Thread by @arg_phd

Okay, 5 thoughts
1. In the interview, David said that the *rational* creation is said to be of the same genos as God (more on this in Point 4 below).
2. Jonathan's right about his passage, but the point here (and in the two parallels) is restricted 1/13

https://twitter.com/jabgreig/status/1613807531079438337

to the *material* creation alone. That is, for Gregory, matter is not of the same genos as God (actually this gets tricky when Gregory solves the puzzle he poses here).
3. Gregory says in various places that rational soul or mind or humanity is akin to & suggene^s to God. 2

E.g. earlier in De anim et res (PG 46 1165) he implies this: "So, since every nature draws its kin, and humanity is somehow akin to God, inasmuch as it bears in itself imitations of the Archetype, the soul is by all necessity drawn to what is divine and of the same kind as it" 3

(Ἐπεὶ οὖν ἑλκτικὴ τῶν οἰκείων πᾶσα φύσις ἐστὶν,
οἰκεῖον δέ πως τῷ Θεῷ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον, ἅτε δὴ φέρον
ἐν ἑαυτῷ τοῦ ἀρχετύπου μιμήματα, ἕλκεται
κατὰ πᾶσαν ἀνάγκην πρὸς τὸ θεῖόν τε καὶ συγγενὲς
ἡ ψυχή.) 4

Another example: De benef. (PG 44 456): "[The demons] are consumed by envy & jealousy that humans will be of the same kind as God after they have fallen out of kinship/affinity with the Good" 5

( φθόνῳ δὲ καὶ βασκανίᾳ τήκονται, εἰ μέλλοιμεν ἄνθρωποι πρὸς τὸν θεὸν συγγενῶς ἔχειν, ἐκείνων ἐκπεσόντων τῆς πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθὸν οἰκειότητος.) 6

Indeed, earlier in the passage Jonathan cites we see that, prima facie, "intellectual [by contrast with material] creation seems somehow not incongruous with the incorporeal nature [i.e. God], but because it is proximate*, it exhibits invisibility, intangibility, and 7

unextendedness, which you wouldn't go wrong in thinking of for the transcendent nature as well. (ἡ μὲν τῶν νοερῶν κτίσις οὐ δοκεῖ πως ἀπᾴδειν τῆς
τοῦ ἀσωμάτου φύσεως, ἀλλ’ ἐκ τοῦ σύνεγγυς* εἶναι τὸ ἀειδές τε καὶ ἀναφὲς καὶ ἀδιάστατον δεικνύουσα.
Ὅπερ 8

δὴ καὶ περὶ τὴν ὑπερκειμένην φύσιν ὑπονοῶν
τις οὐχ ἁμαρτήσεται.) NB, for the word marked with asterisk, one ms reads "of the same genus" (συγγενοῦς). This is related to the general division of reality into intellectual and bodily. 9

According to this division, God, angels, & soul fall on the same side. Sometimes Gregory says the general division of reality is into uncreated and created; in this division, God & soul are not "of the same genus". The two divisions are merely provisional; he switches b/n them 10

4. When DBH spoke of humanity belonging to God's genos, he wasn't directly citing patristic texts. Instead, he drew this from Acts 17:28-29, which says "For in him we live & move & are, as some of your poets too have said. For we indeed are his family/kin (γένος)... 11

Since we are God's family/kin (γένος) . . ." He was just quoting Paul! Here the sense isn't "genus," but "family." To say that X is of Y's family is to assert a much closer bond than that X is of Y's genus, though the former includes the latter. 12

5. I don't have a partisan stake in this fight, but I insist on representing viewpoints accurately. David accurately characterized scripture here (& Gregory). So, maybe we could tone down the accusation that his language is incompatible with orthodoxy? 13/13