This whole passage, as it stands in Oehler’s text, (which has here been followed without alteration,) is obscure: the connection between the clauses themselves is by no means clear; and the general meaning of the passage, in view of the succeeding sentences, seems doubtful. For it seems here to be alleged that Eunomius considered the κατασκεύη to imply the previous existence of some material, so to say, which was moulded by generation—on the ground that no one would say that the essence, or anything else, was constructed without being existent. On the other hand it is immediately urged that this is just what would be said of all created things. If the passage might be emended thus:—ἵν᾽, ὥσπερ ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ τινὶ πράγματι πᾶσα κατασκεύη θεωρεῖται, (οὐ γὰρ ἄν τις ἔιποι κατασκεύασθαι ὃ μὴ ὑφέστηκεν), οὕτως οἷον κατασκευάσματι τῇ τοῦ μονογενοῦς φύσει προτείνῃ τῷ λόγῳ τὴν ποίησιν—we should have a comparatively clear sense—“in order that as all construction is observed in some subject matter, (for no one would say that that is constructed which has not existence) so he may extend the process of ‘making’ by his argument to the nature of the Only-begotten God, as to some product of construction.” The force of this would be, that Eunomius is really employing the idea of “receiving generation,” to imply that the essence of the Only-begotten is a κατασκεύασμα: and this, Gregory says, puts him at once on a level with the physical creation.