Gregory of Nazianzus and Nyssa on The Relation of Origin Principle
Gregory of Nazianzus
Gregory of Nazianzus teaches the same relation-of-origin principle as Gregory of Nyssa: the Father is the unbegotten source, the Son is begotten, and the Spirit proceeds. He insists that this difference of origin never introduces any difference of nature or operation in the one simple God. Several passages set out the point and show Nazianzus’s own nuances.
Father as personal source
“The Father is the Begetter and the Emitter; without passion, without reference to time, and not in a bodily manner. The Son is the Begotten, and the Holy Spirit the Emanation.”
Third Theological Oration (Oration 29) §2
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310229.htm (New Advent)
Monarchy of the Father preserves one God
“The Three are One God when contemplated together; Each is God because of the consubstantiality; One God because of the monarchy.”
Oration 40 §41
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310240.htm (New Advent)
Cause language without inequality
“The unbegotten Father is the cause of the divinity that we recognize in the Son and Spirit.”
Oration 20 §6
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/st-gregory-the-theologian-and-the-one-god-part-2/ (Eclectic Orthodoxy)
Gregory had a Contemplative synthesis of unity and Trinity he demonstrated well:
“Our minds and our human condition are such that a knowledge of the relationship and disposition of these members with regard to one another is reserved for the Holy Trinity itself alone and those purified souls to whom the Trinity may make revelation either now or in the future. We, on the other hand, may know that the nature of divinity is one and the same, characterized by lack of source, generation, and procession … each one God, if contemplated separately … the three God, if contemplated collectively, because their activity and nature are the same …” -Oration 23 §11
Key nuances in Nazianzus
Gregory of Nazianzus consistently stresses consubstantial equality when he names the Father as cause, explaining that cause refers to personal origin rather than superiority (New Advent, Eclectic Orthodoxy). He frequently speaks of an ordered taxis in which the Father is named first, the Son second, and the Spirit third, yet he immediately clarifies that no ranking of nature or power results from this order (New Advent). Gregory employs vivid imagery such as light or a spring and river to illustrate how origin does not divide substance (New Advent). He also highlights an epistemic rhythm in which reflection on the One illumines the Three and contemplation of the Three carries the mind back to the One, underscoring that distinction and unity are apprehended together rather than sequentially. In this way Gregory upholds the same relational grounding articulated by Gregory of Nyssa, where relations of origin alone distinguish the Persons, while adding a pastoral accent on the order of naming and a poetic emphasis on the mind’s movement from unity to Trinity and back.
Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory of Nyssa grounds Trinitarian distinction in a relation of origin approach (principled approach): the Father is the Cause, and the Son and the Spirit are “of the Cause.” He insists that this manner of existence, “by which alone we apprehend” personal difference within the Godhead, introduces no difference of nature or operation in the one simple God. Here are two passages that set out this principle clearly in his work:
…while we confess the invariable character of the nature, we do not deny the difference in respect of cause and of that which is caused, by which alone we apprehend that one Person is distinguished from another, that is, one is the Cause, and another is of the Cause…
Letter to Ablabius, “On Not Three Gods” (paragraph beginning “If, however, any one cavils…”)
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2905.htm
The Father is God; the Son is God; and yet by the same proclamation God is One, because no difference either of nature or of operation is contemplated in the Godhead.
Against Eunomius, Book I, §34 (line beginning “The Father is God…”)
https://www.catholiccrossreference.online/fathers/index.php/Against%20Eunomius/Book%20I%20Part%203
