On Matt. xx. 23. Is not Mine to give, save for whom it is prepared.
"If the Son has not authority over the judgment, and power to benefit some and chastise others, how could He say, The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son'? [453] And in another place, The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins;' [454] and again, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth;' [455] and to Peter, I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven;' [456] and to the disciples, Verily, I say unto you that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration,...shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' [457] The explanation is clear from the Scripture, since the Saviour said, Then will I reward every man according to his work;' [458] and in another place, They that have done good shall come forth unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.' [459] And the Apostle says, We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' [460] It is therefore the part of the recipients to make themselves worthy of a seat on the left and on the right of the Lord: it is not the part of Him Who is able to give it, even though the request be unjust." [461]
On Ps. xviii. 31, LXX. Who is God, save the Lord? Who is God save our God?
"It has already been sufficiently demonstrated that the Scriptures employ these expressions and others of a similar character not of the Son, but of the so-called gods who were not really so. I have shewn this from the fact that in both the Old and the New Testament the son is frequently styled both God and Lord. David makes this still clearer when he says, Who is like unto Thee?' [462] and adds, among the gods, O Lord,' and Moses, in the words, So the Lord alone did lead them, and there was no strange god with him.' [463] And yet although, as the Apostle says, the Saviour was with them, They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ,' [464] and Jeremiah, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth,...let them perish under the heavens.' [465] The Son is not meant among these, for He is himself Creator of all. It is then the idols and images of the heathen who are meant alike by the preceding passage and by the words, I am the first God and I am the last, and beside me there is no God,' [466] and also, Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me,' [467] and Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.' [468] None of these passages must be understood as referring to the Son."
The Fifth Book against Eunomius is on the Holy Spirit, and therefore, even if it were of indubitable genuineness, it would be of comparatively little importance, as the subject is fully discussed in the treatise of his mature life. A reason advanced against its genuineness has been the use concerning the Holy Ghost of the term God. (§ 3.) But it has been replied that the reserve which St. Basil practiced after his elevation to the episcopate was but for a special and temporary purpose. He calls the Spirit God in Ep. VIII. §11. At the time of the publication of the Books against Eunomius there would be no such reason for any "economy" [469] as in 374.
(ii) De Spiritu Sancto. To the illustration and elucidation of this work I have little to add to what is furnished, however inadequately, by the translation and notes in the following pages. The famous treatise of St. Basil was one of several put out about the same time by the champions of the Catholic cause. Amphilochius, to whom it was addressed, was the author of a work which Jerome describes (De Vir. Ill., cxxxiii.) as arguing that He is God Almighty, and to be worshipped. The Ancoratus of Epiphanius was issued in 373 in support of the same doctrine. At about the same time Didymus, the blind master of the catechetical school at Alexandria, wrote a treatise which is extant in St. Jerome's Latin; and of which the work of St. Ambrose, composed in 381, for the Emperor Gratian, is "to a considerable extent an echo." [470]
So in East and West a vigorous defence was maintained against the Macedonian assault. The Catholic position is exactly defined in the Synodical Letter sent by Damasus to Paulinus of Tyre in 378. [471] Basil died at the crisis of the campaign, and with no bright Pisgah view of the ultimate passage into peace. The generalship was to pass into other hands. There is something of the irony of fate, or of the mystery of Providence, in the fact that the voice condemned by Basil to struggle against the mean din and rattle of Sasima should be the vehicle for impressing on the empire the truths which Basil held dear. Gregory of Sasima was no archiepiscopal success at Constantinople. He was not an administrator or a man of the world. But he was a great divine and orator, and the imperial basilica of the Athanasia rang with outspoken declarations of the same doctrines, which Basil had more cautiously suggested to inevitable inference. The triumph was assured, Gregory was enthroned in St. Sophia, and under Theodosius the Catholic Faith was safe from molestation.
[303] Or. xliii. § 67.
[304] De Script. Eccl. 116.
[305] Dial. ii. p. 207 in the ed. of this series.
[306] Maran, Vit. Bas. viii.
[307] cf. Ep. xx.
[308] 1 Eunom. i.
[309] Theod., H.E. ii. 25; and Hær. Fab. iv. 3. Philost., H.E. vi. 1.
[310] cf. also Basnage in Canisii Lectiones antt. i. 172; Fessler, Inst. Pat. 1. 507. Dorner, Christologie, 1. 853, and Böhringer, Kirchengeschichte, vii. 62.
[311] haploustera kai koine panton pistis. § 5.
[312] The Creed of Eunomius. (Adv. Eunom. i. 4.) Pisteuomen eis hena Theon, Patera pantokratora, ex hou ta panta; kai eis hena Monogene Uion tou Theou, Theon logon, ton Kurion hemon Iesoun Christon, di' hou ta panta; kai eis hen Pneuma hagion, to parakleton. Eunom., Apol. § 5. The Creed of Arius and Euzoius. (Soc. H.E. i. 26.) Pisteuomen eis hena Theon Patera pantokratora, kai eis Kurion Iesoun Christon, ton Uion autou, ton ex autou pro panton ton ai& 240;non gegennemenon, Theon Logon, di' hou ta panta egeneto ta te en tois ouranois kai ta epi tes ges, ton katelthonta, kai sarkothenta, kai pathonta, kai anastanta, kai anelthonta eis tous ouranous kai palin erchomenon krinai zontas kai nekrous; kai eis to hagion Pneuma; kai eis sarkos anastasin; kai eis zoen tou mellontos ai& 242;nos; kai eis Basileian ouranon; kai eis mian katholiken ekklesian tou theou ten apo peraton he& 241;s peraton.
[313] Ekthesis tes pisteos, published in the notes of Valesius to Soc., Ecc. Hist. v. 12. This was offered to Theodosius after the Council of Constantinople. The Son is prototokon pases ktiseos, and pro pases ktiseos genomenon, but ouk aktiston. The oute to Hui& 254; sunexisoumenon oute men allo tini suntassomenon... proton ergon kai kratiston tou Monogenous. cf. St. Aug., De Hær. liv., "Eunomius asserted that the Son was altogether dissimilar to the Father and the Spirit to the Son," and Philostrius, De Hær. lxviii., who represents the Eunomians as believing in three essences descending in value like gold, silver, and copper. Vide Swete, Doctrine of the Holy Ghost, p. 61.
[314] Adv. Eunom. i. 5.
[315] pisteuomen ten agennesian ousian einas tou Theou. For the word agennesia cf. Letter ccxxxiv. p. 274.
[316] Adv. Eunom. i. 4.
[317] Matt. xxviii. 19. Adv. Eun. i. 5.
[318] en te tou einai ho estin homologi& 139;. Adv. Eunom. i. 8.
[319] Id. i. 10.
[320] ousia.
[321] Id.
[322] Id. ii.
[323] i.e. Lucifer, cf. Is. xiv. 13.
[324] On koine ennoia, cf. Origen, C. Cels. i. 4.
[325] Ps. cxxxix. 6.
[326] Is. liii. 8.
[327] tous merikous tes oikonomias logous.
[328] Rom. xi. 33.
[329] Id. i. 13.
[330] touto to anarchon tes zoes agenneton proseirekamen.
[331] Id. i. 16.
[332] to gennema. Id. ii. 6.
[333] Id. i. 16.
[334] gennema, i.e., "thing begotten;" the distinction between this substantive and the scriptural adjective monogenes must be borne in mind.
[335] Id. ii. 6.
[336] LXX., egennethe.
[337] Is. ix. 6.
[338] Id. LXX.
[339] Id. ii. 7.
[340] Phil. ii. 9.
[341] Id. ii. 8.
[342] Id. ii. 4.
[343] Id. ii. 3.
[344] Id. ii. 18.
[345] Id. ii. 23.
[346] On the distinction between theologia and oikonomia, cf. p. 7, n.
[347] sunuparchousan kai paruphestekuian to prototupo hupostesanti. Expressions of this kind, used even by Basil, may help to explain the earlier Nicene sense of hupostasis. The Son has, as it were, a parallel hypostasis to that of the Father, Who eternally furnishes this hypostasis. cf. p. 195, n.
[348] Here the MSS. vary, but the main sense is not affected by the omission of the variant phrase.
[349] Id. ii. 16. cf. De Sp. Scto. § 15, p. 9, and § 84, p. 40, and notes.
[350] Id. ii. 24.
[351] apaugasma. cf. Heb. i. 13.
[352] John i. 1.
[353] Ps. cx. 3, LXX.
[354] Id. ii. 17.
[355] Etoi onta egennesen ho Theos ton Uion, e ouk onta.
[356] Id. ii. 14.
[357] cf. De. Sp. Scto. pp. 27, 30, and notes.
[358] tauton to anarcho to a& 188;dion.
[359] aidion de to chronou pantos kai ai& 242;nos kata to einai presbuteron.
[360] Id. ii. 18.
[361] Eunomius is therefore not to be ranked with the extreme "Exucontians." cf. Soc. H.E. ii. 45.
[362] Id. ii. 19.
[363] Id. ii. 19.
[364] So. R.V. distinguishes between the words leitourgika and diakonian which are confused in A.V.
[365] Id. i. 21.
[366] Ps. cxlviii. 5.
[367] Id. i. 21.
[368] cf. John xvii. 10.
[369] Id. i. 18.
[370] On this brief summary of Basil's controversy with Eunomius, cf. Böhringer, Kirchengeschichte, vii. 62, seqq.
[371] Christologie, i. 906.
[372] to agennetos huparxeos tropos kai ouk ousias onoma. Adv. Eunom. iv.
[373] cf. De Sp. Scto. pp. 13, 39, and notes; Thomasius, Dogmengeschichte, i. 245; Herzog, Real-Encycl. "Eunomius und Eunomianer."
[374] John v. 19.
[375] epi ton homoousion ouk epi ton heteroousion.
[376] It will be noted that Basil explains this passage on different grounds from those suggested by the Clause in the Athanasian Creed, on which Waterland's remark is that it "needs no comment." St. Athanasius himself interpreted the "minority" not of the humanity, or of the special subordination of the time when the words were uttered. cf. Ath., Orat. c. Ar. i. § 58: "The Son says not my Father is better than I,' lest we should conceive Him to be foreign to His nature, but greater,' not indeed in size, nor in time, but because of His generation from the Father Himself; nay, in saying greater,' He again shews that He is proper to His essence" (Newman's transl.). The explanation given in Letter viii., p. 118, does include the inferiority as touching His manhood.
[377] cf. Letter viii. p. 118.
[378] John xv. 16.
[379] John x. 15.
[380] Matt. xi. 27.
[381] Col. ii. 3.
[382] 1 Cor. ii. 10.
[383] cf. this passage more fully treated of in Letter ccxxxvi. p. 276. The above is rather a tentative memorandum than an explanation.
[384] cf. Phil. ii. 8.
[385] Gal. i. 4.
[386] Matt. xxi. 28.
[387] Luke xxiii. 34.
[388] cf. pp. 7 and 12. Most commentators that I am acquainted with write on the lines of Bengel, "poculum a patre oblatum, tota passionis massa plenum." cf. Athanasius, "the terror was of the flesh." C. Arian. Orat. III., § xxix., Amphilochius, Apud Theod. Dial. iii., and Chrysost., Hom. in Matt. lxxxiii.
[389] cf. Ep. viii. and note on p. 117.
[390] dia. Vide note referred to.
[391] Or underived life. autozoe.
[392] autoagios.
[393] John xi. 25.
[394] John v. 21.
[395] to autexousion.
[396] to hupexousion.
[397] 1 Cor. xii. 27.
[398] 1 Cor. vi. 15.
[399] 1 Cor. xv. 48, 49: in the last clause Basil reads phoresomen, instead of the phoresomen of A.V., with ', A, C, D, E, F, G, K, L, P.
[400] 1 Cor. xi. 3.
[401] John vi. 40.
[402] i.e.simultaneous with, or even anterior to, His advent. Maran hesitates as to the meaning of the phrase, and writes: "Suspicor tamen intelligi sic posse. Quanquam voluntas patris est ut in Filium credamus, non tamen propterea sequitur, Filium ex voluntate esse. Nam credere nos oportet in Filium, ut primum in hunc mundum venit, imo antequam etiam naturam humanam assumeret, cum patriarchæ et Judæi prisci ad salutem consequendam in Christum venturum credere necesse habuerint. Itaque cum debeamus necessario credere in Filium omni ætate et tempore; hinc efficitur, Filium esse natura, non voluntate, neque adoptione. Si voluntas est Patris ut nos in ejus Filium credamus, non est ex voluntate Filius, quippe nostra in ipsum fides aut cum ipso aut ante ipsum invenitur. Subtilis hæc ratiocinatio illustratur ex alia simili, quæ reperitur (i.e. at the beginning of Book IV.). Si fides in Filium nostra opus est Dei, ipse Dei opus esse non potest. Nam fides in ipsum et ipse non idem."