Gregory of Nazianzus De Filio (Orat. 29) 2

ed. Arthur James Mason

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De Filio (Orat. 29). Gregory of Nazianzus. ed. Arthur James Mason. Germany. 2014.

Sponsored by University of Leipzig.

Funding provided by European Social Fund Saxony.

Current edition First1KGreek

De Filio (Orat. 29) (Greek) (Gregory of Nazianzus. The Five Theological Orations. Mason, Arthur James, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899.)

Notes on the current edition

De Filio (Orat. 29)

1. 2 εὐδοκιμεῖσθαι b || 6 om ὡς f || 7 γενηται] γένωνται b ‘Reg. Cypr.’ || 9 διαχυθῇ bd ’Reg. Cypr.’ || IO νοούμενα] λεγόμενα ’Reg. Cypr.’
2. 1. τῆ ὑποστολῇ] Heb. x 38, 39 (Hab. ii 4). The word, as the context here shews, implies a disingenuous reticence; cp. Gal. ii 12, 13.
3. 2. διττοῦ δὲ ὄντος] The Bene- dictine editors compare Athenagoras de Resurr. 1.
4. 7. αὐτοί] the Eunomians. Gr. incidentally shews how systematically they went to work.
5. 10. σωλῆνισφιγγ.] ’compressed in α pipe.’
6. 11. χεόμ. κ. λυόμ.] Cp. ii 13.
7. 2. Atheism, Polytheism, Monotheism, are the three ancient opinions about God. The second ends in the same anarchy as the first, and we leave it to the Gentiles. Our Monotheism, however, is one where Three Persons are joined in equality of nature and in identity of will, — two of the three being derived from the first by what Scripture describes as generation and emission respectively.
8. 12. αἱ ἀνωτάτω δόξαι] ’the most ancient opinions.’
9. 13. παισὶν Ἑλλήνων] a phrase formed on the fashion of υἱοὶ Ἰσραήλ; but the word παῖδες seems to be chosen with a view to the verb ἐπαίχθησαν. ‘With the first two the children of Greece amused themselves.’
10. 14. τό τε γάρ] The γάρ gives the reason why Gr. leaves those theories to the children of Greece (imperative).
11. 17. ἀταξία γὰρ μ. λ.] ’Disorder is the prelude to ’For μελέτη (lit. ’practice,’ ’rehearsal’) cp. i 7.
12. 2. 6 γενητης] γεννήτης def || τῆ γε οὐσία] τῆ ἐξουσία ac (sed τῆ γε οὐσία in marg.) g: τῆ γε οὐσία e in rasura
13. 1. μ. δέ, οὐχ ἢν ἐν] ‘Not a souereignty contained in a single person.’
14. 2. ἐστι γάρ] Such a sovereignty, of a single person, does not necessarily exclude the thought of discord and confusion. It is possible to conceive of a single entity being divided against itself, and so becoming many. The divine unity, which we believe, is the result of ‘equality of nature, unanimity of judgment, and identity of action’ ‘of will.’
15. 5. πρὸς τὸ ἐν κτλ.] This complete harmony of mind and will in the Godhead is itself based upon the concurrence of the other Blessed Persons with that One of Their number from whom They are derived, viz. the Father. Gr. does not as yet name the Father, nor indeed any of the Persons, because he is speaking in the abstract of the divine unity and its conditions, and so says τὸ ἐν and not rbv ἔνα. Α comparison of v 14 shews that τῶν ἐξ αὐτοῦ depends on σύννευσις, not on τὸ ἐν. The ‘antecedent’ of ἐξ αὐτοῦ (neut.) is τὸ ἐν.
16. ib. ὅπερ] refers to the whole fourfold description. It is perhaps not impossible that such an unity should exist among creaturely beings, but our experience suggests no instance of it, — only imperfect images of it. The clause is of course parenthetical.
17. 6. ὥστε] again refers to the whole description. It will be seen that οὐσία to Gr. means more than φύσις. There is a moral element in it, and not only a metaphysical; ὁμοτιμία φύσεως is one of the things which secure οὖσ’. μὴ τ. The reading τῆ ἐξουσίᾳ gives no satisfactory sense.
18. 7. μονὰς ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς] The language comes perilously near the Sabellian conception of πλατυσμός (see Dorner Person of Christ div. I, vol. 2, p. 156); but of course Gr.'s tenses κινηθεῖσα, ἔστη) are not to be understood in a temporal sense. There was no time before the κίνησις of which he speaks. For μάρι see ii 9.
19. 9. γενν. κ. προβ.] the γεννήτωρ, of course, of the Son; προβολεύς, of the Spirit.
20. 12. ἀφελών κτλ.] Gr. knows no other way of expressing the relation of the Son and Spirit to the Father, such as might get rid of material suggestions.