Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Archelaus/Acts of Disputation/Chapter XV

by Archelaus

15. The judges said: We need not inquire as to the manner in which that primitive commerce took place until we have first seen it proved that there are two natural principles. For when once it is made clear that there are two unbegotten natures, then others of your averments may also gain our assent, even although something in them may not seem to fit in very readily with what is credible. For as the power of pronouncing judgment has been committed to us, we shall declare what may make itself clear to our mind. We may, however, also grant to Archelaus the liberty of speaking to these statements of yours, so that, by comparing what is said by each of you, we may be able to give our decision in accordance with the truth. Archelaus said: Notwithstanding, the adversary’s intent is replete with gross audacity and blasphemy. Manes said: Hear, O judges, what he has said of the adversary.^[1] He admits, then, that there are two objects. Archelaus said: It seems to me that this man is full of madness rather than of prudence, who would stir up a controversy with me to-day because I chance to speak of the adversary. But this objection of yours may be removed with few words, notwithstanding that you have supposed from this expression of mine that I shall allow that there are these two natures.^[2] You have come forward with a most extravagant^[3] doctrine; for neither of the assertions made by you holds good. For it is quite possible that one who is an adversary, not by nature, but by determination, may be made a friend, and cease to be an adversary; and thus, when the one of us has come to acquiesce with the other, we twain shall appear to be, as it were, one and the same object. This account also indicates that rational creatures have been entrusted with free-will,^[4] in virtue of which they also admit of conversions. And consequently there cannot be two unbegotten natures.^[5] What do you say, then? Are these two natures inconvertible? or are they convertible? or is one of them converted? Manes, however, held back, because he did not find a suitable reply; for he was pondering the conclusion which might be drawn from either of two answers which he might make, turning the matter over thus in his thoughts: If I say that they are converted, he will meet me with that statement which is recorded in the Gospel about the trees;^[6] but if I say that they are not convertible, he will necessarily ask me to explain the condition and cause of their intermingling. In the meantime, after a little delay, Manes replied: They are indeed both inconvertible in so far as contraries are concerned; but they are convertible as far as properties^[7] are concerned. Archelaus then said: You seem to me to be out of your mind, and oblivious of your own propositions; yea, you do not appear even to recognise the powers or qualities of the very words which you have been learning.^[8] For you do not understand either what conversion is, or what is meant by unbegotten, or what duality implies, or what is past, or what is present, or what is future, as I have gathered from the opinions to which you have just now given expression. For you have affirmed, indeed, that each of these two natures is inconvertible so far as regards contraries, but convertible so far as regards properties. But I maintain that one who moves in properties does not pass out of himself, but subsists in these same properties, in which he is ever inconvertible; while in the case of one who is susceptible of conversion, the effect is that he is placed outside the pale of properties, and passes within the sphere of accidents.^[9]

Footnotes

1. The text is “quid dixerit adversarii;” some propose “quod” or “quia dixerit,” etc.
2. The manuscript reading is, “tam si quidem ex hoc arbitratus est se affirmaturum.” For this it is proposed to read, as in the translation, “tametsi quidem ex hoc arbitratus es me affirmaturum.”
3. The text gives ingentem. Routh suggests inscientem, stupid.
4. [Vol. iii. 301–302. See Coleridge (on Donne), English Divines, vol. i. p. 87.]
5. Adopting the proposed reading, “et ideo duæ, ingenitæ naturæ esse non possunt.” The text omits the duæ, however; and in that case the sense would be simply, And consequently there cannot be unbegotten natures; or perhaps, And so they (the creatures) cannot be of an unbegotten nature.
6. [Matt. vii. 15–20.]
7. Propria.
8. Didicisti. But perhaps we ought to read dixisti, which you have been uttering.
9. Aliena, of what is alien.