Sketch of the Life and Works of Saint Basil the Great

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Page 46

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, 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]

[320] ousia.

[321] Id.

[322] Id. ii.

[323] i.e. Lucifer, cf. Is. xiv. 13.

[324] On koine ennoia, cf. Origen, C. Cels. i. 4.

[325] Ps. cxxxix. 6.

[326] Is. liii. 8.

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