Gregory of Nazianzus
Gregory of Nazianzus was the closest friend of Basil the Great and, with Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, one of the three Cappadocian Fathers who joined Athanasius in defending the deity of Christ. He shared their monastic retreat in Pontus, and the Trinitarian faith he defended was confirmed at the Council of Constantinople in 381.1
Gregory drove home that a being is either God or a creature; there is no middle status. His chief contribution was the idea of real relations within the Trinity: the Father is distinguished by fatherhood, the Son by being begotten, and the Spirit by proceeding. With Gregory of Nyssa he answered the charge that the Trinity is three gods.2
Apollinaris of Laodicea taught that Jesus had a human body but not a human mind. Gregory insisted that the Son assumed all of human nature, since only what he assumed could be saved, and the Council of Constantinople condemned Apollinarianism.3 With Athanasius, he also resisted the theory that Christ’s death was a ransom paid to the devil.
His Legacy
The Trinitarian and Christological teaching Gregory defended passed into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, received by Rome and the Reformers alike. Rome numbers him among its eight great Doctors of the Church. His rejection of a ransom paid to Satan anticipated Anselm and the Reformers, who saw the cross as satisfaction offered to God.4
