Against Eunomius, Twelve Books

AGAINST THE SECOND ORATION OF EUNOMIUS BOOK XII. LATER PART OF THE TWELFTH BOOK, OR IN SOME MANUSCRIPTS, THE THIRTEENTH BOOK.

^A The first struggles against Eunomius have already been sufficiently completed, through divine assistance, in the preceding labors; just as those who wish to learn from the works we have produced may see how, in the previous section of our discourse, the error was powerfully refuted, and how falsehood no longer possesses any strength against the truth in those matters which have been examined and investigated, at least among those who are not being excessively shameless against the truth. Since, however, a second discourse has been assembled by him against piety, like some sort of predatory host, again, with God as our ally, the truth is armed through us in battle array against the enemies, and as a commander of our arguments, it leads the way and directs the battle against the foes as it sees fit. Following in its footsteps, we shall confidently dare to enter upon these second struggles, fearing not at all the marshaled host of lies, even if it appears to exceed our own in the number of its words. For faithful is He who promised that a thousand shall be put to flight by one, and ten thousand by two; because piety does not derive its strength for war from a numerous hand. ^B Just as that corpulent Goliath, brandishing that heavy spear against the Israelites, inspired no terror in the shepherd, a man untrained and unskilled in the maneuvers of war, by whom, once engaged in battle, he was decapitated, his hope having been turned to the contrary, in exactly the same way this Goliath of ours, who is the leader and author of a strange and foreign knowledge, brandishing his blasphemy as if it were a drawn and naked sword—stretching it out against those arrayed against him and gleaming with newly-sharpened sophistries—did not appear terrible or difficult to encounter to us simple and uneducated men, such that he could, at his own whim, boast insolently due to a lack of opponents. Instead, he found us to be, as it were, irregular and makeshift warriors from the Lord's flock, who neither have learned how to engage in word-battles, nor consider it a loss that we have not learned, hurling the plebeian and rustic speech of truth against him just as if we were slingers. Since, therefore, that aforementioned shepherd, having struck down the alien with a sling, and having shattered his helmet with the stone, and because of the force of the blow the stone having penetrated deep within, did not make that the limit of his valor...

^A to see the enemy lying fallen; but running up and stripping the enemy of his head, he returns to his own side as a trophy-bearer, parading that boastful head before the army of his fellow-tribesmen. For this reason, it is fitting that we, too, looking to this example, should not grow soft toward our second discourses; but as far as possible, we must imitate the valor of David, and after the first blow, in like manner to him, rush upon the one lying fallen, so that the enemy of the truth might appear most truly deprived of his head. For he who is severed from the faith has his head cut off and torn from his neck more truly than did that foreigner. For since Christ is the Head of every man, as the Apostle says, and it is entirely reasonable that the believer be called a man—for Christ cannot be the head of the unbelievers—he who is cut off from the saving faith lacks a head, no differently than that Goliath, slaughtered by his own sword which he had sharpened against the truth, being severed from the true Head; and it is our task not to cut off that head, but to reveal it as having been cut off from his shoulders.

^B Let no one think that I am descending into this perpetual and implacable war against adversaries out of any ambition or desire for human glory and engaging in combat with them. For if it were permitted to pass a quiet and peaceful life removed from business and anxieties, it would certainly have been far from my purpose to disturb my tranquility voluntarily, and to stir up against ourselves a war undertaken of one's own accord from provocation. But since the city of God, that is, the Church, is besieged, and the great wall is shaken by the engines of heresy being wheeled around it, and there is no small danger ^C that the word of the Lord, being snatched away by the assault of the demons, might be carried off as a captive; for this reason, judging it to be a fearful thing not to be a participant in the anxiety of Christians and a companion in their labor, I did not decline toward leisure and rest, but rather deemed the sweat flowing from labors to be preferable to the relaxation of a life of leisure, knowing perfectly well that just as "each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor," as the Apostle says, so too will all, regarding the labors they were able to endure according to their strength, if they have despised and abandoned them, suffer punishments. Wherefore, I boldly undertook the first battle of the discourse from the pastoral jar—that is, from ecclesiastical doctrines—sending forth these unrefined and unpolished discourses, which flowed spontaneously, for the overthrow and ruin of the blasphemy, needing no armor from profane and external literature for the intended contest. ^D And now, I do not refuse to come to the second contests, placing my hope, like the great David, in "Him who teaches my hands for battle and my fingers for war," if only it might be granted to us also, by divine power, for my writing hand to be directed toward the destruction of the heretical dogmas, and for my fingers to serve the overthrow of their wicked array, skillfully and competitively...

^A disposing the argument against the enemies. Just as in human wars those who excel the rest in courage and strength, and who are protected by their arms and have acquired experience in fighting through their practice in facing dangers, stand in the front of the phalanx and face the dangers on behalf of those stationed in the depths; while the remaining group, looking only to the appearance of a multitude, seems to contribute some benefit to the common cause through mutual defense and the locking of shields: so too in our own struggles, the noble and strenuous soldier of Christ, and the fierce combatant against the aliens, the great armed soldier of the Spirit, Basil, who has put on the whole apostolic armor and is protected by the shield of faith, holding forth the defensive weapon—I mean the sword of the Spirit—at all times: he, as the standard-bearer ^B of the Lord's army, fights in the discourse which he has fashioned against the heresy, raging and defending, and acting most bravely and excellently against the enemies. But we, as a nameless mass and like common soldiers, covered and protected by the shield of that standard-bearer and champion, according to how our leader in the war advances against the enemies, will not abstain from those struggles that are within our power. Since, then, he has refuted the deceived and unsubstantial fantasy of the heresy, saying that the appellation of "unbegotten" is attributed to God in no other way than by human conception, and has brought forth demonstrations confirmed by both common notions and the testimonies ^C of Scripture; and the inventor of the error, Eunomius, neither agrees with what has been said, nor is he able to overturn it, but is constrained by the truth—insofar as the dogmas of piety shine forth more brilliantly, so much the more, like nocturnal animals, he is blinded and hallucinates at the light, and finding none of the customary hiding places of sophistical arguments, he wanders in vain, and entering into the dead-end of falsehood, he revolves around the same things. And all his second effort is almost entirely occupied with the same trifles. For this reason, it is fitting that the battle against the adversaries be engaged in by us in this ^D very area, in which our champion also led the way by his own discourse.

I say, first of all, that we ought to run through our entire opinion concerning the dogmas as a summary, and the disagreement of the enemies against us, so that the consideration of the matters before us may proceed for us correctly and in order. The head and sum of Christian piety is therefore this: to believe in the Only-begotten God, who is truth, and true light, and the power of God, and life; to believe that He is truly everything He is called, and—before other things—these: God and truth, that is, that He is always God in truth, which is what is understood and signified; and that He never did not exist, and will never at any time not exist. Whose being—whatever it may be in its essence—escapes every grasp of comprehension and curiosity. As for us, just as the discourse of Wisdom says [Sap. xiii, 5], from

^A the magnitude and beauty of created things, according to a certain proportion of those things which are known, one comes to knowledge of the fact that He exists—granted through works only, not knowledge of what He is. Since, therefore, this understanding prevails among all Christians—those, at least, who are worthy of this name, who have learned from the Law to worship nothing that is not the true God—as they worship the Only-Begotten God, they confess in truth that He is God and not falsely named. Then there grew in the Church the corrupting rust which renders pious seeds useless, being a patron of Jewish error and containing also something of Greek impiety. For in that it imagines God is a creature, it acts as a patron of the error of the Greeks; but in that it does not accept the Son, it supports the Jewish delusion. ^B This heresy, therefore, which obliterates the true divinity of the Lord and argues that He is not to be thought of as uncreated, nor is that which indeed in essence and power and dignity is the Father: since the truth shines everywhere, these nebulous inventions have no support. Having disregarded all the names discovered in Scripture for a glorification worthy of and fitting to God, which are used equally of the Father and of the Son, they arrived at that which is called *agennesia* [unbegottenness], a name fabricated by these very people to the contempt of the majesty of the Only-Begotten. For since the pious confession teaches faith in the Only-Begotten God, so that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father, they push aside all these pious expressions by which the greatness of the Son is signified to be of equal honor with the dignity of the Father, and from this they ^C conjure up for themselves the principles and foundations of an impious and God-denying dogma. For since the Only-Begotten God, as the voice of the Gospel teaches, came forth from the Father and is from Him, by transmuting the understanding of this into other names, they tear apart the true faith through them. For when the truth teaches that the Father is from no superior cause, they named this idea *agennesia* [unbegottenness], and they signify the subsistence of the Only-Begotten from the Father by the term *gennesis* [generation]. Then, putting together the two terms, *agennesia* and *gennesis*, as contradictorily opposed to each other, they drive those who are ignorant and unskilled in consequences into error. ^D For as one might declare, for example, that one is generated and is not generated, it is similar to saying "he sits and he does not sit," and whatever else is uttered in such a way. But these men, moving or twisting these terms from the genuine signification that they have according to nature, perversely strive to apply to them a different understanding for the overthrow of piety. For since, as has been said, the meaning of these words is equivalent to what is said: "he sits and he does not sit" (for in some way the one is removed by the other of the meanings), they sophistically contend that this contrariety according to the form of utterance is an indication of a difference according to essence; determining that generation is the essence for the one, namely the Son, and non-generation for the other, namely the Father.

As it is not possible to think of the essence of man as sitting or not sitting—for no one would give the same definition by defining man's chair and man himself—so the ungenerated essence, according to the analogy of the example given to us, is something else entirely in its own definition compared to that which is indicated by the fact of not having been generated. ^A But they, looking toward that wicked goal, so that the denial of the divinity of the Only-Begotten might be most securely established by them, do not say that the essence of the Father is non-generation, but, having inverted the argument, they define non-generation as the essence, so that by the differentiation with respect to that which is generated, they might construct a difference of nature through the contrariety of terms. And while they look with countless eyes toward impiety, yet toward the impossibility of this labor they are as if blinking, with the eyes of the soul made dim. For who, unless his soul’s instruments of perception are altogether bleary, does not discern the instability and groundlessness of the beginning of their dogma, and how their argument, which makes non-generation an essence, rests on nothing at all? For thus is their deception constructed. I will speak, as I am able, forcefully with my own voice, subjecting the argument of the adversaries. ^B

They say that God is named "ungenerated," but that the Divine is simple by nature; and that which is simple admits of no composition. If, therefore, God is by nature incomposite, to whom the name "ungenerated" belongs, then "ungenerated" would be the name of that very nature. And there is nothing else, they claim, that the nature is, except non-generation. ^C To these we say this: that the signification of "incomposite" is one thing, and that of "ungenerated" is another. For the former represents the simplicity of the subject; the latter represents its being without a cause. Furthermore, the nuances of the terms are not interchangeable, even if both are spoken of one and the same thing. For from the title "ungenerated," we have learned that the one so named is without a cause; but from the title "simple," we understand that he is free and pure from every composition. Neither of these, however, is spoken in place of the other. There is, therefore, no necessity that, because the Divine is simple by nature, non-generation should be named as his nature. But insofar as he is without parts and incomposite, he is called simple; whereas, insofar as he was not generated, he is called ungenerated. ^D But if the term "ungenerated" did not signify "being without a cause," but rather simplicity were what entered into the meaning of such a name, and therefore he was called "ungenerated" according to the logic of the heresy because he is simple and incomposite; then, if the meaning of "simple" and "ungenerated" were one and the same, the simplicity of the Son would absolutely be named "non-generation." For they will not deny that the Only-Begotten God is simple by nature, unless perhaps they would also deny that he is God. Therefore, simplicity will have no communion with "ungenerated" according to their meaning, such that the nature should be thought to be non-generation because of the incomposite nature, lest they draw upon themselves one of two absurdities: either by denying the divinity of the Only-Begotten, or...

even in Him celebrating the notion of the ingenerate. For if God is simple by nature, and the name (according to them) of this simplicity is "ingenerate," then they will construct it such that the Son is composite, whereby it is demonstrated at the same time that He is not God; or if they confess the divinity in Him, and God is simple, as has been said, they will inevitably construct it such that the same is also ingenerate on account of the simplicity, if indeed simplicity is considered the same thing as ingeneracy. But in order that what is said may become clearer, I shall repeat what has been said. We say this, that in each of these names there is something proper underneath which is signified; and neither is that which is indivisible interpreted by "ingenerate," nor is "ingenerate" interpreted by "simple." But in the "simple," we conceive of that which is not composite, and in the "ingenerate," we have been taught that it is to be from no cause. We believe that we must hold that the Son, being God from God, is also simple, because that which is God is pure from all accretion. ^B And in the same way also in this case: we do not signify the simplicity of the essence through the name of "Son," nor do we represent what is signified by "Son" through simplicity itself. Rather, let the subsistence which is from the Father be made manifest from this, namely, the name of "Son"; and let that which such a term declares be made manifest from the "simple." Since, therefore, the account of the simplicity according to essence is one and the same, and is said both of the Father and of the Son, differing neither by any diminution nor by redundancy, while the "begotten" differs greatly in its signification from the "ingenerate"—for it is possible to understand this in one of the names, which in the other is not—on this account we say there is no necessity, since the Father is ingenerate and His essence is simple, that His essence be called ingeneracy. For neither, since the Son is simple and is believed to be the same and begotten, do we call His essence simplicity. But just as the essence is simple, and not simplicity, so also the essence is ingenerate, and not ingeneracy. In the same way, while the Son is also begotten, the argument is entirely separated from any necessity that His essence be defined as His generation because His essence is simple; but here, too, each of the names has its own proper significance. For the designation of "begotten" suggests to one's mind that He is from something, and [the designation] of "simple" suggests that which is alien to and free from composition. But these things do not seem so to them; for they wish, since the essence of the Father is simple, for it to be thought that it is nothing other than ingeneracy, and therefore He is also called ingenerate. To whom it is permissible to say this as well: that since they also name the Father Creator and Maker, and he who is called by these names is simple according to essence, it is time for these wise men to declare that the essence of the Father is creation and craftsmanship, since the account of simplicity carries every signification of the name said concerning Him away into the essence. ^D Therefore, let them either separate ingeneracy from the definition of the divine essence, leaving it to its own proper significance alone, or, if on account of the simplicity of the subject they define the essence by ingeneracy, let them, for the same reason, contemplate creation and craftsmanship also in the essence of the Father, as if the power in the essence were not creating and making, but itself [the essence].

^A If they reject this as wicked and absurd, let them be persuaded by the logical consequence to reject that doctrine along with it; for just as the craft is not the essence of the craftsman, so neither is the unbegottenness the essence of the Unbegotten. For the sake of brevity and clarity, I shall resume the same argument. If the Father is called unbegotten not because he was not begotten, but because his essence is simple and incomposite; then for the same reason the Son also will be considered unbegotten, for he too is an essence uniform and incomposite. But if we must necessarily confess the Son to be begotten—since he was begotten—then it is clear that we shall call the Father "unbegotten," since he was not begotten. And if this—both the truth and the sequence of the propositions—compels this, it is clear that the term "unbegotten" is not that of an essence, but is significant of a certain difference of concepts that distinguishes what is begotten from what is not begotten. ^B

Then let us also examine this in addition to what has been said: If they say that the name "unbegotten" signifies the essence, and not that the hypostasis exists without a cause, by what name will they establish that the Father is without a cause, since they have set aside "unbegottenness" for the indication of the essence? For if we are not taught by the term "unbegotten" the difference that distinguishes the hypostases, but are to suppose it to be indicative of the nature itself—as if it were flowing somehow from the underlying reality, and by the utterance of the syllables revealing what is sought—it is absolutely necessary either that God is not unbegotten, or that he is not called so, given that no term provides such an emphasis specifically ^C in his case. For if, as they say, unbegottenness does not mean being without cause, but indicates the nature, their sophistry will necessarily be overturned against them to the opposite conclusion, and it will be found that "the unbegotten" escapes their dogma regarding God. For if no other word or name represents that the Father was not begotten, and if, according to their wisdom, "unbegotten" interprets nothing else but "not having been begotten," their argument slips away and flows towards Sabellius. For it is absolutely necessary by this consequence that the Father be thought to be the same as the Son, the difference regarding "begotten" and "unbegotten" having been stolen from their dogma. So one of two things must be the case: either they will retract their opinion about the name, acknowledging it as a difference of the property of each and not signifying nature; or, remaining in their stated positions regarding this term, they will agree with Sabellius. For there is no way in which the difference of the hypostases can preserve what is unconfused if it is not distinguished by the begotten against the unbegotten. So if the name signifies ^D a difference, the essence will be...

^A insignificant, for the account of the difference is one thing and the account of the essence is another. But if they drag the meaning of the word towards the nature, they will be consistently dragged into the deception of those called Patripassians, the clarity of the account regarding the Divine hypostases being removed. But if they say that nothing prevents the difference between the unbegotten and the begotten from being signified by "unbegottenness," and that this word also represents the essence, let them distinguish for us the relative meanings of the name, so that they may be able to be properly fitted to each of the two definitions into which the concept of the "unbegotten" has been split. For the declaration of the difference from the name has no ambiguity, being established by the principle of contrast. For we also agree that, instead of "the Son has been begotten and the Father has not been begotten," the one is called unbegotten and the other begotten according to a certain paronymy of words. But from what concept will the indication of the essence be clarified through this name, they would not be able to say.

But the new theologian, wrapping this in silence, weaves together other trifles for us, ^B following up on his previous writing: "Because," he says, "God is simple, He is called unbegotten, and therefore unbegottenness is God." What does the discourse of simplicity have in common with the concept of the unbegotten? For even the Only-Begotten is both begotten and is not doubted to be simple. But he says, "also indivisible and incomposite." What is this to the matter in question? For the Son is not multiform and composite, yet He is not thereby unbegotten. But he says, "He is devoid of quantity and every magnitude." Let these things be so. For the Son also cannot be defined or circumscribed by quantity, and is devoid of all quantity, and is nonetheless the Son. But this is not what falls into question; for the proposal is to demonstrate by what meaning of "unbegotten" the essence is recognized. ^C For since the principle of the difference of the idioms was grasped from this word, they wished it to be ambiguous as well as an indication of the nature, from some one of those things which are signified by this same designation.

But he passes over this in silence. He says, however, that "the unbegotten is not to be attributed to God by concept." For things spoken of in this way, he says, are naturally dissolved along with the words themselves. But what is there that is not dissolved at the very moment it is spoken? For we do not, like those making vessels from clay or bricks, preserve the things uttered through the voice as indissoluble, according to the formation of speech once made in the mouth; but as soon as the word is uttered through the sound, the thing spoken ^D no longer is. For again, the breath of the voice having been poured out into the air, no trace of the things spoken is imprinted in the place where the diffusion of the voice has occurred. So if he characterizes the word "by concept" with this—the fact that the word does not remain but vanishes together with the voice of the speaker—he would not stop naming every word a "concept," since no hypostasis remains in any word after its utterance. For not even the unbegottenness itself,

^A which he removes from the concept, will he be able to show as indissoluble and fixed after it has been brought forth, since the speech brought forth by the sound from the mouth does not remain in the air. And thus one might learn the instability ^B of what is said: that even if we are silent and commit the thoughts of the soul to writing, that which is not subsistent will be lacking the notation that comes through letters, whereas the existing realities of our thoughts will receive that notation. For it is possible for everything that comes into the mind—whether it subsists according to understanding or is otherwise—to be entrusted to letters by one’s authority. Furthermore, sound is the same as the letter for the manifestation of the mind, for we declare what is thought through both in equal measure. Why, then, he sees fit to dissolve the concept by the voice alone, I cannot perceive. For in every word uttered through ^C some sound, the breath which conveys the voice migrates toward its kindred, but the mind of the things said is imprinted through hearing upon the memory of the listener’s soul, whether it should happen to be true or false. Therefore, the writer proposes to us this frigid interpretation of the concept, characterizing and defining it by the dissolution of the voice. And for this reason, that intelligent listener, as Isaiah says, strikes out this unintelligible physiology of the concept, proving it to be truly dissoluble and ^D unsubstantial according to his argument. He technicalizes concerning the power inherent in the expression through familiar examples, leading the argument forward by the contemplation of the dogmas. Against whom Eunomius, exalting himself through this solemn writing of words, attempts to dissolve what had been clearly explained concerning the concept, in this manner.

It is perhaps better, before scrutinizing what has been written, to examine the purpose: what is his intention in avoiding the calling of "the unbegotten" as belonging to God

by concept

^A with a certain qualification by Scripture, in truth God; nor, if He is called Son, does He have the nature that is declared by this name, nor is there any communion of dignity or nature between Him and the Father. For they say it is impossible for the one who has been begotten to be equal in honor with Him who made him, as regards dignity, or power, or nature. For to Him, life is without limit, and His existence is from eternity; but as for the Son, His life is in a certain way circumscribed, since the beginning in which He was begotten terminates the forward movement of His life, and prevents it from extending along with the eternity of the Father; so that even for this reason His life is thought to be imperfect and not integral. And they say that the Father was not always what He now is and is called, but that, being something else before, He afterwards deliberated upon becoming Father—or rather, not upon becoming, but upon being called so. For He was not in truth named Father of a Son, they say, but the name of a creature was substituted ^B under the name of Son. Everything, they say, that is posterior to the more ancient, and that which is defined to that which is eternal, and that which is begotten according to the will of Him who made it, must necessarily be surpassed by Him who made it in power, and dignity, and nature, and by the prerogatives of time, and all other rights of honor. But if that which is perfect in the more divine conceptions is absent from Him, how could anyone properly revere Him with the honors of the true God? Thus, by their own principles, it is constructed that the Son is imperfect in power, destitute of the perfection of life, subject to the powerful one, and doing nothing of His own except what is ordained by the decree of the sovereign; and that one ought not to believe that such a one is worthy of any God-befitting honor or conception, but that, while calling Him God, they are merely carrying around a name void of every magnificent meaning. And as these things are spoken thus, without the interweaving of reasonings, it somehow provokes the hearer to anger and makes him shudder at the exotic nature of the statement. For who would accept a wicked counselor who, bare and unvarnished, advises the overthrow of the majesty of Christ? On this account, having covered over this wicked ambush of their discourse with certain persuasive enticements and deceits, they lead astray the foolish among their hearers with external and profane reasonings. For, having prepared the other things through which it is possible for the intelligence of the hearers to be dragged spontaneously to these conclusions, they leave to the auditor the end of the catastrophe, or the final act of the drama. For when they have said that the only-begotten God is not the same in essence as the true Father, and have concluded this captiously and fallaciously ^D through the opposition of the unbegotten to the begotten, they complete what follows from this while keeping silent, the impiety prevailing of its own accord through the logic of the consequence. And just as a poisoner makes the lethal poison easily acceptable to the one whom he maliciously wants to kill, by sweetening the destruction with honey—and he indeed merely provides it, but the substance, once mixed into the internals, works the death and destruction even if the poisoner does nothing further—something similar is accomplished by these men. For by the pleasant seductions of their sophisms, the soul-destroying doctrine

like some honeyed poison, is poured into the mind of the hearer to deceive him, namely, that the Only-begotten God is not the true God. Through this, they quietly accomplish all the rest. For once they have persuaded them that he is not truly God, it follows that nothing else spoken of God in a divine manner is said in truth either. For if he is neither Son nor God by nature, but each of these is used only by catachresis ^A, then surely all the other names by which he is named in Divine Scripture are also separated from the truth. It is not possible that the one thing would be spoken of him in truth, while the other lacks truth; rather, all things surely follow one another. Therefore, if he is truly God, it is necessary that he be also judge and king and whatever else is individually said of him, just as it is said. But if the divinity were falsely ^B attributed to him, then nothing else said of him would be stated in truth. Since, therefore, those who have been deceived and led into error have been persuaded that the title of divinity is falsely named in the case of the Only-begotten, it has at the same time been prearranged that one should neither worship him nor pay him the honor owed to God. Therefore, that their attack against the Savior might be effective, they devised this method of blasphemy: they advise that one should not observe the communion found in other names, through which the equality of the Son’s dignity with the Father is signified, but from the opposition of the Unbegotten to the begotten, to collect by syllogism the difference and distinction of nature—for this is what they claim the divine nature is, which the name of "unbegottenness" signifies.

Then, though all people possessed of a mind suppose it impossible for the ineffable nature to be expressed by any power of words, since our knowledge does not extend so far as to be able to reach those things that surpass everything that is known, nor has the ministry of words attained such power in us as to be sufficient to express what is conceived by the mind, if indeed anything ^C at all lofty and divine enters our thought, these wise men, on the other hand, accusing the many of great sluggishness and lack of skill in logical reasoning, confirm that they themselves know this, and that they are able to instill knowledge about these things in whomever they wish. And for this reason they say that the divine nature is nothing other than unbegottenness itself, and by declaring this to be the most sovereign, the highest, and the most supreme thing, they enclose the entire majesty of the divinity within this single word; so that from this it results: if unbegottenness is the most sovereign part of the essence, then the rest ^D of the divine names are linked to it—the divinity, the power, the incorruptibility, and all the rest. If, therefore, this and such things are unbegottenness, then surely if this is not said of someone, then neither are those things. For as being rational, capable of laughter, and capable of knowledge are proper to man—and if something is not a man, then neither will it be among the properties of that nature—so too, if unbegottenness is the true divinity, then for whom this name does not apply, neither will anything else characterizing divinity be found in him. Since, therefore, unbegottenness is not said of the Son, it follows that none of the other lofty and divine names are said of him.

^A This, then, is what they define as the comprehension of the divine mysteries: that the divinity of the Son should be annulled. They shout this almost openly and publicly to everyone who will listen, that it is permitted for you to be "perfect in knowledge" while not believing that the Only-Begotten God is truly God, and while not honoring the Son as the Father is honored, but while thinking that the Son is by nature a creature, not Lord or Master, but a slave and a subordinate. For the end of their counsel aims at this, even if the blasphemy is cloaked in other words.

Because of this, ^B in his previous composition, as he dances about with the trickery of sophisms and treats the "unbegotten" with varied technical definitions, he pilfers the understanding of those being deceived, where he says: "If, then, it is neither by mental concept, nor by privation, nor in part—for it is simple and there is nothing else in it, for it is one and alone unbegotten—it itself would be an unbegotten essence." Seeing, therefore, the loss that necessarily results for those who have been led astray, and that it is a transgression of the confession unto the Lord, namely, an assent to this proposition that He is not truly God, to which the sequence of these words twists the dogma: for this reason, he [our author] does not oppose the claim that unbegottenness should not be applied to God as a part, ^C agreeing himself that the divine is simple, without quantity, without dimension, and incomposite; but he both opposes and proves that this name ought not apply to Him by way of mental concept. Not abiding by these [points], the word-writer again sets forth his own wisdom against us in the second of his discourses, fighting against the things that were said regarding [mental] concept.

But it will be a fitting time henceforth to recall to the memory of these men the construction pertaining to this, adding only this: there is no power in human nature for the exact comprehension of the essence of God. ^D Perhaps, however, it is a small thing to assert this of human power alone; but if one were to say that even the incorporeal creation is too small to grasp and contain in its knowledge the infinite nature, he will not be altogether wrong, as one can surmise from examples familiar to us. For as there are many and diverse living things that have obtained life through flesh—some winged, others terrestrial, and that which dwells above the clouds by the power of wings, and that which is situated in the hollows and dwells in hiding—if they were judged against each other, the aerial [creature] would appear to be not a little removed from the terrestrial. But if the comparison were made with the stars and the unmoving sphere, the creature that floats through the air by flight would be considered no less separated from the heaven than the animals of the earth. Thus also, the power of the angels, when compared to our own, seems to surpass it greatly, because, with no sensation to disturb it, naked and unconcealed in its cognitive power of the high things...

^A that are sublime and eminent. But if, along with the majesty of Him who truly is, the comprehension of them were to be examined, perhaps he who dared to say that their power does not differ far from our own brevity in respect to divine knowledge would not venture this without some probable reason. For the gulf that separates the created nature from the uncreated nature, by which the latter is walled off and fortified, is great and impassable: the former is finite and bounded, but the latter has no boundary; the former is circumscribed by its own measures as it pleased the wisdom of the Maker, but the measure of the latter is infinity itself. The former is stretched out by a certain interval-based extension and constrained by time and place, but the latter surpasses every conception of an interval. Whoever directs their mind to this, avoiding curiosity in this life ^B, is permitted to understand both the beginning and the end of the things that are: this beatitude, which is above the creature, seeks neither beginning nor end, but is beyond what is signified by either; it is always in the same state, having entered into itself, and does not perform a life-journey from one thing to another through intervals. For it is not brought into being in the act of living by the participation of another life, such that it would be a logical consequence to conceive of a beginning and an end to that participation. Rather, that which it is, is life operating within itself, which becomes neither greater nor lesser through addition or subtraction. For, in the infinite, there is no place for increase toward something greater. Indeed, that which is by nature impassible is not capable of a conception involving diminution. Just as when we look at the sky ^C and, as it were, through the instruments of the senses of sight, attain to the beauty that is on high, we do not doubt that what appears exists, but when we are asked what it is, we are unable to define its nature in words; but we only gaze in wonder at the circular revolution of the whole, and the harmonious motion of the planets in the opposite direction, and the circle which is called the Zodiac, inscribed obliquely upon the pole, in which those who are learned and wise in these matters observe the motion of those things that are revolving in the contrary direction; and the differences of the luminaries according to their magnitudes and their own properties, their risings and settings in the circular period of the year, occurring always at the same times without any error or deviation, and the conjunctions of the wandering stars, and the returns of those that go beneath, and the eclipses of those that are above, and the shadows of the earth, and the restorations of those that ^D were eclipsed, and the multiform change of the moon, and the motion of the sun in the midst of the poles, as being full of its own light and crowned in a circle with its rays, and embracing all things with its illuminating power, while sometimes it also is eclipsed, when the lunar body, as they say, meets it and casts a shadow; and as it ever completes its own course according to the will of the One who ordained it, and travels through the ordered progress and the regulated place, rolling together the four seasons of the year within itself: seeing these things, we do not doubt that the things which appear, through which we see, do exist; but we are so far from grasping the essence of the reasons for each of the things that exist, that it is as if we had not even recognized the beginning of the phenomenon with our sense. So also, regarding the Maker of the cosmos, that He exists we know, but we do not deny that we are ignorant of the account of His essence.

^A Those who boast that they know these things should first speak about the things of a lower nature: what do they think the celestial body is? What is the mechanism that carries the orbs through the universe? In what does the motion occur? For whatever one may calculate with their intellect, the reasoning, as it proceeds, will surely end up in doubt and uncertainty and incomprehensibility. For if one should say that some other body of a similar shape, fitted to the form, holds the orbit—just as the course, being always bent, circles around itself in a similar way—by the necessity of that which encloses it, it is prevented from moving in a straight line: how will he say that these bodies endure, not being consumed by the constant friction among themselves? And how is the motion effected, as two bodies of the same nature are fitted to each other according to a pattern, when the one remains ^B motionless? For by the immobility of that which holds/encloses, that which is held within will be rendered entirely impotent with respect to its own activity. And what is it that secures the solidity of that enclosing body, so that it remains unshaken, not being agitated by the motion of that which is fitted to it? And if, according to the curious investigation of the intellect, some seat might be imagined for that too, which preserves its position in firmness, the reasoning, proceeding according to logical sequence, will surely investigate also the base of that base, and then another, and another after that. And in this way, the inquiry, proceeding through similar steps, will advance into the infinite and end in an inextricable impasse, as it investigates something further and further beyond the body situated at the final level as the foundation for the constitution of the universe, so that the reasoning that always seeks the "enclosing" shell of that which encloses can never stand still.

But some deny that this is so. According to the hollow suspicion of those who have philosophized much on these matters, a certain void is poured around the celestial surfaces. And the vertigo of the universe, gliding into this, turns back upon itself, finding no repulsion from any solid thing that could stand on a contrary base and strike against the circular motion ^C as it proceeds. What then is that void, which they say is neither body nor concept? And up to what point does it stand? And what does it contain? What is the kinship of the solid and resistant with that void and non-subsistent thing? What is the medium between things that are disjoined in nature and differ? And how is such great concord of the universe constituted through things of diverse nature? And what would one say the heaven itself is? Is it a mixture of the elements contained in it, or one from among all, or something else beyond these? And what are the stars themselves? From where would one say that brilliance shines upon them? And what is this brilliance? And how is it constituted? And what is the reason for their difference according to beauty and magnitude? And as for the inner circles, which carry around the motion contrary to the whole, what are they, or by what necessity are ^D they driven? And what of that immaterial and ethereal fire, and the air poured through the middle, acting as a sort of partition wall for the heating and consuming nature against the moist and liable-to-be-consumed? And how, at the lowest extremity, is the earth...

is subjected to everything, and what keeps its position in the firmament? What is it that checks its downward motion? If one were to cross-examine us on these and similar questions, who would be so bereft of his senses and so beside himself as to dare promise knowledge of such things? For the upright and candid there is no answer left but this: that He who made all things in wisdom alone knows the rationale of creation. But we understand by faith that the worlds were framed by the word of God, as the Apostle says. ^B

If, therefore, the lowly creation, which reaches as far as our senses, is beyond the measure of human knowledge, how could He who by His will alone constituted the universe be contained within our comprehension? This is vanity and false madness, as the Prophet says, to think that understanding of the incomprehensible is granted to anyone. It is possible to see this in young children, who, owing to the ignorance of their age, are simultaneously playing and studying. For often, when a sunbeam shines in through a window, they are delighted by its beauty and approach the appearance, striving to take the ray in their hand and vying with one another; they grasp at the light with the encircling of their fingers, thinking they have bound the radiance. But when the knot of their fingers is loosened, the capture of the ray slips through their hands, appearing to cause laughter and clapping among the toddlers. So it is with the children of our generation, as the parable says, sitting in the marketplaces and playing. ^C They who see the divine power shining into their souls through the rationale of Providence and miracles—like a ray or heat flowing from the solar nature—do not marvel at the grace or worship Him who is understood through these things; rather, having overstepped the capacity of the soul, they grasp with the handles of sophistries at the One who flees all touch, and they imagine that by their arguments they hold what they opine. But when reason has penetrated and unfolded the tangle of sophistries and traps, those who are capable in mind and in the judgment of reason discover that nothing has been grasped. Thus, with a small-minded and infantile spirit, laboring in vain over the impossible, they enclose the ungraspable nature of God within a child's palm—the few syllables of "ingenerate"—and support their own dementia, imagining God to be only so much and such a kind of being as to be capable of being contained by human reason through a single appellation. And while they pretend to follow the voices of the saints, they do not fear to exalt themselves above them. ^D For what no blessed man is shown to have said, of whom some account is recorded in the divine books, these men—as the Apostle says—neither knowing what they say nor of what they affirm, nevertheless profess themselves to know, and boast of being guides of knowledge to others. And on this account, they claim to have truly comprehended that which is called the Only-Begotten God.

^A For the necessity of their syllogisms demands this. Wretched, indeed, they are in their keenness of mind; how miserable and ruinous to them is their studied philosophy! Who so zealously rushes headlong into the abyss as these men who, with labor and effort, have dug for themselves the pit of blasphemy? By what a measure have they been severed and cut off from the hope of Christians! By what a gulf have they been walled off from the saving faith! By what a distance have they departed from the faith of our father Abraham!

He (if it is right, according to the greatness of spirit of the Apostle, to change the tone and understand the mind of the story allegorically, while the historical truth, of course, remains) went forth by divine command from his own land and his own kindred—a departure fitting for a prophetic man pressing toward the knowledge of God. For it does not seem to me that some local migration is what reconciles the comprehension of things found intellectually; rather, he departed from himself and his own land—that is, from an earthly and humble way of thinking—and, as far as possible, rose above the limits of common nature in his understanding, leaving behind the affinity of the soul with the senses. ^B Being hampered by none of the things that appear to the senses, he would not be obscured or darkened toward the understanding of invisible things; neither did the surrounding noise of hearing, nor the sight seducing his understanding toward visible things, hinder him. As the Apostle says, walking by faith and not by sight, he was so exalted by the greatness of his knowledge that he is considered the boundary of human perfection, having attained as much knowledge of God as it is lawful for this brief and mortal power to stretch and grasp.

Wherefore, the Lord of all creation, as if he had become some discovery of the patriarch, is called, in a special sense, the God of Abraham. But yet, what does the scripture say about him? That he went out, not knowing whither he was going. But not even the name of the One whom he loved was he permitted to learn; nor, however, did he fret or blush because of this ignorance. This, therefore, was his secure and safe guidance toward what was being sought: that he was not led by the hand, as it were, by any of those things that are ready at hand for understanding—in those notions concerning God—and that his intelligence, moved by nothing whatsoever of those things which can be comprehended, did not halt its progress. ^C But just as he had surpassed, by reasoning, his native wisdom—I mean the Chaldean philosophy—which stands only at the level of visible things, and, becoming higher than those things known through the senses, he desired to see the unformed beauty from the splendor of the things that are contemplated and from the harmony of the heavenly wonders, so also did he treat all other things that he grasped as he advanced in his reasoning—whether power, or goodness, or the fact of being without origin and beginning, or of being limited by no boundary, or any other such thought concerning the divine nature—as provisions for the upward journey and as steps, ^D always using the things that are discovered as a base for that which surpasses all things that are known.

^A Since he has run past every conjecture about the nature of God that arises from names within the assumptions regarding Him, and has cleansed his mind of such suppositions, having taken up faith—a thing unmixed and pure from every concept—he has made this an unerring and manifest sign of the knowledge of God: to believe that God is, which is better and higher than any sign given for knowledge. Therefore, after that ecstasy which fell upon him from those lofty spectacles, ^B he again bowed down to human weakness: "I am," he says, "dust and ashes"; that is, speechless and inactive in relation to the interpretation of the Good which had been conceived in his mind. For earth and ash seem to me to signify what is lifeless and barren at once, and thus the law of faith becomes for the life that follows, teaching through that history to those who approach God that it is not possible to approach God otherwise, unless faith mediates and joins through itself the mind that seeks the incomprehensible nature. For having left behind the meddlesomeness that comes from knowledge, "Abraham," he says, "believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." ^C But it was not written for his sake alone, the Apostle says, but for our sake, because God reckons faith, not knowledge, to men as righteousness. For knowledge has a certain mercenary disposition, assenting only to what is known; but the faith of Christians is not so. For it is not the substance of things known, but of things hoped for; and that which is grasped is not hoped for. "For what a man has," he says, "what does he even hope for?" But faith makes that which escapes our comprehension our own, by its own certainty guaranteeing that which is not seen. For thus the Apostle says regarding the faithful one, that "he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible." Vain, therefore, is he who speaks through the knowledge that puffs up in vain, saying that it is possible to know the divine essence. ^D For neither is man so great that he can equal his own power of comprehension to the Lord—"For who among the clouds will be likened to the Lord?" says David—nor is the object of the search so small as to be contained by the reasonings of human brevity. Hear the Ecclesiastes advising: "Do not utter a word before the face of God, because God," he says, "is in heaven above, and you are upon the earth below." He shows, I think, through the connection—or rather the distance—of these elements to one another, how much higher the divine nature is than the comprehension of human reasonings. For by as much as the stars are higher than the touch of his fingers, by so much, or rather by many times more, does the nature that surpasses all mind stand above the reasonings of the earth-born.

^A Therefore, having learned how great is the difference of nature, let us remain within our proper bounds in peace and tranquility. For it is safer at the same time and more pious to believe that the majesty and magnificence of God is more than what ^B is understood, than by circumscribing His glory with certain opinions, to imagine nothing exists beyond that; especially since no one would say it is safe not to leave the divine essence unscrutinized, as it is ineffable and untouchable by human reasonings. For to wish to reach toward the obscure by conjecture, and to pry into some knowledge of the hidden things from the meditation of human reasonings, offers a passage and consequence even to erroneous assumptions. Because he who has conjectured about things that are unknown will assume not only the true, but often even the lie itself, as true. But the disciple of the Gospels and the prophecy believes both that He who is, is—as much from the holy Scriptures which he has heard, as from the fitting arrangement of those things which appear, and through the works of Providence. But what He is and how He is, as useless and profitless, he does not inquire, nor will he give any entrance to the lie against the truth; for in being overly anxious and curious in inquiring, perverse and fallacious reasoning finds a place, but by all curiosity ceasing, every necessity of going astray is absolutely hidden. And that true reason is present may be learned from this, how the heresies of the Churches have swerved into various and discordant opinions about God, when one person has deceived himself according to one motion of the mind, and another ^C according to another. How did these very people, about whom the discourse is, slide into this abyss of impiety? Was it not safer for all, according to the counsel of Wisdom, not to seek the deeper things? But rather, in peace, to keep the simple deposit of the faith for themselves inviolate and intact? But since the baseness and vanity of men has begun to walk recklessly through those things which cannot be comprehended by the mind, and to confirm with decrees the inventions of their own vain opinion: thence comes the long catalog of those who wage war against the truth, among whom are these very people of whom the discourse is, who have appeared as dogmatists of error and fraud, who, circumscribing with a certain definition what God is, almost openly fashion their own opinion like an idol, while they ^D deify this comprehension which is in them, as if it were something that is perceived in the divine nature by some reasoning, but rather being God Himself, or the essence of God. And yet perhaps it was fitting, while looking toward the choir of the saints—I mean the prophets and patriarchs, to whom the Word of truth sounded forth in many ways and in many forms—and after them those who became eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, both to revere the authority of those who were testified to and confirmed by the Spirit Himself, and to insist within the bounds of their doctrine and knowledge, and not to dare those things which the comprehension of the saints did not affirm. For they, while the God unknown to human life was then—on account of the error prevailing about idols—making Himself manifest and known to men both from the miracles which appear in those things that were done by Him, and from the names through which the variety of the divine power is understood...

^A they lead them as if by the hand to an understanding of the divine nature, making known to men only the magnificence of those things which are contemplated regarding God; but they have left the account of the essence, as that which can in no way be grasped, and which brings no profit or advantage to those who inquire too anxiously and curiously, as ineffable and uninvestigable. For they indeed recounted that all other things have been made—heaven, earth, sea, times, ages, and the creatures that are in them—but what each of these is, and how, and from whence, they passed over in silence. Thus also concerning God, they advise us to believe that He is, and that He becomes a rewarder to those who seek Him; but the nature itself, which is above every name, they have neither named nor cared to investigate.

For if we have learned any name for the declaration of divine knowledge, all these names have a communion and proportion with such names as demonstrate the property of any human being. For just as those who describe an unknown person by certain indications and signs—saying, if it so happens, that he is of noble, well-born parentage, brilliant in wealth, conspicuous in dignity, flourishing in his prime, and in such and such a state of body—do not by saying such things demonstrate the nature of the one who is described, but rather signify certain signs and marks of those things which are known about him; for neither his nobility, nor his wealth, nor the brilliance of his rank, nor his appearance in his prime is the human being himself, but each of these things is observed in someone—so too, ^B all the words of the holy Scripture, having been found for divine glorification, signify something of those things which are declared regarding God, each offering its own proper meaning, through which we are taught either that He is2 power, or that He is insusceptible to anything inferior, or that He does not exist from a cause, or that He does not come under the circumscription of an end, or that He has dominion over all things, or in general something of those things which are contemplated regarding Him. But the essence itself, as neither graspable by any intellect nor expressible by speech, it has left uninvestigated, ordaining that it be honored in silence, while forbidding the inquiry of profound matters and while decreeing that one must not utter a word before the face of God. ^C

For this reason, whoever might wish to search every divinely inspired voice will not find the doctrine of the divine nature, nor indeed of any other of the things that subsist according to essence; whence we live in ignorance of all things, first, we humans, being ignorant of ourselves, and then of all other things besides. For who is there who has attained to a comprehension of his own soul? Who has understood its essence? Is it material, or immaterial? Purely incorporeal, or is there something corporeal about it? How does it come into being? How is it tempered? From whence is it instilled into the body? How does it depart? What is it that has the binding and middle connection to the nature of the body? How is it, though untouchable and without form, ^D enclosed in some particular circumscription? What is the difference according to the activities? How is the same thing both above…

the heavens, while it investigates with curious inquiry the things that are invisible, and yet glides down to material affections, being dragged down by the weight of the body, `<sup>B</sup>` having anger and fear, grief and pleasure, mercy and cruelty, hope and memory, cowardice and boldness, friendship and hatred, and all things that are wrought in opposition to the faculties of the soul? Who then, having considered this, has not thought that he holds within himself a kind of people of souls gathered together, of which each one of those things mentioned differs greatly from the rest? And in what part it prevails, and has command over the remainder, so that even the rational power itself succumbs to the dominations and empires of such movements and is subjected to them, and brings its own cooperation to such impulses as if to some tyrannical master? Who, therefore, from the divinely inspired Scripture has taught us about this manifold and multiform power of the things that are understood in the mind? Is it one thing tempered out of all, and what is the tempering and conspiracy of opposites among themselves, so that what is one may be many? But is each of these, understood separately, enclosed within the soul as if in some spacious vessel? And how is it that we do not always have a sense of all of them pressing upon us, being confident and fearful at the same time, hating and loving, grieving and rejoicing, and having within us a confused and mingled motion of all other things, but rather acknowledge their dominion bit by bit, when one of these prevails while the others are quiet? What deeper composition and arrangement is this, and what is this spacious capacity empty in us, so that to each one its own proper place is assigned, as if prohibited by certain means and intervening partitions from being carried to the commerce and commingling of its neighbor? And if this very thing, anger or fear or the rest of the things mentioned, subsists by essence, or if they are non-subsistent motions, what discourse has explained it? For if they subsist by themselves, there is not one soul, as has been said, but a certain gathering of souls is contained within us, since each of these is a `<sup>D</sup>` secret and distinct thing in a peculiar and circumscribed soul. But if we must think that these are some motion which cannot subsist, how does that which does not exist essentially dominate and command us, dragging us into slavery as if by tyranny, whichever of these happens to prevail? And if the soul is something that is perceived by the mind, how can that which is composed and built up of many parts be considered in the intelligible, when such a notion ought properly to be viewed without these corporeal qualities? And the power of the soul—the appetitive, and the nutritive, and the alterative—and the fact that while all the members of the body are nourished, the sense does not nevertheless penetrate through everything, but just as those things which are inanimate, some things in us lack sense, such as bones, cartilages, nails, and hair, which are nourished but do not feel. Who, then, [can explain] the semi-perfect activity of the soul in these things?

And what shall I say regarding the soul? Neither has anyone yet attained to any clear grasp of the bodily qualities of the flesh itself. For if anyone by theory dissolves that which appears into the elements of which it is composed, and, having stripped them of their qualities, strives to perceive the underlying subject by itself, I do not see what will be seized by such speculation. For when one has taken away from the body its color, its shape, its solidity, its weight, its size, its position in space, its motion, its capacity to be affected and to act, and its relation to something else—of which each taken by itself is not a body, though all are beheld in the body—what then will remain that receives the definition of a body? We are able neither to perceive this by ourselves, nor have we learned it from the Scriptures. But he who is ignorant of himself, how would he know anything that is above him? And is not he who has become accustomed to ignorance of himself clearly taught by this very fact not to be surprised at the things hidden and concealed from without?

For this reason, even the elements of the world we know through ^B sense only so far as to receive from each what is useful for our life. But the account of their essence we have neither learned, nor do we consider our ignorance a loss. For what profit is it to me to inquire curiously and anxiously into the nature of fire: how it is produced, how it is kindled, how it seizes the material placed before it and does not depart before it has consumed and exhausted the underlying subject; how the spark lies hidden within the stone; how iron, though cold to those who touch it, brings forth and generates flame; how wood rubbed against wood ignites a fire; how water shining in the sun creates a flame? And as for the cause of its upward movement, and its ever-moving power, and all such things, passing over them as matters to be investigated with anxious curiosity, we have perceived only what is useful from them for our life; knowing that he who ^C receives the benefit without fuss has nothing less than the one who busies himself with useless inquiries.

For this reason, Scripture has passed over the rambling talk about the essence of created things, as something superfluous and useless. And it seems to me that the son of thunder, John, having echoed the preceding proclamations with the greatness of his own dogmas, understood this when he said at the end of the evangelical history 19: "There are many other things which Jesus did, which, if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." In saying all this, he does not mean the miracles of healing, for the history has not left any one of these unrecorded, even if it has not made mention of every one of the healed by name. For when he says that the dead are raised, the blind sight is restored to, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and again that He healed every disease and every infirmity, he has left no miracle unrecorded; having included the particulars in these general notions. But perhaps the evangelist, out of ^D the depth of his knowledge, says that the...

majesty of the Son of God is not ^A to be known only from the miracles wrought through the flesh; for these are small when examined in comparison with the rest of the magnitude of his works. But do you look up to heaven, behold the beauties within it; transfer your thought across the breadth of the earth, to the depths of the water, and having taken hold of the entire world with your mind, and having understood by reason the transcendent nature, know that these are the true works of him who dwelt among you in the flesh. Which, he says, if they were written down each one, what and how, and whence, and how much, the fullness of the teaching about the world itself would be beyond the capacity of the world. For since God made all things in wisdom, and the wisdom of God has no limit—for "of his understanding," he says, "there is no number" (Ps. CXLVII, 5)—the world, finished with its own measures, will not contain within itself the discourse of infinite wisdom. If, therefore, the whole world is too small to contain the teaching of the works of the Lord, how many worlds will contain the narration concerning the God of all? For perhaps not even the blasphemous tongue will deny that the maker and author of all things, which were brought into existence by his will alone, is greater by infinite parts. If, therefore, every creature is incapable of containing the discourse about itself—for this is what the great John testifies, according to our argument—how would human brevity contain the whole discourse about the Lord of creation? Let these loud-talkers say what man is, when considered in comparison to the whole; what geometric point is so indivisible? What Epicurean atom is so thinned out by the vanity of those who contemplate these things ^C and becomes almost that which is not, as human brevity is nothing when judged against the universe? Just as the great David also says, having well contemplated the infirmity of mortals, "For my substance is as nothing before thee" (Ps. XXXVIII, 6), not saying that it is absolutely nothing, but signifying one like to nothing, being extremely short when compared to that which does not exist.

Nevertheless, urged on by such a nature, they widen their mouths against the ineffable power, and with one appellation they measure the ineffable nature, restricting the essence of God by the name of unbegottenness, that they may pave for themselves ^D through these things a path of blasphemy against the Only-Begotten. Although the great Basil had corrected this deceived and false opinion, and explained a few things about names—that they are not from nature, but are applied to things by human invention or conceit—they are so far from returning to the truth that, as if by some bird-lime, they stick to what has been said by themselves, nor do they cease from their captious and fallacious argumentation, nor do they define the "unbegotten" as being spoken by conceit, but as representative of nature. To pursue and review the whole argument, and to attempt to overturn that raving and long-winded garbage they have appended, word for word, would require much leisure and much time and much

^B exemption from business and from the management of affairs. Just as I hear that Eunomius, during the Trojan war—having applied himself laboriously and sedulously throughout the multitude of years, and in much tranquility—composed this long dream for himself in much sleep; seeking dilligently and skillfully, not how he might interpret any of the things understood, but how he might drag forced meanings against the words, and collect the more sonorous terms from certain writings. And just as beggars, through a lack of clothing, stitch together tunics for themselves from certain rags by pricking them with a needle: so also does he, plucking one word from here and another from there, weave for himself a patchwork of this discourse through them, not without misery joining and composing the seam of words, whose slippery and youthful ambition is as much to be rejected by a man looking toward the truth, as it is incumbent upon some strong and more mature athlete, no longer suited for youthful passions, to flee from the superfluous and polished finery and adornment of a woman.

But having briefly run through the scope of the whole undertaking, I adjudge the long circumlocutions and détours of words to be dismissed. Therefore, it has been said by us (for I make the discourse of my teacher my own and domestic one) that we have a very faint and brief perception and comprehension of the divine nature through reasonings: nevertheless, being content with the scantiness of our ability, we glean a sufficient knowledge through those names which are piously spoken concerning it. We say, however, that the significance of all these names is not uniform, but that some have an indication of things present in God, while others have an indication ^C of things absent from Him; for example, when we call Him just and incorruptible, we demonstrate with "just" that justice is present, but with "incorruptible," that corruption is not present.

It is possible, however, to change the meanings and, conversely, to apply the names to God in a fitting manner; so that through that which is not present, the appropriate [quality] is represented, and through that which is present, the alien [quality] is represented. For since injustice is understood as contrary to justice, and eternity as opposed to corruption, it is possible to use opposites appropriately regarding God, and not to err from what is fitting, by saying that He is always and that He is not unjust: which is equal to saying that He is just and does not admit of corruption. Thus, we say that the rest of the names also, by a certain exchange of meaning, are suitably disposed toward either indication, such as "good" and "immortal," and all things expressed according to a similar form. For each of them, being interchanged in ^D one way or another, can indicate both what is present and what is not present in the divine nature; so that while the figure of the names is changed, the pious understanding regarding the subject remains immovable. For it is the same thing to call God not capable of wickedness, and to name Him good; and to confess Him immortal, and to call Him always living. For we perceive no difference in these according to their meaning, but we signify one thing through both expressions, even if the one seems to have a positing, and the other a removal, of something.

In the same way, when we call God the beginning of all things, and again name Him "without beginning" ^A, we do not contend regarding the concepts, since in both cases we are declaring Him to be the originator and cause of the universe. So whether we say "without beginning" or "originator of the universe," by the former we have presented what is not present, and by the latter what is present. Since it is permitted, as has been said, to transpose the perceptions of the names through an exchange of the things signified, and to change them to the contrary, it is possible for what is present to be made known through a certain transformation by a name that otherwise seems discordant, and conversely for the other. For it is permitted instead of saying that He has no beginning, to define that He is the beginning of the universe, and again instead of this, to confess that He alone subsists in an unbegotten manner. So that while the words seem to differ from one another by a change of form, the thought ^B in what is said remains one and the same. For the thing earnestly sought in discourses about God is not to devise a smooth, sweet, harmonious, and lyrical sound of words, but to discover a pious understanding through which what is fitting to the conception concerning God may be preserved. Since, therefore, it is pious to consider the originator of the universe as not having a cause superior to Himself, this understanding being fixed and remaining with us, what contention and conflict of words still remains for those endowed with mind and judging rightly? Since every utterance by which such a mental sense is expressed conveys the same thing. For whether you call Him the beginning and cause of the universe, or name Him as without beginning, or as being unbegotten, or as subsisting from eternity, or as the originator of the universe, or as from no cause alone, all these things ^C are in some way equal to one another as far as the power of the things signified is concerned. And vain is he who struggles and contends over such a sound of a word, as if piety consisted not in the mind and the intent, but in syllables and sounds. Therefore, this understanding having been articulated by the teacher, by which it is allowed to those who are not covered and veiled by a heretical covering to clearly see that the Divine, however it exists according to its nature, escapes every touch and perception of sense, and surpasses the intellect, and is more sublime and higher than every comprehension which consists in reason; human intelligence, however, curiously and solicitously investigating and searching out the inaccessible and high nature with such arguments as it can, ^D and reaching out for it, is neither so keen-sighted as to clearly and evidently behold what is invisible, nor yet so entirely cut off from approach and closeness as to be unable to receive any shadowed image of what is sought; but it has attained a certain part of what is sought by the touch of reasoning by conjecture, and in part, from the fact that it cannot behold Him, it has in a certain way known Him, or rather, has known that what is sought is beyond all knowledge. For it has understood the things that are discordant concerning the divine nature, and it has not understood the things that it is fitting to suppose concerning it; yet it was not able to behold it—that which is, concerning which it reasons these things—but it saw from the knowledge of the things that are present and not present, which is the only thing that is possible to be seen. That, being established far from all evil, in

every good is understood. Which indeed is altogether such as I say: ineffable, and by the movements of reason incomprehensible and inaccessible. Since, therefore, our master and teacher has purged away all indecorous notions which the mind might suspect concerning the divine nature, and has counseled and taught us to think concerning it whatever is laudable and becoming to God, so that neither anything corruptible, nor anything of those things which have been brought into the nature of things through generation, is the first cause, but it is understood as outside of any such suspicion—and by the negation of those things which do not belong to it, and by the affirmation of those things which are piously understood concerning it, it is comprehended that it exists. ^A

But this vehement opponent of the truth struggles against what has been said, and desires that such a sound of words—I refer to the term "unbegotten"—manifestly demonstrate the essence ^B of God. And yet, it is obvious and clear to anyone who has considered even slightly the uses of names that "incorruptibility," by means of the privative particle, signifies that nothing of these things belongs to God: neither corruption, nor birth. For many other names also are spoken in like manner, indicating the removal of that which does not belong to it, not the position of that which is. ^C For example: "innocent," "harmless," "without evil," "imperturbable," "without anger," "impassible," "irreproachable," and all such things. These indeed are spoken truly, and it is as if there were a certain catalogue and enumeration of things thought of as worse, from which the Divine is separated. Yet the discourse does not by these names express what that which is spoken of is. For what is not sound has been taught through what we have heard, but the power of what has been said has not indicated what it is. ^D Just as if someone wishing to say something about the nature of man were to say that it is neither inanimate, nor devoid of sense, nor winged, nor four-footed, nor aquatic; he has not indicated what it is, but has clarified what it is not—and he does not lie while recounting these things about man, nor yet does he clearly demonstrate the subject. By the same reasoning, when many such things are spoken about the divine nature, we learn in what things we ought to suppose God to be, but what it is in essence we are not taught by the things said.

Fleeing, however, with all caution from being carried away into any absurd notions in the opinions we must have concerning God, we have made use of many and various titles for him, fitting the appellations according to the difference of our conceptions. Since no name has been found comprehensive of the divine nature, which is ordained to declare the nature of the subject itself, therefore by many names, according to different conceptions, making a certain peculiar notion of him for each, we address the Divine, hunting for some names from the multiform and various signification concerning him for the understanding of that which is sought. For in questioning and examining ourselves as to what the Divine is, we declare it in different ways: for instance, that which is pre-eminent

^A over the constitution and administration of the things that are; which does not have its existence from a cause, but is the cause of being for all other things; in which there is no birth or beginning, no destruction or end, nor change toward the opposite, nor diminution of any excellence. As such, neither does evil find a place in it, nor is the good absent from it. But if anyone wishes to grasp such concepts by means of names, it is entirely necessary to call Him immutable and unchangeable, as He does not admit of any change for the worse. And to call the first cause of the whole "unbegotten"; and "incorruptible," as being unsusceptible to corruption; and "immortal" and "never-ending," as terminating in no end; and to explain Him as the "Almighty," as ruling over the whole. And thus, fashioning names for all other things according to pious conceptions, we address Him in different ways through the differences of our perceptions, signaling through these names either His power, or His sovereignty, or His goodness, or the fact that He exists without a cause, or that He abides ^B forever.

I say, therefore, that men are the masters of such name-fashioning, fittingly applying to the subject the appellations that appear appropriate to each. And there is nothing absurd in what the writer puts forward, which he presents as something formidable and terrifying, that is, to admit that the assigning of names is more recent than the very thing itself that is being named, even in the case of God Himself. For God is not a word, nor does He have His being in voice and sound. But God is what He is in Himself, as He is believed to be. Yet He is named by those who call upon Him—not what He is (for the nature of Him who truly is is ineffable), but He has names derived from those things which He is believed to perform and effect in our life, such as this very name that is readily spoken. For when we call Him God, we are thinking of Him as the Observer and Watcher and the Discerning Knower of hidden things, and we call upon Him. But if ^C the essence precedes the operations, and we understand the operations through those things we perceive, and we declare them in words as we are able, what fear remains in calling the names more recent and younger than the things themselves? For if we do not first explain any of the things said about God before we have conceived them in our mind—and we conceive them through the things by which we are taught from His operations, and the power precedes the operation, and the power depends on the divine will, and the will is deposited in the power of the divine nature—are we not clearly taught that the appellations significant of the things that occur are born *after* the things, and that vocal utterances are like shadows of the realities, fashioned according to the movements of the things that exist? And that this is so is clearly persuaded by the divine Scripture through the great David, who, as if through certain proper and innate names—those which were known to him ^D from the operation—invokes the divine nature. For, he says, "The Lord is compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and rich in mercy." What then are these, that they should be said to have the significance of operation, or of essence? One could not say anything other than operation.

^A When then did God perform mercies or mercy, and obtain this name from that operation? Was it before human life? And who was there that was in need of mercy? It was only after sin: but sin is after man. Consequently, both the operation of showing mercy and the name of mercy are after man. What then? Will he also condemn David, ^B who is wise above the prophets, because he named God by those things through which he perceived Him? Or will he even kick against him, bringing forward that noble expression as if from a tragedy, that one must not say the most blessed life of God exults in names derived from human reasoning, which was exulting in itself alone even before the origin of those who conceive it? For he who would undertake the cause of the Prophet will surely say that the divine nature was indeed exulting in itself alone, even before the generation of those who conceive it; but the human mind, in as much as it is capable of being taught through these operations, speaks no more than that. For Wisdom says that from the greatness and beauty of created things, the Creator of all is proportionably considered. But ^C as regards the divine essence, which exceeds every intellect, we celebrate such titles, not praising it with exultation through the things by which we name it; but guiding ourselves through what is said toward the knowledge of hidden things. Then the Prophet says to the Lord: "You are my God, since you have no need of my goods." How then do we thus adorn the most blessed life of God, as this man supposes, which the Prophet declares to be in no need of human goods? Or did he conceive "to exult" in place of "to name"? And yet we hear from those who use language correctly, and who, through the exactness of names, have been trained in their usage, that the word "to exult" is not placed there for a bare indication; but that such a term means either to make known, or to declare, or to signify, or something else of that sort said in such a way. ^D To name, to exult, is the same as to boast, and to rejoice, and whatever partakes of such an emphasis. But he says that we "exult" the blessed life with the names of conception. We, however, do not deny that we attempt to recognize some of the things concerning the divine nature through piously conceived words and names, although we think it is greater than human weakness to add any honor to the divine nature, which is above every honor. And for this reason, as far as is possible for us, tracking piety, we understand that the first cause does not have its subsistence from a cause that is over and above it. If one were to accept this as true, it would be praiseworthy for the sake of truth alone. But if one should judge it to be greater than the rest of those things understood about the divine nature, and for this reason should say that God is exulting and rejoicing in this opinion alone, as one of those who exult in things that are superior, this would belong to the muse of Eunomius alone, who says that it exults in its own unbegotten state, which he indeed calls essence, and names a blessed and divine life.

If, however, anyone should say, regarding the divine nature, that God is joyful and rejoicing, as though exulting in some of those things which are pre-eminent, this belongs to the sole Eunomius

^A but let us hear how, according to the manner fitting for the need and the preceding pattern—for thus it flourishes again for us and displays itself in names formed in the same way—how he says that through these things he dissolves the opinion formed about Him, and restrains the ignorance of the deceived. For I shall use the very same terms of the dithyrambist that end in like manner. "Having said," he states, "that those things which are spoken by an operation of the mind are naturally dissolved along with the words," we added these things: "But God, both when those who are in the nature of things are silent and when they are speaking, and before names had been made, was and is unbegotten." Let us learn, therefore, something common to the excogitation of words or the positing of names, in relation to the things themselves which we mark by any utterance of names and verbs. Wherefore, if God is in an unbegotten manner before the human constitution, it is necessary to judge the utterance that declares such an opinion as being, as it were, diffused in sound, to be improper if it should happen to be named according to human notion; for it is not the same thing to be, as it is to be called. But God is by nature that which He is. He is spoken of by us, however, as far as it is possible to declare it, because of the poverty of our nature, which has affections in the soul that are hidden and not manifest, unless they have been unfolded through voice and reason. Therefore, understanding Him to be without a cause, we declare this concept by an operation of the mind through the utterance of "unbegotten." What harm, then, is it to Him who is such, that He should be named by us as what He is? For it is not from being called "unbegotten" that He exists in an unbegotten manner, but from His being, the being called so also accrues to Him. This, however, he who is subtle and clever in his ingenuity has not understood, nor has he clearly perceived the things posited by himself. For he would certainly have ceased to reprehend those who construct the name of unbegottenness through an operation of the mind. For consider, he says: "Those things which are spoken by an operation of the mind are dissolved along with the words; ^B but God, both before those who were generated and before names were created, both was and is unbegotten." Do you see that His being what He is, He has before the existence of all things, even when they are silent and when they are speaking, neither more nor less being what He is? But the usage of verbs and nouns was thought out after the production of men, who were adorned by God with the faculty of reason and speech. If, therefore, the creature is posterior to the Creator, and man is the last of all creatures; and speech is proper to man; and the parts of speech are nouns and verbs; and "unbegottenness" is a noun; how does he not understand that he is contradicting the things he is building up? For we both affirm that names have been invented by human ingenuity to declare and signify things, and he himself confesses that those who use language have been shown to be posterior to the divine life; and that the divine nature is as it now is and always was, unbegotten. If, therefore, he confesses that the blessed life existed before men were born—for I shall again turn back and use the same argument—we do not argue against the fact that men were born at a later time, but we say that they have used verbs and nouns from the time we came into being and were created as rational. ^C

^A For "ingenerateness" is a name indicative of its own notion; and every name is a part of human speech. If, then, he confesses that the divine nature existed before men, he must agree that the appellation invented by men is later than that nature. For it was not reasonable that the use of speech should have been in operation before the creation of those who use speech, just as agriculture did not exist before those who cultivate the fields, nor navigation before those who sail, nor any other thing among those performed in life before the human life itself was established. Why, then, does he fight against us, not even knowing the consistency of his own arguments?

"God," he says, "was what He is before man was made." We do not deny this either. For whatever is conceived concerning God, that existed before the foundation of the world. But we say that this began to be named after the one who names Him began to be. For if we use names for this reason, that instruction about things might be gained by us therefrom—and only that which is ignorant stands in need of a teacher, whereas the divine nature, because it embraces all knowledge, is superior to all instruction—then it is demonstrated by these facts that names were devised not for God's sake, but for our sake, for the declaration of the Being. For it was not so that He might learn about Himself that He applied the name of ingenerateness to His nature. For He who knows all things, and Himself before all things, has no need of syllables and words to learn what His nature and dignity are. ^B But in order that we might have some comprehension of those things which are piously conceived concerning Him, we have impressed the differences of our notions with certain words and syllables, as if they were certain seals and marks ^C engraved by the formations of speech upon the movements of the mind, so that the declaration of the movements which arise in the soul might be made clear and unconfused through the sounds applied to the notions.

Why, then, does he refute our statement, by which we say that the name of "ingenerateness" was devised for the indication that God exists without beginning, by saying that God, both before those who speak, and those who are silent, and those who think, and before the very conception of things that have come to be, was and is ingenerate? For if there were someone constructing the argument that He was not ingenerate before the name was found by us, he would be worthy of pardon for writing those things against such an absurdity. But if the existence of Him before both speech and thought is confessed by all, and the placing of the name by which the mind is declared is said to have been found by us through conception; and yet the goal of his battle against us is to demonstrate that the name was not devised by men, but was something existing before our constitution, ^D I know not by whom said: what has that in common with his proposed study, namely, to say that before the things that are, God subsists in an ingenerate manner, and to confirm with great effort that the conception is later, and to affirm what he has said? For it is the mark of those who are insane

or demented to declare that God is a ^A conception. But if this argument neither exists nor has existed—for who would be driven to such a pitch of stupor and folly as to assert that He who truly is, and who brought all other things that are into existence, does not exist in His own peculiar subsistence, but is to be pronounced a conception of the name?—why does he contend in vain with an illusory struggle against things which no one asserts? Is it not the manifest cause of this insane contention that, being ashamed because those who were deceived by the captious argument of this name have been refuted—since it has been proven that the name is separated by a wide interval from the meaning of 'essence'—he willfully creates confusion in the things being said, transferring the conflict from the name to the realities? He does this so that the unwary may be easily deluded by such confusion, thinking either that God has been called a conception by us, or that He is later than the invention of human names; and for this reason, having left our unassailable argument ^B untouched, he shifts the battle elsewhere. For our position was, as has been said, that the name of 'ingeneracy' does not demonstrate the nature, but corresponds to the nature by way of a conception, through which it is signified that He subsists without a cause; whereas the doctrine being built up by them was that the word is indicative of the essence itself. Where, then, was it established that the power of the name is such? But these things are certainly reserved for other discourses. All his effort is occupied in demonstrating that God subsists ingenerately, just as if someone were clearly to ask him about these matters, what sort of understanding he has concerning the name of 'ingeneracy': whether he considers it to be conceived for the purpose of demonstrating that the First Cause lacks beginning and origin, or as declaring the essence itself. And he, with great gravity and haughtiness, would reply that he does not doubt that God is the Creator of heaven and earth. ^C Just as, therefore, this discourse is dissonant from the subject proposed and does not follow in a connected series, in the same way you would find that the battle he has beautifully described against us is also disconnected from the point. Let us consider it in this way.

They say that God is ingenerate: to this we also assent; but that 'ingeneracy' is an essence, to this occurs our contradiction. For we say that this name is demonstrative of God subsisting ingenerately, not that 'ingeneracy' is God; he promises to refute this discourse of ours. What, then, is the refutation? That He was ingenerate before the constitution of men, he says. What is this to the matter being sought, which he professes he will demonstrate, ^D that the name is the same as the underlying subject? For he defines 'ingeneracy' as being an essence. What, then, is the demonstration of his promises? To show, namely, that God existed before those who use the word. O marvelous demonstration, and one to which it is impossible to contradict! This is from the art of dialectic

logical workmanship of art? Towards which of those uninitiated into the secret teaching would anyone look? But he ^A gravely mocks for us the very name of "notion" [ἐπνοία] in the distinctions regarding the notion. For of those things, he says, that are called by notion, some have their existence only in pronunciation, as those that signify nothing; others [exist] according to individual thought. And of these, some are by way of amplification, as in the case of colossi; others by way of diminution, as in the case of pygmies; others by way of addition, as in the case of many-headed creatures; or by way of composition, as in the case of half-beast beings. You see to what point the wise man, having fragmented the notion for us, did not deign to let its power proceed further. He says the notion is insignificant, irrational, [and] sophistically contriving things contrary to nature, or mutilating, or overstretching the defined measures of nature, or composing from heterogeneous things, or producing wonders ^B by strange additions. Having mocked the name of "notion" in these things, he demonstrates that it is utterly useless and unprofitable to life. Whence, then, [come] the higher disciplines? Whence [come] geometry, and the philosophy of arithmetic, and the teaching of logical and physical theorems, and the inventions of machines? And the wonders done by bronze and water in horoscopes? And this philosophy concerning being, and the contemplation of intelligible things, and to speak collectively, all the occupation of the soul with great and high things? And what of agriculture? What of the skill of navigation? What of the rest of the management [of life] throughout our life? Whence is the sea made passable to man? How has that which is in the air been enslaved to that which is on the land? How is the untamed tamed? How is that which is most fearful subdued? How does that which is more powerful ^C not refuse the bridle? Was it not through notion that all these things were invented for human life? For, according to my account, a notion is a faculty discovering things unknown, finding what is next by means of the things concerning the first thought of what is being studied. For having understood something concerning the object of inquiry at the beginning of what has been grasped, by assembling the consequent through the discovered thoughts, we lead the endeavor unto the conclusion of the things being studied.

And what need is there for me to recount the greater and higher benefits of the act of notion? For it is permitted to one who is not contentious toward the truth to perceive that all other things, as many as are life-benefiting and useful to the life of men, that time has discovered, were discovered—not otherwise—but through notion. And it seems to me that [of] all the goods performed in us throughout this life, which are inherent in our souls from divine Providence, one who judges the power of notion to be the more precious ^D and more honorable would not stray far from a fitting and correct judgment. I say these things having been taught by Job, in which God spoke to the servant through whirlwinds and clouds, uttering both other things that it behooved God to say, and [declaring] that He Himself is the one who instructed man in the arts, and bestowed [wisdom] upon women.

^A For that He did not instruct us in such arts by any literal activity, Himself presiding over the work, as one may see in the case of those who are taught bodily, no one, unless he be carnal and beast-like, would ever contradict. But it has been stated that the instruction in such arts was given to us by Him; therefore, He who gave to nature the power of thinking and discovering things sought after, Himself led us to the arts. And by the reason of the cause, everything that is discovered and perfected by thought ^B is referred back to the originator of this power. Thus also life discovered medicine; yet one would not be wrong to call medicine a gift of God. And everything that has been discovered in human life, both in peace and in war, being suitable for any useful purpose, did not have its source from elsewhere, but it is the mind that thinks out and discovers each thing for us, as it is appropriate to our nature. But the mind is the work of God; therefore, all that has been provided for us through the mind is from God. And I myself do not contradict the statement made by our opponents that the fabulous figments and monstrous falsehoods are fashioned and written by this power of thought; for even their argument contributes to our purpose. For we also say that the science of contraries is the same, both of beneficial things and of those that are otherwise, such as medicine, the art of piloting, and whatever else is of such a kind. For he who knows how to bring aid to the sick by means of drugs would know, if he should wish to misuse the art for destruction, how to apply poison even to the healthy. And he who directs a ship to harbor with a rudder could, if it were his pleasure to destroy the voyagers treacherously, steer it onto reefs or crags. And the painter, by the same art, has shown the most beautiful form upon a tablet, and has, in turn, clearly imitated the most hideous. ^C Thus, the trainer restores a limb that is dislocated or moved from its place by the skill of anointing, and if he wishes, by that same art, he can dislocate it.

What need is there, by recounting things one by one, to bring a great crowd into the argument? As, therefore, no one would contradict what has been said, that one who has learned any art is able to use that same art to effect things that are not proper, ^D so we say that the power of thought was indeed implanted by God in human nature for the good; but when some have misused this inventive faculty, it has often become a minister and creator of useless inventions. Therefore, not because the faculty of thought can plausibly fashion false and non-existent things, should it be thought that it cannot search out things that truly exist and have real subsistence; but this very aptitude and ability which it has for such things is a testimony to the well-disposed concerning that power of theirs. For that which is set forth to cause fear to those who see it, or to produce some amusement, does not lack the power of thought in order to accomplish what is being worked out; but to represent men having many hands and many heads, or breathing fire, or coiled with the sinuous bodies of serpents, or to exalt to a greater...

stature, or to clip the ways of nature to the ridiculous, or to narrate that men have been transformed into fountains, and trees, and birds—through which those who are delighted by such things may find some solace and enticement of soul—I say that this is the most evident proof that one can also, through the inventive faculty, conceive of things which are greater and more excellent in the sciences. For the mind has not been implanted in us by Him who gave it solely for the forming of things that do not exist; nor has it been allotted no faculty resourceful for things useful for the discovery of things beneficial to the soul. But just as the impulsive and elective faculty of our soul is by nature adapted and constructed primarily ^B for the desire of what is honorable and good, yet one might also use such an impulse for things that are not fitting; and one would not say that the faculty of choice has no inclination toward any good, merely because it occasionally has an inclination toward base things: so also the movement of the mind concerning vain and useless things is not an accusation of an inability in regard to what is useful, but becomes a proof that it is not ineffectual regarding things beneficial to the soul. For just as it has discovered there things for pleasure or astonishment, so too here it will not err in its approaches toward the truth.

One of the things being investigated was whether the first cause, which is God, is without beginning, or has its being dependent upon some principle. And having grasped with our intellect that what is conceived from another cannot be the first cause, we have devised a name expressive of such a conception, and we say that He who exists without a supereminent cause exists without origin and without beginning, or in an unbegotten manner. But we have named Him who is thus, that is, unbegotten and beginningless: indicating by this name not what He is, but what He is not. And that the name may become most clear, I shall attempt to demonstrate it through a more vivid example. Let the inquiry be about some tree, whether it is cultivated or has grown spontaneously. ^C If therefore it be from cultivation, we shall certainly call the tree "cultivated"; if spontaneously, "non-cultivated." Such a name does not deviate from the truth; for in any case, it will be the tree one way or the other, and it does not indicate the particular nature of the plant. For we have learned through the word "non-cultivated" that it is of spontaneous growth; yet if it is a plane tree, or a vine, or any other such plant that is being indicated, we have not learned it through such a name.

If now the example is understood, it would be time to transfer the discourse to the object of which it is an example. We have grasped that the first cause has its being from no supereminent cause. Therefore, bringing this notion into the form of a name for God, who exists in an unbegotten manner, we have named Him "unbegotten." That He is not by way of generation, we have declared through the significance of the name; but what the essence itself—which is unbegotten—is, according to its own nature, we have been guided to perceive nothing ^D of it from this appellation. For not even...

^A is it reasonable that the conception of our reason should be so powerful as to lift us above the measures of nature, and to make us ascend to things that cannot be comprehended, and to enable us to encompass with our own knowledge those things to which there is no access for our understanding. But he disturbs our teacher, and he pulls apart and lacerates the discourse which the latter has regarding conceptualization; he insults the statements, once again reveling in his customary sound and applause of little phrases, and luxuriating in words. He says, "The testimony of those things whose interpretation he claims for himself, he shrinks from out of shame." For when he had enunciated some part of those things which are considered by our teacher concerning conceptualization—in which he said that the use of conceptualization is not only effective in vain things, but also has some strength toward greater matters, by means of the theory concerning wheat and seed and food—he brings in accusations against him, claiming that the things said by him are consequences of external or profane philosophy and that he circumcises the care or providence of God, because he does not confess that the names were imposed upon things by Him; and furthermore, that he brings aid to atheists, or those who deny God, and bears arms against Divine Providence, and admires their opinion more than divine laws, and attributes to them a greater praise of wisdom, as one who did not considerately weigh the first sayings of Scripture, because the appellation of fruit and seed was named by Scripture before men were brought forth to generation. These are his accusations against us—the thoughts are not written here in his own words, but the phrasing has been changed by us only as much as is sufficient ^B to correct the harshness and dissonance of the syntax of the things said. What then? What do we answer to the guardian of divine providence?

He claims we do a wrong because we do not deny that man was made by God to be a participant in reason, but we refer the inventions of words back to the reasoning faculty implanted by God in the nature of humans. And this is the most bitter of the accusations, by which the teacher of piety is accused of deserting to the opinion of the atheists, and is named an heir and patron of an illicit custom, and is called all the most terrible things. Let the corrector of our lapses, therefore, speak: "God imposed the appellations upon created things"—for this is what the new explainer of mystical doctrines says—"because God named the sprout, and the herb, and the hay, and the seed, and the wood, and things of this sort before the formation of man, when He brought those things that were made into creation by His command." If, therefore, he remains in the literal letter and in this part ^C judaizes—that is, clings to the opinion of the Jews—and has not yet learned that a Christian is not a disciple of the letter, but of the spirit (for "the letter," says the Apostle, "kills, but the spirit gives life"), he offers to us the bare reading of the letters according to the word, as if God were expounding these things. And he has believed this, that God did nothing else than, ^D according to the likeness of men, use spoken language

and voice, and sound to express his thoughts. If, therefore, he holds this, he certainly will not deny the things that follow from it. For our discourse is produced by the organs of speech—the windpipe, the tongue, the teeth, the mouth—assisted in the articulation by the drawing of air and the interior spirit. For the windpipe, inserted into the throat from below like a pipe, serves us; while the palate, through the empty space above that reaches to the nostrils, expands the sound at the top ^A like the sounding board of a lyre. Furthermore, the cheeks assist the discourse by being hollowed out and widened according to the various configurations of the articulations; and again, by pushing the sound through a narrow passage according to the manifold turnings of the tongue, which makes these turnings at one part or another of itself, either by the teeth or the palate, in a way roughening or compressing the spirit passing through it. The service of the lips also contributes something, as they touch the sound in different ways of movement and compose the form of the words. If, therefore, God imposes names upon things, as this new expounder of divine history has explained, naming the sprout, and the herb, and the wood, and the fruit: it is absolutely necessary that he said each of these things in no other way than, as it is said, according to the complexions of syllables, of which some are fashioned by the lips, some by the tongue, and some by both. If, therefore, the name could not be pronounced otherwise than by the parts of speech producing the syllables and the discourse through such a movement, it is certain that he also attributes these things to ^B God, and because of the necessity for discourse, he will also give the Divine a shape. For the specific formation of the parts that fulfill the speech is certainly a figure; and a figure is the boundary of a body; and it does not escape notice that every body is composite. But where composition is perceived, there too the dissolution of the composite is certainly understood. And dissolution, according to the concept, is the same as corruption. Therefore, this is the end of the victory of the writer against us: to demonstrate his own God, whom he fashioned through the name of "unbegotten," speaking indeed, so that he might not lack the discovery of names; but fashioned with vocal members, so that he might speak; and not devoid of a corporeal nature, because of the necessity of figures. For no figure could be viewed in itself unless it were shaped completely in a body; but by progressing little by little to the natural affections of the body, through composition indeed to dissolution, and through this to the end, ^C ending in the destruction of the body. Such, therefore, is the nature of the "new" God that has appeared through the sequence of the things said by this new creator of a god. But he defends what is written and asserts that Moses openly cries out: "And God said," and he adds the words: "Let there be light, and let there be a firmament, and let the waters be gathered together, and let the dry land appear, and let the earth bring forth," and all the things that are written thereafter. Therefore, through the sequence of the words ^D

let us examine the intent of what has been said. Who, even among the most simple, does not know that hearing and speech have a natural relationship one to another, and that just as hearing cannot function with no one speaking, so neither can speech be effective if it is not directed toward hearing? If, then, he asserts that God spoke, let him show us also the hearing to which He spoke; or will he reply that He said these things to Himself? ^A If so, He commands Himself by giving these orders. And who would accept that God sits directing Himself in what must be done, and using Himself as the minister and executor of His own commands? But even if anyone were to concede that it is pious to say this, what human being would need words and speech within himself? For the agitation of the mind is sufficient for each person to excite the impulse of his own choice. But he will surely say that He was conversing with the Son. ^B And what need was there of a voice for this? It is a property of corporeal nature to declare the thoughts of the heart through words; whence also writing has been discovered, equivalent in use to the voice. For we declare what is conceived in the mind equally by speaking and by writing; but we reach the hearing of those who are not very far away with our voice, while we declare our opinion to those who are far absent by means of letters. And for those who are present, according to the measure of the distance, we either heighten or lower the tone of the voice. Sometimes we even signify what must be done to those who are near by a mere nod of the head, revealing the counsel that is in our mind; and the eye, affected in such a way, indicates it, and a certain movement of the hand has shown whether a thing being done is to be approved or disapproved. If, therefore, those who are enclosed in bodies often make known the hidden movements of their mind to those who are near, without voice or word or conversation involved in letters, and silence has brought no detriment to the matter being performed, ^C then was there a need for words on the part of the immaterial and intangible—and as Eunomius says, the supreme and primary—essence, to declare the thought of the Father and make the will known to the Only-Begotten? Words, I say, which, as Eunomius himself admits, are accustomed to dissipate along with the voice—I do not know if anyone in his right mind would accept these things as true, especially since every sound is entirely poured out into the air. For neither can a voice exist except in the air. Therefore, it is entirely necessary to predicate some medium for them, between the speaker and the one to whom the speech is directed; for if there is no medium interposed, how will the voice pass from the speaker to the listener? What, then, will they call the medium by which they separate the Son from the Father? For in the case of bodies, the place in the air is made the medium, being something other, according to its own nature, than the substance of human bodies. But as for God, who is without touch, without form, and pure and immune from all composition, along with the Only-Begotten God—similarly, or rather in the same way, being a participant and consort of His own counsels in an immaterial and incorporeal manner: if He were to have communion through a voice, what medium would He have through which the word, moving and shifting, would flow into the ears of the Only-Begotten and be admitted? If indeed this is to be overlooked as unworthy of consideration, ^D that the...

^A divine nature should be divided by cognitive operations, as among us each of the senses is distributed to its own proper object—the sight for what is visible, the sense of hearing for what is audible; and neither does the touch taste, nor the hearing perceive vapors or flavors, but each remains in the one operation to which it was ordered by nature, in a certain way remaining insensitive to that for which it is not naturally adapted, and having no taste for the enjoyment which the neighboring sense reaps ^B —that is not the case there, but God is whole throughout, wholly sight, and hearing, and knowledge. For it is not permitted to attribute more animal senses to the immortal nature, unless it is necessary to suppose something humble, and bring down the divine to low-lying opinions. Therefore, if we were to imagine the Father pouring forth words through a mouth, and the hearing of the Son performing the task of listening, what medium would we suppose, which leads the paternal voice to the Son's hearing? This must be either created or uncreated; but it is not possible to say it is created, for before the creation existed, the Word was. And there is nothing uncreated except the divine nature. If therefore the creature did not exist, yet the word mentioned in the creation of the world was, it was older than the creature. Therefore, if anyone says that words and the sound of a voice are signified by the Word, what medium will he place between the Son and the Father, by which the voice and the words were formed? For if there is a medium, it is undoubtedly in a peculiar and separate nature, so that it happens that it is neither the same with the Father nor with the Son according to nature, but some altogether different thing which distinguishes the Father and the Son from one another, being inserted between the two. What then will this be? It is not created; for the creature is younger than the Word; we have been taught that the Only-Begotten is begotten, but there is nothing unbegotten except the Father. Therefore the word of truth compels us to conceive that there is of necessity no medium between the Father and the Son. But where no distance is conceived, a compact and connected unity is absolutely ^C conceded; and that which is compact through everything does not use a medium of voice and word. And by compact I mean that which is inseparable in all things; for the term of the compact does not indicate any bodily structure in the intelligible nature, but the union and mixture of the intelligible with the intelligible through the identity of wills.

^D Wherefore there is also no difference between the Son and the Father in will; but according to the archetype of the beauty of goodness, the image is also one of goodness. And just as if someone were to look at himself in a mirror (for nothing prevents representing the concept by bodily examples), the image will be formed in all things toward the archetype, so that the cause of the form in the mirror is the form that is looking into it; and the image neither moves nor inclines of itself, unless the archetype has initiated the inclination or the motion. But if that which precedes is moved, that which is shown in the mirror must also move at the same time. Thus we say that the image of the invisible God, the Lord, toward every will—

^A of the Father is disposed immediately and without interval. The Father willed something, and the Son, who is in the Father, perceived the will of the Father; or rather, He Himself became the Father’s will. For, having all things of the Father within Himself, there is nothing of the Father’s which He does not possess. And if He possesses in Himself all things that are the Father’s—or rather, if He possesses the Father Himself entirely with the Father and those things which are of the Father—He possesses the whole paternal will within Himself. He does not, therefore, need to learn the Father’s will through a word, since He Himself is the Father’s Word in the higher signification of the word. Who, then, is that word which comes to Him who truly is the Word? And how does He who truly is the Word need yet another word for instruction? As He is in God, as the Apostle says, and explores all things, even the depths of God. ^B If, therefore, God speaks by a word, and every word is effective upon the hearing, let those who assert that God produces things through discursive words make known to us the auditory of those divine words. He has no need to speak to Himself, nor was the Son in need of that doctrine which consists of words: "The Spirit," He says, "explores all things, even the depths of God." The creature did not yet exist. To whom was the word spoken? "But," he says, "the Scripture of Moses does not lie, through which we have heard God say something." Nor is the great David one of those who lie; for he says clearly, word for word, that "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands. Day unto day pours forth a word, and night unto night indicates knowledge." And when he says that the heavens and the firmament, and from the day and from the night, knowledge and words are announced, he adds again to these statements that these are not speeches nor discourses, nor are their voices heard. ^C How, then, are narrations, announcements, and words not speeches, nor a voice occurring through the sense of hearing? Does the Prophet contradict himself? Does he explain something of which there is no occurrence, teaching of a word devoid of sound, and a narration without speech, and an announcement without a voice? Or is the prophecy rather entirely true, which instructs us through what has been said, that the celestial narration, and the word which is cried out by the day, is not indeed an articulate voice, nor speech through the mouth, but a doctrine of divine power which occurs to those who know how to hear with a silent voice? ^D What, then, have we surmised concerning these things? (For perhaps if we understand this, we shall also understand those things which were written by Moses.) Often Scripture, for the sake of a clear understanding of the thing being declared, provides the contemplation of those things grasped by the intelligence in a more corporeal fashion, just as this decree is, which it seems to me David is setting forth. With this he teaches, through what he has said, that nothing of those things which exist has its subsistence from any fortuitous chance, just as some have opined that fortuitous and irrational entanglements of the first elements produced the whole world and the things within it, with no providence attending the things that are.

^A And there is a cause of the constitution and administration of the universe, upon which the whole of nature depends, and from which it derives its principles and causes, and toward which it inclines and turns, and in which it remains. And since, as the Apostle says, his everlasting power and divinity are clearly seen, being understood from the creation of the world, for this reason every creature, and before all else, as the word says, the arrangement in the heavens, indicates the wisdom of the one who made it through the art which is apparent in the things that have come to pass. And this seems to me to be what he wishes to demonstrate, by offering testimony from the things which are apparent, that things that exist have been constructed wisely and skillfully, and remain forever in the power of the one who helms the whole. He says that the heavens themselves, through which they show the wisdom of the one who made them, are as if emitting a voice, crying out and proclaiming the wisdom of the creator without a voice. ^B For one may hear these things teaching as if by speech, that, look toward us, O men, and at the beauty and size that is in us, and at this perpetual movement in a circle, and at the well-ordered and harmonious motion which is always and in the same way, and perceive the one who stands over our constitution, and through the beauty that is apparent, reason toward the prototype and invisible beauty. For there is nothing among us that is masterless, or self-moving, or automated; but everything that is seen and understood concerning us depends upon the high and ineffable power. These things are not articulate speech, but through the things that are seen, they instill into souls the knowledge of the divine power, more than if speech were proclaiming it through a voice. ^C Just as, therefore, the heaven declares, and does not speak, and the firmament announces the work of God, and does not need a voice, and the day does not put forth a word, and there is no speech, and no one would say that the prophecy is at fault; in the same way, since the teacher for both Moses and David was one (the Holy Spirit, I say), who speaks of the command having been given to creation, he does not suggest to us a God who is a creator of words, but of things which are made known through the meaning of words. For so that we might not conceive of creation as something masterless and self-produced, and that it had come to pass through a sequence, it is to be understood that those things said by Moses in the character of history regarding the creation of the world were spoken dogmatically. For otherwise, through each of the things written, the erroneous and vain [opinion] of those who hold the contrary would have been more clearly refuted. But it is permitted to whoever wishes, by looking into the things we have labored upon regarding Genesis, to test which reasoning is more consistent, our dogmas or those of our adversaries. But we must return speech to the study we proposed. ^D That the expression "He said" does not at all indicate a voice and a word in God, but by revealing the power that accompanies the will of God, it indicates to us the intelligible contemplation more accomodated to the senses. Since, therefore, all things consist by the will of God, and it is habitual for men to indicate their will first by speech,

^A and thus to bring the work into conformity with the will, the Scripture concerning the creation of the world is, in a way, introductory for those who are beginning to know God; it represents the strength and power of the divine nature through things that are more readily understood. And the apprehension of things through the senses is more readily available for the knowledge of things intellectual. For this reason, Moses, by saying that God commanded this or that to be made, represents the impelled authority of the will; and by adding, "And it was so," he indicates that there is no difference between will and energy in the divine nature, but he teaches that in God, the intellect precedes the energy, yet the energy does not follow the act of intellection as if coming later, but the two are together, and are observed at the same time: both the elective motion of the mind and the power that brings the thing to completion. For reason provides no gap ^B between the election and the action; but just as with the ignition of a flame, the radiance also shines forth, existing from it and shining together with it, in the same manner, the substance of things that have come to be is the work of the divine will, yet it does not follow the will in order or sequence. For it is not, as in other things in which some active power exists by nature—where one is observed in potentiality and the other in the fulfillment of the act—as, for example, we say that a shipbuilder is always a shipbuilder in potentiality, possessing the art of ship construction, but that he works only when he demonstrates his knowledge in his work. It is not so in the blessed life; but everything that is understood in it is efficacious and is action, as the will passes without an intermediary to the end it has proposed to itself. As, therefore, the adornment in the heavens testifies to the glory of the Creator and acknowledges Him who made it, and yet does not need a voice, so, conversely, let one who has taken a passage from the Scripture of Moses consider with me that God, who by His command produced all things into the nature of existence, calls the world His own creature, nor does He need words to declare this knowledge. As, therefore, he who has heard that the heavens declare, did not seek an explanatory discourse—for the world speaks to the one who possesses a mind through the things that happen, allowing the declaration that is made by words to be of no account—so also if anyone hears Moses saying that God is mandating and commanding by name concerning each of the parts of the world, let him neither suspect the prophet of lying, ^C nor let him degrade the high contemplation with meager and base notions, as if transferring the Divinity to the level of man by such things, and supposing Him to recount commands and orders after our own custom. But let the command explain the will, and let the names of the created things signify the very substance of the things that have come to be, so that one may learn two things through what is said: both that God brought all things to completion by willing them, and that without effort and labor the divine will became nature. But if anyone interprets the phrase, "God said," ^D more carnally and crudely, as if by this an articulate word

^A of the divine mind were being fashioned, the same person will certainly suspect that the phrase, "God saw," is also to be understood according to our own sensory perception through the activity of the eyes. And the passage, "The Lord heard and had mercy on me," and, "He smelled the sweet savor," and everything that Scripture relates more corporeally concerning the divine head, or foot, or hand, or eyelids, or fingers, or sandal, he will interpret according to the ready meaning, and will portray the Divine to us as being in human form, according to the likeness of those things which appear in us. But if anyone, hearing of the "works of fingers" as the heavens, and a "strong hand," and a "high arm," and an "eye," and "eyelids," and a "foot," and "sandals," considers through each of these things mentioned ideas worthy of God, and does not defile the discourse concerning the pure nature by polluting it with corporeal opinions, it would be logical to hold that the utterances of words are indeed signs of the divine will, but not to suppose them to be articulate voices; rather, one should consider that the Creator of rational nature has bestowed upon us speech, proportioned to the measure of our nature, so that we might be able to express the movements of the soul through it. ^B Now, as much as one nature is distant from another—I mean the divine from our own—by the same measure of existence all things that are around it differ from those things observed in us, in being more magnificent and more worthy of God. And just as our power, when compared with the power of God, is nothing, and life compared with Life, and all other things of ours compared with those things judged to be in Him are as nothing before Him, just as the prophecy says; so also our word, when compared with the Word who truly is, is nothing. For this word of ours was not ^C in the beginning, but was constructed together with our nature; nor is it viewed as having an independent existence, but, as the master says somewhere, it vanishes with the noise of the tongue; nor is it possible to understand any work of this word, but it has its existence only in voice and letter. But the Word who is from God is God, the Word who was in the beginning and remains forever, through whom all things both are and consist, and who presides over the whole, and has all authority over those things in heaven and on earth, being Life, and Truth, and Justice, and Light, and every good, and holding together all things in nature that they may exist. Such, therefore, and so great being the Word understood to be in God, this person—not knowing that just as He who bestowed the ^D active power upon our nature is not said to create the works of each one of us, but He indeed gave the power to our nature, while the house, and the stool, and the sword, and the plow, and whatever else life may happen to need, are brought to effect by us—though each of these things is indeed our work, they have their reference to our own author, who created our nature capable of all knowledge; so also the power of speech is indeed the work of Him who has made our nature such, but the [things of each]

has been devised by us ourselves. ^A This is clearly apparent from the fact that very many things which are said are considered to be base and altogether unbecoming, of which no one possessed of a mind would suspect God to be the inventor. Wherefore, even if some words familiar and accustomed to us are spoken by the holy Scripture from the person of God, it must be known that the Holy Spirit discourses with us from our own resources: just as we learned in the history of the Acts, that every one received the teaching in his own tongue wherein he was born, perceiving the power of the words through terms known to him.

And that these things are true, one might learn more diligently and accurately by examining ^B the Levitical legislation. For there it makes mention of the "frying-pan," and "laganon" or "placenta," and "semidalis," and similar names in the mystical sacrifices, indicating thereby, symbolically and through enigmas, certain dogmas profitable to the soul. It also names certain measures according to the custom of that time, speaking of a "hyphi," and a "nebel," and an "in," and many of the like sort. Did He impose these appellations and names, and from the beginning so prescribe that they should be done and said, so that He should call this kind of seed "wheat," but the marrow of it "semidalis"; and should call the things that appear on the surface, which are membranous and float above the pastry, "lagana"; and should command that the vessel of this kind in which the moist dough is baked and dried be named a "frying-pan"; and ^C that so great a quantity of moisture should be called by the name of "nebel" or "in" and that more arid fruits should be measured by the measure called "gomor"? These are trifles and Jewish vanities, which fall far short of the sublime nature and excellence of Christians; to suppose, namely, that the great and most high God, who is above every name and thought of the mind, and who alone by the power of His will creates the universe and brings it to generation and preserves it in being, sits like some grammarian—that is, a schoolmaster—vainly busying Himself with the impositions of such names. But just as when we signify by signs and gestures to the deaf what they ought to do, we do so not because ^D we ourselves do not have a voice when we are doing this, but because a narrative by words is altogether useless to those who do not hear: so also, since human nature is as it were deaf and does not hear anything high and sublime, we say that the grace of God, speaking in many ways and in various manners in the prophets, conforms the tongues of the holy prophets to that which is easily understood and familiar to us, leading us through these as if by the hand to the understanding of high things, not making the teaching according to Its own greatness and sublimity: for how could that which is great be contained in that which is small? But because the divine power descends to our littleness. And just as when God gave the motive faculty to the animal, He no longer creates the individual

^A gressus efficit, once the nature that has received the beginning moves and leads itself, accomplishing motion according to whatever its will may be (unless perhaps the steps of a man are said to be directed by the Lord), so also, when it has received from God the ability to speak and utter, and to declare its will through the voice, nature proceeds on its way, imprinting upon the things certain signs by means of a specific difference in sounds. And these are the words and names spoken by us, by which we signify the power of things.

Even if it is said by Moses before the generation of fruits that the fruit exists, and before the rise of seeds that the seeds exist, this does not refute our argument, nor does the mind of the lawgiver conflict with those things said concerning the faculty of conception. For what we call the end of past agriculture, saying "fruit," and what we designate the beginning of the future, calling it "seed," this very thing which underlies the names—whether wheat or any other of those things that multiply through sowing—it teaches that they are not generated spontaneously, but that they grow up according to the will of the Creator with this power, so that the same fruit comes into existence and itself in turn creates seed when it becomes seed, and nourishes man with that which remains over; yet the thing itself grows according to the divine will, not the name.

So then, the thing which exists in substance is the work of the power of the Creator, but the vocal signs of existing things, through which the intellect marks off each individual thing for the sake of an accurate and unconfused teaching, these are the works and inventions of the rational faculty; but this very rational faculty and nature itself is the work of God. And since the rational faculty is in all men, necessarily, according to the differences of the nations, the differences of names are observed. But if anyone were to assert that light, or heaven, or earth, or seeds were called by God in accordance with human usage, he will surely construct his argument on the basis of some one property of language. Let him show, then, what this is. For it is not at all out of probability that the one who knows that also does not ignore this.

For indeed, both in the Jordan after the power of the Spirit, and again in the hearing of the Jews, and at the Transfiguration, a voice came from above teaching men, and so that they might not think that what appeared was only a figure, but also might believe that the beloved Son of God is true. Such a voice was modeled by God in the airy body for the perception of the hearers, ^C coming to pass according to the prevailing habit of those who speak. Thus, God, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, having articulated the word in the air for the goal of the salvation of those hearing—just as the Lord says to the Jews who thought that it had been thunder, because the sound had occurred in the air, that "This voice did not come for my sake, but for yours."

But before the constitution of the universe, when there was nothing to receive the word, nor any bodily element capable of forming articulate voice, he who says that God used words, how will he provide what is likely for his argument? He himself is incorporeal, the creation ^D

^A was not; reason permits us to understand nothing material concerning Him, and as yet there were none to be aided by hearing, and since men did not exist, no mode of speaking had been set forth in any way according to the property of any nation. He, therefore, who looks to the bare letter, by what reasonings does he support this, as if God were speaking these words and these thoughts?

Furthermore, one may recognize from this the vanity of those who speak such things. For just as the natures of the elements, which are work of His who made them, appear the same to all, and there is no difference in the perception of men in the participation of fire, or air, or water, but the nature is one and ^B immovable in all, operating in the same way and in nothing changed on account of the differences of those who participate in them: so too the placing of names, if indeed it had been applied to things by God, would have been the same for all. But now, while the nature of things, inasmuch as it is fixed by God, remains immovable, the voices signifying these have been divided into so many differences of languages that it is not even easy to count their multitude. But if anyone brings forward the confusion which happened in the construction of the tower as being contrary to what has been said, not even there is God said to make the languages of men, but to confuse the one that was, so that all might not understand one another. For as long as life was the same for all according to Him, and they had not yet been divided into many differences of nations, the fullness of all mankind lived together using one voice and the same speech; but after it was necessary by the divine will that the entire earth be inhabited by men, then, being separated according to the communion of voice, they were scattered here and there, and they were joined and accommodated to this or that character of words and voice, having obtained a certain consonance of speech that conciliates mutual concord, not differing in the knowledge of things, but differing in the form of names. For a stone or wood does not seem something else among some than among others, but the names of the matter differ among each. Wherefore, the argument remains fixed for us, which defines human voices as being the inventions of our mind or intelligence. For neither have we learned from Scripture that any doctrine of God's words was made for men from the beginning, as long as the whole human race was consonant with itself; nor ^D did divine law prescribe how each should speak after men were divided into various differences of languages, but God, wishing men to use different languages, permitted nature to proceed on its way, according to His will, to articulate the sound among each for the explanation of matters among men. Therefore Moses, born many centuries after the building of the tower, used one of the later languages, explaining to us historically the creation of the world, and He attributes some voices to God, relating these things in His own language in which He had been instructed and accustomed, and not changing the

^A voice of God into some other strange and foreign character of speech, so that through the strangeness of the custom and the alteration of the names he might build up the idea that the voices were God’s own; rather, using the familiar language, he recounts both his own affairs and those of God. Some, however, who have followed the Scriptures more carefully, assert that the Hebrew language does not go back as far as the others, but that along with the other miracles, this too happened miraculously for the Israelites, namely that this language was suddenly fashioned for the nation after the exodus from Egypt. And who is the Prophet whose word confirms such a thing? For he says, "When he went out from the land of Egypt, then he heard a language which he did not know." If, therefore, Moses was a Hebrew, but the language of the Hebrews is posterior to the others—being a man born long after the foundation of the world—and yet he relates the utterances of God in his own language, does he not clearly teach us ^B not to ascribe to God such speech framed according to a human mode, but to say these things because it is impossible for what is thought to be expressed otherwise than by human voices, whereas through the things said of God, he signifies a certain decorous and more magnificent understanding? For to think that God used the Hebrew language when there was no one who could hear such a voice, I do not know how anyone who has used right reason would agree to this. In the Acts of the Apostles we have learned that for this reason the divine power was divided into many languages, so that none of those who spoke different tongues would be deprived of the benefit. But God, before the creation, discoursed in the human manner; whom was He intending to benefit by such a voice? For to say that the word is adjusted to the capacity of the hearers toward the end of their benefit—no one would suspect this to be unworthy of the divine benevolence toward the human race, since even Paul, the imitator of the Lord, knows how to adapt the word to the dispositions of the hearers, becoming ^C milk to the little ones, and solid food to the perfect. But if there is no end being achieved by such a use of language, and then to build up that God weaves together such words in Himself, when there is no one who needs the signification that occurs through such voices, I do not know how it is not possible to consider such an idea ridiculous and blasphemous at the same time. Neither, then, is the voice of God Hebrew, nor is it pronounced according to any one of the patterns customary among the nations; but whatever words of God were recorded by Moses or the prophets, they are indications of the divine will, shining forth in different ways according to the capacity of those who become partakers of the grace, to the pure intellect of the saints which holds the ruling power. Therefore, Moses spoke as he was born and educated; but he attributed these voices to God, as has been said often, because of the childish weakness of those who were being ^D brought to the knowledge of God, and for the evident and clear expression of the divine will, and so that he might make the hearers more obedient, being moved by the authority of the speaker.

^A But Eunomius—who brings such insults against us, he who is the heir and advocate of illicit and impious custom—denies this; for having turned the insult into his own disgrace, I shall receive him with his own words. But he asserts that Moses himself supports him with his own testimony, namely, that by God who fashioned nature, both the use of things named and of the names themselves was given to men, and that the naming of the things given is superior to the generation of those who use them; thus he has said everything word for word. If, therefore, he possesses some Moses of his own from whom he learns these wise things, and, empowered from that source, is confident in such speeches—that God, as he himself says, legislates the utterances of men, and thus commands some words to be applied to things and forbids others—let him use this hidden Moses as an ally for his discourse to suit the nonsense he favors. But if Moses is the only one whose Scripture is the common lesson for those instructed in the divine word, we shall accept the condemnation if we are refuted by the laws of Moses. Where, then, did he find the law concerning words and names? In his writings, the creation of the world is set forth, and then the genealogy of the generations of men, and the history of certain events, and the varied legislation, and the matters pertaining to the true worship of God, and the observances regarding the way of life; these are the principal chapters of the Scripture of Moses. But if this man claims that there is some legislation of words, let him show the law, and I shall be silent. But he could not say it; for he would not, leaving aside clearer proofs, pursue those things by which he would seem ridiculous rather than persuasive to those who are endowed with a mind and are wise. For to think that this is the main point of piety—namely, to attribute the invention of words to God, for whom the whole world and the miracles in it are small for His celebration—how is this not of the utmost folly, to pass over the great things and to magnify the divine from human things? The command preceded the creation, spoken indeed by Moses in the human manner, but accomplished in a way becoming to God. Therefore, the will that is productive of those things which exist by divine power—this the accurate and diligent student of the Scriptures declares to be the teaching of words. And just as if God had said, "Let a word be," or "Let a discourse be established," or "Let this have such and such a naming," thus he brings forward to support his own nonsense that motion which is in the divine will, the creator of things, not knowing even this, through his much attention to and experience with the Scriptures, that constant impulse of the intellect is often called "voice" by the holy Scripture. And Moses himself is a witness to this, whom he, dragging him about everywhere, has ignored in this regard. For who, even slightly versed in the reading of his books, is ignorant that the Israelite people, who had lately fled from Egypt, vehemently feared the attack of the Egyptians all at once in the desert? But when heavy dangers were being presented to them from all sides, with the sea blocking the passage on one side and the enemies from the rear preventing flight, standing before the prophet [the] ^D

Those standing by blamed him for that difficulty and ^A lack of resolve. But he, while comforting those who were stunned and struck with fear, and urging them toward alacrity of mind and confidence, a voice came from God calling the prophet by name: "Why do you cry to me?" And yet, before the things mentioned, the Scripture text had made no mention of any voice that Moses had uttered, but the thought which the prophet had raised to God was called a voice, crying in the silence as a thought in the hidden chambers of the heart. If, then, Moses cries out without speaking, with Him as his witness who hears "inexpressible groanings," what is new if the prophet also, when he had known the divine will—as much as it was right for him to speak and for us to hear—made it manifest through words known and familiar to us, describing the dialogue with God more corporally, not happening in words, but proclaimed through the works themselves? "In the beginning," it says, "God made," not the name of heaven and earth, but heaven and earth. And He said, "Let there be light," not an appellation of light. And, "separating the light from the darkness," God "called," it says, "the light day, and the darkness he called night."

Likely, it is on these things that our adversaries rely. For I will agree to the discourse on their behalf, and after the points put forward by them have been examined, I will subjoin my own, so that the dogma might be confirmed for us more strongly, with no objection left unexamined. "God called," it says, "the firmament heaven, and the dry land he called earth; and the light day, and the darkness he called night." How then will they say, ^C if Scripture confesses that these names were imposed upon these things by God, that you say these names are but human invention? What, then, do we say to these things? Again, we take refuge in our simple discourse, and say that He who brought the whole of creation out of nothing into being is the artificer and creator of the things that are perceived in substance, not of names which cannot subsist, and which consist only in the sound of a voice and the clamor of the tongue; but things, according to the nature and power inherent in each, are named by some significant voice, in accordance with the usage prevailing in each nation, the appellation being accommodated to the things themselves. But since many of the things that are perceived in creation do not have a simple nature, so that the subject can be comprehended by one word—as, for example, in the case of fire, the subject thing in its nature is one thing, ^D and the name signifying the thing is another; for the one is shining, burning, dry, heating, and consuming the matter it might seize, whereas the name is a certain brief voice, uttered by a single syllable; for this reason, the dividing discourse names each of the powers and qualities perceived in the fire properly, as we have said before, nor would anyone say that only one name has been imposed upon fire when someone names it either "shining," or "consuming," or any other of the things perceived in it; for such voices are significant of the powers that are naturally inherent in it. In the same way also in the case of heaven, and in the firmament,

^A although one nature is signified by both names, yet the difference of the names expresses something proper to those things which exist in this creature. Wherefore, looking to this, we learn one thing by the appellation of heaven, and another by that of the firmament. For when the discourse describes the limit of the sensible creature, after which the intelligible and transmundane creature succeeds, by comparison with that which is intangible and incorporeal and lacks form, it is called the firmament, the beginning and the end of all material substance. But when we examine the circuit of the lower bodies, by which all material nature is contained, we call this heaven, which becomes the limit of all visible things.

In the same way also in the case of the dry earth, since heavy and downward-tending nature is divided into these two elements, I mean the earth and the waters, the appellation of "dry" distinguishes it in a certain way from the quality that corresponds to it from the opposite; for it is named dry by opposition to that which is humid, when, after laying aside at the divine command the water that flowed around it, it appeared in its own quality. But the name "earth" no longer demonstrates the significance of one of any of the qualities that are in it, but through the significant force that is in this word, it embraces everything that is understood in this element, such as that which is hard, that which is dense, that which is heavy, that which is resistant, and that which is fit for the nutrition of all fruits and animals. Therefore, the dry was not renamed by the word, so that this should be the last name given to it. For it did not lay aside through the second name the state and name of being dry, but, with both this and that appellation remaining, a certain proper significance belongs to each of the names: the one, which divides and distinguishes it from a nature and property of a different kind; the other, which embraces all the power observed in it.

^B Just so, and in the case of light and day, and again in the case of night and darkness, we find that these are not sounds of syllables produced by the Creator of all, but that we come to know the substance of the things which we recognize through these appellations. By the will of God, the darkness which prevailed through the first creation is dissolved by the entrance of light. But since the earth is contained in the midst, and the circuit of the diverse elements sustains it from all sides, as Job says: *Who hangs the earth upon nothing* (Job xxvi, 7), it was necessary, when the light passed through one part and the earth obstructed the opposite part with its own mass, that some portion of darkness should be left behind by the shadowing. Since, however, the pole by perpetual motion revolves around itself that gloom which arrives from the shadowing, it was necessary for God to have ordered this circular circuit, so that it might become a measure of temporal extension. Now this measure is day and night. Therefore, for his own wisdom, Moses, declaring such doctrines to us in a more historical manner, named this gloom which comes on by obstruction, apart from light and darkness, and that which is made continuously around the terrestrial place, the measured succession of light to darkness, day

and night He called. Why, then, is that which had already been called light not termed day, but—just as light was made, and that not as a mere naming of light—was the measure of time also made? To this measure, the name followed, not brought about by the sound of words from the Creator, but because the nature of the thing itself drew to itself the signification that exists in the voice. And just as if this had been clearly stated by the Lawgiver—that everything that appears and is named is not self-originated nor unmade, but has its subsistence from God—we could have easily composed for ourselves that God made the whole world and the parts within it, and the order perceived therein, and the power that distinguishes the things that are: so also, by what He said, He leads our understanding to believe that nothing of the things that exist is without a beginning. And looking to this, He describes in a way and order the things that follow, enumerating the sequence of things produced. These things, however, could not have been set forth in speech in any other way than by signifying them through the names that indicate the thing.

Since, therefore, it is written that *God called the light Day*, it must be understood that God made day out of light, as something else according to its own definition; for you would not assign the same definition to light and to day, but light is that which is understood as set in opposition to darkness, whereas day is the measure of such a space of time as is in the light. In like manner, you shall also understand night and darkness by the same division of definition, defining darkness as that which is understood as set in opposition to light, but calling night the such-and-such circumscription of darkness. ^C Therefore, our argument is strengthened through all points, even if it is not artistically constructed according to the figures of logic, demonstrating that God is the Creator of things, not of mere words; for not for His sake, but for our sake, are names imposed upon things.

For because it is not always possible for us to have all things that exist before our eyes, we know some of the things that are always present, while others we autograph in our memory. Otherwise, the memory could not be preserved unconfused for us if the signification of names did not distinguish from one another the things stored in the mind. To God, however, all things are present, and there is no need of memory for Him, as all things are encompassed and surveyed by His far-seeing power. What, then, is the use of a word or name in His case, when the very wisdom and power that is within Him contains the nature of the things that are, unconfused and distinguished? Wherefore, from God are all things that exist and subsist, but for the sake of our own guidance, names that are significative of these things are imposed upon what exists. ^D If, however, anyone says that these things happen according to what pleases human usage and custom, he will not err regarding the account of providence. For we maintain that not the nature of things that exist, but the names, are made by us. Otherwise, the Hebrew names the heaven, and the Canaanite otherwise; yet each understands in the same way, in nothing being deceived in the understanding of the underlying reality by the difference of the sounds.

But the overly cautious and timid superstition of these wise men, by which it asserts that if it were granted that names were imposed by men upon things, men would be superior to God, is proved to be vain and incapable of subsisting, even by the example of Moses himself which is commemorated for us in Scripture. For who imposed the name upon Moses himself? Was it not the daughter of Pharaoh, who named him from the event? For in the Egyptian language, Moses is called "water." Since, therefore, at the command of the tyrant, his parents had placed the infant in a chest or basket and committed him to the streams (for so some of the historians have narrated concerning him), and this chest, by divine will, floating on the vortex of the waves, was brought to the bank and found by the king’s daughter, who was then bathing her body in that water, and because the boy was obtained by her from the water, it is said that she imposed the name on the boy as a monument of the fortuitous event. ^B And God Himself did not disdain to use this for His servant, nor did He judge it unworthy to let the barbarian name remain valid upon the prophet. Thus also, before him, Jacob, having grasped his brother’s heel, was named "supplanter" from the figure in which he was brought into the light. For those who understand such things teach that the interpretation of the name Jacob leads to this when translated into the Greek tongue; and the midwife, in turn, named Phares from the event that happened at the birth. And no one, according to Eunomius, ambitiously sought to arrogate to himself an authority superior to the power of God. But also, mothers impose names on the patriarchs—Ruben, Simeon, Levi, and similarly for all the rest in succession. And according to this trifler, there appeared no solicitous guardian of divine providence in those times who might forbid women from becoming superior to God through this imposition of names. For who could recount the particulars that can be drawn from holy ^C Scripture: the water of contradiction, and the place of weeping, and the hill of foreskins, and the valley of the cluster, and the field of blood, and all names of this kind, which were indeed imposed by men, but are often even commemorated as coming from the person of God? Through which it is possible to learn that the designation of things through words is neither above human dignity, nor does the power of the divine nature have more authority by means of them.

But other trifles, which the delirious man has babbled against the truth, since they have no strength against the dogmas, I will pass over in silence, judging it useless to dwell any longer on vain things. For who is so mad and empty of better cares that he would wish to waste his effort and study on senseless and insane speeches, and to argue against those who assert that we maintain that human care is superior to the solicitude and care of God, and has more ^D authority, and that we transfer to His providence the negligence that disturbs the more dissolute minds? This is the word-for-word utterance of the one who slanders us. I, however, consider it equal to indulge in such things as to believe in the dreams of old women.

^A For to think that by the form of certain sounds one preserves the dignity of the beginning and lordship for the divine nature, and to demonstrate the great power of God in this, while on the other hand neglecting God and disregarding the providence proper to Him, and slandering us—that because humans have received the rational faculty from God, they have subsequently used words at their own discretion for the declaration of things—what is this other than an old woman’s fable or the dream of those suffering from a hangover? For the true power and authority of God, and His beginning and lordship, according to our account, does not have its being in syllables (otherwise anyone at all who became an inventor of terms would come to an equal honor with God), but infinite ages, the beauties of the world, the rays of the luminaries, ^B the wonders on land and sea, the hosts of angels, and the super-mundane powers, and whatever else we hear of in the higher region through riddles in the Scripture—these are the things that bear witness to the power of God, which is above all things. He who attributes the sound of a voice to those who naturally speak will say nothing impious against the One who gave the voice; for we do not consider it some great thing to invent sounds expressive of things. For the Scripture, in accordance with the historical creation of the world, gave the name of "man" to the formation of us, and Job calls this mortal ^C (βροτόν), and some of those outside call them "lights" (φῶτα), and others "articulate" (μέροπα—to omit the differences of this name according to each nation). Do we, therefore, draw the honors of those into equality with God because they, too, found certain sounds of equal power to the designation "man," by which the subject is similarly indicated? But this vain talk must be left aside by us, as I said before, and the subsequent insults must be set at naught, in which he alleges that we lie against the divine oracles and slander everything else, including God Himself, with complete audacity. Let us move on in our discourse to what remains.

Proposes again the words of the teacher, which are as follows: ^D "In a similar way and in a way no different, we have been taught the use of mental conception from the divine word. Our Lord Jesus Christ, declaring the nature of the deity to humans, designates this by certain properties that are peculiarly observed in Him, calling Himself the door, and bread, and the way, and the vine, and the shepherd, and the light." Those things, therefore, that were spoken as an insult against us by him regarding these things (for thus his dialectic has taught him to contend against those who contradict him), I think we should despise and not be at all disturbed by these juvenile insanities. But let us examine this sharp and unavoidable word which he puts forward for the subversion of our argument. "Who," he says, "of the saints is there who bears witness that these names are attributed to the Lord by mental conception?" But who prevents, I would say by heaven,

^A that one should judge it to be blasphemous to consider the use of names in terms of mental conception? For if he asserts that the fact that a thing has not been said is proof that it is forbidden, he will undoubtedly concede that the fact that it is not forbidden is a sign that it is permitted. The Lord is called by these names; or does Eunomius become a denier of these as well? But if he denies that these expressions are used of Christ, we have conquered without a fight. For what victory could be more illustrious than to show clearly that the adversary rebels against God ^B because he invalidates and perverts the divine expressions of the Gospel? But if he truly confesses that Christ is called by these names, let him state the manner in which these names are piously applied to the Only-Begotten God. Does he define the stone as an indicator of His nature? Did he understand His essence by the axe or the adze? Is the property of the divinity of the Only-Begotten signified by the door, or by each of the others (so that we may not bring a great crowd upon our discourse by recounting all the names)? Is every one of these names either the nature of the Only-Begotten, or His divinity, or a property of His essence? But yet He is called ^C by these names, and the appellation possesses authority. For there is nothing idle or insignificant in the divine expressions that is holy to consider. Therefore, if he rejects the term "mental conception," let him provide the rationale as to how these names are adapted to Christ. For our part, we say that since the Lord multifariously provides for human life, each species of benefit is appropriately recognized through each of these types of names, with the providence and operation seen in Him passing into the form of a name. A name of this kind is what we call being named by "mental conception." But if this is not pleasing to the adversaries, let it be as each may think best. But he who is uninstructed in the names found in the Scriptures ^D opposes what is said. For if he had been taught the divine expressions, he would certainly have known that the Lord is also called by Scripture, according to diverse mental conceptions, a curse, and sin, and a heifer goaded by a gadfly, and a lion’s cub, and a confused bear, and a leopard, and things of such a kind, through which names holy and excellent men clearly explain the aim of the thought, toward which they were looking directly, aiming straight with these names. And if these names seem to some to be somehow disparaged by their superficial indication—names which, if one were not to grant that each is piously attributed to God according to some mental conception, the word would not be free from impious suspicion—it would be a long task to represent and lay bare or reveal the sense of all of them, how these have also been used by the commonality according to a vulgar understanding based on their superficial meaning, since the rationale of mental conception reconciles the names to the piety regarding God. But let us proceed to what follows next. Again, having resumed the discourse, such names are said of the Lord, and no one who has been versed in the divinely inspired Scriptures will deny that these things are said. What then; do they define expressions signifying His very nature? Therefore, he says, some multifarious,

^A nature, indicating that it is varied according to the differences of what is signified in those names. For the meaning of "bread" and "lion" is not the same, nor that of "door" and "calf," nor "axe" and "water," but for each of the names it is necessary to provide a proper definition, which in no way communicates with the others. Therefore, they do not signify the nature; yet one would not dare to say that the imposition of the names is invalid and meaningless. If, then, they are said, but not according to nature, and every word spoken by Scripture is entirely authoritative and is spoken appropriately, what other reason remains for why such expressions have been set down as befitting the Only-begotten God, except for the mode of "mental conception"? For it is evident that the Divine is named according to the variety of the operations, along with different meanings, so that we might understand Him as being named in this way. What harm, then, does the operation of our mind toward the understanding of the things that occur, which we call "mental conception"—what harm does it do to the more pious ones? If anyone should wish to call it something else, we shall not differ. But he does not relax, just like the strong among the wrestlers, his inescapable hold on us, and he says thus, word for word: ^B that "these are names from human mental conception, and they are said according to the mental conception of certain things which none of the apostles or evangelists taught." And after this irresistible attack, he brings in that sacred voice, spitting out the foul-smelling insult against us again with an educated voice. For, he says, to bring forward into the midst homonymy from some analogy to establish this human mental conception is the work of an intellect stripped of a strong mind in judgment, but which is weak in understanding and which examines the Lord's words by a certain discovered habit. ^C Papae! What sort of dialectical demonstration is this? Is it thus artfully concluded for him that the argument hits its mark? Who would want to prove the argument of mental conception any further, with such a heavy odor flowing from his mouth onto those who set out to say something? Indeed, we ourselves, for that reason, should abstain from examining and discussing his argument when setting out to say something, lest he set in motion against us the sewer of his insult, or lest one appear to be faint-hearted in being irritated against childish delusions. Therefore, the abusive slanderer must be conceded to use his own way according to his own whim. But his argument must be resumed, so that from it, too, help may be brought to the truth. ^D He mentioned analogy, and from it he recognized homonymy, or the communion of names. Whence did he learn these, and from whom did he get these words? Moses did not say them; he did not hear the prophets and apostles using these expressions; the evangelists shroud such voices in silence; nor is it possible to learn these from any Scripture that teaches them. Whence, then, does it come to him to speak thus? Is such a discourse not the invention of the intelligence of him who uttered it, he who calls a certain meaning of a notion "analogy"? How, then, does he not perceive that he is using as allies for the war those whom he opposes? For he himself is fighting against the discourse of mental conception, since

^A he attempts to establish that one ought not to say anything by mental conception. "But no one," he says, "of the saints has taught this." But to whom among the ancients are you able to refer the term "unbegotten," and the fact that the name of God is predicated of His essence, or rather, that the essence itself is "unbegotten"? Is it permitted to you, in cases where one intends to conclude something impious, to innovate and devise pleasing terms? But if something were said by another for the subversion of impiety, to strip the one contradicting you of authority—would you be caught guilty of cruel tyranny if you claim this power for yourself, so that what you forbid in others, you consider to be permitted to you alone, and what you yourself dare to do by license, you restrain others from doing?

As if by an edict, you abolish these names that are spoken of Christ by mental conception, because no saint has declared that it should be said in such a way. How, then, do you promulgate laws concerning the correctness of words by means of the term "unbegotten," so that only those things should be uttered which the God-inspired speech of Scripture has suggested? The name "unbegotten" should be erased from your writings, since no saint has legislated this term; but you accept the word because of the intellect that underlies this vocabulary. We, in the same way, because of the meaning enclosed in it, have admitted the term of mental conception. ^B Therefore, we shall either remove both from usage, or neither; but in whichever way it happens, through both we shall win. For if the term "unbegotten" were suppressed altogether, every argument of the adversaries against the truth would be extinguished, and the glory befitting the Only-Begotten God would shine forth from all people, since there would be no name from an opposite counter-distinction to diminish the majesty of the Lord. But if both remain, even so the truth will prevail with us, once the name of "unbegotten" has been transferred from the essence to mental conception.

But as long as he does not remove the term "unbegotten" from his own writings, the Pharisee who provokes us should admonish himself, not to look first to the splinter in our eye before he casts out the beam that is weighing upon and distressing his own eyes. "But God," he says, "has distributed the most precious names even to the ^C weakest things that exist on earth, without having distributed the equality of honors, and to the most principal things the vilest, though not from human beings, through a natural vileness." These things are said word for word, as they have been written down by us just as they were by them. If it holds some meaning hidden in the depths that escapes us, let those who have grasped things that are further removed from our sight—those initiated and taught in this intimate and ineffable initiation—say what it is. But if they offer no interpretation beyond what is understood at hand, I do not know which to deem more pitiable than the others: those who say such things, or those who lend their ears to such people. "To the weakest," he says, "of earthly things, He has granted the most precious names, not having at the same time granted equality of honors."

And this he says is the work of God: to misrepresent the inferior nature with a more precious title, and conversely, he says that God assigns less honorable terms to those who are superior by nature, while the nature itself is not in the least changed by the title.

But that what is said may become as clear as possible to us, the absurdity will be demonstrated by the things themselves. If anyone were to call a person commended for every virtue "intemperate," or on the contrary, were to call one condemned for equal wickedness "good and orderly," would anyone in his right mind consider such a man to be in his senses, or to have any concern for the truth, in that he exchanges the designations for their opposites while the significance of the names does not correspond to the nature? I, for one, ^B do not think so. Yet this man says that such things happen with regard to God, things which accord neither with common insights nor with the testimonies of Scripture. For in the custom of our life, it is only the case with those who are deranged by drunkenness or frenzy to go astray regarding names, and not to use words according to what is signified in things, but rather, if it should so happen, to call a man a dog, and conversely to apply the designation of human to a dog.

But the divine Scripture is so far from agreeing with this confusion that it is even possible to hear the prophet clearly lamenting over such things. "Woe," he says, "to those who call darkness light and light darkness, who call bitter sweet and sweet bitter." [Isa. V, 20]. What then, looking at this, does he think he is seeing, that he considers it necessary to attribute such great absurdity to his own God? Let those who have been initiated by him into his mysteries say what they judge to be the ^C weakest thing on earth that is ennobled by God with the most precious appellations. The weakest of existing things are those animals whose generation consists in the putrefaction of damp substances. But the most precious of existing things are virtue and holiness, and whatever is dear to God. Are then flies, and gnats, and frogs, and those things whose generation is from dung, honored with the appellation of the holy and of virtue, so that they might be illustrated by honorable names, yet not participate in the equality of dignities, as Eunomius says?

But we have not yet heard of such a thing, that those things which are weak have been called by more magnificent designations, or that something great and honorable by nature has been affected by the insulting appellation of one of these. "Just was Noah," says Scripture, "faithful Abraham, and meek Moses, and wise Daniel, and temperate Joseph, and blameless Job, and David, who fulfilled ^D all the parts of equanimity or meekness." Let them say, therefore, if anywhere any one of these has received titles from their opposites, or if even those whose wickedness Scripture testifies to—such as Nabal the Carmelite, and Pharaoh the Egyptian, and Abimelech the foreigner, and all who are mentioned for their wickedness—let me ask, have they been honored by the divine voice with more favorable and kindly names? These things are not so; but as nature and truth are, so...

are the things judged and spoken of by God; they are not named in a way contrary to what they are, but in a way that makes the things signified most manifest when proclaimed by their own proper designations. ^B

He who is endowed with a firm mind—he who stands as an accuser of common usage and railing against those stripped of their reasoning in judgment—supposes that we should know these things about the divine nature, and sets forth these opinions about God, as if He were mocking the objects themselves with misnomers, bestowing the most honorable appellations upon the weakest things, and shaming what is honorable by the homonymy with things that are base. And while a certain man who looks toward virtue, being led outside the truth, is often involuntarily swept away and overwhelmed by shame, he thinks it fitting for God that the honor of the things should appear to be falsified by their appellations. Yet the oracles do not attribute these things to the divine nature. "Long-suffering and very merciful and true is God," says David. How, then, is He true if He falsifies things and alters the truth by the signification of names? Again, the Lord God is called "upright" by the same. Is it, therefore, a mark of uprightness to honor base things with the most honorable of names, and to grant an insignificant naming while begrudging the dignity that appears in the word to the one who received the appellation? Such is the testimony of these theologians concerning their new god; this is the end of their widely bruited dialectical acumen: to show that their god delights in deceptions and is not free from the vice of envy. For it is deception not to name the weak things of the world according to what their nature and dignity actually are, but to bestow upon them, to no purpose, appellations taken from what is preeminent, without conferring with the name the power of the things that are named. And it is envy, when one is able to gratify things with a more honorable name according to that which is most excellent in those named, to be loath to grant the favor, as if he judged the good fortune of the weak to be his own loss. But I would advise those who possess understanding—even if the god of these gnostics is forced by the violence of such arguments to be of this sort—not to think that the true God, the Only-Begotten God, is like this, but to look to the truth of the underlying realities, to bear witness to each according to its merit, and to name them from the things themselves. "Come," He says, "you blessed," and "Go, you cursed," neither honoring him who is worthy of a curse with the name of a blessing, nor, conversely, casting out him who has stored up for himself a blessing along with those who are most unholy. ^D

But what, then, is the intention of the writer in these words? And toward what goal does his discourse aim? Let no one suspect that, laboring under a poverty of words, he extended his speech with meaningless babble so that it might appear as broad as possible. Rather, even the seemingly senseless parts of what has been said contain something...

^A that reeks of madness and is suspect of heresy. For to claim that the most honorable names are applied to the weakest things, even if they do not possess an equal nature according to dignity, is a certain construction that covertly prepares the way for blasphemy, so that those who learn his dogmas might learn from him that even if the Only-Begotten is named God, and Wisdom, and Power, and Light, and Truth, and Judge, and King, and God over all, and Great God, and Prince of Peace, and Father of the age to come, and all such things, the honor toward him exists only in name. For he does not participate in the dignity which the force of the names indicates. And what wise Daniel did for the Babylonians, correcting their error regarding idols so that they would not worship the bronze or the dragon—reverencing the name of God which was invoked over them by those vain men, and clearly showing through what he did that the high name of divinity does not fall upon a crawling beast or the shape into which the bronze was molded—this same thing the ^B enemy of God strives greatly to construct against the Only-Begotten God through his dogmas, shouting through this proposition set before him: "Do not look to the names of the Lord, of which he is a participant, as if it were possible to grasp his ineffable and exalted essence in thought from them." For many other very weak things have been honored with superlative appellations, the appellation of which indeed contains sublimity within itself, but the nature is not changed into the dignity of the appellation. Therefore he says that the participation of honor is granted by God to creatures inferior [to him], even though equality of dignity does not follow the naming. So that, regarding the Son, even though we have learned all that is of exalted significance, we must believe that the honor comprised in the words is assigned to him only in name, and that he is devoid of equality according to dignity, according to the artifice that appears in their sayings.

But ^C indeed, by lingering on things that are senseless, I seem to be granting something covertly to my adversaries. For by opposing truth to the vanity of what has been said, I seem to myself to be inflicting tediousness upon those who are present at this disputation, before we arrive at the battle of stronger arguments. But however these things may be, they must be left to the more capable auditors; for us, our speech must be transferred to the matters proposed. And let that which is proposed next, in connection with what has already been examined, be passed over in silence—that these things are ordered in this way, so that we might not say that the human conceptualization (epinoia) has obtained the power of names. For who says this, that what is not considered in its own substance has the power over something? For it belongs only to those who are governed by a certain choice and will of their own to do something by authority. But the conceptualization (epinoia) ^D of our mind is an activity, and is dependent upon the choice of those who speak, not existing by itself, but having its subsistence in the impulse of the words uttered. But, he says, it is they who have created all these things. Conceptualization

of God, and of relation ^A and operation, and analogy, and for the laws by which he appropriately adapts the appellations to each of the things named. But these things either have no sense at all, or they stand in opposition to what was set forth before. For if he acknowledges now that God appropriately fits names to the things that underlie them, how does he in the preceding passages claim that God bestows the more sublime names upon base things, without making them partakers of the dignity declared in the meaning of the names, and on the other hand, disgraces those that are great by nature with base terms, though nature is not changed by the vileness of the words? But perhaps we do an injustice to his madness by harassing this structure of words with such accusations. For all these things are remote from any sense, not only, I say, from correct piety toward God, but they are found by those who know how to examine them strictly not to partake of any reason whatsoever. Since, therefore, they appear to have a certain swelling, just like sea-lungs—and a swelling is phlegm or a certain foamy humor, abominable to behold, but more abominable if taken into the hands—for this reason, judging a most becoming silence toward these vanities, I shall pass over what has been said in silence. For by what law are these names put forward by him—operation, proportion, and relation—governed? And who is it who imposes upon God the laws and modes of proportion and relation?

It would be better to leave these things unexamined than through zeal for them to cause nausea in the hearers and to divert the discourse from matters more worthy of study. But I fear lest all the things proposed to us from the writing of Eunomius be essentially certain phlegms and sea-lungs. Wherefore, it is necessary for our disputation to end at what has been said, finding no material in the writings to work upon. For just as smoke or mist makes the air thick and turbid—in which, if it settles, it even hinders the natural faculty of sight—yet it is not in itself so dense that one who wishes might grasp it and hold it in his palms, or that it might resist the one striking it, so too, if anyone were to say such a thing about this grave writing, he would not wander from a true conjecture. There are many absurdities elaborated in this tumid and boiling discourse, and to one who is not of a very sharp mind, it seems, just like mist to one looking from afar, to have a certain consistency and appearance. But if anyone were to become master of himself and by diligent inquiry and intelligence should reach what has been said, the notions flee from one's grasp like smoke and are dissipated into nothing; nor do they receive the striking speech with any solidity or resistance. What, therefore, is to be done? It is doubtful and uncertain. For the choice is exposed to calumny from the querulous on both sides; for whether, as if leaping across a valley, we direct our speech toward the free and level plain, taking a stand ^B against those things that seem to have some force against the truth by way of contradiction, or whether we contend in the battle against vain and futile things with all manner of prattle—in this way, indeed, both ^{C D}

^A laborious and useless will be the effort for those who shrink from toil, [1025/1026] as it stretches out through many thousands of verses to no useful end. But if we were to seize only those points which are thought by some to have force against the truth, we shall provide an opportunity for accusation to our adversaries, as having passed over certain matters of theirs which do not admit of contradiction. Since, therefore, two courses are set before us—both that our argument should traverse all things, and that it should run only through the more necessary ones—the former is burdensome to the hearers, while the latter is suspicious to those who cast aspersions; I say it is well to have taken a middle path, so as to escape, as far as possible, that which is subject to blame from either side. What, then, will be the method? We shall cut away from all that has been laboriously and vainly composed by him, as much as possible, the filth of his dross, and we shall run through his notions and opinions in a few words and in summary fashion, so that we may neither linger recklessly among those who lack understanding, nor appear to have entirely neglected any of the things said without examination. ^B All of his argument, then, is occupied with this endeavor: to demonstrate, with human contentiousness, that the Divine speaks in a human manner, and that He who is the Maker and Author of things applies to existing things the voices that are significant of things. And for this reason, fighting against the one who said that the nature, which we have received from God, is rational, he says that he misses the mark of the truth, and does not hold his own thesis; and having brought this rebuke against him, he has used such lines of reasoning for the proof, and he does not hold his own foundation; and he has used such reasonings in his demonstration:

Basil says, he remarks, that after the first notion that arises in us concerning a thing, the more subtle and accurate investigation of the thing understood is called "conception." And with such a construction he refutes the argument, as Eunomius thinks, that in cases where there is not a first and second notion, nor one more subtle and accurate than another, the term "conception" would have no place; but then it will be detected by those who are not lacking in hearing that he has deceitfully snatched even this away. For our teacher has not made this the definition of every conception, but rather, by having made a certain special subdivision of those things that are viewed by way of conception—so that he might not introduce a large crowd into the argument—having clarified this part, he left those who have understanding to infer the whole from the part. And just as if one were to say that "animal" is predicated of many things that differ in species, he would not be convicted of having missed the truth if he brought forward man as an example in particular; nor would anyone call him to account as having deviated from the truth, unless he rendered the same definition of the animal as he had set forth for man, applied specifically to a bird, a quadruped, and a sea creature. Thus, since "conception" is viewed multi-formly and in various ways, it would not be a refutation to say that this is not strictly a conception, because one can also say it is something else. So that even if some other species of conception were to be discerned, that which was previously rendered is not false. ^C If, therefore, he says, any of the apostles or the prophets were shown to have used these names in reference to Christ, the falsehood would have its consolation. How great is the painstaking study of the divine Scriptures of God to which the things said by this writer of arguments bear witness! No one of the pro-

^Aphets or apostles has called the Lord bread, or a stone, or a fountain, or an axe, or light, or a shepherd. What then does David say, and concerning whom, when he says: *The Lord is my shepherd* and, *Thou who feedest Israel, attend*? Consider what difference there is between saying "a shepherd" and "thou who feedest." And: *With thee is the fountain of life.* Therefore, he admits that the Lord is spoken of as a fountain. And: *The stone which the builders rejected.* Does not Matthew, by signifying the Lord's power to prune away vices with the name of an axe, where he says: *Behold, the axe is laid at the root of the trees*, seem to be a trustworthy and faithful witness of the things stated? Does not Moses, seeing God in the light, and John, naming Him the true light—and Paul, being surrounded by light in his first appearance of God, and afterwards hearing the voice of the light saying: *I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest*—provide sufficient testimony? But regarding the bread, let the Gospel be read: for the food which was provided to the Israelites from heaven by Moses was transferred by the Lord Himself into a figure of the Lord. For *Moses did not give you the bread; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven*, speaking of Himself, *which cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world.* But the genuine listener of the law says that none of the prophets or of the apostles applied these names to Christ. What then follows? If the Lord Himself called Himself by these names, since among the names of the Savior there is not one that is first and another that is second, nor is one subtler or more exquisite than another, but He knows all things simultaneously and with equal subtlety: no definition that has been rendered by His own commentary can be applied to any of these names.

I have exhausted many trifles from his discourse; but I pray the readers to grant me pardon if we do not leave even the things that are openly vain unexamined—not that we may appear to be exulting in the disgrace and impudence of this writer (for what profit does it bring us to have the folly of adversaries exposed?), but so that the truth may proceed on its way, confirming itself through all things. ^C Since, he says, the Lord attributed these appellations to Himself, neither intending anything as primary, nor second, nor subtler, nor more exact, it is not permitted to assert that these names arise from mere mental conception. How does he remember his own aim? How does he know the arguments by which he joined battle? Our teacher had made mention of some of those things which fall into common usage for the interpretation of "conception," and by explaining his mind in the later examples, he thus promotes the contemplation of the discourse to higher things. For he said that this name *sitos* (wheat) appears by itself as one thing according to substance, but according to the various properties which are considered in it, it changes its appellations, being called as many things as it becomes: seed, and fruit, and food, and whatsoever else it becomes. Similarly,

^A the Lord also—who in Himself is whatever He is according to nature—when He is named according to the differences of His operations, does not retain one appellation for all things, but according to each notion that is generated in us from an operation, He assumes the name.

In what, then, is our argument refuted by what has been said? He who said that it is possible for many appellations to be applied according to the differences of the operations, and the relation to the things operated, to the One who exists according to the subject, the Son of God—just as grain, too, being one of the diverse notions regarding it, is divided into different names—how does he who says that Christ calls these names of Himself overturn what has been said? For the question at issue was not who it was that named Him, but the inquiry turned upon the notion of the names: whether they indicate nature, or whether He is named conceptually from the operations. But this man, so sharp and sagacious in his understanding, in overturning the definition of "conception" which had been given—the one that stated it was possible to devise many appellations for one subject according to the significations of the operations—has used the battle against us forcefully, saying that such terms were not imposed upon the Lord by some other.

What, then, has this to do with the study at hand? Because these names are not spoken by the Lord, will he therefore not grant that they are names, or appellations, or words signifying notions? For if he does not admit that these are names, by the removal of the appellations, the "conception" is also simultaneously removed. But if he does not contradict that these words are names, in what way is the argument concerning "conception" harmed by the fact that he demonstrates that such nomenclatures were not imposed by some other, but by the Lord Himself? For the point that was being made was this: that using the example of the grain, the Lord, being one according to the subject, possesses names appropriate to His operations. And since it is admitted that the grain possesses its names according to the conception of the properties observed in it, it was simultaneously established that these terms in the case of the Lord are not significant of His nature, but consist in the account of the "conception" in the things understood concerning Him.

But the one who contradicts, in his great attentiveness, does not make his fight against what was proposed. Instead, he says that He is called by these names by Himself, similar to if one seeking the interpretation of the name of Isaac—whether it is interpreted as laughter, as some say, or if the name signifies something else—some one of those standing on the side of Eunomius should insistently reply that this name was imposed upon the boy by his mother. But, one might say, that was not the question at issue—by whom the appellation was provided—but what the notion of the name signifies when translated into our language. Since, then, the inquiry here consists in whether the things that are variously said of the Lord are said according to a "conception" and do not possess the indication of His nature, he who brings forward such a proof—the fact that these are spoken by the Lord Himself—as a way of saying that the appellations are not viewed by way of a "conception," [how is it that with these... ^D]

^A should be numbered among the sober, who makes war upon the truth and uses such alliances for the war, by which he shows the one being warred against to be stronger?

Then, proceeding as if the argument had reached its goal for him, he grabs at other charges against us, harder, as he says, than those mentioned. And having lamented much and reviled the discourse, and having severely agitated the listener regarding the things about to be said, in which he accuses us of constructing some more impious things, as though we not only attribute to our own "conceptions" the appellations assigned by God—without having said what the assignment of the appellations is, and when and how it happened,—but also that we confound all things and lead the essence and operation of the Only-Begotten to the same thing. Having said nothing about this very matter, nor having demonstrated how the operation is constructed by us to be the same as the essence, he finally brings in the same climax of the charges, speaking thus in his speech: "Now, indeed," he says, "passing from these, he wraps the God over all in the ultimate blasphemies; and our arguments are torn apart by his words, and he turns away our examples, not at all needing to learn these things, but rather to show the trashy and ^B rash nature of the writer’s words, by which he makes a display of old wives’ tales among men, and by the pomposity of his little words in the ears of those who admire these things, he adorns himself, not realizing that for the educated he is proposing a monument against himself."

But this is nothing to our purpose. For would that the charges against him reached only this far, and that, committing no sin regarding the faith, he were thought to offend only in the delivery of his speech! As it would be for nothing, for praise or for blame, whether the wording were one way or another. The logical sequence and series of the things said against us by him, however, also proposes this.

"In the matter of grain," he says, "and of the Lord, having trained his 'conceptions' in various ways, he says that the most holy essence of God ^C admits of different 'conceptions' in a similar way." This is the bitterest of the charges, and because of it he tragicaly exaggerated those heavy things against us beforehand, calling us impious and absurd and applying all such things to what was said. What then is the proof of the impiety? Eunomius said things regarding grain—those common things and those known to all at first hand—discriminating how it comes to be, and how, once matured, it nourishes through its fruit, being born and increasing and being governed by certain natural powers? And having said these things, he says that it is not at all strange for the Only-Begotten God ^D to receive different "conceptions" because of the [meanings],

and through the diversities of the actions, and certain proportions and relationships. For he keeps harping on these terms ad nauseam regarding Him. But, he says, how is it not absurd, or rather, not blasphemous, to compare the Unbegotten to these? To which ones? To grain, he says, and to the Only-Begotten God. You see his carefulness: he insists that the base grain and the Only-Begotten God ^A are equally far removed from the dignity of the Unbegotten God. And so that we do not misrepresent his argument, it is possible to learn his line of thought from his very own writings. "For how," he says, "is it not absurd, or rather, blasphemous, to compare the Unbegotten to these?" And having said this, he adds to his discourse on the grain and the Lord the matter of equality in honor, judging it an equal absurdity to compare God to either one of them. Moreover, it is entirely manifest to everyone that things which are distant from any one thing by an equal measure also ^B possess an equal measure one towards the other. Thus, according to this "wise theologian," the Creator of the ages and He who has encompassed the entire nature of existing things has been shown as equal in status to the most insignificant seed, if both he himself and the grain are equally excluded from comparison with God. But such is the impiety of his argument.

It would now be time to examine the structure of his blasphemy, and in what way it is connected to his argument by logical consequence. For having said that it is absurd to compare God to grain and to Christ, concerning the grain he says, "that God is not of the nature to be subject to mutation ^C as these are," but concerning the Only-Begotten he kept silent about His not being subject to mutation; and by this he has clearly indicated the lowliness of His dignity, in that it would not be fitting to compare Him to God, just as one does not with grain; he left the argument suspended, without establishing by any other reasoning in this part of his discourse the disparity of the Son with the Father, as if what is observed in the grain were sufficient to demonstrate the difference of the Son from the Father in "lower" terms.

But he discourses concerning the incorruptibility of the Father, as though it does not exist for Him by virtue of an act. As for me, if indeed ^D a "true and essential life" is an act, effecting itself, and if to "always live" and to "never be dissolved into corruption" are the same thing in meaning, I do not yet concede to his argument, but I shall reserve this for its proper place. That there is, however, one notion of incorruptibility, understood in the same way for both the Father and the Son, and that the incorruptibility of the Father in no way differs from the incorruptibility of the Son—neither by any slackening nor by any intensification, nor by any other mode of corruption being found in the variance of incorruptibility—this I say even now is opportune to assert, and always: so that his argument may have no room through this premise of his to proclaim that the Son has no communion of essence with the Father. For just as incorruptibility is grasped in the Father, so it is not doubted to be in the Only-Begotten. For that which is incapable of corruption, which is what incorruptibility effectively is and is called, has an equal—or rather, the same—account in whichever one it is predicated. What, then, having learned...

why does he attribute it only to the unbegotten God, ^A that it is not from [the] operation that His incorruptibility exists, as if thereby demonstrating the difference of the Father from the Only-begotten? For if he assumes his own creature to be a corruptible God, he well demonstrates the difference according to nature by the difference between the corruptible and the incorruptible. But if both are alike incapable of corruption, and neither more nor less is comprehended in the incorruptibility which is according to nature, how does he demonstrate the incomparability of the Father to the only-begotten Son? Or what is intended by the fact that it is not from operation that incorruptibility is attributed to the Father? But he reveals his purpose in the subsequent discourse: it is not from operations, he says, that He is incorruptible and unbegotten, but as Father and Creator. ^B

To this I especially ask the hearer to attend. How does he think the meaning of these two names is the same, I mean of creation and of fatherhood? For he defines each of these as equally an operation, clearly proclaiming thus in his discourse, that He is not incorruptible by operation, but is named both Father and Creator from operations. If, therefore, it is the same thing for Him to be called both Father and Creator, because operation is the cause of both names for Him, it is absolutely necessary that the effects of the operations also have a common character with each other, from the very fact that they are similarly from operation. But to what point of blasphemy this is carried by logical consequence is clear to anyone who knows how to discern what follows from what. ^C But whatever I conclude regarding these things by reason, I wish to add to the examination of these arguments. It is impossible for an operation that is productive of any thing to subsist by itself, if there is not something underlying to receive the motion of the operation; for example, we say that he who works the bronze is operating, but that the matter subjected to the art is being operated upon. Therefore, these have a certain necessary relation to each other, the effective or active power and the passive; if one of these were separated from the other by logic, the remaining one could not subsist by itself in itself. For if that which suffers were not, that which acts would not be. What, then, is constructed from this, if an operation productive of any thing does not consist by itself, if there is not present a subject that suffers? But the ^D Father, as these men say, is nothing other than operation: therefore, by these [principles], the only-begotten Son is demonstrated to be passive, being formed according to the motion of the operation that causes Him to subsist. For just as we say that the Creator of the universe subjected some passive and easily yielding matter, and thus made [His] efficient essence the worker of itself: in the case of sensible things, ingeniously inserting into the subject various and multiform qualities for the making of each of the things that come into being; but in the case of intelligible things, in another way, not by qualities, but by volitional impulses, shaping the subject. Thus, of necessity, if anyone were to define fatherhood as an operation, he will not demonstrate the subsistence of the Son in any other way, except through some passive matter altogether [un]absolute. For if it were thought impassible, a resisting...

operation would not exist at all to that which is brought about. Thus, of the two alternatives, they will either make the essence of the Only-begotten something passive through these things, so that it may receive the operation, or, fearing this because of the evident impiety, they will conclude that it does not exist at all. For that which is by nature incapable of suffering does not in any way admit the productive operation into itself. Therefore, he who defines the Son as the result of some operation defines Him as one of those things which are born to suffer, all of which have their procession through an operation; or if he denies the passion, he will also deny His subsistence together with the passion. But since ^B impiety is present according to either side of the dilemma—both the saying that He does not exist and the thinking that He is something passive—the truth is evident, shining forth through the removal of the absurdities. For if He exists truly, and is not passive, it is clear that He is not from an operation, but, as is consistent, is truly God from the true God, the Father, impassibly shining forth and radiating from eternity. But, he says, God is incorruptible according to His essence. What else of those things which are understood as befitting God do not pertain to the very essence of the Son? The just, the good, the eternal, the capacity for no evil at all, the infinite in everything that is understood according to the good. For who is there who says that any of the things which are beautiful is ^C adventitious to the divine nature, and that not everything which is beautiful proceeds from thence and is contemplated in it—as the prophet says, that if anything is beautiful, it is His, and if anything is good, it is from Him? He connects with this that He is also unbegotten according to essence. For my part, if he says this understanding it in this way, that the essence of the Father is unbegotten, I agree with what is said, and I do not oppose the dogma. For no one at all of those who live piously posits that the Father of the Only-begotten is begotten. But if this is indicated according to the figure of speech, but he asserts that the essence itself is the unbegotten ^D [nature], I say that this must not be passed over unexamined, so that it might not escape notice while he is suborning those who are easily deceived into assenting to his blasphemy. That, therefore, the unbegotten is something other than the unbegotten state, being unmixed and pure from all otherness and difference. Regarding God he says these things, whose essence he asserts to be both incorruptibility and the unbegotten state. He stated, therefore, three names for God: the essence, the incorruptible, the unbegotten. If the notion of these three names in God is one and the same, the deity is absolutely these three. Just as if one were to say, wishing to characterize a man, that he is rational, risible, and flat-nailed. In which, because there is no difference according to nature in each, we say the names have equal force with one another, and these three are one in the subject, namely the humanity described by the names. If, therefore, this is the deity, namely the unbegotten state and the incorruptibility and the essence, by every necessity, with the removal of one of these, the deity is also removed at the same time. For just as if

^A one were to say that which is not rational is not even fit by nature for laughter, nor would he assert it to be a man; so too in the case of these three names, that is to say, the unbegotten, the incorruptible, and the essence, if the deity is characterized by these, when any one of the three is absent, the definition of the deity is altogether effaced by the one that is missing. Therefore, let him answer what opinion he holds concerning the only-begotten God: does he think him to be begotten or unbegotten? He will certainly say begotten, if he does not contradict his own assertions. If, then, the essence and the incorruptible, by which the deity is known, are the same as the unbegotten, then to whom the unbegotten does not belong, the essence and the incorruptible are also removed from him at the same time, and since these are not present, the deity will also necessarily be taken away by every necessity. Thus the argument has arrived at a twofold result according to the blasphemous conclusion of these men. For if essence and incorruptibility and the unbegotten are spoken of regarding the same meaning in God, this new fashioner of a god is clearly shown to acknowledge the Son—who was created by him—as corruptible, because he does not acknowledge him to be unbegotten; and not only this, but also as utterly non-subsistent, because he cannot perceive him in the deity, in whom the unbegotten is not discerned, since he thinks the unbegotten and the incorruptible to be the same as the essence. Since, however, the ruin in these statements is manifest, may someone advise these wretched men to turn to the remaining path of the argument, and not to engage in strife against the truth when it is evident; but rather to agree that the meaning of each of these names is distinct, which one might understand better through the opposites. For we find the unbegotten through its opposition to the begotten, and the incorruptible is known by comparison with the corruptible, and the essence is viewed by its distinction from that which does not subsist. For ^B just as that which has not been begotten is called unbegotten, and that which is not corrupted is incorruptible, so too we name as essence that which is not non-existent. And conversely, as we do not call the begotten unbegotten, so we do not name that which is corruptible as incorruptible. Therefore, essence is understood in the fact that something exists; but "good" or "corruptible" indicates what kind of thing it is. Thus, the definition of essence is one thing, and that which declares the "how" or the "what kind" per se is another. ^C And it seems to me that it is well for me, once I have overcome the intermediate nausea (for so I think one ought to term his senseless attacks against the discourse), to tarry on the theme set before us. For whatever has been vomited forth by this writer as a kind of phlegmatic humor, for the subversion of those things on the subject of conception which were examined by the teacher, is of such a nature as to offer no danger to its readers, even if someone should be quite dull-witted and easily deceived. For who is so bereft of mind and so senseless as to believe, when Eunomius weakly applies to the discourses concerning the essence of the God of all those things which were set forth by the teacher by way of example concerning grain—by which he suggested to the listener a kind of method and approach to the contemplation of sublime things—that he is saying something, and that he is plotting against the truth with some measure of cleverness

^A For to claim that the most fitting cause for God to have begotten the Son is His sovereign liberty and supreme power—a claim that could be made not only with respect to the world and the elements contained within it, but also with respect to reptiles and wild beasts—and to present this as a fitting account for a grave and venerable theologian to give regarding the conception of the only-begotten God; or to claim that even before the generation of names, God was called "Unbegotten," or "Father," or the other names, as if He feared that if the name were silent among those not yet in existence, He might become ignorant of Himself, or fall into self-oblivion, not knowing what He is through the silence of the name—this is indeed a mocking pursuit of our words. Yet, for all the sharpness and cunning it possesses, whereby he constructs the absurdity that the Father, who existed before all ages and times and every sensible and intelligible nature, waits for men so that by their mental invention He might be named—not being named, as he says, either by the Son or by any of the intelligible substances made through Him? ^B For I do not think anyone is so filled with deep stupidity that they do not know that the only-begotten God, who is in the Father and who beholds the Father within Himself, stands in no need of a name or word for the knowledge of the divine subject, nor does the Holy Spirit, who searches the depths of God, require a nominative appellation for the knowledge of what is sought. Nor does the incorporeal nature of the supermundane powers name the Divine by voice and tongue; for in an immaterial and intelligent nature, the act that takes place according to the mind is a word/reason (*logos*), employing no material ministry of instruments. Indeed, even in human nature, we would have no need for the use of words and names if it were possible to show the movements of the mind directly to one another. But as it is, since the notions generated within us cannot be made manifest because our nature is hampered by its carnal covering, we necessarily impose names as signs and markers for things, and through these we make the movements of the mind known to each other. ^C If it were somehow possible to lay bare the movements of the thoughts in another way, leaving behind the periodic service of names, we would converse with one another more brilliantly and more purely, uncovering the very nature of things, upon which the mind is occupied, by the impulses of our thoughts. But as it is, for this reason we have assigned a name to each of the things that exist: to one, "heaven"; to another, "earth"; and to another, something else. And because one thing has a relation to another, or acts or undergoes something, we signify all these things with peculiar sounds, so that the movement of the mind might not remain unshared and unknown within us. But that supermundane and immaterial nature, which is free and released from all bodily concretion, stands in no need of names or words, neither for itself nor for the nature that transcends it; but if anywhere in the holy Books a word is recorded as having been spoken by an intelligent nature, it is said for our sake, who hear it, who in no other way

^A are able to learn what is signified—that which is not declared through sounds and words. And even if David in the Spirit speaks of something being said to the Lord by the Lord, it is David who is speaking, who is unable to impart to us the doctrine of what has been understood in any other way than by interpreting, through sounds and words, the understanding of the mysteries that had been generated in him from God.

All the arguments, then, which he has philosophized against [epinoia] (conception), I think it is well to pass over, even if he imputes madness to those who think that the name of the Godhead is spoken by men through [epinoia] to declare the transcendent power. For what he has in mind when he thinks he must disparage [epinoia] is available for those who wish to learn from his own words. But what we suppose regarding the use of names we have stated in the preceding. That the rational power implanted in our nature by God has discovered the sounds that interpret existing things, as they are by nature—if anyone refers the cause to the One who gave the power, neither do we dissent, just as we say that moving, seeing, and performing the rest through the senses come from Him from whom we acquired such power. Thus, therefore, the cause of naming the One who is God according to His nature, insofar as this is in accord with common reason, must be referred to Him Himself; but the authority to name all that has been understood in this way or that lies in our nature; and whether one wishes to call this [epinoia] or something else, we do not contend. We offer as the surest proof of this argument the fact that the Divine is not named identically by all, but is interpreted according to what seems right to each who has understood It. Therefore, passing over in silence all his swarming chatter about [epinoia], we shall hold to our dogmas, noting only from certain of the things he has interspersed in the midst of his vanity—where he thinks that God, like some pedagogue or schoolmaster sitting before the first-formed parents, ^D imparted a teaching of words and names: in which he says that the first ones formed by God, or those who sprung immediately from them, if they had not been taught how each of the things is spoken of and named, would have lived in speechlessness and irrationality, and he says they could have accomplished nothing useful for human life, since the intention of everything would have been unknown due to the lack of significant terms, namely, words and names. Such is the madness of this writer, that it is not enough for him to imagine a faculty implanted in nature by God for every method of rational operation, but that unless one had learned each thing individually, just as one is taught the language of the Hebrews or the Romans word for word, one would be ignorant of what the things themselves are—not knowing fire, not water, not air, nor the rest of the existing things—unless one had acquired knowledge of them through the names imposed upon them. But we say that He who did all things in wisdom, and this rational

creature, by the mere fact that reason exists in its nature, has endowed it with every rational faculty. And just as in our instruments of sensation, having from Him who fashioned the eye and planted the ear that faculty which naturally resides within them, we use each of the sense organs for that purpose for which it was naturally intended—and we have no need of a person to name the colors, of which sight has the perception (for the eye suffices to be its own teacher in such matters)—nor, for those things which we perceive through hearing, taste, or touch, do we stand in need of outside teachers for their knowledge, since we possess from within ourselves the instrument of judgment for each of the things produced in us by sensation; so we say ^A that the intellectual faculty of the soul, having been made in such a way by God, is henceforth moved by itself and looks toward objects; and so that knowledge might suffer no confusion, it imprints upon each thing stamps, as it were—the marks that are produced by words. This doctrine ^B is also confirmed by the great Moses, when he said that the names of the brute animals were imposed by Adam, writing in the text thus: "And God further fashioned from the earth all the beasts of the field, and all the birds of the sky, and He brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And every living soul that Adam called, that was its name. And Adam called the names for all the beasts of the earth and the cattle and all the beasts of the field." But it seems that that nonsense, compounded by him against our conception like some viscid and sticky mud, detains ^C us and does not permit us to grasp what is more useful. For how could one pass by that excellent and thoughtful philosophy, where he says that the magnificence of God is displayed not only in His works, but also that the wisdom of God is demonstrated even in the names, because He fitted the appellations appropriately and naturally to each of the things created by Him? Perhaps, having encountered these things in Plato's dialogue *Cratylus*, or having heard them from someone who had encountered the work, because of the great poverty of his own ideas he stitches those trifles found there onto his own nonsense, acting similarly to those who collect their food by begging. ^D For just as they, receiving a small amount from each of those who offer, patch together their food for themselves from various and diverse sources, so the discourse of Eunomius, because of its poverty of true bread, collects from every side the crumbs of words and notions through its own labor; and for this reason, struck by the elegance of the Platonic diction, he thinks it fitting to make that philosophy the doctrine of the Church. For tell me, by how many voices, according to the differences of the nations, is the nature of the firmament named? We refer to it as *ouranos* (heaven), the Hebrew as *Samaim*, the Roman as *caelum*, and the Syrian, the Mede, the Cappadocian, the Maurusian, the Scythian, the Thracian, and the Egyptian name it otherwise; and one could neither

^A easily enumerate the differences in names that exist according to each nation regarding the heaven and the rest of the objects. What, then, tell me, is the proper and genuine name of these, by which the magnificent wisdom of God is demonstrated? If you prefer the Greek to the rest, the Egyptian will perhaps resist you, putting forward his own. And if you grant the primacy to the Hebrew, the Syrian will oppose his own tongue, nor will the Roman yield the primacy to these; and the Mede will not admit that his own do not hold the first place; and each of the other nations will claim the primacy for its own. What then shall the dogma not suffer, being torn apart by those in conflict to such a degree by the differences of tongues? But from these, he says, as if by laws clearly set forth, it is declared that God makes the appellations ^B fitting to the natures among themselves. O the magnificence of the dignity, what opinions the theologian grants to the divine doctrines, which men do not even envy the bath-attendants! For we concede to them the power to coin names for the activities in which they happen to be laboring, and no one has honored them with honors equal to God, when foot-basins, or rinsing-vessels, and depilatories, or hair-removing ointments, and towels, and many such things are named by them, which fittingly declare the object by the expressiveness of the words.

But I will pass over these things, and their Epicurean natural philosophy set forth thereafter, which he says is of equal value to the *epinoia* [conceptual thought], since he asserts that the void, the indivisible corpuscle, and the fortuitous generation of things have a certain kinship with that which is declared by the *epinoia*. Lo, how he understands Epicurus, we are refuted by those who say so! Let his patron and ally in dogmas, Aristotle, also be silent, whose opinion he says is next added to the discourses of the *epinoia*. ^C For he says that it is his dogma that Providence does not penetrate through all things that exist, nor extend to earthly matters. Which this man, indeed, asserts is consistent with those things scrutinized by the *epinoia*; thus is one to judge the dogmas with careful precision. But proceeding further, he says that one must either not concede the origin of things that are to God, or if we grant this, not take away the institution of names. And further, concerning irrational and reasonless creatures, as we have said before, we are taught the contrary by Scripture, that neither did Adam make the animals, nor did God name them; but the origin is from God, while the naming of the things that have been made is from man, as has been recorded by Moses. Then he pursues an encomium of words in his own discourse, as if someone were dishonoring the power and faculty of speech, ^D and he says that after that foolish and empty and insolent structure of words, one must by the law and measure of Providence perfectly join the tradition of names with the knowledge and use of necessary things; and having raved about many such things in a deep sleep, he proceeds in his discourse to an unassailable and unavoidable necessity. I shall state, however, not word for word, but explaining only the meaning of his discourse: It is not to the poets, he says, that the discovery of words is to be attributed, to those who have been deceived in the

^A opinions about God. What kind of things does this noble fellow attribute to God, adapting the inventions of the poetic faculty to God? So that by this means God may seem to men more august and exalted, when the disciples of Eunomius imagine that these words—*Licriphis*, and *Karchaire*, and *Eurax*, and *Kechære*, and *Phocheiri*, and *Size*, and *Doupese*, and *Kanachize*, and *Intonuere poli*, and *Crebris micat ignibus æther*, and *Linxe*, and *Ische*, and other figments of the poets of this kind—are not pursued by the poets through some license according to their own judgment, but that, being mystically instructed by God Himself, they insert these words into their verses. But let these things also be passed over, as well as that learned and unassailable epicheirema of theirs, that we are unable to demonstrate from written history that holy men devised new terms. For if human nature was imperfect up to the manifestation of those men, and had not yet been completed by rational grace, it would have been highly appropriate to require of them the filling up of what was lacking. But if nature subsisted from the very beginning as not indigent, but perfect according to its ratiocinative and excogitative operation, how could anyone easily inquire further regarding the constitution of speech according to commentary, so as to claim that the saints were the first authors of voices or words? Or if we cannot demonstrate this, they judge it to be a sufficient demonstration for themselves that God has ordained such syllables and words for us.

^B But since, he says, God does not disdain conversation with His own servants, it is consequent to think that He gave from the beginning the names that were suitable to the things. What then shall we reply to this? We define the cause of God’s coming into Congress and conversation with man as being His benevolence toward the human race. But since what is small by nature cannot be lifted above its own modes and reach the supereminent nature of the Most High, for this reason He Himself, bringing His benevolent power down to our weakness, distributes His grace and utility to us just as we are able ^C to receive it. For just as according to the divine providence the sun, by tempering the intensity and purity of its rays with the intervening air, sends down a moderate splendor and heat to those who receive it, although in itself it is inaccessible to the weakness of our nature: so too the divine power, by the likeness of the example mentioned by us, infinitely surpassing our nature and being inaccessible to participation, as a mother—benign and merciful—together lisping to the inarticulate whimpers of infants, bestows upon human nature what it is able to receive; and for this reason, in the various ^D appearances of God to men, He is both fashioned according to man, and speaks humanly, and puts on such affectations as anger and mercy and the like, so that through all things that are congruous to our nature our infantile life might be led, as if by the hand, touching the divine nature through the discourses of Providence. For since [He is subject to] no passion of those that happen for the sake of pleasure, or mercy, or anger...

it is ^A a holy thing to believe that the Divine is not subject to them, a truth which no one who has even moderately examined the truth of things would contradict. Yet, nevertheless, the Lord is said to delight in His servants, and to be angered with wrath against a people that has stumbled, and to pity again him whom He was to pity, and to show mercy in like manner; for every one, I suppose, of such expressions is instructing us in the reasoned word, that through our own idioms the Providence of God is tempered to our infirmity. This is so that those who are inclined toward sin may abstain from evils through fear of punishment, and those who have been caught in sins before may not despair of a return through repentance, looking toward His mercy; and that those who direct their lives according to an exact standard and conform them rightly, may delight more in the virtues, as those who by their own life bring joy to Him who is the inspector of goods.

Just as it is not permitted to call him a mute who converses with a deaf person by signs and gestures, insofar as he is able to hear: so neither should we consider human speech [when applied] to God as literal, since He made use of it toward men by way of dispensation. For we, too, have been accustomed to guide irrational animals with clucking, kissing sounds, and hissing. ^B Yet this is not "discourse" as far as we are concerned—that with which we reach the hearing of the irrational—but we use our natural speech among ourselves; whereas for irrational animals, a suitable noise and whatever sound or gesture [is adequate] has sufficed for necessary use.

But this pious person does not want God to have made use of our own [forms of speech] because of our propensity toward vice, this best of friends being ignorant that for our sake He even refused not to become a curse and sin; so great is His benevolence and love toward men, that he willingly came to the experience not only of our goods, but also of our evils. And if He accepted the communion of our evils, how would He have been unwilling to participate in the most beautiful of our goods (I mean, the Word)?

But [our opponent] puts forward David for his defense, and says that he claims that names were imposed by God upon things, because it is written in this manner: "He who numbers the multitude of the stars, and gives names to all of them." But I think it is manifest to anyone possessed of a mind that the discourse concerning these matters has no communion with the subject at hand. Since, however, it is probable that some might heed this argument without consideration, we shall discuss a few things regarding these matters. ^C Divine Scripture often knows how to attribute to God such expressions as seem in no way discordant with our own; for example: "The Lord was angered with wrath"; and, "He repented regarding their wickedness"; and, "It repented Him that He had anointed Saul as king"; and, "The Lord was awakened as one sleeping." And in addition to these, it sets forth a throne, and standing, and movement, and many such things; which by nature do not pertain to God, but for the sake of the dispensation of those being instructed, they are not without their use. For it [the Scripture] ^D understands how to restrain the more slack in spirit through the fear of the expression of anger, and to benefit those who are in need of the...

pharmaceutical of repentance, it says that the Lord has a change of heart regarding the wickedness; and to those who, on the other hand, are carried away to arrogance by certain successes, it demonstrates through the repentance concerning Saul that prosperity does not remain for them, even if it seems to be from God. And to those who are not submerged in the deep fall of sin, but rise up as if from a certain sleep of a vain life, it says that God rises and awakens together with them; to those who have firmly ascended to the good, it says He stands; and to those who are settled in the good, it says He sits; and again, it says He is moved and walks in those who have been shifted from the stability that is in the good. ^A As the history narrates in the case of Adam, describing God walking in the paradise at the time of the cool of the day, indicating by the cool of the day the descent to the darkness of the first-formed man, and by the movement, the instability and changeableness of man regarding the good.

But these things perhaps will seem to many to be drawn out further than the contemplation proposed to us requires. That, however, no one would say is at variance with the matter proposed: that many think that what is incomprehensible to themselves is also not comprehensible to God, and they think that whatever escapes their own understanding is also above the divine power. Since, therefore, we have made number the measure of quantity—and number is nothing else than a composition of units, ^B in various ways as the unit increases into a multitude; for the unit and the decade are accomplished toward this according to the composition of units, and again the century is a unit composed of decades. In like manner also the thousand is another unit, and the myriads likewise, proportionally by multiplication, the one being headed up toward this from the thousands, and the other collected from the centuries—we make all these, limiting the things subjected to us, signs of the quantity of the things being numbered.

As then we might be instructed by the divine Scripture that nothing is unknown to God, it speaks of the multitude of the stars being numbered by God himself, not that the numbering happens in this way. For who is so foolish ^C as to think that God comprehends existing things by odd and even numbers, and completes his numbering of the aggregated quantity through the composition of units? But because with us the exact knowledge of quantity is derived from number, in order that we might be instructed concerning God, that all things are encompassed by the knowledge of His wisdom and nothing escapes His accurate understanding, for this reason He ordained that God numbers the stars, counseling us by the things which He says to understand this: not to suppose that God reaches the things that are with a measure of our own knowledge, but that all things which are incomprehensible and inconceivable to us ^D are encompassed by the knowledge of the divine wisdom. For since the stars, on account of their multitude, escape numbering as far as human conception is concerned, from the part...

^A of these things being numbered by God, the discourse testifies that nothing of those things which are unknown to us escapes the knowledge of God. Therefore it says, *He who numbers the multitudes of the stars*, not, of course, being ignorant of the quantity of the stars before he numbered them. For how is it likely that He should be ignorant of what He made? For He who is the overseer of the universe would not be ignorant of what is encompassed by the power that contains all things. Why, then, does He number that which He knows? For it is a characteristic of those who are ignorant to measure quantity by number; but He who knows all things before their creation has no need of a teacher of number for the knowledge of the things that exist. But yet, it is said by David that He numbers, clearly for the sake of our instruction, as the discourse descends ^B to our capacity for the sake of clarity; David demonstrated that those things which are unknown to us are known accurately through the significance of the number. Just as, therefore, He is said to number—needing no arithmetical process for the knowledge of created things—so the prophecy says that He calls them all by name, not meaning, I think, this naming which is done by voice. For if the discourse proceeded to that sense, it would end in something absurd and unworthy of the conception held about God, if it says that these names used in our custom were imposed upon the stars by God. For if anyone were to grant that these were called by God, it would necessarily follow that one must think the appellation of the Greek idols was derived thence for the stars, and to deem true whatever names from mythical history are attributed to the celestial figures, as if God were ratifying such words for them. Thus the heptad of stars ^C contained in the pole, being distributed among the Greek idols, would show those who have wandered in these matters to be free from blame, if it were believed and persuaded that this had been ordained by God. And so the myth concerning Orion and Scorpio is brought to belief, and what is told about Argo, and Cygnus, and the Eagle, and the Dog, and the fable about Ariadne’s Crown. Furthermore, it would lead one to suspect that God is the inventor of those names which have been devised in the zodiac for the appearances on account of a certain similarity of figure, if Eunomius rightly thinks that David is saying that God imposes these names upon them. Since, therefore, it is absurd to think God is the inventor of such names, lest the names of the idols seem ^D to have attained their origin from Him, it will be best not to accept what is said without inquiry, but to perceive the meaning of this statement just as we understood those things which were said about number. For since among us a testimony of accurate knowledge is that what is known to us is called by its own name, through these things He teaches us that of those things which cannot be comprehended by us, He who contains the universe not only comprehends in summary the fullness of the quantity gathered together, but also knows each single thing exactly and perfectly. For this reason, the discourse says not only that the multitudes of the stars are numbered, but also that each one is called by name, which indeed

^A signifies his ^A accurate diligence, reaching even into the more subtle and tenuous parts, and thus to know the singular things exactly, just as a man calls by name one who is known to him and familiar. But if anyone should say that other names were placed upon the stars by God, of which he imagines human nature to be ignorant, and concerning which he supposes David to have spoken, such a one wanders far from the truth. For if there were other names given to the stars, the divine Scripture would not have made mention of these names, which are in the abuse of Greek custom, for Isaiah says: *He who makes the Pleiades, and Vesper, and Arcturus, and the storehouses of the South*; and Job naming Orion and Asaroth; so that from this it is manifest that in things worn smooth by life, divine Scripture has used names for our instruction. Thus, we have ^B heard of the horn of ^B Amalthea in Job; and among Isaiah, the Sirens: the former, indeed—namely, Job—designating the total abundance of goods according to Greek opinion; while Isaiah declares the pleasure perceived from hearing by the name of the Sirens. Just as, therefore, the divinely inspired discourse used there the names from fabulous narrations, looking to the utility of the hearers, so also here the discourse has spoken of the appellations placed upon the stars by human commentary, teaching that every thing which is named by humans has its existence from God—the thing, that is, not the name. For he does not say "who names," but *He who makes the Pleiad, and Vesper, and Arcturus.* Wherefore I think it to be demonstrated abundantly by what has been said that David favors our opinion, teaching through the prophecy that God does not name the stars, but knows them exactly according to the custom of men, who know these ^C most fully and perfectly, ^C whom they can also call by name on account of frequent acquaintance.

But if it is necessary to explain also the opinion handed down by many concerning these sayings of this psalm, the vanity of the opinion which Eunomius has concerning them will be refuted much more. For those who have more diligently searched out the mind of the divinely inspired Scripture say that not all things that exist are worthy of divine numbering; for in the evangelical feedings that took place in the desert, neither the puerile age, nor the female sex, were considered worthy of number; and in the exodus of the Israelite people, only those who were already able to bear arms against enemies and fight most bravely were counted. For neither are the names of all things such that they are brought forth through the divine mouth, but if anything is beautiful and celestial it is numbered; that which, because of the height of its condition or governance, remains pure and unmixed from all fellowship of darkness and obscurity, is called a star; and if anything is found by the same reason worthy of being written in the divine Books, it is named. For concerning the adversaries he says that, *I will not be mindful of their names through my lips.* But names, such as befit such stars,

^A the Lord imposes, we have clearly learned from the prophecy of Isaiah, which says: *I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine.* So that if anyone makes himself the possession of God, the work becomes a name for him. But let these things be as they may seem to be to those who encounter them. As for what he adds to the statements, namely that the beginnings of the creation of the world attest that the sounds were imposed by God upon things—a matter the investigation of which I judge to be already sufficiently redundant in what has preceded—and the voice of Adam, which the Apostle says was made prophetically regarding Christ and the Church, let him interpret it at his own discretion as he wishes. For no one is so foolish and dull-witted that, when Paul has revealed to us the mysteries hidden in the power of the Spirit, he would make Eunomius a more trustworthy interpreter of divine things—a man who overtly fights against the words of the divinely inspired testimony and, through his explanation of this saying, forces the conclusion that the species of animals were not named by Adam. Let his stinging words also be passed over, and that graceless boorishness, and his dung-scented and sewer-filled speech, which proceeds with his customary elegance against our teacher, calling him a sower of tares, and a rot of fruit, and the ruin of Valentinus, and the fruit from him which he asserts to be piled up in the soul of the author; and let the rest of the unpleasantness of his remarks be wrapped in silence, just as bodies liquifying with rotten corruption are buried in the earth, so that the stench may not become an annoyance to many throughout the crowd. ^B

But the discourse must be transferred to the matters stated by him thereafter. For again he sets forth a certain diction of the teacher, which is as follows: *For we call God, the Lord of all, incorruptible and unbegotten, using these names according to different concepts of the mind. For when we look back at the past ages, and find the life of God to be beyond every limitation and every beginning, we call Him unbegotten; but when we direct the mind to the succeeding ages, we have addressed as incorruptible Him who is infinite and interminable and comprehensible by no end. As therefore that which has no end to its life is incorruptible, so that which lacks a beginning is named unbegotten, while we contemplate these things through our conceptualization.* ^C Accordingly, the insult which he has made the prologue to the contemplation of the statements, I shall again pass over—the change of some seed, and the instructor of sowing, and that charge of reprehension which is concluded by no reasoning, and whatever other things his insatiable tongue pursues while walking through empty and void concepts. But to that which he attempts to attack by slandering the discourse, to this we shall now turn. He promises to refute us for saying that the Divine is not incorruptible by nature; but we consider alien to that nature only those things which are adventitious to some and which can be lost; but that without which the underlying nature cannot be conceived, how could one be in a position, as if separating it from itself

^A from its own nature, to blame anyone? If, therefore, our discourse were to claim that incorruptibility is ingrained and adventitious to God, as though it had not always been in Him, or as though it would not always be, it would have occasion to speak against us in calumny. But if our discourse defines that the Divine always has the same state, and that it always exists as what it is now, and that nothing accrues to Him by way of any augmentation and addition of things that are not present in Him, but that He always is in everything that is understood and spoken of as good—how are we maligned for not attesting to incorruptibility as ^B belonging to His nature? But from the passage previously read to the master, he feigns that he has taken the grounds for such calumny of our discourse, as if we attribute incorruptibility to God from the comparison of the ages. If our statement were brought forth by us, perhaps the discourse would be suspect as an apology, as if we were correcting what had not been rightly said and were making the words liable to censure into blameless ones by changing them. But since our words are brought forth by the adversary, what stronger demonstration of the truth could there be than the testimony of those who contend against us? How, then, does our discourse, which Eunomius brings forward in calumny against us, run? “When,” he says, “we turn our mind to the supereminent ages, that which is indeterminate and infinite, and comprised by no end, we have called incorruptible.” Does Eunomius think that attributing and calling are the same thing? ^C And who is so far gone from right reason as to be ignorant of the distinct significations of these words? For he who acquires what is not present to him attributes it, but he who names appropriately that which exists calls it. How, then, is this “illuminator of truth” not ashamed to conclude his calumny with such manifest slander? And just as those who, because of some disease, do not see, behave unseemly in the eyes of those who see, thinking that what is not seen by them is also unknown to those who are healthy, such a thing has happened to this “acute and quick-witted” man, who, being blind to the truth, thinks that this same defect exists in the hearers. And who is so foolish as not to place the slandered words alongside the calumny, and from the reading of both ^D detect the malice of the writer? Our discourse calls God incorruptible; he accuses the one who “bestows” incorruptibility. What do these have in common? It is just that each should be held accountable for his own words, and not be subject to blame for the words of others. But now he accuses us, and his bitterness is directed at us, yet according to true reason he condemns no one but himself. For if bestowing incorruptibility upon God is a crime, and this is said by no one else but him alone—then the slanderer becomes his own accuser, slandering what is his own, not what is ours. And concerning the name regarding “unbegottenness,” we say that, just as that which has no end to its life is incorruptible, so too that which has no beginning to its existence was named unbegotten; but this man says that we cause the firstfruits of this to be bestowed upon Him by the ages in relation to all begotten things.

I pass over in silence the blasphemy, that the Only-begotten God is made common with everything that is begotten, and, by comprehending Him in the same term, produces the same opinion as regarding the rest, bringing the Son of God down to everything that exists by way of generation. But I will add to my discourse, for the sake of more intelligent hearers, the senseless malice of this man. Basil, he says, procures for God the privileges of preeminence over all begotten things from the ages. What is this senseless and empty babble? Does man become a broker for God, and through the ages procure for Him rights of primogeniture? What sort of vain and empty boasting is this, consisting of words that cannot stand? If the teacher has said that what rises above the vast extension of the ages is revealed by certain significant terms regarding that Being who, as the Apostle says, has neither beginning of days nor end of life, so that the distinction of opinion may be signified by different words—and for this reason that which is older than every beginning is called "without beginning" and "unbegotten," while that which is circumscribed by no end is called "immortal" and "incorruptible"—he is not ashamed to write these things as an attribution, a procurement, and suchlike ravings. ^B Furthermore, he says that the ages are divided in two by us, as if he had not read what he himself set down, or as if he had a discourse suited to those who are forgetful of what he has said. What does the teacher say? "If we conceive of things before creation and, by reasoning beyond the ages, grasp the uncircumscribed life of eternal existence, we signify such a notion by the title of 'unbegotten'; and if we turn our thought to what follows, and apprehend the life of God as more abundant than the ages, we interpret this thought by the term 'infinite' and 'incorruptible'." Where does the discourse in these words divide the ages, if we are declaring with words and names, according to our ability, the eternity of God, which is equally apparent to every conception of the mind, and exists in the same way from every quarter, and is measured by no interval? For since human life, moving by intervals, progresses from some beginning to some end, and the life here is distributed into what is past and what is expected, so that the latter falls into hope and the former into memory; for this reason, ^C as our condition allows, we understand both what is past and what is expected by way of extended intervals. So also, in regard to the supereminent nature, we speak by catachresis—not as though God, through His own life, leaves behind some interval at His back, and proceeds again by living into what lies ahead, but as our understanding, which conceives things according to our own nature, measures eternity by past and future: when it neither cuts off the notion that progresses into the infinity of the indefinite on the side of what is behind, nor promises some position and limit for the infinite life on the side of what is before. If we both think and speak these things, how is it that for us the... ^D

[Beginning of translation: ...of life to be announced. If we conceive of these things and affirm them with our mind, how does Eunomius assert that we propagate a common dissection of the ages? Unless he would say that holy Scripture also divides the ages—Scripture which, with the same understanding, signifies the infinity of the divine life, since David commemorated the kingdom that was before the ages, and Moses showed the kingdom of God extending above the ages, so that we may be taught by both that everything which is conceived in the mind as distinct by intervals is contained within the divine nature, terminated on every side by the infinity of Him who contains the universe? For Moses, looking to what follows thereafter, says that He reigns for the age and for the age and beyond. ^B But the great David, bringing his thought to that which is before, said: *God is our King before the ages*; and again: *God, who is before the ages, shall hear*. But the wise Eunomius, telling such great teachers to fare well, says that we proclaim one life as lacking a beginning, and another as lacking an end; and again, certain varieties and differences of the ages, which by their diversity also divide the conception of God. But lest our battle against the things said be drawn out too long, we will add Eunomius's effort—not yet agitated or examined—which is sufficiently suitable, through the things in which he is studiously occupied in falsehood, to make the truth more illustrious to the wise.

^C For as he proceeds with his argument, he asks us what we think the ages are. And yet, it would have been more just for such questions to be proposed by us to him. For he is the one who claims to have known the essence of God, and who determines that things inaccessible to us are comprehended by his own intellect. Therefore, let him, who boasts of having comprehended the things above, explain to us the essence of the ages. And let him not terrify us, ignorant as we are, by brandishing this steep and dilemmatic-like answering so fearfully, as if by thinking the ages were one thing, this absurdity would arise, and if the other, that. For if, he says, you call them eternal, you will be Greeks and Valentinians and barbarians; but if you call them begotten, no longer, he says, will you confess that which is unbegotten in God. O this unassailable and irrebuttable argument! If something begotten were to be conceded, Eunomius, the confession of the Unbegotten will be abolished. And where have those reasonings of yours about the begotten in relation to the unbegotten flowed away—those by which you construct the dissimilarity of the essence of the Son to Him who begat Him? ^D For it seems, from what we are now being taught, that the Father, when considered in regard to the begotten, does not have his essence in a dissimilar way, but is altogether dissolved into non-being by the confession of the Unbegotten: if, indeed, by calling the ages begotten, we are driven to no longer confess the Unbegotten. But let us see the necessity by which he forces us into the assent of this absurdity. For he says that those things by whose juxtaposition that which is without beginning comes to be for God—if these did not exist, that which is added would not exist. O this strong and inescapable grip, as if he were wrestling us, bound in knots that cannot be loosened, from the midst...]

^A of the ages, says that the Ingenitum accrues to God. From whom does it accrue? Who says this, that for Him who is without beginning, something comes to be as an Ingenitum through acquisition by the transposition of certain things? Neither the word nor the thought of this absurdity is detected in our writings. Indeed, the word will be its own advocate, having nothing of the kind that has been alleged against us; and as for the meaning of what has been said, who would be thought a more trustworthy interpreter than the authors themselves of the discourse? Therefore, we are more just in saying what we perceive. When we define the life of God to be beyond the ages, we say these things which have been said in what preceded. But, he says, if there is no transposition of ages, it is impossible that that which is added to God from this can exist. And he says that Ingenitum is added. Let him also say from whom such a thing is added to God. If, therefore, from himself, he would be ridiculous to blame his own folly on our discourses; but if from us, let him recite the word, and we shall receive the accusation.

But I think these things and whatever follows from them should be passed over. For they are like children’s toys, building certain structures of edifices in the sand directly from the arena. For having composed a certain periodic clause, and with difficulty having arrived at the end, he demonstrates that the same life is both without beginning and without end, fulfilling our own prayer in such a study. ^B For nothing else is said by us than that this divine life is one and continuous with itself, infinite and everlasting, never hindered by any limit toward the infinite. Up to this point the writer bestows his labors and sweats upon the truth that is according to us, demonstrating that the life itself is not limited on either side, neither if one examines that which is before the ages, nor if one reasons about that which will be after. But in what follows he turns back again to his own confusion. For when he had said that the same life is lacking beginning and end, having omitted the discourse about life, and having reduced the notions that are considered in the divine life into one single concept, he made all things one. For if life, he says, is without beginning and without end and incorruptible and ingenitum, the notion of incorruptibility would be the same as that of the ingenitum, and that which is without beginning would be the same as that which has no end. And to these he adds assistance from ratiocination. For it is not possible, he says, that the life should be one, while the definition of the incorruptible is not the same as the definition of the ingenitum: ^C excellently here the noble fellow adds. He thinks, however, that neither should the definition of justice be different from these things that have been said, nor that of wisdom, and power, and goodness, and of each of the names that fit God decorously. And let there be no ratio that is understood peculiarly and separately, but let one signified thing be subjected under every review of names; and let one ratio of description fulfill the definition of each of the things that are spoken. And if you were asked what the signification of "judge" is, reply with the interpretation of "ingeneracy." And if you must give the definition of justice

which is incorporeal, have it ready for your response. And what "incorruptibility" signifies, which you would surely say is what the signification of "mercy" or "judgment" represents: thus let all things one by one proceed mutually, with no distinctive impression separating the one from the other. ^A And if Eunomius ordains these things, why do the Scriptures vainly call upon the Divine nature with many names, naming it God, judge, just, strong, long-suffering, true, merciful, and many other such things? For if none of these names is grasped by any distinctive conception, but all are churned together through the confusion of what is signified, it would be vain to use many appellations for the same thing, with no difference in what is signified distinguishing the names from one another. Who is so stupid and astonished as to be ignorant that, while the Divine nature—whatever it may be in its essence—is one, simple, uniform, and incomposite, and in no way viewed in any varied composition; the human soul, on the other hand, lying on the ground, and buried in this earthly life, because it cannot clearly and lucidly gaze upon what is sought, reaches out to the ineffable nature with many conceptions in many ways and in many parts, not hunting for the hidden truth through any one single thought. For if one path were granted to us to Divine knowledge, the apprehension would be easy. But now, through the wisdom that appears in the whole universe, we have understood that the One who presides over all is wise. And through the magnificent display of miracles, we have received an impression of power. ^B And to believe that the whole universe depends upon Him becomes a proof that there is no cause of His existence.

Again, having understood the abomination of evil, we grasp its unchangeability and its freedom from mixture with evil; and having thought that the corruption of death is the extreme of evils, we have named Him immortal and incorruptible, and foreign to every such notion—not dividing the subject by these conceptions, but, believing that what He is in essence is one, we have conceived that what is understood by the mind stands in a proper relation to all such notions. For the names do not conflict with one another according to the nature of opposites, as if, when one is present, it is impossible for the other to be thought of in the same subject—just as it is impossible for life and death to be thought of together in the same being—but the impression of each of those things said about the Divine nature is such that, even if it is separate in its signification, it nevertheless has no opposition ^C to what is named along with it. For what does "just" oppose to "incorporeal," even if the words do not accord with each other in their conception? And what battle does "goodness" have with "invisible"? Thus, neither is the eternity of Divine life, though it is known by twofold names and notions—that which has no end and that which lacks a beginning—divided by the difference of the names; nor is the one the same as the other in regard to the signification of the names. For one indicates the exclusion of a beginning, the other the exclusion of an end; nor does it imply a division.

of the subject itself of the names which are considered in it, or any difference ^A in the things remarked upon in relation to it.

These are the things said by us; but those said by our adversary, according to the very phrasing of the expression, are such that they have no support from reasoning, while meanwhile he himself prodigiously spews forth such arrogant voices, devoid of all sense, in the figure of clauses and periods, rashly and at random. The goal of his discourse, however, is this: that there is no difference in the diverse names according to their meanings, lest we seem to attribute to it something of those things which do not belong to it. For, he says, since true discourses take their judgment from the subjects and the things signified, and some things are suitable for some, just as the same things are for the same, there must of necessity be one of two things: either the thing which is declared is absolutely different, or the discourse which declares the thing is not different either. ^B He pursues these and many other things to this end, in order to prove his proposed aim, after he has brought forward in the middle certain relations of speech, and appositions, and species, and measure, and part, and time, and place, so that through the subtractions or exceptions of these, ungenerateness might become an indicator of essence. ^C But the construction of this has this manner; I shall express the meaning in my own wording. There is no other thing, he says, than life, which is essence, so that no composition might be understood in the simple nature, divided by the notion into that which participates and that which is participated. But the same thing, he says, that is life, is also essence, teaching this excellent philosophy. For no one of those who are possessed of their wits would contradict that these things are not so. But how did he conclude his argument toward his goal? If, he says, by signifying that which ^D is without a beginning, we signify life, and the discourse of truth compels us to call this life essence, then, he says, the unbegotten is the signifier of the divine essence itself. But we too assent to the fact that the divine life was not begotten by another (which is what the notion of that which is without a beginning signifies). But to think that the very thing which is signified by the word "unbegotten" is essence, we believe is a trait only of those who are carried away by madness. For who is so deranged and wandering from reason as to proclaim unbegottenness as the definition of essence? For just as generation has a kinship with that which is begotten, so likewise generation does not agree with the unbegotten. Since, therefore, ungenerateness demonstrates that which is not in the Father, how shall we confess that we make a demonstration of that which does not exist in relation to the essence? But when he granted to himself—which is not granted to him either by us or by the consequence of the things set forth—namely, that ungenerateness is the signifier of the divine life of God, he drew his conclusion. But that his drivel in this place may become perfectly clear, let us consider the discourse thus: for let us examine the arguments by which he led the essence in the Father to ungenerateness, to see if we might likewise lead the essence of the Son to ungenerateness by the same arguments.

BOOK XII

^A It is necessary, he says, that of the same life, and one which is simply one, there should be one and the selfsame definition, even if in names and in manner and in order it appears different. For since true definitions take their judgment from the underlying subjects and the realities that are declared, and since others correspond to other realities, just as the same realities correspond to the same definitions, it is necessary that one of two things must be the case: either the reality declared is entirely different, or else the definition that declares it is not different; but there is no underlying reality other than the Son’s life on which one could fix one’s thought or cast another definition. Is there any incongruity in these statements, such that it is not permitted to say or write such things concerning the Only-Begotten? Is not the Son himself also life in a sincerely one way? Is it not also fitting for him that there should be one and the selfsame definition, even if in names or in manner and in order it appears different? In his case too, will not one of the two things necessarily be established: either the reality declared is entirely different, or else the definition that declares it is not different—there being no underlying reality other than his life on which one could fix one’s thought or cast another definition? Nothing from us has been mixed in with what has been said by Eunomius regarding the Father. But we have arrived at the same confession and consequence, only interposing the name of the Son.

^B If, therefore, he too is one life, sincere, separated from every composition and entanglement, and no reality is set apart from the Son's life—for how could a mixture of an alien reality be suspected in that which is simple? For that would no longer be considered simple which is conceived with something else; yet the life and the essence of the Father are simple ^C —and since of simple life, according to the same reasoning of life and simplicity, there is no difference, nor any intensification or remission, nor any variation making for a difference in quantity or quality, it is absolutely necessary that those things which agree in the same concepts should also be named by the same appellations. If, therefore, the same reality is understood regarding the simplicity of life in the Father and in the Son, since the defining account of the simplicity, as has been said, receives no difference, it is absolutely necessary that the name applied to the one should also befittingly apply to the other; so that if the simplicity of the Father’s life is signified by the name of ungenerateness, the word is not ^D improper for, nor does it fail to agree with, the Son’s simplicity. For just as the rational and mortal, and that which is capable of mind and knowledge, is named "man," similarly both in the case of Adam and of Abel—and nothing has changed the designation of nature, neither that which in the case of Abel came to life through generation, nor in the case of Adam without generation—so too, if the simple and incomposite life of the Father has the name of ungenerateness, in the same manner the same concept must necessarily be applied to the Son’s life by the same word; if indeed, as Eunomius says, one of two things must be the case, that either the reality declared is entirely different, or else the definition that declares it is not different.

But why do we linger in vain, rashly and to no purpose? It were better to produce Eunomius’s book before more diligent men for the refutation of his insanity, and without ^A needing correction or rebuttal, to demonstrate from it to those who have understanding not only the blasphemy of his dogma, but also the flaccidity and torpor of his habit. For in many ways, by perversely interpreting the name "conception" not according to our understanding, but according to what seems good to him, he is like someone in a night battle, where no one distinguishes friend from foe, blindly striking at his own dogma by the very things through which he thinks he is waging war upon us, without realizing it. For what he thinks he must most of all use to alienate himself from the Church of the pious, is this: the assertion that God at some time became Father, and that the name of Fatherhood is more recent than the other names ^B spoken of Him. For he asserts that He was called Father from that time from which He proposed to become Father, and did become so.

Since, therefore, he constructs in this discourse that all the appellations applied to the divine nature are in agreement with one another according to their meaning, and that there is no difference among them; and one of the names spoken of Him is "Father"—for just as He is incorrupt and eternal, so is He also named "Father"—either he will confirm the opinion concerning the other names in this title as well, and destroy his initial premise, if the notion of Fatherhood happens to be contained within all the appellations. For it is clear that if the meaning of "incorrupt" and "Father" is the same, then as He is always incorrupt, so He will also be confessed to be always Father, since, as he says, the meaning is one and the same for all the names. Or, if he fears to attribute Fatherhood to God from all eternity, he will of necessity dissolve his own argument, by confessing that each of the names possesses a unique and peculiar meaning; and thus his elaborate babbling about the names ^C will vanish like a bubble that has burst.

But if he should reply that the meanings of these words are actually opposites, because only the appellation of Father and that of Creator come to God in a generative manner—since, as he himself says, both words are predicated of God from "operation"—he will spare us from lingering much on this subject, by confessing these things which would have required much labor for us to refute. For if the meaning of the word "Creator" and the word "Father" is one and the same (since both are from "operation"), then it is certain that what is signified by the words is also fully equivalent; for things that have the same significance cannot possibly differ in their underlying subject. If, therefore, both "Father" and "Creator" ^D are named from "operation," it is surely permissible for one who wishes to make an interchange to use the names in reverse and say that God is both Creator of the Son and Father of a stone, if the appellation of Father signifies no relation of nature. But the absurdity brought about by this, for those endowed with mind and intelligence, is no longer in doubt; for just as it is absurd to think God a stone, or any other of those things that have come into existence through creation, so

^A it will be confessed, nor is there need to ascribe divinity to the Only-begotten God, since it is one and the same signification according to operation that attributes both appellations to God, according to which, as Eunomius thinks, He is named both Father and Creator. But let us hold to the things proposed.

For slandering our argument, which says that the knowledge of God is gathered in us according to different applications, he says that it is no longer represented by us as simple, since it partakes of the meanings signified by each name, and through the participation of them, completes for itself its perfection according to being. these things I have set down in my own words, cutting short his long babbling. ^B But towards this vain and languid redundancy, I do not believe that any person of sound mind would make any refutation that would be outside the category of foolishness. For if there were such a thing in what has been said by us, we would necessarily have to either recant what was falsely spoken, or bring the ambiguity of thought to the standard of an unexceptionable interpretation. But since no such thing has been said by us, nor does the sequence of what has been said force the mind to such a necessity, why is it necessary to weary those who encounter it by lingering on what is agreed upon with a prolix argument? For who is so far out of his mind, that upon hearing that pious conceptions for God are gathered through many notions, he should think the Divine to be composite from different things, or that it gathers for itself its perfection from the participation of certain things? Suppose someone to have discovered geometry; let this same person be thought also to be the inventor of astronomy, and again of medicine and grammar, and agriculture, and other such crafts of this kind. Because many ^C and different names of crafts are considered in relation to the one soul, will the soul be thought for this reason to be composite? And yet the meaning according to medicine differs greatly from the science of astronomy, and grammar has no communion with geometry according to the meaning; nor again navigation and agriculture. But yet, concerning the soul, the account of each of these can be gathered, and not for this reason does the soul become multicomposite, nor are all the names of the crafts mixed together into one meaning. If, therefore, the human mind, through so many things being said about it, is in nothing harmed in its simplicity, how could one think that God, if He be called wise, and just, and good, and eternal, and all the names that are appropriate to God—unless one meaning were to be brought to all the names—should become multipartite, or gather for Himself the perfection of His nature ^D from the participation of these things?

But let us examine his more vehement accusation against us, which runs as follows: "But if," he says, "it is necessary to proceed to a more severe argument, it does not even preserve the essence itself unmixed and pure from things worse and contrary." The accusation, then, is this much. But what is the proof of the charges?

^A I see this violent and rhetorical assault of his against us. "If," he says, "it is incorruptible only according to that which is without end in life, and unbegotten only according to that which is without beginning, then whereby it is not incorruptible, it will be corruptible, and whereby it is not unbegotten, it will be begotten." And taking up the same point again, he says: "It will be, therefore, according to the 'without beginning,' both unbegotten and corruptible, and according to the 'without end,' both incorruptible and begotten." This, then, is his more severe argument, which he threatened to bring against us, to refute and convict us of saying that the essence of God is mixed with things contrary and worse. I, however, consider it clear and manifest to those who possess within themselves a firm and valid criterion of truth, that our teacher has given no handle to this slanderer in what was said, but that the latter has distorted the statements according to his own whim and has concluded this childish game of sophistry or cavil. Nevertheless, so that this may be clearer to all who read it, I will again recount that passage word for word, and will place alongside these the words of Eunomius. "We call the God of the universe incorruptible," says the doctor, "and unbegotten, using these names according to different applications of the intellect and concepts. For when we look back toward the past ages, finding the life of God exceeding all circumscription, we call him unbegotten. But when we apply our mind to the coming ages, we designate that which is indeterminate, infinite, and comprehended by no limit as incorruptible. As, therefore, that which has no end of life is called incorruptible, so that which lacks a beginning of life is named unbegotten by our reflection, as we contemplate these things." This is the discourse of our teacher, teaching us through what has been said that the divine life, being by nature one and continuous with itself, neither begins from any beginning nor is circumscribed by any limit. And that it is possible to make clear through certain names the concepts that are contemplated in this divine life. For we declare that which is not from any cause by the word "without beginning" and "unbegotten," and that which can be circumscribed by no limit nor dissolved into destruction, the expression "incorruptible" and "having no end" signifies. And he defines that it is necessary in the divine life to express by the name "unbegotten" that which has no beginning, and to name that which lacks an end "incorruptible." Since whatever has ceased to be falls entirely into disappearance; and when we hear of the disappearance of that which is, we understand the destruction of that which has subsisted. He says, therefore, that he who never ceases to be, and is alien to every dissolution that occurs through corruption, is called incorruptible. What then does Eunomius say to these things? "If," he says, "it is incorruptible only according to that which is without end in life, and unbegotten only according to that which is without beginning, then whereby it is not unbegotten, it will be begotten." Who gave this to you, Eunomius, not

^A to be considered ^B in all the life of God ^C is the incorruptibility? Who, having divided the divine life into two [parts] with terms signifying them separately, names each of the halves in such a way that, as if this name belonged to one segment, he says that it does not belong to the other? This is the acuteness of your dialectic: to say that the life which is without beginning is corruptible, and that with the incorruptible, that which is without beginning is not considered. It is similar to if someone were to say that man is a being endowed with reason, mind, and knowledge, applying each of these names to the subject according to a different way of regarding it and conception, and then were mocked by some such person expounding these and similar things. For if man, as he is capable of mind and knowledge, cannot be rational corresponding to this, but will be this alone insofar as he is capable of knowledge, and his nature will not contain the other [attribute]; and again, if you define man as rational, you will no longer grant him to be capable of mind; for insofar as he is rational, he will be shown to be lacking intelligence. Now if the ridiculous and foolish nature of this is clear to everyone in these examples, it will not be in the least ambiguous in that [theological] case either. For if you read the teacher's statement, you will find the play of the sophism to be a mere shadow. For neither in the example of man is the capacity for knowledge excluded by reason, or reason by the capacity for intelligence; nor does the eternity of the divine life, or its incorruptibility, fail to exist if it is without beginning, or if someone attributes incorruptibility to it, will it be stripped of being without beginning by nature. But while, by the art of dialectical subtlety, he searches for the truth, by interpolating what he wished into our discourse from his own [mind], he fights with himself and overturns himself, not touching our position at all. For what we were asserting was nothing other than that the life which is without beginning is named "unbegotten" by a conception—not that it comes to be through [the process of] begetting—and that which proceeds into the infinite is signified by the title of "incorruptible"—not that it is made incorruptible, but that it is signified to be such; so that the infinite nature in both directions is the divine life, which is the property of the subject, while the notions viewed in the subject "in this way or that way" consist only in the word which indicates the notion being signified. One notion concerning the divine life is that it is not from a cause; the term "unbegotten" demonstrates this. Another notion concerning the same life is that it is infinite and without end; the title of "incorruptible" represents this, so that the subject [itself] is without beginning and without end, which is above every name and notion; ^D but that it is neither from a cause, nor will it ever move toward that which is non-existent, these things are signified through the conception of these names. What, then, from our own [arguments] moved him to this senseless and foolish play, so that, taking it up again, he says the same thing in these terms: "For it is, according to that which is without beginning, unbegotten at once and incorruptible; but according to that which has no end, it is incorruptible at once and begotten"? Now this, even if it had not been judged by our own discourse, is clear to everyone who possesses even the slightest share of mind, how it is ridiculous and foolish.

^B Indeed, it is rather impious and worthy of condemnation. For by the same argument that he constructs a conjugation of "without beginning" with "incorruptible," he makes a mockery of every name that is pious and becoming to God. For not only are these two things contemplated concerning the divine life—that it is without beginning and that it does not admit of destruction—but it is also called immaterial and without wrath, unchangeable and incorporeal, invisible and without form, truthful and just, and there are countless other notions concerning the divine life, each of which is expressed by significant words according to its own peculiar and distinct conception. Therefore, with any name whatsoever that signifies a pious and fitting opinion of God, one may connect the conjugation devised by Eunomius—that prodigious thought—according to the same unnatural logic. For example, "immaterial" and "without wrath" are both spoken of concerning the divine life, but not each according to the same conception. For we have understood the fact that the Godhead is pure from material admixture through the notion of "immaterial." In "without wrath," however, the alienation from the passion of anger is signified. Eunomius, then, will likely run through these too, and dance the same dance as in the points mentioned. For he will say, connecting his absurdity in the same sequence: "If it is, precisely because it is separated from material admixture, called 'immaterial,' it will not on this account be 'without wrath,' and if it is 'without wrath' by not admitting wrath, it is no longer possible for 'immaterial' to be admitted concerning it; but by every necessity, since it is pure from matter, it will be shown to be simultaneously 'immaterial' and 'wrathful,' and since it does not admit of wrath, it will be found to be simultaneously 'without wrath' and material." You will find the same thing in all the rest. And if you wish, let us propose another such conjugation of names: I mean "unchangeable" and "incorporeal." For since both of these two names are spoken of concerning the divine life according to their own proper and distinct signification, the wisdom of Eunomius will similarly construct an absurdity for them as well. For if that which is always the same is signified by the voice of "unchangeable," and the designation of "incorporeal" represents the intellectual nature of the substance, Eunomius will surely say of these too that they are incomparable and alien, and have no communion or fellowship with one another, the notions contemplated in these names. For in that which always holds itself in the same way, the Divine will be only "unchangeable" and not "incorporeal"; but in the intellectual and formless nature, it has the "incorporeal," but it is separated from the "unchangeable." So it happens that when the "unchangeable" is contemplated in the divine life, it is constructed to be a body along with the unchangeable; but when the intellectual is examined, it is defined as being simultaneously "incorporeal" and "changeable." ^C These are the wise findings of Eunomius against the truth. For what is the need to extend the discourse in idle ^D garrulity by following up on everything, since it is possible to observe this same madness and defect of reason being constructed in all things? For, indeed, both "truthful" and "just" will similarly be at war with one another according to the aforementioned entanglement.

For there is one meaning for "truth," and another for "just," so that one might say, as a consequence, concerning these also about Eunomius, that truth does not attend upon the just, and that justice is absent from the truth. ^A And it happens that whenever someone considers that which is alien to injustice in God, he declares God to be at the same time both just and deceitful. But if we consider His alienation from the lie, we establish God as being at once true and unjust. Thus it is for the "invisible," and thus it is for the "unfashioned." For it will be permitted through these things, according to the same manner of wisdom as was previously set forth, to say that we should not speak of the invisible being present in the unfashioned, nor of the unfashioned in the visible. But he will attach "form" to the invisible, and through reversal ^B he will construct the "unfashioned" as being visible.

Having said these things also concerning these matters, upon which he speculated regarding the "incorruptible" and the "unoriginate," that "When we consider the incomposite nature of the divine life, we confess it to be unfashioned, but not yet invisible. And when we consider that it is not possible to see God with bodily eyes, having conceded the 'invisible' to Him, we shall not agree that He is 'outside of form'." ^C But if these things seem to everyone equally ridiculous and senseless, one who possesses understanding will judge the absurdity of those who thought up these ideas to be much greater, from whence the argument, being prompted, brought forth the absurdity on these points by consequence. But he snatches at the voice of the teacher, as though he did not duly look upon the incorruptible in the endless, and in the incorruptible did not perceive the endless. Therefore, let us also deride the near-equivalent to the cleverness of Eunomius. For let us examine such a judgment of his concerning these names, whatever it ^D may be.

"For he says that there is some other meaning to 'endless' than to 'incorruptible,' or else he will compound the two. But if indeed he says that both are one, he will agree with our argument. But if he says that the meaning of 'incorruptible' is one thing, and the meaning of 'endless' another, it is entirely necessary, in the case of things that are alien to one another, that the one is not the same in power as the other. Therefore, if the conception of the 'incorruptible' is one, and that of the 'endless' is again another, and each of these is what the other is not, neither will he grant the 'incorruptible' to be 'endless,' nor the 'endless' to be 'incorruptible'; but the 'endless' will be corruptible, and the 'incorruptible' will be end-having. But I beg those who encounter this not to turn against us the condemnation of ridicule. For we have played for the sake of the jester under necessity, so that by a similar game, we might dissolve the puerile entanglement of his sophism. But if it does not seem heavy and tiresome to those who encounter it, it would not be untimely to set forth again the words of Eunomius to the letter. 'If,' he says, 'insofar as it is endless, the life is only incorruptible, and insofar as it is unoriginate, it is only ingenerate; insofar as it is not incorruptible, it will be corruptible; and insofar as it is not ingenerate, it will be generate.' And having resumed the same thing again, he says: 'It will be, therefore, insofar as it is principi

without beginning, ingenerate at once and corruptible; and insofar as it is without end, corruptible at once and generate.' For I pass over the untimely and superfluous insertions in the middle, as they contribute nothing further to the construction of the discourse. But I think it is easy for anyone to understand the intent of our arguments, from which this man himself quoted, that they have no communion with the accusation that has been constructed by him against us. For we speak of the God of all as incorruptible and ingenerate, says the teacher, using these names according to different conceptions of the mind. For toward that which, he says, surpasses every circumscription of the ages according to every distance of temporal extension, whether we reason concerning that which is from the beginning or that which follows, in accordance with both modes of eternal life, that which is infinite and uncircumscribed, we signify the one part by the name of incorruptibility, and the other by that of ingeneracy. But this man says that we teach that that which lacks a beginning is an ^B essence, and that which has no end is again an essence, as though two segments of essences stated by us in opposition were being brought together. And thus he constructs the absurdity: placing his own things, and becoming entangled with his own things, and driving toward the absurd the thoughts composed by himself, he touches nothing of ours. For what he says—that God is incorruptible according to that alone by which He has no end—is his own, not ours. In the same way, that the incorruptible is not without a beginning is also an invention of the same cleverness, which reduces what does not belong to the definition of essence. For we do not define anything that does not belong as being an essence. But it does not belong to God that His life should end in corruption, nor that it should begin from generation, which is represented through these two names, of incorruptibility, that is, and of ingeneracy. But he, having noised his own trifles abroad with our decrees, is unaware that he is defaming himself ^C through the accusation instituted against us. For whoever defines ingeneracy as being an essence will proceed, according to the consequence, to as much absurdity as he attributes to our decrees. For since the name of the beginning and the name of the end are, according to the discriminating understanding of things, different, if anyone were to grant that the privation of one of these is an essence, he would suppose the life existing from half of itself to be subsisting only in that which lacks a beginning, but not extending itself any further through nature to that which has no end, if ingeneracy were to be considered as essence. But if anyone were to force both to be essences, it would be absolutely necessary, according to the argument given by Eunomius, that each of the names, according to the meaning imposed, should also have its being in the definition of essence, existing only ^D to as great an extent as the meaning of the title indicates. And thus the argument of Eunomius will become strong: that neither does that which is without a beginning have that which lacks an end, nor does that which has no end contain that which is without a beginning. Since, according to his argument, both of the things said are an essence, and the two are unmixed with each other in their conceptions, and neither does the beginning have the same relation as the end, nor are the names that negate these consistent with each other in their meanings.

^A But in order that he himself may recognize his own nonsense, the refutation will be from the things said by him. For he says, contending against our positions, that God is ingenerate also according to that which is endless, and endless according to that which is ingenerate, as if there were one significance for both names. If, therefore, he is ingenerate also according to that which is endless, and the meaning of “endless” and “ingenerate” is the same, and he concedes that the Son is also endless, he will necessarily have to concede, by this logical consequence, that the Son is also ingenerate, if indeed “being endless” is the same as “being without beginning,” as he has said. For just as he sees the “endless” in the “ingenerate,” so he confesses he has understood the “without beginning” in the “endless.” For he would not have made the interchange of terms in a parallel case. But he says that God is ingenerate by nature, and not by the juxtaposition of the aeons. And who is the one contending about these matters, that God is not by nature whatever he is also called? For we do not say that God is just, and powerful, and Father, and incorruptible by the juxtaposition with the aeons, nor by reference to anything else of the things that exist, but we contemplate all pious conjecture ^B regarding the subject itself, whatever it is by nature; so that if by hypothesis neither an aeon, nor anything else of the things understood according to creation had been brought into being, God would nonetheless be what he is now believed to be, not needing any of the aeons for his being what he is. But he says he does not have a life that is superadded, nor composite, nor different. For he is himself the eternal life, immortal according to that very life, incorruptible according to that very immortality. These things we have also learned concerning the Only-Begotten, and there is no one to gainsay it, unless someone were to openly fight against the words of John. For the life was not added to the Son. For, "I," he says, "am the life." (John xi, 25). Nor is his life composite, nor different; but it is according to this life that he is immortal. For in what other thing would one contemplate that which is immortal, except in life? And according to that very immortality, he is incorruptible. For that which is superior to death and decay is certainly incapable of receiving them. Up to this point our argument follows what has been said.

^C But let those who have been exercised in Prunicus’s wisdom interpret the enigma written in addition to what has been said; for it seems to me that he has brought forward the things said from that school. For what does he say? "Being without beginning, he is without beginning; he is ingenerate, ingenerately; he is endless, endlessly; he is spoken of neither according to another, nor through another, nor toward another." For he who has a purified ear and a discerning mind knows, even before my words, that except for the clatter of the names—which he has rattled off by their strange combination—not a trace of scientific intelligence is to be found in the things said. But if, by chance, some shadow of a concept should be found in the noise of the words, either the unholy ^D

^A or the ridiculous will surely be found. For what are you thinking when you say this? Tell me. That it is without origin, ^B endlessly, and without end, unoriginately? Do you think that the beginning is the same thing as the end? And that these two terms refer to one and the same concept, just as the titles "Peter" and "Simon" denote one single subject—and for this reason, just as you think the beginning and the end are the same, you have linked the two terms, which signify the destruction of either—I mean the end and the beginning—into a single meaning, and by inversely understanding the "without end" to be the same as the "without origin," you have confused the two terms into one. And this is what your mixing of terms aims at, when you say that the unbegotten is "without end," and that that which is without end is "unbegotten." And how did you not see the impiety in what is said, as well as the ridicule? For if, through this new mixing of terms, this reversal of names occurs—so that the unbegotten is "without end" unbegotten, and the "without end" is "without end" unoriginately—it is absolutely necessary that everything without end should be nothing else but unoriginate. And thus you find, my dear friend, your much-touted "unbegottenness," which, in your judgment alone, marks and expresses the essence of the Father, made common to everything that is devoid of death, and makes all things consubstantial with the Father, because it appears in the same way in all those to whom, through immortality, life proceeds to infinity: archangels, angels, human souls; and perhaps even to that apostate power itself, the devil and the demons. For if the "without end" and incorruptible is, according to your word, entirely unoriginate, then the "unbegotten" must ^C necessarily be considered as existing in every "without end" and incorruptible being.

These absurdities befall those who, before learning what they ought to learn, publish their own ignorance through the things they attempt to teach. For if he had any discerning knowledge, he would not have been ignorant of the meaning uniquely present in both the "without origin" and the "without end." And [he would know] that the "without end" is common to all things that are believed to endure in life unto infinity, while the "without origin" belongs only to that which is without cause. How, then, is it possible to deem that which is common to all equal to that which is believed—by all, in a pre-eminent way—to belong only to God? Otherwise, by this [logic], one would either make the "unbegotten" common to all who partake of immortality, or concede that nothing is immortal, if it is only of the unbegotten to be "without end," and conversely, if it is only of the "without end" to be "unbegotten." For thus all "without end" beings would be thought of as unbegotten. But let these things be passed over, and let his customary abuse, which he poured into his words, be shrouded in silence along with them. Let us proceed to the next part of the reading.

Perhaps it seems to me to be well-ordered to let most of the things that follow pass by unexamined. For in all things he is the same, not ^D engaging with things from us, but

^A giving to himself, as if from our argument, occasions for opposition, which anyone who has considered judging will say is vain and superfluous for those to pursue with precision, since every one of those who has read his writing with understanding perceives the slander from his very words. He says that the dignity of God is of a more ancient concept than that of our teacher. Nor do we contradict this; for the dignity of God, which one must indeed consider to be even this, is not only prior to our generation, but it stands above all creation and the very ages. What, then, comes of this for the argument, if it is acknowledged that the dignity of God is superior and more ancient not only to Basil’s, but to all things that exist? "Yes," he says, "but the name is 'dignity'." And who has demonstrated that the appellation is the same thing as the dignity, so that we too might consent to what is said? "The law of our nature," he says, "teaches that in the things being named, the dignity of the names does not lie in the power of those who name." What is this law of nature? And how is it not ratified against all? For if nature legislated such a thing, it ought to have power over all who share in that nature, just as ^B all other things peculiar to nature do. If, then, the law of nature made appellations arise for us from the things themselves, just as blossoms do from seeds or roots, and did not entrust the significant designations of the underlying subjects to the choice of those revealing the things, we would all be humans of one and the same language toward one another. For if the names imposed upon things were not divergent, we would not disagree with one another in the form of our speech. He says it is "holy," and most agreeable to the law of providence, for names to be imposed on things from above. How then did the prophets fail to know what is holy, and how were they not taught the law of providence—those who, according to your argument, in no way deified the unbegotten? And how does God himself fail to know such a form of holiness, he who does not impose appellations from above upon the animals created by him, but grants to Adam the power of name-making? For if, as Eunomius says, for names to be imposed on things from above is agreeable to the law of providence and is holy, then it is altogether unholy and incongruous for appellations to be applied to existing things by those below.

But the caretaker of all, he says, saw fit to implant them in our souls by a law of creation. And if these things were sown into the souls of humans, how is it that from Adam until your transgression the fruit of this vanity did not sprout, though it was, as you say, implanted in the souls of humans, so that unbegottenness ^C was called the name of the Father's essence? For Adam would have said this, and all who came after him from that time, if indeed such a thing had been sown into nature by God. For just as things that sprout from the earth at the present time remain always from the first creation by seminal succession, and no seed is innovated by nature in the present, so also this word

if it were, as you say, sown by God into nature—would have sprouted with the first utterance of the first-formed humans and would have continued along with the succession of those who were born later. But since this was not the case from the beginning—for none of the first humans up to those of the present time have ever spoken in such a way—it is clear that something bastard and surreptitiously introduced has sprouted from the weedy seed, and not from those beautiful seeds which, to speak in the language of the Gospel ^A, God cast into the field of nature. For whatever belongs to common nature does not take its beginning now, but appeared together with nature from the first constitution; just as the activity of the sense organs, and the instinct in humans toward something out of desire or aversion, and whatever else is acknowledged to be common to nature—none of which life has innovated in those who came later, but from the first ones down to the last, the human condition is preserved through everything, with nature neither casting off things that belong to it from the beginning, nor taking on things that do not.

Just as everyone acknowledges that the act of seeing is a gift of nature, while seeing in a technical or expert way comes to those who have devoted effort to the sciences and disciplines through study. For knowledge of how to use a diopter, or the demonstrative contemplation of geometric lines, or anything else of that sort, is not something that everyone possesses—not the act of seeing itself, but the use of seeing for some specific purpose, which has been devised by art. In this way, one might say that the use of reason is common and proper to human nature, implanted from above along with nature and substance. But that it is for humans—who possess the faculty of reasoning from God within themselves—to invent significant voices and names for things, always devising, as it pleases them, certain words as indices and marks of the things themselves for the sake of clarifying what is being declared.

But if these things hold sway, he says that one of two things must be established: either that the invention is older than those who invent it, or that the names which are naturally appropriate to God are pre-existent to all things and later than the generation of humans. Therefore, one must resist and stand against such claims, and engage with such troublesome madness through reason. Who is so simple as to think and believe that they are harmed by such things, if words are believed to be of the faculty of reason, and therefore to confess that the vocal expressions of words are older than those who speak, or to think that one sins against God if humans, after they are born, name God according to their own capacity? For it has already been said that the transcendent nature is not in need of words which are expressed by voice and tongue, and it would be superfluous to insert such trouble and weariness into the discourse. For that which is in nature's view is not unworthy of any thing, and is perfect, neither excessive nor lacking anything necessary, nor does it possess anything that is not necessary. Since, therefore, it has been demonstrated from the preceding discourses that there is no need for it to be called by a name, and it is agreed from the common consent of those who possess understanding,

no one would gainsay that it is the height of impiety to attribute to God that which is not becoming. ^A But I do not think one ought to spend time on these and similar matters, nor to refute in detail what has been said next. For the discourse, elaborated by the adversary, will sufficiently manifest itself to the more attentive as a patron of impious dogmas. For he asserts that the essence itself is incorruptibility and immortality likewise. But I, for my part, whether these things inhere in the divine nature, or whether they are in their signification the essence itself, do not think it necessary to contend with him; for whichever of the things stated wins the day, it will in any case confirm our own argument. For if decay being absent should belong to the essence, then not being from generation will also necessarily belong to it. And thus the argument of unbegottenness will be cast out from the ^B signification that is according to essence. But if, because God is not corrupted, someone says that the essence is incorruptibility, and because He is stronger than death, he defines the very nature as immortality, and the Son is incorruptible and immortal, then the essence of the Only-Begotten will also be incorruptibility and immortality. If, therefore, the Father is incorruptibility, and the Son is incorruptibility, and both are essence, and no difference is conceived regarding the notion of incorruptibility, then the essence will in no respect differ from essence, since the nature is equally alienated in both. Even if, resuming the same points again, he entangles us in what he deems to be the inescapable necessities of dilemmas, saying: "If that which is in the being were to be distinguished by us, we would be establishing that the Divine is composite; but if there is simplicity, it admits that incorruptibility is significant of the essence, and that unbegottenness will necessarily be manifested." We shall again demonstrate him to be an aider of our own arguments. For if he makes the divine essence composite by saying that something inheres in it, he will certainly not reject fatherhood as being outside the essence, but will confess Him Father by nature as incorruptible and immortal; and thus, even against his will, he will admit the Son into the affinity of his nature; for it will not be possible, if He is Father by nature, for the Son to be separated from the natural relation with Him. But if he says it belongs to the Father outside of his nature, so that His simplicity is not at all harmed ^C if that which is according to unbegottenness be signified outside the essence; and if he says that the incorruptible and the unbegotten are significant of the very essence, and insists that each of these names equates to the other, so that there is no difference between them, because the same thing is implied in both, and he speaks of one notion for the incorruptible and for the unbegotten—the one who is the one of these is, in any case, the other as well. But indeed, that the Son is incorruptible is not doubted even by them. Therefore, according to the argument of Eunomius, He is also unbegotten, if "incorruptible" signifies the same as "unbegotten," so that one of two things must be agreed upon: either that the unbegotten signifies something else besides incorruptibility, or that, persisting in the things he has decreed, he will blaspheme in many ways regarding the Only-begotten God, either by making Him corruptible so as not to ^D be unbegotten

or by asserting that He is unbegotten so as not to demonstrate that He is corruptible.

But I know not what I ought to do: whether to follow through in order everything that has been set forth by him with my pen, or to be content with these things and terminate the fight against these vanities. For just as with those who sell lethal poisons, a small experimental sample ^A readily attests to the strength and power of the entire medicine to bring about destruction and death; nor is there anyone who, once he has learned through experience from a single part of the harm inflicted, doubts that the whole of what is sold is a lethal and deadly drug: so I think it fitting that this deadly poison of his discourse, having been demonstrated through the matters examined above, should no longer be doubtful to those who are of sound mind, but that it is in every respect such as has been revealed by the preceding arguments. For this reason, I consider it more desirable not to prolong my discourse by dwelling any longer upon these vanities. But since the ringleaders of error conjure up for themselves from many quarters what might persuade them, and there is a fear lest, because something of what they have elaborated has been held in contempt, a specious occasion for slandering us be afforded, as if we had abandoned what is stronger and more potent: for this reason, I would wish those who are engaged with us in this study, leaving no piece of prattle unexamined, to follow the discourse with a ready mind, wherever it necessarily turns itself against the aggressions of the lie.

Since, then, he has at last with difficulty ceased from the dreaming of his fiction in a deep sleep, and, arming himself with those absurd and insane arguments, transfers his discourse to another dream, much more absurd and senseless than the previous vision; the vanity and absurdity of his labor may be discerned by one who has recognized his captious discourse regarding privation. But to be entwined and involved in all this prattle and trifling would be characteristic of Eunomius and his followers, who apply no care or effort to matters that are most serious and most worthy of study. We, however, shall run through what has been said concisely and summarily, so that neither may any of the accusations be left behind, nor may the discourse bring forth anything empty and vain to useless prolixity.

For indeed, being about to set forth ^C this brilliantly woven discourse regarding those names that signify privation, he professed that he would demonstrate the absurdity of our decrees, as he puts it, an incurable one, and a certain feigned and reprehensible religion. This, therefore, is the promise. But what is the demonstration of these charges? "When some have said," he says, "that God is unbegotten by the privation of generation, we have said, in refutation of these, that this term—and indeed this concept—does not in any way befit God." Let him demonstrate the prime author of this discourse, if any one of those who have been born, from the time that humans came into existence until now, whether among the barbarians or among the Greeks, is shown to have uttered such a thing, and we shall be silent; but no man, in all of human memory, will be found to have said such a thing, unless one were insane. For who is this drunkard, who is so far driven from his seat of reason by madness, or ^D phrenitis, or delirium, as to say...

^A that for the unbegotten God, generation is natural, but having been deprived of what is natural from the "begotten" which was prior, He later became unbegotten? But these are the artifices of rhetoric, namely, in those things where they are caught, to evade the shame of the reproaches by certain summoned pretexts of persons; and so he has also defended himself concerning that excuse, assigning the blame and cause of the indictment to judges and accusers, while being unable to show accusers, or a trial, or a judicial forum. And now, as if correcting another's folly, he says that he has come into the necessity of speaking thus. This is his reproach of our incurable absurdity and our feigned and reprehensible piety. But he says that we, being at a loss, do not have anything to use in the present situation and are turning ourselves about, and even that we are hiding our poverty; and that as to him, he is slandering us on account of worldly wisdom, while they themselves claim the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as their own. ^B This is another dream: to think that so much of the external wisdom belongs to oneself that Basil would appear terrible to him on account of it. Thus, some have often imagined themselves to be sitting on the same throne with kings and to be of higher dignity, with the beguiling vision of dreams planting this opinion about themselves from the desire they have while awake. He says Basil, having nothing to answer to what has been said, slanders him on account of worldly wisdom. Yet he made such a great deal of this accusation, as if he imagined that he was a person terrible to Basil and to any of his disciples for the abundance of his words, if indeed anyone at all is considered by him to be such, or ever was. But as for the intermediate speech—if indeed his servile abuse and unlearned and inept jests, through which he thinks to assault our affairs, can be called speech—I will pass over everything, deeming it execrable and abominable that our discourse should be filled with so many pollutions, ^C just as those who loathe the swollen and stinking ulcers [of others], and who find it difficult to bear the sight of those things which, through the repletion of some grievous humor, have changed the surface of the skin through warts and callouses. But having set forth his mind in a few words, I shall pass over the great stench of what has been said.

I shall expose their sense, however, in a few points, and I shall pass over the great stench of their words. ^D My speech will proceed for a while with freedom, not turning at all to tearing apart any of the things that are being said in a calumnious way. Every speech that is truly speech is a voice signifying the impulses that occur in the mind. Every function and movement of a healthy mind looks toward the knowledge and contemplation of things, to the extent that it is possible. The nature of things is bipartite: the one part is discerned by the mind, the other is perceived by the senses. But as for that which is open to the senses, because it is in the senses and is easily known, common knowledge is set before all, for the judgment of the senses causes no ambiguity concerning the subject; for we judge the differences of colors and the varieties of the remaining qualities by sight, and hearing, or smell, or the sense of touch, or taste; and all those who partake of the same nature know and name them with unanimous consent. And all the remaining things which comprehension...

^A appears to have more superficially regarding the things that circulate in our life, which pertain to the civil life and to the moral end of life. But in the contemplation of the intelligent nature—which is perceptible by the mind alone, because it is situated above the comprehension of the senses—the intelligence, grasping conjecturally at the things which escape the senses, moves us differently toward what is sought. And according to the understanding produced in each of us concerning the subject, we declare, as far as possible, the thing understood, approaching as closely as we can with the power of the things understood through the significance of words.

In these matters, it is often possible for what is sought to be obtained through both, when the intelligence does not stray from the thing sought, and the voice directly declares the concept of the mind through a natural interpretation. ^B Sometimes, perhaps, it happens that one errs in both or in one of these, when either the comprehensive intelligence or the interpretive faculty is carried transversely and wrongly from what is fitting. Since, therefore, there are two things by which all speech is directed—namely, the certain confirmation or security that occurs in the mind and intelligence, and the utterance that is in words—it will always be more excellent that which is proven by both. But it is no less good not to stray from a correct opinion, even if the speech is inferior to the intelligence.

When, therefore, the intelligence applies its effort and work to things that are elevated and invisible—things which sense cannot reach, I speak of the divine and ineffable nature, in which it would be a bold act to grasp anything promptly and quickly with the intelligence, and even bolder to entrust the interpretation of the opinion generated in us to any words whatsoever—then we bid the sound which is in the words to be silent, whether declared this way or that way by the powers of those speaking; and we examine solely the intelligence that is apparent in the words, whether it is sound or otherwise, leaving these verbal or nominal subtilties to the arts of grammarians. ^C Since, therefore, we signify only those things which are known through nominal appellation, and it is not right to embrace with certain known appellations those things which surpass knowledge. For how could that which is ignored be signified? For this reason, since no natural appellation is found in them which plainly expresses the subject, we are forced to reveal the opinion born in us concerning the Divinity with many and diverse names, as far as is possible.

Nevertheless, those things which fall under our comprehension are such that they are either considered in some interval of distinct extension, or provide a notion of local capacity, in which individual things are understood to exist; or they come into our sight by the description of beginning and end, beginning from that which is not and ending in that which is not, equally according to both terms; or—which is the ultimate of all—we comprehend the phenomenon through the composition of bodily qualities, to which destruction, and suffering, and conversion, and ^D change, and things of this kind are conjoined. Wherefore, in order that it may have no kinship with these lowest things

^A we have made use of notions and terms in speaking of the divine nature that set it apart from such things. We state that what is above the eras is "eternal," and what is above a beginning is "without beginning," and what is not finished by any end is "endless," and that which has its subsistence without a body is "incorporeal," and that which does not undergo destruction is "incorruptible," and that which is not receptive to conversion, or passion, or alteration is "impassible," "unalterable," and "invariable." As for such names, those who wish to do so may invent them with skillful artifice as it pleases them, and attach other names to these, such as those that imply stripping away or taking away, or whatever names they please.

^B But let us, conceding this freedom to those who are very eager to teach or learn such things, look only to the mind to see if it contains within itself an opinion that is pious and worthy of God, or the contrary. If, therefore, God were either not before, or will not be at some time, he would not properly be called "endless" or "without beginning." In the same way, neither would he be "unalterable," nor "incorporeal," nor "incorruptible," if indeed one were to think about him as having body, or destruction, or mutation, or anything of that sort. But if it is holy to think nothing of this kind about him, it would be thoroughly impious to use against him words that imply opposition and abhorrence, and to say these things which we have often said before—"incorruptible," and "endless" or "infinite," and "unbegotten," and all that is of such a character—since the meaning assigned to each of these names teaches only the separation from things that are ready at hand for our perception, ^C not interpreting the nature itself that is separated from non-fitting things. For when the meaning of these names points out what God is not, what he is according to nature—that which these things are not—remains in obscurity. But the remaining names, whose meaning is indicative of some position and existence, do not signify the divine nature itself, but rather the showing forth of those things that are piously discerned in it. For, considering that nothing of the things that are, both those that are seen and those that are understood, has a fortuitous and random existence, but that whatever is comprehended in the nature of things depends upon the nature that is supereminent over all things that are, and thence has the cause of its existence; and noting the beauty and greatness of the wonders that are in creation, we take other notions about the Divine from all such things, and interpret each of the notions that arise in us with ^D particular names, following the counsel of Wisdom, which says that from the greatness and beauty of created things, the Creator of all things must be contemplated by analogy. We call the maker of mortal beings a "Creator," and we call Him a "Powerful One" who controls such a creation, whose power was sufficient to bring the substance

^A of it into existence; and just as we are taught by the divine Scripture concerning the incorruptible and perfect judgment to come, we address Him as "Judge" and "Just" by these very names. And to sum everything up, we translate all the notions that arise in our minds regarding the divine nature into the form of names, such that no appellation is used of the divine nature without some specific concept.

Furthermore, we comprehend that the word "God" [Θεός] has prevailed because of a scrutinizing operation or an act of contemplation. For, being persuaded that the Divine is present to all, sees all, and penetrates all, we signify such a thought by this name, being guided to this by the holy voice. For the One who said, "My God, attend to me" [Ps. LIII, 3], and "God saw" [Gen. I, 4], and "God knows the secrets of the heart" [Ps. VII, 10], clearly interprets the meaning inherent ^B in this word, that it is named "God" [Θεός] from "looking" [θεᾶσθαι]. For it makes no difference to say "attend," or "see," or "behold" [θέασαι]. Since, therefore, the one who looks also sees the object that is to be looked at, the One who looks is fittingly called God [Θεός] in relation to what is seen. Thus, even through this word, although we have learned of a certain partial operation of the divine nature, we have not gained insight into His essence; yet, we do not suppose that the Divine suffers any detriment to its glory because we labor under a penury of fitting names. For the incapacity of expressing the ineffable, while indicting our nature’s innate poverty, possesses a proof greater than that of the glory of God, teaching us, as the Apostle says, that the only name fitting for God ^C is to believe that He is "above every name" [Phil. II, 9]. For that He surpasses every movement of thought and is found to be outside of nominal comprehension constitutes an most certain argument of His ineffable majesty for men.

These things we know concerning the names that are uttered in any form regarding God, the exposition of which we have set before more benign listeners in a rough and simple manner, judging it shameful and indecorous for us ourselves to resist vigorously and vehemently against the feeble battles of Eunomius regarding these things. For what could one say to him who claims that we fashion the form of names to be greater and more powerful than the dignity of the things that are named, thereby granting a prerogative to names against the things themselves, and assigning equal honor to unequal things? These things were said thus by his voice. Let him who is able to judge with consideration decide if the vehement accusation ^D of the calumniator against us has any weight, for which it would even be worth defending [the idea] that we grant a privilege to names against the things themselves, when it is manifest to all that no name has an essential subsistence by itself, but every name becomes a certain mark or sign of some essence and thought, which does not exist or even exist in the understanding of itself.

^A But to that which does not subsist by itself, how is it possible to distribute gifts? Let the teacher of deceit, who claims to use names and words aptly, explain this. Indeed, I would not have mentioned these things at all, if it were not necessary through them to demonstrate the weakness of the scribe, both in his mind and in his diction. And whatever he drags in from the divinely-inspired Scripture inappropriately and not according to its purpose, discussing the difference in the immortality of angels and men—I know not to what end he looks, nor what he is contriving by this—these things also I shall pass over.

For the immortal, so long as it is immortal, does not admit of "more" or "less" by way of comparison. For if one of the things being compared had some subjection ^B or portion in the account of immortality by way of comparison, it would be absolutely necessary that such a thing not even be named immortal. For how could that still be properly called immortal, whose mortality the comparative opposition has convicted? And that subtle precision of his, which forbids calling "incorruptible" a notion intermediate to privation, but says that the separation of the superior should be called "privation," whereas the removal of the inferior should not be signified by this name—if these things should prevail, then according to him the apostolic utterance would no longer be true, which says that He alone has immortality and grants it to others. For what link ^C the introduced passage has to the preceding argument, it is not possible for us, nor for any others who possess understanding, to perceive. And because we have not been able to see these wise and subtle points, he calls us ignorant and unlearned in the judgment of matters and the use of names, thus writing in his words; and I shall pass over all such things, as having no force against the truth, without examining them, including his censuring of the understanding of "incorruptible" and "incorporeal" which we set forth, as meaning with each of these appellations—the one, that which has no dimension, in which ^D the tripartite distance of bodies is not contemplated; the other, that it is not capable of destruction. And his saying in these terms that we do not rightly accept the form of names, to fall into inappropriate notions, and that we suppose each of these to be a sign not of them existing or being present, but of existence itself—judging these also to be worthy of silence and deep forgetfulness, I will leave it to those who encounter them to detect for themselves the impiety mixed with folly.

As for his claim that one should not contrast the corruptible with the incorruptible, nor signify by the privative meaning a removal of the inferior, but that existence itself is signified by the subject: if, therefore, the signification of "incorruptible" is not considered privative of corruption by the one who idly makes these technical distinctions, then such a form of the name will, by every necessity, demonstrate the contrary. For if incorruptibility is not a removal of corruption, then it will be an assent to that which is [alt-version omitted] incongruous; for indeed the nature of opposites, as...

^A even if we let pass that bitter construction that God by nature is capable of death, as if someone held the contrary opinion regarding these things, remains. For we consider that in opposites there is no difference between saying that a thing is, or that its contrary is not; just as in the present argument, having stated that God is life, we prohibit by the very power of this confession the thought of death being in Him, even if we do not declare it with our voice. And when we have confessed Him to be incapable of death, by that same logic we have established that He is life.

“But I do not see,” he says, “how God excels His own creatures on account of those things which are not in Him.” And with this scholarly argument, or effort, he calls the great Basil both impious and stupid for having dared to use such ^B words—against whom I would say that he has not been overly profuse in using insults against those who say these things, lest imprudently he should afflict himself with the same reproaches. For perhaps not even he himself would deny that the majesty of the divine nature is recognized in this, that it has no communion with those things of which the nature of the lowest is shown to be a partaker. For if He were any one of these things, He would not have any advantage, but would be altogether the same as each one of those which have a communion of property. But if He is above these things, it is clearly because He does not possess them, and thus He excels those that do possess them; just as we say that one who is without sin is more excellent than those who are contaminated by sins. For to be separated from evil is a proof of being rich in the best things. But let this abusive reviler use his own nature; we, however, having briefly indicated the things said in this part, will return our discourse to the matters proposed.

Similarly, he says, He excels things that are mortal as immortal, and things that are corruptible as incorruptible, and excels those things that are generated as ungenerated. Is the assertion of this impiety against God not clear to all, or is it fitting to reveal this wickedness through argument? Who is ignorant that things which are excelled by the same measure are altogether equal to one another? If, therefore, that which is corruptible and that which is generated are similarly excelled by God, and the Lord is also generated, let Eunomius ^C conclude the sin that arises ^D from the things set forth. For it is clear that he considers generation to be the same as destruction and death, just as in the arguments slightly before this he proclaimed that the ungenerated is the same as the incorruptible. If, therefore, he views destruction and generation with the same eye, and similarly asserts that God is far removed from both, and the Lord is generated, let no one require of us to set forth what follows from this argument, but let him gather the conclusion for himself, if indeed the nature of God stands at an equal distance and by the same logic from the generated as from the corruptible. “But it is not permitted,” he says, “to speak of Him as incorruptible and immortal by the absence of death and destruction.” Let those who are led by the nose, and who are turned about to whatever happens to seem right to each, have faith in his words, and let them say that death and destruction are present to God so that

^A he might be called immortal and incorruptible. For if, as Eunomius says, the privative appellations of these things do not signify the absence of death and destruction, then surely the presence of their opposites and what is alien to Him is established by this artifice. For each of the things that are understood either is entirely absent from something, or it is not absent, for example, light, darkness, life, death, health, sickness, and all such things. In cases where one says that one of the things that are understood is absent, he will necessarily establish the presence of the other. If, therefore, he says that God is not called immortal by the absence of death, he would clearly be establishing the presence of death in Him, and through this, denying immortality to the God of all. For how could He still be truly immortal and incorruptible, if he says that corruption and death are not absent from Him? But perhaps someone will say that we are adhering too captiously to his argument; for no one would be so insane as to seek to establish that God is not immortal, but that of the things which are understood by some in secret, no human has knowledge, since it is through what is said that the conjecture of what is hidden in us comes to be. Let us then resume what was said.

Not by the absence of death, he says, is God called immortal. ^B How are we to take what is said? That death is not absent from God, even if He is called immortal? Therefore, if he bids us understand this, the God of Eunomius will be entirely mortal, and subject to corruption. For He to whom death is not absent does not have the nature of being immortal. But if neither the absence of death nor of corruption is what these appellations signify, they are either used in vain concerning the God of all, or they contain some other meaning within them. Who, then, is this interpreter, this master of technical language? But we, as Eunomius says, being unskilled in the judgment of reality and the usage of names, have learned to call a person "healthy," not by looking at where he derives his strength, but where the disease has been removed; and "unimpaired," not the one who is outside of banquets, but the one who has no impairment in himself; and all other things likewise, whether we name them from what is present or from what is absent—brave, cowardly, sleepy, sleepless, and whatever belongs to this usage. But I do not know what gain there is in deigning to examine these trifles; ^C for to a man living in gray hairs, and looking towards the truth, it is no small cause for condemnation to carry upon one's lips the ridiculous and implacable disputes of the adversary's contentiousness. Therefore, I will pass over those things, as well as what follows them. These are: "No truth," he says, "testifying to any natural conjunction with God." For if this had not been said, who would be the one saying that God is double-formed, except you, who cause every concept of a name to coalesce with the essence of the Father, and say that nothing exists outside, but bring each of the divine names into the essence of God as if into a center? "Then," he says, "nor truly, ^D while registering such a concept with the laws of piety, is it something fabricated from the outside and by us." But I will refrain again from what has been said, as not being mere clowning to those who encounter it.

^A For I have set forth these laughable utterances not in order to provoke laughter in the readers, but so that I might persuade the listener from what sort of equipment of arguments that man, who washes away our simplicity, proceeds, and then brazenly launches an assault upon the truth. Who is he, according to the argument, and what sort of things does he utter—he who exults and boasts before the listeners, whose ears have been covered with elephant-hide, as if they were a delight, and who, stringing together these arrogant, dry-mouthed utterances of his with a poor composition, proclaim him as if he were the victor in the power of words over all others? But he says that the essence itself is immortality. What then of the essence of the Only-Begotten? What are you saying? I would say to him: is it immortality, or not? Since, even in this case, simplicity admits no connection, as you yourself say. If, therefore, he denies that the essence of the Son is immortality, it is clear to what he is looking. For that which is set in opposition to the immortal is not a matter for a very subtle mind to grasp. For just as the consequence of the opposite division demonstrates that what is not incorruptible is corruptible, and that which is not immutable is subject to change, so also is that which is by all means mortal, that which is not immortal. What, then, does the interpreter of these new dogmas say? What will he define for us concerning the essence of the Only-Begotten by its proper name? For I will bring the same question forward to the writer again. Will he grant that this also is immortality, or will he not consent? If, therefore, he does not accept that the essence of the Son is immortality, he will necessarily consent to the contrary, constructing it to be death by means of the destruction of the superior. But if, fleeing from that absurdity, he should name the essence of the Only-Begotten as immortality, he will confess that there is of necessity no difference between them according to essence. For if the nature of both the Father and the Son is equally immortality, and yet immortality is not divided in itself by any reason of difference, is it not therefore granted even by the enemies themselves that no ground for a difference is to be found in the Father and the Son according to essence? ^{B C} But it would be time to set forth his bitter accusation against us, which he made at the end of his discourse, saying that we declare the Father to be from completely nothing; having stolen some word from the context, and having dragged it out, bare and disorganized, from the rest of the body of the text, he attempts to irritate it, tearing at it with insane teeth, or rather, spitting it out (that is, as if spitting out the argument like saliva). I will first state the meaning of those things which were clearly distinguished by the teacher in this discourse, and then I will set forth the discourse itself word for word, so that it may be manifest to all how, to the detriment of truth, it creeps perniciously into the studies of the pious. For our teacher, leading us to the meaning of "unbegotten" through his own arguments, proposed to us such an approach for the knowledge of that which is sought, demonstrating that the meaning of "unbegotten" is far from the notion which pertains to the essence. For the evangelist, he says, having made the beginning of the genealogy of the Lord according to the flesh from Joseph, then always proceeding to one who is older according to time, and defining the end of the genealogy in Adam, ^D

^A and because there was no bodily Father superior to the first-formed man, he called Him the Father of God. He says it is easy for everyone's mind to grasp this about God: that God, from whom Adam is, does not himself have his substance from another, not after the likeness of those whose genealogy is described in human fashion; for since we, by passing through all things, grasp God in our mind ^B after all things, we have understood the principle of all things. Now every principle, if it happens to be dependent on something else, is not a principle. Therefore, God is the principle of the universe; nor is there anything that can be established above the principle of all things. This is the teacher's exposition concerning the meaning of the ingenerate. And that nothing outside the truth has been attributed to him by us, I shall set forth the utterance itself regarding this, word for word. "Luke the evangelist," he says, "in setting forth the genealogy according to the flesh of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, and retracing his steps from the last to the first, began from Joseph: but having said that this one was of Heli, and he of Mattath, and thus leading the narrative by an ascent to Adam, then when he had come to the highest, and had said that Seth was of Adam, and Adam himself of God, he made an end of the ascent here. ^C Just as, therefore, he said that Adam is of God, we shall ask him: And God is of whom? Is it not easy for everyone's mind that it is from nothing? That which is from nothing is, clearly, without a beginning; and that which is without a beginning is the ingenerate. As, then, in the case of men, essence is 'that which is from something,' so it is not possible to call the ingenerate essence even in the case of the God of all." With what eyes do you still look toward your leader? I speak to you, the flock of those who are perishing. How is it that you incline your ears to him who has erected such a monument to his own impudence through these words? Are you not ashamed, even now, if not before, to use such a guide to the truth? Will you not use this as a sign of the madness in his dogmas, that he thus impudently opposes himself to the truth of the Scriptures? ^D Is this how he interprets the divine voices for us? Is this how he stands as a defender and champion of the truth of the dogmas? So as to refute Basil, who traces the genealogy of the God who is in all things from that which does not exist at all? I will state their own wording, I will expose the words of their impudence; I pass over the insults, I do not accuse the abuse and reproaches, I do not blame him whose mouth reeks, because it reeks, nor him who is deformed in body, because he is deformed. For such things are misfortunes of nature, which escape the censure of those who have sense. Therefore, the zeal for insulting is a disease of the reasoning faculties and an infirmity of a soul whose healthy reason has been maimed. I have therefore no concern for his abuses, but that vehement and impregnable knot of his syllogism, through which he brought the accusation against us to his own goal, I will write out clearly in his very words. "For in order," he says, "that it might not be forbidden to call the Son 'from participation' of the One who is, it has escaped his notice that he has said of the God who is over all things that he is from that which does not exist at all. For if nothing is the same as that which does not exist at all,