Theological Oration 5: On the Holy Spirit

Contents

Translation in progress.

Reading pages: 1–21 · 22–33

1. 1Having defended the Son, Gregory turns to those who reject the Holy Spirit’s Godhead as unscriptural.
2. 2Gregory admits the difficulty of the subject and leaves to others a word study of “spirit” and “holy,” turning directly to the argument.
3. 3Applying John 1:9 in turn to Father, Son, and Spirit, Gregory proclaims one light and one God in three.
4. 4If the Spirit were not eternal, the Godhead would once have been incomplete, and the Spirit could not deify us.
5. 5Gregory surveys opinions on the Spirit, from the Sadducees and Greek philosophers to Christians who call him an activity, a creature, or an undefined power.
6. 6The Spirit is not an accident or activity but a being who acts; and since we believe in him, he is not a creature but God.
7. 7Gregory rejects the Eunomian dilemma that the Spirit must be either unbegotten, a second son, or a grandson, and warns against applying bodily kinship terms to God.
8. 8The Spirit “proceeds” from the Father: neither unbegotten nor begotten, and therefore neither creature nor son, but God.
9. 9Unbegottenness, begetting, and procession distinguish Father, Son, and Spirit as three persons in one divine nature, against both Sabellius and the Arians.
10. 10The Spirit is God and consubstantial with the Father; although no earthly analogy is adequate, nature shows beings of one substance that come to be in different ways.
11. 11Adam, Eve, and Seth came to be in different ways yet share one human nature, a faint image of how the Son and Spirit share the Father’s substance.
12. 12Worship in the Spirit is worship of the Spirit, since to worship one of the three is to worship all three; and the Spirit was not made through the Son.
13. 13To the charge that three who are God make three Gods, Gregory replies first to those who worship the Son: their defence against “ditheism” answers the charge of “tritheism.”
14. 14There is one God because there is one Godhead, undivided in three, like the one light of three joined suns.
15. 15The unity of the Godhead is not like the abstract unity of a species such as humanity, whose members are divided and changeable.
16. 16Unlike the quarrelling, divided gods of Greek myth, Father, Son, and Spirit are one in substance and power.
17. 17The Eunomian argument that only things of one substance are counted together would save them from tritheism only by denying the Son and Spirit’s Godhead.
18. 18Number indicates quantity, not nature: Scripture counts together things of different natures and counts singly things of the same nature.
19. 19Using 1 John 5:8 and common equivocal names, Gregory shows that the Eunomian rules about counting and names prove nothing about substance.
20. 20The order in which the three are named, the titles “God” and “Lord,” and the prepositions “from,” “through,” and “in” do not show inequality of nature.
21. 21Gregory replies to the charge that the Spirit’s Godhead is unscriptural by first discussing how Scripture uses things and names.
22. 22Scripture speaks of God sleeping, being angry, walking, and sitting enthroned, figures drawn from human life for things that are not literally so.
23. 23The Eunomians’ own key terms, “unbegotten” and “without beginning,” are not in Scripture by name but are inferred from it, as is the Spirit’s Godhead.
24. 24Scripture implies truths it does not state in so many words; Gregory will now explain why the Spirit’s Godhead was revealed gradually.
25. 25God led humanity gradually, from idols to the Law and from the Law to the gospel, persuading rather than forcing.
26. 26Revelation of the Trinity was gradual: the Old Testament showed the Father, the New the Son, and now the Spirit makes himself clearer, as Jesus himself revealed him step by step.
27. 27The Spirit’s Godhead was among the things the disciples could not yet bear, which Jesus promised the Spirit would teach them later.
28. 28Gregory confesses one Godhead in Father, Son, and Spirit: since the Spirit deifies us in baptism, he must be worshipped as God.
29. 29Gregory gathers the many scriptural titles and works of the Holy Spirit, which show him to be God.
30. 30Scripture’s teaching on blasphemy against the Spirit and on Ananias and Sapphira shows that the Spirit is God; lowlier expressions refer him to the Father as source.
31. 31Gregory tests the analogy of source, spring, and river and finds it inadequate for the Trinity.
32. 32The analogy of the sun, its ray, and its light, and that of a reflected sunbeam, also fall short.
33. 33Rejecting all earthly analogies as inadequate, Gregory resolves to hold to the reverent faith taught by the Spirit and to worship the one Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.