Gregory of Nyssa's "On the Baptism of Christ"

Abridged with Commentary

May 09, 2024

St. Gregory of Nyssa, “A Sermon for the Day of the Lights” (c. 372-385 AD)

“The Day of Lights” is what Eastern Christians call Epiphany, the feast day that celebrates the Baptism of Our Lord.

Now I recognize my own flock: today I behold the wonted figure of the Church, when, turning with aversion from the occupation even of the cares of the flesh, you come together in your undiminished numbers for the service of God—when the people crowds the house, coming within the sacred sanctuary, and when the multitude that can find no place within fills the space outside in the precincts like bees.

St. Gregory was a bishop, tasked with overseeing (the Greek for bishop is episcopos, literally, “overseer”) the Church in a given geographical area. The area assigned to a bishop is called a “diocese.” As with modern bishops, all the priests (which comes from the Greek presbuteros, “elder”) and deacons in the diocese answered to him. He also managed other administrative and sacramental tasks. Here, he addresses a packed church during the liturgy of a major feast day.

[...] The time, then, has come, and bears in its course the remembrance of holy mysteries, purifying man—mysteries which purge out from soul and body even that sin which is hard to cleanse away, and which bring us back to that fairness of our first estate which God, the best of artificers, impressed upon us.

“Holy mysteries” here is not pious jargon. The “mysteries” of Christianity are those truths that our faith is built on and can ultimately be comprehended only by the mind of God Himself. This is above all the Trinity, and second the Incarnation. In a derivative sense, it applies to the episodes of the life of Christ, such as those commended to us for meditation in the Rosary. In this case, as context will make clear, St. Gregory is referring to the sacraments, which are tangible points at which we receive God’s grace. These are not separate from the fundamental mysteries, nor even the mysteries of the life of Christ, but rather are channels connecting us to them. Thus the “remembrance” of these “holy mysteries” entails not simply recalling them but actually making them present.

Therefore it is that you, the initiated people, are gathered together; and you bring also that people who have not made trial of them, leading, like good fathers, by careful guidance, the uninitiated to the perfect reception of the faith. I for my part rejoice over both—over you that are initiated, because you are enriched with a great gift: over you that are uninitiated, because you have a fair expectation of hope—remission of what is to be accounted for, release from bondage, close relation to God, free boldness of speech, and in place of servile subjection equality with the angels. For these things, and all that follow from them, the grace of Baptism secures and conveys to us.

The “initiated” here are practicing Christians who have already received the Sacraments of Initiation, particularly Baptism. The uninitiated about to receive this sacrament look forward to three graces in particular, which St. Gregory will unfold throughout the homily. First, they will receive the Holy Spirit. Second, they will receive healing from the wound of original sin. Third, all sins to date will be totally forgiven. Later, he will make reference to Confirmation, another Sacrament of Initiation, which would have been administered immediately after Baptism. But the nature of the feast day naturally leads him to emphasize Baptism first and foremost.

Therefore let us leave the other matters of the Scriptures for other occasions, and abide by the topic set before us, offering, as far as we may, the gifts that are proper and fitting for the feast: for each festival demands its own treatment. So we welcome a marriage with wedding songs; for mourning we bring the due offering with funeral strains; in times of business we speak seriously, at times of festivity we relax the concentration and strain of our minds; but each time we keep free from disturbance by things that are alien to its character.

Christ, then, was born as it were a few days ago—He Whose generation was before all things, sensible and intellectual. Today He is baptized by John that He might cleanse him who was defiled, that He might bring the Spirit from above, and exalt man to heaven, that he who had fallen might be raised up and he who had cast him down might be put to shame.

This is the beauty of the Church calendar. The Apostolic Churches, i.e., those directly descending in a chain of bishops from the Apostles themselves, follow a cycle of readings and celebrations that orient the year toward salvation history. For St. Gregory, Christ was in one sense baptized three hundred years ago. In another sense, though, it is right now in liturgical time, time as ordered by the life of the Church.

[...] Christ, the repairer of [Adam’s] evil-doing, assumes manhood in its fullness, and saves man, and becomes the type and figure of us all, to sanctify the first-fruits of every action, and leave to His servants no doubt in their zeal for the tradition. Baptism, then, is a purification from sins, a remission of trespasses, a cause of renovation and regeneration. By regeneration, understand regeneration conceived in thought, not discerned by bodily sight. For we shall not, according to the Jew Nicodemus and his somewhat dull intelligence, change the old man into a child, nor shall we form anew him who is wrinkled and gray-headed to tenderness and youth, if we bring back the man again into his mother's womb: but we do bring back, by royal grace, him who bears the scars of sin, and has grown old in evil habits, to the innocence of the babe. For as the child new-born is free from accusations and from penalties, so too the child of regeneration has nothing for which to answer, being released by royal bounty from accountability.

This is important because of how distinctly Catholic it is, and how uncontroversial St. Gregory takes it to be. Baptism is the moment of rebirth/regeneration in the life of a Christian. It’s not merely a public declaration of inward faith. It restores us to the innocence of a baby. But not by magic, as we are about to see.

And this gift, it is not the water that bestows (for in that case it were a thing more exalted than all creation), but the command of God, and the visitation of the Spirit that comes sacramentally to set us free. But water serves to express the cleansing. For since we are wont by washing in water to render our body clean when it is soiled by dirt or mud, we therefore apply it also in the sacramental action, and display the spiritual brightness by that which is subject to our senses.

It’s not the water itself, but the water sacramentally united to the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, operative in and through the washing with water, effects a change in us. This initial sketch sets up a lengthy and beautiful inquiry into Scripture, some of which I include below.

Let us however, if it seems well, persevere in enquiring more fully and more minutely concerning Baptism, starting, as from the fountain-head, from the Scriptural declaration, Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Why are both named, and why is not the Spirit alone accounted sufficient for the completion of Baptism? Man, as we know full well, is compound, not simple: and therefore the cognate and similar medicines are assigned for healing to him who is twofold and conglomerate:—for his visible body, water, the sensible element—for his soul, which we cannot see, the Spirit invisible, invoked by faith, present unspeakably. For the Spirit breathes where He wills, and you hear His voice, but cannot tell whence He comes or whither He goes. He blesses the body that is baptized, and the water that baptizes. Despise not, therefore, the Divine laver, nor think lightly of it, as a common thing, on account of the use of water. For the power that operates is mighty, and wonderful are the things that are wrought thereby.

St. Gregory uses a key concept of Catholic theology, namely, that human beings are not souls or bodies, but body-soul composites. This is why the Sacraments are so important, the reason Christ instituted physical rituals instead of encouraging us to simply believe in our hearts: God does not wish to bypass our embodied nature in the story of our salvation. We have bodies, so He took a body to Himself that we might know Him. Likewise, He has ordained physical means for us to receive spiritual grace. Precisely because the Spirit is “present unspeakably,” we need something that can be spoken in order to come to know and love Him. Of course, God doesn’t need Baptism in order to send His Spirit to us. The physical, embodied nature of Baptism is a divine condescension, a special grace given to us who inhabit a physical, embodied world.

For this holy altar, too, by which I stand, is stone, ordinary in its nature, nowise different from the other slabs of stone that build our houses and adorn our pavements; but seeing that it was consecrated to the service of God, and received the benediction, it is a holy table, an altar undefiled, no longer touched by the hands of all, but of the priests alone, and that with reverence.

What makes this stone an altar and not merely a table? Altars are used for sacrifice. St. Gregory here is referencing the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist as a re-presentation, a “making present” of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. Just as “today He is baptized,” so also at every Mass “today He is sacrificed.”

The bread again is at first common bread, but when the sacramental action consecrates it, it is called, and becomes, the Body of Christ.

This is a description of the Eucharist, which not only represents but “is called, and becomes” Christ Himself, body, blood, soul, and divinity. This language comes from 1 John 3:1, where St. John says that we “are called, and are, children of God.” Grace not only names us “sons” but makes us sons, since the Word of God always creates what it declares (as in Genesis 1, Luke 22:19, etc.).

So with the sacramental oil;

Oil is used in three sacraments: Confirmation, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick.

so with the wine:

That is called, and has become, the Precious Blood of Christ.

though before the benediction they are of little value, each of them, after the sanctification bestowed by the Spirit, has its several operation.

Each sacrament is ordered toward sanctifying and healing a different part of us. They are not reducible to any one effect beyond uniting us to God. And although God’s grace is made available to us through many and sundry means, nothing can replace the specific graces conferred by each of the Sacraments. In other words, different graces do not boil down to good moral influence—they are, or may be, incommensurable. This is not so strange; no amount of knowledge about God, for example, could truly replace access to the Bible. Both are important, to be sure—but it would be a mistake to think having one makes the other irrelevant.

The same power of the word, again, also makes the priest venerable and honourable, separated, by the new blessing bestowed upon him, from his community with the mass of men. While but yesterday he was one of the mass, one of the people, he is suddenly rendered a guide, a president, a teacher of righteousness, an instructor in hidden mysteries; and this he does without being at all changed in body or in form; but, while continuing to be in all appearance the man he was before, being, by some unseen power and grace, transformed in respect of his unseen soul to the higher condition.

A priest is consecrated by a bishop through the sacrament of Holy Orders. This “higher condition” doesn’t refer to a “stat boost” of some kind, such as increased intelligence or strength. Rather, it specially conforms a man to Christ, so that he can lead his community into greater love and knowledge of God and bring them the Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist in the Mass.

And so there are many things, which if you consider you will see that their appearance is contemptible, but the things they accomplish are mighty: and this is especially the case when you collect from the ancient history instances cognate and similar to the subject of our inquiry. The rod of Moses was a hazel wand. And what is that, but common wood that every hand cuts and carries, and fashions to what use it chooses, and casts as it will into the fire? But when God was pleased to accomplish by that rod those wonders, lofty, and passing the power of language to express, the wood was changed into a serpent. [...] And the wood of the Cross is of saving efficacy for all men, though it is, as I am informed, a piece of a poor tree, less valuable than most trees are. [...] And all these things, though they were matter without soul or sense, were made the means for the performance of the great marvels wrought by them, when they received the power of God.

Common things becoming instruments of grace is nothing new. Note the passing reference to the Cross, which St. Gregory has apparently heard described. This is especially interesting because this sermon was preached roughly 40 years after St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, is supposed to have discovered the True Cross. This comment seems just casual enough to indicate rumors of the True Cross were known, but had not yet stabilized into concrete traditions, which is probably just right for the amount of time and distance between them. You are, of course, free to believe or disbelieve traditions of this sort, but it is interesting that people St. Gregory had spoken with claimed to have seen the Cross itself first-hand.

Now by a similar train of reasoning, water also, though it is nothing else than water, renews the man to spiritual regeneration, when the grace from above hallows it. And if any one answers me again by raising a difficulty, with his questions and doubts, continually asking and inquiring how water and the sacramental act that is performed therein regenerate, I most justly reply to him, “Show me the mode of that generation which is after the flesh, and I will explain to you the power of regeneration in the soul.” You will say perhaps, by way of giving an account of the matter, “It is the cause of the seed which makes the man.” Learn then from us in return, that hallowed water cleanses and illuminates the man. And if you again object to me your “How?” I shall more vehemently cry in answer, “How does the fluid and formless substance become a man?” and so the argument as it advances will be exercised on everything through all creation. How does heaven exist? How earth? How sea? How every single thing? For everywhere men's reasoning, perplexed in the attempt at discovery, falls back upon this syllable how, as those who cannot walk fall back upon a seat. To speak concisely, everywhere the power of God and His operation are incomprehensible and incapable of being reduced to rule, easily producing whatever He wills, while concealing from us the minute knowledge of His operation.

There’s a reason we call them the Sacred Mysteries. We can’t know exactly how it works, we have to trust God. But this shouldn’t be too hard, given that there are a lot of things going on in this world and we have no idea how they work.

[...] Let us then leave the task of searching into what is beyond human power, and seek rather that which shows signs of being partly within our comprehension:—what is the reason why the cleansing is effected by water? And to what purpose are the three immersions received? That which the fathers taught, and which our mind has received and assented to, is as follows:[...] Now our God and Saviour, in fulfilling the Dispensation for our sakes, went beneath the [...] the earth, that He might raise up life from thence. And we in receiving Baptism, in imitation of our Lord and Teacher and Guide, are not indeed buried in the earth (for this is the shelter of the body that is entirely dead, covering the infirmity and decay of our nature), but coming to the element akin to earth, to water, we conceal ourselves in that as the Saviour did in the earth: and by doing this thrice we represent for ourselves that grace of the Resurrection which was wrought in three days: and this we do, not receiving the sacrament in silence, but while there are spoken over us the Names of the Three Sacred Persons on Whom we believed, in Whom we also hope, from Whom comes to us both the fact of our present and the fact of our future existence.

[There follows an extended argument that all three Persons are equal. St. Gregory frequently disputed against a faction that thought of the Holy Spirit as lesser than the Father and the Son.]

I find that not only do the Gospels, written after the Crucifixion, proclaim the grace of Baptism, but, even before the Incarnation of our Lord, the ancient Scripture everywhere prefigured the likeness of our regeneration; not clearly manifesting its form, but foreshowing, in dark sayings, the love of God to man. And as the Lamb was proclaimed by anticipation, and the Cross was foretold by anticipation, so, too, was Baptism shown forth by action and by word. Let us recall its types to those who love good thoughts—for the festival season of necessity demands their recollection.

“Types” here refers to typological molds that set up a foreshadow-fulfillment relationship between a figure, event, object, or institution in the Old Testament and a fuller completion in the New Testament. If you’re confused, don’t worry; St. Gregory is about to give you a lot of examples. This is one of the primary methods of interpretation among the earliest Christians, including Peter and Paul.

Hagar, the handmaid of Abraham (whom Paul treats allegorically in reasoning with the Galatians), being sent forth from her master's house by the anger of Sarah—for a servant suspected in regard to her master is a hard thing for lawful wives to bear—was wandering in desolation to a desolate land with her babe Ishmael at her breast. And when she was in straits for the needs of life, and was herself near unto death, and her child yet more sore for the water in the skin was spent (since it was not possible that the Synagogue, she who once dwelt among the figures of the perennial Fountain, should have all that was needed to support life), an angel unexpectedly appears, and shows her a well of living water, and drawing thence, she saves Ishmael. Behold, then, a sacramental type: how from the very first it is by the means of living water that salvation comes to him that was perishing—water that was not before, but was given as a boon by an angel's means. Again, at a later time, Isaac—the same for whose sake Ishmael was driven with his mother from his father's home—was to be wedded. Abraham's servant is sent to make the match, so as to secure a bride for his master, and finds Rebekah at the well: and a marriage that was to produce the race of Christ had its beginning and its first covenant in water. Yes, and Isaac himself also, when he was ruling his flocks, dug wells at all parts of the desert, which the aliens stopped and filled up, for a type of all those impious men of later days who hindered the grace of Baptism, and talked loudly in their struggle against the truth. Yet the martyrs and the priests overcame them by digging the wells, and the gift of Baptism over-flowed the whole world. According to the same force of the text, Jacob also, hastening to seek a bride, met Rachel unexpectedly at the well. And a great stone lay upon the well, which a multitude of shepherds were wont to roll away when they came together, and then gave water to themselves and to their flocks. But Jacob alone rolls away the stone, and waters the flocks of his spouse. The thing is, I think, a dark saying, a shadow of what should come. For what is the stone that is laid but Christ Himself? For of Him Isaiah says, “And I will lay in the foundations of Sion a costly stone, precious, elect:” and Daniel likewise, “A stone was cut out without hands,” that is, Christ was born without a man. For as it is a new and marvellous thing that a stone should be cut out of the rock without a hewer or stone-cutting tools, so it is a thing beyond all wonder that an offspring should appear from an unwedded Virgin. There was lying, then, upon the well the spiritual stone, Christ, concealing in the deep and in mystery the laver of regeneration which needed much time—as it were a long rope—to bring it to light. And none rolled away the stone save Israel, who is mind [sic.] seeing God. But he both draws up the water and gives drink to the sheep of Rachel; that is, he reveals the hidden mystery, and gives living water to the flock of the Church.

Add to this also the history of the three rods of Jacob. For from the time when the three rods were laid by the well, Laban the polytheist thenceforth became poor, and Jacob became rich and wealthy in herds. Now let Laban be interpreted of the devil, and Jacob of Christ. For after the institution of Baptism Christ took away all the flock of Satan and Himself grew rich. Again, the great Moses, when he was a goodly child, and yet at the breast, falling under the general and cruel decree which the hard-hearted Pharaoh made against the men-children, was exposed on the banks of the river—not naked, but laid in an ark, for it was fitting that the Law should typically be enclosed in a coffer. And he was laid near the water; for the Law, and those daily sprinklings of the Hebrews which were a little later to be made plain in the perfect and marvellous Baptism, are near to grace. Again, according to the view of the inspired Paul, the people itself, by passing through the Red Sea, proclaimed the good tidings of salvation by water. The people passed over, and the Egyptian king with his host was engulfed, and by these actions this Sacrament was foretold. For even now, whenever the people is in the water of regeneration, fleeing from Egypt, from the burden of sin, it is set free and saved; but the devil with his own servants (I mean, of course, the spirits of evil), is choked with grief, and perishes, deeming the salvation of men to be his own misfortune.

Patristic commentary really makes modern scholarship feel like stamp collecting. He’s not even done.

Even these instances might be enough to confirm our present position; but the lover of good thoughts must yet not neglect what follows. The people of the Hebrews, as we learn, after many sufferings, and after accomplishing their weary course in the desert, did not enter the land of promise until it had first been brought, with Joshua for its guide and the pilot of its life, to the passage of the Jordan. But it is clear that Joshua also, who set up the twelve stones in the stream, was anticipating the coming of the twelve disciples, the ministers of Baptism. Again, that marvellous sacrifice of the old Tishbite,

That is, Elijah. He’s talking about his showdown with the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18.

that passes all human understanding, what else does it do but prefigure in action the Faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and redemption? For when all the people of the Hebrews had trodden underfoot the religion of their fathers, and fallen into the error of polytheism, and their king Ahab was deluded by idolatry, with Jezebel, of ill-omened name, as the wicked partner of his life, and the vile prompter of his impiety, the prophet, filled with the grace of the Spirit, coming to a meeting with Ahab, withstood the priests of Baal in a marvellous and wondrous contest in the sight of the king and all the people; and by proposing to them the task of sacrificing the bullock without fire, he displayed them in a ridiculous and wretched plight, vainly praying and crying aloud to gods that were not. At last, himself invoking his own and the true God, he accomplished the test proposed with further exaggerations and additions. For he did not simply by prayer bring down the fire from heaven upon the wood when it was dry, but exhorted and enjoined the attendants to bring abundance of water.

This next bit is phenomenal.

And when he had thrice poured out the barrels upon the cleft wood, he kindled at his prayer the fire from out of the water, that by the contrariety of the elements, so concurring in friendly cooperation, he might show with superabundant force the power of his own God. Now herein, by that wondrous sacrifice, Elijah clearly proclaimed to us the sacramental rite of Baptism that should afterwards be instituted. For the fire was kindled by water thrice poured upon it, so that it is clearly shown that where the mystic water is, there is the kindling, warm, and fiery Spirit, that burns up the ungodly, and illuminates the faithful.

[There follow many, many more examples, well worth reading, which mostly go along the same themes: Baptism heals/cleanses/remits sin, and Baptism is the beginning of Christian life, imparting the Holy Spirit.]

But here we must make an end of the testimonies from the Divine Scriptures: for the discourse would extend to an infinite length if one should seek to select every passage in detail, and set them forth in a single book.

But do ye all, as many as are made glad, by the gift of regeneration, and make your boast of that saving renewal, show me, after the sacramental grace, the change in your ways that should follow it, and make known by the purity of your conversation the difference effected by your transformation for the better. For of those things which are before our eyes nothing is altered: the characteristics of the body remain unchanged, and the mould of the visible nature is nowise different. But there is certainly need of some manifest proof, by which we may recognize the new-born man, discerning by clear tokens the new from the old. And these I think are to be found in the intentional motions of the soul, whereby it separates itself from its old customary life, and enters on a newer way of conversation, and will clearly teach those acquainted with it that it has become something different from its former self, bearing in it no token by which the old self was recognized. This, if you be persuaded by me, and keep my words as a law, is the mode of the transformation.

The man that was before Baptism was wanton, covetous, grasping at the goods of others, a reviler, a liar, a slanderer, and all that is kindred with these things, and consequent from them. Let him now become orderly, sober, content with his own possessions, and imparting from them to those in poverty, truthful, courteous, affable—in a word, following every laudable course of conduct. For as darkness is dispelled by light, and black disappears as whiteness is spread over it, so the old man also disappears when adorned with the works of righteousness. You see how Zacchæus also by the change of his life slew the publican, making fourfold restitution to those whom he had unjustly damaged, and the rest he divided with the poor—the treasure which he had before got by ill means from the poor whom he oppressed. The Evangelist Matthew, another publican, of the same business with Zacchæus, at once after his call changed his life as if it had been a mask. Paul was a persecutor, but after the grace bestowed on him an Apostle, bearing the weight of his fetters for Christ's sake, as an act of amends and repentance for those unjust bonds which he once received from the Law, and bore for use against the Gospel. Such ought you to be in your regeneration: so ought you to blot out your habits that tend to sin; so ought the sons of God to have their conversation: for after the grace bestowed we are called His children.

And therefore we ought narrowly to scrutinize our Father's characteristics, that by fashioning and framing ourselves to the likeness of our Father, we may appear true children of Him Who calls us to the adoption according to grace. For the bastard and the supposititious son, who belies his father's nobility in his deeds, is a sad reproach. Therefore also, methinks, it is that the Lord Himself, laying down for us in the Gospels the rules of our life, uses these words to His disciples, “Do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you; that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” For then He says they are sons when in their own modes of thought they are fashioned in loving kindness towards their kindred, after the likeness of the Father's goodness.

This is standard Catholic theology following Ephesians 2:8-11. We are saved by grace, through faith, for works. Works are necessary not in the sense of causing salvation, but in the sense of inexorably following from it. This fits very naturally with the earlier assumption on St. Gregory’s part that grace is transformative.

Therefore, also, it is that after the dignity of adoption the devil plots more vehemently against us, pining away with envious glance, when he beholds the beauty of the new-born man, earnestly tending towards that heavenly city, from which he fell: and he raises up against us fiery temptations, seeking earnestly to despoil us of that second adornment, as he did of our former array. But when we are aware of his attacks, we ought to repeat to ourselves the apostolic words, “As many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into His death” (Romans 6:3). Now if we have been conformed to His death, sin henceforth in us is surely a corpse, pierced through by the javelin of Baptism, as that fornicator was thrust through by the zealous Phinehas (Numbers 25:7-8). Flee therefore from us, ill-omened one! For it is a corpse you seek to despoil, one long ago joined to you, one who long since lost his senses for pleasures. A corpse is not enamoured of bodies, a corpse is not captivated by wealth, a corpse slanders not, a corpse lies not, snatches not at what is not its own, reviles not those who encounter it. My way of living is regulated for another life: I have learned to despise the things that are in the world, to pass by the things of earth, to hasten to the things of heaven, even as Paul expressly testifies, that the world is crucified to him, and he to the world. These are the words of a soul truly regenerated: these are the utterances of the newly-baptized man, who remembers his own profession, which he made to God when the sacrament was administered to him, promising that he would despise for the sake of love towards Him all torment and all pleasure alike.

It was standard practice at the time to perform exorcisms on candidates for Baptism that could take up to a month.

And now we have spoken sufficiently for the holy subject of the day, which the circling year brings to us at appointed periods.

Another reference to the Church calendar.

We shall do well in what remains to end our discourse by turning it to the loving Giver of so great a boon, offering to Him a few words as the requital of great things. For You verily, O Lord, are the pure and eternal fount of goodness, Who justly turned away from us, and in loving kindness had mercy upon us. You hated, and were reconciled; You cursed, and blessed; You banished us from Paradise, and recalled us; You stripped off the fig-tree leaves, an unseemly covering, and put upon us a costly garment; You opened the prison, and released the condemned; You sprinkled us with clean water, and cleanse us from our filthiness. No longer shall Adam be confounded when called by You, nor hide himself, convicted by his conscience, cowering in the thicket of Paradise. Nor shall the flaming sword encircle Paradise around, and make the entrance inaccessible to those that draw near; but all is turned to joy for us that were the heirs of sin: Paradise, yea, heaven itself may be trodden by man: and the creation, in the world and above the world, that once was at variance with itself, is knit together in friendship: and we men are made to join in the angels' song, offering the worship of their praise to God. For all these things then let us sing to God that hymn of joy, which lips touched by the Spirit long ago sang loudly: “Let my soul be joyful in the Lord: for He has clothed me with a garment of salvation, and has put upon me a robe of gladness: as on a bridegroom He has set a mitre upon me, and as a bride has He adorned me with fair array.” And verily the Adorner of the bride is Christ, Who is, and was, and shall be, blessed now and for evermore. Amen.

No wonder this sermon has been passed down for almost 1700 years. Let us briefly recapitulate the distinctly Catholic elements of St. Gregory’s teaching:

Baptism washes away all sin.
Baptism imparts the Holy Spirit.
The oil of anointing, the church altar, the bread and wine, and the priest are all transformed by the act of consecration, each then able to communicate God’s grace to Christians after their “several operations.”
Several sacraments are recognized, and although not all are explicitly named, there are clearly more than the two admitted by Protestants (Baptism and Communion).
Humans are seen as a combination of body and soul, aligning with the Aristotelian and later Thomistic theory of hylomorphism, a favorite even today among Catholic philosophers.
Baptism takes place according to the Church calendar, which also exists and seems standardized.
Several references to relics, both from the Old Testament and the New.

All this amounts to a sermon that reads as very natural to a Catholic, and very unnatural to a Protestant. It is especially telling that many of what would now be seen as distinctly Catholic views appear to have been totally uncontroversial—the only claim St. Gregory goes out of his way to defend is about the Holy Spirit. He’s clearly willing to argue for positions he knows are contested, so it’s not just a preference to avoid conflict. Rather, he thinks that the vast majority of his discourse is theological common knowledge, neither innovative nor surprising to his audience.

Perhaps things had gone totally off the rails by the late 300’s, but this line of response runs the risk of triggering the General Apostasy Dilemma. It seems we are forced to say that by at least St. Gregory’s time, Christianity was Catholic. And if Catholic Christianity was the norm by the close of the 300’s, one cannot help but feel it disingenuous to maintain that true Christianity had sprouted, spread, died, and been universally supplanted in such a short time, or had mutated the same defects evenly across cultural, linguistic, and geographic barriers. Given Jesus’ promise that the Church would endure, it would be better and simpler to suppose that St. Gregory’s Christianity was the Christianity of the 200’s was the Christianity of the 100’s was the Christianity of the Apostles, which came from Christ. But if what St. Gregory takes as given has its roots in Christ, then so does the Catholic Church of the 2000’s when she proclaims the same. This massive continuity is obviously beyond the reckoning or powers of mortals; it is another grace from God. In the end, we must agree with the words of Lumen Gentium:1

By the power of the Gospel, [Christ] makes the Church keep the freshness of youth. Uninterruptedly He renews it and leads it to perfect union with its Spouse. The Spirit and the Bride both say to Jesus, the Lord, “Come!”

Resources and Further Reading

Lumen Gentium (“Light of the Nations”) is a “dogmatic constitution” developed by the Second Vatican Council, a gathering of the world’s bishops in communion with the Pope to address pressing needs and challenges of the Church. It is a beautiful document, along with Dei Verbum (“The Word of God”), the dogmatic constitution on Divine Revelation. With the approval of an ecumenical council ratified by the Pope, this document has the authority to bind the conscience of all Christians. Dei Verbum is relatively short and well worth the read.

Also, Substack won’t let me insert footnotes into the sections of my own commentary because of how the formatting works, but thanks and credit to Dr. Marcus Gibson for drawing my attention to the 1 John 3:8 passage.