Gregory of Nyssa on the ontological equality of the Trinitarian persons and their personal propertie

[Reformed Covenanter]

They accuse us of profanity for entertaining lofty conceptions about the Holy Spirit. All that we, in following the teachings of the Fathers, confess as to the Spirit, they take in a sense of their own, and make it a handle against us, to denounce us for profanity. We, for instance, confess that the Holy Spirit is of the same rank as the Father and the Son, so that there is no difference between them in anything, to be thought or named, that devotion can ascribe to a Divine nature. ...

For the rest of the extract, see Gregory of Nyssa on the ontological equality of the Trinitarian persons and their personal properties.

 

[DTK]

I have found Dr. Kelly's observation in relation to the above fascinating . . .

Douglas F. Kelly: (a) Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and John of Damascus
These theologians anchored the deity of the Son and Spirit in the Person of the Father, thereby continuing a certain subordination in that they set up a ‘casual series’ or ‘structure of dependence’ among the Triune Persons, in which the second and third Persons were unequally dependent, or even ‘caused’ by the first Person (although ‘cause’ is being used in a way that precludes any coming into existence out of nothing, for these theologians say that the Son and the Spirit are equally eternal with the Father). Douglas F. Kelly, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, The God Who Is: The Holy Trinity (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2008), p. 540.

Douglas F. Kelly: (b) Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril of Alexandria and Epiphanius
These theologians on the contrary understood the unity of the substance of God to be anchored in the Being of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, rather than in the Person of the Father. Douglas F. Kelly, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, The God Who Is: The Holy Trinity (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2008), p. 542.