Gregory of Nazianzus De Spiritu Sancto (Orat. 31) 32

1. 1 καὶ αλλοι] om καὶ d1 ‘Or. Ι’ || 2 τῆ ’δε] τὼ ’δε de || 3 ἄη] ἔχει b ‘Reg. a et b’ || 4 κὰν] καὶ g || δοκει] δοκὴ b ‘Reg. a’ || 5 τρισὶν] τισιν g || 8 ἀριθμῶ] τὼ ἀριθμῶ e2 32. 10 παλιν] η πάλιν ‘tres Reg.’

2. 1. καἰ γὰρ καἰ ἄλλοι] Elias suggests the Clementine passage which is given by Cotelierp. 528 (ed. 1672). Cp. Tert. adv. Prax. 8.

3. 2. μὴ τῷ μέν] ‘to to see whether.’

4. 3. ταῦτα γὰρ κτλ.] The mouth, the spring, and the stream are not divided by time, nor is their continuity with each other severed; and yet the three have eacli their special characteristics.

5. 5. ῥύσιν] ‘an incessant waste, or dissipation, of Godhead.’ as in § 30.

6. 8. ἐν ἐστιν ἀριθμῶ They are not really three distinct things, Gr. thinks ; they are only various forms or phases of the same thing, and therefore they are inadequate to express the Trinity, which is essentially three in number.

7. 32. So with sun, ray, and light ; or with the flickering sunshine reflected from water upon a wall.

8. 10. ἤλιον κτλ] Cp. Tert. adv. Prax. 8.

9. 11. κἀνταῦθα δέος] This illustration likewise had its dangers. It might have suggested that the Trinity is a Trinity by some kind of composition or combination, such as the science of Gr.’s time between the su itself and the ray and the light which were ‘in’ the sun. Cp. Or. xliv 4. And secondly there was the opposite danger of suggesting that the Father alone has true positive being, while the Son and Spirit are but faculties of His, without personal subsistence, such being in Gr.’s view the character the ray and the light.

10. 5 θέω] + μόνω τὼ πατρὶ ‘Reg. a’: + μόνω ‘duo Coisl.’ || 6 ειρημενων] προειρημένων ‘duo Coisl.’ || 9 η ἀκτὶς] om η cd1f

11. 2. ἐνυπαρχούσας] Existing only in Him, as attributes of His. The word is freq. in this sense in Aristtle.

12. 3. ἄλλος ἥλιος] This, ace. to Gr., would be necessary to make the illustration complete. Cp. § 14, and § 30 ἄλλον θεόν. The ray is not the equal of the luminous body which gives it off; whereas in the Trinity there is, as it were, a sun giving off a sun.

13. 4. ἡλιακαί τ. ἀπόρρ.] ‘solar effluences’; Gr. will not even ἡλίου ἀπόρρ., because it might suggest that, once flowing forth, the effluence has some kind of independent existence, whereas his point is that the ray and the light are but properties of the sun. This is further brought out by the addition καὶ ποιότ. οὖσ’. ‘and essential qualities.’ By οὐσιώδεις Gr. seems from the context to mean ’belonging to the nature of the sun.’ Elsewhere, the word is used in a way that would give an almost opposite meaning ; e.g. Or. xli 11 οὐκέτι ἐνεργείᾳ παρὸν ὡς πρότερον, οὐσιωδῶς δέ, ὡς ἂν εἴποι τις, συγγινόμενον ; Cyr. Hier. Cat. Myst. iii 1 πνεύματος ἁγίου οὐσιώδης ἐπιφοίτησις. Ace. to these examples, ποιότητες οὐσιώδεις would rather mean ‘real, substantive qualities.’ In order to suit context, we should then have to understand οὐσιώδεις to have something of a concessive force, ‘qualities after all, however real and substantive.’

14. 5. καὶ ἄμα τὸ εἶναι κτλ.] The gloss μόνῳ τῷ πατρί gives the right direction for understanding the passage: it means that if we are content with the illustration, we attribute τὸ εἶναι only to the Father, and withhold it from the Son and Spirit. Ἐν τούτοις = in the Persons so conceived of. Thus to ‘God’ (in the sense of ὅλος θεός iv 6) we should ‘attribute at the same time existence and non-existence.’

15. 7. ἤκουσα δέ τινος] ‘I once heard a man offering the following It is unknown who the man was.

16. 8. μαρμαρυγήν τινα] The illustration, tration, though attractive to the poetical imagination of Gr., is not immediately clear. It seems at first as if the trinity were the sunbeam, the water, and the wall, which combine to produce the παλμός, the dancing and quivering reflexion. The point, however, appears to lie rather in the junction of unity with multiplicity (the number three being for the moment lost sight of) displayed in the vibrations of the sunbeam.