Jared Bryant: Cosmological Trinitarian Polemics in Gregory of Nazianzus’s Theological Orations

Gregory of Nazianzus utilizes the biblical concept of creation in his Theological Orations in order to maintain and defend the divinity of the persons of the Trinity. The context of the later fourth-century Trinitarian controversies includes conciliar theology and those who opposed it, and so Gregory implements the theme of creation in order to argue for the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which his opponents deny. These orations contain the most expansive collection of theological discourse in Gregory’s orations, letters, and poems.In these orations exists an increasingly polemical tone which Gregory employs during a tumultuous season of life. Because the events surrounding the Council of Constantinople prove to be contentious, those external pressures lead to an inveterate offensiveness in Gregory’s writings that leave an indelible mark his theology. His irritation with the Eunomians and Macedonians drives his rhetoric which proves to be charged and fraught with emotion, yet grounded in biblical and theological argumentation.Gregory employs the notion of creation in order to contend for his own, Nicene, version of the Trinity. His understanding of creation looks less like Basil of Caesarea’s and Gregory of Nyssa’s versions, and more like Origen’s and most like Athanasius’s expositions. Gregory is less interested in chronology and matter, and more concerned with the Trinitarian origins of the cosmos. Gregory’s sermons become some of the strongest polemical discourse for the Nicene explanation of the Trinity in the later fourth century.