[3949] Jer. iv. 3.
[3950] Prov. xi. 18.
[3951] 2 Cor. ii. 6.
[3952] The sense of Person (here prosopon), which is the usual post-Nicene equivalent of hupostasis, was by no means generally attached to that word during the first Four Centuries, though here and there there are traces of such a use. Throughout the Arian controversy a great deal of trouble and misunderstanding was caused by the want of a precise definition of the meaning of hupostasis. It seems to have been at first understood by the Eastern Church to mean Real Personal Existence--Reality being the fundamental idea. In this fundamental sense it was used in Theology as expressing the distinct individuality and relative bearing of the Three "Persons" of the Blessed Trinity to each other (to idion para to koinon, Suidas). But Arius gave it a heretical twist, and said that there are Three Hypostases, in the sense of Natures or Substances; and this doctrine was anathematized by the Nicene Council, which, apparently regarding the term hupostasis as exactly equivalent to ousia (as Arius tried to make it) condemned the proposition that the Son is ex heteras hupostaseos e ousias (Symb. Nic.). Similar is the use of the word in S. Athanasius. As against Sabellius, however, who taught that in the Godhead there are tria prosopa (using this word in the sense of Aspects only) but would not allow treis hupostaseis (i.e., Self-existent Personalities), the post-Nicene Church regarded hupostasis as designating the Person, and spoke freely of treis hupostaseis. The Western Church increased the confusion by continuing to regard hupostasis as equivalent to ousia, and translating it by Substantia or Subsistentia. It was not till the word Essentia came into use to express ousia that the Western Church grasped the difference, so long accepted in the East, so as to use the words accurately. Meantime, however, there would seem to have grown up a difference in the use of the two words supposed to represent hupostasis, of the same kind as that between hupostasis and ousia; Substantia being appropriated to the Essence of a thing, that which is the foundation of its being; while Subsistentia came rather to connote a limitation, i.e., Personality. Thus the West also became confused, and Substantia was held to be the true equivalent of hupostasis. Hence the condemnation at Sardica (a.d. 347) by the Western Bishops of the doctrine of Three Hypostases as Arian. The confusion lasted long, but in 362 a Council was held at Alexandria, when this difference was seen to be a mere logomachy, and it was pronounced orthodox to confess either treis hupostaseis in the sense of "Persons," or mian hupostasin in that of "Substance." Our author in his Oration to the Fathers of the Council of Constantinople fully acknowledges this. "What do you mean," he says, "by hupostaseis or prosopa? You mean that the Three are distinct, not in Nature, but in Personality." And in the Panegyric on S. Athanasius (Or. xxi. c. 35), he remarks on the orthodoxy of the phrase mia ousia, treis hupostaseis, that the first expression refers to the Nature of the Godhead, the second to the special properties of the Persons. With this, he says, the Italians agree, but the poverty of their language is such that it does not admit of the distinction between ousia and hupostasis, and therefore has to call in the word prosopon, which if misunderstood is liable to be charged with Sabellianism.
[3953] 2 Cor. viii. 6.
[3954] Rom. xi. 36.
[3955] The Coining is simply of the adverbial form; the Substantive is found in earlier writings. S. Gregory himself uses it Orat. Theol. V. He uses other words also, as ekpempsis, proodos, and the verbs proerchesthai, proienai. As to the question of the Double Procession (Filioque) see Introd. to Orat. Theol. V. Dr. Swete (Doctr. of H. S. p. 118) says, "It is instructive to notice how at this period the two great Sees of Rome and Constantinople seem to have agreed in abstaining from a minuter definition of the Procession. Both in East and West the relations of the Spirit to the Son were being examined by individual theologians; but S. Gregory and S. Damasus appear to have alike refrained from entering upon a question which did not touch the essentials of the Faith." He adds in a note "This is the more remarkable because Damasus was of Spanish origin."
[3956] "The rest of the Creation was made by the command of God, but Man was formed by the hand of God." (Wordsworth in Gen. ii. 7.) "There was a peculiar glory in the creation of Man, distinguishing him from the rest of the creatures. The creatures inferior to man were called into being by a simple act of the Divine Will; but in the case of man, bearing as he does the nature and the form which God was about to assume as His own, and which, once assumed, was never again to be laid aside, the process of creation was markedly different. Then for the first time the Most Holy Persons of the Blessed Trinity appear upon the scene. They are manifested as in mutual consultation and common action personally engaged....Let Us make Man in Our Image after Our Likeness'...Then followed the exercise of creative power as a personal act, the putting forth the Hand of God to fashion the body of Man; The Lord God formed Man of the dust of the earth.' Afterwards came the yet higher work in the infusion of the immaterial invisible life enshrined in the body, perfecting the work of God; He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and Man became a living soul.'" (T. T. Carter, The Divine Dispensations, p. 44.)
[3957] Ps. lxviii. 4.
[3958] Ullman comments on this passage as follows: There is in it, as follows especially from what comes after, the double sense that the Infinite Godhead entered in Christ into the limitations of a finite human life; and in consequence of this, since otherwise as an infinite Being it was not fully cognisable by the finite human soul, became in this limitation cognisable in some degree to it, as it was not before this special manifestation in Christ.
[3959] "In this and several places pneuma and nous evidently denote the Divine the Spiritual, taken in the highest and purest sense, in which it is lifted above the sarx, and generally above all that is material; in which sense S. John says, pneuma ho theos." Ullmann.
[3960] "In a double sense;--either that the Godhead is, in union with the Man Jesus, subjected to suffering (cf. Or. XXI. 24), or that the Divine Substance, which is unapproachable by any passion or suffering, combined itself with a Man, whose nature cannot be free from such emotions." Ullmann.
[3961] i.e., human nature, which was severed from and made hostile to God by sin.
[3962] i.e., Sasima.
[3963] That the All-pure was baptized is to remind us of our need of preparation. That He was baptized by John is to teach us humility towards the Priesthood, even if the Priest be socially our inferior. That He was baptized at thirty years of age shews that the Teachers and Rulers of the Church ought not to be very young men. Scholiast.
[3964] Matt. iii. 14.
[3965] John v. 35.
[3966] Matt. iii. 17.
[3967] John iii. 39.
[3968] Matt. xi. 11.
[3969] Col. i. 5.
[3970] Luke i. 41.
[3971] "He who was the forerunner on earth, and was to be the forerunner in Hades of Christ, Who manifested Himself on earth, and manifested Himself also in Hades." Elias Cretensis.
[3972] John xiii. 9.
[3973] Luke xiii. 8.
[3974] Heb. iv. 12.
[3975] Matt. x. 35.
[3976] Micah vii. 6.
[3977] John i. 27.
[3978] Luke vii. 26.
[3979] One important ms. reads "Us Who."
[3980] Gen. iii. 24.
[3981] Ib. viii. 11.
[3982] Matt. xiii. 31.
[3983] Zech. iv. 7.
[3984] The word Leviathan does not occur in the LXX., though it is found twice in other Greek Versions of the Book of Job, viz.:--iii. 8 and xl. 20.
[3985] Isa. liii. 7.
[3986] Matt. xiii. 46.
[3987] Ps. lxxii. 6.
[3988] Lev. xi.
[3989] 1 Cor. x. 2.
[3990] Ps. vi. 6.
[3991] Ib. xxxviii. 5.
[3992] 2 Chron. xxxviii. 12.
[3993] Jon. iii. 7-10.
[3994] Luke xviii. 13.
[3995] Matt. xv. 27.
[3996] Heb. v. 2.
[3997] Matt. vii. 2.
[3998] The Novatians were known as Cathari or Puritans.
[3999] In a.d. 251 Novatus, a Presbyter of the Church of Carthage, who with others had formed a party against S. Cyprian, their Bishop, came to Rome, and excited Novatian to become leader in a similar schism against Cornelius, the recently elected Bishop of the Apostolic See. The plea urged on behalf of the schism was that Cornelius, who was of one accord with Cyprian, had lapsed in the time of the persecution under Decius, a.d. 250, and that he had relaxed the discipline of the Church by admitting to Communion on too easy terms those who had been guilty of a similar offence; and that therefore he ought not to be recognized as a true Bishop of the Church, but a faithful Pastor should be chosen in his place. Consequently Novatian was elected by some who held these views, and was consecrated by three Bishops. There seem to have been a good many of his followers in Constantinople at this time. There had been at one time a disposition among them to reunite themselves to the Catholic Church, for they were orthodox in faith; but it had been hindered by the malevolence of their party leaders; so that the schism continued, and the Novatians must be added to the opponents with whom S. Gregory had to deal.
[4000] Matt. viii. 17.
[4001] Ib. ix. 13.
[4002] Ib. xviii. 22.
[4003] John xxi. 15. sq.
[4004] 2 Cor. ii. 7.
[4005] "This too often ignored page gives a solemn contradiction to those who, falsifying history as well as theology, pretended two centuries ago to revive by their extravagant rigour the spirit of the primitive Church. The spirit of the Church never changes. Inflexible against error, it is full of gentleness and kindliness for repentant sinners. The spirit of the Church is that of the Saints of all times; or rather it is that of the Divine Shepherd, Who made Himself known above all by His unspeakable tenderness and His inexhaustible mercy to lost sheep." (Benoit S. G. de N.)
[4006] i.e., their proper class among the Penitents.
[4007] 1 Cor. iii. 12-19.
[4008] Isa. i. 17, 18.
Oration XL.
The Oration on Holy Baptism.
Preached at Constantinople Jan. 6, 381, being the day following the delivery of that on the Holy Lights.
I. Yesterday we kept high Festival on the illustrious Day of the Holy Lights; for it was fitting that rejoicings should be kept for our Salvation, and that far more than for weddings and birthdays, and namedays, and house-warmings, and registrations of children, and anniversaries, and all the other festivities that men observe for their earthly friends. And now to-day let us discourse briefly concerning Baptism, and the benefits which accrue to us therefrom, even though our discourse yesterday spoke of it cursorily; partly because the time pressed us hard, and partly because the sermon had to avoid tediousness. For too great length in a sermon is as much an enemy to people's ears, as too much food is to their bodies....It will be worth your while to apply your minds to what we say, and to receive our discourse on so important a subject not perfunctorily, but with ready mind, since to know the power of this Sacrament is itself Enlightenment. [4009]
II. The Word recognizes three Births for us; namely, the natural birth, that of Baptism, and that of the Resurrection. Of these the first is by night, and is servile, and involves passion; but the second is by day, and is destructive of passion, cutting off all the veil [4010] that is derived from birth, and leading on to the higher life; and the third is more terrible and shorter, bringing together in a moment all mankind, [4011] to stand before its Creator, and to give an account of its service and conversation here; whether it has followed the flesh, or whether it has mounted up with the spirit, and worshipped the grace of its new creation. My Lord Jesus Christ has showed that He honoured all these births in His own Person; the first, by that first and quickening Inbreathing; [4012] the second by His Incarnation and the Baptism wherewith He Himself was baptized; and the third by the Resurrection of which He was the Firstfruits; condescending, as He became the Firstborn [4013] among many brethren, so also to become the Firstborn from the dead. [4014]
III. Concerning two of these births, the first and the last, we have not to speak on the present occasion. Let us discourse upon the second, which is now necessary for us, and which gives its name to the Feast of the Lights. Illumination is the splendour of souls, the conversion of the life, the question put to the Godward conscience. [4015] It is the aid to our weakness, the renunciation of the flesh, the following of the Spirit, the fellowship of the Word, the improvement of the creature, the overwhelming of sin, the participation of light, the dissolution of darkness. It is the carriage to God, the dying with Christ, the perfecting of the mind, the bulwark of Faith, the key of the Kingdom of heaven, the change of life, the removal of slavery, the loosing of chains, the remodelling of the whole man. Why should I go into further detail? Illumination is the greatest and most magnificent of the Gifts of God. For just as we speak of the Holy of Holies, and the Song of Songs, as more comprehensive and more excellent than others, so is this called Illumination, as being more holy than any other illumination which we possess.