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is said, it certainly follows that the Son properly so called, because He is of the very nature of the one who begot Him, is Son and is confessed to be God. But he abominates the concept of generation and separates it from the divine doctrines, slandering the name by carnal physics. But concerning these things the argument has sufficiently demonstrated in what has gone before that, according to the prophet, they fear a fear where there is no fear. For if in the case of men not every generation has been shown to consist in passion, but the material one is through passion, while the spiritual is pure and undefiled (for that which is born of the Spirit becomes spirit and not flesh, and with spirit no passible condition is associated), since it seemed necessary for the writer to reason about the divine power through our own examples, let him persuade himself from the other mode of generation to understand the impassibility concerning the divine generation. But by confusing these three terms with one another, of which two are equivalent, he thinks to carry away his hearers through the communion in meaning of the two terms to think the third likewise. For since the term of "work" and "creature" indicates that what is made is outside the nature of the one who made it, he attaches to these the term of "offspring," as if this also might be interpreted along with the aforementioned. But such a form of argument is called wickedness and deceit and imposture, not a well-considered and technical proof. For only that which reveals the unknown through what is agreed upon is called a proof, but to reason fallaciously through wickedness and to evade refutation and to confuse the mind with superficial deceptions of those, as the apostle says, whose minds are corrupted, none of sound mind would call a technical proof. But let us proceed to what follows. 20unmediated20, he says, is 20the generation of the substance, and it indivisibly preserves the relation to the one who has begotten and made and created it20. If, then, having said the substance is indivisible and unmediated, he had stopped his argument at this point, he would not have deviated from the pious conception, since it is also confessed by us that the connection of the Son to the Father is both continuous and unmediated, so that nothing is inserted between them, which is found between the connection of the Son to the Father, no concept of interval, not even the instant and indivisible itself, which, when time is cut in two into the past and the future, is conceived indivisibly by itself in the present, being able to become a part neither of the past nor of the future because it is altogether without extension and indivisible and imperceptible to whatever it might be added. What is purely immediate, therefore, we say is mediated by nothing of the sort. For that would no longer be immediate which is separated by some intermediary; if, therefore, he too, having said the generation of the Son is unmediated, had added none of the things that have been said, he would have taught the piously understood connection of the Son to the Father. But since, as if repenting of what he had said, he immediately added that 20it preserves the relation to the one who has begotten and made and created it20, he polluted the former with the latter, mixing the blasphemous expression with the pure word. For it is clear that there too "unmediated" does not look toward the pious, but as one might say that the hammer mediates between the nail and the blacksmith, but that its own construction is unmediated, for the tools had not yet been invented by the craft, the hammer by some contrivance, <not> through some other instrument, was made first by the craftsman, and so through it the other things, the word "unmediated" shows the writer thinks these things also concerning the only-begotten. And not only has Eunomius erred in this according to the absurdity of his doctrine, but it is possible to find the same in the works of Theognostus, who says that God, wishing to construct this universe, first the Son as a kind of rule for the creation

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λέγεται, κατὰ τὸ ἀκόλουθον πάντως ὁ κυρίως υἱὸς διὰ τὸ ἐξ αὐτῆς εἶναι τοῦ γεγεννηκότος τῆς φύσεως υἱός ἐστι καὶ θεὸς εἶναι 3.2.114 ὁμολογεῖται. ἀλλὰ μυσάττεται τὴν τῆς γεννήσεως ἔννοιαν καὶ ἀφορίζει τῶν θείων δογμάτων τῇ σαρκώδει φυσιολογίᾳ διαβάλλων τὸ ὄνομα. ἀλλ' ἱκανῶς ὑπὲρ τούτων ἐν τοῖς φθάσασιν ὁ λόγος ἀπέδειξεν ὅτι κατὰ τὸν προφήτην φο βοῦνται φόβον ὅπου οὐκ ἔστι φόβος. εἰ γὰρ ἐπὶ τῶν ἀν θρώπων οὐ πᾶσα γέννησις ἐδείχθη κατὰ πάθος συνιστα μένη, ἀλλ' ἡ μὲν ὑλικὴ διὰ πάθους, ἡ δὲ πνευματικὴ καθαρὰ καὶ ἀκήρατος (τὸ γὰρ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τοῦ πνεύ ματος πνεῦμα καὶ οὐχὶ σὰρξ γίνεται, τῷ δὲ πνεύματι οὐδεμία παθητικὴ συνθεωρεῖται διάθεσις), ἐπειδὴ διὰ τῶν καθ' ἡμᾶς ὑποδειγμάτων ἀναγκαῖον ἐφάνη τῷ λογογράφῳ τὴν θείαν ἐπιλογίζεσθαι δύναμιν, πεισάτω ἑαυτὸν ἐκ τοῦ ἑτέρου τῆς γεννήσεως τρόπου τὸ περὶ τὴν θείαν γέννησιν 3.2.115 ἀπαθὲς ἐννοεῖν. ἀλλὰ τὰς τρεῖς ταύτας μετ' ἀλλήλων προσηγορίας συγχέας, ἐξ ὧν ἰσοδυναμοῦσιν αἱ δύο, συναρ πάζειν οἴεται τοὺς ἀκούοντας διὰ τῆς τῶν δύο φωνῶν κατὰ τὸ σημαινόμενον κοινωνίας τὸ καὶ τὴν τρίτην ὡσαύτως οἴεσθαι. ἐπειδὴ γὰρ ἡ τοῦ ποιήματος καὶ κτίσματος προσ ηγορία ἔξω τῆς τοῦ πεποιηκότος φύσεως εἶναι τὸ πεποιη μένον ἐνδείκνυται, προσάπτει τούτοις τὴν φωνὴν τοῦ γεννή ματος, ὡς ἂν καὶ τοῦτο τοῖς προειρημένοις συνερμηνεύοιτο. ἀλλὰ τὸ τοιοῦτον εἶδος τοῦ λόγου κακουργία καὶ ἀπάτη καὶ φενακισμὸς ὀνομάζεται, οὐ πεφροντισμένη καὶ τεχνική 3.2.116 τις ἀπόδειξις. μόνη γὰρ ἡ διὰ τῶν ὁμολογουμένων φανε ροῦσα τὸ ἀγνοούμενον ἀπόδειξις λέγεται, τὸ δὲ παραλογί ζεσθαι διὰ κακουργίας καὶ ὑπεκκλέπτειν τὸν ἔλεγχον καὶ συγχεῖν ἐν ταῖς ἐπιπολαίοις ἀπάταις τὴν διάνοιαν τῶν, καθώς φησιν ὁ ἀπόστολος, κατεφθαρμένων τὸν νοῦν οὐκ ἄν τις τῶν σωφρονούντων ἀπόδειξιν τεχνικὴν ὀνομάσειεν. 3.2.117 Ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὴν ἀκολουθίαν μετέλθωμεν. 20ἀμεσί τευτον20 δέ φησιν εἶναι 20τῆς οὐσίας τὴν γέννησιν καὶ ἀμερίστως σῴζειν τὴν πρὸς τὸν γεγεννη 3.2.118 κότα καὶ ποιήσαντα καὶ κτίσαντα σχέσιν20. εἰ μὲν οὖν τὸ ἀμέριστόν τε καὶ ἀμεσίτευτον εἰπὼν τῆς οὐσίας ἐν τούτῳ τὸν λόγον ἔστησεν, οὐκ ἂν τῆς εὐσεβοῦς ὑπο λήψεως παρετράπη, ἐπεὶ καὶ παρ' ἡμῶν ὁμολογεῖται τοῦ υἱοῦ τὸ πρὸς τὸν πατέρα συναφές τε καὶ ἀμεσίτευτον, ὡς μηδὲν εἶναι τὸ διὰ μέσου τούτων παρενειρόμενον, ὃ μεταξὺ τῆς τοῦ υἱοῦ πρὸς τὸν πατέρα συναφείας εὑρίσκεται, μὴ διαστηματικόν τι νόημα, μὴ αὐτὸ τὸ ἀκαρές τε καὶ ἄτομον, ὃ διχῇ τεμνομένου τοῦ χρόνου τῷ παρῳχηκότι τε καὶ τῷ μέλλοντι κατὰ τὸ ἐνεστὼς ἀμερῶς ἐφ' ἑαυτοῦ νοεῖται, οὔτε τοῦ παρῳχηκότος οὔτε τοῦ μέλλοντος μέρος γενέσθαι δυνά μενον διὰ τὸ εἶναι καθόλου ἀδιάστατόν τε καὶ ἄτομον καὶ ᾧπερ ἂν προστεθῇ ἀνεπίδηλον. τὸ οὖν καθαρῶς ἄμεσον 3.2.119 οὐδενὶ τοιούτῳ μεσιτεύεσθαι λέγομεν. οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἔτι ἄμεσον εἴη τὸ μέσῳ τινὶ διειργόμενον· εἰ τοίνυν κἀκεῖνος ἀμεσίτευτον εἶναι εἰπὼν τοῦ υἱοῦ τὴν γέννησιν μηδὲν τῶν εἰρημένων ἐπήνεγκε, τὴν εὐσεβῶς νοουμένην τοῦ υἱοῦ πρὸς τὸν πατέρα συνάφειαν ἐδογμάτιζεν. ἐπειδὴ δὲ καθάπερ μεταμεληθεὶς ἐφ' οἷς εἴρηκεν εὐθὺς ἐπήγαγεν ὅτι 20σῴζει τὴν πρὸς τὸν γεγεννηκότα καὶ πεποιηκότα καὶ κτίσαντα σχέσιν20, ἐμόλυνε τοῖς δευτέροις τὰ πρότερα, τῷ καθαρῷ λόγῳ τὴν βλάσφημον φωνὴν ἐπε 3.2.120 μέσας. δῆλον γὰρ ὅτι κἀκεῖ τὸ ἀμεσίτευτον οὐ πρὸς τὸ εὐσεβὲς βλέπει, ἀλλ' ὡς ἄν τις λέγοι μεταξὺ τοῦ ἥλου καὶ τοῦ χαλκέως μεσιτεύειν τὴν σφύραν, ταύτης δὲ εἶναι τὴν κατασκευὴν ἀμεσίτευτον, οὔπω γὰρ τῶν ὀργάνων ὑπὸ τῆς τέχνης ἐξευρημένων, ἐπινοίᾳ τινὶ τὴν σφύραν, <οὐ> δι' ἑτέρου τινὸς ὀργάνου, παρὰ τοῦ τεχνίτου πρώτην γενέσθαι καὶ οὕτω διὰ ταύτης τὰ ἄλλα, ταῦτα καὶ περὶ τοῦ μονογενοῦς νοεῖν ἡ τοῦ ἀμεσιτεύτου λέξις τὸν λογο 3.2.121 γράφον ἐνδείκνυται. καὶ οὐ μόνος ἐν τούτῳ πεπλάνηται κατὰ τὴν ἀτοπίαν τοῦ δόγματος ὁ Εὐνόμιος, ἀλλ' ἔστι καὶ ἐν τοῖς Θεογνώστῳ πεπονημένοις τὸ ἴσον εὑρεῖν, ὅς φησι τὸν θεὸν βουλόμενον τόδε τὸ πᾶν κατασκευάσαι πρῶτον τὸν υἱὸν οἷόν τινα κανόνα τῆς δημιουργίας