{"author":"Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)","date_end":1895,"date_label":"1895 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain)","date_start":1895,"edition_year":1895,"edition_year_basis":"Original NPNF Series II Volume VIII title and copyright, 1895; transcription physical printing year unknown","id":"ws-library-full-note:41026ff6c0c7e4bf2f35:cite_note-71","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: Dogmatic, editorial note cite_note-71","semantic_kind_reviewed":false,"source_context":["To meet this dilemma, Basil drew a distinction between eternity and the being unoriginate. The Eunomians, from the fact of the unoriginateness of the Father being called eternity, maintained that unoriginateness and eternity are identical. Because the Son is not unbegotten they do not even allow Him to be eternal. But there is a wide distinction to be observed in the meaning of the terms. The word unbegotten is predicated of that which has origin of itself, and no cause of its being: the word eternal is predicated of that which is in being beyond all time and age. Wherefore the Son is both not unbegotten and eternal. Eunomius was ready to give great dignity to the Son as a supreme creature. He did not hold the essence of the Son to be common to that of the things created out of nothing. He would give Him as great a preëminence as the Creator has over His own created works. Basil attributes little importance to this concession, and thinks it only leads to confusion and contradiction. If the God of the universe, being unbegotten, necessarily differs from things begotten, and all things begotten have their common hypostasis of the non-existent, what alternative is there to a natural conjunction of all such things? Just as in the one case the unapproachable effects a distinction between the natures, so in the other equality of condition brings them into mutual contact. They say that the Son and all things that came into being under Him are of the non-existent, and so far they make those natures common, and yet they deny that they give Him a nature of the non-existent. For again, as though Eunomius were Lord himself, and able to give to the Only Begotten what rank and dignity he chooses, he goes on to argue,—We attribute to Him so much supereminence as the Creator must of necessity have over His own creature. He does not say, “We conceive,” or “We are of opinion,” as would be befitting when treating of God, but he says “We attribute,” as though he himself could control the measure of the attribution. And how much supereminence does he give? As much as the Creator must necessarily have over His own creatures. This has not yet reached a statement of difference of substance. Human beings in art surpass their own works, and yet are consubstantial with them, as the potter with his clay, and the shipwright with his timber. For both are alike bodies, subject to sense, and earthy. Eunomius explained the title “Only Begotten” to mean that the Son alone was begotten and created by the Father alone, and therefore was made the most perfect minister. “If,” rejoins Basil, “He does not possess His glory in being perfect God, if it lies only in His being an exact and obedient subordinate, in what does He differ from the ministering spirits who perform the work of their service without blame? Indeed Eunomius joins ‘created’ to ‘begotten’ with the express object of shewing that there is no distinction between the Son and a creature! And how unworthy a conception of the Father that He should need a servant to do His work! ‘He commanded and they were created.’ What service was needed by Him Who creates by His will alone? But in what sense are all things said by us to be ‘through the Son’? In that the divine will, starting from the prime cause, as it were from a source, proceeds to operation through its own image, God the Word.” Basil sees that if the Son is a creature mankind is still without a revelation of the Divine. He sees that Eunomius, “by alienating the Only Begotten from the Father, and altogether cutting Him off from communion with Him, as far as he can, deprives us of the ascent of knowledge which is made through the Son. Our Lord says that all that is the Father’s is His. Eunomius states that there is no fellowship between the Father and Him Who is of Him.” If so there is no “brightness” of glory; no “express image of hypostasis.” So Dorner, who freely uses the latter portion of the treatise, “The main point of Basil’s opposition to Eunomius is that the word unbegotten is not a name indicative of the essence of God, but only of a condition of existence. The divine essence has other predicates. If every peculiar mode of existence causes a distinction in essence also, then the Son cannot be of the same essence with the Father, because He has a peculiar mode of existence, and the Father another; and men cannot be of the same essence, because each of them represents a different mode of existence. By the names of Father, Son, and Spirit, we do not understand different essences, (οὐσίας), but they are names which distinguish the ὕπαρξις of each. All are God, and the Father is no more God than the Son, as one man is no more man than another. Quantitative differences are not reckoned in respect of essence; the question is only of being or non-being. But this does not exclude the idea of a variety in condition in the Father and the Son (ἑτέρως ἕχειν),—the generation of the Latter. The dignity of both is equal. The essence of Begetter and Begotten is identical."],"source_library_url":"/library/41026ff6c0c7e4bf2f35/#ws-library-full-note:41026ff6c0c7e4bf2f35:cite_note-71","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_II/Volume_VIII/Prolegomena/Works/Dogmatic#cite_note-71","translator":"Blomfield Jackson (editorial survey author), Charles Hole (proof revision and suggestions)","verification":{"proof_file":"raw/review/source-library-note-batch-0056/proof-records.jsonl","proof_file_sha256":"e0df170d421dcd73bd0a76f61768b09f25dd2e36668f01c873ba3f2300ffa8a2","proof_record_id":"ws-library-full-note:41026ff6c0c7e4bf2f35:cite_note-71"},"verified":true,"work":"Prolegomena","work_id":"ws-npnf2-8-basil-selection-41026ff6c0c7e4bf2f35"}