{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/205/2050069.htm","path":"chr/ecf/205/2050069.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/205/2050069.htm","text":"\u00a710. He explains the phrase \u201cThe Lord created Me,\u201d and the argument about the origination of the Son, the deceptive character of Eunomius\u2019 reasoning, and the passage which says, \u201cMy glory will I not give to another,\u201d examining them from different points of view.\nBut of course they bring forward the passage in the book of Proverbs which says, \u201cThe Lord created Me as the beginning of His ways, for His works 367 .\u201d Now it would require a lengthy discussion to explain fully the real meaning of the passage: still it would be possible even in a few words to convey to well-disposed readers the thought intended. Some of those who are accurately versed in theology do say this, that the Hebrew text does not read \u201ccreated,\u201d and we have ourselves read in more ancient copies \u201cpossessed\u201d instead of \u201ccreated.\u201d Now assuredly \u201cpossession\u201d in the allegorical language of the Proverbs marks that slave Who for our sakes \u201ctook upon Him the form of a slave 368 .\u201d But if any one should allege in this passage the reading which prevails in the Churches, we do not reject even the expression \u201ccreated.\u201d For this also in allegorical language is intended to connote the \u201cslave,\u201d since, as the Apostle tells us, \u201call creation is in bondage 369 .\u201d Thus we say that this expression, as well as the other, admits of an orthodox interpretation. For He Who for our sakes became like as we are, was in the last days truly created,\u2014He Who in the beginning being Word and God afterwards became Flesh and Man. For the nature of flesh is created: and by partaking in it in all points like as we do, yet without sin, He was created when He became man: and He was created \u201cafter God 370 ,\u201d not after man, as the Apostle says, in a new manner and not according to human wont. For we are taught that this \u201cnew man\u201d was created\u2014albeit of the Holy Ghost and of the power of the Highest\u2014whom Paul, the hierophant of unspeakable mysteries, bids us to \u201cput on,\u201d using two phrases to express the garment that is to be put on, saying in one place, \u201cPut on the new man which after God is created 371 ,\u201d and in another, \u201cPut ye on the Lord Jesus Christ 372 .\u201d For thus it is that He, Who said \u201cI am the Way 373 ,\u201d becomes to us who have put Him on the beginning of the ways of salvation, that He may make us the work of His own hands, new modelling us from the evil mould of sin once more to His own image. He is at once our foundation before the world to come, according to the words of Paul, who says, \u201cOther foundation can no man lay than that is laid 374 ,\u201d and it is true that \u201cbefore the springs of the waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, before He made the depths, and before all hills, He begetteth Me 375 .\u201d For it is possible, accordp. CXVIII ing to the usage of the Book of Proverbs, for each of these phrases, taken in a tropical sense, to be applied to the Word 376 . For the great David calls righteousness the \u201cmountains of God 377 ,\u201d His judgments \u201cdeeps 378 ,\u201d and the teachers in the Churches \u201cfountains,\u201d saying \u201cBless God the Lord from the fountains of Israel 379 \u201d; and guilelessness he calls \u201chills,\u201d as he shows when he speaks of their skipping like lambs 380 . Before these therefore is born in us He Who for our sakes was created as man, that of these things also the creation may find place in us. But we may, I think, pass from the discussion of these points, inasmuch as the truth has been sufficiently pointed out in a few words to well-disposed readers; let us proceed to what Eunomius says next.\n\u201cExisting in the Beginning,\u201d he says, \u201cnot without beginning.\u201d In what fashion does he who plumes himself on his superior discernment understand the oracles of God? He declares Him Who was in the beginning Himself to have a beginning: and is not aware that if He Who is in the beginning has a beginning, then the Beginning itself must needs have another beginning. Whatever He says of the beginning he must necessarily confess to be true of Him Who was in the beginning: for how can that which is in the beginning be severed from the beginning? and how can any one imagine a \u201cwas not\u201d as preceding the \u201cwas\u201d? For however far one carries back one\u2019s thought to apprehend the beginning, one most certainly understands as one does so that the Word which was in the beginning (inasmuch as It cannot be separated from the beginning in which It is) does not at any point of time either begin or cease its existence therein. Yet let no one be induced by these words of mine to separate into two the one beginning we acknowledge. For the beginning is most assuredly one, wherein is discerned, indivisibly, that Word Who is completely united to the Father. He who thus thinks will never leave heresy a loophole to impair his piety by the novelty of the term \u201cungenerate.\u201d But in Eunomius\u2019 next propositions his statements are like bread with a large admixture of sand. For by mixing his heretical opinions with sound doctrines, he makes uneatable even that which is in itself nutritious, by the gravel which he has mingled with it. For he calls the Lord \u201cliving wisdom,\u201d \u201coperative truth,\u201d subsistent power, and \u201clife\u201d:\u2014so far is the nutritious portion. But into these assertions he instils the poison of heresy. For when he speaks of the \u201clife\u201d as \u201cgenerate\u201d he makes a reservation by the implied opposition to the \u201cungenerate\u201d life, and does not affirm the Son to be the very Life. Next he says:\u2014\u201cAs Son of God, quickening the dead, the true light, the light that lighteneth every man coming into the world 381 , good, and the bestower of good things.\u201d All these things he offers for honey to the simple-minded, concealing his deadly drug under the sweetness of terms like these. For he immediately introduces, on the heels of these statements, his pernicious principle, in the words \u201cNot partitioning with Him that begat Him His high estate, not dividing with another the essence of the Father, but becoming by generation glorious, yea, the Lord of glory, and receiving glory from the Father, not sharing His glory with the Father, for the glory of the Almighty is incommunicable, as He hath said, \u2018My glory will I not give to another. 382 \u2019\u201d These are his deadly poisons, which they alone can discover who have their souls\u2019 senses trained so to do: but the mortal mischief of the words is disclosed by their conclusion:\u2014Receiving glory from the Father, not sharing glory with the Father, for the glory of the Almighty is incommunicable, as He hath said, \u2018My glory will I not give to another.\u2019 Who is that \u201cother\u201d to whom God has said that He will not give His glory? The prophet speaks of the adversary of God, and Eunomius refers the prophecy to the only begotten God Himself! For when the prophet, speaking in the person of God, had said, \u201cMy glory will I not give to another,\u201d he added, \u201cneither My praise to graven images.\u201d For when men were beguiled to offer to the adversary of God the worship and adoration due to God alone, paying homage in the representations of graven images to the enemy of God, who appeared in many shapes amongst men in the forms furnished by idols, He Who healeth them that are sick, in pity for men\u2019s ruin, foretold by the prophet the loving-kindness which in the latter days He would show in the abolishing of idols, saying, \u201cWhen My truth shall have been manifested, My glory shall no more be given to another, nor My praise bestowed upon graven images: for men, when they come to know My glory, shall no more be in bondage to them that by nature are no gods.\u201d All therefore that the prophet says in the person of the Lord concerning the power of the adversary, this fighter against God, refers to the Lord Himself, Who spake these words by the prophet! Who among the tyrants is recorded to have been such a persecutor of the faith as this? Who maintained such blasphemy as this, that He Who, as we believe, was manifested in the flesh for the salvation of our souls, is not very God, but the adversary of God, who puts his p. CXIX guile into effect against men by the instrumentality of idols and graven images? For it is what was said of that adversary by the prophet that Eunomius transfers to the only-begotten God, without so much as reflecting that it is the Only-begotten Himself Who spoke these words by the prophet, as Eunomius himself subsequently confesses when he says, \u201cthis is He Who spake by the prophets.\u201d\nWhy should I pursue this part of the subject in more detail? For the words preceding also are tainted with the same profanity\u2014\u201creceiving glory from the Father, not sharing glory with the Father, for the glory of the Almighty God is incommunicable.\u201d For my own part, even had his words referred to Moses who was glorified in the ministration of the Law,\u2014not even then should I have tolerated such a statement, even if it be conceded that Moses, having no glory from within, appeared completely glorious to the Israelites by the favour bestowed on him from God. For the very glory that was bestowed on the lawgiver was the glory of none other but of God Himself, which glory the Lord in the Gospel bids all to seek, when He blames those who value human glory highly and seek not the glory that cometh from God only 383 . For by the fact that He commanded them to seek the glory that cometh from the only God, He declared the possibility of their obtaining what they sought. How then is the glory of the Almighty incommunicable, if it is even our duty to ask for the glory that cometh from the only God, and if, according to our Lord\u2019s word, \u201cevery one that asketh receiveth 384 ?\u201d But one who says concerning the Brightness of the Father\u2019s glory, that He has the glory by having received it, says in effect that the Brightness of the glory is in Itself devoid of glory, and needs, in order to become Himself at last the Lord of some glory, to receive glory from another. How then are we to dispose of the utterances of the Truth,\u2014one which tells us that He shall be seen in the glory of the Father 385 , and another which says, \u201cAll things that the Father hath are Mine 386 \u201d? To whom ought the hearer to give ear? To him who says, \u201cHe that is, as the Apostle says, the \u2018heir of all things 387 \u2019 that are in the Father, is without part or lot in His Father\u2019s glory\u201d; or to Him Who declares that all things that the Father hath, He Himself hath also? Now among the \u201call things,\u201d glory surely is included. Yet Eunomius says that the glory of the Almighty is incommunicable. This view Joel does not attest, nor yet the mighty Peter, who adopted, in his speech to the Jews, the language of the prophet. For both the prophet and the apostle say, in the person of God,\u2014\u201cI will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh 388 .\u201d He then Who did not grudge the partaking in His own Spirit to all flesh,\u2014how can it be that He does not impart His own glory to the only-begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, Who has all things that the Father has? Perhaps one should say that Eunomius is here speaking the truth, though not intending it. For the term \u201cimpart\u201d is strictly used in the case of one who has not his glory from within, whose possession of it is an accession from without, and not part of his own nature: but where one and the same nature is observed in both Persons, He Who is as regards nature all that the Father is believed to be stands in no need of one to impart to Him each several attribute. This it will be well to explain more clearly and precisely. He Who has the Father dwelling in Him in His entirety\u2014what need has He of the Father\u2019s glory, when none of the attributes contemplated in the Father is withdrawn from Him?\nProv. viii. 22 (LXX.). The versions of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus (to one or more of which perhaps \u00a79 refers), all render the Hebrew by \u1f10\u03ba\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf (\u201cpossessed\u201d), not by \u1f14\u03ba\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5 (\u201ccreated\u201d). But Gregory may be referring to mss. of the LXX. version which read \u1f10\u03ba\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf. It is clear from what follows that Mr. Gwatkin is hardly justified in his remark (Studies of Arianism, p. 69), that \u201cthe whole discussion on Prov. viii. 22 (LXX.), \u039a\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f14\u03ba\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03ad \u03bc\u03b5, \u03ba.\u03c4.\u03bb., might have been avoided by a glance at the original.\u201d The point of the controversy might have been changed, but that would have been all. Gregory seems to feel that \u1f10\u03ba\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf requires an explanation, though he has one ready.\nCXVII:368 CXVII:369 CXVII:370 CXVII:371 CXVII:372 CXVII:373\nS. John xiv. 6\nCXVII:374 CXVII:375\nProv. viii. 23-25 (not quite verbal, from the LXX.).\nCXVIII:376\nOr \u201cto be brought into harmony with Christian doctrine\u201d (\u1f10\u03c6\u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03cc\u03c3\u03b8\u1fc6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03c9).\nCXVIII:377 CXVIII:378 CXVIII:379\nPs. lxviii. 26 (LXX.).\nCXVIII:380\nCf. Ps. cxiv. 6\nCXVIII:381\nCf. S. John i. 9\nCXVIII:382 CXIX:383\nCf. S. John v. 44\nCXIX:384\nS. Matt. vii. 8\nCXIX:385\nS. Mark viii. 38.\nCXIX:386\nS. John xvi. 15\nCXIX:387 CXIX:388","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. V: Dogmatic Treatises.: He explains the phrase \u201cThe Lord created Me,\u201d and the argument about the origination of the Son, the deceptive character of Eunomius' reasoning, and the passage which says, \u201cMy glory will I not give to another,\u201d examining them from different points of view.","type":"page"}