176 Levit. iii. 4. The Mosaic Law ordered that the upper part of the liver and the kidneys, together with the fat, should in creation sacrifices be consecrated to God; signifying that anger (which was intimated by the liver, which produces bile), and lust (signified by the kidneys and the fat) should especially be sacrificed to God. Again Moses assigned the shoulder and the breast of some sacrifices to the Priests, hinting obscurely at this, that we ought to take care to offer our hearts to the Priests by confession (for the heart is signified by the breast which protects it) and also our actions, which are intended by the shoulder, that by the Priest they may be presented to God. But the Apostle bids us mortify all our members which are upon the earth, and offer ourselves entire as a sacrifice to God, destroying with the sword of the Word of God all our evil and corrupt affections. - Nicetas
179 i.e. If I think of One Blessed Person, the other Two are not in my mind, and so the greater part of God escapes me.
187 Supposing S. Gregory's birth to have been in 325, the earliest date which seems at all probable, he would be under 60 in 381, when this Oration was delivered; so that the expression on the text must be held to be a rhetorical exaggeration. Sudas, however, pushes back the date of his birth as far as 299 or 300; which does not fit in well with the chronology of his life, as given by himself.
195 The word here used is Bema, which properly means a Platform. In an Oriental Church the East end of the building is raised by one or more steps above the choir. A little distance East of these steps is a great Screen called the Iconostasis, from the picture (Icons) with which it is covered. It has three doors, one in the centre, called the royal Gates, leading to the Altar: one on the left hand, leading to the Prothesis, or Credence; and one on the right to the Sacristy. The whole raised portion is called the Bema, or sometimes the Altar, the Altar proper being known as the Throne.
1 They deify bad passions, and then act as if the gratification of them were an honour to the gods in whom they have personified them.
2 The followers of Pythagoras swore by their master, who taught them the mystic properties of the number Four, which he called the Fountain of the Universe, because all things were made of four elements.
3 The Simonians and Marcionites were two Gnostic sects, the one deriving its name form Simon Magus, the other from Marcion of Sinope. Simon, of whom we read in the Acts c. viii., is generally regarded by the Fathers as the precursor of the Gnostic Heresies. He maintained a system of Emanations from God, of which he claimed to be himself the chief. In his teaching the first cause of all things was an Ineffable Existence or Non-existence, which he sometimes called Silence and sometimes Fire, from which the Universe was generated by a series of six Emanations called Roots, which he arranged in pairs, male and female; and these six contained among them the whole Essence of his first Principle Silence. These Roots with Simon himself and his consort Helena, make up the Ogdoad referred to in the text.
Macion was a native of Sinope in Pontus, and flourished about the middle of the Second Century. His system of teaching was mainly rationalistic, and did not recognize (Dr. Mansel tells us, "Gnostic Heresies," p. 203) any theory of Emanations as connecting links between God and the world; for from his point of view the Supreme God was not, even indirectly, the Author of the world. It would seem that S. Gregory is confusing Marcion with Valentinus, and Egyptian heresiarch who flourished about the same time. In his theory we first find a system of "Aeons," divided into an Ogdoad, a Decad, and a Dodecad. Or ye man y mean Marcus, a follower of Valentinus, and founder of the subordinate sect of the Marcosians.
6 Eccles. xi. 2. S. Gregory himself (Or. xviii. "in laudem Patris," c. 20) comments upon this passage as enjoining liberal almsgiving. S. Ambrose (in Luc. vi.) has a mystical interpretation somewhat resembling that here referred to: but I cannot find a predecessor of Gregory on the verse. Some later commentators, according to Cornelius and Lapide, take the Seven of the poor in this life, and the Eight of the souls in Purgatory, following a common interpretation of these numbers.
12 It will be worth while, says Nicetas, to add S. John Chrysostom's account of the seven fold punishment which was inflicted on Cain. The number Seven he says (Hom. in Gen. xix. 5, p. 168 c.) is often used in Holy Scripture in the sense of multitude, as e.g., in such places, as, "The barren hath borne seven," and the like. So here; the greatness of the crime is implied, and that it is not a simple and single crime, but seven sins; and those of such a sort that every one of them must be avenged by a very severe punishment. First, that he envied his brother when he saw that God loved him, a sin which without any other added to it was sufficient to be deadly. The next was that this sin was against a brother. The third that he compassed a deceit. The fourth that he perpetrated a murder. The fifth that it was his brother that he slew. The sixth that he was the first man to commit a murder. The seventh that he lied to God. You have followed these steps with your mind, or do you desire that I should repeat the enumeration in a fuller way, to make you understand how each of these sins would be visited with a very severe penalty, even if it stood alone. Who would judge a man worthy of pardon who envies another simply because he enjoys the favour and love of God? Here then is one very great and inexpiable sin. And this is shewn to be even more atrocious when he who is envied is a brother, and has done him no wrong. Further, he contrived a deceit, bringing his brother out by a trick into the field, without reverence for nature herself. The fourth crime is the murder which he committed. The fifth is that it was his brother whom he put to death; his brother, I say, that came out of the same womb. Sixthly, he was the first inventor of murder. Seventhly, when questioned by God he did not hesitate to lie. And therefore because he dared to lay hands on his brother, he draws upon himself severe punishments. He then proceeds to shew how Lamech's crime was worse than Cain's, and is therefore said to be punished seventy times; that is, in manifold ways. Lamech slew a man and a young man, and this, after the law against murder had been given; that is, after God had punished Cain. Cain's punishment he says was sevenfold, corresponding to his seven sins: - 1. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. 2. Thou shalt till the ground; i.e., thou shalt never rest from the toils of husbandry. 3. It shall not yield unto thee its strength; 4. thy labours shall be barren, and 5. "sighting and trembling" shalt thou be. And the sixth is from the lips of Cain himself: - "If Thou castest me out form the earth," i.e., from all earthly conveniences, "from Thy face shall I be hid." And God put a mark upon Cain; this is the seventh punishment - a mark of infamy declaring his guilt and shame to all that should see him. Others according to the same authority (and Bishop Wordsworth adopts the explanation) explains it thus. From Cain to the Deluge are seven generations, and then the world was punished because sin had spread far and wide. But Lamech's sin could not be cured by the Deluge, but only by Him Who taketh away the sin of the world. Then count all the generations from Adam to Christ, and according to the Genealogy in Luke, you will find that our Lord was born in the seventieth generation. This is S. Jerome's explanation.
18 Peninnah who had "many" children is called Imperfect in her children, because Many is an indefinite word; where Hannah's one child Samuel was so perfect a man that he was as it were seven to his mother. For Seven is mystically, as Six or Ten is arithmetically, the perfect number. (Six because it is the sum of its own factors, 1, 2, 3: Ten, because it is the basis of numeration: Seven because it is the number of Creation; for God rested on the Sabbath Day.).
25 2 Kgs. iv. 25, where the LXX. has "he contracted himself upon the child until seven times, and the child opened his eyes;" saying nothing about the sneezing of the child, which the Hebrew and Vulgate mention, while they omit the number in the case of Elisha's similar action. S. Bernard has a curious explanation of the seven sneezes of the child(in Cant. xvi).
31 Different words are used here as in the New Testament for Baskets. The second implies a larger size; it is the word used for the "basket" in which St. Paul was let down from the wall of Damascus, Acts ix. 25.
32 S. Gregory makes this explanation because there were certain heretics who taught that our Lord at His Ascension laid aside His Humanity. It is said that this was held by certain Manichaeans, who based their idea on Ps. xix. 4, where the LXX. and Vulgate read, "He hath set His Tabernacle in the Sun."
34 The reference is to the Macedonians or Pneumatomachi, followowers of Macedonius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who had passed from extreme or Anomoean Arianism to Semi-Arianism, and was forcibly intruded on the See by order of Constantius in 343, but was afterwards deposed. After his deposition he broached the heresy known by his name, denying the Deity of the Holy Ghost; some of its adherents, with Macedonius himself, maintaining Him to be a mere creature; others stopping short of this; and others calling Him a creature and servant of the Son. The heresy was formally condemned in the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381.
36 S. Gregory here commends the practice of reserve in respect of the Deity of the Holy Ghost. To believe it is necessary to salvation, he would say; but in view of the prevailing ignorance it is well to be careful before whom we give Him the Name of God. But he demands that his hearers should give to the Holy Ghost all the Attributes of Godhead, and should bear with those who, like himself, gave Him also the Name, as he prays that they all may have grace to do (Bénoît).
38 Isa. viii. 14; Rom. ix. 33; 1 Pet. ii. 8.
39 i.e., inasmuch as He has granted you a right faith in the Consubstantiality and Unity of the Trinity, I am sure He will in time grant you the grace also to call Him by the Name of God.
41 The Constantinopolitan followers of Macedonius at the period were noted for their strict asceticism. The attempt to revive the Night Office among the secular Clergy of the Diocese brought great odium on S. John Chrysostom a few years later.