{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/205/2050065.htm","path":"chr/ecf/205/2050065.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/205/2050065.htm","text":"\u00a76. He then shows the unity of the Son with the Father and Eunomius\u2019 lack of understanding and knowledge in the Scriptures.\nWhat he adds next after this is as follows:\u2014\u201cHaving no sharer,\u201d he says, \u201cin 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.\u201d 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 p. CVII 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,\u2014either 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, \u201cI and the Father are one 291 ,\u201d and \u201che that hath seen Me hath seen the Father 292 .\u201d 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, \u201cnor has He a divider of His glory.\u201d 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 \u201cAll Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine 294 .\u201d Wherefore also He says that He will appear on the Judgment Day \u201cin the glory of the Father 295 ,\u201d 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 \u201cthere is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon 296 ,\u201d 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.\nBut to say that the Son has no part in His Father\u2019s 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, \u201cSeek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God 297 ,\u201d 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, \u201cnot having lot in his power,\u201d we should rather pass by as unmeaning than confute as ungodly. For what sense is attached to the term \u201chaving lot\u201d is not easy to discover from the common use of the word. Those cast lots, as the Scripture tells us, for the Lord\u2019s 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 \u201ccoat\u201d may be said, perhaps, to \u201chave had lot\u201d 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 \u201cwhere He listeth 299 ,\u201d and \u201cworketh all in all as He will 300 ,\u201d and the Son, by Whom all things were made, visible and invisible, in heaven and in earth, \u201cdid all things whatsoever He pleased 301 ,\u201d and \u201cquickeneth whom He will 302 ,\u201d and the Father put \u201cthe times in His own power 303 ,\u201d while from the mention of \u201ctimes\u201d 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 \u201chaving lot in His power.\u201d For the heir of all things, the maker of the ages 304 , He Who shines with the Father\u2019s glory and expresses in Himself the Father\u2019s 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 \u201cnone who has lot in His power,\u201d those p. CVIII 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, \u201chas none Who has lot in His power.\u201d 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.\nMark, I pray you, the absurdity and childishness of this grovelling exposition of his articles of faith. What! He Who \u201cupholds all things by the word of His power 305 ,\u201d Who says what He wills to be done, and does what He wills by the very power of that command, He Whose power lags not behind His will and Whose will is the measure of His power (for \u201cHe spake the word and they were made, He commanded and they were created 306 \u201d), He Who made all things by Himself, and made them consist in Himself 307 , without Whom no existing thing either came into being or remains in being,\u2014He it is Who waits to obtain His power by some process of allotment! Judge you who hear whether the man who talks like this is in his senses. \u201cFor He is the one and only God, the Almighty,\u201d he says. If by the title of \u201cAlmighty\u201d he intends the Father, the language he uses is ours, and no strange language: but if he means some other God than the Father, let our patron of Jewish doctrines preach circumcision too, if he pleases. For the Faith of Christians is directed to the Father. And the Father is all these\u2014Highest, Almighty, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and in a word all terms of highest significance are proper to the Father. But all that is the Father\u2019s is the Son\u2019s also; so that, on this understanding 308 , we admit this phrase too. But if, leaving the Father, he speaks of another Almighty, he is speaking the language of the Jews or following the speculations of Plato,\u2014for they say that that philosopher also affirms that there exists on high a maker and creator of certain subordinate gods. As then in the case of the Jewish and Platonic opinions he who does not believe in God the Father is not a Christian, even though in his creed he asserts an Almighty God, so Eunomius also falsely pretends to the name of Christian, being in inclination a Jew, or asserting the doctrines of the Greeks while putting on the guise of the title borne by Christians. And with regard to the next points he asserts the same account will apply. He says He is \u201cGod of Gods.\u201d We make the declaration our own by adding the name of the Father, knowing that the Father is God of Gods. But all that belongs to the Father certainly belongs also to the Son. \u201cAnd Lord of Lords.\u201d The same account will apply to this. \u201cAnd Most High over all the earth.\u201d Yes, for whichever of the Three Persons you are thinking of, He is Most High over all the earth, inasmuch as the oversight of earthly things from on high is exercised alike by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So, too, with what follows the words above, \u201cMost High in the heavens, Most High in the highest, Heavenly, true in being what He is, and so continuing, true in words, true in works.\u201d Why, all these things the Christian eye discerns alike in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. If Eunomius does assign them to one only of the Persons acknowledged in the creed, let him dare to call Him \u201cnot true in words\u201d Who has said, \u201cI am the Truth 309 ,\u201d or to call the Spirit of truth \u201cnot true in words,\u201d or let him refuse to give the title of \u201ctrue in works\u201d to Him Who doeth righteousness and judgment, or to the Spirit Who worketh all in all as He will. For if he does not acknowledge that these attributes belong to the Persons delivered to us in the creed, he is absolutely cancelling the creed of Christians. For how shall any one think Him a worthy object of faith Who is false in words and untrue in works.\nBut let us proceed to what follows. \u201cAbove all rule, subjection and authority,\u201d he says. This language is ours, and belongs properly to the Catholic Church,\u2014to believe that the Divine nature is above all rule, and that it has in subordination to itself everything that can be conceived among existing things. But the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost constitute the Divine nature. If he assigns this property to the Father alone, and if he affirms Him alone to be free from variableness and change, and if he says that He alone is undefiled, the inference that we are meant to draw is plain, namely, that He who has not these characteristics is variable, corruptible, subject to change and decay. This, then, is what Eunomius asserts of the Son and the Holy Spirit: for if he did not hold this opinion concerning the Son and the Spirit, he would not have employed this opposition, contrasting the Father with them. For the rest, brethren, judge whether, with these sentiments, he is not a persecutor of the Christian faith. For who will allow it to be right to deem that a fitting object of reverence which varies, changes, and p. CIX is subject to decay? So then the whole aim of one who flames such notions as these,\u2014notions by which he makes out that neither the Truth nor the Spirit of Truth is undefiled, unvarying, or unchangeable,\u2014is to expel from the Church the belief in the Son and in the Holy Spirit.\nCf. 2 Cor. 6:15, 16.\nCVII:291\nS. John x. 30\nCVII:292\nS. John xiv. 9\nCVII:293\nS. John xvii. 10.\nCVII:294\nS. Mark viii. 38.\nCVII:296 CVII:297 CVII:298\nCf. S. John 19:23, 24.\nCVII:299\nS. John iii. 8\nCVII:300\nCf. 1 Cor. 12:6, 111 Cor. xii. 6 and 11.\nCVII:301 CVII:302\nS. John v. 21\nCVII:303 CVII:304\nCf. Heb. i. 2\nCVIII:305 CVIII:306\nPs. 148:4, Ps. 33:9Ps. cxlviii. 5, or xxxiii. 9 in LXX.\nCVIII:307 CVIII:308\n\u201cIf this is so:\u201d i.e. if Eunomius means his words in a Christian sense.\nCVIII:309\nS. John xiv. 6","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. V: Dogmatic...","type":"page"}