Ἐὰν δὲ λεγόντων ἡμῶν, ὅτι τῷ αἰτίῳ μείζων ὁ πατὴρ τοῦ υἱοῦ, προσλαβόντες τὴν Τὰ δὲ αἴτιον φύσει [*](3 τῶν φύσεων] τῆς φύσεως ’nonnul.’ || 6 ἰσότιμον] + μὴ bedef) [*](15. 11 om ’δε b ’nonnul.’) [*](1. ἢ δός] Otherwise, — if the chasm between the two Persons bearing the name of God is not, on your theory, as vast as I have indicated, suppose you admit that the equivocal name is in this instance applied to two natures of equal splendour. You shall call them different natures, if you like; but admit that they are equal. What is the result? You are no longer satisfied with your illustration of the dogs. You invented it to justify an insinuation of inequality. The κατὰ in κατὰ τῆς ἀνισ. appears to be used as in the phrase τοξεύειν κατὰ σκοποῦ, of the point aimed at.) [*](5. εἰ τὸ ἴσ’. ἔχοιεν] It requires great ingenuity to extract any meaning from the sentence, in relation to the context, if the reading μὴ ἔχ. is adopted. The μὴ was evidently introduced by copyists who thought that Gr. was making a statement of his own belief, which was that the name θεός is applied in precisely the same sense to Father and Son. But this ignores Gr.'s argument, — and, it may he added, the meaning of ὁμωνυμία. Gr.'s immediate purpose is to shew that the Eunomian illustration is, from their own point of view, ill-chosen. To be of any service to them, their instance of ’equivocation’ should have been one where the same name is applied to two objects of very different value.) [*](15.‘You admit,’ they say, ‘that the Father is greater than the Son, inasmuch ἃς He is the author of the Son's being; but since He ἲς by nature author of the ’s being, it follows that He is by nature greater than the ’ The fallacy of the argument, Gr. annoers, lies in this, —that they attribute to the underlying essence what is predicated of the particular possessor of that essence. It is like arguing that because so and so is a dead man, therefore man is dead.) [*](10. τῷ αἰτίῳ μ.] lby virtue of being the cause of His existence.) [*](11. προσλαβόντες τὴν . . . πρότασιν] ‘taking ὂν their minor premiss. Πρότασις is the tehnical word for a ‘premiss’; the πρός in προσλ. denotes that this is a second (or minor) premiss.)
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πρότασιν, ἔπειτα τὸ Μεῖζον τῆ φύσει συνάγωσιν· οὐκ οἶδα πότερον ἑαυτοὺς παραλογίζονται, ἢ τοὺς πρὸς οὓς ὁ λόγος. οὐ γὰρ ἁπλῶς ὅσα κατά τινος λέγεται, ταῦτα καὶ κατὰ τοῦ ὑποκειμένου τούτῳ ῥηθήσεται· ἀλλὰ δῆλον κατὰ τίνος, καὶ τίνα. ἐπεὶ τί κωλύει κἀμὲ ταύτην πρότασιν ποιησάμενον τήν, ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ μείζων τῇ φύσει, ἔπειτα προσλαβόντα τὸ Φύσει δὲ οὐ πάντως μείζων οὐδὲ πατήρ, ἐντεῦθεν συναγαγεῖν τὸ Μεῖζον οὐ πάντως μεῖζον· ἤ, Ὁ
[*](1. συνάγωσιν] ‘conclude.’ The Eunomian syllogism is this: ’The Father is greater than the Son inasmuch as the Son owes His existence to Him. But the giving of existence to the Son belongs to the Father by nature. Therefore the Father is greater than the Son by nature.’) [*](3. οὐ γὰρ ἁπλῶς κτλ.] The reply is that not everything which is predicated of a particular thing (e.g. of Socrates) is predicated of the nature which underlies that thing (in the example chosen, human nature). Everyone recognises what the statements are intended to apply to, and how they apply. So, what we say of the Father does not necessarily apply to the Divine Essence which belongs to Him; some things apply to Him as Father, not as God.) [*](4. κατὰ τίνος, καὶ τίνα] The words are interrogative; if Gr. had intended the indef. pron., he must have said δ. ὅτι κ. τ. It seems necessary to understand κατὰ again before τίνα, ’in regard to what ’ — i.e. in regard to nature, or to individuality, or what. To take the example given by Gr. at the end of the section, if I say that Socrates is a dead man, it is plain that I am speaking of Socrates in particular and of no one else, and that I am speaking of Socrates in relation to the bodily life, not about his soul, nor about his influence.) [*](5. τί κωλύει κἀμέ] Two can play at that game, Gr. says. He too can draw that kind of conclusion, and they shall see whether it will hold. He makes a major premiss of that conclusion of theirs, ’The father is by nature greater than the ’ (We need not suppose that Gr. is for the moment speaking of God: the words would suit any father and son.) The minor premiss is, ’But he is not by nature necessarily greater, or necessarily ’ So far there is no absurdity. He need never have had a son; there might have been nothing else to compare him with. (Gr., 1 repeat, is not speaking of God.) The right conclusion would be that the ’s ’natural’ superiority over his son consists solely in his fatherhood, and not in his nature, —in his relationship, and not in that which he is when considered apart by himself. But the false conclusion which Gr. draws, to illustrate the false conclusions of the Eunomians, is this: ’Therefore the greater is not necessarily greater, ’ or ‘The father is not necessarily father.’ It will be observed that Gr. says μεῖζον, not 6 μείζων, which makes it clearer that the proposition is intended to be quite general: Ἁ thing which is greater than another need not be greater, but might be at the same time equal or less; a father need not be his ’s father, but might be his brother or his son.’ The second paralogism ὁ θεὸς οὐ πάντως θεός) helps to shew that this is Gr.'s meaning.) 97
πατὴρ οὐ πάντως πατήρ. εἰ βούλει δὲ οὕτως· ὁ θεός οὐσία· ἡ οὐσία δέ, οὐ πάντως θεός· τὸ ἑξῆς αὐτὸς συνάγαγε· ὁ θεός, οὐ πάντως θεός. ἀλλ’ οἶμαι, παρὰ τὸ πῇ καὶ ἁπλῶς ὁ παραλογισμὸς οὗτος, ὡς τοῖς περὶ ταῦτα τεχνολογεῖν σύνηθες. ἡμῶν γὰρ τὸ μεῖζον τῇ τοῦ αἰτίου φύσει διδόντων, αὐτοὶ τὸ τῇ φύσει μεῖζον ἐπάγουσιν· ὥσπερ ἂν εἰ καὶ λεγόντων ἡμῶν, ὅτι ὁ δεῖνα νεκρὸς ἄνθρωπος, ἁπλῶς ἐπῆγον αὐτοὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον.