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Translated by Ch. Browne and J. Swallow.
Gregory Theologian Bilingual Anthology, Resources Online and in Print
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12 Pages
Page 9
XV. He was sent, but as man, for He was of a twofold Nature; for He was wearied, and hungered, and was thirsty, and was in an agony, and shed tears, according to the nature of a corporeal being. And if the expression be also used of Him as God, the meaning is that the Father's good pleasure is to be considered a Mission, for to this He refers all that concerns Himself; both that He may honour the Eternal Principle, and because He will not be taken to be an antagonistic God. And whereas it is written both that He was betrayed, and also that He gave Himself up [3881] and that He was raised up by the Father, and taken up into heaven; and on the other hand, that He raised Himself and went up; the former statement of each pair refers to the good pleasure of the Father, the latter to His own Power. Are you then to be allowed to dwell upon all that humiliates Him, while passing over all that exalts Him, and to count on your side the fact that He suffered, but to leave out of the account the fact that it was of His own will? See what even now the Word has to suffer. By one set He is honoured as God, but is confused with the Father, [3882] by another He is dishonoured as mere flesh [3883] and severed from the Godhead. With which of them will He be most angry, or rather, which shall He forgive, those who injuriously confound Him or those who divide Him? For the former ought to have distinguished, and the latter to have united Him; the one in number, the other in Godhead. Stumblest Thou at His flesh? So did the Jews. Or dost thou call Him a Samaritan, and...I will not say the rest. Dost thou disbelieve in His Godhead? This did not even the demons, O thou who art less believing than demons and more stupid than Jews. Those did perceive that the name of Son implies equality of rank; these did know that He who drove them out was God, for they were convinced of it by their own experience. But you will admit neither the equality nor the Godhead. It would have been better for you to have been either a Jew or a demoniac (if I may utter an absurdity), than in uncircumcision and in sound health to be so wicked and ungodly in your attitude of mind.
[3881] Cf. en te nukti en he paredidoto, mallon de heauton paredidou. Canon of Liturgy of S. Mark (Swainson p. 517). Ea nocte qua tradidit seipsum. Lit. Copt. S. Basil (Ib.). Cum statuisset se tradere. Coptic S. Basil (Hammond, p. 209) Rot. Vatic. and Cod. Ross. of S. Mark, has only t. n. he heaut, pared. (Swainson, 50); so too S. Basil (Ib., 81) in Cod. B. M., 22749 and Barberini of S. Chrys. (Ib., 91); but the whole expression is in Chrys. (cent. xi., ib., 129) and Greek S. James (78. 272-3), but Syriac S. James has "in qua nocte tradendus erat." (Canon Univ., AEthiop. Hammond, 258). Pridie quam patereturis the form in the Canon of the Roman, Ambrosian, and Sarum Missals; but the Mozarabic, which is largely of an Eastern character, has in qua nocte tradebatur. (Hammond, 333).
[3882] The Sabellian heresy may be briefly described as the doctrine of One God exercising three offices, as opposed to the Catholic Faith of One God in three Persons. Sabellius himself was a Priest of the Libyan Pentapolis, who at Rome in the time of Pope Zephyrinus embraced the heresy of Notus, which maintained that God the Father suffered for us on the cross in the form of Christ. His followers, who openly declared themselves first about a.d. 357, thought that God, to Whom as the Source of all things the name of Father is given, is called the Son when He united Himself to the humanity of Jesus for the work of our redemption; and in like manner He is the Holy Spirit when manifested for the work of sanctification. Sabellius was condemned by a Council held at Rome, probably in 258; again at Nicaea, and again at Constantinople, where Sabellian Baptism was pronounced invalid.
[3883] Arianism was the result of a strong opposition to Sabellianism, coupled with a misunderstanding of the argument against it. There was, no doubt, a danger of falling into the opposite error of Tritheism, to avoid which Arianism "divided the Substance" and virtually—and in the end explicity—denied the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ. Arius was a Priest of Alexandria, and it was there that he began to publish his opinions, in the early years of the Fourth Century (318); but Newman traces the origin of the heresy to Antioch and its Judaizing tendency. At a meeting of the clergy in Alexandria the Bishop, S. Alexander, gave an address on the coeternity, and coequality of the Father and the Son, and used the expression ten auten ousian echein, that They had the same Substance. Arius protested against this as a Sabellian statement, and used the words ktisma (creature) and poiema (a thing made) of the Son, adding the sentence which became so famous, en hote ouk en,—there was a time when the Son did not exist. Having ineffectually tried private remonstrance, S. Alexander brought the matter in 321 before his Provincial Synod, in which were present about 100 Egyptian and Pentapolitan Bishops, who after giving the matter a patient hearing, excommunicated Arius and his principal adherents. But it was too late to undo the mischief. The heresy spread widely, and the whole Eastern Church was stirred by the controversy. At last a great Council of the whole Church met at Nicaea in 325, summoned by the Emperor; and there the heresy was unequivocally condemned, and the great Creed propounded with its watchword, the Homoousion. The false teaching had however struck its roots deep and wide; and though now banned by the anathema of the Church, it was long in dying; and indeed at one time, it seemed as if—humanly speaking—it must swamp the whole Catholic Church. Under various forms the Semi-Arians who claimed to differ from the faith of Nicaea only by a single letter, the Aetians and Eunomians, who went to the furthest extreme of the Falsehood (Anomoeans), and many others, the heresy spread far and wide: and when S. Gregory came to Constantinople there was not one Catholic Church or Priest to be found in the place, and only a few scattered folk who still held to the Faith of the Consubstantial. Gregory's wonderful discourses however came to their aid, and partly under his presidency was held the Second OEcumenical Synod, which condemned the heresy of Macedonius, a still further development of Arianism, which denied also the Deity of the Holy Ghost. Arianism survived for another two centuries among the Goths and Vandals, the Burgundians and Lombards; but it never rose again as a power in the Church.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/gregory-nazianzen/birthday-christ.asp?pg=9
