Against Eunomius

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 begot 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 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.