The Five Theological Orations
The five discourses (Orations 27–31) that St. Gregory delivered at Constantinople in 380 and that earned him, alone among the Eastern Fathers after John the Evangelist, the title “the Theologian.” This section treats their setting in the Anastasia chapel against the Eunomian and Pneumatomachian opposition, and their argument: the prerequisite of purification, the incomprehensibility of God, the full divinity of the Son, and — argued openly where Basil had been reserved — the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)
The Theological Orations (Greek Theologikoi Logoi) are the most concentrated statement of Trinitarian doctrine the patristic age produced. Gregory preached them in the autumn of 380, from the small house-church he called the Anastasia (“Resurrection”), to a Nicene minority surrounded by an Arianizing city. In barely the length of five sermons he set out the grammar of orthodox Trinitarian confession with a precision no later writer surpassed: that God is beyond comprehension yet truly revealed; that the Son is fully and eternally God, the subordinationist proof-texts notwithstanding; and that the Holy Spirit is God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son. It was on the strength of these orations above all that the Church gave Gregory his unique name.
Files in This Section
| File | Subject |
|---|---|
| Orations 27–28 | The setting at Constantinople and the Anastasia; Or. 27 against theological chatter and the prerequisite of purification; Or. 28 on divine incomprehensibility and the Sinai ascent |
| Orations 29–31 | Or. 29–30 on the Son (the agennetos arguments answered, the “lowly” texts interpreted); Or. 31 on the Holy Spirit, argued openly, and the progressive-revelation passage |
See Also
- The Reluctant Priest — the road to Constantinople
- Trinity Perfected — the systematic doctrine the orations express
- St. Basil: On the Holy Spirit — Basil’s reserve, which Or. 31 surpasses
- The Holy Trinity — the Cappadocian Trinitarian synthesis
References
- Gregory of Nazianzus. Orations 27–31 (The Five Theological Orations). Translated by C. G. Browne and J. E. Swallow, NPNF II/7.
- Williams, Frederick, and Lionel Wickham, trans. St. Gregory of Nazianzus: On God and Christ — The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius. Popular Patristics Series 23. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002.
- Beeley, Christopher A. Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.