Gregory Nazianzen: The Coming of the Holy Spirit in Tongues of Fire Monday, May 13 2013

He [the Holy Spirit] worked…in the disciples of Christ…on three occasions—before Christ was glorified by the Passion; and after He was glorified by the Resurrection; and after His Ascension….

Now the first of these manifests Him—the healing of the sick and casting out of evil spirits, which could not be apart from the Spirit;

and so does that breathing upon them after the Resurrection, which was clearly a divine inspiration;

and so too the present distribution of the fiery tongues, which we are now commemorating.

But the first manifested Him indistinctly, the second more expressly, this present one more perfectly, since He is no longer present only in energy, but as we may say, substantially, associating with us, and dwelling in us.

[...] And therefore He came after Christ, that a Comforter should not be lacking unto us; but “another Comforter”, that you might acknowledge His co-equality.

For this word “another” marks an “alter ego”, a name of equal Lordship, not of inequality.  For “another” is not said, I know, of different kinds, but of things consubstantial.

And He came in the form of tongues because of His close relation to the Word.  And they were of fire, perhaps because of His purifying power…, or else because of His Substance.  For our God is a consuming fire….

And the tongues were cloven, because of the diversity of gifts. And they sat to signify His royalty and rest among the saints, and because the cherubim are the throne of God.

And it took place in an upper chamber …, because those who should receive it were to ascend and be raised above the earth; for also certain upper chambers are covered with divine waters, by which the praise of God are sung.

And Jesus Himself in an upper chamber gave the communion of the Sacrament to those who were being initiated into the higher mysteries, that thereby might be shown on the one hand that God must come down to us, as I know He did of old to Moses;

and on the other that we must go up to Him, and that so there should come to pass a communion of God with men, by a coalescing of the dignity.

For as long as either remains on its own footing, the one in His glory the other in his lowliness, so long the goodness of God cannot mingle with us, and His loving-kindness is incommunicable, and there is a great gulf between, which cannot be crossed;

and which separates not only the rich man from Lazarus and Abraham’s Bosom which he longs for, but also the created and changing natures from that which is eternal and immutable.

Gregory Nazianzen (c.330-390): Oration 41 (on Pentecost), 11-12.

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Gregory Nazianzen: Yesterday I was Crucified with Him; Today I am Glorified with Him Monday, Apr 1 2013

Yesterday the Lamb was slain and the door-posts were anointed, and Egypt bewailed her Firstborn, and the Destroyer passed us over, and the Seal was dreadful and reverend, and we were walled in with the Precious Blood.

To-day we have clean escaped from Egypt and from Pharaoh; and there is none to hinder us from keeping a Feast to the Lord our God—the Feast of our Departure; or from celebrating that Feast, not in the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, carrying with us nothing of ungodly and Egyptian leaven.

Yesterday I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him; yesterday I died with Him; to-day I am quickened with Him; yesterday I was buried with Him; to-day I rise with Him.

But let us offer to Him Who suffered and rose again for us—you will think perhaps that I am going to say gold, or silver, or woven work or transparent and costly stones, the mere passing material of earth, that remains here below, and is for the most part always possessed by bad men, slaves of the world and of the Prince of the world.

Let us offer ourselves, the possession most precious to God, and most fitting; let us give back to the Image what is made after the Image.  Let us recognize our Dignity; let us honour our Archetype; let us know the power of the Mystery, and for what Christ died.

Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us.  Let us become God’s for His sake, since He for ours became Man.

He assumed the worse that He might give us the better; He became poor that we through His poverty might be rich; He took upon Him the form of a servant that we might receive back our liberty;

He came down that we might be exalted; He was tempted that we might conquer; He was dishonoured that He might glorify us; He died that He might save us; He ascended that He might draw to Himself us, who were lying low in the Fall of sin.

Let us give all, offer all, to Him Who gave Himself a Ransom and a Reconciliation for us.  But one can give nothing like oneself, understanding the Mystery, and becoming for His sake all that He became for ours.

Gregory Nazianzen (c.330-390): Oration 1, 3-5.

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Gregory Nazianzen: Christ is the True Light that Lightens Every Man that Comes into the World Sunday, Jan 13 2013

The Holy Day of the Lights…, which we are celebrating to-day, has for its origin the Baptism of my Christ.

He is the true Light that lightens every man that comes into the world, and effects my purification, and assists that light which we received from the beginning from Him from above, but which we darkened and confused by sin.

[...] “The Light shines in darkness”, in this life and in the flesh, and is chased by the darkness, “but is not overtaken by it”.

I mean, it is not overtaken by the adverse power which leaps up in its shamelessness against the visible Adam, but which encounters God and is defeated.

This happens so that we, putting away the darkness, may draw near to the Light, and may then become perfect Light, the children of perfect Light.

See the grace of this Day; see the power of this mystery.

[...] At His birth we duly kept festival, both I, the leader of the Feast, and you, and all that is in the world and above the world.

With the star we ran, and with the magi we worshipped, and with the shepherds we were illuminated, and with the angels we glorified Him.

With Symeon we took Him up in our arms, and with Anna the aged and chaste we made our responsive confession.

[...]  Now, we come to another action of Christ, and another mystery.  I cannot restrain my pleasure; I am rapt into God.

Almost like John I proclaim good tidings; for though I am not a Forerunner, yet am I from the desert.

Christ is illumined, let us shine forth with Him.  Christ is baptized, let us descend with Him that we may also ascend with Him.

[...] John baptizes, Jesus comes to Him…, perhaps to sanctify the Baptist himself, but certainly to bury the whole of the old Adam in the water.

And before this, and for the sake of this, He comes to sanctify Jordan; for as He is spirit and flesh, so He consecrates us by Spirit and water.

[...] But further—Jesus goeth up out of the water…, for with Himself He carries up the world….

He sees the heaven opened which Adam had shut against himself and all his posterity, as the gates of Paradise by the flaming sword.

And the Spirit bears witness to His Godhead, for he descends upon One that is like Him, as does the voice from heaven (for He to Whom the witness is borne came from thence).

He descends like a dove, for He honours the body (for this also was God, through its union with God) by being seen in a bodily form.

 

Gregory Nazianzen (c.330-390): Oration 39, 1-2; 14-16.

 

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Benedict XVI: Gregory Nazianzen – “What Has Not Been Assumed Has Not Been Healed” Wednesday, Jan 2 2013

St Gregory Nazianzen…wrote: “Nothing seems to me greater than this: to silence one’s senses, to emerge from the flesh of the world, to withdraw into oneself, no longer to be concerned with human things other than what is strictly necessary;

“to converse with oneself and with God, to lead a life that transcends the visible; to bear in one’s soul divine images, ever pure, not mingled with earthly or erroneous forms;

“truly to be a perfect mirror of God and of divine things, and to become so more and more, taking light from light…;

“to enjoy, in the present hope, the future good, and to converse with angels; to have already left the earth even while continuing to dwell on it, borne aloft by the spirit”.

[...] Nazianzen…felt deeply the yearning to draw close to God, to be united with him. He expressed it in one of his poems in which he writes:

“Among the great billows of the sea of life, here and there whipped up by wild winds… one thing alone is dear to me, my only treasure, comfort and oblivion in my struggle, the light of the Blessed Trinity”.

Thus, Gregory made the light of the Trinity shine forth, defending the faith proclaimed at the Council of Nicea: one God in three persons, equal and distinct – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – “a triple light gathered into one splendour”.

Therefore, Gregory says further, in line with St Paul (1 Cor 8: 6): “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom is all; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom is all; and one Holy Spirit, in whom is all”.

Gregory gave great prominence to Christ’s full humanity: to redeem man in the totality of his body, soul and spirit, Christ assumed all the elements of human nature, otherwise man would not have been saved.

Disputing the heresy of Apollinaris, who held that Jesus Christ had not assumed a rational mind, Gregory tackled the problem in the light of the mystery of salvation:

“What has not been assumed has not been healed”, and if Christ had not been “endowed with a rational mind, how could he have been a man?”

It was precisely our mind and our reason that needed and needs the relationship, the encounter with God in Christ.

Having become a man, Christ gave us the possibility of becoming, in turn, like him. Nazianzus exhorted people:

“Let us seek to be like Christ, because Christ also became like us: to become gods through him since he himself, through us, became a man. He took the worst upon himself to make us a gift of the best”.

Benedict XVI (b. 1927): St Gregory Nazianzen (General Audience, 8^th August 2007 and 22^nd August 2007).

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Gregory Nazianzen: That He Might Offer Us Divinity in Exchange for Our Mortality Monday, Dec 24 2012

Foolish is he
who honours
not the royal and eternal
Word of God,
just as he honours
the Father himself in heaven.

Foolish is he
who honours not
the royal Word
appearing mortal in our midst,
just as he honours
the Word himself in heaven.

For such a man separates the Word
from the greatness of the Father
and from the form of man
and from our material state.

For the Word of the Father,
made man for us, is God—
compounded of the union
of God and mortal things—
one God in both,
mortal to this extent
that he might offer us divinity
in exchange for our mortality.

Be merciful, O wounded One on high,
for how great you are!
How could man’s mind ever grasp
this union beyond all words?

And so, mortal creatures,
cherish the dispensations
the Word has made for us with God.

If I can persuade you on this, then all is well,
but if you blacken this charter
with teeming thousands of objections
then come here to me that I may cut these verses
on the tablet of your heart
with a pen that needs no ink.

Gregory Nazianzen (c.330-390): Hymn 1, 1, 11 (PG 37, 470—1); from Saint Gregory Nazianzen: Selected Poems, Translated with an Introduction by John McGuckin, SLG Press, Convent of the Incarnation, Fairacres Oxford) @ Lectionary Central

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Gregory Nazianzen: The Word Partakes of My Flesh to Save the Image and to Make the Flesh Immortal (3) Thursday, Dec 6 2012

Continued from here…

Man was first chastened by many means, because his sins were many, and their root of evil sprang up through divers causes and at sundry times.

He was chastened by word, by law, by prophets, by benefits, by threats, by plagues, by waters, by fires, by wars, by victories, by defeats, by signs in heaven and signs in the air and in the earth and in the sea.

He was chastened by unexpected changes of men, of cities, of nations – the object of which was the destruction of wickedness.

Finally, he needed a stronger remedy, for his diseases were growing worse – mutual slaughters, adulteries, perjuries, unnatural crimes, and that first and last of all evils, idolatry and the transfer of worship from the Creator to the Creatures.

As these required a greater aid, so also they obtained a greater.  And that was that the Word of God Himself.

He is before all worlds, the Invisible, the Incomprehensible, the Bodiless, Beginning of Beginning, the Light of Light, the Source of Life and Immortality.

He is the Image of the Archetypal Beauty, the immovable Seal, the unchangeable Image, the Father’s Definition and Word.

He came to His own Image, and took on Him flesh for the sake of our flesh, and mingled Himself with an intelligent soul for my soul’s sake, purifying like by like; and in all points except sin was made man.

He was conceived by the Virgin, who first in body and soul was purified by the Holy Ghost – for it was needful both that Childbearing should be honoured, and that Virginity should receive a higher honour.

He came forth then as God with that which He had assumed, One Person in two Natures, Flesh and Spirit, of which the latter deified the former.

O new commingling! O strange conjunction! The Self-Existent comes into being. The Uncreate is created.

That which cannot be contained is contained, by the intervention of an intellectual soul, mediating between the Deity and the corporeity of the flesh.

And He Who gives riches becomes poor, for He assumes the poverty of my flesh, that I may assume the richness of His Godhead.

He that is full empties Himself, for He empties Himself of His glory for a short while, that I may have a share in His Fulness.

What is the riches of His Goodness?  What is this mystery that is around me?

I had a share in the image; I did not keep it; He partakes of my flesh that He may both save the image and make the flesh immortal.

He communicates a second Communion far more marvellous than the first, inasmuch as then He imparted the better Nature, whereas now Himself partakes of the worse.

This is more godlike than the former action, this is loftier in the eyes of all men of understanding.

Gregory Nazianzen (c.330-390): Oration 38, 13.

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Gregory Nazianzen: The Word Partakes of My Flesh to Save the Image and to Make the Flesh Immortal (2) Thursday, Dec 6 2012

Continued from here…

This being He placed in Paradise, whatever the Paradise may have been.

And He honoured him with the gift of Free Will – in order that God might belong to him as the result of his choice, no less than to Him who had implanted the seeds of it,

and in order to till the immortal plants, by which is meant perhaps the Divine Conceptions, both the simpler and the more perfect.

And the man was naked in his simplicity and inartificial life, and without any covering or screen; for it was fitting that he who was from the beginning should be such.

Also He gave the man a Law, as a material for his free will to act upon.  This Law was a Commandment as to what plants he might partake of, and which one he might not touch.

This latter was the Tree of Knowledge. It was forbidden to the man to touch this not because it was evil from the beginning when planted, nor because God grudged it to us. (Let not the enemies of God wag their tongues in that direction, or imitate the Serpent.)

But it would have been good if partaken of at the proper time, for the tree was, according to my theory, Contemplation, upon which it is only safe for those who have reached maturity of habit to enter.

But this Contemplation is not good for those who are still somewhat simple and greedy in their habit; just as solid food is not good for those who are yet tender, and have need of milk.

But when through the devil’s malice and the woman’s caprice, to which she succumbed as the more tender, and which she brought to bear upon the man, as she was the more apt to persuade, alas for my weakness! (for that of my first father was mine), he forgot the Commandment which had been given to him.

He yielded to the baleful fruit; and for his sin he was banished, at once from the Tree of Life, and from Paradise, and from God; and put on the coats of skins…that is, perhaps, the coarser flesh, both mortal and contradictory.

This was the first thing that he learnt—his own shame; and he hid himself from God.  Yet here too he makes a gain, namely death, and the cutting off of sin, in order that evil may not be immortal.

Thus his punishment is changed into a mercy; for it is in mercy, I am persuaded, that God inflicts punishment.

Gregory Nazianzen (c.330-390): Oration 38, 12.

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Gregory Nazianzen: The Word Partakes of My Flesh to Save the Image and to Make the Flesh Immortal (1) Thursday, Dec 6 2012

This movement of self-contemplation alone could not satisfy Goodness.

Good must be poured out and go forth beyond Itself to multiply the objects of Its beneficence, for this was essential to the highest Goodness.

So He first conceived the Heavenly and Angelic Powers.  And this conception was a work fulfilled by His Word, and perfected by His Spirit.

[...] Thus…He gave being to the world of thought…. Then, when His first creation was in good order, He conceives a second world, material and visible.

[...] This was to show that He could call into being, not only a Nature akin to Himself, but also one altogether alien to Himself.

[...] Mind, then, and sense, thus distinguished from each other, had remained within their own boundaries, and bore in themselves the magnificence of the Creator-Word, silent praisers and thrilling heralds of His mighty work.

Not yet was there any mingling of both, nor any mixtures of these opposites, tokens of a greater Wisdom and Generosity in the creation of natures; nor as yet were the whole riches of Goodness made known.

Now the Creator-Word, determining…to produce a single living being out of both – the visible and the invisible creations, I mean – fashions Man.

Taking a body from already existing matter, He places in it a Breath taken from Himself which the Word knew to be an intelligent soul and the image of God, as a sort of second world.

He placed him, great in littleness on the earth; a new Angel, a mingled worshipper, fully initiated into the visible creation, but only partially into the intellectual.

Man was king of all upon earth, but subject to the King above; earthly and heavenly; temporal and yet immortal; visible and yet intellectual; half-way between greatness and lowliness.

In one person he combined spirit and flesh; spirit, because of the favour bestowed on him; flesh, because of the height to which he had been raised;

the one that he might continue to live and praise his Benefactor, the other that he might suffer, and by suffering be put in remembrance, and corrected if he became proud of his greatness:

a living creature trained here, and then moved elsewhere; and, to complete the mystery, deified by its inclination to God.

For to this, I think, tends that Light of Truth which we here possess but in measure, that we should both see and experience the Splendour of God, which is worthy of Him Who made us, and will remake us again after a loftier fashion.

Gregory Nazianzen (c.330-390): Oration 38, 9-11.

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Gregory Nazianzen: “His Heart is Set on the Journey Upward” Saturday, Oct 13 2012

The fortunes of this world are uncertain and transient; they are tossed from hand to hand, as in a game with pebbles, and are always changing.

Not one of this world’s blessings belongs to its owner securely enough to prevent time destroying it, or envy transferring it elsewhere.

But the rewards of heaven are fixed and abiding; they neither disappear nor change, and can never deceive the hopes of those who trust in them.

Now in my opinion there is a very good reason why people can find nothing reliable or lasting in the good things of this world.

The Word, who is the architect of our destiny in this as in all things, and the Wisdom that transcends all mortal thought, have together well contrived it that we should be misled by everything we see in the constantly shifting world around us, where in the midst of this whirling to and fro we are always in pursuit of something that is forever flying from our grasp.

Once we have observed the restless­ness and disorder of this mortal life, we shall hasten to change our course toward the life to come.

Indeed what should we have done if our prosperity here had been secure, when even in all its uncer­tainty we are so bound to this world, and its pleasures and allure­ments have so enslaved us, that we cannot imagine anything better or higher that our present life?

And this, despite the fact that we are told and believe that we are created in the image of God, that image which is above and draws us to itself.

Who is wise enough to understand these things? Who will aban­don the things that pass away, and devote himself to those that last? Who will think of the present as something that is always moving away?

Happy indeed is he who has such powers of discernment, and who uses the keen edge of the Word to separate the better from the worse.

His heart is set on the journey upward,as holy David was inspired to say in one of the psalms; and so he flies with all speed from this valley of weeping, and seeks the realms above.

Crucified to the world with Christ, he takes his stand beside Christ and ascends in the company of Christ, an heir to a life that henceforth is neither changing nor deceptive, and where he will no longer find a serpent waiting on the road to bite his heel, while he watches out for its head.

Therefore without delay let us follow the Word, seek our rest in the world beyond, and throw away the riches of this world.

Let us profit by them in the only good way we can, that is, let us gain possession of our souls by giving alms, and share our earthly goods with the poor so as to enrich ourselves with the wealth of heaven.

Gregory Nazianzen (c.330-390): Oration 14, 20-22, from the Monastic Office of Vigils, Saturday of the 27^th Week in Ordinary Time, Year 2.

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Gregory Nazianzen: He Dies, but He Gives Life, and by His Death Destroys Death Tuesday, Aug 21 2012

He was baptized as Man—but He remitted sins as God—not because He needed purificatory rites Himself, but that He might sanctify the element of water.

He was tempted as Man, but He conquered as God; yea, He bids us be of good cheer, for He has overcome the world.

He hungered—but He fed thousands; yea, He is the Bread that gives life, and that is of heaven.

He thirsted—but He cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. Yea, He promised that fountains should flow from them that believe.
He was wearied, but He is the Rest of them that are weary and heavy laden.  He was heavy with sleep, but He walked lightly over the sea.

[...]  He is called a Samaritan and a demoniac—but He saves him that came down from Jerusalem and fell among thieves; the demons acknowledge Him, and He drives out demons and sinks in the sea legions of foul spirits, and sees the Prince of the demons falling like lightning.

He is stoned, but is not taken.  He prays, but He hears prayer.  He weeps, but He causes tears to cease.  He asks where Lazarus was laid, for He was Man; but He raises Lazarus, for He was God.

He is sold, and very cheap, for it is only for thirty pieces of silver; but He redeems the world, and that at a great price, for the price was His own blood.

As a sheep He is led to the slaughter, but He is the Shepherd of Israel, and now of the whole world also.  As a Lamb He is silent, yet He is the Word, and is proclaimed by the Voice of one crying in the wilderness.

He is bruised and wounded, but He heals every disease and every infirmity.  He is lifted up and nailed to the Tree, but by the Tree of Life He restores us; yea, He saves even the Robber crucified with Him; yea, He wrapped the visible world in darkness.

He is given vinegar to drink mingled with gall.  Who?  He who turned the water into wine, who is the destroyer of the bitter taste, who is sweetness and altogether desire.

He lays down His life, but He has power to take it again; and the veil is rent, for the mysterious doors of Heaven are opened; the rocks are cleft, the dead arise.

He dies, but He gives life, and by His death destroys death.  He is buried, but He rises again; He goes down into hell, but He brings up the souls; He ascends to Heaven, and shall come again to judge the quick and the dead.

Gregory Nazianzen (c.330-390): Oration 29, 20.

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