Monday, December 12, 2011

Back in 2002 I was blessed to take a course in Early Christian Spirituality with Michael A.G. Haykin, now of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Of the many benefits from that course, one was learning about the Greek Fathers. Here is one sampling, an insight about the Trinity, that shows why being introduced to those writers was a particular blessing:

Gregory Nazianzen:

No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the Splendour of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish Them than I am carried back to the One.

When I think of any One of the Three I think of Him as the Whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking of escapes me.

I cannot grasp the greatness of That One so as to attribute a greater greatness to the Rest.

When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the Undivided Light.

—Gregory of Nazianzen, Orationes, 40:41

HT: JT