2140 See 2 Kings v 2142 Ps. xxxiv. 5 (LXX,). 2143 Ez. xxxvi. 25-27 (not exactly as LXX.). 2144 Cf. Zech. iii. 3. It is to be remembered, of course, that the form of the name in the Septuagint is not Joshua but Jesus. 2145 If “the Baptism of Jesus” here means (as seems most likely) the Baptism of our Lord by S. John, not the Baptism instituted by our Lord, then we are apparently intended to understand that our Lord, summing up humanity in Himself, represented by His Baptism that of all who should thereafter be baptized. 2147 Ps. exliii. 6 (LXX.). 2148 Ps. xlii. 2 (not as LXX.).
On the Baptism of Christ.
let him come unto Me and drink?!*”,” and to the woman of Samaria, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst”!°°.” And “the excellency of Carmel”?!°1 is given to the soul that bears the likeness to the desert, that is, the grace bestowed through the Spirit. For since Elijah dwelt in Carmel, and the mountain became famous and renowned by the virtue of him who dwelt there, and since moreover John the Baptist, illustrious in the spirit of Elijah, sanctified the Jordan, therefore the prophet foretold that “the excellency of Carmel” should be given to the river. And “the glory of Lebanon”!”?,” from the similitude of its lofty trees, he transfers to the river. For as great Lebanon presents a sufficient cause of wonder in the very trees which it brings forth and nourishes, so is the Jordan glorified by regenerating men and planting them in the Paradise of God: and of them, as the words of the Psalmist say, ever blooming and bearing the foliage of virtues, “the leaf shall not wither!>>,” and God shall be glad, receiving their fruit in due season, rejoicing, like a good planter, in his own works. And the inspired David, foretelling also the voice which the Father uttered from heaven upon the Son at His Baptism, that He might lead the hearers, who till then had looked upon that low estate of His Humanity which was perceptible by their senses, to the dignity of nature that belongs to the Godhead, wrote in his book that passage, “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the voice of the Lord in majesty!>4.” But here we must make an end of the testimonies from the Divine Scriptures: for the discourse would extend to an infinite length if one should seek to select every passage in detail, and set them forth ina single book.
But do ye all, as many as are made glad, by the gift of regeneration, and make your boast of that saving renewal, show me, after the sacramental grace, the change in your ways that should follow it, and make known by the purity of your conversation the difference effected by your transformation for the better. For of those things which are before our eyes nothing is altered: the characteristics of the body remain unchanged, and the mould of the visible nature is nowise different. But there is certainly need of some manifest proof, by which we may recognize the new-born man, discerning by clear tokens the new from the old. And these I think are to be found in the intentional motions of the soul, whereby it separates itself from its old customary life, and enters on a newer way of conversation, and will clearly teach those acquainted with it that it has become something different from its former self, bearing in it no token by which the old self was recognized. This, if you be persuaded by me, and On the Baptism of Christ.
keep my words as a law, is the mode of the transformation. The man that was before Baptism was wanton, covetous, grasping at the goods of others, a reviler, a liar, a slanderer, and all that is kindred with these things, and consequent from them. Let him now become orderly, sober, content with his own possessions, and imparting from them to those in poverty, truthful, courteous, affable—in a word, following every laudable course of conduct. For as darkness is dispelled by light, and black disappears as whiteness is spread over it, so the old man also disappears when adorned with the works of righteousness. Thou seest how Zac- chzeus also by the change of his life slew the publican, making fourfold restitution to those whom he had unjustly damaged, and the rest he divided with the poor—the treasure which he had before got by ill means from the poor whom he oppressed. The Evangelist Matthew, another publican, of the same business with Zacchzeus, at once after his call changed his life as if it had been a mask. Paul was a persecutor, but after the grace bestowed on him an Apostle, bearing the weight of his fetters for Christ’s sake, as an act of amends and repentance for those unjust bonds which he once received from the Law, and bore for use against the Gospel. Such ought you to be in your regeneration: so ought you to blot out your habits that tend to sin; so ought the sons of God to have their conversation: for after the grace bestowed we are called His children. And therefore we ought narrowly to scrutinize our Father’s characteristics, that by fashioning and framing ourselves to the likeness of our Father, we may appear true children of Him Who calls us to the adoption according to grace. For the bastard and the supposititious son, who belies his father’s nobility in his deeds, is a sad re- proach. Therefore also, methinks, it is that the Lord Himself, laying down for us in the Gospels the rules of our life, uses these words to His disciples, “Do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust?!° >.” For then He says they are sons when in their own modes of thought they are fashioned in loving kindness towards their kindred, after the likeness of the Father’s goodness.
Therefore, also, it is that after the dignity of adoption the devil plots more vehemently against us, pining away with envious glance, when he beholds the beauty of the new-born man, earnestly tending towards that heavenly city, from which he fell: and he raises up against us fiery temptations, seeking earnestly to despoil us of that second adornment, as he did of our former array. But when we are aware of his attacks, we ought to repeat to ourselves the apostolic words, “As many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into His death?!°®.” Now if we have been conformed to His death, sin henceforth in us is surely a corpse, pierced through by the javelin of Baptism, as that fornicator was thrust On the Baptism of Christ.
through by the zealous Phinehas”’*”. Flee therefore from us, ill-omened one! for it is a corpse thou seekest to despoil, one long ago joined to thee, one who long since lost his senses for pleasures. A corpse is not enamoured of bodies, a corpse is not captivated by wealth, a corpse slanders not, a corpse lies not, snatches not at what is not its own, reviles not those who encounter it. My way of living is regulated for another life: I have learnt to despise the things that are in the world, to pass by the things of earth, to hasten to the things of heaven, even as Paul expressly testifies, that the world is crucified to him, and he to the world?!>®, These are the words of a soul truly regenerated: these are the utterances of the newly-baptized man, who remembers his own profession, which he made to God when the sacrament was administered to him, promising that he would despise for the sake of love towards Him all torment and all pleasure alike.
And now we have spoken sufficiently for the holy subject of the day, which the circling year brings to us at appointed periods. We shall do well in what remains to end our discourse by turning it to the loving Giver of so great a boon, offering to Him a few words as the re- quital of great things. For Thou verily, O Lord, art the pure and eternal fount of goodness, Who didst justly turn away from us, and in loving kindness didst have mercy upon us. Thou didst hate, and wert reconciled; Thou didst curse, and didst bless; Thou didst banish us from Paradise, and didst recall us; Thou didst strip off the fig-tree leaves, an unseemly covering, and put upon us a costly garment; Thou didst open the prison, and didst release the con- demned; Thou didst sprinkle us with clean water, and cleanse us from our filthiness. No longer shall Adam be confounded when called by Thee, nor hide himself, convicted by his conscience, cowering in the thicket of Paradise. Nor shall the flaming sword encircle Paradise around, and make the entrance inaccessible to those that draw near; but all is turned to joy for us that were the heirs of sin: Paradise, yea, heaven itself may be trodden by man: and the creation, in the world and above the world, that once was at variance with itself, is knit together in friendship: and we men are made to join in the angels’ song, offering the worship of their praise to God. For all these things then let us sing to God that hymn of joy, which lips touched by the Spirit long ago sang loudly: “Let my soul be joyful in the Lord: for He hath clothed me with a garment of salvation, and hath put upon me a robe of gladness: as on a bridegroom He hath set a mitre upon me, and as a bride hath He adorned me with fair array”!°?,” And verily the Adorner of the bride is Christ, Who is, and was, and shall be, blessed now and for evermore. Amen.
2159 Is. lxi. 10 (not exactly from LXX.).
Letters.
VI.—Letters.
To Eusebius.
Letters?!™, When the length of the day begins to expand in winter-time, as the sun mounts to the upper part of his course, we keep the feast of the appearing of the true Light divine, that through the veil of flesh has cast its bright beams upon the life of men: but now when that luminary has traversed half the heaven in his course, so that night and day are of equal length, the upward return of human nature from death to life is the theme of this great and universal festival, which all the life of those who have embraced the mystery of the Resurrec- tion unites in celebrating. What is the meaning of the subject thus suggested for my letter to you? Why, since it is the custom in these general holidays for us to take every way to show the affection harboured in our hearts, and some, as you know, give proof of their good will by presents of their own, we thought it only right not to leave you without the homage of our gifts, but to lay before your lofty and high-minded soul the scanty offerings of our poverty. Now our offering which is tendered for your acceptance in this letter is the letter itself, in which there is not a single word wreathed with the flowers of rhetoric or adorned with the graces of composition, to make it to be deemed a gift at all in literary circles, but 212. must 212. must the mystical gold, which is wrapped up in the faith of Christians, as in a packet be my present to you, after being unwrapped, as far as possible, by these lines, and showing its hidden brilliancy. Accordingly we must return to our prelude. Why is it that then only, when the night has attained its utmost length, so that no further addition is possible, that He appears in flesh to us, Who holds the Universe in His grasp, and controls the same 2160 The first fourteen of these Letters have been once edited; i.e. by Zacagni (Rome, 1698), from the Vatican ms. See Prolegomena, p. 30. They are found also in the Medicean ms., of which Bandinus gives an accurate account, and which is much superior, on the authority of Caraccioli, who saw both, to the Vatican. Zacagni did not see the Medicean: but many of his felicitous emendations of the Vatican lacune correspond with it. They are here translated by the late Reverend Harman Chaloner Ogle, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford (Ireland Scholar), who died suddenly (1887), to the grief of very many, and the irreparable loss to scholarship, on the eve of his departure to aid the Mission of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Armenian Church. The notes added by him are signed with his initials. 2161 Sentasan Easter present to Eusebius, bishop of Chalcis, in Coele-Syria, a staunch Catholic, who attended the Council of Constantinople. For this custom amongst the Eastern Christians of exchanging presents at the great festivals, cf. On the Making of Man (p. 387), which Gregory sent to his brother Peter: Gregory Naz. Letter 54 to Helladius, and Letter 87 to Theodore of Tyana. 2162 dnodgouw.
To Eusebius.
Universe by His own power, Who cannot be contained even by all intelligible things, but includes the whole, even at the time that He enters the narrow dwelling ofa fleshly tabernacle, while His mighty power thus keeps pace with His beneficent purpose, and shows itself even as a shadow wherever the will inclines, so that neither in the creation of the world was the power found weaker than the will, nor when He was eager to stoop down to the lowliness of our mortal nature did He lack power to that very end, but actually did come to be in that condition, yet without leaving the universe unpiloted”!®? Since, then, there is some account to be given of both those seasons, how it is that it is winter-time when He appears in the flesh, but it is when the days are as long as the nights that He restores to life man, who because of his sins returned to the earth from whence he came,—by explaining the reason of this, as well as I can in few words, I will make my letter my present to you. Has your own sagacity, as of course it has, already divined the mystery hinted at by these coincidences; that the ad- vance of night is stopped by the accessions to the light, and the period of darkness begins to be shortened, as the length of the day is increased by the successive additions? For thus much perhaps would be plain enough even to the uninitiated, that sin is near akin to darkness; and in fact evil is so termed by the Scripture. Accordingly the season in which our mystery of godliness begins is a kind of exposition of the Divine dispensation on behalf of our souls.
d?!64 without bounds, [upon this For meet and right it was that, when vice was shed abroa night of evil the Sun of righteousness should rise, and that in us who have before walked in darkness!©°] the day which we receive from Him Who placed that light in our hearts should increase more and more; so that the life which is in the light should be extended to the greatest length possible, being constantly augmented by additions of good; and that the life in vice should by gradual subtraction be reduced to the smallest possible compass; for the increase of things good comes to the same thing as the diminution of things evil. But the feast of the Resurrection; occurring when the days are of equal length, of itself gives us this interpretation of the coincidence, namely, that we shall no longer fight with evils only upon equal terms, vice grappling with virtue in indecisive strife, but that the life of light will prevail, the gloom of idolatry melting as the day waxes stronger. For this reason also, after the moon has run her course for fourteen days, Easter exhibits her exactly opposite to the rays of the sun, full with all the wealth of his brightness, and not permitting any interval of darkness to take place in its turn”): for, after taking the place of the sun at its setting, she does not 2163 Evidently an allusion to the myth in Plato.
2164 The xvotc tig Kaxiac is a frequent expression in Origen.
2165 Acorrupt passage. Probably some lines have been lost. A double opposition seems intended; (1) between the night of evil and our Saviour’s coming like the Sun to disperse it; and (2) between walking in darkness and walking in light on the part of the individual (H. C. O.).
2166 év TG) pepe, or “on her part” or “at that particular season.” To support this last, Col. ii. 16, €v pépet gopti|s, may be compared, as Origen interprets it, “in a particular feast,” c. Cels. viii. 23: “Paul alludes to this, To Eusebius.
herself set before she mingles her own beams with the genuine rays of the sun, so that one light remains continuously, throughout the whole space of the earth’s course by day and night, without any break whatsoever being caused by the interposition of darkness. This discussion, dear one, we contribute by way of a gift from our poor and needy hand; and may your whole life be a continual festival and a high day, never dimmed by a single stain of nightly gloom.
when he names the feast selected in preference to others only ‘part of a feast,’ hinting that the life everlasting with the Word of God is not ‘in the part ofa feast, but ina complete and continuous one.’ Modern commentators on that passage, it is true, interpret év wpe “with regard to,” “on the score of.” But has Origen’s meaning been sufficiently considered?
To the City of Sebasteia.
Letter II.—To the City of Sebasteia?!®’.
Some of the brethren whose heart is as our heart told us of the slanders that were being propagated to our detriment by those who hate peace, and privily backbite their neighbour; and have no fear of the great and terrible judgment-seat of Him Who has declared that ac- count will be required even of idle words in that trial of our life which we must all look for: they say that the charges which are being circulated against us are such as these; that we entertain opinions opposed to those who at Nicea set forth the right and sound faith, and that without due discrimination and inquiry we received into the communion of the Cath- olic Church those who formerly assembled at Ancyra under the name of Marcellus. Therefore, that falsehood may not overpower the truth, in another letter we made a sufficient defence against the charges levelled at us, and before the Lord we protested that we had neither de- parted from the faith of the Holy Fathers, nor had we done anything without due discrim- ination and inquiry in the case of those who came over from the communion of Marcellus to that of the Church: but all that we did we did only after the orthodox in the East, and our brethren in the ministry had entrusted to us the consideration of the case of these persons, and had approved our action. But inasmuch as, since we composed that written defence of our conduct, again some of the brethren who are of one mind with us begged us to make separatel ai with our own lips a profession of our faith, which we entertain with full conviction”!®, following as we do the utterances of inspiration and the tradition of the Fathers, we deemed it necessary to discourse briefly of these heads as well. We confess that the doctrine of the Lord, which He taught His disciples, when He delivered to them the mystery of godliness, is the foundation and root of right and sound faith, nor do we believe 2167 Marcellus of Ancyra had been deposed in the Council of Constantinople in 336, for teaching the doctrine of Paul of Samosata. Basil and Athanasius successively separated from their communion all who were united to Marcellus; and these, knowing that Valens the Emperor had exiled several bishops of Egypt to Dioceesarea, went to find them (375) and were admitted to their communion. Armed with letters from them, they demanded to be received into that of the other bishops of the East, and at length Basil and others, having examined the matter closely, admitted them. Gregory followed Basil’s example, being assured of their Catholicity: and to jus- tify himself wrote this letter to the Catholics of Sebasteia.
2168 —idtws, i.e. as a distinct matter from the previous dnoAoyta; or perhaps “privately.”
2169 nenAnpogoprpe8a; a deponent, the same use as in Rom. iv. 21, of Abraham, mAnpogopn Peis dt 6 emnyyeAtat «.t.A.: cf. mANpo@opia mtotews, Heb. x. 22: mAnpoopia tic EAmidoc, Heb. vi. 11. The other N.T. use of this word, as an active and passive, is found 2 Tim. iv. 5, “fulfil thy ministry;” 2 Tim. iv. 17; S. Luke i. 1, TETANPOPopNLEVwv, “most surely believed” (A.V.): in all which the R.V. follows the Vulgate interpretation. In the Latin translation of this passage in Gregory, “(professionem) qua sacris nos Scripturis ac Patrum traditioni penitus inherere persuasum omnibus foret,” the meaning put upon mAnpo@opetoBat by A.V. in the last text is adopted, “we are fully believed to follow,” with a very harsh construction.
To the City of Sebasteia.
that there is aught else loftier or safer than that tradition. Now the doctrine of the Lord is this: “Go,” He said, “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Since, then, in the case of those who are regenerate from death to eternal life, it is through the Holy Trinity that the life-giving power is bestowed on those who with faith are deemed worthy of the grace, and in like manner the grace is imperfect, if any one, whichever it be, of the names of the Holy Trinity be omitted in the saving bap- tism—for the sacrament of regeneration is not completed in the Son and the Father alone without the Spirit: nor is the perfect boon of life imparted to Baptism in the Father and the Spirit, if the name of the Son be suppressed: nor is the grace of that Resurrection accom- plished in the Father and the Son, if the Spirit be left out”!’°:—for this reason we rest all our hope, and the persuasion of the salvation of our souls, upon the three Persons, recog- nized?!7! by these names; and we believe in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Fountain of life, and in the Only-begotten Son of the Father, Who is the Author of life, as saith the Apostle, and in the Holy Spirit of God, concerning Whom the Lord hath spoken, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth”. And since on us who have been redeemed from death the grace of immortality is bestowed, as we have said, through faith in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, guided by these we believe that nothing servile, nothing created, nothing unworthy of the majesty of the Father is to be associated in thought with the Holy Trinity; since, I say, our life is one which comes to us by faith in the Holy Trinity, taking its rise from the God ofall, flowing through the Son, and working in us by the Holy Spirit. Having, then, this full assurance, we are baptized as we were commanded, and we believe as we are baptized, and we hold as we believe; so that with one accord our baptism, our faith, and our ascription 2172 the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. But if any one makes mention of two or three Gods, or of three God-heads, let him be accursed. And if any, folof praise are to lowing the perversion of Arius, says that the Son or the Holy Spirit were produced from things that are not, let him be accursed. But as many as walk by the rule of truth and acknow- ledge the three Persons, devoutly recognized in Their several properties, and believe that there is one Godhead, one goodness, one rule, one authority and power, and neither make void the supremacy of the Sole-sovereignty”!”*, nor fall away into polytheism, nor confound the Persons, nor make up the Holy Trinity of heterogeneous and unlike elements, but in simplicity receive the doctrine of the faith, grounding all their hope of salvation upon the 2170 There is some repetition and omission here. Gregory ought to have said in one of the clauses, “Nor is Baptism in the name of the Son and Holy Ghost sufficient, without the name of the Father” (H. C. O.).
2171 yvwpiGopévnv looks as if it ought to be yywptGouevons, and the Latin translator renders accordingly 2172 The same preposition eic is used after Bantioua, mtotic, and 56€a.
2173 povapyta, i.e. the One First Cause or Principle. See p. 84, note 7.
To the City of Sebasteia.
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,—these according to our judgment are of the same mind as we, and with them we also trust to have part in the Lord.
To Ablabius.
The Lord, as was meet and right, brought us safe through, accompanied as we had been by your prayers, and I will tell you a manifest token of His loving kindness. For when the sun was just over the spot which we left behind Earsus*!7° , suddenly the clouds gathered thick, and there was a change from clear sky to deep gloom. Then a chilly breeze blowing through the clouds, bringing a drizzling with it, and striking upon us with a very damp feeling, threatened such rain as had never yet been known, and on the left there were con- tinuous claps of thunder, and keen flashes of lightning alternated with the thunder, following one crash and preceding the next, and all the mountains before, behind, and on each side were shrouded in clouds. And already a heavy” 6 cloud hung over our heads, caught by a strong wind and big with rain, and yet we, like the Israelites of old in their miraculous passage of the Red Sea, though surrounded on all sides by rain, arrived unwetted at Vestena. And when we had already found shelter there, and our mules had got a rest, then the signal for the down-pour was given by God to the air. And when we had spent some three or four hours there, and had rested enough, again God stayed the down-fall, and our conveyance moved along more briskly than before, as the wheel easily slid through the mud just moist and on the surface. Now the road from that point to our little town is all along the river side, going down stream with the water, and there is a continuous string of villages along the banks, all close upon the road, and with very short distances between them. In consequence of this unbroken line of habitations all the road was full of people, some coming to meet us, and others escorting us, mingling tears in abundance with their joy. Now there was a little drizzle, not unpleasant, just enough to moisten the air; but a little way before we got home the cloud that overhung us was condensed into a more violent shower, so that our entrance was quite quiet, as no one was aware beforehand of our coming. But just as we got inside our portico, as the sound of our carriage wheels along the dry hard ground was heard, the 2174 This Letter must have been written, either (1) After the first journey of Gregory to Constantinople, i.e. after the Council, 381; or (2) On his return from exile at the death of Valens, 378. The words at the end, “rejoiced and wept with my people,” are against the first view.
2175 "Eapoot. The distance prevents us conjecturing “Tarsus” here, though, Gregory was probably coming from the sea (and the Holy Land). But “Garsaura” is marked on the maps as about 40 miles south of Nyssa with the “Morimene” mountains (Erjash Dagh) intervening. (Nyssa lay on a southern tributary of the Halys, N.W. of Nazianzum.) The Medicean ms. is said by Migue to read €avt@v here—“we left behind us.” Nothing is known of Vestena below.
2176 Adopting the conjecture of the Latin translator Bapeia for Bpaxeia. His translation, however, though ingenious, would require something different in the Greek. It runs “jamque nubes, que nostro impendebat capiti, postquam acri vehementique vento abrepta alio delata fuit, hiemem peperit.” As the text stands vmoAn@Oeioa cannot bear this translation (H. C. O.)
To Ablabius.
people turned up in shoals, as though by some mechanical contrivance, I know not whence nor how, flocking round us so closely that it was not easy to get down from our conveyance, for there was not a foot of clear space. But after we had persuaded them with difficulty to allow us to get down, and to let our mules pass, we were crushed on every side by folks crowding round, insomuch that their excessive kindness all but made us faint. And when we were near the inside of the portico, we see a stream of fire flowing into the church; for the choir of virgins, carrying their wax torches in their hands, were just marching in file along the entrance of the church, kindling the whole into splendour with their blaze. And when I was within and had rejoiced and wept with my people—for I experienced both emotions from witnessing both in the multitude,—as soon as I had finished the prayers, I wrote off this letter to your Holiness as fast as possible, under the pressure of extreme thirst, so that I might when it was done attend to my bodily wants.
To Cynegius.
Letter IV.—To Cynegius” Bae We have a law that bids us “rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep”: but of these commandments it often seems that it is in our power to put only one into practice. For there is a great scarcity in the world of “them that rejoice,” so that it is not easy to find with whom we may share our blessings, but there are plenty who are in the op- posite case. I write thus much by way of preface, because of the sad tragedy which some spiteful power has been playing among people of long-standing nobility. A young man of good family, Synesius by name, not unconnected with myself, in the full flush of youth, who has scarcely begun to live yet, is in great dangers, from which God alone has power to rescue him, and next to God, you, who are entrusted with the decisions of all questions of life and death. An involuntary mishap has taken place. Indeed, what mishap is voluntary? And now those who have made up this suit against him, carrying with it the penalty of death, have turned his mishap into matter of accusation. However, I will try by private letters to soften their resentment and incline them to pity; but I beseech your kindliness to side with justice and with us, that your benevolence may prevail over the wretched plight of the youth, hunting up any and every device by which the young man may be placed out of the reach of danger, having conquered the spiteful power which assails him by the help of your alliance.