Saint Gregory the Theologian & the Holy Spirit

This week we look at the respective doctrines of St. BAsil the Great and ST. Gregory the Theologian, how they differ, and why.

He who is without beginning (the Father), and is the beginning (the Son), and is with the beginning (the Holy Spirit), is one God. For the nature of Him who is without beginning (the Father) does not consist in being without beginning or being unbegotten, for the nature of anything lies, not in what it is not but in what it is. It is the assertion of what is, not the denial of what is not.

And the Beginning (the Son) is not {what it is} because it is a beginning, separated from Him who has no beginning (the Father). For His beginning is not His nature, any more than the being without beginning (the Father) is the nature of the other (the Son). For these are the accompaniments of the nature, not the nature itself. Again, He who (the Holy Spirit) is with Him who has no beginning (the Father), and with the beginning (the Son), is not anything else than what they are. Now, the name of that which has no beginning is the Father, and of the Beginning the Son, and of that which is with the Beginning, the Holy Ghost, and the three have one Nature — God. And the union is the Father from Whom and to Whom the order of Persons runs its course, not so as to be confounded, but so as to be possessed, without distinction of time, of will, or of power. For these things in our case produce a plurality of individuals, since each of them is separate both from every other quality, and from every other individual possession of the same quality. But to Those who have a simple nature, and whose essence is the same, the term One belongs in its highest sense. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 42, the Farewell Address to the 2nd Ecumenical council.

When the Lord delivered [the formula of] the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, he did not make arithmetic a part of this gift! He did not say, “In the first, the second and the third” or “In one, two and three.” But he gave us the knowledge of the faith that leads to salvation by means of holy names. So that the faith is what saves us; numbers have been devised as symbols indicative of quantity.. . . Count if you must, but do not damage the faith by doing so. Either by silence honor the ineffable things, or piously count the holy things.

            There is one God and Father, one Only-Begotten Son, and one Holy Spirit. We proclaim each of the hypostases singly; and if we must use numbers, we will not let an ignorant arithmetic lead us astray to the idea of polytheism. For we do not count by way of addition, increasing from unity to multitude; saying, “one, two, three,” or “first, second, third.” For “I am the first and I am the last,” says God. We have never to this present day heard of a second God. Worshipping God from God, we confess the particularity of the hypostases, and remain with the monarchy; we do not fritter away the theology in a divided plurality, because one form, so to speak, depicting the invariableness of the divinity, is beheld in God the Father and God the Only- Begotten. The Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; since such as is the the Son, such is the the Father, and such as is the the Father, such is the Son; and in this is unity. So that according to the particularity of the persons, there is one and one, and according to the commonality of nature both are one. How, then, if one and one, are there not two Gods? Because we speak of the emperor and the emperor’s image, but not two emperors. The power is not divided, nor the glory separated. The principle dominion and authority over us is one; and so the doxology ascribed by us is one, and not many, because the honor given to the image ascends to the prototype. Now, that which in the first case is an imitative image, the Son is here naturally; and as in works of art the likeness is according to the form, so in the case of the divine and uncompounded nature, the union lies in the communion of the divinity (εν τη κοινωνία τής θεότητός εστιν ή ενωσις).

The Holy Spirit is one, and we speak of him singly (μοναδικώς), as being joined through the one Son to the one Father, and completing the all-praised and blessed Trinity. His intimacy (οικείωσιν) to the Father and the Son is sufficiently made clear by his not being ranked in the multitude of creation, but being spoken of singly (μοναχώς); for he is not of many, but one. As there is one Father and one Son, so there is one Holy Spirit. He is as far removed from created nature as the singular is properly removed from the compounded and plural; and he is united in such a way to the Father and the Son as a singular has affinity to a singular. St. Basil on The Holy Spirit

What then? Is the Spirit God? Most certainly. Well then, is He Consubstantial? Yes, if He is God. Grant me, says my opponent, that there spring from the same Source One who is a Son, and One who is not a Son, and these of One Substance with the Source, and I admit a God and a God. Nay, if you will grant me that there is another God and another nature of God I will give you the same Trinity with the same name and facts. But since God is One and the Supreme Nature is One, how can I present to you the Likeness? Or will you seek it again in lower regions and in your own surroundings? It is very shameful, and not only shameful, but very foolish, to take from things below a guess at things above, and from a fluctuating nature at the things that are unchanging, and as Isaiah says, to seek the Living among the dead. Oration 31

We have one God, for the divinity is one, and, though we believe in three, those who derive from the one incline towards him. One is not more, and another less, God; nor is one earlier and the other later. There is no division of will or separation in power; there is none of the qualities of divisible things. If I have to speak concisely, the divinity is undivided in beings divided; there is one mingling of light, as there would be in three suns joined to each other. When we look to the divinity, or to the First Cause, or to the monarchy, that which we conceive is one; however, when we look to those in whom there is divinity, and who are, timelessly and with equal glory, from the First Cause, there are three whom we worship. Oration 31

“There should be no one so zealous in his love for the Father that he would deny Him the attribute of being a Father. For whose Father can He be if we consider that He is separated not only from creation, but also from the nature of His own Son! One should not detract from His dignity as a Source, since this belongs to Him as a Father and Generator.” “When I call Him a Source, do not imagine that I am referring to a source in time, or that I am presuming an interval between the Begettor and the Begotten. Do not separate their natures or falsely assume that there is something existing to separate these two coeternities abiding within each other. If time is older than the Son, this is because the Father caused time before the Son.” Oration 28 On the Father