Gregory of Nazianzus Quotes - Page 3

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• What is the right time [to discuss theology]? Whenever we are free from the mire and noise without, and our commanding faculty is not confused by illusory, wandering images, leading us, as it were, to mix fine script with ugly scrawling, or sweet-smelling scent with slime. We need actually 'to be still' (Ps. 46:10) in order to know God, and when we receive the opportunity, 'to judge uprightly' (Ps. 75:2) in theology.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Sweet, Confused

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• ...though every thinking being longs for God, the First Cause, it is powerless... to grasp Him. Tired with the yearning it chafes at the bit and, careless of the cost, it tries a second tack. Either it looks at things visible and makes of these a god - a gross mistake, for what visible thing is more sublime, more godlike, than its observer... - or else it discovers God through the beauty and order of things seen, using sight as a guide to what transcends sight without losing God through the grandeur of what it sees.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Mistake, Tired

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• There is One God and One Mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ (cf. I Tim. 2:5). For He still pleads even now as man for my salvation; for He continues to wear the Body which He assumed, until He make me a god by the power of His Incarnation; although He is no longer known after the flesh (cf. II Cor. 5:16) ? I mean, the passions of the flesh, the same, except sin, as ours.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Jesus, Passion

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• But as the old Confusion of tongues was laudable, when men who were of one language in wickedness and impiety, even as some now venture to be, were building the Tower; for by the confusion of their language the unity of their intention was broken up, and their undertaking destroyed; so much more worthy of praise is the present miraculous one. For being poured from One Spirit upon many men, it brings them again into harmony. And there is a diversity of Gifts, which stands in need of yet another Gift to discern which is the best, where all are praiseworthy.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Men, Broken, Diversity

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• No one has yet discovered or ever shall discover what God is in His nature and essence... we shall, in time to come, 'know as we are known' (I Cor 13:12). But for the present what reaches us is a scant emanation, as it were a small beam from a great light - which means that any one who 'knew' God or whose 'knowledge' of Him has been attested to in the Bible, has a manifestly more brilliant knowledge than others not equally illuminated. This superiority was reckoned knowledge in the full sense, not because it really was so, but by the contrast of relative strengths.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Mean, Light

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• Can anyone be a father without beginning to be one? Yes, one who did not begin his existence. What begins to exist begins to be a father - God the Father did not begin at all. He is Father in the true sense, because He is not a son as well. Just as the Son is son in the true sense, because He is not a father as well. In our case, the word 'father' cannot be truly appropriate, because we must be fathers and sons.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Father, Son

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• Who should listen to discussions of theology? Those for whom it is a serious undertaking, not just another subject like any other for entertaining small-talk, after the races, the theater, songs, food, and sex: for there are people who count chatter on theology and clever deployment of arguments as one of their amusements.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Song, Sex

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