In the Fifth he deals with the doctrine of the Holy Ghost. The heresy of Arius was at first directly concerned only with the Person of our Lord, though not without a side-glance at that also of the Holy Ghost. The Council of Nicæa had confined itself to the first question, and its Creed ended with, "We believe in the Holy Ghost." This, it was afterwards argued, was enough to proclaim His Divinity, and so Gregory argues in this Oration, "If He be only a creature, how do we believe on Him, how are we made perfect in Him, for the first of these belongs to Deity, the second may be said of anything" (c. vi.). The reason, however, that the Great Synod made no express definition on the point seems to have been that the controversy had not yet been carried so far in direct terms (cf. S. Basil, Epp. lxxviii. ccclxxxvii.). But fifty years later the growth of the heresy rendered a definition of the Church's faith on this point needful; and in 363, on his return from his fourth period of exile, S. Athanasius held a provincial Synod at Alexandria, in whose Synodical Letter to the Emperor Jovian the Godhead of the Holy Ghost is maintained in terms which, as Canon Bright says, partly anticipate the language of the Creed of Constantinople (Dict. Biog. Art. Athanasius). The new development of the heresy had begun to appear at Constantinople as well as in Thrace and Asia Minor. Macedonius, a Semi-Arian, had been elected Bishop of Constantinople in 341, and in spite of violent opposition, which he met by still more violent measures, had maintained his position till 360, when he was deposed and driven out by the Anomoean Arians. He then in his retirement became the leader of the Semi-Arian party. Accepting the statement that the Son was Like in Essence to the Father, he would not concede even this to the Holy Ghost, but declared Him to be a mere creature (Thdt. Hist. Eccl. ii. 6), and the servant or minister of the Son; applying to Him terms which without error could only be used of the Angels (Sozomen. H. E. iv. 27). His followers were known as Macedonians, or sometimes Marathonians, from a certain Marathonius, formerly a Paymaster of the Prætorian Guards, who had become a Deacon of Constantinople, and, having done much in the way of founding and maintaining Monastic Houses and Houses of Charity in the City, was consecrated by Macedonius as Bishop of Nicomedia. They were also known as Pneumatomachi, from the nature of their Heresy. A controversy had now begun to arise as to the precise position which the true faith was to assign to the Holy Spirit. There were those who left it doubtful whether He had indeed a separate Personality, or whether He were not rather a mere Influence or Activity of the Father and the Son. Gregory tells us how, when he came to the Metropolis, he found the wildest confusion prevalent. Some, he says, conceived of the Holy Ghost as a mere Energy of God, others thought Him a Creature, others believed Him to be God; while many out of an alleged reverence for Holy Scripture, hesitated to give Him the Name of God. To this last class belonged, according to Socrates (H. E. ii. 45), Eustathius, who had been ejected from the Bishopric of Sebasteia in Pontus. He refused to admit that the Holy Spirit is God, while yet He did not dare to affirm that He is a mere creature. When Gregory proceeded to preach the Deity of the Spirit, he was accused of introducing a strange and unscriptural god, because, as he acknowledges, the letter of the Bible is not so clear on the doctrine of the Spirit as it is on that of the Son. But he points out that it is possible to be superstitious in one's reverence for the letter of the Bible, and that such superstition leads directly to heresy. He explains the reticence of the New Testament on this point by shewing (in this Oration, cc. 26, 27) how God's Self-Revelation to man has always been a gradual one; how the Old Testament revealed the Father clearly, with obscure hints about the Son; and the New Testament manifested the Son, but only hinted at the Godhead of the Spirit; but now, he says, the Spirit dwells among us, and allows us to recognize Him more clearly. For it would not have been advisable, as long as the Godhead of the Father was not acknowledged, to proclaim that of the Son; and while the Deity of the Son was not yet accepted, to add another burden in that of the Holy Spirit. Recognizing thus a Divine economy in the Self-Revelations of God, he was not averse to using a similar caution in his own dealings with weak or ill-instructed minds. [3381] But yet when real necessity arose, he could speak out with perfect plainness on this subject; and he even incurred danger to life and limb from the violence of the opposing party. He met their opposition by the clearest statements of the Catholic Dogma. "Is the Spirit God?" he asks. "Yes." "But is He consubstantial?" "Yes, if He is God." (Orat. xxxi. 10.) He appeals both to the Bible, and to the experience of the Christian life. If the Spirit is not to be adored, how can He deify me in Baptism? From the Spirit comes our new Birth; from the new Birth our new Life; and from the new Life our knowledge of the Dignity of Him from Whom it is derived (Ibid. C. 29). He is, however, milder in his treatment of these heretics than of the strict Arians, both, as he says, because they approached more nearly to the Orthodox belief on the subject of the Son, and because their conspicuous piety of life shewed that their error was not altogether wilful. In this Oration he shows that though the Name of God may not actually be given in the New Testament to the Holy Ghost, yet all the attributes of God are ascribed to Him, and that therefore the use of the Name is a matter of legitimate inference. He carries on the argument in the Oration on Pentecost (No. XLI. See the Introduction to that Oration in the present Volume).
With regard to the doctrine of the Procession, Gregory gives us no clear information. He is silent as to the Procession from the Son. It is enough for him that the Spirit is not Begotten but Proceeding (in SS. Lumina, c. 12), and that Procession is His distinctive Property, which involves at once His Personality and His Essential Deity.
At length in 381 the work of local Synods and episcopal conferences was completed and clinched by the Ruling of a Second Ecumenical Council. It is true that the Council which Theodosius summoned to meet at Constantinople could scarcely have regarded itself as possessing Ecumenical authority; whilst in the West it certainly was not regarded in this light before the Sixth Century. Nevertheless the honours of Ecumenicity were ultimately awarded to it by the whole Church, because it completes the series of Great Councils by which the Doctrine of the Deity of the Holy Spirit was affirmed; and in fact it expressed the final judgment of the Catholic Church upon the Macedonian controversy. Its first Canon anathematises the Semiarians or Pneumatomachi by name as well as the Eunomians or Anomoean Arians (cf. Dict. Biog. Art. Gregory of Nazianzus, by Dr. H. B. Swete).
[3377] De Broglie, "L'Eglise et l'Empire," v. 385.--"Ce sont autant de modèles dans l'art délicat d'imprimer la forme oratoire aux développements philosophiques. Une pensée substantielle, formée de tous les sucs répandus dans les écrits d'Hilaire, de Basile et d'Athanase; un courant d'éloquence tempérée qui ne se ralentit, ni ne s'égare en aucun moment; une argumentation nerveuse sans sècheresse, mais sans vaine parure d'ornements, font à ces cinq discours une place à part parmi les monuments de ce beau génie, auquel l'emphase et l'affectation ne furent pas toujours aussi étrangers. En quelques pages, et en quelques heures, Grégoire avait résumé et clos la controverse de tout un siècle."
[3378] See Prolegomena p. 171.
[3379] "There is but one divine Essence or Substance; Father, Son, and Spirit, are one in essence, or consubstantial. They are in one another, inseparable, and cannot be conceived without each other. In this point the Nicene doctrine is thoroughly monotheistic, or monarchian, in distinction from tritheism, which is but a new form of the polytheism of the pagans. "The terms Essence (ousia) and Nature (phusis), in the philosophical sense, denote not an individual, a personality, but the Genus or Species; not Unum in Numero, but Ens Unum in Multis. All men are of the same substance, partake of the same human nature; though as persons and individuals they are very different. The term Homo-ousion, in its strict grammatical sense, differs from Mono-ousion or Touto-ousion, as well as from Hetero-ousion, and signifies not numerical identity, but equality of essence or community of nature among several beings. It is clearly thus used in the Chalcedonian Symbol, where it is said that Christ is consubstantial (Homo-ousios) with the Father as touching the Godhead, and consubstantial with us (and yet individually distinct from us) as touching the Manhood.' But in the Divine Trinity consubstantiality denotes not only sameness of kind, but at the same time Numerical unity; not merely the Unum in Specie, but also the Unum in Numero. The three Persons are related to the Divine Substance not as three individuals to their species, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or Peter, John, and Paul, to human nature; they are only one God. The divine Substance is absolutely indivisible by reason of its simplicity, and absolutely inextensible and untransferable by reason of its infinity; whereas a corporeal substance can be divided, and the human nature can be multiplied by generation. Three Divine substances would limit and exclude each other, and therefore could not be infinite or absolute. The whole fulness of the one undivided Essence of God, with all its attributes, is in all the Persons of the Trinity, though in each in His own way; in the Father as Original Principle, in the Son by eternal Generation, in the Spirit by eternal Procession. The Church teaches not One Divine Essence and Three Persons, but One Essence In Three Persons. Father, Son, and Spirit cannot be conceived as Three separate individuals, but are in one another, and form a solidaric Unity." (Schaff, History of the Church, Nic. & Post-Nic. Period, Div. ii. p. 672.)
[3380] Two terms borrowed from Holy Scripture (Heb. i. 3). But observe, borrowed with a difference--not "the Image of His Substance," which they would not admit, but of His "Energy," which is a very different conception.
[3381] In his Fifty-third Epistle, addressed to S. Basil, there is an amusing instance of his defence of this tolerant disposition, which S. Basil also displayed in dealing with minds of this class.
Oration XXVII.
The First Theological Oration.
A Preliminary Discourse Against the Eunomians.
I. I am to speak against persons who pride themselves on their eloquence; so, to begin with a text of Scripture, "Behold, I am against thee, O thou proud one," [3382] not only in thy system of teaching, but also in thy hearing, and in thy tone of mind. For there are certain persons who have not only their ears [3383] and their tongues, but even, as I now perceive, their hands too, itching for our words; who delight in profane babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called, [3384] and strifes about words, which tend to no profit; for so Paul, the Preacher and Establisher of the "Word cut short," [3385] the disciple and teacher of the Fishermen, [3386] calls all that is excessive or superfluous in discourse. But as to those to whom we refer, would that they, whose tongue is so voluble and clever in applying itself to noble and approved language, would likewise pay some attention to actions. For then perhaps in a little while they would become less sophistical, and less absurd and strange acrobats of words, if I may use a ridiculous expression about a ridiculous subject.
II. But since they neglect every path of righteousness, and look only to this one point, namely, which of the propositions submitted to them they shall bind or loose, (like those persons who in the theatres perform wrestling matches in public, but not that kind of wrestling in which the victory is won according to the rules of the sport, but a kind to deceive the eyes of those who are ignorant in such matters, and to catch applause), and every marketplace must buzz with their talking; and every dinner party be worried to death with silly talk and boredom; and every festival be made unfestive and full of dejection, and every occasion of mourning be consoled by a greater calamity [3387] --their questions--and all the women's apartments accustomed to simplicity be thrown into confusion and be robbed of its flower of modesty by the torrent of their words...since, I say this is so, the evil is intolerable and not to be borne, and our Great Mystery is in danger of being made a thing of little moment. Well then, let these spies [3388] bear with us, moved as we are with fatherly compassion, and as holy Jeremiah says, torn in our hearts; [3389] let them bear with us so far as not to give a savage reception to our discourse upon this subject; and let them, if indeed they can, restrain their tongues for a short while and lend us their ears. However that may be, you shall at any rate suffer no loss. For either we shall have spoken in the ears of them that will hear, [3390] and our words will bear some fruit, namely an advantage to you (since the Sower soweth the Word [3391] upon every kind of mind; and the good and fertile bears fruit), or else you will depart despising this discourse of ours as you have despised others, and having drawn from it further material for gainsaying and railing at us, upon which to feast yourselves yet more.