Against Eunomius

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?” 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.” 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 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 “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, 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,” and the “express image” and the “brightness,” 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, 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 not 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”?