34 What "this" means is not clear: it may be "the Being," but most probably is the distinction which S. Gregory is pointing out between the Being and Its attributes, which he considers has not been sufficiently recognized.
35 Reading twn onomatwn ouk ontwn with the Paris editions. Oehler reads nohmatwn, but does not give any authority for the change.
36 The metaphor seems slightly confused, being partly taken from a tournament, or gladiatorial contest, partly from a race in armour.
37 The word ousia seems to have had in Eunomius' mind something of the same idea of corporeal existence attaching to it which has been made to attach to the Latin "substantia," and to the English "substance."
38 Cf. Col. i. 16, and Eph. i. 21.
3 Reading proqewroih for prosqewroih.
5 See note 4 on Book V. §1, where these words are also treated of.
8 Cf. Deut. xxxii. 17 (LXX.). The quotat on is not exact.
16 Oehler's punctuation here seems faulty.
17 To make the grammar of the sentence exact thn should here be substituted for ton, the object of the verb being apparently gennhsin not logon. The whole section of the analysis is rather confused, and does not clearly reproduce S. Gregory's division of the subject. A large part of this section, and of that which follows it, is repeated with very slight alteration from Bk. II. §9 (see pp. 113-115 above). The resemblances are much closer in the Greek text than they appear in the present translation, in which different hands have been at work in the two books.
19 anwtatw may be "supreme," in the sense of "ultimate" or "most remote," or in the more ordinary sense of "most exalted."
21 Or (reading as proposed above, p. 114, oikonomei for oikodomei), "the ordering of nature."
22 This passage is clearly corrupt: the general sense as probably intended is given here.
23 See note 7 in the last section.
24 The reference is probably to Ps. lx. 8, and Ps. cviii. 9.
32 Heb. i. 3, and Cant. i. 3, referred to above.
38 Or perhaps "or an irrational first cause," (alogon arxhn.)
39 The reference is to S. Basil adv. Eunomium II. 12 (p. 247 in Ben. ed.)
41 Reading umaj for hmaj. If the reading hmaj, which Oehler follows, is retained, the force would seem to be "that you think we ought not to make any difference," but the construction of the sentence in this case is cumbrous.
45 Apparently an inexact quotation of S. Matt. xi. 27.
47 That is, he must also acknowledges "middle" and an "end" of the existence which has a "beginning."
48 Oehler's emendation, for which he gives weighty ms. authority, is certainly an improvement on the earlier text, but in sense it is a little unsatisfactory. The argument seems to require the hypothesis not of some one acknowledging a person to be a man in all, but in some attributes. The defect, however, may possibly be in S. Gregory's argument, not in the text.
49 i. e. "if the `middle0' and `end0' are not admitted, at the `beginning,0' which is the `beginning0' of a sequence, is thereby implicitly denied." Oehler's punctuation has been somewhat altered here, and at several points in the remainder of the book, where it appears to require emendation.
50 Reading kthqen, with the Paris ed. of 1638. Oehler's reading ktisqe/ hardly seems to give so good a sense, and he does not give his authority for it.
52 Reading with Oehler, toij kata gnwmhn prosklinomenh. The reading proskinoumenoij, found in the earlier editions, gives a tolerable sense. but appears to have no ms. authority.
53 Or (if pantwj be constructed with antikeimenon), "will end, as it seems, in that state which is absolutely opposed to life."
56 i. e. the order of spiritual beings, including angels and human souls. Of these S. Gregory argues that they are capable of an akinhsia proj to agaqon which is death in them, as the absence of motion and sense is bodily death: and that they may therefore be said to have an end, as they had a beginning: so far as they are eternal it is not by their own power, but by their mutable nature being upheld by grace from this state of akinhsia proj to agaqon. On both these grounds therefore-that they have an end, and that such eternity as they possess is not inherent, but given ab extra, and contingent-he says they are not properly eternal, and he therefore rejects the proposed parallel.
1 This section of the analysis is so confused that it cannot well be literally translated. In the version given above the general sense rather than the precise grammatical construction has been followed.