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Translated by Ch. Browne and J. Swallow.
Gregory Theologian Bilingual Anthology, Resources Online and in Print
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14 Pages
Page 12
XIX. For He Whom you now treat with contempt was once above you. He Who is now Man was once the Uncompounded. What He was He continued to be; what He was not He took to Himself. [3556] In the beginning He was, uncaused; for what is the Cause of God? But afterwards for a cause He was born. And that cause was that you might be saved, who insult Him and despise His Godhead, because of this, that He took upon Him your denser nature, having converse with Flesh by means of Mind. [3557] While His inferior Nature, the Humanity, became God, because it was united to God, and became One Person [3558] because the Higher Nature prevailed in order that I too might be made God so far as He is made Man. [3559] He was born—but He had been begotten: He was born of a woman—but she was a Virgin. The first is human, the second Divine. In His Human nature He had no Father, but also in His Divine Nature no Mother. [3560] Both these [3561] belong to Godhead. He dwelt in the womb—but He was recognized by the Prophet, [3562] himself still in the womb, leaping before the Word, for Whose sake He came into being. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes [3563] —but He took off the swathing bands of the grave by His rising again. He was laid in a manger—but He was glorified by Angels, and proclaimed by a star, and worshipped by the Magi. Why are you offended by that which is presented to your sight, because you will not look at that which is presented to your mind? He was driven into exile into Egypt—but He drove away the Egyptian idols. [3564] He had no form nor comeliness in the eyes of the Jews [3565] —but to David He is fairer than the children of men. [3566] And on the Mountain He was bright as the lightning, and became more luminous than the sun, [3567] initiating us into the mystery of the future.
[3556] cf. S. Leo, Serm. xxi., De Nativ. Dei, c. ii. "Remaining what He was, and putting on what He was not, He united the true form of a servant to that form in which He was equal to God the Father, and combined both natures in a union so close that the lower was not consumed by receiving glory, nor the higher lessened by assuming lowliness.
[3557] "Mediante anima," cf. Orat. xxxviii., 13. S. T. Aq., Summa, III., vi. Jungmann, de Verbo Incarn., c. 68. Forbes, On Nicene Creed, p. 188. Petav. de Incarn, IV., xiii., 2.
[3558] genomenos anthropos ho kato theos. The passage is one of great difficulty. Elias Cretensis renders the words as follows:—"Becoming Man, the inferior God, because humanity was" etc.; but his rendering is rejected as impossible by Petavius (de Incarn., IV., ix., 2, 3). (i.) It is grammatically possible (Madvig, Gk. Syntax, 9 a. rem. 3) for ho kato, standing as it does, to qualify anthropos. (ii.) But the kai genomenos ...theos may be taken as a nom. absolute, which would have been expressed by a gen. if anthropos had not been the same Person as homilesas.
[3559] As by the Incarnation He who was God was made perfect Man, so Man was made perfect God, and each nature retained its own qualities. Or it may mean that God Incarnate was made Man in respect of body, soul, and mind; that is, in all points: and the Humanity which He assumed was in all these points Deified; and therefore they who are His kindred and imitators share to that extent the Deification (Elias). In the First Epistle to Cledonius (v. infra) the Priest, against Apollinarius, which is sometimes reckoned as the 51st Oration, S. Gregory says, "The Godhead and the Manhood are two natures, just as soul and body are. But there are not two Sons or two Gods; although Paul did thus entangle the outward man and the inward. And, to speak succinctly, the Natures which make our Saviour are distinct, for the Invisible is not the same as the visible, nor the Timeless as that which is subject to time; but He is not two Persons, God forbid, for both these are one in the union, God being made Man, and Man being made God, or however else you may express it." And upon this S. Thomas Aquinas remarks that it is true, if by Man you understand simply Human Nature, and not a Human Person; in this sense it was brought to pass that Man was God; or in other words Human Nature was made that of the Son of God. (Summa, III., xvi., 7.)
[3560] "If any does not admit Mary to be the Mother of God (theotokon), he is separated from God. If any say that He passed through the Virgin as through a conduit, and that He was not formed in her both divinely and humanly (divinely, because without a human father; humanly, because in accordance with the laws of gestation), he is in like manner atheistic. If any assert that the Humanity was thus formed, and the Deity subsequently added, he is condemned; for this is not a generation of God, but an evasion of generation" (S. G. N. ad Cled., Ep. i.) S. Thomas Aquinas explains the fitness of the title thus: The Blessed Virgin could be denied to be the Mother of God only if either His Humanity had been conceived and born before That Man was the Son of God:—which was the position taken up by Photinus; or else if the Humanity had not been assumed into the unity of the Person (or Hypostasis) of the Son of God;—which was the position of Nestorius. Both these positions are erroneous. Therefore to deny that the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God is heretical (Summa, III.. xxxv. 4). In the text S. Gregory merely means that the Godhead of our Lord was not derived from His Blessed Mother, just as his Manhood was not derived from any man; but, as the extract at the beginning of this Note shews, he would be the last to take up the Nestorian notion, which was afterwards condemned at the Council of Ephesus.
[3561] Both These, i.e., the being without Father, and without Mother is a condition which belongs only to the Godhead.
[3562] S. John the Baptist (S. Luke i.).
[3563] Luke ii. 41.
[3564] Referring, perhaps, to the tradition that at the coming of Christ into Egypt all the Idols in the land fell down and were broken.
[3565] Isa. liii. 2.
[3566] Ps. xlv. 2.
[3567] Matt. xvii. 2.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/gregory-nazianzen/third-theological.asp?pg=12
