Orations against the Arians · §3 · Eustathius of Antioch

The Arians as mutilating false accusers

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Eustathius continues his accusation that the Arians quote Scripture dishonestly, now describing how they cut up the passage to make their case.

But like clever false accusers and prosecutors, they mutilate the passage and then stage their contest of accusation.

Greek

ἐκφωνοῦσιν. Ἀλλὰ ὥσπερ δεινοὶ συκοφάνται καὶ κατήγοροι ἀκρωτηριάσαντες τὸ χωρίον, τὸν ἀγῶνα τῆς κατηγορίας ποιοῦνται.

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About this text

Orations against the Arians attributed to Eustathius of Antioch.

Eustathius of Antioch (fl. c. 320–337) wrote this treatise against the Arians, followers of the presbyter Arius. He had been bishop of Beroea before becoming bishop of Antioch, and he was one of the most prominent opponents of Arianism at the Council of Nicaea. The surviving fragments come from a larger work in eight books, written to refute Arian claims about Christ.

The occasion is a dispute over how to read Scripture. Eustathius accuses the Arians of quoting dishonestly: they say that Christ committed sin, but they suppress the words that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. He calls them false accusers and says they are mutilating the biblical passage. A reader will meet Arius himself only as the named source of the movement, while the Arians appear as quoted or paraphrased opponents whose words Eustathius reports and argues against.

The argument turns on two pairs of terms. Eustathius insists that created and begotten are mutually exclusive: if Christ is created, he is not begotten, and if begotten, not created, since both cannot apply to the same nature. He then reasons that whatever has a beginning also admits an end, and whatever admits an end is capable of corruption, implying that a created Christ would be corruptible. Readers should know that the scriptural allusion is to 2 Corinthians 5:19, and that the terms created and begotten carry the technical sense of made versus begotten as rendered here.

Printed text used

Translated from PG 18 (Greek)

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