And if He is above them, there is again brought in an irrational swarm of bodies, and a depth of nonsense, that has no possible basis to stand upon. Gregory of Nazianzus. Much too of the eyes, which have an indescribable communion with visible objects, and which are moved by the will alone, and that together, and are affected exactly as is the mind. If he be a leopard let him die with his spots. Who was ever deemed worthy of so great a gift? XXVI. XXXI. Oration 41.15-6. And whether this was an appearance by day, only visible to Saints, or an unerring vision of the night, or an impression on the mind holding converse with the future as if it were the present; or some other ineffable form of prophecy, I cannot say; the God of the Prophets knows, and they know who are thus inspired. This is the chain of fluid nature. Do you know the nature and phenomena of the Moon, and the measures and courses of light, and how it is that the sun bears rule over the day, and the moon presides over the night; and while She gives confidence to wild beasts, He stirs Man up to work, raising or lowering himself as may be most serviceable? The truth then, and the whole Word is full of difficulty and obscurity; and as it were with a small instrument we are undertaking a great work, when with merely human wisdom we pursue the knowledge of the Self-existent, and in company with, or not apart from, the senses, by which we are borne hither and there, and led into error, we apply ourselves to the search after things which are only to be grasped by the mind, and we are unable by meeting bare realities with bare intellect to approximate somewhat more closely to the truth, and to mould the mind by its concepts. XVI. Who spread the sky around us, and set the stars in order? Who wove the song for the swan when he spreads his wings to the breezes, and makes melody of their rustling? Translation and Comments on Oration 29.2 by Gregory of Nazianzus July 21, 2018 by wagraham Leave a Comment Gregory of Nazianzus received the title “the theologian,” only one of three people in church history to receive the accolade (John the Apostle and Symeon being the other two). Whether it will ever be discovered is a question which he who will may examine and decide. Second Oration (Or. And what could this be but Place, which we have already rejected? How is the body nourished by food, and the soul by reason? Look also at the fishy tribe gliding through the waters, and as it were flying through the liquid element, and breathing its own air, but in danger when in contact with ours, as we are in the waters; and mark their habits and dispositions, their intercourse and their births, their size and their beauty, and their affection for places, and their wanderings, and their assemblings and departings, and their properties which so nearly resemble those of the animals that dwell on land; in some cases community, in others contrast of properties, both in name and shape. An Intellectual Biography (Crestwood, N.Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001). What bounded it? But, relatively to us at least, we must reckon the Angelic Nature incorporeal, or at any rate as nearly so as possible. And if you like we will grant you this: to what then will you ascribe its preservation and protection in accordance with the terms of its first creation. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series. It would be a weary discourse to go through all the details. Or perhaps it may be to give a greater reward hereafter for their labor and glorious life to those who have here been purified, and have exercised long patience in respect of that which they desired. Next, I pray you, traverse the length and breadth of earth, the common mother of all, and the gulfs of the sea bound together with one another and with the land, and the beautiful forests, and the rivers and springs abundant and perennial, not only of waters cold and fit for drinking, and on the surface of the earth; but also such as running beneath the earth, and flowing under caverns, are then forced out by a violent blast, and repelled, and then filled with heat by this violence of strife and repulsion, burst out by little and little wherever they get a chance, and hence supply our need of hot baths in many parts of the earth, and in conjunction with the cold give us a healing which is without cost and spontaneous. Thus also there must be no body, that there may be no composition, and so the argument is established by going back from last to first. What harmonious Gnossian chorus of Dædalus, wrought for a girl to the highest pitch of beauty? And much concerning our rest in sleep, and the figments of dreams, and of memory and remembrance; of calculation, and anger, and desire; and in a word, all by which this little world called Man is swayed. Whether it will ever be discovered is a question which he who will may examine and decide. For if He is Nowhere, then some person of a very inquiring turn of mind might ask, How is it then that He can even exist? How comes he to be the creator of day when above the earth, and of night when below it? For these are the Back Parts of God, which He leaves behind Him, as tokens of Himself like the shadows and reflection of the sun in the water, which shew the sun to our weak eyes, because we cannot look at the sun himself, for by his unmixed light he is too strong for our power of perception. What then is this subtle thing, which is of these, and yet is not these, or how can that Unity which is in its Nature uncomposite and incomparable, still be all of these, and each one of them perfectly? , I went back to the Greek text and began to revise Browne and Contact information. What is this great web unwrought by art? Or of Light unmingled with air, and loosed from that which is as it were its father and source? In Pentecostem. For even of this I would have you know that you have only a shadow when you hear the words, I will consider the heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, and the settled order therein; not as if he were considering them now, but as destined to do so hereafter. And this not out of envy, for envy is far from the Divine Nature, which is passionless, and only good and Lord of all; especially envy of that which is the most honorable of all His creatures. In praising my sister, I shall pay honour to one of my own family; yet my praise will not be false, because it is given to a relation, but, because it is true, will be worthy of commendation, and its truth is based not only upon its justice, but upon well-known facts. Now the subject of God is more hard to come at, in proportion as it is more perfect than any other, and is open to more objections, and the solutions of them are more laborious. Much of this clarification was the fruit of a 4 th-century trio of friends known as Cappadocian Fathers: Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil of Caesarea. XVIII. And so it is turned into a blessing, at least to all men who are sensible, that this blessing is not too easy. Jeremiah 13:23 If a ravening and roaring lion, seeking what he may devour 1 Peter 5:8 of our souls or of our words; or a wild boar, trampling under foot the precious and translucent pearls of the Truth; Matthew 7:6 or an Arabian and alien wolf, or one keener even than these in tricks of argument; or a fox, that is a treacherous and faithless soul, changing its shape according to circumstances or necessities, feeding on dead or putrid bodies, or on little vineyards when the large ones have escaped them; or any other carnivorous beast, rejected by the Law as unclean for food or enjoyment; our discourse must withdraw from such and be engraved on solid tables of stone, and that on both sides because the Law is partly visible, and partly hidden; the one part belonging to the mass who remain below, the other to the few who press upward into the Mount. For it is much easier, and more concise to show what a thing is not from what it is, than to demonstrate what it is by stripping it of what it is not. He has fenced the face of the water with His command. But I would have you marvel at the natural knowledge even of irrational creatures, and if you can, explain its cause. What are the treasuries of the snow? But who gave him motion at first? XX. But since it was ineffable, we too will honour it by silence. There are proper settings in which to philosophize about God. Paul also tries to arrive at, I will not say the nature of God, for this he knew was utterly impossible, but only the judgments of God; and since he finds no way out, and no halting place in the ascent, and moreover, since the earnest searching of his mind after knowledge does not end in any definite conclusion, because some fresh unattained point is being continually disclosed to him (O marvel, that I have a like experience), he closes his discourse with astonishment, and calls this the riches of God, and the depth, and confesses the unsearchableness of the judgments of God, in almost the very words of David, who at one time calls God’s judgments the great deep whose foundations cannot be reached by measure or sense; and at another says that His knowledge of him and of his own constitution was marvellous, and had attained greater strength than was in his own power or grasp. But whether there be other causes for it also, let them see who are nearer God, and are eye witnesses and spectators of His unsearchable judgments; Romans 11:33 if there are any who are so eminent in virtue, and who walk in the paths of the Infinite, as the saying is. This will be made clear to you as follows: — Are not Spirit, and Fire, and Light, Love, and Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Mind and Reason, and the like, the names of the First Nature? And so on ad infinitum. Matthew 11:28 He was heavy with sleep, but He walked lightly over the sea. Thus Solomon, who was the wisest of all men, whether before him or in his own time, to whom God gave breadth of heart, and a flood of contemplation, more abundant than the sand, even he, the more he entered into the depth, the more dizzy he became, and declared the furthest point of wisdom to be the discovery of how very far off she was from him. XXI. [Second Theological Oration. Gregory of Nazianzus: Funeral Oration on His Sister Gorgonia (369) 1. And very wanting in sense is he who will not willingly go thus far in following natural proofs; but not even this which we have fancied or formed, or which reason has sketched for us, proves the existence of a God. How is it that the voice is carried by the vocal organs, and received by the ears, and both are joined by the smiting and resounding of the medium of the air? Who poured forth the air, that great and abundant wealth, not measured to men by their rank or fortunes; not restrained by boundaries; not divided out according to people's ages; but like the distribution of the Manna, Exodus 16:18 received in sufficiency, and valued for its equality of distribution; the chariot of the winged creation; the seat of the winds; the moderator of the seasons; the quickener of living things, or rather the preserver of natural life in the body; in which bodies have their being, and by which we speak; in which is the light and all that it shines upon, and the sight which flows through it? What Cretan Labyrinth, hard to get through, hard to unravel, as the poets say, and continually crossing itself through the tricks of its construction? For every compound is a starting point of strife, and strife of separation, and separation of dissolution. You can find more resources and connect with people through the Social Media and Youtube buttons below. As far, however, as we have attained, who measure with our little measure things hard to be understood, perhaps one reason is to prevent us from too readily throwing away the possession because it was so easily come by. For what effect is produced upon His Being or Substance by His having no beginning, and being incapable of change or limitation? Since nature has set before you all things as in an abundant banquet free to all, both the necessaries and the luxuries of life, in order that, if nothing else, you may at any rate know God by His benefits, and by your own sense of want be made wiser than you were. But a man who states what God is not without going on to say what He is, acts much in the same way as one would who when asked how many twice five make, should answer, Not two, nor three, nor four, nor five, nor twenty, nor thirty, nor in short any number below ten, nor any multiple of ten; but would not answer ten, nor settle the mind of his questioner upon the firm ground of the answer. And Noah’s “glory was that he was pleasing to God; he who was entrusted with the saving of the whole world from the waters, or rather of the Seeds of the world, escaped the Deluge in a small Ark. What scientific laws, pray, can you lay down concerning thunder and lightning, O you who thunder from the earth, and cannot shine with even little sparks of truth? For what will you conceive the Deity to be, if you rely upon all the approximations of reason? And Justice and Love, are they not praiseworthy dispositions, the one opposed to injustice, the other to hate, and at one time intensifying themselves, at another relaxed, now taking possession of us, now leaving us alone, and in a word, making Its what we are, and changing us as colors do bodies? For what effect is produced upon His Being or Substance by His having no beginning, and being incapable of change or limitation? For if He is Nowhere, then some person of a very inquiring turn of mind might ask, How is it then that He can even exist? arid Who bindeth the waters in the clouds, and, fixing part in the clouds (O marvel!) But, relatively to us at least, we must reckon the Angelic Nature incorporeal, or at any rate as nearly so as possible. How comes he to be the maker and divider of the seasons, that come and depart in regular order, and as in a dance interweave with each other, or stand apart by a law of love on the one hand, and of order on the other, and mingle little by little, and steal on their neighbour, just as nights and days do, so as not to give us pain by their suddenness. “He hath fenced the face of the water with His command.” This is the chain of fluid nature. And because the variations are individually small, it both supplies our needs more liberally, and is more beautiful by its variety; part being distributed into habitations, and part left uninhabited, namely all the great height of Mountains, and the various clefts of its coast line cut off from it. What are the first fountains of springs? III. For indeed even reason has nothing to lean upon, but only the Will of God. Shall I reckon up for you the differences of the other animals, both from us and from each other, — differences of nature, and of production, and of nourishment, and of region, and of temper, and as it were of social life? He was approved because he worshipped as far as he comprehended. And I think that some who were courtiers of arbitrary power and extolled bodily strength and admired beauty, made a God in time out of him whom they honored, perhaps getting hold of some fable to help on their imposture. Whence do bees and spiders get their love of work and art, by which the former plan their honeycombs, and join them together by hexagonal and co-ordinate tubes, and construct the foundation by means of a partition and an alternation of the angles with straight lines; and this, as is the case, in such dusky hives and dark combs; and the latter weave their intricate webs by such light and almost airy threads stretched in various ways, and this from almost invisible beginnings, to be at once a precious dwelling, and a trap for weaker creatures with a view to enjoyment of food? What is the drawing of nature, and the mutual relation between parents and children, that it should be held together by a spell of love? And when I looked a little closer, I saw, not the First and unmingled Nature, known to Itself — to the Trinity, I mean; not That which abides within the first veil, and is hidden by the Cherubim; but only that Nature, which at last even reaches to us. XXIII. Now the subject of God is more hard to come at, in proportion as it is more perfect than any other, and is open to more objections, and the solutions of them are more laborious. For such honours were the fitting due of such gods. For if the non-existent is nowhere, then that which is nowhere is also perhaps non-existent. What would you say of Isaiah or Ezekiel, who was an eyewitness of very great mysteries, and of the other Prophets; for one of these saw the Lord of Sabaoth sitting on the Throne of glory, and encircled and praised and hidden by the sixwinged Seraphim, and was himself purged by the live coal, and equipped for his prophetic office. What is the drawing of nature, and the mutual relation between parents and children, that it should be held together by a spell of love? Now when I go up eagerly into the Mount Exodus 24:1 — or, to use a truer expression, when I both eagerly long, and at the same time am afraid (the one through my hope and the other through my weakness) to enter within the Cloud, and hold converse with God, for so God commands; if any be an Aaron, let him go up with me, and let him stand near, being ready, if it must be so, to remain outside the Cloud. What is the desire for and imparting of nourishment, and who brought us spontaneously to those first springs and sources of life? 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