{"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:66055edd3ac482dbfa3b:cite_note-4","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 8; original book/conference: Book IV, editorial note cite_note-4","semantic_kind_reviewed":false,"source_context":["Now that we have thus analyzed these expressions, let us also consider in regard to our author in what sense he says that the essences of the Father and the Son are “variant from each other.” What does he mean by it? Is it in the sense that the Father is according to nature, while the Son “varies” from that nature? Or does he express by this word the perversion of virtue, separating the evil from the more excellent by the name of “variation,” so as to regard the one essence in a good, the other in a contrary aspect? Or does he assert that one Divine essence also is variant from another, in the manner of the opposition of the elements? or as war stands to peace, and life to death, does he also perceive in the essences the conflict which so exists among all such things, so that they cannot unite one with another, because the mixture of contraries exerts upon the things mingled a consuming force, as the wisdom of the Proverbs saith of such a doctrine, that water and fire never say “It is enough,” expressing enigmatically the nature of contraries of equal force and equal balance, and their mutual destruction? Or is it in none of these ways that he sees “variance” in the essences? Let him tell us, then, what he conceives besides these. He could not say, I take it, even if he were to repeat his wonted phrase, “The Son is variant from Him Who begat Him”; for thereby the absurdity of his statements is yet more clearly shown. For what mutual relation is so closely and concordantly engrafted and fitted together as that meaning of relation to the Father expressed by the word “Son”? And a proof of this is that even if both of these names be not spoken, that which is omitted is connoted by the one that is uttered, so closely is the one implied in the other, and concordant with it: and both of them are so discerned in the one that one cannot be conceived without the other. Now that which is “at variance” is surely so conceived and so called, in opposition to that which is “in harmony,” as the plumb-line is in harmony with the straight line, while that which is crooked, when set beside that which is straight, does not harmonize with it. Musicians also are wont to call the agreement of notes “harmony,” and that which is out of tune and discordant “inharmonious.” To speak of things as at “variance,” then, is the same as to speak of them as “out of harmony.” If, therefore, the nature of the Only-begotten God is at “variance,” to use the heretical phrase, with the essence of the Father, it is surely not in harmony with it: and inharmoniousness cannot exist where there is no possibility of harmony. For the case is as when, the figure in the wax and in the graying of the signet being one, the wax that has been stamped by the signet, when it is fitted again to the latter, makes the impression on itself accord with that which surrounds it, filling up the hollows and accommodating the projections of the engraving with its own patterns: but if some strange and different pattern is fitted to the engraving of the signet, it makes its own form rough and confused, by rubbing off its figure on an engraved surface that does not correspond with it. But He Who is “in the form of God” has been formed by no impression different from the Father, seeing that He is “the express image” of the Father’s Person, while the “form of God” is surely the same thing as His essence. For as, “being made in the form of a servant,” He was formed in the essence of a servant, not taking upon Him the form merely, apart from the essence, but the essence is involved in the sense of “form,” so, surely, he who says that He is “in the form of God” signified essence by “form.” If, therefore, He is “in the form of God,” and being in the Father is sealed with the Father’s glory, (as the word of the Gospel declares, which saith, “Him hath God the Father sealed,”—whence also “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,”) then “the image of goodness” and “the brightness of glory,” and all other similar titles, testify that the essence of the Son is not out of harmony with the Father. Thus by the text cited is shown the insubstantial character of the adversaries’ blasphemy. For if things at “variance” are not in harmony, and He Who is sealed by the Father, and displays the Father in Himself, both being in the Father, and having the Father in Himself, shows in all points His close relation and harmony, then the absurdity of the opposing views is hereby overwhelmingly shown. For as that which is at “variance” was shown to be out of harmony, so conversely that which is harmonious is surely confessed beyond dispute not to be at “variance.” For as that which is at “variance” is not harmonious, so the harmonious is not at “variance.” Moreover, he who says that the nature of the Only-begotten is at “variance” with the good essence of the Father, clearly has in view variation in the good itself. But as for what that is which is at variance with the good—“O ye simple,” as the Proverb saith, “understand his craftiness!”"],"source_library_url":"/library/66055edd3ac482dbfa3b/#ws-library-full-note:66055edd3ac482dbfa3b:cite_note-4","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_II/Volume_V/Dogmatic_Treatises/Against_Eunomius/Book_IV/Chapter_8#cite_note-4","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:66055edd3ac482dbfa3b:cite_note-4"},"verified":true,"work":"Against Eunomius","work_id":"ws-npnf2-5-wilson-selection-66055edd3ac482dbfa3b"}