{"author":"Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)","date_end":1893,"date_label":"1893 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain)","date_start":1893,"edition_year":1893,"edition_year_basis":"Original NPNF Series II Volume V title and copyright, 1893; transcription physical printing year unknown","id":"ws-library-full-note:2110b830d6b8264cee51:cite_note-1","is_genuine_commentary_verified":false,"license_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Reusing_Wikisource_content","public_import_allowed":true,"publication_location":"source-library","record_type":"editorial-footnote","references":[],"rights_approved":true,"section":"Chapter uncertain; original source section: Chapter 9; original book/conference: Book IV, editorial note cite_note-1","semantic_kind_reviewed":false,"source_context":["He says that he finds “nothing else besides the essence of the Son which admits of the generation”; that there is no sense in his words however, is clear to every one who hears his statement at all: the task which remains seems to be to bring to light the blasphemy which he is trying to construct by aid of these meaningless words. For he desires, even if he cannot effect his purpose, to produce in his hearers by this slackness of expression, the notion that the essence of the Son is the result of construction: but he calls its construction “generation,” decking out his horrible blasphemy with the fairest phrase, that if “construction” is the meaning conveyed by the word “generation,” the idea of the creation of the Lord may receive a ready assent. He says, then, that the essence “admits of generation,” so that every construction may be viewed, as it were, in some subject matter. For no one would say that that is constructed which has no existence, so extending “making” in his discourse, as if it were some constructed fabric, to the nature of the Only-begotten God. “If, then,” he says, “it admits of this generation,”—wishing to convey some such meaning as this, that it would not have been, had it not been constructed. But what else is there among the things we contemplate in the creation which is without being made? Heaven, earth, air, sea, everything whatever that is, surely is by being made. How, then, comes it that he considered it a peculiarity in the nature of the Only begotten, that it “admits generation” (for this is his name for making) “into its actual essence,” as though the humble-bee or the gnat did not admit generation into itself, but into something else besides itself. It is therefore acknowledged by his own writings, that by them the essence of the Only-begotten is placed on the same level with the smallest parts of the creation: and every proof by which he attempts to establish the alienation of the Son from the Father has the same force also in the case of individual things. What need has he, then, for this varied acuteness to establish the diversity of nature, when he ought to have taken the short cut of denial, by openly declaring that the name of the Son ought not to be confessed, or the Only-begotten God to be preached in the churches, but that we ought to esteem the Jewish worship as superior to the faith of Christians, and, while we confess the Father as being alone Creator and Maker of the world, to reduce all other things to the name and conception of the creation, and among these to speak of that work which preceded the rest as a “thing made,” which came into being by some constructive operation, and to give Him the title of “First created,” instead of Only-begotten and Very Son. For when these opinions have carried the day, it will be a very easy matter to bring doctrines to a conclusion in agreement with the aim they have in view, when all are guided, as you might expect from such a principle, to the consequence that it is impossible that He Who is neither begotten nor a Son, but has His existence through some energy, should share in essence with God. So long, however, as the declarations of the Gospel prevail, by which He is proclaimed as “Son,” and “Only-begotten,” and “of the Father,” and “of God,” and the like, Eunomius will talk his nonsense to no purpose, leading himself and his followers astray by such idle chatter. For while the title of “Son” speaks aloud the true relation to the Father, who is so foolish that, while John and Paul and the rest of the choir of the Saints proclaim these words,—words of truth, and words that point to the close affinity,—he does not look to them, but is led by the empty rattle of Eunomius’ sophisms to think that Eunomius is a truer guide than the teaching of these who by the Spirit speak mysteries, and who bear Christ in themselves? Why, who is this Eunomius? Whence was he raised up to be the guide of Christians?"],"source_library_url":"/library/2110b830d6b8264cee51/#ws-library-full-note:2110b830d6b8264cee51:cite_note-1","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_II/Volume_V/Dogmatic_Treatises/Against_Eunomius/Book_IV/Chapter_9#cite_note-1","translator":"Henry Austin Wilson (translator and notes), Joseph Hirst Lupton (editorial revision assistance), Henry Wace (editor)","verification":{"proof_file":"raw/review/source-library-note-batch-0058/proof-records.jsonl","proof_file_sha256":"d99bcd456b74c226cd5595a9908fd04c9b4bb20b3ada750b4109d294d60ae7ee","proof_record_id":"ws-library-full-note:2110b830d6b8264cee51:cite_note-1"},"verified":true,"work":"Against Eunomius","work_id":"ws-npnf2-5-wilson-selection-2110b830d6b8264cee51"}