of the inanimate you would not give the same 
account of each), so they must certainly grant that one who is non-generated 
is to be known by different signs to the generated. Let us then survey those 
peculiar qualities of the non-generated Deity, which the Holy Scriptures teach 
us can be mentioned and thought of, without doing Him an irreverence. 

    What are they? I think no Christian is ignorant that He is good, kind, 
holy, just and hallowed, unseen and immortal, incapable of decay and change 
and alteration, powerful, wise, beneficent, Master, Judge, and everything like 
that. Why lengthen our discussion by lingering on acknowledged facts? If, 
then, we find these qualities in the ungenerate 

nature, and the state of having been generated is contrary' in its very 
conception to the state of having not been generated, those who define these 
two states to be each of them Being, must perforce concede, that the 
characteristic marks of the generated being, following this opposition 
existing between the generated and non-generated, must be contrary to the 
marks observable in the non-generated being; for if they were to declare the 
marks to be the same, this sameness would destroy the difference between the 
two beings who are the subject of 

83 

these observations. Differing things must be regarded as possessing differing 
marks; like things are to be known by like signs. If, then, these men testify 
to the same marks in the Only-begotten, they can conceive of no difference 
whatever in the subject of the marks. But if they persist in their blasphemous 
position, and maintain in asserting the difference of the generated and the 
non-generated the variation of the natures, it is readily seen what must 
result: viz., that, as in following out the opposition of the names, the 
nature of the things which those names indicate must be considered to be in a 
state of contrariety to itself, there is every necessity that the qualities 
observed in each should be drawn out opposite each other; so that those 
qualities should be applied to the Son which are the reverse of those 
predicated of the Father, viz., of divinity, holiness, goodness, 
imperishability, eternity, and of every other quality that represents God to 
the devout mind; in fact, every negation (3) of these, every conception that 
ranks opposite to the good, must he considered as belonging to the generated 
nature. 

    To ensure clearness, we must dwell upon this point. As the peculiar 
phenomena of heat and cold--which are themselves by nature opposed to each 
other (let us take fire and ice as examples of each), each being that which 
the other is not--are at variance with each other, cooling being the 
peculiarity of ice, heating of fire; so if in accordance with the antithesis 
expressed by the names, the nature revealed by those names is parted asunder, 
it is not to be admitted that the faculties attending these natural 
"subcontraries (4)" are like each other, any more than cooling can belong to 
fire, or burning to ice. If, then, goodness is inseparable from the idea of 
the non-generated nature, and that nature is parted on the ground of being, as 
they declare, from the generated nature, the properties of the former will be 
parted as well from those of the latter: so that if the good is found in the 
first, the quality set against the good is to be perceived in the last. Thus, 
thanks to our clever systematizers, Manes lives again with his parallel line 
of evil in array over against the good, and his theory of opposite powers 
residing in opposite natures. 

    Indeed, if we are to speak the truth boldly, without any reserve, Manes, 
who for having been the first, they say, to venture to entertain the 
Manichaean view, gave his name to that heresy, may fairly be considered the 
less offensive of the two. I say this, just 

as if one had to choose between a viper and an asp for the most affection 
towards man; still, if we consider, there is same difference between brutes 
(5). Does not a comparison of doctrines show that those older heretics are 
less intolerable than these? Manes thought he was pleading on the side of the 
Origin of Good, when he represented that Evil could derive thence none of its 
causes; so he linked the chain of things which are on the list of the bad to a 
separate Principle, in his character of the Almighty's champion, and in his 
pious aversion to put the blame of any unjustifiable aberrations upon that 
Source of Good; not perceiving, with his narrow understanding, that it is 
impossible even to conceive of God as the fashioner of evil, or on the other 
hand, of any other First Principle besides Him. There might be a long 
discussion on this point, but it is beside our present purpose. We mentioned 
Manes' statements only in order to show, that he at all events thought it his 
duty to separate evil from anything to do with God. But the blasphemous error 
with regard to the Son, which these men systematize, is much more terrible. 
Like the others, they explain the existence of evil by a contrariety in 
respect of Being; but when they declare, besides this, that the God of the 
universe is actually the Maker of this alien production, and say that this 
"generation" formed by Him into a substance possesses a nature foreign to that 
of its Maker, they exhibit therein more of impiety than the aforesaid sect; 
for they not only give a personal existence to that which in its nature is 
opposed to good, but they say that a Good Deity is the Cause of another Deity 
who in nature diverges from His; and they all but openly exclaim in their 
teaching, that there is in existence something opposite to the nature of the 
good, deriving its personality from the good itself. For when we know the 
Father's substance to be good, and therefore find that the Son's substance, 
owing to its being unlike the Father's in its nature (which is the tenet of 
this heresy), is amongst the contrary predicables, what is thereby proved? 
Why, not only that the opposite to the good subsists, but that this contrary 
comes from the good itself. I declare this to be more horrible even than the 
irrationality of the Manichees. 

    But if they repudiate this blasphemy from their system, though it is the 
logical carrying out of their teaching, and if they say that the Only-begotten 
has inherited the excellences of the Father, not as being really His Son, but 
--so does it please these misbelievers --as re- 

84 

ceiving His personality by an act of creation, let us look into this too, and 
see whether such an idea can be reasonably entertained. If, then, it were 
granted that it is as they think, viz., that the Lord of all things has not 
inherited as being a true Son, but that He rules a kindred of created things, 
being Himself made and created, how will the rest of creation accept this rule 
and not rise in revolt, being thus thrust down from kinship to subjection and 
condemned, though not a whit behind Him in natural prerogative (both being 
created), to serve and bend beneath a kinsman after all. That were like a 
usurpation, viz. not to assign the command to a superiority of Being, but to 
divide a creation that retains by right of nature equal privileges into slaves 
and a ruling power, one part in command, the other in subjection; as if, as 
the result of an arbitrary distribution (6), these same privileges had been 
piled at random on one who after that distribution got preferred to his 
equals. Even man did not share his honour with the brutes, before he received 
his dominion over them; his prerogative of reason gave him the title to 
command; he was set over them, because of a variance of his nature in the 
direction of superiority. And human governments experience such 
quickly-repeated revolutions for this very reason, that it is impracticable 
that those to whom nature has given equal rights should be excluded from 
power, but her impulse is instinct in all to make themselves equal with the 
dominant party, when all are of the same blood. 

    How, too, will it be true that "all things were made by Him," if it is 
true that the Son Himself is one of the things made? Either He must have made 
Himself, for that text to be true, and so this unreasonableness which they 
have devised to harm our Faith will recoil with all its force upon themselves; 
or else, if this is absurdly unnatural, that affirmation that the whole 
creation was made by Him will be proved to have no ground to stand on. The 
withdrawal of one makes "all" a false statement. So that, from this definition 
of the Son as a created being, one of two vicious and absurd alternatives is 
inevitable; either that He is not the Author of all created things, seeing 
that He, who, they insist, is one of those works, must be withdrawn from the 
"all;" or else, that He is exhibited as the maker of Himself, seeing that the 
preaching that 'without Him was not anything (made) that was made' is not a 
lie. So much for their teaching. 

 36. A passing repetition of the teaching of the Church. 

    But if a man keeps steadfast to the sound doctrine, and believes that the 
Son is of the nature which is divine without admixture, he will find 
everything in harmony with the other truths of his religion, viz., that Our 
Lord is the maker of all things, that He is King of the universe, set above it 
not by an arbitrary act of capricious power, but ruling by virtue of a 
superior nature; and besides this, he will find that the one First Cause (7), 
as taught by us, is not divided by any unlikeness of substance into separate 
first causes, but one Godhead, one Cause, one Power over all things is 
believed in, that Godhead being discoverable by the harmony existing between 
these like beings, and leading on the mind through one like to another like, 
so that the Cause of all things, which is Our Lord, shines in our hearts by 
means of the Holy Spirit; (for it is impossible, as the Apostle says, that the 
Lord Jesus can be truly known, "except by the Holy Spirits (8) "); and then 
all the Cause beyond, which is God over all, is found through Our Lord, Who is 
the Cause of all things; nor, indeed, is it possible to gain an exact 
knowledge of the Archetypal Good, except as it appears in the (visible) image 
of that invisible. But then, after passing that summit of theology, I mean the 
God over all, we turn as it were back again in the racecourse of the mind, and 
speed through conjoint and kindred ideas from the Father, through the Son, to 
the Holy Ghost. For once having taken our stand on the comprehension of the 
Ungenerate Light, we perceive (9) that moment from that vantage ground the 
Light that streams from Him, like the ray co-existent with the sun, whose 
cause indeed is in the sun, but whose existence is synchronous with the sun, 
not being a later addition, but appearing at the first sight of the sun 
itself: or rather (for there is no necessity to be slaves to this similitude, 
and so give a handle to the critics to use against our teaching by reason of 
the inadequacy of our image), it will not be a ray of the sun that we shall 
perceive, but another sun blazing forth, as an offspring, out of the 
Ungenerate sun, and simultaneously with our conception of the First, and in 
every way like him, in beauty, in power, in lustre, in size, 

85 

in brilliance, in all things at once that we observe in the sun. Then again, 
we see yet another such Light after the same fashion sundered by no interval 
of time from that offspring Light, and while shining forth by means of It yet 
tracing the source of its being to the Primal Light; itself, nevertheless, a 
Light shining in like manner as the one first conceived of, and itself a 
source of light and doing all that light does. There is, indeed, no difference 
between one light and another light, qua light, when the one shows no lack or 
diminution of illuminating grace, but by its complete perfection forms part of 
the highest light of all, and is beheld along with the Father and the Son, 
though counted after them, and by its own power gives access to the light that 
is perceived in the Father and Son to all who are able to partake of it. So 
far upon this. 

 37. Defence of S. Basil's statement, attacked by 

    Eunomius, that the terms ' Father' and ' the 

                 Ungenerate' can have the same meaning. 

    The stream of his abuse is very strong; insolence is at the bottom of 
every principle he lays down; and vilification is put by him in the place of 
any demonstration of doubtful points so let us briefly discuss the many 
misrepresentations about the word Ungenerate with which he insults our Teacher 
himself and his treatise. He has quoted the following words of our Teacher: 
"For my part I should be inclined to say that this title of the Ungenerate, 
however fitting it may seem to express our ideas, yet, as nowhere found in 
Scripture and as forming the alphabet of Eunomius' blasphemy, may very well be 
suppressed, when we have the word Father meaning the same thing; for One who 
essentially and alone is Father comes from none else; and that which comes 
from none else is equivalent to the Un-generate." Now let us hear what proof 
he brings of the 'folly' of these words: "Over-hastiness and shameless 
dishonesty prompt. him to put this dose of words (1) anomalously used into his 
attempts; he turns completely round, because his judgment is wavering and his 
powers of reasoning are feeble." Notice how well-directed that blow is; how 
skilfully, with all his mastery of logic, he takes Basil's words to pieces and 
puts a conception more consistent with piety in their place! "Anomalous in 
phrase," "hasty and dishonest in judgment," "wavering and turning round from 
feebleness of reasoning." Why this? what has exasperated this man, whose own 
judgment is so firm and reasoning so sound? What is it that he 

most condemns in Basil's words? Is it, that he accepts the idea of the 
Ungenerate, but says that the actual word, as misused by those who pervert it, 
should be suppressed? Well; is the Faith in jeopardy only as regards words and 
outward expressions, and need we take no account of the correctness of the 
thought beneath? Or does not the Word of Truth rather exhort us first to have 
a heart pure from evil thoughts, and then, for the manifestation of the soul's 
emotions, to use any words that can express these secrets of the mind, without 
any minute care about this or that particular sound? For the speaking in this 
way or in that is not the cause of the thought within us; but the hidden 
conception of the heart supplies the motive for such and such words; "for from 
the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." We make the words interpret 
the thought; we do not by a reverse process gather; the thought from the 
words. Should both be at hand, a man may certainly be ready in both, in clever 
thinking and clever expression; but if the one should be wanting, the loss to 
the illiterate is slight, if the knowledge in his soul is perfect in the 
direction of moral goodness. "This people honoureth me with their lips, but 
their heart is far from me (3)." What is the meaning of that? That the fight 
attitude of the soul towards the truth is more precious than the propriety of 
phrases in the sight of God, who hears the "groanings that cannot be uttered." 
Phrases can be used in opposite senses; the tongue readily serving, at his 
will, the intention of the speaker; but the disposition of the soul, as it is, 
so is it seen by Him Who sees all secrets. Why, then, does he deserve to be 
called "anomalous," and "hasty," and "dishonest," for bidding us suppress all 
in the term Ungenerate which can aid in their blasphemy those who transgress 
the Faith, while minding and welcoming all the meaning in the word which can 
be reverently held. If indeed he had said that we ought not to think of the 
Deity as Ungenerate, there might have been some occasion for these and even 
worse terms of abuse to be used against him. But if he falls in with the 
general belief of the faithful and admits this, and then pronounces an opinion 
well worthy of the Master's mind (4), viz., "Refrain from the use of the word, 
for into it, and from it, the subverting heresy is fetched," and bids us 
cherish the idea of an ungenerate Deity by means of other names,--therein he 
does not 

86 

deserve their abuse. Are we not taught by the Truth Himself to act so, and not 
to cling even to things exceeding precious, if any of them tend to mischief? 
When He thus bids us to cut away the right eye or foot or hand, if so be that 
one of them offends, what else does He imply by this figure, than that He 
would have anything, however fair-seeming, if it leads a man by an 
inconsiderate use to evil, remain inoperative and out of use, assuring us that 
it is better for us to be saved by amputation of the parts which led to sin, 
than to perish by retaining them? 

    What, too, does Paul, the follower of Christ, say? He, too, in his deep 
wisdom teaches the same. He, who declares that "everything is good, and 
nothing to be rejected, if it be received with thanks (5)," on some occasions, 
because of the 'conscience of the weak brother,' puts some things back from 
the number which he has accepted, and commands us to decline them. "If," he 
says, "meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world 
standeth (6).- Now this is just what our follower of Paul did. He saw that the 
deceiving power of those who try to teach the inequality of the Persons was 
increased by this word Ungenerate, taken in their mischievous, heretical 
sense, and so he advised that, while we cherish in our souls a devout 
consciousness of this ungenerate Deity, we should not show any particular love 
for the actual word, which was the occasion of sin to the reprobate; for that 
the title of Father, if we follow out all that it implies, will suggest to us 
this meaning of not having been generated. For when we hear the word Father, 
we think at once of the Author of all beings; for if He had some further cause 
transcending Himself, He would not have been called thus of proper right 
Father; for that title would have had to be transferred higher, to this 
pre-supposed Cause. But if He Himself is that Cause from which all comes, as 
the Apostle says, it is plain that nothing can be thought of beyond His 
existence. But this is to believe in that existence not having been generated. 
But this man, who claims that even the Truth shall not be considered more 
persuasive than himself, will not acquiesce in this; he loudly dogmatizes 
against it; he jeers at the argument. 

                  38. Several ways of controverting his 

                          quibbling syllogisms. 

    Let us, if you please, examine his irrefragable syllogisms, and his subtle 
transpositions (7) of the 

terms in his own false premisses, by which he hopes to shake that argument; 
though, indeed. I fear lest the miserable quibbling in what he says may in a 
measure raise a prejudice also against the remarks that would correct it. When 
striplings challenge to a fight, men get more blame for pugnaciousness in 
closing with such foes, than honour for their show of victory. Nevertheless, 
what we want to say is this. We think, indeed, that the things said by him, 
with that well-known elocution now familiar to us, only for the sake of being 
insolent, are better buried in silence and oblivion; they may suit him; but to 
us they afford only an exercise for much-enduring patience. Nor would it be 
proper, I think, to insert his ridiculous expressions in the midst of our own 
serious controversy, and so to make this zeal for the truth evaporate in 
coarse, vulgar laughter; for indeed to be within hearing, and to remain 
unmoved, is an impossibility, when he says with such sublime and magnificient 
verbosity, "Where additional words amount to additional blasphemy, it is by 
half as much more tranquillizing to be silent than to speak." Let those laugh 
at these expressions who know which of them are fit to be believed, and which 
only to be laughed at; while we scrutinize the keenness of those syllogisms 
with which he tries to tear our system to pieces. 

    He says, "If 'Father' is the same in meaning as 'Ungenerate, (1) and words 
which  have the same meaning naturally have in every respect the same force, 
and Ungenerate signifies by their confession that God comes from no-tiring, it 
follows necessarily that Father signifies the fact of God being of none, and 
not the having generated the Son." Now what is this logical necessity which 
prevents the having generated a Son being signified by the title "Father," if 
so be that that same title does in itself express to us as well the absence of 
beginning in the Father? If, indeed, the one idea was totally destructive of 
the other, it would certainly follow, from the very nature of contradictories 
(8), that the affirming or the one would involve the denial of the other. But 
if there is nothing in the world to prevent the 



87 

same Existence from being Father and also Ungenerate, when we try to think, 
under this title of Father, of the quality of not having been generated as one 
of the ideas implied in it, what necessity prevents the relation to a Son 
being any longer marked by the word Father? Other names which express mutual 
relationship are not always confined to those ideas of relationship; for 
instance, we call the emperor (9) autocrat and masterless, and we call the 
same the ruler of his subjects; and, while it is quite true that the word 
emperor signifies also the being masterless, it is not therefore necessary 
that this word, because signifying autocratic and unruled, midst cease to 
imply the having power over inferiors; the word emperor, in fact, is midway 
between these two conceptions, and at one time indicates masterlessness, at 
another the ruling over lower orders. In the case before us, then, if there is 
some other Father conceivable besides the Father of Our Lord, let these men 
who boast of their profound wisdom show him to us, and then we will agree with 
him that the idea of the Ungenerate cannot be represented by the title 
"Father." But if the First Father has no cause transcending His own state, and 
the subsistence of the Son is invariably implied in the title of Father, why 
do they try to scare us, as if we were children, with these professional 
twistings of premisses, endeavouring to persuade or rather to decoy us into 
the belief that, if the property of not having been generated is acknowledged 
in the title of Father, we must sever from the Father any relation with the 
Son. 

    Despising, then, this silly superficial attempt of theirs, let us manfully 
own our belief in that which they adduce as a monstrous absurdity, viz., that 
not only does the 'Father' mean the same as Ungenerate and that this last 
property establishes the Father as being of none, but also that the word 
'Father' introduces with itself the notion of the Only-begotten, as a relative 
bound to it. Now the following passage, which is to be found in the treatise 
of our Teacher, has been removed from the context by this clever and 
invincible controversialist; for, by suppressing that part which was added by 
Basil by way of safeguard, he thought he would make his own reply a much 
easier task. The passage runs thus verbatim. "For my part I should be inclined 
to say that this title of the Ungenerate, however readily it may seem to fall 
in with our own ideas, yet, as nowhere found in Scripture, and as forming the 
alphabet of Eunomius' blasphemy, may very well be suppressed, when we have the 
word Father meaning the same thing, 

in addition to (1) its introducing with itself, as a relative bound to it, the 
notion of the Son." This generous champion of the truth, with innate good 
feeling (2), has suppressed this sentence which was added by way of safeguard, 
I mean, "in addition to introducing with itself, as a relative bound to it, 
the notion of the Son;" after this garbling, he comes to close quarters with 
what remains, and having severed the connection of the living whole (3), and 
thus made it, as he thinks, a more yielding and assailable victim of his 
logic, he misleads his own party with the frigid and feeble paralogism, that 
"that which has a common meaning, in one single point, with something else 
retains that community of meaning in every possible point;" and with this he 
takes their shallow intelligences by storm. For while we have only affirmed 
that the word Father in a certain signification yields the same meaning as 
Ungenerate, this man makes the coincidence of meanings complete in every 
point, quite at variance therein with the common acceptation of either word; 
and so he reduces the matter to an absurdity, pretending that this word Father 
can no longer denote any relation to the Son, if the idea of not having been 
generated is conveyed by it. It is just as if some one, after having acquired 
two ideas about a loaf,--one, that it is made of flour, the other, that it is 
food to the consumer--were to contend with the person who told him this, using 
against him the same kind of fallacy as Eunomius does, viz., that 'the being 
made of flour is one thing, but the being food is another; if, then, it is 
granted that the loaf is made of flour, this quality in it can no longer 
strictly be called food.' Such is the thought in Eunomius' syllogism; "if the 
not having been generated is implied by the word Father, this word can no 
longer convey the idea of having generated the Son." But I think it is time 
that we, in our turn, applied to this argument of his that magnificently 
rounded period of his own (already quoted). In reply to such words, it would 
be suitable to say that he would have more claim to be considered in his sober 
senses, if he had put the limit to such argumentative safeguards at absolute 
silence. For "where additional words amount to additional blasphemy," or, 
rather, indicate that he has utterly lost his reason, it is not only "by half 
as much more," but by the whole as much more "tranquillizing to be silent than 
to speak." 

88 

    But perhaps a man would be more easily led into the true view by personal 
illustrations; so let us leave this hooking backwards and forwards and this 
twisting of false premisses (4), and discuss the matter in a less learned and 
more popular way. Your father, Eunomius, was certainly a human being; but the 
same person was also the author of your being. Did you, then, ever use in his 
case too this clever quibble which you have employed; so that your own 
'father,' when once he receives the true definition of his being, can no 
longer mean, because of being a 'man,' any relationship to yourself; 'for he 
must be one of two things, either a man, or Eunomius' father?' -Well, then, 
you must not use the names of intimate relationship otherwise than in 
accordance with that intimate meaning. Yet, though you would indict for libel 
any one who contemptuously scoffed against yourself, by means of such an 
alteration of meanings, are you not afraid to scoff against God; and are you 
safe when you laugh at these mysteries of our faith? As 'your father' 
indicates relationship to yourself, and at the same time humanity is not 
excluded by that term, and as no one in his sober senses instead of styling 
him who begat you 'your father' would render his description by the word 
'man,' or, reversely, if asked for his genus and answering 'man,' would assert 
that that answer prevented him from being your father; so in the contemplation 
of the Almighty a reverent mind would not deny that by the title of Father is 
meant that He is without generation, as well as that in another meaning it 
represents His relationship to the Son. Nevertheless Eunomius, in open 
contempt of truth, does assert that the title cannot mean the 'having begotten 
a son' any longer, when once the word has conveyed to us the idea of 'never 
having been generated.' 

    Let us add the following illustration of the absurdity of his assertions. 
It is one that all must be familiar with, even mere children who are being 
introduced under a grammar-tutor to the study of words. Who, I say, does not 
know that some nouns are absolute and out of all relation, others express some 
relationship. Of these last, again, there are some which incline, according to 
the speaker's wish, either way; they have a simple intention in themselves, 
but can be turned so as to become nouns of relation. I will not linger 

amongst examples foreign to our subject. I will explain from the words of our 
Faith itself. 

    God is called Father and King and other names innumerable in Scripture. Of 
these names one part can be pronounced absolutely, i. e. simply as they are, 
and no more: viz.. "imperishable," "everlasting," "immortal," and so on. Each 
of these, without our bringing in another thought, contains in itself a 
complete thought about the Deity. Others express only relative usefulness; 
thus, Helper, Champion, Rescuer, and other words of that meaning; if you 
remove thence the idea of one in need of the help, all the force expressed by 
the word is gone. Some, on the other hand, as we have said, are both absolute, 
and are also amongst the words of relation; 'God,' for instance, and 'good,' 
and many other such. In these the thought does not continue always within the 
absolute. The Universal God often becomes the property of him who calls upon 
Him; as the Saints teach us, when they make that independent Being their own. 
'The Lord God is Holy;' so far there is no relation; but when one adds the 
Lord Our God, and so appropriates the meaning in a relation towards oneself, 
then one causes the word to be no longer thought of absolutely. Again; "Abba, 
Father" is the cry of the Spirit; it is an utterance free from any partial 
reference. But we are bidden to call the Father in heaven, 'Our Father;' this 
is the relative use of the word. A man who makes the Universal Deity his own, 
does not dim His supreme dignity; and in the same way there is nothing to 
prevent us, when we point out the Father and Him who comes from Him, the 
Firstborn before all creation, from signifying by that title of Father at one 
and the same time the having begotten that Son, and also the not being from 
any more transcendent Cause. For he who speaks of the First Father means Him 
who is presupposed before all existence, Whose is the beyond (5). This is He, 
Who has nothing previous to Himself to behold, no end in which He shall cease. 
Whichever way we look, He is equally existing there for ever; He transcends 
the limit of any end, the idea of any beginning, by the infinitude of His 
life; whatever be His title, eternity must be implied with it. 

    But Eunomius, versed as he is in the contemplation of that which eludes 
thought, rejects this view of unscientific minds; he will not admit a double 
meaning in the word 'Father,' the one, that from Him are all things and in the 
front of all things the Only-begotten Son, the other, that He Himself has no 
superior Cause. He 

 89 

may scorn the statement; but we will brave his mocking laugh, and repeat what 
we have said already, that the 'Father' is the same as that Ungenerate One, 
and both signifies the having begotten the Son, and represents the being from 
nothing. 

    But Eunomius, contending with this statement of ours, says (the very 
contrary now of what he said before), "If God is Father because He has 
begotten the Son. and 'Father' has the same meaning as Ungenerate, God is 
Ungenerate because He has begotten the Son, but before He begat Him He was not 
Ungenerate." Observe his method of turning round; how he pulls his first 
quibble to pieces, and turns it into the very opposite, thinking even so to 
entrap us in a conclusion from which there is no escape. His first syllogism 
presented the following absurdity, "If 'Father' means the coming from nothing, 
then necessarily it will no longer indicate the having begotten the Son." But 
this last syllogism, by turning (a premiss) into its contrary, threatens our 
faith with another absurdity How, then, does he pull to pieces his former 
conclusion (6)? "If He is 'Father' because He has begotten a Son." His first 
syllogism gave us nothing like that; on the contrary, its logical inference 
purported to show that if the Father's not having been generated was meant by 
the word Father, that word could not mean as well the having begotten a Son 
(7). Thus his first syllogism contained no intimation whatever that God was 
Father because He had begotten a Son. I fail to understand what this 
argumentative and shrewdly professional reversal means. 

    But let us look to the thought in it below the words. 'If God is 
Ungenerate because He has begotten a Son, He was not Ungenerate before He 
begat Him.' The answer to that is plain it consists in the simple statement of 
the Truth that 'the word Father means both the having begotten a Son, and also 
that the Begetter is not to be thought of as Himself coming from any cause.' 
If you look at the effect, the Person of the Son is revealed in the word 

Father; if you look for a previous Cause, the absence of any beginning in the 
Begetter is shown by that word. In saying that 'Before He begat a Son, the 
Almighty was not Ungenerate,' this pamphleteer lays himself open to a double 
charge; i.e. of misrepresentation of us, and of insult to the Faith. He 
attacks, as if there was no mistake about it, something which our Teacher 
never said, neither do we now assert, viz., that the Almighty became in 
process of time a Father, having been something else before. Moreover in 
ridiculing the absurdity of this fancied doctrine of ours, he proclaims his 
own wildness as to doctrine. Assuming that the Almighty was once something 
else, and then by an advance became entitled to be called Father, he would 
have it that before this He was not Ungenerate either, since Ungeneracy is 
implied in the idea of Father. The folly of this hardly needs to be pointed 
out; it will be abundantly clear to anyone who reflects. If the Almighty was 
something else before He became Father, what will the champions of this theory 
say, if they were asked in what state they propose to contemplate Him? What 
name are they going to give Him in that stage of existence; child, infant, 
babe, or youth? Will they blush at such flagrant absurdity, and say nothing 
like that, and concede that He was perfect from the first? Then how can He be 
perfect, while as yet unable to become Father? Or will they not deprive Him of 
this power, but say only that it was not fitting that there should be 
Fatherhood simultaneously with His existence. But if it was not good nor 
fitting that He should be from the very beginning Father of such a Son, how 
did He go on to acquire that which was not good? 

    But, as it is, it is good and fitting to God's majesty that He should 
become Father of such a Son. So they will make out that at the beginning He 
had no share in this good thing, and as long as He did not have this Son they 
must assert (may God forgive me for saying it!) that He bad no Wisdom, nor 
Power, nor Truth, nor any of the other glories which from various points of 
view the Only-begotten Son is and is called. 

    But let all this fall on the heads of those who started it. We will return 
whence we digressed. He says, "if God is Father because of having begotten a 
Son, and if Father means the being Ungenerate, then God was not this last, 
before He begat." Now if he could speak here as it is customary to speak about 
human life, where it is inconceivable that any should acquire possession of 
many accomplishments all at once, instead of winning each of the objects 
sought after in a certain order and sequence 

90 

of time--if I say we could reason like that in the case of the Almighty, so 
that we could say He possessed His Ungeneracy at one time, and after that 
acquired His power, and then His imperishability, and then His Wisdom, and 
advancing so became Father, and after that Just and then Everlasting, and so 
came into all that enters into the philosophical conception of Him, in a 
certain sequence--then it would not be so manifestly absurd to think that one 
of His names has precedence of another name, and to talk of His being first 
Ungenerate, and after that having become Father. 

    As it is, however, no one is so earth-bound in imagination, so uninitiated 
in the sublimities of our Faith. as to fail, when once he has apprehended the 
Cause of the universe, to embrace in one collective and compact whole all the 
attributes which piety can give to God; and to conceive instead of a primal 
and a later attribute, and of another in between, supervening in a certain 
sequence. It is not possible, in fact, to traverse in thought one amongst 
those attributes and then reach another, be it a reality or a conception, 
which is to transcend the first in antiquity. Every name of God, every sublime 
conception of Him, every utterance or idea that harmonizes with our general 
ideas with regard to Him, is linked in closest union with its fellow; all such 
conceptions are massed together in our under standing into one collective and 
compact whole namely, His Fatherhood, and Ungeneracy, and Power, and 
Imperishability, and Goodness, and Authority, and everything else. You cannot 
take one of these and separate it in thought from the rest by any interval of 
time, as if it preceded or followed something else; no sublime or adorable 
attribute in Him can be discovered, which is not simultaneously expressed in 
His everlastingness. Just, then, as we cannot say that God was ever not good, 
or powerful, or imperishable, or immortal, in the same way it is a blasphemy 
not to attribute to Him Fatherhood always, and to say that that came later. He 
Who is truly Father is always Father; if eternity was not included in this 
confession, and if a foolishly preconceived idea curtailed and checked 
retrospectively our conception of the Father, true Fatherhood could no longer 
be properly predicated of Him, because that preconceived idea about the Son 
would cancel the continuity and eternity of His Father hood. How could that 
which He is now called be thought of something which came into existence 
subsequent to these other attributes? If being first Ungenerate He then became 
Father, and received that name, He was not always altogether what He is 

now called. But that which the God now existing is He always is; He does not 
become worse or better by any addition, He does not become altered by taking 
something from another source. He is always identical with Himself. If, then, 
He was not Father at first, He was not Father afterwards. But if He is 
confessed to be Father (now), I will recur to the same argument, that, if He 
is so now, He always was so; and that if He always was, He always will be. The 
Father therefore is always Father; and seeing that the Son must always be 
thought of along with the Father (for the title of father cannot be justified 
unless there is a son to make it true), all that we contemplate in the Father 
is to be observed also in the Son. "All that the Father hath is the Son's; and 
all that is the Son's the Father hath." The words are, 'The Father hath that 
which is the Son's (8),' and so a carping critic will have no authority for 
finding in the contents of the word "all" the ungeneracy of the Son, when it 
is said that the Son has all that the Father has, nor on the other hand the 
generation of the Father, when all that is the Son's is to be observed in the 
Father. For the Son has all the things of the Father; but He is not Father: 
and again, all the things of the Son are to be observed in the Father, but He 
is not a Son. 

    If, then, all that is the Father's is in the Only-begotten, and He is in 
the Father, and the Fatherhood is not dissociated from the 'not having been 
generated,' I for my part cannot see what there is to think of in connexion 
with the Father, by Himself, that is parted by any interval so as to precede 
our apprehension of the Son. Therefore we may boldly encounter the 
difficulties started in that quibbling syllogism; we may despise it as a mere 
scare to frighten children, and still assert that God is Holy, and Immortal, 
and Father, and Ungenerate, and Everlasting, and everything all at once; and 
that, if it could be supposed possible that you could withhold one of these 
attributes which devotion assigns to Him, all would be destroyed along with 
that one. Nothing, therefore, in Him is older or younger; else He would be 
found to be older or younger than Himself. If God is not all His attributes 
always, but something in Him is, and something else only becoming, following 
some order of sequence (we must remember God is not a compound; whatever He is 
is the whole of Him), and if according to this heresy He is first Ungenerate 
and afterwards becomes Father, then, seeing that we cannot think of Him in 
connexion with a heaping together of qualities, 

 91 

there is no alternative but that the whole of Him must be both older and 
younger than the whole of Him, the former by virtue of His Ungeneracy, the 
latter by virtue of His Fatherhood. But if, as the prophet says of God (9), He 
"is the same," it is idle to say that before He begat He was not Himself 
Ungenerate; we cannot find either of these names, the Father and the 
Ungenerate One, parted from the other the two ideas rise together, suggested 
by each other, in the thoughts of the devout reasoner. God is Father from 
everlasting, and everlasting Father, and every other term that devotion 
assigns to Him is given in a like sense, the mensuration and the flow of time 
having no place, as we have said, in the Eternal. 

    Let us now see the remaining results of his expertness in dealing with 
words; results, which he himself truly says, are at once ridiculous and 
lamentable. Truly one must laugh outright at what he says, if a deep lament 
for the error that steeps his soul were not more fitting. Whereas Father, as 
we teach, includes, according to one of its meanings, the idea of the 
Ungenerate, he transfers the full signification of the word Father to that of 
the Ungenerate, and declares "If Father is the same as Ungenerate, it is 
allowable for us to drop it, and use Ungenerate instead; thus, the Ungenerate 
of the Son is Ungenerate; for as the Ungenerate is Father of the Son, so 
reversely the Father is 

Ungenerate of the Son." After this a feeling of admiration for our friend's 
adroitness steals over me, with the conviction that the many-sided subtlety of 
his theological training is quite beyond the capacity of most. What our 
Teacher said was embraced in one short sentence, to the effect that it was 
possible that by the title 'Father' the Ungeneracy could be signified; but 
Eunomius' words depend for their number not on the variety of the thoughts, 
but on tile way that anything within the circuit of similar names can be 
turned about (1). As the cattle that run blindfold round to turn the mill 
remain with all their travel in the same spot, so does he go round and round 
the same topic, and never leaves it. Once he said, ridiculing us, that 
'Father' does not signify the having begotten, but the being from nothing. 
Again he wove a similar dilemma, "If Father signifies Ungeneracy, before He 
begat He was not ungenerate." Then a third time he resorts to the same trick. 
"It is allowable for us to drop Father, and to use Ungenerate instead;" and 
then directly he repeats the logic so often vomited. "For as the Ungenerate is 
Father of the Son, so reversely the Father is 


Ungenerate of the Son." How often be returns 

to his vomit; how often he blurts it out again! Shall we not, then, annoy most 
people, if we drag about our argument in company with this 

 foolish display of words? It would be perhaps  more decent to be silent in a 
case like this; still, lest any one should think that we decline discussion 
because we are weak in pleas, we will answer thus to what he has said. 'You 
have no authority, Eunomius, for calling the Father the Ungenerate of the Son, 
even though the title Father does signify that the Begetter was from no cause 
Himself. For as, to take the example already cited, when we hear the word 
'Emperor' we understand two things, both that the one who is pre-eminent in 
authority is subject to none, and also that he controls his inferiors, so the 
title Father supplies us with two ideas about the Deity, one relating to His 
Son, the other to His being dependent on no preconceivable cause. As, then, in 
the case of 'Emperor' we cannot say that because the two things are signified 
by that term, viz., the ruling over subjects and the not having any to take 
precedence of him, there is any justification for speaking of the 'Unruled of 
subjects,' instead of the 'Ruler of the nation,' or allowing so much, that we 
may use such a juxtaposition of words, in imitation of king of a nation, as 
kingless of a nation, in the same way when 'Father' indicates a Son, and also 
represents the idea of the Ungenerate, we may not unduly transfer this latter 
meaning, so as to attach this idea of the Ungenerate fast to a paternal 
relationship, and absurdly say 'the Ungenerate is Ungenerate of the 

Son.' 

    He treads on the ground of truth, he thinks, after such utterances; he has 
exposed the absurdity of his adversaries' position; how boastfully he cries, 
"And what sane thinker, pray, ever yet wanted the natural thought to be 
suppressed, and welcomed the paradoxical?" No sane thinker, most accomplished 
sir; and therefore our argument neither, which teaches that while the term 
Ungenerate does suit our thoughts, and we ought to guard it in our hearts 
intact, yet the term Father is an adequate substitute for the one which you 
have perverted, and leads the mind in that direction. Remember the words which 
you yourself quoted; Basil did not 'want the natural thought to be suppressed, 
and welcome the paradoxical,' as you phrase it; but he advised us to avoid all 
danger by suppressing the mere word Ungenerate, that is, the expression in so 
many syllables, as one which had been evilly interpreted, and besides was not 
to be found in Scripture; as for its meaning he declares that it does most 
completely suit our thoughts. 

92 

    Thus far for our statement. But this reviler of all quibblers, who 
completely arms his own argument with the truth, and arraigns our Sins in 
logic, does not blush in any of his arguing on doctrines to indulge in very 
pretty quibbles; on a par with those exquisite jokes which are cracked to make 
people laugh at dessert. Reflect on the weight of reasoning displayed in that 
complicated syllogism; which I will now again repeat. "If 'Father' is the same 
as Ungenerate, it is allowable for us to drop it, and use Ungenerate instead; 
thus, the Ungenerate is Ungenerate of the Son; for as the Ungenerate is Father 
of the Son, so, reversely, the Father is Ungenerate of the Son." Well, this is 
very like another case such as the following. Suppose some one were to state 
the right and sound view about Adam; namely, that it mattered not whether we 
called him "father of mankind" or "the first man formed by God" (for both mean 
the same thing), and then some one else, belonging to Eunomius' school of 
reasoners, were to pounce upon this statement, and make the same complication 
out of it, viz.: If "first man formed by God" and "father of mankind" are the 
same things, it is allowable for us to drop the word "father" and use "first 
formed" instead; and say that Adam was the "first formed," instead of the 
"father," of Abel; for as the first formed was the father of a son, so, 
feversely, that father is the first formed of that son. If this had been said 
in a tavern, what laughter and applause would have broken from the tippling 
circle over so fine and exquisite a joke! These are the arguments on which our 
learned theologian leans; when he assails our doctrine, he really need's 
himself a tutor and a stick to teach him that all the things which are 
predicated of some one do not necessarily, in their meaning, have respect to 
one single object; as is plain from the aforesaid instance of Abel and Adam. 
That one and the same Adam is Abel's father and also God's handiwork is a 
truth; nevertheless it does not follow that, because he is both, he is both 
with respect to Abel. So the designation of the Almighty as Father has both 
the special meaning of that word, i.e., the having begotten a son, and also 
that of there being no preconceivable cause of the Very Father; nevertheless 
it does not follow that when we mention the Son we must speak of the 
Ungenerate, instead of the Father, of that Son; nor, on the other hand, if the 
absence of beginning remains unexpressed in reference to the Son, that we must 
banish from our thoughts about God that attribute of Ungeneracy. But he 
discards the usual acceptations, and like an actor in comedy, makes a joke of 
the whole subject, and by dint of the 

oddity of his quibbles makes the questions of our faith ridiculous. Again I 
must repeat his words: "If Father is the same as Ungenerate, it is allowable 
for us to drop it, and use Ungenerate instead; thus, the Ungenerate is 
Ungenerate of the Son; for as the Ungenerate is Father of the Son, so, 
feversely, the Father is Ungenerate of the Son." But let us turn the laugh 
against him, by reversing his quibble; thus: It Father is not the same as 
Ungenerate, the Son of the Father will not be Son of the Ungenerate; for 
having relation to the Father only, he will be altogether alien in nature to 
that which is other than Father, and does not suit that idea; so that, if the 
Father is something other than the Ungenerate, and the title Father does not 
comprehend that meaning, the Son, being One, cannot be distributed between 
these two relationships, and be at the same time Son both of the Father and of 
the Ungenerate; and, as before it was an acknowledged absurdity to speak of 
the Deity as Ungenerate of the Son, so in this converse proposition it will be 
found an absurdity just as great to call the Only-begotten Son of the 
Ungenerate. So that he must choose one of two things; either the Father is the 
same as the Ungenerate (which is necessary in order that the Son of the Father 
may be Son of the Ungenerate as well); and then our doctrine has been 
ridiculed by him without reason; or, the Father is something different to the 
Ungenerate, and the Son of the Father is alienated from all relationship to 
the Ungenerate. But then, if it is thus to hold that the Only-begotten is not 
the Son of the Ungenerate, logic inevitably points to a "generated Father;" 
for that which exists, but does not exist without generation, must have a 
generated substance. If, then, the Father, being according to these men other 
than Ungenerate, is therefore generated. where is their much talked of 
Ungeneracy? Where is that basis and foundation of their heretical 
castle-building? The Ungenerate, which they thought just now that they 
grasped, has eluded them, and vanished quite beneath the action of a few 
barren syllogisms; their would-be demonstration of the Unlikeness, like a mere 
dream about something, slips away at the touch of criticism, and takes its 
flight along with this Ungenerate. 

    Thus it is that whenever a falsehood is welcomed in preference to the 
truth, it may indeed flourish for a little through the illusion which it 
creates, but it will soon collapse; its own methods of proof will dissolve it. 
But we bring this forward only to raise a smile at the very pretty revenge we 
might take on their Unlikeness. We must now resume the main thread of our 
discourse. 


93 

 39. Answer to the question he is always asking, 

"Can He who is be begotten?" 

Eunomius does not like the meaning of the Ungenerate to be conveyed by the 
term Father, because he wants to establish that there was a time when the Son 
was not. It is in fact a constant question amongst his pupils, "How can He who 
(always) is be begotten?" This comes, I take it, of not weaning oneself from 
the human application of words, when we have to think about God. But let us 
without bitterness at once expose the actual falseness of this 'arriere 
pensee' of his (2), stating first our conclusions upon the matter. 

    These names have a different meaning with  us, Eunomius; when we come to 
the transcendent energies they yield another sense Wide, indeed, is the 
interval in all else that divides the human from the divine; experience cannot 
point here below to anything at all resembling in amount what we may guess at 
and imagine there. So likewise, as regards the meaning of our terms, though 
there may be, so far as words go, some likeness between man and the Eternal, 
yet the gulf between these two worlds is the real measure of the separation of 
meanings. For instance, our Lord calls God a 'man' that was a 'householder' in 
the parable (3); but though this title is ever so familiar to us, will the 
person we think of and the person there meant be of the same description; and 
will our 'house' be the same as that large house, in which, as the Apostle 
says, there are the vessels of gold, and those of silver (4), and those of the 
other materials which are recounted? Or will not those rather be beyond our 
immediate apprehension and to be contemplated in a blessed immortality, while 
ours are earthern, and to dissolve to earth? So in almost all the other terms 
there is a similarity of names between things human and things divine, 
revealing nevertheless underneath this sameness a wide difference of meanings. 
We find alike in both worlds the mention of bodily limbs and senses; as with 
us, so with the life of God, which all allow to be above sense, there are set 
down in order fingers and arm and hand, eye and eyelids, hearing, heart, feet 
and sandals, horses, cavalry, and chariots; and other metaphors innumerable 
are taken from human life to illustrate symbolically divine things. As, then, 
each one of these names has a human sound, but not a human meaning, so also 
that of Father, while applying equally to life divine and human, hides a 
distinction between the uttered meanings exactly proportionate to the 

difference existing between the subjects of this title. We think of man's 
generation one way; we surmise of the divine generation in another. A man is 
born in a stated time; and a particular place must be the receptacle of his 
life; without it it is not in nature that he should have any concrete 
substance: whence also it is inevitable that sections of time are found 
enveloping his life; there is a Before, and With, and After him. It is true to 
say of any one whatever of those born into this world that there was a time 
when he was not, that he is now, and again there will be time when he will 
cease to exist; but into the Eternal world these ideas of time do not enter; 
to a sober thinker they have nothing akin to that world. He who considers what 
the divine life really is will get beyond the 'sometime,' the 'before,' and 
the 'after,' and every mark whatever of this extension in time; he will have 
lofty views upon a subject so lofty; nor will he deem that the Absolute is 
bound by those laws which he observes to be in force in human generation. 

    Passion precedes the concrete existence of man; certain material 
foundations are laid for the formation of the living creature; beneath it all 
is Nature, by God's will, with her wonder-working, putting everything under 
contribution for the proper proportion of nutrition for that  which is to be 
born, taking from each terrestrial element the amount necessary for the 
particular case, receiving the co-operation of a measured time, and as much of 
the food of the parents as is necessary for the formation of the child: in a 
word Nature, advancing through all these processes by which a human life is 
built up, brings the non-existent to the birth; and accordingly we say that, 
non-existent once, it now is born; because, at one time not being, at another 
it begins to be. But when it comes to the Divine generation the mind rejects 
this ministration of Nature, and this fulness of time in contributing to the 
development, and everything else which our argument contemplated as taking 
place in human generation; and he who enters on divine topics with no carnal 
conceptions will not fall down again to the level of any of those debasing 
thoughts, but seeks for one in keeping with the majesty of the thing to be 
expressed; he will not think of passion in connexion with that which is 
passionless, or count the Creator of all Nature as in need of Nature's help, 
or admit extension in time into the Eternal life; he will see that the Divine 
generation is to be cleared of all such ideas, and will allow to the title 
'Father' only the meaning that the Only-begotten is not Himself without a 
source, but derives from That the cause of His being; though, 

94 

as for the actual beginning of His subsistence, he will not calculate that, 
because he will not be able to see any sign of the thing in question. 'Older' 
and 'younger' and all such  notions are found to involve intervals of time; 
and so, when you mentally abstract time in general, all such indications are 
got rid of along with it. 

    Since, then, He who is with the Father, in some inconceivable category, 
before the ages admits not of a 'sometime,' He exists by generation indeed, 
but nevertheless He never begins to exist. His life is neither in time, nor in 
place. But when we take away these and all suchlike ideas in contemplating the 
subsistence of the Son, there is only one thing that we can even think of as 
before Him--i.e. the Father. But the Only-begotten, as He Himself has told us, 
is in the Father, and so, from His nature, is not open to the supposition that 
He ever existed not. If indeed the Father ever was not, the eternity of the 
Son must be cancelled retrospectively in consequence of this nothingness of 
the Father: but if the Father is always, how can the Son ever be non-existent, 
when He cannot be thought of at all by Himself apart from the Father, but is 
always implied silently in the name Father. This name in fact conveys the two 
Persons equally; the idea of the Son is inevitably suggested by that word. 
When was it, then, that the Son was not? In what category shall we detect His 
non-existence? In place? There is none. In time? Our Lord was before all 
times; and if so, when was He not? And it He was in the Father, in what place 
was He not? Tell us that, ye who are so practised in seeing things out of 
sight. What kind of interval have your cogitations given a shape to? What 
vacancy in the Son, be it of sub stance or of conception, have you been able 
to think of, which shows the Father's life, when drawn out in parallel, as 
surpassing that of the Only-begotten? Why, even of men we cannot say 
absolutely that any one was not, and then was born. Levi, many generations 
before his own birth in the flesh, was tithed by Melchisedech; so the Apostle 
says, "Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes (in Abraham)," (5) adding 
the proof, "for he was yet in the loins of his father, when" Abraham met the 
priest of the Most High. If, then, a man in a certain sense is not, and is 
then born, having existed beforehand by virtue of kinship of substance in his 
progenitor, according to an Apostle's testimony, how as to the Divine life do 
they dare to utter the thought that He was not, and then was 

begotten? For He 'is in the Father,' as our Lord has told us;    "I am in the 
Father, and the Father in Me (6)," each of course being in the other in two 
different senses; theSon being in the Father as the beauty of the image is to 
be found in the form from which it has been outlined; and the Father in the 
Son, as that original beauty is to be found in the image of itself. Now in all 
hand-made images the interval of time is a point of separation between the 
model and that to which it lends its form; but there the one cannot be 
separated from the other, neither the "express image" from the "Person," to 
use the Apostle's words (7), nor the "brightness" from the "glory" of God, nor 
the representation from the goodness; but winch once thought has grasped one 
of these, it has admitted the associated Verity as well. "Being," he says (not 
becoming), "the brightness of His glory (8);" so that clearly we may rid 
ourselves for ever of the blasphemy which lurks in either of those two 
conceptions; viz., that the Only-begotten can be thought of as Ungenerate (for 
he says "the brightness of His glory," the brightness coming from the glory, 
and not, reversely, the glory from the brightness); or that He ever began to 
be. For the word "being" is a witness that interprets to us the Son's 
continuity and eternity and superiority to all marks of time. 

    What occasion, then, had our foes for proposing for the damage of our 
Faith that trifling question, which they think unanswerable and, so, a proving 
of their own doctrine, and which they are continually asking, namely, 'whether 
One who is can be generated.' We may boldly answer them at once, that He who 
is in the Ungenerate was generated from Him, and does derive His source from 
Him. 'I live by the Father (9):' but it is impossible to name the 'when' of 
His beginning. When there is no intermediate matter, or idea, or interval of 
time, to separate the being of the Son from the Father, no symbol can be 
thought of, either, by which the Only-begotten can be unlinked from the 
Father's life, and shewn to proceed from some special source of His own. If, 
then, there is no other principle that guides the Son's life, if there is 
nothing that a devout mind can contemplate before (but not divided from) the 
subsistence of the Son, but the Father only; and if the Father is without 
beginning or generation, as even our adversaries admit, how can He who can be 
contemplated only within the Father, who is without beginning, admit Himself 
of a beginning? 

95 

    What harm, too, does our Faith suffer from our admitting those expressions 
of our opponents which they bring forward against us as absurd, when they ask 
'whether He which is can be begotten? 'We do not assert that this can be so in 
the sense in which Nicodemus put his offensive question (1), wherein he 
thought it impossible that one who was in existence could come to a second 
birth: but we assert that, having His existence attached to an Existence which 
is always and is without beginning, and accompanying every investigator into 
the antiquities of time, and forestalling the curiosity of thought as it 
advances into the world beyond, and intimately blended as He is with all our 
conceptions of the Father He has no beginning of His existence any more than 
He is Ungenerate: but He was both begotten and was, evincing on the score of 
causation generation from the Father but by virtue of His everlasting life 
repelling any moment of non-existence. 

    But this thinker in his exceeding subtlety contravenes this statement; he 
sunders the being of the Only-begotten from the Father's nature, on the ground 
of one being Generated, the other Ungenerate; and although there are such a 
number of names which with reverence may be applied to the Deity, and all of 
them suitable to both Persons equally, he pays no attention to anyone of them, 
because these others indicate that in which Both participate; he fastens on 
the name Ungenerate, and that alone; and even of this he will not adopt the 
usual and approved meaning; be revolutionizes the conception of it, and 
cancels its common associations. Whatever can be the reason of this? For 
without some very strong one he would not wrest language away from its 
accepted meaning, and innovate (2) by changing the signification of words. He 
knows perfectly well that if their meaning was confined to the customary one 
he would have no power to subvert the sound doctrine; but that if such terms 
are perverted from their common and current acceptation, he will be able to 
spoil the doctrine along with the word. For instance (to come to the actual 
words which he misuses), if, according to the common thinking of our Faith be 
had allowed that God was to be called Ungenerate only because He was never 
generated, the whole fabric of his heresy would have collapsed, with the 
withdrawal of his quibbling about this Ungenerate. If, that is, he was to be 
persuaded, by following out the analogy of almost all the names of God in use 
for the Church, to think of the God over all as Ungen- 

erate, just as He is invisible, and passionless, and immaterial; and if he was 
agreed that in every one of these terms there was signified only that which in 
no way belongs to God--body, for instance, and passion and colour, and 
derivation from a cause--then, if his view of the case had been like that, his 
party's tenet of the Unlikeness would lose its meaning; for in all else 
(except the Ungeneracy) that is conceived concerning the God of all even these 
adversaries allow the likeness existing between the Only-begotten and the 
Father. But to prevent this, he puts the term Ungenerate in front of all these 
names indicating God's transcendent nature; and he makes this one a 
vantage-ground from which he may sweep down upon our Faith; he transfers the 
contrariety between the actual expressions 'Generated' and 'Ungenerate' to the 
Persons themselves to whom these words apply; and thereby, by this difference 
between the words he argues by a quibble for a difference between the Beings; 
not agreeing with us that Generated is to be used only because the Son was 
generated, and Ungenerate because the Father exists without having been 
generated; but affirming that he thinks the former has acquired existence by 
having been generated; though what sort of philosophy leads him to such a view 
I cannot understand. If one were to attend to the mere meanings of those words 
by themselves, abstracting in thought those Persons for whom the names are 
taken to stand, one would discover the groundlessness of these statements of 
theirs. Consider, then, not that, in consequence of the Father being a 
conception prior to the Son (as the Faith truly teaches), the order of the 
names themselves must be arranged so as to correspond with the value and order 
of that which underlies them; but regard them alone by themselves, to see 
which of them (the word, I repeat, not the Reality which it represents) is to 
be placed before the other as a conception of our mind; which of the two 
conveys the assertion of an idea, which the negation of the same; for instance 
(to be clear, I think similar pairs of words will give my meaning), Knowledge, 
Ignorance--Passion, Passionlessness--and suchlike contrasts, which of them 
possess priority of conception before the others? Those which posit the 
negation, or those which posit the assertion of the said quality? I take it 
the latter do so. Knowledge, anger, passion, are conceived of first; and then 
comes the negation of these ideas. And let no one, in his excess of devotion  
(3), blame this argument, as if it would put the 

96 

Son before the Father. We are not making out that the Son is to be placed in 
conception before the Father, seeing that the argument is discriminating only 
the meanings of 'Generated,' and 'Ungenerate.' So Generation signifies the 
assertion of some reality or some idea; while Ungeneracy signifies its 
negation; so that there is every reason that Generation must be thought of 
first. Why, then, do they insist herein on fixing on the Father the second, in 
order of conception, of these two names; why do they keep on thinking that a 
negation can define and can embrace the whole substance of the term in 
question, and are roused to exasperation against those who point out the 
groundlessness of their arguments? 

40. His unsuccessful attempt to be consistent with his own statements 
after Basil has con-lured him. 

    For notice how bitter he is against one who did detect the rottenness and 
weakness of his work of mischief; how he revenges himself all he can, and that 
is only by abuse and vilification: in these, however, he possesses abundant 
ability. Those who would give elegance of style to a discourse have a way of 
filling out the places that want rhythm with certain conjunctive particles,
whereby they introduce more euphony and connexion into the assembly of 
their phrases; so does Eunomius garnish his work with abusive epithets in most 
of his passages, as though he wished to make a display of this overflowing 
power of invective. Again we are 'fools,' again we 'fail in correct 
reasoning,' and 'meddle in the controversy without the preparation which its 
importance requires,' and 'miss the speaker's meaning.' Such, and still more 
than these, are the phrases used of our Master by this decorous orator. But 
perhaps after all there is good reason in his anger; and this pamphleteer is 
justly indignant. For why should Basil have stung him by thus exposing the 
weakness of this teaching of his? Why should he have uncovered to the sight of 
the simpler brethren the blasphemy veiled beneath 

his plausible sophistries? Why should he not have let silence cover the 
unsoundness of this view? Why gibbet the wretched man, when he ought to have 
pitied him, and kept the veil over the indecency of his argument? He actually 
finds out and makes a spectacle of one who has somehow got to be admired 
amongst his private pupils for cleverness and shrewdness! Eunomius had said 
somewhere in his works that the attribute of being ungenerate "follows" the 
deity. Our Master remarked upon this phrase of his that a thing which 
"follows" must be amongst the externals, whereas the actual Being is not one 
of these, but indicates the very existence of anything, so far as it does 
exist. Then this gentle yet unconquerable opponent is furious, and pours along 
a copious stream of invective, because our Master, on hearing that phrase, 
apprehended the sense of it as well. But what did he do wrong, if he firmly 
insisted only upon the meaning of your own writings. If indeed he had seized 
illogically on what was said, all that you say would be true, and we should 
have to ignore what he did; but seeing that you are blushing at his reproof, 
why do you not erase the word from your pamphlet, instead of abusing the 
reprover? 'Yes, but he did not understand the drift of the argument. Well, how 
do we do wrong, if being human, we guessed at the meaning from your actual 
words, having no comprehension of that which was buried in your heart? It is 
for God to see the inscrutable, and to inspect the characters of that which we 
have no means of comprehending, and to be cognizant of unlikeness (5) in the 
invisible world. We can only judge by what we hear. 

             41. The thing that follows is not the same as 

                       the thing that it follows. 

    He first says, "the attribute of being un-generate follows the Deity." By 
that we understood him to mean that this Ungeneracy is one of the things 
external to God. Then he says," Or rather this Ungeneracy is His actual 
being." We fail to understand the 'sequitur' of this; we notice in fact 
something very queer and incongruous about it. If Ungeneracy follows God, and 
yet also constitutes His being, two beings will be attributed to one and the 
same subject in this view; so that God will be in the same way as He was 
before and has always been believed to be (6), but besides that will have 
another being accompanying, which 

97 

they style Ungeneracy, quite distinct from Him Whose 'following' it is, as our 
Master puts it. Well, if he commands us to think so, he must pardon our 
poverty of ideas, in not being able to follow out such subtle speculations. 

    But if he disowns this view, and does not admit a double being in the 
Deity, one represented by the godhead, the other by the ungeneracy, let our 
friend, who is himself neither 'rash' nor 'malignant,' prevail upon himself 
not to be over partial to invective while these combats for the truth are 
being fought, but to explain to us, who are so wanting in culture, how that 
which follows is not one thing and that which leads another, but bow both 
coalesce into one; for, in spite of what he says in defence of his statement, 
the absurdity of it remains; and the addition of that handful of words (7) 
does not correct, as he asserts, the contradiction in it. I have not yet been 
able to see that any explanation at all is discoverable in them. But we will 
give what he has written verbatim. "We say, 'or rather the Ungeneracy is His 
actual being,' without meaning to contract into the beings that which we have 
proved to follow it, but applying 'follow' to the title, but is to the being." 
Accordingly when these things are taken together, the whole resulting argument 
would be, that the title Ungenerate follows, because to be Ugenerate is His 
actual being. But what expounder of this expounding shall we get? He says 
"without meaning to contract into the being that which we have proved to 
follow it." Perhaps some of the guessers of riddles might tell us that by 
'contract into' he means 'fastening together.' But who can see anything 
intelligible or coherent in the rest? The results of 'following' belong, he 
tells us, not to the being, but to the title. But, most learned sir, what is 
the title? Is it in discord with the being, or does it not rather coincide 
with it in the thinking? If the title is inappropriate to the being, then how 
can the being be represented by the title; but if, as he himself phrases it, 
the being is fittingly defined by the title of Ungenerate, how can there be 
any parting of them after that? You make the name of the being follow one 
thing and the being itself another. And what then is the 'construction of the 
entire view?' "The title Ungenerate follows God, seeing that He Himself is 
Ungenerate." He says that there 'follows' God, Who is something oilier than 
that which is Ungenerate, this very title. Then how can he place the 
definition of Godhead within the Ungeneracy? 

Again, he says that this title 'follows' God as existing without a previous 
generation. Who will solve us the mystery of such riddles? 'Ungenerate' 
preceding and then following; first a fittingly attached title of the being, 
and then following like a stranger! What, too, is the cause or this excessive 
flutter about this name; he gives to it the whole contents of godhead (9); as 
if there will be nothing wanting in our adoration, if God be so named; and as 
if the whole system of our faith will be endangered, if He is not? Now, if a 
brief statement about this should not be deemed superfluous and irrelevant, we 
will thus explain the matter. 

                 42. Explanation of 'Ungenerate,' and 

                         a 'study' of Eternity. 

    The eternity of God's life, to sketch it in mere outline, is on this wise. 
He is always to be apprehended as in existence; He admits not a time when He 
was not, and when He will not be. Those who draw a circular figure in plane 
geometry from a centre to the distance of the line of circumference 

    tell us there is no definite beginning to  their figure; and that the line 
is interrupted 

by no ascertained end any more than by any visible commencement: they say 
that, as it  forms a single whole in itself with equal 

    radii on all sides, it avoids giving any indication of beginning or 
ending. When, then, we compare the Infinite being to such a figure, 

circumscribed though it be, let none find fault with this account; for it is 
not on the circumference, but on the similarity which the figure bears to the 
Life which in every direction eludes the grasp, that we fix our attention when 
we affirm that such is our intuition of the Eternal. From the present instant, 
as from a centre and a "point," we 

    extend thought in all directions, to the im-mensity of that Life. We find 
that we are drawn round uninterruptedly and evenly, and that we are always 
following a circumference where there is nothing to grasp; we find 

the divine life returning upon itself in an unbroken continuity, where no end 
and no parts can be recognized. Of God's eternity 

98 

we say that which we have heard from prophecy (1); viz.. that God is a king 
"of old," and rules for ages, and for ever, and beyond. Therefore we define 
Him to be earlier than any beginning, and exceeding any end. Entertaining, 
then, this idea of the Almighty, as one that is adequate, we express it by two 
titles; i.e., 'Ungenerate' and 'Endless' represent this infinitude and 
continuity and ever-lastingness of the Deity. If we adopted only one of them 
for our idea, and if the remaining one was dropped, our meaning would be 
marred by this omission; for it is impossible with either one of them singly 
(2) to express the notion residing in each of the two; but when one speaks of 
the 'endless,' only the absence as regards an end has been indicated, and it 
does not follow that any hint has been given about a beginning; while, when 
one speaks of the 'Unoriginate (3),' the fact of being beyond a beginning has 
been expressed, but the case as regards an end has been left quite doubtful. 

    Seeing, then, that these two titles equally help to express the eternity 
of the divine life, it is high time to inquire why our friends cut in two the 
complete meaning of this eternity, and declare that the one meaning, which is 
the negation of beginning, constitutes God's being (instead of merely forming 
part of the definition of eternity (4)), while they consider the other, which 
is the negation of end, as amongst the externals of that being. It is 
difficult to see the reason for thus assigning the negation of beginning to 
the realm of being, while they banish the negation of end outside that realm. 
The two are our conceptions of the same thing; and, therefore, either both 
should be admitted to the definition of being, or, if the one is to be judged 
inadmissible, the other should be rejected also. If, however, they are 
determined thus to divide the thought of eternity, and to make the one fall 
within the realm of that being, and to reckon the other with the non-realities 
of Deity (for the thoughts which they adopt on this subject are grovelling, 
and, like birds who have shed their feathers, they are unable to soar into the 
sublimities of theology), I would advise them to reverse their teaching, and 
to count the unending as being, overlooking the unoriginate rather, and 
assigning the palm to that which is future and excites hope, rather than to 
that which is past and stale. Seeing, I say (and I speak thus owing to their 
narrowness of spirit, and lower the discussion to the level of a child's 
conception), the past period of his life is nothing to him who 

has lived it, and all his interest is centred on the future and on that which 
can be looked forward to, that which has no end will have more value than that 
which has no beginning. So let our thoughts upon the divine nature be worthy 
and exalted ones; or else, if they are going to judge of it according to human 
tests, let the future be more valued by them than the past, and let them 
confine the being of the Deity to that, since time's lapse sweeps away with it 
all existence in the past, whereas expected existence gains substance from our 
hope (5). 

    Now I broach these ridiculously childish suggestions as to children 
sitting in the market- 

place and playing (6); for when one looks into the grovelling earthliness of 
their heretical teaching it is impossible to help falling into a sort of 
sportive childishness. It would be right, however, to add this to what we have 
said, viz., that, as the idea of eternity is completed only by means of both 
(as we have already argued), by the negation of a beginning and also by that 
of an end, if they confine God's being to the one, their definition of this 
being will be manifestly imperfect and curtailed by half; it is thought of 
only by the absence of beginning, and does not contain the absence of end 
within itself as an essential element. But if they do combine both negations, 
and so complete their definition of the being of God, observe, again, the 
absurdity that is at once apparent in this view; it will be found, after all 
their efforts, to be at variance not only with the Only-begotten, but with 
itself. The case is clear and does not require much dwelling upon. The idea of 
a beginning and the idea of an end are opposed each to each; the meanings of 
each differ as widely as the other diametric oppositions (7), where there is 
no half-way proposition below (8). If any one is asked to define 'beginning,' 
he will not give a definition the same as that of end; but will carry his 
definition of it to the opposite extremity. Therefore also the two 

99 

contraries (9) of these will be separated from each other by the same distance 
of opposition; and that which is without beginning, being contrary to that 
which is to be seen by a beginning, will be a very different thing from that 
which is endless, or the negation of end. If, then, they import both these 
attributes into the being of God, I mean the negations of end and of 
beginning, they will exhibit this Deity of theirs as a combination of two 
contradictory and discordant things, because the contrary  ideas to beginning 
and end reproduce on their side also tile contradiction existing between 
beginning and end. Contraries of contradictories are themselves contradictory 
of each other. In fact, it is always a true axiom, that two things which are 
naturally opposed to two things mutually opposite are themselves opposed to 
each other; as we may see by example. Water is opposed to fire; therefore also 
the forces destructive of these are opposed to each other; if moistness is apt 
to extinguish fire, and dryness is apt to destroy water, the opposition of 
fire to water is continued in those qualities themselves which are contrary to 
them; so that dryness is plainly opposed to moistness. Thus, when beginning 
and end have to be placed (diametrically) opposite each other (1), the terms 
contrary to these also contradict each other in their meaning, I mean, the 
negations of end and of beginning. Well, then, if they determine that one only 
of these  negations is indicative of the being (to repeat my former 
assertion), they will bear evidence to half only of God's existence, confining 
it to the absence of beginning, and refusing to extend it to the absence of 
end; whereas, if they import both into their definition of it, they will 
actually exhibit it so as a combination of contradictions in the way that has 
been said; for these two negations of beginning and of end, by virtue of the 
contradiction existing between beginning and end, will part it asunder. So 
their Deity will be found to be a sort of patchwork compound, a conglomerate 
of contradictions. 

    But there is not, neither shall there be, in the Church of God a teaching 
such as that, which can make One who is single and incomposite not only 
multiform and patchwork, but also 

the combination of opposites. The simplicity of the True Faith assumes God to 
be that which He is, viz., incapable of being grasped by any term, or any 
idea, or any other device of our apprehension, remaining beyond the reach not 
only of the human but of the angelic and of all supramundane intelligence, 
unthinkable, unutterable, above all expression in words, having but one name 
that can represent His proper nature, the single name of being 'Above every 
name (2)'; which is granted to the Only-begotten also, because "all that the 
Father hath is the Son's." The orthodox theory allows these words, I mean 
"Ungen-crate," "Endless," to be indicative of God's eternity, but not of His 
being; so that "Ungen-erate" means that no source or cause lies beyond Him, 
and "Endless" means that His kingdom will be brought to a standstill in no 
end. "Thou art the same," the prophet says, "and Thy years shall not fail 
(3)," showing by "art" that He subsists out of no cause, and by the words 
following, that the blessedness of His life is ceaseless and unending. 

    But, perhaps, some one amongst even very religious people will pause over 
these investigations of ours upon God's eternity, and say that it will be 
difficult from what we have said for the Faith in the Only-begotten to escape 
unhurt. Of two unacceptable doctrines, he will say, our account (4) must 
inevitably be brought into contact with one. Either we shall make out that the 
Son is Ungenerate, which is absurd; or else we shall deny Him Eternity 
altogether, a denial which that fraternity of blasphemers make their 
specialty. For if Eternity is characterized by having no beginning and end, it 
is inevitable either that we must be impious and deny the Son Eternity, or 
that we must be led in our secret thoughts about Him into the idea of 
Ungeneracy. What, then, shall we answer? That if, in conceiving of the Father 
before the Son on the single score of causation, we inserted any mark of time 
before the subsistence of the Only-begotten, the belief which we have in the 
Son's eternity might with reason be said to be endangered. But, as it is, the 
Eternal nature, equally in the case of the  Father's and the Son's life, and, 
as well, in what we believe about the Holy Ghost, admits not of the thought 
that it will ever cease to be; for where time is not, the "when" is 
annihilated with it. And if the Son, always ap- 

100 

pearing with the thought of the Father, is always found in the category of 
existence, what danger is there in owning the Eternity of the Only-begotten, 
Who "hath neither beginning of days, nor end of life (5)." For as He is Light 
from Light, Life from Life, Good from Good, and Wise, Just, Strong, and all 
else in the same way, so most certainly is He Eternal from Eternal. 

    But a lover of controversial wrangling catches up the argument, on the 
ground that such a sequence would make Him Un-generate from Ungenerate. Let 
him, however, cool his combative heart, and insist upon the proper 
expressions, for in confessing His 'coming from the Father' he has banished 
all ideas of Ungeneracy as regards the Only-begotten; and there will be then 
no danger in pronouncing Him Eternal and yet not Ungen-crate. On the one hand, 
because the existence of the Son is not marked by any intervals of time, and 
the infinitude of His life flows back before the ages and onward beyond them 
in an all-pervading tide, He is properly addressed with the title of Eternal; 
again, on the 

other hand, because the thought of Him as Son in fact and title gives us the 
thought of the Father as inalienably joined to it, He thereby stands clear of 
an ungenerate existence being imputed to Him, while He is always with a Father 
Who always is, as those inspired words of our Master expressed it, "bound by 
way of generation to His Father's Ungeneracy." Our account of the Holy Ghost 
will be the same also; the difference is only in the place assigned in order. 
For as the Son is bound to the Father, and, while deriving existence from Him, 
is not substantially after Him, so again the Holy Spirit is in touch with the 
Only-begotten, Who is conceived of as before the Spirit's subsistence only in 
the theoretical light of a cause (6). Extensions in time find no admittance in 
the Eternal Life; so that, when we have removed the thought of cause, the i 
Holy Trinity in no single way exhibits discord with itself; and to It is glory 
due. 

                                 BOOK II 

 1. The second book declares the Incarnation of God the Word, and the faith 
delivered by the Lord to His disciples, and asserts that the heretics who 
endeavour to overthrow this faith and devise other additional names are of 
their father the devil. 

    The Christian Faith, which in accordance with the command of our Lord has 
been preached to all nations by His disciples, is neither of men, nor by men, 
but by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who being the Word, the Life, the Light, 
the Truth, and God, and Wisdom, and all else that He is by nature, for this 
cause above all was made in the likeness of man, and shared our nature, 
becoming like us in all things, yet without sin. He was like us in all things, 
in that He took upon Him manhood in its entirety with soul and body, so that 
our salvation was accomplished by means of both: --He, I say, appeared on 
earth and "conversed  with men (1)," that men might no longer have  opinions 
according to their own notions about the Self-existent, formulating into a 
doctrine the hints that come to them from vague conjectures, but that we might 
be convinced that God has truly been manifested in the flesh, and believe that 
to be the only true "mystery of godliness (2)," which was delivered to us by 
the very Word and God, Who by Himself spoke to His Apostles, and that we might 
receive the teaching concerning the transcendent nature of the Deity which is 
given to us, as it were, "through a glass darkly (3)" from the older 
Scriptures,--from the Law, and the Prophets, and the Sapiential Books, as an 
evidence of the truth fully revealed to us, reverently accepting the meaning 
of the things which have been spoken, so as to accord in the faith set forth 
by the Lord of the whole Scriptures (4), which faith we guard as we received 
it, word for word, in purity, without falsification, judging even a slight 
divergence from the 

words delivered to us an extreme blasphemy and impiety. We believe, then, even 
as the Lord set forth the Faith to His Disciples, when He said, "Go, teach all 
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost (5)." This is the word of the mystery whereby through the new birth 
from above our nature is transformed from the corruptible to the 
incorruptible, being renewed from "the old man," "according to the image of 
Him who created (6)" at the beginning the likeness to the Godhead. In the 
Faith then which was delivered by God to the Apostles we admit neither 
subtraction, nor alteration, nor addition, knowing assuredly that he who 
presumes to pervert the Divine utterance by dishonest quibbling, the same "is 
of his father the devil," who leaves the words of truth and "speaks of his 
own," becoming the father of a lie (7). For whatsoever is said otherwise than 
in exact accord with the truth is assuredly false and not true. 

 2. Gregory then makes an explanation at length 

    touching the eternal Father, the Son, and the 

Holy Spirit. 

    Since then this doctrine is put forth by the Truth itself, it follows that 
anything which the inventors of pestilent heresies devise besides to subvert 
this Divine utterance,--as, for example, calling the Father "Maker" and 
"Creator" of the Son instead of "Father," and the Son a "result," a 
"creature," a "product," instead of "Son," and the Holy Spirit the "creature 
of a creature," and the "product of a product," instead of His proper title 
the "Spirit," and whatever those who fight against God are pleased to say of 
Him,--all such fancies we  term a denial and violation of the Godhead revealed 
to us in this doctrine. For once for all we have learned from the Lord, 
through Whom comes the transformation of our nature from mortality to 
immortality,--from Him, I say, we have learned to what we ought to look 

102 

with the eyes of our understanding,--that is, the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Spirit. We say that it is a terrible and soul-destroying thing to 
misinterpret these Divine utterances and to devise in their stead assertions 
to subvert them,--assertions pretending to correct God the Word, Who appointed 
that we should maintain these statements as part of our faith. For each of 
these titles understood in its natural sense becomes for Christians a rule of 
truth and a law of piety. For while there are many other names by which Deity 
is indicated in the Historical Books, in the Prophets and in the Law, our 
Master Christ passes by all these and commits to us these titles as better 
able to bring us to the faith about the Self-Existent, declaring that it 
suffices us to cling to the title, "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," in order to 
attain to the apprehension of Him Who is absolutely Existent, Who is one and 
yet not one. In regard to essence He is one, wherefore the Lord ordained that 
we should look to one Name: but in regard to the attributes indicative of the 
Persons, our belief in Him is distinguished into belief in the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost (8); He is divided without separation, and united 
without confusion. For when we hear the title "Father" we apprehend the 
meaning to be this, that the name is not understood with reference to itself 
alone, but also by its special signification indicates the relation to the 
Son. For the term "Father" would have no meaning apart by itself, if "Son" 
were not connoted by the utterance of the word "Father." When, then, we learnt 
the name "Father" we were taught at the same time, by the selfsame title, 
faith also in the Son. Now since Deity by its very nature is permanently and 
immutably the same in all that pertains to its essence, nor did it at any time 
fail to be anything that it now is, nor will it at any future time be anything 
that it now is not, and since He Who is the very Father was named Father by 
the Word, and since in the Father the Son is implied,--since these things are 
so, we of necessity believe that He Who admits no change or alteration in His 
nature was always entirely what He is now, or, if there is anything which He 
was not, that He  assuredly is not now. Since then He is named Father by the 
very Word, He assuredly always was Father, and is and will be even as He was. 
For surely it is not lawful in speaking of the Divine and unimpaired Essence 
to deny that what is excellent always belonged to lt. For if He was not always 
what He now is, He certainly changed either from the better to the 

worse or from the worse to the better, and of these assertions the impiety is 
equal either way, whichever statement is made concerning the Divine nature. 
But in fact the Deity is incapable of change and alteration. So, then, 
everything that is excellent and good is always contemplated in the fountain 
of excellency. But "the Only-begotten God, Who is in the bosom of the Father 
(9)" is excellent, and beyond all excellency :--mark you, He says, "Who is in 
the bosom of the Father," not "Who came to be" there. 

    Well then, it has been demonstrated by these proofs that the Son is from 
all eternity to be contemplated in the Father, in Whom He is, being Life and 
Light and Truth, and every noble name and conception--to say that the Father 
ever existed by Himself apart from these attributes  is a piece of the utmost 
impiety and infatuation. For if the Son, as the Scripture saith, is the Power 
of God, and Wisdom, and Truth, and Light, and Sanctification, and Peace, and 
Life, and the like, then before the Son existed, according to the view of the 
heretics, these things also had no existence at all. And if these things had 
no existence they must certainly conceive the bosom of the Father to have been 
devoid of such excellences. To the end, then, that the Father might not be 
conceived as destitute of the excellences which are His own, and that the 
doctrine might not run wild into this extravagance, the right faith concerning 
the Son is necessarily included in our Lord's utterance with the contemplation 
of the eternity of the Father. And for this reason He passes over all those 
names which are employed to indicate the surpassing excellence of the Divine 
nature (1), and delivers to us as part of our profession of faith the title of 
"Father" as better suited to indicate the truth, being a title which, as has 
been said, by its relative sense connotes with itself the Son, while the Son, 
Who is in the Father, always is what He essentially is, as has been said 
already, because the Deity by Its very nature does not admit of augmentation. 
For It does not perceive any other good outside of Itself, by participation in 
which It could acquire any accession, but is always immutable, neither casting 
away what It has, nor acquiring what It has not: for none of Its properties 
are such as to be cast away. And if there is anything whatsoever blessed, 
unsullied, true and good, associated with Him and in Him, we see of necessity 
that the good and holy Spirit must belong to Him (2), not 

103 

by way of accretion. That Spirit is indisputably a princely Spirit (3), a 
quickening Spirit, the controlling and sanctifying force of all creation, the 
Spirit that "worketh all in all" as He wills (4). Thus we conceive no gap 
between the anointed Christ and His anointing, between the King and His 
sovereignty, between Wisdom and the Spirit of Wisdom, between Truth and the 
Spirit of Truth, between Power and the Spirit of Power, but as there is 
contemplated from all eternity in the Father the Son, Who is Wisdom and Truth, 
and Counsel, and Might, and Knowledge, and Understanding, so there is also 
contemplated in Him the Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of Wisdom, and of 
Truth, and of Counsel, and of Understanding, and all else that the Son is and 
is called. For which reason we say that to the holy disciples the mystery of 
godliness was committed in a form expressing at once union and 
distinction,--that we should believe on the Name of the Father, and of the Son 
and of the Holy Ghost. For the differentiation of the subsistences (5) makes 
the distinction of Persons (6) clear and free from confusion, while the one 
Name standing in the forefront of the declaration of the Faith clearly 
expounds to us the unity of essence of the Persons (6) Whom the Faith 
declares,--I mean, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. For 
by these appellations we are taught not a difference of nature, but only the 
special attributes that mark the subsistences (5), so that we know that 
neither is the Father the Son, nor the Son the Father, nor the Holy Spirit 
either the Father or the Son, and recognize each by the distinctive mark of 
His Personal Subsistence (7), in illimitable perfection, at once contemplated 
by Himself and not divided from that with Which He is connected. 

 3. Gregory proceeds to discuss the relative force of the unnameable name of 
the Holy Trinity and the mutual relation of the Persons, and moreover the 
unknowable character of the Essence, arid the condescension on His part 
towards us, His generation of the Virgin, and His second coming, the 
resurrection from the dead and future retribution. 

    What then means that unnameable name concerning which the Lord said, 
"Baptizing them into the name," and did not add the actual significant term 
which "the name" indicates? We have concerning it this notion, that all things 
that exist in the creation are defined by means of their several names. Thus 
whenever a man speaks of "heaven" he directs the notion 

of the hearer to the created object indicated by this name, and he who 
mentions "man" or some animal, at once by the mention of the name impresses 
upon the hearer the form of the creature, and in the same way all other 
things, by means of the names imposed upon them, are depicted in the heart of 
him who by hearing receives the appellation imposed upon the thing. The 
uncreated Nature alone, which we acknowledge in the Father, and in the Son, 
and in the Holy Spirit, surpasses all significance of names. For this cause 
the Word, when He spoke of "the name" in delivering the Faith, did not add 
what it is,--for how could a name be found for that which is above every name? 
--but gave authority that whatever name our intelligence by pious effort be 
enabled to discover to indicate the transcendent Nature, that name should be 
applied alike to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whether it be "the Good" or "the 
Incorruptible," whatever name each may think proper to be employed to indicate 
the undefiled Nature of Godhead. And by this deliverance the Word seems to me 
to lay down for us this law, that we are to be persuaded that the Divine 
Essence is ineffable and incomprehensible: for it is plain that the title of 
Father does not present to us the Essence, but only indicates the relation to 
the Son. It follows, then, that if it were possible for human nature to be 
taught the essence of God, He "Who will have all men to be saved and to come 
to the knowledge of the truth (8)" would not have suppressed the knowledge 
upon this matter But as it is, by saying nothing concerning the Divine 
Essence, He showed that the knowledge thereof is beyond our power, while when 
we have learnt that of which we are capable, we stand in no need of the 
knowledge beyond our capacity, as we have in the profession of faith in the 
doctrine delivered to us what suffices for our salvation. For to learn that He 
is the absolutely existent, together with Whom, by the relative force of the 
term, there is also declared the majesty of the Son, is the fullest teaching 
of godliness; the Son, as has been said, implying in close union with Himself 
the Spirit of Life and Truth, inasmuch as He is Himself Life and Truth. 

    These distinctions being thus established, while we anathematize all 
heretical fancies in the sphere of divine doctrines, we believe, even as we 
were taught by the voice of the Lord, in the Name of the Father and of the Son 
and of the Holy Ghost, acknowledging together with this faith also the 
dispensation that has been set on foot on behalf of men 

104 

by the Lord of the creation. For He "being in the form of God thought it not 
robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon 
Him the form of a servant (9)," and being incarnate in the Holy Virgin 
redeemed us from death "in which we were held," "sold under sin (1)," giving 
as the ransom for the deliverance of our souls His precious blood which He 
poured out by His Cross, and having through Himself made clear for us the path 
of the resurrection (2) from the dead, shall come in His own time in the glory 
of the Father to judge every soul in righteousness, when "all that are in the 
graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good 
unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the 
resurrection of damnation (3)." But that the pernicious heresy that is now 
being sown broadcast by Eunomius may not, by falling upon the mind of some of 
the simpler sort and being left without investigation, do harm to guileless 
faith, we are constrained to set forth the profession which they circulate and 
to strive to expose the mischief of their teaching. 

 4. He next skilfully confutes the partial, empty and blasphemous statement of 
Eunomius on the subject of the absolutely existent. 

    Now the wording of their doctrine is as follows: "We believe in the one 
and only true God, according to the teaching of the Lord Himself, not 
honouring Him with a lying title (for He cannot lie), but really existent, one 
God in nature and in glory, who is without beginning, eternally, without end, 
alone." Let not him who professes to believe in accordance with the teaching 
of the Lord pervert the exposition of the faith that was made concerning the 
Lord of all to suit his own fancy, but himself follow the utterance of the 
truth. Since then, the expression of the Faith comprehends the name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, what agreement has this 
construction of theirs to show with the utterances of the Lord, so as to refer 
such a doctrine to the teaching of those utterances? They cannot manage to 
show where in the Gospels the Lord said that we should believe on "the one and 
only true God:" unless they have 

some new Gospel. For the Gospels which are read in the churches continuously 
from ancient times to the present day, do not contain this saying which tells 
us that we should believe in or baptize into "the one and only true God," as 
these people say, but "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
Holy Ghost." But as we were taught by the voice of the Lord, this we say, that 
the word "one" does not indicate the Father alone, but comprehends in its 
significance the Son with the Father, inasmuch as the Lord said, "I and My 
Father are one (4)." In like manner also the name "God" belongs equally to the 
Beginning in which the Word was, and to the Word Who was in the Beginning. For 
the Evangelist tells us that "the Word was with God, and the Word was God 
(5)." So that when Deity is expressed the Son is included no less than the 
Father. Moreover, the true cannot be conceived as something alien from and 
unconnected with the truth. But that the Lord is the Truth no one at all will 
dispute, unless he be one estranged from the truth. If, then, the Word is in 
the One, and is God and Truth, as is proclaimed in the Gospels, on what 
teaching of the Lord does be base his doctrine who makes use of these 
distinctive terms? For the antithesis is between "only" and "not only," 
between "God" and "no God," between "true" and "untrue." If it is with respect 
to idols that they make their distinction of phrases, we too agree. For the 
name of "deity" is given, in an equivocal sense, to the idols of the heathen, 
seeing that "all the gods of the heathen are demons," and in another sense 
marks the contrast of the one with the many, of the true with the false, of 
those who are not Gods with Him who is God (6). But if the contrast is one 
with the Only-begotten God (7), let our sages learn that truth has its 
opposite only in falsehood, and God in one who is not God. But inasmuch as the 
Lord Who is the Truth is God, and is in the Father and is one relatively to 
the Father (8), there is no room in the true doctrine for these distinctions 
of phrases. For he who truly believes in the One sees in the One Him Who is 
completely united with Him in truth, and deity, and essence, and life, and 
wisdom, and in all attributes whatsoever: or, if he does not see in the One 
Him Who is all these it si 

105 

in nothing that he believes. For without the Son the Father has neither 
existence nor name, any more than the Powerful without Power, or the Wise 
without Wisdom. For Christ is "the Power of God and the Wisdom of God (9);" so 
that he who imagines he sees the One God apart from power, truth, wisdom, 
life, or the true light, either sees nothing at all or else assuredly that 
which is evil. For the withdrawal of the good attributes becomes a positing 
and origination of evil. 

    "Not honouring Him," he says, "with a lying title, for He cannot lie." By 
that phrase I pray that Eunomius may abide, and so hear witness to the truth 
that it cannot lie. For if he would be of this mind, that everything that is 
uttered by the Lord is far removed from falsehood, he will of course be 
persuaded that He speaks the truth Who says, "I am in the Father, and the 
Father in Me (1),"--plainly, the One in His entirety, in the Other in His 
entirety, the Father not superabounding in the Son, the Son not being 
deficient in the Father,--and Who says also that the Son should be honoured as 
the Father is honoured (2), and "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father 
(3)," and "no man knoweth the Father save the Son (4)," in all which passages 
there is no hint given to those who receive these declarations as genuine, of 
any variation s of glory, or of essence, or anything else, between the Father 
and the Son. 

    "Really existent," he says, "one God in nature and in glory." Real 
existence is opposed to unreal existence. Now each of existing things is 
really existent in so far as it is; but that which, so far as appearance and 
suggestion go, seems to be, but is not, this is not really existent, as for 
example an appearance in a dream or a man in a picture. For these and such 
like things, though they exist so far as appearance is concerned, have not 
real existence. If then they maintain, in accordance with the Jewish opinion, 
that the Only-begotten God does not exist at all, they are right in 
predicating real existence of the Father alone. But if they do not deny the 
existence of the Maker of all things, let them be content not to deprive of 
real existence Him Who is, Who in the Divine appearance to Moses gave Himself 
the name of Existent, when He said, "I am that I am (6):" even as Eunomius in 
his later argument agrees with this, saying that it was He Who appeared to 
Moses. Then he says that God is "one in nature and in glory." Whether God 
exists without being by nature God, he who uses these words may perhaps know: 
but if it be true that he who is not by nature God is not 

God at all, let them learn from the great Paul that they who serve those who 
are not Gods do not serve God (7)." But we "serve the living and true God," as 
the Apostle says (8): and He Whom we serve is Jesus the Christ (9). For Him 
the Apostle Paul even exults in serving, saying, "Paul, a servant of Jesus 
Christ (1)." We then, who no longer serve them which by nature are no Gods 
(2), have come to the knowledge of Him Who by nature is God, to Whom every 
knee boweth "of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the 
earth (3)." But we should not have been His servants had we not believed that 
this is the living and true God, to Whom "every tongue maketh confession that 
Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father (3)." 

    "God," he says, "Who is without beginning, eternally, without end, alone." 
Once more "understand, ye simple ones," as Solomon says, "his subtlety (4)," 
lest haply ye be deceived and fall headlong into the denial of the Godhead of 
the Only-begotten Son. That is without end which admits not of death and 
decay: that, likewise, is called everlasting which is not only for a time. 
That, therefore, which is neither everlasting nor without end is surely seen 
in the nature which is perishable and mortal. Accordingly he who predicates 
"unendingness" of the one and only God, and does not include the Son in the 
assertion of "unendingness" and "eternity," maintains by such a proposition, 
that He Whom be thus contrasts with tire eternal and unending is perishable 
and temporary. But we, even when we are told that God "only hath immortality 
(5)," understand by "immortality" the Son. For life is immortality, and the 
Lord is that life, Who said, "I am the Life (6)." And if He be said to dwell 
"in the light that no man can approach unto (5)," again we make no difficulty 
in understanding that the true Light, unapproachable by falsehood, is the 
Only-begotten, in Whom we learn from the Truth itself that the Father is (7). 
Of these opinions let the reader choose the more devout, whether we are to 
think of the Only-begotten in a manner worthy of the Godhead, or to call Him, 
as heresy prescribes, perishable and temporary. 

 5. He next marvellously overthrows the unintelligible statements of Eunomius 
which assert that the essence of the Father is not separated or divided, and 
does not become anything else. 

              "We believe in God," he tells us," not separ- 

106 

ated as regards the essence wherein He is one, into more than one, or becoming 
sometimes one and sometimes another, or changing from being what He is, or 
passing from one essence to assume the guise of a threefold personality for He 
is always and absolutely one, remaining uniformly and unchangeably the only 
God." From these citations the discreet reader may well separate first of all 
the idle words inserted in the statement without any meaning from those which 
appear to have some sense, and afterwards examine the meaning that is 
discoverable in what remains of his statement, to ascertain whether it is 
compatible with due reverence towards Christ. 

    The first, then, of the statements cited is completely divorced from any 
intelligible meaning, good or bad. For what sense there is in the words, "not 
separated, as regards the essence wherein He is one, into more than one, or 
becoming sometimes one and sometimes another, or changing from being what He 
is," Eunomius himself could not tell us, and I do not think that any of his 
allies could find in the words any shadow of meaning. When he speaks of Him as 
"not separated in regard to the essence wherein He is one," he says either 
that He is not separated from His own essence, or that His own essence is not 
divided from Him. This unmeaning statement is nothing but a random combination 
of noise and empty sound. And why should one spend time in the investigation 
of these meaningless expressions? For how does any one remain in existence 
when separated from his own essence? or how is the essence of anything divided 
and displayed apart? Or  how is it possible for one to depart from that 
wherein he is, and become another, getting outside himself? But he adds, "not 
passing from one essence to assume the guise of three persons: for He is 
always and absolutely one, remaining uniformly and unchangeably the only God." 
I think the absence of meaning in his statement is plain to every one without 
a word from me: against this let any one argue who thinks there is any sense 
or meaning in what he says: he who has an eye to discern the force of words 
will decline to involve himself in a struggle with unsubstantial shadows. For 
what force has it against our doctrine to say "not separated or divided into 
more than one as regards the essence wherein He is one, or becoming sometimes 
one and sometimes another, or passing from one essence to assume the guise of 
three persons?"--things that are neither said nor believed by Christians nor 
understood by inference from the truths we confess. For who ever said or heard 
any one else say in the Church of God, that the Father 

is either separated or divided as regards His essence, or becomes sometimes 
one, sometimes another, coming to be outside Himself, or assumes the guise of 
three persons? These things Eunomius says to himself, not arguing with us but 
stringing together his own trash, mixing with the impiety of his utterances a 
great deal of absurdity. For we say that it is equally impious and ungodly to 
call the Lord of the creation a created being and to think that the Father, in 
that He is, is separated or split up, or departs from Himself, or assumes the 
guise of three persons, like clay or wax moulded in various shapes. 

    But let us examine the words that follow: "He is always and absolutely 
one, remaining uniformly and unchangeably the only God." If he is speaking 
about the Father, we agree with him, for the Father is most truly one, alone 
and always absolutely uniform dud unchangeable, never at any time present or 
future ceasing to be what He is. If then such an assertion as this has regard 
to the Father, let him not contend with the doctrine of godliness, inasmuch as 
on this point he is in harmony with the Church. For he who confesses that the 
Father is always and unchangeably the same, being one and only God, holds fast 
the word of godliness, if in the Father he sees the Son, without Whom the 
Father neither is nor is named. But if he is inventing some other God besides 
the Father, let him dispute with the Jews or with those who are called 
Hypsistiani, between whom and the Christians there is this difference, that 
they acknowledge that there is a God Whom they term the Highest (8) or 
Almighty, but do not admit that he is Father; while a Christian, if he believe 
not in the Father, is no Christian at all. 

6. He then shows the unity of the Son with the gather and Eunomius' lack of 
understanding and knowledge in tire Scriptures. 

    What he adds next after this is as follows :-"Having no sharer," he says, 
"in His Godhead, no divider of His glory, none who has lot in His power, or 
part in His royal throne: for He is the one and only God, the Almighty, God of 
Gods, King of Kings, Lord of Lords." I know not to whom Eunomius refers when 
he protests that the Father admits none to share His Godhead with Himself. For 
if he uses such expressions with reference to vain idols and to the erroneous 
conceptions of those who worship them (even as Paul assures us that there is 
no agreement between Christ and Belial, and no fellowship between the temple 



107 

of God and idols (9)) we agree with him. But if by these assertions he means 
to sever the Only-begotten God from the Godhead of the Father, let him be 
informed that he is providing us with a dilemma that may be turned against 
himself to refute his own impiety. For either he denies the Only-begotten God 
to be God at all, that he may preserve for the Father those prerogatives of 
deity which (according to him) are incapable of being shared with the Son, and 
thus is convicted as a transgressor by denying the God Whom Christians 
worship, or if he were to grant that the Son also is God, yet not agreeing in 
nature with the true God, he would be necessarily obliged to acknowledge that 
he maintains Gods sundered from one another by the difference of their 
natures. Let him choose which of these he will,--either to deny the Godhead of 
the Son, or to introduce into his creed a plurality of Gods. For whichever of 
these he chooses, it is all one as regards impiety: for we who are initiated 
into  the mystery of godliness by the Divinely inspired words of the Scripture 
do not see between the Father and the Son a partnership of Godhead, but unity, 
inasmuch as the Lord hath taught us this by His own words, when He saith, "I 
and the Father are one (1)," and "he that bath seen Me hath seen the Father 
(2)." For if He were not of the same nature as the Father, how could He either 
have had in Himself that which was different (3)? or how could He have shown 
in Himself that which was unlike, if the foreign and alien nature did not 
receive the stamp of that which was of a different kind from itself? But he 
says, "nor has He a divider of His glory." Herein he speaks in accordance with 
the fact,  even though he does not know what he is saying: for the Son does 
not divide the glory 

with the Father, but has the glory of the Father 

in its entirety, even as the Father has all the glory of the Son. For thus He 
spake to the Father "All Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine (3)." Wherefore 
also He says that He will appear on the Judgment Day "in the glory of the 
Father (4)," when He will render to every man according to his works. And by 
this phrase He shows the unity of nature that subsists between them. For as 
"there is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon (5)," because of 
the difference between the natures of those luminaries (since if both had the 
same glory there would not be deemed to be any difference in their nature), so 
He Who foretold of Himself that He would appear in the glory of the Father 
indicated by the identity of glory their community of nature. 

 But to say that the Son has no part in His Father's royal throne argues an 
extraordinary amount of research into the oracles of God on the part of 
Eunomius, who, after his extreme devotion to the inspired Scriptures, has not 
yet heard, "Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the 
right hand of God (6)," and many similar passages, of which it would not be 
easy to reckon up the number, but which Eunomius has never learnt, and so 
denies that the Son is enthroned together with the Father. Again the phrase, 
"not having lot in his power," we should rather pass by as un-meaning than 
confute as ungodly. For what sense is attached to the term "having lot" is 

 not easy to discover from the common use of the word. Those cast lots, as the 
Scripture tells us, for the Lord's vesture, who were unwilling to rend His 
garment, but disposed to make it over to that one of their number in whose 
favour the lot should decide (7). They then who thus cast lots among 
themselves for the "coat" may be said, perhaps, to "have had lot" in it. But 
here in the case of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as Their 
power resides in Their nature (for the Holy Spirit breathes "where He listeth 
(8)," and "worketh all in all as He will (9)," and the Son, by Whom all things 
were made, visible and invisible, in heaven and in earth, "did all things 
whatsoever He pleased (1)," and "quickeneth whom He will (2)," and the Father 
put "the times in His own powers (3)," while from the mention of "times" we 
conclude that all things done in time are subject to the power I of the 
Father), if, I say, it has been demonstrated that the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Spirit alike are in a position of power to do what They will, it is 
impossible to see what sense there can be in the phrase "having lot in His 
power." For the heir of all things, the maker of the ages (4), He Who shines 
with the Father's glory and expresses in Himself the Father's person, has all 
things that the Father Himself has, and is possessor of all His power, not 
that the right is transferred from the Father to the Son, but that it at once 
remains in the Father and resides in the Son. For He Who is in the Father is 
manifestly in the Father with all His own might, and He Who has the Father in 
Himself includes all the power and might of the Father. For He has in Himself 
all the Father, and not merely a part of Him: and He Who has Him entirely 
assuredly has His power as well. With what meaning, then, Eunomius asserts 
that the Father has "none who has lot in His power," those 

103 

perhaps can tell who are disciples of his folly one who knows how to 
appreciate language confesses that he cannot understand phrases divorced from 
meaning. The Father, he says, "has none Who has lot in His power." Why, who is 
there that says that the Father and Son contend together for power and cast 
lots to decide the matter? But the holy Eunomius comes as mediator between 
them and by a friendly agreement without lot assigns to the Father the 
superiority in power. 

    Mark, I pray you, the absurdity and childishness of this grovelling 
exposition of his articles of faith. What!  He Who "upholds all things by the 
word of His power (5)," Who says what He wills to be done, and does what He 
wills by the very power of that command, He Whose power lags not behind His 
will and Whose will is the measure of His power (for "He spake the word and 
they were made, He commanded and they were created 6"), He Who made all things 
by Himself, and made them consist in Himself (7), without Whom no existing 
thing either came into being or remains in being,--He it is Who waits to 
obtain His power by some process of allotment! Judge you who hear whether the 
man who talks like this is in his senses. "For He is the one and only God, the 
Almighty," he says. If by the title of "Almighty" he intends the Father, the 
language he uses is ours, and no strange language: but if he means some other 
God than the Father, let our patron of Jewish doctrines preach circumcision 
too, if he pleases. For the Faith of Christians is directed to the Father. And 
the Father is all these--Highest, Almighty, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, 
and in a word all terms of highest significance are proper to the Father. But 
all that is the Father's is the Son's also; so that, on this understanding 
(8), we admit this phrase too. But if, leaving the Father, he speaks of 
another Almighty, he is speaking the language of the Jews or following the 
speculations of Plato,-for they say that that philosopher also affirms that 
there exists on high a maker and creator of certain subordinate gods. As then 
in the case of the Jewish and Platonic opinions he who does not believe in God 
the Father is not a Christian, even though in his creed he asserts an Almighty 
God, so Eunomius also falsely pretends to the name of Christian, being in 
inclination a Jew, or asserting the doctrines of the Greeks while putting on 
the guise of the title borne by Christians. And with regard to the next points 

he asserts the same account will apply. He says He is "God of Gods." We make 
the declaration our own by adding the name of the Father, knowing that the 
Father is God of Gods. But all that belongs to the Father certainly belongs 
also to the Son. "And Lord of Lords." The same account will apply to this. 
"And Most High over all the earth." Yes, for whichever of the Three Persons 
you are thinking of, He is Most High over all the earth, inasmuch as the 
oversight of earthly things from on high is exercised alike by the Father, and 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So, too, with what follows the words above, "Most 
High in the heavens, Most High in the highest, Heavenly, true in being what He 
is, and so continuing, true in words, true in works." Why, all these things 
the Christian eye discerns alike in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
If Eunomius does assign them to one only of the Persons acknowledged in the 
creed, let him dare to call Him "not true in words" Who has said, "I am the 
Truth (9)," or to call the Spirit of truth "not true in words," or let him 
refuse to give the title of "true in works" to Him Who doeth righteousness and 
judgment, or to the Spirit Who worketh all in all as He will. For if he does 
not acknowledge that these attributes belong to the Persons delivered to us in 
the creed, he is absolutely cancelling the creed of Christians. For how shall 
any one think Him a worthy object of faith Who is false in words and untrue in 
works. 

    But let us proceed to what follows. "Above all rule, subjection and 
authority," he says. This language is ours, and belongs properly to the 
Catholic Church,--to believe that the Divine nature is above all rule, and 
that it has in subordination to itself everything that can be conceived among 
existing things. But the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost constitute the 
Divine nature. If he assigns this property to the Father alone, and if he 
affirms Him alone to be free from variableness and change, and if he says that 
He alone is undefiled, the inference that we are meant to draw is plain, 
namely, that He who has not these characteristics is variable, corruptible, 
subject to change and decay. This, then, is what Eunomius asserts of the Son 
and the Holy Spirit: for if he did not hold this opinion concerning the Son 
and the Spirit, he would not have employed this opposition, contrasting the 
Father with them. For the rest, brethren, judge whether, with these 
sentiments, he is not a persecutor of the Christian faith. For who will allow 
it to be right to deem that a fitting object of reverence which varies, 
changes, and 

109 

is subject to decay? So then the whole aim of  one who flames such notions as 
these,--notions by which he makes out that neither the Truth nor the Spirit of 
Truth is undefiled, unvarying, or unchangeable,--is to expel from the Church 
the belief in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. 

 7. Gregory further shows that the Only-begotten being begotten not only of 
the Father, but also impassibly of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost, does not 
divide the substance; seeing that neither is the nature of then divided or 
severed from the parents by being begotten, as is ingeniously demonstrated 
from the instances of Adam and Abraham. 

    And now let us see what he adds to his previous statements. "Not 
dividing," he says, "His own essence by begetting, and being at once begetter 
and begotten, at the same time Father and Son; for He is incorruptible." Of 
such a kind as this, perhaps, is that of which the prophet says, touching the 
ungodly, "They weave a spider's web (1)." For as in the cobweb there is the 
appearance of something woven, but no substantiality in the appearance, --for 
he who touches it touches nothing substantial, as the spider's threads break 
with the touch of a finger,--just such is the unsubstantial texture of idle 
phrases. "Not dividing His own essence by begetting and being at once begetter 
and begotten." Ought we to give his words the name of argument, or to call 
them rather a swelling of humours secreted by some dropsical inflation? For 
what is the sense of "dividing His own essence by begetting, and being at once 
begetter and begotten?" Who is so distracted, who is so demented, as to make 
the statement against which Eunomius thinks he is doing battle? For the Church 
believes that the true Father is truly Father of His own Son, as the Apostle 
says, not of a Son alien from Him. For thus he declares in one of his 
Epistles, "Who spared not His own Son (2)," distinguishing Him, by the 
addition of "own," from those who are counted worthy of the adoption of sons 
by grace and not by nature. But what says He who disparages this belief of 
ours? "Not dividing His own essence by begetting, or being at once begetter 
and begotten, at the same time Father and Son; for He is incorruptible." Does 
one who hears in the Gospel that the Word was in the beginning, and was God, 
and that the Word came forth from the Father, so befoul the undefiled doctrine 
with these base and fetid ideas, saying "He does not divide His essence by 
begetting?" Shame on the abomination of these base and 

 filthy notions! How is it that he who speaks thus fails to understand that 
God when manifested in flesh did not admit for the formation of His own body 
the conditions of human  nature, but was born for us a Child by the Holy Ghost 
and the power of the Highest; nor was the Virgin subject to those conditions, 
nor was the Spirit diminished, nor the power of the Highest divided? For the 
Spirit is entire, the power of the Highest remained undiminished: the Child 
was born in the fulness of our nature (3), and did not sully the incorruption 
of His mother. Then was flesh born of flesh without carnal passion: yet 
Eunomius will not admit that the brightness of the glory is from the glory 
itself, since the glory is neither diminished nor divided by begetting the 
light. Again, the word of man is generated from his mind without division, but 
God the Word cannot be generated from the Father without the essence of the 
Father being divided! Is any one so witless as not to perceive the irrational 
character of his position? "Not dividing," quoth he, "His own essence by 
begetting." Why, whose own essence is divided by begetting? For in the case of 
men essence means human nature: in the case of brutes, it means, generically, 
brute nature, but in the case of cattle, sheep, and all brute animals, 
specifically, it is regarded according to the distinctions of their kinds. 
Which, then, of these divides its own essence by the process of generation? 
Does not the nature always remain undiminished in the case of every animal by 
the succession of its posterity? Further a man in begetting a man from himself 
does not divide his nature, but it remains in its fulness alike in him who 
begets and in him who is begotten, not split off and transferred from the one 
to the other, nor mutilated in the one when it is fully formed in the other, 
but at once existing in its entirety in the former and discoverable in its 
entirety in the latter. For both before begetting his child the man was a 
rational animal, mortal, capable of intelligence and knowledge, and also after 
be-getting a man endowed with such qualities: so that in him are shown all the 
special properties of his nature; as he does not lose his existence as a man 
by begetting the man derived from him, but remains after that event what he 
was before without causing any diminution of the nature derived from him by 
the fact that the man derived from him comes into being. 

    Well, man is begotten of man, and the nature of the begetter is not 
divided. Yet Eunomius does not admit that the Only-begotten God, Who is in the 
bosom of the Father, is truly of the Father, for fear forsooth, lest he should 
muti- 

110 

late the inviolable nature of the Father by the subsistence of the 
Only-begotten: but after saying "Not dividing His essence by begetting," be 
adds, "Or being Himself begetter and begotten, or Himself becoming Father and 
Son (4)," and thinks by such loose disjointed phrases to undermine the true 
confession of godliness or to furnish some support to his own ungodliness, not 
being aware that by the very means he uses to construct a reductio ad absurdum 
he is discovered to be an advocate of the truth. For we too say that He who 
has all that belongs to His own Father is all that He is, save being Father, 
and that He who has all that belongs to the Son exhibits in Himself the Son in 
His completeness, save being Son: so that the reductio ad absurdum, which 
Eunomius here invents, turns out to be a support of the truth, when the notion 
is expanded by us so as to display it more clearly, under the guidance of the 
Gospel. For if "he that hath seen the Son seeth the Fathers" then the Father 
begat another self, not passing out of Himself, and at the same time appearing 
in His fulness in Him: so that from these considerations that which seemed to 
have been uttered against godliness is demonstrated to be a support of sound 
doctrine. 

    But he says, "Not dividing His own essence by begetting, and being at once 
begetter and begotten, at the same time Father and Son; for He is 
incorruptible." Most cogent conclusion! What do you mean, most sapient sir? 
Because He is incorruptible, therefore He does not divide His own essence by 
begetting the Son: nor does He beget Himself or be begotten of Himself, nor 
become at the same time His own Father and His own Son because He is 
incorruptible. It follows then, that if any one is of corruptible nature he 
divides his essence by begetting, and is begotten by himself, and begets 
himself, and is his own father and his own son, because he is not 
incorruptible. If this is so, then Abraham, because he was corruptible, did 
not beget Ishmael and Isaac, but begat himself by the bondwoman and by his 
lawful wife or, to take the other mountebank tricks of the argument, he 
divided his essence among the sons who were begotten of him, and first, when 
Hagar bore him a son, he was divided into two sections, and in one of the 
halves became Ishmael, while in the other he remained half Abraham; and 
subsequently the residue of the essence of Abraham being again divided took 
subsistence in Isaac. Accordingly the fourth part of the essence of Abraham 
was divided into the twin sons of Isaac, so that there 

was an eighth in each of his grandchildren! How could one subdivide the eighth 
part, cutting it small in fractions among the twelve Patriarchs, or among the 
threescore and fifteen souls with whom Jacob went down into Egypt? And why do 
I talk thus when I really ought to confute the folly of such notions by 
beginning with the first man? For if it is a property of the incorruptible 
only not to divide its essence in begetting, and if Adam was corruptible, to 
whom the word was spoken, "Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return (6)," 
then, according to Eunomius' reasoning, he certainly divided his essence, 
being cut up among those who were begotten of him, and by reason of the vast 
number of his posterity (the slice of his essence which is to be found in each 
being necessarily subdivided according to the number of his progeny), the 
essence of Adam is used up before Abraham began to subsist, being dispersed in 
these minute and infinitesimal particles among the countless myriads of his 
descendants, and the minute fragment of Adam that has reached Abraham and his 
descendants by a process of division, is no longer discoverable in them as a 
remnant of his essence, inasmuch as his nature has been already used up among 
the countless myriads of those who were before them by its division into 
infinitesimal fractions. Mark the folly of him who "understands neither what 
he says nor whereof he affirms (7)." For by saying "Since He is incorruptible" 
He neither divides His essence nor begets Himself nor becomes His own father, 
he implicitly lays it down that we must suppose all those things from which he 
affirms that the incorruptible alone are free to be incidental to generation 
in the case of every one who is subject to corruption. Though there are many 
other considerations capable of proving the inanity of his argument, I think 
that what has been said above is sufficient to demonstrate its absurdity. But 
this has surely been already acknowledged by all who have an eye for logical 
consistency, that, when he asserted incorruptibility of the Father alone, he 
places all things which are considered after the Father in the category of 
corruptible, by virtue of opposition to the incorruptible, so as to make out 
even the Son not to be free from corruption. If then he places the Son in 
opposition to the incorruptible, he not only defines Him to be corruptible, 
but also asserts of Him all those incidents from which he affirms only the 
incorruptible to be exempt. For it necessarily follows that, if the Father 
alone neither begets Himself nor is begotten of Himself, everything which is 
not incorruptible both begets itself 

111 

and is begotten of itself, and becomes its own father and son, shifting from 
its own proper essence to each of these relations. For if to be incorruptible 
belongs to the Father alone, and if not to be the things specified is a 
special property of the incorruptible, then, of course, according to this 
heretical argument, the Son is not incorruptible, and all these circumstances 
of course, find place about Him,--to have His essence divided, to beget 
Himself and to be begotten by Himself, to become Himself His own father and 
His own son. 

    Perhaps, however, it is waste of time to linger long over such follies. 
Let us pass to the next point of his statement. He adds to what he had already 
said, "Not standing in need, in the act of creation, of matter or parts or 
natural instruments: for He stands in need of nothing." This proposition, 
though Eunomitts states it with a certain looseness of phrase, we yet do not 
reject as inconsistent with godly doctrine. For learning as we do that "He 
spake the word and they were made: He commanded and they were created (8),"  
we know that  the Word is the Creator of matter, by that very act also 
producing with the matter the qualities  of matter, so that for Him the 
impulse of His  almighty will was everything and instead of everything, 
matter, instrument, place, time, essence, quality, everything that is 
conceived in creation. For at one and the same time did He will that that 
which ought to be should be, and His power, that produced all things that are, 
kept pace with His will, turning His will into act. For thus the mighty Moses 
in the record of creation instructs us about the Divine power, ascribing the 
production of each of the objects that were manifested in the creation to the 
words that bade them be. For "God said," he tells us, "Let there be light, and 
there was light (9):" and so about the rest, without any mention either of 
matter or of any instrumental agency. Accordingly the language of Eunomius on 
this point is not to be rejected. For God, when creating all things that have 
their origin by creation, neither stood in need of any matter on which to 
operate, nor of instruments to aid Him in His construction: for the power and 
wisdom of God has no need of any external assistance. But Christ is "the Power 
of God and the Wisdom of God (1)," by Whom all things were made and without 
Whom is no existent thing, as John testifies (2). If, then, all things were 
made by Him, both visible and invisible, and if His will alone suffices to 
effect the subsistence of existing things (for His will is power), Eunomius 
utters our doctrine though with a loose mode of expres- 

 sion (3). For what instrument and what matter could He Who upholds all thinsg 
by the word of His power (4) need in upholding the constitution of existing 
things by His almighty word? But if he maintains that what we have believed to 
be true of the Only-begotten in the case of the creation, is true also in the 
case of the Son --in the sense that the Father created Him in like manner as 
the creation was made by the Son,--then we retract our former statement, 
because such a supposition is a denial of the Godhead of the Only-begotten. 
For we have learnt from the mighty utterance of Paul that it is the 
distinguishing feature of idolatry to worship and serve the creature more than 
the Creator (5), as well as from David, when He says "There shall no new God 
be in thee: neither shalt thou worship any alien God (6)." We use this line 
and rule to arrive at the discernment of the object of worship, so as to be 
convinced that that alone is God which is neither "new" nor "alien." Since 
then we have been taught to believe that the Only-begotten God is God, we 
acknowledge, by our belief that He is God, that He is neither "new" or 
"alien." If, then, He is God, He is not "new," and if He is not new, He is 
assuredly eternal. Accordingly, neither is the Eternal "new," nor is He Who is 
of the Father and in the bosom of the Father and Who has the Father in Himself 
"alien" from true Deity. Thus he who severs the Son from the nature of the 
Father either absolutely disallows the worship of the Son, that he may not 
worship an alien God, or bows down before an idol, making a creature and not 
God the object of his worship, and giving to his idol the name of Christ. 

    Now that this is the meaning to which he tends in his conception 
concerning the Only-begotten will become more plain by considering the 
language he employs touching the Only-begotten Himself, which is as follows. 
"We believe also in the Son of God, the Only-begotten God, the first-born of 
all creation, very Son, not ungenerate, verily begotten before the worlds, 
named Son not without being begotten before He existed, coming into being 
before all creation, not un-create." I think that the mere reading of his 
exposition of his faith is quite sufficient to render its impiety plain 
without any investigation on our part. For though he calls Him "first-born," 
yet that he may not raise any 

112 

doubt in his readers' minds as to His not being created, he immediately adds 
the words, "not uncreate," lest if the natural significance of the term "Son" 
were apprehended by his readers, any pious conception concerning Him might 
find place in their minds. It is for this reason that after at first 
confessing Him to be SOn of God and Only-begotten God, he proceeds at once, by 
what he adds, to pervert the minds of his readers from their devout belief to 
his heretical notions. For he who hears the titles "Son of God" and 
"Only-begotten God" is of necessity lifted up to the loftier kind of 
assertions respecting the Son, led onward by the significance of these terms, 
inasmuch as no difference of nature is introduced by the use of the title 
"God" and by the significance of the term "Son." For how could He Who is truly 
the Son of God and Himself God be conceived as something else differing from 
the nature of the Father? But that godly conceptions may not by these names be 
impressed beforehand on the hearts of his readers, he forthwith calls Him "the 
first-born of all creation, named Son, not without being begotten before He 
existed, coming into being before all creation, not uncreate." Let us linger a 
little while, then, over his argument, that the miscreant may be shown to be 
holding out his first statements to people merely as a bait to induce them to 
receive the poison that he sugars over with phrases of a pious tendency, as it 
were with honey. Who does not know how great is the difference in 
signification between. the term "only-begotten "and "first-born?" For 
"first-born" implies brethren, and "only-begotten" implies that there are no 
other brethren. Thus the "first-born" is not "only-begotten," for certainly 
"first-born" is the first-born among brethren, while he who is "only-begotten" 
has no brother: for if he were numbered among brethren he would not be 
only-begotten. And moreover, whatever the essence of the brothers of the 
first-born is, the same is the essence of the first-born himself. Nor is this 
all that is signified by the title, but also that the first-born and those 
born after him draw their being from the same source, without the first born 
contributing at all to the birth of those that come after him: so that hereby 
(7) is maintained the falsehood of that statement of John, which affirms that 
"all things were made by Him (8)." For if He is first-born, He differs from 
those born after Him only by priority in time, while there must be some one 
else by Whom the power to be at all is imparted alike to Him and to the rest. 
But that we may not by our objections give any unfair opponent ground for 

an insinuation that we do not receive the inspired utterances of Scripture, we 
will first set before our readers our own view about these titles, and then 
leave it to their judgment which is the better. 

 8. He further very appositely expounds the meaning of the term 
"Only-begotten," and of the term "First born," four times used by the Apostle. 

    The mighty Paul, knowing that the Only-begotten God, Who has the 
pre-eminence in all things (9), is the author and cause of all good, bears 
witness to Him that not only was the creation of all existent things wrought 
by Him, but that when the original creation of man had decayed and vanished 
away (1), to use his own language, and another new creation was wrought in 
Christ, in this too no other than He took the lead, but He is Himself the 
first-born of all that new creation of men which is effected by the Gospel. 
And that our view about this may be made clearer let us thus divide our 
argument. The inspired apostle on four occasions employs this term, once as 
here, calling Him, "first-born of all creation (2)," another time, "the 
first-born among many brethren (3)," again, "first-born from the dead (4)," 
and on another occasion he employs the term absolutely, without combining it 
with other words, saying, "But when again He bringeth the first-born into the 
world, He saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him (5)." Accordingly 
whatever view we entertain concerning this title in the other combinations, 
the same we shall in consistency apply to the phrase "first-born of all 
creation." For since the title is one and the same it must needs be that the 
meaning conveyed is also one. In what sense then does He become "the 
first-born among many brethren?" in what sense does He become "the first-born 
from the dead?" Assuredly this is plain, that because we are by birth flesh 
and blood, as the Scripture saith, "He Who for our sakes was born among us and 
was partaker of flesh and blood (6)," purposing to change us from corruption 
to incorruption by the birth from above, the birth by water and the Spirit, 
Himself led the way in this birth, drawing down upon the water, by His own 
baptism, the Holy Spirit; so that in all things He became the first-born of 
those who are spiritually born again, and gave the name of brethren to those 
who partook in a birth like to His own by water and the Spirit. But since it 
was also meet that He should 



113 

implant in our nature the power of rising again from the dead, He becomes the 
"first-fruits of them that slept(7) " and the "first-born from the dead(8)," 
in that He first by His own act loosed the pains of death(9), so that His new 
birth from the dead was made a way for us also, since the pains of death, 
wherein we were held, were loosed by the resurrection of the Lord. Thus, just 
as by having shared in the washing of regeneration(1) He became "the 
first-born among many brethren," and again by having made Himself the 
first-fruits of the resurrection, He obtains the name of the "first-born from 
the dead," so having in all things the pre-eminence, after that "all old 
things," as the apostle says, "have passed away(2)," He becomes the first-born 
of the new creation of men in Christ by the two-fold regeneration, alike that 
by Holy Baptism and that which is the consequence of the resurrection from the 
dead, becoming for us in both alike the Prince of Life(3), the first-fruits, 
the first-born. This first-born, then, hath also brethren, concerning whom He 
speaks to Mary, saying, "Go and tell My brethren, I go to My Father and your 
Father, and to My God and your God(4)." In these words He sums up the whole 
aim of His dispensation as Man. For men revolted front God, and "served them 
which by nature were no gods(5)," and though being the children of God became 
attached to an evil father falsely so called. For this cause the mediator 
between God and man(6) having assumed the first-fruits of all human nature(7), 
sends to His brethren the announcement of Himself not in His divine character, 
but in that which He shares with us, saying, "I am departing in order to make 
by My own self that true Father, from whom you were separated, to be your 
Father, and by My own self to make that true God from whom you had revolted to 
be your God, for by that first-fruits which I have assumed, I am in Myself 
presenting all humanity to its God and Father." 

    Since, then, the first-fruits made the true God to be its God, and the 
good Father to be its Father, the blessing is secured for human nature as a 
whole, and by means of the first-fruits the true God and Father becomes Father 
and God of all men. Now "if the first-fruits be holy, the lump also is 
holy(8)." But where the first-fruits, Christ, is (and the first-fruits is none 
other than Christ), there also are they that are Christ's, as the apostle 
says. In those passages therefore where he makes mention of the "first-born" 
in connexion with other words, he suggests that we should understand the 
phrase in the way which I have indicated: but where, without any such 
addition, he says, "When again He bringeth the first-born into the world(9)," 
the addition of "again" asserts that manifestation of the Lord of all which 
shall take place at the last day. For as "at the name of Jesus every knee doth 
bow, of things  in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth(1)," 
although the human name does not belong to the Son in that He is above every 
name, even so He says that the First-born, Who was so named for our sakes, is 
worshipped by all the supramundane creation, on His coming again into the 
world, when He "shall judge the world with righteousness and the people with 
equity(2).'' Thus the several meanings of the titles "First-born" and "Only 
begotten" are kept distinct by the word of godliness, its respective 
significance being secured for each name. But how can he who refers the name 
of "first-born" to the pre-temporal existence of the Son preserve the proper 
sense of the term "Only-begotten"? Let the discerning reader consider whether 
these things agree with one another, when the term "first-born" necessarily 
implies brethren, and the term "Only-begotten" as necessarily excludes the 
notion of brethren. For when the Scripture says, "In the beginning was the 
Word(3)," we understand the Only-begotten to be meant, and when it adds "the 
Word was made flesh(4)" we thereby receive in our minds the idea of the 
first-born, and so the word of godliness remains without confusion, preserving 
to each name its natural significance, so that in "Only-begotten" we regard 
the pre-temporal, and by "the first-born of creation" the manifestation of the 
pre-temporal in the flesh. 

   9. Gregory again discusses the generation of the Only-begotten, and other 
different modes of generation, material and immaterial, and nobly demonstrates 
that the Son is the brightness of the Divine glory, and not a creature. 

    And now let us return once more to the precise statement of Eunomius. "We 
believe also in the Son of God, the only begotten God, the first-born of all 
creation, very Son, not Un-generate, verily begotten before the worlds." 

114 

That he transfers, then, the sense of generation to indicate creation is plain 
from his expressly calling Him created, when he speaks of Him as "coming into 
being" and "not uncreate". But that the inconsiderate rashness and want of 
training which shows itself in the doctrines may be made manifest, let us omit 
all expressions of indignation at his evident blasphemy, and employ in the 
discussion of this matter a scientific division. For it would be well, I 
think, to consider in a somewhat careful investigation the exact meaning of 
the term "generation." That this expression conveys the meaning of existing as 
the result of some cause is plain to all, and I suppose there is no need to 
contend about this point: but since there are different modes of existing as 
the result of a cause, this difference is what I think ought to receive 
thorough explanation in our discussion by means of scientific division. Of 
things which have come into being as the results of some cause we recognize 
the following differences. Some are the result of material and art, as the 
fabrics of houses and all other works produced by means of their respective 
material, where some art gives direction and conducts its purpose to its 
proper aim. Others are the result of material and nature; for nature orders(5) 
the generation of animals one from another, effecting her own work by means of 
the material subsistence in the bodies of the parents; others again are by 
material efflux. In these the original remains as it was before, and that 
which flows from it is contemplated by itself, as in the case of the sun and 
its beam, or the lamp and its radiance, or of scents and ointments, and the 
quality given off from them. For these, while remaining undiminished in 
themselves, have each accompanying them the special and peculiar effect which 
they naturally produce, as the sun his ray, the lamp its brightness, and 
perfumes the fragrance which they engender in the air. There is also another 
kind of generation besides these, where the cause is immaterial and 
incorporeal, but the generation is sensible and takes place through the 
instrumentality of the body; I mean the generation of the word by the mind. 
For the mind being in itself incorporeal begets the word by means of sensible 
instruments. So many are the differences of the term generation, which we 
discover in a philosophic view of them, that is itself, so to speak, the 
result of generation. 

    And now that we have thus distinguished the various modes of generation, 
it will be time to remark how the benevolent dispensation of the Holy Spirit, 
in delivering to us the Divine mysteries, imparts that instruction which 
transcends reason by such methods as we can receive. For the inspired teaching 
adopts, in order to set forth the unspeakable power of God, all the forms of 
generation that human intelligence recognizes, yet without including the 
corporeal senses attaching to the words. For when it speaks of the creative 
power, it gives to such an energy the name of generation, because its 
expression must stoop to our low capacity; it does not, however, convey 
thereby all that we include in creative generation, as time, place, the 
furnishing of matter, the fitness of instruments, the design in the things 
that come into being, but it leaves these, and asserts of God in lofty and 
magnificent  language the creation of all existent things, when it says, "He 
spake the word and they  were made(6), He commanded and they were created." 
Again when it interprets to us the unspeakable and transcendent existence of 
the Only-begotten from the Father, as the poverty of human intellect is 
incapable of receiving doctrines which surpass all power of speech and 
thought, there too it borrows our language and terms Him "Son,"--a name which 
our usage assigns to those who are born of matter and nature. But just as 
Scripture, when speaking of generation by creation, does not in the case of 
God imply that such generation took place by means of any material, affirming 
that the power of God's will served for material substance, place, time and 
all such circumstances, even so here too, when using the term Son, it rejects 
both all else that human nature remarks in generation here below,--I mean 
affections and dispositions and the co-operation of time, and the necessity of 
place,--and, above all, matter, without all which natural generation here 
below does not take place. But when all such material, temporal and local(7) 
existence is excluded from the sense of the term "Son," community of nature 
alone is left, and for this reason by the title "Son" is declared, concerning 
the Only-begotten, the close affinity and genuineness of relationship which 
mark His manifestation from the Father. And since such a kind of generation 
was not sufficient to implant in us an adequate notion of the ineffable mode 
of subsistence of the Only-begotten, Scripture avails itself also of the third 
kind of generation to indicate the doctrine of the Son's Divinity,--that kind, 
namely, which is the result of material efflux, and speaks of Him as the 
"brightness of glory(8)," the "savour of ointment(9)," the "breath 

115 

of God(1);" illustrations which in the scientific phraseology we have adopted 
we ordinarily designate as material efflux. 

    But as in the cases alleged neither the birth of the creation nor the 
force of the term "Son" admits time, matter, place, or affection, so here too 
the Scripture employing only the illustration of effulgence and the others 
that I have mentioned, apart from all material conception, with regard to the 
Divine fitness of such a mode of generation, shows that we must understand by 
the significance of this expression, an existence at once derived from and 
subsisting with the Father. For neither is the figure of breath intended to 
convey to us the notion of dispersion into the air from the material from 
which it is formed, nor is the figure of fragrance designed to express the 
passing off of the quality of the ointment into the air, nor the figure of 
effulgence the efflux which takes place by means of the rays from the body of 
the sun: but as has been said in all cases, by such a mode of generation is 
indicated this alone, that the Son is of the Father and is conceived of along 
with Him, no interval intervening between the Father and Him Who is of the 
Father. For since of His exceeding loving-kindness the grace of the Holy 
Spirit so ordered that the divine conceptions concerning the Only-begotten 
should reach us from many quarters, and so be implanted in us, He added also 
the remaining kind of generation,--that, namely, of the word from the mind. 
And here the sublime John uses remarkable foresight. That the reader might not 
through inattention and unworthy conceptions sink to the common notion of 
"word," so as to deem the Son to be merely a voice of the Father, he therefore 
affirms of the Word that He essentially subsisted in the first and blessed 
nature Itself, thus proclaiming aloud, "In the Beginning was the Word, and 
with God, and God, and Light, and Life(2)," and all that the Beginning is, the 
Word was also. 

    Since, then, these kinds of generation, those, I mean, which arise as the 
result of some cause, and are recognized in our every-day experience, are also 
employed by Holy Scripture to convey its teaching concerning transcendent 
mysteries in such wise as each of them may reasonably be transferred to the 
expression of divine conceptions, we may now proceed to examine Eunomius' 
statement also, to find in what sense he accepts the meaning of "generation." 
"Very Son," he says, "not ungenerate, verily begotten before the worlds." One 
may, I think, pass quickly over the violence done to logical sequence in his 
distinction, as being easily recognizable by all. For who does not know that 
while the proper opposition is between Father and Son, between generate and 
ungenerate, he thus passes over the term "Father" and sets "ungenerate" in 
opposition to "Son," whereas he ought, if he had any concern for truth, to 
have avoided diverting his phrase from the due sequence of relationship, and 
to have said, "Very Son, not Father"? And in this way due regard would have 
been paid at once to piety and to logical consistency,  as the nature would 
not have been rent asunder in making the distinction between the persons. But 
he has exchanged in his statement of his faith the true and scriptural use of 
the term "Father," committed to us by the Word Himself, and speaks of the 
"Ungenerate" instead of the "Father," in order that by separating Him from 
that close relationship towards the Son which is naturally conceived of in the 
title of Father, he may place Him on a common level with all created objects, 
which equally stand in opposition to the "ungenerate(3)." "Verily begotten," 
he says, "before the worlds." Let him say of Whom He is begotten. He will 
answer, of course, "Of the Father," unless he is prepared unblushingly to 
contradict the truth. But since it is impossible to detach the eternity of the 
Son from the eternal Father, seeing that the term "Father" by its very 
signification implies the Son, for this reason it is that he rejects the title 
Father and shifts his phrase to "ungenerate," since the meaning of this latter 
name has no sort of relation or connection with the Son, and by thus 
misleading his readers through the substitution of one term for the other, 
into not contemplating the Son along with the Father, he opens up a path for 
his sophistry, paving the way of impiety by slipping in the term "ungenerate." 
For they who according to the ordinance of the Lord believe in the Father, 
when they hear the name of the Father, receive the Son along with Him in their 
thought, as the mind passes from the Son to the Father, without treading on an 
unsubstantial vacuum interposed between them. But those who are diverted to 
the title "ungenerate" instead of Father, get a bare notion of this name, 
learning only the fact that He did not at any time come into being, not that 
He is Father. Still, even with this mode of conception, the faith of those who 
read with discernment remains free from confusion. For the expression ''not to 
come into being" is used in an identical sense of all uncreated nature: and 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are equally uncreated. For it has ever been 
believed by 

116 

those who follow the Divine word that all the creation, sensible and 
supramundane, derives its existence from the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost. He who has heard that "by the word of the Lord were the heavens made, 
and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth(4)," neither understands 
by "word" mere utterance, nor by "breath" mere exhalation, but by what is 
there said frames the conception of God the Word and of the Spirit of God. Now 
to create and to be created are not equivalent, but all existent things being 
divided into that which makes and that which is made, each is different in 
nature from the other, so that neither is that uncreated which is made, nor is 
that created which effects the production of the things that are made. By 
those then who, according to the exposition of the faith given us by our Lord 
Himself, have believed in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost, it is acknowledged that each of these Persons is alike 
unoriginate(5), and the meaning conveyed by "ungenerate" does no harm to their 
sound belief: but to those who are dense and indefinite this term serves as  a 
starting-point for deflection from sound doctrine. For not understanding the 
true force of the term, that "ungenerate" signifies nothing more than "not 
having come into being," and that "not coming into being" is a common property 
of all that transcends created nature, they drop their faith in the Father, 
and substitute for "Father" the phrase "ungenerate :" and since, as has been 
said, the Personal existence of the Only-begotten is not connoted in this 
name, they determine the existence of the Son to have commenced from some 
definite beginning in time, affirming (what Eunomius here adds to his previous 
statements) that He is called Son not without generation preceding His 
existence. 

    What is this vain juggling with words? Is he aware that it is God of Whom 
he speaks, Who was in the beginning and is in the Father, nor was there any 
time when He was not? He knows not what he says nor whereof he affirms(6), but 
he endeavours, as though he were constructing the pedigree of a mere man, to 
apply to the Lord of all creation the language which properly belongs to our 
nature here below. For, to take an example, Ishmael was not before the 
generation that brought him into being, and before his birth there was of 
course an interval of time. But with Him Who is "the brightness of glory(7)," 
"before" and "after" have no place: for before the brightness, of course 
neither was there any glory, for concurrently with the existence of the glory 
there assuredly beams forth its brightness; and it is impossible in the nature 
of things that one should be severed from the other, nor is it possible to see 
the glory by itself before its brightness. For he who says thus will make out 
the glory in itself to be darkling and dim, if the brightness from it does not 
shine out at the same time. But this is the unfair method of the heresy, to 
endeavour, by the notions and terms employed concerning the Only-begotten God, 
to displace Him from His oneness with the Father. It is to this end they say, 
"Before the generation that brought Him into being He was not Son:" but the 
"sons of rams(8)," of whom the prophet speaks,--are not they too called sons 
after coming into being? That quality, then, which reason notices in the "sons 
of rams," that they are not "sons of rams" before the generation which brings 
them into being,--this our reverend divine now ascribes to the Maker of the 
worlds and of all creation, Who has the Eternal Father in Himself, and is 
contemplated in the eternity of the Father, as He Himself says, "I am in the 
Father, and the Father in Me(9)." Those, however, who are not able to detect 
the sophistry that lurks in his statement, and are not trained to any sort of 
logical perception, follow these inconsequent statements and receive what 
comes next as a logical consequence of what preceded. For he says, "coming 
into being before all creation," and as though this were not enough to prove 
his impiety, he has a piece of profanity in reserve in the phrase that 
follows, when he terms the Son "not uncreate." In what sense then does he call 
Him Who is not uncreate "very Son"? For if it is meet to call Him Who is not 
uncreate "very Son," then of course the heaven is "very Son;" for it too is 
"not uncreate." So the sun too is "very Son," and all that the creation 
contains, both small and great, are of course entitled to the appellation of 
"very Son." And in what sense does He call Him Who has come into being 
"Only-begotten"? For all things that come into being are unquestionably in 
brotherhood with each other, so far, I mean, as their coming into being is 
concerned. And from whom did He come into being? For assuredly all things that 
have ever come into being did so from the Son. For thus did John testify, 
saying, "All things were made by Him(1)." If then the Son also came into 
being, according to Eunomius' creed, He 

117 

is certainly ranked in the class of things which have come into being. If then 
all things that came into being were made by Him, and the Word is one of the 
things that came into being, who is so dull as not to draw from these premises 
the absurd conclusion that our new creed-monger makes out the Lord of creation 
to have been His own work, in saying in so many words that the Lord and Maker 
of all creation is "not uncreate"? Let him tell us whence he has this boldness 
assertion. From what inspired utterance? What evangelist, what apostle ever 
uttered such words as these? What prophet, what lawgiver, what patriarch, what 
other person of all who were divinely moved by the Holy Ghost, whose voices 
are preserved in writing, ever originated such a statement as this? In the 
tradition of the faith delivered by the Truth we are taught to believe in 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If it were right to believe that the Son was 
created, how was it that the Truth in delivering to us this mystery bade us 
believe in the Son, and not in the creature? and how is it that the inspired 
Apostle, himself adoring Christ, lays it down that they who worship the 
creature besides the Creator are guilty of idolatry(2)? For, were the Son 
created, either he would not have wor-shipped Him, or he would have refrained 
from classing those who worship the creature along with idolaters, lest he 
himself should appear to be an idolater, in offering adoration to the created. 
But he knew that He Whom he adored was God over all(3), for so he terms the  
Son in his Epistle to the Romans. Why then do those who divorce the Son from 
the essence of the Father, and call Him creature, bestow on Him i mockery the 
fictitious title of Deity, idly conferring on one alien from true Divinity the 
name of "God," as they might confer it on Bel or Dagon or the Dragon? Let 
those, therefore, who affirm that He is created, acknowledge that He is not 
God at all, that they may be seen to be nothing but Jews in disguise, or, if 
they confess one who is created to be God, let them not deny that they are 
idolaters. 

   10. He explains the phrase" The Lord created Me," and the argument about 
the origination of the Son, the deceptive character of Eunomius' reasoning, 
and the passage which says, "My glory will I not give to another," examining 
them from different points of view. 

    But of course they bring forward the passage in the book of Proverbs which 
says, "The Lord created Me as the beginning of His ways, for His works(4)." 
Now it would require a lengthy discussion to explain fully the real meaning of 
the passage: still it would be possible even in a few words to convey to 
well-disposed readers the thought intended. Some of those who are accurately 
versed in theology do say this, that the Hebrew text does not read "created," 
and we have ourselves read in more ancient copies "possessed" instead of 
"created." Now assuredly "possession" in the allegorical language of the 
Proverbs marks that slave Who for oar sakes "took upon Him the form of a 
slaves(5)." But if any one should allege in this passage the reading which 
prevails in the Churches, we do not reject even the expression "created." For 
this also in allegorical language is intended to connote the "slave," since, 
as the Apostle tells us, "all creation is in bondage(6)." Thus we say that 
this expression, as well as the other, admits of an orthodox interpretation. 
For He Who for our sakes became like as we are, was in the last days truly 
created,--He Who in the beginning being Word and God afterwards became Flesh 
and Man. For the nature of flesh is created: and by partaking in it in all 
points like as we do, yet without sin, He was created when He became man: and 
He was created "after God(7)," not after man, as the Apostle says, in a new 
manner and not according to human wont. For we are taught that this "new man" 
was created--albeit of the Holy Ghost and of the power of the Highest--whom 
Paul, the hierophant of unspeakable mysteries, bids us to "put on," using two 
phrases to express the garment that is to be put on, saying in one place, "Put 
on the new man which after God is created(7)," and in another, "Put ye on the 
Lord Jesus Christ(8)."  For thus it is that He, Who said "I am the Way(9)," 
becomes to us who have put Him on the beginning of the ways of salvation, that 
He may make us the work of His own hands, new modelling us from the evil mould 
of sin once more to His own image. He is at once our foundation before the 
world to come, according to the words of Paul, who says, "Other foundation can 
no man lay than that is laid(1)," and it is true that "before the springs of 
the waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, before He made the 
depths, and before all hills, He begetteth Me(2)." For it is possible, accord- 

118 

ing to the usage of the Book of Proverbs, for each of these phrases, taken in 
a tropical sense, to be applied to the Word(3). For the great David calls 
righteousness the "mountains of God(4)," His judgments "deeps(4)," and the 
teachers in the Churches" fountains," saying "Bless God the Lord from the 
fountains of Israel(5)"; and guilelessness he calls "hills," as he shows when 
he speaks of their skipping like lambs(6). Before these therefore is born in 
us He Who for our sakes was created as man, that of these things also the 
creation may find place in us. But we may, I think, pass from the discussion 
of these points, inasmuch as the truth has Been sufficiently pointed out in a 
few words to well-disposed readers; let us proceed to what Eunomius says next. 

    "Existing in the Beginning," he says, "not without beginning." In what 
fashion does he who plumes himself on his superior discernment understand the 
oracles of God? He declares Him Who was in the beginning Himself to have a 
beginning: and is not aware that if He Who is in the beginning has a 
beginning, then the Beginning itself must needs have another beginning. 
Whatever He says of the beginning he must necessarily confess to be true of 
Him Who was in the beginning: for how can that which is in the beginning be 
severed from the beginning? and how can any one imagine a "was not" as 
preceding the "was"? For however far one carries back one's thought to 
apprehend the beginning, one most certainly understands as one does so that 
the Word which was in the beginning (inasmuch as It cannot be separated from 
the beginning in which It is) does not at any point of time either begin or 
cease its existence therein. Yet let no one be induced by these words of mine 
to separate into two the one beginning we acknowledge. For the beginning is 
most assuredly one, wherein is discerned, indivisibly, that Word Who is 
completely united to the Father. He who thus thinks will never leave heresy a 
loophole to impair his piety by the novelty of the term "ungenerate." But in 
Eunomius' next propositions his statements are like bread with a large 
admixture of sand. For by mixing his heretical opinions with sound doctrines, 
he makes uneatable even that which is in itself nutritious, by the gravel 
which he has mingled with it. For he calls the Lord "living wisdom,"operative 
truth,"subsistent power, and "life":--so far is the nutritious portion. But 
into these assertions he instils the poison of heresy. For when he speaks of 
the "life" as "generate" he makes a reservation by the implied opposition to 
the "ungenerate" life, and does not affirm the Son to be the very Life. Next 
he says:--" As Son of God, quickening the dead, the true light, the light that 
lighteneth every man coming into the world(7), good, and the bestower of good 
things." All these things he offers for honey to the simple-minded, concealing 
his deadly drug under the sweetness of terms like these. For he immediately 
introduces, on the heels of these statements, his pernicious principle, in the 
words "Not partitioning with Him that begat Him His high estate, not dividing 
with another the essence of the Father, but becoming by generation glorious, 
yea, the Lord of glory, and receiving glory from the Father, not sharing His 
glory with the Father, for the glory of the Almighty is incommunicable, as He 
hath said, 'My glory will I not give to another(8)'"  These are his deadly 
poisons, which they alone can discover who have their souls' senses trained so 
to do: but the mortal mischief of the words is disclosed by their 
conclusion:--"Receiving glory from the Father, not sharing glory with the 
Father, for the glory of the Almighty is incommunicable, as He hath said, 'My 
glory will I not give to another.'" Who is that "other" to whom God has said 
that He will not give His glory? The prophet speaks of the adversary of God, 
and Eunomius refers the prophecy to the only begotten God Himself! For when 
the prophet, speaking in the person of God, had said, "My glory will I not 
give to another," he added, "neither My praise to graven images." For when men 
were beguiled to offer to the adversary of God the worship and adoration due 
to God alone, paying homage in the representations of graven images to the 
enemy of God, who appeared in many shapes amongst men in the forms furnished 
by idols, He Who healeth them that are sick, in pity for men's ruin, foretold 
by the prophet the loving-kindness which in the latter days He would show in 
the abolishing of idols, saying, "When My truth shall have been manifested, My 
glory shall no more be given to another, nor My praise bestowed upon graven 
images: for men, when they come to know My glory, shall no more be in bondage 
to them that by nature are no gods." All therefore that the prophet says in 
the person of the Lord concerning the power of the adversary, this fighter 
against God, refers to the Lord Himself, Who spake these words by the prophet! 
 Who among the tyrants is recorded to have been such a persecutor of the faith 
as this? Who maintained such blasphemy as this, that He Who, as we believe, 
was manifested in the flesh for the salvation of our souls, is not very God, 
but the adversary of God, who puts his 

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guile into effect against men by the instrumentality of idols and graven 
images? For it is what was said of that adversary by the prophet that Eunomius 
transfers to the only-begotten God, without so much as reflecting that it is 
the Only-begotten Himself Who spoke these words by the prophet, as Eunomius 
himself subsequently confesses when he says, "this is He Who spake by the 
prophets." 

    Why should I pursue this part of the subject in more detail? For the words 
preceding also are tainted with the same profanity--"receiving glory from the 
Father, not sharing glory with the Father, for the glory of the Almighty God 
is incommunicable." For my own part, even had his words referred to Moses who 
was glorified in the ministration of the Law,--not even then should I have 
tolerated such a statement, even if it be conceded that Moses, having no glory 
from within, appeared completely glorious to the Israelites by the favour 
bestowed on him from God. For the very glory that was bestowed on the lawgiver 
was the glory of none other but of God Himself, which glory the Lord in the 
Gospel bids all to seek, when He blames those who value human glory highly and 
seek not the glory that cometh from God only(9). For by the fact that He 
commanded them to seek the glory that cometh from the only God, He declared 
the possibility of their obtaining what they sought. How then is the glory of 
the Almighty incommunicable, if it is even our duty to ask for the glory that 
cometh from the only God, and if, according to our Lord's word, "every one 
that asketh receiveth(1)"? But one who says concerning the Brightness of the 
Father's glory, that He has the glory by having received it, says in effect 
that the Brightness of the glory is in Itself devoid of glory, and needs, in 
order to become Himself at last the Lord of some glory, to receive glory from 
another. How then are we to dispose of the utterances of the Truth,--one which 
tells us that He shall be seen in the glory of the Father(2), and another 
which says, "All things that the Father hath are Mine(3)"? To whom ought the 
hearer to give ear? To him who says, "He that is, as the Apostle says, the 
'heir of all things(4)' that are in the Father, is without part or lot in His 
Father's glory"; or to Him Who declares that all things that the Father hath, 
He Himself hath also? Now among the "all things," glory surely is included. 
Yet Eunomius says that the glory of the Almighty is incommunicable. This view 
Joel does not attest, nor yet the mighty Peter, who adopted, in his speech to 
the Jews, the language of the prophet. For both the prophet and the apostle 
say, in the person of God,--"I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh(5)." 
He then Who did not grudge the partaking in His own Spirit to all flesh,--how 
can it be that He does not impart His own glory to the only-begotten Son, Who 
is in the bosom of the Father, Who has all things that the Father has? Perhaps 
one should say that Eunomius is here speaking the truth, though not intending 
it. For the term "impart" is strictly used in the case of one who has not his 
glory from within, whose possession of it is an accession from without, and 
not part of his own nature: but where one and the same nature is observed in 
both Persons, He Who is as regards nature all that the Father is believed to 
be stands in no need of one to impart to Him each several attribute. This it 
will be well to explain more clearly and precisely. He Who has the Father 
dwelling in Him in His entirety--what need has He of the Father's glory, when 
none of the attributes contemplated in the Father is withdrawn from Him? 

   11. After expounding the high estate of the Almighty, the Eternity of the 
Son, and the phrase "bring made obedient," he shows the folly of Eunomius in 
his assertion that the Son did not acquire His sonship by obedience. 

    What, moreover, is the high estate of the Almighty in which Eunomius 
affirms that the Son has no share? Let those, then, who are wise in their own 
eyes, and prudent in their own sight(6), utter their groundling opinions--they 
who, as the prophet says, "speak out of the ground(7)." But let us who 
reverence the Word and are disciples of the Truth, or rather who profess to be 
so, not leave even this assertion unsifted. We know that of all the names by 
which Deity is indicated some are expressive of the Divine majesty, employed 
and understood absolutely, and some are assigned with reference to the 
operations over us and all creation. For when the Apostle says "Now to the 
immortal, invisible, only wise Gods(8)," and the like, by these titles he 
suggests conceptions which represent to us the transcendent power, but when 
God is spoken of in the Scriptures as gracious, merciful, full of pity, true, 
good, Lord, Physician, Shepherd, Way, Bread, Fountain, King, Creator, 
Artificer, Protector, Who is over all and through all, Who is all in all, 
these and similar titles contain the declaration of the operations of the 
Divine loving-kindness in the creation. Those then who enquire precisely into 
the meaning of the term "Almighty" will find that it declares nothing 

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else concerning the Divine power than that operation which controls created 
things and is indicated by the word "Almighty," stands in a certain relation 
to something. For as He would not be called a Physician, save on account of 
the sick, nor merciful and gracious, and the like, save by reason of one who 
stood in need of grace and mercy, so neither would He be styled Almighty, did 
not all creation stand in need of one to regulate it and keep it in being. As, 
then, He presents Himself as a Physician to those who are in need of healing, 
so He is Almighty over one who has need of being ruled: and just as "they that 
are whole have no need of a physician(9)," so it follows that we may well say 
that He Whose nature contains in it the principle of unerring and unwavering 
rectitude does not, like others, need a ruler over Him. Accordingly, when we 
hear the name "Almighty," our conception is this, that God sustains in being 
all intelligible things as well as all things of a material nature. For this 
cause He sitteth upon the circle of the earth, for this cause He holdeth the 
ends of the earth in His hand, for this cause He "meteth out leaven with the 
span, and measureth the waters in the hollow of His hand(1)"; for this cause 
He comprehendeth in Himself all the intelligible creation, that all things may 
remain in existence controlled by His encompassing power. Let us enquire, 
then, Who it is that "worketh all in all." Who is He Who made all things, and 
without Whom no existing thing does exist? Who is He in Whom all things were 
created, and in Whom all things that are have their continuance? In Whom do we 
live and move and have our being? Who is He Who hath in Himself all that the 
Father hath? Does what has been said leave us any longer in ignorance of Him 
Who is "God over all(2)," Who is so entitled by S. Paul,--our Lord Jesus 
Christ, Who, as He Himself says, holding in His hand "all things that the 
Father hath(3)," assuredly grasps all things in the all-containing hollow of 
His hand and is sovereign over what He has grasped, and no man taketh from the 
hand of Him Who in His hand holdeth all things? If, then, He hath all things, 
and is sovereign over that which He hath, why is He Who is thus sovereign over 
all things something else and not Almighty? If heresy replies that the Father 
is sovereign over both the Son and the Holy Spirit, let them first show that 
the Son and the Holy Spirit are of mutable nature, and then over this 
mutability let them set its ruler, that by the help implanted from above, that 
which is so overruled may continue incapable of turning to evil. If, on the 
other hand, the Divine nature is incapable of evil, unchangeable, unalterable, 
eternally permanent, to what end does it stand in need of a ruler, controlling 
as it does all creation, and itself by reason of its immutability needing no 
ruler to control it? For this cause it is that at the name of Christ "every 
knee boweth, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the 
earth(4)." For assuredly every knee would not thus bow, did it not recognize 
in Christ Him Who rules it for its own salvation. But to say that the Son came 
into being by the goodness of the Father is nothing else than to put Him on a 
level with the meanest objects of creation. For what is there that did not 
arrive at its birth by the goodness of Him Who made it? To what is the 
formation of mankind ascribed? to the badness of its Maker, or to His 
goodness? To what do we ascribe the generation of animals, the production of 
plants and herbs? There is nothing that did not take its rise from the 
goodness of Him Who made it. A property, then, which reason discerns to be 
common to all things, Eunomius is so kind as to allow to the Eternal Son! But 
that He did not share His essence or His estate with the Father--these 
assertions and the rest of his verbiage I have refuted in anticipation, when 
dealing with his statements concerning the Father, and shown that he has 
hazarded them at random and without any intelligible meaning. For not even in 
the case of us who are born one of another is there any division of essence. 
The definition expressive of essence remains in its entirety in each, in him 
that begets and in him who is begotten, without admitting diminution in him 
who be-gets, or augmentation in him who is begotten. But to speak of division 
of estate or sovereignty in the case of Him Who hath all things whatsoever 
that the Father hath, carries with it no meaning, unless it be a demonstration 
of the propounder's impiety. It would therefore be superfluous to entangle 
oneself in such discussions, and so to prolong our treatise to an unreasonable 
length. Let us pass on to what follows. 

    "Glorified," he says, "by the Father before the worlds." The word of truth 
hath been demonstrated, confirmed by the testimony of its adversaries. For 
this is the sum of our faith, that the Son is from all eternity, being 
glorified by the Father: for "before the worlds" is the same in sense as "from 
all eternity," seeing that prophecy uses this phrase to set forth to us God's 
eternity, when it speaks of Him as "He that is from before the worlds(5)." If 
then to exist before the worlds is beyond all begin- 

121 

ning, be who confers glory on the Son before the worlds, does thereby assert 
His existence from eternity before that glory(6): for surely it is not the 
non-existent, but the existent which is glorified. Then he proceeds to plant 
for himself the seeds of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; not with a view to 
glorify the Son, but that he may wantonly outrage the Holy Ghost. For with the 
intention of making out the Holy Spirit to be part of the angelic host, he 
throws in the phrase "glorified eternally by the Spirit, and by every rational 
and generated being," so that there is no distinction between the Holy Spirit 
and all that comes into being; if, that is, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord 
in the same sense as all the other existences enumerated by the prophet, 
"angels and powers, and the heaven of heavens, and the water above the 
heavens, and all the things of earth, dragons, deeps, fire and hail, snow and 
vapour, wind of the storm, mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all 
cedars, beasts and all l cattle, worms and feathered fowls(7)." If, then, he 
says, that along with these the Holy Spirit also glorifies the Lord, surely 
his God-opposing tongue makes out the Holy Spirit Himself also to be one of 
them. 

    The disjointed incoherencies which follow next, I think it well to pass 
over, not because they give no handle at all to censure, but because their 
language is such as might be used by the devout, if detached from its 
malignant context. If he does here and there use some expressions favourable 
to devotion it is just held out as a bait to simple souls, to the end that the 
hook of impiety may be swallowed along with it. For after employing such 
language as a member of the Church might use, he subjoins, "Obedient with 
regard to the creation and production of all things that are, obedient with 
regard to every ministration, not having by His obedience attained Sonship or 
Godhead, but, as a consequence of being Son and being generated as the 
Only-begotten God, showing Himself obedient in words, obedient in acts." Yet 
who of those who are conversant with the oracles of God does not know With 
regard to what point of time it was said of Him by the mighty Paul, (and that 
once for all), that He "became obedient(8)"? For it was when He came in the 
form of a servant to accomplish the mystery of redemption by the cross, Who 
had emptied Himself, Who humbled Himself by assuming the likeness and fashion 
of a man, being found as man in man's lowly nature--then, I say, it was that 
He became obedient, even He Who "took our infirmities and bare our 
sicknesses(9)," healing the disobedience of men by His own obedience, that by 
His stripes He might heal our wound, and by His own death do away with the 
common death of all men,--then it was that for our sakes He was made obedient, 
even as He became "sin(1)" and "a curse(2)" by reason of the dispensation on 
our behalf, not being so by nature, but becoming so in His love for man. But 
by what sacred utterance was He ever taught His list of so many obediences? 
Nay, on the contrary every inspired Scripture attests His independent and 
sovereign power, saying, "He spake the word and they were made: He commanded 
and they were created(3)":--for it is plain that the Psalmist says this 
concerning Him Who upholds "all things by the word of His power(4)," Whose 
authority, by the sole impulse of His will, framed every existence and nature, 
and all things in the creation apprehended by reason or by sight. Whence, 
then, was Eunomius moved to ascribe in such manifold wise to the King of the 
universe the attribute of obedience, speaking of Him as "obedient with regard 
to all the work of creation, obedient with regard to every ministration, 
obedient in words and in acts"? Yet it is plain to every one, that he alone is 
obedient to another in acts and words, who has not yet perfectly achieved in 
himself the condition of accurate working or unexceptionable speech, but 
keeping his eye ever on his teacher and guide, is trained by his suggestions 
to exact propriety in deed and word. But to think that Wisdom needs a master 
and teacher to guide aright. Its attempts at imitation, is the dream of 
Eunomius' fancy, and of his alone. And concerning the Father he says, that He 
is faithful in words and faithful in works, while of the Son he does not 
assert faithfulness in word and deed, but only obedience and not faithfulness, 
so that his profanity extends impartially through all his statements. But it 
is perhaps right to pass in silence over the inconsiderate folly of the 
assertion interposed between those last mentioned, lest some unreflecting 
persons should laugh at its absurdity when they ought rather to weep over the 
perdition of their souls, than laugh at the folly of their words. For this 
wise and wary theologian says that He did not attain to being a Son as the 
result of His obedience! Mark his penetration! with what cogent force does he 
lay it down for us that He was not first obedient and afterwards a Son, and 
that we ought not to think that His obedience was prior to His generation! Now 
if he had not added this defining clause, who without it would have been 
sufficiently silly and 

122 

idiotic to fancy that His generation was bestowed on Him by His Father, as a 
reward of the obedience of Him Who before His generation had showed due 
subjection and obedience? But that no one may too readily extract matter for 
laughter from these remarks, let each consider that even the folly of the 
words has in it something worthy of tears. For what he intends to establish by 
these observations is something of this kind, that His obedience is part of 
His nature, so that not even if He willed it would it be possible for Him not 
to be obedient. 

    For he says that He was so constituted that His nature was adapted to 
obedience alone(5), just as among instruments that which is fashioned with 
regard to a certain figure necessarily produces in that which is subjected to 
its operation the form which the artificer implanted in the  construction of 
the instrument, and cannot possibly trace a straight line upon that which 
receives its mark, if its own working is in a curve; nor can the instrument, 
if fashioned to draw a straight line, produce a circle by its impress. What 
need is there of any words of ours to reveal how great is the profanity of 
such a notion, when the heretical utterance of itself proclaims aloud its 
monstrosity? For if He was obedient for this reason only that He was so made, 
then of course He is not on an equal footing even with humanity, since on this 
theory, while our soul is self-determining and independent, choosing as it 
will with sovereignty over itself that which is pleasing to it, He on the 
contrary exercises, or rather experiences, obedience under the constraint of a 
compulsory law of His nature, while His nature suffers Him not to disobey, 
even if He would. For it was "as the result of being Son, and being begotten, 
that He has thus shown Himself obedient in words and obedient in acts." Alas, 
for the brutish stupidity of this doctrine! Thou makest the Word obedient to 
words, and supposest other words prior to Him Who is truly the Word, and 
another Word of the Beginning is mediator between the Beginning and the Word 
that was in the Beginning, conveying to Him the decision. And this is not one 
only: there are several words, which Eunomius makes so many links of the chain 
between the Beginning and the Word, and which abuse His obedience as they 
think good. But what need is there to linger over this idle talk? Any one can 
see that even at that time with reference to which S. Paul says that He became 
obedient. (and he tells us that He became obedient in this wise, namely, by 
becoming for our sakes flesh, and a servant, and a curse, and sin),--even 
then, I say, the Lord of glory, Who despised the shame and embraced suffering 
in the flesh, did not abandon His free will, saying as He does, "Destroy this 
temple, and in three days I will raise it up(6);" and again, "No man taketh My 
life from Me; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it 
again(7)"; and when those who were armed with swords and staves drew near to 
Him on the night before His Passion, He caused them all to go backward by 
saying "I am He(8)," and again, when the dying thief besought Him to remember 
him, He showed His universal sovereignty by saying, "To-day shalt thou be with 
Me in Paradise(9)." If then not even in the time of His Passion He is 
separated from His authority, where can heresy possibly discern the 
subordination to authority of the King of glory? 

   12. He thus proceeds to a magnificent discourse of the interpretation of 
"Mediator," "Like," "Ungenerate," and "generate," and of "The likeness and 
seal of the energy of the Almighty and of His works." 

    Again, what is the manifold mediation which with wearying iteration he 
assigns to God, calling Him "Mediator in doctrines, Mediator in the Law(1)"? 
It is not thus that we are taught by the lofty utterance of the Apostle, who 
says that having made void the law of commandments by His own doctrines, He is 
the mediator between God and man, declaring it by this saying, "There is one 
God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus(2);" where by 
the distinction implied in the word "mediator" he reveals to us the whole aim 
of the mystery of godliness. Now the aim is this. Humanity once revolted 
through the malice of the enemy, and, brought into bondage to sin, was also 
alienated from the true Life. After this the Lord of the creature calls back 
to Him His own creature, and becomes Man while still remaining God, being both 
God and Man in the entirety of the two several natures, and thus humanity was 
indissolubly united to God, the Man that is in Christ conducting the work of 
mediation, to Whom, by the first-fruits assumed for us, all the lump is 
potentially united(3). Since, then, a mediator is not a mediator of one(4), 
and God is one, not divided among the Persons in Whom we have been taught to 
believe (for the Godhead in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is one), 
the Lord, therefore, becomes a mediator once for all betwixt 

123 

God and men, binding man to the Deity by Himself. But even by the idea of a 
mediator we are taught the godly doctrine enshrined in the Creed. For the 
Mediator between God and man entered as it were into fellowship with human 
nature, not by being merely deemed a man, but having truly become so: in like 
manner also, being very God, He has not, as Eunomius will have us consider, 
been honoured  by the bare title of Godhead. 

    What he adds to the preceding statements is characterized by the same want 
of meaning, or rather by the same malignity of meaning. For in calling Him 
"Son" Whom, a little before, he had plainly declared to be created, and in 
calling Him "only begotten God" Whom he reckoned with the rest of things that 
have come into being by creation, he affirms that He is like Him that begat 
Him only "by an especial likeness, in a peculiar sense." Accordingly, we must 
first distinguish the significations of the term "like," in how many senses it 
is employed in ordinary use, and afterwards proceed to discuss Eunomius' 
positions. In the first place, then, all things that beguile our senses, not 
being really identical in nature, but producing illusion by some of the 
accidents of the respective subjects, as form, colour, sound, and the 
impressions conveyed by taste or smell or touch, while really different in 
nature, but supposed to be other than they truly are, these custom declares to 
have the relation of" likeness," as, for example, when the lifeless material 
is shaped by art, whether carving, painting, or modelling, into an imitation 
of a living creature, the imitation is said to be "like" the original.  For in 
such a case the nature of the animal is one thing, and that of the material, 
which cheats the sight by mere colour and form, is another. To the same class 
of likeness belongs the image of the original figure in a mirror, which gives 
appearances of motion, without, however, being in nature identical with its 
original. In just the same way our hearing may experience the same deception, 
when, for instance, some one, imitating the song of the nightingale with his 
own voice, persuades our hearing so that we seem to be listening to the bird. 
Taste, again, is subject to the same illusion, when the juice of figs mimics 
the pleasant taste of honey: for there is a certain resemblance to the 
sweetness of honey in the juice of the fruit. So, too, the sense of smell may 
sometimes be imposed upon by resemblance, when the scent of the herb camomile, 
imitating the fragrant apple itself, deceives our perception: and in the same 
way with touch g also, likeness belies the truth in various modes, n since a 
silver or brass coin, of equal size and similar weight with a gold one, may 
pass for the gold piece if our sight does not discern the truth. 

    We have thus generally described in a few words the several cases in which 
objects, because they are deemed to be different from what they really are, 
produce delusions in our senses. It is possible, of course, by a more 
laborious investigation, to extend one's enquiry through all things which are 
really different in kind one from another, but are nevertheless thought, by 
virtue of some accidental resemblance, to be like one to the other. Can it 
possibly be such a form of "likeness" as this, that he is continually 
attributing to the Son? Nay, surely he cannot be so infatuated as to discover 
deceptive similarity in Him Who is the Truth. Again, in the inspired 
Scriptures, we are told of another kind of resemblance by Him Who said, "Let 
us make man in our image, after our likeness(5);" but I do not suppose that 
Eunomius would discern this kind of likeness between the Father and the Son, 
so as to make out the Only-begotten God to be identical with man. We are also 
aware of another kind of likeness, of which the word speaks in Genesis 
concerning Seth,--"Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image(6)"; 
and if this is the kind of likeness of which Eunomius speaks, we do not think 
his statement is to be rejected. For in this case the nature of the two 
objects which are alike is not different, and the impress and type imply 
community of nature. These, or such as these, are our views upon the variety 
of meanings of "like." Let us see, then, with what intention Eunomius asserts 
of the Son that "especial likeness" to the Father, when be says that He is 
"like the Father with an especial likeness, in a peculiar sense, not as Father 
to Father, for they are not two Fathers." He promises to show us the "especial 
likeness" of the Son to the Father, and proceeds by his definition to 
establish the position that we ought not to conceive of Him as being like. For 
by saying, "He is not like as Father to Father," he makes out that He is not 
like; and again when he adds, "nor as Ungenerate to Ungenerate," by this 
phrase, too, he forbids us to conceive a likeness in the Son to the Father; 
and finally, by subjoining "nor as Son to Son," he introduces a third 
conception, by which he entirely subverts the meaning of "like." So it is that 
he follows up his own statements, and conducts his demonstration of likeness 
by establishing unlikeness. And now let us examine the discernment and 
frankness which he displays in these distinctions. After saying that the Son 
is like the Father, he guards the statement by adding that we ought not to 
think that the Son is like the Father, "as Father to Father." Why, what man on 

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earth is such a fool as, on learning that the Son is like the Father, to be 
brought by any course of reasoning to think of the likeness of Father to 
Father? "Nor as Son to Son":--here, again, the acuteness of the distinction is 
equally conspicuous. When he tells us that the Son is like the Father, he adds 
the further definition that He must not be understood to be like Him in the 
same way as He would be like another Son. These are the mysteries of the awful 
doctrines of Eunomius, by which his disciples are made wiser than the rest of 
the world, by learning that the Son, by His likeness to the Father, is not 
like a Son, for the Son is not the Father: nor is He like "as Ungenerate to 
Ungenerate," for the Son is not ungenerate. But the mystery which we have 
received, when it speaks of the Father, certainly bids us understand the 
Father of the Son, and when it names the Son, teaches us to apprehend the Son 
of the Father. And until the present time we never felt the need of these 
philosophic refinements, that by the words Father and Son are suggested two 
Fathers or two Sons, a pair, so to say, of ungenerate beings. 

    Now the drift of Eunomius' excessive concern about the Ungenerate has been 
often ex plained before; and it shall here be briefly discovered yet again. 
For as the term Father points to no difference of nature from the Son, his 
impiety, if he had brought his statement to a close here, would have had no 
support, seeing that the natural sense of the names Father and Son excludes 
the idea of their being alien in essence. But as it is, by employing the terms 
"generate" and "ungenerate," since the contradictory opposition between them 
admits of no mean, just like that between "mortal" and "immortal," "rational" 
and "irrational," and all those terms which are opposed to each other by the 
mutually exclusive nature of their meaning,--by the use of these terms, I 
repeat, he gives free course to his profanity, so as to contemplate as 
existing in the "generate" with reference to the "ungenerate" the same 
difference which there is between "mortal" and "immortal": and even as the 
nature of the mortal is one, and that of the immortal another, and as the 
special attributes of the rational and of the irrational are essentially 
incompatible, just so he wants to make out that the nature of the ungenerate 
is one, and that of the generate another, in order to show that as the 
irrational nature has been created in subjection to the rational, so the 
generate is by a necessity of its being in a state of subordination to the 
ungenerate. For which reason he attaches to the ungenerate the name of 
"Almighty," and this he does not apply to express providential operation, as 
the argument led the way for him in suggesting, but transfers the application 
of the word to arbitrary sovereignty, so as to make the Son to be a part of 
the subject and subordinate universe, a fellow-slave with all the rest to Him 
Who with arbitrary and absolute sovereignty controls all alike. And that it is 
with an eye to this result that he employs these argumentative distinctions, 
will be clearly established from the passage before us. For after those 
sapient and carefully-considered expressions, that He is not like either as 
Father to Father, or as Son to Son,--and yet there is no necessity that father 
should invariably be like father or son like son: for suppose there is one 
father among the Ethiopians, and another among the Scythians, and each of 
these has a son, the Ethiopian's son black, but the Scythian white-skinned and 
with hair of a golden tinge, yet none the more because each is a father does 
the Scythian turn black on the Ethiopian's account, nor does the Ethiopian's 
body change to white on account of the Scythian,--after saying this, however, 
according to his own fancy, Eunomius subjoins that "He is like as Son to 
Father(7)." But although such a phrase indicates kinship in nature, as the 
inspired Scripture attests in the case of Seth and Adam, our doctor, with but 
small respect for his intelligent readers, introduces his idle exposition of 
the title "Son," defining Him to be the image and seal of the energy(8) of the 
Almighty. "For the Son," he says, "is the image and seal of the energy of the 
Almighty." Let him who hath ears to hear first, I pray, consider this 
particular point--What is "the seal of the energy"? Every energy is 
contemplated as exertion in the party who exhibits it, and on the completion 
of his exertion, it has no independent existence. Thus, far example, the 
energy of the runner is the motion of his feet, and when the motion has 
stopped there is no longer any energy. So too about every pursuit the same may 
be said;--when the exertion of him who is busied about anything ceases, the 
energy ceases also, and has no independent existence, either when a person is 
actively engaged in the exertion he undertakes, or when he ceases from that 
exertion. What then does he tell us that the energy is in itself, which is 
neither essence, nor image, nor person? So he speaks of the Son as the 
similitude of the impersonal, and that which is like the non-existent surely 
has itself no existence at all. This is what his juggling with idle opinions 
comes to,--belief in nonentity! for that which is like nonentity surely 

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itself is not. O Paul and John and all you others of the band of Apostles and 
Evangelists, who are they that arm their venomous tongues against your words? 
who are they that raise their frog-like croakings against your heavenly 
thunder? What then saith the son of thunder? "In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God(9)." And what saith he that 
came after him, that other who had been within the heavenly temple, who in 
Paradise had been initiated into mysteries unspeakable? "Being," he says, "the 
Brightness of His glory, and the express Image of His person(1)." What, after 
these have thus spoken, are the words of our ventriloquist(2)? "The seal," 
quoth he, "of the energy of the Almighty." He makes Him third after the 
Father, with that non-existent energy mediating between them, or rather 
moulded at pleasure by non-existence. God the Word, Who was in the beginning, 
is "the seal of the energy":--the Only-begotten God, Who is contemplated in 
the eternity of the Beginning of existent things, Who is in the bosom of the 
Father(3), Who sustains all things, by the word of His power(4), the creator 
of the ages, from Whom and through Whom and in Whom are all things(5), Who 
sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and hath meted out heaven with the span, 
Who measureth the water in the hollow of his hand(6), Who holdeth in His hand 
all things that are, Who dwelleth on high and looketh upon the things that are 
lowly(7), or rather did look upon them to make all the world to be His 
footstool(8), imprinted by the footmark of the Word--the form of God(9) is 
"the seal" of an "energy." Is God then an energy, not a Person? Surely Paul 
when expounding this very truth says He is "the express image," not of His 
energy, but "of His Person." Is the Brightness of His glory a seal of the 
energy of God? Alas for his impious ignorance! What is there intermediate 
between God and His own form? and Whom does the Person employ as mediator with 
His own express image? and what can be conceived as coming between the glory 
and its brightness? But while there are such weighty and numerous testimonies 
wherein the greatness of the Lord of the creation is proclaimed by those who 
were entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel, what sort of language does 
this forerunner of the final apostasy hold concerning Him? What says he? "As 
image," he says, "and seal of all the energy and power of the Almighty." How 
does he take upon himself to emend the words of the mighty Paul? Paul says 
that the 

Son is "the Power of God(1)"; Eunomius calls Him "the seal of a power," not 
the Power. And then, repeating his expression, what is it that he adds to his 
previous statement? He calls Him "seal of the Father's works and words and 
counsels." To what works of the Father is He like? He will say, of course, the 
world, and all things that are therein. But the Gospel has testified that all 
these things are the works of the Only-begotten. To what works of the  Father, 
then, was He likened? of what works was He made the seal? what Scripture ever 
entitled Him "seal of the Father's works"? But if any one should grant 
Eunomius the right to fashion his words at his own will, as he desires, even 
though Scripture does not agree with him, let him tell us what works of the 
Father there are of which he says that the Son was made the seal, apart from 
those that have been wrought by the Son. All things visible and invisible are 
the work of the Son: in the visible are included the whole world and all that 
is therein; in the invisible, the supramundane creation. What works of the 
Father, then, are remaining to be contemplated by themselves, over and above 
things visible and invisible, whereof he says that the Son was made the 
"seal"? Will he perhaps, when driven into a corner, return once more to the 
fetid vomit of heresy, and say that the Son is a work of the Father? How then 
does the Son come to be he seal of these works when He Himself, as Eunomius 
says, is the work of the Father?  Or does he say that the same Person is at 
once a work and the likeness of a work? Let this be granted: let us suppose 
him to speak of the other works of which he says the Father was the creator, 
if indeed he intends us to understand likeness by the term "seal." But what 
other "words" of the Father does Eunomius know, besides that Word Who was ever 
in the Father, Whom he calls a "seal"--Him Who is and is called the Word in 
the absolute, true, and primary sense? And to what counsels can he possibly 
refer, apart from the Wisdom of God, to which the Wisdom of God is made like, 
in becoming a "seal" of those counsels? Look at the want of discrimination and 
circumspection, at the confused muddle of his statement, how he brings the 
mystery into ridicule, without understanding either what he says or what he is 
arguing about. For He Who has the Father in His entirety in Himself, and is 
Himself in His entirety in the Father, as Word and Wisdom and Power and Truth, 
as His express image and brightness, Himself is all things in the Father, and 
does not come to be the image and seal and likeness of certain other things 
discerned in the Father prior to Himself. 

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    Then Eunomius allows to Him the credit of the destruction of men by water 
in the days of Noah, of the rain of fire that fell upon Sodom, and of the just 
vengeance upon the Egyptians, as though he were making some great concessions 
to Him Who holds in His hand the ends of the world, in Whom, as the Apostle 
says, "all things consist(2)," as though he were not aware that tO Him Who 
encompasses all things, and guides and sways according to His good pleasure 
all that hath already been and all that will be, the mention of two or three 
marvels does not mean the addition of glory, so much as the suppression of the 
rest means its deprivation or loss. But even if no word be said of these, the 
one utterance of Paul is enough by itself to point to them all 
inclusively--the one utterance which says that He "is above all, and through 
all, and in all(3)." 

13. He expounds the passage of the Gospel, "The Father judgeth no man," and 
further speaks of the assumption of man with body and soul wrought by  the 
Lord, of the transgression of Adam, and of death and the resurrection of the 
dead. 

    Next he says, "He legislates by the command of the Eternal God." Who is 
the eternal God? and who is He that ministers to Him in the giving of the Law? 
Thus much is plain to all that through Moses God appointed the Law to those 
that received it. Now inasmuch as Eunomius himself acknowledges that it was 
the only-begotten God Who held converse with Moses, how is it that the 
assertion before us puts the Lord of all in the place of Moses, and ascribes 
the character of the eternal God to the Father alone, so as, by thus 
contrasting Him with the Eternal, to make out the only-begotten God, the Maker 
of the Worlds, to be not Eternal? Our studious friend with his excellent 
memory seems to have forgotten that Paul uses all these terms concerning 
himself, announcing among men the proclamation of the Gospel by the command of 
God(4). Thus what the Apostle asserts of himself, that Eunomius is not ashamed 
to ascribe to the Lord of the prophets and apostles, in order to place the 
Master on the same level with Paul, His own servant. But why should I lengthen 
out my argument by confuting in detail each of these assertions, where the too 
unsuspicious reader of Eunomius' writings may think that their author is 
saying what Holy Scripture allows him to say, while one who is able to unravel 
each statement critically will find them one and all infected 

with heretical knavery, For the Churchman and the heretic alike affirm that 
"the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son(5)," 
but to this assertion they severally attach different meanings. By the same 
words the Churchman understands supreme authority, the other maintains 
subservience and subjection. 

    But to what has been already said, ought to be added some notice of that 
position which they make a kind of foundation of their impiety in their 
discussions concerning the Incarnation, the position, namely, that not the 
whole man has been saved by Him, but only the half of man, I mean the body. 
Their object in such a malignant perversion of the true doctrine, is to show 
that the less exalted statements, which our Lord utters in tits humanity, are 
to be thought to have issued from the Godhead Itself, that so they may show 
their blasphemy to have a stronger case, if it is upheld by the actual 
acknowledgment of the Lord. For this reason it is that Eunomius says, "He who 
in the last days became man did not take upon Himself the man made up of soul 
and body." But, after searching through all the inspired and sacred Scripture, 
I do not find any such statement as this, that the Creator of all things, at 
the time of His ministration here on earth for man, took upon Himself flesh 
only without a soul. Under stress of necessity, then, looking to the object 
contemplated by the plan of salvation, to the doctrines of the Fathers, and to 
the inspired Scriptures, I will endeavour to confute the impious falsehood 
which is being fabricated with regard to this matter. The Lord came "to seek 
and to save that which was lost(6)." Now it was not the body merely, but the 
whole man, compacted of soul and body, that was lost: indeed, if we are to 
speak more exactly, the soul was lost sooner than the body. For disobedience 
is a sin, not of the body, but of the will: and the will properly belongs to 
the soul, from which the whole disaster of our nature bad its beginning, as 
the threat of God, that admits of no falsehood, testifies in the declaration 
that, in the day that they should eat of the forbidden fruit, death without 
respite would attach to the act. Now since the condemnation of man was 
twofold, death correspondingly effects in each part of our nature the 
deprivation of the twofold life that operates in him who is thus mortally 
stricken. For the death of the body consists in the extinction of the means of 
sensible perception, and in the dissolution of the body into its kindred 
elements: but "the soul that sinneth," he saith, "it shall die(7)." Now sin is 
nothing else than 

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alienation from God, Who is the true and only life. Accordingly the first man 
lived many hundred years after his disobedience, and yet God lied not when He 
said, "In the day that ye eat thereof ye shall surely die(8)." For by the fact 
of his alienation from the true life, the sentence of death was ratified 
against him that self-same day: and after this, at a much later time, there 
followed also the bodily death of Adam. He therefore Who came for this cause 
that He might seek and save that which was lost, (that which the shepherd in 
the parable calls the sheep,) both finds that which is lost. and carries home 
on His shoulders the whole sheep, not its skin only, that He may make the man 
of God complete, united to the deity in body and in soul. And thus He Who was 
in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin, left no part of our 
nature which He did not take upon Himself. Now the soul is not sin though it 
is capable of admitting sin into it as the result of being ill-advised: and 
this He sanctifies by union with Himself for this end, that so the lump may be 
holy along with the first-fruits. Wherefore also the Angel, when informing 
Joseph of the destruction of the enemies of the Lord, said, "They are dead 
which sought the young Child's life(9)," (or "soul"): and the Lord says to the 
Jews, "Ye seek to kill Me, a man that hath told you the truth(1)." Now by 
"Man" is not meant the body of a man only, but that which is composed of both, 
soul and body. And again, He says to them, "Are ye angry at Me, because I have 
made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath day(2)?" And what He meant by 
"every whir whole," He showed in the other Gospels, when He said to the man 
who was let down on a couch in the midst, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," which 
is a healing of the soul, and, "Arise and walk(3)," which has regard to the 
body: and in the Gospel of S. John, by liberating the soul also from its own 
malady after He had given health to the body, where He saith, "Thou art made 
whole, sin no more(4)," thou, that is, who hast been cured in both, I mean in 
soul and in body. For so too does S. Paul speak, "for to make in Himself of 
twain one new man(5)." And so too He foretells that at the time of His Passion 
He would voluntarily detach His soul from His body, saying, "No man taketh" my 
soul "from Me, but I lay it down of Myself: I have power to lay it down, 

and I have power to take it again(6)." Yea, the prophet David also, according 
to the interpretation of the great Peter, said with foresight of Him, "Thou 
wilt not leave My soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see 
corruption(7)," while the Apostle Peter thus expounds the saying, that "His 
soul was not left in hell, neither His flesh did see corruption." For His 
Godhead, alike before taking flesh and in the flesh and after His Passion, is 
immutably the same, being at all times what It was by nature, and so 
continuing for ever. But in the suffering of His human nature the Godhead 
fulfilled the dispensation for our benefit by severing the soul for a season 
from the body, yet without being Itself separated from either of those 
elements to which it was once for all united, and by joining again the 
elements which had been thus parted, so as to give to all human nature a 
beginning and an example which it should follow of the resurrection from the 
dead, that all the corruptible may put on incorruption, and all the mortal may 
put on immortality, our first-fruits having been transformed to the Divine 
nature by its union with God, as Peter said, "This same Jesus Whom ye 
crucified, hath God made both Lord and Christ(8);" and we might cite many 
passages of Scripture to support such a position, showing how the Lord, 
reconciling the world to Himself by the Humanity of Christ, apportioned His 
work of benevolence to men between His soul and His body, willing through His 
soul and touching them through His body. But it would be superfluous to 
encumber our argument by entering into every detail. 

    Before passing on, however, to what follows, I will further mention the 
one text, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it(9)." Just as 
we, through soul and body, become a temple of Him Who "dwelleth in us and 
walketh in us(1)," even so the Lord terms their combination a "temple," of 
which the "destruction" signifies the dissolution of the soul from the body. 
And if they allege the passage in the Gospel, "The Word was made flesh(2)," in 
order to make out that the flesh was taken into the Godhead without the soul, 
on the ground that the soul is not expressly mentioned along with the flesh, 
let them learn that it is customary for Holy Scripture to imply the whole by 
the part. For He that said, "Unto Thee shall all flesh come(3)," does not mean 
that the flesh will be presented before the Judge apart from the souls: and 
when we read 

128 

in sacred History that Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy-five souls(4) 
we understand the flesh also to be intended together with the souls. So, then, 
the Word, when He became flesh, took with the flesh the whole of human nature; 
and hence it was possible that hunger and thirst, fear and dread, desire and 
sleep, tears and trouble of spirit, and all such things, were in Him. For the 
Godhead, in its proper nature, admits no such affections, nor is the flesh by 
itself involved in them, if the soul is not affected co-ordinately with the 
body. 

 14. He proceeds to discuss the views held by Eunomius, and by the Church, 
touching the Holy Spirit; and to show that the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost are not three Gods, but one God. He also discusses different senses of 
"Subjection," and therein shows that the subjection of all things to the Son 
is the same as the subjection of the Son to the Father. 

    Thus much with regard to his profanity towards the Son. Now let us see 
what he says about the Holy Spirit. "After Him, we believe," he says, "on the 
Comforter, the Spirit of Truth." I think it will be plain to all who come 
across this passage what object he has in view in thus perverting the 
declaration of the faith delivered to us by the Lord, in his statements 
concerning the Son and the Father. Though this absurdity has already been 
exposed, I will nevertheless endeavour, in few words, to make plain the aim of 
his knavery. As in the former case, he avoided using the name "Father," that 
so he might not include the Son in the eternity of the Father, so he avoided 
employing the title Son, that he might not by it suggest His natural affinity 
to the Father; so here, too, he refrains from saying "Holy Spirit," that he 
may not by this name acknowledge the majesty of His glory, and His complete 
union with the Father and the Son. For since the appellation of "Spirit," and 
that of "Holy," are by the Scriptures equally applied to the Father and the 
Son (for "God is a Spirits(5)," and "the anointed Lord is the Spirit before 
our face(6)," and "the Lord our God is Holy(7)," and there is "one Holy, one 
Lord Jesus Christ(8)") lest there should, by the use of these terms, be bred 
in the minds of his readers some orthodox conception of the Holy Spirit, such 
as would naturally arise in them from His sharing His glorious appellation 
with the Father and the Son, for this reason, deluding the ears of the 

foolish, he changes the words of the Faith as set forth by God in the delivery 
of this mystery, making a way, so to speak, by this sequence, for the entrance 
of his impiety against the Holy Spirit. For if he had said, "We believe in the 
Holy Spirit," and "God is a Spirit," any one instructed in things divine would 
have interposed the remark, that if we are to believe in the Holy Spirit, 
while God is called a Spirit, He is assuredly not distinct in nature from that 
which receives the same titles in a proper sense. For of all those things 
which are indicated not unreally, nor metaphorically, but properly and 
absolutely, by the same names, we are necessarily compelled to acknowledge 
that the nature also, which is signified by this identity of names, is one and 
the same. For this reason it is that, suppressing the name appointed by the 
Lord in the formula of the faith, he says, "We believe in the Comforter." But 
I have been taught that this very name is also applied by the inspired 
Scripture to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost alike. For the Son gives the name of 
"Comforter" equally to Himself and to the Holy Spirit(9); and the Father, 
where He is said to work comfort, surely claims as His own the name of 
"Comforter." For assuredly he Who does the work of a Comforter does not 
disdain the name belonging to the work: for David says to the Father, "Thou, 
Lord, hast holpen me and comforted me(1)," and the great Apostle applies to 
the Father the same language, when he says, "Blessed be the God and Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, Who comforteth us in all our tribulation(2)"; and John, 
in one of his Catholic Epistles, expressly gives to the Son the name of 
Comforter(3). Nay, more, the Lord Himself, in saying that another Comforter 
would be sent us, when speaking of the Spirit, clearly asserted this title of 
Himself in the first place. But as there are two senses of the word 
parakalein(4),--one to beseech, by words and gestures of 
respect, to induce him to whom we apply for anything, to feel with us in 
respect of those things for which we apply,--the other to comfort, to take 
remedial thought for affections of body and soul,--the Holy Scripture affirms 
the conception of the Paraclete, in either sense alike, to belong to the 
Divine nature. For at one time Paul sets before us by the word 
parakalein the healing power of God, as when he says, "God, Who 
comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus(5)"; 
and at another time he uses this word in its other meaning, when he says, 
writing to the Corinthians, "Now we are am- 

129 

bassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in 
Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God(6)." Now since these things are so, in 
whatever way you understand the title "Paraclete," when used of the Spirit, 
you will not in either of its significations detach Him from His community in 
it with the Father and the Son. Accordingly, he has not been able, even though 
he wished it, to belittle the glory of the Spirit by ascribing to Him the very 
attribute which Holy Scripture refers also to the Father and to the Son. But 
in styling Him "the Spirit of Truth," Eunomius' own wish, I suppose, was to 
suggest by this phrase subjection, since Christ is the Truth, and he called 
Him the Spirit of Truth, as if one should say that He is a possession and 
chattel of the Truth, without being aware that God is called a God of 
righteousness(7); and we certainly do not understand thereby that God is a 
possession of righteousness. Wherefore also, when we hear of the "Spirit of 
Truth," we acquire by that phrase such a conception as befits the Deity, being 
guided to the loftier interpretation by the words which follow it. For when 
the Lord said "The Spirit of Truth," He immediately added "Which proceedeth 
from the Father(8)," a fact which the voice of the Lord never asserted of any 
conceivable thing in creation, not of aught visible or invisible, not of 
thrones, principalities, powers, or dominions, nor of any other name that is 
named either in this world or in that which is to come. It is plain then that 
that, from share in which all creation is excluded, is something special and 
peculiar to uncreated being. But this man bids us believe in "the Guide of 
godliness." Let a man then believe in Paul, and Barnabas, and Titus, and 
Silvanus, and Timotheus, and all those by whom we have been led into the way 
of the  faith. For if we are to believe in "that which guides us to 
godliness," along with the Father and the Son, all the prophets and lawgivers 
and patriarchs, heralds, evangelists, apostles, pastors,  and teachers, have 
equal honour with the Holy Spirit, as they bare been "guides to godliness" to 
those who came after them. "Who came into being," he goes on, "by the only God 
through the Only-begotten." In these words he gathers up in one head all his 
blasphemy. Once more he calls the Father "only God," who employs the 
Only-begotten as an instrument for the production of the Spirit. What shadow 
of such a notion did he find in Scripture, that he ventures upon this 
assertion? by deduction from what premises did he bring his profanity to such 
a conclusion as this? 

Which of the Evangelists says it? what apostle? what prophet? Nay, on the 
contrary every scripture divinely inspired, written by the afflatus of the 
Spirit, attests the Divinity of the Spirit. For example (for it is better to 
prove my position from the actual testimonies), those who receive power to 
become children of God bear witness to the Divinity of the Spirit. Who knows 
not that utterance of the Lord which tells us that they who are born of the 
Spirit are the children of God? For thus He expressly ascribes the birth of 
the children of God to the Spirit, saying, that as that which is born of the 
flesh is flesh, so that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. But as many as 
are born of the Spirit are called the children of God(9). So also when the 
Lord by breathing upon His disciples had imparted to them the Holy Spirit, 
John says, "Of His fulness have all we received(1)." And that "in Him dwelleth 
the fulness of the Godhead(2)," the mighty Paul attests: yea, moreover, 
through the prophet Isaiah it is attested, as to the manifestation of the 
Divine appearance vouchsafed to him, when he saw Him that sat "on the throne 
high and lifted up(3);" the older tradition, it is true, says that it was the 
Father Who appeared to him, but the evangelist John refers the prophecy to our 
Lord, saying, touching those of the Jews who did not believe the words uttered 
by the prophet concerning the Lord, "These things said Esaias, when he saw His 
glory and spoke of Him(4)." But the mighty Paul attributes the same passage to 
the Holy Spirit in his speech made to the Jews at Rome, when he says, "Well 
spoke the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet concerning you, saying, Hearing ye 
shall hear and shall not understand(5)," showing, in my opinion, by Holy 
Scripture itself, that every specially divine vision, every theophany, every 
word uttered in the Person of God, is to be understood to refer to the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Hence when David says, "they provoked God in the 
wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert(6)," the apostle refers to the Holy 
Spirit the despite done by the Israelites to God, in these terms: "Wherefore, 
as the Holy Ghost saith, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the 
day of temptation in the wilderness; when your fathers tempted me(7)," and 
goes on to refer all that the prophecy refers to God, to the Person of the 
Holy Ghost. Those who keep repeating against us the phrase "three Gods," 
because we hold these views, have per- 

130 

haps not yet learnt how to count. For if the Father and the Son are not 
divided into duality, (for they are, according to the Lord's words, One, and 
not Twos(8)) and if the Holy Ghost is also one, how can one added to one be 
divided into the number of three Gods? Is it not rather plain that no one can 
charge us with believing in the number of three Gods, without himself first 
maintaining in his own doctrine a pair of Gods? For it is by being added to 
two that the one completes the triad of Gods. But what room is there for the 
charge of tritheism against those by whom one God is worshipped, the God 
expressed by the Name of  the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost? 

    Let us however resume Eunomius' statement in its entirety. "Having come 
into being from the only God through the Only-begotten, this Spirit also--" 
What proof is there of the statement that "this Spirit also" is one of the 
things that were made by the Only-begotten? They will say of course that "all 
things were made by Him(9)," and that in the term "all things" "this Spirit 
also" is included. Our answer to them shall be this, All things were made by 
Him, that were made. Now the things that were made, as Paul tells us, were 
things visible and invisible, thrones, authorities, dominions, principalities, 
powers, and among those included under the head of thrones and powers are 
reckoned by Paul the Cherubim and Seraphim(1): so far does the term "all 
things" extend. But of the Holy Spirit, as being above the nature of things 
that have come into being, Paul said not a word in his enumeration of existing 
things, not indicating to us by his words either His subordination or His 
coming into being; but just as the prophet calls the Holy Spirit "good," and 
"right," and "guiding(2)"(indicating by the word "guiding" the power of 
control), even so the apostle ascribes independent authority to the dignity of 
the Spirit, when he affirms that He works all in all as He wills(3). Again, 
the Lord makes manifest the Spirit's independent power and operation in His 
discourse with Nicodemus, when He says, "The Spirit breatheth where He 
willeth(4)." How is it then that Eunomius goes so far as to define that He 
also is one of the things that came into being by the Son, condemned to 
eternal subjection. For he describes Him as "once for all made subject," 
enthralling the guiding and governing Spirit in I know not what form of 
subjection. For this expression 

of "subjection" has many significations in Holy Scripture, and is understood 
and used with many varieties of meaning. For the Psalmist says that even 
irrational nature is put in subjection(5), and brings under the same term 
those who are overcome in war(6), while the apostle bids servants to be in 
subjection to their own masters(7), and that those who are placed over the 
priesthood should have their children in subjection(8), as their disorderly 
conduct brings discredit upon their fathers, as in the case of the sons of Eli 
the priest. Again, he speaks of the subjection of all men to God, when we all, 
being united to one another by the faith, become one body of the Lord Who is 
in all, as the subjection of the Son to the Father, when the adoration paid to 
the Son by all things with one accord, by things in heaven, and things on 
earth, and things under the earth, redounds to the glory of the Father; as 
Paul says elsewhere, "To Him every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and 
things in earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess 
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father(9)." For when this 
takes place, the mighty wisdom of Paul affirms that the Son, Who is in all, is 
subject to the Father by virtue of the subjection of those in whom He is. What 
kind of "subjection once for all" Eunomius asserts of the Holy Spirit, it is 
thus impossible to learn from the phrase which he has thrown out,--whether he 
means the subjection of irrational creatures, or of captives, or of servants, 
or of children who are kept in order, or of those who are saved by subjection. 
For the subjection of men to God is salvation for those who are so made 
subject, according to the voice of the prophet, who says that his soul is 
subject to God, since of Him cometh salvation by subjection(1), so that 
subjection is the means of averting perdition. As therefore the help of the 
healing art is sought eagerly by the sick, so is subjection by those who are 
in need of salvation. But of what life does the Holy Spirit, that quickeneth 
all things, stand in need, that by subjection He should obtain salvation for 
Himself? Since then it is not on the strength of any Divine utterance that he 
asserts such an attribute of the Spirit, nor yet is it as a consequence of 
probable arguments that he has launched this blasphemy against the Holy 
Spirit, it must be plain at all events to sensible men that he vents his 
impiety against Him without any warrant whatsoever, unsupported as it is by 
any authority from Scripture or by any logical consequence. 


131 

 15. Lastly he displays at length the folly of 

Eunomius, who at times speaks of the Holy 

Spirit as created, and as the fairest work of 

the Son, and at other times confesses, by the operations attributed to Him, 
that He is God, and thus ends the book. 

    He goes on to add, "Neither on the same level with the Father, nor 
connumerated with the Father (for God over all is one and only Father), nor on 
an equality with the Son, for the Son is only-begotten, having none begotten 
with Him." Well, for my own part, if he had only added to his previous 
statement the remark that the Holy Ghost is not the Father of the Son, I 
should even then have thought it idle for him to linger over what no one ever 
doubted, and forbid people to form notions of Him which not even the most 
witless would entertain. But since he endeavours to establish his impiety by 
irrelevant and unconnected statements, imagining that by denying the Holy 
Spirit to be the Father of the Only-begotten he makes out that He is subject 
and subordinate, I therefore made mention of these words, as a proof of the 
folly of the man who imagines that he is demonstrating the Spirit to be 
subject to the Father on the ground that the Spirit is not Father of the 
Only-begotten. For what compels the conclusion, that if He be not Father, He 
must be subject? If it had been demonstrated that "Father" and "despot" were 
terms identical in meaning, it would no doubt have followed that, as absolute 
sovereignty was part of the conception of the Father, we should affirm that 
the Spirit is subject to Him Who surpassed Him in respect of authority. But if 
by "Father" is implied merely His relation to the Son, and no conception of 
absolute  sovereignty or authority is involved by the use of the word, how 
does it follow, from the fact that the Spirit is not the Father of the Son, 
that the Spirit is subject to the Father? "Nor on an equality with the Son," 
he says. How comes he to say this? for to be, and to be unchangeable, and to 
admit no evil whatsoever, and to remain unalterably in that which is good, all 
this shows no variation in the case of the Son and of the Spirit. For the 
incorruptible nature of the Spirit is remote from corruption equally with that 
of the Son, and in the Spirit, just as in the Son, His essential goodness is 
absolutely apart flora its contrary, and in both alike their perfection in 
every good stands in need of no addition. 

    Now the inspired Scripture teaches us to affirm all these attributes of 
the Spirit, when it predicates of the Spirit the terms "good," and "wise," and 
"incorruptible," and "immortal," and all such lofty conceptions and names as 
are properly applied to Godhead. If then He is inferior in none of these 
respects, by what means does Eunomius determine the inequality of the Son and 
the Spirit? "For the Son is," he tells us, "Only-begotten, having no brother 
begotten with Him." Well, the point, that we are not to understand the 
"Only-begotten" to have brethren, we have already discussed in our comments 
upon the phrase "first-born of all creation(2)" But we ought not to leave 
unexamined the sense that Eunomius now unfairly attaches to the term. For 
while the doctrine of the Church declares that in the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost there is one power, and goodness, and essence, and glory, and the 
like, saving the difference of the Persons, this man, when he wishes to make 
the essence of the Only-begotten common to the creation, calls Him "the 
first-born of all creation" in respect of His pre-temporal existence, 
declaring by this mode of expression that all conceivable objects in creation 
are in brotherhood with the Lord; for assuredly the first-born is not the 
first-born of those otherwise begotten, but of those begotten like Himself(3). 
But when he is bent upon severing the Spirit from union with the Son, he calls 
Him "Only-begotten, not having any brother begotten with Him," not with the 
object of conceiving of Him as without brethren, but that by the means of this 
assertion he may establish touching the Spirit His essential alienation from 
the Son. It is true that we learn from Holy Scripture not to speak of the Holy 
Ghost as brother of the Son: but that we are not to say that the Holy Ghost is 
homogeneous(4) with the Son, is nowhere shown in the divine Scriptures. For if 
there does reside in the Father and the Son a life-giving power, it is 
ascribed also to the Holy Spirit, according to the words of the Gospel. If one 
may discern alike in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit the properties of being 
incorruptible, immutable, of admitting no evil, of being good, right, guiding, 
of working all in all as He wills, and all the like attributes, how is it 
possible by identity in these respects to infer difference in kind? 
Accordingly the word of godliness agrees in affirming that we ought not to 
regard any kind of brotherhood as attaching to the Only-begotten; but to say 
that the Spirit is not homogeneous with the Son, the upright with the upright, 
the good with the good, the life-giving with the life-giving, this has been 
clearly demonstrated by logical inference to be a piece of heretical knavery. 

    Why then is the majesty of the Spirit curtailed by such arguments as 
these? For there is nothing 

132 

which can be the cause of producing in him deviation by excess or defect from 
conceptions such as befit the Godhead, nor, since all these are by Holy 
Scripture predicated equally of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, can he inform 
us wherein he discerns inequality to exist. But he launches his blasphemy 
against the Holy Ghost in its naked form, ill-prepared and unsupported by any 
consecutive argument. "Nor yet ranked," he says, "with any other: for He has 
gone above(5) all the creatures that came into being by the instrumentality of 
the Son in mode of being, and nature, and glory, and knowledge, as the first 
and noblest work of the Only-begotten, the greatest and most glorious." I will 
leave, however, to others the task of ridiculing the bad taste and surplusage 
of his style, thinking as I do that it is unseemly for the gray baits of age, 
when dealing with the argument before us, to make vulgarity of expression an 
objection against one who is guilty of impiety. I will just add to my 
investigation this remark. If the Spirit has "gone above" all the creations'' 
of the Son, (for I will use his own ungrammatical and senseless phrase, or 
rather, to make things clearer, I will present his idea in my own language) if 
he transcends all things wrought by the Son, the Holy Spirit cannot be ranked 
with the rest of the creation; and if, as Eunomius says, he surpasses them by 
virtue of priority of birth, he must needs confess, in the case of the rest of 
creation, that the objects which are first in order of production are more to 
be esteemed than those which come after them. Now the creation of the 
irrational animals was prior to that of man. Accordingly he will of course 
declare that the irrational nature is more honourable than rational existence. 
So too, according to the argument of Eunomius, Cain will be proved superior to 
Abel, in that he was before him in time of birth, and so the stars will be 
shown to be lower and of less excellence than all the things that grow out of 
the earth; for these last sprang from the earth on the third day, and all the 
stars are recorded by Moses to have been created on the fourth. Well, surely 
no one is such a simpleton as to infer that the grass of the earth is more to 
be esteemed than the marvels of the sky, on the ground of its precedence in 
time, or to award the meed to Cain over Abel, or to place below the irrational 
animals man who came into being later than they. So there is no sense in our 
author's contention that the nature of the Holy Spirit is superior to that of 
the creatures that came into being subsequently, on the ground that He came 
into being before they did. And now let us see what he who separates Him from 
fellowship with the Son is prepared to concede to the glory of the Spirit: 
"For he too," he says, "being one, and first and alone, and surpassing all the 
creations of the Son in essence and dignity of nature, accomplishing every 
operation and all teaching according to the good pleasure of the Son, being 
sent by Him, and receiving from Him, and declaring to those who are 
instructed, and guiding into truth." He speaks of the Holy Ghost as 
"accomplishing every operation and all teaching." What operation? Does he mean 
that which the Father and the Son execute, according to the word of the Lord 
Himself Who "hitherto worketh(6)" man's salvation, or does he mean some other? 
For if His work is that named, He has assuredly the same power and nature as 
Him Who works it, and in such an one difference of kind from Deity can have no 
place. For just as, if anything should perform the functions of fire, shining 
and warming in precisely the same way, it is itself certainly fire, so if the 
Spirit does the works of the Father, He must assuredly be acknowledged to be 
of the same nature with Him. If on the other hand He operates something else 
than our salvation, and displays His operation in a contrary direction, He 
will thereby be proved to be of a different nature and essence. But Eunomius' 
statement itself bears witness that the Spirit quickeneth in like manner with 
the Father and the Son. Accordingly, from the identity of operations it 
results assuredly that the Spirit is not alien from the nature of the Father 
and the Son. And to the statement that the Spirit accomplishes the operation 
and teaching of the Father according to the good pleasure of the Son we 
assent. For the community of nature gives us warrant that the will of the 
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is one, and thus, if the Holy Spirit 
wills that which seems good to the Son, the community of will clearly points 
to unity of essence. But he goes on, "being sent by Him, and receiving from 
Him, and declaring to those who are instructed, and guiding into truth." If he 
had not previously said what he has concerning the Spirit, the reader would 
surely have supposed that these words applied to some human teacher. For to 
receive a mission is the same thing as to be sent, and to have nothing of 
one's own, but to receive of the free favour of him who gives the mission, and 
to minister his words to those who are under instruction, and to be a guide 
into truth for those that are astray. All these things, which Eunomius is good 
enough to allow to the Holy Spirit, belong to the present pastors and teachers 
of the Church,--to be sent, to receive, 

133 

to announce, to teach, to suggest the truth. Now, as he had said above "He is 
one, and first, and alone, and surpassing all," had be but stopped there, he 
would have appeared as a defender of the doctrines of truth. For He Who is 
indivisibly contemplated in the One is most truly One, and first Who is in the 
First, and alone Who is in the Only One. For as the spirit of man that is in 
him, and the man himself, are but one man, so also the Spirit of God which is 
in Him, and God Himself, would properly be termed One God, and First and Only, 
being incapable of separation from Him in Whom He is. But as things are, with 
his addition of his profane phrase, "surpassing all the creatures of the Son," 
he produces turbid confusion by assigning to Him Who "breatheth where He 
willeth(7)," and "worketh all in all(8)," a mere superiority in comparison 
with the rest of created things. 

    Let us now see further what he adds to this "sanctifying the saints." If 
any one says this also of the Father and of the Son, he will speak truly. For 
those in whom the Holy One dwells, He makes holy, even as the Good One makes 
men good. And the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are holy and good, as 
has been shown. "Acting as a guide to those who approach the mystery." This 
may well be said of Apollos who watered what Paul planted. For the Apostle 
plants by his guidance(9), and Apollos, when he baptizes, waters by 
Sacramental regeneration, bringing to the mystery those who were instructed by 
Paul. Thus he places on a level with Apollos that Spirit Who perfects men 
through baptism. "Distributing every gift." With this we too agree; for 
everything that is good is a portion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. 
"Co-operating with the faithful for the understanding and contemplation of 
things appointed." As he does not add by whom they are appointed, he leaves 
his meaning doubtful, whether it is correct or the reverse. But we will by a 
slight addition advance his statement so as to make it consistent with 
godliness. For since, whether it be the word of wisdom, or the word of 
knowledge, or faith, or help, or government, or aught else that is enumerated 
in the lists of saving gifts, "all these worketh that one and the self-same 
Spirit, dividing to  every man severally as He will(1)," we therefore do not 
reject the statement of Eunomius when  he says that the Spirit "co-operates 
with the faithful for understanding and contemplation of things appointed" by 
Him, because by Him all  good teachings are appointed for us. "Sounding an 
accompaniment to those who pray." It would be foolish seriously to examine the 
meaning of this expression, of which the ludicrous and meaningless character 
is at once manifest to all. For who is so demented and beside himself as to 
wait for us to tell him that the Holy Spirit is not a bell nor an empty cask 
sounding an accompaniment and made to ring by the voice of him who prays as it 
were by a blow? "Leading us to that which is expedient for us." This the 
Father and the Son likewise do: for "He leadeth Joseph like a sheep(2)," and, 
"led His people like sheep(3)," and, "the good Spirit leadeth us in a land of 
righteousness(4)." "Strengthening us to godliness." To strengthen man to 
godliness David says is the work of God; "For Thou art my strength and my 
refuge(5)," says the Psalmist, and "the Lord is the strength of His 
people(6)," and, "He shall give strength and power unto His people(7)." If 
then the expressions of Eunomius are meant in accordance with the mind of the 
Psalmist, they are a testimony to the Divinity of the Holy Ghost: but if they 
are opposed to the word of prophecy, then by this very fact a charge of 
blasphemy lies against Eunomius, because he sets up his own opinions in 
opposition to the holy prophets. Next he says, "Lightening souls with the 
light of knowledge." This grace also the doctrine of godliness ascribes alike 
to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. For He is called a light by 
David(8), and from thence the light of knowledge shines in them who are 
enlightened. In like manner also the cleansing of our thoughts of which the 
statement speaks is proper to the power of the Lord. For it was "the 
brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His person," Who 
"purged our sins(9)." Again, to banish devils, which Eunomius says is a 
property of the Spirit, this also the only-begotten God, Who said to the 
devil, "I charge thee(1) ascribes to the power of the Spirit, when He says, 
"If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils(2)," so that the expulsion of 
devils is not destructive of the glory of the Spirit, but rather a 
demonstration of His divine and transcendent power. "Healing the sick," he 
says, "curing the infirm, comforting the afflicted, raising up those who 
stumble, recovering the distressed." These are the words of those who think 
reverently of the Holy Ghost, for no one would ascribe the operation of any 
one of these effects to any one except to God. If then heresy affirms that 
those things which it belongs to none save God alone to effect, are wrought by 
the power of the Spirit, we have in support of the truths for which we are 
contending the witness even of our adversaries. How does the Psalmist seek his 
healing 

134 

from God, saying, "Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, 
for my hones are vexed(3)!" It is to God that Isaiah says, "The dew that is 
from Thee is healing unto them(4)."  Again, prophetic language attests that 
the conversion of those in error is the work of God. For "they went astray in 
the wilderness in a thirsty land," says the Psalmist, and he adds, "So He led 
them forth by the right way, that they might go to the city where they 
dwelt(5):" and, "when the Lord turned again the captivity of Sion(6)." In like 
manner also the comfort of the afflicted is ascribed to God, Paul thus 
speaking, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who 
comforteth us in all our tribulation(7)." Again, the Psalmist says, speaking 
in the person of God "Thou calledst upon Me in trouble and I delivered 
thee(8)." And the setting upright of those who stumble is innumerable times 
ascribed by Scripture to the power of the Lord: "Thou hast thrust sore at me 
that I might fall, but the Lord was my help(9)," and "Though he fall, he shall 
not be cast away, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand(1)," and "The Lord 
helpeth them that are fallend.(2)" And to the loving-kindness of God 
confessedly belongs the recovery of the distressed, if Eunomius means the same 
thing of which we learn in prophecy, as the Scripture says, "Thou laidest 
trouble upon our loins; Thou sufferedst men to ride over our heads; we went 
through fire and water, and Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place(3)." 

    Thus far then the majesty of the Spirit is demonstrated by the evidence of 
our opponents, but in what follows the limpid waters of devotion are once more 
defiled by the mud of heresy. For he says of the Spirit that He "cheers on 
those who are contending": and this phrase involves him in the charge of 
extreme folly and impiety. For in the stadium some have the task of arranging 
the competitions between those who intend to show their athletic vigour; 
others, who surpass the rest in strength and skill, strive for the victory and 
strip to contend with one another, while the rest, taking sides in their good 
wishes with one or other of the competitors, according as they are severally 
disposed towards or interested in one athlete or another, cheer him on at the 
time of the engagement, and bid him guard against some hurt, or remember some 
trick of wrestling, or keep himself unthrown by the help of his art. Take note 
from what has been said to how low a rank Eunomius degrades the Holy Spirit. 
For while on the course there are some who arrange the contests, and others 
who settle whether the contest is conducted according to rule, others who are 
actually engaged, and yet others who cheer on the competitors, who are 
acknowledged to be far inferior to the athletes themselves, Eunomius considers 
the Holy Spirit as one of the mob who look on, or as one of those who attend 
upon the athletes, seeing that He neither determines the contest nor awards 
the victory, nor contends with the adversary, but merely cheers without 
contributing at all to the victory. For He neither joins in the fray, nor does 
He implant the power to contend, but merely wishes that the athlete in whom He 
is interested may not come off second in the strife. And so Paul wrestles 
"against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of 
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places(4)," while the Spirit 
of power does not strengthen the combatants nor distribute to them His gifts, 
"dividing to every man severally as He will(5)", but His influence is limited 
to cheering on those who are engaged. 

    Again he says, "Emboldening the faint-hearted." And here, while in 
accordance with his own method he follows his previous blasphemy against the 
Spirit, the truth for all that manifests itself, even through unfriendly lips. 
For to none other than to God does it belong to implant courage in the 
fearful, saying to the faint-hearted, "Fear not, for I am with thee, be not 
dismayed(6)," as says the Psalmist, "Yea though I walk through the valley of 
the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me(7)." Nay, the 
Lord Himself says to the fearful,--"Let not your heart be troubled, neither 
let it be afraid(8)," and, a Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith(9)?" 
and, "Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid(1)," and again, "Be of good 
cheer: I have overcome the world(2)" Accordingly, even though this may not 
have been the intention of Eunomius, orthodoxy asserts itself by means even of 
the voice of an enemy. And the next sentence agrees with that which went 
before:--" Caring for all, and showing all concern and forethought." For in 
fact it belongs to God alone to care and to take thought for all, as the 
mighty David has expressed it, "I am poor and needy, but the Lord careth for 
me(3)." And if what remains seems to be resolved into empty words, with sound 
and without sense, let no one find fault, seeing that in most of what he says, 
so far as any sane meaning is concerned, he is feeble and untutored. For what 
on earth he means when he says, "for the onward leading of the better disposed 
and the guardianship of the more faithful," neither he himself, nor they who 
senselessly admire his follies, could possibly tell us. 

xxxxxx
                                BOOK III 

I. This third book shows a third fall of 

     Eunomius, as refuting himself, and sometimes 

     saying that the Son is to be called Only- 

     begotten in virtue of, natural generation, and 

     that Holy Scripture proves this from the 

     first; at other times, that by reason of His 

     being created He should not be called a Son, 

     but a "product," or "creature." 

    IF, when a man "strives lawfully(1)," he finds a limit to his struggle in 
the contest by his adversary's either refusing the struggle, and withdrawing 
of his own accord in favour of his conqueror from his effort for victory, or 
being thrown according to the rules of wrestling in three falls (whereby the 
glory of the crown is bestowed with all the splendour of proclamation upon him 
who has proved victorious in the umpire's judgment), then, since Eunomius, 
though he has been already twice thrown in our previous arguments, does not 
consent that truth should hold the tokens of her victory over falsehood, but 
yet a third time raises the dust against godly doctrine in his accustomed 
arena of falsehood with his composition, strengthening himself for his 
struggle on the side of deceit, our statement of truth must also be now called 
forth to put his falsehood to rout, placing its hopes in Him Who is the Giver 
and the Judge of victory, and at the same time deriving strength from the very 
unfairness of the adversaries' tricks of wrestling. For we are not ashamed to 
confess that we have prepared for our contest no weapon of argument sharpened 
by rhetoric, that we can bring forward to aid us in the fight with those 
arrayed against us, no cleverness or sharpness of dialectic, such as with 
inexperienced judges lays even on truth the suspicion of falsehood. One 
strength our reasoning against falsehood has--first the very Word Himself, Who 
is the might of our word,(2) and in the next place the rottenness of the 
arguments set against us, which is overthrown and falls by its own spontaneous 
action. Now in order that it may be made as clear as possible to all men, that 
the very efforts Of Eunomius serve as means for his own overthrow to those who 
contend with him, I will set forth to my readers his phantom doctrine (for so 
I think that doctrine may be called which is quite outside the truth), and I 
would have you all, who are present at our struggle, and watch the encounter 
now taking place between my doctrine and that which is matched with it, to be 
just judges of the lawful striving of our arguments, that by your just award 
the reasoning of godliness may be proclaimed as victor to the whole theatre of 
the Church, having won undisputed victory over ungodliness, and being 
decorated, in virtue of the three falls of its enemy, with the unfading crown 
of them that are saved. Now this statement is set forth against the truth by 
way of preface to his third discourse, and this is the fashion of 
it:--"Preserving," he says, "natural order, and abiding by those things which 
are known to us from above, we do not refuse to speak of the Son, seeing He is 
begotten, even by the name of 'product of generation(3),' since the generated 
essence and(4) the appellation of Son make such a relation of words 
appropriate." I beg the reader to give his attention carefully to this point, 
that while he calls God both "begotten" and "Son," he refers the reason of 
such names to "natural order," and calls to witness to this conception the 
knowledge possessed from above: so that if anything should be found in the 
course of what follows contrary to the positions be has laid down, it is clear 
to all that he is overthrown by himself, refuted by his own arguments before 
ours are brought against him. And so let us consider his statement in the 
light of his own words. He confesses that the name of "Son" would by no means 
be properly applied to the Only-begotten God, did not "natural order," as he 
says, confirm the appellation. If, then, one were to withdraw the order of 
nature from the consideration of the designation of "Son," his use of this 
name, being deprived of its proper and natural significance, will be 
meaningless. And 

136 

moreover the fact that he says these statements are confirmed, in that they 
abide by the knowledge possessed from above, is a strong additional support to 
the orthodox view touching the designation of "Son," seeing that the inspired 
teaching of the Scriptures, which comes to us from above, confirms our 
argument on these matters. If these things are so, and this is a standard of 
truth that admits of no deception, that these two concur--the "natural order," 
as he says, and the testimony of the knowledge given from above confirming the 
natural interpretation--it is clear, that to assert anything contrary to 
these, is nothing else than manifestly to fight against the truth itself. Let 
us hear again what this writer, who makes nature his instructor in the matter 
of this name, and says that he abides by the knowledge given to us from above 
by the instruction of the saints, sets out at length a little further on, 
after the passage I have just quoted. For I will pretermit for the time the 
continuous recital of what is set next in order in his treatise, that the 
contradiction in what he has written may not escape detection, being veiled by 
the reading of the intervening matter. "The same argument," he says, "will 
apply also in the case of what is made and created, as both the natural 
interpretation and the mutual relation of the things, and also the use of the 
saints, give us free authority for the use of the formula: wherefore one would 
not be wrong in treating the thing made as corresponding to the maker, and the 
thing created to the creator." Of what product of making or of creation does 
he speak, as having naturally the relation expressed in its name towards its 
maker and creator? If of those we contemplate in the creation, visible and 
invisible (as Paul recounts, when he says that by Him all things were created, 
visible and invisible)(5), so that this relative conjunction of names has a 
proper and special application, that which is made being set in relation to 
the maker, that which is created to the creator,--if this is his meaning, we 
agree with him. For in fact, since the Lord is the Maker of angels, the angel 
is assuredly a thing made by Him that made him: and since the Lord is the 
Creator of the world, clearly the world itself and all that is therein are 
called the creature of Him that created them. If however it is with this 
intention that he makes his interpretation of "natural order," systematizing 
the appropriation of relative terms with a view to their mutual relation in 
verbal sense, even thus it would be an extraordinary thing, seeing that every 
one is aware of this, that he should leave his doctrinal statement to draw out 
for us a system of grammatical trivialities(6). But if it is to the 
Only-begotten God that he applies such phrases, so as to say that He is a 
thing made by Him that made Him, a creature of Him that created Him, and to 
refer this terminology to "the use of the saints," let him first of all show 
us in his statement what saints he says there are who declared the Maker of 
all things to be a product and a creature, and whom he follows in this 
audacity of phrase. The Church knows as saints those whose hearts were 
divinely guided by the Holy Spirit,--patriarchs, lawgivers, prophets, 
evangelists, apostles. If any among these is found to declare in his inspired 
words that God over all, Who "upholds all things with the word of His power," 
and grasps with His hand all things that are, and by Himself called the 
universe into being by the mere act of His will, is a thing created and a 
product, he will stand excused, as following, as he says, the "use of the 
saints(7)" in proceeding to formulate such doctrines. But if the knowledge of 
the Holy Scriptures is freely placed within the reach of all, and nothing is 
forbidden to or hidden from any of those who choose to share in the divine 
instruction, how comes it that he endeavours to lead his hearers astray by his 
misrepresentation of the Scriptures, referring the term "creature," applied to 
the Only-begotten, to "the use of the saints"? For that by Him all things were 
made, you may hear almost from the whole of their holy utterance, from Moses 
and the prophets and apostles who come after him, whose particular expressions 
it would be tedious here to set forth. Enough for our purpose, with the 
others, and above the others, is the sublime John, where in the preface to his 
discourse on the Divinity of the Only-begotten he proclaims aloud the fact 
that there is none of the things that were made which was not made through 
Him(8), a fact which is an incontestable and positive proof of His being Lord 
of the creation, not reckoned in the list of created things. For if all things 
that are made exist by no other but by Him (and John bears witness that 
nothing among the things that are, throughout the creation, was made without 
Him), who is so blinded in understanding as not to see in the Evangelist's 
proclamation the truth, that He Who made all the creation is assuredly 
something else besides the creation? For if all that is numbered among the 
things that were made has its being through Him, while He Himself is" in the 
beginning," and is" with God," being God, and Word, and Life, and Light, and 
express Image, and Brightness, and 

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if none of the things that were made throughout creation is named by the same 
names--(not Word, not God, not Life, not Light, not Truth 

not express Image, not Brightness, not any of the other names proper to the 
Deity is to be found employed of the creation)--then it is clear that He Who 
is these things is by nature something else besides the creation, which 
neither is nor is called any of these things. If, indeed, there existed in 
such phrases an identity of names between the creation and its Maker, he might 
perhaps be excused for making the name of "creation" also common to the thing 
created and to Him Who made it, on the ground of the community of the other 
names: but if the characteristics which are contemplated by means of the 
names, in the created and in the uncreated nature, are in no case reconcilable 
or common to both, how can the misrepresentation of that man fail to be 
manifest to all, who dares to apply the name of servitude to Him Who, as the 
Psalmist declares, "ruleth with His power for ever(9)," and to bring Him Who, 
as the Apostle says, "in all things hath the pre-eminence(1)," to a level with 
the servile nature, by means of the name and conception of "creation"? For 
that all(2) the creation is in bondage the great Paul declares(3),--he who in 
the schools above the heavens was instructed in that knowledge which may not 
be spoken, learning these things in that place where every voice that conveys 
meaning by verbal utterance is still, and where unspoken meditation becomes 
the word of instruction, teaching to the purified heart by means of the silent 
illumination of the thoughts those truths which transcend speech. If then on 
the one hand Paul proclaims aloud "the creation is in bondage," and on the 
other the Only-begotten God is truly Lord and God over all, and John bears 
witness to the fact that the whole creation of the things that were made is by 
Him, how can any one, who is in any sense whatever numbered among Christians, 
hold his peace when he sees Eunomius, by his inconsistent and inconsequent 
systematizing, degrading to the humble state of the creature, by means of an 
identity of name: that tends to servitude, that power of Lordship which 
surpasses all rule and all authority? And if he says that he has some of the 
saints who declared  Him to be a slave, or created, or made, or any  of these 
lowly and servile names, lo, here are the Scriptures. Let him, or some other 
on his behalf, produce to us one such phrase, and we will hold our peace. But 
if there is no such phrase (and there could never be found in those inspired 
Scriptures which we believe any such thought as to support this impiety), what 
need is there to strive further upon points admitted with one who not only 
misrepresents the words of the saints, but even contends against his own 
definitions? For if the "order of nature," as he himself admits, bears 
additional testimony to the Son's name by reason of His being begotten, and 
thus the correspondence of the name is according to the relation of the 
Begotten to the Begetter, how comes it that he wrests the significance of the 
word "Son" from its natural application, and changes the relation to "the 
thing made and its maker"--a relation which applies not only in the case of 
the elements of the universe, but might also be asserted of a gnat or an 
ant--that in so far as each of these is a thing made, the relation of its name 
to its maker is similarly equivalent? The blasphemous nature of his doctrine 
is clear, not only from many other passages, but even from those quoted: and 
as for that "use of the saints" which he alleges that he follows in these 
expressions, it is clear that there is no such use at all. 

2. He then once more excellently, approximately, and clearly examines and 
expounds the passage, "The Lord created Me." 

    Perhaps that passage in the Proverbs might be brought forward against us 
which the champions of heresy are wont to cite as a testimony that the Lord 
was created--the passage," The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways, 
for His works(4)." For because these words are spoken by Wisdom, and the Lord 
is called Wisdom by the great Paul(5), they allege this passage as though the 
Only-begotten God Himself, under the name of Wisdom, acknowledges that He was 
created by the Maker of all things. I imagine, however, that the godly sense 
of this utterance is clear to moderately attentive and painstaking persons, so 
that, in the case of those who are instructed in the dark sayings of the 
Proverbs, no injury is done to the doctrine of the faith. Yet I think it well 
briefly to discuss what is to be said on this subject, that when the intention 
of this passage is more clearly explained, the heretical doctrine may have no 
room for boldness of speech on the ground that it has evidence in the writing 
of the inspired author. It is universally admitted that the name of "proverb," 
in its scriptural use, is not applied with regard to the evident sense, but is 
used with a view to some hidden meaning, as the Gospel thus gives the name of 
"proverbs(6)" to dark and obscure sayings; so that the "proverb," if one were 
to set forth the interpretation of the name by a 

138 

definition, is a form of speech which, by means of one set of ideas 
immediately presented, points to something else which is hidden, or a form of 
speech which does not point out the aim of the thought directly, but gives its 
instruction by an indirect signification. Now to this book such a name is 
especially attached as a title, and the force of the appellation is at once 
interpreted in the preface by the wise Solomon. For he does not call the 
sayings in this book "maxims," or "counsels," or "clear instruction," but 
"proverbs," and proceeds to add an explanation. What is the force of the 
signification of this word? "To know," he tells us, "wisdom and 
instruction(7)"; not setting before us the course of instruction in wisdom 
according to the method common in other kinds of learning; he bids a man, on 
the other hand (8), first to become wise by previous training, and then so to 
receive the instruction conveyed by proverb. For he tells us that there are 
"words of wisdom" which reveal their aim "by a turn(9)." For that which is not 
directly understood needs some turn for the apprehension of the thing 
concealed; and as Paul, when about to exchange the literal sense of the 
history for figurative contemplation, says that he will "change his 
voice(1),'' so here the manifestation of the hidden meaning is called by 
Solomon a "turn of the saying," as if the beauty of the thoughts could not be 
perceived, unless one were to obtain a view of the revealed brightness of the 
thought by turning the apparent meaning of the saying round about, as happens 
with the plumage with which the peacock is decked behind. For in him, one who 
sees the back of his plumage quite despises it for its want of beauty and 
tint, as a mean sight; but if one were to turn it round and show him the other 
view of it, he then sees the varied painting of nature, the half-circle 
shining in the midst with its dye of purple, and the golden mist round the 
circle ringed round and glistening at its edge with its many rainbow hues. 
Since then there is no beauty in what is obvious in the saying (for "all the 
glory of the king's daughter is within(2)," shining with its hidden ornament 
in golden thoughts), Solomon of necessity suggests to the readers of this book 
"the turn of the saying," that thereby they may "understand a parable and a 
dark saying, words of the wise and riddles(3)." Now as this proverbial 
teaching embraces these elements, a reasonable man will not receive any 
passage cited from this book, be it never so clear and intelligible at first 
sight, without examination and inspection; for assuredly there is some  
mystical contemplation underlying even those passages which seem manifest. And 
if the obvious passages of the work necessarily demand a somewhat minute 
scrutiny, how much more do those passages require it where even immediate 
apprehension presents to us much that is obscure and difficult? 

    Let us then begin our examination from the context of the passage in 
question, and see whether the reading of the neighbouring clauses gives any 
clear sense. The discourse describes Wisdom as uttering certain sayings in her 
own person. Every student knows what is said in the passage(4) where Wisdom 
makes counsel her dwelling-place, and calls to her knowledge and 
understanding, and says that she has as a possession strength and prudence 
(while she is herself called intelligence), and that she walks in the ways of 
righteousness and has her conversation in the ways of just judgement, and 
declares that by her kings reign, and princes write the decree of equity, and 
monarchs win possession of their own land. Now every one will see that the 
considerate reader will receive none of the phrases quoted without scrutiny 
according to the obvious sense. For if by her kings are advanced to their 
rule. and if from her monarchy derives its strength, it follows of necessity 
that Wisdom is displayed to us as a king-maker, and transfers to herself the 
blame of those who bear evil rule in their kingdoms. But we know of kings who 
in truth advance under the guidance of Wisdom to the rule that has no end--the 
poor in spirit, whose possession is the kingdom of heaven(5), as the Lord 
promises, Who is the Wisdom of the Gospel: and such also we recognize as the 
princes who bear rule over their passions, who are not enslaved by the 
dominion of sin, who inscribe the decree of equity upon their own life, as it 
were upon a tablet. Thus, too, that laudable despotism which changes, by the 
alliance of Wisdom, the democracy of the passions into the monarchy of reason, 
brings into bondage what were running unrestrained into mischievous liberty, I 
mean all carnal and earthly thoughts: for "the flesh lusteth against the 
Spirit(6)," and rebels against the government of the soul. Of this land, then, 
such a monarch wins possession, whereof he was, according to the first 
creation, appointed as ruler by the Word. 

    Seeing then that all reasonable men admit that these expressions are to be 
read in such a sense as this, rather than in that which appears in the words 
at first sight, it is consequently probable that the phrase we are discussing, 
being written in close connection with them, is not received by prudent men 
absolutely and 

139 

without examination. "If I declare to you," she says, "the things that happen 
day by day, I will remember to recount the things from everlasting: the Lord 
created me(7)." What pray, has the slave of the literal text, who sits 
listening closely to the sound of the syllables, like the Jews, to say to this 
phrase? Does not the conjunction, "If I declare to you the things that happen 
day by day, the Lord created me," ring strangely in the ears of those who 
listen attentively? as though, if she did not declare the things that happen 
day by day, she will by consequence deny absolutely that she was created. For 
he who says, "If I declare, I was created." leaves you by his silence to 
understand, "I was not created, if I do not declare." "The Lord created me," 
she says, "in the beginning of His ways, for His works. He set me up from 
everlasting, in the beginning, before He made the earth, before He made the 
depths, before the springs of the waters came forth, before the mountains were 
settled, before all hills, He begetteth me(8)." What new order of the 
formation of a creature is this? First it is created, and after that it is set 
up, and then it is begotten. "The Lord made," she says, "lands, even 
uninhabited, and the inhabited extremes of the earth under heaven(9)." Of what 
Lord does she speak as the maker of land both uninhabited and inhabited? Of 
Him surely, who made wisdom. For both the one saying and the other are uttered 
by the same person; both that which says, "the Lord created me," and that 
which adds, "the Lord made land, even uninhabited." Thus the Lord will be the 
maker equally of both, of Wisdom herself, and of the inhabited and uninhabited 
land. What then are we to make of the saying, "All things were made by Him, 
and without Him was riot anything made(1)"? For if one and the same Lord 
creates both Wisdom (which they advise us to understand of the Son), and also 
the particular things which are included in the Creation, how does the sublime 
John speak truly, when he says that all things were made by Him? For this 
Scripture gives a contrary sound to that of the Gospel, in ascribing to the 
Creator of Wisdom the making of land uninhabited and inhabited. So, too, with 
all that follows(2):--she speaks of a Throne of God set apart upon the winds, 
and says that the clouds above are made strong, and the fountains under the 
heaven sure; and the context contains many similar expressions, demanding in a 
marked degree that interpretation by a minute and clear-sighted intelligence, 
which is to be observed in the passages already quoted. What is the throne 
that is set apart upon the winds?  What is the security of the fountains under 
the  heaven? How are the clouds above made strong? If any one should interpret 
the passage with reference to visible objects(3), he will find that the facts 
are at considerable variance with the words. For who knows not that the 
extreme parts of the earth under heaven, by excess in one direction or in the 
other, either by being too close to the sun's heat, or by being too far 
removed from it, are uninhabitable; some being excessively dry and parched, 
other parts superabounding in moisture, and chilled by frost, and that only so 
much is inhabited as is equally removed from the extreme of each of the two 
opposite conditions? But if it is the midst of the earth that is occupied by 
man, how does the proverb say that the extremes of the earth under heaven are 
inhabited? Again, what strength could one perceive in the clouds, that that 
passage may have a true sense, according to its apparent intention, which says 
that the clouds above have been made strong? For the nature of cloud is a sort 
of rather slight vapour diffused through the air, which, being light, by 
reason of its great subtilty, is borne on the breath of the air, and, when 
forced together by compression, falls down through the air that held it up, in 
the form of a heavy drop of rain. What then is the strength in these, which 
offer no resistance to the touch? For in the cloud you may discern the slight 
and easily dissolved character of air. Again, how is the Divine throne set 
apart on the winds that are by nature unstable? And as for her saying at first 
that she is "created," finally, that she is "begotten," and between these two 
utterances that she is" set up," what account of this could any one profess to 
give that would agree with the common and obvious sense? The point also on 
which a doubt was previously raised in our argument, the declaring, that is, 
of the things that happen day by day, and the remembering to recount the 
things from everlasting, is, as it were, a condition of Wisdom's assertion 
that she was created by God. 

    Thus, since it has been clearly shown by what bus been said, that no part 
of this passage is such that its language should be received without 
examination and reflection, it may be well, perhaps, as with the rest, so not 
to interpret the text, "The Lord created me," according to that sense which 
immediately presents itself to us from the phrase, but to seek with all 
attention and care what is to be piously understood from the utterance. Now, 
to apprehend perfectly the sense of the passage before us, would seem to 
belong only to those who search out the depths by the aid of the Holy Spirit, 
and know how to speak in the Spirit the divine 

140 

mysteries: our account, however, will only busy itself with the passage in 
question so far as not to leave its drift entirely unconsidered. What, then, 
is our account? It is not, I think, possible that that wisdom which arises in 
any man from divine illumination should come alone, apart from the other gifts 
of the Spirit, but there must needs enter in therewith also the grace of 
prophecy. For if the apprehension of the truth of the things that are is the 
peculiar power of wisdom, and prophecy includes the clear knowledge of the 
things that are about to be, one would not be possessed of the gift of wisdom 
in perfection, if he did not further include in his knowledge, by the aid of 
prophecy, the future likewise. Now, since it is not mere human wisdom that is 
claimed for himself by Solomon, who says, "God hath taught me wisdom(4)," and 
who, where he says "all my words are spoken from God(5)," refers to God all 
that is spoken by himself, it might be well in this part of the Proverbs to 
trace out the prophecy that is mingled with his wisdom. But we say that in the 
earlier part of the book, where he says that "Wisdom has builded herself a 
house(6)" he refers darkly in, these words to the preparation of the flesh of 
the Lord: for the trite Wisdom did not dwell in another's building, but built 
for Itself that dwelling-place from the body of the Virgin. Here, however, he 
adds to his discourse(7) that which of both is made one--of the house, I mean, 
and of the Wisdom which built the house, that is to say, of the Humanity and 
of the Divinity that was commingled with man(8); and to each of these he 
applies suitable and fitting terms, as you may see to be the case also in the 
Gospels, where the discourse, proceeding as befits its subject, employs the 
more lofty and divine phraseology to indicate the Godhead, and that which is 
humble and lowly to indicate the Manhood. So we may see in this passage also 
Solomon prophetically moved, and delivering to us in its fulness the mystery 
of the Incarnation(9). For we speak first of the eternal power and energy of 
Wisdom; and here the evangelist, to a certain extent, agrees with him in his 
very words. For as the latter in his comprehensive(1) phrase proclaimed Him to 
be the cause and Maker of all things, so Solomon says that by Him were made 
those individual things which are included in the whole. For he tells us that 
God by Wisdom established the earth, and in understanding prepared the 
heavens, and all that follows these in order, keeping to the same sense: and 
that he might not seem to pass over without mention the gift of excellence in 
men, he again goes on to say, speaking in the person of Wisdom, the words we 
mentioned a little earlier; I mean, "I made counsel my dwelling-place, and 
knowledge, and understanding(2)," and all that relates to instruction in 
intellect and knowledge. 

    After recounting these and the like matters, he proceeds to introduce also 
his teaching concerning the dispensation with regard to man, why the Word was 
made flesh. For seeing that it is clear to all that God Who is over all has in 
Himself nothing as a thing created or imported, not power nor wisdom, nor 
light, nor word, nor life, nor truth, nor any at all of those things which are 
contemplated in the fulness of the Divine bosom (all which things the 
Only-begotten God is, Who is in the bosom of the Father(3), the name of 
"creation" could not properly be applied to any of those things which are 
contemplated in God, so that the Son Who is in the Father, or the Word Who is 
in the Beginning, or the Light Who is in the Light, or the Life Who is in the 
Life, or the Wisdom Who is in the Wisdom, should say, "the Lord created me." 
For if the Wisdom of God is created (and Christ is the Power of God and the 
Wisdom of God(4)), God, it would follow, has His Wisdom as a thing imported, 
receiving afterwards, as the result of making, something which He had not at 
first. But surely He Who is in the bosom of the Father does not permit us to 
conceive the bosom of the Father as ever void of Himself. He Who is in the 
beginning is surely not of the things which come to be in that bosom from 
without, but being the fulness of all good, He is conceived as being always in 
the Father, not waiting to arise in Him as the result of creation, so that the 
Father should not be conceived as at any time void of good, but He Who is 
conceived as being in the eternity of the Father's Godhead is always in Him, 
being Power, and Life, and Truth, and Wisdom, and the like. Accordingly the 
words "created me" do not proceed from the Divine and immortal nature, but 
from that which was commingled with it in the Incarnation from our created 
nature. How comes it then that the same, called wisdom, and understanding, and 
intelligence, establishes the earth, and prepares the heavens, and breaks up 
the deeps, and yet is here "created for the be- 

141 

ginning of His works(5)"? Such a dispensation, he tells us, is not set forward 
without great cause. But since men, after receiving the commandment of the 
things we should observe, cast away by disobedience the grace of memory, and 
became forgetful, for this cause, "that I may declare to you the things that 
happen day by day for your salvation, and may put you in mind by recounting 
the things from everlasting, which you have forgotten (for it is no new gospel 
that I now proclaim, but I labour at your restoration to your first 
estate),--for this cause I was created, Who ever am, and need no creation in 
order to be; so that I am the beginning of ways for the works of God, that is 
for men. For the first way being destroyed, there must needs again be 
consecrated for the wanderers a new and living way(6), even I myself, Who am 
the way." And this view, that the sense of "created me" has reference to the 
Humanity, the divine apostle more clearly sets before us by his own words when 
he charges us, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ(7)," and also where (using the 
same word) he says, "Put on the new man which after God is created(8)" For if 
the garment of salvation is one, and that is Christ, one cannot say that "the 
new man, which after God is created," is any other than Christ, but it is 
clear that he who has "put on Christ" has "put on the new man which after God 
is created." For actually He alone is properly named "the new man," Who did 
not appear in the life of man by the known and ordinary ways of nature, but in 
His case alone creation, in a strange and special form, was instituted anew. 
For this reason he haines the same Person, when regarding the wonderful manner 
of His birth(9), "the new man, which after God is created," and, when looking 
to the Divine nature, which was blended(1) in the creation of this "new man," 
he calls Him "Christ": so that the two names (I mean the name of "Christ" and 
the name of "the new man which after God is created") are applied to one and 
the same Person, 

    Since, then, Christ is Wisdom, let the intelligent reader consider our 
opponent's account of the matter, and our own, and judge which is the more 
pious, which better preserves in the text those conceptions which are 
befitting the Divine nature; whether that which declares the Creator and Lord 
of all to have been made, and places Him on a level with the creation that is 
in bondage, or that rather which looks to the Incarnation, and preserves the 
due proportion with regard to our conception alike of the Divinity and of the 
Humanity, bearing in mind that the great Paul testifies in favour of our view, 
who sees in the "new man" creation, and in the true Wisdom the power of 
creation. And, further, the order of the passage agrees with this view of the 
doctrine it conveys. For if the "beginning of the ways" bad not been created 
among us, the foundation of those ages for which we look would not have been 
laid; nor would the Lord have become for us "the Father of the age to come(2), 
"had not a Child been born to us, according to Isaiah, and His name been 
called, both all the other titles which the prophet gives Him, and withal" The 
Father of the age to come." Thus first there came to pass the mystery wrought 
in virginity, and the dispensation of the Passion, and then the wise 
master-builders of the Faith laid the foundation of the Faith: and this is 
Christ, the Father of the age to come, on Whom is built the life of the ages 
that have no end. And when this has come to pass, to the end that in each 
individual believer may be wrought the divine decrees of the Gospel law, and 
the varied gifts of the Holy Spirits--(all which the divine Scripture 
figuratively names, with a suitable significance, "mountains" and "hills," 
calling righteousness the "mountains" of God, and speaking of His judgments as 
"deeps(3)," and giving the name of "earth" to that which is sown by the Word 
and brings forth abundant fruit; or in that sense in which we are taught by 
David to understand peace by the "mountains," and righteousness by the 
"hills(4)"),--Wisdom is begotten in the faithful, and the saying is found 
true. For He Who is in those who have received Him, is not yet begotten in the 
unbelieving. Thus, that these things may be wrought in us, their Maker must be 
begotten in us. For if Wisdom is begotten in us, then in each of us is 
prepared by God both land, and land uninhabited,--the land, that which 
receives the sowing and the ploughing of the Word, the uninhabited land, the 
heart cleared of evil inhabitants,--and thus our dwelling will be upon the 
extreme parts of the earth. For since in the earth some is depth, and some is 
surface, when a man is not buried in the earth, or, as it were, dwelling in a 
cave by reason of thinking of things beneath (as is the life of those who live 
in sin, who "stick fast in the deep mire where no ground is(5)," whose life is 
truly a pit, as the Psalm says, "let not the pit shut her mouth upon 
me(6)")--if, I say, a man, when Wisdom is begotten in him, thinks of the 
things that are above, and touches the earth only so much as he needs must, 
such a man inhabits "the extreme parts of the earth under heavens," not 
plunging deep in earthly thought; with 

142 

him Wisdom is present, as he prepares in himself heaven instead of earth: and 
when, by carrying out the precepts into act, he makes strong for himself the 
instruction of the clouds above, and, enclosing the great and widespread sea 
of wickedness, as it were with a beach, by his exact conversation, hinders the 
troubled water from proceeding forth from his mouth; and if by the grace of 
instruction he be made to dwell among the fountains, pouring forth the stream 
of his discourse with sure caution, that he may not give to any man for drink 
the turbid fluid of destruction in place of pure water, and if he be lifted up 
above all earthly paths and become aerial in his life, advancing towards that 
spiritual life which he speaks of as "the winds," so that he is set apart to 
be a throne of Him Who is seated in him (as was Paul separated for the Gospel 
to be a chosen vessel to bear the name of God, who, as it is elsewhere 
expressed, was made a throne, bearing Him that sat upon him)--when, I say, he 
is established in these and like ways, so that he who has already fully made 
up in himself the land inhabited by God, now rejoices in gladness that he is 
made the father, not of wild and senseless beasts, but of men (and these would 
be godlike thoughts, which are fashioned according to the Divine image, by 
faith in Him Who has been created and begotten, and set up in us;--and faith, 
according to the words of Paul, is conceived as the foundation whereby wisdom 
is begotten in the faithful, and all the things that I have spoken of are 
wrought)--then, I say, the life of the man who has been thus established is 
truly blessed, for Wisdom is at all times in agreement with him, and rejoices 
with him who daily finds gladness in her alone. For the Lord rejoices in His 
saints, and there is joy in heaven over those who are being saved, and Christ, 
as the father, makes a feast for his rescued son. Though we have spoken 
hurriedly of these matters, let the careful man read the original text of the 
Holy Scripture, and fit its dark sayings to our reflections, testing whether 
it is not far better to consider that the meaning of these dark sayings has 
this reference, and not that which is attributed to it at first sight. For it 
is not possible that the theology of John should be esteemed true, which 
recites that all created things are the work of the Word, if in this passage 
He Who created Wisdom be believed to have made together with her all other 
things also. For in that case all things will not be by her, but she will 
herself be counted with the things that were made. 

    And that this is the reference of the enigmatical sayings is clearly 
revealed by the passage that follows, which says, "Now therefore hearken unto 
me, my son: and blessed is he that keepeth my ways(7)," meaning of course by 
"ways" the approaches to virtue, the beginning of which is the possession of 
Wisdom. Who, then, who looks to the divine Scripture, will not agree that the 
enemies of the truth are at once impious and slanderous?--impious, because, so 
far as in them lies, they degrade the unspeakable glory of the Only-begotten 
God, and unite it with the creation, striving to show that the Lord Whose 
power over all things is only-begotten, is one of the things that were made by 
Him: slanderous, because, though Scripture itself gives them no ground for 
such opinions, they arm themselves against piety as though they drew their 
evidence from that source. Now since they can by no means show any passage of 
the Holy Scriptures which leads us to look upon the pre-temporal glory of the 
Only-begotten God in conjunction with the subject creation, it is well, these 
points being proved, that the tokens of victory over falsehood should be 
adduced as testimony to the doctrine of godliness, and that sweeping aside 
these verbal systems of theirs by which they make the creature answer to the 
creator, and the thing made to the maker, we should confess, as the Gospel 
from heaven teaches us, the well-beloved Son--not a bastard, not a 
counterfeit; but that, accepting with the name of Son all that naturally 
belongs to that name, we should say that He Who is of Very God is Very God, 
and that we should believe of Him all that we behold in the Father, because 
They are One, and in the one is conceived the other, not overpassing Him, not 
inferior to Him, not altered or subject to change in any Divine or excellent 
property. 

   3. He then shows, from the instance of Adam and Abel, and other exam files, 
the absence of alienation of essence in the case of the "generate" and 
"ungenerate." 

    Now seeing that Eunomius' conflict with himself has been made manifest, 
where he has been shown to contradict himself, at one time saying, "He ought 
to be called 'Son,' according to nature, because He is begotten," at another 
that, because He is created, He is no more called "Son," but a "product," I 
think it right that the careful and attentive reader, as it is not possible, 
when two statements are mutually at variance, that the truth should be found 
equally in both, should reject of the two that which is impious and 
blasphemous--that, I mean, with regard to the "creature" and the "product," 
and should assent to that only which is of orthodox tendency, which confesses 
that 

143 

the appellation of "Son" naturally attaches to the Only-begotten God: so that 
the word of truth would seem to be recommended even by the voice of its 
enemies. 

    I resume my discourse, however, taking up that point of his argument which 
we originally set aside. "We do not refuse," he says, "to call the Son. seeing 
He is generate, even by the name of 'product of generation(8), since the 
generated essence itself, and the appellation of 'Son,' make such a relation 
of words appropriate" Meanwhile let the reader who is critically following the 
argument remember this, that in speaking of the "generated essence" in the 
case of the Only-begotten, he by consequence allows us to speak of the 
"ungenerate essence" in the case of the Father, so that neither absence of 
generation, nor generation, can any longer be supposed to constitute the 
essence, but the essence must be taken separately, and its being, or not being 
begotten, must be conceived separately by means of the peculiar attributes 
contemplated in it. Let us, however, consider more carefully his argument on 
this point. He says that an essence has been begotten, and that the name of 
this generated essence is "Son." Well, at this point our argument will convict 
that of our opponents on two grounds, first, of an attempt at knavery, 
secondly, of slackness in their attempt against ourselves. For he is playing 
the knave when he speaks of "generation of essence," in order to establish his 
opposition between the essences, when once they are divided in respect of a 
difference of nature between "generate" and "ungenerate": while the slackness 
of their attempt is shown by the very positions their knavery tries to 
establish. For he who says the essence is generate, clearly defines generation 
as being something else distinct from the essence, so that the significance of 
generation cannot be assigned to the word "essence." For he has not in this 
passage represented the matter as he often does, so as to say that generation 
is itself the essence, but acknowledges that the essence is generated, so that 
there is produced in his readers a distinct notion in the case of each word: 
for one conception arises in him who hears that it was generated, and another 
is called up by the name of "essence." Our argument may be made clearer by 
example. The Lord says in the Gospel(9) that a woman, when her travail is 
drawing near, is in sorrow, but afterwards rejoices in gladness because a man 
is born into the world. As then in this passage we derive from the Gospel two 
distinct conceptions,--one the birth which we conceive to be by way of 
generation, the other that which results from the birth (for the birth is not 
the man, but the man is by the birth),--so here too, when Eunomius confesses 
that the essence was generated, we learn by the latter word that the essence 
comes from something, and by the Former we conceive that subject itself which 
has its real being from something. If then the signification of essence is one 
thing, and the word expressing generation suggests to us another conception, 
their clever contrivances are quite gone to ruin, like earthen vessels hurled 
one against the other, and mutually smashed to pieces. For it will no longer 
be possible for them, if they apply the opposition of "generate" and 
"ungenerate" to the essence of the Father and the Son, to apply at the same 
time to the things themselves the mutual conflict between these names(1). For 
as it is confessed by Eunomius that the essence is generate (seeing that the 
example from the Gospel explains the meaning of such a phrase, where, when we 
hear that a man is generated, we do not conceive the man to be the same thing 
as his generation, but receive a separate conception in each of the two 
words), heresy will surely no longer be permitted to express by such words her 
doctrine of the difference of the essences. In order, however, that our 
account of these matters may be cleared up as far as possible, let us once 
more discuss the point in the following way. He Who framed the universe made 
the nature of man with all things in the beginning, and after Adam was made, 
He then appointed for men the law of generation one from another, saying, "Be 
fruitful and multiply(2)." Now while Abel came into existence by way of 
generation, what reasonable man would deny that, in the actual sense of human 
generation, Adam existed ungenerately? Yet the first man had in himself the 
complete definition of man's essential nature, and he who was generated of him 
was enrolled under the same essential name. But if the essence that was 
generated was made anything other than that which was not generated, the same 
essential name would not apply to both: for of those things whose essence is 
different, the essential name also is not the same. Since, then, the essential 
nature of Adam and of Abel is marked by the same characteristics, we must 
certainly agree that one essence is in both, and that the one and the other 
are exhibited in the same nature. For Adam and Abel are both one so far as the 

144 

definition of their nature is concerned, but are distinguished one from the 
other without confusion by the individual attributes observed in each of them. 
We cannot therefore properly say that Adam generated another essence besides 
himself, but rather that of himself he generated another self, with whom was 
produced the whole definition of the essence of him who generated him. What, 
then, we learn in the case of human nature by means of the inferential 
guidance afforded to us by the definition, this I think we ought to take for 
our guidance also to the pure apprehension of the Divine doctrines. For when 
we have shaken off from the Divine and exalted doctrines all carnal and 
material notions, we shall be most surely led by the remaining conception, 
when it is purged of such ideas, to the lofty and unapproachable heights. It 
is confessed even by our adversaries that God, Who is over all, both is and is 
called the Father of the Only-begotten, and they moreover give to the 
Only-begotten God, Who is of the Father, the name of "begotten," by reason of 
His being generated. Since then among men the word "father" has certain 
significances attaching to it, from which the pure nature is alien, it behoves 
a man to lay aside all material conceptions which enter in by association with 
the carnal significance of the word "father,"' and to form in the case of the 
God and Father a conception befitting the Divine nature, expressive only of 
the reality of the relationship. Since, therefore, in the notion of a human 
father there is included not only all that the flesh suggests to our thoughts, 
but a certain notion of interval is also undoubtedly conceived with the idea 
of human fatherhood, it would be well, in the case of the Divine generation, 
to reject, together with bodily pollution, the notion of interval also, that 
so what properly belongs to matter may be completely purged away, and the 
transcendent generation may be clear, not only from the idea of passion, but 
from that of interval. Now he who says that God is a Father will unite with 
the thought that God is, the further thought that He is something: for that 
which has its being from some beginning, certainly also derives from something 
the beginning of its being, whatever it is: but He in Whose case being had no 
beginning, has not His beginning from anything, even although we contemplate 
in Him some other attribute than simple existence. Well, God is a Father. It 
follows that He is what He is from eternity: for He did not become, but is a 
Father: for in God that which was, both is and will be. On the other hand, if 
He once was not anything, then He neither is nor will be that thing: for He is 
not believed to be the Father of a Being such that it may be piously asserted 
that God once existed by Himself without that Being. For the Father is the 
Father of Life, and Truth, and Wisdom, and Light, and Sanctification, and 
Power, and all else of a like kind that the Only-begotten is or is called. 
Thus when the adversaries allege that the Light "once was not," I know not to 
which the greater injury is done, whether to the Light, in that the Light is 
not, or to Him that has the Light, in that He has not the Light. So also with 
Life and Truth and Power, and all the other characters in which the 
Only-begotten fills the Father's bosom, being all things in His own fulness. 
For the absurdity will be equal either way, and the impiety against the Father 
will equal the blasphemy against the Son: for in saying that the Lord "once 
was not," you will not merely assert the non-existence of Power, but you will 
be saying that the Power of God, Who is the Father of the Power, "was not." 
Thus the assertion made by your doctrine that the Son "once was not," 
establishes nothing else than a destitution of all good in the case of the 
Father. See to what an end these wise men's acuteness leads, how by them the 
word of the Lord is made good, which says, "He that despiseth Me despiseth Him 
that sent Me(3):" for by the very arguments by which they despise the 
existence at any time of the Only-begotten, they also dishonour the Father, 
stripping off by their doctrine from the Father's glory every good name and 
conception. 

   4. He thus shows the oneness of the Eternal Son with the Father the 
identity of essence and the community of nature (wherein is a natural inquiry 
into the production of wine), and that the terms "Son" and "product" in the 
naming of the Only-begotten include a like idea of relationship. 

    What has been said, therefore, has clearly exposed the slackness which is 
to be found in the knavery of our author, who, while he goes about to 
establish the opposition of the essence of the Only-begotten to that of the 
Father, by the method of calling the one "ungenerate," and the other 
"generate," stands convicted of playing the fool with his inconsistent 
arguments. For it was shown from his own words, first, that the name of 
"essence" means one thing, and that of "generation" another; and next, that 
there did not come into existence, with the Son, any new and different essence 
besides the essence of the Father, but that what the Father is as regards the 
definition of His nature, that also He is Who is of the Father, as the nature 
does not change into diversity in the Person of the Son, 

145 

according to the truth of the argument displayed by our consideration of Adam 
and Abel. For as, in that instance, he that was not generated after a like 
sort was yet, so far as concerns the definition of essence, the same with him 
that was generated, and Abel's generation did not produce any change in the 
essence, so, in the case of these pure doctrines, the Only-begotten God did 
not, by His own generation, produce in Himself any change in the essence of 
Him Who is ungenerate (coming forth, as the Gospel says, from the Father, and 
being in the Father,) but is, according to the simple and homely language of 
the creed we profess, "Light of Light, very God of very God," the one being 
all that the other is, save being that other. With regard, however, to the aim 
for the sake of which he carries on this system-making, I think there is no 
need for me at present to express any opinion, whether it is audacious and 
dangerous, or a thing allowable and free from danger, to transform the phrases 
which are employed to signify the Divine nature from one to another, and to 
call Him Who is generated by the name of "product of generation." 

    I let these matters pass, that my discourse may not busy itself too much 
in the strife against lesser points, and neglect the greater; but I say that 
we ought carefully to consider the question whether the natural relation does 
introduce the use of these terms: for this surely Eunomius asserts, that with 
the affinity of the appellations there is also asserted an essential 
relationship. For he would not say, I presume, that the mere names themselves, 
apart from the sense of the things signified, have any mutual relation or 
affinity; but all discern the relationship or diversity of the appellations by 
the meanings which the words express. If, therefore, he confesses that "the 
Son" has a natural relation with "the Father," let us leave the appellations, 
and consider the force that is found in their significations, whether in their 
affinity we discern diversity of essence, or that which is kindred and 
characteristic. To say that we find diversity is downright madness. For how 
does something without kinship or community "preserve order," connected and 
conformable, in the names, where "the generated essence itself," as he says, 
"and the appellation of 'Son,' make such a relation of words appropriate"? If, 
on the other hand, he should say that these appellations signify relationship, 
he will necessarily appear in the character of an advocate of the community of 
'essence, and as maintaining the fact that by affinity of names is signified 
also the connection of subjects: and this he often does in his composition 
without being aware of it(4). For, by the arguments wherewith he endeavours to 
destroy the truth, he is often himself unwittingly drawn into an advocacy of 
the very doctrines against which he is contending: Some such thing the history 
tells us concerning Saul, that once, when moved with wrath against the 
prophets, he was overcome by grace, and was found as one of the inspired, (the 
Spirit of prophecy willing, as I suppose, to instruct the apostate by means of 
himself,) whence the surprising nature of the event became a proverb in his 
after life, as the history records such an expression by way of wonder, "Is 
Saul also among the prophets(5)?" 

    At what point, then, does Eunomius assent to the truth? When he says that 
the Lord Himself, "being the Son of the living God, not being ashamed of His 
birth from the Virgin, often named Himself, in His own sayings, 'the Son of 
Man"'? For this phrase we also allege for proof of the community of essence, 
because the name of "Son" shows the community of nature to be equal in both 
cases. For as He is called the Son of Man by reason of the kindred of His 
flesh to her of whom He was born, so also He is conceived, surely, as the Son 
of God, by reason of the connection of His essence with that from which He has 
His existence, and this argument is the greatest weapon of the truth. For 
nothing so clearly points to Him Who is the "mediator between God and man(6)" 
(as the great Apostle called Him), as the name of "Son," equally applicable to 
either nature, Divine or Human. For the same Person is Son of God, and was 
made, in the Incarnation, Son of Man, that, by His communion with each, He 
might link together by Himself what were divided by nature. Now if, in 
becoming Son of Man, he were without participation in human nature, it would 
be logical to say that neither. does He share in the Divine essence, though He 
is Son of God. But if the whole compound nature of man was in Him (for He was 
"in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin(7)), it is surely 
necessary to believe that every property of the transcendent essence is also 
in Him, as the Word "Son" claims for Him both alike--the Human in the man, but 
in the God the Divine. 

    If then the appellations, as Eunomius says, indicate relationship, and the 
existence of relationship is observed in the things, not in the mere sound of 
the words (and by things I mean the things conceived in themselves, if it be 
not over-bold thus to speak of the Son and the Father), who would deny that 
the very champion of blasphemy has by his own action been dragged into the 
advocacy of orthodoxy, overthrowing by his own means his own arguments, and 
pro- 

146 

claiming community of essence in the case of the Divine doctrines? For the 
argument that he unwillingly casts into the scale on the side of truth does 
not speak falsely as regards this point,--that He would not have been called 
Son if the natural conception of the names did not verify this calling. For as 
a bench is not called the son of the workman, and no sane man would say that 
the builder engendered the house, and we do not say that the vineyard is the 
"product(8)" of the vine-dresser, but call what a man makes his work, and him 
who is begotten of him the son of a man, (in order, I suppose, that the proper 
meaning might be attached by means of the names to the respective subjects,) 
so too, when we are taught that the Only-begotten is Son of God, we do not by 
this appellation understand a creature of God, but what the word "Son" in its 
signification really displays. And even though wine be named by Scripture the 
"product(9)" of the vine, not even so will our argument with regard to the 
orthodox doctrine suffer by this identity of name. For we do not call wine the 
"product" of the oak, nor the acorn the "product" of the vine, but we use the 
word only if there is some natural community between the "product" and that 
from which it comes. For the moisture in the vine, which is drawn out from the 
root through the stem by the pith, is, in its natural power, water: but, as it 
passes in orderly sequence along the ways of nature, and flows from the lowest 
to the highest, it changes to the quality of wine, a change to which the rays 
of the sun contribute in some degree, which by their warmth draw out the 
moisture from the depth to the shoots, and by a proper and suitable process of 
ripening make the moisture wine: so that, so far as their nature is concerned, 
there is no difference between the moisture that exists in the vine and the 
wine that is produced from it. For the one form of moisture comes from the 
other, and one could not say that the cause of wine is anything else than the 
moisture which naturally exists in the shoots. But, so far as moisture is 
concerned, the differences of quality produce no alteration, but are found 
when some peculiarity discerns the moisture which is in the form of wine from 
that which is in the shoots, one of the two forms being accompanied by 
astringency, or sweetness, or sourness, so that in substance the two are the 
same, but are distinguished by qualitative differences. As, therefore, when we 
hear from Scripture that the Only-begotten God is Son of man, we learn by the 
kindred expressed in the name His kinship with true man, so even, if the Son 
be called, in the adversaries' phrase, a "product," we none the less learn, 
even by this name, His kinship in essence with Him that has "produced(1)" Him, 
by the fact that wine, which is called the "product" of the vine has been 
found not to be alien, as concerns the idea of moisture, from the natural 
power that resides in the vine. Indeed, if one were judiciously to examine the 
things that are said by our adversaries, they tend to our doctrine, and their 
sense cries out against their own fabrications, as they strive at all points 
to establish their "difference in essence." Yet it is by no means an easy 
matter to conjecture whence they were led to such conceptions. For if the 
appellation of "Son" does not merely signify "being from something," but by 
its signification presents to us specially, as Eunomius himself says, 
relationship in point of nature, and wine is not called the "product" of an 
oak, and those "products" or "generation of vipers(2)," of which the Gospel 
somewhere speaks, are makes and not sheep, it is clear, that in the case of 
the Only-begotten also, the appellation of "Son" or of "product" would not 
convey the meaning of relationship to something of another kind: but even if, 
according to our adversaries' phrase, He is called a "product of generation," 
and the name of "Son," as they confess, has reference to nature, the Son is 
surely of the essence of Him Who has generated or "produced" Him, not of that 
of some other among the things which we contemplate as external to that 
nature. And if He is truly from Him, He is not alien from all that belongs to 
Him from Whom He is, as in the other cases too it was shown that all that has 
its existence from anything by way of generation is clearly of the same kind 
as that from whence it came. 

   5. He discusses the incomprehensibility of the Divine essence, and the 
saying to the woman of Samaria, "Ye worship ye know not what." 

    Now if any one should ask for some interpretation, and description, and 
explanation of the Divine essence, we are not going to deny that this kind of 
wisdom we are unlearned, acknowledging only so much as this, that it is not 
possible that which is by nature infinite should be comprehended in any 
conception expressed by words. The fact that the Divine greatness has no limit 
is proclaimed by prophecy, which declares expressly that of His splendour, His 
glory, His holiness, "there is no end(3):" and if His surroundings have no 
limit, much more is He Himself in His essence, whatever it may be, 
comprehended by no limitation in any way. If then interpretation by way of 
words and names implies by its meaning 

147 

some sort of comprehension of the subject, and if, on the other hand, that 
which is unlimited cannot be comprehended, no one could reasonably blame us 
for ignorance, if we are not bold in respect of what none should venture upon. 
For by what name can I describe the incomprehensible? by what speech can I 
declare the unspeakable? Accordingly, since the Deity is too excellent and 
lofty to be expressed in words, we have learnt to honour in silence what 
transcends speech and thought: and if he who "thinketh more highly than he 
ought to think(4)," tramples upon this cautious speech of ours making a jest 
of our ignorance of things incomprehensible, and recognizes a difference of 
unlikeness in that which is without figure, or limit, or size, or quantity (I 
mean in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), and brings forward to 
reproach our ignorance that phrase which is continually alleged by the 
disciples of deceit, " 'Ye worship ye know not what(5),' if ye know not the 
essence of that which ye worship," we shall follow the advice of the prophet, 
and not fear the reproach of fools(6), nor be led by their reviling to talk 
boldly of things unspeakable, making that unpractised speaker Paul our teacher 
in the mysteries that transcend knowledge, who is so far from thinking that 
the Divine nature is within the reach of human perception, that he calls even 
the judgments of God "unsearchable," and His ways "past finding out(7)," and 
affirms that the things promised to them that love Him, for their good deeds 
done in this life, are above comprehension so that it is not possible to 
behold them with the eye, nor to receive them by hearing, nor to contain them 
in the heart(8). Learning this, therefore, from Paul, we boldly declare that, 
not only are the judgments of God too high for those who try to search them 
out, but that the ways also that lead to the knowledge of Him are even until 
now untrodden and impassable. For this is what we understand that the Apostle 
wishes to signify, when he calls the ways that lead to the incomprehensible 
"past finding out," showing by the phrase that that knowledge is unattainable 
by human calculations, and that no one ever yet set his understanding on such 
a path of reasoning, or showed any trace or sign of an approach, by way of 
perception, to the things incomprehensible. 

    Learning these things, then, from the lofty words of the Apostle, we 
argue, by the passage quoted, in this way:--If His judgments cannot be 
searched out, and His ways are not traced, and the promise of His good things 
transcends every representation that our conjectures can frame, by how much 
more is His actual Godhead higher and loftier, in respect of being unspeakable 
and unapproachable, than those attributes which are conceived as accompanying 
it, whereof the divinely instructed Paul declares that there is no 
knowledge:--and by this means we confirm in ourselves the doctrine they'd 
ride, confessing ourselves inferior to them in the knowledge of those things 
which are beyond the range of knowledge, and declare that we really worship 
what we know. Now we know the loftiness of the glory of Him Whom we worship, 
by the very fact that we are not able by reasoning to comprehend in our 
thoughts the incomparable character of His greatness; and that saying of our 
Lord to the Samaritan woman, which is brought forward against us by our 
enemies, might more properly be addressed to them. For the words, "Ye worship 
ye know not what," the Lord speaks to the Samaritan woman, prejudiced as she 
was by corporeal ideas in her opinions concerning God: and to her the phrase 
"Well applies, because the Samaritans, thinking that they worship God, and at 
the same time supposing the Deity to be corporeally settled in place, adore 
Him in name only, worshipping something else, and not God. For nothing is 
Divine that is conceived as being circumscribed, but it belongs to the Godhead 
to be in all places, and to pervade all things, and not to be limited by 
anything: so that those who fight against Christ find the phrase they adduce 
against us turned into an accusation of themselves. For, as the Samaritans, 
supposing the Deity to be compassed round by some circumscription of place, 
were rebuked by the words they heard, "'Ye worship ye know not what,' and your 
service is profitless to you, for a God that is deemed to be settled in any 
place is no God,"--so one might well say to the new Samaritans, "In supposing 
the Deity to be limited by the absence of generation, as it were by some local 
limit, 'ye worship ye know not what,' doing service to Him indeed as God, but 
not knowing that the infinity of God exceeds all the significance and 
comprehension that names can furnish." 

 6. Thereafter he expounds the appellation of "Son," and of "product of 
generation," and very many varieties of" sons," of God, of men, of rams, of 
perdition, of light, and of day. 

    But our discourse has diverged too far from the subject before us, in 
following one the questions which arise from time to time by way of inference. 
Let us therefore once more resume its sequence, as I imagine that the phrase 
trader examination has been sufficiently shown, by what we have said, to be 
contradictory not only to the truth, but also to itself. For if, 

148 

according to their view, the natural relation to the Father is established by 
the appellation of "the Son," and so with that of the "product of generation" 
to Him Who has begotten Him (as these men's wisdom falsely models the terms 
significant of the Divine nature into a verbal arrangement, according to some 
grammatical frivolity), no one could longer doubt that the mutual relation of 
the names which is established by nature is a proof of their kindred, or 
rather of their identity of essence. But let not our discourse merely turn 
about our adversaries' words, that the orthodox doctrine may not seem to gain 
the victory only by the weakness of those who fight against it, but appear to 
have an abundant supply of strength in itself. Let the adverse argument, 
therefore, be strengthened as much as may be by us ourselves with more 
energetic advocacy, that the superiority of our force may be recognized with 
full confidence, as we bring to the unerring test of truth those arguments 
also which our adversaries have omitted. He who contends on behalf of our 
adversaries will perhaps say that the name of "Son," or "product of 
generation," does not by any means establish the fact of kindred in nature. 
For in Scripture the term "child of wrath(9)" is used, and "son of 
perdition(1)," and "product of a viper(2);" and in such names Surely no 
community of nature is apparent. For Judas, who is called "the son of 
perdition," is not in his substance the same with perdition, according to what 
we understand by the word(3). For the signification of the "man" in Judas is 
one thing, and that of "perdition" is another. And the argument may be 
established equally from an opposite instance. For those who are called in a 
certain sense "children of light," and "children of the day(4)," are not the 
same with light and day in respect of the definition of their nature, and the 
stones are made Abraham's children s when they claim their kindred with him by 
faith and works; and those who are "led by the Spirit of God," as the Apostle 
says, are called "Sons of God(6)," without being the same with God in respect 
of nature; and one may collect many such instances from the inspired 
Scripture, by means of which deceit, like some image decked with the 
testimonies of Scripture, masquerades in the likeness of truth. 

    Well, what do we say to this? The divine Scripture knows how to use the 
word "Son" in both senses, so that in some cases such an appellation is 
derived from nature, in others it is adventitious and artificial. For when it 
speaks of "sons of men," or "sons of rams(7)," it marks the essential relation 
of that which is begotten to that from which it has its being: but when it 
speaks of "sons of power," or "children of God," it presents to us that 
kinship which is the result of choice. And, moreover, in the opposite sense, 
too, the same persons are called "sons of Eli," and "sons of Belial(8)," the 
appellation of "sons" being easily adapted to either idea. For when they are 
called "sons of Eli," they are declared to have natural relationship to him, 
but in being called "sons of Belial," they are reproved for the wickedness of 
their choice, as no longer emulating their father in their life, but addicting 
their own purpose to sin. In the case, then, of this lower nature of ours, and 
of the things with which we are concerned, by reason of human nature being 
equally inclined to either side (I mean, to vice and to virtue), it is in our 
power to become sons either of night or of day, while our nature yet remains, 
so far as the chief part of it is concerned, within its proper limits. For 
neither is he 'who by sin becomes a child of wrath alienated from his human 
generation, nor does he who by choice addicts himself to good reject his human 
origin by the refinement of his habits, but, while their nature in each case 
remains the same, the differences of their purpose assume the names of their 
relationship, according as they become either children of God by virtue, or of 
the opposite by vice. 

    But how does Eunomius, in the case of the divine doctrines at least--he 
who" preserves the natural order" (for I will use our author's very words), 
"and abides by those things which are known to us from the beginning, and does 
not refuse to call Him that is begotten by the name of 'product of 
generation,' since the generated essence itself" (as he says) "and the 
appellation of 'Son' makes such a relation of words appropriate",--how does he 
alienate the Begotten from essential kindred with Him that begat Him? For in 
the case of those who are called "sons" or "products" by way of reproach, or 
again where some praise accompanies such names, we cannot say that any one is 
called "a child of wrath," being at the same time actually begotten by wrath; 
nor again had any one the day for his mother, in a corporeal sense, that he 
should be called its son; but it is the difference of their will which gives 
occasion for names of such relationship. Here, however, Eunomius says, "we do 
not refuse to call the Son, seeing He is begotten, by the name of 'product of 
generation,' since the generated essence," he tells us, "and the appellation 
of ' Son,' makes such a relation of words appropriate." If, then, he confesses 
that such a relation of words is 

149 

made appropriate by the fact that the Son is really a "product of generation," 
how is it opportune to assign such a rationale of names, alike to those which 
are used inexactly by way of metaphor, and to those where the natural 
relation, as Eunomius tells us, makes such a use of names appropriate? Surely 
such an account is true only in the case of those whose nature is a 
border-land between virtue and vice, where one often shares in turn opposite 
classes of names, becoming a child, now of light, then again of darkness, by 
reason of affinity to the good or to its opposite. But where contraries have 
no place, one could no longer say that the word "Son" is applied 
metaphorically, in like manner as in the case of those who by choice 
appropriate the title to themselves. For one could not arrive at this view, 
that, as a man casting off the works of darkness becomes, by his decent life, 
a child of light, so too the Only-begotten God received the more honourable 
name as the result of a change from the inferior state. For one who is a man 
becomes a son of God by being joined to Christ by spiritual generation: but He 
Who by Himself makes the man to be a son of God does not need another Son to 
bestow on Him the adoption of a son, but has the name also of that which He is 
by nature. A man himself changes himself, exchanging the old man for the new; 
but to what shall God be changed, so that He may receive what He has not? A 
man puts off himself, and puts on the Divine nature; but what does He put off, 
or in what does He array Himself, Who is always the same? A man becomes a son 
of God, receiving what he has not, and laying aside what he has; but He Who 
has never been in the state of vice has neither anything to receive nor 
anything to relinquish. Again, the man may be on the one hand truly called 
some one's son, when one speaks with reference to his nature; and, on the 
other hand, he may be so called inexactly, when the choice of his life imposes 
the name. But God, being One Good, in a single and uncompounded nature, looks 
ever the same way, and is never changed by the impulse of choice, but always 
wishes what He is, and is, assuredly, what He wishes: so that He is in both 
respects properly and truly called Son of God, since His nature contains the 
good, and His choice also is never severed from that which is more excellent, 
so that this word is employed, without inexactness, as His name. Thus there is 
no room for these arguments (which, in the person of our adversaries, we have 
been opposing to ourselves), to be brought forward by our adversaries as a 
demurrer to the affinity in respect of nature. 

 7. Then he ends the book with an exposition of the Divine and Human names of 
the Only-begotten, and a discussion of the terms "generate" and "ungenerate." 

    But as, I know not how or why, they hate and abhor the truth, they give 
Him indeed the name of "Son," but in order to avoid the testimony which this 
word would give to the community of essence, they separate the word from the 
sense included in the name, and concede to the Only-begotten the name of "Son" 
as an empty thing, vouchsafing to Him only the mere sound of the word. That 
what I say is true, and that I am not taking a false aim at the adversaries' 
mark, may be clearly learnt from the actual attacks they make upon the truth. 
Such are those arguments which are brought forward by them to establish their 
blasphemy, that we are taught by the divine Scriptures many names of the 
Only-begotten--a stone, an axe, a rock, a foundation, bread, a vine, a door, a 
way, a shepherd, a fountain, a tree, resurrection, a teacher, light, and many 
such names. But we may not piously use any of these names of the Lord, 
understanding it according to its immediate sense. For surely it would be a 
most absurd thing to think that what is incorporeal and immaterial, simple, 
and without figure, should be fashioned according to the apparent senses of 
these names, whatever they may be, so that when we hear of an axe we should 
think of a particular figure of iron, or when we hear of light, of the light 
in the sky, or of a vine, of that which grows by the planting of shoots, or of 
any one of the other names, as its ordinary use suggests to us to think; but 
we transfer the sense of these names to what better becomes the Divine nature, 
and form some other conception, and if we do designate Him thus, it is not as 
being any of these things, according to the definition of His nature, but as 
being called these things while He is conceived by means of the names employed 
as something else than the things themselves. But if such names are indeed 
truly predicated of the Only-begotten God, without including the declaration 
of His nature, they say that, as a consequence, neither should we admit the 
signification of "Son," as it is understood according to the prevailing use, 
as expressive of nature, but should find some sense of this word also, 
different from that which is ordinary and obvious. These, and others like 
these, are their philosophical arguments to establish that the Son is not what 
He is and is called. Our argument was hastening to a different goal, namely to 
show that Eunomius' new discourse is false and inconsistent, and argues 
neither with the truth nor with itself. Since, however, 

150 

the arguments which we employ to attack their doctrine are brought into the 
discussion as a sort of support for their blasphemy(9), it may be well first 
briefly to discusst his point, and then to proceed to the orderly examination 
of his writings. 

    What can we say, then, to such things without relevance? That while, as 
they say, the names which Scripture applies to the Only-begotten are many, we 
assert that none of the other names is closely connected with the reference to 
Him that begat Him. For we do not employ the name "Stone," or "Resurrection," 
or "Shepherd," or "Light," or any of the rest, as we do the name "Son of the 
Father," with a reference to the God of all. It is possible to make a twofold 
division of the signification of the Divine names, as it were by a scientific 
rule: for to one class belongs the indication of His lofty and unspeakable 
glory; the other class indicates the variety of the providential dispensation: 
so that, as we suppose, if that which received His benefits did not exist, 
neither would those words be applied with respect to them(1) which indicate 
His bounty. All those on the other hand, that express the attributes of God, 
are applied suitably and properly to the Only-begotten God, apart from the 
objects of the dispensation. But that we may set forth this doctrine clearly, 
we wilt examine the names themselves. The Lord would not have been called a 
vine, save for the planting of those who are rooted in Him, nor a shepherd, 
had not the sheep of the house of Israel been lost, nor a physician, save for 
the sake of them that were sick, nor would He have received for Himself the 
rest of these names, had He not made the titles appropriate, in a manner 
advantageous with regard to those who were benefited by Him, by some action of 
His providence. What need is there to mention individual instances, and to 
lengthen our argument upon points that are acknowledged? On the other hand, He 
is certainly called "Son," and "Right Hand," and "Only-begotten," and "Word," 
and "Wisdom," and "Power," and all other such relative names, as being named 
together with the Father in a certain relative conjunction. For He is called 
the "Power of God," and the "Right Hand of God," and the "Wisdom of God," and 
the "Son and Only-begotten of the Father," and the "Word with God," and so of 
the rest. Thus, it follows from what we have stated, that in each of the names 
we are to contemplate some suitable sense appropriate to the subject, so that 
we may not miss the right understanding of them, and go astray from the 
doctrine of godliness. As, then, we transfer each of the other terms to that 
sense in which they may be applied to God, and reject in their case the 
immediate sense, so as not to understand material light, or a trodden way, or 
the bread which is produced by husbandry, or the word that is expressed by 
speech, but, instead of these, all those thoughts which present to us the 
magnitude of the power of the Word of God,--so, if one were to reject the 
ordinary and natural sense of the word "Son," by which we learn that He is of 
the same essence as Him that begat Him, he will of course transfer the name to 
some more divine interpretation. For since the change to the more glorious 
meaning which has been made in each of the other terms has adapted them to set 
forth the Divine power, it surely follows that the significance of this name 
also should be transferred to what is loftier. But what more Divine sense 
could we find in the appellation of "Son," if we were to reject, according to 
Our adversaries' view, the natural relation to Him that begat Him? I presume 
no one is so daring in impiety as to think that, in speech concerning the 
Divine nature, what is humble and mean is more appropriate than what is lofty 
and great. If they can discover, therefore, any sense of more exalted 
character than this, so that to be of the nature of the Father seems a thing 
unworthy to conceive of the Only-begotten, let them tell us whether they know, 
in their secret wisdom, anything more exalted than the nature of the Father, 
that, in raising the Only-begotten God to this level, they should lift Him 
also above His relation to the Father. But if the majesty of the Divine nature 
transcends all height, and excels every power that calls forth our wonder, 
what idea remains that can carry the meaning of the name "Son" to something 
greater still? Since it is acknowledged, therefore, that every significant 
phrase employed of the Only-begotten, even if the name be derived from the 
ordinary use of our lower life, is properly applied to Him with a difference 
of sense in the direction of greater majesty, and if it is shown that we can 
find no more noble conception of the title "Son" than that which presents to 
us the reality of His relationship to Him that begat Him, I think that we need 
spend no more time on this topic, as our argument has sufficiently shown that 
it is not proper to interpret the title of "Son" in like manner with the other 
names. 

    But we must bring back our enquiry once more to the book. It does not 
become the same persons "not to refuse" (for I will use 

151 

their own words) "to call Him that is generated a ' product of generation,' 
since both the generated essence itself and the appellation of Son make such a 
relation of words appropriate," and again to change the names which naturally 
belong to Him into metaphorical interpretations: so that one of two things has 
befallen them,--either their first attack has failed, and it is in vain that 
they fly to "natural order" to establish the necessity of calling Him that is 
generated a "product of generation"; or, if this argument holds good, they 
will find their second argument brought to nought by what they have already 
established. For the person who is called a "product of generation" because He 
is generated, cannot, for the very same reason, be possibly called a "product 
of making," or a "product of creation." For the sense of the several terms 
differs very widely, and one who uses his phrases advisedly ought to employ 
words with due regard to the subject, that we may not, by improperly 
interchanging the sense of our phrases, fall into any confusion of ideas. 
Hence we call that which is wrought out by a craft the work of the craftsman, 
and call him who is begotten by a man that man's son; and no sane person would 
call the work a son, or the son a work; for that is the language of one who 
confuses and obscures the true sense by an erroneous use of names. It follows 
that we must truly affirm of the Only-begotten one of these two things,--if He 
is a Son, that He is not to be called a "product of creation," and if He is 
created, that He is alien from the appellation of "Son(2)," just as heaven and 
sea and earth, and all individual things, being things created, do not assume 
the name of "Son." But since Eunomius bears witness that the Only-begotten God 
is begotten (and the evidence of enemies is of aditional value for 
establishing the truth), he surely testifies also, by saying that He is 
begotten, to the fact that He is not created. Enough, however, on these 
points: for though many arguments crowd upon us, we will be content, lest 
their number lead to disproportion, with those we have already adduced on the 
subject before us. 

xxxxxx
                              BOOK IV 

 I. The fourth book discusses the account of the nature of the "product of 
generation," and of the passionless generation of the Only-begotten, and the 
text, "In the beginning was the Word," and the birth of the Virgin. 

    IT is, perhaps, time to examine in our discourse that account of the 
nature of the "product of generation" which is the subject of his ridiculous 
philosophizing. He says, then (I will repeat word for word his beautifully 
composed argument against the truth):--"Who is so indifferent and inattentive 
to the nature of things as not to know, that of all bodies which are on earth, 
in their generating and being generated, in their activity and passivity, 
those which generate are found on examination to communicate their own 
essence, and those which are generated naturally receive the same, inasmuch as 
the material cause and the supply which flows in from without are common to 
both; and the things begotten are generated by passion, and those which beget, 
naturally have an action which is not pure, by reason of their nature being 
linked with passions of all kinds?" See in what fitting style he discusses in 
his speculation the pro-temporal generation of the Word of God that was in the 
beginning! he who closely examines the nature of things, bodies on the earth, 
and material causes, and passion of things generating and generated, and all 
the rest of it,--at which any man of understanding would blush, even were it 
said of ourselves, if it were our nature, subject as it is to passion, which 
is thus exposed to scorn by his words. Yet such is our author's brilliant 
enquiry into nature with regard to the Only-begotten God. Let us lay aside 
complaints, however, (for what will sighing do to help us to overthrow the 
malice of our enemy?) and make generally known, as best we may, the sense of 
what we have quoted--concerning what sort of "product" the speculation was 
proposed,--that which exists according to the flesh, or that which is to be 
contemplated in the Only-begotten God. 

    As the speculation is two-fold, concerning that life which is Divine, 
simple, and immaterial, and concerning that existence which is material and 
subject to passion, and as the word "generation" is used of both, we must 
needs make our distinction sharp and clear, lest the ambiguity of the term 
"generation" should in any way pervert the truth. Since, then, the entrance 
into being through the flesh is material, and is promoted by passion, while 
that which is bodiless, impalpable, without form, and free from any material 
commixture, is alien from every condition that admits of passion, it is proper 
to consider about what sort of generation we are enquiring--that which is pure 
and Divine, or that which is subject to passion and pollution. Now, no one, I 
suppose, would deny that with regard to the Only-begotten God, it is 
pre-temporal existence that is proposed for the consideration s of Eunomius' 
discourse. Why, then, does he linger over this account of corporeal nature, 
defiling our nature by the loathsome presentment of his argument, and setting 
forth openly the passions that gather round human generation, while he deserts 
the subject. set before him? for it was not about this animal generation, that 
is accomplished by means of the flesh, that we had any need to learn. Who is 
so foolish, when he looks on himself, and considers human nature in himself, 
as to seek another interpreter of his own nature, and to need to be told all 
the unavoidable passions which are included in the thought of bodily 
generation--that he who begets is affected in one way, that which is begotten 
in another--so that the man should learn from this instruction that he himself 
begets by means of passion, and that passion was the beginning of his own 
generation? For it is all the same whether these things are passed over or 
spoken, and whether one publishes these secrets at length, or keeps hidden in 
silence things that should be left unsaid, we are not ignorant of the fact 
that our nature progresses by way of passion. But what we are seeking is that 
a clear account should be given of the exalted and unspeakable existence of 
the Only-begotten, whereby He is believed to be of the Father. 

    Now, while this is the enquiry set before him, our new theologian enriches 
his discourse with 

153 

"flowing," and "passion," and "material cause," and some "action" which "is 
not pure" from pollution, and all other phrases of this kind(4). I know not 
under what influence it is that he who says, in the superiority of his wisdom, 
that nothing incomprehensible is left beyond his own knowledge, and promises 
to explain the unspeakable generation of the Son, leaves the question before 
him, and plunges like an eel into the slimy mud of his arguments, after the 
fashion of that Nicodemus who came by night, who, when our Lord was teaching 
him of the birth from above, rushed in thought to the hollow of the womb, and 
raised a doubt how one could enter a second time into the womb, with the 
words, "How can these things be?(5)" thinking that he would prove the 
spiritual birth impossible, by the fact that an old man could not again be 
born within his mother's bowels. But the Lord corrects his erroneous idea, 
saying that the properties of the flesh and the spirit are distinct. Let 
Eunomius also, if he will, correct himself by the like reflection. For he who 
ponders on the truth ought, I imagine, to contemplate his subject according to 
its own properties, not to slander the immaterial by a charge against things 
material. For if a man, or a bull, or any other of those things which are 
generated by the flesh, is not free from passion in generating or being 
generated, what has this to do with that Nature which is without passion and 
without corruption? The fact that we are mortal is no objection to the 
immortality of the Only-begotten, nor does men's propensity to vice render 
doubtful the immutability that is found in the Divine Nature, nor is any other 
of our proper attributes transferred to God; but the peculiar nature of the 
human and the Divine life is separated, and without common ground, and their 
distinguishing properties stand entirely apart, so that those of the latter 
are not apprehended in the former, nor, conversely, those of the former in the 
latter. 

    How comes it, therefore, that Eunomius, when the Divine generation is the 
subject for discourse, leaves his subject, and discusses at length the things 
of earth, when on this matter we have no dispute with him? Surely our 
craftsman's aim is clear,--that by the slanderous insinuation of passion he 
may raise an objection to the generation of the Lord. And here I pass by the 
blasphemous nature of his view, and admire the man for his acuteness,--how 
mindful he is of his own zealous endeavour, who, having by his previous 
statements established the theory that the Son must be, and must be called, a 
"product of generation," now contends for the view that we ought not to 
entertain regarding Him the conception Of generation. For, if all generation, 
as this author imagines, has linked with it the condition of passion, we are 
hereby absolutely compelled to admit that what is foreign to passion is alien 
also from generation: for if these things, passion and generation, are 
considered as conjoined, He that has no share in the one would not have any 
participation in the other. How then does he call Him a "product" by reason of 
His generation, of Whom he tries to show by the arguments he now uses, that He 
was not generated? and for what cause does he fight against our master(6), who 
counsels us in matters of Divine doctrine not to presume in name-making, but 
to confess that He is generated without transforming this conception into the 
formula of a name, so as to call Him Who is generated "a product of 
generation," as this term is properly applied in Scripture to things 
inanimate, or to those which are mentioned "as a figure of wickedness(7)"? 
When we speak of the propriety of avoiding the use of the term "product," he 
prepares for action that invincible rhetoric of his, and takes also to support 
him his frigid grammatical phraseology, and by his skilful misuse of names, or 
equivocation, or whatever one may properly call his processes--by these means, 
I say, he brings his syllogisms to their conclusion, "not refusing to call Him 
Who is begotten by the name of 'product of generation.'" Then, as soon as we 
admit the term, and proceed to examine the conception involved in the name, on 
the theory that thereby is vindicated the community of essence, he again 
retracts his own words, and contends for the view that the "product of 
generation" is not generated, raising an objection by his foul account of 
bodily generation, against the pure and Divine and passionless generation of 
the Son, on the ground that it is not possible that the two things, the true 
relationship to the Father, and exemption of His nature from passion, should 
be found to coincide in God, but that, if there were no passion, there would 
be no generation, and that, if one should acknowledge the true relationship, 
he would thereby, in admitting generation, certainly admit passion also. 

    Not thus speaks the sublime John, not thus that voice of thunder which 
proclaims the mystery of the Theology, who both names Him Son of God and 
purges his proclamation from every idea of passion. For behold how in the very 
beginning of his Gospel he prepares our ears, how great forethought is shown 
by the teacher 

154 

that none of his hearers should fall into low ideas on the subject, slipping 
by ignorance into any incongruous conceptions. For in order to lead the 
untrained hearing as far away as possible from passion, he does not speak in 
his opening words of "Son," or" Father," or "generation," that no one should 
either, on hearing first of all of a "Father," be hurried on to the obvious 
signification of the word, or, on learning the proclamation of a "Son," should 
understand that name in the ordinary sense, or stumble, as at a "stone of 
stumbling(8)," at the word "generation"; but instead of "the Father," he 
speaks of "the Beginning": instead of "was begotten," he says "was": and 
instead of "the Son," he says "the Word": and declares "In the Beginning was 
the Word(9)." What passion, pray, is to be found in these words, "beginning," 
and "was," and "Word"? Is "the beginning" passion? does "was" imply passion? 
does "the Word" exist by means of passion? Or are we to say, that as passion 
is not to be found in the terms used, so neither is affinity expressed by the 
proclamation? Yet how could the Word's community of essence, and real 
relationship, and co eternity with the Beginning, be more strongly shown by 
other words than by these? For he does not say, "Of the Beginning was begotten 
the Word," that he may not separate the Word from the Beginning by any 
conception of extension in time, but he proclaims together with the Beginning 
Him also Who was in the Beginning, making the word "was" com. mon to the 
Beginning and to the Word, that the Word may not linger after the Beginning, 
but may, by entering in together with the faith as to the Beginning, by its 
proclamation forestall our hearing, before this admits the Beginning itself in 
isolation. Then he declares, "And the Word was with God." Once more the 
Evangelist fears for our untrained state, once more he dreads our childish and 
untaught condition: he does not yet entrust to our ears the appellation of 
"Father," lest any of the more carnally minded, learning of "the Father," may 
be led by his understanding to imagine also by consequence a mother. Neither 
does he yet name in his proclamation the Son; for he still suspects our 
customary tendency to the lower nature, and fears lest any, hearing of the 
Son, should humanize the Godhead by an idea of passion. For this reason, 
resuming his proclamation, he again calls him "the Word," making this the 
account of His nature to thee in thine unbelief. For as thy word proceeds from 
thy mind, without requiring the intervention of passion, so here also, in 
hearing of the Word, thou shalt conceive that which is from something, and 
shalt not conceive passion. Hence, once more resuming his proclamation, he 
says, "And the Word was with God." O, how does he make the Word commensurate 
with God! rather, how does he extend the infinite in comparison with the 
infinite! "The Word was with God"--the whole being of the Word, assuredly, 
with the whole being of God. Therefore, as great as God is, so great, clearly, 
is the Word also that is with Him; so that if God is limited, then will the 
Word also, surely, be subject to limitation. But if the infinity of God 
exceeds limit, neither is the Word that is contemplated with Him comprehended 
by limits and measures. For no one would deny that the Word is contemplated 
together with the entire Godhead of the Father, so that he should make one 
part of the Godhead appear to be in the Word, and another destitute of the 
Word. Once more the spiritual voice of John speaks, once more the Evangelist 
in his proclamation takes tender care for the hearing of those who are in 
childhood: not yet have we so much grown by the hearing of his first words as 
to hear of "the Son," and yet remain firm without being moved from our footing 
by the influence of the wonted sense. Therefore our herald, crying once more 
aloud, still proclaims in his third utterance "the Word," and not "the Son," 
saying, "And the Word was God." First he declared wherein He was, then with 
whom He was, and now he says what He is, completing, by his third repetition, 
the object of his proclamation. For he says, "It is no Word of those that are 
readily understood, that I declare to you, but God under the designation of 
the Word." For this Word, that was in the Beginning, and was with God, was not 
anything else besides God, but was also Himself God. And forthwith the herald, 
reaching the full height of his lofty speech, declares that this God Whom his 
proclamation sets forth is He by Whom all things were made, and is life, and 
the light of men, and the true light that shineth in darkness, yet is not 
obscured by the darkness, sojourning with His own, yet not received by His 
own: and being made flesh, and tabernacling, by means of the flesh, in man's 
nature. And when he has first gone through this number and variety of 
statements, he then names the Father and the Only-begotten, when there can be 
no danger that what has been purified by so many precautions should be 
allowed, in consequence of the sense of the word "Father," to Sink down to any 
meaning tainted with pollution, for, "we beheld His glory," he says, "the 
glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father." 

    Repeat, then, Eunomius, repeat this clever objection of yours to the 
Evangelist: "How dost thou give the name of 'Father' in thy 

155 

discourse, how that of Only-begotten, seeing that all bodily generation is 
operated by passion?" Surely truth answers you on his behalf, that the mystery 
of theology is one thing, and the physiology of unstable bodies is another. 
Wide is the interval by which they are fenced off one from the other. Why do 
you join together in your argument what cannot blend? how do you defile the 
purity of the Divine generation by your foul discourse? how do you make 
systems for the incorporeal by the passions that affect the body? Cease to 
draw your account of the nature of things above from those that are below. I 
proclaim the Lord as the Son of God, because the gospel from heaven, 
given-through the bright cloud, thus proclaimed Him; for "This," He saith, "is 
My beloved Son(1)." Yet, though I was taught that He is the Son, I was not 
dragged down by the name to the earthly significance of "Son," but I both know 
that He is from the Father and do not know that He is from passion. And this, 
moreover, I will add to what has been said, that I know even a bodily 
generation which is pure from passion, so that even on this point Eunomius' 
physiology of bodily generation is proved false, if, that is to say, a bodily 
birth can be found which does not admit passion. Tell me, was the Word made 
flesh, or not? You would not, I presume, say that It was not. It was so made, 
then, and there is none who denies it. How then was it that "God was 
manifested in the flesh(2)"? "By birth," of course you will say. But what sort 
of birth do you speak of? Surely it is clear that you speak of that from the 
virginity, and that "that which was conceived in her was of the Holy 
Ghost(3)," and that "the days were accomplished that she should be delivered, 
and she brought forth(4)," and none the less was her purity preserved in her 
child-bearing. You believe, then, that that birth which took place from a 
woman was pure from passion, if you do believe, but you refuse to admit the 
Divine and incorruptible generation from the Father, that you may avoid the 
idea of passion in generation. But I know well that it is not passion he seeks 
to avoid in his doctrine, for that he does not discern at all in the Divine 
and incorruptible nature; but to the end that the Maker of all creation may be 
accounted a part of creation, he builds up these arguments in order to a 
denial of the Only-begotten God, and uses his pretended caution about passion 

to help him in his task. 

 2. He convicts Eunomius of having used of the Only-begotten terms applicable 
to the existence of the earth, and thus shows that his intention is to prove 
the Son to be a being, mutable and created. 

    And this he shows very plainly by his contention against our arguments, 
where he says that "the essence of the Son came into being from the Father, 
not put forth by way of extension, not separated from its conjunction with Him 
that generated Him by flux or division, not perfected by way of growth, not 
transformed by way of change, but obtaining existence by the mere will of the 
Generator." Why, what man whose mental senses are not closed up is left in 
ignorance by this utterance that by these statements the Son is being 
represented by Eunomius as a part of the creation? What hinders us from saying 
all this word for word as it stands, about every single one of the things we 
contemplate in creation? Let us apply, if you will, the definition to any of 
the things that appear in creation, and if it does not admit the same 
sequence, we will condemn ourselves for having examined the definition 
slightingly, and not with the care that befits the truth. Let us exchange, 
then, the name of the Son, and so read the definition word by word. We say 
that the essence of the earth came into being from the Father, not separated 
by way of extension or division from its conjunction with Him Who generated 
it, nor perfected by way of growth, nor put forth by way of change, but 
obtaining existence by the mere will of Him Who generated it. Is there 
anything in what we have said that does not apply to the existence of the 
earth? I think no one would say so: for God did not put forth the earth by 
being extended, nor bring its essence into existence by flowing or by 
dissevering Himself from conjunction with Himself, nor did He bring it by 
means of gradual growth from being small to completeness of magnitude, nor was 
He fashioned into the form of earth by undergoing mutation or alteration, but 
His will sufficed Him for the existence of all things that were made: "He 
spake and they were generated(5)," so that even the name of "generation" does 
not fail to accord with the existence of the earth. Now if these things may be 
truly said of the parts of the universe, what doubt is still left as to our 
adversaries' doctrine, that while, so far as words go, they call Him "Son," 
they represent Him as being one of the things that came into existence by 
creation, set before the rest only in precedence of order? just as you might 
say about the trade of a smith, that from 

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it come all things that are wrought out of iron; but that the instrument of 
the tongs and hammer, by which the iron is fashioned for use, existed before 
the making of the rest; yet, while this has precedence of the rest, there is 
not on that account any difference in respect of matter between the instrument 
that fashions and the iron that is shaped by the instrument, (for both one and 
the other are iron,) but the one form is earlier than the other. Such is the 
theology of heresy touching the Son,--to imagine that there is no difference 
between the Lord Himself and the things that were made by Him, save the 
difference in respect of order. 

    Who that is in any sense classed among Christians admits that the 
definition(6) of the essence of the parts of the world, and of Him Who made 
the world, is the same? For my own part I shudder at the blasphemy, knowing 
that where the definition of things is the same neither is their nature 
different. For as the definition of the essence of Peter and John and other 
men is common and their nature is one, in the same way, if the Lord were in 
respect of nature even as the parts of the world, they must acknowledge that 
He is also subject to those things, whatever they may be, which they perceive 
in them. Now the world does not last for ever: thus, according to them, the 
Lord also will pass away with the heaven and the earth, if, as they say, He is 
of the same kind with the world. If on the other hand He is confessed to be 
eternal, we must needs suppose that the world too is not without some part in 
the Divine nature, if, as they say, it corresponds with the Only-begotten in 
the matter of creation. You see where this fine process of inference makes the 
argument tend, like a stone broken off from a mountain ridge and rushing 
down-hill by its own weight. For either the elements of the world must be 
Divine, according to the foolish belief of the Greeks, or the Son must not be 
worshipped. Let us consider it thus. We say that the creation, both what is 
perceived by the mind, and that which is of a nature to be perceived by sense, 
came into being from nothing: this they declare also of the Lord. We say that 
all things that have been made consist by the will of God: this they tell us 
also of the Only-begotten. We believe that neither the angelic creation nor 
the mundane is of the essence of Him that made it: and they make Him also 
alien from the essence of the Father. We confess that all things serve Him 
that made them: this view they also hold of the Only-begotten. Therefore, of 
necessity, whatever else it may be that they conceive of the creation, all 
these attributes they will also attach to the Only-begotten: and whatever they 
believe of Him, this they will also conceive of the creation: so that, if they 
confess the Lord as God, they will also deify the rest of the creation. On the 
other hand, if they define these things to be without share in the Divine 
nature, they will not reject the same conception touching the Only-begotten 
also. Moreover no sane man asserts Godhead of the creation. Then neither I do 
not utter the rest, lest I lend my tongue to the blasphemy of the enemy. Let 
those say what consequence follows, whose mouth is well trained in blasphemy. 
But their doctrine is evident even if they hold their peace. For one of two 
things must necessarily happen:--either they will depose the Only-begotten 
God, so that with them He will no more either be, or be called so: or, if they 
assert Godhead of Him, they will equally assert it of all creation:--or, (for 
this is still left to them,) they will shun the impiety that appears on either 
side, and take refuge in the orthodox doctrine, and will assuredly agree with 
us that He is not created, that they may confess Him to be truly God. 

    What need is there to take time to recount all the other blasphemies that 
underlie his doctrine, starting from this beginning? For by what we have 
quoted, one who considers the inference to be drawn will understand that the 
father of falsehood, the maker of death, the inventor of wickedness, being 
created in a nature intellectual and incorporeal, was not by that nature 
hindered from becoming what he is by way of change. For the mutability of 
essence, moved either way at will, involves a capacity of nature that follows 
the impulse of determination, so as to become that to which its determination 
leads it. Accordingly they will define the Lord as being capable even of 
contrary dispositions, drawing Him down as it were to a rank equal with the 
angels, by the conception of creation(7). But let them listen to the great 
voice of Paul. Why is it that he says that He alone has been called Son? 
Because He is not of the nature of angels, but of that which is more 
excellent. "For unto which of the angels said He at any time, 'Thou art My 
Son, This day have I begotten Thee'? and when again He bringeth the 
first-begotten into the world He saith, 'And let all the angels of God worship 
Him.' And of the angels He saith, 'Who maketh His angels spirits, and His 

157 

ministers a flame of fire': but of the Son He saith, 'Thy throne, O God, is 
for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy 
kingdom(8),'" and all else that the prophecy recites together with these words 
in declaring His Godhead. And he adds also from another Psalm the appropriate 
words, "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, 
and the heavens are the works of Thine hands," and the rest, as far as "But 
Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail(9)," whereby he describes the 
immutability and eternity of His nature. If, then, the Godhead of the 
Only-begotten is as far above the angelic nature as a master is superior to 
his slaves, how do they make common either with the sensible creation Him Who 
is Lord of the creation, or with the nature of the angels Him Who is 
worshipped by them(1), by detailing, concerning the manner of His existence, 
statements which will properly apply to the individual things we contemplate 
in creation, even as we already showed the account given by heresy, touching 
the Lord, to be closely and appropriately applicable to the making of the 
earth? 

 3. He then again admirably discussed the term pfwtotokos as it 
is four times employed Apostle. 

    But that the readers of our work may find no ambiguity left of such a kind 
as to afford any support to the heretical doctrines, it may be worth while to 
add to the passages examined by us this point also from Holy Scripture. They 
will perhaps raise a question from the very apostolic writings which we 
quoted: "How could He be called 'the first-born of creation(2)' if He were not 
what creation is? for every first-born is the first-born not of another kind, 
but of its own as Reuben, having precedence in respect of birth of those who 
are counted after him, was the first-born, a man the first-born of men; and 
many others are called the first-born of the brothers who are reckoned with 
them." They say then, "We assert that He Who is 'the first-born of creation' 
is of that same essence which we consider the essence of all creation. Now if 
the whole creation is of one essence with the Father of all, we will not deny 
that the first born of creation is this also: but if the God of all differs in 
essence from the creation, we must of necessity say that neither has the 
first-born of creation community in essence with God." The structure of this 
objection is not. I think, at all less imposing in the form in which it is 
alleged by us, than in the form in which it would probably be brought against 
us by our adversaries. But what we ought to know as regards this point shall 
now, so far as we are able, be plainly set forth in our discourse. 

    Four times the name of "first-born" or "first-begotten" is used by the 
Apostle in all his writings: but he has made mention of the name in different 
senses and not in the same manner. For now he speaks of "the first-born of all 
creation(3)," and again of "the first-born among many brethren(4)," then of 
"the first-born from the dead(5);" and in the Epistle to the Hebrews the name 
of "first-begotten" is absolute, being mentioned by itself: for he speaks 
thus, "When again He bringeth the first-begotten into the world, He saith, 
'Let all the angels worship Him(6).'" As these passages are thus distinct, it 
may be well to interpret each of them separately by itself, how He is the 
"first-born of creation," how "among many brethren," how "from the dead," and 
how, spoken of by Himself apart from each of these, when He is again brought 
into the world, He is worshipped by all His angels. Let us begin then, if you 
will, our survey of the passages before us with the last-mentioned. 

    "When again He bringeth in," he says, "the first-begotten into the world." 
The addition of "again" shows, by the force of this word, that this event 
happens not for the first time: for we use tiffs word of the repetition of 
things which have once happened. He signifies, therefore, by the phrase, the 
dread appearing of the Judge at the end of the ages, when He is seen no more 
in the form of a servant, but seated in glory upon the throne of His kingdom, 
and worshipped by all the angels that are around Him. Therefore He Who once 
entered into the world, becoming the first-born "from the dead," and "of His 
brethren," and "of all creation," does not, when He comes again into the world 
as He that judges the world in righteousness(7), as the prophecy saith, east 
off the name of the first-begotten, which He once received for our sakes; but 
as at the name of Jesus, which is above every name, every knee bows(8), so 
also the company of all the angels worships Him Who comes in the name of the 
First-begotten, in their rejoicing over the restoration of men, wherewith, by 
becoming the first-born among us, He restored us again to the grace which we 
had at the beginning(9). For since there is joy among the angels over those 
who are rescued 

158 

from sin, (because until now that creation groaneth and travaileth in pain at 
the vanity that affects us(1), judging our perdition to be their own loss,) 
when that manifestation of the sons of God takes place which they look for and 
expect, and when the sheep is brought safe to the hundred above, (and we 
surely--humanity that is to say--are that sheep which the Good Shepherd saved 
by becoming the first begotten(2)) then especially will they offer, in their 
intense thanksgiving on our behalf, their worship to God, Who by being 
first-begotten restored him that bad wandered from his Father's home. 

    Now that we have arrived at the understanding of these words, no one could 
any longer hesitate as to the other passages, for what reason He is the 
first-born, either "of the dead," or "of the creation," or "among many 
brethren." For all these passages refer to the same point, although each of 
them sets forth some special conception. He is the first-born from the dead, 
Who first by Himself loosed the pains of death(3), that He might also make 
that birth of the resurrection a way for all men(4). Again, He becomes "the 
first-born among many brethren," Who is born before us by the new birth of 
regeneration in water, for the travail whereof the hovering of the Dove was 
the midwife, whereby He makes those who share with Him in the like birth to be 
His own brethren, and becomes the first-born of those who after Him are born 
of water and of the Spirit(5): and to speak briefly, as there are in us three 
births, whereby human nature is quickened, one of the body, another in the 
sacrament of regeneration, another by that resurrection of the dead for which 
we look, He is first-born in all three:---of the twofold regeneration which is 
wrought by two (by baptism and by the resurrection), by being Himself the 
leader in each of them; while it, the flesh He is first-born, as having first 
and alone devised in His own case that birth unknown to nature, which no one 
in the many generations of men had originated. If these passages, then, have 
been rightly understood, neither will the signification of the "creation," of 
which He is first-born, be unknown to as. For we recognize a twofold creation 
of our nature, the first that whereby we were made, the second that whereby we 
were made anew. But there would have been no need of the second creation had 
we not made the first unavailing by our disobedience. Accordingly, when the 
first creation had waxed old and vanished away, it was needful that there 
should be a new creation in Christ, (as the Apostle says, who asserts that we 
should no longer see in the second creation any trace of that which has waxed 
old, saying, "Having put off the old man with his deeds and his lusts, put on 
the new man which is created according to God(6)," and "If any man be in 
Christ," he says, "he is a new creature: the old things are passed away, 
behold all things are become new(7):")--for the maker of human nature at the 
first and afterwards is one and the same. Then He took dust from the earth and 
formed man: again, He took dust from the Virgin, and did not merely form man, 
but formed man about Himself: then, He created; afterwards, He was created: 
then, the Word made flesh; afterwards, the Word became flesh, that He might 
change our flesh to spirit, by being made partaker with us in flesh and blood. 
Of this new creation therefore in Christ, which He Himself began, He was 
called the first-born, being the first-fruits of all, both of those begotten 
into life, and of those quickened by resurrection of the dead, "that He might 
be Lord both of the dead and of the living(8)," and might sanctify the whole 
lump(9) by means of its first-fruits in Himself. Now that the character of 
"first-born" does not apply to the Son in respect of His pre temporal 
existence the appellation of "Only-begotten" testifies. For he who is truly 
only-begotten has no brethren, for bow could any one be only-begotten if 
numbered among brethren? but as He is called God and man, Son of God and Son 
of man,--for He has the form of God and the form of a servant(1), being some 
things according to His supreme nature, becoming other things in His 
dispensation of love to man,--so too, being the Only-begotten God, He becomes 
the first-born of all creation,--the Only-begotten, He that is in the bosom of 
the Father, yet, among the e who are saved by the new creation, both becoming 
and being called the first born of the creation. But if, as heresy will have 
it, He is called first-born because He was made before the rest of the 
creation, the name does not agree with what they maintain concerning the 
Only-begotten God. For they do not say this,--that the Son and the universe 
were from the Father in like manner,--but they say, that the Only-begotten God 
was made by the Father, and that all else was made by the Only-begotten. 
Therefore on the same ground on which, while they hold that the Son was 
created, they call God the Father of the created Being, on the same 

159 

ground, while they say that all things were made by the Only-begotten God, 
they give Him the name not of the "first-born" of the things that were made by 
Him, but more properly of their "Father," as the same relation existing in 
both cases towards the things created, logically gives rise to the same 
appellation. For if God, Who is over all, is not properly called the 
"First-born," but the Father of the Being He Himself created, the 
Only-begotten God will surely also be called, by the same reasoning, the 
"father," and not properly the "first-born" of His own creatures, so that the 
appellation of "first-born" will be altogether improper and superfluous, 
having no place in the heretical conception, 

 4. He proceeds again to discuss the impassibility of the Lord's generation; 
and the folly of Eunomius, who says that the generated essence involves the 
appellation of Son, and again, forgetting this, denies the relation of the Son 
to the Father: and herein he speaks of Circe and of the mandrake poison. 

    We must, however, return to those who connect passion with the Divine 
generation, and on this account deny that the Lord is truly begotten, in order 
to avoid the conception of passion. To say that passion is absolutely linked 
with generation, and that on this account, in order that the Divine nature may 
continue in purity beyond the reach of passion, we ought to consider that the 
Son is alien to the idea of generation, may perhaps appear reasonable in the 
eyes of those who are easily deceived, but those who are instructed in the 
Divine mysteries(2) have an answer ready to band, based upon admitted facts. 
For who knows not that it is generation that leads us back to the true and 
blessed life, not being the same with that which takes place "of blood and of 
the will of the flesh(3)," in which are flux and change, and gradual growth to 
perfection, and all else that we observe in our earthly generation: but the 
other kind is believed to be from God, and heavenly, and, as the Gospel says, 
"from above(4)," which excludes the passions of flesh and blood? I presume 
that they both admit the existence of this generation, and find no passion in 
it. Therefore not all generation is naturally connected with passion, but the 
material generation is subject to passion, the immaterial pure from passion. 
What constrains him then to attribute to the incorruptible generation of the 
Son what properly belongs to the flesh, and, by ridiculing the lower form of 
generation with his unseemly physiology, to exclude the Son from affinity with 
the Father? For if, even in our own case, it is generation that is the 
beginning of either life,--that generation which is through the flesh of a 
life of passion, that which is spiritual of a life of purity, (and no one who 
is in any sense numbered among Christians would contradict this 
statement,)--how is it allowable to entertain the idea of passion in thinking 
of generation as it concerns the incorruptible Nature? Let us moreover examine 
this point in addition to those we have mentioned. If they disbelieve the 
passionless character of the Divine generation on the ground of the passion 
that affects the flesh, let them also, from the same tokens, (those, I mean, 
to be found in ourselves,) refuse to believe that God acts as a Maker without 
passion. For if they judge of the Godhead by comparison of our own conditions, 
they must not confess that God either begets or creates; for neither of these 
operations is exercised by ourselves without passion. Let them therefore 
either separate from the Divine nature both creation and generation, that they 
may guard the impassibility of God on either side, and let them, that the 
Father may be kept safely beyond the range of passion, neither growing weary 
by creation, nor being defiled by generation, entirely reject front their 
doctrine the belief in the Only-begotten, or, if they agree(5) that the one 
activity is exercised by the Divine power without passion, let them not 
quarrel about the other: for if He creates without labour or matter, He surely 
also begets without labour or flux. 

    And here once more I have in this argument the support of Eunomius. I will 
state his nonsense concisely and briefly, epitomizing his whole meaning. That 
men do not make materials for us, but only by their art add form to 
matter,--this is the drift of what he says in the course of a great quantity 
of nonsensical language. If, then, understanding conception and formation to 
be included in the lower generation, he forbids on this ground the pure notion 
of generation, by consequence, on the same reasoning, since earthly creation 
is busied with the form, but cannot furnish matter together with the form, let 
him forbid us also, on this ground, to suppose that the Father is a Creator. 
If, on the other hand, he refuses to conceive creation in the case of God 
according to man's measure of power, let him also cease to slander Divine 
generation by human imperfections. But, that his accuracy and circumspection m 
argument may be more clearly established, I will again return to a small point 
in his statements. He asserts that "things which are respectively active and 
passive share one another's nature," and mentions, after bodily generation, 

160 

"the work of the craftsman as displayed in materials." Now let the acute 
hearer mark how he here fails in his proper aim, and wanders about among 
whatever statements he happens to invent. He sees in things that come into 
being by way of the flesh the "active and passive conceived, with the same 
essence, the one imparting the essence, the other receiving it." Thus he knows 
how to discern the truth with accuracy as regards the nature of existing 
things, so as to separate the imparter and the receiver from the essence, and 
to say that each of these is distinct in himself apart from the essence. For 
he that receives or imparts is surely another besides that which is given or 
received, so that we must first conceive some one by himself, viewed in his 
own separate existence, and then speak of him as giving that which he has, or 
receiving that which he has not(6). And when he has sputtered out this 
argument in such a ridiculous fashion, our sage friend does not perceive that 
by the next step he overthrows himself once more. For he who by his art forms 
at his will the material before him, surely in this operation acts; and the 
material, in receiving its form at the hand of him who exercises the art, is 
passively affected: for it is not by remaining unaffected and 
un-impressionable that the material receives its form. If then, even in the 
case of things wrought by art, nothing can come into being without passivity 
and action concurring to pro, duce it, how can our author think that he here 
abides by his own words? seeing that, in declaring community of essence to be 
involved in the relation of action and passion, he seems not only to attest in 
some sense community of essence in Him that is begotten with Him that begat 
Him, but also to make the whole creation of one essence(7) with its Maker, if, 
as he says, the active and the passive are to be defined as mutually akin in 
respect of nature. Thus, by the very arguments by which he establishes what he 
wishes, he overthrows the main object of his effort, and makes the glory of 
the co-essential Son more secure by his own contention. For if the fact of 
origination from anything shows the essence of the generator to be in the 
generated, and if artificial fabrication (being accomplished by means of 
action and passion) reduces both that which makes and that which is produced 
to community of essence, according to his account, our author in many places 
of his own writings maintains that the Lord has been begotten. Thus by the 
very arguments whereby he seeks to prove the Lord alien from the essence of 
the Father, he asserts for Him intimate connexion. For if, according to his 
account, separation in essence is not observed either in generation or in 
fabrication, then, whatever he allows the Lord to be, whether "created" or a 
"product of generation," he asserts, by both names alike, the affinity of 
essence, seeing that he makes community of nature in active and passive, in 
generator and generated, a part of his system. 

    Let us turn however to the next point of the argument. I beg my readers 
not to be impatient at the minuteness of examination which extends our 
argument to a length beyond what we would desire. For it is not any ordinary 
matters on which we stand in danger, so that our loss would be slight if we 
should hurry past any point that required more careful attention, but it is 
the very sum of our hope that we have at stake. For the alternative before us 
is, whether we should be Christians, not led astray by the destructive wiles 
of heresy, or whether we should be completely swept away into the conceptions 
of Jews or heathen. To the end, then, that we may not suffer either of these 
things forbidden, that we may neither agree with the doctrine of the Jews by a 
denial of the verily begotten Son, nor be involved in the downfall of the 
idolaters by the adoration of the creature, let us perforce spend some time in 
the discussion of these matters, and set forth the very words of Eunomius, 
which run thus:-- 

    "Now as these things are thus divided, one might reasonably say that the 
most proper and primary essence, and that which alone exists by the operation 
of the Father, admits for itself the appellations of 'product of generation,' 
'product of making,' and 'product of creation':" and a little further on he 
says, "But the Son alone, existing by the operation of the Father, possesses 
His nature and His relation to Him that begat Him, without community(8)." Such 
are his words. But let us, like men who look on at their enemies engaged in a 
factious struggle among themselves, consider first our adversaries' contention 
against themselves, and so proceed to set forth on the other side the true 
doctrine of godliness. "The Son alone," he says, "existing by the operation of 
the Father, possesses His nature and His relation to Him that begat Him, 
without community." But in his previous statements, he says that he "does not 
refuse to call Him, that is begotten a 'product of generation,' as the 
generated essence itself, and the appellation of Son, make such a relation of 
words appropriate." 

161 

    The contradiction existing in these passages being thus evident, I am 
inclined to admire for their acuteness those who praise this doctrine. For it 
would be hard to say to which of his statements they could turn without 
finding themselves at variance with the remainder. His earlier statement 
represented that the generated essence, and the appellation of "Son," made 
such a relation of words appropriate. His present system says the 
contrary:--that "the Son possesses His relation to Him that begot Him without 
community." If they believe the first statement, they will surely not accept 
the second: if they incline to the latter, they will find themselves opposed 
to the earlier conception. Who will stay the combat? Who will mediate in this 
civil war? Who will bring this discord into agreement, when the very soul is 
divided against itself by the opposing statements, and drawn in different ways 
to contrary doctrines? Perhaps we may see here that dark saying of prophecy 
which David speaks of the Jews--" They were divided but were not pricked at 
heart(9)." For lo, not even when they are divided among contrariety of 
doctrines have they a sense of their discordancy, but they are carried about 
by their ears like wine-jars, borne around at the will of him who shifts them. 
It pleased him to say that the generated essence was closely connected with 
the appellation of "Son": straightway, like men asleep, they nodded assent to 
his remarks. He changed his statement again to the contrary one, and denies 
the relation of the Son to Him that begat Him: again his well-beloved friends 
join in assent to this also, shifting in whatever direction he chooses, as the 
shadows of bodies change their form by spontaneous mimicry with the motion of 
the advancing figure, and even if he contradicts himself, accepting that also. 
This is another form of the drought that Homer tells us of, not changing the 
bodies of those who drink its poison into the forms of brutes, but acting on 
their souls to produce in them a change to a state void of reason. For of 
those men, the tale tells that their mind was sound, while their form was 
changed to that of beasts, but here, while their bodies remain in their 
natural state, their souls are transformed to the condition of brutes. And as 
there the poet's tale of wonder says that those who drank the drug were 
changed into the forms of various beasts, at the pleasure of her who beguiled 
their nature, the same thing happens now also from this Circe's cup. For they 
who drink the deceit of sorcery from the same writing are changed to different 
forms of doctrine, transformed now to one, now to another. And meanwhile these 
very ridiculous people, according to the revised edition of the fable, are 
still well pleased with him who leads them to such absurdity, and stoop to 
father the words he scatters about, as if they were cornel fruit or acorns, 
running greedily like swine to the doctrines that are shed on the ground, not 
being naturally capable of fixing their gaze on those which are lofty and 
heavenly. For this reason it is that they do not see the tendency of his 
argument to contrary positions, but snatch without examination what comes in 
their way: and as they say that the bodies of men stupefied with mandrake are 
held in a sort of slumber and inability to move, so are the senses of these 
men's souls affected, being made torpid as regards the apprehension of deceit. 
It is certainly a terrible thing to be held in unconsciousness by hidden 
guile, as the result of some fallacious argument: yet where it is involuntary 
the misfortune is excusable: but to be brought to make trial of evil as the 
result of a kind of forethought and zealous desire, not in ignorance of what 
will befall, surpasses every extreme of misery. Surely we may well complain, 
when we hear that even greedy fish avoid the steel when it comes near them 
unbaited, and take down the hook only when hope of food decoys them to a bait: 
but where the evil is apparent, to go over of their own accord to this 
destruction is a more wretched thing than the folly of the fish: for these are 
led by their greediness to a destruction that is concealed from them, but the 
others swallow with open mouth the hook of impiety in its bareness, satisfied 
with destruction under the influence of some unreasoning passion. For what 
could be clearer than this contradiction--than to say that the same Person was 
begotten and is a thing created, and that something is closely connected with 
the name of "Son," and, again, is alien from the sense of "Son"? But enough of 
these matters. 

 5. He again shows Eunomius, constrained by truth, in the character of an 
advocate of the orthodox doctrine, confessing as most proper and primary, not 
only the essence of the Father, but the essence also of the Only begotten. 

    It might, however, be useful to look at the sense of the utterance of 
Eunomius that is set before us in orderly sequence, recurring to the beginning 
of his statement. For the points we have now examined were an obvious 
incitement to us to begin our reply with the last passage, on account of the 
evident character of the contradiction involved in his words. 

    This, then, is what Eunomius says at the beginning:-- 

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    "Now, as these things are thus divided, one might reasonably say that the 
most proper and primary essence, and that which alone exists by the operation 
of the Father, admits for itself the appellations of 'product of generation,' 
'product of making,' and 'product of creation.'" First, then, I would ask 
those who are attending to this discourse to bear in mind, that in his first 
composition he says that the essence of the Father also is "most proper," 
introducing his statement with these words, "The whole account of our teaching 
is completed with the supreme and most proper essence." And here he calls the 
essence of the Only-begotten "most proper and primary." Thus putting together 
Eunomius' phrases from each of his books, we shall call him himself as a 
witness of the community of essence, who in another place makes a declaration 
to this effect, that "of things which have the same appellations, the nature 
also is not different" in any way. For our self-contradictory friend would not 
indicate things differing in nature by identity of appellation, but it is 
surely for this reason, that the definition of essence in Father and Son is 
one, that he says that the one is "most proper," and that the other also is 
"most proper." And the general usage of men bears witness to our argument, 
which does not apply the term "most proper" where the name does not truly 
agree with the nature. For instance, we call a likeness, inexactly, "a man," 
but what we properly designate by this name is the animal presented to us in 
nature. And similarly, the language of Scripture recognizes the appellation of 
"god" for an idol, and for a demon, and for the belly: but here too the name 
has not its proper sense; and in the same way with all other cases. A man is 
said to have eaten food in the fancy of a dream, but we cannot call this fancy 
food, in the proper sense of the term. As, then, in the case of two men 
existing naturally, we properly call both equally by the name of man, while if 
any one should join an inanimate portrait in his enumeration with a real man, 
one might perhaps speak of him who really exists and of the likeness, as "two 
men," but would no longer attribute to both the proper meaning of the word, 
so, on the supposition that the nature of the Only-begotten was conceived as 
something else than the essence of the Father, our author would not have 
called each of the essences "most proper." For how could any one signify 
things differing in nature by identity of names? Surely the truth seems to be 
made plain even by those who fight against it, as falsehood is unable, even 
when expressed in the words of the enemy, utterly to prevail over truth. Hence 
the doctrine of orthodoxy is proclaimed by the mouth of its opponents, without 
their knowing what they say, as the saving Passion of the Lord for us had been 
foretold in the case of Caiaphas, not knowing what he said(1). If, therefore, 
true propriety of essence is common to both (I mean to the Father and the 
Son), what room is there for saying that their essences are mutually 
divergent? Or how is a difference by way of superior power, or greatness, or 
honour, contemplated in them, seeing that the "most proper "essence admits of 
no diminution? For that which is whatever it is imperfectly, is not that thing 
"most properly," be it nature, or power, or rank, or any other individual 
object of contemplation, so that the superiority of the Father's essence, as 
heresy will have it, proves the imperfection of the essence of the Son. If 
then it is imperfect. it is not proper; but if it is "most proper" it is also 
surely perfect. For it is not possible to call that which is deficient 
perfect. But neither is it possible, when, in comparing them, that which is 
perfect is set beside that which is perfect, to perceive any difference by way 
of excess or defect: for perfection is one in both cases, as in a rule, not 
showing a hollow by defect, nor a projection by excess. Thus, from these 
passages Eunomius' advocacy in favour of our doctrine may be sufficiently 
seen--I should rather say, not his earnestness on our behalf, but his conflict 
with himself. For he turns against himself those devices whereby he 
establishes our doctrines by his own arguments. Let us, however, once more 
follow his writings word for word, that it may be clear to all that their 
argument has no power for evil except the desire to do mischief. 

 6. He then exposes argument about the "Generate," and the "product of 
making," and "product of creation," and shows the impious nature of the 
language of Eunomius and Theognostus on the "immediate" and "undivided" 
character of the essence, and its "relation to its creator and maker." 

    Let us listen, then, to what he says. "One might reasonably say that the 
most proper and primary essence, and that which alone exists by the operation 
of the Father, admits for itself the appellations of 'product of generation,' 
'product of making,' and 'product of creation.' " Who knows not that what 
separates the Church from heresy is this term, "product of creation," applied 
to the Son? Accordingly, the doctrinal difference being universally 
acknowledged, what would be the reasonable course for a man to take who 
endeavours to show that his opinions are more true than ours? Clearly, to 
establish his own statement, by showing, by such proofs as he could, that we 
ought to consider that the 

163 

Lord is created. Or omitting this, should he rather lay down a law for his 
readers that they should speak of matters of controversy as if they were 
acknowledged facts? For my own part, I think he should take the former course, 
and perhaps all who possess any share of intelligence demand this of their 
opponents, that they should, to begin with, establish upon some 
incontrovertible basis the first principle of their argument, and so proceed 
to press their theory by inferences. Now our writer leaves alone the task of 
establishing the view that we should think He is created, and goes on to the 
next steps, fitting on the inferential process of his argument to this 
unproved assumption, being just in the condition of those men whose minds are 
deep in foolish desires, with their thoughts wandering upon a kingdom, or upon 
some other object of pursuit. They do not think how any of the things on which 
they set their hearts could possibly be, but they arrange and order their good 
fortune for themselves at their pleasure, as if it were theirs already, 
straying with a kind of pleasure among non-existent things. So, too, our 
clever author somehow or other lulls his own renowned dialectic to sleep, and 
before giving a demonstration of the point at issue, he tells, as if to 
children, the tale of this deceitful and inconsequent folly of his own 
doctrine, setting it forth like a story told at a drinking-party. For he says 
that the essence which "exists by the operation of the Father "admits the 
appellation of "product of generation," and of "product of making," and of 
"product of creation." What reasoning showed us that the Son exists by any 
constructive operation, and that the nature of the Father remains inoperative 
with regard to the Personal existence(2) of the Son? This was the very point 
at issue in the controversy, whether the essence of the Father begat the Son, 
or whether it made Him as one of the external things which accompany His 
nature(3). Now seeing that the Church, according to the Divine teaching, 
believes the Only-begotten to be verily God, and abhors the superstition of 
polytheism, and for this cause does not admit the difference of essences, in 
order that the Godheads may not, by divergence of essence, fall under the 
conception of number (for this is nothing else than to introduce polytheism 
into our life)--seeing, I say, that the Church teaches this in plain language, 
that the Only-begotten is essentially God, very God of the essence of the very 
God, how ought one who opposes her decisions to overthrow the preconceived 
opinion? Should he not do so by establishing the opposing statement, 
demonstrating the disputed point from some acknowledged principle? I think no 
sensible man would look for anything else than this. But our author starts 
from the disputed points, and takes, as though it were admitted, matter which 
is in controversy as a principle for the succeeding argument. If it had first 
been shown that the Son had His existence through some operation, what quarrel 
should we have with what follows, that he should say that the essence which 
exists through an operation admits for itself the name of "product of making"? 
But let the advocates of error tell us how the consequence has any force, so 
long as the antecedent remains un-established. For supposing one were to grant 
by way of hypothesis that man is winged, there will be no question of 
concession about what comes next: for he who becomes winged will fly in some 
way or other, and lift himself up on high above the earth, soaring through the 
air on his wings. But we have to see how he whose nature is not aerial could 
become winged, and if this condition does not exist, it is vain to discuss the 
next point. Let our author, then, show this to begin with, that it is in vain 
that the Church has believed that the Only-begotten Son truly exists, not 
adopted by a Father falsely so called, but existing according to nature, by 
generation from Him Who is, not alienated from the essence of Him that begat 
Him. But so long as his primary proposition remains unproved, it is idle to 
dwell on those which are secondary. And let no one interrupt me, by saying 
that what we confess should also be confirmed by constructive reasoning: for 
it is enough for proof of our statement, that the tradition has come down to 
us from our fathers, handled on, like some inheritance, by succession from the 
apostles and the saints who came after them. They, on the other hand, who 
change their doctrines to this novelty, would need the support of arguments in 
abundance, if they were about to bring over to their views, not men light as 
dust, and unstable, but men of weight and steadiness: but so long as their 
statement is advanced without being established, and without being proved, who 
is so foolish and so brutish as to account the teaching of the evangelists and 
apostles, and of those who have successively shone like lights in the 
churches, of less force than this undemonstrated nonsense? 

    Let us further look at the most remarkable instance of our author's 
cleverness; how, by the abundance of his dialectic skill, he ingeniously draws 
over to the contrary view the more simple sort. He throws in, as an addition 
to the title of "product of making," and that of "product of creation," the 
further phrase, "product of generation," saying that the essence of the Son 

164 

"admits these names for itself"; and thinks that, so long as be harangues as 
if he were in some gathering of topers, his knavery in dealing with doctrine 
will not be detected by any one. For in joining "product of generation" with 
"product of making," and "product of creation," he thinks that he stealthily 
makes away with the difference in significance between the names, by putting 
together what have nothing in common. These are his clever tricks of 
dialectic; but we mere laymen in argument(4) do not deny that, so far as voice 
and tongue are concerned, we are what his speech sets forth about us, but we 
allow also that our ears, as the prophet says, are made ready for intelligent 
hearing. Accordingly, we are not moved, by the conjunction of names that have 
nothing in common, to make a confusion between the things they signify: but 
even if the great Apostle names together wood, hay, stubble, gold, silver, and 
precious stones(5), we reckon up summarily the number of things he mentions, 
and yet do not fail to recognize separately the nature of each of the 
substances named. So here, too, when "product of generation" and "product of 
making" are named together, we pass from the sounds to the sense, and do not 
behold the same meaning in each of the names; for "product of creation" means 
one thing, and "product of generation" another: so that even if he tries to 
mingle what will not blend, the intelligent hearer will listen with 
discrimination, and will point out that it is an impossibility for any one 
nature to "admit for itself" the appellation of "product of generation," and 
that of "product of creation." For, if one of these were true, the other would 
necessarily be false, so that, if the thing were a product of creation, it 
would not be a product of generation, and conversely, if it were called a 
product of generation, it would be alienated from the title of "product of 
creation." Yet Eunomius tells us that the essence of the Son "admits for 
itself the appellations of 'product of generation,' 'product of making,' and 
'product of creation'"! 

    Does he, by what still remains, make at all more secure this headless and 
rootless statement of his, in which, in its earliest stage, nothing was laid 
down that had any force with regard to the point he is trying to establish? or 
does the rest also cling to the same folly, not deriving its strength from any 
support it gets from argument, but setting out its exposition of blasphemy 
with vague details like the recital of dreams? He says (and this he subjoins 
to what I have already quoted)--" Having its generation without intervention, 
and preserving indivisible its relation to its Generator, Maker, and Creator." 
Well, if we were to leave alone the absence of intervention and of division, 
and look at the meaning of the words as it stands by itself, we shall find 
that everywhere his absurd teaching is cast upon the ears of those whom he 
deceives, without corroboration from a single argument. "Its Generator, and 
Maker, and Creator," he says. These names, though they seem to be three, 
include the sense of but two concepts, since two of the words are equivalent 
in meaning. For to make is the same as to create, but generation is another 
thing distinct from those spoken of. Now, seeing that the result of the 
signification of the words is to divide the ordinary apprehension of men into 
different ideas, what argument demonstrates to us that making is the same 
thing with generation, to the end that we may accommodate the one essence to 
this difference of terms? For so long as the ordinary significance of the 
words holds, and no argument is found to transfer the sense of the terms to an 
opposite meaning, it is not possible that any one nature should be divided 
between the conception of "product of making," and that of "product of 
generation." Since each of these terms, used by itself, has a meaning of its 
own, we must also suppose the relative conjunction in which they stand to be 
appropriate and germane to the terms. For all other relative terms have their 
connection, not with what is foreign and heterogeneous, but, even if the 
correlative term be suppressed, we hear spontaneously, together with the 
primary word, that which is linked with it, as in the case of "maker," 
"slave," "friend," "son," and so forth. For all names that are considered as 
relative to another, present to us, by the mention of them, each its proper 
and closely connected relationship with that which it declares, while they 
avoid all mixture of that which is heterogeneous(6). For neither is the name 
of "maker" linked with the word "son," nor the term "slave" referred to the 
term "maker," nor does "friend" present to us a "slave," nor "son" a "master," 
but we recognize clearly and distinctly the connection of each of these with 
its correlative, conceiving by the word "friend" another friend; by "slave," a 
master; by "maker," work; by "son," a father. In the same way, then, "product 
of generation" has its proper relative sense; with the "product of 
generation," surely, is linked the generator, and with the "product of 
creation" the creator; and we must certainly, if we are not prepared by a 
substitution of names to 

165 

introduce a confusion of things, preserve for each of the relative terms that 
which it properly connotes. 

    Now, seeing that the tendency of the meaning of these words is manifest, 
how comes it that one who advances his doctrine by the aid of logical system 
failed to perceive in these names their proper relative sense? But he thinks 
that he is linking on the "product of generation" to "maker," and the "product 
of making" to "generator," by saying that the essence of the Son "admits for 
itself the appellations of 'product of generation,' 'product of making,' and 
'product of creation,'" and "preserves indivisible its relation to its 
Generator, Maker, and Creator." For it is contrary to nature, that a single 
thing should be split up into different relations. But the Son is properly 
related to the Father, and that which is begotten to him that begat it, while 
the "product of making" has its relation to its "maker"; save if one might 
consider some inexact use, in some undistinguishing way of common parlance, to 
overrule the strict signification. 

    By what reasoning then is it, and by what arguments, according to that 
invincible logic of his, that he wins back the opinion of the mass of men, and 
follows out at his pleasure this line of thought, that as the God Who is over 
all is conceived and spoken of both as "Creator" and as "Father," the Son has 
a close connection with both titles, being equally called both "product of 
creation" and "product of generation"? For as customary accuracy of speech 
distinguishes between names of this kind, and applies the name of "generation" 
in the case of things generated from the essence itself, and understands that 
of "creation" of those things which are external to the nature of their maker, 
and as on this account the Divine doctrines, in handing down the knowledge of 
God, have delivered to us the names of "Father" and "Son," not those of 
"Creator" and "work," that there might arise no error tending to blasphemy (as 
might happen if an appellation of the latter kind repelled the Son to the 
position of an alien and a stranger), and that the impious doctrines which 
sever the Only-begotten from essential affinity with the Father might find no 
entrance--seeing all this, I say, he who declares that the appellation of 
"product of making" is one befitting the Son, will safely say by consequence 
that the name of "Son" is properly applicable to that which is the product of 
making; so that, if the Son is a "product of making," the heaven is called 
"Son," and the individual things that have been made are, according to our 
author, properly named by the appellation of "Son." For if He has this name, 
not because He shares in nature with Him that begat Him, but is called Son for 
this reason, that He is created, the same argument will permit that a lamb, a 
dog, a frog, and all things that exist by the will of their maker, should be 
named by the title of "Son." If, on the other hand, each of these is not a Son 
and is not called God, by reason of its being external to the nature of the 
Son, it follows, surely, that He Who is truly Son is Son, and is confessed to 
be God by reason of His being of the very nature of Him that begat Him. But 
Eunomius abhors the idea of generation, and excludes it from the Divine 
doctrine, slandering the term by his fleshly speculations. Well, our 
discourse, in what precedes, showed sufficiently on this point that, as the 
Psalmist says, "they are afraid where no fear is(7)." For if it was shown in 
the case of men that not all generation exists by way of passion, but that 
that which is material is by passion, while that which is spiritual is pure 
and incorruptible, (for that which is begotten of the Spirit is spirit and not 
flesh, and in spirit we see no condition that is subject to passion,) since 
our author thought it necessary to estimate the Divine power by means of 
examples among ourselves, let him persuade himself to conceive from the other 
mode of generation the passionless character of the Divine generation. 
Moreover, by mixing up together these three names, of which two are 
equivalent, he thinks that his readers, by reason of the community of sense in 
the two phrases, will jump to the conclusion that the third is equivalent 
also. For since the appellation of "product of making," and "product of 
creation," indicate that the thing made is external to the nature of the 
maker, he couples with these the phrase, "product of generation," that this 
too may be interpreted along with those above mentioned. But argument of this 
sort is termed fraud and falsehood and imposition, not a thoughtful and 
skilful demonstration. For that only is called demonstration which shows what 
is unknown from what is acknowledged; but to reason fraudulently and 
fallaciously, to conceal your own reproach, and to confound by superficial 
deceits the understanding of men, as the Apostle says, "of corrupt minds(8)," 
this no sane man would call a skilful demonstration. 

    Let us proceed, however, to what follows in order. He says that the 
generation of the essence is "without intervention," and that it "preserves 
indivisible its relation to its Generator, Maker, and Creator." Well, if he 
had spoken of the immediate and indivisible character of the essence, and 
stopped his discourse there, it would not have swerved from the orthodox view, 
since we too confess the close 

166 

connection and relation of the Son with the Father, so that there is nothing 
inserted between them which is found to intervene in the connection of the Son 
with the Father, no conception of interval, not even that minute and 
indivisible one, which, when time is divided into past, present, and future, 
is conceived indivisibly by itself as the present, as it cannot be considered 
as a part either of the past or of the future, by reason of its being quite 
without dimensions and incapable of division, and unobservable, to whichever 
side it might be added. That, then, which is perfectly immediate, admits we 
say, of no such intervention; for that which is separated by any interval 
would cease to be immediate. If, therefore, our author, likewise, in saying 
that the generation of the Son is "without intervention," excluded all these 
ideas then he laid down the orthodox doctrine of the conjunction of Him Who is 
with the Father. When, however, as though in a fit of repentance, he 
straightway proceeded to add to what he had said that the essence "preserves 
its relation to its Generator, Maker, and Creator," he polluted his first 
statement by his second, vomiting forth his blasphemous utterance upon the 
pure doctrine. For it is clear that there too his "without intervention" has 
no orthodox intention, but, as one might say that the hammer is mediate 
between the smith and the nail, but its own making is "without intervention," 
because, when tools had not yet been found out by the craft, the hammer came 
first from the craftsman's hands by some inventive process, not(9) by means of 
any other tool, and so by it the others were made; so the phrase, "without 
intervention," indicates that this is also our author's conception touching 
the Only-begotten. And here Eunomius is not alone in his error as regards the 
enormity of his doctrine, but you may find a parallel also in the works of 
Theognostus(1), who says that God, wishing to make this universe, first 
brought the Son into existence as a sort of standard of the creation; not 
perceiving that in his statement there is involved this absurdity, that what 
exists, not for its own sake, but for the sake of something else, is surely of 
less value than that for the sake of which it exists: as we provide an 
implement of husbandry for the sake of life, yet the plough is surely not 
reckoned as equally valuable with life. So, if the Lord also exists on account 
of the world, and not all things on account of Him, the whole of the things 
for the sake of which they say He exists, would be more valuable than the 
Lord. And this is what they are here establishing by their argument, where 
they insist that the Son has His relation to His Creator and Maker "without 
intervention." 

 7. He then clearly and skilfully criticises the doctrine of the impossibility 
of comparison with the things made after the Son, and exposes idolatry 
contrived & Eunomius, and concealed by the terminology of "Son" and 
"Only-begotten," to deceive his readers. 

    In the remainder of the passage, however, he becomes conciliatory, and 
says that the essence "is not compared with any of the things that were made 
by it and after it(2)." Such are the gifts which the enemies of the truth 
offer to the Lord(3), by which their blasphemy is made more manifest. Tell me 
what else is there of all things in creation the admits of comparison with a 
different thing, seeing that the characteristic nature that appears in each 
absolutely rejects community with things of a different kind(4)? The heaven 
admits no comparison with the earth, nor this with the stars, nor the stars 
with the seas, nor water with stone, nor animals with trees, nor land animals 
with winged creatures, nor four-footed beasts with those that swim, nor 
irrational with rational creatures. Indeed, why should one take up time with 
individual instances, in showing that we may say of every single thing that we 
behold in the creation, precisely what was thrown to the Only-begotten, as if 
it were something special--that He admits of comparison with none of the 
things that have been produced after Him and by Him? For it is clear that 
everything which you conceive by itself is incapable of comparison with the 
universe, and with the individual things which compose it; and it is this, 
which may be truly said of any creature you please, which is allotted by the 
enemies of the truth, as adequate and sufficient for His honour and glory, to 
the Only-begotten God! And once more, putting together phrases of the same 
sort in the remainder of the passage, he dignifies Him with his empty honours, 
calling Him "Lord" and "Only-begotten": but that no orthodox meaning may be 
conveyed to his readers by these names, he 

167 

promptly mixes up blasphemy with the more notable of them. His phrase runs 
thus:--"Inasmuch," he says, "as the generated essence leaves no room for 
community to anything else (for it is only-begotten(5)), nor is the operation 
of the Maker contemplated as common." O marvellous insolence! as though he 
were addressing his harangue to brutes, or senseless beings "which have no 
understanding(6)," he twists his argument about in contrary ways, as he 
pleases; or rather he suffers as men do who are deprived of sight; for they 
too behave often in unseemly ways before the eyes of those who see, supposing, 
because they themselves cannot see, that they are also unseen. For what sort 
of man is it who does not see the contradiction in his words? Because it is 
"generated," he says, the essence leaves other things no room for community, 
for it is only-begotten; and then when he has uttered these words, really as 
though he did not see or did not suppose himself to be seen, he tacks on, as 
if corresponding to what he has said, things that have nothing in common with 
them, coupling "the operation of the maker" with the essence of the 
Only-begotten. That which is generated is correlative to the generator, and 
the Only-begotten, surely, by consequence, to the Father; and he who looks to 
the truth beholds, in co-ordination with the Son, not "the operation of the 
maker," but the nature of Him that begat Him. But he, as if he were talking 
about plants or seeds, or some other thing in the order of creation, sets "the 
operation of the maker" by the side of the existence(7) of the Only-begotten. 
Why, if a stone or a stick, or something of that sort, were the subject of 
consideration, it would be logical to pre-suppose "the operation of the 
maker"; but if the Only-begotten God is confessed, even by His adversaries, to 
be a Son, and to exist by way of generation, how do the same words befit Him 
that befit the lowest portions of the creation? how do they think it pious to 
say concerning the Lord the very thing which may be truly said of an ant or a 
gnat? For if any one understood the nature of an ant, and its peculiar ties in 
reference to other living things, he would not be beyond the truth in saying 
that "the operation of its maker is not contemplated as common" with reference 
to the other things. What, therefore, is affirmed of such things as these, 
this they predicate also of the Only-begotten, and as hunters are said to 
intercept the passage of their game with holes, and to conceal their design by 
covering over the mouths of the holes with some unsound and unsubstantial 
material, in order that the pit may seem level with the ground about it, so 
heresy contrives against men something of the same sort, covering over the 
hole of their impiety with these fine-sounding and pious names, as it were 
with a level thatch, so that those who are rather unintelligent, thinking that 
these men's preaching is the same with the true faith, because of the 
agreement of their words, hasten towards the mere name of the Son and the 
Only-begotten, and step into emptiness in the hole, since the significance of 
these titles will not sustain the weight of their tread, but lets them down 
into the pitfall of the denial of Christ. This is why be speaks of the 
generated essence that leaves nothing room for community, and calls it 
"Only-begotten." These are the coverings of the hole. But when any one stops 
before he is caught in the gulf, and puts forth the test of argument, like a 
hand, upon his discourse, he sees the dangerous downfall of idolatry lying 
beneath the doctrine. For when he draws near, as though to God and the Son of 
God, he finds a creature of God set forth for his worship. This is why they 
proclaim high and low the name of the Only-begotten, that the destruction may 
be readily accepted by the victims of their deceit, as though one were to mix 
up poison in bread, and give a deadly greeting to those who asked for food, 
who would not have been willing to take the poison by itself, had they not 
been enticed to what they saw. Thus he has a sharp eye to the object of his 
efforts, at least so far as his own opinion goes. For if he had entirely 
rejected from his teaching the name of the Son, his falsehood would not have 
been acceptable to men, when his denial was openly stated in a definite 
proclamation; but now leaving only the name, and changing the signification of 
it to express creation, he at once sets up his idolatry, and fraudulently 
hides its reproach. But since we are bidden not to honour God with our 
lips(8), and piety is not tested by the sound of a ward, but the Son must 
first be the object of belief in the heart unto righteousness, and then be 
confessed with the mouth unto salvation(9), and those who say in their hearts 
that He is not God, even though with their mouths they confess Him as Lord, 
are corrupt and became abominable(1), as the prophet says,--for this cause, I 
say, we must look to the mind of those who put forward, forsooth, the words of 
the faith, and not be enticed to follow their sound. If, then, one who speaks 
of the Son does not by that word refer to a creature, he is on our side and 
not on the enemy's; but if any one applies the name of Son to the creation, he 
is to be ranked among idolaters. For they too gave the name of God to Dagon 
and Bel and the Dragon, but they did not on that account worship God. For the 
wood and the brass and the monster were not God. 

168 

 8. He proceeds to show that there is no "variance" in the essence of the 
Father and the Son: wherein he expounds many forms of variation and harmony, 
and explains the "form," the "seal," and the "express intake." 

    But what need is there in our discourse to reveal his hidden deceit by 
mere guesses at his intention, and possibly to give our hearers occasions for 
objection, on the ground that we make these charges against our enemies 
untruly? For lo, he sets forth to us his blasphemy in its nakedness, not 
hiding his guile by any veil, but speaking boldly in his absurdities with 
unrestrained voice. What he has written runs thus:--"We, for our part," he 
says, "as we find nothing else besides the essence of the Son which admits of 
the generation, are of opinion that we must assign the appellations to the 
essence itself, or else we speak of 'Son' and 'begotten' to no purpose, and as 
a mere verbal matter, if we are really to separate them from the essence; 
starting from these names, we also confidently maintain that the essences are 
variant from each other(2)." 

    There is no need, I imagine, that the absurdity here laid down should be 
refuted by arguments from us. The mere reading of what he has written is 
enough to pillory his blasphemy. But let us thus examine it. He says that the 
essences of the Father and the Son are "variant." What is meant by "variant"? 
Let us first of all examine the force of the term as it is applied by 
itself(3), that by the interpretation of the word its blasphemous character 
may be more clearly revealed. The term "variance" is used, in the inexact 
sense sanctioned by custom, of bodies, when, by palsy or any other disease, 
any limb is perverted from its natural co-ordination. For we speak, comparing 
the state of suffering with that of health, of the condition of one who has 
been subjected to a change for the worse, as being a "variation" from his 
usual health; and in the case of those who differ in respect of virtue and 
vice, comparing the licentious life with that of purity and temperance, or the 
unjust life with that of justice, or the life which is passionate, warlike, 
and prodigal of anger, with that which is mild and peaceful--and generally all 
that is reproached with vice, as compared with what is more excellent, is said 
to exhibit "variance" from it, because the marks observed in both--in the 
good, I mean, and the inferior--do not mutually agree. Again, we say that 
those qualities observed in the elements are "at variance" which are mutually 
opposed as contraries, having a power reciprocally destructive, as heat and 
cold, or dryness and moisture, or, generally, anything that is opposed to 
another as a contrary; and the absence of union in these we express by the 
term "variation"; and generally everything which is out of harmony with 
another in their observed characteristics, is said to be "at variance" with 
it, as health with disease, life with death, war with peace, virtue with vice, 
and all similar cases. 

    Now that we have thus analyzed these expressions, let us also consider in 
regard to our author in what sense he says that the essences of the Father and 
the Son are "variant from each other." What does he mean by it? Is it in the 
sense that the Father is according to nature, while the Son "varies" from that 
nature? Or does he express by this word the perversion of virtue, separating 
the evil from the more excellent by the name of "variation," so as to regard 
the one essence in a good, the other m a contrary aspect? Or does he assert 
that one Divine essence also is variant from another, in the manner of the 
opposition of the elements? or as war stands to peace, and life to death, does 
he also perceive in the essences the conflict which so exists among all such 
things, so that they cannot unite one with another, because the mixture of 
contraries exerts upon the things mingled a consuming force, as the wisdom of 
the Proverbs saith of such a doctrine, that water and fire never say "It is 
enough(4)," expressing enigmatically the nature of contraries of equal force 
and equal balance, and their mutual destruction? Or is it in none of these 
ways that he sees "variance" in the essences? Let him tell us, then, what he 
conceives besides these. He could not say, I take it, even if he were to 
repeat his wonted phrase(5), "The Son is variant from Him Who begot Him"; for 
thereby the absurdity of his statements is yet more clearly shown. For what 
mutual relation is so closely and concordantly engrafted and fitted together 
as that meaning of relation to 

169 

the Father expressed by the word "Son"? And a proof of this is that even if 
both of these names be not spoken, that which is omitted is connoted by the 
one that is uttered, so closely is the one implied in the other, and 
concordant with it: and both of them are so discerned in the one that one 
cannot be conceived without the other. Now that which is "at variance" is 
surely so conceived and so called, in opposition to that which is "in 
harmony," as the plumb-line is in harmony with the straight line, while that 
which is crooked, when set beside that which is straight, does not harmonize 
with it. Musicians also are wont to call the agreement of notes "harmony," and 
that which is out of tune and discordant "inharmonious." To speak of things as 
at "variance," then, is the same as to speak of them as "out of harmony." If, 
therefore, the nature of the Only-begotten God is at "variance," to use the 
heretical phrase, with the essence of the Father, it is surely not in harmony 
with it: and in harmoniousness cannot exist where there is no possibility of 
harmony(6). For the case is as when, the figure in the wax and in the graying 
of the signet being one, the wax that has been stamped by the signet, when it 
is fitted again. to the latter, makes the impression on itself accord with 
that which surrounds it, filling up the hollows and accommodating the 
projections of the engraving with its own patterns: but if some strange and 
different pattern is fitted to the engraving of the signet, it makes its own 
form rough and confused, by rubbing off its figure on an engraved surface that 
does not correspond with it. But He Who is "in the form of God(7)" has been 
formed by no impression different from the Father, seeing that He is "the 
express image" of the Father's Person(8), while the "form of God" is surely 
the same thing as His essence. For as, "being made in the form of a 
servant(9)," He was formed in the essence of a servant, not taking upon Him 
the form merely, apart from the essence, but the essence is involved in the 
sense of "form," so, surely, he who says that He is "in the form of God" 
signified essence by" form." If, therefore, He is "in the form of God," and 
being in the Father is sealed with the Father's glory, (as the word of the 
Gospel declares, which Saith, "Him hath God the Father sealed(1),"--whence 
also "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father(2),") then "the image of 
goodness" and "the brightness of glory," and all other similar titles, testify 
that the essence of the Son is not out of harmony with the Father. Thus by the 
text cited is shown the insubstantial character of the adversaries' blasphemy. 
For if things at "variance" are not in harmony, and He Who is sealed by the 
Father, and displays the Father in Himself, both being in the Father, and 
having the Father in Himself(3), shows in all points His close relation and 
harmony, then the absurdity of the opposing views is hereby overwhelmingly 
shown. For as that which is at "variance" was shown to be out of harmony, so 
conversely that which is harmonious is surely confessed beyond dispute not to 
be at "variance." For as that which is at "variance" is not harmonious, so the 
harmonious is not at "variance." Moreover, he who says that the nature of the 
Only-begotten is at "variance" with the good essence of the Father, clearly 
has in view variation in the good itself. But as for what that is which is at 
variance with the good--"O ye simple," as the Proverb saith, "understand his 
craftiness(4)!" 

 9. Then, distinguishing between essence and generation, he declares the empty 
and frivolous language of Eunomius to & like a rattle. He proceeds to show 
that the language used by the great Basil on the subject of the generation of 
the Only-begotten has been grievously slandered by Eunomius, and so ends the 
book. 

    I will pass by these matters, however, as the absurdity involved is 
evident; let us examine what precedes. He says that nothing else is found, 
"besides the essence of the Son, which admits of the generation." What does he 
mean when he says this? He distinguishes two names from each other, and 
separating by his discourse the things signified by them, he sets each of them 
individually apart by itself. "The generation" is one name, and "the essence" 
is another. The essence, he tells us, "admits of the generation," being 
therefore of course something distinct from the generation. For if the 
generation were the essence (which is the very thing he is constantly 
declaring), so that the two appellations are equivalent in sense, he would not 
have said that the essence "admits of the generation": for that would amount 
to saying that the essence admits of the essence, or the generation the 
generation,--if, that is, the generation were the same thing as the essence. 
He understands, then, the generation to be one thing, and the essence to be 
another, which "admits of generation": for that which is taken cannot be the 
same with that which admits it. Well, this is what the sage and systematic 
statement of our author says: but as to whether there is any sense in his 
words, let him consider who is expert in judging. I will resume his actual 
words. 

    He says that he finds "nothing else besides 

170 

the essence of the Son which admits of the generation"; that there is no sense 
in his words however, is clear to every one who hears his statement at all: 
the task which remains seems to be to bring to light the blasphemy which he is 
trying to construct by aid of these meaningless words. For he desires, even if 
he cannot effect his purpose, to produce in his hearers by this slackness of 
expression, the notion that the essence of the Son is the result of 
construction: but he calls its construction "generation," decking out his 
horrible blasphemy with the fairest phrase, that if "construction" is the 
meaning conveyed by the word "generation," the idea of the creation of the 
Lord may receive a ready assent. He says, then, that the essence "admits of 
generation," so that every construction may be viewed, as it were, in some 
subject matter. For no one would say that that is constructed which has no 
existence, so extending "making" in his discourse, as if it were some 
constructed fabric, to the nature of the Only-begotten God(5). "If, then," he 
says, "it admits of this generation,"--wishing to convey some such meaning as 
this, that it would not have been, had it not been constructed. But what else 
is there among the things we contemplate in the creation which is without 
being made? Heaven, earth, air, sea, everything whatever that is, surely is by 
being made. How, then, comes it that he considered it a peculiarity in the 
nature of the Only begotten, that it "admits generation" (for this is his name 
for making) "into its actual essence," as though the humble-bee or the gnat 
did not admit generation into itself(6), but into something else besides 
itself. It is therefore acknowledged by his own writings, that by them the 
essence of the Only-begotten is placed on the same level with the smallest 
parts of the creation: and every proof by which he attempts to establish the 
alienation of the Son from the Father has the same force also in the case of 
individual things. What need has he, then, for this varied acuteness to 
establish the diversity of nature, when he ought to have taken the short cut 
of denial, by openly declaring that the name of the Son ought not to be 
confessed, or the Only-begotten God to be preached in the churches, but that 
we ought to esteem the Jewish worship as superior to the faith of Christians, 
and, while we confess the Father as being alone Creator and Maker of the 
world, to reduce all other things to the name and conception of the creation, 
and among these to speak of that work which preceded the rest as a "thing 
made," which came into being by some constructive operation, and to give Him 
the title of "First created," instead of Only-begotten and Very Son. For when 
these opinions have carried the day, it will be a very easy matter to bring 
doctrines to a conclusion in agreement with the aim they have in view, when 
all are guided, as you might expect from such a principle, to the consequence 
that it is impossible that He Who is neither begotten nor a Son, but has His 
existence through some energy, should share in essence with God. So long, 
however, as the declarations of the Gospel prevail, by which He is proclaimed 
as "Son," and "Only-begotten," and "of the Father," and "of God," and the 
like, Eunomius will talk his nonsense to no purpose, leading himself and his 
followers astray by such idle chatter. For while the title of "Son" speaks 
aloud the true relation to the Father, who is so foolish that, while John and 
Paul and the rest of the choir of the Saints proclaim these words,--words of 
truth, and words that point to the close affinity,--he does not look to them, 
but is led by the empty rattle of Eunomius' sophisms to think that Eunomius is 
a truer guide than the teaching of these who by the Spirit speak mysteries(7), 
and who bear Christ in themselves? Why, who is this Eunomius? Whence was be 
raised up to be the guide of Christians? 

    But let all this pass, and let our earnestness about what lies before us 
calm down our heart, that is swollen with jealousy on behalf of the faith 
against the blasphemers. For how is it possible not to be moved to wrath and 
hatred, while our God, and Lord, and Life-giver, and Saviour is insulted by 
these wretched men? If he had reviled my father according to the flesh, or 
been at enmity with my benefactor, would it have been possible to bear without 
emotion his anger against those I love? And if the Lord of my soul, Who gave 
it being when it was not, and redeemed it when in bondage, and gave me to 
taste of this present life, and prepared for me the life to come, Who calls us 
to a kingdom, and gives us His commands that we may escape the damnation of 
hell,--these are small things that I speak of, and not worthy 

171 

to express the greatness of our common Lord--He that is worshipped by all 
creation, by things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the 
earth, by Whom stand the unnumbered myriads of the heavenly ministers, to Whom 
is turned all that is under rule here, and that has the desire of good--if He 
is exposed to reviling by men, for whom it is not enough to associate 
themselves with the party of the apostate, but who count it loss not to draw 
others by their scribbling into the same gulf with themselves, that those who 
come after may not lack a hand to lead them to destruction, is there any one s 
who blames us for our anger against these men? But let us return to the 
sequence of his discourse. 

    He next proceeds once mere to slander us as dishonouring the generation of 
the Son by human similitudes, and mentions what was written on these points by 
our father(9), where he says that while by the word "Son" two things are 
signified, the being formed by passion, and the true relationship to the 
begetter, he does not admit in discourses upon things divine the former sense, 
which is unseemly and carnal, but in so far as the latter tends to testify to 
the glory of the Only-begotten, this alone finds a place in the sublime 
doctrines. Who, then, dishonours the generation of the Son by human notions? 
He who sets far from the Divine generation what belongs to passion and to man, 
and joins the Son impassibly to Him that begat Him? or he who places Him Who 
brought all things into being on a common level with the lower creation? Such 
an idea, however, as it seems,--that of associating the Son in the majesty of 
the Father,--this new wisdom seems to regard as dishonouring; while it 
considers as great and sublime the act of bringing Him down to equality with 
the creation that is in bondage with us. Empty complaints! Basil is slandered 
as dishonouring the Son, who honours Him even as he honours the Father(1), and 
Eunomius is the champion of the Only-begotten, who severs Him from the good 
nature of the Father! Such a reproach Paul also once incurred with the 
Athenians, being charged therewith by them as "a setter forth of strange 
gods(2)," when he was reproving the wandering among their gods of those who 
were mad in their idolatry, and was leading them to the truth, preaching the 
resurrection by the Son These charges are now brought against Paul's follower 
by the new Stoics and Epicureans, who "spend their time in nothing else," as 
the history says of the Athenians, "but either to tell or to hear some new 
thing(3)." For what could be found newer than this,--a Son of an energy, and a 
Father of a creature, and a new God springing up from nothing, and good at 
variance with good? These are they who profess to honour Him with due honour 
by saying that He is not that which the nature of Him that begat Him is. Is 
Eunomius not ashamed of the form of such honour, if one were to say that he 
himself is not akin in nature to his father, but has community with something 
of another kind? If he who brings the Lord of the creation into community with 
the creation declares that he honours Him by so doing, let him also himself be 
honoured by having community assigned him with what is brute and senseless: 
but, if he finds community with an inferior nature hard and insolent 
treatment, how is it honour for Him Who, as the prophet saith, "ruleth with 
His power for ever(4)," to be ranked with that nature which is in subjection 
and bondage? But enough of this. 

xxxxxx
                                BOOK V 

 1. The fifth book promises to speak of the words contained in the saying of 
the Apostle Peter, but delays their exposition. He discourses first of the 
creation, to the effect that, while nothing therein is deserving of worship, 
yet men, led astray by their ill-informed and feeble intelligence, and 
marvelling at its beauty, deified the several parts of the universe. And 
herein he excellently expounds the passage of Isaiah, "I am God, the first." 

    IT is now, perhaps, time to make enquiry into what is said concerning the 
words of the Apostle Peter(1), by Eunomius himself, and by our father(2) 
concerning the latter. If a detailed examination should extend our discourse 
to considerable length, the fair-minded reader will no doubt pardon this, and 
will not blame us for wasting time in words, but lay the blame on him who has 
given occasion for them. Let me be allowed also to make some brief remarks 
preliminary to the proposed enquiry: it may be that they too will be found not 
to be out of keeping with the aim of our discussion. 

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

    To show that I am not making a random statement beyond what probability 
admits of, I will cite as a credible testimony in favour of my assertion the 
error which still prevails among the heathen(3). Seeing that they, with their 
untrained and narrow intelligence, were disposed to look with wonder on the 
beauties of nature, not employing the things they beheld as a leader and guide 
to the beauty of the Nature that transcends them, they rather made their 
intelligence halt on arriving at the objects of its apprehension, and 
marvelled at each part of the creation severally--for this cause they did not 
stay their conception of the Deity at any single one of the things they 
beheld, but deemed everything they looked on in creation to be divine. And 
thus with the Egyptians, as the error developed its force more in respect of 
intellectual objects, the countless forms of spiritual beings were reckoned to 
be so many natures of Gods; while with the Babylonians the un- 

173 

erring circuit of the firmament was accounted a God, to whom they also gave 
the name of Bel. So, too, the foolishness of the heathen deifying individually 
the seven successive spheres, one bowed down to one, another to another, 
according to some individual form of error. For as they perceived all these 
circles moving in mutual relation, seeing that they had gone astray as to the 
most exalted, they maintained the same error by logical sequence, even to the 
last of them. And in addition to these, the aether itself, and the atmosphere 
diffused beneath it, the earth and sea and the subterranean region, and in the 
earth itself all things which are useful or needful for man's life,--of all 
these there was none which they held to be without part or lot in the Divine 
nature, but they bowed down to each of them, bringing themselves, by means of 
some one of the objects conspicuous in the creation, into bondage to all the 
successive parts of the creation, in such a way that, had the act of 
reverencing the creation been from the beginning even to them a thing 
evidently unlawful, they would not have been led astray into this deceit of 
polytheism. Let us look to it, then, lest we too share the same fate,--we who 
in being taught by Scripture to reverence the true Godhead, were trained to 
consider all created existence as external to the Divine nature, and to 
worship and revere that uncreated Nature alone, Whose characteristic and token 
is that it never either begins to be or ceases to be; since the great Isaiah 
thus speaks of the Divine nature with reference to these doctrines, in his 
exalted utterance,--who speaks in the person of the Deity, "I am the first, 
and hereafter am I, and no God was before Me, and no God shall be after 
Me(4)." For knowing more perfectly than all others the mystery of the religion 
of the Gospel, this great prophet, who foretold even that marvellous sign 
concerning the Virgin, and gave us the good tidings(5) of the birth of the 
Child, and clearly pointed out to us that Name of the Son,--he, in a word, who 
by the Spirit includes in himself all the truth,--in order that the 
characteristic of the Divine Nature, whereby we discern that which really is 
from that which came into being, might be made as plain as possible to all, 
utters this saying in the person of God: "I am the first, and hereafter am I, 
and before Me no God hath been, and after Me is none." Since, then, neither is 
that God which was before God, nor is that God which is after God, (for that 
which is after God is the creation, and that which is anterior to God is 
nothing, and Nothing is not God;--or one should rather say, that which is 
anterior to God is God in His eternal blessedness, defined in 
contradistinction to Nothing(6);--since, I say, this inspired utterance was 
spoken by the mouth of the prophet, we learn by his means the doctrine that 
the Divine Nature is one, continuous with Itself and indiscerptible, not 
admitting in Itself priority and posteriority, though it be declared in 
Trinity, and with no one of the things we contemplate in it more ancient or 
more recent than another. Since, then, the saying is the saying of God, 
whether you grant that the words are the words of the Father or of the Son, 
the orthodox doctrine is equally upheld by either. For if it is the Father 
that speaks thus, He bears witness to the Son that He is not "after" Himself: 
for if the Son is God, and whatever is "after" the Father is not God, it is 
clear that the saying bears witness to the truth that the Son is in the 
Father, and not after the Father. If, on the other hand, one were to grant 
that this utterance is of the Son, the phrase, "None hath been before Me," 
will be a clear intimation that He Whom we contemplate "in the Beginning(7)" 
is apprehended together with the eternity of the Beginning. If, then, anything 
is "after" God, this is discovered, by the passages quoted, to be a creature, 
and not God: for He says, "That which is after Me is not God(8)." 

 2. He then explains the phrase of S. Peter, "Him God made Lord and Christ." 
And herein he sets forth the opposing statement of Eunomius, which he made on 
account of such phrase against S. Basil, and his lurking revilings and 
insults. 

    Now that we have had presented to us this preliminary view of existences, 
it may be opportune to examine the passage before us. It is said, then, by 
Peter to the Jews, "Him God made Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye 
crucified(9)," while on our part it is said that it is not pious to refer the 
word "made" to the Divine Nature of the Only-begotten, but that it is to be 
referred to that "form of a servant(1)," which came into being by the 
Incarnation(2), in the due time of His appearing in the flesh; and, on the 
other hand, those who press the phrase the contrary way say that in the word 
"made" the Apostle indicates the pretemporal generation of the Son. We shall, 

174 

therefore, set forth the passage in the midst, and after a detailed 
examination of both the suppositions, leave the judgment of the truth to our 
reader. Of our adversaries' view Eunomius himself may be a sufficient 
advocate, for he contends gallantly on the matter, so that in going through 
his argument word by word we shall completely follow out the reasoning of 
those who strive against us: and we ourselves will act as champion of the 
doctrine on our side as best we may, following so far as we are able the line 
of the argument previously set forth by the great Basil. But do you, who by 
your reading act as judges in the cause, "execute true judgment," as one of 
the prophets(3) says, not awarding the victory to contentious preconceptions, 
but to the truth as it is manifested by examination. And now let the accuser 
of our doctrines come forward, and read his indictment, as in a court of law. 

    "In addition, moreover, to what we have mentioned, by his refusal to take 
the word 'made' as referring to the essence of the Son, and withal by his 
being ashamed of the Cross, be ascribes to the Apostles what no one even of 
those who have done their best to speak ill of them on the score of stupidity, 
lays to their charge; and at the same time he clearly introduces, by his 
doctrines and arguments, two Christs and two Lords; for he says that it was 
not the Word Who was in the beginning Whom God marie Lord and Christ, but He 
Who 'emptied Himself to take the form of a servant(4),' and 'was crucified 
through weakness(5).' At all events the great Basil writes expressly as 
follows(6):--'Nor, moreover, is it the intention of the Apostle to present to 
us that existence of the Only-begotten which was before the ages (which is now 
the subject of our argument), for he clearly speaks, not of the very essence 
of God the Word, Who was in the beginning with God, but of Him Who emptied 
Himself to take the form of a servant, and became conformable to the body of 
our humiliation(7), and was crucified through weakness.' And again, 'This is 
known to any one who even in a small degree applies his mind to the meaning of 
the Apostle's words, that he is not setting forth to us the mode of the Divine 
existence, but is introducing the terms which belong to the Incarnation; for 
he says, Him God made Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye crucified, evidently 
laying stress by the demonstrative word on that in Him which was human and was 
seen by all(8).' 

"This, then, is what the man has to say who substitutes,--for we may not speak 
of it as 'application,' lest any one should blame for such madness men holy 
and chosen for the preaching of godliness, so as to reproach their doctrine 
with a fall into such extravagance,--who substitutes his own mind(9) for the 
intention of the Apostles! With what confusion are they not filled, who refer 
their own nonsense to the memory of the saints! With what absurdity do they 
not abound, who imagine that the man 'emptied himself' to become man, and who 
maintain that He Who by obedience 'humbled himself' to take the form of a 
servant was made conformable to men even before He took that form upon Him! 
Who, pray, ye most reckless of men, when he has the form of a servant, takes 
the form of a servant? and how can any one 'empty himself' to become the very 
thing which he is? You will find no contrivance to meet this, bold as you are 
in saying or thinking things uncontrivable. Are you not verily of all men most 
miserable, who suppose that a man has suffered death for all men, and ascribe 
your own redemption to him? For if it is not of the Word Who was in the 
beginning and was God that the blessed Peter speaks, but of him who was 
'seen,' and who 'emptied Himself,' as Basil says, and if the man who was seen 
'emptied Himself' to take 'the form of a servant,' and He Who 'emptied 
Himself' to take 'the form of a servant,' emptied Himself to come into being 
as man, then the man who was seen emptied himself to come into being as 
man(1). The very nature of things is repugnant to this; and it is expressly 
contradicted by that writer(2) who celebrates this dispensation in his 
discourse concerning the Divine Nature, when he says not that the man who was 
seen, but that the Word Who was in the beginning and was God took upon Him 
flesh, which is equivalent in other words to taking 'the form of a servant.' 
If, then, you hold that these things are to be believed; depart from your 
error, and cease to believe that the man 'emptied himself' to become man. And 
if you are not able to persuade those who will not be persuaded, destroy their 
incredulity by another saying, a second de- 

175 

cision against them. Remember him who says, 'Who being in the form of God 
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the 
form of a servant.' There is none among men who will appropriate this phrase 
to himself. None of the saints that ever lived was the Only-begotten God and 
became man:--for that is what it means to 'take the form of a servant,' 'being 
in the form of God.' If, then, the blessed Peter speaks of Him Who 'emptied 
Himself' to 'take the form of a servant,' and if He Who was 'in the form of 
God' did 'empty Himself' to 'take the form of a servant,' and if He Who in the 
beginning was God, being the Word and the Only-begotten God, is He Who was 'in 
the form of God,' then the blessed Peter speaks to us of Him Who was in the 
beginning and was God, and expounds to us that it was He Who became Lord and 
Christ. This, then, is the conflict which Basil wages against himself, and he 
clearly appears neither to have 'applied his own mind to the intention of the 
Apostles', nor to be able to preserve the sequence of his own arguments; for, 
according to them, he must, if he is conscious of their irreconcilable 
character, admit that the Word Who was in the beginning and was God became 
Lord; or if he tries to fit together statements that are mutually conflicting, 
and contentiously stands by them, he will add to them others yet more hostile, 
and maintain that there are two Christs and two Lords. For if the Word that 
was in the beginning and was God be one, and He Who 'emptied Himself' and 
'took the form of a servant' be another, and if God the Word, by Whom are all 
things, be Lord, and this Jesus, Who was crucified after all things had come 
into being, be Lord also, there are, according to his view, two Lords and 
Christs. Our author, then, cannot by any argument clear himself from this 
manifest blasphemy. But if any one were to say in support of him that the Word 
Who was in the beginning is indeed the same Who became Lord, but that He 
became Lord and Christ in respect of His presence in the flesh, He will surely 
be constrained to say that the Son was not Lord before His presence in the 
flesh. At all events, even if Basil and his faithless followers falsely 
proclaim two Lords and two Christs, for us there is one Lord and Christ, by 
Whom all things were made, not becoming Lord by way of promotion, but existing 
before all creation and before all ages, the Lord Jesus, by Whom are all 
things, while all the saints with one harmonious voice teach us this truth and 
proclaim it as the most excellent of doctrines. Here the blessed John teaches 
us that God the Word, by Whom all things were made, has become incarnate, 
saying, 'And the Word was made flesh(3)'; here the most admirable Paul, urging 
those who attend to him to humility, speaks of Christ Jesus, Who was in the 
form of God, and emptied Himself to take the form of a servant, and was 
humbled to death, even the death of the Cross(4); and again in another passage 
calls Him Who was crucified 'the Lord of Glory': 'for had they known it,' be 
says, 'they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory(5)'. Indeed, he speaks 
far more openly than this of the very essential nature by the name of 'Lord,' 
where he says, 'Now the Lord is the Spirit(6)'. If, then, the Word Who was in 
the beginning, in that He is Spirit, is Lord, and the Lord of glory, and if 
God made Him Lord and Christ, it was the very Spirit and God the Word that God 
so made, and not some other Lord Whom Basil dreams about." 

 3. A remarkable and original reply to these utterances, and a demonstration 
of the power of the Crucified, and of the fact that this subjection was of the 
Human Nature, not that which the Only-begotten has from the father. Also an 
explanation of the figure of the Cross, and of the appellation "Christ," and 
an account of the good gifts bestowed an the Human Nature by the Godhead which 
was commingled with it. 

    Well, such is his accusation. But I think it necessary in the first place 
to go briefly, by way of summary, over the points that he urges, and then to 
proceed to correct by my argument what he has said, that those who are judging 
the truth may find it easy to remember the indictment against us, which we 
have to answer, and that we may be able to dispose of each of the charges in 
regular order. He says that we are ashamed of the Cross of Christ, and slander 
the saints, and say that a man has "emptied himself" to become than, and 
suppose that the Lord had the "form of a servant" before His presence by the 
Incarnation, and ascribe our redemption to a man, and speak in our doctrine of 
two Christs and two Lords, or, if we do not do this, then we deny that the 
Only-begotten was Lord and Christ before the Passion. So that we may avoid 
this blasphemy, he will have us confess that the essence of the Son has been 
made, on the ground that the Apostle Peter by his own voice establishes such a 
doctrine. This is the substance of the accusation; for all that he has been at 
the trouble of saying by way of abuse of ourselves, I will pass by in silence, 
as being not at all to the point. It may be that this rhetorical stroke of 
phrases framed according to some artificial 

176 

theory is the ordinary habit of those who play the rhetorician, an invention 
to swell the bulk of their indictment. Let our sophist then use his art to 
display his insolence, and vaunt his strength in reproaches against us, 
showing off his strokes in the intervals of the contest; let him call us 
foolish, call us of all men most reckless, of all men most miserable, full of 
confusion and absurdity, and make light of us at his good pleasure in any way 
he likes, and we will bear it; for to a reasonable man disgrace lies, not in 
hearing one who abuses him, but in making retort to what he says. There may 
even be some good in his expenditure of breath against us; for it may be that 
while he occupies his railing tongue in denouncing us he will at all events 
make some truce in his conflict against God. So let him take his fill of 
insolence as he likes: none will reply to him. For if a man has foul and 
loathsome breath, by reason of bodily disorder, or of some pestilential and 
malignant disease, he would not rouse any healthy person to emulate his 
misfortune so that one should choose, by himself acquiring disease, to repay, 
in the same evil kind, the unpleasantness of the man's ill odour. Such men our 
common nature bids us to pity, not to imitate. And so let us pass by 
everything of this kind which by mockery, indignation, provocation, and abuse, 
he has assiduously mixed up with his argument, and examine only his arguments 
as they concern the doctrinal points at issue. We shall begin again, then, 
from the beginning, and meet each of his charges in turn. 

    The beginning of his accusation was that we are ashamed of the Cross of 
Him Who for our sakes underwent the Passion. Surely he does not intend to 
charge against us also that we preach the doctrine of dissimilarity in 
essence! Why, it is rather to those who turn aside to this opinion that the 
reproach belongs of going about to make the Cross a shameful thing. For if by 
both parties alike the dispensation of the Passion is held as part of the 
faith, while we hold it necessary to honour, even as the Father is honoured, 
the God Who was manifested by the Cross, and they find the Passion a hindrance 
to glorifying the Only-begotten God equally with the Father that begat Him, 
then our sophist's charges recoil upon himself, and in the words with which he 
imagines himself to be accusing us, he is publishing his own doctrinal 
impiety. For it is clear that the reason why he sets the Father above the Son, 
and exalts Him with supreme honour, is this,--that in Him is not seen the 
shame of the Cross: and the reason why he asseverates that the nature of the 
Son varies in the sense of inferiority is this,--that the reproach of the 
Cross is referred to Him alone, and does not touch the Father. And let no one 
think that in saying this I am only following the general drift of his 
composition, for in going through all the blasphemy of his speech, which is 
there laboriously brought together, I found, in a passage later than that 
before us, this very blasphemy clearly expressed in undisguised language; and 
I propose to set forth, in the orderly course of my own argument, what they 
have written, which runs thus:--"If," he says," he can show that the God Who 
is over all, Who is the unapproachable Light, was incarnate, or could be 
incarnate, came under authority, obeyed commands, came under the laws of men, 
bore the Cross, then let him say that the Light is equal to the Light." Who 
then is it who is ashamed of the Cross? he who, even after the Passion, 
worships the Son equally with the Father, or he who even before the Passion 
insults Him, not only by ranking Him with the creation, but by maintaining 
that He is of passible nature, on the ground that He could not have come to 
experience His sufferings had He not had a nature capable of such sufferings? 
We on our part assert that even the body in which He underwent His Passion, by 
being mingled with the Divine Nature, was made by that commixture to be that 
which the assuming(7) Nature is. So far are we from entertaining any low idea 
concerning the Only-begotten God, that if anything belonging to our lowly 
nature was assumed in His dispensation of love for man, we believe that even 
this was transformed to what is Divine and incorruptible(8); but Eunomius 
makes the suffering of the Cross to be a sign of divergence in essence, in the 
sense of inferiority, considering, I know not how, the surpassing act of 
power, by which He was able to perform this, to be an evidence of weakness; 
failing to perceive the fact that, while nothing which moves according to its 
own nature is looked upon as surprisingly wonderful, all things that overpass 
the limitations of their own nature become especially the objects of 
admiration, and to them every ear is turned, every mind is attentive, in 
wonder at the marvel. And hence it is that all who preach the word point out 
the wonderful character of the mystery in this respect,--that "God was 
manifested in the flesh(9)," that "the Word was made flesh(1)," that "the 
Light shined in darkness(2)," "the Life tasted death," and all such 
declarations which the heralds of the faith are wont to make, whereby is 
increased the marvellous character 

177 

of Him Who manifested the superabundance of His power by means external to his 
own nature. But though they think fit to make this a subject for their 
insolence, though they make the dispensation of the Cross a reason for 
partitioning off the Son from equality of glory with the Father, we believe, 
as those "who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the 
word(3)" delivered to us by the Holy Scriptures, that the God who was in the 
beginning, "afterwards ", as Baruch says, "was seen upon the earth, and 
conversed with men(4)," and, becoming a ransom for our death, loosed by His 
own resurrection the bonds of death, and by Himself made the resurrection a 
way for all flesh(5), and being on the same throne and in the same glory with 
His own Father, will in the day of judgment give sentence upon those who are 
judged, according to the desert of the lives they have led. These are the 
things which we believe concerning Him Who was crucified, and for this cause 
we cease not to extol Him exceedingly, according to the measure of our powers, 
that He Who by reason of His unspeakable and unapproachable greatness is not 
comprehensible by any, save by Himself and the Father and the Holy Spirit, He, 
I say, was able even to descend to community with our weakness. But they 
adduce this proof of the Son's alienation in nature from the Father, that the 
Lord was manifested by the flesh and by the Cross, arguing on the ground that 
the Father's nature remained pure in impassibility, and could not in any way 
admit of a community which tended to passion, while the Son, by reason of the 
divergence of His nature by way of humiliation, was not incapable of being 
brought to experience the flesh and death, seeing that the change of condition 
was not great, but one which took place in a certain sense from one like state 
to another state kindred and homogeneous, because the nature of man is 
created, and the nature of the Only-begotten is created also. Who then is 
fairly charged with being ashamed of the Cross? he who speaks basely of it(6), 
or he who contends for its more exalted aspect? I know not whether our 
accuser, who thus abases the God Who was made known upon the Cross, has heard 
the lofty speech of Paul, in what terms and at what length he discourses with 
his exalted lips concerning that Cross. For he, who was able to make himself 
known by miracles so many and so great, says, "God forbid that I should glory 
in anything else, than, in the Cross of Christ 7." And to the Corinthians he 
says that the word of the Cross is "the 

power of God to them that are in a state of salvation(8)." To the Ephesians, 
moreover, he describes by the figure of the Cross the power that controls and 
holds together the universe, when he expresses a desire that they may be 
exalted to know the exceeding glory of ibis power, calling it height, and 
depth, and breadth, and length(9), speaking of the several projections we 
behold in the figure of the Cross by their proper names, so that he calls the 
upper part "height," and that which is below, on the opposite side of the 
junction, "depth," while by the name "length and breadth" he indicates the 
cross-beam projecting to either side, that hereby might be manifested this 
great mystery, that both things in heaven, and things under the earth, and all 
the furthest bounds of the things that are, are ruled and sustained by Him Who 
gave an example of this unspeakable and mighty power in the figure of the 
Cross. But I think there is no need to contend further with such objections, 
as I judge it superfluous to be anxious about urging arguments against calumny 
when even a few words suffice to show the truth. Let us therefore pass on to 
another charge. 

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

    The Apostle Peter says, "God made this Jesus, Whom ye crucified, Lord and 
Christ(1)."  We, learning this from him, say that the whole context of the 
passage tends one way,--the Cross itself, the human name, the indicative turn 
of the phrase. For the word of the Scripture says that in regard to one person 
two things were wrought,--by the Jews, the Passion, and by God, honour; not as 
though one person had suffered and another had been honoured by exaltation: 
and he further explains this yet more clearly by his words in what follows, 
"being exalted by the right hand of God." Who then was "exalted"? He that was 
lowly, or He that was the Highest? and what else is the lowly, but the 
Humanity? what else is the Highest, but the Divinity? Surely, God needs not to 
be exalted, seeing that He is the Highest. It follows, then, that the 
Apostle's meaning is 

178 

that the Humanity was exalted: and its exaltation was effected by its becoming 
Lord and Christ. And this took place after the Passion(2) It is not therefore 
the pre-temporal existence of the Lord which the Apostle indicates by the word 
"made," but that change of the lowly to the lofty which was effected "by the 
right hand of God." Even by this phrase is declared the mystery of godliness; 
for he who says "exalted by the right hand of God" manifestly reveals the 
unspeakable dispensation of this mystery, that the Right. Hand of God, that 
made all things that are, (which is the Lord, by Whom all things were made, 
and without Whom nothing that is subsists,) Itself raised to Its own height 
the Man united with It, making Him also to be what It is by nature. Now It is 
Lord and King: Christ is the King's name: these things It made Him too. For as 
He was highly exalted by being in the Highest, so too He became all 
else,--Immortal in the Immortal, Light in the Light, Incorruptible in the 
Incorruptible, Invisible in the Invisible, Christ in the Christ, Lord in the 
Lord. For even in physical combinations. when one of the combined parts 
exceeds the other in a great degree, the inferior is wont to change completely 
to that which is  more potent. And this we are plainly taught by the voice of 
the Apostle Peter in his mystic discourse, that the lowly nature of Him Who 
was crucified through weakness, (and weakness, as we have heard from the Lord, 
marks the flesh(3),) that lowly nature, I say, by virtue of its combination 
with the infinite and boundless element of good, remained no longer in its own 
measures and properties, but was by the Right Hand of God raised up together 
with Itself, and became Lord instead of servant, Christ a King instead of a 
subject, Highest instead of Lowly, God instead of man. What handle then 
against the saints did he who pretends to give warning against us in defence 
of the Apostles find in the material of our writings? Let us pass over this 
charge also in silence; for I think it a mean and unworthy thing to stand up 
against charges that are false and unfounded. Let us pass on to the more 
pressing part of his accusation. 

 4. He thaws the falsehood of Eunomius' calumnious charge that the great Basil 
had said that "man was emptied to become man," and demonstrates that the 
"emptying" of the 

Only-begotten took place with a view to the restoration to life of the Man Who 
had suffered(4). 

    He asserts that we say that man has emptied Himself to become man, and 
that He Who by obedience humbled Himself to the form of the servant shared the 
form of men even before He took that form. No change has been made in the 
wording; we have simply transferred the very words from his speech to our own. 
Now if there is anything of this sort in our writings, for I call my master's 
writings ours) let no one blame our orator for calumny. I ask for all regard 
for the truth: and we ourselves will give evidence. But if there is nothing of 
all this in our writings, while his language not merely lays blame upon us, 
but is indignant and wrathful as if the waiter were clearly proved, calling us 
full of absurdity, nonsense, confusion, inconsistency, and so on, I am at a 
loss to see the right course to take. Just as men who are perplexed at the 
groundless rages of madmen can decide upon no plan to follow, so I myself can 
find no device to meet this perplexity. Our master says (for I will again 
recite his argument verbally), "He is not setting forth to us the mode of the 
Divine existence, but the terms which belong to the Incarnation." Our accuser 
starts from this point, and says that we maintain that man emptied Himself to 
become man! What community is there between one statement and the other? If we 
say that the Apostle has not set forth to us the mode of the Divine existence, 
but points by his phrase to the dispensation of the Passion, we are on this 
ground charged with speaking of the "emptying" of man to become man, and with 
saying that the "form of the servant" had pretemporal existence, and that the 
Man Who was born of Mary existed before the coming in the flesh! Well, I think 
it superfluous to spend time in discussing what is admitted, seeing that truth 
itself frees us from the charge. In a case, indeed, where one may have given 
the calumniators some handle against oneself, it is proper to resist accusers: 
but where there is no danger of being suspected of some absurd charge, the 
accusation becomes a proof, not of the false charge made against him who is 
calumniated, but of the madness of the accuser. As, however, in dealing with 
the charge of being ashamed of the Cross, we showed by our examination that 
the charge recoiled upon the accuser, so we shall show how this charge too 
returns upon those who make it, since it is they, and not we, who lay down the 
doctrine of the change of the Son from like lo like in the dispensation of the 

179 

Passion. We will examine briefly, bringing them side by side, the statements 
of each party. We say that the Only-begotten God, having by His own agency 
brought all things into being, by Himself(5) has full power over all things, 
while the nature of man is also one of the things that were made by Him: and 
that when this had fallen away to evil, and come to be in the destruction of 
death, He by His own agency drew it up once more to immortal life, by means of 
the Man in whom He tabernacled, taking to Himself humanity in completeness, 
and that He mingled His life-giving power with our mortal and perishable 
nature, and changed, by the combination with Himself, our deadness to living 
grace and power. And this we declare to be the mystery of the Lord according 
to the flesh, that He Who is immutable came to be in that which is mutable, to 
the end that altering it for the better, and changing it from the worse, He 
might abolish the evil which is mingled with our mutable condition, destroying 
the evil in Himself. For "our God is a consuming fire(6)," by whom all the 
material of wickedness is done away. This is our statement. What does our 
accuser say? Not that He Who was immutable and uncreated was mingled with that 
which came into being by creation, and which had therefore suffered a change 
in the direction of evil; but he does say that He, being Himself created, came 
to that which was kindred and homogeneous with Himself, not coming from a 
transcendent nature to put on the lowlier nature by reason of His love to man, 
but becoming that very thing which He was. 

    For as regards the general character of the appellation, the name of 
"creature" is one, as predicated of all things that have come into bring from 
nothing, while the divisions into sections of the things which we contemplate 
as included in the term "creature", are separated one from the other by the 
variation of their properties: so that if He is created, and man is created. 
He was "emptied," to use Eunomius' phrase, to become Himself, and changed His 
place, not from the transcendent to the lowly, but from what is similar in 
kind to what (save in regard of the special character of body and the 
incorporeal) is similar in dignity. To whom now will the just vote of those 
who have to try our cause be given, or who will seem to them to be under the 
weight of these charges? he who says that the created was saved by the 
uncreated God, or he who refers the cause of our salvation to the creature? 
Surely the judgment of pious men is not doubt-rid. For any one who knows 
clearly the difference which there is between the created and the uncreated, 
(terms of which the divergence is marked by dominion and slavery. since the 
uncreated God, as the prophet says, "ruleth with His power for ever(7)," while 
all things in the creation are servants to Him, according to the voice of the 
same prophet, which says "all things serve Thee(8),") he, I say, who carefully 
considers these matters, surely cannot fail to recognize the person who makes 
the Only-begotten change from servitude to servitude. For if, according to 
Paul, the whole creation "is in bondage(9)," and if, according to Eunomius, 
the essential nature of the Only-begotten is created, our adversaries 
maintain, surely, by their doctrines, not that the master was mingled with the 
servant, but that a servant came to be among servants. As for our saying that 
the Lord was in the form of a servant before His presence in the flesh, that 
is just like charging us with saying that the stars are black and the sun 
misty, and the sky low, and water dry, and so on :--a man who does not 
maintain a charge on the ground of what he has heard, but makes up what seems 
good to him at his own sweet will, need not be sparing in making against us 
such charges as these. It is just the same thing for us to be called to 
account for the one set of charges as for the other, so far as concerns the 
fact that they have no basis for them in anything that we have said. How could 
one who says distinctly that the true Son was in the glory of the Father, 
insult the eternal glory of the Only-begotten by conceiving it to have been 
"in the form of a servant"? When our author thinks proper to speak evil of us, 
and at the same time takes care to present his case with some appearance of 
truth, it may perhaps not be superfluous or useless to rebut his unfounded 
accusations. 

180 

charge from our words, but employing falsehood at discretion to suit his 
fancy. Since, then, he deems it within his power to say what he likes, why 
does he utter his falsehood with such care about detail, and maintain that we 
speak but of two Christs? Let him say, if he likes, that we preach ten 
Christs, or ten times ten, or extend the number to a thousand, that he may 
handle his calumny more vigorously. For blasphemy is equally involved in the 
doctrine of two Christs, and in that of more, and the character of the two 
charges is also equally devoid of proof. When he shows, then, that we do speak 
of two Christs, let him have a verdict against us, as much as though he had 
given proof of ten thousand. But he says that he convicts us by our own 
statements. Well, let us look once more at those words of our master by means 
of which he thinks to raise his charges against us. He says "he" (he, that is, 
who says "Him God made Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye crucified") "is not 
setting forth to us the mode of the Divine existence, but the terms which 
belong to the Incarnation ... laying stress by the demonstrative word on that 
in Him which was human and was seen by all." This is what he wrote. But whence 
has Eunomius managed by these words to bring on the stage his "two Christs"? 
Does saying that the demonstrative word lays stress on that which is visible, 
convey the proof of maintaining" two Christs"? Ought we (to avoid being 
charged with speaking of "two Highests") to deny the fact that by Him the Lord 
was highly exalted after His Passion? seeing that God the Word, Who was in the 
beginning, was Highest, and was also highly exalted after His Passion when He 
rose from the dead, as the Apostle says. We must of necessity choose one of 
two courses--either say that He was highly exalted after the Passion (which is 
just the same as saying that He was made Lord and Christ), and be impeached by 
Eunomius, or, if we avoid the accusation, deny the confession of the high 
exaltation of Him Who suffered. 

    Now at this point it seems right to put forward once more our accuser's 
statement in  support of our own defence. We shall therefor repeat word for 
word the statement laid  down by him, which supports our argument as 
follows:--"The blessed John," he says,  "teaches us that God the Word, by Whom 
all  things were made, has become incarnate, saying  'And the Word was made 
flesh.'" Does he understand what he is writing when he adds  this to his own 
argument? I can hardly myself  think that the same man can at once be aware of 
the meaning of these words and contend  against our statement. For if any one 
examines  the words carefully, he will find that there is no 

mutual conflict between what is said by us and what is said by him. For we 
both consider the dispensation in the flesh apart, and regard the Divine power 
in itself: and he, in like manner with ourselves, says that the Word that was 
in the beginning has been manifested in the flesh: yet no one ever charged 
him, nor does he charge himself, with preaching "two Words", Him Who was in 
the beginning, and Him Who was made flesh; for he knows, surely, that the Word 
is identical with the Word, He who appeared in the flesh with Him Who was with 
God. But the flesh was not identical with the Godhead, till this too was 
transformed to the Godhead, so that of necessity one set of attributes befits 
God the Word, and a different set of attributes befits the "form of the 
servant(1)." If, then, in view of such a confession, he does not reproach 
himself with the duality of Words, why are we falsely charged with dividing 
the object of oar faith into "two Christs"?--we, who say that He Who was 
highly exalted after His Passion, was made Lord and Christ by His union(2) 
with Him Who is verily Lord and Christ, knowing by what we have learnt that 
the Divine Nature is always one and the same, and with the same mode of 
existence, while the flesh in itself is that which reason and sense apprehend 
concerning it, but when mixed(3) with the Divine no longer remains in its own 
limitations and properties, but is taken up to that which is overwhelming and 
transcendent. Our contemplation, however, of the respective properties of the 
flesh and of the Godhead remains free from confusion, so long as each of these 
is contemplated by itself(4), as, for example, "the Word was before the ages, 
but the flesh came into being in the last times": but one could not reverse 
this statement, and say that the latter is pretemporal, or that the Word has 
come into being in the last times. The flesh is of a passible, the Word of an 
operative nature: and neither is the flesh capable of making the things that 
are, nor is the power possessed by the Godhead capable of suffering. The Word 
was 

181 

in the beginning with God, the man was subject to the trial of death; and 
neither was the Human Nature from everlasting, nor the Divine Nature mortal: 
and all the rest of the attributes are contemplated in the same way. It is not 
the Human Nature that raises up Lazarus, nor is it the power that cannot 
suffer that weeps for him when he lies in the grave: the tear proceeds from 
the Man, the life from the true Life. It is not the Human Nature that feeds 
the thousands, nor is it omnipotent might that hastens to the fig-tree. Who is 
it that is weary with the journey, and Who is it that by His word made all the 
world subsist? What is the brightness of the glory, and what is that that was 
pierced with the nails? What form is it that is buffeted in the Passion, and 
what form is it that is glorified from everlasting? So much as this is clear, 
(even if one does not follow the argument into detail,) that the blows belong 
to the servant in whom the Lord was, the honours to the Lord Whom the servant 
compassed about, so that by reason of contact and the union of Natures the 
proper attributes of each belong to both(5), as the Lord receives the stripes 
of the servant, while the servant is glorified with the honour of the Lord; 
for this is why the Cross is said to be the Cross of the Lord of glory(6), and 
why every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father(7). 

    But if we are to discuss the other points in the same way, let us consider 
what it is that dies, and what it is that destroys death; what it is that is 
renewed, and what it is that empties itself. The Godhead "empties" Itself that 
It may come within the capacity of the Human Nature, and the Human Nature is 
renewed by becoming Divine through its commixture(8) with the Divine. For as 
air is not retained in water when it is dragged down by some weighty body and 
left in the depth of the water, but rises quickly to its kindred element, 
while the water is often raised up together with the air in its upward rush, 
being moulded by the circle of air into a convex shape with a slight and 
membrane-like surface, so too, when the true Life that underlay the flesh sped 
up, after the Passion, to Itself, the flesh also was raised up with It, being 
forced upwards from corruption to incorruptibility by the Divine immortality. 
And as fire that lies in wood hidden below the surface is often unobserved by 
the senses of those who see, or even touch it, but is manifest when it blazes 
up, 

so too, at His death (which He brought about at His will, Who separated His 
soul from His Body, Who said to His own Father "Into Thy hands I commend My 
Spirit(9)," Who, as He says, "had power to lay it down and had power to take 
it again(1)"), He Who, because He is the Lord of glory, despised that which is 
shame among men, having concealed, as it were, the flame of His life in His 
bodily Nature, by the dispensation of His death(2), kindled and inflamed it 
once more by the power of His own Godhead, fostering into life that which had 
been brought to death, having infused with the infinity of His Divine power 
that humble first-fruits of our nature, made it also to be that which He 
Himself was--making the servile form to be Lord, and the Man born of Mary to 
be Christ, and Him Who was crucified through weakness to be Life and power, 
and making all that is piously conceived to be in God the Word to be also in 
that which the Word assumed, so that these attributes no longer seem to be in 
either Nature by way of division, but that the perishable Nature being, by its 
commixture with the Divine, made anew in conformity with the Nature that 
overwhelms it, participates in the power of the Godhead, as if one were to say 
that mixture makes a drop of vinegar mingled in the deep to be sea, by reason 
that the natural quality of Ibis liquid does not continue in the infinity of 
that which overwhelms it(3). This is our doctrine, which does not, as Eunomius 
charges against it, preach a plurality of Christs, but the union of the Man 
with the Divinity, and which calls by the name of "making" the transmutation 
of the Mortal to the Immortal, of the Servant to the Lord, of Sin(4) to 
Righteousness, of the Curse(5) to the Blessing, of the Man to Christ. What 
further have our slanderers left to say, to show that we preach "two Christs" 
in our doctrine, if we refuse to say that He Who was in the beginning from the 
Father uncreatedly Lord, and Christ, and the Word, and God, was "made," and 
declare that the blessed Peter was pointing briefly and incidentally to the 
mystery of the Incarnation, according to the meaning now explained, that the 
Nature which was crucified through weakness has Itself also, as we have said, 
become, by the overwhelming power of Him Who dwells in It, that which the 
Indweller Himself is in fact and in name, even Christ and Lord? 

xxxxxx
                                 BOOK VI 

1. The sixth book shows that He Who came for man's salvation was not a mere 
man, as Eunomius, falsely slandering him, affirmed that the great Basil had 
said, but the Only-begotten Son of God, putting an human flesh, and becoming a 
mediator between God and man, on Whom we believe, as subject to suffering in 
the flesh, but impassible in His Godhead; and demonstrates the calumny of 
Eunomius. 

    But I perceive that while the necessities of the subject compelled me to 
follow this line of thought, I have lingered too long over this passage(1). I 
must now resume the train of his complaints, that we may pass by none of the 
charges brought against us without an answer. And first I propose that we 
should examine this point, that he charges us with asserting that an ordinary 
man has wrought the salvation of the world. For although this point has been 
to some extent already cleared up by the investigations we have made, we shall 
yet briefly deal with it once more, that the mind of those who are acting as 
our judges on this slanderous accusation may be entirely freed from 
misapprehension. So far are we from referring to an ordinary man the cause of 
this great and unspeakable grace, that even if any should refer so great a 
boon to Peter and Paul, or to an angel from heaven, we should say with Paul, 
"let him be anathema(2)." For Paul was not crucified for us, nor were we 
baptized into a human name(3). Surely the doctrine which our adversaries 
oppose to the truth is not thereby strengthened when we confess that the 
saving power of Christ is more potent than human nature(4):--yet it may seem 
to be so, for their aim is to maintain at all points the difference of the 
essence of the Son from that of the Father, and they strive to show the 
dissimilarity of essence not only by the contrast of the Generated with the 
Ungenerate, but also by the opposition of the passible to the impassible. 

And while this is more openly maintained in the last part of their argument, 
it is also clearly shown in their present discourse(5). For if he finds fault 
with those who refer the Passion to the Human Nature, his intention is 
certainly to subject to the Passion the Godhead Itself. For our conception 
being twofold, and admitting of two developments, accordingly as the Divinity 
or the Humanity is held to have been in a condition of suffering, an attack on 
one of these views is clearly a maintaining of the other. Accordingly, if they 
find fault with those who look upon the Passion as concerning the Man, they 
will clearly approve those who say that the Godhead of the Son was subject to 
passion, and the position which these last maintain becomes an argument in 
favour of their own absurd doctrine. For if, according to their statement, the 
Godhead of the Son suffers, while that of the Father is preserved in absolute 
impassibility, then the impassible Nature is essentially different from that 
which admits passion. Seeing, therefore, that the dictum before us, though, so 
far as it is limited by number of words, it is a short one, yet affords 
principles and hypotheses for every kind of  doctrinal pravity, it would seem 
right that our  readers should require in our reply not so much brevity as 
soundness. We, then, neither attribute our own salvation to a man, nor admit 
that the incorruptible and Divine Nature is capable of suffering and 
mortality: but since we must assuredly believe the Divine utterances which 
declare to us that the Word that was in the beginning was God(6), and that 
afterward the Word made flesh was seen upon the earth and conversed with 
men(7), we admit in our creed those conceptions which are consonant with the 
Divine utterance. For when we hear that He is Light, and Power, and 
Righteousness, and Life, and Truth, and that by Him all things were made, we 
account all these and such-like statements as things to be believed, referring 
them to God the Word: but when we hear of pain, of slumber, of need, of 
trouble, of bonds, of nails, of the spear, of blood, of wounds, of burial, of 
the sepulchre, and all else of this kind, even if they are somewhat opposed to 

183 

what has previously been stated, we none the less admit them to be things to 
be believed, and true, having regard to the flesh; which we receive by faith 
as conjoined with the Word. For as it is not possible to contemplate the 
peculiar attributes of the flesh as existing in the Word that was in the 
beginning, so also on the other hand we may not conceive those which are 
proper to the Godhead as existing in the nature of the flesh. As, therefore, 
the teaching of the Gospel concerning our Lord is mingled, partly of lofty and 
Divine ideas, partly of those which are lowly and human, we assign every 
particular phrase accordingly to one or other of these Natures which we 
conceive in the mystery, that which is human to the Humanity, that which is 
lofty to the Godhead, and say that, as God, the Son is certainly impassible 
and incapable of corruption: and whatever suffering is asserted concerning Him 
in the Gospel, He assuredly wrought by means of His Human Nature which 
admitted of such suffering. For verily the Godhead works the salvation of the 
world by means of that body which encompassed It, in such wise that the 
suffering was of the body, but the operation was of God; and even if some 
wrest to the support of the opposite doctrine the words of the Apostle, "God 
spared not His own Sons,(8)," and, "God sent His own Son(9)," and other 
similar phrases which seem to refer, in the matter of the Passion, to the 
Divine Nature, and not to the Humanity, we shall none the less refuse to 
abandon sound doctrine, seeing that Paul himself declares to us more clearly 
the mystery of this subject. For he everywhere attributes to the Human element 
in Christ the dispensation of the Passion, when he says, "for since by man 
came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead(1)," and, "God, 
sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the 
flesh(9)" (for he says, "in the flesh," not "in the Godhead"); and "He was 
crucified through weakness" (where by "weakness" he means "the flesh"), "yet 
liveth by power(2)" (while he indicates by "power" the Divine Nature); and, 
"He died unto sin" (that is, with regard to the body), "but liveth unto 
God(3)" (that is, with regard to the Godhead, so that by these words it is 
established that, while the Man tasted death, the immortal Nature did not 
admit the suffering of death); and again; "He made Him to be sin for us, Who 
knew no sin(4)," giving once more the name of "sin" to the flesh. 

    2. Then he again mentions S. Peter's word, "made," and the passage in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, which says that Jesus was made by 

God "an Apostle and High Priest":  and, after giving a sufficient answer to 
the charges brought against him by Eunomius, shows that Eunomius himself 
supports Basil's arguments, and says that the Only-begotten Son, when He had 
put on the flesh, became Lord. 

     And although we make these remarks in passing, the parenthetic addition 
seems, perhaps, not less important than the main question before us. For 
since, when St. Peter says, "He made Him Lord and Christ(5)," and again, when 
the Apostle Paul says to the Hebrews that He made Him a priest(6), Eunomius 
catches at the word "made" as being applicable to His pre-temporal existence, 
and thinks thereby to establish his doctrine that the Lord is a thing made(7), 
let him now listen to Paul when he says, "He made Him to be sin for us, Who 
knew not sin(4)." If he refers the word "made," which is used of the Lord in 
the passages from the Epistle to the Hebrews, and from the words of Peter, to 
the pretemporal idea, he might fairly refer the word in that passage which 
says that God made Him to be sin, to the first existence of His essence, and 
try to show by this, as in the case of his other testimonies, that he was 
"made", so as to refer the word "made" to the essence, acting consistently 
with himself, and to discern sin in that essence. But if he shrinks from this 
by reason of its manifest absurdity, and argues that, by saying, "He made Him 
to be sin," the Apostle indicates the dispensation of the last times, let him 
persuade himself by the same train of reasoning that the word "made" refers to 
that dispensation in the other passages also. 

    Let us, however, return to the point from which we digressed; for we might 
gather together from the same Scripture countless other passages, besides 
those quoted, which bear upon the matter. And let no one think that the divine 
Apostle is divided against himself in contradiction, and affords by his own 
utterances matter for their contentions on either side to those who dispute 
upon the doctrines. For careful examination would find that his argument is 
accurately directed to one aim; and he is not halting in his opinions: for 
while he everywhere proclaims the combination of the Human with the Divine, he 
none the less discerns in each its proper nature, in the sense that while the 
human weakness is changed for the better by its communion with the 
imperishable, the Divine power, on the other hand, is not abased by its 
contact with the lowly form of nature. When therefore he says, "He spared not 
His own Son," he contrasts the true Son with the other sons, begotten, or 
exalted, or 

184 

adopted(8) (those, I mean, who were brought into being at His command), 
marking the specialty of nature by the addition of "own." And, to the end that 
no one should connect the suffering of the Cross with the imperishable nature, 
he gives in other words a fairly distinct correction of such an error, when he 
calls Him "mediator between God and men(9)" and "man(9)," and "God(1)," that, 
from the fact that both are predicated of the one Being, the fit conception 
might be entertained concerning each Nature--concerning the Divine Nature, 
impassibility, concerning the Human Nature, the dispensation of the Passion. 
As his thought, then, divides that which in love to man was made one, but is 
distinguished in idea, he uses, when he is proclaiming that nature which 
transcends and surpasses all intelligence, the more exalted order of names, 
calling Him "God over all(2)," "the great God(3)," "the power" of God, and 
"the wisdom". of God(4), and the like; but when he is alluding to all that 
experience of suffering which, by reason of our weakness, was necessarily 
assumed with our nature, he gives to the union of the Natures(5) that name 
which is derived from ours, and calls Him Man, not by this word placing Him 
Whom he is setting forth to us on a common level with the rest of nature, but 
so that orthodoxy is protected as regards each Nature, in the sense that the 
Human Nature is glorified by His assumption of it, and the Divine is not 
polluted by Its condescension, but makes the Human element subject to 
sufferings, while working, through Its Divine power, the resurrection of that 
which suffered. And thus the experience of death is not(6) referred to Him Who 
had communion in our passible nature by reason of the union with Him of the 
Man, while at the same time the exalted and Divine names descend to the Man, 
so that He Who was manifested upon the Cross is called even "the Lord of 
glory(7)," since the majesty implied in these names is transmitted from the 
Divine to the Human by the commixture of Its Nature with that Nature which is 
lowly. For this cause he describes Him in varied and different language, at 
one time as Him Who came down from heaven, at another time as Him Who was born 
of woman, as God from eternity, and Man in the last days; thus too the 

Only-begotten God is held to be impassible, and Christ to be capable of 
suffering; nor does his discourse speak falsely in these opposing statements, 
as it adapts in its conceptions to each Nature the terms that belong to it. If 
then these are the doctrines which we have learnt from inspired teaching, how 
do we refer the cause of our salvation to an ordinary man? and if we declare 
the word "made" employed by the blessed Peter to have regard not to the 
pre-temporal existence, but to the new dispensation of the Incarnation, what 
has this to do with the charge against us? For this great Apostle says that 
that which was seen in the form of the servant has been made, by being 
assumed, to be that which He Who assumed it was in His own Nature. Moreover, 
in the Epistle to the Hebrews we may learn the same truth from Paul, when he 
says that Jesus was made an Apostle and High Priest by God, "being faithful to 
him that made Him so(8)." For in that passage too, in giving the name of High 
Priest to Him Who made with His own Blood the priestly propitiation for our 
sins, he does not by the word "made" declare the first existence of the 
Only-begotten, but says "made" with the intention of representing that grace 
which is commonly spoken of in connection with the appointment of priests. For 
Jesus, the great High Priest (as Zechariah says(9)), Who offered up his own 
lamb, that is, His own Body, for the sin of the world; Who, by reason of the 
children that arc partakers of flesh and blood, Himself also in like manner 
took part with them in blood(1) (not in that He was in the beginning, being 
the Word and God, and being in the form of God, and equal with God, but in 
that He emptied Himself in the form of the servant, and offered an oblation 
and sacrifice for us), He, I say, became a High Priest many generations later, 
after the order of Melchisedech(2). Surely a reader who has more than a casual 
acquaintance with the discourse to the Hebrews knows the mystery of this 
matter. As, then, in that passage He is said to have been made Priest and 
Apostle, so here He is said to have been made Lord and Christ,--the latter for 
the dispensation on our behalf, the former by the change and transformation of 
the Human to the Divine (for by "making" the Apostle means "making anew"). 
Thus is manifest the knavery of our adversaries, who insolently wrest the 
words referring to the dispensation to apply them to the pretemporal 
existence. For we learn from the Apostle not to know Christ in the same manner 
now as before, as Paul thus speaks, "Yea, though we have known Christ after 
the flesh, yet now know we Him no more(3)," in the sense that the one 
knowledge manifests 

185 

to us His temporary dispensation, the other His eternal existence. Thus our 
discourse has made no inconsiderable answer to his charges:--that we neither 
hold two Christs nor two Lords, that we are not ashamed of the Cross, that we 
do not glorify a mere man as having suffered for the world, that we assuredly 
do not think that the word "made" refers to the formation of the essence. But, 
such being our view, our argument has no small support from our accuser 
himself, where in the midst of his discourse he employs his tongue in a 
flourishing onslaught upon us, and produces this sentence among others: "This, 
then, is the conflict that Basil wages against himself, and he clearly appears 
neither to have 'applied his own mind to the intention of the Apostles,' nor 
to be able to preserve the sequence of his own arguments; for according to 
them he must, if he is conscious of their irreconcilable character, admit that 
the Word Who was in the beginning and was God became Lord," or he fits 
together "statements that are mutually conflicting." Why, this is actually our 
statement which Eunomius repeats, who says that "the Word that was in the 
beginning and was God became Lord." For, being what He was, God, and Word, and 
Life, and Light, and Grace, and Truth, and Lord, and Christ, and every name 
exalted and Divine, He did become, in the Man assumed by Him, Who was none of 
these, all else which the Word was and among the rest did become Lord and 
Christ, according to the teaching of Peter, and according to the confession of 
Eunomius;--not in the sense that the Godhead acquired anything by way of 
advancement, but (all exalted majesty being contemplated in the Divine Nature) 
He thus becomes Lord and Christ, not by arriving at any addition of grace in 
respect of His Godhead (for the Nature of the Godhead is acknowledged to be 
lacking in no good), but by bringing the Human Nature to theft participation 
in the Godhead which is signified by the terms "Christ" and "Lord." 

3. He then gives a notable explanation of the saying of the Lord to Philip, 
"He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;" and herein he excellently 
discusses the suffering of the Lord in His love to man, and the impassibility, 
creative power, and providence of the Father, and thee composite nature of 
men, and their resolution into the elements of which they were composed. 

    Sufficient defence has been offered on these points, and as for that which 
Eunomius says by way of calumny against our doctrine, that "Christ was emptied 
to become Himself" there has been sufficient discussion in what has been said 
above, where he has been shown to be attributing to our doctrine his own 
blasphemy.(4) For it is not one who confesses that the immutable Nature has 
put on the created and perishable, who speaks of the transition from like to 
like, but one who conceives that there is no change from the majesty of Nature 
to that which is more lowly. For if, as their doctrine asserts, He is created, 
and man is created also, the wonder of the doctrine disappears, and there is 
nothing marvellous in what is alleged, since the created nature comes to be in 
itself(5). But we who have learnt from prophecy of "the change of the right 
hand of the Most High(6),"--and by the "Right Hand" of the Father we 
understand that Power of God, which made all things, which is the Lord (not in 
the sense of depending upon Him as a part upon a whole, but as being indeed 
from Hint, and yet contemplated in individual existence),--say thus: that 
neither does the Right Hand vary from Him Whose Right Hand It is, in regard to 
the idea of Its Nature, nor can any other change in It be spoken of besides 
the dispensation of the Flesh. For verily the Right Hand of God was God 
Himself; manifested in the flesh, seen through that same flesh by those whose 
sight was clear; as He did the work of the Father, being, both in fact and in 
thought, the Right Hand of God, yet being changed, in respect of the veil of 
the flesh by which He was surrounded, as regarded that which was seen, from 
that which He was by Nature, as a subject of contemplation. Therefore He says 
to Philip, who was gazing only at that which was changed, "Look through that 
which is changed to that which is unchangeable, and if thou seest this, thou 
hast seen that Father Himself, Whom thou seekest to see; for he that hath seen 
Me--not Him Who appears in a state of change, but My very self, Who am in the 
Father--will have seen that Father Himself in Whom I am, because the very same 
character of Godhead is beheld in both(7)." If, then, we believe that the 
immortal and impossible and uncreated Nature came to be in the passible Nature 
of the creature, and conceive the "change" to consist in this, on what grounds 
are we charged with saying that He "was emptied to become Himself," by those 
who keep prating their own statements about our doctrines? For the 
participation of the created with the created is no "change of the Right 
Hand." To say that the Right Hand of the uncreated Nature is created belongs 
to Eunomius alone, and to those who adopt such opinions as he holds. For the 
man with an eye that looks on the truth will discern the 

186 

Right Hand of the Highest to be such as he sees the Highest to be,--Uncreated 
of Uncreated, Good of Good, Eternal of Eternal without prejudice to Its 
eternity by Its being in the Father by way of generation. Thus our accuser has 
unawares been employing against us reproaches that properly fall upon himself. 

    But with reference(8) to those who stumble at the idea of "passion," and 
on this ground maintain the diversity of the Essences,--arguing that the 
Father, by reason of the exaltation of His Nature, does not admit passion, and 
that the Son on the other hand condescended, by reason of defect and 
divergence, to the partaking of His sufferings,--I wish to add these remarks 
to what has been already said:--That nothing is truly "passion" which does not 
tend to sin nor would one strictly call by the name of "passion" the necessary 
routine of nature, regarding the composite nature as it goes on its course 
mankind of order and sequence. For the mutual concurrence of heterogeneous 
elements in the formation of our body is a kind of a combination harmoniously 
conjoined out of several dissimilar elements; but when, at the due time, the 
tie is loosed which bound together this concurrence of the elements, the 
combined nature is once more dissolved into the elements of which it was 
composed. This then is rather a work than a passion of the nature(9). For we 
give the name of "passion" only to that which is opposed to the virtuous 
unimpassioned state and of this we believe that He Who granted us salvation 
was at all times devoid, Who "was in all points tempted like as we are yet 
without sin(1)." Of that, at least, which is truly passion, which is a 
diseased condition of the will, He was not a partaker; for it says "He did no 
sin, neither was guile found in His mouth(2)"; but the peculiar attributes of 
our nature, which, by a kind of customary abuse of terms, are called by the 
same name of "passion," --of these, we confess, the Lord did partake,--of 
birth, nourishment, growth, of sleep and toil,  and all those natural 
dispositions which the, soul is wont to experience with regard to bodily 
inconveniences,--the desire of that which is lacking, when the longing passes 
from the body to the soul, the sense of pain, the dread of death, and all the 
like, save only such as, if followed, lead to sin. As, then, when we perceive 
His power extending through all things in heaven, and air, and earth, and sea, 
whatever there is in heaven, whatever there is beneath 

the earth, we believe that He is universally present, and yet do not say that 
He is any of those things in which He is (for He is not the Heaven, Who has 
marked it out with His enfolding span, nor is He the earth, Who upholds the 
circle of the earth, nor yet is He the water, Who encompasses the liquid 
nature), so neither do we say that in passing through those sufferings of the 
flesh of which we speak He was "subject to passion," but, as we say that He is 
the cause of all things that are, that He holds the universe in His grasp, 
that He directs all that is in motion and keeps upon a settled foundation all 
that is stationary, by the unspeakable power of His own majesty, so we say 
that He was born among us for the cure of the disease of sin, adapting the 
exercise of His healing power in a manner corresponding to the suffering, 
applying the healing in that way which He knew to be for the good of that part 
of the creation which He knew to be in infirmity. And as it was expedient that 
He should heal the sufferings by touch, we say that He so healed it; yet is He 
not, because He is the Healer of our infirmity, to be deemed on this account 
to have been Himself passible. For even in the case of men, ordinary use does 
not allow us to affirm such a thing. We do not say that one who touches a sick 
man to heal him is himself partaker of the infirmity, but we say that he does 
give the sick man the boon of a return to health, and does not partake of the 
infirmity: for the suffering does not touch him, it is he who touches the 
disease. Now if he who by his art works any good in men's bodies is not called 
dull or feeble, but is called a lover of men and a benefactor and the like, 
why do they slander the dispensation to usward as being mean and inglorious, 
and use it to maintain that the essence of the Son is "divergent by way of 
inferiority," on the ground that the Nature of the Father is superior to 
sufferings, while that of the Son is not pure from passion? Why, if the aim of 
the dispensation of the Incarnation was not that the Son should be subject to 
suffering, but that He should be manifested as a lover of men, while the 
Father also is undoubtedly a lover of men, it follows that if one will but 
regard the aim, the Son is in the same case with the Father. But if it was not 
the Father Who wrought the destruction of death, marvel not,--for all judgment 
also He hath committed unto the Son, Himself judging no man(3); not doing all 
things by the Son for the reason that He is unable either to save the lost or 
judge the sinner, but because He does these things too by His own Power, by 
which He works all things. Then they who were saved by the Son were saved by 
the Power of the Father, and they who are judged by Him undergo judgment by 
the 

187 

Righteousness of God. For "Christ," as the Apostle says, "is the Righteousness 
of God(4)," which is revealed by the Gospel; and whether you look at the world 
as a whole, or at the parts of the world which make up that complete whole, 
all these are works of the Father, in that they are works of His Power; and 
thus the word which says both that the Father made all things, and that none 
of these things that are came into being without the Son, speaks truly on both 
points; for the operation of the Power bears relation to Him Whose Power It 
is. Thus, since the Son is the Power of the Father, all the works of the Son 
are works of the Father. That He entered upon the dispensation of the Passion 
not by weakness of nature but by the power of His will, one might bring 
countless passages of the Gospel to show; but these, as the matter is clear, I 
will pretermit, that my discourse may not be prolonged by dwelling on points 
that are admitted. If, then, that which comes to pass is evil, we have to 
separate from that evil not the Father only, but the Son also; but if the 
saving of them that were lost is good, and if that which took place is not 
"passion(5)," but love of men, why do you alienate from our thanksgiving for 
our salvation the Father, Who by His own Power, which is Christ, wrought for 
men their freedom from death? 

4. Then returning to the words of Peter," God made Him Lord and Christ," he 
skilfully explains it by many arguments, and her in shows Eumonius as an 
advocate of the orthodox doctrine, and concludes the book by showing that the 
Divine and Human names are applied, by reason of the commixture, to either 
Nature. 

    But we must return once more to our vehement writer of speeches, and take 
up again that severe invective of his against ourselves. He makes it a 
complaint against us that we deny that the Essence of the Son has been made, 
as contradicting the words of Peter, "He made Him Lord and Christ, this Jesus 
Whom ye crucified(6)"; and he is very forcible in his indignation and abuse 
upon this matter, and moreover maintains certain points by which he thinks 
that he refutes our doctrine. Let us see, then, the force of his attempts. 
"Who, pray, ye most reckless of men," he says, "when he has the form of a 
servant, takes the form of a servant?" "No reasonable man," shall be 

I our reply to him, "would use language of this kind, save such as may be 
entirely alien from the hope of Christians. But to this class you belong, who 
charge us with recklessness because we do not admit the Creator to be created. 
For if the Holy Spirit does not lie, when He says by the prophet, 'All things 
serve Thee(7),' and the whole creation is in servitude, and the Son is, as you 
say(8), created, He is clearly a fellow-servant with all things, being 
degraded by His partaking of creation to partake also of servitude. And Him 
Who is in servitude you will surely invest with the servant's form: for you 
will not, of course, be ashamed of the aspect of servitude when you 
acknowledge that He is a servant by nature. Who now is it, I pray, my most 
keen rhetorician, who transfers the Son from the servile form to another form 
of a servant? he who claims for Him uncreated I being, and thereby proves that 
He is no servant, or you, rather, who continually cry that the Son is the 
servant of the Father, and was actually under His dominion before He took the 
servant's form? I ask for no other judges; I leave the vote on these questions 
in your own hands. For I suppose that no one is so shameless in his dealings 
with the truth as to oppose acknowledged facts out of sheer impudence. What we 
have said is clear to any one, that by the peculiar attributes of servitude is 
marked that which is by nature servile, and to be created is an attribute 
proper to servitude. Thus one who asserts that He, being a servant, took upon 
Him our form, is surely the man who transfers the Only-begotten from servitude 
to servitude." 

    He tries, however, to fight against our words, and says, a little further 
on (for I will pass over at present his intermediate remarks, as they have 
been more or less fully discussed in my previous arguments), when he charges 
us with being "bold in saying or thinking things uncontrivable," and calls us 
"most miserable(9),"--he adds, I say, this:--"For if it is not of the Word Who 
was in the beginning and was God that the blessed Peter speaks, but of Him Who 
was 'seen,' and Who 'emptied Himself,' as Basil says, and if the man Who was 
'seen' 'emptied Himself' to take 'the form of a servant,' and He Who 'emptied 
Himself' to take the form of a servant,' 'emptied Himself' to come into being 
as man, then the man who was 'seen' 'emptied himself,' to come into being as 
man." It may be that the judgment of my readers has immediately detected from 
the above citation the knavery, and, at the same time, the folly of the 
argument he maintains: yet a brief refutation of what he says shall be 
subjoined on our side, not so 

188 

much to overthrow his blundering sophism, which indeed is overthrown by itself 
for those who have ears to hear, as to avoid the appearance of passing his 
allegation by without discussion, under the pretence of contempt for the 
worthlessness of his argument. Let us accordingly look at the point in this 
way. What are the Apostle's words? "Be it known," he says, "that God made Him 
Lord and Christ(1)." Then, as though some one had asked him on whom such a 
grace was bestowed, he points as it were with his finger to the subject, 
saying, "this Jesus, Whom ye crucified." What does Basil say upon this? That 
the demonstrative word declares that that person was made Christ, Who had been 
crucified by the hearers;--for he says, "ye crucified," and it was likely that 
those who had demanded the murder that was done upon Him were hearers of the 
speech; for the time from the crucifixion to the discourse of Peter was not 
long. What, then, does Eunomius advance in answer to this? "If it is not of 
the Word Who was in the beginning and was God that the blessed Peter speaks, 
but of Him Who was 'seen,' and Who 'emptied Himself,' as Basil says, and if 
the man who was 'seen' 'emptied himself' to take 'the form of a servant' "-- 
Hold! who says this, that the man who was seen emptied himself again to take 
the form of a servant? or who maintains that the suffering of the Cross took 
place before the manifestation in the flesh? The Cross did not precede the 
body, nor the body "the form of the servant." But God is manifested in the 
flesh, while the flesh that displayed God in itself, after having by itself 
fulfilled the great mystery of the Death, is transformed by commixture to that 
which is exalted and Divine, becoming Christ and Lord, being transferred and 
changed to that which He was, Who manifested Himself in that flesh. But if we 
should say this, our champion of the truth maintains once more that we say 
that He Who was shown upon the Cross "emptied Himself" to become another man, 
putting his sophism together as follows in its wording:--"If," quoth he, "the 
man who was 'seen' 'emptied himself' to take the 'form of a servant,' and He 
Who 'emptied Himself' to take the 'form of a servant,' 'emptied Himself' to 
come into being as man, then the man who was 'seen' 'emptied himself' to come 
into being as man." 

    How well he remembers the task before him! how much to the point is the 
conclusion of his argument! Basil declares that the Apostle said that the man 
who was "seen" was made Christ and Lord, and this clear and quick-witted 
over-turner of his statements says, "If Peter does not say that the essence of 
Him Who was in the beginning was made, the man who was 

'seen' 'emptied himself' to take the 'form of a servant,' and He Who 'emptied 
Himself' to take the 'form of a servant, emptied Himself to become man." We 
are conquered, Eunomius, by this invincible wisdom! The fact that the 
Apostle's discourse refers to Him Who was "crucified through weakness(2)" is 
forsooth powerfully disproved when we learn that if we believe this to be so, 
the man who was "seen" again becomes another, "emptying Himself" for another 
coming into being of man. Will you never cease jesting against what should be 
secure from such attempts? will you not blush at destroying by such ridiculous 
sophisms the awe that hedges the Divine mysteries? will you not turn now, if 
never before, to know that the Only-begotten God, Who is in the bosom of the 
Father, being Word, and King, and Lord, and all that is exalted in word and 
thought, needs not to become anything that is good, seeing that He is Himself 
the fulness of all good things? What then is that, by changing into which He 
becomes what He was not before? Well, as He Who knew not sin becomes sin(3), 
that He may take away the sin of the world, so on the other hand the flesh 
which received the Lord becomes Christ and Lord, being transformed by the 
commixture into that which it was not by nature: whereby We learn that neither 
would God have been manifested in the flesh, had not the Word been made flesh, 
nor would the human flesh that compassed Him about have been transformed to 
what is Divine, had not that which was apparent to the senses become Christ 
and Lord. But they treat the simplicity of what we preach with contempt, who 
use their syllogisms to trample on the being of God, and desire to show that 
He Who by creation brought into being all things that are, is Himself a part 
of creation, and wrest, to assist them in such an effort to establish their 
blasphemy, the words of Peter, who said to the Jews, "Be it known to all the 
house of Israel that God made Him Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye 
crucified(4)." This is the proof they present for the statement that the 
essence of the Only-begotten God is created! What? tell me, were the Jews, to 
whom the words were spoken, in existence before the ages? was the Cross before 
the world? was Pilate before all creation? was Jesus in existence first, and 
after that the Word? was the flesh more ancient than the Godhead? did Gabriel 
bring glad tidings to Mary before the world was? did not the Man that was in 
Christ take beginning by way of birth in the days of Csar Augustus, while the 
Word that was God in the beginning is our King, as the prophet testifies, 
before all ages(5)? See you not what confusion you bring 

189 

upon the matter, turning, as the phrase goes, things upside down? It was the 
fiftieth day after the Passion, when Peter preached his sermon to the Jews and 
said, "Him Whom ye crucified, God made Christ and Lord." Do you not mark the 
order of his saying? which stands first, which second in his words? He did not 
say, "Him Whom God made Lord, ye crucified," but, "Whom ye crucified, Him God 
made Christ and Lord": so that it is clear from this that Peter is speaking, 
not of what was before the ages, but of what was after the dispensation. 

    How comes it, then, that you fail to see that the whole conception of your 
argument on the subject is being overthrown, and go on making yourself 
ridiculous with your childish web of sophistry, saying that, if we believe 
that He who was apparent to the senses has been made by God to be Christ and 
Lord, it necessarily follows that the Lord once more "emptied  Himself" anew 
to become Man, and underwent a second birth? What advantage does your doctrine 
get from this? How does what you say show the King of creation to be created? 
For my own part I assert on the other side that our view is supported by those 
who contend against us, and that the rhetorician, in his exceeding attention 
to the matter, has failed to see that in pushing, as he supposed, the argument 
to an absurdity, he is fighting on the side of those whom he attacks, with the 
very weapons he uses for their overthrow. For if we are to believe that the 
change of condition in the case of Jesus was from a lofty state to a lowly 
one, and if the Divine and uncreated Nature alone transcends the creation, he 
will, perhaps, when he thoroughly surveys his own argument, come over to the 
ranks of truth, and agree that the Uncreated came to be in the created, in His 
love for man. But if he imagines that he demonstrates the created character of 
the Lord by showing that He, being God, took part in human nature, he will 
find many such passages to establish the same opinion which carry out their 
support of his argument in a similar way. For since He was the Word and was 
God, and "afterwards," as the prophet says, "was seen upon earth and conversed 
with men(6)," He will hereby be proved to be one of the creatures!  And if 
this is held to be beside the question, similar passages too are not quite 
akin to the subject. For in sense it is just the same to say that the Word 
that was in the beginning was manifested to men through the flesh, and to say 
that being in the form of God He put on the form of a servant: and if one of 
these statements gives no help for the establishment of his blasphemy, he must 
needs give up the remaining one also. He is kind enough, however, to advise us 
to abandon our error, and to point out the truth which He himself maintains. 
He tells us that the Apostle Peter declares Him to have been made Who was in 
the beginning the Word and God. Well, if he were making up dreams for our 
amusement, and giving us information about the prophetic interpretation of the 
visions of sleep, there might be no risk in allowing him to set forth the 
riddles of his imagination at his pleasure. But when he tells us that he is 
explaining the Divine utterances, it is no longer safe for us to leave him to 
interpret the words as he likes. What does the Scripture say? "God made Lord 
and Christ this Jesus whom ye crucified(7)." When everything, then, is found 
to concur--the demonstrative word denoting Him Who is spoken of by the Name of 
His Humanity, the charge against those who were stained with blood-guiltiness, 
the suffering of the Cross-our thought necessarily turns to that which was 
apparent to the senses. But he asserts that while Peter uses these words it is 
the pretemporal existence that is indicated by the word "made"(8). Well, we 
may safely allow nurses and old wives to jest with children, and to lay down 
the meaning of dreams as they choose: but when inspired Scripture is set 
before us for exposition, the great Apostle forbids us to have recourse to old 
wives' tattle(9). When I hear "the Cross" spoken of, I understand the Cross, 
and when I hear mention of a human name, I understand the nature which that 
name connotes. So when I hear from Peter that "this" one was made Lord and 
Christ, I do not doubt that he speaks of Him Who had been before the eyes of 
men, since the saints agree with one another in this matter as well as in 
others. For, as he says that He Who was crucified has been made Lord, so  Paul 
also says that He was "highly exalted(1)," after the Passion and the 
Resurrection, not being exalted in so far forth as He is God. For what height 
is there more sublime than the Divine height, that he should say God was 
exalted thereunto? But he means that the lowliness of the Humanity was 
exalted, the word, I suppose, indicating the assimilation and union of the Man 
Who was assumed to the exalted state of the Divine Nature. And even if one 
were to allow him licence to misinterpret the Divine utterance, not even so 
will his argument conclude in accordance with the aim of his heresy. For be it 
granted that Peter does say of Him Who was in the beginning, "God made Him 
Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye crucified," we shall find that even so his 
blasphemy does not gain any strength against the truth. "God made Him," he 
says, "Lord 

190 

and Christ." To which of the words are we to refer the word made? with which 
of those that are employed in this sentence are we to connect the word? There 
are three before us:--" this," and "Lord," and "Christ." With which of these 
three will he construct the word "made"? No one is so bold against the truth 
as to deny that "made "has reference to "Christ" and "Lord"; for Peter says 
that He, being already whatever He was, was "made Christ and Lord" by the 
Father. 

    These words are not mine: they are those of him who fights against the 
Word. For he says, in the very passage that is before us for examination, 
exactly thus:--" The blessed Peter speaks of Him Who was in the beginning and 
was God, and expounds to us that it was He Who became Lord and Christ." 
Eunomius, then, says that He Who was whatsoever He was became Lord and Christ, 
as the history of David tells us that he, being the son of Jesse, and a keeper 
of the flocks, was anointed to be king: not that the anointing then made him 
to be a man, but that he, being what he was by his own nature, was transformed 
from an ordinary man to a king. What follows? Is it thereby the more 
established that the essence of the Son was made, if, as Eunomius says, God 
made Him, when He was in the beginning and was God, both Lord and Christ? For 
Lordship is not a name of His being but of His being in authority, and the 
appellation of Christ indicates His kingdom, while the idea of His kingdom is 
one, and that of His Nature another. Suppose that Scripture does say that 
these things took place with regard to the Son of God. Let us then consider 
which is the more pious and the more rational view. Which can we allowably say 
is made partaker of superiority by way of advancement--God or man? Who has so 
childish a mind as to suppose that the Divinity passes on to perfection by way 
of addition? But as to the Human Nature, such a supposition is not 
unreasonable, seeing that the words of the Gospel clearly ascribe to our Lord 
increase in respect of His Humanity: for it says, "Jesus increased in wisdom 
and stature and favour(2)." Which, then, is the more reasonable suggestion to 
derive from the Apostle's words?--that He Who was God in the beginning became 
Lord by way of advancement, or that the lowliness of the Human Nature was 
raised to the height of majesty as a result of its communion with the Divine? 
For the prophet David also, speaking in the person of the Lord, says, "I am 
established as king by Him(3)," with a meaning very close to "I was made 
Christ:" and again, in the person of the Father to the Lord, he says, "Be Thou 
Lord in the midst of Thine enemies(4)," with the same meaning as Peter, "Be 
Thou made Lord of Thine enemies." As, then, the establishment of His kingdom 
does not signify the formation of His essence, but the advance to His dignity, 
and He Who bids Him "be Lord" does not command that which is non-existent to 
come into being at that particular time, but gives to Him Who is the rule over 
those who are disobedient,--so also the blessed Peter, when he says that one 
has been made Christ (that is, king of all) adds the word "Him" to distinguish 
the idea both from the essence and from the attributes contemplated in 
connection with it. For He made Him what has been declared when He already was 
that which He is. Now if it were allowable to assert of the transcendent 
Nature that it became anything by way of advancement, as a king from being an 
ordinary man, or lofty from being lowly, or Lord from being servant, it might 
be proper to apply Peter's words to the Only-begotten. But since the Divine 
Nature, whatever it is believed to be, always remains the same, being above 
all augmentation and incapable of diminution, we are absolutely compelled to 
refer his saying to the Humanity. For God the Word is now, and always remains, 
that which He was in the beginning, always King, always Lord, always God and 
Most High, not having become any of these things by way of advancement, but 
being in virtue of His Nature all that He is declared to be, while on the 
other hand He Who was, by being assumed, elevated from Man to the Divinity, 
being one thing and becoming another, is strictly and truly said to have 
become Christ and Lord. For He made Him to be Lord from being a servant, to be 
King from being a subject, to be Christ from being in subordination. He highly 
exalted that which was lowly, and gave to Him that had the Human Name that 
Name which is above every name(5). And thus came to pass that unspeakable 
mixture and conjunction of human littleness commingled with Divine greatness, 
whereby even those names which are great and Divine are properly applied to 
the Humanity, while on the other hand the Godhead is spoken of by human 
names(6). For it is the same Person who both has the Name which is above every 
name, and is worshipped by all creation in the human Name of Jesus. For he 
says, "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and 
things in earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess  
that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father(7)." But enough of these 
matters. 

xxxxxx
                            BOOK VII 

   1. The seventh book shows from various statements made to the Corinthians 
and to the Hebrews, and from the words of the Lord, that the word "Lord" is 
not expressive of essence, according to Eunomius' exposition, but of dignity. 
And after many notable remarks concerning "'the Spirit and the Lord, he shows 
that Eunomius, from his own words, is found to argue in favour of orthodoxy, 
though without intending it, and to be struck by his own shafts. 

    SINCE, however, Eunomius asserts that the word "Lord" is used in reference 
to the essence and not to the dignity of the Only-begotten, and cites as a 
witness to this view the Apostle, when he says to the Corinthians, "Now the 
Lord is the Spirit(1)," it may perhaps be opportune that we should not pass 
over even this error on his part without correction. He asserts that the word 
"Lord" is significative of essence, and by way of proof of this assumption he 
brings up the passage above mentioned. "The Lord," it says, "is the 
Spirit(1)." But our friend who interprets Scripture at his own sweet will 
calls "Lordship" by the name of "essence," and thinks to bring his statement 
to proof by means of the words quoted. Well, if it had been said by Paul, "Now 
the Lord is essence," we too would have concurred in his argument. But seeing 
that the inspired writing on the one side says, "the Lord is the Spirit," and 
Eunomius says on the other, "Lordship is essence," I do not know where he 
finds support for his statement, unless he is prepared to say again(2) that 
the word "Spirit" stands in Scripture for "essence." Let us consider, then, 
whether the Apostle anywhere, in his use of the term "Spirit," employs that 
word to indicate "essence." He says, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with 
our Spirit(3)," and "no one knoweth the things of a man save the Spirit of man 
which is in him(4)," and "the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life(5)," 
and "if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall 
live(6)," and "if we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit(7)." 
Who indeed could count the utterances of the Apostle on this point? and in 
them we nowhere find "essence" signified by this word. For he who says that 
"the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit," signifies nothing else 
than the Holy Spirit Which comes to be in the mind of the faithful; for in 
many other passages of his writings he gives the name of spirit to the mind, 
on the reception by which of the communion of the Spirit the recipients attain 
the dignity of adoption. Again, in the passage, "No one knoweth the things of 
a man save the spirit of man which is in him," if "man" is used of the 
essence, and "spirit" likewise, it will follow from the phrase that the man is 
maintained to be of two essences. Again, I know not how he who says that "the 
letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life," sets "essence" in opposition to 
"letter"; nor, again, how this writer imagines that when Paul says that we 
ought "through the Spirit" to destroy "the deeds of the body," he is directing 
the signification of "spirit" to express "essence"; while as for "living in 
the Spirit," and "walking in the Spirit," this would be quite unintelligible 
if the sense of the word "Spirit" referred to "essence." For in what else than 
in essence do all we who are alive partake of life?--thus when the Apostle is 
laying down advice for us on this matter that we should "live in essence," it 
is as though he said "partake of life by means of yourselves, and not by means 
of others." If then it is not possible that this sense can be adopted in any 
passage, how can Eunomius here once more imitate the interpreters of dreams, 
and bid us to take "spirit." for "essence," to the end that he may arrive in 
due syllogistic form at his conclusion that the word "Lord" is applied to the 
essence?--for if "spirit" is "essence" (he argues), and "the Lord is Spirit," 
the "Lord" is clearly found to be "essence." How incontestable is the force of 
this attempt! How can we evade or resolve this irrefragable necessity of 
demonstration? The word "Lord," he says, is spoken of the essence. How does he 
maintain it? Because the Apostle says, "The Lord is the 

192 

Spirit." Well, what has this to do with essence? He gives us the further 
instruction that "spirit" is put for "essence. These are the arts of his 
demonstrative method! These are the results of his Aristotelian science! This 
is why, in your view, we are so much to be pitied, who are uninitiated in this 
wisdom! and you of course are to be deemed happy, who track out the truth by a 
method like this--that the Apostle's meaning was such that we are to suppose 
"the Spirit" was put by him for the Essence of the Only-begotten!     Then how 
will you make it fit with what follows? For when Paul says, "Now the Lord is 
the Spirit," he goes on to say, "and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is 
liberty." If then "the Lord is the Spirit," and "Spirit" means "essence," what 
are we to understand by "the essence of the essence"? He speaks again of 
another Spirit of the Lord Who is the Spirit,--that is to say, according to 
your interpretation, of another essence. Therefore in your view the Apostle, 
when he writes expressly of "the Lord the Spirit," and of "the Spirit of the 
Lord," means nothing else than an essence of an essence. Well, let Eunomius 
make what he likes of that which is written; what we understand of the matter 
is as follows. The Scripture, "given by inspiration of God," as the Apostle 
calls it, is the Scripture of the Holy Spirit, and its intention is the profit 
of men.  For "every scripture," he says, "is given by inspiration of God and 
is profitable"; and the profit is varied and multiform, as the Apostle says--" 
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness(8)." Such a boon as this, however, is not within any man's reach 
to lay hold of, but the Divine intention lies hid under the body of the 
Scripture, as it were under a veil, some legislative enactment or some 
historical narrative being cast over the truths that are contemplated by the 
mind. For this reason, then, the Apostle tells us that those who look upon the 
body of the Scripture have "a veil upon their heart(9)," and are not able to 
look upon the glory of the spiritual law, being hindered by the veil that has 
been cast over the face of the law-giver. Wherefore he says, "the letter 
killeth, but the Spirit giveth life(5)," showing that often the obvious 
interpretation, if it be not taken according to the proper sense, has an 
effect contrary to that life which is indicated by the Spirit, seeing that 
this lays down for all men the perfection of virtue in freedom from passion, 
while the history contained in the writings sometimes embraces the exposition 
even of facts incongruous, and is understood, so to say, to concur with the 
passions of our nature, whereto if any one applies himself according to the 
obvious sense, he will make the Scripture a doctrine of death. Accordingly, he 
says that over the perceptive powers of the souls of men who handle what is 
written in too corporeal a manner, the veil is cast; but for those who turn 
their contemplation to that which is the object of the intelligence, there is 
revealed, bared, as it were, of a mask, the glory that underlies the letter. 
And that which is discovered by this more exalted perception he says is the 
Lord, which is the Spirit. For he says, "when it shall turn to the Lord the 
veil shall be taken away: now the Lord is the Spirit(1)." And in so saying he 
makes a distinction of contrast between the lordship of the spirit and the 
bondage of the letter; for as that which gives life is opposed to that which 
kills, so he contrasts "the Lord" with bondage. And that we may not be under 
any confusion when we are instructed concerning the Holy Spirit (being led by 
the word "Lord" to the thought of the Only-begotten), for this reason he 
guards the word by repetition, both saying that "the Lord is the Spirit," and 
making further mention of "the Spirit of the Lord," that the supremacy of His 
Nature may be shown by the honour implied in lordship, while at the same time 
he may avoid confusing in his argument the individuality of His Person. For he 
who calls Him both "Lord" and "Spirit of the Lord," teaches us to conceive of 
Him as a separate individual besides the Only-begotten; just as elsewhere he 
speaks of "the Spirit of Christ(2)," employing fairly and in its mystic sense 
this very term which is piously employed in the system of doctrine according 
to the Gospel tradition. Thus we, the "most miserable of all men," being led 
onward by the Apostle in the mysteries, pass from the letter that killeth to 
the Spirit that giveth life, learning from Him Who was in Paradise initiated 
into the unspeakable mysteries, that all things the Divine Scripture says are 
utterances of the Holy Spirit. For "well did the Holy Spirit 
prophesy(3),"--this he says to the Jews in Rome, introducing the words of 
Isaiah; and to the Hebrews, alleging the authority of the Holy Spirit in the 
words, "wherefore as saith the Holy Spirit(4)," he adduces the words of the 
Psalm which are spoken at length in the person of God; and from the Lord 
Himself we learn the same thing,-- that David declared the heavenly mysteries 
not "in" himself (that is, not speaking according to human nature). For how 
could any one, being but man, know the supercelestial converse of the Father 
with the Son? But being "in the Spirit" he said that the Lord spoke to the 
Lord those words which He has uttered. For if, He says, "David in the Spirit 
calls him Lord, how is He then his 

193 

son(5)?" Thus it is by the power of the Spirit that the holy men who are under 
Divine influence are inspired, and every Scripture is for this reason said to 
be "given by inspiration of God," because it is the teaching of the Divine 
afflatus. If the bodily veil of the words were removed, that which remains is 
Lord and life and Spirit, according to the teaching of the great Paul, and 
according to the words of the Gospel also. For Paul declares that he who turns 
from the letter to the Spirit no longer apprehends the bondage that slays, but 
the Lord which is the life-giving Spirit; and the sublime Gospel says, "the 
words that I speak are spirit and are life(6)," as being divested of the 
bodily veil. The idea, however, that "the Spirit" is the essence of the 
Only-begotten, we shall leave to our dreamers: or rather, we shall make use, 
ex abundanti, of what they say, and arm the truth with the weapons of the 
adversary. For it is allowable that the Egyptian should be spoiled by the 
Israelites, and that we should make their wealth an ornament for ourselves. If 
the essence of the Son is called "Spirit," and God also is Spirit, (for so the 
Gospel tells us(7)), clearly the essence of the Father is called "Spirit" 
also. But if it is their peculiar argument that things which are introduced by 
different names are different also in nature, the conclusion surely is, that 
things which are named alike are not alien one from the other in nature 
either. Since then, according to their account, the essence of the Father and 
that of the Son are both called "Spirit," hereby is clearly proved the absence 
of any difference in essence. For a little further on Eunomius says:--"Of 
those essences which are divergent the appellations significant of essence are 
also surely divergent, but where there is one and the same name, that which is 
declared by the same appellation will surely be one also":--so that at all 
points "He that taketh the wise in their own craftiness(3)" has turned the 
long labours of our author, and the infinite toil spent on what he has 
elaborated, to the establishment of the doctrine which we maintain. For if God 
is in the Gospel called "Spirit," and the essence of the Only-begotten is 
maintained by Eunomius to be "Spirit," as there is no apparent difference in 
the one name as compared with the other, neither, surely, will the things 
signified by the names be mutually different in nature. 

    And now that I have exposed this futile and pointless sham-argument, it 
seems to me that I may well pass by without discussion what he next puts 
together by way of attack upon our master's statement. For a sufficient proof 
of the folly of his remarks is to be found in his actual argument, which of 
itself proclaims aloud its feebleness. To be entangled in a contest with such 
things as this is like trampling on the slain. For when he sets forth with 
much confidence some passage from our master, and treats it with preliminary 
slander and contempt, and promises that he will show it to be worth nothing at 
all, he meets with the same fortune as befalls small children, to whom their 
imperfect and immature intelligence, and the untrained condition of their 
perceptive faculties, do not give an accurate understanding of what they see. 
Thus they often imagine that the stars are but a little way above their heads, 
and pelt them with clods when they appear, in their childish folly; and then, 
when the clod falls, they clap their hands and laugh and brag to their 
comrades as if their throw had reached the stars themselves. Such is the man 
who casts at the truth with his childish missile, who sets forth Dike the 
stars those splendid sayings of our master, and then hurls from the 
ground,--from his downtrodden and grovelling understanding,--his earthy and 
unstable arguments. And these, when they have gone so high that they have no 
place to fall from, turn back again of themselves by their own weight(9). Now 
the passage of the great Basil is worded as follows(1):-- 

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

    From his writings, I say, for I do not like to insert in my own work the 
nauseous stuff our rhetorician utters, or to display his ignorance and folly 
to contempt in the midst of my own arguments. He goes on with a sort of eulogy 
upon the class of significant words which express the subject, and, in his 
accustomed style, 

194 

patches and sticks together the cast-off rags of phrases: poor Isocrates is 
nibbled at once more, and shorn of words and figures to make out the point 
proposed,--here and there even the Hebrew Philo receives the same treatment, 
and makes him a contribution of phrases from his own labours,--yet not even 
thus is this much-stitched and many-coloured web of words finished off, but 
every assault, every defence of his conceptions, all his artistic preparation, 
spontaneously collapses, and, as commonly happens with the bubbles when the 
drops, borne down from above through a body of waters against some obstacle, 
produce those foamy swellings which, as soon as they gather, immediately 
dissolve, and leave upon the water no trace of their own formation--such are 
the air-bubbles of our author's thoughts, vanishing without a touch at the 
moment they are put forth. For after all these irrefragable statements, and 
the dreamy philosophizing wherein he asserts that the distinct character of 
the essence is apprehended by the divergence of names, as some mass of foam 
borne downstream breaks up when it comes into contact with any more solid 
body, so his argument, following its own spontaneous course, and coming 
unexpectedly into collision with the truth, disperses into nothingness its 
unsubstantial and bubble-like fabric of falsehood. For he speaks in these 
words:--"Who is so foolish and so far removed from the constitution of men, 
as, in discoursing of men to speak of one as a man, and, calling another a 
horse, so to compare them?" I would answer him, --"You are right in calling 
any one foolish who makes such blunders in the use of names. And I will employ 
for the support of the truth the testimony you yourself give. For if it is a 
piece of extreme folly to call one a horse and another a man, supposing both 
were really men, it is surely a piece of equal stupidity, when the Father is 
confessed to be God, and the Son is confessed to be God, to call the one 
'created and the other 'uncreated,' since, as in the other case humanity, so 
in this case the Godhead does not admit a change of name to that expressive of 
another kind. For what the irrational is with respect to man, that also the 
creature is with respect to the Godhead, being equally unable to receive the 
same name with the nature that is superior to it. And as it is not possible to 
apply the same definition to the rational animal and the quadruped alike (for 
each is naturally differentiated by its special property from the other), so 
neither can you express by the same terms the created and the uncreated 
essence, seeing that those attributes which are predicated of the latter 
essence are not discoverable in the former. For as rationality is not 
discoverable in a horse, nor solidity  of hoofs in a man, so neither is 
Godhead discoverable in the creature, nor the attribute of being created in 
the Godhead: but if He be God He is certainly not created, and if He be 
created He is not God; unless(2), of course, one were to apply by some misuse 
or customary mode of expression the mere name of Godhead, as some horses have 
men's names given them by their owners; yet neither is the horse a man, though 
he be called by a human name, nor is the created being God, even though some 
claim for him the name of Godhead, and give him the benefit of the empty sound 
of a dissyllable." Since, then, Eunomius' heretical statement is found 
spontaneously to fall in with the truth, let him take his own advice and stand 
by his own words, and by no means retract his own utterances, but consider 
that the man is really foolish and stupid who names the subject not according 
as it is, but says "horse" for "man." and "sea" for "sky," and "creature" for 
"God." And let no one think it unreasonable that the creature should be set in 
opposition to God, but have regard to the prophets and to the Apostles. For 
the prophet says in the person of the Father, "My Hand made all  these 
things"(3), meaning by "Hand," in his dark saying, the power of the 
Only-begotten. Now the Apostle says that all things are of the Father, and 
that all things are by the Son(4), and the prophetic spirit in a way agrees 
with the Apostolic teaching, which itself also is given through the Spirit. 
For in the one passage, the prophet, when he says that all things are the work 
of the Hand of Him Who is over all, sets forth the nature of those things 
which have come into being in its relation to Him Who made them, while He Who 
made them is God over all, Who has the Hand, and by It makes all things. And 
again, in the other passage, the Apostle makes the same division of entities, 
making all things depend upon their productive cause, yet not reckoning in the 
number of "all things" that which produces them: so that we are hereby taught 
the difference of nature between the created and the uncreated, and it is 
shown that, in its own nature, that which makes is one thing and that which is 
produced is another. Since, then, all things are of God, and the Son is God, 
the creation is properly opposed to the Godhead; while, since the 
Only-begotten is something else than the nature of the universe (seeing that 
not even those who fight against the truth contradict this), it follows of 
necessity that the Son also is equally opposed to the creation, unless the 
words of the saints are untrue which testify that by Him all things were made. 

195 

   2. He then declares that the close relation between names and things is 
immutable, and thereafter proceeds accordingly, in the most excellent manner, 
with his discourse concerning "generated" and "ungenerate." 

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

    He asserts that "no man who has any regard for the truth either calls any 
generated thing 'ungenerate,' or calls God Who is over all 'Son' or 
'generate.'" This statement needs no further arguments on our part for its 
refutation. For he does not shelter his craft with any veils, as his wont is, 
but treats the inversion of his absurd statement as equivalent(5), while he 
says that neither is any generated thing spoken of as "ungenerate," nor is God 
Who is over all called "Son" or "generate," without making any special 
distinction for the Only-begotten Godhead of the Son as compared with the rest 
of the "generated," but makes his opposition of "all things that have come 
into being" to "God" without discrimination, not excepting the Son from "all 
things." And in the inversion of his absurdities he clearly separates, 
forsooth, the Son from the Divine Nature, when he says that neither is any 
generated thing spoken of as "ungenerate," nor is God called "Son" or 
"generate," and manifestly reveals by this contradistinction the horrid 
character of his blasphemy. For when he has distinguished the "things that 
have come into being" from the "ungenerate," he goes on to say, in that 
antistrophal induction of his, that it is impossible to call (not the 
"unbegotten," but) "God," "Son" or "generate," trying by these words to show 
that which is not ungenerate is not God, and that the Only-begotten God is, by 
the fact of being begotten, as far removed from being God as the ungenerate is 
from being generated in fact or in name. For it is not in ignorance of the 
consequence of his argument that he makes an inversion of the terms employed 
thus inharmonious and incongruous: it is in his assault on the doctrine of 
orthodoxy that he opposes "the Godhead" to "the generate"--and this is the 
point he tries to establish by his words, that which is not ungenerate is not 
God. What was the true sequence of his argument? that having said "no 
generated thing is ungenerate," he should proceed with the inference, "nor, if 
anything is naturally ungenerate, can it be generate." Such a statement at 
once contains truth and avoids blasphemy. But now by his premise that no 
generated thing is ungenerate, and his inference that God is not generated, he 
clearly shuts out the Only-begotten God from being God, laying down that 
because He is not ungenerate, neither is He God. Do we then need any further 
proofs to expose this monstrous blasphemy? Is not this enough by itself to 
serve for a record against the adversary of Christ, who by the arguments cited 
maintains that the Word, Who in the beginning was God, is not God? What need 
is there to engage further with such men as this? For we do not entangle 
ourselves in controversy with those who busy themselves with idols and with 
the blood that is shed upon their altars, not that we acquiesce in the 
destruction of those who are besotted about idols, but because their disease 
is too strong for our treatment. Thus, just as the fact itself declares 
idolatry, and the evil that men do boldly and arrogantly anticipates the 
reproach of those who 

196 

accuse it, so here too I think that the advocates of orthodoxy should keep 
silence towards one who openly proclaims his impiety to his own discredit, 
just as medicine also stands powerless in the case of a cancerous complaint, 
because the disease is too strong for the art to deal with. 

   3. Thereafter he discusses the divergence of names and of things, speaking, 
of that which is ungenerate as without a cause, and of that which is 
non-existent, as the Scindapsus, Minotaur, Blityri, Cyclops, Scylla, which 
never were generated at all, and shows that things which are essentially 
different, are mutually destructive, as fire of water, and the rest in their 
several relations. But in the case of the Father and the Son, as essence is 
common, and the properties reciprocally interchangeable, no injury results to 
the Nature. 

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

    Who would not be dismayed at this irresistible power of attack? The 
argument transcends the promise, the experience is more terrible than the 
threat. "I will come," he says, "to my stronger argument." What is it? That as 
the differences of properties are recognized by those names which signify the 
special attributes, we must of course, he says, allow that differences of 
essence are also expressed by divergence of names. What then are these 
appellations of essences by which we learn the divergence of Nature between 
the Father and the son? He talks of fire and water, air and earth, cold and 
heat, white and black, triangle and circle. His illustrations have won him the 
day: his argument carries all before it: I cannot contradict the statement 
that those names which are entirely incommunicable indicate difference of 
natures. But our man of keen and quick-sighted intellect has just missed 
seeing these points:--that in this case the Father is God and the Son is God; 
that "just," and "incorruptible," and all those names which belong to the 
Divine Nature, are used equally of the Father and of the Son; and thus, if the 
divergent character of appellations indicates difference of natures, the 
community of names will surely show the common character of the essence. And 
if we must agree that the Divine essence is to be expressed by names(6), it 
would behove us to apply to that Nature these lofty and Divine names rather 
than the terminology of "generate" and "ungenerate," because "good" and 
"incorruptible," "just" and "wise," and all such terms as these are strictly 
applicable only to that Nature which passes all understanding, whereas 
"generated" exhibits community of name with even the inferior forms of the 
lower creation. For we call a dog, and a frog, and all things that come into 
the world by way of generation, "generated." And moreover, the term 
"ungenerate" is not only employed of that which exists without a cause, but 
has also a proper application to that which is nonexistent. The Scindapsus(7) 
is called ungenerate, the Blityri(7) is ungenerate, the Minotaur is 
ungenerate, the Cyclops, Scylla, the Chimaera are ungenerate, not in the sense 
of existing without generation, but in the sense of never having come into 
being at all. If, then, the names more peculiarly Divine are common to the Son 
with the Father, and if it is the others, those which are equivocally employed 
either of the non-existent or of the lower animals--if it is these, I say, 
which are divergent, let his "generate and ungenerate" be so: Eunomius' 
powerful argument against us itself upholds the cause of truth in testifying 
that there is no divergence in respect of nature, because no divergence can be 
perceived in the names(8). But if he asserts the difference of essence to 
exist between the "generate" and the "ungenerate," as it does between fire and 
water, and is of opinion that the names, like those which he has mentioned in 
his examples, are in the same mutual relation as "fire" and "water," the 
horrid character of his blasphemy will here again be brought to light, even if 
we hold our peace. For fire and 

197 

water have a nature mutually destructive, and each is destroyed, if it comes 
to be in the other, by the prevalence of the more powerful element. If, then, 
he lays down the doctrine that the Nature of the Ungenerate differs thus from 
that of the Only-begotten, it is surely clear that he logically makes this 
destructive opposition to be involved in the divergence of their essences, so 
that their nature will be, by this reasoning, incompatible and incommunicable, 
and the one would be consumed by the other, if both should be found to be 
mutually inclusive or co-existent. 

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

   4. He says that all things that are in creation have been named by man, if 
as is the case, they are called differently by every nation, as also the 
appellation of "Ungenerate" is conferred by us: but that the proper 
appellation of the Divine essence itself which expresses the Divine Nature, 
either does not exist at all, or is unknown to us. 

    But Peter and Paul, he says, were named by men, and hence it comes that it 
is possible in their case to change the appellations. Why, what existing thing 
has not been named by men? I call you to testify on behalf of my argument. For 
if you make change of names a sign of things having been named by men, you 
will thereby surely allow that every name has been imposed upon things by us, 
since the same appellations of objects have not obtained universally. For as 
in the case of Paul who was once Saul, and of Peter who was formerly Simon, so 
earth and sky and air and sea and all the parts of the creation have not been 
named alike by all, but are named in one way by the Hebrews, and in another 
way by us, and are denoted by every nation by different names. If then 
Eunomius' argument is valid when he maintains that it was for this reason, to 
wit, that their names had been imposed by men, that Peter and Paul were named 
afresh, our teaching will surely be valid also, starting as it does from like 
premises, which says that all things are named by us, on the ground that their 
appellations vary according to the distinctions of nations. Now if all things 
are so, surely the Generate and the Ungenerate are not exceptions, for even 
they are among the things that change their name. For when we gather, as it 
were, into the form of a name the conception of any subject that arises in us, 
we declare our concept by words that vary at different times, not making, but 
signifying, the thing by the name we give it. For the things remain in 
themselves as they naturally are, while the mind, touching on existing things, 
reveals its thought by such words as are available. And just as the essence of 
Peter was not changed with the change of his name, so neither is any other of 
the things we contemplate changed in the process of mutation of names. And for 
this reason we say that the term "Ungenerate" was applied by us to the true 
and first Father Who is the Cause of all, and that no harm would result as 
regards the signifying of the Subject, if we were to acknowledge the same 
concept under another name. For it is 

198 

allowable instead of speaking of Him as "Un-generate," to call Him the "First 
Cause" or "Father of the Only-begotten," or to speak of Him as "existing 
without cause," and many such appellations which lead to the same thought; so 
that Eunomius confirms our doctrines by the very arguments in which he makes 
complaint against us, because we know no name significant of the Divine 
Nature. We are taught the fact of Its existence, while we assert that an 
appellation of such force as to include the unspeakable and infinite Nature, 
either does not exist at all, or at any rate is unknown to us. Let him then 
leave his accustomed language of fable, and show us the names which signify 
the essences, and then proceed further to divide the subject by the divergence 
of their names. But so long as the saying of the Scripture is true that 
Abraham and Moses were not capable of the knowledge of the Name, and that "no 
man hath seen God at any time(9)," and that "no man hath seen Him, nor can 
see(1)," and that the light around Him is unapproachable(1), and "there is no 
end of His greatness(2)";--so long as we say and believe these things, how 
like is an argument that promises any comprehension and expression of the 
infinite Nature, by means of the significance of names; to one who thinks that 
he can enclose the whole sea in his own hand! for as the hollow of one's hand 
is to the whole deep, so is all the power of language in comparison with that 
Nature which is unspeakable and incomprehensible. 

   5. After much discourse concerning the actually existent, and ungenerate 
and good, and upon the consubstantiality of the heavenly powers, showing the 
uncharted character of their essence, yet the difference of their ranks he 
ends the book. 

    Now in saying these things we do not intend to deny that the Father exists 
without generation, and we have no intention of refusing to agree to the 
statement that the Only-begotten God is generated;--on the contrary the latter 
has been generated, the former has not been generated. But what He is, in His 
own Nature, Who exists apart from generation, and what He is, Who is believed 
to have been generated, we do not learn from the signification of "having been 
generated," and "not having been generated." For when we say "this person was 
generated" (or "was not generated"), we are impressed with a two-fold thought, 
having our eyes turned to the subject by the demonstrative part of the phrase, 
and learning that which is contemplated in the subject by the words "was 
generated" or "was not generated,"--as it is one thing to think of that which 
is, and another to think of what we contemplate in that which is. But, 
moreover, the word "is" is surely understood with every name that is used 
concerning the Divine Nature,--as "just," "incorruptible," "immortal," and 
"ungenerate," and whatever else is said of Him; even if this word does not 
happen to occur in the phrase, yet the thought both of the speaker and the 
hearer surely makes the name attach to "is," so that if this word were not 
added, the appellation would be uttered in vain. For instance (for it is 
better to present an argument by way of illustration), when David says, "God, 
a righteous judge, strong and patient(3)," if "is" were not understood with 
each of the epithets included in the phrase, the enumerations of the 
appellations will seem purposeless and unreal, not having any subject to rest 
upon; but when "is" is understood with each of the names, what is said will 
clearly be of force, being contemplated in reference to that which is. As, 
then, when we say "He is a judge," we conceive concerning Him some operation 
of judgment, and by the "is" carry our minds to the subject, and are hereby 
clearly taught not to suppose that the account of His being is the same with 
the action, so also as a result of saying, "He is generated (or ungenerate)," 
we divide our thought into a double conception, by "is" understanding the 
subject, and by "generated," or "ungenerate," apprehending that which belongs 
to the subject. As, then, when we are taught by David that God is "a judge," 
or "patient," we do not learn the Divine essence, but one of the attributes 
which are contemplated in it, so in this case too when we hear of His being 
not generated, we do not by this negative predication understand the subject, 
but are guided as to what we must not think concerning the subject, while what 
He essentially is remains as much as ever unexplained. So too, when Holy 
Scripture predicates the other Divine names of Him Who is, and delivers to 
Moses the Being without a name, it is for him who discloses the Nature of that 
Being, not to rehearse the attributes of the Being, but by his words to make 
manifest to us its actual Nature. For every name which you may use is an 
attribute of the Being, but is not the Being,--"good," "ungenerate," 
"incorruptible,"--but to each of these "is" does not fail to be supplied. Any 
one, then, who undertakes to give the account of this good Being, of this 
ungenerate Being, as He is, would speak in vain, if he rehearsed the 
attributes contemplated in Him, and were silent as to that essence which he 
undertakes by his 

199 

words to explain. To be without generation is one of the attributes 
contemplated in the Being, but the definition of "Being" is one thing, and 
that of "being in some particular way" is another; and this(4) has so far 
remained untold and unexplained by the passages cited. Let him then first 
disclose to us the names of the essence, and then divide the Nature by the 
divergence of the appellations;--so long as what we require remains 
unexplained, it is in vain that he employs his scientific skill upon names, 
seeing that the names(5) have no separate existence. 

    Such then is Eunomius' stronger handle against the truth, while we pass by 
in silence many views which are to be found in this part of his composition; 
for it seems to me right that those who run in this armed race(6) against the 
enemies of the truth should arm themselves against those who are fairly fenced 
about with the plausibility of falsehood, and not defile their argument with 
such conceptions as are already dead and of offensive odour. His supposition 
that whatever things are united in the idea of their essence(7) must needs 
exist corporeally and be joined to corruption (for this he says in this part 
of his work), I shall willingly pass by like some cadaverous odour, since I 
think every reasonable man will perceive how dead and corrupt such an argument 
is. For who knows not that the multitude of human souls is countless, yet one 
essence underlies them all, and the consubstantial substratum in them is alien 
from bodily corruption? so that even children can plainly see the argument 
that bodies are corrupted and dissolved, not because they have the same 
essence one with another, but because of their possessing a compound nature. 
The idea of the compound nature is one, that of the common nature of their 
essence is another, so that it is true to say, "corruptible bodies are of one 
essence," but the converse statement is not true at all, if it be anything 
like, "this consubstantial nature is also surely corruptible," as is shown in 
the case of the souls which have one essence, while yet corruption does not 
attach to them in virtue of the community of essence. And the account given of 
the souls might properly be applied to every intellectual existence which we 
contemplate in creation. For the words brought together by Paul do not 
signify, as Eunomius will have  them do, some mutually divergent natures of 
the supra-mundane powers; on the contrary, the sense of the names clearly 
indicates that he is mentioning in his argument, not diversities of natures, 
but the varied peculiarities of the operations of the heavenly host: for there 
are, he says, "principalities," and "thrones," and "powers," and "mights," and 
"dominions(8)." Now these names are such as to make it at once clear to every 
one that their significance is arranged in regard to some operation. For to 
rule, and to exercise power and dominion, and to be the throne of some 
one,--all these conceptions would not be held by any one versed in argument to 
apply to diversities of essence, since it is clearly operation that is 
signified by every one of the names: so that any one who says that diversities 
of nature are signified by the names rehearsed by Paul deceives himself, 
"understanding," as the Apostle says, "neither what he says, nor whereof he 
affirms(9)," since the sense of the names clearly shows that the Apostle 
recognizes in the intelligible powers distinctions of certain ranks, but does 
not by these names indicate varieties of essences. 

xxxxxx
                                BOOK VIII 

   1. The eighth book very notably overthrows the blasphemy of the heretics 
who say that the Only-begotten came from nothing, and that there wits a time 
when He was not, and shows the Son to be no new being, but from everlasting, 
from His having said to Moses, "I am He that is," and to Manoah, "Why askest 
thou My name? it also is wonderful";--moreover David also says to God, "Thou 
art the same, and Thy years shall not fail;" and furthermore Isaiah says, "I 
am God, the first, and hereafter am I:" and the Evangelist, "He was in the 
beginning, and was with God, and was God:"--and that He has neither beginning 
nor end: and he thrones that those who say that He is new and comes front 
nothing are idolaters. And herein he very finely interprets "the brightness of 
the glory, and the express image of the Person." 

    THESE, then, are the strong points of Eunomius' case; and I think that 
when those which promised to be powerful are proved by argument to be so 
rotten and unsubstantial, I may well keep silence concerning the rest, since 
the others are practically refuted, concurrently with the refutation of the 
stronger ones; just as it happens in warlike operations that when a force more 
powerful than the rest has been beaten, the remainder of the army are no 
longer of any account in the eyes of those by whom the strong portion of it 
has been overcome. But the fact that the chief part of his blasphemy lies in 
the later part of his discourse forbids me to be silent. For the transition of 
the Only-begotten from nothing into being, that horrid and godless doctrine of 
Eunomius, which is more to be shunned than all impiety, is next maintained in 
the order of his argument. And since every one who has been bewitched by this 
deceit has the phrase, "If He was, He has not been begotten, and if He has 
been begotten, He was not," ready upon his tongue for the maintenance of the 
doctrine that He Who made of nothing us and all the creation is Himself from 
nothing, and since the deceit obtains much support thereby, as men of feebler 
mind are pressed by this superficial bit of plausibility, and led to acquiesce 
in the blasphemy, we must needs not pass by this doctrinal "root of 
bitterness," lest, as the Apostle says, it "spring up and trouble us(1)" Now I 
say that we must first of all consider the actual argument itself, apart from 
our contest with our opponents, and thus afterwards proceed to the examination 
and refutation of what they have set forth. 

    One mark of the true Godhead is indicated by the words of Holy Scripture, 
which Moses learnt by the voice from heaven, when He heard Him Who said, "I am 
He that is(2)." We think it right, then, to believe that to be alone truly 
Divine which is represented as eternal and infinite in respect of being; and 
all that is contemplated therein is always the same, neither growing nor being 
consumed; so that if one should say of God, that formerly He was, but now is 
not, or that He now is, but formerly was not, we should consider each of the 
savings alike to be godless: for by both alike the idea of eternity is 
mutilated, being cut short on one side or the other by non-existence, whether 
one contemplates "nothing" as preceding "being(3)," or declares that "being" 
ends in "nothing"; and the frequent repetition of "first of all" or "last of 
all" concerning God's non-existence does not make amends for the impious 
conception touching the Divinity. For this reason we declare the maintenance 
of their doctrine as to the non-existence at some time of Him Who truly is, to 
be a denial and rejection of His true Godhead; and this on the ground that, on 
the one hand, He Who showed Himself to Moses by the light speaks of Himself as 
being, when He says, "I am He that is(2)," while on the other, Isaiah (being 
made, so to say, the instrument of Him Who spoke in him) says in the person of 
Him that is, "I am the first, and hereafter am I(4)," so that hereby, 
whichever way we consider it, we conceive eternity in God. And so, too, the 
word that was spoken to Manoah shows the fact that the Divinity is not 
comprehensible by the significance of His name, because, when Manoah asks to 
know His name, that, when the promise has come actually to pass, he may by 
name glorify his benefactor, 

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He says to him, "Why askest thou this? It also is wonderful(5)"; so that by 
this we learn that there is one name significant of the Divine Nature--the 
wonder, namely, that arises unspeakably in our hearts concerning It. So, too, 
great David, in his discourses with himself, proclaims the same truth, in the 
sense that all the creation was brought into being by God, while He alone 
exists always in the same manner, and abides for ever, where he says, "But 
Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail(6)." When we hear these 
sayings, and others like them, from men inspired by God, let us leave all that 
is not from eternity to the worship of idolaters, as a new thing alien from 
the true Godhead. For that which now is, and formerly was not, is clearly new 
and not eternal, and to have regard to any new object of worship is called by 
Moses the service of demons, when he says, "They sacrificed to devils and not 
to God, to gods whom their fathers knew not; new gods were they that came 
newly up(7)." If then everything that is new in worship is a service of 
demons, and is alien from the true Godhead, and if what is now, but was not 
always, is new and not eternal, we who have regard to that which is, 
necessarily reckon those who contemplate non-existence as attaching to Him Who 
is, and who say that "He once was not," among the worshippers of idols. For we 
may also see that the great John, when declaring in his own preaching the 
Only-begotten God, guards his own statement in every way, so that the 
conception of non-existence shall find no access to Him Who is. For he says(8) 
that He "was in the beginning," and "was with God," and "was God," and was 
light, and life, and truth, and all good things at all times, and never at any 
time failed to be anything that is excellent, Who is the fulness of all good, 
and is in the bosom of the Father. If then Moses lays down as a law for us 
some such mark of true Godhead as this, that we know nothing else of God but 
this one thing, that He is (for to this point the words, "I am He that 
is(9)"); while Isaiah in his preaching declares aloud the absolute infinity of 
Him Who is, defining the existence of God as having no regard to beginning or 
to end (for He Who says "I am the first, and hereafter am I," places no limit 
to His eternity in either direction, so that neither, if we look to the 
beginning, do we find any point marked since which He is, and beyond which He 
was not, nor, if 'we turn our thought to the future, can we cut short by any 
boundary the eternal progress of Him Who is),--and if the prophet David 
forbids us to worship any new and strange God(1) (both of which are involved 
in the heretical doctrine; "newness" is clearly indicated in that which is not 
eternal, and "strangeness" is alienation from the Nature of the very 
God),--if, I say, these things are so, we declare all the sophistical 
fabrication about the non-existence at some time of Him Who truly is, to be 
nothing else than a departure from Christianity, and a turning to idolatry. 
For when the Evangelist, in his discourse concerning the Nature of God, 
separates at all points non-existence from Him Who is, and, by his constant 
repetition of the word "was," carefully destroys the suspicion of 
non-existence, and calls Him the Only-begotten God, the Word of God, the Son 
of God, equal with God, and all such names, we have this judgment fixed and 
settled in us, that if the Only-begotten Son is God, we must believe that He 
Who is believed to be God is eternal. And indeed He is verily God, and 
assuredly is eternal, and is never at any time found to be non-existent. For 
God, as we have often said, if He now is, also assuredly always was, and if He 
once was not, neither does He now exist at all. But since even the enemies of 
the truth confess that the Son is and continually abides the Only-begotten 
God, we say this, that, being in the Father, He is not in Him in one respect 
only, but He is in Him altogether, in respect of all that the Father is 
conceived to be. As, then, being in the incorruptibility of the Father, He is 
incorruptible, good in His goodness, powerful in His might, and, as being in 
each of these attributes of special excellence which are conceived of the 
Father, He is that particular thing, so, also, being in His eternity, He is 
assuredly eternal. Now the eternity of the Father is marked by His never 
having taken His being from nonexistence, and never terminating His being in 
non-existence. He, therefore, Who hath all things that are the Father's(2), 
and is contemplated in all the glory of the Father, even as, being in the 
endlessness of the Father, He has no end, so, being in the unoriginateness of 
the Father, has, as the Apostle says, "no beginning of days(3)," but at once 
is "of the Father," and is regarded in the eternity of the Father:and in this 
respect, more especially, is seen the complete absence of divergence in the 
Likeness, as compared with Him Whose Likeness He is. And herein is His saying 
found true which tells us, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father(4)." 
Moreover, it is in this way that those words of the Apostle, that the Son is 
"the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person(5)," are 
best understood to have an excellent and close application. For 

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the Apostle conveys to those hearers who are unable, by the contemplation of 
purely intellectual objects, to elevate their thought to the height of the 
knowledge of God, a sort of notion of the truth, by means of things apparent 
to sense. For as the body of the sun is expressly imaged by the whole disc 
that surrounds it, and he who looks on the sun argues, by means of what he 
sees, the existence of the whole solid substratum, so, he says, the majesty of 
the Father is expressly imaged in the greatness of the power of the Son, that 
the one may be believed to be as great as the other is known to be: and again, 
as the radiance of light sheds its brilliancy from the whole of the sun's disc 
(for in the disc one part is not radiant, and the rest dim), so all that glory 
which the Father is, sheds its brilliancy from its whole extent by means of 
the brightness that comes from it, that is, by the true Light; and as the ray 
is of the sun (for there would be no ray if the sun were not), yet the sun is 
never conceived as existing by itself without the ray of brightness that is 
shed from it, so the Apostle delivering to us the continuity and eternity of 
that existence which the Only-begotten has of the Father, calls the Son "the 
brightness of His glory." 

   2. He then discusses the "willing" of the Father concerning the generation 
of the Son, and shows that the object of that good will is from eternity, 
which is the Son, existing in the father, and being closely related to the 
process of willing, as the ray to the flame, or the act of seeing to the eye. 

    After these distinctions on our part no one can well be longer in doubt 
how the Only-begotten at once is believed to be "of the Father," and is 
eternally, even if the one phrase does not at first sight seem to agree with 
the other,--that which declares Him to be "of the Father" with that which 
asserts His eternity. But if we are to confirm our statement by further 
arguments, it may be possible to apprehend the doctrine on this point by the 
aid of things cognizable by our senses. And let no one deride our statement, 
if it cannot find among existing things a likeness of the object of our 
enquiry such as may be in all respects sufficient for the presentation of the 
matter in hand by way of analogy and resemblance. For we should like to 
persuade those who say that the Father first willed and so proceeded to become 
a Father, and on this ground assert posteriority in existence as regards the 
Word, by whatever illustrations may make it possible, to turn to the orthodox 
view. Neither does this immediate conjunction exclude the "willing" of the 
Father, in the sense that He had a Son without choice, by some necessity of 
His Nature, nor does the "willing" separate the Son from the Father, coming in 
between them as a kind of interval: so that we neither reject from our 
doctrine the "willing" of the Begetter directed to the Son, as being, so to 
say, forced out by the conjunction of the Son's oneness with the Father, nor 
do we by any means break that inseparable connection, when "willing" is 
regarded as involved in the generation. For to our heavy and inert nature it 
properly belongs that the wish and the possession of a thing are not often 
present with us at the same moment; but now we wish for something we have not, 
and at another time we obtain what we do not wish to obtain. But, in the case 
of the simple and all-powerful Nature, all things are conceived together and 
at once, the willing of good as well as the possession of what He wills. For 
the good and the eternal will is contemplated as operating, indwelling, and 
co-existing in the eternal Nature, not arising in it from any separate 
principle, nor capable of being conceived apart from the object of will: for 
it is not possible that with God either the good will should not be, or the 
object of will should not accompany the act of will, since no cause can either 
bring it about that which befits the Father should not always be, or be any 
hindrance to the possession of the object of will. Since, then, the 
Only-begotten God is by nature the good (or rather beyond all good), and since 
the good does not fail to be the object of the Father's will, it is hereby 
clearly shown, both that the conjunction of the Son with the Father is without 
any intermediary, and also that the will, which is always present in the good 
Nature, is not forced out nor excluded by reason of this inseparable 
conjunction. And if any one is listening to my argument in no scoffing spirit, 
I should like to add to what I have already said something of the following 
kind. 

    Just as, if one were to grant (I speak, of course, hypothetically) the 
power of deliberate choice to belong to flame, it would be clear that the 
flame will at once upon its existence will that its radiance should shine 
forth from itself, and when it wills it will not be impotent (since, on the 
appearance of the flame, its natural power at once fulfils its will in the 
matter of the radiance), so that undoubtedly, if it be granted that the flame 
is moved by deliberate choice, we conceive the concurrence of all these things 
simultaneously--of the kindling of the fire, of its act of will concerning the 
radiance, and of the radiance itself; so that the movement by way of choice is 
no hindrance to the dignity of the existence of the radiance,--even so, 
according to the illustration we have spoken of, you will not, by confessing 
the good act of will 

203 

as existing in the Father, separate by that act of will the Son from the 
Father. For it is not reasonable to suppose that the act of willing that He 
should be, could be a hindrance to His immediately coming into being; but just 
as, in the eye, seeing and the will to see are, one an operation of nature, 
the other an impulse of choice, yet no delay is caused to the act of sight by 
the movement of choice in that particular direction(6),--(for each of these is 
regarded separately and by itself, not as being at all a hindrance to the 
existence of the other, but as both being somehow interexistent, the natural 
operation concurring with the choice, and the choice in turn not failing to be 
accompanied by the natural motion)--as, I say, perception naturally belongs to 
the eye, and the willing to see produces no delay in respect to actual sight, 
but one wills that it should have vision, and immediately what he wills is, so 
also in the case of that Nature' which is unspeakable and above all thought, 
our apprehension of all comes together simultaneously--of the eternal 
existence of the Father, and of an act of will concerning the Son, and of the 
Son Himself, Who is, as John  says, "in the beginning," and is not conceived 
as coming after the beginning. Now the beginning of all is the Father; but in 
this beginning the Son also is declared to be, being in His Nature that very 
thing which the Beginning is. For the Beginning is God, and the Word Who "was 
in the Beginning." is God. As then the phrase "the beginning" points to 
eternity, John well conjoins "the Word in the Beginning," saying that the Word 
was in It; asserting, I suppose, this fact to the end that the first idea 
present to the mind of his hearer may not be "the Beginning" alone by itself, 
but that, before this has been impressed upon him, there should also be 
presented to his mind, together with the Beginning the Word Who was in It, 
entering with It into the hearer's understanding, and being present to his 
heating at the same time with the Beginning. 

   3. Then, thus passing over what relates to the essence of the Son as having 
been already discussed, he treats of the sense involved in "generation," 
saying that there are diverse generations, those effected by matter and art, 
and of buildings,--and that by succession of animals,--and those by efflux, as 
by the sun and its beam. the lamp and its radiance, scents and ointments and 
the quality diffused by them,--and the ward produced by the mind; and cleverly 
discusses generation(7) from rotten wood; and from the condensation of fire, 
and countless other causes. 

    Now that we have thus thoroughly scrutinized our doctrine, it may perhaps 
be time to set forth and to consider the opposing statement, examining it side 
by side in comparison with our own opinion. He states it thus:--" For while 
there are," he says, "two statements which we have made, the one, that the 
essence of the Only-begotten was not before its own generation, the other 
that, being generated, it was before all things, he s does not prove either of 
these statements to be untrue; for he did not venture to say that He was 
before that supreme(9) generation and formation, seeing that he is opposed at 
once by the Nature of the Father, and the judgment of sober-minded men. For 
what sober man could admit the Son to be and to be begotten before that 
supreme generation? and He Who is without generation needs not generation in 
order to His being what He is." Well, whether he speaks truly, when he says 
that our master s opposed his antitheses to no purpose, all may surely be 
aware who have been conversant with that writer's works. But for my own part 
(for I think that the refutation of his calumny on this matter is a small step 
towards the exposure of his malice), I will leave the task of showing that 
this point was not passed over by our master without discussion, and turn my 
argument to the discussion, as far as in me lies, of the points now advanced. 
He says that he has in his own discourse spoken of two matters,--one, that the 
essence of the Only-begotten was not before Its own generation, the other, 
that, being generated, It was before all things. Now I think that by what we 
have already said, the fact has been sufficiently shown that no new essence 
was begotten by the Father besides that which is contemplated in the Father 
Himself, and that there is no need for us to be entangled in a contest with 
blasphemy of this kind, as if the argument were now propounded to us for the 
first time; and further, that the real force of our argument must be directed 
to one point, I mean to his horrible and blasphemous utterance, which clearly 
states concerning God the Word that "He was not." Moreover, as our argument in 
the foregoing discourse has already to some extent dealt with the question of 
his blasphemy, it would perhaps be superfluous again to establish by like 
considerations what we have proved already. For it was to this end that we 
made those former statements, that by the earlier impression upon our hearers 
of an orthodox mode of thought, the blasphemy 

204 

of our adversaries, who assert that non-existence preceded existence in the 
case of the Only-begotten God, might be more manifest. 

    It seems at this point well to investigate in our argument, by a more 
careful examination, the actual significance of "generation." That this name 
presents to us the fact of being as the result of some cause is clear to every 
one, and about this point there is, I suppose, no need to dispute. But since 
the account to be given of things which exist as the result of cause is 
various, I think it proper that this matter should be cleared up in our 
discourse by some sort of scientific division. Of things, then, which are the 
result of something, we understand the  varieties to be as follows. Some are 
the result of matter and art, as the structure of buildings and of other 
works, coming into being by means of their respective matter, and these are 
directed by some art that accomplishes the thing proposed, with a view to the 
proper aim of the results produced. Others are the results of matter and 
nature; for the generations of animals are the building(1) of nature, who 
carries on her own operation by means of their material bodily subsistence. 
Others are the result of material efflux, in which cases the antecedent 
remains in its natural condition, while that which flows from it is conceived 
separately, as in the case of the sun and its beam, or the lamp and its 
brightness, or of scents and ointments and the quality they emit; for these, 
while they remain in themselves without diminution, have at the same time, 
each concurrently with itself, that natural property which they emit: as the 
sun its beam, the lamp its brightness, the scents the perfume produced by them 
in the air. There is also another species of "generation" besides these, in 
which the cause is immaterial and incorporeal, but the generation is an object 
of sense and takes place by corporeal means;--I speak of the word which is 
begotten by the hind: for the mind, being itself incorporeal, brings forth the 
word by means of the organs of sense. All these varieties of generation we 
mentally include, as it were, in one general view. For all the wonders that 
are wrought by nature, which changes the bodies of some animals to something 
of a different kind, or produces some animals from a change in liquids, or a 
corruption of seed, or the rotting of wood, or out of the condensed mass of 
fire transforms the cold vapour that issues from the firebrands, shut off in 
the heart of the fire, to produce an animal' which they call the 
salamander,--these, even if they seem to be outside the limits we have laid 
down, are none the less included among the cases we have mentioned. For it is 
by means of bodies that nature fashions these varied forms of animals; for it 
is such and such a change of body, disposed by nature in this or that 
particular way, which produces this or that particular animal; and this is not 
a distinct species of generation besides that which is accomplished as the 
result of nature and matter. 

   4. He further shows the operations of God to be expressed by human 
illustrations; for what hands and fief and the other parts of the body with 
which men work are, that, in the case of God, the will alone is, in place of 
these. And so also arises the divergence of generation; wherefore He is called 
Only-begotten, because He has no community with other generation such as is 
observed in creation(2), but in that He is called the "brightness of glory," 
and the "savour of ointment," He shows the close conjunction and co-eternity 
of His Nature with the Father(3). 

    Now these modes of generation being well known to men, the loving 
dispensation of the Holy Spirit, in delivering to us the Divine mysteries, 
conveys its instruction on those matters which transcend language by means of 
what is within our capacity, as it does also constantly elsewhere, when it 
portrays the Divinity in bodily terms, making mention, in speaking concerning 
God, of His eye, His eyelids, His ear, His fingers, His hand, His right hand, 
His arm, His feet, His shoes(4), and the like,--none of which things is 
apprehended to belong in its primary sense to the Divine Nature,--but turning 
its teaching to what we can easily perceive, it describes by, terms well worn 
in human use, facts that are beyond every name, while by each of the terms 
employed concerning God we are led analogically to some more exalted 
conception. In this way, then, it employs the numerous forms of generation to 
present to us, from the inspired teaching, the unspeakable existence of the 
Only-begotten, taking just so much from each as may be reverently admitted 
into our conceptions concerning God. For as its mention of "fingers," "hand," 
and "arm," in speaking of God, does not by the phrase portray the structure of 
the limb out of bones and sinews and flesh and ligaments, but signifies by 
such an expression His effective and operative power, and as it indicates by 
each of the other words of this kind those conceptions concerning God which 
correspond to them, not admitting the corporeal senses of the words, so also 
it speaks indeed of the forms of these modes of coming into being as applied 
to the Divine 

205 

Nature, yet does not speak in that sense which our customary knowledge enables 
us to understand. For when it speaks of the formative power, it calls that 
particular energy by the name of "generation," because the word expressive of 
Divine power must needs descend to our lowliness, yet it does not indicate all 
that is associated with formative generation among ourselves,--neither place 
nor time nor preparation of material, nor the cooperation of instruments, nor 
the purpose in the things produced, but it leaves these out of sight, and 
greatly and loftily claims for God the generation of the things that are, 
where it says, "He spake and they were begotten, He commanded and they were 
created(5)." Again, when it expounds that unspeakable and transcendent 
existence which the Only-begotten has from the Father,  because human poverty 
is incapable of the truths that are too high for speech or thought, it uses 
our language here also, and calls Him by the name of "Son,"--a name which our 
ordinary use applies to those who are produced by matter and nature. But just 
as the word, which tells us in reference to God of the "generation" of the 
creation, did not add the statement that it was generated by the aid of any 
material, declaring that its material substance, its place, its time, and all 
the like, had their existence in the power of His will, so here too, in 
speaking of the "Son," it leaves out of sight both all other things which 
human nature sees in earthly generation (passions, I mean, and dispositions, 
and the cooperation of time and the need of place, and especially matter), 
without all which earthly generation as a result of nature does not occur. Now 
every such conception of matter and interval being excluded from the sense of 
the word "Son," nature alone remains, and hereby in the word "Son "is declared 
concerning the Only-begotten the close and true character of His manifestation 
from the Father. And since this particular species of generation did not 
suffice to produce in us an adequate idea of the unspeakable existence of the 
Only-begotten, it employs also another species of generation, that which is 
the result of efflux, to express the Divine Nature of the Son, and calls Him 
"the brightness of glory(6)," the "savour of ointment(7)," the "breath of 
God(8)," which our accustomed use, in the scientific discussion we have 
already made, calls material efflux. But just as in the previous cases neither 
the making of creation nor the significance of the word "Son" admitted time, 
or matter, or place, or passion, so here also the phrase, purifying the sense 
of "brightness" and the other terms from every material conception, and 
employing only that element in this particular species of generation which is 
suitable to the Divinity, points by the force of this mode of expression to 
the truth that He is conceived as being both from Him and with Him. For 
neither does the word "breath" present to us dispersion into the air from the 
underlying matter, nor "savour" the transference that takes place from the 
quality of the ointment to the air, nor "brightness" the efflux by means of 
rays from the body of the sun; but this only, as we have said, is manifested 
by this particular mode of generation, that He is conceived to be of Him and 
also with Him, no intermediate interval existing between the Father and that 
Son Who is of Him. And since, in its abundant loving-kindness, the grace of 
the Holy Spirit has ordered that our conceptions concerning the Only-begotten 
Son should arise in us from many sources, it has added also the remaining 
species of things contemplated in generation,--that, I mean, which is the 
result of mind and word. But the lofty John uses especial foresight that the 
hearer may not by any means by inattention or feebleness of thought fall into 
the common understanding of "Word," so that the Son should be supposed to be 
the voice of the Father. For this reason he prepares us at his first 
proclamation to regard the Word as in essence, and not in any essence foreign 
to or dissevered from that essence whence It has Its being, but in that first 
and blessed Nature. For this is what he teaches us when he says the Word "was 
in the beginning(9)," and "was with God(9)," being Himself also both God and 
all else that the "Beginning" is. For thus it is that he makes his discourse 
on the Godhead, touching the eternity of the Only-begotten. Seeing then that 
these modes of generation (those, I mean, which are the result of cause) are 
ordinarily known among us, and are employed by Holy Scripture for our 
instruction on the subjects before us, in such a way as it might be expected 
that each of them would be applied to the presentation of Divine conceptions, 
let the reader of our argument "judge righteous judgement(1)," whether any of 
the assertions that heresy makes have any force against the truth. 

   5. Then, after showing that the Person of the Only-begotten and Maker of 
things has no beginning, as have the things that were made by Him, as Eunomius 
says, but that the Only-begotten is without beginning and eternal, and has no 
community, either of essence or of names, with the creation, but is 
co-existent with the Father from everlasting, being, as the all-excel- 

206 

lent Wisdom says, "the beginning and end and midst of the times," and after 
making many observations on the Godhead and eternity of the Only-begotten, and 
also concerning souls and angels, and life and death, he concludes the book. 

    I will now once more subjoin the actual language of my opponent, word for 
word. It runs thus:--"While there are," he says, "two statements which we have 
made, the one, that the essence of the Only-begotten was not before its own 
generation, the other, that, being generated, it was before all things--" What 
kind of generation does our dogmatist propose to us? Is it one of which we may 
fittingly think and speak in regard to God? And who is so godless as to 
pre-suppose non-existence in God? But it is clear that he has in view this 
material generation of ours, and is making the lower nature the teacher of his 
conceptions concerning the Only-begotten God, and since an ox or an ass or a 
camel is not before its own generation, he thinks it proper to say even of the 
Only-begotten God that which the course of the lower nature presents to our 
view in the case of the animals, without thinking, corporeal theologian that 
he is, of this fact, that the predicate "Only-begotten", applied to God, 
signifies by the very word itself that which is not in common with all 
begetting, and is peculiar to Him. How could the term "Only-begotten" be used 
of this "generation," if it had community and identity of meaning with other 
generation? That there is something unique and exceptional to be understood in 
His case, which is not to be remarked in other generation, is distinctly and 
suitably expressed by the appellation of "Only-begotten"; as, were any element 
of the lower generation conceived in it, He Who in respect of any of the 
attributes of His generation was placed on a level with other things that are 
begotten would no longer be "Only-begotten." For if the same things are to be 
said of Him which are said of the other things that come into being by 
generation, the definition will transform the sense of "Only-begotten" to 
signify a kind of relationship involving brotherhood. If then the sense of 
"Only-begotten" points to absence of mixture and community with the rest. of 
generated things, we shall not admit that anything which we behold in the 
lower generation is also to be conceived in the case of that existence which 
the Son has from the Father. But non-existence before generation is proper to 
all things that exist by generation: therefore this is foreign to the special 
character of the Only-begotten, to which the name "Only-begotten" bears 
witness that there attaches nothing belonging to the mode of that form of 
common generation 

which Eunomius misapprehends. Let this materialist and friend of the senses be 
persuaded therefore to correct the error of his conception by the other forms 
of generation. What will you say when you hear of the "brightness of glory" or 
of the "savour of ointment(2)?" That the "brightness" was not before its own 
generation? But if you answer thus, you will surely admit that neither did the 
"glory" exist, nor the "ointment": for it is not possible that the "glory" 
should be conceived as having existed by itself, dark and lustreless, or the 
"ointment" without producing its sweet breath: so that if the "brightness" 
"was not," the "glory" also surely "was not," and the "savour" being 
non-existent, there is also proved the non-existence of the "ointment." But if 
these examples taken from Scripture excite any man's fear, on the ground that 
they do not accurately present to us the majesty of the Only-begotten, because 
neither is essentially the same with its substratum--neither the exhalation 
with the ointment, nor the beam with the sun--let the true Word correct his 
fear, Who was in the Beginning and is all that the Beginning is, and existent 
before all; since John so declares in his preaching, "And the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God(3)." If then the Father is God and the Son is God, 
what doubt still remains with regard to the perfect Divinity of the 
Only-begotten, when by the sense of the word "Son" is acknowledged the close 
relationship of Nature, by "brightness" the conjunction and inseparability, 
and by the appellation of "God," applied alike to the Father and the Son, 
their absolute equality, while the "express image," contemplated in reference 
to the whole Person(4) of the Father, marks the absence of any defect in the 
Son's proper greatness, and the "form of God" indicates His complete identity 
by showing in itself all those marks by which the Godhead is betokened. 

    Let us now set forth Eunomius' statement once more. "He was not," he says, 
"before His own generation." Who is it of Whom he says "He was not"? Let him 
declare the Divine names by which He Who, according to Eunomius, "once was 
not," is called. He will say, I suppose, "light," and "blessedness," "life" 
and "incorruptibility," and "righteousness" and "sanctification," and "no 
power," and "truth," and the like. He who says, then, that "He was not before 
His generation," absolutely proclaims this,--that when He "was not" there was 
no truth, no life, no light, no power, no incorruptibility, no other of those 
pre-eminent qualities which are conceived of Him: and, 

207 

what is still more marvellous and still more difficult for impiety to face, 
there was no "brightness," no "express image." For in saying that there was no 
brightness, there is surely maintained also the non-existence of the radiating 
power, as one may see in the illustration afforded by the lamp. For he who 
speaks, of the ray of the lamp indicates also that the lamp shines, and he who 
says that the ray "is not," signifies also the extinction of that which gives 
light: so that when the Son is said not to be thereby is also maintained as a 
necessary consequence the non-existence of the Father. For if the one is 
related to the other by way of conjunction, according to the Apostolic 
testimony--the "brightness" to the "glory," the "express image" to the 
"Person," the "Wisdom" to God--he who says that one of the things so conjoined 
"is not," surely by his abolition of the one abolishes also that which 
remains; so that if the "brightness" "was not," it is acknowledged that 
neither did the illuminating nature exist, and if the "express image" had no 
existence, neither did the Person imaged exist, and if the wisdom and power of 
God "was not," it is surely acknowledged that He also was not, Who is not 
conceived by Himself without wisdom and power. If, then, the Only-begotten 
God, as Eunomius says, "was not before His generation," and Christ is "the 
power of God and the wisdom of God(5)," and the "express image"(6) and the 
"brightness(6)," neither surely did the Father exist, Whose power and wisdom 
and express image and brightness the Son is: for it is not possible to 
conceive by reason either a Person without express image, or glory without 
radiance, or God without wisdom, or a Maker without hands, or a Beginning 
without the Word(7), or a Father without a Son; but all such things, alike by 
those who confess and by those who deny, are manifestly declared to be in 
mutual union, and by the abolition of one the other also disappears with it. 
Since then they maintain that the Son (that is, the "brightness of the 
glory,") "was  not" before He was begotten, and since logical consequence 
involves also, together with the non-existence of the brightness, the 
abolition  of the glory, and the Father is the glory whence came the 
brightness of the Only-begotten Light, let these men who are wise over-much 
consider that they are manifestly supporters of the Epicurean doctrines, 
preaching atheism under the guise of Christianity. Now since the logical 
consequence is shown to be one of two absurdities, either that we should say 
that God does nor exist at all, or that we should say that His being was not 
unoriginate, let them choose which they like of the two courses before 
them,--either to be called atheist, or to cease saying that the essence of the 
Father is un-originate. They would avoid, I suppose. being reckoned atheists. 
It remains, therefore, that they maintain that God is not eternal. And if the 
course of what has been proved forces them to this, what becomes of their 
varied and irreversible conversions of names? What becomes of that invincible 
compulsion of their syllogisms, which sounded so fine to the ears of old 
women, with its opposition of "Generated" and "Ungenerate"? 

    Enough, however, of these matters. But it might be well not to leave his 
next point unanswered; yet let us pass over in silence the comic interlude, 
where our clever orator shows his youthful conceit, whether in jest or in 
earnest, under the impression that he will thereby have an advantage in his 
argument. For certainly no one will force us to join either with those whose 
eyes are set askance in distorting our sight, or with those who are stricken 
with strange disease in being contorted, or in their bodily leaps and plunges. 
We shall pity them, but we shall not depart from our settled state of mind. He 
says, then, turning his discourse upon the subject to our master, as if he 
were really engaging him face to face, "Thou shalt be taken in thine own 
snare." For as Basil had said s that what is good is always present with God 
Who is over all, and that it is good to be the Father of such a Son,--that so 
what is good was never absent from Him, nor was it the Father's will to be 
without the Son, and when He willed He did not lack the power, but having the 
power and the will to be in the mode in which it seemed good to Him, He also 
always possessed the Son by reason of His always willing that which is good 
(for this is the direction in which the intention of our father's remarks 
tends), Eunomius pulls this in pieces beforehand, and puts forward to 
overthrow what has been said some such argument as this, introduced from his 
extraneous philosophy:--." What will become of you," he says, "if one of those 
who have had experience of such arguments should say,(4) If to create is good 
and agreeable to the Nature of God, how is it that what is good and agreeable 
to His Nature was not present with Him unoriginately, seeing that God is 
unoriginate? and that when there was no hindrance of ignorance or impediment 
of weakness or of age in the matter of creation,"--and all the rest that he 
collects together and pours out upon himself,--for I may not say, upon God. 
Well, if it were possible for our master to answer the question in person, he 
would have shown Eunomius what would have become of him, 

208 

as he asked, by setting forth the Divine mystery with that tongue that was 
taught of God, and by scourging the champion of deceit with his refutations, 
so that it would have been made clear to all men what a difference there is 
between a minister of the mysteries of Christ and a ridiculous buffoon or a 
setter-forth of new and absurd doctrines. But since he, as the Apostle says, 
"being dead, speaketh(9)" to God, while the other puts forth such a challenge 
as though there were no one to answer him, even though an answer from us may 
not have equal force when compared with the words of the great Basil, we shall 
yet boldly say this in answer to the questioner:--Your own argument, put forth 
to overthrow our statement, is a testimony that in the charges we make against 
your impious doctrine we speak truly. For there is no other point we blame so 
much as this, that you(1) think there is no difference between the Lord of 
creation and the general body of creation, and what you now allege is a 
maintaining of the very things which we find fault with. For if you are bound 
to attach exactly what you see in creation also to the Only-begotten God, our 
contention has gained its end: your own statements proclaim the absurdity of 
the doctrine, and it is manifest to all, both that we keep our argument in the 
straight way of truth, and that your conception of the Only-begotten God is 
such as you have of the rest of the creation. 

    Concerning whom was the controversy? Was it not concerning the 
Only-begotten God, the Maker of all the creation, whether He always was, or 
whether He came into being afterwards as an addition to His Father? What then 
do our master's words say on this matter? That it is irreverent to believe 
that what is naturally good was not in God: for that he saw no cause by which 
it was probable that the good was not always present with Him Who is good, 
either for lack of power or for weakness of will. What does he who contends 
against these statements say? "If you allow that God the Word is to be 
believed eternal, you must allow the same of the things that have been 
created"--(How well he knows how to distinguish in his argument the nature of 
the creatures and the majesty of God! How well he knows about each, what 
befits it, what he may piously think concerning God, what concerning the 
creation!)--"if the Maker," he says, "begins from the time of His making: for 
there is nothing else by which we can mark the beginning of things that have 
been made, if time does not define by its own interval the beginnings and the 
endings of the things that come into being." 

    On this ground he says that the Maker of time must commence His existence 
from a like beginning. Well, the creation has the ages for its beginning, but 
what beginning can you conceive of the Maker of the ages? If any one should 
say, "The 'beginning' which is mentioned in the Gospel"--it is the Father Who 
is there signified, and the confession of the Son together with Him is there 
pointed to, nor can it be that He Who is in the Father(2), as the Lord says, 
can begin His being in Him from any particular point. And if any one speaks of 
another beginning besides this, let him tell us the name by which he marks 
this beginning, as none can be apprehended before the establishment of the 
ages. Such a statement, therefore. will not move us a whit from the orthodox 
conception concerning the Only-begotten, even if old women do applaud the 
proposition as a sound one. For we abide by what has been determined from the 
beginning, having our doctrine firmly based on truth, to wit, that all things 
which the orthodox doctrine assumes that we assert concerning the 
Only-begotten God have no kindred with the creation, but the marks which 
distinguish the Maker of all and His works are separated by a wide interval. 
If indeed the Son had in any other respect communion with the creation, we 
surely ought to say that He did not diverge from it even in the manner of His 
existence. But if the creation has no share in such things as are all those 
which we learn concerning the Son, we must surely of necessity say that in 
this matter also He has no communion with it. For the creation was not in the 
beginning, and was not with God, and was not, God, nor life, nor light, nor 
resurrection, nor the rest of the Divine names, as truth, righteousness, 
sanctification, Judge, just, Maker of all things, existing before the ages, 
for ever and ever; the creation is not the brightness of the glory, nor the 
express image of the Person, nor the likeness of goodness, nor grace, nor 
power, nor truth, nor salvation, nor redemption; nor do we find any one at all 
of those names which are employed by Scripture for the glory of the 
Only-begotten, either belonging to the creation or employed concerning 
it,--not to speak of those more exalted words, "I am in the Father, and the 
Father in Me(2)," and, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father(3), and, 
"None hath seen the Son, save the Father(4)." If indeed our doctrine allowed 
us to claim for the creation things so many and so great as these, he might 
have been right in thinking that we ought to attach what we observe-in it to 
our conceptions of the Only-begotten also, 
since the transfer would be from kindred subjects to one nearly allied. But if 
all these concepts and names involve communion with the Father, while they 
transcend our notions of the creation, does not our clever and sharp-witted 
friend slink away in shame at discussing the nature of the Lord of the 
Creation by the aid of what he observes in creation, without being aware that 
the marks which distinguish the creation are of a different sort? The ultimate 
division of all that exists is made by the line between "created" and 
"uncreated," the one being regarded as a cause of what has come into being, 
the other as coming into being thereby. Now the created nature and the Divine 
essence being thus divided, and admitting no intermixture in respect of their 
distinguishing properties, we must by no means conceive both by means of 
similar terms, nor seek in the idea of their nature for the same 
distinguishing marks in things that are thus separated. Accordingly, as the 
nature that is in the creation, as the phrase of the most excellent Wisdom 
somewhere tells us, exhibits "the beginning, ending, and midst of the 
times(5)" in itself, and extends concurrently with all temporal intervals, we 
take as a sort of characteristic of the subject this property, that in it we 
see some beginning of its formation, look on its midst, and extend our 
expectations to its end. For we have learnt that the heaven and the earth were 
not from eternity, and will not last to eternity, and thus it is hence clear 
that those things are both started from some beginning, and will surely cease 
at some end. But the Divine Nature, being limited in no respect, but passing 
all limitations on every side in its infinity, is far removed from those marks 
which we find in creation. For that power which is without interval, without 
quantity, without circumscription, having in itself all the ages and all the 
creation that has taken place in them, and over-passing at all points, by 
virtue of the infinity of its own nature, the unmeasured extent of the ages, 
either has no mark which indicates its nature, or has one of an entirely 
different sort, and not that which the creation has. Since, then, it belongs 
to the creation to have a beginning, that will be alien from the uncreated 
nature which belongs to the creation. For if any one should venture to suppose 
the existence of the Only-begotten Son to be, like the creation, from any 
beginning comprehensible by us, he must certainly append to his statement 
concerning the Son the rest also of the sequence(6); for it is not possible to 
avoid acknowledging, together with the beginning, that also which follows from 
it. For just as if one were to admit some person to be a man in all(7) the 
properties of his nature, he would observe that in this confession he declared 
him to be an animal and rational, and whatever else is conceived of man, so by 
the same reasoning, if we should understand any of the properties of creation 
to be present in the Divine essence, it will no longer be open to us to 
refrain from attaching to that pure Nature the rest of the list of the 
attributes contemplated therein. For the "beginning" will demand by force and 
compulsion that which follows it; for the "beginning," thus conceived, is a 
beginning of what comes after it, in such a sense, that if they are, it is, 
and if the things connected with it are removed, the antecedent also would not 
remain(8). Now as the book of Wisdom speaks of "midst" and "end" as well as of 
"beginning," if we assume in the Nature of the Only-begotten, according to the 
heretical dogma, some beginning of existence defined by a certain mark of 
time, the book of Wisdom will by no means allow us to refrain from subjoining 
to the "beginning "a "midst" and an "end" also. If this should be done we 
shall find, as the result of our arguments, that the Divine word shows us that 
the Deity is mortal. For if, according to the book of Wisdom, the "end" is a 
necessary consequence of the "beginning," and the idea of "midst" is involved 
in that of extremes, he who allows one of these also potentially maintains the 
others, and lays down bounds of measure and limitation for the infinite 
Nature. And if this is impious and absurd, the giving a beginning to that 
argument which ends in impiety deserves equal, or even greater censure; and 
the beginning of this absurd doctrine was seen to be the supposition that the 
life of the Son was circumscribed by some beginning. Thus one of two courses 
is before them: either they must revert to sound doctrine under the compulsion 
of the foregoing arguments, and contemplate Him Who is of the Father in union 
with the Father's eternity, or if they do not like this, they must limit the 
eternity of the Son in both ways, and reduce the limitless character of His 
life to non-existence by a beginning and an end. And, granted that the nature 
both of souls and of the angels has no end, and is no way hindered from going 
on to eternity, by the fact of its being created, and having the beginning
of its existence from some point of time, so that our adversaries can use 
this fact to assert a parallel in the case of Christ, in the sense that He is 
not from eternity, and yet endures everlastingly,--let any one who advances 
this argument also consider the following point, how widely the Godhead 
differs from the creation in its special attributes. For to the Godhead it 
properly belongs to lack no conceivable thing which is regarded as good, while 
the creation attains excellence by partaking in something better than itself; 
and further, not only had a beginning of its being, but also is found to be 
constantly in a state of beginning to be in excellence, by its continual 
advance in improvement, since it never halts at what it has reached, but all 
that it has acquired(9) becomes by participation a beginning of its ascent to 
something still greater, and it never ceases, in Paul's phrase, "reaching 
forth to the things that are before," and "forgetting the things that are 
behind(1)." Since, then, the Godhead is very life, and the Only-begotten God 
is God, and life, and truth, and every conceivable thing that is lofty and 
Divine, while the creation draws from Him its supply of good, it may hence be 
evident that if it is in life by partaking of life, it will surely, if it 
ceases from this participation, cease from life also. If they dare, then, to 
say also of the Only-begotten God those things which it is true to say of the 
creation, let them say this too, along with the rest, that He has a beginning 
of His being like the creation, and abides in life after the likeness of 
souls. But if He is the very life, and needs not to have life in Himself ab 
extra, while all other things are not life, but are merely participants in 
life, what constrains us to cancel, by reason of what we see in creation, the 
eternity of the Son? For that which is always unchanged as regards its nature, 
admits of no contrary, and is incapable of change to any other condition: 
while things whose nature is on the boundary line have a tendency that shifts 
either way, inclining at will to what they find attractive(2). If, then, that 
which is truly life is contemplated in the Divine and transcendent nature, the 
decadence thereof will surely, as it seems, end in the opposite state(3). 

    Now the meaning of "life" and "death" is manifold, and not always 
understood in the same way. For as regards the flesh, the energy and motion of 
the bodily senses is called "life," and their extinction and dissolution is 
named "death." But in the case of the intellectual nature, approximation to 
the Divine is the true life, and decadence therefrom is named "death": for 
which reason the original evil, the devil, is called both "death," and the 
inventor of death: and he is also said by the Apostle to have the power of 
death(4). As, then, we obtain, as has been said, from the Scriptures, a 
twofold conception of death, He Who is truly unchangeable and immutable "alone 
hath immortality," and dwells in light that cannot be attained or approached 
by the darkness of wickedness(5): but all things that participate in death, 
being far removed from immortality by their contrary tendency, if they fall 
away from that which is good, would, by the mutability of their nature, admit 
community with the worse condition, which is nothing else than death, having a 
certain correspondence with the death of the body. For as in that case the 
extinction of the activities of nature is called death, so also, in the case 
of the intellectual being, the absence of motion towards the good is death and 
departure from life; so that what we perceive in the bodiless creation(6) does 
not clash with our argument, which refutes the doctrine of heresy. For that 
form of death which corresponds to the intellectual nature (that is, 
separation from God, Whom we call Life) is, potentially, not separated even 
from their nature; for their emergence from non-existence shows mutability of 
nature; and that to which change is in affinity is hindered from participation 
in the contrary state by the grace of Him Who strengthens it: it does not 
abide in the good by its own nature: and such a thing is not eternal. If, 
then, one really speaks truth in saying that we ought not to estimate the 
Divine essence and the created nature in the same way, nor to circumscribe the 
being of the Son of God by any beginning, test, if this be granted, the other 
attributes of creation should enter in together with our acknowledgment of 
this one, the absurd character of the teaching of that man, who employs the 
attributes of creation to separate the Only-begotten God from the eternity of 
the Father, is clearly shown. For as none other of the marks which 
characterize the creation appears in the Maker of the creation, so neither is 
the fact that the creation has its existence from some beginning a proof that 
the  Son was not always in the Father,--that Son, Who is Wisdom, and Power, 
and Light, and Life, and all that is conceived of in the bosom of the Father. 

xxxxxx
                                 BOOK IX 

   1. The ninth book declares that Eunomius' account of the Nature of God is, 
up to a certain point, well stated. Then in succession he mixes up with his 
own argument, on account of its affinity, the expression from Philo's 
writings, "God is before all other things, which are generated," adding also 
the expression, "He has dominion over His own power." Detesting the excessive 
absurdity, Gregory strikingly confutes it(1). 

    BUT he now turns to loftier language, and elevating himself and puffing 
himself up with empty conceit, he takes in hand to say something worthy of 
God's majesty. "For God," he says, "being the most highly exalted of all 
goods, and the mightiest of all, and free from all necessity--" Nobly does the 
gallant man bring his discourse, like some ship without ballast, driven 
unguided by the waves of deceit, into the harbour of truth! "God is the most 
highly exalted of all goods." Splendid acknowledgment! I suppose he will not 
bring a charge of unconstitutional conduct against the great John, by whom, in 
his lofty proclamation, the Only-begotten is declared to be God, Who was with 
God and was God(2). If he, then, the proclaimer of the Godhead of the 
Only-begotten, is worthy of credit, and if "God is the most highly exalted of 
all goods," it follows that the Son is alleged by the enemies of His glory, to 
be "the most highly exalted of all goods." And as this phrase is also applied 
to the Father, the superlative force of "most highly exalted" admits of no 
diminution or addition by way of comparison. But, now that we have obtained 
from the adversary's testimony these statements for the proof of the glory of 
the Only-begotten, we must add in support of sound doctrine his next statement 
too. He says, "God, the most highly exalted of all goods, being without 
hindrance from nature, or constraint from cause, or impulse from need, begets 
and creates according to the supremacy of His own authority, having His will 
as power sufficient for the constitution of the things produced. If, then, all 
good is according to His will, He not only determines that which is made as 
good, but also the time of its being. good, if, that is to say, as one may 
assume, it is an indication of weakness to make what one does not will(3)." We 
shall borrow so far as this, for the confirmation of the orthodox doctrines, 
from our adversaries' statement, percolated as that statement is by vile and 
counterfeit clauses. Yes, He Who has, by the supremacy of His authority, power 
in His will that suffices for the constitution of the things that are made, He 
Who created all things without hindrance from nature or compulsion from cause, 
does determine not only that which is made as good, but also the time of its 
being good. But He Who made all things is, as the gospel proclaims, the 
Only-begotten God. He, at that time when He willed it, did make the creation; 
at that time, by means of the circumambient essence, He surrounded with the 
body of heaven all that universe that is shut off within its compass: at that 
time, when He thought it well that this should be, He displayed the dry land 
to view, He enclosed the waters in their hollow places; vegetation, fruits, 
the generation of animals, the formation of man, appeared at that time when 
each of these things seemed expedient to the wisdom of the Creator:--and He 
Who made all these things (I will once more repeat my statement) is the 
Only-begotten God Who made the ages. For if the interval of the ages has 
preceded existing things, it is proper to employ the temporal adverb, and to 
say "He then willed" and "He then made": but since the age was not, since no 
conception of interval is present to our minds in regard to that Divine Nature 
which is not measured by quantity or by interval, the force of temporal 
expressions must surely be void. Thus to say that the creation has had given 
to it a beginning in time, according to the good pleasure of the wisdom of Him 
Who made all things, does not go beyond probability: but to regard the Divine 
Nature itself as being in a kind of extension measured by intervals, belongs 
only to those who have been trained in the new 

wisdom. What a point is this, embedded in his words, which I intentionally 
passed by in my eagerness to reach the subject! I will now resume it, and read 
it to show our author's cleverness. 

    "For He Who is most highly exalted in God Himself(4) before all other 
things that are generated," he says, "has dominion over His own power." The 
phrase has been transferred by our pamphleteer word for word from the Hebrew 
Philo to his own argument, and Eunomius' theft will be proved by Philo's works 
themselves to any one who cares about it. I note the fact, however, at 
present, not so much to reproach our speech-monger with the poverty of his own 
arguments and thoughts, as with the intention of showing to my readers the 
close relationship between the doctrine of Eunomius and the reasoning of the 
Jews. For this phrase of Philo would not have fitted word for word into his 
argument had there not been a sort of kindred between the intention of the one 
and the other. In the Hebrew author you may find the phrase in this form: 
"God, before all other things that are generated"; and what follows, "has 
dominion over His own power," is an addition of the new Judaism. But what an 
absurdity this involves an examination of the saying will clearly show. "God," 
he says, "has dominion over His own power." Tell me, what is He? over what has 
He dominion? Is He something else than His own power, and Lord of a power that 
is something else than Himself? Then power is overcome by the absence of 
power. For that which is something else than power is surely not power, and 
thus He is found to have dominion over power just in so far as He is not 
power. Or again, God, being power, has another power in Himself, and has 
dominion over the one by the other. And what contest or schism is there, that 
God should divide the power that exists in Himself, and overthrow one section 
of His power by the other. I suppose He could not have dominion over His own 
power without the assistance to that end of some greater and more violent 
power! Such is Eunomius' God: a being with double nature, or composite, 
dividing Himself against Himself, having one power out of harmony with 
another, so that by one He is urged to disorder, and by the other restrains 
this discordant motion. Again, with what intent does He dominate the power 
that urges on to generation? lest some evil should arise  if generation be not 
hindered? or rather let i him explain this in the first place,--what is that 
which is naturally under dominion? His language points to some movement of 
impulse and choice, considered separately and independently. For that which 
dominates must needs be one thing, that which is dominated another. Now God 
"has dominion over His power "--and this is--what? a self-determining nature? 
or something else than this, pressing on to disquiet, or remaining in a state 
of quiescence? Well, if he supposes it to be quiescent, that which is tranquil 
needs no one to have dominion over it: and if he says "He has dominion," He 
"has dominion" clearly over something which impels and is in motion: and this, 
I presume he will say, is something naturally different from Him Who rules it. 
What then, let him tell us, does he understand in this idea? Is it something 
else besides God, considered as having an independent existence? How can 
another existence be in God? Or is it some condition in the Divine Nature 
considered as having an existence not its own? I hardly think he would say so: 
for that which has no existence of its own is not: and that which is not, is 
neither under dominion, nor set free from it. What then is that power which 
was under dominion, and was restrained in respect of its own activity, while 
the due time of the generation of Christ was still about to come, and to set 
this power free to proceed to its natural operation? What was the intervening 
cause of delay, for which God deferred the generation of the Only-begotten, 
not thinking it good as yet to become a Father? And what is this that is 
inserted as intervening between the life of the Father and that of the Son, 
that is not time nor space, nor any idea of extension, nor any like thing? To 
what purpose is it that this keen and clear-sighted eye marks and beholds the 
separation of the life of God in regard to the life of the Son? When he is 
driven in all directions he is himself forced to admit that the interval does 
not exist at all. 

   2. He then ingeniously shows that the generation of the Son is not 
according to the phrase of Eunomius, "The Father begat Him at that time when 
He chase, and not before:" but that the Son, being the fulness of all that is 
good and excellent, is always contemplated in the Father; using for this 
demonstration the support of Eunomius' own arguments. 

    However, though there is no interval between them, he does not admit that 
their communion is immediate and intimate, but condescends to the measure of 
our knowledge, and converses 

with us in human phrase as one of ourselves, himself quietly confessing the 
impotence of reasoning and taking refuge in a line of argument that was never 
taught by Aristotle and his school. He says, "It was good and proper that He 
should beget His Son at that time when He willed: and in the minds of sensible 
men there does not hence arise any questioning why He did not do so before." 
What does this mean, Eunomius? Are you too going afoot like us unlettered men? 
are you leaving your artistic periods and actually taking refuge in 
unreasoning assent? you, who so much reproached those who take in hand to 
write without logical skill? You, who say to Basil, "You show your own 
ignorance when you say that definitions of the terms that express things 
spiritual are an impossibility for men," who again elsewhere advance the same 
charge, "you make your own impotence common to others, when you declare that 
what is not possible for you is impossible for all"? Is this the way that you, 
who say such things as these, approach the ears of him who questions about the 
reason why the Father defers becoming the Father of such a Son? Do you think 
it an adequate explanation to say, "He begat Him at that time when He chose: 
let there be no questioning on this point"? Has your apprehensive fancy grown 
so feeble in the maintenance of your doctrines? What has become of your 
premises that lead to dilemmas? What has become of your forcible proofs? how 
comes it that those terrible and inevitable syllogistic conclusions of your 
art have dissolved into vanity and nothingness? "He begat the Son at that time 
when He chose: let there be no questioning on this point!" Is this the 
finished product of your many labours, of your voluminous undertakings? What 
was the question asked? "If it is good and fitting for God to have such a Son, 
why are we not to believe that the good is always present with Him(5)?" What 
is the answer he makes to us from the very shrine of his philosophy, 
tightening the bonds of his argument by inevitable necessity? "He made the Son 
at that time when He chose: let there be no questioning as to why He did not 
do so before." Why, if the inquiry before us were concerning some irrational 
being, that acts by natural impulse, why it did not sooner do whatever it may 
be,--why the spider did not make her webs, or the bee her honey, or the 
turtle-dove her nest,--what else could you have said? would not the same 
answer have been ready--" She did it at that time when she chose: let there be 
no questioning on this matter"? Nay, if it were concerning some sculptor or 
painter who works in paintings or in sculptures by his imitative art, whatever 
it may be (supposing that he exercises his art  without being subject to any 
authority), I imagine that such an answer would meet the case of any one who 
wished to know why he did not exercise his art sooner,--that, being under no 
necessity, he made his own choice the occasion of his operation. For men, 
because they do not always wish the same things(6), and commonly have not 
power cooperating with their will, do something which seems good to them at 
that time when their choice inclines to the work, and they have no external 
hindrance. But that nature which is always the same, to which no good is 
adventitious, in which all that variety of plans which arises by way of 
opposition, from error or from ignorance, has no place, to which there comes 
nothing as a result of change, which was not with it before, and by which 
nothing is chosen afterwards which it had not from the beginning regarded as 
good,--to say of this nature that it does not always possess what is good, but 
afterwards chooses to have something which it did not choose before,--this 
belongs to wisdom that surpasses us. For we were taught that the Divine. 
Nature is at all times full of all good, or rather is itself the fulness of 
all goods, seeing that it needs no  addition for its perfecting, but is itself 
by its own nature the perfection of good. Now that which is perfect is equally 
remote from addition and from diminution; and therefore, we say that 
perfection of goods which we behold in the Divine Nature always remains the 
same, as, in whatsoever direction we extend our thoughts, we there apprehend 
it to be such as it is. The Divine Nature, then, is never void of good: but 
the Son is the fulness of all good: and accordingly He is at all times 
contemplated  in that Father Whose Nature is perfection in all good. But he 
says, "let there be no questioning about this point, why He did not do so 
before:" and we shall answer him,--"It is one thing, most sapient sir, to lay 
down as an ordinance some proposition that you happen to approve(7), and 
another to make converts by reasoning on the points of controversy. So long, 
therefore, as you cannot assign any reason why we may piously say that the Son 
was "afterwards" begotten by the Father, your ordinances will be of no effect 
with sensible men." 

    Thus it is then that Eunomius brings the truth to light for us as the 
result of his scientific attack. And we for our part shall apply his argument, 
as we are wont to do, for the establishment of the true doctrine, so that even 
by this 

passage it may be clear that at every point, constrained against their will, 
they advocate our view. For if, as our opponent says, "He begat the Son at 
that time when He chose," and if He always chose that which is good, and His 
power coincided with His choice, it follows that the Son will be considered as 
always with the Father, Who always both chooses that which is excellent, and 
is able to possess what He chooses. And if we are to reduce his next words 
also to truth, it is easy for us to adapt them also to the doctrine we 
hold:--" Let there be no questioning among sensible men on this point, why He 
did not do so before"--for the word "before" has a temporal sense, opposed to 
what is "afterwards" and "later": but on the supposition that time does not 
exist, the terms expressing temporal interval are surely abolished with it. 
Now the Lord was before times and before ages: questioning as to "before" or 
"after" concerning the Maker of the ages is useless in the eyes of reasonable 
men: for words of this class are devoid of all meaning, if they are not used 
in reference to time. Since then the Lord is antecedent to times, the words 
"before" and "after" have no place as applied to Him. This may perhaps be 
sufficient to refute arguments that need no one to overthrow them, but fall by 
their own feebleness. For who is there with so much leisure that he can give 
himself up to such an extent to listen to the arguments on the other side, and 
to our contention against the silly stuff? Since, however, in men prejudiced 
by impiety, deceit is like some ingrained dye, hard to wash out, and deeply 
burned in upon their hearts, let us spend yet a little time upon our argument, 
if haply we may be able to cleanse their souls from this evil stain. After the 
utterances that I have quoted, and after adding to them, in the manner of his 
teacher Prunicus,(8) some unconnected and ill-arranged octads of insolence and 
abuse, he comes to the crowning point of his arguments, and, leaving the 
illogical exposition of his folly, arms his discourse once more with the 
weapons of dialectic, and maintains his absurdity against us, as he imagines, 
syllogistically. 

   3. He further shows that the pretemporal generation of the San is not the 
subject of influences drawn from ordinary and carnal generation, but is 
without beginning and without end, and not according to the fabrications 
constructed by Eunomius, in ignorance of His power, from the statements of 
Plato concerning the soul and from the sabbath rest of the Hebrews. 

    What he says runs thus:--" As all generation is not protracted to 
infinity, but ceases on arriving at some end, those who admit the origination 
of the Son are absolutely obliged to say that He then ceased being generated, 
and not to look incredulously on the beginning of those things which cease 
being generated, and therefore also surely begin: for the cessation of 
generation establishes a beginning of begetting and being begotten: and these 
facts cannot be disbelieved, on the ground at once of nature itself and of the 
Divine laws(9)." Now since he endeavours to establish his point inferentially, 
laying down his universal proposition according to the scientific method of 
those who are skilled in such matters, and including in the general premise 
the proof of the particular, let us first consider his universal, and then 
proceed to examine the force of his inferences. Is it a reverent proceeding to 
draw from "all generation" evidence even as to the pre-temporal generation of 
the Son? and ought we to put forward ordinary nature as our instructor on the 
being of the Only-begotten? For my own part, I should not have expected any 
one to reach such a point of madness, that any such idea of the Divine and 
unsullied generation should enter his fancy. "All generation," he says, "is 
not protracted to infinity." What is it that he understands by "generation"? 
Is he speaking of fleshly, bodily birth, or of the formation of inanimate 
objects? The affections involved in bodily generation are well 
known--affections which no one would think of transferring to the Divine 
Nature. In order therefore that our discourse may not, by mentioning the works 
of nature at length, be made to appear redundant, we shall pass such matters 
by in silence, as I suppose that every sensible man is himself aware of the 
causes by which generation is protracted, both in regard to its beginning and 
to its cessation: it would be tedious and at the same time superfluous to 
express them all minutely, the coming together of those who generate, the 
formation in the womb of that which is generated, travail, birth, place, time, 
without which the generation of a body cannot be brought about,--things which 
are all equally alien from the Divine generation of the Only-begotten: for if 
any one of these 

things were admitted, the rest will of necessity all enter with it. That the 
Divine generation, therefore, may be clear of every idea connected with 
passion, we shall avoid conceiving with regard to it even that extension which 
is measured by intervals. Now that which begins and ends is surely regarded as 
being in a kind of extension, and all extension is measured by time, and as 
time (by which we mark both the end of birth and its beginning) is excluded, 
it would be vain, in the case of the uninterrupted generation, to entertain 
the idea of end or beginning, since no idea can be formed to mark either the 
point at which such generation begins or that at which it ceases. If on the 
other hand it is the inanimate creation to which he is looking, even in this 
case, in like manner, place, and time, and matter, and preparation, and power 
of the artificer, and many like things, concur to bring the product to 
perfection. And since time assuredly is concurrent with all things that are 
produced, and since with everything that is created, be it animate or 
inanimate, there are conceived also bases of construction relative to the 
product, we can find in these cases evident beginnings and endings of the 
process of formation. For even the procuring of material is actually the 
beginning of the fabric, and is a sign of place, and is logically connected 
with time. All these things fix for the products their beginnings and endings; 
and no one could say that these things have any participation in the  
pretemporal generation of the Only-begotten God, so that, by the aid of the 
things now under consideration, we are able to calculate, with regard to that 
generation, any beginning or end. 

    Now that we have so far discussed these matters, let us resume 
consideration of our adversaries' argument. It says, "As all generation is not 
protracted to infinity, but ceases on arriving at some end." Now, since the 
sense of "generation" has been considered with respect to either 
meaning,--whether he intends by this word to signify the birth of corporeal 
beings, or the formation of things created (neither of which has anything in 
common with the unsullied Nature), the premise is shown to have no connection 
with the subject(1). For it is not a matter of absolute necessity, as he 
maintains, that, because all making and generation ceases at some limit, 
therefore those who accept the generation of the Son should circumscribe it by 
a double limit, by supposing, as regards it, a beginning and an end. For it is 
only as being circumscribed in some quantitative way that things can be said 
either to begin or to cease on arriving at a limit, and the measure expressed 
by time (having its extension concomitant with the quantity of that which is 
produced) differentiates the beginning from the end by the interval between 
them. But how can any one measure or treat as extended that which is without 
quantity and without extension? What measure can he find for that which has no 
quantity, or what interval for that which has no extension? or how can any one 
define the infinite by "end" and "beginning?" for "beginning" and "end" are 
names of limits of extension, and, where there is no extension, neither is 
there any limit. Now the Divine Nature is without extension, and, being 
without extension, it has no limit; and that which is limitless is infinite, 
and is spoken of accordingly. Thus it is idle to try to circumscribe the 
infinite by "beginning" and "ending"--for what is circumscribed cannot be 
infinite. How comes it, then, that this Platonic Phaedrus discon-nectedly 
tacks on to his own doctrine those speculations on the soul which Plato makes 
in that dialogue? For as Plato there spoke of "cessation of motion," so this 
writer too was eager to speak of "cessation of generation," in order to Impose 
upon those who have no knowledge of these matters, with fine Platonic phrases. 
"And these facts," he tells us, "cannot be disbelieved, on the ground at once 
of nature itself and of the Divine laws." But nature, from our previous 
remarks, appears not to be trustworthy for instruction as to the Divine 
generation,--not even if one were to take the universe itself as an 
illustration of the argument: since through its creation also, as we learn in 
the cosmogony of Moses, there ran the measure of time, meted out in a certain 
order and arrangement by stated days and nights, for each of the things that 
came into being: and this even our adversaries' statement does not admit with 
regard to the being of the Only-begotten, since it acknowledges that the Lord 
was before the times of the ages. 

    It remains to consider his support of his point by "the Divine laws," by 
which he undertakes tO show both an end and a beginning of the generation of 
the Son. "God," he says, "willing that the law of creation should be impressed 
upon the Hebrews, did not appoint the first day of generation for the end of 
creation, or to be the evidence of its beginning; for He gave them as the 
memorial of the creation, not the first day of generation but the seventh, 
whereon He rested from His works." Will any one believe that this was written 
by Eunomius, and that the words cited have not been inserted by us, by way of 
misrepresenting his composition  so as to make him appear ridiculous to our 
readers, in dragging in to prove his point 

matters that have nothing to do with the question? For the matter in hand was 
to show, as he undertook to do, that the Son, not previously existing, came 
into being; and that in being generated, He took a beginning of generation, 
and of cessation(2),--His generation being protracted in time, as it were by a 
kind of travail. And what is his resource for establishing this The fact that 
the people of the Hebrews, according to the Law, keep sabbath on the seventh 
day! How well the evidence agrees with the matter in hand! Because the Jew 
honours his sabbath by idleness, the fact, as he says, is proved that the Lord 
both had a beginning of birth and ceased being born! How many other 
testimonies on this matter has our author passed by, not at all of less weight 
than that which he employs to establish the point at issue!--the circumcision 
on the eighth day, the week of unleavened bread, the mystery on the fourteenth 
day of the moon's course, the sacrifices of purification, the observation of 
the lepers, the ram, the calf, the heifer, the scapegoat, the he-goat. If 
these things are far removed from the point, let those who are so much 
interested in the Jewish mysteries tell us how that particular matter is 
within range of the question. We judge it to be mean and unmanly to trample on 
the fallen, and shall proceed to enquire, from what follows in his writings, 
whether there is anything there of such a kind as to give trouble to his 
opponent. All, then, that he maintains in the next passage, as to the 
impropriety of supposing anything intermediate between the Father and the Son, 
I shall pass by, as being, in a sense, in agreement with our doctrine. For it 
would be alike undiscriminating and unfair not to distinguish in his remarks 
what is irreproachable, and what is blamable, seeing that, while he fights 
against his own statements, he does not follow his own admissions, speaking of 
the immediate character of the connection while refusing to admit its 
continuity, and conceiving that nothing was before the Son and having some 
suspicion that the Son was while yet contending that He came into being when 
He was not. We shall spend but a short time on these points (since the 
argument has already been established beforehand), and then proceed to handle 
the arguments proposed. 

    It is not allowable for the same person to set nothing above the existence 
of the Only-begotten, and to say that before His generation He was  not, but 
that He was generated then when the  Father willed. For "then" and "when" have 
a sense which specially and properly refers to the denoting of time, according 
to the common use of men who speak soundly, and according to their 
signification in Scripture. One may take "then shall they say among the 
heathen(3)," and "when I sent you(4)" and "then shall the kingdom of heaven be 
likened(5)," and countless similar phrases through the whole of Scripture, to 
prove this point, that the ordinary Scriptural use employs these parts of 
speech to denote time. If therefore, as our opponent allows, time was not, the 
signifying of time surely disappears too: and if this did not exist, it will 
necessarily  be replaced by eternity in our conception(6). For in the phrase 
"was not" there is surely implied "once": as, if he should speak of "not 
being," without the qualification "once," he would also deny his existence 
now: but if he admits His present existence, and contends against His 
eternity, it is surely not "not being" absolutely, but "not being" once which 
is present to his mind. And as this phrase is utterly unreal, unless it rests 
upon the signification of time, it would be foolish and idle to say that 
nothing was before the Son, and yet to maintain that the Son did not always 
exist. For if there is neither place nor time, nor any other creature where 
the Word that was in the beginning is not, the statement that the Lord "once 
was not" is entirely removed from the region of orthodox doctrine. So he is at 
variance not so much with us as with himself, who declares that the 
Only-begotten both was and was not. For in confessing that the conjunction of 
the Son with the Father is not interrupted by anything, He clearly testifies 
to His eternity. But if he should say that the Son was not in the Father, we 
shall not ourselves say anything against such a statement, but shall oppose to 
it the Scripture which declares that the Son is in the Father, and the Father 
in the Son, without adding to the phrase "once" or "when" or "then," but 
testifying His eternity by this affirmative and unqualified utterance. 

   4. Then, having shown that Eunomius' calumny against the great Basil, that 
he called the Only-begotten "Ungenerate," is false, and having again with much 
ingenuity discussed the eternity, being, and endlessness of the Only-begotten, 
and the creation of light and of darkness, he concludes the book. 

    With regard to his attempting to show that we say the Only-begotten God is 
ungenerate, it is as though he should say that we actually define the Father 
to be begotten: for either statement is of the same absurdity, or rather of 
the same
blasphemous character. If, therefore, he has made up his mind to slander us, let
him add the other charge as well, and spare nothing by which it may be in his 
power more violently to exasperate his hearers against us. But if one of these 
charges is withheld because its calumnious nature is apparent, why is the 
other made? For it is just the same thing, as we have said, so far as the 
impiety goes, to call the Son ungenerate and to call the Father generated. Now 
if any such phrase can found in our writings, in which the Son is spoken of as 
ungenerate, we shall give the final vote against ourselves: but if he is 
fabricating false charges and calumnies at his pleasure, making any fictitious 
statement he pleases to slander our doctrines, this fact may serve with 
sensible men for an evidence of our orthodoxy, that while truth itself fights 
on our side, he brings forward a lie to accuse our doctrine and makes up an 
indictment for unorthodoxy that has no relation to our statements. To these 
charges, however, we can give a concise answer. As we judge that man accursed 
who says that the Only-begotten God is ungenerate, let him in turn 
anathematize the man who lays it down that He who was in the beginning "once 
was not." For by such a method it will be shown who brings his charges truly, 
and who calumniously. But if we deny his accusations, if, when we speak of a 
Father, we understand as implied in that word a Son also, and if, when we use 
the name "Son," we declare that He really is what He is called, being shed 
forth by generation from the ungenerate Light, how can the calumny of those 
who persist that we say the Only-begotten is ungenerate fail to be manifest? 
Yet we shall not, because we say that He exists by generation, therefore admit 
that He "once was not." For every one knows that the contradiction between 
"being" and "not being" is immediate, so that the affirmation of one of these 
terms is absolutely the destruction of the other, and that, just as "being" is 
the same in regard to every time at which any of the things that "are" is 
supposed to have its existence (for the sky, and stars, and sun, and the rest 
of the things that "are," are not more in a state of being now than they were 
yesterday, or the day before, or at any previous time), so the meaning of "not 
being" expresses non-existence equally at every time, whether one speaks of it 
in reference to what is earlier or to what is later. For any of the things 
that do not exist(7) is no more in a state of "not being" now than if it were 
non-existent before, but the idea of "not being" is one applied to that which 
"is not" at any distance of time. And for this reason, in speaking of living 
creatures, while we use different words to denote the dissolution into a state 
of "not being" of that which has been, and the condition of non-existence of 
that which has never had an entrance into being, and say either that a thing 
has never come into being at all, or that which was generated has died, yet by 
either form of speech we equally represent by our words "non-existence." For 
as day is bounded on each side by night, yet the parts of the night which 
bound it are not named alike, but we speak of one as "after night-fall," and 
of the other as "before dawn," while that which both phrases denote is night, 
so, if any one looks on that which is not in contrast to that which it, he 
will give different names to that state which is antecedent to formation and 
to that which follows the dissolution of what was formed, yet  will conceive 
as one the condition which both phrases signify--the condition which is 
antecedent to formation and the condition following on dissolution after 
formation. For the state of "not being "of that which has not been generated, 
and of that which has died, save for the difference of the names, are the 
same,--with the exception of the account which we take of the hope of the 
resurrection. Now since we learn from Scripture that the Only-begotten God is 
the Prince of Life, the very life, and light, and truth, and all that is 
honourable in word or thought, we say that it is absurd and impious to 
contemplate, in conjunction with Him Who really is, the opposite conception, 
whether of dissolution tending to corruption, or of non-existence before 
formation: but as we extend our thought in every direction to what is to 
follow, or to what was before the ages, we nowhere pause in our conceptions at 
the condition of "not being," judging it to tend equally to impiety to cut 
short the Divine being by non-existence at any time whatever. For it is the 
same thing to say that the immortal life is mortal, that the truth is a lie, 
that light is darkness, and that which is not. He, accordingly, who refuses to 
allow that He will at some future time cease to be, will also refuse to allow 
that He "once was not," avoiding, according to our view, the same impiety on 
either hand: for, as no death cuts short the endlessness of the life of the 
Only-begotten, so, as we look back, no period of nonexistence will terminate 
His life in its course towards eternity, that which in reality is may be clear 
of all community with that which in reality is not. For this cause the Lord, 
desiring that His disciples might be far removed from this error (that they 
might never, by themselves searching for something antecedent to 

the existence of the Only-begotten, be led by their reasoning to the idea of 
non-existence), saith, "I am in the Father, and the Father in Me(8)," in the 
sense that neither is that which is not conceived in that which is, nor that 
which is in that which is not. And here the very order of the phrase explains 
the orthodox doctrine; for because the Father is not of the Son, but the Son 
of the Father, therefore He says, "I am in the Father," showing the fact that 
He is not of another but of Him, and then reverses the phrase to, "and the 
Father in Me," indicating that he who, in his curious speculation, passes 
beyond the Son, passes also beyond the conception of the Father: for He who is 
in anything cannot be found outside of that in which He is: so that the man 
who, while not denying that the  Father is in the Son, yet imagines that he 
has in any degree apprehended the Father as external to the Son, is talking 
idly. Idle too are the wanderings of our adversaries' fighting about shadows 
touching the matter of "ungeneracy," proceeding without solid foundation by 
means of nonentities. Yet if I am to bring more fully to light the whole 
absurdity of their argument, let me be allowed to spend a little longer on 
this speculation. As they say that the Only-begotten God came into existence 
"later," after the Father, this "unbegotten" of theirs, whatever they imagine 
it to be, is discovered of necessity to exhibit with itself the idea of evil. 
Who knows not, that, just as the non-existent is contrasted with the existent, 
so with every good thing or name is contrasted the opposite conception, as 
"bad" with "good," "falsehood "with "truth," "darkness" with "light," and all 
the rest that are similarly opposed to one another, where the opposition 
admits of no middle term, and it is impossible that the two should co-exist, 
but the presence of the one destroys its opposite, and with the withdrawal of 
the other takes place the appearance of its contrary? 

    Now these points being conceded to us, the further point is also clear to 
any one, that, as Moses says darkness was before the creation of light, so 
also in the case of the Son (if, according to the heretical statement, the 
Father "made  Him at that time when He willed"), before He made Him, that 
Light which the Son is was not; and, light not yet being, it is impossible 
that its opposite should not be. For we learn also from the other instances 
that nothing that comes from the Creator is at random, but that which was 
lacking is added by creation to existing things. Thus it is quite clear that 
if. God did make the Son, He made Him by reason of a deficiency in the nature 
of things. As, then, while sensible light was still lacking, there was 
darkness, and darkness would certainly have prevailed had light not come into 
being, so also, when the Son "as yet was not," the very and true Light, and 
all else that the Son is, did not exist. For even according to the evidence of 
heresy, that which exists has no need of coming into being; if therefore He 
made Him, He assuredly made that which did not exist. Thus, according to their 
view, before the Son came into being, neither had truth come into being, nor 
the intelligible Light, nor the fount of life, nor, generally, the nature of 
any thing that is excellent and good. Now, concurrently with the exclusion of 
each of these, there is found to subsist the opposite conception: and if light 
was not, it cannot be denied that darkness was; and so with the rest,--in 
place of each of these more excellent conceptions it is clearly impossible 
that its opposite did not exist in place of  that which was lacking. It is 
therefore a necessary conclusion, that when the Father, as the heretics say, 
"had not as yet willed to make the Son," none of those things which the Son is 
being yet existent, we must say that He was surrounded by darkness instead of 
Light, by falsehood instead of truth, by death instead of life, by evil 
instead of good. For He Who creates, creates things that are not; "That which 
is," as Eunomius says, "needs not generation"; and of those things which are 
considered as opposed, the better cannot be non-existent, except by the 
existence of the worse. These are the gifts with which the wisdom of heresy 
honours the Father, by which it degrades the eternity of the Son, and ascribes 
to God and the Father, before the "production" of the Son, the whole catalogue 
of evils! 

    And let no one think to rebut by examples from the rest of creation the 
demonstration of the doctrinal absurdity which results from this argument. One 
will perhaps say that, as, when the sky was not, there was no opposite to it, 
so we are not absolutely compelled to admit that if the Son, Who is Truth, had 
not come into existence, the opposite did exist. To him we may reply that to 
the sky there is no corresponding opposite, unless one were to say that its 
non-existence is opposed to its existence. But to virtue is certainly opposed 
that which is vicious (and the Lord is virtue); so that when the sky was not, 
it does not follow that anything was; but when good was not, its opposite was; 
thus he who says that good was not, will certainly allow, even without 
intending it, that evil was. "But the Father also," he says(9), "is absolute 
virtue, and life, and light unapproachable, and all that is exalted in word or 
thought: so that there is no necessity to suppose, when 

the Only-begotten Light was not, the existence of that darkness which is His 
corresponding opposite." But this is just what I say, that darkness never was; 
for the light-never "was not," for "the light," as the prophecy says, "is 
always in the light(1)." If, however, according to the heretical doctrine, the 
"ungenerate light" is one thing, and the "generated light" another, and the 
one is eternal, while the other comes into existence at a later time, it 
follows of absolute necessity that in the eternal light we should find no 
place for the establishment of its opposite; (for if the light always shines, 
the power of darkness has no place in it;) and that in the case of the light 
which comes into being, as they say, afterwards, it is impossible that the 
light should shine forth save out of darkness; and the interval of darkness 
between eternal light and that which arises later will be clearly marked in 
every way(2). For there would have been no need of the making of the later 
light, if that which was created had not been of utility for some purpose: and 
the one use of light is that of the dispersion by its means of the prevailing 
gloom. Now the light which exists without creation is what it is by nature by 
reason of itself; but the created light clearly comes into being by reason of 
something else. It must be then that its existence was preceded by darkness, 
on account of which the light was of necessity created, and it is not possible 
by any reasoning to make plausible the view that darkness did not precede the 
manifestation of the Only-begotten Light,--on the supposition, that is, that 
He is believed to have been "made" at a later time. Surely such a doctrine is 
beyond all impiety! It is therefore clearly shown that the Father of truth did 
not make the truth at a time when it was not; but, being the fountain of light 
and truth, and of all good, He shed forth from Himself that Only-begotten 
Light of truth by which the glory of His Person is expressly imaged; so that 
the blasphemy of those who say that the Son was a later addition to God by way 
of creation is at all points refuted. 

xxxxxx
                                 BOOK X. 

   1. The tenth book discusses the unattainable and incomprehensible character 
of the enquiry into entities. And herein he strikingly sets forth the points 
concerning the nature and formation of the ant, and the passage in the Gospel, 
"I am the door" and "the way," and also cusses the attribution and 
interpretation of  the Divine names, and the episode of the children of 
Benjamin. 

    LET US, however, keep to our subject. A little further on he contends 
against those who acknowledge that human nature is too weak to conceive what 
cannot be grasped, and with lofty boasts enlarges on this topic on this wise, 
making light of our belief on the matter in these words:--" For it by no means 
follows that, if some one's mind, blinded by malignity, and for that reason 
unable to see anything in front or above its head, is but moderately competent 
for the apprehension of truth, we ought on that ground to think that the 
discovery of reality is unattainable by the rest of mankind." But I should say 
to him that he who declares that the discovery of reality is attainable, has 
of course advanced his own intellect by some method and logical process 
through the knowledge of existent things, and after having been trained in 
matters that are comparatively small and easily grasped by way of 
apprehension, has, when thus prepared, flung his apprehensive fancy upon those 
objects which transcend all conception. Let, then, the man who boasts that he 
has attained the knowledge of real existence, interpret to us the real nature 
of the most trivial object that is before our eyes, that by what is knowable 
he may warrant our belief touching what is secret: let him explain by reason 
what is the nature of the ant, whether its life is held together by breath and 
respiration, whether it is regulated by vital organs like other animals, 
whether its body has a framework of bones, whether the hollows of the bones 
are filled with marrow, whether its joints are united by the tension of sinews 
and ligaments, whether the position of the sinews is maintained by enclosures 
of muscles and glands, whether the marrow extends along the vertebrae from the 
sinciput to the tail, whether it imparts to the limbs that are moved the power 
of motion by means of the enclosure of sinewy membrane; whether the creature 
has a liver, and in connection with the liver a gall-bladder; whether it has 
kidneys and heart, arteries and veins, membranes and diaphragm; whether it is 
externally smooth or covered with hair; whether it is distinguished by the 
division into male and female; in what part of its body is located the power 
of sight and hearing; whether it enjoys the sense of smell; whether its feet 
are undivided or articulated; how long it lives; what is the method in which 
they derive generation one from another, and what is the period of gestation; 
how it is that all ants do not crawl, nor are all winged, but some belong to 
the creatures that move along the ground, while others are borne aloft in the 
air. Let him, then, who boasts that he has grasped the knowledge of real 
existence, disclose to us awhile the nature of the ant, and then, and not till 
then, let him discourse on the nature of the power that surpasses all 
understanding. But if he has not yet ascertained by his knowledge the nature 
of the tiny ant, how comes he to vaunt that by the apprehension of reason he 
has grasped Him Who in Himself controls all creation, and to say that those 
who own in themselves the weakness of human nature, have the perceptions of 
their souls darkened, and can neither reach anything in front of them, nor 
anything above their head? 

    But now let us see what understanding he who has the knowledge of existent 
things possesses beyond the rest of the world. Let us listen to his arrogant 
utterance:--"Surely it would have been idle for the Lord to call Himself 'the 
door,' if there were none to pass through to the understanding and 
contemplation of the Father, and it would have been idle for Him to call 
Himself 'the way,' if He gave no facility to those who wish to come to the 
Father. And how could He be a light, without lightening men, without 
illuminating the eye of their soul to understand both Himself and the 
transcendent Light?" Well, if he were here enumerating some arguments from his 
own head, that evade the understanding of the hearers by their subtlety, there 
would perhaps be a possibility of 

being deceived by the ingenuity of the argument, as his underlying thought 
frequently escapes the reader's notice. But since he alleges the Divine words, 
of course no one blames those who believe that their inspired teaching is the 
common property of all. "Since then," he says, "the Lord was named 'a door,' 
it follows from hence that the essence of God may be comprehended by man." But 
the Gospel does not admit of this meaning. Let us hear the Divine utterance 
itself. "I am the door," Christ says; "by Me if any man enter in he shall be 
saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture(1)." Which then of these is 
the knowledge of the essence? For as several things are here said, and each of 
them has its own special meaning, it is impossible to refer them all to the 
idea of the essence, lest the Deity should be thought to be compounded of 
different elements; and yet it is not easy to find which of the phrases just 
quoted can most properly be applied to that subject. The Lord is "the door," 
"By Me," He says, "if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and 
out and shall find pasture." Are we to say(2) that it is "entrance" of which 
he speaks in place of the essence of God, or "salvation "of those that enter 
in, or "going out," or "pasture," or "finding"?--for each of these is peculiar 
in its significance, and does not agree in meaning with the rest. For to get 
within appears obviously contrary to "going out," and so with the other 
phrases. For "pasture," in its proper meaning, is one thing, and "finding" 
another thing distinct from it. Which, then, of these is the essence of the 
Father supposed to be? For assuredly one cannot, by uttering all these phrases 
that disagree one with another in signification, intend to indicate by 
incompatible terms that Essence which is simple and uncompounded. And how can 
the word hold good, "No man hath seen God at any time(3)" and, "Whom no man 
hath seen nor can see(4)," and, "There shall no man see the face of the Lord 
and live(5)," if to be inside the door, or outside, or the finding pasture, 
denote the essence of the Father? For truly He is at the same time a "door of 
encompassing(6)," and a "house of defence(7)," as David calls Him, and through 
Himself He receives them that enter, and in Himself He saves those who have 
come within, and again by Himself He leads them forth to the pasture of 
virtues, and becomes all things to them that are in the way of salvation, that 
so He may make Himself that which the needs of each demand,--both way, and 
guide, and "door of encompassing," and "house of defence," and "water of 
comfort(8)," and "green pasture(8)," which in the Gospel He calls "pasture ": 
but s our new divine says that the Lord has been s called "the door" because 
of the knowledge of s the essence of the Father. Why then does he .'not force 
into the same significance the titles, "Rock," and "Stone," and "Fountain," 
and "True," and the rest, that so he might obtain evidence for his own theory 
by the multitude of strange testimonies, as he is well able to apply to each 
of these the same account which he has given of the Way, the Door, and the 
Light? But, as I am so taught by the inspired Scripture, I boldly affirm that 
He Who is above every name has for us many names, receiving them in accordance 
with the variety of His gracious dealings with us(9), being called the Light 
when He disperses the gloom of ignorance, and the Life when He grants the boon 
of immortality, and the Way when He guides us from error to the truth; so also 
He is termed a "tower of strength(1)," and a "city of encompassing(2)," and a 
fountain, and a rock, and a vine, and a physician, and resurrection, and all 
the like, with reference to us, imparting Himself under various aspects by 
virtue of His benefits to us-ward. But those who are keen-sighted beyond human 
power, who see the incomprehensible, but overlook what may be comprehended, 
when they use such titles to expound the essences, are positive that they not 
only see, but measure Him Whom no man hath seen nor can see, but do not with 
the eye of their soul discern the Faith, which is the only thing within the 
compass of our observation, valuing before this the knowledge which they 
obtain from ratiocination. Just so I have heard the sacred record laying blame 
upon the sons of Benjamin who did not regard the law, but could shoot within a 
hair's breadth(3), wherein, methinks, the word exhibited their eager pursuit 
of an idle object, that they were far-darting and dexterous aimers at things 
that were useless and unsubstantial, but ignorant and regardless of what was 
manifestly for their benefit. For after what I have quoted, the history goes 
on to relate what befel them, how, when they had run madly after the iniquity 
of Sodom, and the people of Israel had taken up arms against them in full 
force, they were utterly destroyed. And it seems to me to be a kindly thought 
to warn young archers not to wish to shoot within a hair's-breadth, while they 
have no eyes for the door of the faith, but rather to drop their idle labour 
about the incomprehensible, and not to lose the gain that is ready to their 
hand, which is found by faith alone. 

   2. He then wonderfully displays the Eternal Life, which is Christ, to those 
who confess Him not, and applies to them the mournful lamentation of Jeremiah 
over Jehoiakim, as being closely allied to Montanus and Sabellius. 

    But now that I have surveyed what remains of his treatise I shrink from 
conducting my argument further, as a shudder runs through my heart at his 
words. For he wishes to show that the Son is something different from eternal 
life, while, unless eternal life is found in the Son, our faith will be proved 
to be idle, and our preaching to be vain, baptism a superfluity, the agonies 
of the martyrs all for nought, the toils of the Apostles useless and 
unprofitable for the life of i men. For why did they preach Christ, in Whom, 
according to Eunomius, there does not reside the power of eternal life? Why do 
they make mention of those who had believed in Christ, unless it was through 
Him that they were to be partakers of eternal life? "For the intelligence," he 
says, "of those who have believed in the Lord, overleaping all sensible and 
intellectual existence, cannot stop even at the generation of the Son, but 
speeds beyond even this in its yearning for eternal life, eager to meet the 
First." What ought I most to bewail in this passage? that the wretched men do 
not think that eternal life is in the Son, or that they conceive of the Person 
of the Only-begotten in so grovelling and earthly a fashion, that they fancy 
they can mount in their reasonings upon His beginning, and so look by the 
power of their own intellect beyond the life of the Son, and, leaving the 
generation of the Lord somewhere beneath them, can speed onward beyond this in 
their yearning for eternal life? For the meaning of what I have quoted is 
nothing else than this, that the human mind, scrutinizing the knowledge of 
real existence, and lifting itself above the sensible and intelligible 
creation, will leave God the Word, Who was in the beginning, below itself, 
just as it has left below it all other things, and itself comes to be in Him 
in Whom God the Word was not, treading, by mental activity, regions which lie 
beyond the life of the Son, there searching for eternal life, where the 
Only-begotten God is not. "For in its yearning for eternal life," he says, "it 
is borne in thought, beyond the Son"--clearly as though it had not in the Son 
found that which it was seeking.  If the eternal life is not in the Son, then 
assuredly He Who said, "I am the life(4)," will be convicted of falsehood, or 
else He is life, it is true. but not eternal life. But that which is not 
eternal is of course limited in duration. And such a kind of life is common to 
the irrational animals as well as to men. Where then is the majesty of the 
very life, if even the irrational creation share it? and how will the Word or 
Divine Reason s be the same as the Life, if this finds a home, in virtue of 
the life which is but temporary, in irrational creatures? For if, according to 
the great John, the Word is Life(6), but that life is temporary and not 
eternal, as their heresy holds, and if, moreover, the temporary life has place 
in other creatures, what is the logical consequence? Why, either that 
irrational animals are rational, or that the Reason must be confessed to be 
irrational. Have we any further need of words to confute their accursed and 
malignant blasphemy? Do such statements even pretend to conceal their 
intention of denying the Lord? For if the Apostle plainly says that what is 
not eternal is temporary(7), and if these people see eternal life in the 
essence of the Father alone, and if by alienating the Son from the Nature of 
the Father they also cut Him off from eternal life, what is this but a 
manifest denial and rejection of the faith in the Lord? while the Apostle 
clearly says that those who "in this life only have hope in Christ are of all 
men most miserable(8)." If then the Lord is life, but not eternal life, 
assuredly the life is temporal, and but for a day, that which is operative 
only for the present time, or else(9) the Apostle bemoans those who have hope, 
as having missed the true life. 

    However, they who are enlightened in Eunomius' fashion pass the Son by, 
and are carried in their reasonings beyond Him, seeking eternal life in Him 
Who is contemplated as outside and apart from the Only-begotten. What ought 
one to say to such evils as these,--save whatever calls forth lamentation and 
weeping? Alas, how can we groan over this wretched and pitiable generation, 
bringing forth a crop of such deadly mischiefs? In days of yore the zealous 
Jeremiah bewailed the people of Israel, when they, gave an evil consent to 
Jehoiakim who led the way to idolatry, and were condemned to captivity under 
the Assyrians in requital for their unlawful worship, exiled from the 
sanctuary and banished far from the inheritance of their fathers. Yet more 
fitting does it seem to me that these lamentations be chanted when the 
imitator of Jehoiakim draws away those whom he deceives to this new kind of 
idolatry, banishing them from their ancestral inheritance,--I mean the Faith. 
They too, in a way corresponding to the Scriptural record, are 

carried away captive to Babylon from Jerusalem that is above,--that is from 
the Church of God to this confusion of pernicious doctrines,--for(1) Babylon 
means "confusion." And even as Jehoiakim was mutilated, so this man, having 
voluntarily deprived himself of the light of the truth, has become a prey to 
the Babylonian despot, never having learned, poor wretch, that the Gospel 
enjoins us to behold eternal life alike in the Father, and the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost, inasmuch as the Word has thus spoken concerning the Father, that 
to know Him is life eternal(2), and concerning the Son, that every one that 
believeth on Him hath eternal life(3), and concerning the Holy Spirit, that to 
Him that hath received His grace it shall be a well of water springing up unto 
eternal life(4). Accordingly every one that yearns for eternal life when he 
has found the Son,--I mean the true Son, and not the Son falsely so 
called--has found in Him in its entirety what he longed for, because He is 
life and hath life in Himself(5). But this man, so subtle in mind, so 
keen-sighted of heart, does not by his extreme acuteness of vision discover 
life in the Son, but, having passed Him over and left Him behind as a 
hindrance in the way to that for which he searches he there seeks eternal life 
where he thinks the true Life not to be! What could we conceive more to be 
abhorred than this for profanity, or more melancholy as an occasion of 
lamentation? But that the charge of Sabellianism and Montanism should be 
repeatedly urged against our doctrines, is much the same as if one should lay 
to our charge the blasphemy of the Anomoeans. For if one were carefully to 
investigate the falsehood of these heresies, he would find that they have 
great similarity to the error of Eunomius. For each of them affects the Jew in 
his doctrine, admitting neither the Only-begotten God nor the Holy Spirit to 
share the Deity of the God Whom they call "Great," and "First." For Whom 
Sabellius calls God of the three names, Him does Eunomius term unbegotten: but 
neither contemplates the Godhead in the Trinity of Persons. Who then is really 
akin to Sabellius let the judgment of those who read our argument decide. Thus 
far for these matters. 

   3. He then shows the eternity of She Son's generation, and the inseparable 
identity of His essence wish Him that begat Him, and likens the folly of 
Eunomius to children playing with sand. 

    But since, in what follows, he is active in stirring up the ill savour of 
his disgusting attempts, whereby he tries to make out that the Only-begotten 
God "once was not," it will be well, as our mind on this head has been made 
pretty clear by our previous arguments, no longer to plunge our argument also 
in what is likewise bad, except perhaps that it is not unseasonable to add 
this one point, having selected it from the multitude. He says (some one 
having remarked that "the property of not being begotten is equally associated 
with the essence of the Father(6)"), " The argument proceeds by like steps to 
those by which it came to a conclusion in the case of the Son." The orthodox 
doctrine is clearly strengthened by the attack of its adversaries, the 
doctrine, namely, that we ought not to think that not to be begotten or to be 
begotten are identical with the essence(7), but that these should be 
contemplated, it is true, in the subject, while the subject in its proper 
definition is something else beyond these, and since no difference is found in 
the subject, because the difference of "begotten" and "unbegotten" is apart 
from the essence, and does not affect it, it necessarily follows that the 
essence must be allowed to be in both Persons without variation. Let us 
moreover inquire, over and above what has been already said, into this point, 
in what sense he says that "generation" is alien from the Father,--whether he 
does so conceiving of it as an essence or an operation. If he conceives it to 
be an operation, it is clearly equally connected with its result and with its 
author, as in every kind of production one may see the operation alike in the 
product and the producer, appearing in the production of the effects and not 
separated from their artificer. But if he terms "generation" an essence 
separate from the essence of the Father, admitting that the Lord came into 
being therefrom, then he plainly puts this in the place of the Father as 
regards the Only-begotten, so that two Fathers are conceived in the case of 
the Son, one a Father in name alone, Whom he calls "the Ungenerate," Who has 
nothing to do with generation, and the other, which he calls "generation," 
performing the part of a Father to the Only-begotten. 

    And this is brought home even more by the statements of Eunomius himself 
than by our own arguments. For in what follows, he says:-"God, being without 
generation, is also prior to that which is generate," and a little further on, 
"for He Whose existence arises from being generated did not exist before He 
was generated." Accordingly, if the Father has nothing to do 

with generation, and if it is from generation that the Son derives His being, 
then the Father has no action in respect of the subsistence of the Son, and is 
apart from all connection with generation, from which the Son draws His being. 
If, then, the Father is alien from the generation of the Son, they either 
invent for the Son another Father under the name of "generation," or in their 
wisdom make out the Son to be self-begotten and self-generated. You see the 
confusion of mind of the man who exhibits his ignorance to us up and down in 
his own argument, how his profanity wanders in many paths, or rather in places 
where no path is, without advancing to its mark by any trustworthy guidance; 
and as one may see in the case of infants, when in their childish sport they 
imitate the building of houses with sand, that what they build is not framed 
on any plan, or by any rules of art, to resemble the original, but first they 
make something at haphazard, and in silly fashion, and then take counsel what 
to call this penetration I discern in our author. For after getting together 
words of impiety according to what first comes into his head, like a heap of 
sand, he begins to cast about to see whither his unintelligible profanity 
tends, growing up as it does spontaneously from what he has said, without any 
rational sequence. For I do not imagine that he originally proposed to invent 
generation as an actual subsistence standing to the essence of the Son in the 
place of the Father, nor that it was part of our rhetorician's plan that the 
Father should be considered as alien from the generation of the Son, nor was 
the absurdity of self-generation deliberately introduced. But all such 
absurdities have been emitted by our author without reflection, so that, as 
regards them, the man who so blunders is not even worth much refutation, as he 
knows, to borrow the Apostle's words, "neither what he says. nor whereof he 
affirms(8)." 

    "For He Whose existence arises from generation," he says, "did not exist 
before generation." If he here uses the term "generation" of the Father, I 
agree with Him, and there is no opponent. For one may mean the same thing by 
either phrase, by saying either that Abraham begat Isaac, or, that Abraham was 
the father of Isaac. Since then to be father is the same as to have begotten, 
if any one shifts the words from one form of speech to the other, paternity 
will be shown to be identical with generation. If, therefore, what Eunomius 
says is this, "He Whose existence is derived from the Father was not before 
the Father," the statement is sound, and we give our vote in favour of it. But 
if he is recurring in the phrase to that generation of which we have spoken 
before, and says that it is separated from the Father but associated with the 
Son, then I think it waste of time to linger over the consideration of the 
unintelligible. For whether he thinks generation to be a self-existent object, 
or whether by the name he is carried in thought to that which has no actual 
existence, I have not to this day been able to find out from his language. For 
his fluid and baseless argument lends itself alike to either supposition, 
inclining to one side or to the other according to the fancy of the thinker. 

   4. After this he shows that the Son, who truly is, and is in the bosom of 
the Father, is simple and uncompounded, and that, He who redeemed us from 
bondage is not under dominion of the Father, nor in a slate of slavery: and 
that otherwise not He alone, but also the Father Who is in the Son and is One 
with Him, must be a slave; and that the word "being" is formed from the word 
to "be." And having excellently and notably discussed all these matters, he 
concludes the book. 

    But not yet has the most grievous part of his profanity been examined, 
which the sequel of his treatise goes on to add. Well, let us consider his 
words sentence by sentence. Yet I know not how I can dare to let my mouth 
utter the horrible and godless language of him who fights against Christ. For 
I fear lest, like some baleful drugs, the remnant of the pernicious bitterness 
should be deposited upon the lips through which the words pass. "He that 
cometh unto God," says the Apostle, "must believe that He is 9." Accordingly, 
true existence is the special distinction of Godhead. But Eunomius makes out 
Him Who truly is, either not to exist at all, or not to exist in a proper 
sense, which is just the same as not existing at all; for he who does not 
properly exist, does not really exist at all; as, for example, he is said to 
"run" in a dream who in that state fancies he is exerting himself in the race, 
while, since he untruly acts the semblance of the real race, his fancy that he 
is running is  not for this reason a race. But even though in an inexact sense 
it is so called, still the name is given to it falsely. Accordingly, he who 
dares to assert that the Only-begotten God either does not properly exist, or 
does not exist at all, manifestly blots out of his creed all faith in Him. For 
who can any longer believe in something non-existent? or who would resort to 
Him Whose being has been shown by the enemies of the true Lord to be improper 
and unsubstantial? 

    But that our statement may not be thought 


to be unfair to our opponents, I will set side by side with it the language of 
the impious persons, which runs as follows:--"He Who is in the bosom of the 
Existent, and Who is in the beginning and is with God, not being, or at all 
events not being in a strict sense, even though Basil, neglecting this 
distinction and addition, uses the title of 'Existent' interchangeably, 
contrary to the truth--"What do you say? that He Who is in the Father is not, 
and that He Who is in the beginning, and Who is in the bosom of the Father, is 
not, for this very reason, that He is in the beginning and is in the Father, 
and is discerned in the bosom of the Existent, and hence does not in a strict 
sense exist, because He is in the Existent? Alas for the idle and irrational 
tenets! Now for the first time we have heard this piece of vain 
babbling,--that the Lord, by Whom are all things, does not in a strict sense 
exist. And we have not yet got to the end of this appalling statement; but 
something yet more startling remains behind, that he not only affirms that He 
does not exist, or does not strictly speaking exist, but also that the Nature 
in which He is conceived to reside is various and composite. For he says "not 
being, or not being simple." But that to which simplicity does not belong is 
manifestly various and composite. How then can the same Person be at once 
non-existent and composite in essence? For one of two alternatives they must 
choose if they predicate of Him non-existence they cannot speak of Him as 
composite, or if they affirm Him to be composite they cannot rob Him of 
existence. But that their blasphemy may assume many and varied shapes, it 
jumps at every godless notion when it wishes to contrast Him with the 
existent, affirming that, strictly speaking, He does not exist, and in His 
relation to the uncompounded Nature denying Him the attribute of 
simplicity:--"not existing, not existing simply, not existing in the strict 
sense." Who among those who have transgressed the word and forsworn the Faith 
was ever so lavish in utterances denying the Lord? He has stood up in rivalry 
with the divine proclamation of John. For as often as the latter has attested 
"was" of the Word, so often does he apply to Him Who is an opposing "was not." 
And he contends against the holy lips of our father Basil, bringing against 
him the charge that he "neglects these distinctions," when he says that He Who 
is in the Father, and in the beginning, and in the bosom of the Father, 
exists, holding the view that the addition of "in the beginning," and "in the 
bosom of the Father," bars the real existence of Him Who is. Vain learning! 
What things the teachers of deceit teach! what strange doctrines they 
introduce to their hearers! they instruct them that which is in something else 
does not exist! So, Eunomius, since your heart and brain are within you, 
neither of them, according to your distinction, exists. For if the 
Only-begotten God does not, strictly speaking, exist, for this reason, that He 
is in the bosom of the Father, then everything that is in something else is 
thereby excluded from existence. But certainly your heart exists in you, and 
not independently; therefore, according to your view, you must either say that 
it does not exist at all, or that it does not exist in the strict sense. 
However, the ignorance and profanity of his language are so gross and so 
glaring, as to be obvious even before our argument, at all events to all 
persons of sense: but that his folly as well as his impiety may be more 
manifest, we will add thus much to what has gone before. If one may only say 
that in the strict sense exists, of which the word of Scripture attests the 
existence detached from all relation to anything else, why do they, like those 
who carry water, perish with thirst when they have it in their power to drink? 
Even this man, though he had at hand the antidote to his blasphemy against the 
Son, closed his eyes and ran past it as though fearing to be saved, and 
charges Basil with unfairness for having suppressed the qualifying words, and 
for only quoting the "was" by itself, in reference to the Only-Begotten. And 
yet it was quite in his power to see what Basil saw and what every one who has 
eyes sees. And herein the sublime John seems to me to have been prophetically 
moved, that the mouths of those fighters against Christ might be stopped, who 
on the ground of these additions deny the existence, in the strict sense, of 
the Christ, saying simply and without qualification "The Word was God," and 
was Life, and was Light(1), not merely speaking of Him as being in the 
beginning, and with God, and in the bosom of the Father, so that by their 
relation the absolute existence of the Lord should be done away. But his 
assertion that He was God, by this absolute declaration detached from alI 
relation to anything else, cuts off every subterfuge from those who in their 
reasonings run into impiety; and, in addition to this, there is moreover 
something else which still more convincingly proves the malignity of our 
adversaries. For if they make out that to exist in something is an indication 
of not existing in the strict sense, then certainly they allow that not even 
the Father exists absolutely, as they have learnt in the Gospel, that just as 
the Son abides in the Father, so the Father abides in the Son, according to 
the words of the Lord '. For to say that the Father is in the Son is 
equivalent to saying that the Son is in the 

bosom of the Father. And in passing let us make this further inquiry. When the 
Son, as they say, "was not," what did the bosom of the Father contain? For 
assuredly they must either grant that it was full, or suppose it to have been 
empty. If then the bosom was full, certainly the Son was that which filled the 
bosom. But if they imagine that there was some void in the bosom of the 
Father, they do nothing else than assert of Him perfection by way of 
augmentation, in the sense that He passed from the state of void and 
deficiency to the state of fulness and perfection. But "they knew not nor 
understood," says David of those that "walk on still in darkness(3)." For he 
who has been rendered hostile to the true Light cannot keep his soul in light. 
For this reason it was that they did not perceive lying ready to their hand in 
logical sequence that which would have corrected their impiety, smitten, as it 
were, with blindness, like the men of Sodom. 

    But he also says that the essence of the Son is controlled by the Father, 
his exact words being as follows:--" For He Who is and lives because of the 
Father, does not appropriate this dignity, as the essence which controls even 
Him attracts to itself the conception of the Existent." If these doctrines 
approve themselves to some of the sages "who are without," let not the Gospels 
nor the rest of the teaching of the Holy Scripture be in any way disturbed. 
For what fellowship is there between the creed of Christians and the wisdom 
that has been made foolish(4)? But if he leans upon the support of the 
Scriptures, let him show one such declaration from the holy writings, and we 
will hold our peace. I hear Paul cry aloud, "There is one Lord Jesus 
Christ(5)." But Eunomius shouts against Paul, calling Christ a slave. For we 
recognize no other mark of a slave than to be subject and controlled. The 
slave is assuredly a slave, but the slave cannot by nature be Lord, even 
though the term be applied to Him by inexact use. And why should I bring 
forward the declarations of Paul in evidence of the lordship of the Lord? For 
Paul's Master Himself tells His disciples that He is truly Lord, accepting as 
He does the confession of those who called Him Master and Lord. For He says, 
"Ye call Me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am(6)." And in the same 
way He enjoined that the Father should be called Father by them, saying, "Call 
no man master upon earth: for one is your Master, even Christ: and call no man 
father upon earth, for one is your Father, Which is in heaven 7." To which 
then ought we to give heed, as we are thus hemmed in between them? On one side 
the Lord Himself, and he who has Christ speaking in him(8), enjoin us not to 
think of Him as a slave, but to honour Him even as the Father is honoured, and 
on the other side Eunomius brings his suit against the Lord, claiming Him as a 
slave, when he says that He on Whose shoulders rests the government of the 
universe is under dominion. Can our choice what to do be doubtful, or is the 
decision which is the more advantageous course unimportant? Shall I slight the 
advice of Paul, Eunomius? shall I deem the voice of the Truth less trustworthy 
than thy deceit? But "if I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had 
sin(9)." Since then, He has spoken to them, truly declaring Himself to be 
Lord, and that He is not falsely named Lord (for He says, "I am," not "I am 
called"), what need is there that they should do that, whereon the vengeance 
is inevitable because they are forewarned? 

    But perhaps, in answer to this, he will again put forth his accustomed 
logic, and will say that the same Being is both slave and Lord, dominated by 
the controlling power but lording it over the rest. These profound 
distinctions are talked of at the cross-roads, circulated by those who are 
enamoured of falsehood, who confirm their idle notions about the Deity by 
illustrations from the circumstances of ordinary life. For since the 
occurrences of this world give us examples of such arrangements(1) (thus in a 
wealthy establishment one may see the more active and devoted servant set over 
his fellow-servants by the command of his master, and so invested with 
superiority over others in the same rank and station), they transfer this 
notion to the doctrines concerning. the Godhead, so that the Only-begotten 
God, though subject to the sovereignty of His superior, is no way hindered by 
the authority of His sovereign in the direction of those inferior to Him. But 
let us bid farewell to such philosophy, and proceed to discuss this point 
according to the measure of our intelligence. Do they confess that the Father 
is by nature Lord, or do they hold that He arrived at this position by some 
kind of election? I do not think that a man who has any share whatever of 
intellect could come to such a pitch of madness as not to acknowledge that the 
lordship of the God of all is His by nature. For that which is by nature 
simple, uncompounded, and indivisible, whatever it happens to be, that it is 
throughout in all its entirety, not becoming one thing after another by some 
process of change, but remaining eternally in the condition in which it is. 
What, then, is their 

belief about the Only-begotten? Do they own that His essence is simple, or do 
they suppose that in it there is any sort of composition? If they think that 
He is some multiform thing, made up of many parts, assuredly they will not 
concede Him even the name of Deity, but will drag down their doctrine of the 
Christ to corporeal and material conceptions: but if they agree that He is 
simple, how is it possible in the simplicity of the subject to recognize the 
concurrence of contrary attributes? For just as the contradictory opposition 
of life and death admits of no mean, so in its distinguishing characteristics 
is domination diametrically and irreconcilably opposed to servitude. For if 
one were to consider each of these by itself, one could not properly frame any 
definition that would apply alike to both, and where the definition of things 
is not identical, their nature also is assuredly different. If then the Lord 
is simple and uncompounded in nature, how can the conjunction of contraries be 
found in the subject, as would be the case if servitude mingled with lordship? 
But if He is acknowledged to be Lord, in accordance with the teaching of the 
saints, the simplicity of the subject is evidence that He can have no part or 
lot in the opposite condition: while if they make Him out to be a slave, then 
it is idle for them to ascribe to Him the title of lordship. For that which is 
simple in nature is not parted asunder into contradictory attributes. But if 
they affirm that He is one, and is called the other, that He is by nature 
slave and Lord in name alone, let them boldly utter this declaration and 
relieve us from the long labour of answering them. For who can afford to be so 
leisurely in his treatment of inanities as to employ arguments to demonstrate 
what is obvious and unambiguous? For if a man were to inform against himself 
for the crime of murder, the accuser would not be put to any trouble in 
bringing home to him by evidence the charge of blood-guiltiness. In like 
manner we shall no longer bring against our opponents, when they advance so 
far in impiety, a confutation framed after examination of their case. For he 
who affirms the Only-begotten to be a slave, makes Him out by so saying to be 
a fellow-servant with himself: and hence will of necessity arise a double 
enormity. For either he will despise his fellow-slave and deny the faith, 
having shaken off the yoke of the lordship of Christ, or he will bow before 
the slave, and, turning away from the self-determining nature that owns no 
Lord over it, will in a manner worship himself instead of God. For if he sees 
himself in slavery, and the object of his worship also in slavery, he of 
course looks at himself, seeing the whole of himself in that which he 
worships. But what reckoning can count up all the other mischiefs that 
necessarily accompany this pravity of doctrine? For who does not know that he 
who is by nature a slave, and follows his avocation under the constraint 
imposed by a master, cannot be removed even from the emotion of fear? And of 
this the inspired Apostle is a witness, when he says, "Ye have not received 
the spirit of bondage again to fear(2)." So that they will be found to 
attribute, after the likeness of men, the emotion of fear also to their 
fellow-servant God. 

    Such is the God of heresy. But what we, who, in the words of the Apostle, 
have been called to liberty by Christ(3), Who hath freed us from bondage, have 
been taught by the Scriptures to think, I will set forth in few words. I take 
my start from the inspired teaching, and boldly declare that the Divine Word 
does not wish even us to be slaves, our nature having now been changed for the 
better, and that He Who has taken all that was ours, on the terms of giving to 
us in return what is His, even as He took disease, death, curse, and sin, so 
took our slavery also, not in such a way as Himself to have what He took, but 
so as to purge our nature of such evils, our defects being swallowed up and 
done away with in His stainless nature. As therefore in the life that we hope 
for there will be neither disease, nor curse, nor sin, nor death, so slavery 
also along with these will vanish away. And that what I say is true I call the 
Truth Himself to witness, Who says to His disciples "I call you no more 
servants, but friends(4)." If then our nature will be free at length from the 
reproach of slavery, how comes the Lord of all to be reduced to slavery by the 
madness and infatuation of these deranged men, who must of course, as a 
logical consequence, assert that He does not know the counsels of the Father, 
because of His declaration concerning the slave, which tells us that "the 
servant knoweth not what his lord doeth(4)"? But when they say this, let them 
hear that the Son has in Himself all that pertains to the Father, and sees all 
things that the  Father doeth, and none of the good things that  belong to the 
Father is outside the knowledge of the Son. For how can He fail to have 
anything that is the Father's, seeing He has the Father wholly in Himself? 
Accordingly, if "the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth," and if He has 
in Himself all things that are the Father's, let those who are reeling with 
strong drink at last become sober, and let them now, if never before, look up 
at the truth, and see that He who has all things that the Father has is lord 
of all, and not a slave. For how can the personality that owns no lord over it 
bear on 

itself the brand of slavery? How can the King of all fail to have His form of 
like honour with Himself? how can dishonour--for slavery is 
dishonour--constitute the brightness of the true glory? and how is the King's 
son born into slavery? No, it is not so. But as He is Light of Light, and Life 
of Life, and Truth of Truth, so is He Lord of Lord, King of King, God of God, 
Supreme of Supreme; for having in Himself the Father in His entirety, whatever 
the Father has in Himself He also assuredly has, and since, moreover, all that 
the Son has belongs to the Father, the enemies of God's glory are inevitably 
compelled, if the Son is a slave, to drag down to servitude the Father as 
well. For there is no attribute of the Son which is not absolutely the 
Father's. "For all Mine are Thine," He says, "and Thine are Mine(5)." What 
then will the poor creatures say? Which is more reasonable--that the Son, Who 
has said, "Thine are Mine, and I am glorified in them(5)," should be glorified 
in the sovereignty of the Father, or that insult should be offered to the 
Father by the degradation involved in the slavery of the Son? For it is not 
possible that He Who contains in Himself all that belongs to the Son, and Who 
is Himself in the Son, should not also absolutely be in the slavery of the 
Son, and have slavery in Himself. Such are the results achieved by Eunomius' 
philosophy, whereby he inflicts upon his Lord the insult of slavery, while he 
attaches the same degradation to the stainless glory of the Father. 

    Let us however return once more to the course of his treatise. What does 
Eunomius say concerning the Only-begotten? That He "does not appropriate the 
dignity," for he calls the appellation of "being" a "dignity." A startling 
piece of philosophy! Who of all men that have ever been, whether among Greeks 
or barbarian sages, who of the men of our own day, who of the men of all time 
ever gave "being" the name of "dignity"? For everything that is regarded as 
subsisting(6) is said, by the common custom of all who use language, to "be": 
and from the word "be" has been formed the term "being." But now the 
expression "dignity" is applied in a new fashion to the idea expressed by 
"being." For he says that "the Son, Who is and lives because of the Father, 
does not appropriate this dignity," having no Scripture to support his 
statement, and not conducting, his statement to so senseless a conclusion by 
any process of logical inference, but as if he had taken into his intestines 
some windy food, he belches forth his blasphemy in its crude and unmethodized 
form, like some unsavoury breath. "He does not appropriate this dignity." Let 
us concede the point of "being" being called "dignity." What then? does He Who 
is not appropriate being? "No," says Eunomius, "because He exists by reason of 
the Father." Do you not then say that He Who does not appropriate being is 
not? for "not to appropriate" has the same force as "to be alien from" and the 
mutual opposition of the ideas(7) is evident. For that which is "proper" is 
not "alien," and that which is "alien" is not "proper." He therefore Who does 
not "appropriate" being is obviously alien from being: and He Who is alien 
from being is nonexistent. 

    But his cogent proof of this absurdity he brings forward in the words, "as 
the essence which controls even Him attracts to itself the conception of the 
Existent." Let us say nothing about the awkwardness of the combination here: 
let us examine his serious meaning. What argument ever demonstrated this? He 
superfluously reiterates to us his statement of the Essence of the Father 
having sovereignty over the Son. What evangelist is the patron of this 
doctrine? What process of dialectic conducts us to it. What premises support 
it? What line of argument ever demonstrated by any logical consequence that 
the Only-begotten God is under dominion? "But," says he, "the essence that is 
dominant over the Son attracts to itself the conception of the Existent." What 
is the meaning of the attraction of the existent? and how comes the phrase of 
"attracting" to be flung on the top of what he has said before? Assuredly he 
who considers the force of words will judge for himself. About this, however, 
we will say nothing: but we will take up again that argument that he does not 
grant essential being to Him to Whom he does not leave the title of the 
Existent. And why does he idly fight with shadows, contending about the 
non-existent being this or that? For that which does not exist is of course 
neither like anything else, nor unlike. But while granting that He is existent 
he forbids Him to be so called. Alas for the vain precision of haggling about 
the sound of a word while making concessions on the more important matter! But 
in what sense does He, Who, as he says, has dominion over the Son, "attract to 
Himself the conception of the Existent"? For if he says that the Father 
attracts His own essence, this process of attraction is superfluous: for 
existence is His already, without being attracted. If, on the other hand, his 
meaning is that the existence of the Son is attracted by the Father, I cannot 
make out how existence is to be 

wrenched from the Existent, and to pass over to Him Who "attracts" it. Can he 
be dreaming of the error of Sabellius, as though the Son did not exist in 
Himself, but was painted on to the personal existence of the Father? is this 
his meaning in the expression that the conception of the Existent is attracted 
by the essence which exercises domination over the Son? or does he, while not 
denying the personal existence of the Son, nevertheless say that He is 
separated from the meaning conveyed by the term "the Existent"? And yet, how 
can "the Existent" be separated from the conception of existence? For as long 
as anything is what it is, nature does not admit that it should not be what it 
is. 

xxxxxx
                                 BOOK XI 

   1. The eleventh book shows that the title of "Good" is due, not to the 
Father alone, as Eunomius, the imitator of Manichaeus and Bardesanes, alleges, 
but to the Son also, Who formed man in goodness and loving-kindness, and 
reformed him by His Cross and death. 

    LET US now go on to the next stage in his argument:--" .... the 
Only-begotten Himself ascribing to the Father the title due of right to Him 
alone. For He Who has taught us that the appellation 'good' belongs to Him 
alone Who is the cause of His own(1) goodness and of all goodness, and is so 
at all times, and Who refers to Him all good that has ever come into being, 
would be slow to appropriate to Himself the authority over all things that 
have come into being, and the title of 'the Existent.'" Well, so long as he 
concealed his blasphemy under some kind of veil, and strove to entangle his 
deluded hearers unawares in the mazes of his dialectic, I thought it necessary 
to watch his unfair and clandestine dealings, and as far as possible to lay 
bare in my argument the lurking mischief. But now that he has stripped his 
falsehood of every mask that could disguise it, and publishes his profanity 
aloud in categorical terms, I think it superfluous to undergo useless labour 
in bringing logical modes of confutation to bear upon those who make no secret 
of their impiety. For what further means could we discover to demonstrate 
their malignity so efficacious as that which they themselves show us in their 
writings ready to our hand? He says that the Father alone is worthy of the 
title of "good," that to Him alone such a name is due, on the plea that even 
the Son Himself agrees that goodness belongs to Him alone. Our accuser has 
pleaded our cause. for us: for perhaps in my former statements I was thought 
by my readers to show a certain wanton insolence when I endeavoured to 
demonstrate that the fighters against Christ made Him out to be alien from the 
goodness of the Father. But I think it has now been proved by the confession 
of our opponents that in bringing such a charge against them we were not 
acting unfairly. For he who says that the title of "good" belongs of right to 
the Father only, and that such an address befits Him alone, publishes abroad, 
by thus disclosing his real meaning, the villainy which he had previously 
wrapped up in disguise. He says that the title of "good" befits the Father 
only. Does he mean the title with the signification which belongs to the 
expression, or the title detached from its proper meaning? If on the one side 
he merely ascribes to the Father the title of "good" in a special sense, he is 
to be pitied for his irrationality in allowing to the Father merely the sound 
of an empty name. But if he thinks that the conception expressed by the term 
"good" belongs to God the Father only, he is to be abominated for his impiety, 
reviving as he does the plague of the Manichaean heresy in his own opinions. 
For as health and disease, even so goodness and badness exist on terms of 
mutual destruction, so that the absence of the one is the presence of the 
other. If then he says that goodness belongs to the Father only, he cuts off 
these from every conceivable object in existence except the Father, so that, 
along with all, the Only-begotten God is shut out from good. For as he who 
affirms that man alone is capable of laughter implies thereby that no other 
animal shares this property, so he who asserts that good is in the Father 
alone separates all things from that property. If then, as Eunomius declares, 
the Father alone has by right the title of "good," such a term will not be 
properly applied to anything else. But every impulse of the will either 
operates in accordance with good, or tends to the contrary. For to be inclined 
neither one way nor the other, but to remain in a state of equipoise, is the 
property of creatures inanimate or insensible. If the Father alone is good, 
having goodness not as a thing acquired, but in His nature, and if the Son, as 
heresy will have it, does not share in the nature of the Father, then he who 
does not share the good essence of the Father is of course at the same time 
excluded also from part and lot in the title of "good." But he who has no 
claim either to the nature or 

to the name of "good"--what he is assuredly not unknown, even though I forbear 
the blasphemous expression. For it is plain to all that the object for which 
Eunomius is so eager is to import into the conception of the Son a suspicion 
of that which is evil and opposite to good. For what kind of name belongs to 
him who is not good is manifest to every one who has a share of reason. As he 
who is not brave is cowardly, as he who is not just is unjust, and as he who 
is not wise is foolish, so he who is not good clearly has as his own the 
opposite name, and it is to this that the enemy of Christ wishes to press the 
conception of the Only-begotten, becoming thereby to the Church another Manes 
or Bardesanes. These are the sayings in regard of which we say that our 
utterance would be no more effective than silence. For were one to say 
countless things, and to arouse all possible arguments, one could not say 
anything so damaging of our opponents as what is openly and undisguisedly 
proclaimed by themselves. For what more bitter charge could one invent against 
them for malice than that of denying that He is good "Who, being in the form 
of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God(2)," but yet condescended 
to the low estate of human nature, and did so solely for the love of man? In 
return for what, tell me, "do ye thus requite the Lord(3)?" (for I will borrow 
the language of Moses to the Israelites); is He not good, Who when thou wast 
soulless dust invested thee with Godlike beauty, and raised thee up as an 
image of His own power endowed with soul? Is He not good, Who for thy sake 
took on Him the form of a servant, and for the joy set before Him(4) did not 
shrink from bearing the sufferings due to thy sin, and gave Himself a ransom 
for thy death, and became for our sakes a curse and sin? 

   2. He also ingeniously shows from the passage of the Gospel which speaks of 
"Good Master," from the parable of the Vineyard, from Isaiah  and from Paul, 
that there is not a dualism in  the Godhead of good and evil, as Eunomius' 
ally Marcion supposes, and declares that the Son does not refuse the title of 
"good" or "Existent," or acknowledge His alienation from the Father, but that 
to Him also belongs authority over all things that came into being. 

    Not even Marcion himself, the patron of your opinions, supports you in 
this. It is true that in common with you he holds a dualism of gods, and 
thinks that one is different in nature from the other, but it is the more 
courteous view to attribute goodness to the God of the Gospel. You however 
actually separate the Only begotten God from the nature of good, that you may 
surpass even Marcion in the depravity of your doctrines. However, they claim 
the Scripture on their side, and say that they are hardly treated when they 
are accused for using the very words of Scripture. For they say that the Lord 
Himself has said, "There is none good but one, that is, Gods." Accordingly, 
that misrepresentation may not prevail against the Divine words, we will 
briefly examine the actual passage in the Gospel. The history regards the rich 
man to whom the Lord spoke this word as young--the kind of person, I suppose, 
inclined to enjoy the pleasures of this life--and attached to his possessions; 
for  it says that he was grieved at the advice to part  with what he had, and 
that he did not choose to exchange his property for life eternal. This man, 
when he heard that a teacher of eternal life was in the neighbourhood, came to 
him in the expectation of living in perpetual luxury, with life indefinitely 
extended, flattering the Lord with the title of "good,"--flattering, I should 
rather say, not the Lord as we conceive Him, but as He then appeared in the 
form of a servant. For his character was not such as to enable him to 
penetrate the outward veil of flesh, and see through it into the inner shrine 
of Deity. The Lord, then, Who seeth the hearts, discerned the motive with 
which the young man approached Him as a suppliant,--that he did so, not with a 
soul intently fixed upon the Divine, but that it was the man whom he besought, 
calling Him "Good Master," because he hoped to learn from Him some lore by 
which the approach of death might be hindered. Accordingly, with good reason 
did He Who was thus besought by him answer even as He was addressed(6). For as 
the entreaty was not addressed to God the Word, so correspondingly the answer 
was delivered to the applicant by the Humanity of Christ, thereby impressing 
on the youth a double lesson. For He teaches him, by one and the same answer, 
both the duty of reverencing and paying homage to the Divinity, not by 
flattering speeches but by his life, by keeping the commandments and buying 
life eternal at the cost of all possessions, and also the truth that humanity, 
having been sunk in depravity by reason of sin, is debarred from the title of 
"Good": and for this reason He says, "Why callest Thou Me good?" suggesting in 
His answer by the word "Me" that human nature which encompassed Him, while by 
attributing goodness to the Godhead He expressly declared Himself to be good, 
seeing that 

He is proclaimed to be God by the Gospel. For had the Only-begotten Son been 
excluded from the title of God, it would perhaps not have been absurd to think 
Him alien also from the appellation of "good." But if, as is the case, 
prophets, evangelists, and Apostles proclaim aloud the Godhead of the 
Only-begotten, and if the name of goodness is attested by the Lord Himself to 
belong to God, how is it possible that He Who is partaker of the Godhead 
should not be partaker of the goodness too? For that both prophets, 
evangelists, disciples and apostles acknowledge the Lord as God, there is none 
so uninitiated in Divine mysteries as to need to be expressly told. For who 
knows not that in the forty-fourth(7) Psalm the prophet in his word affirms 
the Christ to be God, anointed by God? And again, who of all that are 
conversant with prophecy is unaware that Isaiah, among other passages, thus 
openly proclaims the Godhead of the Son, where he says: "The Sabeans, men of 
stature, shall come over unto thee, and shall be servants unto thee: they 
shall come after thee bound in fetters, and in thee shall they make 
supplication, because God is in thee, and there is no God beside thee; for 
thou art God(8)." For what other God there is Who has God in Himself, and is 
Himself God, except the Only-begotten, let them say who hearken not to the 
prophecy; but of the interpretation of Emmanuel, and the confession of Thomas 
after his recognition of the Lord, and the sublime diction of John, as being 
manifest even to those who are outside the faith, I will say nothing. Nay, I 
do not even think it necessary to bring forward in detail the utterances of 
Paul, since they are, as one may say, in all men's mouths, who gives the Lord 
the appellation not only of "God," but of "great God" and "God over all," 
saying to the Romans, "Whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the 
flesh, Christ came, Who is over all, God blessed for ever(9)," and writing to 
his disciple Titus, "According to the appearing of Jesus Christ the great God 
and our Saviour(1)," and to Timothy, proclaims in plain terms, "God was 
manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit(2)." Since then the fact has 
been demonstrated on every side that the Only-begotten God is God(3), how is 
it that he who says that goodness belongs to God, strives to show that the 
Godhead of the Son is alien from this ascription, and this though the Lord has 
actually claimed for Himself the epithet "good" in the parable of those who 
were hired into the vineyard? For there, when those who had laboured before 
the others were dissatisfied at all receiving the same pay, and deemed the 
good fortune of the last to be their own loss, the just judge says to one of 
the murmurers(4), "Friend, I do thee no wrong: did I not agree with thee for a 
penny a day? Lo, there thou hast that is thine(5): I will bestow upon this 
last even as upon thee. Have I not power to do what I will with mine own? Is 
thine eye evil because I am good?" Of course no one will contest the point 
that to distribute recompense according to desert is the special function of 
the judge; and all the disciples of the Gospel agree that the Only-begotten 
God is Judge; "for the Father," He saith, "judgeth no man, but hath committed 
all judgment unto the Son(6)." But they do not set themselves in opposition(7) 
to the Scriptures. For they say that the word "one" absolutely points to the 
Father. For He saith, "There is none good but one, that is God." Will truth 
then lack vigour to plead her own cause? Surely there are many means easily to 
convict of deception this quibble also. For He Who said this concerning the 
Father spake also to the Father that other word, "All Mine are Thine, and 
Thine are Mine, and I am glorified in them(8)." Now if He says that all that 
is the Father's is also the Son's, and goodness is one of the attributes 
pertaining to the Father, either the Son has not all things if He has not 
this, and they will be saying that the Truth lies, or if it is impious to 
suspect the very Truth of being carried away into falsehood, then He Who 
claimed all that is the Father's as His own, thereby asserted that He was not 
outside of goodness. For He Who has the Father in Himself, and contains all 
things that belong to the Father, manifestly has His goodness with "all 
things." Therefore the Son is Good. But "there is none good," he says, "but 
one, that is God." This is what is alleged by our adversaries: nor do I myself 
reject the statement. I do not, however, for this cause deny the Godhead of 
the Son. But he who confesses that the Lord is God, by that very confession 
assuredly also asserts of Him goodness. For if goodness is a property of God, 
and if the Lord is God, then by our premises the Son is shown 

to be God. "But," says our opponent, "the word 'one' excludes the Son from 
participation in goodness." It is easy, however, to show that not even the 
word "one" separates the Father from the Son. For in all other cases, it is 
true, the term "one" carries with it the signification of not being coupled 
with anything else, but in the case of the Father and the Son "one" does not 
imply isolation. For He says,  "I and the Father are one(9)." If, then, the 
good is one, and a particular kind of unity is contemplated in the Father and 
the Son, it follows that the Lord, in predicating goodness of "one," claimed 
under the term "one" the title of "good" also for Himself, Who is one with the 
Father, and not severed from oneness of nature. 

   3. He then exposes the ignorance of Eunomius, and the incoherence and 
absurdity of his arguments, in speaking of the Son as "the Angel of the 
Existent," and as being as much below the Divine Nature as the Son is superior 
to the things created by Himself. And in this connection there is a noble and 
forcible counter-statement and an indignant refutation, showing that He Who 
gave the oracles to Moses is Himself the Existent, the Only-begotten Son, Who 
to the petition of Moses, "If Thou Thyself goest not with us, carry me not up 
hence," said, "I will do this also that thou hast said"; Who is also called 
"Angel" beth by Moses and Isaiah: wherein is cited the text, "Unto us a Child 
is born." 

    But that the research and culture of our imposing author may be completely 
disclosed, we will consider sentence by sentence his presentment of his 
sentiments. "The Son," he says, "does not appropriate the dignity of the 
Existent," giving the name of "dignity" to the actual fact of being:--(with 
what propriety he knows how to adapt words to things!)--and since He is "by 
reason of the Father," he says that He is alienated from Himself on the ground 
that the essence which is supreme over Him attracts to itself the conception 
of the Existent. This is much the same as if one were to say that he who is 
bought for money, in so far as he is in his own existence, is not the person 
bought, but the purchaser, inasmuch as his essential personal existence is 
absorbed into the nature of him who has acquired authority over him. Such are 
the lofty conceptions of our divine: but what is the demonstration of his 
statements? .... "the Only-begotten," he says, "Himself ascribing to the 
Father the title due of right to Him alone," and then he introduces the point 
that the Father alone is good. Where in this does the Son disclaim the title 
of "Existent"? Yet this is what Eunomius is driving at when he goes on word 
for word as follows:--"For He Who has taught us that the appellation 'good' 
belongs to Him alone Who is the cause of His own goodness and of all goodness, 
and is so at all times, and Who refers to Him all good that has ever come into 
being, would be slow to appropriate to Himself the authority over all things 
that have come into being, and the title of 'the Existent."' What has 
"authority" to do with the context? and how along with this is the Son also 
alienated from the title of "Existent"? But really I do not know what one 
ought rather to do at this,--to laugh at the want of education, or to pity the 
pernicious folly which it displays. For the expression, "His own," not 
employed according to the natural meaning, and as those who know how to use 
language are wont to use it, attests his extensive knowledge of the grammar of 
pronouns, which even little boys get up with their masters without trouble, 
and his ridiculous wandering from the subject to what has nothing to do either 
with his argument or with the form of that argument, considered as 
syllogistic, namely, that the Son has no share in the appellation of 
"Existent"--an assertion adapted to his monstrous inventions(1),--this and 
similar absurdities seem combined together for the purpose of provoking 
laughter; so that it may be that readers of the more careless sort experience 
some such inclination, and are amused by the disjointedness of his arguments. 
But that God the Word should not exist, or that He at all events should not be 
good (and this is what Eunomius maintains when he says that He does not 
"appropriate the title" of "Existent" and "good"), and to make out that the 
authority over all things that come into being does not belong to him,--this 
calls for our tears, and for a wail of mourning. 

    For it is not as if he had but let fall something of the kind just once 
under some headlong and inconsiderate impulse, and in what followed had 
striven to retrieve his error: no, he dailies lingeringly with the malignity, 
striving in his later statements to surpass what had gone before. For as he 
proceeds, he says that the Son is the same distance below the Divine Nature as 
the nature of angels is subjected below His own, not indeed saying this in so 
many words, but endeavouring by what he does say to produce such an 
impression. The reader may judge for himself the meaning of his words: they 
run as follows,--"Who, by being called 

'Angel,' clearly showed by Whom He published His words, and Who is the 
Existent, while by being addressed also as God, He showed His superiority over 
all things. For He Who is the God of all things that were made by Him, is the 
Angel of the God over all." Indignation rushes into my heart and interrupts my 
discourse, and under this emotion arguments are lost in a turmoil of anger 
roused by words like these. And perhaps I may be pardoned for feeling such 
emotion. For whose resentment would not be stirred within him at such 
profanity, when he remembers how the Apostle proclaims that every angelic 
nature is subject to the Lord, and in witness of his doctrine invokes the 
sublime utterances of the prophets:--"When He bringeth the first-begotten into 
the world, He saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him," and, "Thy 
throne, O God, is for ever and ever," and, "Thou art the same, and Thy years 
shall not fail(2)"? When the Apostle has gone through all this argument to 
demonstrate the unapproachable majesty of the Only-begotten God, what must I 
feel when I hear from the adversary of Christ that the Lord of Angels is 
Himself only an Angel,--and when he does not let such a statement fall by 
chance, but puts forth his strength to maintain this monstrous invention, so 
that it may be established that his Lord has no superiority over John and 
Moses? For the word says concerning them, "This is he of whom it is written, 
'Behold I send my angel before thy face(3).'" John therefore is an angel. But 
the enemy of the Lord, even though he grants his. Lord the name of God, yet 
makes Him out to be on a level with the deity of Moses, since he too was a 
servant of the God over all, and was constituted a god to the Egyptians(4). 
And yet this phrase, "over all," as has been previously observed, is common to 
the Son with the Father, the Apostle having expressly ascribed such a title to 
Him, when he says, "Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, Who is God 
over all(5)." But this man degrades the Lord of angels to the rank of an 
angel, as though he had not heard that the angels are "ministering spirits," 
and "a flame of fire(6)." For by the use of these distinctive terms does the 
Apostle make the difference between the several subjects clear and 
unmistakable, defining the subordinate nature to be "spirits" and "fire," and 
distinguishing the supreme power by the name of Godhead. And yet, though there 
are so many that proclaim the glory of the Only-begotten God, against them all 
Eunomius lifts up his single voice, calling the Christ "an angel of the God 
over all," defining Him, by thus contrasting Him with the "God over all," to 
be one of the "all things," and, by giving Him the same name as the angels, 
trying to establish that He no wise differs from them in nature: for he has 
often previously said that all those things which share the same name cannot 
be different in nature. Does the argument, then, still lack its censors, as it 
concerns a man who proclaims in so many words that the "Angel" does not 
publish His own word, but that of the Existent? For it is by this means that 
he tries to show that the Word  Who was in the beginning, the Word Who was 
God, is not Himself the Word, but is the Word of some other Word, being its 
minister and "angel." And who knows not that the only opposite to the 
"Existent" is the nonexistent? so that he who contrasts the Son with the 
Existent, is clearly playing the Jew, robbing the Christian doctrine of the 
Person of the Only-begotten. For in saying that He is excluded from the title 
of the "Existent," he is assuredly trying to establish also that He is outside 
the pale of existence: for surely if he grants Him existence, he will not 
quarrel about the sound of the word. 

    But he strives to prop up his absurdity by the testimony of Scripture, and 
puts forth Moses as his advocate against the truth. For as though that were 
the source from which he drew his arguments, he freely sets forth to us his 
own fables, saying, "He Who sent Moses was the Existent Himself, but He by 
Whom He sent and spake was the Angel of the Existent, and the God of all 
else." That his statement, however, is not drawn from Scripture, may be 
conclusively proved by Scripture itself. But if he says that this is the sense 
of what is written, we must examine the original language of Scripture. 
Moreover let us first notice that Eunomius, after calling the Lord God of all 
things after Him, allows Him no superiority in comparison with the angelic 
nature. For neither did Moses, when he heard that he was made a god to 
Pharaoh(4), pass beyond the bounds of humanity, but while in nature he was on 
an equality with his fellows, he was raised above them by superiority of 
authority, and his being called a god did not hinder him from being man. So 
too in this case Eunomius, while making out the Son to be one of the angels, 
salves over such an error by the appellation of Godhead, in the manner 
expressed, allowing Him the title of God in some equivocal sense. Let us once 
more set down and examine the very words in which he delivers his blasphemy. 
"He Who sent Moses was the Existent Himself, but He by Whom He sent was the 
Angel 

of the Existent"--this, namely "Angel," being the title he gives his Lord. 
Well, the absurdity of our author is refuted by the Scripture itself, in the 
passage where Moses beseeches the Lord not to entrust an angel with the 
leadership of the people, but Himself to conduct their march. The passage runs 
thus: God is speaking, "Go, get thee down, guide this people unto the place of 
which I have spoken unto thee: behold Mine Angel shall go before thee in the 
day when I visit(7)." And a little while after He says again, "And I will send 
Mine Angel before thee(8)." Then, a little after what immediately follows, 
comes the supplication to God on the part of His servant, running on this 
wise, "If I have found grace in Thy sight, let my Lord go among us(9)," and 
again, "If Thou Thyself go not with us, carry me not up hence(1)"; and then 
the answer of God to Moses, "I will do for thee this thing also that thou hast 
spoken for thou hast found grace in My sight, and I know thee above all 
men(2)." Accordingly, if Moses begs that the people may not be led by an 
angel, and if He Who was discoursing with him consents to become his 
fellow-traveller and the guide of the army, it is hereby manifestly shown that 
He Who made Himself known by the title of "the Existent" is the Only-begotten 
God. 

    If any one gainsays this, he will show himself to be a supporter of the 
Jewish persuasion in not associating the Son with the deliverance of the 
people. For if, on the one hand, it was not an angel that went forth with the 
people, and if, on the other, as Eunomius would have it, He Who was manifested 
by the name of the Existent is not the Only-begotten, this amounts to nothing 
less than transferring the doctrines of the synagogue to the Church of God. 
Accordingly, of the two alternatives they must needs admit one, namely, either 
that the Only-begotten God on no occasion appeared to Moses, or that the Son 
is Himself the "Existent," from Whom the word came to His servant. But he 
contradicts what has been said above, alleging the Scripture itself(3) which 
informs us that the voice of an angel was interposed, and that it was thus 
that the discourse of the Existent was conveyed. This, however, is no 
contradiction, but a confirmation of our view. For we too say plainly, that 
the prophet, wishing to make manifest to men the mystery concerning Christ, 
called the Self-Existent "Angel," that the meaning of the words might not be 
referred to the Father, as it would have been if the title of "Existent" alone 
had been found throughout the discourse. But just as our word is the revealer 
and messenger (or "angel") of the movements of the mind, even so we affirm 
that the true Word that was in the beginning, when He announces the will of 
His own Father, is styled "Angel" (or "Messenger"), a title given to Him on 
account of the operation of conveying the message. And as the sublime John, 
having previously called Him "Word," so introduces the further truth that the 
Word was God, that our thoughts might not at once turn to the Father, as they 
would have done if the title of God had been put first, so too does the mighty 
Moses, after first calling Him "Angel," teach us in the words that follow that 
He is none other than the Self-Existent Himself, that the mystery concerning 
the Christ might be fore-shown, by the Scripture assuring us by the name 
"Angel," that the Word is the interpreter of the Father's will, and, by the 
title of the "Self-Existent," of the closeness of relation subsisting between 
the Son and the Father. And if he should bring forward Isaiah also as calling 
Him "the Angel of mighty counsel(4)," not even so will be overthrow our 
argument. For there, in dear and uncontrovertible terms, there is indicated by 
the prophecy the dispensation of His Humanity; for "unto us," he says, "a 
Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His 
shoulder, and His name is called the Angel of mighty counsel." And it is with 
an eye to this, I suppose, that David describes the establishment of His 
kingdom, not as though He were not a King, but in the view that the 
humiliation to the estate of a servant to which the Lord submitted by way of 
dispensation, was taken up and absorbed into the majesty of His Kingdom. For 
he says, "I was established King by Him on His holy hill of Sion, declaring 
the ordinance of the Lord.(5) Accordingly, He Who through Himself reveals the 
goodness of the Father is called "Angel" and "Word," "Seal" and "Image," and 
all similar titles with the same intention. For as the "Angel" (or 
"Messenger") gives information from some one, even so the Word reveals the 
thought within, the Seal shows by Its own stamp the original mould, and the 
Image by Itself interprets the beauty of that whereof It is the image, so that 
in their signification all these terms are equivalent to one another. For this 
reason the title "Angel" is placed before that of the "Self-Existent," the Son 
being termed "Angel" as the exponent of His Father's will, and the "Existent" 
as having no name that could possibly give a knowledge of His essence, but 
transcending all the power of names to express. Wherefore also His name is 
testified by the 

writing of the Apostle to be "above every name(6)," not as though it were some 
one name preferred above all others, though still compar-able with them, but 
rather in the sense that He Who verily is above every name. 

   4. After this, fearing to extend his reply to great length, he passes by 
most of his adversary's statements as already refuted. But the remainder, for 
the sake of those who deem them of much force, he briefly summarizes, and 
refutes the blasphemy of Eunomius, who says of the Lord also that He is what 
animals and plants in all creation are, non-existent before their own 
generation; and so with the production of frogs; alas for the blasphemy! 

    But I must hasten on, for I see that my treatise has already extended 
beyond bounds and I fear that I may be thought garrulous and inordinate in my 
talk, if I prolong my answer to excess, although I have intentionally passed 
by many parts of my adversary's treatise, that my argument might not be spun 
out to many myriads of words. For to the more studious even the want of 
conciseness gives an occasion for disparagement; but as for those whose mind 
looks not to what is of use, but to the fancy of those who are idle and not in 
earnest, their wish and prayer is to get over as much of the journey as they 
can in a few steps. What then ought we to do when Eunomius' profanity draws us 
on? Are we to track his every turn? or is it perhaps superfluous and merely 
garrulous to spend our energies over and over again on similar encounters? For 
all their argument that follows is in accordance with what we have already 
investigated, and presents no fresh point in addition to what has gone before. 
If then we have succeeded in completely overthrowing his previous statements, 
the remainder fall along with them. But in case the contentious and obstinate 
should think that the strongest part of their case is in what I have omitted, 
for this reason it may perhaps be necessary to touch briefly upon what 
remains. 

    He says that the Lord did not exist before His own generation--he who 
cannot prove that He was in anything separated from the Father. And this he 
says, not quoting any Scripture as a warrant for his assertion, but 
maintaining his proposition by arguments of his own. But this characteristic 
has been shown to be common to all parts of the creation. Not a frog, not a 
worm, not a beetle, not a blade of grass, nor any other of the most 
insignificant objects, existed  before its own formation: so that what by aid 
of his dialectic skill he tries with great labour and pains to establish to be 
the case with the Son, has previously been acknowleged to be true of any 
chance portions of the creation, and our author's mighty labour is to show 
that the Only-begotten God, by participation of attributes, is on a level with 
the lowest of created things. Accordingly the fact of the coincidence of their 
opinions concerning the Only-begotten God, and their view of the mode in which 
frogs come into being, is a sufficient indication of their doctrinal pravity. 
Next he urges that not to  be before His generation, is equivalent in fact and 
meaning to not being ungenerate. Once more the same argument will fit my hand 
in dealing with this too,--that a man would not be wrong in saying the same 
thing of a dog, or a flea, or a snake, or any one you please of the meanest 
creatures, since for a dog not to exist before his generation is equivalent in 
fact and meaning to his not being ungenerate. But if, in accord with the 
definition they have so often laid down, all things that share in attributes 
share also in nature, and if it is an attribute of the dog, and of the rest 
severally, not to exist before generation, which is what Eunomius thinks fit 
to maintain also of the Son, the reader will by logical process see for 
himself the contusion of this demonstration. 

   5. (7)Eunomius again speaks of the Son as Lord and God, and Maker of all 
creation intelligible and sensible, having received from the Father the power 
and the commission ,for creation, being entrusted with the task of creation as 
if He were an artizan commissioned by some one hiring Him, and receiving His 
power of creation as a thing adventitious, ab extra, as a result of the power 
allotted to Him in accordance with such and such combinations and positions of 
the stars, as destiny decrees their lot in life to men at their nativity. 
Thus, passing by most of what Eunomius had written, he confutes his blasphemy 
that the Maker all things came into being in like manner with the earth and 
with angels, and that the subsistence of the Only-begotten differs not at all 
front the genesis of all things, and reproaches him with reverencing neither 
the Divine mystery nor the custom of the Church, nor following in his attempt 
to discover godliness any teacher of pious doctrine, but Manichaeus, 
Colluthus, Arius, Aetius, and those like to them, supposing that Christianity 
in general is folly, and that the 

customs of the Church and the venerable sacraments are a jest, wherein he 
differs in nothing from the pagans, who borrowed from our doctrine the idea of 
a great God supreme over all. So, too, this new idolater preaches in the same 
fashion, and in particular that baptism is 

"into an artificer and creator," not fearing the curse of those who cause 
addition or diminution to the Holy Scriptures. And he closes his book with 
showing him to be Antichrist. 

    Afterwards, however, he gives his discourse a more moderate turn, 
imparting to it even a touch of gentleness, and, though he had but a little 
earlier partitioned off the Son from the title of Existent, he now says,--"We 
affirm that the Son is not only existent, and above all existent things, but 
we also call Him Lord and God, the Maker of every being(8), sensible and 
intelligible." What does he suppose this "being" to be? created? or uncreated? 
For if he confesses Jesus to be Lord, God, and Maker of all intelligible 
being, it necessarily follows, if he says it is uncreated, that he speaks 
falsely, ascribing to the Son the making of the uncreated Nature. But if he 
believes it to be created, he makes Him His own Maker. For if the act of 
creation be not separated from intelligible nature in favour of Him Who is 
independent and uncreated, there will no longer remain any mark of 
distinction, as the sensible creation and the intelligible being will be 
thought of under one head(9). But here he brings in the assertion that "in the 
creation of existent things He has been entrusted by the Father with the 
construction of all things visible and invisible, and with the providential 
care over all that comes into being, inasmuch as the power allotted to Him 
from above is sufficient for the production of those things which have been 
constructed(1)." The vast length to which our treatise has run compels us to 
pass over these assertions briefly but, in a sense, profanity surrounds the 
argument, containing a vast swarm of notions like venomous wasps. "He was 
entrusted," he says, "with the construction of things by the Father." But if 
he had been talking about some artizan executing his work at the pleasure of 
his employer, would he not have used the same language? For we are not wrong 
in saying just the same of Bezaleel, that being entrusted by Moses with the 
building of the tabernacle, he became the constructor of those things there(2) 
mentioned, and would not have taken the work in hand had he not previously 
acquired his knowledge by Divine inspiration, and ventured upon the 
undertaking on Moses' entrusting him with its execution. Accordingly the term 
"entrusted" suggests that His office and power in creation came to Him as 
something adventitious, in the sense that before He was entrusted with that 
commission He had neither the will nor the power to act, but when He received 
authority to execute the works, and power sufficient for the works, then He 
became the artificer of things that are, the power allotted to Him from on 
high being, as Eunomius says, sufficient for the purpose. Does he then place 
even the generation of the Son, by some astrological juggling(3), under some 
destiny, just as they who practise this vain deceit affirm that the 
appointment of their lot in life comes to men at the time of their birth, by 
such and such conjunctions or oppositions of the stars, as the rotation above 
moves on in a kind of ordered train, assigning to those who are coming into 
being their special faculties? It may be that something of this kind is in the 
mind of our sage, and he says that to Him that is above all rule, and 
authority, and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this 
world, but also in that which is to come, there has been allotted, as though 
He were pent in some hollow spaces, power from on high, measured out in 
accordance with the quantity of things which come into being. I will pass over 
this part of his treatise also summarily, letting fall from a slight 
commencement of investigation, for the more intelligent sort of readers, seeds 
to enable them to discern his profanity. Moreover, in what follows, there is 
ready written a kind of apology for ourselves. For we cannot any longer be 
thought to be missing the intention of his discourse, and misinterpreting his 
words to render them subject to criticism, when his own voice acknowledges the 
absurdity of his doctrine. His words stand as follows:--"What? did not earth 
and angel come into being, when before they were not?" See how our lofty 
theologian is not ashamed to apply the same description to earth and angels 
and to the Maker of all! Surely if he thinks it fit to predicate the same of 
earth and its Lord, he must either make a god of the one, or degrade the other 
to a level with it. 

    Then he adds to this something by which his profanity is yet more 
completely stripped of all disguise, so that its absurdity is obvious even 

to a child. For he says,--"It would be a long task to detail all the modes of 
generation of intelligible objects, or the essences which do not all possess 
the nature of the Existent in common, but display variations according to the 
operations of Him Who constructed them." Without any words of ours, the 
blasphemy against the Son which is here contained is glaring and conspicuous, 
when he acknowledges that which is predicated of every mode of generation and 
essence in nowise differs from the description of the Divine subsistence(4) of 
the Only-begotten. But it seems to me best to pass over the intermediate 
passages in which he seeks to maintain his profanity, and to hasten to the 
head and front of the accusation which we have to bring against his doctrines. 
For he will be found to exhibit the sacrament of regeneration as an idle 
thing, the mystic oblation as profitless, and the participation in them as of 
no advantage to those who are partakers therein. For after those high-wrought 
aeons(5) in which, by way of disparagement of our doctrine, he names as its 
supporters a Valentinus, a Cerinthus, a Basilides, a Montanus, and a Marcion, 
and after laying it down that those who affirm that the Divine nature is 
unknowable, and the mode of His generation unknowable, have no right or title 
whatever to the name of Christians, and after reckoning us among those whom he 
thus disparages, he proceeds to develop his own view in these terms:--"But we, 
in agreement with holy and blessed men; affirm that the mystery of godliness 
does not consist in venerable names, nor in the distinctive character of 
customs and sacramental tokens, but in exactness of doctrine." That when he 
wrote this, he did so not under the guidance of evangelists, apostles, or any 
of the authors of the Old Testament, is plain to every one who has any 
acquaintance with the sacred and Divine Scripture. We should naturally be led 
to suppose that by "holy and blessed men" he meant Manichaeus, Nicolaus, 
Colluthus, Aetius, Arius, and the rest of the same band, with whom he is in 
strict accord in laying down this principle, that neither the confession of 
sacred names, nor the customs of the Church, nor her sacramental tokens, are a 
ratification of godliness. But we, having learnt from the holy voice of Christ 
that "except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit he shall not enter 
into the kingdom of God 6," and that "He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My 
blood, shall live for ever(7)," are persuaded that the mystery of godliness is 
ratified by the confession of the Divine Names--the Names of the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost, and that our salvation is confirmed by participation 
in the sacramental customs and tokens. But doctrines have often been carefully 
investigated by those who have had no part or lot in that mystery, and one may 
hear many such putting forward the faith we hold as a subject for themselves 
in the rivalry of debate, and some of them often even succeeding in hitting 
the truth, and for all that none the less estranged from the faith. Since, 
then, he despises the revered Names, by which the power of the more Divine 
birth distributes grace to them who come for it in faith, and slights the 
fellowship of the sacramental customs and tokens from which the Christian 
profession draws its vigour, let us, with a slight variation, utter to those 
who listen to his deceit the word of the prophet:--"How long will ye be slow 
of heart? Why do ye love destruction and seek after leasing(8)?" How is it 
that ye do not see the persecutor of the faith inviting those who consent unto 
him to violate their Christian profession? For if the confession of the 
revered and precious Names of the Holy Trinity is useless, and the customs of 
the Church unprofitable, and if among these customs is the sign of the 
cross(9), prayer, baptism, confession of sins, a ready zeal to keep the 
commandment, right ordering of character, sobriety of life, regard to justice, 
the effort not to be excited by passion, or enslaved by pleasure, or to fall 
short in moral excellence,--if he says that none of such habits as these is 
cultivated to any good purpose, and that the sacramental tokens do not, as we 
have believed, secure spiritual blessings, and avert from believers the 
assaults directed against them by the wiles of the evil one, what else does he 
do but openly proclaim aloud to men that he deems the mystery which Christians 
cherish a fable, laughs at the majesty of the Divine Names, considers the 
customs of the Church a jest, and all sacramental operations idle prattle and 
folly? What beyond this do they who remain attached to paganism bring forward 
in disparagement of our creed? Do not they too make the majesty of the sacred 
Names, in which the faith is ratified, an occasion of laughter? Do not they 
deride the sacramental tokens and the customs which are observed by the 
initiated? And of whom is it so much a distinguishing peculiarity as of the 
pagans, to think that piety should consist in doctrines only? since they also 
say that according to their view, there is something more persuasive than the 
Gospel which we preach, and 

some of them hold that there is some one great God pre-eminent above the rest, 
and acknowledge some subject powers, differing among themselves in the way of 
superiority or inferiority, in some regular order and sequence, but all  alike 
subject to the Supreme. This, then, is what the teachers of the new idolatry 
preach, and they who follow them have no dread of the condemnation that 
abideth on transgressors, as though they did not understand that actually to 
do some improper thing is far more grievous than to err in word alone. They, 
then, who in act deny the faith, and slight the confession of the sacred 
Names, and judge the sanctification effected by the sacramental tokens to be 
worthless, and have been persuaded to have regard to cunningly devised fables, 
and to fancy that their salvation consists in quibbles about the generate and 
the ungenerate,--what else are they than transgressors of the doctrines of 
salvation? 

    But if any one thinks that these charges are brought against them by us 
ungenerously and unfairly, let him consider independently our author's 
writings, both what we have previously alleged, and what is inferred in 
logical connection with our citations. For in direct contravention of the law 
of the Lord--(for the deliverance to us of the means of initiation constitutes 
a law),--he says that baptism is not into the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Spirit, as Christ commanded His disciples when He delivered to them the 
mystery, but into an artificer and creator, and "not only Father," he says, 
"of the Only-begotten, but also His God(1)." Woe unto him who gives his 
neighbour to drink turbid mischief(2)! How does, he trouble and befoul the 
truth by flinging his mud into it! How is it that he feels no fear of the 
curse that rests upon those who add aught to the Divine utterance, or dare to 
take aught away? Let us read the declaration of the Lord in His very 
words--"Go," He says, "teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Where did He call the Son a 
creature? Where did the Word teach that the Father is creator and artificer of 
the Only-begotten? Where in the words cited is it taught that the Son is a 
servant of God? Where in the delivery of the mystery is the God of the Son 
proclaimed? Do ye not perceive and understand, ye who are dragged by guile to 
perdition, what sort of guide ye have put in charge of your souls,--one who 
interpolates the Holy Scriptures, who garbles the Divine utterances, who with 
his own mud befouls the purity of the doctrines of godliness, who not only 
arms his own tongue against us, but also attempts to tamper with the sacred 
voices of truth, who is eager to invest his own perversion with more authority 
than the teaching of the Lord? Do ye not perceive that he stirs himself up 
against the Name at which all must bow, so that in time the Name of the Lord 
shall be heard no more, and instead of Christ Eunomius shall be brought into 
the Churches? Do ye not yet consider that this preaching of godlessness has 
been set on foot by the devil as a rehearsal, preparation, and prelude of the 
coming of Antichrist? For he who is ambitious of showing that his own words 
are more authoritative than those of Christ, and of transforming the faith 
from the Divine Names and the sacramental customs and tokens to his own 
deceit,--what else, I say, could he properly be called, but only Antichrist? 

xxxxxx
                                BOOK XII 

   1. This twelfth book gives a notable interpretation of the words of the 
Lord to Mary, "Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father." 

    BUT let us see what is the next addition that follows upon this profanity, 
an addition which is in fact the key of their defence of their doctrine. For 
those who would degrade the majesty of the glory of the Only-begotten to 
slavish and grovelling conceptions think that they find the strongest proof of 
their assertions in the words of the Lord to Mary, which He uttered after His 
resurrection, and before His ascension into heaven, saying, "Touch Me not, for 
I am not yet ascended to My Father: but go to My brethren and say unto them, I 
ascend unto My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God(1)." The 
orthodox interpretation of these words, the sense in which we have been 
accustomed to believe that they were spoken to Mary, is I think manifest to 
all who have received the faith in truth. Still the dis-cussion of this point 
shall be given by us in its proper place; but meantime it is worth while to 
inquire from those who allege against us such phrases as "ascending," "being 
seen," "being recognized by touch," and moreover "being associated with men by 
brotherhood," whether they consider them to be proper to the Divine or to the 
Human Nature. For if they see in the Godhead the capacity of being seen and 
touched, of being supported by meat and drink, kinship and brotherhood with 
men, and all the attributes of corporeal nature, then let them predicate of 
the Only-begotten God both these and whatsoever else they will, as motive 
energy and local change, which are peculiar to things circumscribed by a body. 
But if He by Mary is discoursing with His brethren, and if the Only-begotten 
has no brethren, (for how, if He had brethren, could the property of being 
Only-begotten be preserved?) and if the same Person Who said, "God is a 
Spirit(2)," says to His disciples, "Handle Me(3)," that He may show that while 
the Human Nature is capable of being handled the Divinity is intangible, and 
if He Who says, "I go," indicates local change, while He who contains all 
things, "in Whom," as the Apostle says, "all things were created, and in Whom 
all things consist(4)," has nothing in existent things external to Himself to 
which removal could take place by any kind of motion, (for motion cannot 
otherwise be effected than by that which is removed leaving the place in which 
it is, and occupying another place instead, while that which extends through 
all, and is in all, and controls all, and is confined by no existent thing, 
has no place to which to pass, inasmuch as nothing is void of the Divine 
fulness,) how can these men abandon the belief that such expressions arise 
from that which is apparent, and apply them to that Nature which is Divine and 
which surpasseth all understanding, when the Apostle has in his speech to the 
Athenians plainly forbidden us to imagine any such thing of God, inasmuch as 
the Divine power is not discoverable by touch(5), but by intelligent 
contemplation and faith? Or, again, whom does He Who did eat before the eyes 
of His disciples, and promised to go before them into Galilee and there be 
seen of them,--whom does He reveal Him to be Who should so appear to them? 
God, Whom no man hath seen or can see(6)? or the bodily image, that is, the 
form of a servant in which God was? If then what has been said plainly proves 
that the meaning of the phrases alleged refers to that which is visible, 
expressing shape, and capable of motion, akin to the nature of His disciples, 
and none of these properties is discernible in Him Who is invisible, 
incorporeal, intangible, and formless, how do they come to degrade the very 
Only-begotten God, Who was in the beginning, and is in the Father, to a level 
with Peter, Andrew, John, and the rest of the Apostles, by calling them the 
brethren and fellow-servants of the Only-begotten? And yet all their exertions 
are directed to this aim, to show that in majesty of nature there is as great 
a distance between 

the Father and the dignity, power, and essence of the Only-begotten, as there 
is between the Only-begotten and humanity. And they press this saying into the 
support of this meaning, treating the name of the God and Father as being of 
common significance in respect of the Lord and of His disciples, in the view 
that no difference in dignity of nature is conceived while He is recognized as 
God and Father both of Him and of them in a precisely similar manner. 

    And the mode in which they logically maintain their profanity is as 
follows;--that either by the relative term employed there is expressed 
community of essence also between the disciples and the Father, or else we 
must not by this phrase bring even the Lord into communion in the Father's 
Nature, and that, even as the fact(7) that the God over all is named as their 
God implies that the disciples are His servants so by parity of reasoning, it 
is acknowledged, by the words in question, that the Son also is the servant of 
God. Now that the words addressed to Mary are not applicable to the Godhead of 
the Only-begotten, one may learn from the intention with which they were 
uttered. For He Who humbled Himself to a level with human littleness, He it is 
Who spake the words. And what is the meaning of what He then uttered, they may 
know in all its fulness who by the Spirit search out the depths of the sacred 
mystery. But as much as comes within our compass we will set down in few 
words, following the guidance of the Fathers. He Who is by nature Father of 
existent things, from Whom all things have their birth, has been proclaimed as 
one, by the sublime utterance of the Apostle. "For there is one God," he says, 
"and Father, of Whom are all things(8)." Accordingly human nature did not 
enter into the creation from any other source, nor grow spontaneously in the 
parents of the race, but it too had for the author of its own constitution 
none other than the Father of all. And the name of Godhead itself, whether it 
indicates the authority of oversight or of foresight(9), imports a certain 
relation to humanity. For He Who bestowed on all things that are, the power of 
being, is the God and overseer of what He has Himself produced. But since, by 
the wiles of him that sowed in us the tares of disobedience, our nature no 
longer preserved in itself the impress of the Father's image, but was 
transformed into the foul likeness of sin, for this cause it was engrafted by 
virtue of similarity of will into the evil family of the father of sin: so 
that the good and true God and Father was no longer the God and Father of him 
who had been thus outlawed by his own depravity, but instead of Him Who was by 
Nature God, those were honoured who, as the Apostle says, "by nature were no 
Gods(1)," and in the place of the Father, he was deemed father who is falsely 
so called, as the prophet Jeremiah says in his dark saying, "The partridge 
called, she gathered together what she hatched not(2)." Since, then, this was 
the sum of our calamity, that humanity was exiled from the good Father, and 
was banished from the Divine oversight and care, for this cause He Who is the 
Shepherd of the whole rational creation, left in the heights of heaven His 
un-sinning and supramundane flock, and, moved by love, went after the sheep 
which had gone astray, even our human nature(3). For human nature, which 
alone, according to the similitude in the parable, through vice roamed away 
from the hundred of rational beings, is, if it be compared with the whole, but 
an insignificant and infinitesimal part. Since then it was impossible that our 
life, which had been estranged from God, should of itself return to the high 
and heavenly place, for this cause, as saith the Apostle, He Who knew no sin 
is made sin for us(4), and frees us from the curse by taking on Him our curse 
as His own(5), and having taken up, and, in the language of the Apostle, 
"slain" in Himself "the enmity(6)" which by means of sin had come between us 
and God,--(in fact sin was "the enmity")--and having become what we were, He 
through Himself again united humanity to God. For having by purity brought 
into closest relationship with the Father of our nature that new man which is 
created after God(7), in Whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily(8), 
He drew with Him into the same grace all the nature that partakes of His body 
and is akin to Him. And these glad tidings He proclaims through the woman, not 
to those disciples only, but also to all who up to the present day become 
disciples of the Word,--the tidings, namely, that man is no longer outlawed, 
nor east out of the kingdom of God, but is once more a son, once more in the 
station assigned to him by his God, inasmuch as along with the first-fruits of 
humanity the lump also is hallowed(9). "For behold," He says, "I and the 
children whom God hath given Me(1)." He Who for our sakes was partaker of 
flesh and blood has recovered you, and brought 

you back to the place whence ye strayed away, becoming mere flesh and blood by 
sin(2). And so He from Whom we were formerly alienated by our revolt has 
become our Father and our God. Accordingly in the passage cited above the Lord 
brings the glad tidings of this benefit. And the words are not a proof of the 
degradation of the Son, but the glad tidings of our reconciliation to God. For 
that which has taken place in Christ's Humanity is a common boon bestowed on 
mankind generally. For as  when we see in Him the weight of the body, which 
naturally gravitates to earth, ascending through the air into the heavens, we 
believe according to the words of the Apostle, that we also "shall be caught 
up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air(3)," even so, when we hear that 
the true God and Father has become the God and Father of our First-fruits, we 
no longer doubt that the same God has become our God and Father too, inasmuch 
as we have learnt hat we shall come to the same place whither Christ has 
entered for us as our forerunner(4). And the fact too that this grace was 
revealed by means of a woman, itself agrees with the interpretation which we 
have given For since, as the Apostle tells us, "the woman, being deceived, was 
in the transgression(5)," and was by her disobedience foremost in the revolt 
from God, for this cause she is the first witness of the resurrection, that 
she might retrieve by her faith in the resurrection the overthrow caused by 
her disobedience, and that as, by making herself at the beginning a minister 
and advocate to her husband of the counsels of the serpent, she brought into 
human life the beginning of evil, and its train of consequences, so, by 
ministering(6) to His disciples the words of Him Who slew the rebel dragon, 
she might become to men the guide to faith, whereby with good reason the first 
proclamation of death is annulled. It is likely, indeed, that by more diligent 
students a more profitable explanation of the text may be discovered. But even 
though none such should be found, I think that every devout reader will agree 
that the one advanced by our opponents is futile, after comparing it with that 
which we have brought forward. For the one has been fabricated to destroy the 
glory, of the Only-begotten, and nothing more: but the other includes in its 
scope the aim of the dispensation concerning man. For it has been shown that 
it was not the intangible, immutable, and invisible God, but the moving, 
visible, and tangible nature which is proper to humanity, that gave command to 
Mary to minister the word to His disciples. 

   2. Then referring to the blasphemy of Eunomius, which had been refuted by 
the great Basil, where he banished the Only-begotten God to the realm of 
darkness, and the apology or explanation which Eunomius puts forth for his 
blasphemy, he shows that his present blasphemy is rendered by his apology 
worse than his previous one; and herein he very ably discourses of the "true" 
and the "unapproachable" Light. 

    Let us also investigate this point as well,--what defence he has to offer 
on those matters on which he was convicted of error by the great Basil, when 
he banishes the Only-begotten God to the realm of darkness, saying, "As great 
as is the difference between the generate and the ungenerate, so great is the 
divergence between Light and Light." For as he has already shown that the 
difference between the generate and the ungenerate is not merely one of 
greater or less intensity, but that they are diametrically opposed as regards 
their meaning; and since he has inferred by logical consequence from his 
premises that, as the difference between the light of the Father and that of 
the Son corresponds to ungeneracy and generation, we must necessarily suppose 
in the Son not a diminution of light, but a complete alienation from light. 
For as we cannot say that generation is a modified ungeneracy, but the 
signification of the terms gennhsis and 
agennhsia are absolutely contradictory and mutually exclusive, 
so, if the same distinction is to be preserved between the Light of the Father 
and that conceived as existing in the Son, it will be logically concluded that 
the Son is not henceforth to be conceived as Light, as he is excluded alike 
from ungeneracy itself, and from the light which accompanies that 
condition,--and He Who is something different from light will evidently, by 
consequence, have affinity with its contrary,--since this absurdity, I say, 
results from his principles, Eunomius endeavours to explain it away by 
dialectic artifices, delivering himself as follows: "For we know, we know the 
true Light, we know Him who created the light after the heavens and the earth, 
we have heard the Life and Truth Himself, even Christ, saying to His 
disciples, 'Ye are the light of the world(7),' we have learned from the 
blessed Paul, when he gives the title of 'Light unapproachable(8)' to 

the God over all, and by the addition defines and teaches us the transcendent 
superiority of His Light; and now that we have learnt that there is so great a 
difference between the one Light and the other, we shall not patiently endure 
so much as the mere mention of the notion that the conception of light in 
either case is one and the same." Can he be serious when he advances such 
arguments in his attempts against the truth, or is he experimenting upon the 
dulness of those who follow his error to see whether they can detect so 
childish and transparent a fallacy, or have no sense to discern such a 
barefaced imposition? For I suppose that no one is so senseless as not to 
perceive the juggling with equivocal terms by which Eunomius deludes both 
himself and his admirers. The disciples, he says, were termed light, and that 
which was produced in the course of creation is also called light. But who 
does not know that in these only the name is common, and the thing meant in 
each case is quite different? For the light of the sun gives discernment to 
the sight, but the word of the disciples implants in men's souls the 
illumination of the truth. If, then, he is aware of this difference even in 
the case of that light, so that he thinks the light of the body is one thing, 
and the light of the soul another, we need no longer discuss the point with 
him, since his defence itself condemns him if we hold our peace. But if in 
that light he cannot discover such a difference as regards the mode of 
operation, (for it is not, he may say, the light of the eyes that illumines 
the flesh, and the spiritual light which illumines the soul, but the operation 
and the potency of the one light and of the other is the same, operating in 
the same sphere and on the same objects,) then how is it that  from the 
difference between the light of the  beams of the sun and that of the words of 
the Apostles, he infers a like difference between the Only-begotten Light and 
the Light of the Father? "But the Son," he says, "is called the 'true' Light, 
the Father 'Light unapproachable.'" Well, these additional distinctions import 
a difference in degree only, and not in kind, between the light of the Son and 
the light of the Father. He thinks that the "true" is one thing, and the 
"unapproachable" another. I suppose there is no one so idiotic as not to see 
the real identity of meaning in the two terms. For the "true" and the 
"unapproachable" are each of them removed in an equally absolute degree from 
their contraries. For as the "true" does not admit any intermixture of the 
false, even so the "unapproachable" does not admit the access of its contrary. 
For the "unapproachable" is surely unapproachable by evil. But the light of 
the Son is not evil; for how can any one see in evil that which is true? 
Since, then, the truth is not evil, no one can say that the light which is in 
the Father is unapproachable by the truth. For if it were to reject the truth 
it would of course be associated with falsehood. For the nature of 
contradictories is such that the absence of the better involves the presence 
of its opposite. If, then, any one were to say that the Light of the Father 
was contemplated as remote from the presentation of its opposite, he would 
interpret the term "unapproachable" in a manner agreeable to the intention of 
the Apostle. But if he were to say that "unapproachable" signified alienation 
from good, he would suppose nothing else than that God was alien from, and at 
enmity with, Himself, being at the same time good and opposed to good. But 
this is impossible: for the good is akin to good. Accordingly the one Light is 
not divergent from the other. For the Son is the true Light, and the Father is 
Light unapproachable. In fact I would make bold to say that the man who should 
interchange the two attributes would not be wrong. For the true is 
unapproachable by the false, and on the other side, the unapproachable is 
found to be in unsullied truth. Accordingly the unapproachable is identical 
with the true, because that which is signified by each expression is equally 
inaccessible to evil. What is the difference then, that is imagined to exist 
in these by him who imposes on himself and his followers by the equivocal use 
of the term "Light"? But let us not pass over this point either without 
notice, that it is only after garbling the Apostle's words to suit his own 
fancy that he cites the phrase as if it came from him. For Paul says, 
"dwelling in light unapproachable(9)." But there is a great difference between 
being oneself something and being in something. For he who said, "dwelling in 
light unapproachable," did not, by the word "dwelling," indicate God Himself, 
but that which surrounds Him, which in our view is equivalent to the Gospel 
phrase which tells us that the Father is in the Son. For the Son is true 
Light, and the truth is unapproachable by falsehood; so then the Son is Light 
unapproachable in which the Father dwells, or in Whom the Father is. 

   3. He further proceeds notably to interpret the language of the Gospel, "In 
the beginning was the Word," and "Life" and "Light," and "The Word was made 
flesh," which had been misinterpreted by Eunomius; and overthrows his 
blasphemy, and flows that the dispensation of the Lord took place by 
loving-kindness, not by lack of power, and with the cooperation of the Father. 

    But he puts his strength into his idle contention and says, "From the 
facts themselves, and from the oracles that are believed, I present the proof 
of my statement." Such is his promise, but whether the arguments he advances 
bear out his professions, the discerning reader will of course consider. "The 
blessed John," he says, "after saying that the Word was in the beginning, and 
after calling Him Life, and subsequently giving the Life the further title of 
'Light,' says, a little later, 'And the Word was made flesh(1).' If then the 
Light is Life, and the Word is Life, and the Word was made flesh, it thence 
becomes plain that the Light was incarnate." What then? because the Light and 
the Life, and God and the Word, was manifested in flesh, does it follow that 
the true Light is divergent in any degree from the Light which is in the 
Father? Nay, it is attested by the Gospel that, even when it had place in 
darkness, the light remained unapproachable by the contrary element: for "the 
Light," he says, "shined in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it 
not(2)." If then the light when it found place in darkness had been changed to 
its contrary, and overpowered by gloom, this would have been a strong argument 
in support of the view of those who wish to show how far inferior is this 
Light in comparison with that contemplated in the Father. But if the Word, 
even though it be in the flesh, remains the Word, and if the Light, even 
though it shines in darkness, is no less Light, without admitting the 
fellowship of its contrary, and if the Life, even though it be in death, 
remains secure in Itself, and if God, even though He submit to take upon Him 
the form of a servant, does not Himself become a servant, but takes away the 
slavish subordination and absorbs it into lordship and royalty, making that 
which was human and lowly to become both Lord and Christ,--if all this be so, 
how does he show by this argument variation of the Light to inferiority, when 
each Light has in equal measure the property of being inconvertible to evil, 
and unalterable? And how is it that he also fails to observe this, that he who 
looked on the incarnate Word, Who was both Light and Life and God, recognized, 
through the glory which he saw, the Father of glory, and says, "We beheld His 
glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father(3)"? 

    But he has reached the irrefutable argument which we long ago detected 
lurking in the sequel of his statements(4), but which is here proclaimed aloud 
without disguise. For he wishes to show that the essence of the Son is subject 
to passion, and to decay, and in no wise differs from material nature, which 
is in a state of flux, that by this means he may demonstrate His difference 
from the Father. For he says, "If he can show that the God Who is over all, 
Who is the Light unapproachable, was incarnate or could be incarnate, came 
under authority, obeyed commands, came under the laws of men, bore the Cross, 
let him say that the Light is equal to the Light." If these words had been 
brought forward by us as following by necessary consequence from premises laid 
down by Eunomius, who would not have charged us with unfairness, in employing 
an over-subtle dialectic to reduce our adversaries' statement to such an 
absurdity? But as things stand, the fact that they themselves make no attempt 
to suppress the absurdity that naturally follows from their assumption, helps 
to support our contention that it was not without due reflection that, with 
the help of truth, we censured life argument of heresy. For behold, how 
undisguised and outspoken is their striving against the Only-begotten God! 
Nay, by His enemies His work of mercy is reckoned a means of disparaging and 
maligning the Nature of the Son of God, as though not of deliberate purpose, 
but by a compulsion of His Nature he had slipped down to life in the flesh, 
and to the suffering of the Cross! And as it is the nature of a stone to fall 
downward, and of fire to rise upward, and as these material objects do not 
exchange their natures one with another, so that the stone should have an 
upward tendency, and fire be depressed by its weight and sink downwards, even 
so they make out that passion was part of the very Nature of the Son, and that 
for this cause He came to that which was akin and familiar to Him, but that 
the Nature of the Father, being free from such passions, remained 
unapproachable by the contact of evil. For he says, that the God Who is over 
all, Who is Light unapproachable, neither was incarnate nor could be 
incarnate. The first of the two statements was quite enough, that the Father 
did not become incarnate. But now by his addition a double absurdity arises; 
for he either charges the Son with evil, or the Father with powerlessness. For 
if to partake of our flesh is evil, then he predicates evil of the 
Only-begotten God; but if the lovingkindness to man was good, then he makes 
out the Father to be powerless for good, by saying that it would not have been 
in His power to have effectually bestowed 

such grace by taking flesh. And yet who in the world does not know that 
life-giving power proceeds to actual operation both in the Father and in the 
Son? "For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them," He says, 
"even so the Son quickeneth whom He will(5),"--meaning obviously by "dead" us 
who had fallen from the true life. If then it is even so as the Father 
quickeneth, and not otherwise, that the Son brings to operation the same 
grace, how comes it that the adversary of God moves his profane tongue against 
both, insulting the Father by attributing to Him powerlessness for good, and 
the Son by attributing to Him association with evil. But "Light," he says, "is 
not equal to Light," because the one he calls "true," and the other 
"unapproachable." Is then the true considered to be a diminution of the 
unapproachable? Why so? and yet their argument is that the Godhead of the 
Father must be conceived to be greater and more exalted than that of the Son, 
because the one is called in the Gospel "true God(6)," the other "God(7)" 
without the addition of "true." How then does the same term, as applied to the 
Godhead, indicate an enhancement of the conception, and, as applied to Light, 
a diminution? For if they say that the Father is greater than the Son because 
He is true God, by the same showing the Son would be acknowledged to be 
greater than the Father, because the former is called "true Light(8)," and the 
latter not so. "But this Light," says Eunomius, "carried into effect the plan 
of mercy, while the other remained inoperative with respect to that gracious 
action." A new and strange mode of determining priority in dignity! They judge 
that which is ineffective for a benevolent purpose to be superior to that 
which is operative. But such a notion as this neither exists nor ever will be 
found amongst Christians,--a notion by which it is made out that every good 
that is in existent things has not its origin from the Father. But of goods 
that pertain to us men, the crowning blessing is held by all right-minded men 
to be the return to life; and it is secured by the dispensation carried out by 
the Lord in His human nature; not that the Father remained aloof, as heresy 
will have it, ineffective and inoperative during the time of this 
dispensation. For it is not this that He indicates Who said, "He that sent Me 
is with Me(9)," and "The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works(1)." 
With what right then does heresy attribute to the Son alone the gracious 
intervention on our behalf, and thereby exclude the Father from having any 
part or lot in our gratitude for its successful issue? For naturally the 
requital of thanks is due to our benefactors alone, and He Who is incapable of 
benefiting us is outside the pale of our gratitude. See you how the course of 
their profane attack upon the Only-begotten Son has missed its mark, and is 
working round in natural consequence so as to be directed against the majesty 
of the Father? And this seems to me to be a necessary result of their method 
of proceeding. For if he that honoureth the Son honoureth the Father(2), 
according to the Divine declaration, it is plain on the other side that an 
assault upon the Son strikes at the Father. But I say that to those who with 
simplicity of heart receive the preaching of the Cross and the resurrection, 
the same grace should be a cause of equal thankfulness to the Son and to the 
Father, and now that the Son has accomplished the Father's will(and this, in 
the language of the Apostle, is "that all men should be saved(3)"), they ought 
for this boon to honour the Father and the Son alike, inasmuch as our 
salvation would not have been wrought, had not the good will of the Father 
proceeded to actual operation for us through His own power. And we have learnt 
from the Scripture that the Son is the of the Father(4). 

   4. He then again charges Eunomius with having learnt his term 
agennhsia from the hieroglyphic writings, and from the Egyptian 
mythology and idolatry, and with bringing in Anubis, Osiris, and Isis to the 
creed of Christians, and shows that, considered as admitting His sufferings of 
necessity and not voluntarily, the Only-begotten is entitled to no gratitude 
from men: and that fire has none far its warmth, nor water for its fluidity, 
as they do not refer their results to self-determining power, but to necessity 
of nature(5). 

    Let us once more notice the passage cited. "If he can show," he says, 
"that the God Who is over all, Who is the Light unapproachable, was incarnate, 
or could be incarnate, .... then let him say that the Light is equal to the 
Light." The purport of his words is plain from the very form of the sentence, 
namely, that he does not think that it was by His almighty Godhead that the 
Son proved strong for such a form of loving-kindness, but that it was by being 
of a nature subject to passion that He stooped to the suffering of the Cross. 
Well, as I pondered and inquired how Eunomius came to stumble into such 
notions about the Deity, as to think that on the one side the ungenerate Light 
was 

unapproachable by its contrary, and entirely unimpaired and free from every 
passion and affection, but that on the other the generate was intermediate in 
its nature, so as not to preserve the Divine unsullied and pure in 
impassibility, but to have an essence mixed and compounded of contraries, 
which at once stretched out to partake of good, and at the same time melted 
away into a condition subject to passion, since it was impossible to obtain 
from Scripture premises to support so absurd a theory, the thought struck me, 
whether it could be that he was an admirer of the speculations of the 
Egyptians on the subject of the Divine, and had mixed up their fancies with 
his views concerning the Only-begotten. For it is reported that they say that 
their fantastic mode of compounding their idols, when they adapt the forms of 
certain irrational animals to human limbs, is an enigmatic symbol of that 
mixed nature which they call "daemon," and that this is more subtle than that 
of men and far surpasses our nature in power, but has the Divine element in it 
not unmingled or un-compounded, but is combined with the nature of the soul 
and the perceptions of the body, and is receptive of pleasure and pain, 
neither of which finds place with the "ungenerate God." For they too use this 
name, ascribing to the supreme God, as they imagine Him, the attribute of 
ungeneracy. Thus our sage theologian seems to us to be importing into the 
Christian creed an Anubis, Isis, or Osiris from the Egyptian shrines, all but 
the acknowledgment of their names: but there is no difference in profanity 
between him who openly makes profession of the names of idols, and him who 
while holding the belief about them in his heart, is yet chary of their names. 
If, then, it is impossible to get out of Holy Scripture any support for this 
impiety, while their theory draws all its strength from the riddles of the 
hieroglyphics, assuredly there can be no doubt what right-minded persons ought 
to think of this. But that this accusation which we bring is no insulting 
slander, Eunomius shall testify for us by his own words, saying as he does 
that the ungenerate Light is unapproachable, and has not the power of stooping 
to experience affections, but affirming that such a condition is germane and 
akin to the generate: so that man need feel no gratitude to the Only-begotten 
God for what He suffered, if, as they say, it was by the spontaneous action of 
His nature that He slipped down to the experience of affections, His essence, 
which was capable of being thus affected, being naturally dragged down 
thereto, which demands no thanks. For who would welcome as a boon that which 
takes place by necessity, even if it be gainful and profitable? For we neither 
thank fire for its warmth nor water for its fluidity, as we refer these 
qualities to the necessity of their several natures, because fire cannot be 
deserted by its power of warming, nor can water remain stationary upon an 
incline, inasmuch as the slope spontaneously draws its motion onwards. If, 
then, they say that the benefit wrought by the Son through His incarnation was 
by a necessity of His nature, they certainly render Him no thanks, inasmuch as 
they, refer what He did, not to an authoritative power, but to a natural 
compulsion. But if, while they experience the benefit of the gift, they 
disparage the lovingkindness that brought it, I fear lest their impiety should 
work round to the opposite error, and lest they should deem the condition of 
the Son, that could be thus affected, worthy of more honour than the freedom 
from such affections possessed by the Father, making their own advantage the 
criterion of good. For if the case had been that the Son was incapable of 
being thus affected, as they affirm of the Father, our nature would-still have 
remained in its miserable plight, inasmuch as there would have been none to 
lift up man's nature to incorruption by what He Himself experienced;--and so 
it escapes notice that the cunning of these quibblers, by the very means which 
it employs in its attempt to destroy the majesty of the Only-begotten God, 
does but raise men's conceptions of Him to a grander and loftier height, 
seeing it is the case that He Who has the power to act, is more to be honoured 
than one who is powerless for good. 

 cx  5. Then, again discussing the true Light and unapproachable Light of the 
Father and of the Son, special attributes, community and essence, and showing 
the relation of "generate" and "ungenerate," as involving no opposition in 
sense(6), but presenting an opposition and contradiction admitting of no 
middle term, he ends the book. 

    But I feel that my argument is running away with me, for it does not 
remain in the regular course, but, like some hot-blooded and spirited colt, is 
carried away by the blasphemies of our opponents to range over the absurdities 
of their system. Accordingly we must restrain it when it would run wild beyond 
the bounds of moderation in demonstration of absurd consequences. But the 
kindly reader will doubtless pardon what we have said, not imputing the 
absurdity that emerges from our investigation to us, but to those who laid 
down such mischievous premises. We must, however, now transfer our attention 
to another of his statements. 

For he says that our God also is composite, in that while we suppose the Light 
to be common, we yet separate the one Light from the other by certain special 
attributes and various differences. For that is none the less composite which, 
while united by one common nature, is yet separated by certain differences and 
conjunctions of peculiarities(7). To this our answer is short and easily 
dismissed. For what he brings as matter of accusation against our doctrines we 
acknowledge against ourselves, if he is not found to establish the same 
position by his own words. Let us just consider what  he has written. He calls 
the Lord "true" Light, and the Father Light "unapproachable." Accordingly, by 
thus naming each, he also acknowledges their community in respect to light. 
But as titles are applied to things because they fit them, as he has often 
insisted, we do not conceive that the name of "light" is used of the Divine 
Nature barely, apart from some meaning, but rather that it is predicated by 
virtue of some underlying reality. Accordingly, by the use of a common name, 
they recognize the identity of the objects signified, since they have already 
declared that the natures of those things which have the same name cannot be 
different. Since, then, the meaning of "Light" is one and the same, the 
addition of "unapproachable" and "true," according to the language of heresy, 
separates the common nature by specific differences, so that the Light of the 
Father is conceived as one thing, and the Light of the Son as another, 
separated one from the other by special properties. Let him, then, either 
overthrow his own positions to avoid making out by his statements that the 
Deity is composite, or let him abstain from charging against us what he may 
see contained in his own language. For our statement does not hereby violate 
the simplicity of the Godhead, since community and specific difference are not 
essence, so that the conjunction of these should render the subject 
composite(8). But on the one side the essence by itself remains whatever it is 
in nature, being what it is, while, on the other, every one possessed of 
reason would say that these--community and specific difference--were among the 
accompanying conceptions and attributes: since even in us men there may be 
discerned some community with the Divine Nature, but Divinity is not the more 
on that account humanity, or humanity Divinity. For while we believe that God 
is good, we also find this character predicated of men in Scripture. But the 
special signification in each case establishes a distinction in the community 
arising from the use of the homonymous term. For He Who is the fountain of 
goodness is named from it; but he who has some share of goodness also partakes 
in the name, and God is not for this reason composite, that He shares with men 
the title of "good." From these considerations it must obviously be allowed 
that the idea of community is one thing, and that of essence another, and we 
are not on that account any the more to maintain composition or multiplicity 
of parts in that simple Nature which has nothing to do with quantity, because 
some of the attributes we contemplate in It are either regarded as special, or 
have a sort of common significance. 

    But let us pass on, if it seems good, to another of his statements, and 
dismiss the nonsense that comes between. He who laboriously reiterates against 
our argument the Aristotelian division of existent things, has elaborated 
"genera," and "species," and "differentiae," and "individuals," and advanced 
all the technical language of the categories for the injury of our doctrines. 
Let us pass by all this, and turn our discourse to deal with his heavy and 
irresistible argument. For having braced his argument with Demosthenic 
fervour, he has started up to our view as a second Paeanian of Oltiseris(9), 
imitating that orator's severity in his struggle with us. I will transcribe 
the language of our author word for word. "Yes," he says, "but if, as the 
generate is contrary to the ungenerate, the Generate Light be equally inferior 
to the Ungenerate Light, the one will be found to be(1) light, the other 
darkness." Let him who has the leisure learn from his words how pungent is his 
mode of dealing with this opposition, and how exactly it hits the mark. But I 
would beg this imitator of our words either to say what we have said, or to 
make his imitation of it as close as may be, or else, if he deals with our 
argument according to his own education and ability, to speak in his own 
person and not in ours. For I hope that no one will so miss our meaning as to 
suppose that, while "generate" is contradictory in sense to "ungenerate," one 
is a diminution of the other. For the difference between contradictories is 
not one of greater or less intensity, but rests its opposition upon their 
being mutually exclusive in their signification: as, for example, we say that 
a man is asleep or not asleep, sitting or not sitting, that he was or was not, 
and all the rest after the same model, where the denial of one is the 
assertion of its 

contradictory. As, then, to live is not a diminution of not living, but its 
complete opposite, even so we conceived having been generated not as a 
diminution of not having been generated, but as an opposite and contradictory 
not admitting of any middle term, so that which is expressed by the one has 
nothing whatever to do with that which is expressed by the other in the way of 
less or more. Let him therefore who says that one of two contradictories is 
defective as compared with the other, speak in his own person, not in ours. 
For our homely language says that things which correspond to contradictories 
differ from one another even as their originals do. So that, even if Eunomius 
discerns in the Light the same divergence as in the generate compared with the 
Ungenerate, I will re-assert my statement, that as in the one case the one 
member of the contradiction has nothing in common with its opposite, so if 
"light" be placed on the same side as one of the two contradictories, the 
remaining place in the figure must of course be assigned to "darkness," the 
necessity of the antithesis arranging the term of light over against its 
opposite, in accordance with the analogy of the previous contradictory terms 
"generate" and "ungenerate." Such is the clumsy answer which we, who as our 
disparaging author say, have attempted to write without logical training, 
deliver in our rustic dialect to our new Paeanian. But to see how he contended 
with this contradiction, advancing against us those hot and fire-breathing 
words of his with Demosthenic intensity, let those who like to have a laugh 
study the treatise of our orator itself. For our pen is not very hard to rouse 
to confute the notions of impiety, but is quite unsuited to the task of 
ridiculing the ignorance of untutored minds.