Gregory of Nazianzus

There have been two remarkable transformations of the human way of life in the course of the world’s history. These are called two “covenants,” and, so famous was the business involved, two “shakings of the earth.” The first was the transition from idols to the law;13 the second, from the law to the gospel. The gospel also tells of the third shaking, the change from this present stage of things to what lies unmoved, unshaken, beyond. An identical feature occurs in both covenants. The feature? There was nothing sudden involved in the first movement to take their transformation in hand.