Do not delay in coming to grace, but hasten, lest the robber outstrip you, lest the adulterer pass you by, lest the insatiate be satisfied before you, lest the murderer seize the blessing first, or the publican or the fornicator, or any of these violent ones who take the Kingdom of heaven by force (cf. Mt. 11:12). For it suffers violence willingly, and is tyrannized over through goodness.
Gregory of NazianzusWe were made for good works (cf. Phil. 1:11) to the glory and praise of our Maker, and to imitate God as far as might be.
Gregory of NazianzusI cannot think on the one without quickly being encircled by the splendor of the three; nor can I discern the three without being straightway carried back to the one.
Gregory of NazianzusHow is it... that the Son and Holy Spirit are not co-unoriginate with the Father, if they are co-eternal with Him? Because they are from Him, though not after Him. 'Being unoriginate' necessarily implies 'being eternal,' but 'being eternal' does not entail 'being unoriginate,' so long as the Father is referred to as origin. So because They have a cause They are not unoriginate... a cause is not necessarily prior to its effects... Because time is not involved, They are to that extent unoriginate... for the sources of time are not subject to time.
Gregory of NazianzusIf time came before me, time is not before the Word, whose Begetter is atemporal. When the beginningless Father was there, leaving nothing superior to His divinity, then also was there the Father's Son, having in the Father a timeless beginning, like the sun's great circle of overwhelming clear light.
Gregory of Nazianzus