"We need an incarnate God, a God put to death, so that we might live, and we were put to death with him" (Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 45.28).
Today is the feast day of St Gregory of Nazianzus, the Theologian.
I first encountered Gregory at seminary as one of the three great Cappadocian fathers. But it was in graduate school, with Fred Norris (who'd spent a lifetime reading Gregory) that I began to see why pastors would do well to read and listen to Gregory more often than we do.
Way before Jurgen Moltmann, there was St Gregory the Theologian. Of the early Church Fathers none spoke more directly of the death of the eternal Son. The gospel is nothing less than the proclamation of "God crucified" (Oration 45.29).
Unlike some of the early Fathers -- even the great St Athanasius -- Gregory never shrank from declaring the heart of the Christian faith: The suffering and death of the Creator in the powerless act of Love.
Here are some selections:
Gregory's theology of the suffering and dying God would be picked up by Cyril of Alexandria, and later reaffirmed by the Fifth Ecumenical Council: "If anyone does not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified in the flesh is true God and the Lord of Glory and one of the Holy Trinity; let him be anathema".
Oration 2 offers one of the clearest images of the difference this suffering God makes for actual parish ministry, too.
Today is the feast day of St Gregory of Nazianzus, the Theologian.
I first encountered Gregory at seminary as one of the three great Cappadocian fathers. But it was in graduate school, with Fred Norris (who'd spent a lifetime reading Gregory) that I began to see why pastors would do well to read and listen to Gregory more often than we do.
Way before Jurgen Moltmann, there was St Gregory the Theologian. Of the early Church Fathers none spoke more directly of the death of the eternal Son. The gospel is nothing less than the proclamation of "God crucified" (Oration 45.29).
Unlike some of the early Fathers -- even the great St Athanasius -- Gregory never shrank from declaring the heart of the Christian faith: The suffering and death of the Creator in the powerless act of Love.
Here are some selections:
God passible for our sake over against sin. (Oration 30.1)Gregory is certainly able to reflect on the Trinity and Incarnation in rich, philosophical language, but at the heart of his work, Gregory was a theologian of the biblical narrative. And the Bible simply doesn't make sense unless we "see God crucified" (Oration 43.64).
To whom was the blood poured out for us, and why was it poured out, that great and renowned blood of God, who is both high priest and victim? (Oration 45.22)
God even died for us. (Oration 33.14)
For this reason unmingled realities are mingled, not only God with generation, or mind with flesh, or the atemporal with time, or the uncircumscribed with measure, but also childbirth with virginity, and dishonor with what is above all honor, and suffering with the impassible, and the immortal with the corruptible. (Oration 39.13)
On what principle would the blood of the Only-begotten delight the Father? (Oration 45.22)
Whoever does not worship the Crucified is to be anathema and ranked with the God-slaughterers. (Epistle 101.5)
Gregory's theology of the suffering and dying God would be picked up by Cyril of Alexandria, and later reaffirmed by the Fifth Ecumenical Council: "If anyone does not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified in the flesh is true God and the Lord of Glory and one of the Holy Trinity; let him be anathema".
Oration 2 offers one of the clearest images of the difference this suffering God makes for actual parish ministry, too.