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1. The Christian faith, preached to all nations by the command of the Lord by the disciples, “is neither of man nor by man, but by our Lord Jesus Christ himself” (Gal. 1:1), who, being the Word, and life, and light, and truth, and God, and wisdom, and all that He was by nature, and especially in “likeness to mankind” was (Phil. 2:7), and partook of our nature “in every likeness, except sin” (Heb. 4:15), and in likeness, since He took upon Himself the whole man with soul and body, which is why our salvation is accomplished by both. He “appeared on earth and lived among men” (Bar. 3:38), so that people would henceforth think about Existence, not being led by their own judgments and turning the concepts they form into dogma based on some guesswork, but on the contrary, having become convinced that God truly appeared in the flesh, we believed in that one true mystery of piety, which was handed down to us by God the Word Himself, speaking through His mouth to the apostles. The teaching about the Supreme Nature, drawn from the Old Testament scriptures, from the law and prophecies, also from tributary instructions, is some kind of “mirror in fortune-telling” (1 Cor. 13:12), let us accept it as evidence of the truth revealed to us, piously comprehending the meaning of the sayings, as being in agreement with the faith set forth by the Lord of all, which we preserve to the letter, as we accepted, pure and unchangeable, recognizing even the slightest perversion of the faithful sayings as extreme blasphemy and wickedness. Therefore, we believe, as the Lord expounded the faith to the disciples, saying: “Going and teaching all tongues, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). This is the teaching of the sacrament, by which our nature in the new birth is transformed from corruptible to incorruptible, from the old man renewed into the image of Him who created in the beginning the likeness of God. Since this faith was handed down to the apostles by God, we do not make any reductions, changes, or additions to it, clearly knowing that he who dares to pervert the divine word with malicious falsehoods is from his father the devil, who, having abandoned the words of truth, became the father of lies and “speaks from his own” (John 8:44). For everything that is not said in truth is, without a doubt, a lie and untruth. Thus, since this teaching is set forth by the Truth itself, then if the inventors of crafty heresies come up with anything to refute this divine word, such as, for example, they call the Father not the Father, but the Creator, the creator of the Son, and the Son - not the Son, but the work, the creature and work of the Father, and the Holy Spirit - not the Spirit, but the work of the work, the creation of the creature, and everything that you want to say about Him God-fighters - we call everything like this a denial of the Divinity revealed to us in this teaching and a crime. For once and for all we have been taught by the Lord what we should pay attention to in thought, by Whom the transformation of our nature from mortal to immortal is accomplished - this is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we affirm that it is scary and harmful to reinterpret these divine verbs and look for things invented to refute them, as if to correct God the Word, who has legitimized us to accept these verbs with faith. For each of these names, understood in its inherent meaning, serves for Christians as a rule of truth and a law of piety. There are many other names by which the Deity is signified in history, in prophecy and in the law; The Lord Christ, having left all those names with which he could lead us to faith in the Being, offers these verbs, making it clear to us that it is enough for us to remain with the names of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit in order to understand the Really Existing One, which is one and not one. According to the concept of essence, the One who exists is one, which is why the Lord has legitimized looking at a single name, and according to the distinctive properties that serve to know the hypostases, faith in Him is divided into faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, inseparably separated and inseparably united. For when we hear the word “Father,” let us give room to the thought that this name not only is understood in itself, but also means a relationship to the Son, because the Father would not be intelligible separately in Himself if with the utterance of the word “Father” the concept of the Son was not connected with it. Therefore, having come to know the Father by this very word, we are taught faith in the Son. Therefore, since the Divinity by nature, what It is and how It is, is exactly the same and always, it has not ever become that which It is now and will not ever be something that it is not now, but the true Father is called Father in Scripture, and together with the Father the Son is also, we necessarily believe that, not allowing any transformation or change in nature, what He is now, that is what He certainly was and has always been; or if at one time he was not something, then he certainly is not that now. Therefore, since the true Word calls the Father, he always certainly was the Father, and is, and will be, as he was. It is not permissible to say about God’s most pure nature that It is not always beautiful. For if it was not always what It is now, then, of course, it has turned either from better to worse or from worse to better. But whatever is said about God’s nature is equally impious in this. The deity does not allow transformation and change. Everything that is beautiful and good is always mentally imagined in the source of beauty. Beautiful and above all that is beautiful is “the Only Begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18). And “He who is in the womb” is not born? 2. So, this has proven that the Son is in the Father, in whom He is from eternity represented as life, light, truth, every good name and every good thought, and all this is such that to assert that the Father sometimes exists without this, by Himself, is a sign of extreme wickedness and at the same time madness. For if the Son, as Scripture says, is the power of God, wisdom, truth, light, holiness, peace, life and the like, then before the existence of the Son, which the heretics want to deny, of course, even this did not exist with the Father. And if this did not happen, then, without a doubt, the Father’s bosom is recognized as not having such benefits. Therefore, so that the Father is not imagined to be deprived of his blessings, and the teaching does not fall into this incongruity, according to the word of the Master, faith in the Son must also be imagined with the eternity of the Father. Therefore, all the names used to indicate a higher nature are put aside, but what is offered to our faith, as the one that most clearly shows the truth, is the name of the Father, which, as has been said, in a relative sense shows along with itself the Son. And as the Son, who in the Father, according to what was said in the previous words, always is what He is, because the Divinity by nature does not allow growth to greater things and does not see any other good outside of itself, through the participation of which it would acquire more, but is always the same, does not reject what it has, and does not accept what it does not have, and does not have anything significant, and if anything is blessed, most pure and truly good, then certainly already around Him and in Him; Therefore, we necessarily see that it is not by acquisition that He possesses the good and Holy Spirit, the right, sovereign, life-giving Spirit, containing and sanctifying all creation, Who “works all things and in all” “as He wills” (1 Cor. 12:6, 12:11), so that it is impossible to imagine any gap between the anointed one and the anointing, or between the king and the kingdom, or between wisdom and the spirit of wisdom, or between truth and the spirit of truth, or between power and the spirit of power, but as in the Father from eternity the Son is conceived, who is wisdom and truth, and counsel, and strength, and knowledge, and mind, so also in the Son from eternity the Holy Spirit is represented, Who is the Spirit of wisdom and truth, and counsel, and understanding, and everything else that the Son is and is called. Therefore we say that this mystery of piety was given to the holy disciples jointly and separately, namely: that one must believe in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the peculiarity of the Hypostases makes the separateness of the Persons clear and unconfused. The same name, placed in the statement of faith, clearly explains to us the unity of the essence of the Persons in whom we believe, I mean the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For by these names we recognize not the difference of nature, but only the properties that serve to know the hypostases, by which we know that the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, or the Father or the Holy Spirit is not the Son, but each Person is recognized by a special distinctive feature of the hypostasis, in an indefinable perfection represented in itself and not separated from the Person united with Him. 3. Therefore, what does the unnamed name mean, about which the Lord, having said: “baptizing them in the name,” did not add the very word that would show the meaning of the name? We have the following concept about it: everything that exists in creation is comprehended by the meaning of names. Whoever says “heaven”, the understanding of the hearer leads to the creature designated by this name, and the one who mentions a person or any living creature by name immediately imprints on the hearer the image of the creature, and also everything else by the name given to the thing is depicted in the heart of the one who, through hearing, has accepted into himself the name that the thing has. But one uncreated nature, in which we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, is higher than any meaning contained in the name. That is why the Word, when it taught faith by uttering a name, did not add what name it was. And how could a name be found for that which is above every name? But we have been given the power, as much as our piously motivated understanding has the strength to find any name indicating a superior nature, and equally apply it to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, whether this name be good or incorruptible, which only everyone recognizes as worthy of taking it to indicate the most pure nature. And with this exposition, it seems to me, the Word lays down the law, which should convince us of the ineffability and incomprehensibility of God’s essence. For it is clear that the name “Father” does not express the essence, but signifies the relationship to the Son. Therefore, if it were possible for human nature to know the essence of God, then He who “desires to be saved as a whole and to come into the understanding of truth” (1 Tim. 2:4) would not remain silent about this knowledge. Now, by the very fact that he did not say anything about the essence, he shows that knowledge of it is impossible, but having learned what is possible for us, we have no need for the inconceivable, having faith in the faithful teaching is sufficient for our salvation. For the most perfect teaching of piety is to know that He really is, the One in Whom the greatness of the Son is revealed in the relative concept, the Son who, as it is said, in unity with Himself shows the Spirit of life and the true, because He Himself is both life and truth. Having presented this in such separateness and anathematizing every heretical assumption in divine dogmas, we believe, as taught by the Word of the Lord, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, confessing with this faith the dispensation perfected in the human race by the Master of creation, “He who was in the form of God was not equal to God by admiration: We have received the form of a servant" (Phil. 2:6-7), and having become incarnate in the Holy Virgin, he redeemed us from death, with which "we are kept alive as those sold under sin" (Rom. 7:6, 7:14), in exchange for the redemption of our souls by giving the precious blood of howl, which he shed, having endured the cross and by Himself paving the way for us to rise from the dead. For in due time, in the glory of the Father, He will come to judge every soul with righteousness, when “all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, And they who have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28-29). Therefore, so that the heretical disagreement now being dispelled by Eunomius, being accepted by any of the common people without investigation, does not damage the purity of faith in him, of necessity, by presenting here an exposition spread by heretics, we will try to expose the worthlessness of their teaching. 4. Their teaching reads like this: “We believe in the one and only true God, according to the teaching of the Lord himself, not honoring Him with a false word because He is not false, but as truly by nature and by the glory of being the one God, without beginning, eternally, infinitely unique.” Whoever promised to believe according to the teachings of the Lord, let him not pervert the statement of faith made by the Lord of all into something else that pleases him, but let him follow the words of truth. Therefore, when the teaching of faith there contains the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, what agreement does what is now composed with the verbs of the Master have, so that such a dogma can be compared with their teaching? Where in the Gospels did the Lord say that one must believe in the one and only true God? I can't tell them this, unless they have some new Gospel. For which from ancient times to this day have been read by succession in churches, they do not have this saying, which says that one must believe or baptize in the one and only true God, as the heretics say, but, on the contrary, it says: in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We, as taught by the Master’s word, affirm that the word “one” does not only mean the Father, but together with the Father it also shows the Son, because the Lord said this: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Likewise, the name “Divinity” is equally given to the beginning in which the Word is, and to the Word existing in the beginning; for the Lord said: “And the Word is to God, and God is the Word” (John 1:1), so that in what is signified by the name “Divinity”, together with the Father, the Son is equally conceptualized. Beyond this, the word “true” cannot be understood to mean anything other than truth. And that the Lord is the truth, no one, without a doubt, will contradict this, unless he is alien to the truth. Therefore, if the Word is one, and He is God and truth, as preached in the Gospels, then to what teaching of the Lord can the dogma of those who used these distinctive words be compared? For the distinction of the unique from the non-unique is the same as the distinction of God from non-God and the true from the untrue. Therefore, if, referring to idols, this division of sayings is made in relation to them, then we also agree with this, because the name “Divinity” is also given to pagan idols by the same name. For “you are the tongue of the demon” (Ps. 95:5). And Scripture also distinguishes the one from the many, the true from the false, and non-existent gods from the real God. If a distinction is made from the Only Begotten God, then let the wise men know that truth differs from only falsehood, and God is different from the non-existent God. But in the dogma of the Lord, Who is the truth of the existing God, who exists in the Father and who exists one with the Father, these distinctive sayings have no place. For he who truly believes in the One sees in the One also united with Him in all respects by truth, Divinity, essence, life, wisdom, in a word, everything. Or, if he does not see in the One One Who is all these things, then his faith is in nothing, because the Father without the Son is not the Father and is not called the Father, just as without power he is not strong and without wisdom he is not wise, for Christ is “God’s power and God’s wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:24). Therefore, without power or truth, or wisdom, or life, or the true light, he who dreams of seeing either sees nothing, or certainly sees evil. For the taking away of goods becomes the condition and implementation of evil. “Do not honor Him with false words, for He is not deceitful,” says Eunomius. With this word I beg him to remain a witness to the Truth, that It is not false. For if he adheres to such a way of thinking that everything said by the Lord is far from false, then he will, of course, be convinced that He who said: “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me” (John 14:11) is true, without a doubt, whole as a whole, so that neither the Father in the Son has excess, nor the Son in the Father is diminished; and the Son must be honored “as they honor the Father” (John 5:23). It is true that He said: “He who has seen Me in the form of the Father” (John 14:9), and that “no one knows the Son except the Father; no one knows the Father but the Son” (Matthew 11:27). As a result of all this, those who accept these sayings as true do not assume any difference between the Father and the Son, either in glory, or in essence, or in anything else. “Indeed, by nature and by glory there is one God,” says Eunomius. What truly exists is different from what does not really exist. Each of the beings is truly existing, insofar as it exists. And what, although in some kind of ghost and assumption seems to have existence, but does not have it, does not really exist, such as, for example, a sleepy dream, a ghost or a person depicted in a picture. These and similar ghostly creatures have no real existence. Therefore, if they assert, in accordance with the Jewish concept, that the Only Begotten God does not exist at all, then they do well, testifying to the Father alone that existence truly belongs to Him. But if they do not deny that the Creator of the universe also exists, then let them be convinced of the real existence of not depriving this Existence, Who, at the theophany that happened to Moses, called Himself existing, saying: “I am this” (Ex. 3:14), as Eunomius agrees with this in the following words, saying that He is the one who appeared to Moses. Then he calls the Father “one God by nature and glory.” Therefore, if it is possible for God to exist without being God by nature, then let him who affirms this know Him. And if it is not God, Who is not God by nature, then let them learn from the great Paul that those who serve “not by nature as God” do not serve God (Gal. 4:8). We, as the Apostle says, work for God “living and true” (1 Thess. 1:9); The One we serve is Jesus Christ. For the Apostle Paul also boasted in His service, saying: “Paul is the servant of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:1). Therefore, we, who no longer serve gods that no longer exist by nature, have come to know God who exists by nature, to whom “every tribe will worship, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10). But they would not have served if they had not believed that He is the living and true God, of whom “every tongue confesseth, as Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:11). There is one God, says Eunomius, beginningless, eternally, infinitely unique. Also, “understand, in kindness, deceit,” says Solomon (Proverbs 8:5), so that you will never be deceived and fall into denial of the Divinity of the Only Begotten. That which does not allow death and decay to reach itself is endless. And also what is not temporary is called eternal. Therefore, what is not eternal and not infinite is certainly imagined in a perishable and temporary nature. Therefore, whoever assimilates infinity to the one and only God, but does not extend the meaning of infinity and eternity to the Son, proves by a similar turn of phrase that the Son, distinguished from the eternal and infinite, is corruptible and temporary. But when we hear that God “only has immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16), by immortality we mean the Son, because life is immortality. And when it is said that God “lives unapproachable in the light,” again under the true light, which is not accessible to lies, we have no doubt that he means the Only Begotten, in whom the Father is, as we learned from the Truth itself. Let the listener himself choose from this which is more pious - according to what has been said, to glorify the Only Begotten with God or to affirm that He is perishable and temporary, as the heresy interprets. “As for the essence by which God is one, not divided into many,” Eunomius continues, “or otherwise not becoming different, or not changing the image of being that he has, and not being transformed from one essence into a threefold Hypostasis. For in everything and always there is one, in the same and equally being one.” But in this speech proposed here, an intelligent listener must first distinguish empty sayings introduced into the speech without meaning from those that seem to have meaning, and after this consider the meaning of what was said, revealed in the rest, whether he agrees with the pious thought of Christ. 5. So, the first part of what was proposed is completely far from any good or bad meaning. For what is the meaning of this: “but what about the essence by which God is one, not divided into many, or otherwise not becoming different, or not changing the manner of being that he has”? And Eunomius himself will not say, but I think, and none of his champions will be able to find in what he said even a shadow of any meaning. “As for the essence by which one is one, indivisible.” Does he say that He Himself is not separated from His essence or asserts that the essence is not divided by Him; this meaningless speech is some kind of noise and an empty ringing raised in vain. And what is the need to dwell on the study of these unintelligible sayings? For how will anyone remain in existence, separated from his essence? Or how does someone's essence, divided, show itself to itself? Or how is it possible for someone who has come from that in which exists to become something else, becoming outside of himself? But “from one essence does not transform into three hypostases,” says Eunomius. “For in everything and for always there is absolutely one, in the same and equally being the only one.” What is unintelligible in what has been said is obvious, I think, to everyone even before our comments. But let anyone object to them who thinks that there is any thought or any meaning in what is being proposed. For he who decides to thoroughly judge the power of speech will not deign to deal with what is untenable. And what force does what has been said against our dogma: “What about the essence by which He is one, not being divided, or split into many, or otherwise becoming different or not changing the image of being that He has, and not being transformed from one essence into three hypostases”? Christians do not speak or believe this way, and this will not come to mind because of what we confess. For who ever said or heard someone say in the Church of God that the Father either separates or divides the essence, or otherwise becomes different, coming out of Himself, or is transformed into three hypostases? Eunomius says this to himself, not arguing with us, but weaving together his own nonsense and, to the wickedness, mixing great foolishness in what was said. For we call it equally wicked and godless to recognize the Lord of creation as created, and to think that the Father, since He is the Father, is divided or cut, or comes out of Himself, or is transformed into three hypostases, like clay or wax, taking on different images. But let's consider the following words. “For in everything and forever there is one, in the same and equally being one.” If he speaks about the Father, then we agree with this. For the Father, as indeed, is one, unique in everything and forever, is the same in the same measure and equally, and is sometimes not what he has not been before and will not be in the future. Therefore, if such a speech applies to the Father, then let Eunomius not argue with the dogma of piety, agreeing with the Church in this part. For whoever confesses that the Father is always the same, one and only, confirms the teaching of piety by seeing the Son in the Father, without whom the Father is not Father and is not called Father. If he creates any other God besides the Father, then let him have it with the Jews or with the so-called Ipsistians, who differ from Christians in that they confess some kind of God, whom they call the highest (υψιστον), or almighty, but do not recognize Him as the Father. A Christian, if he does not believe in the Father, is no longer a Christian. 6. But what Eunomius adds after this is the following. “God,” he says, “has no accomplice in the Godhead, no partner in glory, no seeker of power, no co-throne in the kingdom, because He is the one and only God, the Almighty, the God of gods, the King of kings, the Lord of lords.” I don’t know who the name refers to, Eunomius testifies, that the Father does not allow communication with Himself in the Divinity. If he makes such a speech against vain idols and against the sinful opinion of idolaters, as Paul cries out that there is no agreement between “Christ’s people and Belial, nor the building of the church of God with idols” (2 Cor. 6:15-16), then we also agree with him. If, in the words spoken, he separates the Only Begotten God from the Father’s Divinity, then let him know that the dilemma is preparing for him to accuse himself of his wickedness. For either he completely denies that the Only Begotten of God is God, in order to preserve the Father’s incommunicability in the Divinity with the Son, and thereby exposes himself that he is an apostate, denying the Christian God, or, if he agrees that He is God, by nature not similar to the true God, then, of all necessity, he admits that he honors gods who are separate from each other by the difference of their natures. Let him choose from this what he pleases: either he denies the Divinity of the Son, or introduces many gods into the teaching, but whatever he chooses from this, it is equally wicked. And we, secretly guided by the inspired words of Scripture, see in the Father and the Son not communion, but the unity of the Divine, which the Master taught in His own word when he said: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and: “He who has seen Me in the form of the Father” (John 14:9). For if he were not of the same nature, then how would he either have something alien in Himself, or would he show in Himself something that is not similar, when the alien and alien nature does not accept the distinctive feature of the alien? But Eunomius says that God “has no partner in glory.” And the way he has, he speaks, although he does not know what he is saying. For the Son does not share glory with the Father, but has all the glory of the Father, just as the Father has all the glory of the Son. He says this to the Father: “All of mine is Yours, and Yours is Mine” (John 17:10). Why does he also say that “he will appear in the glory of the Father even at the time of judgment, when he will reward everyone according to his deeds” (Matthew 16:27). And with these words it shows the unity of nature. For just as “the glory of the sun is different, and the glory of the moon is different” (1 Cor. 15:41), because there is no similarity in the natural properties of their constituent parts, and if the glory of both were the same, then there would be no difference in their nature, so He who predicted about Himself that He would appear in the glory of the Father, showed the identity of glory by the identity of the nature. And to assert that the Son is not co-throne with the Father in the kingdom serves as evidence of great attentiveness to the divine words of Eunomius, who, having delved deeply into the inspired Scriptures, had not yet heard what was said: “Be wise in the heavenly place, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father” (Col. 3:2, 3:1), and: “But he is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2) and other similar passages, many of which are not easy to list, and which, not yet knowing, Eunomius forbids the Son to be a co-throne with the Father. It is better to pass over in silence, as unreasonable, than to expose it as impious. For what meaning does the expression “seeker of power” (συγκληρος) have? usages. They cast lots for the Lord’s clothing, as Scripture says (John 19:23–24), who did not want to tear apart the Lord’s robe, but who wished to make it the property of one of them, to whom he would give the lot (κληρον). συγκληροι ) Here we are talking about the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and their power in nature. For the Holy Spirit, “wherever He wills, He breathes” (John 3:8), “works in all things as He wills” (1 Cor. 12:6, 12:11); and the Son, by whom “everything that is in heaven and that is on earth, visible and invisible” (Col. 1.16), “created everything that He willed” (Ps. 113:11), and “what He wills, He lives” (John 5:21); and the Father “decides the times in His power” (Acts 1:7), and with the times we recognize everything that happened in time as subject to the Father’s control. So, if, as noted, it has been proven that it is in their power to do what the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit want, then what is the meaning of the expression “seeker of power”? It's impossible to see it. For the heir of “all” (Heb. 1:2) the Creator of ages, shining with His glory with the Father, depicting in Himself the Hypostasis of the Father, has everything that the Father Himself has, and is the Lord of all power; meanwhile, dignity is not transferred from the Father to the Son, but remains with one and is with the other. For he who exists in the Father, without a doubt, is in Him with all His power, and he who has the Father in Himself embraces in Himself all the Father’s power and strength, because He has in Himself the whole Father, and not a part of Him, and the name of the whole Father, without a doubt, also has His power. Therefore, what does Eunomius mean by saying that the Father has no claimant for power? Perhaps the disciples of his vanity will say this. For he who knows how to understand words admits that he is not able to understand what is said without meaning. Eunomius says that the Father has no contender for power. But someone will say that the Father and the Son argue among themselves about power and decide this by lot; but the sacred Eunomius, through friendly condescension, entering into mediation between Them, gives the advantage of power without lot to the Father alone! Look how much ridiculous and childish there is in this presentation of dogmas that does not rise from the ground. Who bears “everything with His power” (Heb. 1:3), Who expresses a desire for something to happen, and by the power of command does what He pleases; With whom power accompanies will, and the measure of power is His will, for it is said: “He spoke, and was, He commanded, and was created” (Ps. 149, 5), Who by Himself created and in Himself realized everything, without Whom not a single creature came into being and does not remain in existence - is He really waiting for Him to receive power from any lot? Judge, ye who hear, whether the mind of the one who asserts this is sound? The one and only is God Almighty, he says. Therefore, if the name “Almighty” indicates the Father, then it is ours, and not someone else’s, that sets out the teaching. If, besides the Father, he means any other Almighty, then let, if you wish, circumcision be preached by this champion of Jewish dogmas. For the Christian faith is before the eyes of the Father. The Father is everything: the Most High, the Almighty, the King of kings, the Lord of lords - and everything that is close to a high meaning belongs to the Father itself. And what belongs to the Father, all that belongs to the Son, so if Eunomius truly understands this, then we accept his words. But if, having left the Father, he calls someone else the Almighty, then the Jewish expounds the doctrine or follows Plato’s principles. For this philosopher, they say, asserts that there is a certain supreme creator and creator of some lower gods. Therefore, the one who, holding to the Jewish and Platonic teachings, does not accept the Father, is not a Christian, although in the professed teaching he honors some kind of almighty, so Eunomius deceives with the name, Judaizing in his wisdom or honoring what is revered by the Greeks, hiding behind the name of a Christian. But about what is stated in order after this there will be the same word. Eunomius says: “God of gods,” adding the name “Father,” and appropriates this speech to himself, knowing that the Father is the God of gods. And everything that belongs to the Father, without a doubt, also belongs to the Son. "And the Lord of lords." The same word applies to this. “And the Most High over all the earth,” for whomever you imagine in your mind, He is the Most High over all the earth. Likewise, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit supervise the earthly things from above. But what Eunomius then adds to what was said: “The Most High in heaven, the most high in the highest, the most heavenly, truly existing in what He is and in what He abides, true in words, true in deeds” - all this the Christian eye sees equally in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. If Eunomius assigns this only to one of the Persons professed according to the tradition of the faith, then let him dare to call untrue the words of Him who spoke: “I am the way and the truth” (John 14:6), or the Spirit of truth, or let him not agree to recognize as true in the deeds the One who creates judgment and righteousness, or the Spirit who acts “all in all as He wills” (1 Cor. 12:6, 12:11). For if he does not attribute this to the Persons professed according to the tradition of faith, then the Christian faith is completely rejected. For how can anyone consider someone worthy of faith who is deceitful in his words and not true in his deeds? But let's move on to the continuation of the speech. For he says: “above all beginning, subordination, power.” This is our teaching and actually belongs to the universal Church - to believe that the nature of God is above every beginning and has in its subordination everything that we mentally imagine among beings. But the nature of God is Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. If he ascribes this power to the Father alone, if he alone recognizes him as free from corruption and corruption, if he alone calls him most pure, then it is obvious that this is being prepared - namely: Whoever does not have this is certainly corruptible, corruptible, corruptible, and soon perishing. So, this is what Eunomius teaches about the Only Begotten God and the Holy Spirit! He would not have used opposition, thereby distinguishing the Father, if he had not had this thought about the Son and the Spirit. Finally, brothers, consider whether anyone who adheres to this way of thinking is not a persecutor of the Christian faith? For who would agree to recognize for himself venerable things that are perverse, digestible, and perishable? So, the whole goal of the one who proves such opinions is to expel faith in the Son and the Holy Spirit from the Church, when he proves that either the Truth Itself or the Spirit of Truth is not pure, not immutable, not immutable. 7. Let us see what else Eunomius adds to what has been said. “Without dividing at birth,” he says, “the one who gives birth and the one who is born is not the same in his own essence, or the one who becomes the Father and the Son, because he is incorruptible.” Similarly, it may be that the Prophet speaks of the wicked: “they set up spiders to weave” (Is. 59:5). Just like a cobweb has the outer appearance of fabric, but under this appearance there is no independence, for the one who touches the cobweb does not touch anything substantial, the cobweb threads disappear at the touch of the fingers, and similar to this is the insolvent fabric of empty sayings. “Without sharing at birth,” he says, “his own essence, he who gives birth and the one who is born is not one and the same.” Should what was said be called a word, or rather a piece of some kind of phlegm, spat out when the dropsy intensifies? For what does it mean to share one’s essence in birth, to be one and the same person both giving birth and being born? Who is so disturbed in mind as to utter the word with which Eunomius seems to be struggling? The Church believes that the true Father is truly the Father of His own, and not of someone else’s Son, as the Apostle says, for in one of his epistles he said so emphatically: “He who had no mercy on His own Son” (Rom. 8:32), by adding the word “His”, distinguishing him from those who were worthy of sonship by grace, and not by nature. What does the one who denounces this assumption of ours say? “Without dividing His essence in generation, he is not one and the same who gives birth and who is born, or one and the same who becomes the Father and the Son, because he is incorruptible.” And the one who hears about the existing “Word in the beginning”, about the existing “God’s Word”, about the Word that came from the Father, thus defiles the most pure dogma with these shameful and fetid thoughts, saying: at birth he does not share the essence! What an abomination these vile and unclean concepts are! How can someone who expresses himself in this way not understand that God, who appeared in the flesh, did not allow passion in human nature when forming His body, but “We were born as a child” (Is. 9:6) of “the Holy Spirit and of the power of the Highest” (Luke 1:35), and the Virgin did not experience passion, and the Spirit was not diminished, and the power of the Highest was not divided? For the Spirit is whole, and the power of the Most High remains undiminished, and the Child was born whole, and the incorruptibility of the mother is not damaged; then flesh without passion was born flesh. But Eunomius does not want the radiance of glory to be from glory itself, because the glory that gave birth to the Light is not diminished or divided! And the human word is inseparably born from the mind. And the Word of God, if the essence of the Father is not divided, cannot be born from the Father! But who is so weak-minded as not to understand the meaninglessness of this teaching? “Without sharing at birth,” he says, “our own essence.” But whose own essence is divided at birth? The essence of people is human nature, and of dumb people in the generic concept - dumb nature, in particular, of oxen, sheep, and all dumb people - a nature represented by differences in distinctive properties. Therefore, which of these beings divides its own essence by birth? In each of the animals, does not the nature of those born by succession always remain unchanged? Then man, giving birth to man from himself, does not share nature; on the contrary, it is complete in both the one who gave birth and the one who is born. It is not a part that is separated and moved from one to another, nor does it suffer loss in one when it is made perfect in another, but, everything being in one, everything is also in the other. For man, before he gave birth to another, was a living being, verbal, mortal, capable of possessing reason and information; and when he gave birth to such a person, so that all the distinctive properties of nature would appear in him, and the person who gave birth to a man from himself does not lose being, but what he was before, remains the same after, having given birth to a man from himself, without diminishing his nature in any way. And although man is born from man, the nature of the one who gives birth is not divided. Regarding the Only Begotten God, who exists “in the bosom of the Father,” Eunomius does not agree that His existence is truly from the Father, fearing to transform the unchangeable nature of the Father into the Hypostasis of the Only Begotten. But having said: “without dividing the essence in birth,” he added: “he who gives birth and who is born is not the same, or he who becomes both the Father and the Son is not the same.” And he thinks with incoherent utterances to deprive the true word of piety of firmness or to deliver some kind of power to wickedness, not knowing that what he comes up with to prove the absurd, in this very thing is shown to be understanding the truth. For we also affirm that he who has everything that belongs to His own Father is entirely this very thing, except for one thing: that He is not the Father; and having everything that belongs to the Son, shows in Himself the entire Son, except for one thing, that He is not the Son, so that the construction of absurdity, which Eunomius is now constructing, will be combined with the truth to the extent that, when interpreting the Gospel word, the thought of this appears to us more clearly. For if he who saw the Son sees the Father, then the Father begat another Himself, without ceasing to be Himself and appearing entirely in what was born, so that as a result of this, what was said, apparently contrary to piety, turned out to be in conflict with sound dogma. “But without dividing its own essence in generation,” says Eunomius, “it is not the same who gives birth and who is born, or who becomes both Father and Son, because he is incorruptible.” What a forced conclusion! What are you saying, O wise one? Since he is incorruptible, he does not divide his own essence, giving birth to the Son. He does not beget Himself, and He is not born of Himself, He does not become both the Father and the Son of Himself, because He is incorruptible. Consequently, if someone is of a corruptible nature, then he dissects the essence at birth, is born from himself, gives birth to himself, one and the same becomes the father and son of himself, because he is not incorruptible. But if this is really so, then Abraham, being corruptible, did not give birth to Ishmael and Isaac, but from a slave and from his lawful wife he had himself as a child, or in another intricate way of expressing himself, he divided his essence into those born, and at first, at the birth of Hagar, divided into two parts, in one of the halves he became Ishmael, and in the other he remained half of Abraham, after which the remainder of Abram’s essence was divided into double offspring Isaac, so that an eighth part is made in each of the grandchildren. How can another, breaking up this eighth share, divide it into parts into twelve patriarchs or seventy-five souls, among whom Jacob came to Egypt? And why am I saying this? The denunciation of foolishness in what has been said must begin with the first person. For if it is characteristic of one incorruptible person not to share his nature at birth, but Adam was corruptible, to whom it was said: “Thou art earth, and unto earth thou shalt go forth” (Gen. 3:19), then, according to the word of Eunomius, without a doubt, he divided his essence, being truncated among those born of him. With a multitude of descendants, since the share of the essence found in each is necessarily divided according to the number of those born, then the essence of Adam, fragmented by countless thousands who descended from Adam in small and indivisible particles, is exhausted before Abraham was born, and there is no longer a remnant of Adam’s essence, separated to Abraham and his descendants, because in the countless thousands who came before him, the shares were spent by fragmentation into small parts nature. You see the foolishness of a person who does not know “neither what he says nor what he affirms” (1 Tim. 1:7)! For having said: because he is incorruptible, he does not divide essence, does not give birth to himself, does not become his own Father, - as a result of this, about everything that is subject to corruption, he made it clear that at birth something happens that, according to what he proved, does not happen to one incorruptible. But, since there are many other things that can be used to prove the emptiness of what Eunomius asserts, I think that what has been said is enough to prove unreason. Without a doubt, people knowledgeable in advance have recognized the need to pay attention to the consequences. Eunomius, having attributed incorruptibility to the Father alone, proves of everything that is intelligible after the Father, in contrast to the incorruptible, that it is corruptible, in order even to prove of the Son that He is not free from corruption. Therefore, if he distinguishes the Son from the incorruptible, then he not only determines that He is corruptible, but proves that other things also belong to Him, which, according to Eunomius, the incorruptible alone does not have. For if the Father alone neither begets Himself, nor is He begotten of Himself, then it is necessary for everything that is not incorruptible to both beget itself and be born of itself, and for one and the same thing to become both the father and the son of itself, adapting to one or the other in essence. For if it only belongs to the Father to be incorruptible, but it is characteristic of the incorruptible not to be this, then, according to the heresy, of course, the Son is not incorruptible, and certainly has all this in Him: that is, the essence divides, and begets itself, and is born of itself, one and the same becomes the Father and the Son of Himself. 8. Or, perhaps, it is in vain to dwell any longer on unreasonable speeches. Let us move on to the continuation of the word, for Eunomius adds to this: “in creation, it does not need substance or parts, or natural tools, because it does not need anything.” This thought, although Eunomius literally expresses it weaker, we do not exclude it from the teaching of piety, for having learned that “He spoke and commanded and was created” (Ps. 148:5), we know that the Word is the creator of matter, creating qualities together with matter, so that everything belongs to Him, and first of all that to which the omnipotent will is directed: matter, tool, place, time, essence, quality - everything mentally represented in a creature. For at the same time he willed that what should come into being, and this thought was accompanied by the power that produces beings, turning will into action. Thus, the great Moses spoke wisely about the divine power in the world, attributing to each commanding utterance the creation of beings appearing in creation, for he says: “God said: let there be light.” And the light was swift" (Gen. 1, 3), and also, speaking about other creations, Moses did not mention either substance or the assistance of tools. From this side, Eunomius’s word does not deserve to be condemned, because God, creating everything that was brought into existence by creation, did not need any ready-made substance or tools to create this. God’s power and God’s wisdom do not need the help of others, but God’s power and wisdom is Christ, through Him all things “were, and without Him” there is not a single creature, as John testifies (John 1:3). Therefore, if by Him everything visible and invisible was brought into being, and to impart independence to beings one desire was sufficient, because desire is power, then Eunomius, although in weak terms, expressed our teaching. For he who bears “all things by His power” (Heb. 1:3) what instrument or substance would he need in order to bear the independent existence of beings with the omnipotent word? But if, what we believe about the Only Begotten in the reasoning of the creature, then Eunomius proves in the reasoning of the Son that the Father created Him in the same way as the creation was brought into being by the Son, then now we repeat again the word spoken before, namely: that such an opinion is a denial of the Divinity of the Only Begotten. For we were taught by Paul’s great word that it is common for idolaters to honor and serve “the creature more than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25), and David says: “You will not have a new god; you will bow down to a strange god” (Ps. 80:10). Let us use this rule and guide in the knowledge of the venerable and remain convinced that to truly be God means not to be new and alien. So, since we have been taught to believe that the only begotten God is God, believing that He is God, we confess together that He is neither new nor alien. Therefore, if God, then he is not new; what is not new is necessarily eternal. Therefore, the Eternal One is not new, He is not alien to the true Divinity, He is from the Father, He is in the bosom of the Father, having the Father in Himself. Therefore, whoever separates the Son from the nature of the Father will either abolish worship altogether, so as not to worship “an alien God,” or he will honor the idol, the creature, and not God, choosing for his worship and giving the name of Christ to the idol. As for this understanding of Eunomius’s assumptions about the Only Begotten, it will be clearer from those places where Eunomius sets out his thoughts about the Only Begotten himself precisely as follows: “we also believe in the Son of God, the only begotten God, the firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:15), the true Son, not unbegotten, truly begotten before the ages, called Son, not without a previous birth being, the first begotten of every creature, not uncreated.” It is enough, I think, to read only what is stated here and, without our research, to clearly see the wickedness of the teaching, for, having called the Son firstborn, so as not to leave those listening in some doubt whether He was created or not, he immediately added: not uncreated, so that otherwise the meaning of the word “Son”, understood in its usual sense, would not give rise to any pious concept about Him in those who heard it. For this reason, having first recognized the Son of God and the only begotten God, soon afterwards the introduced concepts seduce the minds of those listening to the heretical understanding of the pious concept, for he who hears the names “Son of God” and “only begotten God”, guided by the meaning of these sayings, is necessarily raised to higher mental concepts, since the name “God” and the meaning of the word “un” does not introduce any thought about the difference nature. For what other than the nature of the Father can be represented in Him who is truly the Son of God, and Himself God? But, so that these names do not preliminarily imprint pious thoughts on the hearts of those who listen, Eunomius immediately says that the Son is the firstborn of creation, is called Son not before the birth preceding being, was born before all creation, is not uncreated; and from this it is revealed that the cunning one offers the first words to people instead of bait, so that the poison may be accepted by them as if it were some kind of honey, sweetened with pious names. Let's dwell on this for a moment in a word. Who doesn’t see what a difference there is in the meaning of the words “only begotten” and “firstborn”? For neither the only begotten with brothers nor the first begotten without brothers are intelligible; on the contrary, the first begotten is not the only begotten, because the first begotten is, of course, among the brothers, and the only begotten has no brother, for he who is counted as one of the brothers will not be the only begotten; and besides this, whatever the nature of the brothers of the firstborn, the firstborn will certainly be like that. And this word means not only this, but also that the first-born himself and those born after Him have their being from one and the same thing, and that the first-born does not bring anything from Himself to the birth of the next, and this leads one to think that John’s word is false, testifying that “all things were by Him.” For if the firstborn, then, without a doubt, with those born after him, there is a difference only in temporary advantages between how the other is, by whom both he and the rest were given the power to come into being. But, so as not to give any of the slanderers the idea that we do not accept the inspired sayings, we insist on this, first we will suggest what our understanding of these names is, and then we will add for the listeners a judgment about the best understanding. The great Paul, knowing that the only begotten God, preeminent in everything, is the principle, leader and author of all good things, testifies of Him that not only was the creation of beings accomplished by Him, but that, since the ancient creation in man became obsolete and reached the point of incorruption (Heb. 8:13), as he calls it, another “new creation” came into being in Christ (Gal. 6:15), then and in this there was no other leader, but in all creation, perfected among men by the Gospel, He is the firstborn. And to make this idea clearer, let us present the speech in this order. The Divine Apostle mentions this saying four times: once saying: “the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15); also: “the firstborn of many brethren” (Rom. 8, 29); thirdly: “the firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18), - and then he uses this word detachedly, not in conjunction with other words, saying: “When he again brings the Firstborn into the universe, he says: and let all the angels of God worship him” (Heb. 1:6). Therefore, in what sense we understand this name in its other conjugations, we will rightly adapt the same meaning to the expression: “firstborn of the creature.” For, since the word is one and the same, then, by all necessity, the concept signified by it is one and the same. Therefore, how is it possible to become the firstborn of many brothers? Why is he the firstborn from the dead? Or is it, without a doubt, obvious? Since we became flesh and blood, as Scripture says (1 Cor. 15:50), then for our sake he who became like us, who partook of flesh and blood, in order to transform us from corruption into incorruption in the birth from above by water and spirit, himself preceded in such a birth, drawing the Holy Spirit into the water with his own baptism, so that he himself became the firstborn of all those who are reborn spiritually and called the partakers brothers the same birth as Him by water and the Spirit. And since he had to invest in the nature and power of the resurrection from the dead, he also becomes “the firstfruits of those who have died” (1 Cor. 15:20) and the firstborn from the dead, the first to put an end to mortal illnesses, so that we too could pave the way to re-existence from death after the Lord’s resurrection ends that mortal illness with which we were possessed. Therefore, just as a participant in the bath of rebirth is made the firstborn among the brothers, and also, having made himself the firstfruits of the resurrection, he is called the firstborn from the dead, and so “he is first in all” (Col. 1:18), after, according to the Apostle, all the “ancient past” (2 Cor. 5:17), becomes the firstborn of the new creation in Christ - of men, through the ultimate rebirth and resurrection, both after holy baptism and from the dead, and in both, becoming for us the chief of life and the firstfruits, and the firstborn. Therefore, this firstborn also has brothers, about whom he speaks to Mary: I go “to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God” (John 20:17). For what has been said briefly, but fully depicts the purpose of the economy of the human race. The human race, having departed from God, worked for gods who did not exist by nature, and those who existed became children of God to their evil and falsely named father. Therefore, “the Advocate for God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5), having taken upon Himself the firstfruits of all human nature, not from God, but on our behalf, sends a message to His brothers, saying: I will go, so that I may make the true Father your Father, from whom you have departed, and that I may make the true God your God, from whom you have departed, because By the firstfruits, which I have taken upon Myself, I bring all mankind in Myself to God and the Father. Therefore, since the Firstfruits was made by His God to be the real God and the Father of the good Father, then all nature deserves good things and through the Firstfruits is made the Father and God of all men: “If the Firstfruits is holy, it is said, then it is mixed” (Rom. 11:16). Where Christ is the firstfruits (and Christ is truly the firstfruits), there are those who belong to Christ, as the Apostle says (1 Cor. 15:23). Therefore, where the Apostle makes mention of the word “firstborn”, placed in conjunction with the memory of the dead, of creation, of brothers, it is suggested to understand what was said before this and the like; but where he says without such an addition: “When he again brings the First-born into the universe, he says” (Heb. 1:6), then the addition of the word “again” foreshadows the coming of the Lord of all, which will be at the end. For just as “in the name of Jesus every knee will bow, those in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10), and the Son does not have a human name, because “more than any name,” so the Apostle says that all the worldly creation will worship the firstborn, so called for our sake, again entering into the universe, “to judge the universe in righteousness, and to men in righteousness" (Ps. 9:9). Thus, in the word of piety, the meaning of the words “first-born” and “only-begotten” is distinguished, while preserving the meaning corresponding to both of these names. But whoever elevates the name of the first-born to pre-eternal existence, how can one observe the concept of the only-begotten? Let the intelligent listener consider for himself whether mutual agreement is possible in these names, when it is impossible to imagine either the firstborn without brothers, or the only begotten with brothers. When the Evangelist said: “in the beginning was the Word,” we imagine the Only Begotten. And when he added: “The word became flesh,” the thought of the First-Born is born in us. Thus, the word of piety remains unfused, each of the names retaining a meaning akin to it, so that in the word “only begotten” we see the pre-eternal, and in the word “first-born of the creature” - the manifestation of the pre-eternal in the flesh. 9. Let us return again to the literal reading of Eunomius’ word. “We also believe in the Son of God, the only begotten God, the firstborn of all creation, the true Son, not unbegotten, truly begotten before the ages.” So, that Eunomius extends the concept of birth to what is signified by the word “creation,” this is clear from the fact that he openly called the Son of God created, saying that He was brought into being and was not uncreated. But so that his imprudence and ignorance of dogmas are most revealed, putting aside complaints about obvious blasphemy, we will present the word about this with some artificial analysis. For it seems to me that it would be good to examine with the most careful study the very thing in the word that is meant by the phrase “birth.” Although it is clear to everyone that this name means being from some cause, and there is, I think, no need to argue about this; However, since there are different relationships between what has taken place depending on the cause, it is necessary, I believe, to clarify this in the word by some kind of artificial analysis. Therefore, in what happened from any reason, we note the following differences. Other things come from matter and from art, such as the arrangement of buildings and other works, produced from a suitable substance under the control of some art, which makes the proposed substance achieve a special goal. And the other is from matter and nature, for the birth of living beings from one another is arranged by nature, which accomplishes its work through material self-activity in bodies. And still another - from a material outflow, and what produces remains what it is, and what flows out from it is in itself visible, as happens with the sun and a ray, or with a lamp and lightness, or with fragrant substances, with worlds and the quality they emit from themselves; for these substances, while remaining not diminished in themselves, at the same time have a natural feature accompanying each of them and emitted by it, for example, the sun is a ray, a lamp is lightness, fragrant substances are the fragrance generated by them into the air. There is another type of birth besides these, the cause of which is immaterial and incorporeal, although the birth itself is perceptible and is accomplished with the help of the body, I mean the word born from the mind, for the mind, being in itself incorporeal, gives birth to the word through sensory instruments. We noticed so many differences in births due to some kind of innate ability of vision. Based on our analysis of the images of birth, it is time to turn our attention to how the humane economy of the Holy Spirit, teaching us the divine mysteries, through what is contained for us, teaches what is beyond all words. For the inspired teaching takes all types of birth that the human mind knows to depict the ineffable power, without at the same time accepting the bodily meaning of names. When he speaks about the distributive power, although he calls this action birth, because the word must descend to the smallness of our power, but at the same time he does not show what is seen in us during this dispensational birth, neither the place, nor the time, nor the preparation of the substance, nor the affinity of the tools, nor the purpose for the one being born, but leaving this to us, he majestically and sublimely attributes to God the bringing of beings into being when he says: “as Toyreche, and was, He commanded, and was created” (Ps. 149:5). Again, when he explains the ineffable and word-surpassing procession of the Only Begotten from the Father, then, since human poverty does not accommodate teachings that surpass the word and concept, here he uses our names and calls him Son (the same name, according to our custom, is given to a being born from matter and nature), but as about birth through creation, the word of God, saying that it takes place through the mediation of a certain substance, did not indicate the essence of matter, place, time and everything like that, defining what the power of God’s will is; so here too, having said “Son,” he left everything else that human nature sees in the long birth, I mean passions and dispositions, the assistance of time, the need of the place, and above all, substance, since without all this the long birth is not accomplished by nature. Since any such material and spatial essence is not included in the meaning of the word “Son,” then only nature remains, and therefore the word Son explains the closeness and faithfulness of the indication in the Father to the Only Begotten. And since this type of birth is not enough to produce in us a sufficient idea of ​​the ineffable procession of the Only Begotten, then the word of God to signify the theology of the Son and another type of birth borrows from the material process, and calls the Son “the radiance of glory” (Heb. 1:3), and “the stench of the world” (Song. 1:3), and “the pair of God” (Wisdom 7:25), than, according to the artificial In the word meaning of birth, our ingrained custom refers to the material expiration. But just as in what was said above, both the concept of the birth of a creature and the meaning of the word “son” did not include either time, or substance, or place or passion, so here the word of God, preferably to any material concept, taking one meaning of radiance or one of the other mentioned images, magnificently representing a similar type of birth, shows that according to the literal meaning of the word “radiance” one should imagine from Him and with Him. For “vapor does not represent the spilling of some substance in the air, and stench” does not mean the passage of something from the quality of the world into the air, and “radiance” does not mean the outflow of the solar body, accomplished through rays; but of all that has been said, one thing is explained by this manner of birth, that the Son is from the Father and is conceived with Him without any distance intervening between the Father and that which is from the Father. Since, out of great love for mankind, the grace of the Holy Spirit arranged the economy so that divine mental ideas about the Only Begotten were repeatedly communicated to us, then Scripture added the rest of what is seen in birth, namely in birth from the mind and the word. And in this the exalted John observes great caution, so that the listener, out of weakness and cowardice, does not fall to the ordinary concept of the word and imagine the Son as a sound emanating from the Father. Therefore, he ascribes to the Word existence in essence in the very first and blessed nature, thus proclaiming the sermon: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God” (John 1:1), and God is light and life, and everything that is the Beginning, and He was. This method of the birth of everything that has existence from a cause, cognizable in the usual way for us and presented by Holy Scripture in the teaching of the highest, in each of this can, as it should, be piously acceptable to the presentation of divine mental ideas. It’s time to understand the meaning of the word “birth” according to Eunomius’ teaching. “A Son,” he says, “true, not unbegotten, and truly begotten before the ages.” About this cunning correspondence of names in distinguishing Persons, as noticeable to everyone, I should, I think, remain silent; for who does not know that there is a contrast in the names of the Son with the Father and the begotten with the unborn, and Eunomius, keeping silent about the Father, contrasts the unborn with the Son. It was necessary, if he cared about the truth, not to distort the relative correspondence in speech, but to say: the true Son, and not the Father. In this way, piety would also be saved by the consistency of speech, since nature would not be divided by the division of Persons. But Eunomius, having changed the true and accepted name in Scripture “Father”, given by the very word in the teachings of faith, instead of Father he named the Ungenerated, so that, having deprived the Father of the natural closeness to the Son seen in the name of the Father, he put it in general relation to everything visible in creation, which is equally opposed to the Unborn. “Truly,” he says, “born before the ages.” Let him say: born by whom? Of course, if he is not ashamed of the truth, he will answer: Father. But since the eternal Father does not tend to take away eternity from the Son, since the meaning of the name “Father”, of course, also points to the Son, then Eunomius, rejecting the name “Father”, introduced the Unborn into speech, because what is signified by this name has no relation to the Son and communication with Him; and through this, teaching the listeners, together with the Father, not to imagine the Son, by changing the name he gives free rein to the trick, by inserting the name “Unborn”, paving the way for dishonesty. For, according to the commandment of the Master, those who have faith in the Father, as soon as they hear about the Father, accept with their mind the thought of the Son, because the mind does not pass any intermediate distance between the Father and the Son; when they move from the name of the Father to the name “Unborn,” they receive one bare concept of this name, being taught only that He is unborn, and not that He is the Father. For this reason, those who listen rationally and with this thought, faith remains undisturbed, because about the uncreated nature it is also said “to be unborn”; But the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit were not created equally; for every creature, both sensory and worldly, as those who follow the divine word believe, has independent existence from the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Whoever hears that “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their strength” (Ps. 33:6), he does not mean by the Word speech and by the Spirit breath, but as a result of what has been said, he imprints the Word and the Spirit of God in the thoughts of God. But the same thing cannot both create and be created; on the contrary, beings are divided into two parts: those who create and those that are produced, and one part is different from the other by nature, so that the unproduced cannot be uncreated, nor that by which the nature of produced beings is completed can be created. So, according to the Master’s statement of faith, those who believe in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit equally confess that none of these Persons is created, and what is meant by the word “unborn” does not in the least harm their sound faith. But for the rude and uneducated, this name serves as the beginning of seduction from sound teaching, for, not understanding the true meaning of the name, namely, that the word “unborn” means only “not to be brought into being,” and that not to be brought into being is the general property of everything that is above creation, and abandoning faith in the Father, the name of the Father was replaced by the word “unborn.” And since, according to what has been said, the Hypostasis of the Only Begotten is not visible in this name, they define a certain beginning of the existence of the Son, saying the same thing that Eunomius now added to what was said: “not without a birth preceding the existence of him who is called the Son.” What a new darkness this is again! Doesn’t he know that he is talking about God? “In the beginning of things and in the Father of things, and it is impossible to imagine when things are not.” He does not know what he is saying and about whom he is claiming, but, as if writing the genealogy of one of the people, what is actually said about the earthly nature, he attempts to attach him to the Lord of all nature. For, for example, Ishmael did not exist before his birth into existence, but, of course, before their birth there was, as I understand, a temporary distance. In reasoning, the radiance of glory has no place either before or after. For before the radiance there was, of course, no glory, but as soon as there is glory, along with it the radiance illuminates, of course, and there is no possibility of separating one from the other. It is impossible to see glory separately before the radiance; whoever says this argues that glory itself is dark and blind, because along with it its radiance illuminates it. But this is the cunning of heresy, so that by the very fact that we represent and speak about man, we remove the only-begotten God from unity with the Father. Therefore Eunomius says: before he was born into being he was not the Son. But are the “sons of rams” mentioned by the Prophet (Ps. 28:1) not also called sons by birth? Therefore, what reason sees in the sons of rams, namely, that before being born into being they are not yet sons of rams, the venerable theologian now attributes to the Creator of ages and every creation, to the One who has in Himself the eternal Father, we imagine in the eternity of the Father, as He Himself says: “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me” (John 14:10). But those who are unable to discern the malice in the word and who have not been trained in any understanding of the sequence of thoughts agree to these incoherent teachings, accepting as consistent what is added to this. 10. For Eunomius says: “the first-born of all creation,” and, as if this saying were not enough to demonstrate wickedness, he places blasphemy in the next word, saying: “not uncreated.” Therefore, how can he not call the uncreated true Son? For if what was created is to be called the true Son, then, of course, heaven is also the true Son, because it is not uncreated. So the sun is a true son, and everything that is small and great in creation is, without a doubt, worthy of the name true son. How does he call the created one the Only Begotten? For all created things, of course, are brothers with each other according to the very concept, as I understand it, of being created. Who created it? For everything that was brought into being was, of course, brought into being by the Son, as John testifies, saying: “All things were made by Him” (John 1:3). Therefore, if, according to Eunomius, the Son was brought into being, then He, of course, is in the nature of created beings. So, if everything created is brought into being by the Word, It is one of the created beings, then who is so foolish as not to see the absurdity of the situation, as if, as this new dogma-leader asserts, the Lord of creation has become the work of Himself. Eunomius clearly says that the Lord, the Creator of all creation, is not uncreated. Let him tell you where he got such courage from? What inspired saying was it drawn from? What evangelist, what apostle spoke such a word? What prophet, or legislator, or patriarch, or any other one inspired by the Holy Spirit, and whose speeches were committed to writing, was the introducer of such a saying? We have known the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the tradition of faith from the Truth itself. Or was it necessary to believe that the Son was created? Why did the truth, which betrays the mystery to us, legitimize faith in the Son, and not in creation? Why does the divine Apostle, when worshiping Christ, definitely say about those who serve the creature instead of the Creator that they serve idols? Either the Apostle himself would not have worshiped if Christ had been created, or he would not have counted the servants of creation among idolaters, so that, while offering worship to the created, he himself would not be recognized as an idolater. But he knew that the One whom he worships is God above all, for this is what he calls the Son in the word to the Romans (Rom. 9:5). Therefore, those who do not attribute the essence of the Father to the Son and call Him created, why in mockery do they concede to Him a false name, taking the name of God in vain to someone who is alien to the true Divinity, like Baal, or Dagon, or the dragon? Therefore, those who claim that He was created, even if they do not confess Him as God, so as to clearly be Judaizers, or if they confess that He is created as God, do not deny that they are idolaters. But, of course, they will present a tributary saying, which says: “The Lord made Me the beginning of His ways for His works” (Proverbs 8:22). To make this as clear as possible, it would be necessary to present it in more detail; however, the thought can be conveyed to those who are well-minded and not in many words. For some who have carefully studied the Divine Scriptures say the following: among the Jews it is not written: “created” (εκτισε), and in the most ancient books we read instead of “created me” it is written “acquisitive” (εκτησατο). And creation in the tributary and mysterious sense means, of course, a slave, who for our sake took upon Himself “the form of a slave.” (Phil. 2:7). But if anyone in the discussion of this passage contrasts with us the reading that prevails in the churches, we do not reject the word “created.” For it also serves to signify a servant in the tributary sense, since all creation is at work, according to the word of the Apostle (Rom. 8:21). Who for our sake was made like us, who, in the beginning being Word and God, after this became flesh and man, and the nature of the flesh was revealed, which He took on “in every likeness, except sin” (Heb. 4:15), but it was created according to God, and not according to man, as the Apostle puts it, in a new way, and not as usual among people. For we are taught that by the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High this new man was created, in which Paul, the interpreter of the unspeakable mysteries, commands us to put on him, calling this garment in two ways, then saying: put on “the new man created according to God” (Eph. 4:24), then: “put on our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14), for in this case for us, who have put on Him, the beginning of the paths of salvation becomes the beginning of the path of salvation: “I am the way” (John 14:6), may He create us with the work of His hands, transforming us from the evil building of sin again into His own image. He himself becomes for us the foundation before the age to come, according to the word of Paul, who says that “no one can lay a foundation more than the one that lies” (1 Cor. 3:11), “and before he made the deep, before he brought forth a fountain of water, before he created the mountains, before he brought Me forth” (Proverbs 8:24-25). Each of these expressions, according to the custom of parable speech, understood in a figurative sense, can be adapted to the Word. For the great David “calls the mountains of God righteousness, and the judgments the deep” (Ps. 35:7), and the sources are the teachers in the churches, saying: “In the churches bless God, the Lord of the fountains of Israel” (Ps. 67:27), and the hills are gentleness, which he depicted as the jumping of lambs (Ps. 113:6). Therefore, before them man is born in us for our sake, so that the creation of that which is like Him may find a place in us. But I think the word about this should be put aside, since for the right-thinking the truth has been sufficiently proven in a few words. Let us proceed to the following words in Eunomius. “At the beginning of existence,” he says, “not without beginning.” This is how he understands divine sayings when he thinks of himself as being superior to everyone else in understanding! In the beginning, Jehovah, according to his interpretation, has a beginning. And he does not know that if Jehovah has a beginning in the beginning, then he certainly has another beginning in himself. For whatever can be said about the beginning, it must necessarily also be said about the being in the beginning. How can a being in the beginning be separated from the beginning? How can anyone imagine something that was not before something that happened? So that someone, raising his thought to the mental representation of the beginning, would extend it further, for this, without a doubt, he will imagine that the Word existing in the beginning cannot be separated from the beginning in which it, as neither beginning nor ceasing to be in the beginning. But therefore, no one should divide dogma into two principles. For one thing, as indeed, is the beginning in which the Word is inseparably conceived, consisting throughout in unity with the Father. Adhering to this way of thinking, Eunomius will not allow heresy any access to harm piety by the novelty of the name “unborn.” But in what follows, his word is like bread in which there is a large admixture of sand. For, having healthyly mixed heretical concepts into what has been said, it also makes the food unfit to eat due to the mixed stone. Calling the Lord “living wisdom, active truth, essential power, life” - this is still food, but Eunomius puts into what was said the poison of heresy, for, having called begotten life, by contrasting begotten life he makes it clear that something else is meant and does not presuppose real life - the Son. Then he says: “as the Son of God, who gives life to the dead, “the true light,” the light that enlightens “every man who comes into the world” (John 1:9), good and giver of good things.” Serving all this instead of some kind of honey to the simple-minded, under the sweetness of this catch hides poison. For he immediately adds his own pernicious thought to what has been said, saying: “who did not share the dignity with the Begotten, and not with anyone else the fatherly essence, but from birth he became glorious and the Lord of glory, and received glory from the Father, and did not take over the glory from Him, because the glory of the Almighty is incommunicable, as He said: “My glory I will not give to another” (Is. 42:8). These are the deadly compounds that are recognized only by those who have exercised the senses of the soul. Their mortal harm is revealed more clearly from the final words of what was said. “To those who received glory from the Father,” he says, “and not to those who took over the glory from Him, because the glory of the Almighty is incomprehensible, as He said: “My glory I will not give to another.” Who is this other one to whom, God said, “I will not give My glory”? Although the Prophet speaks of the enemy; however, Eunomius transfers the prophecy to the Only Begotten God Himself. The Prophet, having said on behalf of God: “My glory I will not give to another,” added: “lower than My virtues are graven images” (Is. 42:8). Since people deceitfully rendered the service and worship due to God to the enemy, in churches dedicated to idols they honored the enemy of God, who is represented in many forms among people by idols, then the healer of the sick, regretting the human death, what kindness He showed at the end of time by destroying idols, predicted this through the mouth of the Prophet, saying: when the truth is revealed, then My glory will not be will be given to another and My virtues will not be attributed to idols, because people, having come to know My glory, will not serve gods that do not exist by nature. So, what the Prophet says on behalf of the Lord about resistive activity is what this atheist attributes to the Lord Himself, who spoke this through the Prophet. Is there any mention of any tormentor who became such a persecutor of the faith? Who brought up this idea, as if He who appeared in the flesh for the salvation of our souls was not the true God, as we believed, but an adversary to God, deceiving people in graven images and idols? For what the Prophet says about this adversary, Eunomius transfers to the only begotten God, not realizing that the one who prophesied this in the Prophet is the Only Begotten Himself, as Eunomius himself later says that He spoke in the prophets. 11. Do I need to talk about this more? For what was said before also belongs to the same blasphemy. “And those who received glory from the Father,” says Eunomius, “but those who did not receive glory from Him; because the glory of the Almighty God is incomprehensible.” And I, if we were talking about Moses, who became famous in serving the law, I would not have uttered a word similar to this. Moses, although he himself did not have any glory, according to the gift he received from God, suddenly appeared in glory to the Israelites. For this glory, which belonged to the legislator, belonged to no one else, but to God himself, and the Lord in the Gospel commands everyone to seek it when he accuses those who make great human glory, and do not seek glory “from God alone” (John 5:44). And by the very fact that He commanded us to seek this glory from the one God, He promised that it would be possible to achieve what we were looking for. Therefore, how can the glory of the Almighty be incommunicable if it is necessary to ask for glory “from the one God,” and “everyone who asks receives it according to the word of the Lord” (Matthew 7:8)? But he who claims about the Radiance of glory, that it has received glory, is saying nothing else, but that the Radiance of glory in itself is not glorious; It is necessary for Him to receive glory from another, so that in this case He himself, over time, may become the Lord of some glory. Therefore, where will we give place to the words of truth, and when is it said that Christ will appear in the glory of the Father (Phil. 2:11), and also: “All that the Father has is Mine” (John 16:15)? Who should the listener listen to? Is it the one who says that the Heir of “all” in the Father is not a part of the Father’s glory (Heb. 1:2), as the Apostle calls it? Or to one who confesses that whatever the Father has, He also has? Among all this, without a doubt, is glory. But Eunomius says that the glory of the Almighty is incommunicable. This is not confirmed by either Joel or the great Peter, who in his speech to the Jews adopted this prophetic word for himself. For both the Prophet and the Apostle speak on behalf of God: “I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh” (Isa. 44:3; Acts 2:17). Therefore, is it possible that he who is not stingy in communicating His Spirit to all flesh does not communicate his own glory to the Only Begotten Son, who is “in the bosom of the Father,” who has everything that the Father has? Or maybe someone will say that Eunomius is telling the truth in this, even if not? For about the one who does not have glory, the word “communication” is used in the proper sense; for him, possession begins not by nature, but from the outside. Where there is one and the same nature, there is no need for the One who is by nature to communicate to it every time what, according to our belief, the Father is. But it is better to say this more clearly and directly. What need is there for the glory of the Father to Him Who has within Himself the entire Father, not excluding anything intelligible in the Father? And what is this dignity of the Almighty, in which, according to Eunomius’ statement, the Son is not involved? Therefore, let them say, “be wise within yourself and understand yourselves” (Isa. 5:21), “from the earth,” as the Prophet says, proclaiming his earthly teachings (Isa. 19:3); however, all of us who worship the Word and remain disciples of the truth, it is better to say, we pray that we may become them, and we will not leave this word unobserved. For we know that of all the names by which the Divinity is signified, some, pronounced and imagined in themselves, indicate the greatness of God, while others are attached to activities that exceed us and all creation. For when the divine Apostle says: “to the incorruptible, invisible, only wise God” (1 Tim. 1:17) and the like, then by these names he indicates concepts representing the highest Power. When Scripture says: merciful, merciful, abundantly merciful, true, Christ, Lord, physician, shepherd, way, bread, source, king, creator, creator, protector, He who is above all and through all, Who is all in all - these and similar names contain the meaning of the actions of love for mankind in God’s creation. Therefore, precise researchers find the name “Almighty” to mean nothing more than the following in the discussion of divine power: the word “Almighty” shows what and what the activity that has power over the visible in creation refers to. Just as he would not be a doctor if it were not necessary for the sick, he would not be called merciful and merciful and similar names if there were no one who needed mercy and mercy, so he would not be almighty if all creation did not have a need for someone who supports and preserves it in being. Therefore, just as he is a doctor to those who need healing, so he is an almighty to those who require support. Just as those who are not healthy, but who feel ill, need a doctor, so on this basis we can rightly say that there is no need for a supporter for the One in Whom the nature is infallible and unchangeable. Therefore, when we hear the word “Almighty,” we will understand that everything, both mental and material by nature, is contained in existence by God. For for this it contains “the circle of the earth” (Isa. 40:22), for this it has “in His hand all the ends of the earth” (Ps. 94:4), for this it embraces “a span of heaven, for this it measures water by the handful” (Isaiah 40:12), for this it contains all intelligent creation in Himself, so that all contents remain in existence with an all-encompassing power. Therefore, let us examine who is he who acts “all in all” (1 Cor. 12:6)? Who created everything, and not a single creature came into existence without Him? Who is He in Whom all things were created and in Whom all beings abide? About whom “we live and move and are” (Acts 17:28)? Who is he who has in himself all that the Father has? Do we really not yet recognize from what has been said “God who is above all,” so called by Paul (Rom. 9:5), our Lord Jesus Christ, who, having in His hand everything that belongs to the Father, as He Himself says, without a doubt, with His abundantly containing hand has embraced everything and contains what is embraced, and no one will take from His hand, who contains everything with His hand? Therefore, if it has everything, and what it has, then it contains, of course, He who contains everything is none other than the Almighty? If heresy says that the Father contains both the Son and the Spirit, then let them first show that the Son and the Holy Spirit are of a changeable nature, and then they assign the Container to the perverse, so that with the help given from above, the content remains adamant to evil. If the nature of God is inaccessible to vice, immutable, unchangeable, always the same - what will it need the Container for? By its own power it possesses all creation, but it itself does not need to contain it due to its immutability. Therefore, in the name of Christ, “every knee will bow to those in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10). For he would not have bowed down if he had not undoubtedly known that He contains salvation. To say also that the Son was born by the goodness of the Father means nothing more than to present Him as equal in honor to the last of creatures. For what came into being not through the goodness of the Creator? To whom is the structure of human nature attributed: the evil power or the goodness of the Creator? Who cares about the birth of animals, the nature of plants and vegetation? There is nothing that has its existence not through the goodness of the Creator. Therefore, what reason sees in all beings, Eunomius is inferior to the Son in love for mankind. And that the Son does not share with the Father essence or dignity, or anything like that, which Eunomius lists in jest, is already rejected by us in the words about the Father, since Eunomius threw this out to nothing and without thought, because there is no division of essence among us, who are born from each other. In everyone, in the born and in the one who gave birth, the measure of essence remains intact; neither in what gives birth does the measure of essence accept diminution, nor in what is born does it increase. The division of dignity or kingdom to those who have everything that is with the Father does not contain any thought and serves only as a denunciation of wickedness. Therefore, it would be unnecessary to continue the speech beyond measure, talking about things like this. Let's move on to what follows. Eunomius says: “glorified by the Father before the ages.” The doctrine of truth is proven, supported by the testimony of enemies. For the main thing of our faith is that the Son is glorified by the Father from eternity. And the expression “before centuries” is one and the same in concept with the word “in eternity”; This is how the prophecy interprets the eternity of God to us when it says: “This is the first age” (Ps. 54:20). Therefore, if to be before the ages means to be outside of any beginning, then he who assimilated the eternal glory to the Son much earlier testified to His existence from eternity. For what is glorified, without a doubt, is not that which does not exist, but that which exists. After this, Eunomius lays down for himself the seeds of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, not in order to glorify the Son, but in order to reproach the Holy Spirit; for, intending to prove that the Holy Spirit is a part of the angelic power, he added this, saying: “glorified forever by the Spirit and every rational and begotten being”; so that the Holy Spirit has no difference with everything created, if only the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord in the same way as everything else listed by the Prophet: “angels, powers, the heavens of heavens, worldly water, everything that is of the earth, serpents, abysses, fire, hail, snow, bareness, a stormy spirit, mountains and hills, fruitful trees and cedars, beasts and beasts, creeping things and birds of feathers” (Ps. 149:2–4, 149:7–10). Therefore, if Eunomius says that with these he glorifies the Lord and the Holy Spirit, then the God-fighting language asserts that He, without a doubt, is of the same number. And what is added further without connection with this, I argue, should not (which will be good) be spread, not because this is not reproachful in any way, but because it can be readable by the pious, unless it is associated with malicious hints. For in Eunomius, if anything pertaining to piety is added, then everything similar to this is offered to the simple-minded instead of bait, so that along with it the bait of wickedness may be swallowed up. Having said something that could be said to one who belongs to the church, he adds: “having been obedient in the creation and bringing into being of beings, obedient in every order, not as a result of obedience accepting that He was the Son - God, but because the Son was born the only begotten God, becoming obedient in words, obedient in deeds.” And who among those who have been occupied with God’s word does not know when it was said by the great Paul, and moreover once, about the Son, that he was “obedient”? When He came to fulfill the mystery of the cross, having exhausted Himself in the form of a slave and humbled Himself “in the likeness of humanity, and was found in the likeness of man” in the humble nature of man, then He becomes “obedient” (Phil. 2:7-8), and ours, having taken upon Himself our infirmities, having suffered our illnesses, healing human disobedience with His own obedience, so that by His ulcer our scabs might be healed, and by His own death He might destroy the common death of men; then for our sake he is obedient, just as he became a sin (2 Cor. 5:21) and a curse (Gal. 3:13), not by nature, but by love of mankind. But from what scripture did Eunomius learn this list of obediences? Contrary to this, all inspired Scripture ascribes to Him complete and autocratic power, saying: “He commanded that speech and was created” (Ps. 149:5). For it is clear that the Prophet says this about the Bearer of “all things by His power” (Heb. 1:3), whose power, through a single movement of the will, created every essence, every nature, everything intelligible and visible in creation. Therefore, the inspired Eunomius favors obedience in thousands of forms to the King of creation, calling him obedient in every creature, obedient in every command, obedient in words and deeds, although this is a situation known to everyone: obedient to another in words and deeds is the one who has not yet acquired the skill of observing precision in deeds and infallibility in words, but, looking at his teacher and leader, from his lessons learns precision in words and deeds. But to think that Wisdom needs a mentor and a teacher who would guide her in maintaining order or justice, which she should, is characteristic only of Eunomius’s intelligence. And about the Father he says that he is faithful in words and faithful in deeds; He did not ascribe faithfulness to the Son in what he did and said, but determined to be obedient to Him, and unfaithful in words, so that in everything he said, the blasphemy against the Son would be equal. It is perhaps appropriate to pass over the strangeness and incomprehensibility of the words inserted between this in silence, so that someone, through imprudence, does not laugh at idle talk, when one should cry about the destruction of the souls themselves, and not laugh at the strangeness of the words. For this wise and prudent teacher says: “It is not through obedience that he accepts to be his Son.” What subtlety of mind! How necessary it was to tell us this definitely! He did not become obedient first, and then He became the Son; one should not think that obedience is older than His birth. And if Eunomius had not determined this for us in advance, who would be so stupid and simple as to think that birth, as a reward for obedience, was given by the Father to Him, who had already shown obedience and obedience before birth? But lest anyone immediately be drawn into laughter by the unreasonableness of what was said, let him reflect that in this strange speech there is something worthy of tears. For Eunomius wants to lead by this to the idea that obedience is the nature of the Son, so that even if he wanted to, he could not become disobedient. 12. For this is how the Son was prepared, says Eunomius, “so that His nature was capable only of obedience,” just as an instrument that has received an external appearance for some image, of necessity, on the substance subject to its action, depicts this appearance, which the coppersmith gave it during the preparation of the instrument, but it is impossible for him to make a straight line on the substance that receives his trace, if its action is in a circle, or to show a circle in the image, if the external appearance of the weapon is suitable for depicting a straight line. But how much blasphemy is in this thought, is it necessary to reveal it in our word, when the heretical word itself cries out for absurdity? If one is obedient because one is born that way, then, without a doubt, one is not equal to human nature. Our soul is free and has no ruler over it, autocratically in freedom choosing what it desires. And bound by the necessity of nature, he always acts out of obedience, or better yet, he suffers from obedience, because even if he did not want to do this, nature does not allow it. Due to the fact that the Son was born this way, He became obedient in words and obedient in deeds. What a meaningless doctrine! You make the Word obedient to the Word, and before the existing Word you invent other Words, and in the beginning another Word serves as a mediator to the existing Word, communicating to Him the will of the beginning. And this is not just one Word, on the contrary, many certain Words, inserted by Eunomius among the beginning, and Words, and using His obedience to please themselves. But what is the need to waste time over this emptiness of what Eunomius said? For it is clear to everyone that when Paul said about the Son that he became obedient, he used the word “made” in the same sense as when speaking about Him, that for our sake he became flesh and a slave, a curse and a sin, and that then the Lord of glory, who did not care about “shame” (Heb. 12:2) and accepted suffering in the flesh (1 Pet. 4:1), did not deprive Himself sovereignty, saying: “Destroy this church, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), and again: “no one will take My soul from Me: the imam will lay down the area, and the imam will again accept the area” (John 10, 18). And when on the night before the suffering they approached Him armed with swords and drekolmi, He turned them all back, saying: “I am” (John 18:6). And when the thief asked to remember him, he showed His power over everything with the words: “Today you will be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Therefore, if during suffering he does not relinquish his power, when does heresy see the King of glory as subject to his power? And what kind of manifold intercession is this, which he proclaims in God, calling him an intercessor in the teachings, an intercessor in the law? This is not what we were taught by the lofty word of the Apostle, who says that “having abolished the law of commandments by teaching” (Eph. 2:15), He is the Intercessor of God and men. Having said this saying: “For there is one God, and one Advocate for God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5), the Apostle here revealed to us the whole purpose of the sacrament, concluding it in the word “intercessor.” And the goal is the following: humanity, due to the malice of the enemy, once became an apostate, enslaved to sin and becoming alien to real life. After this, the Lord of creation again calls His creation to Himself and becomes man, being at the same time God, and being completely God, and becoming completely man; and thus humanity was dissolved by God when man made intercession in Christ, in whom, from the firstfruits received from us, all confusion was dissolved by force. Therefore, since an Intercessor is not possible with one, and God is one and indivisible in the Persons about whom we have been taught by faith, for there is one Divinity in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, then the Lord once and forever becomes the Intercessor of God and men, uniting man with the Divine. But through the concept of the Intercessor we are taught the pious teaching of faith. For the Intercessor of God and men, just as he entered into communion with human nature, becoming not an imaginary, but a Real man, so, being the true God, he is not only honored by the name of the Divine, as Eunomius wishes. And what he adds to what has been said is distinguished by the same feebleness of mind, or rather, by evil mind. For, having called Him the Son of Whom, in what was said shortly before, he clearly stated that He was created, and calling Him the only-begotten God, Whom He numbered among the others brought into being through creation, He said that He is “one like Him who begot in superior likeness in the special sense of this word.” Therefore, it is necessary first to understand the meaning of the word “similar”, in which cases it is usually used imprecisely, and then begin to study what is proposed. For, firstly, all those things that deceive our senses, not being by nature the same among themselves, but from something accompanying, I mean shape, color, sound, and everything that taste, smell, touch leads to a false conclusion, although they are not considered to be the same by nature as they are by nature - custom calls all these things similar. For example, when an inanimate substance is given the likeness of a living being by art, carving, painting, molding, the imitation is called similar to the prototype. For here the nature of the animal is different, and the nature of the one that deceives the sight with one color and outline is different. The image in the mirror has the same kind of similarity, which represents the clear features of the original form, without being, however, by nature what the original image is. Likewise, hearing can be equally subject to this when someone, imitating the song of a nightingale with his own voice, convinces the ear that he is listening to a bird. Taste falls into a similar delusion when the juice from wine berries seems to have the pleasantness of honey, because the juice of this fruit has some similarity to the sweetness of honey. So sometimes the sense of smell can be deceived by similarity, when the smell of the chamomile herb, similar to the fragrance of the most fragrant apple, deceives the senses. And in the same way, in various cases, similarity for touch falsely shows the truth. For a silver or copper coin, equal in size to gold and similar in weight, is recognized as gold, because sight does not discern the truth. This is generally said in brief words about cases in which a false idea is produced in the senses according to some similarity and a thing is recognized as something other than what it really is. But after careful study, the word can be extended to such things that are dissimilar from each other, but due to something accompanying them, they are considered similar to one another. Is it possible that Eunomius ascribes this kind of likeness to the Son? But he will not reach such a level of stupidity as to see a deceptive similarity in the truth. We were taught another likeness in the inspired Scripture by those who said: “Let us make man in our image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26). But I do not think that Eunomius saw this kind of similarity in the Son and the Father, and thus recognized the only begotten God as one and the same with man. We also know another kind of likeness, which Scripture attributes to Seth in the book of the world, namely, that Adam “begat Seth after his own kind” and in his likeness (Gen. 5, 3); and if Eunomius had spoken about this similarity, we would not have rejected this word, because here the nature of those who are likened to each other is not different, and their distinctive property and appearance have communication with each other. We understood this and similar things regarding the differences of similar things. Therefore, let us see what Eunomius means, testifying to the predominant likeness of the Son to the Father, saying: “one is like the One who gave birth in a predominant likeness, in a special sense, not as the Father to the Father, because there are not two Fathers.” Promising to show the primary likeness of the Son to the Father, he proves in words that it is not necessary to present Him as similar to oneself. For having said that he is not likened to the Father, this word led to the idea that he is not likened. And he also adds: “and not as the unborn to the unborn,” and thus forbids thinking about the likeness of the Son to the Father. Then adding: “not like the Son to the Son,” he introduced the third concept, as a result of which the thought of similarity is completely eliminated. So, Eunomius follows his own laws, making the demonstration of dissimilarity a proof of similarity. However, let us examine his wisdom and simplicity, which he expresses in his definitions. For having said that the Son is like the Father, it confuses the ears and adds: one should not think that the Son is likened as the Father is to the Father. What kind of people is so unintelligible that, having learned about the likeness of the Son to the Father, he will be carried away by thoughts of the likeness of the Father to the Father? “Not like the Son to the Son,” continues Eunomius. Again in the definition there is equal measure of subtlety. Having said that the Son is like the Father, he determines that he should not be like the other Son. These are the secrets of the venerable teachings of Eunomius, from which his disciples become wiser than others, having learned that the Son, having become like the Father, is not likened to the Son, because the Son is not the Father, and is not likened to the unborn unborn, because the Son is not unborn! And our sacrament, when it names the Father, without a doubt, commands us to understand the Son of the Father, and when it names the Son, it teaches us to imagine the Father’s Son. And until now we have had no need for this superfluous wisdom, so that in the Father and the Son we presuppose two Fathers and two Sons, a duality of the Unbegotten. But why Eunomius tends to be so careful about the Unborn, this has already been revealed many times, and even now it will be briefly said about this. Since the meaning of the word “Father” does not show any difference in nature with the Son, then, if the word stopped there, wickedness would not have had any force, because the natural meaning of names does not allow alienation in essence. But now, when he says “unborn” and “begotten,” since there is an immediate opposition between these names, as between the words “mortal” and “immortal,” “verbal” and “wordless,” and between all those pronounced in a similar way, which, by the opposite of what they mean, are opposed to one another, Eunomius with these names paved the way for blasphemy, so as to discern a difference in relation to the born and the unborn. mortal with immortal; and just as there is a different nature for a mortal and another for an immortal, and the essential properties of the verbal and the non-verbal do not agree, so Eunomius wants to prove that the unborn has a different nature, and another the born, so that, just as the dumb nature was created at hand to the verbal nature, so to prove that the born is, by natural necessity, subordinate to the unborn. Therefore, with the name “Unborn” he combines the name “Almighty,” by which Eunomius does not mean providential activity, as this word previously showed, but interprets that the word “Almighty” signifies self-governing power, in order to make the Son a part of both the ruling and the subordinate nature, together with everything serving Him Who, by His self-governing power, prevails equally over all. And that, with this in mind, he uses similar distinctions of the word, this is explained from what follows. For, having said these wise and thoughtful words, that he is not likened either as the Father to the Father, nor as the Son to the Son (although, without a doubt, there is no need to liken the Father to the Father and the Son to the Son, for one father is among the Ethiopians, and the other among the Scythians, and each of them has a son, the Ethiopian is black, and the Scythian is white with golden hair, and with all this, for the reason that each of them is a father, and the Scythian does not become black for the sake of the Ethiopian, and the Ethiopian does not change his body to white for the sake of the Scythian); having said all this to please himself, Eunomius added: “like the Son to the Father.” Since this situation shows closeness by nature, as the inspired teaching testifies to Seth and Adam, the teacher of dogmas, caring little for reasonable listeners, attached an empty interpretation of the name “Son”, defining it with the image and seal of the Almighty activity. For he says: “The Son is the image and seal of the Almighty activity.” “Have ears to hear” (Matthew 11:15), let him first consider this very thing: what is the seal of activity? For every activity is mentally represented in the worker working on the processed, but after the end of the processed, the processed does not exist in itself; for example, activity on the way is the movement of the legs, but after this movement ceases there is no longer any activity taken separately in itself. The same can be said about any occupation, that with the effort of the person working on something, the activity ends. But in itself it does not exist when someone acting either does not imagine using an effort or stopping his effort. And what, according to Eunomius, will this activity be, taken in itself, being neither an essence, nor a distinctive property, nor indivisible? Consequently, he called the Son the likeness of the unrealized, and the likeness of the non-existent, of course, does not itself exist. This is the strangeness of empty teachings - to believe in what does not exist! For whatever is similar to something that does not exist, there is no doubt that it does not exist. O Paul, John and the rest of the evangelists and apostles! And against your word others arm their poisonous tongues! And against your heavenly thunders they raise their frog voices! So, what does the son of thunder say? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word” (John 1:1). What is next after him, this other, who was inside the heavenly sanctuaries, initiated into the unspoken secrets in paradise? “He,” he says, “is the radiance of glory and the image of His Person” (Heb. 1:3). What will this ventriloquist say after them? “The stamp of the activity of the Almighty,” he says, makes Him third according to the Father, through a non-existent activity, or better yet, an imaginary imprint of a non-existent. The seal is activity - He who is in the beginning, God the Word, mentally represented in eternity as the beginning of beings, the only-begotten God, “Who is in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18), “carrying all things with His power” (Heb. 1:3), Creator of the ages, from Him are all things (Rom. 11:36), “and in Him are all things” (Heb. 2:10), “contain the circle earth" (Is. 40:22), who declared "the sky a span", measuring "a handful of water" (Is. 40:12), embracing all beings with his hand, "living on the high and looking upon the lowly" (Ps. 113:5-6), or rather, looking forward to making the whole universe, imprinted with the traces of the Word, his footstool! The seal of activity is the image of God! Therefore, God is activity, and not hypostasis, although Paul, interpreting this very thing, says: “an image, not of activity, but of hypostasis” (Heb. 1:3). Or is the “radiance of glory” the seal of God’s activity? What ungodly ignorance! What is the medium between God and the eternal image? What mediates between the hypostasis and its image? What does one imagine in the interval of glory and radiance? But with such and so many testimonies in which the greatness of the Lord of creation is preached by those who believed in the preaching, what does this forerunner of apostasy tell about Him? What will he say? “As an image,” he says, “and a seal of all the activity and power of the Almighty.” Why does he distort the words of the great Paul? He says that the power of God is the Son (1 Cor. 1:24), but this one calls him the seal of power, and not power. And again returning to the same speech, what adds to what was said? Calls it “the seal of the Father’s deeds and counsels.” What works of the Father is He like? Without a doubt, Eunomius will point to the world and everything in it. But that all these are the works of the Only Begotten, the Gospel testified. Therefore, in what works did He become like the Father? What works was made a seal? And what scripture called Him the seal of the Father’s works? But if someone concedes to Eunomius and it is not forbidden to compose words of any kind, although Scripture does not agree to this, then let him say what works are the Father’s, separate from those performed by the Son, the works of which, according to what Eunomius said, the Son became the seal? The works of the Word are all things visible and invisible; in the visible - the whole world and everything that is in it, in the invisible - a premium creature. Therefore, what works of the Father remain, besides the visible and invisible, seen in themselves, of which, he says, the Son became the seal? Or perhaps, in such cramped conditions, he will again return to the fetid eruption of heresy and say that the Son is the work of the Father? Therefore, how does the Son become the seal of these works, Himself being the work, as Eunomius says? Can he really call one and the same thing both a work and a likeness of a work? Let this be conceded. Let him say other works, the creator of which he calls the Father and to which the Son was likened, if by seal Eunomius means likeness. What other words of the Father did he know besides the Word, always existing in the Father, which he calls the seal, the Word in the proper sense, true and original, both existing and called the Word? What kind of advice does Eunomius mean, separate from the wisdom of God, to which the wisdom of God is likened, becoming the seal of advice? Look at this indiscriminately and indiscreetly piled up heap of words; To what sacrament is Eunomius leading, not knowing both what he is saying and what he is talking about? For having in Himself the entire Father and being entirely in the Father, as Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and Truth, and Image, and Radiance, He Himself is everything in the Father, without becoming the image and seal, and the likeness of anything else, which was intelligibly represented in the Father before Him. Then Eunomius cedes to him the destruction of people with water under Noah, the raining of fire on Sodom, the just punishment of the Egyptians, assimilating this as something great to Him who holds in His hand the ends of the universe, to the One in whom, as the Apostle says, “all things will take place in Him” (Col. 1:17); and as if not knowing that to Him who contains, leads and directs everything wherever He pleases, and what has already happened and what will happen, two or three mentioned miracles will not do such an increase in glory as what a decrease and what damage will be caused by the silence of other miracles. But even if they are silent, then Paul’s single word is sufficient, which, embracing everything, shows this and says that He is “above all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:6). 13. Then Eunomius says: “legitimizes according to the commandment of the eternal God.” Who is this eternal God? And who is he that serves Him in the giving of the law? But it is clear to everyone that through Moses God gives the law to those who receive it. Since Eunomius himself acknowledges that the One Who speaks to Moses is the only-begotten God, why does his real word in the rank of Moses appoint the Lord of the universe instead of him? And what is meant by the word “eternal” is attributed to God by the Father alone, thinking by difference from the Eternal to prove that the Creator of centuries is not eternal, but a recent only-begotten God. But it seems to me that this loving and mindful man forgot that Paul was saying all this about himself, proclaiming to people the preaching of the gospel “according to the commandment of the eternal God” (Rom. 14:24-25). Therefore, what the Apostle says about himself, Eunomius is not ashamed to attribute to the Lord the prophets and apostles, in order to present the Lord as equal in honor to Paul, His own servant. And why do I need, denouncing one after another in detail, to introduce many things into words? Whatever is written by Eunomius who reads it in simplicity and thinks that he speaks in accordance with Scripture, he who is able to examine every thought with analysis will prove that all this is not at all far from heretical malice. For both he who belongs to the church and the heretic say: “The Father judges no one, but all judgment is given to the Sons” (John 5:22), but both do not understand what is said in the same way: he who belongs to the church understands by these sayings power over everything, but the heretic proves by them insufficiency and subordination. But to what has been said we must add something from which they make some kind of basis for wickedness, defining in the word on economy that not the whole man is saved by the Lord, but half of the man, I mean the body. And the purpose of such abuse of dogma by heretics is to show that the humiliating sayings that the Lord borrows from humanity apparently originated from the Divinity itself, and through this to give greater power to the blasphemy, confirmed by the Lord’s own recognition. For this reason, Eunomius says that “in the last days He who became man did not take on man from soul and body.” But I, having examined all the inspired and holy Scripture, do not see where this saying would be written, that He who created everything during the dispensation of man took upon Himself one flesh without a soul. Therefore, out of necessity, I will try to expose the wickedness being prepared in this part, bearing in mind the goal of our salvation, fatherly dogmas and inspired sayings. “The Lord has come to seek and save the lost” (Lk. 19, 10); It was not the body that perished, but the whole man, dissolved in soul, perished. And if a more just word must be spoken, then the soul perished before the body, because disobedience is a sin of the will, and not of the body; the will, from which all the misfortune of nature originated, is the property of the soul, as God’s false threat testifies, saying: “if that day” they touch the forbidden, death will immediately follow after eating (Gen. 2:17). Since the human composition is twofold, then death, according to both, produces the deprivation of a twofold life acting in the one killed. And just as there is bodily death, the extinguishing of the senses and the decomposition of the elements into things akin to them, so, according to what has been said, “the soul that sins will die” (Ezek. 18:20). And sin is alienation from God, this true and only life. Therefore, the first-created One lived for many hundreds of years in disobedience, but God did not lie when he said: “If you take away one day from him, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17), for due to his alienation from real life, on that same Day the death sentence was confirmed over him, and after this, later on, physical death followed with Adam. Therefore, He who came in order that the lost might be sought and saved, which the Shepherd in the parable calls a sheep and finds the lost, and takes on his own shoulders the whole sheep, and not just the skin of the sheep (Luke 15:4-5), so that “he may make the man of God perfect” (2 Tim. 3:17), both in soul and in body brought into unity with the Divine. And thus, nothing in our nature was left accepted by the Tempted One “in every kind of likeness, except sin” (Heb. 4:15). But the soul is not sin; it has become sin-accepting through recklessness. Therefore, the Lord sanctifies it by unity with Himself, so that all the “mixture” may be illuminated by the firstfruits (Rom. 11:16). That is why the angel, announcing to Joseph about the destruction of the enemies of the Lord, says: “The dead are the ones who seek the souls of the offspring” (Matthew 2:20). And the Lord says to the Jews: “You seek to kill Me, the man who told you the truth” (John 8:40), but man is not the human body, but a composite of both. And he also asks them: “Are you angry with Me, because I made every man healthy on the Sabbath” (John 7:23)? The concept of the whole was explained by the Lord in other gospels, when he was sent down from his bed on Wednesday, saying: “Sins are left behind” (Luke 5:20), which is the healing of the soul, and: “Rise and walk” (Luke 5:23), which refers to the flesh. And in the Gospel of John, after he gives health to the body, he also frees the soul from its inherent illness, when he says: “You are in good health: let no one sin” (John 5:14), from that time on he was healed in both ways, I mean in the soul and in the body. For this is what Paul also says: “that He may create both by Himself into one new man” (Eph. 2:15). And thus, during suffering, the Lord predicts that He voluntarily separates His soul from His own body, saying: “No one will take” My soul “from Me: but I lay it down for Myself. The region of the imam is to lay down my soul, and the region of the imam is to receive again” (John 10:18). Yes, and the Prophet David, according to the explanation of the great Peter, having foreseen about Christ, said: “Because you will not leave my soul in hell, let your saint see incorruption” (Acts. 2:27), this is how the Apostle Peter interpreted this saying: “For His soul did not remain in hell, nor His flesh in the form of corruption” (Acts 2:31), because the Divinity before the flesh, and in the flesh, and after suffering is always the same, as unchangeably existing and abiding forever, what it was by nature, and during the suffering of human nature it brought into fulfillment the economy for us, separating the soul from the body for a while, but not separating from either one or the other from what He once accepted into unity, and again combining what was separated, in order to give all human nature the opportunity and beginning for the resurrection from the dead, so that “everything corruptible will put on incorruptibility, and this mortal will put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53), because our firstfruits through union with God is transformed into the Divine. nature, as Peter said, “as God created both the Lord and His Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). And from the Holy Gospels one can borrow much in defense of such a dogma, namely, as the Lord, by human nature in Christ, “reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19), He dedicated the good deed He performed to people to soul and body, desiring it with soul and touching the work itself with body. But it would be unnecessary to expand on everything and create confusion in the word. But I will move on to the next step, adding to what has been said the following: “Destroy this church, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). Just as we, from soul and body, make up the Church of Him who dwells and walks in us (2 Cor. 6:16), so the Lord calls soul and body taken together the church, the destruction of which means the dissolution of the soul from the body. If, however, they present the saying of the Gospel: “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14), and by what is not mentioned about the soul, they think to prove that the flesh is received without a soul, then let them understand that Holy Scripture usually understands the whole by a part. For he who said: “All flesh will come to You” (Ps. 64:3) does not mean that the flesh, cut off from souls, will appear as a Judge. And hearing in the story about Jacob “with seventy and five souls” descending “into Egypt” (Deut. 10:22), we understood the flesh along with the souls. So the Word, having become flesh, took on with the flesh the entire nature of man. Therefore, to hunger, and to thirst, and to be afraid and fearful, and to lust, and to sleep, and to be embarrassed, and to cry, and to be in any similar state, had a place in Him. For neither the Divinity, by His own nature, allows any such suffering to happen to Himself, nor does the flesh by itself exist in it, unless the soul is associated with the body. 14. This is our word about the blasphemy against the Son; Let's see what Eunomius says about the Holy Spirit. “After this,” he says, “we believe in the Comforter, the Spirit of truth.” But to everyone reading, I think, it is obvious that what he means in the words about the Son and the Father distorts the statement of faith handed down by the Lord. Although this inconsistency has been exposed, even now I will try in a few words to visualize the purpose of this Eunomius’s deception. Just as he did not call the Father there, so as not to indicate the eternity of the Father, and did not name the Son, so as not to affirm the properties by nature together with this saying, so now he does not say “Holy Spirit”, so as not to confess by this name the greatness of His glory and unity in everything with the Father and the Son. Because in Scripture the Father and the Son are equally given the title of both the Spirit and the Holy (“The Spirit is God” (John 4:24), and: “Spirit” before our face, “the anointed Lord” (Lamentations 4:20), and: “holy is the Lord God” (Lev. 20, 26), and: “one is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ”), so that in those who hear about the Holy Spirit, no pious assumption arises from this, generated by the community of this glorious name with the names of the Father and the Son, Eunomius for this very reason, deceiving the ears of the foolish, reinterprets the sayings in the tradition of the sacrament of the faith set forth by God, as if following this paving the way for wickedness in Teaching about the Holy Spirit. For if he said: we believe in the Holy Spirit; the spirit is God, then one trained in the knowledge of the divine would suggest: if one must believe in the Holy Spirit, and God is called the Spirit, then He is nothing else by nature than that which is called in the proper sense by the same names. For everything that is not false, nor through abuse, but in the proper sense is represented under the same names, must, of all necessity, be recognized as the same nature, signified by the same names. Therefore, omitting the statement legitimized by the Lord in the exposition of faith, he says: “We believe in the Comforter.” And I learned that the same name in the inspired Scripture is common to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the Son equally calls Himself and the Holy Spirit the Comforter. The Father, by the very thing by which he produces consolation, undoubtedly appropriates to himself the name of the Comforter, for, while doing the work of the Comforter, he does not reject the name that belongs to the work. And David says to the Father: “For You are the Lord, you have helped me and comforted me” (Ps. 85:17), and the great Apostle also speaks about the Father, saying: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who comforts us in all our sorrow” (2 Cor. 1:3-4). And John in one of his conciliar epistles directly calls the Son the Intercessor (1 John 2:1) and the Lord himself, when, speaking about the Spirit, said that he would send us “another Comforter” (John 14:16), without a doubt, recognized in advance that this name belongs to Himself. Therefore, the meaning of the word “to call for help” (παρακαλειν) is twofold: one is to bring to compassion the one in whom we have any need through respectful speech and body positions, and the other is to find medical relief from mental and physical suffering; then Holy Scripture testifies that the concept of one called to help (παρακλητος) in each of these meanings is equally appropriate to God’s nature. And Paul, then, presents us with the power of God healing us under the guise of consolation, saying: “Comforting the humble, God will comfort us with the coming of Titus” (2 Cor. 7:6), then again in a different sense, writing to the Corinthians, he says this: “according to Christ (let us emend), as I pray to God (παρακαλουντος) by us: We pray in Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). Since this is really so, no matter how you understand the name “Comforter” about the Spirit in one or another meaning, you will not retreat from communion with the Father and the Son. Therefore, in this regard, Eunomius, even if he wanted to, could not diminish the glory of the Holy Spirit by attributing to Him what in Holy Scripture is attributed to the Father and the Son. But by calling the Spirit of truth, Eunomius himself, I think, wanted to express the subordination of the Spirit with such a saying, because Christ is truth, and he called the Spirit the spirit of truth, as if someone had said: He is the property of truth and its subordinate, not knowing that God is called truth, and yet we did not understand God to be the property of truth. Therefore, having heard about the Spirit of truth, we received godly understanding with this saying, guided to the best by the added word. For the Lord, having said “the Spirit of truth, immediately added: who proceedeth from the Father” (John 15:26). But the word of the Lord testified not to anything that can be imagined among the number of creatures: neither visible nor invisible, nor thrones, nor principalities, nor powers, nor dominions (Col. 1:16), nor about any other name called “not only in this world, but also in the world to come” (Eph. 1:21). Therefore, what all creation does not participate in, then, as is obvious, certainly constitutes a property and advantage of the uncreated nature. And Eunomius commands to believe in the “mentor of piety.” Therefore, let him believe in Paul, Barnabas, Titus, Silvanus, Timothy and all those who guide us to faith. For one must believe, both in the Father and the Son, and in those who teach in piety; all prophets, legislators, patriarchs, preachers, evangelists, apostles, shepherds and teachers should be equally honored, like the Holy Spirit, because they became teachers of piety for those who lived after them. “Having received being,” says Eunomius of the Spirit, “from one God through the Only Begotten.” These words sum up all the wickedness of Eunomius. Again he calls the Father the one God, who used the Only Begotten as an instrument for the production of the Spirit. What shadow of such a thought, having found in Scripture, dares to say this? From what beginning in order did he bring wickedness to such a limit? Which of the evangelists claims this? Which apostle? Which prophet? Quite contrary to this, all inspired Scripture, written by the inspiration of the Spirit, testifies to the Divinity of the Spirit. So, for example (for it is better to prove the word by the testimonies themselves), those who have received the “region to be children of God” (John 1:12) testify to the Divinity of the Spirit, for who does not know the saying of the Lord, that those born of the Spirit are children of God. The Lord ascribes in exact words the birth of the children of God to the Holy Spirit, saying: “as that which is born of the flesh is flesh, so that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). But as many as are born of the Spirit are called children of God. So about the Lord, Who by a breath gave the disciples the Holy Spirit, John says: “By the filling of Him we have received” (John 1:16), in “In Him liveth all the fulfillment of the Divinity,” the great Paul testifies (Col. 2:9). Moreover, through the Prophet Isaiah about the epiphany that happened to him, when he saw “him and exaltation sitting on a throne” (Is. 6:1), the most ancient tradition says that what he saw is the Father. The Evangelist John refers the prophecy to the Lord, speaking about the unbelieving Jews in the words spoken about the Lord by the Prophet: “This was the speech of Isaiah, when he saw His glory, and the verb about Him” (John 12:41). And the great Paul attributed this same word to the Holy Spirit in a national speech he delivered to the Jews in Rome, when he said: “The good things the Holy Spirit said about you, you will hear by hearing and do not understand” (Acts 28:25-26), from the Holy Scripture itself, as I think, proving that every divine vision, every revelation of God and every word is from the person of God what is said can be understood about the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is why David said: “making God bitter in the wilderness, angering Him in the waterless lands, and irritating Him” (Ps. 77:40-41), and the Apostle to the Holy Spirit spoke of what the Israelites had done against God, expressing this in the words: “In the same way, as the Holy Spirit says: Do not harden your hearts, as in anger, in the days temptations in the wilderness: Where your fathers tempted Me” (Heb. 3:7-9), and everything else that the prophecy relates to God is attributed to the person of the Holy Spirit. On the basis of such dogmas, those who interpret that we have three Gods must not have yet learned to count. For if the Son and the Father are not divided from one another in a dual meaning, because, according to the voice of the Lord, He “and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and not two, but the Holy Spirit is one, then why, when added to one, is divided by the number of three gods? Or is it not clear, without a doubt, that no one will reproach us for the number of three gods, without first recognizing in his own dogma the duality of gods? One Deity added to two constitutes a trinity of gods. And those who worship one God under the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, does the accusation of recognizing three gods apply to them? But let us repeat the entire speech of Eunomius. “Having received being,” he says about the Spirit, “from one God through the Only Begotten.” Therefore, what is the proof that the Spirit is one of those brought into being by the Only Begotten? Without a doubt, they will say: in the fact that “all things were” (John 1:3), and in the word “all” the Spirit is contained. Let us answer them: “all that was”; but “there was,” as Paul says, “visible and invisible, even thrones, if dominions, if principalities, if powers” (Col. 1:16), powers, of these, numbered by thrones and powers, Paul called cherubim and seraphim; the word “all” is thus limited. And about the Holy Spirit, as the highest nature of beings brought into being, in this enumeration of them Paul remained silent, not showing us in his words either that He was brought into being, or that He was subordinate, but on the contrary, just as the Prophet calls the Holy Spirit “good” (Ps. 142:10), “right, sovereign” (Ps. 50:12, 50:14), with the word “sovereign” indicating His superiority, so the Apostle, affirming that the Spirit “Everything in everyone acts as it wills” (1 Cor. 12:11), and attributes autocratic power to His dignity. And the Lord announces His free power and activity in a conversation with Nicodemus, saying: “The Spirit breathes wherever it wills” (John 3:8). Therefore, how does Eunomius assert that the Spirit is one of those who received being from the Son and is condemned to eternal subjection? “Once and forever,” he says, “the Spirit is subordinated,” I don’t know by what kind of subordination I have bound the sovereign and the superior, for such a saying in Holy Scripture has many meanings and is understood and used in many different ways. For the Prophet says about the unreasonable nature that it is subjugated (Ps. 8:7), and those who are overcome in battle, he brings under the same name (Ps. 17:48), and the Apostle makes it a law for slaves to “obey their masters” (Tit. 2:9) and commands those who stand in the priesthood to “have children in obedience” ( 1 Tim. 3:4), because the outrage they produce, like the children of the priest Eli, passes on to the fathers. And the submission of all people to God, when we are all united to each other through faith, we become one body of the Lord who is in all, the Apostle calls the submission of the Son to the Father (1 Cor. 15, 28), because with one accord by all: those in heaven, those on earth and those under the earth, the worship of the Son that is performed goes into the glory of the Father, as Paul says that to the Son “every knee will worship, those in heaven and on earth and those under the earth, And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11). And that after this is accomplished, the Son who is in all will submit to the Father through the submission of all in whom the Son is, this is affirmed by the great wisdom of Paul. Therefore, what kind of once and for all submission does Eunomius assign to the Spirit? From the words he said in advance, it is impossible to know whether the obedience of the foolish, or prisoners of war, or household members, or chaste children, or those saved for obedience, because the obedience of people to God is salvation for those who repent, according to the word of the Prophet, which says: “The soul obeys God, because through obedience comes salvation” (Ps. 61:2), so that obedience is protective cure for death. Therefore, just as the art of medicine is respected by the sick, so obedience is respected by those who need salvation. But the Holy Spirit, who gives life to all things, what kind of life does he need in order to obtain salvation for himself through obedience? So, since Eunomius does not have a single divine saying on the basis of which he could divulge something similar about the Spirit and, as a result of fair conclusions, reach this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, it will be obvious to those with intelligence that he is expressing before the Spirit an unjustifiable wickedness, not confirmed by any evidence of Scripture, nor by the sequence of conclusions. Eunomius adds to this: “The Spirit is incomparable neither according to the Father nor with the Father, because the Father is one and only, who is God above all, nor can it be compared with the Son, because the Son is the only begotten, and has no one akin to Him.” And I, if Eunomius had added to the word only this, that the Holy Spirit is not the Father of the Son, I would have recognized it in vain to dwell on something about which no one argues, forbidding to think about the Spirit, which even none of the extremely unreasonable will think. But since Eunomius, by the fact that it is unusual and does not go to the point, attempts to confirm wickedness, and when he says that the Holy Spirit is not the Father of the Only Begotten, he thinks by this to prove that the Spirit is subordinate and subservient, therefore, to expose this foolishness, I brought these words to mind. He thinks to prove the subordination of the Spirit to the Father by the fact that the Spirit is not the Father of the Only Begotten. By what necessity is such an idea proven that, if not the Father, then without a doubt he is subordinate? If it were proven that the words “Father” and “arbitrary ruler” mean the same thing, it would be necessary, imagining arbitrariness in the Father, to say that the SPIRIT is subordinate to the superior authority. But if by the word “Father” there is, of course, only one relation to the Son, and this phrase does not introduce any thought about arbitrariness and authority, then how does it follow from the fact that the Spirit is not the Father of the Son that he is subordinate? “Incomparable with the Son,” says Eunomius. Why does he say this? Truly “incomparable.” For immutability, the indispensable avoidance of evil, and always the same presence in good do not differ in any way in both the Son and the Spirit: the incorruptibility of the Spirit is equally alien to corruption, and goodness by nature is just as far removed from what is contrary to it, and perfection in every good equally has no need for more. Nevertheless, the inspired Scripture teaches this to speak about the Spirit; it assigned to the Spirit the title of good, wise, “incorruptible” (Wisdom 12:1), immortal, and every lofty and divine concept and name about Him. If in none of these things is the Spirit diminished, then in what way does Eunomius measure the inequality of the Son and the Spirit? “Because,” he says, “the Son is the only begotten, he has no brother akin to Him.” But we discussed the fact that the Only Begotten should not be represented as having brothers in our discourse on the First-Born of all creation. Now, what Eunomius maliciously inserted into the word should not be passed over without examination. For church dogma proclaims that in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit there is one power, one goodness, one essence, one glory, and so is everything else, excluding the difference of hypostases. And Eunomius, when he wants to generalize the essence of the Only Begotten with creation, calls Him, according to his eternal existence, the firstborn of all creation, with this saying asserting that everything that is intelligible in creation is in fraternal kinship with the Lord, because the firstborn is firstborn, of course, not among foreigners, but among those of the same kind. When he separates the Spirit from the union with the Son, then he calls the Son the only begotten, not having a brother of the same kind, not in order to represent him as having no brothers, but in order to prove by this about the Spirit that in essence he is alien to the Son. Just as we are taught by Scripture not to call the Holy Spirit brother of the Son, so nowhere is it shown in God’s word that we should not call the Spirit homogeneous with the Son. If the life-giving power, which is in the Father and the Son, according to the Gospel word, also appears in the Holy Spirit (John 6:63), if incorruptibility, immutability, prevention of all evil, goodness, rightness, sovereignty, the ability to act in everyone “as He wills” (1 Cor. 12:11), - if all this can be equally seen in the Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit, then how can we imagine otherness in this sameness? Therefore, the teaching of piety agrees that the Only Begotten should not have any kind of brotherhood, and the consistency of the teaching clearly proves that heretical evil belongs to the idea that the Spirit and the Son, the right with the right, the good with the good, the life-giving with the life-giving, are not homogeneous. Therefore, in what way does the greatness of the Spirit suffer through this? For none of the godly concepts can produce exaggeration or belittlement. Since all of them in Holy Scripture are equally applied to the Son and to the Spirit, where does Eunomius see inequality? He can't say it. On the contrary, the undisguised, uncomplicated, and in no way coherent teaching of wickedness speaks about the Holy Spirit. “With no one else,” says Eunomius, “is the Spirit in the same rank, because every work brought into being by the Son was surpassed in origin, nature, and glory in knowledge, as the first and essential, greatest and most beautiful work of the Only Begotten.” But I leave it to others to ridicule the ignorance and rudeness of this expression, recognizing that it is indecent for an old man to raise ignorant sayings as a reproach for the ungodly before the venerable Word, and I will add the following to the study. If the Spirit has surpassed all the works of the Son (I will use this incorrect and meaningless saying of a heretic, it would be better to say, I will express this thought more clearly in my own word), if it prevails over everything that received being from the Son, then the Holy Spirit cannot be placed in the same rank with other creation. And if, as Eunomius says, “he prevails in that he is brought into being before others,” then it is absolutely necessary for him to admit also about other creatures that what precedes in the order of bringing into being is preferable to what follows. But the structure of man is preceded by the nature of the dumb; therefore, Eunomius, of course, leads to the conclusion that an irrational essence is preferable to a rational essence. So Cain, according to Eunomius’ teaching, will turn out to be better than Abel, warning by time by birth. Thus, the nature of the stars will seem lower and more insufficient than all the growths of the earth, because the first came from the earth on the third day, and the great lights and all the stars, according to the legend of Moses, were created on the fourth day (Gen. 1:16, 1:19). However, no one will be so unreasonable that, due to the seniority of time, he would prefer earthly grass to heavenly miracles, or give Cain the upper hand over Abel, or subjugate the dumb man created after them. Consequently, what Eunomius says has no substance whatsoever, that the Spirit, because it was brought into being before others, has a nature that is preferable to that which came into being after Him. But let us see what He brings as a gift to the glory of the Spirit, who separated Him from communion with the Son. “And He,” says Eunomius, “is the only first, the only one superior in essence and natural dignity to all the works of the Son, every action and teaching of the One who performs the Pleasing of the Son is sent by Him, receives from Him, proclaims to those taught and leads to the truth.” According to Eunomius, the Holy Spirit “performs every action and teaching.” What action? Is it that which, according to the word of the Lord, the Father and the Son produce, “until now” working out the salvation of people (John 5:17), what else besides this? If he does the same thing with the Son, then, of course, he has the same power with Him and the same nature, and something foreign to God has no place in the Spirit. Just as if something produces something characteristic of fire, also shining and warming, then this, of course, is fire, so if the Spirit does the works of the Father, then this, without a doubt, recognizes that He is of one nature with the Father. If He does something other than our salvation, and if He acts on something opposite, then from this it will be clear that He is of a different nature and a different essence. But the Word itself testifies that the Spirit gives life like the Father and the Son. Consequently, from the identity of actions it is revealed that the Spirit, without a doubt, is not alien to the Father and the Son by nature. And we do not argue that the Spirit, in order to please the Son, carries out the actions and teachings of the Father. For one common nature testifies that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit have one will. Therefore, if the Holy Spirit wills what pleases the Son, then the general will clearly shows the unity of essence. But Eunomius says: “He is sent by Him, receives from Him, proclaims to those taught and leads to the truth.” If Eunomius had not said this about the Spirit in advance, then, of course, the listener would have thought that this was being said about some human teacher. For to be sent means the same as to go on an errand, to have nothing of one’s own, but to receive by the grace of the sender, learning to serve with the word, to lead those who are in error to the truth. For today’s shepherds and teachers are also characterized by all this: to be sent, to receive, to proclaim, to teach, to instill the truth - everything that Eunomius concedes as a gift to the Holy Spirit. But having said before this: “and there is one, the first, the only one, superior to all,” if he had stopped the speech at this point, he would have seemed to be a defender of the dogmas of truth. For, indeed, there is one inseparably contemplated in the One, the first in the first, the only in the only. Just as the “spirit of man”, which is “in him,” and man himself are one man: “so also is the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11) - He who is in God, and God himself alone in the proper sense can be called God, both the first and the only, such that it is not possible to separate him from the One in whom He is. But now, having added: “prevailing over all the works of the Son,” Eunomius showed that his blasphemous teaching is a muddy perversion, in which the One who “whether he wills, breathes” (John 3:8) and “who is all in all” (1 Cor. 12:6) is given preference over other creatures. Let’s see what else he added to this: “sanctifies the saints,” continues Eunomius. Whoever says this about the Father and the Son will speak the truth. For in whom the Holy One is, he makes them holy, just as the Good One makes them good. But according to what has been proven, both the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are holy and good. “He guides those who approach the sacrament,” says Eunomius. This is good to say about Apollos, who soldered Paul’s planting (1 Cor. 3:6), because the Apostle plants by teaching, and Apollos solders, baptizing with a mysterious rebirth, those announced by Paul, leading to the sacrament. So Eunomius elevates the Spirit to equality with Apollos, as one who completes people with baptism. “Removes every gift,” he also says. We also agree with this, for everything that is good is part of the gifts of the Holy Spirit: “it helps the faithful,” he says further, “to see and understand what has been established.” But, without adding who established it, he made the speech doubtful whether it should be recognized as correct or otherwise. We will bring what has been said a little closer to piety. Because “the word of wisdom, or the word of understanding, or faith” (1 Cor. 12:8-9), “whether intercession, rule” (1 Cor. 12:28) or anything else that is considered to be salvific for us, “all this acts in one and the same way, the Spirit, dividing power to each as he wills,” then therefore we do not reject the word spoken by Eunomius, that the Spirit assists the faithful in seeing and understanding what is established by the Spirit himself, because all good instructions are given to us by Him. “Gives an echo to those who pray,” adds Eunomius. It would be foolish to thoroughly expose the meaning of this saying, because it is obvious to everyone how ridiculous and meaningless this expression is. For whoever is so upset in the mind and has lost the meaning that he begins to expect from us, let us not teach that the Holy Spirit is not a bell or an empty barrel, which is like a blow with the voice of the one praying. how, is it shuddered and gives an echo? “He guides us to what is useful,” says Eunomius. Both the Father and the Son also do this, for he guides us in the way, “like Joseph’s sheep” (Ps. 79:2), and: “You have guided us like His sheep” (Ps. 76:21), and: “Your good Spirit guides us to the right of the earth” (Ps. 142:10) “Strengthens,” he says, “for godliness.” David calls God’s work to strengthen a person in piety, for the Prophet says: “You are my strength and my refuge” (Ps. 30:4), and: “The Lord is the strength of His people” (Ps. 27:8), and He “will give strength and strength to His people” (Ps. 28:11). Therefore, if this is said in a prophetic sense, then it serves as evidence of the Divinity of the Spirit. But if it is contrary to prophecy, then blasphemy is charged, because it introduces a thought that is contrary to the holy prophets. Then Eunomius says: “This grace-filled gift of the teaching of piety is attributed to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, for the Lord is called enlightenment by David (Ps. 26:1). ) and from Him “the light of knowledge” in those who are enlightened (Hos. 10, 12). And also the “purification” of thoughts, as the word of God says, is characteristic of the power of the Lord, because He, “the radiance of glory and the image of the Hypostasis, created the cleansing of our sins” (Heb. 1, 3). “Cast out demons” Eunomius calls this characteristic of the Spirit; I command” (Mark 9:25), attributes it to the power of the Spirit, saying: “If I, through the Spirit of God, cast out demons” (Matthew 12:28). Therefore, the overthrow of demons does not serve as a humiliation of the glory of the Spirit, but as a proof of His Divine and superior power. “He heals the sick,” says Eunomius, “he heals the sick, comforts the mourning, strengthens the weak, restores the strength of the weary.” These are sayings about the Holy Spirit of the pious, for no one will attribute each of these actions to anyone other than God. Therefore, if heresy claims that it is accomplished by the power of the Spirit, which no one can do except God alone, then it means that we also have evidence from our enemies of what we are trying to prove. Why does the Prophet seek healing from God, saying: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are crumpled” (Ps. 6:3)? Isaiah says to God: “For the dew that comes from You is healing” (Isaiah 26:19). And the conversion of the erring is the work of God, the prophecy testifies to this, for it says: “I am lost in the waterless desert” (Ps. 106:4), and added: “and guide me to the right path, lead me into the habitable city” (Ps. 106:7), and: “Always return captivity Zion to the Lord” (Ps. 125:1). And also the consolation of those who mourn is traced to God, because this is what Paul says: “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who comforts us in all our affliction” (2 Cor. 1:3-4), and the Prophet on behalf of God says: “In tribulation you called Me,” and I found You (Ps. 80:8). And the strengthening of the weak, as Scripture shows in thousands of ways, consists in the power of the Lord: “I am rejected from the mouth, and the Lord accepts me” (Ps. 117:13), and: “When he falls, he is not broken, for the Lord strengthens his hand” (Ps. 36:24), and: “The Lord raises up the downtrodden” (Ps. 145:8). And restoration in the strength of the weary leads to the confession of God’s love for mankind, if only Eunomius noticed what we were taught by prophecy, as the word of God says: “Thou hast placed sorrows on our backbone. Thou hast raised up men upon our heads, thou hast passed through fire and water, and thou hast brought us into chambers” (Ps. 65:11-12). 15. Thus the greatness of the Spirit has been proven hitherto by the testimony of enemies. But subsequently, the purity of piety is again defiled by heretical filth. For Eunomius speaks of the Spirit: “with shouts he helps those who strive.” For this one must be accused of extreme unreason and impiety. For in the field, others assign feats to those who intend to demonstrate their ascetic strength; others, surpassing others in strength and skill, compete for victory, engaging in mutual struggles with each other; the others, sharing among themselves their feelings for the fighters, during the struggle, how much zeal and disposition each has for one of the ascetics, with exclamations let him know to either foresee harm, recall the tricks used in the fight, or skillfully preserve himself from falling. Therefore, understand from what has been said, in what category does Eunomius place the Holy Spirit? In fields where some rule under the Whigs, others evaluate the legitimate struggle, others fight, and others accompany the fighters with exclamations, the latter are recognized as much lower than the fighters. Eunomius looks at the Holy Spirit as one of the crowd of spectators or as one of those serving the ascetics. He does not manage the feats, does not evaluate the victory, does not fight with the enemy, and does not contribute to victory in the least with exclamations, because He does not share the feat, does not give strength for this very thing, but He only wants that the one He cares about does not turn out to be the second of the opponents. And Paul has a struggle “against the rulers, and against the authorities, and against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). But the Spirit of power (2 Tim. 1:7) does not strengthen the ascetics, does not distribute gifts to the ascetics, “dividing power to each as he wills” (1 Cor. 12:11), but only has the power to accompany those who have entered into the struggle with exclamations. Eunomius also says: “gives courage to those who tremble with fear.” But although the heretic in his word continues the previous blasphemy against the Spirit, the truth is also revealed in the mouth of the enemy. For to give courage to those who fear is characteristic of no one else but God alone, who says to the fearful: “Fear not, for I am with you” (Is. 41:10), do not at all become timid, as the Prophet says about himself: “Even if I walk through the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me” (Ps. 22:4 ). And the Master Himself says to those who fear: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27), and: “Because you are fearful, you have little faith” (Matthew 8:26), and: “Be of good cheer, for I am, do not be afraid” (Mark 6:50), and also: “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Therefore, even against Eunomius’s will, piety makes itself known through his very enemy words. But the following also agrees with the previous word of Eunomius. The heretic says: “he takes care of everything, applies all his care and forethought.” Having care and concern for everything is truly characteristic of the only God, because this is what the great David says about this: “But I am poor and needy, the Lord will take care of me” (Ps. 39:18). If the rest of Eunomius makes only noise with empty words without meaning, then let no one blame him, seeing him as powerless and ignorant of most of every prudent concept. For what he means, he says: “to bring the most prudent and protect the more faithful,” he himself will not say this, nor will those who foolishly marvel at his words. O Christ Jesus, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever! Amen. You might be interested in: