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| Gregory then makes an explanation at length touching the eternal Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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§2. Gregory then
makes an explanation at length touching the eternal Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit.
Since then this doctrine is put
forth by the Truth itself, it follows that anything which the inventors
of pestilent heresies devise besides to subvert this Divine
utterance,—as, for example, calling the Father
“Maker” and “Creator” of the Son instead of
“Father,” and the Son a “result,” a
“creature,” a “product,” instead of
“Son,” and the Holy Spirit the “creature of a
creature,” and the “product of a product,” instead of
His proper title the “Spirit,” and whatever those who fight
against God are pleased to say of Him,—all such fancies we term a
denial and violation of the Godhead revealed to us in this doctrine.
For once for all we have learned from the Lord, through Whom comes the
transformation of our nature from mortality to immortality,—from
Him, I say, we have learned to what we ought to look with the eyes of our
understanding,—that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We say that it is a terrible and soul-destroying thing to misinterpret
these Divine utterances and to devise in their stead assertions to
subvert them,—assertions pretending to correct God the Word, Who
appointed that we should maintain these statements as part of our
faith. For each of these titles understood in its natural sense becomes
for Christians a rule of truth and a law of piety. For while there are
many other names by which Deity is indicated in the Historical Books,
in the Prophets and in the Law, our Master Christ passes by all these
and commits to us these titles as better able to bring us to the faith
about the Self-Existent, declaring that it suffices us to cling to the
title, “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” in order to attain to
the apprehension of Him Who is absolutely Existent, Who is one and yet
not one. In regard to essence He is one, wherefore the Lord ordained
that we should look to one Name: but in regard to the attributes
indicative of the Persons, our belief in Him is distinguished into
belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost249
| 249 Or,
somewhat more literally, “He admits of distinction into belief in
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, being divided,”
&c. | ;
He is divided without separation, and united without confusion. For
when we hear the title “Father” we apprehend the meaning to
be this, that the name is not understood with reference to itself
alone, but also by its special signification indicates the relation to
the Son. For the term “Father” would have no meaning apart
by itself, if “Son” were not connoted by the utterance of
the word “Father.” When, then, we learnt the name
“Father” we were taught at the same time, by the selfsame
title, faith also in the Son. Now since Deity by its very nature is
permanently and immutably the same in all that pertains to its essence,
nor did it at any time fail to be anything that it now is, nor will it
at any future time be anything that it now is not, and since He Who is
the very Father was named Father by the Word, and since in the Father
the Son is implied,—since these things are so, we of necessity
believe that He Who admits no change or alteration in His nature was
always entirely what He is now, or, if there is anything which He was
not, that He assuredly is not now. Since then He is named Father
by the very Word, He assuredly always was Father, and is and will be
even as He was. For surely it is not lawful in speaking of the Divine
and unimpaired Essence to deny that what is excellent always belonged
to It. For if He was not always what He now is, He certainly changed
either from the better to the worse or from the worse to the better,
and of these assertions the impiety is equal either way, whichever
statement is made concerning the Divine nature. But in fact the Deity
is incapable of change and alteration. So, then, everything that is
excellent and good is always contemplated in the fountain of
excellency. But “the Only-begotten God, Who is in the bosom of
the Father250
” is excellent, and beyond all
excellency:—mark you, He says, “Who is in the bosom
of the Father,” not “Who came to be”
there.
Well then, it has been
demonstrated by these proofs that the Son is from all eternity to be
contemplated in the Father, in Whom He is, being Life and Light and
Truth, and every noble name and conception—to say that the Father
ever existed by Himself apart from these attributes is a piece of the
utmost impiety and infatuation. For if the Son, as the Scripture saith,
is the Power of God, and Wisdom, and Truth, and Light, and
Sanctification, and Peace, and Life, and the like, then before the Son
existed, according to the view of the heretics, these things also had
no existence at all. And if these things had no existence they must
certainly conceive the bosom of the Father to have been devoid of such
excellences. To the end, then, that the Father might not be conceived
as destitute of the excellences which are His own, and that the
doctrine might not run wild into this extravagance, the right faith
concerning the Son is necessarily included in our Lord’s
utterance with the contemplation of the eternity of the Father. And for
this reason He passes over all those names which are employed to
indicate the surpassing excellence of the Divine nature251
| 251 That
nature which transcends our conceptions (ὑπερκειμένη). | , and delivers to us as part of our profession
of faith the title of “Father” as better suited to indicate
the truth, being a title which, as has been said, by its relative sense
connotes with itself the Son, while the Son, Who is in the Father,
always is what He essentially is, as has been said already, because the
Deity by Its very nature does not admit of augmentation. For It does
not perceive any other good outside of Itself, by participation in
which It could acquire any accession, but is always immutable, neither
casting away what It has, nor acquiring what It has not: for none of
Its properties are such as to be cast away. And if there is anything
whatsoever blessed, unsullied, true and good, associated with Him and
in Him, we see of necessity that the good and holy Spirit must belong
to Him252
| 252 Or
“be conjoined with such attribute:” αὐτῷ probably
refers, like περὶ αὐτὸν
καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ
just above, to Θεός or τὸ
Θεῖον, but it may
conceivably refer to εἴ
τι μακάριον,
κ.τ.λ. | , not by way of accretion. That
Spirit is indisputably a princely Spirit253
| 253 ἡγεμονικόν. Cf. Ps. li. 12
in LXX. (Spiritus principalis in Vulg.,
“free spirit” in the “Authorised”
Version, and in the Prayer-book Version). | , a
quickening Spirit, the controlling and sanctifying force of all
creation, the Spirit that “worketh all in all” as He
wills254
. Thus we conceive no gap between the anointed
Christ and His anointing, between the King and His sovereignty, between
Wisdom and the Spirit of Wisdom, between Truth and the Spirit of Truth,
between Power and the Spirit of Power, but as there is contemplated
from all eternity in the Father the Son, Who is Wisdom and Truth, and
Counsel, and Might, and Knowledge, and Understanding, so there is also
contemplated in Him the Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of Wisdom, and
of Truth, and of Counsel, and of Understanding, and all else that the
Son is and is called. For which reason we say that to the holy
disciples the mystery of godliness was committed in a form expressing
at once union and distinction,—that we should believe on the Name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. For the
differentiation of the subsistences255
makes the
distinction of Persons256
clear and free from
confusion, while the one Name standing in the forefront of the
declaration of the Faith clearly expounds to us the unity of essence of
the Persons257
Whom the Faith declares,—I mean,
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. For by these
appellations we are taught not a difference of nature, but only the
special attributes that mark the subsistences258
, so
that we know that neither is the Father the Son, nor the Son the
Father, nor the Holy Spirit either the Father or the Son, and recognize
each by the distinctive mark of His Personal Subsistence259
, in illimitable perfection, at once
contemplated by Himself and not divided from that with Which He is
connected.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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