From Gregory’s fifth oration, defending the divinity and consubstantiality of the Spirit: “What was Adam? A creature of God. What then was Eve? A fragment of the creature. And what was Seth? The begotten of both. Does it then seem to you that Creature and Fragment and Begotten are the same thing? Of course it does not. But were not these persons consubstantial? Of course they were. Well then, here it is an acknowledged fact that different persons may have the same substance.”
The image is not perfect, Gregory admits. And the main point is to establish personal distinction and individuation within a single substance. But it is interesting that Gregory, like Basil, resorts to temporal sequences when they attempt to explain the relation of the Persons. While denying that God experiences time, the Cappadocians recognize that temporal succession, generational succession, is a trace of Trinitarian life.
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