Gregory Nazianzus : Fifth Theological Oration (Oration 31) : Verse 7 & 8
• Gregory says, in his 37th Discourse [Oration 31], “The Persons in the Godhead are one; not only as regards
that wherewith they are conjoined, but also as regards themselves, because of the Oneness of Essence and
Power: in short, they are ὁμοούσιοι.” Now this Unity, maintained by the Orthodox, was assailed by their
opponents, who attempted to prove an absurdity and inconsistency in the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. And
what gave [PAGE 59] occasion to this attack? I answer, ‘The clause, Three are one (Greek: TPIA EN).’
• “You cannot deny,” said the adversaries,”that you understand by the”one”(Greek:‘EN), in this passage, a
perfect equality of the whole Divine Essence”. [fn. 49. This is evident from the connection with what
immediately follows: for they built their whole objection on the connumerating of the Persons in the Godhead;
on the Three (Greek: TA TPIA); and on the idea of the One (To ‘EN). I have therefore unravelled the intricate
argument of the opponents, for greater perspicuity's sake.]
You maintain further, that each Person of the Godhead is not a Quality, a mere relative denomination, but is
actually self-existent; and is, therefore, a separate Substance.—Now see the absurd consequences of this!”
How so? “Thus. By the Three (TA TPIA), the Divine Persons are here συναριθμούμενοι, that is,
connumerated.”— This was undeniable. But then they assumed an axiom, to this effect: “Things only can be
connumerated which are of the same essence (Greek: τὰ ὁμοούσια) [fn. 50. The adversaries seem here to
have taken the word ὁμοούσιος in the erroneous sense, which was rejected by the Church in the year 273, at
the Councils of Antioch; according to which, there was no difference of the Persons.] : those, on the contrary,
which are not of the same essence (τὰ μὴ ὁμοούσια) cannot be connumerated.” And, thence, they argued
thus: “As, in the passage ‘Three are one,’ the Persons of the Godhead are connumerated; you must,” whether
they will or not” (Latin: nolentes volentes), in virtue of our axiom and this passage, grant the existence of Three
Gods — What absurdity?”
• Gregory commences his refutation by controverting the axiom on which the objection of his adversaries was
founded. “You say,”said he,”if things are to be connumerated, [PAGE 60] they must be of the same essence;
and therefore there must be no difference between them. What absurdity : Know ye not, that Numerals are
merely competent to express the quantity, and not the nature, of the things whose sum they designate? I call
things Three, which are that many in number, though they are different in Essence : likewise, I call One and
One and One, so many Units, namely, Three, when they have the same essence. For I look not, herein, to
their essence; but to their quantity, which constitutes the number that I affix to them.”
• Now, though this was clear as the sun, and perfectly sufficient to confute the opponent's axiom, still Gregory
strikes into another path: and it is very interesting, very remarkable. [fn. 51. We see, therefore, that the whole
dispute originated in the connumerating of the Persons in the Godhead; which occurs only once in the Bible,
i.e., 1 John V.7.] —“Well, what is it?”— This.
• “Since you,” says the bishop, “adhere so strictly to the letter of Scripture in this instance; namely, to the word
‘Three;’ though you generally controvert it; I therefore will also adduce proof from the same source (ἐκεῖθεν);
namely, the letter of Holy Scripture”, which [PAGE 61] demonstrates the proposition, ‘Things also can be
connumerated which have not the same essence, but are different:’”— and accordingly he quotes passages of
Scripture, in which things of different kinds are numbered together; e.g. Prov. xxx. 29–31. Exod. xxxvii. 7. Matt.
vi. 24.
• “Good bishop,” replied his opponents, “thou still understandest not all that we charge upon the clause ‘Three
are one.’ It is absurd; and therefore cannot possibly be derived from the discourse of the Apostle John. For, of
things, we can only say, ‘they are connumerated, and of like essence,' when the names proper to them (i.e.
those resulting from the identity of their essence) are expressly stated in their sums total. For instance, Three
men, Three Gods; not merely an indefinite Three. No sensible man thinks, speaks, or writes otherwise. Away
then with the fancy, that the clause ‘Three are one,' originated with the Apostle!”
• After Gregory had, in his own way, exposed the absurdity of this new principle also, he attacks the
consequence which the Heretics had inferred from this axiom, against the authenticity of the clause. “What,”
says he, “What! — the Apostle John? – shall he not be the author of this text, because in your opinion it
involves an absurdity. - Listen! — I will lay before you another passage of St. John (Greek: Τί δαὶ ὁ Ἰωάννης
,
whose authenticity you do not [PAGE 62] deny, which is conceived in the very same manner; namely, 1 John
V.8. ‘There are three that bear record, the spirit, the water, and the blood.’ What say you to that? Has the
Apostle expressed himself absurdly here; in the first place, because he combines things which are different in
essence? (For who will maintain, that spirit, water, and blood, are things of one and the same essence?)
Secondly, because he construes ungrammatically; inasmuch as he says of three things which are of the neuter
gender, that they are three (τρεῖς) in the masculine?”
• Now what rational man, under such circumstances, will assert that Gregory wished to prove the existence of
the Trinity from 1 John V.8? It is therefore clear as the sun that the bishop was ignorant of the mystical
meaning of the 8th verse, Nay, I know not one of the [PAGE 63] Greek Fathers, though I have anxiously
perused them, who discovered Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the 8th verse of 1 John V. I am therefore
convinced, by experience, of what honest Mill says: “No Greek understood the 8th verse mystically of the Holy
Trinity:”— an important maxim in criticising our disputed clause! It deprives our opponents of all recourse to 1
John V.8, when they meet with undeniable allusions to 1 John V. 7. in Greek Authors. I have also found what
Mill says, in this respect, of the Latin Fathers, perfectly correct. Augustin, of whom I have spoken above, is
unquestionably the first who metamorphosed the meaning of the 8th verse.
• Origen, Ambrose, Cassiodore, Pope Leo the Great, Bede, and others, explain it quite differently; and much
more naturally.
• It is therefore beyond all doubt that Gregory did not take his ‘EN TA TPIA, his TA TPIA EN, (which he
vindicates so sharply, as expressions of St. John) from the 8th verse. Nay, in citing this verse, he never once
quotes the words, “and these three agree in one” (Greek: καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν) etc. [Note: verse 8 without
the final clause] Now, would he have omitted words of such importance to him, if he had grounded his ‘EN TA
TPIA upon them? Assuredly not! Perhaps, indeed, they were not in his copy; and this would justify, or at least
excuse, the celebrated Note of St. [PAGE 64] Thomas Aquinas, on 1 John V.8. [Note: in the Complutensian
Polyglot] If it be said that Gregory did not consider them to be the words of the Apostle, there is only this
alternative: Either the bishop himself first invented this clause, or borrowed it elsewhere. That he was not the
inventor, is, I think, palpably evident; because the phrase ‘EN TA TPIA, long before the middle of the 4th
century, was a solemn form of expression, and generally known, among the Greek Christians, to designate the
Holy Trinity. I appeal to the author of the Didascomenus [Note: “Philopatris” by Lucian], of whose testimony I
shall speak more circumstantially hereafter. The Latins used the same expression in the 2d and 3d centuries.
“the three are one” (Latin:‘Tres unum sunt'), says Tertullian. “the three are one” (Latin:‘Tres unum sunt'), says
Cyprian. Now, as it plainly appears, as well from the Didascomenus as from Cyprian, that they took this phrase
from Scripture, and indeed from 1 John V.7, there remains no doubt that Gregory derived his TA TPIA EN from
the same source — l John V.7.
• The expression was by no means merely technical, in Gregory's estimation: for he vindicates his TA TPIA EN
very zealously and firmly; which he never does in the case of technical terms. In the latter, he is very indulgent;
nay, he shuns all controversies of the kind, and holds them to be useless and ridiculous.
• Knittel, New Criticisms on the Celebrated Text, 1 John V. 7, 1785; 1829, p. 58-64Mill says, in this respect, of the Latin Fathers, perfectly correct. Augustin, of whom I have spoken above, is unquestionably the first who metamorphosed the meaning of the 8th verse.
• Origen, Ambrose, Cassiodore, Pope Leo the Great, Bede, and others, explain it quite differently; and much
more naturally.
• It is therefore beyond all doubt that Gregory did not take his ‘EN TA TPIA, his TA TPIA EN, (which he
vindicates so sharply, as expressions of St. John) from the 8th verse. Nay, in citing this verse, he never once
quotes the words, “and these three agree in one” (Greek: καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν) etc. [Note: verse 8 without
the final clause] Now, would he have omitted words of such importance to him, if he had grounded his ‘EN TA
TPIA upon them? Assuredly not! Perhaps, indeed, they were not in his copy; and this would justify, or at least
excuse, the celebrated Note of St. [PAGE 64] Thomas Aquinas, on 1 John V.8. [Note: in the Complutensian
Polyglot] If it be said that Gregory did not consider them to be the words of the Apostle, there is only this
alternative: Either the bishop himself first invented this clause, or borrowed it elsewhere. That he was not the
inventor, is, I think, palpably evident; because the phrase ‘EN TA TPIA, long before the middle of the 4th
century, was a solemn form of expression, and generally known, among the Greek Christians, to designate the
Holy Trinity. I appeal to the author of the Didascomenus [Note: “Philopatris” by Lucian], of whose testimony I
shall speak more circumstantially hereafter. The Latins used the same expression in the 2d and 3d centuries.
“the three are one” (Latin:‘Tres unum sunt'), says Tertullian. “the three are one” (Latin:‘Tres unum sunt'), says
Cyprian. Now, as it plainly appears, as well from the Didascomenus as from Cyprian, that they took this phrase
from Scripture, and indeed from 1 John V.7, there remains no doubt that Gregory derived his TA TPIA EN from
the same source — l John V.7.
• The expression was by no means merely technical, in Gregory's estimation: for he vindicates his TA TPIA EN
very zealously and firmly; which he never does in the case of technical terms. In the latter, he is very indulgent;
nay, he shuns all controversies of the kind, and holds them to be useless and ridiculous.
• Knittel, New Criticisms on the Celebrated Text, 1 John V. 7, 1785; 1829, p. 58-64
