§ 148. Содержание 3-го и 4-го слова о богословии.

In the third word of St. Gregory moves on to the teaching about the Son of God by answering the question: who is the Creator and Ruler of the world? Having said that anarchy and plurality do not take place in this case, he indicates the Creator of the world in the Trinitarian God; and, in denunciation of the Eunomians, he briefly explains the concept of the persons of the deity: “keeping within our limits, we introduce the unborn, begotten and proceeding from the Father, as God Himself says, the Word. When did this happen? This is higher - when. If I can say childishly: this was when he began to be a Father. There was never a time when He was not there. In the same way, the Son and the Holy Spirit... How can they be non-co-existent if they are co-eternal? They are from Him, although not after Him.” And then he shows that with the birth of the Son from the Father there is no need to combine ideas about carnal birth. The Eunomians presented a dilemma: God gave birth to the Son either of his own will or against his will. If He gave birth against His will, then He suffered coercion. If by his own will, then the Son is the Son of will. St. Gregory excellently answers the dilemma with the same dilemma: “You yourself, who speak so rashly, did you come into existence at the will or against the will of your father? If not by choice, then your father suffered violence. Who is this from? You cannot point to nature: it honors chastity. And if - at will; then, because of a few syllables, you deprive yourself of your father: for you are already becoming the son of desire, and not of the father.” He applies the same dilemma to the origin of nature, and in order to show even more clearly how unsuccessful the Eunomian dilemma is, he asks: “Is the Father God by will, or not by will? If by desire: then when did he begin to want? Certainly not before he was? For before there was nothing. Or is there already something in Him that wants another part that serves as the object of desire? But after that He divides. So, in your words, He is not a work of will? If He is against will, then what forced Him into being? And how can He be God if He is subject to coercion? And why are you forced to? To being God! The Arian thought: The Father gave birth to the Son, closing the dialectical form, the Eunomians said to the Orthodox: “Did the Father beget something that exists or does not exist? If there is a being, the concept of birth is destroyed; if not existing, then He was created.” St. Gregory answers that the question of the Eunomians is inappropriate: for they took it from man, who came partly from existing, partly from non-existent, and from primitive matter, which was created from nothing. “But in relation to the Son, birth is united together with being, and with being from the beginning. What is older than existence from the beginning? Is it possible to distinguish here any time in which the Son would or would not be? Yes, and wouldn’t it be the same in relation to the Father if we ask: is He from existence, or from non-existence? Will He not then be twofold, pre-existing and existing, or will He not even relate to the Father being from the non-existent? They say: “the born and the unborn are not the same thing; and if so, then the Son is not also with the Father? St. Gregory answers that “the uncreated and the created are definitely too different from each other, but the opposite must be said about the unborn and the begotten. For it is in the very nature of the one who gave birth and the one who is born that what is born is of the same essence as the one who gave birth. Or I’ll ask again: what do you mean by unborn and born? If non-birth itself and birth: then, of course, this is not the same thing. If we understand those to whom these properties belong: then why should they not be the same? Folly and wisdom are not the same thing: but they can be in the same person; These properties do not divide beings, but differ in one and the same being.” The conclusion is obvious. If God has not yet ceased to give birth, the Eunomians said: then the birth has not been completed, and when will He cease. If you stopped, then of course you started? “Corporeal,” answers St. Gregory, they are again philosophizing physically.” And in proof that the conclusion of the Eunomians is not inevitable, he points to the experience of created nature itself. “If, as they think, something once began that will once cease; then, of course, that which does not cease did not begin. What will they say about the soul and the nature of angels?.. Next. It is not necessary that what ceases also begin.” After this, St. Gregory turns to St. Scripture and pointing to the sayings of Scripture in which the divine nature of the Son of God is most clearly depicted, he shows in detail to the Eunomians that even when the Son of God for the sake of our salvation took on a weak nature, His divine power is majestically manifested in Him. In the fourth word of St. Gregory responds to the Eunomians’ objection to the deity of the Son of God, to those objections that they found in some private sayings of the Holy One. Scriptures. The favorite place for all Arians is the word about wisdom (Proverbs 7:22). St. Gregory says that he does not want to reject these words because of the fall of Solomon, and does not accept them as a personified image of wisdom, although there are similar personifications in Scripture: but he understands them in such a way that the words: having created Me refer to the preparation of human nature, and the words in their deeds show the purpose of becoming man: on the contrary, the words: before all the hills He gives birth to Me because the reason for such an action is not shown, mean pre-eternal birth. Christ, they say, must reign until a certain time, and be accepted by heaven until the time of completion? (1 Cor. 15:28. Acts 3:20.) St. Gregory responds to this that, a) in other places it is clearly spoken of the eternal reign of the Son of God (Luke 1:33.); b) the particle ἐωσ, meaning a certain period of time, does not always exclude the time following that time, and as proof points to the promise of the Savior (Matthew 28–20). Since the subjugation of the Son to the Father does not mean that the Son was at first at enmity with the Father: this already shows that it is said about the fulfillment of the will of the Father by the Son of the Savior of the world - the will concerning the subjugation of hitherto disobedient people. “In this sense,” says St. Gregory, we must also accept the words: God, my God! wonmi mi, vskuyu me left ecu? For he was not abandoned (as some think) either by the Father or by his deity: but He depicts our condition, because we were formerly abandoned and despised, but are now accepted and saved by the sufferings of the dispassionate.” The words: The Son cannot do anything for himself unless he sees the Father doing (John 5:19), explains the unity of Divine power in the Father and the Son, as a result of which it is absolutely impossible for the Son to do anything that the Father does not do, or for the Father to do anything that the Son does not do. In the same sense he takes the words of John. 6:38. About the words: let them know you the one true God (John 17:3.) and: no one is good except one God (Luke 18:19). St. Gregory notes that the former exclude only the false pagan gods, the latter denounced only the scribe who assimilated the goodness of Jesus as a man. The Eunomians pointed to the words: He always liveth to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:25). In explaining these words, the Theologian speaks excellently: “He intercedes even now as a man for my salvation, because he remains with the body he has taken upon himself until he makes me God. But we do not have in Jesus an intercessor such that He would prostrate himself before the Father for us and fall at His feet with slavish humiliation... But with His human suffering He begs the Father for our mercy.” No one knows about the last day or hour, not even the Son? (Matthew 24:36.), St. Gregory says that “He knows as God, and does not know as man. What leads us to such a thought is that the name of the Son is used here vaguely.... However, he adds, for those for whom such an explanation is unsatisfactory: then we can point out that, like everything else, the knowledge of higher objects in honor of the one who gave birth must be attributed to the culprit. Or, according to one of our friends, the word can be read and understood this way: The Son knows the day or the hour no differently than the Father. Hence the conclusion: since the Father knows, the Son also knows, since it is obvious that this is unknown and incomprehensible to anyone except the first nature.” Then the names of the Son of God are explained: Only Begotten, Word, Wisdom, Image, Light, Shepherd, High Priest. You might be interested in: