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Gregory of Nazianzus

Nicene & Post-Nicene · AD 325–500

298 passages across 41 books of the Bible · Who was this?

Commentary

20 of 298
  1. John 16:15
    All things that the Father has are the Son’s. And … all that belongs to the Son is the Father’s. Nothing then is peculiar [to any person] because all things are in common. For their being itself is common and equal, even though the Son receives it from the Father.

    ON THE SON, THEOLOGICAL ORATION 4(30).11

  2. John 18:10
    Is Jesus suddenly arrested? He reproaches indeed, but follows. And if through zeal you cut off the ear of Malchus with the sword, he will be angry and will restore it.… And if you ask for the fire of Sodom on his captors, he will not pour it forth. And if he takes a thief hanging on the cross for his crime, he will bring him into paradise through his goodness.

    AGAINST THE ARIANS AND ON HIMSELF, ORATION 33.14

  3. John 18:10
    We think it is an important matter to obtain penalties from those who have wronged us: an important matter, I say.… But it is far greater and more godlike to put up with injuries. For the former course of action curbs wickedness, but the latter makes people good, which is much better and more perfect than merely not being wicked. Let us consider that the great pursuit of mercifulness is set before us, and let us forgive the wrongs done to us that we also may obtain forgiveness, and let us by kindness lay up a store of kindness.

    LETTER 77

  4. John 18:37
    Who is the person who has never, by experience and contemplation, traversed the entire series of titles and powers of Christ, both those more lofty ones that originally were his and those more lowly ones that he later assumed for our sake: God, the Son, the Image, the Word, the Wisdom, the Truth, the Light, the Life, the Power …, the Maker, the King.… Who is the person who hears but pays no attention to these names so pregnant with reality and has never yet held communion with or been made partaker of the Word in any of the real relations signified by each of these names Christ bears?

    IN DEFENSE OF HIS FLIGHT TO PONTUS, ORATION 2.98

  5. John 19:29
    He is given vinegar to drink mingled with gall. Who? He who turned water into wine, the destroyer of the bitter taste who is sweetness and altogether desire.

    ON THE SON, THEOLOGICAL ORATION 3(29).20

  6. John 20:3-4
    Be a Peter or a John;
    Hasten to the sepulcher,
    Running together,
    Running against one another,
    Vying in the noble race.
    And even if you are beaten in speed,
    Win the victory of showing who wants it more—
    Not just looking into the tomb, but going in.

    ON HOLY EASTER, ORATION 45.24

  7. John 20:15
    Be the first to see the stone taken away, and perhaps you will see the angels and Jesus himself. Say something. Hear his voice. If he says to you, “Do not touch me,” stand far away. Reverence the Word, but do not grieve because he knows those to whom he appears first.

    ON HOLY EASTER, ORATION 45.24

  8. John 20:17
    To give you the explanation in one sentence: You are to apply the loftier expressions to the Godhead and to that nature in him that is superior to sufferings and bodily experiences. But all that is lowly should be applied to the composite condition of him who for your sakes made himself of no reputation and was incarnate.

    ON THE SON, THEOLOGICAL ORATION 3(29).18

  9. John 20:22
    [Christ’s disciples] were able to receive [the Spirit] on three occasions: before he was glorified by the passion, after he was glorified by the resurrection and after his ascension.… Now the first of these manifests him—the healing of the sick and casting out of evil spirits and so does that breathing on them after the resurrection, which was clearly a divine inspiration. And so too the present distribution of the fiery tongues. But the first manifested him indistinctly, the second more expressly, this present one more perfectly, since he is no longer present only in energy but … substantially, associating with us and dwelling in us.

    ON PENTECOST, ORATION 41.11

  10. John 20:27
    If, like a Thomas, you were left out when the disciples were assembled to whom Christ shows himself, when you do see him do not be faithless. And if you do not believe, then believe those who tell you. And if you cannot believe them either, then have confidence in the print of the nails.

    ON HOLY EASTER, ORATION 45.24

  11. Jonah 1:1-3
    Jonah knew better than anyone the purpose of his message to the Ninevites and that, in planning his flight, although he changed his location, he did not escape from God. Nor is this possible for anyone else, either by concealing himself in the bosom of the earth, or in the depths of the sea, or by soaring on wings, if there be any means of doing so, and rising into the air, or by abiding in the lowest depths of hell, or by any other of the many devices for ensuring escape. For God alone of all things cannot be escaped from or contended with. If he wills to seize and bring them under his hand, he outstrips the swift. He outwits the wise. He overthrows the strong. He cuts down the lofty. He subdues rashness. He resists power.

    Oration 2:108

  12. Jonah 1:1-3
    But there Jonah calls upon God, and marvelous as it is, on the third day, he, like Christ, is delivered.… In my own case, what could be said? What defense could be made if I remained unsettled and rejected the yoke of ministry, which, though I know not whether to call it light or heavy, had at any rate been laid upon me.… On this account I had much toilsome consideration to discover my duty, being set in the middle between two fears, of which the one held me back and the other urged me on. For a long while I was at a loss between them. After wavering from side to side, and, like a current driven by inconstant winds, inclining first in this direction then in that, I at last yielded to the stronger. The fear of disobedience overcame me.

    IN DEFENSE OF HIS FLIGHT TO PONTUS, ORATION 2:109-12

  13. Jonah 1:1
    Jonah knew better than anyone the purpose of his message to the Ninevites and that, in planning his flight, although he changed his location, he did not escape from God. Nor is this possible for anyone else, either by concealing himself in the bosom of the earth, or in the depths of the sea, or by soaring on wings, if there be any means of doing so, and rising into the air, or by abiding in the lowest depths of hell, or by any other of the many devices for ensuring escape. For God alone of all things cannot be escaped from or contended with. If he wills to seize and bring them under his hand, he outstrips the swift. He outwits the wise. He overthrows the strong. He cuts down the lofty. He subdues rashness. He resists power.

  14. Jonah 1:1
    What then is the story, and wherein lies its application? For, perhaps, it would not be amiss to relate it, for its general validation. Jonah also was fleeing from the face of God, or rather, thought that he was fleeing. But he was overtaken by the sea, and the storm, and the lot, and the whale’s belly, and the three days’ entombment. All this is a type of a greater mystery. He fled from having to announce the dread of the awful message to the Ninevites and from being subsequently, if the city was saved by repentance, convicted of falsehood. It was not that he was displeased at the salvation of the wicked, but he was ashamed of being made an instrument of falsehood and exceedingly zealous for the credit of prophecy, which was in danger of being destroyed in his own person. Indeed most would be unable to penetrate the depth of the divine dispensation in such cases.

  15. Jonah 1:3
    He left Joppa, which in Hebrew it means ‘beautiful’.

  16. Jonah 1:9
    It was not likely that such a prophet should be ignorant of the design of God, which was to bring about, by means of threat, the escape of the Ninevites from the threatened doom, according to his great wisdom and unsearchable judgments and according to his ways which are beyond our tracing and finding out.… To imagine that Jonah hoped to hide himself at sea and escape by his flight the great eye of God is surely utterly absurd and stupid, and unworthy of credit, not only in the case of a prophet but even in the case of any sensible person, who has only a slight perception of God, whose power is over all.

    IN DEFENSE OF HIS FLIGHT TO PONTUS, ORATION 2:107

  17. Jonah 2:1-2
    Do you praise the fearlessness of Elijah in speaking to tyrants and his translation in fire and the noble heritage of Elisha, the sheepskin mantle, accompanied by the spirit of Elijah? Then praise also the life of Basil passed in the midst of the fire, I mean in the multitude of temptations, and his preservation through fire which burned but did not consume, the miracle of the bush. Praise also the fair garment of skin, which came to him from on high, his fleshlessness. I shall omit other parallels, as the young men bedewed in the flames and the fugitive prophet praying in the belly of the fish and coming forth from the monster as from a chamber. I shall pass over the just man in the den, restraining the ferocity of lions, and the struggle of the seven Maccabees, who with a priest and their mother was perfected by blood and all kinds of tortures. Basil emulated their endurance and achieved their glory.

    ON BASIL THE GREAT, ORATION 43:74

  18. Jonah 2:10
    Hence he is tempest-tossed, and falls asleep, and is wrecked, and aroused from sleep, and taken by lot, and confesses his flight, and is cast into the sea, and swallowed but not destroyed by the whale.

    IN DEFENSE OF HIS FLIGHT TO PONTUS, ORATION 2:109

  19. Jonah 2:10
    Hence he is tempesttossed, and falls asleep, and is wrecked, and aroused from sleep, and taken by lot, and confesses his flight, and is cast into the sea, and swallowed but not destroyed by the whale. In Defense of His Flight to Pontus, Oration

  20. Jonah 3:5
    Let us sow in tears, so that we may reap in joy. Let us show ourselves people of Nineveh, not of Sodom. Let us amend our wickedness, lest we be consumed with it. Let us listen to the preaching of Jonah, lest we be overwhelmed by fire and brimstone. And if we have departed from Sodom, let us escape to the mountain. Let us flee to Zoar. Let us enter it as the sun rises. Let us not stay in all the plain. Let us not look around us, lest we be frozen into a pillar of salt, a really immoral pillar, to accuse the soul that returns to wickedness.

    On His Father’s Silence, ORATION 16:14

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