Four Discourses Against the Arians

³⁰ These considerations encourage the faithful, and distress the heretical, perceiving, as they do, their heresy overthrown thereby. Moreover, their further question, 'whether the Unoriginate be one or two,' shows how false are their views, how treacherous and full of guile. Not for the Father's honour ask they this, but for the dishonour of the Word. Accordingly, should any one, not aware of their craft, answer, 'the Unoriginated is one,' immediately they spirit out their own venom, saying, 'Therefore the Son is among things originated,' and well have we said, 'He was not before His generation.' Thus they make any kind of disturbance and confusion, provided they can but separate the Son from the Father, and reckon the Framer of all among His works. Now first they may be convicted on this score, that, while blaming the Nicene Bishops for their use of phrases not in Scripture, though these not injurious, but subversive of their irreligion, they themselves went off upon the same fault, that is, using words not in Scripture, and those in contumely of the Lord, knowing 'neither what they say nor whereof they affirm.' For instance, let them ask the Greeks, who have been their instructors (for it is a word of their invention, not Scripture), and when they have been instructed in its various significations, then they will discover that they cannot even question properly, on the subject which they have undertaken. For they have led me to ascertain that by 'unoriginate' is meant what has not yet come to be, but is possible to be, as wood which is not yet become, but is capable of becoming, a vessel; and again what neither has nor ever can come to be, as a triangle quadrangular, and an even number odd. For a triangle neither has nor ever can become quadrangular; nor has even ever, nor can ever, become odd. Moreover, by 'unoriginate' is meant, what exists, but has not come into being from any, nor having a father at all. Further, Asterius, the unprincipled sophist, the patron too of this heresy, has added in his own treatise, that what is not made, but is ever, is 'unoriginate. ' They ought then, when they ask the question, to add in what sense they take the word 'unoriginate,' and then the parties questioned would be able to answer to the point.

31. But if they still are satisfied with merely asking, 'Is the Unoriginate one or two?' they must be told first of all, as ill-educated men, that many are such and nothing is such, many, which are capable of origination, and nothing, which is not capable, as has been said. But if they ask according as Asterius ruled it, as if 'what is not a work but was always' were unoriginate, then they must constantly be told that the Son as well as the Father must in this sense be called unoriginate. For He is neither in the number of things originated, nor a work, but has ever been with the Father, as has already been shown, in spite of their many variations for the sole sake of speaking against the Lord, 'He is of nothing' and 'He was not before His generation.' When then, after failing at every turn, they betake themselves to the other sense of the question, 'existing but not generated of any nor having a father,' we shall tell them that the unoriginate in this sense is only one, namely the Father; and they will gain nothing by their question. For to say that God is in this sense Unoriginate, does not show that the Son is a thing originated, it being evident from the above proofs that the Word is such as He is who begot Him. Therefore if God be unoriginate, His Image is not originated, but an Offspring, which is His Word and His Wisdom. For what likeness has the originated to the unoriginate? (one must not weary of using repetition;) for if they will have it that the one is like the other, so that he who sees the one beholds the other, they are like to say that the Unoriginate is the image of creatures; the end of which is a confusion of the whole subject, an equalling of things originated with the Unoriginate, and a denial of the Unoriginate by measuring Him with the works; and all to reduce the Son into their number.

32. However, I suppose even they will be unwilling to proceed to such lengths, if they follow Asterius the sophist. For he, earnest as he is in his advocacy of the Arian heresy, and maintaining that the Unoriginate is one, runs counter to them in saying, that the Wisdom of God is unoriginate and without beginning also. The following is a passage out of his work: 'The Blessed Paul said not that he preached Christ the power of God or the wisdom of God, but, without the article, 'God's power and God's wisdom;' thus preaching that the proper power of God Himself, which is natural to Him and co-existent with Him unoriginatedly, is something besides.' And again, soon after: 'However, His eternal power and wisdom, which truth argues to be without beginning and unoriginate; this must surely be one.' For though, misunderstanding the Apostle's words, he considered that there were two wisdoms; yet, by speaking still of a wisdom coexistent with Him, he declares that the Unoriginate is not simply one, but that there is another Unoriginate with Him. For what is coexistent, coexists not with itself, but with another. If then they agree with Asterius, let them never ask again, 'Is the Unoriginate one or two,' or they will have to contest the point with him; if, on the other hand, they differ even from him, let them not rely upon his treatise, lest, 'biting one another, they be consumed one of another.' So much on the point of their ignorance; but who can say enough on their crafty character? Who but would justly hate them while possessed by such a madness? For when they were no longer allowed to say 'out of nothing' and 'He was not before His generation,' they hit upon this word 'unoriginate,' that, by saying among the simple that the Son was 'originate,' they might imply the very same phrases 'out of nothing,' and 'He once was not;' for in such phrases things originated and creatures are implied.