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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 07 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 27.02.21 Orations XXIX Part 2
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XIII. What now remains of their invincible arguments? Perhaps the last they will take refuge in is this. If God has never ceased to beget, the Generation is imperfect; and when will He cease? But if He has ceased, then He must have begun. Thus again these carnal minds bring forward carnal arguments. Whether He is eternally begotten or not, I do not yet say, until I have looked into the statement, "Before all the hills He begetteth Me,"hyperlink more accurately. But I cannot see the necessity of their conclusion. For if, as they say, everything that is to come to an end had also a beginning, then surely that which has no end had no beginning. What then will they decide concerning the soul, or the Angelic nature? If it had a beginning, it will also have an end; and if it has no end, it is evident that according to them it had no beginning. But the truth is that it had a beginning, and will never have an end. Their assertion, then, that which will have an end had also a beginning, is untrue. Our position, however, is, that as in the case of a horse, or an ox, or a man, the same definition applies to all the individuals of the same species, and whatever shares the definition has also a right to the Name; so In the very same way there is One Essence of God, and One Nature, and One Name; although in accordance with a distinction in our thoughts we use distinct Names and that whatever is properly called by this Name really is God; and what He is in Nature, That He is truly called-if at least we are to hold that Truth is a matter not of names but of realities. But our opponents, as if they were afraid of leaving any stone unturned to subvert the Truth, acknowledge indeed that the Son is God when they are compelled to do so by argumentshyperlink and evidences; but they only mean that He is God in an ambiguous sense, and that He only shares the Name.
XIV. And when we advance this objection against them, "What do you mean to say then? That the Son is not properly God, just as a picture of an animal is not properly an animal? And if not properly God, in what sense is He God at all?" They reply, Why should not these terms be ambiguous, and in both cases be used in a proper sense? And they will give us such instances as the land-dog and the dogfish; where the word Dog is ambiguous, and yet in both cases is properly used, for there is such a species among the ambiguously named, or any other case in which the same appellative is used for two things of different nature, But, my good friend, in this case, when you include two natures under the same name, you do not assert that either is better than the other, or that the one is prior and the other posterior, or that one is in a greater degree and the other in a lesser that which is predicated of them both, for there is no connecting link which forces this necessity upon them. One is not a dog more than the other, and one less so; either the dogfish more than the land-dog, or the land-dog than the dogfish. Why should they be, or on what principle? But the community of name is here between things of equal value, though of different nature. But in the case of which we are speaking, you couple the Name of God with adorable Majesty, and make It surpass every essence and nature (an attribute of God alone), and then you ascribe this Name to the Father, while you deprive the Son of it, and make Him subject to the Father, and give Him only a secondary honour and worship; and even if in words you bestow on Him one which is Equal, yet in practice you cut off His Deity, and pass malignantly from a use of the same Name implying an exact equality, to one which connects things which are not equal. And so the pictured and the living man are in your mouth an apter illustration of the relations of Deity than the dogs which I instanced. Or else you must concede to both an equal dignity of nature as well as a common name-even though you introduced these natures into your argument as different; and thus you destroy the analogy of your dogs, which you invented as an instance of inequality. For what is the force of your instance of ambiguity, if those whom you distinguish are not equal in honour? For it was not to prove an equality but an inequality that you took refuge in your dogs. How could anybody be more clearly convicted of fighting both against his own arguments, and against the Deity?
XV. And if, when we admit that in respect of being the Cause the Father is greater than the Son, they should assume the premiss that He is the Cause by Nature, and then deduce the conclusion that He is greater by Nature also, it is difficult to say whether they mislead most themselves or those with whom they are arguing. For it does not absolutely follow that all that is predicated of a class can also be predicated of all the individuals composing it; for the different particulars may belong to different individuals. For what hinders me, if I assume the same premiss, namely, that the Father is greater by Nature, and then add this other, Yet not by nature in every respect greater nor yet Father-from concluding, Therefore the Greater is not in every respect greater, nor the Father in every respect Father? Or, if you prefer it, let us put it in this way: God is an Essence: But an Essence is not in every case God; and draw the conclusion for yourself-Therefore God is not in every case God. I think the fallacy here is the arguing from a conditioned to an unconditioned use of a term,hyperlink to use the technical expression of the logicians. For while we assign this word Greater to His Nature viewed as a Cause, they infer it of His Nature viewed in itself. It is just as if when we said that such a one was a dead man they were to infer simply that he was a Man.
XVI. How shall we pass over the following point, which is no less amazing than the rest? Father, they say, is a name either of an essence or of an Action, thinking to bind us down on both sides. If we say that it is a name of an essence, they will say that we agree with them that the Son is of another Essence, since there is but one Essence of God, and this, according to them, is preoccupied by the Father. On the other hand, if we say that it is the name of an Action, we shall be supposed to acknowledge plainly that the Son is created and not begotten. For where there is an Agent there must also be an Effect. And they will say they wonder how that which is made can be identical with That which made it. I should myself have been frightened with your distinction, if it had been necessary to accept one or other of the alternatives, and not rather put both aside, and state a third and truer one, namely, that Father is not a name either of an essence or of an action, most clever sirs. But it is the name of the Relation in which the Father stands to the Son, and the Son to the Father. For as with us these names make known a genuine and intimate relation, so, in the case before us too, they denote an identity of nature between Him That is begotten and Him That begets. But let us concede to you that Father is a name of essence, it will still bring in the idea of Son, and will not make it of a different nature, according to common ideas and the force of these names. Let it be, if it so please you, the name of an action; you will not defeat us in this way either. The Homoousion would be indeed the result of this action, or otherwise the conception of an action in this matter would be absurd. You see then how, even though you try to fight unfairly, we avoid your sophistries. But now, since we have ascertained how invincible you are in your arguments and sophistries, let us look at your strength in the Oracles of God, if perchance you may choose to persuade us out of them.
XVII. For we have learnt to believe in and to teach the Deity of the Son from their great and lofty utterances. And what utterances are these? These: God-The Word-He That Was In The Beginning and With The Beginning, and The Beginning. "In the Beginning was The Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,"hyperlink and "With Thee is the Beginning,"hyperlink and "He who calleth her The Beginning from generations."hyperlink Then the Son is Only-begotten: The only "begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, it says, He hath declared Him."hyperlink The Way, the Truth, the Life, the Light. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life;" and "I am the Light of the World."hyperlink Wisdom and Power, "Christ, the Wisdom of God, and the Power of God."hyperlink The Effulgence, the Impress, the Image, the Seal; "Who being the Effulgence of His glory and the Impress of His Essence,"hyperlink and "the Image of His Goodness,"hyperlink and "Him hath God the Father sealed."hyperlink Lord, King, He That Is, The Almighty. "The Lord rained down fire from the Lord; "hyperlink and "A sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy Kingdom;"hyperlink and "Which is and was and is to come, the Almighty"hyperlink -all which are clearly spoken of the Son, with all the other passages of the same force, none of which is an afterthought, or added later to the Son or the Spirit, any more than to the Father Himself. For Their Perfection is not affected by additions. There never was a time when He was without the Word, or when He was not the Father, or when He was not true, or not wise, or not powerful, or devoid of life, or of splendour, or of goodness.
But in opposition to all these, do you reckon up for me the expressions which make for your ignorant arrogance, such as "My God and your God,"hyperlink or greater, or created, or made, or sanctified;hyperlink Add, if you like, Servanthyperlink and Obedienthyperlink and Gavehyperlink and Learnt,hyperlink and was commanded,hyperlink was sent,hyperlink can do nothing of Himself, either say, or judge, or give, or will.hyperlink And further these,-His ignorance,hyperlink subjection,hyperlink prayer,hyperlink asking,hyperlink increase,hyperlink being made perfect.hyperlink And if you like even more humble than these; such as speak of His sleeping,hyperlink hungering,hyperlink being in an agony,hyperlink and fearing;hyperlink or perhaps you would make even His Cross and Death a matter of reproach to Him. His Resurrection and Ascension I fancy you will leave to me, for in these is found something to support our position. A good many other things too you might pick up, if you desire to put together that equivocal and intruded god of yours, Who to us is True God, and equal to the Father. For every one of these points, taken separately, may very easily, if we go through them one by one, be explained to you in the most reverent sense, and the stumbling-block of the letter be cleaned away-that is, if your stumbling at it be honest, and not wilfully malicious. To give you the explanation in one sentence. What is lofty you are to apply to the Godhead, and to that Nature in Him which is superior to sufferings and incorporeal; but all that is lowly to the composite conditionhyperlink of Him who for your sakes made Himself of no reputation and was Incarnate-yes, for it is no worse thing to say, was made Man, and afterwards was also exalted. The result will be that you will abandon these carnal and grovelling doctrines, and learn to be more sublime, and to ascend with His Godhead, and you will not remain permanently among the things of sight, but will rise up with Him into the world of thought, and come to know which passages refer to His Nature, and which to His assumption of Human Nature.hyperlink
XIX. For He Whom you now treat with contempt was once above you. He Who is now Man was once the Uncompounded. What He was He continued to be; what He was not He took to Himself.hyperlink In the beginning He was, uncaused; for what is the Cause of God? But afterwards for a cause He was born. And that came was that you might be saved, who insult Him and despise His Godhead, because of this, that He took upon Him your denser nature, having converse with Flesh by means of Mind.hyperlink While His inferior Nature, the Humanity, became God, because it was united to God, and became One Personhyperlink because the Higher Nature prevailed in order that I too might be made Goal so far as He is made Man.hyperlink He was born-but He had been begotten: He was born of a woman-but she was a Virgin. The first is human the second Divine. In His Human nature He had no Father, but also in His Divine Nature no Mother.hyperlink Both thesehyperlink belong to Godhead. He dwelt in the womb-but He was recognized by the Prophet,hyperlink himself still in the womb, leaping before the Word, for Whose sake He came into being. He was wrapped in swaddling clotheshyperlink -but He took off the swathing bands of the grave by His rising again. He was laid in a manger-but He was glorified by Angels, and proclaimed by a star, and worshipped by the Magi. Why are you offended by that which is presented to your sight, because you will not look at that which is presented to your mind? He was driven into exile into Egypt-but He drove away the Egyptian idols.hyperlink He had no form nor comeliness in the eyes of the Jewshyperlink -but to David He is fairer than the children of men.hyperlink And on the Mountain He was bright as the lightning, and became more luminous than the sun,hyperlink initiating us into the mystery of the future.
XX. He was baptized as Man-but He remitted sins as Godhyperlink -not because He needed purificatory rites Himself, but that He might sanctify the element of water. He was tempted as Man, but He conquered as God; yea, He bids us be of good cheer, for He has overcome the world.hyperlink He hungered-but He fed thousands;hyperlink yea, He is the Bread that giveth life, and That is of heaven. He thirsted-but He cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.hyperlink Yea, He promised that fountains should flow from them that believe. He was wearied, but He is the Rest of them that are weary and heavy laden.hyperlink He was heavy with sleep, but He walked lightly over the sea.hyperlink He rebuked the winds, He made Peter light as he began to sink.hyperlink He pays tribute, but it is out of a fish;hyperlink yea, He is the King of those who demanded it.hyperlink He is called a Samaritan and a demoniac;hyperlink -but He saves him that came down from Jerusalem and fell among thieves;hyperlink the demons acknowledge Him, and He drives out demons and sinks in the sea legions of foul spirits,hyperlink and sees the Prince of the demons falling like lightning.hyperlink He is stoned, but is not taken. He prays, but He hears prayer. He weeps, but He causes tears to cease. He asks where Lazarus was laid, for He was Man; but He raises Lazarus, for He was God.hyperlink He is sold, and very cheap, for it is only for thirty pieces of silver;hyperlink but He redeems the world, and that at a great price, for the Price was His own blood.hyperlink As a sheep He is led to the slaughter,hyperlink but He is the Shepherd of Israel, and now of the whole world also. As a Lamb He is silent, yet He is the Word, and is proclaimed by the Voice of one crying in the wilderness.hyperlink He is bruised and wounded, but He healeth every disease and every infirmity.hyperlink He is lifted up and nailed to the Tree, but by the Tree of Life He restoreth us; yea, He saveth even the Robber crucified with Him;hyperlink yea, He wrapped the visible world in darkness. He is given vinegar to drink mingled with gall. Who? He who turned the water into winehyperlink , who is the destroyer of the bitter taste, who is Sweetness and altogether desire.hyperlink He lays down His life, but He has power to take it again;hyperlink and the veil is rent, for the mysterious doors of Heaven are opened; the rocks are cleft, the dead arise.hyperlink He dies, but He gives life, and by His death destroys death. He is buried, but He rises again; He goes down into Hell, but He brings up the souls; He ascends to Heaven, and shall come again to judge the quick and the dead, and to put to the test such words as yours. If the one give you a starting point for your error, let the others put an end to it.
XXI. This, then, is our reply to those who would puzzle us; not given willingly indeed (for light talk and contradictions of words are not agreeable to the faith fill, and one Adversary is enough for us), but of necessity, for the sake of our assailants (for medicines exist because of diseases), that they may be led to see that they are not all-wise nor invincible in those superfluous arguments which make void the Gospel. For when we leave off believing, and protect ourselves by mere strength of argument, and destroy the claim which the Spirit has upon our faith by questionings, and then our argument is not strong enough for the importance of the subject (and this must necessarily be the case, since it is put in motion by an organ of so little power as is our mind), what is the result? The weakness of the argument appears to belong to the mystery, and thus elegance of language makes void the Cross, as Paul also thought.hyperlink For faith is that which completes our argument. But may He who proclaimeth unions and looseth those that are bound, and who putteth into our minds to solve the knots of their unnatural dogmas, if it may be, change these men and make them faithful instead of rhetoricians, Christians instead of that which they now are called. This indeed we entreat and beg for Christ's sake. Be ye reconciled to God,hyperlink and quench not the Spirit;hyperlink or rather, may Christ be reconciled to you, and may the Spirit enlighten you, though so late. But if you are too fond of your quarrel, we at any rate will hold fast to the Trinity, and by the Trinity may we be saved, remaining pure and without offence, until the more perfect shewing forth of that which we desire, in Him, Christ our Lord, to Whom be the glory for ever. Amen.
Footnotes
14 Prov. viii. 25.
15 The Benedictines here translate lo/yw by "Scripture," on the ground that Reason is not competent to assert the Divinity of the Word.
16 Or as the schoolmen say the fallacy is, A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter, one of the many forms of Undistributed Middle Term. Petavius, however (De Trin.. II., v., 12), pronounces the argument of this section unsatisfactory.
17 John i. 1.
18 Ps. cx. 3.
19 Isa. xli. 4.
20 John i. 18.
21 John vii. 12; ix. 5; xiv. 6.
22 1 Cor. i. 24.
23 Heb. i. 3. r.v.
24 Wisd. vii. 26.
25 John vi. 27.
26 Gen. xix. 24.
27 Ps. xlv. 6.
28 Rev. i. 8.
29 John xx. 17, 28.
30 Prov. viii. 22; John x. 36; Acts ii. 36.
31 Phil. ii. 7.
32 Phil. ii. 8.
33 John i. 12.
34 Heb. v. 8.
35 John x. 18; xiv. 31.
36 Ib. iv. 34; v. 23, sq.
37 Ib. v. 19, 30.
38 Mark xiii. 32.
39 1 Cor. xv. 28.
40 Luke vi. 12.
41 John xiv. 16.
42 Luke ii. 52.
43 Heb. v. 9, etc.
44 Matt. viii. 24; Mark iv. 38.
45 Matt. iv. 2; Luke iv. 2.
46 Luke xxii. 44.
47 Heb. v. 7.
48 S. Gregory often speaks of Human Nature as our composite being; and here he means the Sacred Humanity exclusively; there is no shadow of suspicion of Nestorianism or Eutychianism attaching to his name.
49 The word oi'konomi/a is used in four principal senses: (a) The ministry of the Gospel, cf. Ephes. iii. 2. Col. i. 25, etc., and S. Cyril Hieros., has the expression "Economy of the Mystery" (Cat. xxv.). It is also used absolutely by S. Chrysostom and others. (b) The Providence of God, as by Epiphanius, Greg. Nyss., and others. (c) The Incarnation, as in the text, without any epithet - in which use it is opposed to h 9qeo/thj. Sometimes however epithets are added. (d) The whole Mystery of Redemption, including the Passion.
50 cf. S. Leo, Serm. xxi., De Nativ. Dei, c. ii. "Remaining what He was, and putting on what He was not, He untied the true form of a servant to that form in which He was equal to God the Father, and combined both natures in a union so close that the lower was not consumed by receiving glory, nor the higher lessened by assuming lowliness.
51 "Mediante anima." cf. Orat. xxxviii., 13. S. T. Aq., Summa III., vi. Jungmann. de Verbo Incarn., c. 68. Forbes, On Nicene Creed, p. 188. Petav. de Incarn, IV., xiii., 2.
52 geno/menoj a#nqrwpoj o 9 ka/tw qeo/j. The passage is one of great difficulty. Elias Cretensis renders the words as follows:-"Becoming Man, the inferior God, because humanity was" etc.; but his rendering is rejected as impossible by Petavius (de Incarn Iv., ix., 2. 3). (i.) It is grammatically possible (Madvig, Gk. Syntax, 9 a. rem. 3) for o 9 ka/tw, standing as it does, to qualify a#nqrwpoj. (ii.) But the kai\ geno/menoj. . . qeo\j may be taken as a nom. absolute, which would have been expressed by a gen. If a#nqrwpoj had not been the same Person as o 9milh/saj.
53 As by the Incarnation He who was God was made perfect Man, so Man was made perfect God, and each nature retained its own qualities. Or it may mean that God Incarnate was made Man in respect of body, soul, and mind; that is, in all points: and the Humanity which He assumed was in all these points Defied; and therefore they who are His kindred and imitators share to that extent the Deification (Elias). In the First Epistle to Cledonius (v. infra) the Priest, against Apollinarius, which is sometimes reckoned as the 51st Oration. S. Gregory says. "The Godhead and the Manhood are two natures, just as soul and body are. But there are not two Sons or two Gods; although Paul did thus entangle the outward man and the inward. And, to speak succinctly, the Natures which make our Saviour are distinct, for the Invisible is not the same as the visible, nor the Timeless as that which is subject to time; but He is not two Persons, God forbid, for both these are one in the union. God being made Man, and Man being mad God, or however else you may express it." And upon this S. Thomas Aquinas remarks that it is true, if by Man you understand simply Human Nature, and not a Human Person; in this sense it was brought to pass that Man was God: or in other words Human Nature was made that of the Son of God. (Summa, III., xvi., 7.)
54 "If any does not admit Mary to be the Mother of God (qeoto/kon), he is separated from God. If any say that He passed through the Virgin as through a conduit, and that He was not formed in her both divinely and humanly (divinely, because without a human father; humanly, because in accordance with the laws of gestation), he is in like manner atheistic. If any assert that the Humanity was thus formed, and the Deity subsequently, added, he is condemned; for this is not a generation of God, but and evasion of generation" (S. G. N. ad Cled., Eph. i.) S. Thomas Aquinas explains the fitness of the title thus: The Blessed Virgin could be denied to be the Mother of God only if either His Humanity had been conceived and born before That Man was the Son of God: - which was the position taken up by Photinus; or else if the Humanity had not been assumed into the unity of the Person (or Hypostasis) of the Son of God; - which was the position of Nestorius. Both these positions are erroneous. Therefore to deny that the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God is heretical (Summa, III.. xxxv.. 4). In the text S. Gregory merely means that the Godhead of our Lord was not derived from His Blessed Mother, just as his Manhood was not derived from any man; but, as the extract at the beginning of this Note shew, he would be the last to take up the Nestorian notion, which was afterwards condemned at the Council of Ephesus.
55 Both These. i.e., the being without Father, and without Mother is a condition which belongs only to the Godhead.
56 S. John the Baptist (S. Luke i.).
57 Luke ii. 41.
58 Referring, perhaps, to the tradition that at the coming of Christ into Egypt all the Idols in the land fell down and were broken.
59 Isa. liii. 2.
60 Ps. xlv. 2.
61 Matt. xvii. 2.
62 Matt. iii. 13; ix. 6..
63 John xvi. 33.
64 Ib. vi. 10.
65 Ib. vii. 37.
66 Matt. xi. 28.
67 Ib. viii. 24.
68 Ib. xiv. 25, 30.
69 Ib. xvii. 24.
70 John xix. 19.
71 Ib. viii. 48.
72 Luke x. 30, etc.
73 Luke viii. 28-33.
74 Ib. x. 18.
75 John xi. 43.
76 Matt. xxvi. 15.
77 1 Pet. i. 19.
78 Isa. liii. 7.
79 John i. 23.
80 Isa. liii. 23.
81 Luke xxiii. 43.
82 John ii. 1-11.
83 Cant. v. 16.
84 John x. 18.
85 Matt. xxvii. 51.
86 1 Cor. i. 17.
87 2 Cor. v. 20.
88 1 Thess. v. 19.