INTRODUCTION.

1 It was in these circumstances that Gregory intervened. In his first Oration, he reproved the contentiousness which he saw around him, letting his censure fall upon the orthodox as well as upon the Eunomian party. He showed what preparation was required both in the speaker and in the hearer before religious subjects could be rightly treated. He laid stress upon the harm done when the sacred language of Christianity was dragged out before the heathen and subjected to irreverent criticism. He exhorted the disputants to turn their attention to other subjects of controversy.

2 In the second Oration, Gregory showed that the nature of God is beyond the power of man to understand. We may assuredly know by the study of the world around us that God is, but we cannot find out what He is. We can arrive at negative truths concerning Him—that He is incorporeal and the like—but not at any adequate positive conception. We are compelled to use figurative and anthropomorphic language concerning Him, and it is hard to recognize constantly that such language is only figurative. Idolatry is the result of failure to recognize it. The saints of the Old Testament, privileged as they were—nay, the Apostles themselves—knew God only in part. Even the works of God transcend our powers of intelligence and of wonder; how much more the God who created them.

3 The third Oration begins with the statement of our belief in a God who is One, but in Three Persons. Gregory shows that such a Sonship as we acknowledge in the Godhead is not to be interpreted by the phenomena of carnal generation, and that it implies no priority of existence on the part of the Father.