sign in sign up
<<
Home , Eunomius of Cyzicus, Eusebius of Nicomedia, John Behr, Patristics

Akropolis 1 (2017) 169–184

Elena Ene D-Vasilescu* Generation (γενεά) in Gregory Nazianzen’s poem On the Son1

Abstract: The article examines the nature of the dogmatics found in the poetry written by Greg- ory of Nazianzus (c. 329-390) through a particular case-study, the poem On the Son. It demon- strates that his lyric composition contains the same doctrine conveyed by the orations authored by him and exposes the manner in which he employs similar terminology in works belonging to both genres. In order to attain its objective my article compares the above-mentioned piece with Orations 29 and 30 that bear the same title. General considerations about Gregory’s poems According to Nicetas Choniates, the Byzantine editor of Nazianzen’s poetry, Greg- ory sets down a dogmatic system in a group of medium-length sensitive poems. The historian from called these creations poems on (ineffable) mys- teries (τὰ ἀπόρρητα).2 These were probably written in 383.3 Concerning the ser- mons, one should remember that Oration 30 (‘the Fourth Theological Oration’), was given in Constantinople during the summer of 380. With regard to Oration 29, we can accept with Paul Gallay that this also belongs to the period 379-381, when Na- zianzen was in the capital of .4

* , [email protected] 1 This article is based on two versions of the paper “‘Manner of generation’ in Gregory Na- zianzen’s poem On the Son” presented at the fifth conference of British Patristic Studies, King’s College and the University of London, 3-5 September 2014, London, and the Seminar in Patristics, University of Oxford, June 2017. 2 Nicetas or Niketas David Choniates, sometimes called Acominatos (c. 1155 - c. 1216), wrote a history (in twenty-one books) of the Eastern in the period from 1118 to 1207. It is been translated by Harry J. Magoulias and published in English as O, City of Byzantium. Annals of Niketas Choniates (Detroit 1984). The poems edited by are inPatrologia Graeca, vol. 38 (Paris, 1862), pp. 681-842. See also Christos Simelidis, Selected Poems of Gregory of Naziansus. I.2.17; II 1.10, 19, 32: A Critical Edition with Introduction and Commentary, Hypomne- mata 177 (Göttingen, 2009) and Celica Milovanovic-Barham, “Gregory of Nazianzus: Ars Poetica (In suos versus: Carmen 2.1.39),” Journal of Early Christian Studies 5.4 (1997), pp. 497-510. 3 Brian E. Daley, “Systematic in Homeric Dress. Poemata Arcana”, in Christopher A. Beeley (ed.), Re-Reading Gregory of Nazianzus: Essays in History, Theology, and Culture, CUA Stud- ies in Early (Washington, 2012), p. 6. 4 Paul Gallay, “Introduction” to Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 27–31 [Discours Théologiques]), ed., trad, and notes by P. Gallay and M. Jourjon, Sources Chrétiennes (Paris: 1978), vol. 250, p. 11. 170 Elena Ene D-Vasilescu

Brian E. Daley characterises the verses we discuss here in the following terms: Among the most celebrated of these compositions, in the world of Byzantine connois- seurs and copyists, were the eight ‘mystery-poems’ or Arcana […]; eight dense, solemn works in the sophisticated style of classical Greek didactic poetry, which together pres- ent us with a coherent overview of the core of Christian doctrine as seen through the lens of Gregory’s peculiar version of the Cappadocian theological project. […] [T]hey seem intended to offer a comprehensive view of Christian faith as an organic whole.5 The Professor from the University of Notre Dame appreciates that these writ- ings are modelled on ’s set of principles.6 He avers that Nazianzen ‘weaves his own distinctive doctrinal fabric’ to the ‘thematic frame’ provided by Origen.7 This statement has truth in it – even the title of the first poem within the above-de- scribed collection was chosen by Gregory to be Peri Archon/On First Principles. However, his own ideas are original and, as known, both Adamantius and Na- zianzen (with contributions from the other two Cappadocian fathers, Basil and Nyssen) complementarily articulated some of the tenets of Christianity. We keep in mind the temporal distance between the lives of the two prelates, but still find natural for their oeuvres to have communalities as both authors were educated in classics, logic, and philosophy. They equally engaged with the theological ideas of their time as well as with same aspects of Neo-Pythagoreanism and Neo-Platonism – with the latter especially through the concept of participation in and access to the Divine (the Son knows the Father because He participates in Him). The content of the poem On the Son Gregory of Nazianzus’s dogmatic poem On the Son8 is about the Eternal Gener-

5 B. E. Daley, “ in Homeric Dress” (2012), 6. Donald Sykes has published a series of articles on the didactic elements in Gregory’s poems; for a sample, see “Gregory Nazianzen as Didactic Poet”, , 16/2 (1985), pp. 433-437. 6 Daley, “Systematic Theology in Homeric Dress” (2012), pp. 8-9 and Origen, De“ Principiis. A Guide to the Principles of Christian Scriptural Interpretation”, in John F. Petruccione (ed.), Nova et Vetera: Patristic Studies in Honor of Thomas Patrick Halton, (Washington, 1998), pp. 3-21. See Origen, De Principiis, Being Koetschau (ed.), in English G. W. Butterworth (ed., trans., and notes), On first principles (New York, 1966) [Introduction by ]. 7 Daley, “Systematic Theology in Homeric Dress” (2012), p. 9. 8 Early uses of the terminology ‘Father-Son’ with reference to God appears appear in Origen, ‘Com. Rom 1. 10, 1’, Thomas P. Scheck (ed.),The Fathers of the , 103 (Washington D. C., 2001), 78; , The Church History, H. Wace and Ph. Schaff (eds.), NPNF (Oxford, 1890), 1, book I esp. chap. 2, 82-85; Origen, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, Books 1-10, Ronald E. Heine (ed. and trans.), Fathers of the Church (Washington, D. C., 1989), 80; Origen, Commen- tary on the Gospel according to John, Books 13-32, Fathers of the Church (Washington, D. C., 1993) 89, and Origen and , The Commentaries of Origen and Jerome on St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephe- sians, Ronald E. Heine (ed. and trans.), Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford, 2002). Gregory of Nazianzus, “On the Son”, in Saint Gregory Nazianzen: Selected Poems, trans. with Generation (γενεά) in Gregory Nazianzen’s poem On the Son 171 ation (ἂχρονος γενεά) of Christ from his divine Father.9 The Theologian approx- imates this process with the ‘shining out of light’ from the Sun.10 It is important to specify the way in which he conceived the relationship between the Father and the Son because the other Gregory within the Cappadocian circle, Nyssen, with whom certainly Nazianzen discussed such issues, thought the notion of ‘genera- tion’ (especially in the formulation ‘manner of generation’) as being problematic, or rather too vague in the formulation offered by Eunomius, the bishop of Cyzi- cus (360-361; d. c. 393), with whom the three Cappadocians dialogued.11 My pa- per makes evident that the poem we analyze here, which is didactic in scope, orig- inates in Gregory of Nazianzus’s systematic theology, as is generally true of the bishop’s poetic opus. Regarding the two terms of our comparison, one can indi- cate that while some orations by the Theologian have received appropriate schol- arly attention12 no detailed examination of the poem On the Son has been effected until now. An additional aspect that will become apparent with regard to the vers- an Introduction by John McGuckin (Oxford, 1986), p. 1.This piece is included both in Moreschini/ Sykes’s edited book (with their own notation for this and other poems), and in that by J. McGuckin. 9 Gregory of Nazianzus, “On the Son”, in Saint Gregory Nazianzen: Selected Poems, trans. with an Introduction by McGuckin, p. 1. This piece is included both in the book by St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Poemata Arcana, edited by Claudio Moreschini, trans. D. A. Sykes, Oxford Theological Monographs, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997 and in that by McGuckin (the volume edited by Moreschini/ Sykes has its own notation for this and other poetical creations). I have my own rendering of the poem “On the Son”, but throughout this article I use also those made by McGuckin and Sykes. With regard to the translations of the Theologian’s orations, that by L. Wickham and F. Williams as well as that done under the direction of Wace and Schaff are commendable - see Faith Gives Fullness to - ing. The Five Theological Orations of Gregory Nazianzen; introduction and commentary by Frederick W. Norris; trans. Lionel Wickham and Frederick Williams, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae XIII, Leiden: Brill, 1991, respectively Wace and Schaff (eds.), NPNF5, Oxford and New York, 1893. When necessary (i. e. when one is closer to my own interpretation of the text) in this paper sometimes I used one, at other times the other, in addition to my own translation. I consider that is good to keep the very well-known translations within in order to offer an array of options to the readers of the article. 10 Gregory of Nazianzus/Norris, Faith gives fullness to Reasoning, p. 247. 11 , “It is plainly impossible to say what a ‘manner of generation’ can mean. Does it mean the figure of the parent, or his impulse, or his disposition; or the time, or the place, or the completing of the embryo by conception; or the generative receptacles; or nothing of that kind, but something else of the things observed in ‘generation.’ It is impossible to find out what he [Eunomius] means. The impropriety and vagueness of the word “manner” causes perplexity as to its signification here; every possible one is equally open to our surmises, and presents as well an equal want of connexion with the subject before us”; Gregory of Nyssa, “Against Eunomius”, in H. Wace and Ph. Schaff (eds.), NPNF5 (Oxfordet al., 1890), p. 106. 12 In addition to Norris’s work, see, for instance, Eirini Artemi, “Gregory Nazianzen’s trinitarian teaching based on his Twentieth Theological Oration”, De Medio Aevo 4 (2013), pp. 127-46. Mar- tha Vinson has translated the orations not included in the Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church in the volume St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Select Orations, Washing- ton, DC:, The Catholic University of America Press, 2003. 172 Elena Ene D-Vasilescu es is their polemical nature; they constituted part of the debate their author had with Eunomius and the Arians in general (no direct mention of their names exists in On the Son – that was not necessary). Generation The Theologian engages lexes derived from the verb γεννάω/γεννῶ in order to de- scribe the connection between the Father and the Son. One instance in which he does so is in verse 7; mine and two other translations of this and the surrounding stanzas follow. It was important to include all those because from a doctrinal per- spective they constitute together the most important fragment of this work: …ὁ Πατρὸς ἐκπεφυώς μεγάλοιο Θεοῦ Λόγος, ἂχρονος Υίός εỉκὼν άρχετύποιο, φύσις γεννήτορι ἴση. πατρὸς γὰρ κλέος ἐστì πά ϊς μέγας, ἐκ δὲ φαάνθη ώς μόνος οἶδε Πατρής τε καì ὃς Πατρὸς ἐξεφαάνθη.13 The timeless Son, the Word of God, is born of the great Father And, while an icon of the archetype, he is yet identical in nature to his begetter, Is great and shines out from the Father the way light does; hence he is the glory of his Begetter.14 The one who is sprung from the great Father, the Word of God, the timeless Son, the image of the original, a nature equal to his who begot him. For the Father’s glory is his great Son and he was manifested in a way known only to the Father and to the Son made known by him.15 The Word of God is born of that great Father;/The timeless Son,/ Ikon of the archetype,/by nature equal to his progenitor./ The great Son is the glory of the Father and shone out from him like light.16 The similarities with the direct sources of the poem, Oration 29 and Oration 30, are obvious. The former homily parallels the content of the versified piece in paragraphs 2 (partially), 3, 4, 5 (partially), 8, 10, etc. For instance in par. 2 is writ- ten: “In a serene, non-temporal, incorporeal way, the Father is parent of the ‘off- spring’ and ‘originator’ of the ‘emanation’ – or whatever name one can apply when one has extrapolated from things visible […] We ought never to introduce the no- tion of involuntary generation […], which is completely out of keeping with the ideas about the Godhead. This is why we limit ourselves to Christian terms and

13 Gregory of Nazianzus, “On the Son”, in Moreschini/ Sykes (ed. and trans.), Poemata Arcana, p. 4. 14 My translation. 15 Moreschini/ Sykes (eds.), Poemata Arcana, p. 5. 16 McGuckin (ed.), Selected Poems, p. 1. Generation (γενεά) in Gregory Nazianzen’s poem On the Son 173 speak of ‘the Ingenerate’, ‘the Begotten’, and (as God the Word himself does in one passage) “what Proceeds from the Father.”17 And in Oration 30 Gregory states: “The personal name of the unoriginated is ‘Father’ [and] of the eternally begotten [is] ‘Son’.” In order to explain that God continually creates/brings into existence his Word Gregory also uses the nouns ‘the Ingenerate’ for Christ, respectively ‘ingener- acy’ – ἀγέννητοϛ – for his state of being.18 The characteristics peculiar to the relationship between the divine Father and Son as revealed in the excerpts above are consubstantiality and co-eternity. Na- zianzen posits that the Son has the same nature, i.e. it is consubstantial (homoousios), with the Father. Therefore he is uncreated, fully and entirely God, equal and co-eter- nal with the Father not only in nature, but also in glory. The Cappadocian makes a special point in emphasizing that ‘the Father’s glory is his great Son’ [in Sykes’s trans- lation19] or, according to John McGuckin, “The great Son is the glory of the Fa- ther”20 as any son in the human realm is the pride and the exaltation of his parent. Because the heavenly generation does not involve either the body or any as- pect of the matter, the result of the ‘begetting’ is considered by the Theologian to pertain to ‘the generation of the spirit’. Daley qualifies it as “the eternal immaterial generation of Son from the Father.”21 Later in the poem Gregory elaborates on this aspect of the process as manifested in the supernal realm: it is about “the great Fa- ther of the great and excellent Son, the only begotten, the Father who experiences through the Son nothing corporeal since he is Mind”.22 When further comment- ing on the opposition between the heavenly generation and the process responsi- ble for the reproduction of the human beings, Gregory stresses that the former is characterised by eternity while the latter has a limit in time. In the book edited by Moreschini it is explained that, according to Nazianzen: “The gulf which separates man from God is now seen as the difference of γενέθλη, ‘birth’ […] for this meaning is a human term, not to be applied by analogy to the Godhead (vv. 1-14).”23 As the Theologian elucidates, the perpetuation of individuals in the mundane world hap- pens in the way it does because of the qualities specific to them. The bishop partial- ly lists those in verse thus: “I am a composite being/passible in all I do/and as such

17 St. Gregory of Nazianzus: On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two letters to Cledonius, trans. Lionel Wickham (Crestwood, NY: 2002), p. 70. 18 Gregory of Nazianzus, “Oration 30. On the Son”, 30. 2 in Norris (ed.), Faith gives fullness to reasoning, p. 246. 19 Gregory of Nazianzus, “On the Son”, in Moreschini/ Sykes (eds.), Poemata Arcana, p. 5. 20 Gregory of Nazianzus, “On the Son”, in McGuckin (ed.), Selected Poems, p. 1. 21 B.E. Daley, “Systematic Theology in Homeric Dress” (2012), p. 10. 22 Gregory of Nazianzus, “On the Son” in Moreschini/Sykes (eds.), Poemata Arcana, p. 3. 23 Sykes/Moreschini, Poemata Arcana, pp. 97-98. 174 Elena Ene D-Vasilescu cannot procreate impassibly”.24 (God, as ‘incomposite and incorporeal’, can cre- ate without any involvement of passion). Such a description indeed helped Grego- ry to highlight why one cannot, and should not, attempt to lessen the supernal re- lationship to what the human mind can comprehend; as will be further indicated, some of his contemporaries were claiming that this could be done. But the Cappa- docian bishop emphasizes in his poem that the relationship between the celestial Father and Son cannot be reduced to “anything relating to human birth, like flux or shameful sundering.”25 John Behr points out that Gregory feared that some of the uninitiated might understand the notions of sacred ‘generation’ and ‘creation’ in that manner and act upon such an interpretation in a libertine way; that was an element of his [Nazianzen’s] general concern that theology must be done only by people of whose bodies and souls underwent purification after a “properly ordered instruction”.26 He directly addresses his readers: “This discourse of mine is meant for the pure or for those moving towards purity.”27 With regard to Gregory’s conversant Eunomius, he did not sufficiently -em phasize the distinction between the eternal generation of the Word from and the mode of generation particular to the created world, i.e. that between the uniquely and eternally brought into being Son of the Only-begotten, and that pertaining to the elements of mundane reality. That led some interpreters – Greg- ory among them – to think that the fact that the Son was ‘generated/begotten’ meant for the Arian that a temporal distance exists between Him and his Creator. Also the way in which the Heterousian explains how God is the cause of the Son made Nazianzen believe that the latter advocated . He, as also (347- 407) in Homilias contra Anomoeos,28 thought that for the Anomoeans Christ could be called the Son of God only by adoption. Other suspi- cions Gregory had were based on Eunomius’s comment with respect to Luke 2: 52 to the effect that the Father, being in need of nothing, does not grow, while ‘The

24 Gregory of Nazianzus, “On the Son”, in McGuckin (ed.), Selected Poems, p. 1. 25 Gregory of Nazianzus , “On the Son”, in Sykes/Moreschini (eds.), Poemata Arcana, p. 5. Mc- Guckin (ed.), in Selected Poems, translates this statement as “anything comparable to human repro- duction, either sexual or procreative”, p. 1. 26 John Behr, Formation of . The Nicene Faith (Crestwood, N. Y., 2004), pp. 2, 335. 27 Gregory of Nazianus, On First Principles (On the Father), Sykes/Moreschini (eds.), Poemata Arcana, p. 3. Nazianzen’s friend, Gregory of Nyssa, shared in this idea; he affirms a few times that a theologian should have a pure life. 28 John Chrysostom/S. Joannis Chrysostomi, Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani, Homilias con- tra Anomoeos i-xii; among them Homilia De Christi Divinitate, PG 48, 801-11; Homilia De Christi Precibus, PG 48, 783-95; Homilia De Consubstantiali, PG 48, 755-68; and Homilia Constantinopoli Habita, PG 48, pp. 795-802. Generation (γενεά) in Gregory Nazianzen’s poem On the Son 175

Son is said ‘to have grown in wisdom’.29 Such a statement could imply that the Son is not of the same nature with his Creator. But what the Arian had in mind when writing it referred to the historical Jesus; there are to believe that actual- ly Eunomius knew that strictly speaking the Father and the Son have the same na- ture and are coeval. Franz Xaver Risch’s ideas about the views of the prelate from have implications that endorse my conviction; the researcher maintains that Eunomius trusted that “The father is the divine being, and the Son is the form of this being.”30 Richard Paul Vaggione also qualifies that in fact the Arians rec- ognised that the Son was the “proper offspring” of God, i.e. they accepted his true sonship,31 and Cristopher Stead explained that himself “does not think it would degrade the Son by reducing him to an impersonal quality, but rather that it would honor him unduly by promoting him to equality with the Father”.32 I agree with this perception and, as suggested above, like to believe that the Theologian re- alized that Arius and his disciples (as, for instance, in addition to Eunomius, Euse- bius of , d. 34133 and Euzoïus of , d. 376 34), formally granted an equal status to the Son. Regarding Eunomius, there is no doubt he was of the conviction that the Son is not just any ποίημα, but the most perfect of them and, even more important, He is the Only-begotten God. The accessibility to the divine knowledge Nazianzen points to one of the implications of the uniqueness of the divine gener- ation: God’s essence can be known solely by his Son because only he [and the Holy

29 Eunomius, Fragmenta. Assertion xxviii (from the Thesaurus of Cyril of ), 421D-424A, in R. P. Vaggione, Eunomius. The Extant Works, p. 185. 30 Franz Xaver Risch, “Pseudo-Basilius, Adversus Eunomium IV-V”, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 16 (Leiden, 1992), p. 197. See also Richard Paul Vaggione, Eunomius. The Extant Works (Oxford, 198, and Reinhard M. Hübner, “Der Author von Ps-Basilius, Adversus Eunomium IV-V – Apolinarius von Laodicea?”, The Proceedings of the ninth International Congress of Patristic Studies, 1983. 31 R. P. Vaggione, “Oύκ ώς ἓν τών γεννημάτων: Some Aspects of Dogmatic Formulae in the ”, Studia Patristica 17 (1982), pp. 181-187. 32 Cristopher Stead, “Was Arius a Neoplatonist?”, in Elizabeth A. Livingstone (ed.), Studia Pa- tristica, Peeters, Leuven, xxxii, 1997 [pp. 39-53], p. 42, and ‘Homoousios (όμооύσιоϛ)’, RAC 16 (1992), pp. 364-433. 33 Eusebius of Nicomedia (d. 341) was the priest who baptised . He was initially bishop of Berytus (modern day ) in . He later became Bishop of Nicome- dia before finally becoming Archbishop of Constantinople. He had a strong influence among the members of the family of Constantine the Great. 34 Euzoïus, Bishop of Antioch and friend of Arius from childhood; they were deposed together in c. 320; See Socr. H. E. i. 6; Soz. H. E. i. 15; Theod. H. E. i. 4, ii. 311; Athan. de Syn., 907. The letter to Emperor Constantine was signed by Arius together with Euzoïus; William G. Rusch, “Letter to the Emperor Constantine”, Trinitarian Controversy (Philadelphia, 1980), pp. 53- 4. 176 Elena Ene D-Vasilescu

Spirit] fully partake of it. The Theologian acknowledges: “He alone who shone out from the Father/Is able to know that Father.”35 Concerning the possibilities of the human mind to access the true nature of the Godhead, it is to be mentioned that the gnoseological aspect is intrinsically linked to the ontological one: Gregory be- lieves that since God is incomprehensible, it is unreasonable for someone to expect its existence to be demonstrated. But in his texts we do not find a motive for peo- ple to feel less dignified by such a reality. This is because, as the bishop emphasizes, the created world reminds us of the Creator. Moreover, the prospect exists for hu- mans to have some glimpses of the Kingdom of God when theôsis is achieved and the in them mingles with its kin. Nazianzen believes that “so long as we are not ‘excessively senseless’ (lian agnōmōn) and do not refuse to follow ‘indications’ (phusikai apodeixeis) that are ‘cognate’ with our ‘innate law’, we go back to our ‘first cause’”.36 Contrasting Nazianzen on the issue of mind’s access to the Divinity, Eu- nomius held that God is entirely comprehensible. For him, the fact that the eternal nature of God is simple allows for this state of affairs. The names of God are equivalent The issue of knowing the divine Father is also connected with that of the designations that are appropriate to be ascribed to him. Nazianzen was concerned that any exclu- sive definition reduces the transcendent God, with His infinity and boundlessness, to a narrow concept produced by a limited mind. He knew that in fact no human lan- guage or notion could demarcate Him. In this he shares with Gregory of Nyssa; the latter firmly declares that: “the infinity of God exceeds all the significance and -com prehension that names can furnish.”37But despite his scepticism, the Theologian him- self had to concede that the language within the Scripture, through the various titles it addresses the heavenly Father, offers a satisfactory philological approximation with which people can operate. Through the revealed Book, God allows some glimpses of his divine self. But the gulf between the Creator and created, finite and infinite, is such that every name is misleading at the same time as being appropriate. Gregory of Nazianzus had no choice but to work with this situation, and in the poem On the Son38 as well as in Oratio 30, he asserted that all of the names for God and Christ (many coined by Paul) are homonymous: “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory […] and the Word/Logos, the Incarnate, the One

35 McGuckin (ed.), Selected Poems, p. 1. 36 Edgars Narkevics, “Skiagraphia: Outlining the Conception of God in Gregory’s Theological Orations”, in Jostein Børtnes and Thomas äH gg, Gregory of Nazianzus. Images and Reflections (Co- penhagen, 2006), p. 94. 37 Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, 3. 5 (NPNF5, Oxford, New York, 1893), p. 147. 38 McGuckin (ed.), Selected Poems, p. 2. Generation (γενεά) in Gregory Nazianzen’s poem On the Son 177

Seen mean the same”.39 Additionally, in Oratio 30, the Cappadocian appreciates another fact concerning God’s names: “the reverse of what does or does not prop- erly apply to us holds good of him.”40 The Theologian considers that the combina- tion of the divine titles and their overlapping made some people to become heretics (which he sees as a remediable ‘condition’). That is so because for them “when the natures are distinguished, the titles are differentiated along with the ideas.”41 Greg- ory admits that especially the equivalence between the ‘Unbegotten’ and ‘Begotten’ (standing for God-the Father, respectively for the Son) is not obvious to everyone. Nonetheless, in the poem On the Son, he still gives voice to his revolt that “one man dared to say they were [incompatible notions]”;42 he refers here to Arius. The Theo- logian considers that if these two, for the uninitiated, opposite terms can still mean the same thing, it will be even more so with respect to the other of God’s names. The difference in manifestation has caused the differentiation in names for the- su pernal Father and Son, as Gregory of Nazianzus’s Oratio 31 underlines: ‘[I]t is not some deficiency in the Son which prevents Him being Father (for Sonship is not a deficiency), and yet He is not Father.’43 Gregory’s discussion about the divine titles was also marked by the polemical situation that structured at least in part his own and Cappadocian theology in gen- eral. The position on this of his conversant, Eunomius, was that all words that we deploy to speak about the nature of God must mean unbegotten, because ‘unbegot- ten’ alone designates God –he is the sole ingenerate.44 Much latter, Edgars Narkev- ics enumerates some of the merits of the notion of ‘ingeneratness’, but he objects to what he thinks is the Cappadocians’s understanding of it; he considers that for the fourth century thinkers it connotes the privative state of a subject.45 Narkevics opines that this term is “not to be taken in the sense of privation […] because priva- tives are secondary to positive states”.46 The anxiety of the researcher is not justified

39 Gregory of Nazianzus “Oration 30. On the Son” 30. 8, in Norris (ed.), Faith gives Fullness to reasoning, p. 267. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 McGuckin (ed.), Selected Poems, p. 2. 43 Gregory of Nazianzus, “The Fifth Theological Oration. On the Holy Spirit”, 5.9, in Wace and Schaff (eds.), NPNF7 (Oxford, New York, 1894), p. 320. 44 Eunomius, “Apology 8. 14-18”, in Vaggione (ed.), Eunomius. The Extant Works, 42-43; trans- lator’s emphasis. 45 , Against Eunomius, I. 10, edited by Del Cogliano and Radde-Gallwitz, pp. 105-106. Basil said: “’unbegotten’ in not indicative of what belongs to God”, p. 106. 46 Edgars Narkevics, Skiagraphia, “Skiagraphia: Outlining the conception of God in Gregory’s Theological Orations”, J. Børtnes and T. Hägg (eds.), Gregory of Nazianzus, Images and Reflections, p. 97. 178 Elena Ene D-Vasilescu because certainly Gregory of Nazinzus and the members of his circle considered this characteristic as being positive. To conclude with Gregory on the issue of divine names – even going a step beyond that – we quote him: “‘God’ goes with ‘Christ’ [and the] ‘Father’ with ‘Glory’. Although both together make a single whole, it is by combination not by nature. What could be more straightforward?”47 Not only Nazianzen, as men- tioned, but most of the theologians of Late Antiquity saw a connection between God’s names and his knowability48 – among them Athanasians and other Ho- moousians, and also Augustine.49 Cause/caused. Equality within the Gregory maintained that the heavenly Father and Son are both ‘equal’ and ‘alike in age’. That, for him, raised the question: “who causes and who is caused?” The -an swer he offered is that the Father is the cause while the Son incarnate has a cause. By stating this he inter alia also replied to Eunomius, who similarly referred to cau- sality in his work; one instance in which it happened is when he described the hier- archy of “the three essences”. In this context, he expressed his thought that the un- begotten Father is the “cause” of his Son, and that “the third being [is] brought to existence by the second”.50 And he claimed that the Son did not exist “before his own coming to be.”51 Gregory interpreted these lines by the Arian to mean that the latter contemplated that the Son was created in a particular moment by the uncre- ated (ούκ άκτιστον) Father. He strongly riposted to such a view, and his reaction was in line with the Nicene position. He affirmed that the heavenly Father and Son are coeval and that the Trinitarian theology expressed by the Anomoean is not only subordinationist, but also mythological since it brings temporality into the sacred realm. Arguments to support the bishop’s point of view and the equality among the members of the Trinity exist within the poem On the Son, where Gregory comments: “Nothing at all existed before the Great Father/ for he contains all things within himself/ And thus nothing is more than he is […] If time is prior to me/It is not erstwhile to the

47 Gregory of Nazianzus, “The Fourth Theological Oration. On the Son”, 4.8, Wace and Schaff (eds.) NPNF (Oxford, et al., 1894), pp. 7, 312; Norris (ed.), Faith gives fullness to Reasoning, 30.8, p. 267. 48 Gregory of Nazianzus, “Oration 30. On the Son”, in Norris (ed.), Faith Gives Fullness to Rea- soning, p. 274. 49 Saint Augustine [De Trinitate]- The Trinity 1. 2. 4, trans. Stephen McKenna, C. SS. R, (Wash- ington D. C., 1963), pp. 45, 7. 50 Eunomius, Apologia apologiae, CET 151-53 (GNO 1 71-72). 51 Eunomius, Apology 12, pp. 10-12, in Vaggione, Eunomius. The Extant Works, pp. 45-46. Generation (γενεά) in Gregory Nazianzen’s poem On the Son 179

Word/whose Father has neither beginning nor end.”52 The parallel expressions in prose of the ideas above are to be found in Oratio 29, par. 3, thus: “There has not been a “when” when the Father has not been in existence. This, then, is true of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”53 and “[T]he Son has not been proceeding but being begotten in a non-temporal way that transcend explanation.”54 This means that ac- cording to the stance taken by the Theologian and other Nicene fathers, the Son did not come into existence after a time, nor was he born later, but he was born be- fore the creation of the world. As the Father is from eternity the Son who is from him is also from eternity. Gregory points out that this is in accordance with John the Evangelist’s saying: “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). Concerning equality within the Trinity, one occasion when the Cappadocian had the chance to make his view known was when he considered John 14:28, ac- cording to which Christ declared: “My Father is greater than I”; this was a text cen- tral to the Arian controversy.55 In Oration 29 Nazianzen tries to put in agreement its content with the Nicene precepts by saying that the Father is greater, ϖ́τῷ αἰτίῳ, because He is the cause, αἰτίως, of the Son (He is qua cause superior to the Son56). But he insists that “derivation from the uncaused does not mean inferiority to the uncaused.”57 The Theologian analogises that the Sun may be said to be the cause of light, but it and the light coexist.58 The bishop also states that ‘greater’ with refer- ence to the Father could be understood as referring to Christ’s humanity, i. e. to Je- sus. He continues by affirming that since the same thing cannot be equal and non- equal “in a like respect”59 in John 14: 28 we shall see the word ‘greater’ as a relative term. To his opponents that deployed the text to justify a subordinationist position,

52 Sykes/Moreschini, Poemata Arcana, p. 7; my translation. 53 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations, p. 71. 54 Ibid. p. 71; emphasis in Wickham’s translation. 55 Manlio Simonetti, ‘Giovanni 14:28 nella controversia ariana’, in Patrick Granfield and Joseph A. Jungmann, Kiriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten (Münster, 1970), p. 151-162. See also Norris ‘Commentary on Oration 30’, in Faith gives fullness to Reasoning, pp. 166-167. 56 Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘Oration 29. On the Son’, 29. 15, Norris, Faith gives fullness to Reason- ing, p. 254; actually 29. 15-21, on 254-60 elaborate on the’ greatness’ as cause between the Father and the Son issue. Also Norris discusses it in ‘Commentary on Oration 29’, Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning, pp. 150-152. 57 Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Fourth Theological Oration. On the Son’, Wace and Schaff, NPNF, 7, 4.7, on p. 312. (Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘Oration 30. On the Son’, in Norris, Faith gives fullness to Reasoning, 30. 7, p. 266. 58 Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘Oration 29. On the Son’, 29. 3, in Norris, Faith gives fullness to Rea- soning, p. 247. 59 Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘The Fourth Theological Oration. On the Son’ 4. 7, Wace and Schaff (NPNF, Oxford a.o., 1894), pp. 7, 312. (‘Oration 30. On the Son’, in Norris, Faith gives fullness to Reasoning, 30. 7, p. 266). 180 Elena Ene D-Vasilescu he points out that this is the only statement within the entire Scripture in which the matter of equality/causality between the Father and the Son is not presented clearly enough, while there are many other passages in the Bible that speak with no possibility of doubt about the Son as being equal/ίσοϛ to the Father. In discourses Nazianzen tries in the best possible way to use reason and logi- cal principles to defend his opinions and to endorse his faith. Even though he does it to a lesser degree in the poem On the Son, within the orations the bishop some- times appears to grapple with the inferences of his general position concerning the equality Father-Son. One example of his effort from this perspective is the follow- ing fragment: “I should like to call the Father the greater, because from Him flows both the Equality and the Being of the Equals […] but I am afraid to use the word Origin, lest I should make Him the Origin of Inferiors, and thus insult Him by pre- cedencies of honour. For the lowering of those Who are from Him is no glory to the Source.”60 The Nazianzen’s friend from Nyssa, in Against Eunomius, argues that even if it is the incarnate Christ himself who says the Father is greater than he, he is bearing witness to his own superhuman character, since “no mere man would con- ceive such a thing worth saying”.61 Athanasius had already accepted that ‘greater’ defines the Father’s relation to the Son within the Trinity, but reasoned that they must be of the same kind since one cannot compare things that are of distinct kinds. He also asserts Father’s superiority to be solely in terms of causality (the Father is the cause of the Son’s existence62). One can understand the difficulties Nazianzen and the men- tioned here encountered. Firstly, as we know, same people find inconsistencies within the Bible; in many cases Christian faith works by the way of paradox and not logical syllogism. Then the human intellect (as opposed to God’s ‘mind’) is lim- ited and can only conceive things from certain angles. A few theologians that came after Gregory, for instance Photios the First of Constantinople (858-867; 877-886), felt that they needed to further clarify the Theologian’s position concerning the issues raised by the Johannine verse 14. 28. Photious repeats Nazianzen’s two arguments regarding the respective Biblical asser- tion and discusses them at length.63 Among the modern theologians, H. Alfeyev,

60 Gregory of Nazianzus, “Oration 40. On the Holy Baptism”, Wace and Schaff (NPNF7, Ox- ford, New York, 1894), pp. 7, 43, 375-376. 61 Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius (NPNF5, Oxford, New York, 1893), Book 3, 2, pp. 137- 142. 62 , The Orations of S. Athanasius. Against the Arians, 1.58-9, Preface signed W. C. L. Griffith (London, [1888]), pp. 74-76. 63 Photios the First of Constantinople, PG 102 and On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit by Saint Photius Patriarch of Constantinople (actually attributed to him - see L.G. Westerink’s critical edition, Generation (γενεά) in Gregory Nazianzen’s poem On the Son 181

A. Louth, E. P. Meijering, and F. Norris still discuss the significance of this text for Gregory of Nazianzus. Alfeyev examines various Patristics opinions about it and concludes that the Theologian favours the interpretation referring to the human nature of Christ (i.e. the Father is ‘greater’ vis-à-vis Christ’s humanity). At the same time, the contemporary researcher does not dismiss the reading of the statement in causal terms (i.e. the Father is greater because he is the cause of the Son64). Louth makes a new inventory of the Byzantine commentaries on Gregory’s remarks about Jesus’s statement as reported by John, and judges that they are a proof of the high authority the Archbishop of Constantinople acquired in the through formal theological reflection and church chants.65 E. P. Meijering does not find consistency in the way Gregory dealt with the puzzle in John’s text,66 and Nor- ris, with whom I agree on the matter, draws our attention to the fact that the bish- op’s problem is ‘Scriptural’.67 What he means is that among all the four, the Gospel of John is that which predominantly emphasizes that God-the-Father is the One who bring about the existence of everything. But the fact that this writing does not particularly emphasise the ‘role’ of the Son within the heavenly generation, does not mean that He is lowered in any respect. Certainly this book of the Bible does not justify a view that maintains the subordination of the Son nor, more particular- ly, Eunomius’s position along such a line of thought- if he indeed adopted one. In R. P. Vaggione’s assessment, the Ancient thinker, “Like the rest of his school […] be- lieved that the Son could not have been born a man ‘for the freedom and salvation of our race’ if he had taken upon him ‘the man’ made up of body and soul”, 68 but we have noticed that the opinions are divided on the views of the bishop of Cyzicus. Gregory understood that Eunomius and his followers were concerned that the ac- ceptance of equality between the Father and the Son will imply that there is a lack of unity within the Trinity. The Capapdocian offers a solution to this conundrum trans. Ronald Wertz (Istanbul, 1983). See also Photios, Mystagogia, Letters 1, 2, 284, and his collec- tion of 329 Amphilochia; for the latter see , ‘Photios as a Theologian’, in Byzantine Style and Civilization: In Honour of Sir Steven Runciman, ed. Elizabeth M. Jefrreys (Cambridge, 2006), 206-23. Another English translation with a useful introduction is that of Joseph P. Farrell, The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, Brookline M. A., 1987. 64 Hilarion Alfeyev, St Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition (Oxford, New York, 2000), p. 145; more on the topic on pp. 143-54. 65 Andrew Louth, ‘St. Gregory the Theologian and Byzantine Theology’, in C.A. Beeley (ed.), Re-reading Gregory of Nazianzus (2008), pp. 257-61. 66 Eginhard P. Meijering, God Being History: Studies in Patristic Philosophy (Amsterdam and Oxford, 1975), pp. 111-113. 67 Norris, ‘Commentary on Oration 30’, in Faith gives fullness to Reasoning, 161; he speaks fur- ther about the issue on pp. 166-167. 68 R. P. Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution (Oxford, 2000), p. 117; em- phasis in the original. 182 Elena Ene D-Vasilescu by conceiving God the Father as the cause of both the Son and the Holy Spirit (as well as of creation in general). In the context of the Trinitarian discussion, J. Mey- endorff comments on the fact that Gregory – and also Basil of Caesarea – used the position of the Father as cause to explain the monarchy within the Trinity.69

Conclusion We hope that the article has proved that many ideas are common to Gregory of Na- zianzus’s poetry and to his orations; the poems, and in particular that entitled On the Son, substantially complement the reasoning in his other works. His view on the notion of generation (‘manner of generation’) has impacted on other notions within his own theology and within those of other thinkers of his time. Certainly it influenced Eunomius’s ideas; as it is known, both he and the Anomoean partially shaped their systems in the light of the debate they carried out. Reminding ourselves, with Beeley, that: “Gregory argues that the phrase ‘Fa- ther and Son’ signifies a ‘relation’ to one another, rather than the difference be- tween the Creator and a creature”70 constitutes a good ending to an article on the divine generation.

Bibliography Artemi, E., “Gregory Nazianzen’s trinitarian teaching based on his Twentieth Theological Oration”, De Medio Aevo 4 (2013), pp. 127-46 Azkoul, M., “St. Gregory the Theologian: Poetry and Faith”, Patristic and Byzantine Review 14.1– 3 (1995): 59-68 Beeley, Christopher A., Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In Your Light We Shall See Light (Oxford Studies in ), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008 Beeley, C.A. (ed.), Re-reading Gregory of Nazianzus, Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012 Bénin, R.-M., Une autobiographie romantique au IVe siècle: le poème II 1.1 de Grégoire de Nazianze, doctoral dissertation, Paul Valery-Montpellier III, 1988 Børtnes, Jostein and T. Hägg, Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2006 Bouteneff, P. C, ‘St. Gregory Nazianzen and Two Nature ’, St. Vladimir Seminary’s Quarterly 38 (1994), 255-270

69 ,Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes, second revised edition (Ney York, 1983), p. 183. 70 Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In Your Light We Shall See Light (Oxford, 2008): 312. Beeley paraphrases here Epiphanius, ‘Panarion’ 71, 6; 72, 1; 72, 6, and 75, 1, in Frank Williams, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Books II and III. De Fide (Leiden, 2013), pp. 399-403. Generation (γενεά) in Gregory Nazianzen’s poem On the Son 183

Bouteneff, P. C, The theological Value of Christ’s Human Soul in the Cappadocian Fathers, doctoral dissertation (Oxford, 199771 Cosmas of Jerusalem [of Maiuma], Commentario ai carmi di Gregorio Nazianzeno, edited by Giu- seppe Lozza, Napoli: M. D’Auria, 2000 See also Angelo Mai (ed.), ‘Commentarius Cosmae Hierosolymitani ad carmina S. Gregorii Na- zianzeni’, in Spicilegium Romanum (Romae, 1839), tomus II, pars II Cross, R., ‘Divine Monarchy in Gregory of Nazianzus’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 14/1 (Spring 2006), 105-16 Daley, B.E., Gregory of Nazianzus, London, New York: Routledge, 2006 Daley, B.E., B.E. Daley, ‘Systematic Theology in Homeric Dress’ (2012), 1-13 Damgaard, F., The Figure of Moses in Gregory of Nazianzus’ Autobiographical Remarks in his Orations and Poems, in Markus Vinzent (ed.), Studia Patristica, Papers presented at the Sixteenth Interna- tional Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2011, LXVII, no. 15: Cappadocian Writ- ers The Second Half of the Fourth Century (Leuven, 2013), 179-8772 Dumitraşcu, N., The Ecumenical Legacy of the Cappadocians (ed.), New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 Fulford, B., “One Commixture of Light’: Rethinking some Modern Uses and Critiques of Gregory of Nazianzus on the Unity and Equality of the Divine Persons’, International Journal of System- atic Theology, II/2 (April 2009), 172-18973 Gregory Nazianzen, edited by C. Harrison and B. Daley, London, Routledge, 1999 Gregory of Nazianzus, edited by C. Moreschini, trans D. A. Sykes, Gregory of Nazianzus. Poemata Arcana, Oxford Theological Monographs, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997 Gregory of Naziansus, eds. André Tuilier and Guillaume Bady, trans. J. Bernardi, Saint Grégoire de Nazianze, Oeuvres poétiques. Tome I, Ire partie. Poèmes personnels II, Les Belles Lettres; Collec- tion des universités de France Série grecque: Collection Budé 2004) Gregory Nazianzen, St., Selected Poems, trans. with an Introduction by John McGuckin Oxford: SLG Press Ltd., 1986 Gregory of Nazianzus, St., On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two letters to Cledonius, trans. Lionel Wickham, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002 Grégoire de Nazianze, Discours 27–31 [Discours Théologiques], edited and translated by Paul Gal- lay and Maurice Jourjon, Sources Chrétiennes, Paris: Éditions du Cerf, vol. 250, 1978 Harrison, V.E.F., “Illuminated from all sides by the Trinity: Neglected Themes in Gregory’s Trini- tarian Theology”, in C. A. Beeley (ed.), Re-reading Gregory of Nazianzus (2008): 13-30 Hofer, A., Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus, Oxford Early Christian Studies Series (Oxford, 2013 Musurillo, H., “The Poetry of Gregory of Nazianzus,”Thought 45 (1970): 45-55 McGuckin, John Anthony, St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography, St. Vladimir’s Sem-

71 Peter C. Bouteneff, ‘St. Gregory Nazianzen and Two Nature Christology’, St. Vladimir Semi- nary’s Quarterly 38 (1994), 255-270, and The theological Value of Christ’s Human Soul in the Cappa- docian Fathers, doctoral dissertation (Oxford, 1997). 72 Finn Damgaard, “The Figure of Moses in Gregory of Nazianzus’ Autobiographical Remarks in his Orations and Poems”, in Markus Vinzent (ed.), Studia Patristica, Papers presented at the Six- teenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2011, LXVII, no. 15: Cappa- docian Writers The Second Half of the Fourth Century (Leuven, 2013), 179-87. 73 Ben Fulford, “‘One Commixture of Light’: Rethinking some Modern Uses and Critiques of Gregory of Nazianzus on the Unity and Equality of the Divine Persons”, International Journal of Systematic Theology, II/2 (April 2009), pp. 172-89. 184 Elena Ene D-Vasilescu

inary Press, Crestwood, Yonkers, New York, 2001 McLynn, N. B, “The Tax Man and the Theologian: Gregory, Hellenius, and the Monks of Nazian- zus” (on epistolary poems), in C.A. Beeley, Re-reading Gregory of Nazianzus (2008): 178-99 McLynn, N. B, “The Other Olympias: Gregory of Nazianzen and the Family of Vitalianus”,ZAC 2 (1998): 227-246 Norris, F.W., Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning, trans. Lionel Wickham and Frederick Williams, Sup- plements to Vigiliae Christianae XIII, Leiden: Brill, 1991 Norris, F.W., Gregory Nazianzen’s Doctrine of Jesus Christ, doctoral dissertation, New Haven, 1970 Richard, A., Cosmologie and théologie chez Grégoire de Nazianze, Collection des Ėtudes Augusti- niennes. Série Antiquité, Paris, Institut d’études augustiniennes, 2003 Ruether Radford, R., Gregory of Nazianzus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969 Simelidis, C., Selected Poems of Gregory of Naziansus. 1.2.17; II 1.10, 19, 32, A Critical Edition with Introduction and Commentary (Hypomnemata 177), Göttingen, 2009 Simelidis, C., “Honouring the Bridegroom like God: Theodore ProdromosCarm. Hist. 6.46”, in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 46 (2006), 87-100. Theodore Prodromos, Historische Gedichte [Historical poems], edited by Wolfram Hörandner Byz- ant. Stud. 11, Vienna, 1974 Turner, H.E.W. and F. Young, “Procession(s)” , The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, edited by A. Richardson and J. Bowden. Philadelphia: 1983, Westminster Press Wainwright, Geoffrey (ed.),The Oxford history of Christian worship, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press