Against Eunomius

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.”

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,” 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 kills, but the Spirit gives life,” 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.”

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,” 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 kills to the Spirit that gives 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,”— 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 says the Holy Spirit,” 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 son?” 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,” 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), 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 takes the wise in their own craftiness” 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.