Gregory Nazianzen the Theologian In Defence of His Flight to Pontus and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office (Oration II), Complete

Translated by Ch. Browne and J. Swallow.

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Page 43

96. Who is the man, whose heart has never been made to burn, [2856] as the Scriptures have been opened to him, with the pure words of God which have been tried in a furnace; [2857] who has not, by a triple [2858] inscription [2859] of them upon the breadth of his heart, attained the mind of Christ; [2860] nor been admitted to the treasures which to most men remain hidden, secret, and dark, to gaze upon the riches therein? [2861] and become able to enrich others, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. [2862]

97. Who is the man who has never beheld, as our duty is to behold it, the fair beauty of the Lord, nor has visited His temple, [2863] or rather, become the temple of God, [2864] and the habitation of Christ in the Spirit? [2865] Who is the man who has never recognized the correlation and distinction between figures and the truth, so that by withdrawing from the former and cleaving to the latter, and by thus escaping from the oldness of the letter and serving the newness of the spirit, [2866] he may clean pass over to grace from the law, which finds its spiritual fulfilment in the dissolution of the body. [2867]

98. Who is the man who has never, by experience and contemplation, traversed the entire series of the titles [2868] and powers of Christ, both those more lofty ones which originally were His, and those more lowly ones which He later assumed for our sake—viz.: God, the Son, the Image, the Word, the Wisdom, the Truth, the Light, the Life, the Power, the Vapour, the Emanation, the Effulgence, the Maker, the King, the Head, the Law, the Way, the Door, the Foundation, the Rock, the Pearl, the Peace, the Righteousness, the Sanctification, the Redemption, the Man, the Servant, the Shepherd, the Lamb, the High Priest, the Victim, the Firstborn before creation, the Firstborn from the dead, the Resurrection: who is the man who hearkens, but pays no heed, to these names so pregnant with reality, and has never yet held communion with, nor been made partaker of, the Word, in any of the real relations signified by each of these names which He bears?

[2856] S. Luke xxiv. 32.

[2857] Ps. xii. 7.

[2858] Triple, a quotation from Prov. xxii. 20. The meaning of the Hebrew is doubtful. Clemencet, not noticing this, suggests that the allusion is to the law being twice inscribed on tables of stone, once on the heart by the Spirit.

[2859] Prov. xxii. 20 (LXX.).

[2860] 1 Cor. ii. 16.

[2861] Isai. xlv. 3.

[2862] 1 Cor. ii. 13.

[2863] Ps. xxvii. 4.

[2864] 2 Cor. vi. 16.

[2865] Eph. ii. 22.

[2866] Ib. vii. 6.

[2867] Rom. vi. 6.

[2868] Titles. These are more fully dealt with Orat. xxx. 17-21.

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