Grégoire l’Innovateur ? Tradition et innovation théologiques chez Grégoire de Nazianze

Abstract

Gregory of Nazianzus (330-390) seeked the profession of the Holy Spirit’s divinity to be explicitly inscribed in the official creed. But being non scriptural, this were blamed as an « innovation », a concept whose heavy heresiological meaning hindered the resolution of the pending theological questions splitting the Christians. This paper scrutinizes Gregory’s use of the notion and shows how, carrying on the spirit of Nicea, whose « consubstantial » inaugurated a dogmatic liberated from the bounds of the Letter, he on the contrary justifies dogmatic innovation. He understands the tradition of the baptism instituted by Christ as an implicit trinitarian theology which the Church must protect by making it explicit and proclaiming it through clear dogmatic statements. He furthermore legitimate this dogmatic innovations by regarding them as part of the divine process of the Revelation, or more precisely, as his third historial time, the Spirit’s one. The latter inspires spiritual exegesis, which fulfills the passing from the Law/Letter to the Spirit/spirit in theological matter, revealing above all his own divinity in this way.