St. Gregory the Theologian

Several dates in Gregory's life are given differently by different sources, and his death falls somewhere between 389 and 391. Where they differ, the entry says who gives which.

For Inquirers

Gregory was the son of a small-town bishop, a pastor who led the churches of a district in the hills of what is now Turkey, and he wanted nothing so much as to be left alone with God, a few friends, and a lot of books. He had one of the finest educations of his day, and he went on wishing, all his life, that he could have been a hermit. Instead other people kept pulling him out of the quiet and putting him to work. His father made him a priest while he was unwilling; his dearest friend made him bishop of a village he later called a detestable little place; and when a great city found itself with hardly a church left that taught what the apostles had taught, a group of bishops begged him to come and preach there, in an ordinary house turned into a chapel. He went, and he spoke about who God is so well that the Orthodox Church honors him with the name "the Theologian," a name given to very few.

What he said is hard, and he said so himself. Nobody, he told his listeners, can describe God. Even Moses saw only what God leaves behind him, the way you can look at the sun's reflection in water when the sun itself would blind you. And yet he was sure God can be known, because the God who made the stars came among us as a man, and the point of it all was to lift us up into his own life. He believed God is one and yet three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he tried several pictures to help people see it. In the end he threw them all out as too small, which is a comfort to anyone whose head spins the first time: the confusion is the right reaction, and the man who wrote the great sentences felt it too.

He did not win every fight. He grew tired of the quarrels among the bishops, gave up the bishop's seat of the great city, and went home to the countryside where he was born to write letters and poems. Many people who love him love him for exactly that: a brilliant, tender man who got tired, and who found that the God he had spent his life describing was bigger than the description.

Overview

• Who: St. Gregory the Theologian, also called Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory Nazianzen, born about 329 in Cappadocia, in what is now central Turkey, and died near the place of his birth between 389 and 391. OrthodoxWiki notes that "Gregory of Nazianzus" properly names his father and that the Church knows the son only as "the Theologian."[^ow] He was a bishop, preacher and poet, and with Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa one of the Cappadocians.
• What he is known for: the Five Theological Orations on the Trinity, his festal sermons for the Nativity, Theophany, Baptism and Pascha, his letters against Apollinaris, and his poetry.
• His career: priest in Cappadocia, bishop in name of Sasima, then for a short time archbishop of Constantinople, where he took part in the Second Ecumenical Council (Constantinople I, 381) and resigned before it ended.
• His title: "the Theologian," shared in the Orthodox Church with John the Evangelist and, later, Symeon the New Theologian.
• His days: January 25 (his own feast), January 30 (the Three Hierarchs with Basil and John Chrysostom), and January 19 (the transfer of his relics).
• His best-known sentence: that what Christ did not assume he did not heal.

Summary

Gregory grew up on a Cappadocian estate in a house where his father's conversion from a sect of mixed pagan and Jewish practice was a family memory, studied at Athens beside Basil, and spent the next twenty years being drafted into offices he had tried to avoid: priest at his father's insistence, bishop of Sasima at Basil's, helper to his aged father at Nazianzus, and finally, in the last years of the Arian ascendancy, pastor of the small Nicene congregation in Constantinople.[^oca-life] From a house chapel there he preached the five orations that the Church has since accepted as the core of its teaching on the Trinity,[^mcg] and when the emperor Theodosius restored the churches to the Nicene party he sat in the council of 381, where, in the OCA's telling, he was chosen the city's archbishop.[^oca-life]

He left that council before it ended, tired of the intrigue, and spent his last years in retirement writing letters and poems. His voice survived him. The Church honors him with the title "the Theologian," numbers him among the Three Hierarchs, and has gone on quoting him: John of Damascus, Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas all build on his sentences, and his lines on the Spirit's procession, on the Son's assumption of a whole humanity, and on men and women being "made God" are still quoted for those doctrines.

A Bishop's Son from Arianzus

Gregory was born about 329 at Arianzus, an estate near the Cappadocian town of Nazianzus, in a family the OCA life calls eminent;[^oca-life] McGuckin places the birth in Nazianzus itself.[^mcg] His father, also named Gregory, became bishop of Nazianzus, and McGuckin adds that he was an immensely wealthy local squire as well. His mother Nonna, his brother Caesarius and his sister Gorgonia are all counted among the saints, as the father is too.[^nonna][^ow] The household was divided in an unusual way. The elder Gregory had belonged to the sect of the Hypsistarii, whom his son describes at his funeral as rejecting idols and sacrifices while revering fire and lights, and keeping the Sabbath while despising circumcision.[^or18-5] Nonna, a Christian, could not bear the situation, and Gregory says of her that "she could not brook this, the being but half united to God, because of the estrangement of him who was a part of herself" Select Orations — Oration 18 11.6.[^or18-11] She prayed night and day, and a dream in which her husband found himself singing a psalm about going to the house of the Lord began his conversion.

A long education followed. The OCA life lists a first teacher in his uncle Amphilochius, then schools at Nazianzus, at Caesarea in Cappadocia, and at Alexandria, and finally Athens, where it says he spent six years studying rhetoric, poetry, geometry and astronomy.[^oca-life] OrthodoxWiki names Caesarea of Palestine rather than Cappadocia, and McGuckin says he studied philosophy for ten years at Athens.[^ow][^mcg] On the sea voyage from Alexandria to Athens a storm raged for many days; Gregory, still only a catechumen, feared he would perish before baptism, and the life says he vowed to give himself to God if he was saved.[^oca-life][^ow]

At Athens he found Basil, and he wrote of that friendship with great tenderness. Looking back in his funeral oration, he says of the two of them: "We seemed to have one soul, inhabiting two bodies" Select Orations — Oration 43 20.7.[^or43-20] They shared a house and a table and one ambition, and the ambition was a Christian one: two roads were open to the students, one to the churches and their teachers and the other to the secular schools, and "we had but one great business and name — to be and to be called Christians" (Select Orations — Oration 43 21.4).[^or43-21] The OCA life adds that the future emperor and apostate Julian was studying philosophy at Athens at the same time.[^oca-life]

The Reluctant Priest

Gregory came home from Athens in 358, by the OCA's dating, and the OCA life says he was baptized by his father at thirty-three; his father, by then bishop of Nazianzus, ordained him to the priesthood against his will, and when the old bishop wished to make him a bishop as well, Gregory fled to join Basil, who had organized a monastery in Pontus.[^oca-life] The editors of the standard English translation give the sequence a different shape: Gregory was recalled from Pontus about 361, ordained on Christmas Day of that year with the loud approval of the congregation, rushed off to Pontus a second time, and was back at his father's side before Easter 362. He afterwards spoke of the ordination as an act of tyranny.[^or2-ed]

In the Easter oration with which he came back to his people he speaks of "the noble tyranny which I have suffered" Select Orations — Oration 1 0.5.[^or1-1] A later oration is blunter, reproaching them for the way they had torn him from his "Citadel Solitude" (Select Orations — Oration 3 0.3).[^or3-1]

What Gregory wrote to justify his flight was drawn on by later writers on the priesthood. His reason for running was the size of the task: "the guiding of man, the most variable and manifold of creatures, seems to me in very deed to be the art of arts and science of sciences" Select Orations — Oration 2 16.2.[^or2-16] The editor of the Pastoral Rule of Gregory the Great identifies this oration as the earlier model of that book, written like it to excuse the writer's reluctance to accept the episcopate and to set forth the responsibilities of the office.[^pastoral] See Priesthood and Bishop.

In Pontus the two friends lived the life Gregory had wanted. The synaxarion life of Basil describes a dwelling without roof or fireplace, humble food, trees planted and stones cleared by their own hands, and calloused palms.[^basil-life] Socrates the church historian adds that both men abandoned careers in rhetoric for the monastic life, and that they read Origen and drew from him their interpretation of Scripture. When the Arians cited Origen against them, he says, the two showed that their opponents had not understood him.[^soc-4-26] Socrates says nothing of any particular doctrine Gregory took from Origen.

Sasima, Nazianzus and the Losses of a Decade

The friendship was strained by church politics. According to the OCA life, Anthimus of Tyana wished to separate from Basil and divide the province of Cappadocia, and Basil made Gregory bishop of Sasima, a small town between Caesarea and Tyana.[^oca-life] The translation editors, who date Valens's division of Cappadocia to 370, say Basil prevailed on Gregory only with great difficulty and that Anthimus was ready to bar his entry by force of arms; McGuckin dates the consecration to 372; and the editors of Theodoret quote Gregory's own later poem calling Sasima "a detestable little village."[^or12-ed][^mcg][^theod-796] Gregory did not take possession of the see. OrthodoxWiki says the consecration was a source of sorrow to him and of misunderstanding between the friends, and that his love for Basil remained unchanged, as his funeral oration shows.[^ow]

Two deaths in the family had come before this. His brother Caesarius, who served the emperors as a physician and then as a treasury official, died in 368 or early 369, and his sister Gorgonia the following year, according to the OCA lives.[^caes-gorg] The OCA life says that when Caesarius died Gregory returned home to help his father administer the diocese, and that after the Sasima appointment he stayed at Nazianzus to assist his dying father.[^oca-life] The translation editors date the installation at Nazianzus, when he took the care of the church provisionally as his father's coadjutor, to 372, and in that oration he spoke of himself in a line that serves as a summary of his sense of vocation: "I am an instrument of God, a rational instrument, an instrument tuned and struck by that skilful artist, the Spirit" Select Orations — Oration 12 1.2.[^or12-1] His father died early in 374, in his hundredth year, and the editors say that Basil was present when Gregory delivered the funeral oration.[^or18-ed]

Constantinople

The capital had been in Arian hands for decades; Socrates says the Arians had held the churches for forty years.[^soc-5-7] The OCA life says a council of bishops invited Gregory to help the Church of Constantinople in 378, that he came with Basil's consent, and that in 379 he began to serve and preach in a small church called the Anastasis, "Resurrection."[^oca-life] McGuckin tells it differently, saying that it was after Basil's death in 379 that the leading Nicene theologians called Gregory to the city, while the editors of the translation, reading Gregory's own words in the funeral oration for Basil, think it more probable that he went before Basil died on January 1, 379.[^mcg][^or43-ed] McGuckin also describes the setting: a large villa in the middle of the city that he consecrated as a small church, which the tradition calls the Resurrection chapel, and from which he gave the orations on God, Christ and the Holy Spirit that have since been accepted as the core of the Church's teaching on the Trinity.[^mcg] The name of the place is told in more than one way. OrthodoxWiki calls it a house chapel dedicated to St. Anastasia the Martyr, while the editors of Theodoret record Gregory's own wordplay in one of his sermons, in which the little house is a "Shiloh, where the ark rested, an Anastasia, a place of resurrection," and note that the great church later built on the site was called the Anastasia.[^ow][^theod-833]

Preaching in these years against the Arians, Gregory asks where are those "who define the Church by numbers, and scorn the little flock" Select Orations — Oration 33 0.3.[^or33] The OCA life says that he lived in the capital as though still in the wilderness and sought nothing from the court, and reports that on the night of Pascha, as he was baptizing catechumens, an armed mob broke into the church and threw stones, killing a bishop and wounding Gregory.[^oca-life]

A worse wound came from a friend. The OCA life names a philosopher, Maximus, whom Gregory had counted a friend, as consecrated at Constantinople in Gregory's place; Gregory resolved to resign, but his flock restrained him and the people threw the usurper out of the city.[^oca-life] The editors of Theodoret put the attempt in the middle of 380, before the emperor's arrival on November 24, with five suffragans sent from Alexandria and a mob that drove them out of the church before the ceremony was finished.[^theod-835] Theodoret's own narrative sets the matter later: after Meletius had confirmed Gregory and died, Timotheus of Alexandria ordained Maximus, whom Theodoret calls a cynic carried away by the flimsy rhetoric of Apollinarius, and the assembled bishops could not endure it.[^theod-5-8] The editors' account puts the ordination before the council, and Theodoret's puts it during the council of 381.

Theodosius entered the city on November 24, 380, and Socrates says the Arian bishop Demophilus, who refused to accept the Nicene Creed, was ordered out two days later, so that the Arians lost the churches they had held for forty years.[^soc-5-7] According to the OCA life, the main church was returned to the Orthodox, with Gregory making a solemn entrance.[^oca-life]

The Council and the Resignation

The council met in May 381, with one hundred and fifty bishops of the Nicene party, as Socrates reckons them, together with thirty-six Macedonians who left after refusing to accept the Nicene faith.[^soc-5-8] The OCA article on the Second Ecumenical Council says it reaffirmed Nicaea, condemned Macedonianism and Apollinarianism, and added to the Creed the paragraph on the divinity of the Holy Spirit; it names Gregory of Nyssa, Meletius of Antioch and Gregory the Theologian as its leaders.[^oca-council] Theodoret says Meletius, seeing Gregory, confirmed him in the see of Constantinople despite the canon against moving bishops, and that Meletius died soon afterwards.[^theod-5-8] The canon in question is the fifteenth of Nicaea, which forbade any bishop, presbyter or deacon to pass from city to city.[^nic-15] The OCA life says that after Meletius's death Gregory presided, tried to reconcile East and West by offering to recognize Paulinus as bishop of Antioch, and found himself opposed by Egyptian and Macedonian bishops, who arrived late and refused to accept his election in their absence.[^oca-life] OrthodoxWiki likewise has Meletius presiding when he died and Gregory chosen in his stead.[^ow] Socrates tells it otherwise: Meletius had arrived to assist at the installation of Gregory, and Gregory had already resigned and was preparing to return to Nazianzus when the bishops who remained took up the choice of a bishop for the city.[^soc-5-8]

In Theodoret's version Gregory begged the assembled bishops to put the quarrel about himself aside: "Find then some worthy man of sense, able to sustain heavy responsibilities and discharge them well, and make him bishop" The Ecclesiastical History 8.523,[^theod-5-8] and the council chose Nectarius, a man of noble birth. Socrates places the resignation earlier, at the emperor's arrival, and says Gregory had heard murmurs against him as a stranger.[^soc-5-7] The OCA life reports him asking to be thrown overboard like Jonah for the sake of the ship.[^oca-life] Gregory's own farewell to the council gives a plainer reason: "I am weary of being assailed in words and in envy by enemies, and by our own" Select Orations — Oration 42 20.11.[^or42-20] Theodoret and the OCA life both have him offering to go for the sake of peace, and Socrates gives only the murmuring. The editors of Theodoret and of Oration 43 date his leaving Constantinople to June 381, where OrthodoxWiki says he governed the church until 382.[^theod-832][^or43-ed][^ow]

In the farewell, spoken before the bishops and his own people, he says goodbye first to the church of the Anastasia ("whose name is redolent of piety: for you have raised up for us the doctrine which was in contempt" Select Orations — Oration 42 26.1),[^or42-26] thanking its people for having raised up the doctrine that had been despised, and then to the city and to East and West. The last farewell is to the Trinity: "Farewell, O Trinity, my meditation, and my glory" (Select Orations — Oration 42 27.10).[^or42-27] See Constantinople I.

Retirement, Poems and Death

He returned to Cappadocia. The OCA life says he dealt with an incursion of Apollinarians in Nazianzus, installed Eulalius as bishop there, and withdrew to the solitude of Arianzus, where he went on defending the faith in letters and poems.[^oca-life] The editors of Theodoret add that he was pressed to take a leading post again, that his health broke down, and that Eulalius was chosen in 383.[^theod-832] The Easter oration he gave at Arianzus is one of his last works.[^or45-ed] His death is dated January 25, 389 by the OCA life, to 389 or 390 by the translation editors, and to 391 by OrthodoxWiki and McGuckin.[^oca-life][^or45-ed][^ow][^mcg] The OCA life, which closes with a portrait, describes him as of medium height and somewhat pale, with thick eyebrows and a short beard, and says that his contemporaries already called him a saint.[^oca-life]

Jerome, who calls him "a most eloquent man, and my instructor in the Scriptures," says his works amounted to thirty thousand lines De Viris Illustribus (On Illustrious Men) 117.2,[^jerome-117] and elsewhere speaks of Greek verses of his on virginity and marriage Against Jovinianus — Book I 13.35.[^jerome-jov] The OCA life quotes him justifying the work: if the heretics' long tracts are new Psalters at odds with David, then he too will sing psalms and write in meter.[^oca-life] Palamas cites a line from the poems, "It is the nature of my King to bestow blessedness,"[^palamas-107] and the translator of the Pentecost canon notes an allusion to one of the theological poems.[^lash] The OCA life records how he thought of his gift for words: he offered it to God and counted it the companion of his whole life.[^oca-life]

The Title "the Theologian"

The OCA life says Gregory is honored with the title "Theologian," also given to the apostle and evangelist John, and that Gregory, like that other Theologian, directs everything toward the pre-eternal Word.[^oca-life] OrthodoxWiki says he received the surname because of his God-inspired theological thought, adds that "Gregory of Nazianzus" properly names his father while the Church knows the son only as Gregory the Theologian, and says he is called the Trinitarian Theologian because in virtually every homily he refers to the Trinity.[^ow] None of these sources says who first gave him the title or when.

The Philokalia's introduction to Symeon the New Theologian explains what the title means: it signifies a person of prayer who speaks about the vision of God from immediate experience, and before Symeon's time it had been reserved chiefly for John the Evangelist and Gregory of Nazianzus.[^philokalia-symeon] OrthodoxWiki cites Evagrius for the same idea: "If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian."[^ow-theologian] McGuckin ties the title to the series of orations from the Resurrection chapel, which he calls a dense, magisterial and succinct statement of Orthodoxy, and says this is why the Eastern Church calls Gregory "the" theologian.[^mcg]

The first of the Five Theological Orations is a definition of the word. Gregory says philosophizing about God is not for everyone: "Not to every one, my friends, does it belong to philosophize about God" Select Orations — Oration 27 0.14.[^or27-3] The rule has conditions on the speaker, the hearers and the hour, and the condition on the speaker is the strictest: the subject is open only to those who have been "previously purified in soul and body, or at the very least are being purified" (Select Orations — Oration 27 0.15), at a quiet time and before people to whom the answer matters.[^or27-3]

McGuckin aims the oration at the Arian leaders and at Eunomius, who held that the Son and the Spirit were creatures, and says Gregory goes back to the foundations to restate the Nicene faith.[^mcg] Gregory turns the same demand on his own side, urging them first to "polish our theological self to beauty like a statue" (Select Orations — Oration 27 0.52).[^or27-7] McGuckin summarizes: those who would speak of God must have hearts and minds purified by the Spirit.[^mcg]

The Cloud and the Back Parts of God

Gregory tells how he went up the mountain, entered the cloud as Moses did, and came away reporting that he scarcely saw God's back parts: "I scarce saw the back parts of God" Select Orations — Oration 28 0.16.[^or28-3] What reaches us, he says, is the glory that shows in creation, the shadow and reflection of the sun in water that lets weak eyes see something of a sun they cannot look at. His summary of the limits of language is brief: "It is difficult to conceive God but to define Him in words is an impossibility" (Select Orations — Oration 28 0.24).[^or28-4] Pomazansky quotes from the same oration the principle that there can be no definition of the Divinity because a concept is itself a form of limitation.[^pomaz]

Gregory does not turn this into agnosticism. He thinks creation proves a Maker, as a well-made lute implies a lutemaker, though the argument stops short of showing what the Maker is.[^or28-6] On the question of the essence he is categorical about now and open about later: "What God is in nature and essence, no man ever yet has discovered or can discover," and whether it ever will be is left to whoever wants to examine it, though he suspects it will happen when mind and reason have mingled with their like and the image has ascended to the archetype (Select Orations — Oration 28 0.170).[^or28-17] Maximus the Confessor likewise invokes Gregory in the Four Hundred Texts on Love, where he says that the very fact of knowing nothing is knowledge surpassing the intellect, "as the theologians Gregory of Nazianzos and Dionysios have said."[^max-100] See Apophatic and Cataphatic Theology.

One God in Three

The third oration, once past its prologue, lists the three oldest opinions about God, rule by no one, rule by many, and rule by one, and Gregory accepts only the last, a monarchy that is "not limited to one Person" and in which, in his compact phrase, "Unity having from all eternity arrived by motion at Duality, found its rest in Trinity" Select Orations — Oration 29 0.14.[^or29-2] For him the Father is the single source of the Godhead, and Father, Son and Spirit are distinguished by how each stands to the source: unbegotten, begotten, proceeding. See Monarchy of the Father.

The Eunomian argument Gregory had to meet was that if the Father begot the Son willingly the Son is the son of a will, and if unwillingly the Father was under compulsion.[^oca-life] Gregory returns the question to the questioner: "were you begotten voluntarily or involuntarily by your father?" Select Orations — Oration 29 0.70.[^or29-6] The reply shows his method, which is to expose the corporeal pictures hidden in the question. When he is asked how the Son was begotten, he declines with a reason: "The Begetting of God must be honoured by silence" (Select Orations — Oration 29 0.110), a thing known to the Father who begot and the Son who was begotten.[^or29-8]

The fourth oration takes up the biblical texts the Arians cited. Where the Son is called less, Gregory distinguishes: "the Greater refers to origination, while the Equal belongs to the Nature" (Select Orations — Oration 30 0.84).[^or30-7]

The fifth oration begins with an honest count of the opinions about the Holy Spirit: some of the wise among his own people thought the Spirit an activity, some a creature, some God, and some did not know.[^or31-5] He argues that the Spirit must be a substance and not an activity, since an activity acts on nothing and is acted upon, and that a substance must be either creature or God.[^or31-6] Then he places the Spirit between the creature and the Son. The Spirit "inasmuch as He proceeds from That Source, is no Creature; and inasmuch as He is not Begotten is no Son; and inasmuch as He is between the Unbegotten and the Begotten is God" (Select Orations — Oration 31 0.73).[^or31-8]

The differences among the persons, he says a little later, are differences of relation that leave dignity and substance the same, and the names Father, Son and Spirit are given by "the very fact of being Unbegotten or Begotten, or Proceeding" (Select Orations — Oration 31 0.84).[^or31-9] The scriptural ground for "proceeds" is the Lord's own word that the Spirit of truth "proceeds from the Father" (John 15.26).

The Epiphany sermon puts the same doctrine in one line: the Holy Spirit is truly Spirit "coming forth from the Father indeed, but not after the manner of the Son, for it is not by Generation but by Procession" (Select Orations — Oration 39 0.87).[^or39-12] The Wikipedia article on the Filioque observes that this distinction between generation and procession is not in dispute between East and West, and the Latin and Greek traditions part over the role of the Son in the Spirit's coming forth.[^wiki-filioque] See The Filioque.

In the sermon on Athanasius Gregory explains that the Greeks say one essence and three hypostases, while the Latin-speakers, with a thinner vocabulary, say three persons to avoid saying three essences, and that a slight difference of sound had been taken for a difference of faith.[^or21-35] McGuckin calls Gregory the thinker who chiefly insisted that the church clarify its language about the Trinity, as three hypostases and one essence.[^mcg] The summary Gregory offers elsewhere is compact: "The Three are One in Godhead, and the One Three in properties" (Select Orations — Oration 31 0.86).[^or31-9] A formula like that is easier to recite than to picture, and the Epiphany sermon asks the hearer for the picture: "you must be illumined at once by one flash of light and by three" (Select Orations — Oration 39 0.75).[^or39-11] See Hypostasis, Ousia and Triadology.

Against the Eunomian claim that the Spirit must be either begotten or not consubstantial, he does use Adam, Eve and Seth: Adam a creature of God, Eve a fragment of him, Seth begotten of both, three who are not the same thing and yet share one substance, so that "different persons may have the same substance" (Select Orations — Oration 31 0.115),[^or31-11] though he adds that he is attributing no creation or fraction or bodily property to the Godhead. When he looks for a picture of the Trinity itself he finds nothing that holds. An eye, a fountain and a river risk a flow in the Godhead and a merely numerical unity; the sun, the ray and the light suggest composition in an uncompounded nature and would make the Son and the Spirit powers of God rather than persons; a ray flashing and quivering on a wall, which he has heard someone else propose, brings motion into God.[^or31-33] He ends: "it seems best to me to let the images and the shadows go" (Select Orations — Oration 31 0.355).[^or31-33] Pomazansky reports the same passage when he warns against the popular comparisons of the Trinity.[^pomaz]

The Slow Dawn of the Spirit

Gregory's opponents objected that Scripture never plainly calls the Spirit God.[^mcg] His answer is historical and gentle. "The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly, and the Son more obscurely" (Select Orations — Oration 31 0.287), and the New manifested the Son and suggested the Spirit's deity; now the Spirit dwells among us and shows himself more clearly.[^or31-26] It would not have been safe, he reasons, to proclaim the Son before the Father's Godhead was acknowledged, or to burden the hearers with the Spirit before the Son's was. He ties this to the Lord's words that there were things the disciples could not yet bear (John 16.12: "I still have many things to tell you, but you can't bear them now."), and suggests that the Spirit's deity was one of them.[^or31-27]

Having made the case he puts his chain of argument in a sentence: "For if He is not to be worshipped, how can He deify me by Baptism?" (Select Orations — Oration 31 0.310).[^or31-28] The question ties the Spirit's worship to his saving work: if he cannot be adored, he cannot deify. A few lines later he lists what the Spirit does, and the list ends in the verbs "That makes Temples; That deifies; That perfects" (Select Orations — Oration 31 0.326).[^or31-29] The OCA life notes that this oration draws the two conclusions that Scripture is to be read for its spiritual sense and that the Spirit was hidden but active in the Old Testament.[^oca-life] The council of 381, as the OCA article records, added the words on the Spirit to the Creed.[^oca-council] See Holy Spirit.

Healing the Whole Man

Gregory's other great battle was with the Apollinarians, who in the argument he answers would not allow Christ a human mind. Theodoret, in the Eranistes, preserves long excerpts from Gregory's first letter to Cledonius against this, among them the reasoning in its fuller form. If the Word became flesh to undo the damnation of sin, Gregory argues, then just as he required flesh on account of the condemned flesh and a soul on account of the soul, so too he required "a mind on account of the mind," which in Adam, as Gregory puts it, was affected with an original malady Dialogues (Eranistes) 2.341. The part that transgressed is the part that specially needed salvation, and the argument closes on one line: "that which was assumed was what needed salvation; so the mind was assumed" Dialogues (Eranistes) 2.342.[^eran]

The short form of the argument comes from another part of the same letter, and the Eranistes excerpts do not contain it. The translation in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers reads: "For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved." Gregory goes on to say that if only half of Adam fell, then what Christ assumes and saves may be half also, but if the whole nature fell it must be united to the whole nature of the Begotten and so be saved as a whole.[^bridge] The OCA's article on Maximus the Confessor reports the line as Gregory's, written in refuting Apollinarianism,[^oca-max] and McGuckin cites it against those who made Jesus a divinity passing transiently through history.[^mcg] John of Damascus states the same principle in nearly the same words, without naming a source: "For that which is not assumed is not remedied" (An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith — Book Iii 18.10).[^jd-3-18] See Christology and The Incarnation.

Describing the incarnate Christ, Gregory writes: "What He was He continued to be; what He was not He took to Himself" (Select Orations — Oration 29 0.275),[^or29-19] and the list of titles in the fourth oration says the name Christ itself, which means the anointed, belongs to him "because of His Godhead," for the anointing is of the manhood and the Anointer is wholly present in it.[^or30-21a] Damascene and Palamas both build on this.[^jd-3-17][^palamas-109]

To Be Made God

The consequence Gregory draws from this is the one the Orthodox tradition calls theosis. After the sentence quoted above he continues, "in order that I too might be made God so far as He is made Man" (Select Orations — Oration 29 0.279).[^or29-19] The exchange runs both ways, so that what Christ takes on he gives back, and Gregory makes it the pattern for the believer's own life. The Easter oration he gave on his return to Nazianzus says it as an exhortation: "Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us" (Select Orations — Oration 1 0.17).[^or1-5]

The oration on the titles of Christ ends by telling the reader to walk through them "that you may become a god, ascending from below, for His sake Who came down from on high for ours" (Select Orations — Oration 30 0.263).[^or30-21b]

The Nativity sermon puts the exchange in the form of a paradox. "And He Who gives riches becomes poor, for He assumes the poverty of my flesh, that I may assume the richness of His Godhead" (Select Orations — Oration 38 0.116).[^or38-13] Later readers are careful about what the verb means. Damascene, quoting Gregory's phrase from the oration on the titles of Christ, says the flesh is called deified without any change or transformation of nature, by the union of the natures in one hypostasis;[^jd-3-17] Palamas, following the same line, says that even those deified by grace cannot participate in the divine essence, only in the divine energy, and cites Gregory's wish "to behold and experience the splendor of God" in support.[^palamas-111] See Theosis and Essence Energies.

The Festal Orations

Gregory also left sermons for the feasts of the Church year, which the OCA life counts among his orations.[^oca-life] The Nativity oration opens with a call, "Christ is born, glorify Him" (Select Orations — Oration 38 0.14),[^or38-1] and ends with an invitation to follow Christ through every stage of his life, from the exile in Egypt to the cross. The oration on the Holy Lights, for Epiphany, calls the baptism of Christ an act of purification for our sake and sets the Trinity in its full light, as quoted above. The Pascha oration begins with the prophet's watch and an angelic voice: "Christ is risen from the dead, rise with Him" (Select Orations — Oration 45 0.12).[^or45-1]

The oration on Baptism, preached the day after the Holy Lights, tells the newly baptized and the unbaptized what the sacrament is. It says the Word recognizes three births, the natural birth, baptism and the resurrection,[^or40-2] and gives it a string of names: "the Gift, the Grace, Baptism, Unction, Illumination, the Clothing of Immortality, the Laver of Regeneration, the Seal" (Select Orations — Oration 40 0.23).[^or40-4] Gregory presses his hearers not to put baptism off, warning that the Evil One cheats those who keep passing over today and waiting for tomorrow.[^or40-14] His counsel on children is more careful. If danger presses, children should be baptized at once, "for it is better that they should be unconsciously sanctified than that they should depart unsealed"; otherwise he advises waiting until about the end of the third year, when they can answer something about the sacrament (Select Orations — Oration 40 0.326).[^or40-28] The Wikipedia article on infant baptism lists him among the fourth-century writers who attest the custom of enrolling infants as catechumens and baptizing later, and the point is read differently by different readers of the oration.[^wiki-infant] See Baptism and The Baptism of Christ.

The Pascha oration also raises a question the preacher says most people neglect: to whom was the blood of Christ offered? If to the Evil One, "fie upon the outrage!" (Select Orations — Oration 45 0.202), for it would mean that the robber receives, in his words, "a ransom which consists of God Himself" (Select Orations — Oration 45 0.203); and if to the Father, how, when the Father had once refused Isaac and accepted a ram instead?[^or45-22] His answer is that the Father accepts the offering though he neither asked for nor demanded it, because humanity had to be sanctified by the humanity of God. The OCA article on redemption quotes this passage when it asks whether Christ's death is a payment to God.[^oca-redemption]

The oration ends with a summary of the gospel: "We needed an Incarnate God, a God put to death, that we might live" (Select Orations — Oration 45 0.294).[^or45-28] See Pascha, The Nativity of Christ and Salvation.

Friends, Family and Teachers

Forty-five of Gregory's orations survive, the OCA life says, among them panegyrics on saints, festal orations and two invectives against Julian the Apostate.[^oca-life] The funeral orations are a portrait gallery. The one for Athanasius begins "In praising Athanasius, I shall be praising virtue" (Select Orations — Oration 21 1.1),[^or21-1] and McGuckin says it was in this oration that Gregory first called his predecessors Athanasius and Basil "the Great." He reads the act as a kind of canonization, Gregory naming them as bearers of the Spirit of God, and draws from it the principle of patristic theology, that the safe guides are those whom the Church has recognized as authentic and inspired teachers.[^mcg] The oration for Basil is a memoir of Athens and of a friendship that outlasted its strains. Those for his brother Caesarius, his sister Gorgonia and his father are a main source for the household described above.[^family]

The Latin West

In the sermon on Athanasius Gregory treats the Latin use of "persons" for "hypostases" as a thinner vocabulary that had been mistaken for a different faith.[^or21-35] Jerome says he was his instructor in the Scriptures, and the synaxarion life of Jerome records that he visited Constantinople and talked with Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa.[^jerome-117][^jerome-life] Rufinus translated works of Gregory into Latin.[^rufinus] Vincent of Lérins lists Gregory among the "lights of Cappadocia" whose writings were read at the Council of Ephesus Commonitory 30.6,[^vincent] and Gregory the Great's Pastoral Rule has Gregory's second oration as its model.[^pastoral]

The Filioque is where McGuckin sees the West parting from Gregory. He argues that the West's addition to the Creed disrupts what Gregory taught about the Father as the single source of the Son and the Spirit.[^mcg] The Wikipedia article reports that the generation/procession distinction itself is shared ground.[^wiki-filioque] The OCA article on the council of 381 adds that Damasus, the bishop of Rome, rejected its third canon on the rank of Constantinople.[^oca-council] Relics of Gregory and of Chrysostom, carried to Rome after 1204, were returned to Constantinople in 2004 by Pope John Paul II, according to a Public Orthodoxy account of how the request was prepared.[^public-orth] See Schism.

How Later Fathers Used Him

John of Damascus quotes him constantly in the Exposition: on the angels, where he says he agrees with "the theologian"; on the Thrice-Holy, citing Gregory on the Holy of Holies veiled by the Seraphim; on energy; on the two natures; and on the anointing of the manhood.[^jd-uses] In the defense of icons he cites Gregory's definition of an image as a representation of its original.[^jd-icons] Maximus the Confessor wrote the Ambigua on disputed passages in Gregory's works, according to the Philokalia's introduction, and according to his synaxarion life composed hymns in Gregory's tradition.[^max-ambigua] Palamas draws on Gregory repeatedly in defense of the Hesychasts, citing him for the energies of the Spirit, for the light of Tabor, and for the Trinity's unity in one nature.[^palamas-uses] Symeon the New Theologian, in his catechesis On Faith, cites Gregory for the ladder from fear of the Lord through the commandments to purification and illumination.[^symeon-faith] John Chrysostom came to the same throne in 397 after Nectarius, "successor to Saint Gregory the Theologian," in the words of his life.[^chrys] The Council in Trullo quotes Gregory in its canon 64 on laymen teaching in public.[^trullo]

In the Church's Worship

The OCA calendar gives Gregory three commemorations in January. January 25 is his own feast, with a troparion that says "The sweet-sounding shepherd's pipe of your theology overpowered the trumpeting of the orators."[^troparion] The Synaxis of the Three Hierarchs, on January 30, began, the synaxarion says, when disputes in eleventh-century Constantinople over which of the three was greatest produced parties of Basilians, Gregorians and Johnites, until the three appeared to Bishop John of Euchaita in 1084 and told him they were equal before God; he set a common day.[^synaxis] The relics were moved to the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, and their transfer is commemorated on January 19.[^relics] His words appear in the services: the translator of the Iambic Canon for Pentecost notes a phrase taken from the oration on the Son.[^lash]

Read in order, the cloud on the mountain, the sentence that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the claim that God became man so that man might become God give the outline of what the Church confesses under The Trinity and Theosis, the two doctrines for which Gregory is still most often quoted.

Sources

[^oca-life]: Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Gregory the Theologian, Archbishop of Constantinople" (Lives of the Saints, January 25). [^nonna]: Orthodox Church in America, "Righteous Nonna, Mother of Saint Gregory the Theologian" (August 5); "Saint Caesarius, Brother of Saint Gregory the Theologian" (March 9); "Saint Gorgonia, Sister of Saint Gregory the Theologian" (February 23). [^or18-5]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 18.5 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or18-11]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 18.11 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^ow]: OrthodoxWiki, "Gregory the Theologian." [^or43-20]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43.20 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or43-21]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43.21 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or2-ed]: Editors' introduction to Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 2, NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7. [^or1-1]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 1.1 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or3-1]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 3.1 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or2-16]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 2.16 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^pastoral]: Editor's introduction to Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule (Book I), NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 12. [^basil-life]: Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia" (January 1). [^soc-4-26]: Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History 4.26. [^or12-ed]: Editors' introduction to Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 12, NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7. [^or43-ed]: Editors' introduction to Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7. [^theod-796]: Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History 4.27, editors' note 796 (citing Gregory, Carm. 11.439–446). [^caes-gorg]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations 7 and 8; Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Caesarius" (March 9), "Saint Gorgonia" (February 23) and "Righteous Nonna" (August 5). [^or18-ed]: Editors' introduction to Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 18, NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7. [^or12-1]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 12.1 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^soc-5-7]: Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History 5.6–7. [^mcg]: John A. McGuckin, The Eastern Orthodox Church: A New History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), ch. 3, section "Gregory the Theologian and the First Council of Constantinople (381)." [^theod-833]: Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History 5.8, editors' note citing Gregory, Oration 42.6. [^or33]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 33.1 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^theod-5-8]: Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History 5.8. [^theod-835]: Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History 5.8, editors' note on Maximus. [^soc-5-8]: Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History 5.8. [^oca-council]: Orthodox Church in America, "The Second Ecumenical Council." [^nic-15]: First Council of Nicaea, canon 15. [^or42-20]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 42.20 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or42-26]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 42.26 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or42-27]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 42.27 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^theod-832]: Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History 5.8, editors' note on Gregory's later years. [^or45-ed]: Editors' introduction to Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 45, NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7. [^jerome-117]: Jerome, De Viris Illustribus 117. [^jerome-jov]: Jerome, Against Jovinianus 1.13. [^palamas-107]: Gregory Palamas, One Hundred and Fifty Texts, 107 (in the Philokalia). [^lash]: Archimandrite Ephrem Lash, translator's notes to the Second (Iambic) Canon for Pentecost. [^philokalia-symeon]: Introductory note to St Symeon the New Theologian, in The Philokalia (Palmer, Sherrard and Ware). [^ow-theologian]: OrthodoxWiki, "Theologian" (citing Evagrius, Treatise on Prayer 61). [^or27-3]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 27.3 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or27-7]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 27.7 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or28-3]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 28.3 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or28-4]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 28.4 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^pomaz]: Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, sections on the attributes of God and the dogma of the Holy Trinity in the ancient Church. [^or28-6]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 28.6 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or28-17]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 28.17 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^max-100]: Maximus the Confessor, Four Hundred Texts on Love, First Century, 100 (in the Philokalia). [^or29-2]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 29.2 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or29-6]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 29.6 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or29-8]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 29.8 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or30-7]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 30.7 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or31-5]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31.5 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or31-6]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31.6 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or31-8]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31.8 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or31-9]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31.9 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or39-12]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 39.12 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^wiki-filioque]: Wikipedia, "Filioque." [^or21-35]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 21.35 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or39-11]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 39.11 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or31-11]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31.11 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or31-33]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31.31–33 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or31-26]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31.26 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or31-27]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31.27 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or31-28]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31.28 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or31-29]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31.29 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^eran]: Theodoret, Eranistes, Dialogue 2, quoting Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle 101 (first letter to Cledonius). [^oca-max]: Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Maximus the Confessor and Saint Martin of Rome." [^bridge]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle 101, To Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius, NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7, p. 440, as quoted in OrthodoxBridge, "Monotheletism." [^jd-3-18]: John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 3.18. [^or29-19]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 29.19 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or30-21a]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 30.21 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^jd-3-17]: John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 3.17. [^palamas-109]: Gregory Palamas, One Hundred and Fifty Texts, 109 (in the Philokalia). [^or1-5]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 1.5 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or30-21b]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 30.21 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or38-13]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 38.13 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^palamas-111]: Gregory Palamas, One Hundred and Fifty Texts, 111 (in the Philokalia). [^or38-1]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 38.1 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or45-1]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 45.1 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or40-2]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 40.2 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or40-4]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 40.4 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or40-14]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 40.14 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or40-28]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 40.28 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^wiki-infant]: Wikipedia, "Infant baptism." [^or45-22]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 45.22 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^oca-redemption]: Orthodox Church in America, "Redemption." [^or45-28]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 45.28 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^or21-1]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 21.1 (NPNF 2nd ser, vol. 7). [^family]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations 7, 8, 18 and 43. [^jerome-life]: Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Jerome of Stridon" (June 15). [^rufinus]: Gennadius of Marseilles, De Viris Illustribus (supplement to Jerome), chapter 17. [^vincent]: Vincent of Lérins, Commonitory 30. [^public-orth]: Public Orthodoxy, "Christian Unity in Action: The Return of St. Gregory's and St. John's Relics to Constantinople" (2024). [^jd-uses]: John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2.3, 3.10, 3.15, 3.16, 4.6. [^jd-icons]: John of Damascus, Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons, Part 3. [^max-ambigua]: Introductory note to St Maximos the Confessor, in The Philokalia; Orthodox Church in America, "Venerable Maximus the Confessor" (January 21). [^palamas-uses]: Gregory Palamas, One Hundred and Fifty Texts, 49, 67, 70, 124, 128, 146 (in the Philokalia). [^symeon-faith]: Symeon the New Theologian, On Faith (Catechesis 22), in the Philokalia. [^chrys]: Orthodox Church in America, "Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople" (November 13). [^trullo]: Council in Trullo, canon 64. [^troparion]: Orthodox Church in America, troparion for January 25. [^synaxis]: Orthodox Church in America, "Synaxis of the Ecumenical Teachers and Hierarchs Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom" (January 30). [^relics]: Orthodox Church in America, "The Transfer of the Relics of Saint Gregory the Theologian" (January 19).