Gregory Of Nazianzus Quotes

The three most ancient opinions concerning God are Anarchia, Polyarchia, and Monarchia. The first two are the sport of the children of Hellas, and may they continue to be so. For Anarchy is a thing without order; and the Rule of Many is factious, and thus anarchical, and thus disorderly. For both these tend to the same thing, namely disorder; and this to dissolution, for disorder is the first step to dissolution. But Monarchy is what we hold in honor.

For nothing is so pleasant to men as talking of other people's business, especially under the influence of affection or hatred, which often almost entirely blinds us to the truth.

If you make incomprehensibility a ground for denying the fact, it is high time you ruled out as non-existent a good number of things you do not understand...

Neither male nor female language adequately grasps the fullness of the divine reality (Gregory Nazianzus, Orat. 27; John of Damascus, OF 1.4–8).

We have broken up for ourselves the fallow ground of divinity so as not to sow upon thorns, and have levelled the surface of the ground, being formed and forming others by Holy Scripture...

We must begin by purifying ourselves before purifying others; we must be instructed to be able to instruct, become light to illuminate, draw close to God to bring him close to others, be sanctified to sanctify, lead by the hand and counsel prudently.

But why would anyone on a joyous occasion rake over past unpleasantness and dwell on painful events horrible to experience and repellent to recall? Silence is mightier than words. It clothes the wreckage that befalls us in the deep folds of forgetfulness unless someone stirs up the painful memories for the sole purpose of edifying us by example and, as with illnesses, of helping us avoid the causes that led us to them.

Discussion of theology is not for everyone, I tell you, not for everyone-it is no such inexpensive or effortless pursuit. Nor, I would add, is it for every occasion, or every audience; neither are all its aspects open to inquiry. It must be reserved for certain occasions, for certain audiences, and certain limits must be observed. It is not for all people, but only for those who have been tested and have found a sound footing in study, and, more importantly, have undergone, or at the very least are undergoing purification of body and soul. For one who is not pure to lay hold of pure things is dangerous, just as it is for weak eyes to look at the sun's brightness. What is the right time? Whenever we are free from the mire and noise without, and our commanding faculty is not confused by illusory, wandering images, leading us, as it were, to mix fine script with ugly scrawling, or sweet-smelling scent with slime. We need actually "to be still" in order to know God, and when we receive the opportunity, "to judge uprightly" in theology. Who should listen to discussions of theology? Those for whom it is a serious undertaking, not just another subject like any other for entertaining small-talk, after the races, the theater, songs, food, and sex: for there are people who count chatter on theology and clever deployment of arguments as one of their amusements. What aspects of theology should be investigated, and to what limit? Only aspects within our grasp, and only to the limit of the experience and capacity of our audience. Just as excess of sound or food injures the hearing or general health, or, if you prefer, as loads that are too heavy injure those who carry them, or as excessive rain harms the soil, we too must guard against the danger that the toughness, so to speak, of our discourses may so oppress and overtax our hearers as actually to impair the powers they had before.

THE HOLY SPIRIT VITAL TO JESUS’ MINISTRY. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: Christ is born; the Spirit is his forerunner.12 Christ is baptized; the Spirit bears him witness. Christ is tempted. The Spirit leads him up.13 Christ performs miracles. The Spirit accompanies him.14 Christ ascends. The Spirit fills his place.

The opinions about deity that hold pride of place are in number: atheism, polytheism and monotheism. With the first two the children of Greece amused themselves. Let the game go on! Atheism with its lack of a governing principle involves disorder. Polytheism with a plurality of such principles, involves faction and hence the absence of a governing principle, and this involves disorder again. Both lead to an identical result-lack of order, which, in turn, leads to disintegration. Monotheism, with its single governing principle, is what we value-not monotheism defined as the sovereignty of a single person (after all, self-discordant unity can become a plurality) but the single rule produced by equality of nature, harmony of will, identity of action and the convergence towards their source of what springs from unity-none of which is possible in the case of created nature. The result is that though there is numerical distinction, there is no division, there is no division of the substance. For this reason, a one eternally changes into a two and stops at three-meaning the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In a serene, non-temporal, incorporeal way the Father is parent of the 'offspring'.

The opinions about deity that hold pride of place are in number: atheism, polytheism and monotheism. With the first two the children of Greece amused themselves. Let the game go on! Atheism with its lack of a governing principle involves disorder. Polytheism with a plurality of such principles, involves faction and hence the absence of a governing principle, and this involves disorder again. Both lead to an identical result-lack of order, which, in turn, leads to disintegration. Monotheism, with its single governing principle, is what we value-not monotheism defined as the sovereignty of a single person (after all, self-discordant unity can become a plurality) but the single rule produced by equality of nature, harmony of will, identity of action and the convergence towards their source of what springs from unity-none of which is possible in the case of created nature. The result is that though there is numerical distinction, there is no division, there is no division of the substance. For this reason, a one eternally changes into a two and stops at three-meaning the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In a serene, non-temporal, incorporeal way the Father is parent of the 'offspring'.

The three one God when contemplated together; each God because consubstantial; one God because of the monarchia.

Whoever does not accept Holy Mary as the Mother of God has no relation with the Godhead. -St. Gregory of Nazianzus, First Letter to Cledonius, n. 5

Whoever does not accept Holy Mary as the Mother of God has no relation with the Godhead. - St. Gregory of Nazianzus , On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius (First Letter to Cledonius the Presbyter, n. 5)

Morning Prayer Gregory of Nazianzus (329–390) ☙ 15 As the sun rises, I lift my hand to you, O God, for you to determine my path. Please control my passions. Help me stand firm in your ways and live this day for you. Allow no dark words, no sin-filled acts, no base thoughts even to enter my life. Rather, watch over all my internal actions so that I may truly keep my vow to you. Please keep me from bringing shame to myself or, more importantly, to your people. Indeed, let your will be done through the grace that you give to me. Amen.

Fourth-century church father Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, “God became human and poor for our sake, to raise up our flesh, to recover our divine image, to recreate humanity. We no longer observe distinctions arriving from the flesh, but are to bear within ourselves only the seal of God, by whom and for whom we were created. We are to be so formed and molded by Jesus that we are recognized as belonging to his one family. If only we could be what we hope to be, by the great kindness of our generous God!

A man must himself be cleansed, before cleansing others: himself become wise, that he may make others wise; become light, and then give light: draw near to God, and so bring others near; be hallowed, then hallow them; be possessed of hands to lead others by the hand, of wisdom to give advice. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 2.71

Gregory of Nazianzus was amused by any who would insistently hold “God to be a male” which he regarded as a misplaced analogy.

Since it was no mere death from suffocation that Jesus suffered, but a bloody death, in which His veins were emptied of their blood, this condition of separation must receive visible representation on the altar. This condi tion is fulfilled only by the double Consecration, which brings before our eyes the Body and Blood in the state of separation and thus represents the mystical shedding of the Blood. It is this consideration that suggested to the Fathers the idea, which was adopted into some litur gies, of the double Consecration as a two-edged " mys tical sword." Thus St. Gregory of Nazianzus says: " Hesitate not to pray for me, . . . when with bloodless stroke thou separatest the Body and Blood of the Lord, employing speech as a sword." 21

The monad is set in motion in virtue of its richness; the dyad is surpassed (for the deity is above matter and form); the triad contains itself in perfection, for it is the first which surpasses the composition of the dyad. Thus, the Godhead does not dwell within bounds, nor does it spread itself indefinitely. The one would be without honour, the other would be contrary to order. The God in Trinity one would be wholly Judaic, the other Hellenistic and polytheistic.

Triad is the name which unites things united by nature, and never allows those which are inseparable to be scattered by a number which separates.

No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendor of the three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one. When I think of anyone of the three I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that one so as to attribute a greater greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided light.

The church is called 'the pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Tim. 3:15) not because she supports and gives authority to the truth (since the truth is rather the foundation upon which the church is built, Eph. 2:20), but because it stands before the church as a pillar and makes itself conspicuous to all. Therefore it is called a pillar, not in an architectural sense (as pillars are used for the support of buildings), but in a forensic and political sense (as the edicts of the emperor and the decrees and laws of the magistrates were usually posted against pillars before the court houses and praetoria and before the gates of the basilica so that all might be informed of them, as noted by Pliny, Natural History, lib. 6, c. 28+ and Josephus,? AJ 1.70–71 [Loeb, 4:32–33]). So the church is the pillar of the truth both by reason of promulgating and making it known (because she is bound to promulgate the law of God, and heavenly truth is attached to it so that it may become known to all) and by reason of guarding it. For she ought not only to set it forth, but also to vindicate and defend it. Therefore she is called not only a pillar, but also a stay by which the truth when known may be vindicated and preserved pure and entire against all corruptions. But she is not called a foundation, in the sense of giving to the truth itself its own substructure and firmness. (2) Whatever is called the pillar and stay of the truth is not therefore infallible; for so the ancients called those who, either in the splendor of their doctrine or in the holiness of their lives or in unshaken constancy, excelled others and confirmed the doctrines of the gospel and the Christian faith by precept and example; as Eusebius says the believers in Lyons call Attalus the Martyr (Ecclesiastical History 5.1 [FC 19:276]); Basil distinguishes the orthodox bishops who opposed the Arian heresy by this name (Letter 243; and Gregory Nazianzus so calls Athanasius. In the same sense, judges in a pure and uncorrupted republic are called the pillars and stays of the laws. (3) This passage teaches the duty of the church, but not its infallible prerogative (i.e., what she is bound to do in the promulgation and defending of the truth against the corruptions of its enemies, but not what she can always do). In Mal. 2:7, the 'priest’s lips' are said to 'keep knowledge' because he is bound to do it (although he does not always do it as v. 8 shows). (4) Whatever is here ascribed to the church belongs to the particular church at Ephesus to which, however, the papists are not willing to give the prerogative of infallibility. Again, it treats of the collective church of believers in which Timothy was to labor and exercise his ministry, not as the church representative of the pastors, much less of the pope (in whom alone they think infallibility resides). (5) Paul alludes here both to the use of pillars in the temples of the Gentiles (to which were attached either images of the gods or the laws and moral precepts; yea, even oracles, as Pausanius and Athenaeus testify) that he may oppose these pillars of falsehood and error (on which nothing but fictions and the images of false gods were exhibited) to that mystical pillar of truth on which the true image of the invisible God is set forth (Col. 1:15) and the heavenly oracles of God made to appear; and to that remarkable pillar which Solomon caused to be erected in the temple (2 Ch. 6:13; 2 K. 11:14; 23:3) which kings ascended like a scaffold as often as they either addressed the people or performed any solemn service, and was therefore called by the Jews the 'royal pillar.' Thus truth sits like a queen upon the church; not that she may derive her authority from it (as Solomon did not get his from that pillar), but that on her, truth may be set forth and preserved.

The church is called 'the pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Tim. 3:15) not because she supports and gives authority to the truth (since the truth is rather the foundation upon which the church is built, Eph. 2:20), but because it stands before the church as a pillar and makes itself conspicuous to all. Therefore it is called a pillar, not in an architectural sense (as pillars are used for the support of buildings), but in a forensic and political sense (as the edicts of the emperor and the decrees and laws of the magistrates were usually posted against pillars before the court houses and praetoria and before the gates of the basilica so that all might be informed of them, as noted by Pliny, Natural History, lib. 6, c. 28+ and Josephus,? AJ 1.70–71 [Loeb, 4:32–33]). So the church is the pillar of the truth both by reason of promulgating and making it known (because she is bound to promulgate the law of God, and heavenly truth is attached to it so that it may become known to all) and by reason of guarding it. For she ought not only to set it forth, but also to vindicate and defend it. Therefore she is called not only a pillar, but also a stay by which the truth when known may be vindicated and preserved pure and entire against all corruptions. But she is not called a foundation, in the sense of giving to the truth itself its own substructure and firmness. (2) Whatever is called the pillar and stay of the truth is not therefore infallible; for so the ancients called those who, either in the splendor of their doctrine or in the holiness of their lives or in unshaken constancy, excelled others and confirmed the doctrines of the gospel and the Christian faith by precept and example; as Eusebius says the believers in Lyons call Attalus the Martyr (Ecclesiastical History 5.1 [FC 19:276]); Basil distinguishes the orthodox bishops who opposed the Arian heresy by this name (hoi styloi kai to hedraiōma tēs alētheias, Letter 243 [70] [FC 28:188; PG 32.908]); and Gregory Nazianzus so calls Athanasius. In the same sense, judges in a pure and uncorrupted republic are called the pillars and stays of the laws. (3) This passage teaches the duty of the church, but not its infallible prerogative (i.e., what she is bound to do in the promulgation and defending of the truth against the corruptions of its enemies, but not what she can always do). In Mal. 2:7, the 'priest’s lips' are said to 'keep knowledge' because he is bound to do it (although he does not always do it as v. 8 shows). (4) Whatever is here ascribed to the church belongs to the particular church at Ephesus to which, however, the papists are not willing to give the prerogative of infallibility. Again, it treats of the collective church of believers in which Timothy was to labor and exercise his ministry, not as the church representative of the pastors, much less of the pope (in whom alone they think infallibility resides). (5) Paul alludes here both to the use of pillars in the temples of the Gentiles (to which were attached either images of the gods or the laws and moral precepts; yea, even oracles, as Pausanius and Athenaeus testify) that he may oppose these pillars of falsehood and error (on which nothing but fictions and the images of false gods were exhibited) to that mystical pillar of truth on which the true image of the invisible God is set forth (Col. 1:15) and the heavenly oracles of God made to appear; and to that remarkable pillar which Solomon caused to be erected in the temple (2 Ch. 6:13; 2 K. 11:14; 23:3) which kings ascended like a scaffold as often as they either addressed the people or performed any solemn service, and was therefore called by the Jews the 'royal pillar.' Thus truth sits like a queen upon the church; not that she may derive her authority from it (as Solomon did not get his from that pillar), but that on her, truth may be set forth and preserved.

The church is called 'the pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Tim. 3:15) not because she supports and gives authority to the truth (since the truth is rather the foundation upon which the church is built, Eph. 2:20), but because it stands before the church as a pillar and makes itself conspicuous to all. Therefore it is called a pillar, not in an architectural sense (as pillars are used for the support of buildings), but in a forensic and political sense (as the edicts of the emperor and the decrees and laws of the magistrates were usually posted against pillars before the court houses and praetoria and before the gates of the basilica so that all might be informed of them, as noted by Pliny, Natural History, lib. 6, c. 28+ and Josephus,? AJ 1.70–71 [Loeb, 4:32–33]). So the church is the pillar of the truth both by reason of promulgating and making it known (because she is bound to promulgate the law of God, and heavenly truth is attached to it so that it may become known to all) and by reason of guarding it. For she ought not only to set it forth, but also to vindicate and defend it. Therefore she is called not only a pillar, but also a stay by which the truth when known may be vindicated and preserved pure and entire against all corruptions. But she is not called a foundation, in the sense of giving to the truth itself its own substructure and firmness. (2) Whatever is called the pillar and stay of the truth is not therefore infallible; for so the ancients called those who, either in the splendor of their doctrine or in the holiness of their lives or in unshaken constancy, excelled others and confirmed the doctrines of the gospel and the Christian faith by precept and example; as Eusebius says the believers in Lyons call Attalus the Martyr (Ecclesiastical History 5.1 [FC 19:276]); Basil distinguishes the orthodox bishops who opposed the Arian heresy by this name (Letter 243 [70] [FC 28:188; PG 32.908]); and Gregory Nazianzus so calls Athanasius. In the same sense, judges in a pure and uncorrupted republic are called the pillars and stays of the laws. (3) This passage teaches the duty of the church, but not its infallible prerogative (i.e., what she is bound to do in the promulgation and defending of the truth against the corruptions of its enemies, but not what she can always do). In Mal. 2:7, the 'priest’s lips' are said to 'keep knowledge' because he is bound to do it (although he does not always do it as v. 8 shows). (4) Whatever is here ascribed to the church belongs to the particular church at Ephesus to which, however, the papists are not willing to give the prerogative of infallibility. Again, it treats of the collective church of believers in which Timothy was to labor and exercise his ministry, not as the church representative of the pastors, much less of the pope (in whom alone they think infallibility resides). (5) Paul alludes here both to the use of pillars in the temples of the Gentiles (to which were attached either images of the gods or the laws and moral precepts; yea, even oracles, as Pausanius and Athenaeus testify) that he may oppose these pillars of falsehood and error (on which nothing but fictions and the images of false gods were exhibited) to that mystical pillar of truth on which the true image of the invisible God is set forth (Col. 1:15) and the heavenly oracles of God made to appear; and to that remarkable pillar which Solomon caused to be erected in the temple (2 Ch. 6:13; 2 K. 11:14; 23:3) which kings ascended like a scaffold as often as they either addressed the people or performed any solemn service, and was therefore called by the Jews the 'royal pillar.' Thus truth sits like a queen upon the church; not that she may derive her authority from it (as Solomon did not get his from that pillar), but that on her, truth may be set forth and preserved.

For what gave order to things heavenly and earthly and to all that pass through air and live under water, and mode than that to what came before them-I mean heaven, earth, air, and the element of water themselves? Who combines these elements and divided them out? What a wonderful communion they have with each other, and also harmony and arrangement! I praise the man, non-Christian though he was, who asked: 'What set these elements in motion and leads their ceaseless, unimpeded flow?' It was surely their designer, who implants in all things reason whereby the universe is conducted and carried along. And who is their designer? Surely he who has made them and brought them into existence. Great power like this cannot be ascribed to chance. Supposing chance brought them into existence, what gave them order? Granting this possibility too, if you like, to chance, what of their first constitution? Chance again, or something else? Clearly something beyond chance. What can this 'something' be if not God? Thus God-derived reason, bound up, connected, with the whole of nature, man's most ancient law, has led us up from things of sight to God.

For it is one thing to be persuaded of the existence of a thing, and quite another to know what it is. Now our very eyes and the law of nature teach us that God exists and that He is the efficient and maintaining Cause of all things: our eyes, because they fall on visible objects, and see them in beautiful stability and progress, immovably moving and revolving if I may so say; the law of nature, because through these visible things and their order, it reasons back to their Author. For how could this universe have come into being or been put together, unless God had called it into existence, and held it together? For every one who sees a beautifully made cithara, and considers the skill with which it has been fitted together and arranged, or who hears its melody, would think of none but the maker of this cithara, or the player of it, and would recur to him in mind, though he might not know him by sight. And thus to us also is manifested the One who made and moves and preserves all created things, even though He is not comprehended by the mind. And very wanting in sense is he who will not willingly go thus for in following natural proofs.

He whom presently you scorn was once transcendent, over even you. He who is presently human was incomposite. He remained what he was; what he was not, he assumed. No “because” is required for his existence in the beginning, for what could account for the existence of God? But later he came into being because of something, namely for your salvation, yours, who insulted him and despised his Godhead for that very reason, because he took on your thick corporeality. Through the medium of the mind he had dealings with the flesh, being made that God on earth….He was carried in the womb, but acknowledged by a prophet yet unborn himself, who leaped for joy at the presence of the Word for whose sake he had been created. He was wrapped in swaddling bands, but at the Resurrection he unloosed the swaddling bands of the grave. He was laid in a manger, but was extolled by angels, disclosed by a star and adored by Magi. Why do you take offense at what you see, instead of attending to its spiritual significance?

THE LAW GIVEN TO ADAM IN PARADISE. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: [God gave Adam] a law as a material for his free will to act on. This law was a commandment as to what plants he might partake of and which one he might not touch. This latter was the tree of knowledge; not, however, because it was evil from the beginning when planted, nor was it forbidden because God grudged it to us—let not the enemies of God wag their tongues in that direction or imitate the serpent. But it would have been good if partaken of at the proper time. The tree was, according to my theory, contemplation, which is safe only for those who have reached maturity of habit to enter upon, but which is not good for those who are still somewhat simple and greedy, just as neither is solid food good for those who are yet tender and have need of milk. SECOND ORATION ON EASTER 8.10

the pastoral office was once compatible with robust theological scholarship. Irenaeus, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Anselm, Calvin, Edwards, Wesley, etc., all demonstrate the historic and native relationship between theological leadership and the pastoral vocation. But we have lost sight of this

Attack the silence of Pythagoras, and the Orphic beans, and that preposterous brag, "Himself has spoken." Attack the "Ideas" of Plato, and the transbodiment and circulation of our souls, and the reminiscences, and the unlovely loves of lovely bodies, though directed to the beloved's soul. Attack the atheism of Epicurus, and his atoms, and his doctrine of pleasure, unworthy of a philosopher; or Aristotle's petty Providence, and his artificial system, and his discourses about the mortality of the soul, and the exclusively human focus his teaching. Attack the haughtiness of the Stoa, or the greed and vulgarity of the Cynic. Attack for me the emptiness that is full of absurdities - all that stuff about the gods and the sacrifices and the idols and the demons, whether beneficent or malignant, and all the tricks that people play with divination, the calling up of gods or of souls, and the power of stars.

Theologian Michael Vlach has done an admirable job chronicling the appearances of penal substitution in the writings of the fathers,9 citing Clement of Rome, Ignatius, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Epistle to Diognetus, Justin Martyr, Eusebius of Caesarea, Eusebius of Emesa, Hilary of Poitiers, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory the Great, Severus of Antioch, Oecumenius, and of course Augustine of Hippo. Vlach’s significant documentation spans the first ten centuries of the orthodox church.

He was, you might say, a hothouse flower, brilliant and blooming in warm admiration and a modicum of protective privacy, withering under the cold blast of stress.

Whoever does not accept Holy Mary as the Mother of God has no relation with the Godhead.6 Whoever says that he was channeled, as it were, through the Virgin but not formed within her divinely and humanly (“divinely” because without a husband, “humanly” because by law of conception) is likewise godless.

One plus one makes two, and two resolves into one plus one? Yes, of course. So if things added together are consubstantial and things separated are of different substances, what will happen according to you? The same things will have to be both consubstantial and of different substances.

Thus do I stand, thus may I stand, and those I love as well, on these issues, able to worship the Father as God, the Son as God, the Holy Spirit as God—“three personalities, one Godhead undivided in glory, honor, substance, and sovereignty,” as one inspired saint of recent times wisely expressed it.

Is there any significant function belonging to God, which the Spirit does not perform? Is there any title belonging to God, which cannot apply to him, except “ingenerate” and “begotten”? The Father and the Son, after all, continue to have their personalities; there must be no confusion with the Godhead, which brings all other things into harmonious order.

For this reason, he acts like a schoolmaster or doctor, taking away some ancestral customs, allowing others. He yields on some trifles which make for happiness, just as physicians do with the sick to get the medicine taken along with the sweeter ingredients artfully blended in.

Men who speak and teach thus, who use the expression “another Comforter”137 with almost the meaning “an additional God,” men who are conscious that blasphemy against him is uniquely unpardonable,138 who so frighteningly placarded the guilty Ananias and Sapphira, when they lied to the Spirit, as “liars to God not to man”139—are those men, in your opinion, preaching that the Holy Spirit is God or that he is something else? You must be literally impenetrable, utterly unspiritual, if you feel any hesitancy here or need any further instruction.

It belongs to despotic power to use force; it is a mark of God’s reasonableness that the issue should be ours. God thought it wrong to do men good against their will but right to benefit those with a mind to it.

resolved to keep close to the more truly religious view and rest content with some few words, taking the Spirit as my guide and, in his company and in partnership with him, safeguarding to the end the genuine illumination I had received from him, as I strike out a path through this world. To the best of my powers I will persuade all men to worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the single Godhead and power, because to him belong all glory, honor, and might for ever and ever.149 Amen.

What was Adam? Something molded by God.31 What was Eve? A portion of that molded creation.32 Seth? He was the offspring of the pair.33 Are they not, in your view, the same thing—the molded creation, the portion, and the offspring? Yes, of course they are. Were they consubstantial? Yes, of course they were. It is agreed, then, that things with a different individual being can be of the same substance.

What does this amount to? people will say. There cannot be two things, one an offspring and the other something else, coming from the single source. Why not? Were not Eve and Seth of the same Adam? Whose else? Were they both offspring? Certainly not. Why?—because one was a portion of Adam, the other an offspring. Yet they had a mutual identity—they were both human beings, nobody can gainsay that.

Do not truncate the single and equally august nature at any point. Because whichever of the Trinity you destroy, you will have destroyed the whole—or rather, you will have been banished from the whole. It is better to have a meager idea of the union than to venture on total blasphemy.

If there was a “when” when the Father did not exist, there was a “when” when the Son did not exist. If there was a “when” when the Son did not exist, there was a “when” when the Holy Spirit did not exist. If one existed from the beginning,11 so did all three. If you cast one down, I make bold to tell you not to exalt the other two. What use is incomplete deity? Or rather what is deity if it is incomplete?

We say there is no deficiency—God lacks nothing. It is their difference in, so to say, “manifestation” or mutual relationship, which has caused the difference in names. The Son does not fall short in some particular of being Father. Sonship is no defect, yet that does not mean he is Father.

perfection does not result from additions. It was never the case that he was without his Word, that he was not Father, that he was not true, or that he was without wisdom and power, or that he lacked life, splendor, or goodness.

None is good”97 are a reply to the lawyer who was testing him and had borne witness to his goodness as man. Consummate goodness, he meant, belongs to God alone, though the word “good” can be applied to man.

when it comes to God, you attach an awe-inspiring solemnity to him, a transcendence of every substance and nature. What constitutes the unique nature of God’s deity, so to say, you ascribe to the Father but then rob the Son of it and make him subordinate. You give the Son a second level in quality and worship. Even if you endow him with the syllables which make up the word “similar,” you in fact truncate his Godhead, and make a mischievous transition from an homonymity maintaining equality to one connecting unequals.

This is how I take the statement that the Son does whatever is effected by the Father, in the same way.78 It is not a question of similarity between their creatures, but of having equal authority over their creation.

Atheism with its lack of a governing principle involves disorder. Polytheism, with a plurality of such principles, involves faction and hence the absence of a governing principle, and this involves disorder again. Both lead to an identical result—lack of order, which, in turn, leads to disintegration, disorder being the prelude to disintegration.

He whom presently you scorn was once transcendent, over even you. He who is presently human was incomposite. He remained what he was; what he was not, he assumed. No “because” is required for his existence in the beginning,54 for what could account for the existence of God?

God’s begetting ought to have the tribute of our reverent silence. The important point is for you to learn that he has been begotten. As to the way it happens, we shall not concede that even angels, much less you, know that. Shall I tell you the way? It is a way known only to the begetting Father and the begotten Son. Anything beyod this fact is hidden by a cloud and escapes your dull vision.

He says what the Father’s will is: that every believer in the Son should be saved and should obtain resurrection or re-instatement at the last.89 Is this the Father’s will, but not the Son’s at all? Is he unwilling to be preached about or believed in? Who would credit that idea, when the statement that the word which is heard is not the Son’s bu the Father’s90 has the same force? Though I have often looked into the matter, I cannot understand how a common property could belong to only one thing. Nor, I think, can anyone else.

I should have felt some awe myself at your dilemma, had it been necessary to accept one of the alternatives and impossible to avoid them by stating a third, and truer possibility. My expert friends, it is this: “Father” designates neither the substance nor the activity, but the relationship, the manner of being, which holds good between the Father and the

Of course there is something especially difficult in the doctrine of the Spirit. It is not just that men exhausted by discussions of the Son are more eager to take on the Spirit—they must have something to blaspheme or life would be unlivable—but also that we become worn out by the quantity of issues.

Yes, you have relieved yourself of trouble with a single word. Yet you gain a poor kind of victory—it is rather like people hanging themselves because they are afraid of death.

The “gods” and (as they themselves style them) “demons” worshipped by the pagans have no need of us to accuse them. They stand convicted by their own theologians of being affected by evil emotions, of being quarrelsome, of being brimful of mischief in all its varieties.

It is more important that we should remember God than that we should breathe: indeed, if one may say so, we should do nothing else besides.

Why do we allow audiences hostile to our subject-matter to listen to discussion of the “generation” and “creation” of God, or of God’s “production from non-being,” and such dissections, and distinctions, and analyses? Why do we appoint our accusers as our judges? Why do we put swords into our enemies’ hands?

If we cannot resolve our disputes outright, let us at least make this mutual concession, to utter spiritual truths with the restraint due to them, to discuss holy things in a holy manner, and not to broadcast to profane hearing what is not to be divulged. Do not let us prove that we are less reverent than those who worship demons and venerate obscene tales and objects;

The purpose of this is to make you recognize God at least from the benefits you receive, and more conscious of your position if you lack them.

The arrogance of it! This is not the nature of bodies. Or is it corporeal but without these properties? The grossness of it, to say that deity has no properties superior to ours! How could it be worth worship were it bounded?

What moves this fifth element? What moves the whole? What moves that which moves the whole? and so on ad infinitum.

person who tells you what God is not but fails to tell you what he is, is rather like someone who, asked what twice five are, answers “not two, not three, not four, not five, not twenty, not thirty, no number, in short, under ten or over ten.

No, I wanted to make plain the point my sermon began with, which was this: the incomprehensibility of deity to the human mind and its totally unimaginable grandeur.

commend the man, non-Christian though he was,62 who asked: “What set these elements in motion and leads their ceaseless, unimpeded flow?” It was surely their designer, who implants in all things reason whereby the universe is conducted and carried along. And who is their designer? Surely he who made them and brought them into existence. Great power like this cannot be ascribed to chance. Supposing chance created them, what gave them order? Granting this possibility too, if you like, to chance, what preserves and guards them in the conditions of their first constitution? Chance again, or something else? Clearly something beyond chance. What can this “something” be if not God? Thus God-derived reason, bound up, connected, with the whole of nature, man’s most ancient law, has led us up from things of sight to God.