(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 VIII-XII

[Books VIII-IX translated by the Rev. Henry Austin Wilson, M.A., Fellow and 
Librarian of Magdalen College, Oxford; Books X-XII translated by the Rev. 
H. C. Ogle, revised by the Rev. Wilson.]


BOOK VIII

1. The eighth book very notably overthrows the blasphemy of the heretics 
who say that the Only-begotten came from nothing, and that there wits a 
time when He was not, and shows the Son to be no new being, but from 
everlasting, from His having said to Moses, "I am He that is," and to 
Manoah, "Why askest thou My name? it also is wonderful";--moreover David 
also says to God, "Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail;" and 
furthermore Isaiah says, "I am God, the first, and hereafter am I:" and the 
Evangelist, "He was in the beginning, and was with God, and was God:"--and 
that He has neither beginning nor end: and he thrones that those who say 
that He is new and comes front nothing are idolaters. And herein he very 
finely interprets "the brightness of the glory, and the express image of 
the Person."

    THESE, then, are the strong points of Eunomius' case; and I think that 
when those which promised to be powerful are proved by argument to be so 
rotten and unsubstantial, I may well keep silence concerning the rest, 
since the others are practically refuted, concurrently with the refutation 
of the stronger ones; just as it happens in warlike operations that when a 
force more powerful than the rest has been beaten, the remainder of the 
army are no longer of any account in the eyes of those by whom the strong 
portion of it has been overcome. But the fact that the chief part of his 
blasphemy lies in the later part of his discourse forbids me to be silent. 
For the transition of the Only-begotten from nothing into being, that 
horrid and godless doctrine of Eunomius, which is more to be shunned than 
all impiety, is next maintained in the order of his argument. And since 
every one who has been bewitched by this deceit has the phrase, "If He was, 
He has not been begotten, and if He has been begotten, He was not," ready 
upon his tongue for the maintenance of the doctrine that He Who made of 
nothing us and all the creation is Himself from nothing, and since the 
deceit obtains much support thereby, as men of feebler mind are pressed by 
this superficial bit of plausibility, and led to acquiesce in the 
blasphemy, we must needs not pass by this doctrinal "root of bitterness," 
lest, as the Apostle says, it "spring up and trouble us(1)" Now I say that 
we must first of all consider the actual argument itself, apart from our 
contest with our opponents, and thus afterwards proceed to the examination 
and refutation of what they have set forth.

    One mark of the true Godhead is indicated by the words of Holy 
Scripture, which Moses learnt by the voice from heaven, when He heard Him 
Who said, "I am He that is(2)." We think it right, then, to believe that to 
be alone truly Divine which is represented as eternal and infinite in 
respect of being; and all that is contemplated therein is always the same, 
neither growing nor being consumed; so that if one should say of God, that 
formerly He was, but now is not, or that He now is, but formerly was not, 
we should consider each of the savings alike to be godless: for by both 
alike the idea of eternity is mutilated, being cut short on one side or the 
other by non-existence, whether one contemplates "nothing" as preceding 
"being(3)," or declares that "being" ends in "nothing"; and the frequent 
repetition of "first of all" or "last of all" concerning God's non-
existence does not make amends for the impious conception touching the 
Divinity. For this reason we declare the maintenance of their doctrine as 
to the non-existence at some time of Him Who truly is, to be a denial and 
rejection of His true Godhead; and this on the ground that, on the one 
hand, He Who showed Himself to Moses by the light speaks of Himself as 
being, when He says, "I am He that is(2)," while on the other, Isaiah 
(being made, so to say, the instrument of Him Who spoke in him) says in the 
person of Him that is, "I am the first, and hereafter am I(4)," so that 
hereby, whichever way we consider it, we conceive eternity in God. And so, 
too, the word that was spoken to Manoah shows the fact that the Divinity is 
not comprehensible by the significance of His name, because, when Manoah 
asks to know His name, that, when the promise has come actually to pass, he 
may by name glorify his benefactor, He says to him, "Why askest thou this? 
It also is wonderful(5)"; so that by this we learn that there is one name 
significant of the Divine Nature--the wonder, namely, that arises 
unspeakably in our hearts concerning It. So, too, great David, in his 
discourses with himself, proclaims the same truth, in the sense that all 
the creation was brought into being by God, while He alone exists always in 
the same manner, and abides for ever, where he says, "But Thou art the 
same, and Thy years shall not fail(6)." When we hear these sayings, and 
others like them, from men inspired by God, let us leave all that is not 
from eternity to the worship of idolaters, as a new thing alien from the 
true Godhead. For that which now is, and formerly was not, is clearly new 
and not eternal, and to have regard to any new object of worship is called 
by Moses the service of demons, when he says, "They sacrificed to devils 
and not to God, to gods whom their fathers knew not; new gods were they 
that came newly up(7)." If then everything that is new in worship is a 
service of demons, and is alien from the true Godhead, and if what is now, 
but was not always, is new and not eternal, we who have regard to that 
which is, necessarily reckon those who contemplate non-existence as 
attaching to Him Who is, and who say that "He once was not," among the 
worshippers of idols. For we may also see that the great John, when 
declaring in his own preaching the Only-begotten God, guards his own 
statement in every way, so that the conception of non-existence shall find 
no access to Him Who is. For he says(8) that He "was in the beginning," and 
"was with God," and "was God," and was light, and life, and truth, and all 
good things at all times, and never at any time failed to be anything that 
is excellent, Who is the fulness of all good, and is in the bosom of the 
Father. If then Moses lays down as a law for us some such mark of true 
Godhead as this, that we know nothing else of God but this one thing, that 
He is (for to this point the words, "I am He that is(9)"); while Isaiah in 
his preaching declares aloud the absolute infinity of Him Who is, defining 
the existence of God as having no regard to beginning or to end (for He Who 
says "I am the first, and hereafter am I," places no limit to His eternity 
in either direction, so that neither, if we look to the beginning, do we 
find any point marked since which He is, and beyond which He was not, nor, 
if 'we turn our thought to the future, can we cut short by any boundary the 
eternal progress of Him Who is),--and if the prophet David forbids us to 
worship any new and strange God(1) (both of which are involved in the 
heretical doctrine; "newness" is clearly indicated in that which is not 
eternal, and "strangeness" is alienation from the Nature of the very God),-
-if, I say, these things are so, we declare all the sophistical fabrication 
about the non-existence at some time of Him Who truly is, to be nothing 
else than a departure from Christianity, and a turning to idolatry. For 
when the Evangelist, in his discourse concerning the Nature of God, 
separates at all points non-existence from Him Who is, and, by his constant 
repetition of the word "was," carefully destroys the suspicion of non-
existence, and calls Him the Only-begotten God, the Word of God, the Son of 
God, equal with God, and all such names, we have this judgment fixed and 
settled in us, that if the Only-begotten Son is God, we must believe that 
He Who is believed to be God is eternal. And indeed He is verily God, and 
assuredly is eternal, and is never at any time found to be non-existent. 
For God, as we have often said, if He now is, also assuredly always was, 
and if He once was not, neither does He now exist at all. But since even 
the enemies of the truth confess that the Son is and continually abides the 
Only-begotten God, we say this, that, being in the Father, He is not in Him 
in one respect only, but He is in Him altogether, in respect of all that 
the Father is conceived to be. As, then, being in the incorruptibility of 
the Father, He is incorruptible, good in His goodness, powerful in His 
might, and, as being in each of these attributes of special excellence 
which are conceived of the Father, He is that particular thing, so, also, 
being in His eternity, He is assuredly eternal. Now the eternity of the 
Father is marked by His never having taken His being from nonexistence, and 
never terminating His being in non-existence. He, therefore, Who hath all 
things that are the Father's(2), and is contemplated in all the glory of 
the Father, even as, being in the endlessness of the Father, He has no end, 
so, being in the unoriginateness of the Father, has, as the Apostle says, 
"no beginning of days(3)," but at once is "of the Father," and is regarded 
in the eternity of the Father: and in this respect, more especially, is 
seen the complete absence of divergence in the Likeness, as compared with 
Him Whose Likeness He is. And herein is His saying found true which tells 
us, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father(4)." Moreover, it is in this 
way that those words of the Apostle, that the Son is "the brightness of His 
glory, and the express image of His Person(5)," are best understood to have 
an excellent and close application. For the Apostle conveys to those 
hearers who are unable, by the contemplation of purely intellectual 
objects, to elevate their thought to the height of the knowledge of God, a 
sort of notion of the truth, by means of things apparent to sense. For as 
the body of the sun is expressly imaged by the whole disc that surrounds 
it, and he who looks on the sun argues, by means of what he sees, the 
existence of the whole solid substratum, so, he says, the majesty of the 
Father is expressly imaged in the greatness of the power of the Son, that 
the one may be believed to be as great as the other is known to be: and 
again, as the radiance of light sheds its brilliancy from the whole of the 
sun's disc (for in the disc one part is not radiant, and the rest dim), so 
all that glory which the Father is, sheds its brilliancy from its whole 
extent by means of the brightness that comes from it, that is, by the true 
Light; and as the ray is of the sun (for there would be no ray if the sun 
were not), yet the sun is never conceived as existing by itself without the 
ray of brightness that is shed from it, so the Apostle delivering to us the 
continuity and eternity of that existence which the Only-begotten has of 
the Father, calls the Son "the brightness of His glory."

2. He then discusses the "willing" of the Father concerning the generation 
of the Son, and shows that the object of that good will is from eternity, 
which is the Son, existing in the father, and being closely related to the 
process of willing, as the ray to the flame, or the act of seeing to the 
eye.

    After these distinctions on our part no one can well be longer in doubt 
how the Only-begotten at once is believed to be "of the Father," and is 
eternally, even if the one phrase does not at first sight seem to agree 
with the other,--that which declares Him to be "of the Father" with that 
which asserts His eternity. But if we are to confirm our statement by 
further arguments, it may be possible to apprehend the doctrine on this 
point by the aid of things cognizable by our senses. And let no one deride 
our statement, if it cannot find among existing things a likeness of the 
object of our enquiry such as may be in all respects sufficient for the 
presentation of the matter in hand by way of analogy and resemblance. For 
we should like to persuade those who say that the Father first willed and 
so proceeded to become a Father, and on this ground assert posteriority in 
existence as regards the Word, by whatever illustrations may make it 
possible, to turn to the orthodox view. Neither does this immediate 
conjunction exclude the "willing" of the Father, in the sense that He had a 
Son without choice, by some necessity of His Nature, nor does the "willing" 
separate the Son from the Father, coming in between them as a kind of 
interval: so that we neither reject from our doctrine the "willing" of the 
Begetter directed to the Son, as being, so to say, forced out by the 
conjunction of the Son's oneness with the Father, nor do we by any means 
break that inseparable connection, when "willing" is regarded as involved 
in the generation. For to our heavy and inert nature it properly belongs 
that the wish and the possession of a thing are not often present with us 
at the same moment; but now we wish for something we have not, and at 
another time we obtain what we do not wish to obtain. But, in the case of 
the simple and all-powerful Nature, all things are conceived together and 
at once, the willing of good as well as the possession of what He wills. 
For the good and the eternal will is contemplated as operating, indwelling, 
and co-existing in the eternal Nature, not arising in it from any separate 
principle, nor capable of being conceived apart from the object of will: 
for it is not possible that with God either the good will should not be, or 
the object of will should not accompany the act of will, since no cause can 
either bring it about that which befits the Father should not always be, or 
be any hindrance to the possession of the object of will. Since, then, the 
Only-begotten God is by nature the good (or rather beyond all good), and 
since the good does not fail to be the object of the Father's will, it is 
hereby clearly shown, both that the conjunction of the Son with the Father 
is without any intermediary, and also that the will, which is always 
present in the good Nature, is not forced out nor excluded by reason of 
this inseparable conjunction. And if any one is listening to my argument in 
no scoffing spirit, I should like to add to what I have already said 
something of the following kind.

    Just as, if one were to grant (I speak, of course, hypothetically) the 
power of deliberate choice to belong to flame, it would be clear that the 
flame will at once upon its existence will that its radiance should shine 
forth from itself, and when it wills it will not be impotent (since, on the 
appearance of the flame, its natural power at once fulfils its will in the 
matter of the radiance), so that undoubtedly, if it be granted that the 
flame is moved by deliberate choice, we conceive the concurrence of all 
these things simultaneously--of the kindling of the fire, of its act of 
will concerning the radiance, and of the radiance itself; so that the 
movement by way of choice is no hindrance to the dignity of the existence 
of the radiance,--even so, according to the illustration we have spoken of, 
you will not, by confessing the good act of will as existing in the Father, 
separate by that act of will the Son from the Father. For it is not 
reasonable to suppose that the act of willing that He should be, could be a 
hindrance to His immediately coming into being; but just as, in the eye, 
seeing and the will to see are, one an operation of nature, the other an 
impulse of choice, yet no delay is caused to the act of sight by the 
movement of choice in that particular direction(6),--(for each of these is 
regarded separately and by itself, not as being at all a hindrance to the 
existence of the other, but as both being somehow interexistent, the 
natural operation concurring with the choice, and the choice in turn not 
failing to be accompanied by the natural motion)--as, I say, perception 
naturally belongs to the eye, and the willing to see produces no delay in 
respect to actual sight, but one wills that it should have vision, and 
immediately what he wills is, so also in the case of that Nature' which is 
unspeakable and above all thought, our apprehension of all comes together 
simultaneously--of the eternal existence of the Father, and of an act of 
will concerning the Son, and of the Son Himself, Who is, as John  says, "in 
the beginning," and is not conceived as coming after the beginning. Now the 
beginning of all is the Father; but in this beginning the Son also is 
declared to be, being in His Nature that very thing which the Beginning is. 
For the Beginning is God, and the Word Who "was in the Beginning." is God. 
As then the phrase "the beginning" points to eternity, John well conjoins 
"the Word in the Beginning," saying that the Word was in It; asserting, I 
suppose, this fact to the end that the first idea present to the mind of 
his hearer may not be "the Beginning" alone by itself, but that, before 
this has been impressed upon him, there should also be presented to his 
mind, together with the Beginning the Word Who was in It, entering with It 
into the hearer's understanding, and being present to his heating at the 
same time with the Beginning.

3. Then, thus passing over what relates to the essence of the Son as having 
been already discussed, he treats of the sense involved in "generation," 
saying that there are diverse generations, those effected by matter and 
art, and of buildings,--and that by succession of animals,--and those by 
efflux, as by the sun and its beam. the lamp and its radiance, scents and 
ointments and the quality diffused by them,--and the ward produced by the 
mind; and cleverly discusses generation(7) from rotten wood; and from the 
condensation of fire, and countless other causes.

    Now that we have thus thoroughly scrutinized our doctrine, it may 
perhaps be time to set forth and to consider the opposing statement, 
examining it side by side in comparison with our own opinion. He states it 
thus:--" For while there are," he says, "two statements which we have made, 
the one, that the essence of the Only-begotten was not before its own 
generation, the other that, being generated, it was before all things, he s 
does not prove either of these statements to be untrue; for he did not 
venture to say that He was before that supreme(9) generation and formation, 
seeing that he is opposed at once by the Nature of the Father, and the 
judgment of sober-minded men. For what sober man could admit the Son to be 
and to be begotten before that supreme generation? and He Who is without 
generation needs not generation in order to His being what He is." Well, 
whether he speaks truly, when he says that our master s opposed his 
antitheses to no purpose, all may surely be aware who have been conversant 
with that writer's works. But for my own part (for I think that the 
refutation of his calumny on this matter is a small step towards the 
exposure of his malice), I will leave the task of showing that this point 
was not passed over by our master without discussion, and turn my argument 
to the discussion, as far as in me lies, of the points now advanced. He 
says that he has in his own discourse spoken of two matters,--one, that the 
essence of the Only-begotten was not before Its own generation, the other, 
that, being generated, It was before all things. Now I think that by what 
we have already said, the fact has been sufficiently shown that no new 
essence was begotten by the Father besides that which is contemplated in 
the Father Himself, and that there is no need for us to be entangled in a 
contest with blasphemy of this kind, as if the argument were now propounded 
to us for the first time; and further, that the real force of our argument 
must be directed to one point, I mean to his horrible and blasphemous 
utterance, which clearly states concerning God the Word that "He was not." 
Moreover, as our argument in the foregoing discourse has already to some 
extent dealt with the question of his blasphemy, it would perhaps be 
superfluous again to establish by like considerations what we have proved 
already. For it was to this end that we made those former statements, that 
by the earlier impression upon our hearers of an orthodox mode of thought, 
the blasphemy of our adversaries, who assert that non-existence preceded 
existence in the case of the Only-begotten God, might be more manifest.

    It seems at this point well to investigate in our argument, by a more 
careful examination, the actual significance of "generation." That this 
name presents to us the fact of being as the result of some cause is clear 
to every one, and about this point there is, I suppose, no need to dispute. 
But since the account to be given of things which exist as the result of 
cause is various, I think it proper that this matter should be cleared up 
in our discourse by some sort of scientific division. Of things, then, 
which are the result of something, we understand the  varieties to be as 
follows. Some are the result of matter and art, as the structure of 
buildings and of other works, coming into being by means of their 
respective matter, and these are directed by some art that accomplishes the 
thing proposed, with a view to the proper aim of the results produced. 
Others are the results of matter and nature; for the generations of animals 
are the building(1) of nature, who carries on her own operation by means of 
their material bodily subsistence. Others are the result of material 
efflux, in which cases the antecedent remains in its natural condition, 
while that which flows from it is conceived separately, as in the case of 
the sun and its beam, or the lamp and its brightness, or of scents and 
ointments and the quality they emit; for these, while they remain in 
themselves without diminution, have at the same time, each concurrently 
with itself, that natural property which they emit: as the sun its beam, 
the lamp its brightness, the scents the perfume produced by them in the 
air. There is also another species of "generation" besides these, in which 
the cause is immaterial and incorporeal, but the generation is an object of 
sense and takes place by corporeal means;--I speak of the word which is 
begotten by the hind: for the mind, being itself incorporeal, brings forth 
the word by means of the organs of sense. All these varieties of generation 
we mentally include, as it were, in one general view. For all the wonders 
that are wrought by nature, which changes the bodies of some animals to 
something of a different kind, or produces some animals from a change in 
liquids, or a corruption of seed, or the rotting of wood, or out of the 
condensed mass of fire transforms the cold vapour that issues from the 
firebrands, shut off in the heart of the fire, to produce an animal' which 
they call the salamander,--these, even if they seem to be outside the 
limits we have laid down, are none the less included among the cases we 
have mentioned. For it is by means of bodies that nature fashions these 
varied forms of animals; for it is such and such a change of body, disposed 
by nature in this or that particular way, which produces this or that 
particular animal; and this is not a distinct species of generation besides 
that which is accomplished as the result of nature and matter.

   4. He further shows the operations of God to be expressed by human 
illustrations; for what hands and fief and the other parts of the body with 
which men work are, that, in the case of God, the will alone is, in place 
of these. And so also arises the divergence of generation; wherefore He is 
called Only-begotten, because He has no community with other generation 
such as is observed in creation(2), but in that He is called the 
"brightness of glory," and the "savour of ointment," He shows the close 
conjunction and co-eternity of His Nature with the Father(3).

    Now these modes of generation being well known to men, the loving 
dispensation of the Holy Spirit, in delivering to us the Divine mysteries, 
conveys its instruction on those matters which transcend language by means 
of what is within our capacity, as it does also constantly elsewhere, when 
it portrays the Divinity in bodily terms, making mention, in speaking 
concerning God, of His eye, His eyelids, His ear, His fingers, His hand, 
His right hand, His arm, His feet, His shoes(4), and the like,--none of 
which things is apprehended to belong in its primary sense to the Divine 
Nature,--but turning its teaching to what we can easily perceive, it 
describes by, terms well worn in human use, facts that are beyond every 
name, while by each of the terms employed concerning God we are led 
analogically to some more exalted conception. In this way, then, it employs 
the numerous forms of generation to present to us, from the inspired 
teaching, the unspeakable existence of the Only-begotten, taking just so 
much from each as may be reverently admitted into our conceptions 
concerning God. For as its mention of "fingers," "hand," and "arm," in 
speaking of God, does not by the phrase portray the structure of the limb 
out of bones and sinews and flesh and ligaments, but signifies by such an 
expression His effective and operative power, and as it indicates by each 
of the other words of this kind those conceptions concerning God which 
correspond to them, not admitting the corporeal senses of the words, so 
also it speaks indeed of the forms of these modes of coming into being as 
applied to the Divine Nature, yet does not speak in that sense which our 
customary knowledge enables us to understand. For when it speaks of the 
formative power, it calls that particular energy by the name of 
"generation," because the word expressive of Divine power must needs 
descend to our lowliness, yet it does not indicate all that is associated 
with formative generation among ourselves,--neither place nor time nor 
preparation of material, nor the cooperation of instruments, nor the 
purpose in the things produced, but it leaves these out of sight, and 
greatly and loftily claims for God the generation of the things that are, 
where it says, "He spake and they were begotten, He commanded and they were 
created(5)." Again, when it expounds that unspeakable and transcendent 
existence which the Only-begotten has from the Father,  because human 
poverty is incapable of the truths that are too high for speech or thought, 
it uses our language here also, and calls Him by the name of "Son,"--a name 
which our ordinary use applies to those who are produced by matter and 
nature. But just as the word, which tells us in reference to God of the 
"generation" of the creation, did not add the statement that it was 
generated by the aid of any material, declaring that its material 
substance, its place, its time, and all the like, had their existence in 
the power of His will, so here too, in speaking of the "Son," it leaves out 
of sight both all other things which human nature sees in earthly 
generation (passions, I mean, and dispositions, and the cooperation of time 
and the need of place, and especially matter), without all which earthly 
generation as a result of nature does not occur. Now every such conception 
of matter and interval being excluded from the sense of the word "Son," 
nature alone remains, and hereby in the word "Son "is declared concerning 
the Only-begotten the close and true character of His manifestation from 
the Father. And since this particular species of generation did not suffice 
to produce in us an adequate idea of the unspeakable existence of the Only-
begotten, it employs also another species of generation, that which is the 
result of efflux, to express the Divine Nature of the Son, and calls Him 
"the brightness of glory(6)," the "savour of ointment(7)," the "breath of 
God(8)," which our accustomed use, in the scientific discussion we have 
already made, calls material efflux. But just as in the previous cases 
neither the making of creation nor the significance of the word "Son" 
admitted time, or matter, or place, or passion, so here also the phrase, 
purifying the sense of "brightness" and the other terms from every material 
conception, and employing only that element in this particular species of 
generation which is suitable to the Divinity, points by the force of this 
mode of expression to the truth that He is conceived as being both from Him 
and with Him. For neither does the word "breath" present to us dispersion 
into the air from the underlying matter, nor "savour" the transference that 
takes place from the quality of the ointment to the air, nor "brightness" 
the efflux by means of rays from the body of the sun; but this only, as we 
have said, is manifested by this particular mode of generation, that He is 
conceived to be of Him and also with Him, no intermediate interval existing 
between the Father and that Son Who is of Him. And since, in its abundant 
loving-kindness, the grace of the Holy Spirit has ordered that our 
conceptions concerning the Only-begotten Son should arise in us from many 
sources, it has added also the remaining species of things contemplated in 
generation,--that, I mean, which is the result of mind and word. But the 
lofty John uses especial foresight that the hearer may not by any means by 
inattention or feebleness of thought fall into the common understanding of 
"Word," so that the Son should be supposed to be the voice of the Father. 
For this reason he prepares us at his first proclamation to regard the Word 
as in essence, and not in any essence foreign to or dissevered from that 
essence whence It has Its being, but in that first and blessed Nature. For 
this is what he teaches us when he says the Word "was in the beginning(9)," 
and "was with God(9)," being Himself also both God and all else that the 
"Beginning" is. For thus it is that he makes his discourse on the Godhead, 
touching the eternity of the Only-begotten. Seeing then that these modes of 
generation (those, I mean, which are the result of cause) are ordinarily 
known among us, and are employed by Holy Scripture for our instruction on 
the subjects before us, in such a way as it might be expected that each of 
them would be applied to the presentation of Divine conceptions, let the 
reader of our argument "judge righteous judgement(1)," whether any of the 
assertions that heresy makes have any force against the truth.

   5. Then, after showing that the Person of the Only-begotten and Maker of 
things has no beginning, as have the things that were made by Him, as 
Eunomius says, but that the Only-begotten is without beginning and eternal, 
and has no community, either of essence or of names, with the creation, but 
is co-existent with the Father from everlasting, being, as the all-
excellent Wisdom says, "the beginning and end and midst of the times," and 
after making many observations on the Godhead and eternity of the Only-
begotten, and also concerning souls and angels, and life and death, he 
concludes the book.

    I will now once more subjoin the actual language of my opponent, word 
for word. It runs thus:--"While there are," he says, "two statements which 
we have made, the one, that the essence of the Only-begotten was not before 
its own generation, the other, that, being generated, it was before all 
things--" What kind of generation does our dogmatist propose to us? Is it 
one of which we may fittingly think and speak in regard to God? And who is 
so godless as to pre-suppose non-existence in God? But it is clear that he 
has in view this material generation of ours, and is making the lower 
nature the teacher of his conceptions concerning the Only-begotten God, and 
since an ox or an ass or a camel is not before its own generation, he 
thinks it proper to say even of the Only-begotten God that which the course 
of the lower nature presents to our view in the case of the animals, 
without thinking, corporeal theologian that he is, of this fact, that the 
predicate "Only-begotten", applied to God, signifies by the very word 
itself that which is not in common with all begetting, and is peculiar to 
Him. How could the term "Only-begotten" be used of this "generation," if it 
had community and identity of meaning with other generation? That there is 
something unique and exceptional to be understood in His case, which is not 
to be remarked in other generation, is distinctly and suitably expressed by 
the appellation of "Only-begotten"; as, were any element of the lower 
generation conceived in it, He Who in respect of any of the attributes of 
His generation was placed on a level with other things that are begotten 
would no longer be "Only-begotten." For if the same things are to be said 
of Him which are said of the other things that come into being by 
generation, the definition will transform the sense of "Only-begotten" to 
signify a kind of relationship involving brotherhood. If then the sense of 
"Only-begotten" points to absence of mixture and community with the rest. 
of generated things, we shall not admit that anything which we behold in 
the lower generation is also to be conceived in the case of that existence 
which the Son has from the Father. But non-existence before generation is 
proper to all things that exist by generation: therefore this is foreign to 
the special character of the Only-begotten, to which the name "Only-
begotten" bears witness that there attaches nothing belonging to the mode 
of that form of common generation which Eunomius misapprehends. Let this 
materialist and friend of the senses be persuaded therefore to correct the 
error of his conception by the other forms of generation. What will you say 
when you hear of the "brightness of glory" or of the "savour of 
ointment(2)?" That the "brightness" was not before its own generation? But 
if you answer thus, you will surely admit that neither did the "glory" 
exist, nor the "ointment": for it is not possible that the "glory" should 
be conceived as having existed by itself, dark and lustreless, or the 
"ointment" without producing its sweet breath: so that if the "brightness" 
"was not," the "glory" also surely "was not," and the "savour" being non-
existent, there is also proved the non-existence of the "ointment." But if 
these examples taken from Scripture excite any man's fear, on the ground 
that they do not accurately present to us the majesty of the Only-begotten, 
because neither is essentially the same with its substratum--neither the 
exhalation with the ointment, nor the beam with the sun--let the true Word 
correct his fear, Who was in the Beginning and is all that the Beginning 
is, and existent before all; since John so declares in his preaching, "And 
the Word was with God, and the Word was God(3)." If then the Father is God 
and the Son is God, what doubt still remains with regard to the perfect 
Divinity of the Only-begotten, when by the sense of the word "Son" is 
acknowledged the close relationship of Nature, by "brightness" the 
conjunction and inseparability, and by the appellation of "God," applied 
alike to the Father and the Son, their absolute equality, while the 
"express image," contemplated in reference to the whole Person(4) of the 
Father, marks the absence of any defect in the Son's proper greatness, and 
the "form of God" indicates His complete identity by showing in itself all 
those marks by which the Godhead is betokened.

    Let us now set forth Eunomius' statement once more. "He was not," he 
says, "before His own generation." Who is it of Whom he says "He was not"? 
Let him declare the Divine names by which He Who, according to Eunomius, 
"once was not," is called. He will say, I suppose, "light," and 
"blessedness," "life" and "incorruptibility," and "righteousness" and 
"sanctification," and "no power," and "truth," and the like. He who says, 
then, that "He was not before His generation," absolutely proclaims this,--
that when He "was not" there was no truth, no life, no light, no power, no 
incorruptibility, no other of those pre-eminent qualities which are 
conceived of Him: and, what is still more marvellous and still more 
difficult for impiety to face, there was no "brightness," no "express 
image." For in saying that there was no brightness, there is surely 
maintained also the non-existence of the radiating power, as one may see in 
the illustration afforded by the lamp. For he who speaks, of the ray of the 
lamp indicates also that the lamp shines, and he who says that the ray "is 
not," signifies also the extinction of that which gives light: so that when 
the Son is said not to be thereby is also maintained as a necessary 
consequence the non-existence of the Father. For if the one is related to 
the other by way of conjunction, according to the Apostolic testimony--the 
"brightness" to the "glory," the "express image" to the "Person," the 
"Wisdom" to God--he who says that one of the things so conjoined "is not," 
surely by his abolition of the one abolishes also that which remains; so 
that if the "brightness" "was not," it is acknowledged that neither did the 
illuminating nature exist, and if the "express image" had no existence, 
neither did the Person imaged exist, and if the wisdom and power of God 
"was not," it is surely acknowledged that He also was not, Who is not 
conceived by Himself without wisdom and power. If, then, the Only-begotten 
God, as Eunomius says, "was not before His generation," and Christ is "the 
power of God and the wisdom of God(5)," and the "express image"(6) and the 
"brightness(6)," neither surely did the Father exist, Whose power and 
wisdom and express image and brightness the Son is: for it is not possible 
to conceive by reason either a Person without express image, or glory 
without radiance, or God without wisdom, or a Maker without hands, or a 
Beginning without the Word(7), or a Father without a Son; but all such 
things, alike by those who confess and by those who deny, are manifestly 
declared to be in mutual union, and by the abolition of one the other also 
disappears with it. Since then they maintain that the Son (that is, the 
"brightness of the glory,") "was  not" before He was begotten, and since 
logical consequence involves also, together with the non-existence of the 
brightness, the abolition  of the glory, and the Father is the glory whence 
came the brightness of the Only-begotten Light, let these men who are wise 
over-much consider that they are manifestly supporters of the Epicurean 
doctrines, preaching atheism under the guise of Christianity. Now since the 
logical consequence is shown to be one of two absurdities, either that we 
should say that God does nor exist at all, or that we should say that His 
being was not unoriginate, let them choose which they like of the two 
courses before them,--either to be called atheist, or to cease saying that 
the essence of the Father is unoriginate. They would avoid, I suppose. 
being reckoned atheists. It remains, therefore, that they maintain that God 
is not eternal. And if the course of what has been proved forces them to 
this, what becomes of their varied and irreversible conversions of names? 
What becomes of that invincible compulsion of their syllogisms, which 
sounded so fine to the ears of old women, with its opposition of 
"Generated" and "Ungenerate"?

    Enough, however, of these matters. But it might be well not to leave 
his next point unanswered; yet let us pass over in silence the comic 
interlude, where our clever orator shows his youthful conceit, whether in 
jest or in earnest, under the impression that he will thereby have an 
advantage in his argument. For certainly no one will force us to join 
either with those whose eyes are set askance in distorting our sight, or 
with those who are stricken with strange disease in being contorted, or in 
their bodily leaps and plunges. We shall pity them, but we shall not depart 
from our settled state of mind. He says, then, turning his discourse upon 
the subject to our master, as if he were really engaging him face to face, 
"Thou shalt be taken in thine own snare." For as Basil had said s that what 
is good is always present with God Who is over all, and that it is good to 
be the Father of such a Son,--that so what is good was never absent from 
Him, nor was it the Father's will to be without the Son, and when He willed 
He did not lack the power, but having the power and the will to be in the 
mode in which it seemed good to Him, He also always possessed the Son by 
reason of His always willing that which is good (for this is the direction 
in which the intention of our father's remarks tends), Eunomius pulls this 
in pieces beforehand, and puts forward to overthrow what has been said some 
such argument as this, introduced from his extraneous philosophy:--"What 
will become of you," he says, "if one of those who have had experience of 
such arguments should say,(4) If to create is good and agreeable to the 
Nature of God, how is it that what is good and agreeable to His Nature was 
not present with Him unoriginately, seeing that God is unoriginate? and 
that when there was no hindrance of ignorance or impediment of weakness or 
of age in the matter of creation,"--and all the rest that he collects 
together and pours out upon himself,--for I may not say, upon God. Well, if 
it were possible for our master to answer the question in person, he would 
have shown Eunomius what would have become of him, as he asked, by setting 
forth the Divine mystery with that tongue that was taught of God, and by 
scourging the champion of deceit with his refutations, so that it would 
have been made clear to all men what a difference there is between a 
minister of the mysteries of Christ and a ridiculous buffoon or a setter-
forth of new and absurd doctrines. But since he, as the Apostle says, 
"being dead, speaketh(9)" to God, while the other puts forth such a 
challenge as though there were no one to answer him, even though an answer 
from us may not have equal force when compared with the words of the great 
Basil, we shall yet boldly say this in answer to the questioner:--Your own 
argument, put forth to overthrow our statement, is a testimony that in the 
charges we make against your impious doctrine we speak truly. For there is 
no other point we blame so much as this, that you(1) think there is no 
difference between the Lord of creation and the general body of creation, 
and what you now allege is a maintaining of the very things which we find 
fault with. For if you are bound to attach exactly what you see in creation 
also to the Only-begotten God, our contention has gained its end: your own 
statements proclaim the absurdity of the doctrine, and it is manifest to 
all, both that we keep our argument in the straight way of truth, and that 
your conception of the Only-begotten God is such as you have of the rest of 
the creation.

    Concerning whom was the controversy? Was it not concerning the Only-
begotten God, the Maker of all the creation, whether He always was, or 
whether He came into being afterwards as an addition to His Father? What 
then do our master's words say on this matter? That it is irreverent to 
believe that what is naturally good was not in God: for that he saw no 
cause by which it was probable that the good was not always present with 
Him Who is good, either for lack of power or for weakness of will. What 
does he who contends against these statements say? "If you allow that God 
the Word is to be believed eternal, you must allow the same of the things 
that have been created"--(How well he knows how to distinguish in his 
argument the nature of the creatures and the majesty of God! How well he 
knows about each, what befits it, what he may piously think concerning God, 
what concerning the creation!)--"if the Maker," he says, "begins from the 
time of His making: for there is nothing else by which we can mark the 
beginning of things that have been made, if time does not define by its own 
interval the beginnings and the endings of the things that come into 
being."

    On this ground he says that the Maker of time must commence His 
existence from a like beginning. Well, the creation has the ages for its 
beginning, but what beginning can you conceive of the Maker of the ages? If 
any one should say, "The 'beginning' which is mentioned in the Gospel"--it 
is the Father Who is there signified, and the confession of the Son 
together with Him is there pointed to, nor can it be that He Who is in the 
Father(2), as the Lord says, can begin His being in Him from any particular 
point. And if any one speaks of another beginning besides this, let him 
tell us the name by which he marks this beginning, as none can be 
apprehended before the establishment of the ages. Such a statement, 
therefore. will not move us a whit from the orthodox conception concerning 
the Only-begotten, even if old women do applaud the proposition as a sound 
one. For we abide by what has been determined from the beginning, having 
our doctrine firmly based on truth, to wit, that all things which the 
orthodox doctrine assumes that we assert concerning the Only-begotten God 
have no kindred with the creation, but the marks which distinguish the 
Maker of all and His works are separated by a wide interval. If indeed the 
Son had in any other respect communion with the creation, we surely ought 
to say that He did not diverge from it even in the manner of His existence. 
But if the creation has no share in such things as are all those which we 
learn concerning the Son, we must surely of necessity say that in this 
matter also He has no communion with it. For the creation was not in the 
beginning, and was not with God, and was not, God, nor life, nor light, nor 
resurrection, nor the rest of the Divine names, as truth, righteousness, 
sanctification, Judge, just, Maker of all things, existing before the ages, 
for ever and ever; the creation is not the brightness of the glory, nor the 
express image of the Person, nor the likeness of goodness, nor grace, nor 
power, nor truth, nor salvation, nor redemption; nor do we find any one at 
all of those names which are employed by Scripture for the glory of the 
Only-begotten, either belonging to the creation or employed concerning it,-
-not to speak of those more exalted words, "I am in the Father, and the 
Father in Me(2)," and, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father(3), and, 
"None hath seen the Son, save the Father(4)." If indeed our doctrine 
allowed us to claim for the creation things so many and so great as these, 
he might have been right in thinking that we ought to attach what we 
observe-in it to our conceptions of the Only-begotten also, since the 
transfer would be from kindred subjects to one nearly allied. But if all 
these concepts and names involve communion with the Father, while they 
transcend our notions of the creation, does not our clever and sharp-witted 
friend slink away in shame at discussing the nature of the Lord of the 
Creation by the aid of what he observes in creation, without being aware 
that the marks which distinguish the creation are of a different sort? The 
ultimate division of all that exists is made by the line between "created" 
and "uncreated," the one being regarded as a cause of what has come into 
being, the other as coming into being thereby. Now the created nature and 
the Divine essence being thus divided, and admitting no intermixture in 
respect of their distinguishing properties, we must by no means conceive 
both by means of similar terms, nor seek in the idea of their nature for 
the same distinguishing marks in things that are thus separated. 
Accordingly, as the nature that is in the creation, as the phrase of the 
most excellent Wisdom somewhere tells us, exhibits "the beginning, ending, 
and midst of the times(5)" in itself, and extends concurrently with all 
temporal intervals, we take as a sort of characteristic of the subject this 
property, that in it we see some beginning of its formation, look on its 
midst, and extend our expectations to its end. For we have learnt that the 
heaven and the earth were not from eternity, and will not last to eternity, 
and thus it is hence clear that those things are both started from some 
beginning, and will surely cease at some end. But the Divine Nature, being 
limited in no respect, but passing all limitations on every side in its 
infinity, is far removed from those marks which we find in creation. For 
that power which is without interval, without quantity, without 
circumscription, having in itself all the ages and all the creation that 
has taken place in them, and over-passing at all points, by virtue of the 
infinity of its own nature, the unmeasured extent of the ages, either has 
no mark which indicates its nature, or has one of an entirely different 
sort, and not that which the creation has. Since, then, it belongs to the 
creation to have a beginning, that will be alien from the uncreated nature 
which belongs to the creation. For if any one should venture to suppose the 
existence of the Only-begotten Son to be, like the creation, from any 
beginning comprehensible by us, he must certainly append to his statement 
concerning the Son the rest also of the sequence(6); for it is not possible 
to avoid acknowledging, together with the beginning, that also which 
follows from it. For just as if one were to admit some person to be a man 
in all(7) the properties of his nature, he would observe that in this 
confession he declared him to be an animal and rational, and whatever else 
is conceived of man, so by the same reasoning, if we should understand any 
of the properties of creation to be present in the Divine essence, it will 
no longer be open to us to refrain from attaching to that pure Nature the 
rest of the list of the attributes contemplated therein. For the 
"beginning" will demand by force and compulsion that which follows it; for 
the "beginning," thus conceived, is a beginning of what comes after it, in 
such a sense, that if they are, it is, and if the things connected with it 
are removed, the antecedent also would not remain(8). Now as the book of 
Wisdom speaks of "midst" and "end" as well as of "beginning," if we assume 
in the Nature of the Only-begotten, according to the heretical dogma, some 
beginning of existence defined by a certain mark of time, the book of 
Wisdom will by no means allow us to refrain from subjoining to the 
"beginning "a "midst" and an "end" also. If this should be done we shall 
find, as the result of our arguments, that the Divine word shows us that 
the Deity is mortal. For if, according to the book of Wisdom, the "end" is 
a necessary consequence of the "beginning," and the idea of "midst" is 
involved in that of extremes, he who allows one of these also potentially 
maintains the others, and lays down bounds of measure and limitation for 
the infinite Nature. And if this is impious and absurd, the giving a 
beginning to that argument which ends in impiety deserves equal, or even 
greater censure; and the beginning of this absurd doctrine was seen to be 
the supposition that the life of the Son was circumscribed by some 
beginning. Thus one of two courses is before them: either they must revert 
to sound doctrine under the compulsion of the foregoing arguments, and 
contemplate Him Who is of the Father in union with the Father's eternity, 
or if they do not like this, they must limit the eternity of the Son in 
both ways, and reduce the limitless character of His life to non-existence 
by a beginning and an end. And, granted that the nature both of souls and 
of the angels has no end, and is no way hindered from going on to eternity, 
by the fact of its being created, and having the beginning of its existence 
from some point of time, so that our adversaries can use this fact to 
assert a parallel in the case of Christ, in the sense that He is not from 
eternity, and yet endures everlastingly,--let any one who advances this 
argument also consider the following point, how widely the Godhead differs 
from the creation in its special attributes. For to the Godhead it properly 
belongs to lack no conceivable thing which is regarded as good, while the 
creation attains excellence by partaking in something better than itself; 
and further, not only had a beginning of its being, but also is found to be 
constantly in a state of beginning to be in excellence, by its continual 
advance in improvement, since it never halts at what it has reached, but 
all that it has acquired(9) becomes by participation a beginning of its 
ascent to something still greater, and it never ceases, in Paul's phrase, 
"reaching forth to the things that are before," and "forgetting the things 
that are behind(1)." Since, then, the Godhead is very life, and the Only-
begotten God is God, and life, and truth, and every conceivable thing that 
is lofty and Divine, while the creation draws from Him its supply of good, 
it may hence be evident that if it is in life by partaking of life, it will 
surely, if it ceases from this participation, cease from life also. If they 
dare, then, to say also of the Only-begotten God those things which it is 
true to say of the creation, let them say this too, along with the rest, 
that He has a beginning of His being like the creation, and abides in life 
after the likeness of souls. But if He is the very life, and needs not to 
have life in Himself ab extra, while all other things are not life, but are 
merely participants in life, what constrains us to cancel, by reason of 
what we see in creation, the eternity of the Son? For that which is always 
unchanged as regards its nature, admits of no contrary, and is incapable of 
change to any other condition: while things whose nature is on the boundary 
line have a tendency that shifts either way, inclining at will to what they 
find attractive(2). If, then, that which is truly life is contemplated in 
the Divine and transcendent nature, the decadence thereof will surely, as 
it seems, end in the opposite state(3).

    Now the meaning of "life" and "death" is manifold, and not always 
understood in the same way. For as regards the flesh, the energy and motion 
of the bodily senses is called "life," and their extinction and dissolution 
is named "death." But in the case of the intellectual nature, approximation 
to the Divine is the true life, and decadence therefrom is named "death": 
for which reason the original evil, the devil, is called both "death," and 
the inventor of death: and he is also said by the Apostle to have the power 
of death(4). As, then, we obtain, as has been said, from the Scriptures, a 
twofold conception of death, He Who is truly unchangeable and immutable 
"alone hath immortality," and dwells in light that cannot be attained or 
approached by the darkness of wickedness(5): but all things that 
participate in death, being far removed from immortality by their contrary 
tendency, if they fall away from that which is good, would, by the 
mutability of their nature, admit community with the worse condition, which 
is nothing else than death, having a certain correspondence with the death 
of the body. For as in that case the extinction of the activities of nature 
is called death, so also, in the case of the intellectual being, the 
absence of motion towards the good is death and departure from life; so 
that what we perceive in the bodiless creation(6) does not clash with our 
argument, which refutes the doctrine of heresy. For that form of death 
which corresponds to the intellectual nature (that is, separation from God, 
Whom we call Life) is, potentially, not separated even from their nature; 
for their emergence from non-existence shows mutability of nature; and that 
to which change is in affinity is hindered from participation in the 
contrary state by the grace of Him Who strengthens it: it does not abide in 
the good by its own nature: and such a thing is not eternal. If, then, one 
really speaks truth in saying that we ought not to estimate the Divine 
essence and the created nature in the same way, nor to circumscribe the 
being of the Son of God by any beginning, test, if this be granted, the 
other attributes of creation should enter in together with our 
acknowledgment of this one, the absurd character of the teaching of that 
man, who employs the attributes of creation to separate the Only-begotten 
God from the eternity of the Father, is clearly shown. For as none other of 
the marks which characterize the creation appears in the Maker of the 
creation, so neither is the fact that the creation has its existence from 
some beginning a proof that the  Son was not always in the Father,--that 
Son, Who is Wisdom, and Power, and Light, and Life, and all that is 
conceived of in the bosom of the Father.


BOOK IX

   1. The ninth book declares that Eunomius' account of the Nature of God 
is, up to a certain point, well stated. Then in succession he mixes up with 
his own argument, on account of its affinity, the expression from Philo's 
writings, "God is before all other things, which are generated," adding 
also the expression, "He has dominion over His own power." Detesting the 
excessive absurdity, Gregory strikingly confutes it(1).

    BUT he now turns to loftier language, and elevating himself and puffing 
himself up with empty conceit, he takes in hand to say something worthy of 
God's majesty. "For God," he says, "being the most highly exalted of all 
goods, and the mightiest of all, and free from all necessity--" Nobly does 
the gallant man bring his discourse, like some ship without ballast, driven 
unguided by the waves of deceit, into the harbour of truth! "God is the 
most highly exalted of all goods." Splendid acknowledgment! I suppose he 
will not bring a charge of unconstitutional conduct against the great John, 
by whom, in his lofty proclamation, the Only-begotten is declared to be 
God, Who was with God and was God(2). If he, then, the proclaimer of the 
Godhead of the Only-begotten, is worthy of credit, and if "God is the most 
highly exalted of all goods," it follows that the Son is alleged by the 
enemies of His glory, to be "the most highly exalted of all goods." And as 
this phrase is also applied to the Father, the superlative force of "most 
highly exalted" admits of no diminution or addition by way of comparison. 
But, now that we have obtained from the adversary's testimony these 
statements for the proof of the glory of the Only-begotten, we must add in 
support of sound doctrine his next statement too. He says, "God, the most 
highly exalted of all goods, being without hindrance from nature, or 
constraint from cause, or impulse from need, begets and creates according 
to the supremacy of His own authority, having His will as power sufficient 
for the constitution of the things produced. If, then, all good is 
according to His will, He not only determines that which is made as good, 
but also the time of its being. good, if, that is to say, as one may 
assume, it is an indication of weakness to make what one does not will(3)." 
We shall borrow so far as this, for the confirmation of the orthodox 
doctrines, from our adversaries' statement, percolated as that statement is 
by vile and counterfeit clauses. Yes, He Who has, by the supremacy of His 
authority, power in His will that suffices for the constitution of the 
things that are made, He Who created all things without hindrance from 
nature or compulsion from cause, does determine not only that which is made 
as good, but also the time of its being good. But He Who made all things 
is, as the gospel proclaims, the Only-begotten God. He, at that time when 
He willed it, did make the creation; at that time, by means of the 
circumambient essence, He surrounded with the body of heaven all that 
universe that is shut off within its compass: at that time, when He thought 
it well that this should be, He displayed the dry land to view, He enclosed 
the waters in their hollow places; vegetation, fruits, the generation of 
animals, the formation of man, appeared at that time when each of these 
things seemed expedient to the wisdom of the Creator:--and He Who made all 
these things (I will once more repeat my statement) is the Only-begotten 
God Who made the ages. For if the interval of the ages has preceded 
existing things, it is proper to employ the temporal adverb, and to say "He 
then willed" and "He then made": but since the age was not, since no 
conception of interval is present to our minds in regard to that Divine 
Nature which is not measured by quantity or by interval, the force of 
temporal expressions must surely be void. Thus to say that the creation has 
had given to it a beginning in time, according to the good pleasure of the 
wisdom of Him Who made all things, does not go beyond probability: but to 
regard the Divine Nature itself as being in a kind of extension measured by 
intervals, belongs only to those who have been trained in the new wisdom. 
What a point is this, embedded in his words, which I intentionally passed 
by in my eagerness to reach the subject! I will now resume it, and read it 
to show our author's cleverness.

    "For He Who is most highly exalted in God Himself(4) before all other 
things that are generated," he says, "has dominion over His own power." The 
phrase has been transferred by our pamphleteer word for word from the 
Hebrew Philo to his own argument, and Eunomius' theft will be proved by 
Philo's works themselves to any one who cares about it. I note the fact, 
however, at present, not so much to reproach our speech-monger with the 
poverty of his own arguments and thoughts, as with the intention of showing 
to my readers the close relationship between the doctrine of Eunomius and 
the reasoning of the Jews. For this phrase of Philo would not have fitted 
word for word into his argument had there not been a sort of kindred 
between the intention of the one and the other. In the Hebrew author you 
may find the phrase in this form: "God, before all other things that are 
generated"; and what follows, "has dominion over His own power," is an 
addition of the new Judaism. But what an absurdity this involves an 
examination of the saying will clearly show. "God," he says, "has dominion 
over His own power." Tell me, what is He? over what has He dominion? Is He 
something else than His own power, and Lord of a power that is something 
else than Himself? Then power is overcome by the absence of power. For that 
which is something else than power is surely not power, and thus He is 
found to have dominion over power just in so far as He is not power. Or 
again, God, being power, has another power in Himself, and has dominion 
over the one by the other. And what contest or schism is there, that God 
should divide the power that exists in Himself, and overthrow one section 
of His power by the other. I suppose He could not have dominion over His 
own power without the assistance to that end of some greater and more 
violent power! Such is Eunomius' God: a being with double nature, or 
composite, dividing Himself against Himself, having one power out of 
harmony with another, so that by one He is urged to disorder, and by the 
other restrains this discordant motion. Again, with what intent does He 
dominate the power that urges on to generation? lest some evil should arise  
if generation be not hindered? or rather let i him explain this in the 
first place,--what is that which is naturally under dominion? His language 
points to some movement of impulse and choice, considered separately and 
independently. For that which dominates must needs be one thing, that which 
is dominated another. Now God "has dominion over His power "--and this is--
what? a self-determining nature? or something else than this, pressing on 
to disquiet, or remaining in a state of quiescence? Well, if he supposes it 
to be quiescent, that which is tranquil needs no one to have dominion over 
it: and if he says "He has dominion," He "has dominion" clearly over 
something which impels and is in motion: and this, I presume he will say, 
is something naturally different from Him Who rules it. What then, let him 
tell us, does he understand in this idea? Is it something else besides God, 
considered as having an independent existence? How can another existence be 
in God? Or is it some condition in the Divine Nature considered as having 
an existence not its own? I hardly think he would say so: for that which 
has no existence of its own is not: and that which is not, is neither under 
dominion, nor set free from it. What then is that power which was under 
dominion, and was restrained in respect of its own activity, while the due 
time of the generation of Christ was still about to come, and to set this 
power free to proceed to its natural operation? What was the intervening 
cause of delay, for which God deferred the generation of the Only-begotten, 
not thinking it good as yet to become a Father? And what is this that is 
inserted as intervening between the life of the Father and that of the Son, 
that is not time nor space, nor any idea of extension, nor any like thing? 
To what purpose is it that this keen and clear-sighted eye marks and 
beholds the separation of the life of God in regard to the life of the Son? 
When he is driven in all directions he is himself forced to admit that the 
interval does not exist at all.

2. He then ingeniously shows that the generation of the Son is not 
according to the phrase of Eunomius, "The Father begat Him at that time 
when He chose, and not before:" but that the Son, being the fulness of all 
that is good and excellent, is always contemplated in the Father; using for 
this demonstration the support of Eunomius' own arguments.

    However, though there is no interval between them, he does not admit 
that their communion is immediate and intimate, but condescends to the 
measure of our knowledge, and converses with us in human phrase as one of 
ourselves, himself quietly confessing the impotence of reasoning and taking 
refuge in a line of argument that was never taught by Aristotle and his 
school. He says, "It was good and proper that He should beget His Son at 
that time when He willed: and in the minds of sensible men there does not 
hence arise any questioning why He did not do so before." What does this 
mean, Eunomius? Are you too going afoot like us unlettered men? are you 
leaving your artistic periods and actually taking refuge in unreasoning 
assent? you, who so much reproached those who take in hand to write without 
logical skill? You, who say to Basil, "You show your own ignorance when you 
say that definitions of the terms that express things spiritual are an 
impossibility for men," who again elsewhere advance the same charge, "you 
make your own impotence common to others, when you declare that what is not 
possible for you is impossible for all"? Is this the way that you, who say 
such things as these, approach the ears of him who questions about the 
reason why the Father defers becoming the Father of such a Son? Do you 
think it an adequate explanation to say, "He begat Him at that time when He 
chose: let there be no questioning on this point"? Has your apprehensive 
fancy grown so feeble in the maintenance of your doctrines? What has become 
of your premises that lead to dilemmas? What has become of your forcible 
proofs? how comes it that those terrible and inevitable syllogistic 
conclusions of your art have dissolved into vanity and nothingness? "He 
begat the Son at that time when He chose: let there be no questioning on 
this point!" Is this the finished product of your many labours, of your 
voluminous undertakings? What was the question asked? "If it is good and 
fitting for God to have such a Son, why are we not to believe that the good 
is always present with Him(5)?" What is the answer he makes to us from the 
very shrine of his philosophy, tightening the bonds of his argument by 
inevitable necessity? "He made the Son at that time when He chose: let 
there be no questioning as to why He did not do so before." Why, if the 
inquiry before us were concerning some irrational being, that acts by 
natural impulse, why it did not sooner do whatever it may be,--why the 
spider did not make her webs, or the bee her honey, or the turtle-dove her 
nest,--what else could you have said? would not the same answer have been 
ready--" She did it at that time when she chose: let there be no 
questioning on this matter"? Nay, if it were concerning some sculptor or 
painter who works in paintings or in sculptures by his imitative art, 
whatever it may be (supposing that he exercises his art  without being 
subject to any authority), I imagine that such an answer would meet the 
case of any one who wished to know why he did not exercise his art sooner,-
-that, being under no necessity, he made his own choice the occasion of his 
operation. For men, because they do not always wish the same things(6), and 
commonly have not power cooperating with their will, do something which 
seems good to them at that time when their choice inclines to the work, and 
they have no external hindrance. But that nature which is always the same, 
to which no good is adventitious, in which all that variety of plans which 
arises by way of opposition, from error or from ignorance, has no place, to 
which there comes nothing as a result of change, which was not with it 
before, and by which nothing is chosen afterwards which it had not from the 
beginning regarded as good,--to say of this nature that it does not always 
possess what is good, but afterwards chooses to have something which it did 
not choose before,--this belongs to wisdom that surpasses us. For we were 
taught that the Divine. Nature is at all times full of all good, or rather 
is itself the fulness of all goods, seeing that it needs no addition for 
its perfecting, but is itself by its own nature the perfection of good. Now 
that which is perfect is equally remote from addition and from diminution; 
and therefore, we say that perfection of goods which we behold in the 
Divine Nature always remains the same, as, in whatsoever direction we 
extend our thoughts, we there apprehend it to be such as it is. The Divine 
Nature, then, is never void of good: but the Son is the fulness of all 
good: and accordingly He is at all times contemplated in that Father Whose 
Nature is perfection in all good. But he says, "let there be no questioning 
about this point, why He did not do so before:" and we shall answer him,--
"It is one thing, most sapient sir, to lay down as an ordinance some 
proposition that you happen to approve(7), and another to make converts by 
reasoning on the points of controversy. So long, therefore, as you cannot 
assign any reason why we may piously say that the Son was "afterwards" 
begotten by the Father, your ordinances will be of no effect with sensible 
men."

    Thus it is then that Eunomius brings the truth to light for us as the 
result of his scientific attack. And we for our part shall apply his 
argument, as we are wont to do, for the establishment of the true doctrine, 
so that even by this passage it may be clear that at every point, 
constrained against their will, they advocate our view. For if, as our 
opponent says, "He begat the Son at that time when He chose," and if He 
always chose that which is good, and His power coincided with His choice, 
it follows that the Son will be considered as always with the Father, Who 
always both chooses that which is excellent, and is able to possess what He 
chooses. And if we are to reduce his next words also to truth, it is easy 
for us to adapt them also to the doctrine we hold:--" Let there be no 
questioning among sensible men on this point, why He did not do so before"-
-for the word "before" has a temporal sense, opposed to what is 
"afterwards" and "later": but on the supposition that time does not exist, 
the terms expressing temporal interval are surely abolished with it. Now 
the Lord was before times and before ages: questioning as to "before" or 
"after" concerning the Maker of the ages is useless in the eyes of 
reasonable men: for words of this class are devoid of all meaning, if they 
are not used in reference to time. Since then the Lord is antecedent to 
times, the words "before" and "after" have no place as applied to Him. This 
may perhaps be sufficient to refute arguments that need no one to overthrow 
them, but fall by their own feebleness. For who is there with so much 
leisure that he can give himself up to such an extent to listen to the 
arguments on the other side, and to our contention against the silly stuff? 
Since, however, in men prejudiced by impiety, deceit is like some ingrained 
dye, hard to wash out, and deeply burned in upon their hearts, let us spend 
yet a little time upon our argument, if haply we may be able to cleanse 
their souls from this evil stain. After the utterances that I have quoted, 
and after adding to them, in the manner of his teacher Prunicus,(8) some 
unconnected and ill-arranged octads of insolence and abuse, he comes to the 
crowning point of his arguments, and, leaving the illogical exposition of 
his folly, arms his discourse once more with the weapons of dialectic, and 
maintains his absurdity against us, as he imagines, syllogistically.

3. He further shows that the pretemporal generation of the San is not the 
subject of influences drawn from ordinary and carnal generation, but is 
without beginning and without end, and not according to the fabrications 
constructed by Eunomius, in ignorance of His power, from the statements of 
Plato concerning the soul and from the sabbath rest of the Hebrews.

    What he says runs thus:--" As all generation is not protracted to 
infinity, but ceases on arriving at some end, those who admit the 
origination of the Son are absolutely obliged to say that He then ceased 
being generated, and not to look incredulously on the beginning of those 
things which cease being generated, and therefore also surely begin: for 
the cessation of generation establishes a beginning of begetting and being 
begotten: and these facts cannot be disbelieved, on the ground at once of 
nature itself and of the Divine laws(9)." Now since he endeavours to 
establish his point inferentially, laying down his universal proposition 
according to the scientific method of those who are skilled in such 
matters, and including in the general premise the proof of the particular, 
let us first consider his universal, and then proceed to examine the force 
of his inferences. Is it a reverent proceeding to draw from "all 
generation" evidence even as to the pre-temporal generation of the Son? and 
ought we to put forward ordinary nature as our instructor on the being of 
the Only-begotten? For my own part, I should not have expected any one to 
reach such a point of madness, that any such idea of the Divine and 
unsullied generation should enter his fancy. "All generation," he says, "is 
not protracted to infinity." What is it that he understands by 
"generation"? Is he speaking of fleshly, bodily birth, or of the formation 
of inanimate objects? The affections involved in bodily generation are well 
known--affections which no one would think of transferring to the Divine 
Nature. In order therefore that our discourse may not, by mentioning the 
works of nature at length, be made to appear redundant, we shall pass such 
matters by in silence, as I suppose that every sensible man is himself 
aware of the causes by which generation is protracted, both in regard to 
its beginning and to its cessation: it would be tedious and at the same 
time superfluous to express them all minutely, the coming together of those 
who generate, the formation in the womb of that which is generated, 
travail, birth, place, time, without which the generation of a body cannot 
be brought about,--things which are all equally alien from the Divine 
generation of the Only-begotten: for if any one of these things were 
admitted, the rest will of necessity all enter with it. That the Divine 
generation, therefore, may be clear of every idea connected with passion, 
we shall avoid conceiving with regard to it even that extension which is 
measured by intervals. Now that which begins and ends is surely regarded as 
being in a kind of extension, and all extension is measured by time, and as 
time (by which we mark both the end of birth and its beginning) is 
excluded, it would be vain, in the case of the uninterrupted generation, to 
entertain the idea of end or beginning, since no idea can be formed to mark 
either the point at which such generation begins or that at which it 
ceases. If on the other hand it is the inanimate creation to which he is 
looking, even in this case, in like manner, place, and time, and matter, 
and preparation, and power of the artificer, and many like things, concur 
to bring the product to perfection. And since time assuredly is concurrent 
with all things that are produced, and since with everything that is 
created, be it animate or inanimate, there are conceived also bases of 
construction relative to the product, we can find in these cases evident 
beginnings and endings of the process of formation. For even the procuring 
of material is actually the beginning of the fabric, and is a sign of 
place, and is logically connected with time. All these things fix for the 
products their beginnings and endings; and no one could say that these 
things have any participation in the  pretemporal generation of the Only-
begotten God, so that, by the aid of the things now under consideration, we 
are able to calculate, with regard to that generation, any beginning or 
end.

    Now that we have so far discussed these matters, let us resume 
consideration of our adversaries' argument. It says, "As all generation is 
not protracted to infinity, but ceases on arriving at some end." Now, since 
the sense of "generation" has been considered with respect to either 
meaning,--whether he intends by this word to signify the birth of corporeal 
beings, or the formation of things created (neither of which has anything 
in common with the unsullied Nature), the premise is shown to have no 
connection with the subject(1). For it is not a matter of absolute 
necessity, as he maintains, that, because all making and generation ceases 
at some limit, therefore those who accept the generation of the Son should 
circumscribe it by a double limit, by supposing, as regards it, a beginning 
and an end. For it is only as being circumscribed in some quantitative way 
that things can be said either to begin or to cease on arriving at a limit, 
and the measure expressed by time (having its extension concomitant with 
the quantity of that which is produced) differentiates the beginning from 
the end by the interval between them. But how can any one measure or treat 
as extended that which is without quantity and without extension? What 
measure can he find for that which has no quantity, or what interval for 
that which has no extension? or how can any one define the infinite by 
"end" and "beginning?" for "beginning" and "end" are names of limits of 
extension, and, where there is no extension, neither is there any limit. 
Now the Divine Nature is without extension, and, being without extension, 
it has no limit; and that which is limitless is infinite, and is spoken of 
accordingly. Thus it is idle to try to circumscribe the infinite by 
"beginning" and "ending"--for what is circumscribed cannot be infinite. How 
comes it, then, that this Platonic Phaedrus disconnectedly tacks on to his 
own doctrine those speculations on the soul which Plato makes in that 
dialogue? For as Plato there spoke of "cessation of motion," so this writer 
too was eager to speak of "cessation of generation," in order to Impose 
upon those who have no knowledge of these matters, with fine Platonic 
phrases. "And these facts," he tells us, "cannot be disbelieved, on the 
ground at once of nature itself and of the Divine laws." But nature, from 
our previous remarks, appears not to be trustworthy for instruction as to 
the Divine generation,--not even if one were to take the universe itself as 
an illustration of the argument: since through its creation also, as we 
learn in the cosmogony of Moses, there ran the measure of time, meted out 
in a certain order and arrangement by stated days and nights, for each of 
the things that came into being: and this even our adversaries' statement 
does not admit with regard to the being of the Only-begotten, since it 
acknowledges that the Lord was before the times of the ages.

    It remains to consider his support of his point by "the Divine laws," 
by which he undertakes to show both an end and a beginning of the 
generation of the Son. "God," he says, "willing that the law of creation 
should be impressed upon the Hebrews, did not appoint the first day of 
generation for the end of creation, or to be the evidence of its beginning; 
for He gave them as the memorial of the creation, not the first day of 
generation but the seventh, whereon He rested from His works." Will any one 
believe that this was written by Eunomius, and that the words cited have 
not been inserted by us, by way of misrepresenting his composition  so as 
to make him appear ridiculous to our readers, in dragging in to prove his 
point matters that have nothing to do with the question? For the matter in 
hand was to show, as he undertook to do, that the Son, not previously 
existing, came into being; and that in being generated, He took a beginning 
of generation, and of cessation(2),--His generation being protracted in 
time, as it were by a kind of travail. And what is his resource for 
establishing this The fact that the people of the Hebrews, according to the 
Law, keep sabbath on the seventh day! How well the evidence agrees with the 
matter in hand! Because the Jew honours his sabbath by idleness, the fact, 
as he says, is proved that the Lord both had a beginning of birth and 
ceased being born! How many other testimonies on this matter has our author 
passed by, not at all of less weight than that which he employs to 
establish the point at issue!--the circumcision on the eighth day, the week 
of unleavened bread, the mystery on the fourteenth day of the moon's 
course, the sacrifices of purification, the observation of the lepers, the 
ram, the calf, the heifer, the scapegoat, the he-goat. If these things are 
far removed from the point, let those who are so much interested in the 
Jewish mysteries tell us how that particular matter is within range of the 
question. We judge it to be mean and unmanly to trample on the fallen, and 
shall proceed to enquire, from what follows in his writings, whether there 
is anything there of such a kind as to give trouble to his opponent. All, 
then, that he maintains in the next passage, as to the impropriety of 
supposing anything intermediate between the Father and the Son, I shall 
pass by, as being, in a sense, in agreement with our doctrine. For it would 
be alike undiscriminating and unfair not to distinguish in his remarks what 
is irreproachable, and what is blamable, seeing that, while he fights 
against his own statements, he does not follow his own admissions, speaking 
of the immediate character of the connection while refusing to admit its 
continuity, and conceiving that nothing was before the Son and having some 
suspicion that the Son was while yet contending that He came into being 
when He was not. We shall spend but a short time on these points (since the 
argument has already been established beforehand), and then proceed to 
handle the arguments proposed.

    It is not allowable for the same person to set nothing above the 
existence of the Only-begotten, and to say that before His generation He 
was  not, but that He was generated then when the  Father willed. For 
"then" and "when" have a sense which specially and properly refers to the 
denoting of time, according to the common use of men who speak soundly, and 
according to their signification in Scripture. One may take "then shall 
they say among the heathen(3)," and "when I sent you(4)" and "then shall 
the kingdom of heaven be likened(5)," and countless similar phrases through 
the whole of Scripture, to prove this point, that the ordinary Scriptural 
use employs these parts of speech to denote time. If therefore, as our 
opponent allows, time was not, the signifying of time surely disappears 
too: and if this did not exist, it will necessarily  be replaced by 
eternity in our conception(6). For in the phrase "was not" there is surely 
implied "once": as, if he should speak of "not being," without the 
qualification "once," he would also deny his existence now: but if he 
admits His present existence, and contends against His eternity, it is 
surely not "not being" absolutely, but "not being" once which is present to 
his mind. And as this phrase is utterly unreal, unless it rests upon the 
signification of time, it would be foolish and idle to say that nothing was 
before the Son, and yet to maintain that the Son did not always exist. For 
if there is neither place nor time, nor any other creature where the Word 
that was in the beginning is not, the statement that the Lord "once was 
not" is entirely removed from the region of orthodox doctrine. So he is at 
variance not so much with us as with himself, who declares that the Only-
begotten both was and was not. For in confessing that the conjunction of 
the Son with the Father is not interrupted by anything, He clearly 
testifies to His eternity. But if he should say that the Son was not in the 
Father, we shall not ourselves say anything against such a statement, but 
shall oppose to it the Scripture which declares that the Son is in the 
Father, and the Father in the Son, without adding to the phrase "once" or 
"when" or "then," but testifying His eternity by this affirmative and 
unqualified utterance.

4. Then, having shown that Eunomius' calumny against the great Basil, that 
he called the Only-begotten "Ungenerate," is false, and having again with 
much ingenuity discussed the eternity, being, and endlessness of the Only-
begotten, and the creation of light and of darkness, he concludes the book.

    With regard to his attempting to show that we say the Only-begotten God 
is ungenerate, it is as though he should say that we actually define the 
Father to be begotten: for either statement is of the same absurdity, or 
rather of the same blasphemous character. If, therefore, he has made up his 
mind to slander us, let him add the other charge as well, and spare nothing 
by which it may be in his power more violently to exasperate his hearers 
against us. But if one of these charges is withheld because its calumnious 
nature is apparent, why is the other made? For it is just the same thing, 
as we have said, so far as the impiety goes, to call the Son ungenerate and 
to call the Father generated. Now if any such phrase can found in our 
writings, in which the Son is spoken of as ungenerate, we shall give the 
final vote against ourselves: but if he is fabricating false charges and 
calumnies at his pleasure, making any fictitious statement he pleases to 
slander our doctrines, this fact may serve with sensible men for an 
evidence of our orthodoxy, that while truth itself fights on our side, he 
brings forward a lie to accuse our doctrine and makes up an indictment for 
unorthodoxy that has no relation to our statements. To these charges, 
however, we can give a concise answer. As we judge that man accursed who 
says that the Only-begotten God is ungenerate, let him in turn anathematize 
the man who lays it down that He who was in the beginning "once was not." 
For by such a method it will be shown who brings his charges truly, and who 
calumniously. But if we deny his accusations, if, when we speak of a 
Father, we understand as implied in that word a Son also, and if, when we 
use the name "Son," we declare that He really is what He is called, being 
shed forth by generation from the ungenerate Light, how can the calumny of 
those who persist that we say the Only-begotten is ungenerate fail to be 
manifest? Yet we shall not, because we say that He exists by generation, 
therefore admit that He "once was not." For every one knows that the 
contradiction between "being" and "not being" is immediate, so that the 
affirmation of one of these terms is absolutely the destruction of the 
other, and that, just as "being" is the same in regard to every time at 
which any of the things that "are" is supposed to have its existence (for 
the sky, and stars, and sun, and the rest of the things that "are," are not 
more in a state of being now than they were yesterday, or the day before, 
or at any previous time), so the meaning of "not being" expresses non-
existence equally at every time, whether one speaks of it in reference to 
what is earlier or to what is later. For any of the things that do not 
exist(7) is no more in a state of "not being" now than if it were non-
existent before, but the idea of "not being" is one applied to that which 
"is not" at any distance of time. And for this reason, in speaking of 
living creatures, while we use different words to denote the dissolution 
into a state of "not being" of that which has been, and the condition of 
non-existence of that which has never had an entrance into being, and say 
either that a thing has never come into being at all, or that which was 
generated has died, yet by either form of speech we equally represent by 
our words "non-existence." For as day is bounded on each side by night, yet 
the parts of the night which bound it are not named alike, but we speak of 
one as "after night-fall," and of the other as "before dawn," while that 
which both phrases denote is night, so, if any one looks on that which is 
not in contrast to that which it, he will give different names to that 
state which is antecedent to formation and to that which follows the 
dissolution of what was formed, yet  will conceive as one the condition 
which both phrases signify--the condition which is antecedent to formation 
and the condition following on dissolution after formation. For the state 
of "not being "of that which has not been generated, and of that which has 
died, save for the difference of the names, are the same,--with the 
exception of the account which we take of the hope of the resurrection. Now 
since we learn from Scripture that the Only-begotten God is the Prince of 
Life, the very life, and light, and truth, and all that is honourable in 
word or thought, we say that it is absurd and impious to contemplate, in 
conjunction with Him Who really is, the opposite conception, whether of 
dissolution tending to corruption, or of non-existence before formation: 
but as we extend our thought in every direction to what is to follow, or to 
what was before the ages, we nowhere pause in our conceptions at the 
condition of "not being," judging it to tend equally to impiety to cut 
short the Divine being by non-existence at any time whatever. For it is the 
same thing to say that the immortal life is mortal, that the truth is a 
lie, that light is darkness, and that which is not. He, accordingly, who 
refuses to allow that He will at some future time cease to be, will also 
refuse to allow that He "once was not," avoiding, according to our view, 
the same impiety on either hand: for, as no death cuts short the 
endlessness of the life of the Only-begotten, so, as we look back, no 
period of nonexistence will terminate His life in its course towards 
eternity, that which in reality is may be clear of all community with that 
which in reality is not. For this cause the Lord, desiring that His 
disciples might be far removed from this error (that they might never, by 
themselves searching for something antecedent to the existence of the Only-
begotten, be led by their reasoning to the idea of non-existence), saith, 
"I am in the Father, and the Father in Me(8)," in the sense that neither is 
that which is not conceived in that which is, nor that which is in that 
which is not. And here the very order of the phrase explains the orthodox 
doctrine; for because the Father is not of the Son, but the Son of the 
Father, therefore He says, "I am in the Father," showing the fact that He 
is not of another but of Him, and then reverses the phrase to, "and the 
Father in Me," indicating that he who, in his curious speculation, passes 
beyond the Son, passes also beyond the conception of the Father: for He who 
is in anything cannot be found outside of that in which He is: so that the 
man who, while not denying that the  Father is in the Son, yet imagines 
that he has in any degree apprehended the Father as external to the Son, is 
talking idly. Idle too are the wanderings of our adversaries' fighting 
about shadows touching the matter of "ungeneracy," proceeding without solid 
foundation by means of nonentities. Yet if I am to bring more fully to 
light the whole absurdity of their argument, let me be allowed to spend a 
little longer on this speculation. As they say that the Only-begotten God 
came into existence "later," after the Father, this "unbegotten" of theirs, 
whatever they imagine it to be, is discovered of necessity to exhibit with 
itself the idea of evil. Who knows not, that, just as the non-existent is 
contrasted with the existent, so with every good thing or name is 
contrasted the opposite conception, as "bad" with "good," "falsehood "with 
"truth," "darkness" with "light," and all the rest that are similarly 
opposed to one another, where the opposition admits of no middle term, and 
it is impossible that the two should co-exist, but the presence of the one 
destroys its opposite, and with the withdrawal of the other takes place the 
appearance of its contrary?

    Now these points being conceded to us, the further point is also clear 
to any one, that, as Moses says darkness was before the creation of light, 
so also in the case of the Son (if, according to the heretical statement, 
the Father "made  Him at that time when He willed"), before He made Him, 
that Light which the Son is was not; and, light not yet being, it is 
impossible that its opposite should not be. For we learn also from the 
other instances that nothing that comes from the Creator is at random, but 
that which was lacking is added by creation to existing things. Thus it is 
quite clear that if. God did make the Son, He made Him by reason of a 
deficiency in the nature of things. As, then, while sensible light was 
still lacking, there was darkness, and darkness would certainly have 
prevailed had light not come into being, so also, when the Son "as yet was 
not," the very and true Light, and all else that the Son is, did not exist. 
For even according to the evidence of heresy, that which exists has no need 
of coming into being; if therefore He made Him, He assuredly made that 
which did not exist. Thus, according to their view, before the Son came 
into being, neither had truth come into being, nor the intelligible Light, 
nor the fount of life, nor, generally, the nature of any thing that is 
excellent and good. Now, concurrently with the exclusion of each of these, 
there is found to subsist the opposite conception: and if light was not, it 
cannot be denied that darkness was; and so with the rest,--in place of each 
of these more excellent conceptions it is clearly impossible that its 
opposite did not exist in place of  that which was lacking. It is therefore 
a necessary conclusion, that when the Father, as the heretics say, "had not 
as yet willed to make the Son," none of those things which the Son is being 
yet existent, we must say that He was surrounded by darkness instead of 
Light, by falsehood instead of truth, by death instead of life, by evil 
instead of good. For He Who creates, creates things that are not; "That 
which is," as Eunomius says, "needs not generation"; and of those things 
which are considered as opposed, the better cannot be non-existent, except 
by the existence of the worse. These are the gifts with which the wisdom of 
heresy honours the Father, by which it degrades the eternity of the Son, 
and ascribes to God and the Father, before the "production" of the Son, the 
whole catalogue of evils!

    And let no one think to rebut by examples from the rest of creation the 
demonstration of the doctrinal absurdity which results from this argument. 
One will perhaps say that, as, when the sky was not, there was no opposite 
to it, so we are not absolutely compelled to admit that if the Son, Who is 
Truth, had not come into existence, the opposite did exist. To him we may 
reply that to the sky there is no corresponding opposite, unless one were 
to say that its non-existence is opposed to its existence. But to virtue is 
certainly opposed that which is vicious (and the Lord is virtue); so that 
when the sky was not, it does not follow that anything was; but when good 
was not, its opposite was; thus he who says that good was not, will 
certainly allow, even without intending it, that evil was. "But the Father 
also," he says(9), "is absolute virtue, and life, and light unapproachable, 
and all that is exalted in word or thought: so that there is no necessity 
to suppose, when the Only-begotten Light was not, the existence of that 
darkness which is His corresponding opposite." But this is just what I say, 
that darkness never was; for the light-never "was not," for "the light," as 
the prophecy says, "is always in the light(1)." If, however, according to 
the heretical doctrine, the "ungenerate light" is one thing, and the 
"generated light" another, and the one is eternal, while the other comes 
into existence at a later time, it follows of absolute necessity that in 
the eternal light we should find no place for the establishment of its 
opposite; (for if the light always shines, the power of darkness has no 
place in it;) and that in the case of the light which comes into being, as 
they say, afterwards, it is impossible that the light should shine forth 
save out of darkness; and the interval of darkness between eternal light 
and that which arises later will be clearly marked in every way(2). For 
there would have been no need of the making of the later light, if that 
which was created had not been of utility for some purpose: and the one use 
of light is that of the dispersion by its means of the prevailing gloom. 
Now the light which exists without creation is what it is by nature by 
reason of itself; but the created light clearly comes into being by reason 
of something else. It must be then that its existence was preceded by 
darkness, on account of which the light was of necessity created, and it is 
not possible by any reasoning to make plausible the view that darkness did 
not precede the manifestation of the Only-begotten Light,--on the 
supposition, that is, that He is believed to have been "made" at a later 
time. Surely such a doctrine is beyond all impiety! It is therefore clearly 
shown that the Father of truth did not make the truth at a time when it was 
not; but, being the fountain of light and truth, and of all good, He shed 
forth from Himself that Only-begotten Light of truth by which the glory of 
His Person is expressly imaged; so that the blasphemy of those who say that 
the Son was a later addition to God by way of creation is at all points 
refuted.


BOOK X.

1. The tenth book discusses the unattainable and incomprehensible character 
of the enquiry into entities. And herein he strikingly sets forth the 
points concerning the nature and formation of the ant, and the passage in 
the Gospel, "I am the door" and "the way," and also cusses the attribution 
and interpretation of  the Divine names, and the episode of the children of 
Benjamin.

    LET US, however, keep to our subject. A little further on he contends 
against those who acknowledge that human nature is too weak to conceive 
what cannot be grasped, and with lofty boasts enlarges on this topic on 
this wise, making light of our belief on the matter in these words:--" For 
it by no means follows that, if some one's mind, blinded by malignity, and 
for that reason unable to see anything in front or above its head, is but 
moderately competent for the apprehension of truth, we ought on that ground 
to think that the discovery of reality is unattainable by the rest of 
mankind." But I should say to him that he who declares that the discovery 
of reality is attainable, has of course advanced his own intellect by some 
method and logical process through the knowledge of existent things, and 
after having been trained in matters that are comparatively small and 
easily grasped by way of apprehension, has, when thus prepared, flung his 
apprehensive fancy upon those objects which transcend all conception. Let, 
then, the man who boasts that he has attained the knowledge of real 
existence, interpret to us the real nature of the most trivial object that 
is before our eyes, that by what is knowable he may warrant our belief 
touching what is secret: let him explain by reason what is the nature of 
the ant, whether its life is held together by breath and respiration, 
whether it is regulated by vital organs like other animals, whether its 
body has a framework of bones, whether the hollows of the bones are filled 
with marrow, whether its joints are united by the tension of sinews and 
ligaments, whether the position of the sinews is maintained by enclosures 
of muscles and glands, whether the marrow extends along the vertebrae from 
the sinciput to the tail, whether it imparts to the limbs that are moved 
the power of motion by means of the enclosure of sinewy membrane; whether 
the creature has a liver, and in connection with the liver a gall-bladder; 
whether it has kidneys and heart, arteries and veins, membranes and 
diaphragm; whether it is externally smooth or covered with hair; whether it 
is distinguished by the division into male and female; in what part of its 
body is located the power of sight and hearing; whether it enjoys the sense 
of smell; whether its feet are undivided or articulated; how long it lives; 
what is the method in which they derive generation one from another, and 
what is the period of gestation; how it is that all ants do not crawl, nor 
are all winged, but some belong to the creatures that move along the 
ground, while others are borne aloft in the air. Let him, then, who boasts 
that he has grasped the knowledge of real existence, disclose to us awhile 
the nature of the ant, and then, and not till then, let him discourse on 
the nature of the power that surpasses all understanding. But if he has not 
yet ascertained by his knowledge the nature of the tiny ant, how comes he 
to vaunt that by the apprehension of reason he has grasped Him Who in 
Himself controls all creation, and to say that those who own in themselves 
the weakness of human nature, have the perceptions of their souls darkened, 
and can neither reach anything in front of them, nor anything above their 
head?

    But now let us see what understanding he who has the knowledge of 
existent things possesses beyond the rest of the world. Let us listen to 
his arrogant utterance:--"Surely it would have been idle for the Lord to 
call Himself 'the door,' if there were none to pass through to the 
understanding and contemplation of the Father, and it would have been idle 
for Him to call Himself 'the way,' if He gave no facility to those who wish 
to come to the Father. And how could He be a light, without lightening men, 
without illuminating the eye of their soul to understand both Himself and 
the transcendent Light?" Well, if he were here enumerating some arguments 
from his own head, that evade the understanding of the hearers by their 
subtlety, there would perhaps be a possibility of being deceived by the 
ingenuity of the argument, as his underlying thought frequently escapes the 
reader's notice. But since he alleges the Divine words, of course no one 
blames those who believe that their inspired teaching is the common 
property of all. "Since then," he says, "the Lord was named 'a door,' it 
follows from hence that the essence of God may be comprehended by man." But 
the Gospel does not admit of this meaning. Let us hear the Divine utterance 
itself. "I am the door," Christ says; "by Me if any man enter in he shall 
be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture(1)." Which then of these 
is the knowledge of the essence? For as several things are here said, and 
each of them has its own special meaning, it is impossible to refer them 
all to the idea of the essence, lest the Deity should be thought to be 
compounded of different elements; and yet it is not easy to find which of 
the phrases just quoted can most properly be applied to that subject. The 
Lord is "the door," "By Me," He says, "if any man enter in, he shall be 
saved, and shall go in and out and shall find pasture." Are we to say(2) 
that it is "entrance" of which he speaks in place of the essence of God, or 
"salvation "of those that enter in, or "going out," or "pasture," or 
"finding"?--for each of these is peculiar in its significance, and does not 
agree in meaning with the rest. For to get within appears obviously 
contrary to "going out," and so with the other phrases. For "pasture," in 
its proper meaning, is one thing, and "finding" another thing distinct from 
it. Which, then, of these is the essence of the Father supposed to be? For 
assuredly one cannot, by uttering all these phrases that disagree one with 
another in signification, intend to indicate by incompatible terms that 
Essence which is simple and uncompounded. And how can the word hold good, 
"No man hath seen God at any time(3)" and, "Whom no man hath seen nor can 
see(4)," and, "There shall no man see the face of the Lord and live(5)," if 
to be inside the door, or outside, or the finding pasture, denote the 
essence of the Father? For truly He is at the same time a "door of 
encompassing(6)," and a "house of defence(7)," as David calls Him, and 
through Himself He receives them that enter, and in Himself He saves those 
who have come within, and again by Himself He leads them forth to the 
pasture of virtues, and becomes all things to them that are in the way of 
salvation, that so He may make Himself that which the needs of each 
demand,--both way, and guide, and "door of encompassing," and "house of 
defence," and "water of comfort(8)," and "green pasture(8)," which in the 
Gospel He calls "pasture ": but s our new divine says that the Lord has 
been s called "the door" because of the knowledge of s the essence of the 
Father. Why then does he .'not force into the same significance the titles, 
"Rock," and "Stone," and "Fountain," and "True," and the rest, that so he 
might obtain evidence for his own theory by the multitude of strange 
testimonies, as he is well able to apply to each of these the same account 
which he has given of the Way, the Door, and the Light? But, as I am so 
taught by the inspired Scripture, I boldly affirm that He Who is above 
every name has for us many names, receiving them in accordance with the 
variety of His gracious dealings with us(9), being called the Light when He 
disperses the gloom of ignorance, and the Life when He grants the boon of 
immortality, and the Way when He guides us from error to the truth; so also 
He is termed a "tower of strength(1)," and a "city of encompassing(2)," and 
a fountain, and a rock, and a vine, and a physician, and resurrection, and 
all the like, with reference to us, imparting Himself under various aspects 
by virtue of His benefits to us-ward. But those who are keen-sighted beyond 
human power, who see the incomprehensible, but overlook what may be 
comprehended, when they use such titles to expound the essences, are 
positive that they not only see, but measure Him Whom no man hath seen nor 
can see, but do not with the eye of their soul discern the Faith, which is 
the only thing within the compass of our observation, valuing before this 
the knowledge which they obtain from ratiocination. Just so I have heard 
the sacred record laying blame upon the sons of Benjamin who did not regard 
the law, but could shoot within a hair's breadth(3), wherein, methinks, the 
word exhibited their eager pursuit of an idle object, that they were far-
darting and dexterous aimers at things that were useless and unsubstantial, 
but ignorant and regardless of what was manifestly for their benefit. For 
after what I have quoted, the history goes on to relate what befel them, 
how, when they had run madly after the iniquity of Sodom, and the people of 
Israel had taken up arms against them in full force, they were utterly 
destroyed. And it seems to me to be a kindly thought to warn young archers 
not to wish to shoot within a hair's-breadth, while they have no eyes for 
the door of the faith, but rather to drop their idle labour about the 
incomprehensible, and not to lose the gain that is ready to their hand, 
which is found by faith alone.

2. He then wonderfully displays the Eternal Life, which is Christ, to those 
who confess Him not, and applies to them the mournful lamentation of 
Jeremiah over Jehoiakim, as being closely allied to Montanus and Sabellius.

    But now that I have surveyed what remains of his treatise I shrink from 
conducting my argument further, as a shudder runs through my heart at his 
words. For he wishes to show that the Son is something different from 
eternal life, while, unless eternal life is found in the Son, our faith 
will be proved to be idle, and our preaching to be vain, baptism a 
superfluity, the agonies of the martyrs all for nought, the toils of the 
Apostles useless and unprofitable for the life of i men. For why did they 
preach Christ, in Whom, according to Eunomius, there does not reside the 
power of eternal life? Why do they make mention of those who had believed 
in Christ, unless it was through Him that they were to be partakers of 
eternal life? "For the intelligence," he says, "of those who have believed 
in the Lord, overleaping all sensible and intellectual existence, cannot 
stop even at the generation of the Son, but speeds beyond even this in its 
yearning for eternal life, eager to meet the First." What ought I most to 
bewail in this passage? that the wretched men do not think that eternal 
life is in the Son, or that they conceive of the Person of the Only-
begotten in so grovelling and earthly a fashion, that they fancy they can 
mount in their reasonings upon His beginning, and so look by the power of 
their own intellect beyond the life of the Son, and, leaving the generation 
of the Lord somewhere beneath them, can speed onward beyond this in their 
yearning for eternal life? For the meaning of what I have quoted is nothing 
else than this, that the human mind, scrutinizing the knowledge of real 
existence, and lifting itself above the sensible and intelligible creation, 
will leave God the Word, Who was in the beginning, below itself, just as it 
has left below it all other things, and itself comes to be in Him in Whom 
God the Word was not, treading, by mental activity, regions which lie 
beyond the life of the Son, there searching for eternal life, where the 
Only-begotten God is not. "For in its yearning for eternal life," he says, 
"it is borne in thought, beyond the Son"--clearly as though it had not in 
the Son found that which it was seeking.  If the eternal life is not in the 
Son, then assuredly He Who said, "I am the life(4)," will be convicted of 
falsehood, or else He is life, it is true. but not eternal life. But that 
which is not eternal is of course limited in duration. And such a kind of 
life is common to the irrational animals as well as to men. Where then is 
the majesty of the very life, if even the irrational creation share it? and 
how will the Word or Divine Reason s be the same as the Life, if this finds 
a home, in virtue of the life which is but temporary, in irrational 
creatures? For if, according to the great John, the Word is Life(6), but 
that life is temporary and not eternal, as their heresy holds, and if, 
moreover, the temporary life has place in other creatures, what is the 
logical consequence? Why, either that irrational animals are rational, or 
that the Reason must be confessed to be irrational. Have we any further 
need of words to confute their accursed and malignant blasphemy? Do such 
statements even pretend to conceal their intention of denying the Lord? For 
if the Apostle plainly says that what is not eternal is temporary(7), and 
if these people see eternal life in the essence of the Father alone, and if 
by alienating the Son from the Nature of the Father they also cut Him off 
from eternal life, what is this but a manifest denial and rejection of the 
faith in the Lord? while the Apostle clearly says that those who "in this 
life only have hope in Christ are of all men most miserable(8)." If then 
the Lord is life, but not eternal life, assuredly the life is temporal, and 
but for a day, that which is operative only for the present time, or 
else(9) the Apostle bemoans those who have hope, as having missed the true 
life.

    However, they who are enlightened in Eunomius' fashion pass the Son by, 
and are carried in their reasonings beyond Him, seeking eternal life in Him 
Who is contemplated as outside and apart from the Only-begotten. What ought 
one to say to such evils as these,--save whatever calls forth lamentation 
and weeping? Alas, how can we groan over this wretched and pitiable 
generation, bringing forth a crop of such deadly mischiefs? In days of yore 
the zealous Jeremiah bewailed the people of Israel, when they, gave an evil 
consent to Jehoiakim who led the way to idolatry, and were condemned to 
captivity under the Assyrians in requital for their unlawful worship, 
exiled from the sanctuary and banished far from the inheritance of their 
fathers. Yet more fitting does it seem to me that these lamentations be 
chanted when the imitator of Jehoiakim draws away those whom he deceives to 
this new kind of idolatry, banishing them from their ancestral 
inheritance,--I mean the Faith. They too, in a way corresponding to the 
Scriptural record, are carried away captive to Babylon from Jerusalem that 
is above,--that is from the Church of God to this confusion of pernicious 
doctrines,--for(1) Babylon means "confusion." And even as Jehoiakim was 
mutilated, so this man, having voluntarily deprived himself of the light of 
the truth, has become a prey to the Babylonian despot, never having 
learned, poor wretch, that the Gospel enjoins us to behold eternal life 
alike in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as the Word 
has thus spoken concerning the Father, that to know Him is life eternal(2), 
and concerning the Son, that every one that believeth on Him hath eternal 
life(3), and concerning the Holy Spirit, that to Him that hath received His 
grace it shall be a well of water springing up unto eternal life(4). 
Accordingly every one that yearns for eternal life when he has found the 
Son,--I mean the true Son, and not the Son falsely so called--has found in 
Him in its entirety what he longed for, because He is life and hath life in 
Himself(5). But this man, so subtle in mind, so keen-sighted of heart, does 
not by his extreme acuteness of vision discover life in the Son, but, 
having passed Him over and left Him behind as a hindrance in the way to 
that for which he searches he there seeks eternal life where he thinks the 
true Life not to be! What could we conceive more to be abhorred than this 
for profanity, or more melancholy as an occasion of lamentation? But that 
the charge of Sabellianism and Montanism should be repeatedly urged against 
our doctrines, is much the same as if one should lay to our charge the 
blasphemy of the Anomoeans. For if one were carefully to investigate the 
falsehood of these heresies, he would find that they have great similarity 
to the error of Eunomius. For each of them affects the Jew in his doctrine, 
admitting neither the Only-begotten God nor the Holy Spirit to share the 
Deity of the God Whom they call "Great," and "First." For Whom Sabellius 
calls God of the three names, Him does Eunomius term unbegotten: but 
neither contemplates the Godhead in the Trinity of Persons. Who then is 
really akin to Sabellius let the judgment of those who read our argument 
decide. Thus far for these matters.

3. He then shows the eternity of She Son's generation, and the inseparable 
identity of His essence wish Him that begat Him, and likens the folly of 
Eunomius to children playing with sand.

    But since, in what follows, he is active in stirring up the ill savour 
of his disgusting attempts, whereby he tries to make out that the Only-
begotten God "once was not," it will be well, as our mind on this head has 
been made pretty clear by our previous arguments, no longer to plunge our 
argument also in what is likewise bad, except perhaps that it is not 
unseasonable to add this one point, having selected it from the multitude. 
He says (some one having remarked that "the property of not being begotten 
is equally associated with the essence of the Father(6)"), " The argument 
proceeds by like steps to those by which it came to a conclusion in the 
case of the Son." The orthodox doctrine is clearly strengthened by the 
attack of its adversaries, the doctrine, namely, that we ought not to think 
that not to be begotten or to be begotten are identical with the 
essence(7), but that these should be contemplated, it is true, in the 
subject, while the subject in its proper definition is something else 
beyond these, and since no difference is found in the subject, because the 
difference of "begotten" and "unbegotten" is apart from the essence, and 
does not affect it, it necessarily follows that the essence must be allowed 
to be in both Persons without variation. Let us moreover inquire, over and 
above what has been already said, into this point, in what sense he says 
that "generation" is alien from the Father,--whether he does so conceiving 
of it as an essence or an operation. If he conceives it to be an operation, 
it is clearly equally connected with its result and with its author, as in 
every kind of production one may see the operation alike in the product and 
the producer, appearing in the production of the effects and not separated 
from their artificer. But if he terms "generation" an essence separate from 
the essence of the Father, admitting that the Lord came into being 
therefrom, then he plainly puts this in the place of the Father as regards 
the Only-begotten, so that two Fathers are conceived in the case of the 
Son, one a Father in name alone, Whom he calls "the Ungenerate," Who has 
nothing to do with generation, and the other, which he calls "generation," 
performing the part of a Father to the Only-begotten.

    And this is brought home even more by the statements of Eunomius 
himself than by our own arguments. For in what follows, he says:-"God, 
being without generation, is also prior to that which is generate," and a 
little further on, "for He Whose existence arises from being generated did 
not exist before He was generated." Accordingly, if the Father has nothing 
to do with generation, and if it is from generation that the Son derives 
His being, then the Father has no action in respect of the subsistence of 
the Son, and is apart from all connection with generation, from which the 
Son draws His being. If, then, the Father is alien from the generation of 
the Son, they either invent for the Son another Father under the name of 
"generation," or in their wisdom make out the Son to be self-begotten and 
self-generated. You see the confusion of mind of the man who exhibits his 
ignorance to us up and down in his own argument, how his profanity wanders 
in many paths, or rather in places where no path is, without advancing to 
its mark by any trustworthy guidance; and as one may see in the case of 
infants, when in their childish sport they imitate the building of houses 
with sand, that what they build is not framed on any plan, or by any rules 
of art, to resemble the original, but first they make something at 
haphazard, and in silly fashion, and then take counsel what to call this 
penetration I discern in our author. For after getting together words of 
impiety according to what first comes into his head, like a heap of sand, 
he begins to cast about to see whither his unintelligible profanity tends, 
growing up as it does spontaneously from what he has said, without any 
rational sequence. For I do not imagine that he originally proposed to 
invent generation as an actual subsistence standing to the essence of the 
Son in the place of the Father, nor that it was part of our rhetorician's 
plan that the Father should be considered as alien from the generation of 
the Son, nor was the absurdity of self-generation deliberately introduced. 
But all such absurdities have been emitted by our author without 
reflection, so that, as regards them, the man who so blunders is not even 
worth much refutation, as he knows, to borrow the Apostle's words, "neither 
what he says. nor whereof he affirms(8)."

    "For He Whose existence arises from generation," he says, "did not 
exist before generation." If he here uses the term "generation" of the 
Father, I agree with Him, and there is no opponent. For one may mean the 
same thing by either phrase, by saying either that Abraham begat Isaac, or, 
that Abraham was the father of Isaac. Since then to be father is the same 
as to have begotten, if any one shifts the words from one form of speech to 
the other, paternity will be shown to be identical with generation. If, 
therefore, what Eunomius says is this, "He Whose existence is derived from 
the Father was not before the Father," the statement is sound, and we give 
our vote in favour of it. But if he is recurring in the phrase to that 
generation of which we have spoken before, and says that it is separated 
from the Father but associated with the Son, then I think it waste of time 
to linger over the consideration of the unintelligible. For whether he 
thinks generation to be a self-existent object, or whether by the name he 
is carried in thought to that which has no actual existence, I have not to 
this day been able to find out from his language. For his fluid and 
baseless argument lends itself alike to either supposition, inclining to 
one side or to the other according to the fancy of the thinker.

4. After this he shows that the Son, who truly is, and is in the bosom of 
the Father, is simple and uncompounded, and that, He who redeemed us from 
bondage is not under dominion of the Father, nor in a slate of slavery: and 
that otherwise not He alone, but also the Father Who is in the Son and is 
One with Him, must be a slave; and that the word "being" is formed from the 
word to "be." And having excellently and notably discussed all these 
matters, he concludes the book.

    But not yet has the most grievous part of his profanity been examined, 
which the sequel of his treatise goes on to add. Well, let us consider his 
words sentence by sentence. Yet I know not how I can dare to let my mouth 
utter the horrible and godless language of him who fights against Christ. 
For I fear lest, like some baleful drugs, the remnant of the pernicious 
bitterness should be deposited upon the lips through which the words pass. 
"He that cometh unto God," says the Apostle, "must believe that He is(9)." 
Accordingly, true existence is the special distinction of Godhead. But 
Eunomius makes out Him Who truly is, either not to exist at all, or not to 
exist in a proper sense, which is just the same as not existing at all; for 
he who does not properly exist, does not really exist at all; as, for 
example, he is said to "run" in a dream who in that state fancies he is 
exerting himself in the race, while, since he untruly acts the semblance of 
the real race, his fancy that he is running is  not for this reason a race. 
But even though in an inexact sense it is so called, still the name is 
given to it falsely. Accordingly, he who dares to assert that the Only-
begotten God either does not properly exist, or does not exist at all, 
manifestly blots out of his creed all faith in Him. For who can any longer 
believe in something non-existent? or who would resort to Him Whose being 
has been shown by the enemies of the true Lord to be improper and 
unsubstantial?

    But that our statement may not be thought to be unfair to our 
opponents, I will set side by side with it the language of the impious 
persons, which runs as follows:--"He Who is in the bosom of the Existent, 
and Who is in the beginning and is with God, not being, or at all events 
not being in a strict sense, even though Basil, neglecting this distinction 
and addition, uses the title of 'Existent' interchangeably, contrary to the 
truth--"What do you say? that He Who is in the Father is not, and that He 
Who is in the beginning, and Who is in the bosom of the Father, is not, for 
this very reason, that He is in the beginning and is in the Father, and is 
discerned in the bosom of the Existent, and hence does not in a strict 
sense exist, because He is in the Existent? Alas for the idle and 
irrational tenets! Now for the first time we have heard this piece of vain 
babbling,--that the Lord, by Whom are all things, does not in a strict 
sense exist. And we have not yet got to the end of this appalling 
statement; but something yet more startling remains behind, that he not 
only affirms that He does not exist, or does not strictly speaking exist, 
but also that the Nature in which He is conceived to reside is various and 
composite. For he says "not being, or not being simple." But that to which 
simplicity does not belong is manifestly various and composite. How then 
can the same Person be at once non-existent and composite in essence? For 
one of two alternatives they must choose if they predicate of Him non-
existence they cannot speak of Him as composite, or if they affirm Him to 
be composite they cannot rob Him of existence. But that their blasphemy may 
assume many and varied shapes, it jumps at every godless notion when it 
wishes to contrast Him with the existent, affirming that, strictly 
speaking, He does not exist, and in His relation to the uncompounded Nature 
denying Him the attribute of simplicity:--"not existing, not existing 
simply, not existing in the strict sense." Who among those who have 
transgressed the word and forsworn the Faith was ever so lavish in 
utterances denying the Lord? He has stood up in rivalry with the divine 
proclamation of John. For as often as the latter has attested "was" of the 
Word, so often does he apply to Him Who is an opposing "was not." And he 
contends against the holy lips of our father Basil, bringing against him 
the charge that he "neglects these distinctions," when he says that He Who 
is in the Father, and in the beginning, and in the bosom of the Fat