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

and that heresy is the exponent of an amiable and reverent vagueness. In the Arian controversy
it was Arius himself who dogmatically defined with his negative “There was when He
was not,” and Eunomius with his “The essence is the unbegotten.” “What pride! What
conceit!” exclaims Basil. “The idea of imagining that one has discovered the very essence
of God most high! Assuredly in their magniloquence they quite throw into the shade even
Him who said, ‘I will exalt my throne above the stars.’ 323 It is not stars, it is not heaven,
that they dare to assail. It is in the very essence of the God of all the world that they boast
that they make their haunt. Let us question him as to where he acquired comprehension
of this essence. Was it from the common notion that all men share? 324 This does indeed
suggest to us that there is a God, but not what God is. Was it from the teaching of the
Spirit? What teaching? Where found? What says great David, to whom God revealed the
hidden secrets of His wisdom? He distinctly asserts the unapproachableness of knowledge
of Him in the words, ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain
unto it.’ 325 And Isaiah, who saw the glory of God, what does he tell us concerning the Divine
Essence? In his prophecy about the Christ he says, ‘Who shall declare His generation?’ 326
And what of Paul, the chosen vessel, in whom Christ spake, who was caught up into the
third heaven, who heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful to man to utter? What
teaching has he given us of the essence of God? When Paul is investigating the special
methods of the work of redemption 327 he seems to grow dizzy before the mysterious maze
which he is contemplating, and utters the well-known words, ‘O the depth of the riches both
of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways
past finding out!’ 328 These things are beyond the reach even of those who have attained
the measure of Paul’s knowledge. What then is the conceit of those who announce that they
know the essence of God! I should very much like to ask them what they have to say about
the earth whereon they stand, and whereof they are born. What can they tell us of its ‘essence’?
If they can discourse without hesitation of the nature of lowly subjects which lie
beneath our feet, we will believe them when they proffer opinions about things which
transcend all human intelligence. What is the essence of the earth? How can it be comprehended?
Let them tell us whether reason or sense has reached this point! If they say sense,
by which of the senses is it comprehended? Sight? Sight perceives colour. Touch? Touch
distinguishes hard and soft, hot and cold, and the like; but no idiot would call any of these
323 i.e. Lucifer, cf. Is. xiv. 13.
324 On κοινὴ ἔννοια, cf. Origen, C. Cels. i. 4.
325 Ps. cxxxix. 6.
326 Is. liii. 8.
327 τοὺς μερικοὺς τῆς οἰκονομίας λόγους.
328 Rom. xi. 33.
Dogmatic.
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