Gregory of Nazianzus De Filio (Orat. 29) 5

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. 4. 1 ἔφεσις χρόνος ac li 4 ἐννοεῖν] ἐπινοεῖν b ‘Reg. ’ 5 κυησεως] κινήσεως d ΙΙ 8 τούτων] + δὴ ’Or. I’ || 9 ἐναίρειν ‘Reg. Cypr.’ || καινῆς] κενῆς be ’Reg. Cypr.’: + σου beg 15 του] rob: του f in rasura || 17 πατρὶ] πατὴρ b ’Reg. a1’
2. 4. συνδυασμούς] ‘copulation.’
3. 5. ἀμβλώσεως] ‘miscarriage.’
4. 6. οὕτω] by such ways as συνδυασμός and so on.
5. 9. ἢ καί] ‘or else, ’ if the generation of the Son does not fit in with your select example, ‘get rid of Him altogether as a result of your novel scheme.’
6. 12. ἢ πνεῦμ’. γέννησις] i.e. His generation ace. to His divine nature. Ἐξαλλάττειν is freq. used intrans.
7. 5. The Father never ωας anything else but Father. While we human beings are sons, as well as fathers, He is absolutely Father, and that alone. If we say that He ’has begotten’ a Son, we do mean to imply a moment or date. Scripture often uses tenses in a way which differs from that of ordinary life.
8. 15. τίς οὖν] It is the ’s question: ‘What father is there who never began to be a father ?’
9. 17. οὔκουν π. ὕστ.] ‘He did become Father at some subsequent point, because (ace. to the foregoing argument) He never began to be.’
10. 18. κυρίως] ‘properly, because He is not at the same time Son.’ on the other hand, Gr. goes on to say, are not ‘properly ’ fathers, because we are ἄμφω, sons as much as fathers. The variety of our relationships makes it impossible to consider any one of them an exhaustive description of a human being; but fatherhood expresses all that the person of God the Father is.
11. 5 ἐγέννησεν αὐτὸ φησιν f || 12 τῆς] + θείας b
12. 1. ἐξ ἀμφοῖν] not the same ἄμφω as above, but here as if = ἐκ δυοῖν. Gr. is thinking chiefly how our sonship differs from that of the Eternal Son, and leaves the difference of the fatherhood. Each of us has two parents, not one, so that we are in a way divided between them.
13. 2. κατ’ δλ. ἄνθρ.] another difference; we only gradually attain the position of human beings by a long fashioning in the womb, and some hardly attain it at all. In the last clause no doubt Gr. means idiots and persons otherwise deficient. The wishes of human parents for their offspring are often far from being realised οἶοι μὴ τεθ.).
14. 3. ἀφιέντες] The children in many cases go their way, and the parents theirs, and nothing is left of the sacred relationship except the name.
15. 5. ἐγέννησε] We have been using expressions like ‘begat’ and ‘is begotten,’ which necessarily besides the notion of begetting, the tense-notion of a moment when. To evade the difficulty, Gr. proposes to use a formula which puts the ‘moment’ back before the beginning of time, and to say that the Son ‘was’ already ‘begotten from the beginning.’
16. 9. γραφὴν ἀποίσεις καθ’ ἤμ’.] a legal term, which has only an accidental relation to the use of γραφὴ immediately after in the sense of ’Scripture.’ It means ‘to file an accusation?
17. ib. παραχαραττόντων] ‘putting a false mark ’ i.e. ‘falsifying’; chiefly used of coin that has been tampered with.
18. 11. ἐνηλλαγμ. τ. χρδν.] Much of our language which denotes time is used in an inverse manner to the time intended.
19. 14. ἴνα τί ἐφρ.] Psalm ii 1.