"God," he says, "Who is without beginning, eternally, without end, alone." Once more "understand, ye simple ones," as Solomon says, "his subtlety [284] ," lest haply ye be deceived and fall headlong into the denial of the Godhead of the Only-begotten Son. That is without end which admits not of death and decay: that, likewise, is called everlasting which is not only for a time. That, therefore, which is neither everlasting nor without end is surely seen in the nature which is perishable and mortal. Accordingly he who predicates "unendingness" of the one and only God, and does not include the Son in the assertion of "unendingness" and "eternity," maintains by such a proposition, that He Whom he thus contrasts with the eternal and unending is perishable and temporary. But we, even when we are told that God "only hath immortality [285] ," understand by "immortality" the Son. For life is immortality, and the Lord is that life, Who said, "I am the Life [286] ." And if He be said to dwell "in the light that no man can approach unto [287] ," again we make no difficulty in understanding that the true Light, unapproachable by falsehood, is the Only-begotten, in Whom we learn from the Truth itself that the Father is [288] . Of these opinions let the reader choose the more devout, whether we are to think of the Only-begotten in a manner worthy of the Godhead, or to call Him, as heresy prescribes, perishable and temporary.
[265] S. John x. 30
[266] S. John i. 1
[267] Or, possibly, "and the contrast he makes between the one and the many, &c. is irrelevant" (allos antidiairei): the quotation is from Ps. xcvi. 6 (LXX.).
[268] Cf. S. John i. 18, reading (as S. Gregory seems to have done) theos for hui& 231;s.
[269] kai hen pros ton patera ontos. It may be questioned whether the text is sound: the phrase seems unusual; perhaps hen has been inserted in error from the preceding clause kai en to patri ontos, and we should read "is in the Father and is with the Father" (cf. the 2nd verse of the 1st Epistle, and verses 1 and 2 of the Gospel of S. John).
[270] 1 Cor. i. 24.
[271] S. John xiv. 10
[272] Cf. S. John v. 23
[273] S. John xiv. 9
[274] S. Matt. xi. 27
[275] parallage (Cf. S. James i. 17).
[276] Or "I am He that is," Ex. iii. 14.
[277] The reference seems to be to Gal. iv. 8.
[278] 1 Thess. i. 10.
[279] There is perhaps a reference here to Col. iii. 24.
[280] Rom. i. 1.
[281] Cf. Gal. iv. 8
[282] Cf. Phil. ii. 10, 11.
[283] Cf. Phil. ii. 10, 11.
[284] Prov. viii. 5 (Septuagint).
[285] 1 Tim. vi. 16.
[286] S. John xiv. 6
[287] 1 Tim. vi. 16.
[288] S. John xiv. 11
§5. He next marvellously overthrows the unintelligible statements of Eunomius which assert that the essence of the Father is not separated or divided, and does not become anything else.
"We believe in God," he tells us, "not separated as regards the essence wherein He is one, into more than one, or becoming sometimes one and sometimes another, or changing from being what He is, or passing from one essence to assume the guise of a threefold personality: for He is always and absolutely one, remaining uniformly and unchangeably the only God." From these citations the discreet reader may well separate first of all the idle words inserted in the statement without any meaning from those which appear to have some sense, and afterwards examine the meaning that is discoverable in what remains of his statement, to ascertain whether it is compatible with due reverence towards Christ.
The first, then, of the statements cited is completely divorced from any intelligible meaning, good or bad. For what sense there is in the words, "not separated, as regards the essence wherein He is one, into more than one, or becoming sometimes one and sometimes another, or changing from being what He is," Eunomius himself could not tell us, and I do not think that any of his allies could find in the words any shadow of meaning. When he speaks of Him as "not separated in regard to the essence wherein He is one," he says either that He is not separated from His own essence, or that His own essence is not divided from Him. This unmeaning statement is nothing but a random combination of noise and empty sound. And why should one spend time in the investigation of these meaningless expressions? For how does any one remain in existence when separated from his own essence? or how is the essence of anything divided and displayed apart? Or how is it possible for one to depart from that wherein he is, and become another, getting outside himself? But he adds, "not passing from one essence to assume the guise of three persons: for He is always and absolutely one, remaining uniformly and unchangeably the only God." I think the absence of meaning in his statement is plain to every one without a word from me: against this let any one argue who thinks there is any sense or meaning in what he says: he who has an eye to discern the force of words will decline to involve himself in a struggle with unsubstantial shadows. For what force has it against our doctrine to say "not separated or divided into more than one as regards the essence wherein He is one, or becoming sometimes one and sometimes another, or passing from one essence to assume the guise of three persons?"--things that are neither said nor believed by Christians nor understood by inference from the truths we confess. For who ever said or heard any one else say in the Church of God, that the Father is either separated or divided as regards His essence, or becomes sometimes one, sometimes another, coming to be outside Himself, or assumes the guise of three persons? These things Eunomius says to himself, not arguing with us but stringing together his own trash, mixing with the impiety of his utterances a great deal of absurdity. For we say that it is equally impious and ungodly to call the Lord of the creation a created being and to think that the Father, in that He is, is separated or split up, or departs from Himself, or assumes the guise of three persons, like clay or wax moulded in various shapes.
But let us examine the words that follow: "He is always and absolutely one, remaining uniformly and unchangeably the only God." If he is speaking about the Father, we agree with him, for the Father is most truly one, alone and always absolutely uniform and unchangeable, never at any time present or future ceasing to be what He is. If then such an assertion as this has regard to the Father, let him not contend with the doctrine of godliness, inasmuch as on this point he is in harmony with the Church. For he who confesses that the Father is always and unchangeably the same, being one and only God, holds fast the word of godliness, if in the Father he sees the Son, without Whom the Father neither is nor is named. But if he is inventing some other God besides the Father, let him dispute with the Jews or with those who are called Hypsistiani, between whom and the Christians there is this difference, that they acknowledge that there is a God Whom they term the Highest [289] or Almighty, but do not admit that he is Father; while a Christian, if he believe not in the Father, no Christian at all.
[289] hupsiston, whence the name of the sect.
§6. He then shows the unity of the Son with the Father and Eunomius' lack of understanding and knowledge in the Scriptures.
What he adds next after this is as follows:--"Having no sharer," he says, "in His Godhead, no divider of His glory, none who has lot in His power, or part in His royal throne: for He is the one and only God, the Almighty, God of Gods, King of Kings, Lord of Lords." I know not to whom Eunomius refers when he protests that the Father admits none to share His Godhead with Himself. For if he uses such expressions with reference to vain idols and to the erroneous conceptions of those who worship them (even as Paul assures us that there is no agreement between Christ and Belial, and no fellowship between the temple of God and idols [290] ) we agree with him. But if by these assertions he means to sever the Only-begotten God from the Godhead of the Father, let him be informed that he is providing us with a dilemma that may be turned against himself to refute his own impiety. For either he denies the Only-begotten God to be God at all, that he may preserve for the Father those prerogatives of deity which (according to him) are incapable of being shared with the Son, and thus is convicted as a transgressor by denying the God Whom Christians worship, or if he were to grant that the Son also is God, yet not agreeing in nature with the true God, he would be necessarily obliged to acknowledge that he maintains Gods sundered from one another by the difference of their natures. Let him choose which of these he will,--either to deny the Godhead of the Son, or to introduce into his creed a plurality of Gods. For whichever of these he chooses, it is all one as regards impiety: for we who are initiated into the mystery of godliness by the Divinely inspired words of the Scripture do not see between the Father and the Son a partnership of Godhead, but unity, inasmuch as the Lord hath taught us this by His own words, when He saith, "I and the Father are one [291] ," and "he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father [292] ." For if He were not of the same nature as the Father, how could He either have had in Himself that which was different [293] ? or how could He have shown in Himself that which was unlike, if the foreign and alien nature did not receive the stamp of that which was of a different kind from itself? But he says, "nor has He a divider of His glory." Herein he speaks in accordance with the fact, even though he does not know what he is saying: for the Son does not divide the glory with the Father, but has the glory of the Father in its entirety, even as the Father has all the glory of the Son. For thus He spake to the Father "All Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine [294] ." Wherefore also He says that He will appear on the Judgment Day "in the glory of the Father [295] ," when He will render to every man according to his works. And by this phrase He shows the unity of nature that subsists between them. For as "there is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon [296] ," because of the difference between the natures of those luminaries (since if both had the same glory there would not be deemed to be any difference in their nature), so He Who foretold of Himself that He would appear in the glory of the Father indicated by the identity of glory their community of nature.
But to say that the Son has no part in His Father's royal throne argues an extraordinary amount of research into the oracles of God on the part of Eunomius, who, after his extreme devotion to the inspired Scriptures, has not yet heard, "Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God [297] ," and many similar passages, of which it would not be easy to reckon up the number, but which Eunomius has never learnt, and so denies that the Son is enthroned together with the Father. Again the phrase, "not having lot in his power," we should rather pass by as unmeaning than confute as ungodly. For what sense is attached to the term "having lot" is not easy to discover from the common use of the word. Those cast lots, as the Scripture tells us, for the Lord's vesture, who were unwilling to rend His garment, but disposed to make it over to that one of their number in whose favour the lot should decide [298] . They then who thus cast lots among themselves for the "coat" may be said, perhaps, to "have had lot" in it. But here in the case of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as Their power resides in Their nature (for the Holy Spirit breathes "where He listeth [299] ," and "worketh all in all as He will [300] ," and the Son, by Whom all things were made, visible and invisible, in heaven and in earth, "did all things whatsoever He pleased [301] ," and "quickeneth whom He will [302] ," and the Father put "the times in His own power [303] ," while from the mention of "times" we conclude that all things done in time are subject to the power of the Father), if, I say, it has been demonstrated that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit alike are in a position of power to do what They will, it is impossible to see what sense there can be in the phrase "having lot in His power." For the heir of all things, the maker of the ages [304] , He Who shines with the Father's glory and expresses in Himself the Father's person, has all things that the Father Himself has, and is possessor of all His power, not that the right is transferred from the Father to the Son, but that it at once remains in the Father and resides in the Son. For He Who is in the Father is manifestly in the Father with all His own might, and He Who has the Father in Himself includes all the power and might of the Father. For He has in Himself all the Father, and not merely a part of Him: and He Who has Him entirely assuredly has His power as well. With what meaning, then, Eunomius asserts that the Father has "none who has lot in His power," those perhaps can tell who are disciples of his folly: one who knows how to appreciate language confesses that he cannot understand phrases divorced from meaning. The Father, he says, "has none Who has lot in His power." Why, who is there that says that the Father and Son contend together for power and cast lots to decide the matter? But the holy Eunomius comes as mediator between them and by a friendly agreement without lot assigns to the Father the superiority in power.