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Translated by Ch. Browne and J. Swallow.
Gregory Theologian Bilingual Anthology, Resources Online and in Print
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15 Pages
Page 7
X. For the same Word is on the one hand terrible through its nature to those who are unworthy, and on the other through its loving kindness can be received by those who are thus prepared, who have driven out the unclean and worldly spirit from their souls, and have swept and adorned their own souls by self-examination, and have not left them idle or without employment, so as again to be occupied with greater armament by the seven spirits of wickedness...the same number as are reckoned of virtue (for that which is hardest to fight against calls for the sternest efforts)...but besides fleeing from evil, practise virtue, making Christ entirely, or at any rate to the greatest extent possible, to dwell within them, so that the power of evil cannot meet with any empty place to fill it again with himself, and make the last state of that man worse than the first, by the greater energy of his assault, and the greater strength and impregnability of the fortress. But when, having guarded our soul with every care, and having appointed goings up in our heart, [3948] and broken up our fallow ground, [3949] and sown unto righteousness, [3950] as David and Solomon and Jeremiah bid us, let us enlighten ourselves with the light of knowledge, and then let us speak of the Wisdom of God that hath been hid in a mystery, [3951] and enlighten others. Meanwhile let us purify ourselves, and receive the elementary initiation of the Word, that we may do ourselves the utmost good, making ourselves godlike, and receiving the Word at His coming; and not only so, but holding Him fast and shewing Him to others.
XI. And now, having purified the theatre by what has been said, let us discourse a little about the Festival, and join in celebrating this Feast with festal and pious souls. And, since the chief point of the Festival is the remembrance of God, let us call God to mind. For I think that the sound of those who keep Festival There, where is the dwelling of all the Blissful, is nothing else than this, the hymns and praises of God, sung by all who are counted worthy of that City. Let none be astonished if what I have to say contains some things that I have said before; for not only will I utter the same words, but I shall speak of the same subjects, trembling both in tongue and mind and thought when I speak of God for you too, that you may share this laudable and blessed feeling. And when I speak of God you must be illumined at once by one flash of light and by three. Three in Individualities or Hypostases, if any prefer so to call them, or persons, [3952] for we will not quarrel about names so long as the syllables amount to the same meaning; but One in respect of the Substance—that is, the Godhead. For they are divided without division, if I may so say; and they are united in division. For the Godhead is one in three, and the three are one, in whom the Godhead is, or to speak more accurately, Who are the Godhead. Excesses and defects we will omit, neither making the Unity a confusion, nor the division a separation. We would keep equally far from the confusion of Sabellius and from the division of Arius, which are evils diametrically opposed, yet equal in their wickedness. For what need is there heretically to fuse God together, or to cut Him up into inequality?
[3948] Ps. lxxxiv. 5.
[3949] Jer. iv. 3.
[3950] Prov. xi. 18.
[3951] 2 Cor. ii. 6.
[3952] The sense of Person (here prosopon), which is the usual post-Nicene equivalent of hupostasis, was by no means generally attached to that word during the first Four Centuries, though here and there there are traces of such a use. Throughout the Arian controversy a great deal of trouble and misunderstanding was caused by the want of a precise definition of the meaning of hupostasis. It seems to have been at first understood by the Eastern Church to mean Real Personal Existence—Reality being the fundamental idea. In this fundamental sense it was used in Theology as expressing the distinct individuality and relative bearing of the Three "Persons" of the Blessed Trinity to each other (to idion para to koinon, Suidas). But Arius gave it a heretical twist, and said that there are Three Hypostases, in the sense of Natures or Substances; and this doctrine was anathematized by the Nicene Council, which, apparently regarding the term hupostasis as exactly equivalent to ousia (as Arius tried to make it) condemned the proposition that the Son is ex heteras hupostaseos e ousias (Symb. Nic.). Similar is the use of the word in S. Athanasius. As against Sabellius, however, who taught that in the Godhead there are tria prosopa (using this word in the sense of Aspects only) but would not allow treis hupostaseis (i.e., Self-existent Personalities), the post-Nicene Church regarded hupostasis as designating the Person, and spoke freely of treis hupostaseis. The Western Church increased the confusion by continuing to regard hupostasis as equivalent to ousia, and translating it by Substantia or Subsistentia. It was not till the word Essentia came into use to express ousia that the Western Church grasped the difference, so long accepted in the East, so as to use the words accurately. Meantime, however, there would seem to have grown up a difference in the use of the two words supposed to represent hupostasis, of the same kind as that between hupostasis and ousia; Substantia being appropriated to the Essence of a thing, that which is the foundation of its being; while Subsistentia came rather to connote a limitation, i.e., Personality. Thus the West also became confused, and Substantia was held to be the true equivalent of hupostasis. Hence the condemnation at Sardica (a.d. 347) by the Western Bishops of the doctrine of Three Hypostases as Arian. The confusion lasted long, but in 362 a Council was held at Alexandria, when this difference was seen to be a mere logomachy, and it was pronounced orthodox to confess either treis hupostaseis in the sense of "Persons," or mian hupostasin in that of "Substance." Our author in his Oration to the Fathers of the Council of Constantinople fully acknowledges this. "What do you mean," he says, "by hupostaseis or prosopa? You mean that the Three are distinct, not in Nature, but in Personality." And in the Panegyric on S. Athanasius (Or. xxi. c. 35), he remarks on the orthodoxy of the phrase mia ousia, treis hupostaseis, that the first expression refers to the Nature of the Godhead, the second to the special properties of the Persons. With this, he says, the Italians agree, but the poverty of their language is such that it does not admit of the distinction between ousia and hupostasis, and therefore has to call in the word prosopon, which if misunderstood is liable to be charged with Sabellianism.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/gregory-nazianzen/holy-lights.asp?pg=7
