Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

the Son may be styled God, but He is a creature, and therefore, in the strict sense of the
term, not God at all, and, at best, a hero or demigod. The Father, unbegotten, stood alone
and supreme; the very idea of “begotten” implied posteriority, inferiority, and unlikeness.
Against this position Basil 314 protests. The arguments of Eunomius, he urges, are tantamount
to an adoption of what was probably an Arian formula, “We believe that ingenerateness is
the essence of God,” 315 i.e., we believe that the Only-begotten is essentially unlike the
Father. 316 This word “unbegotten,” of which Eunomius and his supporters make so much,
what is its real value? Basil admits that it is apparently a convenient term for human intelligence
to use; but, he urges, “It is nowhere to be found in Scripture; it is one of the main
elements in the Arian blasphemy; it had better be left alone. The word ‘Father’ implies all
that is meant by ‘Unbegotten,’ and has moreover the advantage of suggesting at the same
time the idea of the Son. He Who is essentially Father is alone of no other. In this being of
no other is involved the sense of ‘Unbegotten.’ The title ‘unbegotten’ will not be preferred
by us to that of Father, unless we wish to make ourselves wiser than the Saviour, Who said,
‘Go and baptize in the name’ not of the Unbegotten, but ‘of the Father.’” 317 To the Eunomian
contention that the word “Unbegotten” is no mere complimentary title, but required
by the strictest necessity, in that it involves the confession of what He is, 318 Basil rejoins
that it is only one of many negative terms applied to the Deity, none of which completely
expresses the Divine Essence. “There exists no name which embraces the whole nature of
God, and is sufficient to declare it; more names than one, and these of very various kinds,
each in accordance with its own proper connotation, give a collective idea which may be
dim indeed and poor when compared with the whole, but is enough for us.” 319 The word
“unbegotten,” like “immortal,” “invisible,” and the like, expresses only negation. “Yet essence
320 is not one of the qualities which are absent, but signifies the very being of God; to
reckon this in the same category as the non-existent is to the last degree unreasonable.” 321
Basil “would be quite ready to admit that the essence of God is unbegotten,” but he objects
to the statement that the essence and the unbegotten are identical. 322 It is sometimes supposed
that the Catholic theologians have been hair-splitters in the sphere of the inconceivable,
314 Adv. Eunom. i. 5.
315 πιστεύομεν τὴν ἀγεννησίαν οὐσίαν εἶνας τοῦ Θεου. For the word ἀγεννησία cf. Letter ccxxxiv. p. 274.
316 Adv. Eunom. i. 4.
317 Matt. xxviii. 19. Adv. Eun. i. 5.
318 ἐν τῇ τοῦ εῖναι ὅ ἐστιν ὁμολογί& 139·. Adv. Eunom. i. 8.
319 Id. i. 10.
320 οὐσία.
321 Id.
322 Id. ii.
Dogmatic.
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