(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was 
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors. If you 
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Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves 
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing initially 
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi = 
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute = 
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe, 
when necessary.


ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA

AGAINST EUNOMIUS, Books III-VII

[Translated by the Rev. Henry Austin Wilson, M.A., Fellow and Librarian 
of Magdalen College, Oxford.]


BOOK III

1. This third book shows a third fall of Eunomius, as refuting himself, and 
sometimes saying that the Son is to be called Only-begotten in virtue of, 
natural generation, and that Holy Scripture proves this from the first; at 
other times, that by reason of His being created He should not be called a 
Son, but a "product," or "creature."

    IF, when a man "strives lawfully(1)," he finds a limit to his struggle 
in the contest by his adversary's either refusing the struggle, and 
withdrawing of his own accord in favour of his conqueror from his effort 
for victory, or being thrown according to the rules of wrestling in three 
falls (whereby the glory of the crown is bestowed with all the splendour of 
proclamation upon him who has proved victorious in the umpire's judgment), 
then, since Eunomius, though he has been already twice thrown in our 
previous arguments, does not consent that truth should hold the tokens of 
her victory over falsehood, but yet a third time raises the dust against 
godly doctrine in his accustomed arena of falsehood with his composition, 
strengthening himself for his struggle on the side of deceit, our statement 
of truth must also be now called forth to put his falsehood to rout, 
placing its hopes in Him Who is the Giver and the Judge of victory, and at 
the same time deriving strength from the very unfairness of the 
adversaries' tricks of wrestling. For we are not ashamed to confess that we 
have prepared for our contest no weapon of argument sharpened by rhetoric, 
that we can bring forward to aid us in the fight with those arrayed against 
us, no cleverness or sharpness of dialectic, such as with inexperienced 
judges lays even on truth the suspicion of falsehood. One strength our 
reasoning against falsehood has--first the very Word Himself, Who is the 
might of our word,(2) and in the next place the rottenness of the arguments 
set against us, which is overthrown and falls by its own spontaneous 
action. Now in order that it may be made as clear as possible to all men, 
that the very efforts Of Eunomius serve as means for his own overthrow to 
those who contend with him, I will set forth to my readers his phantom 
doctrine (for so I think that doctrine may be called which is quite outside 
the truth), and I would have you all, who are present at our struggle, and 
watch the encounter now taking place between my doctrine and that which is 
matched with it, to be just judges of the lawful striving of our arguments, 
that by your just award the reasoning of godliness may be proclaimed as 
victor to the whole theatre of the Church, having won undisputed victory 
over ungodliness, and being decorated, in virtue of the three falls of its 
enemy, with the unfading crown of them that are saved. Now this statement 
is set forth against the truth by way of preface to his third discourse, 
and this is the fashion of it:--"Preserving," he says, "natural order, and 
abiding by those things which are known to us from above, we do not refuse 
to speak of the Son, seeing He is begotten, even by the name of 'product of 
generation(3),' since the generated essence and(4) the appellation of Son 
make such a relation of words appropriate." I beg the reader to give his 
attention carefully to this point, that while he calls God both "begotten" 
and "Son," he refers the reason of such names to "natural order," and calls 
to witness to this conception the knowledge possessed from above: so that 
if anything should be found in the course of what follows contrary to the 
positions be has laid down, it is clear to all that he is overthrown by 
himself, refuted by his own arguments before ours are brought against him. 
And so let us consider his statement in the light of his own words. He 
confesses that the name of "Son" would by no means be properly applied to 
the Only-begotten God, did not "natural order," as he says, confirm the 
appellation. If, then, one were to withdraw the order of nature from the 
consideration of the designation of "Son," his use of this name, being 
deprived of its proper and natural significance, will be meaningless. And 
moreover the fact that he says these statements are confirmed, in that they 
abide by the knowledge possessed from above, is a strong additional support 
to the orthodox view touching the designation of "Son," seeing that the 
inspired teaching of the Scriptures, which comes to us from above, confirms 
our argument on these matters. If these things are so, and this is a 
standard of truth that admits of no deception, that these two concur--the 
"natural order," as he says, and the testimony of the knowledge given from 
above confirming the natural interpretation--it is clear, that to assert 
anything contrary to these, is nothing else than manifestly to fight 
against the truth itself. Let us hear again what this writer, who makes 
nature his instructor in the matter of this name, and says that he abides 
by the knowledge given to us from above by the instruction of the saints, 
sets out at length a little further on, after the passage I have just 
quoted. For I will pretermit for the time the continuous recital of what is 
set next in order in his treatise, that the contradiction in what he has 
written may not escape detection, being veiled by the reading of the 
intervening matter. "The same argument," he says, "will apply also in the 
case of what is made and created, as both the natural interpretation and 
the mutual relation of the things, and also the use of the saints, give us 
free authority for the use of the formula: wherefore one would not be wrong 
in treating the thing made as corresponding to the maker, and the thing 
created to the creator." Of what product of making or of creation does he 
speak, as having naturally the relation expressed in its name towards its 
maker and creator? If of those we contemplate in the creation, visible and 
invisible (as Paul recounts, when he says that by Him all things were 
created, visible and invisible)(5), so that this relative conjunction of 
names has a proper and special application, that which is made being set in 
relation to the maker, that which is created to the creator,--if this is 
his meaning, we agree with him. For in fact, since the Lord is the Maker of 
angels, the angel is assuredly a thing made by Him that made him: and since 
the Lord is the Creator of the world, clearly the world itself and all that 
is therein are called the creature of Him that created them. If however it 
is with this intention that he makes his interpretation of "natural order," 
systematizing the appropriation of relative terms with a view to their 
mutual relation in verbal sense, even thus it would be an extraordinary 
thing, seeing that every one is aware of this, that he should leave his 
doctrinal statement to draw out for us a system of grammatical 
trivialities(6). But if it is to the Only-begotten God that he applies such 
phrases, so as to say that He is a thing made by Him that made Him, a 
creature of Him that created Him, and to refer this terminology to "the use 
of the saints," let him first of all show us in his statement what saints 
he says there are who declared the Maker of all things to be a product and 
a creature, and whom he follows in this audacity of phrase. The Church 
knows as saints those whose hearts were divinely guided by the Holy 
Spirit,--patriarchs, lawgivers, prophets, evangelists, apostles. If any 
among these is found to declare in his inspired words that God over all, 
Who "upholds all things with the word of His power," and grasps with His 
hand all things that are, and by Himself called the universe into being by 
the mere act of His will, is a thing created and a product, he will stand 
excused, as following, as he says, the "use of the saints(7)" in proceeding 
to formulate such doctrines. But if the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures is 
freely placed within the reach of all, and nothing is forbidden to or 
hidden from any of those who choose to share in the divine instruction, how 
comes it that he endeavours to lead his hearers astray by his 
misrepresentation of the Scriptures, referring the term "creature," applied 
to the Only-begotten, to "the use of the saints"? For that by Him all 
things were made, you may hear almost from the whole of their holy 
utterance, from Moses and the prophets and apostles who come after him, 
whose particular expressions it would be tedious here to set forth. Enough 
for our purpose, with the others, and above the others, is the sublime 
John, where in the preface to his discourse on the Divinity of the Only-
begotten he proclaims aloud the fact that there is none of the things that 
were made which was not made through Him(8), a fact which is an 
incontestable and positive proof of His being Lord of the creation, not 
reckoned in the list of created things. For if all things that are made 
exist by no other but by Him (and John bears witness that nothing among the 
things that are, throughout the creation, was made without Him), who is so 
blinded in understanding as not to see in the Evangelist's proclamation the 
truth, that He Who made all the creation is assuredly something else 
besides the creation? For if all that is numbered among the things that 
were made has its being through Him, while He Himself is" in the 
beginning," and is" with God," being God, and Word, and Life, and Light, 
and express Image, and Brightness, and if none of the things that were made 
throughout creation is named by the same names--(not Word, not God, not 
Life, not Light, not Truth, not express Image, not Brightness, not any of 
the other names proper to the Deity is to be found employed of the 
creation)--then it is clear that He Who is these things is by nature 
something else besides the creation, which neither is nor is called any of 
these things. If, indeed, there existed in such phrases an identity of 
names between the creation and its Maker, he might perhaps be excused for 
making the name of "creation" also common to the thing created and to Him 
Who made it, on the ground of the community of the other names: but if the 
characteristics which are contemplated by means of the names, in the 
created and in the uncreated nature, are in no case reconcilable or common 
to both, how can the misrepresentation of that man fail to be manifest to 
all, who dares to apply the name of servitude to Him Who, as the Psalmist 
declares, "ruleth with His power for ever(9)," and to bring Him Who, as the 
Apostle says, "in all things hath the pre-eminence(1)," to a level with the 
servile nature, by means of the name and conception of "creation"? For that 
all(2) the creation is in bondage the great Paul declares(3),--he who in 
the schools above the heavens was instructed in that knowledge which may 
not be spoken, learning these things in that place where every voice that 
conveys meaning by verbal utterance is still, and where unspoken meditation 
becomes the word of instruction, teaching to the purified heart by means of 
the silent illumination of the thoughts those truths which transcend 
speech. If then on the one hand Paul proclaims aloud "the creation is in 
bondage," and on the other the Only-begotten God is truly Lord and God over 
all, and John bears witness to the fact that the whole creation of the 
things that were made is by Him, how can any one, who is in any sense 
whatever numbered among Christians, hold his peace when he sees Eunomius, 
by his inconsistent and inconsequent systematizing, degrading to the humble 
state of the creature, by means of an identity of name: that tends to 
servitude, that power of Lordship which surpasses all rule and all 
authority? And if he says that he has some of the saints who declared  Him 
to be a slave, or created, or made, or any  of these lowly and servile 
names, lo, here are the Scriptures. Let him, or some other on his behalf, 
produce to us one such phrase, and we will hold our peace. But if there is 
no such phrase (and there could never be found in those inspired Scriptures 
which we believe any such thought as to support this impiety), what need is 
there to strive further upon points admitted with one who not only 
misrepresents the words of the saints, but even contends against his own 
definitions? For if the "order of nature," as he himself admits, bears 
additional testimony to the Son's name by reason of His being begotten, and 
thus the correspondence of the name is according to the relation of the 
Begotten to the Begetter, how comes it that he wrests the significance of 
the word "Son" from its natural application, and changes the relation to 
"the thing made and its maker"--a relation which applies not only in the 
case of the elements of the universe, but might also be asserted of a gnat 
or an ant--that in so far as each of these is a thing made, the relation of 
its name to its maker is similarly equivalent? The blasphemous nature of 
his doctrine is clear, not only from many other passages, but even from 
those quoted: and as for that "use of the saints" which he alleges that he 
follows in these expressions, it is clear that there is no such use at all.

2. He then once more excellently, approximately, and clearly examines and 
expounds the passage, "The Lord created Me."

    Perhaps that passage in the Proverbs might be brought forward against 
us which the champions of heresy are wont to cite as a testimony that the 
Lord was created--the passage," The Lord created me in the beginning of His 
ways, for His works(4)." For because these words are spoken by Wisdom, and 
the Lord is called Wisdom by the great Paul(5), they allege this passage as 
though the Only-begotten God Himself, under the name of Wisdom, 
acknowledges that He was created by the Maker of all things. I imagine, 
however, that the godly sense of this utterance is clear to moderately 
attentive and painstaking persons, so that, in the case of those who are 
instructed in the dark sayings of the Proverbs, no injury is done to the 
doctrine of the faith. Yet I think it well briefly to discuss what is to be 
said on this subject, that when the intention of this passage is more 
clearly explained, the heretical doctrine may have no room for boldness of 
speech on the ground that it has evidence in the writing of the inspired 
author. It is universally admitted that the name of "proverb," in its 
scriptural use, is not applied with regard to the evident sense, but is 
used with a view to some hidden meaning, as the Gospel thus gives the name 
of "proverbs(6)" to dark and obscure sayings; so that the "proverb," if one 
were to set forth the interpretation of the name by a definition, is a form 
of speech which, by means of one set of ideas immediately presented, points 
to something else which is hidden, or a form of speech which does not point 
out the aim of the thought directly, but gives its instruction by an 
indirect signification. Now to this book such a name is especially attached 
as a title, and the force of the appellation is at once interpreted in the 
preface by the wise Solomon. For he does not call the sayings in this book 
"maxims," or "counsels," or "clear instruction," but "proverbs," and 
proceeds to add an explanation. What is the force of the signification of 
this word? "To know," he tells us, "wisdom and instruction(7)"; not setting 
before us the course of instruction in wisdom according to the method 
common in other kinds of learning; he bids a man, on the other hand (8), 
first to become wise by previous training, and then so to receive the 
instruction conveyed by proverb. For he tells us that there are "words of 
wisdom" which reveal their aim "by a turn(9)." For that which is not 
directly understood needs some turn for the apprehension of the thing 
concealed; and as Paul, when about to exchange the literal sense of the 
history for figurative contemplation, says that he will "change his 
voice(1),'' so here the manifestation of the hidden meaning is called by 
Solomon a "turn of the saying," as if the beauty of the thoughts could not 
be perceived, unless one were to obtain a view of the revealed brightness 
of the thought by turning the apparent meaning of the saying round about, 
as happens with the plumage with which the peacock is decked behind. For in 
him, one who sees the back of his plumage quite despises it for its want of 
beauty and tint, as a mean sight; but if one were to turn it round and show 
him the other view of it, he then sees the varied painting of nature, the 
half-circle shining in the midst with its dye of purple, and the golden 
mist round the circle ringed round and glistening at its edge with its many 
rainbow hues. Since then there is no beauty in what is obvious in the 
saying (for "all the glory of the king's daughter is within(2)," shining 
with its hidden ornament in golden thoughts), Solomon of necessity suggests 
to the readers of this book "the turn of the saying," that thereby they may 
"understand a parable and a dark saying, words of the wise and riddles(3)." 
Now as this proverbial teaching embraces these elements, a reasonable man 
will not receive any passage cited from this book, be it never so clear and 
intelligible at first sight, without examination and inspection; for 
assuredly there is some  mystical contemplation underlying even those 
passages which seem manifest. And if the obvious passages of the work 
necessarily demand a somewhat minute scrutiny, how much more do those 
passages require it where even immediate apprehension presents to us much 
that is obscure and difficult?

    Let us then begin our examination from the context of the passage in 
question, and see whether the reading of the neighbouring clauses gives any 
clear sense. The discourse describes Wisdom as uttering certain sayings in 
her own person. Every student knows what is said in the passage(4) where 
Wisdom makes counsel her dwelling-place, and calls to her knowledge and 
understanding, and says that she has as a possession strength and prudence 
(while she is herself called intelligence), and that she walks in the ways 
of righteousness and has her conversation in the ways of just judgement, 
and declares that by her kings reign, and princes write the decree of 
equity, and monarchs win possession of their own land. Now every one will 
see that the considerate reader will receive none of the phrases quoted 
without scrutiny according to the obvious sense. For if by her kings are 
advanced to their rule. and if from her monarchy derives its strength, it 
follows of necessity that Wisdom is displayed to us as a king-maker, and 
transfers to herself the blame of those who bear evil rule in their 
kingdoms. But we know of kings who in truth advance under the guidance of 
Wisdom to the rule that has no end--the poor in spirit, whose possession is 
the kingdom of heaven(5), as the Lord promises, Who is the Wisdom of the 
Gospel: and such also we recognize as the princes who bear rule over their 
passions, who are not enslaved by the dominion of sin, who inscribe the 
decree of equity upon their own life, as it were upon a tablet. Thus, too, 
that laudable despotism which changes, by the alliance of Wisdom, the 
democracy of the passions into the monarchy of reason, brings into bondage 
what were running unrestrained into mischievous liberty, I mean all carnal 
and earthly thoughts: for "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit(6)," and 
rebels against the government of the soul. Of this land, then, such a 
monarch wins possession, whereof he was, according to the first creation, 
appointed as ruler by the Word.

    Seeing then that all reasonable men admit that these expressions are to 
be read in such a sense as this, rather than in that which appears in the 
words at first sight, it is consequently probable that the phrase we are 
discussing, being written in close connection with them, is not received by 
prudent men absolutely and without examination. "If I declare to you," she 
says, "the things that happen day by day, I will remember to recount the 
things from everlasting: the Lord created me(7)." What pray, has the slave 
of the literal text, who sits listening closely to the sound of the 
syllables, like the Jews, to say to this phrase? Does not the conjunction, 
"If I declare to you the things that happen day by day, the Lord created 
me," ring strangely in the ears of those who listen attentively? as though, 
if she did not declare the things that happen day by day, she will by 
consequence deny absolutely that she was created. For he who says, "If I 
declare, I was created." leaves you by his silence to understand, "I was 
not created, if I do not declare." "The Lord created me," she says, "in the 
beginning of His ways, for His works. He set me up from everlasting, in the 
beginning, before He made the earth, before He made the depths, before the 
springs of the waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, before 
all hills, He begetteth me(8)." What new order of the formation of a 
creature is this? First it is created, and after that it is set up, and 
then it is begotten. "The Lord made," she says, "lands, even uninhabited, 
and the inhabited extremes of the earth under heaven(9)." Of what Lord does 
she speak as the maker of land both uninhabited and inhabited? Of Him 
surely, who made wisdom. For both the one saying and the other are uttered 
by the same person; both that which says, "the Lord created me," and that 
which adds, "the Lord made land, even uninhabited." Thus the Lord will be 
the maker equally of both, of Wisdom herself, and of the inhabited and 
uninhabited land. What then are we to make of the saying, "All things were 
made by Him, and without Him was riot anything made(1)"? For if one and the 
same Lord creates both Wisdom (which they advise us to understand of the 
Son), and also the particular things which are included in the Creation, 
how does the sublime John speak truly, when he says that all things were 
made by Him? For this Scripture gives a contrary sound to that of the 
Gospel, in ascribing to the Creator of Wisdom the making of land 
uninhabited and inhabited. So, too, with all that follows(2):--she speaks 
of a Throne of God set apart upon the winds, and says that the clouds above 
are made strong, and the fountains under the heaven sure; and the context 
contains many similar expressions, demanding in a marked degree that 
interpretation by a minute and clear-sighted intelligence, which is to be 
observed in the passages already quoted. What is the throne that is set 
apart upon the winds?  What is the security of the fountains under the  
heaven? How are the clouds above made strong? If any one should interpret 
the passage with reference to visible objects(3), he will find that the 
facts are at considerable variance with the words. For who knows not that 
the extreme parts of the earth under heaven, by excess in one direction or 
in the other, either by being too close to the sun's heat, or by being too 
far removed from it, are uninhabitable; some being excessively dry and 
parched, other parts superabounding in moisture, and chilled by frost, and 
that only so much is inhabited as is equally removed from the extreme of 
each of the two opposite conditions? But if it is the midst of the earth 
that is occupied by man, how does the proverb say that the extremes of the 
earth under heaven are inhabited? Again, what strength could one perceive 
in the clouds, that that passage may have a true sense, according to its 
apparent intention, which says that the clouds above have been made strong? 
For the nature of cloud is a sort of rather slight vapour diffused through 
the air, which, being light, by reason of its great subtilty, is borne on 
the breath of the air, and, when forced together by compression, falls down 
through the air that held it up, in the form of a heavy drop of rain. What 
then is the strength in these, which offer no resistance to the touch? For 
in the cloud you may discern the slight and easily dissolved character of 
air. Again, how is the Divine throne set apart on the winds that are by 
nature unstable? And as for her saying at first that she is "created," 
finally, that she is "begotten," and between these two utterances that she 
is" set up," what account of this could any one profess to give that would 
agree with the common and obvious sense? The point also on which a doubt 
was previously raised in our argument, the declaring, that is, of the 
things that happen day by day, and the remembering to recount the things 
from everlasting, is, as it were, a condition of Wisdom's assertion that 
she was created by God.

    Thus, since it has been clearly shown by what bus been said, that no 
part of this passage is such that its language should be received without 
examination and reflection, it may be well, perhaps, as with the rest, so 
not to interpret the text, "The Lord created me," according to that sense 
which immediately presents itself to us from the phrase, but to seek with 
all attention and care what is to be piously understood from the utterance. 
Now, to apprehend perfectly the sense of the passage before us, would seem 
to belong only to those who search out the depths by the aid of the Holy 
Spirit, and know how to speak in the Spirit the divine mysteries: our 
account, however, will only busy itself with the passage in question so far 
as not to leave its drift entirely unconsidered. What, then, is our 
account? It is not, I think, possible that that wisdom which arises in any 
man from divine illumination should come alone, apart from the other gifts 
of the Spirit, but there must needs enter in therewith also the grace of 
prophecy. For if the apprehension of the truth of the things that are is 
the peculiar power of wisdom, and prophecy includes the clear knowledge of 
the things that are about to be, one would not be possessed of the gift of 
wisdom in perfection, if he did not further include in his knowledge, by 
the aid of prophecy, the future likewise. Now, since it is not mere human 
wisdom that is claimed for himself by Solomon, who says, "God hath taught 
me wisdom(4)," and who, where he says "all my words are spoken from 
God(5)," refers to God all that is spoken by himself, it might be well in 
this part of the Proverbs to trace out the prophecy that is mingled with 
his wisdom. But we say that in the earlier part of the book, where he says 
that "Wisdom has builded herself a house(6)" he refers darkly in, these 
words to the preparation of the flesh of the Lord: for the trite Wisdom did 
not dwell in another's building, but built for Itself that dwelling-place 
from the body of the Virgin. Here, however, he adds to his discourse(7) 
that which of both is made one--of the house, I mean, and of the Wisdom 
which built the house, that is to say, of the Humanity and of the Divinity 
that was commingled with man(8); and to each of these he applies suitable 
and fitting terms, as you may see to be the case also in the Gospels, where 
the discourse, proceeding as befits its subject, employs the more lofty and 
divine phraseology to indicate the Godhead, and that which is humble and 
lowly to indicate the Manhood. So we may see in this passage also Solomon 
prophetically moved, and delivering to us in its fulness the mystery of the 
Incarnation(9). For we speak first of the eternal power and energy of 
Wisdom; and here the evangelist, to a certain extent, agrees with him in 
his very words. For as the latter in his comprehensive(1) phrase proclaimed 
Him to be the cause and Maker of all things, so Solomon says that by Him 
were made those individual things which are included in the whole. For he 
tells us that God by Wisdom established the earth, and in understanding 
prepared the heavens, and all that follows these in order, keeping to the 
same sense: and that he might not seem to pass over without mention the 
gift of excellence in men, he again goes on to say, speaking in the person 
of Wisdom, the words we mentioned a little earlier; I mean, "I made counsel 
my dwelling-place, and knowledge, and understanding(2)," and all that 
relates to instruction in intellect and knowledge.

    After recounting these and the like matters, he proceeds to introduce 
also his teaching concerning the dispensation with regard to man, why the 
Word was made flesh. For seeing that it is clear to all that God Who is 
over all has in Himself nothing as a thing created or imported, not power 
nor wisdom, nor light, nor word, nor life, nor truth, nor any at all of 
those things which are contemplated in the fulness of the Divine bosom (all 
which things the Only-begotten God is, Who is in the bosom of the 
Father(3), the name of "creation" could not properly be applied to any of 
those things which are contemplated in God, so that the Son Who is in the 
Father, or the Word Who is in the Beginning, or the Light Who is in the 
Light, or the Life Who is in the Life, or the Wisdom Who is in the Wisdom, 
should say, "the Lord created me." For if the Wisdom of God is created (and 
Christ is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God(4)), God, it would follow, 
has His Wisdom as a thing imported, receiving afterwards, as the result of 
making, something which He had not at first. But surely He Who is in the 
bosom of the Father does not permit us to conceive the bosom of the Father 
as ever void of Himself. He Who is in the beginning is surely not of the 
things which come to be in that bosom from without, but being the fulness 
of all good, He is conceived as being always in the Father, not waiting to 
arise in Him as the result of creation, so that the Father should not be 
conceived as at any time void of good, but He Who is conceived as being in 
the eternity of the Father's Godhead is always in Him, being Power, and 
Life, and Truth, and Wisdom, and the like. Accordingly the words "created 
me" do not proceed from the Divine and immortal nature, but from that which 
was commingled with it in the Incarnation from our created nature. How 
comes it then that the same, called wisdom, and understanding, and 
intelligence, establishes the earth, and prepares the heavens, and breaks 
up the deeps, and yet is here "created for the beginning of His works(5)"? 
Such a dispensation, he tells us, is not set forward without great cause. 
But since men, after receiving the commandment of the things we should 
observe, cast away by disobedience the grace of memory, and became 
forgetful, for this cause, "that I may declare to you the things that 
happen day by day for your salvation, and may put you in mind by recounting 
the things from everlasting, which you have forgotten (for it is no new 
gospel that I now proclaim, but I labour at your restoration to your first 
estate),--for this cause I was created, Who ever am, and need no creation 
in order to be; so that I am the beginning of ways for the works of God, 
that is for men. For the first way being destroyed, there must needs again 
be consecrated for the wanderers a new and living way(6), even I myself, 
Who am the way." And this view, that the sense of "created me" has 
reference to the Humanity, the divine apostle more clearly sets before us 
by his own words when he charges us, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ(7)," 
and also where (using the same word) he says, "Put on the new man which 
after God is created(8)" For if the garment of salvation is one, and that 
is Christ, one cannot say that "the new man, which after God is created," 
is any other than Christ, but it is clear that he who has "put on Christ" 
has "put on the new man which after God is created." For actually He alone 
is properly named "the new man," Who did not appear in the life of man by 
the known and ordinary ways of nature, but in His case alone creation, in a 
strange and special form, was instituted anew. For this reason he names 
the same Person, when regarding the wonderful manner of His birth(9), "the 
new man, which after God is created," and, when looking to the Divine 
nature, which was blended(1) in the creation of this "new man," he calls 
Him "Christ": so that the two names (I mean the name of "Christ" and the 
name of "the new man which after God is created") are applied to one and 
the same Person,

    Since, then, Christ is Wisdom, let the intelligent reader consider our 
opponent's account of the matter, and our own, and judge which is the more 
pious, which better preserves in the text those conceptions which are 
befitting the Divine nature; whether that which declares the Creator and 
Lord of all to have been made, and places Him on a level with the creation 
that is in bondage, or that rather which looks to the Incarnation, and 
preserves the due proportion with regard to our conception alike of the 
Divinity and of the Humanity, bearing in mind that the great Paul testifies 
in favour of our view, who sees in the "new man" creation, and in the true 
Wisdom the power of creation. And, further, the order of the passage agrees 
with this view of the doctrine it conveys. For if the "beginning of the 
ways" bad not been created among us, the foundation of those ages for which 
we look would not have been laid; nor would the Lord have become for us 
"the Father of the age to come(2), "had not a Child been born to us, 
according to Isaiah, and His name been called, both all the other titles 
which the prophet gives Him, and withal" The Father of the age to come." 
Thus first there came to pass the mystery wrought in virginity, and the 
dispensation of the Passion, and then the wise master-builders of the Faith 
laid the foundation of the Faith: and this is Christ, the Father of the age 
to come, on Whom is built the life of the ages that have no end. And when 
this has come to pass, to the end that in each individual believer may be 
wrought the divine decrees of the Gospel law, and the varied gifts of the 
Holy Spirits--(all which the divine Scripture figuratively names, with a 
suitable significance, "mountains" and "hills," calling righteousness the 
"mountains" of God, and speaking of His judgments as "deeps(3)," and giving 
the name of "earth" to that which is sown by the Word and brings forth 
abundant fruit; or in that sense in which we are taught by David to 
understand peace by the "mountains," and righteousness by the "hills(4)"),-
-Wisdom is begotten in the faithful, and the saying is found true. For He 
Who is in those who have received Him, is not yet begotten in the 
unbelieving. Thus, that these things may be wrought in us, their Maker must 
be begotten in us. For if Wisdom is begotten in us, then in each of us is 
prepared by God both land, and land uninhabited,--the land, that which 
receives the sowing and the ploughing of the Word, the uninhabited land, 
the heart cleared of evil inhabitants,--and thus our dwelling will be upon 
the extreme parts of the earth. For since in the earth some is depth, and 
some is surface, when a man is not buried in the earth, or, as it were, 
dwelling in a cave by reason of thinking of things beneath (as is the life 
of those who live in sin, who "stick fast in the deep mire where no ground 
is(5)," whose life is truly a pit, as the Psalm says, "let not the pit shut 
her mouth upon me(6)")--if, I say, a man, when Wisdom is begotten in him, 
thinks of the things that are above, and touches the earth only so much as 
he needs must, such a man inhabits "the extreme parts of the earth under 
heavens," not plunging deep in earthly thought; with him Wisdom is present, 
as he prepares in himself heaven instead of earth: and when, by carrying 
out the precepts into act, he makes strong for himself the instruction of 
the clouds above, and, enclosing the great and widespread sea of 
wickedness, as it were with a beach, by his exact conversation, hinders the 
troubled water from proceeding forth from his mouth; and if by the grace of 
instruction he be made to dwell among the fountains, pouring forth the 
stream of his discourse with sure caution, that he may not give to any man 
for drink the turbid fluid of destruction in place of pure water, and if he 
be lifted up above all earthly paths and become aerial in his life, 
advancing towards that spiritual life which he speaks of as "the winds," so 
that he is set apart to be a throne of Him Who is seated in him (as was 
Paul separated for the Gospel to be a chosen vessel to bear the name of 
God, who, as it is elsewhere expressed, was made a throne, bearing Him that 
sat upon him)--when, I say, he is established in these and like ways, so 
that he who has already fully made up in himself the land inhabited by God, 
now rejoices in gladness that he is made the father, not of wild and 
senseless beasts, but of men (and these would be godlike thoughts, which 
are fashioned according to the Divine image, by faith in Him Who has been 
created and begotten, and set up in us;--and faith, according to the words 
of Paul, is conceived as the foundation whereby wisdom is begotten in the 
faithful, and all the things that I have spoken of are wrought)--then, I 
say, the life of the man who has been thus established is truly blessed, 
for Wisdom is at all times in agreement with him, and rejoices with him who 
daily finds gladness in her alone. For the Lord rejoices in His saints, and 
there is joy in heaven over those who are being saved, and Christ, as the 
father, makes a feast for his rescued son. Though we have spoken hurriedly 
of these matters, let the careful man read the original text of the Holy 
Scripture, and fit its dark sayings to our reflections, testing whether it 
is not far better to consider that the meaning of these dark sayings has 
this reference, and not that which is attributed to it at first sight. For 
it is not possible that the theology of John should be esteemed true, which 
recites that all created things are the work of the Word, if in this 
passage He Who created Wisdom be believed to have made together with her 
all other things also. For in that case all things will not be by her, but 
she will herself be counted with the things that were made.

    And that this is the reference of the enigmatical sayings is clearly 
revealed by the passage that follows, which says, "Now therefore hearken 
unto me, my son: and blessed is he that keepeth my ways(7)," meaning of 
course by "ways" the approaches to virtue, the beginning of which is the 
possession of Wisdom. Who, then, who looks to the divine Scripture, will 
not agree that the enemies of the truth are at once impious and 
slanderous?--impious, because, so far as in them lies, they degrade the 
unspeakable glory of the Only-begotten God, and unite it with the creation, 
striving to show that the Lord Whose power over all things is only-
begotten, is one of the things that were made by Him: slanderous, because, 
though Scripture itself gives them no ground for such opinions, they arm 
themselves against piety as though they drew their evidence from that 
source. Now since they can by no means show any passage of the Holy 
Scriptures which leads us to look upon the pre-temporal glory of the Only-
begotten God in conjunction with the subject creation, it is well, these 
points being proved, that the tokens of victory over falsehood should be 
adduced as testimony to the doctrine of godliness, and that sweeping aside 
these verbal systems of theirs by which they make the creature answer to 
the creator, and the thing made to the maker, we should confess, as the 
Gospel from heaven teaches us, the well-beloved Son--not a bastard, not a 
counterfeit; but that, accepting with the name of Son all that naturally 
belongs to that name, we should say that He Who is of Very God is Very God, 
and that we should believe of Him all that we behold in the Father, because 
They are One, and in the one is conceived the other, not overpassing Him, 
not inferior to Him, not altered or subject to change in any Divine or 
excellent property.

3. He then shows, from the instance of Adam and Abel, and other exam files, 
the absence of alienation of essence in the case of the "generate" and 
"ungenerate."

    Now seeing that Eunomius' conflict with himself has been made manifest, 
where he has been shown to contradict himself, at one time saying, "He 
ought to be called 'Son,' according to nature, because He is begotten," at 
another that, because He is created, He is no more called "Son," but a 
"product," I think it right that the careful and attentive reader, as it is 
not possible, when two statements are mutually at variance, that the truth 
should be found equally in both, should reject of the two that which is 
impious and blasphemous--that, I mean, with regard to the "creature" and 
the "product," and should assent to that only which is of orthodox 
tendency, which confesses that the appellation of "Son" naturally attaches 
to the Only-begotten God: so that the word of truth would seem to be 
recommended even by the voice of its enemies.

    I resume my discourse, however, taking up that point of his argument 
which we originally set aside. "We do not refuse," he says, "to call the 
Son. seeing He is generate, even by the name of 'product of generation(8), 
since the generated essence itself, and the appellation of 'Son,' make such 
a relation of words appropriate" Meanwhile let the reader who is critically 
following the argument remember this, that in speaking of the "generated 
essence" in the case of the Only-begotten, he by consequence allows us to 
speak of the "ungenerate essence" in the case of the Father, so that 
neither absence of generation, nor generation, can any longer be supposed 
to constitute the essence, but the essence must be taken separately, and 
its being, or not being begotten, must be conceived separately by means of 
the peculiar attributes contemplated in it. Let us, however, consider more 
carefully his argument on this point. He says that an essence has been 
begotten, and that the name of this generated essence is "Son." Well, at 
this point our argument will convict that of our opponents on two grounds, 
first, of an attempt at knavery, secondly, of slackness in their attempt 
against ourselves. For he is playing the knave when he speaks of 
"generation of essence," in order to establish his opposition between the 
essences, when once they are divided in respect of a difference of nature 
between "generate" and "ungenerate": while the slackness of their attempt 
is shown by the very positions their knavery tries to establish. For he who 
says the essence is generate, clearly defines generation as being something 
else distinct from the essence, so that the significance of generation 
cannot be assigned to the word "essence." For he has not in this passage 
represented the matter as he often does, so as to say that generation is 
itself the essence, but acknowledges that the essence is generated, so that 
there is produced in his readers a distinct notion in the case of each 
word: for one conception arises in him who hears that it was generated, and 
another is called up by the name of "essence." Our argument may be made 
clearer by example. The Lord says in the Gospel(9) that a woman, when her 
travail is drawing near, is in sorrow, but afterwards rejoices in gladness 
because a man is born into the world. As then in this passage we derive 
from the Gospel two distinct conceptions,--one the birth which we conceive 
to be by way of generation, the other that which results from the birth 
(for the birth is not the man, but the man is by the birth),--so here too, 
when Eunomius confesses that the essence was generated, we learn by the 
latter word that the essence comes from something, and by the Former we 
conceive that subject itself which has its real being from something. If 
then the signification of essence is one thing, and the word expressing 
generation suggests to us another conception, their clever contrivances are 
quite gone to ruin, like earthen vessels hurled one against the other, and 
mutually smashed to pieces. For it will no longer be possible for them, if 
they apply the opposition of "generate" and "ungenerate" to the essence of 
the Father and the Son, to apply at the same time to the things themselves 
the mutual conflict between these names(1). For as it is confessed by 
Eunomius that the essence is generate (seeing that the example from the 
Gospel explains the meaning of such a phrase, where, when we hear that a 
man is generated, we do not conceive the man to be the same thing as his 
generation, but receive a separate conception in each of the two words), 
heresy will surely no longer be permitted to express by such words her 
doctrine of the difference of the essences. In order, however, that our 
account of these matters may be cleared up as far as possible, let us once 
more discuss the point in the following way. He Who framed the universe 
made the nature of man with all things in the beginning, and after Adam was 
made, He then appointed for men the law of generation one from another, 
saying, "Be fruitful and multiply(2)." Now while Abel came into existence 
by way of generation, what reasonable man would deny that, in the actual 
sense of human generation, Adam existed ungenerately? Yet the first man had 
in himself the complete definition of man's essential nature, and he who 
was generated of him was enrolled under the same essential name. But if the 
essence that was generated was made anything other than that which was not 
generated, the same essential name would not apply to both: for of those 
things whose essence is different, the essential name also is not the same. 
Since, then, the essential nature of Adam and of Abel is marked by the same 
characteristics, we must certainly agree that one essence is in both, and 
that the one and the other are exhibited in the same nature. For Adam and 
Abel are both one so far as the definition of their nature is concerned, 
but are distinguished one from the other without confusion by the 
individual attributes observed in each of them. We cannot therefore 
properly say that Adam generated another essence besides himself, but 
rather that of himself he generated another self, with whom was produced 
the whole definition of the essence of him who generated him. What, then, 
we learn in the case of human nature by means of the inferential guidance 
afforded to us by the definition, this I think we ought to take for our 
guidance also to the pure apprehension of the Divine doctrines. For when we 
have shaken off from the Divine and exalted doctrines all carnal and 
material notions, we shall be most surely led by the remaining conception, 
when it is purged of such ideas, to the lofty and unapproachable heights. 
It is confessed even by our adversaries that God, Who is over all, both is 
and is called the Father of the Only-begotten, and they moreover give to 
the Only-begotten God, Who is of the Father, the name of "begotten," by 
reason of His being generated. Since then among men the word "father" has 
certain significances attaching to it, from which the pure nature is alien, 
it behoves a man to lay aside all material conceptions which enter in by 
association with the carnal significance of the word "father,"' and to form 
in the case of the God and Father a conception befitting the Divine nature, 
expressive only of the reality of the relationship. Since, therefore, in 
the notion of a human father there is included not only all that the flesh 
suggests to our thoughts, but a certain notion of interval is also 
undoubtedly conceived with the idea of human fatherhood, it would be well, 
in the case of the Divine generation, to reject, together with bodily 
pollution, the notion of interval also, that so what properly belongs to 
matter may be completely purged away, and the transcendent generation may 
be clear, not only from the idea of passion, but from that of interval. Now 
he who says that God is a Father will unite with the thought that God is, 
the further thought that He is something: for that which has its being from 
some beginning, certainly also derives from something the beginning of its 
being, whatever it is: but He in Whose case being had no beginning, has not 
His beginning from anything, even although we contemplate in Him some other 
attribute than simple existence. Well, God is a Father. It follows that He 
is what He is from eternity: for He did not become, but is a Father: for in 
God that which was, both is and will be. On the other hand, if He once was 
not anything, then He neither is nor will be that thing: for He is not 
believed to be the Father of a Being such that it may be piously asserted 
that God once existed by Himself without that Being. For the Father is the 
Father of Life, and Truth, and Wisdom, and Light, and Sanctification, and 
Power, and all else of a like kind that the Only-begotten is or is called. 
Thus when the adversaries allege that the Light "once was not," I know not 
to which the greater injury is done, whether to the Light, in that the 
Light is not, or to Him that has the Light, in that He has not the Light. 
So also with Life and Truth and Power, and all the other characters in 
which the Only-begotten fills the Father's bosom, being all things in His 
own fulness. For the absurdity will be equal either way, and the impiety 
against the Father will equal the blasphemy against the Son: for in saying 
that the Lord "once was not," you will not merely assert the non-existence 
of Power, but you will be saying that the Power of God, Who is the Father 
of the Power, "was not." Thus the assertion made by your doctrine that the 
Son "once was not," establishes nothing else than a destitution of all good 
in the case of the Father. See to what an end these wise men's acuteness 
leads, how by them the word of the Lord is made good, which says, "He that 
despiseth Me despiseth Him that sent Me(3):" for by the very arguments by 
which they despise the existence at any time of the Only-begotten, they 
also dishonour the Father, stripping off by their doctrine from the 
Father's glory every good name and conception.

4. He thus shows the oneness of the Eternal Son with the Father the 
identity of essence and the community of nature (wherein is a natural 
inquiry into the production of wine), and that the terms "Son" and 
"product" in the naming of the Only-begotten include a like idea of 
relationship.

    What has been said, therefore, has clearly exposed the slackness which 
is to be found in the knavery of our author, who, while he goes about to 
establish the opposition of the essence of the Only-begotten to that of the 
Father, by the method of calling the one "ungenerate," and the other 
"generate," stands convicted of playing the fool with his inconsistent 
arguments. For it was shown from his own words, first, that the name of 
"essence" means one thing, and that of "generation" another; and next, that 
there did not come into existence, with the Son, any new and different 
essence besides the essence of the Father, but that what the Father is as 
regards the definition of His nature, that also He is Who is of the Father, 
as the nature does not change into diversity in the Person of the Son, 
according to the truth of the argument displayed by our consideration of 
Adam and Abel. For as, in that instance, he that was not generated after a 
like sort was yet, so far as concerns the definition of essence, the same 
with him that was generated, and Abel's generation did not produce any 
change in the essence, so, in the case of these pure doctrines, the Only-
begotten God did not, by His own generation, produce in Himself any change 
in the essence of Him Who is ungenerate (coming forth, as the Gospel says, 
from the Father, and being in the Father,) but is, according to the simple 
and homely language of the creed we profess, "Light of Light, very God of 
very God," the one being all that the other is, save being that other. With 
regard, however, to the aim for the sake of which he carries on this 
system-making, I think there is no need for me at present to express any 
opinion, whether it is audacious and dangerous, or a thing allowable and 
free from danger, to transform the phrases which are employed to signify 
the Divine nature from one to another, and to call Him Who is generated by 
the name of "product of generation."

    I let these matters pass, that my discourse may not busy itself too 
much in the strife against lesser points, and neglect the greater; but I 
say that we ought carefully to consider the question whether the natural 
relation does introduce the use of these terms: for this surely Eunomius 
asserts, that with the affinity of the appellations there is also asserted 
an essential relationship. For he would not say, I presume, that the mere 
names themselves, apart from the sense of the things signified, have any 
mutual relation or affinity; but all discern the relationship or diversity 
of the appellations by the meanings which the words express. If, therefore, 
he confesses that "the Son" has a natural relation with "the Father," let 
us leave the appellations, and consider the force that is found in their 
significations, whether in their affinity we discern diversity of essence, 
or that which is kindred and characteristic. To say that we find diversity 
is downright madness. For how does something without kinship or community 
"preserve order," connected and conformable, in the names, where "the 
generated essence itself," as he says, "and the appellation of 'Son,' make 
such a relation of words appropriate"? If, on the other hand, he should say 
that these appellations signify relationship, he will necessarily appear in 
the character of an advocate of the community of 'essence, and as 
maintaining the fact that by affinity of names is signified also the 
connection of subjects: and this he often does in his composition without 
being aware of it(4). For, by the arguments wherewith he endeavours to 
destroy the truth, he is often himself unwittingly drawn into an advocacy 
of the very doctrines against which he is contending: Some such thing the 
history tells us concerning Saul, that once, when moved with wrath against 
the prophets, he was overcome by grace, and was found as one of the 
inspired, (the Spirit of prophecy willing, as I suppose, to instruct the 
apostate by means of himself,) whence the surprising nature of the event 
became a proverb in his after life, as the history records such an 
expression by way of wonder, "Is Saul also among the prophets(5)?"

    At what point, then, does Eunomius assent to the truth? When he says 
that the Lord Himself, "being the Son of the living God, not being ashamed 
of His birth from the Virgin, often named Himself, in His own sayings, 'the 
Son of Man"'? For this phrase we also allege for proof of the community of 
essence, because the name of "Son" shows the community of nature to be 
equal in both cases. For as He is called the Son of Man by reason of the 
kindred of His flesh to her of whom He was born, so also He is conceived, 
surely, as the Son of God, by reason of the connection of His essence with 
that from which He has His existence, and this argument is the greatest 
weapon of the truth. For nothing so clearly points to Him Who is the 
"mediator between God and man(6)" (as the great Apostle called Him), as the 
name of "Son," equally applicable to either nature, Divine or Human. For 
the same Person is Son of God, and was made, in the Incarnation, Son of 
Man, that, by His communion with each, He might link together by Himself 
what were divided by nature. Now if, in becoming Son of Man, he were 
without participation in human nature, it would be logical to say that 
neither. does He share in the Divine essence, though He is Son of God. But 
if the whole compound nature of man was in Him (for He was "in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin(7)), it is surely necessary to 
believe that every property of the transcendent essence is also in Him, as 
the Word "Son" claims for Him both alike--the Human in the man, but in the 
God the Divine.

    If then the appellations, as Eunomius says, indicate relationship, and 
the existence of relationship is observed in the things, not in the mere 
sound of the words (and by things I mean the things conceived in 
themselves, if it be not over-bold thus to speak of the Son and the 
Father), who would deny that the very champion of blasphemy has by his own 
action been dragged into the advocacy of orthodoxy, overthrowing by his own 
means his own arguments, and proclaiming community of essence in the case 
of the Divine doctrines? For the argument that he unwillingly casts into 
the scale on the side of truth does not speak falsely as regards this 
point,--that He would not have been called Son if the natural conception of 
the names did not verify this calling. For as a bench is not called the son 
of the workman, and no sane man would say that the builder engendered the 
house, and we do not say that the vineyard is the "product(8)" of the vine-
dresser, but call what a man makes his work, and him who is begotten of him 
the son of a man, (in order, I suppose, that the proper meaning might be 
attached by means of the names to the respective subjects,) so too, when we 
are taught that the Only-begotten is Son of God, we do not by this 
appellation understand a creature of God, but what the word "Son" in its 
signification really displays. And even though wine be named by Scripture 
the "product(9)" of the vine, not even so will our argument with regard to 
the orthodox doctrine suffer by this identity of name. For we do not call 
wine the "product" of the oak, nor the acorn the "product" of the vine, but 
we use the word only if there is some natural community between the 
"product" and that from which it comes. For the moisture in the vine, which 
is drawn out from the root through the stem by the pith, is, in its natural 
power, water: but, as it passes in orderly sequence along the ways of 
nature, and flows from the lowest to the highest, it changes to the quality 
of wine, a change to which the rays of the sun contribute in some degree, 
which by their warmth draw out the moisture from the depth to the shoots, 
and by a proper and suitable process of ripening make the moisture wine: so 
that, so far as their nature is concerned, there is no difference between 
the moisture that exists in the vine and the wine that is produced from it. 
For the one form of moisture comes from the other, and one could not say 
that the cause of wine is anything else than the moisture which naturally 
exists in the shoots. But, so far as moisture is concerned, the differences 
of quality produce no alteration, but are found when some peculiarity 
discerns the moisture which is in the form of wine from that which is in 
the shoots, one of the two forms being accompanied by astringency, or 
sweetness, or sourness, so that in substance the two are the same, but are 
distinguished by qualitative differences. As, therefore, when we hear from 
Scripture that the Only-begotten God is Son of man, we learn by the kindred 
expressed in the name His kinship with true man, so even, if the Son be 
called, in the adversaries' phrase, a "product," we none the less learn, 
even by this name, His kinship in essence with Him that has "produced(1)" 
Him, by the fact that wine, which is called the "product" of the vine has 
been found not to be alien, as concerns the idea of moisture, from the 
natural power that resides in the vine. Indeed, if one were judiciously to 
examine the things that are said by our adversaries, they tend to our 
doctrine, and their sense cries out against their own fabrications, as they 
strive at all points to establish their "difference in essence." Yet it is 
by no means an easy matter to conjecture whence they were led to such 
conceptions. For if the appellation of "Son" does not merely signify "being 
from something," but by its signification presents to us specially, as 
Eunomius himself says, relationship in point of nature, and wine is not 
called the "product" of an oak, and those "products" or "generation of 
vipers(2)," of which the Gospel somewhere speaks, are makes and not sheep, 
it is clear, that in the case of the Only-begotten also, the appellation of 
"Son" or of "product" would not convey the meaning of relationship to 
something of another kind: but even if, according to our adversaries' 
phrase, He is called a "product of generation," and the name of "Son," as 
they confess, has reference to nature, the Son is surely of the essence of 
Him Who has generated or "produced" Him, not of that of some other among 
the things which we contemplate as external to that nature. And if He is 
truly from Him, He is not alien from all that belongs to Him from Whom He 
is, as in the other cases too it was shown that all that has its existence 
from anything by way of generation is clearly of the same kind as that from 
whence it came.

5. He discusses the incomprehensibility of the Divine essence, and the 
saying to the woman of Samaria, "Ye worship ye know not what."

    Now if any one should ask for some interpretation, and description, and 
explanation of the Divine essence, we are not going to deny that this kind 
of wisdom we are unlearned, acknowledging only so much as this, that it is 
not possible that which is by nature infinite should be comprehended in any 
conception expressed by words. The fact that the Divine greatness has no 
limit is proclaimed by prophecy, which declares expressly that of His 
splendour, His glory, His holiness, "there is no end(3):" and if His 
surroundings have no limit, much more is He Himself in His essence, 
whatever it may be, comprehended by no limitation in any way. If then 
interpretation by way of words and names implies by its meaning some sort 
of comprehension of the subject, and if, on the other hand, that which is 
unlimited cannot be comprehended, no one could reasonably blame us for 
ignorance, if we are not bold in respect of what none should venture upon. 
For by what name can I describe the incomprehensible? by what speech can I 
declare the unspeakable? Accordingly, since the Deity is too excellent and 
lofty to be expressed in words, we have learnt to honour in silence what 
transcends speech and thought: and if he who "thinketh more highly than he 
ought to think(4)," tramples upon this cautious speech of ours making a 
jest of our ignorance of things incomprehensible, and recognizes a 
difference of unlikeness in that which is without figure, or limit, or 
size, or quantity (I mean in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), and 
brings forward to reproach our ignorance that phrase which is continually 
alleged by the disciples of deceit, " 'Ye worship ye know not what(5),' if 
ye know not the essence of that which ye worship," we shall follow the 
advice of the prophet, and not fear the reproach of fools(6), nor be led by 
their reviling to talk boldly of things unspeakable, making that 
unpractised speaker Paul our teacher in the mysteries that transcend 
knowledge, who is so far from thinking that the Divine nature is within the 
reach of human perception, that he calls even the judgments of God 
"unsearchable," and His ways "past finding out(7)," and affirms that the 
things promised to them that love Him, for their good deeds done in this 
life, are above comprehension so that it is not possible to behold them 
with the eye, nor to receive them by hearing, nor to contain them in the 
heart(8). Learning this, therefore, from Paul, we boldly declare that, not 
only are the judgments of God too high for those who try to search them 
out, but that the ways also that lead to the knowledge of Him are even 
until now untrodden and impassable. For this is what we understand that the 
Apostle wishes to signify, when he calls the ways that lead to the 
incomprehensible "past finding out," showing by the phrase that that 
knowledge is unattainable by human calculations, and that no one ever yet 
set his understanding on such a path of reasoning, or showed any trace or 
sign of an approach, by way of perception, to the things incomprehensible.

    Learning these things, then, from the lofty words of the Apostle, we 
argue, by the passage quoted, in this way:--If His judgments cannot be 
searched out, and His ways are not traced, and the promise of His good 
things transcends every representation that our conjectures can frame, by 
how much more is His actual Godhead higher and loftier, in respect of being 
unspeakable and unapproachable, than those attributes which are conceived 
as accompanying it, whereof the divinely instructed Paul declares that 
there is no knowledge:--and by this means we confirm in ourselves the 
doctrine they deride, confessing ourselves inferior to them in the 
knowledge of those things which are beyond the range of knowledge, and 
declare that we really worship what we know. Now we know the loftiness of 
the glory of Him Whom we worship, by the very fact that we are not able by 
reasoning to comprehend in our thoughts the incomparable character of His 
greatness; and that saying of our Lord to the Samaritan woman, which is 
brought forward against us by our enemies, might more properly be addressed 
to them. For the words, "Ye worship ye know not what," the Lord speaks to 
the Samaritan woman, prejudiced as she was by corporeal ideas in her 
opinions concerning God: and to her the phrase "Well applies, because the 
Samaritans, thinking that they worship God, and at the same time supposing 
the Deity to be corporeally settled in place, adore Him in name only, 
worshipping something else, and not God. For nothing is Divine that is 
conceived as being circumscribed, but it belongs to the Godhead to be in 
all places, and to pervade all things, and not to be limited by anything: 
so that those who fight against Christ find the phrase they adduce against 
us turned into an accusation of themselves. For, as the Samaritans, 
supposing the Deity to be compassed round by some circumscription of place, 
were rebuked by the words they heard, "'Ye worship ye know not what,' and 
your service is profitless to you, for a God that is deemed to be settled 
in any place is no God,"--so one might well say to the new Samaritans, "In 
supposing the Deity to be limited by the absence of generation, as it were 
by some local limit, 'ye worship ye know not what,' doing service to Him 
indeed as God, but not knowing that the infinity of God exceeds all the 
significance and comprehension that names can furnish."

6. Thereafter he expounds the appellation of "Son," and of "product of 
generation," and very many varieties of" sons," of God, of men, of rams, of 
perdition, of light, and of day.

    But our discourse has diverged too far from the subject before us, in 
following one the questions which arise from time to time by way of 
inference. Let us therefore once more resume its sequence, as I imagine 
that the phrase trader examination has been sufficiently shown, by what we 
have said, to be contradictory not only to the truth, but also to itself. 
For if, according to their view, the natural relation to the Father is 
established by the appellation of "the Son," and so with that of the 
"product of generation" to Him Who has begotten Him (as these men's wisdom 
falsely models the terms significant of the Divine nature into a verbal 
arrangement, according to some grammatical frivolity), no one could longer 
doubt that the mutual relation of the names which is established by nature 
is a proof of their kindred, or rather of their identity of essence. But 
let not our discourse merely turn about our adversaries' words, that the 
orthodox doctrine may not seem to gain the victory only by the weakness of 
those who fight against it, but appear to have an abundant supply of 
strength in itself. Let the adverse argument, therefore, be strengthened as 
much as may be by us ourselves with more energetic advocacy, that the 
superiority of our force may be recognized with full confidence, as we 
bring to the unerring test of truth those arguments also which our 
adversaries have omitted. He who contends on behalf of our adversaries will 
perhaps say that the name of "Son," or "product of generation," does not by 
any means establish the fact of kindred in nature. For in Scripture the 
term "child of wrath(9)" is used, and "son of perdition(1)," and "product 
of a viper(2);" and in such names Surely no community of nature is 
apparent. For Judas, who is called "the son of perdition," is not in his 
substance the same with perdition, according to what we understand by the 
word(3). For the signification of the "man" in Judas is one thing, and that 
of "perdition" is another. And the argument may be established equally from 
an opposite instance. For those who are called in a certain sense "children 
of light," and "children of the day(4)," are not the same with light and 
day in respect of the definition of their nature, and the stones are made 
Abraham's children s when they claim their kindred with him by faith and 
works; and those who are "led by the Spirit of God," as the Apostle says, 
are called "Sons of God(6)," without being the same with God in respect of 
nature; and one may collect many such instances from the inspired 
Scripture, by means of which deceit, like some image decked with the 
testimonies of Scripture, masquerades in the likeness of truth.

    Well, what do we say to this? The divine Scripture knows how to use the 
word "Son" in both senses, so that in some cases such an appellation is 
derived from nature, in others it is adventitious and artificial. For when 
it speaks of "sons of men," or "sons of rams(7)," it marks the essential 
relation of that which is begotten to that from which it has its being: but 
when it speaks of "sons of power," or "children of God," it presents to us 
that kinship which is the result of choice. And, moreover, in the opposite 
sense, too, the same persons are called "sons of Eli," and "sons of 
Belial(8)," the appellation of "sons" being easily adapted to either idea. 
For when they are called "sons of Eli," they are declared to have natural 
relationship to him, but in being called "sons of Belial," they are 
reproved for the wickedness of their choice, as no longer emulating their 
father in their life, but addicting their own purpose to sin. In the case, 
then, of this lower nature of ours, and of the things with which we are 
concerned, by reason of human nature being equally inclined to either side 
(I mean, to vice and to virtue), it is in our power to become sons either 
of night or of day, while our nature yet remains, so far as the chief part 
of it is concerned, within its proper limits. For neither is he 'who by sin 
becomes a child of wrath alienated from his human generation, nor does he 
who by choice addicts himself to good reject his human origin by the 
refinement of his habits, but, while their nature in each case remains the 
same, the differences of their purpose assume the names of their 
relationship, according as they become either children of God by virtue, or 
of the opposite by vice.

    But how does Eunomius, in the case of the divine doctrines at least--he 
who" preserves the natural order" (for I will use our author's very words), 
"and abides by those things which are known to us from the beginning, and 
does not refuse to call Him that is begotten by the name of 'product of 
generation,' since the generated essence itself" (as he says) "and the 
appellation of 'Son' makes such a relation of words appropriate",--how does 
he alienate the Begotten from essential kindred with Him that begat Him? 
For in the case of those who are called "sons" or "products" by way of 
reproach, or again where some praise accompanies such names, we cannot say 
that any one is called "a child of wrath," being at the same time actually 
begotten by wrath; nor again had any one the day for his mother, in a 
corporeal sense, that he should be called its son; but it is the difference 
of their will which gives occasion for names of such relationship. Here, 
however, Eunomius says, "we do not refuse to call the Son, seeing He is 
begotten, by the name of 'product of generation,' since the generated 
essence," he tells us, "and the appellation of ' Son,' makes such a 
relation of words appropriate." If, then, he confesses that such a relation 
of words is made appropriate by the fact that the Son is really a "product 
of generation," how is it opportune to assign such a rationale of names, 
alike to those which are used inexactly by way of metaphor, and to those 
where the natural relation, as Eunomius tells us, makes such a use of names 
appropriate? Surely such an account is true only in the case of those whose 
nature is a border-land between virtue and vice, where one often shares in 
turn opposite classes of names, becoming a child, now of light, then again 
of darkness, by reason of affinity to the good or to its opposite. But 
where contraries have no place, one could no longer say that the word "Son" 
is applied metaphorically, in like manner as in the case of those who by 
choice appropriate the title to themselves. For one could not arrive at 
this view, that, as a man casting off the works of darkness becomes, by his 
decent life, a child of light, so too the Only-begotten God received the 
more honourable name as the result of a change from the inferior state. For 
one who is a man becomes a son of God by being joined to Christ by 
spiritual generation: but He Who by Himself makes the man to be a son of 
God does not need another Son to bestow on Him the adoption of a son, but 
has the name also of that which He is by nature. A man himself changes 
himself, exchanging the old man for the new; but to what shall God be 
changed, so that He may receive what He has not? A man puts off himself, 
and puts on the Divine nature; but what does He put off, or in what does He 
array Himself, Who is always the same? A man becomes a son of God, 
receiving what he has not, and laying aside what he has; but He Who has 
never been in the state of vice has neither anything to receive nor 
anything to relinquish. Again, the man may be on the one hand truly called 
some one's son, when one speaks with reference to his nature; and, on the 
other hand, he may be so called inexactly, when the choice of his life 
imposes the name. But God, being One Good, in a single and uncompounded 
nature, looks ever the same way, and is never changed by the impulse of 
choice, but always wishes what He is, and is, assuredly, what He wishes: so 
that He is in both respects properly and truly called Son of God, since His 
nature contains the good, and His choice also is never severed from that 
which is more excellent, so that this word is employed, without 
inexactness, as His name. Thus there is no room for these arguments (which, 
in the person of our adversaries, we have been opposing to ourselves), to 
be brought forward by our adversaries as a demurrer to the affinity in 
respect of nature.

7. Then he ends the book with an exposition of the Divine and Human names 
of the Only-begotten, and a discussion of the terms "generate" and 
"ungenerate."

    But as, I know not how or why, they hate and abhor the truth, they give 
Him indeed the name of "Son," but in order to avoid the testimony which 
this word would give to the community of essence, they separate the word 
from the sense included in the name, and concede to the Only-begotten the 
name of "Son" as an empty thing, vouchsafing to Him only the mere sound of 
the word. That what I say is true, and that I am not taking a false aim at 
the adversaries' mark, may be clearly learnt from the actual attacks they 
make upon the truth. Such are those arguments which are brought forward by 
them to establish their blasphemy, that we are taught by the divine 
Scriptures many names of the Only-begotten--a stone, an axe, a rock, a 
foundation, bread, a vine, a door, a way, a shepherd, a fountain, a tree, 
resurrection, a teacher, light, and many such names. But we may not piously 
use any of these names of the Lord, understanding it according to its 
immediate sense. For surely it would be a most absurd thing to think that 
what is incorporeal and immaterial, simple, and without figure, should be 
fashioned according to the apparent senses of these names, whatever they 
may be, so that when we hear of an axe we should think of a particular 
figure of iron, or when we hear of light, of the light in the sky, or of a 
vine, of that which grows by the planting of shoots, or of any one of the 
other names, as its ordinary use suggests to us to think; but we transfer 
the sense of these names to what better becomes the Divine nature, and form 
some other conception, and if we do designate Him thus, it is not as being 
any of these things, according to the definition of His nature, but as 
being called these things while He is conceived by means of the names 
employed as something else than the things themselves. But if such names 
are indeed truly predicated of the Only-begotten God, without including the 
declaration of His nature, they say that, as a consequence, neither should 
we admit the signification of "Son," as it is understood according to the 
prevailing use, as expressive of nature, but should find some sense of this 
word also, different from that which is ordinary and obvious. These, and 
others like these, are their philosophical arguments to establish that the 
Son is not what He is and is called. Our argument was hastening to a 
different goal, namely to show that Eunomius' new discourse is false and 
inconsistent, and argues neither with the truth nor with itself. Since, 
however, the arguments which we employ to attack their doctrine are brought 
into the discussion as a sort of support for their blasphemy(9), it may be 
well first briefly to discuss this point, and then to proceed to the 
orderly examination of his writings.

    What can we say, then, to such things without relevance? That while, as 
they say, the names which Scripture applies to the Only-begotten are many, 
we assert that none of the other names is closely connected with the 
reference to Him that begat Him. For we do not employ the name "Stone," or 
"Resurrection," or "Shepherd," or "Light," or any of the rest, as we do the 
name "Son of the Father," with a reference to the God of all. It is 
possible to make a twofold division of the signification of the Divine 
names, as it were by a scientific rule: for to one class belongs the 
indication of His lofty and unspeakable glory; the other class indicates 
the variety of the providential dispensation: so that, as we suppose, if 
that which received His benefits did not exist, neither would those words 
be applied with respect to them(1) which indicate His bounty. All those on 
the other hand, that express the attributes of God, are applied suitably 
and properly to the Only-begotten God, apart from the objects of the 
dispensation. But that we may set forth this doctrine clearly, we wilt 
examine the names themselves. The Lord would not have been called a vine, 
save for the planting of those who are rooted in Him, nor a shepherd, had 
not the sheep of the house of Israel been lost, nor a physician, save for 
the sake of them that were sick, nor would He have received for Himself the 
rest of these names, had He not made the titles appropriate, in a manner 
advantageous with regard to those who were benefited by Him, by some action 
of His providence. What need is there to mention individual instances, and 
to lengthen our argument upon points that are acknowledged? On the other 
hand, He is certainly called "Son," and "Right Hand," and "Only-begotten," 
and "Word," and "Wisdom," and "Power," and all other such relative names, 
as being named together with the Father in a certain relative conjunction. 
For He is called the "Power of God," and the "Right Hand of God," and the 
"Wisdom of God," and the "Son and Only-begotten of the Father," and the 
"Word with God," and so of the rest. Thus, it follows from what we have 
stated, that in each of the names we are to contemplate some suitable sense 
appropriate to the subject, so that we may not miss the right understanding 
of them, and go astray from the doctrine of godliness. As, then, we 
transfer each of the other terms to that sense in which they may be applied 
to God, and reject in their case the immediate sense, so as not to 
understand material light, or a trodden way, or the bread which is produced 
by husbandry, or the word that is expressed by speech, but, instead of 
these, all those thoughts which present to us the magnitude of the power of 
the Word of God,--so, if one were to reject the ordinary and natural sense 
of the word "Son," by which we learn that He is of the same essence as Him 
that begat Him, he will of course transfer the name to some more divine 
interpretation. For since the change to the more glorious meaning which has 
been made in each of the other terms has adapted them to set forth the 
Divine power, it surely follows that the significance of this name also 
should be transferred to what is loftier. But what more Divine sense could 
we find in the appellation of "Son," if we were to reject, according to Our 
adversaries' view, the natural relation to Him that begat Him? I presume no 
one is so daring in impiety as to think that, in speech concerning the 
Divine nature, what is humble and mean is more appropriate than what is 
lofty and great. If they can discover, therefore, any sense of more exalted 
character than this, so that to be of the nature of the Father seems a 
thing unworthy to conceive of the Only-begotten, let them tell us whether 
they know, in their secret wisdom, anything more exalted than the nature of 
the Father, that, in raising the Only-begotten God to this level, they 
should lift Him also above His relation to the Father. But if the majesty 
of the Divine nature transcends all height, and excels every power that 
calls forth our wonder, what idea remains that can carry the meaning of the 
name "Son" to something greater still? Since it is acknowledged, therefore, 
that every significant phrase employed of the Only-begotten, even if the 
name be derived from the ordinary use of our lower life, is properly 
applied to Him with a difference of sense in the direction of greater 
majesty, and if it is shown that we can find no more noble conception of 
the title "Son" than that which presents to us the reality of His 
relationship to Him that begat Him, I think that we need spend no more time 
on this topic, as our argument has sufficiently shown that it is not proper 
to interpret the title of "Son" in like manner with the other names.

    But we must bring back our enquiry once more to the book. It does not 
become the same persons "not to refuse" (for I will use their own words) 
"to call Him that is generated a ' product of generation,' since both the 
generated essence itself and the appellation of Son make such a relation of 
words appropriate," and again to change the names which naturally belong to 
Him into metaphorical interpretations: so that one of two things has 
befallen them,--either their first attack has failed, and it is in vain 
that they fly to "natural order" to establish the necessity of calling Him 
that is generated a "product of generation"; or, if this argument holds 
good, they will find their second argument brought to nought by what they 
have already established. For the person who is called a "product of 
generation" because He is generated, cannot, for the very same reason, be 
possibly called a "product of making," or a "product of creation." For the 
sense of the several terms differs very widely, and one who uses his 
phrases advisedly ought to employ words with due regard to the subject, 
that we may not, by improperly interchanging the sense of our phrases, fall 
into any confusion of ideas. Hence we call that which is wrought out by a 
craft the work of the craftsman, and call him who is begotten by a man that 
man's son; and no sane person would call the work a son, or the son a work; 
for that is the language of one who confuses and obscures the true sense by 
an erroneous use of names. It follows that we must truly affirm of the 
Only-begotten one of these two things,--if He is a Son, that He is not to 
be called a "product of creation," and if He is created, that He is alien 
from the appellation of "Son(2)," just as heaven and sea and earth, and all 
individual things, being things created, do not assume the name of "Son." 
But since Eunomius bears witness that the Only-begotten God is begotten 
(and the evidence of enemies is of aditional value for establishing the 
truth), he surely testifies also, by saying that He is begotten, to the 
fact that He is not created. Enough, however, on these points: for though 
many arguments crowd upon us, we will be content, lest their number lead to 
disproportion, with those we have already adduced on the subject before us.


BOOK IV

1. The fourth book discusses the account of the nature of the "product of 
generation," and of the passionless generation of the Only-begotten, and 
the text, "In the beginning was the Word," and the birth of the Virgin.

    IT is, perhaps, time to examine in our discourse that account of the 
nature of the "product of generation" which is the subject of his 
ridiculous philosophizing. He says, then (I will repeat word for word his 
beautifully composed argument against the truth):--"Who is so indifferent 
and inattentive to the nature of things as not to know, that of all bodies 
which are on earth, in their generating and being generated, in their 
activity and passivity, those which generate are found on examination to 
communicate their own essence, and those which are generated naturally 
receive the same, inasmuch as the material cause and the supply which flows 
in from without are common to both; and the things begotten are generated 
by passion, and those which beget, naturally have an action which is not 
pure, by reason of their nature being linked with passions of all kinds?" 
See in what fitting style he discusses in his speculation the pro-temporal 
generation of the Word of God that was in the beginning! he who closely 
examines the nature of things, bodies on the earth, and material causes, 
and passion of things generating and generated, and all the rest of it,--at 
which any man of understanding would blush, even were it said of ourselves, 
if it were our nature, subject as it is to passion, which is thus exposed 
to scorn by his words. Yet such is our author's brilliant enquiry into 
nature with regard to the Only-begotten God. Let us lay aside complaints, 
however, (for what will sighing do to help us to overthrow the malice of 
our enemy?) and make generally known, as best we may, the sense of what we 
have quoted--concerning what sort of "product" the speculation was 
proposed,--that which exists according to the flesh, or that which is to be 
contemplated in the Only-begotten God.

    As the speculation is two-fold, concerning that life which is Divine, 
simple, and immaterial, and concerning that existence which is material and 
subject to passion, and as the word "generation" is used of both, we must 
needs make our distinction sharp and clear, lest the ambiguity of the term 
"generation" should in any way pervert the truth. Since, then, the entrance 
into being through the flesh is material, and is promoted by passion, while 
that which is bodiless, impalpable, without form, and free from any 
material commixture, is alien from every condition that admits of passion, 
it is proper to consider about what sort of generation we are enquiring--
that which is pure and Divine, or that which is subject to passion and 
pollution. Now, no one, I suppose, would deny that with regard to the Only-
begotten God, it is pre-temporal existence that is proposed for the 
consideration s of Eunomius' discourse. Why, then, does he linger over this 
account of corporeal nature, defiling our nature by the loathsome 
presentment of his argument, and setting forth openly the passions that 
gather round human generation, while he deserts the subject. set before 
him? for it was not about this animal generation, that is accomplished by 
means of the flesh, that we had any need to learn. Who is so foolish, when 
he looks on himself, and considers human nature in himself, as to seek 
another interpreter of his own nature, and to need to be told all the 
unavoidable passions which are included in the thought of bodily 
generation--that he who begets is affected in one way, that which is 
begotten in another--so that the man should learn from this instruction 
that he himself begets by means of passion, and that passion was the 
beginning of his own generation? For it is all the same whether these 
things are passed over or spoken, and whether one publishes these secrets 
at length, or keeps hidden in silence things that should be left unsaid, we 
are not ignorant of the fact that our nature progresses by way of passion. 
But what we are seeking is that a clear account should be given of the 
exalted and unspeakable existence of the Only-begotten, whereby He is 
believed to be of the Father.

    Now, while this is the enquiry set before him, our new theologian 
enriches his discourse with "flowing," and "passion," and "material cause," 
and some "action" which "is not pure" from pollution, and all other phrases 
of this kind(4). I know not under what influence it is that he who says, in 
the superiority of his wisdom, that nothing incomprehensible is left beyond 
his own knowledge, and promises to explain the unspeakable generation of 
the Son, leaves the question before him, and plunges like an eel into the 
slimy mud of his arguments, after the fashion of that Nicodemus who came by 
night, who, when our Lord was teaching him of the birth from above, rushed 
in thought to the hollow of the womb, and raised a doubt how one could 
enter a second time into the womb, with the words, "How can these things 
be?(5)" thinking that he would prove the spiritual birth impossible, by the 
fact that an old man could not again be born within his mother's bowels. 
But the Lord corrects his erroneous idea, saying that the properties of the 
flesh and the spirit are distinct. Let Eunomius also, if he will, correct 
himself by the like reflection. For he who ponders on the truth ought, I 
imagine, to contemplate his subject according to its own properties, not to 
slander the immaterial by a charge against things material. For if a man, 
or a bull, or any other of those things which are generated by the flesh, 
is not free from passion in generating or being generated, what has this to 
do with that Nature which is without passion and without corruption? The 
fact that we are mortal is no objection to the immortality of the Only-
begotten, nor does men's propensity to vice render doubtful the 
immutability that is found in the Divine Nature, nor is any other of our 
proper attributes transferred to God; but the peculiar nature of the human 
and the Divine life is separated, and without common ground, and their 
distinguishing properties stand entirely apart, so that those of the latter 
are not apprehended in the former, nor, conversely, those of the former in 
the latter.

    How comes it, therefore, that Eunomius, when the Divine generation is 
the subject for discourse, leaves his subject, and discusses at length the 
things of earth, when on this matter we have no dispute with him? Surely 
our craftsman's aim is clear,--that by the slanderous insinuation of 
passion he may raise an objection to the generation of the Lord. And here I 
pass by the blasphemous nature of his view, and admire the man for his 
acuteness,--how mindful he is of his own zealous endeavour, who, having by 
his previous statements established the theory that the Son must be, and 
must be called, a "product of generation," now contends for the view that 
we ought not to entertain regarding Him the conception Of generation. For, 
if all generation, as this author imagines, has linked with it the 
condition of passion, we are hereby absolutely compelled to admit that what 
is foreign to passion is alien also from generation: for if these things, 
passion and generation, are considered as conjoined, He that has no share 
in the one would not have any participation in the other. How then does he 
call Him a "product" by reason of His generation, of Whom he tries to show 
by the arguments he now uses, that He was not generated? and for what cause 
does he fight against our master(6), who counsels us in matters of Divine 
doctrine not to presume in name-making, but to confess that He is generated 
without transforming this conception into the formula of a name, so as to 
call Him Who is generated "a product of generation," as this term is 
properly applied in Scripture to things inanimate, or to those which are 
mentioned "as a figure of wickedness(7)"? When we speak of the propriety of 
avoiding the use of the term "product," he prepares for action that 
invincible rhetoric of his, and takes also to support him his frigid 
grammatical phraseology, and by his skilful misuse of names, or 
equivocation, or whatever one may properly call his processes--by these 
means, I say, he brings his syllogisms to their conclusion, "not refusing 
to call Him Who is begotten by the name of 'product of generation.'" Then, 
as soon as we admit the term, and proceed to examine the conception 
involved in the name, on the theory that thereby is vindicated the 
community of essence, he again retracts his own words, and contends for the 
view that the "product of generation" is not generated, raising an 
objection by his foul account of bodily generation, against the pure and 
Divine and passionless generation of the Son, on the ground that it is not 
possible that the two things, the true relationship to the Father, and 
exemption of His nature from passion, should be found to coincide in God, 
but that, if there were no passion, there would be no generation, and that, 
if one should acknowledge the true relationship, he would thereby, in 
admitting generation, certainly admit passion also.

    Not thus speaks the sublime John, not thus that voice of thunder which 
proclaims the mystery of the Theology, who both names Him Son of God and 
purges his proclamation from every idea of passion. For behold how in the 
very beginning of his Gospel he prepares our ears, how great forethought is 
shown by the teacher that none of his hearers should fall into low ideas on 
the subject, slipping by ignorance into any incongruous conceptions. For in 
order to lead the untrained hearing as far away as possible from passion, 
he does not speak in his opening words of "Son," or" Father," or 
"generation," that no one should either, on hearing first of all of a 
"Father," be hurried on to the obvious signification of the word, or, on 
learning the proclamation of a "Son," should understand that name in the 
ordinary sense, or stumble, as at a "stone of stumbling(8)," at the word 
"generation"; but instead of "the Father," he speaks of "the Beginning": 
instead of "was begotten," he says "was": and instead of "the Son," he says 
"the Word": and declares "In the Beginning was the Word(9)." What passion, 
pray, is to be found in these words, "beginning," and "was," and "Word"? Is 
"the beginning" passion? does "was" imply passion? does "the Word" exist by 
means of passion? Or are we to say, that as passion is not to be found in 
the terms used, so neither is affinity expressed by the proclamation? Yet 
how could the Word's community of essence, and real relationship, and co 
eternity with the Beginning, be more strongly shown by other words than by 
these? For he does not say, "Of the Beginning was begotten the Word," that 
he may not separate the Word from the Beginning by any conception of 
extension in time, but he proclaims together with the Beginning Him also 
Who was in the Beginning, making the word "was" common to the Beginning and 
to the Word, that the Word may not linger after the Beginning, but may, by 
entering in together with the faith as to the Beginning, by its 
proclamation forestall our hearing, before this admits the Beginning itself 
in isolation. Then he declares, "And the Word was with God." Once more the 
Evangelist fears for our untrained state, once more he dreads our childish 
and untaught condition: he does not yet entrust to our ears the appellation 
of "Father," lest any of the more carnally minded, learning of "the 
Father," may be led by his understanding to imagine also by consequence a 
mother. Neither does he yet name in his proclamation the Son; for he still 
suspects our customary tendency to the lower nature, and fears lest any, 
hearing of the Son, should humanize the Godhead by an idea of passion. For 
this reason, resuming his proclamation, he again calls him "the Word," 
making this the account of His nature to thee in thine unbelief. For as thy 
word proceeds from thy mind, without requiring the intervention of passion, 
so here also, in hearing of the Word, thou shalt conceive that which is 
from something, and shalt not conceive passion. Hence, once more resuming 
his proclamation, he says, "And the Word was with God." O, how does he make 
the Word commensurate with God! rather, how does he extend the infinite in 
comparison with the infinite! "The Word was with God"--the whole being of 
the Word, assuredly, with the whole being of God. Therefore, as great as 
God is, so great, clearly, is the Word also that is with Him; so that if 
God is limited, then will the Word also, surely, be subject to limitation. 
But if the infinity of God exceeds limit, neither is the Word that is 
contemplated with Him comprehended by limits and measures. For no one would 
deny that the Word is contemplated together with the entire Godhead of the 
Father, so that he should make one part of the Godhead appear to be in the 
Word, and another destitute of the Word. Once more the spiritual voice of 
John speaks, once more the Evangelist in his proclamation takes tender care 
for the hearing of those who are in childhood: not yet have we so much 
grown by the hearing of his first words as to hear of "the Son," and yet 
remain firm without being moved from our footing by the influence of the 
wonted sense. Therefore our herald, crying once more aloud, still proclaims 
in his third utterance "the Word," and not "the Son," saying, "And the Word 
was God." First he declared wherein He was, then with whom He was, and now 
he says what He is, completing, by his third repetition, the object of his 
proclamation. For he says, "It is no Word of those that are readily 
understood, that I declare to you, but God under the designation of the 
Word." For this Word, that was in the Beginning, and was with God, was not 
anything else besides God, but was also Himself God. And forthwith the 
herald, reaching the full height of his lofty speech, declares that this 
God Whom his proclamation sets forth is He by Whom all things were made, 
and is life, and the light of men, and the true light that shineth in 
darkness, yet is not obscured by the darkness, sojourning with His own, yet 
not received by His own: and being made flesh, and tabernacling, by means 
of the flesh, in man's nature. And when he has first gone through this 
number and variety of statements, he then names the Father and the Only-
begotten, when there can be no danger that what has been purified by so 
many precautions should be allowed, in consequence of the sense of the word 
"Father," to Sink down to any meaning tainted with pollution, for, "we 
beheld His glory," he says, "the glory as of the Only-begotten of the 
Father."

    Repeat, then, Eunomius, repeat this clever objection of yours to the 
Evangelist: "How dost thou give the name of 'Father' in thy discourse, how 
that of Only-begotten, seeing that all bodily generation is operated by 
passion?" Surely truth answers you on his behalf, that the mystery of 
theology is one thing, and the physiology of unstable bodies is another. 
Wide is the interval by which they are fenced off one from the other. Why 
do you join together in your argument what cannot blend? how do you defile 
the purity of the Divine generation by your foul discourse? how do you make 
systems for the incorporeal by the passions that affect the body? Cease to 
draw your account of the nature of things above from those that are below. 
I proclaim the Lord as the Son of God, because the gospel from heaven, 
given-through the bright cloud, thus proclaimed Him; for "This," He saith, 
"is My beloved Son(1)." Yet, though I was taught that He is the Son, I was 
not dragged down by the name to the earthly significance of "Son," but I 
both know that He is from the Father and do not know that He is from 
passion. And this, moreover, I will add to what has been said, that I know 
even a bodily generation which is pure from passion, so that even on this 
point Eunomius' physiology of bodily generation is proved false, if, that 
is to say, a bodily birth can be found which does not admit passion. Tell 
me, was the Word made flesh, or not? You would not, I presume, say that It 
was not. It was so made, then, and there is none who denies it. How then 
was it that "God was manifested in the flesh(2)"? "By birth," of course you 
will say. But what sort of birth do you speak of? Surely it is clear that 
you speak of that from the virginity, and that "that which was conceived in 
her was of the Holy Ghost(3)," and that "the days were accomplished that 
she should be delivered, and she brought forth(4)," and none the less was 
her purity preserved in her child-bearing. You believe, then, that that 
birth which took place from a woman was pure from passion, if you do 
believe, but you refuse to admit the Divine and incorruptible generation 
from the Father, that you may avoid the idea of passion in generation. But 
I know well that it is not passion he seeks to avoid in his doctrine, for 
that he does not discern at all in the Divine and incorruptible nature; but 
to the end that the Maker of all creation may be accounted a part of 
creation, he builds up these arguments in order to a denial of the Only-
begotten God, and uses his pretended caution about passion to help him in 
his task.

2. He convicts Eunomius of having used of the Only-begotten terms 
applicable to the existence of the earth, and thus shows that his intention 
is to prove the Son to be a being, mutable and created.

    And this he shows very plainly by his contention against our arguments, 
where he says that "the essence of the Son came into being from the Father, 
not put forth by way of extension, not separated from its conjunction with 
Him that generated Him by flux or division, not perfected by way of growth, 
not transformed by way of change, but obtaining existence by the mere will 
of the Generator." Why, what man whose mental senses are not closed up is 
left in ignorance by this utterance that by these statements the Son is 
being represented by Eunomius as a part of the creation? What hinders us 
from saying all this word for word as it stands, about every single one of 
the things we contemplate in creation? Let us apply, if you will, the 
definition to any of the things that appear in creation, and if it does not 
admit the same sequence, we will condemn ourselves for having examined the 
definition slightingly, and not with the care that befits the truth. Let us 
exchange, then, the name of the Son, and so read the definition word by 
word. We say that the essence of the earth came into being from the Father, 
not separated by way of extension or division from its conjunction with Him 
Who generated it, nor perfected by way of growth, nor put forth by way of 
change, but obtaining existence by the mere will of Him Who generated it. 
Is there anything in what we have said that does not apply to the existence 
of the earth? I think no one would say so: for God did not put forth the 
earth by being extended, nor bring its essence into existence by flowing or 
by dissevering Himself from conjunction with Himself, nor did He bring it 
by means of gradual growth from being small to completeness of magnitude, 
nor was He fashioned into the form of earth by undergoing mutation or 
alteration, but His will sufficed Him for the existence of all things that 
were made: "He spake and they were generated(5)," so that even the name of 
"generation" does not fail to accord with the existence of the earth. Now 
if these things may be truly said of the parts of the universe, what doubt 
is still left as to our adversaries' doctrine, that while, so far as words 
go, they call Him "Son," they represent Him as being one of the things that 
came into existence by creation, set before the rest only in precedence of 
order? just as you might say about the trade of a smith, that from it come 
all things that are wrought out of iron; but that the instrument of the 
tongs and hammer, by which the iron is fashioned for use, existed before 
the making of the rest; yet, while this has precedence of the rest, there 
is not on that account any difference in respect of matter between the 
instrument that fashions and the iron that is shaped by the instrument, 
(for both one and the other are iron,) but the one form is earlier than the 
other. Such is the theology of heresy touching the Son,--to imagine that 
there is no difference between the Lord Himself and the things that were 
made by Him, save the difference in respect of order.

    Who that is in any sense classed among Christians admits that the 
definition(6) of the essence of the parts of the world, and of Him Who made 
the world, is the same? For my own part I shudder at the blasphemy, knowing 
that where the definition of things is the same neither is their nature 
different. For as the definition of the essence of Peter and John and other 
men is common and their nature is one, in the same way, if the Lord were in 
respect of nature even as the parts of the world, they must acknowledge 
that He is also subject to those things, whatever they may be, which they 
perceive in them. Now the world does not last for ever: thus, according to 
them, the Lord also will pass away with the heaven and the earth, if, as 
they say, He is of the same kind with the world. If on the other hand He is 
confessed to be eternal, we must needs suppose that the world too is not 
without some part in the Divine nature, if, as they say, it corresponds 
with the Only-begotten in the matter of creation. You see where this fine 
process of inference makes the argument tend, like a stone broken off from 
a mountain ridge and rushing down-hill by its own weight. For either the 
elements of the world must be Divine, according to the foolish belief of 
the Greeks, or the Son must not be worshipped. Let us consider it thus. We 
say that the creation, both what is perceived by the mind, and that which 
is of a nature to be perceived by sense, came into being from nothing: this 
they declare also of the Lord. We say that all things that have been made 
consist by the will of God: this they tell us also of the Only-begotten. We 
believe that neither the angelic creation nor the mundane is of the essence 
of Him that made it: and they make Him also alien from the essence of the 
Father. We confess that all things serve Him that made them: this view they 
also hold of the Only-begotten. Therefore, of necessity, whatever else it 
may be that they conceive of the creation, all these attributes they will 
also attach to the Only-begotten: and whatever they believe of Him, this 
they will also conceive of the creation: so that, if they confess the Lord 
as God, they will also deify the rest of the creation. On the other hand, 
if they define these things to be without share in the Divine nature, they 
will not reject the same conception touching the Only-begotten also. 
Moreover no sane man asserts Godhead of the creation. Then neither I do not 
utter the rest, lest I lend my tongue to the blasphemy of the enemy. Let 
those say what consequence follows, whose mouth is well trained in 
blasphemy. But their doctrine is evident even if they hold their peace. For 
one of two things must necessarily happen:--either they will depose the 
Only-begotten God, so that with them He will no more either be, or be 
called so: or, if they assert Godhead of Him, they will equally assert it 
of all creation:--or, (for this is still left to them,) they will shun the 
impiety that appears on either side, and take refuge in the orthodox 
doctrine, and will assuredly agree with us that He is not created, that 
they may confess Him to be truly God.

    What need is there to take time to recount all the other blasphemies 
that underlie his doctrine, starting from this beginning? For by what we 
have quoted, one who considers the inference to be drawn will understand 
that the father of falsehood, the maker of death, the inventor of 
wickedness, being created in a nature intellectual and incorporeal, was not 
by that nature hindered from becoming what he is by way of change. For the 
mutability of essence, moved either way at will, involves a capacity of 
nature that follows the impulse of determination, so as to become that to 
which its determination leads it. Accordingly they will define the Lord as 
being capable even of contrary dispositions, drawing Him down as it were to 
a rank equal with the angels, by the conception of creation(7). But let 
them listen to the great voice of Paul. Why is it that he says that He 
alone has been called Son? Because He is not of the nature of angels, but 
of that which is more excellent. "For unto which of the angels said He at 
any time, 'Thou art My Son, This day have I begotten Thee'? and when again 
He bringeth the first-begotten into the world He saith, 'And let all the 
angels of God worship Him.' And of the angels He saith, 'Who maketh His 
angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire': but of the Son He 
saith, 'Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness 
is the sceptre of Thy kingdom(8),'" and all else that the prophecy recites 
together with these words in declaring His Godhead. And he adds also from 
another Psalm the appropriate words, "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast 
laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thine 
hands," and the rest, as far as "But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall 
not fail(9)," whereby he describes the immutability and eternity of His 
nature. If, then, the Godhead of the Only-begotten is as far above the 
angelic nature as a master is superior to his slaves, how do they make 
common either with the sensible creation Him Who is Lord of the creation, 
or with the nature of the angels Him Who is worshipped by them(1), by 
detailing, concerning the manner of His existence, statements which will 
properly apply to the individual things we contemplate in creation, even as 
we already showed the account given by heresy, touching the Lord, to be 
closely and appropriately applicable to the making of the earth?

3. He then again admirably discussed the term prwto'tokos as it is four 
times employed Apostle.

    But that the readers of our work may find no ambiguity left of such a 
kind as to afford any support to the heretical doctrines, it may be worth 
while to add to the passages examined by us this point also from Holy 
Scripture. They will perhaps raise a question from the very apostolic 
writings which we quoted: "How could He be called 'the first-born of 
creation(2)' if He were not what creation is? for every first-born is the 
first-born not of another kind, but of its own as Reuben, having precedence 
in respect of birth of those who are counted after him, was the first-born, 
a man the first-born of men; and many others are called the first-born of 
the brothers who are reckoned with them." They say then, "We assert that He 
Who is 'the first-born of creation' is of that same essence which we 
consider the essence of all creation. Now if the whole creation is of one 
essence with the Father of all, we will not deny that the first born of 
creation is this also: but if the God of all differs in essence from the 
creation, we must of necessity say that neither has the first-born of 
creation community in essence with God." The structure of this objection is 
not. I think, at all less imposing in the form in which it is alleged by 
us, than in the form in which it would probably be brought against us by 
our adversaries. But what we ought to know as regards this point shall now, 
so far as we are able, be plainly set forth in our discourse.

    Four times the name of "first-born" or "first-begotten" is used by the 
Apostle in all his writings: but he has made mention of the name in 
different senses and not in the same manner. For now he speaks of "the 
first-born of all creation(3)," and again of "the first-born among many 
brethren(4)," then of "the first-born from the dead(5);" and in the Epistle 
to the Hebrews the name of "first-begotten" is absolute, being mentioned by 
itself: for he speaks thus, "When again He bringeth the first-begotten into 
the world, He saith, 'Let all the angels worship Him(6).'" As these 
passages are thus distinct, it may be well to interpret each of them 
separately by itself, how He is the "first-born of creation," how "among 
many brethren," how "from the dead," and how, spoken of by Himself apart 
from each of these, when He is again brought into the world, He is 
worshipped by all His angels. Let us begin then, if you will, our survey of 
the passages before us with the last-mentioned.

    "When again He bringeth in," he says, "the first-begotten into the 
world." The addition of "again" shows, by the force of this word, that this 
event happens not for the first time: for we use tiffs word of the 
repetition of things which have once happened. He signifies, therefore, by 
the phrase, the dread appearing of the Judge at the end of the ages, when 
He is seen no more in the form of a servant, but seated in glory upon the 
throne of His kingdom, and worshipped by all the angels that are around 
Him. Therefore He Who once entered into the world, becoming the first-born 
"from the dead," and "of His brethren," and "of all creation," does not, 
when He comes again into the world as He that judges the world in 
righteousness(7), as the prophecy saith, east off the name of the first-
begotten, which He once received for our sakes; but as at the name of 
Jesus, which is above every name, every knee bows(8), so also the company 
of all the angels worships Him Who comes in the name of the First-begotten, 
in their rejoicing over the restoration of men, wherewith, by becoming the 
first-born among us, He restored us again to the grace which we had at the 
beginning(9). For since there is joy among the angels over those who are 
rescued from sin, (because until now that creation groaneth and travaileth 
in pain at the vanity that affects us(1), judging our perdition to be their 
own loss,) when that manifestation of the sons of God takes place which 
they look for and expect, and when the sheep is brought safe to the hundred 
above, (and we surely--humanity that is to say--are that sheep which the 
Good Shepherd saved by becoming the first begotten(2)) then especially will 
they offer, in their intense thanksgiving on our behalf, their worship to 
God, Who by being first-begotten restored him that bad wandered from his 
Father's home.

    Now that we have arrived at the understanding of these words, no one 
could any longer hesitate as to the other passages, for what reason He is 
the first-born, either "of the dead," or "of the creation," or "among many 
brethren." For all these passages refer to the same point, although each of 
them sets forth some special conception. He is the first-born from the 
dead, Who first by Himself loosed the pains of death(3), that He might also 
make that birth of the resurrection a way for all men(4). Again, He becomes 
"the first-born among many brethren," Who is born before us by the new 
birth of regeneration in water, for the travail whereof the hovering of the 
Dove was the midwife, whereby He makes those who share with Him in the like 
birth to be His own brethren, and becomes the first-born of those who after 
Him are born of water and of the Spirit(5): and to speak briefly, as there 
are in us three births, whereby human nature is quickened, one of the body, 
another in the sacrament of regeneration, another by that resurrection of 
the dead for which we look, He is first-born in all three:--of the twofold 
regeneration which is wrought by two (by baptism and by the resurrection), 
by being Himself the leader in each of them; while it, the flesh He is 
first-born, as having first and alone devised in His own case that birth 
unknown to nature, which no one in the many generations of men had 
originated. If these passages, then, have been rightly understood, neither 
will the signification of the "creation," of which He is first-born, be 
unknown to as. For we recognize a twofold creation of our nature, the first 
that whereby we were made, the second that whereby we were made anew. But 
there would have been no need of the second creation had we not made the 
first unavailing by our disobedience. Accordingly, when the first creation 
had waxed old and vanished away, it was needful that there should be a new 
creation in Christ, (as the Apostle says, who asserts that we should no 
longer see in the second creation any trace of that which has waxed old, 
saying, "Having put off the old man with his deeds and his lusts, put on 
the new man which is created according to God(6)," and "If any man be in 
Christ," he says, "he is a new creature: the old things are passed away, 
behold all things are become new(7):")--for the maker of human nature at 
the first and afterwards is one and the same. Then He took dust from the 
earth and formed man: again, He took dust from the Virgin, and did not 
merely form man, but formed man about Himself: then, He created; 
afterwards, He was created: then, the Word made flesh; afterwards, the Word 
became flesh, that He might change our flesh to spirit, by being made 
partaker with us in flesh and blood. Of this new creation therefore in 
Christ, which He Himself began, He was called the first-born, being the 
first-fruits of all, both of those begotten into life, and of those 
quickened by resurrection of the dead, "that He might be Lord both of the 
dead and of the living(8)," and might sanctify the whole lump(9) by means 
of its first-fruits in Himself. Now that the character of "first-born" does 
not apply to the Son in respect of His pre temporal existence the 
appellation of "Only-begotten" testifies. For he who is truly only-begotten 
has no brethren, for bow could any one be only-begotten if numbered among 
brethren? but as He is called God and man, Son of God and Son of man,--for 
He has the form of God and the form of a servant(1), being some things 
according to His supreme nature, becoming other things in His dispensation 
of love to man,--so too, being the Only-begotten God, He becomes the first-
born of all creation,--the Only-begotten, He that is in the bosom of the 
Father, yet, among the e who are saved by the new creation, both becoming 
and being called the first born of the creation. But if, as heresy will 
have it, He is called first-born because He was made before the rest of the 
creation, the name does not agree with what they maintain concerning the 
Only-begotten God. For they do not say this,--that the Son and the universe 
were from the Father in like manner,--but they say, that the Only-begotten 
God was made by the Father, and that all else was made by the Only-
begotten. Therefore on the same ground on which, while they hold that the 
Son was created, they call God the Father of the created Being, on the same 
ground, while they say that all things were made by the Only-begotten God, 
they give Him the name not of the "first-born" of the things that were made 
by Him, but more properly of their "Father," as the same relation existing 
in both cases towards the things created, logically gives rise to the same 
appellation. For if God, Who is over all, is not properly called the 
"First-born," but the Father of the Being He Himself created, the Only-
begotten God will surely also be called, by the same reasoning, the 
"father," and not properly the "first-born" of His own creatures, so that 
the appellation of "first-born" will be altogether improper and 
superfluous, having no place in the heretical conception,

4. He proceeds again to discuss the impassibility of the Lord's generation; 
and the folly of Eunomius, who says that the generated essence involves the 
appellation of Son, and again, forgetting this, denies the relation of the 
Son to the Father: and herein he speaks of Circe and of the mandrake 
poison.

    We must, however, return to those who connect passion with the Divine 
generation, and on this account deny that the Lord is truly begotten, in 
order to avoid the conception of passion. To say that passion is absolutely 
linked with generation, and that on this account, in order that the Divine 
nature may continue in purity beyond the reach of passion, we ought to 
consider that the Son is alien to the idea of generation, may perhaps 
appear reasonable in the eyes of those who are easily deceived, but those 
who are instructed in the Divine mysteries(2) have an answer ready to band, 
based upon admitted facts. For who knows not that it is generation that 
leads us back to the true and blessed life, not being the same with that 
which takes place "of blood and of the will of the flesh(3)," in which are 
flux and change, and gradual growth to perfection, and all else that we 
observe in our earthly generation: but the other kind is believed to be 
from God, and heavenly, and, as the Gospel says, "from above(4)," which 
excludes the passions of flesh and blood? I presume that they both admit 
the existence of this generation, and find no passion in it. Therefore not 
all generation is naturally connected with passion, but the material 
generation is subject to passion, the immaterial pure from passion. What 
constrains him then to attribute to the incorruptible generation of the Son 
what properly belongs to the flesh, and, by ridiculing the lower form of 
generation with his unseemly physiology, to exclude the Son from affinity 
with the Father? For if, even in our own case, it is generation that is the 
beginning of either life,--that generation which is through the flesh of a 
life of passion, that which is spiritual of a life of purity, (and no one 
who is in any sense numbered among Christians would contradict this 
statement,)--how is it allowable to entertain the idea of passion in 
thinking of generation as it concerns the incorruptible Nature? Let us 
moreover examine this point in addition to those we have mentioned. If they 
disbelieve the passionless character of the Divine generation on the ground 
of the passion that affects the flesh, let them also, from the same tokens, 
(those, I mean, to be found in ourselves,) refuse to believe that God acts 
as a Maker without passion. For if they judge of the Godhead by comparison 
of our own conditions, they must not confess that God either begets or 
creates; for neither of these operations is exercised by ourselves without 
passion. Let them therefore either separate from the Divine nature both 
creation and generation, that they may guard the impassibility of God on 
either side, and let them, that the Father may be kept safely beyond the 
range of passion, neither growing weary by creation, nor being defiled by 
generation, entirely reject front their doctrine the belief in the Only-
begotten, or, if they agree(5) that the one activity is exercised by the 
Divine power without passion, let them not quarrel about the other: for if 
He creates without labour or matter, He surely also begets without labour 
or flux.

    And here once more I have in this argument the support of Eunomius. I 
will state his nonsense concisely and briefly, epitomizing his whole 
meaning. That men do not make materials for us, but only by their art add 
form to matter,--this is the drift of what he says in the course of a great 
quantity of nonsensical language. If, then, understanding conception and 
formation to be included in the lower generation, he forbids on this ground 
the pure notion of generation, by consequence, on the same reasoning, since 
earthly creation is busied with the form, but cannot furnish matter 
together with the form, let him forbid us also, on this ground, to suppose 
that the Father is a Creator. If, on the other hand, he refuses to conceive 
creation in the case of God according to man's measure of power, let him 
also cease to slander Divine generation by human imperfections. But, that 
his accuracy and circumspection m argument may be more clearly established, 
I will again return to a small point in his statements. He asserts that 
"things which are respectively active and passive share one another's 
nature," and mentions, after bodily generation, "the work of the craftsman 
as displayed in materials." Now let the acute hearer mark how he here fails 
in his proper aim, and wanders about among whatever statements he happens 
to invent. He sees in things that come into being by way of the flesh the 
"active and passive conceived, with the same essence, the one imparting the 
essence, the other receiving it." Thus he knows how to discern the truth 
with accuracy as regards the nature of existing things, so as to separate 
the imparter and the receiver from the essence, and to say that each of 
these is distinct in himself apart from the essence. For he that receives 
or imparts is surely another besides that which is given or received, so 
that we must first conceive some one by himself, viewed in his own separate 
existence, and then speak of him as giving that which he has, or receiving 
that which he has not(6). And when he has sputtered out this argument in 
such a ridiculous fashion, our sage friend does not perceive that by the 
next step he overthrows himself once more. For he who by his art forms at 
his will the material before him, surely in this operation acts; and the 
material, in receiving its form at the hand of him who exercises the art, 
is passively affected: for it is not by remaining unaffected and 
unimpressionable that the material receives its form. If then, even in the 
case of things wrought by art, nothing can come into being without 
passivity and action concurring to produce it, how can our author think 
that he here abides by his own words? seeing that, in declaring community 
of essence to be involved in the relation of action and passion, he seems 
not only to attest in some sense community of essence in Him that is 
begotten with Him that begat Him, but also to make the