§31. The observations made by watching Providence are sufficient to give us the knowledge of sameness of Being.

And yet, if he could see the consequences of his own statements, he would be led on by them to acquiesce in the doctrine of the Church. For if the maker’s nature is an indication of the thing made, as he affirms, and if, according to his school, the Son is something made by the Father, anyone who has observed the Father’s nature would have certainly known thereby that of the Son; if, I say, it is true that the worker’s nature is a sign of that which he works. But the Only-begotten, as they say, of the Father’s unlikeness, will be excluded from operating through Providence. Eunomius need not trouble any more about His being generated, nor force out of that another proof of the son’s unlikeness. The difference of purpose will itself be sufficient to bring to light His alien nature. For the First Being is, even by our opponents’ confession, one and single, and necessarily His will must be thought of as following the bent of His nature; but Providence shows that purpose is good, and so the nature from which that purpose comes is shown to be good also. So the Father alone works good; and the Son does not purpose the same things as He, if we adopt the assumptions of our adversary; the difference then, of their nature will be clearly attested by this variation of their purposes. But if, while the Father is provident for the Universe, the Son is equally provident for it (for ‘what He sees the Father doing that also the Son does’), this sameness of their purposes exhibits a communion of nature in those who thus purpose the same things. Why, then, is all mention of Providence omitted by him, as if it would not help us at all to that which we are searching for. Yet many familiar examples make for our view of it. Anyone who has gazed on the brightness of fire and experienced its power of warming, when he approaches another such brightness and another such warmth, will assuredly be led on to think of fire; for his senses through the medium of these similar phænomena will conduct him to the fact of a kindred element producing both; anything that was not fire could not work on all occasions like fire. Just so, when we perceive a similar and equal amount of providential power in the Father and in the Son, we make a guess by means of what thus comes within the range of our knowledge about things which transcend our comprehension; we feel that causes of an alien nature cannot be detected in these equal and similar effects. As the observed phenomena are to each other, so will the subjects of those phenomena be: if the first are opposed to each other, we must reckon the revealed entities to be so too; if the first are alike, so too must those others be. Our Lord said allegorically that their fruit is the sign of the characters of trees, meaning that it does not belie that character, that the bad is not attached to the good tree, nor the good to the bad tree;—“by their fruits ye shall know them;”—so when the fruit, Providence, presents no difference, we detect a single nature from which that fruit has sprung, even though the trees be different from which the fruit is put forth. Through that, then, which is cognizable by our apprehension, viz., the scheme or Providence visible in the Son in the same way as in the Father, the common likeness of the Only-begotten and the Father is placed beyond a doubt; and it is the identity of the fruits of Providence by which we know it.

καίτοι γε δι' αὐτῶν τούτων ὧν αὐτός φησιν, εἴπερ τοῖς ἰδίοις κατακολουθεῖν ἠπίστατο λόγοις, ὡδηγήθη ἂν πρὸς τὴν τοῦ ἐκκλησιαστικοῦ δόγματος συγκατάθεσιν. εἰ γὰρ ἡ τοῦ ποιήσαντος φύσις τὸ παρ' αὐτῆς γεγενημένον δείκνυσι, καθὼς οὗτός φησι, « ποίημα » δὲ κατ' αὐτοὺς ὁ υἱός ἐστι τοῦ πατρός, πάντως ὁ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς φύσιν κατανοήσας καὶ τὴν τοῦ μονογενοῦς δι' ἐκείνης ἐγνώρισεν, εἴπερ ἡ τοῦ ἐνεργήσαντος φύσις τὸ ἐνεργηθὲν ἀπεσήμηνεν, ὡς καὶ διὰ τούτου τὸν τῆς ἀνομοιότητος αὐτοῖς . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . μονογενῆ τῶν τῆς προνοίας ἔργων ἀποσχοινίζεσθαι. μηδὲν πολυπραγμονείσθω ἡ γέννησις μηδὲ βεβιασμένως ἐκεῖθεν ἡ ἀνομοιότης τοῦ μονογενοῦς διελεγχέσθω. αὐτάρκης γὰρ καὶ ἡ τῶν προαιρέσεων διαφορὰ τὴν τῆς φύσεως ἑτερότητα φανερῶσαι. διότι ἁπλῆς εἶναι συνομολογηθείσης καὶ παρὰ τῶν ἐναντίων τῆς πρώτης οὐσίας, ἐπάναγκές ἐστι τῇ φύσει σύνδρομον ἐννοεῖν τὴν προαίρεσιν, τῆς δὲ προαιρέσεως ἀγαθῆς διὰ τῆς προνοίας ἀποδειχθείσης, ἀγαθὴ συναπεδείχθη καὶ ἡ φύσις, ἀφ' ἧς ἡ προαίρεσις. μόνου δὲ τοῦ πατρὸς τὰ ἀγαθὰ ἐνεργοῦντος, τοῦ δὲ υἱοῦ μὴ τὰ αὐτὰ προαιρουμένου (λέγω δὲ καθ' ὑπόθεσιν τῶν ἐναντίων ἕνεκεν), πρόδηλος ἂν ἦν ἡ κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν διαφορὰ τῷ παρηλλαγμένῳ τῶν προαιρέσεων μαρτυρουμένη. εἰ δὲ προνοεῖ μὲν ὁ πατὴρ τῶν ἁπάντων, προνοεῖ δὲ ὡσαύτως καὶ ὁ υἱός (ἃ γὰρ βλέπει τὸν πατέρα ποιοῦντα, καὶ ὁ υἱὸς ὁμοίως ποιεῖ), ἡ τῶν προαιρέσεων ταὐτότης τὸ κοινὸν τῆς φύσεως τῶν τὰ αὐτὰ προαιρουμένων πάντως ἐνδείκνυται. διὰ τί οὖν ἀτιμάζεται ὁ τῆς προνοίας λόγος, ὡς οὐδεμίαν παρέχων πρὸς τὸ ζητούμενον τὴν συνεργίαν; καίτοι πολλὰ καὶ τῶν κατὰ τὸν βίον ὑποδειγμάτων τῷ ἡμετέρῳ λόγῳ συναγωνίζεται: λέγω δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν πᾶσι γνωρίμων τὰ ὑποδείγματα. ὁ τοῦ πυρὸς τὸ φῶς τεθεαμένος καὶ τῆς θερμαντικῆς αὐτοῦ δυνάμεως εἰς πεῖραν ἐλθών, εἰ ἄλλῳ τοιούτῳ φωτὶ καὶ θερμότητι τοιαύτῃ πελάσειε, δηλονότι πρὸς τὴν τοῦ πυρὸς ἔννοιαν ἀναχθήσεται, ἐκ τῆς ὁμοιότητος τῶν φανέντων αὐτῷ διὰ τῆς αἰσθήσεως πρὸς τὴν συγγένειαν τῆς ἀπεργασαμένης αὐτὰ φύσεως ἐναγόμενος: οὐ γὰρ ἄν τι κατὰ πάντα τὰ τοῦ πυρὸς ἐνεργήσειε μὴ πῦρ ὄν. οὕτως εἴπερ ὅμοιον καὶ ἴσον τὸν αὐτὸν τῆς προνοίας λόγον τῷ τε πατρὶ καὶ τῷ υἱῷ « ἐγ »καθορῶμεν, διὰ τῶν εἰς τὴν ἡμετέραν γνῶσιν φθανόντων καὶ τῶν ὑπερπιπτόντων τὴν κατάληψιν ἡμῶν στοχαζόμεθα, ὡς οὐκ ἂν τοῦ ἑτερογενοῦς κατὰ τὴν φύσιν τοῖς ἴσοις τε καὶ ὁμοίοις ἐνεργήμασι καταληφθέντος. καὶ γὰρ ὅπως ἂν ἔχῃ πρὸς ἄλληλα τὰ ἐπιφαινόμενα ἑκάστῳ γνωρίσματα, οὕτως ἐξ ἀνάγκης καὶ τὰ ὑποκείμενα ἕξει. καὶ εἰ μὲν ἐναντίως ἔχει τὰ γνωρίσματα, ἐναντία χρὴ πάντως λογίζεσθαι καὶ τὰ διὰ τούτων δηλούμενα, εἰ δὲ ταῦτα ὡσαύτως, οὐδὲ ἐκεῖνα ἑτέρως. καὶ ὥσπερ δι' αἰνίγματος τῆς τῶν δένδρων φύσεως τοὺς καρποὺς ὁ κύριος εἶναί φησι τὰ σημεῖα, ὡς οὐκ ἐπαλλασσομένων παρὰ φύσιν τῶν τοιούτων, οὐδὲ τοῖς κακοῖς τῶν ἀγαθῶν οὐδὲ τὸ ἔμπαλιν τοῖς καλοῖς τῶν ἐναντίων ἐφαρμοζόντων (ἐκ γὰρ τῶν καρπῶν, φησί, τὰ δένδρα γνωρίζεται), οὕτω καὶ τοῦ καρποῦ τῆς προνοίας οὐδεμίαν ἔχοντος διαφοράν, μίαν ὁρῶμεν καὶ τὴν τοὺς καρποὺς τούτους ἐκβλαστήσασαν φύσιν, κἂν ἐκ διαφόρων ὁ καρπὸς τῶν δένδρων προβάλληται. οὐκοῦν διὰ τῶν τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ καταλήψει γνωρίμων (γνώριμος δὲ ἡμῖν ἐστι τῆς προνοίας ὁ λόγος ὡσαύτως ἐπὶ πατρός τε καὶ υἱοῦ θεωρούμενος) ἀναμφίβολος γίνεται καὶ ἡ κατὰ τὴν φύσιν ὁμοιότης καὶ κοινωνία τοῦ μονογενοῦς πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, διὰ τῆς ταὐτότητος τῶν καρπῶν τῆς προνοίας γνωριζομένη.