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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 05 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 25.01.12 Book II Part 3
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§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 workshyperlink ." 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 slaveshyperlink ." 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 bondagehyperlink ." 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 Godhyperlink ," 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 createdhyperlink ," and in another, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christhyperlink ."For thus it is that He, Who said "I am the Wayhyperlink ," 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 laidhyperlink ," 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 Mehyperlink ." For it is possible, according to the usage of the Book of Proverbs, for each of these phrases, taken in a tropical sense, to be applied to the Wordhyperlink . For the great David calls righteousness the "mountains of Godhyperlink ," His judgments "deepshyperlink ," and the teachers in the Churches "fountains," saying "Bless God the Lord from the fountains of Israelhyperlink "; and guilelessness he calls "hills," as he shows when he speaks of their skipping like lambshyperlink . 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 worldhyperlink , 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 anotherhyperlink '"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 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 onlyhyperlink . 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 receivethhyperlink ?" 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 Fatherhyperlink , and another which says, "All things that the Father hath are Minehyperlink "? To whom ought the hearer to give ear? To him who says, "He that is, as the Apostle says, the `heir of all thingshyperlink ' 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 fleshhyperlink ." 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 sighthyperlink , utter their groundling opinions-they who, as the prophet says, "speak out of the groundhyperlink ." 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 Godshyperlink ," 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 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 physicianhyperlink ," 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 handhyperlink "; 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 allhyperlink ," 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 hathhyperlink ," 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 earthhyperlink ." 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 begets, 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 worldshyperlink ." If then to exist before the worlds is beyond all beginning, he who confers glory on the Son before the worlds, does thereby assert His existence from eternity before that gloryhyperlink : 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 fowlshyperlink ." 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 obedienthyperlink "? 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 sicknesseshyperlink ," 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 "sinhyperlink " and "a cursehyperlink " 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 createdhyperlink ":-for it is plain that the Psalmist says this concerning Him Who upholds "all things by the word of His powerhyperlink ," 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 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 alonehyperlink , 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 uphyperlink ;" and again, "No man taketh My life from Me; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it againhyperlink "; 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 Hehyperlink ," 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 Paradisehyperlink ." 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 Lawhyperlink "? 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 Jesushyperlink ;" 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 unitedhyperlink . Since, then, a mediator is not a mediator of onehyperlink , 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 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 honouredby 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, issubject 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 also, likeness belies the truth in various modes, 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 likenesshyperlink ;" 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 imagehyperlink "; 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 he 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 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 Fatherhyperlink ." 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 energyhyperlink 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 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 Godhyperlink ." 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 personhyperlink ." What, after these have thus spoken, are the words of our ventriloquisthyperlink ? "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 Fatherhyperlink , Who sustains all things, by the word of His powerhyperlink , the creator of the ages, from Whom and through Whom and in Whom are all thingshyperlink , 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 handhyperlink , Who holdeth in His hand all things that are, Who dwelleth on high and looketh upon the things that are lowlyhyperlink , or rather did look upon them to make all the world to be His footstoolhyperlink , imprinted by the footmark of the Word-the form of Godhyperlink 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 Godhyperlink "; 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 theFather, 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.
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 consisthyperlink ," 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 allhyperlink ."
§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 Bythe 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 Godhyperlink . 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 Sonhyperlink ," 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 losthyperlink ." 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 diehyperlink ." Now sin is nothing else than 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 diehyperlink ." 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 lifehyperlink ," (or "soul"): and the Lord says to the Jews, "Ye seek to kill Me, a man that hath told you the truthhyperlink ." 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 dayhyperlink ?" And what He meant by "every whit 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 walkhyperlink ," 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 morehyperlink ," 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 manhyperlink ." 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 againhyperlink ." 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 corruptionhyperlink ," 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 Christhyperlink ;" 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 ithyperlink ." Just as we, through soul and body, become a temple of Him Who "dwelleth in us and walketh in ushyperlink ," 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 fleshhyperlink ," 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 comehyperlink ," does not mean that the flesh will be presented before the Judge apart from the souls: and when we read in sacred History that Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy-five soulshyperlink 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.
Footnotes
126 Prov. viii. 22 (LXX.). The versions of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus (to one or more of which perhaps §9 refers), all render the Hebrew by ekthsato ("possessed"), not by ektise ("created"). But Gregory may be referring to mss. of the LXX. version which read ekthsato. It is clear from what follows that Mr. Gwatkin is hardly justified in his remark (Studies of Arianism, p. 69), that "the whole discussion on Prov. viii. 22 (LXX.), Kurioj ektise me k.t.l., might have been avoided by a glance at the original." The point of the controversy might have been changed, but that would have been all. Gregory seems to feel that ekthsato requires an explanation, though he has one ready.
127 Phil. ii. 7.
128 Rom. viii. 20-1.
129 Eph. iv. 24.
130 Eph. iv. 24.
131 Rom. xiii. 14.
132 S. John xiv. 6.
133 1 Cor iii. 11.
134 Prov. viii. 23-25 (not quite verbal, from the LXX.).
135 Or "to be brought into harmony with Christian doctrine" (efarmosqhnai tw logw)
136 Ps. xxxvi. 6.
137 Ps. xxxvi. 6.