The elder Gregory of Nazianzus would have preferred that his son and namesake follow in his steps as bishop. Gregory the younger had other plans and in 361, upon being ordained a priest in Nazianzus by his father, ran away to Pontus. Gregory had been born into a wealthy Christian family in 326. He had been classically trained but, wanting to expand on his education, had decided to travel. While away, he had met Julian (later the apostate emperor), Athanasius (concerning whom he wrote an oration), and Basil. Gregory had come home in 356, but then, around 358-360, had gone to visit Basil’s monastic community whereupon, discovering his distaste for being cloistered, he had returned home.
Gregory came back from Pontus on Easter of 362, having been persuaded to come and help his poor dying father. The arrangement would last for about ten more years. At that time, Basil appointed Gregory bishop of Sasima, an outpost on the Parthian border. Sasima was small, very small, and so, Gregory ran away to Nazianzus. A couple of years later, his father died. Gregory took over his duties but only lasted for a year before he ran away to Seleucia in Isauria. This lasted until 378 when the pro-Arian emperor, Valens, died and was replaced by the pro-Nicene Theodosius. A small Nicene congregation in Constantinople asked Gregory to be their pastor. He agreed and soon became one of the most popular pastors in the Eastern Church. An audience with Emperor Theodosius resulted in Gregory being elevated to the office of Bishop of Constantinople.
He was still there in 381 when the second of the ecumenical councils was called, the main purpose of which was to settle the questions concerning the deity of the Holy Spirit. When Miletius, the president of the council, died, Gregory stepped in to take his place. But some Alexandrian bishops objected and had him removed on the basis of the canons of Nicea. A man could be bishop in only one place. Since Gregory had previously been appointed Bishop of Sasima, he had no right to be Bishop of Constantinople. And so Gregory resigned and ran away to Nazianzus. The people there still wanted him to be bishop of their city, but canon law would not have allowed it. Gregory retired to the family estate in Arianzus where, in 390, he died.
Along with Basil and Basil’s younger brother Gregory, Gregory of Nazianzus formed a group of theologians who would come to be known as the Cappadocians. There greatest contribution to orthodoxy was in clarifying the doctrine of the Trinity and in disproving the Arians. They standardized the formula: one “ousia” and three “hypostases.” Gregory’s unique contribution was to focus individually on the persons within the Trinity in order to note what distinguished them from one another. He considered how they were related to one another and, thereby, what the origin of each was. The Father was “agennesia,” or unbegotten; the Son was “gennesia,” or begotten; and the Holy Spirit was "ekporeusis,” or proceeding. Basil had also considered the relationships within the trinity; however, his emphasis was on the Father and the Son. Gregory was the first to explicitly include the Holy Spirit in this relationship and to state what that relation was. The Holy Spirit is related to the other two persons of the Trinity by means of procession.
Although Gregory performed a great service for the Church by defending the deity of Christ against the Arians, his defense of the full humanity of Christ was equally invaluable. His argument was against Apollinaris, who represented the culmination of what is known as the “Logos-flesh” model of the incarnation. Apollinaris defended Nicene orthodoxy; he did believe that Christ was fully divine. But he did not believe that Christ was fully human. Rather than possessing a human body and a human soul, Christ’s soul was replaced by the Logos. Justo L. Gonzalez sees Apollinaris as a trichotomist: a human being is composed of body, soul, and spirit. In this view, the spirit is the seat of personality and the intellect. Jesus had a human body and a human soul, but not a human spirit. Either way, though, the Christ of Apollinaris is missing some essential human parts.
Yet the matter is not solely about the composition of a human being; it is a question of soteriology. Gregory takes it back to the fall of Adam and writes:
For that which He [Christ] has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved. If only half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole. Let them not, then, begrudge us our complete salvation, or clothe the Saviour only with bones and nerves and the portraiture of humanity (Epistle 101).
By Apollinaris’ own reckoning, the Son of God assumed human flesh and that is all. The mind, or the soul, was not assumed but was replaced. And, as Gregory indicates, this would be fine if the mind had not also fallen. However, since the whole man has fallen, and since Apollinaris claims that the whole man can be redeemed even though the whole man has not been assumed, I am forced to ask why the Logos had to assume anything. What is the point of the rest of the incarnation? If the mind can be saved without it, why not the body?
Gregory shows the absurdity of appealing to the passage that states, “The Word was made flesh,” saying:
…it is time for them to say that God is God only of flesh, and not of souls, because it is written, “As Thou hast given Him power over all Flesh,” …meaning every Man. Or, again, they must suppose that our fathers went down into Egypt without bodies and invisible…because it is written, “They went down into Egypt with threescore and fifteen Souls.”…They who argue thus do not know that such expressions are used by Synecdoche, declaring the whole by the part…(Epistle 101)
Despite the apparent advantages for the doctrine of salvation, Gonzalez does not see that the Christology of Gregory is much better than that of Apollinaris. He observes that “Gregory thought it necessary to affirm that the center of the Savior’s personality is in his divinity, so that his humanity is, as it were, absorbed by the divine nature.”
Speaking specifically of Gregory of Nyssa, yet by implication also of Gregory of Nazianzus, Gonzalez claims that they had the “tendency to take the divinity of Jesus Christ as the starting point and to attribute to him only the highest degree of humanity that may be compatible with this starting point.” From either perspective, the humanity of Christ appears to be diminished.
I believe, however, that Gonzalez has misread the text. He goes on to give the justification for the Cappadocians’ view of the incarnation. Salvation was, to them, a matter of deification. Gonzalez explains, “Thus, for the Cappadocians the important thing was that in Christ God truly assumed humanity, and not that his humanity remained identical to ours or as free as ours.”
Gonzalez is correct in his unspoken assumption that, ultimately, Christ’s humanity and our humanity must remain the same. However, the Cappadocians never denied this. It is Gonzalez’ claim that Gregory’s Christology diminishes Jesus’ humanity. He cites Gregory’s example of starlight on a sunny day. Gonzalez might have a point, if Gregory were defending the deity of Christ. But he is not; he is defending the union of two perfect natures in one person. The question is, “How shall one thing contain two completenesses?”
Here is matter of inquiry; for indeed the question is worthy of much consideration. Do they not know, then, that what is perfect by comparison with one thing may be imperfect by comparison with another, as a hill compared with a mountain, or a grain of mustard seed with a bean or any other of the larger seeds, although it may be called larger than any of the same kind?... So Moses was God to Pharaoh, but a servant of God, as it is written; and the stars which illumine the night are hidden by the Sun, so much that you could not even know of their existence by daylight…(Epistle 101)
Or as humanity compared with deity. If there is no difference between a mountain and a hill, between a mustard seed and a bean, between starlight and sunlight, between God and Moses, then the nature of at least one component within each of these pairs has been changed. When Gregory considers the two natures of Christ, when he observes the eclipse of the one into the other, he does not deny the full humanity of Christ. Instead, he affirms it, and, in so doing, places before us the end of our own salvation.
Posted by kcourter at agosto 13, 2004 12:19 AM