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A SELECT LIBRARY

NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

J&econb Series.

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH PROLEGOMENA. AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF

PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D., and HENRY WACE, D.D.,

Professor of Church History in the Union Theological " Principal of King's College,

Srtninary, Neiv York. London.

IN CONNECTION WITH A NUMBER OF PATRISTIC SCHOLARS OF EUROPB

AND AMERICA.

VOLUME V.

GREGORY OF NYSSA :
DOGMATIC TREATISES, ETC.

NEW YORK:

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

1917.
1

THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE COMPANY.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THESE translations from the works of St. Gregory of Nyssa have involved
unusual labour, which the Editor hopes will be accepted as a sufficient apology
!br the delay of the volume. The difficulty has been extreme of conveying with
rorrectness in English the meaning of expressions and arguments which depend
jn some of the most subtle ideas of Greek philosophy and theology ; and, in
addition to the thanks due to the translators, the Editor must offer a special
acknowledgment of the invaluable help he has received from the exact and philo-
sophical scholarship of the Rev. J. H. Lupton, Surmaster of St. Paul's School. He
must renew to Mr. Lupton, with increased earnestness, the expression of gratitude he
had already had occasion to offer in issuing the Translation of St. Athanasius.
From the careful and minute revision which the volume has thus undergone, the
Editor ventures to entertain some hope that the writings of this important
and interesting Father are in this volume introduced to the English reader in a
manner which will enable him to obtain a fair conception of their meaning and
value.

Henry Wace,

Kings College, London, tth November, 189a.

SELECT WRITINGS AND LETTERS

GREGORY, BISHOP OF NYSSA,

TRANSLATED, WITH PROLEGOMENA, NOTES, AND INDICES

WILLIAM MOORE, M.A*

Rector of Appleton,
Late Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford;

AND

HENRY AUSTIN WILSON, M.A.,

Fellow and Librarian of Magdalen College, Oxford.

PREFACE.

That nor* of the Treatises of S. Gregory of Nyssa have hitherto been translated into
English, or even (with one exception long ago) into French, may be partly due to the imperfections,
both in number and quality, of the MSS., and by consequence of the Editions, of the great
majority of them. The state of the MSS., again, may be owing to the suspicion diligently
fostered by the zealous friends of the reputation of this Father, in ages when MSS. could and
should have been multiplied and preserved, that there were large importations into his writings
from the hands of the Origenists — a statement which a very short study of Gregory, whose
thought is atways taking the direction of Origen, would disprove.

This suspicion, while it resulted in throwing doubts upon the genuineness of the entire text,
has so far deprived the current literature of the Church of a great treasure. For there are two
qualities in this Gregory's writings not to be found in the same degree in any other Greek
teacher, namely, a far-reaching use of philosophical speculation (quite apart from allegory) in
bringing out the full meaning of Church doctrines, and Bible truths ; and excellence of style.
With regard to this last, he himself bitterly deplored the days which he had wasted over the
study of style ; but we at all events need not share that regret, if only for this reason, that his
writings thereby show that patristic Greek could rise to the level of the best of its time. It is
not necessarily the thing which it is, too easily, even in other instances, assumed to be. Granted
the prolonged decadence of the language, yet perfects are not aorists, nor aorists perfects,
the middle is a middle, there are classical constructions of the participle, the particles of
transition and prepositions in composition have their full, force in Athanasius ; much more in
Basil ; much more in Gregory. It obscures facts to say that there was good Greek only in the
age of Thucydides. There was good and bad Greek of its kind, in every epoch, as long as
Greek was living. So far for mere syntax. As for adequacy of language, the far wider range of
his subject-matter puts Gregory of Nyssa to a severer test ; but he does not fail under it. What
could be more dignified than his letter to Flavian, or more choice than his description of the
spring, or more richly illustrated than his praises of Contemplation, or more pathetic than his
pleading for the poor? It would have been strange indeed if the Greek language had not
possessed a Jerome of its own, to make it speak the new monastic devotion.

But the labours of J. A. Krabinger, F. Oehler, and G. H. Forbes upon the text, though all
abruptly ended, have helped to repair the neglect of the past. They in this century, as the
scholars of Paris, Ghent, and Basle, though each working with fewer or more imperfect MSS.,
in the sixteenth and seventeenth, have been better friends to Gregory than those who wrote books
in the sixth to defend his orthodoxy, but to depreciate his writings. In this century, too,
Cardinal Mai has rescued still more from oblivion in the Vatican — a slight compensation for all
the materials collected for a Benedictine edition of Gregory, but dispersed in the French
Revolution.

The longest Treatise here translated is that Against Eunomius in 13 Books. The repro-
duction of so much ineffectual fencing in logic over a question which no longer can trouble the
Church might be taken exception to. But should men like Gregory and Basil, pleading for the
spirit and for faith and for mystery against the conclusions of a hard logician, be an indifferent
spectacle to us ? The interest, too, in the contest deepens when we know that their opponent
not only proclaimed himself, but was accepted, as a martyr to the Anomcean cause ; and that
he had large congregations to the very end. The moral force of Arianism was stronger than
ever as its end drew near in the East, because the Homceans were broken up and there was no
more complicity with the court and politics. It was represented by a man who had suffered
and had made no compromises ; and so the life-long work, previous to his, of Valens the bishop
at last bore fruit in conversions ; and the Anomcean teaching came to a head in the easily

viii PREFACE.

understood formula that the 'Ayewritria was the essence of the Father — an idea which in the
1 >ated Creed Valens had repudiated.

What, then, was to be done ? Eunomius seemed by his parade of logic to have dug a gulf
for ever between the Ungenerate and the Generate, in other words between the Father and the
Son. The merit and interest of this Treatise of Gregory consists in showing this logician as
making endless mistakes in his logic ; and then, that anything short of the " eternal generation "
involved unspeakable absurdities or profanities; and lastly, that Eunomius was fighting by
means of distinctions which were the mere result of mental analysis. Already, we see, there
was floating in the air the Conceptualism and Realism of the Middle Ages, invoked for this
last Arian controversy. When Eunomius retorted that this faculty of analysis cannot give the
name of God, and calls his opponents atheists for not recognizing the more than human source
of the term 'AytVvjjros, tne last word of Nicene orthodoxy has to be uttered ; and it is, that
God is really incomprehensible, and that here we can never know His name.

This should have led to a statement of the claims of the Sacraments as placing us in heart
and spirit, but not in mind, in communion with this incomprehensible God. But this would
have been useless with such opponents as the Eunomians. Accuracy of doctrine and clearness
of statement was to them salvation ; mysteries were worse than nothing. Only in the intervals
of the logical battle, and for the sake of the faithful, does Gregory recur to those moral and
spiritual attributes which a true Christianity has revealed in the Deity, and upon which the
doctrine of the Sacraments is built.

Such controversies are repeated now ; /. e. where truths, which it requires a certain state of
the affections to understand, should be urged, but cannot be, on the one side ; and truths which
are logical, or literary, or scientific only, are ranged on the other side ; as an instance, though
in another field, the arguments for and against the results of the " higher criticism " of the Old
Testament exhibit this irreconcilable attitude.

Yet in one respect a great gain must have at once resulted to the Catholic cause from this
long work. The counter opposition of Created and Uncreate, with which Gregory met the
opposition of Generate and Ungenerate, and which, unlike the latter, is a dichotomy founded
on an essential difference, must have helped many minds, distracted with the jargon of Arianism,
to see more clearly the preciousness of the Baptismal Formula, as the casket which contains
the Faith. Indeed, the life-work of Gregory was to defend this Formula.

The Treatise On Virginity is probably the work of his youth ; but none the less Christian
for that Here is done what students of Plato had doubtless long been asking for, /. e. that
his " love of the Beautiful " should be spiritualized. Beginning with a bitter accusation of
marriage, Gregory leaves the reader doubtful in the end whether celibacy is necessary or not
for the contemplative life ; so absorbed he becomes in the task of showing the blessedness of
those who look to the source of all visible beauty. But the result of this seeing is not, as in
Plato, a mere enlightenment as to the real value of these visible things. There are so many
more beautiful things in God than Plato saw ; the Christian revelation has infinitely enriched
the field of contemplation ; and the lover of the beautiful now must be a higher character, and
have a more chastened heart, not only be a more favoured child of light, than others. His
enthusiasm shall be as strong as ever ; but the model is higher now ; and even an Aristotelian
balance of moral extremes is necessary to guide him to the goal of a successful Imitation.

It was right, too, that the Church should possess her Phcedo, or Death-bed Dialogue; and
it is. Gregory who has supplied this in his On the Soul and the Resurrection. But the copy
becomes an original. The dialogue is between a sister and a brother; the one a saintly
Apologist, the other, for argument's sake, a gainsayer, who urges all the pleas of Greek
materialism. Not only the immortality of the soul is discussed, but an exact definition of it
is sought, and that in the light of a truer psychology than Plato's. His "chariot" is given
up ; sensation, as the basis of all thought, is freely recognized ; and yet the passions are firmly
separated from the actual essence of the soul ; further, the " coats of skins " of fallen humanity,
as symbolizing the wrong use of the passions, take the place of the " sea-weed " on the statue of
Glaucus. The grasp of the Christian philosopher of the traits of a perfect humanity, so
conspicuous in his Making of Man, give him an advantage here over the pagan. As for
the Resurrection of the flesh, it was a novel stroke to bring the beliefs of Empedocles,
Pythagoras, Plato, and the later Platonists, into one focus as it were, and to show that the
teaching of those philosophers as to the destinies of the soul recognized the possibility, or even
the necessity, of the reassumption of some body. Grotesque objections to the Christian
Resurrection, such as are urged nowadays, are brought forward and answered in this Treatise.
The appeal to the Saviour, as to the Inspiration of the Old Testament, has raised again a

PREFACE. ix

discussion as to the Two Natures ; and will probably continue to do so. But before the subject
of the " communication of attributes " can be entered upon, we must remember that Christ's
mere humanity (as has been lately pointed out J) is, to begin with, sinless. He was perfect man.
What the attributes of a perfect, as contrasted with a fallen, humanity are, it is not given except
by inference to know ; but no Father has discussed this subject of Adam's nature more fully
than Gregory, in his treatise On the Making of Man.

The reasons for classing the Great Catechism as an Apologetic are given in the Prolegomena :
here from first to last Gregory shows himself a genuine pupil of Origen. The plan of Revela-
tion is made to rest on man's free-will ; every objection to it is answered by the fact of this free-
will. This plan is unfolded so as to cover the whole of human history ; the beginning, the middle,
and the end are linked, in the exposition, indissolubly together. The Incarnation is the turning-
point of history ; and yet, beyond this, its effects are for all Creation. Who made this theology ?
Origen doubtless ; and his philosophy of Scripture, based on a few leading texts, became, one
point excepted, the property of the Church : she at last possessed a Theodicee that borrowed
nothing from Greek ideas. So far, then, every one who used it was an Origenist: and yet
Gregory alone has suffered from this charge. In using this Theodicee he has in some points
surpassed his master, /. e. in showing in details the skilfulness (ootyia) which effected the real
" touching " of humanity ; and how the " touched " soul and the " touched " body shall follow
in the path of the Redeemer's Resurrection.

To the many points of modern interest in this Gregory should be added his eschatology,
which occupies a large share of his thoughts. On Infants' Early Deaths is a witness of this.
In fact, when not occupied in defending, on one side or another, the Baptismal Formula, he is
absorbed in eschatology. He dwells continually on the agonizing and refining processes of
Purgatory. But to claim him as one who favours the doctrine of " Eternal Hope " in a
universal sense is hardly possible, when we consider the passage in On the Soul and the
Resurrection where he speaks of a Last Judgment as coming after the Resurrection
and Purgatory.

So much has been said in a Preface, in order to show that this Volume is a step at least
towards reinstating a most interesting writer, doubtless one of the most highly educated of his
time, and, let it be observed as well, a canonized saint (for, more fortunate than his works, he
was never branded as a heretic), in his true position.

In a first English translation of Treatises and Letters most of which (notably the books against
Eunomius) have never been illustrated by a single translator's note, and by but a handful of
scholia, a few passages remain, which from the obscurity of their allusion, local or historical, are
unexplained. In others the finest shades of meaning in one Greek word, insisted on in some
argument, but which the best English equivalent fails to represent, cause the appearance of
obscurity. But, throughout, the utmost clearness possible without unduly straining the literal
meaning has been aimed at ; and in passages too numerous to name, most grateful acknowledg-
ment is here made of the invaluable suggestions of the Rev. J. H. Lupton.

It is hoped that the Index of Subjects will be of use, in lieu of an analysis, where an
analysis has not been provided. The Index of Texts, all of which have been strictly verified,
while it will be found to piove Gregory's thorough knowledge of Scripture (notwithstanding
his somewhat classical training), does not attempt to distinguish between citation and reminis-
cence ; care, however, has been taken that the reminiscence should be undoubted.

The Index of Greek words (as also the quotations in foot-notes of striking sentences) has
been provided for those interested in the study of later Greek.

W. M.

July, 1892.

' Christut Comprobator, p. 99, sq.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME V.

fAOR

Preface vii

Prolegomena »: —

-~ Chapter I. A Sketch of the Life of Gregory I

II. His general Character as a Theologian 8

III. His Origenism 14

IV. His Teaching on the Holy Trinity (by Rev. H. A. Wilson) 23

V. MSS. and Editions 30

I. Dogmatic Treatises : —

Against Eunomius. P>ook I. Translation with Notes 33

Note on 'Aysi'i'r/roc IOO

Book II. Rev. H. C. Ogle's translation revised, with Notes, by Rev. II. A.

Wilson lot

Books III — TX. Translation with Notes by Rev. H. A. Wilson 135

Books X — XII. Rev. II . C. Ogle's translation revised, with Notes, by Rev. H. A.

Wilson 220

Note on 'Ewivoia . 249

Answer to Eunomius' Second Book. Translation by Rev. M. Day, completed and revised, 'with Notes 250

On the Holy Spirit against Macedonius. A Fragment. Translation with Notes 315

On the Holy Trinity. ") j

On "Not three Gods." > Translation with Notes by Rev. H. A. Wilson 326, 331, 337

v>- On the Faith. )

II. Ascetic and Moral : —

^On Virginity. Translation with Notes 343

On Infants' Early Deaths. Translation with Notes 372

J_^_On Pilgrimages. Translation with Notes 382

III. Philosophical : —

On the Making of Man. Translation with Notes by Rev. H. A. Wilson 387

£^«On the Soul and the Resurrection. Analysis, Translation and Notes 428

IV. Apologetic :—

The Great Catechism. Summary, Translation and Notes.

471

Oratorical : —

On Meletius. Translation with Notes 513

On the Baptism of Christ: A Sermon. Translation with Notes by Rev. H. A. Wilson 518

VI. Letters. Translation with Notes

I To Eusebius. Rev. H. C. Ogle's translation.

2. To the City Sebasteia. do.

3. To Ablabius. do.
To Cynegius. do.
A Testimonial. do.
To Stagirius. do.
To a Friend. do.
To a Student of the Classics, do.
An Invitation. do.
To Libanius. do. *

527

5
6

7
8,

9
10

11. To Libanius. Rev. H. C. Ogle's translation.

12. On his Work against Eunomius. do.

13. To the Church at Nicomedia. do.

14. To the Bishop of Melitene. do.

15. To Adelphius the Lawyer. By Rev. H. A. Wilson.

16. To Amphilochius. do.

17. To Eustathia, Ambrosia, and Basilica.

By Rev. W. Moore.

18. To Flavian. do.

Appendix. List of remaining Treatises and Editions 549

Indices : — General 553

Of Scripture;- cited 561

Of Greek words discussed 566

1 The Chapters, Translations, Notes, Analysis, &c, are by Rev. W. Moore, except where otherwise stated.

WORKS ON ANALYTICAL CRITICISM, HISTORY, AND
BIBLIOGRAPHY, CONSULTED.

Rupp (Dr. Julius), Gregors des Bischofs von Nyssa Leben und Meinungen. Leipzig, 1834.

Moller (E. W.) Gregori Nysseni doctrinam de hominis natural et illustravit et cum OrigenianA

comparavit. Halle, 1854.
Denys (J.), De la Philosophic d'Orige'ne. Paris, 1884.

Dorner (Dr. J. A.), Doctrine of the Person of Christ. Clark's English translation. Edinburgh.
Heyns (S. P.), Disputatio Historico-Theologica de Gregorio Nysseno. Leyden, 1835.
Alzog (Dr. J.), Handbuch d. Patrologie. 3rd ed. 1876.

Ceillier (Re"mi), Histoire Gdnerale des Auteurs Sacrds et Eccle"siastiques. Paris, 1858 sqq.
Tillemont (Louis Sebastien Le Nain De), Mdmoires pour servir a l'Histoire Eccle"siastique des six

premiers Siecles, Vol. IX. Paris, 1693-17 12.
Fabricius (J. A.), Bibliotheca Graeca. Hamburg, 1718-28.
Prolegomena to the Paris edition of all Gregory's Works, with notes by Father Fronto Du Due,

1638.
Cave (Dr. W.), Historia Literaria. London, 1688. (Oxford, 1740.)
Du Pin (Dr. L. E.) Library of Ecclesiastical Authors. Paris, 1686.
Fessler (Joseph), Institutiones Patrologiae : Dr. B. Jungmann's edition. Innsbruck, 189a

DATES OF TREATISES, &C, HERE TRANSLATED.
{Based on Heyns and Rupp.)

331. Gregory born.

360. Letters x. xi. xv.

361. Julian's edict. Gregory gives up rhetoric*

362. Gregory in his brother's monastery.

363. Letter vi. (probably).

368. On Virginity.

369. Gregory elected a Reader.

372. Gregory elected Bishop of Nyssa early in this year.

374. Gregory is exiled under Valens.

375. On the Faith. On " Not three Gods."

376. Letters vii. xiv. On the Baptism of Christ,

377. Against Macedonius.

378. Gregory returns to his See. Letter Hi.

379. On Pilgrimages^
Letter ii.

380. On the Soul and the Resurrection.
On the Making of Man.

On the Holy Trinity.

381. Gregory present at the Second Council. Oration on Meletiut.
382-3. Against Eunomius, Books I — XII.

Letter to Eustathia.

383. Present at Constantinople. Letter xii.

384. Answer to Eunomius1 Second Book.

385. The Great Catechism.

386. Letter xiii.
390. Letter iv.

393. Letter to Flavian.

394. Present for Synod at Constantinople.

395. On Injants1 Early Deaths.

I Rupp places this after the Council of Constantinople, 381.
Letters i. . v., via., be., xvi. are also probably after 381.

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THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

CHAPTER I.
A Sketch of the Life of S. Gregory of Nyssa,

In the roll of the Nicene Fathers there is no more honoured name than that of Gregory of
Nyssa. Besides the praises of his great brother Basil and of his equally great friend Gregory
Nazianzen, the sanctity of his life, his theological learning, and his strenuous advocacy of the
faith embodied in the Nicene clauses, have received the praises of Jerome, Socrates,
Theodoret, and many other Christian writers. Indeed such was the estimation in which he
was held that some did not hesitate to call him 'the Father of Fathers' as well as ' the Star
of Nyssa.*.'

Gregory of Nyssa was equally fortunate in his country, the name he bore, and the family
which produced him. He ,was a native of Cappadocia, and was born most probably at
Caesarea, the capital, about a.d. 335 or 336. No province of the Roman Empire had in those
early ages received more eminent Christian bishops than Cappadocia and the adjoining district
of Pontus.

In the previous century the great prelate Firmilian, the disciple and friend of Origen, who
visited him at his See, had held the Bishopric of Caesarea. In the same age another saint,
Gregory Thaumaturgus, a friend also and disciple of Origen, was bishop of Neo-Caesarea in
^or'us. During the same century, too, no less than four other Gregories shed more or less
lusue on bishoprics in that country. The family of Gregory of Nyssa was one of considerable
wealth and distinction, and one also conspicuously Christian.

During the Diocletian persecution his grandparents had fled for safety to the mountainous
region of Pontus, where they endured great hardships and privations. It is said that his
maternal grandfather, whose name is unknown, eventually lost both life and property. After
a retirement of some few years the family appear to have returned and settled at Caesarea in
Cappadocia, or else at Neo- Caesarea in Pontus, for there is some uncertainty in the account.

Gregory's father, Basil, who gave his name to his eldest son, was known as a rhetorician.
He died at a comparatively early age, leaving a family of ten children, five of whom were
boys and five girls, under the care of their grandmother Macrina and mother Emmelia.
Both of these illustrious ladies were distinguished for the earnestness and strictness of their
Christian principles, to which the latter added the charm of great personal beauty.

All the sons and daughters appear to have been of high character, but it is only of four
sons and one daughter that we have any special record. The daughter, called Macrina, from
her grandmother, was the angel in the house of this illustrious family. She shared with her
grandmother and mother the care and education of all its younger members. Nor was there

1 'O ruv HaT^puv HaTTJp ; 6 ru>v JWaaeW ^wtrnjp, Council. Nic II. Act. VI. Edition of Labbe. p. 477.— Nicephor. Callivr.
H.E. xi. 19.

VOL. V. R

PROLEGOMENA.

one of them who did not owe to her religious influence their settlement in the faith and con-
sistency of Christian conduct

This admirable woman had been betrothed in early life, but her intended husband died ot
fever. She permitted herself to contract no other alliance, but regarded herself as still united
(to her betrothed in the other world. She devoted herself to a religious life, and eventually,
with her mother Emmelia, established a female conventual society on the family property in
Pontus, at a place called Annesi, on the banks of the river Iris.

It was owing to her persuasions that her brother Basil also gave up the worldly life, and
retired to lead the devout life in a wild spot in the immediate neighbourhood of Annesi.
Here for a while he was an hermit, and here he persuaded his friend Gregory Nazianzen to
join him. They studied together the works of Origen, and published a selection of extracts
from his Commentaries, which they called " Philocalia." By the suggestions of a friend Basil
enlarged his idea,, and converted his hermit's seclusion into a monastery, which eventually
became the centre of many others which sprung up in that district.

His inclination for the monastic life had been greatly influenced by his acquaintance with
the Egyptian monks, who had impressed him with the value S)t their system as an aid to a life
of religious devotion. He had visited also the hermit saints of Syria and Arabia, and learnt
from them the practice of a severe asceticism, which both injured his health and shortened
his days.

Gregory of Nyssa was the third son, and one of the youngest of the family. He had an
•elder brother, Nectarius, who followed the profession of their father, and became rhetorician,
and like him died early. He had also a younger brother, Peter, who became bishop of
Sebaste.

Besides the uncertainty as to the year and place of his birth it is not known where he
received his education. From the weakness of his health and delicacy of his constitution, it
was most probably at home- It is interesting, in the case of one so highly educated, to know
who, in consequence of his father's early death, took charge of his merely intellectual bringing
up : and his own words do not leave us in any doubt that, so far as he had a teacher, it was
Basil, his senior by several years. He constantly speaks of him as the revered ' Master : '
to take but one instance, he says in his Hexaemeron (ad init.) that all that will be striking in that
work will be due to Basil, what is inferior will be the ' pupil's.' Even in the matter of style,
he says in a letter written in early life to Libanius that though he enjoyed his brother's society
but a short time yet Basil was the author of his oratory (\6yov) : and it is safe to conclude that
he was introduced to all that Athens had to teach, perhaps even to medicine, by Basil : for
Basil had been at Athens. On the other hand we can have no difficulty in crediting his
mother, of whom he always spoke with the tenderest affection, and his admirable sister
Macrina, with the care of his religious teaching. Indeed few could be more fortunate than
■Gregory in the influences of home. If, as there is every reason to believe, the grandmother
Macrina survived Gregory's early childhood, then, like Timothy, he was blest with the religious
instruction of another Lois and Eunice.

In this chain of female relationship it is difficult to say which link is worthier of note,
grandmother, mother, or daughter. Of the first, Basil, who attributes his early religious
impressions to his grandmother, tells us that as a child she taught him a Creed, which had
been drawn up for the use of the Church of Neo-Caesarea by Gregory Thaumaturgus. This
Creed, it is said, was revealed to the Saint in a vision. It has been translated by Bishop Bull
in his " Fidei Nicaenae Defensio." In its language and spirit it anticipates the Creed of
Constantinople.

Certain it is that Gregory had not the benefit of a residence at Athens, or of foreign
travel. It might have given him a strength of character and width of experience, in which
he was certainly deficient. His shy and retiring disposition induced him to remain at home

A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF S. GREGORY OF NY.SSA. 3

without choosing a profession, living on his share of the paternal property, and educating
himself by a discipline of his own.

He remained for years unbaptized. And this is a very noticeable circumstance which
meets us in the lives of many eminent Saints ami Bishops of the Church. They either delayed
baptism themselves, or it was delayed for them. Indeed there are instances of Bishops
baptized and consecrated the same day.

Gregory's first inclination or impulse to make a public profession of Christianity is said
to have been due to a remarkable dream or vision.

His mother Emmelia, at her retreat at Annesi, urgently entreated him to be present and
take part in a religious ceremony in honour of the Forty Christian Martyrs. He had gone
unwillingly, and wearied with his journey and the length of the service, which lasted far into
the night, he lay down and fell asleep in the garden. He dreamed that the Martyrs appeared
to him and, reproaching him for his indifference, beat him with rods. On awaking he was
filled with remorse, and hastened to amend his past neglect by earnest entreaties for mercy and
forgiveness. Under the influence of the terror which his dream inspired he consented to
undertake the office of reader in the Church, which of course implied a profession of
Christianity. But some unfitness, and, perhaps, that love of eloquence which clung to him
to the last, soon led him to give up the office, and adopt the profession of a rhetorician or
advocate. For this desertion of a sacred for a secular employment he is taken severely to
task by his brother Basil and his friend Gregory Nazianzen. The latter does not hesitate to
charge him with being influenced, not by conscientious scruples, but by vanity and desire
of public display, a charge not altogether consistent with his character.

Here it is usual to place the marriage of Gregory with Theosebeia, said to have been
a sister of Gregory Nazianzen. Certainly the tradition of Gregory's marriage received such
credit as to be made in after times a proof of the non-celibacy of the Bishops of his age.
But it rests mainly on two passages, which taken separately are not in the least conclusive.
The first is the ninety-fifth letter of Gregory Nazianzen, written to console for a certain loss by
death, i. e. of " Theosebeia, the fairest, the most lustrous even amidst such beauty of the
dSeXQoi ; Theosebeia, the true priestess, the yokefellow and the equal of a priest." J. Rupphas
well pointed out that the expression ' yokefellow ' (o-vCvyov), which has been insisted as meaning
'wife,' may, especially in the language of Gregory Nazianzen, be equivalent to d8e\<p6s. He
sees in this Theosebeia ' a sister of the Cappadocian brothers.' The second passage is
contained in the third cap. of Gregory's treatise On Virginity. Gregory there complains that
he is "cut off by a kind of gulf from this glory of virginity" (napOevla). The whole passage
should be consulted. Of course its significance depends on the meaning given to napdevla.
Rupp asserts that more and more towards the end of the century this word acquired a technical
meaning derived from the purely ideal side, i. e. virginity of soul : and that Gregory is alluding
to the same thing that his friend had not long before blamed him for, the keeping of a school
for rhetoric, where his object had been merely worldly reputation, and the truly ascetic career
had been marred (at the time he wrote). Certainly the terrible indictment of marriage in the
third cap. of this treatise comes ill from one whose wife not only must have been still living,
but possessed the virtues sketched in the letter of Gregory Nazianzen : while the allusions at
the end of it to the law-courts and their revelations appear much more like the professional
reminiscence of a rhetorician who must have been familiar with them, than the personal com-
plaint of one who had cause to depreciate marriage. The powerful words of Basil, de Virgin.
I. 6ro, a. b., also favour the above view of the meaning of napdevla: and Gregory elsewhere
distinctly calls celibacy napdevla roi o-apaTos, and regards it as a means only to this higher
napdfvia (III. 131). But the two passages above, when combined, may have led to the
tradition of Gregory's marriage. Nicephorus Callistus, for example, who first makes mention
of it, must have put upon napdevla the interpretation of his own time (thirteenth century,)

b 2

PROLEGOMENA.

i. e. that of continence. Finally, those who adopt this tradition have still to account for the
fact that no allusion to Theosebeia as his wife, and no letter to her, is to be found in Gregory's
numerous writings. It is noteworthy that the Benedictine editors of Gregory Nazianzen
(ad Epist. 95) also take the above view.

His final recovery and conversion to the Faith, of which he was always after 30 strenuous an
asserter, was due to her who, all things considered, was the master spirit of the family. By
the powerful persuasions of his sister Macrina, at length, after much struggle, he altered entirely
his way of life, severed himself from all secular occupations, and retired to his brother's
monastery in the solitudes of Pontus, a beautiful spot, and where, as we have seen, his mother
and sister had established, in the immediate neighbourhood, a similar association for women.

Here, then, Gregory was settled for several years, and devoted himself to the study of the
Scripture and the works of his master Origen. Here, too, his love of natural scenery was
deepened so as to find afterwards constant and adequate expression. For in his writings we
have in large measure that sentiment of delight in the beauty of nature of which, even when
it was felt, the traces are so few and far between in the whole range of Greek literature.
A notable instance is the following from the Letter to Adelphus, written long afterwards : —
" The gifts bestowed upon the spot by Nature, who beautifies the earth with an impromptu
grace, are such as these : below, the river Halys makes the place fair to look upon
with his banks, and glides like a golden ribbon through their deep purple, reddening his
current with the soil he washes down. Above, a mountain densely overgrown with wood
stretches, with its long ridge, covered at all points with the foliage of oaks, more worthy of
finding some Homer to sing its praises than that Ithacan Neritus which the poet calls ' far-seen
with quivering leaves.' But the natural growth of wood as it comes down the hill-side meets
at the foot the plantations of human husbandry. For forthwith vines, spread out over the
slopes and swellings and hollows at the mountain's base, cover with their colour, like a green
mantle, all the lower ground : and the season also was now adding to their beauty with a
display of magnificent grape-clusters." Another is from the treatise On Infants' Early Deaths :
— " Nay look only at an ear of corn, at the germinating of some plant, at a ripe bunch of grapes,
at the beauty of early autumn whether in fruit or flower, at the grass springing unbidden, at the
mountain reaching up with its summit to the height of the ether, at the springs of the lower
ground bursting from its flanks in streams like milk, and running in rivers through the glens, at
the sea receiving those streams from every direction and yet remaining within its limits with
waves edged by the stretches of beach, and never stepping beyond those fixed boundaries :
and how can the eye of reason fail to find in them all that our education for Realities
requires ? " The treatise On Virginity was the fruit of this life in Basil's monastery.

Henceforward the fortunes of Gregory are more closely linked with those of his great brother
Basil.

About a. d. 365 Basil was summoned from his retirement to act as coadjutor to Eusebius, the
Metropolitan of Caesarea in Cappadocia, and aid him in repelling the assaults of the Arian faction
on the Faith. In these assaults the Arians were greatly encouraged and assisted by the proclivities
of the Emperor Valens. After some few years of strenuous and successful resistance, and the
endurance of great persecution from the Emperor and his Court, a persecution which indeed
pursued him through life, Basil is called by the popular voice, on the death of Eusebius,
a. d. 370, to succeed him in the See. His election is vehemently opposed, but after much
turmoil is at length accomplished.

To strengthen himself in his position, and surround himself with defenders of the orthodox
Faith, he obliges his brother Gregory, in spite of his emphatic protest, to undertake the
Bishopric of Nyssa *, a small town in the west of Cappadocia. When a friend expressed his

surprise that he had chosen so obscure a place for such a man as Gregory, he replied, that

— — 1— — ' #

1 Now Nirse. . -

A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF S. GREGORY OF NYSSA. 5

he did not desire his brother to receive distinction from the name of his See, but rather to
confer distinction upon it.

It was with the same feeling, and by the exercise of a like masterful will, that he forced upon
his friend Gregory Nazianzen the Bishopric of a still more obscure and unimportant place,
called Sasima. But Gregory highly resented the nomination, which unhappily led to a life-
long estrangement.

It was about this time, too, that a quarrel had arisen between Basil and their uncle,
another Gregory, one of the Cappadocian Bishops. And here Gregory of Nyssa gave
a striking proof of the extreme simplicity and unrefiectiveness of his character, which without
guileful intent yet led him into guile. Without sufficient consideration he was induced to
practise a deceit which was as irreconcileable with Christian principle as with common sense.
In his endeavours to set his brother and uncle at one, when previous efforts had been in vain,
he had recourse to an extraordinary method. He forged a letter, as if from their uncle, to
Basil, earnestly entreating reconciliation. The inevitable discovery of course only widened
the breach, and drew down on Gregory his brother's indignant condemnation. The recon-
ciliation, however, which Gregory hoped for, was afterwards brought about.

Nor was this the only occasion on which Gregory needed Basil's advice and reproof, and
protection from the consequences of his inexperienced zeal. After he had become Bishop of
Nyssa, with a view to render assistance to his brother he promoted the summoning of Synods.
But Basil's wider experience told him that no good would come of such assemblies under
existing circumstances. Besides which he had reason to believe that Gregory would be made
the tool of factious and designing men. He therefore discouraged the attempt. At another
time Basil had to interpose his authority to prevent his brother joining in a mission to Rome
to invite the interference of Pope Damasus and the Western Bishops in the settlement of the
troubles at Antioch in consequence of the disputed election to the See. Basil had himself
experience of the futility of such application to Rome, from the want of sympathy in the Pope
and the Western Bishops with the troubles in the East. Nor would he, by such application,
give a handle for Rome's assertion of supremacy, and encroachment on the independence of
the Eastern Church. The Bishopric of Nyssa was indeed to Gregory no bed of roses. Sad
was the contrast to one of his gentle spirit, more fitted for studious retirement and monastic
calm than for controversies which did not end with the pen, between the peaceful leisure of his
retreat in Pontus and the troubles and antagonisms of his present position. The enthusiasm
of his faith on the subject of the Trinity and the Incarnation brought upon him the full weight
of Arian and Sabellian hostility, aggravated as it was by the patronage of the Emperor. In
fact his whole life at Nyssa was a series of persecutions.

A charge of uncanonical irregularity in his ordination is brought up against him by certain
Arian Bishops, and he is summoned to appear and answer them at a Synod at Ancyra. To
this was added the vexation of a prosecution by Demosthenes, the Emperor's chef de cuisine,
on a charge of defalcation in the Church funds.

A band of soldiers is sent to fetch him to the Synod. The fatigue of the journey, and
the rough treatment of his conductors, together with anxiety of mind, produce a fever which
prevents his attendance. His brother Basil comes to his assistance. He summons anothei
Synod of orthodox Cappadocian Bishops, who dictate in their joint names a courteous letter,
apologising for Gregory's absence from the Synod of Ancyra, and proving the falsehood of the
charge of embezzlement At the same time he writes to solicit the interest of Astorgus,
a person of considerable influence at the Court, to save his brother from the indignity of being
dragged before a secular tribunal.

Apparently the application was unsuccessful, Demosthenes now obtains the holding
another Synod at Gregory's own See of Nyssa, where he is summoned to answer the same
charges. Gregory refuses to attend. He is consequently pronounced contumacious, and

PROLEGOMENA.

deposed from his Bishopric. His deposition is followed immediately by a decree of banish-
ment from the Emperor, a.d. 376. He retires to Seleucia. But his banishment did not
secure him from the malice and persecution of his enemies. He is obliged frequently to
shift his quarters, and is subjected to much bodily discomfort and suffering. From the
consoling answers of his friend Gregory of Nazianzen (for his own letters are lost), we learn
the crushing effects of all these troubles upon his gentle and sensitive spirit, and the
deep despondency into which he had fallen.

At length there is a happier turn of affairs. The Emperor Valens is killed, a.d. 378, and
with him Arianism 'vanished in the crash of Hadrianople.' He is succeeded by Gratian, the
friend and disciple of St. Ambrose. The banished orthodox Bishops are restored to their Sees,
and Gregory returns to Nyssa. In 2 one of his letters, most probably to his brother Basil, he
gives a graphic description of the popular triumph with which his return was greeted.

But the joy of his restoration is overshadowed by domestic sorrows. His great brother,
to whom he owed so much, soon after dies, ere he is 50 years of age, worn out by his
unparalleled toils and the severity of his ascetic life. Gregory celebrated his death in a sincere
panegyric. Its high-flown style is explained by the rhetorical fashion of the time. The
same year another sorrow awaits him. After a separation of many years he revisits his sister
Macrina, at her convent in Pontus, but only to find her on her death-bed. We have an
interesting and graphic account of the scene between Gregory and his dying sister. To the last
this admirable woman appears as the great teacher of her family. She supplies her brother with
arguments for, and confirms his faith in, the resurrection of the dead ; and almost reproves him
for the distress he felt at her departure, bidding him, with St. Paul, not to sorrow as those
who had no hope. After her decease an inmate of the convent, named Vestiana, brought to
Gregory a ring, in which was a piece of the true Cross, and an iron cross, both of which were
found on the body when laying it out. One Gregory retained himself, the other he gave to
Vestiana. He buried his sister in the chapel at Annesi, in which her parents and her
brother Naucratius slept.

From henceforth the labours of Gregory have a far more extended range. He steps into
the place vacated by the death of Basil, and takes foremost rank among the defenders of the
Faith of Nicaea. He is not, however, without trouble still from the heretical party. Certain
Galatians had been busy in sowing the seeds of their heresy among his own people. He is
subjected, too, to great annoyance from the disturbances which arose out of the wish of the
people of Ibera in Pontus to have him as their Bishop. In that early age of the Church
election to a Bishopric, if not dependent on the popular voice, at least called forth the ex-
pression of much popular feeling, like a contested election amongst ourselves. This often
led to breaches of the peace, which required military intervention to suppress them, as it
appears to have done on this occasion.

But the reputation of Gregory is now so advanced, and the weight of his authority as an
eminent teacher so generally acknowledged, that we find him as one of the Prelates at the
Synod of Antioch assembled for the purpose of healing the long-continued schisms in that
distracted See. By the same Synod Gregory is chosen to visit and endeavour to reform the
Churches of Arabia and Babylon, which had fallen into a very corrupt and degraded state.
He gives a lamentable account of their condition, as being beyond all his powers of reforma-
tion. On this same journey he visits Jerusalem and its sacred scenes : it has been con-
jectured that the Apollinarian heresy drew him thither. Of the Church of Jerusalem
he can give no better account than of those he had already visited. He expresses himself
as greatly scandalized at the conduct of the Pilgrims who visited the Holy City on the
plea of religion. Writing to three ladies, whom he had known at Jerusalem, he takes occasion,
from what he had witnessed there, to speak of the uselessness of pilgrimages as any aids to

2 Epist. 1 1 1. (Zac.igni's collection).

A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF S. GREGORY OF NYSSA. 7

reverence and faith, and denounces in the strongest terms the moral dangers to which all
pilgrims, especially women, are exposed.

This letter is so condemnatory of what was a common and authorized practice of the
mediaeval Church that 3 Divines of the Latin communion have endeavoured, but in vain, to
deny its authenticity.

The name and character of Gregory had now reached the Imperial Court, where Theo-
dosius had lately succeeded to the Eastern Empire. As a proof of the esteem in which he
was then held, it is said that in his recent journey to Babylon and the Holy Land he travelled
with carriages provided for him by the Emperor.

Still greater distinction awaits him. He is one of the hundred and fifty Bishops
summoned by Theodosius to the second (Ecumenical Council, that of Constantinople,
a.d. 381. To the assembled Fathers he brings an * instalment of his treatise against the
Eunomian heresy, which he had written in defence of his brother Basil's positions, on the subject
of the Trinity and the Incarnation. This he first read to his friend Gregory Nazianzen, Jerome,
and others. Such was the influence he exercised in the Council that it is said, though this
is very doubtful, that the explanatory clauses added to the Nicene Creed are due to him.
Certain, however, it is that he delivered the inaugural address, which is not extant ; further
that he preached the funeral oration, which has been preserved, on the death of Meletius,
of Antioch, the first President of the Council, who died at Constantinople ; also that he
preached at the enthronement of Gregory Nazianzen in the capital. This oration has perished.

Shortly before the close of the Council, by a Constitution of the Emperor, issued from
Heraclea, Gregory is nominated as one of the Bishops who were to be regarded as the central
authorities of Catholic Communion. In other words, the primacy of Rome or Alexandria
in the East was to be replaced by that of other Sees, especially Constantinople. Helladius
of Caesarea was to be Gregory's colleague in his province. The connexion led to a misunder-
standing. As to the grounds of this there is much uncertainty. The account of it is entirely
derived from Gregory himself in his Letter to Flavian, and from his great namesake. Possibly
there were faults on both sides.

We do not read of Gregory being at the Synod, a.d. 382, which followed the great Council
of Constantinople. But we find him present at the Synod held the following year.

This same year we have proof of the continued esteem and favour shown him by the
Imperial Court. He is chosen to pronounce the funeral oration on the infant Princess
Pulcheria. And not long after that also on the death of the Empress Flaccilla, or Placidia,
herself. This last was a magnificent eulogy, but one, according to Tillemont, even surpassed
by that of Theodoret. This admirable and holy woman, a saint of the Eastern Church, fully
warranted all the praise that could be bestowed upon her. If her husband Theodosius did not
owe his conversion to Christianity to her example and influence, he certainly did his adherence
to the true Faith. It is one of the subjects of Gregory's praise of her that by her persuasion
the Emperor refused to give an interview to the ' rationalist of the fourth century,' Eunomius.

Scarcely anything is known of the latter years of Gregory of Nyssa's life. The last record
we have of him is that he was present at a Synod of Constantinople, summoned a.d. 394,
by Rufinus, the powerful praefect of the East, under the presidency of Nectarius. The rival
claims to the See of Bostra in Arabia had to be then settled ; but perhaps the chief reason for
summoning this assembly was to glorify the consecration of Rufinus' new Church in the
suburbs. It was there that Gregory delivered the sermon which was probably his last, wrongly
entitled ' On his Ordination: His words, which heighten the effect of others then preached,
are humbly compared to the blue circles painted on the new walls as a foil to the gilded dome
above. " The whole breathes a calmer and more peaceful spirit ; the deep sorrow over heretics

3 Notably Bellarniine : Gretser. the Jesuit, against the Calvinist Molino.

4 See Note i to the Introductory Letter to the Treatise.

8 PROLEGOMENA.

who forfeit the blessings of the Spirit changes only here and there into the flashes of a short-
lived indignation." (J. Rupp.)

The prophecy of Basil had come true. Nyssa was ennobled by the name of its bishop
appearing on the roll of this Synod, between those of the Metropolitans of Caesarea and
Iconium. Even in outward rank he is equal to the highest. The character of Gregory could
not be more justly drawn than in the words of Tillemont (IX. p. 269). " Autant en effet, qu' on
peutjugerde lui par ses ecrits, c'etoit un esprit doux, bon, facile, qui avec beaucoup d'elevation
et de lumiere, avoit neanmois beaucoup de simplicite et de candeur, qui aimoit plus le repos
que Taction, et le travail du cabinet que le tumulte des affaires, qui avec cela etoit sans faste,
dispose & estimer et it louer les autres et a se mettre a dessous d'eux. Mais quoiqu' il ne cher-
chat que le repos, nous avons vu que son zele pour ses freres l'avoit souvent engage 4 de
grands travaux, et que Dieu avait honore sa simplicite en le faisant regarder comme le maitre,
le docteur, le pacificateur et l'arbitre des eglises."

His death (probably 395) is commemorated by the Greek Church on January 10, by the
Latin on March 9.

CHAPTER II.
His General Character as a Theologian.

" The first who sought to establish by rational considerations the whole complex of
orthodox doctrines." So Ueberweg (History of Philosophy, p. 326) of Gregory of Nyssa.
This marks the transition from ante-Nicene times. Then, at all events in the hands of Origen,
philosophy was identical with theology. Now, that there is a ' complex of orthodox doctrines'
to defend, philosophy becomes the handmaid of theology. Gregory, in this respect, has done
the most important service of any of the writers of the Church in the fourth century. He treats
each single philosophical view only as a help to grasp the formulae of faith ; and the truth of
that view consists with him only in its adaptability to that end. Notwithstanding strong
speculative leanings he does not defend orthodoxy either in the fashion of the Alexandrian
school or in the fashion of some in modern times, who put forth a system of philosophy to
which the dogmas of the Faith are to be accommodated.

If this be true, the question as to his attitude towards Plato, which is one of the first that
suggests itself, is settled. Against polytheism he does indeed seek to defend Christianity by
connecting it apologetically with Plato's system. This we cannot be surprised at, considering
that the definitions of the doctrines of the Catholic Church were formed in the very place
where the last considerable effort of Platonism was made ; but he by no means makes the
New Life in any way dependent on this system of philosophy. " We cannot speculate," he
says {De Anim. et Resurrect.), . . . "we must leave the Platonic car." But still when he is
convinced that Plato will confirm doctrine he will, even in polemic treatises, adopt his view ;
for instance, he seeks to grasp the truth of the Trinity from the Platonic account of our internal
consciousness, i.e. ^vx*), Xo'yot, vois ; because such a proof from consciousness is, to Gregory,
the surest and most reliable.

The " rational considerations," then, by which Gregory would have established Christian
doctrine are not necessarily drawn from the philosophy of the time : nor, further, does he seek
to rationalize entirely all religious truth. In fact he resigns the hope of comprehending the
Incarnation and all the- great articles. This is the very thing that distinguishes the Catholic
from the Eunomian. " Receiving the fact we leave untampered with the manner of the crea-
tion of the Universe, as altogether secret and inexplicable '." With a turn resembling the view
of Tertullian, he comes back to the conclusion that for us after all Religious Truth consists in
mystery. " The Church possesses the means of demonstrating these things : or rather,

1 Cp. Or. Cat. c. xL

HIS GENERAL CHARACTER AS A THEOLOGIAN.

she has faith, which is surer than demonstration I." He developes the truth of the Resur-
rection as much by the fulfilment of God's promises as by metaphysics : and it has been
considered as one of the proofs that the treatise What is being 'in the image of God'? is
not his that this subordination of philosophical proof to the witness of the Holy Spirit is not
preserved in it

Nevertheless there was a large field, larger even than in the next century, in which ration-
alizing was not only allowable, but was even required of him. In this there are three questions
which Gregory has treated with particular fulness and originality. They are: — i. Evil;
2. The relation between the ideal and the actual Man ; 3. Spirit.

I. He takes, to begin with, Origen's view of evil. Virtue and Vice are not opposed to
each other as two Existencies : but as Being is opposed to not-Being. Vice exists only as an
absence. But how did this arise?

In answering this question he seems sometimes to come very near Manicheism, and his
writings must be read very carefully, in order to avoid fixing upon him the groundless charge
that he leaves evil in too near connexion with Matter. But the passages 2 which give rise to
this charge consist of comparisons found in his homilies and meditations ; just as a modern
theologian might in such works make the Devil the same as Sin and Death. The only
imperfection in his view is that he is unable 3 to regard evil as not only suffered but even
per?nitted by God. But this imperfection is inseparable from his time : for Manicheism was
too near and its opposition too little overcome for such a view to be possible for him ; he
could not see that it is the only one able thoroughly to resist Dualism.

Evil with Gregory is to be found in the spontaneous proclivity of the soul towards Matter:
but not in Matter itself. Matter, therefore, in his eschatology is not to be burnt up and
annihilated : only soul and body have to be refined, as gold (this is a striking comparison)
is refined. He is very clear upon the relations between the three factors, body, matter, and
eviL He represents the mind as the mirror of the Archetypal Beauty : then below the mind
comes body (</>u«n?) which is connected with mind and pervaded by it, and when thus trans-
figured and beautified by it becomes itself the mirror of this mirror : and then this body in its
turn influences and combines Matter. The Beauty of the Supreme Being thus penetrates
all things : and as long as the lower holds on to the higher all is well. But if a rupture occurs
anywhere, then Matter, receiving no longer influence from above, reveals its own deformity,
and imparts something of it to body and, through that, to mind : for matter is in itself
1 a. shapeless unorganized thing *.' Thus the mind loses the image of God. But evil began
when the rupture was made : and what caused that ? When and how did the mind become
separated from God ?

Gregory answers this question by laying it down as a principle, that everything created
is subject to change. The Uncreate Being is changeless, but Creation, since its very beginning
was owing to a change, i.e. a calling of the non-existent into existence, is liable to alter.
Gregory deals here with angelic equally as with human nature, and with all the powers in both,
especially with the will, whose virtual freedom he assumes throughout. That, too, was
created ; therefore that, too, could change.

It was possible, therefore, that, first, one of the created spirits, and, as it actually happened,
he who was entrusted with the supervision of the earth, should choose to turn his eyes away
from the Good ; he thus looked at a lower good ; and so began to be envious and to have nadrj.
All evil followed in a chain from this beginning ; according to the principle that the beginning
of anything is the cause of all that follows in its train.

• In verba ifaciamus hominem,' I. p. 14a I of the earth, so that the thought great in wickedness should vanish,

2 De Per/. Christiani Forma, III. p. 294, he calls the ' Prince of
darkness ' the author of sin and death : In Christi Resurrect. III.
p. 386, he calls Satan ' the heart of the earth : ' and p. 387 identifies
him with sin, 'And so the real wisdom visits that arrogant heart

and the darkness should be lightened, &c.'

3 As expressed by S. Thomas Aquinas Summ. I. Qu. xix. Art. 9,
Deo nee nolente, nee volente, sed permittente. . . . Deus neque vult
fieri, neque vult non fieri, sed vult permittere mala fieri.

4 De Virginit. c. xi.

io PROLEGOMENA.

So the Devil fell : and the proclivity to evil was introduced into the spiritual world. Man,
however, still looked to God and was filled with blessings (this is the ' ideal man ' of Gregory).
But as when the flame has got hold of a wick one cannot dim its light by means of the flame
itself, but only by mixing water with the oil in the wick, so the Enemy effected the weakening
of God's blessings in man by cunningly mixing wickedness in his will, as he had mixed it in
his own. From first to last, then, evil lies in the irpoatptats and in nothing else.

God knew what would happen and suffered it, that He might not destroy our freedom,
the inalienable heritage of reason and therefore a portion of His image in us. 'He 'gave
scope to evil for a nobler end' Gregory calls it a piece of " little mindedness " to argue from
evil either the weakness or the wickedness of God.

II. His remarks on the relation between the ideal and the actual Man are very interesting.
It is usual with the other Fathers, in speaking of man's original perfection, to take the moment
of the first man's residence in Paradise, and to regard the whole of human nature as there repre-
sented by the first two human beings. Gregory is far removed from this way of looking at the
matter. With him human perfection is the ' idea ' of humanity : he sees already in the bodily-
created Adam the fallen man. The present man is not to be distinguished from that bodily
Adam ; both fall below the ideal type. Gregory seems to put the Fall beyond and before the
beginning of history. ' Under the form of narrative Moses places before us mere doctrine *.*
The locus classicus about the idea and the reality of human nature is On the Making of Man, I.
p. 88 f. He sketches both in a masterly way. He speaks of the division of the human race
into male and female as a ' device ' (<Vtr«^i^<rtf), implying that it was not the first ' organization '
(KaraaKtvrj). He hints that the irrational element was actually provided by the Creator, Who fore-
saw the Fall and the Redemption, for man to sin in ; as if man immediately upon the creation
of the perfect humanity became a mixed nature (spirit and flesh), and his fall was not a mere
accident, but a necessary consequence of this mixed nature. Adam must have fallen : there was
no perfect humanity in Paradise. In man's mixed nature of spirit and flesh nutrition is the
basis of his sensation, and sensation is the basis of his thought ; and so it was inevitable that
sin through this lower yet vital side of man should enter in. So ingrained is the spirit with
the flesh in the whole history of actual humanity that all the varieties of all the souls that ever
have lived or ever shall, arise from this very mixture ; i.e. from the varying degrees of either
factor in each. But as Gregory's view here touches, though in striking contrast, on Origen's,
more will be said about it in the next chapter.

It follows from this that Gregory, as Clement and Basil before him, did not look upon
Original Sin as the accidental or extraordinary thing which it was afterwards regarded.
' From a man who is a sinner and subject to passion of course is engendered a man who
is a sinner and subject to passion : sin being in a manner born with him, and growing with
his growth, and not dying with it' And yet he says elsewhere, "An infant who is just
born is not culpable, nor does it merit punishment ; just as he who has been baptized
has no account to give of his past sins, since they are forgiven;" and he calls infants
dn6vr)pot, ' not having in the least admitted the disease into their soul.' But these two
views can of course be reconciled ; the infant at the moment of its physical birth starts
with sins forgotten, just as at the moment of its spiritual birth it starts with sins forgiven.
Mo actual sin lias been committed. But then its nature has lost the avaBtLa ; the inevitable
weakness of its ancestry is in jt.

III. 'Spirit.' Speaking of the soul, Gregory asks, 'How can that which is incomposite
be dissolved?' i.e. the soul is spirit, and spirit is incomposite and therefore indestructible.

But care must be taken not to infer too much from this his favourite expression 'spirit' in
connexion with the soul. ' God is spirit ' too ; and we are inclined to forget that this

■ Oh Jn/an/i' early heaths, II J. p. 336. • Or. Cat. c. viii. D.

HIS GENERAL CHARACTER AS A THEOLOGIAN. u

is no more than a negative definition, and to imagine the human spirit of equal prerogative
with Deity. Gregory gives no encouragement to this; he distinctly teaches that, though
the soul is incomposite, it is not in the least independent of time and space, as the Deity is.

In fact he almost entirely drops the old Platonic division of the Universe into Intelligible
(spiritual) and Sensible, which helps to keep up this confusion between human and divine
4 spirit,' and adopts the Christian division of Creator and Created. This difference between
Creator and Created is further figured by him as that between

i. The Infinite. The Finite.

2. The Changeless. The Changeable.

3. The Contradiction-less. The Contradictory.

The result of this is that the Spirit-world itself has been divided into Uncreate and
Created.

With regard, then, to this created Spirit-world we find that Gregory, as Basil, teaches
that it existed, i. e. it had been created, before the work of the Six Days began. ' God
made all that is, at once' (dfy6«s). This is only his translation of the verse, ' In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth;' the material for 'heaven' and 'earth,' i.e. spirits
and chaos, was made in a moment, but God had not yet spoken the successive Words
of creation. The souls of men, then, existed from the very beginning of creation, and
in a determinate number ; for this is a necessary consequence of the ' simultaneous creation.*
This was the case with the Angels too, the other portion of the created Spirit-world.
Gregory has treated the subject of the Angels very fully. He considers that they are
perfect : but their perfection too is contingent : it depends on the grace of God and their
own wills; the angels are free, and therefore changeable. Their will necessarily moves
towards something : at their first creation the Beautiful alone solicited them. Man ' a little
lower than the Angels ' was perfect too ; deathless, passionless, contemplative. ' The true
and perfect soul is single in its nature, intellectual, immaterial l.% He was ' as the Angels
and if he fell, Lucifer fell too. Gregory will not say, as Origen did, that human souls
had a body when first created : rather, as we have seen, he implies the contrary ; and he
came to be considered the champion that fought the doctrine of the pre-existence of
embodied souls. He seems to have been influenced by Methodius' objections to Origen's
view. But his magnificent idea of the first man gives way at once to something more
Scriptural and at the same time more scientific ; and his ideal becomes a downright forecast
of Realism.

Taking, however, the human soul as it is, he still continues, we often find, to compare
it with God. In his great treatise On the Soul and the Resurrection, he rests a great
deal on the parallel between the relation of man to his body, and that of God to the
world. — ' The soul is as a cord drawn out of mud ; God draws to Himself what is His own.' —
He calls the human spirit 'an influx of the divine in-breathing' {Adv. Apoliin. c. 12).
Anger and desire do not belong to the essence of the soul, he says : they are only among
its varying states. The soul, then, as separable from matter, is like God. But this likeness
does not extend to the point of identity. Incomprehensible, immortal, it is not uncreated.
The distinction between the Creator and the Created cannot be obliterated. The attributes
of the Creator set down above, i.e. that He is infinite, changeless, contradictionless, and
so always good, &c, can be applied only catachrestically to some men, in that they resemble
their Maker as a copy resembles its original : but still, in this connexion, Gregory does
speak of those ' who do not need any cleansing at all 2,' and the context forces us to apply
these words to men. There is no irony, to him or to any Father of the fourth century, in
the words, ' They that are whole need not a physician.' Although in the treatise On Virginity T

» On the Making oj Man, c. xiv. s Or. Cat. c. xxvi.

12 PROLEGOMENA.

where he is describing the development of his own moral and religious life, he is very far
from applying them to himself, he nevertheless seems to recognize the fact that since
Christianity began there are those to whom they might apply.

There is also need of a certain amount of ' rational considerations ' in advancing a Defence
and a Theory of Christianity. He makes this according to the special requirements of the
time in his Oratio Catechetica. His reasonings do not seem to us always convincing;
but the presence of a living Hellenism and Judaism in the world required them. These
two phenomena also explain what appears to us a great weakness in this work : namely,
that he treats Hellenism as if it were all speculation ; Judaism as if it were all facts.
These two religions were too near and too practically opposed to each other for him
to see, as we can now, by the aid of a sort of science of religions, that every religion
has its idea, and eveiy religion has its fads. He and all the first Apologists, with the spectacle
of these two apparently opposite systems before them, thought that, in arriving at the True
Religion as well, all could be done by considering/ar/j/ or all could be done by speculation.
Gregory chose the latter method. A Dogmatic in the modern sense, in which both the
•idea and the facts of Christianity flow into one, could not have been expected of him.
The Oratio Catechetica is a mere philosophy of Christianity in detail written in the philosophic
language of the time. Not only does he refrain from using the historic proofs, i.e. of prophecy
and type (except very sparingly and only to meet an adversary), but his defence is insufficient
from another point of view also; he hardly uses the moral proofs either; he wanders per-
sistently in metaphysics.

If he does not lean enough on these two classes of proofs, at all events that he does not lean
entirely on either, may be considered as a guarantee of his excellence as a theologian pure
and simple. But he is on the other hand very far from attempting a philosophic construction
of Christianity, as we have seen. Though akin to modern theologians in many things, he
is unlike those of them who would construct an a priori Christianity, in which the relationship
of one part to another is so close that all stands or falls together. Philosophic deduction
is with him only ' a kind of instruction ' used in his apologetic works. On occasion he
shows a clear perception of the historic principle. " The supernatural character of the
Gospel miracles bears witness to their divine origin I." He points, as Origen did, to the
continued possession of miraculous powers in the Church. Again, as regards moral proof,
there had been so much attempted that way by the Neo-Platonists that such proof could
not have exactly the same degree of weight attributed to it that it has now, at least by
an adherent of the newer Hellenism. Philostratus, Porphyry, Iamblichus had all tried to
attract attention to the holy lives of heathen sages. Yet to these, rough sketches as they
were, the Christian did oppose the Lives of the Saints : notably Gregory himself in the Life
of Gregory Thaumaturgus : as Origen before him (c. Celsum, passim) had shewn in detail
the difference in kind of Christian holiness.

His treatment of the Sacraments in the Oratio Catechetica is noteworthy. On Baptism
he is very complete : it will be sufficient to notice here the peculiar proof he offers that
the Holy Spirit is actually given in Baptism. It is the same proof, to start with, as that
which establishes that God came in the flesh when Christ came. Miracles prove this ; (he
is not wanting here in the sense of the importance of History). If, then, we are persuaded
that God is here, we must allow also that truth is here : for truth is the mark of Deity.
When, therefore, God has said that He will come in a particular way, if called in a particular
way, this must be true. He is so called in Baptism : therefore He comes. (The vital
importance of the doctrine of the Trinity, upon which Gregory laboured for so many years,
thus all comes from Baptism.) Gregory would not confine the entire force of Baptism to the

> Or. Cat. c. iii.

HIS GENERAL CHARACTER AS A THEOLOGIAN. 13

one ritual act. A resurrection to a new immortal life is begun in Baptism, but owing to the
weakness of nature this complete effect is separated into stages or parts. With regard to the
necessity of Baptism for salvation, he says he does not know if the Angels receive the souls
of the unbaptized ; but he rather intimates that they wander in the air seeking rest, and
entreat in vain like the Rich Man. To him who wilfully defers it he says, ' You are out of
paradise, O Catechumen ! '

In treating the Sacrament of the Eucharist, Gregory was the first Father who developed
the view of transformation, for which transubstantiation was afterwards substituted to suit
the mediaeval philosophy ; that is, he put this view already latent into actual words. There
is a. locus classicus in the Oratio Catechetica, c. 37.

"Therefore from the same cause as that by which the bread that was transformed in
that Body was changed to a divine potency, a similar result takes place now. For as in
that case, too, the grace of the Word used to make holy the Body, the substance of which
came of the bread and was in a manner itself bread, so also in this case the bread, as
says the Apostle, ' is sanctified by the word of God and prayer : ' not that it advances by
the process of eating to the stage of passing into the body of the Word, but it at once is changed
into the Body by the Word, as the Word Himself said, ' This is My Body;1 " and just above
he had said : " Rightly do we believe that now also the bread which is consecrated by the
word of God is changed into the body of God the Word." This way of explaining the
mystery of the Sacrament, i.e. from the way bread was changed into the Word when Christ
was upon earth, is compared by Neander with another way Gregory had of explaining it,
i.e. the heightened efficacy of the bread is as the heightened efficacy of the baptismal
water, the anointing oil T, &c, a totally different idea. But this, which may be called the
metabatic view, is the one evidently most present to his mind. In a fragment of his found
in a Parisian MS.2, quoted with the Liturgies of James, Basil, Chrysostom, we also find it;
"The consecrated bread is changed into the body of the Word; and it is needful for
humanity to partake of that."

Again, the necessity of the Incarnation, drawn from the words " it was necessary that Christ
should suffer," receives a rational treatment from him. There must ever be, from a meditation
on this, two results, according as the physical or the ethical element in Christianity prevails,
i.e. 1. Propitiation ; 2. Redemption. The first theory is dear to minds fed upon the doctrines
of the Reformation, but it receives no countenance from Gregory. Only in the book in which
Moses' Life is treated allegorically does he even mention it. The sacrifice of Christ instead
of the bloody sacrifices of the Old Testament is not his doctrine. He develops his theory
of the Redemption or Ransom (i.e. from the Devil), in the Oratio Catechetica. Strict justice
to the Evil One required it But in his hands this view never degenerates, as with some,
into a mere battle, e.g. in Gethsemane, between the Rescuer and Enslaver.

So much has been said about Gregory's inconsistencies, and his apparent inconsistencies
are indeed so many, that some attempt must be made to explain this feature, to some so
repulsive, in his works. One instance at all events can show how it is possible to reconcile
even the most glaring. He is not a one-sided theologian : he is not one of those who
pass always the same judgment upon the same subject, no matter with whom he has to deal.
There could not be a harsher contradiction than that between his statement about human
generation in the Oratio Catechetica, and that made in the treatises On Virginity and
On the Making of Man. In the O. C. everything hateful and undignified is removed from
the idea of our birth; the idea of ndSos is not applied; "only evil brings disgrace." But
in the other two Treatises he represents generation as a consequence of the Fall. This
contradiction arises simply from the different standpoint in each. In the one case he is

1 In Sermon On the Baptism of Christ. A. 1560 fol. ; also Antwerp, p. 1562 (Latine).

PROLEGOMENA.

apologetic; and so he adopts a universally recognised moral axiom. In the other he is
the Christian theologian ; the natural process, therefore, takes its colouring from the Christian
doctrine of the Fall. This is the standpoint of most of his works, which are polemical,
not apologetic. But in the treatise On the Soul and the Resurrection he introduces even a
third view about generation, which might be called that of the Christian theosophist ;
i.e. generation is the means in the Divine plan for carrying Humanity to its completion.
Very similar is the view in the treatise On Infants' Early Deaths ; " the design of all
births is that the Power which is above the universe may in all parts of the creation be
glorified by means of intellectual natures conspiring to the same end, by virtue of the
same faculty operating in all ; I mean, that of looking upon God." Here he is speaking
to the purely philosophic instinct It may be remarked that on this and all the operations of
Divine foreknowledge in vast world-wide relations he has constantly striking passages, and
deserves for this especially to be studied.

The style of Gregorv is much more elegant than that of Basil : sometimes it may be
called eloquent. His occasional digressions did not strike ancient critics as a fault. To
them he is "sweet," "bright," "dropping pleasure into the ears." But his love for splendour,
combined with the lateness of his Greek, make him one of the more difficult Church writers
to interpret accurately.

His similes and illustrations are very numerous, and well chosen. A few exceptions
must, perhaps, be made. He compares the mere professing Christian to the ape, dressed
like a man and dancing to the flute, who used to amuse the people in the theatre at
Alexandria, but once revealed during the performance its bestial nature, at the sight of
food. This is hardly worthy of a great writer, as Gregory was \ Especially happy are his
comparisons in the treatise On the Soul and Resurrection, by which metaphysical truths
are expressed ; and elsewhere those by which he seeks to reach the due proportions of the
truth of the Incarnation. The chapters in his work against Eunomius where he attempts
to depict the Infinite, are striking. But what commends him most to modern taste is his
power of description when dealing with facts, situations, persons: he touches these always
with a colour which is felt to be no exaggeration, but the truth.

CHAPTER III.

His Origenism.

A true estimate of the position and value of Gregory as a Church teacher cannot be formed
until the question of his ' Origenism,' its causes and its quality, is cleared up. It is well known
that this charge began to be brought against his orthodoxy at all events after the time of
Justinian : nor could Germanus, the Patriarch of Constantinople in the next century, remove it
by the device of supposed interpolations of partizans in the interests of the Eastern as against
the Western Church : for such a theory, to be true, would still require some hints at all events
in this Father to give a colour to such interpolations. Moreover, as will be seen, the points in
which Gregory is most like Origen are portions of the very groundwork of his own theology.

The question, then, remains why, and how far, is he a follower of Origen?

I. When we consider the character of his great forerunner, and the kind of task which
Gregory himself undertook, the first part of this question is easily answered. When Christian
doctrine had to be set forth philosophically, so as to be intelligible to any cultivated mind of
that time (to reconcile Greek philosophy with Christian doctrine was a task which Gregory
m ver dreamed of attempting), the example and leader in such an attempt was Origen ; he

Hit Companion of the hieiden meaning of the proverb or
l« (III. i |. 216) to the 'turned up' side of the

beautiful in itself foi (e.g. 'the ^

painting "( nature,' 'the lial(-i.ir<.le shining in the midst with its

dye of purple,' 'the golden mist round the circle'): but it rather
fails as a simile, when applied to the other or the literal side, which
cannot in ihe ca.-e of parables be said to ' lack beauty and tint.'

HIS ORIGENISM. T5

occupied as it were the whole horizon. He was the founder of theology ; the very vocabulary
of it, which is in use now, is of his devising. So that Gregory's language must have had,
necessarily, a close connexion with that of the great interpreter and apologist, who had explained
to his century the same truths which Gregory had to explain to his : this must have been the
case even if his mind had not been as spiritual and idealizing as Origen's. But in some respects
it will be seen Gregory is even more an idealist than Origen himself. Alike, then, from purpose
and tradition as from sympathy he would look back to Origen. Though a gulf was between
them, and, since the Council of Nicaea, there were some things that could come no more into
controversy, Gregory saw, where the Church had not spoken, with the same eyes as Origen :
he uses the same keys as he did for the problems which Scripture has not solved ; he uses the
same great weapon of allegory in making the letter of Scripture give up the spiritual treasures.
It could not have been otherwise when the whole Christian religion, which Gregory was called
on to defend as a philosophy, had never before been systematically so defended but by Origen ;
and this task, the same for both, was presented to the same type of mind, in the same intel-
lectual atmosphere. It would have been strange indeed if Gregory had not been a pupil at
least (though he was no blind follower) of Origen.

If we take for illustration of this the most vital point in the vast system, if system it can be
called, of Origen, we shall see that he had traced fundamental lines of thought, which could not
in that age be easily left. He asserts the virtual freedom of the human will, in every stage
and condition of human existence. The Greek philosophy of the third century, and the semi-
pagan Gnosticism, in their emanational view of the world, denied this freedom. With them
the mind of man, as one of the emanations of Deity itself, was, as much as the matter of which
the world was made, regulated and governed directly from the Source whence they both flowed.
Indeed every system of thought, not excepting Stoicism, was struck with the blight of this
fatalism. There was no freedom for man at all but in the system which Origen was drawing
from, or rather reading into, the Scriptures. No Christian philosopher who lived amongst the
same counter-influences as Origen could overlook this starting-point of his system ; he must
have adopted it, even if the danger of Pelagianism had been foreseen in it; which could not
have been the case.

Gregory adopted it, with the other great doctrine which in the mind of Origen accompanied
it ; i.e., that evil is caused, not by matter, but by the act of this free will of man ; in other
words, by sin. Again the fatalism of all the emanationists had to be combated as to the nature
and necessity of evil. With them evil was some inevitable result of the Divine processes; it
abode at all events in matter, and human responsibility was at an end. Greek philosophy from
first to last had shewed, even at its best, a tendency to connect evil with the lower 0i/W. But
now, in the light of revelation, a new truth was set forth, and repeated again and again by the
very men who were inclined to adopt Plato's rather Dualistic division of the world into the intel-
ligible and sensible. ' Evil was due to an act of the will of man.' Moreover it could no longer
be regarded/<?r se : it was relative, being a ' default,' or ' failure,' or ' turning away from the true
good ' of the will, which, however, was always free to rectify this failure. It was a (rriprjtns, — loss
of the good ; but it did not stand over against the good as an independent power. Origen
contemplated the time when evil would cease to exist; 'the non-existent cannot exist for
ever : ' and Gregory did the same.

This brings us to yet another consequence of this enthusiasm for human freedom and
responsibility, which possessed Origen, and carried Gregory away. The anoKara<rra(Tis ri>v
irdvruv has been thought f, in certain periods of the Church, to have been the only piece of
Origenism with which Gregory can be charged. [This of course shows ignorance of the kind of
influence which Gregory allowed Origen to have over him ; and which did not require him to

* Cf. Dallaeus, de poenis et satiifactionilms, I. IV. c. 7, p. 368.

i6 PROLEGOMENA.

select even one isolated doctrine of his master.] It has also brought him into more suspicion
than any other portion of his teaching. Yet it is a direct consequence of the view of evil,,
which he shares with Origen. If evil is the non-existent, as his master says, a areprjais, * as he
says, then it must pass away. It was not made by God ; neither is it self- subsisting.

But when it has passed away, what follows? That God will be "all in all." Gregory
accepts the whole of Origen's explanation of this great text. Both insist on the impossibility
of God being in ' everything,' if evil still remains. But this is equivalent to the restoration to
their primitive state of all created spirits. Still it must be remembered that Origen required
many future stages of existence before all could arrive at such a consummation : with him there
is to be more than one ' next world ; ' and even when the primitive perfection is reached, his
peculiar view of the freedom of the will, as an absolute balance between good and evil, would
admit the possibility of another fall. ' All may be saved ; and all may fall.' How the final
Sabbath shall come in which all wills shall rest at last is but dimly hinted at in his writings.
With Gregory, on the other hand, there are to be but two worlds : the present and the next ; and
in the next the dnoKaraaraais tS>v ndvrcav must be effected. Then, after the Resurrection, the fire
dKolfiT]Tos, nttowos, as he continually calls it, will have to do its work. ' The avenging flame will
be the more ardent the more it has to consume' (Be A mm a et jResurr., p. 227). But at last
the evil will be annihilated, and the bad saved by nearness to the good.' There is to rise
a giving of thanks from all nature. Nevertheless 2 passages have been adduced from Gregory's
writings in which the language of Scripture as to future punishment is used without any
modification, or hint of this universal salvation. In the treatise, De Pauperibus Amandls,
II. p. 240, he says of the last judgment that God will give to each his due ; repose eternal to
those who have exercised pity and a holy life ; but the eternal punishment of fire for the harsh
and unmerciful : and addressing the rich who have made a bad use of their riches, he says,
'Who will extinguish the flames ready to devour you and engulf you? Who will stop the
gnawings of a worm that never dies?' Cf. also Oral. 3, de Beatitudinibus, I. p. 788: contra
Usuarios, II. p. 233 : though the hortatory character of these treatises makes them less im-
portant as witnesses.

A single doctrine or group of doctrines, however, may be unduly pressed in accounting for
the influence of Origen upon a kindred spirit like Gregory. Doubtless fragments of Origen's
teaching, mere details very often, were seized upon and appropriated by others ; they were
erected into dogmas and made to do duty for the whole living fabric ; and even those details
were sometimes misunderstood. ' 3 What he had said with a mind full of thought, others took
in the very letter.' Hence arose the evil of Origenism,' so prevalent in the century in which
Gregory lived. Different ways of following him were found, bad and good. Even the Arians
could find in his language now and then something they could claim as their own. But as
Rupp well says, ' Origen is not great by virtue of those particular doctrines, which are usually
exhibited to the world as heretical by weak heads who think to take the measure of everything
with the mere formulae of orthodoxy. He is great by virtue of one single thought, i.e. that of
bringing philosophy into union with religion, and thereby creating a theology. With Clement
of Alexandria this thought was a mere instinct : Origen gave it consciousness : and so
Christendom began to have a science of its own.' It was this single purpose, visible in all
Origen wrote, that impressed itself so deeply upon Gregory. He, too, would vindicate the
Scriptures as a philosophy. Texts, thanks to the labours of Origen as well as to the councils
of the Church, had now acquired a fixed meaning and an importance that all could acknow-
ledge. The new spiritual philosophy lay within them; he would make them speak its
language. Allegory was with him, just as with Origen, necessary, in order to find the Spirit
which inspires them. The letter must not impose itself upon us and stand for more than it is
worth ; just as the practical experience of evil in the world must not blind us to the fact that

2 Cf. De Ah. et Resurr., 227 CD. * Collected by Cetllier in his Introduction (Paris, i860). 3 Bunscn.

HIS ORIGENISM. 17

it is only a passing dispensation. If only the animus and intention is regarded, we may say
that all that Gregory wrote was Origenistic.

II. But nevertheless much had happened in the interval of 130 years that divides them;,
and this leads us to consider the limits which the state of the Church, as well as Gregory's own
originality and more extended physical knowledge, placed upon the complete filling in of the
outlines sketched by the master. First and chiefly, Origen's doctrine of the pre-existence of
the soul could not be retained ; and we know that Gregory not only abandoned it, but attacked
it with all his powers of logic in his treatise, De Animd et Resurrcdione : for which he receives-
the applause of the Emperor Justinian. Souls, according to Origen, had pre-existed from,
eternity : they were created certainly, but there never was a time when they did not exist : so
that the procession even of the Holy Spirit could in thought only be prior to their existence.
Then a failure of their free wills to grasp the true good, and a consequent cooling of the fire of
love within them, plunged them in this material bodily existence, which their own sin made a
suffering one. This view had certainly great merits : it absolved the Deity from being the author
of evil, and so was a ' th£odic£e ; ' it entirely got rid of the two rival principles, good and evil,,
of the Gnostics ; and it avoided the seeming incongruity of what was to last for ever in the future-
being not eternal in the past. Why then was it rejected ? Not only because of the objection-
urged by Methodius, that the addition of a body would be no remedy but rather an increase of
the sin ; or that urged amongst many others by Gregory, that a vice cannot be regarded as the
precursor of the birth of each human soul into this or into other worlds ; but more than that and
chiefly, because such a doctrine contravened the more distinct views now growing up as to what
the Christian creation was, and the more careful definitions also of the Trinity now embodied in
the creeds. In fact the pre-existence of the soul was wrapped up in a cosmogony that could no
longer approve itself to the Christian consciousness. In asserting the freedom of the will, and
placing in the will the cause of evil, Origen had so far banished emanationism ; but in his view
of the eternity of the world, and in that of the eternal pre-existence of souls which accompanied
it, he had not altogether stamped it out. He connects rational natures so closely with the
Deity that each individual \6yos seems almost, in a Platonic way, to lie in the Divine Aoyor,.
which I he styles ovaia ovaiav, I8ea I8e£>i>. They are ' partial brightnesses (aTravydo-nara) of the glory
of God.' He 2 allows them, of course, to have been created in the Scriptural sense of that
word, which is certainly an advance upon Justin ; but his creation is not that distinct event in
time which Christianity requires and the exacter treatment of the nature of the Divine Persons
had now developed. His creation, both the intelligible and visible world, receives from him
an eternity which is unnatural and incongruous in relation to his other speculations and beliefs :
it lingers, Tithonus-like, in the presence of the Divine Persons, without any meaning and
purpose for its life ; it is the last relic of Paganism, as it were, in a system which is otherwise
Christian to the very core. His strenuous effort to banish all ideas of time, at all events from
the intelligible world, ended in this eternal creation of that world ; which seemed to join the
eternally generated Son too closely to it, and gave occasion to the Arians to say that He too
was a KTto-fxa. This eternal pre-existence in fact almost destroyed the idea of creation, and
made the Deity in a way dependent on His own world. Athanasius, therefore, and his
followers were roused to separate the divinity of the Son from everything created. The
relation of the world to God could no longer be explained in the same terms as those which
they employed to illustrate the relations between the Divine Persons; and when once the
doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Father and Son had been accepted and firmly
established there could be no more favour shown by the defenders of that doctrine to the
merely Platonic view of the nature and origin of souls and of matter.

Amongst the defenders of the Creed of Nicaea, Gregory, we know, stands well-nigh foremost.

« c. Ctls. VI. 64. " In/oann., torn. 32, 18.

VOL. V. C

i8 PROLEGOMENA.

In his long and numerous treatises on the Trinity he employs every possible argument and
illustration to show the contents of the substance of the Deity as transcendent, incommuni-
cable to creation per se. Souls cannot have the attributes of Deity. Created spirits cannot
claim immediate kindred with the Aoyos. So instead of the Platonic antithesis of the intelli-
gible and sensible world, which Origen adopted, making all equal in the intelligible world, he
brings forward the antithesis of God and the world. He felt too that that antithesis answers
more fully not only to the needs of the Faith in the Trinity daily growing more exact and clear,
but also to the facts of the Creation, i.e. its variety and differences. He gives up the pre-
existence of the rational soul ; it will not explain the infinite variety observable in souls. The
variety, again, of the material world, full as it is of the miracles of divine power, cannot have been
the result of the chance acts of created natures embodying themselves therein, which the theory of
pre-existence supposes. God and the created world (of spirits and matter) are now to be the
factors in theology ; although Gregory does now and then, for mere purposes of illustration,
divide the Universe still into the intelligible and the sensible.

When once pre existence was given up, the parts of the soul could be more closely
united to each other, because the lower and higher were in their beginning no longer separated
by a gulf of ages. Accordingly Gregory, reducing the three parts of man which Origen had
used to the simpler division into visible and invisible (sensible and intelligible), dwells much
upon the intimate relation between the two and the mutual action of one upon the other.
Origen had retained the trichotomy of Plato which other Greek Fathers also, with the sanction,
as they supposed, of S. Paul (i Thess. v. 23), had adopted. ' Body,' ' soul,' and ' spirit,' or
Plato's 'body,' 'unreasoning' and 'reasoning soul,' had helped Origen to explain how the last,
the pre-existent soul (the spirit, or the conscience *, as he sometimes calls it) could ever have
come to live in the flesh. The second, the soul proper, is as it were a mediating ground
on which the spirit can meet the flesh. The celestial mind, ' the real man fallen from on high,'
rules by the power of conscience or of will over this soul, where the merely animal functions
and the natural appetites reside ; and through this soul over the body. How the celestial
mind can act at all upon this purely animal soul which lies between it and the body, Origen
leaves unexplained. But this division was necessary for him, in order to represent the spirit
as remaining itself unchanged in its heavenly nature, though weakened by its long captivity in
the body. The middle soul (in which he sometimes places the will) is the scene of contamina-
tion and disorder ; the spirit is free, it can always rejoice at what is well done in the soul, and
yet is not touched by the evil in it ; it chooses, convicts, and punishes. Such was Origen's
psychology. But an intimate connexion both in birth and growth between all the faculties ol
man is one of Gregory's most characteristic thoughts, and he gave up this trichotomy, which
was still, however, retained by some Greek fathers, and adopted the simpler division mentioned
above in order more clearly and concisely to show the mutual play of spirit and body upon
each other. There was soon, too, another reason why this trichotomy should be suspected.
It was a second time made the vehicle of error. Apollinaris adopted it, in order to expound
that the Divine Aoyos took the place, in the tripartite soul of Christ, of the ' reasonable soul '
or spirit of other men. Gregory, in pressing for a simpler treatment of man's nature, thus
snatched a vantage-ground from a sagacious enemy. His own psychology is only one
instance of a tendency which runs through the whole of his system, and which may indeed
be called the dominating thought with which he approached every question ; he views
each in the light of form and matter; spirit penetrating and controlling body, body
answering to spirit and yet at the same time supplying the nutriment upon which the
vigour and efficacy of spirit, in this world at least, depends. This thought underlies
his view of the material universe and of Holy Scripture, as well as of man's nature. With

* Commmt. in Roi'i. ii. 9, p. 486.

HIS ORIGENISM. 19

regard to the last he says, 'the intelligible cannot be realized in body at all, except it be
commingled with sensation ; ' and again, « as there can be no sensation without a material
substance, so there can be no exercise of the power of thought without sensation '.* The
spiritual or intelligent part of man (which he calls by various names, such as ' the inner man,'
the yjrvxff XoytKT}, vovs or biavoia, to faonoiov atnov, or simply ^1^17 as throughout the treatise On
the Soul), however alien in its essence from the bodily and sentient part, yet no sooner is
united with this earthly part than it at once exerts power over it. In fact it requires this
instrument before it can reach its perfection. ' Seeing, then, man is a reasoning animal of
a certain kind, it was necessary that the body should be prepared as an instrument appropriate
to the needs of his reason ■.* So closely has this reason been united with the senses and the
flesh that it performs itself the functions of the animal part ; it is the ' mind ' or ' reason '
itself that sees, hears, &c. ; in fact the exercise of mind depends on a sound state of the senses
and other organs of the body ; for a sick body cannot receive the ' artistic ' impressions of the
mind and, so, the mind remains inoperative. This is enough to show how far Gregory
had got from pre-existence and the ' fall into the prison of the flesh.'

His own theory of the origin of the soul, or at least that to which he visibly inclines, is stated
in the treatise, De Animd et Resurrectione, p. 241. It is that of Tertullian and some Greek
Fathers also: and goes by the name of 'traducianism.' The soul is transmitted in the generating
seed. This of course is the opposite pole to Origen's teaching, and is inconsistent with
Gregory's own spiritualism. The other alternative, Creationism, which a number of the
orthodox adopted, namely that souls are created by God at the moment of conception, or when
the body of the foetus is already formed, was not open to him to adopt ; because, according to
him, in idea the world of spirits was made, and in a determinate number, along with the world
of unformed matter by the one creative act ' in the beginning.' In the plan of the universe,
though not in reality as with Origen, all souls are already created. So the life of humanity
contains them : when the occasion comes they take their beginning along with the body which
enshrines them, but are not created then any more than that body. Such was the compromise
between spiritualism and materialism to which Gregory was driven by the difficulties of the
subject Origen with his eye unfalteringly fixed upon the ideal world, and unconscious of the
practical consequences that might be drawn from his teaching, cut the knot with his eternal
pre-existence of souls, which avoided at once the alleged absurdity of creationism and the gross-
ness of traducianism. But the Church, for higher interests still than those of pure idealism,
had to reject that doctrine ; and Gregory, with his extended knowledge in physic and his
close observation of the intercommunion of mind and body, had to devise or rather select
a theory which, though a makeshift, would not contradict either his knowledge or his faith.

Yet after admitting that soul and body are born together and attaching such importance
to the ' physical basis' of life and thought, the influence of his master, or else his own uncon-
trollable idealism, carries him away again in the opposite direction. After reading words in
his treatise which Locke might have written we come upon others which are exactly the
teaching of Berkeley. There is a passage in the De Animd et Resurrectione where he deals
with the question how an intelligent Being could have created matter, which is neither intelli-
gent or intelligible. But what if matter is only a concourse of qualities, Zwomi, or \|nAa M^nro
as he elsewhere calls them? Then there would be no difficulty in understanding the manner
of creation. But even about this we can say so much, i.e. that not one of those things which
we attribute to body is itself body : neither figure, nor colour, nor weight, nor extension, nor
quantity, nor any other qualifying notion whatever: but every one of them is a thought: it is the
combination of them all into a single whole that constitutes body. Seeing, then, that these

* De Horn. Op. c. viii. ; De An, et Refurr. 205. » De Mom. Op. 0 viiL

C 2

20 PROLEGOMENA.

several qualifications which complete the particular body are grasped by thought alone, and
not by sense, and that the Deity is a thinking being, what trouble can it be to such a thinking
agent to produce the thoughts whose mutual combination generate for us the substance of
that body? and in the treatise, De Horn. Op/., c. 24, the intelligible cpiais is said to produce
the intelligible Svpaptis, and the concourse of these Swdpets brings into being the material nature.
The body itself, he repeats (contra Fatum, p. 67), is not a real substance ; it is a soulless,
unsubstantial thing. The only real creation is that of spirits. Even Origen did not go so far
as that Matter with him, though it exists by concomitance and not by itself, nevertheless
really exists. He avoided a rock upon which Gregory runs; for with Gregory not only
matter but created spirit as well vanish in idealism. There remain with him only the voovptva
and God.

This transcendent idealism embarrasses him in many ways, and makes his theory of the
soul full of inconsistency. (1) He will not say unhesitatingly whether that pure humanity in
the beginning created in the image of God had a body or not like ours. Origen at all events
says that the eternally pre-existing spirits were invested with a body, even before falling into
the sensible world. But Gregory, while denying the pre-existenee of souls in the sense of
Origen, yet in many of his treatises, especially in the De Horn. Opificio, seems to point to
a primitive humanity, a predeterminate number of souls destined to live in the body though
they had not yet lived, which goes far beyond Origen's in its ideal character. " When Moses,"
Gregory says, " speaks of the soul as the image of God, he shows that all that is alien to God
must be excluded from our definition of the soul ; and a corporal nature is alien to God." He
points out that God first 'made man in His own image,' and after that made them male and
female ; so that there was a double fashioning of our nature, 17 re npos to 6dov 6p.oia>p.ivri, jj t«
npos rr)v 8ia((>opav ravTTjv (i.e. male and female) SirjpTjpturj. On the other hand, in the Oratio
Catechetica, which contains certainly his more dogmatic statement on every point, this ideal
and passionless humanity is regarded as still in the future : and it is represented that man's
double-nature is actually the very centre of the Divine Councils, and not the result of any
mistake or sin ; man's soul from the very first was commingled (avdiepacris is Gregory's favourite
word) with a body, in order that in him, as representing every stage of living things, the whole
creation, even in its lowest part, might share in the divine. Man, as the paragon of animals,
was necessary, in order that the union might be effected between two otherwise irreconcilable
worlds, the intelligible and the sensible. Though, therefore, there was a Fall at last, it was not
the occasion of man's receiving a body similar to animals ; that body was given him at the
very first, and was only preparatory to the Fall, which was foreseen in the Divine Councils and
provided for. Both the body and the Fall were necessary in order that the Divine plan might
be carried out, and the Divine glory manifested in creation. In this view the "coats of
skins " which Gregory inherits from the allegorical treasures of Origen are no longer merely the
human body itself, as with Origen, but all the passions, actions, and habits of that body after
the Fall, which he sums up in the generic term nddr). If, then, there is to be any reconciliation
between this and the former view of his in which the pure unstained humanity, the ' image of
God,' is differentiated by a second act of creation as it were into male and female, we must
suppose him to teach that immediately upon the creation in God's image there was added all
that in human nature is akin to the merely animal world. In that man was God's image, his
will was free, but in that he was created, he was able to fall from his high estate ; and God,
foreseeing the Fall, at once added the distinction of sex, and with it the other features of the
animal which would befit the fall ; but with the purpose of raising thereby the whole creation.
But two great counter-influences seem always to be acting upon Gregory ; the one sympathy
with the speculations of Origen, the other a tendency to see even with a modern insight into
the closeness of the intercommunion between soul and body. The results of these two
influences cannot be altogether reconciled. His ideal and his actual man, each sketched with

HIS ORIGENISM.

a skilful and discriminating hand, represent the interval that divides his aspirations from his
observations: yet both are present to his mind when he writes about the soul. (2) He does
not alter, as Origen does, the traditional belief in the resurrection of the body, and yet his
idealism, in spite of his actual and strenuous defence of it in the carefully argued treatise On
the Soul and Resurrection, renders it unnecessary, if not impossible. We know that his faith
impelled Origen, too, to * contend for the resurrection of the flesh : yet it is an almost forced
importation into the rest of his system. Our bodies, he teaches, will rise again : but that
which will make us the same persons we were before is not the sameness of our bodies (for
they will be ethereal, angelic, uncarnal, &c.) but the sameness of a X6yUS within them which

never dies (koyos «s tyKUTai tu a-apart, dcp' ov p,r) tydeipopivov t'yfiperai to (Tafia iv dcpdapaia, C. Cels. V.

23). Here we have the Xd-yoi o-ntppariKol, which Gregory objected to as somehow connected in
his mind with the infinite plurality of worlds. Yet his own account of the Resurrection of
the flesh is nothing but Origenism, mitigated by the suppression of these Aoyoi. With him, too,
matter is nothing, it is a negative thing that can make and effect nothing : the soul, the fun^
Svvafits, does everything; it is gifted by him with a sort of ubiquity after death. • Nothing can
break its sympathetic union with the particles of the body.' It is not a long and difficult study
for it to discern in the mass of elements that which is its own from that which is not its own.
' It watches over its property, as it were, until the Resurrection, when it will clothe itself in them
anew2/ It is only a change of names : the \6yos has become this fa™v dvvapts or fvxf), which
seems itself, almost unaided, to effect the whole Resurrection. Though he teaches as against
Origen that the ' elements ' are the same ' elements,' the body the same body as before, yet the
strange importance both in activity and in substance which he attaches to the yj/vxv even in the
disembodied state seems to render a Resurrection of the flesh unnecessary. Here, too, his view
of the plan of Redemption is at variance with his idealistic leanings. While Origen regarded
the body, as it now is, as part of that ' vanity ' placed upon the creature which was to be laid
aside at last, Gregory's view of the design of God in creating man at all absolutely required the
Resurrection of the flesh 3 (<»$■ fi„ o-vvcrrapdeir) ru 6dci to yrjlvov). Creation was to be saved by
man's carrying his created body into a higher world : and this could only be done by a resurrec-
tion of the flesh such as the Church had already set forth in her creed.

Again, however, after parting with Origen upon this point, he meets him in the ultimate
contemplation of Christ's glorified humanity and of all glorified bodies. Both steadily refuse
at last ' to know Christ according to the flesh.' They depict His humanity as so absorbed in
deity that all traces of His bodily nature vanish ; and as with Christ, so finally with His true
followers. This is far indeed from the Lamb that was slain, and the vision of S. John. In
this heaven of theirs all individual or generic differences between rational creatures necessarily
cease.

Great, then, as are their divergences, especially in cosmogony, their agreements are main-
tained throughout. Gregory in the main accepts Origen's teaching, as far as he can accommodate
it to the now more outspoken faith of the Church. What 4 Redepenning summarises as the
groundplan of Origen's whole way of thinking, Gregory has, with the necessary changes, appro-
priated. Both regard the history of the world as a movement between a beginning and an end
in which are united every single spiritual or truly human nature in the world, and the Divine
nature. This interval of movement is caused by the falling away of the free will of the creature
from the divine : but it will come to an end, in order that the former union may be restored.
In this summary they would differ only as to the closeness of the original union. Both, too,
according to this, would regard ' man ' as the final cause, and the explanation, and the centre
of God's plan in creation.

1 He does so De Principiis I. praef. 5. C. Cels. II. 77, VIII. 49 sq.
■ De Anim. et Resurrectione, p. 198, 199, 213 sq. 3 Oratio Cat. 55 A. 4 Orig. II. 314 sq.

22 PROLEGOMENA.

Even in the special sphere of theology which the later needs of the Church forced into
prominence, and which Gregory has made peculiarly his own, that of the doctrine of the
Trinity, Gregory employs sometimes a method which he has caught from Origen. Origen
supposes, not so much, as Plato did, that things below are images of things above, as that they
have certain secret analogies or affinities with them. This is perhaps after all only a peculiar
application for his own purpose of Plato's theory of ideas. There are mysterious sympathies
between the earth and heaven. We must therefore read within ourselves the reflection of
truths which are too much beyond our reach to know in themselves. With regard to the
attributes of God this is more especially the case. But Origen never had the occasion to
employ this language in explaining the mystery of the Trinity. Gregory is the first Father who
has done so. He finds a key to it in the * triple nature of our soul. The vovs, the \6yos, and
the soul, form within us a unity such as that of the Divine hypostases. Gregory himself
confesses that such thoughts about God are inadequate, and immeasurably below their object :
but he cannot be blamed for employing this method, as if it was entirely superficial. Not only
does this instance illustrate trinity in unity, but we should have no contents for our thought
about the Father, Son, and Spirit, if we found no outlines at all of their nature within ourselves.
Denis 2 well says that the history of the doctrine of the Trinity confirms this : for the advanced
development of the theory of the Aoyor, a purely human attribute in the ancient philosophy, was
the cause of the doctrine of the Son being so soon and so widely treated : and the doctrine of
the Holy Spirit came into prominence only when He began to be regarded as the principle of
the purely human or moral life, as Love, that is, or Charity. Gregory, then, had reason in
recommending even a more systematic use of the method which he had received from Origen :
' Learn from the things within thee to know the secret of God ; recognise from the Triad
within thee the Triad by means of these matters which you realise : it is a testimony above
and more sure than that of the Law and the Gospels.'

He carries out elsewhere also more thoroughly than Origen this method of reading
parables. He is an actual Mystic in this. The mysterious but real correspondences between
earth and heaven, upon which, Origen had taught, and not upon mere thoughts or the artifices
of language, the truth of a parable rests, Gregory employed, in order to penetrate the meaning
of the whole of external nature. He finds in its facts and appearances analogies with the
energies, and through them with the essence, of God. They are not to him merely indications
of the wisdom which caused them and ordered them, but actual symptoms of the various
energies which reside in the essence of the Supreme Being ; as though that essence, having
first been translated into the energies, was through them translated into the material creation ;
which was thus an earthly language saying the same thing as the heavenly language, word for
word. The whole world thus became one vast allegory*: and existed only to manifest the
qualities of the Unseen. Akin to this peculiar development of the parable is another
characteristic of his, which is alien to the spirit of Origen ; his delight in natural scenery, his
appreciation of it, and power of describing it.

With regard to the question, so much agitated, of the 'AjroKnraorao-t?, it may be said that
not Gregory only but Basil and Gregory Nazianzen also have felt the influence of their master
in theology, Origen. But it is due to the latter to say that though he dwells much on the "all
in all " and insists much more on the sanctifying power of punishment than on the satisfaction
owed to Divine justice, yet no one could justly attribute to him, as a doctrine, the view of
a Universal Salvation. Still these Greek Fathers, Origen and ' the three great Cappadocians,'
equally showed a disposition of mind that left little room for the discussions that were soon
to agitate the West. Their infinite hopes, their absolute confidence in the goodness of God,

' This is an independent division to that mentioned above. 3 De la Philosophic D'Origtne (Paris, 1884).

3 De eo quod immut., p. jo. 4 See De it's qui prirmaturc abripiuntur, p. 231, quoted above, p. 4.

HIS TEACHING ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 23

who owes it to Himself to make His work perfect, their profound faith in the promises and
sacrifice of Christ, as well as in the vivifying action of the Holy Spirit, make the question of
Predestination and Grace a very simple one with them. The word Grace occurs as often in
them as in Augustine : but they do not make original sin a monstrous innovation requiring
a remedy of a peculiar and overwhelming intensity. Passion indeed seems to Gregory of
Nyssa himself one of the essential elements of the human soul. He borrows from the
naturalists many principles of distinction between classes of souls and lives : he insists
incessantly on the intimate connexion between the physical growth and the development of
the reason, and on the correlation between the one and the other : and we arrive at the con-
clusion that man in his eyes, as in Clement's, was not originally perfect, except in possibility;
that being at once reasoning and sentient he must perforce feel within himself the struggle of
reason and passion, and that it was inevitable that sin should enter into the world : it was
a consequence of his mixed nature. This mixed nature of the first man was transmitted to his
descendants. Here, though he stands apart from C*rigen on the question of man's original
perfection, he could not have accepted the whole Augustinian scheme of original sin : and Grace
as the remedy with him consists rather in the purging this mixed nature, than in the introduction
into it of something absolutely foreign. The result, as with all the Greek Fathers, will depend
on the co-operation of the free agent in this remedial work. Predestination and the ' bad
will ' are excluded by the Possibility and the ' free will ' of Origen and Gregory.

CHAPTER IV,

His Teaching on the Holy Trinity.

To estimate the exact value of the work done by S. Gregory in the establishment of the
doctrine of the Trinity and in the determination, so far as Eastern Christendom is concerned,
of the terminology employed for the expression of that doctrine, is a task which can hardly be
satisfactorily carried out. His teaching on the subject is so closely bound up with that ot his
brother, S. Basil of Caesarea, — his " master," to use his own phrase, — that the two can hardly
be separated with any certainty. Where a disciple, carrying on the teaching he has himself
received from another, with perhaps almost imperceptible variations of expression, has extended
the influence 01 that teaching and strengthened its hold on the minds of men, it must always be
a matter of some difficulty to discriminate accurately between the services which the two have
rendered to their common cause, and to say how far the result attained is due to the earlier,
how far to the later presentment of the doctrine. But the task of so discriminating between
the work of S. Basil and that of S. Gregory is rendered yet more complicated by the
uncertainty attaching to the authorship of particular treatises which have been claimed for
both. If, for instance, we could with certainty assign to S. Gregory that treatise on the terms
ovaia and vnoaraa-ts, which Dorner treats as one of the works by which he "contributed
materially to fix the uncertain usage of the Church x," but which is found also among the works
of S. Basil in the form of a letter addressed to S. Gregory himself, we should be able to estimate
the nature and the extent of the influence of the Bishop of Nyssa much more definitely than
we can possibly do while the authorship of this treatise remains uncertain. Nor does this
document stand alone in this respect, although it is perhaps of more importance for the deter-
mination of such a question than any other of the disputed treatises. Thus in the absence of
certainty as to the precise extent to which S. Gregory's teaching was directly indebted to that
of his brother, it seems impossible to say how far the " fixing of the uncertain usage of the
Church " was due to either of them singly. That together they did contribute very largely to

» See Dorner, Doctrine of the Person of Christ, Div. I. vol. ii. p. 314 (English Trans. \

PROLEGOMENA.

that result is beyond question : and it is perhaps superfluous to endeavour to separate their
contributions, especially as there can be little doubt that S. Gregory at least conceived himself
to be in agreement with S. Basil upon all important points, if not to be acting simply as the
mouth-piece of his " master's " teaching, and as the defender of the statements which his
"master" had set forth against possible misconceptions of their meaning. Some points,
indeed, there clearly were, in which S. Gregory's presentment of the doctrine differs from
that of S. Basil ; but to these it may be better to revert at a later stage, after considering the
more striking variation which their teaching displays from the language of the earlier Nicene
school as represented by S. Athanasius.

The council held at Alexandria in the year 362, during the brief restoration of S. Athanasius,
shows us at once the point of contrast and the substantial agreement between the Western
school, with which S. Athanasius himself is in this matter to be reckoned, and the Eastern
theologians to whom has been given the title of" Neo-Nicene." The question at issue was one
of language, not of belief; it turned upon the sense to be attached to the word vnoa-Taa-n. The
Easterns, following a use of the term which may be traced perhaps to the influence of Origen,
employed the word in the sense of the Latin " Persona," and spoke of the Three Persons as
rptis v7roaTa(T€is, whereas the Latins employed the term "hypostasis" as equivalent to "sub-
stantia," to express what the Greeks called ovaia, — the one Godhead of the Three Persons.
With the Latins agreed the older school of the orthodox Greek theologians, who applied to the
Three Persons the phrase rpla irpovuna, speaking of the Godhead as pla vnoaTaais. This phrase,
in the eyes of the newer Nicene school, was suspected of Sabellianism x, while on the other
hand the Westerns were inclined to regard the Eastern phrase rpels inoa-Tda-tts as implying
tritheism. The synodal letter sets forth to us the means by which the fact of substantial agree-
ment between the two schools was brought to light, and the understanding arrived at, that
while Arianism on the one hand and Sabellianism on the other were to be condemned, it was
advisable to be content with the language of the Nicene formula, which employed neither the
phrase pia viroa-raa-is nor the phrase rpels vnoa-Taa-f is 2. This resolution, prudent as it may have
been for the purpose of bringing together those who were in real agreement, and of securing
that the reconciled parties should, at a critical moment, present an unbroken front in the face
of their common and still dangerous enemy, could hardly be long maintained. The expression
rp«tf xmooTao as was one to which many of the orthodox, including those who had formerly
belonged to the Semi-Arian section, had become accustomed : the Alexandrine synod, under the
guidance of S. Athanasius, had acknowledged the phrase, as used by them, to be an orthodox
one, and S. Basil, in his efforts to conciliate the Semi-Arian party, with which he had himself
been closely connected through his namesake of Ancyra and through Eustathius of Sebastia,
saw fit definitely to adopt it. While S. Athanasius, on the one hand, using the older
terminology, says that vnoa-raan is equivalent to oiaia, and has no other meaning 3, S. Basil, on
the other hand, goes so far as to say that the terms ovala and vTrdorao-ij, even in the Nicene
anathema, are not to be understood as equivalent 4. The adoption of the new phrase, even
after the explanations given at Alexandria, was found to require, in order to avoid misconstruc-
tion, a more precise definition of its meaning, and a formal defence of its orthodoxy. And
herein consisted one principal service rendered by S. Basil and S. Gregory ; while with more
precise definition of the term vnoa-ratris there emerged, it may be, a more precise view of the
relations of the Persons, and with the defence of the new phrase as expressive of the Trinity
of Persons a more precise view of what is implied in the Unity of the Godhead.

1 It is to l>e noted further that the use of the terms " Persona "
and npiiaumov by those who avoided ihe phrase Tpeis iin-ooratreis
no doubt assisted in the formation of this suspicion. At the same
time the Nicene anathema favoured the sense of iin-oaracrit as
•■ inivalent to oixria, and so appeared to condemn the Eastern use.

2 S. Athanasius, Tom. ad Anlioch, 5.

3 Ad Afr. Episc. § 4. S. Athanasius, however, does not shrink
from the phrase Tpets urroo-rdcreis in contradistinction to the (xio
ovtria : see the treatise, In Mud, ' Omnia mini tradita sunt '
§6.

* S. Bas. Ep. 125 (being the confession of faith drawn up by
S. Basil for the subscription of Eustathius)

HIS TEACHING ON THE HOLY TRINITY.

The treatise, De Sancia Trinitate is one of those which are attributed by some to S. Basil, by
others to S. Gregory : but for the purpose of showing the difficulties with which they had to
deal, the question of its exact authorship is unimportant. x The most obvious objection alleged
against their teaching was that which had troubled the Western theologians before the Alexan-
drine Council, — the objection that the acknowledgment of Three Persons implied. a belief in
Three Gods. To meet this, there was required a statement of the meaning of the term
virocrTao-is, and of the relation of oWa to vnoo-rao-n. Another objection, urged apparently by the
same party as the former, was directed against the " novelty," or inconsistency, of employing in
the singular terms expressive of the Divine Nature such as "goodness" or ■*' Godhead," while
asserting that the Godhead exists in plurality of Persons2. To meet this, it was required that
the sense in which the Unity of the Godhead was maintained should be more plainly and
clearly denned.

The position taken by S. Basil with regard to the terms olo-la and vwoanaan is very concisely
stated in his letter to Terentius ^. He says that the Western theologians themselves acknow-
ledge that a distinction does exist between the two terms : and he briefly sets forth his view of
the nature of that distinction by saying that ovaia is to vn6o-Taois as that which is common to
individuals is to that in respect of which the individuals are naturally differentiated. He
illustrates this statement by the remark that each individual man has his being tw koiVoj rr)r
ovvLas Xdyo>, while he is differentiated as art individual man in virtue of his own particular
attributes. So in the Trinity that which constitutes the ovaia (be it "goodness" or be it
" Godhead ") is common, while the viroo-rao-ts is marked by the Personal attribute of Father-
hood or Sonship or Sanctifying Power +. This position is also adopted and set forth in greater
detail in the treatise, De Diff. Essen, et Hypost. s, already referred to, where we find once more
the illustration employed in the Epistle to Terentius. The Nature of the Father is beyond
our comprehension ; but whatever conception we are able to form of that Nature, we must
consider it to be common also to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: so far as. the oio-la is
concerned, whatever is predicated of any one of the Persons may be predicated equally of each
of the Three Persons, just as the properties of man, qud man, belong alike to Paul and
Barnabas and Timothy : and as these individual men are differentiated by their own particular
attributes, so each Person of the Trinity is distinguished by a certain attribute. from the other
two Persons. This way of putting the case naturally leads to the question, " If you say, as you
do say, that Paul and Barnabas and Timothy are ' three men,' why do you not say that the
Three Persons are 'three Gods?'" Whether the, question- was presented in this shape to
S. Basil we cannot with certainty decide : but we may gather from his language regarding the
applicability of number to the Trinity what his answer would have; been., He6 says that in
acknowledging One Father, One Son, One Holy Spirit,, we do not enumerate them by com-
putation, but assert the individuality, so to say, of each, hypostasis— its distinctness from the
others. He would probably have replied by saying that strictly speaking we ought to decline
applying to the Deity, considered as Deity, any numerical idea at all* and that to enumerate
the Persons as " three " is a necessity, possibly, imposed upon us by language, but that no
conception of number is really applicable to the Divine Nature or to the Divine Persons,

* It appears on the whole more probable that the treatise is the
work of S. Gregory ; but it is found, n a slightly different shape,
among the Letters of S. Basil. (Ep. 189 in the Benedictine
Edition.)

2 In what sense this language was charged with " novelty " is
not very clear. But the point of the objection appears to lie in
a refusal to recognize that terms expressive of the Divine Nature,
whether they indicate attributes or operations of that Nature, may
be predicated of each vtto&tcuti's severally, as well as of the pvcria,
without attaching to the terms themselves that idea of plurality

which, so far as they express attributes or operations of the ouo-c'a,
must be excluded from them. 3 S. Bas. Ep. 214, § 4.

4 The differentia here assigned to the Third Person is not,
in S. Basil's own view, a differentia at all : for he would no doubt
have been ready to acknowledge that this attribute is common to
all Three Persons. S. Gregory, as it will be seen, treats the
question as to the differentiation of the Persons somewhat
differently, and rests his answer on a basis theologically more
scientific 5 S. Bas. Ep. 38 (Benedictine Ed.).

6 De Spir. Sancto, § t8.

PROLEGOMENA.

which transcend number1. To S. Gregory, however, the question did actually present itself as
one demanding an answer, and his reply to it marks his departure from S. Basil's position,
though, if the treatise, De Diff. Essen, et Hyp. be S. Basil's, S. Gregory was but following out
and defending the view of his " master " as expressed in that treatise.

S. Gregory's reply to the difficulty may be found in the letter, or short dissertation, addressed
to Ablabius {Quod non sunt tres Dei), and in his treatise ntp\ koivS>v (woiav. In the latter he
lays it down that the term 6(6s is a term ova las arjuavriicov, not a term npoaanwv or/Xantcou : the
Godhead of the Father is not that in which He maintains His differentiation from the Son :
the Son is not God because He is Son, but because His essential Nature is what it is.
i Accordingly, when we speak of " God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost,"
the word and is employed to conjoin the terms expressive of the Persons, not the repeated
term which is expressive of the Essence, and which therefore, while applied to each of the
Three Persons, yet cannot properly be employed in the plural. That in the case of three
individual " men " the term expressive of essence is employed in the plural is due, he says, to
the fact that in this case there are circumstances which excuse or constrain such a use of the
term "man" while such circumstances do not affect the case of the Holy Trinity. The
individuals included under the term "man" vary alike in number and in identity, and thus we
are constrained to speak of " men " as more or fewer, and in a certain sense to treat the
essence as well as the persons numerically. In the Holy Trinity, on the other hand, the
Persons are always the same, and their number the same. Nor are the Persons of the Holy
Trinity differentiated, like individual men, by relations of time and place, and the like ; the
differentiation between them is based upon a constant causal relation existing among the
Three Persons, which does not affect the unity of the Nature : it does not express the Being,
but the mode of Being 2. The Father is the Cause ; the Son and the Holy Spirit are differen-
tiated from Him as being from the Cause, and again differentiated inter se as being imme-
diately from the Cause, and immediately through that which is from the Cause. Further,
while these reasons may be alleged for holding that the cases are not in such a sense parallel
as to allow that the same conclusion as to modes of speech should be drawn in both, he urges
that the use of the term " men " in the plural is, strictly speaking, erroneous. We should, in
strictness, speak not of " this or that man," but of " this or that hypostasis of man " — the
" three men " should be described as " three hypostases " of the common oiala " man." In
the treatise addressed to Ablabius he goes over the same ground, clothing his arguments in
a somewhat less philosophical dress ; but he devotes more space to an examination of the
meaning of the term 6t6s, with a view to showing that it is a term expressive of operation, and
thereby of essence, not a term which may be considered as applicable to any one of the Divine
Persons in any such peculiar sense that it may not equally be applied also to the other two 3.
His argument is partly based upon an etymology now discredited, but this does not affect
the position he seeks to establish (a position which is also adopted in the treatise, De
S. Trinitate), that names expressive of the Divine Nature, or of the Divine operation (by
which alone that Nature is known to us) are employed, and ought to be employed, only in the
singular. The unity and inseparability of all Divine operation, proceeding from the Father,
advancing through the Son, and culminating in the Holy Spirit, yet setting forth one nivr/ais of
the Divine will, is the reason why the idea of plurality is not suffered to attach to these names 4,

* On S. Basil's language on this subject, see Domer, Doctrine
of the Person of Christ, Div. I. vol. ii. pp. 309 — IX. (Eng. Trans.)

a This statement strikes at the root of the theory held by
Eunomius, as well as by the earlier Arians, that (he aytvtrqaria.
of the Father constituted His Essence. S. Gregory treats His
OLftyt^uia as that by which He is distinguished from the other
Persons, as an attribute marking His hypostasis. This subject is
treated moie fully, with special reference to the Eunomian view, in
the Rtf. alt. libri Eunomii

3 S. Gregory would apparently extend this argument even
to the operations expressed by the names of " Redeemer," or
"Comforter;" though he would admit that in regard of the mode
by which these operations are applied to man, the names expressive
of them are used in a special sense of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, yet he would argue that in neither case does the one Persoa
act without the other two.

* See Domer, ut sup., pp. 317-ilL

HIS TEACHING ON THE HOLY TRINITY.

while the reason for refusing to allow, in regard to the three Divine Persons, the same laxity of
language which we tolerate in regard to the case of the three "men," is to be found in the
fact that in the latter case no dangtr arises from the current abuse of language : no one thinks-
of " three human natures ;" but on the other hand polytheism is a very real and serious-
danger, to which the parallel abuse of language involved in speaking of " three Gods " would
infallibly expose us.

S. Gregory's own doctrine, indeed, has seemed to some critics to be open to the charge of
tritheism. But even if his doctrine were entirely expressed in the single illustration of which
we have spoken, it does not seem that the charge would hold good, when we consider the
light in which the illustration would present itself to him. The conception of the unity of
human nature is with him a thing intensely vivid : it underlies much of his system, and he
brings it prominently forward more than once in his more philosophical writings l. We
cannot, in fairness, leave his realism out of account when we are estimating the force of his
illustration : and therefore, while admitting that the illustration was one not unlikely to produce
misconceptions of his teaching, we may fairly acquit him of any personal bias towards tritheism
such as might appear to be involved in the unqualified adoption of the same illustration by
a writer of our own time, or such as might have been attributed to theologians of the period of
S. Gregory who adopted the illustration without the qualification of a realism as determined as
his own a. But the illustration does not stand alone : we must not consider that it is the only
one of those to be found in the treatise, De Diff. Essen, et Hypost., which he would have felt
justified in employing. Even if the illustration of the rainbow, set forth in that treatise, was.
not actually his own (as Dorner, ascribing the treatise to him, considers it to have been), it was
at all events (on the other theory of the authorship), included in the teaching he had received
from his " master : " it would be present to his mind, although in his undisputed writings,,
where he is dealing with objections brought against the particular illustration from human
relations, he naturally confines himself to the particular illustration from which an erroneous
inference was being drawn. In our estimate of his teaching the one illustration must be
allowed to some extent to qualify the effect produced by the other. And, further, we must
remember that his argument from human relations is professedly only an illustration. It
points to an analogy, to a resemblance, not to an identity of relations ; so much he is careful in.
his reply to state. Even if it were true, he implies, that we are warranted in speaking, in the
given case, of the three human persons as "three men," it would not follow that we should
be warranted thereby in speaking of the three Divine Persons as "three Gods." For the
human personalities stand contrasted with the Divine, at once as regards their being and as
regards their operation. The various human npoaana draw their being from many other
npoaana, one from one, another from another, not, as the Divine, from One, unchangeably the
same : they operate, each in his own way, severally and independently, not, as the Divine,
inseparably : they are contemplated each by himself, in his own limited sphere, k<it UOop-
irtpiypa<pr}v, not, as the Divine, in mutual essential connexion, differentiated one from the other
only by a certain mutual relation. And from this it follows that the human npoaana are capable
of enumeration in a sense in which number cannot be considered applicable to the Divine
Persons. Here we find S. Gregory's teaching brought once more into harmony with his
" master's : " if he has been willing to carry the use of numerical terms rather further than
S. Basil was prepared to do, he yet is content in the last resort to say that number is not in
strictness applicable to the Divine vtto<ttuous, in that they cannot be contemplated kut I8lav
•ntpiypa^v, and therefore cannot be enumerated by way of addition. Still the distinction of
the vnoaravtis remains ; and if there is no other way (as he seems to have considered there was-

i Especially in the treatise, De Anuria et Resurrectione, and in that De Conditione Hominis. A notable instance is to be.
found in the former (p. 243 A.). a See Dorner, ut sup., p. 315, and p. 319, note 2.

28 PROLEGOMENA.

none), of making full acknowledgment of their distinct though inseparable existence than to
speak of them as " three," he holds that that use of numerical language is justifiable, so long
as we do not transfer the idea of number from the viroaraaeis to the ova-la, to that Nature of
God which is Itself beyond our conception, and which we can only express by terms suggested
to us by what we know of Its operation.

Such, in brief, is the teaching of S. Gregory on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as expressed
in the treatises in which he developed and defended those positions in which S. Basil appeared
to diverge from the older Nicene theologians. That the terminology of the subject gained
clearness and definiteness from his exposition, in that he rendered it plain that the adoption
of the Eastern phraseology was a thing perfectly consistent with the Faith confessed alike by
East and West in varying terms, seems beyond doubt. It was to him, probably, rather than
to S. Basil, that this work was due ; for he cleared up the points which S. Basil's illustration
had left doubtful ; yet in so doing he was using throughout the weapons which his " master "
had placed in his hands, and arguing in favour of his " master's " statements, in language, it
may be, less guarded than S. Basil himself would have employed, but in accordance
throughout with the principles which S. Basil had followed. Each bore his own part in the
common work : to one, perhaps, is due the credit of greater originality ; to the other it was
given to carry on and to extend what his brother had begun : neither, we may well believe,
would have desired to claim that the work which their joint teaching effected should be
imputed to himself alone.

So far, we have especially had in view those minor treatises of S. Gregory which illustrate
such variations from Athanasian modes of expression as are to be found in the writers of the
" Neo-Nicene " school. These are perhaps his most characteristic works upon the subject.
But the doctrine of the Trinity, as he held it, is further set forth and enforced in other
treatises which are, from another point of view, much more important than those with which
we have been dealing — in his Oratio Catechetica, and his more directly polemical treatises
against Eunomius. In both these sections of his writings, when allowance is made for the
difference of terminology already discussed, we are less struck by the divergencies from
S. Athanasius' presentment of the doctrine than by the substantial identity of S. Gregory's
reasoning with that of S. Athanasius, as the latter is displayed, for example, in the " Orations
against the Arians."

There are, of course, many points in which S. Gregory falls short of his great predecessor ;
but of these some may perhaps be accounted for by the different aspect of the Arian
controversy as it presented itself to the two champions of the Faith. The later school of
Arianism may indeed be regarded as a perfectly legitimate and rigidly logical development
of the doctrines taught by Arius himself; but in some ways the task of S. Gregory was a
different task from that of S. Athanasius, and was the less formidable of the two. His
antagonist was, by his own greater definiteness of statement, placed at a disadvantage : the
consequences which S. Athanasius had to extract from the Arian statements were by
Eunomius and the Anomceans either openly asserted or tacitly admitted : and it was thus
an easier matter for S. Gregory to show the real tendency of Anomoean doctrine than it
had been for S. Athanasius to point out the real tendency of the earlier Arianism. Further,
it may be said that by the time of S. Basil, still more by the time when S. Gregory succeeded
to his brother's place in the controversy, the victory over Arianism was assured. It was
not possible for S. Athanasius, even had it been in his nature to do so, to treat the earlier
Arianism with the same sort of contemptuous criticism with which Eunomius is frequently
met by S. Gregory. For S. Gregory, on the other hand, it was not necessary to refrain
from such criticism lest he should thereby detract from the force of his protest against error.
The crisis in his day was not one which demanded the same sustained effort for which the
contest called in the days of S. Athanasius. Now and then, certainly, S. Gregory also rises

HIS TEACHING ON THE HOLY TRINITY. 29

to a white heat of indignation against his adversary : but it is hardly too much to say that
his work appears to lack just those qualities which seem, in the writings of S. Athanasius,
to have been called forth by the author's sense of the weight of the force opposed to him,
and of the " life and death " character of the contest S. Gregory does not under-estimate
the momentous nature of the questions at issue : but when he wrote, he might feel that to
those questions the answer of Christendom had been already given, that the conflict was
already won, and that any attempt at developing the Arian doctrine on Anomoean lines
was the adoption of an untenable position, — even of a position manifestly and evidently
untenable : the doctrine had but to be stated in clear terms to be recognized as incompatible
with Christianity, and, that fact once recognized, he had no more to do. Thus much of
his treatises against Eunomius consists not of constructive argument in support of his own
position, but of a detailed examination of Eunomius' own statements, while a further portion
of the contents of these books, by no means inconsiderable in amount, is devoted not so
much to the defence of the Faith as to the refutation of certain misrepresentations of S. Basil's
arguments which had been set forth by Eunomius.

Even in the more distinctly constructive portion of these polemical writings, however,
it may be said that S. Gregory does not show marked originality of thought either in his
general argument, or in his mode of handling disputed texts. Within the limits of an
introductory essay like the present, anything like detailed comparison on these points is
of course impossible ; but any one who will take the trouble to compare the discourses ot
S. Gregory against Eunomius with the " Orations " of S. Athanasius against the Arians, — the
Athanasian writing, perhaps, most closely corresponding in character to these books of
S. Gregory, — either as regards the specific passages of Scripture cited in support of the
doctrine maintained, and the mode of interpreting them, or as to the methods of explanation
applied to the texts alleged by the Arian writers in favour of their own opinions, can hardly
fail to be struck by the number and the closeness of the resemblances which he will be
able to trace between the earlier and the later representatives of the Nicene School. A
somewhat similar relation to the Athanasian position, as regards the basis of belief, and
(allowing for the difference of terminology) as regards the definition of doctrine, may be
observed in the Oratio Catechetica.

Such originality, in fact, as S. Gregory may claim to possess (so far as his treatment
of this subject is concerned) is rather the originality of the tactician than that of the strate-
gist : he deals rather with his particular opponent, and keeps in view the particular point
in discussion more than the general area over which the war extends. S. Athanasius,
on the other hand (partly, no doubt, because he was dealing with a less fully developed
form of error), seems to. have more force left in reserve. He presents his arguments in
a more concise form, and is sometimes content to suggest an inference where S. Gregory
proceeds to draw out conclusions in detail, and where thereby the latter, while possibly
strengthening his presentment of the truth as against his own particular adversary, —
against the Anomoean or the polytheist on the one side, or against the Sabellian or the
Judaizer on the other, — renders his argument, when considered per se as a defence of
the orthodox position, frequently more diffuse and sometimes less forcible. Yet, even here,
originality of a certain kind does belong to S. Gregory, and it seems only fair to him
to say that in these treatises also he did good service in defence of the Faith touching the
Holy Trinity. He shows that alike by way of formal statement of doctrine, as in the Oratio
Catechetica, and by way of polemical argument, the forces at the command of the defenders
of the Faith could be organized to meet varied forms of error, without abandoning, either
for a more original theology like that ot Marcellus of Ancyra, or for the compromise which
the Homcean or Semi-Arian school were in danger of being led to accept, the weapons with
which S. Athanasius had conquered at Nicaea.

?o PROLEGOMENA.

CHAPTER V.
MSS. and Editions.

For the 13 Books Against Eunomius, the text of F. Oehler (S. Greg. Nyss. Opera. Tom. I.
Halis, 1865) has in the following translations been almost entirely followed.

The Ist Book was not in the i8t Paris Edition in two volumes (1615) ; but it was published
three years afterwards from the 'Bavarian Codex,' i.e. that of Munich, by J. Gretser in an
Appendix, along with the Summaries (these headings of the sections of the entire work are by
some admirer of Gregory's) and the two introductory Letters. Both the Summaries and the
letters, and also nearly three-quarters of the i8t Book were obtained from J. Livineius' transcript
of the Vatican MS. made at Rome, 1579. This Appendix was added to the 2nd Paris Edition,
in three volumes (1638).

In correcting these Paris Editions (for MSS. of which see below), Oehler had access, in
addition to the identical Munich MS. (paper, 16th century) which Gretser had used, to the
following MSS. :—

1. Venice (Library of S. Mark; cotton, 13 Cent, No. 69). This he says 'wonderfully

agrees ' with the Munich (both, for instance, supply the lacunae of the Paris Edition
of Book I : he concludes, therefore, that these are not due to Gretser's negligence,
who gives the Latin for these passages, but to that of the printers).

2. Turin (Royal Library; cotton, 14 Cent., No. 71).

3. Milan (Library of S. Ambrose; cotton, 13 Cent., No. 225, Plut. 1; its inscription

says that it was brought from Thessaly).

4. Florence (Library Medic. Laurent.; the oldest of all ; parchment, n Cent, No. 17,

Plut. vi. It contains the Summaries).
These, and the Munich MS., which he chiefly used, are " all of the same family : " and from
them he has been able to supply more than 50 lacunae in the Books against Eunomius. This
family is the first of the two separated by G. H. Forbes (see below). The Munich MS.
(No. 47, on paper, 16 Cent.), already used by Sifanus for his Latin version (1562), and by Gretser
for his Appendix, has the corrections of the former in its margin. These passed into the two
Paris Editions ; which, however, took no notice of his critical notes. When lent to Sifanus
this MS. was in the Library of J. J. Fugger. Albert V. Duke of Bavaria purchased the
treasures of Greek literature in this library, to found that in Munich.

For the treatise On the Soul and the Resurrection, the Great Catechetical Oration, and the
Funeral Oration on Meletius, John George Krabinger's text has been adopted. He had MSS.
' old and of a better stamp ' (Oehler) than were accessible to the Paris editors. Krabinger's own
account of them is this : —

On the Soul. 5 MSS. of 16th, 14th, and nth Cent. All at Munich. In one of them
there are scholia, some imported into the text by J. Naupliensis Mur-
mureus the copyist ; and Sifanus' corrections.
The ' Hasselman,' 14th Cent J. Christopher Wolf, who annotated this
treatise {Aneedota Graca, Hamburgh, 1722), says of this MS. "very
carefully written." It was lent by Zach. Hasselman, Minister of Olden-
burgh.
The ' Uffenbach,' 14th Cent, with var. lect in margin. Lent to Wolf by
the Polish ambassador at Frankfort on Main, at the request of Zach.
Uffenbach.
Catechetical Oration. 4 MSS. of 16th Cent, 1 of 13th Cent., 'much mutilated: All at

Munich.
On Meletius. 2 MSS. of 16th Cent., 1 of 10th Cent All at Munich.

His edition of the former appeared, at Leipzic, 1837 ; of the two latter, at Munich, 1838 ;
all with valuable notes.

MSS. AND EDITIONS. 31

For the treatise Against Macedonius, the only text available is that of Cardinal Angelo Mai
(Script Vet. Nova Collectio, Rome, 1833). It is taken from the Vatican MS. 'on silk.' The
end of this treatise is not found in Mai. Perhaps it is in the MS. of Florence.

For fourteen of the Letters, Zacagni (Praefect of the Vatican Library, 1698 — 1713) is the
only editor. His text from the Vatican MS., No. 424, is printed in his Collectan. Monu-
ment, ret. (pp. 354 — 400), Rome, 1698.

He had not the use of the Medicean MS. which Caraccioli (see below) testifies to be much
superior to the Vatican ; there are lacunae in the latter, however, which Zacagni occasionally
fills by a happy guess with the very words supplied by the Medicean.

For the Letter to Adelphius, and that (on Church Architecture) to Amphilochius, J. R
Caraccioli (Professor of Philosophy at Pisa) furnishes a text (Florence, 1731) from the Medi-
cean MS. The Letters in this collection are seven in all. Of the last of these (including that
to Amphilochius) Bandinus says non sincerd fide ex Codice descrijttas, and that a fresh collation
is necessary.

For the treatise On the Making of Man, the text employed has been that of G. H. Forbes,
(his first Fasciculus was published in 1855; his second in 1861 ; both at Burntisland, at his
private press), with an occasional preference for the readings of one or other of the MSS. exam-
ined by him or by others on his behalf. Of these he specifies twenty : but he had examined
a much larger number. The MSS. which contain this work, he considers, are of two families.

Of the first family the most important are three MSS. at Vienna, a tenth-century MS. on
vellum at S. Mark's, Venice, which he himself collated, and a Vatican MS. of the tenth century.
This family also includes three of the four Munich MSS. collated for Forbes by Krabinger.

The other family displays more variations from the current text. One Vienna MS. " per-
vetustus " " initio mutilus," was completely collated. Also belonging to this family are the
oldest of the four Munich MSS., the tenth-century Codex Regius (Paris), and a fourteenth-
century MS. at Christ Church, Oxford, clearly related to the last.

The Codex Baroccianus (Bodleian, perhaps eleventh century; appears to occupy an inde-
pendent position.

For the other Treatises and Letters the text of the Paris Edition of 1638 (' plenior et
emendatior' than that of 1615, according to Oehler, probably following its own title, but
"much inferior to that of 1615" Canon Venables, Diet. Christ. Biog, says, and this is the
judgment of J. Fessler) and of Migne have been necessary as the latest complete editions
of the works of Gregory Nyssene. (All the materials that had been collected for the edition
of the Benedictines of St. Maur perished in the French Revolution.)

Of the two Paris Editions it must be confessed that they are based ' for the most part on in-
ferior MSS.' (Oehler.) The frequent lacunae attest this. Fronto Ducaeus aided Claude, the
brother of F. Morel, in settling the text, and the MSS. mentioned in the notes of the former are
as follows :

1. Pithoeus* "not of a very ancient hand," " as like F. Morel's (No. 2.-) as milk to milk "
(so speaks John the Franciscan, who emended 'from one corrupt mutilated manu-
script,' i.e. the above, the Latin translation of the Books against Eunomius made
by his father N. Gulonius.)
*. F. Morel's. ("Dean of Professors " and Royal Printer.)

3. The Royal (in the Library of Henry II., Paris), on vellum, tenth century.

4. Canter's (" ingens codex " sent from Antwerp by A. Schott ; it had been written out

for T. Canter, Senator of Utrecht).

5. Olivar's. " Multo emendatius " than (2.)

6. J. Vulcobius', Abbot of Belpre.

7. The Vatican. ^ ^ ^^.^ Qn yirgaUy% (The Paris Editors used

8. Bncmans (Cologne). Uvineius' Edition, based on (7) and (8).

CEgidius David's, I. C. Paris.

32 PROLEGOMENA.

10. The Bavarian (Munich) for Books II. — XIII. Against Eunomius and other treatises ;
only after the first edition of 1615.

Other important MSS. existing for treatises here translated are

the two last being wrongly attributed to

On Pilgrimages :

MS. Csesareus (Vienna): "valde vetustus "
(Nessel, on the Imperial Library), vellum,
No. 160, burnt at beginning.
MSS. Florence (xx. 17 : xvi. 8).
MS. Leyden (not older than fifteenth cen-
tury).
On the Making of Man :

MS. Augsburgh, with twelve Homilies of Basil,

Gregory (Reizer).
MS. Ambrosian (Milan). See Montfaucon,
Bibl. Bibliothec. p. 498.
On Infants'1 Early Deaths :

MS. Turin (Royal Library).
On the Soul and Resurrection :

MSS. Augsburgh, Florence, Turin, Venice.
Great Catechetical :

MSS. Augsburgh, Florence, Turin, Csesareus.

Many other MSS., for these and other treatises, are given by S. Heyns {Disputatio de Greg. Nyss. Leyden,
1835). But considering the mutilated condition of most of the oldest, and the still small number of treatises
edited from an extended collation of these, the complaint is still true that ' the text of hardly any other ancient
writer is in a more imperfect state than that of Gregory of Nyssa. '

Versions of several Treatises."

Latin.

1. Of Dionysius Exiguus (died before 556) : On the Making of Man. Aldine, 1537.

Cologne, 1551. Basle, 1562. Cologne, 1573. Dedicated to Eugippius.'

This Dedication and the Latin of Gregory's Preface was only once printed
- (i.e. in J. Mabillon's Analecta, Paris, 1677).
This ancient Latin Version was revised by Fronto Ducaeus, the Jesuit, and Combe-

ficius. There is a copy of it at Leyden.
It stimulated J. Leiinclaius (see below), who judged it " fceda pollutum barbaria

planeque perversum," to make another. Basle, 1567.

2. Of Daniel Augentius : On the Soul. Paris 1557.

3. Of Laurent. Sifanus, I. U. Doct. : On the Soul and many other treatises. Basle, 1562

Apud N. Episcopum.

4. Of Pet. Galesinius: On Virginity and On Prayer. Rome, 1563, ap. P. Manutium.

5. Of Johann. Leiinclaius : On the Making of Man. Basle, 1567, ap. Oporinum.

6. Of Pet. Morelius, of Tours : Great Catechetical. Paris, 1568.

7. Of Gentianus Hervetus, Canon of Rheims, a diligent translator of the Fathers :

Great Catechetical, and many others. Paris, 1573.

8. Of Johann. Livineius, of Ghent : On Virginity. Apud Plantinum, 1574.

9. Of Pet. Fr. Zinus, Canon of Verona, translator of Euthymius' Panoplia, which contains

the Great Catechetical. Venice, 1575.
10. Of Jacob Gretser, the Jesuit: /. e. Eunotn. Paris, 1618.
XI. Of Nicolas Gulonius, Reg. Prof, of Greek: II. — XIII. c. Eunom. Paris, 1615.

Revised by his son John, the Franciscan.
12. Of J. Georg. Krabinger, Librarian of Royal Library, Munich : On the Soul, Great

Catechetical, On Infants' Early Deaths, and others. Leipzic, 1837.

German.

1. Of Glauber : Great Catechetical, &c. Gregorius von Nyssa und Augustinus fiber

den ersten Christlichen Religions-unterricht. Leipzic, 1781.

2. Of Julius Rupp, Konigsberg : On Meletius. Gregors Leben und Meinungen. Leipzic,

1834.

3. Of Oehler : Various treatises. Bibliothek der Kirchenvater I. Theil. Leipzic,

1858-59.

4. Herm. Schmidt, paraphrased rather than translated : On the Soul. Halle, 1864.

5. OfH. Hayd: On Infants"Early Deaths : On the Making of Man, Sac. Kempton, 1874.

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGMNST HUNOMIUS.

Letter I.

Gregory to his brother Peter, Bishop of
Sebasteia.

Having with difficulty obtained a. little
leisure, I have been able to recover from
bodily fatigue on my return from Armenia, and
to collect the sheets of my reply to Eunomius
which was suggested by your wise advice ; so
that my work is now arranged in a complete
treatise, which can be read between covers.
However, I have not written against both
his pamphlets * ; even the leisure for that was
not granted; for the person who lent me
the heretical volume most uncourteously sent
for it again, and allowed me no time either to
write it out or to study it. In the short space
of seventeen days it was impossible to be pre-
pared to answer both his attacks.

Owing to its somehow having become
notorious that we had laboured to answer this
blasphemous manifesto, many persons possess-
ing some zeal for the Truth have importuned
me about it : but I have thought it right to
prefer you in your wisdom before them all, to
advise me whether to consign this work to the
public, or to take some other course. The
reason why I hesitate is this. When our

abuse of our father in God. I was exasperated
with this, and there were passages where the
flame of my heart-felt indignation burst out
against this writer. The public have pardoned
us for much else, because we have been apt in
showing patience in meeting lawless attacks,
and as far as possible have practised that
restraint in feeling which the saint has taught
us ; but I had fears lest from what we have
now written against this opponent the reader
should get the idea that we were very raw
controversialists, who lost our temper directly
at insolent abuse. Perhaps, however, this sus-
picion about us will be disarmed by remember-
ing that this display of anger is not on our own
behalf, but because of insults levelled against
our father in God ; and that it is a case in
which mildness would be more unpardonable
than anger.

If, then, the first part of my treatise should
seem somewhat outside the controversy, the fol-
lowing explanation of it will, I think, be accepted
by a reader who can judge fairly. It was not
right to leave undefended the reputation of our
noble saint, mangled as it was by the opponent's
blasphemies, any more than it was convenient
to let this battle in his behalf be spread
diffusely along the whole thread of the dis-
cussion ; besides, if any one reflects, these pages

saintly Basil fell asleep, and I received the | do really form part of the controversy. Our

legacy of Eunomius' controversy, when my
heart was hot within me with bereavement, and,
besides this deep sorrow for the common loss
of the church, Eunomius had not confined
himself to the various topics which might pass
as a defence of his views, but had spent the
chief part of his energy in laboriously-written

« both his pamphlets. The' sheets' which Gregory says that
he has collected are the i* Books that follow. They are written
in reply to Eunomius' pamphlet, ' Apologia Apologia?,' itself a reply
to Basil's Refutation. The other pamphlet of Eunomius seems to
have come out during the composition of Gregory's 12 Books : and
was afterwards answered by the latter in a second 12th Book,
but not now, because of the shortness of the time in which he had
a copy of the ' heretical volume ' in his hands. The two last books
of the five which go under the title of Basil's Refutation are con-
sidered on good grounds to have been Gregory's, and to have
formed that short reply to Eunomius which he read, at the Council
of Constantinople, to Gregory of Nazianzen and Jerome (d. vir.
Must. c. 128). Then he worked upon this longer reply. Thus
there were in all three works of Gregory corresponding to the three
attacks of Eunomius upon the Trinity.

VOL. V.

adversary's treatise has two separate arms, viz.
to abuse us and to controvert sound doctrine \
and therefore ours too must show a double
front. But for the sake of clearness, and in
order that the thread of the discussion upon
matters of the Faith should not be cut by
parentheses, consisting of answers to their per-
sonal abuse, we have separated. our work into
two parts, and devoted ourselves in the first
to refute these charges : and then we have
grappled as best we might with that which
they have advanced against the Faith. Our
treatise also contains, in addition to a refuta-
tion of their heretical views, a dogmatic ex-
position of our own teaching ; for it would be
a most shameful want of spirit, when our foes
make no concealment of their blasphemy, not
to be bold in our statement of the Truth

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS.

Letter II.

To his most pious brother Gregory. Peter
greeting in the Lord.

Having met with the writings of your holiness
and having perceived in your tract against this
heresy your zeal both for the truth and for our
sainted father in God, I judge that this work
was not due simply to your own ability, but was
that of one who studied that the Truth should
speak, even in the publication of his own
views. To the Holy Spirit of truth I would
refer this plea for the truth ; just as to the
father of lies, and not to Eunomius, should be
referred this animosity against sound faith.
Indeed, that murderer from the beginning who
speaks in Eunomius has carefully whetted the
sword against himself; for if he had not been
so bold against the truth, no one would have
roused you to undertake the cause of our
religion. But to the end that the rottenness
and flimsiness of their doctrines may be ex-
posed, He who " taketh the wise in their own
craftiness" hath allowed them both to be head-
strong against the truth, and to have laboured
- unlv on this vain speech.

But since he that hath begun a good work
will finish it, faint not in furthering the Spirit's
power, nor leave half-won the victory over the
assailants of Christ's glory ; but imitate thy
true father who, like the zealot Phineas, pierced
with one stroke of his Answer both master and
pupil. Plunge with thy intellectual arm the
sword of the Spirit through both these heret-
ical pamphlets, lest, though broken on the
head, the serpent affright the simpler sort
by still quivering in the tail When the first
arguments have been answered, should the
last remain unnoticed, the many will suspect
that they still retain some strength against
the truth.

The feeling shewn in your treatise will be
grateful, as salt, to the palate of the soul. As
bread cannot be eaten, according to Job,
without salt, so the discourse which is not
savoured with the inmost sentiments of God's
word will never wake, and never move,
desire.

Be strong, then, in the thought that thou art
a beautiful example to succeeding times of the
way in which good-hearted children should act
. towards their virtuous fathers.

BOOK I\

§ I. Preface. — // is useless to attempt to benefit
those who will not accept help.

It seems that the wish to benefit all, and to
lavish indiscriminately upon the first comer
one's own gifts, was not a thing altogether
commendable, or even free from reproach in
the eyes of the many ; seeing that the gratuitous
waste of many prepared drugs on the incurably-
diseased produces no result worth caring
about, either in the way of gain to the recipient,
or reputation to the would-be benefactor.
Rather such an attempt becomes in many cases
the occasion of a change for the worse. The
hopelessly-diseased and now dying patient re-
ceives only a speedier end from the more active
medicines ; the fierce unreasonable temper is
only made worse by the kindness of the
lavished pearls, as the Gospel tells us. I think
it best, therefore, in accordance with the
Divine command, for any one to separate the
valuable from the worthless when either have
to be given away, and to avoid the pain which
a generous giver must receive from one who
' treads upon his pearl,' and insults him by
his utter want of feeling for its beauty.

This thought suggests itself when I think
of one who freely communicated to others the
beauties of his own soul, I mean that man of
God, that mouth of piety, Basil ; one who
from the abundance of his spiritual treasures
poured his grace of wisdom into evil souls
whom he had never tested, and into one
among them, Eunomius, who was perfectly
insensible to all the efforts made for his good.
Pitiable indeed seemed the condition of this

« Thi» first Book against Eunomius was not in the i" Pans

Edition of Gregory's works, 1615: but it was published three years
later from the ' Bavarian Codex,' i.e. that of Munich, by J. Gret-
ser, in an Appendix, along with the Summaries (i.e. the headings
of the sections, which appear to be not Gregory's) and the two
Introductory Letters. These Summaries and the Letters, and
nearly three quarters of the 1" Book were found in J. Livineius'
transcript from the Codex Vaticanus made 1570, at Rome. This
Appendix was added to the aod Paris Edit. 1638. F. Oehler,
whose text has been followed throughout, has used for the 1" Book
the Munich Codex (on paper, xvith Cent.); the Venetian (on
cotton, xiiith Cent.); the Turin (on cotton, xiv'h Cent.), and the
oldest of all, the Florentine (on parchment, xith Cent.).

poor man, from the extreme weakness of his>
soul in the matter of the Faith, to all true
members of the Church ; for who is so wanting
in feeling as not to pity, at least, a perishing
soul? But Basil alone, from the abiding3
ardour of his love, was moved to undertake
his cure, and therein to attempt impossibilities ;
he alone took so much to heart the man's
desperate condition, as to compose, as an
antidote of deadly poisons, his refutation of
this heresy 3, which aimed at saving its author,
and restoring him to the Church.

He, on the contrary, like one beside himself
with fury, resists his doctor; he fights and
struggles ; he regards as a bitter foe one who
only put forth his strength to drag him from
the abyss of misbelief; and he does not in-
dulge in this foolish anger only before chance
hearers now and then; he has raised against
himself a literary monument to record this
blackness of his bile ; and when in long years
he got the requisite amount of leisure, he was
travailling over his work during all that interval
with mightier pangs than those of the largest
and the bulkiest beasts ; his threats of what
was coming were dreadful, whilst he was still
secretly moulding his conception : but when
at last and with great difficulty he brought it
to the light, it was a poor little abortion, quite

■ Reading,— m

to ijlovi.ii.ov . . . iiriToknitvrau This is the correction of Oehler
for toc ixovov . . . «jriToA/xo>i> which the text presents. The Vene-
tian MS. has «TTlTOA/i.tt)fTt.

3 his refutation of this heresy. This is Basil's ' A.vaTDtimKOS
toC airoAoyirriicov tow Suo<re/3oO« Evvopiov. ' Basil,' says Photius,
' with difficulty got hold of Eunomius' book,' perhaps because it
was written originally for a small circle of readers, and was in
a highly scientific form. What happened next may be told in the
words of Claudius Morellius (Prolegomena to Paris Edition of
1615) : ' When Basil's first essay against the foetus of Eunomius
had been published, he raised his bruised head like a trodden
worm, seized his pen, and began to rave more poisonously still as
well against Basil as the orthodox faith.' This was Eunomius'
' Apologia Apologiae : ' of it Photius says, ' His reply to Basil
was composed for many Olympiads while shut up in his cell.
This, like another Saturn, he concealed from the eyes of Basil
till it had grown up, i.e. he concealed it, by devouring it, as long
as Basil lived.' He then goes on to say that after Basil's death,
Theodore (of Mopsuestia), Gregory ot Nyssa, and Sophronius
found it and dealt with it, though even then Eunomius had only
ventured to show it to some of his friends. Philostorgius, the
ardent admirer of Eunomius, makes the amazing statement th^t
Basii died of despair after reading it.

D 2

GREGORY OF NYSSA

prematurely born. However, those who share
his ruin nurse it and coddle it ; while we,
seeking the blessing in the prophet (" Blessed
shall he be who shall take thy children, and
shall dash them against the stones * ") are only
eager, now that it has got into our hands, to
take this puling manifesto and dash it on the
rock, as if it was one of the children of
Babylon ; and the rock must be Christ ; in
other words, the enunciation of the truth.
Only may that power come upon us which
strengthens weakness, through the prayers of
him who made his own strength perfect in
bodily weakness 5.

§ 2. We have been justly provoked to make this
Answer, being stung by Eunomius' accusa-
tions of our brother.

If indeed that godlike and saintly soul were
still in the flesh looking out upon human
affairs, if those lofty tones were still heard with
all their peculiar 6 grace and all their resistless
utterance, who could arrive at such a pitch of
audacity, as to attempt to speak one word
upon this subject? that divine trumpet-voice
would drown any word that could be uttered.
But all of him has now flown back to God ; at
first indeed in the slight shadowy phantom
of his body, he still rested on the earth ; but
now he has quite shed even that unsubstantial
form, and bequeathed it to this world. Mean-
time the drones are buzzing round the cells of
the Word, and are plundering the honey ; so
let no one accuse me of mere audacity for
rising up to speak instead of those silent lips.
I have not accepted this laborious task from
any consciousness in myself of powers of argu-
ment superior to the others who might be
named ; I, if any, have the means of knowing
that there are thousands in the Church who
are strong in the gift of philosophic skill.
Nevertheless I affirm that, both by the written
and the natural law, to me more especially
belongs this heritage of the departed, and
therefore I myself, in preference to others,
appropriate the legacy of the controversy.
I may be counted amongst the least of those
who are enlisted in the Church of God, but
.still I am not too weak to stand out as her
champion against one who has broken with
that Church. The very smallest member of a
vigorous body would, by virtue of the unity of its
life with the whole, be found stronger than one

4 Psalm cxxxvii. 9.

5 ' He asks for the intercession of Saint Paul ' (Paris Edit
111 m.-irg.).

6 a>roieAi)pu0ei<r. This is probably the meaning, after the
analogy of an-OKArjpujcrc?, in the sense (most frequent in Origen),
of 'favour,' 'partiality,' passing into that of 'caprice,' • arbi-
trar ness,' cf. below, cap. 9, n't r) oTroKAjjpuxris, k.t.K ' How arbi-
trarily he praises himself."

that had been cut away and was dying, how-
ever large the latter and small the former.

§ 3. We see nothing remarkable in logical force
in the treatise of Eunomius, and so embark
on our Answer with a just confidence.

Let no one think, that in saying this I ex-
aggerate and make an idle boast of doing some-
thing which is beyond my strength. I shall not
be led by any boyish ambition to descend to
his vulgar level in a contest of mere arguments
and phrases. Where victory is a useless and
profitless thing, we yield it readily to those who
wish to win ; besides, we have only to look at
this man's long practice in controversy, to con-
clude that he is quite a word-practitioner, and,
in addition, at the fact that he has spent no
small portion of his life on the composition of
this treatise, and at the supreme joy of his
intimates over these labours, to conclude that
he has taken particular trouble with this work.
It was not improbable that one who had
laboured at it for so many Olympiads would
produce something better than the work of
extempore scribblers. Even the vulgar pro-
fusion of the figures he uses in concocting his
work is a further indication of this laborious
care in writing 7. He has got a great mass of
newly assorted terms, for which he has put
certain other books under contribution, and he
piles this immense congeries of words on a very
slender nucleus of thought ; and so he has
elaborated this highly-wrought production,
which his pupils in error are lost in the admira-
tion of; — no doubt, because their deadness on
the vital points deprives them of the power of
feeling the distinction between beauty and the
reverse : — but which is ridiculous, and of no
value at all in the judgment of those, whose
hearts' insight is not dimmed with any soil of
unbelief. How in the world can it contribute
to the proof (as he hopes) of what he says and
the establishment of the truth of his specula-
tions, to adopt these absurd devices in his forms
of speech, this new-fangled and peculiar arrange-

7 Photius reports very much the same as to his style, i.e. he
shows a 'prodigious ostentation;' uses 'words difficult to pro-
nounce, and abounding in many consonants, and that in a poetic, or
rather a dithyrambic style : ' he has ' periods inordinately long : '
he is ' obscure,' and seeks ' to hide by this very obscurity whatever
is weak in his perceptions and conceptions, which indeed is often.'
He ' attacks others for their logic, and is very fond of using logic
himself:' but ' as he had taken up this science late in life, and had
not gone very deeply into it, he is olten found making mistakes.'

The book of Eunomius which Photius had read is still extant :
it is his ' Apologeticus ' in 28 sections, and has been published by
Canisius (Lectionei Antiquct, I. 172 ff.). His exdcot? ttjs -rio-Tews,
presented to the emperor Theodosius in the year 383, is also ex-
tant. This last is found in the Codex Theodosius and in the MSS.
which Livineius of Ghent used (or his Greek and Latin edition of
Gregory, 1574 : it follows the Books against Eunomius. His
' Apologia Apologia:,' which he wrote in answer to Basil's 5 (or 3)
books against him, is not extant: nor the ieuTepbs A070S which
Gregory ahswered in his second i2,h Book.

Most of the quotations, then, from Eunomius, in these books ol
Gregory cannot be verified, in the case of a doubtful reading, &c.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

ment, this fussy conceit, and this conceited
fussiness, which works with no enthusiasm for
iny previous model ? For it would be indeed
difficult to discover who amongst all those who
have been celebrated for their eloquence he
has had his eye on, in bringing himself to this
pitch; for he is like those who produce effects
upon the stage, adapting his argument to the
tune of his rhythmical phrases, as they their
song to their castenets, by means of parallel
sentences of equal length, of similar sound and
similar ending. Such, amongst many other
faults, are the nerveless quaverings and the
meretricious tricks of his Introduction ; and one
might fancy him bringing them all out, not with
an unimpassioned action, but with stamping of
the feet and sharp snapping of the fingers
declaiming to the time thus beaten, and then
remarking that there was no need of other
arguments and a second performance after
that.

§ 4. Eanomius displays much folly and fine
writing, but very little seriousness about vital
points.

In these and such like antics I allow him to
have the advantage ; and to his heart's content
he may revel in his victory there. Most
willingly I forego such a competition, which
can attract those only who seek renown ; if
indeed any renown comes from indulging in
such methods of argumentation, considering
that Paul 8, that genuine minister of the Word,
whose only ornament was truth, both disdained
himself to lower his style to such prettinesses,
and instructs us also, in a noble and appropriate
exhortation, to fix our attention on truth alone.
What need indeed for one who is fair in the
beauty of truth to drag in the paraphernalia of
a decorator for the production of a false artificial
beauty ? Perhaps for those who do not possess
truth it may be an advantage to varnish their
falsehoods with an attractive style, and to rub
into the grain of their argument a curious polish.
When their error i& taught in far-fetched lan-
guage and decked out with all the affectations
of style, they have a chance of being plausible
and accepted by their hearers. But those whose
only aim is simple truth, unadulterated by any
misguiding foil, find the light of a natural
beauty emitted from their words.

But now that I am about to begin the exami-
nation of all that he has advanced, I feel the
same difficulty as a farmer does, when the air is
calm ; I know not how to separate his wheat
irum his chaff; the waste, in fact, and the chaff
in this pile of words is so enormous, that it

makes one think that the residue of facts and
real thoughts in all that he has said is almost
nil. It would be the worse for speed and very
irksome, it would even be beside our object, to
go into the whole of his remarks in detail ; we
have not the means for securing so much
leisure so as wantonly to devote it to such
frivolities ; it is the duty, I think, of a prudent
workman not to waste his strength on trifles,
but on that which will clearly repay his toil.

As to all the things, then, in his Introduction,
how he constitutes himself truth's champion,
and fixes the charge of unbelief upon his oppo-
nents, and declares that an abiding and indel-
ible hatred for them has sunk into his soul,
how he struts in his ' new discoveries,' though
he does not tell us what they are, but says only
that an examination of the debateable points in
them was set on foot, a certain 'legal' trial
which placed on those who were daring to act
illegally the necessity of keeping quiet, or to
quote his own words in that Lydian style of
singing which he has got, " the bold law-breakers
— in open court — were forced to be quiet ; " (he
calls this a "proscription" of the conspiracy
against him, whatever may be meant by that
term) ; — all this wearisome business I pass by as
quite unimportant. On the other hand, all his
special pleading for his heretical conceits may
well demand our close attention. Our own inter-
preter of the principles of divinity followed this
course in his Treatise ; for though he had plenty
of ability to broaden out his argument, he took
the line of dealing only with vital points, which
he selected from all the blasphemies of that
heretical book °, ana so narrowed the scope of
the subject

If, however, any one desires that our answer
should exactly correspond to the array of his
arguments, let him tell us the utility of such a
process. What gain would it be to my readers
if I were to solve the complicated riddle of his
title, which he proposes to us at the very com-
mencement, in the manner of the sphinx of the
tragic stage ; namely this ' New Apology for
the Apology,' and all the nonsense which he
writes about that; and if I were to tell the
long tale of what he dreamt? I think that the
reader is sufficiently wearied with the petty
vanity about this newness in his title already
preserved in Eunomius' own text, and with the
want of taste displayed there in the account of
his own exploits, all his labours and his trials,
while he wandered over every land and every
sea, and was ' heralded ' through the whole
world. If all that had to be written down over
again,— and with additions, too, as the retuta-

B d. 1 Coruuh. ii. i— 8.

9 that heretical book, Le. the first ' Apology ' of Eunomius m
28 parts : a translation of it is given in Whiston's Eunomiattismui
Redivivus.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

tions of these falsehoods would naturally have
to expand their statement, — who would be
found of such an iron hardness -as not to be
sickened at this waste of labour? Suppose I
was to write down, taking word by word, an
explanation of that mad story of his ; suppose
I were to explain, for instance, who that Ar-
menian was on the shores of the Euxine, who
had annoyed him at first by having the same
name as himself, what their lives were like, what
their pursuits, how he had a quarrel with that
Armenian because of the very likeness of their
characters, then in what fashion those two were
reconciled, so as to join in a common sympathy
with that winning and most glorious Aetius,
his master (for so pompous are his praises) ;
and after that, what was the plot devised
against himself, by which they brought him to
trial on the charge of being surpassingly pop-
ular : suppose, I say, I was to explain all that,
should I not appear, like those who catch
opthalmia themselves from frequent contact
with those who are already suffering so, to
have caught myself this malady of fussy cir-
cumstantiality? I should be following step by
step each detail of his twaddling story ; finding
out who the " slaves released to liberty" were,
what was " the conspiracy » of the initiated "
and "the calling out2 of hired slaves," what
' Montius and Gallus, and Domitian,' and ' false
witnesses,' and ' an enraged Emperor,' and
1 certain sent into exile ' have to do with the
argument. What could be more useless than
such tales for the purpose of one who was not
wishing merely to write a narrative, but to refute
the argument of him who had written against
his heresy? What follows in the story is still
more profitless ; I do not think that the author
himself could peruse it again without yawning,
though a strong natural affection for his off-
spring does possess every father. He pretends
to unfold there his exploits and his sufferings ;
the style rears itself into the sublime, and the
legend swells into the tones of tragedy.

§ 5. His peculiar caricature of the bishops, Eusta-
thius of Armenia and Basil of Galatia, is not
well drawn.

But, not to linger longer on these absurdities
in the very act of declining to mention them,
and not to soil this book by forcing my subject
through all his written reminiscences, like one
who urges his horse through a slough and so
gets covered with its filth, I think it is best to
leap over the mass of his rubbish with as high
and as speedy a jump as my thoughts are
capable of, seeing that a quick retreat from

« <t\*<jw. » Tafii/. We have no context to explain these

allusions, the treatise of EunomitU being lost, which Gregory is
turw answering, i.e. the Apologia Apologias

what is disgusting is a considerable advantage ;
and let us hasten on 3 to the finale of his story,
lest the bitterness of his own words should
trickle into my book. Let Euncmius have the
monopoly of the bad taste in such words as
these, spoken of God's priests ♦, " curmudgeon
squires, and beadles, and satellites, rummaging
about, and not suffering the fugitive to carry
on his concealment," and all the other things
which he is not ashamed to write of grey-haired
priests. Just as in the schools for secular
learning s, in order to exercise the boys to be
ready in word and wit, they propose themes
for declamation, in which the person who" is
the subject of them is nameless, so does
Eunomius make an onset at once upon the
facts suggested, and lets loose the tongue
of invective, and without saying one word
as to any actual villainies, he merely works
up against them all the hackneyed phrases
of contempt, and every imaginable term of
abuse : in which, besides, incongruous ideas
are brought together, such as a ' dilettante
soldier,' ' an accursed saint,' ' pale with fast,
and murderous with hate,' and many such
like scurrilities ; and just like a reveller in the
secular processions shouts his ribaldry, when
he would carry his insolence to the highest
pitch, without his mask on, so does Eunomius,
without an attempt to veil his malignity, shout
with brazen throat the language of the waggon.
Then he reveals the cause why he is so en-
raged ; ' these priests took every precaution
that many should not' be perverted to the
error of these heretics; accordingly he is angry
that they could not stay at their convenience
in the places they liked, but that a residence
was assigned them by order of the then governor
of Phrygia, so that most might be secured from
such wicked neighbours ; his indignation at
this bursts out in these words ; ' the excessive
severity of our trials,' ' our grievous sufferings,'
' our noble endurance of them,' ' the exile from
our native country into Phrygia.' Quite so :
this Oltiserian6 might well be proud of what
occurred, putting an end as it did to all his
family pride, and casting such a slur upon his
race that that far-renowned Priscus, his grand
father, from whom he gets those brilliant and
most remarkable heirlooms, " the mill, and the

3 Reading irpds re to ntpax.

* This must be the ' caricature ' of the (Greek) Summary above.
Eustathius of Sebasteia, the capital of Armenia, and the Galatian
Basil, of Ancyra (Angora), are certainly mentioned, c 6 (end).
Twice did these two, once Semi-Arians, oppose Aetius and Euno-
mius, before Constantius, at Byzantium. On the second occasion,
however (Sozomen, H.E. iv. 23 , Ursacius and Valens arrived with
the proscription 01 the Homoousion from Ariminum : it was then
that " the world groaned to find itself Ariau " (Jerome). The
1 accursed saint ' ' pale with fast,' i.e. Eustathius, in his Armenian
monastery, gave Basil the Great a model for his own.

5 rutv efwtfep Koyutv.

6 Oltiseris was probably the district, as Corniaspa was the
village, in which Eunomius was born. It is a Celtic word : and
probably suggests his half-Galatian extraction.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

leather, and the slaves' stores," and the rest
of his inheritance in Chanaan ?, would never
have chosen this lot, which now makes him
so angry. It was to be expected that he
would revile those who were the agents of this
exile. I quite understand his feeling. Truly
the authors of these misfortunes, if such there
be or ever have been, deserve the censures of
these men, in that the renown of their former
lives is thereby obscured, and they are deprived
of the opportunity of mentioning and making
much of their more impressive antecedents ;
the great distinctions with which each started
in life ; the professions they inherited from
their fathers ; the greater or the smaller marks
of gentility of which each was conscious, even
before they became so widely known and
valued that even emperors numbered them
amongst their acquaintance, as he now boasts
in his book, and that all the higher govern-
ments were roused about them and the world
was filled with their doings.

§ 6. A notice of Aetius, Eunomius'' master in
heresy, and of Eunomius himself, describing
the origin and avocations of each.

Verily this did great damage to our declama-
tion-writer, or rather to his patron and guide
in life, Aetius ; whose enthusiasm indeed ap-
pears to me to have aimed not so much at the
propagation of error as to the securing a com-
petence for life. I do not say this as a mere
surmise of my own, but I have heard it from
the lips of those who knew him well. I have
listened to Athanasius, the former bishop of
the Galatians, when he was speaking of the
life of Aetius; Athanasius was a man who
valued truth above all things ; and he exhibited
also the letter of George of Laodicaea, so that
a number might attest the truth of his words.
He told us that originally Aetius did not
attempt to teach his monstrous doctrines, but
only after some interval of time put forth these
novelties as a trick to gain his livelihood ; that
having escaped from serfdom in the vineyard
to which he belonged, — how, I do not wish to
say, lest I should be thought to be entering on
his history in a bad spirit, — he became at first
a tinker, and had this grimy trade of a me-
chanic quite at his fingers' end, sitting under a
goat's- hair tent, with a small hammer, and a
diminutive anvil, and so earned a precarious
and laborious livelihood. What income, in-
deed, of any account could be made by one
who mends the shaky places in coppers, and
solders holes up, and hammers sheets of tin to
(.ieces, and clamps with lead the legs of pots?

7 This can be no other than the district Chammanene, on the
can bank ol the Halys, where Galatia and Cappadocia join.

We were told that a certain incident which
befell him in this trade necessitated the next
change in his life. He had received from a
woman belonging to a regiment a gold orna-
ment, a necklace or a bracelet, which had been
broken by a blow, and which he was to mend :
but he cheated the poor creature, by appro-
priating her gold trinket, and giving her instead
one of copper, of the same size, and also of
the same appearance, owing to a gold-wash
which he had imparted to its surface ; she was
deceived by this for a time, for he was clever
enough in the tinker's, as in other, arts to
mislead his customers with the tricks of trade ;
but at last she detected the rascality, for the
wash got rubbed off the copper; and, as some
of the soldiers of her family and nation were
roused to indignation, she prosecuted the pur-
loiner of her ornament. After this attempt he
of course underwent a cheating thief's pun-
ishment ; and then left the trade, swearing that
it was not his deliberate intention, but that
business tempted him to commit this theft
After this he became assistant to a certain doctor
from amongst the quacks, so as not to be
quite destitute of a livelihood ; and in this
capacity he made his attack upon the obscurer
households and on the most abject of mankind.
Wealth came gradually from his plots against
a certain Armenius, who being a foreigner was
easily cheated, and, having been induced to
make him his physician, had advanced him
frequent sums of money; and he began to
think that serving under others was beneath
him, and wanted to be styled a physician
himself. Henceforth, therefore, he attended
medical congresses, and consorting with the
wrangling controversialists there became one
of the ranters, and, just as the scales were
turning, always adding his own weight to the
argument, he got to be in no small request
with those who would buy a brazen voice for
their party contests.

But although his bread became thereby well
buttered he thought he ought not to remain in
such a profession ; so he gradually gave up the
medical, after the tinkering. Arius, the enemy
ot God, had already sown those wicked tares
which bore the Anomseans as their fruit, and
the schools of medicine resounded then with
the disputes about that question. Accordingly
Aetius studied the controversy, and, having
laid a train of syllogisms from what he remem-
bered of Aristotle, he became notorious for
even going beyond Alius, the father of the
heresy, in the novel character of his specula-
tions ;' or rather he perceived the consequences
of all that Arius had advanced, and so got this
character of a shrewd discoverer of truths not
obvious ; revealing as he did that the Created,

±0

GREGORY OF NYSSA

even from things non-existent, was unlike the
Creator who drew Him out of nothing.

With such propositions he tickled ears that
itched for these novelties; and the Ethiopian
Theophilus8 becomes acquainted with them.
Aetius had already been connected with this man
on some business of Gallus; and now by his help
creeps into the palace. After Gallus 9 had per-
petrated the tr.igedy with regard to Domitian
the procurator and Montius, all the other par-
ticipators in it naturally shared his ruin ; yet
this man escapes, being acquitted from being
punished along with them. After this, when
the great Athanasius had been driven by Im-
perial command from the Church of Alex-
andria, and George the Tarbasthenite was
tearing his flock, another change takes place,
and Aetius is an Alexandrian, receiving his full
share amongst those who fattened at the Cap-
padocian's board ; for he had not omitted to
practice his flatteries on George. George
was in fact from Chanaan himself, and there-
fore felt kindly towards a countryman : indeed
he had been for long so possessed with his
perverted opinions as actually to dote upon
him, and was prone to become a godsend for
Aetius, whenever he liked.

All this did not escape the notice of his
sincere admirer, our Eunomius. This latter
perceived that his natural father — an excellent
man, except that he had such a son — led a
very honest and respectable life certainly, but
one of laborious penury and full of countless
toils. (He was one of those farmers who are
always bent over the plough, and spend a
world of trouble over their little farm ; and in
the winter, when he was secured from agri
cultural work, he used to carve out neatly the
letters of the alphabet for boys to form syl
lables with, winning his bread with the money
these sold for.) Seeing all this in his father's
life, he said goodbye to the plough and the
mattock and all the paternal instruments, in-
tending never to drudge himself like that ; then
he sets himself to learn Prunicus' skill10 of

8 Probably the ' Indian ' Theophilus, who afterwards helped to
organize the Anomoean schism in the reign of Jovian.

9 Gallus, Caesar 3so— 354, brother ol J ulian, not a little influenced
by Aetius, executed by Cpustaniius at Flanon in Daln.atia. During
his short reign at Ant.och, DomiUan, who was sent to bring him to
Italy and his quaestor Montius were dragged to death through the
streets by the guards ol the young Caesar.

cj,/° 1 hr? SamC Pohrabe 0CCU-rs aSain : Refutation of Eunomius'
second kssay, p. 844 : oi 17, npovvUov <ro<W eyyup.i/ao0eVTes- ef

In the last word there is evidently a pun on npovvUov ; vpo&pn,
g the secondary sense of 'precocious,' is used by Iamblichus and
I orphyry, and npovviKos appears to have had the same meaning.
We might venture, therefore, to translate 'that knowing tricfc'
« wort-hand : but why Prum, ..if.ed, if it is personified,

as .., theGuostic Prunicos Sophia, does not appear. See Epil
phanius liases. 253 lor the feminine Proper name.
ParUK' n P0^16 "planation is that given in the margin of the

«££ "' and,'S l'abe^ °" b""'-'s' '-c- P""»« sunt cursores

celcrc;, hie pro celtr sepba. Hesychiua also says of the word ;
01 iu»(w MO^Sovm ra u,^a ajro pj* dyopdi, oiit rim iraiiaptwal
«aAouo-«^, ipo^eit, Tpa*«s, ofets, *vk.V7,toi, yopyoi, m<rfW«n.

short-hand writing, and having perfected himself
in that he entered at first, I believe, the house
of one of his own family, receiving his board
for his services in writing ; then, while tutoring
the boys of his host, he rises to the ambition
of becoming an orator. I pass over the next
interval, both as to his life in his native
country and as to the things and the company
in which he was discovered at Constantinople.

Busied as he was after this ' about the cloke
and the purse,' he saw it was all of little avail,
and that nothing which he could amass by such
work was adequate to the demands of his
ambition. Accordingly he threw up all other
practices, and devoted himself solely to the
admiration of Aetius ; not, perhaps, without
some calculation that this absorbing pursuit
which he selected might further his own devices
for living. In fact, from the moment he asked
for a share in a wisdom so profound, he toiled
not thenceforward, neither did he spin ; for he
is certainly clever in what he takes in hand,
and knows how to gain the more emotional
portion of mankind. Seeing that human na-
ture, as a rule, falls an easy prey to pleasure,
and that its natural inclination in the direction
of this weakness is very strong, descending
from the sterner heights of conduct to the
smooth level of comfort, he becomes with a
view of making the largest number possible of
proselytes to his pernicious opinions very
pleasant indeed to those whom he is initiating ;
he gets rid of the toilsome steep of virtue
altogether, because it is not a persuasive to
accept, his secrets. But should any one have
the leisure to inquire what this secret teaching
of theirs is, and what those who have been
duped to accept this blighting curse utter with-
out any reserve, and what in the mysterious
ritual of initiation they are taught by the
reverend hierophant, the manner of baptisms \
and the ' helps of nature.' and all that, let him
question those who feel no compunction in
letting indecencies pass their lips ; we shall
keep silent. For not even though we are the
accusers should we be guiltless in mentioning
such things, and we have been taught to
reverence purity in word as well as deed, and
not to soil our pages with equivocal stories,
even though there be truth in what we say.

But we mention what we then heard (namely
that, just as Aristotle's evil skill supplied

Here such 'porter's' skill, easy going and superficial, is opposed
to the more laborious task ol tilling the soil.

1 For the baptisms 01 Eunomius, compare Ephiphanius Haer.
765. Even Arians who were not Anomceans he rebaptized. The
'helps ol nature' may possibly re'er to the 'miracles' which
Philostorgius ascribes both to Aetius and Eunomius.

Sozomen (vi. 26) says, "Eunomius introduced, it is said, a mode
of discipline contrary to that of the Chuich, and endeavoured to
disguise the innovation under the cloak of a grave and severe
deuortinent." . . . His followers "do not applaud a virtuous
coutse of hie ... so much as ski!! in disputation, and the power
of triumphing in debates."

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

Aetius with his impiety, so the simplicity of
his dupes secured a fat living for the well-
trained pupil as well as for the master) for the
purpose of asking some questions. What after
all was the great damage done him by Basil on
the Euxine, or by Eustathius in Armenia, to
both of whom that long digression in his story
harks back ? How did they mar the aim of his
life? Did they not rather feed up his and his
companion's freshly acquired fame? Whence
came their wide notoriety, if not through the
instrumentality of. these men, supposing, that
is, that their accuser is speaking the truth ?
For the fact that men, themselves illustrious,
as our writer owns, deigned to right with those
who had as yet found no means of being
known naturally gave the actual start to the
ambitious thoughts of those who were to be
pitted against these reputed heroes ; and a veil
was thereby thrown over their humble antece-
dents. They in fact owed their subsequent
notoriety to this, — a thing detestable indeed to
a reflecting mind which would never choose to
rest fame upon an evil deed, but the acme
of bliss to characters such as these. They tell
of one in the province of Asia, amongst the
obscurest and the basest, who longed to make
a name in Ephesus ; some great and brilliant
achievement being quite beyond his powers
never even entered his mind ; and yet, by
hitting upon that which would most deeply
injure the Ephesians, he made his mark deeper
than the heroes of the grandest actions ; for
there was amongst their public buildings one
noticeable for its peculiar magnificence and
costliness; and he burnt this vast structure to
the ground, showing, when men came to
inquire after the perpetration of this villany
into its mental causes, that he dearly prized
notoriety, and had devised that the greatness
of the disaster should secure the name of its
:uith or being recorded with it The secret
motive 2 of these two men is the same thirst for
publicity; the only difference is that the
amount of mischief is greater in their case.
They are marring, not lifeless architecture, but
the living building of the Church, introducing,
for fire, the slow canker of their teaching.
Cut I will defer the doctrinal question till the
proper time comes.

.§ 7. Eunomius himself proves that the confession
of faith which Be made was not impeached.
Let us see for a moment now what kind of
truth is dealt with by this man, who in his
Introduction complains that it is because of his
telling the truth that he is hated by the un-
believers; we may well make the way he

* Vir66e<ri.<;.

handles truth outside doctrine teach us a test
to apply to his doctrine itself. " He that is
faithful in that which is least is faithful also in
much, and he that is unjust in the least is
unjust also in much." Now, when he is
beginning to write this "apology for the.
apology " (that is the new and startling title, as
well as subject, of his book) he says that we
must look for the cause of this very startling
announcement nowhere else but in him who
answered that first treatise of his. That book
was entitled an Apology; but being given to
understand by our master-theologian that an
apology can only come from those who have
been accused of something, and that if a man
writes merely from his own inclination his pro-
duction is something else than an apology, he
does not deny — it would be too manifestly
absurd — 3 that an apology requires a preceding
accusation ; but he declares that his ' apology '
has cleared him from very serious accusations
in the trial which has been instituted against
him. How false this is, is manifest from his
own words. He complained that "many
heavy sufferings were inflicted on him by those
who had condemned him "; we may read that
in his book.

But how could he have suffered so, if his
'apology' cleared him of these charges? 'If
he successfully adopted an apology to escape
from these, that pathetic complaint of his is a
hypocritical pretence ; if on the other hand
he really suffered as he says, then, plainly,
he suffered because he did not clear himself by
an apology ; for every apology, to be such, has
to secure this end, namely, to prevent the vot-
ing power from being misled by any false state-
ments. Sureiy he will not now attempt to say
^hat at the time of the trial he produced his
apology, but not being able to win over the jury
lost the case to the prosecution. For he said
nothing at the time of the trial 'about pro-
ducing his apology;' nor was it likely that
he would, considering that he distinctly states
in his book that he refused to have anything to
do with those ill-affected and hostile dicasts.
" We own," he says, " that we were condemned
by default : there was a packed 4 panel of evil-
disposed persons where a jury ought to have
sat." He is very labored here, and has his
attention diverted by his argument, I think, or
he would have noticed that he has tacked on
a fine solecism to his sentence. He affects to
be imposingly Attic with his phrase 'packed
panel ; ' but the correct in language use these
words, as those familiar with the forensic

3 The \vr\ is redundant and owing to ovk.

4 Ei;4>picair<ui'. A word used in Aristophanes of ' letting into
court,' probably a technical word : it is a manifest derivation from
f Icrcpopew. What the solecism is, is not clear ; Gretser thinks that
Eunomius mea"' \< lor tia-rrriSai'.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

vocabulary know, quite differently to our new
AtticisL

A little further on he adds this ; " If he thinks
that, because I would have nothing to do with
a jury who were really my prosecutors he can
argue away my apology, he must be blind to his
own simplicity." When, then, and before
whom did our caustic friend make his apology ?
He had demurred to the jury because they were
1 foes,' and he did not utter one word about any
trial, as he himself insists. See how this strenuous
champion of the true, little by little, passes over
to the side of the false, and, while honouring
truth in phrase, combats it in deed. But it is
amusing to see how weak he is even in second-
ing his own lie. How can one and the same
man have ' cleared himself by an apology in the
trial which was instituted against him,' and then
have ' prudently kept silence because the court
was in the hands of the foe ? ' Nay, the very
language he uses in the preface to his Apology
clearly shows that no court at all was opened
against him. For he does not address his
preface to any definite jury, but to certain un-
specified persons who were living then, or who
were afterwards to come into the world ; and
I grant that to such an audience there was need
of a very vigorous apology, not indeed in the
manner of the one he has actually written, which
requires another still to bolster it up, but
a broadly intelligible one5, able to prove this
special point, viz., that he was not in the pos-
session of his usual reason when he wrote this,
wherein he rings6 the assembly-bell for men
who never came, perhaps never existed, and
speaks an apology before an imaginary court,
and begs an imperceptible jury not to let
numbers decide between truth and falsehood,
nor to assign the victory to mere quantity.
Verily it is becoming that he should make an
apology of that sort to jurymen who are yet
in the loins of their fathers, and to explain to
them how he came to think it right to adopt
opinions which contradict universal belief, and
to put more faith in his own mistaken fancies
than in those who throughout the world glorify
Christ's name.

Let him write, please, another apology in
addition to this second; for this one is not
a correction of mistakes made about him, but
rather a proof of the truth of those charges.
Every one knows that a proper apology aims at
disproving a charge ; thus a man who is accused
of theft or murder or any other crime either
denies the fact altogether, or transfers the blame
to another party, or else, if neither of these is

„ 5 y "**>*■, ., 6 <ru«-«<cpoTfi. The word has this meaning in

Ongen. In Philo [dt Vtta Mosit, p. 476, I. 48, quoted by Vie<
it has another —
i.e. ' cheered.'

— 1— - - ~— -— , f. •/«, i. <U, l|

11 nas another meaning, ovi-txpoToui- uAAos aAAoi-, p;r, a-nOKafxyt it- ,

possible, he appeals to the charity or to the
compassion of those who are to vote upon his
sentence. But in his book he neither denies
the charge, nor shifts it on some one else, noi
has recourse to an appeal for mercy, nor
promises amendment for the future ; but he
establishes the charge against him by an un-
usually labored demonstration. This charge,
as he himself confesses, really amounted to an
indictment for profanity, nor did it leave the
nature of this undefined, but proclaimed the
particular kind ; whereas his apology proves
this species of profanity to be a positive duty,
and instead of removing the charge strengthens
it Now, if the tenets of our Faith had been
left in any obscurity, it might have been less
hazardous to attempt novelties ; but the teach-
ing of our master-theologian is now firmly fixed
in the souls of the faithful ; and so it is a ques-
tion whether the man who shouts out contra-
dictions of that about which all equally have
made up their minds is defending himself
against the charges made, or is not rather
drawing down upon him the anger of his
hearers, and making his accusers still more
bitter. I incline to think the latter. So that
if there are, as our writer tells us, both hearers
of his apology and accusers of his attempts
upon the Faith, let him tell us, how those
accusers can possibly compromise ? the matter
now, or what sort of verdict that jury must
return, now that his offence has been already
proved by his own ' apology.'

§ 8. Facts show that the terms of abuse which he
has employed against Basil are more suitable
for himself.

But these remarks are by the way, and come
from our not keeping close to our argument
We had to inquire not how he ought to have
made his apology, but whether he had ever,
made one at all. But now let us return to our
former position, viz., that he is convicted by
his own statements. This hater of falsehood
first of all tells us that he was condemned be-
cause the jury which was assigned him defied
the law, and that he was driven over sea and
land and suffered much from the burning sun
and the dust Then in trying to conceal his
falsehood he drives out one nail with another
nail, as the proverb says, and puts one falsehood
right by cancelling it with another. As every
one knows as well as he does that he never
uttered one word in court, he declares that he
begged to be let off coming into a hostile court
and was condemned by default Could there

7 KaBv$-r\oovoiv. This is the reading of the Venetian MS. The
word bears the same loreiiMc sense as the Latin prstvarican. i he
Common readme is «u&t'0utoui'aif .

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

be a plainer case than this of a man contradict-
ing both the truth and himself? When he is
pressed about the title of his book, he makes
his trial the constraining cause of this
'apology;' but when he is pressed with the
fact that he spoke not one word to the jury, he
denies that there was any trial and says that
he declined8 such a jury. See how valiantly
this doughty champion of the truth fights against
falsehood ! Then he dares to call our mighty
Basil ' a malicious rascal and a liar ; ' and be-
sides that, 'a bold ignorant parvenu',' 'no
deep divine,' and he adds to his list of abusive
terms, ' stark mad,' scattering an infinity of such
words over his pages, as if he imagined that
his own bitter invectives could outweigh the
common testimony of mankind, who revere that
great name as though he were one of the saints
of old. He thinks in fact that he, if no one
else, can touch with calumny one whom
calumny has never touched ; but the sun is not
so low in the heavens that any one can reach
him with stones or any other missiles ; they will
but recoil upon him who shot them, while the
intended target soars far beyond his reach. If
any one, again, accuses the sun of want of light,
he has not dimmed the brightness of the sun-
beams with his scoffs ; the sun will still remain
the sun, and the fault finder will only prove the
feebleness of his own visual organs ; and, if he
should endeavour, after the fashion of this
' apology,' to persuade all whom he meets and
will listen to him not to give in to the common

opinions about the sun, nor to attach more
weight to the experiences of all than to the
surmises of one individual by ' assigning victory
to mere quantity,' his nonsense will be wasted
on those who can use their eyes.

Let some one then persuade Eunomius to
bridle his tongue, and not give the rein to such
wild talk, nor kick against the pricks in the
insolent abuse of an honoured name ; but to
allow the mere remembrance of Basil to fill his
soul with reverence and awe. What can he
gain by this unmeasured ribaldry, when the
object of it will regain all that character which
his life, his words, and the general estimate of
the civilized world proclaims him to have
possessed ? The man who takes in hand to
revile reveals his own disposition as not being
able, because it is evil, to speak good things,
but only " to speak from the abundance of
the heart," and to bring forth from that evil
treasure-house. Now, that his expressions are
merely those of abuse quite divorced from
actual facts, can be proved from his own
writings.

8 atra£ioi.

9 TTcifjeyyiiixiTToy : for the vox nihili Trapoypaimw. Oehler again
ha* adopted the reading of the Ven. MS.

§ Q. In charging Basil with not defending his
faith at the time of the * Trials ,' he lays him-
self open to the same charge.

He hints at a certain locality where this
trial for heresy took place ; but he gives us no
certain indication where it was, and the reader
is obliged to guess in the dark. Thither, he
tells us, a congress of picked representatives
from all quarters was summoned ; and he is at
his best here, placing before our eyes with
some vigorous strokes the preparation of the
event which he pretends took place. Then, he
says, a trial in which he would have had to
run for his very life was put into the hands of
certain arbitrators, to whom our Teacher and
Master who was present gave his charge ' ; and
as all the voting power was thus won over to
the enemies' side, he yielded the position 2, fled
from the place, and hunted everywhere for
some hearth and home ; and he is great, in
this graphic sketch 3, in arraigning the cowardice
of our hero , as any one who likes may see by
looking at what he has written. But I cannot
stop to give specimens here of the bitter gall
of his utterances ; I must pass on to that, for
the sake of which I mentioned all this.

Where, then, was that unnamed spot in
which this examination of his teachings was to
take place ? What was this occasion when the
best men were collected for a trial ? Who
were these men who hurried over land and sea
to share in these labours ? What was this
1 expectant world that hung upon the issue of
the voting ? ' Who was ' the arranger of the
trial ? ' However, let us consider that he in-
vented all that to swell out the importance of
his story, as boys at school are apt to do in
their fictitious conversations of this kind ; and
let him only tell us who that ' terrible com-
batant ' was whom our Master shrunk from
encountering If this also is a fiction, let him
be the winner again, and have the advantage
of his vain words. We will say nothing : in
the useless fight with shadows the real victory
is to decline conquering in that. But if he
speaks of the events at Constantinople and
means the assembly there, and is in this fever of
literary indignation at tragedies enacted there,
and means himself by that great and redoubt-
able athlete, then we would display the
reasons why, though present on the occasion,
we did not plunge into the fight.

* VTtO<l>U>Vt<-V .

a Sozomen (vi. 26): "Alter his (Eunomiu*) elevation to the
bishopric ol Cyzicus he was accused by his own clergy of in-
troducing innovations. Eudoxius obliged him to undergo a public
trial and give an account of his doctrines to the people : finding,
however, no fault in him, Eudoxius exhorted him to return to.
Cyzicus. He replied he could not remain with people who regarded
him with suspicion, and it is said seized this opportunity to secede
from communion."

i vnoypa<t>ri i or else ' on the subject of Basil's cnarge.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

Now let this man who upbraids that hero
with his cowardice tell us whether he went
down into the thick of the fray, whether he
uttered one syllable in defence of his own
orthodoxy, whether he made any vigorous
peroration, whether he victoriously grappled
with the foe ? He cannot tell us that, or he
manifestly contradicts himself, for he owns
that by his default he received the adverse
verdict. If it was a duty to speak at the
actual tittie of the trial (for that is the law
which he lays down for us in his book), then
why was he then condemned by default ? If
on the other J»md he did well in observing
silence before rich dicasts, how arbitrarily 4
he praises himsv'f, but blames us, for silence
at such a time ! What can be more absurdly
unjust than this ! When two treatises have
been put forth since the time of the trial, he
declares that his apology, though written so
very long after, was in time, but reviles that
which answered his own as quite too late !
Surely he ought to have abused Basil's in-
tended counter-statement before it was actually
made ; but this is not found amongst his
other complaints. Knowing as he did what
Basil was going to write when the time of the
trial had passed away, why in the world did he
not find fault with it there and then ? In fact
it is clear from his own confession that he
never made that apology in the trial itself. I
will repeat again his words : — ' We confess
that we were condemned by default ; ' and he
adds why j ' Evil-disposed persons had been
passed as jurymen,' or rather, to use his own
phrase, ' there was a packed panel of them
where a jury ought to have sat.' Whereas, on
the other hand, it is clear from another passage
in his book that he attests that his apology was
made 'at the proper time.' It runs thus: —
'That I was urged to make this apology at
the proper time and in the proper manner
from no pretended reasons, but compelled to
do so on behalf of those who went security for
me, is clear from facts and also from this man's
words." He adroitly twists his words round
to meet every possible objection ; but what
will he say to this ? ' It was not right to keep
silent during the trial.' Then why was Euno-
mius speechless during that same trial ? And
why is his apology, coming as it did after the
trial, in good time ? And if in good time, why
is Basil's controversy with him not in good
time ?

But the remark of that holy father is
especially true, that Eunomius in pretending
to make an apology really gave his teaching the

• rit " oito'cA>))...th: tlm i* a favourite word with Orieen and
Gregory.

support he wished to give it ; and that genuine
emulator of Phineas' zeal, destroying as he does
with the sword of the Word every spiritual
fornicator, dealt in the ' Answer to his blas-
phemy ' a sword-thrust that was calculated at
once to heal a soul and to destroy a heresy.
If he resists that stroke, and with a soul
deadened by apostacy will not admit the cure,
the blame rests with him who chooses the evil,
as the Gentile proverb says. So far for Euno-
mius' treatment of truth, and of us : and now
the law of former times, which allows an equal
return on those who are the first to injure,
might prompt us to discharge on him a counter-
shower of abuse, and, as he is a very easy
subject for this, to be very liberal of it, so as
to outdo the pain which he has inflicted : for
if he was so rich in insolent invective against
one who gave no chance for calumny, how
many of such epithets might we not expect to
find for those who have satirized that saintly
life? But we have been taught from the first
by that scholar of the Truth to be scholars of
the Gospel ourselves, and therefore we will not
take an eye for an eye, nor a tooth for a tooth \
we know well that all the evil that happens
admits of being annihilated by its opposite,
and that no bad word and no bad deed would
ever develope into such desperate wickedness,
if one good one could only be got in to break
the continuity of the vicious stream. There-
fore the routine of insolence and abusiveness
is checked from repeating itself by long-suffer-
ing : whereas if insolence is met with insolence
and abuse with abuse, you will but feed with
itself this monster-vice, and increase it vastly.

§ 10. All his insulting epithets are shewn by fad*
to be false.

I therefore pass over everything else, as
mere insolent mockery and scoffing abuse,
and hasten to the question of his doctrine.
Should any one say that I decline to be
abusive only because I cannot pay him back
in his own coin, let such an one consider in
his own case what proneness there is to evil
generally, what a mechanical sliding into sin,
dispensing with the need of any practice. The
power of becoming bad resides in the will ;
one act of wishing is often the sufficient oc-
casion for a finished wickedness; and this
ease of operation is more especially fatal in
the sins of the tongue. Other classes of sins
require time and occasion and co-operation
to be committed ; but the propensity to speak
can sin when it likes. The treatise of Eu-
nomius now in our hands is sufficient to prove
this ; one who attentively considers it will
perceive the rapidity of the descent into sins

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

in the matter of phrases :
thing in the world to

and it is the easiest
imitate these, even
though one is quite unpractised in habitual
defamation. What need would there be to
labour in coining our intended insults into
names, when one might employ upon this
slanderer his own phrases ? He has strung
together, in fact, in this part of his work,
every sort of falsehood ami evil-speaking, all
moulded from the models which he finds in
himself; every extravagance is to be found in
writing these. He writes "cunning," "wrang-
ling," "foe to truth," " high-flown V* "charlatan,"
" combating general opinion and tradition,"
"braving facts which give him the lie," "care-
less of the terrors of the law, of the censure
of men," " unable to distinguish the enthusiasm
for truth from mere skill in reasoning ; " he
adds, "wanting in reverence," "quick to call
names," and then "blatant," "full of con-
flicting suspicions," " combining irreconcileable
arguments," "combating his own utterances,"
"affirming contradictories;" then, though eager
to speak all ill of him, not being able to find
other novelties of invective in which to indulge
his bitterness, often in default of all else he
reiterates the same phrases, and comes round
again a third and a fourth time and even more
to what he has once said ; and in this circus
of words he drives up and then turns down,
over and over again, the same racecourse of
insolent abuse ; so that at last even anger at
this shameless display die* away from very
weariness. These low unlovely street boys' jeers
do indeed provoke disgust rather than anger ;
they are not a whit better than the inarticulate
grunting of some old woman who is quite drunk.
Must we then enter minutely into this, and
laboriously refute all his invectives by showing
that Basil was not this monster of his imagin-
ation? If we did this, contentedly proving
the absence of anything vile and criminal in
him, we should seem to join in insulting one
who was a • bright particular star ' to his
generation.' But I remember how with that
divine voice of his he quoted the prophet 6
with regard to him, comparing him to a shame-
less woman who casts her own reproaches on
the chaste. For whom do these reasonings
of his proclaim to be truth's enemy and in
arms against public opinion? Who is it who
begs the readers of his book not 'to look to
the numbers of those who profess a belief,
or to mere tradition, or to let their judgment
be biassed so as to consider as trustworthy
what is only suspected to be the stronger
side?' Can one and the same man write
like this, and then make those charges, scheming

* tro^>itm\^.

* Jeremiah iii. 3.

that his readers should follow his own novelties
at the very moment that he is abusing others
for opposing themselves to the general belief?
As for ' brazening out facts which give him
the lie, and men's censure,' I leave the reader
to judge to whom this applies ; whether to
one who by a most careful self-restraint made
sobriety and quietness and perfect purity the
rule of his own life as well as that of his
entourage, or to one who advised that nature
should not be molested when it is her pleasure
to advance through the appetites of the body,
not to thwart indulgence, nor to be so par-
ticular as that in the training of our life ;
but that a self-chosen faith should be con-
sidered sufficient for a man to attain perfection.
If he denies that this is his teaching, I and
any right-minded person would rejoice if he
were telling the truth in such a denial. But
his genuine followers will not allow him to
produce such a denial, or their leading prin
ciples would be gone, and the platform of
those who for this reason embrace his tenets
would fall to pieces. As for shameless in
difference to human censure, you may look at
his youth or his after life, and you would find
him in both open to this reproach. The two
men's lives, whether in youth or manhood, tell
a widely-different tale.

Let our speech -writer, while he reminds
himself of his youthful doings in his native
land, and afterwards at Constantinople, hear
from those who can tell him what they know
of the man whom he slanders. But if any
would inquire into their subsequent occupo
tions, let such a person tell us which of the
two he considers to deserve so high a repu
tation ; the man who ungrudgingly spent upon
the poor his patrimony even before he was
a priest, and most of all in the time of the
famine, during which he was a ruler of the
Church, though still a priest in the rank of
presbyters ' ; and afterwards did not hoard even
what remained to him, so that he too might
have made the Apostles' boast, ' Neither did
we eat any man's bread for nought8:' or, on
the other hand, the man who has made the
championship of a tenet a source of income,
the man who creeps into houses, and does
not conceal his loathsome affliction by staying
at home, nor considers the natural aversion
which those in good health must feel for such,
though according to the law of old he is one
of those who are banished from the inhabited
camp because of the contagion of his un-
mistakeable 9 disease.

7 «.. iv <f >.A>iuu im ..,• ufSuTcpiuf icpaTrww.

8 2 Thess'. iii. 8.' .

9 According to Ruffinus (Hist. Eccl. x. 25), his constitution w«
ooisoned with jaundice within and without

GREGORY OF NYSSA

Basil is called 'hasty' and 'insolent,' and
in both characters 'a liar' by this man who
' would in patience and meekness educate
those of a contrary opinion to himself;' for
such are the airs he gives himself when he
speaks of him, while he omits no hyperbole of
bitter language, when he has a sufficient opening
to produce it. On what grounds, then, does he
charge him with this hastiness and insolence ?
Because 'he called me a Galatian, though I
am a Cappadocian ;' then it was because he
called a man who lived on the boundary in
a« obscure corner like Corniaspine * a Gala-
tian instead of an Oltiserian ; supposing, that
is, that it is proved that he said this. I have
not found it in my copies ; but grant it For
this he is to be called ' hasty,' ' insolent,' all
that is bad. But the wise know well that the
minute charges of a faultfinder furnish a strong
argument for the righteousness of the accused ;
else, when eager to accuse, he would not have
spared great faults and employed his malice on
little ones. On these last he is certainly great,
heightening the enormity of the offence, and
making solemn reflections on falsehood, and
seeing equal heinousness in it whether in great
or very trivial matters. Like the fathers of his
heresy, the scribes and Pharisees, he knows
how to strain a gnat carefully and to swallow
at one gulp the hump-backed camel laden with
a weight of wickedness. But it would not be
out of place to say to him, 'refrain from
making such a rule in our system ; cease to
bid us think it of no account to measure the
guilt of a falsehood by the slightness or the
importance of the circumstances.' Paul telling
a falsehood and purifying himself after the
manner of the Jews to meet the needs of those
whom he usefully deceived did not sin the
same as Judas for the requirement of his
treachery putting on a kind and affable look.
By a falsehood Joseph in love to his brethren
deceived them ; and that too while swear-
ing 'by the life of Pharaoh2;' but his bre-
thren had really lied to him, in their envy
plotting his death and then his enslavement.
There are many such cases: Sarah lied, be-
cause she was ashamed of laughing : the ser-
pent lied, tempting man to disobey and change
to a divine existence. Falsehoods differ widely
according to their motives. Accordingly we

m' *'j ™ytri>lV T"" Kopwaairixrjc jo^aWii. Cf. fitya \PVH-" <><>S
(Herod. ) for the use of this genitive. In the next sentence «i ami,
though it gives the sense translated in the text, is not so good as
" <vJl,^'e' ,<rXaTla). which Oehler suggests, but does not adopt.

With regard to Eunomius" birthplace. Sozomenand Philostorgius
Rive Jacora (which the former describes as on the slopes ol M'
Argaius: but that it must have been on the borders ol Galatia
and _appadocia is certain from what Gregory say:, here) : ' Pro-
bably Jjacora was his paternal estate : Oliiscris the village to
which a belonged ' (Diet. Christ. Biog. ; unless indeed Corniaspa,
marked on the maps as a town where Cappadocia, Galatia and
Poiilu* join, wil the spot, and Oltiseris the district. Eunomius
died at Diicora. a Gen. xhi. 15.

accept that general statement about man which
the Holy Spirit uttered by the Prophets, ' Every
man is a liar;' and this man of God, too, has
not kept clear of falsehood, having chanced to
give a place the name of a neighbouring dis-
trict, through oversight or ignorance of its real
name. But Eunomius also has told a false-
hood, and what is it? Nothing less than a
misstatement of Truth itself. Heasserts that One
who always is once was not ; he demonstrates
that One who is truly a Son is falsely so called ;
he defines the Creator to be a creature and a
work ; the Lord of the world he calls a ser-
vant, and ranges the Being who essentially
rules with subject beings. Is the difference
between falsehoods so very trifling, that one
can think it matters nothing whether the
falsehood is palpable « in this way or in that ?

§11. The sophistry which he employs to prove
our ackno7uledgment that he had been tried,
and that the confession of his faith had not
been unimpeached, is feeble.

He objects to sophistries in others ; see the
sort of care he takes himself that his proofs
shall be* real ones. Our Master said, in the
book which he addressed to him, that at the
time when our cause was ruined, Eunomius
won Cyzicus as the prize of his blasphemy.
What then does this detector of sophistry do ?
He fastens at once on that word prize, and
declares that we on our side confess that he
made an apology, that he won thereby, that
he gained the prize of victory by these efforts ;
and he frames his argument into a syllogism
consisting as he thinks of unanswerable pro-
positions. But we will quote word for word
what he has written. ' If a prize is the recog
nition and the crown of victory, and a trial
implies a victory, and, as also inseparable from
itself,an accusation, then that man who grants (in
argument) the prize must necessarily allow that
there was a defence.' What then is our answer
to that? We do not deny that he fought this
wretched battle of impiety with a most vigo-
rous energy, and that he went a very lung
distance beyond his fellows in these perspiring
efforts against the truth ; but we will not allow
that he obtained the victory over his oppo-
nents ; but only that as compared with those
who were running the same as himself through
heresy into error he was foremost in the num-
ber of his lies and so gained the prize of
Cyzicus in return for high attainments in evil,
beating all who for the same prize combated
the Truth ; and that for this victory of blasphemy
his name was blazoned loud and clear when

3 Psalm cxv. 11.

* itfrtvaBai fcutctr.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. ROOK I.

Cyztcus was selected for him by the umpires of
his party as the reward of his extravagance,
This is the statement of our opinion, and this
we allowed ; our contention now that Cyzicus
was the prize of a heresy, not the successful
result of a defence, shews it. Is this anything
like his own mess of childish sophistries, so
that he can thereby hope to have grounds for
proving the fact of his trial and his defence ?
His method is like that of a man in a drinking
bout, who has made away with more strong
liquor than the rest, and having then claimed
the pool from his fellow-drunkards should at
tempt to make this victory a proof of having
won some case in the law courts. That man
might chop the same sort of logic. ' If a prize
is the recognition and the crown of victory, and
a law-trial implies a victory and, as also in-
separable from itself, an accusation, then I have
won my suit, since I have been crowned for
my powers of drinking in this bout.'

One would certainly answer to such a boaster
that a trial in court is a very different thing
from a wine-contest, and that one who wins
with the glass has thereby no advantage over
his legal adversaries, though he get a beautiful
chaplet of flowers. No more, therefore, has
the man who has beaten his equals in the
advocacy of profanity anything to show in
having won the prize for that, that he has won
a verdict too. The testimony on our side that
he is first in profanity is no plea for his imagin-
ary 'apology.' If he did speak it before the
court, and, having so prevailed over his adver-
saries, was honoured with Cyzicus for that,
then he might have some occasion for using
our own words against ourselves ; but as he is
continually protesting in his book that he
yielded to the animus of the voters, and
accepted in silence the penalty which they
inflicted, not even waiting for this hostile
decision, why does he impose upon himself
and make this word prize into the proof of a
successful apology ? Our excellent friend fails
to understand the force of this word prize ;
Cyzicus was given up to him as the reward of
merit for his extravagant impiety; and as it
was his will to receive such a prize, and he
views it in the light of a victor's guerdon, let
him receive as well what that victory implies,
viz. the lion's share in the guilt of profanity.
If he insists on our own words against ourselves,
he must accept both these consequences, or
neither.

§12. His charge of cowardice is baseless: for
Basil displayed the highest courage before the
Emperor and his Lord- Lieutenants.

He treats our words so ; and in the rest of
Jiis presumptuous statements can there be

shown to be a particle of truth ? In these he
calls him ' cowardly,' ' spiritless;,' ' a shirker
of severer labours,' exhausting the list of such
terms, and giving with laboured circumstanti-
ality every symptom of this cowardice : ' the
retired cabin, the door firmly closed, the
anxious fear of intruders, the voice, the look,
the tell-tale change of countenance,' everything
of that sort, whereby the passion of fear is
shown. If he were detected in no other lie but
this, it alone would be sufficient to reveal his
bent. For who does not know how, during
the time when the Emperor Valens was roused
against the churches of the Lord, that mighty
champion of ours rose by his lofty spirit
superior to those overwhelming circumstances
and the terrors of the foe, and showed a mind
which soared above every means devised to
daunt him? Who of the dwellers in the East,
and of the furthest regions of our civilized world
did not hear of his combat with the throne
itself for the truth ? Who, looking to his antag-
onist, was not in dismay? For his was no
common antagonist, possessed only of the
power of winning in sophistic juggles, where
victory is no glory and defeat is harmless ; but
he had the power of bending the whole Roman
government to his will ; and, added to this
pride of empire, he had prejudices against our
faith, cunningly instilled into his mind by
Eudoxius 5 of Germanicia 6, who had won him to
his side ; and he found in all those who were
then at the head of affairs allies in carrying out
his designs, some being already inclined to
them from mental sympathies, while others,
and they were the majority, were ready from
fear to indulge the imperial pleasure, and seeing
the severity employed against those who held to
the Faith were ostentatious in their zeal for him.
It was a time of exile, confiscation, banishment,
threats of fines, danger of life, arrests, imprison-
ment, scourging; nothing was too dreadful to
put in force against those who would not yield
to this sudden caprice of the Emperor ; it was
worse for the faithful to be caught in God's
house than if they had been detected in the
most heinous of crimes.

But a detailed history of that time would be
too long ; and would require a separate treat-
ment; besides, as the sufferings at that sad
season are known to all, nothing would be
gained for our present purpose by carefully
setting them forth in writing. A second draw-
back to such an attempt would be found to be
that amidst the details of that melancholy
history we should be forced to make mention

S Afterwards of Antioch, and then 8th Bishop of Constantinople
(360 — 370), one of the most influential of all the Arians. He it was
who procured for Eunomius the bishopric of Cyzicus '359)4 (The
latter must indeed have concealed his riews on that occasion, for
Constantius hated tie Anomaeans). ° A towu of Commagene.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

of ourselves ; and if we did anything in those
struggles for our religion that redounds to our
honour in the telling, Wisdom commands us to
leave it to others to tell. " Let another man
praise thee, and not thine own mouth 6 ;" and
it is this very thing that our omniscient friend
has not been conscious of in devoting the
larger half of his book to self-glorification.

Omitting, then, all that kind of detail, I will
be careful only in setting forth the achieve-
ment of our Master. The adversary whom he
had to combat was no less a person than the
Emperor himself; that adversary's second was
the man who stood next him in the govern-
ment ; his assistants to work out his will were
the court. Let us take into consideration also
the point of time, in order to test and to
illustrate the fortitude of our own noble cham-
pion. When was it ? The Emperor was pro-
ceeding from Constantinople to the East,
elated by his recent successes against the
barbarians, and not in a spirit to brook any
obstruction to his will ; and his lord-lieutenant
directed his route, postponing all administration
of the necessary affairs of state as long as a
home remained to one adherent of the Faith,
and until every one, no matter where, was
ejected, and others, chosen by himself to out-
rage our godly hierarchy, were introduced
instead. The Powers then of the Propontis
were moving in such a fury, like some dark
cloud, upon the churches ; Bithynia was com-
pletely devastated ; Galatia was very quickly
carried away by their stream ; all in the inter-
vening districts had succeeded with them ; and
now our fold lay the next to be attacked.
What did our mighty Basil show like then,
' that spiritless coward,' as Eunomius calls
him, ' shrinking from danger, and trusting to
a retired cabin to save him ?' Did he quail at
this evil onset? Did he allow the sufferings
of previous victims to suggest to him that he
should secure his own safety ? Did he listen
to any who advised a slight yielding to this
rush of evils ?, so as not to throw himself openly
in the path of men who were now veterans in
slaughter ? Rather we find that all excess of
language, all height of thought and word, falls
short of the truth about him. None could
describe his contempt of danger, so as to bring
before the reader's eyes this new combat, which
one might justly say was waged not between
man and man, but between a Christian's firm-
ness and courage on the one side, and a blood-
stained power on the other.

The lord-lieutenant kept appealing to the

* Proverbs xxviL a.
u j ' * ''e metroPol'tai> remained unshaken. The rough threats of
Moderns succeeded no better than the fatherly counsel of Enip-
piui.' Givatkin's Ariant.

commands of the Emperor, and rendering a
power, which from its enormous strength was
terrible enough, more terrible still by the un-
sparing cruelty of its vengeance. After the
tragedies which he had enacted in Bithynia.
and after Galatia with characteristic fickleness
had yielded without a struggle, he thought that
our country would fall a ready prey to his
designs. Cruel deeds were preluded by words-
proposing, with mingled threats and promises,
royal favours and ecclesiastical power to obe-
dience, but to resistance all that a cruel spirit
which has got the power to work its will can.
devise. Such was the enemy.

So far was our champion from being daunted
by what he saw and heard, that he acted rather
like a physician or prudent councillor calle.i
in to correct something that was wrong, bidding
them repent of their rashness and cea.ie to-
commit murders amongst the servants of tl it-
Lord ; ' their plans,' he said, ' could noi
succeed with men who cared only for the
empire of Christ, and for the Powers that
never die ; with all thejr wish to maltreat himr
they could discover nothing, whether word o*
act, that could pain the Christian ; confiscation
could not touch him whose only possession
was his Faith ; exile had no terrors for one
who walked in every land with the same
feelings, and looked on every city as strange
because of the shortness of his sojourn in itv
yet as home, because all human creatures arc
in equal bondage with himself; the endurance
of blows, or tortures, or death, if it might be
for the Truth, was an object of fear not even
to women, but to every Christian it was the
supremest bliss to suffer the worst for ihia
their hope, and they were only grieved thai,
nature allowed them but one death, and thai
they could devise no means of dying man;
times in this battle for the Truth 8.'

When he thus confronted their threats, an,,
looked beyond that imposing power, as if it-
were all nothing, then their exasperation, jusi
like those rapid changes on the stage when
one mask after another is put on, turned with.
all its threats into flattery; and the very ma..
whose spirit up to then had been so determine,,
and formidable adopted the most gentle am.
submissive of language; 'Do not, 1 beg you,
think it a small thing for our mighty emperoi
to have communion with your people, but be
willing to be called his master too : nor thwart
his wish ; he wishes for this peace, if only one
little word in the written Creed is erased, thai
of Homoousios.' Our master answers that it
is of the greatest importance that the em per u.

8 Other words of Basil, before Modestus at Ca;sarea, are ui^t
recorded : " I c..nnot worship any created thing, being at 1 an..
God's creation, and having been bid Jen to it a UoJ."

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

should be a member of the Church ; that is,
that he should save his soul, not as an emperor,
but as a mere man ; but a diminution of or
addition to the Faith was so far from his
(Basil's) thoughts, that he would not change
even the order of the written words. That was
what this ' spiritless coward, who trembles at
the creaking of a door.' said to this great
ruler, and he confirmed his words by what he
did ; for he stemmed in his own person this
imperial torrent of ruin that was rushing on the
churches, and turned it aside ; he in himself
was a match for this attack, like a grand
immoveable rock in the sea, breaking the
huge and surging billow of that terrible onset.
Nor did his wrestling stop there ; the em-
peror himself succeeds to the attack, ex-
asperated because he did not get effected in
the first attempt all that he wished. Just,
accordingly, as the Assyrian effected the de-
struction of the temple of the Israelites at
Jerusalem by means of the cook Nabuzardan,
so did this monarch of ours entrust his busi-
ness to one Demosthenes, comptroller of his
kitchen, and chief of his cooks 9, as to one more
pushing than the rest, thinking thereby to suc-
ceed entirely in his design. With this man
stirring the pot, and with one of the blas-
phemers from Illyricum, letters in hand, as-
sembling the authorities with this end in
view, and with Modestus * kindling passion
to a greater heat than in the previous
excitement, every one joined the movement
of the Emperor's anger, making his fury their
own, and yielding to the temper of author-
ity ; and on the other hand all felt their
hopes sink at the prospect of what might
happen. That same lord-lieutenant re-enters
on the scene ; intimidations worse than the
former are begun ; their threats are thrown
out ; their anger rises to a still higher pitch ;
there is the tragic pomp of trial over again,
the criers, the apparitors, the lictors, the
curtained bar, things which naturally daunt
even a mind which is thoroughly prepared ;
and again we see .God's champion amidst
this combat surpassing even his former
glory. If you want proofs, look at the facts.
What spot, where there are churches, did not
that disaster reach? What nation remained
unreached by these heretical commands ? Who
of the illustrious in any Church was not driven
from the scene of his labours? What people
escaped their despiteful treatment? It reached

9 This cook is compared to Nabuzardan bv Gregory Naz. also
(Orat. xliii. 47). Cf. also Theodoret, iv. 19, where most of these
events are recorded. The tormer says that ' Nabuzardan threat-
ened Basil when summoned before him with the fiax<xipa of his
trade, but was sent back to his kitchen fire.'

» Modestus, the Lord Lieutenant or Count of the East, had sacri-
ficed to the images under Julian, and had been re-baptized as an
Arian.

VOL. V.

all Syria, and Mesopotamia up to the frontier,
Phoenicia, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt, the

Libyan tribes to the boundaries of the civilized
world ; and all nearer home, Pontus, Cilicia,
Lycia, Lydia, Pisidia, Pamphylia, Caria, the
Hellespont, the islands up to the Propontis
itself; the coasts of Thrace, as far as Thrace
extends, and the bordering nations as far as the
Danube. Which of these countries retained
its former look, unless any were already
possessed with the evil? The people of Cappa-
docia alone felt not these afflictions of the
Church, because our mighty champion saved
them in their trial.

■ Such was the achievement of this 'coward *
master of ours ; such was the success of one
who 'shirks all sterner toil.' Surely it is not
that of one who ' wins renown amongst poor
old women, and practises to deceive the sex
which naturally falls into everv snare,' and
' thinks it a great thing to be admired by the
criminal and abandoned ; ' it is that of one
who has proved by deeds his soul's fortitude,
and the unflinching and noble manliness of
his spirit. His success has resulted in the sal-
vation of the whole country, the peace of our
Church, the pattern given to the virtuous of
every excellence, the overthrow of the foe, the
upholding of the Faith, the confirmation of the
weaker brethren, the encouragement of the
zealous, everything that is believed to belong
to the victorious side ; and in the commemor-
ation of no other events but these do hearing
and seeing unite in accomplished facts ; for
here it is one and the same thing to relate
in words his noble deeds and to show in facts
the attestation of our words, and to confirm
each by the other — the record from what is
before our eyes, and the facts from what is
being said.

§ 13. Resume of his dogmatic teaching.
Objections to it in detail.

But somehow our discourse has swerved con-
siderably from the mark ; it has had to turn
round and face each of this slanderer's insults.
To Eunomius indeed it is no small advantage
that the discussion should linger upon such
points, and that the indictment of his offences
against man should delay our approach to his
graver sins. But it is profitless to abuse for
hastiness of speech one who is on his trial for
murder; (because the proof of the latter is
sufficient to get the verdict of death passed,
even though hastiness of speech is not proved
along with it) ; just so it seems best to sub-
ject to proof his blasphemy only, and to leave
his insults alone. When his heinousness on
the most important points has been detected,
his other delinquencies are proved potentially

GREGORY OF NYSSA

without going minutely into them. Well then ;
at the head of all his argumentations stands this
blasphemy against the definitions of the Faith
— both in his former work and in that which
we are now criticizing — and his strenuous effort
to destroy and cancel and completely upset all
devout conceptions as to the Only-Begotten
Son of God and the Holy Spirit. To show, then,
how false and inconsistent are his arguments
against these doctrines of the truth, I will
first quote word for word his whole state-
ment, and then I will begin again and
examine each portion separately. " The
whole account of our doctrines is summed
up thus ; there is the Supreme and Absolute
Being, and another Being existing by reason
of the First, but after It2 though before all
others ; and a third Being not ranking with
either of these, but inferior to the one, as to its
cause, to the other, as to the energy which pro-
duced it : there must of course be included in
this account the energies that follow each Being,
and the names germane to these energies.
Again, as each Being is absolutely single,
and is in fact and thought one, and its ener-
gies are bounded by its works, and its works
commensurate with its energies, necessarily,
of course, the energies which follow these
Beings are relatively greater and less, some
being of a higher, some of a lower order ; in
a word, their difference amounts to that ex-
isting between their works : it would in fact not
be lawful to say that the same energy produced
the angels or stars, and the heavens or man :
but a pious mind would conclude that in pro-
portion as some works are superior to and more
honourable than others, so does one energy tran-
scend another, because sameness of energy
produces sameness of work, and difference of

a there is the Supreme and Absolute Being, and another Being
existing through the First, but after It. The language of this
exposition of Eunomius is Aristotelian : but the contents never-
theless are nothing more nor less than Gnosticism, as Rupp well
points out (Gregors v. Nyssa Leben und Meinungen, p. 132 sq.).
Arianism. he says, is nothing hut the last attempt of Gnosticism to
force the doctrine of emanations into Christian theology, clothing
that doctrine on this occasion in a Greek dress. It was still an
oriental heresy, not a Greek heresy like Pelagianism in the next
century.

Rupp gives two reasons why Arianism may be identified with
Gnosticism.

1. Arianism holds the A0705 as the highest being after the God-
head, i.e. as the irp<ur<>TO<ro? rij? «Ti<reio?, and as merely the me-
diator between God and Man : just as it was the peculiar aim
of Gnosticism to bridge over the gulf between the Creator and the
Created by means of intermediate beings (the emanations).

a. Eunomius and his master adopted that very system of Greek
philosophy which had always been the natural ally of Gnos-
ticism: i.e. Aristotle is strong in divisions and differences, weak
in ' identifications : ' he had marked with a clearness never attained
before the various stages upwards of existencies in the physical
world : and this is just what Gnosticism, in its wish to exhibit all
things according to their relative distances from the "Ay«W>7To?,
wanted.

Eunomius has in fact in this formula of his translated all the
terms of Scripture straight into those of Aristotle : he has changed
the ethical-physical of Christianity into the purely physical ;
nvfujta e.g. becomes ov<ria : and by thus banishing the spiritual
and the moral he has made his 'Aye'fiT)Tos as completely 'single'
•ind incommunicable as the to irpurov xivovv okLvotoii (Arist.
Metaph. XII. 7).

work indicates difference of energy. These
things being so, and maintaining an unbroken
connexion in their relation to each other, it
seems fitting for those who make their investi-
gation according to the order germane to the
subject, and who do not insist on mixing and
confusing all together, in case of a discussion
being raised about Being, to prove what is
in course of demonstration, and to settle the
points in debate, by the primary energies and
those attached to the Beings, an 1 ajain to
explain by the Beings when the energies are
in question, yet still to consider the passage
from the first to the second the more suitable
and in all respects the more efficacious of the
two."

Such is his blasphemy systematized ! May
the Very God, Son of the Very God, by the
leading of the Holy Spirit, direct our discussion
to the truth ! We will repeat his statements
one by one. He asserts that the " whole
account of his doctrines is summed up in the
Supreme and Absolute Being, and in another
Being existing by reason of the First, but after It
though before all others, and in a third Being
not ranking with either of these but inferior to
the one as to its cause, to the other as to the
energy " The first point, then, of the unfair
dealings in this statement to be noticed is that in
professing to expound the mystery of the Faith,
he corrects as it were the expressions in the
Gospel, and will not make use of the words by
which our Lord in perfecting our faith con-
veyed that mystery to us : he suppresses the
names of ' Father, Son and Holy Ghost,' and
speaks of a 'Supreme and Absolute Being'
instead of the Father, of ' another existing
through it, but after it' instead of the Son, and
of 'a third ranking with neither of these two'
instead of the Holy Ghost. And yet if those
had been the more appropriate names, the
Truth Himself would not have been at a loss
to discover them, nor those men either, on
whom successively devolved the preaching of
the mystery, whether they were from the first
eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word, or,
as successors to these, filled the whole world
with the Evangelical doctrines, and again
at various periods after this defined in a
common assembly the ambiguities raised
about the doctrine ; whose traditions are con-
stantly preserved in writing in the churches.
If those had been the appropriate terms, they
would not have mentioned, as they did, Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, granting indeed it were
pious or safe to remodel at all, with a view to
this innovation, the terms of the faith ; or else
they were all ignorant men and uninstructed in
the mysteries, and unacquainted with what he
calls the appropriate names — those men who

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK. I.

had really neither the knowledge nor the desire
to give the preference to their own conceptions
over what had been handed down to us by the
voice of God.

§ 14. He did wrong, when mentioning the Doc-
trines of Salvation, in adopting terms of his
own choosing instead of the traditional terms
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The reason for this invention of new words
I take to be manifest to everyone — namely:
that every one, when the words father and
son are spoken, at once recognizes the proper
and natural relationship to one another which
they imply. This relationship is conveyed at
once by the appellations themselves. To
prevent it being understood of the Father, and
the Only-begotten Son, he robs us of this
idea of relationship which enters the ear along
with the words, and abandoning the inspired
terms, expounds the Faith by means of others
devised to injure the truth.

One thing, however, that he says is true :
that his own teaching, not the Catholic teach
ing, is summed up so. Indeed any one who
reflects can easily see the impiety of his
statement. It will not be out of place now to
discuss in detail what his intention is in
ascribing to the being of the Father alone
the highest degree of that which is supreme
and proper, while not admitting that the being
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is supreme
and proper. For my part I think that it
is a prelude to his complete denial of the
' being' of the Only-begotten and of the Floly
Ghost, and that this system of his is secretly
intended to effect the setting aside of all real
belief in their personality, while in appearance
and in mere words confessing it. A moment's
reflection upon his statement will enable any
one to perceive that this is so. It does not look
like one who thinks that the Only-begotten
and the Holy Ghost really exist in a distinct
personality to be very particular about the names
with which he thinks the greatness of Almighty
God should be expressed. To grant the fact 3,
and then go into minute distinctions about the
appropriate phrases + would be indeed consum-
mate folly : and so in ascribing a being that
is in the highest degree supreme and proper
only to the Father, he makes us surmise by
this silence respecting the other two that (to
him) they do not properly exist. How can
that to which a proper being is denied be said
to really exist? When we deny proper being
to it, we must perforce affirm of it all the op-
posite terms. That which cannot be properly
said is improperly said, so that the demonstra-

tion of its not being properly said is a proof
of its not really subsisting : and it is at this
that Eunomius seems to aim in introducing
these new names into his teaching. For no
one can say that he has strayed from ignorance
into some silly fancy of separating, locally, the
supreme from that which is below, and as-
signing to the Father as it were the peak
of some hill, while he seats the Son lower
down in the hollows. No one is so childish
as to conceive of differences in space, when
the intellectual and spiritual is under dis-
cussion. Local position is a property of the
material : but the intellectual and immaterial is
confessedly removed from the idea of locality.
What, then, is the reason why he says that the
Father alone has supreme being? For one can
hanllv think it is from ignorance that he wan-
ders oil into these conceptions, being one who,
in the many displays he makes, claims to be
wise, even "making himself overwise," as the
Holy Scripture forbids us to do5.

§15. He does 7vrong in making the being of
the Father alone proper and supreme, implying
by his omission of the Son and the Spirit that
theirs is improperly spoken of, and is inferior.

But at all events he will allow that this
supremacy of being betokens no excess of
power, or of goodness, or of anything of that
kind. Every one knows that, not to mention
those whose knowledge is supposed to be very
profound; viz., that the personality of the Only-
begotten and of the Holy Ghost has nothing
lacking in the way of perfect goodness, perfect
power, and of every quality like that. Good,
as long as it is incapable of its opposite, has
no bounds to its goodness : its opposite alone
can circumscribe it, as we may see by particular
examples. Strength is stopped only when
weakness seizes it ; life is limited by death
alone ; darkness is the ending of light : in a
word, every good is checked by its opposite,
and by that alone. If then he supposes that
the nature of the Only-begotten and of the
Spirit can change for the worse, then he plainly
diminishes the conception of their goodness,
making them capable of being associated with
their opposites. But if the Divine and un-
alterable nature is incapable of degeneracy,
as even our foes allow, we must regard it as
absolutely unlimited in its goodness: and the
unlimited is the same as the infinite. But to
suppose excess and defect in the infinite and
unlimited is to the last degree unreasonable :
for how can the idea of infinitude remain, if we
posited increase and loss in it ? We get the idea
of excess only by a comparison of limits : where

I Le. of the equality of Persons.

4 i.e. for the Persons

5 Eccles. vii. 16

E 2

GREGORY OF NYSSA

there is no limit, we cannot think of any ex-
cess. Perhaps, however, this was not what
he was driving at, but he assigns this superi-
ority only by the prerogative of priority in
time, and, with this idea only, declares the
Father's being to be alone the supreme one.
Then he must tell us on what grounds he has
measured out more length of life to the Father,
while no distinctions of time whatever have
been previously conceived of in the personality
of the Son.

And yet supposing for a moment, for the
sake of argument, that this was so, what supe-
riority does the being which is prior in time
have over that which follows, on the score of
pure being, that he can say that the one is
supreme and proper, and the other is not ?
For while the lifetime of the elder as com-
pared with the younger is longer, yet his
being has neither increase nor decrease on
that account. This will be clear by an illus-
tration. What disadvantage, on the score of
being, as compared with Abraham, had David,
who lived fourteen generations after ? Was
any change, so far as humanity goes, effected
in the latter? Was he less a human being,
because he was later in time ? Who would be
so foolish as to assert this ? The definition
of their being is the same for both : the lapse
of time does not change it. No one would
assert that the one was more a man for being
first in time, and the other less because he
sojourned in life later; as if humanity had
been exhausted on the first, or as if time
had spent its chief power upon the deceased.
For it is not in the power of time to define
for each one the measures of nature, but
nature abides self-contained, preserving her-
self through succeeding generations : and time
has a course of its own, whether surround-
ing, or flowing by, this nature, which remains
firm and motionless within her own limits.
Therefore, not even supposing, as our argu-
ment did for a moment, that an advantage
were allowed on the score of time, can they
properly ascribe to the Father alone the
highest supremacy of being: but as there is
really no difference whatever in the prerogative
of time, how could any one possibly entertain
such an idea about these existencies which are
pre temporal ? Every measure of distance that
we could discover is beneath the divine nature :
so no ground is left for those who attempt to
divide this pre-temporal and incomprehensible
being by distinctions of superior and inferior.

We have no hesitation either in asserting
that what is dogmatically tauyht by them is
an advocacy of the Jewish doctrine, setting
forth, as they do, that the being of the Father
alone has subsistence, and insisting that this

only has proper existence, and reckoning that
of the Son and'the Spirit amongnon-existencies,
seeing that what does not properly exist can
be said nominally only, and by an abuse
of terms, to exist at all. The name of man,
for instance, is not given to a portrait re-
presenting one, but to so and so who is
absolutely such, the original of the picture,
and not the picture itself; whereas the
picture is in word only a man, and does
not possess absolutely the quality ascribed to
it, because it is not in its nature that which it
is called. In the case before us, too, if being
is properly ascribed to the Father, but ceases
when we come to the Son and the Spirit, it is
nothing short of a plain denial of the message
of salvation. Let them leave the church and
fall back upon the synagogues of the Jews>
proving, as they do, the Son's non-existence in
denying to Him proper being. What does
not properly exist is the same thing as the
non-existent.

Again, he means in all this to be very
clever, and has a poor opinion of those who
essay to write without logical force. Then let
him tell us, contemptible though we are, by
what sort of skill he has detected a greater
and a less in pure being. What is his method
for establishing that one being is more of
a being than another being, — taking being in
its plainest meaning, for he must not brivg
forward those various qualities and properties,
which are comprehended in the conception of
the being, and gather round it, but are not the
subject itself? Shade, colour, weight, force or
reputation, distinctive manner, disposition, any
quality thought of in connection with body or
mind, are not to be considered here : we have
to inquire only whether the actual subject of
all these, which is termed absolutely the being,
differs in degree of being from another. We
have yet to learn that of two known existencies,
which still exist, the one is more, the other less,
an existence. Both are equally such, as long
as they are in the category of existence, and
when all notions of more or less value, more
or less force, have been excluded.

If, then, he denies that we can regard the
Only-begotten as completely existing, — for to
this depth his statement seems to lead, — in
withholding from Him a proper existence,
let him deny it even in a less degree. It, how-
ever, he does grant that the Son subsists in
some substantial way — we will not quarrel
now about the particular way— why does he
take away again that which he has conceded
Him to be, and prove Him to exist not
properly, which is tantamount, as we have
said, to not at all? For as humanity is not
possible to that which does not possess the

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

complete connotation of the term ' man,' and
the whole conception of it is cancelled in the
case of one who lacks any of the properties,
so in every thing whose complete and proper
existence is denied, the partial affirmation of
its existence is no proof of its subsisting at
all ; the demonstration, in fact, of its incom-
plete being is a demonstration of its efface-
ment in all points. So that if he is well-
advised, he will come over to the orthodox
belief, and remove from his teaching the idea
of less and of incompleteness in the nature
of the Son and the Spirit : but if he is deter-
mined to blaspheme, and wishes for some
inscrutable reason thus to requite his Maker
and God and Benefactor, let him at all events
part with his conceit of possessing some amount
of showy learning, unphilosophically piling, as
he does, being over being, one above the other,
one proper, one not such, for no discoverable
reason. We have never heard that any of the
infidel philosophers have committed this folly,
any more than we have met with it in the in-
spired writings, or in the common apprehen-
sion of mankind.

I think that from what has been said it will
be clear what is the aim of these newly-devised
names. He drops them as the base of opera-
tions or foundation-stone of all this work of
mischief to the Faith : once he can get the
idea into currency that the one Being alone
is supreme and proper in the highest degree,
he can then assail the other two, as belonging
to the inferior and not regarded as properly
Being. He shows this especially in what fol-
lows, where he is discussing the belief in the
Son and the Holy Spirit, and does not proceed
with these names, so as to avoid bringing
before us tne proper characteristic of their
nature by means of those appellations : they
are passed over unnoticed by this man who is
always telling us that minds of the hearers are
to be directed by the use of appropriate names
and phrases. Yet what name could be more ap-
propriate than that which has been given by
the Very Truth? He sets his views against
the Gospel, and names not the Son, but
' a Being existing through the First, but after
It though before all others.' That this is said
to destroy the right faith in the Only-begotten
will be made plainer still by his subsequent
arguments. Still there is only a moderate
amount of mischief in these words : one intend-
ing no impiety at all towards Christ might
sometimes use them : we will therefore omit
at present all discussion about our Lord, and
reserve our reply to the more open blas-
phemies against Him. But on the subject of
the Holy Spirit the blasphemy is plain and un-
concealed : he says that He is not to be ranked

with the Father or the Son, but is subject to
both. I will therefore examine as closely as
possible this statement.

§ 1 6. Examination of the meaning oj '' subjection: '
in that he says that the nature of the Holy
Spirit is subject to that of the Father and the
Son. It is shewn that the Holy Spirit is of
an equal, not inferior, rank to the Father and
the Son.

Let us first, then, ascertain the meaning of
this word ' subjection ' in Scripture. To
whom is it applied ? The Creator, honouring
man in his having been made in His own image,
' hath placed ' the brute creation ' in subjec-
tion under his feet ; ' as great David relating
this favour (of God) exclaimed in the Psalms6 :
"He put all things," he says, "under his
feet," and he mentions by name the creatures
so subjected. There is still another meaning
of ' subjection ' in Scripture. Ascribing to
God Himself the cause of his success in war,
the Psalmist says?, "He hath put peoples
and nations in subjection under our feet,"
and " He that putteth peoples in subjection
under me." This word is often found thus
in Scripture, indicating a victory. As for the
future subjection of all men to the Only-
begotten, and through Him to the Father,
in the passage where the Apostle with a pro-
found wisdom speaks of the Mediator between
God and man as subject to the Father, imply-
ing by that subjection of the Son who shares
humanity the actual subjugation of mankind —
we will not discuss it now, for it requires a full
and thorough examination. But to take only
the plain and unambiguous meaning of the
word subjection, how can he declare the
being of the Spirit to be subject to that ot
the Son and the Father ? As the Son is
subject to the Father, according to the
thought of the Apostle ? But in this view
the Spirit is to be ranked with the Son, not
below Him, seeing that both Persons are of
this lower rank. This was not his meaning ?
How then ? In the way the brute creation is
subject to the rational, as in the Psalm ?
There is then as great a difference as is implied
in the subjection of the brute creation, when
compared to ma,n. Perhaps he will reject
this explanation as well. Then he will have
to come to the only remaining one, that the
Spirit, at first in the rebellious ranks, was after-
wards forced by a superior Force to bend to
a Conqueror.

Let him choose which he likes of these
alternatives : whichever it is I do not see
Ijow he can avoid the inevitable crime of

6 Psalm viii. 6-8.

7 Psalm xlvii. 3(LXX.).

GREGORY OF NYSSA

blasphemy : whether he says the Spirit is
subject in the manner of the brute creation,
as fish and birds and sheep, to man, or were
to fetch Him a captive to a superior power
after the manner of a rebel. Or does he
mean neither of these ways, but uses the
word in a different signification altogether to
the scripture meaning? What, then, is that
signification? Does he lay down that we
must rank Him as inferior and not as equal,
because He was given by our Lord to His
disciples third in order? By the same reason-
ing he should make the Father inferior to
the Son, since the Scripture often places the
name of our Lord first, and the Father Al-
mighty second. " I and My Father," our Lord
says. "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God 8," and other passages
innumerable which the diligent student of
Scripture testimonies might collect : for in-
stance, " there are differences of gifts, but it
is the same Spirit : and there are differences
of administration, but it is the same Lord :
and there are differences of operations, but
it is the same God." According to this, then,
let the Almighty Father, who is mentioned
third, be made 'subject' to the Son and
the Spirit. However we have never yet heard
of a philosophy such as this, which relegates
to the category of the inferior and the de-
pendent that which is mentioned second or
third only for some particular reason of se-
quence : yet that is what our author wants to
do, in arguing to show that the order observed
in the transmission of the Persons amounts
to differences of more and less in dignity and
nature. In fact he rules that sequence in
point of order is indicative of unlikeness of
nature : whence he got this fancy, what ne-
cessity compelled him to it, is not clear.
Mere numerical rank does not create a dif-
ferent nature : that which we would count in
a number remains the same in nature whether
we count it or not. Number is a mark
only of the mere quantity of things: it does
not place second those things only which have
an inferior natural value, but it makes the
sequence of the numerical objects indicated
in accordance with the intention of those
who are counting. * Paul and Silvanus and
Timotheus' are three persons mentioned ac-
cording to a particular intention. Does the
place of Silvanus, second and after Paul,
indicate that he was other than a man? Or
is Timothy, because he is third, considered by
the writer who so ranks him a different kind
ot being? Not so. Each is human both
before and after this arrangement. Speech,

• John *. 30 ; 2 Cor. xiii. «j_

which cannot utter the names of ali three at
once, mentions each separately according to
an order which commends itself, but unites
them by the copula, in order that the juncture
of the names may show the harmonious action
of the three towards one end.

This, however, does not please our new
dogmatist. He opposes the arrangement of
Scripture. He separates off that equality with
the Father and the Son of His proper and
natural rank and connexion which our Lord
Himself pronounces, and numbers Him with
'subjects': he declares Him to be a work of
both Persons 9, of the Father, as supplying
the cause of His constitution, of the Only-
begotten, as of the artificer of His subsist-
ence: and defines this as the ground of His
'subjection,' without as yet unfolding the
meaning of ' subjection.'

§17. Discussion as to the exact nature of the
' energies ' which, this man declares, '■follow '
the being of the Father and of the Son.

Then he says " there must of course be in-
cluded in this account the energies that accom-
pany each Being, and the names appropriate
to these energies." Shrouded in such a mist
of vagueness, the meaning of this is far from
clear : but one might conjecture it is as follows.
By the energies of the Beings, he means those
powers which have produced the Son and the
Holy Spirit, and by which the First Being
made the Second, and the Second the Third :
and he means that the names of the results
produced have been provided in a manner
appropriate to those results. We have already
exposed the mischief of these names, and will
again, when we return to that part of the
question, should additional discussion of it be
required.

But it is worth a moment's while now to
consider how energies 'follow' beings: what
these energies are essentially : whether different
to the beings which they 'follow,' or part of
them, and of their inmost nature : and then,
if different, how and whence they arise : if
the same, how they have got cut off from
them, and instead of co existing ' follow '

9 lie declares Him to be a work o/both Persons. With regard to
Gregory's own belief as to the procession of the Holy Spirit, it may
be said once lor all that there is hardly anything (but see p. go,
note 5) clear about it to be found in his writings. The question, in
fact, remained undecided until the 9th century, the time of the
schism of the East and West. Bui here, as in other points, Origen
had approached the nearest to the teaching of the West : lor he
represents the procession as from Father and Son, just as often
as from one Person or the other. Athanasius does certainly s.«y
that the Spirit 'unites the creation to the Son, and through the
Son to the Father,' but with him this expression is not followed
up : while in the Roman Church it led to doctrine, for why does
the Holy Spirit unite the creation with God continuously and per-
fectly? Because, to use Bossuet's words, " pro'ceeding from the
Father and the Son He is their love and eternal union." Neither
Basil, nor Gregory Nazianzen, nor Chrysostom, have anything
definite about the procession of the Third Person.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

them externally only. This is necessary, for
we cannot learn all at once from his words,
whether some natural necessity compels the
1 energy,' whatever that may be, to ' follow '
the being, in the way heat and vapour follow
fire, and the various exhalations the bodies
which produce them. Still I do not think that
he would affirm that we should consider the
being of God to be something heterogeneous
and composite, having the energy inalienably
contained in the idea of itself, like an ' accident '
in some subject-matter : he must mean that the
beings, deliberately and voluntarily moved, pro-
duce by themselves the desired result. But,
if this be so, who would style this free result of
intention as one of its external consequences ?
We have never heard of such an expression
used in common parlance in such cases ; the
energy of the worker of anything is not said
to ' follow ' that worker. We cannot separate
one from the other and leave one behind by
itself: but, when one mentions the energy,
one comprehends in the idea that which is
moved with the energy, and when one men-
tions the worker one implies at once the
un mentioned energy.

An illustration will make our meaning clearer.
We say a man works in iron, or in wood, or
in anything else. This single expression
conveys at once the idea of the working and
of the artificer, so that if we withdraw the
one, the other has no existence. If then
they are thus thought of together, i.e. the
energy and he who exercises it, how in this case
can there be said to " follow ': upon the first
being the energy which produces the second
being, like a sort of go-between to both, and
neither coalescing with the nature of the first,
nor combining with the second : separated from
the first because it is not its very nature, but
only the exercise of its nature, and from that
which results afterwards because it does not
therein reproduce a mere energy, but an
active being.

§ 1 8. He has no reason for distinguishing a
plurality of beings in the Trinity. He offers
no demonstration that it is so.

Let us examine the following as well. He
calls one Being the work of another, the second
of the first, and the third of the second. On
what previous demonstration does this state-
ment rest : what proofs does he make use
of, what method, to compel belief in the
succeeding Being as a result of the preceding?
For even if it were possible to draw an analogy
for this from created things, such conjecturing
about the transcendent from lower existences
would not be altogether sound, though the
error in arguing from natural phenomena to

the incomprehensible might then be pardon-
able. But as it is, none would venture to
affirm that, while the heavens are the work
of God, the sun is that of the heavens, and
the moon that of the sun, and the stars that
of the moon, and other created things that
of the stars : seeing that all are the work of
One : for there is one God and Father of all, of
Whom are all things. If anything is produced
by mutual transmission, such as the race
of animals, not even here does one produce
another, for nature runs on through each
generation. How then, when it is impossible
to affirm it of the created world, can he declare
of the transcendent existencies that the second
is a work of the first, and so on ? If, however,
he is thinking of animal generation, and fancies
that such a process is going on also amongst
pure existences, so that the older produces
the younger, even so he fails to be consistent :
for such productions are of the same type
as their progenitors : whereas he assigns to
the members of his succession strange and un-
inherited qualities : and thus displays a super-
fluity of falsehood, while striving to strike
truth with both hands at once, in a clever
boxer's fashion. In order to show the inferior
rank and diminution in intrinsic value of the
Son and Holy Spirit, he declares that " one is
produced from another ; " in order that those
who understand about mutual generation might
entertain no idea of family relationship here :
he contradicts the law of nature by declaring
that " one is produced from another," and at the
same time exhibiting the Son as a bastard
when compared with His Father's nature.

But one might find fault with him, I think,
before coming to all this. If, that is, any one
else, previously unaccustomed to discussion
and unversed in logical expression, delivered
his ideas in this chance fashion, some indulgence
might be shown him for not using the recog-
nized methods for establishing his views. But
considering that Eunomius has such an abund-
ance of this power, that he can advance by his
1 irresistible ' method * of proof even into the

• »caTaAT|7rTiiciijs i<f>o&ov — ij <caT<iA7)i/<is. These words are taken
from the Stoic logic, and refer to the Stoic view of the standard
of truth. To the question, How are true percepuons distinguished
from false ones, the Stoics answered, that a true perception is one
which represents a real object as it really is. To the further ques-
tion, How may it be known that a perception faithfully represents
a reality, they replied by pointing to a relative not an absolute
test — the degree of strength with which certain perceptions force
themselves upon our notice. Some of our perceptions are ol such
a kind that they at once oblige us to bestow on them assent. Such
perceptions produce in us that strength of conviction which the
Stoics call a conception. Whenever a perceplion forces itself upon
us in this irresistible form, we are no longer dealing with a fiction
of the imagination but with something real. The test of irresisti-
bility (k<itoAt)i/<is) was, in the first place, understood to apply to
sensations from without, such sensations, according to the Stoic
view, alone supplying the materia! for knowledge. An equal
degree of certainty was, however, attached to terms deduced fr^m
originally true data, either by the universal and natural exercise of
thought, or by scientific processes of proof. It is (riToAn|/«is
obtained in this last way that Gregory refers to, and Eunomius
was endeavouring to create in the supra natural world.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

supra-natural, how can he be ignorant of the
starting-point from which this ' irresistible ' per-
ception of a hidden truth takes its rise in all
these logical excursions. Everyone knows that
all such arguing must start from plain and
well-known truths, to compel belief through
itself in still doubtful truths : and that none of
these last can be grasped without the guidance
of what is obvious leading us towards the un-
known. If on the other hand that which is
adopted to start with for the illustration of this
unknown is at variance with universal belief, it
will be a long time before the unknown will
receive any illustration from it.

The whole controversy, then, between the
Church and the Anomceans turns on this : Are
we to regard the Son and the Holy Spirit as
belonging to created or uncreated existence?
Our opponent declares that to be the case
which all deny : he boldly lays it down, without
looking about for any proof, that each being is
the work of the preceding being. What
method of education, what school of thought
can warrant him in this, it is difficult to see.
Some axiom that cannot be denied or assailed
must be the beginning of every process of
proof; so as for the unknown quantity to be
demonstrated from what has been assumed,
being legitimately deduced by intervening
syllogisms. The reasoner, therefore, who
makes what ought to be the object of inquiry
itself a premiss of his demonstration is only
proving the obscure by the obscure, and illu-
sion by illusion. He is making ' the blind
lead the blind,' for it is a truly blind and
unsupported statement to say that the Creator
and Maker of all things is a creature made :
and to this they link on a conclusion that is also
blind : namely, that the Son is alien in nature,
unlike in being to the Father, and quite devoid
}f His essential character. But of this enough.
Where his thought is nakedly blasphemous,
there we too can defer its refutation. We must
now return to consider his words which come
next in order.

§ 1 9. His acknowledgment that the Divine Being
is ' single ' is only verbal.

" Each Being has, in fact and in conception,
a nature unmixed, single, and absolutely one
as estimated by its dignity ; and as the
works are bounded by the energies of each
operator, and the energies by the works,
it is inevitable that the energies which
follow each Being are greater in the one
case than the other, some being of the first,
others of the second rank." The intention
that runs through all this, however verbosely
expressed, is one and the same ; namely, to
e>t;ib!ish that there is no connexion be-

tween the Father and the Son, or between the
Son and the Holy Ghost, but that these Beings
are sundered from each other, and possess
natures foreign and unfamiliar to each other,
and differ not only in that, but also in mag-
nitude and in subordination of their dignities,
so that we must think of one as greater than the
other, and presenting every other sort of
difference.

It may seem to many useless to linger over
what is so obvious, and to attempt a discussion
of that which to them is on the face of it false
and abominable and groundless : nevertheless,
to avoid even the appearance of having to let
these statements pass for want of counter-argu-
ments, we will meet them with all our might.
He says, " each being amongst them is un-
mixed, single, and absolutely one, as estimated
by its dignity, both in fact and in conception."
Then premising this very doubtful statement
as an axiom and valuing his own ' ipse
dixit ' as a sufficient substitute for any proof,
he thinks he has made a point. " There
are three Beings : " for he implies this when
he says, ' each being amongst them : ' he
would not have used these words, if he meant
only one. Now if he speaks thus of the
mutual difference between the Beings in order
to avoid complicity with the heresy of Sabellius,
who applied three titles to one subject, we
would acquiesce in his statement : nor would
any of the Faithful contradict his view, except
so far as he seems to be at fault in his names,
and his mere form of expression in speaking of
'beings' instead of 'persons:' for things that
are identical on the score of being will not all
agree equally in definition on the score of
personality. For instance, Peter, James, and
John are the same viewed as beings, each
was a man : but in the characteristics of
their respective personalities, they were
not alike. If, then, he were only proving
that it is not right to confound the Persons,
and to fit all the three names on to one
Subject, his 'saying' would be, to use the
Apostle's words, ' faithful, and worthy of all
acceptation 2.' But this is not his object : he
speaks so, not because he divides the Persons
only from each other by their recognized
characteristics, but because he makes the
actual substantial being of each different from
that of the others, or rather from itself: and so
he speaks of a plurality of beings with distinctive
differences which alienate them from each other.
I therefore declare that his view is unfounded,
and lacks a principle : it starts from data that
are not granted, and then it constructs by
mere logic a blasphemy upon them. It at-

1 Timothy i. 15.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

tempts no demonstration that could attract
towards such a conception of the doctrine : it
merely contains the statement of an unproved
impiety, as if it were telling us a dream.
While the Church teaches that we must
not divide our faith amongst a plurality of
beings, but must recognize no difference of
being in three Subjects or Persons, whereas
our opponents posit a variety and unlikeness
amongst them as Beings, this writer con-
fidently assumes as already proved what
never has been, and never can be, proved
by argument : maybe he has not even yet
found hearers for his talk : or he might have
been informed by one of them who was listening
intelligently that every statement which is made
at random, and without proof, is 'an old
woman's tale,' and powerless to prove the
question, in itself, unaided by any plea what-
ever fetched from the Scriptures, or from human
reasonings. So much for this.

But let us still scrutinize his words. He
declares each of these Beings, whom he has
shadowed forth in his exposition, to be single
and absolutely one. We believe that the most
boorish and simple-minded would not deny
that the Divine Nature, blessed and transcen-
dent as it is, was ' single.' That which is
viewless, formless, and sizeless, cannot be con-
ceived of as multiform and composite. But it
will be clear, upon the very slightest reflec-
tion, that this view of the supreme Being
as ' simple,' however finely they may talk
of it, is quite inconsistent with the system
which they have elaborated. For who does
not know that, to be exact, simplicity in the
case of the Holy Trinity admits of no degrees.
In this case there is no mixture or conflux of
qualities to think of ; we comprehend a potency
without parts and composition ; how then, and
on what grounds, could any one perceive there
any differences of less and more. For he who
marks differences there must perforce think
of an incidence of certain qualities in the
subject. He must in fact have perceived dif-
ferences in largeness and smallness therein,
to have introduced this conception of quantity
into the question : or he must posit abundance
or diminution in the matter of goodness,
strength, wisdom, or of anything else that can
with reverence be associated with God : and
neither way will he escape the idea of com-
position. Nothing which possesses wisdom
or power or any other good, not as an ex-
ternal gift, but rooted in its nature, can suffer
diminution in it; so that if any one says
that he detects Beings greater and smaller
in the Divine Nature, he is unconsciously
establishing a composite and heterogeneous
Deity, and thinking of the Subject as one thing,

and the quality, to share in which constitutes
as good that which was not so before, as
another. If he had been thinking of a Being
really single and absolutely one, identical with
goodness rather than possessing it, he would
not be able to count a greater and a less in
it at all. It was said, moreover, above that
good can be diminished by the presence of
evil alone, and that where the nature is in
capable of deteriorating, there is no limit con-
ceived of to the goodness : the unlimited, in
fact, is not such owing to any relation whatever,
but, considered in itself, escapes limitation. It
is, indeed, difficult to see how a reflecting
mind can conceive one infinite to be greater
or less than another infinite. So that if he ac-
knowledges the supreme Being to be ' single '
and homogenous, let him grant that it is
bound up with this universal attribute of
simplicity and infinitude. If, on the other
hand, he divides and estranges the 'Beings'
from each other, conceiving that of the Only-
begotten as another than the Father's, and
that of the Spirit as another than the Only-
begotten, with a ' more ' and ' less ' in each
case, let him be exposed now as granting
simplicity in appearance only to the Deity,
but in reality proving the composite in Him.

But let us resume the examination of his
words in order. " Each Being has in fact and
conception a nature unmixed, single, and abso-
lutely one, as estimated by its dignity." Why
"as estimated by its dignity?" If he con-
templates the Beings in their common dig-
nity, this addition is unnecessary and super-
fluous, and dwells upon that which is ob-
vious : although a word so out of place might
be pardoned, if it was any feeling of reverence
which prompted him not to reject it. But here
the mischief really is not owing to a mistake
about a phrase (that might be easily set right) :
but it is connected with his evil designs. He
says that each of the three beings is ' single, as
estimated by its dignity,' in order that, on
the strength of his previous definitions of the
first, second, and third Being, the idea of
their simplicity also may be marred. Hav-
ing affirmed that the being of the Father
alone is ' Supreme ' and ' Proper,' and hav-
ing refused both these titles to that of the
Son and of the Spirit, in accordance with
this, when he comes to speak of them all as
' simple,' he thinks it his duty to associate with
them the idea of simplicity in proportion only
to their essential worth, so that the Supreme
alone is to be conceived of as at the height and
perfection of simplicity, while the second, in
proportion to its declension from supremacy,
receives also a diminished measure of simplicity ,
and in the case of the third Being also, there L

5«

GREGORY OF NYSSA

as much variation from the perfect simplicity,
as the amount of worth is lessened in the
extremes: whence it results that the Father's
being is conceived as of pure simplicity, that of
the Son as not so flawless in simplicity, but with
a mixture of the composite, that of the Holy
Spirit as still increasing in the composite, while
the amount of simplicity is gradually lessened.
Just as imperfect goodness must be owned to
share in some measure in the reverse disposi-
tion, so imperfect simplicity cannot escape be-
ing considered composite.

§ 20. He does wrong in assuming, to account
for the existence of the Only begotten, an
'energy* that produced Christ's Person.

That such is his intention in using these
phrases will be clear from what follows, where
he more plainly materializes and degrades
our conception of the Son and of the Spirit.
" As the energies are bounded by the works,
and the works commensurate with the ener-
gies, it necessarily follows that these energies
which accompany these Beings are relatively
greater and less, some being of a higher, some
of a lower order." Though he has studiously
wrapt the mist of his phraseology round the
meaning of this, and made it hard for most
to find out, yet as following that which we
have already examined it will easily be made
clear. "The energies," he says, " are bounded
by the works." By ' works ' he means the
Son and the Spirit, by ' energies ' the effi-
cient powers by which they were produced,
which powers, he said a little above, 'follow'
the Beings. The phrase 'bounded by' expresses
the balance which exists between the being pro-
duced and the producing power, or rather the
' energy ' of that power, to use his own word
implying that the thing produced is not the
effect of the whole power of the operator, but
only of a particular energy of it, only so much
of the whole power being exerted as is calcu-
lated to be likely to be equal to effect that
result. Then he inverts his statement : " and
the works are commensurate with the energies
of the operators." The meaning of this will be
made clearer by an illustration. Let us think
of one of the tools of a shoemaker: i.e.,
a leather-cutter. When it is moved round
upon that from which a certain shape has to be
cut, the part so excised is limited by the size of
the instrument, and a circle of such a radius
will be cut as the instrument possesses of
length, and, to put the matter the other way,
the span of the instrument will measure and
cut out a corresponding circle. That is the
idea which our theologian has of the divine
person of the Only-begotten. He declares
that a certain 'energy' which 'follows' upon

the first Being produced, in the fashion of such
a tool, a corresponding work, namely our Lord :
this is his way of glorifying the Son of God, Who
is even now glorified in the glory of the Father,,
and shall be revealed in the Day of Judgment,
He is a 'work commensurate with the produc-
ing energy.' But what is this energy which
' follows ' the Almighty and is to be conceived
of prior to the Only-begotten, and which cir-
cumscribes His being? A certain essential
Power, self-subsisting, which works its will by
a spontaneous impulse. It is this, then, that is
the real Father of our Lord. And why do we
go on talking of the Almighty as the Father, if
it was not He, but an energy belonging to the
things which follow Him externally that pro-
duced the Son : and how can the Son be a son.
any longer, when something else has given Him
existence according to Eunomius, and He
creeps like a bastard (may our Lord pardon
the expression !) into relationship with the
Father, and is to be honoured in name only
as a Son ? How can Eunomius rank our Lord'
next after the Almighty at all, when he counts-
Him third only, with that mediating 'energy'
placed in the second place? The Holy Spirit
also according to this sequence will be found
not in the third, but in the fifth place, that
' energy' which follows the Only-Begotten, and
by which the Holy Spirit came into existence
necessarily intervening between them.

Thereby, too, the creation of all things by
the Son 3 will be found to have no foundation :
another personality, prior to Him, has been in-
vented by our neologian, to which the author-
ship of the world must be referred, because the
Son Himself derives His being according to-
them from that ' energy.' If, however, to avoid
such profanities, he makes this 'energy' which
produced the Son into something unsubstantial,
he will have to explain to us- how non-being,
can ' follow ' being, and how what is not a sub-
stance can produce a substance : for, if he did
that, we shall find an unreality following God,
the non-existent author of all existence, the
radically unsubstantial circumscribing a sub-
stantial nature, the operative force of creation,
contained, in the last resort, in the unreal. Such
is the result of the teaching of this theologian
who affirms of the Lord Artificer of heaven and
earth and of all the Creation, the Word of God
Who was in the beginning, through Whom are
all things, that He owes His existence to such
a baseless entity or conception as that unname-
able 'energy' which he has just invented, and
that He is circumscribed by it, as by an enclos-

There is of course refarence here to John i. 3: and Eunomius
is called just below th« 'new theologian,' with an allusion o. ,S.
John, who was called by virtue of this passage essentially 6 6e6-
A0705.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. ROOK I.

ing prison of unreality. He who 'gazes into
the unseen ' cannot see the conclusion to which
his teaching tends. It is this : if this 'energy'
of God has no real existence, and if the work
that this unreality produces is also circum-
scribed by it, it is quite clear that we can only
think of such a nature in the work, as that
which is possessed by this fancied producer of
the work : in fact, that which is produced from
and is contained by an unreality can itself be
conceived of as nothing else but a non- entity.
Opposites, in the nature of things, cannot be
contained by opposites : such as water by fire,
life by death, light by darkness, being by non-
being. But with all his excessive cleverness
he does not see this : or else he consciously
shuts his eyes to the truth.

Some necessity compels him to see a diminu-
tion in the Son, and to establish a further
advance in this direction in the case of the
Holy Ghost. "It necessarily follows," he says,
" that these energies which accompany these
Beings are relatively greater and less." This
compelling necessity in the Divine nature,
which assigns a greater and a less, has not
been explained to us by Eunomius, nor as yet
can we ourselves understand it. Hitherto there
has prevailed with those who accept the Gospel
in its plain simplicity the belief that there is
no necessity above the Godhead to bend the
Only-begotten, like a slave, to inferiority. But
he quite overlooks this belief, though it was
worth some consideration • and he dogmatizes
that we must conceive of this inferiority. But
this necessity of his does not stop there : it lands
him still further in blasphemy : as our examina-
tion in detail has already shewn. If, that is,
the Son was born, not from the Father, but
from some unsubstantial ' energy,' He must be
thought of as not merely inferior to the Father,
and this doctrine must end in pure Judaism.
This necessity, when followed out, exhibits the
product of a non-entity as not merely insigni-
ficant, but as something which it is a perilous
blasphemy even for an accuser to name. For
as that which has its birth from an existence
necessarily exists, so that which is evolved
from the non-existent necessarily does the very
contrary. When anything is not self- existent,
how can it generate another?

If, then, this energy which ' follows' the Deity,
and produces the Son, has no existence of its
own, no one can be so blind as not to see the
conclusion, and that his aim is to deny our
Saviour's deity : and if the personality of the
Son is thus stolen by their doctrine from the
Faith, with nothing left of it but the name, it
will be a long time before the Holy Ghost,
descended as He will be from a lineage of
unrealities, will be believed in again. The

energy which 'follows' the Deity has no ex-
istence of its own : then common sense re-
quires the product of this to be unreal : then
a second unsubstantial energy follows this
product : then it is declared that the Holy
Ghost is formed by this energy: so that thc-ir
blasphemy is plain enough: it consists in
nothing less than in denying that after the
Ingenerate God there is any real existence :
and their doctrine advances into shadowy and
unsubstantial fictions, where there is no foun-
dation of any actual subsistence. In such mon-
strous conclusions does their teaching strand
the argument.

§ 21. The blasphemy of these heretics is worse
than the Jewish unbelief.

But let us assume that this is not so : for
they allow, forsooth, in theoretic kindness to-
wards humanity, that the Only-begotten and
the Holy Spirit have some personal existence :
and if, in allowing this, they had granted too
the consequent conceptions about them, they
would not have been waging battle about
the doctrine of the Church, nor cut them-
selves off from the hope of Christians.
But if they have lent an existence to the
Son and the Spirit, only to furnish a mate-
rial on which to erect their blasphemy, perhaps
it might have been better for them, though it
is a bold thing to say, to abjure the Faith and
apostatize to the Jewish religion, rather than
to insult the name of Christian by this mock
assent. The Jews at all events, though they
have persisted hitherto in rejecting the Word,
carry their impiety only so far as to deny
that Christ has come, but to hope that He will
come : we do not hear from them any malig-
nant or destructive conception of the glory of
Him Whom they expect. But this school of
the new circumcision *, or rather of " the con-
cision," while they own that He has come,,
resemble nevertheless those who insulted our
Lord's bodily presence by their wanton un-
belief. They wanted to stone our Lord : these
men stone Him with their blasphemous titles.
They urged His humble and obscure origin,
and rejected His divine birth before the ages:
these men in the same way deny His grand,
sublime, ineffable generation from the Father,
and would prove that He owes His existence
to a creation, just as the human race, and all
that is born, owe theirs. In die eyes of the

4 this school oj the Hew circumcision. This accusation is some-
what discounted by Gregory's comparison 01 Eunomius elsewhere
to Bardesanes and Marcion, to the Manichees, to Nicholaus, to-
Philo (see Book XI. 691, 704, VI. 607, and especially VII.
645), and by his putting him down a scholar of I'lato. But
a momentary advantage, calculated in accordance with che char-
acter and capacities 01 the great mass of Giegory's audience, could,
not be lost. The lesions of Libanius, the rhetorician, had not beea
thrown away on Gregory.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

Jews it was a crime that our Lord should be
regarded as Son of the Supreme : these men also
are indignant against those who are sincere in
making this confession of Him. The Jews
thought to honour the Almighty by excluding
the Son from equal reverence : these men, by
annihilating the glory of the Son, think to
bestow more honour on the Father. But it
would be difficult to do justice to the number
and the nature of the insults which they heap
upon the Only -begotten : they invent an
'energy' prior to the personality of the Son,
and say that He is its work and product : a
thing which the Jews hitherto have not dared
to say. Then they circumscribe His nature,
shutting Him off within certain limits of the
power which made Him : the amount of this
productive energy is a sort of measure within
which they enclose Him : they have devised
it as a sort of cloak to muffle Him up in.
We cannot charge the Jews with doing this.

§ 22. He has no right to assert a greater and
less in the Divine being. A systematic state-
ment of the teaching of the Church.

Then they discover in His being a certain
shortness in the way of deficiency, though they
do not tell us by what method they measure
that which is devoid of quantity and size : they
are able to find out exactly by how much the
size of the Only-begotten falls short of per-
fection, and therefore has to be classed with
the inferior and imperfect : much else they lay
down, partly by open assertion, partly by
underhand inference : all the time making
their confession of the Son and the Spirit
a mere exercise-ground for their unbelieving
spirit. How, then, can we fail to pity them
more even than the condemned Jews, when
views never ventured upon by the latter
are inferred by the former ? He who makes
the being of the Son and of the Spirit
comparatively less, seems, so far as words
go perhaps, to commit but a slight profanity :
but if one were to test his view stringently it
will be found the height of blasphemy. Let us
look into this, then, and let indulgence be
shown me, if, for the sake of doctrine, and to
place in a clear light the lie which they have
demonstrated, I advance into an exposition of
our own conception of the truth.

Now the ultimate division of all being is into
the Intelligible and the Sensible. The Sens-
ible world is called by the Apostle broadly
" that which is seen." For as all body has
colour, and the sight apprehends this, he calls
this world by the rough and ready name of
'• that which is seen," leaving out all the other
qualities, which are essentially inherent in its
framework. The common term, again, for all the

intellectual world, is with the Apostle " that
which is not seen 5 :" by withdrawing all idea of
comprehension by the senses he leads the mind
on to the immaterial and intellectual. Reason
again divides this " which is not seen " into the
uncreate and the created, inferentially compre-
hending it : the uncreate being that which effects
the Creation, the created that which owes its
origin and its force to the uncreate. In the
Sensible world, then, is found everything that
we comprehend by our organs of bodily sense,
and in which the differences of qualities
involve the idea of more and less, such differ-
ences consisting in quantity, quality, and the
other properties.

But in the Intelligible world, — that part of
it, I mean, which is created, — the idea of such
differences as are perceived in the Sensible
cannot find a place : another method, then,
is devised for discovering the degrees of greater
and less. The fountain, the origin, the supply
of every good is regarded as being in the world
that is uncreate, and the whole creation inclines
to that, and touches and shares the Highest
Existence only by virtue of its part in the
First Good : therefore it follows from this
participation in the highest blessings varying
in degree according to the amount of freedom
in the will that each possesses, that the greater
and less in this creation is disclosed accord-
ing to the proportion of this tendency in each 6.
Created intelligible nature stands on the border-
line between good and the reverse, so as to
be capable of either, and to incline at pleasure
to the things of its choice, as we learn from
Scripture ; so that we can say of it that it
is more or less in the heights of excel-
lence only in proportion to its removal
from the evil and its approach to the good.
Whereas 7 uncreate intelligible nature is far
removed from such distinctions : it does not

5 Colossians i. 16.

6 i.e. according as each inclines more or less to the First Good.

7 uncreate intelligible nature is Jar removed from suck dis-
tinctions. This *as the impregnable position that Athanasius
had taken up. To admit that the Son is less than the Father, and
the Spirit less than the Son, is to admit the laiu of emanation
such as hitherto conceived, that is, the gradual and successive
degradation of God's substance ; which had conducted oriental
heretics as well as the Neoplatonists to a sort of pantheistic poly-
theism. Arius had indeed tried to resist this tendency so far as to
bring back divinity to the Supreme Being ; but it was at the
expense of the divinity ol the Son, Who was with him just as much
a created Intermediate between God and man, as one of the ./Eons :
and Aetius and Kunomius treated the Holy Ghost also as their
master had treated the Son. But Arianism tended at once to
Judaism and, in making creatures adorable, to Greek polytheism.
There was only one way of cutting short the phantasmagoria of
divine emanations, without having recourse to the contradictory
hypothesis ol Arius : and that was to reject the law oj emanation,
as hitherto accepted, altogether. Far from admitting that the
Supreme Being is always weakening and degrading Himself in that
which emanates from Him, Athanasius lays down the principle that
He produces within Himself nothing but what is perfect, and first,
and divine : and all that is not perfect is a work of the Divine Will,
which draws it out of nothing (i.e. creates it), and not out ol the
Divine Substance. This was the crowning result of the teaching
ol Alexandria and Origen. See Denys (Oe la Philosophic d'Ori-
gene, p. 432, Paris, 1884J.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

possess the good by acquisition, or participate
only in the goodness of some good which
lies above it : in its own essence it is good,
and is conceived as such : it is a source of
good, it is simple, uniform, incomposite,
even by the confession of our adversaries.
But it has distinction within itself in keeping
with the majesty of its own nature, but not
conceived of with regard to quantity, as Eu-
nomius supposes : (indeed the man who in-
troduces the notion of less of good into any
of the things believed to be in the Holy
Trinity must admit thereby some admixture
of the opposite quality in that which fails of
the good : and it is blasphemous to imagine
this in the case either of the Only-begotten,
or of the Holy Spirit) : we regard it as consum-
mately perfect and incomprehensibly excellent,
yet as containing clear distinctions within itself
which reside in the peculiarities of each of the
Persons : as possessing invariableness by virtue
of its common attribute of uncreatedness, but
differentiated by the unique character of each
Person. This peculiarity contemplated in each
sharply and clearly divides one from the other :
the Father, for instance, is uncreate and un-
generate as well : He was never generated any
more than He was created. While this un-
createdness is common to Him and the Son,
and the Spirit, He is ungenerate as well as the
Father. This is peculiar and uncommunicable,
being not seen in the other Persons. The
Son in His uncreatedness touches the Father
and the Spirit, but as the Son and the Only-
begotten He has a character which is not
that of the Almighty or of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit by the uncreatedness of His
nature has contact with the Son and Father,
but is distinguished from them by His own
tokens. His most peculiar characteristic is
that He is neither of those things which
we contemplate in the Father and the Son
respectively. He is simply, neither as un-
generate 8, nor as only-begotten : this it is that
constitutes His chief peculiarity. Joined to
the Father by His uncreatedness, He is dis-
joined from Him again by not being 'Father.'
United to the Son by the bond of uncreated-
ness, and of deriving His existence from the
Supreme, He is parted again from Him by the
characteristic of not being the Only-begotten
of the Father, and of having been manifested
by means of the Son Himself. Again, as the
creation was effected by the Only-begotten, in
order to secure that the Spirit should not be
considered to have something in common with
this creation because of His having been mani-
fested by means of the Son, He is distin-

■ But He is not begotten. Athanasian Creed.

guished from it by His unchangeableness, and
independende of all external goodness. The
creation does not possess in its nature this
unchangeableness, as the Scripture says in the
description of the fall of the morning star,
the mysteries on which subject are revealed
by our Lord to His disciples: "I saw Satan
falling like lightning from heaven 9." But the
very attributes which part Him from the
creation constitute His relationship to the
Father and the Son. All that is incapable of
degenerating has one and the same definition
of " unchangeable."

Having stated thus much as a preface we
are in a position to discuss the rest of our
adversaries' teaching. " It necessarily follows,"
he says in his system of the Son and the
Spirit, "that the Beings are relatively greater
and less." Let us then inquire what is the
meaning of this necessity of difference. Does
it arise from a comparison formed from
measuring them one with another in some
material way, or from viewing them on the
spiritual ground of more or less of moral
excellence, or on that of pure being? But
in the case of this last it has been shown by
competent thinkers that it is impossible to
conceive of any difference whatever, if one
abstracts being from attributes and properties,
and looks at it according to its bare definition.
Again, to conceive of this difference as con-
sisting in the case of the Only-begotten and
the Spirit in the intensity or abatement of
moral excellence, and in consequence to hint
that their nature admits of change in either
direction, so as to be equally capable of
opposites, and to be placed in a border land
between moral beauty and its opposite — that
is gross profanity. A man who thinks this
will be proving that their nature is one thing
in itself, and becomes something else by
virtue of its participation in this beauty or
its opposite : as happens with iron for ex-
ample : if it is approached some time to
the fire, it assumes the quality of heat
while remaining iron : if it is put in snow
or ice, it changes its quality to the mas-
tering influence, and lets the snow's coldness
pass into its pores.

Now just as we cannot name the material
of the iron from the quality now to be observed
upon it (for we do not give the name of
fire or ice to that which is tempered with
either of these), so the moment we grant the
view of these heretics, that in the case "of the
Life-giving Power good does not reside in It
essentially, but is imparted to it only, it will
become impossible to call it properly goou :

9 Luke x. 18.

1 Tljt (JwotoioO Svpoucuic-

GREGORY OF NYSSA

such a conception of it will compel us to

regard it as something different, as not eternally

exhibiting the good, as not in itself to be

classed amongst genuine goods, but as such

that the good is at times not in it, ana is

at times not likely to be in it. If these

existences become good only by sharing

in a something superior to themselves, it

is plain that before this participation they

were not good, and if, being other than

good, they were then coloured by the in

fluence of good they must certainly, if again

isolated from this, be considered other than

good : so that, if this heresy prevails, the

Divine Nature cannot be apprehended as

transmissive of good, but rather as itself

needing goodness : for how can one impart to

another that which he does not himself possess?

If it is in a state of perfection, no abatement

of that can be conceived, and it is absurd to

talk of less of perfection. If on the other

hand its participation of good is an imperfect

one, and this is what they mean by ' less,'

mark the consequence that anything in that

state can never help an inferior, but will be

busied in satisfying its own want : so that,

according to them, Providence is a fiction,

and so is the judgment and the Dispensation

of the Only-begotten, and all the other works

believed to be done, and still doing by Hirn :

for He will necessarily be employed in taking

care of His own good, and must abandon the

supervision of the Universe2.

If, then, this surmise is to have its way,
namely, that our Lord is not perfected in
every kind of good, it is very easy to see the
conclusion of the blasphemy. This being so,
our faith is vain, and our preaching vain ;
our hopes, which take their substance from
our faith, are unsubstantial. Why are they
baptized into Christ 3, if He has no power of
goodness of His own? God forgive me for saying
it ! Why do they believe in the Holy Ghost,
if the same account is given of Him? How
are they regenerate « by baptism from their
mortal birth, if the regenerating Power does
not possess in its own nature infallibility and
independence? How can their 'vile body'
be changed, while they think that He who is
to change it Himself needs change, i.e. another
to change Him? For as long as a nature

uncuon in me names used by the btOICS for the world, whicli had
long since passed from them into the common parlance. Including
the Empty, the world is called to irau, without it, oAok (to oAox, Ti
oAa fluently occurs with the Stoics). The 7^, it was said

» tov iravrov. It is worth while to mention, once for all, the dis-
tinction in the names used by the Stoics for the world, which had
long

ii di ithi r material nor immaterial, since it consists of both

l'i yap fiairri^omat «is XpioW. This throws some light on

the much discussed passage, ' Why are these baptized for the dead ?'

■>ry at all events seenu here to lake it to mean, ' Why are they

baptized in tlic name of a dead Christ?' as he is adopting par-

tially & Paul's words, 1 Cor. xv. 29 ; as well as Heb. xl 1 above.

* umYowiTu.

is in defect as regards the good, the superior
existence exerts upon this inferior one a cease-
less attraction towards itself: and this craving
for more will never stop : it will be stretching
out to something not yet grasped : the subject
of this deficiency will be always demanding
a supply, always altering into the grander
nature, and yet will never touch perfection,
because it cannot find a goal to grasp, and
cease its impulse upward. The First Good
is in its nature infinite, and so it follows of
necessity that the participation in the enjoy-
ment of it will be infinite also, for more
will be always being grasped, and yet some-
thing beyond that which has been grasped
will always be discovered, and this search
will never overtake its Object, because its
fund is as inexhaustible as the growth of that
which participates in it is ceaseless s.

Such, then, are the blasphemies which
emerge from their making differences between
the Persons as to the good. If on the other
hand the degrees of more or less are to be
understood in this case in some material sense,
the absurdity of this surmise will be obvious
at once, without examination in detail. Ideas
of quality and distance, weight and figure,
and all that goes to complete the notion of
a body, will perforce be introduced along with
such a surmise into the view of the Divine
Nature : and where a compound is assumed,
there the dissolution also of that compound
must be admitted. A teaching so monstrous,
which dares to discover a smaller and a
larger in what is sizeless and not concrete
lands us in these and suchlike conclusions,
a few samples only of which are here in-
dicated : nor indeed would it be easy to
unveil all the mischief that lurks beneath
it. Still the shocking absurdity that results
from their blasphemous premiss will be clear
from this brief notice. We now proceed to
their next position, after a short defining and
confirmation of our own doctrine. For an
inspired testimony is a sure test of the truth
of any doctrine : and so it seems to me that
ours may be well guaranteed by a quotation
from the divine words.

In the division of all existing things, then,
we find these distinctions. There is, as ap-
pealing to our perceptions, the Sensible world :

5 Cf. Gregory's theory of human perfection ; De anima et
Resurrectione, p. 229, 230. ' The All-creating Wisdom fashioned
these souls, these receptacles with free wills, as vessels as it were,
for this very purpose, that there should be some capacities able to
receive His blessings, and become continually larger with the in-
pouring of the stream. Such are the wonders that the participation
in the Divine blessings works ; it makes hiin into whom they come
larger and more capacious. . . . The fountain of blessings wells up
unceasingly, and the partaker's nature, finding nothing superfluous
and without a use in that which it receives, makes the whole inlhix
an enlargement ol its own proportions. ... It is likely, therefore,
that this bulk will mount to a magnitude wherein 110 limit checks-
the growth.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK L

and there is, beyond this, the world which
the mind, led on by objects of sense, can
view : I mean the Intelligible : and in this
we detect again a further distinction into the
Created and the Uncreate : to the latter of
which we have defined the Holy Trinity
to belong, to the former all that can exist
or can be thought of after that. But in
order that this statement may not be left
without a proof, but may be confirmed by
Scripture, we will add that our Lord was
not created, but came forth from the Father,
as the Word with His own lips attests in
the Gospel, in a manner of birth or of pro-
ceeding ineffable and mysterious : and what
truer witness could be found than this con-
stant declaration of our Lord all through the
Gospel, that the Very Father was a father,
not a creator, of Himself, and that He was
not a work of God, but Son of God ? Just
as when He wished to name His connexion
with humanity according to the flesh, He
called that phase of his being Son of Man,
indicating thereby His kinship according to
the nature of the flesh with her from whom
He was born, so also by the title of Son he
expresses His true and real relationship to
the Almighty, by that name of Son showing
this natural connexion : no matter if there
are some who, for the contradiction of the
truth, do take literally and without any ex-
planation, words used with a hidden meaning
in the dark form of parable, and adduce the
expression 'created,' put into the mouth of
Wisdom by the author of the Proverbs6, to
support their perverted views. They say, in
tact, that " the Lord created me " is a proof
that our Lord is a creature, as if the Only-
begotten Himself in that word confessed it.
But we need not heed such an argument.
They do not give reasons why we must refer
that text to our Lord at all: neither will
they be able to show that the idea of the
word in the Hebrew leads to this and no
other meaning, seeing that the other trans-
lators have rendered it by " possessed " or
"constituted:" nor, finally, even if this was
the idea in the original text, would its real
meaning be so plain and on the surface : for
these proverbial discourses do not show their
aim at once, but rather conceal it, reveal-
ing it only by an indirect import, and we
may judge of the obscurity of this par-
ticular passage from its context where he
says, " When He set His throne upon the
winds 7," and all the similar expressions. What
is God's throne ? Is it material or ideal ?

6 Proverbs viii. 22 (LXX). For another discussion of this
passage, see Book II. ch. 10 (beginning) with note.

7 Proverbs viii. 27 (LXX).

What are the winds ? Are they these winds so
familiar to us, which the natural philosophers
tell us are formed from vapours and exhal-
ations : or are they to be understood in another
way not familiar to man, when they are called
the bases of His throne ? What is this throne
of the immaterial, incomprehensible, and form-
less Deity? Who could possibly understand
all this in a literal sense?

23. These doctrines of our Faith witnessed to
and confirmed by Scripture passages.

It is therefore clear that these are meta-
phors, which contain a deeper meaning than
the obvious one : so that there is no reason
from them that any suspicion that our Lord
was created should be entertained by re-
verent inquirers, who have been trained ac-
cording to the grand words of the evangelist,
that "all things that have been made were
made by Him" and "consist in Him."
" Without Him was not anything made that
was made." The evangelist would not have
so defined it if he had believed that our Lord
was one among the things made. How could
all things be made by Him and in Him
consist, unless their Maker possessed a nature
different from theirs, and so produced, not
Himself, but them ? If the creation was by
Him, but He was not by Himself, pla uly
He is something outside the creation. And
after the evangelist has by these word- so
plainly declared that the things that were
made were made by the Son, and did not
pass into existence by any other channel,
Paul 8 follows and, to leave no ground at all
for this profane talk which numbers even the
Spirit amongst the things that were made,
he mentions one after another all the ex-
istencies which the evangelist's words imply :
just as David in fact, a^er having said that "all
things " were put in subjection to man, adds
each species which that " all " comprehends,
that is, the creatures on land, in water, and
in air, so does Paul the Apostle, expounder
of the divine doctrines, after saying that all
things were made by Him, define by numbering
them the meaning of "all." He speaks of
" the things that are seen0" and "the things
that are not seen:" by the first he gives
a general name to all things cognizable by
the senses, as we have seen : by the latter
he shadows foith the intelligible world.

Now about the first there is no necessity
of going into minute detail. No one is so

8 in the Canon. (Oehler's stopping is here at fault, i.e. he
b -gins a new paragraph with 'Eic8e'x*Ta4 tov Koyov toutoc 6 nauAo?).
We need not speculate whether Gregory was aware that the Epi-t'
to the Colossians (quoted below) is an earlier 'Gospel' >'

S. John's.

9 C'lloss, L t*.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

carnal, so brutelike, as to imagine that the
Spirit resides in the sensible world. But
after Paul has mentioned "the things that
are not seen " he proceeds (in order that none
may surmise that the Spirit, because He is of
the intelligible and immaterial world, on account
of this connexion subsists therein; to another
most distinct division into the things that have
been made in the way of creation, and the exis-
tence that is above creation. He mentions
the several classes of these created intelligi-
bles : " J thrones," " dominions," " principali-
ties," " powers," conveying his doctrine about
these unseen influences in broadly comprehen-
sive terms : but by his very silence he separates
from his list of things created that which is
above them. It is just as if any one was
required to name the sectional and inferior
officers in some army, and after he had gone
through them all, the commanders of tens, the
commanders of hundreds, the captains and the
colonels 2, and all the other names given to the
authorities over divisions, omitted after all to
speak of the supreme command which extended
over all the others : not from deliberate neglect,
or from forgetfulness, but because when required
or intending to name only the several ranks
which served under it, it would have been an
insult to include this supreme command in the
list of the inferior. So do we find it with Paul,
who once in Paradise was admitted to mysteries,
when he had been caught up there, and had
become a spectator of the wonders that are
above the heavens, and saw and heard " things
which it is not lawful for a man to utter 3." This
Apostle proposes to tell us of all that has
been created by our Lord, and he gives
them under certain comprehensive terms :
but, having traversed all the angelic and
transcendental world, he stops his reckon-
ing there, and refuses to drag down to the
level of creation that which is above it.
Hence there is a clear testimony in Scripture
that the Holy Spirit is higher than the creation.
Should any one attempt to refute this, by urging
that neither are the Cherubim mentioned by
Paul, that they equally with the Spirit are left
out, and that therefore this omission must prove
either that they also are above the creation, or
that the Holy Spirit is not any more than they
to he believed above it, let him measure the lull
intent of each name in the list: and he will
find amongst them that which from not being
a< tually mentioned seems, but only seems,
omitted. Under "thrones" he includes the

' Coloss. i. 1 6.

.p*as *ai Aoxayovs, «aToi/T<ipxov« T* <tai xiA.apvovs.
I hi difference between the two pairs seems to be the difference

between 1 ommissioned ' and 'commissioned ' officers.

Corinth, xii. 4.

Cherubim, giving them this Greek name, as
more intelligible than the Hebrew name for
them. He knew that "God sits upon the
Cherubim : " and so he calls these Powers the
thrones of Him who sits thereon. In the same
way there are included in the list Isaiah's
Seraphim 4? by whom the mystery of the Trinity
was luminously proclaimed, when they uttered
that marvellous cry " Holy," being awestruck
with the beauty in each Person of the Trinity.
They are named under the title of "powers"
both by the mighty Paul, and by the prophet
David. The latter says, " Bless ye the Lord
all ye His powers, ye ministers of His that do His
pleasure s : " and Isaiah instead of saying " Bless
ye" has written the very words of their bless-
ing, " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts :
the whole earth is full of His glory " and he has
revealed by what one of the Seraphim did (to
him) that these powers are ministers that do
God's pleasure, effecting the ' purging of sin '
according to the will of Him Who sent them :
for this is the ministry of these spiritual beings,
viz., to be sent forth for the salvation of those
who are being saved.

That divine Apostle perceived this. He
understood that the same matter is indicated
under different names by the two prophets, and
he took the best known of the two words, and
called those Seraphim "powers:" so that no
ground is left to our critics for saying that any
single one of these beings is omitted equally
with the Holy Ghost from the catalogue of
creation. We learn from the existences detailed
by Paul that while some existences have been
mentioned, others have been passed over : and
while he has taken count of the creation in
masses as it were, he has (elsewhere) men-
tioned as units those things which are conceived
of singly. For it is a peculiarity of the Holy
Trinity that it is to be proclaimed as consisting
of individuals : one Father, one Son, one Holy
Ghost : whereas those existences aforesaid are
counted in masses, "dominions," "principal-
ities," "lordships," "powers," so as to exclude
any suspicion that the Holy Ghost was one of
them. Paul is wisely silent upon our mysteries ;
he understands how, after having heard those
unspeakable words in paradise, to refrain from
proclaiming those secrets when he is making
mention of lower beings.

But these foes of the truth rush in upon the
ineffable ; they degrade the majesty of the Spirit
to the level of the creation ; they act as if they
had never heard that the Word of God,
when confiding to His disciples the secret
of knowing God, Himself said that the life of

4 Isaiah vi. 6, 7.

5 Psalm ciii. 21.

AGAINST KUNOMU'S. HOOK i.

«S

6 the regenerate was to be completed in them
and imparted in the name of Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, and, thereby ranking the Spirit
with the Father and Himself, precluded Him
from being confused with the creation. From
both, therefore, we may get a reverential and
proper conception with regard to Him : from
Paul's omitting the Spirit's existence in the
mention of the creation, and from our Lord's
joining the Spirit with His Father and Himself
in mentioning the life-giving power. Thus does
our reason, under the guidance of the Scripture,
place not only the Only-begotten but the Holy
Spirit as well above the creation, and prompt
us in accordance with our Saviour's command to
contemplate Him by faith in the blessed world
of life giving and uncreated existence: and so
this unit, which we believe in, above creation,
and sharing in the supreme and absolutely
perfect nature, cannot be regarded as in any
way a ' less,' although this teacher of heresy
attempt to curtail its infinitude by introducing
the idea of degrees, and thus contracting the
divine perfection by defining a greater and
a less as residing in the Persons.

§ 24. If is elaborate account of degrees and dif-
ferences in ' ivorks ' and ' energies ' within the
Trinity is absurd.

Now let us see what he adds, as the conse-
quence of this. After saying that we must
perforce regard the Being as greater and less,
and that while ? the ones, by virtue of a pre-
eminent magnitude and value, occupy a leading
place, the others must be detruded to a lower
place, because their nature and their value is
secondary, he adds this; "their difference
amounts to that existing between their works:
it would in fact be impious to say that the
same energy produced the angels or the stars,
and the heavens or man ; but one would posi-
tively maintain about this, that in propor-
tion as some works are older and more honour-
able than others, so does one energy transcend
another, because sameness of energy produces
sameness of work, and difference of work
indicates difference of energy."

I suspect that their author himself would
find it difficult to tell us what he meant when
he wrote those words. Their thought is ob-
scured by the rhetorical mud, which is so thick
that one can hardly see beyond any clue to
interpret them. "Their difference amounts
to that existing between their works " is a sen-
tence which might be suspected of coming
from some Loxias of pagan story, mystifying

* rot? aLvayewu>ii.ivoiS,

7 Tas /xei/, i.e. Oiio-i'os. Eunomius' Arianism here degenerates
into mere Emanationism : but even in this system the Substances
were living : it is best on the whole to translate oiaia ' being,' and
this, as a rule, is adhered to throughout.

VOL. V. F

his hearers. But if we may make a guess ai
the drift of his observations here by following
out those which we have already examined,
this would be his meaning, viz., that if we
know the amount of difference between one
work and another, we shall know the amount
of that between the corresponding energies.
But what " works " he here speaks of, it is
impossible to discover from his words. If he
means the works to be observed in the creation,
I do not see how this hangs on to what goes
before. For the question was about Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost : what occasion was
there, then, for one thinking rationally to in-
quire one after another into the nature of
earth, and water, and air, and fire, and the dif-
ferent animals, and to distinguish some works
as older and more honourable than others,
and to speak of one energy as transcending an-
other? But if he calls the Only-begotten and
the Holy Spirit " works," what does he mean
by the "differences" of the energies which
produce these works : and what are 8 those
wonderful energies of this writer which trans-
cend the others ? He has neither explained the
particular way in which he means them to
" transcend " each other ; nor has he discussed
the nature of these energies : but he has ad-
vanced in neither direction, neither proving so
far their real subsistence, nor their being some
unsubstantial exertion of a will. Throughout
it all his meaning hangs suspended between
these two conceptions, and oscillates from one
to the other. He adds that "it would be
impious to say that the same energy produced
the angels or the stars, and the heavens or
man." Again we ask what necessity there is
to draw this conclusion from his previous re-
marks ? I do not see that it is proved any more
9 because the energies vary amongst themselves
as much as the works do, and because the
works are not all from the same source but:
are stated by him to come from different
sources. As for the heavens and each angel,
star, and man, or anything else understood by
the word " creation," we know from Scripture
that they are all the work of One : whereas in
their system of theology the Son and ii-.-
Spirit are not the work of one and the same,
the Son being the work of the energy which
' follows ' the first Being, and the bpirit the
further work of that work. What the connexion,
then, is between that statement and the heavens,
man, angel, star, which he diags in, must be
revealed by himself, or some one whom he ha
initiated into his profound philosophy. Ti.
blasphemy intended by his words is phi

8 kk'ki 1W1 ai evepyeiai avrau..

9 t<u 7rapT)AAdx0ai, k.t.A. This is Oehler's emendation ivi the
faulty reading to of the editions.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

enough, but the way the profanity is stated
is inconsistent with itself. To suppose that
within the Holy Trinity there is a difference
as wide as that which we can observe between
the heavens which envelope the whole creation,
and one single man or the star which shines in
them, is openly profane : but still the connexion
of such thoughts and the pertinence of such a
comparison is a mystery to me, and I suspect
also to its author himself. If indeed his ac-
count of the creation were of this sort, viz.,
that while the heavens were the work of some
transcendent energy each star in them was the
result of an energy accompanying the heavens,
and that the i an angel was the result of that
star, and a man of that angel, his argument
would then have consisted in a comparison of
similar processes, and might have somewhat
confirmed his doctrine. But since he grants
that it was all made by One (unless he wishes
to contradict Scripture downright), while he
describes the production of the Persons after
a different fashion, what connexion is there
between this newly imported view and what
went before ?

But let it be granted to him that this
comparison does have some connexion with
proving variation amongst the Beings (for this
is what he desires to establish) ; still let us
see how that which follows hangs on to
what he has just said, ' In proportion as one
work is prior to another and more precious
than it, so would a pious mind affirm that
one energy transcends another.' If in this he
alludes to the sensible world, the statement
is a long way from the matter in hand. There
is no necessity whatever that requires one
whose subject is theological to philosophize
about the order in which the different results
achieved in the world-making are to come, and
to lay down that the energies of the Creator
are higher and lower analogously to the mag-
nitude of each thing then made. But if he
speaks of the Persons themselves, and means
by works that are ' older and more honourable '
those 'works' which he has just fashioned in
his own creed, that is, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost, it would be perhaps better to pass over
in silence such an abominable view, than to
create even the appearance of its being an ar-
gument by entangling ourselves with it. For
can a ' more honourable' be discovered where
there is not a less honourable? If he can go
so far, and with so light a heart, in profanity
as to hint that the expression and the idea
4 less precious' can be predicated of anything
whatever which we believe of the Trinity, then
it were well to stop our ears, and get as quickly
as possible out of hearing of such wickedness,
And the contagion of reasoning which will be

transfused into the heart, as from a vessel
full of uncleanness.

Can any one dare to speak of the divine
and supreme Being in such a way that a less
degree of honour in comparison is proved by
the argument. " That all," says the evan-
gelist, " may honour the Son, as they honour
the Father1." This utterance (and such an
utterance is a law to us) makes a law of this
equality in honour : yet this man annuls
both the law and its Giver, and apportions
to the One more, to the Other less of honour,
by some occult method for measuring its extra
abundance which he has discovered. By the
custom of mankind the differences of worth
are the measure of the amount of honour
which each in authority receives ; so that
inferiors do not approach the lower magistracies
in the same guise exactly as they do the
sovereign, and the greater or less display
of fear or reverence on their part indicates
the greater or the less worshipfulness in the
objects of it : in fact we may discover, in this
disposition of inferiors, who are the specially
honourable ; when, for instance, we see some
one feared beyond his neighbours, or the re-
cipient of more reverence than the rest. But
in the case of the divine nature, because every
perfection in the way of goodness is connoted
with the very name of God, we cannot
discover, at all events as we look at it,
any ground for degrees of honour. Where
there is no greater and smaller in power,
or glory, or wisdom, or love, or of any other
imaginable good whatever, but the good which
the Son has is the Father's also, and all
that is the Father's is seen in the Son, what
possible state of mind can induce us to
show the more reverence in the case of the
Father? If we think of royal power and worth
the Son is King: if of a judge, 'all judgment
is committed to the Son2 : ' if of the magnificent
office of Creation, 'all things were made by
Him 2 : ' if of the Author of our life, we know
the True Life came down as far as our nature :
if of our being taken out of darkness, we know
He is the True Light, who weans us from
darkness: if wisdom is precious to any, Christ
is God's power and Wisdom 3.

Our very souls, then, being disposed so
naturally and in proportion to their capacity,
and yet so miraculously, to recognize so many
and great wonders in Christ, what further ex-
cess of honour is left us to pay exclusively to
the Father, as inappropriate to the Son ?
Human reverence of the Deity, looked at
in its plainest meaning, is nothing else but

1 John v. 23. 2 John v. 22 ; i. 3.

3 1 Cor. i. 24. ''Christ the puwer of God, and the wisdom of
God "

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

an attitude of love towards Him, and a con-
fession of the perfections in Him : and I think
that the precept 'so ought the Son to be
honoured as the Father ♦,' is enjoined by the
Word in place of love. For the Law com-
mands that we pay to God this fitting honour
by loving Him with all our heart and strength ;
and here is the equivalent of that love, in that
the Word as Lawgiver thus says, that the Son
ought to be honoured as the Father.

It was this kind of honour that the great
David fully paid, when he confessed to the
Lord in a prelude s of his psalmody that he
loved the Lord, and told all the reasons for
his love, calling Him his " rock " and " for-
tress," and "refuge," and "deliverer," and
"God-helper," and "hope," and "buckler,"
and "horn of salvation," and "protector." If
the Only-begotten Son is not all these to
mankind, let the excess of honour be re-
duced to this extent as this heresy dictates :
but if we have always believed Him to be,
and to be entitled to, all this and even
more, and to be equal in every operation
and conception of the good to the majesty of
the Father's goodness, how can it be pro-
nounced consistent, either not to love such
a character, or to slight it while we love it?
No one can say that we ought to love Him
with all our heart and strength, but to honour
Him only with half. If, then, the Son is to
be honoured with the whole heart in rendering
to Him all our love, by what device can any-
thing superior to His honour be discovered,
when such a measure of honour is paid Him
in the coin of love as our whole heart is
capable of? Vainly, therefore, in the case
of Beings essentially honourable, will any one
dogmatize about a superior honour, and by
comparison suggest an inferior honour.

Again ; only in the case of the creation is
it true to speak of 'priority.' The sequence of
works was there displayed in the order of the
days ; and the heavens may be said to have
preceded by so much the making of man,
and that interval may be measured by the
interval of days. But in the divine nature,
which transcends all idea of time and sur-
passes all reach of thought, to talk of a "prior"
and a "later" in the honours of time is a
privilege only of this new-fangled philosophy.
In short he who declares the Father to be
' prior ' to the subsistence of the Son declares
nothing short of this, viz., that the Son is
later than the things made by the Son 6 (if at

4 John r. 23. The Gospel enjoins honour and means love :
the Law enjoins love and means honour.

5 a prelude. See Psalm vii. 1 and xviii. 1, "fortress," <cpa-
rauwfia ; arepcu/ia, LXX.

6 The meaning is that, if the Son is later (in time) than the
Father, then time must have already existed for this comparison to

least it is true to say that all the ages, and all
duration of time was created after the Son, and
by the Son).

§25. He who asserts that the Father is i prior1
to the Son with any thought oj an interval
must perforce allow that even the Fatfier is
not without beginning.

But more than this: what exposes still further
the untenableness of this view is, that, besides
positing a beginning in time of the Son's
existence, it does not, when followed out,
spare the Father even, but proves that He also
had his beginning in time. For any recogniz-
ing mark that is presupposed for the generation
of the Son must certainly define as well the
Father's beginning.

To make this clear, it will be well to discuss
it more carefully. When he pronounces that the
life of the Father is prior to tnat of the Son,
he places a certain interval between the two ;
now, he must mean, either that this interval
is infinite, or that it is included within fixed
limits. But the principle of an intervening
mean will not allow him to call it infinite ; he
would annul thereby the very conception of
Father and Son and the thought of anything
connecting them, as long as this infinite were
limited on neither side, with no idea of a
Father cutting it short above, nor that of a Son
checking it below. The very nature of the
infinite is, to be extended in either direction,
and to have no bounds of any kind.

Therefore if the conception of Father and
Son is to remain firm and immoveable, he will
find no ground for thinking this interval is
infinite : his school must place a definite in-
terval of time between the Only-begotten ami
the Father. What I say, then, is this : that
this view of theirs will bring us to the con
elusion that the Father is not from everlasting,
but from a definite point in time. I will
convey my meaning by familiar illustrations ;
the known shall make the unknown clear.
When we say, on the authority of the text of
Moses, that man was made the fifth day after
the heavens, we tacitly imply that before those
same days the heavens did not exist either ; a
subsequent event goes to define, by means ot
the interval which precedes it, the occurrence
also of a previous event. If this example does
not make our contention plain, we can gi\e
others. We say that ' the Law given by Moses
was four hundred and thirty years later than the
Promise to Abraham.' If after traversing, step
by step upwards ?, the anterior time we reach

be made ; i.e. the Son is later than time as well as the Father.
This involves a contradiction.

7 step by step upwards. Si' a.va\v<reuts. This does not seem to
be used in the Platonic (dialectic) sense, but in the N.T. sense of
" return " or " retrogression," cf. Luke xii. 36. Gregory elsewhere

V 2

GREGORY OF NYSSA

this end of that number of years, we firmly
grasp as well the fact that, before that date,
Hod's Promise was not either. Many such
instances could be given, but I decline to be
minute and wearisome.

Guided, then, by these examples, let us
examine the question before us. Our adver-
saries conceive of the existences of Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit as involving elder and
younger, respectively. Well then ; if, at the
bidding of this heresy, we journey up beyond
die generation of the Son, and approach that
intervening duration which the mere fancy of
these dogmatists supposes between the Father
and the Son, and then reach that other and
supreme point of time by which they close
that duration, there we find the life of the
Father fixed as it were upon an apex ; and
thence we must necessarily conclude that be-
fore it the Father is not to be believed to
have existed always.

If you still feel difficulties about this, let us
again take an illustration. It shall be that of
two rulers, one shorter than the other. If we
fit the bases of the two together we know from
the tops the extra length of the one ; from the
end of the lesser lying alongside of it we
measure this excess, supplementing the defi-
ciency of the shorter ruler by a calculation, and
so bringing it up to the end of the longer ;
a cubit for instance, or whatever be the dis-
tance of the one end from the other. So, if
there is, as our adversaries say, an excess of
some kind in the Father's life as compared
with the Son's, it must needs consist in some
definite interval of duration : and they will
allow that this interval of excess cannot be in
the future, for that Both are imperishable,
even the foes of the truth will grant. No ;
they conceive of this difference as in the past,
and instead of equalizing the life of the Father
and the Son there, they extend the conception
of the Father by an interval of living. But
every interval must be bounded by two ends :
and so for this interval which they have devised
we must grasp the two points by which the ends
are denoted. The one portion takes its begin-
ning, in their view, from the Son's generation ;
and the other portion must end in some other
point, from which the interval starts, and by
which it limits itself. What this is, is for them
to tell us; unless, indeed, they are ashamed
of the consequences of their own assumptions.

It admits not of a doubt, then, that they will
not be able to find at all the other portion, cor-
responding to the first portion of their fancied

$ Horn. Opif. xxv.), uses i.va\veiv in this sense : speaking of the
:..ree examples of Christ's power oi rawing hum iiic ue.(d, jjc says,
' you see . . . all these equally at the Command of one and the
same voice returning (avoAvoi'Ta?) to life." 'AvaAvo-is thus also
came to mean " death," as a 'return." Cf. Ecclesiast. xi. 7.

interval, except they were to suppose some be-
ginning of their Ungenerate, whence the middle,
that connects with the generation of the Son,
may be conceived of as starting. We affirm,
then, that when he makes the Son later than
the Father by a certain intervening extension
of life, he must grant a fixed beginning to the
Father's existence also, regulated by this same
interval of his devising ; and thus their much-
vaunted "Ungeneracy" of the Father will be
found to be undermined by its own champions'
arguments ; and they will have to confess that
their Ungenerate God did once not exist, but
began from a starting-point : indeed, that which
has a beginning of being is not inoriginate.
But if we must at all risks confess this absence
of beginning in the Father, let not such exacti-
tude be displayed in fixing for the life of the
Son a point which, as the term of His existence,
must cut Him off from the life on the other side
of it ; let it suffice on the ground of causation
only to conceive of the Father as before the
Son ; and let not the Father's life be thought
of as a separate and peculiar one before the
generation of the Son, lest we should have to
admit the idea inevitably associated with this
of an interval before the appearance of the
Son which measures the life of Him Who begot
Him, and then the necessary consequence of
this, that a beginning of the Father's life also
must be supposed by virtue of which their
fancied interval may be stayed in its upward
advance so as to set a limit and a beginning
to this previous life of the Father as well : let
it suffice for us, when we confess the ' coming
from Him,' to admit also, bold as it may seem,
the ' living along with Him ; ' for we are led by
the written oracles to such a belief. For we
have been taught by Wisdom to contemplate
the brightness 8 of the everlasting light in, and
together with, the very everlastingness of that
primal light, joining in one idea the brightness
and its cause, and admitting no priority. Thus
shall we save the theory of our Faith, the Son's
life not failing in the upward view, and the
Father's everlastingness being not trenched
upon by supposing any definite beginning for
the Son.

§26. 7/ will not do to apply this conception, as
drawn out above, of the father and Son to the
Creation, as they insist on doing: but we must
contemplate the Son apart with the Father,
and believe that the Creation had its origin
from a definite point.

But perhaps some of the opponents of this
will say, ' The Creation also has an acknow-
ledged beginning ; and yet the things in it are

8 brightness. Heb. i. 3, airavycur/ia rijs Wfifs.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

not connected in thought with the everlasting-
ness of the Father, and it does not check, by
having a beginning of its own, the infinitude of
the divine life, which is the monstrous con-
clusion this discussion has pointed out in
the case of the Father and the Son. One
therefore of two things must follow. Either the
Creation is everlasting; or, it must be boldly
admitted, the Son is later in time (than the
Father). The conception of an interval in time
will lead to monstrous conclusions, even when
measured from the Creation up to the Creator.'
One who demurs so, perhaps from not
attending closely to the meaning of our
belief, fights against it with alien compari-
sons which have nothing to do with the
matter in hand. If he could point to any-
thing above Creation which has its origin
marked by any interval of time, and it
were acknowledged possible by all to think
of any time-interval as existing before Crea-
tion, he might have occasion for endeavour-
ing to destroy by such attacks that everlasting-
ness of the Son which we have proved above.
But seeing that by all the suffrages of the
faithful it is agreed that, of all things that are,
part is by creation, and part before creation,
and that the divine nature isito be believed un-
create (although within it, as our, faith teaches,
there is a cause, and there is a subsistence pro-
duced, but without separation, from the cause),
while the creation is to be viewed in an extension
of distances, — all order and sequence of time
in events can be perceived only in the ages
(of this creation), but the nature pre- existent
to those ages escapes all distinctions of before
and after, because reason cannot see in that
divine and blessed life the things which it
observes, and that exclusively, in creation.
The creation, as we have said, comes into
existence according to a sequence of order, and
is commensurate with the duration of the ages,
so that if one ascends along the line of things
created to their beginning, one will bound the
search with the foundation of those ages. But
the world above creation, being removed from
all conception of distance, eludes all sequence
of time : it has no commencement of that sort :
it has no end in which to cease its advance,
according to any discoverable method of order.
Having traversed thfe ages and all that has been
produced therein, our thought catches a glimpse
of the divine nature, as of some immense ocean,
but when the imagination stretches onward to
grasp it, it gives no sign in its own case of any
beginning ; so that one who after inquiring with
curiosity into the ' priority ' of the ages tries to
mount to the source of all things will never be
able to make a single calculation on which he
may stand ; that which he seeks will always be

moving on before, and no basis will be offered
him for the curiosity of thought.

It is clear, even with a moderate insight
into the nature of things, that there is nothing
by which we can measure the divine and
blessed Life. It is not in time, but time flows
from it ; whereas the creation, starting from
a manifest beginning, journeys onward to its
proper end through spaces of time ; so that it
is possible, as Solomon somewhere 9 says, to
detect in it a beginning, an end, and a middle ;
and mark the - sequence of its history by
divisions of time. But the supreme and
blessed life has no time-extension accompany-
ing its course, and therefore no span nor
measure. Created things are confined within
the fitting measures, as within a boundary, with
due regard to the good adjustment of the whole
by the pleasure of a wise Creator ; and so,
though human reason in its weakness cannot
reach the whole way to the contents of crea-
tion, yet still we do not doubt that the creative
power has assigned to all of them their
limits and that they do not stretch beyond
creation. But this creative power itself, while
circumscribing by itself the growth of things,
has itself no circumscribing bounds ; it buries in
itself every effort of thought to mount up to the
source of God's life, and it eludes the busy and
ambitious strivings to get to the end of the
Infinite. Every discursive effort of thought to
go back beyond the ages will ascend only so
far as to see that that which it seeks can never
be passed through : time and its contents seem
the measure and the limit of the movement
and the working of human thought, but that
which lies beyond remains outside its reach ;
it is a world where it may not tread, unsullied
by any object that can be comprehended by
man. No form, no place, no size, no reckoning
of time, or anything else knowable, is there :
and so it is inevitable that our apprehensive
faculty, seeking as it does always some object
to grasp, must fall back from any side of this
incomprehensible existence, and seek in the
ages and in the creation which they hold its
kindred and congenial sphere.

All, I say, with any insight, however
moderate, into the nature of things, know that
the world's Creator laid time and space as
a background to receive what was to be ; on
this foundation He builds the universe. It is
not possible that anything which has come
or is now coming into being by way of
creation can be independent of space or
time. But the existence which is all-suf-
ficient, everlasting, world-enveloping, is not in
space, nor in time : it is before these, and

9 Compare Eccles. iii. i — II ; and viii. 5, "and a wise man's
heart discerneth both time and judgment. '

GREGORY OF NYSSA

above these in an ineffable way ; self-con-
tained, knowable by faith alone ; immeasur-
able by ages ; without the accompaniment
of time ; seated and resting in itself, with
no associations of past or future, there being
nothing beside and beyond itself, whose pass-
ing can make something past and some-
thing future. Such accidents are confined to
the creation, whose life is divided with time's
divisions into memory and hope. But within
that transcendent and blessed Power all things
are equally present as in an instant : past and
future are within its all-encircling grasp and
its comprehensive view.

This is the Being in which, to use the words
of the Apostle, all things are formed ; and we,
with our individual share in existence, live and
move, and have our being io. It is above be-
ginning, and presents no marks of its inmost
nature: it is to be known of only in the impos-
sibility of perceiving it. That indeed is its
most special characteristic, that its nature is too
high for any distinctive attribute. A very
different account to the Uncreate must be
given of Creation : it is this very thing that
takes it out of all comparison and connexion
with its Maker; this difference, I mean,
of essence, and this admitting a special
account explanatory of its nature which has
nothing in common with that of Him who
made it. The Divine nature is a stranger to
these special marks in the creation : It leaves
beneath itself the sections of time, the ' before '
and the ' after,' and the ideas of space : in fact
' higher ' cannot properly be said of it at all.
Every conception about that uncreate Power
is a sublime principle, and involves the idea
of what is proper in the highest degree ".

We have shewn, then, by what we have said
that the Only-begotten and the Holy Spirit are
not to be looked for in the creation but
are to be believed above it ; and that while
the creation may perhaps by the persevering
efforts of ambitious seekers be seized in its own
beginning, whatever that may be, the super-
natural will not the more for that come within
the realm of knowledge, for no mark before
the ages indicative of its nature can be found.
Well, then, if in this uncreate existence those
wondrous realities, with their wondrous names
of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are to be in
our thoughts, how can we imagine, of that pre-
temporal world, that which our busy, restless
minds perceive in things here below by compar-
ing one of them with another and giving it pre-
cedence by an interval of time ? For there, with
the Father, unoriginate, ungenerate, always

«» Acts xvii. 28 ; Col. i. 17.
cat tqv tov cupiwrarou AoyOf «W)(et"

Father, the idea of the Son as coming from
Him yet side by side with Him is inseparably
joined; and through the Son and yet with
Him, before any vague and unsubstantial con-
ception comes in between, the Holy Spirit
is found at once in closest union ; not subse-
quent in existence to the Son, as if the Son
could be thought of as ever having been with-
out the Spirit ; but Himself also owning the
same cause of His being, i.e. the God over all,
as the Only-begotten Light, and having shone
forth in that very Light, being divisible neither
by duration nor by an alien nature from the
Father or from the Only-begotten. There
are no intervals in that pre-temporal world :
and difference on the score of being there is
none. It is not even possible, comparing the
uncreate with the uncreated, to see differences;
and the Holy Ghost is uncreate, as we have
before shewn.

This being the view held by all who accept
in its simplicity the undiluted Gospel, what occa-
sion was there for endeavouring to dissolve this
fast union of the Son with the Father by means
of the creation, as if it were necessary to suppose
either that the Son was from everlasting along
with the creation, or that He too, equally with
it, was later ? For the generation of the Son
does not fall within time ", any more than the
creation was before time : so that it can in no
kind of way be right to partition the indivisible,
and to insert, by declaring that there was a
time when the Author of all existence was not,
this false idea of time into the creative Source
of the Universe.

Our previous contention, therefore, is true,
that the everlastingness of the Son is included,

» Tlie generation of t lie Son does not fall within time. On
this "eternal generation" Deny* (De la Philosophic d'Origene,
p. 452) has the following remarks, illustrating the probable way
that Alhanasius would have dealt with Eunomius: " ll we do
not see how God's indivisibility remains in the co-existence ol the
three Persons, we can throw the blame of this difficulty upon the
feebleness ot our reason: while it is a mam. est contradiction to
admit at one and the same time the simplicity of the Uncreated,
and some change or inequality within Hi» Being. I know that
the defenders of the orthodox belief might be troubled with their
adversaries' argument. (Eunom. Apol. 22.) ' ll we admit that the
Son, the energy creative ol the world, is equal to the Father, it
amounts to admitting that He is the actual energy of the Father in
Creation, and that this energy is equal to His essence. But that
is to return to the mistake of the Greeks who identified His
essence and His energy, and consequently made the world coexist
with God.' A serious difficulty, certainly, and one that has never
yet been solved, nor will he; as all the questions likewi.-.e which
refer to the Uncreated and Created, to eternity and time. It is
true we cannot explain how God's eternally active energy does
prolong itself eternally. But what is this difficulty compared with
those which, with the hypothesis of Eunomius, must be swallowed f
We must suppose, so, that the "Aye»-i/ijT(K, since His energy is
not eternal, became in a given place and moment, and that He was
at that point the Vtwifrix:. We must suppose that this activity
communicated to a creature that privilege ol the Uncreated which
is most incommunicable, viz. the power of creating other creatures.
We iiuist_ suppose that these creatures, unconnected as they are
with the ' Kytv\rt\To<; (since He has not made them), nevertheless
conceive of and see beyond their own creator a Being, who cannot
be anything to them. (This direct intuition on our part of the
Deity was a special tenet of Funomius.J Finally we must suppose
that these creatures, seeing that Eunomius agrees with orthodox
believers that the end of this world will be but a commencement,
will enter into new relations with this Kyivv^ro^, when the Sou
shall have submitted all things to the Father."

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

along with the idea of His birth, in the Father's
ungeneracy; and that, if any interval were
to be imagined dividing the two, that same
interval would fix a beginning for the life of
the Almighty ; — a monstrous supposition. But
there is nothing to prevent the creation, being,
as it is, in its own nature something other
than its Creator and in no point trenching on
that pure pre-temporal world, from having, in
our belief, a beginning of its own, as we have
said. To say that the heavens and the earth
and other contents of creation were out of
things which are not, or, as the Apostle says, out
of "things not seen,2" inflicts no dishonour upon
the Maker of this universe ; for we know from
Scripture that all these things are not from
everlasting nor will remain for ever. If on the
other hand it could be believed that there is
something in the Holy Trinity which does not
coexist with the Father, if following out this
heresy any thought could be entertained of
stripping the Almighty of the glory of the Son
and Holy Ghost, it would end in nothing else
than in a God manifestly removed from every
deed and thought that was good and godlike.
But if the Father, existing before the ages, is
always in glory, and the pre-temporal Son is
His glory, and if in like manner the Spirit of
Christ is the Son's glory, always to be contem-
plated along with the Father and the Son,
what training could have led this man of learn-
ing to declare that there is a ' before ' in what
is timeless, and a ' more honourable ' in what is
all essentially honourable, and preferring, by
comparisons, the one to the other, to dishonour
the latter by this partiality? The term in oppo-
sition 3 to the more honourable makes it clearer
still whither he is tending.

§ 2 7. He falsely i?nagines that the same energies
produce the same woiks, and that variation in
the works indicates variation in the energies.

Of the same strain is that which he adds in
the next paragraph ; " the same energies pro-
ducing sameness of works, and different works
indicating difference in the energies as well."
Finely and irresistibly does this noble thinker
plead for his doctrine. " The same energies
produce sameness of works." Let us test this
by facts. The energy of fire is always one
and the same ; it consists in heating : but what
sort of agreement do its results show ? Bronze
melts in it ; mud hardens ; wax vanishes :
while all other animals are destroyed by it, the
salamander is preserved alive 4 ; tow burns, as-

3 Heb. xi. 1 ; 2 Cor. iv. 18.

3 di'TtSiao'ToAT).

4 is preserved alive ; ^woyovdrai. This is the LXX., not the
classical use, of the word. Cf. Exod. i. 17; Judges viii. 19, ike.
It is reproduced in the speech of S. Stephen, Acts vii. jo : cf. Luke
xnii. 33, "shall preserve (his life).'

bestos is washed by the flames as if Ly water ; so
much for his 'sameness of works from one and
the same energy.' How too about the sun ?
Is not his power of warming always the same;
and yet while he causes one plant to grow, he
withers another, varying the results of his
operation in accordance with the latent force
of each. ■ That on the rock ' withers ; ' that
in deep earth ' yields an hundredfold Investi-
gate Nature's work, and you will learn, in the
case of those bodies which she produces
artistically, the amount of accuracy there is in
his statement that ' sameness of energy effects
sameness of result.' One single operation is
the cause of conception, but the composition
of that which is effected internally therein is so
varied that it would be difficult for any one even
to count all the various qualities of the body.
Again, imbibing the milk is one single opera-
tion on the part of the infant, but the results of
its being nourished so are too complex to be
all detailed. While this food passes from the
channel of the mouth into the secretory
ducts 5, the transforming power of Nature
forwards it into the several parts proportion-
ately to their wants ; for by digestion she
divides its sum total into the small change of
multitudinous differences, and into supplies
congenial to the subject matter with which she
deals ; so that the same milk goes to feed
arteries, veins, brain and its membranes,
marrow, bones, nerves6, sinews, tendons, flesh,
surface, cartilages, fat, hair, nails, perspiration,
vapours, phlegm, bile, and besides these, all
useless superfluities deriving from the same
source. You could not name either an oigan,
whether of motion or sensation, or an) thing
else making up the body's bulk, which was
not formed (in spite of startling differences)
from this one and selfsame operation oi feeding.
If one were to compare the mechanic arts too it
will be seen what is the scientific value of his
statement; for there we see in them all the same
operation", I mean the movement of the hands;
but what have the results in common ? What
has building a shrine to do with a coat, though
manual labour is employed on both? The
house-breaker and the well-digger both move
their hands: the mining of the earth, themuruer
of a man are results of the motion of the hands.
The soldier slays the foe, and the husbandman
wields the fork which breaks the clod, with his
hands. How, then, can this doctrinaire lay it
down that the ' same energies produce sameness
of work?' But even if we were to grant that
this view of his had any truth in it, the essential
union of the Son with the Father, and of the

5 a-noitpiTiKoiis, activi, so the Medical writers. The Latin in
meatus destinato idescendit ' takes iipassive (.dn-oKpiTiicous).
c rirjju. So since Galea's time : not 'tendon.'

GREGORY OF NYSSA

Holy Spirit with the Son, is yet again more
fully proved. For if there existed any variation
in their energies, so that the Son worked His
will in a different manner to the Father, then
(on the above supposition) it would be fair to
conjecture, from this variation, a variation also in
the beings which were the result of these varying
energies. Eut if it is true that the manner of
the Father's working is likewise the manner
always of the Son's, both from our Lord's own
words and from what we should have expected
a priori — (for the one is not unbodied while
the other is embodied, the one is not from this
material, the other from that, the one does not
work his will in this time and place, the other
in that time and place, nor is there difference
of organs in them producing difference of result,
but the sole movement of their wish and of
their will is sufficient, seconded in the founding
of the universe by the power that can create
anything) — if, I say, it is true that in all re-
spects the Father from Whom are all things,
and the Son by Whom are all things in the
actual form of their operation work alike, then
how can this man hope to prove the essential
difference between the Son and the Holy
Ghost by any difference and separation between
the working of the Son and the Father? The
very opposite, as we have just seen, is proved
to be the case ? ; seeing that there is no manner
of difference contemplated between the working
of the Father and that of the Son ; and so that
there is no gulf whatever between the being of
the Son and the being of the Spirit, is shewn by
the identity of the power which gives them their
subsistence; and our pamphleteer himself con-
firms this; for these are his wordsverbalim: "the
same energies producing sameness of works."
If sameness of works is really produced by like-
ness of energies, and if (as they say) the Son is
the work of the Father and the Spirit the
work of the Son, the likeness in manner8 of
the Father's and the Son's energies will de-
monstrate the sameness ol these beings who
each result from them.

But he adds, "variation in the works indi-
cates variation in the energies." How, again, is
this dictum of his corroborated by facts ? Look,
n you please, at plain instances. Is not the
energy' of command, in Him who embodied
the world and all things therein by His sole
will, a single energy? "He spake and they
were made. He commanded and they were
ted." Was not the thing commanded in
every case alike given existence : did not His

7 Punctuating vapoo-Kcua^Tai, iirtCdir), k.t.A. instead of a full
IS Oelilcr.

1 ■ • replaces 'sameness' (in th i the energies in

bunomius argument) b> 'likeness' since the Father and me .Son

■ not be said to be the w;«, and theil energies, therefore

not identical but similar. '

single will suffice to give subsistence to the non-
existent? How, then, when, such vast differ-
ences are seen coming from that one energy
of command, can this man shut his eyes to
realities, and declare that the difference of
works indicates difference of energies? If our
dogmatist insists on this, that difference of
works implies difference of energies, then we
should have expected the very contrary to that
which is the case ; viz., that everything in the
world should be of one type. Can it be that he
does see here a universal likeness, and detects
unlikeness only between the Fatherand the Son?
Let him, then, observe, if he never did before,
the dissimilarity amongst the elements of the
world, and how each thing that goes to make
up the framework of the whole hangs on to its
natural opposite. Some objects are light and
buoyant, others heavy and gravitating ; some
are always still, others always moving ; and
amongst these last some move unchangingly
on one plan °, as the heaven, for instance, and
the planets, whose courses all revolve the
opposite way to the universe, others are trans-
fused in all directions and rush at random,
as air and sea for instance, and every sub-
stance which is naturally penetrating10. What
need to mention the contrasts seen between
heat and cold, moist and dry, high and low
position ? As for the numerous dissimilarities
amongst animals and plants, on the score
of figure and size, and all the variations of
their products and their qualities, the human
mind would fail to follow them.

§28. He falsely imagines that 7ve can have an
unalterable series of harmonious natures ex-
isting side by side.

But this man of science still declares that
varied works have energies as varied to pro-
duce them. Either he knows not yet the
nature of the Divine energy, as taught by
Scripture,—' All things were made by the word
of His command,' — or else he is blind to the
differences of existing things. He utters for
our benefit these inconsiderate statements, and
lays down the law about divine doctrines, as if
he had never yet heard that anything that is
merely asserted, — where no entirely undeniable
and plain statement is made about the matter
in hand, and where the asserter says on his own
responsibility that which a cautious listener
cannot assent to, — is no better than a telling of
dreams or of stories over wine. Little then as
this dictum of his fits facts, nevertheless, — like
one who is deluded by a dream into thinking that
he sees one of the objects of his waking efforts,
and who grasps eagerly at this phantom and

9 t?TlTO kl>.

10 vypai.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

with eyes deceived by this visionary desire
thinks that he holds it, — he with this dream-
like outline of doctrines before him imagines
that his words possess force, and insists upon
their truth, and essays by them to prove all
the rest. It is worth while to give the pas-
sage. "These being so, and maintaining an
unbroken connexion in their relation to each
other, it seems fitting for those who make their
investigation according to the order germane
to the subject, and who do not insist on mix-
ing and confusing all together, in case of a
discussion being raised about Being, to prove
what is in course of demonstration, and to
settle the points in debate, by the primary
energies and those attached to the Beings,
and again to explain by the Being when the
energies are in question." I think the actual
phrases of his impiety are enough to prove
how absurd is this teaching. If any one had
to give a description of the way some dis-
ease mars a human countenance, he would
explain it better by actually unbandaging the
patient, and there would be then no need of
words when the eye had seen how he looked.
So some mental eye might discern the hideous
mutilation wrought by this heresy: its mere
perusal might remove the veil. But since it is
necessary, in order to make the latent mischief
of this teaching clear to the many, to put the
finger of demonstration upon it, I will again
repeat each word. "This being so." What
does this dreamer mean? What is 'this?'
How has it been stated? "The Father's be-
ing is alone proper and in the highest degree
supreme ; consequently the next being is de-
pendent, and the third more dependent still."
In such words he lays down the law. But
why? Is it because an energy accompanies
the first being, of which the effect and work,
the Only-begotten, is circumscribed by the
sphere of this producing cause? Or be-
cause these Beings are to be thought of as of
greater or less extent, the smaller included
within and surrounded by the larger, like casks
put one inside the other, inasmuch as he detects
degrees of size within Beings that are illimit-
able ? Or because differences of products imply
differences of producers, as if it were impossible
that different effects should be produced by simi-
lar energies ? Well, there is no one whose men-
tal faculties are so steeped in sleep as to acqui-
esce directly after hearing such statements in
the following assertion, "these being so, and
maintaining an unbroken connexion in their
relation to one another." It is equal mad-
ness to say such things, and to hear them
without any questioning. They are placed
in a 'series' and 'an unalterable relation to
each other,' and yet they are parted from

each other by an essential unlikeness ! Either,
as our own doctrine insists, they are united
in being, and then they really preserve an
unalterable relation to each other; or else
they stand apart in essential unlikeness, as
he fancies. But what series, what relationship ,
that is unalterable can exist with alien enti-
ties? And how can they present that 'order
germane to the matter' which according to
him is to rule the investigation? Now if he
had an eye only on the doctrine of the
truth, and if the order in which be counts
the differences was only that of the attri-
butes which Faith sees in the Holy Trinity,
— an order so ' natural ' and ' germane ' that the
Persons cannot be confounded, being divided
as Persons, though united in their being — then
he would not have been classed at all amongst
our enemies, for he would mean the very same
doctrine that we teach. But, as it is, he is
looking in the very contrary direction, and he
makes the order which he fancies there quite
inconceivable. There is all the difference in
the world between the accomplishment of an
act of the will, and that of a mechanical law of
nature. Heat is inherent in fire, splendour in
the sunbeam, fluidity in water, downward ten-
dency in a stone, and so on. But if a man
builds a house, or seeks an office, or puts to sea
with a cargo, or attempts anything else which
requires forethought and preparation to suc-
ceed, we cannot say in such a case that there
is properly a rank or order inherent in his
operations : their order in each case will
result as an after consequence of the motive
which guided his choice, or the utility of that
which he achieves. Well, then ; since this
heresy parts the Son from any essential rela-
tionship with the Father, and adopts the same
view ol the Spirit as estranged from any union
with the Father or the Son, and since also it
affirms throughout that the Son is the work of
the Father, and the Spirit the work of the Son,
and that these works are the results of a pur-
pose, not of nature, what grounds has he for
declaring that this work of a will is an ' order
inherent in the matter,' and what is the drift of
this teaching, which makes the Almighty the
manufacturer of such a nature as this in the
Son and the Holy Spirit, where transcen-
dent beings are made such as to be inferior
the one to the other? If such is really his
meaning, why did he not clearly state the
grounds he has for presuming in the case of
the Deity, that smallness ot result will be
evidence of all the greater power? But who
really could ever allow that a cause that is
great and powerful is to be looked for in this
smallness 01 results? As if God was unable
to establish His own penection in anything

GREGORY OF NYSSA

that comes from Him * ! And how can he
attribute to the Deity the highest preroga-
tive of supremacy while he exhibits His
power as thus falling short of His will ?
Eunomius certainly seems to mean that per-
fection was not even proposed as the aim
of God's work, for fear the honour and
glory of One to Whom homage is due for
His superiority might be thereby lessened.
And yet is there any one so narrow-minded
as to reckon the Blessed Deity Himself as not
free from the passion of envy? What plausible
reason, then, is left why the Supreme Deity
should have constituted such an 'order' in the
case of the Son and the Spirit? "But I did
not mean that 'order' to come from Him," he
rejoins. But whence else, if the beings to which
this 'order' is connatural are not essentially re-
lated to each other? But perhaps he calls the
inferiority itself of the being of the Son and of
the Spirit this 'connatural order.' But I would
beg of him to tell me the reason of this very
thing, viz., why the Son is inferior on the score
of being, when both this being and energy are
to be discovered in the same characteristics
and attributes. If on the other hand there is
not to be the same2 definition of being and
energy, and each is to signify something
different, why does he introduce a demonstra-
tion of the thing in question by means of that
which is quite different from it? It would be,
in that case, just as if, when it was debated
with regard to man's own being whether he
were a risible animal, or one capable of being
taught to read, some one was to adduce the
building of a house or ship on the part of
a mason or a shipwright as a settling of the ques-
tion, insisting on the skilful syllogism that we
know beings by operations, and a house and
a ship are operations of man. Do we then
learn, most simple sir, by such premisses, that
man is risible as well as broad-nailed ? Some
one might well retort ; ' whether man possesses
motion and energy was not the question :
it was, what is the energizing principle
itself; and that I fail to learn from your
way of deciding the question.' Indeed, if we
wanted to know something about the nature of
the wind, you would not give a satisfactory
answer by pointing to a heap of sand or chall
raised by the wind, or to dust which it scattered :
for the account to be given of the wind is
quite different : and these illustrations of yours
would be foreign to the subject. What ground,

1 • v irai-71 tw t'f aiiTov.

8 Heading ai/ro? ; instead of Oehler's oOtck.

3 only ont thing amongst the things which follow, &v. The
''•""' ""' manifestly wrong here, " si recte a te assertum

m eciam qu* ad primam subsu sequuntur aliquant

teratumem uutu. j|,e Greek is ,i,r»p v .VtjJwta rfa „„p,„0.

M« fuf Tit HWL4 T|j TT4.U.TII oiiatu pi napTupriTa..

then, has he for attempting to explain beings by
their energies, and making the definition of
an entity out of the resultants of that entity.

Let us observe, too, what sort of work of
the Father it is by which the Father's being,
according to him, is to be comprehended.
The Son most certainly, he will say, if he says
as usual. But this Son of yours, most learned
sir, is commensurate in your scheme only with
the energy which produced Him, and indicates
that alone, while the Object of our search
still keeps in the dark, if, as you yourself
confess, this energy is only one amongst the
things which 'follow 3' the first being. This
energy, as you say, extends itself into the
work which it produces, but it does not reveal
therein even its own nature, but only so much
of it as we can get a glimpse of in that work.
All the resources of a smith are not set in
motion to make a gimlet ; the skill of that
artisan only operates so far as is adequate to
form that tool, though it could fashion a large
variety of other tools. Thus the limit of the
energy is to be found in the work which it
produces. But the question now is not about
the amount of the energy, but about the being
of that which has put forth the energy. In
the same way, if he asserts that he can per-
ceive the nature of the Only-begotten in the
Spirit (Whom he styles the work of an energy
which ' follows ' the Son), his assertion has no
foundation ; for here again the energy, while
it extends itself into its work, does not reveal
therein the nature either of itself or of the
agent who exerts it.

But let us yield in this; grant him that
beings are known in their energies. The
First being is known through His work ; and
this Second being is revealed in the work
proceeding from Him. But what, my learned
friend, is to show this Third being? No such
work of this Third is to be found. If you
insist that these beings are perceived by
their energies, you must confess that the
Spirit's nature is imperceptible ; you cannot
infer His nature from any energy put fortii by
Him to carry on the continuity. Show some
substantiated work of the Spirit, through which
you think you have detected the being of the
Spirit, or all your cobweb will collapse at
the touch of Reason. U the being is known
by the subsequent energy, and substantiated
energy of the Spirit there is none, such as
ye say the Father shows in the Son, and
the Son in the Spirit, then the nature of the
Spirit must be confessed unknowable and not
be apprehended through these; there is no
energy conceived of in connexion with a sub-
stance to show even a side glimpse of it.
But if the Spirit eludes apprehension, how

AGAINST EUNOM1US. ROOK I.

7«;

by means of that which is itself impercep-
tible can the more exalted being be per-
ceived ? If the Son's work, that is, the Spirit
according to them, is unknowable, the Son
Himself can never be known; He will be
involved in the obscurity of that which gives
evidence of Him : and if the being of the Son
in this way is hidden, how can the being who
is most properly such and most supreme be
brought to light by means of the being which
is itself hidden ; this obscurity of the Spirit is
transmitted by retrogression'* through the Son
to the Father; so that in this view, even by
our adversaries' confession, the unknowable-
ness of the Father's being is clearly demon-
strated. How, then, can this man, be his eye
ever so 'keen to see unsubstantial entities,'
discern the nature of the unseen and incom-
prehensible by means of itself; and how can
he command us to grasp the beings by means
of their works, and their works again from them?

§ 29. He vainly thinks that the doubt about
the energies is to be solved by the beings, and
reversely.

Now let us see what comes next. ' The
doubt about the energies is to be solved by
the beings.' What way is there of bringing
this man out of his vain fancies down to
common sense ? If he thinks that it is possible
thus to solve doubts about the energies by
comprehending the beings themselves, how, if
these last are not comprehended, can he
change this doubt to any certainty? If the
being has been comprehended, what need to
make the energy ot this importance, as if it was
going to lead us to the comprehension of the
being. But if this is the very thing that makes
an examination of the energy necessary, viz.,
that we may be thereby guided to the under-
standing of the being that exerts it, how can
this as yet unknown nature solve the doubt
about the energy ? The proof of anything that
is doubted must be made by means ot well-
known truths ; but when there is an equal
uncertainty about both the objects oi our
search, how can Eunomius say that they are
comprehended by means of each other, both
being in themselves beyond our knowledge?
When the Father's being is under discus-
sion, he tells us that the question may be
settled by means of the energy which follows
Him and of the work which this energy
accomplishes ; but when the inquiry is about
the being of the Only-begotten, whether Eu-
nomius calls Him an energy or a product
of the energy (Jbr he does both), then he tells

4 KOTa ivdAvoiv. So Plutarch, ii. 76 E. and see above (cap. 25,
feote 6.).

us that the question may be easily solved by
looking at the being of His producer!

§ 30. There is no Word of God that commands
such investigations : the uselessness oj the philo-
sophy which makes them is thereby proved.

I should like also to ask him this. Does
he mean that energies are explained by the
beings which produced them only in the case
of the Divine Nature, or does he recognize
the nature of the produced by means of the
being of the producer with regard to any-
thing whatever that possesses an effective
force? If in the case of the Divine Nature
only he holds this view, let him show us
how he settles questions about the works of
God by means of the nature of the Worker.
Take an undoubted work of God, — the sky,
the earth, the sea, the whole universe. Let it
be the being of one of these that, according to
our supposition, is being enquired into, and
let ' sky ' be the subject fixed for our specu-
lative reasoning. It is a question what the
substance of the sky is ; opinions have been
broached about it varying widely according to
the lights of each natural philosopher. How
will the contemplation of the Maker of the sky
procure a solution of the question, immaterial,
invisible, formless, ungenerate, everlasting, in-
capable of decay and change and alteration,
and all such things, as He is. How will any-
one who entertains this conception of the
Worker be led on to the knowledge of the
nature of the sky? How will he get an idea of
a thing which is visible from the Invisible, ot
the perishable from the imperishable, of that
which has a date for its existence from that
which never had any generation, of that
which has duration but for a time from the
everlasting; in fact, of the object of his
search from everything which is the very
opposite to it. Let this man who has accu-
rately probed the secret of things tell us how
it is possible that two unlike things should
be known from each other.

§ 31. The observations made by watching Pro
vidence are sufficient to give us the knowledge
of sameness oj Being.

And yet, if he could see the consequences of
his own statements, he would be led on by them
to acquiesce in the doctrine of the Church. For
if the makers nature is an indication of the
thing made, as he affirms, and if, according to
his school, the Son is something made by the
Father, anyone who has observed the Father's
nature would have certainly known thereby that
of the Son ; if, I say, it is true that the worker's
nature is a sign of that which he works. But
the Only-begotten, as they say, of tie Father's
unlikeness, will be excluded from operating

GREGORY OF NYSSA

through Providence. Eunomius need not
trouble any more about His being generated,
nor force out of that another proof of the son's
unlikeness. The difference of purpose will itself
be sufficient to bring to light His alien nature.
For the First Being is, even by our opponents'
confession, one and single, and necessarily His
will must be thought of as following the bent of
His nature; but Providence shows that that
purpose is good, and so the nature from which
that purpose comes is shown to be good also. So
the Father alone works good; and the Son does
not purpose the same things as He, if we adopt
the assumptions of our adversary; the difference,
then, of their nature will be clearly attested by
this variation of their purposes. But if, while the
Father is provident for the Universe, the Son is
■equally provident for it (for ' what He sees the
Father doing that also the Son does '), this same-
ness of their purposes exhibits a communion of
nature in those who thus purpose the same
things. Why, then, is all mention of Providence
omitted by him, as if it would not help us at all
to that which we are searching for. Yet many
familiar examples make for our view of it.
Anyone who has gazed on the brightness of fire
and experienced its power of warming, when
he approaches another such brightness and an-
other such warmth, will assuredly be led on to
think of fire ; for his senses through the medium
of these similar phsenomena will conduct him
to the fact of a kindred element producing
both ; anything that was not fire could not work
on all occasions like fire. Just so, when we per-
ceive a similar and equal amount of providential
power in the Father and in the Son, we make
a guess by means of what thus comes within
the range of our knowledge about things which
transcend our comprehension; we feel that
causes of an alien nature cannot be detected
in these equal and similar effects. As the
observed phenomena are to each other, so
will the subjects of those phenomena be: if
the first are opposed to each other, we must
reckon the revealed entities to be so too ; if
the first are alike, so too must those others
be. Our Lord said allegorically that their
iruit is the sign of the characters of trees,
meaning that it does not belie that charac-
ter, that the bad is not attached to the good
tree, nor the good to the bad tree ;— " by their
fruits ye shall know them ;"— so when the fruit,
Providence, presents no difference, we detect
single nature from winch that fruit has
sprung, even though the trees be different
from which the fruit is put forth. Through
that, then, which is cognizable by our ap-
prehension, viz., the scheme or Providence
visible in the Son in the same way as in
the father, the common likeness of the Only-

begotten and the Father is placed beyond a
doubt; and it is the identity of the fruits
of Providence by which we know it.

§ 32. His dictum that ' the manner of the likeness
must folloiv the manner of the generation ' is
uni?itelligible.

But to prevent such a thought being enter-
tained, and pretending to be forced somehow
away from it, he says that he withdraws from
all these results of Providence, and goes back
to the manner of the Son's generation, because
"the manner of His likeness must follow
the manner of His generation." What an ir-
resistible proof! How forcibly does this ver-
biage compel assent ! What skill and precision
there is in the wording of this assertion ! Then,
if we know the manner of the generation, we
shall know by that the manner of the likeness.
Well, then ; seeing that all, or at all events
most, animals born by parturition have the
same manner of generation, and, according to
their logic, the manner of likeness follows this
manner of generation, these animals, following
as they do the same model in their production,
will resemble entirely those similarly generated ;
for things that are like the same thing are like
one another. If, then, according to the view of
this heresy, the manner of the generation makes
every thing generated just like itself, and it is
a fact that this manner does not vary at all in
diversified kinds of animals but remains the
same in the greatest part of them, we shall find
that this sweeping and unqualified assertion of
his establishes, by virtue of this similarity ot
birth, a mutual resemblance between men,
dogs, camels, mice, elephants, leopards, and
every other animal which Nature produces in
the same manner. Or does he mean, not, that
things brought into the world in a similar way
are all like each other, but that each one of
them is like that being only which is the source
of its life. But if so, he ought to have declared
that the child is like the parent, not that the
" manner of the likeness" resembles the "manner
of the generation." But this, which is so prob-
able in itself, and is observed as a fact in
Nature, that the begotten resembles the be-
getter, he will not admit as a truth; it would
reduce his whole argumentation to a proof of
the contrary of what he intended. If he al-
lowed the offspring to be like the parent, his
laboured store of arguments to prove the un-
likeness of the beings would be refuted as
evanescent and groundless.

So he says "the manner of the likeness
follows the manner of the generation." This,
when tested by the exact critic of the meaning
of any idea 5, will be found completely unintel-

S ivvoias \6yov.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

ligible. It is plainly impossible to say what
a " manner of generation " can mean. Does it
mean the figure of the parent, or his impulse,
or his disposition ; or the time, or the place, or
the completing of the embryo by conception ;
or the generative receptacles ; or nothing of
that kind, but something else of the things ob-
served in 'generation.' It is impossible to find
out what he means. The impropriety and
vagueness of the word " manner " causes per-
plexity as to its signification here ; every possible
one is equally open to our surmises, and pre-
sents as well an equal want of connexion with
the subject before us. So also with this phrase
of his "manner of likeness;" it is devoid of
any vestige of meaning, if we fix our attention
on the examples familiarly known to us. For
the thing generated is not to be likened there
to the kind or the manner of its birth. Birth
consists, in the case of animal birth, in a sepa-
ration of body from body, in which the animal
perfectly moulded in the womb is brought
forth ; but the thing born is a man, or horse,
or cow, or whatever it may chance to be in
its existence through birth. How, therefore,
the " manner of the likeness of the offspring
tollows the manner of its generation " must
be left to him, or to some pupil of his in
midwifery, to explain. Birth is one thing : the
thing born is another: they are different ideas
altogether. No one with any sense would deny
that what he says is perfectly untrue in the case
of animal births. But if he calls the actual
making and the actual fashioning a "manner
of the generation," which the " manner of the
likeness " of the thing produced is to " follow,"
even so his statement is removed from all like-
lihood, as we shall see from some illustrations.
Iron is hammered out by the blows of the
artificer into some useful instrument. How,
then, the outline of its edge, if such there
happen to be, can be said to be similar to the
hand of the worker, or to the manner of its
fashioning, to the hammers, for instance, and
the coals and the bellows and the anvil by
means of which he has moulded it, no one
could explain. And what can be said in one
case fits all, where there is any operation pro-
ducing a result ; the thing produced cannot be
said to be like the "manner of its generation."
What has the shape of a garment got to do with
the spool, or the rods, or the comb, or with the
lorm of the weaver's instruments at all ? What
lias an actual seat got to do with the working of
the blocks; or any finished production with the
build of him who achieved it? — But I think
even our opponents would allow that this rule
of his is not in force in sensible and material
instances.

It remains to see whether it contributes

anything further to the proof of his blas-
phemy. What, then, was he aiming at? The
necessity of believing in accordance with their
being in the likeness or unlikeness of the Son to
the Father ; and, as we cannot know about this
being from considerations of Providence, the
necessity of having recourse to the "manner
of the generation," whereby we may know, not
indeed whether the Begotten is like the
Begetter (absolutely), but only a certain
" manner of likeness " between them ; and as
this manner is a secret to the many, the neces-
sity of going at some length into the being of
the Begetter. Then has he forgotten his own
definitions about the beings hiving to be known
from their works? But this begotten being,
which he calls the work of the supreme being,
has as yet no light thrown upon it (according
to him) ; so how can its nature be dealt with ?
And how can he " mount above this lower and
therefore more directly comprehensible thing,"
and so cling to the absolute and supreme
being ? Again, he always throughout his dis-
course lays claim to an accurate knowledge of
the divine utterances ; yet here he pays
them scant reverence, ignoring the fact that it
is not possible to approach to a knowledge of
the Father except through the Son. " No
man knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he
to whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him 6."
Yet Eunomius, while on every occasion, where
he can insult our devout and God-adoring
conceptions of the Son, he asserts in plain
words the Son's inferiority, establishes His
superiority unconsciously in this device of his
for knowing the Deity ; for he assumes that
the Father's being lends itself the more readily
to our comprehension, and then attempts to
trace and argue out the Son's nature from
that

§ 33. He declares falsely that ' the manner oj
the generation is to be known from the in-
trinsic worth of the generator'

He goes back, for instance, to the begetting
being, and from thence takes a survey of the
begotten ; " for," says he, "the manner of the
generation is to be known from the intrinsic
worth of the generator." Again, we find this
bold unqualified generalization of his causing
the thought of the inquirer to be dissipated in
every possible direction ; it is the nature of such
generai statements, to extend in their meanings
to every instance, and allow nothing to escape
their sweeping assertion. If then ' the manner
of the generation is to be known from the
intrinsic worth of the generator,' and there
are many differences in the worth of gene-

6 Matt xi. 27.

-8

GREGORY OF NYSSA

rators according to their many classifications ?
to be found (for one may be born Jew,
Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond, free), what
will be the result ? Why, that • we must
expect to find as many " manners of genera-
tion " as there are differences in intrinsic
worth amongst the generators ; and that their
birth will not be fulfilled with all in the
same way, but that their nature will vary
with the worth of the parent, and that some
peculiar manner of birth will be struck out for
each, according to these varying estimations.
For a certain inalienable worth is to be
observed in the individual parent ; the dis-
tinction, that is, of being better or worse
off according as there has fallen to each
race, estimation, religion, nationality, power,
servitude, wealth, poverty, independence, de-
pendence, or whatever else constitutes the
life-long differences of worth. If then "the
manner of the generation" is shown by the in-
trinsic worth of the parent, and there are many
differences in worth, we shall inevitably find,
if we follow this opinion-monger, that the
manners of generation are various too ; in
fact, this difference of worth will dictate to
Nature the manner of the birth.

But if he should not8 admit that such
worth is natural, because they can be put
in thought outside the nature of their sub-
ject, we will not oppose him. But at all
events he will agree to this ; that man's ex-
istence is separated by an intrinsic character
from that of brutes. Yet the manner of birth
in these two cases presents no variation in
intrinsic character ; nature brings man and the
brute into the world in just the same way, i. e.
by generation. But if he apprehends this native
dignity only in the case of the most proper and
supreme existence, let us see what he means
then. In our view, the ' native dignity ' of
God consists in godhead itself, wisdom, power,
goodness, judgment, justice, strength, mercy,
truth, creativeness, domination, invisibility,
everlastingness, and every other quality named
in the inspired writings to magnify his glory ;
and we affirm that every one of them is properly
and inalienably found in the Son, recognizing
difference only in respect of unoriginateness ;
and even that we do not exclude the Son from,
according to «//its meanings. But let no carp-

7 'Ettivoio is the opposite of ivvoia, 'the intuitive .idea.' It
means an "alterlhought," and, with the notion of unnecessary
addition, a ' conceit. ' Here it is applied to conventional, or not
purely natural difference. See Introduction to Hook XJU. lor the
fuller meaning of E7rtVo«i.

8 /ir) it'^oiTO. This use of the optative, where the subjunctive
wilh iav ini^lit have been expected, is one of the few instances in
Gregory s Greek of declension from Classic usage ; in the latter,
when a with the optative does denote subjective possibility, it is
only when the condition is conceived of as of frequent repetition,
j g. i Peter iii. :4. The optative often in this Greek of the fourth
century invades the province of the subjunctive.

ing critic attack this statement as if we were
attempting to exhibit the Very Son as un-
generate ; for we hold that one who maintains
that is no less impious than an Anomcean.
But since the meanings of ' origin ' are various,
and suggest many ideas, there are some of
them in which the title 'unoriginate' is not
inapplicable to the Son 9. When, for instance,
this word has the meaning of 'deriving existence
from no cause whatever,' then we confess that
it is peculiar to the Father ; but when the
question is about ' origin ' in its other meanings
(since any creature or time or order has an
origin), then we attribute the being superior to
origin to the Son as well, and we believe that
that whereby all things were made is beyond
the origin of creation, and the idea of time, and
the sequence of order.- So He, Who on the
ground of His subsistence is not without an
origin, possessed in every other view an un-
doubted unoriginateness ; and while the Father
is unoriginate and Ungenerate, the Son is un-
originate in the way we have said, though not
ungenerate.

What, then, is that native dignity of the
Father which he is going to look at in order to
infer thereby the ' manner of the generation/
" His not being generated, most certainly," he
will reply. If, then, all those names with which
we have learnt to magnify God's glory are use-
less and meaningless to you, Eunomius, the
mere going through the list of such expressions
is a gratuitous and superfluous task ; none of
these other words, you say, expresses the in-
trinsic worth of the God over all. But if
there is a peculiar force fitting our conceptions
of the Deity in each of these words, the intrin-
sic dignities of God must plainly be viewed
in connexion with this list, and the likeness of
the two beings will be thereby proved ; if, that
is, the characters inalienable from the beings
are an index of the subjects of those characters.
The characters of each being are found to be
the same ; and so the identity on the score of
being of the two subjects of these identical #
dignities is shown most clearly. For if the
variation in a single name is to be held to
be the index of an alien being, how much more
should the identity of these countless names
avail to prove community of nature!

What, then, is the reason why the other
names should all be neglected, and genera-
tion be indicated by the means of one alone ?
Why do they pronounce this ' Ungeneracy ' to
be the only intrinsic character in the Father,
and thrust all the rest aside? It is in order that
they may establish their mischievous mode10 of

9 fxrj t'mt^(t>uti'tn'.
"° See Note on 'A\f «'i|Tot, p. 100.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. ROOK I.

unlikeness of Father and Son, by this con-
trast as regards the begotten. But we shall
find that this attempt of theirs, when we come
to test it in its proper place, is equally feeble,
unfounded, and nugatory as the preceding
attempts.

Still, that all his reasonings point this way,
is shown by the sequel, in which he praises
himself for having fittingly adopted this
method for the proof of his blasphemy, and
yet for not having all at once divulged his in-
tention, nor shocked the unprepared hearer
with his impiety, before the concatenation of
his delusive argument was complete, nor dis-
played this Ungeneracy as God's being in the
early part of his discourse, nor to weary us with
talk about the difference of being. The
following are his exact words : " Or was it
right, as Basil commands, to begin with the
thing to be proved, and to assert incoherently
that the Ungeneracy is the being, and to talk
about the difference or the sameness of nature?"
Upon this he has a long intervening tirade,
made up of scoffs and insulting abuse (such
being the weapons which this thinker uses to
defend his own doctrines), and then he resumes
the argument, and turning upon his adversary,
fixes upon him, forsooth, the blame of what he is
saying, in these words; " For your party, before
any others, are guilty of this offence ; having
partitioned out this same being between Be-
getter and Begotten ; and so the scolding you
have given is only a halter not to be eluded
which you have woven for your own necks ;
justice, as might have been expected, records in
your own words a verdict against yourselves.
Either you first conceive of the beings as
sundered, and independent of each other";
and then bring down one of them, by
generation, to the rank of Son, and contend
that One who exists independently nevertheless
was made by means of the Other existence ;
and so lay yourselves open to your own re-
proaches : for to Him whom you imagine
as without generation you ascribe a genera-
tion by another : — or else you first allow one
single causeless being, and then marking this
out by an act of causation into Father and Son,
you declare that this non-generated being came
into existence by means of itself."

§ 34. The Passage where he attacks the 'Ofioov-
ctiov, and the contention in answer to it.

I will omit to speak of the words which
occur before this passage which has been
quoted. They contain merely shameless abuse
of our Master and Father in God, and nothing
bearing on the matter in hand. But on the

11 a.va.px""'-

passage itself, as he advances by the device of
this terrible dilemma a double-edged refutation,
we cannot be silent; we must accept the in-
tellectual challenge, and fight for the Faith
with all the power we have, and show that the
formidable two-edged sword which he has
sharpened is feebler than a make-believe in a
scene-painting.

He attacks the community of substance with
two suppositions ; lie says that we either name
as Father and as Son two independent princi-
ples drawn out parallel to each other, and then
say that one of these exisiencies is produced
by the other existence : or else we say that
one and the same essence is conceived of, par-
ticipating in both names in turn, both being *
Father, and becoming Son, and itself pro-
duced in generation from itself. I put this
in my own words, thereby not misinterpret-
ing his thought, but only correcting the
tumid exaggeration of its expression, in such
a way as to reveal his meaning by clearer
words and afford a comprehensive view of
it. Having blamed us for want of polish
and for having brought to the controversy
an insufficient amount of learning, he decks
out his own work in such a glitter of style,
and passes the nail 2, to use his own phrase,
so often over his own sentences, and makes
his periods so smart with this elal orate
prettiness, that he captivates the reader at
once with the attractions of language ; such
amongst many others is the passage we have
just recited by way of preface. We will, by
leave, again recite it. "And so the scolding
you have given is only a halter, not to be
eluded, which you have woven for your own
necks ; justice, as might have been expected,
records in your own words a verdict against
yourselves."

Observe these flowers of the old Attic ; what
polished brilliance of diction plays over his
composition ; what a delicate and subtle charm
of style is in bloom there ! However, let this
be as people think. Our course requires us
again to turn to the thought in those words ;
let us plunge once more into the phrases of
this pamphleteer. " Either you conceive of
the beings as separated and independent
of each other, and then bring down one of
them, by generation, to the rank of Son, and
contend that One who exists independently
nevertheless was made by means of the Other
existence." That is enough for the present.
He says, then, that we preach 3 two causeless
Beings. How can this man, who is always
accusing us of levelling and confusing, assert

« Reading axxrav for ovaiav of Oehler and Migne.
3 irpecr/Seuei*. So Lucian. Diug. Laert., and Origen passim.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

this from our believing, as we do, in a single
substance of Both. If two natures, alien to
each other on the score of their being, were
preached by our Faith, just as it is preached
by the Anomoean school, then there would be
good reason for thinking that this distinction
of natures led to the supposition of two
causeless beings. But if, as is the case, we
acknowledge one nature with the differences
of Person, if, while the Father is believed in,
the Son also is glorified, how can such a Faith
be misrepresented by our opponents as preach-
ing Two First Causes ? Then he says, ' of these
two causes, one is lowered ' by us ' to the rank
of Son.' Let him point out one champion of
such a doctrine ; whether he can convict any
single person of talking like this, or only knows
of such a doctrine as taught anywhere at all in
the Church, we will hold our peace. For who
is so wild in his reasonings, and so bereft of re-
flection as, after speaking of Father and Son, to
imagine in spite of that two ungenerate beings :
and then again to suppose that the One of them
has come into being by means of the Other ?
Besides, what logical necessity does he show
for pushing our teaching towards such suppo-
sitions? By what arguments does he show that
such an absurdity must result from it? If
indeed he adduced one single article of our
Faith, and then, whether as a quibble or with
a real force of demonstration, made this
criticism upon it, there might have been some
reason for his doing so with a view to in
validate that article. But when there is not,
and never can be such a doctrine in the Church,
when neither a teacher of it nor a hearer of it
is to be found, and the absurdity cannot be
shown, either, to be the strictlogical consequence
of anything, I cannot understand the meaning
of his fighting thus with shadows. It is just
as if some phenzy-struck person supposed him-
self to be grappling with an imaginary com-
batant, and then, having with great efforts
thrown himself down, thought that it was his
foe who was lying there ; our clever pamph-
leteer is in the same state ; he feigns sup-
positions which we know nothing about, and
he fights with the shadows which are sketched
by the workings of his own brain.

For I challenge him to say why a believer in
the Son as having come into being from the
Father must advance to the opinion that there
are two First Causes; and let him tell us who
is most guilty of this establishment of two First
Causes; one who asserts that the Son is falsely
so named, or one who insists that, when we call
Him that, the name represents a reality? The
first, rejecting a real generation of the Son, and
affirming simply that He exists, would be more
open to the suspicion of making Him a First

Cause, if he exists indeed, but not by genera-
tion : whereas the second, making the repre-
sentative sign of the Person of the Only-
begotten to consist in subsisting generatively
from the Father, cannot by any possibility be
drawn into the error of supposing the Son to
be Ungenerate. And yet as long as, according
to you thinkers, the non-generation of the Son
by the Father is to be held, the Son Himself
will be properly called Ungenerate in one of
the many meanings of the Ungenerate ; seeing
that, as some things come into existence by
being born and others by being fashioned,
nothing prevents our calling one of the latter,,
which does not subsist by generation, an Un-
generate, looking only to the idea of gene-
ration ; and this your account, defining, as it
does, our Lord to be a creature, does es-
tablish about Him. So, my very learned
sirs, it is in your view, not ours, when it is
thus followed out, that the Only-begotten can
be named Ungenerate : and you will find that
"justice," — whatever you mean by that, —
records in your own words 4 a verdict against
us.

It is easy also to find mud in his words after
that to cast upon this execrable teaching. For
the other horn of his dilemma partakes in the
same mental delusion ; he says, " or else you
first allow one single causeless being, and then
marking this out by an act of generation into
Father and Son, you declare that this non-
generated being came into existence by means
of itself." What is this new and marvellous
story ? How is one begotten by oneself, hav-
ing oneself for father, and becoming one's own
son? What dizziness and delusion is here?
It is like supposing the roof to be turning
down below one's feet, and the floor above
one's head ; it is like the mental state of one
with his senses stupified with drink, who shouts
out persistently that the ground does not stand
still beneath, and that the walls are disappear-
ing, and that everything he sees is whirling
round and will not keep still. Perhaps our
pamphleteer had such a tumult in his soul when
he wrote ; if so, we must pity him rather than
abhor him. For who is so out of hearing of
our divine doctrine, who is so far from the mys-
teries of the Church, as to accept such a view
as this to the detriment of the Faith. Rather,
it is hardly enough to say, that no one ever
dreamed of such an absurdity to its detriment.
Why, in the case of human nature, or any other

4 your own words, i.e. not ours, as you say. The Codex of
Turin has tois r^eTtpois, and iip-iv above : but Oeliler has wisely
followed that of Venice. Eunomius had said ol Basil s parly (,$ 34).
'justice records in your own words a verdict against yourselves. '
'.No,' Gregory answers, ' your words (interpreting our doctrine!
alone lend themselves to that.' But to change Kaff j)/ai> of the.
Codd. also toxad' i/pCiv would supply a still better sense.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. HOOK I.

entity falling within the grasp of the senses,
who, when he hears of a community of sub-
stance, dreams either that all things that are
compared together on the ground of substance
are without a cause or beginning, or that some-
thing comes into existence out of itself, at once
producing and being produced by itself?

The first man, and the man born from him,
received their being in a different way ; the
latter by copulation, the former from the
moulding of Christ Himself; and yet, though
they are thus believed to be two, they are
inseparable in the definition of their being, and
are not considered as two beings, without
beginning or cause, running parallel to each
other ; nor can the existing one be said to be
generated by the existing one, or the two be
ever thought of as one in the monstrous sense
that each is his own father, and his own son ;
but it is because the one and the other was a man
that the two have the same definition of being ;
each was mortal, reasoning, capable of intuition
and of science. If, then, the idea of humanity
in Adam and Abel does not vary with the
difference of their origin, neither the order nor
the manner of their coming into existence
making any difference in their nature, which
is the same in both, according to the testimony
of every one in his senses, and no one, not
greatly needing treatment for insanity, would
deny it ; what necessity is there that against
the divine nature we should admit this strange
thought? Having heard of Father and Son
from the Truth, we are taught in those two
subjects the oneness of their nature ; their
natural relation to each other expressed by
those names indicates that nature ; and so do
Our Lord's own words. For when He said,
" I and My Father are one s," He conveys by
that confession of a Father exactly the truth
that He Himself is not a first cause, at the
same time that He asserts by His union with
the Father their common nature ; so that these
words of His secure our faith from the taint
of heretical error on either side : for Sabellius
has no ground for his confusion of the indi-
viduality of each Person, when the Only-
begotten has so distinctly marked Himself off
from the Father in those words, " I and My
Father;" and Arius finds no confirmation
of his doctrine of the strangeness of either
nature to the other, since this oneness of both
cannot admit distinction in nature. For that
which is signified in these words by the one-
ness of Father and Son is nothing else but
what belongs to them on the score of then-
actual being; all the other moral excellences
which are to be observed in them as over and

above 6 their nature may without error be set
down as shared in by all created beings. For
instance, Our Lord is called merciful and
pitiful by the prophet ?, and He wills us to be
and to be called the same ; " Be ye therefore
merciful3," and "Blessed are the merciful'-',"
and many such passages. If, then, anyone by
diligence and attention has modelled himself
according to the divine will, and become kind
and pitiful and compassionate, or meek and
lowly of heart, such as many of the saints are
testified to have become in the pursuit of such
excellences, does it follow that they are there-
fore one with God, or united to Him by virtue
of any one of them? Not so. That which is
not in every respect the same, cannot be ' one '
with him whose nature thus varies from it.
Accordingly, a man becomes ' one ' with
another, when in will, as our Lord says, they
are 'perfected into one1,' this union of wills
being added to the connexion of nature. So
also the Father and Son are one, the com-
munity of nature and the community of will
running, in them, into one. But if the Son
had been joined in wish only to the Father,
and divided from Him in His nature, how is
it that we find Him testifying to His oneness
with the Father, when all the time He was
sundered from Him in the point most proper
to Him of all?

§ 35. Proof that the Anomoean teaching tends to
Mankhozism.

We hear our Lord saying, " I and My Father
are one," and we are taught in that utterance
the dependence of our Lord on a cause, and
yet the absolute identity of the Son's and the
Father's nature ; we do not let our idea
about them be melted down into One Person,
but we keep distinct the properties of the
Persons, while, on the other hand, not dividing
in the Persons the oneness of their substance ;
and so the supposition of two diverse principles
in the category of Cause is avoided, and there
is no loophole for the Manichaean heresy to
enter. For the created and the uncreate are as
diametrically opposed to each other as their
names are ; and so if the two are to be ranked
as First Causes, the mischief of Manichaeism will
thus under cover be brought into the Church.
I say this, because my zeal against our an-
tagonists makes me scrutinize their doctrine
very closely. Now I think that none would
deny that we were bringing this scrutiny very
near the truth, when we said, that if the created
be possessed of equal power with the uncreate,

S John x. 30.

6 oa-a. e7ri0eoipeiTOi rj) <f>u<rei.

7 Psalm ciii. 8. 8 Luke vi. 36. . » Matthew v. 7.

1 John xvii. 23. " I in them, and thou in Me, that they may
be perfected into one." (R.V.)

VOL. V.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

there will be some sort of antagonism between
these things of diverse nature, and as long as
neither of them fails in power, the two will be
brought into a certain state of mutual discord :
for we must perforce allow that will corresponds
with, and is intimately joined to nature ; and
that if two things are unlike in nature, they
will be so also in wilL But when power is
adequate in both, neither will flag in the gratifi-
cation of its wish ; and if the power of each
is thus equal to its wish, the primacy will
become a doubtful point with the two : and it
will end in a drawn battle from the inexhaus-
tibleness of their powers. Thus will the Man-
ichaean heresy creep in, two opposite prin-
ciples appearing with counter claims in the
category of Cause, parted and opposed by
reason of difference both in nature and in will.
They will find, therefore, that assertion of
diminution (in the Divine being) is the be-
ginning of Manichaeism ; for their teaching
organizes a discord within that being, which
comes to two leading principles, as our ac-
count of it has shewn; namely the created
and the uncreated.

But perhaps most will blame this as too
strong a reductio ad absurdum, and will wish
that we had not put it down at all along with
our other objections. Be it so ; we will not
contradict them. It was not our impulse, but
our adversaries themselves, that forced us to
carry our argument into such minuteness of
results. But if it is not right to argue thus, it
was more fitting still that our opponents' teach-
ing, which gave occasion to such a refutation,
should never have been heard. There is only
one way of suppressing the answer to bad
teaching, and that is, to take away the subject-
matter to which a reply has to be made. But
what would give me most pleasure would be to
advise those, who are thus disposed, to divest
themselves a little of the spirit of rivalry,
and not be such exceedingly zealous com-
batants on behalf of the private opinions
with which they have become possessed, and,
convinced that the race is for their (spirit-
ual) life, to attend to its interests only,
and to yield the victory to Truth. If, then,
one were to cease from this ambitious strife,
and look straight into the actual question be-
fore us, he would very soon discover the
flagrant absurdity of this teaching.

For let us assume as granted what the system
of our opponents demands, that the having
no generation is Being, and in like manner
again that generation is admitted into Being.
If, then, one were to follow out carefully
these statements in all their meaning, even
this way the Manichaean heresy will be recon-
structed ; seeing that the Manichees are wont

to take as nn axiom the oppositions of good and
bad, light and darkness, and all such naturally
antagonistic things. I think that any who will
not be satisfied with a superficial view of the
matter will be convinced that I say true. Let
us look at it thus. Every subject has certain
inherent characteristics, by means of which the
specialty of that underlying nature is known.
This is so, whether we are investigating the
animal kingdom, or any other. The tree and
the animal are not known by the same marks ;
nor do the characteristics of man extend in the
animal kingdom to the brutes ; nor, again,
do the same symptoms indicate life and death ;
in every case, without exception, as we have
said, the distinction of subjects resists any
effort to confuse them and run one into an-
other ; the marks upon each thing which we
observe cannot be communicated so as to
destroy that distinction. Let us follow this
out in examining our opponents' position.
They say that the state of having no gene-
ration is Being ; and they likewise make
the having generation Being. But just as
a man and a stone have not the same marks
(in denning the essence of the animate and
that of the inanimate you would not give
the same account of each), so they must
certainly grant that one who is non-generated
is to be known by different signs to the gener-
ated. Let us then survey those peculiar
qualities of the non-generated Deity, which
the Holy Scriptures teach us can be men-
tioned and thought of, without doing Him
an irreverence.

What are they? I think no Christian is
ignorant that He is good, kind, holy, just and
hallowed, unseen and immortal, incapable of
decay and change and alteration, powerful,
wise, beneficent, Master, Judge, and everything
like that. Why lengthen our discussion by
lingering on acknowledged facts? If, then,
we find these qualities in the ungenerate
nature, and the state of having been gene-
rated is contrary2 in its very conception to
the state of having not been generated,
those who define these two states to be each
of them Being, must perforce concede, that
the characteristic marks of the generated
being, following this opposition existing be-
tween the generated and non-generated, must
be contrary to the marks observable in the
non-generated being ; for if they were to
declare the marks to be the same, this same-
ness would destroy the difference between
the two beings who are the subject ot

1 uirepavriuf, i.e. as logical "contraries" diner from each
other. This is not an Aristotelian, but a Neo-Platonic use ol the
word (i.e. Aminomus, ad 390, &c. ). It occurs so again io this
B>^k frequently.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

these observations. Differing things must be
regarded as possessing differing marks ; like
things are to be known by like signs. If,
then, these men testify to the same marks in
the Only-begotten, they can conceive of no
difference whatever in the subject of the marks.
But if they persist in their blasphemous posi-
tion, and maintain in asserting the difference
of the generated and the non-generated the
variation of the natures, it is readily seen what
must result: viz., that, as in following out
the opposition of the names, the nature of
the things which those names indicate must
be considered to be in a state of contrariety
to itself, there is every necessity that the
qualities observed in each should be drawn
out opposite each other; so that those qualities
should be applied to the Son which are the
reverse of those predicated of the Father, viz.,
of divinity, holiness, goodness, imperishability,
eternity, and of every other quality that
represents God to the devout mind ; in fact,
every negation 3 of these, every conception
that ranks opposite to the good, must be
considered as belonging to the generated
nature.

To ensure clearness, we must dwell upon this
point. As the peculiar phaenomena of heat
and cold— which are themselves by nature
opposed to each other (let us take fire and
ice as examples of each), each being that
which the other is not — are at variance with
each other, cooling being the peculiarity of ice,
heating of fire ; so if in accordance with the
antithesis expressed by the names, the nature
revealed by those names is parted asunder,
it is not to be admitted that the faculties
attending these natural " subcontraries*" are
lir.e each other, any more than cooling can
belong to fire, or burning to ice. If, then,
goodness is inseparable from the idea of the
non-generated nature, and that nature is parted
on the ground of being, as they declare, from
the generated nature, the properties of the
former will be parted as well from those of
the latter : so that if the good is found in the
first, the quality set against the good is to be
perceived in the last. Thus, thanks to our
clever systematizers, Manes lives again with
his parallel line of evil in array over against
the good, and his theory of opposite powers
residing in opposite natures.

Indeed, if we are to speak the truth boldly,
without any reserve, Manes, who for having
been the first, they say, to venture to
entertain the Manichaean view, gave his name
to that heresy, may fairly be considered
the less offensive of the two. I say this, just

3 HTC/i jxtivoyra.

4 virsvavTiutv,

as if one had to choose between a vipei and
an asp for the most affection towards man ;
still, if we consider, there is some difference
between brutes s. Does not a comparison of
doctrines show that those older heretics are
less intolerable than these? Manes thought
he was pleading on the side of the Origin of
Good, when he represented that Evil could
derive thence none of its causes ; so he linked
the chain of things which are on the list of
the bad to a separate Principle, in his
character of the Almighty's champion, and in
his pious aversion to put the blame of any
unjustifiable aberrations upon that Source of
Good ; not perceiving, with his narrow under-
standing, that it is impossible even to conceive
of God as the fashioner of evil, or on the
other hand, of any other First Principle besides
Him. There might be a long discussion on
this point, but it is beside our present pur-
pose. We mentioned Manes' statements only
in order to show, that he at all events thought
it his duty to separate evil from anything to
do with God. But the blasphemous error
with regard to the Son, which these men
systematize, is much more terrible. Like the
others, they explain the existence of evil by a
contrariety in respect of Being ; but when they
declare, besides this, that the God of the
universe is actually the Maker of this alien
production, and say that this "generation"
formed by Him into a substance possesses
a nature foreign to that of its Maker, they
exhibit therein more of impiety than the
aforesaid sect ; for they not only give a
personal existence to that which in its nature
is opposed to good, but they say that a Good
Deity is the Cause of another Deity who in
nature diverges from His ; and they all but
openly exclaim in their teaching, that there is
in existence something opposite to the nature
of the good, deriving its personality from the
good itself. For when we know the Father's
substance to be good, and therefore find that
the Son's s ibstance, owing to its being unlike
the Father's in its nature (which is the tenet
of this heresy), is amongst the contrary pre-
dicates, what is thereby proved? Why, not
only that the opposite to the good subsists,
but that this contrary comes from the good
itself. I declare this to be more horrible
even than the irrationality of the Manichees.

But if they repudiate this blasphemy from
their system, though it is the logical carrying
out of their teaching, and if they say that the
Only-begotten has inherited the excellences
of the Father, not as being really His Son, but
-so does it please these misbelievers — as re-

S nkr)v dAV tirz>.&7) i<rn «ai iv 6r\pt.oi<i icpiois.

G a

GREGORY OF NYSSA

ceiving His personality by an act of creation,
let us look into this too, and see whether such
an idea can be reasonably entertained. If, then,
it were granted that it is as they think, viz., that
the Lord of all things has not inherited as be-
ing a true Son, but that He rules a kindred
of created things, being Himself made and
created, how will the rest of creation accept
this rule and not rise in revolt, being thus
thrust down from kinship to subjection and
condemned, though not a whit behind Him
in natural prerogative (both being created), to
serve and bend beneath a kinsman after all.
That were like a usurpation, viz. not to assign
the command to a superiority of Being, but to
divide a creation that retains by right of nature
equal privileges into slaves and a ruling power,
one part in command, the other in subjection ;
as if, as the result of an arbitrary distri-
bution6, these same privileges had been piled
at random on one who after that distribu-
tion got preferred to his equals. Even man
did not share his honour with the brutes,
before he received his dominion over them ;
his prerogative of reason gave him the title
to command ; he was set over them, because
of a variance of his nature in the direc-
tion of superiority. And human governments
experience such quickly-repeated revolutions
for this very reason, that it is impracticable
that those to whom nature has given equal
rights should be excluded from power, but her
impulse is instinct in all to make themselves
equal with the dominant party, when all
are of the same blood.

How, too, will it be true that " all things were
made by Him:," if it is true that the Son
Himself is one of the things made? Either
He must have made Himself, for that text to
be true, and so this unreasonableness which
they have devised to harm our Faith will recoil
with all its force upon themselves ; or else,
if this is absurdly unnatural, that affirma-
tion that the whole creation was made by
Him will be proved to have no ground to
stand on. The withdrawal of one makes " all "
a false statement. So that, from this definition
of the Son as a created being, one of two
vicious and absurd alternatives is inevitable ;
either that He is not the Author of all created
things, seeing that He, who, they insist, is one
of those works, must be withdrawn from the
"all;" or else, that He is exhibited as the
maker of Himself, seeing that the preaching
that ' without Him was not anything (made)
that was made' is not a lie. So much for
their teaching.

6 arbitrary distribution, a.iroKKrjpui(reo>'; : Kar <z7ro<cA>/pw<rii/
"at random," is also used by Sextus Empiric, (a.d. 200J, Clem.
Alex., and Greg. Naz.

§ 36. A passing repetition of the teaching of the
Church.
But if a man keeps steadfast to the sound
doctrine, and believes that the Son is of
the nature which is divine without admix-
ture, he will find everything in harmony with
the other truths of his religion, viz., that
Our Lord is the maker of all things, that He is
King of the universe, set above it not by an
arbitrary act of capricious power, but ruling
by virtue of a superior nature ; and besides
this, he will find that the one First Cause ?, as
taught by us, is not divided by any unlike-
ness of substance into separate first causes,
but one Godhead, one Cause, one Power
over all things is believed in, that God-
head being discoverable by the harmony
existing between these like beings, and lead-
ing on the mind through one like to an-
other like, so that the Cause of all things,
which is Our Lord, shines in our hearts by
means of the Holy Spirit ; (for it is impossible,
as the Apostle says, that the Lord Jesus can be
truly known, "except by the Holy Spirit8");
and then all the Cause beyond, which is God
over all, is found through Our Lord, Who
is the Cause of all things ; nor, indeed, is it
possible to gain an exact knowledge of the
Archetypal Good, except as it appears in the
(visible) image of that invisible. But then,
after passing that summit of theology, I mean
the God over all, we turn as it were back again
in the racecourse of the mind, and speed
through conjoint and kindred ideas from the
Father, through the Son, to the Holy Ghost.
For once having taken our stand on the compre-
hension of the Ungenerate Light, we perceive 9
that moment from that vantage ground the
Light that streams from Him, like the ray co-
existent with the sun, whose cause indeed is in
the sun, but whose existence is synchronous
with the sun, not being a later addition, but ap-
pearing at the first sight of the sun itself : or
rather (for there is no necessity to be slaves
to this similitude, and so give a handle to the
critics to use against our teaching by reason of
the inadequacy of our image), it will not
be a ray of the sun that we shall perceive, but
another sun blazing forth, as an offspring, out
of the Ungenerate sun, and simultaneously with
our conception of the First, and in every way
like him, in beauty, in power, in lustre, in size,

7 One First Cause, /aovapxias. In a notable passage on the
Greeks who came up to the Feast (John xii. 20), Cyrill (Catena,
p. 307), uses the same word. "Such, seeing that some of the Jews'
customs did not greatly differ from their own, as far as related
to the manner of sacrifice, and the belief in a Onejirst Cause . . .
came up with them to worship." Arc. Philo had already used the
word so (Dt C/iarit.). Athanasius opposes it to n-oAvtfeia (Qutest.
ad Antioch. I.).

8 1 Cor. xii. 3.

9 evorjo-anev: aorist of instantaneous action.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

in brilliance, in all things at once that we
observe in the sun. Then again, we see yet
another such Light after the same fashion,
sundered by no interval of time from that
offspring Light, and while shining forth by
means of It yet tracing the source of its being
to the Primal Light ; itself, nevertheless, a Light
shining in like manner as the one first conceived
of, and itself a source of light and doing all that
light does. There is, indeed, no difference
between one light and another light, qua light,
when the one shows no lack or diminution of
illuminating grace, but by its complete perfec-
tion forms part of the highest light of all,
and is beheld along with the Father and the
Son, though counted after them, and by its
own power gives access to the light that is per-
ceived in the Father and Son to all who are
able to partake of it So far upon this.

§ 37. Defence of S. BasiTs statement, attacked by
Eunomius, that the terms ' Father ' and ' the
Ungenerate ' can have the same meaning.

The stream of his abuse is very strong ; in-
solence is at the bottom of every principle he
lays down ; and vilification is put by him in the
place of any demonstration of doubtful points :
so let us briefly discuss the many misrepresenta-
tions about the word Ungenerate with which he
insults our Teacher himself and his treatise.
He has quoted the following words of our
Teacher : " For my part I should be inclined
to say that this title of the Ungenerate, how-
ever fitting it may seem to express our ideas,
yet, as nowhere found in Scripture and as
forming the alphabet of Eunomius' blasphemy,
may very well be suppressed, when we have
the word Father meaning the same thing ;
for One who essentially and alone is Father
comes from none else ; and that which comes
from none else is equivalent to the Un-
generate." Now let us hear what proof he
brings of the 'folly' of these words : " Over-
hastiness and shameless dishonesty prompt
him to put this dose of words1 anomalously used
into his attempts ; he turns completely round,
because his judgment is wavering and his
powers of reasoning are feeble." Notice how
well-directed that blow is ; how skilfully, with
all his mastery of logic, he takes Basil's words
to pieces and puts a conception more con-
sistent with piety in their place ! "Anomalous
in phrase," " hasty and dishonest in judgment,"
" wavering and turning round from feebleness
of reasoning." Why this? what has exasperated
this man, whose own judgment is so firm, and
reasoning so sound ? What is it that he

• Le. imrijp, ayivvrfTOS

most condemns in Basil's words? Is it, th t
he accepts the idea of the Ungenerate, but
says that the actual word, as misused by
those who pervert it, should be suppressed?
Well ; is the Faith in jeopardy only as re-
gards words and outward expressions, and
need we take no account of the correct-
ness of the thought beneath ? Or does not
the Word of Truth rather exhort us first
to have a heart pure from evil thoughts,
and then, for the manifestation of the soul's
emotions, to use any words that can express
these secrets of the mind, without any minute
care about this or that particular sound ? For
the speaking in this way or in that is not the
cause of the thought within us ; but the hidden
conception of the heart supplies the motive for
such and such words ; " for from the abund-
ance of the heart the mouth speaketh." We
make the words interpret the thought; we do
not by a reverse process gather 2 the thought
from the words. Should both be at hand, a
man may certainly be ready in both, in clever
thinking and clever expression ; but if the
one should be wanting, the loss to the illiterate
is slight, if the knowledge in his soul is perfect
in the direction of moral goodness. " Tins
people honoureth me with their lips, but their
heart is far from me 3." What is the meaning of
that? That the right attitude of the soul
towards the truth is more precious than the
propriety of phrases in the sight of God, who
hears the "groanings that cannot be uttered."
Phrases can be used in opposite senses ; the
tongue readily serving, at his will, the intention
of the speaker ; but the disposition of the soul,
as it is, so is it seen by Him Who sees all
secrets. Why, then, does he deserve to be
called "anomalous," and "hasty," and "dis-
honest," for bidding us suppress all in the term
Ungenerate which can aid in their blasphemy
those who transgress the Faith, while minding
and welcoming all the meaning in the word
which can be reverently held. If indeed he had
said that we ought not to think of the Deity as
Ungenerate, there might have been some occa-
sion for these and even worse terms of abuse to
be used against him. But if he falls in with the
general belief of the faithful and admits this,
and then pronounces an opinion well worthy
of the Master's mind-*, viz., "Refrain from
the use of the word, for into it, and from it,
the subverting heresy is fetched," and bids
us cherish the idea of an ungenerate Deity by
means of other names, — therein he does not

a Putting a full stop at ovvayeipontv. Oehler otherwise.

3 Isaiah xxix. 13 ; Matthew xv. 8.

4 the Master's mind. " But whoso shall offend one of these
little ones which helieve in Me. it were better for him that a mill-
stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in
the depth of the sea." Matth. xviii. 6 ; Mark ix. 42.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

deserve their abuse. Are we not taught by
the Truth Himself to act so, and not to cling
even to things exceeding precious, if any of
them tend to mischief? When He thus bids
us to cut away the right eye or foot or hand,
if so be that one of them offends, what else
does He imply by this figure, than that He
would have anything, however fair-seeming, if it
leads a man by an inconsiderate use to evil,
remain inoperative and out of use, assuring us
that it is better for us to be saved by amputa-
tion of the parts which led to sin, than to
perish by retaining them ?

What, too, does Paul, the follower of Christ,
say ? He, too, in his deep wisdom teaches the
same. He, who declares that " everything is
good, and nothing to be rejected, if it be re-
ceived with thanks V' on some occasions,
because of the ' conscience of the weak brother,'
puts some things back from the number which
he has accepted, and commands us to decline
them. " If," he says, " meat make my bro-
ther to offend, I will eat no flesh while the
world standeth 6." Now this is just what our
follower of Paul did. He saw that the deceiv-
ing power of those who try to teach the in-
equality of the Persons was increased by this
word Ungenerate, taken in their mischievous,
heretical sense, and so he advised that, while
we cherish in our souls a devout consciousness
of this ungenerate Deity, we should not show
any particular love for the actual word, which
was the occasion of sin to the reprobate ; for
that the title of Father, if we follow out all that
it implies, will suggest to us this meaning of
not having been generated. For when we
hear the word Father, we think at once of the
Author of all beings ; for if He had some
further cause transcending Himself, He would
not have been called thus of proper right
Father ; for that title would have had to be
transferred higher, to this pre-supposed Cause.
But if He Himself is that Cause from which
all comes, as the Apostle says, it is plain that
nothing can be thought of beyond His exis-
tence. But this is to believe in that existence
not having been generated. But this man,
who claims that even the Truth shall not be
considered more persuasive than himself, will
not acquiesce in this ; he loudly dogmatizes
against it ; he jeers at the argument.

§ 38. Several ways of controverting his
quibbling syllogisms.

Let us, if you please, examine his irrefragable
syllogisms, and his subtle transpositions ^ of the

5 1 Tim. iv. 4 (R.V.).

6 1 Cor. viii. 13.

7 Transpositions 0/ the terms in his 011m false premisses ; rHiv
<ro<fticr par iov ai>Ti<TTpo<pai;. The same as " the professional twisting
o( premisses," and " the hooking backward and iorward and twisting

terms in his own false premisses, by which he
hopes to shake that argument ; though, indeed.
I fear lest the miserable quibbling in what he
says may in a measure raise a prejudice also
against the remarks that would correct it.
When striplings challenge to a fight, men get
more blame for pugnaciousness in closing with
such foes, than honour for their show of vic-
tory. Nevertheless, what we want to say is
this. Wh think, indeed, that the things said by
him, with that well-known elocution now
familiar to us, only for the sake of being inso-
lent, are better buried in silence and oblivion ;
they may suit him ; but to us they afford only
an exercise for much-enduring patience. Nor
would it be proper, I think, to insert his ridi-
culous expressions in the midst of our own
serious controversy, and so to make this zeal
for the truth evaporate in coarse, vulgar
laughter ; for indeed to be within hearing,
and to remain unmoved, is an impossibility,
when he says with such sublime and mag
nificient verbosity, " Where additional worus
amount to additional blasphemy, it is by half
as much more tranquillizing to be silent than
to speak." Let those laugh at these expressions
who know which of them are fit to be believed,
and which only to be laughed at ; while we
scrutinize the keenness of those syllogisms with
which he tries to tear our system to pieces.

He says, "If 'Father' is the same in
meaning as ' Ungenerate,' and words which
have the same meaning naturally have in every
respect the same force, and Ungenerate signifies
by their confession that God comes from no-
thing, it follows necessarily that Father signi-
fies the fact of God being of none, and not the
having generated the Son." Now what is this
logical necessity which prevents the having
generated a Son being signified by the title
" Father," if so be that that same title does in
itself express to us as well the absence of
beginning in the Father? If, indeed, the one
idea was totally destructive of the other, it
would certainly follow, from the very nature
of contradictories 8, that the affirming of the one
would involve the denial of the other. But if
there is nothing in the world to prevent the

of premisses" below. The terms Father and Wwnw are trans-
posed or twisted into each other's place in this ' irrefragable syllo-
gism." It is 'a reductio ad absurdum ' thus: —

Father means 'AyivmiTos (Basil's premiss),
.*. 'AyivvrfTo<; means Father.
The fallacy of Eunomu • consists in making ' Father universal
in his own premiss, when it »as only particular in Basil's. •"Aytv-
i^tos means the whole contents of the word Father," which there-
fore cannot mean having generated a son. It is a False Con-

ver>ion. . . . . .

This Conversion or avTiTTpofrt is illustrated in Aristotle s Ana-
lytics, Prior. I. iii. 3- II »s legitimate thus :—
Some B is A
.'. Some A is (some) B.
8 Kara Tt\v w avTiKei/xexoi' <f»ii<ne. If 'AyeVnjTOS means not
having a son, then to affirm ' God is always 'Ayei>vr)Tos' is even to
deny (us logical contradictory; ' God once had a Son.'

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

same Existence from being Father and also
Ungenerate, when we try to think, under this
title of Father, of the quality of not having
been generated as one of the ideas implied in
it, what necessity prevents the relation to a Son
being any longer marked by the word Father?
Other names which express mutual relationship
are not always confined to those ideas of rela-
tionship ; for instance, we call the emperor 9
autocrat and masterless, and we call the same
the ruler of his subjects ; and, while it is quite
true that the word emperor signifies also the
being masterless, it is not therefore necessary
that this word, because signifying autocratic
and unruled, must cease to imply the having
power over inferiors ; the word emperor, in
fact, is midway between these two conceptions,
and at one time indicates masterlessness, at
another the ruling over lower orders. In the
case before us, then, if there is some other
Father conceivable besides the Father of Our
Lord, let these men who boast of their pro-
found wisdom show him to us, and then we
will agree with him that the idea of the Un-
generate cannot be represented by the title
" Father." But if the First Father has no
cause transcending His own state, and the sub-
sistence of the Son is invariably implied in the
title of Father, why do they try to scare us, as if
we were children, with these professional twist-
ings of premisses, endeavouring to persuade or
rather to decoy us into the belief that, if the
property of not having been generated is ac-
knowledged in the title of Father, we must sever
from the Father any relation with the Son.

Despising, then, this silly superficial attempt
of theirs, let us manfully own our belief in that
which they adduce as a monstrous absurdity,
viz., that not only does the ' Father ' mean the
same as Ungenerate and that this last pro-
perty establishes the Father as being of none,
but also that the word ' Father ' introduces
with itself the notion of the Only-begotten, as
a relative bound to it. Now the following
passage, which is to be found in the treatise
of our Teacher, has been removed from the
context by this clever and invincible contro-
versialist ; for, by suppressing that part which
was added by Basil by way of safeguard,
he thought he would make his own reply
a much easier task. The passage runs thus
verbatim. " For my part I should be inclined
to say that this title of the Ungenerate, however
readily it may seem to fall in with our own
ideas, yet, as nowhere found in Scripture, and
as forming the alphabet of Eunomius' blas-
phemy, may very well be suppressed, when we
have the word Father meaning the same thing,

Tin fiatriKJa.

in addition to ' its introducing with itself, as
a relative bound to it, the notion of the Son."
This generous champion of the truth, with
innate good feeling2, has suppressed this
sentence which was added by way of safeguard,
I mean, "in addition to introducing with itself,
as a relative bound to it, the notion of the
Son;" after this garbling, he comes to close
quarters with what remains, and having
severed the connection of the living whole 3,
and thus made it, as he thinks, a more yielding
and assailable victim of his logic, he misleads
his own party with the frigid and feeble para-
logism, that " that which has a common mean-
ing, in one single point, with something else
retains that community of meaning in every
possible point ;" and with this he takes their
shallow intelligences by storm. For while we
have only affirmed that the word Father in
a certain signification yields the same mean-
ing as Ungenerate, this man makes the coin-
cidence of meanings complete in every point,
quite at variance therein with the common
acceptation of either word ; and so he re-
duces the matter to an absurdity, pretending
that this word Father can no longer denote any
relation to the Son, if the idea of not having
been generated is conveyed by it. It is just
as if some one, after having acquired two ideas
about a loaf, — one, that it is made of flour, the
other, that it is food to the consumer — were to
contend with the person who told him this,
using against him the same kind of fallacy as
Eunomius does, viz., that 'the being made of
flour is one thing, but the being food is another ;
if, then, it is granted that the loaf is made of
flour, this quality in it can no longer strictly be
called food.' Such is the thought in Eunomius'
syllogism ; " if the not having been generated
is implied by the word Father, this word can
no longer convey the idea of having generated
the Son." But I think it is time that we, in our
turn, applied to this argument of his that mag-
nificently rounded period of his own (already
quoted). In reply to such words, it would be
suitable to *ay that he would have more claim
to be considered in his sober senses, if he had
put the limit to such argumentative safeguards
at absolute silence. For " where additional
words amount to additional blasphemy," or,
rather, indicate that he has utterly lost his
reason, it is not only " by half as much more,"
but by the whole as much more " tranquil-
lizing to be silent than to speak."

1 npbs t<3. Cod. Ven., surely better than the common irpbs to,
which Oehler has in his text.

2 (\rv8epia ; late Greek, for tAmOepiorT/s.

3 " ttu living ivIwU.' o-oifioTO? : this is the radical meaning
of o-ifia, and also the classical. Viger. (Idiom p. 143 note) dis-
tinguishes four meanings under this. 1. Safety. 2. Individuality.
3. "Living presence. 4- Life : and adduces instances of each
from the Attic orators.

GREGORY OF NYS

But perhaps a man would be more easily
led into the true view by personal illustra-
tions ; so let us leave this hooking back-
wards and forwards and this twisting of false
premisses *, and discuss the matter in a less
learned and more popular way. Your father,
Eunomius, was certainly a human being ; but
the same person was also the author of your
being. Did you, then, ever use in his case
too this clever quibble which you have em-
ployed ; so that your own ' father,' when once he
receives the true definition of his being, can no
longer mean, because of being a ' man,' any rela-
tionship to yourself; 'for he must be one of two
things, either a man, or Eunomius' father?' —
Well, then, you must not use the names of in-
timate relationship otherwise than in accord-
ance with that intimate meaning. Yet, though
you would indict for libel any one who con-
temptuously scoffed against yourself, by means
of such an alteration of meanings, are you not
afraid to scoff against God ; and are you safe
when you laugh at these mysteries of our faith ?
As ' your father ' indicates relationship to your-
self, and at the same time humanity is not ex-
cluded by that term, and as no one in his sober
senses instead of styling him who begat you
'your father' would render his description by
the word 'man,' or, reversely, if asked for his
genus and answering 'man,' would assert that
that answer prevented him from being your
father; so in the contemplation of the Almighty
a reverent mind would not deny that by the
title of Father is meant that He is without
generation, as well as that in another meaning
it represents His relationship to the Son.
Nevertheless Eunomius, in open contempt of
truth, does assert that the title cannot mean the
' having begotten a son ' any longer, when once
the word has conveyed to us the idea of ' never
having been generated.'

Let us add the following illustration of the
absurdity of his assertions. It is one that all
must be familiar with, even mere children
who are being introduced under a grammar-
tutor to the study of words. Who, I say, does
not know that some nouns are absolute and
out of all relation, others express some rela-
tionship. Of these last, again, there are some
which incline, according to the speaker's wish,
either way ; they have a simple intention
in themselves, but can be turned so as to
become nouns of relation. I will not linger

4 to KaTrjyKv\tofj.evou tVjs tu>i/ o*v^>tO"juaTto^ itAoktjs. See C 38,
note 7. The false premisses in the syllogisms have been —

1. Father (partly) means 'AycVi'rjTot.

Things which mean the same in part, mean the tame in

all (false premise).
.'. Father means 'A-ye'i'i'ijTO? (false).

2. Father means 'AytPi/riToc (false).
Ayti'iT/To? does not mean ' having a Son.'

■ Father does not mean ' having a Son ' (false).

amongst examples foreign to our subject. I will
explain from the words of our Faith itself.

God is called Father and King and other
names innumerable in Scripture. Of these
names one part can be pronounced absolutely,
i.e. simply as they are, and no more: viz..
" imperishable," " everlasting," " immortal, " and
so on. Each of these, without our bringing in
another thought, contains in itself a complete
thought about the Deity. Others express only
relative usefulness ; thus, Helper, Champion,
Rescuer, and other words of that meaning ; if
you remove thence the idea of one in need of
the help, all the force expressed by the word
is- gone. Some, on the other hand, as we
have said, are both absolute, and are also
amongst the words of relation ; ' God,' for in-
stance, and 'good,' and many other such. In
these the thought does not continue always
within the absolute. The Universal God
often becomes the property of him who calls
upon Him ; as the Saints teach us, when they
make that independent Being their own. 'The
Lord God is Holy;' so far there is no relation ;
but when one adds the Lord Our God, and so
appropriates the meaning in a relation towards
oneself, then one causes the word to be no
longer thought of absolutely. Again; "Abba,
Father" is the cry of the Spirit; it is an
utterance free from any partial reference. But
we are bidden to call the Father in heaven,
' Our Father ; ' this is the relative use of the
word. A man who makes the Universal
Deity his own, does not dim His supreme
dignity ; and in the same way there is nothing
to prevent us, when we point out the Father
and Him who comes from Him, the Firstborn
before all creation, from signifying by that
title of Father at one and the same time the
having begotten that Son, and also the not
being from any more transcendent Cause. For
he who speaks of the First Father means Him
who is presupposed before all existence, Whos"e
is the beyond s. This is He, Who has nothing
previous to Himself to behold, no end in which
He shall cease. Whichever way we look, He
is equally existing there for ever ; He transcends
the limit of any end, the idea of any beginning,
by the infinitude of His life ; whatever be His
title, eternity must be implied with it.

But Eunomius, versed as he is in the contem-
plation of that which eludes thought, rejects this
view of unscientific minds ; he will not admit
a double meaning in the word ' Father,' the one,
that from Him are all things and in the front
ot all things the Only-begotten Son, the other,
that He Himself has no superior Cause. He

5 cpeSci£aTO, ah to eTrcKeipa. This is the reading of the Turin
Cod., and preferable to that of the Paris edition.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK 1.

may scorn the statement ; but we will brave his
mocking laugh, and repeat what we have said
already, that the ' Father ' is the same as that
Ungenerate One, and both signifies the having
begotten the Son, and represents the being
from nothing.

But Eunomius, contending with this state-
ment of ours, says (the very contrary now
of what he said before), '' If God is Father
because He has begotten the Son, and ' Fa-
ther ' has the same meaning as Ungenerate,
God is Ungenerate because He has begotten
the Son, but before He begat Him He was
not Ungenerate." Observe his method of
turning round ; how he pulls his first quibble
to pieces, and turns it into the very opposite,
thinking even so to entrap us in a conclu-
sion from which there is no escape. His first
syllogism presented the following absurdity,
" If ' Father' means the coming from nothing,
then necessarily it will no longer indicate the
having begotten the Son." But this last syllo-
gism, by turning (a premiss) into its contrary,
threatens our faith with another absurdity
How, then, does he pull to pieces his former
conclusion 6 ? "If He is ' Father' because
He has begotten a Son." His first syllogism
gave us nothing like that ; on the contrary,
its logical inference purported to show that
if the Father's not having been generated
was meant by the word Father, that word
could not mean as well the having begotten
a Son 7. Thus his first syllogism contained no
intimation whatever that God was Father be-
cause He had begotten a Son. I fail to un-
derstand what this argumentative and shrewdly
professional reversal means.

But let us look to the thought in it below the
words. ' If God is Ungenerate because He has
begotten a Son, He was not Ungenerate before
He begat Him.' The answer to that is plain ;
it consists in the simple statement of the Truth,
that ' the word Father means both the having
begotten a Son, and also that the Begetter is
not to be thought of as Himself coming from
any cause.' If you look at the effect, the
Person of the Son is revealed in the word

6 The first syllogism was —

' Father ' means the ' coming from nothing ;'
(' Coming from nothing ' does not mean ' begetting a Son ')
.'. Father does not mean begetting a Son.
He "pulls to pieces" this conclusion by taking its logical 'con-
trary' as the first premiss of his second syllogism ; thus —
Father means begetting a Son ;
(Father means 'AyeVcTpros)

.'. 'AyeVcijTos means begetting a Son.
From which it follows that before that begetting the Almighty
■was not ' Kyivvt\TO<i.

The conclusion of the last syllogism also involves the contrary
of the 2nd premiss of the first.

It is to be noticed that both syllogisms are aimed at Basil's
doctrine, ' Father' means ' coming from nothing.' Eunomius strives
to show that, in both, such a premiss leads to an absurdity. But
Gregory ridicules both for contradicting each other.

7 to fniv ny Svvaa-Bai. The negative, absent in Oehler, is
recovered from the Turin Cod.

Father ; if you look for a previous Cause, the
absence of any beginning in the Begetter is
shown by that word. In saying that ' Before
He begat a Son, the Almighty was not Un-
generate,' this pamphleteer lays himself open
to a double charge ; i. e. of misrepresenta-
tion of us, and of insult to the Faith. He
attacks, as if there was no mistake about it,
something which our Teacher never said, neither
do we now assert, viz., that the Almighty be-
came in process of time a Father, having been
something else before. Moreover in ridiculing
the absurdity of this fancied doctrine of ours,
he proclaims his own wildness as to doctrine.
Assuming that the Almighty was once some-
thing else, and then by an advance became
entitled to be called Father, he would have it
that before this He was not Ungenerate either,
since Ungeneracy is implied in the idea of
Father. The folly of this hardly needs to be
pointed out; it will be abundantly clear to any-
one who reflects. If the Almighty was some-
thing else before He became Father, what
will the champions of this theory say, if
they were asked in what state they propose
to contemplate Him ? What name are they
going to give Him in that stage of existence ;
child, infant, babe, or youth ? Will they blush
at such flagrant absurdity, and say nothing like
that, and concede that He was perfect from the
first? Then how can He be perfect, while as
yet unable to become Father? Or will they
not deprive Him of this power, but say only
that it was not fitting that there should be
Fatherhood simultaneously with His existence.
But if it was not good nor fitting that He
should be from the very beginning Father of
such a Son, how did He go on to acquire that
which was not good ?

But, as it is, it is good and fitting to God's
majesty that He should become Father of such
a Son. So they will make out that at the be-
ginning He had no share in this good thing,
and as long as He did not have this Son they
must assert (may God forgive me for saying it !)
that He had no Wisdom, nor Power, nor Truth,
nor any of the other glories which from various
points of view the Only-begotten Son is and
is called.

But let all this fall on the heads of those who
started it. We will return whence we digressed.
He says, " If God is Father because of having
begotten a Son, and if Father means the being
Ungenerate, then God was not this last, before
He begat." Now if he could speak here as it
is customary to speak about human life, where
it is inconceivable that any should acquire
possession of many accomplishments all at
once, instead of winning each of the objects
sought after in a certain order and sequence

GREGORY OF NYSSA

of time — if I say we could Teason like
that in the case of the Almighty, so that
we could say He possessed His Ungene-
racy at one time, and after that acquired
His power, and then His imperishability, and
then His Wisdom, and advancing so became
Father, and after that Just and then Everlast-
ing, and so came into all that enters into
the philosophical conception of Him, in a
certain sequence — then it would not be so
manifestly absurd to think that one of His
names has precedence of another name, and to
talk of His being first Ungenerate, and after
that having become Father.

As it is, however, no one is so earth-bound
in imagination, so uninitiated in the sublimities
of our Faith, as to fail, when once he has appre
hended the Cause of the universe, to embrace in
one collective and compact whole all the attri-
butes which piety can give to God ; and to con
ceive instead of a primal and a later attribute,
and of another in between, supervening in a cer-
tain sequence. It is not possible, in fact, to tra-
verse in thought one amongst those attributes,
and then reach another, be ita reality or a concep-
tion, which is to transcend the first in antiquity.
Every name of God, every sublime conception
of Him, every utterance or idea that harmonizes
with our general ideas with regard to Him, is
linked in closest union with its fellow ; all such
conceptions are massed together in our under
standing into one collective and compact whole ;
namely, His Fatherhood, and Ungeneracy, and
Power, and Imperishability, and Goodness, and
Authority, and everything else. You cannot
take one of these and separate it in thought
from the rest by any interval of time, as if it
preceded or followed something else ; no
sublime or adorable attribute in Him can
be discovered, which is not simultaneously
expressed in His everlastingness. Just, then,
as we cannot say that God was ever not
good, or powerful, or imperishable, or im-
mortal, in the same way it is a blasphemy
not to attribute to Him Fatherhood always,
and to say that that came later. He Who
is truly Father is always Father ; if eternity
was not included in this confession, and
if a foolishly preconceived idea curtailed and
checked retrospectively our conception of the
Father, true Fatherhood could no longer be
properly predicated of Him, because that pre-
conceived idea about the Son would cancel
the continuity and eternity of His Father
hood. How could that which He is now
called be thought of something which came
into existence subsequent to these other
attributes? If being first Ungenerate He
then became Father, and received that name,
He was not always altogether what He is

now called. But that which the God now
existing is He always is ; He does not be-
come worse or better by any addition, He does
not become altered by taking something from
another source. He is always identical wiih
Himself. If, then, He was not Father at first,
He was not Father afterwards. But if He is
confessed to be Father (now), I will recur
to the same argument, that, if He is so now,
He always was so ; and that if He always was,
He always will be. The Father therefore is
always Father ; and seeing that the Son must
always be thought of along with the Father
(for the title of father cannot be justified unless
there is a son to make it true), all that we con-
template in the Father is to be observed also in
the Son . " All that the Father hath is the Son's ;
and all that is the Son's the Father hath." The
words are, ' The Father hath that which is the
Son's 8,' and so a carping critic will have no
authority for finding in the contents of the word
" all " the ungeneracy of the Son, when it is
said that the Son has all that the Father has,
nor on the other hand the generation of the
Father, when all that is the Son's is to be
observed in the Father. For the Son has all
the things of the Father ; but He is not Father :
and again, all the things of the Son are to be
observed in the Father, but He is not a Son.

If, then, all that is the Father's is in the
Only-begotten, and He is in the Father, and
the Fatherhood is not dissociated from the ' not
having been generated,' I tor my part cannot
see what there is to think of in connexion with
the Father, by Himself, that is parted by any
interval so as to precede our apprehension of
the Son. Therefore we may boldly encounter
the difficulties started in that quibbling syllo-
gism ; we may despise it as a mere scare to
frighten children, and still assert that God is
Holy, and Immortal, and Father, and Ungene-
rate, and Everlasting, and everything all at once ;
and that, if it could be supposed possible that
you could withhold one of these attributes
which devotion assigns to Him, all would
be destroyed along with that one. Nothing,
therefore, in Him is older or younger; else
He would be found to be older or younger
than Himself. If God is not all His attri-
butes always, but something in Him is, and
something else only becoming, following some
order of sequence (we must remember God is
not a compound ; whatever He is is the whole
of Him), and if according to this heresy He is
first Ungenerate and afterwards becomes Father,
then, seeing that we cannot think of Him in
connexion with a heaping together of qualities,

8 John xvi. 15. Oehler conjectures these words (*Ex« 6 narnp)
are to be repeated ; and thus obtains a good sense, which the
common reading, 6 ttotjjp t'jrw, does not give.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

there is no alternative but that the whole of
Him must be both older and younger than the
whole of Him, the former by virtue of His
Ungeneracy, the latter by virtue of His Father-
hood. But if, as the prophet says of God 9, He
" is the same," it is idle to say that before He
begat He was not Himself Ungenerate ; we can-
not find either of these names, the Father and
the Ungenerate One, parted from the other;
the two ideas rise together, suggested by each
other, in the thoughts of the devout reasoner.
God is Father from everlasting, and everlasting
Father, and every other term that devotion
assigns to Him is given in a like sense, the
mensuration and the flow of time having no
place, as we have said, in the Eternal.

Let us now see the remaining results of his
expertness in dealing with words ; results, which
he himself truly says, are at once ridiculous and
lamentable. Truly one must laugh outright at
what he says, if a deep lament for the error that
steeps his soul were not more fitting. Whereas
Father, as we teach, includes, according to one
of its meanings, the idea of the Ungenerate, he
transfers the full signification of the word Father
to that of the Ungenerate, and declares " If
Father is the same as Ungenerate, it is allow-
able for us to drop it, and use Ungenerate in-
stead ; thus, the Ungenerate of the Son is
Ungenerate ; for as the Ungenerate is Father of
the Son, so reversely the Father is Ungenerate
of the Son. " After this a feeling of admiration
for our friend's adroitness steals over me,
with the conviction that the many-sided subtlety
of his theological training is quite beyond the
capacity of most. What our Teacher said was
embraced in one short sentence, to the effect
that it was possible that by the title 'Father'
the Ungeneracy could be signified ; but Euno-
mius' words depend for their number not on the
variety of the thoughts, but on the way that
anything within the circuit of similar names
can be turned about *. As the cattle that
run blindfold round to turn the mill remain
with all their travel in the same spot, so does
he go round and round the same topic, and
never leaves it. Once he said, ridiculing us,
that ' Father' does not signify the having be-
gotten, but the being from nothing. Again
he wove a similar dilemma, " If Father sig-
nifies Ungeneracy, before He begat He was
not ungenerate." Then a third time he resorts
to the same trick, " It is allowable for us to
drop Father, and to use Ungenerate instead ; "
and then directly he repeats the logic so
often vomited. " For as the Ungenerate is
Father of the Son, so reversely the Father is

9 Psalm cii- 27.
1 iv ry 7rtpioCu) xai avaai fio<t>j) litv bfxoiwv pijfidruK.

Ungenerate of the Son." How often be returns
to his vomit ; how often he blurts it out again !
Shall we not, then, annoy most people, if we
drag about our argument in company with this
foolish display of words? It would be perhaps
more decent to be silent in a case like this;
still, lest any one should think that we decline
discussion because we are weak in pleas, we
will answer thus to what he has said. ' You
have no authority, Eunomius, for calling the
Father the Ungenerate of the Son, even though
the title Father does signify that the Begetter
was from no cause Himself. For as, to take
the example already cited, when we hear the
word ' Emperor' we understand two things,
both that the one who is pre-eminent in
authority is subject to none, and also that
he controls his inferiors, so the title Father
supplies us with two ideas about the Deity, one
relating to His Son, the other to His being
dependent on no preconceivable cause. As,,
then, in the case of 'Emperor' we cannot say
that because the two things are signified by that
term, viz., the ruling over subjects and the
not having any to take precedence of him,
there is any justification for speaking of the
' Unruled of subjects,' instead of the ' Ruler
of the nation,' or allowing so much, that we
may use such a juxtaposition of words, in imita-
tion of king of a nation, as kingless of a nation,
in the same way when ' Father' indicates a Son,
and also represents the idea of the Ungenerate,
we may not unduly transfer this latter meaning,
so as to attach this idea of the Ungenerate
fast to a paternal relationship, and absurdly
say ' the Ungenerate is Ungenerate of the
Son.'

He treads on the ground of truth, he thinks,
after such utterances ; he has exposed the
absurdity of his adversaries' position ; how
boastfully he cries, " And what sane thinker,
pray, ever yet wanted the natural thought to be
suppressed, and welcomed the paradoxical ? "
No sane thinker, most accomplished sir ; and
therefore our argument neither, which teaches
that while the term Ungenerate does suit our
thoughts, and we ought to guard it in our
hearts intact, yet the term Father is an adequate
substitute for the one which you have perverted,
and leads the mind in that direction. Remem-
ber the words which you yourself quoted ; Basil
did not ' want the natural thought to be sup-
pressed, and welcome the paradoxical,' as you
phrase it ; but he advised us to avoid all danger
by suppressing the mere word Ungenerale, that
is, the expression in so many syllables, as one
which had been evilly interpreted, and besides
was not to be found in Scripture ; as for its-
meaning he declares that it does most com
pletely suit our thoughts.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

Thus far for our statement. But this reviler
of all quibblers, who completely arms his own
argument with the truth, and arraigns our sins in
logic, does not blush in any of his arguing
on doctrines to indulge in very pretty quib-
bles ; on a par with those exquisite jokes which
are cracked to make people laugh at dessert.
Reflect on the weight of reasoning displayed
in that complicated syllogism ; which I will
now again repeat. "If 'Father' is the same
as Ungenerate, it is allowable for us to drop it,
and use Ungenerate instead ; thus, the Ungen-
erate is Ungenerate of the Son ; for as the
Ungenerate is Father of the Son, so, reversely,
the Father is Ungenerate of the Son." Well,
this is very like another case such as the follow-
ing. Suppose some one were to state the right
and sound view about Adam ; namely, that it
mattered not whether we called him " father of
mankind " or " the first man formed by God "
(for both mean the same thing), and then some
one else, belonging to Eunomius' school of
reasoners, were to pounce upon this statement,
and make the same complication out of it,
viz.: If "first man formed by God" and
"father of mankind" are the same things, it
is allowable for us to drop the word "father"
and use " first formed " instead ; and say that
Adam was the " first formed," instead of the
" father," of Abe) ; for as the first formed was
the father of a son, so, reversely, that father is
the first formed of that son. If this had been
said in a tavern, what laughter and applause
would have broken from the tippling circle
over so fine and exquisite a joke ! These are
the arguments on which our learned theologian
leans ; when he assails our doctrine, he really
needs himself a tutor and a stick to teach him
that all the things which are predicated of some
one do not necessarily, in their meaning, have
respect to one single object; as is plain from
the aforesaid instance of Abel and Adam.
That one and the same Adam is Abel's father
and also God's handiwork is a truth ; never-
theless it does not follow that, because he is
both, he is both with respect to Abel. So
the designation of the Almighty as Father
has both the special meaning of that word, i.e.,
the having begotten a son, and also that of
there being no preconceivable cause of the
Very Father; nevertheless it does not follow
that when we mention the Son we must speak
of the Ungenerate, instead of the Father, of
that Son; nor, on the other hand, if the
absence of beginning remains unexpressed in
reference to the Son, that we must banish from
our thoughts about God that attribute of Un-
generacy. But he discards the usual accepta-
tions, and like an actor in comedy, makes a
joke of the whole subject, and by dint of the

oddity of his quibbles makes the questions of
our faith ridiculous. Again I must repeat his
words : "If Father is the same as Ungenerate,
it is allowable for us to drop it, and use Ungen-
erate instead; thus, the Ungenerate is Ungene-
rate of the Son ; for as the Ungenerate is Father
of the Son, so, reversely, the Father is Ungen-
erate of the Son." But let us turn the laugh
against him, by reversing his quibble ; thus: If
Father is not the same as Ungenerate, the Son
of the Father will not be Son of the Ungen-
erate ; for having relation to the Father only,
he will be altogether alien in nature to that
which is other than Father, and does not suit
that idea ; so that, if the Father is some-
thing other than the Ungenerate, and the title
Father does not comprehend that meaning, the
Son, being One, cannot be distributed between
these two relationships, and be at the same time
Son both of the Father and of the Ungenerate ;
and, as before it was an acknowledged absur-
dity to speak of the Deity as Ungenerate of the
Son, so in this converse proposition it will be
found an absurdity just as great to call the
Only-begotten Son of the Ungenerate. So
that he must choose one of two things ; either
the Father is the same as the Ungenerate
(which is necessary in order that the Son of the
Father may be Son of the Ungenerate as well) ;
and then our doctrine has been ridiculed by
him without reason ; or, the Father is some-
thing different to the Ungenerate, and the Son
of the Father is alienated from all relationship
to the Ungenerate. But then, if it is thus to
hold that the Only-begotten is not the Son of
the Ungenerate, logic inevitably points to a
" generated Father ;" for that which exists, but
does not exist without generation, must have
a generated substance. If, then, the Father,
being according to these men other than
Ungenerate, is therefore generated, where is
their much talked of Ungeneracy? Where
is that basis and foundation of their heretical
castle-building? The Ungenerate, which they
thought just now that they grasped, has
eluded them, and vanished quite beneath
the action of a few barren syllogisms ; their
would-be demonstration of the Unlikeness, like
a mere dream about something, slips away at
the touch of criticism, and takes its flight
along with this Ungenerate.

Thus it is that whenever a falsehood is wel- '
corned in preference to the truth, it may indeed
flourish for a little through the illusion which
it creates, but it will soon collapse ; its own
methods of proof will dissolve it. But we
bring this forward only to raise a smile at the
very pretty revenge we might take on their
Utdikeness. We must now resume the main
thread of our discourse.

AGAINST EUNOMTUS. "ROOK

§ 39. Answer to the question he is always asking,
" Can He 7cho is he begotten ? "

Eunomius does not like the meaning of the
Ungenerate to be conveyed by the term Father,
because he wants to establish that there was a
time when the Son was not. It is in fact a
constant question amongst his pupils, " How
can He who (always) is be begotten ?" This
comes, I take it, of not weaning oneself from
the human application of words, when we
have to think about God. But let us with-
out bitterness at once expose the actual false-
ness of this ' arriere pensee ' of his2, stating
first our conclusions upon the matter.

These names have a different meaning with
us, Eunomius ; when we come to the trans-
cendent energies they yield another sense.
Wide, indeed, is the interval in all else that
divides the human from the divine ; experi-
ence cannot point here below to anything at
all resembling in amount what we may guess
at and imagine there. So likewise, as regards
the meaning of our terms, though there
may be, so far as words go, some likeness
between man and the Eternal, yet the gulf
between these two worlds is the real measure
of the separation of meanings. For instance,
our Lord calls God a ' man ' that was a ' house-
holder ' in the parable 3 ; but though this title is
ever so familiar to us, will the person we think
of and the person there meant be of the same
description ; and will our ' house' be the same
as that large house, in which, as the Apostle
says, there are the vessels of gold, and those of
silver*, and those of the other materials which
are recounted ? Or will not those rather be be-
yond our immediate apprehension and to be
contemplated in a blessed immortality, while
ours are earthern, and to dissolve to earth ?
So in almost all the other terms there is a simi-
larity of names between things human and things
divine, revealing nevertheless underneath this
sameness a wide difference of meanings. We
find alike in both worlds the mention of bodily
limbs and senses; as with us, so with the life
of God, which all allow to be above sense,
there are set down in order fingers and arm
and hand, eye and eyelids, hearing, heart, feet
and sandals, horses, cavalry, and chariots ; and
other metaphors innumerable are taken from
human life to illustrate symbolically divine things.
As, then, each one of these names has a human
sound, but not a human meaning, so also that
of Father, while applying equally to life divine
and human, hides a distinction between the
uttered meanings exactly proportionate to the

2 auTO to 7re7rAao>iei>oi> rij'S U7roeoias.
3 the parable, i.e. of the Tares. Matthew xiii. 27: cf. v. 52.
4 2 Tim. ii. 20.

difference existing between the subjects of this
title. We think of man's generation one
way ; we surmise of the divine generation in
another. A man is born in a stated time; and
a particular place must be the receptacle of
his life ; without it it is not in nature that he
should have any concrete substance : whence
also it is inevitable that sections of time are
found enveloping his life ; there is a Before,
and With, and After him. It is true to say
of any one whatever of those born into this
world that there was a time when he was
not, that he is now, and again there will be
time when he will cease to exist ; but into
the Eternal world these ideas of time do not
enter ; to a sober thinker they have nothing
akin to that world. He who considers what
the divine life really is will get beyond the
' sometime,' the ' before,' and the ' after,' and
every mark whatever of this extension in time;
he will have lofty views upon a subject so
lofty; nor will he deem that the Absolute is
bound by those laws which he observes to be
in force in human generation.

Passion precedes the concrete existence
of man ; certain material foundations are laid
for the formation of the living creature; beneath
it all is Nature, by God's will, with her wonder-
working, putting everything under contribution
for the proper proportion of nutrition for that
which is to be born, taking from each terrestrial
element the amount necessary for the particular
case, receiving the co-operation of a measured
time, and as much of the food of the parents
as is necessary for the formation of the child :
in a word Nature, advancing through all these
processes by which a human life is built up,
brings the non-existent to the birth ; and
accordingly we say that, non-existent once, it
now is born ; because, at one time not being,
at another it begins to be. But when it comes
to the Divine generation the mind rejects this
ministration oi Nature, and this fulness ot time
in contributing to the development, and every-
thing else which our argument contemplated
as taking place in human generation ; and
he who enters on divine topics with no carnal
conceptions will not fall down again to the
level of any of those debasing thoughts,
but seeks for one in keeping with the
majesty of the thing to be expressed ; he will
not think of passion in connexion with that
which is passionless, or count the Creator of
all Nature as in need of Nature's help, or
admit extension in time into the Eternal life ;
he will see that the Divine generation is to be
cleared of all such ideas, and will allow to the
title 'Father' only the meaning that the Only-
begotten is not Himself without a source, but de-
rives from That the cause of His being ; thougn,

<r-A

GREGORY OF NYSSA

as for the actual beginning of His subsistence,
he will not calculate that, because he will not
be able to see any sign of the thing in ques-
tion. ' Older ' and ' younger ' and all such
notions are found to involve intervals of time ;
and so, when you mentally abstract time in
general, all such indications are got rid of
along with it.

Since, then, He who is with the Father, in
some inconceivable category, before the ages
admits not of a ' sometime,' He exists by gene-
ration indeed, but nevertheless He never begins
to exist. His life is neither in time, nor in
place. But when we take away these and
all suchlike ideas in contemplating the sub-
sistence of the Son, there is only one thing
that we can even think of as before Him — i.e.
the Father. But the Only-begotten, as He
Himself has told us, is in the Father, and so,
from His nature, is not open to the supposition
that He ever existed not. If indeed the
Father ever was not, the eternity of the Son
must be cancelled retrospectively in conse-
quence of this nothingness of the Father: but
if the Father is always, how can the Son ever
be non-existent, when He cannot be thought of
at all by Himself apart from the Father, but is
always implied silently in the name Father.
This name in fact conveys the two Persons
/equally; the idea of the Son is inevitably
suggested by that word. When was it, then,
that the Son was not? In what category shall
we detect His non-existence? In place? There
is none. In time? Our Lord was before all
times ; and if so, when was He not ? And if
He was in the Father, in what place was He
not ? Tell us that, ye who are so practised in
seeing things out of sight. What kind of
interval have your cogitations given a shape
to? What vacancy in the Son, be it of sub-
stance or of conception, have you been able
to think of, which shows the Father's life,
when drawn out in parallel, as surpassing
that of the Only-begotten ? Why, even of
men we cannot say absolutely that any one
was not, and then was born. Levi, many
generations before his own birth in the flesh,
was tithed by Melchisedech ; so the Apostle
says, " Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed
tithes (in Abraham)," 5 adding the proof, "for
he was yet in the loins of his father, when "
Abraham met the priest of the Most High.
If, then, a man in a certain sense is not, and
is then born, having existed beforehand by
virtue of kinship of substance in his progenitor,
according to an Apostle's testimony, how as
to the Divine life do they dare to utter the
thought that He was not, and then was

5 Heb. vii. 9, 10 ; Genesis xiv. 18.

begotten ? For He ' is in the Father,' as our
Lord has told us; "I am in the Father, and
the Father in Me6," each of course being in
the other in two different senses ; the Son
being in the Father as the beauty of the image
is to be found in the form from which it has
been outlined ; and the Father in the Son,
as that original beauty is to be found in
the image of itself. Now in all hand-made
images the interval of time is a point of
separation between the model and that to
which it lends its form ; but there the one
cannot be separated from the other, neither
the " express image " from the " Person,"
to use the Apostle's words?, nor the "bright-
ness" from the "glory" of God, nor the
representation from the goodness ; but when
once thought has grasped one of these, it has
admitted the associated Verity as well.
" Being" he says (not becoming), "the bright-
ness of His glory8;" so that clearly we may
rid ourselves for ever of the blasphemy which
lurks in either of those two conceptions ;
viz., that the Only-begotten can be thought
of as Ungenerate (for he says "the brightness
of His glory," the brightness coming from the
glory, and not, reversely, the glory from the
brightness) ; or that He ever began to be.
For the word "being" is a witness that
interprets to us the Son's continuity and
eternity and superiority to all marks of time.

What occasion, then, had our foes for pro-
posing for the damage of our Faith that
trifling question, which they think unan-
swerable and, so, a proving of their own
doctrine, and which they are continually,
asking, namely, ' whether One who is can be
generated.' We may boldly answer them at
once, that He who is in the Ungenerate was
generated from Him. and does derive His
source from Him. ' I live by the Father 9 :'
but it is impossible to name the ' when ' of
His beginning. When there is no intermediate
matter, or idea, or interval of time, to separate
the being of the Son from the Father, no
symbol can be thought of, either, by which
the Only-begotten can be unlinked from the
Father's life, and shewn to proceed from some
special source of His own. If, then, there is
no other principle that guides the Son's life,
if there is nothing that a devout mind can
contemplate before (but not divided from) the
subsistence of the Son, but the Father only ;
and if the Father is without beginning or
generation, as even our adversaries admit,
how can He who can be contemplated only
within the Father, who is without beginning,
admit Himself of a beginning?

6 John x. 38. 7 Heb. i. .

* Heb. i. 3. (if, not ytvofitvos). 9 John iv. 57.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

What harm, too, does our Faith suffer from our
admitting those expressions of our opponents
which they bring forward against us as absurd,
when thry ask 'whether He which is can be
begotten ? * We do not assert that this can be
so in the sense in which Nicodemus put his
offensive question x, wherein he thought it
impossible that one who was in existence
could come to a second birth : but we assert
that, having His existence attached to an
Existence which is always and is without begin-
ning, and accompanying every investigator into
the antiquities of time, and forestalling the
curiosity of thought as it advances into the
world beyond, and intimately blended as He
is with all our conceptions of the Father,
He has no beginning of His existence any
more than He is Ungenerate : but He was
both begotten and was, evincing on the
score of causation generation from the Father,
but by virtue of His everlasting life repelling
any moment of non-existence.

But this thinker in his exceeding subtlety
contravenes this statement ; he sunders the
being of the Only-begotten from the Father's
nature, on the ground of one being Generated,
the other Ungenerate ; and although there are
such a number of names which with reverence
may be applied to the Deity, and all of them
suitable to both Persons equally, he pays no at-
tention to anyone of them, because these others
indicate that in which Both participate ; he
fastens on the name Ungenerate, and that
alone ; and even of this he will not adopt
the usual and approved meaning; he revolu-
tionizes the conception of it, and cancels
its common associations. Whatever can be
the reason of this? For without some very
strong one he would not wrest language
away from its accepted meaning, and in-
novate2 by changing the signification of
words. He knows perfectly well that if
their meaning was confined to the customary
one he would have no power to subvert the
sound doctrine ; but that if such terms are
perverted from their common and current
acceptation, he will be able to spoil the
doctrine along with the word. For instance
{to come to the actual words which he mis-
uses), if, according to the common thinking
of our Faith he had allowed that God was to be
called Ungenerate only because He was never
generated, the whole fabric of his heresy would
have collapsed, with the withdrawal of his quib-
bling about this Ungenerate. If, that is, he was
to be persuaded, by following out the analogy
of almost all the names of God in use for the
Church, to think of the God over alias Ungen-

1 John iii. 4.

1 £«ei£eL, intrans. N.T. Polyb. Luciati.

erate, just as He is invisible, and passionless,
and immaterial ; and if he was agreed that in
every one of these terms there was signified
only that which in no way belongs to God —
body, for instance, and passion and colour,
and derivation from a cause — then, if his view
of the case had been like that, his party's
tenet of the Unlikeness would lose its meaning;
for in all else (except the Ungeneracy) that
is conceived concerning the God of all even
these adversaries allow the likeness existing be-
tween the Only begotten and the Father. But
to prevent this, he puts the term Ungenerate
in front of all these names indicating God's
transcendent nature ; and he makes this one
a vantage-ground from which he may sweep
down upon our Faith ; he transfers the con-
trariety between the actual expressions ' Gen-
erated ' and ' Ungenerate ' to the Persons
themselves to whom these words apply ; and
thereby, by this difference between the words
he argues by a quibble for a difference between
the Beings ; not agreeing with us that Gene-
rated is to be used only because the Son was
generated, and Ungenerate because the Father
exists without having been generated ; but
affirming that he thinks the former has ac-
quired existence by having been generated ;
though what sort of philosophy leads him to
such a view I cannot understand. If one were
to attend to the mere meanings of those words
by themselves, abstracting in thought those
Persons for whom the names are taken to
stand, one would discover the groundlessness
of these statements of theirs. Consider, then,
not that, in consequence of the Father being
a conception prior to the Son (as the Faith
truly teaches), the order of the names them-
selves must be arranged so as to correspond
with the value and order of that which underlies
them ; but regard them alone by themselves,
to see which of them (the word, I repeat, no:
the Reality which it represents) is to be
placed before the other as a conception of
our mind; which of the two conveys the
assertion of an idea, which the negation or
the same; for instance (to be clear, I think
similar pairs of words will give my meaning),
Knowledge, Ignorance — Passion, Passionless-
ness — and suchlike contrasts, which ot them
possess priority of conception before the
others? Those which posit the negation, or
those which posit the assertion of the said
quality? I take it the latter do so. Know-
ledge, anger, passion, are conceived of t.rst ;
and then comes the negation of these i eas.
And let no one, in his excess of devoti n 3f
blame this argument, as if it would put the

3 i0eKo9pr)<TKe«K, " will worship.'

GREGORY OF NYSSA

Son before the Father. We are not making
out that the Son is to be placed in conception
before the Father, seeing that the argument
is discriminating only the meanings of ' Gene-
rated,'and 'Ungenerate.' So Generation sig-
nifies the assertion of some reality or some
idea ; while Ungeneracy signifies its negation ;

■ so that there is every reason that Generation
must be thought of first. Why, then, do they
insist herein on fixing on the Father the
second, in order of conception, of these two

• names ; why do they keep on thinking that
a negation can define and can embrace the
whole substance of the term in question,
and are roused to exasperation against those
who point out the groundlessness of their
arguments ?

§ 40. His unsuccessful attempt to be consistent
with his own statements after Basil has con-
futed him.

For notice how bitter he is against one who
did detect the rottenness and weakness of his
work of mischief; how he revenges himself all he
can, and that is only by abuse and vilification :
in these, however, he possesses abundant abil-
ity. Those who would give elegance of style
to a discourse have a way of filling out the
places that want rhythm with certain conjunc-
tive particles *, whereby they introduce more
euphony and connexion into the assembly of
their phrases ; so does Eunomius garnish his
work with abusive epithets in most of his
passages, as though he wished to make a dis-
play of this overflowing power of invective.
Again we are ' fools,' again we ' fail in correct
reasoning,' and 'meddle in the controversy
without the preparation which its importance
requires,' and ' miss the speaker's meaning.'
Such, and still more than these, are the
phrases used of our Master by this decorous
orator. But perhaps after all there is good
reason in his anger ; and this pamphleteer
is justly indignant. For why should Basil
have stung him by thus exposing the weak-
ness of this teaching of his ? Why should
he have uncovered to the sight of the sim-
pler brethren the blasphemy veiled beneath

4 conjunctive particles, crvvStanoi. In Aristotle's Poetics (xx. 6),
these are reckoned as one ot the 8 'parts of speech.' The term
o-ui/o"eo-j*os is illustrated by the examples fikv, tjtoi, 6"rj, which leaves
no doubt that it includes at all events conjunctions and particles.
Its general character is defined in his Rhetoric ill. 12, 4: "It
makes many (sentences) one." Harris (Hermes ii. c. 2), thus
defines a conjunction, ,-A part of speech devoid of signification
itself, but so formed as to help signification by making two or more
significant sentences to be one significant sentence," a definition
which manifestly comes from Aristotle.

The comparison here seems to be between these constantly
recurring particles, themselves ' devoid of signification,' in an
'elegant 'discourse, and the perpetually used epithets, " fools," &c,
which, though utterly meaningless, serve to connect his dislocated
paragraphs. The 'asseml ly' (cnii/ajis, always of the synagogue
or the Communion. See Suicer) of his words is brought, it is
i. jnically implied, into some sort of harmony by these means.

his plausible sophistries ? Why should he not
have let silence cover the unsoundness of this
view? Why gibbet the wretched man, when
he ought to have pitied him, and kept the veil
over the indecency of his argument? He actu-
ally finds out and makes a spectacle of one who
has somehow got to be admired amongst his
private pupils for cleverness and shrewdness !
Eunomius had said somewhere in his works that
the attribute of being ungenerate "follows" the
deity. Our Master remarked upon this phrase
of his that a thing which " follows " must be
amongst the externals, whereas the actual
Being is not one of these, but indicates the
very existence of anything, so far as it does
exist. Then this gentle yet unconquerable
opponent is furious, and pours along a copious
stream of invective, because our Master, on
hearing that phrase, apprehended the sense of it
as well. But what did he do wrong, if he firmly
insisted only upon the meaning of your own
writings. If indeed he had seized illogically on
what was said, all that you say would be true,
and we should have to ignore what he did ;
but seeing that you are blushing at his reproof,
why do you not erase the word from your
pamphlet, instead of abusing the reprover?
' Yes, but he did not understand the drift of
the argument. Well, how do we do wrong, if
being human, we guessed at the meaning from
your actual words, having no comprehension
of that which was buried in your heart ? It is
for God to see the inscrutable, and to inspect
the characters of that which we have no means
of comprehending, and to be cognizant of
unlikeness s in the invisible world. We can
only judge by what we hear.

§41. The thing that follo7c>s is not the same as
the thing that it follows.

He first says, " the attribute of being un-
generate follows the Deity." By that we un-
derstood him to mean that this Ungeneracy is
one of the things external to God. Then he
says, " Or rather this Ungeneracy is His actual
being." We fail to understand the 'sequitur'
of this ; we notice in fact something very queer
and incongruous about it. If Ungeneracy
follows God, and yet also constitutes His being,
two beings will be attributed to one and the
same subject in this view ; so that God will be
in the same way as He was before and has
always been believed to be6, but besides that
will have another being accompanying, which

5 A hit at the Anomceans. 'Your subtle distinctions, in the
invisible world of your own mind, between the meanings of
"following" are like the uniikenesses which you see between
the Three Persons.'

6 uj? elvat fieu top ©for (card Taiirbv a>5 «U'at rrore (infinitive
by attraction to preceding) ko.1 tivai ireirtcrreuTcu.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

they style Ungeneracy, quite distinct from Him
Whose 'following' it is, as our Master puts it.
Well, if he commands us to think so, he must
pardon our poverty of ideas, in not being able
to follow out such subtle speculations.

But if he disowns this view, and does not
admit a double being in the Deity, one repre-
sented by the godhead, the other by the
ungeneracy, let our friend, who is himself
neither ' rash ' nor ' malignant,' prevail upon
himself not to be over partial to invective
while these combats for the truth are being
fought, but to explain to us, who are so
wanting in culture, how that which follows is
not one thing and that which leads another,
but how both coalesce into one ; for, in spite
of what he says in defence of his statement,
the absurdity of it remains ; and the addition
of that handful of words? does not correct, as he
asserts, the contradiction in it. I have not yet
been able to see that any explanation at all is
discoverable in them. But we will give what
he has written verbatim. " We say, ' or rather
the Ungeneracy is His actual being,' without
meaning to contract into the being8 that which
we have proved to follow it, but applying
' follow ' to the title, but is to the being." Ac-
cordingly when these things are taken together,
•the whole resulting argument would be, that the
title Ungenerate follows, because to be Ugene-
rate is His actual being. But what expounder
of this expounding shall we get? He says "with-
out meaning tocontract intothe beingthatwhich
we have proved to follow it." Perhaps some
of the guessers of riddles might tell us that by
' contract into ' he means ' fastening together.'
But who can see anything intelligible or co-
herent in the rest ? The results of ' following '
belong, he tells us, not to the being, but to
the title. But, most learned sir, what is the
title ? Is it in discord with the being, or does
it not rather coincide with it in the thinking?
If the title is inappropriate to the being, then
how can the being be represented by the title ;
but if, as he himself phrases it, the being is
fittingly defined by the title of Ungenerate, how
can there be any parting of them after that ?
You make the name of the being follow one
thing and the being itself another. And
what then is the ' construction of the en-
tire view?' "The title Ungenerate follows
God, seeing that He Himself is Ungenerate."
He says that there 'follows ' God, Who is some-
thing other than that which is Ungenerate,
this very title. Then how can he place the
definition of Godhead within the Ungeneracy?

7 ivapi8fj.riTaiv p77ju.a.7w. But it is nossible that the true read
ing may be tvpvB/j.uji', alluding to the ' rhythm ' in the forrn of
abuse with which Eunomius connected his arguments (preceding
section).

8 ovk eis to eivai crvraipoCi'Tes.

Again, he says that this title ' follows ' God as
existing without a previous generation. Who
will solve us the mystery of such riddles?
' Ungenerate ' preceding and then following ;
first a fittingly attached title of the being,
and then following like a stranger! What,
too, is the cause oi this excessive flutter
about this name ; he gives to it the whole
contents of godhead 9; as if there will be
nothing wanting in our adoration, if God be so
named ; and as if the whole system of our
faith will be endangered, if He is not? Now,
if a brief statement about this should not be
deemed superfluous and irrelevant, we will
thus explain the matter.

§ 42. Explanation of ' Ungenerate] and

a ' study ' of Eternity.
The eternity of God's life, to sketch it in
mere outline, is on this wise. He is always to
be apprehended as in existence ; He admits
not a time when He was not, and when
He will not be. Those who draw a circular
figure in plane geometry from a centre
to the distance of the line of circumference
tell us there is no definite beginning to
their figure ; and that the line is interrupted
by no ascertained end any more than by any
visible commencement : they say that, as it
forms a single whole in itself with equal
radii on all sides, it avoids giving any indica-
tion of beginning or ending. When, then, we
compare the Infinite being to such a figure,
circumscribed though it be, let none find fault
with this account ; for it is not on the
circumference, but on the similarity which
the figure bears to the Life which in every
direction eludes the grasp, that we fix our
attention when we affirm that such is our
intuition of the Eternal. From the present
instant, as from a centre and a "point," we
extend thought in all directions, to the im-
mensity of that Life. We find that we are
drawn round uninterruptedly and evenly, and
that we are always following a circumference
where there is nothing to grasp; we find
the divine life returning upon itself in an
unbroken continuity, where no end and no
parts can be recognized. Of God's eternity

9 He gives to it the whole contents of godhead. It was the
central point in Eunomius' system that by the 'Ayexvrjo-t'a we car*
comprehend the Divine Nature ; he trusts entirely to the Aris-
totelian divisions (logical) and sub-divisions. A mere word (yev-
i/tjtos) was thus allowed to destroy the equality of the Son. It was
almost inevitable, therefore, that his opponent, as a defender of the
Homoousion, should occasionally fall back so far upon Plato, as
to maintain that opposites are joined and are identical with each
other, i.e. that yeVirjo-is and ayevviqaia are not truly opposed to
each other. Another method of combating this excessive insistence
on the physical and logical was, to bring forward the ethical
realities ; and this Gregory does constantly throughout this treatise.
We are to know God by Wisdom, and Truth, and Righteousness.
Only occasionally (as in the next section) does he speak of the
' eternity ' of God : and here only because Eunomius has obliged
him, and in order to show that the idea is made up of two nega-
tions, and nothing more.

VOL. V.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

we say that which we have heard from
prophecy1 ; viz.. that God is a king "of old,"
and rules for ages, and for ever, and beyond.
Therefore we define Him to be earlier than
any beginning, and exceeding any end. En-
tertaining, then, this idea of the Almighty, as
one that is adequate, we express it by two
titles ; i.e., ' Ungenerate ' and 'Endless ' repre-
sent this infinitude and continuity and ever-
lastingness of the Deity. If we adopted only
one of them for our idea, and if the remaining
•one was dropped, our meaning would be
marred by this omission ; for it is impossible
with either one of them singly 2 to express the
notion residing in each of the two ; but when
one speaks of the ' endless,' only the absence as
regards an end has been indicated, and it does
not follow that any hint has been given about
a beginning ; while, when one speaks of the
' Unoriginate3,' the fact of being beyond a
beginning has been expressed, but the case as
regards an end has been left quite doubtful.

Seeing, then, that these two titles equally
help to express the eternity of the divine life,
it is high time to inquire why our friends cut
in two the complete meaning of this eternity,
:and declare that the one meaning, which is the
negation of beginning, constitutes God's being
'(instead of merely forming part of the definition
of eternity*), while they consider the other,
which is the negation of end, as amongst the
•externals of that being. It is difficult to see
the reason for thus assigning the negation of
beginning to the realm of being, while they
;banish the negation of end outside that realm.
The two are our conceptions of the same thing ;
and, therefore, either both should be admitted
to the definition of being, or, if the one is
to be judged inadmissible, the other should
he rejected also. If, however, they are deter-
mined thus to divide the thought of eternity,
.and to make the one fall within the realm
•of that being, and to reckon the other with
the non realities of Deity (for the thoughts
which they adopt on this subject are grovelling,
and, like birds who have shed their feathers,
they are unable to soar into the sublimities of
theology), I would advise them to reverse their
teaching, and to count the unending as being,
•overlooking the unoriginate rather, and assign-
ing the palm to that which is future and excites
hope, rather than to that which is past and
stale. Seeing, I say (and I speak thus owing
to their narrowness of spirit, and lower the dis-
cussion to the level of a child's conception), the
past period of his life is nothing to him who

* from prophecy. Psalm x. 16.
aiuca, kcu ei? Toy aiupa rou aiun-us;
fiiaiXtus «if top aXvtva' lxxiv. 12.
uiuvof . » ivos Tiyos toutwk.

4 oil irfpi to ai6iof 0eu>oei<rO(u.

Bao*iAtuo*€i Ki/pios eic toc
xxix. in. Kadietrat Kvpio?

3 " i <i/j \>tv

has lived it, and all his interest is centred on
the future and on that which can be looked
forward to, that which has no end will have
more value than that which has no beginning.
So let our thoughts upon the divine nature be
worthy and exalted ones ; or else, if they are
going to judge of it according to human tests,
let the future be more valued by them than the
past, and let them confine the being of the
Deity to that, since time's lapse sweeps away
with it all existence in the past, whereas ex-
pected existence gains substance from our
hope5.

Now I broach these ridiculously childish
suggestions as to children sitting in the market-
place and playing6 ; for when one looks into the
grovelling earthliness of their heretical teaching
it is impossible to help falling into a sort of
sportive childishness. It would be right, how-
ever, to add this to what we have said, viz.,
that, as the idea of eternity is completed only
by means of both (as we have already argued),
by the negation of a beginning and also by
that of an end, if they confine God's being to
the one, their definition of this being will be
manifestly imperfect and curtailed by half; it
is thought of only by the absence of beginning,
and does not contain the absence of end within
itself as an essential element. But if they do
combine both negations, and so complete their
definition of the being of God, observe, again,
the absurdity that is at once apparent in this
view ; it will be found, after all their efforts, to
be at variance not only with the Only-begotten,
but with itself. The case is clear and does not
require much dwelling upon. The idea of a
beginning and the idea of an end are opposed
each to each ; the meanings of each differ as
widely as the other diametric oppositions?,
where there is no half-way proposition below 8.
If any one is asked to define ' beginning,' he
will not rive a definition the same as that of
end ; but will carry his definition of it to the
opposite extremity. Therefore also the two

5 Cf. Heb. xi. I, of faith, e\Tn£ofievu>v iiTroorao-it rrpayixdriav.

6 Luke vii. 32.

7 Kara. Stafierpov oAAjjAois apTtxei/u-eVuc, i.e. Contradictories
in Logic.

A Contraries. £

I (Sub)-contraries. O

8 As in A or £, both of which have the Particular below them
(I or O) as a half-way to the contrary Universal. Thus —
A I E

All men are mortal. Some men are mortal. No men are mortal.

E O A

No men are mortal. Some men are not mortal. All men are mortal.
But between A and O, E and 1. there is no halfway.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK I.

contraries'* of these will be separated from each
other by the same distance of opposition ; and
that which is without beginning, being contrary
to that which is to be seen by a beginning, will
be a very different thing from that which is
endless, or the negation of end. If, then,
they import both these attributes into the
being of God, I mean the negations of end
and of beginning, they will exhibit this Deity
of theirs as a combination of two contra-
dictory and discordant things, because the con-
trary ideas to beginning and end reproduce on
their side also the contradiction existing between
beginning and end. Contraries of contradic-
tories are themselves contradictory of each
other. In fact, it is always a true axiom, that
two things which are naturally opposed to two
things mutually opposite are themselves op-
posed to each other ; as we may see by exam-
ple. Water is opposed to fire ; therefore also
the forces destructive of these are opposed
to each other; if moistness is apt to extinguish
fire, and dryness is apt to destroy water, the
opposition of fire to water is continued in those
qualities themselves which are contrary to
them ; so that dryness is plainly opposed to
moistness. Thus, when beginning and end
have to be placed (diametrically) opposite each
other1, the terms contrary to these also contra-
dict each other in their meaning, I mean, the
negations of end and of beginning. Well,
then, if they determine that one only of these
negations is indicative of the being (to repeat
my former assertion), they will bear evidence to
half only of God's existence, confining it to the
absence of beginning, and refusing to extend it
to the absence of end ; whereas, if they import
both into their definition of it, they will actually
exhibit it so as a combination of contradictions
in the way that has been said ; for these two
negations of beginning and of end, by virtue
of the contradiction existing between beginning
and end, will part it asunder. So their Deity
will be found to be a sort of patchwork com-
pound, a conglomerate of contradictions.

But there is not, neither shall there be, in the
Church of God a teaching such as that, which
can make One who is single and incomposite
not only multiform and patchwork, but also

• Beginning (Contraries) Beginningless,

Endless (Contraries) Ending.
1 vnevavriiat Siaxeifitvuv . The same term has been used to
express the opposition between Ungenerate and Generated : so that
it means both Oppositions, i.e. Contraries and Contradictories.

the combination of opposites. The simplicity
of the True Faith assumes God to be that
which He is, viz., incapable of being grasped
by any term, or any idea, or any other device
of our apprehension, remaining beyond the
reach not only of the human but of the angelic
and of all supramundane intelligence, unthink-
able, unutterable, above all expression in words,
having but one name that can represent His
proper nature, the single name of being
' Above every name 2 ' ; which is granted to the
Only-begotten also, because "all that the
Father hath is the Son's." The orthodox
theory allows these words, I mean " Ungen-
erate," "Endless," to be indicative of God's
eternity, but not of His being ; so that " Ungen-
erate" means that no source or cause lies
beyond Him, and " Endless " means that His
kingdom will be brought to a standstill in no
end. " Thou art the same," the prophet says,
"and Thy years shall not fail 3," showing by
"art" that He subsists out of no cause, and
by the words following, that the blessedness
of His life is ceaseless and unending.

But, perhaps, some one amongst even very
religious people will pause over these investi-
gations of ours upon God's eternity, and say
that it will be difficult from what we have
said for the Faith in the Only-begotten to
escape unhurt. Of two unacceptable doc-
trines, he will say, our account* must in-
evitably be brought into contact with one.
Either we shall make out that the Son is
Ungenerate, which is absurd ; or else we shall
deny Him Eternity altogether, a denial which
that fraternity of blasphemers make their spe-
cialty. For if Eternity is characterized by
having no beginning and end, it is inevitable
either that we must be impious and deny
the Son Eternity, or that we must be led in
our secret thoughts about Him into the idea
of Ungeneracy. What, then, shall we answer ?
That if, in conceiving of the Father before
the Son on the single score of causation,
we inserted any mark of time before the sub-
sistence of the Only-begotten, the belief which
we have in the Son's eternity might with reason
be said to be endangered. But, as it is„ the
Eternal nature, equally in the case of the
Father's and the Son's life, and, as well, in
what we believe about the Holy Ghost, admits
not of the thought that it will ever cease to
be; for where time is not, the "when" is an-
nihilated with it And if the Son, always ap

* Philip, ii. 9. oyofia to vtrep nav oMOju.a. 3 Psalm cii. 27.

* Adopting 6 Aoyo? from the Venice Cod. (eel navTios 6 Adyoc
trvvev<i\$r]aiTax) . The verb cannot be impersonal : and tis above,
the only available nominative, does not suit tiie sense veiy well.

Gregory constructs this scheme of Opposition after the analogy
of Logical Opposition. Beginning is not so opposed to Beginning-
less, as it is to Ending, because with the latter there is no half-way,
i.e. no word of definition in common.

H 2

10O

GREGORY OF NYSSA, ETC.

pearing with the thought of the Father, is
always found in the category of existence,
what danger is there in owning the Eternity
of the Only-begotten, Who " hath neither be-
ginning of days, nor end of life s." For as
He is Light from Light, Life from Life, Good
from Good, and Wise, Just, Strong, and all
else in the same way, so most certainly is
He Eternal from Eternal.

But a lover of controversial wrangling
catches up the argument, on the ground
that such a sequence would make Him Un-
generate from Ungenerate. Let him, however,
cool his combative heart, and insist upon the
proper expressions, for in confessing His
'coming from the Father' he has banished all
ideas of Ungeneracy as regards the Only-
begotten ; and there will be then no danger in
pronouncing Him Eternal and yet not Ungen-
erate. On the one hand, because the existence
of the Son is not marked by any intervals of
time, and the infinitude of His life flows back
before the ages and onward beyond them in
an all-pervading tide, He is properly ad-
dressed with the title of Eternal; again, on the

5 Hcb. vii. 3.

other hand, because the thought of Him as
Son in fact and title gives us the thought of the
Father as inalienably joined to it. He thereby
stands clear of an ungenerate existence being
imputed to Him, while He is always with a
Father Who always is, as those inspired words
of our Master expressed it, "bound by way of
generation to His Father's Ungeneracy." Our
account of the Holy Ghost will be the same
also ; the difference is only in the place
assigned in order. For as the Son is bound
to the Father, and, while deriving existence
from Him, is not substantially after Him, so
again the Holy Spirit is in touch with the Only-
begotten, Who is conceived of as before the
Spirit's subsistence only in the theoretical light
of a cause6. Extensions in time find no ad-
mittance in the Eternal Life ; so that, when
we have removed the thought of cause, the
Holy Trinity in no single way exhibits discord
with itself; and to It is glory due.

6 Tbci-rjs acTt'as \6you. This is much more probably the meaning,
because of before above, than "on the score of the different kind
of causation" (Non omne quod procedat nascitur, quamvis omne
procedat quod nascitur. S August.). It isa direct testimony to the
'Filioque' belief. "The Spirit comes forth with the Word, not
begotten with Him, but being with and accompanying and pro-
ceeding from Him." Thcodoret. Serm. II.

NOTE ON AyivvrjTos (Ungenerate).

The difference between the Father and the Son is contained in this one word. But what Gregory and
what Eunomius make of that difference illustrates the gulf fixed between the Catholic Faith and Arianism.

Gregory shows (1. c. Book I. c. 33, p. 78, viii. 5 (ad fin.), ix. 2) how the Son as well as the Father can be
called avapxos (unoriginate or beginningless), i.e. when the ideas of time and creation are brought in ; but the
Son can never be called Ungenerate. But he goes no further than this. No word can express the being of
God. Gregory repeatedly maintains that He is incomprehensible. 'Ungenerate' and 'Father' only express
a relation of His being (<TxeT'KV twoia.) : but of the two the latter is preferable, as Scriptural, and as lending
no handle to the interpretation which from its mere form could be put upon the other.

Eunomius did actually put this interpretation upon it, and it became the watchword of his system. He made
of it what many now make of the word ' Infinite.' He saw in it the expression of a positive idea which enabled
the mind to comprehend the Deity, and at the same time by virtue of the logical opposition between ungenerate
and generate destroyed not only the equality but also the likeness of the Father and the Son. As in all other
dichotomies- arising from privative terms (i.e. Imperishable, Unending, Uncreate, &c), the Trinity stands apart
from creation, so in this last dichotomy the First Person stands apart from the Second and the Third. It
was the only distinction of this sort that Arianism could seize on for its purpose : and so this one ('AyiviniTos)
is hypostatized and deified.

Gregory, to destroy the tyranny of a word, shows that all the conceivable attributes of Deity (the 7rX^o>/uo of
the New Testament) are still above the distinction of Ungenerate and Generate Deity, and are present in both :
just as human nature was present equally in the ' not-born' Adam, and the 'born' Abel. Christ is Very God of
Very God, Eight of Light, Life of Life, and all else, ethical or spiritual, that Scripture or human intuition has
ever attributed to God : only He is not Ungenerate of Ungenerate : and for the simple reason that the Generate
cannot be its own opposite. But this distinction is simply dynamic, not spiritual ; and in person, not in essence.

It will be clear from this that ' Ungenerate' is the only adequate equivalent of 'Ay4vi/r)Tos, as used in this
controversy. ' Not-begotten ' or ' Unbegotten ' as applicable to the Father only would confuse the doctrine of
the Third Person, Who is Himself also 'not made, nor created, nor begotten.' ' Ingenerate ' is not supported
by the Latin use (though ingenitus is used thus by Arnobius) ; ' Unoriginate' bears the sense of unbeginning, and
can be said of the Son (see above). Lastly, ' Not-generated ' does not furnish a corresponding idiomatic expression
for ' \"yevvrier(a.

With regard to the form of the Greek word, "it is very well known," says Bull, Def. Fid. Nic. ii. 296,
"that by the Greeks the words 7€v?jtos and ytvvr\Tos are used promiscuously; although the Catholic writers of
the Church for the most part, especially such as lived after the third century, distinguished more accurately be-
tween them, in the question of the divinity of the Son ;" but Lightfoot (Ignatius, vol. 2. p. 90 ff. 2nd edit.) has
shewn by many citations that such writers always felt the distinction between ayevrnros and aytrnros. Thus
'A7tVjjToj (unmade), but not 'Ayiworos, could be applied to the Son. But the instances in which the one word
has been miswritten or misprinted lor the other are too numerous to mention. Of course the contemporary
philosophy could not enter into this distinction : still it is worth noticing that Plotinus uses ay^vwros of the
Supreme Being: Ennead V. iii. (p. 517) ; and Celsus the Neoplatonist uses it of his eternal world (Origen,
e. Cels. according to the text of the Philocalia, i.e. the edition of Basil and Greg. Naz.).

BOOK II.

§ t. The second book declares the Incarnation of
God the Word, and the faith delivered by the
Lord to His disciples, and asserts that the
heretics who endeavour to overthrow this faith
and devise other additional names are of their
father the devil.

The Christian Faith, which in accordance
with the command of our Lord has been
preached to all nations by His disciples, is
neither of men, nor by men, but by our Lord
Jesus Christ Himself, Who being the Word, the
Life, the Light, the Truth, and God, and Wis-
dom, and all else that He is by nature, for this
cause above all was made in the likeness of
man, and shared our nature, becoming like us
in all things, yet without sin. He was like us in
all things, in that He took upon Him manhood
in its entirety with soul and body, so that our
salvation was accomplished by means of both :
—He, I say, appeared on earth and "conversed
with men I," that men might no longer have
opinions according to their own notions about
the Self-existent, formulating into a doctrine
the hints that come to them from vague con-
jectures, but that we might be convinced that
God has truly been manifested in the flesh, and
believe that to be the only true " mystery of
godliness2," which was delivered to tis by the
very Word and God, Who by Himself spake to
His Apostles, and that we might receive the
teaching concerning the transcendent nature
of the Deity which is given to us, as it were,
" through a glass darkly 3 " from the older
Scriptures, — from the Law, and the Prophets,
and the Sapiential Books, as an evidence of
the truth fully revealed to us, reverently ac-
cepting the meaning of the th.ngs which have
been spoken, so as to accord in the faith set
forth by the Lord of the whole Scriptures «,
which faith we guard as we received it, word
for word, in purity, without falsification,
judging even a slight divergence from the

1 Bar iii. 37. 2 1 Tim. iii. 16. 3 1 Cor. xiii. 12.

4 This is perhaps the force of tw oAwi/ : " the Lord of the Old
Covenant as well as of the New." But tiIii/ oKiav may mean simply
"the Universe."

words delivered to us an extreme blasphemy
and impiety. We believe, then, even as the
Lord set forth the Faith to His Disciples, when
He said, "Go, teach all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost5." This is the word of the
mystery whereby through the new birth from
above our nature is transformed from the cor-
ruptible to the incorruptible, being renewed
from "the old man," " according to the image
of Him who created6" at the beginning the
likeness to the Godhead. In the Faith then
which was delivered by God to the Apostles we
admit neither subtraction, nor alteration, nor
addition, knowing assuredly that he who pre-
sumes to pervert the Divine utterance by dis-
honest quibbling, the same "is of his father the
devil," who leaves the words of truth and
" speaks of his own," becoming the father of a
lie 7. For whatsoever is said otherwise than in
exact accord with the truth is assuredly false
and not true.

§ 2. Gregory then makes an explanation atle?igth
touching the eternal Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit.

Since then this doctrine is put forth by the
Truth itself, it follows that anything which the
inventors of pestilent heresies devise besides to
subvert this Divine utterance, — as, for example,
calling the Father " Maker" and " Creator" of
the Son instead of " Father," and the Son a
" result," a "creature," a " product," instead of
" Son," and the Holy Spirit the " creature of a
creature," and the "product of a product,"
instead of His proper title the " Spirit," and
whatever those who fight against God are
pleased to say of Him,—, all such fancies we
term a denial and violation of the Godhead
revealed to us in this doctrine. For once for
all we have learned from the Lord, through
Whom comes the transformation of our nature
from mortality to immortality, — from Him, I
say, we have learned to what we ought to look

5 S. Matt, xxviii. 19. 6 Cf. Col. iii.

7 Cf. S. John viii. 44.

102

GREGORY OF NYSSA

with the eyes of our understanding, — that is,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We
say that it is a terrible and soul-destroying
thing to misinterpret these Divine utterances
and to devise in their stead assertions to sub-
vert them, — assertions pretending to correct
God the Word, Who appointed that we should
maintain these statements as part of our faith.
For each of these titles understood in its
natural sense becomes for Christians a rule of
truth and a law of piety. For while there are
many other names by which Deity is indicated
in the Historical Books, in the Prophets and in
the Law, our Master Christ passes by all these
and commits to us these titles as better able to
bring us to the faith about the Self Existent,
declaring that it suffices us to cling to the title,
" Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," in order to
attain to the apprehension of Him Who is
absolutely Existent, Who is one and yet not
one. In regard to essence He is one, where-
fore the Lord ordained that we should look to
one Name : but in regard to the attributes in-
dicative of the Persons, our belief in Him is
distinguished into belief in the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost 8 ; He is divided without
separation, and united without confusion. For
when we hear the title "Father" we apprehend
the meaning to be this, that the name is not
understood with reference to itself alone, but
also by its special signification indicates the
relation to the Son. For the term "Father"
would have no meaning apart by itself, if
" Son " were not connoted by the utterance of
the word " Father." When, then, we learnt the
name "Father" we were taught at the same
time, by the selfsame title, faith also in the
Son. Now since Deity by its very nature is
permanently and immutably the same in all
that pertains to its essence, nor did it at any
time fail to be anything that it now is, nor will
it at any future time be anything that it now is
not, and since He Who is the very Father was
named Father by the Word, and since in the
Father the Son is implied, — since these things
are so, we of necessity believe that He Who
admits no change or alteration in His nature
was always entirely what He is now, or, if
there is anything which He was not, that He
assuredly is not now. Since then He is named
Father by the very Word, He assuredly always
rvas Father, and is and will be even as He was.
For surely it is not lawful in speaking of the
Divine and unimpaired Essence to deny that
what is excellent always belonged to It. For
if He was not always what He now is, He cer-
tainly changed either from the better to the

8 Or, somewhat more literally, "He admits of distinction into
v>elie in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, being divided,"

worse or from the worse to the better, and of
these assertions the impiety is equal either
way, whichever statement is made concerning
the Divine nature. But in fact the Deity is
incapable of change and alteration. So, then,
everything that is excellent and good is always
contemplated in the fountain of excellency.
But " the Only-begotten God, Who is in the
bosom of the Father 9" is excellent, and be-
yond all excellency : — mark you, He says,
"Who is in the bosom of the Father," not
" Who came to be " there.

Well then, it has been demonstrated by these
proofs that the Son is from all eternity to be con-
templated in the Father, in Whom He is, being
Life and Light and Truth, and every noble name
and conception— to say that the Father ever
existed by Himself apart from these attributes
is a piece of the utmost impiety and infatua-
tion. For if the Son, as the Scripture saith, is
the Power of God, and Wisdom, and Truth,
and Light, and Sanctification, and Peace, and
Life, and the like, then before the Son existed,
according to the view of the heretics, these
things also had no existence at all. And if
these things had no existence they must cer-
tainly conceive the bosom of the Father to
have been devoid of such excellences. To
the end, then, that the Father might not be
conceived as destitute of the excellences which
are His own, and that the doctrine might not
run wild into this extravagance, the right faith
concerning the Son is necessarily included in
our Lord's utterance with the contemplation
of the eternity of the Father. And for this
reason He passes over all those names which
are employed to indicate the surpassing ex-
cellence of the Divine nature ', and delivers
to us as part of our profession of faith
the title of "Father" as better suited to
indicate the truth, being a title which, as has
been said, by its relative sense connotes
with itself the Son, while the Son, Who is
in the Father, always is what He essentially
is, as has been said already, because the
Deity by Its very nature does not admit of
augmentation. For It does not perceive any
other good outside of Itself, by participation in
which It could acquire any accession, but is
always immutable, neither casting away what
It has, nor acquiring what It has not : for none
of Its properties are such as to be cast away.
And if there is anything whatsoever blessed,
unsullied, true and good, associated with Him
and in Him, we see of necessity that the good
and holy Spirit must belong to Him2, not

9 S. John i. 18.

1 That nature which transcends our conceptions (i»7rtp«i/Li«iT>).

* Or " be conjoined with such attribute : " avru probably refers,
like jrepi avrbv xai iv avT<i just above, to 0e(k or to Octov, 0U( it
may conceivably refer to el ti ixaxapiov, K.r.K.

AGAINST EUN0M1US. BOOK II.

103

by way of accretion. That Spirit is indis-
putably a princely Spirit 3, a quickening Spirit,
the controlling and sanctifying force of all
creation, the Spirit that "worketh all in all" as
He wills4. Thus we conceive no gap between
the anointed Christ and His anointing, between
the King and His sovereignty, between Wisdom
and the Spirit of Wisdom, between Truth and
the Spirit of Truth, between Power and the Spirit
of Power, but as there is contemplated from all
eternity in the Father the Son, Who is Wisdom
and Truth, and Counsel, and Might, and Know-
ledge, and Understanding, so there is also con-
templated in Him the Holy Spirit, Who is the
Spirit of Wisdom, and of Truth, and of Counsel,
and of Understanding, and all else that the Son
is and is called. For which reason we say that
to the holy disciples the mystery of godliness
was committed in a form expressing at once
union and distinction, — that we should believe
on the Name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost. For the differentiation
of the subsistences 5 makes the distinction of
Persons6 clear and free from confusion, while
the one Name standing in the forefront of the
declaration of the Faith clearly expounds to
us the unity of essence of the Persons6 Whom
the Faith declares, — I mean, of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. For
by these appellations we are taught not a differ-
ence of nature, but only the special attributes
that mark the subsistences 5, so that we know
that neither is the Father the Son, nor the
Son the Father, nor the Holy Spirit either the
Father or the Son, and recognize each by the
distinctive mark of His Personal Subsistence?,
in illimitable perfection, at once contemplated
by Himself and not divided from that with
Which He is connected.

§ 3. Gregory proceeds to discuss the relative force of
the unnameable name of the Holy Trinity and
the mutual relation of the Persons, and more-
over the unknowable character of the Essence,
and the condescension on His part toivards us,
His generation of the Virgin, and His second
coming, the resurrection from the dead and
future retribution.

What then means that unnameable name con-
cerning which the Lord said, " Baptizing them
into the name," and did not add the actual sig-
nificant term which "the name" indicates?
We have concerning it this notion, that all
things that exist in the creation are defined by
means of their several names. Thus whenever
a man speaks of "heaven" he directs the notion

3 yyenoviKov. Cf. Ps. li. 12 in LXX. (Spiritus principalis in
Vulg., "free spirit" in the "Authorised" Version, and in the
Prayer-book Version),

* Cf. 1 Cor. xii. 6.
7 i/7roora<rtius.

5 inrovTaatuv.

TrpevwTruiv.

of the hearer to the created object indicated
by this name, and he who mentions "man " or
some animal, at once by the mention of the
name impresses upon the hearer the form ot
the creature, and in the same way all other
things, by means of the names imposed upon
them, are depicted in the heart of him who by
hearing receives the appellation imposed upon
the thing. The uncreated Nature alone, which
we acknowledge in the Father, and in the Son,
and in the Holy Spirit, surpasses all significance
of names. For this cause the Word, when He
spoke of " the name " in delivering the Faith,
did not add what it is, — for how could a name
be found for that which is above every name ?
— but gave authority that whatever name our
intelligence by pious effort be enabled to
discover to indicate the transcendent Nature,
that name should be applied alike to Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, whether it be " the
Good " or " the Incorruptible," whatever name
each may think proper to be employed to indi-
cate the undefiled Nature of Godhead. And
by this deliverance the Word seems to me to
lay down for us this law, that we are to be per-
suaded that the Divine Essence is ineffable
and incomprehensible : for it is plain that the
title of Father does not present to us the
Essence, but only indicates the relation to the
Son. It follows, then, that if it were possible
for human nature to be taught the essence of
God, He " Who will have all men to be saved
and to come to the knowledge of the truth 8 "
would not have suppressed the knowledge
upon this matter But as it is, by saying
nothing concerning the Divine Essence, He
showed that the knowledge thereof is beyond
our power, while when we have learnt that of
which we are capable, we stand in no need of
the knowledge beyond our capacity, as we have
in the profession of faith in the doctrine de-
livered to us what suffices for our salvation.
For to learn that He is the absolutely existent,
together with Whom, by the relative force of
the term, there is also declared the majesty of
the Son, is the fullest teaching of gouliness ;
the Son,- as has been said, implying in close
union with Himself the Spirit of Life and
Truth, inasmuch as He is Himself Life and
Truth.

These distinctions being thus established,
while we anathematize all heretical fancies in
the sphere of divine doctrines, we believe,
even as we were taught by the voice of the
Lord, in the Name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost, acknowledging
together with this faith also the dispensation
that has been set on foot on behalf of men

8 1 Tim. ii. 4.

T04

GREGORY OF NYSSA

by the Lord of the creation. For He " being
in the form of God thought it not robbery to
be equal with God,, but made Himself of no
reputation, and took upon Him the form of
a servant 9," and being incarnate in the Holy
Virgin redeemed us, from death "in which
we were held," " sold under sin '," giving as
the ransom for the deliverance of our souls
His precious blood which He poured out by
T-Tis Cross, and having through Himself made
clear for us the path of the resurrection 2 from
the dead, shall come in His own time in the
glory of the Father to judge every soul in
righteousness, when " all that are in the graves
shall hear His voice, and shall come forth,
they that have done good unto the resurrection
of life, and they that have done evil unto the
resurrection of damnations." But that the
pernicious heresy that is now being sown
broadcast by Eunomius may not, by falling
upon the mind of some of the simpler sort
and being left without investigation, do harm
to guileless faith, we are constrained to set
forth the profession which they circulate and
to strive to expose the mischief of their
teaching.

§ 4. He next skilfully confutes the partial, empty
and blasphemous statement of Eunomius on
the subject of the absolutely existent.

Now the wording of their doctrine is as
follows: " We believe in the one and only true
God, according to the teaching of the Lord
Himself, not honouring Him with a lying title
(for He cannot lie), but really existent, one God
in nature and in glory, who is without begin-
ning, eternally, without end, alone." Let not
him who professes to believe in accordance with
the teaching of the Lord pervert the exposition
of the faith that was made concerning the
Lord of all to suit his own fancy, but himself
follow the utterance of the truth. Since then,
i he expression of the Faith comprehends the
name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Ghost, what agreement has this con-
struction of theirs to show with the utterances
of the Lord, so as to refer such a doctrine
to the teaching of those utterances? They
cannot manage to show where in the Gospels
the Lord said that we should believe on " the
one and only true God:" unless they have

some new Gospel. For the Gospels which
are read in the churches continuously from
ancient times to the present day, do not
contain this saying which tells us that we
should believe in or baptize into " the one
and only true God," as these people say,
but "in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost." But as we
were taught by the voice of the Lord, this
we say, that the word " one " does not indicate
the Father alone, but comprehends in its
significance the Son with the Father, inasmuch
as the Lord said, "I and My Father are one4."
In like manner also the name " God " belongs
equally to the Beginning in which the Word
was, and to the Word Who was in the
Beginning. For the Evangelist tells us that
"the Word was with God, and the Word was
God s." So that when Deity is expressed the
Son is included no less than the Father.
Moreover, the true cannot be conceived as
something alien from and unconnected with
the truth. But that the Lord is the Truth no
one at all will dispute, unless he be one
estranged from the truth. If, then, the Word
is in the One, and is God and Truth, as is
proclaimed in the Gospels, on what teaching
of the Lord does he base his doctrine who
makes use of these distinctive terms ? For the
antithesis is between "only" and "not only,"
between "God" and "no God," between "true"
and " untrue." If it is with respect to idols that
they make their distinction of phrases, we too
agree. For the name of "deity" is given, in
an equivocal sense, to the idols of the heathen,
seeing that " all the gods of the heathen are
demons," and in another sense marks the con-
trast of the one with the many, of the true with
the false, of those who are not Gods with Him
who is God 6. But if the contrast is one with
the Only-begotten God ?, let our sages learn
that truth has its opposite only in falsehood,
and God in one who is not God. But inas-
much as the Lord Who is the Truth is God, and
is in the Father and is one relatively to the
Father8, there is no room in the true doctrine
for these distinctions of phrases. For he who
truly believes in the One sees in the One Him
Who is completely united with Him in truth,
and deity, and essence, and life, and wisdom,
and in all attributes whatsoever : or, if he does
not see in the One Him Who is all these it si

9 Phil. ii. 6.

1 Or, "111 which we were held by sin, being sold." The
reference is to Rom. vii. 7 and 14, bin wiih the variation of virb
T>jj a/iapria? for vwb rrjv dp-apriav, and a change in the order
of the words.

2 A similar phrase is to be found in Book V. With both may
be compared tne language 01 the Eucharistic Prayer in the
Liturgy of S. Basil (where the context corresponds to some extent
with that of either passag ■ in S. 1 licgory): — icai deacrTas TJj rpCrrj
'?MeP«; ko.1 66o7rot);<ras n-dcrjj aapxi t>ji/ ex vncputy dvaaTaaiv, k.t.A.

3 S. John v. 29.

4 S. John x. 30. 5 S. John i. 1.

6 Or, possibly, "and the contrast he makes between the one
and the many, &c. is irrelevant" (dAAojt avTiSiaipci) : the quotation
is from Ps. xcvi. 6(LXX.).

7 Cf. S. John i. 18, reading (as S.Gregory seems to have done)
fleds lor uios.

8 «ai iv n-pbs rbv irare'pa okto;. It may be questioned whether
the text is sound: the phrase seems unusual ; perhaps iv has been
inserted in error from the preceding clause «ai iv Tip -rraTpi oitos,
and we should read " is in the Father and is with the lather " fct.
the 2n,' verse of the i"1 Epistle, and verses 1 and 2 ol the Gospel of
S. John).

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

in nothing that he believes. For without the
Son the Father has neither existence nor name,
any more than the Powerful without Power, or
the Wise without Wisdom. For Christ is " the
Power of God and the Wisdom of God9;" so
that he who imagines he sees the One God
apart from power, truth, wisdom, life, or the
true light, either sees nothing at all or else
assuredly that which is evil. For the with-
drawal of the good attributes becomes a
positing and origination of evil.

" Not honouring Him," he says, " with a lying
title, for He cannot lie." By that phrase I pray
that Eunomius may abide, and so bear witness
to the truth that it cannot lie. For if he would
be of this mind, that everything that is uttered
by the Lord is far removed from falsehood, he
will of course be persuaded that He speaks
the truth Who sa\s, " I am in the Father, and
the Father in Me I," — plainly, the One in His
entirety, in the Other in His entirety, the Father
not superabounding in the Son, the Son not
being deficient in the Father, — and Who savs
a^o that the Son should be honoured as the
Father is honoured 2, and " He that hath seen
Me hath seen the Father 3," and " no man
knoweth the Father save the Son 4," in all
which passages there is no hint given to those
who receive these declarations as genuine,
of any variation 5 of glory, or of essence, or
anything else, between the Father and the Son.
"Really existent," he says, "one God in
nature and in glory." Real existence is op-
posed to unreal existence. Now each of
existing things is really existent in so far as
it is ; but that which, so far as appearance and
suggestion go, seems to be, but is not, this is
iK t really existent, as for example an appearance
n a dream or a man in a picture. For these
and such like things, though they exist so far
as appearance is concerned, have not real exist-
ence. If then they maintain, in accordance
with the Jewish opinion, that the Only-begotten
<iod does not exist at all, they are right in pre-
dicating real existence of the Father alone.
Hut if they do not deny the existence of the
Maker of all things, let them be content not to
deprive of real existence Him Who is, Who in
the Divine appearance to Moses gave Himself
the name of Existent, when He said, " I am that
I am6:" even as Eunomius in his later argument
agrees with this, saying that it was He Who
appeared to Moses. Then he says that God is
"one in nature and in glory." Whether God
exists without being by nature God, he who
uses these words may perhaps know : but if it
be true that he who is not by nature God is not

9 i Cor. i. 24. 1 S. John xiv. 10. 2 Cf. S. John v. 23.

3 S. John xiv. 9. *S. Matt. xi. 27. 5 mipaAAayjj (Cf.

S. James i. 17). 6 Or " I am He that is," Ex. iii. 14.

God at all, let them learn from the great Paul
that they who serve those who are not Gods do
not serve God 7." But we "serve the living
and true God," as the Apostle says 8 : and He
Whom we serve is Jesus the Christ'. For
Him the Apostle Paul even exults in serving,
saying, " Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ I."
We then, who no longer serve them which
by nature are no Gods 2, have come to the
knowledge of Him Who by nature is God, to
Whom every knee boweth " of things in heaven
and things in earth and things under the
earth 3." But we should not have been His
servants had we not believed that this is the
living and true God, to Whom " every tongue
maketh confession that Jesus is Lord to the
glory of God the Father 3."

" God," he says, " Who is without begin-
ning, eternally, without end, alone." Once
more "understand, ye simple ones," as Solo-
mon says, " his subtlety *," lest haply ye
be deceived and fall headlong into the denial
of the Godhead of the Only-begotten Son.
That is without end which admits not of
death and decay : that, likewise, is called ever-
lasting which is not only for a time. That,
therefore, which is neither everlasting nor with-
out end is surely seen in the nature which is
perishable and mortal. Accordingly he who
predicates "unendingness " of the one and
only God, and does not include the Son in the
assertion of "unendingness" and "eternity,"
maintains by such a proposition, that He Whom
he thus contrasts with the eternal and unending
is perishable and temporary. But we, even
when we are told that God "only hath immor-
tality s," understand by " immortality" the Son.
For life is immortality, and the Lord is that
life, Who said, "I am the Life6." And if He
be said to dwell " in the light that no man can
approach unto s," again we make no difficulty
in understanding that the true Light, unap-
proachable by falsehood, is the Only-begotten,
in Whom we learn from the Truth itself that the
Father is ?. Of these opinions let the reader
choose the more devout, whether we are to
think of the Only-begotten in a manner worthy
of the Godhead, or to call Him, as heresy pre-
scribes, perishable and temporary.

§ 5. He next marvellously overthrows the un-
intelligible statements of Eunomius which
assert that the essence of the Father is 7iot
separated or divided, and does not become any-
thing else.

" We believe in God," he tells us, " not separ-

7 The reference seems to be to Gal. iv. 8. 8 i Thess. i. IO-
9 There is perhaps a reference here to Col. iii. 24.
1 Rom. i. 1. 2 Cf. Gal. iv. 8. 3 Cf. Phil. ii. 10. n.

4 Prov. viii. 5 (Septuagint). 5 1 Tim. vi. 16.

6 S. John xiv. 6. 7 S John xiv. n.

io6

GREGORY OF NYSSA

ated as regards the essence wherein He is one,
into more than one, or becoming sometimes
one and sometimes another, or changing from
being what He is, or passing from one essence
to assume the guise of a threefold personality :
for He is always and absolutely one, remaining
uniformly and unchangeably the only God."
From these citations the discreet reader may
well separate first of all the idle words inserted
in the statement without any meaning from
those which appear to have some sense, and
afterwards examine the meaning that is dis-
coverable in what remains of his statement, to
ascertain whether it is compatible with due
reverence towards Christ.

The first, then, of the statements cited is
completely divorced from any intelligible
meaning, good or bad. For what sense
there is in the words, "not separated, as
regards the essence wherein He is one, into
more than one, or becoming sometimes one
and sometimes another, or changing from
being what He is," Eunomius himself could
not tell us, and I do not think that any of
his allies could find in the words any shadow
of meaning. When he speaks of Him as " not
separated in regard to the essence wherein He
is one," he says either that He is not separated
from His own essence, or that His own essence
is not divided from Him. This unmeaning
statement is nothing but a random combina-
tion of noise and empty sound. And why
should one spend time in the investigation of
these meaningless expressions? For how does
any one remain in existence when separated
from his own essence ? or how is the essence
of anything divided and displayed apart? Or
how is k possible for one to depart from that
wherein he is, and become another, getting out-
side himself? But he adds, " not passing from
one essence to assume the guise of three per-
sons : for He is always and absolutely one,
remaining uniformly and unchangeably the
only God." I think the absence of meaning
in his statement is plain to every one without
a word from me : against this let any one argue
who thinks there is any sense or meaning in
what he says : he who has an eye to discern
the force of words will decline to involve him-
self in a struggle with unsubstantial shadows.
For what force has it against our doctrine to
say " not separated or divided into more than
one as regards the essence wherein He is one,
or becoming sometimes one and sometimes
another, or passing from one essence to assume
the guise of three persons?"— things that
are neither said nor believed by Christians nor
understood by inference from the truths we
confess. For who ever said or heard any one
else say in the Church of God, that the I ather

is either separated or divided as regards His
essence, or becomes sometimes one. sometimes
another, coming to be outside Himself, or
assumes the guise of three persons ? These
things Eunomius says to himself, not arguing
with us but stringing together his own trash,
mixing with the impiety of his utterances a
great deal of absurdity. For we say that it is
equally impious and ungodly to call the Lord
of the creation a created being and to think
that the Father, in that He is, is separated or
split up, or departs from Himself, or assumes
the guise of three persons, like clay or wax
moulded in various shapes.

But let us examine the words that follow :
" He is always and absolutely one, remain-
ing uniformly and unchangeably the only
God." If he is speaking about the Father,
we agree with him, for the Father is most
truly one, alone and always absolutely uni-
form and unchangeable, never at any time
present or future ceasing to be what He is.
If then such an assertion as this has regard
to the Father, let him not contend with the
doctrine of godliness, inasmuch as on this
point he is in harmony with the Church. For
he who confesses that the Father is always and
unchangeably the same, being one and only
God, holds fast the word of godliness, if in the
Father he sees the Son, without Whom the
Father neither is nor is named. But if he is
inventing some other God besides the Father,
let him dispute with the Jews or with those
who are called Hypsistiani, between whom and
the Christians there is this difference, that they
acknowledge that there is a God Whom they
term the Highest8 or Almighty, but do not
admit that he is Father ; while a Christian, if
he believe not in the Father, is no Christian
at all.

§ 6. He then shows the unity of the Son with
the Father and Eunomius" lack of understanding
and knowledge in the Scriptures.

What he adds next after this is as follows : —
"Having no sharer," he says, "in His Godhead,
no divider of His glory, none who has lot in
His power, or part in His royal throne : for
He is the one and only God, the Almighty,
God of Gods, King of Kings, Lord of Lords."
I know not to whom Eunomius refers when he
protests that the Father admits none to share
His Godhead with Himself. For if he uses
such expressions with reference to vain idols
and to the erroneous concej tions of those who
worship them (even as Paul assures us that
there is no agreement between Christ and
Belial, and no fellowship between the temple

8 \><ln<nov, whence the name of the sect.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

107

of Cod and idols 9) we agree with him.
But if by these assertions he means to sever
the Only-begotten God from the Godhead of
the Father, let him be informed that he is pro-
viding us with a dilemma that may be turned
against himself to refute his own impiety. For
either he denies the Only-begotten God to be
God at all, that he may preserve for the Father
those prerogatives of deity which (according to
him) are incapable of being shared with the
Son, and thus is convicted as a transgressor by
denying the God Whom Christians worship, or
if he were to grant that the Son also is God,
yet not agreeing in nature with the true God,
he would be necessarily obliged to acknow-
ledge that he maintains Gods sundered from
one another by the difference of their natures.
Let him choose which of these he will, — either
to deny the Godhead of the Son, or to intro
duce into his creed a plurality of Gods. For
whichever of these he chooses, it is all one as
regards impiety : for we who are initiated into
the mystery of godliness by the Divinely in-
spired words of the Scripture do not see
between the Father and the Son a partner-
ship of Godhead, but unity, inasmuch as the
Lord hath taught us this by His own words,
when He saith, " I and the Father are one 1,"
and "he that hath seen Me hath seen the
Father2." For if He were not of the same
nature as the Father, how could He either
have had in Himself that which was different 3 ?
or how could He have shown in Himself that
which was unlike, if the foreign and alien
nature did not receive the stamp of that which
was of a different kind from itself? But he
says, "nor has He a divider of His glory."
Herein he speaks in accordance with the fact,
even though he does not know what he is say-
ing : for the Son does not divide the glory
with the Father, but has the glory of the Father
in its entirety, even as the Father has all the
glory of the Son. For thus He spake to the
Father " All Mine are Thine and Thine are
Mine 3." Wherefore also He says that He will
appear on the Judgment Day " in the glory of
the Father 4," when He will render to every
man according to his works. And by this
phrase He shows the unity of nature that sub-
sists between them. For as " there is one
glory of the sun and another glory of the
moon s," because of the difference between the
natures of those luminaries (since if both had
the same glory there would not be deemed to
be any difference in their nature), so He Who
foretold of Himself that He would appear in
the glory of the Father indicated by the iden-
tity of glory their community of nature.

9 Cf. 2 Cor. vi. 15, 16. » S. John x. 3a. a S. John xiv. 9.

3 S. John xvii. 10. 4 S. Marx viii. 38. 5 1 Cor. xv. 41.

But to say that the Son has no part in His
Father's royal throne argues an extraordinary
amount of research into the oracles of God on
the part of Eunomius, who, after his extreme
devotion to the inspired Scriptures, has not yet
heard, " Seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of
God 6," and many similar passages, of which it
would not be easy to reckon up the number,
but which Eunomius has never learnt, and so
denies that the Son is enthroned together with
the Father. Again the phrase, " not having lot
in his power," we should rather pass by as un-
meaning than confute as ungodly. For what
sense is attached to the term " having lot" is
not easy to discover from the common use of
the word. Those cast lots, as the Scripture
tells us, for the Lord's vesture, who were un-
willing to rend His garment, but disposed to
make it over to that one of their number in
whose favour the lot should decide ?. They
then who thus cast lots among themselves for
the " coat " may be said, perhaps, to " have
had lot " in it But here in the case of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, inasmuch
as Their power resides in Their nature (for the
Holy Spirit breathes " where He listeth8," and
" worketh all in all as He will 9," and the Son,
by Whom all things were made, visible and
invisible, in heaven and in earth, " did all
things whatsoever He pleased x," and " quick-
eneth whom He will2," and the Father put
"the times in His own powers," while from
the mention of " times" we conclude that all
things done in time are subject to the power
of the Father), if, I say, it has been demon-
strated that the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit alike are in a position of power
to do what They will, it is impossible to
see what sense there can be in the phrase
"having lot in His power." For the heir of
all things, the maker of the ages *, He Who
shines with the Father's glory and expresses in
Himself the Fathers person, has all tnings that
the Father Himself has, and is possessor of all
His power, not that the right is transferred
from the Father to the Son, but that it at once
remains in the Father and resides in the Son.
For He Who is in the Father is manitestly in
the Father with all His own might, and He
Who has the Father in Himself includes all
the power and might of the Father. For He
has in Himself all the Father, and not merely
a part of Him : and He Who has Him entirely
assuredly has His power as well. With what
meaning, then, Eunomius asserts that the Father
has " none who has lot in His power," those

6 Col. iii. i. 7 Cf. S. John xix. 23, 24. 8 S. John iii. 8.

9 Cf. 1 Cor. xii. 6 and 11. x Ps. cxxav. 6. 2 S.John v. 21.

3 Acts i. 7. * Cf. Heb. i. 2.

ioS

GREGORY OF NYSSA

perhaps can tell who are disciples of his folly :
one who knows how to appreciate language
confesses that he cannot understand phrases
•divorced from meaning. The Father, he says,
" has none Who has lot in His power." Why,
who is there that says that the Father and Son
■contend together for power and cast lots to
decide the matter? But the holy Eunomius
comes as mediator between them and by a
friendly agreement without lot assigns to the
Father the superiority in power.

Mark, I pray you, the absurdity and child-
ishness of this grovelling exposition of his
articles of faith. What ! He Who " upholds
all things by the word of His powers," Who
says what He wills to be done, and does what
He wills by the very power of that command,
He Whose power lags not behind His will and
Whose will is the measure of His power (for
" He spake the word and they were made, He
commanded and they were created 6 "), He
Who made all things by Himself, and made
them consist in Himself ?, without Whom no
existing thing either came into being or remains
in being. — He it is Who waits to obtain His
power by some process of allotment ! Judge
vou who hear whether the man who talks like
this is in his senses. "For He is the one and
only God, the Almighty," he says. If by the
title of " Almighty" he intends the Father, the
language he uses is ours, and no strange lan-
guage : but if he means some other God than
the Father, let our patron of Jewish doctrines
preach circumcision too, if he pleases. For
the Faith of Christians is directed to the
Father. And the Father is all these — Highest,
Almighty, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,
and in a word all terms of highest significance
are proper to the Father. But all that is the
Father's is the Son's also ; so that, on this
understanding8, we admit this phrase too.
But if, leaving the Father, he speaks of another
Almighty, he is speaking the language of the
Jews or following the speculations of Plato, —
for they say that that philosopher also affirms
that there exists on high a maker and creator
of certain subordinate gods. As then in the
case of the Jewish and Platonic opinions
he who does not believe in God the Father
is not a Christian, even though in his creed
he asserts an Almighty God, so Eunomius
also falsely pretends to the name of Chris-
tian, being in inclination a Jew, or asserting
the doctrines of the Greeks while putting
on the guise of the title borne by Chris-
tians. And with regard to the next points

5 Heb. i. 3. ' Ps. cxlviii. 5. or xxxiii. y in LXX.

7 Cf. Col. i. 16 and rj.

8 " If this is so : " i.e. if Eunomius means his words in a Chris-
tian sense.

he asserts the same account will apply. He
says He is " God of Gods." We make the
declaration our own by adding the name of
the Father, knowing that the Father is God of
Gods. But all that belongs to the Father cer-
tainly belongs also to the Son. " And Lord of
Lords." The same account will apply to this.
" And Most High over all the earth." Yes, for
whichever of the Three Persons you are think-
ing of, He is Most High over all the earth,
inasmuch as the oversight of earthly things
from on high is exercised alike by the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So, too,
with what follows the words above, " Most
High in the heavens, Most High in the highest,
Heavenly, true in being what He is, and so
continuing, true in words, true in works."
Why, all these things the Christian eye discerns
alike in the Father, the Son, and the Holy-
Ghost. If Eunomius does assign them to one
only of the Persons acknowledged in the creed,
let him dare to call Him " not true in words"
Who has said, "I am the Truth 9," or to call the
Spirit of truth " not true in words," or let him
refuse to give- the title of " true in works" to
Him Who doeth righteousness and judgment,
or to the Spirit Who worketh all in all as He
will. For if he does not acknowledge that
these attributes belong to the Persons delivered
to us in the creed, he is absolutely cancelling
the creed of Christians: For how shall any one
think Him a worthy object of faith Who is
false in words and untrue in works.

But let us proceed to what follows. " Above
all rule, subjection and authority," he says.
This language is ours, and belongs properly
to the Catholic Church, — to believe that tire
Divine nature is above all rule, and that it has
in subordination to itself everything that can
be conceived among existing things. But the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost constitute
the Divine nature. If he assigns this property
to the Father alone, and if he affirms Him
alone to be free from variableness and change,
and if he says that He alone is undefiled. the
inference that we are meant to draw is plain,
namely, that He who has not these characteris-
tics is variable, corruptible, subject to change
and decay. This, then, is what Eunomius
asserts of the Son and the Holy Spirit : for if
he did not hold this opinion concerning the
Son and the Spirit, he would not have em-
ployed this opposition, contrasting the Father
with them. For the rest, brethren, judge
whether, with these sentiments, he is not a
persecutor of the Christian faith. For who
will allow it to be right to deem that a fitting
object of reverence which varies, changes, and

9 S. John xiv. 6.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

109

is subject to decay ? So then the whole aim of
one who frames such notions as these, — notions
by which he makes out that neither the Truth
nor the Spirit of Truth is undefiled, unvarying,
or unchangeable, — is to expel from the Church
the belief in the Son and in the Holy Spirit.

§ 7. Gregory further shows that the Only-begotten
being begotten not only 0/ the Father, but also
impassibly of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost,
does not divide the substance; seeing that
neither is the nature of men divided or severed
from the parents by being begotten, as is in-
geniously demonstrated from the instances of
Adam and Abraham.

And now let us see what he adds to his
previous statements. " Not dividing," he says,
" His own. essence by begetting, and being at
once begetter and begotten, at the same time
Father and Son ; for He is incorruptible." Of
such a kind as this, perhaps, is that of which
the prophet says, touching the ungodly, " They
weave a spider's web1." For as in the cob-
web there is the appearance of something
woven, but no substantiality in the appearance,
— for he who touches it touches nothing sub-j
stantial, as the spider's threads break with
the touch of a finger, — just such is the unsub- '
stantial texture of idle phrases. " Not dividing
His own essence by begetting and being at
once begetter and begotten." Ought we to
give his words the name of argument, or to call
them rather a swelling of humours secreted by
some dropsical inflation? For what is the
sense of " dividing His own essence by beget-
ting, and being at once begetter and begotten?"
Who is so distracted, who is so demented, as to
make the statement against which Eunomius
thinks he is doing battle? For the Church
believes that the true Father is truly Father of
His own Son, as the Apostle says, not of a Son
alien from Him. For thus he declares in one !
of his Epistles, " Who spared not His own
Son 2," distinguishing Him, by the addition of
" own," from those who are counted worthy of
the adoption of sons by grace and not by
nature. But what says He who disparages this
belief of ours ? " Not dividing His own essence
by begetting, or being at once begetter and
begotten, at the same time Father and Son ;
for He is incorruptible." Does one who hears
in the Gospel that the Word was in the begin-
ning, and was God, and that the Word came
forth from the Father, so befoul the undefiled
doctrine with these base and fetid ideas, saying
" He does not divide His essence by begetting?"
Shame on the abomination of these base and

1 Is. llx. 5.

Rom. viii. 3*.

filthy notions ! How is it that he who speaks
thus fails to understand that God when mani-
fested in flesh did not admit for the formation
of His own body the conditions of human
nature, but was born for us a Child by the Holy
Ghost and the power of the Highest ; nor was
the Virgin subject to those conditions, nor was
the Spirit diminished, nor the power of the
Highest divided ? For the Spirit is entire, the
power of the Highest remained undiminished :
the Child was born in the fulness of our nature \
and did not sully the incorruption of His
mother. Then was flesh born of flesh without
carnal passion : yet Eunomius will not admit
that the brightness of the glory is from the
glory itself, since the glory is neither diminished
nor divided by begetting the light. Again, the
word of man is generated from his mind with-
out division, but God the Word cannot be
generated from the Father without the essence
of the Father being divided ! Is any one so
witless as not to perceive the irrational cha-
racter of his position? "Not dividing," quoth
he, "His own essence by begetting." Why,
whose own essence is divided by begetting?
For in the case of men essence means human
nature : in the case of brutes, it means, gener
ically, brute nature, but in the case of cattle,
sheep, and all brute animals, specifically, it is
regarded according to the distinctions of their
kinds. Which, then, of these divides its own
essence by the process of generation ? Does
not the nature always remain undiminished in
the case of every animal by the succession of
its posterity ? Further a man in begetting a
man from himself does not divide his nature,
but it remains in its fulness alike in him who
begets and in him who is begotten, not split
off and transferred from the one to the other,
nor mutilated in the one when it is fully formed
in the other, but at once existing in its entirety
in the former and discoverable in its entirety in
the latter. For both before begetting his child
the man was a rational animal, mortal, capable
of intelligence and knowledge, and also after be-
getting a man endowed with such qualities: so
that in him are shown all the special properties
of his nature ; as he does not lose his existence
as a man by begetting the man derived from
him, but remains after that event what he was
before without causing any diminution of the
nature derived from him by the fact that the
man derived from him comes into being.

Well, man is begotten of man, and the nature
of the begetter is not divided. Yet Eunomius
does not admit that the Only-begotten God,
Who is in the bosom of the Father, is truly of the
Father, for fear forsooth, lest he should muti-

3 This, or something like this, appears to be the force of S.W.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

lale the inviolable nature of the Father by the
subsistence of the Only-begotten : but after
saying "Not dividing His essence by beget-
ting,'' he adds, " Or being Himself begetter
and begotten, or Himself becoming Father
and Son ♦," and thinks by such loose disjointed
phrases to undermine the true confession of
godliness or to furnish some support to his own
ungodliness, not being aware that by the very
means he uses to construct a reductio ad ab-
surdum he is discovered to be an advocate of
the truth. For we too say that He who has all
that belongs to His own Father is all that He
is, save being Father, and that He who has all
that belongs to the Son exhibits in Himself the
Son in His completeness, save being Son : so
that the reductio ad absurdum, which Eunomius
here invents, turns out to be a support of the
truth, when the notion is expanded by us so as
to display it more clearly, under the guidance
of the Gospel. For if " he that hath seen the
Son seeth the Fathers" then the Father begat
another self, not passing out of Himself, and at
the same time appearing in His fulness in
Him : so that from these considerations that
which seemed to have been uttered against
godliness is demonstrated to be a support of
sound doctrine.

But he says, " Not dividing His own essence
by begetting, and being at once begetter and
begotten, at the same time Father and Son ;
for He is incorruptible." Most cogent conclu-
sion ! What do you mean, most sapient sir ?
Because He is incorruptible, therefore He does
not divide His own essence by begetting the
Son : nor does He beget Himself or be be-
gotten of Himself, nor become at the same
time His own Father and His own Son,
because He is incorruptible. It follows,
then, that if any one is of corruptible nature,
he divides his essence by begetting, and is
begotten by himself, and begets himself, and
is his own father and his own son, because
he is not incorruptible. If this is so, then
Abraham, because he was corruptible, did
not beget Ishmael and Isaac, but begat him-
self by the bondwoman and by his lawful wife :
or, to take the other mountebank tricks of the
argument, he divided his essence among the
sons who were begotten of him, and first, when
Hagar bore him a son, he was divided into
two sections, and in one of the halves became
Ishmael, while in the other he remained half
Abraham ; and subsequently the residue of the
essence of Abraham being again divided took
subsistence in Isaac. Accordingly the fourth
pait of the essence of Abraham was divided
into the twin sons of Isaac, so that there

4 The quotation does not verbally correspond with E
words as cited above. s Ci. S. John xiv. o.

5 Ci. S. John xiv. 9.

unomius'

was an eighth in each of his grandchildren !
How could one subdivide the eighth part, cut-
ting it small in fractions among the twelve
Patriarchs, or among the threescore and fifteen
souls with whom Jacob went down into Egypt?
And why do I talk thus when I really ought to
confute the folly of such notions by beginning
with the first man? For if it is a property of
the incorruptible only not to divide its essence
in begetting, and if Adam was corruptible, to
whom the word was spoken, " Dust thou art
and unto dust shalt thou return 6," then, ac-
cording to Eunomius' reasoning, he certainly
divided his essence, being cut up among those
who were begotten of him, and by reason of
the vast number of his posterity (the slice of
his essence which is to be found in each being
necessarily subdivided according to the number
of his progeny), the essence of Adam is used up
before Abraham began to subsist, being dis-
persed in these minute and infinitesimal par-
ticles among the countless myriads of his de-
scendants, and the minute fragment of Adam
that has reached Abraham and his descendants
by a process of division, is no longer discovera-
ble in them as a remnant of his essence, inas-
much as his nature has been already used up
among the countless myriads of those who
were before them by its division into infinite-
simal fractions. Mark the folly of him who
" understands neither what he says nor whereof
he affirms V For by saying " Since He is
incorruptible" He neither divides His essence
nor begets Himself nor becomes His own father,
he implicitly lays it down that we must suppose
all those things from which he affirms that the
incorruptible alone are free to be incidental to
generation in the case of every one who is sub-
ject to corruption. Though there are many other
considerations capable of proving the inanity of
his argument, I think that what has been said
above is sufficient to demonstrate its absurdity.
But this has surely been already acknowledged
by all who have an eye for logical consistency,
that, when he asserted incorruptibility of the
Father alone, he places all things which are
considered after the Father in the category of
corruptible, by virtue of opposition to the
incorruptible, so as to make out even the
Son not to be free from corruption. If
then he places the Son in opposition to the
incorruptible, he not only defines Him to be
corruptible, but also asserts of Him all those
incidents from which he affirms only the incor-
ruptible to be exempt. For it necessarily
follows that, if the Father alone neither begets
Himsell nor is begotten ol Himself, everything
which is not incorruptible both begets itself

• Gen. iii. 19.

7 Cf. 1 Tim. i. 7.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

and is begotten of itself, and becomes its own
father and son, shifting from its own proper
essence to each of these relations. For if to
be incorruptible belongs to the Father alone,
and if not to be the things specified is a special
property of the incorruptible, then, of course,
according to this heretical argument, the Son is
not incorruptible, and all these circumstances,
of course, find place about Him, — to have His
essence divided, to beget Himself and to be
begotten by Himself, to become Himself His
own father and His own son.

Perhaps, however, it is waste of time to
linger long over such follies. Let us pass to
the next point of his statement. He adds to
what he had already said, " Not standing in
need, in the act of creation, of matter or parts
or natural instruments : for He stands in need
of nothing." This proposition, though Euno-
mius states it with a certain looseness of phrase,
we yet do not reject as inconsistent with godly
doctrine. For learning as we do that " He
spake the word and they were made : He com-
manded and they were created 8," we know that
the Word is the Creator of matter, by that very
act also producing with the matter the qualities
of matter, so that for Him the impulse of His
almighty will was everything and instead of
everything, matter, instrument, place, time, es-
sence, quality, everything that is conceived
in creation. For at one and the same time
did He will that that which ought to be should
be, and His power, that produced all things
that are, kept pace with His will, turning His
will into act. For thus the mighty Moses in
the record of creation instructs us about the
Divine power, ascribing the production of each
of the objects that were manifested in the
creation to the words that bade them be. For
" God said," he tells us, " Let there be light,
and there was light' :" and so about the rest,
without any mention either of matter or of any
instrumental agency. Accordingly the language
of Eunomius on this point is not to be rejected.
For God, when creating all things that have
their origin by creation, neither stood in need
of any matter on which to operate, nor of
instruments to aid Him in His construction :
for the power and wisdom of God has no need
of any external assistance. But Christ is " the
Power of God and the Wisdom of God I," by
Whom all things were made and without Whom
is no existent thing, as John testifies2. If,
then, all things were made by Him, both
visible and invisible, and if His will alone
suffices to effect the subsistence of existing
things (for His will is power), Eunomius utters
our doctrine though with a loose mode of expres-

* Ps. cxlviii. 5, or Ps. xjcxiii. 9 in LXX. 9 Geo. L 3.

« 1 Cor. i. 24. » Cf. S. John i. 3.

sion '. For what instrument and what matter
could He Who upholds all thinsg by the word
of His power 4 need in upholding the constitu-
tion of existing things by His almighty word?
But if he maintains that what we have believed
to be true of the Only begotten in the case of
the creation, is true also in the case of the Son
— in the sense that the Father created Him in
like manner as the creation was made by the
Son, — then we retract our former statement,
because such a supposition is a denial of the
Godhead of the Only-begotten. For we have
learnt from the mighty utterance of Paul that
it is the distinguishing feature of idolatry to
worship and serve the creature more than the
Creators, as well as from David, when He says
" There shall no new God be in thee : neither
shalt thou worship any alien God6." We use this
line and rule to arrive at the discernment of
the object of worship, so as to be convinced
that that alone is God which is neither '' new"
nor " alien." Since then we have been taught
to believe that the Only-begotten God is God,
we acknowledge, by our belief that He is God,
that He is neither " new " or " alien." If, then,
He is God, He is not " new," and if He is not
new, He is assuredly eternal. Accordingly,
neither is the Eternal " new," nor is He Who
is of the Father and in the bosom of the Father
and Who has the Father in Himself "alien "
from true Deity. Thus he who severs the Son
from the nature of the Father either absolutely
disallows the worship of the Son, that he may
not worship an alien God, or bows down
before an idol, making a creature and not God
the object of his worship, and giving to his
idol the name of Christ

Now that this is the meaning to which
he tends in his conception concerning the
Only-begotten will become more plain by
considering the language he employs touch-
ing the Only-begotten Himself, which is as
follows. " We believe also in the Son of
God, the Only-begotten God, the first-born
of all creation, very Son, not ungenerate, verily
begotten before the worlds, named Son not
without being begotten before He existed,
coming into being before all creation, not un-
create." I think that the mere reading of his
exposition of his faith is quite sufficient to
render its impiety plain without any investiga-
tion on our part. For though he calls Him
"first-born," yet that he may not raise any

3 Reading ev aTOfOuirn rff Ae'fei for eva.Tovov<rg rg Xf'fet (the
reading of the Paris edition, which Oehler follows).

♦ Cf. Heb. i. 3. The quotation is not veroally exact.

5 Cf. Rom. i. 26.

' Ps. lxxxi. 10, LXX. The words np6a^>aro<: (" new ") and
dMoTpios (" alien") are both represented in the A.V. by "strange,"
and so in R.V. The Prayer-book version expresses them by
"strange" and "any other." Both words are subsequently em
ployed by Gregory in his argument.

I 12

GREGORY OF NYSS

doubt in his readers' minds as to His not being
created, he immediately adds the words, " not
uncreate," lest if the natural significance of the
term " Son " were apprehended by his readers,
any pious conception concerning Him might
find place in their minds. It is for this reason
that after at first confessing Him to be Son of
God and Only-begotten God, he proceeds at
once, by what he adds, to pervert the minds of
his readers from their devout belief to his
heretical notions. For he who hears the titles
"Son of God" and "Only-begotten God" is of
necessity lifted up to the loftier kind of asser-
tions respecting the Son, led onward by the
significance of these terms, inasmuch as no dif-
ference of nature is introduced by the use of
the title " God " and by the significance of the
term " Son." For how could He Who is truly
the Son of God and Himself God be conceived
as something else differing from the nature of
the Father ? But that godly conceptions may
not by these names be impressed beforehand
on the hearts of his readers, he forthwith calls
Him " the first-born of all creation, named
Son, not without being begotten before He
existed, coming into being before all creation,
not uncreate." Let us linger a little while,
then, over his argument, that the miscreant
may be shown to be holding out his first state-
ments to people merely as a bait to induce
them to receive the poison that he sugars over
with phrases of a pious tendency, as it were
with honey. Who does not know how great is
the difference in signification between the term
"only-begotten " and " first-born ?" For " first-
born " implies brethren, anH " only-begotten "
implies that there are no other brethren. Thus
the " first-born " is not " only-begotten," for
certainly " first-born " is the first-born among
brethren, while he who is " only-begotten " has
no bi other : for if he were numbered among
brethren he would not be only-begotten. And
moreover, whatever the essence of the brothers
of the first-born is, the same is the essence of
the first-born himself. Nor is this all that is
signified by the title, but also that the first-
born and those born after him draw their being
from ihe same source, without the firstborn
contributing at all to the birth of those that
come after him : so that hereby 7 is maintained
the falsehood of that statement of John, which
affirms that ''all things were made by Him8."
For if He is first-born, He differs from those
born after Him only by priority in time, while
there must be some one else by Whom the
power to be at all is imparted alike to Him
and to the rest. But that we may not by our
objections give any unfair opponent ground for

7 Hereby, i.e. by the use of the ttrm vputotokik as applicable
to the Divinity of the Son. 8 g. John i. 3.

an insinuation that we do not receive the in-
spired utterances of Scripture, we will first set
before our readers our own view about these
titles, and then leave it to their judgment
which is the better.

§ 8. He further very appositely expounds the
meaning of the term " Only-begotten" and of
the term " First born" four times used by the
Apostle.

The mighty Paul, knowing that the Only-
begotten God, Who has the pre-eminence in
all things Q, is the author and cause of all
good, bears witness to Him that not only was
the creation of all existent things wrought by
Him, but that when the original creation of
man had decayed and vanished away J, to use
his own language, and another new creation
was wrought in Christ, in this too no other than
He took the lead, but He is Himself the first-
born of all that new creation of men which
is effected by the Gospel. And that our view
about this may be made clearer let us thus
divide our argument. The inspired apostle
on four occasions employs this term, once
as here, calling Him, "first-born of all crea-
tion 2," another time, " the first-born among
many brethren 3," again, " first-born from the
dead4," and on another occasion he employs
the term absolutely, without combining it
with other words, saying, " But when again
He bringeth the first-born into the world,
He saith, And let all the angels of God
worship Him 5." Accordingly whatever view
we entertain concerning this title in the other
combinations, the same we shall in consistency
apply to the phrase "first-born of all creation."
For since the title is one and the same it
must needs be that the meaning conveyed is
also one. In what sense then does He become
" the first-born among many brethren ? " in
what sense does He become " the first-born
from the dead ? " Assuredly this is plain, that
because we are by birth flesh and blood, as-
the Scripture saith, " He Who for our sakes
was born among us and was partaker of flesh
and blood 6," purposing to change us from
corruption to incorruption by the birth from
above, the birth by water and the Spirit,
Himself led the way in this birth, drawing
down upon the water, by His own baptism,
the Holy Spirit ; so that in all things He
became the first-born of those who are
spiritually born again, and gave the name
of brethren to those who partook in a birth
like to His own by water and the S irit.
But since it was also meet that He should

9 Cf. Col. i. 18.

1 Cf. Heb. viii. 13, whence the phrase is apparently adapted,
a Col. i. 15. 3 Rom. viii. 29. 4 Col. i. 18 (cf. Rev. i. el
5 Heb. i. 6. 6 Cf. Heb. i. 14.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

ii3

implant in our nature the power of rising again
from the dead, He becomes the " first-fruits of
them that slept?" and the "first-born fromfthe
dead 8," in that He first by His own act loosed
the pains of death °? so that His new birth from
the dead was made a way for us also, since the
pains of death, wherein we were held, were
loosed by the resurrection of the Lord. Thus,
just as by having shared in the washing
of regeneration J He became " the first-born
among many brethren," and again by having
made Himself the first-fruits of the resurrec-
tion. He obtains the name of the " first-born
from the dead," so having in all things the
pre-eminence, after that "all old things," as
the apostle says, "have passed away2," He
becomes the first-born of the new creation of
men in Christ by the two-fold regeneration,
alike that by Holy Baptism and that which
is the consequence of the resurrection from
the dead, becoming for us in both alike the
Prince of Life 3, the first-fruits, the first-born.
This first-born, then, hath also brethren, con-
cerning whom He speaks to Mary, saying,
"Go and tell My brethren, I go to My
Father and your Father, and to My God and
your God4." In these words He sums up the
whole aim of His dispensation as Man. For
men revolted from God, and " served them
which by nature were no gods5," and though
being the children of God became attached
to an evil father falsely so called. For this
cause the mediator between God and man 6,
having assumed the first-fruits of all human
nature 7, sends to His brethren the announce-
ment of Himself not in His divine character,
but in that which He shares with us, saying,
"I am departing in order to make by My
own self that true Father, from whom you
were separated, to be your Father, and by My
own self to make that true God from whom
you had revolted to be your God, for by that
first-fruits which I have assumed, I am in
Myself presenting all humanity to its God and
Father."

Since, then, the first-fruits made the true
God to be its God, and the good Father to be
its Father, the blessing is secured for human
nature as a whole, and by means of the first-
fruits the true God and Father becomes Father
and God of all men. Now " if the first-fruits
be holy, the lump also is holy8." But where

7 1 Cor. xv. 20. 8 Col. i. 18.

9 Cf. Acts ii. 24. See note 2, p. 104, supra.

1 1 he phrase is not verbally the same as in Tit. iii. 5.

2 Cf. 2 Cor. v. 17. 3 Cf. Acts iii. 15.
* Cf. S. John xx. 17 : the quotation is not verbal.

5 Cf. Gal. iv. 8. 6 Cf. 1 Tim. ii. 5.

7 The Humanity of Christ being regarded as this " first-fruits : "
unless this phrase is to be understood of the Resurrection, rather
than of the Incarnation, in which case the first-fruits will be His
Body, and ava\afiu>v should be rendered by " having resumed."

8 Rom. ix. 16. The reference next following may be to S. John
xii. 26, or xiv. 3 ; or to Col. iii. 3.

VOL. V.

the first-fruits, Christ, is (and the first-fruits is-
none other than Chiist), there also are they
that are Christ's, as the apostle says. In those
passages therefore where he makes mention of
the " first-born " in connexion with other words,
he suggests that we should understand the
phrase in the way which I have indicated : but
where, without any such addition, he says,
" When again He bringeth the first-born into
the world V' the addition of " again " asserts
that manifestation of the Lord of all which
shall take place at the last day. For as " at the
name of Jesus every knee doth bow, of things
in heaven and things in earth and things under
the earth I," although the human name does
not belong to the Son in that He is above
every name, even so He says that the First-
born, Who was so named for our sakes, is
worshipped by all the supramundane creation,
on His coming again into the world, when He
" shall judge the world with righteousness and
the people with equity2." Thus the several
meanings of the titles " First-born " and " Only-
begotten " are kept distinct by the word of
godliness, its respective significance being
secured for each name. But how can he who
refers the name of " first-born " to the pre-
temporal existence of the Son preserve the
proper sense of the term " Only-begotten " ?
Let the discerning reader consider whether
these things agree with one another, when the
term "first-born" necessarily implies brethren,
and the term " Only-begotten " as necessarily
excludes the notion of brethren. For when
the Scripture says, " In the beginning was the
Word 3," we understand the Only-begotten to
be meant, and when it adds " the Word was
made flesh4" we thereby receive in our minds
the idea of the first-born, and so the word of
godliness remains without confusion, preserving
to each name its natural significance, so that in
" Only-begotten " we regard the pre-temporal,
and by "the first-born of creation" the mani-
festation of the pre-temporal in the flesh.

§ 9. Gregory again discusses the generation of
the Only-begotten, and other different modes of
generation, material and immaterial, and
nobly demonstrates that the Son is the bright-
ness of the Divine glory, and not a creature.

And now let us return once more to the pre-
cise statement of Eunomius. " We believe
also in the Son of God, the only begotten God,
the first-born of all creation, very Son, not Un-
generate, verily begotten before the worlds."

9 Heb. i. 6. x Phil. ii. 10, ix. " Cf. Ps. xcviii. 10.

3 S. John i. 1. 4 S. John i. 14.

114

GREGORY OF NYSSA

That he transfers, then, the sense of genera-
tion to indicate creation is plain from his ex-
pressly calling Him created, when he speaks
of Him as "coming into being" and "not
uncreate ". But that the inconsiderate rash-
ness and want of training which shows itself
in the doctrines may be made manifest, let
us omit all expressions of indignation at his
evident blasphemy, and employ in the dis-
cussion of this matter a scientific division.
For it would be well, I think, to consider in
a somewhat careful investigation the exact
meaning of the term " generation." That this
expression conveys the meaning of existing
as the result of some cause is plain to all,
and I suppose there is no need to contend
about this point : but since there are different
modes of existing as the result of a cause, this
difference is what I think ought to receive
thorough explanation in our discussion by means
of scientific division. Of things which have
come into being as the results of some cause
we recognize the following differences. Some
are the result of material and art, as the fabrics
of houses and all other works produced by
means of their respective material, where some
art gives direction and conducts its purpose
to its proper aim. Others are the result of
material and nature ; for nature orders s the
generation of animals one from another, effect-
ing her own work by means of the material
subsistence in the bodies of the parents ;
others again are by material efflux. In these
the original remains as it was before, and that
which flows from it is contemplated by itself,
as in the case of the sun and its beam, or the
lamp and its radiance, or of scents and oint-
ments, and the quality given off from them.
For these, while remaining undiminished in
themselves, have each accompanying them the
special and peculiar effect which they naturally
produce, as the sun his ray, the lamp its bright-
ness, and perfumes the fragrance which they
engender in the air. There is also another
kind of generation besides these, where the
cause is immaterial and incorporeal, but the
generation is sensible and takes place through
the instrumentality of the body ; I mean the
generation of the word by the mind. For the
mind being in itself incorporeal begets the word
by means of sensible instruments. So many
are the differences of the term generation,
which we discover in a philosophic view of
them, that is itself, so to speak, the result of
generation.

And now that we have thus distinguished the
various modes of generation, it will be time to
remark how the benevolent dispensation of the

5 Reading oixoi'opei or oucojofiti.

Holy Spirit, in delivering to us the Divine
mysteries, imparts that instruction which trans-
cends reason by such methods as we can re-
ceive. For the inspired teaching adopts, in
order to set forth the unspeakable power of
God, all the forms of generation that human
intelligence recognizes, yet without including
the corporeal senses attaching to the words.
For when it speaks of the creative power, it
gives to such an energy the name of genera-
tion, because its expression must stoop to our
low capacity ; it does not, however, convey
thereby all that we include in creative gener-
ation, as time, place, the furnishing of matter,
the fitness of instruments, the design in the
things that come into bemg, but it leaves these,
and asserts of God in lofty and magnificent
language the creation of all existent things,
when it says, " He spake the word and they
were made 6, He commanded and they were
created." Again when it interprets to us the
unspeakable and transcendent existence of the
Only-begotten from the Father, as the poverty
of human intellect is incapable of receiving
doctrines which surpass all power of speech and
thought, there too it borrows our language and
terms Him " Son," — a name which our usage
assigns to those who are born of matter and
nature. But just as Scripture, when speaking of
generation by creation, does not in the case of
God imply that such generation took place by
means of any material, affirming that the power
of God's will served for material substance, place,
time and all such circumstances, even so here
too, when using the term Son, it rejects both all
else that human nature remarks in generation
here below, — I mean affections and dispositions
and the co-operation of time, and the necessity
of place, — and, above all, matter, without all
which natural generation here below does not
take place. But when all such material, tem-
poral and local ' existence is excluded from the
sense of the term "Son," community of nature
alone is left, and for this reason by the title
" Son " is declared, concerning the Only-be-
gotten, the close affinity and genuineness of
relationship which mark His manifestation from
the Father. And since such a kind of genera-
tion was not sufficient to implant in us an ade-
quate notion of the ineffable mode of subsistence
of the Only-begotten, Scripture avails itself also
of the third kind of generation to indicate the
doctrine of the Son's Divinity, — that kind,
namely, which is the result of material efflux,
and speaks of Him as the " brightness of
glory8," the " savour of ointment 9t" the "breath

* Or " were generated." The reference is to Ps. cxlvui. 5.
7 5ia<rTT)(iaTcKrjs seems to include the idea of extension in time
as well as in space. • Heb. i. 3.

9 The refe.euce may be to the Song of Solomon L 3.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

ii5

of God * ; " illustrations which in the scientific
phraseology we have adopted we ordinarily
designate as material efflux.

But as in the cases alleged neither the birth
of the creation nor the force of the term
"Son" admits time, matter, place, or affec-
tion, so here too the Scripture employing only
the illustration of effulgence and the others
that I have mentioned, apart from all material
conception, with regard to the Divine fitness of
such a mode of generation, shows that we must
understand by the significance of this expres-
sion, an existence at once derived from and
subsisting with the Father. For neither is the
figure of breath intended to convey to us the
notion of dispersion into the air from the
material from which it is formed, nor is the
figure of fragrance designed to express the
passing off of the quality of the ointment into
the air, nor the figure of effulgence the efflux
which takes place by means of the rays from
the body of the sun : but as has been said in
all cases, by such a mode of generation is
indicated this alone, that the Son is of the
Father and is conceived of along with Him,
no interval intervening between the Father
and Him Who is of the Father. For since of
His exceeding loving-kindness the grace of the
Holy Spirit so ordered that the divine con-
ceptions concerning the Only-begotten should
reach us from many quarters, and so be im-
planted in us, He added also the remaining
kind of generation, — that, namely, of the word
from the mind. And here the sublime John
uses remarkable foresight. That the reader
might not through inattention and unworthy
conceptions sink to the common notion of
" word," so as to deem the Son to be merely
a voice of the Father, he therefore affirms of
the Word that He essentially subsisted in the
first and blessed nature Itself, thus proclaiming
aloud, "In the Beginning was the Word, and
with God, and God, and Light, and Life 2," and
all that the Beginning is, the Word was also.

Since, then, these kinds of generation, those,
I mean, which arise as the result of some
cause, and are recognized in our e very-day
experience, are also employed by Holy Scrip-
ture to convey its teaching concerning trans-
cendent mysteries in such wise as each of them
may reasonably be transferred to the expression
of divine conceptions, we may now proceed to
examine Eunomius' statement also, to find in
what sense he accepts the meaning of "genera-
tion." "Very Son," he says, "not ungenerate,
verily begotten before the worlds." One may,
I think, pass quickly over the violence done to
logical sequence in his distinction, as being
easily recognizable by all. For who does not

1 Wisd vii. 35.

* Cf. S. John L 1 sqq.

know that while the proper opposition is
between Father and Son, between generate
and ungenerate, he thus passes over the term
" father " and sets " ungenerate " in opposition
to "Son," whereas he ought, if he had any
concern for truth, to have avoided diverting his
phrase from the due sequence of relationship,
and to have said, " Very Son, not Father " ?
And in this way due regard would have been
paid at once to piety and to logical consistency,
as the nature would not have been rent asunder
in making the distinction between the persons.
But he has exchanged in his statement of his
faith the true and scriptural use of the term
"Father," committed to us by the Word Him-
self, and speaks of the " Ungenerate " instead
of the "Father," in order that by separating
Him from that close relationship towards the
Son which is naturally conceived of in the title
of Father, he may place Him on a common
level with all created objects, which equally
stand in opposition to the " ungenerate 3."
" Verily begotten," he says, " before the worlds."
Let him say of Whom He is begotten. He will
answer, of course, " Of the Father," unless he
is prepared unblushingly to contradict the truth.
But since it is impossible to detach the eternity
of the Son from the eternal Father, seeing that
the term "Father" by its very signification
implies the Son, for this reason it is that he
rejects the title Father and shifts his phrase to
"ungenerate," since the meaning of this latter
name has no sort of relation or connection with
the Son, and by thus misleading his readers
through the substitution of one term for the
other, into not contemplating the Son along
with the Father, he opens up a path for his
sophistry, paving the way of impiety by slipping
in the term " ungenerate." For they who ac-
cording to the ordinance of the Lord believe in
the Father, when they hear the name of the
Father, receive the Son along with Him in their
thought, as the mind passes from the Son to the
Father, without treading on an unsubstantial
vacuum interposed between them. But those
who are diverted to the title " ungenerate "
instead of Father, get a bare notion of this
name, learning only the fact that He did not
at any time come into being, not that He is
Father. Still, even with this mode of concep-
tion, the faith of those who read with discern-
ment remains free from confusion. For the
expression "not to come into being" is used in
an identical sense of all uncreated nature : and
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are equally un-
created. For it has ever been believed by

3 That is, by using as the terms of his antithesis, not " Son " and

"Father," but "Son" and "Ungenerate," he avoids suggesting

relationship between the two Persons, and does suggest that the

Second Person stands in the same opposition to the First Person in

I which all created objects stand as contrasted with Him.

I 2

GREGORY OF NYSSA

those who follow the Divine word that all the
creation, sensible and supramundane, derives
its existence from the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost. He who has heard that " by the
word of the Lord were the heavens made, and
all the host of them by the breath of His
mouth V neither understands by "word" mere
utterance, nor by " breath " mere exhalation,
but by what is there said frames the concep-
tion of God the Word and of the Spirit of
God. Now to create and to be created are not
equivalent, but all existent things being divided
into that which makes and that which is made,
each is different in nature from the other, so
that neither is that uncreated which is made,
nor is that created which effects the production
of the things that are made. By those then
who, according to the exposition of the faith
given us by our Lord Himself, have believed in
the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost, it is acknowledged that each
of these Persons is alike unoriginate 5, and the
meaning conveyed by " ungenerate " does no
harm to their sound belief: but to those who
are dense and indefinite this term serves as
a starting-point for deflection from sound doc-
trine. For not understanding the true force
of the term, that "ungenerate " signifies nothing
more than " not having come into being," and
that " not coming into being " is a common
property of all that transcends created nature,
they drop their faith in the Father, and sub-
stitute for " Father " the phrase " ungenerate : "
and since, as has been said, the Personal exist-
ence of the Only-begotten is not connoted in
this name, they determine the existence of the
Son to have commenced from some definite
beginning in time, affirming (what Eunomius
here adds to his previous statements) that He
is called Son not without generation preceding
His existence.

What is this vain juggling with words? Is
he aware that it is God of Whom he speaks,
Who was in the beginning and is in the Father,
nor was there any time when He was not? He
knows not what he says nor whereof he affirms 6,
but he endeavours, as though he were con-
structing the pedigree of a mere man, to apply
to the Lord of all creation the language which
properly belongs to our nature here below. For,
to take an example, Ishmael was not before
the generation that brought him into being,
and before his birth there was of course an

* Ps. xxxiii. 6.

5 Tb(xr)yei/e<7SaiTi toutoii' cwiVrjs 6/ioAoyetTai. This may possibly
mean "'it is acknowledged that each of those alternatives " (viz.
that that which comes into being is uncreate, and that that which
creates should itself be created) " is equally untrue." But this view
would not be confined to those who held the Catholic doctrine : the
impossibility of the former alternative, indeed, was insisted upon by
the Arians as an argument in their own favour.

6 Cf. i Tim. L 7.

interval of time. But with Him Who is " the
brightness of glory?," "before" and "after"
have no place : for before the brightness, of
course neither was there any glory, for concur-
rently with the existence of the glory there
assuredly beams forth its brightness ; and it is
impossible in the nature of things that one
should be severed from the other, nor is it
possible to see the glory by itself before its
brightness. For he who says thus will make
out the glory in itself to be darkling and dim,
if the brightness from it does not shine
out at the same time. But this is the unfair
method of the heresy, to endeavour, by the
notions and terms employed concerning the
Only-begotten God, to displace Him from His
oneness with the Father. It is to this end they
say, " Before the generation that brought Him
into being He was not Son :" but the " sons of
rams8," of whom the prophet speaks, — are not
they too called sons after coming into being ?
That quality, then, which reason notices in the
" sons of rams," that they are not " sons of
rams " before the generation which brings them
into being, — this our reverend divine now as-
cribes to the Maker of the worlds and of all
creation, Who has the Eternal Father in Him-
self, and is contemplated in the eternity of the
Father, as He Himself says, " I am in the
Father, and the Father in Me 9." Those, how-
ever, who are not able to detect the sophistry
that lurks in his statement, and are not trained
to any sort of logical perception, follow these
inconsequent statements and receive what comes
next as a logical consequence of what preceded.
For he says, "coming into being before all
creation," and as though this were not enough
to prove his impiety, he has a piece of profanity
in reserve in the phrase that follows, when he
terms the Son " not uncreate." In what sense
then does he call Him Who is not uncreate
" very Son " ? For if it is meet to call Him
Who is not uncreate " very Son," then of course
the heaven is "very Son; " for it too is "not
uncreate." So the sun too is "very Son," and
all that the creation contains, both small and
great, are of course entitled to the appellation
of "very Son." And in what sense does He
call Him Who has come into being " Only-
begotten " ? For all things that come into
being are unquestionably in brotherhood with
each other, so far, I mean, as their coming into
being is concerned. And from whom did He
come into being ? For assuredly all things that
have ever come into being did so from the Son.
For thus did John testify, saying, "All things were
made by Him 1." If then the Son also came
into being, according to Eunomius' creed, He

^ Cf. Heb. i. 3.
9 S. John xiv. ic.

8 Ps. cxiv. 4, in SeptuaginC.
1 S. John l 3.

AGAINST EUNOM1US. BOOK II.

117

is certainly ranked in the class of things which
have come into being. If then all things that
came into being were made by Him, and the
Word is one of the things that came into being,
who is so dull as not to draw from these
premises the absurd conclusion that our new
creed-monger makes out the Lord of creation
to have been His own work, in saying in so
many words that the Lord and Maker of all
creation is " not uncreate " ? Let him tell us
whence he has this boldness of assertion.
From what inspired utterance ? What evange-
list, what apostle ever uttered such words as
these ? What prophet, what lawgiver, what
patriarch, what other person of all who were
divinely moved by the Holy Ghost, whose
voices are preserved in writing, ever originated
such a statement as this? In the tradition of
the faith delivered by the Truth we are taught
to believe in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If
it were right to believe that the Son was created,
how was it that the Truth in delivering to us
this mystery bade us believe in the Son, and not
in the creature? and how is it that the inspired
Apostle, himself adoring Christ, lays it down
that they who worship the creature besides the
Creator are guilty of idolatry 2 ? For, were the
Son created, either he would not have wor-
shipped Him, or he would have refrained from
classing those who worship the creature along
with idolaters, lest he himself should appear to
be an idolater, in offering adoration to the
created. But he knew that He Whom he
adored was God over all 3, for so he terms the
Son in his Epistle to the Romans. Why then
do those who divorce the Son from the essence
of the Father, and call Him creature, bestow on
Him in mockery the fictitious title of Deity, idly
conferring on one alien from true Divinity the
name of " God," as they might confer it on Bel
or Dagon or the Dragon ? Let those, therefore,
who affirm that He is created, acknowledge that
He is not God at all, that they may be seen to
be nothing but Jews in disguise, or, if they
confess one who is created to be God, let them
not deny that they are idolaters.

§ 10. He explains the phrase " The Lord created
Me," and the argument about the origination
of the Son, the deceptive character of Eunomius'
reasoning, and the passage which says, " My
glory ivill I not give to another" examining
them from different points of view.

But of course they bring forward the passage
in the book of Proverbs which says, " The Lord
created Me as the beginning of His ways, for

2 Rom. i. 25, where napa rbv Kriuavra may be better translated
" besides the Creator," or " rather than the Creator," than as in

the A.V.

3 Rom. ix. 5.

His works *." Now it would require a lengthy
discussion to explain fully the real meaning of
the passage : still it would be possible even in
a few words to convey to well-disposed readers
the thought intended. Some of those who are
accurately versed in theology do say this, that
the Hebrew text does not read " created," and
we have ourselves read in more ancient copies
" possessed " instead of " created." Now as-
suredly " possession " in the allegorical language
of the Proverbs marks that slave Who for our
sakes "took upon Him the form of a slaves."
But if any one should allege in this passage the
reading which prevails in the Churches, we do
not reject even the expression "created." For
this also in allegorical language is intended to
connote the " slave," since, as the Apostle tells
us, "all creation is in bondage6." Thus we
say that this expression, as well as the other,
admits of an orthodox interpretation. For He
Who for our sakes became like as we are, was
in the last days truly created, — He Who in the
beginning being Word and God afterwards
became Flesh and Man. For the nature of
flesh is created : and by partaking in it in all
points like as we do, yet without sin, He was
created when He became man : and He was
created "after God 7," not after man, as the
Apostle says, in a new manner and not accord-
ing to human wont. For we are taught that
this " new man " was created — albeit of the
Holy Ghost and of the power of the Highest —
whom Paul, the hierophant of unspeakable
mysteries, bids us to " put on," using two
phrases to express the garment, that is to be
put on, saying in one place, " Put on the new
man which after God is created 7," and in
another, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ8."
For thus it is that He, Who said " I am the
Way 9," becomes to us who have put Him on
the beginning of the ways of salvation, that He
may make us the work of His own hands, new
modelling us from the evil mould of sin once
more to His own image. He is at once our
foundation before the world to come, according
to the words of Paul, who says, " Other founda-
tion can no man lay than that is laid x," and it
is true that " before the springs of the waters
came forth, before the mountains were settled,
before He made the depths, and before all hills,
He begetteth Me2." For it is possible, accord-

4 Prov. viii. 22 (LXX). The versions of Aquila, Theodotion,
and Symmachus (to one or more of which perhaps § 9 refers), all
render the Hebrew by eKT>j<raTO ("possessed"), not by eKTitre
(" created "). But Gregory may be referring to MSS. of the LXX.
version which read c/ciTJeraTO. It is clear from what follows that Mr.
Gwatkin is hardly justified in his remark (Studies of Arianism, p.
69), that "the whole discussion on Prov. viii. 22 (LXX.), Kupio?
exTio-e f/.e, K.r.\., might have been avoided by a glance at the
original." The point of the controversy might have been changed,
but that would have been all. Gregory seems to feel that eicnjo-aTo
requires an explanation, though he has one ready.

5 Phil. ii. 7. 6 Rom. viii. 20-1. 7 Eph. iv. 24.
8 Rom. xiii. 14. 9 S. John xiv. 6. * 1 Cor. iii. XI.
2 Prov. viii. 23 — 25 (not quite verbal, from the LXX).

Ii8

GREGORY OF NYSSA

ing to the usage of the Book of Proverbs, for
each of these phrases, taken in a tropical sense,
to be applied to the Word 3. For the great
David calls righteousness the "mountains of
God V' His judgments "deeps*," and the
teachers in the Churches " fountains," saying
" Bless God the Lord from the fountains of
Israel s " ; and guilelessness he calls " hills," as
he shows when he speaks of their skipping like
lambs6. Before these therefore is born in us
He Who for our sakes was created as man, that
of these things also the creation may find place
in us. But we may, I think, pass from the dis-
cussion of these points, inasmuch as the truth
has been sufficiently pointed out in a few words
to well-disposed readers ; let us proceed to what
Eunomius says next.

" Existing in the beginning," he says, " not
without beginning." In what fashion does he
who plumes himself on his superior discernment
understand the oracles of God ? He declares
Him Who was in the beginning Himself to have
a beginning : and is not aware that if He Who
is in the beginning has a beginning, then the
beginning itself must needs have another be-
ginning. Whatever He says of the beginning
he must necessarily confess to be true of Him
Who was in the beginning : for how can that
which is in the beginning be severed from the
beginning? and how can any one imagine a
" was not " as preceding the " was " ? For
however far one carries back one's thought to
apprehend the beginning, one most certainly
understands as one does so that the Word which
was in the beginning (inasmuch as It cannot be
separated from the beginning in which It is) does
not at any point of time either begin or cease
its existence therein. Yet let no one be induced
by these words of mine to separate into two the
one beginning we acknowledge. For the be-
ginning is most assuredly one, wherein is dis-
cerned, indivisibly, that Word Who is completely
united to the Father. He who thus thinks
will never leave heresy a loophole to impair his
piety by the novelty of the term "ungenerate."
But in Eunomius' next propositions his state-
ments are like bread with a large admixture of
sand. For by mixing his heretical opinions
with sound doctrines, he makes uneatable even
that which is in itself nutritious, by the gravel
which he has mingled with it. For he calls the
Lord " living wisdom," " operative truth," " sub-
sistent power," and " life " : — so far is the nutri-
tious portion. But into these assertions he
instils the poison of heresy. For when he
speaks of the " life " as " generate " he makes
a reservation by the implied opposition to the

3 Or "to be_ brought into harmony with Christian doctrine "
(e(t>ap)x6<r8rivai. tcu Aoyw) * Ps. xxxvi. 6.

5 Ps. Uviii. 26 (LXX.). <« Cf. Ps. cxiv. 6.

" ungenerate " life, and does not affirm the Son
to be the very Life. Next he says : — "As Son
of God, quickening the dead, the true light, the
light that lighteneth every man coming into the
world 7, good, and the bestower of good things."
All these things he offers for honey to the
simple-minded, concealing his deadly drug under
the sweetness of terms like these. For he im-
mediately introduces, on the heels of these
statements, his pernicious principle, in the
words " Not partitioning with Him that begat
Him His high estate, not dividing with another
the essence of the Father, but becoming by
generation glorious, yea, the Lord of glory,
and receiving glory from the Father, not shar-
ing His glory with the Father, for the glory
of the Almighty is incommunicable, as He
hath said, ' My glory will I not give to an-
other8.'" These are his deadly poisons, which
they alone can discover who have their souls'
senses trained so to do : but the mortal mis-
chief of the words is disclosed by their con-
clusion : — " Receiving glory from the Father,
not sharing glory with the Father, for the glory
of the Almighty is incommunicable, as He hath
said, ' My glory will I not give to another.' "
Who is that "other" to whom God has said
that He will not give His glory? The
prophet speaks of the adversary of God, and
Eunomius refers the prophecy to the only be-
gotten God Himself ! For when the prophet,
speaking in the person of God, had said, " My
glory will I not give to another," he added,
" neither My praise to graven images." For
when men were beguiled to offer to the adver-
sary of God the worship and adoration due to
God alone, paying homage in the representa-
tions of graven images to the enemy of God,
who appeared in many shapes amongst men in
the forms furnished by idols, He Who healeth
them that are sick, in pity for men's ruin, fore-
told by the prophet the loving-kindness which
in the latter days He would show in the abolish-
ing of idols, saying, " When My truth shall have
been manifested, My glory shall no more be
given to another, nor My praise bestowed upon
graven images : for men, when they come to
know My glory, shall no more be in bondage to
them that by nature are no gods." All there-
fore that the prophet says in the person of the
Lord concerning the power of the adversary,
this fighter against God, refers to the Lord Him-
self, Who spake these words by the prophet !
Who among the tyrants is recorded to have
been such a persecutor of the faith as this?
Who maintained such blasphemy as this, that
He Who, as we believe, was manifested in the
flesh for the salvation of our souls, is not very
God, but the adversary of God, who puts his

' Cf. S. John i. 9.

8 Is. xlii. 8.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

119

guile into effect against men by the instrument-
ality of idols and graven images? For it is what
was said of that adversary by the prophet that
Eunomius transfers to the only-begotten God,
without so much as reflecting that it is the
Only-begotten Himself Who spake these words
by the prophet, as Eunomius himself subse-
quently confesses when he says, " this is He
Who spake by the prophets."

Why should I pursue this part of the subject
in more detail ? For the words preceding also
are tainted with the same profanity — "receiving
glory from the Father, not sharing glory with
the Father, for the glory of the Almighty God
is incommunicable." For my own part, even
had his words referred to Moses who was glori-
fied in the ministration of the Law, — not even
then should I have tolerated such a statement,
even if it be conceded that Moses, having no
glory from within, appeared completely glorious
to the Israelites by the favour bestowed on him
from God. For the very glory that was be-
stowed on the lawgiver was the glory of none
other but of God Himself, which glory the
Lord in the Gospel bids all to seek, when He
blames those who value human glory highly
and seek not the glory that cometh from
God only 9. For by the fact that He com-
manded them to seek the glory that cometh
from the only God, He declared the possibility
of their obtaining what they sought. How then
is the glory of the Almighty incommunicable,
if it is even our duty to ask for the glory that
cometh from the only God, and if, according
to our Lord's word, " every one that asketh re-
ceiveth1 " ? But one who says concerning the
Brightness of the Father's glory, that He has
the glory by having received it, says in effect
that the Brightness of the glory is in Itself de-
void of glory, and needs, in order to become
Himself at last the Lord of some glory, to
receive glory from another. How then are we
to dispose of the utterances of the Truth, —
one which tells us that He shall be seen in the
glory of the Father 2, and another which says,
"All things that the Father hath are Mines"?
To whom ought the hearer to give ear? To
him who says, " He that is, as the Apostle says,
the 'heir of all things * ' that are in the Father,
is without part or lot in His Father's glory " ;
or to Him Who declares that all things that the
Father hath, He Himself hath also ? Now
among the " all things," glory surely is in-
cluded. Yet Eunomius says that the glory of
the Almighty is incommunicable. This view
Joel does not attest, nor yet the mighty Peter,
who adopted, in his speech to the Jews, the
language of the prophet. For both the pro-

5 Cf. S. John v. 44. ' S. Matt. vii. 8.

S. Mark viii. 38. 3 S. John xvi. 15. * Heb. i. 3.

phet and the apostle say, in the person of
God, — " I will pour out of My Spirit upon all
flesh s." He then Who did not grudge the
partaking in His own Spirit to all flesh, —how
can it be that He does not impart His own
glory to the only-begotten Son, Who is in the
bosom of the Father, Who has all things that
the Father has ? Perhaps one should say that
Eunomius is here speaking the truth, though not
intending it. For the term "impart " is strictly
used in the case of one who has not his glory
from within, whose possession of it is an ac-
cession from without, and not part of his own
nature : but where one and the same nature
is observed in both Persons, He Who is as
regards nature all that the Father is believed to
be stands in no need of one to impart to Him
each several attribute. This it will be well to
explain more clearly and precisely. He Who
has the Father dwelling in Him in His entirety
— what need has He of the Father's glory,
when none of the attributes contemplated in
the Father is withdrawn from Him ?

§ 11. After expounding the high estate of the

Almighty, the Eternity of the Son, and the

phrase '■'■being made obedient" he shows the

folly of Euno?nius in his assertion that the

Son did not acquire His sons hip by obedience.

What, moreover, is the high estate of the
Almighty in which Eunomius affirms that the
Son has no share ? Let those, then, who are
wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their
own sight6, utter their groundling opinions —
they who, as the prophet says, " speak out of
the ground ?." But let us who reverence the
Word and are disciples of the Truth, or rather
who profess to be so, not leave even this as-
sertion unsifted. We know that of all the
names by which Deity is indicated some are
expressive of the Divine majesty, employed and
understood absolutely, and some are assigned
with reference to the operations over us and all
creation. For when the Apostle says " Now
to the immortal, invisible, only wise God8,"
and the like, by these titles he suggests con-
ceptions which represent to us the transcendent
power, but when God is spoken of in the Scrip-
tures as gracious, merciful, full of pity, true,
good, Lord, Physician, Shepherd, Way, Bread,
Fountain, King, Creator, Artificer, Protector,
Who is over all and through all, Who is all in
all, these and similar titles contain the declara-
tion of the operations of the Divine loving-
kindness in the creation. Those then who
enquire precisely into the meaning of the term
"Almighty" will find that it declares nothing

5 Joel ii. 28 : Acts ii. 17.
7 Is. xxix. 4.

6 Is. v. 31.

• Cf. 1 Tim. i. 17.

120

GREGORY OF NYSSA

else concerning the Divine power than that that
operation which controls created things and is
indicated by the word "Almighty," stands in a
certain relation to something. For as He would
not h<" called a Physician, save on account of
the sick, nor merciful and gracious, and the like,
save by reason of one who stood in need of
grace and mercy, so neither would He be styled
Almighty, did not all creation stand in need
of one to regulate it and keep it in being. As,
then, He presents Himself as a Physician to
those who are in need of healing, so He is
Almighty over one who has need of being
ruled : and just as " they that are whole have
no need of a physician 9," so it follows that we
may well say that He Whose nature contains in
it the principle of unerring and unwavering rec-
titude does not, like others, need a ruler over
Him. Accordingly, when we hear the name
" Almighty," our conception is this, that God
sustains in being all intelligible things as well
as all things of a material nature. For for this
cause He sitteth upon the circle of the earth,
for this cause He holdeth the ends of the
earth in His hand, for this cause He " meteth
out heaven with the span, and measureth the
waters in the hollow of His hand l " ; for this
cause He comprehendeth in Himself all the
intelligible creation, that all things may remain
in existence controlled by His encompassing
power. Let us enquire, then, Who it is that
" worketh all in all." Who is He Who made
all things, and without Whom no existing thing
does exist ? Who is He in Whom all things
were created, and in Whom all things that are
have their continuance ? In Whom do we live
and move and have our being ? Who is He
Who hath in Himself all that the Father hath ?
Does what has been said leave us any longer
in ignorance of Him Who is " God over all 2,"
Who is so entitled by S. Paul, — our Lord Jesus
Christ, Who, as He Himself says, holding in
His hand " all things that the Father hath 3,"
assuredly grasps all things in the all-containing
hollow of His hand and is sovereign over what
He has grasped, and no man taketh from the
hand of Him Who in His hand holdeth all
things ? If, then, He hath all things, and is
sovereign over that which He hath, why is He
Who is thus sovereign over all things some-
thing else and not Almighty? If heresy replies
that the Father is sovereign over both the Son
and the Holy Spirit, let them first show that
the Son and the Holy Spirit are of mutable
nature, and then over this mutability let them
set its ruler, that by the help implanted from
above, that which is so overruled may con-

9 Cf. S. Matt. ix. 12, and parallel passages.

1 Cf. Is. xl. 12 and 24. The quotation is not verbally from the
LXX.

* Rom. ix. 5. 3 S. John xvi. 15.

tinue incapable of turning to evil. If, on the
other hand, the Divine nature is incapable of
evil, unchangeable, unalterable, eternally per-
manent, to what end does it stand in need of a
ruler, controlling as it does all creation, and itself
by reason of its immutability needing no ruler
to control it? For this cause it is that at the
name of Christ " every knee boweth, of things
in heaven, and things in earth, and things under
the earth V For assuredly every knee would
not thus bow, did it not recognize in Christ
Him Who rules it for its own salvation. But
to say that the Son came into being by the
goodness of the Father is nothing else than to
put Him on a level with the meanest objects
of creation. For what is there that did not
arrive at its birth by the goodness of Him Who
made it? To what is the formation of mankind
ascribed ? to the badness of its Maker, or to
His goodness ? To what do we ascribe the
generation of animals, the production of plants
and herbs? There is nothing that did not
take its rise from the goodness of Him Who
made it. A property, then, which reason dis-
cerns to be common to all things, Eunomius
is so kind as to allow to the Eternal Son ! But
that He did not share His essence or His
estate with the Father — these assertions and the
rest of his verbiage I have refuted in anticipa-
tion, when dealing with his statements con-
cerning the Father, and shown that he has
hazarded them at random and without any
intelligible meaning. For not even in the case
of us who are born one of another is there any
division of essence. The definition expressive
of essence remains in its entirety in each, in
him that begets and in him who is begotten,
without admitting diminution in him who be-
gets, or augmentation in him who is begotten.
But to speak of division of estate or sovereignty
in the case of Him Who hath all things whatso-
ever that the Father hath, carries with it no
meaning, unless it be a demonstration of the
propounder's impiety. It would therefore be
superfluous to entangle oneself in such discus-
sions, and so to prolong our treatise to an un-
reasonable length. Let us pass on to what
follows.

" Glorified," he says, " by the Father before the
worlds." The word of truth hath been demon-
strated, confirmed by the testimony of its ad-
versaries. For this is the sum of our faith,
that the Son is from all eternity, being glorified
by the Father : for " before the worlds " is the
same in sense as "from all eternity. v seeing
that prophecy uses this phrase to set forth to
us God's eternity, when it speaks of Him as
"He that is from before the worlds s." If then
to exist before the worlds is beyond all begin-

* Cf. Phil. ii. 10.

5 Ps. lv. 19 (LXX.)

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

121

ning, he who confers glory on the Son before
the worlds, does thereby assert His existence
from eternity before that glory6 : for surely it
is not the non-existent, but the existent which
is glorified. Then he proceeds to plant for
himself the seeds of blasphemy against the
Holy Spirit ; not with a view to glorify the Son,
but that he may wantonly outrage the Holy
Ghost. For with the intention of making out
the Holy Spirit to be part of the angelic host,
he throws in the phrase " glorified eternally by
the Spirit, and by every rational and generated
being," so that there is no distinction between
the Holy Spirit and all that comes into being ;
if, that is, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord in
the same sense as all the other existences
enumerated by the prophet, " angels and
powers, and the heaven of heavens, and the
water above the heavens, and all the things of
earth, dragons, deeps, fire and hail, snow and
vapour, wind of the storm, mountains and all
hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all
cattle, worms and feathered fowls 7." If, then,
he says, that along with these the Holy Spirit
also glorifies the Lord, surely his God-opposing
tongue makes out the Holy Spirit Himself also
to be one of them.

The disjointed incoherencies which follow
next, I think it well to pass over, not because
they give no handle at all to censure, but be-
cause their language is such as might be used
by the devout, if detached from its malignant
context. If he does here and there use some
expressions favourable to devotion it is just
held out as a bait to simple souls, to the end
that the hook of impiety may be swallowed
along with it. For after employing such lan-
guage as a member of the Church might use, he
subjoins, "Obedient with regard to the creation
and production of all things that are, obedient
with regard to every ministration, not having by
His obedience attained Sonship or Godhead, but,
as a consequence of being Son and being gener-
ated as the Only-begotten God, showing Himself
obedient in words, obedient in acts." Yet who
of those who are conversant with the oracles of
God does not know with regard to what point
of time it was said of Him by the mighty Paul,
(and that once for all), that He " became
obedient 8 " ? For it was when He came in the
form of a servant to accomplish the mystery of
redemption by the cross, Who had emptied
Himself, Who humbled Himself by assuming
the likeness and fashion of a man, being found
as man in man's lowly nature — then, I say, it
was that He became obedient, even He Who

6 Reading auTrjs, with Oehler. The general sense is the same,
if avTcu be read ; ' ' does yet more strongly attest His existence from
all eternity."

7 Cf. Ps. cxlviii. 2— io. 8 Phil. ii. 8.

"took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses 9,"
healing the disobedience of men by His own
obedience, that by His stripes He might heal
our wound, and by His own death do away
with the common death of all men, — then it
was that for our sakes He was made obedient,
even as He became " sin x " and "a curse 2 " by
reason of the dispensation on our behalf, not
being so by nature, but becoming so in His
love for man. But by what sacred utterance
was He ever taught His list of so many obedi-
ences ? Nay, on the contrary every inspired
Scripture attests His independent and sovereign
power, saying, " He spake the word and they
were made : He commanded and they were
created 3 " : — for it is plain that the Psalmist
says this concerning Him Who upholds "all
things by the word of His power *," Whose
authority, by the sole impulse of His will,
framed every existence and nature, and all
things in the creation apprehended by reason
or by sight. Whence, then, was Eunomius
moved to ascribe in such manifold wise to the
King of the universe the attribute of obedience,
speaking of Him as " obedient with regard to all
the work of creation, obedient with regard to
every ministration, obedient in words and in
acts " ? Yet it is plain to every one, that he
alone is obedient to another in acts and words,
who has not yet perfectly achieved in himself
the condition of accurate working or unexcep-
tionable speech, but keeping his eye ever on
his teacher and guide, is trained by his sugges-
tions to exact propriety in deed and word.
But to think that Wisdom needs a master and
teacher to guide aright Its attempts at imitation,
is the dream of Eunomius' fancy, and of his
alone. And concerning the Father he says,
that He is faithful in words and faithful in
works, while of the Son he does not assert
faithfulness in word and deed, but only obedi-
ence and not faithfulness, so that his profanity
extends impartially through all his statements.
But it is perhaps right to pass in silence over
the inconsiderate folly of the assertion inter-
posed between those last mentioned, lest some
unreflecting persons should laugh at its absurdity
when they ought rather to weep over the per-
dition of their souls, than laugh at the folly of
their words. For this wise and wary theologian
says that He did not attain to being a Son as the
result of His obedience ! Mark his penetration !
with what cogent force does he lay it down for
us that He was not first obedient and afterwards
a Son, and that we ought not to think that His
obedience was prior to His generation ! Now
if he had not added this defining clause, who
without it would have been sufficiently silly and

9 Cf. S. Matt viii. 17.

2 Gal. iii. 13. 3 Ps. cxlviii. 5.

1 2 Cor. v. 21.

* Heb. L 3.

122

GREGORY OF NYSSA

idiotic to fancy that His generation was bestowed
on Him by His Father, as a reward of the
obedience of Him Who before His generation
had showed due subjection and obedience ? But
that no one may too readily extract matter for
laughter from these remarks, let each consider
that even the folly of the words has in it some-
thing worthy of tears. For what he intends to
establish by these observations is something of
this kind, that His obedience is part of His
nature, so that not even if He willed it would
it be possible for Him not to be obedient.

For he says that He was so constituted that
His nature was adapted to obedience alone 5, just
as among instruments that which is fashioned
with regard to a certain figure necessarily pro-
duces in that which is subjected to its operation
the form which the artificer implanted in the
construction of the instrument, and cannot
possibly trace a straight line upon that which
receives its mark, if its own working is in a
curve ; nor can the instrument, if fashioned to
draw a straight line, produce a circle by its
impress. What need is there of any words of
ours to reveal how great is the profanity of such
a notion, when the heretical utterance of itself
proclaims aloud its monstrosity? For if He
was obedient for this reason only that He was
so made, then of course He is not on an equal
footing even with humanity, since on this theory,
while our soul is self-determining and independ-
ent, choosing as it will with sovereignty over
itself that which is pleasing to it, He on the
contrary exercises, or rather experiences, obedi-
ence under the constraint of a compulsory law
of His nature, while His nature suffers Him not
to disobey, even if He would. For it was " as
the result of being Son, and being begotten, that
He has thus shown Himself obedient in words
and obedient in acts." Alas, for the brutish
stupidity of this doctrine ! Thou makest the
Word obedient to words, and supposest other
words prior to Him Who is truly the Word, and
another Word of the Beginning is mediator
between the Beginning and the Word that was
in the Beginning, conveying to Him the decision.
And this is not one only : there are several
words, which Eunomius makes so many links
of the chain between the Beginning and the
Word, and which abuse His obedience as they
think good. But what need is there to linger
over this idle talk ? Any one can see that even
at that time with reference to which S. Paul
says that He became obedient, (and he tells us
that He became obedient in this wise, namely,
by becoming for our sakes flesh, and a servant,

5 If this phrase is a direct quotation from Eunomius, it is prob-
ably from some other context : its grammatical structure does not
connect it with what has gone before, nor is it quite clear where
the quotation ends, or whether the illustration of the instrument is
Eunomius' own, or is Gregory's exposition of the statement of
Eunomius.

and a curse, and sin), — even then, I say, the
Lord of glory, Who despised the shame and
embraced suffering in the flesh, did not abandon
His free will, saying as He does, " Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up6 ;"
and again, " No man taketh My life from Me ;
I have power to lay it down, and I have power
to take it again i " ; and when those who were
armed with swords and staves drew near to
Him on the night before His Passion, He
caused them all to go backward by saying " I
am He 8," and again, when the dying thief be-
sought Him to remember him, He showed His
universal sovereignty by saying, "To-day shalt
thou be with Me in Paradise0." If then not
even in the time of His Passion He is separated
from His authority, where can heresy possibly
discern the subordination to authority of the
King of glory ?

§ 12. He thus proceeds to a magnificent dis-
course of the interpretation of "Mediator"
"Like" " Ungenerate," and "generate" and
of "The likeness and seal of the energy of the
Almighty and of His works."

Again, what is the manifold mediation which
with wearying iteration he assigns to God, call-
ing Him " Mediator in doctrines, Mediator in
the Law I "? It is not thus that we are taught
by the lofty utterance of the Apostle, who says
that having made void the law of command-
ments by His own doctrines, He is the media-
tor between God and man, declaring it by this
saying, " There is one God, and one mediator
between God and man, the man Christ Jesus2;"
where by the distinction implied in the word
"mediator" he reveals to us the whole aim of
the mystery of godliness. Now the aim is this.
Humanity once revolted through the malice of
the enemy, and, brought into bondage to sin,
was also alienated from the true Life. After this
the Lord of the creature calls back to Him His
own creature, and becomes Man while still re-
maining God, being both God and Man in the
entirety of the two several natures, and thus
humanity was indissolubly united to God, the
Man that is in Christ conducting the work of
mediation, to Whom, by the first-fruits as-
sumed for us, all the lump is potentially united 3.
Since, then, a mediator is not a mediator of
one 4, and God is one, not divided among the
Persons in Whom we have been taught to be-
lieve (for the Godhead in the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost is one), the Lord, there-
fore, becomes a mediator once for all betwixt

6 S. John ii. 19. 7 S. John x. 18.

8 S. John xviii. 5-6. 9 S. Luke xxiii. 43.

1 Here again the exact connexion of the quotation from Euno-
mius with the extracts preceding is uncertain.

2 Cf. 1. Tim. ii. 5. 3 Cf. Rom. xL 16.
4 Gal. iii. 20.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

123

God and men, binding man to the Deity by
Himself. But even by the idea of a mediator
we are taught the godly doctrine enshrined in
the Creed. For the Mediator between God
and man entered as it were into fellowship with
human nature, not by being merely deemed a
man, but having truly become so : in like
manner also, being very God, He has not, as
Eunomius will have us consider, been honoured
by the bare title of Godhead.

What he adds to the preceding statements is
characterized by the same want of meaning, or
rather by the same malignity of meaning. For
in calling Him "Son" Whom, a little before,
he had plainly declared to be created, and in
calling Him " only begotten God " Whom he
reckoned with the rest of things that have come
into being by creation, he affirms that He is
like Him that begat Him only "by an especial
likeness, in a peculiar sense." Accordingly, we
must first distinguish the significations of the
term "like," in how many senses it is employed
in ordinary use, and afterwards proceed to dis-
cuss Eunomius' positions. In the first place,
then, all things that beguile our senses, not
being really identical in nature, but producing
illusion by some of the accidents of the re-
spective subjects, as form, colour, sound, and
the impressions conveyed by taste or smell or
touch, while really different in nature, but sup-
posed to be other than they truly are, these
custom declares to have the relation of " like-
ness," as, for example, when the lifeless material
is shaped by art, whether carving, painting, or
modelling, into an imitation of a living creature,
the imitation is said to be "like" the original.
For in such a case the nature of the animal is
one thing, and that of the material, which cheats
the sight by mere colour and form, is another.
To the same class of likeness belongs the image
of the original figure in a mirror, which gives ap-
pearances of motion, without, however, being in
nature identical with its original. In just the
same way our hearing may experience the same
deception, when, for instance, some one, imi-
tating the song of the nightingale with his own
voice, persuades our hearing so that we seem to
be listening to the bird. Taste, again, is subject
to the same illusion, when the juice of figs
mimics the pleasant taste of honey : for there is
a certain resemblance to the sweetness of honey
in the juice of the fruit. So, too, the sense of
smell may sometimes be imposed upon by re-
semblance, when the scent of the herb camo-
mile, imitating the fragrant apple itself, deceives
our perception : and in the same way with touch
also, likeness belies the truth in various modes,
since a silver or brass coin, of equal size and
similar weight with a gold one, may pass for the
gold piece if our sight does not discern the truth.

We have thus generally described in a few
words the several cases in which objects, be-
cause they are deemed to be different from
what they really are, produce delusions in our
senses. It is possible, of course, by a more
laborious investigation, to extend one's enquiry
through all things which are really different in
kind one from another, but are nevertheless
thought, by virtue of some accidental resem-
blance, to be like one to the other. Can
it possibly be such a form of " likeness " as
this, that he is continually attributing to the
Son ? Nay, surely he cannot be so infatuated
as to discover deceptive similarity in Him Who
is the Truth. Again, in the inspired Scriptures,
we are told of another kind of resemblance by
Him Who said, " Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness 5;" but I do not sup-
pose that Eunomius would discern this kind of
likeness between the Father and the Son, so as
to make out the Only-begotten God to be iden-
tical with man. We are also aware of another
kind of likeness, of which the word speaks in
Genesis concerning Seth, — "Adam begat a son
in his own likeness, after his image6": and if
this is the kind of likeness of which Eunomius
speaks, we do not think his statement is to be
rejected. For in this case the nature of the
two objects which are alike is not different,
and the impress and type imply community of
nature. These, or such as these, are our views
upon the variety of meanings of " like." Let
us see, then, with what intention Eunomius as-
serts of the Son that "especial likeness" to the
Father, when he says that He is "like the
Father with an especial likeness, in a peculiar
sense, not as Father to Father, for they are not
two Fathers." He promises to show us the
" especial likeness " of the Son to the Father,
and proceeds by his definition to establish the
position that we ought not to conceive of Him
as being like. For by saying, " He is not like
as Father to Father," he makes out that He is
not like ; and again when he adds, " nor as Un-
generate to Ungenerate," by this phrase, too, he
forbids us to conceive a likeness in the Son to
the Father ; and finally, by subjoining " nor as
Son to Son," he introduces a third conception,
by which he entirely subverts the meaning of
"like." So it is that he follows up his own
statements, and conducts his demonstration of
likeness by establishing unlikeness. And now
let us examine the discernment and frankness
which he displays in these distinctions. After
saying that the Son is like the Father, he
guards the statement by adding that we ought
not to think that the Son is like the Father,
" as Father to Father." Why, what man on

5 Gen. i. 36.

' Gen. v. 3.

124

GREGORY OF NYSSA

earth is such a fool as, on learning that the Son
is like the Father, to be brought by any course
of reasoning to think of the likeness of Father to
Father ? " Nor as Son to Son " : — here, again,
the acuteness of the distinction is equally con-
spicuous. When he tells us that the Son is
like the Father, he adds the further definition
that He must not be understood to be like
Him in the same way as He would be like
another Son. These are, the mysteries of the
awful doctrines of Eunomius, by which his
disciples are made wiser than the rest of the
world, by learning that the Son, by His like-
ness to the Father, is not like a Son, for the
Son is not the Father : nor is He like " as
Ungenerate to Ungenerate," for the Son is not
ungenerate. But the mystery which we have
received, when it speaks of the Father, cer-
tainly bids us understand the Father of the
Son, and when it names the Son, teaches us to
apprehend the Son of the Father. And until
the present time we never felt the need of these
philosophic refinements, that by the words
Father and Son are suggested two Fathers
or two Sons, a pair, so to say, of ungenerate
beings.

Now the drift of Eunomius' excessive con-
cern about the Ungenerate has been often ex-
plained before ; and it shall here be briefly
discovered yet again. For as the term Father
points to no difference of nature from the Son,
his impiety, if he had brought his statement to
a close here, would have had no support, seeing
that the natural sense of the names Father and
Son excludes the idea of their being alien in
essence. But as it is, by employing the terms
" generate " and " ungenerate," since the con-
tradictory opposition between them admits of
no mean, just like that between "mortal " and
" immortal," " rational " and " irrational," and
all those terms which are opposed to each other
by the mutually exclusive nature of their
meaning, — by the use of these terms, I repeat,
he gives free course to his profanity, so as to
contemplate as existing in the "generate " with
reference to the " ungenerate " the same differ-
ence which there is between " mortal " and
" immortal " : and even as the nature of the
mortal is one, and that of the immortal another,
and as the special attributes of the rational and
of the irrational are essentially incompatible,
just so he wants to make out that the nature of
the ungenerate is one, and that of the generate
another, in order to show that as the irrational
nature has been created in subjection to the
rational, so the generate is by a necessity of its
being in a state of subordination to the ungener-
ate. For which reason he attaches to the
ungenerate the name of " Almighty," and this
he does not apply to express providential opera-

tion, as the argument led the way for him in
suggesting, but transfers the application of the
word to arbitrary sovereignty, so as to make
the Son to be a part of the subject and sub-
ordinate universe, a fellow-slave with all the
rest to Him Who with arbitrary and absolute
sovereignty controls all alike. And that it is
with an eye to this result that he employs these
argumentative distinctions, will be clearly estab-
lished from the passage before us. For after
those sapient and carefully-considered expres-
sions, that He is not like either as Father to
Father, or as Son to Son, — and yet there is no
necessity that father should invariably be like
father or son like son : for suppose there is one
father among the Ethiopians, and another among
the Scythians, and each of these has a son, the
Ethiopian's son black, but the Scythian white-
skin ned and with hair of a golden tinge, yet
none the more because each is a father does
the Scythian turn black on the Ethiopian's
account, nor does the Ethiopian's body change
to white on account of the Scythian, — after
saying this, however, according to his own
fancy, Eunomius subjoins that " He is like as
Son to Father ?." But although such a phrase
indicates kinship in nature, as the inspired
Scripture attests in the case of Seth and Adam,
our doctor, with but small respect for his in-
telligent readers, introduces his idle exposition
of the title "Son," defining Him to be the
image and seal of the energy 8 of the Almighty.
"For the Son," he says, "is the image and seal
of the energy of the Almighty." Let him who
hath ears to hear first, I pray, consider this
particular point — What is " the seal of the
energy"? Every energy is contemplated as
exertion in the party who exhibits it, and on
the completion of his exertion, it has no in-
dependent existence. Thus, for example, the
energy of the runner is the motion of his feet,
and when the motion has stopped there is no
longer any energy. So too about every pursuit
the same may be said ; — when the exertion of
him who is busied about anything ceases, the
energy ceases also, and has no independent ex-
istence, either when a person is actively engaged
in the exertion he undertakes, or when he ceases
from that exertion. What then does he tell us
that the energy is in itself, which is neither
essence, nor image, nor person ? So he speaks
of the Son as the similitude of the impersonal,
and that which is like the non-existent surely
has itself no existence at all. This is what his
juggling with idle opinions comes to, — belief in
nonentity ! for that which is like nonentity surely

1 This is apparently a quotation from Eunomius in continuation
of what has gone before.

8 The word employed is evipyeia. : which might be translated by
"active force," or "operation," as elsewhere.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

125

itself is not. O Paul and John and all you others
of the band of Apostles and Evangelists, who are
they that arm their venomous tongues against
your words ? who are they that raise their frog-
like croakings against your heavenly thunder ?
What then saith the son of thunder? " In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God?." And
what saith he that came after him, that other
who had been within the heavenly temple, who
in Paradise had been initiated into mysteries
unspeakable? "Being," he says, "the Bright-
ness of His glory, and the express Image of His
person I." What, after these have thus spoken,
are the words of our ventriloquist2? "The
seal," quoth he, " of the energy of the Almighty."
He makes Him third after the Father, with that
non-existent energy mediating between them,
or rather moulded at pleasure by non-existence.
God the Word, Who was in the beginning, is
" the seal of the energy " : — the Only-begotten
God, Who is contemplated in the eternity of
the Beginning of existent things, Who is in the
bosom of the Father 3, Who sustains all things
by the word of His power*, the creator of the
ages, from Whom and through Whom and in
Whom are all things s, Who sitteth upon the
circle of the earth, and hath meted out heaven
with the span, Who measure th the water in the
hollow of his hand 6, Who holdeth in His hand
all things that are, Who dwelleth on high and
looketh upon the things that are lowly ?, or
rather did look upon them to make all the
world to be His footstool8, imprinted by the
footmark of the Word — the form of God 9 is
"the seal" of an "energy." Is God then an
energy, not a Person ? Surely Paul when
expounding this very truth says He is " the
express image," not of His energy, but " of
His Person." Is the Brightness of His glory
a seal of the energy of God ? Alas for his
impious ignorance ! What is there intermediate
between God and His own form ? and Whom
does the Person employ as mediator with His
own express image ? and what can be conceived
as coming between the glory and its brightness?
But while there are such weighty and numerous
testimonies wherein the greatness of the Lord
of the creation is proclaimed by those who were
entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel,
what sort of language does this forerunner of
the final apostasy hold concerning Him ?
What says he? "As image," he says, "and
seal of all the energy and power of the Almighty."
How does he take upon himself to emend the
words of the mighty Paul ? Paul says that the

9 S. John L t. * Heb. i. 3.

2 Cf. the use of eyyaarpifivflos in LXX. [e.g. Lev. xix. 31, Is.
xliv. 25'..

3 S. John i. 18. * Cf. Heb. L 3. 5 Cf. Rom. xi. 36.
6 Cf. Isa. xl. 12—22. ' Cf. Ps. cxxxviii. 6.

8 Cf. Isa. lxvi. 1. 9 Cf. Phil. ii. 5.

Son is "the Power of God r" ; Eunomius calls
Him "the seal of a power," not the Power.
And then, repeating his expression, what is it
that he adds to his previous statement? He
calls Him " seal of the Father's works and words
and counsels." To what works of the Father is
He like? He will say, of course, the world,
and all things that are therein. But the Gospel
has testified that all these things are the works
of the Only-begotten. To what works of the
Father, then, was He likened? of what works
was He made the seal ? what Scripture ever
entitled Him " seal of the Father's works " ?
But if any one should grant Eunomius the right
to fashion his words at his own will, as he de-
sires, even though Scripture does not agree with
him, let him tell us what works of the Father
there are of which he says that the Son was
made the seal, apart from those that have been
wrought by the Son. All things visible and
invisible are the work of the Son : in the visible
are included the whole world and all that is
therein ; in the invisible, the supramundane
creation. What works of the Father, then, are
remaining to be contemplated by themselves,
over and above things visible and invisible,
whereof he says that the Son was made the
" seal " ? Will he perhaps, when driven into a
corner, return once more to the fetid vomit of
heresy, and say that the Son is a work of the
Father ? How then does the Son come to be
the " seal " of these works, when He Himself,
as Eunomius says, is the work of the Father ?
Or does he say that the same Person is at once
a work and the likeness of a work ? Let this
be granted : let us suppose him to speak of the
other works of which he says the Father was the
creator, if indeed he intends us to understand
likeness by the term "seal." But what other
" words " of the Father does Eunomius know,
besides that Word Who was ever in the Father,
Whom he calls a " seal " — Him Who is and is
called the Word in the absolute, true, and
primary sense ? And to what counsels can he
possibly refer, apart from the Wisdom of God,
to which the Wisdom of God is made like, in
becoming a " seal " of those counsels ? Look at
the want of discrimination and circumspection, at
the confused muddle of his statement, how he
brings the mystery into ridicule, without under-
standing either what he says or what he is
arguing about. For He Who has the Father in
His entirety in Himself, and is Himself in His
entirety in the Father, as Word and Wisdom
and Power and Truth, as His express image
and brightness, Himself is all things in the
Father, and does not come to be the image
and seal and likeness of certain other things
discerned in the Father prior to Himself.

1 1 Cor. i. 24.

126

GREGORY OF NYSSA

Then Eunomius allows to Him the credit of
the destruction of men by water in the days of
Noah, of the rain of fire that fell upon Sodom,
and of the just vengeance upon the Egyptians,
as though he were making some great conces-
sions to Him Who holds in His hand the ends
of the world, in Whom, as the Apostle says,
"all things consist2," as though he were not
aware that to Him Who encompasses all things,
and guides and sways according to His good
pleasure all that hath already been and all that
will be, the mention of two or three marvels
does not mean the addition of glory, so much
as the suppression of the rest means its depriv-
ation or loss. But even if no word be said of
these, the one utterance of Paul is enough by
itself to point to them all inclusively — the one
utterance which says that He " is above all, and
through all, and in all 3."

§ 13. He expounds the passage of the Gospel,
" The Father judgeth no man," and further
speaks of the assumption of man with body and
soul wrought by the Lord, of the transgression
of Adam, and of death and the resurrection of
the dead.

Next he says, " He legislates by the command
of the Eternal God." Who is the eternal God?
and who is He that ministers to Him in the
giving of the Law ? Thus much is plain to all,
that through Moses God appointed the Law to
those that received it. Now inasmuch as
Eunomius himself acknowledges that it was the
only-begotten God Who held converse with
Moses, how is it that the assertion before us
puts the Lord of all in the place of Moses, and
ascribes the character of the eternal God to the
Father alone, so as, by thus contrasting Him with
the Eternal, to make out the only-begotten God,
the Maker of the Worlds, to be not Eternal ?
Our studious friend with his excellent memory
seems to have forgotten that Paul uses all these
terms concerning himself, announcing among
men the proclamation of the Gospel by the
command of God *. Thus what the Apostle
asserts of himself, that Eunomius is not ashamed
to ascribe to the Lord of the prophets and
apostles, in order to place the Master on the
same level with Paul, His own servant. But
why should I lengthen out my argument by
confuting in detail each of these assertions,
where the too unsuspicious reader of Eunomius'
writings may think that their author is saying
what Holy Scripture allows him to say, while
one who is able to unravel each statement
critically will find them one and all infected

a Col. L 17.

3 Eph. iv. 6. The application of the words to the Son is
remarkable.

4 Cf. Rom. xvL 26.

with heretical knavery. For the Churchman
and the heretic alike affirm that "the Father
judgeth no man, but hath committed all judg-
ment unto the Son 5," but to this assertion they
severally attach different meanings. By the
same words the Churchman understands
supreme authority, the other maintains sub-
servience and subjection.

But to what has been already said, ought to
be added some notice of that position which they
make a kind of foundation of their impiety in
their discussions concerning the Incarnation,
the position, namely, that not the whole man
has been saved by Him, but only the half of
man, I mean the body. Their object in such a
malignant perversion of the true doctrine, is to
show that the less exalted statements, which our
Lord utters in His humanity, are to be thought
to have issued from the Godhead Itself, that so
they may show their blasphemy to have a
stronger case, if it is upheld by the actual ac-
knowledgment of the Lord. For this reason it
is that Eunomius says, " He who in the last
days became man did not take upon Himself
the man made up of soul and body." But,
after searching through all the inspired and
sacred Scripture, I do not find any such state-
ment as this, that the Creator of all things, at
the time of His ministration here on earth for
man, took upon Himself flesh only without a
soul. Under stress of necessity, then, looking
to the object contemplated by the plan of
salvation, to the doctrines of the Fathers, and to
the inspired Scriptures, I will endeavour to con-
fute the impious falsehood which is being
fabricated with regard to this matter. The
Lord came " to seek and to save that which was
lost 6." Now it was not the body merely, but
the whole man, compacted of soul and body,
that was lost : indeed, if we are to speak more
exactly, the soul was lost sooner than the body.
For disobedience is a sin, not of the body,
but of the will : and the will properly belongs
to the soul, from which the whole disaster of
our nature had its beginning, as the threat of
God, that admits of no falsehood, testifies in
the declaration that, in the day that they
should eat of the forbidden fruit, death without
respite would attach to the act. Now since the
condemnation of man was twofold, death cor-
respondingly effects in each part of our nature
the deprivation of the twofold life that operates
in him who is thus mortally stricken. For the
death of the body consists in the extinction of
the means of sensible perception, and in the
dissolution of the body into its kindred ele-
ments : but "the soul that sinneth," he saith,
"it shall die 7." Now sin is nothing else than

5 S. John v. 32. 6 Cf. S. Luke xix. 10.

1 Ezek. xviii. ao.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

127

alienation from God, Who is the true and only
life. Accordingly the first man lived many
hundred years after his disobedience, and yet
God lied not when He said, " In the day that
ye eat thereof ye shall surely die 8." For by
the fact of his alienation from the true life, the
sentence of death was ratified against him that
self-same day : and after this, at a much later
time, there followed also the bodily death of
Adam. He therefore Who came for this cause,
that He might seek and save that which was
lost, (that which the shepherd in the parable
calls the sheep,) both finds that which is lost,
and carries home on His shoulders the whole
sheep, not its skin only, that He may make
the man of God complete, united to the deity
in body and in soul. And thus He Who was in
all points tempted like as we are, yet without
sin, left no part of our nature which He did not
take upon Himself. Now the soul is not sin,
though it is capable of admitting sin into it as
the result of being ill-advised : and this He
sanctifies by union with Himself for this end,
that so the lump may be holy along with the
first-fruits. Wherefore also the Angel, when
informing Joseph of the destruction of the
enemies of the Lord, said, " They are dead
which sought the young Child's life 9," (or
"soul ") : and the Lord says to the Jews, " Ye
seek to kill Me, a man that hath told you the
truth *." Now by " Man " is not meant the
body of a man only, but that which is composed
of both, soul and body. And again, He says to
them, "Are ye angry at Me, because I have
made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath
day 2 ? " And what He meant by " every whit
whole," He showed in the other Gospels, when
He said to the man who was let down on a
couch in the midst, "Thy sins be forgiven
thee," which is a healing of the soul, and,
"Arise and walks," which has regard to the
body : and in the Gospel of S. John, by liber-
ating the soul also from its own malady after
He had given health to the body, where He
saith, " Thou art made whole, sin no more *,"
thou, that is, who hast been cured in both, I
mean in soul and in body. For so too does S.
Paul speak, " for to make in Himself of twain
one new man s." And so too He foretells that
at the time of His Passion He would voluntarily
detach His soul from His body, saying, " No
man taketh " my soul " from Me, but I lay it
down of Myself: I have power to lay it down,

8 Cf. Gen. ii. 17.

9 S Matt. ii. 20. The word ^ruxV" may be rendered by either
" life " or " soul."

1 S. John viii. 40. This is the only passage in which our Lord
speaks of Himself by this term.

2 S. John vii. 20.

3 Cf. S. Luke v. 20, 23, and the parallel passages in S. Matt.
ix. and S. Mark ii.

4 S. John v. 14. 5 Eph. ii. ij.

and I have power to take it again 6." Yea, the
prophet David also, according to the interpret-
ation of the great Peter, said with foresight of
Him, " Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell,
neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to
see corruption 7," while the Apostle Peter
thus expounds the saying, that " His soul was
not left in hell, neither His flesh did see cor-
ruption." For His Godhead, alike before
taking flesh and in the flesh and after His
Passion, is immutably the same, being at all
times what It was by nature, and so continuing
for ever. But in the suffering of His human
nature the Godhead fulfilled the dispensation for
our benefit by severing the soul for a season from
the body, yet without being Itself separated from
either of those elements to which it was once
for all united, and by joining again the elements
which had been thus parted, so as to give to all
human nature a beginning and an example
which it should follow of the resurrection from
the dead, that all the corruptible may put on
incorruption, and all the mortal may put on
immortality, our first-fruits having been trans-
formed to the Divine nature by its union with
God, as Peter said, " This same Jesus Whom
ye crucified, hath God made both Lord and
Christ 8 ; " and we might cite many passages of
Scripture to support such a position, showing
how the Lord, reconciling the world to Himself
by the Humanity of Christ, apportioned His
work of benevolence to men between His soul
and His body, willing through His soul and
touching them through His body. But it would
be superfluous to encumber our argument by
entering into every detail.

Before passing on, however, to what follows,
I will further mention the one text, " Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it
up 9." Just as we, through soul and body, be-
come a temple of Him Who "dwelleth in us and
walketh in us l" even so the Lord terms their
combination a " temple," of which the " de-
struction " signifies the dissolution of the soul
from the body. And if they allege the passage
in the Gospel, " The Word was made flesh 2,"
in order to make out that the flesh was taken
into the Godhead without the soul, on the
ground that the soul is not expressly mentioned
along with the flesh, let them learn that it is
customary for Holy Scripture to imply the
whole by the part. For He that said, " Unto
Thee shall all flesh come 3," does not mean
that the flesh will be presented before the
Judge apart from the souls : and when we read

6 Cf. S. John x. 17, 18. Here again the word ijray^ is rendered
in the A. V. by "life.1;

7 Ps. xvi. 8. Acts ii. 27, 31.

8 Acts ii. 36. A further exposition of Gregory's views on this
passage will be found in Book V.

9 S. John ii. 19. * Cf. 2 Cor. vi. 16.
ZS. John i. 14. 3 Ps. lxv. 2.

128

GREGORY OF NYSSA

in sacred History that Jacob went down into
Egypt with seventy-five souls 4 we understand
the flesh also to be intended together with the
souls. So, then, the Word, when He became
flesh, took with the flesh the whole of human
nature ; and hence it was possible that hunger
and thirst, fear and dread, desire and sleep,
tears and trouble of spirit, and .all such things,
were in Him. For the Godhead, in its proper
nature, admits no such affections, nor is the
flesh by itself involved in them, if the soul is
not affected co-ordinately with the body.

§ 14. He proceeds to discuss the views held by
Eunomius , and by the Church, touching the
Holy Spirit ; and to show that the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost are not three
Gods, but one God. He also discusses differ-
ent senses of "Subjection? and therein shows
that the subjection of all things to the Son is
the same as the subjection of the Son to the
Father.

Thus much with regard to his profanity to-
wards the Son. Now let us see what he says
about the Holy Spirit. "After Him, we believe,"
he says, "on the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth."
I think it will be plain to all who come across
this passage what object he has in view in
thus perverting the declaration of the faith de-
livered to us by the Lord, in his statements
concerning the Son and the Father. Though
this absurdity has already been exposed, I will
nevertheless endeavour, in few words, to make
plain the aim of his knavery. As in the former
case, he avoided using the name " Father,"
that so he might not include the Son in the
eternity of the Father, so he avoided employ-
ing the title Son, that he might not by it suggest
His natural affinity to the Father ; so here, too,
he refrains from saying " Holy Spirit," that he
may not by this name acknowledge the majesty
of His glory, and His complete union with the
Father and the Son. For since the appellation
of " Spirit," and that of " Holy," are by the
Scriptures equally applied to the Father and
the Son (for "God is a Spirits," and "the
anointed Lord is the Spirit before our face6,"
and "the Lord our God is Holy 7," and there
is " one Holy, one Lord Jesus Christ 8 "), lest
there should, by the use of these terms, be bred
in the minds of his readers some orthodox
conception of the Holy Spirit, such as would
naturally arise in them from His sharing His
glorious appellation with the Father and the
Son, for this reason, deluding the ears of the

4 Acts vii. 14. Cf. Gen. xlvL 27, and Deut. x. 22.

5 S. John iv. 24. 6 Cf. Lain. iv. 20 in LXX.
1 Ps. xcix. 9.
* Cf. the response to the words of the Priest at the elevation of

the Gifts in the Greek Liturgies.

foolish, he changes the words of the Faith as
set forth by God in the delivery of this mystery,
making a way, so to speak, by this sequence,
for the entrance of his impiety against the Holy
Spirit. For if he had said, " We believe in the
Holy Spirit," and " God is a Spirit," any one
instructed in things divine would have inter-
posed the remark, that if we are to believe in
the Holy Spirit, while God is called a Spirit,
He is assuredly not distinct in nature from that
which receives the same titles in a proper sense.
For of all those things which are indicated not
unreally, nor metaphorically, but properly and
absolutely, by the same names, we are neces-
sarily compelled to acknowledge that the nature
also, which is signified by this identity of names,
is one and the same. For this reason it is that,
suppressing the name appointed by the Lord in
the formula of the faith, he says, "We believe
in the Comforter." But I have been taught
that this very name is also applied by the
inspired Scripture to Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost alike. For the .Son gives the name of
"Comforter" equally to Himself and to the
Holy Spirit 9 ; and the Father, where He is
said to work comfort, surely claims as His own
the name of " Comforter." For assuredly he
Who does the work of a Comforter does not dis-
dain the name belonging to the work : for David
says to the Father, " Thou, Lord, hast holpen
me and comforted me *," and the great Apostle
applies to the Father the same language, when
he says, " Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, Who comforteth us in
all our tribulation 2 " ; and John, in one of his
Catholic Epistles, expressly gives to the Son
the name of Comforter 3. Nay, more, the Lord
Himself, in saying that another Comforter would
be sent us, when speaking of the Spirit, clearly
asserted this title of Himself in the first place.
But as there are two senses of the word
irapatcaXelv 4, — one to beseech, by words and
gestures of respect, to induce him to whom we
apply for anything, to feel with us in respect of
those things for which we apply, — the other to
comfort, to take remedial thought for affections
of body and soul,— the Holy Scripture affirms
the conception of the Paraclete, in either sense
alike, to belong to the Divine nature. For at
one time Paul sets before us by the word
napaKaXuv the healing power of God, as when
he says, " God, Who comforteth those that
are cast down, comforted us by the coming of
Titus5"; and at another time he uses this
word in its other meaning, when he says,
writing to the Corinthians, " Now we are am-

9 S. John xiv. i( , * Ps. lxxvi. 17. 2 2 Cor. i. 3-4.

3 1 S. John ii. 1. (The word is in the A. V. rendered "advo-
cate.")

4 From which is derived the name Paraclete, i.e. Comforter or
Advocate. 5 2 Cor. vii. 6.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

129

bassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech
you by us ; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye
reconciled to God 6." Now since these things
are so, in whatever way you understand the
title " Paraclete," when used of the Spirit, you
will not in either of its significations detach
Him from His community in it with the Father
and the Son. Accordingly, he has not been
able, even though he wished it, to belittle the
glory of the Spirit by ascribing to Him the very
attribute which Holy Scripture refers also to
the Father and to the Son. But in styling Him
" the Spirit of Truth," Eunomius' own wish, I
suppose, was to suggest by this phrase sub-
jection, since Christ is the Truth, and he called
Him the Spirit of Truth, as if one should say
that He is a possession and chattel of the
Truth, without being aware that God is called
a God of righteousness ? ; and we certainly do
not understand thereby that God is a possession
of righteousness. Wherefore also, when we
hear of the "Spirit of Truth," we acquire by
that phrase such a conception as befits the
Deity, being guided to the loftier interpretation
by the words which follow it. For when the
Lord said "The Spirit of Truth," He imme-
diately added "Which proceedeth from the
Father 8," a fact which the voice of the Lord
never asserted of any conceivable thing in
creation, not of aught visible or invisible, not
of thrones, principalities, powers, or dominions,
nor of any other name that is named either
in this world or in that which is to come. It is
plain then that that, from share in which all
creation is excluded, is something special and
peculiar to uncreated being. But this man bids
us believe in " the Guide of godliness." Let a
man then believe in Paul, and Barnabas, and
Titus, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, and all those
by whom we have been led into the way of the
faith. For if we are to believe in " that which
guides us to godliness," along with the Father
and the Son, all the prophets and lawgivers and
patriarchs, heralds, evangelists, apostles, pastors,
and teachers, have equal honour with the Holy
Spirit, as they have been " guides to godliness "
to those who came after them. " Who came
into being," he goes on, "by the only God
through the Only-begotten." In these words he
gathers up in one head all his blasphemy.
Once more he calls the Father " only God,"
who employs the Only-begotten as an instru-
ment for the production of the Spirit. What
shadow of such a notion did he find in Scrip-
ture, that he ventures upon this assertion? by
deduction from what premises did he bring
his profanity to such a conclusion as this ?

6 1 Cor. v. 20.

7 The text reads, " that God is called righteousness," but the
irgument seems to require the genitive case. The reference may
De to Ps. iv. 1. S S. John xv. 26.

VOL. V. K

Which of the Evangelists says it? what apostle?
what prophet ? Nay, on the contrary every
scripture divinely inspired, written by the af-
flatus of the Spirit, attests the Divinity of the
Spirit. For example (for it is better to prove
my position from the actual testimonies), those
who receive power to become children of God
bear witness to the Divinity of the Spirit. Who
knows not that utterance of the Lord which
tells us that they who are born of the Spirit are
the children of God ? For thus He expressly
ascribes the birth of the children of God to the
Spirit, saying, that as that which is born of the
flesh is flesh, so that which is born of the Spirit
is spirit. But as many as are born of the Spirit
are called the children of God 9. So also when
the Lord by breathing upon His disciples had
imparted to them the Holy Spirit, John says,
" Of His fulness have all we received I." And
that " in Him dwelleth the fulness of the God-
head 2," the mighty Paul attests : yea, moreover,
through the prophet Isaiah it is attested, as to
the manifestation of the Divine appearance
vouchsafed to him, when he saw Him that sat
" on the throne high and lifted up 3 : " the
older tradition, it is true, says that it was the
Father Who appeared to him, but the evangelist
John refers the prophecy to our Lord, saying,
touching those of the Jews who did not believe
the words uttered by the prophet concerning
the Lord, "These things said Esaias, when he
saw His glory and spake of Him V But the
mighty Paul attributes the same passage to the
Holy Spirit in his speech made to the Jews at
Rome, when he says, " Well spake the Holy
Ghost by Esaias the prophet concerning you,
saying, Hearing ye shall hear and shall not
understand V showing, in my opinion, by Holy
Scripture itself, that every specially divine vision,
every theophany, every word uttered in the
Person of God, is to be understood to refer
to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Hence when David says, " they provoked God
in the wilderness, and grieved Him in the
desert 6," the apostle refers to the Holy Spirit
the despite done by the Israelites to God, in
these terms : " Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost
saith, Harden not your hearts, as in the provo-
cation, in the day of temptation in the wilder-
ness ; when your fathers tempted me 7," and
goes on to refer all that the prophecy refers to
God, to the Person of the Holy Ghost. Those
who keep repeating against us the phrase " three
Gods," because we hold these views, have per-

9 With this passage cf. S. John i. 12, iii. 6 ; Rom. viii. 14 ;
1 S. John iii. 3.

1 S. John xx. 2i, and i. 16. 2 Col. ii. 9.

3 Is. vi. 1.

4 S. John xii. 41. The " older tradition " means presumabH
the ancient interpretation of the Jews.

5 Cf. Acts xxviii. 25, 26. The quotation is not verbal.

6 Cf. Ps. lxxviii. 40. 7 Heb. iii. 7.

130

GREGORY OF NYSSA

haps not yet learnt how to count. For if the
Father and the Son are not divided into duality,
(for they are, according to the Lord's words,
One, and not Two8,) and if the Holy Ghost is
also one, how can one added to one be divided
into the number of three Gods? Is it not
rather plain that no one can charge us with
believing in the number of three Gods, without
himself first maintaining in his own doctrine a
pair of Gods ? For it is by being added to two
that the one completes the triad of Gods. But
what room is there for the charge of tritheism
against those by whom one God is worshipped,
the God expressed by the Name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Ghost ?

Let us however resume Eunomius' statement
in its entirety. " Having come into being from
the only God through the Only-begotten, this
Spirit also — " What proof is there of the
statement that "this Spirit also" is one of the
things that were made by the Only-begotten ?
They will say of course that " all things were
made by Him 9," and that in the term " all
things" "this Spirit also" is included. Our
answer to them shall be this, All things were
made by Him, that were made. Now the
things that were made, as Paul tells us, were
things visible and invisible, thrones, authorities,
dominions, principalities, powers, and among
those included under the head of thrones and
powers are reckoned by Paul the Cherubim
and Seraphim * : so far does the term " all
things " extend. But of the Holy Spirit, as
being above the nature of things that have
come into being, Paul said not a word in his
enumeration of existing things, not indicating
to us by his words either His subordination or
His coming into being ; but just as the prophet
calls the Holy Spirit " good," and " right," and
"guiding3" (indicating by the word "guiding"
the power of control), even so the apostle as-
cribes independent authority to the dignity of
the Spirit, when he affirms that He works all in
all as He wills 3. Again, the Lord makes mani-
fest the Spirit's independent power and opera-
tion in His discourse with Nicodemus, when
He says, " The Spirit breatheth where He
willeth 4." How is it then that Eunomius goes
so far as to define that He also is one of the
things that came into being by the Son, con-
demned to eternal subjection. For he describes
Him as "once for all made subject," enthralling
the guiding and governing Spirit in I know not
what form of subjection. For this expression

the

8 S. John x. 30. « Cf. S. John i. 3.

1 Cf. Col. i. 16 ; but the enumeration varies considerably.

2 The last of these epithets is from Ps. li. 14 {Trve<fi.a T)yefioi>iKbi>,
" Spiritus principalis" of the Vulgate, the ' free spirit" of the

Spiritus principalis >■•» «. •.••-

English version) ; the "right spirit" of ver. 12 being also applied by
S Gregory to the Holy Spirit, while the epithet "good" is from

«J}9
Ps cxlii. 10.

3 Cf. 1 Cor. xii. 11.

S. John iii. 8.

of " subjection " has many significations in
Holy Scripture, and is understood and used
with many varieties of meaning. For the
Psalmist says that even irrational nature is put
in subjection s, and brings under the same term
those who are overcome in war6, while the
apostle bids servants to be in subjection to
their own masters ?, and that those who are
placed over the priesthood should have their
children in subjection8, as their disorderly con-
duct brings discredit upon their fathers, as in
the case of the sons of Eli the priest. Again,
he speaks of the subjection of all men to God,
when we all, being united to one another by the
faith, become one body of the Lord Who is in
all, as the subjection of the Son to the Father,
when the adoration paid to the Son by all
things with one accord, by things in heaven,
and things on earth, and things under the earth,
redounds to the glory of the Father ; as Paul
says elsewhere, "To Him every knee shall bow,
of things in heaven, and things in earth, and-
things under the earth, and every tongue shall
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father °." For when this takes
place, the mighty wisdom of Paul affirms that
the Son, Who is in all, is subject to the Father
by virtue of the subjection of those in whom
He is. What kind of " subjection once for all"
Eunomius asserts of the Holy Spirit, it is thus
impossible to learn from the phrase which he
has thrown out, — whether he means the subjec-
tion of irrational creatures, or of captives, or of
servants, or of children who are kept in order,
or of those who are saved by subjection. For
the subjection of men to God is salvation for
those who are so made subject, according to
the voice of the prophet, who says that his soul
is subject to God, since of Him cometh salva-
tion by subjection r, so that subjection is the
means of averting perdition. As therefore the
help of the healing art is sought eagerly by the
sick, so is subjection by those who are in need
of salvation. But of what life does the Holy
Spirit, that quickeneth all things, stand in need,
that by subjection He should obtain salvation
for Himself? Since then it is not on the
strength of any Divine utterance that he asserts
such an attribute of the Spirit, nor yet is it as a
consequence of probable arguments that he has
launched this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,
it must be plain at all events to sensible men
that he vents his impiety against Him without
any warrant whatsoever, unsupported as it is by
any authority from Scripture or by any logical
consequence.

5 Ps. viii. 7, 8. 6 Ps. xlvii. 3.

7 Tit. ii. 9. 8 1 Tim. iii. 4.

9 Cf. Phil. ii. to, 11, a passage which is apparently considered
as explanatory of 1 Cor. xv. 28.
1 Cf. Ps. lxii. 1 (LXX.).

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

131

§ 15. Lastly he displays at length the folly of
Eunomius, 7vho at times speaks of the Holy
Spirit as created, and as the fairest work of
the Son, and at other times confesses, by the
operations attributed to Him, that He is God,
and thus ends the book.

He goes on to add, " Neither on the same
level with the Father, nor connumerated with the
Father (for God over all is one and only Father),
nor on an equality with the Son, for the Son is
only-begotten, having none begotten with Him."
Well, for my own part, if he had only added to
his previous statement the remark that the Holy
Ghost is not the Father of the Son, I should
even then have thought it idle for him to linger
over what no one ever doubted, and forbid
people to form notions of Him which not even
the most witless would entertain. But since he
endeavours to establish his impiety by irrelevant
and unconnected statements, imagining that by
denying the Holy Spirit to be the Father of the
Only-begotten he makes out that He is subject
and subordinate, I therefore made mention of
these words, as a proof of the folly of the man
who imagines that he is demonstrating the
Spirit to be subject to the Father on the ground
that the Spirit is not Father of the Only-begotten.
For what compels the conclusion, that if He be
not Father, He must be subject? If it had
been demonstrated that " Father " and "despot"
were terms identical in meaning, it would no
doubt have followed that, as absolute sovereignty
was part of the conception of the Father, we
should affirm that the Spirit is subject to Him
Who surpassed Him in respect of authority.
But if by " Father " is implied merely His re-
lation to the Son, and no conception of absolute
sovereignty or authority is involved by the use
of the word, how does it follow, from the fact
that the Spirit is not the Father of the Son, that
the Spirit is subject to the Father? "Nor on
an equality with the Son," he says. How comes
he to say this ? for to be, and to be unchange-
able, and to admit no evil whatsoever, and to
remain unalterably in that which is good, all
this shows no variation in the case of the Son
and of the Spirit. For the incorruptible nature
of the Spirit is remote from corruption equally
with that of the Son, and in the Spirit, just as
in the Son, His essential goodness is absolutely
apart from its contrary, and in both alike their
perfection in every good stands in need of no
addition.

Now the inspired Scripture teaches us to
affirm all these attributes of the Spirit, when it
predicates of the Spirit the terms " good," and
"wise," and "incorruptible," and "immortal,"
and all such lofty conceptions and names as are
properly applied to Godhead. If then He is

inferior in none of these respects, by what
means does Eunomius determine the inequality
of the Son and the Spirit? "For the Son is,"
he tells us, " Only-begotten, having no brother
begotten with Him." Well, the point, that we
are not to understand the " Only-begotten " to
have brethren, we have already discussed in our
comments upon the phrase " first-born of all
creation 2." But we ought not to leave un-
examined the sense that Eunomius now unfairly
attaches to the term. For while the doctrine
of the Church declares that in the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost there is one power,
and goodness, and essence, and glory, and the
like, saving the difference of the Persons, this
man, when he wishes to make the essence of the
Only-begotten common to the creation, calls
Him " the first-born of all creation" in respect
of His pre-temporal existence, declaring by this
mode of expression that all conceivable objects
in creation are in brotherhood with the Lord ;
for assuredly the first-born is not the first-born
of those otherwise begotten, but of those begot-
ten like Himself 3. But when he is bent upon
severing the Spirit from union with the Son, he
calls Him "Only-begotten, not having any
brother begotten with Him," not with the object
of conceiving of Him as without brethren, but
that by the means of this assertion he may estab-
lish touching the Spirit His essential alienation
from the Son. It is true that we learn from
Holy Scripture not to speak of the Holy Ghost as
brother of the Son : but that we are not to say
that the Holy Ghost is homogeneous * with the
Son, is nowhere shown in the divine Scriptures.
For if there does reside in the Father and the
Son a life-giving power, it is ascribed also to
the Holy Spirit, according to the words of the
Gospel. If one may discern alike in Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit the properties of being
incorruptible, immutable, of admitting no evil,
of being good, right, guiding, of working all in
all as He wills, and all the like attributes, how
is it possible by identity in these respects to
infer difference in kind? Accordingly the
word of godliness agrees in affirming that we
ought not to regard any kind of brotherhood as
attaching to the Only-begotten ; but to say that
the Spirit is not homogeneous with the Son, the
upright with the upright, the good with the
good, the life-giving with the life-giving, this has
been clearly demonstrated by logical inference
to be a piece of heretical knavery.

Why then is the majesty of the Spirit curtailed
by such arguments as these ? For there is nothing

* See above, § 8 of this book.

3 Or, " not the first-born of beings of a different race, but of
those of his own stock."

* ofioyeeJj, " of the same stock " : the word being the same which
(when coupled with a&tkfov) has been translated, in the passage*
preceding, by " begotten with."

K 2

132

GREGORY OF NYSSA

which can be the cause of producing in him
deviation by excess or defect from conceptions
such as befit the Godhead, nor, since all these
are by Holy Scripture predicated equally of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, can he inform us
wherein he discerns inequality to exist. But he
launches his blasphemy against the Holy Ghost
in its naked form, ill-prepared and unsupported
by any consecutive argument. " Nor yet
ranked," he says, " with any other : for He
has gone above s all the creatures that came into
being by the instrumentality of the Son in mode
of being, and nature, and glory, and knowledge,
as the first and noblest work of the Only-begotten,
the greatest and most glorious." I will leave,
however, to others the task of ridiculing the
bad taste and surplusage of his style, thinking
as I do that it is unseemly for the gray hairs of
age, when dealing with the argument before us,
to make vulgarity of expression an objection
against one who is guilty of impiety. I will
just add to my investigation this remark. If
the Spirit has " gone above " all the crea-
tions of the Son, (for I will use his own un-
grammatical and senseless phrase, or rather,
to make things clearer, I will present his idea
in my own language) if he transcends all things
wrought by the Son, the Holy Spirit cannot be
ranked with the rest of the creation ; and if, as
Eunomius says, he surpasses them by virtue of
priority of birth, he must needs confess, in the
case of the rest of creation, that the objects
which are first in order of production are more
to be esteemed than those which come after
them. Now the creation of the irrational
animals was prior to that of man. Accordingly
he will of course declare that the irrational
nature is more honourable than rational exist-
ence. So too, according to the argument of
Eunomius, Cain will be proved superior to
Abel, in that he was before him in time of
birth, and so the stars will be shown to be
lower and of less excellence than all the
things that grow out of the earth ; for these last
sprang from the earth on the third day, and
all the stars are recorded by Moses to have
been created on the fourth. Well, surely no
one is such a simpleton as to infer that the
grass of the earth is more to be esteemed than
the marvels of the sky, on the ground of its
precedence in time, or to award the meed to
Cain over Abel, or to place below the irrational
animals man who came into being later than
they. So there is no sense in our author's con-
tention that the nature of the Holy Spirit is
superior to that of the creatures that came into
being subsequently, on the ground that He

5 avafiifiriKe : the word apparently is intended by Eunomius to
have the force of "transcended"; Gregory, later on, criticizes
it.s employment in this sense.

came into being before they did. And now let
us see what he who separates Him from fellow-
ship with the Son is prepared to concede to the
glory of the Spirit : " For he too," he says,
" being one, and first and alone, and surpassing
all the creations of the Son in essence and dignity
of nature, accomplishing every operation and all
teaching according to the good pleasure of the
Son, being sent by Him, and receiving from Him,
and declaring to those who are instructed, and
guiding into truth." He speaks of the Holy
Ghost as " accomplishing every operation and
all teaching." What operation ? Does he mean
that which the Father and the Son execute, ac-
cording to the word of the Lord Himself Who
" hitherto worketh 6 " man's salvation, or does
he mean some other ? For if His work is that
named, He has assuredly the same power and
nature as Him Who works it, and in such an
one difference of kind from Deity can have no
place. For just as, if anything should perform
the functions of fire, shining and warming in
precisely the same way, it is itself certainly fire,
so if the Spirit does the works of the Father,
He must assuredly be acknowledged to be of
the same nature with Him. If on the other
hand He operates something else than our
salvation, and displays His operation in a con-
trary direction, He will thereby be proved to
be of a different nature and essence. But
Eunomius' statement itself bears witness that
the Spirit quickeneth in like manner with the
Father and the Son. Accordingly, from the
identity of operations it results assuredly that
the Spirit is not alien from the nature of the
Father and the Son. And to the statement that
the Spirit accomplishes the operation and
teaching of the Father according to the good
pleasure of the Son we assent. For the com-
munity of nature gives us warrant that the will of
the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is
one, and thus, if the Holy Spirit wills that which
seems good to the Son, the community of will
clearly points to unity of essence. But he goes
on, "being sent by Him, and receiving from Him,
and declaring to those who are instructed, and
guiding into truth." If he had not previously
said what he has concerning the Spirit, the
reader would surely have supposed that these
words applied to some human teacher. For to
receive a mission is the same thing as to be
sent, and to have nothing of one's own, but to
receive of the free favour of him who gives the
mission, and to minister his words to those who
are under instruction, and to be a guide into
truth for those that are astray. All these things,
which Eunomius is good enough to allow to the
Holy Spirit, belong to the present pastors and
teachers of the Church, — to be sent, to receive,

6 S. John v. 17.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK II.

J33

to announce, to teach, to suggest the truth.
Now, as he had said above "He is one, and
first, and alone, and surpassing all," had he but
stopped there, he would have appeared as a de-
fender of the doctrines of truth. For He Who
is indivisibly contemplated in the One is most
truly One, and first Who is in the First, and
alone Who is in the Only One. For as the spirit
of man that is in him, and the man himself,
are but one man, so also the Spirit of God
which is in Him, and God Himself, would
properly be termed One God, and First and
Only, being incapable of separation from Him
in Whom He is. But as things are, with his
addition of his profane phrase, " surpassing all
the creatures of the Son," he produces turbid
confusion by assigning to Him Who "breatheth
where He willeth ?," and " worketh all in all 8,"
a mere superiority in comparison with the rest
of created things.

Let us now see further what he adds to this :
" sanctifying the saints." If any one says this
also of the Father and of the Son, he will speak
truly. For those in whom the Holy One
dwells, He makes holy, even as the Good One
makes men good. And the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost are holy and good, as has
been shown. "Acting as a guide to those who
approach the mystery." This may well be said
of Apollos who watered what Paul planted.
For the Apostle plants by his guidance 9, and
Apollos, when he baptizes, waters by Sacramental
regeneration, bringing to the mystery those who
were instructed by Paul. Thus he places on a
4evel with Apollos that Spirit Who perfects men
through baptism. "Distributing every gift."
With this we too agree ; for everything that is
good is a portion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
" Co-operating with the faithful for the under-
standing and contemplation of thingsappointed."
As he does not add by whom they are ap-
pointed, he leaves his meaning doubtful,
whether it is correct or the reverse. But we
will by a slight addition advance his statement
so as to make it consistent with godliness.
For since, whether it be the word of wisdom, or
the word of knowledge, or faith, or help, or
government, or aught else that is enumerated
in the lists of saving gifts, " all these worketh
that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to
every man severally as He will I," we therefore
do not reject the statement of Eunomius when
he says that the Spirit " co-operates with the
faithful for understanding and contemplation of
things appointed" by Him, because by Him all
good teachings are appointed for us. " Sound-
ing an accompaniment to those who pray."

7 S. John iii. 8. 8 i Cor. xii. 6.

9 If we read k<itt)X7)<j'c'uk for the »ca<h)y>)<rea)s of Oehler's text we
have a clearer sense, " the Apostle plants by his instruction."
1 i Cor. xii. ii.

It would be foolish seriously to examine the
meaning of this expression, of which the ludi-
crous and meaningless character is at once
manifest to all. For who is so demented and
beside himself as to wait for us to tell him that
the Holy Spirit is not a bell nor an empty cask
sounding an accompaniment and made to ring
by the voice of him who prays as it were by a
blow? " Leading us to that which is expedient
for us." This the Father and the Son likewise
do: for "He leadeth Joseph like a sheep2,"
and, "led His people like sheep 3," and, "the
good Spirit leadeth us in a land of righteous-
ness 4." "Strengthening us to godliness." To
strengthen man to godliness David says is the
work of God ; " For Thou art my strength and
my refuges," says the Psalmist, and " the Lord
is the strength of His people6," and, " He shall
give strength and power unto His people?."
If then the expressions of Eunomius are meant
in accordance with the mind of the Psalmist,
they are a testimony to the Divinity of the
Holy Ghost : but if they are opposed to the
word of prophecy, then by this very fact a charge
of blasphemy lies against Eunomius, because
he sets up his own opinions in opposition to
the holy prophets. Next he says, " Lightening
souls with the light of knowledge." This grace
also the doctrine of godliness ascribes alike to
the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
For He is called a light by David 8, and from
thence the light of knowledge shines in them
who are enlightened. In like manner also the
cleansing of our thoughts of which the statement
speaks is proper to the power of the Lord.
For it was " the brightness of the Father's glory,
and the express image of His person," Who
"purged our sins 9." Again, to banish devils,
which Eunomius says is a property of the Spirit,
this also the only-begotten God, Who said to
the devil, " I charge thee I," ascribes to the
power of the Spirit, when He says, " If I by the
Spirit of God cast out devils 2," so that the
expulsion of devils is not destructive of the
glory of the Spirit, but rather a demonstration
of His divine and transcendent power. " Heal-
ing the sick," he says, " curing the infirm, com-
forting the afflicted, raising up those who stumble,
recovering the distressed." These are the words
of those who think reverently of the Holy
Ghost, for no one would ascribe the operation
of any one of these effects to any one except
to God. If then heresy affirms that those things
which it belongs to none sa*e God alone to
effect, are wrought by the power of the Spirit,
we have in support of the truths for which we
are contending the witness even of our advers-
aries. How does the Psalmist seek his healing

fa Ps. lxxx. i. 3 Ps. lxxvii. 20. « Cf. Ps. cxliii. 10.

5 Cf. Ps. xxxi. 3. 6 Ps. xxviii. 8. ^ Ps. lxviii 75.

8 Ps. xxvii. 1. 9 Heb. i. 3.

1 Cf. S. Mark ix. 25. 2 S. Matt. xii. 28.

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GREGORY GF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS.

from God, saying, " Have mercy upon me, O
Lord, for I am weak ; 0 Lord, heal me, for my
bones are vexed 3 ! " It is to God that Isaiah
says, "The dew that is from Thee is healing
unto them *." Again, prophetic language attests
that the conversion of those in error is the work
of God. For " they went astray in the wilder-
ness in a thirsty land," says the Psalmist, and
he adds, " So He led them forth by the right
way, that they might go to the city where they
dwelts;" and, "when the Lord turned again
the captivity of Sion 6." In like manner also
the comfort of the afflicted is ascribed to God,
Paul thus speaking, " Blessed be God, even the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who com-
forteth us in all our tribulation ?." Again, the
Psalmist says, speaking in the person of God,
" Thou catledst upon Me in trouble and I
delivered thee 8." And the setting upright of
those who stumble is innumerable times ascribed
by Scripture to the power of the Lord : " Thou
hast thrust sore at me that I might fall, but the
Lord was my help 9," and "Though he fall, he
shall not be cast away, for the Lord upholdeth
him with His hand V and "The Lord helpeth
them that are fallen2." And to the loving-
kindness of God confessedly belongs the re-
covery of the distressed, if Eunomius means the
same thing of which we learn in prophecy, as
the Scripture says, " Thou laidest trouble upon
our loins ; Thou sufferedst men to ride over our
heads ; we went through fire and water, and
Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place 3."
Thus far then the majesty of the Spirit is
demonstrated by the evidence of our opponents,
but in what follows the limpid waters of devotion
are once more defiled by the mud of heresy.
For he says of the Spirit that He "cheers on those
who are contending " : and this phrase involves
him in the charge of extreme folly and impiety.
For in the stadium some have the task of
arranging the competitions between those who
intend to show their athletic vigour ; others, who
surpass the rest in strength and skill, strive for
the victory and strip to contend with one
another, while the rest, taking sides in their
good wishes with one or other of the competi-
tors, according as they are severally disposed
towards or interested in one athlete or another,
cheer him on at the time of the engagement,
and bid him guard against some hurt, or re-
member some trick of wrestling, or keep him-
self unthrown by the help of his art. Take
note from what has been said to how low a
rank Eunomius degrades the Holy Spirit. For
while on the course there are some who arrange
the contests, and others who settle whether the

3 Ps. vi. 3. * Is. xxvi. 19 (LXX.). 5 Ps. cviii. 4 — 7.

6 Ps. cxxvi. 1. 7 j Cor. i. 3, 4. 8 Ps. Ixxxi. 17.

V Ps. cxviii. 13. * Ps. xxxvii. 24.

1 Ps. cxlvi. 8. IPs. Ixvi. 10, 11.

contest is conducted according to rule, others
who are actually engaged, and yet others who
cheer on the competitors, who are acknowledged
to be far inferior to the athletes themselves,
Eunomius considers the Holy Spirit as one of
the mob who look on, or as one of those who
attend upon the athletes, seeing that He neither
determines the contest nor awards the victory,
nor contends with the adversary, but merely
cheers without contributing at all to the victory.
For He neither joins in the fray, nor does He
implant the power to contend, but merely wishes
that the athlete in whom He is interested may
not come off second in the strife. And so Paul
wrestles " against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places +,"
while the Spirit of power does not strengthen
the combatants nor distribute to them His gifts,
" dividing to every man severally as He will s,"
but His influence is limited to cheering on those
who are engaged.

Again he says, " Emboldening the faint-
hearted." And here, while in accordance with
his own method he follows his previous blas-
phemy against the Spirit, the truth for all that
manifests itself, even through unfriendly lips.
For to none other than to God does it belong
to implant courage in the fearful, saying to the
faint-hearted, " Fear not, for I am with thee, be
not dismayed 6," as says the Psalmist, " Yea
though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with
me7." Nay, the Lord Himself says to the
fearful, — "Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid 8," and, " Why are ye
fearful, O ye of little faith 9?" and, "Be of
good cheer, it is I, be not afraid r," and again,
"Be of good cheer : I have overcome the
world8." Accordingly, even though this may
not have been the intention of Eunomius,
orthodoxy asserts itself by means even of the
voice of an enemy. And the next sentence
agrees with that which went before : — " Caring
for all, and showing all concern and forethought."
For in fact it belongs to God alone to care and
to take thought for all, as the mighty David has
expressed it, " I am poor and needy, but the
Lord careth for me 3." And if what remains
seems to be resolved into empty words, with
sound and without sense, let no one find fault,
seeing that in most of what he says, so far as
any sane meaning is concerned, he is feeble and
untutored. For what on earth he means when
he says, " for the onward leading of the better
disposed and the guardianship of the more faith-
ful," neither he himself, nor they who sense-
lessly admire his follies, could possibly tell us.

* Eph. vi. 11.
7 Ps. xxiii. 4.
1 S. Mark vi. 50.

s 1 Cor. xii. it.
8 S. John xiv. 27.
2 S. John xvL 33.

6 Is. xlL 10.
9 S. Matt. viii. tit.
3 Ps. xl. to.

BOOK III.

§ I. This third book shows a third fall of
Eunomius. as refuting himself and sometimes
saying that the Son is to be called Only-
begotten in virtue of natural generation, and
that Holy Scripture proves this from the
first ; at other times, that by reason of His
being created He should not be called a Son,
but a "product" or "creature."

If, when a man "strives lawfully1," he finds
a limit to his struggle in the contest by his
adversary's either refusing the struggle, and
withdrawing of his own accord in favour of his
conqueror from his effort for victory, or being
thrown according to the rules of wrestling in
three falls (whereby the glory of the crown is
bestowed with all the splendour of proclamation
upon him who has proved victorious in the
umpire's judgment), then, since Eunomius,
though he has been already twice thrown in
our previous arguments, does not consent that
truth should hold the tokens of her victory over
falsehood, but yet a third time raises the dust
against godly doctrine in his accustomed arena
of falsehood with his composition, strengthen-
ing himself for his struggle on the side of
deceit, our statement of truth must also be
now called forth to put his falsehood to rout,
placing its hopes in Him Who is the Giver and
the Judge of victory, and at the same time
deriving strength from the very unfairness of
the adversaries' tricks of wrestling. For we
are not ashamed to confess that we have pre-
pared for our contest no weapon of argument
sharpened by rhetoric, that we can bring
forward to aid us in the fight with those
arrayed against us, no cleverness or sharpness
of dialectic, such as with inexperienced judges
lays even on truth the suspicion of falsehood.
One strength our reasoning against falsehood
has — first the very Word Himself, Who is the
might of our word,2 and in the next place the
rottenness of the arguments set against us,
which is overthrown and falls by its own spon-
taneous action. Now in order that it may be
made as clear as possible to all men, that the

1 2 Tim. ii. 5.

2 The earlier editions bere omit a long passage, which Oehler
restores.

very efforts of Eunomius serve as means for
his own overthrow to those who contend with
him, I will set forth to my readers his phan-
tom doctrine (for so I think that doctrine may
be called which is quite outside the truth),
and I would have you all, who are present at
our struggle, and watch the encounter now
taking place between my doctrine and that
which is matched with it, to be just judges of
the lawful striving of our arguments, that by
your just award the reasoning of godliness may
be proclaimed as victor to the whole theatre
of the Church, having won undisputed victory
over ungodliness, and being decorated, in virtue
of the three falls of its enemy, with the unfading
crown of them that are saved. Now this state-
ment is set forth against the truth by way of
preface to his third discourse, and this is the
fashion of it : — " Preserving," he says, "natural
order, and abiding by those things which are
known to us from above, we do not refuse to
speak of the Son, seeing He is begotten, even by
the name of 'product of generation 3,' since the
generated essence and 4 the appellation of Son
make such a relation of words appropriate." I
beg the reader to give his attention carefully
to this point, that while he calls God both
" begotten " and " Son," he refers the reason
of such names to "natural order," and calls to
witness to this conception the knowledge pos-
sessed from above : so that if anything should
be found in the course of what follows contrary
to the positions he has laid down, it is clear to
all that he is overthrown by himself, refuted by
his own arguments before ours are brought
against him. And so let us consider his state-
ment in the light of his own words. He con-
fesses that the name of " Son " would by no
means be properly applied to the Only-begotten
God, did not " natural order," as he says, con-
firm the appellation. If, then, one were to
withdraw the order of nature from the con-
sideration of the designation of "Son," his use
of this name, being deprived of its proper and
natural significance, will be meaningless. And

3 yevvrj^a.

4 Inserting /ecu, which does not appear here in Oehler's text, but is
found in later quotations of the same passsage : atrrijs is also found
in the later citations.

136

GREGORY OF NYSSA

moreover the fact that he says these state-
ments are confirmed, in that they abide by the
knowledge possessed from above, is a strong
additional support to the orthodox view touch-
ing the designation of "Son," seeing that the
inspired teaching of the Scriptures, which comes
to us from above, confirms our argument on
these matters. If these things are so, and this
is a standard of truth that admits of no deception,
that these two concur — the "natural order," as he
says, and the testimony of the knowledge given
from above confirming the natural interpreta-
tion— it is clear, that to assert anything con-
trary to these, is nothing else than manifestly to
fight against the truth itself. Let us hear again
what this writer, who makes nature his instructor
in the matter of this name, and says that he
abides by the knowledge given to us from above
by the instruction of the saints, sets out at
length a little further on, after the passage I
have just quoted. For I will pretermit for the
time the continuous recital of what is set next
in order in his treatise, that the contradiction
in what he has written may not escape detec-
tion, being veiled by the reading of the inter-
vening matter. " The same argument," he says,
" will apply also in the case of what is made and
created, as both the natural interpretation and
the mutual relation of the things, and also the
use of the saints, give us free authority for the
use of the formula : wherefore one would not be
wrong in treating the thing made as correspond-
ing to the maker, and the thing created to the
creator." Of what product of making or of
creation does he speak, as having naturally the
relation expressed in its name towards its maker
and creator? If of those we contemplate in
the creation, visible and invisible (as Paul
recounts, when he says that by Him all things
were created, visible and invisible) 5, so that
this relative conjunction of names has a proper
and special application, that which is made
be'ing set in relation to the maker, that which
is created to the creator, — if this is his meaning,
we agree with him. For in fact, since the
Lord is the Maker of angels, the angel is
assuredly a thing made by Him that made
him : and since the Lord is the Creator of the
world, clearly the world itself and all that is
therein are called the creature of Him that
created them. If however it is with this in-
tention that he makes his interpretation of
" natural order," systematizing the appropriation
of relative terms with a view to their mutual
relation in verbal sense, even thus it would be
an extraordinary thing, seeing that every one is
aware of this, that he should leave his doctrinal
statement to draw out for us a system of

5 Cf. Col. i. 16.

grammatical trivialities6. But if it is to the
Only-begotten God that he applies such phrases,
so as to say that He is a thing made by Him
that made Him, a creature of Him that created
Him, and to refer this terminology to "the
use of the saints," let him first of all show us in
his statement what saints he says there are who
declared the Maker of all things to be a product
and a creature, and whom he follows in this
audacity of phrase. The Church knows as
saints those whose hearts were divinely guided
by the Holy Spirit, — patriarchs, lawgivers,
prophets, evangelists, apostles. If any among
these is found to declare in his inspired words
that God over all, Who "upholds all things
with the word of His power," and grasps with
His hand all things that are, and by Himself
called the universe into being by the mere act
of His will, is a thing created and a product,
he will stand excused, as following, as he says,
the " use of the saints 7 " in proceeding to formu-
late such doctrines. But if the knowledge of
the Holy Scriptures is freely placed within the
reach of all, and nothing is forbidden to or hidden
from any of those who choose to share in the
divine instruction, how comes it that he en-
deavours to lead his hearers astray by his mis-
representation of the Scriptures, referring the
term " creature," applied to the Only-begotten,
to "the use of the saints"? For that by Him
all things were made, you may hear almost from
the whole of their holy utterance, from Moses and
the prophets and apostles who come after him,
whose particular expressions it would be tedious
here to set forth. Enough for our purpose, with
the others, and above the others, is the sublime
John, where in the preface to his discourse on
the Divinity of the Only-begotten he proclaims
aloud the fact that there is none of the things
that were made which was not made through
Him 8, a fact which is an incontestable and
positive proof of His being Lord of the creation,
not reckoned in the list of created things. For
if all things that are made exist by no other
but by Him (and John bears witness that
nothing among the things that are, throughout
the creation, was made without Him), who is
so blinded in understanding as not to see in
the Evangelist's proclamation the truth, that
He Who made all the creation is assuredly
something else besides the creation? For if
all that is numbered among the things that
were made has its being through Him, while
He Himself is " in the beginning," and is " with
God," being God, and Word, and Life, and
Light, and express Image, and Brightness, and

6 Oehler's punctuation here seems to admit of alteration.

7 Reading rn xPV&€i T(**i> a-yuui> for 777 Kpt'cret tu>i> <ryuoi>. the read*
ing of Oehler : the words are apparently a quotation from Eunomius,
from whom the phrase XP^'S Tuf ayiwv has already been cited.

s Cf. S. John 1. 3.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK III.

117

if none of the things that were made throughout
creation is named by the same names — (not
Word, not God, not Life, not Light, not Truth,
not express Image, not Brightness, not any of
the other names proper to the Deity is to be
found employed of the creation) — then it is
clear that He Who is these things is by nature
something else besides the creation, which
neither is nor is called any of these things. If,
indeed, there existed in such phrases an identity
of names between the creation and its Maker,
he might perhaps be excused for making the
name of " creation " also common to the thing
■created and to Him Who made it, on the
ground of the community of the other names :
but if the characteristics which are contemplated
by means of the names, in the created and in
the uncreated nature, are in no case reconcilable
or common to both, how can the misrepresent-
ation of that man fail to be manifest to all, who
•dares to apply the name of servitude to Hun
Who, as the Psalmist declares, " ruleth with
His power for ever V and to bring Him Who,
as the Apostle says, "in all things hath the pre-
eminence V to a level with the servile nature,
by means of the name and conception of ''crea-
tion " ? For that all 2 the creation is in bondage
the great Paul declares 3, — he who in the
schools above the heavens was instructed in
that knowledge which may not be spoken,
learning these things in that place where every
voice that conveys meaning by verbal utterance
is still, and where unspoken meditation becomes
the word of instruction, teaching to the purified
heart by means of the silent illumination of the
thoughts those truths which transcend speech.
If then on the one hand Paul proclaims aloud,
'•the creation is in bondage," and on the other
the Only-begotten God is truly Lord and God
over all, and John bears witness to the fact that
the whole creation of the things that were made
is by Him, how can any one, who is in any
M_-nse whatever numbered among Christians,
hold his peace when he sees Eunomius, by his
inconsistent and inconsequent systematizing,
degrading to the humble state of the creature,
by means of an identity of name that tends to
servitude, that power of Lordship which sur-
passes all rule and all authority ? And if he
says that he has some of the saints who declared
Him to be a slave, or created, or made, or any
of these lowly and servile names, lo, here are
the Scriptures. Let him, or some other on his
behalf, produce to us one such phrase, and we
will hold our peace. But if there is no such
phrase (and there could never be found in those
inspired Scriptures which we believe any such
thought as to support this impiety), what need

9 Ps. IxvL 6 (LXX.). * Col. i. 18.

2 Substituting na.<rtxv for the ■na.ai.v of Oehler's text.

3 Rom. viii. 21.

is there to strive further upon points admitted
with one who not only misrepresents the words
of the saints, but even contends against his own
definitions? For if the "order of nature," as
he himself admits, bears additional testimony
to the Son's name by reason of His being
begotten, and thus the correspondence of the
name is according to the relation of the Begotten
to the Begetter, how comes it that he wrests
the significance of the word " Son " from its
natural application, and changes the relation to
"the thing made and its maker" — a relation
which applies not only in the case of the
elements of the universe, but might also be
asserted of a gnat or an ant — that in so far as
each of these is a thing made, the relation of its
name to its maker is similarly equivalent ? The
blasphemous nature of his doctrine is clear, not
only fiom many other passages, but even from
thos,- quoted: and as for that "use of the
-aims " which he alleges that he follows in these
expressions, it is clear that there is no such use
at all.

§ 2. He then once more excellently, appropriately,
and clearly examines and expounds the passage,
" The Lord created Me."

Perhaps that passage in the Proverbs might
be brought forward against us which the
champions of heresy are wont to cite as a
testimony that the Lord was created — the
passage, "The Lord created me in the beginning
of His ways, for His works*." For because
these words are spoken by Wisdom, and the
Lord is called Wisdom by the great Paul s, they
allege this passage as though the Only-begotten
God Himself, under the name of Wisdom,
acknowledges that He was created by the
Maker of all things. I imagine, however, that
the godly sense of this utterance is clear to
moderately attentive and painstaking persons,
so that, in the case of those who are instructed
in the dark sayings of the Proverbs, no injury is
done to the doctrine of the faith. Yet I think
it well briefly to discuss what is to be said on
this subject, that when the intention of this
passage is more clearly explained, the heretical
doctrine may have no room for boldness of
speech on the ground that it has evidence in
the writing of the inspired author. It is uni-
versally admitted that the name of " proverb,"
in its scriptural use, is not applied with regard
to the evident sense, but is used with a view to
some hidden meaning, as the Gospel thus gives
the name of " proverbs6 " to dark and obscure
sayings ; so that the " proverb," if one were to
set forth the interpretation of the name by a

4 Prov. viii. 22 (LXX.). On this passage see also Book II.
§ 10.

5 1 Cor. i. 24. ' E. g. S. John xvii. 25.

138

GREGORY OF NYSSA

definition is a form of speech which, by means
of one set of ideas immediately presented,
points to something else which is hidden, or a
form of speech which does not point out the
aim of the thought directly, but gives its in-
struction by an indirect signification. Now to
this book such a name is especially attached as
a title, and the force of the appellation is at
once interpreted in the preface by the wise
Solomon. For he does not call the sayings in
this book "maxims," or "counsels," or "clear
instruction," but " proverbs," and proceeds to
add an explanation. What is the force of the
signification of this word? "To know," he
tells us, " wisdom and instruction 7 " ; not set-
ting before us the course of instruction in
wisdom according to the method common in
other kinds of learning ; he bids a man, on the
other hand 8, first to become wise by previous
training, and then so to receive the instruction
conveyed by proverb. For he tells us that
there are " words of wisdom " which reveal
their aim " by a turn 9." For that which is not
directly understood needs some turn for the
apprehension of the thing concealed ; and as
Paul, when about to exchange the literal sense
of the history for figurative contemplation, says
that he will " change his voice *," so here the
manifestation of the hidden meaning is called
by Solomon a " turn of the saying," as if the
beauty of the thoughts could not be perceived,
unless one were to obtain a view of the revealed
brightness of the thought by turning the apparent
meaning of the saying round about, as happens
with the plumage with which the peacock is
decked behind. For in him, one who sees the
back of his plumage quite despises it for its
want of beauty and tint, as a mean sight ; but
if one were to turn it round and show him the
other view of it, he then sees the varied painting
of nature, the half-circle shining in the midst
with its dye of purple, and the golden mist
round the circle ringed round and glistening at
its edge with its many rainbow hues. Since
then there is no beauty in what is obvious in
the saying (for "all the glory of the king's
daughter is within 2," shining with its hidden
ornament in golden thoughts), Solomon of
necessity suggests to the readers of this book
" the turn of the saying," that thereby they
may " understand a parable and a dark saying,
words of the wise and riddles 3." Now as this
proverbial teaching embraces these elements, a
reasonable man will not receive any passage
cited from this book, be it never so clear and
intelligible at first sight, without examination
and inspection ; for assuredly there is some

' Prov. i. a.

8 The hiatus in the Paris editions cuds here.

» Cf. Prov. i. 3 (LXX.). ' Gal. iv. 20.

» Ps. adv. 13 (LXX). 3 Prov. i. 6 (LXX.).

mystical contemplation underlying even those
passages which seem manifest. And if the
obvious passages of the work necessarily demand
a somewhat minute scrutiny, how much more
do those passages require it where even imme-
diate apprehension presents to us much that is
obscure and difficult ?

Let us then begin our examination from the
context of the passage in question, and see
whether the reading of the neighbouring clauses
gives any clear sense. The discourse describes
Wisdom as uttering certain sayings in her own
person. Every student knows what is said in
the passage * where Wisdom makes counsel her
dwelling-place, and calls to her knowledge and
understanding, and says that she has as a pos-
session strength and prudence (while she is
herself called intelligence), and that she walks
in the ways of righteousness and has her con-
versation in the ways of just judgement, and
declares that by her kings reign, and princes
write the decree of equity, and monarchs win
possession of their own land. Now every one
will see that the considerate reader will receive
none of the phrases quoted without scrutiny
according to the obvious sense. For if by her
kings are advanced to their rule, and if from
her monarchy derives its strength, it follows of
necessity that Wisdom is displayed to us as a
king-maker, and transfers to herself the blame
of those who bear evil rule in their kingdoms.
But we know of kings who in truth advance
under the guidance of Wisdom to the rule that
has no end — the poor in spirit, whose posses-
sion is the kingdom of heaven 5, as the Lord
promises, Who is the Wisdom of the Gospel :
and such also we recognize as the princes who
bear rule over their passions, who are not en-
slaved by the dominion of sin, who inscribe the
decree of equity upon their own life, as it were
upon a tablet. Thus, too, that laudable de-
spotism which changes, by the alliance Of
Wisdom, the democracy of the passions into
the monarchy of reason, brings into bondage
what were running unrestrained into mischievous
liberty, I mean all carnal and earthly thoughts :
for " the flesh lusteth against the Spirit 6," and
rebels against the government of the soul. Of
this land, then, such a monarch wins possession,
whereof he was, according to the first creation,
appointed as ruler by the Word.

Seeing then that all reasonable men admit
that these expressions are to be read in such a
sense as this, rather than in that which appears
in the words at first sight, it is consequently
probable that the phrase we are discussing,
being written in close connection with them, is
not received by prudent men absolutely and

4 Compare with what follows Prov. viii. 12, sgq. (LXX.).

5 S. Matt. v. 3. « GaL v. 17.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK III.

without examination. " If I declare to you,"
she says, " the things that happen day by day,
I will remember to recount the things from
everlasting : the Lord created me V What,
pray, has the slave of the literal text, who sits
listening closely to the sound of the syllables,
like the Jews, to say to this phrase ? Does not
the conjunction, " If I declare to you the things
that happen day by day, the Lord created me,"
ring strangely in the ears of those who listen
attentively ? as though, if she did not declare
the things that happen day by day, she will by
consequence deny absolutely that she was
created. For he who says, " If I declare, I was
created," leaves you by his silence to under-
stand, " I was not created, if I do not declare."
" The Lord created me," she says, " in the
beginning of His ways, for His works. He set
me up from everlasting, in the beginning, before
He made the earth, before He made the depths,
before the springs of the waters came forth,
before the mountains were settled, before all
hills, He begetteth me 8." What new order of
the formation of a creature is this ? First it is
created, and after that it is set up, and then it
is begotten. " The Lord made," she says,
"lands, even uninhabited, and the inhabited
extremes of the earth under heaven 9." Of
what Lord does she speak as the maker of land
both uninhabited and inhabited ? Of Him,
surely, who made wisdom. For both the one
saying and the other are uttered by the same
person ; both that which says, "the Lord created
me," and that which adds, "the Lord made
land, even uninhabited." Thus the Lord will
be the maker equally of both, of Wisdom her-
self, and of the inhabited and uninhabited land.
What then are we to make of the saying, " All
things were made by Him, and without Him
was not anything made x " ? For if one and the
same Lord creates both Wisdom (which they
advise us to understand of the Son), and also the
particular things which are included in the
Creation, how does the sublime John speak
truly, when he says that all things were made
by Him ? For this Scripture gives a contrary
sound to that of the Gospel, in ascribing to the
Creator of Wisdom the making of land unin-
habited and inhabited. So, too, with all that
follows 2 : — she speaks of a Throne of God set
apart upon the winds, and says that the clouds
above are made strong, and the fountains under
the heaven sure ; and the context contains
many similar expressions, demanding in a
marked degree that interpretation by a minute
and clear-sighted intelligence, which is to be
observed in the passages already quoted. What
is the throne that is set apart upon the winds ?

' Prov. »iii. 21-22 (LXX.).

9 Prov. viii. 26 (LXX.).

8 Cf. Piov. viii. 27-8 (LXX.).

8 Prov. viii. 22 tgq. (LXX)
1 S. John i. 3.

What is the security of the fountains under the
heaven ? How are the clouds above made
strong ? If any one should interpret the pass-
age with reference to visible objects 3, he will
find that the facts are at considerable variance
with the words. For who knows not that the
extreme parts of the earth under heaven, by
excess in one direction or in the other, either
by being too close to the sun's heat, or by being
too far removed from it, are uninhabitable ;
some being excessively dry and parched, other
parts superabounding in moisture, and chilled
by frost, and that only so much is inhabited as
is equally removed from the extreme of each of
the two opposite conditions? But if it is the
midst of the earth that is occupied by man,
how does the proverb say that the extremes of
the earth under heaven are inhabited ? Again,
what strength could one perceive in the clouds,
that that passage may have a true sense, ac-
cording to its apparent intention, which says
that the clouds above have been made strong ?
For the nature of cloud is a sort of rather slight
vapour diffused through the air, which, being
light, by reason of its great subtilty, is borne
on the breath of the air, and, when forced to-
gether by compression, falls down through the
air that held it up, in the form of a heavy drop
of rain. What then is the strength in these,
which offer no resistance to the touch ? For in
the cloud you may discern the slight and easily
dissolved character of air. Again, how is the
Divine throne set apart on the winds that are
by nature unstable ? And as for her saying at
first that she is " created," finally, that she is
"begotten," and between these two utterances
that she is "set up," what account of this could
any one profess to give that would agree with
the common and obvious sense? The point
also on which a doubt was previously raised in
our argument, the declaring, that is, of the
things that happen day by day, and the remem-
bering to recount the things from everlasting, is,
as it were, a condition of Wisdom's assertion
that she was created by God.

Thus, since it has been clearly shown by what
has been said, that no part of this passage is
such that its language should be received with-
out examination and reflection, it may be well>
perhaps, as with the rest, so not to interpret the
text, "The Lord created me," according to that
sense which immediately presents itself to us
from the phrase, but to seek with all attention
and care what is to be piously understood
from the utterance. Now, to apprehend per-
fectly the sense of the passage before us, would
seem to belong only to those who search out
the depths by the aid of the Holy Spirit, and
know how to speak in the Spirit the divine

3 Or " according to the apparent sense."

140

GREGORY OF NYSSA

mysteries : our account, however, will only busy
itself with the passage in question so far as not
to leave its drift entirely unconsidered. What,
then, is our account? It is not, I think, pos-
sible that that wisdom which arises in any man
from divine illumination should come alone,
apart from the other gifts of the Spirit, but there
must needs eater in therewith also the grace of
prophecy. For if the apprehension of the truth
of the things that are is the peculiar power of
wisdom, and prophecy includes the clear know-
ledge of the things tha*- are about to be, one
would not be possessed of tne gift of wisdom in
perfection, if he did not further include in his
knowledge, by the aid of prophecy, the future
likewise. Now, since it is not mere human
wisdom that is claimed for himself by Solomon,
who says, " God hath taught me wisdom *," and
who, where he says "all my words are spoken from
God5,"refers to God all that is spoken by himself,
it might be well in this part of the Proverbs to
trace out the prophecy that is mingled with his
wisdom. But we say that in the earlier part of
the book, where he says that " Wisdom has
builded herself a house 6," he refers darkly in
these words to the preparation of the flesh of
the Lord : for the true Wisdom did not dwell
in another's building, but built for Itself that
dwelling-place from the body of the Virgin.
Here, however, he adds to his discourse ? that
which of both is made one — of the house, I
mean, and of the Wisdom which built the house,
that is to say, of the Humanity and of the Divin-
ity that was commingled with man 8 ; and to
each of these he applies suitable and fitting
terms, as you may see to be the case also in
the Gospels, where the discourse, proceeding as
befits its subject, employs the more lofty and
divine phraseology to indicate the Godhead,
and that which is humble and lowly to indicate
the Manhood. So we may see in this passage
also Solomon prophetically moved, and deliver-
ing to us in its fulness the mystery of the In-
carnation 9. For we speak first of the eternal
power and energy of Wisdom ; and here the
evangelist, to a certain extent, agrees with him
in his very words. For as the latter in his com-
prehensive * phrase proclaimed Him to be the

4 Prov. xxx. 3 (LXX. ch. xxiv.).

5 Prov. xxxi. 1 LXX. ch xxiv.). The ordinary reading in the
LXX. seems to bci>no0(ov, while • >ehler retains in his lext of Greg.
>. yss. the oltto 8fov of the Paris editions.

I iv. ix. 1, which seems to he spoken of as " earlier" in contrast,
not with the main passage under examination, but with those just
cited.

1 I f irpooriOrjcri be the right readinB.itwouldalmostsecnith.it

>ry had forgotten the order of the passages, and supposed

Prov. viii. 22 to have been written after Prov. ix. 1. To read

irpori0i)<ri, '" presents to us") w Id gel rid of tins difficulty, bill it

may lie that Gregory only intends to point out that the idea of the
union of the two natures, from which the "1 nnmuinr.it 10 i< 1 1 .ituiu"

results, is distinct from that of the pi paration foi the Nativity,
not t<> insist upon the order in which, as he conceives, they are set
111 the book of Proverbs.

a ayaxpaBtitrqs Toi ay&puiTrui. 9 j-^ oiKovo^iifit;.

' ntfjiArinrft appears to be used as equivalent to n<f>i\rinTiKJj.

cause and Maker of all things, so Solomon says
that by Him were made those individual things
which are included in the whole. For he tells
us that God by Wisdom established the earth,
and in understanding prepared the heavens, and
all that follows these in order, keeping to the
same sense : and that he might not seem to
pass over without mention the gift of excellence
in men, he again goes on to say, speaking in
the person of Wisdom, the words we mentioned
a little earlier ; I mean, " I made counsel my
dwelling-place, and knowledge, and understand-
ing 2," and all that relates to instruction in in-
tellect and knowledge.

After recounting these and the like matters,
he proceeds to introduce also his teaching con-
cerning the dispensation with regard to man,
why the Word was made flesh. For seeing that
it is clear to all that God Who is over all has in
Himself nothing as a thing created or imported,
not power nor wisdom, nor light, nor word, nor
life, nor truth, nor any at all of those things
which are contemplated in the fulness of the
Divine bosom (all which things the Only-begot-
ten God is, Who is in the bosom of the Father 3),
the name of " creation " could not properly be
applied to any of those things which are con-
templated in God, so that the Son Who is in
the Father, or the Word Who is in the Beginning,
or the Light Who is in the Light, or the Life Who
is in the Life, or the Wisdom Who is in the
Wisdom, should say, "the Lord created me."
For if the Wisdom of God is created (and Christ
is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God +),
God, it would follow, has His Wisdom as a
thing imported, receiving afterwards, as the re-
sult of making, something which He had not at
first. But surely He Who is in the bosom of
the Father does not permit us to conceive the
bosom of the Father as ever void of Himself.
He Who is in the beginning is surely not of the
things which come to be in that bosom from
without, but being the fulness of all good, He is
conceived as being always in the Father, not
waiting to arise in Him as the result of creation,
so that the Father should not be conceived as
at any time void of good, but He Who is con-
ceived as being in the eternity of the Father's
Godhead is always in Him, being Power, and
Life, and Truth, and Wisdom, and the like.
Accordingly the words "created me" do not
proceed from the Divine and immortal nature,
but from that which was commingled with it in
the Incarnation from our created nature. How
comes it then that the same, called wisdom, and
understanding, and intelligence, establishes the
earth, and prepares the heavens, and breaks up
the deeps, and yet is here "created for the be-

1 Cf. Prov. viii. 12 (LXX.).
3 S. John i. 18

Cor. i. 24.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK III.

141

ginning of His works s " ? Such a dispensation,
he tells us, is not set forward without great
cause. But since men, after receiving the com-
mandment of the things we should observe, cast
away by disobedience the grace of memory, and
became forgetful, for this cause, " that I may
declare to you the things that happen day by
day for your salvation, and may put you in mind
by recounting the things from everlastii g, which
you have forgotten (for it is no new gospel that
I now proclaim, but I labour at your restoration
to your first estate), — for this cause I was created,
Who ever am, and need no creation in order to
be ; so that I am the beginning of ways for the
works of God, that is for men. For the first
way being destroyed, there must needs again be
consecrated for the wanderers a new and living
way6, even I myself, Who am the way." And
this view, that the sense of " created me " has
reference to the Humanity, the divine apostle
more clearly sets before us by his own words,
when he charges us, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus
Christ 7," and also where (using the same word)
he says, " Put on the new man which after God
is created 8." For if the garment of salvation is
one, and that is Christ, one cannot say that " the
new man, which after God is created," is any
other than Christ, but it is clear that he who
has "put on Christ" has "put on the new
man which after God is created." For actually
He alone is properly named "the new man,"
Who did not appear in the life of man by the
known and ordinary ways of nature, but in His
case alone creation, in a strange and special
form, was instituted anew. For this reason he
names the same Person, when regarding the
wonderful manner of His birth?, "the new
man, which after God is created," and, when
looking to the Divine nature, which was blended *
in the creation of this " new man," he calls Him
" Christ " : so that the two names (I mean the
name of "Christ" and the name of " the new
man which after God is created ") are applied to
one and the same Person.

Since, then, Christ is Wisdom, let the intelli-
gent reader consider our opponent's account of
the matter, and our own, and judge which is the
more pious, which better preserves in the text
those conceptions which are befitting the Divine
nature ; whether that which declares the Creator
and Lord of all to have been made, and places
Him on a level with the creation that is in
bondage, or that rather which looks to the
Incarnation, and preserves the due proportion
with regard to our conception alike of the
Divinity and of the Humanity, bearing in mind
that the great Paul testifies in favour of our

5 The quotation is an inexact reproduction of Prov. viii. 22
(LXX.). 6 Cf. Heb. x. 20.

^ Rom. xiii 141 8 Eph. iv. 24.

9 •yevnjo-e'wf. x iyxpaOn Z<r<w.

view, who sees in the " new man " creation,
and in the true Wisdom the power of creation.
And, further, the order of the passage agrees
with this view of the doctrine it conveys. For
if the "beginning of the ways" had not been
created among us, the foundation of those ages
for which we look would not have been laid ;
nor would the Lord have become for us " the
Father of the age to come2," had not a Child
been born to us, according to Isaiah, and His
name been called, both all the other titles which
the prophet gives Him, and withal " The Father
of the age to come." Thus first there came to
pass the mystery wrought in virginity, and the
dispensation of the Passion, and then the wise
master-builders of the Faith laid the foundation
of the Faith : and this is Christ, the Father of
the age to come, on Whom is built the life of
the ages that have no end. And when this has
come to pass, to the end that in each individual
believer may be wrought the divine decrees of
the Gospel law, and the varied gifts of the Holy
Spirit — (all which the divine Scripture figura-
tively names, with a suitable significance,
" mountains" and "hills," calling righteousness
the " mountains " of God, and speaking of His
judgments as "deeps 3," and giving the name
of " earth " to that which is sown by the Word
and brings forth abundant fruit ; or in that
sense in which we are taught by David to
understand peace by the "mountains," and
righteousness by the " hills 4 "), — Wisdom is
begotten in the faithful, and the saying is found
true. For He Who is in those who have re-
ceived Him, is not yet begotten in the unbeliev-
ing. Thus, that these things may be wrought
in us, their Maker must be begotten in us.
For if Wisdom is begotten in us, then in each
of us is prepared by God both land, and land
uninhabited, — the land, that which receives the
sowing and the ploughing of the Word, the
uninhabited land, the heart cleared of evil
inhabitants, — and thus our dwelling will be upon
the extreme parts of the earth. For since in
the earth some is depth, and some is surface,
when a man is not buried in the earth, or, as it
were, dwelling in a cave by reason of thinking
of things beneath (as is the life of those who
live in sin, who " stick fast in the deep mire
where no ground is5," whose life is truly a pit,
as the Psalm says, " let not the pit shut her
mouth upon me 6 ") — if, I say, a man, when
Wisdom is begotten in him, thinks of the things
that are above, and touches the earth only so
much as he needs must, such a man inhabits
" the extreme parts of the earth under heaven,"
not plunging deep in earthly thought ; with

2 Is ix. 6 (LXX.). "The Everlasting Father" of the English
Version.

3 Cf. Ps. xxxvi. 6. 4 Ps. Ixxii. 3.
5 Ps. lxix. 2. ' Ps. lxix. 16.

142

GREGORY OF NYSSA

him Wisdom is present, as he prepares in him-
self heaven instead of earth : and when, by
carrying out the precepts into act, he makes
strong for himself the instruction of the clouds
above, and, enclosing the great and widespread
sea of wickedness, as it were with a beach, by
his exact conversation, hinders the troubled
water from proceeding forth from his mouth ;
and if by the grace of instruction he be made
to dwell among the fountains, pouring forth the
stream of his discourse with sure caution, that
he may not give to any man for drink the turbid
fluid of destruction in place of pure water, and
if he be lifted up above all earthly paths and
become aerial in his life, advancing towards
that spiritual life which he speaks of as " the
winds," so that he is set apart to be a throne
of Him Who is seated in him (as was Paul,
separated for the Gospel to be a chosen vessel
to bear the name of God, who, as it is else-
where expressed, was made a throne, bearing
Him that sat upon him) — when, I say, he is
established in these and like ways, so that he
who has already fully made up in himself the
land inhabited by God, now rejoices in gladness
that he is made the father, not of wild and
senseless beasts, but of men (and these would
be godlike thoughts, which are fashioned accord-
ing to the Divine image, by faith in Him Who
has been created and begotten, and set up in
us ; — and faith, according to the words of Paul,
is conceived as the foundation whereby wisdom
is begotten in the faithful, and all the things
that I have spoken of are wrought) — then, I
say, the life of the man who has been thus
established is truly blessed, for Wisdom is at
all times in agreement with him, and rejoices
with him who daily finds gladness in her alone.
For the Lord rejoices in His saints, and there
is joy in heaven over those who are being saved,
and Christ, as the father, makes a feast for his
rescued son. Though we have spoken hurriedly
of these matters, let the careful man read the
original text of the Holy Scripture, and fit its
dark sayings to our reflections, testing whether
it is not far better to consider that the meaning
of these dark sayings has this reference, and
not that which is attributed to it at first sight.
For it is not possible that the theology of John
should be esteemed true, which recites that all
created things are the work of the Word, if in
this passage He Who created Wisdom be
believed to have made together with her all
other things also. For in that case all things
will not be by her, but she will herself be
counted with the things that were made.

And that this is the reference of the enigmati-
cal sayings is clearly revealed by the passage
that follows, which says, " Now therefore
hearken unto me, my son : and blessed is he

that keepeth my ways V meaning of course by
" ways " the approaches to virtue, the beginning
of which is the possession of Wisdom. Who,
then, who looks to the divine Scripture, will
not agree that the enemies of the truth are at
once impious and slanderous? — impious, be-
cause, so far as in them lies, they degrade the
unspeakable glory of the Only-begotten God,
and unite it with the creation, striving to show
that the Lord Whose power over all things is
only-begotten, is one of the things that were
made by Him : slanderous, because, though
Scripture itself gives them no ground for such
opinions, they arm themselves against piety as
though they drew their evidence from that
source. Now since they can by no means show
any passage of the Holy Scriptures which leads
us to look upon the pre-temporal glory of the
Only-begotten God in conjunction with the
subject creation, it is well, these points being
proved, that the tokens of victory over falsehood
should be adduced as testimony to the doctrine
of godliness, and that sweeping aside these
verbal systems of theirs by which they make
the creature answer to the creator, and the
thing made to the maker, we should confess, as
the Gospel from heaven teaches us, the well-
beloved Son — not a bastard, not a counterfeit ;
but that, accepting with the name of Son all
that naturally belongs to that name, we should
say that He Who is of Very God is Very God,
and that we should believe of Him all that we
behold in the Father, because They are One,
and in the one is conceived the other, not over-
passing Him, not inferior to Him, not altered
or subject to change in any Divine or excellent
property.

§ 3. He then shows, from the instance of Adam
and Abel, and other examples, the absence of
alienation of essence in the case of the "gener-
ate " and " ungenerate."

Now seeing that Eunomius' conflict with
himself has been made manifest, where he has
been shown to contradict himself, at one time
saying, " He ought to be called ' Son,' accord-
ing to nature, because He is begotten," at
another that, because He is created, He is no
more called " Son," but a " product," I think
it right that the careful and attentive reader, as
it is not possible, when two statements are
mutually at variance, that the truth should be
found equally in both, should reject of the two
that which is impious and blasphemous — that,
I mean, with regard to the " creature " and the
"product," and should assent to that only which
is of orthodox tendency, which confesses that

7 Prov. viii. 32 (not verbally agreeing with the LXX.^

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK III.

143

the appellation of " Son " naturally attaches to
the Only-begotten God : so that the word of
truth would seem to be recommended even by
the voice of its enemies.

I resume my discourse, however, taking up
that point of his argument which we originally
set aside. " We do not refuse," he says, " to call
the Son, seeing He is generate, even by the name
of ' product of generation 8,' since the generated
essence itself, and the appellation of 'Son,' make
such a relation of words appropriate." Mean-
while let the reader who is critically following
the argument remember this, that in speaking
of the " generated essence " in the case of the
Only-begotten, he by consequence allows us to
speak of the " ungenerate essence " in the case
of the Father, so that neither absence of genera-
tion, nor generation, can any longer be supposed
to constitute the essence, but the essence must
be taken separately, and its being, or not being
begotten, must be conceived separately by
means of the peculiar attributes contemplated
in it. Let us, however, consider more carefully
his argument on this point. He says that an
essence has been begotten, and that the name
of this generated essence is "Son." Well, at
this point our argument will convict that of our
opponents on two grounds, first, of an attempt
at knavery, secondly, of slackness in their
attempt against ourselves. For he is playing
the knave when he speaks of "generation of
essence," in order to establish his opposition
between the essences, when once they are
divided in respect of a difference of nature
between "generate" and "ungenerate" : while
the slackness of their attempt is shown by the
very positions their knavery tries to establish.
For he who says the essence is generate, clearly
defines generation as being something else
distinct from the essence, so that the signifi-
cance of generation cannot be assigned to the
word "essence." For he has not in this
passage represented the matter as he often
does, so as to say that generation is itself the
essence, but acknowledges that the essence is
generated, so that there is produced in his
readers a distinct notion in the case of each
word : for one conception arises in him who
hears that it was generated, and another is
called up by the name of " essence." Our
argument may be made clearer by example.
The Lord says in the Gospel ' that a woman,
when her travail is drawing near, is in sorrow,
but afterwards rejoices in gladness because a
man is born into the world. As then in this

8 yewtiita. This word, in what follows, is sometimes translated
simply by the word " product," where it is not contrasted with
iroi7)/ia (the " product of making "), or where the argument depends
especially upon its grammatical form (which indicates that the thing
denoted is the result of a process), rather than upon the idea of the
particular process.

* Cf. S. John xvL 31.

passage we derive from the Gospel two distinct
conceptions, — one the birth which we conceive
to be by way of generation, the other that which
results from the birth (for the birth is not the
man, but the man is by the birth), — so here too,
when Eunomius confesses that the essence was
generated, wg learn by the latter word that the
essence comes from something, and by the
former we conceive that subject itself which
has its real being from something. If then
the signification of essence is one thing, and
the word expressing generation suggests to us
another conception, their clever contrivances
are quite gone to ruin, like earthen vessels
hurled one against the other, and mutually
smashed to pieces. For it will no longer be
possible for them, if they apply the opposition
of " generate " and " ungenerate " to the essence
of the Father and the Son, to apply at the same
time to the things themselves the mutual con-
flict between these names *. For as it is con-
fessed by Eunomius that the essence is generate
(seeing that the example from the Gospel ex-
plains the meaning of such a phrase, where,
when we hear that a man is generated, we do
not conceive the man to be the same thing as
his generation, but receive a separate conception
in each of the two words), heresy will surely no
longer be permitted to express by such words
her doctrine of the difference of the essences.
In order, however, that our account of these
matters may be cleared up as far as possible,
let us once more discuss the point in the follow-
ing way. He Who framed the universe made the
nature of man with all things in the beginning,
and after Adam was made, He then appointed
for men the law of generation one from another,
saying, "Be fruitful and multiply2." Now
while Abel came into existence by way of
generation, what reasonable man would deny
that, in the actual sense of human generation,
Adam existed ungenerately ? Yet the first man
had in himself the complete definition of man's
essential nature, and he who was generated of
him was enrolled under the same essential
name. But if the essence that was generated
was made anything other than that which
was not generated, the same essential name
would not apply to both : for of those things
whose essence is different, the essential name
also is not the same. Since, then, the essential
nature of Adam and of Abel is marked by the
same characteristics, we must certainly agree
that one essence is in both, and that the one
and the other are exhibited in the same nature.
For Adam and Abel are both one so far as the

1 If, that is, they speak of the " generated essence " in contra-
distinction to " ungenerate essence," they are precluded from saying
that the essence of the Son is that He is begotten, and that the
essence of the Father is that He is ungenerate : that which con-
stitutes the essence cannot be made an epithet of the essence.

1 Gen. i. 28.

144

GREGORY OF NYSSA

definition of their nature is concerned, but are
distinguished one from the other without con-
fusion by the individual attributes observed in
each of them. We cannot therefore properly
say that Adam generated another essence
besides himself, but rather that of himself he
generated another self, with whom was pro-
duced the whole definition of the essence of
him who generated him. What, then, we learn
in the case of human nature by means of the
inferential guidance afforded to us by the
definition, this I think we ought to take for our
guidance also to the pure apprehension of the
Divine doctrines. For when we have shaken
off from the Divine and exalted doctrines all
carnal and material notions, we shall be most
surely led by the remaining conception, when
it is purged of such ideas, to the lofty and
unapproachable heights. It is confessed even
by our adversaries that God, Who is over all,
both is and is called the Father of the Only-
begotten, and they moreover give to the Only-
begotten God, Who is of the Father, the name
of "begotten," by reason of His being gene-
rated. Since then among men the word
"father" has certain significances attaching to
it, from which the pure nature is alien, it behoves
a man to lay aside all material conceptions
which enter in by association with the carnal
significance of the word "father," and to form
in the case of the God and Father a conception
befitting the Divine nature, expressive only of
the reality of the relationship. Since, therefore,
in the notion of a human father there is in-
cluded not only all that the flesh suggests to
our thoughts, but a certain notion of interval
is also undoubtedly conceived with the idea of
human fatherhood, it would be well, in the case
of the Divine generation, to reject, together
with bodily pollution, the notion of interval
also, that so what properly belongs to matter
may be completely purged away, and the trans-
cendent generation may be clear, not only from
the idea of passion, but from that of interval.
Now he who says that God is a Father will
unite with the thought that God is, the further
thought that He is something : for that which
has its being from some beginning, certainly
also derives from something the beginning of
its being, whatever it is : but He in Whose case
being had no beginning, has not His beginning
from anything, even although we contemplate
in Him some other attribute than simple exist-
ence. Well, God is a Father. It follows that
He is what He is from eternity : for He did
not become, but is a Father : for in God that
which was, both is and will be. On the other
hand, if He once was not anything, then He
neither is nor will be that thing : for He is not
be 1 iced to be the Father of a Being such that

it may be piously asserted that God once existed
by Himself without that Being. For the Father
is the Father of Life, ar.d Truth, and Wisdom,
and Light, and Sanctification, and Power, and
all else of a like kind that the Only-begotten is
or is called. Thus when the adversaries allege
that the Light " once was not," I know not to
which the greater injury is done, whether to the
Light, in that the Light is not, or to Him that
has the Light, in that He has not the Light.
So also with Life and Truth and Power, and all
the other characters in which the Only-begotten
fills the Father's bosom, being all things in His
own fulness. For the absurdity will be equal
either way, and the impiety against the Father
will equal the blasphemy against the Son : for
in saying that the Lord "once was not," you
will not merely assert the non-existence of
Power, but you will be saying that the Power
of God, Who is the Father of the Power, " was
not." Thus the assertion made by your doctrine
that the Son " once was not," establishes
nothing else than a destitution of all good in
the case of the Father. See to what an end
these wise men's acuteness leads, how by them
the word of the Lord is made good, which says,
" He that despiseth Me despiseth Him that
sent Me 3 : " for by the very arguments by which
they despise the existence at any time of the
Only-begotten, they also dishonour the Father,
stripping off by their doctrine from the Father's
glory every good name and conception.

§ 4. He thus shows the oneness of the Eternal
Son with the Father, the identity of essence and
the community of nature (^wherein is a natural
inquiry into the production of wine), and that
the terms " Son " and "product" in the naming
of the Only-begotten include a like idea of
relationship.

What has been said, therefore, has clearly ex-
posed the slackness which is to be found in the
knavery of our author, who, while he goes about
to establish the opposition of the essence of the
Only-begotten to that of the Father, by the
method of calling the one " ungenerate," and
the other "generate," stands convicted of play-
ing the fool with his inconsistent arguments.
For it was shown from his own words, first, that
the name of "essence" means one thing, and
that of "generation" another; and next, that
there did not come into existence, with the Son,
any new and different essence besides the essence
of the Father, but that what the Father is as re-
gards the definition of His nature, that also He
is Who is of the Father, as the nature does not
change into diversity in the Person of the Son,

3 S. Luke x. 16.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK III.

according to the truth of the argument displayed
by our consideration of Adam and Abel. For
as, in that instance, he that was not generated
after a like sort was yet, so far as concerns the
definition of essence, the same with him that
was generated, and Abel's generation did not
produce any change in the essence, so, in the
case of these pure doctrines, the Only-begotten
God did not, by His own generation, produce in
Himself any change in the essence of Him Who
is ungenerate, (coming forth, as the Gospel says,
from the Father, and being in the Father,) but
is, according to the simple and homely language
of the creed we profess, " Light of Light, very
God of very God," the one being all that the
other is, save being that other. With regard,
however, to the aim for the sake of which he
carries on this system-making, I think there is
no need for me at present to express any opinion,
whether it is audacious and dangerous, or a thing
allowable and free from danger, to transform the
phrases which are employed to signify the Divine
nature from one to another, and to call Him
Who is generated by the name of "product of
generation."

I let these matters pass, that my discourse
may not busy itself too much in the strife against
lesser points, and neglect the greater ; but I say
that we ought carefully to consider the question
whether the natural relation does introduce the
use of these terms : for this surely Eunomius
asserts, that with the affinity of the appellations
there is also asserted an essential relationship.
For he would not say, I presume, that the mere
names themselves, apart from the sense of the
things signified, have any mutual relation or
affinity ; but all discern the relationship or
diversity of the appellations by the meanings
which the words express. If, therefore, he con-
fesses that "the Son" has a natural relation
with "the Father," let us leave the appellations,
and consider the force that is found in their
significations, whether in their affinity we discern
diversity of essence, or that which is kindred
and characteristic. To say that we find diversity
is downright madness. For how does some-
thing without kinship or community " preserve
order," connected and conformable, in the
names, where "the generated essence itself," as
he says, " and the appellation of ' Son,' make
such a relation of words appropriate " ? If, on
the other hand, he should say that these appella-
tions signify relationship, he will necessarily
appear in the character of an advocate of the
community of essence, and as maintaining the
fact that by affinity of names is signified also the
connection of subjects : and this he often does
in his composition without being aware of it4.

4 Oehler's punctuation is here slightly altered.
VOL V.

For, by the arguments wherewith he endeavour:
to destroy the truth, he is often himself unwit-
tingly drawn into an advocacy of the very doc-
trines against which he is contending. Some
such thing the history tells us concerning Saul,
that once, when moved with wrath against the
prophets, he was overcome by grace, and was-
found as one of the inspired, (the Spirit of pro-
phecy willing, as I suppose, to instruct the
apostate by means of himself,) whence the sur-
prising nature of the event became a proverb in
his after life, as the history records such an ex-
pression by way of wonder, " Is Saul also among
the prophets 5 ? "

At what point, then, does Eunomius assent
to the truth ? When he says that the Lord
Himself, "being the Son of the living God, not
being ashamed of His birth from the Virgin, often
named Himself, in His own sayings, 'the Son of
Man ' " ? For this phrase we also allege for
proof of the community of essence, because the
name of " Son " shows the community of nature
to be equal in both cases. For as He is called
the Son of Man by reason of the kindred of
His flesh to her of whom He was born, so also
He is conceived, surely, as the Son of God, by
reason of the connection of His essence with
that from which He has His existence, and this
argument is the greatest weapon of the truth.
For nothing so clearly points to Him Who is
the " mediator between God and man 6 " (as
the great Apostle called Him), as the name of
"Son," equally applicable to either nature,
Divine or Human. For the same Person is
Son of God, and was made, in the Incarnation,
Son of Man, that, by His communion with each,
He might link together by Himself what were
divided by nature. Now if, in becoming Son
of Man, he were without participation in human
nature, it would be logical to say that neither
does He share in the Divine essence, though He
is Son of God. But if the whole compound
nature of man was in Him (for Tie was "in all
points tempted like as we are, yet without sin ?),
it is surely necessary to believe that every pro-
perty of the transcendent essence is also in Him,
as the Word " Son " claims for Him both alike
— the Human in the man, but in the God the
Divine.

If then the appellations, as Eunomius says,
indicate relationship, and the existence of rela-
tionship is observed in the things, not in the
mere sound of the words (and by things I mean
the things conceived in themselves, if it be not
over-bold thus to speak of the Son and the
Father), who would deny that the very champion
of blasphemy has by his own action been dragged
into the advocacy of orthodoxy, overthrowing by
his own means his own arguments, and pro-

5 i Sam. xix. 24.

6 1 Tim.

7 Heb. iv. 15.

146

GREGORY OF NYSSA

claiming community of essence in the case of the
Divine doctrines ? For the argument that he un-
willingly casts into the scale on the side of truth
does not speak falsely as regards this point, —
that He would not have been called Son if the
natural conception of the names did not verify
this calling. For as a bench is not called the
son of the workman, and no sane man would
say that the builder engendered the house, and
we do not say that the vineyard is the "pro-
duct8" of the vine-dresser, but call what a man
makes his work, and him who is begotten of
him the son of a man, (in order, I suppose, that
the proper meaning might be attached by means
of the names to the respective subjects,) so too,
when we are taught that the Only-begotten is
Son of God, we do not by this appellation under-
stand a creature of God, but what the word
"Son" in its signification really displays. And
even though wine be named by Scripture the
"product 9" of the vine, not even so will
our argument with regard to the orthodox
doctrine suffer by this identity of name. For
we do not call wine the " product " of the oak,
nor the acorn the " product " of the vine, but
we use the word only if there is some natural
community between the "product" and that
from which it comes. For the moisture in the
vine, which is drawn out from the root through
the stem by the pith, is, in its natural power,
water: but, as it passes in orderly sequence
along the ways of nature, and flows from the
lowest to the highest, it changes to the quality
of wine, a change to which the rays of the sun
contribute in some degree, which by their warmth
draw out the moisture from the depth to the
shoots, and by a proper and suitable process of
ripening make the moisture wine : so that, so
far as their nature is concerned, there is no dif-
ference between the moisture that exists in the
vine and the wine that is produced from it. For
the one form of moisture comes from the other,
and one could not say that the cause of wine is
anything else than the moisture which naturally
exists in the shoots. But, so far as moisture is
concerned, the differences of quality produce no
alteration, but are found when some peculiarity
discerns the moisture which is in the form of
wine from that which is in the shoots, one of
the two forms being accompanied by astringency,
or sweetness, or sourness, so that in substance
the two are the same, but are distinguished by
qualitative differences. As, therefore, when we
hear from Scripture that the Only-begotten God
is Son of man, we learn by the kindred expressed
in the name His kinship with true man, so even,
if the Son be called, in the adversaries' phrase,
a " product," we none the less learn, even by
this name, His kinship in essence with Him that

y* yrr^a.

' yvniti*. /:. g. S. M.ill. x\i ,

has "produced1" Him, by the fact that wine,
which is called the " product " of the vine, has
been found not to be alien, as concerns the idea
of moisture, from the natural power that resides
in the vine. Indeed, if one were judiciously to
examine the things that are said by our adver-
saries, they tend to our doctrine, and iheir sense
cries out against their own fabrications, as they
strive at all points to establish their " difference
in essence." Yet it is by no means an easy
matter to conjecture whence they were led to
such conceptions. For if the appellation of
"Son" does not merely signify "being from
something," but by its signification presents to
us specially, as Eunomius himself says, relation-
ship in point of nature, and wine is not called
the " product " of an oak, and those " products "
or "generation of vipers 2," of which the Gospel
somewhere speaks, are snakes and not sheep, it
is clear, that in the case of the Only-begotten
also, the appellation of "Son" or of "product"
would not convey the meaning of relationship
to something of another kind : but even if, ac-
cording to our adversaries' phrase, He is called
a " product of generation," and the name of
" Son," as they confess, has reference to nature,
the Son is surely of the essence of Him Who
has generated or " produced " Him, not of that
of some other among the things which we con-
template as external to that nature. And if He
is truly from Him, He is not alien from all that
belongs to Him from Whom He is, as in the
other cases too it was shown that all that has its
existence from anything by way of generation is
clearly of the same kind as that from whence it
came.

§ 5. He discusses the incomprehensibility of the
Divine essence, and the saying to the woman
of Samaria, " Ye worship ye know not what."

Now if any one should ask for some inter-
pretation, and description, and explanation of
the Divine essence, we are not going to deny
that in this kind of wisdom we are unlearned,
acknowledging only so much as this, that it is
not possible that that which is by nature infinite
should be comprehended in any conception
expressed by words. The fact that the Divine
greatness has no limit is proclaimed by pro-
phecy, which declares express.y that of His
splendour, His glory, His holiness, " there is
no end 3 : " and if His surroundings have no
limit, much more is He Himself in His essence,
whatever it may be, comprehended by no limit-
ation in any way. If then interpretation by
way of words and names implies by its meaning

1 yeyevvr)Kvra. : which, as answering to -yeVnjfia, is here translated
" produced " rather than " begotten."

1 ytvi-rifiara (yi&vutv. E.g. S. Matt. iii. 7.
\ CI r>i. cxlv. 3.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK III.

14/

some sort of comprehension of the subject, and
if, on the other hand, that which is unlimited
cannot be comprehended, no one could reason-
ably blame us for ignorance, if we are not bold
in respect of what none should venture upon.
For by what name can I describe the incom-
prehensible ? by what speech can I declare the
unspeakable ? Accordingly, since the Deity is
too excellent and lofty to be expressed in words,
we have learnt to honour in silence what tran-
scends speech and thought : and if he who
" thinketh more highly than he ought to think ♦,"
tramples upon this cautious speech of ours,
making a jest of our ignorance of things incom-
prehensible, and recognizes a difference of
unlikeness in that which is without figure, or
limit, or size, or quantity (I mean in the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit), and brings for-
ward to reproach our ignorance that phrase
which is continually alleged by the disciple-- of
deceit, " ' Ye worship ye know not what 5,' if ye
know not the essence of that which ye worship,"
we s! all follow the advice of the prophet, and
not fear the reproach of fools 6, nor be led by
their reviling to talk boldly of things unspeak-
able, making that unpractised speaker Paul orr
teacher in the mysteries that transcend know-
ledge, who is so far from thinking that the
Divine nature is within the reach of human
perception, that he calls even the judgments
of God " unsearchable," and His ways " past
finding out 7," and affirms that the things
promised to them that love Him, for their good
deeds done in this life, are above comprehension,
so that it is not possible to behold them with
the eye, nor to receive them by hearing, nor to
contain them in the heart 8. Learning this,
therefore, from Paul, we boldly declare that, not
only are the judgments of God too high for
those who try to search them out, but that the
ways also that lead to the knowledge of Him
are even until now untrodden and impassable.
For this is what we understand that the Apostle
wishes to signify, when he calls the ways that
lead to the incomprehensible " past finding out,"
showing by the phrase that that knowledge is
unattainable by human calculations, and that
no one ever yet set his understanding on such
a path of reasoning, or showed any trace or
s:gn of an approach, by way of perception, to
the things incomprehensible.

Learning these things, then, from the lofty
words of the Apostle, we argue, by the passage
quoted, in this way : — If His judgments cannot
be searched out, and His ways are not traced,
and the promise of His good things transcends
every representation that our conjectures can
frame, by how much more is His actual Godhead

* Rom. xii. 3.

1 Rom. xi. 33.

5 S. John iv. 22. 6 Cf. Is. li. 7.

8 Cf. 1 Cor. ii 9.

higher and loftier, in respect of being unspeak-
able and unapproachable, than those attributes
which are conceived as accompanying it, whereof
the divinely instructed Paul declares that there
is no knowledge : — and by this means we con-
firm in ourselves the doctrine they d.ride, con-
fessing ourselves inferior to them in the know-
ledge of those things which are beyond the
range of knowledge, and declare that we really
worship what we know. Now we know the
loftiness of the glory of Him Whom we worship,
by the very fact that we are not able by reason-
ing to comprehend in our ihoughts the incom-
parable character of His greatness ; and that
saying of our Lord to the Samaritan woman,
which is brought forward against us by our
enemies, might more properly be addressed to
them. For the words, " Ye worship ye know
not what," the Lord speaks to the Samaritan
woman, prejudiced as she was by corporeal ideas
in her opinions concerning God : and to her
the phrase well applies, because the Samaritans,
thinking that they worship God, and at the
same time supposing the Deity to be corporeally
settled in place, adore Him in name only,
worshipping something else, and not God.
For nothing is Divine that is conceived as
being circumscribed, but it belongs to the God-
head to be in all places, and to pervade all
things, and not to be limited by anything : so
that those who fight against Christ find the
phrase they adduce against us turned into an
accusation of themselves. For, as the Samaritans,
supposing the Deity to be compassed round by
some circumscription of place, were rebuked by
the words they heard, " ' Ye worship ye know
not what,' and your service is profitless to you,
for a God that is deemed to be settled in any
place is no God," — so one might well say to
the new Samaritans, " In supposing the Deity
to be limited by the absence of generation, as
it were by some local limit, 'ye worship ye
know not what,' doing service to Him indeed
as God, but not knowing that the infinity of
God exceeds all the significance and compre-
hension that names can furnish."

§ 6. Thereafter he expounds the appellation of
"Son," and of " product of generation" and
very many varieties of li sons," of God, of men,
of rams, of perdition, of light, and of day. .

But our discourse has diverged too far from
the subject before us, in following out the ques-
tions which arise from time to time by way of
inference. Let us therefore once more resume
its sequence, as I imagine that the phrase
under examination has been sufficiently shown,
by what we have said, to be contradictory not
only to the truth, but also to itself. For if,

L 2

148

GREGORY OF NYSSA

according to their view, the natural relation to
the Father is established by the appellation of
" the Son," and so with that of the " product of
generation " to Him Who has begotten Him (as
these men's wisdom falsely models the terms
significant of the Divine nature into a verbal
arrangement, according to some grammatical
frivolity), no one could longer doubt that the
mutual relation of the names which is established
by nature is a proof of their kindred, or rather of
their identity of essence. But let not our dis-
course merely turn about our adversaries'
words, that the orthodox doctrine may not seem
to gain the victory only by the weakness of
those who fight against it, but appear to have
an abundant supply of strength in itself. Let
the adverse argument, therefore, be strengthened
as much as may be by us ourselves with more
energetic advocacy, that the superiority of our
force may be recognized with full confidence, as
we bring to the unerring test of truth those
arguments also which our adversaries have
omitted. He who contends on behalf of our
adversaries will perhaps say that the name of
" Son," or " product of generation," does not
by any means establish the fact of kindred in
nature. For in Scripture the term " child of
wrath 9 " is used, and "son of perdition V and
"product of a viper2;" and in such names
surely no community of nature is apparent.
For Judas, who is called " the son of perdition,"
is not in his substance the same with perdition,
according to what we understand by the word 3.
For the signification of the " man " in Judas is
one thing, and that of " perdition " is another.
And the argument may be established equally
from an opposite instance. For those who are
called in a certain sense " children of light," and
"children of the day*," are not the same with
light and day in respect of the definition of
their nature, and the stones are made Abraham's
children 5 when they claim their kindred with
him by faitli and works; and those who are
" led by the Spirit of God," as the Apostle says,
are called " Sons of God 6," without being the
same with God in respect of nature ; and one
may collect many such instances from the in-
spired Scripture, by means of which deceit, like
some image decked with the testimonies of
Scripture, masquerades in the likeness of truth.
V\ '11, what do we say to this? The dhine
Scripture knows how to use the word "Son " in
both senses, so that in some cases such an
appellation is derived from nature, in others it
is adventitious and artificial. For when it
speaks of " sons of men," or " sons of rams 7,"

« Cf. Eph. ii. 3. ' S. John xvii. i2. * Cf. S. Matt. iii. 7.

? Reading Kara to voovfxi imv, for Kara, tov vootifitvov as the
won ilie text of Oehler, who cites no MSS. in favour of

11 which he has made.

41 v. 5. 5 Cf. S Matt. iii. 9.

«• Kom. vui. ,4. 7 ps. xxix. , (JLXX.).

it marks the essential relation of that which is
begotten to that from which it has its being :
but when it speaks of "sons of power," or
" children of God," it presents to us that kin-
ship which is the result of choice. And, more-
over, in the opposite sense, too, the same
persons are called " sons of Eli," and " sons of
Belial 8," the appellation of " sons " being easily
adapted to either idea. For when they are
called " sons of Eli," they are declared to have
natural relationship to him, but in being called
" sons of Belial," they are reproved for the
wickedness of their choice, as no longer emu-
lating their father in their life, but addicting
their own purpose to sin. In the case, then,
of this lower nature of ours, and of the things
with which we are concerned, by reason of
human nature being equally inclined to either
side (I mean, to vice and to virtue), it is in our
power to become sons either of night or of day,
while our nature yet remains, so far as the chief
part of it is concerned, within its proper limits.
For neither is he who by sin becomes a child
of wrath alienated from his human generation,
nor does he who by choice addicts himself to
good reject his human origin by the refinement
of his habits, but, while their nature in each
case remains the same, the differences of their
purpose assume the names of their relationship,
according as they become either children of
God by virtue, or of the opposite by vice.

But how does Eunomius, in the case of the
divine doctrines at least — he who " preserves the
natural order " (for I will use our author's very
words), "and abides by those things which are
known to us from the beginning, and does not
refuse to call Him that is begotten by the name
of ' product of generation,' since the generated
essence itself " (as he says) "and the appellation
of ' Son ' makes such a relation of words appro-
priate ", — how does he alienate the Begotten
from essential kindred with Him that begat
Him ? For in the case of those who are called
"sons" or "products" by way of reproach, or
again where some praise accompanies such
names, we cannot say that any one is called " a
child of wrath," being at the same time actually
begotten by wrath ; nor again had any one the
day for his mother, in a corporeal sense, that he
should be called its son ; but it is the difference
of their will which gives occasion for names ot
such relationship. Here, however, Eunomius
says, " we do not refuse to call the Son, seeing
He is begotten, by the name of 'product of
generation,' since the generated essence," he
tells us, "and the appellation of 'Son,' makes
such a relation of words appropriate." If, then,
he confesses that such a relation of words is

8 1 Sam. ii. iv The 1'lirase is viol Aoi/uot, or "pestilent sons,"
as in the I.XX. Gregory's argument would seem to require the
reading uiot Aoi/uoO.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK III.

149

made appropriate by the fact that the Son is
really a " product of generation," how is it
opportune to assign such a rationale of names,
alike to those which are used inexactly by
way of metaphor, and to those where the
natural relation, as Eunomius tells us, makes
such a use of names appropriate ? Surely such
an account is true only in the case of those
whose nature is a border-land between virtue
and vice, where one often shares in turn
opposite classes of names, becoming a child,
now of light, then again of darkness, by reason
of affinity to the good or to its opposite. But
where contraries have no place, one could no
longer say that the word " Son " is applied
metaphorically, in like manner as in the case of
those who by choice appropriate the title to
themselves. For one could not arrive at this
view, that, as a man casting off the works of
darkness becomes, by his decent life, a child of
light, so too the Only-begotten God received
the more honourable name as the result of a
change from the inferior state. For one who
is a man becomes a son of God by being joined
to Christ by spiritual generation : but He Who
by Himself makes the man to be a son of God,
does not need another Son to bestow on Him
the adoption of a son, but has the name also
of that which He is by nature. A man himself
changes himself, exchanging the old man for
the new ; but to what shall God be changed,
so that He may receive what He has not ? A
man puts off himself, and puts on the Divine
nature ; but what does He put off, or in what
does He array Himself, Who is always the
same ? A man becomes a son of God, receiving
what he has not, and laying aside what he has ;
but He Who has never been in the state of vice
has neither anything to receive nor anything to
relinquish. Again, the man may be on the one
hand truly called some one's son, when one
speaks with reference to his nature ; and, on
the other hand, he may be so called inexactly,
when the choice of his life imposes the name.
But God, being One Good, in a single and
uncompounded nature, looks ever the same
way, and is never changed by the impulse of
choice, but always wishes what He is, and is,
assuredly, what He wishes : so that He is in
both respects properly and truly called Son of
God, since His nature contains the good, and
His choice also is never severed from that which
is more excellent, so that this word is employed,
without inexactness, as His name. Thus there
is no room for these arguments (which, in the
person of our adversaries, we have been oppos-
ing to ourselves), to be brought forward by our
adversaries as a demurrer to the affinity in
respect of nature.

§ 7. Then he ends the book with an exposition
of the Divine and Human names of the Only-
begotten, and a discussion of the terms "gener-
ate"

and " ungenerate."

But as, I know not how or why, they hate
and abhor the truth, they give Him indeed the
name of " Son," but in order to avoid the
testimony which this word would give to the
community of essence, they separate the word
from the sense included in the name, and con-
cede to the Only-begotten the name of " Son "
as an empty thing, vouchsafing to Him only
the mere sound of the word. That what I say
is true, and that I am not taking a fiilse aim at
the adversaries' mark, may be clearly learnt
from the actual attacks they make upon thj
truth. Such are those arguments which are
brought forward by them to establish their
blasphemy, that we are taught by the divine
Scriptures many names of the Only-begotten —
a stone, an axe, a rock, a foundation, bread, a
vine, a door, a way, a shepherd, a fountain, a
tree, resurrection, a teacher, light, and many
such names. But we may not piously use any
of these names of the Lord, understanding it
according to its immediate sense. For surely
it would be a most absurd thing to think that
what is incorporeal and immaterial, simple, and
without figure, should be fashioned according
to the apparent senses of these names, whatever
they may be, so that when we hear of an axe
we should think of a particular figure of iron,
or when we hear of light, of the light in the sky,
or of a vine, of that which grows by the planting
of shoots, or of any one of the other names, as
its ordinary use suggests to us to think ; but we
transfer the sense of these names to what better
becomes the Divine nature, and form some
other conception, and if we do designate Him
thus, it is not as being any of these things,
according to the definition of His nature, but as
being called these things while He is conceived
by means of the names employed as something
else than the things themselves. But if such
names are indeed truly predicated of the Only-
begotten God, without including the declaration
of His nature, they say that, as a consequence,
neither should we admit the signification of
"Son," as it is understood according to the
prevailing use, as expressive of nature, but
should find some sense of this word also,
different from that which is ordinary and
obvious. These, and others like these, are
their philosophical arguments to establish that
the Son is not what He is and is called. Our
argument was hastening to a different goal,
namely to show that Eunomius' new discourse
is false and inconsistent, and argues neither
with the truth nor with itself. Since, however,

ISO

GREGORY OF NYSSA

the arguments which we employ to attack their
doctrine are brought into the discussion as a sort
of support for their blasphemy 9, it may be well
first briefly to discusst his point, and then to pro-
ceed to the orderly examination of his writings.
What can we say, then, to such things without
Trelevance? That while, as they say, the
names which Scripture applies to the Only-
begotten are many, we assert that none of the
other names is closely connected with the refer-
ence to Him that begat Him. For we do not
employ the name " Stone," or " Resurrection,"
or "Shepherd," or " Light," or any of the rest,
as we do the name " Son of the Father," with a
reference to the God of all. It is possible to
make a twofold division of the signification of
the Divine names, as it were by a scientific
rule : for to one class belongs the indication of
His lofty and unspeakable glory; the other
class indicates the variety of the providential
dispensation : so that, as we suppose, if that
which received His benefits did not exist, neither
would those words be applied with respect to
them ' which indicate His bounty. All those,
on the other hand, that express the attributes
of God, are applied suitably and properly to the
Only-begotten God, apart from the objects of
the dispensation. But that we may set forth
this doctrine clearly, we will examine the names
themselves. The Lord would not have been
called a vine, save for the planting of those
who are rooted in Him, nor a shepherd, had
not the sheep of the house of Israel been lost,
nor a physician, save for the sake of them that
were sick, nor would He have received for
Himself the rest of these names, had He not
made the titles appropriate, in a manner ad-
vantageous with regard to those who were
benefited by Him, by some action of His
providence. What need is there to mention
individual instances, and to lengthen our argu-
ment upon points that are acknowledged? On
the other hand, He is certainly called " Son,"
and " Right Hand," and " Only-begotten," and
" Word," and " Wisdom," and " Power," and
all other such relative names, as being named
together with the Father in a certain relative
conjunction. For He is called the " Power of
God;' and the " Right Hand of God," and the
"Wisdom of God" and the "Son and Only-
begotten of the Father" and the " Word with
God" and so of the rest. Thus, it follows from
what we have stated, that in each of the names

' The meanine of this seems to be that theAnomoean party make
the same charge of " inconsistency " against the orthodox, which
rv makes against Eunomius, basing that charge on the fact
thai the title " Son" is not interpreted in the same figurative way
as the other lilies recited. Gregory accordingly pioceeds to show
why the name of" Son " stands on a different level from those titles,
and is to be treated in .1 different way.

1 in o.vtu)i> : perhaps " with reference to man." the plural being
employed here to denote the race of men. spoken of in the pre-
ceding clause collectively as to tvipytrov/x v>\

we are to contemplate some suitable sense
appropriate to the subject, so that we may not
miss the right understanding of them, and go
astray from the doctrine of godliness. As,
then, we transfer each of the other terms to
that sense in which they may be applied to
God, and reject in their case the immediate
sense, so as not to understand material light, or
a trodden way, or the bread which is produced
by husbandry, or the word that is expressed by
speech, but, instead of these, all those thoughts
which present to us the magnitude of the power
of the Word of God, — so, if one were to reject
the ordinary and natural sense- of the word
"Son," by which we learn that He is of the
same essence as Him that begat Him, he will
of course transfer the name to some more
divine interpretation. For since the change to
the more glorious meaning which has been
made in each of the other terms has adapted
them to set forth the Divine power, it surely
follows that the significance of this name also
should be transferred to what is loftier. But
what more Divine sense could we find in the
appellation of " Son," if we were to reject,
according to our adversaries' view, the natural
relation to Him that begat Him ? J presume
no one is so daring in impiety as to think that,
in speech concerning the Divine nature, what
is humble and mean is more appropriate than
what is lofty and great. If they can discover,
therefore, any sense of more exalted character
than this, so that to be of the nature of the
Father seems a thing unworthy to conceive of
the Only-begotten, let them tell us whether
they know, in their secret wisdom, anything
more exalted than the nature of the Father,
that, in raising the Only-begotten God to this
level, they should lift Him also above His rela-
tion to the Father. But if the majesty of the
Divine nature transcends all height, and excels
every power that calls forth our wonder, what
idea remains that can carry the meaning of the
name " Son " to something greater still ? Since
it is acknowledged, therefore, that every sig-
nificant phrase employed of the Only-begotten,
even if the name be derived from the ordinary
use of our lower life, is properly applied to
Him with a difference of sense in the direction
of greater majesty, and if it is shown that we
can find no more noble conception of the title
" Son " than that which presents to us the
reality of His relationship to Him that begat
Him, I think that we need spend no more time
on this topic, as our argument has sufficiently
shown that it is not proper to interpret the title
of " Son " in like manner with the other names.
But we must bring back our enquiry once
more to the book. It does not become the
same persons " not to refuse " (for I will use

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK III.

their own words) "to call Him that is generated
a 'product of generation, 'since both thegenerated
essence itself and the appellation of Son make
such a i elation of words appropriate," and again
to change the names which naturally belong to
Him into metaphorical interpretations : so that
one of two things has befallen them, — either
their first attack has failed, and it is in vain that
they fly to " natural order " to establish the
necessity of calling Him that is generated a
" product of generation " ; or, if this argument
holds good, they will find their second argu-
ment brought to nought by what they have
already established. For the person who is
called a " product of generation " because He is
generated, cannot, for the very same reason, be
possibly called a "product of making," or a
" product of creation." For the sense of the
several terms differs very widely, and one who
uses his phrases advisedly ought to employ
words with due regard to the subject, that we
may not, by improperly interchanging the sense
of our phrases, fall into any confusion of ideas.
Hence we call that which is wrought out by a
craft the work of the craftsman, and call him

who is begotten by a man that man's son ; and
no sane p.-rson would call the work a son, or
the son a work ; for that is the language of one
who confuses and obscures the true sense by an
erroneous use of names. It follows that we
must truly affirm of the Only-begotten one of
these two things, — if He is a Son, that He is
not to be called a " product of creation," and if
He is created, that He is alien from the appella-
tion of " Son 2," just as heaven and sea and earth,
and all individual things, being things created,
do not assume the name of " Son." But since
Eunomius bears witness that the Only-begotten
God is begotten (and the evidence of enemies
is of aditional value for establishing the truth),
he surely testifies also, by saying that He is
begotten, to the fact that He is not created.
Enough, however, on these points : for thoug'i
many arguments crowd upon us, we will be
content, lest their number lead to disproportion,
with those we have already adduced on the
subject before us.

2 Oehler's punctuation here seems faulty, and is accordingly
followed.

not

BOOK IV.

$ I. The fourth book discusses the account of the
nature of the "product of generation," and of
the passionless generation of the Only-begotten,
and the text, " In the beginning was the
Word" and the birth of the Virgin.

It is, perhaps, time to examine in our dis-
course that account of the nature of the " product
of generation " which is the subject of his ridicu-
lous philosophizing. He says, then (I will repeat
word fur word his beautifully composed argu-
ment against the truth): — " Who is so indifferent
and inattentive to the nature of things as not to
know, that of all bodies which are on earth, in
their generating and being generated, in their
activity and passivity, those which generate are
found on examination to communicate their own
essence, and those which are generated naturally
receive the same, inasmuch as the material cause
and the supply which flows in from without are
common to both ; and the things begotten are
generated by passion, and those which beget,
naturally h <ve an action which is not pure, by
reason of their nature being linked with passions
of all kinds ? " See in what fitting style he dis-
cusses in his speculation the pre-teniporal gene-
ration of the Word of God that was in the begin-
ning ! he who closely examines the nature of
things, bodies on the earth, and material causes,
and passion of things generating and generated,
and all the rest of it, — at which any man of
understanding would blush, even were it said of
ourselves, if it were our nature, subject as it is to
passion, which is thus exposed to scorn by his
words. Yet such is our author's brilliant enquiry
into nature with regard to the Only-begotten God.
Let us lay aside complaints, however, (for what
will sighii.g do to help us to overthrow the
in i lice of our enemy?) and make generally
known, as best we may, the sense of what we
have quoted — concerning what sort of " pro-
duct" the speculation was proposed, — that which
exists according to the flesh, or that which is to
be contemplated in the Only-begotten God.

As the' speculation is two-fold, concerning
that lit which is Divine, simple, and imma-
terial, and concerning that existence which is
material and subject to passion, and as the
word "generation" is used of both, we must

needs make our distinction sharp and clear,
lest the ambiguity of the term " generation "
should in any way pervert the truth. Since,
then, the entrance into being through the
flesh is material, and is promoted by passion,
while that which is bodiless, impalpable, without
form, and free from any material commixture, is
alien from every condition that admits of passion,
it is proper to consider about what sort of gen-
eration we are enquiring — that which is pure
and Divine, or that which is subject to passion
and pollution. Now, no one, I suppose, would
deny that with regard to the Only-begotten
God, it is pre-temporal existence that is pro-
posed for the consideration 3 of Eunomius'
discourse. Why, then, does he linger over this
account of corporeal nature, defiling our nature
by the loathsome presentment of his argument,
and setting forth openly the passions that gather
round human generation, while he deserts the
subject set before him ? for it was not about
this animal generation, that is accomplished by
means of the flesh, that we had any need to
learn. Who is so foolish, when he looks on
himself, and considers human nature in himself,
as to seek another interpreter of his own nature,
and to need to be told all the unavoidable
passions which are included in the thought of
bodily generation — that he who begets is affect-
ed in one way, that which is begotten in another
— so that the man should learn from this in-
struction that he himself begets by means of
passion, and that passion was the beginning of
his own generation ? For it is all the same
whether these things are passed over or spoken,
and whether one publishes these secrets at
length, or keeps hidden in silence things that
should be left unsaid, we are not ignorant of
the fact that our nature progresses by way of
passion. But what we are seeking is that a clear
account should be given of the exalted and un-
speakable existence of the Only-begotten, where-
by He is believed to be of the Father.

Now, while this is the enquiry set before him,
our new theologian enriches his discourse with

3 Reading, with the older editions, tj\ Secopi'a. Oehler substitutes
TTjc 8to>piav [n variation which seems to give no good sense, unless
Ottopia be translated as " subject of contemplation "), but alleges no
Ms. authority for the change.

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IV. 153

'• flowing," and " passion," and " material cause,"
and some "action " which " is not pure " from
pollution, and all other phrases of this kind ♦.
I know not under what influence it is that he
who says, in the superiority of his wisdom, that
nothing incomprehensible is left beyond his own
knowledge, and promises to explain the unspeak-
able generation of the Son, leaves the question
before him, and plunges like an eel into the
slimy mud of his arguments, after the fashion of
that Nicodemus who came by night, who, when
our Lord was teaching him of the birth from
above, rushed in thought to the hollow of the
womb, and raised a doubt how one could
enter a second time into the womb, with the
words, " How can these things be ? 5 " think-
ing that he would prove the spiritual birth
impossible, by the fact that an old man
could not again be born within his mother's
bowels. But the Lord corrects his erroneous
idea, saying that the properties of the flesh and
the spirit are distinct. Let Eunomius also, if
he will, correct himself by the like reflection.
For he who ponders on the truth ought, I im-
agine, to contemplate his subject according to
its own properties, not to slander the immaterial
by a charge against things material. For if a
man, or a bull, or any other of those things
which are generated by the flesh, is not free from
passion in generating or being generated, what
has this to do with that Nature which is without
passion and without corruption ? The fact that
we are mortal is no objection to the immortality
of the Only-begotten, nor does men's propen-
sity to vice render doubtful the immutability
that is found in the Divine Nature, nor is any
other of our proper attributes transferred to
God ; but the peculiar nature of the human and
the Divine life is separated, and without com-
mon ground, and their distinguishing properties
stand entirely apart, so that those of the latter
are not apprehended in the former, nor, con-
versely, those of the former in the latter.

How comes it, therefore, that Eunomius,
when the Divine generation is the subject for
discourse, leaves his subject, and discusses at
length the things of earth, when on this matter
we have no dispute with him? Surely our
craftsman's aim is clear, — that by the slanderous
insinuation of passion he may raise an objection
to the generation of the Lord. And here I pass
by the blasphemous nature of his view, and
admire the man for his acuteness, — how mindful
he is of his own zealous endeavour, who, having
by his previous statements established the theory
that the Son must be, and must be called, a
" product of generation," now contends for the

4 Oehler's punctuation seems less clear than that of the older
•editions, which is here followed.

5 S. John iii. 10.

view that we. ought not to entertain regarding
Him the conception of generation. For, if all
generation, as this author imagines, has linked
with it the condition of passion, we are hereby
absolutely compelled to admit that what is
foreign to passion is alien also from generation :
for if these things, passion and generation, are
considered as conjoined, He that has no share in
the one would not have any participation in the
other. How then does he call Him a " product "
by reason of His generation, of Whom he tries to
show by the arguments he now uses, that He
was not generated ? and for what cause does he
fight against our master6, who counsels us in
matters of Divine doctrine not to presume in
name-making, but to confess that He is gener-
ated without transforming this conception into
the formula of a name, so as to call Him Who is
generated " a product of generation," as this
term is properly applied in Scripture to things
inanimate, or to those which are mentioned " as
a figure of wickedness 7 " ? When we speak of
the propriety of avoiding the use of the term
" product," he prepares for action that invincible
rhetoric of his, and takes also to support him
his frigid grammatical phraseology, and by his
skilful misuse of names, or equivocation, or
whatever one may properly call his processes — by
these means, I say, he brings his syllogisms to
their conclusion, "not refusing to call Him Who
is begotten by the name of ' product of gener-
ation.' " Then, as soon as we admit the term,
and proceed to examine the conception involved
in the name, on the theory that thereby is vin-
dicated the community of essence, he again
retracts his own words, and contends for the
view that the " product of generation " is not
generated, raising an objection by his foul ac-
count of bodily generation, against the pure and
Divine and passionless generation of the Son,
on the ground that it is not possible that the
two things, the true relationship to the Father,
and exemption of His nature from passion,
should be found to coincide in God, but that, if
there were no passion, there would be no gen-
eration, and that, if one should acknowledge the
true relationship, he would thereby, in admitting
generation, certainly admit passion also.

Not thus speaks the sublime John, not thus
that voice of thunder which proclaims the mys-
tery of the Theology, who both names Him Son
of God and purges his proclamation from every
idea of passion. For behold how in the very
beginning of his Gospel he prepares our ears,
how great forethought is shown by the teacher

6 i. e. S- Basil.

7 The reference is to S. Basil's treatise against Eunomius (ii. 7-8 ;
p. 242-4 in the Benedictine ed.). Oehler's punctuation is apparently
wrong, for Gregory paraphrases not only the rule, but the reason
given for it, from .S. Basil, from whom the last words of the sentence
are a direct quotation.

154

GREGORY OF NYSSA

that none of his hearers should fall into low-
ideas on the subject, slipping by ignorance into
any incongruous conceptions. For in order to
lead the untrained hearing as far away as pos-
sible from passion, he does not speak in his
opening words cf " Son," or " Father," or "gen-
eration^" that no one should either, on hearing
first of all of a " Father," be hurried on to the
obvious signification of the word, or, on learning
the proclamation of a " Son," should under-
stand that name in the ordinary sense, or stumble,
as at a "stone of stumbling8," at the word
" generation " ; but instead of " the Father," he
speaks of "the Beginning": instead of "was
begotten," he says "was" : and instead of "the
Son," he says " the Word " : and declares " In
the Beginning was the Word 9." What passion,
pray, is to be found in these words, " beginning,"
and " was," and " Word " ? Is " the beginning "
passion? does "was" imply passion? does
" the Word " exist by means of passion ? Or
are we to say, that as passion is not to be found
in the terms used, so neither is affinity expressed
by the proclamation ? Yet how could the
Word's community of essence, and real relation
ship, and co eternity with the Beginning, be
more strongly shown by other words than by
these ? For he does not say, " Of the Beginning
was begotten the Word," that he may not separ-
ate the Word from the Beginning by any con-
ception of extension in time, but he proclaims
together with the Beginning Him also Who was
in the Beginning, making the word " was " com-
mon to the Beginning and to the Word, that
the Word may not linger after the Beginning,
but may, by entering in together with the faith
as to the Beginning, by its proclamation forestall
our hearing, before this admits the Beginning
itself in isolation. Then he declares, " And
the Word was with God." Once more the
Evangelist fears for our untrained state* once
more he dreads our childish and untaught con-
dition : he does not yet entrust to our ears the
appellation of "Father," lest any of the more
carnally minded, learning of "the Father," may
be led by his understanding to imagine also by
consequence a mother. Neither does he yet
name in his proclamation the Son ; for he still
suspects our customary tendency to the lower
nature, and fears lest any, hearing of the Son,
should humanize the Godhead by an idea of
passion. For this reason, resuming his procla-
mation, he again calls him " the Word," making
this the account of His nature to thee in thine
unbelief For as thy word proceeds from thy
mind, without requiring the intervention of
passion, so here also, in hearing of the Word,
ih u shah conceive that which is from some-

8 i S. Pet. ii. 8.

9 S. John i. i.

thing, and shalt not conceive passion. Hence,
once more resuming his proclamation, he snys,
" And the Word was with God." O, how d es
he make the Word commensurate with God !
rather, how does he extend the infinite in com-
parison with the infinite ! " The Word was
with God " — the whole being of the Wnr 1,
assuredly, with the whole being of God. There-
fore, as great as God is, so great, clearly, is the
Word also that is with Him ; so that if God is
limited, then will the Word also, surely, be sub-
ject to limitation. But if the ini'.nity of God
exceeds limit, neither is the Word that is con-
templated with Him comprehended by limits
and measures. For no one would deny that
the Word is contem] lated together with the
entire Godhead of the Father, so that he should
make one part of the Godhead appear to be in
the Word, and another destitute of the Word.
Once more the spiritual voice of John speaks,
once more the Evangelist in his proclamation
takes tender care for the hearing of those who
are in childhood : not yet have we so much
grown by the hearing of his first words as to
hear of "the Son," and yet remain firm without
being moved from our footing by the influence
of the wonted sense. Therefore our herald,
crying once more aloud, still proclaims in his
third utterance "the Word," and not "the Son,"
saying, " And the Word was God." First he
declared wherein He was, then with whom He
was, and now he says what He is, completing,
by his third repetition, the object of his procla-
mation. For he says, " It is no Word of those
that are readily understood, that I declare to you,
but God under the designation of the Word."
For this Word, that was in the Beginning, and
was with God, was not anything else besides
God, but was also Himself God. And forth-
with the herald, reaching the full height of his
lofty speech, declares that this God Whom his
proclamation sets forth is He by Whom all
things were made, and is life, and the light of
men, and the true light that shineth in darkness,
yet is not obscured by the darkness, sojourning
with His own, yet not received by His own :
and being made flesh, and tabernacling, by
means of the flesh, in man's nature. And when
he has first gone through this number and
variety of statements, he then names the Father
and the Only-begotten, when there can be no
danger that what has been purified by so many
precautions should be allowed, in consequence
of the sense of the word " Father," to sink
down to any meaning tainted with pollution,
for, " we beheld His glory," he says, " the
glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father."

Repeat, then, Eunomius, repeat this clever
objection of yours to the Evangelist : " How
dobt thou give the name of ' Father ' in thy

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IV.

155

discourse, how that of Only-begotten, seeing
that all bodily generation is operated by
passion ? " Surely truth answers you on his
behalf, that the mystery of theology is one
ihing, and the physiology of unstable bodies is
another. Wide is the interval by which they
are fenced off one from the other. Why do
you join together in your argument what can-
not blend ? how do you defile the purity of the
Divine generation by your foul discourse? how
do you make systems for the incorporeal by the
passions that affect the body ? Cease to draw
your account of the nature of things above from
those that are below. I proclaim the Lord as
the Son of God, because the gospel from
heaven, given through the bright cloud, thus
proclaimed Him; for "This," He saith, "is
My beloved Son *." Yet, though I was taught
that He is the Son, I was not dragged down by
the name to the earthly significance of " Son,"
but I both know that He is from the Father,
and do not know that He is from passion.
And this, moreover, I will add to what has been
said, that I know even a bodily generation
which is pure from passion, so that even on
this point Eunomius' physiology of bodily
generation is proved false, if, that is to say, a
bodily birth can be found which does not admit
passion. Tell me, was the Word made flesh,
or not ? You would not, I presume, say that
It was not. It was so made, then, and there is
none who denies it. How then was it that
" God was manifested in the flesh 2 " ? " By
birth," of course you will say. But what sort
of birth do you speak of? Surely it is clear
that you speak of that from the virginity, and
that " that which was conceived in her was of
the Holy Ghost3," and that "the days were
accomplished that she should be delivered, and
she brought forth ■*," and none the less was her
purity preserved in her child-bearing. You
believe, then, that that birth which took place
from a woman was pure from passion, if you
do believe, but you refuse to admit the Divine
and incorruptible generation from the Father,
that you may avoid the idea of passion in
generation. But I know well that it is not
passion he seeks to avoid in his doctrine, for
that he does not discern at all in the Divine
and incorruptible nature ; but to the end that
the Maker of all creation may be accounted a
part of creation, he builds up these arguments
in order to a denial of the Only-begotten God,
and uses his pretended caution about passion
to help him in his task.

1 S. Matt. xvii. 5.

2 1 Tim. iii. 16. Here, as elsewhere in Gregory's writings, it

appears that he read flebs in this passage.
3 S. Matt. L 20

S. Luke ii. 6, 7.

§ 2. He convicts Eunomius of having used of the
Only-begotten terms applicable to the existence
of the earth, and thus shows that his intention
is to prove the Son to be a being mutable and
created.

And this he shows very plainly by his con-
tention against our arguments, where he says
that " the essence of the Son came into being
from the Father, not put forth by way of exten-
sion, not separated from its conjunction with
Him that generated Him by flux or division,
not perfected by way of growth, not transformed
by way of change, but obtaining existence by
the mere will of the Generator." Why, what
man whose mental senses are not closed up is
left in ignorance by this utterance that by these
statements the Son is being represented by
Eunomius as a part of the creation ? What
hinders us from saying all this, word for word
as it stands, about every single one of the
things we contemplate in creation ? Let us
apply, if you will, the definition to any of the
things that appear in creation, and if it does
not admit the same sequence, we will condemn
ourselves for having examined the definition
slightingly, and not with the care that befits the
truth. Let us exchange, then, the name of the
Son, and so read the definition word by word.
We say that the essence of the earth came into
being from the Father, not separated by way of
extension or division from its conjunction with
Him Who generated it, nor perfected by way
of growth, nor put forth by way of change, but
obtaining existence by the mere will of Him
Who generated it. Is there anything in what
we have said that does not apply to the exist-
ence of the earth ? I think no one would say
so : for God did not put forth the earth by
being extended, nor bring its essence into exist-
ence by flowing or by dissevering Himself from
conjunction with Himself, nor did He bring it
by means of gradual growth from being small
to completeness of magnitude, nor was He
fashioned into the form of earth by undergoing
mutation or alteration, but His will sufficed
Him for the existence of all things that were
made : " He spake and they were generated V'
so that even the name of " generation " does
not fail to accord with the existence of the
earth. Now if these things may be truly said
of the parts of the universe, what doubt is still
left as to our adversaries' doctrine, that while,
so far as words go, they call Him " Son," they
represent Him as being one of the things that
came into existence by creation, set before the
rest only in precedence of order? just as you
might say about the trade of a smith, that from

5 Cf. Ps. xxxiii. 9, and Ps. cxlviii. 5, in LXX (reading
iyevvrjdrjaav).

156

GREGORY OF NYSSA

it come all things that are wrought out of iron ;
but that the instrument of the tongs and ham-
mer, by which the iron is fashioned for use,
existed before the making of the rest ; yet, while
this has precedence of the rest, there is not on
that account any difference in respect of matter
between the instrument that fashions and the
iron that is shaped by the instrument, (for both
one and the other are iron,) but the one form is
earlier than the other. Such is the theology of
heresy touching the Son, — to imagine that there
is no difference between the Lord Himself and
the things that were made by Him, save the
difference in respect of order.

Who that is in any sense classed among
Christians admits that the definition6 of the
essence of the parts of the world, and of Him
Who made the world, is the same ? For my
own part I shudder at the blasphemy, knowing
that where the definition of things is the same
neither is their nature different. For as the
definition of the essence of Peter and John and
other men is common and their nature is one,
in the same way, if the Lord were in respect of
nature even as the parts of the world, they must
acknowledge that He is also subject to those
things, whatever they may be, which they per-
ceive in them. Now the world does not last
for ever: thus, according to them, the Lord
also will pass away with the heaven and the
earth, if, as they say, He is of the same kind
with the world. If on the other hand He is
confessed to be eternal, we must needs suppose
that the world too is not without some part in
the Divine nature, if, as they say, it corresponds
with the Only-begotten in the matter of creation.
You see where this fine process of inference
makes the argument tend, like a stone broken
off from a mountain ridge and rushing down-hill
by its own weight. For either the elements of
the world must be Divine, according to the
foolish belief of the Greeks, or the Son must not
be worshipped. Let us consider it thus. We say
that the creation, both what is perceived by the
mind, and that which is of a nature to be per-
ceived by sense, came into being from nothing :
this they declare also of the Lord. We say that
all things that have been made consist by the
will of God : this they tell us also of the Only-
begotten. We believe that neither the angelic
creation nor the mundane is of the essence of
1 1 1 in that made it: and they make Him also
alien from the essence of the Father. We con-
fess that all things serve Him that made them :
this view they also hold of the Only-begotten.
Therefore, of necessity, whatever else it may be
that they conceive of the creation, all these

6 '1 he force of \6yos here appears to be nearly equivalent to
i (he sense of an exact expression of the nature of a thing.
is renders it by " ral

attributes they will also attach to the Only-
begotten : and whatever they believe of Him,
this they will also conceive of the creation : so
that, if they confess the Lord as God, they will
also deify the rest of the creation. On the
other hand, if they define these things to be
without share in the Divine nature, they will not
reject the same conception touching the Only-
begotten also. Moreover no sane man asserts
Godhead of the creation. Then neither — : — I
do not utter the rest, lest I lend my tongue to
the blasphemy of the enemy. Let those say
what consequence follows, whose mouth is well
trained in blasphemy. But their doctrine is
evident even if they hold their peace. For one
of two things must necessarily happen : — either
they will depose the Only-begotten God, so
that with them He will no more either be, or be
called so : or, if they assert Godhead of Him,
they will equally assert it of all creation : — or,
(for this is still left to them,) they will shun the
impiety that appears on either side, and take
refuge in the orthodox doctrine, and will as-
suredly agree with us that He is not created,
that they may confess Him to be truly God.

What need is there to take time to recount
all the other blasphemies that underlie his
doctrine, starting from this beginning ? For by
what we have quoted, one who considers the
inference to be drawn will understand that the
father of falsehood, the maker of death, the
inventor of wickedness, being created in a
nature intellectual and incorporeal, was not by
that nature hindered from becoming what he is
by way of change. For the mutability of
essence, moved either way at will, involves a
capacity of nature that follows the impulse of
determination, so as to become that to which its
determination leads it. Accordingly they will
define the Lord as being capable even of con-
trary dispositions, drawing Him down as it were
to a rank equal with the angels, by the concep-
tion of creation 7. But let them listen to the great
voice of Paul. Why is it that he says that He
alone has been called Son ? Because He is
not of the nature of angels, but of that which is
more excellent. " For unto which of the
angels said He at any time, ' Thou art My Son,
This day have I begotten Thee ' ? and when*
again He bringeth the first-begotten into the
world He saith, ' And let all the angels of God
worship Him.' And of the angels He saith,
'Who maketh His angels spirits, and His

7 The argument appears to be this : — The Anomceans assert, on
the ground that He is created, that the Son's essence is rpeirr'ov,
liable to change ; where there is the possibility of change, the nature
must have a capacity of inclining one way or the other, according to
the balance of will determining to which side the nature shall incline :
and that this is the condition of the angels may be seen from the
instance of the fallen angels, whose nature was inclined to evil by
their npoaipe<ri<; . It follows that to say the Son is Tpenrb? implies
that He is on a level with the angelic nature, and might tail even aj
the unguis fell.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IV.

157

ministers a flame of fire ' : but of the Son He
saith, ' Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever ;
a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy
kingdom V " and all else that the prophecy
recites together with these words in declaring
His Godhead. And he adds also from another
Psalm the appropriate words, " Thou, Lord, in
the beginning hast laid the foundation of the
earth, and the heavens are the works of Thine
hands," and the rest, as far as " But Thou art
the same, and Thy years shall not fail 9f"
whereby he describes the immutability and
eternity of His nature. If, then, the Godhead
of the Only-begotten is as far above the angelic
nature as a master is superior to his slaves, how
do they make common either with the sensible
creation Him Who is Lord of the creation, or
with the nature of the angels Him Who is
worshipped by them1, by detailing, concerning
the manner of His existence, statements which
will properly apply to the individual things we
contemplate in creation, even as we already
showed the account given by heresy, touching
the Lord, to be closely and appropriately applic-
able to the making of the earth ?

§ 3. He then again admirably discusses the term
■KpwTOTOKOQ as it is four times employed by the
Apostle.

But that the readeis of our work may find no
ambiguity left of such a kind as to afford any
support to the heretical doctrines, it may be worth
while to add to the passages examined by us this
point also from Holy Scripture. They will per-
haps raise a question from the very apostolic
writings which we quoted : " How could He be
called ' the first-born of creation 2 ' if He were
not what creation is ? for every first-born is the
firstborn not of another kind, but of its own :
as Reuben, having precedence in respect of birth
of those who are counted after him, was the
first-born, a man the first-born of men ; and
many others are called the first-born of the
brothers who are reckoned with them." They
sAy then, " We assert that He Who is ' the first-
born of creation ' is of that same essence which
we consider the essence of all creation. Now
if the whole creation is of one essence with the
Father of all, we will not deny that the first-born
of creation is this also : but if the God of all
differs in essence from the creation, we must
of necessity say that neither has the first-born
of creation community in essence with God."

8 Cf. Heb. i. 4, and foil. It is to be noted that Gregory con-
nects iraXiv in v. 6, with eierayayjj, not treating it, as the A.V. does,
as simply introducing another quotation. This appears from his
later reference to the text 9 Cf. Ps. cii. 25, 26.

1 Oehler's punctuation here seems to be unsatisfactory.

2 Cf. Col. i. 15. IIpcoTOToKo? may be, as it is in th_- Authorized
Version, translated either by " first born," or by "first-begotten."
Compare with this passage Book II. § 8. where the use of the word
in Holy Scripture is discussed.

The structure of this objection is not, I think,
at all less imposing in the form in which it is
alleged by us, than in the form in which it would
probably be brought against us by our advers-
aries. But what we ought to know as regards
this point shall now, so far as we are able, be
plainly set forth in our discourse.

Four times the name of " first-born " or " first-
begotten " is used by the Apostle in all his
writings : but he has made mention of the
name in different senses and not in the same
manner. For now he speaks of " the first-b^rn of
all creation 3," and again of " the first-born among
many brethren*," then of " the first-born from
thedeads;" and in the Epistle to the Hebrews
the name of "first-begotten" is absolute, being
mentioned by itself: for he speaks thus, " When
again He bringeth the first-begotten into the
woild, He saith, 'Let all the angels worship
Him 6.' " As these passages are thus distinct, it
may be well to interpret each of them separately
by itself, how He is the " first-born of creation,"
how "among many brethren," how "from the
dead," and how, spoken of by Himself apart
from each of these, when He is again brought
into the world, He is worshipped by all His
angels. Let us begin then, if you will, our
survey of the passages before us with the last-
mentioned.

"When again He bringeth in," he says, "the
first-begotten into the world." The addition of
"again" shows, by the force of this word, that
this event happens not for the first time : for we
use this word of the repetition of things which
have once happened. He signifies, therefore,
by the phrase, the dread appearing of the Judge
at the end of the ages, when He is seen no
more in the form of a servant, but seated in
glory upon the throne of His kingdom, and
worshipped by all the ange's that are around
Him. Therefore He Who once entered into the
world, becoming the first-born " from the dead,"
and "of His brethren," and "of all creation,"
does not, when He comes again into the world
as He that judges the world in righteousness ?,
as the prophecy saith, cast off the name of the
first-begotten, which He once received for our
sakes ; but as at the name of Jesus, which is
above every name, every knee bows 8, so also
the company of all the angels worships Him
Who comes in the name of the First-begotten,
in their rejoicing over the restoration of men,
wherewith, by becoming the first born among
us, He restored us again to the grace which we
had at the beginning 9. For since there is joy
among the angels over those who are rescued

3 Cf. Col. i. 15. * Rom. viii. 29.

5 Col. i. 18. 6 Cf. Heb. i. 6.

7 Ps xcviii. 10. 8 Cf. Phil. ii. 10.

9 Oehler's punctuation, which is probably due to a printer's error,
is here a good deal altered.

1 58

GREGORY OF NYSSA

from sin, (because until now that creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain at the vanity
that affects us *, judging our perdition to be their
own loss,) when that manifestation of the sons
of God takes place which they look for and
expect, and when the sheep is brought safe to
the hundred above, (and we surely — humanity,
that is to say — are that sheep which the Good
Shepherd saved by becoming the first-be-
gotten 2,) then especially will they offer, in their
intense thanksgiving on our behalf, their worship
to God, Who by being first-begotten restored
him that had wandered from his Father's home.
Now that we have arrived at the understand-
ing of these words, no one could any longer
hesitate as to the other passages, for what reason
He is the first-born, either " of the dead," or " of
the creation," or "among many brethren." For
all these passages refer to the same point, al-
though each of them sets forth some special
conception. He is the first-born from the dead,
Who first by Himself loosed the pains of death 3,
that He might also make that birth of the resur-
rection a way for all men +. Again, He becomes
"the first-born among many brethren," Who is
born before us by the new birth of regeneration
in water, for the travail whereof the hovering of
the Dove was the midwife, whereby He makes
those who share with Him in the like birth to be
His own brethren, and becomes the first-born
of those who after Him are born of water and
of the Spirit s : and to speak briefly, as there are
in us three births, whereby human nature is
quickened, one of the body, another in the
sacrament of regeneration, another by that
resurrection of the dead for which we look, He
is first-born in all three : — of the twofold re-
generation which is wrought by two (by baptism
and by the resurrection), by being Himself the
leader in each of them ; while in the flesh He
is first-born, as having first and alone devised in
His own case that birth unknown to nature,
which no one in the many generations of men
had originated. If these passages, then, have
been rightly understood, neither will the signifi-
cation of the " creation," of which He is first-
born, be unknown to us. For we recognize a
twofold creation of our nature, the first that
whereby we were made, the second that where-
by we were made anew. But there would have

1 Cf. Rom. viii. 10 — 23.

2 This interpretation is of course common to many of the Fathers,
though S. Augustine, for instance, explains the "ninety and nine"
otherwise, and his explanation has been often followed by modern
writers and preachers. The present intcri relation is assumed in a
prayer, no doubt of great antiquity, which is found in the Liturgy of
S. James, both in the Greek and the Syriac version, and also in the

I. form of the Coptic Liturgy of S. Basil, where it is said to be
" from the Liturgy of S. James.'

3 Acts ii. 24.

* >icc Book II. §§4 and 8, and note on the former passage.

5 With this passage may be compared the parallel passage in
Bk. II $ 8. The interpretation of the "many brethren" of those
baptized suggests that Gregory understood the " predestination "
spoken of in Kom. viii. 29 to be predestination to baptism.

been no need of the second creation had we not
made the first unavailing by our disobedience.
Accordingly, when the first creation had waxed
old and vanished away, it was needful that there
should be a new creation in Christ, (as the
Apostle says, who asserts that we should no
longer see in the second creation any trace of
that which has waxed old, saying, " Having put
off the old man with his deeds and his lusts, put
on the new man which is created according to
God6," and "If any man be in Christ," he
says, "he is a new creature : the old things are
passed away, behold all things are become
new?:") — for the maker of human nature at
the first and afterwards is one and the same.
Then He took dust from the earth and formed
man : again, He took dust from the Virgin, and
did not merely form man, but formed man about
Himself: then, He created ; afterwards, He was
created : then, the Word made fhsh ; afterwards,
the Word became flesh, that He might change
our flesh to spirit, by being made partaker with
us in flesh and blood. Of this new creation
therefore in Christ, which He Himself began,
He was called the first-born, being the first-
fruits of all, both of those begotten into life, and
of those quickened by resurrection of the dead,
" that He might be Lord both of the dead and
of the living8," and might sanctify the whole
lump 9 by means of its first-fruits in Himself.
Now that the character of " first-born " does not
apply to the Son in respect of His pre-temporal
existence the appellation of " Only-begotten "
testifies. For he who is truly only-begotten has
no brethren, for how could any one be only-
begotten if numbered among brethren ? but as
He is called God and man, Son of God and
Son of man, — for He has the form of God and
the form of a servant J, being some things ac-
cording to His supreme nature, becoming other
things in His dispensation of love to man, — so
too, being the Only-begotten God, He becomes
the first-born of all creation, — the Only-begotten,
He that is in the bosom of the Father, yet,
among those who are saved by the new creation,
both becoming and being called th< first-born of
the creation. But if, as heresy will have it, He
is called first-born because He was made before
the rest of the creation, the name does not agree
with what they maintain concerning the Only-
begotten God. For they do not say this, — that
the Son and the universe were from the Father
in like manner, — but they say, that the Only-
begotten God was made by the Father, and that
all else was made by the Only-begotten. There-
fore on the same ground on which, while they
hold that the Son was created, they call God
the Father of the created Being, on the same

6 Cf. Col. iii. 9, and Eph. iv. 24. 7 Cf. 2 Cor. v. 17.

8 Kom xiv. 9. 9 tf. Rom. xi. 16. • Cf. Phil. ii. 6.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IV.

159

ground, while they say that all things were
made by the Only-begotten God, they give
Him the name not of the "first-born" of the
things that were made by Him, but more pro-
perly of their "Father," as the same relation
existing in both cases towards the things created,
logically gives rise to the same appellation. For
if God, Who is over all, is not properly called
the " First-born," but the Father of the Being
He Himself created, the Only-begotten God
will surely also be called, by the same reason-
ing, the "father," and not properly the "first-
born " of His own creatures, so that the appella-
tion of " first-born " will be altogether improper
and superfluous, having no place in the heretical
conception.

§ 4. He proceeds again to discuss the impassibility of
the Lord's generation ; and the folly of Eunomius,
who says that the generated essence involves the
appellation of Son, and again, forgetting this,
denies the relation of the Son to the Father:
and herein he speaks of Circe and of the man-
drake poison.

We must, however, return to those who con-
nect passion with the Divine generation, and on
this account deny that the Lord is truly begotten,
in order to avoid the conception of passion. To
say that passion is absolutely linked with genera-
tion, and that on this account, in order that the
Divine nature may continue in purity beyond the
reach of passion, we ought to consider that the
Son is alien to the idea of generation, may per-
haps appear reasonable in the eyes of those who
are easily deceived, but those who are instructed
in the Divine mysteries 2 have an answer ready
to hand, based upon admitted facts. For who
knows not that it is generation that leads us
back to the true and blessed life, not being the
same with that which takes place " of blood and
of the will of the flesh V' in which are flux and
change, and gradual growth to perfection, and
all else that we observe in our earthly genera-
tion : but the other kind is believed to be from
God, and heavenly, and, as the Gospel says,
''from above4," which excludes the passions of
flesh and blood? I presume that they both
admit the existence of this generation, and find
no passion in it. Therefore not all generation
is naturally connected with passion, but the
material generation is subject to passion, the
immaterial pure from passion. What constrains
him then to attribute to the incorruptible gener-
ation of the Son what properly belongs to the
flesh, and, by ridiculing the lower form of gener-
ation with his unseemly physiology, to exclude

2 That is, in the sacramental doctrine with regard to Holy
Baptism. 3 S. John i. 13.

4 S. John iii. 3, where ai/utQuv may be interpreted either " from
above " or as in A.V.

the Son from affinity with the Father? For if,
even in our own case, it is generation that is the
beginning of either life, — that generation which
is through the flesh of a life of passion, that which
is spiritual of a life of purity, (and no one who
is in any sense numbered among Christians
would contradict this statement,) — how is it
allowable to entertain the idea of passion in
thinking of generation as it concerns the incor-
ruptible Nature? Let us moreover examine
this point in addition to those we have men-
tioned. If they disbelieve the passionless
character of the Divine generation on the
ground of the passion that affects the flesh,
let them also, from the same tokens, (those,
I mean, to be found in ourselves,) refuse
to believe that God acts as a Maker without
passion. For if they judge of the Godhead by
comparison of our own conditions, they must
not confess that God either begets or creates ;
for neither of these operations is exercised by
ourselves without passion. Let them t! erefore
either separate from the Divine nature both
creation and generation, that they may guard
the impassibility of God on either side, and let
them, that the Father may be kept safely beyond
the range of passion, neither growing weary by
creation, nor being defiled by generation, entirely
reject from their doctrine the belief in the Only-
begotten, or, if they agree5 that the one activity
is exercised by the Divine power without passion,
let them not quarrel about the other : for if He
creates without labour or matter, He surely also
begets without labour or flux.

And here once more I have in this argument
the support of Eunomius. I will state his
nonsense concisely and briefly, epitomizing his
whole meaning. That men do not make
materials for us, but only by their art add form
to matter, — this is the drift of what he says in
the course of a great quantity of nonsensical
language. If, then, understanding conception
and formation to be included in the lower
generation, he forbids on this ground the pure
notion of generation, by consequence, on the
same reasoning, since earthly creation is busied
with the form, but cannot furnish matter
together with the form, let him forbid us also,
on this ground, to suppose that the Father is a
Creator. If, on the other hand, he refuses to
conceive creation in the case of God according
to man's measure of power, let him also cease to
slander Divine generation by human imperfec-
tions. But, that his accuracy and circumspection
in argument may be more clearly established,
I will again return to a small point in his state-
ments. He asserts that "tilings which are re-
spectively active and passive share one another's
nature," and n entions, after bodily generation,

5 Keadni j ei lor eis, according to Oehlcr's suggestion.

i6o

GREGORY OF NYSSA

" the work of the craftsman as displayed in
materials." Now let the acute hearer mark how
he here fails in his proper aim, and wanders
about among whatever statements he happens
to invent. He sees in things that come into
being by way of the flesh the " active and passive
conceived, with the same essence, the one im-
parting the essence, the other receiving it."
Thus he knows how to discern the truth with
accuracy as regards the nature of existing
things, so as to separate the imparter and the
receiver from the essence, and to say that each
of these is distinct in himself apart from the
essence. For he that receives or imparts is
surely another besides that which is given or
received, so that we must first conceive some
one by himself, viewed in his own separate
existence, and then speak of him as giving that
which he has, or receiving that which he has
not 6. And when he has sputtered out this
argument in such a ridiculous fashion, our sage
friend does not perceive that by the next step
he overthrows himself once more. For he who
by his art forms at his will the material before
him, surely in this operation acts ; and the
material, in receiving its form at the hand of
him who exercises the art, is passively affected :
for it is not by remaining unaffected and un-
impressionable that the material receives its
form. If then, even in the case of things
wrought by art, nothing can come into being
without passivity and action concurring to pro-
duce it, how cah our author think that he here
abides by his own words ? seeing that, in declar-
ing community of essence to be involved in the
relation of action and passion, he seems not
only to attest in some sense community of
essence in Him that is begotten with Him that
begat Him, but also to make the whole creation
of one essence 7 with its Maker, if, as he says,
the active and the passive are to be denned as
mutually akin in respect of nature. Thus, by
the very arguments by which he establishes
what he wishes, he overthrows the main object
of his effort, and makes the glory of the co-
essential Son more secure by his own conten-
tion. For if the fact of origination from anything
shows the essence of the generator to be in the
generated, and if artificial fabrication (being
accomplished by means of action and passion)
reduces both that which makes and that which
is produced to community of essence, according
to his account, our author in many places of
his own writings maintains that the Lord has
been begotten. Thus by the very arguments

not quite clear whether any of this passage, or, if so, how

ol .1 is a direct quotation from Eunomiu; Probably only the

phrase about the imparling and receiving of the essence is taken

him, the rest of the passage lieni^ Gregory's expansion <>! the
i i e into a distini tion hetween th< nd the thing of which

thi thin i viewed apart from its own

ice. ? o/iuoi'<noi\

whereby he seeks to prove the Lord alien from
the essence of the Father, he asserts for Him
intimate connexion. For if, according to his
account, separation in essence is not observed
either in generation or in fabrication, ther<r
whatever he allows the- Lord to be, whether
"created" or a "product of generation," he
asserts, by both names alike, the affinity of
essence, seeing that he makes community of
nature in active and passive, in generator and
generated, a part of his system.

Let us turn however to the next point of the
argument. I beg my readers not to be im-
patient at the minuteness of examination which
extends our argument to a length beyond what
we would desire. For it is not any ordinary
matters on which we stand in danger, so that
our loss would be slight if we should hurry past
any point that required more careful attention,,
but it is the very sum of our hope that we have
at stake. For the alternative before us is,
whether we should be Christians, not led astray
by the destructive wiles of heresy, or whether
we should be completely swept away into the
conceptions of Jews or heathen. To the end,
then, that we may not suffer either of these
things forbidden, that we may neither agree
with the doctrine of the Jews by a denial of the
verily begotten Son, nor be involved in the
downfall of the idolaters by the adoration of
the creature, let us perforce spend some time
in the discussion of these matters, and set forth
the very words of Eunomius, which run thus : —

"Now as these things are thus divided, one
might reasonably say that the most proper and
primary essence, and that which alone exists
by the operation of the Father, admits for itself
the appellations of 'product of generation,'
' product of making,' and ' product of creation ' :"
and a little further on he says, " But the Son
alone, existing by the operation of the Father,
possesses His nature and His relation to Him
that begat Him, without community8." Such
are his words. But let us, like men who look on
at their enemies engaged in a factious struggle
among themselves, consider first our adversaries'
contention against themselves, and so proceed
to set forth on the other side the true doctrine
of godliness. " The Son alone," he says,
"existing by the operation of the Father, pos-
sesses His nature and His relation to Him that
begat Him, without community." But in his
previous statements, he says that he "does not
refuse to call Him, that is begotten a 'product
of generation,' as the generated essence itself,
and the appellation of Son, make such a relation
of words appropriate."

8 This seems to be the force of aKoiruirr/Toi' : it is clear from what
ili.it it is to be understood as denying community of essence
between the father and tin Son, nut as asserting only the unique
chaiHCter alike ol the Sun and ol His relation to the Father.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IV.

161

The contradiction existing in these passages
being thus evident, I am inclined to admire for
their acuteness those who praise this doctrine.
For it would be hard to say to which of his
statements they could turn without finding
themselves at variance with the remainder.
His earlier statement represented that the
generated essence, and the appellation of
" Son," made such a relation of words appro-
priate. His present system says the contrary : —
that " the Son possesses His relation to Him
that begat Him without community." If they
believe the first statement, they will surely not
accept the second : if they incline to the latter,
they will find themselves opposed to the earlier
conception. Who will stay the combat? Who
will mediate in this civil war? Who will bring
this discord into agreement, when the very soul
is divided against itself by the opposing state-
ments, and drawn in different ways to contrary
doctrines? Perhaps we may see here that dark
saying of prophecy which David speaks of the
Jews — "They were divided but were not
pricked at heart 9." For lo, not even when they
are divided among contrariety of doctrines have
they a sense of their discordancy, but they are
carried about by their ears like wine-jars, borne
around at the will of him who shifts them. It
pleased him to say that the generated essence
was closely connected with the appellation of
"Son": straightway, like men asleep, they
nodded assent to his remarks. He changed
his statement again to the contrary one, and
denies the relation of the Son to Him that
begat Him : again his well-beloved friends join
in assent to this also, shifting in whatever
direction he chooses, as the shadows of bodies
change their form by spontaneous mimicry with
the motion of the advancing figure, and even if
he contradicts himself, accepting that also.
This is another form of the draught that Homer
tells us of, not changing the bodies of those
who drink its poison into the forms of brutes,
but acting on their souls to produce in them
a change to a state void of reason. For of
those men, the tale tells that their mind was
sound, while their form was changed to that of
beasts, but here, while their bodies remain in
their natural state, their souls are transformed to
the condition of brutes. And as there the
poet's tale of wonder says that those who drank
the drug were changed into the forms of various
beasts, at the pleasure of her who beguiled their
nature, the same thing happens now also from
this Circe's cup. For they who drink the
deceit of sorcery from the same writing are
changed to different forms of doctrine, trans-
formed now to one, now to another. And

9 This is the LXX. version of the last part of Ps. xxxv. 15, a
rendering with which the Vulgate version practically agrees.

VOL. V. M

meanwhile these very ridiculous people, accord-
ing to the revised edition of the fable, are still
well pleased with him who leads them to such
absurdity, and stoop to gather the words he
scatters about, as if they were cornel fruit or
acorns, running greedily like swine to the
doctrines that are shed on the ground, not
being naturally capable of fixing their gaze on
those which are lofty and heavenly. For this
reason it is that they do not see the tendency
of his argument to contrary positions, but snatch
without examination what comes in their way :
and as they say that the bodies of men stupefied
with mandrake are held in a sort of slumber
and inability to move, so are the senses of these
men's souls affected, being made torpid as
regards the apprehension of deceit. It is
certainly a terrible thing to be held in uncon-
sciousness by hidden guile, as the result of some
fallacious argument : yet where it is involuntary
the misfortune is excusable : but to be brought
to make trial of evil as the result of a kind of
forethought and zealous desire, not in ignorance
of what will befall, surpasses every extreme of
misery. Surely we may well complain, when
we hear that even greedy fish avoid the steel
when it comes near them unbaited, and take
down the hook only when hope of food decoys
them to a bait : but where the evil is apparent,
to go over of their own accord to this destruc-
tion is a more wretched thing than the folly oi
the fish : for these are led by their greediness
to a destruction that is concealed from them,
but the others swallow with open mouth the
hook of impiety in its bareness, satisfied with
destruction under the influence of some un-
reasoning passion. For what could be clearei
than this contradiction — than to say that the
same Person was begotten and is a thing
created, and that something is closely con-
nected with the name of " Son," and, again, is
alien from the sense of " Son " ? But enough,
of these matters.

§ 5. He again shows Eunomius, constrained by
truth, in the character of an advocate of the
orthodox doctrine, confessing as ?nost proper
and primary, not on/y the essence of the Fat her r
but the essence also of the Only-begotten.

It might, however, be useful to look at the
sense of the utterance of Eunomius that is set
before us in orderly sequence, recurring to the
beginning of his statement. For the points we
have now examined were an obvious incitement
to us to begin our reply with the last passage,
on account of the evident character of the
contradiction involved in his words.

This, then, is what Eunomius says at the
beginning : —

1 62

GREGORY OF NYSSA

"Now, as these things are thus divided, one
might reasonably say that the most proper and
primary essence, and that which alone exists by
the operation of the Father, admits for itself
the appellations of 'product of generation,'
'product of making,' and 'product of creation.' "
First, then, I would ask those who are attending
to this discourse to bear in mind, that in his
first composition he says that the essence of the
Father also is " most proper," introducing his
statement with these words, " The whole account
of our teaching is completed with the supreme
and most proper essence." And here he calls
the essence of the Only-begotten "most proper
and primary." Thus putting together Eunomius'
phrases from each of his books, we shall call
him himself as a witness of the community of
essence, who in another place makes a declara-
tion to this effect, that " of things which have
the same appellations, the nature also is not
different " in any way. For our self-contradic-
tory friend would not indicate things differing
in nature by identity of appellation, but it is
surely for this reason, that the definition of
essence in Father and Son is one, that he says
that the one is " most proper," and that the other
also is " most proper." And the general usage
of men bears witness to our argument, which
does not apply the term " most proper" where
the name does not truly agree with the nature.
For instance, we call a likeness, inexactly, "a
man," but what we properly designate by this
name is the animal presented to us in nature.
And similarly, the language of Scripture recog-
nizes the appellation of " god " for an idol,
and for a demon, and for the belly : but here
too the name has not its proper sense ; and in
the same way with all other cases. A man is
said to have eaten food in the fancy of a dream,
but we cannot call this fancy food, in the proper
sense of the term. As, then, in the case of
two men existing naturally, we properly call
both equally by the name of man, while if
any one should join an inanimate portrait in
his enumeration with a real man, one might
perhaps speak of him who really exists and
of the likeness, as "two men," but would
no longer attribute to both the proper mean-
ing of the word, so, on the supposition that
the nature of the Only-begotten was con-
ceived as something else than the essence of
the Father, our author would not have called
each of the essences " most proper." For how
could any one signify things differing in nature
by identity of names ? Surely the truth seems
to be made plain even by those who fight
against it, as falsehood is unable, even when
expressed in the words of the enemy, utterly to
prevail over truth. Hence the doctrine of
orthodoxy is proclaimed by the mouth of its

opponents, without their knowing what they say,
as the saving Passion of the Lord for us had been
foretold in the case of Caiaphas, not knowing
what he said r. If, therefore, true propriety of
essence is common to both (I mean to the
Father and the Son), what room is there for
saying that their essences are mutually diver-
gent ? Or how is a difference by way of superior
power, or greatness, or honour, contemplated
in them, seeing that the " most proper " essence
admits of no diminution ? For that which is
whatever it is imperfectly, is not that thing
" most properly," be it nature, or power, or rank,
or any other individual object of contemplation,
so that the superiority of the Father's essence,
as heresy will have it, proves the imperfection
of the essence of the Son. If then it is imperfect
it is not proper ; but if it is " most proper " it
is also surely perfect. For it is not possible
to call that which is deficient perfect. But
neither is it possible, when, in comparing them,
that which is perfect is set beside that which is
perfect, to perceive any difference by way of
excess or defect : for perfection is one in both
cases, as in a rule, not showing a hollow by
defect, nor a projection by excess. Thus, from
these passages Eunomius' advocacy in favour
of our doctrine may be sufficiently seen — I
should rather say, not his earnestness on our
behalf, but his conflict with himself. For he
turns against himself those devices whereby he
establishes our doctrines by his own arguments.
Let us, however, once more follow his writings
word for word, that it may Le clear to all that
their argument has no power for evil except the
desire to do mischief.

§ 6. He then exposes the argument about the
" Generate," and the •' product of making" and
"product of creation" and shows the impious
nature of the language of Eunomius and
Theognostus on the " immediate" and "un-
divided" character of the essence, and its
" relation to its creator and 7n alter."

Let us listen, then, to what he says. " One
might reasonably say that the most proper and
primary essence, and that which alone exists by
the operation of the Father, admits for itself
the appellations of 'product of generation,'
' product of making,' and ' product of creation.' "
Who knows not that what separates the Chinch
from heresy is this term, "product of creation,"
applied to the Son ? Accordingly, the doctrinal
difference being universally acknowledged, what
would be the reasonable course for a man to
take who endeavours to show that his opinions
are more true than ours? Clearly, to establish
his own statement, by showing, by such proofs
as he could, that we ought to consider that the

1 S. John xi. 51.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IV.

163

Lord is created. Or omitting this, should he
rather lay down a law for his readers that
they should speak of matters of controversy
as if they were acknowledged facts ? For my
own part, I think he should take the former
course, and perhaps all who possess any
share of intelligence demand this of their op-
ponents, that they should, to begin with, estab-
lish upon some incontrovertible basis the first
principle of their argument, and so proceed to
press their theory by inferences. Now our
writer leaves alone the task of establishing the
view that we should think He is created, and
goes on to the next steps, fitting on the infer-
ential process of his argument to this unproved
assumption, being just in the condition of those
men whose minds are deep in foolish desires,
with their thoughts wandering upon a kingdom,
or upon some other object of pursuit. They
do not think how any of the things on which
they set their hearts could possibly be, but they
arrange and order their good fortune for them-
selves at their pleasure, as if it were theirs
already, straying with a kind of pleasure among
non-existent things. So, too, our clever author
somehow or other lulls his own renowned dia-
lectic to sleep, and before giving a demonstra-
tion of the point at issue, he tells, as if to
children, the tale of this deceitful and inconse-
quent folly of his own doctrine, setting it forth
like a story told at a drinking-party. For he
says that the essence which "exists by the
operation of the Father " admits the appellation
of " product of generation," and of " product of
making," and of " product of creation." What
reasoning showed us that the Son exists by any
constructive operation, and that the nature of
the Father remains inoperative with regard to
the Personal existence 2 of the Son ? This was
the very point at issue in the controversy,
whether the essence of the Father begat the
Son, or whether it made Him as one of the
external things which accompany His nature 3.
Now seeing that the Church, according to the
Divine teaching, believes the Only-begotten to
be verily God, and abhors the superstition of
polytheism, and for this cause does not admit
the difference of essences, in order that the
Godheads may not, by divergence of essence,
fall under the conception of number (for this is
nothing else than to introduce polytheism into
our life) — seeing, I say, that the Church teaches
this in plain language, that the Only-begotten
is essentially God, very God of the essence of the
very God, how ought one who opposes her de-
cisions to overthrow the preconceived opinion ?
Should he not do so by establishing the oppos-

vnoa-raJTiv.

3 At a later stage Gregory points out that the idea of creation
is involved, if the thing produced is external to the nature of the
Maker.

ing statement, demonstrating the disputed point
from some acknowledged principle ? I think
no sensible man would look for anything else
than this. But our author starts from the dis-
puted points, and takes, as though it were
admitted, matter which is in controversy as a
principle for the succeeding argument. If it
had first been shown that the Son had His
existence through some operation, what quarrel
should we have with what follows, that he
should say that the essence which exists through
an operation admits for itself the name of
"product of making"? But let the advocates
of error tell us how the consequence has any
force, so long as the antecedent remains un-
established. For supposing one were to grant
by way of hypothesis that man is winged, there
will be no question of concession about what
comes next : for he who becomes winged will fly
in some way or other, and lift himself up on
high above the earth, soaring through the air on
his wings. But we have to see how he whose
nature is not aerial could become winged, and
if this condition does not exist, it is vain to
discuss the next point. Let our author, then,
show this to begin with, that it is in vain that
the Church has believed that the Only-begotten
Son truly exists, not adopted by a Father falsely
so called, but existing according to nature, by
generation from Him Who is, not alienated
from the essence of Him that begat Him. But
so long as his primary proposition remains
unproved, it is idle to dwell on those which are
secondary. And let no one interrupt me, by
saying that what we confess should also be
confirmed by constructive reasoning : for it is
enough for proof of our statement, that the
tradition has come down to us from our fathers,
handed on, like some inheritance, by succession
from the apostles and the saints who came after
them. They, on the other hand, who change
their doctrines to this novelty, would need the
support of arguments in abundance, if they were
about to bring over to their views, not men light
as dust, and unstable, but men of weight and
steadiness : but so long as their statement is
advanced without being established, and without
being proved, who is so foolish and so brutish
as to account the teaching of the evangelists
and apostles, and of those who have successively
shone like lights in the churches, of less force
than this undemonstrated nonsense?

Let us further look at the most remarkable
instance of our author's cleverness ; how, by the
abundance of his dialectic skill, he ingeniously
draws over to the contrary view the more simple
sort. He throws in, as an addition to the title
of " product of making," and that of " product
of creation," the further phrase, "product of
generation," saying that the essence of the Son

M I

lOq.

GREGORY OF NYSSA

"admits these names for itself"; and thinks
that, so long as he harangues as if he were in
some gathering of topers, his knavery in dealing
with doctrine will not be detected by any one.
For in joining " product of generation " with
" P' oduct of making," and " product of crea-
tion," he thinks that he stealthily makes away
with the difference in significance between the
names, by putting together what have nothing
in common. These are his clever tricks of
dialectic; but we mere laymen in argument4
do not deny that, so far as voice and tongue
are concerned, we are what his speech sets forth
about us, but we allow also that our ears, as the
prophet says, are made ready for intelligent
hearing. Accordingly, we are not moved, by
the conjunction of names that have nothing in
common, to make a confusion between the
things they signify: but even if the great
A [jostle names together wood, hay, stubble,
gold, silver, and precious stones s, we reckon
up summarily the number of things he mentions,
:.nd yet do not fail to recognize separately the
nature of each of the substances named. So
here, too, when " product of generation " and
" product of making " are named together, we
pass from the sounds to the sense, and do not
behold the same meaning in each of the names;
for " product of creation " means one thing,
and " product of generation " another : so that
even if he tries to mingle what will not blend,
the intelligent hearer will listen with discrimin-
ation, and will point out that it is an impossi-
bility for any one nature to "admit for itself"
the appellation of " product of generation," and
that of " product of creation." For, if one of
these were true, the other would necessarily be
false, so that, if the thing were a product of
creation, it would not be a product of genera-
tion, and conversely, if it were called a product
of generation, it would be alienated from the
title of " product of creation." Yet Eunomius
tells us that the essence of the Son "admits for
itself the appellations of ' product of generation,'
' product of making,' and ' product of creation ' " !
Does he, by what still remains, make at all
more secure this headless and rootless state-
ment of his, in which, in its earliest stage, nothing
was laid down that had any force with regard
to the point he is trying to establish ? or
does the rest also cling to the same folly, not
deriving its strength from any support it gets
from argument, but setting out its exposition of
blasphemy with vague details like the recital of
dreams? He says (and this he subjoins to what
I have already quoted) — " Having its generation

4 This phrase seems to be quoted from Eunomius. The refer-
ence to the "prophet" may possibly be suggested by Is. vi. 9-10:
but it is more probably only concerned with the words wti'o and
aKOJiv, as applied to convey the idea of mental alertness.

5 Cf. 1 Cor. iii. 12

without intervention, and preserving indivisible
its relation to its Generator, Maker, and Creator."
Well, if we were to leave alone the absence of
intervention and of division, and look at the
meaning of the words as it stands by itself, we
shall find that everywhere his absurd teaching
is cast upon the ears of those whom he deceives,
without corroboration from a single argument.
" Its Generator, and Maker, and Creator," he
says. These names, though they seem to be
three, include the sense of but two concepts,
since two of the words are equivalent in meaning.
For to make is the same as to create, but gener-
ation is another thing distinct from those spoken
of. Now, seeing that the result of the significa-
tion of the words is to divide the ordinary
apprehension of men into different ideas, what
argument demonstrates to us that making is the
same thing with generation, to the end that we
may accommodate the one essence to this differ-
ence of terms ? For so long as the ordinary
significance of the words holds, and no argument
is found to transfer the sense of the terms to an
opposite meaning, it is not possible that any
one nature should be divided between the con-
ception of " product of making," and that of
" product of generation." Since each of these
terms, used by itself, has a meaning of its own,
we must also suppose the relative conjunction
in which they stand to be appropriate and ger-
mane to the terms. For all other relative terms
have their connection, not with what is foreign
and heterogeneous, but, even if the correlative
term be suppressed, we hear spontaneously, to-
gether with the primary word, that which is
linked with it, as in the case of " maker," " slave,"
" friend," " son," and so forth. For all names
that are considered as relative to another, pre-
sent to us, by the mention of them, each its
proper and closely connected relationship with
that which it declares, while they avoid all mix-
ture of that which is heterogeneous 6. For
neither is the name of " maker " linked with the
word " son," nor the term " slave " referred to
the term " maker," nor does " friend " present
to us a " slave," nor " son " a " master," but we
recognize clearly and distinctly the connection
of each of these with its correlative, conceiving
by the word " friend " another friend; by " slave,"
a master ; by " maker," work ; by " son," a
father. In the same way, then, " product of
generation " has its proper relative sense ; with
the " product of generation," surely, is linked
the generator, and with the " product of crea-
tion " the creator ; and we must certainly, if we
are not prepared by a substitution of names to

6 E.g. "A thing made " suggests to us the thought of a " maker, "
" a maker" the thought of the thing made ; and they suggest also a
close connection as existing between the two correlative terms of one
of which the name is uttered ; but neither suggests in the same way
any term which is not correlative, or with which it is not, in some
manner, in pari materia.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IV.

165

introduce a confusion of things, preserve for
each of the relative terms that which it properly
connotes.

Now, seeing that the tendency of the meaning
of these words is manifest, how comes it that
one who advances his doctrine by the aid of
logical system failed to perceive in these names
their proper relative sense ? But he thinks that
he is linking on the " product of generation " to
" maker," and the " product of making " to
"generator," by saying that the essence of the
Son " admits for itself the appellations of ' pro-
duct of generation,' ' product of making,' and
'product of creation,'" and "preserves indi-
visible its relation to its Generator, Maker, and
Creator." For it is contrary to nature, that a
single thing should be split up into different
relations. But the Son is properly related to the
Father, and that which is begotten to him that
begat it, while the " product of making" has its
relation to its " maker " ; save if one might con-
sider some inexact use, in some undistinguishing
way of common parlance, to overrule the strict
signification.

By what reasoning then is it, and by what
arguments, according to that invincible logic of
his, that he wins back the opinion of the mass
of men, and follows out at his pleasure this line
of thought, that as the God Who is over all is
conceived and spoken of both as " Creator "
and as " Father," the Son has a close con-
nection with both titles, being equally called
both " product of creation " and " product of
generation " ? For as customary accuracy of
speech distinguishes between names of this
kind, and applies the name of " generation " in
the case of things generated from the essence
itself, and understands that of " creation " of
those things which are external to the nature of
their maker, and as on this account the Divine
doctrines, in handing down the knowledge of
God, have delivered to us the names of" Father"
and " Son," not those of " Creator " and " work,"
that there might arise no error tending to blas-
phemy (as might happen if an appellation of the
latter kind repelled the Son to the position of
an alien and a stranger), and that the impious
doctrines which sever the Only-begotten from
essential affinity with the Father might find no
entrance — seeing all this, I say, he who declares
that the appellation of " product of making " is
one befitting the Son, will surely say by con-
sequence that the name of " Son " is properly
applicable to that which is the product of
making ; so that, if the Son is a " product of
making," the heaven is called "Son," and the
individual things that have been made are,
according to our author, properly named by the
appellation of " Son." For if He has this
name, not because He shares in nature with

Him that begat Him, but is called Son for this
reason, that He is created, the same argumei t
will permit that a lamb, a dog, a frog, and all
things that exist by the will of their maker,
should be named by the title of " Son." If, on
the other hand, each of these is not a Son and
is not called God, by reason of its being external
to the nature of the Son, it follows, surely, that
He Who is truly Son is Son, and is confessed
to be God by reason of His being of the very
nature of Him that begat Him. But Eunomius
abhors the idea of generation, and excludes it
from the Divine doctrine, slandering the term
by his fleshly speculations. Well, our discourse,
in what precedes, showed sufficiently on this
point that, as the Psalmist says, "they are
afraid where no fear is ?." For if it was shown
in the case of men that not all generation exists
by way of passion, but that that which is ma-
terial is by passion, while that which is spiritual
is pure and incorruptible, (for that which is
begotten of the Spirit is spirit and not flesh,
and in spirit we see no condition that is subject
to passion,) since our author thought it neces-
sary to estimate the Divine power by means of
examples among ourselves, let him persuade
himself to conceive from the other mode of
generation the passionless character of the
Divine generation. Moreover, by mixing up
together these three names, of which two are
equivalent, he thinks that his readers, by reason
of the community of sense in the two phrases,
will jump to the conclusion that the third is
equivalent also. For since the appellation of
" product of making," and " product of creation,"
indicate that the thing made is external to the
nature of the maker, he couples with these the
phrase, "product of generation," that this too may
be interpreted along with those above mentioned.
But argument of this sort is termed fraud and
falsehood and imposition, not a thoughtful and
skilful demonstration. For that only is called
demonstration which shows what is unknown
from what is acknowledged ; but to reason
fraudulently and fallaciously, to conceal your
own reproach, and to confound by superficial
deceits the understanding of men, as the Apostle
says, "of corrupt minds8," this no sane man
would call a skilful demonstration.

Let us proceed, however, to what follows in
order. He says that the generation of the es-
sence is "without intervention," and that it
" preserves indivisible its relation to its Gener-
ator, Maker, and Creator." Well, if he had
spoken of the immediate and indivisible cha-
racter of the essence, and stopped his discourse
there, it would not have swerved from the
orthodox view, since we too confess the close

7 Cf. Ps. liii. 6.

8 3 Tim. iii. 8.

1 66

GREGORY OF NYSSA

connection and relation of the Son with the
Father, so that there is nothing inserted between
them which is found to intervene in the con-
nection of the Son with the Father, no concep-
tion of interval, not even that minute and
indivisible one, which, when time is divided
into past, present, and future, is conceived in-
divisibly by itself as the present, as it cannot be
considered as a part either of the past or of the
future, by reason of its being quite without
dimensions and incapable of division, and un-
observable, to whichever side it might be added.
That, then, which is perfectly immediate, admits,
we say, of no such intervention ; for that which
is separated by any interval would cease to be
immediate. If, therefore, our author, likewise,
in saying that the generation of the Son is
" without intervention," excluded all these ideas,
then he laid down the orthodox doctrine of the
conjunction of Him Who is with the Father.
When, however, as though in a fit of repent-
ance, he straightway proceeded to add to what
he had said that the essence " preserves its
relation to its Generator, Maker, and Creator,"
he polluted his first statement by his second,
vomiting forth his blasphemous utterance upon
the pure doctrine. For it is clear that there
too his " without intervention " has no orthodox
intention, but, as one might say that the
hammer is mediate between the smith and the
nail, but its own making is " without inter-
vention," because, when tools had not yet been
found out by the craft, the hammer came first
from the craftsman's hands by some inventive
process, not 9 by means of any other tool, and so
by it the others were made ; so the phrase,
" without intervention," indicates that this is
also our author's conception touching the Only-
begotten. And here Eunomius is not alone in
his error as regards the enormity of his doctrine,
but you may find a parallel also in the works of
Theognostus *, who says that God, wishing to
make this universe, first brought the Son into
existence as a sort of standard of the creation ;
not perceiving that in his statement there is
involved this absurdity, that what exists, not for
its own sake, but for the sake of something else,
is surely of less value than that for the sake of
wh^h it exists: as we provide an implement
of husbandry for the sake of life, yet the plough
is surely not reckoned as equally valuable with
life. So, if the Lord also exists on account of

' It seems necessary for the sense to read ow St' ere'pou tivos
bpydvov, since the force of the comparison consists in the hammer
being produced immediately by the smith : otherwise we must
understand &i irepov Tifb? bpydvov to refer to the employment of
some tool not properly belonging to the Tex1") °f tne smith : but even
so the parallel would be destroyed.

1 Theognostus, a writer of the third century, is said to have been
the he. id of the Catechetical School at Alexandria, and is quoted by
S. Alhanasius as an authority against the Arians. An account of
his work is to lie found in Fhotius, and this is extracted and printed
with the few remaining fragments if his actual writings in the 3rd
volume of Koulli's hctiquia Sacrac.

the world, and not all things on account of Him,
the whole of the things for the sake of which
they say He exists, would be more valuable
than the Lord. And this is what they are here
establishing by their argument, where they insist
that the Son has His relation to His Creator
and Maker " without intervention."

§ 7. He then dearly and skilfully criticises the
doctrine of the impossibility of comparison with
the things made after the Son, and exposes the
idolatry contrived by Eunomius, and concealed
by the terminology of " Son " and " Only-
begotten" to deceive his readers.

In the remainder of the passage, however, he
becomes conciliatory, and says that the essence
"is not compared with any of the things that
were made by it and after it 2." Such are the
gifts which the enemies of the truth offer to the
Lord 3, by which their blasphemy is made more
manifest. Tell me what else is there of all
things in creation that admits of comparison
with a different thing, seeing that the character-
istic nature that appears in each absolutely
rejects community with things of a different
kind ♦? The heaven admits no comparison with
the earth, nor this with the stars, nor the stars
with the seas, nor water with stone, nor animals
with trees, nor land animals with winged crea-
tures, nor four-footed beasts with those that
swim, nor irrational with rational creatures.
Indeed, why should one take up time with
individual instances, in showing that we may
say of every single thing that we behold in the
creation, precisely what was thrown to the Only-
begotten, as if it were something special — that
He admits of comparison with none of the
things that have been produced after Him and
by Him ? For it is clear that everything which
you conceive by itself is incapable of comparison
with the universe, and with the individual things
which compose it ; and it is this, which may be
truly said of any creature you please, which is
allotted by the enemies of the truth, as adequate
and sufficient for His honour and glory, to the
Only-begotten God ! And once more, putting
together phrases of the same sort in the remain-
der of the passage, he dignifies Him with his
empty honours, calling Him " Lord " and " Only-
begotten " : but that no orthodox meaning may
be conveyed to his readers by these names, he

* Oehler's proposal to read " vel invitis libris quod scntenfiu
Jlagitat rmv hi avrov kox /act' avrbi* " does not seem necessary,
aurrj? and avrqv refer to oiioia, the quotation being made (not verb-
ally) from Eunomius, not from Theognostus, and following appar-
ently the phrase ahout " preserving the relation," etc. If the clause
were a continuation of the quotation from Theognostus, we should
have to follow Oehler's proposal.

I Reading, according to Cotelerius' suggestion, (mentioned with
approval by Oehler, though not followed by him,) Suipo<popo\f<Tii for
&opv<popov<riv.

4 That is to say, because there is no " common measnre " ol the
distinct natures.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IV.

167

promptly mixes up blasphemy with the more
notable of them. His phrase runs thus : — " In-
asmuch," he says, " as the generated essence
leaves no room for community to anything else
(for it is only-begotten s), nor is the operation
of the Maker contemplated as common." O
marvellous insolence ! as though he were ad-
dressing his harangue to brutes, or senseless
beings "which have no understanding6," he
twists his argument about in contrary ways, as
he pleases ; or rather he suffers as men do who
are deprived of sight ; for they too behave often
in unseemly ways before the eyes of those who
see, supposing, because they themselves cannot
see, that they are also unseen. For what sort
of man is it who does not see the contradiction
in his words? Because it is " generated," he says,
the essence leaves other things no room for
community, for it is only-begotten ; and then
when he has uttered these words, really as though
he did not see or did not suppose himself to be
seen, he tacks on, as if corresponding to what
he has said, things that have nothing in common
with them, coupling " the operation of the
maker" with the essence of the Only-begotten.
That which is generated is correlative to the
generator, and the Only-begotten, surely, by
consequence, to the Father; and he who looks
to the truth beholds, in co-ordination with the
Son, not " the operation of the maker," but the
nature of Him that begat Him. But he, as if
he were talking about plants or seeds, or some
other thing in the order of creation, sets "the
operation of the maker" by the side of the ex-
istence 7 of the Only-begotten. Why, if a stone
or a stick, or something of that sort, were the
subject of consideration, it would be logical to
pre-suppose " the operation of the maker " ;
but if the Only-begotten God is confessed, even
by His adversaries, to be a Son, and to exist by
way of generation, how do the same words befit
Him that befit the lowest portions of the creation?
how do they think it pious to say concerning
the Lord the very thing which may be truly
said of an ant or a gnat ? For if any one un-
derstood the nature of an ant, and its peculiarities
in reference to other living things, he would not
be beyond the truth in saying that " the oper-
ation of its maker is not contemplated as com-
mon" with reference to the other things. What,
therefore, is affirmed of such things as these,
this they predicate also of the Only-begotten,
and as hunters are said to intercept the passage
of their game with holes, and to conceal their
design by covering over the mouths of the holes
with some unsound and unsubstantial material,
in order that the pit may seem level with the
ground about it, so heresy contrives against men

5 Altering Oehler's punctuation ; it is the fact that the essence is
fMfvayfvTis which excludes all other things from community with it.

6 Ps. xxxii. 9. 7 i/frooTdcrev.

something of the same sort, covering over the
hole of their impiety with these fine-sounding
and pious names, as it were with a level thatch,
so that those who are rather unintelligent, think-
ing that these men's preaching is the same with
the true faith, because of the agreement of their
words, hasten towards the mere name of the Son
and the Only-begotten, and step into emptiness
in the hole, since the significance of these titles
will not sustain the weight of their tread, but
lets them down into the pitfall of the denial of
Christ. This is why he speaks of the generated
essence that leaves nothing room for community,
and calls it " Only-begotten." These are the
coverings of the hole. But when any one stops
before he is caught in the gulf, and puts forth
the test of argument, like a hand, upon his
discourse, he sees the dangerous downfall of
idolatry lying beneath the doctrine. For when
he draws near, as though to God and the Son
of God, he finds a creature of God set forth for
his worship. This is why they proclaim high
and low the name of the Only-begotten, that
the destruction may be readily accepted by the
victims of their deceit, as though one were to
mix up poison in bread, and give a deadly greet-
ing to those who asked for food, who would not
have been willing to take the poison by itself,
had they not been enticed to what they saw.
Thus he has a sharp eye to the object of his
efforts, at least so far as his own opinion goes.
For if he had entirely rejected from his teaching
the name of the Son, his falsehood would not
have been acceptable to men, when his denial
was openly stated in a definite proclamation ;
but now leaving only the name, and changing
the signification of it to express creation, he at
once sets up his idolatry, and fraudulently hides
its reproach. But since we are bidden not to
honour God with our lips 8, and piety is not
tested by the sound of a word, but the Son
must first be the object of belief in the heart
unto righteousness, and then be confessed with
the mouth unto salvation 9, and those who say
in their hearts that He is not God, even though
with their mouths they confess Him as Lord,
are corrupt and become abominable x, as the
prophet says, — for this cause, I say, we must
look to the mind of those who put forward,
forsooth, the words of the faith, and not be
enticed to follow their sound. If, then, one
who speaks of the Son does not by that word
refer to a creature, he is on our side and not on
the enemy's ; but if any one applies the name
of Son to the creation, he is to be ranked among
idolaters. For they too gave the name of God
to Dagon and Bel and the Dragon, but they did
not on that account worship God. For the wood
and the brass and the monster were not God.

8 Cf. Is. xx ix. 13. v Cf. Rom. x. 10.

1 Cf. Ps. xiii. a.

i68

GREGORY OF NYSSA

§ 8. He proceeds to show that there is no " vari-
ance " in the essence of t/ie Father and the Son :
wherein he expounds many forms of variation
and harmony, and .explains the "form," the
" sea/," and the " express image."

But what need is there in our discourse to
reveal his hidden deceit by mere guesses at his
intention, and possibly to give our hearers oc-
casions for objection, on the ground that we
make these charges against our enemies untruly ?
For lo, he sets forth to us his blasphemy in its
nakedness, not hiding his guile by any veil,
but speaking boldly in his absurdities with
unrestrained voice. What he has written runs
thus: — "We, for our part," he says, "as we
find nothing else besides the essence of the Son
which admits of the generation, are of opinion
that we must assign the appellations to the es-
sence itself, or else we speak of ' Son ' and
' begotten ' to no purpose, and as a mere verbal
matter, if we are really to separate them from
the essence ; starting from these names, we also
confidently maintain that the essences are variant
from each other 2."

There is no need, I imagine, that the ab-
surdity here laid down should be refuted by
arguments from us. The mere reading of what
he has written is enough to pillory his blasphemy.
But let us thus examine it. He says that the
essences of the Father and the Son are " variant."
What is meant by " variant " ? Let us first of all
examine the force of the term as it is applied
by itself3, that by the interpretation of the word
its blasphemous character may be more clearly
revealed. The term " variance " is used, in the
inexact sense sanctioned by custom, of bodies,
when, by palsy or any other disease, any limb is
perverted from its natural co-ordination. For
we speak, comparing the state of suffering with
that of health, of the condition of one who has
been subjected to a change for the worse, as
being a " variation " from his usual health ; and
in the case of those who differ in respect of
virtue and vice, comparing the licentious life
vith that of purity and temperance, or the un-
just life with that of justice, or the life which is
passionate, warlike, and prodigal of anger, with

2 The whole passage is rather obscure, and Oehler's punctuation
renders it perhaps more obscure than that which is here adopted.
The argument seems to be something like this: — "The generated
essenc is nol i ompared with any of the things made by it, or alter it,
because being only-begotten it leaves no room for a common basi^ <>f
comparison with anything else, and the operation of its maker is also
peculiar to itself (since it is immediate, the operation in the case "I
Other things being mediate). The essence of the Son, then, being SO
■ilated, it is to it that the appellations of yiwryxo., -rroirfiJ.il, and
KTiV/ta are to be assigned ; otherwise the terms 'Son' and ' Only-
Men' are meaningless. Therefore the Son, being in essence a
ut or KTi<Tixa, is alien from the Father Who made or created
Him." Tire word 7rap7)AAdx#cu, used to express the difference of

nee, between thi lor which it i 1

to find in equivalent which shall suit all the cases of the use of the
instanced: the idea of " variation,1 however, seems
to attach to all these cases, and the verb has been trail
accordingly.

3 Following Oehler's suggestion and reading t'<// iaurrj?.

that which is mild and peaceful — and generally
all that is reproached with vice, as compared
with what is more excellent, is said to exhibit
"variance " from it, because the marks observed
in both — in the good, I mean, and the inferior —
do not mutually agree. Again, we say that
those qualifies observed in the elements are " at
variance " which are mutually opposed as con-
traries, having a power reciprocally destructive,
as heat and cold, or dryness and moisture, or,
generally, anything that is opposed to another
as a contrary; and the absence of union in
these we express by the term " variation " ; and
generally everything which is out of harmony
with another in their observed characteristics, is
said to be " at variance " with it, as health with
disease, life with death, war with peace, virtue
with vice, and all similar cases.

Now that we have thus analyzed these
expressions, let us also consider in regard to
our author in what sense he says that the
essences of the Father and the Son are " variant
from each other." What does he mean by it ?
Is it in the st-nse that the Father is according
to nature, while the Son " varies " from that
nature ? Or does he express by this word the
perversion of virtue, separating the evil from the
more excellent by the name of "variation," so
as to regard the one essence in a good, the other
in a contrary aspect? Or does he assert that
one Divine essence also is variant from another,
in the manner of the opposition of the elements?
or as war stands to peace, and life to death,
does he also perceive in the essences the con-
flict which so exists among all such things, so
that they cannot unite one with another, because
the mixture of contraries exerts upon the things
mingled a consuming force, as the wisdom of
the Proverbs saith of such a doctrine, that water
and fire never say "It is enough4," expressing
enigmatically the nature of contraries of equal
force and equal balance, and their mutual
destruction? Or is it in none of these ways that
he sees " variance " in the essences ? Let him
tell us, then, what he conceives besides these.
He could not say, I take it, even if he were
to repeat his wonted phrases, "The Son is
variant from Him Who begat Him " ; for
thereby the absurdity of his statements is yet
more clearly shown. For what mutual relation
is so closely and concordantly engrafted and
fitted together as that meaning of relation to

4 Cf. Prov. xxx. i5(LXX.).

5 The sense given would perhaps be clearer if we were to read
(as Gulonius seems to have done) ao-vvr)0r) for crvnjOij. This might
be interpreted, " He could not say, I take it, even if he uses the
words in an unwonted sense, that the Son is at variance with Hun

Wh i it Him." The crw>jt9>) would thus he the senses already

considered ind ^et aside : and the poinl would be that such a state-
ment could not be made without manifest absurdity, even if some
out of-the-way sense were attached to the words. As the passage
stands, it must mean that even if Eunomius repeats his wonted

thai in suggest no other sense of " variance " than those
enumerated.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IV.

169

the Father expressed by the word " Son " ?
And a proof of this is that even if both of these
names be not spoken, that which is omitted is
connoted by the one that is uttered, so closely
is the one implied in the other, and concordant
with it : and both of them are so discerned in
the one that one cannot be conceived without
the other. Now that which is "at variance" is
surely so conceived and so called, in opposition
to that which is "in harmony," as the plumb-
line is in harmony with the straight line, while
that which is crooked, when set beside that
which is straight, does not harmonize with it.
Musicians also are wont to call the agreement
of notes "harmony," and that which is out
of tune and discordant " inharmonious." To
speak of things as at "variance," then, is the
same as to speak of them as " out of harmony."
If, therefore, the nature of the Only-begotten
God is at " variance," to use the heretical
phrase, with the essence of the Father, it is
surely not in harmony with it : and inharmoni-
ousness cannot exist where there is no possibility
of harmony 6. For the case is as when, the
figure in the wax and in the graving of the signet
being one, the wax that has been stamped by the
\ signet, when it is fitted again to the latter, makes
jthe impression on itself accord with that which
surrounds it, filling up the hollows and accom-
modating the projections of the engraving with its
own patterns : but if some strange and different
pattern is fitted to the engraving of the signet,
it makes its own form rough and confused, by
' rubbing off its figure on an engraved surface
ti at does not correspond with it. But He
Who is " in the form of God 7 " has been formed
iby no impression different from the Father,
seeing that He is "the express image" of the
Father's Person 8, while the " form of God " is
surely the same thing as His essence. For as,
"being made in the form of a servant 9," He
was formed in the essence of a servant, not
taking upon Him the form merely, apart from
the essence, but the essence is involved in the
■sense of " form," so, surely, he who says that
He is " in the form of God " signified essence
I y "form." If, therefore, He is " in the form of
God," and being in the Father is sealed with
the Father's glory, (as the word of the Gospel
declares, which saith, " Him hath God the
Father sealed *" — whence also " He that hath
seen Me hath seen the Father3,") then "the
image of goodness " and " the brightness of
glory," and all other similar titles, testify that the
essence of the Son is not out of harmony with
the Father. Thus by the text cited is shown
the insubstantial character of the adversaries'

6 The reading of Oehler is here followed : hut the sense of the
clause is not clear either in his text or in that of the Paris editions

7 Phil. ii. 6. 8 Heb. i. 3. « Phil. ii. 7.
' ;>■ John vi 3j. * S- John xiv. 9.

blasphemy. For if things at " variance " are not
in harmony, and He Who is sealed by the
Father, and displays the Father in Himself, both
being in the Father, and having the Father in
Himself 3, shows in all points His close relation
and harmony, then the absurdity of the oppos-j
ing views is hereby overwhelmingly shown.
For as that which is at " variance " was shown to
be out of harmony, so conversely that which
is harmonious is surely confessed beyond dis-
pute not to be at " variance." For as that which
is at " variance " is not harmonious, so the
harmonious is not at "variance." Moreover, he
who says that the nature of the Only-begotten
is at "variance" with the good essence of the
Father, clearly has in view variation in the good
itself. But as for what that is which is at
variance with the good — "O ye simple," as the
Proverb saith, " understand his craftiness4 ! "

§ 9. Then, distinguishing between essence and
generation, he declares the empty and frivolous
language of Eunomius to be like a rattle. He
proceeds to show that the language used by the
great Basil on the subject of the generation of
the Only-begotten has been grievously slandered
by Eufiomius, and so ends the book.

I will pass by these matters, however, as
the absurdity involved is evident ; let us ex-
amine what precedes. He says that nothing
else is found, "besides the essence of the Son,
which admits of the generation." What does he
mean when he says this? He distinguishes
two names from each other, and separating by
his discourse the things signified by them, he
sets each of them individually apart by itself.
" The generation " is one name, and " the
essence " is another. The essence, he tells us,
"admits of the generation," being therefore of
course something distinct from the generation.
For if the generation were the essence (which
is the very thing he is constantly declaring),
so that the two appellations are equivalent
in sense, he would not have said that the
essence "admits of the generation": for that
would amount to saying that the essence admits
of the essence, or the generation the generation,
— if, that is, the generation were the same thing
as the essence. He understands, then, the
generation to be one thing, and the essence to
be another, which "admits of generation " : for
that which is taken cannot be the same with
that which admits it. Well, this is what the
sage and systematic statement of our author
says : but as to whether there is any sense in
his words, let him consider who is expert in
judging. I will resume his actual words.

He says that he finds "nothing else besides

3 Cf. S. John xiv. 10.

* Prov.viii. 5 (lxx.;

170

GREGORY OF NYSSA

the essence of the Son which admits of the gener-
ation " ; that there is no sense in his words,
however, is clear to every one who hears his
statement at all : the task which remains seems
to be to bring to light the blasphemy which he
is trying to construct by aid of these meaning-
less words. For he desires, even if he cannot
effect his purpose, to produce in his hearers by
this slackness of expression, the notion that the
essence of the Son is the result of construction :
but he calls its construction "generation,"
decking out his horrible blasphemy with the
fairest phrase, that if " construction " is the
meaning conveyed by the word "generation,"
the idea of the creation of the Lord may receive
a ready assent. He says, then, that the essence
"admits of generation," so that every construc-
tion may be viewed, as it were, in some subject
matter. For no one would say that that is con-
structed which has no existence, so extending
■ making " in his discourse, as if it were some
constructed fabric, to the nature of the Only-be-
gotten God s. " If, then," he says, " it admits of
this generation," — wishing to convey some such
meaning as this, that it would not have been, had
it not been constructed. But what else is there
among the things we contemplate in the creation
which is without being made ? Heaven, earth,
air, sea, everything whatever that is, surely is
by being made. How, then, comes it that he
considered it a peculiarity in the nature of the
Only-begotten, that it " admits generation "
(for this is his name for making) " into its
actual essence," as though the humble-bee
or the gnat did not admit generation into
itself6, but into something else besides itself.
It is therefore acknowledged by his own
writings, that by them the essence of the Only-
begotten is placed on the same level with the
smallest parts of the creation : and every proof
by which he attempts to establish the alienation
of the Son from the Father has the same force
also in the case of individual things. What
need has he, then, for this varied acuteness to

5 This whole passage, as it stands in Oehler's text, (which has
here been followed without alteration,) is obscure : the connection
between the clauses themselves is by no means clear ; and the
general meaning of the passage, in view of the succeeding
sentences, seems doubtful. For it seems here to be alleged that
Eunomius considered the KaraxTKcirq to imply the previous existence
of some material, so to say, which was moulded by generation — on
the ground that no one would say that the essence, or anything else,
was constructed without being existent. On the other hand it is
immediately urged that this is just what would be said of all created
things. If the passage might be emended thus: — iv', uiern-ep iv
irrroKtificVuj TIM Trpay/xaTi iraaa KaiatjKfvrj focopciTcu, (ov yap aV tis
tiTroi KaratTKevaaQaJ. o p,7j v<j>4<m}K€v) , outws otov KaTcuriccvao'^aTi
t/5 tou fj.ovoytvovs <pu<7f t TTpoTetVfl tu> Aoya> rr\v noirjaiv — we should
have a comparatively clear sense — " in order that as all construction
is observed in some subject matter, (for no one would say that that
is constructed which has not existence) so he may extend the pro-
cess of ' making ' by his argument to the nature of the Only-begotten
God, as to some product of construction." The force of this won d
be, that Eunomius is really employing the idea of " receiving
generation," to imply that the essence of the Only-begotten is a
(toTa<T«n/a<7fia : and this, Gregory says, puts him at once on a level
with the physical crci

' Oehler's punctuation seems faulty here.

establish the diversity of nature, when he ought
to have taken the short cut of denial, by openly
declaring that the name of the Son ought not
to be confessed, or the Only-begotten God to
be preached in the churches, but that we ought
to esteem the Jewish worship as superior to
the faith of Christians, and, while we confess the
Father as being alone Creator and Maker of the
world, to reduce all other things to the name
and conception of the creation, and among these
to speak of that work which preceded the rest as
a " thing made," which came into being by some
constructive operation, and to give Him the
title of" First-created," instead of Only-begotten
and Very Son. For when these opinions have
carried the day, it will be a very easy matter
to bring doctrines to a conclusion in agreement
with the aim they have in view, when all are
guided, as you might expect from such a
principle, to the consequence that it is im-
possible that He Who is neither begotten nor
a Son, but has His existence through some
energy, should share in essence with God. So
long, however, as the declarations of the Gospel
prevail, by which He is proclaimed as " Son,"
and " Only-begotten," and " of the Father," and
"of God," and the like, Eunomius will talk his
nonsense to no purpose, leading himself and
his followers astray by such idle chatter. For
while the title of "Son " speaks aloud the true
relation to the Father, who is so foolish that,
while John and Paul and the rest of the choir
of the Saints proclaim these words, — words of
truth, and words that point to the close affinity,
— he does not look to them, but is led by the
empty rattle of Eunomius' sophisms to think
that Eunomius is a truer guide than the teach-
ing of those who by the Spirit speak mysteries 7,
and who bear Christ in themselves? Why,
who is this Eunomius ? Whence was he raised
up to be the guide of Christians?

But let all this pass, and let our earnestness
about what lies before us calm down our heart,
that is swollen with jealousy on behalf of the
faith against the blasphemers. For how is it
possible not to be moved to wrath and hatred,
while our God, and Lord, and Life-giver, and
Saviour is insuited by these wretched men? If
he had reviled my father according to the flesh,
or been at enmity with my benefactor, would
it have been possible to bear without emotion
his anger against those 1 love? And if the
Lord of my soul, Who gave it being when it
was not, and redeemed it when in bondage,
and gave me to taste of this present life, and
prepared for me the life to come, Who calls us
to a kingdom, and gives us His commands that
we may escape the damnation of hell, — these
are small things that I speak of, and not worthy

7 Cf. i (.'or. xiv. 2.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IV.

171

to express the greatness of our common Lord,
— He that is worshipped by all creation, by
things in heaven, and things on earth, and
things under the earth, by Whom stand the
unnumbered myriads of the heavenly ministers,
to Whom is turned all that is under rule here,
and that has the desire of good — if He is ex-
posed to reviling by men, for whom it is not
enough to associate themselves with the party
of the apostate, but who count it loss not to
draw others by their scribbling into the same
gulf with themselves, that those who come
after may not lack a hand to lead them to
destruction, is there any one8 who blames us
for our anger against these men ? But let us
return to the sequence of his discourse.

He next proceeds once more to slander us
as dishonouring the generation of the Son by
human similitudes, and mentions what was
written on these points by our father 9, where
he says that while by the word " Son " two
things are signified, the being formed by passion,
and the true relationship to the begetter, he
does not admit in discourses upon things divine
the former sense, which is unseemly and carnal,
but in so far as the latter tends to testify to the
glory of the Only-begotten, this alone finds a
place in the sublime doctrines. Who, then,
dishonours the generation of the Son by human
notions? He who sets far from the Divine
generation what belongs to passion and to man,
and joins the Son impassibly to Him that begat
Him ? or he who places Him Who brought all
things into being on a common level with the
lower creation ? Such an idea, however, as it
seems, — that of associating the Son in the majesty
of the Father, — this new wisdom seems to regard
as dishonouring ; while it considers as great and

8 Reading apd ns for ipa ti's of Oehler's text.

9 That is, by S. Basil : the reference seems to be to the treatise
Adv. Eurwmium ii 24 (p. 260 C is the Benedictine edition), but
the quotation is not exact.

sublime the act of bringing Him down to
equality with the creation that is in bondage
with us. Empty complaints ! Basil is slandered
as dishonouring the Son, who honours Him
even as he honours the Father ', and Eunomius
is the champion of the Only-begotten, who
severs Him from the good nature of the Father !
Such a reproach Paul also once incurred with
the Athenians, being charged therewith by them
as "a setter forth of strange gods2," when he
was reproving the wandering among their gods
of those who were mad in their idolatry, and
was leading them to the truth, preaching the
resurrection by the Son These charges are
now brought against Paul's follower by the new
Stoics and Epicureans, who " spend their time
in nothing else," as the history says of the
Athenians, " but either to tell or to hear some
new thing 3." For what could be found newer
than this, — a Son of an energy, and a Father
of a creature, and a new God springing up
from nothing, and good at variance with good?
These are they who profess to honour Him with
due honour by saying that He is not that which
the nature of Him that begat Him is. Is
Eunomius not ashamed of the form of such
honour, if one were to say that he himself is not
akin in nature to his father, but has community
with something of another kind ? If he who
brings the Lord of the creation into community
with the creation declares that he honours Him,
by so doing, let him also himself be honoured
by having community assigned him with what
is brute and senseless : but, if he finds com-
munity with an inferior nature hard and insolent
treatment, how is it honour for Him Who, as
the prophet saith, " ruleth with His power
for ever 4," to be ranked with that nature which
is in subjection and bondage? But enough
of this.

1 Cf. S. John v. »j.

3 Acts I vu 3*.

3 Acts xvii. 18.
* Ps. lxvi. 6 (LXX.).

BOOK V.

$ i. The fifth book promises to speak of the
words contained in the saying of the Apostle
Peter, but delays their exposition. He dis-
courses first of the creation, to the effect that,
while nothing therein is deserving of worship,
yet men, lea astray by their ill-informed and
feeble intelligence, and marvelling at its beauty,
deified the several parts of the universe. And
herein he excellently expounds the passage of
Isaiah, " I am God, the first"

It is now, perhaps, time to make enquiry into
■what is said concerning the words of the Apostle
Peter I, by Eunomius himself, and by our father2
concerning the latter. If a detailed examina-
tion should extend our discourse to considerable
length, the fair-minded reader will no doubt
pardon this, and will not blame us for wasting
time in words, but lay the blame on him who
has given occasion for them. Let me be allowed
also to make some brief remarks preliminary to
the proposed enquiry : it may be that they too
will be found not to be out of keeping with the
aim of our discussion.

That no created thing is deserving of man's
worship, the divine word so clearly declares as
a law, that such a truth may be learned from
almost the whole of the inspired Scripture.
Moses, the Tables, the Law, the Prophets that
follow, the Gospels, the decrees of the Apostles,
all alike forbid the act of reverencing the crea-
tion. It would be a lengthy task to set out in
order the particular passages which refer to this
matter ; but though we set out only a few from
among the many instances of the inspired
testimony, our argument is surely equally con-
vincing, since each of the divine words, albeit
the least, has equal force for declaration of the
truth. Seeing, then, that our conception of
existences is divided into two, the creation and
the uncreated Nature, if the present contention
of our adversaries should prevail, so that we
should say that the Son of God is created, we
should be absolutely compelled either to set at
naught the proclamation of the Gospel, and to
refuse tn worship that God the Word Who was

1 The words referred to arc those in A I ii

Basil : the passages discussed arc afterwards referred to in

in the beginning, on the ground that we must
not address worship to the creation, or, if these
marvels recorded in the Gospels are too urgent
for us, by which we are led to reverence and
to worship Him Who is displayed in them, tc
place, in that case, the created and the Uncre-
ated on the same level of honour; seeing that
if, according to our adversaries' opinion, even
the created God is worshipped, though having
in His nature no prerogative above the rest of
the creation, and if this view should get the
upper hand, the doctrines of religion will be
entirely transformed to a kind of anarchy and
democratic independence. For when men
believe that the nature they worship is not one,
but have their thoughts turned away to diveise
Godheads, there will be none who will stay the
conception of the Deity in its progress through
creation, but the Divine element, once recog-
nized in creation, will become a stepping-stone
to the like conception in the case of that which
is next contemplated, and that again for the
next in order, and as a result of this inferential
process the error will extend to all things, as
the first deceit makes its way by coniiguous
cases even to the very last.

To show that I am not making a random
statement beyond what probability admits of, I
will cite as a credible testimony in favour of
my assertion the error which still prevails
among the heathen 3. Seeing that they, with
their untrained and narrow intelligence, were
disposed to look with wonder on the beauties
of nature, not employing the things they btheld
as a leader and guide to the beauty of the
Nature that transcends them, they rather made
their intelligence halt on arriving at the objects
of its apprehension, and marvelled at each part
of the creation severally — for this cause they
did not stay their conception of the Deity at
any single one of the things they beheld, but
deemed everything they looked on in creation
to be divine. And thus with the Egyptians, as
the error developed its force more in respect of
intellectual objects, the countless forms of spirit-
ual beings were reckoned to be so many natures
of Gods; while with the Babylonians the un-

< With the following passage may be compared the parallel ac-
counl in the Bunk ul \\ iscloin ch. xiii.).

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK V. 173

erring circuit of the firmament was accounted a
God, to whom they also gave the name of Bel.
So, too, the foolishness of the heathen deifying
individually the seven successive spheres, one
bowed down to one, another to another, ac-
cording to some individual form of error. For
as they perceived all these circles moving in
mutual relation, seeing that they had gone
astray as to the most exalted, they maintained
the same error by logical sequence, even to the
last of them. And in addition to these, the
aether itself, and the atmosphere diffused be-
neath it, the earth and sea and the subterranean
region, and in the earth itself all things which are
useful or needful for man's life, — of all these there
was none which they held to be without part or
lot in the Divine nature, but they bowed down to
each of them, bringing themselves, by means of
some one of the objects conspicuous in the crea-
tion, into bondage to all the successive parts of the
creation, in such a way that, had the act of reve-
rencing the creation been from the beginning
even to them a thing evidently unlawful, they
would not have been led astray into this deceit
of polytheism. Let us look to it, then, lest we
too share the same fate, — we who in being
taught by Scripture to reverence the true God-
head, were trained to consider all created ex-
istence as external to the Divine nature, and to
worship and revere that uncreated Nature alone,
Whose characteristic and token is that it never
either begins to be or ceases to be ; since the
great Isaiah thus speaks of the Divine nature
with reference to these doctrines, in his exalted
utterance, — who speaks in the person of the
Deity, " 1 am the first, and hereafter am I, and
no God was before Me, and no God shall be
after Me ♦." For knowing more perfectly than
all others the mystery of the religion of the
Gospel, this great prophet, who foretold even
that marvellous sign concerning the Virgin, and
gave us the good tidings 5 of the birth of the
Child, and clearly pointed out to us that Name
of the Son, — he, in a word, who by the Spirit
includes in himself all the truth, — in order that
the characteristic of the Divine Nature, whereby
we discern that which really is from that which
came into being, might be made as plain as
possible to all, utters this saying in the person
of God : " I am the first, and hereafter am I,
and before Me no God hath been, and after
Me is none." Since, then, neither is that God
which was before God, nor is that God which
is after God, (for that which is after God is the
creation, and that which is anterior to God is

4 Cf. Is. xli. 4, xliv. 6, xlviii. 12 (LXX.). If the whole passage is in-
tended to be a quotation, it is not made exactly from any one of
these ; the opening words are from the second passage referred to ;
and perhaps this is the only portion intended to be a quotation, the
second clause being explanatory ; the words of the second clause
are varied in the repetition immediately afterwards.

5 euayyeAi<Td|uei'OS.

nothing, and Nothing is not God ; — or one
should rather say, that which is anterior to God
is God in His eternal bLssedness, defined in
contradistinction to Nothing6); — since, I say,
this inspired utterance was spoken by the mouth
of the prophet, we learn by his means the doc-
trine that the Divine Nature is one, continuous
with Itself and indiscerptible, not admitting in
Itself priority and posteriority, though it be
declared in Trinity, and with no one of the
things we contemplate in it more ancient or
more recent than another. Since, then, the
saying is the saying of God, whether you grant
that the words are the words of the Father or
of the Son, the orthodox doctrine is equally
upheld by either. For if it is the Father that
speaks thus, He bears witness to the Son that
He is not "after" Himself: for if the Son is
God, and whatever is " after " the Father is not
God, it is clear that the saying bears witness to
the truth that the Son is in the Father, and not
after the Father. If, on the other hand, one
were to grant that this utterance is of the Son,
the phrase, " None hath been before Me," will
be a clear intimation that He Whom we con-
template " in the Beginning 7" is apprehended
together with the eternity of the Beginning. If,
then, anything is "after " God, this is discovered,
by the passages quoted, to be a creature, and
not God : for He says, " That which is after
Me is not God 8."

§ 2. He then explains the phrase of S. Peter \
'•'•Him God made Lord and Christ." And
herein he sets forth the opposing statement of
Eunomius, which he made on account of such
phrase against S. Basil, and his lurking
revilings and insults.

Now that we have had presented to us this
preliminary view of existences, it may be op-
portune to examine the passage before us. It
is said, then, by Peter to the Jews, " Him God
made Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye
crucified V' while on our part it is said that
it is not pious to refer the word " made " to
the Divine Nature of the Only-begotten, but
that it is to be referred to that " form of a ser-
vant V which came into being by the Incar-
nation 2, in the due time of His appearing in
the flesh ; and, on the other hand, those who
press the phrase the contrary way say that in
the word " made " the Apostle indicates the
pretemporal generation of the Son. We shal1,

6 ;rp6s oi/Sev opifofxeeos ; i.e. before the name of " God " could be
applied, as now, in contradistinction to creatio?i, it was applied in
contradistinction to nothing, and that distinction was in a sense the
definition of God. Or the words may be turned, as Gulomus turns
them, "nulla re determinatus," 'with no limitation" — the contra-
distinction to creation being regarded as a limitation by way of
definition. 7 S. John i. i.

B Taking the whole phrase to /ner' e'/n* 01/ as a loose quotation.

9 Acts ii. 36. " Phil. ii. 7. 2 oIkovo^lkox; yci/ojutciijv.

174

GREGORY OF NYSSA

therefore, set forth the passage in the midst,
and after a detailed examination of both the
suppositions, leave the judgment of the truth
to our reader. Of our adversaries' view Eu-
nomius himself may be a sufficient advocate,
for he contends gallantly on the matter, so that
in going through his argument word by word we
shall completely follow out the reasoning of
those who strive against us : and we ourselves
will act as champion of the doctrine on our side
as best we may, following so far as we are able
the line of the argument previously set forth by
the great Basil. But do you, who by your
reading act as judges in the cause, " execute
true judgment," as one of the prophets 3 says,
not awarding the victory to contentious pre-
conceptions, but to the truth as it is manifested
by examination. And now let the accuser of
our doctrines come forward, and read his in-
dictment, as in a court of law.

" In addition, moreover, to what we have
mentioned, by his refusal to take the word
' made ' as referring to the essence of the Son,
and withal by his being ashamed of the Cross,
he ascribes to the Apostles what no one even
of those who have done their best to speak ill
of them on the score of stupidity, lays to their
charge; and at the same time he clearly in-
troduces, by his doctrines and arguments, two
Christs and two Lords ; for he says that it was
not the Word Who was in the beginning Whom
God made Lord and Christ, but He Who ' em-
ptied Himself to take the form of a servant4,'
and ' was crucified through weakness V At all
events the great Basil writes expressly as fol-
lows 6 : — ' Nor, moreover, is it the intention of
the Apostle to present to us that existence of
the Only-begotten which was before the ages
(which is now the subject of our argument),
for he clearly speaks, not of the very essence
of God the Word, Who was in the beginning
with God, but of Him Who emptied Himself
to take the form of a servant, and became con-
formable to the body of our humiliation ?, and
was crucified through weakness.' And again,
' This is known to any one who even in a small
degree applies his mind to the meaning of the
Apostle's words, that he is not setting forth to
us the mode of the Divine existence, but is
introducing the terms which belong to the
Incarnation ; for he says, Him God made Lord
and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye crucified,
evidently laying stress by the demonstrative
word on that in Him which was human and
was seen by all V

" This, then, is what the man has to say who

h trii. 9. * Cf. Phil. ii. 7. 5 Cf. 2 Cor. xiii. 4.

' 1 dons are from S. Basil c. Eunomiusll. 3. (pp. 239-40

ID the Bi tine edition.)

^ Cf. Phil iii : ,

B The lattei part of the quotation from S. Basil does not exactly
agree with the Benedictine text, but the variations are not material.

substitutes, — for we may not speak of it as
' application,' lest any one should blame for such
madness men holy and chosen for the preaching
of godliness, so as to reproach their doctrine
with a fall into such extravagance, — who sub-
stitutes hrs own mind 9 for the intention of the
Apostles ! With what confusion are they not
filled, who refer their own nonsense to the
memory of the saints ! With what absurdity
do they not abound, who imagine that the man
'emptied himself to become man, and who
maintain that He Who by obedience ' humbled
himself to take the form of a servant was made
conformable to men even before He tot)k that
form upon Him ! Who, pray, ye most reckless
of men, when he has the form of a servant,
takes the form of a servant ? and how can any
one 'empty himself to become the very thing
which he is ? You will find no contrivance to
meet this, bold as you are in saying or thinking
things uncontrivable. Are you not verily of all
men most miserable, who suppose that a man
has suffered death for all men, and ascribe your
own redemption to him ? For if it is not of the
Word Who was in the beginning and was God
that the blessed Peter speaks, but of him who
was ' seen,' and who ' emptied Himself,' as
Basil says, and if the man who was seen ' emp-
tied Himself to take ' the form of a servant/
and He Who 'emptied Himself to take 'the
form of a servant,' emptied Himself to come
into being as man, then the man who was seen
emptied himself to come into being as man r.
The very nature of things is. repugnant to this ;
and it is expressly contradicted by that writer 2
who celebrates this dispensation in his discourse
concerning the Divine Nature, when he says
not that the man who was seen, but that the
Word Who was in the beginning and was God
took upon Him flesh, which is equivalent in
other words to taking ' the form of a servant.'
If, then, you hold that these things are to be
believed, depart from your error, and cease to
believe that the man ' emptied himself ' to be-
come man. And if you are not able to per-
suade those who will not be persuaded, destroy
their incredulity by another saying, a second de-

9 Reading eovrou for the iavriov of Oehler's text, for which nc
authority is alleged by the editor, and which is probably a mere
misprint.

* The argument here takes the form of a reductio ad absur-
dum ; assuming that S. Peter's reference is to the "visible man."
and bearing in mind S. Basil's words that S. Peter refers to Him
Who "emptied Himself," it is said " then it was the 'visible man'
who 'emptied him->elf.' But the purpose of that 'emptying' was
the ' taking the form of a servant, which again is the coming into
being as man: therefore the ' visible ma.' 'emptied himself, ' to
come into being as man, which is absurd." The wording of S Basil's
statement makes the argument in a certain degree plausible ; — if he
had said that S. Peier ieferred to the Son, not in regard to his actual
essence, but in regard to the fact that He "empt.ed Himself" to
become man, and as so having "emptied Himself" (which is no
doubt what he intended his words to mean), then the reductio ad
absitrdum would not apply ; nor would the later arguments, by
which h. immnis proceeds to prove that He Who " emptied Hun-

sell 'was icre man, but the Word Who was in the beginning,

have any (orci a: against S. Basil's statement. 2 S.John i. i sqq.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK V.

175

cision against them. Remember him who says,
« Who being in the form of God thought it not
robbery to be equal with God, but emptied
Himself, taking the form of a servant' There
is none among men who will appropriate this
phrase to himself. None of the saints that ever
lived was the Only-begotten God and became
man : — for that is what it means to ' take the
form of a servant,' ' being in the form of God.'
If, then, the blessed Peter speaks of Him Who
' emptied Himself ' to ' take the form of a
servant,' and if He Who was ' in the form of
God' did 'empty Himself to 'take the form
of a servant,' and if He Who in the beginning
was God, being the Word and the Only-begotten
God, is He Who was 'in the form of God,'
then the blessed Peter speaks to us of Him
Who was in the beginning and was God, and
expounds to us that it was He Who became
Lord and Christ. This, then, is the conflict
which Basil wages against himself, and he clearly
appears neither to have 'applied his own mind
to the intention of the Apostles', nor to be able
to preserve the sequence of his own arguments ;
for, according to them, he must, if he is conscious
of their irreconcilable character, admit that the
Word Who was in the beginning and was God
became Lord ; or if he tries to fit together
statements that are mutually conflicting, and
contentiously stands by them, he will add
to them others yet more hostile, and maintain
that there are two Christs and two Lords. For
if the Word that was in the beginning and was
God be one, and He Who ' emptied Himself '
and ■ took the form of a servant ' be another,
and if God the Word, by Whom are all things,
be Lord, and this Jesus, Who was crucified after
all things had come into being, be Lord also,
there are, according to his view, two Lords and
Christs. Our author, then, cannot by any argu-
ment clear himself from this manifest blasphemy.
But if any one were to say in support of him
that the Word Who was in the beginning is
indeed the same Who became Lord, but that
He became Lord and Christ in respect of His
presence in the flesh, He will surely be con-
strained to say that the Son was not Lord
before His presence in the flesh. At all events,
even if Basil and his faithless followers falsely
proclaim two Lords and two Christs, for us
there is one Lord and Christ, by Whom all
things were made, not becoming Lord by
way of promotion, but existing before all cre-
ation and before all ages, the Lord Jesus, by
Whom are all things, while all the saints with
one harmonious voice teach us this truth and
proclaim it as the most excellent of doctrines.
Here the blessed John teaches us that God the
Word, by Whom all things were made, has
become incarnate, saying, ' And the Word was

made flesh 3 ' ; here the most admirable Paul, urg-
ing those who attend to him to humility, speaks
of Christ Jesus, Who was in the form of God, and
emptied Himself to take the form of a servant,
and was humbled to death, even the death of
the Cross * ; and again in another passage calls
Him Who was crucified ' the Lord of Glory ' :
' for had they known it,' he says, ' they would
not have crucified the Lord of Glory ''. In-
deed, he speaks far more openly than this
of the very essential nature by the name of
' Lord,' where he says, 'Now the Lord is the
Spirit 6 '. If, then, the Word Who was in the
beginning, in that He is Spirit, is Lord, and the
Lord of glory, and if God made Him Lord and
Christ, it was the very Spirit and God the Word
that God so made, and not some other Lord
Whom Basil dreams about."

§ 3. A remarkable and original reply to these
utterances, and a demonstration of the power
of the Crucified, and of the fact that this sub-
jection was of the Human Nature, not of that
which the Only-begotten has from the Father.
Also an explanation of the figure of the Cross,
and of the appellation " Christ" and an ac-
count of the good gifts bestowed on the Human
Nature by the Godhead which was commingled
with it.

Well, such is his accusation. But I think it
necessary in the first place to go briefly, by way
of summary, over the points that he urges, and
then to proceed to correct by my argument
what he has said, that those who are judging
the truth may find it easy to remember the
indictment against us, which we have to answer,
and that we may be able to dispose of each of
the charges in regular order. He says that we
are ashamed of the Cross of Christ, and slander
the saints, and say that a man has " emptied
himself" to become man, and suppose that the
Lord had the " form of a servant " before His
presence by the Incarnation, and ascribe
our redemption to a man, and speak in our
doctrine of two Christs and two Lords, or, if we
do not do this, then we deny that the Only-
begotten was Lord and Christ before the Pas-
sion. So that we may avoid this blasphemy,
he will have us confess that the essence of the
Son has been made, on the ground that the
Apostle Peter by his own voice establishes such
a doctrine. This is the substance of the ac-
cusation ; for all that he has been at the trouble
of saying by way of abuse of ourselves, I will
pass by in silence, as being not at all to the
point. It may be that this rhetorical stroke
of phrases framed according to some artificial

3 S. John i. 14. * Cf. Phil. ii. 7. 8. 5 t Cor. ii. 8. 6 a Cor. iii. if.

176

GREGORY OF NYSSA

theory is the ordinary habit of those who play
the rhetorician, an invention to swell the bulk
of their indictment. Let our sophist then use
his art to display his insolence, and vaunt his
strength in reproaches against us, showing off
his strokes in the intervals of the contest ; let
him call us foolish, call us of all men most
reckless, of all men most miserable, full of con-
fusion and absurdity, and make light of us at
his good pleasure in any way he likes, and we
will bear it ; for to a reasonable man disgrace
lies, not in hearing one who abuses him, but in
making retort to what he says. There may
even be some good in his expenditure of breath
against us ; for it may be that while he occu-
pies his railing tongue in denouncing us he will
at all events make some truce in his conflict
against God. So let him take his fill of inso-
lence as he likes : none will reply to him. For
if a man has foul and loathsome breath, by
reason of bodily disorder, or of some pesti-
lential and malignant disease, he would not rouse
any healthy person to emulate his misfortune,
so that one should choose, by himself acquiring
disease, to repay, in the same evil kind, the
unpleasantness of the man's ill odour. Such
men our common nature bids us to pity, not to
imitate. And so let us pass by everything of
this kind which by mockery, indignation, provo-
cation, and abuse, he has assiduously mixed up
with his argument, and examine only his argu-
ments as they concern the doctrinal points at
issue. We shall begin again, then, from the
beginning, and meet each of his charges in turn.
The beginning of his accusation was that we
are ashamed of the Cross of Him Who for our
sakes underwent the Passion. Surely he does
not intend to charge against us also that we
preach the doctrine of dissimilarity in essence !
Why, it is rather to those who turn aside to this
opinion that the reproach belongs of going
about to make the Cross a shameful thing. For
if by both parties alike the dispensation of the
Passion is held as part of the faith, while we
hold it necessary to honour, even as the Father
is honoured, the God Who was manifested by
the Cross, and they find the Passion a hindrance
to glorifying the Only begotten God equally
with the Father that begat Him, then our
sophist's charges recoil upon himself, and in
the words with which he imagines himself to be
accusing us, he is publishing his own doctrinal
impiety. For it is plear that the reason why he
sjts the Father above the Son, and exalts Him
with supreme honour, is this, — that in Him is
not seen the shame of the Cross : and the reason
why he asseverates that the nature of the Son
varies in the sense of inferiority is this, — that
the reproach of the Cross is referred to Him
alone, and does not touch the Father. And let

no one think that in saying this I am only fol-
lowing the general drift of his composition, for
in going through all the blasphemy of his speech,
which is there laboriously brought together, I
found, in a passage later than that before us,
this very blasphemy clearly expressed in un-
disguised language ; and I propose to set forth,
in the orderly course of my own argument, what
they have written, which runs thus : — " If," he
says, " he can show that the God Who is over
all, Who is the unapproachable Light, was in-
carnate, or could be incarnate, came under
authority, obeyed commands, came under the
laws of men, bore the Cross, then let him say
that the Light is equal to t e Light." Who
then is it who is ashamed of the Cross ? he who,
even after the Passion, worships the Son equally
with the Father, or he who even before the
Passion insults Him, not only by ranking Him
with the creation, but by maintaining that He
is of passible nature, on the ground that He
could not have come to experience His suffer-
ings had He not had a nature capable of such
sufferings? We on our part assert that even
the body in which He underwent His Passion,
by being mingled with the Divine Nature, was
made by that commixture to be that which
the assuming 7 Nature is. So far are we from
entertaining any low idea concerning the Only-
begotten God, that if anything belonging to
our lowly nature was assumed in His dispens-
ation of love for man, we believe that even
this was transformed to what is Divine and in-
corruptible 8 ; but Eunomius makes the suffering
of the Cross to be a sign of divergence in essence,
in the sense of* inferiority, considering, I know
not how, the surpassing act of power, by which
He was able to perform this, to be an evidence
of weakness ; failing to perceive the fact that,
while nothing which moves according to its own
nature is looked upon as surpiisingly wonderful,
all things that overpass the limitations of their
own nature become especially the objects of
admiration, and to them every ear is turned,
every mind is attentive, in wonder at the marvel.
And hence it is that all who preach the word
point out the wonderful character of the mys-
tery in this respect, — that "God was manifesied
in the flesh 9," that '• the Word was made flesh 1,"
that "the Light shined in darkness 2," "the Life
tasted death," and all such declarations which
the heralds of the faith are wont to make,
whereby is increased the marvellous character

* Or " resuming." Cf. Bookll. § 8 (sup. p. 113, where see note 7',

8 With b. Gregory's language here may be compared th.it oi &.
Athanasius (Or. adv. Arian. iii. 53), " It was not the Wisdom, qui
Wisdom, that 'advanced' ; but the humanity in the Wisdom did
advance, gradually ascending above the human nature and being
made Divine (OeoTroioiifievov)."

9 1 Tim. iii. 16, where it would appear that Gregory read ftos
not os. ' S. John i. 14.

2 S. John i. 5 (not verbally).

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK V.

177

of Him Who manifested the superabundance of
His power by means external to his own nature.
But though they think fit to make this a subject
for their insolence, though they make the dis-
pensation of the Cross a reason for partitioning
off the Son from equality of glory with the
Father, we believe, as those " who from the
beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of
the word 3 " delivered to us by the Holy Scrip-
tures, that the God who was in the beginning,
" afterwards ", as Baruch says, " was seen upon
the earth, and conversed with men V' and, be-
coming a ransom for our death, loosed by His
own resurrection the bonds of death, and by
Himself made the resurrection a way for all
flesh 5, and being on the same throne and in
the same glory with His own Father, will in the
day of judgment give sentence upon those who
are judged, according to the desert of the lives
they have led. These are the things which we
believe concerning Him Who was crucified, and
for this cause we cease not to extol Him ex-
ceedingly, according to the measure of our
powers, that He Who by reason of His unspeak-
able and unapproachable greatness is not com-
prehensible by any, save by Himself and the
Father and the Holy Spirit, He, I say, was able
even to descend to community with our weak-
ness. But they adduce this proof of the Son's
alienation in nature from the Father, that the
Lord was manifested by the flesh and by the
Cross, arguing on the ground that the Father's
nature remained pure in impassibility, and could
not in any way admit of a community which
tended to passion, while the Son, by reason of the
diverg nee of His nature by way of humiliation,
was not incapable of being brought to experi-
ence the flesh and death, seeing that the change
of condition was not great, but one which took
place in a certain sense from one like state to
another state kindred and homogeneous, be-
cause the nature of man is created, and the
nature of the Only-begotten is created also.
Who then is fairly charged with being ashamed
of the Cross? he who speaks basely of it6, or
he who contends for its more exalted aspect?
I know not whether our accuser, who thus
abases the God Who was made known upon
the Cross, has heard the lofty speech of Paul, in
what terms and at what length he discourses
with his exalted lips concerning that Cross. For
he, who was able to make himself known by
miracles so many and so great, says, " God
forbid that I should glory in anything else, than
in the Cross of Christ ?." And to the Corinthians
he says that the word of the Cross is " the

3 S. Luke i. 2. 4 Bar. iii. 37.

5 See Note 2, p. 104, sup.

6 Reading aitrov (for which Oehler cites good MS. authority), for
iavTov (the reading of his text, as well as of the Paris editions).

1 Gal- vi. 14 (not verbally).

power of God to them that are in a state of
salvation 8." To the Ephesians, moreover, he
describes by the figure of the Cross the power
that controls and holds together the universe,
when he expresses a desire that they may be
exalted to know the exceeding glory of this
power, calling it height, and depth, and breadth,
and length 9, speaking of the several projections
we behold in the figure of the Cross by their
proper names, so that he calls the upper part
" height," and that which is below, on the opposite
side of the junction, " depth," while by the name
"length and breadth " he indicates the cross-beam
projecting to either side, that hereby might be
manifested this great mystery, that both things
in heaven, and. things under the earth, and all
the furthest bounds of the things that are, are
ruled and sustained by Him Who gave an ex-
ample of this unspeakable and mighty power in
the figure of the Cross. But I think there is no
need to contend further with such objections,
as I judge it superfluous to be anxious about
rrging arguments against calumny when even a
few words suffice to show the truth. Let us
therefore pass on to another charge.

He says that by us the saints are slandered.
Well, if he has heard it himself, let him tell us
the words of our defamation : if he thinks we
have uttered it to others, let him show the truth
of his charge by witnesses : if he demonstrates
it from what we have written, let him read the
words, and we will bear the blame. But he
cannot bring forward anything of the kind : our
writings are open for examination to any one
who desires it. If it was not said to himself,
and he has not heard it from others, and has
no proof to offer from our writings, I think he
who has to make answer on this point may well
hold his peace : silence is surely the fitting
answer to an unfounded charge.

The Apostle Peter says, " God made this
Jesus, Whom ye crucified, Lord and Christ \"
We, learning this from him, say that the whole
context of the passage tends one way, — the
Cross itself, the human name, the indicative
turn of the phrase. For the word of the Scrip-
ture says that in regard to one person two
things were wrought, — by the Jews, the Passion,
and by God, honour ; not as though one person
had suffered and another had been honoured
by exaltation : and he further explains this yet
more clearly by his words in what follows, " be-
ing exalted by the right hand of God." Who
then was " exalted " ? He that was lowly, or
He that was the Highest ? and what else is the
lowly, but the Humanity? what else is the
Highest, but the Divinity? Surely, God needs
not to be exalted, seeing that He is the Highest.
It follows, then, that the Apostle's meaning is

8 Cf. i Cor. i. 18.

9 Cf. Eph. iii. 1 8.

1 Acts ii. 36.

VOL. V.

1 73

GREGORY OF NYSSA

that the Humanity was exalted : and its exalt-
ation was effected by its becoming Lord and
Christ. And this took place after the Passion 2.
It is not therefore the pre-temporal existence of
the Lord which the Apostle indicates by the
word " made," but that change of the lowly to
the lofty which was effected "by the right hand
of God." Even by this phrase is declared the
mystery of godliness ; for he who says " exalted
by the right hand of God " manifestly reveals
the unspeakable dispensation of this mystery,
that the Right Hand of God, that made all
things that are, (which is the Lord, by Whom
all things were made, and without Whom
nothing that is subsists,) Itself raised to Its
own height the Man united with It, making
Him also to be what It is by nature. Now It
is Lord and King : Christ is the King's name :
these things It made Him too. For as He was
highly exalted by being in the Highest, so too
He became all else, — Immortal in the Immortal,
Light in the Light, Incorruptible in the Incor-
ruptible, Invisible in the Invisible, Christ in the
Christ, Lord in the Lord. For even in physical
combinations, when one of the combined parts
exceeds the other in a great degree, the inferior
is wont to change completely to that which is
more potent. And this we are plainly taught by
the voice of the Apostle Peter in his mystic dis-
course, that the lowly nature of Him Who was
crucified through weakness, (and weakness, as
we have heard from the Lord, marks the flesh 3,)
that lowly nature, I say, by virtue of its combin-
ation with the infinite and boundless element of
good, remained no longer in its own measures
and properties, but was by the Right Hand of
God raised up together with Itself, and became
Lord instead of servant, Christ a King instead
of a subject, Highest instead of Lowly, God
instead of man. What handle then against the
saints did he who pretends to give warning
against us in defence of the Apostles find in the
material of our writings ? Let us pass over this
charge also in silence ; for I think it a mean
and unworthy thing to stand up against charges
that are false and unfounded. Let us pass on
to the more pressing part of his accusation.

§ 4. He shows the falsehood of Eunomius'
calumnious charge that the great Basil had
said that " man was emptied to become man,1'
and demonstrates that the " emptying " of the

* It can hardly be supposed that it is intended by S. Gregory
that we should understand that, during the years of His life on earth,
our lord's Humanity was not so united with His Divinity that " the
visible man ' was ihen both Lord and Christ. He probably refers
more especially to the manifestation of His Messiahship afforded by
the Resurrection and Ascension ; but he also undoubtedly dwells
on the exaltation of the Human Nature after the Passion in terms
winch wool. 1 perhaps imply more than he intended to convey. His
language on this point may be compared with the more guarded and
caieftil statement of Hooker. (Eccl. Pol. V. lv 8.) The point of
his irgiiment i* tha S. Peter's words apply to the Human N.mire,
not io the Divine 3 Cf. S Mark xiv. ji

Only-begotten took place with a view to the
restoration to life of the Man Who had
suffered^.

He assorts that we say that man has emptied
Himself to become man, and that He Who by
obedience humbled Himself to the form of the
servant shared the form of men even before He
took that form. No change has been made in
the wording; we have simply transferred the
very words from his speech to our own. Now
if there is anything of this sort in our writings,
(for I call my master's writings ours) let no one
blame our orator for calumny. I ask for all
regard for the truth : and we ourselves will give
evidence. But if there is nothing of all this in
our writings, while his language not merely lays
blame upon us, but is indignant and wrathful as
if the matter were clearly proved, calling us full
of absurdity, nonsense, confusion, inconsistency,
and so on, I am at a loss to see the right course
to take. Just as men who are perplexed at the
groundless ra^es of madmen can decide upon
no plan to follow, so I myself can find no device
to meet this perplexity. Our master says (for
I will again recite his argument verbally), " He
is not setting forth to us the mode of the
Divine existence, but the terms which belong
to the Incarnation." Our accuser starts from
this point, and says that we maintain that man
emptied Himself to become man ! What com-
munity is there between one statement and the
other ? If we say that the Apostle has not
set forth to us the mode of the Divine exist-
ence, but points by his phrase to the dispens-
ation of the Passion, we are on this ground
charged with speaking of the " emptying " of
man to become man, and with saying that the
" form of the servant " had pretemporal exist-
ence, and that the Man Who was born of Mary
existed before the coming in the flesh ! Well,
I think it superfluous to spend time in discussing
what is admitted, seeing that truth itself frees
us from the cl arge. In a case, indeed, where
one may have given the calumniators some
handle against oneself, it is proper to resist
accusers : but where there is no danger of being
suspected of some absurd charge, the accus-
ation becomes a proof, not of the false charge
made against him who is calumniated, but ot the
madness of the accuser. As, however, in deal-
ing with the charge of being ashamed of the
Cross, we showed by our examination that the
charge recoiled upon the acciser, so we shall
show how this charge too returns upon those
who make it, since it is they, and not we, who
lay down the doctrine of the change of the Son
from like to like in the dispensation of the

* This seems to be the sense of the Greek title. Ttie Latin
version of the earlier editions appears to represent a different reading,
' contigisse, quando in pa^sione homo Christus passus est"

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK V.

179

Passion. We will examine briefly, bringing
them side by side, the statements of each party.
We say that the Only-begotten God, having by
His own agency brought all things into being,
by Himself s has full power over all things,
while the nature of man is also one of the things
that were made by Him : and that when this
had fallen away to evil, and come to be in the
destruction of death, He by His own agency
drew it up once more to immortal life, by means
of the Man in whom He tabernacled, taking to
Himself humanity in completeness, and that
He mingled His life-giving power with our
mortal and perishable nature, and changed, by
the combination with Himself, our deadness to
living grace and power. And this we declare
to be the mystery of the Lord according to the
flesh, that He Who is immutable came to be in
that which is mutable, to the end that altering
it for the better, and changing it from the worse,
He might abolish the evil which is mingled
with our mutable condition, destroying the evil
in Himself. For "our God is a consuming
fire 6," by whom all the material of wickedness
is done away. This is our statement. What
does our accuser say? Not that He Who wa-
immutable and uncreated was mingled with
that which came into being by creation, and
which had therefore suffered a change in the
direction of evil ; but he does say that He,
being Himself created, came to that which was
kindred and homogeneous with Himself, not
coming from a transcendent nature to put on
the lowlier nature by reason of His love to man,
but becoming that very thing which He was.

For as regards the general character of the
appellation, the name of "creature" is one, as
predicated of all things that have come into
being from nothing, while the divisions into
sections of the things which we contemplate as
included in the term " creature ", are separated
one from the other by the variation of their
pioperties: so that if He is created, and man
is created, He was " emptied," to use Euno-
mius' phrase, to become Himself, and changed
His place, not from the transcendent to the
lowly, but from what is similar in kind to what
(save in regard of the special character of
body and the incorporeal) is similar in dignity.
To whom now will the just vote of those who
have to try our cause be given, or who will
seem to them to be under the weight of these
charges? he who says that the created was
saved by the uncreated God, or he who refers
the cause of our salvation to the creature ?
Surely the judgment of pious men is not doubt-
ful. For any one who knows clearly the dif-

5 This seems to be the force of aiii-cu ; olutoi/ might give a simpler
Construction, but the sense would not be changed. Oehler, who here
restore^ some words which were omitted in the earlier edition-., makes
no mention of any variation of reading. 6 Heb. xii. 29.

ference which there is between the created and
the uncreated, (terms of which the divergence
is marked by dominion and slavery, since the
uncreated God, as the prophet says, "ruleth
with His power for ever i" while all things in
the creation are servants to Him, according to
the voice of the same prophet, which says " all
things serve Thee8,") he, I say, who carefully
considers these matters, surely cannot fail to
recognize the person who makes the Only-
begotten change from servitude to servitude.
For if, according to Paul, the whole creation " is
in bondage °," and if, according to Eunomius,
the essential nature of the Only-begotten is
created, our adversaries maintain, surely, by
their doctrines, not that the master was mingled
vvi'h the servant, but that a servant came to be
among servants. As for our saying that the
Lord was in the form o. a servant before His
piesence in the flesh, that is just like charging
us with saying that the stars are black and the
sun misty, and the sky low, and water dry,
and so on : — a man who does not maintain
a charge on the ground of what he has
heard, but makes up what seems good to him
at his own sweet will, need not be sparing
in making against us such charges as these.
It is just the same thing for us to be called to
account for the one set of charges as for the
other, so far as concerns the fact that they have
no b.sis for them in anything that we have said.
How could one who says distinctly that the
true Son was in the glory of the Father, in-
sult the eternal glory of the Only-begotten by
conceiving it to have been " in the form of a
servant"? When our author thinks proper to
speak evil of us, and at the same time takes
care to present his case with some appearance
of truth, it may perhaps not be superfluous or
useless to rebut his unfounded accusations.

§ 5. Thereafter he shows that there are not hvo
Christs or two Lords, but one Christ and one
Lord, and that the Divine nature, after m:'ngli>rg
7viih the Human, preserved the properties of
each nature without confusion, and dec/ares
that the operations are, by reason of the union,
predicated of the two natures in common, in the
sense that the Lord took upon Himself the suffer-
ings of the servant, and the Hum a ';ity is glorified
with Him in tlie honour that is the Lord's, and
that by the paiver of the Divine Nature that is
commingled with Lt, the Human Nature is
made anew, conformably with that Divine
Nature Itself

His next charge too has its own absurdity of
the same sort. For he reproaches us with say-
ing that there are " two Christs," and " two
Lords," without being able to make ?ood his

J Ps. lxvi. 6. (LXX.)

8 Ps. cxix. 91. ? (^f. Rom. viii. zt

N 2

i So

GREGORY OF NYSSA

charge from our words, but employing falsehood
at discretion to suit his fancy. Since, then, he
deems it within his power to say what he likes,
why does he utter his falsehood with such care
about detail, and maintain that we speak but of
two Christs? Let him say, if he likes, that we
preach ten Christs, or ten times ten, or extend
the number to a thousand, that he may handle
his calumny more vigorously. For blasphemy
is equally involved in the doctrine of two
Christs, and in that of more, and the character
of the two charges is also equally devoid of
proof. When he shows, then, that we do speak
of two Christs, let him have a verdict against
us, as much as though he had given proof of
ten thousand. But he says that he convicts us
by our own statements. Well, let us look once
more at those words of our master by means of
which he thinks to raise his charges against us.
He says "he" (he, that is, who says "Him
God made Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom
ye crucified ") " is not setting forth to us the
mode of the Divine existence, but the terms
which belong to the Incarnation . . . laying
stress by the demonstrative word on that in
Him which was human and was seen by all."
This is what he wrote. But whence has Euno-
mius managed by these words to bring on the
stage his " two Christs " ? Does saying that the
demonstrative word lays stress on that which is
visible, convey the proof of maintaining " two
Christs " ? Ought we (to avoid being charged
with speaking of " two Highests ") to deny
the fact that by Him the Lord was highly
exalted after His Passion ? seeing that God the
Word, Who was in the beginning, was Highest,
and was also highly exalted after His Passion,
when He rose from the dead, as the Apostle
says. We must of necessity choose one of two
courses — either say that He was highly exalted
after the Passion (which is just the same as
saying that Hj was made Lord and Christ),
and be impeached by Eunomius, or, if we avoid
the accusation, deny the confession of the high
exaltation of Him Who suffered.

Now at this point it seems right to put for-
ward once more our accuser's statement in
support of our own defence. We shall there-
for repeat word for word the statement laid
down by him, which supports our argument,
as follows: — "The blessed John," he says,
" teaches us that God the Word, by Whom all
things were made, has become incarnate, saying
'And the Word was made flesh.'" Does he
understand what he is writing when he adds
this to his own argument ? I can hardly myself
think that the same man can at once be aware
of the meaning of these words and contend
against our statement. For if any one examines
the words cart-fully, he will find that there is no

mutual conflict between what is said by us and
what is said by him. For we both consider the
dispensation in the flesh apart, and regard the
Divine power in itself: and he, in like manner
with ourselves, says that the Word that was in
the beginning has been manifested in the flesh :
yet no one ever charged him, nor does he charge
himself, with preaching "two Words", Him
Who was in the beginning, and Him Who was
made flesh ; for he knows, surely, that the
Word is identical with the Word, He who
appeared in the flesh with Him Who was with
God. But the flesh was not identical with the
Godhead, till this too was transformed to the
Godhead, so that of necessity one set of attributes
befits God the Word, and a different set of attri-
butes befits the " form of the servant I." If, then,
in view of such a confession, he does not re-
proach himself with the dualitv of Words, why-
are we falsely charged with dividing the object
of our faith into "two Christs"? — we, who say
that He Who was highly exalted after His
Passion, was made Lord and Christ by His
union 2 with Him Who is verily Lord and
Christ, knowing by what we have learnt that
the Divine Nature is always one and the same,
and with the same mode of existence, while the
flesh in itself is that which reason and sense
apprehend concerning it, but when mixed 3 with
the Divine no longer remains in its own limit-
ations and properties, but is taken up to that
which is overwhelming and transcendent. Our
contemplation, however, of the respective pro-
perties of the flesh and of the Godhead remains
free from confusion, so long as each of these is
contemplated by itself4, as, for example, "the
Word was before the ages, but the flesh came
into being in the last times " : but one could not
reverse this statement, and say that the latter is
pretemporal, or that the Word has come into
being in the last times. The flesh is of a
passible, the Word of an operative nature : and
neither is the flesh capable of making the things
that are, nor is the power possessed by the
Godhead capable of suffering. The Word was

1 This statement would seem to imply that, at some time after
the Incarnation, the Humanity of Christ was transformed to the
Divine Nature, and made identical with It. From other passages
in what has preceded, it would seem that this change in the mutual
relation of the two Natures might, according to the words of S.
Gregory, be conceived as taking place after the Passion. Thus it
might be said that S. Gregory conceived the union of the two-
Natures to be, 'since the Passion (or, more strictly, since the
"exaltation'), what the Monophysites conceived it to be from the
moment of the Incarnation. But other phrases, again, seem to
show that he conceived the two Natures still to remain distinct
(see note 4 inf.). There is, however, ample justification in S.
Gregory's language for the remark of Bp. Hefele, that S. Gregory
not entirely free himself from the notion of a transmutation
of the Human Nature into the Divine." (Hefele, Hist, of the
Councils, Eng. Trans, vol. iii. p. 4.)

* < 1 screws. 3 avaucpaQila'a 7rpbs to Btlov.

4 Here S. Gregory seems to state accurately the differentiation
of the two Natures, while he recognizes the possibility of'the com-
municatio idiomatum : but it is not clear that he would acknow-
ledge that the two Natures still remain distinct. Even this, how-
•jeins to be implied in his citation of Phil. ii. 11, at a later
point.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK V.

181

in the beginning with God, the man was subject
to the trial of death ; and neither was the Human
Nature from everlasting, nor the Divine Nature
mortal : and all the rest of the attributes are
contemplated in the same way. It is not the
Human Nature that raises up Lazarus, nor is it
the power that cannot suffer that weeps for him
when he lies in the grave : the tear proceeds
from the Man, the life from the true Life. It
is not the Human Nature that feeds the thou-
sands, nor is it omnipotent might that hastens
to the fig-tree. Who is it that is weary with
the journey, and Who is it that by His word
made all the world subsist ? What is the
brightness of the glory, and what is that that
was pierced with the nails ? What form is it
that is buffeted in the Passion, and what form
is it that is glorified from everlasting ? So much
as this is clear, (even if one does not follow the
argument into detail,) that the blows belong to
the servant in whom the Lord was, the honours
to the Lord Whom the servant compassed
about, so that by reason of contact and the
union of Natures the proper attributes of each
belong to both 5, as the Lord receives the stripes
of the servant, while the servant is glorified with
the honour of the Lord ; for this is why the
Cross is said to be the Cross of the Lord of
glory 6, and why every tongue confesses that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father ?.

But if we are to discuss the other points in
the same way, let us consider what it is that
dies, and what it is that destroys death ; what it
is -that is renewed, and what it is that empties
itself. The Godhead "empties" Itself that It
may come within the capacity of the Human
Nature, and the Human Nature is renewed by
becoming Divine through its commixture 8 with
the Divine. For as air is not retained in water
when it is dragged down by some weighty body
and left in the depth of the water, but rises quickly
to its kindred element, while the water is often
raised up together with the air in its upward
rush, being moulded by the circle of air into a
convex shape with a slight and membrane-like
surface, so too, when the true Life that underlay
the flesh sped up, after the Passion, to Itself,
the flesh also was raised up with It, being forced
upwards from corruption to incorruptibility by
the Divine immortality. And as fire that lies
in wood hidden below the surface is often un-
observed by the senses of those who see, or
even touch it, but is manifest when it blazes up,

5 Here is truly stated the ground of the communicatin idio-
matum : while the illustrations following seem to show that S.
Gregory recognized this communicatio as existing at the time of
our Lord's humiliation, and as continuing to exist after His "exalt-
ation"; that he acknowledged, that is, the union of the two
Natures before the "exaltation," and the distinction of the two
Natures alter that event 6 i Cor ii. Z.

7 Phiu "

u.'iuvadlurf

so too, at His death (which He brought about
at His will, Who separated His soul from His
Body, Who said to His own Father " Into Thy
hands I commend My Spirit V Who, as He
says, " had power to lay it down and had power
to take it again1"), He Who, because He is
the Lord of glory, despised that which is shame
among men, having concealed, as it were, the
flame of His life in His bodily Nature, by the
dispensation of His death 2, kindled and in-
flamed it once more by the power of His own
Godhead, fostering into life that which had been
brought to death, having infused with the in-
finity of His Divine power that humble first-
fruits of our nature, made it also to be that
which He Himself was — making the servile
form to be Lord, and the Man born of Mary to
be Christ, and Him Who was crucified through
weakness to be Life and power, and making all
that is piously conceived to be in God the Word
to be also in that which the Word assumed, so
that these attributes no longer seem to be in
either Nature by way of division, but that the
perishable Nature being, by its commixture with
the Divine, made anew in conformity with the
Nature that overwhelms it, participates in the
power of the Godhead, as if one were to say
that mixture makes a drop of vinegar mingled
in the deep to be sea, by reason that the natural
quality of this liquid does not continue in the
infinity of that which overwhelms it 3. This is
our doctrine, which does not, as Eunomius
charges against it, preach a plurality of Christs,
but the union of the Man with the Divinity,
and which calls by the name of "making " the
transmutation of the Mortal to the Immortal,' of
the Servant to the Lord, of Sin 4 to Righteous-
ness, of the Curse 5 to the Blessing, of the Man
to Christ. What further have our slanderers
left to say, to show that we preach "two
Christs " in our doctrine, if we refuse to say
that He Who was in the beginning from the
Father uncreatedly Lord, and Christ, and the
Word, and God, was " made," and declare that
the blessed Peter was pointing briefly and in-
cidentally to the mystery of the Incarnation,
according to the meaning now explained, that
the Nature which was crucified through weak-
ness has Itself also, as we have said, become,
by the overwhelming power of Him Who dwells
in It, that' which the Indweller Himself is in
fact and in name, even Christ and Lord ?

9 S. Luke xxiii. 46. * S. John x. 18.

2 Altering Oehler's punctuation, which would connect ev rrj Kara.
tov OdvaTov oiKovoiAia, not with (rvyKa\viptx<;, but with ai/Tji/ze.

3 Here may be observed at once a conformity to the phraseology
of the Monophysites (bearing in mind that S. Gregory is not
speaking, as they were, of the union of the two Natures in the Incar-
nation, but of the change wrought by the " exaltation "), and a
suggestion that the Natures still remain distinct, as otherwise it
would be idle to speak of the Human Nature as participating in
the power of the Divine.

4 Cf. 2 Cor. v. 21 * Cf. Gal. iii. 13.

BOOK VI.

$ I. The sixth book shows that He Who came
for man's salvation was not a mere man, as
Eunomius, falsely slandering him, affirmed
that the great Basil had said, but the Only-
begotten Son of God, putting on human flesh,
and becoming a mediator between God and
man, on Whom we believe, as subject to suffer-
ing in the flesh, but impassible in His Godhead ;
and demonstrates the calumny of Eunomius.

But I perceive that while the necessities of
the subject compelled me to follow this line of
thought, I have lingered too long over this
passage *. I must now resume the train of his
complaints, that we may pass by none of the
charges brought against us without an answer.
And first I propose that we should examine this
point, that he charges us with asserting that an
ordinary man has wrought the salvation of the
world. For although this point has been to
some extent already cleared up by the investi-
gations we have made, we shall yet briefly deal
with it once more, that the mind of those who
are acting as our judges on this slanderous
accusation may be entirely freed from mis-
apprehension. So far are we from referring to
an ordinary man the cause of this great and
unspeakable grace, that even if any should refer
so great a boon to Peter and Paul, or to an
angel from heaven, we should say with Paul,
"let him be anathema2." For Paul was not
crucified for us, nor were we baptized into a
human name 3. Surely the doctrine which our
adversaries oppose to the truth is not thereby
strengthened when we confess that the saving
power of Christ is more potent than human
nature * : — yet it may seem to be so, for their
aim is to maintain at all points the difference
of the essence of the Son from that of the
Father, and they strive to show the dissimilarity
of essence not only by the contrast of the
Generated with the Ungenerate, but also by the
opposition of the passible to the impassible.

1 The passage in S. Peter's speech (Acts ii. 36) discussed in the
preceding book. * (Jf. Gal. 1. 8, 9. 3 1 Cor. i. 13.

4 The sei'se of this passage is rather obscure. S. Gregory in-
tends, it wi.nl 1 seem, to point out that, although an acknowledgment
thai lie Christ wa.< more than man m.iy seem at first sight

to uppnn the Kunomian view of the passibility of the Godhead of
the Son, tins is mil its necessary effect. Apparently either ov fA7|i>
must be taken as equivalent to ov fi'rfv aAAa, i>r a clause such as
thnl expressed in the translation must be supplied before TOW ixev
yap k.t.A.

And while this is more openly maintained in
the last part of their argument, it is also clearly
shown in their present discourse5. For if he
finds fault with those who refer the Passion to
the Human Nature, his intention is certainly to
subject to the Passion the Godhead Itself. For
our conception being twofold, and admitting of
two developments, accordingly as the Divinity
or the Humanity is held to have been in a
condition of suffering, an attack on one of these
views is clearly a maintaining of the other.
Accordingly, if they find fault with those who
look upon the Passion as concerning the Man,
they will clearly approve those who say that the
Godhead of the Son was subject to passion,
and the position which these last maintain be-
comes an argument in favour of their own
absurd doctrine. For if, according to their
statement, the Godhead of the Son suffers,
while that of the Father is preserved in absolute
impassibility, then the impassible Nature is
essentially different from that which admits
passion. Seeing, therefore, that the dictum
before us, though, so far as it is limited by
number of words, it is a short one, yet affords
principles and hypotheses for every kind of
doctrinal pravity, it would seem right that our
readers should require in our reply not so much
brevity as soundness. We, then, neither attri-
bute our own salvation to a man, nor admit
that the incorruptible and Divine Nature is
capable of suffering and mortality : but since
we must assuredly believe the Divine utterances
which declare to us that the Word that was in
the beginning was God 6, and that afterward the
Word made flesh was seen upon the earth and
conversed with men 7, we admit in our creed
those conceptions which are consonant with the
Divine utterance. For when we hear that He
is Light, and Power, and Righteousness, and
Life, and Truth, and that by Him all things
were made, we account all these and such-like
statements as things to be believed, referring
them to God the Word : but when we hear of
pain, of slumber, of need, of trouble, of bonds,
of nails, of the spear, of blood, of wounds, of
burial, of the sepulchre, and all else of this
kind, even' if they are somewhat opposed to

5 Altering Oehler's punctuation, which here follows that of the
earlier editions. ° Of. S. John i. I. 7 Cf Bar. iii. 37.

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK VI. 183

what has previously been stated, we none the
less admit them to be things to be believed, and
true, having regard to the flesh, which we receive
by faith as conjoined with the Word. For as
it is not possible to contemplate the peculiar
attributes of the flesh as existing in the Word that
was in the beginning, so also on the other hand
we may not conceive those which are proper to
the Godhead as existing in the nature of the flesh.
As, therefore, the teaching of the Gospel con-
cerning our Lord is mingled, partly of lofty and
Divine ideas, partly of those which are lowly
and human, we assign every particular phrase
accordingly to one or other of these Natures
which we conceive in the mystery, that which
is human to the Humanity, that which is lofty
to the Godhead, and say that, as God, the Son
is certainly impassible and incapable of corrup-
tion : and whatever suffering is asserted con-
cerning Him in the Gospel, He assuredly
wrought by means of His Human Nature which
admitted of such suffering. For verily the God-
head works the salvation of the world by means
of that body which encompassed It, in such
wise that the suffering was of the body, but the
operation was of God ; and even if some wrest
to the support of the opposite doctrine the
words of the Apostle, "God spared not His
own Son8," and, "God sent His own Son 9,"
and other similar phrases which seem to refer,
in the matter of the Passion, to the Divine
Nature, and not to the Humanity, we shall
none the less refuse to abandon sound doctrine,
seeing that Paul himself declares to us more
clearly the mystery of this subject. For he
everywhere attributes to the Human element in
Christ the dispensation of the Passion, when he
says, "for since by man came death, by man
came also the resurrection of the dead V and,
" God, sending His own Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh 9 " (for
he says, "in the flesh, "not "in the Godhead") ;
and " He was crucified through weakness "
(where by "weakness" he means "the flesh"),
" yet liveth by power 2 " (while he indicates by
" power " the Divine Nature) ; and, " He died
unto sin" (that is, with regard to the body),
" but liveth unto God 3 " (that is, with regard to
the Godhead, so that by these words it is estab-
lished that, while the Man tasted death, the
immortal Nature did not admit the suffering of
death) ; and again, " He made Him to be sin
for us, Who knew no sin *," giving once more
the name of " sin " to the flesh.

§ 2. Then he again mentions S. Peter's word,
" made" and the passage in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, which says that Jesus was made by

8 Ron

32-

a Cor. xui. 4.

9 Cf. Rom. viii. 3.
3 Rom. vi. 10.

1 Cor. xv. 21.
3 Cor. v. 31.

God "an Apostle and High Priest" : and,
after giving a sufficient answer to the charges
brought against him by Eunomius, shows that
Eunomius himself supports Basil's argumen's,
and says that the Only-begotten Son, when He
had put on the flesh, became Lord.

And although we make these remarks in
passing, the parenthetic addition seems, perhaps,
not less important than the main question before
us. For since, when St. Peter says, " He made
Him Lord and Christ 5," and again, when the
Apostle Paul says to the Hebrews that He
made Him a priest 6, Eunomius catches at the
word " made " as being applicable to His pre-
temporal existence, and thinks thereby to estab-
lish his doctrine that the Lord is a thing made ?,
let him now listen to Paul when he says, " Fie
made Him to be sin for us, Who knew not
sin V If he refers the word "made," which is
used of the Lord in the passages from the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and from the words of
Peter, to the pretemporal idea, he might fairly
refer the word in that passage which says that
God made Him to be sin, to the first existence
of His essence, and try to show by this, as in
the case of his other testimonies, that he was
"made", so as to refer the word "made" to
the essence, acting consistently with himself, and
to discern sin in that essence. But if he shrinks
from this by reason of its manifest absurdity,
and argues that, by saying, " He made Him to
be sin," the Apostle indicates the dispensation
of the last times, let him persuade himself by
the same train of reasoning that the word
" made " refers to that dispensation in the other
passages also.

Let us, however, return to the point from
which we digressed ; for we might gather to-
gether from the same Scripture countless other
passages, besides those quoted, which bear upon
the matter. And let no one think that the
divine Apostle is divided against himself in con-
tradiction, and affords by his own utterances
matter for their contentions on either side to
those who dispute upon the doctrines. For
careful examination would find that his argu-
ment is accurately directed to one aim ; and
he is not halting in his opinions : for while
he everywhere proclaims the combination of
the Human with the Divine, he none the less
discerns in each its proper nature, in the sense
that while the human weakness is changed for
the better by its communion with the imperish-
able, the Divine power, on the other hand, is
not abased by its contact with the lowly form of
nature. When therefore he says, " He spared
not His own Son," he contrasts the true Son
with the other sons, begotten, or exalted, or

5 Acts ii. 36.

7 Altering Oehler's punctuation.

* Cf. Heb. v. 5.

1 84

GREGORY OF NYSSA

adopted 8 (those, I mean, who were brought
into being at His command), marking the
specialty of nature by the addition of '■'■own."
And, to the end that no one should connect the
suffering of the Cross with the imperishable
nature, he gives in other words a fairly distinct
correction of such an error, when he calls Him
" mediator between God and menV and "manV
and "God V' that, from the fact that both are
predicated of the one Being, the fit conception
might be entertained concerning each Nature,
— concerning the Divine Nature, impassibility,
concerning the Human Nature, the dispensation
of the Passion. As his thought, then, divides
that which in love to man was made one, but is
distinguished in idea, he uses, when he is pro-
claiming that nature which transcends and
surpasses all intelligence, the more exalted
order of names, calling Him "God over all 2,"
"the great Gods," "the power" of God, and
" the wisdom " of God4, and the like ; but when
he is alluding to all that experience of suffering
which, by reason of our weakness, was neces-
sarily assumed with our nature, he gives to the
union of the Natures 5 that name which is de-
rived from ours, and calls Him Man, not by
this word placing Him Whom he is setting forth
to us on a common level with the rest of nature,
but so that orthodoxy is protected as regards
each Nature, in the sense that the Human
Nature is glorified by His assumption of it, and
the Divine is not polluted by Its condescension,
but makes the Human element subject to suffer-
ings, while working, through Its Divine power,
the resurrection of that which suffered. And
thus the experience of death is not 6 referred
to Him Who had communion in our passible
nature by reason of the union with Him of the
Man, while at the same time the exalted and
Divine names descend to the Man, so that He
Who was manifested upon the Cross is called
even "the Lord of glory 7," since the majesty
implied in these names is transmitted from the
Divine to the Human by the commixture of
Its Nature with that Nature which is lowly.
For this cause he describes Him in varied and
different language, at one time as Him Who
came down from heaven, at another time as
Him Who was born of woman, as God from
eternity, and Man in the last days ; thus too the

8 Reading, as Gulonius seems to have done, and according to
Oehler's suggestion (which he does not himself follow), vio0iTr)9fiji
for a#eTr)<Ta<7i. In the latter reading the MSS. seem to agree, but
Ihc sense is doubtful. It may be rendered, perhaps, "Who were
begotten and exalted, and who rejected Him." The quotation from
S. Paul is from Rom. viii. 32. 9 1 Tim. ii. 5.

1 The reference is perhaps to 1 Tim iii. 16, but more probably
to t Tim. ii. 5. 2 Rom ix 5.

3 Tit. ii, 13. * 1 Cor. i 24. 5 Tb <rvva^(j>6Tfpov

b Reading o"Te, in favour of which apparently lies the weight of
MSS. I'he reading of the Paris edit inn gives an easier connection,
bin I itly no Mv authority. The distinction S. Gri

draws is ilns ;— ■• you may nol say ' Goddied,' for human weakness
not attach to the Divine Nature . you may say ' He who died is
the Lord •>! glory,' for the Human Nature is actually made partaker
of the power and majesty ol the Divine." 7 1 Cor. ii. 8.

Only-begotten God is held to be impassible, and
Christ to be capable of suffering ; nor does his
discourse speak falsely in these opposing state-
ments, as it adapts in its conceptions to each
Nature the terms that belong to it. If then
these are the doctrines which we have learnt
from inspired teaching, how do we refer the
cause of our salvation to an ordinary man ? and
if we declare the word " made " employed by
the blessed Peter to have regard not to the pre-
temporal existence, but to the new dispensation
of the Incarnation, what has this to do with the
charge against us? For this great Apostle says
that that which was seen in the form of the
servant has been made, by being assumed, to
be that which He Who assumed it was in His
own Nature. Moreover, in the Epistl" to the
Hebrews we may learn the same tru^i from
Paul, when he says that Jesus was made an
Apostle and High Priest by God, " being faith-
ful to him that made Him so 8." For in that
passage too, in giving the name of High Priest
to Him Who made with His own Blood the
priestly propitiation for our sins, he does not by
the word " made " declare the first existence of
the Only-begotten, but says " made " with the
intention of representing that grace which is
commonly spoken of in connection with the
appointment of priests. For Jesus, the great
High Priest (as Zechariah says 9), Who offered
up his own lamb, that is, His own Body, for the
sin of the world ; Who, by reason of the children
that are partakers of flesh and blood, Himself
also in like manner took part with them in
blood ' (not in that He was in the beginning,
being the Word and God, and being in the form
of God, and equal with God, but in that He
emptied Himself in the form of the servant, and
offered an oblation and sacrifice for us), He, I
say, became a High Priest many generations
later, after the order of Melchisedech 2. Surely
a reader who has more than a casual acquaint-
ance with the discourse to the Hebrews knows
the mystery of this matter. As, then, in that
passage He is said to have been made Priest
and Apostle, so here He is said to have been
made Lord and Christ, — the latter for the dis-
pensation on our behalf, the former by the
change and transformation of the Human to the
Divine (for by "making" the Apostle means
" making anew "). Thus is manifest the knavery
of our adversaries, who insolently wrest the
words referring to the dispensation to apply
them to the pretemporal existence. For we
learn from the Apostle not to know Christ in
the same manner now as before, as Paul thus
speaks, "Yea, though we have known Christ
after the flesh, yet now know we Him no more3,"
in the sense that the one knowledge manifests

» Cf. Heb. iii. i, 2. 9 Cf. Zech. iii. 1.

1 Cf. Heb. ii. 14. 2 Cf. Heb. vii. 21. 3 2 Cf. Cor. v. 16.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK VI.

185

to us His temporary dispensation, the other His
eternal existence. Thus our discourse has made
no inconsiderable answer to his charges : — that
we neither hold two Christs nor two Lords, that
we are not ashamed of the Cross, that we do not
glorify a mere man as having suffered for the
world, that we assuredly do not think that the
word " made " refers to the formation of the
essence. But, such being our view, our argu-
ment has no small support from our accuser
himself, where in the midst of his discourse he
employs his tongue in a flourishing onslaught
upon us, and produces this sentence among
others: "This, then, is the conflict that Basil
wages against himself, and he clearly appears
neither to have ' applied his own mind to the
intention of the Apostles,' nor to be able to pre-
serve the sequence of his own arguments ; for
according to them he must, if he is conscious
of their irreconcilable character, admit that the
Word Who was in the beginning and was God
became Lord," or he fits together "statements
that are mutually conflicting." Why, this is ac-
tually our statement which Eunomius repeats,
who says that "the Word that was in the begin-
ning and was God became Lord." For, being
what He was, God, and Word, and Life, and
Light, and Grace, and Truth, and Lord, and
Christ, and every name exalted and Divine, He
did become, in the Man assumed by Him, Who
was none of these, all else which the Word was,
and among the rest did become Lord and Christ,
according to the teaching of Peter, and accord-
ing to the confession of Eunomius ; — not in the
sense that the Godhead acquired anything by
way of advancement, but (all exalted majesty
being contemplated in the Divine Nature) He
thus becomes Lord and Christ, not by arriving
at any addition of grace in respect of His God-
head (for the Nature of the Godhead is ac-
knowledged to be lacking in no good), but by
bringing the Human Nature to that participation
in the Godhead which is signified by the terms
" Christ " and " Lord."

§ 3. He then gives a notable explanation of the
saying of the Lord to Philip, " He that hath
seen Me hath seen the Father; " and herein he
excellently discusses the suffering of the Lord
in His love to man, and the impassibility,
creative power, and providence of the Father,
and the composite nature of men, and their
resolution into the elements of which they were
composed.

Sufficient defence has been offered on these
points, and as for that which Eunomius says by
way of calumny against our doctrine, that
" Christ was emptied to become Himself," there
has been sufficient discussion in what has been
said above, where he has been shown to be at-

tributing to our doctrine his own blasphemy.*

For it is not one who confesses that the immut-
able Nature has put on the created and perish-
able, who speaks of the transition from like to like,
but one who conceives that there is no change
from the majesty of Nature to that which is
more lowly. For if, as their doctrine asserts, He
is created, and man is created also, the wonder
of the doctrine disappears, and there is nothing
marvellous in what is alleged, since the created
nature comes to be in itself5. But we who
have learnt from prophecy of " the change of
the right hand of the Most High 6," — and by
the " Right Hand " of the Father we understand
that Power of God, which made all things,
which is the Lord (not in the sense of depend-
ing upon Him as a part upon a whole, but as
being indeed from Him, and yet contemplated
in individual existence), — say thus : that neither
does the Right Hand vary from Him Whose
Right Hand It is, in regard to the idea of Its
Nature, nor can any other change in It be
spoken of besides the dispensation of the Flesh.
For verily the Right Hand of God was God
Himself, manifested in the flesh, seen through
that same flesh by those whose sight was clear ;
as He did the work of the Father, being, both
in fact and in thought, the Right Hand of God,
yet being changed, in respect of the veil of the
flesh by which He was surrounded, as regarded
that which was seen, from that which He was
by Nature, as a subject of contemplation.
Therefore He says to Philip, who was gazing
only at that which was changed, " Look through
that which is changed to that which is unchange-
able, and if thou seest this, thou hast seen that
Father Himself, Whom thou seekest to see ; for
he that hath seen Me — not Him Who appears
in a state of change, but My very self, Who am
in the Father — will have seen that Father Him-
self in Whom I am, because the very same
character of Godhead is beheld in both ?." If,
then, we believe that the immortal and im-
passible and uncreated Nature came to be in
the passible Nature of the creature, and conceive
the " change " to consist in this, on what grounds
are we charged with saying that He " was emp-
tied to become Himself," by those who keep
prating their own statements about our doc-
trines? For the participation of the created
with the created is no "change of the Right
Hand." To say that the Right Hand of the
uncreated Nature is created belongs to Euno-
mius alone, and to those who adopt such
opinions as he holds. For the man with an
eye that looks on the truth will discern the

4 See above, Book V. § 4.

5 That is, in a nature created like itself.

6 Ps. Ixxvii. io(LXX.). This application of the passage is also
made by Michael Ayguan (the " Doctor Incognitas"), who is the
only commentator mentioned by Neale and Littledale as so inter-
preting the text. 7 Cf. S. John xiv. 9, 10.

1 86

GREGORY OF NYSSA

Right Hand of the Highest to be such as he
sees the Highest to be, — Uncreated of Un-
created, Good of Good, Eternal of Eternal,
without prejudice to Its eternity by Its being in
the Father by way of generation. Thus our
accuser has unawares been employing against
us reproaches that properly fall upon himself.

But with reference 8 to those who stumble at
the idea of "passion," and on this ground
maintain the diversity of the Essences, — arguing
that the Father, by reason of the exaltation of
His Nature, does not admit passion, and that
the Son on the other hand condescended, by
reason of defect and divergence, to the partaking
of His sufferings, — I wish to add these remarks
to what has been already said : — That nothing
is truly " passion " which does not tend to sin,
nor would one strictly call by the name of
"passion" the necessary routine of nature, re-
garding the composite nature as it goes on its
course in a kind of order and sequence. For
the mutual concurrence of heterogeneous ele-
ments in the formation of our body is a kind of
a combination harmoniously conjoined out of
several dissimilar elements ; but when, at the
due time, the tie is loosed which bound together
this concurrence of the elements, the combined
nature is once more dissolved into the elements
of which it was composed. This then is rather
a work than a passion of the nature 9. For we
give the name of " passion " only to that which
is opposed to the virtuous unimpassioned state,
and of this we believe that He Who granted
us salvation was at all times devoid, Who
"was in all points tempted like as we are,
yet without sin '." Of that, at least, which
is truly passion, which is a diseased condition
of the will, He was not a partaker ; for it says
" He did no sin, neither was guile found in
His mouth 2 " ; but the peculiar attributes of our
nature, which, by a kind of customary abuse of
terms, are called by the same name of "passion,"
— of these, we confess, the Lord did partake, —
of birth, nourishment, growth, of sleep and toil,
and all those natural dispositions which the
soul is wont to experience with regard to bodily
inconveniences, — the desire of that which is
lacking, when the longing passes from the body
to the soul, the sense of pain, the dread of
death, and all the like, save only such as, if
followed, lead to sin. As, then, when we per-
ceive His power extending through all things
in heaven, and air, and earth, and sea, whatever
there is in heaven, whatever there is beneath

8 Oehler's punctuation, while it does not exactly follow that of
the earlier editions, Mill seems to admit of emendation here.

* The word ira&x, like the English word '" passion," has a double
sense : in one sense it connotes a tendency to evd action or evil
habit — and in this sense Christ was not subject to passion. ]n
another sense il has no such connotation, and it is in this sense (a
sense, Gregory would say, somewhat inexact), that the term is used
to express the sufferings of Christ : — to tins case, it may be -aid, the
inexact use of the English word is for the most part restricted.

1 Hcb. iv. 15. a 1 Pet. li. 22.

the earth, we believe that He is universally
present, and yet do not say that He is any of
those things in which He is (for He is not the
Heaven, Who has marked it out with His en-
folding span, nor is He the earth, Who upholds
the circle of the earth, nor yet is He the water,
Who encompasses the liquid nature), so neither
do we say that in passing through those suffer-
ings of the flesh of which we speak He was
"subject to passion," but, as we say that He is
the cause of all things that are, that He holds
the universe in His grasp, that He directs all that
is in motion and keeps upon a settled foundation
all that is stationary, by the unspeakable power
of His own majesty, so we say that He was born
among us for the cure of the disease of sin,
adapting the exercise of His healing power in a
manner corresponding to the suffering, applying
the healing in that way which He knew to be
for the good of that part of the creation which
He knew to be in infirmity. And as it was
expedient that He should heal the sufferings
by touch, we say that He so healed it ; yet is
He not, because He is the Healer of our in-
firmity, to be deemed on this account to have
been Himself passible. For even in the case
of men, ordinary use does not allow us to affirm
such a thing. We do not say that one who
touches a sick man to heal him is himself par-
taker of the infirmity, but we say that he does
give the sick man the boon of a return to health,
and does not partake of the infirmity : for the
suffering does not touch him, it is he who
touches the disease. Now if he who by his art
works any good in men's bodies is not called
dull or feeble, but is called a lover of men and
a benefactor and the like, why do they slander
the dispensation to usward as being mean and
inglorious, and use it to maintain that the es-
sence of the Son is "divergent by way of
inferiority," on the ground that the Nature of
the Father is superior to sufferings, while that of
the Son is not pure from passion ? Why, if the
aim of the dispensation of the Incarnation was
not that the Son should be subject to suffering,
but that He should be manifested as a lover of
men, while the Father also is undoubtedly a
lover of men, it follows that if one will but re-
gard the aim, the Son is in the same case with
the Father. But if it was not the Father Who
wrought the destruction of death, marvel not, —
for ail judgment also He hath committed unto
the Son, Himself judging no man 3 ; not doing
all things by the Son for the reason that He is
unable either to save the lost or judge the sinner,
but because He does these things too by His
own Power, by which He works all things.
Then they who were saved by the Son were
saved by the Power of the Father, and they who
are judged by Him undergo judgment by the

3 Cf. S. John v. 22.

AGAINST EUNOM1US. BOOK VI.

187

Righteousness of God. For "Christ," as the
Apostle says, "is the Righteousness of God4,"
which is revealed by the Gospel ; and whether
you look at the world as a whole, or at the parts
of the world which make up that complete
whole, all these are works of the Father, in that
they are works of His Power ; and thus the
word which says both that the Father made all
things, and that none of these things that are
came into being without the Son, speaks truly
on both points ; for the operation of the Power
bears relation to Him Whose Power It is. Thus,
since the Son is the Power of the Father, all
the works of the Son are works of the Father.
That He entered upon the dispensation of the
Passion not by weakness of nature but by the
power of His will, one might bring countless
passages of the Gospel to show ; but these, as
the matter is clear, I will pretermit, that my
discourse may not be prolonged by dwelling on
points that are admitted. If, then, that which
comes to pass is evil, we have to separate from
that evil not the Father only, but the Son also ;
but if the saving of them that were lost is good,
and if that which took place is not "passion V
but love of men, why do you alienate from our
thanksgiving for our salvation the Father, Who
by His own Power, which is Christ, wrought for
men their freedom from death ?

§ 4. Then returning to the words of Peter, l* God
made Him Lord and Christ" he skilfully ex-
plains it by many arguments, and hen in shcnvs
Eunomius as an advocate of the orthodox doc-
trine, and concludes the book by showing that
the Divine and Human names are applied, by
reason of the commixture, to either Nature.

But we must return once more to our vehe-
ment writer of speeches, and take up again that
severe invective of his against ourselves. He
makes it a complaint against us that we deny
that the Essence of the Son has been made, as
contradicting the words of Peter, " He made
Him Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye
crucified 6 " ; and he is very forcible in his in-
dignation and abuse upon this matter, and
moreover maintains certain points by which he
thinks that he refutes our doctrine. Let us
see, then, the force of his attempts. " Who,
pray, ye most reckless of men," he says, "when
he has the form of a servant, takes the form of
a servant?" "No reasonable man," shall be

4 Rom. i. 17.

5 That is, " passion " in the sense defined above, as something
with evil tendency. If the yii/ojitvoe (/. e. the salvation of men) is
evil, then Father and Son alike must be "kept clear" from any
participation in it. If it is good, and if, therefore, the means (the
actual events) are not " passion" as not tending to evil, while, con-
sidered in regard to their aim, they are <t>iKa.v9pu>TtCa, then there is no
reason why a share in their fulfilment should be denied to the
Father. Who, as well as the Son, is <|>iAai'0puj7ros. and Who by His
own Power (that is, by Christ) wrought the salvation of men.

6 Acts ii. 36.

our reply to him, " would use language of this
kind, save such as may be entirely alien from
the hope of Christians. But to this class you
belong, who charge us with recklessness because
we do not admit the Creator to be created.
For if the Holy Spirit does not lie, when He
says by the prophet, 'All things serve Thee7,'
and the whole creafion is in servitude, and the
Son is, as you say 8, created, He is clearly a
fellow-servant with all things, being degraded
by His partaking of creation to partake also of
servitude. And Him Who is in servitude you
will surely invest with the servant's form : for
you will not, of course, be ashamed of the
aspect of servitude when you acknowledge that
He is a servant by nature. Who now is it, I
pray, my most keen rhetorician, who transfers the
Son from the servile form to another form of a
servant? he who claims for Him uncreated
being, and thereby proves that He is no servant,
or you, rather, who continually cry that the Son
is the servant of the Father, and was actually
under His dominion before He took the serv-
ant's form ? I ask for no other judges ; I leave
the vote on these questions in your own hands.
For I suppose that no one is so shameless ir»
his dealings with the truth as to oppose ac-
knowledged facts out of sheer impudence.
What we have said is clear to any one, that by
the peculiar attributes of servitude is marked
that which is by nature servile, and to be created
is an attribute proper to servitude. Thus one
who asserts that He, being a servant, took upon
Him our form, is surely the man who transfers
the Only-begotten from servitude to servitude."
He tries, however, to fight against our words,,
and says, a little further on (for I will pass over
at present his intermediate remarks, as they
have been more or less fully discussed in my
previous arguments), when he charges us with
being " bold in saying or thinking things uncon-
trivable," and calls us "most miserable 9," — he
adds, I say, this : — " For if it is not of the
Word Who was in the beginning and was God
that the blessed Peter speaks, but of Him Who
was 'seen,' and Who 'emptied Himself,' as
Basil says, and if the man Who was ' seen '
'emptied Himself to take 'the form of a serv-
ant,' and He Who 'emptied Himself to take
'the form of a servant,' 'emptied Himself to>
come into being as man, then the man who
was 'seen' 'emptied himself,' to come into
being as man." It may be that the judg-
ment of my readers has immediately detected
from the above citation the knavery, and, at
the same time, the folly of the argument he
maintains : yet a brief refutation of what he
says shall be subjoined on our side, not SO'

7 Ps. cxix. 91.

8 Reading xa.6' v^as with the earlier editions. Oehler alleges nr>
authority for his reading na6' r)fj.a<;, which is probably a mere misprint.

9 Oehler's punctuation here seems to require correction.

188

GREGORY OF NYSSA

much to overthrow his blundering sophism?
which indeed is overthrown by itself for those
who have ears to hear, as to avoid the appear-
ance of passing his allegation by without dis-
cussion, under the pretence of contempt for the
worthlessness of his argument. Let us accord-
ingly look at the point in this way. What are
the Apostle's words? " Be it known," he says,
"that God made Him Lord and Christ1."
Then, as though some one had asked him on
whom such a grace was bestowed, he points as
it were with his finger to the subject, saying,
"this Jesus, Whom ye crucified." What does
Basil say upon this ? That the demonstrative
word declares that that person was made Christ,
Who had been crucified by the hearers ; — for
he says, "ye crucified," and it was likely that
those who had demanded the murder that was
done upon Him were hearers of the speech ;
for the time from the crucifixion to the dis-
course of Peter was not long. What, then, does
Eunomius advance in answer to this ? " If it
is not of the Word Who was in the beginning
and was God that the blessed Peter speaks, but
of Him Who was 'seen,' and Who 'emptied
Himself,' as Basil says, and if the man who was
'seen' 'emptied himself to take 'the form of
a servant ' " — Hold ! who says this, that the
man who was seen emptied himself again to
take the form of a servant ? or who maintains
that the suffering of the Cross took place before
the manifestation in the flesh ? The Cross did
not precede the body, nor the body " the form
of the servant." But God is manifested in the
flesh, while the flesh that displayed God in
itself, after having by itself fulfilled the great
mystery of the Death, is transformed by com-
mixture to that which is exalted and Divine,
becoming Christ and Lord, being transferred
and changed to that which He was, Who mani-
fested Himself in that flesh. But if we should
say this, our champion of the truth maintains
once more that we say that He Who was shown
upon the Cross "emptied Himself" to become
another man, putting his sophism together as
follows in its wording: — "If," quoth he, "the
man who was 'seen' 'emptied himself to take
the ' form of a servant,' and He Who ' emptied
Himself to take the 'form of a servant,'
'emptied Himself to come into being as man,
then the man who was ' seen ' ' emptied himself
to come into being as man."

How well he remembers the task before him !
how much to the point is the conclusion of his
argument ! Basil declares that the Apostle said
that the man who was " seen " was made Christ
and Lord, and this clear and quick-witted over-
turner of his statements says, " If Peter does
not say that the essence of Him Who was in
the beginning was made, the man who was

* Acts ii. 36.

'seen' 'emptied himself to take the 'form of
a servant,' and He Who 'emptied Himself to
take the 'form of a servant,' 'emptied Himself
to become man." We are conquered, Euno-
mius, by this invincible wisdom ! The fact
that the Apostle's discourse refers to Him Who
was " crucified through weakness 2 " is forsooth
powerfully disproved when we learn that if we
believe this to be so, the man who was " seen "
again becomes another, "emptying Himself"
for another coming into being of man. Will
you never cease jesting against what should be
secure from such attempts ? will you not blush
at destroying by such ridiculous sophisms the
awe that hedges the Divine mysteries ? will you
not turn now, if never before, to know that the
Only-begotten God, Who is in the bosom of
the Father, being Word, and King, and Lord,
and all that is exalted in word and thought,
needs not to become anything that is good, seeing
that He is Himself the fulness of all good
things ? What then is that, by changing into
which He becomes what He was not before ?
Well, as He Who knew not sin becomes sin \
that He may take away the sin of the world, so
on the other hand the flesh which received the
Lord becomes Christ and Lord, being trans-
formed by the commixture into that which it
was not by nature : whereby we learn that
neither would God have been manifested in the
flesh, had not the Word been made flesh, nor
would the human flesh that compassed Him
about have been transformed to what is Divine,
had not that which was apparent to the senses
become Christ and Lord. But they treat the
simplicity of what we preach with contempt,
who use their syllogisms to trample on the
being of God, and desire to show that He Who
by creation brought into being all things that
are, is Himself a part of creation, and wrest, to
assist them in such an effort to establish their
blasphemy, the words of Peter, who said to the
Jews, " Be it known to all the house of Israel
that God made Him Lord and Christ, this
Jesus Whom ye crucified4." This is the proof
they present for the statement that the essence
of the Only-begotten God is created ! What ?
tell me, were the Jews, to whom the words were
spoken, in existence before the ages? was the
Cross before the world ? was Pilate before all
creation ? was Jesus in existence first, and after
that the Word ? was the flesh more ancient
than the Godhead? did Gabriel bring glad
tidings to Mary before the world was ? did not
the Man that was in Christ take beginning by~
way of birth in the days of Caesar Augustus,
while the Word that was God in the beginning
is our King, as the prophet testifies, before all
ages s ? See you not what confusion you bring

2 2 Cor. xiii. 4.
4 Acts ii. 36.

3 C(. 2 Cor. v. 21.

5 Ps. lxxiv. 12 (I-XX.).

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK VI.

189

upon the matter, turning, as the phrase goes,
things upside down? It was the fiftieth day
after the Passion, when Peter preached his
sermon to the Jews and said, " Him Whom ye
crucified, God made Christ and Lord." Do you
not mark the order of his saying? which stands
first, which second in his words ? He did not say,
" Him Whom God made Lord, ye crucified,"
but, " Whom ye crucified, Him God made Christ
and Lord " : so that it is clear from this that
Peter is speaking, not of what was before the
ages, but of what was after the dispensation.

How comes it, then, that you fail to see that
the whole conception of your argument on the
subject is being overthrown, and go on making
yourself ridiculous with your childish web of
sophistry, saying that, if we believe that He who
was apparent to the senses has been made by
God to be Christ and Lord, it necessarily
follows that the Lord once more "emptied
Himself" anew to become Man, and underwent
a second birth? What advantage does your
doctrine get from this ? How does what you
say show the King of creation to be created ?
For my own part I assert on the other side that
our view is supported by those who contend
against us, and that the rhetorician, in his ex-
ceeding attention to the matter, has failed to see
that in pushing, as he supposed, the argument
to an absurdity, he is fighting on the side of
those whom he attacks, with the very weapons
he uses for their overthrow. For if we are to
believe that the change of condition in the case
of Jesus was from a lofty state to a lowly one,
and if the Divine and uncreated Nature alone
transcends the creation, he will, perhaps, when
he thoroughly surveys his own argument, come
over to the ranks of truth, and agree that the
Uncreated came to be in the created, in His
love for man. But if he imagines that he
demonstrates the created character of the Lord
by showing that He, being God, took part in
human nature, he will find many such passages
to establish the same opinion which carry out
their support of his argument in a similar way.
For since He was the Word and was God, and
"afterwards," as the prophet says, "was seen
upon earth and conversed with men 6," He will
hereby be proved to be one of the creatures !
And if this is held to be beside the question,
similar passages too are not quite akin to the
subject. For in sense it is just the same to say
that the Word that was in the beginning was
manifested to men through the flesh, and to
say that being in the form of God He put on
the form of a servant : and if one of these
statements gives no help for the establishment
of his blasphemy, he must needs give up the
remaining one also. He is kind enough, how-
ever, to advise us to abandon our error, and to

6 Bar. iii. 37.

point out the truth which He himself maintains.
He tells us that the Apostle Peter declares
Him to have been made Who was in the be
ginning the Word and God. Well, if he were
making up dreams for our amusement, and
giving us information about the prophetic inter-
pretation of the visions of sleep, there might be
no risk in allowing him to set forth the riddles
of his imagination at his pleasure. But when
he tells us that he is explaining the Divine
utterances, it is no longer safe for us to leave
him to interpret the words as he likes. What
does the Scripture say ? " God made Lord and
Christ this Jesus whom ye crucified 7." When
everything, then, is found to concur — the
demonstrative word denoting Him Who is
spoken of by the Name of His Humanity, the
charge against those who were stained with
blood-guiltiness, the suffering of the Cross —
our thought necessarily turns to that which was
apparent to the senses. But he asserts that
while Peter uses these words it is the pre-
temporal existence that is indicated by the
word " made " 8. Well, we may safely allow
nurses and old wives to jest with children, and
to lay down the meaning of dreams as they
choose : but when inspired Scripture is set
before us for exposition, the great Apostle
forbids us to have recourse to old wives' tattle 9.
When I hear " the Cross " spoken of, I under-
stand the Cross, and when I hear mention of a
human name, I understand the nature which
that name connotes. So when I hear from
Peter that " this " one was made Lord and
Christ, I do not doubt that he speaks of Him
Who had been before the eyes of men, since
the saints agree with one another in this matter
as well as in others. For, as he says that He
Who was crucified has been made Lord, so
Paul also says that He was " highly exalted *,"
after the Passion and the Resurrection, not
being exalted in so far forth as He is God.
For what height is there more sublime than the
Divine height, that he should say God was
exalted thereunto? But he means that the low-
liness of the Humanity was exalted, the word,
I suppose, indicating the assimilation and union
of the Man Who was assumed to the exalted
state of the Divine Nature. And even if one
were to allow him licence to misinterpret the
Divine utterance, not even so will his argument
conclude in accordance with the aim of his
heresy. For be it granted that Peter does say
of Him Who was in the beginning, " God
made Him Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom
ye crucified," we shall find that even so his
blasphemy does not gain any strength against
the truth. "God made Him," he says, "Lord

7 Acts ii. 36. 8 Altering Oehler's punctuation,

which here seems certainly faulty : some lighter alterations have
also been made in what precedes, and in what follows.

9 Cf. r Tim. iv. 7. The quotation is not verbal.

1 Cf. Phil. ii. q.

190

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS.

and Christ." To which of the words are we to
refer the word made ? with which of those that
are employed in this sentence are we to connect
the word ? There are three before us : — " this,"
and " Lord," and " Christ." With which of these
three will he construct the word " made " ? No
one is so bold against the truth as to deny that
" made " has reference to " Christ " and " Lord " ;
for Peter says that He, being already whatever He
was, was " made Christ and Lord " by the Father.
These words are not mine : they are those
of him who fights against the Word. For he
says, in the very passage that is before us for
examination, exactly thus : — " The blessed Peter
speaks of Him Who was in the beginning and
was God, and expounds to us that it was He
Who became Lord and Christ." Eunomius,
then, says that He Who was whatsoever He
was became Lord and Christ, as the history of
David tells us that he, being the son of Jesse,
and a keeper of the flocks, was anointed to be
king : not that the anointing then made him
to be a man, but that he, being what he was by
his own nature, was transformed from an ordin-
ary man to a king. What follows ? Is it thereby
the more established that the essence of the
Son was made, if, as Eunomius says, God made
Him, when He was in the beginning and was
God, both Lord and Christ ? For Lordship is
not a name of His being but of His being in
authority, and the appellation of Christ indi-
cates His kingdom, while the idea of His king-
dom is one, and that of His Nature another.
Suppose that Scripture does say that these
things took place with regard to the Son of
God. Let us then consider which is the more
pious and the more rational view. Which can we
allowably say is made partaker of superiority
by way of advancement — God or man ? Who
has so childish a mind as to suppose that the
Divinity passes on to perfection by way of
addition ? But as to the Human Nature, such
a supposition is not unreasonable, seeing that
the words of the Gospel clearly ascribe to our
Lord increase in respect of His Humanity : for
it says, " Jesus increased in wisdom and stature
and favour2." Which, then, is the more reason-
able suggestion to derive from the Apostle's
words ? — that He Who was God in the begin-
ning became Lord by way of advancement, or
that the lowliness of the Human Nature was
raised to the height of majesty as a result of its
communion with the Divine? For the prophet
David also, speaking in the person of the Lord,
says, " I am established as king by Him 3," with
a meaning very close to " I was made Christ : "
and again, in the person of the Father to the
Lord, he says, " Be Thou Lord in the midst of
Thine enemies ♦," with the same meaning as

S. Luke ii. 52.

3 Ps. ii. 6 (LXX).

*■ Ps. ex.

Peter, " Be Thou made Lord of Thine enemies."
As, then, the establishment of His kingdom does
not signify the formation of His essence, but
the advance to His dignity, and He Who bids
Him "be Lord " does not command that which
is non-existent to come into being at that par-
ticular time, but gives to Him Who is the rule
over those who are disobedient, — so also the
blessed Peter, when he says that one has been
made Christ (that is, king of all) adds the word
" Him " to distinguish the idea both from the
essence and from the attributes contemplated
in connection with it. For He made Him
what has been declared when He already was
that which He is. Now if it were allowable to
assert of the transcendent Nature that it became
anything by way of advancement, as a king
from being an ordinary man, or lofty from
being lowly, or Lord from being servant, it
might be proper to apply Peter's words to the
Only-begotten. But since the Divine Nature,
whatever it is believed to be, always remains
the same, being above all augmentation and
incapable of diminution, we are absolutely com-
pelled to refer his saying to the Humanity.
For God the Word is now, and always remains,
that which He was in the beginning, always
King, always Lord, always God and Most High,
not having become any of these things by way
of advancement, but being in virtue of His
Nature all that He is declared to be, while on
the other hand He Who was, by being assumed,
elevated from Man to the Divinity, being one
thing and becoming another, is strictly and truly
said to have become Christ and Lord. For
He made Him to be Lord from being a servant,
to be King from being a subject, to be Christ
from being in subordination. He highly exalted
that which was lowly, and gave to Him that had
the Human Name that Name which is above
every name 5. And thus came to pass that un-
speakable mixture and conjunction of human
littleness commingled with Divine greatness,
whereby even those names which are great and
Divine are properly applied to the Humanity,
while on the other hand the Godhead is spoken
of by human names 6. For it is the same
Person who both has the Name which is above
every name, and is worshipped by all creation
in the human Name of Jesus. For he says,
"at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of
things in heaven and things in earth, and things
under the earth, and every tongue shall confess
that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father 7." But enough of these matters.

5 Cf. Phil. ii. 9.

6 This passage may be taken as counterbalancing that in which
S. Gregory seems to limit the communicatio idiomatum (see above,
page 184, n. 6) : but he here p obably means no more than that names
or titles which properly belong to the Human Nature of our Lord
are applied to His Divine Personality.

1 Cf. Phil. ii. 10.

BOOK VII.

§ I. The seventh book shows from various state-
ments made to the Corinthians and to the
Hebrews, and from the words of the Lord, that
the word " Lord " is not expressive of essence,
according to Eunomius1 exposition, but of
dignity. And after many notable remarks
concerning '■'■the Spirit" and the Lord, he
shows that Eunomius, from Jus own words, is
found to argue in favour of orthodoxy, though
without intending it, and to be struck by his
own shafts.

Since, however, Eunomius asserts that the
word " Lord " is used in reference to the essence
and not to the dignity of the Only-begotten, and
cites as a witness to this view the Apostle, when
he says to the Corinthians, " Now the Lord is
the Spirit x," it may perhaps be opportune that
we should not pass over even this error on his
part without correction. He asserts that the
word " Lord " is significative of essence, and by
way of proof of this assumption he brings up
the passage above mentioned. "The Lord," it
says, "is the Spirit1." But our friend who
interprets Scripture at his own sweet will calls
"Lordship" by the name of "essence," and
thinks to bring his statement to proof by means
of the words quoted. Well, if it had been said
by Paul, " Now the Lord is essence," we too
would have concurred in his argument. But
seeing that the inspired writing on the one side
says, "the Lord is the Spirit," and Eunomius
says on the other, " Lordship is essence," I do
not know where he finds support for his state-
ment, unless he is prepared to say again 2 that
the word "Spirit" stands in Scripture for "es-
sence." Let us consider, then, whether the
Apostle anywhere, in his use of the term " Spirit,"
employs that word to indicate "essence." He
says, " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our
Spirit3," and "no one knoweth the things of a
man save the Spirit of man which is in him V'
and "the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth
lile 5," and "if ye through the Spirit do mortify
the deeds of the body, ye shall live6," and "if

' 2 Cor. iii. 17.

2 It is no: quite clear whether irciAie is to be constructed with
Vfyot nr with KeurOat, but the difference in sense is slight.

3 Koin. viii. 16. * 1 Cor. ii n.

5 2 Cor. iii. 6. 6 Rom. viti. 13.

we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the
Spirit 7." Who indeed could count the utter-
ances of the Apostle on this point ? and in them
we nowhere find " essence " signified by this
word. For he who says that " the Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit," signifies nothing
else than the Holy Spirit Which comes to be in the
mind of the faithful ; for in many other passages
of his writings he gives the name of spirit to the
mind, on the reception by which of the com-
munion of the Spirit the recipients attain the
dignity of adoption. Again, in the passage,
" No one knoweth the things of a man save the
spirit of man which is in him," if " man " is
used of the essence, and "spirit" likewise, it
will follow from the phrase that the man is main-
tained to be of two essences. Again, I know
not how he who says that " the letter killeth,
but the Spirit giveth life," sets "essence" in
opposition to " letter " ; nor, again, how this
writer imagines that when Paul says that we
ought " through the Spirit " to destroy " the
deeds of the body," he is directing the signifi-
cation of " spirit " to express " essence '' ; while
as for "living in the Spirit," and "walking in
the Spirit," this would be quite unintelligible if
the sense of the word " Spirit " referred to
"essence." For in what else than in essence
do all we who are alive partake of life ? — thus
when the Apostle is laying down advice for us
on this matter that we should " live in essence,"
it is as though he said " partake of life by means
of yourselves, and not by means of others." If
then it is not possible that this sense can be
adopted in any passage, how can Eunomius
here once more imitate the interpreters of
dreams, and bid us to take " spirit " for " es-
sence," to the end that he may arrive in due
syllogistic form at his conclusion that the word
" Lord " is applied to the essence ? — for if
" spirit " is " essence " (he argues), and " the
Lord is Spirit," the "Lord" is clearly found to
be "essence." How incontestable is the force
of this attempt ! How can we evade or re-
solve this irrefragable necessity of demonstra-
tion? The word "Lord," he says, is spoken
of the essence. How does he maintain it?
Because the Apostle says, "The Lord is the

1 Gal. v. 25.

192

GREGORY OF NYSSA

Spirit." Well, what has this to do with es-
sence? He gives us the further instruction
that " spirit " is put for " essence. These are
the arts of his demonstrative method ! These
are the results of his Aristotelian science ! This
is why, in your view, we are so much to be pitied,
who are uninitiated in this wisdom ! and you
of course are to be deemed happy, who track
out the truth by a method like this — that the
Apostle's meaning was such that we are to sup-
pose " the Spirit " was put by him for the Essence
of the Only-begotten !

Then how will you make it fit with what fol-
lows ? For when Paul says, " Now the Lord is
the Spirit," he goes on to say, "and where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." If then
" the Lord is the Spirit," and " Spirit " means
"essence," what are we to understand by "the
essence of the essence " ? He speaks again of
another Spirit of the Lord Who is the Spirit, —
that is to say, according to your interpretation,
of another essence. Therefore in your view the
Apostle, when he writes expressly of "the
Lord the Spirit," and of "the Spirit of the
Lord," means nothing else than an essence of
an essence. Well, let Eunomius make what
he likes of that which is written ; what we un-
derstand of the matter is as follows. The
Scripture, "given by inspiration of God," as
the Apostle calls it, is the Scripture of the Holy
Spirit, and its intention is the profit of men.
For " every scripture," he says, " is given by in-
spiration of God and is profitable " ; and the
profit is varied and multiform, as the Apostle
says — "for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness 8." Such a boon
as this, however, is not within any man's reach
tp lay hold of, but the Divine intention lies hid
under the body of the Scripture, as it were under
a veil, some legislative enactment or some his-
torical narrative being cast over the truths that
are contemplated by the mind. For this reason,
then, the Apostle tells us that those who look
upon the body of the Scripture have " a veil
upon their heart V' and are not able to look
upon the glory of the spiritual law, being hin-
dered by the veil that has been cast over the
face of the law-giver. Wherefore he says, " the
.letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life5," show-
ing that often the obvious interpretation, if it be
not taken according to the proper sense, has an
effect contrary to that life which is indicated by
the Spirit, seeing that this lays down for all men
the perfection of virtuein freedom from passion,
while the history . ^contained in the writings
son embraces the exposition even of

facts incongruous, and is understood, so to say,
to concur with the passions of our nature, where-
to if any one applies himself according to the

obvious sense, he will make the Scripture a
doctrine of death. Accordingly, he says that
over the perceptive powers of the souls of men
who handle what is written in too corporeal a
manner, the veil is cast ; but foi those who turn
their contemplation to that which is the object
of the intelligence, there is revealed, bared, as
it were, of a mask, the glory that underlies the
letter. And that which is discovered by this
more exalted perception he says is the Lord,
which is the Spirit. For he says, "when it
shall turn to the Lord the veil shall be taken
away : now the Lord is the Spirit *." And in
so saying he makes a distinction of contrast
between the lordship of the spirit and the bon-
dage of the letter ; for as that which gives life
is opposed to that which kills, so he contrasts
" the Lord " with bondage. And that we may
not be under any confusion when we are in-
structed concerning the Holy Spirit (being led
by the word " Lord " to the thought of the
Only-begotten), for this reason he guards the
word by repetition, both saying that " the Lord
is the Spirit," and making further mention ot
"the Spirit of the Lord," that the supremacy of
His Nature may be shown by the honour im-
plied in lordship, while at the same time he may
avoid confusing in his argument the individu-
ality of His Person. For he who calls Him
both " Lord " and " Spirit of the Lord," teaches
us to conceive of Him as a separate individual
besides the Only-begotten ; just as elsewhere he
speaks of "the Spirit of Christ2," employing
fairly, and in its mystic sense this very term
which is piously employed in the system of
doctrine according to the Gospel tradition.
Thus we, the " most miserable of all men,"
being led onward by the Apostle in the myster-
ies, pass from the letter that killeth to the Spirit
that giveth life, learning from Him Who was in
Paradise initiated into the unspeakable mysteries,
that all things, the Divine Scripture says are
utterances of the Holy Spirit. For " well did
the Holy Spirit prophesy 3," — this he says to the
Jews in Rome, introducing the words of Isaiah ;
and to the Hebrews, alleging the authority of
the Holy Spirit in the words, " wherefore as
saith the Holy Spirit 4," he adduces the words
of the Psalm which are spoken at length in the
person of God ; and from the Lord Himself we
learn the same thing, — that David declared the
heavenly mysteries not "in" himself (that is,
not speaking according to human nature). For
how could any one, being but man, know the
supercelestial converse of the Father with the.
Son ? But being " in the Spirit " he said that
the Lord spoke to the Lord those words which
He has uttered. For if, He says; " David in
tin Spirit calls him Lord, how is He then his

8 3 Tim. iii. 16.

9 a Cor. iii. 13.

1 2 ( "i . ni 16, 17.
3 Cf. Acts xxviii. 75.

2 Rom. viii. 9.
* Heb. iii. 7.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK VII.

193

son 5 ? " Thus it is by the power of the Spirit
that the holy men who are under Divine in-
fluence'are 'inspired, and every Scripture is for this
reason1 said to be "given by inspiration of God,"
because it is the teaching of the Divine afflatus.
If the bodily veil of the words were removed,
that which remains is Lord and life and Spirit,
according to the teaching of the great Paul, and
according to the words of the Gospel also. For
Paul declares that he who turns from the letter
to the Spirit no longer apprehends the bondage
that slays, but the Lord which is the life-giving
Spirit ; and the sublime Gospel says, " the
words that I speak are spirit and are life 6," as
being divested of the bodily veil. The idea,
however, that "the Spirit" is the essence
of the Only-begotten, we shall leave to our
dreamers : or rather, we shall make use, ex
abundanti, of what they say, and arm the truth
with the weapons of the adversary. For it is
allowable that the Egyptian should be spoiled
by the Israelites, and that we should make their
wealth an ornament for ourselves. If the es-
sence of the Son is called " Spirit," and God
also is Spirit, (for so the Gospel tells us ?),
clearly the essence of the Father is called
" Spirit " also. But if it is their peculiar argu-
ment "that things which are introduced by
different' names are different also in nature, the
conclusion surely is, that things which are named
alike are not alien one from the other in nature
either. Since then, according to their account,
the essence of the Father and that of the Son
are both called " Spirit," hereby is clearly proved
the absence of any difference in essence. For
a little further on Eunomius says : — " Of those
essences which are divergent the appellations
significant of essence are also surely divergent,
but where there is one and the same name, that
which is declared by the same appellation
will surely be one also " : — so that at all points
" He that taketh the wise in their own crafti-
ness s " has turned the long labours of our author,
and the infinite toil spent onv'ivhat>he has elab-
orated, to the establishment !of the doctrine
which we maintain. For if God is in the Gos-
pel called "Spirit," and the essence of the
Only-begotten is maintained by Eunomius to
be " Spirit," as there is no apparent difference
in the one name as compared with the other,
neither, surely, will the things signified by the
names be mutually different in nature.

And now that I have exposed this futile and
pointless sham-argument, it seems to me that
I may well pass by without discussion what he
next puts together by way of attack upon our
master's statement. For a sufficient proof of
the folly of his remarks is to be found in his

5 S. Matt. xxii. 45 ; Cf. Ps. ex. 1. 6 Cf. S. John vi. 63.
7 S. John iv. 24. 8 j Cor. iii. 19 ; cf. Job v. 13.

VOL. V. I

actual argument, which of itself proclaims aloud
its feebleness. To be entangled in a contest
with such things as this is like trampling on the
slain. For when he sets forth with much con-
fidence some passage from our master, and
treats it with preliminary slander and contempt,
and promises that he will show it to be worth
nothing at all, he meets with the same fortune
as befalls small children, to whom their imper-
fect and immature intelligence, and the un-
trained condition of their perceptive faculties,
do not give an accurate understanding of what
they see. Thus they often imagine that the
stars are but a little way above their heads, and
pelt them with clods when they appear, in their
childish folly ; and then, when the clod falls,
they clap their hands and laugh and brag to
their comrades as if their throw had reached
the stars themselves. Such is the man who
casts at the truth with his childish missile, who
sets forth like the stars those splendid sayings
of our master, and then hurls from the ground,
— from his downtrodden and grovelling under-
standing,— his earthy and unstable arguments.
And these, when they have gone so high that
they have no place to fall from, turn back again
of themselves by their own weight 9. Now the
passage of the great Basil is worded as follows1 : —

" Yet what sane man would agree with the
statement that of those things of which the
names are different the essences must needs be
divergent also ? For the appellations of Peter
and Paul, and,' generally speaking, of men, are
different, while the essence of all is one : where-
fore, in most respects we are mutually identical,
and differ one from another only in those
special properties which are observed in indi-
viduals : and hence also appellations are not
indicative of essence, but of the properties
which,. mark the particular individual. Thus,
when we hear of Peter, we do not by the name
understand the essence (and by ' essence ' I here
mean the material substratum), but we are im-
pressed with the conception of the properties
which we contemplate in him." These are the
great man's words. And what skill he who
disputes this statement displays against us, we
learn,- — any one, that is, who has leisure for
wasting time on unprofitable matters, — from
the actual composition of Eunomius.

From his writings, I say, for I do not like to
insert in my own work the nauseous stuff our
rhetorician utters, or to display his ignorance
and folly to contempt in the midst of my own
arguments. He goes on with a sort of eulogy
upon the class of significant words which ex-
press the subject, and, in his accustomed style,

9 Altering Oehler's punctuation slightly.

1 S. Basil adv. Eunomium II. 4 (p. 240 C). The quotation a&
here given is not in exact verbal agreement with the Benedictine text*

j 94

GREGORY OF NYSSA

patches and sticks together the cast-off rags of
phrases : poor Isocrates is nibbled at once
more, and shorn of words and figures to make
out the point proposed, — here and there even
the Hebrew Philo receives the same treat-
ment, and makes him a contribution of phrases
from his own labours, — yet not even thus is
this much-stitched and many-coloured web of
words finished off, but every assault, every
defence of his conceptions, all his artistic
preparation, spontaneously collapses, and, as
commonly happens with the bubbles when the
drops, borne down from above through a body
of waters against some obstacle, produce those
foamy swellings which, as soon as they gather,
immediately dissolve, and leave upon the water
no trace of their own formation — such are the
air-bubbkj of our author's thoughts, vanishing
without a touch at the moment they are put
forth. For after all these irrefragable state-
ments, and the dreamy philosophizing wherein
he asserts that the distinct character of the
essence is apprehended by the divergence of
names, as some mass of foam borne down-
stream breaks up when it comes into contact
with a.»/ more solid body, so his argument,
following its own spontaneous course, and
coming unexpectedly into collision with the
truth, disperses into nothingness its unsubstantial
and bubble-like fabric of falsehood. For he
speaks in these words : — " Who is so foolish
and so far removed from the constitution of
men, as, in discoursing of men to speak of one
as a man, and, calling another a horse, so to
compare them ? " I would answer him, — " You
are right in calling any one foolish who makes
such blunders in the use of names. And I will
employ for the support of the truth the testi-
mony you yourself give. For if it is a piece
of extreme folly to call one a horse and another
a man, supposing both were really men, it is
surely a piece of equal stupidity, when the
Father is confessed to be God, and the Son is
confessed to be God, to call the one ' created '
and the other ' uncreated,' since, as in the other
case humanity, so in this case the Godhead
does not admit a change of name to that ex-
pressive of another kind. For what the irrational
is with respect to man, that also the creature is
with respect to the Godhead, being equally
unable to receive the same name with the
nature that is superior to it. And as it is not
possible to apply the same definition to the
rational animal and the quadruped alike (for
each is naturally differentiated by its special
property from the other), so neither can you
express by the same terms" the created and the
uncreated essence, seeing that those attributes
which are predicated of the latter essence are
not discoverable in the former. For as ration-

ality is not discoverable in a horse, nor solidity
of hoofs in a man, so neither is Godhead dis-
coverable in the creature, nor the attribute of
being created in the Godhead : but if He be
God He is certainly not created, and if He be
created He is not God ; unless 2, of course, one
were to apply by some misuse or customary
mode of expression the mere name of Godhead,
as some horses have men's names given them
by their owners ; yet neither is the horse a man,
though he be called by a human name, nor is
the created being God, even though some claim
for him the name of Godhead, and give him
the benefit of the empty sound of a dissyllable."
Since, then, Eunomius' heretical statement is
found spontaneously to fall in with the truth,
let him take his own advice and stand by his
own words, and by no means retract his own
utterances, but consider that the man is really
foolish and stupid who names the subject not
according as it is, but says " horse " for " man,"
and "sea" for "sky," and "creature" fu*
" God." And let no one think it unreasonable
that the creature should be set in opposition to
God, but have regard to the prophets and to
the Apostles. For the prophet says in the
person of the Father, " My Hand made all
these things " 3, meaning by " Hand," in his
dark saying, the power of the Only-begotten.
Now the Apostle says that all things are of the
Father, and that all things are by the Son ♦, and
the prophetic spirit in a way agrees with the
Apostolic teaching, which itself also is giver-
through the Spirit. For in the one passage, the
prophet, when he says that all things are the
work of the Hand of Him Who is over all, sets
forth the nature of those things which have
come into being in its relation to Him Who
made them, while He Who made them is God
over all, Who has the Hand, and by It makes
all things. And again, in the other passage,
the Apostle makes the same division of entities,
making all things depend upon their productive
cause, yet not reckoning in the number of "all
things " that which produces them : so that we
are hereby taught the difference of nature be-
tween the created and the uncreated, and it is
shown that, in its own nature, that which makes
is one thing and that which is produced is
another. Since, then, all things are of God, and
the Son is God, the creation is properly opposed
to the Godhead ; while, since the Only-begotten
is something else than the nature of the universe
(seeing that not even those who fight agaimt the
truth contradict this), it follows of necessity that
the Son also is equally opposed to the- creation,
unless the words of the saints are untrue which
testify that by Him all things were made.

2 Altering Oeh'er's punctuation.

3 Is. Ixvi. a. Not verbally •roiu the LXX..

* Cf. i Cor

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK VII.

195

§ 2. He then declares that the dose relation be-
tween names and things is immutable, and
thereafter proceeds accordingly, in the most
excellent manner, with his discourse concerning
'■'•generated" and " ungenerate."

Now seeing that the Only-begotten is in the
Divine Scriptures proclaimed to be God, let
Eunomius consider his own argument, and
condemn for utter folly the man who parts the
Divine into created and uncreated, as he does
him who divides "man" into "horse" and
"man." For he himself says, a little further
on, after his intermediate nonsense, "the close
relation of names to things is immutable," where
he himself by this statement assents to the fixed
character of the true connection of appellations
with their subject. If, then, the name of God-
head is properly employed in close connection
with the Only-begotten God (and Eunomius,
though he may desire to be out of harmony
with us, will surely concede that the Scripture
does not lie, and that the name of the Godhead
is not inharmoniously attributed to the Only-
begotten), let him persuade himself by his own
reasoning that if " the close relation of names
to things is immutable," and the Lord is called
by the name of " God," he cannot apprehend
any difference in respect of the conception of
Godhead between the Father and the Son,
seeing that this name is common to both, — or
rather not this name only, but there is a long
list of names in which the Son shares, without
divergence of meaning, the appellations of the
Father, — "good," "incorruptible," "just,"
"judge," " long-suffering," "merciful," " eternal,"
"everlasting," all that indicate the expression
of majesty of nature and power, — without any
reservation being made in His case in any of
the names in regard of the exalted nature of
the conception. But Eunomius passes by, as it
were with closed eye, the number, great as it is,
of the Divine appellations, and looks only to
one point, his "generate and ungenerate," —
trusting to a slight and weak cord his doctrine,
tossed and driven as it is by the blasts of
error.

He asserts that " no man who has any regard
for the truth either calls any generated thing ' un-
generate,' or calls God Who is over all ' Son '
or 'generate.'" This statement needs no
further arguments on our part for its refutation.
For he does not shelter his craft with any veils,
as his wont is, but treats the inversion of his
absurd statement as equivalent s, while he says

5 That is, in making a rhetorical inversion of a proposition in
itself objectionable, he so re-states it as to make it really a different
proposition while treating it as equivalent. The original proposition
is objectionable as classing the Son with all generated existences :
the inversion of it, because the term "God" is substituted illicitly
for the term " ungenerate."

that neither is any generated thing spoken of
as "ungenerate," nor is God Who is over all
called " Son " or "generate," without making any
special distinction forthe Only-begotten Godhead
of the Son as compared with the rest of the
"generated," but makes his opposition of "all
things that have come into being" to "God"
without discrimination, not excepting the Son
from "all things." And in the inversion of his
absurdities he clearly separates, forsooth, the
Son from the Divine Nature, when he says that
neither is any generated thing spoken of as
"ungenerate," nor is God called "Son" or
"generate," and manifestly reveals by this con-
tradistinction the horrid character of his blas-
phemy. For when he has distinguished the
"things that have come into being" from the
"ungenerate," he goes on to say, in that anti-
strophal induction of his, that it is impossible to
call (not the "unbegotten," but) "God," "Son"
or "generate," trying by these words to show
that that which is not ungenerate is not God,
and that the Only-begotten God is, by the fact
of being begotten, as far removed from being
God as the ungenerate is from being generated
in fact or in name. For it is not in ignorance
of the consequence of his argument that he
makes an inversion of the terms employed thus
inharmonious and incongruous : it is in his
assault on the doctrine of orthodoxy that he
opposes " the Godhead " to " the generate " —
and this is the point he tries to establish by his
words, that that which is not ungenerate is not
God. What was the true sequence of his argu-
ment ? that having said " no generated thing is
ungenerate," he should proceed with the infer-
ence, " nor, if anything is naturally ungenerate,
can it be generate." Such a statement at once
contains truth and avoids blasphemy. But now
by his premise that no generated thing is un-
generate, and his inference that God is not
generated, he clearly shuts out the Only-be-
gotten God from being God, laying down that
because He is not ungenerate, neither is He
God. Do we then need any further proofs to
expose this monstrous blasphemy ? Is not this
enough by itself to serve for a record against
the adversary of Christ, who by the arguments
cited maintains that the Word, Who in the
beginning was God, is not God ? What need
is there to engage further with such men as
this? For we do not entangle ourselves in
controversy with those who busy themselves
with idols and with the blood that is shed upon
their altars, not that we acquiesce in the destruc-
tion of those who are besotted about idols, but
because their disease is too strong for our treat-
ment. Thus, just as the fact itself declares
idolatry, and the evil that men do boldly and
arrogantly anticipates the reproach of those who

O 2

196

GREGORY OF NYSSA

accuse it, so here too I think that the advocates
of orthodoxy should keep silence towards one
who openly proclaims his impiety to his own
discredit, just as medicine also stands powerless
in the case of a cancerous complaint, because
the disease is too strong for the art to deal with.

§ 3. Thereafter he discusses the divergence of
names and of things, speaking of that which
is ungenerate as without a cause, and of that
which is non-existent, as the Scindapsus,
Minotaur, Blityri, Cyclops, Scylla, which
never were generated at all, and shows that
things which are essentially different, are
mutually destructive, as fire of water, and
the rest in their several relations. But in
the case of the Father and the Son, as the
essence is common, and the properties recipro-
cally interchangeable, no injury results to the
Nature.

Since, however, after the passage cited above,
he professes that he will allege something
stronger still, let us examine this also, as well
as the passage cited, lest we should seem to be
withdrawing our opposition in face of an over-
whelming force. " If however," he says, " I
am to abandon all these positions, and fall back
upon my stronger argument, I would say this,
that even if all the terms that he advances by
way of refutation were established, our state-
ment will none the less be manifestly shown to
be true. If, as will be admitted, the divergence
of the names which are significant of properties
marks the divergence of the things, it is surely
necessary to allow that with the divergence of
the names significant of essence is also marked
the divergence of the essences. And this would
be found to hold good in all cases, I mean in
the case of essences, energies, colours, figures,
and other qualities. For we denote by diver-
gent appellations the different essences, fire and
water, air and earth, cold and heat, white and
black, triangle and circle. Why need we men-
tion the intelligible essences, in enumerating
which the Apostle marks, by difference of
names, the divergence of essence?"

Who would not be dismayed at this irresistible
power of attack ? The argument transcends the
promise, the experience is more terrible than
the threat. " I will come," he says, " to my
stronger argument." What is it? That as the
differences of properties are recognized by those
names which signify the special attributes, we
must of course, he says, allow that differences
of essence are also expressed by divergence of
names. What then are these appellations of
essences by which we learn the divergence of
Nature between the Father and the son? He
talks of fire and water, air and earth, cold and

heat, white and black, triangle and circle. His
illustrations have won him the day : his argu-
ment carries all before it : I cannot contradict
the statement that those names which are
entirely incommunicable indicate difference of
natures. But our man of keen and quick-
sighted intellect has just missed seeing these
points : — that in this case the Father is God
and the Son is God; that "just," and "incor-
ruptible," and all those names which belong to
the Divine Nature, are used equally of the
Father and of the Son ; and thus, if the diver-
gent character of appellations indicates difference
of natures, the community of names will surely
show the common cha/acter of the essence.
And if we must agree fnat the Divine essence
is to be expressed by names 6, it would behove
us to apply to that Nature these lofty and
Divine names rather than the terminology of
" generate " and " ungenerate," because " good "
and "incorruptible," "just" and "wise," and
all such terms as these are strictly applicable
only to that Nature which passes all under-
standing, whereas "generated" exhibits com-
munity of name with even the inferior forms of
the lower creation. For we call a dog, and a
frog, and all things that come into the world by
way of generation, " generated." And moreover,
the term "ungenerate" is not only employed
of that whch exists without a cause, but has
also a proper application to that which is non-
existent. The Scindapsus 1 is called ungenerate,
the Blityri ? is ungenerate, the Minotaur is un-
generate, the Cyclops, Scylla, the Chimaera are
ungenerate, not in the sense of existing without
generation, but in the sense of never having
come into being at all. If, then, the names
more peculiarly Divine are common to the Son
with the Father, and if it is the others, those
which are equivocally employed either of the
non-existent or of the lower animals — if it is
these, I say, which are divergent, let his "gener-
ate and ungenerate " be so : Eunomius' power-
ful argument against us itself upholds the cause
of truth in testifying that there is no divergence
in respect of nature, because no divergence can
be perceived in the names 8. But if he asserts
the difference of essence to exist between the
"generate" and the "ungenerate," as it does
between fire and water, and is of opinion that
the names, like those which he has mentioned
in his examples, are in the same mutual relation
as " fire " and " water," the horrid character of
his blasphemy will here again be brought to
light, even if we hold our peace. For fire and

6 On this point, besides what follows here, see the treatise
against Tritheism addressed to Ablabius

1 These are names applied to denote existences purely imagin-
ary ; the other names belong to clas-ical mythology.

8 That is, in the names more peculiarly appropriate to the Divijue
Nature.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK VII.

197

water have a nature mutually destructive, and
each is destroyed, if it comes to be in the other, by
the prevalence of the more powerful element. If,
then, he lays down the doctrine that the Nature
of the Ungenerate differs thus from that of the
Only-begotten, it is surely clear that he logically
makes this destructive opposition to be involved
in the divergence of their essences, so that their
nature will be, by this reasoning, incompatible
and incommunicable, and the one would be
consumed by the other, if both should be found
to be mutually inclusive or co-existent.

How then is the. Son " in the Father " with-
out being destroyed, and how does the Father,
coming to be " in the Son," remain continually
unconsumed, if, as Eunomius says, the special
attribute of fire, as compared with water, is main-
tained in the relation of the Generate to the Un-
generate ? Nor does their definition regard com-
munion as existing between earth and air, for
the former is stable, solid, resistent, of down-
ward tendency and heavy, while air has a
nature made up of the contrary attributes. So
white and black are found in opposition among
colours, and men are agreed that the circle is
not the same with the triangle, for each, according
to the definition of its figure, is precisely that
which the other is not. But I am unable to
discover where he sees the opposition in the
case of God the Father and God the Only-
begotten Son. One goodness, wisdom, justice,
providence, power, incorruptibility, — all other
attributes of exalted significance are similarly
predicated of each, and the one has in a
certain sense His strength in the other ; for on
the one hand the Father makes all things
through the Son, and on the other hand the
Only-begotten works all in Himself, being the
Power of the Father. Of what avail, then, are
fire and water to show essential diversity in the
Father and the Son ? He calls us, moreover,
" rash " for instancing the unity of nature and
difference of persons of Peter and Paul, and
says we are guilty of gross recklessness, if we
apply our argument to the contemplation of the
objects of pure reason by the aid of material
examples. Fitly, fitly indeed, does the corrector
of our errors reprove us for rashness in interpret-
ing the Divine Nature by material illustrations !
Why then, deliberate and circumspect sir, do you
talk about the elements ? Is earth immaterial,
fire an object of pure reason, water incorporeal,
air beyond the perception of the senses? Is
your mind so well directed to its aim, are you
so keen-sighted in all directions in your promul-
gation of this argument, that your adversaries
cannot lay hold of, that you do not see in your-
self the faults you blame in those you are accus-
ing? Or are we to make concessions to you
when you are establishing the diversity of

essence by material aid, and to be ourselves
rejected when we point out the kindred charac-
ter of the Nature by means of examples within
our compass ?

§ 4. He says that all things that are in creation
have been named by man, if, as is the case, they
are called differently by every nation, as also
the appellation of " Ungenerate " is conferred
by us : Out that the proper appellation of the
Divine essence itself, which expresses the Divine
Nature, either does not exist at all, or is un-
known to us.

But Peter and Paul, he says, were named by
men, and hence it comes that it is possible in their
case to change the appellations. Why, what exist-
ing thing has not been named by men ? I call you
to testify on behalf of my argument. For if you
make change of names a sign of things having
been named by men, you will thereby surely
allow that every name has been imposed upon
things by us, since the same appellations of
objects have not obtained universally. For as
in the case of Paul who was once Saul, and
of Peter who was formerly Simon, so earth and
sky and air and sea and all the parts of the
creation have not been named alike by all, but
are named in one way by the Hebrews, and in
another way by us, and are denoted by every
nation by different names. If then Eunomius'
argument is valid when he maintains that it was
for this reason, to wit, that their names had been
imposed by men, that Peter and Paul were
named afresh, our teaching will surely be valid
also, starting as it dees from like premises,
which says that all things are named by us, on
the ground that their appellations vary according
to the distinctions of nations. Now if all things
are so, surely the Generate and the Ungenerate
are not exceptions, for even they are among the
things that change their name. For when we
gather, as it were, into the form of a name the
conception of any subject that arises in us, we
declare our concept by words that vary at
different times, not making, but signifying, the
thing by the name we give it. For the things
remain in themselves as they naturally are,
while the mind, touching on existing things,
reveals its thought by such words as are avail-
able. And just as the essence of Peter was not
changed with the change of his name, so neither
is any other of the things we contemplate
changed in the process of mutation of names.
And for this reason we say that the term " Un-
generate " was applied by us to the true and first
Father Who is the Cause of all, and that no
harm would result as regards the signifying of
the Subject, if we were to acknowledge the
same concept under another name. For it is

ig8

GREGORY OF NYSSA

allowable instead of speaking of Him as " Un-
generate," to call Him the "First Cause" or
"Father of the Only-begotten," or to speak of
Him as "existing without cause," and many
such appellations which lead to the same
thought ; so that Eunomius confirms our doc-
trines by the very arguments in which he makes
complaint against us, because we know no name
significant of the Divine Nature. We are taught
the fact of Its existence, while we assert that an
appellation of such force as to include the un-
speakable and infinite Nature, either does not
exist at all, or at any rate is unknown to us.
Let him then leave his accustomed language
of fable, and show us the names which signify
the essences, and then proceed further to divide
the subject by the divergence of their names.
But so long as the saying of the Scripture is
true that Abraham and Moses were not capable
of the knowledge of the Name, and that " no
man hath seen God at any time 9," and that
" no man hath seen Him, nor can see l," and
that the light around Him is unapproachable r,
and " there is no end of His greatness 2 " ; — so
long as we say and believe these things, how
like is an argument that promises any compre-
hension and expression of the infinite Nature,
by means of the significance of names, to one
who thinks that he can enclose the whole sea
::n his own hand ! for as the hollow of one's
hand is to the whole deep, so is all the power
of language in comparison with that Nature
which is unspeakable and incomprehensible.

§ 5. After much discourse concerning tlie actu-
ally existent, and ungenerate and good, and
upon the consubstantiality of the heavenly
powers, showing the unvaried character of
their essence, yet the difference of their ranks,
he ends the book.

Now in saying these things we do not intend
to deny that the Father exists without generation,
and we have no intention of refusing to agree
to the statement that the Only-begotten God is
generated ; — on the contrary the latter has been
generated, the former has not been generated.
But what He is, in His own Nature, Who exists
apart from generation, and what He is, Who is
believed to have been generated, we do not
learn from the signification of "having been
generated," and " not having been generated."
For when we say " this person was generated "
(or " was not generated "), we are impressed
with a two-fold thought, having our eyes turned
to the subject by the demonstrative part of the
phrase, and learning that which is contemplated
in the subject by the words " was generated"

» S. John i. 18.

1 1 Tim. vi. 16.

* Ps. cxlv. 3.

or " was not generated," — as it is one thing to
think of that which is, and another to think of
what we contemplate in that which is. But,
moreover, the word " is " is surely understood
with every name that is used concerning the
Divine Nature, — as "just," "incorruptible,"
"immortal," and "ungenerate," and whatever
else is said of Him ; even if this word does not
happen to occur in the phrase, yet the thought
both of the speaker and the hearer surely
makes the name attach to "is," so that if this
word were not added, the appellation would be
uttered in vain. For instance (for it is better
to present an argument by way of illustration),
when David says, "God, a righteous judge,
strong and patient V' if " is " were not under-
stood with each of the epithets included in the
phrase, the enumerations of the appellations
will seem purposeless and unreal, not having
any subject to rest upon ; but when " is " is
understood with each of the names, what is said
will clearly be of force, being contemplated in
reference to that which is. As, then, when we
say "He is a judge," we conceive concerning
Him some operation of judgment, and by the
"is" carry our minds to the subject, and are
hereby clearly taught not to suppose that the
account of His being is the same with the
action, so also as a result of saying, " He is gen-
erated (or ungenerate)," we divide our thought
into a double conception, by " is " understanding
the subject, and by "generated," or "ungen-
erate," apprehending that which belongs to the
subject. As, then, when we are taught by
David that God is " a judge," or " patient," we
do not learn the Divine essence, but one of the
attributes which are contemplated in it, so in
this case too when we hear of His being not
generated, we do not by this negative predication
understand the subject, but are guided as to
what we must not think concerning the subject,
while what He essentially is remains as much as
ever unexplained. So too, when Holy Scrip-
ture predicates the other Divine names of Him
Who is, and delivers to Moses the Being
without a name, it is for him who discloses the
Nature of that Being, not to rehearse the at-
tributes of the Being, but by his words to make
manifest to us its actual Nature. For every
name which you may use is an attribute of the
Being, but is not the Being, — "good," "ungen-
erate," "incorruptible," — but to each of these
"is" does not fail to be supplied. Any one,
then, who undertakes to give the account of
this good Being, of this ungenerate Being, as
He is, would speak in vain, if he rehearsed the
attributes contemplated in Him, and were silent
as to that essence which he undertakes by his

3 Cf. Ps. vii. 8.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK VII.

199

words to explain. To be without generation is
one of the attributes contemplated in the Being,
but the definition of " Being " is one thing, and
that of " being in some particular way " is
another ; and this 4 has so far remained untold
and unexplained by the passages cited. Let
him then first disclose to us the names of the
essence, and then divide the Nature by the
divergence of the appellations ; — so long as
what we require remains unexplained, it is in
vain that he employs his scientific skill upon
names, seeing that the names s have no separate
existence.

Such then is Eunomius' stronger handle
against the truth, while we pass by in silence
many views which are to be found in this
part of his composition ; for it seems to me
right that those who run in this armed race 6
against the enemies of the truth should arm
themselves against those who are fairly fenced
about with the plausibility of falsehood, and not
defile their argument with such conceptions as
are already dead and of offensive odour. His
supposition that whatever things are united in
the idea of their essence ? must needs exist
corporeally and be joined to corruption (for this
he says in this part of his work), I shall willingly
pass by like some cadaverous odour, since I
think every reasonable man will perceive how
dead and corrupt such an argument is. For
who knows not that the multitude of human
souls is countless, yet one essence underlies
them all, and the consubstantial substratum in
them is alien from bodily corruption ? so that
even children can plainly see the argument that

4 What " this" means is not clear : it may be " the Being," but
most probably is the distinction which S. Gregory is pointing out
between the I'.eing and Its attributes, which he considers has not
been sufficiently recognized.

5 Reading twv bvofj-ixTuiv ovk ovTa^ with the Paris editions.
Oehler reads vorifidTuiv, but does not give any authority for the
change.

e The metaphor seems slightly confused, being partly taken
from a tournament, or gladiatorial contest, partly from a race in
armour.

7 The word oxxrCa seems to have had in Eunomius' mind some-
thing of the same idea of corporeal existence attaching to it which
has been made to attach to the Latin " substantia," and to the
Engfish " substance."

bodies are corrupted and dissolved, not because
they have the same essence one with another,
but because of their possessing a compound
nature. The idea of the compound nature is
one, that of the common nature of their essence
is another, so that it is true to say, " corruptible
bodies are of one essence," but the converse
statement is not true at all, if it be anything like,
"this consubstantial nature is also surely cor-
ruptible," as is shown in the case of the souls
which have one essence, while yet corruption
does not attach to them in virtue of the com-
munity of essence. And the account given of
the souls might properly be applied to every
intellectual existence which we contemplate in
creation. For the words brought together by
Paul do not signify, as Eunomius will have
them do, some mutually divergent natures of
the supra-mundane powers ; on the contrary,
the sense of the names clearly indicates that he
is mentioning in his argument, not diversities of
natures, but the varied peculiarities of the oper-
ations of the heavenly host : for there are, he says,
"principalities," and " thrones," and "powers,"
and "mights," and "dominions8." Now these
names are such as to make it at once clear to
every one that their significance is arranged in
regard to some operation. For to rule, and
to exercise power and dominion, and to be the
throne of some one, — all these conceptions
would not be held by any one versed in argu-
ment to apply to diversities of essence, since it is
clearly operation that is signified by every one
of the names : so that any one who says that
diversities of nature are signified by the names
rehearsed by Paul deceives himself, " under-
standing," as the Apostle says, "neither what
he says, nor whereof he affirms 9," since the
sense of the names clearly shows that the
Apostle recognizes in the intelligible powers
distinctions of certain ranks, but does not by
these names indicate varieties of essences.

8 Cf. Col. i. 16, and Eph. L ai.

• 1 Tim. L 7.

BOOK VIII.

§ I. The eighth book very notably overthrows the
blasphemy of the heretics who say that the Only-
begotten came from nothing, and that there was
a time when He was not, and shows the Son
to be no new being, but from everlasting, from
His having said to Moses, " I am He that is,"
and to Manoah, " Why askest thou My name?
it also is wonderful" ; — moreovtr David also
says to God, " Thou art the same, and Thy
years shall not fail ; " and furthermore Isaiah
says, ' ' / am God, the first, and hereafter am
I : " and the Evangelist, " He was in the be-
ginning, and was with God, and was God : "
— and that He has neither beginning nor end :
and he proves that those who say that He is
new and comes from nothing are idolaters.
And herein he very finely interprets " the
brightness of the glory, and the express image
of the Person."

These, then, are the strong points of Euno-
mius' case ; and I think that when those which
promised to be powerful are proved by argu-
ment to be so rotten and unsubstantial, I may
well keep silence concerning the rest, since the
others are practically refuted, concurrently with
the refutation of the stronger ones ; just as it
happens in warlike operations that when a force
more powerful than the rest has been beaten,
the remainder of the army are no longer of any
account in the eyes of those by whom the strong
portion of it has been overcome. But the fact
that the chief part of his blasphemy lies in the
later part of his discourse forbids me to be
silent. For the transition of the Only-begotten
from nothing into being, that horrid and godless
doctrine of Eunomius, which is more to be
shunned than all impiety, is next maintained
in the order of his argument. And since every
who has been bewitched by this deceit
has the phrase, "If He was, He has not been
otten, and if He has been begotten, He
was not," ready upon his tongue tor the main-
ance of the doctrine that He Who made
ot nothing us and all the creation is Himself
from nothing, and since the deceit obtains much
support thereby, as men of feebler mind are
pressed by this superficial bit ol plausibility,
and led to acquiesce in the blasphemy, we

must needs not pass by this doctrinal " root of
bitterness," lest, as the Apostle says, it " spring
up and trouble us l." Now I say that we must
first of all consider the actual argument itself,
apart from our contest with our opponents, and
thus afterwards proceed to the examination and
refutation of what they have set forth.

One mark of the true Godhead is indicated
by the words of Holy Scripture, which Moses
learnt by the voice from heaven, when He
heard Him Who said, "I am He that is2."
We think it right, then, to believe that to be
alone truly Divine which is represented as
eternal and infinite in respect of being ; and all
that is contemplated therein is always the same,
neither growing nor being consumed ; so that
if one should say of God, that formerly He was,
but now is not, or that He now is, but formerly
was not, we should consider each of the sayings
alike to be godless : for by both alike the idea
of eternity is mutilated, being cut short on one
side or the other by non-existence, whether one
contemplates " nothing " as preceding " being 3,"
or declares that " being " ends in " nothing " ;
and the frequent repetition of " first of all " or
" last of all " concerning God's non-existence
does not make amends for the impious concep-
tion touching the Divinity. For this reason we
declare the maintenance of their doctrine as to
the non-existence at some time of Him Who
truly is, to be a denial and rejection of His true
Godhead ; and this on the ground that, on the
one hand, He Who showed Himself to Moses
by the light speaks of Himself as being, when
He says, "I am He that is2," while on the
other, Isaiah (being made, so to say, the instru-
ment of Him Who spoke in him) says in the
person of Him that is, " I am the first, and
hereafter am I \" so that hereby, whichever way
we consider it, we conceive eternity in God.
And so, too, the word that was spoken to
Manoah shows the fact that the Divinity is not
comprehensible by the significance of His name,
because, when Manoah asks to know His name,
that, when the promise has come actually to
pass, he may by name glorify his benefactor,

* Cf. Heb. xii. 15. a Exod. iii. 4.
3 Reading irpofccopotTj for TrpotTOttopoiTq.

* See note 1 on Book V. § i, where llie^e words are also treated
of.

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK VIII. 201

He says to him, " Why askest thou this ? It
also is wonderful s " ; so that by this we learn
that there is one name signifieant of the Divine
Nature — the wonder, namely, that arises un-
speakably in our hearts concerning It. So, too,
great David, in his discourses with himself,
proclaims the same truth, in the sense that all
the creation was brought into being by God,
while He alone exists always in the same
manner, and abides for ever, where he says,
" But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall
not fail 6." When we hear these sayings, and
others like them, from men inspired by God,
let us leave all that is not from eternity to the
worship of idolaters, as a new thing alien from
the true Godhead. For that which now is, and
formerly was not, is clearly new and not eternal,
.and to have regard to any new object of worship
is called by Moses the service of demons, when
he says, "They sacrificed to devils and not to
God, to gods whom their fathers knew not ;
new gods were they that came newly up 7." If
then everything that is new in worship is a
service of demons, and is alien from the true
Godhead, and if what is now, but was not always,
is new and not eternal, we who have regard to
that which is, necessarily reckon those who con-
template non-existence as attaching to Him
Who is, and who say that " He once was not,"
among the worshippers of idols. For we may
also see that the great John, when declaring in
his own preaching the Only-begotten God,
guards his own statement in every way, so that
the conception of non-existence shall find no
access to Him Who is. For he says 8 that He
" was in the beginning," and " was with God,"
and " was God," and was light, and life, and
truth, and all good things at all times, and
never at any time failed to be anything that is
excellent, Who is the fulness of all good, and
is in the bosom of the Father. If then Moses
lays down as a law for us some such mark of
true Godhead as this, that we know nothing
else of God but this one thing, that He is (for
to this point the words, " I am He that is 9 ") ;
while Isaiah in his preaching declares aloud the
absolute infinity of Him Who is, defining the
existence of God as having no regard to be-
ginning or to end (for He Who says "I am the
first, and hereafter am I," places no limit to
His eternity in either direction, so that neither,
if we look to the beginning, do we find any
point marked smce which He is, and beyond
which He was not, nor, if we turn our thought
to the future, can we cut short by any boundary
the eternal progress of Him Who is), — and if
the prophet David forbids us to worship any

5 Cf. Judges xiii. 18 (LXX.). & Ps. cii. 27.

7 < r. Dent, xxxii. 17 (LXX.). The quotat on is not exact.

» Cf. S. John i. 9 Exod. iii. 4.

new and strange God l (both of which are in-
volved in the heretical doctrine ; " newness " is
clearly indicated in that which is not eternal,
and " strangeness " is alienation from the Nature
of the very God), — if, I say, these things are so,
we declare all the sophistical fabrication about
the non-existence at some time of Him Who
truly is, to be nothing else than a departure from
Christianity, and a turning to idolatry. For
when the Evangelist, in his discourse concern-
ing the Nature of God, separates at all points
non-existence from Him Who is, and, by his
constant repetition of the word " was," carefully
destroys the suspicion of non-existence, and calls
Him the Only-begotten God, the Word of Gn<4
the Son of God, equal with God, and all such
names, we have this judgment fixed and settled in
us, that if the Only-begotten Son is God, we must
believe that He Who is believed to be God is
eternal. And indeed He is verily God, and
assuredly is eternal, and is never at any time
found to be non-existent. For God, as we have
often said, if He now is, also assuredly always
was, and if He once was not, neither does He
now exist at all. But since even the enemies
of the truth confess that the Son is and con-
tinually abides the Only-begotten God, we say
this, that, being in the Father, He is not in
Him in one respect only, but He is in Him
altogether, in respect of all that the Father is
conceived to be. As, then, being in the incor-
ruptibility of the Father, He is incorruptible,
good in His goodness, powerful in His might,
and, as being in each of these attributes of
special excellence which are conceived of the
Father, He is that particular thing, so, also,
being in His eternity, He is assuredly eternal.
Now the eternity of the Father is marked by
His never having taken His being from non-
existence, and never terminating His being in
non-existence. He, therefore, Who hath all
things that are the Father's2, and is contem-
plated in all the glory of the Father, even as,
being in the endlessness of the Father, He has
no end, so, being in the unoriginateness of the
Father, has, as the Apostle says, " no beginning
of days3," but at once is "of the Father," and
is regarded in the eternity of the Father : and
in this respect, more especially, is seen the com-
plete absence of divergence in the Likeness, as
compared with Him Whose Likeness He is.
And herein is His saying found true which
tells us, " He that hath seen Me hath seen the
Father 1" Moreover, it is in this way that
those words of the Apostle, that the Son is
"the brightness of His glory, and the express
image of His Person s," are best understood to
have an excellent and close application. For

1 Cf. Ps ixxxi. 10.
4 S. John xiv. 8.

S. Joh 1 xvi. m.

5 Hch.

3 Heb.

vn. 3.

u 3.

L02

GREGORY OF NYSSA

the Apostle conveys to those hearers who are
unable, by the contemplation of purely intel-
lectual objects, to elevate their thought to the
height of the knowledge of God, a sort of notion
of the truth, by means of things apparent to
sense. For as the body of the sun is expressly
imaged by the whole disc that surrounds it,
and he who looks on the sun argues, by means
of what he sees, the existence of the whole solid
substratum, so, he says, the majesty of the
Father is expressly imaged in the greatness of
the power of the Son, that the one may be be-
lieved to be as great as the other is known to
be : and again, as the radiance of light sheds
its brilliancy from the whole of the sun's disc
(for in the disc one part is not radiant, and
the rest dim), so all that glory which the Father
is, sheds its brilliancy from its whole extent by
means of the brightness that comes from it,
that is, by the true Light ; and as the ray is of
the sun (for there would be no ray if the sun
were not), yet the sun is never conceived as
existing by itself without the ray of brightness
that is shed from it, so the Apostle delivering
to us the continuity and eternity of that exist-
ence which the Only-begotten has of the Father,
calls the Son " the brightness of His glory."

§ 2. He then discusses the " willing'''' of the Father
concerning the generation of the Son, and
shows that the object of that good will is from
eternity, which is the Son, existing in the
Father, and being closely related to the process
of willing, as the ray to the flame, or the act
of seeing to the eye.

After these distinctions on our part no one
can well be longer in doubt how the Only-
begotten at once is believed to be "of the
Father," and is eternally, even if the one phrase
does not at first sight seem to agree with the
other, — that which declares Him to be " of the
Father" with that which asserts His eternity.
But if we are to confirm our statement by
further arguments, it may be possible to appre-
hend the doctrine on this point by the aid of
things cognizable by our senses. And let no
one deride our statement, if it cannot find among
existing things a likeness of the object of our
enquiry such as may be in all respects sufficient
for the presentation of the matter in hand by
way of analogy and resemblance. For we
.uould like to persuade those who say that the
lather first willed and so proceeded to become
a lather, and on this ground assert posteriority
in existence as regards the Word, by whatever
illustrations may make it possible, to turn to
tin orthodox view. Neither does this immedi-
ate conjunction exclude the "willing" of the
lather, in the sense that He had a Son without

choice, by some necessity of His Nature, nor
does the " willing " separate the Son from the
Father, coming in between them as a kind of
interval : so that we neither reject from our
doctrine the " willing " of the Begetter directed
to the Son, as being, so to say, forced out by
the conjunction of the Son's oneness with the
Father, nor do we by any means break that in-
separable connection, when " willing" is regarded
as involved in the generation. For to our
heavy and inert nature it properly belongs that
the wish and the possession of a thing are not
often present with us at the same moment ; but
now we wish for something we have not, and
at another time we obtain what we do not wish
to obtain. But, in the case of the simple and
all-powerful Nature, all things are conceived
together and at once, the willing of good as
well as the possession of what He wills. For
the good and the eternal will is contemplated
as operating, indwelling, and co-existing in the
eternal Nature, not arising in it from any
separate principle, nor capable of being con-
ceived apart from the object of will : for it is
not possible that with God either the good will
should not be, or the object of will should not
accompany the act of will, since no cause can
either bring it about that that which befits the
Father should not always be, or be any hind-
rance to the possession of the object of will.
Since, then, the Only-begotten God is by nature
the good (or rather beyond all good), and since
the good does not fail to be the object of the
Father's will, it is hereby clearly shown, both
that the conjunction of the Son with the Father
is without any intermediary, and also that the
will, which is always present in the good Nature,
is not forced out nor excluded by reason of this
inseparable conjunction. And if any one is
listening to my argument in no scoffing spirit, I
should like to add to what I have already said
something of the following kind.

Just as, if one were to grant (I speak, of
course, hypothetically) the power of deliberate
choice to belong to flame, it would be clear
that the flame will at once upon its existence
will that its radiance should shine forth from
itself, and when it wills it will not be impotent
(since, on the appearance of the flame, its natural
power at once fulfils its will in the matter
of the radiance), so that undoubtedly, if it be
granted that the flame is moved by deliberate
choice, we conceive the concurrence of all these
things simultaneously — of the kindling of the
fire, of its act of will concerning the radiance,
and of the radiance itself ; so that the movement
by way of choice is no hindrance to the dignity
of the existence of the radiance, — even so, ac-
cording to the illustration we have spoken of,
you will not, by confessing the good act of will

AGAINST EUN0M1US. BOOK VIII.

203

as existing in the Father, separate by that act of
will the Son from the Father. For it is not
reasonable to suppose that the act of willing
that He should be, could be a hindrance to His
immediately coming into being ; but just as,
in the eye, seeing and the will to see are, one an
operation of nature, the other an impulse of
choice, yet no delay is caused to the act of sight
by the movement of choice in that particular
direction 6, — (for each of these is regarded separ-
ately and by itself, not as being at all a hindrance
to the existence of the other, but as both being
somehow interexistent, the natural operation
concurring with the choice, and the choice in
turn not failing to be accompanied by the
natural motion) — as, I say, perception naturally
belongs to the eye, and the willing to see pro-
duces no delay in respect to actual sight, but
one wills that it should have vision, and imme-
diately what he wills is, so also in the case of
that Nature which is unspeakable and above all
thought, our apprehension of all comes together
simultaneously — of the eternal existence of the
Father, and of an act of will concerning the
Son, and of the Son Himself, Who is, as John
says, "in the beginning," and is not conceived
as coming after the beginning. Now the be-
ginning of all is the Father ; but in this begin-
ning the Son also is declared to be, being in
His Nature that very thing which the Beginning
is. For the Beginning is God, and the Word
Who " was in the Beginning " is God. As then
the phrase " the beginning " points to eternity,
John well conjoins "the Word in the Begin-
ning," saying that the Word was in It ; asserting,
I suppose, this fact to the end that the first idea
present to the mind of his hearer may not be
" the Beginning " alone by itself, but that, before
this has been impressed upon him, there should
also be presented to his mind, together with the
Beginning the Word Who was in It, entering
with It into the hearer's understanding, and
being present to his hearing at the same time
with the Beginning.

§ 3. Then, thus passing over what relates to the
essence of the Son as having been already dis-t
cussed, he treats of the sense involved in " gen-
eration" saying that there are diverse gener-
ations, those effected by matter and art, and of
buildings, — and that by succession of animals,
— and those by efflux, as by the sun and its
beam, the lamp and its radiance, scents and
ointments and the quality diffused by them, —
and the word produced by the mind ; and
cleverly discusses generation 7 from rotten wood,
and from the condensation of fire, and countless
other causes.

6 Oehler's punctuation here seems faulty.

1 To make the grammar of the sentence exact tt\v should here
be substituted for zov, the object of the verb being apparently

Now that we have thus thoroughly scrutinized
our doctrine, it may perhaps be time to set forth
and to consider the opposing statement, exam-
ining it side by side in comparison with our
own opinion. He states it thus : — " For while
there are," he says, " two statements which we
have made, the one, that the essence of the
Only-begotten was not before its own generation,
the other that, being generated, it was before all
things, he 8 does not prove either of these state-
ments to be untrue ; for he did not venture to
say that He was before that supreme 9 generation
and formation, seeing that he is opposed at
once by the Nature of the Father, and the
judgment of sober-minded men. For what
sober man could admit the Son to be and to be
begotten before that supreme generation ? and
He Who is without generation needs not gen-
eration in order to His being what He is."
Well, whether he speaks truly, when he says
that our master 8 opposed his antitheses to no
purpose, all may surely be aware who have
been conversant with that writer's works. But
for my own part (for I think that the refutation
of his calumny on this matter is a small step
towards the exposure of his malice), I will leave
the task of showing that this point was not
passed over by our master without discussion,
and turn my argument to the discussion,
as far as in me lies, of the points now advanced.
He says that he has in his own discourse spoken
of two matters, — one, that the essence of the
Only-begotten was not before Its own generation,
the other, that, being generated, It was before
all things. Now I think that by what we have
already said, the fact has been sufficiently shown
that no new essence was begotten by the Father
besides that which is contemplated in the Father
Himself, and that there is no need for us to be
entangled in a contest with blasphemy of this
kind, as if the argument were now propounded
to us for the first time ; and further, that the
real force of our argument must be directed to
one point, I mean to his horrible and blasphem-
ous utterance, which clearly states concerning
God the Word that " He was not." Moreover,
as our argument in the foregoing discourse has
already to some extent dealt with the question
of his blasphemy, it would perhaps be super-
fluous again to establish by like considerations
what we have proved already. For it was to
this end that we made those former statements,
that by the earlier impression upon our hearers
of an orthodox mode of thought, the blasphemy

yiv\rr\<ii.v not \6yov. The whole section of the analysis is rather
confused, and does not clearly reproduce S. Gregory's division of
the subject. A large part of this section, and of that which follows
it, is repeated with very slight alteration from Bk. II. § 9 (see pp.
113 — ii<; above). The resemblances are much closer in the Greek
text than they appear in the present translation, in which different
nan 's have been at work in the two books. 8 j_em S. Basil.

9 avuiTa.Tu> may be "supreme," in the sense of "ultimate" 01
" most remote," or in the more ordinary sense of "most exalted."

204

GREGORY OF NYSSA

■of our adversaries, who assert that non-existence
preceded existence in the case of the Only-
begotten God, might be more manifest.

It seems at this point well to investigate in
■our argument, by a more careful examination,
the actual significance of "generation." That
this name presents to us the fact of being as
the result of some cause is clear to every one,
and about this point there is, I suppose, no
need to dispute. But since the account to be
given of things which exist as the result of cause
is various, I think it proper that this matter
should be cleared up in our discourse by some
sort of scientific division. Of things, then, which
are the result of something, we understand the
varieties to be as follows. Some are the result
of matter and art, as the structure of buildings
and of other works, coming into being by means
of their respective matter, and these are directed
by some art that accomplishes the thing pro-
posed, with a view to the proper aim of the
results produced. Others are the results of
matter and nature ; for the generations of ani-
mals are the building1 of nature, who carries on
her own operation by means of their material
bodily subsistence. Others are the result of
material efflux, in which cases the antecedent
remains in its natural condition, while that
which flows from it is conceived separately, as
in the case of the sun and its beam, or the lamp
and its brightness, or of scents and ointments
and the quality they emit ; for these, while they
remain in themselves without diminution, have
at the same time, each concurrently with itself,
that natural property which they emit : as the
sun its beam, the lamp its brightness, the scents
the perfume produced by them in the air. There
is also another species of " generation " besides
these, in which the cause is immaterial and
incorporeal, but the generation is an object of
sense and takes place by corporeal means ; — I
speak of the word which is begotten by the
nind : for the mind, being itself incorporeal,
brings forth the word by means of the organs
of sense. All these varieties of generation we
mentally include, as it were, in one general view.
For all the wonders that are wrought by nature,
which changes the bodies of some animals to
•something of a different kind, or produces some
animals from a change in liquids, or a corruption
of seed, or the rotting of wood, or out of the
condensed mass of fire transforms the cold
vapour that issues from the firebrands, shut off
in the heart of the fire, to produce an animal
which they call the salamander, — these, even if
they seem to be outside the limits we have laid
down, are none the less included among the
cases we have mentioned. For it is by means

1 ()i proposed above, p. 114, oiicofo/i.<i for oixo6o/ju I),

■"the ordering of nature."

of bodies that nature fashions these varied
forms of animals ; for it is such and such a
change of body, disposed by nature in this or
that particular way, which produces this or that
particular animal ; and this is not a distinct
species of generation besides that which is ac-
complished as the result of nature and matter.

§ 4. He further shows the operations of God to
be expressed by human illustrations ; jor what
hands and feet and the other parts of the body
with ivhich men work are, that, in the case of
God, the will alone is, in place of these. And
so also arises the divergence of generation ;
wherefore He is called Only-begotten, because
He has no community with other generation
such as is observed in creation 2, but in that He
is called the " brightness of glory," and the
" savour of ointment," He shows the close
conjunction and co-eternity of His Nature with
the Father 3.

Now these modes of generation being well
known to men, the loving dispensation of the
Holy Spirit, in delivering to us the Divine
mysteries, conveys its instruction on those mat-
ters which transcend language by means of
what is within our capacity, as it does also con-
stantly elsewhere, when it portrays the Divinity
in bodily terms, making mention, in speaking
concerning God, of His eye, His eyelids, His
ear, His fingers, His hand, His right hand, His
arm, His feet, His shoes \ and the like, — none
of which things is apprehended to belong in its
primary sense to the Divine Nature, — but turn-
ing its teaching to what we can easily perceive,
it describes by terms well worn in human use,
facts that are beyond every name, while by each
of the terms employed concerning God we are
led analogically to some more exalted concep-
tion. In this way, then, it employs the numerous
forms of generation to present to us, from the
inspired teaching, the unspeakable existence of
the Only-begotten, taking just so much from
each as may be reverently admitted into our
conceptions concerning God. For as its men-
tion of "fingers," "hand," and "arm," in
speaking of God, does not by the phrase portray
the structure of the limb out of bones and
sinews and flesh and ligaments, but signifies by
such an expression His effective and operative
power, and as it indicates by each of the other
words of this kind those conceptions concerning
God which correspond to them, not admitting
the corporeal senses of the words, so also it
speaks indeed of the forms of these modes of
coming into being as applied to the Divine

2 This passage is clearly corrupt : the general sense as probably
intended i-- K'vcn here. t See note 7 in the last section.

4 The reference is piobably to Ps. lx. 8, and Ps. eviii. 9.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS BOOK VIII,

205

Nature, yet does not speak in that sense which
our customary knowledge enables us to under-
stand. For when it speaks of the formative
power, it calls that particular energy by the
name of "generation," because the word ex-
pressive of Divine power must needs descend
to our lowliness, yet it does not indicate all that
is associated with formative generation among
ourselves, — neither place nor time nor prepar-
ation of material, nor the co-operation of
instruments, nor the purpose in the things
produced, but it leaves these out of sight, and
greatly and loftily claims for God the generation
of the things that are, where it says, " He spake
and they were begotten, He commanded and
they were created 5." Again, when it expounds
that unspeakable and transcendent existence
which the Only-begotten has from the Father,
because human poverty is incapable of the
truths that are too high for speech or thought,
it uses our language here also, and calls Him
by the name of " Son," — a name which our
ordinary use applies to those who are produced
by matter and nature. But just as the word,
which tells us in reference to God of the "gen-
eration " of the creation, did not add the state-
ment that it was generated by the aid of any
material, declaring that its material substance,
its place, its time, and all the like, had their
existence in the power of His will, so here too,
in speaking of the " Son," it leaves out of sight
both all other things which human nature sees
in earthly generation (passions, I mean, and
dispositions, and the co-operation of time and
the need of place, and especially matter),
without all which earthly generation as a result
of nature does not occur. Now every such
conception of matter and interval being ex-
cluded from the sense of the word " Son,"
nature alone remains, and hereby in the word
" Son " is declared concerning the Only-begotten
the close and true character of His manifestation
from the Father. And since this particular
species of generation did not suffice to produce
in us an adequate idea of the unspeakable
existence of the Only-begotten, it employs also
another species of generation, that which is
the result of efflux, to express the Divine Na-
ture of the Son, and calls Him " the brightness
of glory6," the "savour of ointment7," the
" breath of God 8," which our accustomed use,
in the scientific discussion we have already
made, calls material efflux. But just as in the
previous cases neither the making of creation
nor the significance of the word " Son " admitted
time, or matter, or place, or passion, so here
also the phrase, purifying the sense of " bright-
ness " and the other terms from every material

5 Ps. cxlviii. 5 (LXX.).
Perhaps Cant. i. 3.

6 Heb. i. 3.
8 Wi»d. vii.

-5-

conception, and employing only that element
in this particular species of generation which is
suitable to the Divinity, points by the force of
this mode of expression to the truth that He is
conceived as being both from Him and with
Him. For neither does the word "breath"
present to us dispersion into the air from the
underlying matter, nor "savour" the transfer-
ence that takes place from the quality of the
ointment to the air, nor " brightness " the efflux
by means of rays from the body of the sun ;
but this only, as we have said, is manifested
by this particular mode of generation, that He
is conceived to be of Him and also with Him,
no intermediate interval existing between the
Father and that Son Who is of Him. And
since, in its abundant loving-kindness, the grace
of the Holy Spirit has ordered that our con-
ceptions concerning the Only-begotten Son
should arise in us from many sources, it has
added also the remaining species of things con-
templated in generation, — that, I mean, which
is the result of mind and word. But the lofty
John uses especial foresight that the hearer may
not by any means by inattention or feebleness
of thought fall into the common understanding
of " Word," so that the Son should be supposed
to be the voice of the Father. For this reason
he prepares us at his first proclamation to regard
the Word as in essence, and not in any essence
foreign to or dissevered from that essence
whence It has Its being, but in that first and
blessed Nature. For this is what he teaches
us when he says the Word " was in the begin-
ning 9," and "was with God 9," being Himself
also both God and all else that the " Beginning "
is. For thus it is that he makes his discourse
on the Godhead, touching the eternity of the
Only-begotten. Seeing then that these modes
of generation (those, I mean, which are the
result of cause) are ordinarily known among us,
and are employed by Holy Scripture for our
instruction on the subjects before us, in such a
way as it might be expected that each of them
would be applied to the presentation of Divine
conceptions, let the reader of our argument
"judge righteous judgement1," whether any of
the assertions that heresy makes have any force
against the truth.

§ 5. Then, after showing that the Person of the
Only -begotten and Maker of things has no
beginning, as have the things that were made
by Him, as Eunomius says, but that the Only-
begotten is without beginning and eternal, and
has no community, either of essence or of names,
with the creation, but is co-existent with the
Father from everlasting, being, as the ah-excel-

9 Cf. S. John ;. i.

1 S. John vii. 24.

206

GREGORY OF NYSSA

lent Wisdom says, " the beginning and end and
midst of the times," and after making many
observations on the Godhead and eternity of
the Only-begotten, and also concerning souls
and angels, and life and death, he concludes
the book.

I will now once more subjoin the actual
language of my opponent, word for word. It
runs thus : — " While there are," he says, " two
statements which we have made, the one, that
the essence of the Only-begotten was not before
its own generation, the other, that, being gener-
ated, it was before all things — " What kind of
generation does our dogmatist propose to us ?
Is it one of which we may fittingly think and
speak in regard to God ? And who is so god-
less as to pre-suppose non-existence in God ?
But it is clear that he has in view this material
generation of ours, and is making the lower
nature the teacher of his conceptions concern-
ing the Only-begotten God, and since an ox or
an ass or a camel is not before its own gener-
ation, he thinks it proper to say even of the
Only-begotten God that which the course of
the lower nature presents to our view in the
case of the animals, without thinking, corporeal
theologian that he is, of this fact, that the predi-
cate " (9«/y-begotten ", applied to God, signifies
by the very word itself that which is not in
common with all begetting, and is peculiar to
Him. How could the term "Only-begotten"
be used of this "generation," if it had com-
munity and identity of meaning with other
generation ? That there is something unique
and exceptional to be understood in His case,
which is not to be remarked in other generation,
is distinctly and suitably expressed by the
appellation of " Only-begotten " ; as, were any
element of the lower generation conceived in
it, He Who in respect of any of the attributes
of His generation was placed on a level with
other things that are begotten would no longer
be " 0///y-begotten." For if the same things
are to be said of Him which are said of the
other things that come into being by generation,
the definition will transform the sense of " Only-
begotten " to signify a kind of relationship involv-
ing brotherhood. If then the sense of " Only-
begotten " points to absence of mixture and
community with the rest of generated things,
we shall not admit that anything which we
behold in the lower generation is also to be
conceived in the case of that existence which
the Son has from the Father. But non-existence
before generation is proper to all things that
exist l)y generation : therefore this is foreign
to the special character of the Only-begotten,
to which the name "Only-begotten" bears wit-
ness that there attaches nothing belonging to

the mode of that form of common generation
which Eunomius misapprehends. Let this
materialist and friend of the senses be persuaded
therefore to correct the error of his conception
by the other forms of generation. What will you
say when you hear of the " brightness of glory "
or of the " savour of ointment 2 ? " That the
" brightness " was not before its own generation ?
But if you answer thus, you will surely admit that
neither did the "glory" exist, nor the "oint-
ment" : for it is not possible that the "glory"
should be conceived as having existed by itself,
dark and lustreless, or the " ointment " without
producing its sweet breath : so that if the
"brightness" "was not," the "glory" also
surely "was not," and the "savour" being
non-existent, there is also proved the non-
existence of the "ointment." But if these
examples taken from Scripture excite any man's
fear, on the ground that they do not accurately
present to us the majesty of the Only-begotten,
because neither is essentially the same with its
substratum — neither the exhalation with the
ointment, nor the beam with the sun — let the
true Word correct his fear, Who was in the
Beginning and is all that the Beginning is, and
existent before all ; since John so declares in
his preaching, " And the Word was with God,
and the Word wras God 3," If then the Father
is God and the Son is God, what doubt still
remains with regard to the perfect Divinity of
the Only-begotten, when by the sense of the
word " Son " is acknowledged the close relation-
ship of Nature, by "brightness" the conjunc-
tion and inseparability, and by the appellation
of " God," applied alike to the Father and the
Son, their absolute equality, while the " express
image," contemplated in reference to the whole
Person 4 of the Father, marks the absence of
any defect in the Son's proper greatness, and
the "form of God" indicates His complete
identity by showing in itself all those marks by
which the Godhead is betokened.

Let us now set forth Eunomius' statement
once more. " He was not," he says, " before
His own generation." Who is it of Whom he
says " He was not " ? Let him declare the
Divine names by which He Who, according to
Eunomius, " once was not," is called. He will
say, I suppose, "light," and "blessedness,"
"life" and "incorruptibility," and "righteous-
ness " and " sanctification," and " power," and
" truth," and the like. He who says, then, that
" He was not before His generation," absolutely
proclaims this, — that when He "was not" there
was no truth, no life, no light, no power, no
incorruptibility, no other of those pre-eminent
qualities which are conceived of Him : and,

Heb i. 3, and Cant, i 3, referred to above.

3 S. John i. 1.

vnoataatu

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK VEIL

207

what is still more marvellous and still more
difficult for impiety to face, there was no
"brightness," no "express image." For in
s.iving that there was no brightness, there is
surely maintained also the non-existence of the
radiating power, as one may see in the illustra-
tion afforded by the lamp. For he who speaks
of the ray of the lamp indicates also that the lamp
shines, and he who says that the ray " is not,"
signifies also the extinction of that which gives
light : so that when the Son is said not to be,
thereby is also maintained as a necessary con-
sequence the non-existence of the Father. For
if the one is related to the other by way of con-
junction, according to the Apostolic testimony —
the "brightness" to the "glory," the "express
image " to the " Person," the " Wisdom " to
God — he who says that one of the things so
conjoined "is not," surely by his abolition of
the one abolishes also that which remains ; so
chat if the " brightness " " was not," it is
acknowledged that neither did the illuminating
nature exist, and if the " express image " had
no existence, neither did the Person imaged
exist, and if the wisdom and power of God
" was not," it is surely acknowledged that He
also was not, Who is not conceived by Him-
self without wisdom and power. If, then, the
Only-begotten God, as Eunomius says, "was
not before His generation," and Christ is "the
power of God and the wisdom of God 5," and
the " express image " 6 and the " brightness 6,"
neither surely did the Father exist, Whose
power and wisdom and express image and
brightness the Son is : for it is not possible to
conceive by reason either a Person without
express image, or glory without radiance, or
God without wisdom, or a Maker without hands,
or a Beginning without the Word 7, or a Father
without a Son ; but all such things, alike by
those who confess and by those who deny, are
manifestly declared to be in mutual union, and
by the abolition of one the other also disappears
with it. Since then they maintain that the Son
(that is, the "brightness of the glory,") "was
not " before He was begotten, and since logical
consequence involves also, together with the
non-existence of the brightness, the abolition
of the glory, and the Father is the glory whence
came the brightness of the Only-begotten Light,
let these men who are wise over-much consider
that they are manifestly supporters of the Epi-
curean doctrines, preaching atheism under the
guise of Christianity. Now since the logical
consequence is shown to be one of two absurd-
ities, either that we should say that God does
nor exist at all, or that we should say that His
being was not unoriginate, let them choose
which they like of the two courses before

5 1 Cor. i. 24. 6 Heb. i. 3.

' Or perhaps " or an irrational first cause," (aAoyoi' dpx*/".)

them, — either to be called atheist, or to cease
saying that the essence of the Father is un-
originate. They would avoid, I suppose, being
reckoned atheists. It remains, therefore, that
they maintain that God is not eternal. And if
the course of what has been proved forces them
to this, what becomes of their varied and irre-
versible conversions of names ? What becomes
of that invincible compulsion of their syllo-
gisms, which sounded so fine to the ears of old
women, with its opposition of " Generated " and
" Ungenerate " ?

Enough, however, of these matters. But it
might be well not to leave his next point un-
answered ; yet let us pass over in silence the
comic interlude, where our clever orator shows
his youthful conceit, whether in jest or in
earnest, under the impression that he will
thereby have an advantage in his argument.
For certainly no one will force us to join either
with those whose eyes are set askance in distort-
ing our sight, or with those who are stricken
with strange disease in being contorted, or in
their bodily leaps and plunges. We shall pity
them, but we shall not depart from our settled
state of mind. He says, then, turning his
discourse upon the subject to our master, as
if he were really engaging him face to face,
"Thou shalt be taken in thine own snare."
For as Basil had said8 that what is good is
always present with God Who is over all, and
that it is good to be the Father of such a
Son, — that so what is good was never absent
from Him, nor was it the Father's will to be
without the Son, and when He willed He did
not lack the power, but having the power and
the will to be in the mode in which it seemed
good to Him, He also always possessed the
Son by reason of His always willing that which
is good (for this is the direction in which the
intention of our father's remarks tends), Euno-
mius pulls this in pieces beforehand, and puts
forward to overthrow what has been said some
such argument as this, introduced from his
extraneous philosophy : — " What will become of
you," he says, "if one of those who have had
experience of such arguments should say, ' If
to create is good and agreeable to the Nature
of God, how is it that what is good and agree-
able to His Nature was not present with Him
unoriginately, seeing that God is unoriginate?
and that when there was no hindrance of ignor-
ance or impediment of weakness or of age in
the matter of creation," — and all the rest that
he collects together and pours out upon him-
self,— for I may not say, upon God. Well, if
it were possible for our master to answer the
question in person, he would have shown
Eunomius what would have become of him,

•» The reference is to S. Basil adv. Eunomium II. 12 (p. 247 in
Ben. ed.).

208

GREGORY OF NYSSA

as he asked, by setting forth the Divine mystery
with that tongue that was taught of God, and
by scourging the champion of deceit with his
refutations, so that it would have been made
clear to all men what a difference there is be-
tween a minister of the mysteries of Christ and
a ridiculous buffoon or a setter-forth of new
and absurd doctrines. But since he, as the
Apostle says, "being dead, speaketh9" to God,
while the other puts forth such a challenge as
though there were no one to answer him, even
though an answer from us may not have equal
force when compared with the words of the
great Basil, we shall yet boldly say this in
answer to the questioner : — Your own argu-
ment, put forth to overthrow our statement, is
a testimony that in the charges we make against
your impious doctrine we speak truly. For
there is no other point we blame so much as
this, that you * think there is no difference
between the Lord of creation and the general
body of creation, and what you now allege is
a maintaining of the very things which we find
fault with. For if you are bound to attach
exactly what you see in creation also to the
Only-begotten God, our contention has gained
its end : your own statements proclaim the
absurdity of the doctrine, and it is manifest to all,
both that we keep our argument in the straight
way of truth, and that your conception of the
Only-begotten God is such as you have of the
rest of the creation.

Concerning whom was the controversy?
Was it not concerning the Only-begotten God,
the Maker of all the creation, whether He al-
ways was, or whether He came into being after-
wards as an addition to His Father? What
then do our master's words say on this matter ?
That it is irreverent to believe that what is
naturally good was not in God : for that he saw
no cause by which it was probable that the
good was not always present with Him Who is
good, either for lack of power or for weakness
of will. What does he who contends against
these statements say ? " If you allow that God
the Word is to be believed eternal, you must
allow the same of the things that have been
created " — (How well he knows how to distin-
guish in his argument the nature of the creatures
and the majesty of God ! How well he knows
about each, what befits it, what he may piously
think concerning God, what concerning the
creation !) — " if the Maker," he says, " begins
from the time of His making : for there is
nothing else by which we can mark the begin-
ning of things that have been made, if time
does not define by its own interval the begin-

9 Cf. Heb. xi. 4.

1 Reading u/i« for qfiat. If the reading rinis, which Oehler
follows, is retained, the force would seem to be " that you think we
ought not to make any difference," but the construction of the
lentcDCC in this case is cumbrous.

nings and the endings of the things that come
into being."

On this ground he says that the Maker of
time must commence His existence from a like
beginning. Well, the creation has the ages for
its beginning, but what beginning can you con-
ceive of the Maker of the ages ? If any one
should say, " The ' beginning ' which is men-
tioned in the Gospel " — it is the Father Who is
there signified, and the confession of the Son
together with Him is there pointed to, nor can
it be that He Who is in the Father2, as the
Lord says, can begin His being in Him from
any particular point. And if any one speaks of
another beginning besides this, let him tell us
the name by which he marks this beginning, as
none can be apprehended before the establish-
ment of the ages. Such a statement, therefore,
will not move us a whit from the orthodox con-
ception concerning the Only-begotten, even if
old women do applaud the proposition as a
sound one. For we abide by what has been
determined from the beginning, having our
doctrine firmly based on truth, to wit, that all
things which the orthodox doctrine assumes that
we assert concerning the Only-begotten God have
no kindred with the creation, but the marks
which distinguish the Maker of all and His works
are separated by a wide interval. If indeed the
Son had in any other respect communion with
the creation, we surely ought to say that He
did not diverge from it even in the manner of
His existence. But if the creation has no share
in such things as are all those which we learn
concerning the Son, we must surely of necessity
say that in this matter also He has no com-
munion with it. For the creation was not in
the beginning, and was not with God, and was
not God, nor life, nor light, nor resurrection,
nor the rest of the Divine names, as truth,
righteousness, sanctification, Judge, just, Maker
of all things, existing before the ages, for ever
and ever ; the creation is not the brightness of
the glory, nor the express image of the Person,
nor the likeness of goodness, nor grace, nor
power, nor truth, nor salvation, nor redemption ;
nor do we find any one at all of those names
which are employed by Scripture for the glory
of the Only-begotten, either belonging to the
creation or employed concerning it, — not to
speak of those more exalted words, " I am in
the Father, and the Father in Me2," and, " He
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father 3," and,
" None hath seen the Son, save the Father *."
If indeed our doctrine allowed us to claim for
the creation things so many and so great as
these, he might have been right in thinking
that we ought to attach what we observe in it
to our conceptions of the Only-begotten also,.

2 S. John xiv. 10 3 S. John xiv. 9.

4 Apparently an inexact quotation of S. Matt. xi. 27.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK VIII.

209

since the transfer would be from kindred subjects
to one nearly allied. But if all these concepts
and names involve communion with the Father,
while they transcend our notions of the creation,
does not our clever and sharp-witted friend slink
away in shame at discussing the nature of the
Lord of the Creation by the aid of what he
observes in creation, without being aware that
the marks which distinguish the creation are of
a different sort ? The ultimate division of all
that exists is made by the line between " created "
and " uncreated," the one being regarded as a
cause of what has come into being, the other as
coming into being thereby. Now the created
nature and the Divine essence being thus
divided, and admitting no intermixture in
respect of their distinguishing properties, we
must by no means conceive both by means of
similar terms, nor seek in the idea of their
nature for the same distinguishing marks in
things that are thus separated. Accordingly,
as the nature that is in the creation, as the
phrase of the most excellent Wisdom somewhere
tells us, exhibits " the beginning, ending, and
midst of the times s " in itself, and extends con-
currently with all temporal intervals, we take as
a sort of characteristic of the subject this pro-
perty, that in it we see some beginning of its
formation, look on its midst, and extend our
expectations to its end. For we have learnt
that the heaven and the earth were not from
eternity, and will not last to eternity, and
thus it is hence clear that those things are
both started from some beginning, and will
surely cease at some end. But the Divine
Nature, being limited in no respect, but passing
all limitations on every side in its infinity, is
far removed from those marks which we find in
creation. For that power which is without
interval, without quantity, without circumscrip-
tion, having in itself all the ages and all the
creation that has taken place in them, and over-
passing at all points, by virtue of the infinity
of its own nature, the unmeasured extent of the
ages, either has no mark which indicates its
nature, or has one of an entirely different sort,
and not that which the creation has. Since,
then, it belongs to the creation to have a begin-
ning, that will be alien from the uncreated
nature which belongs to the creation. For if
any one should venture to suppose the existence
of the Only-begotten Son to be, like the crea-
tion, from any beginning comprehensible by us,
he must certainly append to his statement con-
cerning the Son the rest also of the sequence 6 ;
for it is not possible to avoid acknowledging,
together with the beginning, that also which

5 Wisd. vii. 18,

6 That is, he must also acknowledgea "middle " and an " end "
of the existence which has a " beginning."

VOL. V.

follows from it. For just as if one were to^
admit some person to be a man in all 7 the
properties of his nature, he would observe that
in this confession he declared him to be an
animal and rational, and whatever else is con-
ceived of man, so by the same reasoning, if
we should understand any of the properties of
creation to be present in the Divine essence, it
will no longer be open to us to refrain from
attaching to that pure Nature the rest of the
list of the attributes contemplated therein. For
the " beginning " will demand by force and com-
pulsion that which follows it; for the "begin-
ning," thus conceived, is a beginning of what
comes after it, in such a sense, that if they are,,
it is, and if the things connected with it are-
removed, the antecedent also would not remain 8.
Now as the book of Wisdom speaks of " midst "
and "end" as well as of "beginning," if we assume
in the Nature of the Only-begotten, according
to the heretical dogma, some beginning of exist-
ence defined by a certain mark of time, the book
of Wisdom will by no means allow us to refrain
from subjoining to the "beginning" a "midst"
and an " end " also. If this should be done we
shall find, as the result of our arguments, that
the Divine word shows us that the Deity is
mortal. For if, according to the book of Wisdom,
the " end " is a necessary consequence of the
" beginning," and the idea of " midst " is in-
volved in that of extremes, he who allows one
of these also potentially maintains the others,
and lays down bounds of measure and limita-
tion for the infinite Nature. And if this is
impious and absurd, the giving a beginning to
that argument which ends in impiety deserves
equal, or even greater censure ; and the be-
ginning of this absurd doctrine was seen to
be the supposition that the life of the Son
was circumscribed by some beginning. Thus
one of two courses is before them : either they
must revert to sound doctrine under the com-
pulsion of the foregoing arguments, and con-
template Him Who is of the Father in union
with the Father's eternity, or if they do not like
this, they must limit the eternity of the Son in
both ways, and reduce the limitless character of
His life to non-existence by a beginning and an
end. And, granted that the nature both of
souls and of the angels has no end, and is no-
way hindered from going on to eternity, by the
fact of its being created, and having the begin-

7 Oehler's emendation, for which he gives weighty MS. authority,
is certainly an improvement on the earlier text, but in sense i- is a
little unsatisfactory. The argument seems to require the hypothesis
not of some one acknowledging a person to be a man in all, 1 ut
in some attributes. The defect, however, may possibly be in S.
Gregory's argument, not in the text.

8 i. e. " if the ' middle ' and ' end ' are not admitted, at the ' be-
ginning,' which is the ' beginning ' of a sequence, is thereby implicitly
denied." Oehler's punctuation has been somewhat altered here,
and at several points in the remainder of the book, where it appears,,
to require emendation.

2IO

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS.

ning of its existence from some point of time,
so that our adversaries can use this fact to
assert a parallel in the case of Christ, in the
sense that He is not from eternity, and yet
endures everlastingly, — let any one who ad-
vances this argument also consider the following
point, how widely the Godhead differs from the
creation in its special attributes. For to the
Godhead it properly belongs to lack no con-
ceivable thing which is regarded as good, while
the creation attains excellence by partaking in
something better than itself; and further, not
only had a beginning of its being, but also is
found to be constantly in a state of beginning
to be in excellence, by its continual advance in
improvement, since it never halts at what it has
reached, but all that it has acquired 9 becomes
by participation a beginning of its ascent to
something still greater, and it never ceases, in
Paul's phrase, " reaching forth to the things that
are before," and " forgetting the things that are
behind1." Since, then, the Godhead is very
life, and the Only-begotten God is God, and
life, and truth, and every conceivable thing that
is lofty and Divine, while the creation draws
from Him its supply of good, it may hence be
evident that if it is in life by partaking of life,
it will surely, if it ceases from this participation,
cease from life also. If they dare, then, to say
also of the Only-begotten God those things
which it is true to say of the creation, let them
say this too, along with the rest, that He has a
beginning of His being like the creation, and
abides in life after the likeness of souls. But
if He is the very life, and needs not to have life
in Himself ab extra, while all other things are
not life, but are merely participants in life, what
constrains us to cancel, by reason of what we
see in creation, the eternity of the Son ? For
that which is always unchanged as regards its
nature, admits of no contrary, and is incapable
of change to any other condition : while things
whose nature is on the boundary line have a
tendency that shifts either way, inclining at will
to what they find attractive2. If, then, that which
is truly life is contemplated in the Divine and
transcendent nature, the decadence thereof will
surely, as it seems, end in the opposite state 3.

Now the meaning of " life " and " death " is
manifold, and not always understood in the
same way. For as regards the flesh, the energy
and motion of the bodily senses is called "life,"
and their extinction and dissolution is named
"death." But in the case of the intellectual
nature, approximation to the Divine is the true

' Reading ktt)8(v, with the Paris ed. of 1638. Oehler's reading
ktioOIv hardly seems to give so good a sense, and he does not give
his authority for it. x Phil. iii. 13.

2 Reading with Oehler, to« Kara yi-u>firji> jrpo<ricAii/o/j.eV»). The
reading npo<jKivovy.ivoi<;, found in the earlier editions, gives a tolerahle
sense, hut appears to have no MS. authority.

3 Or (If trdi'Tcus be constructed iwiih \.vTuuL)x.evov), "will end, as
it seem-, in that stale which is absolutely opposed to Lfe."

life, and decadence therefrom is named "death " :
for which reason the original evil, the devil, is
called both "death," and the inventor of death:
and he is also said by the Apostle to have the
power of death *. As, then, we obtain, as has been
said, from the Scriptures, a twofold conception
of death, He Who is truly unchangeable and
immutable " alone hath immortality," and dwells
in light that cannot be attained or approached
by the darkness of wickedness 5 : but all things
that participate in death, being far removed from
immortality by their contrary tendency, if they
fall away from that which is good, would, by
the mutability of their nature, admit community
with the worse condition, which is nothing else
than death, having a certain correspondence with
the death of the body. For as in that case the
extinction of the activities of nature is called
death, so also, in the case of the intellectual
being, the absence of motion towards the good
is death and departure from life; so that what
we perceive in the bodiless creation 6 does not
clash with our argument, which refutes the
doctrine of heresy. For that form of death
which corresponds to the intellectual nature
(that is, separation from God, Whom we call
Life) is, potentially, not separated even from their
nature ; for their emergence from non-existence
shows mutability of nature ; and that to which
change is in affinity is hindered from par-
ticipation in the contrary state by the grace of
Him Who strengthens it : it does not abide in
the good by its own nature : and such a thing
is not eternal. If, then, one really speaks truth
in saying that we ought not to estimate the
Divine essence and the created nature in the
same way, nor to circumscribe the being of the
Son of God by any beginning, lest, if this be
granted, the other attributes of creation should
enter in together with our acknowledgment of
this one, the absurd character of the teaching of
that man, who employs the attributes of creation
to separate the Only-begotten God from the
eternity of the Father, is clearly shown. For as
none other of the marks which characterize the
creation appears in the Maker of the creation,
so neither is the fact that the creation has its
existence from some beginning a proof that the
Son was not always in the Father,— that Son,
Who is Wisdom, and Power, and Light, and
Life, and all that is conceived of in the bosom
of the Father.

♦ Cf. Heb. ii. 14 f Cf. 1 Tim. iii. 16.

6 i. e. the order of spiritual beings, including angels and human
souls. Of these S. Gregory argues that they are capable of an
aic<.n)<Tia rrpbs to ayaBdv which is df ?th in them, as the absence of
motion and sense is bodily death : ind that they may therefore be
said to have an end, as they had a beginning : so far as they are
eternal it is not by their own power, but by their mutable nature
being upheld by grace from this state of aKntjcua irpb? to ayaSov.
On both these grounds therefore— that they have an end, and that
such eternity as they possess is not inherent, but given ab extra,
and contingent— he says they are not properly eternal, and he
therefore rejects the proposed parallel.

BOOK IX.

\ I. The ninth book declares that Eunomius'
account of the Nature of God is, up to a cer-
tain point, well stated. Then in succession he
mixes up with his own argument, on account
of its affinity, the expression from Philds
writings, " God is before all other things, which
are generated" adding also the expression,
" He has dominion over His own power."
Detesting the excessive absurdity, Gregory
strikingly confutes it1.

But he now turns to loftier language, and
:levating himself and puffing himself up with
•mpty conceit, he takes in hand to say some-
hing worthy of God's majesty. "For God,"
le says, " being the most highly exalted of all
,oods, and the mightiest of all, and free from all
lecessity — " Nobly does the gallant man bring
lis discourse, like some ship without ballast,
Iriven unguided by the waves of deceit, into
he harbour of truth ! " God is the most highly
:xalted of all goods." Splendid acknowledg-
nent ! I suppose he will not bring a charge
>f unconstitutional conduct against the great
ohn, by whom, in his lofty proclamation, the
Jnly-begotten is declared to be God, Who was
nth God and was God2. If he, then, the
>roclaimer of the Godhead of the Only-begotten,
s worthy of credit, and if " God is the most
nghly exalted of all goods," it follows that the
Jon is alleged by the enemies of His glory, to
>e " the most highly exalted of all goods." And
s this phrase is also applied to the Father, the
uperlative force of "most highly exalted"
dmits of no diminution or addition by way of
:omparison. But now that we have obtained
rom the adversary's testimony these statements
or the proof of the glory of the Only-begotten,
ve must add in support of sound doctrine his
lext statement too. He says, " God, the most
ng;hly exalted of all goods, being without hin-
Irance from nature, or constraint from cause,
>r impulse from need, begets and creates ac-
ording to the supremacy of His own authority,
laving His will as power sufficient for the con-

This section of the analysis is so confused that it cannot well
e literally translated. In the version given above the general
ense rather than the precise grammatical construction has been
allowed. 2 S- John i i

stitution of the things produced. If, then, all
good is according to His will, He not only
determines that which is made as good, but
also the time of its being good, if, that is to
say, as one may assume, it is an indication of
weakness to make what one does not will 3."
We shall borrow so far as this, for the confirm-
ation of the orthodox doctrines, from our adver-
saries' statement, percolated as that statement
is by vile and counterfeit clauses. Yes, He
Who has, by the supremacy of His authority,
power in His will that suffices for the constitu-
tion of the things that are made, He Who
created all things without hindrance from nature
or compulsion from cause, does determine not
only that which is made as good, but also the
time of its being good. But He Who made all
things is, as the gospel proclaims, the Only-
begotten God. He, at that time when He willed
it, did make the creation ; at that time, by means
of the circumambient essence, He surrounded
with the body of heaven all that universe that is
shut off within its compass : at that time, when
He thought it well that this should be, He dis-
played the dry land to view, He enclosed the
waters in their hollow places ; vegetation, fruits,
the generation of animals, the formation of man,
appeared at that time when each of these things
seemed expedient to the wisdom of- the
Creator : — and He Who made all these things
(I will once more repeat my statement) is the
Only-begotten God Who made the ages. For
if the interval of the ages has preceded existing
things, it is proper to employ the temporal
adverb, and to say " He then willed " and " He
then made " : but since the age was not, since no
conception of interval is present to our minds
in regard to that Divine Nature which is not
measured by quantity or by interval, the force
of temporal expressions must surely be void.
Thus to say that the creation has had given to
it a beginning in time, according to the good
pleasure of the wisdom of Him Who made all
things, does not go beyond probability : but to
regard the Divine Nature itself as being in a kind
of extension measured by intervals, belongs only
to those who have been trained in the new

3 This quotation would appear from what follows not to be a
consecutive extract, but one made " omiisiz amittendh."

P 2

212

GREGORY OF NYSSA

wisdom. What a point is this, embedded in
his words, which I intentionally passed by in
my eagerness to reach the subject ! I will now
resume it, and read it to show our author's
cleverness.

" For He Who is most highly exalted in God
Himself4 before all other things that are gener-
ated," he says, " has dominion over His own
power." The phrase has been transferred by
our pamphleteer word for word from the
Hebrew Philo to his own argument, and
Eunomius' theft will be proved by Philo's
works themselves to any one who cares about
it. I note the fact, however, at present, not so
much to reproach our speech-monger with the
poverty of his own arguments and thoughts, as
with the intention of showing to my readers the
close relationship between the doctrine of
Eunomius and the reasoning of the Jews. For
this phrase of Philo would not have fitted word
for word into his argument had there not been
a sort of kindred between the intention of the
one arid the other. In the Hebrew author you
may find the phrase in this form : " God, before
all other things that are generated " ; and what
follows, " has dominion over His own power,"
is an addition of the new Judaism. But what
an absurdity this involves an examination of the
saying will clearly show. "God," he says, "has
dominion over His own power." Tell me, what
is He? over what has He dominion? Is He
something else than His own power, and Lord
of a power that is something else than Him-
self? Then power is overcome by the absence
of power. For that which is something else
than power is surely not power, and thus He
is found to have dominion over power just in
so far as He is not power. Or again, God,
being power, has another power in Himself,
and has dominion over the one by the other.
And what contest or schism is there, that God
should divide the power that exists in Himself,
and overthrow one section of His power by the
other. I suppose He could not have dominion
over His own power without the assistance to
that end of some greater and more violent
power ! Such is Eunomius' God : a being with
double nature, or composite, dividing Himself
against Himself, having one power out of
harmony with another, so that by one He is
urged to disorder, and by the other restrains
this discordant motion. Again, with what in-
tent does He dominate the power that urges

4 This seems to be the force of the phrase if we are to follow

md read 6 yap sfox«>TaTos avrov 0eoO. The auTos

f the earlier editions gives a simpler sense. The phi.i

read by Oehler certainly savours more of Philo than of Eunomius :

but it is worth noting that S. Gregory oes not dwell upon this part

of the clause as I eing borrowed from Philo (though he may intend

. lude it in the general statement), but upon what follows it :

and from his citation from Philo it would seem that the latter spoke

(not of o ffox<"ToTOs Otou but) of 6 fe)tos rrpo rap aWiuv 6aa yivvr)Td.

on to generation? lest some evil should arise
if generation be not hindered? or rather let
him explain this in the first place, — what is
that which is naturally under dominion? His
language points to some movement of impulse
and choice, considered separately and inde-
pendently. For that which dominates must
needs be one thing, that which is dominated
another. Now God "has dominion over His
power" — and this is — what? a self-determining
nature? or something else than this, pressing
on to disquiet, or remaining in a state of
quiescence? Well, if he supposes it to be
quiescent, that which is tranquil needs no one
to have dominion over it : and if he says " He
has dominion," He "has dominion" clearly
over something which impels and is in motion :
and this, I presume he will say, is something
naturally different from Him Who rules it.
What then, let him tell us, does he understand
in this idea? Is it something else besides God,
considered as having an independent existence?
How can another existence be in God ? Or
is it some condition in the Divine Nature con-
sidered as having an existence not its own ? I
hardly think he would say so : for that which
has no existence of its own is not : and that
which is not, is neither under dominion, nor set
free from it. What then is that power which
was under dominion, and was restrained in re-
spect of its own activity, while the due time of
the generation of Christ was still about to come,
and to set this power free to proceed to its
natural operation? What was the intervening
cause of delay, for which God deferred the
generation of the Only-begotten, not thinking
it good as yet to become a Father? And what
is this that is inserted as intervening between the
life of the Father and that of the Son, that is
not time nor space, nor any idea of extension,
nor any like thing? To what purpose is it that
this keen and clear-sighted eye marks and be-
holds the separation of the life of God in regard
to the life of the Son ? When he is driven in
all directions he is himself forced to admit that
the interval does not exist at all.

§ 2. He then ingeniously shmvs that the genera-
tion of the Son is not according to the phrase
of Eunomius, " The Father begat Him at that
time when He chose, and not before : " but that
the Son, being the fulness of all that is good
and excellent, is always contemplated in the
Father ; using for this demonstration the
support of Eanomius' own arguments.

However, though there is no interval between
them, he does not admit that their communion
is immediate and intimate, but condescends to
the measure of our knowledge, and converses

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IX.

213

with us in human phrase as one of ourselves,
himself quietly confessing the impotence of
reasoning and taking refuge in a line of argu-
ment that was never taught by Aristotle and his
school. He says, "It was good and proper
that He should beget His Son at that time
when He willed : and in the minds of sensible
men there does not hence arise any questioning
why He did not do so before." What does this
mean, Eunomius? Are you too going afoot
like us unlettered men ? are you leaving your
artistic periods and actually taking refuge in
unreasoning assent? you, who so much re-
proached those who take in hand to write
without logical skill? You, who say to Basil,
" You show your own ignorance when you say
that definitions of the terms that express things
spiritual are an impossibility for men," who again
elsewhere advance the same charge, " you make
your own impotence common to others, when
you declare that what is not possible for you is
impossible for all " ? Is this the way that you,
who say such things as these, approach the ears
of him who questions about the reason why the
Father defers becoming the Father of such a
Son? Lo you think it an adequate explanation
to say, " He begat Him at that time when He
chose : let there be no questioning on this
point " ? Has your apprehensive fancy grown
so feeble in the maintenance of your doctrines ?
What has become of your premises that lead to
dilemmas ? What has become of your forcible
proofs? how comes it that those terrible and
inevitable syllogistic conclusions of your art
have dissolved into vanity and nothingness?
" He begat the Son at that time when He
chose : let there be no questioning on this
point ! " Is this the finished product of your
many labours, of your voluminous undertakings ?
What was the question asked ? " If it is good
and fitting for God to have such a Son, why are
we not to believe that the good is always
present with Him 5?" What is the answer he
makes to us from the very shrine of his philo-
sophy, tightening the bonds of his argument by
inevitable necessity ? " He made the Son at that
time when He chose : let there be no questioning
as to why He did not do so before." Why, if the
inquiry before us were concerning some irrational
being, that acts by natural impulse, why it did
not sooner do whatever it may be, — why the
spider did not make her webs, or the bee her
honey, or the turtle-dove her nest, — what else
could you have said? would not the same
answer have been ready — "She did it at that
time when she chose : let there be no question-
ing on this matter " ? Nay, if it were concerning
some sculptor or painter who works in paintings

5 Cf. S. Basil adv. Eun. II. 12, quoted above, p. 207.

1 or in sculptures by his imitative art, whatever it
may be (supposing that he exercises his art
without being subject to any authority), I imagine
that such an answer would meet the case of any
one who wished to know why he did not

1 exercise his art sooner, — that, being under no

1 necessity, he made his own choice the occasion
of his operation. For men, because they do
not always wish the same things6, and com-
monly have not power co-operating with their
will, do something which seems good to them

! at that time when their choice inclines to the
work, and they have no external hindrance.

; But that nature which is always the same, to
which no good is adventitious, in which all that
variety of plans which arises by way of opposition,
from error or from ignorance, has no place, to
which there comes nothing as a result of change,
which was not with it before, and by which
nothing is chosen afterwards which it had not
from the beginning regarded as good, — to say

1 of this nature that it does not always possess
what is good, but afterwards chooses to have
something which it did not choose before, — this
belongs to wisdom that surpasses us. For we
were taught that the Divine Nature is at all
times full of all good, or rather is itself the
fulness of all goods, seeing that it needs no
addition for its perfecting, but is itself by its
own nature the perfection of good. Now that
which is perfect is equally remote from addition
and from diminution ; and therefore, we say
that that perfection of goods which we behold
in the Divine Nature always remains the same,
as, in whatsoever direction we extend our
thoughts, we there apprehend it to be such as it
is. The Divine Nature, then, is never void of
good : but the Son is the fulness of all good :
and accordingly He is at all times contemplated
in that Father Whose Nature is perfection in all
good. But he says, " let there be no questioning
about this point, why He did not do so before:"
and we shall answer him, — "It is one thing,
most sapient sir, to lay down as an ordinance
some proposition that you happen to approve 7,
and another to make converts by reasoning on
the points of controversy. So long, therefore,
as you cannot assign any reason why we may
piously say that the Son was " afterwards " be-
gotten by the Father, your ordinances will be of
no effect with sensible men."

Thus it is then that Eunomius brings the truth
to light for us as the result of his scientific
attack. And we for our part shall apply his
argument, as we are wont to do, for the establish-
ment of the true doctrine, so that even by this

6 Reading ravra for ravra, which appears in the text of Oehler
as well as in the earlier editions.

7 Reading ti to>v Kara ypw/uTii', for ti tu>i> KaTayi'co/utui', which is
the reading of the editions, but introduces a word otherwise ap-
parently unknown.

214

GREGORY OF NYSSA

passage it may be clear that at every point,
constrained against their will, they advocate our
view. For if, as our opponent says, " He begat
the Son at that time when He chose," and if
He always chose that which is good, and His
power coincided with His choice, it follows that
the Son will be considered as always with the
Father, Who always both chooses that which is
excellent, and is able to possess what He
chooses. And if we are to reduce his next
words also to truth, it is easy for us to adapt
them also to the doctrine we hold : — " Let there
be no questioning among sensible men on this
point, why He did not do so before " — for the
word "before" has a temporal sense, opposed
to what is "afterwards" and "later": but on
the supposition that time does not exist, the
terms expressing temporal interval are surely
abolished with it. Now the Lord was before
times and before ages : questioning as to " be-
fore " or " after " concerning the Maker of the
ages is useless in the eyes of reasonable men :
for words of this class are devoid of all meaning,
if they are not used in reference to time. Since
then the Lord is antecedent to times, the words
"before" and "after" have no place as applied
to Him. This may perhaps be sufficient to
refute arguments that need no one to overthrow
them, but fall by their own feebleness. For
who is there with so much leisure that he can
give himself up to such an extent to listen to
the arguments on the other side, and to our
contention against the silly stuff? Since, how-
ever, in men prejudiced by impiety, deceit is
like some ingrained dye, hard to wash out, and
deeply burned in upon their hearts, let us spend
yet a little time upon our argument, if haply we
may be able to cleanse their souls from this evil
stain. After the utterances that I have quoted,
and after adding to them, in the manner of his
teacher Prunicus,8 some unconnected and ill-
arranged octads of insolence and abuse, he
comes to the crowning point of his arguments,
and, leaving the illogical exposition of his folly,
arms his discourse once more with the weapons
of dialectic, and maintains his absurdity against
us, as he imagines, syllogistically.

§ 3. He further shows that the pretemporal
generation of the Son is not the subject of

8 So in Pook I. 7rpo»Toi' }lsv tt}s XlpovvtKov o*o<^tas" -yiVt'Tat p.a9i]Tr)t;t
and Bonk XIII. p. 844 (Pari1; Edit.). It may be questioned whether
the phrase 111 Books 1. and XII 1., and that here, refers to a supposed
connection of Eunomius with Gnosticism. The Tlpovviiccx; 1o<f>ia of
the Gnostics was a " male-female," and hence the masculine tov
ncuSevTriv ini^ht properly be applied to it. If this point were cleared
up. we might l>e more certain of the meaning; to be attached to the
word OKTtUSat, which is also possibly borrowed from the Gnostic
phraseology, being akin to the form 6780080?. fOn the Gnostic
conception of " Prunicus," see the note on the subject in Harvey's
JrriueunyoA. I. p. 225), and Smith and Wace's Diet. (In. Biogr.
s. v. On the Gnostic Oedoads, see Mansel's Gnostu llrresits, pp.
i<;-2 sqq., 170 sqq., and the articles on Basilides and Valc-iitiiiu-, in
Uict. Chr. Biogr.']

influences drawn from ordinary and carnal
generation, but is without beginning and with-
out end, and not according to the fabrications
constructed by Eunomius , in ignorance of His
power, from the statements of flato concerning
the soul and from the sabbath rest of the Hebrews..

What he says runs thus : — " As all generation
is not protracted to infinity, but ceases on arriv-
ing at some end, those who admit the origination
of the Son are absolutely obliged to say that He
then ceased being generated, and not to look
incredulously on the beginning of those things
which cease being generated, and therefore also
surely begin : for the cessation of generation
establishes a beginning of begetting and being
begotten : and these facts cannot be disbelieved,
on the ground at once of nature itself and of
the Divine laws 9." Now since he endeavours
to establish his point inferentially, laying down
his universal proposition according to the
scientific method of those who are skilled in
such matters, and including in the general
premise the proof of the particular, let us first
consider his universal, and then proceed to
examine the force of his inferences. Is it a
reverent proceeding to draw from "all gener-
ation" evidence even as to the pre-temporal
generation of the Son? and ought we to put
forward ordinary nature as our instructor on
the being of the Only-begotten ? For my own
part, I should not have expected any one to
reach such a point of madness, that any such
idea of the Divine and unsullied generation
should enter his fancy. "All generation," he
says, "is not protracted to infinity." What
is it that he understands by " generation " ? Is
he speaking of fleshly, bodily birth, or of the
formation of inanimate objects? The affections
involved in bodily generation are well known —
affections which no one would think of trans-
ferring to the Divine Nature. In order there-
fore that our discourse may not, by mentioning
the works of nature at length, be made to
appear redundant, we shall pass such matters
by in silence, as I suppose that every sensible
man is himself aware of the causes by which
generation is protracted, both in regard to its
beginning and to its cessation : it would be
tedious and at the same time superfluous to
express them all minutely, the coming together
of those who generate, the formation in the
womb of that which is generated, travail, birth,
place, time, without which the generation of a
body cannot be brought about, — things which
are all equally alien from the Divine generation
of the Only-begotten : for if any one of these

9 This quotation from Eunomius presents some difficulties, but it
is quite as likely that, they are due to the obscurity of his style, aa
that they are due to corruption of the text.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IX.

215

things were admitted, the rest will of necessity
all enter with it. That the Divine generation,
therefore, may be clear of every idea connected
with passion, we shall avoid conceiving with
regard to it even that extension which is
measured by intervals. Now that which begins
and ends is surely regarded as being in a kind
of extension, and all extension is measured by
time, and as time (by which we mark both the
end of birth and its beginning) is excluded, it
would be vain, in the case of the uninterrupted
generation, to entertain the idea of end or be-
ginning, since no idea can be formed to mark
either the point at which such generation begins
or that at which it ceases. If on the other
hand it is the inanimate creation to which he
is looking, even in this case, in like manner,
place, and time, and matter, and preparation,
and power of the artificer, and many like things,
concur to bring the product to perfection. And
since time assuredly is concurrent with all things
that are produced, and since with everything
that is created, be it animate or inanimate, there
are conceived also bases of construction relative
to the product, we can find in these cases evi-
dent beginnings and endings of the process of
formation. For even the procuring of material
is actually the beginning of the fabric, and is a
sign of place, and is logically connected with
time. All these things fix for the products their
beginnings and endings ; and no one could say
that these things have any participation in the
pretemporal generation of the Only-begotten
God, so that, by the aid of the things now under
consideration, we are able to calculate, with
regard to that generation, any beginning or
end.

Now that we have so far discussed these
matters, let us resume consideration of our
adversaries' argument. It says, " As all gener-
ation is not protracted to infinity, but ceases
on arriving at some end." Now, since the
sense of " generation " has been considered
with respect to either meaning, — whether he
intends by this word to signify the birth of
corporeal beings, or the formation of things
created (neither of which has anything in com-
mon with the unsullied Nature), the premise
is shown to have no connection with the sub-
ject1. For it is not a matter of absolute
necessity, as he maintains, that, because all
making and generation ceases at some limit,
therefore those who accept the generation of
the Son should circumscribe it by a double
limit, by supposing, as regards it, a beginning
and an end. For it is only as being circum-
scribed in some quantitative way that things
can be said either to begin or to cease on arriv-

1 i. e. with the subject of discussion, the generation of the Only-
begotten.

ing at a limit, and the measure expressed by
time (having its extension concomitant with the
quantity of that which is produced) differenti-
ates the beginning from the end by the interval
between them. But how can any one measure
or treat as extended that which is without
quantity and without extension ? What measure
can he find for that which has no quantity, or
what interval for that which has no extension ?
or how can any one define the infinite by
" end " and " beginning ? " for " beginning "
and " end " are names of limits of extension,
and, where there is no extension, neither is
there any limit. Now the Divine Nature is
without extension, and, being without extension,
it has no limit ; and that which is limitless is
infinite, and is spoken of accordingly. Thus it
is idle to try to circumscribe the infinite by
"beginning" and "ending" — for what is cir-
cumscribed cannot be infinite. How comes
it, then, that this Platonic Phaedrus discon-
nectedly tacks on to his own doctrine those
speculations on the soul which Plato makes in
that dialogue ? For as Plato there spoke of " ces-
sation of motion," so this writer too was eager to
speak of " cessation of generation," in order to
impose upon those who have no knowledge of
these matters, with fine Platonic phrases. " And
these facts," he tells us, "cannot be disbelieved,
on the ground at once of nature itself and of
the Divine laws." But nature, from our previous
remarks, appears not to be trustworthy for in-
struction as to the Divine generation, — not even
if one were to take the universe itself as an
illustration of the argument : since through its
creation also, as we learn in the cosmogony
of Moses, there ran the measure of time, meted
out in a certain order and arrangement by
stated days and nights, for each of the things
that came into being : and this even our adver-
saries' statement does not admit with regard
to the being of the Only-begotten, since it
acknowledges that the Lord was before the
times of the ages.

It remains to consider his support of his
point by " the Divine laws," by which he under-
takes to show both an end and a beginning of the
generation of the Son. " God," he says, " willing
that the law of creation should be impressed
upon the Hebrews, did not appoint the first
day of generation for the end of creation, or to
be the evidence of its beginning ; for He gave
them as the memorial of the creation, not the
first day of generation, but the seventh, where-
on He rested from His works." Will any one
believe that this was written by Eunomius, and
that the words cited have not been inserted by
us, by way of misrepresenting his composition
so as to make him appear ridiculous to our
readers, in dragging in to prove his point

2l6

GREGORY OF NYSSA

matters that have nothing to do with the ques-
tion ? For the matter in hand was to show, as
he undertook to do, that the Son, not previously
existing, came into being ; and that, in being
generated, He took a beginning of generation,
and of cessation 2, — His generation being pro-
tracted in time, as it were by a kind of travail.
And what is his resource for establishing this ?
The fact that the people of the Hebrews, ac-
cording to the Law, keep sabbath on the seventh
day ! How well the evidence agrees with the
matter in hand ! Because the Jew honours his
sabbath by idleness, the fact, as he says, is
proved that the Lord both had a beginning of
birth and ceased being born ! How many
other testimonies on this matter has our author
passed by, not at all of less weight than that
which he employs to establish the point at
issue ! — the circumcision on the eighth day, the
week of unleavened bread, the mystery on the
fourteenth day of the moon's course, the sacri-
fices of purification, the observation of the
lepers, the ram, the calf, the heifer, the scape-
goat, the he-goat. If these things are far re-
moved from the point, let those who are so much
interested in the Jewish mysteries tell us how
that particular matter is within range of the
question. We judge it to be mean and unmanly
to trample on the fallen, and shall proceed to
enquire, from what follows in his writings,
whether there is anything there of such a kind
as to give trouble to his opponent. All, then,
that he maintains in the next passage, as to the
impropriety of supposing anything intermediate
between the Father and the Son, I shall pass
by, as being, in a sense, in agreement with our
doctrine. For it would be alike undiscriminating
and unfair not to distinguish in his remarks what
is irreproachable, and what is blamable, seeing
that, while he fights against his own statements,
he does not follow his own admissions, speak-
ing of the immediate character of the connec-
tion while refusing to admit its continuity, and
conceiving that nothing was before the Son,
and having some suspicion that the Son was,
while yet contending that He came into being
when He was not. We shall spend but a short
time on these points (since the argument has
already been established beforehand), and then
proceed to handle the arguments proposed.

It is not allowable for the same person to set
nothing above the existence of the Only-begotten,
and to say that before His generation He was
not, but that He was generated then when the
Father willed. For " then " and " when " have
a sense whi< h specially and properly refers to
the denoting of time, according to the common

3 The genitive Aijfeuj? is rather awkward ; it may l« explained,
how ■ nl upon ipvj" " He began to li<: generated :

I ting generated

use of men who speak soundly, and according
to their signification in Scripture. One may
take "then shall they say among the heathen 3,"
and "when I sent youV and "then shall the
kingdom of heaven be likened 5," and countless
similar phrases through the whole of Scripture,
to prove this point, that the ordinary Scriptural
use employs these parts of speech to denote
time. If therefore, as our opponent allows, time
was not, the signifying of time surely disappears
too : and if this did not exist, it will necessarily
be replaced by eternity in our conception6.
For in the phrase " was not " there is surely
implied " once " : as, if he should speak of
"not being," without the qualification "once,"
he would also deny his existence now : but if
he admits His present existence, and contends
against His eternity, it is surely not " not being "
absolutely, but " not being " once which is present
to his mind. And as this phrase is utterly
unreal, unless it rests upon the signification of
time, it would be foolish and idle to say that
nothing was before the Son, and yet to maintain
that the Son did not always exist. For if there
is neither place nor time, nor any other creature
where the Word that was in the beginning is
not, the statement that the Lord "once was
not" is entirely removed from the region of
orthodox doctrine. So he is at variance not so
much with us as with himself, who declares
that the Only-begotten both was and was not.
For in confessing that the conjunction of the
Son with the Father is not interrupted by any-
thing, He clearly testifies to His eternity. But
if he should say that the Son was not in the
Father, we shall not ourselves say anything
against such a statement, but shall oppose to it
the Scripture which declares that the Son is in
the Father, and the Father in the Son, without
adding to the phrase " once " or " when " or
"then," but testifying His eternity by this affirm-
ative and unqualified utterance.

§ 4. Then, having shown that Eunomius' calumny
against the great Basil, that he called the
Only-begotten " Ungenerate," is false, and hav-
ing again with much ingenuity discussed the
eternity, being, and endlessness of the Only-
begotten, and the creation of light and of dark-
ness, he concludes the book.

With regard to his attempting to show that we
say the Only-begotten God is ungenerate, it is as
though he should say that we actually define the
lather to be begotten : for either statement is of
the same absurdity, or rather of the same blas-

Ps, exxvi. 3. * S. Luke xxii. 35. 5 S. Matt. xxv. t.

'• 1 In- phrase is obscure, and the text possihly corrupt. To rc-ad
oiew (as( iulonius seems to have done) would simplify matters :
l.yii the general sense is clear— that the denial of the existence of
npltes eternity.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IX.

217

phemous character. If, therefore, he has made
up his mind to slander us, let him add the other
charge as well, and spare nothing by which it
may be in his power more violently to exasperate
his hearers against us. But if one of these
charges is withheld because its calumnious
nature is apparent, why is the other made ? For
it is just the same thing, as we have said, so far
as the impiety goes, to call the Son ungenerate
and to call the Father generated. Now if any
such phrase can found in our writings, in which
the Son is spoken of as ungenerate, we shall
give the final vote against ourselves : but if he
is fabricating false charges and calumnies at his
pleasure, making any fictitious statement he
pleases to slander our doctrines, this fact may
serve with sensible men for an evidence of our
orthodoxy, that while truth itself fights on our
side, he brings forward a lie to accuse our doctrine,
and makes up an indictment for unorthodoxy that
has no relation to our statements. To these
charges, however, we can give a concise answer.
As we judge that man accursed who says that
the Only-begotten God is ungenerate, let him in
turn anathematize the man who lays it down
that He who was in the beginning "once was
not." For by such a method it will be shown
who brings his charges truly, and who calumni-
ously. But if we deny his accusations, if, when
we speak of a Father, we understand as implied in
that word a Son also, and if, when we use the
name "Son," we declare that He really is what He
is called, being shed forth by generation from the
ungenerate Light, how can the calumny of those
who persist that we say the Only-begotten is
ungenerate fail to be manifest? Yet we shall
not, because we say that He exists by genera-
tion, therefore admit that He "once was not."
For every one knows that the contradiction be-
tween " being " and " not being " is immediate,
so that the affirmation of one of these terms is
absolutely the destruction of the other, and that,
just as " being " is the same in regard to every
time at which any of the things that "are" is
supposed to have its existence (for the sky, and
stars, and sun, and the rest of the things that
"are," are not more in a state of being now
than they were yesterday, or the day before, or
at any previous time), so the meaning of " not
being " expresses non-existence equally at every
time, whether one speaks of it in reference to
what is earlier or to what is later. For any of
the things that do not exist i is no more in a
state of "not being" now than if it were

7 Reading ri>v jitj v<f>ecrT<uTcot/, as the sense seems to require,
tinless we connect rm> v<jx<ttut<ov with ovk ecrnu. In this case the
sense will be practically the same, but the sentence will be extremely
involved. The point which S. Gregory desires to enforce is that " not
Tjeing," or " non-existence," is one and the same thing, whether it is
regarded as past, present, or future, and that it is, in any of these
aspects, an idea which we cannot without impiety attach to the
Divine Person of the Son. .

non-existent before, but the idea of "not
being " is one applied to that which "is not " at
any distance of time. And for this reason, in
speaking of living creatures, while we use dif-
ferent words to denote the dissolution into a
state of " not being " of that which has been,
and the condition of non-existence of that which
has never had an entrance into being, and say
either that a thing has never come into being at
all, or that that which was generated has died,
yet by either form of speech we equally represent
by our words "non-existence." For as day is
bounded on each side by night, yet the parts of
the night which bound it are not named alike,
but we speak of one as "after night-fall," and of
the other as "before dawn," while that which
both phrases denote is night, so, if any one looks
on that which is not in contrast to that which is,
he will give different names to that state which
is antecedent to formation and to that which
follows the dissolution of what was formed, yet
will conceive as one the condition which both
phrases signify — the condition which is anteced-
ent to formation and the condition following on
dissolution after formation. For the state of "not
being " of that which has not been generated, and
of that which has died, save for the difference of
the names, are the same, — with the exception of
the account which we take of the hope of the
resurrection. Now since we learn from Scripture
that the Only-begotten God is the Prince of
Life, the very life, and light, and truth, and all
that is honourable in word or thought, we say
that it is absurd and impious to contemplate, in
conjunction with Him Who really is, the opposite
conception, whether of dissolution tending to
corruption, or of non-existence before formation :
but as we extend our thought in every direction
to what is to follow, or to what was before the
ages, we nowhere pause in our conceptions
at the condition of "not being," judging it
to tend equally to impiety to cut short the
Divine being by non-existence at any time what-
ever. For it is the same thing to say that the
immortal life is mortal, that the truth is a lie,
that light is darkness, and that that which is is
not. He, accordingly, who refuses to allow that
He will at some future time cease to be, will
also refuse to allow that He " once was not,"
avoiding, according to our view, the same
impiety on either hand : for, as no death cuts
short the endlessness of the life of the Only-
begotten, so, as we look back, no period of non-
existence will terminate His life in its course
towards eternity, that that which in reality is
may be clear of all community with that which
in reality is not. For this cause the Lord, de-
siring that His disciples might be far removed
from this error (that they might never, by them-
selves searching for something antecedent to

218

GREGORY OF NYSSA

the existence of the Only-begotten, be led by
their reasoning to the idea of non-existence),
saith, "I am in the Father, and the Father in
Me8," in the sense that neither is that which is
not conceived in that which is, nor that which
is in that which is not. And here the very order
of the phrase explains the orthodox doctrine ; for
because the Father is not of the Son, but the
Son of the Father, therefore He says, " I am in
the Father," showing the fact that He is not of
another but of Him, and then reverses the phrase
to, "and the Father in Me," indicating that he
who, in his curious speculation, passes beyond
the Son, passes also beyond the conception of
the Father : for He who is in anything cannot
be found outside of that in which He is : so
that the man who, while not denying that the
Father is in the Son, yet imagines that he has
in any degree apprehended the Father as external
to the Son, is talking idly. Idle too are the
wanderings of our adversaries' fighting about
shadows touching the matter of " ungeneracy,"
proceeding without solid foundation by means of
nonentities. Yet if I am to bring more fully to
light the whole absurdity of their argument, let
me be allowed to spend a little longer on this
speculation. As they say that the Only-begotten
God came into existence "later," after the Father,
this " unbegotten " of theirs, whatever they
imagine it to be, is discovered of necessity to
exhibit with itself the idea of evil. Who knows
not, that, just as the non-existent is contrasted
with the existent, so with every good thing or
name is contrasted the opposite conception, as
" bad " with " good," " falsehood " with " truth,"
" darkness " with "light," and all the rest that
are similarly opposed to one another, where the
opposition admits of no middle term, and it is
impossible that the two should co-exist, but the
presence of the one destroys its opposite, and
with the withdrawal of the other takes place the
appearance of its contrary ?

Now these points being conceded to us, the
further point is also clear to any one, that, as
Moses says darkness was before the creation of
light, so also in the case of the Son (if, accord-
ing to the heretical statement, the Father " made
Him at that time when He willed"), before He
made Him, that Light which the Son is was not ;
and, light not yet being, it is impossible that its
opposite should not be. For we learn also
from the other instances that nothing that comes
from the Creator is at random, but that which
was lacking is added by creation to existing
things. Thus it is quite clear that if God did
make the Son, He made Him by reason of a
deficiency in the nature of things. As, then,
while sensible light was still lacking, there was

8 S. John xiv. 10.

darkness, and darkness would certainly have
prevailed had light not come into being, so also,
when the Son "as yet was not," the very and
true Light, and all else that the Son is, did not
exist. For even according to the evidence of
heresy, that which exists has no need of coming
into being ; if therefore He made Him, He
assuredly made that which did not exist. Thus,
according to their view, before the Son came
into being, neither had truth come into being,
nor the intelligible Light, nor the fount of life,
nor, generally, the nature of any thing that is
excellent and good. Now, concurrently with
the exclusion of each of these, there is found to
subsist the opposite conception : and if light
was not, it cannot be denied that darkness was ;
and so with the rest, — in place of each of these
more excellent conceptions it is clearly impos-
sible that its opposite did not exist in place of
that which was lacking. It is therefore a neces-
sary conclusion, that when the Father, as the
heretics say, " had not as yet willed to make
the Son," none of those things which the Son
is being yet existent, we must say that He was
surrounded by darkness instead of Light, by
falsehood instead of truth, by death instead of
life, by evil instead of good. For He Who
creates, creates things that are not ; " That which
is," as Eunomius says, " needs not generation " ;
and of those things which are considered as
opposed, the better cannot be non-existent, ex-
cept by the existence of the worse. These are
the gifts with which the wisdom of heresy
honours the Father, by which it degrades the
eternity of the Son, and ascribes to God and
the Father, before the " production " of the Son,
the whole catalogue of evils !

And let no one think to rebut by examples
from the rest of creation the demonstration of
the doctrinal absurdity which results from this
argument. One will perhaps say that, as, when
the sky was not, there was no opposite to it, so
we are not absolutely compelled to admit that
if the Son, Who is Truth, had not come into
existence, the opposite did exist. To him we
may reply that to the sky there is no corre-
sponding opposite, unless one were to say that
its non-existence is opposed to its existence.
But to virtue is certainly opposed that which is
vicious (and the Lord is virtue) ; so that when
the sky was not, it does not follow that any-
thing was ; but when good was not, its opposite
was ; thus he who says that good was not, will
certainly allow, even without intending it, that
evil tvas. " But the Father also," he says 9, " is
absolute virtue, and life, and light unapproach-
able, and all that is exalted in word or thought :
so that there is no necessity to suppose, when

9 The words are probably those of the imaginary objector ;
they may be a citation Irom Eunomius.

but

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK IX.

219,

the Only-begotten Light was not, the existence
of that darkness which is His corresponding
opposite." But this is just what I say, that
darkness never was; for the light never "was
not," for " the light," as the prophecy says, " is
always in the light V If, however, according
to the heretical doctrine, the "ungenerate
light " is one thing, and the " generated light "
another, and the one is eternal, while the other
comes into existence at a later time, it follows
of absolute necessity that in the eternal light
we should find no place for the establishment
of its opposite ; (for if the light always shines,
the power of darkness has no place in it ;) and
that in the case of the light which comes into
being, as they say, afterwards, it is impossible
that the light should shine forth save out of
darkness ; and the interval of darkness between
eternal light and that which arises later will be
clearly marked in every way 2. For there would
have been no need of the making of the later

1 The reference is probably to Ps. xxxvi. 9.

3 i. e. the " later light " must have arisen from darkness ; there-
fore darkness must have intervened between the " eternal light "
and the "later light."

light, if that which was created had not been of
utility for some purpose : and the one use of
light is that of the dispersion by its means of
the prevailing gloom. Now the light which
exists without creation is what it is by nature
by reason of itself; but the created light clearly
comes into being by reason of something else.
It must be then that its existence was preceded
by darkness, on account of which the light was
of necessity created, and it is not possible by
any reasoning to make plausible the view that
darkness did not precede the manifestation of
the Only-begotten Light, — on the supposition,
that is, that He is believed to have been " made "
at a later time. Surely such a doctrine is be-
yond all impiety ! It is therefore clearly shown
that the Father of truth did not make the truth
at a time when it was not ; but, being the foun-
tain of light and truth, and of all good, He
shed forth from Himself that Only-begotten
Light of truth by which the glory of His Person
is expressly imaged ; so that the blasphemy of
those who say that the Son was a later addition
to God by way of creation is at all points
refuted.

BOOK X.

$ I. The tenth book discusses the unattainable and
incomprehensible character of the enquiry into
entities. And herein he strikingly sets forth
the points concer?ii?ig the nature and for?nation
of the ant, and the passage in the Gospel, " /
am the door " and " the way" and also dis-
cusses the attribution and interpretation of the
Divine names, and the episode of the children
of Benjamin.

Let us, however, keep to our subject. A
little further on he contends against those
who acknowledge that human nature is too
weak to conceive what cannot be grasped, and
with lofty boasts enlarges on this topic on this
wise, making light of our belief on the matter
in these words: — "For it by no means follows
that, if some one's mind, blinded by malignity,
and for that reason unable to see anything in
front or above its head, is but moderately com-
petent for the apprehension of truth, we ought
on that ground to think that the discovery of
reality is unattainable by the rest of mankind."
But I should say to him that he who declares
that the discovery of reality is attainable, has of
course advanced his own intellect by some
method and logical process through the know-
ledge of existent things, and after having been
trained in matters that are comparatively small
and easily grasped by way of apprehension, has,
when thus prepared, flung his apprehensive fancy
upon those objects which transcend all con-
ception. Let, then, the man who boasts that
he has attained the knowledge of real existence,
interpret to us the real nature of the most
trivial object that is before our eyes, that by what
is knowable he may warrant our belief touch-
ing what is secret : let him explain by reason
what is the nature of the ant, whether its life is
held together by breath and respiration, whether
it is regulated by vital organs like other animals,
whether its body has a framework of bones,
whether the hollows of the bones are filled with
marrow, whether its joints are united by the
tension of sinews and ligaments, whether the
position of the sinews is maintained by en-
< losures of muscles and glands, whether the
marrow rxtends along the vertebrae from the
sinciput to the tail, whether it imparts to the

limbs that are moved the power of motion by
means of the enclosure of sinewy membrane ;
whether the creature has a liver, and in connec-
tion with the liver a gall-bladder; whether it
has kidneys and heart, arteries and veins, mem-
branes and diaphragm ; whether it is externally
smooth or covered with hair ; whether it is dis-
tinguished by the division into male and female ;
in what part of its body is located the power of
sight and hearing ; whether it enjoys the sense
of smell ; whether its feet are undivided or
articulated ; how long it lives ; what is the
method in which they derive generation one
from another, and what is the period of gesta-
tion ; how it is that all ants do not crawl, nor
are all winged, but some belong to the creatures
that move along the ground, while others are
borne aloft in the air. Let him, then, who
boasts that he has grasped the knowledge of
real existence, disclose to us awhile the nature
of the ant, and then, and not till then, let him
discourse on the nature of the power that sur-
passes all understanding. But if he has not yet
ascertained by his knowledge the nature of the
tiny ant, how comes he to vaunt that by the
apprehension of reason he has grasped Him
Who in Himself controls all creation, and to
say that those who own in themselves the weak-
ness of human nature, have the perceptions of
their souls darkened, and can neither reach
anything in front of them, nor anything above
their head ?

But now let us see what understanding he
who has the knowledge of existent things pos-
sesses beyond the rest of the world. Let us
listen to his arrogant utterance : — " Surely it
would have been idle for the Lord to call Him-
self 'the door,' if there were none to pass
through to the understanding and contemplation
of the Father, and it would have been idle for
Him to call Himself ' the way,' if He gave no
facility to those who wish to come to the Father.
And how could He be a light, without lightening
men, without illuminating the eye of their soul
to understand both Himself and the transcend-
ent Light ? " Well, if he were here enumerating
some arguments from his own head, that evade
the understanding of the hearers by their
subtlety, there would perhaps be a possibility of

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK X. 221

being deceived by the ingenuity of the argu-
ment, as his underlying thought frequently
escapes the reader's notice. But since he alleges
the Divine words, of course no one blames
those who believe that their inspired teaching is
the common property of all. "Since then," he
says, "the Lord was named 'a door,' it follows
from hence that the essence of God may be
comprehended by man." But the Gospel does
not admit of this meaning. Let us hear the
Divine utterance itself. " I am the door,"
Christ says ; " by Me if any man enter in he
shall be saved, and shall go in and out and
find pasture I." Which then of these is the
knowledge of the essence ? For as several
things are here said, and each of them has its
own special meaning, it is impossible to refer
them all to the idea of the essence, lest the
Deity should be thought to be compounded of
different elements ; and yet it is not easy to find
which of the phrases just quoted can most
properly be applied to that subject. The Lord
is " the door," " By Me," He says, " if any
man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in
and out and shall find pasture." Are we to
say 2 that it is " entrance " of which he speaks
in place of the essence of God, or " salvation " of
those that enter in, or "going out," or " pasture,"
or " finding " ? — for each of these is peculiar in
its significance, and does not agree in mean-
ing with the rest. For to get within appears
obviously contrary to " going out," and so with
the other phrases. For " pasture," in its proper
meaning, is one thing, and " finding " another
thing distinct from it. Which, then, of these
is the essence of the Father supposed to be ?
For assuredly one cannot, by uttering all these
phrases that disagree one with another in sig-
nification, intend to indicate by incompatible
terms that Essence which is simple and un-
compounded. And how can the word hold
good, " No man hath seen God at any time 3,"
and, " Whom no man hath seen nor can see 4,"
and, " There shall no man see the face of the
Lord and live5," if to be inside the door, or
outside, or the finding pasture, denote the es-
sence of the Father? For truly He is at the
same time a "door of encompassing6," and a
" house of defence 7," as David calls Him, and
through Himself He receives them that enter,
and in Himself He saves those who have come
within, and again by Himself He leads them forth
to the pasture of virtues, and becomes all things
to them that are in the way of salvation, that so
He may make Himself that which the needs of
each demand, — both way, and guide, and " door
of encompassing," and " house of defence," and

1 S. John x. 9

2 Reading elnuifiev, for which Oehler's text substitutes elwofi.ei'.

3 S. John i. 18. 4 1 Tim. vi. 16.

S Cf. Exod. xxxiii. ao. «Ps. cxli. 3(LXX.). 7 Ps. xxxi. 3.

'"water of comfort8," and "green pasture8,"
which in the Gospel He calls " pasture " : but
our new divine says that the Lord has been
called "the door" because of the knowledge of
the essence of the Father. Why then does he
not force into the same significance the titles,
"Rock," and "Stone," and "Fountain," and
"Tree," and the rest, that so he might obtain
evidence for his own theory by the multitude of
strange testimonies, as he is well able to apply
to each of these the same account which he has
given of the Way, the Door, and the Light ?
But, as I am so taught by the inspired Scripture,
I boldly affirm that He Who is above every name
has for us many names, receiving them in ac-
cordance with the variety of His gracious deal-
ings with us9, being called the Light when He dis-
perses the gloom of ignorance, and the Life when
He grants the boon of immortality, and the Way
when He guides us from error to the truth ; so
also He is termed a "tower of strength I," and
a "city of encompassing2," and a fountain,
and a rock, and a vine, and a physician, and
resurrection, and all the like, with reference to
us, imparting Himself under various aspects by
virtue of His benefits to us-ward. But those
who are keen-sighted beyond human power,
who see the incomprehensible, but overlook
what may be comprehended, when they use
such titles to expound the essences, are positive
that they not only see, but measure Him Whom
no man hath seen nor can see, but do not with
the eye of their soul discern the Faith, which is
the only thing within the compass of our observ-
ation, valuing before this the knowledge which
they obtain from ratiocination. Just so I have
heard the sacred record laying blame upon
the sons of Benjamin who did not regard the
law, but could shoot within a hair's breadth 3,
wherein, methinks, the word exhibited their eager
pursuit of an idle object, that they were far-
darting and dexterous aimers at things that were
useless and unsubstantial, but ignorant and re-
gardless of what was manifestly for their bene-
fit. For after what I have quoted, the history
goes on to relate what befel them, how, when
they had run madly after the iniquity of Sodom,
and the people of Israel had taken up arms
against them in full force, they were utterly
destroyed. And it seems to me to be a kindly
thought to warn young archers not to wish to
shoot within a hair's-breadth, while they have no
eyes, for the door of the faith, but rather to drop
their idle labour about the incomprehensible,
and not to lose the gain that is ready to their
hand, which is found by faith alone.

8 Ps. xxiii. 2.

9 This point has been already discussed by S. Gregory in the
second and third books. See above, pp. 119, 149. It is also dealt
with in the short treatise " On the Faith," addressed to Simplicius,
which will be found in this volume. l Ps. lxi. 3.

2 Ps. x.\xi. 21 ^XX.). 3 Cf. Judges xx. 16.

222

GREGORY OF NYSSA

§ 2. He then wonderfully displays the Eternal Life,
which is Christ, to those who confess Him not,
and applies to them the mournful lamentation
of Jeremiah over Jehoiakim, as being closely
allied to Montanus and Sabellius.

But now that I have surveyed what remains
of his treatise I shrink from conducting my
argument further, as a shudder runs through my
heart at his words. For he wishes to show that
the Son is something different from eternal life,
while, unless eternal life is found in the Son, our
faith will be proved to be idle, and our preaching
to be vain, baptism a superfluity, the agonies of
the martyrs all for nought, the toils of the
Apostles useless and unprofitable for the life of
men. For why did they preach Christ, in
Whom, according to Eunomius, there does not
reside the power of eternal life ? Why do they
make mention of those who had believed in
Christ, unless it was through Him that they
were to be partakers of eternal life ? " For the
intelligence," he says, "of those who have be-
lieved in the Lord, overleaping all sensible and
intellectual existence, cannot stop even at the
generation of the Son, but speeds beyond even
this in its yearning for eternal life, eager to meet
the First." What ought I most to bewail in
this passage ? that the wretched men do not
think that eternal life is in the Son, or that they
conceive of the Person of the Only-begotten in
so grovelling and earthly a fashion, that they
fancy they can mount in their reasonings upon
His beginning, and so look by the power of
their own intellect beyond the life of the Son,
and, leaving the generation of the Lord some-
where beneath them, can speed onward beyond
this in their yearning for eternal life ? For the
meaning of what I have quoted is nothing else
than this, that the human mind, scrutinizing the
knowledge of real existence, and lifting itself
above the sensible and intelligible creation, will
leave God the Word, Who was in the beginning,
below itself, just as it has left below it all other
things, and itself comes to be in Him in Whom
God the Word was not, treading, by mental
activity, regions which lie beyond the life of the
Son, there searching for eternal life, where the
Only-begotten God is not " For in its yearning
for eternal life," he says, "it is borne in thought
beyond the Son " — clearly as though it had not
in the Son found that which it was seeking.
If the eternal life is not in the Son, then as-
suredly He Who said, " I am the life *," will be
convicted of falsehood, or else He is life, it is
true, but not eternal life. But that which is not
eternal is of course limited in duration. And
such a kind of life is common to the irrational

4 S. John xi. 35.

animals as well as to men. Where then is the
majesty of the very life, if even the irrational
creation share it? and how will the Word or
Divine Reason s be the same as the Life, if this
finds a home, in virtue of the life which is but
temporary, in irrational creatures? For if, ac-
cording to the great John, the Word is Life 6, but
that life is temporary and not eternal, as their
heresy holds, and if, moreover, the temporary
life has place in other creatures, what is the
logical consequence ? Why, either that irrational
animals are rational, or that the Reason must be
confessed to be irrational. Have we any further
need of words to confute their accursed and
malignant blasphemy ? Do such statements
even pretend to conceal their intention of
denying the Lord ? For if the Apostle plainly
says that what is not eternal is temporary ?, and
if these people see eternal life in the essence of
the Father alone, and if by alienating the Son
from the Nature of the Father they also cut
Him off from eternal life, what is this but a
manifest denial and rejection of the faith in
the Lord? while the Apostle clearly says that
those who "in this life only have hope in
Christ are of all men most miserable 8." If then
the Lord is life, but not eternal life, assuredly
the life is temporal, and but for a day, that
which is operative only for the present time, or
else 9 the Apostle bemoans those who have hope,
as having missed the true life.

However, they who are enlightened in Euno-
mius' fashion pass the Son by, and are carried
in their reasonings beyond Him, seeking eternal
life in Him Who is contemplated as outside
and apart from the Only-begotten. What ought
one to say to such evils as these, — save whatever
calls forth lamentation and weeping? Alas,
how can we groan over this wretched and pitiable
generation, bringing forth a crop of such deadly
mischiefs ? In days of yore the zealous Jeremiah
bewailed the people of Israel, when they gave an
evil consent to Jehoiakim who led the way to
idolatry, and were condemned to captivity under
the Assyrians in requital for their unlawful wor-
ship, exiled from the sanctuary and banished far
from the inheritance of their fathers. Yet more
fitting does it seem to me that these lamentations
be chanted when the imitator of Jehoiakim draws
away those whom he deceives to this new kind
of idolatry, banishing them from their ancestral
inheritance, — I mean the Faith. They too, in a
way corresponding to the Scriptural record, are

5 6 Aoyo<, : the idea of "reason" must be expressed to convey
the force required for the argument following.
« Cf. S. John i. 4.
1 The reference is perhaps to 2 Cor. iv. 18.

8 Cf. 1 Cor. xv. 19.

9 If we might read jj for r\ the sense of the passage would be
materially simplified: — "His life is temporal, that life which
operates only for the present time, whereon those who hope are the
objects of the Apostle's pity."

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK X.

223

carried away captive to Babylon from Jerusalem
that is above, — that is from the Church of God
to this confusion of pernicious doctrines, — for1
Babylon means "confusion." And even as
Jehoiakim was mutilated, so this man, having
voluntarily deprived himself of the light of the
truth, has become a prey to the Babylonian des-
pot, never having learned, poor wretch, that the
Gospel enjoins us to behold eternal life alike
in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
inasmuch as the Word has thus spoken con-
cerning the Father, that to know Him is life
eternal2, and concerning the Son, that every
one that believeth on Him hath eternal life 3,
and concerning the Holy Spirit, that to Him
that hath received His grace it shall be a well
of water springing up unto eternal life4. Ac-
cordingly every one that yearns for eternal life,
when he has found the Son, — I mean the true
Son, and not the Son falsely so called — has
found in Him in its entirety what he longed for,
because He is life and hath life in Himself 5.
But this man, so subtle in mind, so keen-sighted
of heart, does not by his extreme acuteness of
vision discover life in the Son, but, having
passed Him over and left Him behind as a
hindrance in the way to that for which he searches,
he there seeks eternal life where he thinks the
true Life not to be ! What could we conceive
more to be abhorred than this for profanity, or
more melancholy as an occasion of lamentation ?
But that the charge of Sabellianism and Mon-
tanism should be repeatedly urged against our
doctrines, is much the same as if one should lay
to our charge the blasphemy of the Anomoeans.
For if one were carefully to investigate the
falsehood of these heresies, he would find that
they have great similarity to the error of Euno-
mius. For each of them affects the Jew in his
doctrine, admitting neither the Only-begotten
God nor the Holy Spirit to share the Deity of
the God Whom they call " Great," and " First."
For Whom Sabellius calls God of the three
names, Him does Eunomius term unbegotten :
but neither contemplates the Godhead in the
Trinity of Persons. Who then is really akin to
Sabellius let the judgment of those who read
our argument decide. Thus far for these
matters.

§ 3. He then shows the eternity of the Son's gen-
eration, and the inseparable identity of His
essence with Him that begat Him, and likens
the folly of Eunomius to children playing with
sand.

But since, in what follows, he is active in stir-
ring up the ill savour of his disgusting attempts,

1 Altering Oehler's punctuation.
3 Cf. S. John iii. 36.
5 Cf. S. John v. 26.

2 Cf. S. John xvii. 3.
4 Cf. S. John iv. 14.

whereby he tries to make out that the Only-
begotten God " once was not," it will be well,
as our mind on this head has been made pretty
clear by our previous arguments, no longer to
plunge our argument also in what is likewise
bad, except perhaps that it is not unseason-
able to add this one point, having selected it
from the multitude. He says (some one having
remarked that "the property of not being be-
gotten is equally associated with the essence
of the Father 6 "), " The argument proceeds by
like steps to those by which it came to a con-
clusion in the case of the Son." The orthodox
doctrine is clearly strengthened by the attack of
its adversaries, the doctrine, namely, that we
ought not to think that not to be begotten or to
be begotten are identical with the essence 7, but
that these should be contemplated, it is true, in
the subject, while the subject in its proper
definition is something else beyond these, and
since no difference is found in the subject,
because the difference of " begotten " and " un-
begotten " is apart from the essence, and does
not affect it, it necessarily follows that the es-
sence must be allowed to be in both Persons
without variation. Let us moreover inquire,
over and above what has been already said, into
this point, in what sense he says that "gener-
ation" is alien from the Father, — whether he
does so conceiving of it as an essence or an
operation. If he conceives it to be an operation,
it is clearly equally connected with its result and
with its author, as in every kind of production
one may see the operation alike in the product
and the producer, appearing in the production
of the effects and not separated from their
artificer. But if he terms "generation" an es-
sence separate from the essence of the Father,
admitting that the Lord came into being there-
from, then he plainly puts this in the place of
the Father as regards the Only-begotten, so that
two Fathers are conceived in the case of the
Son, one a Father in name alone, Whom he
calls "the Ungenerate," Who has nothing to do
with generation, and the other, which he calls
"generation," performing the part of a Father
to the Only-begotten.

And this is brought home even more by the
statements of Eunomius himself than by our
own arguments. For in what follows, he says : —
" God, being without generation, is also prior to
that which is generate," and a little further on,
" for He Whose existence arises from being
generated did not exist before He was generated."
Accordingly, if the Father has nothing to do

6 Presumably the quotation from the unknown author, if com-
pleted, would run. "as that of being begotten is associated with the
issence of the Son."

7 If the property of not being begotten is "associated with"
the essence, it clearly cannot be the essence, ai Eunomius elsewhere
maintains it to be : hence the phrase which he here adopts Concedes
S. Gregory's position on this point.

224

GREGORY OF NYSSA

with generation, and if it is from generation that
the Son derives His being, then the Father has
no action in respect of the subsistence of the
Son, and is apart from all connection with gen-
eration, from which the Son draws His being.
If, then, the Father is alien from the generation
of the Son, they either invent for the Son an-
other Father under the name of "generation,"
or in their wisdom make out the Son to be self-
begotten and self-generated. You see the
confusion of mind of the man who exhibits his
ignorance to us up and down in his own argu-
ment, how his profanity wanders in many paths,
or rather in places where no path is, without
advancing to its mark by any trustworthy guid-
ance ; and as one may see in the case of infants,
when in their childish sport they imitate the
building of houses with sand, that what they
build is not framed on any plan, or by any rules
of art, to resemble the original, but first they
make something at haphazard, and in silly
fashion, and then take counsel what to call it, —
this penetration I discern in our author. For
after getting together words of impiety according
to what first comes into his head, like a heap of
sand, he begins to cast about to see whither his
unintelligible profanity tends, growing up as it
does spontaneously from what he has said, with-
out any rational sequence. For I do not
imagine that he originally proposed to invent
generation as an actual subsistence standing to
the essence of the Son in the place of the Father,
nor that it was part of our rhetorician's plan that
the Father should be considered as alien from the
generation of the Son, nor was the absurdity
of self-generation deliberately introduced. But
all such absurdities have been emitted by our
author without reflection, so that, as regards
them, the man who so blunders is not even worth
much refutation, as he knows, to borrow the
Apostle's words, " neither what he says, nor
whereof he affirms 8."

" For He Whose existence arises from gener-
ation," he says, " did not exist before generation."
If he here uses the term "generation" of the
Father, I agree with Him, and there is no op-
ponent. For one may mean the same thing by
either phrase, by saying either that Abraham
begat Isaac, or, that Abraham was the father of
Isaac. Since then to be father is the same as
to have begotten, if any one shifts the words
from one form of speech to the other, paternity
will be shown to be identical with generation.
If, ' ■ . what Eunomius says is this, " He

Whose ex is derived from the Father

was not before the Father," the statement is
sound, and we give our vote in favour of it.
But if he is recurring in the phrase to that gen-

* i Tim. l 7.

eration of which we have spoken before, and
says that it is separated from the Father but
associated with the Son, then I think it waste
of time to linger over the consideration of the
unintelligible. For whether he thinks genera-
tion to be a self-existent object, or whether by
the name he is carried in thought to that which
has no actual existence, I have not to this day
been able to find out from his language. For
his fluid and baseless argument lends itself alike
to either supposition, inclining to one side or to
the other according to the fancy of the thinker.

§ 4. After this he shows that the Son, who truly
is, and is in the bosom of the Father, is simple
and uncompounded, and that He who redeemed
us from bondage is not under dominion of the
Father, nor in a state of slavery : and that
otherwise not He alone, but also the Father
Who is in the Son and is One with Him, must
be a slave; and that the word "being" />
formed from the word to " be" And having
excellently and notably discussed all these
matters, he concludes the book.

But not yet has the most grievous part of his
profanity been examined, which the sequel of his
treatise goes on to add. Well, let us consider his
words sentence by sentence. Yet I know not
how I can dare to let my mouth utter the horrible
and godless language of him who fights against
Christ. For I fear lest, like some baleful drugs,
the remnant of the pernicious bitterness should
be deposited upon the lips through which the
words pass. " He that cometh unto God," says
the Apostle, "must believe that He is 9." Ac-
cordingly, true existence is the special distinc-
tion of Godhead. But Eunomius makes out
Him Who truly is, either not to exist at all, or
not to exist in a proper sense, which is just the
same as not existing at all; for he who does not
properly exist, does not really exist at all ; as, for
example, he is said to "run" in a dream who in
that state fancies he is exerting himself in the
race, while, since he untruly acts the semblance
of the real race, his fancy that he is running is
not for this reason a race. But even though in an
inexact sense it is so called, still the name is
given to it falsely. Accordingly, he who dares
to assert that the Only-begotten God either does
not properly exist, or does not exist at all, mani-
festly blots out of his creed all faith in Him.
For who can any longer believe in something
non-existent? or who would resort to Him
Whose being has been shown by the enemies
of the true Lord to be improper and unsub-
stantial ?

Bui thai our statement may not be thought

9 Heb. xi. 6.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK X.

225

to be unfair to our opponents, I will set side by
side with it the language of the impious persons,
which runs as follows : — " He Who is in the
bosom of the Existent, and Who is in the be-
ginning and is with God, not being, or at all
events not being in a strict sense, even though
Basil, neglecting this distinction and addition,
uses the title of ' Existent ' interchangeably,
contrary to the truth — " What do you say ?
that He Who is in the Father is not, and that
He Who is in the beginning, and Who is in the
bosom of the Father, is not, for this very reason,
that He is in the beginning and is in the Father,
and is discerned in the bosom of the Existent,
and hence does not in a strict sense exist, be-
cause He is in the Existent ? Alas for the
idle and irrational tenets ! Now for the first time
we have heard this piece of vain babbling, — that
the Lord, by Whom are all things, does not in a
strict sense exist. And we have not yet got to
the end of this appalling statement ; but some-
thing yet more startling remains behind, that
he not only affirms that He does not exist, or
does not strictly speaking exist, but also that
the Nature in which He is conceived to reside
is various and composite. For he says "not
being, or not being simple." But that to which
simplicity does not belong is manifestly various
and composite. How then can the same Person
be at once non-existent and composite in essence?
For one of two alternatives they must choose :
if they predicate of Him non-existence they can-
not speak of Him as composite, or if they affirm
Him to be composite they cannot rob Him of
existence. But that their blasphemy may assume
many and varied shapes, it jumps at every god-
less notion when it wishes to contrast Him with
the existent, affirming that, strictly speaking, He
does not exist, and in His relation to the un-
compounded Nature denying Him the attribute
of simplicity : — " not existing, not existing
simply, not existing in the strict sense." Who
among those who have transgressed the word
and forsworn the Faith was ever so lavish in
utterances denying the Lord ? He has stood
up in rivalry with the divine proclamation of
John. For as often as the latter has attested
" was " of the Word, so often does he apply to
Him Who is an opposing "was not." And he
contends against the holy lips of our father
Basil, bringing against him the charge that he
"neglects these distinctions," when he says
that He Who is in the Father, and in the be-
ginning, and in the bosom of the Father, exists,
holding the view that the addition of " in the
beginning," and " in the bosom of the Father,"
bars the real existence of Him Who is. Vain
learning ! What things the teachers of deceit
teach ! what strange doctrines they introduce to
their hearers ! they instruct them that that
vol. 'v. 1

which is in something else does not exist ! So>
Eunomius, since your heart and hrain are within
you, neither of them, according to your distinc-
tion, exists. For if the Only-hcgotten God does
not, strictly speaking, exist, for this reason, that
He is in the bosom of the Father, then every-
thing that is in something else is thereby ex-
cluded from existence. But certainly your heart
exists in you, and not independently ; therefore,
according to your view, you must either say that
it does not exist at all, or that it does not exist
in the strict sense. However, the ignorance
and profanity of his language are so gross and
so glaring, as to be obvious even before our
argument, at all events to all persons of sense :
but that his folly as well as his impiety may be
more manifest, we will add thus much to what
has gone before. If one may only say that that
in the strict sense exists, of which the word of
Scripture attests the existence detached from all
relation to anything else, why do they, like those
who carry water, perish with thirst when they
have it in their power to drink? Even this
man, though he had at hand the antidote to his
blasphemy against the Son, closed his eyes and
ran past it as though fearing to be saved, and
charges Basil with unfairness for having sup-
pressed the qualifying words, and for only
quoting the "was" by itself, in reference to the
Only-begotten. And yet it wras quite in his
power to see what Basil sawT and what every one
who has eyes sees. And herein the sublime
John seems to me to have been prophetically
moved, that the mouths of those fighters against
Christ might be stopped, who on the ground of
these additions deny the existence, in the strict
sense, of the Christ, saying simply and without
qualification "The Word was God," and was
Life, and was Light z, not merely speaking of
Him as being in the beginning, and with God,
and in the bosom of the Father, so that by their
relation the absolute existence of the Lord
should be done away. But his assertion that
He was God, by this absolute declaration de-
tached from all relation to anything else, cuts
off every subterfuge from those who in their
reasonings run into impiety ; and, in addition to
this, there is moreover something else which still
more convincingly proves the malignity of our
adversaries. For if they make out that to exist
in something is an indication of not existing in
the strict sense, then certainly they allow that
not even the Father exists absolutely, as they
have learnt in the Gospel, that just as the Son
abides in the Father, so the Father abides in
the Son, according to the words of the Lord 2.
For to say that the Father is in the Son is,
equivalent to saying that the Son is in the

1 Cf. S. John i. i, 4.

S. John xiv. 11

226

GREGORY OF NYSSA

■bosom of the Father. And in passing let us
•make this further inquiry. When the Son, as
they say, " was not," what did the bosom of the
Father contain ? For assuredly they must either
grant that it was full, or suppose it to have been
empty. If then the bosom was full, certainly
the Son was that which filled the bosom. But
if they imagine that there was some void in the
bosom of the Father, they do nothing else than
assert of Him perfection by way of augmentation,
in the sense that He passed from the state of
void and deficiency to the state of fulness and
perfection. But " they knew not nor under-
stood," says David of those that " walk on still
in darkness V For he who has been rendered
(hostile to the true Light cannot keep his soul in
light. For this reason it was that they did not
perceive lying ready to their hand in logical
sequence that which would have corrected their
impiety, smitten, as it were, with blindness, like
the men of Sodom.

But he also says that the essence of the Son
is controlled by the Father, his exact words
being as follows : — " For He Who is and lives
because of the Father, does not appropriate this
dignity, as the essence which controls even Him
attracts to itself the conception of the Existent."
If these doctrines approve themselves to some
of the sages "who are without," let not the
Gospels nor the rest of the teaching of the
Holy Scripture be in any way disturbed. For
what fellowship is there between the creed
of Christians and the wisdom that has been
made foolish * ? But if he leans upon the sup-
port of the Scriptures, let him show one such
declaration from the holy writings, and we will
hold our peace. I hear Paul cry aloud, " There
is one Lord Jesus Christ5." But Eunomius
shouts against Paul, calling Christ a slave. For
we recognize no other mark of a slave than to be
subject and controlled. The slave is assuredly
a slave, but the slave cannot by nature be Lord,
even though the term be applied to Him by
inexact use. And why should I bring forward
the declarations of Paul in evidence of the
•lordship of the Lord? For Paul's Master
Himself tells His disciples that He is truly
Lord, accepting as He does the confession of
those who called Him Master and Lord. For
He says, " Ye call Me Master and Lord ; and
ye say well, for so I am6." And in the same
way He enjoined that the Father should be
called Father by them, saying, "Call no man
master upon earth : for one is your Master,
even Christ : and call no man father upon earth,
for one is your Father, Which is in heaven 7."
To which then ought we to give heed, as we

3 Cf. Ps. Ixxxii. 5.
5 Cf. 1 Cor. viii. 6.
f Cf. S. Matt, xxiii. 8—10.

* Cf. 1 Cor. i. 20.

6 Cf. ->. John xui. 13.

are thus hemmed in between them? On one
side the Lord Himself, and he who has Christ
speaking in him 8, enjoin us not to think of Him
as a slave, but to honour Him even as the
Father is honoured, and on the other side
Eunomius brings his suit against the Lord,
claiming Him as a slave, when he says that He
on Whose shoulders rests the government of
the universe is under dominion. Can our
choice what to do be doubtful, or is the de-
cision which is the more advantageous course
unimportant ? Shall I slight the advice of Paul,
Eunomius ? shall I deem the voice of the
Truth less trustworthy than thy deceit? But
" if I had not come and spoken unto them, they
had not had sin 9." Since then, He has spoken
to them, truly declaring Himself to be Lord,
and that He is not falsely named Lord (for He
says, "lam," not "I am called"), what need
is there that they should do that, whereon the
vengeance is inevitable because they are fore-
warned ?

But perhaps, in answer to this, he will again
put forth his accustomed logic, and will say that
the same Being is both slave and Lord, domin-
ated by the controlling power but lording it
over the rest. These profound distinctions are
talked of at the cross-roads, circulated by those
who are enamoured of falsehood, who confirm
their idle notions about the Deity by illustrations
from the circumstances of ordinary life. For
since the occurrences of this world give us
examples of such arrangements ' (thus in a
wealthy establishment one may see the more
active and devoted servant set over his fellow-
servants by the command of his master, and so
invested with superiority over others in the same
rank and station), they transfer this notion to
the doctrines concerning the Godhead, so that
the Only-begotten God, though subject to the
sovereignty of His superior, is no way hindered by
the authority of His sovereign in the direction
of those inferior to Him. But let us bid fare-
well to such philosophy, and proceed to dis-
cuss this point according to the measure of our
intelligence. Do they confess that the Father is
by nature Lord, or do they hold that He arrived
at this position by some kind of election ? I
do not think that a man who has any share-
whatever of intellect could come to such a pitch
of madness as not to acknowledge that the
lordship of the God of all is His by nature.
For that which is by nature simple, uncom-
pounded, and indivisible, whatever it happens
to be, that it is throughout in all its entirety, not
becoming one thing after another by some pro-
cess of change, but remaining eternally in the
condition in which it is. What, then, is their

B Cf. 2 Cor. xiii. -;. " S. Jolin xv. 22.

1 ( >chler's punctuation .^eeins here to requ.re alteration

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK X.

227

belief about the Only-begotten ? Do they own
that His essence is simple, or do they suppose
that in it there is any sort of composition ? If
they think that He is some multiform thing,
made up of many parts, assuredly they will not
concede Him even the name of Deity, but will
drag down their doctrine of the Christ to cor-
poreal and material conceptions : but if they
agree that He is simple, how is it possible in
the simplicity of the subject to recognize the
concurrence of contrary attributes ? For just
as the contradictory opposition of life and
death admits of no mean, so in its distinguishing
characteristics is domination diametrically and
irreconcilably opposed to servitude. For if
one were to consider each of these by itself, one
could not properly frame any definition that
would apply alike to both, and where the defini-
tion of things is not identical, their nature also
is assuredly different. If then the Lord is
simple and uncompounded in nature, how can
the conjunction of contraries be found in the sub-
ject, as would be the case if servitude mingled
with lordship ? But if He is acknowledged to
be Lord, in accordance with the teaching of the
saints, the simplicity of the subject is evidence
that He can have no part or lot in the opposite
condition : while if they make Him out to be a
slave, then it is idle for them to ascribe to Him
the title of lordship. For that which is simple
in nature is not parted asunder into contradictory
attributes. But if they affirm that He is one,
and is called the other, that He is by nature
slave and Lord in name alone, let them boldly
utter this declaration and relieve us from the
long labour of answering them. For who can
afford to be so leisurely in his treatment of
inanities as to employ arguments to demonstrate
what is obvious and unambiguous ? For if a man
were to inform against himself for the crime
of murder, the accuser would not be put to any
trouble in bringing home to him by evidence
the charge of blood-guiltiness. In like manner
we shall no longer bring against our opponents,
when they advance so far in impiety, a con-
futation framed after examination of their case.
For he who affirms the Only-begotten to be a
slave, makes Him out by so saying to be a
fellow-servant with himself: and hence will of
necessity arise a double enormity. For either
he will despise his fellow-slave and deny the
faith, having shaken off the yoke of the lord-
ship of Christ, or he will bow before the slave,
and, turning away from the self-determining
nature that owns no Lord over it, will in a
manner worship himself instead of God. For
if he sees himself in slavery, and the object of
his worship also in slavery, he of course looks
at himself, seeing the whole of himself in that
which he worships. But what reckoning can

count up all the other mischiefs that necessarily
accompany this pravity of doctrine? For who
does not know that he who is by nature a slave,
and follows his avocation under the constraint
imposed by a master, cannot be removed even
from the emotion of fear? And of this the
inspired Apostle is a witness, when he says,
"Ye have not received the spirit of bondage
again to fear 2." So that they will be found to
attribute, after the likeness of men, the emotion
of fear also to their fellow-servant God.

Such is the God of heresy. But what we,
who, in the words of the Apostle, have been
called to liberty by Christ 3, Who hath freed
us from bondage, have been taught by the
Scriptures to think, I will set forth in few words.
I take my start from the inspired teaching, and
boldly declare that the Divine Word does not
wish even us to be slaves, our nature having
now been changed for the better, and that He
Who has taken all that was ours, on the terms
of giving to us in return what is His, even as
He took disease, death, curse, and sin, so took
our slavery also, not in such a way as Himself
to have what He took, but so as to purge
our nature of such evils, our defects being
swallowed up and done away with in His stain-
less nature. As therefore in the life that we
hope for there will be neither disease, nor curse,
nor sin, nor death, so slavery also along with
these will vanish away. And that what I say is
true I call the Truth Himself to witness, Who
says to His disciples "I call you no more
servants, but friends 4." If then our nature will
be free at length from the reproach of slavery,
how comes the Lord of all to be reduced to
slavery by the madness and infatuation of these
deranged men, who must of course, as a logical
consequence, assert that He does not know the
counsels of the Father, because of His declar-
ation concerning the slave, which tells us that
"the servant knoweth not what his lord
doeth*"? But when they say this, let them
hear that the Son has in Himself all that pertains
to the Father, and sees all things that the
Father doeth, and none of the good things that
belong to the Father is outside the knowledge
of the Son. For how can He fail to have any-
thing that is the Father's, seeing He has the
Father wholly in Himself? Accordingly, if
"the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth,"
and if He has in Himself all things that are the
Father's, let those who are reeling with strong
drink at last become sober, and let them now,
if never before, look up at the truth, and see
that He who has all things that the Father has
is lord of all, and not a slave. For how can the
personality that owns no lord over it bear on

1 Rom. viii. 15. 3 Cf. Gal. y. 13. * Cf. S. John xt. t$.

Q 2

228

GREGORY OF NYSSA

itself the brand of slavery ? How can the King
of all fail to have His form of like honour with
Himself? how can dishonour — for slavery is
dishonour — constitute the brightness of the true
glory ? and how is the King's son born into
slavery ? No, it is not so. But as He is Light
of Light, and Life of Life, and Truth of Truth,
so is He Lord of Lord, King of King, God of
God, Supreme of Supreme ; for having in Him-
self the Father in His entirety, whatever the
Father has in Himself He also assuredly has,
and since, moreover, all that the Son has belongs
to the Father, the enemies of God's glory are
inevitably compelled, if the Son is a slave, to
drag down to servitude the Father as well. For
there is no attribute of the Son which is not ab-
solutely the Father's. " For all Mine are Thine,"
He says, "and Thine are Mine5." What then
will the poor creatures say? Which is more
reasonable — that the Son, Who has said, "Thine
are Mine, and I am glorified in them s," should
be glorified in the sovereignty of the Father,
or that insult should be offered to the Father
by the degradation involved in the slavery of
the Son? For it is not possible that He
Who contains in Himself all that belongs to
the Son, and Who is Himself in the Son,
should not also absolutely be in the slavery of
the Son, and have slavery in Himself. Such
are the results achieved by Eunomius' philo-
sophy, whereby he inflicts upon his Lord
the insult of slavery, while he attaches the
same degradation to the stainless glory of the
Father.

Let us however return once more to the
course of his treatise. What does Eunomius
say concerning the Only-begotten ? That He
" does not appropriate the dignity," for he calls
the appellation of "being" a "dignity." A
startling piece of philosophy ! Who of all men
that have ever been, whether among Greeks or
barbarian sages, who of the men of our own day,
who of the men of all time ever gave " being "
the name of " dignity " ? For everything that
is regarded as subsisting 6 is said, by the com-
mon custom of all who use language, to " be " :
and from the word "be" has been formed the
term " being." But now the expression " dignity"
is applied in a new fashion to the idea expressed
by "being." For he says that "the Son, Who
is and lives because of" the Father, does not
appropriate this dignity," having no Scripture
to support his statement, and not conducting
his statement to so senseless a conclusion by
Hny process of logical inference, but as if he
had taken into his intestines some windy food,
he belches forth his blasphemy in its crude and
unmethodized form, like some unsavoury breath.

5 S. John xvii. 10.

* iv vjrooToa* i Bfuipov^evov.

" He does not appropriate this dignity." Let
us concede the point of " being " being called
"dignity." What then? does He Who is not
appropriate being ? " No," says Eunomius,
" because He exists by reason of the Father."
Do you not then say that He Who does not
appropriate being is not ? for " not to appropri-
ate " has the same force as "to be alien from ",
and the mutual opposition of the ideas "> is evi-
dent. For that which is "proper" is not
"alien," and that which is "alien" is not
"proper." He therefore Who does not "ap-
propriate " being is obviously alien from being :
and He Who is alien from being is non-
existent.

But his cogent proof of this absurdity he
brings forward in the words, "as the essence
which controls even Him attracts to itself the
conception of the Existent." Let us say no-
thing about the awkwardness of the combin-
ation here : let us examine his serious meaning.
What argument ever demonstrated this? He
superfluously reiterates to us his statement of
the Essence of the Father having sovereignty
over the Son. What evangelist is the patron
of this doctrine? What process of dialectic
conducts us to it. What premises support
it? What line of argument ever demon-
strated by any logical consequence that the
Only-begotten God is under dominion ? " But,"
says he, "the essence that is dominant over
the Son attracts to itself the conception of
the Existent." What is the meaning of the
attraction of the existent ? and how comes the
phrase of "attracting" to be flung on the top
of what he has said before ? Assuredly he who
considers the force of words will judge for him-
self. About this, however, we will say nothing :
but we will take up again that argument that
he does not grant essential being to Him to
Whom he does not leave the title of the Exisb-
ent. And why does he idly fight with shadows,
contending about the non-existent being this or
that ? For that which does not exist is of course
neither like anything else, nor unlike. But while
granting that He is existent he forbids Him to
be so called. Alas for the vain precision of
haggling about the sound of a word while making
concessions on the more important matter ! But
in what sense does He, Who, as he says, has
dominion over the Son, " attract to Himself the
conception of the Existent"? For if he says
that the Father attracts His own essence, this
process of attraction is superfluous : for exist-
ence is His already, without being attracted.
If, on the other hand, his meaning is that the
existence of the Son is attracted by the Father,
I cannot make out how existence is to be

7 The ideas of "own" implied ia "appropriate," and that of
incongruity implied in "alienation:"

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK X.

229

wrenched from the Existent, and to pass over to
Him Who "attracts" it. Can he be dreaming
of the error of Sabellius, as though the Son did
not exist in Himself, but was painted on to the
personal existence of the Father? is this his
meaning in the expression that the conception
of the Existent is attracted by the essence which
exercises domination over the Son ? or does he,

while not denying the personal existence of the
Son, nevertheless say that He is separated from
the meaning conveyed by the term " the Exist-
ent"? And yet, how can "the Existent" be
separated from the conception of existence?
For as long as anything is what it is, nature
does not admit that it should not be what
it is.

BOOK XI.

§ i, The eleventh book shows that the title of
"Good" is due, not to the Father alone, as
Eunomius, the imitator of Manichaus and
Bardesanes, alleges, but to the Son also, Who
formed man in goodness and loving-kindness,
and reformed him by His Cross and death.

Let us now go on to the next stage in his
argument : — " .... the Only-begotten Him-
self ascribing to the Father the title due of right
to Him alone. For He Who has taught us that
the appellation ' good ' belongs to Him alone
Who is the cause of His own l goodness and
of all goodness, and is so at all times, and Who
refers to Him all good that has ever come into
being, would be slow to appropriate to Himself
the authority over all things that have come
into being, and the title of 'the Existent.'"
Well, so long as he concealed his blasphemy
under some kind of veil, and strove to entangle
his deluded hearers unawares in the mazes of
his dialectic, I thought it necessary to watch
his unfair and clandestine dealings, and as far
as possible to lay bare in my argument the
lurking mischief. But now that he has stripped
his falsehood of every mask that could disguise
it, and publishes his profanity aloud in cate-
gorical terms, I think it superfluous to undergo
useless labour in bringing logical modes of con-
futation to bear upon those who make no secret
of their impiety. For what further means could
we discover to demonstrate their malignity so
efficacious as that which they themselves show
us in their writings ready to our hand ? He
says that the Father alone is worthy of the title
of "good," that to Him alone such a name is
due, on the plea that even the Son Himself
agrees that goodness belongs to Him alone.
Our accuser has pleaded our cause for us : for
perhaps in my former statements I was thought
by my readers to show a certain wanton in-
solence when I endeavoured to demonstrate
that the fighters against Christ made Him out
to be alien from the goodness of the Father.
But I think it has now been proved by the
confession of our opponents that in bringing

That is. of the Son's goodness : for S. Gregory's comment on
the awkward use of the pronoun c/^KTc'pas, see p. 233, ityf.

such a charge against them we were not acting
unfairly. For he who says that the title of
"good" belongs of right to the Father only,
and that such an- address befits Him alone,
publishes abroad, by thus disclosing his real
meaning, the villainy which he had previously
wrapped up in disguise. He says that the title
of "good" befits the Father only. Does he
mean the title with the signification which be-
longs to the expression, or the title detached
from its proper meaning ? If on the one side
he merely ascribes to the Father the title of
"good" in a special sense, he is to be pitied
for his irrationality in allowing to the Father
merely the sound of an empty name. But if he
thinks that the conception expressed by the term
"good" belongs to God the Father only, he
is to be abominated for his impiety, reviving as
he does the plague of the Manichasan heresy
in his own opinions. For as health and disease,
even so goodness and badness exist on terms
of mutual destruction, so that the absence of
the one is the presence of the other. If then
he says that goodness belongs to the Father
only, he cuts off these from every conceivable
object in existence except the Father, so that,
along with all, the Only-begotten God is shut
out from good. For as he who affirms that
man alone is capable of laughter implies there-
by that no other animal shares this property,
so he who asserts that good is in the Father
alone separates all things from that property.
If then, as Eunomius declares, the Father alone
has by right the title of "good," such a term
will not be properly applied to anything else.
But every impulse of the will either operates in
accordance with good, or tends to the contrary.
For to be inclined neither one way nor the
other, but to remain in a state of equipoise, is
the property of creatures inanimate or in-
sensible. If the Father alone is good, having
goodness not as a thing acquired, but in His
nature, and if the Son, as heresy will have it,
does not share in the nature of the Father, then
he who does not share the good essence of the
Father is of course at the same time excluded
also from part and lot in the title of "good."
But he who has no claim either to the nature or

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK XL

231

to the name of "good" — what he is is assuredly
not unknown, even though I forbear the blas-
phemous expression. For it is plain to all that
the object for which Eunomius is so eager is
to import into the conception of the Son a
suspicion of that which is evil and opposite to
^ood. For what kind of name belongs to him
who is not good is manifest to every one who
has a share of reason. As he who is not brave
is cowardly, as he who is not just is unjust, and
as he who is not wise is foolish, so he who is
not good clearly has as his own the opposite
name, and it is to this that the enemy of Christ
wishes to press the conception of the Only-
begotten, becoming thereby to the Church an-
other Manes or Bardesanes. These are the
sayings in regard of which we say that our
utterance would be no more effective than
silence. For were one to say countless things,
and to arouse all possible arguments, one could
not say anything so damaging of our opponents
as what is openly and undisguisedly proclaimed
by themselves. For what more bitter charge
could one invent against them for malice than
that of denying that He is good " Who, being
in the form of God, thought it not robbery to
be equal with God 2," but yet condescended to
the low estate of human nature, and did so
solely for the love of man? In return for
what, tell me, " do ye thus requite the Lord 3 ? "
(for I will borrow the language of Moses to the
Israelites) ; is He not good, Who when thou
wast soulless dust invested thee with Godlike
beauty, and raised thee up as an image of His
own power endowed with soul? Is He not
good, Who for thy sake took on Him the form
of a servant, and for the joy set before Him 4
did not shrink from bearing the sufferings due
to thy sin, and gave Himself a ransom for thy
death, and became for our sakes a curse and
sin ?

§ 2. He also ingeniously shows from the passage
of the Gospel which speaks of " Good Master,"
from the parable of the Vineyard, from Isaiah
and from Paul, that there is not a dualism in
the Godhead of good and evil, as Eunomius''
ally Marcion supposes, and declares that the Son
does not refuse the title of " good" or "Existent,"
or acknowledge His alienation from the Father,
but that to Him also belongs authority over all
things that come into being.

Not even Marcion himself, the patron of your
opinions, supports you in this. It is true that
in common with you he holds a dualism of
gods, and thinks that one is different in nature
from the other, but it is the more courteous

a Cf. Phil. ii. 6.

3 Dent, xxxii. 6.

4 Hcb. xii. z.

view to attribute goodness to the God of the
Gospel. You however actually separate the
Only-begotten God from the nature of good, that
you may surpass even Marcion in the depravity
of your doctrines. However, they claim the
Scripture on their side, and say that they are
hardly treated when they are accused for using
the very words of Scripture. For they say that
the Lord Himself has said, "There is none
good but one, that is, God5." Accordingly,
that misrepresentation may not prevail against
the Divine words, we will briefly examine the
actual passage in the Gospel. The history
regards the rich man to whom the Lord
spoke this word as young — the kind of person,
I suppose, inclined to enjoy the pleasures of
this life — and attached to his possessions ; for
it says that he was grieved at the advice to part
with what he had, and that he did not choose
to exchange his property for life eternal. This
man, when he heard that a teacher of eternal
life was in the neighbourhood, came to him in
the expectation of living in perpetual luxury,
with life indefinitely extended, flattering the
Lord with the title of "good," — flattering, I
should rather say, not the Lord as we conceive
Him, but as He then appeared in the form of
a servant. For his character was not such as
to enable him to penetrate the outward veil of
flesh, and see through it into the inner shrine
of Deity. The Lord, then, Who seeth the
hearts, discerned the motive with which the
young man approached Him as a suppliant, —
that he did so, not with a soul intently fixed
upon the Divine, but that it was the man whom
he besought, calling Him " Good Master," be-
cause he hoped to learn from Him some lore
by which the approach of death might be
hindered. Accordingly, with good reason did
He Who was thus besought by him answer
even as He was addressed6. For as the en-
treaty was not addressed to God the Word, so
correspondingly the answer was delivered to the
applicant by the Humanity of Christ, thereby
impressing on the youth a double lesson. For
He teaches him, by one and the same answer,
both the duty of reverencing and paying homage
to the Divinity, not by flattering speeches but
by his life, by keeping the commandments and
buying life eternal at the cost of all possessions,
and also the truth that humanity, having been
sunk in depravity by reason of sin, is debarred
from the title of " Good " : and for this re.-son
He says, " Why callest Thou Me good?" sug-
gesting in His answer by the word " Me " that
human nature which encompassed Him, while
by attributing goodness to the Godhead He ex-
pressly declared Himself to be good, seeing that

5 Cf. S. M;itt. xix. 17.

* /'. e . as man, and not as God.

232

GREGORY OF NYSSA

He is proclaimed to be God by the Gospel. For
had the Only-begotten Son been excluded from
the title of God, it would perhaps not have been
absurd to think Him alien also from the appel-
lation of "good." But if, as is the case, pro-
phets, evangelists, and Apostles proclaim aloud
the Godhead of the Only-begotten, and if the
name of goodness is attested by the Lord Him-
self to belong to God, how is it possible that
He Who is partaker of the Godhead should not
be partaker of the goodness too? For that
both prophets, evangelists, disciples and apostles
acknowledge the Lord as God, there is none so
uninitiated in Divine mysteries as to need to
be expressly told. For who knows not that in
the forty-fourth ? Psalm the prophet in his word
affirms the Christ to be God, anointed by God ?
And again, who of all that are conversant with
prophecy is unaware that Isaiah, among other
passages, thus openly proclaims the Godhead
of the Son, where he says : " The Sabeans, men
of stature, shall come over unto thee, and shall
be servants unto thee : they shall come after
thee bound in fetters, and in thee shall they
make supplication, because God is in thee, and
there is no God beside thee ; for thou art
God 8." For what other God there is Who has
God in Himself, and is Himself God, except
the Only-begotten, let them say who hearken
not to the prophecy ; but of the interpretation
of Emmanuel, and the confession of Thomas
after his recognition of the Lord, and the sub-
lime diction of John, as being manifest even to
those who are outside the faith, I will say no-
thing. Nay, I do not even think it necessary
to bring forward in detail the utterances of
Paul, since they are, as one may say, in all men's
mouths, who gives the Lord the appellation not
only of " God," but of "great God " and " God
over all," saying to the Romans, "Whose are
the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the
flesh, Christ came, Who is over all, God blessed
for ever 9," and writing to his disciple Titus,
"According to the appearing of Jesus Christ
the great God and our Saviour1," and to
Timothy, proclaims in plain terms, "God was
manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit2."
Since then the fact has been demonstrated on
every side that the Only-begotten God is
God 3, how is it that he who says that good-
ness belongs to God, strives to show that
the Godhead of the Son is alien from this

I' vlv. 7,8. (The Psalm is the 44th in the LXX. numer-
ation, and is so styled by S. ' rregory.)

xlv. 14, 15 (LXX. 9 R0m. ;x s.

lit n. 1 :. The quotation is not verbal; and here the
A V. rather obscures the sense which it is necessai v
for S argument to bring out

11^ <-!•'. s, >ir, if the citation is to be -

1. 6 Wtos).

" '-'■<■! elvai Tor /ioroyw'ij 0eup fur tou Oeou tipai
k.t A. The reading of the texts does not give the sense required
for the argument.

ascription, and this though the Lord has actu-
ally claimed for Himself the epithet "good"
in the parable of ^ those who were hired into
the vineyard ? For there, when those who had
laboured before the others were dissatisfied at
all receiving the same pay, and deemed the
good fortune of the last to be their own loss,
the just judge says to one of the murmurers*,
" Friend, I do thee no wrong : did I not agree
with thee for a penny a day ? Lo, there thou
hast that is thine s : I will bestow upon this last
even as upon thee. Have I not power to do
what I will with mine own ? Is thine eye evil
because I am good?" Of course no one will
contest the point that to distribute recompense
according to desert is the special function of
the judge ; and all the disciples of the Gospel
agree that the Only-begotten God is Judge ;
"for the Father," He saith, "judgeth no man,
but hath committed all judgment unto the
Son6." But they do not set themselves in
opposition ' to the Scriptures. For they say
that the word " one " absolutely points to the
Father. For He saith, "There is none good
but one, that is God." Will truth then lack
vigour to plead her own cause? Surely there
are many means easily to convict of deception
this quibble also. For He Who said this con-
cerning the Father spake also to the Father
that other word, "All Mine are Thine, and
Thine are Mine, and I am glorified in them8."
Now if He says that all that is the Father's
is also the Son's, and goodness is one of the
attributes pertaining to the Father, either the
Son has not all things if He has not this, and
they will be saying that the Truth lies, or if it
is impious to suspect the very Truth of being
carried away into falsehood, then He Who
claimed all that is the Father's as His own,
thereby asserted that He was not outside of
goodness. For He Who has the Father in
Himself, and contains all things that belong to
the Father, manifestly has His goodness with
"all things." Therefore the Son is Good.
But "there is none good," he says, "but one,
that is God." This is what is alleged by our
adversaries : nor do I myself reject the state-
ment. I do not, however, for this cause deny
the Godhead of the Son. But he who confesses
that the Lord is God, by that very confession
assuredly also asserts of Him goodness. For if
goodness is a property of God, and if the Lord
is God, then by our premises the Son is shown

4 Compare with what follows S. Matt. xx. 13, 15. S. Gregory
:ems to be quoting from memory ; his Greek is not so close to that
of S Matthew as the translation to the A. V.

1 I S. Matt. xxv. 25, from which this phrase is borrowed, with
a shuht variation.

'' S. John v. 22.

7 I his seems a sense etymologically possible for KaOio-TavTat.
h ith a genitive, a use of which Lidded and Scott give no instances.
The statement must of course be taken as that of the adversaries
themselves. 8 S. John xvii. 10.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK XI.

233

to be God. "But," says our opponent, "the word
'one' excludes the Son from participation in
goodness." It is easy, however, to show that
not even the word " one " separates the Father
from the Son. For in all other cases, it is
true, the term "one" carries with it the signifi-
cation of not being coupled with anything else,
but in the case of the Father and the Son
" one " does not imply isolation. For He says,
<*I and the Father are one 9." If, then, the
good is one, and a particular kind of unity is
contemplated in the Father and the Son, it
follows that the Lord, in predicating goodness
of "one," claimed under the term "one" the
title of "good "also for Himself, Who is one
with the Father, and not severed from oneness
of nature.

§ 3. He then exposes the ignorance of Eunomius,
and the incoherence and absurdity of his argu-
ments, in speaking of the Son as " the A?igelof
the Existent" and as being as much below the
Divine Nature as the Son is superior to the
things created by Himself. And in this con-
nection there is a noble and forcible counter-
statrment and an indignant refutation, shoiu-
ing that He Who gave the oracles to Moses is
Himself the Existent, the Only-begotten Son,
Who to the petition of Moses, " If Thou Thy-
self goest not with us, carry me not up hence,"
'said, " / will do this also that thou hast said" ;
, Who is also called " Angel" both by Moses
and Isaiah . wherein is cited the text, " Unto
us a Child is born."

But that the research and culture of our
imposing author may be completely disclosed,
we will consider sentence by sentence his pre-
sentment of his sentiments. "The Son," he
says, " does not appropriate the dignity of the
Existent," giving the name of "dignity" to the
actual fact of being : — (with what propriety he
knows how to adapt words to things !) — and
since He is "by reason of the Father," he says
that He is alienated from Himself on the ground
that the essence which is supreme over Him
attracts to itself the conception of the Existent.
This is much the same as if one were to say
that he who is bought for money, in so far as
he is in his own existence, is not the person
bought, but the purchaser, inasmuch as his
essential personal existence is absorbed into the
nature of him who has acquired authority over
him. Such are the lofty conceptions of our
di\ine: but what is the demonstration of his
staiements ?...." the Only-begotten," he
says, " Himself ascribing to the Father the title
due of right to Him alone," and then he intro-

9 Cf. S. John x. 3a

duces the point that the Father alone is good.
Where in this does the Son disclaim the title of
"Existent"? Yet this is what Eunomius is
driving at when he goes on word for word as
follows : — " For He Who has taught us that the
appellation 'good' belongs to Him alone Who
is the cause of His own goodness and of all
goodness, and is so at all times, and Who refers
to Him all good that has ever come into being,
would be slow to appropriate to Himself the
authority over all things that have come into
being, and the title of 'the Existent.'" What
has "authority" to do with the context? and
how along with this is the Son also alienated
from the title of " Existent " ? But really I do
not know what one ought rather to do at this, —
to laugh at the want of education, or to pity the
pernicious folly which it displays. For the ex-
pression, " His own," not employed according
to the natural meaning, and as those who know
how to use language are wont to use it, attests his
extensive knowledge of the grammar of pro-
nouns, which even little boys get up with their
masters without trouble, and his ridiculous
wandering from the subject to what has nothing
to do either with his argument or with the form
of that argument, considered as syllogistic,
namely, that the Son has no share in the appel-
lation of "Existent" — an assertion adapted to his
monstrous inventions *, — this and similar ab-
surdities seem combined together for the pur-
pose of provoking laughter ; so that it may be
that readers of the more careless sort experience
some such inclination, and are amused by the
disjointedness of his arguments. But that God
the Word should not exist, or that He at all
events should not be good (and this is what
Eunomius maintains when he says that He
does not "appropriate the title" of "Existent"
and " good "), and to make out that the authority
over all things that come into being does not
belong to him, — this calls for our tears, and for
a wail of mourning.

For it is not as if he had but let fall some-
thing of the kind just once under some head-
long and inconsiderate impulse, and in what
followed had striven to retrieve his error : no,
he dallies lingeringly with the malignity, striv-
ing in his later statements to surpass what had
gone before. For as he proceeds, he says that
the Son is the same distance below the Divine
Nature as the nature of angels is subjected
below His own, not indeed saying this in so
many words, but endeavouring by what he does
say to produce such an impression. The reader
may judge for himself the meaning of his words :
they run as follows, — "Who, by being called

1 Oehler's punctuation is here apparently erroneous. The
position of (rvfinepaaTiKw is peculiar and the general construction ot
the passage a little obscure : but if the text is to be regarded as
sound, the meaning must be something like that here given.

234

GREGORY OF NYSSA

'Angel,' clearly showed by Whom He published
His words, and Who is the Existent, while by
being addressed also as God, He showed His
superiority over all things. For He Who is the
God of all things that were made by Him, is
the Angel of the God over all." Indignation
rushes into my heart and interrupts my dis-
course, and under this emotion arguments are
lost in a turmoil of anger roused by words like
these. And perhaps I may be pardoned for
feeling such emotion. For whose resentment
would not be stirred within him at such pro-
fanity, when he remembers how the Apostle
proclaims that every angelic nature is subject
to the Lord, and in witness of his doctrine in-
vokes the sublime utterances of the prophets : —
" When He bringeth the first-begotten into the
world, He saith, And let all the angels of God
worship Him," and, "Thy throne, O God, is
for ever and ever," and, " Thou art the same,
and Thy years shall not fail2"? When the
Apostle has gone through all this argument to
demonstrate the unapproachable majesty of the
Only-begotten God, what must I feel when I
hear from the adversary of Christ that the Lord
of Angels is Himself only an Angel, — and when
he does not let such a statement fall by chance,
but puts forth his strength to maintain this
monstrous invention, so that it may be established
that his Lord has no superiority over John and
Moses ? For the word says concerning them,
" This is he of whom it is written, ' Behold I
send my angel before thy face 3.'" John there-
fore is an angel. But the enemy of the Lord,
even though he grants his Lord the name of
God, yet makes Him out to be on a level with
the deity of Moses, since he too was a servant
of the God over all, and was constituted a god
to the Egyptians 4. And yet this phrase, " over
all," as has been previously observed, is common
to the Son with the Father, the Apostle having
expressly ascribed such a title to Him, when he
says, " Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ
came, Who is God over all 5." But this man
degrades the Lord of angels to the rank of an
angel, as though he had not heard that the
angels are "ministering spirits," and "a flame
of fire6." For by the use of these distinctive
terms does the Apostle make the difference
between the several subjects clear and unmis-
takable, defining the subordinate nature to be
"spirits" and "fire," and distinguishing the
supreme power by the name of Godhead. And
yet, though there are so many that proclaim the
glory of the Only-begotten God, against them

8 Cf. Heb. i. 6 — 12. The passages there cited are Ps. xcvii. 7 ;
Ps. xlv. 6 ; Ps. cii. 25, sqq.

3 S. Matt. xi. 10, quoting Mai. lii 1. The word translated
"messenger" in A. V. is dyyeAos, which the argument here seems
to require should be rendered by angel."

4 1 I. Exod. vii. 1. 5 Ryui. ix. 5,

<■ Cf. Heb, L 14 and 7.

all Eunomius lifts up his single voice, calling
the Christ "an angel of the God over all," de-
fining Him, by thus contrasting Him with the
"God over all," to be one of the "all things,"
and, by giving Him the same name as the angels,
trying to establish that He no wise differs from
them in nature : for he has often previously said
that all those things which share the same name
cannot be different in nature. Does the argu-
ment, then, still lack its censors, as it concerns
a man who proclaims in so many words that
the " Angel " does not publish His own word,
but that of the Existent? For it is by this
means that he tries to show that the Word
Who was in the beginning, the Word Who
was God, is not Himself the Word, but is the
Word of some other Word, being its minister
and "angel." And who knows not that the
only opposite to the "Existent" is the non-
existent ? so that he who contrasts the Son with
the Existent, is clearly playing the Jew, robbing
the Christian doctrine of the Person of the
Only-begotten. For in saying that He is ex-
cluded from the title of the "Existent," he is
assuredly trying to establish also that He is
outside the pale of existence : for surely if he
grants Him existence, he will not quarrel about
the sound of the word.

But he strives to prop up his absurdity by
the testimony of Scripture, and puts forth Moses
as his advocate against the truth. For as though
that were the source from which he drew his argu-
ments, he freely sets forth to us his own fables,
saying, " He Who sent Moses was the Existent
Himself, but He by Whom He sent and spake
was the Angel of the Existent, and the God
of all else." That his statement, however, is
not drawn from Scripture, may be conclusively
proved by Scripture itself. But if he says that
this is the sense of what is written, we must
examine the original language of Scripture.
Moreover let. us first notice that Eunomius,
after calling the Lord God of all things after
Him, allows Him no superiority in comparison
with the angelic nature. For neither did
Moses, when he heard that he was made a
god to Pharaoh 4, pass beyond the bounds of
humanity, but while in nature he was on an
equality with his fellows, he was raised above
them by superiority of authority, and his being
called a god did not hinder him from being
man. So too in this case Eunomius, while
making out the Son to be one of the angels,
salves over such an error by the appellation of
Godhead, in the manner expressed, allowing
Him the title of God in some equivocal sense.
Let us once more set down and examine the
very words in which he delivers his blasphemy.
" He Who sent Moses was the Existent Him-
self, but He by Whom He sent was the Angel

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK XI.

235

of the Existent " — this, namely " Angel," being
the title he gives his Lord. Well, the absurdity
of our author is refuted by the Scripture itself,
in the passage where Moses beseeches the Lord
not to entrust an angel with the leadership of'
the people, but Himself to conduct their march.
The passage runs thus : God is speaking, " Go,
get thee down, guide this people unto the place
of which I have spoken unto thee : behold
Mine Angel shall go before thee in the day
when I visit7." And a little while after He
says again, " And I will send Mine Angel before
thee8." Then, a little after what immediately
follows, comes the supplication to God on the
part of His servant, running on this wise, " If I
have found grace in Thy sight, let my Lord go
among us V' and again, "If Thou Thyself go
not with us, carry me not up hence J " ; and
then the answer of God to Moses, " I will do
for thee this thing also that thou hast spoken :
for thou hast found grace in My sight, and I
know thee above all men 2." Accordingly, if
Moses begs that the people may not be led by
an angel, and if He Who was discoursing with
him consents to become his fellow-traveller and
the guide of the army, it is hereby manifestly
shown that He Who made Himself known by
the title of " the Existent " is the Only-begotten
God.

If any one gainsays this, he will show him-
self to be a supporter of the Jewish persuasion
in not associating the Son with the deliverance
of the people. For if, on the one hand, it was
not an angel that went forth with the people,
and if, on the other, as Eunomius would have
it, He Who was manifested by the name of the
Existent is not the Only-begotten, this amounts
to nothing less than transferring the doctrines
of the synagogue to the Church of God. Ac-
cordingly, of the two alternatives they must
needs admit one, namely, either that the Only-
begotten God on no occasion appeared to
Moses, or that the Son is Himself the " Exist-
ent," from Whom the word came to His servant.
But he contradicts what has been said above,
alleging the Scripture itself 3 which informs us
that the voice of an angel was interposed, and
that it was thus that the discourse of the Exist-
ent was conveyed. This, however, is no con-
tradiction, but a confirmation of our view. For
we too say plainly, that the prophet, wishing to
make manifest to men the mystery concerning
Christ, called the Self-Existent "Angel," that
the meaning of the words might not be referred
to the Father, as it would have been if the title
of " Existent " alone had been found through-
out the discourse. But just as our word is the

7 Cf Exod. xxxii. 34 (LXX.).

8 Cf. Exod. xxxiii. 2 ; the quotation is not verbally from LXX.

9 Cf Evod. xxxiv. q (LXX.). J Exod. xxxiii. 15 (LXX.).
2 Cf Exod. xxxiii. 17 (LXX.). 3 Cf. Exod. iii. 2.

revealer and messenger (or " angel ") of the
movements of the mind, even so we affirm that
the true Word that was in the beginning, when
He announces the will of His own Father, is
styled " Angel " (or " Messenger "), a title given
to Him on account of the operation of convey-
ing the message. And as the sublime John,
having previously called Him "Word," so intro-
duces the further truth that the Word was God,
that our thoughts might not at once turn to the
Father, as they would have done if the title of
God had been put first, so too does the mighty
Moses, after first calling Him "Angel," teach
us in the words that follow that He is none
other than the Self-Existent Himself, that the
mystery concerning the Christ might be fore-
shown, by the Scripture assuring us by the
name " Angel," that the Word is the interpreter
of the Father's will, and, by the title of the
"Self-Existent," of the closeness of relation
subsisting between the Son and the Father.
And if he should bring forward Isaiah also as
calling Him " the Angel of mighty counsel 4,"
not even so will he overthrow our argument.
For there, in clear and uncontrovertible terms,
there is indicated by the prophecy the dispen-
sation of His Humanity ; for " unto us," he says,
"a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and
the government shall be upon His shoulder,
and His name is called the Angel of mighty
counsel." And it is with an eye to this, I
suppose, that David describes the establishment
of His kingdom, not as though He were not a
King, but in the view that the humiliation to
the estate of a servant to which the Lord sub-
mitted by way of dispensation, was taken up
and absorbed into the majesty of His Kingdom.
For he says, " I was established King by Him
on His holy hill of Sion, declaring the ordin-
ance of the Lord.5 Accordingly, He Who
through Himself reveals the goodness of the
Father is called "Angel" and "Word," "Seal"
and " Image," and all similar titles with the
same intention. For as the "Angel" (or
" Messenger ") gives information from some
one, even so the Word reveals the thought
within, the Seal shows by Its own stamp the
original mould, and the Image by Itself inter-
prets the beauty of that whereof It is the image,,
so that in their signification all these terms are
equivalent to one another. For this reason the
title "Angel" is placed before that of the "Self-
Existent," the Son being termed "Angel" as
the exponent of His Father's will, and the
" Existent " as having no name that could
possibly give a knowledge of His essence, but
transcending all the power of names to express.
Wherefore also His name is testified by the

« Is. ix. 6 (LXX.).

S Ps. ii. 6 (LXX.).

236

GREGORY OF NYSSA

writing of the Apostle to be "above every
name6," not as though it were some one name
preferred above all others, though still compar-
able with them, but rather in the sense that He
Who verily is is above every name.

■§ 4. After this, fearing to extend his reply to
great length, he passes by most of his adver-
sary's statements as already refuted. But the
remainder, for the sake of those who deem them
of much force, he briefly summarizes, and refutes
the blasphemy of Eunomius, who says of the
Lord also that He is what animals and plants
in all creation are, non-existent before their
own generation ; and so with the production of
frogs ; alas for the blasphemy !

But I must hasten on, for I see that my
■treatise has already extended beyond bounds,
and I fear that I may be thought garrulous
and inordinate in my talk, if I prolong my
answer to excess, although I have intentionally
passed by many parts of my adversary's treatise,
that my argument might not be spun out to
many myriads of words. For to the more
studious even the want of conciseness gives an
occasion for disparagement ; but as for those
whose mind looks not to what is of use, but to
the fancy of those who are idle and not in
earnest, their wish and prayer is to get over
as much of the journey as they can in a few
steps. What then ought we to do when Euno-
mius' profanity draws us on? Are we to track
his every turn? or is it perhaps superfluous
.and merely garrulous to spend our energies
over and over again on similar encounters ?
For all their argument that follows is in accord-
ance with what we have already investigated,
and presents no fresh point in addition to
what has gone before. If then we have suc-
ceeded in completely overthrowing his previous
statements, the remainder fall along with them.
But in case the contentious and obstinate should
think that the strongest part of their case is in
what I have omitted, for this reason it may
perhaps be necessary to touch briefly upon what
remains.

He says that the Lord did not exist before
His own generation — he who cannot prove that
He was in anything separated from the Father.
And this he says, not quoting any Scripture as a
warrant for his assertion, but maintaining his
proposition by arguments of his own. But this
characteristic has been shown to be common to
all parts of the creation. Not a frog, not a
worm, not a beetle, not a blade of grass, nor
anyotherof the most insignificant objects, existed
before its own formation : ,so that what by aid

6 PhiL ii. g.

of his dialectic skill he tries with great labour
and pains to establish to be the case with the
Son, has previously been acknowleged to be true
of any chance portions of the creation, and our
author's mighty labour is to show that the Only-
begotten God, by participation of attributes, is
on a level with the lowest of created things.
Accordingly the fact of the coincidence of their
opinions concerning the Only-begotten God>
and their view of the mode in which frogs come
into being, is a sufficient indication of their
doctrinal pravity. Next he urges that not to
be before His generation, is equivalent in fact
and meaning to not being ungenerate. Once
more the same argument will fit my hand in
dealing with this too, — that a man would riot
be wrong in saying the same thing of a dog, or
a flea, or a snake, or any one you please of the
meanest creatures, since for a dog not to exist
before his generation is equivalent in fact and
meaning to his not being ungenerate. But if, in
accord with the definition they have so often
laid down, all things that share in attributes
share also in nature, and if it is an attribute of
the dog, and of the rest severally, not to exist
before generation, which is what Eunomius
thinks fit to maintain also of the Son, the reader
will by logical process see for himself the con-
clusion of this demonstration.

§ 5. 7 Eunomius again speaks of the Son as Lord
and God, and Maker of dll creation intelligible
and sensible, having received from the Father
the power and the commission for creation,
being entrusted with the task of creation as if
He were an arti.an commissioned by some one
hiring Him, and receiving His power of crea-
tion as a thing adventitious, ab extra, as a
result of the power allotted to Him in accord-
a nee with such and such combinations and op-
positions of the stars, as destiny decrees their
lot in life to men at their nativity. Thus,
passing by most of what Eunomius had written,
he confutes his blasphemy that the Maker of
all things came into being in like ?nanner with
the earth and with angels, and that the sub-
sistence of the Only-begotten differs not at all
from the genesis of all things, and reproaches
him with reverencing neither the Divine mystery
nor the custom of the Church, nor following in
his attempt to discover godliness any teacher of
pious doctrine, but Jlfanichceus, Colluthus,
Arius, Aetius, and those like to them, supposing
that Christianity in general is folly, and that the

1 The grammar of this section of the analysis is in pails very
much confused ; the general drift of its intention, rather than its
lit ral meaning, is given in the translation. Grammatically speaking.
11 appears to attribute to S. Gregory some of the opinions of
nius. The construction, however, is so ungrammatical that
the confusion is prohably in the composer's expression r.ither than in
his interpretation of what he is summarizing.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK XI.

237

customs of the Church and the venerable sacra-
ments are a jest, "wherein he differs in nothing

from the pagans, who borrowed from our doc-
trine the idea of a great God supreme 01 er all.
So, loo, this new idolater preaches in the same

fashion, and in particular that baptism is
" into an artificer and creator" not fearing the
curse of those who cause addition or diminution
to the Holy Scriptures. And he closes his booh
with shewing him to be Antichrist.

Afterwards, however, he gives his discourse
a more moderate turn, imparting to it even a
touch of gentleness, and, though he had but a
little earlier partitioned off the Son from the title
of Existent, he now says, — "We affirm that the
Son is not only existent, and above all existent
things, but we also call Him Lord and God,
the Maker of every being 8, sensible and intel-
ligible." What does he suppose this "being"
to be ? created ? or uncreated ? For if he con-
fesses Jesus to be Lord, God, and Maker of all
intelligible being, it necessarily follows, if he
says it is uncreated, that he speaks falsely, as-
cribing to the Son the making of the uncreated
Nature. But if he believes it to be created, he
makes Him His own Maker. For if the act of
creation be not separated from intelligible
nature in favour of Him Who is independent
and uncreated, there will no longer remain any
mark of distinction, as the sensible creation and
the intelligible being will be thought of under
one head 9. But here he brings in the assertion
that "in the creation of existent things He has
been entrusted by the Father with the construc-
tion of all things visible and invisible, and with
the providential care over all that comes into
being, inasmuch as the power allotted to Him
from above is sufficient for the production of
those things which have been constructed \"
The vast length to which our treatise has run
compels us to. pass over these assertions briefly :
but, in a sense, profanity surrounds the argu-
ment, containing a vast swarm of notions
like venomous wasps. " He was entrusted," he
says, "with the construction of things by the
Father." But if he had been talking about
some artizan executing his work at the pleasure
of his employer, would he not have used the
same language? For we are not wrong in
saying just the same of Bezaleel, that being
entrusted by Moses with the building of the
tabernacle, he became the constructor of those

8 ov<ria.<;.

q The passage is a little obscure : if the force of the dative t<2
kiO' eavrov o.ktL<ttu) be that assigned to it, the meaning will be that,
if no exception is made in the statement that the Son is the Maker
oi every intelligible being, the Deity will be included among the
works 1 if the Son, Who will thus be the Maker of Himself, as of the
sensible creation.

1 1 1 is not quite clear how much of this is citation, and how much
paraphrase of Eunomius' words. '

things there 2 mentioned, and would not have
taken the work in hand had he not previously
acquired his knowledge by Divine inspiration,
and ventured upon the undertaking on Moses'
entrusting him with its execution. Accord-
ingly the term "entrusted" suggests that His
office and power in creation came to Him
as something adventitious, in the sense that
before He was entrusted with that commission
He had neither the will nor the power to act,
but when He received authority to execute the
works, and power sufficient for the works, then
He became the artificer of things that. are, the
power allotted to Him from on high being, as
Eunomius says, sufficient for the purpose.
Does he then place even the generation of
the Son, by some astrological juggling 3, under
some destiny, just as they who practise this
vain deceit affirm that the appointment of their
lot in life comes to men at the time of their
birth, by such and such conjunctions or opposi-
tions of the stars, as the rotation above moves on
in a kind of ordered train, assigning to those
who are coming into being their special faculties ?
It may be that something of this kind is in the
mind of our sage, and he says that to Him that
is above all rule, and authority, and dominion,
and above every name that is named, not only
in this world, but also in that which is to come,
there has been allotted, as though He were
pent in some hollow spaces, power from on
high, measured out in accordance with the1
quantity of things which come into being. I
will pass over this part of his treatise also sum-
marily, letting fall from a slight commencement
of investigation, for the more intelligent sort of
readers, seeds to enable them to discern his
profanity. Moreover, in what follows, there is
ready written a kind of apology for ourselves.
For we cannot any longer be thought to be
missing the intention of his discourse, and
misinterpreting his words to render them subject
to criticism, when his own voice acknowledges
the absurdity of his doctrine. His words stand
as follows: — "What? did not earth and angel
come into being, when, before they were not ? "
See how our lofty theologian is not ashamed to
apply the same description to earth and angels
and to the Maker of all ! Surely if he thinks it
fit to predicate the same of earth and its Lord,
he must either make a god of the one, or de-
grade the other to a level with it.

Then he adds to this something by which his
profanity is yet more completely stripped of all
disguise, so that its absurdity is obvious even

2 The reference is to Exod. xxxv. 30.

3 Reading Teparelav f r the otherwise unknown word irepareiai',
which Oehler retains. If -rrepaTetav is the true reading, it should
probably be rendered by " fatalism," or '' determination." Gulonius
renders it by " determinationem." It may be connected with the
name " Peratae," given to one of the Ophite sects, who held fatalist
views.

238

GREGORY OF NYSSA

to a child. For he says, — "It would be a long
task to detail all the modes of generation of
intelligible objects, or the essences which do
not all possess the nature of the Existent in
common, but display variations according to
the operations of Him Who constructed them."
Without any words of ours, the blasphemy
against the Son which is here contained is glaring
and conspicuous, when he acknowledges that
that which is predicated of every mode of gener-
ation and essence in nowise differs from the
description of the Divine subsistence4 of the
Only-begotten. But it seems to me best to
pass over the intermediate passages in which
he seeks to maintain his profanity, and to
hasten to the head and front of the accusation
which we have to bring against his doctrines.
For he will be found to exhibit the sacrament
of regeneration as an idle thing, the mystic
oblation as profitless, and the participation in
them as of no advantage to those who are par-
takers therein. For after those high-wrought
aeons5 in which, by way of disparagement of
our doctrine, he names as its supporters a Valen-
tinus, a Cerinthus, a Basilides, a Montanus, and
a Marcion, and after laying it down that those
who affirm that the Divine nature is unknow-
able, and the mode of His generation unknow-
able, have no right or title whatever to the
name of Christians, and after reckoning us
among those whom he thus disparages, he pro-
ceeds to develop his own view in these terms : —
" But we, in agreement with holy and blessed
men, affirm that the mystery of godliness does
not consist in venerable names, nor in the dis-
tinctive character of customs and sacramental
tokens, but in exactness of doctrine." That
when he wrote this, he did so not under the guid-
ance of evangelists, apostles, or any of the authors
of the Old Testament, is plain to every one who
has any acquaintance with the sacred and Divine
Scripture. We should naturally be led to sup-
pose that by " holy and blessed men " he meant
Manichseus, Nicolaus, Colluthus, Aetius, Arius,
and the rest of the same band, with whom he is
in strict accord in laying down this principle,
that neither the confession of sacred names, nor
the customs of the Church, nor her sacramental
tokens, are a ratification of godliness. But we,
having learnt from the holy voice of Christ that

.cept a man be born again of water and of
the Spirit he shall not enter into the kingdom
of God6," and that "He that eateth My flesh
and drinketh My blood, shall live for ever 7,"

[ ii rsuaded that the mystery of godliness is
ratified by the confession of the Divine Names

unat7TatTtuj<;.

5 The w..r.t seenu t< lit used, as " octads" in Book IX. seems
to be used, of Eunomius' production.

* Cf. S. John iii. 3 and 6. 7 Cf. S. John vi. 51 and 54.

— the Names of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, and that our salvation is confirmed
by participation in the sacramental customs and
tokens. But doctrines have often been care-
fully investigated by those who have had no
part or lot in that mystery, and one may hear
many such putting forward the faith we hold as
a subject for themselves in the rivalry of debate,
and some of them often even succeeding in
hitting the truth, and for all that none the less
estranged from the faith. Since, then, he de-
spises the revered Names, by which the power
of the more Divine birth distributes grace to
them who come for it in faith, and slights the
fellowship of the sacramental customs and
tokens from which the Christian profession
draws its vigour, let us, with a slight variation,
utter to those who listen to his deceit the word
of the prophet : — " How long will ye be slow of
heart ? Why do ye love destruction and seek
after leasing 8 ? " How is it that ye do not see
the persecutor of the faith inviting those who
consent unto him to violate their Christian pro-
fession ? For if the confession of the revered
and precious Names of the Holy Trinity is
useless, and the customs of the Church un-
profitable, and if among these customs is the
sign of the cross?, prayer, baptism, confession
of sins, a ready zeal to keep the command-
ments, right ordering of character, sobriety of
life, regard to justice, the effort not to be excited
by passion, or enslaved by pleasure, or to fall
short in moral excellence, — if he says that none
of such habits as these is cultivated to any good
purpose, and that the sacramental tokens do
not, as we have believed, secure spiritual bless-
ings, and avert from believers the assaults
directed against them by the wiles of the evil
one, what else does he do but openly proclaim
aloud to men that he deems the mystery which
Christians cherish a fable, laughs at the majesty
of the Divine Names, considers the customs of
the Church a jest, and all sacramental opera-
tions idle prattle and folly ? What beyond this
do they who remain attached to paganism bring
forward in disparagement of our creed? Do
not they too make the majesty of the sacred
Names, in which the faith is ratified, an occa-
sion of laughter? Do not they deride the
sacramental tokens and the customs which are
observed by the initiated ? And of whom is it
so much a distinguishing peculiarity as of the
pagans, to think that piety should consist in
doctrines only ? since they also say that accord-
ing to their view, there is something more per-
suasive than the Gospel which we preach, and

8 Cf. Ps. iv. 2 (LXX.). The alteration made is the substitution
of a7TajAeiai' for /jLaTaioTrjTa.

9 'II <r(j>payi'i. The term is used elsewhere by Gregory in this
sense, in the Life of S. Gregory Thaumaturgus, and in the Lile of
S. M^( 1 ina.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK XI.

239

some of them hold that there is some one great
God pre-eminent above the rest, and acknow-
ledge some subject powers, differing among
themselves in the way of superiority or inferiority,
in some regular order and sequence, but all
alike subject to the Supreme. This, then, is
what the teachers of the new idolatry preach,
and they who follow them have no dread of the
condemnation that abideth on transgressors, as
though they did not understand that actually to
do some improper thing is far more grievous
than to err in word alone. They, then, who in
act deny the faith, and slight the confession of
the sacred Names, and judge the sanctification
effected by the sacramental tokens to be worth-
less, and have been persuaded to have regard
to cunningly devised fables, and to fancy that
their salvation consists in quibbles about the
generate and the ungenerate, — what else are they
than transgressors of the doctrines of salvation ?
But if any one thinks that these charges are
brought against them by us ungenerously and
unfairly, let him consider independently our
author's writings, both what we have previously
alleged, and what is inferred in logical con-
nection with our citations. For in direct con-
travention of the law of the Lord — (for the
deliverance to us of the means of initiation
constitutes a law), — he says that baptism is
not into the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, as Christ commanded His disciples
when He delivered to them the mystery,
but into an artificer and creator, and "not
only Father," he says, "of the Only-begotten,
but also His God I." Woe unto him who
gives his neighbour to drink turbid mischief2!

1 These last words are apparently a verbal quotation, those
preceding more probably a paraphrase of Eunomius' statement.

2 Cf. Hab. ii. 15 (LXX.). It is possible that the reading Ookepdv
for &oKepdv, which appears both in Oehler's text and in the Paris
edition, was a various reading of the passage in the LXX., and that
S . Gregory intended to quote exactly,

How docs he trouble and befoul the truth
by flinging his mud into it ! How is it that
he feels no fear of the curse th;it rests upon
those who add aught to the Divine utterance,
or dare to take aught away ? Let us read the
declaration of the Lord in His very words —
"Go," He says, "teach all nations, baptizing
them in the Name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Where did He
call the Son a creature ? Where did the Word
teach that the Father is creator and artificer of
the Only-begotten ? Where in the words cited
is it taught that the Son is a servant of God ?
Where in the delivery of the mystery is the God
of the Son proclaimed? Do ye not perceive
and understand, ye who are dragged by guile
to perdition, what sort of guide ye have put in
charge of your souls, — one who interpolates the
Holy Scriptures, who garbles the Divine utter-
ances, who with his own mud befouls the purity
of the doctrines of godliness, who not only arms
his own tongue against us, but also attempts to
tamper with the sacred voices of truth, who is
eager to invest his own perversion with more
authority than the teaching of the Lord ? Do
ye not perceive that he stirs himself up against
the Name at which all must bow, so that in
time the Name of the Lord shall be heard no
more, and instead of Christ Eunomius shall be
brought into the Churches? Do ye not yet
consider that this preaching of godlessness has
been set on foot by the devil as a rehearsal,
preparation, and prelude of the coming of Anti-
christ? For he who is ambitious of showing
that his own words are more authoritative than
those of Christ, and of transforming the faith
from the Divine Names and the sacramental
customs and tokens to his own deceit, — what
else, I say, could he properly be called, but only
Antichrist ?

BOOK XII.

§ I. This twelfth book gives a notable interpreta-
tion of the words of the Lord to Mary, " Touch
Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My
Father^

But let us see what is the next addition that
follows upon this profanity, an addition which
is in fact the key of their defence of their
doctrine. For those who would degrade the
majesty of the glory of the Only-begotten to
slavish and grovelling conceptions think that
they find the strongest proof of their assertions
in the words of the Lord to Mary, which He
uttered after His resurrection, and before His
ascension into heaven, saying, " Touch Me not,
for I am not yet ascended to My Father : but
go to My brethren and say unto them, I ascend
unto My Father and your Father, and to My
God and your God I." The orthodox interpre-
tation of these words, the sense in which we
have been accustomed to believe that they were
spoken to Mary, is I think manifest to all who
have received the faith in truth. Still the dis-
cussion of this point shall be given by us in its
proper place ; but meantime it is worth while
to inquire from those who allege against us
such phrases as "ascending," "being seen,"
"being recognized by touch," and moreover
"being associated with men by brotherhood,"
whether they consider them to be proper to the
Divine or to the Human Nature. For if they
see in the Godhead the capacity of being seen
and touched, of being supported by meat and
drink, kinship and brotherhood with men, and
all the attributes of corporeal nature, then let
them predicate of the Only-begotten God both
these and whatsoever else they will, as motive
energy and local change, which are peculiar to
things circumscribed by a body. But if He by
Miry is discoursing with His brethren, and if
the Only-begotten has no brethren, (for how, if
He had brethren, could the property of being
Only-begotten be preserved ?) and if the same
Person Who said, "God is a Spirit2," says to
His disciples, "Handle Me 3," that He may
show that while the Human Nature is capable

* S. John xx. 17.

S. John iv. 24. 3 S. Luke xxiv. 39.

of being handled the Divinity is intangible, and
if He Who says, " I go," indicates local change,
while He who contains all things, "in Whom,"
as the Apostle says, "all things were created,
and in Whom all things consist'*," has nothing
in existent things external to Himself to which
removal could take place by any kind of mo-
tion, (for motion cannot otherwise be effected
than by that which is removed leaving the
place in which it is, and occupying another
place instead, while that which extends through
all, and is in all, and controls all, and is con-
fined by no existent thing, has no place to
which to pass, inasmuch as nothing is void of
the Divine fulness,) how can these men abandon
the belief that such expressions arise from that
which is apparent, and apply them to that Nature
which is Divine and which surpasseth all under-
standing, when the Apostle has in his speech to
the Athenians plainly forbidden us to imagine
any such thing of God, inasmuch as the Divine
power is not discoverable by touch5, but by
intelligent contemplation and faith? Or, again,
whom does He Who did eat before the eyes of
His disciples, and promised to go before them
into Galilee and there be seen of them, — whom
does He reveal Him to be Who should so
appear to them? God, Whom no man hath
seen or can see6? or the bodily image, that is,
the form of a servant in which God was? If
then what has been said plainly proves that the
meaning of the phrases alleged refers to that
which is visible, expressing shape, and capable
of motion, akin to the nature of His disciples,
and none of these properties is discernible in
Him Who is invisible, incorporeal, intangible,
and formless, how do they come to degrade the
very Only-begotten God, Who was in the begin-
ning, and is in the Father, to a level with Peter,
Andrew, John, and the rest of the Apostles, by
calling them the brethren and fellow-servants of
the Only-begotten? And yet all their exertions
are directed to this aim, to show that in majesty
of nature there is as great a distance between

4 Col. i. 16, 17.

5 Cf. Act- xvii. The precise reference is perhaps to verse 27.

6 The reference is perhaps to 1 Tim. vi. 16; but the quotation if
not verbal, bee also S. John i. 18.

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK XII.

24 1

the Father and the dignity, power, and essence
of the Only-begotten, as there is between the
Only-begotten and humanity. And they press
this saying into the support of this meaning,
treating the name of the God and Father as being
of common significance in respect of the Lord
and of His disciples, in the view that no differ-
ence in dignity of nature is conceived while He
is recognized as God and Father both of Him
and of them in a precisely similar manner.

And the mode in which they logically main-
tain their profanity is as follows ; — that either
by the relative term employed there is expressed
community of essence also between the disciples
and the Father, or else we must not by this
phrase bring even the Lord into communion
in the Father's Nature, and that, even as the
fact7 that the God over all is named as their
God implies that the disciples are His servants,
so by parity of reasoning, it is acknowledged,
by the words in question, that the Son also is
the servant of God. Now that the words ad-
dressed to Mary are not applicable to the
Godhead of the Only-begotten, one may learn
from the intention with which they were uttered.
For He Who humbled Himself to a level with
human littleness, He it is Who spake the words.
And what is the meaning of what He then
uttered, they may know in all its fulness who
by the Spirit search out the depths of the
sacred mystery. But as much as comes within
our compass we will set down in few words,
following the guidance of the Fathers. He
Who is by nature Father of existent things,
from Whom all things have their birth, has
been proclaimed as one, by the sublime utter-
ance of the Apostle. "For there is one God,"
he says, "and Father, of Whom are all things8."
Accordingly human nature did not enter into
the creation from any other source, nor grow
spontaneously in the parents of the race, but it
too had for the author of its own constitution
none other than the Father of all. And the
name of Godhead itself, whether it indicates the
authority of oversight or of foresight 9, imports a
certain relation to humanity. For He Who be-
stowed on all things that are, the power of being,
is the God and overseer of what He has Himself
produced. But since, by the wiles of him that
sowed in us the tares of disobedience, our
nature no longer preserved in itself the impress
of the Father's image, but was transformed into
the foul likeness of sin, for this cause it was
engrafted by virtue of similarity of will into the

7 The grammar of the passage is simplified if we read to 9eov
avriov 6t>ofiao-0r)i/<xi. but the sense, retaining Oehler's reading rov
6tov, is probably the same.

8 Cf. 1 Cor. viii. 6.

9 There seems here to be an allusion to the supposed derivation
of Sep;, frpm 6ea.oixai, which is also the basis of an argument in the
treatise "On 'Not three Gods,'" addressed to Ablabius.

VOL. V.

evil family of the father of sin : so that the
good and true God and Father was no longer
the God and Father of him who had been thus
outlawed by his own depravity, but instead of
Him Who was by Nature God, those were
honoured who, as the Apostle says, "by nature
were no Gods *," and in the place of the Father,
he was deemed father who is falsely so called,
as the prophet Jeremiah says in his dark saying,
"The partridge called, she gathered together
what she hatched not 2." Since, then, this was
the sum of our calamity, that humanity was exiled
from the good Father, and was banished from
the Divine oversight and care, for this cause
He Who is the Shepherd of the whole rational
creation, left in the heights of heaven His un-
sinning and supramundane flock, and, moved
by love, went after the sheep which had gone
astray, even our human natures. For human
nature, which alone, according to the similitude
in the parable, through vice roamed away from
the hundred of rational beings, is, if it be com-
pared with the whole, but an insignificant and
infinitesimal part. Since then it was impossible
that our life, which had been estranged from
God, should of itself return to the high and
heavenly place, for this cause, as saith the'
Apostle, He Who knew no sin is made sin for
us 4, and frees us from the curse by taking on
Him our curse as His own 5, and having taken
up, and, in the language of the Apostle, " slain "
in Himself "the enmity 6 " which by means of
sin had come between us and God, — (in fact
sin was "the enmity") — and having become
what we were, He through Himself again united
humanity to God. For having by purity brought
into closest relationship with the Father of our
nature that new man which is created after
God7, in Whom dwelt all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily8, He drew with Him into the
same grace all the nature that partakes of His
body and is akin to Him. And these glad
tidings He proclaims through the woman, not
to those disciples only, but also to all who up
to the present day become disciples of the
Word,— the tidings, namely, that man is no
longer outlawed, nor cast out of the kingdom of
God, but is once more a son, once more in the
station assigned to him by his God, inasmuch
as along with the first-fruits of humanity the
lump also is hallowed °. " For behold," He says,
"I and the children whom God hath given
Me I." He Who for our sakes was partaker of
flesh and blood has recovered you, and brought

1 Gal. iv. B. 3 Jer. xvii. n (LXX.

3 Cf. Book IV. § 3 (p. 158 sup.). With the general statement
may be compared the parallel passage in Book II. § 8.

4 Cf. 2 Cor. v. 2i. S Cf. Gal. iii. 13.
6 Cf. Eph. ii. 16. 1 Cf. Eph. iv. 24.
8 Cf. Col. ii. 9. 9 Cf. Rom. xi. 16.
1 Cf. Heb. ii. 13, quoting Is. viii. 18.

242

GREGORY OF NYSSA

you back to the place whence ye strayed away,
becoming mere flesh and blood by sin 2. And
so He from Whom we were formerly alienated
by our revolt has become our Father and our
God. Accordingly in the passage cited above
the Lord brings the glad tidings of this benefit.
And the words are not a proof of the degrad-
ation of the Son, but the glad tidings of our
reconciliation to God. For that which has
taken place in Christ's Humanity is a common
boon bestowed on mankind generally. For as
when we see in Him the weight of the body,
which naturally gravitates to earth, ascending
through the air into the heavens, we believe
according to the words of the Apostle, that we
also " shall be caught up in the clouds to meet
the Lord in the air3," even so, when we hear
that the true God and Father has become the
God and Father of our First-fruits, we no longer
doubt that the same God has become our God
and Father too, inasmuch as we have learnt
'hat we shall come to the same place whither
Christ has entered for us as our forerunner4.
And the fact too that this grace was revealed by
means of a woman, itself agrees with the inter-
pretation which we have given For since, as
the Apostle tells us, "the woman, being deceived,
was in the transgression V' and was oy her dis-
obedience foremost in the revolt from God, for
this cause she is the first witness of the resur-
rection, that she might retrieve by her faith in
the resurrection the overthrow caused by her
disobedience, and that as, by making herself at
the beginning a minister and advocate to her
nusband of the counsels of the serpent, she
brought into human life the beginning of evil,
and its train of consequences, so, by ministering 6
to His disciples the words of Him Who slew
the rebel dragon, she might become to men the
guide to faith, whereby with good reason the
first proclamation of death is annulled. It is
likely, indeed, that by more diligent students a
more profitable explanation of the text may be
discovered. But even though none such should
be found, I think that every devout reader will
agree that the one advanced by our opponents
is futile, after comparing it with that which we
have brought forward. For the one has been
fabricated to destroy the glory of the Only-
begotten, and nothing more : but the other
includes in its scope the aim of the dispensation
concerning man. For it has been shown that
it was not the intangible, immutable, and in-

1 Cf. Heb. ii. 14. 3 r Thess. iv. 16.

4 Cf. Heb. vi. 20. 5 1 Tim. ii. 14.

6 Reading 5taxoii)<7<x<ra for the 5toxo/i.i'cra<ra of the Paris ed.
and iuucofiTJO'aa-a of Oehler's text, the latter of which is obviously
a misprint, but leaves us uncertain as to the reaumg which Oehler
intended to adopt. The reading SiaxoirjeraiTa answers to the Sia-
(tovot ■y,l'0M'V7| above, and is to some extent confirmed by dioKorqaai.
occurring again a ew lines further on S. Gregory, when he has
once used an unusual word or expression, very frequently repeats
it in the nexi lew sentences.

visible God, but the moving, visible, and tangible
nature which is proper to humanity, that gave
command to Mary to minister the word to His
disciples.

§ 2. Then referring to the blasphemy of Eu-
nomius, which had been refuted by the great
Basil, where he banished the Only-begotten
God to the realm of darkness, and th" apology
or explanation which Eunomius puts forth for
his b.asphemy, he shows that his present
blasphemy is rendered by his apology worse
than his previous one ; and herein he very ably
discourses of the " true " and the " unapproach-
able " Light.

Let us also investigate this point as well, —
what defence he has to offer on those matters
on which he was convicted of error by the great
Basil, when he banishes the Only-begotten God
to the realm of darkness, saying, " As great as
is the difference between the generate and the
ungenerate, so great is the divergence between
Light and Light." For as he has already shown
that the difference between the generate and
the ungenerate is not merely one of greater or
less intensity, but that they are diametrically
opposed as regards their meaning ; and since
he has inferred by logical consequence from
his premises that, as the difference between the
light of the Father and that of the Son corre-
sponds to ungeneracy and generation, we must
necessarily suppose in the Son not a diminu-
tion of light, but a complete alienation from
light. For as we cannot say that generation
is a modified ungeneracy, but the signification
of the terms yevw/mc and ayEtv-qniu are ab-
solutely contradictory and mutually exclusive,
so, if the same distinction is to be preserved
between the Light of the Father and that con-
ceived as existing in the Son, it will be logically
concluded that the Son is not henceforth to be
conceived as Light, as he is excluded alike from
ungeneracy itself, and from the light which
accompanies that condition, — and He Who is
something different from light will evidently, by
consequence, have affinity with its contrary, —
since this absurdity, I say, results from his
principles, Eunomius endeavours to explain it
away by dialectic artifices, delivering himself
as follows : " For we know, we know the true
Light, we know Him who created the light
after the heavens and the earth, we have heard
the Life and Truth Himself, even Christ, saying
to His disciples, ' Ye are the light of the world V
we have learned from the blessed Paul, when
he gives the title of ' Light unapproachable 8 ' to

7 S. Matt. v. 14.

8 Cf. 1 Tim. vi. 16. The quotation, as S. Gregory points out,
is inexact.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK XII.

243

the God over all, and by the addition defines
and teaches us the transcendent superiority of
His Light ; and now that we have learnt that
there is so great a difference between the one
Light and the other, we shall not patiently
endure so much as the mere mention of the
notion that the conception of light in either
case is one and the same." Can he be serious
when he advances such arguments in his at-
tempts against the truth, or is he experimenting
upon the dulness of those who follow his error
to see whether they can detect so childish and
transparent a fallacy, or have no sense to dis-
cern such a barefaced imposition ? For I sup-
pose that no one is so senseless as not to perceive
the ju" ling with equivocal terms by which
Eunom.-is deludes both himself and his ad-
mirers. The disciples, he says, were termed
light, and that which was produced in the
course of creation is also called light. But who
does not know that in these only the name is
common, and the thing meant in each case is
quite different ? For the light of the sun gives
discernment to the sight, but the word of the
disciples implants in men's souls the illumin-
ation of the truth. If, then, he is aware of this
difference even in the case of that light, so that
he thinks the light of the body is one thing,
and the light of the soul another, we need no
longer discuss the point with him, since his
defence itself condemns him if we hold our
peace. But if in that light he cannot discover
such a difference as regards the mode of oper-
ation, (for it is not, he may say, the light of
the eyes that illumines the flesh, and the spiritual
light which illumines the soul, but the operation
and the potency of the one light and of the
other is the same, operating in the same sphere
and on the same objects,) then how is it that
from the difference between the light of the
beams of the sun and that of the words of the
Apostles, he infers a like difference between the
Only-begotten Light and the Light of the Father?
"But the Son," he says, "is called the 'true'
Light, the Father 'Light unapproachable.'"
Well, these additional distinctions import a differ-
ence in degree only, and not in kind, between
the light of the Son and the light of the Father.
He thinks that the "true" is one thing, and
the " unapproachable" another. I suppose there
is no one so idiotic as not to see the real identity
of meaning in the two terms. For the " true "
and the "unapproachable" are each of them
removed in an equally absolute degree from
their contraries. For as the " true " does not
admit any intermixture of the false, even so the
" unapproachable " does not admit the access
of its contrary. For the " unapproachable " is
surely unapproachable by evil. But the light
of the Son is not evil ; for how can any one

see in evil that which is true? Since, then,
the truth is not evil, no one can say that the
light which is in the Father is unapproachable by
the truth. For if it were to reject the truth it
would of course be associated with falsehood.
For the nature of contradictories is such that
the absence of the better involves the presence
of its opposite. If, then, any one were to say
that the Light of the Father was contemplated
as remote from the presentation of its opposite,
he would interpret the term " unapproachable "
in a manner agreeable to the intention of the
Apostle. But if he were to say that "unap-
proachable" signified alienation from good, he
would suppose nothing else than that God was
alien from, and at enmity with, Himself, being
at the same time good and opposed to good.
But this is impossible : for the good is akin
to good. Accordingly the one Light is not
divergent from the other. For the Son is the
true Light, and the Father is Light unapproach-
able. In fact I would make bold to say that
the man who should interchange the two attri-
butes would not be wrong. For the true is
unapproachable by the false, and on the other
side, the unapproachable is found to be in
unsullied truth. Accordingly the unapproach-
able is identical with the true, because that
which is signified by each expression is equally
inaccessible to evil. What is the difference
then, that is imagined to exist in these by him
who imposes on himself and his followers by
the equivocal use of the term " Light " ? But
let us not pass over this point either without
notice, that it is only after garbling the Apostle's
words to suit his own fancy that he cites the
phrase as if it came from him. For Paul says,
" dzvellin^ in light unapproachable'." But
there is a great difference between being oneself
something and being in something. For he who
said, "dwelling in light unapproachable," did
not, by the word "dwelling," indicate God
Himself, but that which surrounds Him, which
in our view is equivalent to the Gospel phrase
which tells us that the Father is in the Son.
For the Son is true Light, and the truth is
unapproachable by falsehood ; so then the Son
is Light unapproachable in which the Father
dwells, or in Whom the Father is.

§ 3. He further proceeds notably to interpret
the language of the Gospel, "In the beginning
was the Word," and "Life" and "Light,"
and " The Word was made flesh," which had
been misinterpreted by Eunomius ; a?id over-
throws his blasphemy, and shows that the dis-
pensation of the Lord took place by loving-
kindness, not by lack of power, and with the
co-operation of the Father.

9 t Tim. vL 16.

244

GREGORY OF NYSSA

But he puts his strength into his idle con-
tention and says, " From the facts themselves,
and from the oracles that are believed, I pre-
sent the proof of my statement." Such is his
promise, but whether the arguments he advances
bear out his professions, the discerning reader
will of course consider. " The blessed John,"
he says, "after saying that the Word was in the
beginning, and after calling Him Life, and sub-
sequently giving the Life the further title of
'Light,' says, a little later, 'And the Word was
made flesh V If then the Light is Life, and
the Word is Life, and the Word was made
flesh, it thence becomes plain that the Light
was incarnate." What then ? because the Light
and the Life, and God and the Word, was
manifested in flesh, does it follow that the true
Light is divergent in any degree from the Light
which is in the Father ? Nay, it is attested by
the Gospel that, even when it had place in
darkness, the light remained unapproachable by
the contrary element : for "the Light," he says,
"shined in darkness, and the darkness com-
prehended it not 2." If then the light when it
found place in darkness had been changed to
its contrary, and overpowered by gloom, this
would have been a strong argument in support
of the view of those who wish to show how far
inferior is this Light in comparison with that
contemplated in the Father. But if the Word,
even though it be in the flesh, remains the
Word, and if the Light, even though it shines
in darkness, is no less Light, without admitting
the fellowship of its contrary, and if the Life,
even though it be in death, remains secure in
Itself, and if God, even though He submit to
take upon Him the form of a servant, does not
Himself become a ^servant, but takes away the
slavish subordination and absorbs it into lord-
ship and royalty, making that which was human
and lowly to become both Lord and Christ, —
if all this be so, how does he show by this
argument variation of the Light to inferiority,
when each Light has in equal measure the
property of being inconvertible to evil, and
unalterable? And how is it that he also fails
to observe this, that he who looked on the
incarnate Word, Who was both Light and Life
and God, recognized, through the glory which
he saw, the Father of glory, and says, "We
beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-
begotten of the Father 3 " ? .

But he has reached the irrefutable argument
which we long ago detected lurking in the

1 Cf. S. John L 4 and 14.

" S. John i. 5 (A. V, following the Vulgate). The word (care'Aafle
is perhaps better rendered by "overtook." "As applied to light
•;nse includes the further notion of overwhelming, eclipsing.
The relation of darkness to light is one of essential antagonism. If
the darkness is represented as pursuing the light, it can only be to
overshadow and not to appropriate it." (Westcotton S. John ad ioc.)

3 S. John i. 14.

sequel of his statements4, but which is here
proclaimed aloud without disguise. For he
wishes to show that the essence of the Son is
subject to passion, and to decay, and in no
wise differs from material nature, which is in a
state of flux, that by this means he may demons-
trate His difference from the Father. For he
says, "If he can show that the God Who is
over all, Who is the Light unapproachable, was
incarnate or could be incarnate, came under
authority, obeyed commands, came under the
laws of men, bore the Cross, let him say that
the Light is equal to the Light." If these
words had been brought forward by us as fol-
lowing by necessary consequence from pre-
mises laid down by Eunomius, who would not
have charged us with unfairness, in employing
an over-subtle dialectic to reduce our adversaries'
statement to such an absurdity ? But as things
stand, the fact that they themselves make no
attempt to suppress the absurdity that naturally
follows from their assumption, helps to support
our contention that it was not without due
reflection that, with the help of truth, we
censured the argument of heresy. For behold,
how undisguised and outspoken is their striv-
ing against the Only-begotten God ! Nay, by
His enemies His work of mercy is reckoned
a means of disparaging and maligning the
Nature of the Son of God, as though not of
deliberate purpose, but by a compulsion of His
Nature he had slipped down to life in the flesh,
and to the suffering of the Cross ! And as it is
the nature of a stone to fall downward, and of
fire to rise upward, and as these material objects
do not exchange their natures one with another,
so that the stone should have an upward tend-
ency, and fire be depressed by its weight and
sink downwards, even so they make out that
passion was part of the very Nature of the Son,
and that for this cause He came to that which
was akin and familiar to Him, but that the
Nature of the Father, being free from such
passions, remained unapproachable by the con-
tact of evil. For he says, that the God Who
is over all, Who is Light unapproachable,
neither was incarnate nor could be incarnate.
The first of the two statements was quite
enough, that the Father did not become ih-
carnate. But now by his addition a double
absurdity arises ; for he either charges the Son
with evil, or the Father with powerlessness. For
if to partake of our flesh is evil, then he pre-
dicates evil of the Only-begotten God ; but if
the lovingkindness to man was good, then he
makes out the Father to be powerless for
good, by saying that it would not have been
in His power to have effectually bestowed

4 The passage has already been cited by S. Gregory, Book V
§ 3 (p. 176 sup.).

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. • BOOK XII.

245

such grace by taking flesh. And yet who in
the world does not know that life-giving power
proceeds to actual operation both in the
Father and in the Son ? " For as the Father
raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them," He
says, " even so the Son quickeneth whom He
wills," — meaning obviously by "dead" us who
had fallen from the true life. If then it is
even so as the Father quickeneth, and not
otherwise, that the Son brings to operation the
same grace, how comes it that the adversary of
God moves his profane tongue against both,
insulting the Father by attributing to Him
powerlessness for good, and the Son by attribut-
ing to Him association with evil. But " Light,"
he says, "is not equal to Light," because the
one he calls "true," and the other "unapproach-
able." Is then the true considered to be a
diminution of the unapproachable ? Why so ?
and yet their argument is that the Godhead of
the Father must be conceived to be greater and
more exalted than that of the Son, because the
one is called in the Gospel " true God 6," the
other " God \ " without the addition of " true."
How then does the same term, as applied to
the Godhead, indicate an enhancement of the
conception, and; as applied to Light, a diminu-
tion ? For if they say that the Father is greater
than the Son because He is true God, by the
same showing the Son would be acknowledged
to be greater than the Father, because the former
is' called "true Light8," and the latter not So.
"But this Light," says Eunomius, "carried into
effeVt the plan of mercy, while the other remained
inoperative with respect to that gracious action."
A new and strange mode of determining priority
in dignity ! They judge that which is ineffective
for a benevolent purpose to be superior to that
which is operative. But such a notion as this
neither exists nor ever will be found amongst
Christians, — a notion by which it is made out
that every good that is in existent things has
not its origin from the Father. But of goods
that pertain to us men, the crowning blessing
is held by all right-minded men to be the return
to life; and it is secured by the dispensation
carried out by the Lord in His human nature ;
riot that the Father remained aloof, as heresy
will have it, ineffective and inoperative during
the time of this dispensation. For it is not this
that He indicates Who said, "He that sent
Me is with Me 9," and "The Father that
dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works *." With
what right then does heresy attribute to the
Son alone the gracious intervention on our
behalf, and thereby exclude the Father from
having any part or lot in our gratitude for its

5 S. John v. 21.

7 S. John i. 1.

9 Cf. S. John v. 37, and xvi. 32.

6 S. John xvii. 3.
8 S. John i. 9.
1 S. John xiv. 10.

successful issue? For naturally the requital
of thanks is due to our benefactors alone, and
He Who is incapable of benefiting us is out-
side the pale of our gratitude. See you how the
course of their profane attack upon the Only-
begotten Son has missed its mark, and is work-
ing round in natural consequence so as to be
directed against the majesty of the Father ? And
this seems to me to be a necessary result of
their method of proceeding. For if he that
honoureth the Son honoureth the Father2,
according to the Divine declaration, it is plain
on the other side that an assault upon the
Son strikes at the Father. But I say that to
those who with simplicity of heart receive the
preaching of the Cross and the resurrection, the
same grace should be a cause of equal thank-
fulness to the Son and to the Father, and now
that the Son has accomplished the Father's
will (and this, in the language of the Apostle,
is " that all men should be saved 3 "), they
ought for this boon to honour the Father and
the Son alike, inasmuch as our salvation would
not have been wrought, had not the good will
of the Father proceeded to actual operation
for us through His own power. And we have
learnt from the Scripture that the Son is the
power of the Father «.

§ 4. He then again charges Eunomius with having
learnt his term, ay tvvi\ala from the hieroglyphic
writings, and from the Egyptian mythology
and idolatry, and with bringing in Anubis,
Osiris, and /sis to the creed of Christians, and
shows that, considered as admitting His suffer-
ings of necessity and not voluntarily, the Only-
begotten is entitled to no gratitude from men :
and that fire has ?ione for its warmth, nor
water for its fluidity, as they do not refer their
results to self determining power, but to necessity
of nature s.

Let us once more notice the passage cited.
" If he can show," he says, " that the God Who
is over all, Who is the Light unapproachable,
was incarnate, or could be incarnate, .... then
let him say that the Light is equal to the Light."
The purport of his words is plain from the very
form of the sentence, namely, that he does not
think that it was by His almighty Godhead that
the Son proved strong for such a form of loving-
kindness, but that it was by being of a nature
subject to passion that He stooped to the suffer-
ing of the Cross. Well, as I pondered and
inquired how Eunomius came to stumble into
such notions about the Deity, as to think that
on the one side the ungenerate Light was

2 Cf. S. John v. 23. 3 1 Tim. ii. 4. * 1 Cor. i. 24.

5 The grammar of this section of the analysis is very much
confused. •

246

GREGORY OF NYSSA

unapproachable by its contrary, and entirely
unimpaired and free from every passion and
affection, but that on the other the generate
was intermediate in its nature, so as not to
preserve the Divine unsullied and pure in im-
passibility, but to have an essence mixed and
compounded of contraries, which at once
stretched out to partake of good, and at the
same time melted away into a condition subject
to passion, since it was impossible to obtain
from Scripture premises to support so absurd
a theory, the thought struck me, whether it
could be that he was an admirer of the
speculations of the Egyptians on the subject
of the Divine, and had mixed up their fancies
with his views concerning the Only-begotten.
For it is reported that they say that their fan-
tastic mode of compounding their idols, when
they adapt the forms of certain irrational
animals to human limbs, is an enigmatic symbol
of that mixed nature which they call "daemon,"
and that this is more subtle than that of men,
and far surpasses our nature in power, but has
the Divine element in it not unmingled or un-
compounded, but is combined with the nature
of the soul and the perceptions of the body,
and is receptive of pleasure and pain, neither
of which finds place with the"ungenerateGod."
For they too use this name, ascribing to the
supreme God, as they imagine Him, the attri-
bute of ungeneracy. Thus our sage theologian
seems to us to be importing into the Christian
creed an Anubis, Isis, or Osiris from the
Egyptian shrines, all but the acknowledgment
of their names : but there is no difference in
profanity between him who openly makes pro-
fession of the names of idols, and him who,
while holding the belief about them in his
heart, is yet chary of their names. If, then, it
is impossible to get out of Holy Scripture any
support for this impiety, while their theory
draws all its strength from the riddles of the
hieroglyphics, assuredly there can be no doubt
what right-minded persons ought to think of
this. But that this accusation which we bring
is no insulting slander, Eunomius shall testify
for us by his own words, saying as he does that
the ungenerate Light is unapproachable, and
has not the power of stooping to experience
affections, but affirming that such a condition
is germane and akin to the generate : so that
man need feel no gratitude to the Only-begotten
God for what He suffered, if, as they say, it was
by the spontaneous action of His nature that
He slipped down to the experience of affections,
His essence, which was capable of being thus
affected, being naturally dragged down thereto,
which demands no thanks. For who would
welcome as a boon that which takes place by
necessity, even if it be gainful and profitable?

For we neither thank fire for its warmth nor
water for its fluidity, as we refer these qualities
to the necessity of their several natures, because
fire cannot be deserted by its power of warming,
nor can water remain stationary upon an incline,
inasmuch as the slope spontaneously draws its
motion onwards. If, then, they say that the
benefit wrought by the Son through His incar-
nation was by a necessity of His nature, they
certainly render Him no thanks, inasmuch as
they refer what He did, not to an authoritative
power, but to a natural compulsion. But if,
while they experience the benefit of the gift,
they disparage the lovingkindness that brought
it, I fear lest their impiety should work round
to the opposite error, and lest they should deem
the condition of the Son, that could be thus
affected, worthy of more honour than the free-
dom from such affections possessed by the
Father, making their own advantage the criterion
of good. For if the case had been that the
Son was incapable of being thus affected, as
they affirm of the Father, our nature would still
have remained in its miserable plight, inasmuch
as there would have been none to lift up man's
nature to incorruption by what He Himself
experienced ; — and so it escapes notice that the
cunning of these quibblers, by the very means
which it employs in its attempt to destroy the
majesty of the Only-begotten God, does but
raise men's conceptions of Him to a grander
and loftier height, seeing it is the case that
He Who has the power to act, is more to be
honoured than one who is powerless for good.

§ 5. Then, again discussing the true Light and
unapproachable Light of the Father and of
the Son, special attributes, community and
essence, and showing the relation of "generate "
aud " ungenerate" as involving no opposition
in sense6, but presenting an opposition and
contradiction admitting of no middle term, he
ends the book.

But I feel that my argument is running away
with me, for it does not remain in the regular
course, but, like some hot-blooded and spirited
colt, is carried away by the blasphemies of our
opponents to range over the absurdities of their
system. Accordingly we must restrain it when
it would run wild beyond the bounds of moder-
ation in demonstration of absurd consequences.
But the kindly reader will doubtless pardon
what we have said, not imputing the absurdity
that emerges from our investigation to us,
but to those who laid down such mischievous
premises. We must, however, now transfer
0'ir attention to another of his statements.

6 The composer of the analysis seems to have been slightly con-
fused by the discussion on the nature of contradictory opposition.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS. BOOK XII.

247

For he says that our God also is composite,
in that while we suppose the Light to be
common, we yet separate the one Light from
the other by certain special attributes and
various differences. For that is none the less
composite which, while united by one common
nature, is yet separated by certain differences
and conjunctions of peculiarities 7. To this our
answer is short and easily dismissed. For what
he brings as matter of accusation against our
doctrines we acknowledge against ourselves, if
he is not found to establish the same position
by his own words. Let us just consider what
he has written. He calls the Lord "true"
Light, and the Father Light "unapproach-
able." Accordingly, by thus naming each, he
also acknowledges their community in respect
to light. But as titles are applied to things
because they fit them, as he has often in-
sisted, we do not conceive that the name of
"light" is used of the Divine Nature barely,
apart from some meaning, but rather that it
is predicated by virtue of some underlying
reality. Accordingly, by the use of a common
name, they recognize the identity of the objects
signified, since they have already declared that
the natures of those things which have the same
name cannot be different. Since, then, the
meaning of " Light " is one and the same, the
addition of "unapproachable" and "true,"
according to the language of heresy, separates
the common nature by specific differences, so
that the Light of the Father is conceived as one
thing, and the Light of the Son as another,
separated one from the other by special proper-
ties. Let him, then, either overthrow his own
positions to avoid making out by his statements
that the Deity is composite, or let him abstain
from charging against us what he may see con-
tained in his own language. For our statement
does not hereby violate the simplicity of the
Godhead, since community and specific differ-
ence are not essence, so that the conjunction
of these should render the subject composite 8.
But on the one side the essence by itself re-
mains whatever it is in nature, being what it is,
while, on the other, every one possessed of reason
would say that these — community and specific
difference — were among the accompanying con-
ceptions and attributes : since even in us men
there may be discerned some community with
the Divine Nature, but Divinity is not the more
on that account humanity, or humanity Divinity.
For while we believe that God is good, we also
find this character predicated of men in Scripture.
But the special signification in each case estab-

1 It is not clear how far the preceding sentences are an exact
reproduction of Eunomius : they are probably a summary of his
argument.

8 Oehler's punctuation seems rather to obscure the sense.

lishes a distinction in the community arising
from the use of the homonymous term. For
He Who is the fountain of goodness is named
from it ; but he who has some share of good-
ness also partakes in the name, and God is not
for this reason composite, that He shares with
men the title of "good." From these consider-
ations it must obviously be allowed that the
idea of community is one thing, and that of
essence another, and we are not on that ac-
count any the more to maintain composition or
multiplicity of parts in that simple Nature which
has nothing to do with quantity, because some
of the attributes we contemplate in It are either
regarded as special, or have a sort of common
significance.

But let us pass on, if it seems good, to
another of his statements, and dismiss the
nonsense that comes between. He who labor-
iously reiterates against our argument the
Aristotelian division of existent things, has
elaborated "genera," and "species," and
"differentia?," and "individuals," and advanced
all the technical language of the categories for
the injury of our doctrines. Let us pass by all
this, and turn our discourse to deal with his
heavy and irresistible argument. For having
braced his argument with Demosthenic fervour,
he has started up to our view as a second
Pseanian of Oltiseris0, imitating that orator's
severity in his struggle with us. I will tran-
scribe the language of our author word for
word. " Yes," he says, " but if, as the generate
is contrary to the ungenerate, the Generate
Light be equally inferior to the Ungenerate
Light, the one will be found to be * light, the
other darkness." Let him who has the leisure
learn from his words how pungent is his mode
of dealing with this opposition, and how exactly
it hits the mark. But I would beg this imitator
of our words either to say what we have said,
or to make his imitation of it as close as may
be, or else, if he deals with our argument ac-
cording to his own education and ability, to
speak in his own person and not in ours. For
I hope that no one will so miss our meaning as
to suppose that, while "generate" is contra-
dictory in sense to "ungenerate," one is a
diminution of the other. For the difference
between contradictories is not one of greater or
less intensity, but rests its opposition upon their
being mutually exclusive in their signification :
as, for example, we say that a man is asleep or
not asleep, sitting or not sitting, that he was or
was not, and all the rest after the same model,
where the denial of one is the assertion of its

9 That is, a new Demosthenes, with a difference. Demosthenes'
native place was the Attic deme of Paeania. Eunomius, according
to S. Gregory, was born at Oltiseris (see p. 38, note 6, suf>.).

1 Reading yei>7i<reT<u.

24-S

GREGORY OF NYSSA AGAINST EUNOMIUS.

contradictory. As, then, to live is not a diminu-
tion of not living, but its complete opposite,
even so we conceived having been generated not
as a diminution of not having been generated,
but as an opposite and contradictory not admit-
ting of any middle term, so that that which is
expressed by the one has nothing whatever to do
with that which is expressed by the other in the
way of less or more. Let him therefore who
says that one of two contradictories is defective
as compared with the other, speak in his own
person, not in ours. For our homely language
says that things which correspond to contra-
dictories differ from one another even as their
originals do. So that, even if Eunomius dis-
cerns in the Light the same divergence as in
the generate compared with the Ungenerate,
I will re-assert my statement, that as in the
one case the one member of the contradic-
tion has nothing in common with its opposite,

so
as

one

light" be 'placed on the same side
of the • two contradictories, the re-
maining place in the figure must of course be
assigned to "darkness," the necessity of the
antithesis arranging the term of light over
against its opposite, in accordance with the
analogy of the previous contradictory terms
"generate" and "ungenerate." Such is the
clumsy answer which we, who as our disparaging
author says, have attempted to write without
logical training, deliver in our rustic dialect to
our new Paeanian. But to see how he con-
tended with this contradiction, advancing
against us those hot and fire-breathing words of
his with Demosthenic intensity, let those who
like to have a laugh study the treatise of our
orator itself. For our pen is not very hard to
rouse to confute the notions of impiety, but is
quite unsuited to the task of ridiculing the
ignorance of untutored minds.

•eiiinoia.

It is important, for the understanding of the following Book, to determine what faculty of the mind 'En-tVoiois.
Eunomius, Gregory says, " makes a solemn travesty" of the word. He reduces its force to its lowest level, and
makes it only "fancy the unnatural," either contracting or extending the limits of nature, or putting heterogeneous
notions together. He instances colossi, pigmies, centaurs, as the result of this mental operation. "Fancy," or
"notion," would thus represent Eunomius' view of it. But Gregory ascribes every art and every science to the
play of this faculty. " According to my account, it is the method by which we discover things that are unknown,
going on to further discoveries, by means, of what adjoins and follows from our first perception with regard to the
thing studied." He instances Ontology (!), Arithmetic, Geometry, on the one hand, Agriculture, Navigation,
Horology, on the other, as the result of it. " Any one who should judge this faculty more precious than any other
with the exercise of which we are gifted would not be far mistaken." " Induction " might almost represent this
view of it. But then Gregory does not deny that " lying wonders are also fabricated by it." By means of it " an
entertainer might amuse an audience " with fire-breathing monsters, men enfolded in the coils of serpents, &c.
He calls it an inventive faculty. It must therefore be something more spontaneous than ratiocination, whether
deductive or inductive ; while it is more reliable than Fancy or Imagination.

This is illustrated by what S. John Damascene, in his Dialectica (c. 65), says of 'E^voia : " It is of two sorts.
The first is the faculty which analyses and elucidates the view of things undissected and in the gross (bXooxtpf)) :
whereby a simple phenomenon becomes complex speculatively : for instance, man becomes a compound of soul
and body. The second, by a union of perception and fancy, produces fictions out of realities, i. e. divides wholes
into parts, and combines those parts, selected arbitrarily, into new wholes; e.g. Centaurs, Sirens." Analysis
(scientific) would describe the one ; fancy, the other. Basil and Gregory were thinking of the one, Eunomius of
the other ; but still both parties used the same expression.

If, then, there is one word that will cover the whole meaning, it would seem to be " Conception." This word
at all events, both in its outward form and in its intention, stands to perception in a way strictly analogous to that
in which 'E7riVoio stands to "Evvoia. Both Conception and 'Eirivota represent some regulated operation of the
mind upon data immediately given. In both cases the mind is led to contemplate in a new light its own contents,
whether sensations or innate ideas. The fitness of Conception as an equivalent of 'Ewivoia will be clear when we
consider the real point at issue between Basil and Eunomius. Their controversy rages round the term Ungenerate.
Is it, or is it not, expressive of the substance (being) of the Deity ? To answe^this question, it was found necessary
to ascertain how such a name for the Supreme has been acquired. " By a conception," says Basil. " No," says
Eunomius : "it would be dangerous to trust the naming of the Deity to a common operation of the mind. The
faculty of Conception may and does play us false ; it can create monstrosities. Besides, if the names of the Father
are conceptions, the names of the Son are too ; for instance, the Door, the Shepherd, the Axe, the Vine. But as
our Lord Himself applied these to Himself, He would, according to you, be employing the faculty of conception ;
and it is blasphemous to think that He employed names which we too might have arrived at by conceiving of Him
in these particular ways. Therefore, Conception is not the Source of the Divine Names ; but rather they come from
a perception or intention implanted in us directly from on High. Ungenerate is such a name ; and it reveals to us
the very substance of the Deity." But Gregory defends Basil's position. He shows the entire relativity of our
knowledge of the Deity. Ungenerate and every other name of God is due to a conception ; in each case we perceive
either an operation of the Deity, or an element of evil, and then we conceive of Him as operating in the one, or as free
from the other ; and so name Him. But there is no conception, because there is no perception, of the substance of
the Deity. Scripture, which has revealed His operations, has not revealed that. "The human mind . . . feels
after the unutterable Being in divers and many-sided ways ; and never chases the mystery in the light of one idea
alone. Our grasping of Him would indeed be easy, if there lay before us one single assigned path to the knowledge
of God ; but, as it is, from the skill apparent in the Universe, we get the idea of skill in the Ruler of the Universe ;
. . . and again, when we see the execrable character of evil, we grasp His own unalterable pureness as regards
this, ... not that we split up the subject of such attributes along with them, but, believing that this Being,
-whatever it be in substance, is one, we still conceive that it has something in common with all these ideas."

To sum up, it had suited Eunomius to try to disparage 'Eirivota so far as to make it appear morally impossible
that any name of God, but especially 'AyivvrjTOQ, should be derived from such a source. He scoffs at the orthodox
-party for treating the privative terms for the Deity as merely privative, embodying only a "notion," and for
adhering to the truth that God's name is "above every name." He "does not see how God can be above His
works simply by virtue of such things as do not belong to Him ;" this is only "giving to words the prerogative
over realities." He wants, and believes in the existence of, a word for the substance of God, and he finds it in
'Ayivvr)TO£, which according to him is not privative at all ; it is the single name for the single Deity, and all the
others are bound up in it. " The universal Guardian thought it right to engraft these names in our minds by a law
of His creation." "These utterances zxzfrom above." The importance of this word to the Anomoeans is obvious.
Gregory, as spokesman of the Nicene party, defends the efficacy of the mental operation of conception to supply
terms for the Deity, which, however, can none of them be final. God is incomprehensible. At the same time
there is a spiritual insight of God (an ivvoia in fact) which far surpasses Eunomius' intellectual certainty (see
note p. 256).

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS* SECOND BOOK'.

The first part of my contentions against
Eunomius has with God's help been sufficiently
established in the preceding work, as all who
will may see from what I have worked out, how
in that former part his fallacy has been com-
pletely exposed, and its falsehood has no further
force against the truth, except in the case of those
who show a very shameless animus against her.
But since, like some robber's ambuscade, he has
got together a second work against orthodoxy,
again with God's help the truth takes up arms
through me against the array of her enemies,
commanding my arguments like a general and
directing them at her pleasure against the foe ;
following whose steps I shall boldly venture on
the second part of my contentions, nothing
daunted by the array of falsehood, notwithstand-
ing its display of numerous arguments. For
faithful is He who has promised that "a thousand
shall be chased by one," and that "ten thousand
shall be put to flight by two " 2, victory in battle
being due not to numbers, but to righteousness.
For even as bulky Goliath, when he shook against
the Israelites that ponderous spear we read of,
inspired no fear in his opponent, though a shep-
herd and unskilled in the tactics of war, but
having met him in fight loses his own head by a
direct reversal of his expectations, so our Goliath,
the champion of this alien system, stretching
forth his blasphemy against his opponents as
though his hand were on a naked sword, and
flashing the while with sophisms fresh from his
whetstone, has failed to inspire us, though no
soldiers, with any fear of his prowess, or to find
himself free to exult in the dearth of adversaries ;
on the contrary, he has found us warriors im-
provised from the Lord's sheepfold, untaught in
logical warfare, and thinking it no detriment to
be so, but simply slinging our plain, rude argu-
ment of truth against him. Since then, that

1 This Book is entitled in the Munich and Venice MSS. "an
Antirrhetic against Eunomius' second Essay (\6yov)" : in the Paris
I ditionx as Essay XII. (Aoyos I B) of our Father among the
Saint-, Gregory of Nyssa against Eunomius (1615), against Euno-
nnus' second Essay (1638)." The discrepance of number seem- to
have arisen from the absence of any title to Book VI. in the Munich
and Venice MSS. I!ut the Book preceding this, i. e. Book XII., is
named as such by the Paris Editt. of 1638 : and cited elsewhere as
such Photius, after saying that Gregory far excelled, in these
books, Theoi'.ore (of Mopsuestia), and Sophronius, who also wrote
apai»st Eunomius, particularly praises this last book.
Deut. xxxii. 30 ; Joshua xxiii. 10.

shepherd who is in the record, when he had cast
down the alien with his sling, and broken his
helmet with the stone, so that it gaped under
the violence of the blow, did not confine his
valour to gazing on his fallen foe, but running
in upon him, and depriving him of his head,
returns bearing it as a trophy to his people,
parading that braggart head through the host
of his countrymen ; looking to this example it
becomes us also to advance nothing daunted
to the second part of our labours, but as far as
possible to imitate David's valour, and, like
him, after the first blow to plant our foot upon
the fallen foe, so that that enemy of the truth
may be exhibited as much as possible as a head-
less trunk. For separated as he is from the
true faith he is far more truly beheaded than that
Philistine. For since Christ is the head of every
man, as saith the Apostle3, and it is only reason-
able that the believer alone should be so termed
(for Christ, I take it, cannot be the head of the
unbelieving also), it follows that he who is
severed from the saving faith must be headless
like Goliath, being severed from the true head by
his own sword which he had whetted against
the truth ; which head it shall be our task not
to cut off, but to show that it is cut off.

And let no one suppose that it is through
pride or desire of human reputation that I go
down to this truceless and implacable warfare
to engage with the foe. For if it were allowed
me to pass a peaceful life meddling with no
one, it would be far enough from my disposition
to wantonly disturb my tranquillity, by volun-
tarily provoking and stirring up a war against
myself. But now that God's city, the Church,
is besieged, and the great wall of the faith is
shaken, battered by the encircling engines of
heresy, and there is no small risk of the word
of the Lord being swept into captivity through
their devilish onslaught, deeming it a dreadful
thing to decline taking part in the Christian con-
flict, I have not turned aside to repose, but have
looked on the sweat of toil as more honourable
than the relaxation of repose, knowing well that
just as every man, as saith the Apostle, shall
receive his own reward 4 according to his own

3 1 Cor. xi. 2.

4 I Cor. ill. 14.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

251

labour, so as a matter of course he shall receive
punishment for neglect of labour proportioned
to his strength. Accordingly I supported the first
encounter in the discussion with good courage,
discharging from my shepherd's scrip, i. e. from
the teaching of the Church, my natural and un-
premeditated arguments for the subversion of this
blasphemy, needing not at all the equipment of
arguments from profane sources to qualify me for
the contest ; and now also I do not hang back
from the second part of the encounter, fixing
my hope like great David5 on Him "Who
teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to
fight," if haply the hand of the writer may in
my case also be guided by Divine power to the
overthrow of these heretical opinions, and my
fingers may serve for the overthrow of their
malignant array by directing my argument with
skill and precision against the foe. But as in
human conflicts those who excel in valour and
might, secured by their armour and having pre-
viously acquired military skill by their training
for facing danger, station themselves at the head
of their column, encountering danger for those
ranged behind them, while the rest of the
company, though serving only to give an ap-
pearance of numbers, seem nevertheless, if only
by their serried shields, to conduce to the
common good, so in these our conflicts that
noble soldier of Christ and vehement champion
against the aliens, the mighty spiritual warrior
Basil — equipped as he is with the whole armour
described by the Apostle, and secured by the
shield of faith, and ever holding before him
that weapon of defence, the sword of the spirit
— fights in the van of the Lord's host by his
elaborated argument against this heresy, alive
and resisting and prevailing over the foe, while
we the common herd, sheltering ourselves
beneath the shield of that champion of the
faith, shall not hold back from any conflicts
within the compass of our power, according as
our captain may lead us on against the foe.
As he, then, in his refutation of the false and
untenable opinion maintained by this heresy,
affirms that " ungenerate " cannot be predicated
of God except as a mere notion or conception,
whereof he has adduced proofs supported by
common sense and the evidence of Scripture,
while Eunomius, the author of the heresy,
neither falls in with his statements nor is able
to overturn them, but in his conflict with
the truth, the more clearly the light of true
doctrine shines forth, the more, like nocturnal
creatures, does he shun the light, and, no
longer able to find the sophistical hiding-places
to which he is accustomed, he wanders about
at random, and getting into the labyrinth of

5 Psalm cxliv. 1.

falsehood goes round and round in the same
place, almost the whole of his second treatise
being taken up with this empty trifling — it is
well accordingly that our battle with those
opposed to us should take place on the same
ground whereon our champion by his own
treatise has been our leader.

First of all, however, I think it advisable to
run briefly over our own doctrinal views and our
opponent's disagreement with them, so that our
review of the propositions in question may
proceed methodically. Now the main point of
Christian orthodoxy6 is to believe that the
Only-begotten God, Who is the truth and the
true light, and the power of God and the life,
is truly all that He is said to be, both in other
respects and especially in this, that He is God
and the truth, that is to say, God in truth, ever
being what He is conceived to be and what
He is called, Who never at any time was not,,
nor ever will cease to be, Whose being, such
as it is essentially, is beyond the reach of the
curiosity that would try to comprehend it.
But to us, as saith the word of Wisdom,7 He
makes Himself known that He is " by the great-
ness and beauty of His creatures proportion-
ately" to the things that are known, vouchsafing
to us the gift of faith by the operations of His
hands, but not the comprehension of what He
is. Whereas, then, such is the opinion pre-
vailing among all Christians, (such at least as
are truly worthy of the appellation, those,
I mean, who have been taught by the law to
worship nothing that is not very God, and by
that very act of worship confess that the Only-
begotten is God in truth, and not a God falsely
so called,) there arose this deadly blight of the
Church, bringing barrenness on the holy seeds
of the faith, advocating as it does the errors of
Judaism, and partaking to a certain extent in
the impiety of the Greeks. For in its figment
of a created God it advocates the error of the
Greeks, and in not accepting the Son it sup-
ports that of the Jews. This school, then,
which would do away with the very Godhead
of the Lord and teach men to conceive of Him
as a created being, and not that which the
Father is in essence and power and dignity,
since these misty ideas find no support when
exposed on all sides to the light of truth, have
overlooked all those names supplied by Scrip-
ture for the glorification of God, and predicated
in like manner of the Father and of the Son,

6 evatfieias. That this is the predominant idea in the word willi
be seen from the following definitions : " Piety is a devout life
joined with a right faith" (CEcumenius on 1 Tim. iv. p. 754I.
" Piety is the looking up to the one only God, Who is believed
to be and is the true God, and the life in accordance with this "
(Eusebius, P. E. L p. 3). " Piety is the science of adoration "
(Suidas).

7 Wisdom of Solomon xiii. 5. " For by the greatness and beauty
of the creatures proportionately (avaAoyus) the maker of them is.
seen." Compare Romans i. 20.

252

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

and have betaken themselves to the word " un-
generate," a term fabricated by themselves to
throw contempt on the greatness of the Only-
begotten God. For whereas an orthodox con-
fession teaches us to believe in the Only-be-
gotten God so that all men should honour the
Son even as they honour the Father, these men,
rejecting the orthodox terms whereby the great-
ness of the Son is signified as on a par with the
dignity of the Father, draw from thence the
beginnings and foundations of their heresy in
regard to His Divinity. For as the Only-be-
gotten God, as the voice of the Gospel teaches,
came forth from the Father and is of Him,
misrepresenting this doctrine by a change of
terms, they make use of them to rend the
true faith in pieces. For whereas the truth
teaches that the Father is from no pre-existing
cause, these men have given to such a view
the name of " ungeneracy," and signify the sub-
stance of the Only-begotten from the Father by
the term "generation," — then comparing the
two terms "ungenerate" and "generate" as
contradictories to each other, they make use
of the opposition to mislead their senseless
followers. For, to make the matter clearer by
an illustration, the expressions, He was gener-
ated and He was not generated, are much the
same as, He is seated and He is not seated,
and all such-like expressions. But they, forcing
these expressions away from the natural signi-
ficance of the terms, are eager to put another
meaning upon them with a view to the sub-
version of orthodoxy. For whereas, as has
been said, the words " is seated " and " is not
seated" are not equivalent in meaning (the
one expression being contradictory of the other),
they pretend that this formal contradiction in
expression indicates an essential difference,
ascribing generation to the Son and non-gener-
ation to the Father as their essential attributes.
Yet, as it is impossible to regard a man's sitting
down or not as the essence of the man (for
one would not use the same definition for a
man's sitting as for the man himself), so, by
the analogy of the above example, the non-
generated essence is in its inherent idea some-
thing wholly different from the thing expressed
by "not having been generated." But our
opponents, with an eye to their evil object, that
of establishing their denial of the Godhead of
the Only-begotten, do not say that the essence
of the Father is ungenerate, but, conversely,
they declare ungeneracy to be His essence, in
order that by this distinction in regard to
generation they may establish, by the verbal
opposition, a diversity of natures. In the
direction of impiety they look with ten thousand
eyes, but with regard to the impracticability of
their own contention they are as incapable of

vision as men who deliberately close their eyes.
For who but one whose mental optics are
utterly purblind can fail to discern the loose
and unsubstantial character of the principle of
their doctrine, and that their argument in
support of ungeneracy as an essence has no-
thing to stand upon ? For this is the way in
which their error would establish itself.

But to the best of my ability I will raise my
voice to rebut our enemies' argument. They
say that God is declared to be without gener-
ation, that the Godhead is by nature simple,
and that that which is simple admits of no
composition. If, then, God Who is declared
to be without generation is by His nature with-
out composition, His title of Ungenerate must
belong to His very nature, and that nature is
identical with ungeneracy. To whom we reply
that the terms incomposite and ungenerate are
not the same thing, for the former represents
the simplicity of the subject, the other its being
without origin, and these expressions are not
convertible in meaning, though both are pre-
dicated of one subject. But from the appel-
lation of Ungenerate we have been taught that
He Who is so named is without origin, and
from the appellation of simple that He is free
from all admixture (or composition), and these
terms cannot be substituted for each other.
There is therefore no necessity that, because
the Godhead is by its nature simple, that nature
should be termed ungeneracy ; but in that He
is indivisible and without composition, He is
spoken of as simple, while in that He was not
generated, He is spoken of as ungenerate.

Now if the term ungenerate did not signify
the being without origin, but the idea of sim-
plicity entered into the meaning of such a term,
and He were called ungenerate in their heretical
sense, merely because He is simple and in-
composite, and if the terms simple and un-
generate are the same in meaning, then too
must the simplicity of the Son be equivalent
with ungeneracy. For they will not deny that
God the Only-begotten is by His nature simple,
unless they are prepared to deny that He is
God. Accordingly the term simplicity will in
its meaning have no such connection with
being ungenerate as that, by reason of its in-
composite character, His nature should be
termed ungeneracy ; or they draw upon them-
selves one of two absurd alternatives, either
denying the Godhead of the Only-begotten, or
attributing ungeneracy to Him also. For if
God is simple, and the term simplicity is,
according to them, identical with ungenerate,
they must either make out the Son to be of
composite nature, by which term it is implied
that neither is He God, or if they allow His
Godhead, and God (as I have said) is simple,

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

253

then they make Him out at the same time to
be ungenerate, if the terms simple and un-
generate are convertible. But to make my
meaning clearer I will recapitulate. We affirm
that each of these terms has its own peculiar
meaning, and that the term indivisible cannot
be rendered by ungenerate, nor ungenerate by
simple ; but by simple we understand uncom-
pounded, and by ungenerate we are taught to
understand what is without origin. Further-
more we hold that we are bound to believe that
the Son of God, being Himself God, is Himself
also simple, because God is free from all
compositeness ; and in like manner in speaking
of Him also by the appellation of Son we
neither denote simplicity of substance, nor in
simplicity do we include the notion of Son, but
the term Son we hold to indicate that He is of
the substance of the Father, and the term
simple we hold to mean what the word bears
upon its face. Since, then, the meaning of the
term simple in regard to essence is one and the
same whether spoken of the Father or of the
Son, differing in no degree, while there is a
wide difference between generate and ungenerate
(the one containing a notion not contained in
the other), for this reason we assert that there
is no necessity that, the Father being ungenerate,
His essence should, because that essence is
simple, be defined by the term ungenerate.
For neither of the Son, Who is simple, and
WThom also we believe to be generated, do we
say that His essence is simplicity. But as the
essence is simple and not simplicity, so also
the essence is ungenerate and not ungeneracy.
In like manner also the Son being generated,
our reason is freed from any necessity that,
because His essence is simple, we should define
that essence as generateness ; but here again
each expression has its peculiar force. For the
term generated suggests to you a source whence,
and the term simple implies freedom from
composition. But this does not approve itself
to them. For they maintain that since the
essence of the Father is simple, it cannot be
considered as other than ungeneracy ; on which
account also He is said to be ungenerate. In
answer to whom we may also observe that, since
they call the Father both Creator and Maker,
whereas He Who is so called is simple in regard
to His essence, it is high time for such sophists
to declare the essence of the Father to be
creation and making, since the argument about
simplicity introduces into His essence any signifi-
cation of any name we give Him. Either, then,
let them separate ungeneracy from the definition
of the Divine essence, allowing the term no
more than its proper signification, or, if by
reason of the simplicity of the subject they
define His essence by the term ungeneracy, by

a parity of reasoning let them likewise see
creation and making in the essence of the
Father, not as though the power residing in the
essence created and made, but as though the
power itself meant creation and making. But
if they reject this as bad and absurd, let
them be persuaded by what logically follows to
reject the other proposition as well. For as
the essence of the builder is not the thing built,
no more is ungeneracy the essence of the Un-
generate. But for the sake of clearness and
conciseness I will restate my arguments. If
the Father is called ungenerate, not by reason
of His having never been generated, but be-
cause His essence is simple and incomposite,
by a parity of reasoning the Son also must be
called ungenerate, for He too is a simple and
incomposite essence. But if we are compelled
to confess the Son to be generated because He
was generated, it is manifest that we must
address the Father as ungenerate, because He
was not generated. But if we are compelled
to this conclusion by truth and the force of our
premises, it is clear that the term ungenerate
is no part of the essence, but is indicative of
a difference of conceptions, distinguishing that
which is generated from that which is ungener-
ate. But let us discuss this point also in
addition to what I have said. If they affirm
that the term ungenerate signifies the essence 8
(of the Father), and not that He has His sub-
stance without origin, what term will they use
to denote the Father's being without origin,
when they have set aside the term ungenerate
to indicate His essence? For if we are not
taught the distinguishing difference of the
Persons by the term ungenerate, but are to
regard it as indicating His very nature as flow-
ing in a manner from the subject-matter, and
disclosing what we seek in articulate syllables,
it must follow that God is not, or is not to be
called, ungenerate, there being no word left to
express such peculiar significance in regard to

8 Essence, substance, oixri'a. Most of this controversy might
have been avoided by agreeing to banish the word ovcrCa. entirely
from this sort of connection with the Deity. Even Celsus the Neo-
platonist had said, " God do s not partake of substance " (oixri'a?).
" Exactly," Origen replies, " God is partaken of, viz., by those who
have His spirit, rather than partakes of anything Himself. Indeed,
the subject of substance involves questions complicated and difficult
to decide : most especially on this point. Supposing, that is, an
absolute Substance, motionless, incorporeal, is God beyond this
Substance in rank and power, granting a share of it to those to
whom according to His Word He chooses to communicate it ? Or is
He Himself this Substance, though described as invisible in that
passage about the Saviour (Coloss. i. 15) ' \\ ho is the image of the
invisible God,' where invisible means incorporeal? Another point
is this : is the Only-Begotten and First-Born of all Creatures to be
pronounced the Substance of substances, the Original Idea of all
ideas, while the Father God Himself is beyond all these ? " (c. Cels.
vi. 64). (Such a question as this last, however, could not have been
asked a century later, when Athanasius had dispelled all traces of
Neo-platonic subordination from the Christian Faith. Uncreated
Spirit, not Invisible First Substance, is the mark of all in the Triune-
God. But the effort of Neo-platonism to rise above every term that
might seem to include the Deity had not been thrown away. Even
" God is Spirit " is only a conception, not a definition, of the Deity ;
while "God is substance" ought to be regarded as an actual
contradiction in terms.)

254

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

Him. For inasmuch as according to them the
term ungenerate does not mean without origin,
but indicates the Divine nature, their argument
will be found to exclude it altogether, and the
term ungenerate slips out of their teaching in
respect to God. For there being no other word
or term to represent that the Father is ungener-
ate, and that term signifying, according to their
fallacious argument, something else, and not
that He was not generated, their whole argu-
ment falls and collapses into Sabellianism. For
by this reasoning we must hold the Father to
be identical with the Son, the distinction be-
tween generated and ungenerate having been
got rid of from their teaching, so that they are
driven to one of two alternatives : either they
must again adopt the view of the term as de-
noting a difference in the attributes proper to
either Person, and not as denoting the nature,
or, abiding by their conclusions as to the word,
they must side with Sabellius. For it is im-
possible that the difference of the persons
should be without confusion, unless there be a
distinction between generated and ungenerate.
Accordingly if the term denotes difference,
essence will in no way be denoted by the
appellation. For the definitions of difference
and essence are by no means the same. But
if they divert the meaning of the word so as to
signify nature, they must be drawn into the
heresy of those who are called " Son-Fathers 9,"
all accuracy of definition in regard to the
Persons being rejected from their account.
But if they say that there is nothing to hinder
the distinction between generated and ungener-
ate from being rendered by the term ungenerate,
and that that term represents the essence too, let
them distinguish for us the kindred meanings
of the word, so that the notion of ungenerate
may properly apply to either of them taken by
itself. For the expression of the difference by
means of this term involves no ambiguity, con-
sisting as it does of a verbal opposition. For
as an equivalent to saying " The Son has, and
the Father has not, been generated," we too assent
to the statement that the latter is ungenerate and
the former generated, by a sort of verbal corre-
lation. But from what point of view a clear
manifestation of essence can be made by this
appellation, this they are unable to say. But
keeping silence on this head, our novel theo-
logian weaves us a web of trifling subtleties in
his former treatise. Because God, saith he,
being simple, is called ungenerate, therefore
God is ungeneracy. What has the notion of
simplicity to do with the idea of ungenerate ?

9 i. e. who liold the Father and the Son to be one and the same
Person, i". e. Sabellians. " He here overthrows the heresy of Snbel-
lius, by marking the persons of the Father and the Son : for the
Church does not imagine a Son-Fatherhood (l/ioTraTopwn-), such as
the figment of that African" (Ammonius eaten, ad Joh. 1. i. p. 14).

For not only is the Only-begotten generated,
but, without controversy, He is simple also.
But, saith he, He is without parts also, and
incomposite. But what is this to the point ?
For neither is the Son multiform and composite :
and yet He is not on that account ungenerate.

But, saith he, He is without both quantity
and magnitude. Granted : for the Son also is
unlimited by quantity and magnitude, and yet
is He the Son. But this is not the point. For
the task set before us is this : in what significa-
tion of ungenerate is essence declared? For
as this word marks the difference of the proper-
ties, so they maintain that the essence also is
indicated without ambiguity by one of the
things signified by the appellation.

But this thing he leaves untold, and only
says that ungeneracy should not be predicated
of God as a mere conception. For what is
so spoken, saith he, is dissolved, and passes
away with its utterance. But what is there
that is uttered but is so dissolved ? For we
do not keep undissolved, like those who make
pots or bricks, what we utter with our voice
in the mould of .the speech which we form
once for all with our lips, but as soon as
one speech has been sent forth by our
voice, what we have said ceases to exist.
For the breath of our voice being dispersed
again into the air, no trace of our words is
impressed upon the spot in which such dis-
persion of our voice has taken place : so that
if he makes this the distinguishing characteristic
of a term that expresses a mere conception, that
it does not remain, but vanishes with the voice
that gives it utterance, he may as well at once
call every term a mere conception, inasmuch as
no substance remains in any term subsequent
to its utterance. No, nor will he be able to
show that ungeneracy itself, which he excepts
from the products of conception, is indissoluble
and fixed when it has been uttered, for this
expression of the voice through the lips does
not abide in the air. And from this we may
see the unsubstantial character of his assertions ;
because, even if without speech we describe in
writing our mental conceptions, it is not as
though the substantial objects of our thoughts
will acquire their significance from the letters,
while the non-substantial will have no part in
what the letters express. For whatever comes
into our mind, whether intellectually existing,
or otherwise, it is possible for us at our discretion
to store away in writing. And the voice and
letters are of equal value for the expression of
thought, for we communicate what we think by
the latter as well as by the former. What he sees,
then, to justify his making the mental conception
perish with the voice only, I fail to comprehend.
For in the case of all speech uttered by means

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

255

of sound, the passage of the breath indeed which
conveys the voice is towards its kindred element,
but the sense of the words spoken is engraved by
hearing on the memory of the hearer's soul,
whether it be true or false. Is not this, then,
a weak interpretation of this " conception " of
his that our writer offers, when he charac-
terizes and defines it by the dissolution of the
voice? And for this reason the understanding
hearer, as saith Isaiah, objects to this incon-
ceivable account of mental conception, showing
it, to use the man's own words, to be a veritably
dissoluble and unsubstantial one, and he dis-
cusses scientifically the force inherent in the
term, advancing his argument by familiar
examples to the contemplation of doctrine.
Against whom Eunomius exalting himself with
this pompous writing, endeavours to overthrow
the true account of mental conception, after
this manner.

But before we examine what he has written,
it may be better to enquire with what purpose
it is that he refuses to admit that ungenerate
can be predicated of God by way of conception.
Now the tenet which has been held in common
by all who have received the word of our religion
is, that all hope of salvation should be placed in
Christ, it being impossible for any to be found
among the righteous, unless faith in Christ
supply what is desired. And this conviction
being firmly established in the souls of the
faithful, and all honour and glory and worship
being due to the Only-begotten God as the
Author of life, Who doeth the works of the
Father, as the Lord Himself saith in the Gospel r,
and Who falls short of no excellence in all
knowledge of that which is good, I know not
how they have been so perverted by malignity
and jealousy of the Lord's honour, that, as
though they judged the worship paid by the
faithful to the Only-begotten God to be a
detriment to themselves, they oppose His Divine
honours, and try to persuade us that nothing
that is said of them is true. For with them
neither is He very God, though called so, it
would seem, by Scripture, nor, though called
Son, has He a nature that makes good the
appellation, nor has He a community of dignity
or of nature with the Father. For, say they, it
is not possible for Him that is begotten to be of
equal honour with Him Who made Him, either
in dignity, or in power, or in nature, because
the life of the latter is infinite, and His existence
from eternity, while the life of the Son is in a
manner circumscribed, the beginning of His
being begotten limiting His life at the com-
mencement, and preventing it from being co-
extensive with the eternity of the Father, so

1 S John x. 37.

that His life also is to be regarded as defec-
tive ; and the Father was not always what He
now is and is said to be, but, having been
something else before, He afterwards deter-
mined that He would be a Father, or rather
that He would be so called. For not even of
the Son was He rightly called Father, but of a
creature supposititiously invested with the title
of son. And every way, say they, the younger
is of necessity inferior to the elder, the finite
to the eternal, that which is begotten by the
will of the begetter, to the begetter himself,
both in power, and dignity, and nature, and
precedence due to age, and all other prerogatives
of respect. But how can we justly dignify with
the honours due to the true God that which is
wanting in the perfection of the diviner attri-
butes? Thus they would establish the doctrine
that one who is limited in power, and wanting
in the perfection of life, and subject to a superior,
and doing nothing of himself but what is
sanctioned by the authority of the more power-
ful, is in no divine honour and consideration,
but that, while we call him God, we are em-
ploying a term empty of all grandeur in its
significance. And since such statements as
these, when stripped of their plausible dress,
move indignation and make the hearer shudder
at their strangeness (for who can tolerate an
evil counsellor nakedly and unadvisably urging
the overthrow of the majesty of Christ ?), they
therefore try to pervert foolish hearers with
these foreign notions by enveloping their ma-
lignant and insidious arguments in a number
of seductive fallacies. For after laying down
such premises as might naturally lead the mind
of the hearers in the desired direction, they
leave the hearer to draw his conclusion for
himself.

For after saying that the Only-begotten God
is not the same in essence with the true Father,
and after sophistically inferring this from the
opposition between generate and ungenerate,
they work in silence to the conclusion, their
impiety prevailing by the natural course of
inference. And as the poisoner makes his drug
acceptable to his victim by sweetening its dead-
liness with honey, and, as for himself, has
only to offer it, while the drug insinuating itself
into the vitals without further action on the
part of the poisoner does its deadly work, — so,
too, do our opponents act. For qualifying their
pernicious teaching with their sophistical re-
finements, as with honey, when they have in-
fused into the mind of the hearer the venomous
fallacy that God the Only-begotten is not very
God, they cause all the rest to be inferred
without saying a word. For when they are
persuaded that He is not truly God, it follows
as a matter of course that no other Divine

256

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

attribute is truly applicable. For if He is
truly neither Son nor God, except by an abuse
of terms, then the other names which are given
to Him in Holy Scripture are a divergence
from the truth. For the one thing cannot be
predicated of Him with truth, and the other
be destitute of it ; but they must needs follow
one another, so that, if He be truly God, it
follows that He is Judge and King, and that
His several attributes are such as they are
described, while, if His godhead be falsely
asserted, neither will the truth hold respecting
any of His other attributes. They, then, having
been deceived into the persuasion that the
attribute of Godhead is falsely applied to the
Only-begotten, it follows that He is not rightly
the object of worship and adoration, or, in fact,
of any of the honours that are paid to God.
In order, then, to render their attack upon
the Saviour efficacious, this is the blasphemous
method that they have adopted. There is no
need, they urge, of looking at the collective
attributes by which the Son's equality in honour
and dignity with the Father is signified, but
from the opposition between generate and un-
generate we must argue a distinctive difference
of nature ; for the Divine nature is that which
is denoted by the term ungenerate. Again, since
all men of sense regard it as impracticable to
indicate the ineffable Being by any force of
words, because neither does our knowledge
extend to the comprehension of what transcends
knowledge, nor does the ministry of words have
such power in us as to avail for the full enunci-
ation of our thought, where the mind is engaged
on anything eminently lofty and divine, — these
wise folk, on the contrary, convicting men in
general of want of sense and ignorance of logic,
assert their own knowledge of such matters, and
their ability to impart it to whomsoever they
will ; and accordingly they maintain that the
divine nature is simply ungeneracy per se, and
declaring this to be sovereign and supreme,
they make this word comprehend the whole
greatness of Godhead, so as to necessitate the
inference that if ungeneracy is the main point
of the essence, and the other divine attributes
are bound up with it, viz. Godhead, power, im-
I" rishableness and so on — if (I say) ungeneracy
mean these, then, if this ungeneracy cannot be
predicated of something, neither can the rest.
For as reason, and risibility, and capacity of
knowledge are proper to man, and what is
not humanity may not be classed among the
properties of his nature, so, if true Godhead con-
sists in ungeneracy, then, to whatsoever thing
latter name does not properly belong, no
one at all of the other distinguishing attributes
of Godhead will be found in it. If, then, un-
generacy is not predicable of the Son, it follows

that no other of His sublime and godlike
attributes are properly ascribed to Him. This,
then, they define as a right comprehension of
the divine mysteries — the rejection of the Son's
Godhead — all but shouting in the ear of those
who would listen to them ; " To you it is given
to be perfect in knowledge 2, if only you believe
not in God the Only-begotten as being very
God, and honour not the Son as the Father is
honoured, but regard Him as by nature a created
being, not Lord and Master, but slave and
subject." For this is the aim and object of
their design, though the blasphemy is cloaked
in different terms.

Accordingly, enveloping his former special-
pleading in the mazy evolutions of his sophis-
tries, and dealing subtly with the term ungener-
ate, he steals away the intelligence of his dupes,
saying to them, " Well, then, if neither by way
of conception it is so, nor by deprivation, nor by
division (for He is without parts), nor as being
another in Himself 3 (for He is the one only
ungenerate), He Himself must be, in essence,,
ungenerate.

Seeing, then, the mischief resulting to the
dupes of this fallacious reasoning — that to as-
sent to His not being very God is a departure
from our confession of Him as our Lord, to
which conclusion indeed his words would bring
his teaching — our master does not indeed deny
that ungenerate is no partial predicate of God,,
himself also admitting that God is without
quantity, or magnitude, or parts ; but the state-
ment that this term ought not to be applied
to Him by way of mental conception he im-
pugns, and gives his proofs. But again, shifting
from this position, our writer in the second of

2 Eunomius arrived at the same conclusions as Arius, but by a
different path. "The true name of God is 'Ayevinqros, and this
name is incommunicable to other essences." He att eked both
the Arians and the orthodox. The former he reproached for saving
that we can know God only in part : the latter for saying that we
know God only through the Universe, and the Son, the Author of
the Universe. He maintained, on the contrary, that it was unworthy
of a Christian to profess the impossibility of knowing the Divine
Nature, and the manner in which the Son is generated. Rather,
the mind of the believer rises above every sensible and intelligible
essence, and does not stop even at the generation of the Son, but
mounts above, aspiring to possess the First Cause. Is this bold asser-
tion, Denys (De in Philosophic dOrigene, p. 446) asks, so contrary
as it is to the teaching of the Fathers, a reminiscence of Origen. or
a direct borrowing from Plato or the Neoplatonists? The language
in which it is expressed certainly belongs to the latter (vttok\ i//as\
iircKtiva, ttoSo?, to Trpw-rot'. ykt\6fieiO';) : but Origen himself, less
wise in this matter than Clement, was not far from believing that
there was a Way above Him Whom S. John calls the Way. a Light
above the Light that " lighteth every man that cometh into the
world," an " Eternal Gospel " above the present Gospel ; and that
these were not inaccessible at once to human creatures. Only they
could not be r. ached m themselves, and without a Mediator, until
Christ, having vanquished His enemies, had given back the kingdom
to the Father, and (lod was "all in all." — This doctrine of the
'AYeVnjTos, then, made it necessary for Basil and Gregory to throw
their whole weight against Eunomius, rather than against Mace-
donius. who, as inconsequent thiough not dealing alike with the
Second and Third Person, could not be so dangerous an enemy.

3 As being another. Oehler reads cus Urtpov : the Paris ed it t.
have tlo-Tir erepoy. due to the correction of John the Francis<_;tn,
whose MS., however, (the Pithoean) had uio-rc (<ik ti?). These
words ci Eunomius are found in Basil lib. i c. Eunomium, torn. i.
p. 711 Paris tl _,S), even more fully quoted than here : and cusfVepor
is found there.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

-57

his treatises meets us with his sophistry, com-
bating his own statements in regard to mental
conception.

It will presently be time to bring to their
own recollection the method of this argument.
Suffice it first to say this. There is no faculty
in human nature adequate to the full compre-
hension of the divine essence. It may be that
it is,, easy to show this in the case of human
capacity alone, and to say that the incorporeal
creation is incapable of taking in and compre-
hending that nature which is infinite will not
be far short of the truth, as we may see by
familiar examples ; for as there are many and
various things that have fleshly life, winged
things, and things of the earth, some that
mount above the clouds by virtue of their
wings, others that dwell in hollows or burrow
in the ground, on comparing which it would
appear that there was no small difference be-
tween the inhabitants of air and of land ; while,
if the comparison be extended to the stars and
the fixed circumference, it will be seen that
what soars aloft on wings is not less widely
removed from heaven than from the animals
that are on the earth ; so, too, the strength of
angels compared with our own seems pre-
eminently great, because, undisturbed by sensa-
tion, it pursues its lofty themes with pure naked
intelligence. Yet, if we weigh even their com-
prehension with the majesty of Him Who really
is, it may be that if any one should venture
to say that even their power of understanding
is not far superior to our own weakness, his
conjecture would fall within the limits of prob-
ability, for wide and insurmountable is the
interval that divides and fences off uncreated
from created nature. The latter is limited, the
former not. The latter is confined within its
own boundaries according to the pleasure of
its Maker. The former is bounded only by
infinity. The latter stretches itself out within
certain degrees of extension, limited by time
and space ; the former transcends all notion of
degree, baffling curiosity from every point of
view. In this life we can apprehend the be-
ginning and the end of all things that exist, but
the beatitude that is above the creature admits
neither end nor beginning, but is above all that
is connoted by either, being ever the same, self-
dependent, not travelling on by degrees from one j
point to another in its life ; for there is no parti-
cipation of other life in its life, such that we might
infer end and beginning ; but, be it what it may,
it is life energizing in itself, not becoming greater
or less by addition or diminution. For increase
has no place in the infinite, and that which is
by its nature passionless excludes all notion of
decrease. And as, when looking up to heaven,
and in a measure apprehending by the visual

vol. v.

organs the beauty that is in the height, we
doubt not the existence of what we see, but if
asked what it is, we are unable to define its
nature, but we simply admire as we contemplate
the overarching vault, the reverse planetary
motion 4, the so-called Zodiac graven obliquely
on the pole, whereby astronomers observe the
motion of bodies revolving in an opposite
direction, the differences of luminaries according
to their magnitude, and the specialities of their
rays, their risings and settings that take place
according to the circling year ever at the same
seasons undeviatingly, the conjunctions of
planets, the courses of those that pass below,
the eclipses of those that are above, the
obumbrations of the earth, the reappearance of
eclipsed bodies, the moon's multiform changes,
the motion of the sun midway within the
poles, and how, filled with his own light, and
crowned with his encircling beams, and em-
bracing all things in his sovereign light, he
himself also at times suffers eclipse (the disc of
the moon, as they say, passing before him), and
how, by the will of Him Who has so ordained,
ever running his own particular course, he
accomplishes his appointed orbit and progress,
opening out the four seasons of the year in
succession ; we, as I say, when we contemplate
these phenomena by the aid of sight, are in
no doubt of their existence, though we are as
far from comprehending their essential nature
as if sight had not given us any glimpse what-
ever of what we have seen ; and even so, with
regard to the Creator of the world, we know that
He exists, but of His essential nature we cannot
deny that we are ignorant. But, boasting as
they do that they know these things, let them
first tell us about the things of inferior nature ;
what they think of the body of the heavens, of
the machinery which conveys the stars in their
eternal courses, or of the sphere in which they
move ; for, however far speculation may pro-
ceed, when it comes to the uncertain and in-
comprehensible it must stop. For though any
one say that another body, like in fashion (to
that body of the heavens), fitting to its circular
shape, checks its velocity, so that, ever turning
in its course, it revolves conformably to that
other upon itself, being retained by the force
that embraces it from flying off at a tangent, yet
how can he assert that these bodies will remain
unspent by their constant friction with each other?
And how, again, is motion produced in the case

4 Gregory here refers to the apparent "retrograde " motion of
the planets, i. e. that, while passing through part of their orbits, they
appear to us to move in a direction contrary to the order of the
Zodiac In what follows he represents the views of the ancit ut
astronomy, imagining a series of concentric spheres, allotted to i .»
several planets, the planetary motions being accomplished by the
rotation of the spheres. Beyond the planetary spheres is the sphere
allotted to the fixed stars, within which the others revolve. See
Gale, Of>usc. Mythol. (1688), p 550 ; and Introduction to Coiet's-
Lectures on Corinthians, pp. xl — xliii.

258

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

of two coeval bodies mutually conformed, when
the one remains motionless (for the inner body,
one would have fnought, being held as in a
vice by the motionlessness of that which
embraces it, will be quite unable to act) ; and
what is it that maintains the embracing body
in its fixedness, so that it remains unshaken
and unaffected by the motion of that which fits
into it ? And if in restless curiosity of thought
we should conceive of some position for it that
should keep it stationary, we must go on in
logical consistency to search for the base of
that base, and of the next, and of the next,
and so on, and so the inquiry, proceeding from
like to like, will go on to infinity, and end in
helpless perplexity, still, even when some body
has been put for the farthest foundation of the
system of the universe, reaching after what is
beyond, so that there is no stopping in our
inquiry after the limit of the embracing circles.
But not so, say others : but (according to the
vain theory of those who have speculated on
these matters) there is an empty space spread
•over the back of the heavens, working in which
vacuum the motion of the universe revolves
upon itself, meeting with no resistance from
any solid body capable of retarding it by oppo-
sition and of checking its course of revolution.
What, then, is that vacuum, which they say is
neither a body nor an idea ? How far does it
•extend, and what succeeds it, and what relation
exists between the firm, resisting body, and that
void and unsubstantial one ? What is there to
unite things so contrary by nature ? and how
can the harmony of the universe consist out of
■elements so incongruous ; and what can any one
say of Heaven itself? That it is a mixture of
the elements which it contains, or one of them,
■or something else beside them ? What, again,
of the stars themselves ? whence comes their
radiance ? what is it and how is it composed ?
and what is the reason of their difference in
1 eajty and magnitude? and the seven inner
orbs revolving in an opposite direction to the
motion of the universe, what are they, and by
what influence are they propelled ? Then, too,
what is that immaterial and ethereal empyrean,
and the intermediate air which forms a wall of
partition between that element in nature which
gives heat and consumes, and that which is
moist and combustible? And how does earth
below form the foundation of the whole, and
what is it that keeps it firmly in its place?
what is it that controls its downward tendency ?
If any one should interrogate us on these and
such-like points, will any of us be found so
presumptuous as to promise an explanation of
them ? No ! the only reply that can be given
by men of sense is this : — that He Who made
all things in wisdom can alone furnish an

account of His creation. For ourselves,
" through faith we understand that the worlds
were framed by the word of God," as saith the
Apostle 5.

If, then, the lower creation which comes
under our organs of sense transcends human
knowledge, how can He, Who by His mere
will made the worlds, be within the range of
our apprehension? Surely this is vanity, and
lying madness, as saith the Prophet6, to think
it possible to comprehend the things which are
incomprehensible. So may we see tiny children
busying themselves in their play. For oft-
times, when a sunbeam streams down upon
them through a window, delighted with its
beauty they throw themselves on what they see,
and are eager to catch the sunbeam in their
hands, and struggle with one another, and
grasp the light in the clutch of their fingers,
and fancy they have imprisoned the ray in them,
but presently when they unclasp their hands
and find that the sunbeam which they held has
slipped through their fingers, they laugh and
clap their hands. In like manner the children
of our generation, as saith the parable, sit
playing in the market-places ; for, seeing the
power of God shining in upon their souls
through the dispensations of His providence,
and the wonders of His creation like a warm
ray emanating from the natural sun, they marvel
not at the Divine gift, nor adore Him Whom
such things reveal, but passing beyond the
limits of the soul's capabilities, they seek with
their sophistical understanding to grasp that
which is intangible, and think by their reason-
ings to lay hold of what they are persuaded of ;
but when their argument unfolds itself and
discloses the tangled web of their sophistries,
men of discernment see at once that what they
have apprehended is nothing at all ; so pettily
and so childishly labouring in vain at impos-
sibilities do they set themselves to include the
inconceivable nature of God in the few syllables
of the term "ungenerate," and applaud their
own folly, and imagine God to be such that
human reasoning can include Him under one
single term : and while they pretend to follow
the teaching of the sacred writers, they are
not afraid of raising themselves above them.
For what cannot be shown to have been said
by any of those blessed ones, any words of
whose are recorded in the sacred books, these
tilings, as saith the Apostle, "understanding
neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm7,"
they nevertheless say they know, and boast of
guiding others to such knowledge. And on
this account they declare that they have appre-

s Heb i. 2. 6 The thought is found in Ps^lm xxxix. 6.

7 1 Tim. 1. 7. S. Gre ory quotes troni memory, viz., wepi <*>►
Start ivnvra.1 for rrept TtUuiV &t.a[ir&aLovrTai.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

259

r.ended that God the Only-begotten is not what
He is called. For to this conclusion they are
compelled by their premises.

How pitiable are they for their cleverness ! how
wretched, how fatal is their over-wise philosophy !
Who is there who goes of his own accord to the
pit so eagerly as these men labour and bestir
themselves to dig out their lake of blasphemy ?
How far have they separated themselves from
the hope of the Christian ! What a gulf have
they fixed between themselves and the faith
which saves ! How far have they withdrawn
themselves from Abraham the father of the
faith ! He indeed, if in the lofty spirit of the
Apostle we may take the words allegorically,
and so penetrate to the inner sense of the
history, without losing sight of the truth of its
facts — he, I say, went out by Divine command
from his own country and kindred on a journey
worthy of a prophet eager for the knowledge of
God 8. For no local migration seems to me to
satisfy the idea of the blessings which it is
signified that he found. For going out from
himself and from his country, by which I
understand his earthly and carnal mind, and
raising his thoughts as far as possible above the
common boundaries of nature, and forsaking
the soul's kinship with the senses, — so that
untroubled by any of the objects of sense his
eyes might be open to the things which are
invisible, there being neither sight nor sound to
distract the mind in its work, — "walking," as
saith the Apostle, " by faith, not by sight," he
was raised so high by the sublimity of his
knowledge that he came to be regarded as the
acme of human perfection, knowing as much
of God as it was possible for finite human
capacity at its full stretch to attain. Therefore
also the Lord of all creation, as though He
were a discovery of Abraham, is called specially
the God of Abraham. Yet what saith the
Scripture respecting him? That he went out
not knowing whither he went, no, nor even being
capable of learning the name of Him whom he
loved, yet in no wise impatient or ashamed on
account of such ignorance.

This, then, was the meaning of his safe guid-
ance on the way to what he sought — that he
was not blindly led by any of the means ready
to hand for his instruction in the things of
God, and that his mind, unimpeded by any
object of sense, was never hindered from its
journeying in quest of what lies beyond all that
is known, but having gone by reasoning far
beyond the wisdom of his countrymen, (I mean
the philosophy of the Chaldees, limited as it was
to the things which do appear,) and soaring above
the things which are cognizable by sense, from

8 Heb. xi. 8.

the beauty of the objects of contemplation, and
the harmony of the heavenly wonders, he desired
to behold the archetype of all beauty. And so,
too, all the other things which in the course of
his reasoning he was led to apprehend as he
advanced, whether the power of God, or His
goodness, or His being without beginning, or
His infinity, or whatever else is conceivable in
respect to the divine nature, using them all as
supplies and appliances for his onward journey,
ever making one discovery a stepping-stone to
another, ever reaching forth unto those things
which were before, and setting in his heart, as
saith the Prophet, each fair stage of his advance ',
and passing by all knowledge acquired by his
own ability as falling short of that of which he
was in quest, when he had gone beyond every
conjecture respecting the divine nature which is
suggested by any name amongst all our concep-
tions of God, having purged his reason of all
such fancies, and arrived at a faith unalloyed
and free from all prejudice, he made this a
sure and manifest token of the knowledge of
God, viz. the belief that He is greater and
more sublime than any token by which He
may be known. On this account, indeed, after
the ecstasy which fell upon him, and after his
sublime meditations, falling back on his human
weakness, "I am," saith he, "but dust and
ashes IO," that is to say, without voice or power
to interpret that good which his mind had
conceived. For dust and ashes seem to denoto
what is lifeless and barren ; and so there arises
a law of faith for the life to come, teaching
those who would come to God, by this history
of Abraham, that it is impossible to draw near
to God, unless faith mediate, and bring the
seeking soul into union with the incompre-
hensible nature of God. For leaving behind
him the curiosity that arises from knowledge,
Abraham, says the Apostle, "believed God,
and it was counted unto him for righteous-
ness V " Now it was not written for his sake,"
the Apostle says, " but for us," that God counts
to men for righteousness their faith, not their
knowledge. For knowledge acts, as it were, in
a commercial spirit, dealing only with what is
known. But the faith of Christians acts other-
wise. For it is the substance, not of things
known, but of things hoped for. Now that
which we have already we no longer hope for.
"For what a man hath," says the Apostle,
" why doth he yet hope for 2 " ? But faith makes
our own that which we see not, assuring us by
its own certainty of that which does not appear.
For so speaks the Apostle of the believer, that
" he endured as seeing Him Who is invisible V

9 Psalm lxxxiv. 5, "in whose heart are thy ways ;" but LXX.
apajSacretf iv T(j KapSia ai/rov Sie'Sero. ° Gen. xviii. 27.

1 Gen. xv. 6 ; Rom. iv. 22. 2 Rom. viii. 24. 3 Heb. xi. 27.

S 2

26o

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

Vain, therefore, is he who maintains that it is
possible to take knowledge of the divine essence,
by the knowledge which puffeth up to no pur-
pose. For neither is there any man so great
that he can claim equality in understanding
with the Lord, for, as saith David, "Who is
he among the clouds that shall be compared
unto the Lord ? 4 " nor is that which is sought
so small that it can be compassed by the
reasonings of human shallowness. Listen to
the preacher exhorting not to be hasty to utter
anything before God, " for God," (saith he,) " is
in heaven above, and thou upon earth beneath 5."

He shows, I think, by the relation of these
elements to each other, or rather by their dis-
tance, how far the divine nature is above the
speculations of human reason. For that nature
which transcends all intelligence is as high
above earthly calculation as the stars are above
the touch of our fingers ; or rather, many times
more than that.

Knowing, then, how widely the Divine nature
differs from our own, let us quietly remain
within our proper limits. For it is both safer
and more reverent to believe the majesty of
God to be greater than we can understand,
than, after circumscribing His glory by our mis-
conceptions, to suppose there is nothing beyond
our conception of it.

And on other accounts also it may be called
safe to let alone the Divine essence, as unspeak-
able, and beyond the scope of human reasoning.
For the desire of investigating what is obscure
and tracing out hidden things by the operation
of human reasoning gives an entrance to false
no less than to true notions, inasmuch as he
who aspires to know the unknown will not always
arrive at truth, but may also conceive of false-
hood itself as truth. But the disciple of the
Gospels and of Prophecy believes that He Who
is, is ; both from what he has learnt from the
sacred writers, and from the harmony of things
which do appear, and from the works of Provi-
dence. But what He is and how — leaving this
as a useless and unprofitable speculation, such
a disciple will open no door to falsehood against
truth. For in speculative enquiry fallacies
readily find place. But where speculation is
entirely at rest, the necessity of error is pre-
cluded. And that this is a true account of the
case, may be seen if we consider how it is
that heresies in the churches have wandered
off into many and various opinions in regard
to God, men deceiving themselves as they are
swayed by one mental impulse or another ; and
how these very men with whom our treatise is
concerned have slipped into such a pit of pro-
fanity. Would it not have been safer for all,

4 Ps. lxxxix. 6.

5 Ecclesiastes v. a.

following the counsel of wisdom, to abstain
from searching into such deep matters, and in
peace and quietness to keep inviolate the pure
deposit of the faith ? But since, in fact, human
nothingness has commenced intruding reck-
lessly into matters that are above comprehension,
and supporting by dogmatic teaching the fig-
ments of their vain imagination, there has
sprung up in consequence a whole host of
enemies to the truth, and among them these
very men who are the subject of this treatise ;
dogmatizers of deceit who seek to limit the Divine
Being, and all but openlyidolize their own imagin-
ation, in that they deify the idea expressed by
this " ungeneracy " of theirs, as not being only
in a certain relation discernible in the Divine
nature, but as being itself God, or the essence
of God. Yet perchance they would have done
better to look to the sacred company of the
Prophets and Patriarchs, to whom "at sundry
times, and in divers manners6," the Word of
truth spake, and, next in order, those who were
eye-witnesses and ministers of the word, that they
might give honour due to the claims on their be-
lief of the things attested by the Holy Spirit Him-
self, and abide within the limits of their teaching
and knowledge, and not venture on themes
which are not comprehended in the canon of the
sacred writers. For those writers, by revealing
God, so long unknown to human life by reason
of the prevalence of idolatry, and making Him
known to men, both from the wonders which
manifest themselves in His works, and from
the names which express the manifold variety
of His power, lead men, as by the hand, to
the understanding of the Divine nature, making
known to them the bare grandeur of the thought
of God ; while the question of His essence, as
one which it is impossible to grasp, and which
bears no fruit to the curious enquirer, they
dismiss without any attempt at its solution.
For whereas they have set forth respecting all
other things, that they were created, the heaven,
the earth, the sea, times, ages, and the creatures
that are therein, but what each is in itself, and
how and whence, on these points they are
silent ; so, too, concerning God Himself, they
exhort men to " believe that He is, and that He
is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him?,"
but in regard to His nature, as being above
every name, they neither name it nor concern
themselves about it. For if we have learned
any names expressive of the knowledge of God,
all these are related and have analogy to such
names as denote human characteristics. For
as they who would indicate some person un-
known by marks of recognition speak of him as
of good parentage and descent, if such happen

« Heb. i. i.

7 Heb. ai. 6.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

261

to be :ie case, or as distinguished for his riches
or his worth, or as in the prime of life, or of
such or such stature, and in so speaking they
do not set forth the nature of the person in-
dicated, but give certain notes of recognition
(for neither advantages of birth, nor of wealth,
nor of reputation, nor of age, constitute the
man ; they are considered, simply as being
observable in the man), thus too the expres-
sions of Holy Scripture devised for the glory
of God set forth one or another of the things
which are declared concerning Him, each
inculcating some special teaching. For by
these expressions we are taught either His
power, or that He admits not of deterior-
ation, or that He is without cause and with-
out limit, or that He is supreme above all
things, or, in short, something, be it what it
may, respecting Him. But His very essence,
as not to be conceived by the human intellect
or expressed in words, this it has left untouched
as a thing not to be made the subject of curious
enquiry, ruling that it be revered in silence, in
that it forbids the investigation of things too
deep for us, while it enjoins the duty of being
slow to utter any word before God. And
therefore, whosoever searches the whole of
Revelation will find therein no doctrine of the
Divine nature, nor indeed of anything else that
has a substantial existence, so that we pass our
lives in ignorance of much, being ignorant
first of all of ourselves, as men, and then of all
things besides. For who is there who has
arrived at a comprehension of his own soul?
Who is acquainted with its very essence, whether
it is material or immaterial, whether it is purely
incorporeal, or whether it exhibits anything of
a corporeal character ; how it comes into being,
how it is composed, whence it enters into the
body, how it departs from it, or what means it
possesses to unite it to the nature of the body ;
how, being intangible and without form, it is
kept within its own sphere, what difference
exists among its powers, how one and the same
soul, in its eager curiosity to know the things
which are unseen, soars above the highest
heavens, and again, dragged down by the weight
of the body, falls back on material passions,
anger and fear, pain and pleasure, pity and
cruelty, hope and memory, cowardice and
audacity, friendship and hatred, and all the
contraries that are produced in the faculties of
the soul ? Observing which things, who has
not fancied that he has a sort of populace of
souls crowded together in himself, each of the
aforesaid passions differing widely from the rest,
and, where it prevails, holding lordship over
them all, so that even the rational faculty falls
under and is subject to the predominating
power of such forces, and contributes its own

co-operation to such impulses, as to a despotic
lord? What word, then, of the inspired Scrip-
ture has taught us the manifold and multiform
character of what we understand in speaking
of the soul ? Is it a unity composed of them
all, and, if so, what is it that blends and
harmonizes things mutually opposed, so that
many things become one, while each element,
taken by itself, is shut up in the soul as in some
ample vessel ? And how is it that we have
not the perception of them all as being involved
in it, being at one and the same time confident
and afraid, at once hating and loving and feel-
ing in ourselves the working as well of all
other emotions confused and intermingled; but,
on the contrary, take knowledge only of their
alternate control, when one of them prevails, the
rest remaining quiescent ? What in short is this
composition and arrangement, and this capacious
void within us, such that to each is assigned
its own post, as though hindered by middle
walls of partition from holding intercourse with
its neighbour? And then again what account has
explained whether passion is the fundamental
essence of the soul, or fear, or any of the other
elements which I have mentioned ; and what
emotions are unsubstantial ? For if these have
an independent subsistence, then, as I have
said, there is comprehended in ourselves not
one soul, but a collection of souls, each of them
occupying its distinct position as a particular
and individual soul. But if we must suppose
these to be a kind of emotion without subsist-
ence, how can that which has no essential exist-
ence exercise lordship over us, having reduced
us as it were to slave under whichsoever of these
things may have happened to prevail ? And if
the soul is something that thought only can
grasp, how can that which is manifold and
composite be contemplated as such, when such
an object ought to be contemplated by itself,
independently of these bodily qualities? Then,
as to the soul's power of growth, of desire, of
nutrition, of change, and the fact that all the
bodily powers are nourished, while feeling does
not extend through all, but, as in things without
life, some of our members are destitute of feeling,
the bones for example, the cartilages, the nails,
the hair, all of which take nourishment, but do
not feel, — tell me who is there that understands
this only half-complete operation of the soul as
to these ? And why do I speak of the soul ?
Even the inquiry as to that thing in the flesh
itself which assumes all the corporeal qualities
has not been pursued to any definite result.
For if any one has made a mental analysis of
that which is seen into its component parts,
and, having stripped the object of its qualities,
has attempted to consider it by itself, I fail to
see what will have been left for investigation.

262

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

For when you take from a body its colour, its
shape, its degree of resistance, its weight, its
quantity, its position, its forces active or passive,
its relation to other objects, what remains, that
can still be called a body, we can neither see
of ourselves, nor are we taught it by Scripture.
But how can he who is ignorant of himself
take knowledge of anything that is above him-
self? And if a man is familiarized with such
ignorance of himself, is he not plainly taught
by the very fact not to be astonished at any of
the mysteries that are without? Wherefore
also, of the elements of the world, we know
only so much by our senses as to enable us to
receive what they severally supply for our
living. But we possess no knowledge of their
substance, nor do we count it loss to be ignorant
of it. For what does it profit me to inquire
curiously into the nature of fire, how it is
struck out, how it is kindled, how, when it has
caught hold of the fuel supplied to it, it does
not let it go till it has devoured and consumed
its prey ; how the spark is latent in the flint,
how steel, cold as it is to the touch, generates
fire, how sticks rubbed together kindle flame,
how water shining in the sun causes a flash ;
and then again the cause of its upward tend-
ency, its power of incessant motion ? — Putting
aside all which curious questions and investi-
gations, we give heed only to the subservience of
this fire to life, seeing that he who avails him-
self of its service fares no worse than he who
busies himself with inquiries into its nature.

Wherefore Holy Scripture omits all idle
inquiry into substance as superfluous and un-
necessary. And methinks it was for this that
John, the Son of Thunder, who with the loud
voice of the doctrines contained in his Gospel
rose above that of the preaching which heralded
them, said at the close of his Gospel, " There
are also many other things which Jesus did, the
which if they should be written every one, I
suppose that even the world itself could not
contain the books that should be written8."
He certainly does not mean by these the
miracles of healing, for of these the narrative
leaves none unrecorded, even though it does
not mention the names of all who were healed.
For when he tells us that the dead were raised,
that the blind received their sight, that the deaf
heard, that the lame walked, and that He
healed all manner of sickness and all manner
of disease, he does not in this leave any miracle
unrecorded, but embraces each and all in these
general terms. But it may be that the Evange-
list means this in his profound wisdom : that
we are to learn the majesty of the Son of God
not by the miracles alone which He did in the

* S. John xxi. 25.

flesh. For these are little compared with the
greatness of His other work. " But look thou
up to Heaven ! Behold its glories ! Transfer
your thought to the wide compass of the earth,
and the watery depths ! Embrace with your
mind the whole world, and when you have
come to the knowledge of supramundane nature,
learn that these are the true works of Him Who
sojourned for thee in the flesh," which (saith
he), " if each were written " — and the essence,
manner, origin, and extent of each given — the
world itself could not contain the fulness of
Christ's teaching about the world itself. For
since God hath made all things in wisdom, and to
His wisdom there is no limit (for " His under-
standing," saith the Scripture, " is infinite" 9), the
world, that is bounded by limits of its own,
cannot contain within itself the account of
infinite wisdom. If, then, the whole world is
too little to contain the teaching of the works
of God, how many worlds could contain an
account of the Lord of them all ? For perhaps
it will not be denied even by the tongue of the
blasphemer that the Maker of all things, which
have been created by the mere fiat of His will,
is infinitely greater than all. If, then, the
whole creation cannot contain what might be
said respecting itself (for so, according to our
explanation, the great Evangelist testifies), how
should human shallowness contain all that
might be said of the Lord of Creation ? Let
those grand talkers inform us what man is, in
comparison with the universe, what geometrical
point is so without magnitude, which of the atoms
of Epicurus is capable of such infinitesimal re-
duction in the vain fancy of those who make
such problems the object of their study, which
of them falls so little short of non-existence, as
human shallowness, when compared with the
universe. As saith also great David, with a
true insight into human weakness, " Mine age
is as nothing unto Thee *," not saying that it is
absolutely nothing, but signifying, by this com-
parison to the non-existent, that what is so ex-
ceedingly brief is next to nothing at all.

But, nevertheless, with only such a nature
for their base of operations, they open their
mouths wide against the unspeakable Power,
and encompass by one appellation the infinite
nature, confining the Divine essence within the
narrow limits of the term ungeneracy, that they
may thereby pave a way for their blasphemy
against the Only-begotten ; but although the
great Basil had corrected this false opinion, and
pointed out, in regard to the terms, that they
have no existence in nature, but are attached
as conceptions to the things signified, so far are

' Ps. cxlvii. 5.

1 Ps. xxxix. 5. LXX. vwocrrao'cs jiou (not alwv, which would be
the exact equivalent to the Heb ).

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

263

they from returning to the truth, that they stick
to what they have once advanced, as to bird-
lime, and will not loose their hold of their
fallacious mode of argument, nor do they allow
the term " ungeneracy " to be used in the way
of a mental conception, but make it represent
the Divine nature itself. Now to go through
their whole argument, and to attempt to over-
throw it by discussing word by word their
frivolous and long-winded nonsense, would be
a task requiring much leisure, and time, and
freedom from calls of business. Just as I hear
that Eunomius, after applying himself at his
leisure, and laboriously, for a number of years
exceeding those of the Trojan war, has fabricated
this dream for himself in his deep slumbers,
studiously seeking, not how to interpret any of
the ideas which he has arrived at, but how
to drag and force them' into keeping with his
phrases, and going round and collecting out of
certain books the words in them that sound
grandest. And as beggars in lack of clothing
pin and tack together tunics for themselves out
of rags, so he, cropping here a phrase and there
a phrase, has woven together for himself the
patchwork of his treatise, glueing in and fixing
together the joinings of his diction with much
labour and pains, displaying therein a petty
and juvenile ambition for combat, which any
man who has an eye to actuality would disdain,
just as a steadfast wrestler, no longer in the
prime of life, would disdain to play the woman
by over-niceness in dress. But to me it seems
that, when the scope of the whole question
has been briefly run through, his roundabout
flourishes may well be let alone.

I have said, then (for I make my master's
words my own), that reason supplies us with
but a dim and imperfect comprehension of the
Divine nature ; nevertheless, the knowledge that
we gather from the terms which piety allows
us to apply to it is sufficient for our limited
capacity. Now we do not say that all these
terms have a uniform significance ; for some of
them express qualities inherent in God, and
others qualities that are not, as when we say
that He is just or incorruptible, by the term
"just" signifying that justice is found in Him,
and by " incorruptible " that corruption is not.
Again, by a change of meaning, we may apply
terms to God in the way of accommodation, so
that what is proper to God may be represented
by a term which in no wise belongs to Him,
and what is foreign to His nature may be
represented by what belongs to Him. For
whereas justice is the contradictory of injustice,
and everlastingness the contrary of destruction,
we may fitly and without impropriety employ
contraries in speaking of God, as when we say
that He is ever existent, or that He is not un-

just, which is equivalent to saying that He is
just, and that He admits not of corruption.
So, too, we may say that other names of God,
by a certain change of signification, may be
suitably employed to express either meaning,
for example "good," and "immortal," and all
expressions of like formation ; for each of these
terms, according as it is taken, is capable of
indicating what does or what does not appertain
to the Divine nature, so that, notwithstanding
the formal change, our orthodox opinion in regard
to the object remains immovably fixed. For it
amounts to the same, whether we speak of God
as unsusceptible of evil, or whether we call Him
good ; whether we confess that He is immortal,
or say that He ever liveth. For we understand
no difference in the sense of these terms, but
we signify one and the same thing by both,
though the one may seem to convey the notion
of affirmation, and the other of negation. And
so again, when we speak of God as the First
Cause of all things, or again, when we speak of
Him as without cause, we are guilty of no con-
tradiction in sense, declaring as we do by either
name that God is the prime Ruler and First
Cause of all. Accordingly when we speak of
Him as without cause, and as Lord of all, in the
former case we signify what does not attach to
Him, in the latter case what does ; it being
possible, as I have said, by a change of the
things signified, to give an opposite sense to
the words that express them, and to signify a
property by a word which for the time takes a
negative form, and vice versa. For it is allow-
able, instead of saying that He Himself has no
primal cause, to describe Him as the First Cause
of all, and again, instead of this, to hold that
He alone exists ungenerately, so that while the
words seem by the formal change to be at
variance with each other, the sense remains one
and the same. For the object to be aimed at,
in questions respecting God, is not to produce
a dulcet and melodious narmony of words, but
to work out an orthodox formula of thought,
whereby a worthy conception of God may be
ensured. Since, then, it is only orthodox to infer
that He Who is the First Cause of all is Him-
self without cause, if this opinion is established,
what further contention of words remains for
men of sense and judgment, when every word
whereby such a notion is conveyed to us has
the same signification ? For whether you say
that He is the First Cause and Principle of all,
or speak of Him as without origin, whether
you speak of Him as of ungenerate or eternal
subsistence, as the Cause of all or as alone
without cause, all these words are, in a manner,
of like force, and equivalent to one another, as
far as the meaning of the things signified is
concerned ; and it is mere folly to contenc for

264

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

this or that vocal intonation, as if orthodoxy
were a thing of sounds and syllables rather than
of the mind. This view, then, has been care-
fully enunciated by our great master, where-
by all whose eyes are not blindfolded by the
veil of heresy may clearly see that, whatever be
the nature of God, He is not to be apprehended
by sense, and that He transcends reason, though
human thought, busying itself with curious in-
quiry, with such help of reason as it can com-
mand, stretches out its hand and just touches
His unapproachable and sublime nature, being
neither keen-sighted enough to see clearly what
is invisible, nor yet so far withheld from ap-
proach as to be unable to catch some faint
glimpse of what it seeks to know. For such
knowledge it attains in part by the touch of
reason, in part from its very inability to discern
it, finding that it is a sort of knowledge to know
that what is sought transcends knowledge (for it
has learned what is contrary to the Divine nature,
as well as all that may fittingly be conjectured
respecting it). Not that it has been able to
gain full knowledge of that nature itself about
which it reasons, but from the knowledge of
those properties which are, or are not, inherent
in it, this mind of man sees what alone can be
seen, that that which is far removed from all
evil, and is understood in all good, is altogether
such as I should pronounce ineffable and in-
comprehensible by human reason.

But although our great master has thus
cleared away all unworthy notions respecting
the Divine nature, and has urged and taught
all that may be reverently and fittingly held
concerning it, viz. that the First Cause is neither
a corruptible thing, nor one brought into being
by any birth, but that it is outside the range of
every conception of the kind ; and that from
the negation of what is not inherent, and the
affirmation of what may be with reverence con-
ceived to be inherent therein, we may best ap-
prehend what He is — nevertheless this vehe-
ment adversary of the truth opposes these
teachings, and hopes with the sounding word
" ungeneracy " to supply a clear definition of
the essence of God.

And yet it is plain to every one who has
given any attention to the uses of words, that
the word incorruption denotes by the privative
particle that neither corruption nor birth apper-
tains to God : just as many other words of like
formation denote the absence of what is not
inherent rather than the presence of what is ;
e. g. harmless, painless, guileless, undisturbed,
passionless, sleepless, undiseased2, impassible,

2 Oehler notices that the- Paris editt. have not these words, ainrvov,
ivooov . I>ut thai [ohn the Franciscan is a witness that they were
in his codex (ihe Pithcean foi he says, "after this follows aiinvos
avOpiunoi;, which have crept in from the oversight of a not oum/o?
co| yist, and therefore ought to be expunged " not being aware that

unblamable, and the like. For all these terms
are truly applicable to God, and furnish a sort
of catalogue and muster of evil qualities from
which God is separate. Yet the terms employed
give no positive account of that to which they
are applied. We learn from them what it is
not ; but what it is, the force of the words does
not indicate. For if some one, wishing to
describe the nature of man, were to say that it
is not lifeless, not insentient, not winged, not
four-footed, not amphibious, he would not
indicate what it is : he would simply declare
what it is not, and he would be no more making
untrue statements respecting man than he
would be positively defining his subject. In
the same way, from the many things which are
predicated of the Divine 'nature, we learn under
what conditions we may conceive God as exist-
ing, but what He is essentially, such statements
do not inform us.

While, however, we strenuously avoid all
concurrence with absurd notions in our thoughts
of God, we allow ourselves in the use of many
diverse appellations in regard to Him, adapting
them to our point of view. For whereas no
suitable word has been found to express the
Divine nature, we address God by many names,
each by some distinctive touch adding something
fresh to our notions respecting Him, — thus
seeking by variety of nomenclature to gain some
glimmerings for the comprehension of what we
seek. For when we question and examine our-
selves as to what God is, we express our con-
clusions variously, as that He is that which pre-
sides over the system and working of the things
that are, that His existence is without cause,
while to all else He is the Cause of being, that
He is that which has no generation or begin-
ning, no corruption, no turning backward, no
diminution of supremacy ; that He is that in
which evil finds no place, and from which no
good is absent.

And if any one would distinguish such notions
by words, he would find it absolutely necessary
to call that which admits of no changing to the
worse unchanging and invariable, and to call the
First Cause of all ungenerate, and that which
admits not of corruption incorruptible ; and that
which ceases at no limit immortal and never-
failfng ; and that which presides over all Al-
mighty. And so, framing names for all other
Divine attributes in accordance with reverent
conceptions of Him, we designate them now by
one name, now by another, according to our
varying lines of thought, as power, or strength,
or goodness, or ungeneracy, or peq)etuity.

I say, then, that men have a right to such

very ancient copies write avGpiono*; ai/os, so that ai'oaov /.s' the
true reading, having been changed, but not introduced, by the error
of a copyist.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

265

word-building, adapting their appellations to
their subject, each man according to his judg-
ment; and that there is no absurdity in this,
such as our controversialist makes a pretence of,
shuddering at it as at some gruesome hobgoblin,
and that we are fully justified in allowing the use
of such fresh applications of words in respect
to all things that can be named, and to God
Himself.

For God is not an expression, neither hath
He His essence in voice or utterance. But
God is of Himself what also He is believed to
he, but He is named, by those who call upon
Him, not what He is essentially (for the nature
of Him Who alone is is unspeakable), but He
receives His appellations from what are believed
to be His operations in regard to our life. To
take an instance ready to our hand ; when we
speak of Him as God, we so call Him from
regarding Him as overlooking and surveying
all things, and seeing through the things that
are hidden. But if His essence is prior to His
works, and we understand His works by our
senses, and express them in words as we are
best able, why should we be afraid of calling
things by words of later origin than themselves ?
For if we stay to interpret any of the attributes
of God till we understand them, and we under-
stand them only by what His works teach us,
and if His power precedes its exercise, and
depends on the will of God, while His will
resides in the spontaneity of the Divine nature,
are we not clearly taught that the words which
represent things are of later origin than the
things themselves, and that the words which
are framed to express the operations of things
are reflections of the things themselves ? And
that this is so, we are clearly taught by Holy
Scripture, by the mouth of great David, when,
as by certain peculiar and appropriate names,
derived from his contemplation of the works of
God, he thus speaks of the Divine nature :
" The Lord is full of compassion and mercy,
long-suffering, and of great goodness 3." Now
what do these words tell us ? Do they indicate
His operations, or His nature? No one will
say that they indicate aught but His operations.
At what time, then, after showing mercy and
pity, did God acquire His name from their
display? Was it before man's life began?
But who was there to be the object of pity ?
Was it, then, after sin entered into the world ?
But sin entered after man. The exercise,
therefore, of pity, and the name itself, came after
man. What then ? will our adversary, wise as
he is above the Prophets, convict David of
error in applying names to God derived from
his opportunities of knowing Him ? or, in con-

3 Ps. ciii. 8

tending with him, will he use against him the
pretence in his stately passage as out of a tragedy,
saying that " he glories in the most blessed life of
God with names drawn from human imagination,
whereas it gloried in itself alone, long before
men were born to imagine them "? The Psalm-
ist's advocate will readily admit that the Divine
nature gloried in itself alone even before the
existence of human imagination, but will con-
tend that the human mind can speak only so
much in respect of God as its capacity, instructed
by His works, will allow. " For," as saith the
Wisdom of Solomon, "by the greatness and
beauty of the creatures proportionably the
Maker of them is seen!"

But in applying such appellations to the
Divine essence, " which passeth all understand-
ing," we do not seek to glory in it by the names
we employ, but to guide our own selves by the
aid of such terms towards the comprehension
of the things which are hidden. " I said unto
the Lord," saith the Prophet, "Thou art my
God, my goods are nothing unto Thee s." How
then are we glorifying the most blessed life of
God, as this man affirms, when (as saith the
Prophet) " our goods are nothing unto Him " ?
Is it that he takes "call" to mean "glory in"?
Yet those who employ the latter word rightly,
and who have been trained to use words with
propriety, tell us that the word "glory in" is
never used of mere indication, but that that
idea is expressed by such words as "to make
known," "to show," "to indicate," or some
other of the kind, whereas the word for "glory in"
means to be proud of, or delight in a thing,
and the like. But he affirms that by employing
names drawn from human imagination we
" glory in " the blessed life. We hold, however,
that to add any honour to the Divine nature,
which is above all honour, is more than human
infirmity can do. At the same time we do not
deny that we endeavour, by words and names
devised with due reverence, to give some notion
of its attributes. And so, following studiously
in the path of due reverence, we apprehend that
the first cause is that which has its subsistence
not from any cause superior to itself. Which
view, if so be one accepts it as true, is praise-
worthy for its truth alone. But if one should
judge it to be superior to other aspects of the
Divine nature, and so should say that God,
exulting and rejoicing in this alone, glories in
it, as of paramount excellence, one would find
support only from the Muse by whom Eunomius
is inspired, when he says, that " ungeneracy "
glories in itself, that which, mark you, he calls

4 Wisdom xiii. 5.

5 Ps. xvi. 2. S. Gregory quotes the LXX. tuiv ayaSiov jnou ov
XpeLav <?xeis, which is closely followed by the Vulgate '.' bonorum
nieorum non eges," and the Arab. "Thou needest not my good
actions." Heb. " I have no good beyond thee."

266

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

God's essence, and styles the blessed and
Divine life.

But let us hear how, " in the way most needed,
and the form that preceded" (for with such
rhymes he again gives us a taste of the flowers
of style), let us hear, I say, how by such means
he proposes to refute the opinion formed of
him, and to keep in the dark the ignorance of
those whom he has deluded. For I will use
our dithyrambist's own verbal inflections and
phraseology. When, says he, we assert that
words by which thought is expressed die as
soon as they are uttered, we add that whether
words are uttered or not, whether they are yet
in existence or not, God was and is ungenerate.
Let us learn, then, what connection there is
between the conception or the formation of
words, and the things which we signify by this
or that mode of utterance. Accordingly, if God
is ungenerate before the creation of man, we
must esteem as of no account the words which
indicate that thought, inasmuch as they are
dispersed along with the sounds that express
them, if such thought happen to be named
after human notion. For to be, and to be
called, are not convertible terms. But God is
by His nature what He is, but He is called by
us by such names as the poverty of our nature
will allow us to make use of, which is incapable
of enunciating thought except by means of voice
and words. Accordingly, understanding Him
to be without origin, we enunciate that thought
by the term ungenerate. And what harm is it
to Him Who indeed is, that He should be
named by us as we conceive Him to be ? For
His ungenerate existence is not the result of
His being called ungenerate, but the name is
the result of the existence. But this our acute
friend fails to see, nor does he take a clear
view of his own positions. For if he did, he
would certainly have left off reviling those who
framed the word ungeneracy to express the idea
in their minds. For look at what he says,
" Words so spoken perish as soon as they are
spoken ; but God both is and was ungenerate,
both after the words were spoken and before.
You see that the Supreme Being is what He is,
before the creation of all things, whether silent
or not, being what He is neither in greater nor
in less degree ; while the use of words and
names was not devised till after the creation
of man, endowed by God with the faculty of
reason and speech."

If, then, the creation is of later date than its
Creator, and man is the latest in the scale of
creation, and if speech is a distinctive character-
istic of man, and verbs and nouns are the com-
ponent elements of speech, and ungeneracy is a
noun, how is it that he does not understand that
he is combating his own arguments ? For we, on

our side, say that by human thought and intelli-
gence words have been devised expressive of
things which they represent, and he, on his
side, allows that those who employ speech are
demonstrably later in point of time than the
Divine life, and that the Divine nature is now,
and ever has been, without generation. If,
then, he allows the blessed life to be anterior
to man (for to that point I return), and we do
not deny man's later creation, but contend that
we have used forms of speech ever since we
came into being and received the faculty of
reason from our Maker, and if ungeneracy is a
word expressive of a special idea, and every word
is a part of human speech, — it follows that he
who admits that the Divine nature was anterior
to man must at the same time admit that the
name invented by man to express that nature
was itself later in being. For it was not likely
that the use of speech should be exercised be-
fore the existence of creatures to use it, any
more than that farming should be exercised
before the existence of farmers, or navigation
before that of navigators, or in fact any of the
occupations of life before that of life itself.
Why, then, does he contend with us, instead
of following his premises to their legitimate
conclusion ?

He says that God was what He is, before the
creation of man. Nor do we deny it. For
whatsoever we conceive of God existed before
the creation of the world. But we maintain
that it received its name after the namer came
into being. For if we use words for this pur-
pose, that they may supply us with teaching
about the things which they signify, and it is
ignorance alone that requires teaching, while
the Divine Nature, as comprehending all know-
ledge, is above all teaching, it follows that
names were invented to denote the Supreme
Being, not for His sake, but for our own. For
He did not attach the term ungeneracy to His
nature in order that He Himself might be in-
structed. For He Who knoweth all things has
no need of syllables and words to instruct Him
as to His own nature and majesty.

But that we might gain some sort of com-
prehension of what with reverence may be
thought respecting Him, we have stamped
our different ideas with certain words and syl-
lables, labelling, as it were, our mental processes-
with verbal formulae to serve as characteristic
notes and indications, with the object of giving
a clear and simple declaration of our mental
processes by means of words attached to, and
expressive of, our ideas. Why, then, does he
find fault with our contention that the term
ungeneracy was devised to indicate the existence
of God without origin or beginning, and that,
independently of all e tercise of speech, or

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

267

silence, or thought, and before the very idea of
creation, God was and remains ungenerate ? If,
indeed, any one should argue that God was not
ungenerate till the name ungeneracy had been
found, the man might be pardonable for writing
as he has written, in contravention of such an
absurdity. But if no one denies that He
existed before speech and reason, whereas, while
the form of words by which the meaning is
expressed is said by us to have been devised
by mental conception, the end and aim of his
controversy with us is to show that the name
is not of man's device, but that it existed before
our creation, though by whom it was spoken
I do not know 6, what has the assertion that
God existed ungenerately before all things, and
the contention that 7 mental conception is pos-
terior to God, got to do with this aim of his ?
For that God is not a conception has been fully
demonstrated, so that we may press him with
the same sort of argument, and reply, so to say,
in his own words, e.g. "It is utter folly to
regard understanding as of earlier birth than
those who exercise it " ; or again, as he proceeds
a little below, " Nor as though we intended
this, i. e. to make men, the latest of God's works
of creation, anterior to the conceptions of
their own understanding." Great indeed would
be the force of the argument, if any one of us,
out of sheer folly and madness, should argue
that God was a conception of the mind. But
if this is not so, nor ever has been, (for who
would go to such a pitch of folly as to assert
that He Who alone is, and Who brought all
else whatsoever into being, has no substantial
existence of His own, and to make Him out
to be a mere conception of a name?) why
does he fight with shadows, contending with
imaginary propositions? Is not the cause of
this unreasonable litigiousness clear, that, feeling
ashamed of the fallacy respecting ungeneracy
with which his dupes have been deluded (since
it has been proved that the word is very far
removed from the Divine essence), he is de-
liberately shuffling up his arguments, shifting
the controversy from words to things, so that
by throwing all into confusion the unwary may
more easily be seduced, by imagining that God
has been described by us either as a con-
ception, or as posterior in existence to the in-
vention of human terminology ; and thus,
leaving our argument unrefuted, he is shifting
his position to another quarter of the field ?

6 Oehler's reading and stopping are both faulty here, viz., ovk
0i3a Trepi Tt'1/05 Keyofievov Tt koivov f\ei "• T- ^- Manifestly the stop
should be at Ktyopfvov, and the reading of the editt. irapa rivos is
right.

7 It is not necessary to change the to here to to> as Oehler sug-
gests. The Munich Cod. omits it altogether. But he has done 1
good service to the text, by supplying from his Codices all that |
follows, down to " the same sort ot argument " (except that the first
Siavcopi^totfai is probably a gloss).

For our conclusion was, as I have said, that
the term ungeneracy does not indicate the
Divine nature, but is applicable to it as the
result of a conception by which the fact that
God subsists without prior cause is pointed
at. But what they were for establishing was
this : that the word was indicative of the Divine
essence itself. Yet how has it been established
that the word has this force? I suppose the
handling of this question is in reserve in some
other of his writings. But here he makes it
his main object to show that God exists un-
generately, just as though some one were simply
questioning him on such points as these — what
view he held as to the term ungenerate, whether
he thought it invented to show that the First
Cause was without beginning and origin, or as
declaring the Divine essence itself; and he, with
much assumption of gravity and wisdom, were
replying that he, for his part, had no doubt that
God was the Maker of heaven and earth.
How widely this method of proceeding differs
from, and is unconnected with, his first con-
tention, you may see, in the same way as you
may see how little his fine description of his
controversy with us is connected with the
question at issue. For let us look at the
matter in this wise.

They say that God is ungenerate, and in this
we agree. But that ungeneracy itself constitutes
the Divine essence, here we take exception.
For we maintain that this term is declarative
of God's ungenerate subsistence, but not that
ungeneracy is God. But of what nature is his
refutation ? It is this : that before man's crea-
tion God existed ungenerately. But what has
this to do with the point which he promises to
establish, that the term and its Subject are
identical ? For he lays it down that ungeneracy
is the Divine essence. But what sort of a ful-
filment of his promise is it, to show that God
existed before beings capable of speech ? What
a wonderful, what an irresistible demonstration !
what perfection of logical refinement ! Who that
has not been initiated in the mysteries of the
awful craft may venture to look it in the face?
Yet in particularizing the meanings of the term
"conception," he makes a solemn travesty of it.
For, saith he, of words used to express a con-
ception of the mind, some exist only in pro-
nunciation, as for instance those which signify
nonentity, while others have their peculiar mean-
ing ; and of these some have an amplifying force,
as in the case of things colossal, others a
diminishing, as in that of pigmies, others a
multiplying, as in that of many-headed monsters,,
others a combinative, as in that of centaurs.
After thus reducing the force of the term "con-
ception" to its lowest value, our clever friend
will allow it, you sec, no further extension. He

26Q

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

says that it is without sense and meaning, that it
fancies the unnatural, either contracting or ex-
tending the limits of nature, or putting hetero-
geneous notions together, or juggling with
strange and monstrous combinations.

With such gibes at the term "conception,"
he shows, to the best of his ability, that it is
•useless and unprofitable for the life of man.
What, then, was the origin of our higher
branches of learning, of geometry, arithmetic,
the logical and physical sciences, of the inven-
tions of mechanical art, of the marvels of
measuring time by the brazen dial and the
water-clock? What, again, of ontology, of the
science of ideas, in short of all intellectual
speculation as applied to great and sublime
objects? What of agriculture, of navigation,
and of the other pursuits of human life ? how
comes the sea to be a highway for man ? how
are things of the air brought into the service of
things of the earth, wild things tamed, objects
of terror brought into subjection, animals
stronger than ourselves made obedient to the
rein ? Have not all these benefits to human
life been achieved by conception ? For, ac-
cording to my account of it, conception is the
method by which we discover things that are
unknown, going on to further discoveries by
means of what adjoins to and follows8 from our
first perception with regard to the thing studied.
For when we have formed some idea of what we
seek to know, by adapting what follows to the
first result of our discoveries we gradually con-
duct our inquiry to the end of our proposed
research.

But why enumerate the greater and more
splendid results of this faculty? For every one
who is not unfriendly to truth can see for him-
self that all else that Time has discovered for
the service and benefit of human life, has been
discovered by no other instrumentality than
that of conception. And it seems to me, that
any one who should judge this faculty more
precious than any other with the exercise of
which we are gifted in this life by Divine Pro-
vidence would not be far mistaken in his
judgment. And in saying this I am supported
by Job's teaching, where he represents God as
answering His servant by the tempest and the
clouds, saying both other things meet for Him
to say, and that it is He Who hath set man
over the arts, and given to woman her skill in
weaving and embroidery 9.

Now that He did not teach us such things
by some visible operation, Himself presiding
over the work, as we may see in matters of

8 The definition of enivoia, i. e. e4>oSo<; evperiKr) n~w ayvoovy.4vu>v,
•5id run' i7porrf\biv T€ teal a.Ko\ov6u>v ... to €</>e'£TJ5 efeupt<r*ouo"a.

9 Job xxxviii. 36 I. XX. Ti« oe (Suite ■yvvaifif i>cJ>ao>iaTO?
<ro$>i<w, >j troiKiKTiKrfV im<rrriii.Tiv.

bodily teaching, no one would gainsay whose
nature is not altogether animal and brutish.
But still it has been said that our first knowledge
of such arts is from Him, and, if such is the
case, surely He Who endowed our nature with
such a faculty of conceiving and finding out the
objects of our investigation was Himself our
Guide to the arts. And by the law of causa-
tion, whatever is discovered and established by
conception must be ascribed to Him Who is
the Author of that faculty. Thus human life
invented the Art of Healing, but nevertheless
he would be right who should assert that
Art to be a gift from God. And whatever
discovery has been made in human life, con-
ducive to any useful purposes of peace or
war, came to us from no other quarter but
from an intelligence conceiving and discovering
according to our several requirements ; and
that intelligence is a gift of God. It is to God,
then, that we owe all that intelligence supplies
to us. Nor do I deny the objection made by
our adversaries, that lying wonders also are
fabricated by this faculty. For their contention
as to this makes for our own side in the argu-
ment. For we too assert that the science of
opposites is the same, whether beneficial or the
reverse ; e. g. in the case of the arts of healing
and navigation, and so on. For he who knows
how to relieve the sick by drugs will also know,
if indeed he were to turn his art to an evil pur-
pose, how to mix some deleterious ingredient in
the food of the healthy. And he who can steer a
boat with its rudder into port can also steer it for
the reef or the rock, if minded to destroy those
on board. And the painter, with the same art
by which he depicts the fairest form on his
canvas, could give us an exact representation of
the ugliest. So, too, the wrestling-master, by
the experience which he has gained in anointing,
can set a dislocated limb, or, should he wish
to do so, dislocate a sound one. But why en-
cumber our argument by multiplying instances?
As in the above-mentioned cases no one would
deny that he who has learned to practise an art
for right purposes can also abuse it for wrong
ones, so we say that the faculty of thought and
conception was implanted by God in human
nature for good, but, with those who abuse it as
an instrument of discovery, it frequently becomes
the handmaid of pernicious inventions. But
although it is thus possible for this faculty to
give a plausible shape to what is false and
unreal, it is none the less competent to investi-
gate what actually and in very truth subsists,
and its ability for the one must in fairness be
regarded as an evidence of its ability for the
other.

For that one who proposes to himself to
terrify or charm an audience should have plenty

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

269

of conception to effect such a purpose, and
should display to the spectators many-handed,
many-headed, or fire-breathing monsters, or
men enfolded in the coils of serpents, or that
he should seem to increase their stature, or
enlarge their natural proportions to a ridiculous
extent, or that he should describe men meta-
morphosed into fountains and trees and birds, a
kind of narrative which is not without its attrac-
tion for such as take pleasure in things of that
sort ; — all this, I say, is the clearest of demon-
strations that it is possible to arrive at higher
knowledge also by means of this inventive faculty.

For it is not the case that, while the intelli-
gence implanted in us by the Giver is fully com-
petent to conjure up non-realities, it is endowed
with no faculty at all for providing us with
things that may profit us. But as the impulsive
and elective faculty of the soul is established in
our nature, to incite us to what is good and
noble, though a man may also abuse it for what
is evil, and no one can call the fact that the
elective faculty sometimes inclines to evil a
proof that it never inclines to what is good — so
the bias of conception towards what is vain and
unprofitable does not prove its inability for
what is profitable, but, on the contrary, is a
demonstration of its not being unserviceable for
what is beneficial and necessary to the mind.
For as, in the one case, it discovers means to
produce pleasure or terror, so, in the other, it
does not fail to find ways for getting at truth.
Now one of the objects of inquiry was whether
the First Cause, viz. God, exists without begin-
ning, or whether His existence is dependent on
some beginning. But perceiving, by the aid of
thought, that that cannot be a First Cause which
we conceive of as the consequence of another, we
devised a word expressive of such a notion, and
we say that He who is without anterior cause
exists without origin, or, so to say, ungenerately.
And Him Who so exists we call ungenerate and
without origin, indicating, by that appellation,
not what He is, but what He is not.

But as far as possible to elucidate the idea, I
will endeavour to illustrate it by a still plainer
example. Let us suppose the inquiry to be
about some tree, whether it is cultivated or wild.
If the former, we call it planted, if the latter,
not planted. And such a term exactly hits the
truth, for the tree must needs be after this
manner or that. And yet the word does not
indicate the peculiar nature of the plant. From
the term "not-planted" we learn that it is of
spontaneous growth ; but whether what is thus
signified is a plane, or a vine, or some other
such plant, the name applied to it does not
inform us.

This example being understood, it is time to go
on to the thing which it illustrates. This much

we comprehend, that the First Cause has His
existence from no antecedent one. Accordingly,
we call God ungenerate as existing ungenerately,
reducing this notion of ungeneracy into verbal
form. That He is without origin or beginning
we show by the force of the term. But what
that Being is which exists ungenerately, this
appellation does not lead us to discern. Nor
was it to be supposed that the processes of
conception could avail to raise us above the
limits of our nature, and open up the incom-
prehensible to our view, and enable us to
compass the knowledge of that which no know-
ledge can approach r. Nevertheless, our ad-
versary storms at our Master, and tries to tear to
pieces his teaching respecting the faculty of
thought and conception, and derides what has
been said, revelling as usual in the rattle of his
jingling phraseology, and saying that he (Basil)
shrinks from adducing evidence respecting those
things of which he presumes to be the inter-
preter. For, quoting certain of the Master's
speculations on the faculty of conception, in
which he shows that its exercise finds place, not
only in reference to vain and trivial objects, but
that it is competent to deal also with weightier
matters, he, by means of his speculation about
the corn, and seed, and other food (in Genesis),
brings Basil into court with the charge, that his
language is a following of pagan philosophy2, and

1 Cf Origen c. Celsum, vi. 65. Celsus had said "God cannot be
named." " This requires a distinction to be made. If Celsus me 'lis
that there is nothing in the signification of words that can express the
qualities of God, what he says is true, seeing that there are many
other qualities that cannot be named Who, for instance, can express
in words the difference of quality between the sweetness of 3 date
and that of a fig ? Peculiar individual qualities cannot be expressed
in a word. No wonder, then, that in this absolute sense God cannot
be named. But if by ' name ' we only mean the possible expression
of some one thing about God, by way of leading on the listener, and
producing in him such a notion about God as human faculties can
reach to, then there is nothing strange in saying, that God can have
a name."

- , i, t£ui9fv <f>iKocro(pia. Eunomius, in this accusation, must have
been thinking, in the SeVei and </>iicrei controversy on the origin of
language, of Dem critus, who called words "statues in sound," i. e.
ascribed to them a certain amount of artificiality. But it is doubtful
whether the opinion of the purely human origin of language can be
ascribed to him, when we consider another expression of his, that
" words were statues in sound, but statues not made by the hands of
men, but by the gods themselves." Language with him was con-
ventional, but it was not arbitrary. Again, Plato defines a word, an
imitation in sound of that which it imitates (Cratylus, 423 B), and
Aristotle calls words imitations (Rhet. iii. 1). But both of them
were very far indeed from tracing language back to mere onoma-
topoeia, i. e. ascribing it to fle'tri.? (agreement), as opposed to <f>vai<;
in the sense of the earlier Greek philosophy, the " essence" of the
thing named, rather than the "nature" of the names. Long
before them Pythagoras had said, " the wisest of all things is
Number, and next to Number, that which gives names." These
oracular words do not countenance the idea that the origin of
language was purely human. Perhaps Epicurus more definitely
than any taught that in the first formation of language men acted
unconsciously, moved by nature (in the modern sense), and that then
as a second stage there was an agreement or understanding to use a
certain sound for a certain conception. Against this Heraclitus
(b C. 503) had taught that words exist (^uo-ei. " Words are like the
shadows of things, like the pictures of trees and mountains reflected
in the river, like our own images when we look into a mirror." We
know at all events here what he did not mean, viz.. that man im-
posed what names he pleased on the objects round him. Heraclitu-,'
"nature "is a very different thing from the Darwinian Nature; it
is the inherent fitness between the object and name. Eunomius, then,
was hardly justified in calling the Greek philosophy, as a whole,
atheistical in this matter, and " against Providence." This i^iicri?,
the impalpable force in the things named, could still be represented

270

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

that he is circumscribing Divine Providence, as
not allowing that words were given to things by
God, and that hi s fighting in the ranks of the
Atheists, and taking arms against Providence,
and that he admires the doctrines of the pro-
fane rather than the laws of God, and ascribes
to them the palm of wisdom, not having ob-
served in the earliest of the sacred records, that
before the creation of man, the naming of fruit
and seed are mentioned in Holy Writ.

Such are his charges against us ; not indeed
his notions as expressed in his own phraseology,
for we have made such alterations as were re-
quired to correct the ruggedness and harsh-
ness of his style. What, then, is our answer to
this careful guardian of Divine Providence?
He asserts that we are in error, because, while
we do not deny man's having been created a
rational being by God, we ascribe the invention
of words to the logical faculty implanted by
God in man's nature. And this is the bitterest
of his accusations, whereby our teacher of right-
eousness is charged with deserting to the tenets
of the Atheists, and is denounced as partaking
with and supporting their lawless company, and
indeed as guilty of all the most atrocious offences.
Well, then, let this corrector of our blunders
tell us, did God give names to the things which
He created ? For so says our new interpreter
of the mysteries : " Before the creation of man
God named germ, and herb, and grass, and
seed, and tree, and the like, when by the word
of His power He brought them severally into
being." If, then, he abides by the bare letter,
and so far Judaizes, and has yet to learn that
the Christian is a disciple not of the letter but
of the Spirit (for the letter killeth, says the
Apostle, but the Spirit giveth life 3), and quotes
to us the bare literal reading of the words as
though God Himself pronounced them — if, I
say, he believes this, that, after the similitude of
men, God made use of fluency of speech, ex-
pressing His thoughts by voice and accent — if,
I repeat, he believes this, he cannot reasonably
deny what follows as its logical consequence.
For our speech is uttered by the organs of
speech, the windpipe, the tongue, the teeth,
and the mouth, the inhalation of air from with-
out and the breath from within working together
to produce the utterance. For the windpipe,
fitting into the throat like a flute, emits a sound
from below ; and the roof of the mouth, by
reason of the void space above extending to the
nostrils, like some musical instrument, gives
volume from above to the voice. And the

hn the will of the Deity. Eunomius outdoes Origen even, or any
Christian writer, in contending for the sacredness of names. He
makes il.e I)eity the name-giver, but with the sole object of deifying
his " U regenerate." Perhaps Basil's teaching of the human faculty
Hi l.iriVoio working under God as the name-givei is the truest state-
ment of all, a.nd harmonizes most with modern thought.
3 2 Cor. iii. 6.

cheeks, too, are aids to speech, contracting and
expanding in accordance with their structural
arrangement, or propelling the voice through a
narrow passage by various movements of the
tongue, which it effects now with one part of
itself now with another, giving hardness or soft-
ness to the sound which passes over it by con-
tact with the teeth or with the palate. Again,
the service of the lips contributes not a little to
the result, affecting the voice by the variety of
their distinctive movements, and helping to
shape the words as they are uttered.

If, then, God gives things their names as our
new expositor of the Divine record assures us,
naming germ, and grass, and tree, and fruit, He
must of necessity have pronounced each of thes^
words not otherwise than as it is pronounced ; i. e.
according to the composition of the syllables,
some of which are sounded by the lips, others
by the tongue, others by both. But if none of
these words could be uttered, except by the
operation of vocal organs producing each syllable
and sound by some appropriate movement, he
must of necessity ascribe the possession of such
organs to God, and fashion the Divine Being
according to the exigencies of speech. For
each adaptation of the vocal organs must be in
some form or other, and form is a bodily limit-
ation. Further, we know very well that all
bodies are composite, but where you see com-
position you see also dissolution, and dissolution,
as the notion impries, is the same thing as
destruction. This, then, is the upshot of our
controversialist's victory over us ; to show us the
God of his imagining whom he has fashioned
by the name ungeneracy— speaking, indeed,
that He may not lose His share in the invention
of names, but provided with vocal organs with
which to utter them, and not without bodily
nature to enable Him to employ them (for you
cannot conceive of formal utterance in the
abstract apart from a body), and gradually going
on to the congenital affections of the body-
through the composite to dissolution, and so
finding His end in destruction.

Such is the nature of this new-fangled Deity,
as deducible from the words of our new God-
maker. But he takes his stand on the Scriptures,
and maintains that Moses explicitly declares
this, when he says, "God said," adding His
words, " Let there be light," and, " Let there
be a firmament," and, " Let the waters be
gathered together . . . and let the dry land
appear," and, " Let the earth bring forth," and,
"Let the waters bring forth," and whatsoever
else is written in its order. Let us, then,
examine the meaning of what is said. Who does
not know, even if he be the merest simpleton,
that there is a natural correlation between
hearing and speech, and that, as it is impossible

ANSWER TO EUNOM1US* SECOND BOOK.

for hearing to discharge its function when no
one is speaking, so speech is ineffectual unless
directed to hearing ? If, then, he means literally
that "God said," let him tell us also to what
hearing His words were addressed. Does he
mean that He said them to Himself? If so,
the commands which He issues, He issues to
Himself. Yet who will accept this interpreta-
tion, that God sits upon His throne prescribing
what He Himself must do, and employing
Himself as His minister to do His bidding?
But even supposing one were to allow that it
was not blasphemy to say this, who has any
need of words and speech for himself, even
though a man ? For every one's own mental
action suffices him to produce choice and vo-
lition. But he will doubtless say that the
Father held converse with the Son. But what
need of vocal utterance for that ? For it is a
property of bodily nature to signify the thoughts
of the heart by means of words, whence also
written characters equivalent to speech were
invented for the expression of thought. For
we declare thought equally by speaking and by
writing, but in the case of those who are not
too far distant we reach their hearing by voice,
but declare our mind to those who are at a
distance by written characters ; and in the case
of those present with us, in proportion to their
distance from us, we raise or lower the tones of
our voice, and to those close by us we some-
times point out what they are to do simply by a
nod ; and such or such an expression of the
eye is sufficient to convey our determination, or
a movement of the hand is sufficient to signify
our approval or disapproval of something going
on. If, then, those who are encompassed by
the body are able to make known the hidden
working of their minds to their neighbours, even
without voice, or speech, or correspondence by
means of letters, and silence causes no hindrance
to the despatch of business, can it be that in
the case of the immaterial, and intangible, and,
as Eunomius says, the Supreme and first Being,
there is any need of words to indicate the
thought of the Father and to make known His
will to the Only-Begotten Son — words, which,
as he himself says, are wont to perish as soon
as they are uttered? No one, methinks, who
has common sense will accept this as the truth,
especially as all sound is poured forth into the
air. For voice cannot be produced unless it
takes consistence in air. Now, even they them-
selves must suppose some medium of com-
munication between the speaker and him to
whom he speaks. For if there were no such
medium, how could the voice travel from the
speaker to the hearer? What, then, will they
«ay is the medium or interval by which they
divide the Father from the Son? Between

bodies, indeed, there is an interval of atmospheric
space, differing in ils nature from the nature of
human bodies. But God, Who is intangible, and
without form, and pure from all composition, in
communicating His counsels with the Only-Be-
gotten Son, Who is similarly, or rather in the same
manner, immaterial and without body — if He
made His communication by voice, what medium
would He have had through which the word,
transmitted as in a current, might reach the ears
of the Only-Begotten ? For we need hardly stop
to consider that God is not separable into ap-
prehensive faculties, as we are, whose perceptions
separately apprehend their corresponding ob-
jects; e.g. sight apprehends what may be seen,
hearing what may be heard, so that touch does
not taste, and hearing has no perception of
odours and flavours, but each confines itself to
that function to which it was appointed by
nature, holding itself insensible, as it were, to
those with which it has no natural correspond-
ence, and incapable of tasting the pleasure en-
joyed by its neighbour sense. But with God it
is otherwise. All in all, He is at once sight,
and hearing, and knowledge ; and there we
stop, for it is not permitted us to ascribe the
more animal perceptions to that refined nature.
Still we take a very low view of God, and drag
down the Divine to our own grovelling standard,
if we suppose the Father speaking with His
mouth, and the Son's ear listening to His
words. What, then, are we to suppose is the
medium which conveys the Father's voice to
the hearing of the Son? It must be created
or uncreate. But we may not call it created ;
for the Word was before the creation of the
world : and beside the Divine nature there is
nothing uncreate. If, therefore, there was no
creation then, and the Word spoken of in
the cosmogony was older than creation, will
he, who maintains that speech and a voice
are meant by "the Word," suggest what
medium existed between the Father and the
Son, whereby those words and sounds were ex-
pressed ? For if a medium exist, it must needs
exist in a nature of its own, so as to differ in
nature both from the Father and the Son.
Being, then, something of necessity different, it
divides the Father and the Son from each other,
as though inserted between the two. What,
then, could it be ? Not created, for creation is
younger than the Word. Generated we have
learnt the Only-begotten (and Him alone) to be.
Except the Father, none is ungenerate. Truth,
therefore, obliges us to the conclusion that there
is no medium between the Father and the Son.
But where separation is not conceived of the
closest connection is naturally implied. And
what is so connected needs no medium for voice
or speech. Now, by " connected," I mean here

2/2

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

what is in all respects inseparable. For in the
case of a spiritual nature the term connectiondoes
not mean corporeal connection, but the union
and blending of spiritual with spiritual through
identity of will. Accordingly, there is no diverg-
ence of will between the Father and the Son,
but the image of goodness is after the Archetype
of all goodness and beauty, and as, if a man
should look at himself in a glass (for it is per-
fectly allowable to explain the idea by cor-
poreal illustrations), the copy will in all respects
be conformed to the original, the shape of the
man who is reflected being the cause of the
shape on the glass, and the reflection mak-
ing no spontaneous movement or inclination
unless commenced by the original, but, if it
move, moving along with it, — in like manner
we maintain that our Lord, the Image of the
invisible God, is immediately and inseparably
one with the Father in every movement of His
Will. If the Father will anything, the Son Who
is in the Father knows the Father's will, or
rather He is Himself the Father's will. For, if
He has in Himself all that is the Father's, there
is nothing of the Father's that He cannot have.
If, then, He has all things that are the Father's
in Himself, or, say we rather, if He has the
Father Himself, then, along with the Father
and the things that are the Father's, He must
needs have in Himself the whole of the Father's
will. He needs not, therefore, to know the
Father's will by word, being Himself the Word
of the Father, in the highest acceptation of the
term. What, then, is the word that can be
addressed to Him who is the Word indeed?
And how can He Who is the Word indeed
require a second word for instruction?

But it may be said that the voice of the Father
was addressed to the Holy Spirit. But neither
does the Holy Spirit require instruction by
speech, for being God, as saith the Apostle, He
" searcheth all things, yea the deep things of
God 4." If, then, God utters any word, and all
speech is directed to the ear, let those who main-
tain that God expresses Himself in the language
of continuous discourse, inform us what audience
He addressed. Himself He needs not address.
The Son has no need of instruction by words.
The Holy Ghost searcheth even the deep things
of God. Creation did not yet exist. To whom,
then, was God's word addressed ?

But, says he, the record of Moses does not
lie, and from it we learn that God spake. No !
nor is great David of the number of those who
lie, and he expressly says ; " The heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament
showeth His handy "work. Day unto day utter-
eth speech, and night unto night showeth know-

* i Cor. ii. 10.

ledge ; " and after saying that the heavens and
the firmament declare, and that day and that
night showeth knowledge and speech, he adds
to what he has said, that " there is neither speech
nor language, and that their voices are not
heard5." Yet how can such declaring and
showing forth be other than words, and how is
it that no voice addresses itself to the ear ? Is
the prophet contradicting himself, or is he
stating an impossibility, when he speaks of
words without sound, and declaration without
language, and announcement without voice ? or,
is there not rather the very perfection of truth
in his teaching, which tells us, in the words
which I have quoted, that the declaration of
the heavens, and the word shouted forth by the
day, is no articulate voice nor language of the
lips, but is a revelation of the power of God to
those who are capable of hearing it, even though
no voice be heard ?

What, then, do we think of this passage?'
For it may be that, if we understand it,
we shall also understand the meaning of
Moses. It often happens that Holy Scripture,
to enable us more clearly to comprehend
a matter to be revealed, makes use of a bodily
illustration, as would seem to be the case in
this passage from David, who teaches us by
what he says that none of the things which are
have their being from chance or accident, as
some have imagined that our world and all.
that is therein was framed by fortuitous and
undesigned combinations of first elements,
and that no Providence penetrated the world.
But we are taught that there is a cause of the
system and government of the Universe, on
Whom all nature depends, to Whom it owes its
origin and cause, towards Whom it inclines and
moves, and in Whom it abides. And since, as
saith the Apostle, His eternal power and god-
head are understood, being clearly seen through
the creation of the world 6, therefore all creation
and, before all, as saith the Scripture, the
system of the heavens, declare the wisdom of
the Creator in the skill displayed by His works.
And this is what it seems to me that he is
desirous to set forth, viz. the testimony of the
things which do appear to the fact that the
worlds were framed with wisdom and skill, and
abide for ever by the power of Him who is the
Ruler over all. The very heavens, he says, in
displaying the wisdom of Him Who made them,
all but shout aloud with a voice, and, though
without voice, proclaim the wisdom of their
Creator. For we can hear as it were words
teaching us : "O men, when ye gaze upon
us and behold our beauty and magnitude,
and this ceaseless revolution, with its well-

5 Ps. xix. 1—3 (LXX.).

6 Rom. i. 20.

ANSWER TO EUNOM1US' SECOND BOOK.

273

ordered and harmonious motion, working in
the same direction and in the same manner,
turn your thoughts to Him Who presides over
our system, and, by aid of the beauty which you
see, imagine to yourselves the beauty of the
invisible Archetype. For in us there is nothing
without its Lord, nothing that moves of its own
proper motion : but all that appears, or that is
conceivable in respect to us, depends on a Power
Who is inscrutable and sublime." This is not
given in articulate speech, but by the things
which are seen, and it instils into our minds the
knowledge of Divine power more than if speech
proclaimed it with a voice. As, then, the
heavens declare, though they do not speak, and
the firmament shows God's handy-work, yet
requires no voice for the purpose, and the day
uttereth speech, though there is no speaking,
and no one can say that Holy Scripture is in
error — in like manner, since both Moses and
David have one and the same Teacher, I mean
the Holy Spirit, Who says that the fiat went
before the creation, we are not told that God
is the Creator of words, but of things made
known to us by the signification of our words.
For, lest we should suppose the creation to be
without its Ford, and spontaneously originated,
He says that it was created by the Divine
Being, and that it is established in an orderly and
connected system by Him. Now it would be a
work of time to discuss the order of what Moses
didactically records in his historical summary
respecting the creation of the world. Or (if we
did) 7 each second passage would serve to prove
more clearly the erroneous and futile character
of our adversaries' opinion. But whoever cares
to do so may read what we have written on
Genesis, and judge whether our teaching or
theirs is the more reasonable.

But to return to the matter in question. We
assert that the words " He said " do not imply
voice and words on the part of God ; but the
writer, in showing 8 the power of God to be con-
current with His will, renders the idea more
easy of apprehension. For since by the will of
God all things were created, and it is the ordinary
way of men to signify their will first of all by
speech, and so to bring their work into harmony
with their will, and the scriptural account of the
Creation is the learner's introduction, as it were,
to the knowledge of God, representing to our
minds the power of the Divine Being by objects
more ready to our comprehension (for sensible
apprehension is an aid to intellectual knowledge),
on this account, Moses, by saying that God
commanded all things to be, signifies to us the

1 *H yap. Both ( 'odd. & editt. read so ; as Oehler testifies, though
he has'H yap.

8 Reading ano<j>aCvwv as referri g to Moses, with Oehler, instead
of the onjecture of John the Franciscan anttxfraivovaa . in the Paris
edit. Even the Pithcean has attofyaiviov.

VOL. V.

inciting power of His will, and by adding, "and
it was so," he shows that in the case of God
there is no difference between will and per-
formance ; but, on the contrary, that though the
purposing initiates ( lod's activity, the accomplish-
ment keeps pace with the purpose, and that the
two are to be considered together and at on< e,
viz. the deliberate motion of the mind, and the
power that effects its purpose. For the idea of
the Divine purpose and action leaves no con-
ceivable interval between them, but as light is
produced along with the kindling of fire, at once
coming out from it and shining forth along with
it— in the same manner the existence of things
created is an effect of the Divine will, but not
posterior to it in time.

For the case is different from that of m< n
endowed by nature with practical ability, where
you may look at capability and execution apart
from each other. For example, we say of
a man who possesses the art of shipbuilding,
that he is always a shipbuilder in respect of
his ability to build ships, but that he operates
only when he displays his skill in working.
It is otherwise with God; for all that we can
conceive as in Him is entirely work and
action, His will passing over immediately to its
object. As, then, the mechanism of the heavens
testifies to the glory of their Creator and con-
fesses Him Who made them, and needs no voice
for the purpose, so on the other hand any one
who is acquainted with the Mosaic Scripture
will see that God speaks of the world as His
creation, having brought the whole into being by
the fiat of His will, and that He needs no words
to make known His mind. As, then, he who
heard the heavens declaring the glory of God
looked not for set speech on the occasion
(for, to those who can understand it, the
universe speaks through the things which are
being done, without regard or care for verbal
explanation), so, even if any one hears Moses
telling how God gave order and arrangement to
each several part of Creation by name, let him
not suppose the prophet to speak falsely, nor
degrade the contemplation of sublime verities
by mean and grovelling notions, thus, as it were,
reducing God to a mere human standard, and
supposing that after the manner of men he
directs His operations by the instrumentality of
speech; but let His fiat mean His will only, and
let the names of those created things denote
the mere reality of their coming into being.
And thus he will learn these two things from
what is recorded : (1) That God made all things
by His will, and (2) that without any trouble or
difficulty the Divine Will became nature.

But if any one would give a more sensuous in-
terpretation to. the words "God said," as proving
that articulate speech was His creation, by a

274

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

parity of reason he must understand by the words
" God saw," that He did so by faculties of per-
ception like our own, through the organs of
vision ; and so again by the words " The Lord
heard me and had mercy upon me," and again,
" He smelled a sweet savour %" and whatever
other sensuous expressions are employed by
Scripture in reference to head, or foot, or hand,
or eyes, or fingers, or sandals, as appertaining to
God, taking them, I say, in their plain literal
acceptation, he will present to us an anthropo-
morphous deity, after the similitude of what is
seen among ourselves. But if any one hearing
that the heavens are the work of His fingers,
that He has a strong hand, and a mighty arm,
and eyes, and feet, and sandals, deduces from
such words ideas worthy of God, and does not
degrade the idea of His pure nature by carnal
and sensuous imaginations, it will follow that on
the one hand he will regard the verbal utterances
as indications of the Divine will, but on the
other He will not conceive of them as articulate
sounds, but will reason thus ; that the Creator
of human reason has gifted us with speech pro-
portionally to the capacity of our nature, so that
we might be able thereby to signify the thoughts
of our minds ; but that, so far as the Divine nature
differs from ours, so great will be the degree of
difference between our notions respecting it and
its own inherent majesty and godhead. And
as our power compared with God's, and our life
with His life, is as nothing, and all else that is
ours, compared with what is in Him, is " as
nothing in comparison1" with Him, as saith the
inspired Teaching, so also our word as compared
with Him, Who is the Word indeed, is as no-
thing2. For this word of yours was not in the
beginning, but was created along with our
nature, noi is it to be regarded as having any
reality of its own, but, as our master (Basil)
somewhere has said, it vanishes along with
the sound of the voice, nor is any operation of
the word discernible, but it has its subsistence
in voice only, or in written characters. But
the word of God is God Himself, the Word
that was in the beginning and that abideth
for ever, through Whom all things were and
are, Who ruleth over all, and hath all power
over the things in heaven and the things on
earth, being Life, and Truth, and Righteous-
ness, and Light, and all that is good, and up-
holding all things in being. Such, then, and so
great being the word, as we understand it, of
God, our opponent allows God, as some great
thing, the power of language, made up of nouns,
verbs, and conjunctions, not perceiving that, as

' Ps. xxk. io(LXX.). Gen. viii. 21.

' Pi, vxxix. 5.

1 Or. Cat. c. i. "For since our nature is liable to corruption,
and weak, thrrefore is our liie short, our strength unsubstantial, our
word unstable annyii'i) ; " and jtr nute.

He Who conferred practical powers on our nature
is not spoken of as fabricating each of their
several results, but, while He gave our nature its
ability, it is by us that a house is constructed,
or a bench, or a sword, or a plough, and what-
soever thing our life happens to be in need of,
each of which things is our own work, although
it may be ascribed to Him Who is the author of
our being, and Who created our nature capable
of every science, — so also our power of speech
is the work of Him Who made our nature what
it is, but the invention of each several term
required to denote objects in hand is of our
own devising. And this is proved by the fact
that many terms in use are of a base and un-
seemly character, of which no man of sense
would conceive God the inventor : so that, if
certain of our familiar expressions are ascribed
by Holy Scripture to God as the speaker, we
should remember that the Holy Spirit is addres-
sing us in language of our own, as e. g. in the
history of the Acts we are told that >*ach man
received the teaching of the disciples in his own
language wherein he was born, understanding
the sense of the words by the language which
he knew. And, that this is true, may be seen
yet more clearly by a careful examination *. f the
enactments of the Levitical law. For they make
mention of pans, and cakes, and fine flour ~,
and the like, in the mystic sacrifices, instilling
wholesome doctnr.e under the veil of symbol
and enigma. Mention, too, is made of certain
measures then in use, such as ephah, and nebel \
and hin, and the like. Are we, then, to suppose
that God made these names and appellations.
or that in the beginning He commanded thern
to be such, and to be so named, calling one
kind of grain wheat, and its pith flour, and flat
sweetmeats, w nether heavy vt light, cakes ; and
that He commanded a vessel of the kind in
which a moist lump is boiled or baked to be
called a pan, or that He spoke of a certain liquid
measure by the name of hin or nebel, and
measured dry produce by the homer? surely it
is trifling and mere Jewish folly, far removed
from the grandeur of Christian simplicity, to
think that God, Who is the Most High and above
every name and thought, Who by sole virtue of
His will governs the world, which He brought
into existence, and upholds it in being, should
set Himself like some schoolmaster to settle the
niceties of terminology. Rather let us say, that
as we indicate to the deaf what we want them
to do, by gestures and signs, not because we
have no voice of our own, but because a verbal

3 Lev. ii. 5, seoq.

4 Nebel is denned by Epiphanius de pond, et mens. c. 24, as
follows, Ne/3tA oi^ou, on-ep cori fj.4rpov fecrTw p V. (150 pints). The
word is merely a transcription of the Hebrew for a skin. i.e. wine-
skin, " bottle." Cf. Hosea iii. 2, ve'^eA olvov (LXX.) : Sytnmachiik
has do-icos.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

275

communication would be utterly useless to those
who cannot hear, so, inasmuch as human nature
is in a sense deaf and insensible to higher
truths, we maintain that the grace of God at
sundry times and in divers manners spake by
the Prophets, ordering their voices conformably
to our capacity and the modes of expression with
which we are familiar, and that by such means
it leads us, as with a guiding hand, to the know-
ledge of higher truths, not teaching us in terms
proportioned to their inherent sublimity, (for
how can the great be contained by the little ?)
but descending to the lower level of our limited
comprehension. And as God, after giving
animals their power of motion, no longer pre-
scribes each step they take, for their nature,
having once for all taken its beginning from the
Creator, moves of itself, and makes its way,
adapting its power of motion to its object from
time to time (except in so far as it is said that a
man's steps are directed by the Lord), so our
nature, having received from God the power of
speech and utterance and of expressing the will
by the voice, proceeds on its way through things,
giving them distinctive names by varying in-
flections of sound ; and these signs are the verbs
and nouns which we use, and through which we
signify the meaning of the things. And though
the word " fruit " is made use of by Moses before
the creation of fruit, and " seed " before that of
seed, this does not disprove our assertion, nor
is the sense of the lawgiver opposed to what
we have said in respect to thought and concep-
tion. For that end of past husbandry which we
speak of as fruit, and that beginning of future
husbandry which we speak of as seed, this thing,
I mean, underlying these names, — whether
wheat or some other produce which is increased
and multiplied by sowing — does not, he teaches
us, grow spontaneously, but by the will of Him
Who created them to grow with their peculiar
power, so as to be the same fruit and to repro-
duce themselves as seed, and to support mankind
with their increase. And by the Divine will the
thing is produced, not the name, so that the
substantial things js the work of the Creator, but
the distinguishing names of things, by which
speech furnishes us with a clear and accurate
description of them, are the work and the in-
vention of man's reasoning faculty, though the
reasoning faculty itself and its nature are a work
of God. And since all men are endowed with
reason, differences of language will of necessity
be found according to differences of country.

5 Here is he answer to Eunomius' contention above (p. 270), that
"in the earliest of the sacred records before the creation of man,
the naming of fruit and seed are mentioned in Holy Writ." He
calls Kasil, for not observing this, a pagan and atheist. So below
he calls him a follower of Valentinus, "a sower of tares," for making
the human faculty (hnivoi'^ the maKer of names, even of those of the
Only-begotten : apparently, as Valentinus multiplied the names of
Christ.

But if any one maintain that light, or heaven,
or earth, or seed were named after human fashion
by God, he will certainly conclude that they were
named in some special language. What that
was, let him show. For he who knows the one
thing will not, in all probability, be ignorant of
the other. For at the river Jordan, after the
descent of the Holy Ghost, and again in the
hearing of the Jews, and at the Transfigur-
ation, there came a voice from heaven, teach-
ing men not only to regard the phenomenon
as something more than a figure, but also to
believe the beloved Son of God to be truly
God. Now that voice was fashioned by God,
suitably to the understanding of the hearers, in
airy substance, and adapted to the language of
the day, God, "who willeth that all men should
be saved and come to the knowledge of the
truth6," having so articulated His words in the
air with a view to the salvation of the hearers,
as our Lord also saith to the Jews, when they
thought it thundered because the sound took
place in the air. " This voice came not because
of Me, but for your sakes7." But before the
creation of the world, inasmuch as there was no
one to hear the word, and no bodily element
capable of accentuating the articulate voice, how
can he who says that God used words give any
air of probability to his assertion ? God Him-
self is without body, creation did not yet exist.
Reason does not suffer us to conceive of any-
thing material in respect to Him. They who
might have been benefited by the hearing were
not yet created. And if men were not yet in
being, neither had any form of language been
struck out in accordance with national peculi-
arities, by what arguments, then, can he who looks
to the bare letter make good his assertion, that
God spoke thus using human parts of speech ?

And the futility of such assertions may
be seen also by this. For as the natures
of the elements, which are the work of the
Creator, appear alike to all, and there is no
difference to human sense in men's experience
of fire, or air, or water, but the nature of each is
one and unchanging, working in the same way,
and suffering no modification from the differ-
ences of those who partake of it, so also the
imposition of names, if applied to things by
God, would have been the same for all. But,
in point of fact, while the nature of things as
constituted by God remains the same, the names
which denote them are divided by so many
differences of language, that it were no easy task
even to calculate their number.

And if any one cites the confusion of tongues
that took place at the building of the tower, &s\
contradicting what I have said, not even there

6 1 Tim. ii. 4

' S. John xii. 30.

T 2

276

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

is God spoken of as creating men's languages,
but as confounding the existing one8, that
all might not hear all. For when all lived
together and were not as yet divided by various
differences of race, the aggregate of men dwelt
together with one language among them; but
when by the Divine will it was decreed that all
the earth should be replenished by mankind,
then, their community of tongue being broken
up, men were dispersed in various directions
and adopted this and that form of speech and
language, possessing a certain bond of union in
similarity of tongue, not indeed disagreeing
from others in their knowledge of things, but
differing in the character of their names. For
a stone or a stick does not seem one thing to
one man and another to another, but the different
peoples call them by different names. So that
our position remains unshaken, that human
language is the invention of the human mind or
understanding. For from the beginning, as
long as all men had the same language, we see
from Holy Scripture that men received no
teaching of God's words, nor, when men were
separated into various differences of language,
did a Divine enactment prescribe how each man
should talk. But God, willing that men should
speak different languages, gave human nature
full liberty to formulate arbitrary sounds, so as
to render their meaning more intelligible. Ac-
cordingly, Moses, who lived many generations
after the building of the tower, uses one of
the subsequent languages in his historical nar-
rative of the creation, and attributes certain
words to God, relating these things in his own
tongue in which he had been brought up, and
with which he was familiar, not changing the
names for God by foreign peculiarities and
turns of speech, in order by the strangeness and
novelty of the expressions to prove them the
words of God Himself 9.

But some who have carefully studied the
Scriptures tell us that the Hebrew tongue is not
even ancient IO like the others, but that along with
other miracles this miracle was wrought in be-
half of the Israelites, that after the Exodus from
Egypt, the language was hastily improvised *

8 Gen. xi. 7. 9 A hit at Eunomius.

10 ixr\iS ■ ap\ai((iv : therefore, if they are not the Divine language,
a fortiori 'us is not. The word cannot possibly mean here "to
grow obsolete."

1 hastily improvised. But Origen, c. Celsum iii. 6, says —
" Cclsiis has not shewn himself a just critic of the differing accounts
of the Egyptians and the Jews. . . . He does not see that it was
not possible for so large a number of rebellious Egyptians, after
starting off in this way, to have changed their language at the very
moment of their insurrection, and so become a separate nation, so
tli t those who one day spoke Egyptian suddenly spoke a complete
Hi brew dialect. Allow for a moment that when they left Egypt
tbey rejected also theil mothei tongue ; how was it that, then
they did not adopt the Syrian or Phoenician, but the Hebrew m nil h
was so different from both these? . . . For the Hebrew had been
their national language before they went down into Egypt : " And,
i. 16 — " I wonder h can admit the Odrysi igst the

' ancient as well ;r the wisest people, but will admit the Jews
into neither, notwithstanding that there are many books in Egypt

for the use of the nation. And there is a 2 pas-
sage in the Prophet which confirms this. Iror
he says, "when he came out of the land of
Egypt he heard a strange languages." If, then,
Moses was a Hebrew, and the language of the
Hebrews was subsequent to the others, Moses,
I say, who was born some thousands of years
after the Creation of the world, and who relates
the words of God in his own language — does he
not clearly teach us that he does not attribute
to God such a language of human fashion, but
that he speaks as he does because it was im-
possible otherwise than in human language to
express his meaning, though the words he uses
have some Divine and profound significance ?

For to suppose that God used the Hebrew
tongue, when there was no one to hear and
understand such a language, methinks no reason-
able being will consent. We read in the Acts
that the Divine power divided itself into many
languages for this purpose, that no one of alien
tongue might lose his share of the benefit. But
if God spoke in human language before the
Creation, whom was He to benefit by using it ?
For that His speech should have some adapt-
ation to the capacity of the hearers, with a view
to their profit, no one would conceive to be
unworthy of God's love to man, for Paul the
follower of Christ knew how to adapt his words
suitably to the habits and disposition of his
hearers, making himself milk for babes and
strong meat for grown men4. But where no
object was to be gained by such use of language,
to argue that God, as it were, declaimed such
words by Himself, when there was no one in
need of the information they would convey —
such an idea, methinks, is at once both blas-
phemous and absurd. Neither, then, did God
speak in the Hebrew language, nor did He
express Himself according to any form in use
among the Gentiles. But whatsoever of God's
words are recorded by Moses or the Prophets,
are indications of the Divine will, flashing forth,
now in one way, now in another, on the pure
intellect of those holy men, according to the
measure of the grace of which they were partakers.
Moses, then, spoke his mother-tongue, and that
in which he was educated. But he attributed
these words to God, as I have said, repeatedly,

and Phoenicia and Greece which testify to their antiquity. Any
one who likes can read Flavins Josephus' two books on the an-
tiquity of the Jews, where he makes a large collection of writers
who witness to this." And yet, iii. 7, he goes on to say (what
Gregory is here alluding to) that while any way the Hebrew
language was never Egyptian, "yet if we look deeper, we might
t possible to say in the case of the Exodus that there was a
miracle : viz. the whole mass of the Hebrew people receiving a
language ; that such language was the gift of God, as one of their
own prophets has expressed it, ' when he came out of Egypt, he
heard a strange language.' "

2 xai Tts. This reading (and not the interrogative ti's, as Oehler)
is required by the context, where Gregory actually favours this

v of the lateness of the Hebrew t llgue : and is confirmed by
Gretser's Latin, " Et nescio quis Prophet;e sermo."

3 Ps. lxxxi. 5. 4 Heb. v- 12.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

277

on account of the childishness of those who were
being brought to the knowledge of God, in order
to give a clear representation of the Divine will,
and to render his hearers more obedient, as
being awed by the authority of the speaker.

But this is denied by Eunomius, the author
of all this contumely with which we are as-
sailed, and the companion and adviser of
this impious band. For, changing insolence
into courtesy, I will present him with his own
words. He maintains, in so many words, that
he has the testimony of Moses himself to his
assertion that men were endowed with the use
of the things named, and of their names, by the
Creator of nature, and that the naming of the
things given was prior in time to the creation of
those who should use them. Now, if he is in
possession of some Moses of his own, from
whom he has learned this wisdom, and, making
this his base of operations, relies on such state-
ments as these, viz. that God, as he himself
says, lays down the laws of human speech,
enacting that things shall be called in one way
and not in another, let him trifle as much as he
pleases, with his Moses in the background to
support his assertions. But if there is only one
Moses whose writings are the common source
of instruction to those who are learned in the
Divine Word, we will freely accept our condem-
nation if we find ourselves refuted by the law of
that Moses. But where did he find this law re-
specting verbs and nouns ? Let him produce it
in the very words of the text. The account of
the Creation, and the genealogy of the succes-
sive generations, and the history of certain
events, and the complex system of legislation,
and various regulations in regard to religious
service and daily life, these are the chief heads
of the writings of Moses. But, if he says that
there was any legislative enactment in regard to
words, let him point it out, and I will hold my
tongue. But he cannot ; for, if he could, he
would not abandon the more striking evidences
of the Deity, for such as can only procure him
ridicule, and not credit, from men of sense. For
to think it the essential point in piety to attribute
the invention of words to God, Whose praise
the whole world and the wonders that are therein
are incompetent to celebrate — must it not be a
proceeding of extreme folly so to neglect higher
grounds of praise, and to magnify God on such
as are purely human ? His fiat preluded Creation,
but it was recorded by Moses after human
fashion, though Divinely issued. That will of
God. then, which brought about the creation of
the world by His Divine power, consisted, says
our careful student of the Scriptures, in the
teaching of words. And as though God had
said, " Let there be a word," or, " Let speech
be created," or, " Let this or that have such or

such an appellation," so, in advocacy of his
trifling, he brings forward the fact that it wi.s by
the impulse of the Divine will that Creation
took place. For with all his study and experi-
ence in the Scriptures he knows not even this,
that the impulse of the mind is frequently spoken
of in Scripture as a voice. And for this we have
the evidence of Moses himself, whose meaning
he frequently perverts, but whom on this point
he simply ignores. For who is there, however
slightly acquainted with the holy volume, who
does not know this, that the people of Israel
who had just escaped5 from Egypt were suddenly
affrighted in the wilderness by the pursuit of
the Egyptians, and when dangers encompassed
them on all sides, and on one side the sea cut
off their passage as by a wall, while the enemy
barred their flight in the rear, the people coming
together to the Prophet charged him with being
the cause of their helpless condition ? And
when he comforted them in their abject terror,
and roused them to courage, a voice came from
God, addressing the Prophet by name, " Where-
fore criest thou unto Me?6" And yet before
this the narrative makes no mention of any
utterance on the part of Moses. But the thought
which the Prophet had lifted up to God is called
a cry, though uttered in silence in the hidden
thought of his heart. If, then, Moses cries,
though without speaking, as witnessed by Him
Who hears, those "groanings which cannot be
uttered 7," is it strange that the Prophet, knowing
the Divine will, so far as it was lawful for him
to tell it and for us to hear it, revealed it by
known and familiar words, describing God's dis-
course after human fashion, not indeed expressed
in words, but signified by the effects themselves ?
"In the beginning," he says, "God created,"
not the names of heaven and earth, but, " the
heaven and the earth8." And again, "God
said, Let there be light," not the name Light :
and having divided the light from the darkness,
" God called," he says, " the light Day, and the
darkness He called Night."

On these passages it is probable that our
opponents will take their stand. And I will
agree for them with what is said, and will
myself take advantage of their positions 9
further on in our inquiry, in order that what
we teach may be more firmly established, no

5 anoSpavTes . So also the Paris editt. The Munich MS. has
a.TroSpd<ravr€<;, which form of the aorist is not found at all in classic
Greek, and is only used, as Oehler notices, by Epiphanius (e. g.
Panar. liv. i ; Ixviii 4) and a few other writers of a debased style.

6 Exod. xiv. 15. 7 Rom. viii. 26. 8 Gen. i. 1, sqq.

9 to. 7rapaTe#ei/Ta Trap' eKtiVtoi' avdvitoicvti). He does this below.
" And we will return to his argument that even thence we may
muster reinforcements for the Truth." Gregory there goes on to
show that Eunomius, who attacks the doctrine that the names of
God are the result of Conception, and makes their Scriptural use
a proof that they are God's own direct teaching, himself seeks
to overthrow this doctrine by means of the term Ungenerate,
which is not in Scripture : hence, by his own showii g, this theory
about the Scripture names is not true. The above is the reading of
the Munich MS. : Oehler has the vox nihili napcOiVTa.

278

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

point in controversy being left without due ex-
amination. " God called," he says, " the firm-
ament Heaven, and He called the dry land
Earth, and the light Day, and the darkness He
called Night." How comes it, then, they will
ask, when the Scripture admits that their appel-
lations were given them by God, that you say
that their names are the work of human inven-
tion ? What, then, is our reply ? We return to
our plain statement, and we assert, that He Who
brought all creation into being out of nothing is
the Creator of things seen in substantial exist-
ence, not of unsubstantial words having no
existence but in the sound of the voice and the
lisp of the tongue. But things are named by
the indication of the voice in conformity with
the nature and qualities inherent in each, the
names being adapted to the things according to
the vernacular language of each several race.

But since the nature of most things that are
seen in Creation is not simple, so as to allow of
all that they connote being comprehended in
one word, as, for instance, in the case of fire,
the element itself is one thing in its nature,
while the word which denotes it is another (for
fire itself possesses the qualities of shining, of
burning, of drying and heating, and consuming
whatever fuel it lays hold of, but the name is
but a brief word of one syllable), on this account
speech, which distinguishes the powers and
qualities seen in fire, gives each of them a name
of its own, as I have said before. And one
cannot say that only a name has been given to
fire when it is spoken of as bright, or consuming,
or any'l.ing else that we observe it to be. For
such words denote qualities physically inherent
in it. So likewise, in the case of heaven and
the firmament, though one nature is signified by
each of these words, their difference represents
one or other of its peculiar characteristics, in
looking at which we learn one thing by the
appellation "heaven," and another by "firma-
ment." For when speech would define the
limit of sensible creation, beyond which it is
succeeded by the transmundane void appre-
hended by the mind alone, in contrast with the
intangible and incorporeal and invisible, the
beginning and the end of all material subsist-
ences is called the firmament. And when we
survey the environment of terrestrial things, we
call that which encompasses all material nature,
and which forms the boundary of all things visible,
by the name of heaven. In the same manner
with regard to earth and dry land, since all
heavy and downward-tending nature was divided
into these two elements, earth and water, the
p Mat ion "dry" defines to a certain extent its
opposite, for earth is railed dry in opposition to
moist, since having thrown off, by Divine com
mand, the water that overspread it, it appeared

in its own character. But the name "earth"
does not continue to express the signification of
some one only of its qualities, but, by virtue of its
meaning, it embraces all that the word connotes,
e. g. hardness, density, weight, resistance, capa-
bility of supporting animal and vegetable life.
Accordingly, the word " dry " was not changed
by speech to the last name put upon it (for its
new name did not make it cease to be called
so), but while both the appellations remained, a
peculiar signification attached itself to each, the
one distinguishing it in nature and property
from its opposite, the other embracing all its
attributes collectively. And so in light and
day, and again in night and darkness, we do
not find a pronunciation of syllables created to
suit them by the Maker of all things, but rathei
through these appellations we note the substance
of the things which they signify. At the entrance
of light, by the will of God the darkness that
prevailed over the earliest creation is scattered.
But the earth lying in the midst, and being
upheld on all sides by its surrounding of different
elements, as Job saith, " He hangeth the earth
upon nothing IO," it was necessary when light
travelled over one side and the earth obstructed
it on the opposite by its own bulk, that a side
of darkness should be left by the obscuration,
and so, as the perpetual motion of the heavens
cannot but carry along with it the darkness
resulting from the obscuration, God ordained
this revolution for a measure of duration of
time. And that measure is day and night
For this reason Moses, according to his wisdom,
in his historical elucidation of these matters,
named the shadow resulting from the earth's
obstruction, a dividing of the light from the
darkness, and the constant and measured alter-
nation of light and darkness over the surface of
the earth he called day and night. So that
what was called light was not named day, but
as " there was light," and not the bare name of
light, so the measure of time also was created
and the name followed, not created by God in
a sound of words, but because the very nature
of the thing assumed this vocal notation. And
as, if it had been plainly said by the Lawgiver
that nothing that is seen or named is of spon-
taneous generation or unfashioned, but that it
has its subsistence from God, we might have
concluded of ourselves that God made the world
and all its parts, and the order which is seen in
them, and the faculty of distinguishing them,
so also by what he says he leads us on to under-
stand and believe that nothing which exists is
without beginning. And with this view he
describes the successive events of Creation in
orderly method, enumerating them one after

10 Job xxvi. 7.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

279

another. But it was impossible to represent
them in language, except by expressing their
signification by words that should indicate it.
Since, then, it is written that God called the
light day, it must be understood that God
made the day from light, being something dif-
ferent, by the force of the term. Pbr you can-
not apply the same definition to " light " and
" day," but light is what we understand by the
opposite of darkness, and day is the extent of
the measure of the interval of light. In the
same way you may regard night and darkness
by the same difference of description, defining
darkness as the negation of light, and calling
night the extent of the encompassing darkness.
Thus in every way our argument is confirmed,
though not, perhaps, drawn out in strict logical
form — showing that God is the Maker of things,
not of empty words. For things have their
names not for His sake but for ours. For as
we cannot always have all things before our eyes,
we take knowledge of some of the things that
are present with us from time to time, and others
we register in our memories. But it would be
impossible to keep memory unconfused unless
we had the notation of words to distinguish the
things that are stored up in our minds from one
another. But to God all things are present,
nor does He need memory, all things being
within the range of His penetrating vision.
What need, then, in His case, of parts of speech,
when His own wisdom and power embraces
and holds the nature of all things distinct and
unconfused? Wherefore all things that exist
substantially are from God ; but, for our guid-
ance, all things that exist are provided with
names to indicate them. And if any one say
that such names were imposed by the arbitrary
usage of mankind, he will be guilty of no offence
against the scheme of Divine Providence. For
we do not say that the nature of things was of
human invention, but only their names. The
Hebrew calls Heaven by one name, the Canaan-
ite by another, but both of them understand it
alike, being in no way led into error by the
difference of the sounds that convey the idea of
the object. But the over-cautious and timid
will-worship of these clever folk, on whose
authority he asserts that, if it were granted that
words were given to things by men, men would
be of higher authority than God, is proved to
be unsubstantial even by the example which we
find recorded of Moses. For who gave Moses
his name ? Was it not Pharaoh's daughter who
named him from what had happened " ? For
water is called Moses in the language of the
Egyptians. Since, then, in consequence of the
tyrant's order, his parents had placed the babe

11 Exod. ii. 10.

in an ark and consigned it to the stream (for so
some related concerning him), but by the will
of God the ark was floated by the current and
carried to the bank, and found by the princess,
who happened just then to be taking the re-
freshment of the bath, as the child had been
gained "from the water," she is said to have
given him his name as a memorial of the oc-
currence,— a name by which God Himself did
not disdain to address His servant, nor did He
deem it beneath Him to allow the name given
by the foreign woman to remain the Prophet's
proper appellation.

In like manner before him Jacob, having
taken hold of his brother's heel, was called a
supplanter *, from the attitude in which he came
to the birth. For those who are learned in
such matters tell us that such is the interpreta-
tion of the word "Jacob," as translated into
Greek. So, too, Pharez was so named by his
nurse from the incident at his birth 2, yet no
one on that account, like Eunomius, displayed
any jealousy of his assuming an authority above
that of God. Moreover the mothers of the
patriarchs gave them their names, as Reuben,
and Simeon, and Levi 3, and all those who
came after them. And no one started up, like
our new author, as patron of Divine provid-
ence, to forbid women to usurp Divine authority
by the imposition of names. And what shall
we say of other particulars in the sacred record,
such as the " waters of strife," and the " place
of mourning," and the "hill of the foreskins,"
and the " valley of the cluster," and the " field
of blood," and such-like names, of human im-
posing, but oftentimes recorded to have been
uttered by the Person of God, from which we
may learn that men may notify the meaning of
things by words without presumption, and that
the Divine nature does not depend on words
for its evidence to itself?

But I will pass over his other babblings
against the truth, possessing as they do no force
against our doctrines, for I deem it superfluous
to linger any longer over such absurdities. For
who can be so wanting in the more important
subjects of thought as to waste energy on silly
arguments, and to contend with men who speak
of us as asserting that " man's forethought is of
superior weight and authority to God's guardian-
ship," and that we "ascribe the carelessness
which confuses the feebler minds to the pro-
vidence of God"? These are the exact words
of our calumniator. But I, for my part, think
it equally as absurd to pay attention to re-
marks like that, as to occupy myself with old
wives' dreams. For to think of securing the
dignity of rule and sovereignty to the Divine

1 Gen. xxv. 26.

Gen. xxxviii. 29. 3 Gen. xxix. 32 — 35.

2 SO

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

Being by a form of words, and to show the
great power of God to be dependent upon this,
and on the other hand to neglect Him and
disregard the providence which belongs to Him,
and to lay it to our reproach that men, having
received from God the faculty of reason, make
an arbitrary use of words to signify things —
what is this but an old wife's fable, or a
drunkard's dream? For the true power, and
authority, and dominion, and sovereignty of God
do not, we think, consist in syllables. Were it
so, any and every inventor of words might claim
equal honour with God. But the infinite ages,
and the beauties of the universe, and the beams
of the heavenly luminaries, and all the wonders
of land and sea, and the angelic hosts and supra-
mundane powers, and whatever else there is
whose existence in the realm above is revealed
to us under various figures by Holy Scripture—
these are the things that bear witness to God's
power over all. Whereas, to attribute the in-
vention of vocal sound to those who are natur-
ally endowed with the faculty of speech, this
involves no impiety towards Him Who gave
them their voice. Nor indeed do we hold it to
be a great thing to invent words significative of
things. For the being to whom Holy Scripture
in the history of the creation gave the name of
" man * " (artipunoc;), a word of human devising,
that same being Job calls " mortal 5 " (/fyoroc),
while of profane writers, some call him "human
being " (<pwe), and others " articulate speaker "
(v(po4/) — to say nothing of other varieties of the
name. Do we, then, elevate them to equal
honour with God, because they also invented
names equivalent to that of " man," alike signi-
fying their subject. But, as I have said before,
let us leave this idle talk, and make no account
of his string of revilings, in which he charges
us with lying against the Divine oracles, and utter-
ing slanders with effrontery even against God.

To pass on, then, to what remains. He
brings forward once more some of the Master's
words, to this effect : " And it is in precisely
the same manner that we are taught by Holy
Scripture the employment of a conception.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, when declaring to men
the nature of His Godhead, explains it by
certain special characteristics, calling Himself
the Door, the Bread, the Way, the Vine, the
Shepherd, the Light." Now I think it seemly
to pass over his insolent remarks on these
words (for it is thus that his rhetorical training
has taught him to contend with his opponents),
nor will I suffer myself to be disturbed by his
ebullitions of childish folly. Let us, however,
examine one pungent and "irresistible" argu-
ment which he puts forward tor our refutation.

4 Gen. i. 26 5 Job xiv. i. f}poTO<; yap ytKi^TO?

yvVOlKOS, oAiyujSiot Kai TrArjpj)'; opyTJ?-

Which of the sacred writers, he asks, gives evi-
dence that these names were attributed to our
Lord by a conception ? But which of them, I
reply, forbids it, deeming it a blasphemy to
regard such names as the result of a concep-
tion ? For if he maintains that its not beinc
mentioned is a proof that it is forbidden, by a
parity of reasoning he must admit that its not
being forbidden is an argument that it is per-
mitted. Is our Lord called by these names, or
does Eunomius deny this also ? If he does deny
that these names are spoken of Christ, we have
conquered without a battle. For what more
signal victory could there be, than to prove our
adversary to be fighting against God, by rob-
bing the sacred words of the Gospel of their
meaning ? But if he admits that it is true that
Christ is named by these names, let him say
in what manner they may be applied without
irreverence to the Only-begotten Son of God.
Does he take " the stone " as indicative of His
nature? Does he understand His essence
under the figure of the Axe (not to encumber
our argument by enumerating the rest) ? None
of these names represents the nature of the
Only-begotten, or His Godhead, or the peculiar
character of His essence. Nevertheless He is
called by these names, and each appellation
has its own special fitness. For we cannot,
without irreverence, suppose anything in the
words of God to be idle and unmeaning. Let
him say, then, if he disallows these names as
the result of a conception, how do they apply
to Christ ? For we on our part say this, that
as our Lord provided for human life in various
forms, each variety of His beneficence is suit-
ably distinguished by His several names, His
provident care and working on our behalf pass-
ing over into the mould of a name. And
such a name is said by us to be arrived at by
a conception. But if this is not agreeable to
our opponents, let it be as each of them pleases.
In his ignorance, however, of the figures of
Scripture, our opponent contradicts what is
said. For if he had learned the Divine names,
he must have known that our Lord is called a
Curse and Sin 6, and a Heifer ?, and a lion's
Whelp 8, and a Bear bereaved of her whelps 9,
and a Leopard *, and such-like names, accord-
ing to various modes of conception, by Holy
Scripture, the sacred and inspired writers by
such names, as by well-directed shafts, indicat-
ing the central point of the idea they had in
view ; even though these words, when taken in
their literal and obvious signification, seem not
above suspicion, but each single one of them,
unless we allow it to be predicated of God by
some process of conception, will not escape the

6 Gal. iii. 13. 7 Heb. ix. i-\.

9 Hosea xiii. 3

8 Gen. xl.x. 9.
1 Hosea xiii. 7.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

281

taint of a blasphemous suggestion. But it

would be a lengthy task to bring them forward,
and elucidate in every case how, in the general
1 lea, these words have been perverted2 out of
their obvious meanings, and how it is only in
connection with the conceptive faculty that the
names of God can be reconciled with that
reverence which is His due.

But to return. Such names are used of our
Lord, and no one familiar with the inspired
Scriptures can deny the fact. What then ?
Does Eunomius affirm that the words are indi-
cative of His nature itself? If so, he asserts
that the Divine nature is multiform, and that
the variety which it displays in what is signified
by the names is very complex. For the mean-
ings of the words Bread and Lion are not the
same, nor those of Axe and Water 3, but to
each of them we can assign a definition of its
own, of which the others do not partake. They
do not, therefore, signify nature or essence, yet
no one will presume to say that this nomen-
clature is quite inappropriate and unmeaning.
If, then, these words are given us, but not as
indicative of essence, and every word given in
Scripture is just and appropriate, how else can
these appellations be fitly applied to the Only-
begotten Son of God, except in connection with
the faculty of conception ? For it is clear that
the Divine Being is spoken of under various
names, according to the variety of His opera-
tions, so that we may think of Him in the aspect
so named. What harm, then, is done to our
reverential ideas of God by this mental opera-
tion, instituted with a view to our thinking upon
the things done, and which we call conception,
though if any one choose to call it by some
other name, we shall make no objection.

But, like a mighty wrestler, he will not relin-
quish his irresistible hold on us, and affirms in
so many words, that " these names are the work
of human thought and conception, and that, by
the exercise of this operation of the mind by
some, results are arrived at which no Apostle or
Evangelist has taught." And after this doughty
onslaught he raises that sanctimonious voice of
his, spitting out his foul abuse at us with a tongue
well schooled to such language. " For," says
he, " to ascribe homonyms, drawn from analogy,
to human thought and conception is the work
of a mind that has lost all judicial sense, and
that studies the words of the Lord with an en-

2 Sia/3e/3A»)Tai. The Latin, " vulgo usurpata sunt," misses the
force of the Greek. Or " are disliked because of their obvious
meaning." Cf. above "even though these words . . seem

not above suspicion (8(.a£t/3Arjo0ai SoKel)." For this use of Sia-
/3aAAe<rflai (to be brought into suspicion or odium1, cf Origen c.
Cels. iii. 58, Sia.fi( fi\r)ixevu> 7rpb? aperqv Kal Ka\oKa.ya0iav, i. e. " who
lias quite broken with virtue and decency?" and vi. 42, where
Celsus blasphemously says, that " the Son of God ought to have
himself punished the Devil, rather than frighten with his threats
that mankind which had been dragged into the quarrel by himself"
(tois vn' avTov 6ia/3e/3Ar)jj.eKKS 6.v6punroi<;) ; a passage quite missed
in the Latin 3 S. John vii. 37.

feebled understanding and dishonest habit of
thought." Mercy on us! what a logical argu-
ment! how scientifically it proceeds to its con-
clusion ! Who after this will dare to speak up
for the cause of conception, when such a stench
is poured forth from his mouth upon those who
attempt speaking? I suppose, then, that we,
who do attempt speaking, must forbear to
examine his argument, for fear of his stirring
up against us the cesspool of his abuse. And
verily it is weak-minded 4 to let ourselves be
irritated by childish absurdities. We will there-
fore allow our insolent adversary full liberty to
indulge in his method as he will. But we will
return to the Master's argument, that thence too
we may muster reinforcements for the truth.
Eunomius has been reminded of "analogy " and
has perceived " the homonyms to be derived
from it." Now where or from whom did he
learn these terms ? Not from Moses, not from
the Prophets and Apostles, not from the Evan-
gelists. It is impossible that he should have
learned them from the teaching of any Scrip-
ture. How came he, then, to use them ? The
very word which describes this or that significa-
tion of a thought as analogy, is it not the inven-
tion of the thinking faculty of him who utters it5?
How is it, then, that he fails to perceive that he
is using the views he fights against as his allies in
the war ? For he makes war against our principle
of words being formed by the operation of con-
ception, and would endeavour to establish, by
the aid of words formed on that very principle,
that it is unlawful to use them. " It is not,"
says he, "the teaching of any of the sacred
writers." To whom, then, of the ancients do
you yourself ascribe the term " ungenerate,"
and its being predicated of the essence of God ?
or is it allowable for you, when you want to
establish some of your impious conclusions, to
coin and invent terms to your own liking ; but
if anything is said by some one else in contra-
vention of your impiety, to deprive your adver-
sary of similar licence ? Great indeed would be
the power you would assume if you could make
good your claim to such authority as this, that
what you refuse to others should be allowable
to you alone, and that what you yourself pre-
sume to do by virtue of it, you should prevent
others from doing. You condemn, as by an
edict, the doctrine that these names were ap-
plied to Christ as a result of conception, because
none of the sacred writers have declared that
they ought so to be applied. How, then, can
you lay down the law that the Divine essence
should be denoted by the word " ungenerate "
— a term which none of the sabred writers can

4 *H fi.iKpo\\jvxwv k. t. K. Oehler's stopping here (and accent) is
better than that of the Codices, i. e. viroKtv-qoeitv, i) k. r. K.

5 In other words, analogy implies thought (A.670;).

282

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

be shown to have handed down to us ? For if
this is the test of the right use of words, that
only such shall be employed as the inspired
word of Scripture shall authorize, the word
" ungenerate " must be erased from your own
writings, since none of the sacred writers has
sanctioned the expression. But perhaps you
accept it by reason of the sense that resides in
it. Well, we ourselves in the same way accept
the term " conception " by reason of the sense
that resides in it. Accordingly we will either
exclude both from use, or neither, and which-
ever alternative be adopted, we are equally-
masters of the field. For if the term " ungener-
ate" be altogether suppressed, all our adver-
saries' clamour against the truth is suppressed
along with it, and a doctrine worthy of the
Only-begotten Son of God will shine forth, in-
asmuch as logical opposition can furnish no
name 6 to detract from the majesty of the Lord.
But if both be retained, in that case also the
truth will prevail, and we along with it, when
we have altered the word " ungeneracy " from
the substance, into a conception, of the Deity.
But so long as he does not exclude the term
•' ungenerate " from his own writings, let our
modern Pharisee admonish himself not to be-
hold the mote that is in our eye, before he has
cast out the beam that is in his own.

" But God," he says, " gave the weakest of
terrestrial things a share in the most honourable
names, though not giving them an equal share
of dignity, and to the highest He imparted the
names of the lowest, though the natural inferi-
ority of the latter was not transferred to the
former along with their names." We quote this
in his very words. If they contain some deep
and recondite meaning which has escaped us,
let those inform us who see what is beyond our
range of vision — initiated as they are by him in
his esoteric and unspeakable mysteries. But if
they admit of no interpretation beyond what is
obvious, I scarcely know which of the two are
more to be pitied, those who say such things or
those who listen to them. To the weakest of
terrestrial things, he says, God has given names
in common with the most honourable, though
not giving them an equal share of dignity. Let
us examine what is meant by this. The weakest
things, he says, are dignified with the bare name
belonging to the honourable, their nature not
corresponding with their name. And this he
states to be the work of the God of truth — to
dignify the worse nature with the worthier
appellation ! On the other hand, he says that
( iod applies the less honourable names to things
superior in their nature, the nature of the latter
not being carried over to the former along with

6 i.e. no other name. See note on ' A7«Vn)Tos, p. ioo.

the appellation. But that the matter may be
made plainer still, the absurdity shall be shown
by actual instances. If any one should call a man
who is esteemed for every virtue, intemperate ;
or, on the other hand, a man equally in dis-
repute for his vices, good and moral, would
sensible people think him of sound mind, or
one who had any regard for truth, reversing,
as would be the case, the meanings of words,
and giving them a non-natural signification ? I
for my part think not. He speaks, then, of
things relating to God, out of all keeping with
our common ideas and with the holy Scriptures.
For in matters of ordinary life it is only those
who are unsettled by drink or madness that go
wrong in names, and use them out of their
proper meaning, calling, it may be, a man a
dog, or vice versa. But Holy Scripture is so
far from sanctioning such confusion, that we
may clearly he^r the voice of prophecy lament-
ing it. "Woe unto him," says Isaiah, "that
calls darkness light, and light darkness, that
calls bitter sweet, and sweet bitter 7." Now
what induces Eunomius to apply this absurdity
to his God ? Let those who are initiated in his
mysteries say what they judge those weakest of
terrestrial things to be, which God has digni-
fied with most honourable appellations. The
weakest of existing things are those animals
whose generation takes place from the corrup-
tion of moist elements, as the most honourable
are virtue, and holiness, and whatever else is
pleasing in the sight of God. Are flies, then,
and midges, and frogs, and whatever insects are
generated from dung, dignified with the names
of holiness and virtue, so as to be consecrated
with honourable names, though not sharing in
such high qualities, as saith Eunomius? But
never as yet have we heard anything like this,
that these weak things are called by high-sound-
ing titles, or that what is great and honour-
able by nature is degraded by the name of any
one of them. Noah was a righteous man, saith
the Scripture, Abraham was faithful, Moses
meek, Daniel wise, Joseph chaste, Job blame-
less, David perfect in patience. Let them say,
then, whether all these had their names by
contraries ; or, to take the case of those who
are unfavourably spoken of, as Nabal the Car-
melite, and Pharaoh the Egyptian, and Abime-
lech the alien, and all those who are mentioned
for their vices, whether they were dignified with
honourable names by the voice of God. Not
so ! But God judges and distinguishes His
creatures as they are in nature and truth, not
by names contrary to them, but by such appro-
priate appellations as may give the clearest idea
of their meaning.

1 Is. ▼. ao.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

283,

This it is that our strong-minded opponent,
who accuses us of dishonesty, and charges us
with being irrational in judgment, — this it is
that he pretends to know of the Divine nature.
These are the opinions that he puts forth re-
specting God, as though He mocked His
creatures with names untrue to their meaning,
bestowing on the weakest the most honourable
appellations, and pouring contempt on the
honourable by making them synonymous with
the base. Now a virtuous man, if carried,
even involuntarily, beyond the limits of truth,
is overwhelmed with shame. Yet Eunomius
thinks it no shame to God that He should
seem to give a false colour to things by their
appellations. Not such is the testimony of the
Scriptures to the Divine nature. " God is
long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and
truth," says David8. But how can He be a God
of truth Who gives false names to things, and
Who perverts the truth in the meanings of their
names ? Again, He is called by him a righteous
Lord 9. Is it, then, a righteous thing to dignify
things without honour by honourable names,
and, while giving the bare name, to grudge the
honour that it denotes ? Such is the testimony
of these Theologians to their new-fangled God.
This is the end of their boasted dialectic clever-
ness, to display God Himself delighting in
deceit, and not superior to the passion of
jealousy. For surely it is no better than deceit
not to name weak things, as they are in their
true nature and worth, but to invest them with
empty names, derived from superior things, not
proportioning their value to their name ; and it
is no better than jealousy if, having it in His
power to bestow the more honourable appel-
lation on things to be named for some superi-
ority, He grudged them the honour itself, as
deeming the happiness of the weak a loss to
Himself personally. But I should recommend
all who are wise, even if the God of these
Gnostics * is by stress of logic shown to be
of such a character, not to think thus of the
true God, the Only-begotten, but to look at
the truth of facts, giving each of them their
due, and thence to deduce His name. " Come,
ye blessed," saith our Lord ; and again, " De-
part, ye cursed 2," not honouring him who
deserves cursing with the name of "blessed,"
nor, on the other hand, dismissing him who has
treasured up for himself the blessing, along
with the wicked.

But what is our author's meaning, and what
is the object of this argument of his ? For no
one need imagine that, for lack of something to

" Ps. lxxxvi. 15 9 ps xcii 15.

1 Oehler has restored yvoxniKwv from his Codices, and notices
that Cotelerius, Eccl Gr. Monum, torn. ii. p 622, had made the
same change. Gulonius translates Gnosticorum. Hut the Editt.
ha\ I yi'u>pi<TTt.Kuiv. 2 S. Matt. xxv. 34.

say, in order that he may seem to extend his dis-
course to the utmost, he has indulged in all this
senseless twaddle. Its very senselessness is not
without a meaning, and smacks of heresy. For
to say that the most honourable names are
applied to the weakest things, though not
having by nature an equal apportionment of
dignity, secretly paves the wny, as it were, for
the blasphemy to follow, that he may teach his
disciples this ; that although the Only-begotten
is called God, and Wisdom, and Power, and
Light, and the Truth, and the Judge, and the
King, and God over all, and the great God,
and the Prince of peace, and the Father of the
world to come, and so forth, His honour is-
limited to the name.

He does not, in fact, partake of that dignity
which the meaning of those names indicates ;
and whereas wise Daniel, in setting right the
Babylonians' error of idolatry, that they should
not worship the brazen image or the dragon,,
but reverence the name of God, which men.
in their folly had ascribed to them, clearly
showed by what he did that the high and
lofty name of God had no likeness to the
reptile, or to the image of molten brass —
this enemy of God exerts himself in his teaching
to prove the very opposite of this in regard to
the Only-begotten Son of God, exclaiming in
the style which he affects, " Do not regard the
names of which our Lord is a partaker, so as tO'
infer His unspeakable and sublime nature. For
many of the weakest things are likewise invested
with names of honour, lofty indeed in sound,
though their nature is not transformed so as to
come up to the grandeur of their appellations."
Accordingly he says that inferior things receive
their honour from God only so far as their
names go, no equality of dignity accompanying
their appellations. When, therefore, we have
learned all the names of the Son that are of
lofty signification, we must bear in mind that
the honour which they imply is ascribed to
Him only so far as the words go, but that,,
according to the system of nomenclature which
they adopt, He does not partake of the dignity
implied by the words.

But in dwelling on such nonsense I fear that
I am secretly gratifying our adversaries. For
in setting the truth against their vain and empty
words, I seem to myself to be wearing out the
patience of my audience before we come to the
brunt of the battle. These points, then, I will
leave it to my more learned hearers to dispose
of, and proceed with my task. Nor will I now
notice a thing he has said, which, however, is-
closely connected with our inquiry ; viz. that
these things have been so arranged that human'
thought and conception can claim no authority
over names. But who is there that maintains-

2S4

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

that what is not seen in its own subsistence
has authority over anything? For only those
creatures that are governed by their own de-
liberate will are capable of acting with authority.
But thought and conception are an operation
of the mind, which depends on the deliberate
choice of those who speak, having no inde-
pendent subsistence, but subsisting only in
the force of the things said. But this, he
says, belongs to God, the Creator of all things,
who, by limitations and rules of relation, oper-
ation, and proportion, applies suitable appella-
tions to each of the things named. But this
either is sheer nonsense, or contradicts his
previous assertions. For if he now professes
that God affixes names suitable to their sub-
jects, why does he argue, as we have seen,
that God bestows lofty names on things with-
out honour, not allowing them a share in
the dignity which their names indicate, and
again, that He degrades things of a lofty nature
by names without honour, their nature not being
affected by the meanness of their appellations ?
But perhaps we are unfair to him in subjecting
his senseless collocation of phrases to such ac-
cusations as these. For they are altogether alien
to any sense (I do not mean only to a sense in
keeping with reverence), and they will be found
to be utterly devoid of reason by all who under-
stand how to form an accurate judgment in such
matters. Since, then, like the fish called the
sea-lung, what we see appears to have bulk and
volume, which turns out, however, to be only
viscous matter disgusting to look at, and still
more disgusting to handle, I shall pass over his
remarks in silence, deeming that the best answer
to his idle effusions. For it would be better
that we should not inquire what law governs
"operation," and "proportion," and "relation,"
and who it is that prescribes laws to God in
respect to rules and modes of proportion and
relation, than that, by busying ourselves in such
matters, we should nauseate our hearers, and
digress from more important matters of inquiry.
But I fear that all we shall find in the dis-
course of Eunomius will turn out to be mere
tumours and sea lungs, so that what has been
said must necessarily close our argument, as
his writings will supply no material to work on.
For as a smoke or a mist makes the air in
which it resides heavy and thick, and incapaci-
tates the eye for the discharge of its natural
function, yet does not form itself into so dense
a body that he who will may grasp and hold it
in his palms, and offer resistance to its stroke,
so if one should say the same of his pompous
piece of writing, the comparison would not be
untrue. Much nonsense is worked up in his
tumid and viscous discourse, and to one not
gifted with over-much discernment, like a

mist to one viewing it from afar, it seems to
have some substance and shape, but if you
come up to it and scrutinize what is said, the
theories slip from your hold like smoke, and
vanish into nothing, nor have they any solidity
or resistance to oppose to the stroke of your
argument. It is difficult, therefore, to know
what to do. For to those who like to complain
either alternative will seem objectionable ;
whether, leaping over his empty wordiness, as
over a ravine, we direct the course of our argu-
ment to the level and open country, against
those points which seem to have any strength
against the truth, or form our absurd battle along
the whole line of his inanities. For in the latter
case, to those who do not love hard work, -our
labour, extending over some thousands of lines to
no useful purpose, will be wearisome and unprofit-
able. But if we attack those points only which
seem to have some force against the truth, we
shall give occasion to our adversaries to accuse
us of passing over arguments of theirs which we
are unable to refute. Since, then, two courses
are open to us, either to take all their arguments
seriatim, or to run through those only which
are more important — the one course tedious to
our hearers, the other liable to be suspected by
our assailants — I think it best to take a middle
course, and so, as far as possible, to avoid
censure on either hand. What, then, is our
method ? After clearing his vain productions,
as well as we can, of the rubbish they have
accumulated, we will summarily run through
the main points of his argument in such a way
as neither to plunge needlessly into the pro-
fundities of his nonsense, nor to leave any of his
statements unexamined. Now his whole treatise
is an ambitious attempt to show that God speaks
after the manner of men, and that the Creator
of all things gives them suitable names, indi-
cative of the things themselves. And, there-
fore, opposing himself to him who contended
that such names are given by that rational
nature which we have received from God, he
accuses him of error, and of desertion from his
fundamental proposition : and having brought
this charge against him, he uses the following
arguments in support of his position.

Basil, he says, asserts that after we have
obtained our first idea of a thing, the more
minute and accurate investigation of the thing
under consideration is called conception. And
Eunomius disproves this, as he thinks, by the
following argument, that where this first, and
this second notion, i. e. one more minute and
accurate than the other, are not found, the
operation which we call thought and conception
does not find place. Here, however, he will
be convicted of dishonesty by all who have ears
to hear. For it was not of all thought and

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

2S5

conception that our master (Basil) laid down
this definition, but, after making a special sub-
division of the objects of thought and concep-
tion (not to encumber the question with too
many words), and having made this part clear,
he left men of sense to reason out the whole
from the part for themselves. And as, if any
one should say that we get our definition of an
animal from considering a number of animals
of different species, he could not be convicted of
missing the truth in making man an instance in
point, nor would there be any need to correct
him as deviating from the fact, unless he should
give the same definition of a winged, or four-
footed, or aquatic animal as of a man, so, when
the points of view from which we may consider
this conception are so many and various, it is no
refutation of Basil's statement to say that it is
improperly so called in one case because there
is another species. Accordingly, even if another
species come under consideration, it by no
means follows that the one previously given is
erroneously so called. Now if, says he, one of
the Apostles or Prophets could be shown to
have used these names of Christ, the falsehood
would have something for its encouragement.
To what industrious study of the word of God
on the part of our opponent do not these words
bear testimony ! None of the Prophets or
Apostles has spoken of our Lord as Bread, or
a Stone, or a Fountain, or an Axe, or Light, or
a Shepherd ! What, then, saith David, and of
whom? "The Lord shepherds me." "Thou
Who shepherdest Israel, give ear 3." What dif-
ference does it make whether He is spoken of
as shepherding, or as a Shepherd ? And again,
*« With Thee is the Well of life ♦." Does he deny
that our Lord is called a " Well " ? And again,
" The Stone which the builders rejected 5."
And John, too,— where, representing our Lord's
power to uproot evil under the name of an axe,
he says, " And now also the Axe is laid to the
root of the trees 6 " — is he not a weighty and
credible witness to the truth of our words ?

And Moses, seeing God in the light, and
John calling Him the true Light7, and in the
same way Paul, when our Lord first appeared
to him, and a Light shone round about him,
and afterwards when he heard the words of the
Light saying, " I am Jesus, Whom thou per-
secutes! 8," — is he not a competent witness?
And as regards the name " Bread," let him
read the Gospel and see how the bread given
by Moses, and supplied to Israel from heaven,
was taken by our Lord as a type of Himself :
" For Moses gave you not that Bread, but My
Father giveth you the true Bread (meaning

3 Ps. xxiii. 1 ; lxxx. i. Cf. S. John xxi. 16, 17.

* Ps. xxxvi. 9. 5 S. Matt. xxi. 42. 6 S. Matt. iii. 10.

1 S. John 1. 9 8 Acts ix. 5.

Himself) which cometh down from heaven and
giveth life unto the world 9." But this genuine
hearer of the law says that none of the Prophets
or Apostles has applied these names to Christ.
What shall we say, then, of what follows?
" Even if our Lord Himself adopts them, yet,
since in the Saviour's names there is no first or
second, none more minute or accurate than
another, for He knows them all at once with
equal accuracy, it is not possible to accom-
modate his (Basil's) account of the operation of
conception to any of His names."

I have deluged my discourse with much
nonsense of his, but I trust my hearers will
pardon me for not leaving unnoticed even the
most glaring of his inanities ; not that we take
pleasure in our author's indecorum, (for what
advantage can we derive from the refutation of
our adversaries' folly?) but that truth may be
advanced by confirmation from whatever quarter.
"Since," says he, "our Lord applies these ap-
pellations to Himself, not deeming any one of
them first, or second, or more minute and
accurate than the rest, you cannot say that
these names are the result of conception."
Why, he has forgotten his own object ! How
comes he by the knowledge of the words against
which he declares war? Our master and guide
had made mention of an example familiar
to all, in illustration of the doctrine of concep-
tion, and having explained his meaning by
lower illustrations, he lifts the consideration of
the question to higher things. He had said
that the word "corn," regarded by itself, is one
thing only as to substance, but that, as to the
various properties we see in it, it varies its ap-
pellations, being called seed, and fruit, and
food, and the like. Similarly, says he, our
Lord is in respect to Himself what He is
essentially, but when named according to the
differences of His operations, He has not one
appellation in all cases, but takes a different
name according to each notion produced in us
from the operation. How, then, does what he
says disprove our theory that it is possible for
many appellations to be attached with propriety,
according to the diversity of His operations, and
His relation to their effects, to the Son of God,
though one in respect of the underlying force,
even as corn, though one, has various names
apportioned to it, according to the point of view
from which we regard it ? How, then, can what
is said be overthrown by our saying that Christ
used all these names of Himself? For the
question was not, who ascribed them, but about
the meaning of the names, whether they denote
essence, or whether they are derived from His
operations by the process of conception. But

• S. John vi. 32, sqq.

2?6

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

our shrewd and strong-minded opponent, over-
turning our theory of conception, which declares
that it is possible to find many appellations for
one and the same subject, according to the signi-
ficances of its operations, attacks us vigorously,
asserting that such names were not given to
our Lord by another. But what has this to do
with the case in point ? Since these names are
used by our Lord, will he not allow that they
are names, or appellations, or words expressive
of ideas ? For if he will not admit them to be
names, then, in doing away with the appella-
tions, he does away at the same time with the
conception. But if he does not deny that these
words are names, what harm can he do to our
doctrine of conception by showing that such
titles were given to our Lord, not by some one
else, but by Himself? For what was said was
this, that, as in the instance of corn, our Lord,
though substantively One, bears epithets suit-
able to His operations. And as it is admitted
that corn has its names by virtue of our con-
ception of its associations, it was shown that
these terms significative of our Lord are not of
His essence, but are formed by the method of
conception in our minds respecting Him. But
our antagonist studiously avoids attacking these
positions, and maintains that our Lord received
these names from Himself, in the same way
as, if one sought for the true interpretation of the
name " Isaac," whether it means laughter1, as
some say, or something else, one of Eunomius'
way of thinking should confidently reply that the
name was given to him as a child by his mother :
but that, one might say, was not the question, i. e.
by whom the name was given, but what does it
mean when translated into our language ? And
this being the point of the inquiry, whether our
Lord's various appellations were the result of
conception, instead of being indicative of His
essence, he who thus seeks to demonstrate that
they are not so derived because they are used
by our Lord Himself, — how can he be numbered
among men of sense, warring as he does against
the truth, and equipping himself with such
alliances for the war as serve to show the superior
strength of his enemy ?

Then going farther, as if his object were thus
far attained, he takes up other charges against
us, more difficult, as he thinks, to deal with
than the former, and with many preliminary
groans and attempts to prejudice his hearers
against us, and to whet their appetite for his
address, accusing us withal of seeking to estab-
lish doctrines savouring of blasphemy, and of
ascribing to our own conception names assigned
by God (though he nowhere mentions what
assignment he refers to, nor when and where it

* Gen. xviii. 12 ; xxi. 6.

took place), and, further, of throwing everything
into confusion, and identifying the essence of
the Only-begotten with his operation, without
arguing the matter, or showing how we prove
the identity of the essence and the operation,
he winds up with the same list of charges, as
follows: "And now, passing beyond this, he
(Basil) asperses even the Most High with the
vilest blasphemies, using at the same timebroken
language, and illustrations wide of the mark."
Now prior to inquiry, I should like to be told
what our language is " broken " from, and what
mark it is "wide of" ; not that I want to know,
except to show the confusion and obscurity of
his address, which he dins into the ears of the
old wives among our men, pluming himself on
his nice phrases, which he mouths out to the
admirers of such things, ignorant, as it would
seem, that in the judgment of educated men
this address of his will serve only as a memorial
of his own infamy.

But all this is beside our purpose. Would
that our charges against him were limited to
this, and that he could be thought to err only
in his delivery, and not in matters of faith ;
since it would have been of comparatively little
importance to him to be praised or blamed for
expressing himself in one style or another.
But however that may be, the sequel of his
charges against us contains this in addition :
"Considering the case of corn (he says), and
of our Lord, after exercising his conceptions in
various ways upon them, he2 declares that even
in like manner the most holy essence of God
admits of the same variety of conception."
This is the gravest of his accusations, and it is
in prosecuting this that he rehearses those
heavy invectives of his, charging what we have
said with blasphemy, absurdity, and so forth.
What, then, is the proof of our blasphemy?
"He3 has mentioned" (says Eunomius) "certain
well-known facts about corn, — perceiving how
it grows, and how when ripe it affords food,
growing, multiplying, and being dispensed by
certain forces of nature — and, having mentioned
these, he adds that it is only reasonable to sup-
pose that the Only-begotten Son also admits
of different modes of being conceived of4, by
reason of certain differences of operation, certain
analogies, proportions, and relations. For he
uses these terms respecting Him to satiety.
And is it not absurd, or rather blasphemous,
to compare the Ungenerate with such objects

2 he, i.e. Basil. ''God's nature can be looked at in as many
aspectsas corn can (»'. e. in its growth, fructification, distribution,
&c.)."

3 He, i. e. Basil. The words 6 Ewonios, here, are the additions of
a copyist who did not understand that tlntv referred to Basil, or
else ^rjo-iv must be read with them. Certainly raiira fiiriov below
must refer to the same subject as et7rti\

4 &ia<\>6pov<; df\en6ai emvota?. Oehler has rightly omitted the
words that follov ^ia t« Tas kvvoias), both because of tlieir irrelev-
ancy, and from the authority of his MSS.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

287

as these ? " — What objects ? Why, corn, and
God the Only-begotten ! You see his artful-
ness. He would show that insignificant corn
and God the Only-begotten are equally removed
from the dignity of the Ungenerate. And to
show that we are not treating his words unfairly,
we may learn his meaning from the very words
he has written. "For," he asks, "is it not
absurd, or rather blasphemous, to compare the
Ungenerate with these?" And in thus speak-
ing, he instances the case of corn and of our
Lord as on a level in point of dignity, thinking
it equally absurd to compare God with either.
Now every one knows that things equally
distant from a given object are possessed of
equality as regards each other, so that accord-
ing to our wise theologian the Maker of the
worlds, Who holds all nature in His hand, is
shown to be on a par with the most insignificant
seed, since He and corn to the same degree
fall short of comparison with God. To such a
pitch of blasphemy has he come !

But it is time to examine the argument that
leads to this profanity, and see how, as regards
itself, it is logically connected with his whole
discourse. For after saying that it is absurd to
compare God with corn and with Christ, he
says of God that He is not, like them, subject
to change ; but in respect to the Only-begotten,
keeping silence on the question whether He
too is not subject to change, and thereby clearly
suggesting that He is of lower dignity, in that
we cannot compare Him, any more than we
can compare corn, with God, he breaks off his
discourse without using any argument to prove
that the Son of God cannot be compared with
the Father, as though our knowledge of the
grain were sufficient to establish the inferiority
of the Son in comparison with the Father.
But he discourses of the indestructibility of the
Father, as not in actuality attaching to the
Son. But if the True Life is an actuality,
actuating itself, and if to live everlastingly means
the same thing as never to be dissolved in
destruction, I for myself do not as yet assent
to his argument, but will reserve myself for a
more proper occasion. That, however, there
is but one single notion in indestructibility 5,
considered in reference to the Father and to
the Son alike, and that the indestructibility of
the Father differs in no respect from that of the
Son, no difference as to indestructibility being
observable either in remission and intension, or

5 Inde-tructibility. Such terms (" not-composite," " indivisible,"
" imperi-hable ") were the inheritance which Christian controversy
received from the former struggle with Stoicism. In the hands of
Or. gen. they had been aimed at the Stoic doctrine of the Deity as
that of corpore I Spirit, which does not perish, only because there
is no cause sufficient. " If one does not see the consequences ol
such an assertion, one ought to blush" (in Johaun. xiii. 21). The
consequences of course are that God, the Word, and our souls, made
in His image, are all perishable ; lor all body, in that it is nutter, is,
by the Stoic assumption, liable to change.

in any other phase of the process of destruction,
this, I say, it is seasonable both now and at all
times to assert, so as to preclude the doctrine
that in respect of indestructibility the Son has
no communion with the Father. For as this
indestructibility is understood in respect of the
Father, so also it is not to be disputed in
respect of the Son. For to be incapable of
dissolution means nearly, or rather precisely,
the same thing in regard to whatever subject it
is attributed to. What, then, induces him to
assert, that only to the Ungenerate Deity does
it belong to have this indestructibility not at-
taching to Him by reason of any energy, as
though he would thereby show a difference
between the Father and the Son? For if he
supposes his own created God destructible, he
well shows the essential divergence of natures
by the difference between the destructible and
the indestructible. But if neither is subject to
destruction, — and no degrees are to be found
in pure indestructibility, — how does he show
that the Father cannot be compared with the
Only-begotten Son, or what is meant by saying
that indestructibility is not witnessed in the
Father by reason of any energy ? But he reveals
his purpose in what follows. It is not because
of His operations or energies, he says, that He is
ungenerate and indestructible, but because He
is Father and Creator. And here I must ask
my hearers to give me their closest attention.
How can he think the creative power of God
and His Fatherhood identical in meanine?
For he defines each alike as an energy, plainly
and expressly affirming, "God is not inde-
structible by reason of His energy, though He
is called Father and Creator by reason of
energies." If, then, it is the same thing to call
Him Father and Creator of the world because
either name is due to an energy as its cause,
the results of His energies must be homogeneous,
inasmuch as it is through an energy that they
both exist. But to what blasphemy this logic-
ally tends is clear to every one who can draw
a conclusion. For myself, I should like to add
my own deductions to my disquisition. It is im-
possible that an energy or operation productive
of a result should subsist of itself without there
being something to set the energy in motion ;
as we say that a smith operates or works, but
that the material on which his art is exercised
is operated upon, or wrought. These faculties,
therefore, that of operating, and that of being
operated upon, must needs stand in a certain
relation to each other, so that if one be re-
moved, the remaining one cannot subsist of
itself. For where there is nothing operated
upon there can be nothing operating. What,
then, does this prove ? If the energy which is
productive of anything does not subsist of itself,

2$S

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

there being nothing for it to operate upon, and
if the Father, as they affirm, is nothing but an
energy, the Only-begotten Son is thereby shown
to be capable of being acted upon, in other
words, moulded in accordance with the motive
energy that gives Him His subsistence. For
as we say that the Creator of the world, by
laying down some yielding material, capable of
being acted upon, gave His creative being a
field for its exercise, in the case of things sen-
sible skilfully investing the subject with various
and multiform qualities for production, but in
the case of intellectual essences giving shape
to the subject in another way, not by qualities,
but by impulses of choice, so, if any one define
the Fatherhood of God as an energy, he cannot
otherwise indicate the subsistence of the Son
than by comparing it with some material acted
upon and wrought to completion. For if it
could not be operated upon, it would of neces-
sity offer resistance to the operator : whose
energy being thus hindered, no result would be
produced. Either, then, they must make the
essence of the Only-begotten subject to be
acted upon, that the energy may have some-
thing to work upon, or, if they shrink from this
conclusion, on account of its manifest impiety,
they are driven to the conclusion that it has no
existence at all. For what is naturally incap-
able of being acted upon, cannot itself admit
the creative energy. He, then, who defines the
Son as the effect of an energy, defines Him as
one of those things which are subject to be
acted upon, and which are produced by an
energy. Or, if -he deny such susceptibility, he
must at the same time deny His existence.
But since impiety is involved in either alter-
native of the dilemma, that of asserting His
non-existence, and that of regarding Him as
capable of being acted upon, the truth is made
manifest, being brought to light by the removal
of these absurdities. For if He verily exists,
and is not subject to be acted upon, it is plain
that He is not the result of an energy, but is
proved to be very God of very God the Father,
without liability to be acted upon, beaming
from Him and shining forth from everlasting.

But in His very essence, he says, God is
indestructible. Well, what other conceivable
attribute of God does not attach to the very
essence of the Son, as justice, goodness, eternity,
incapacity for evil, infinite perfection in all
conceivable goodness ? Is there one who will
venture to say that any of the virtues in the
I )ivine nature are acquired, or to deny that all
good whatsoever springs from and is seen in it ?
"For whatsoever is good is from Him, and
whatsoever is lovely is from Him6." But he

« Zech. ix. 17 (LXX.).

appends to this, that He is in His very essence
ungenerate too. Well, if he means by this that
the Father's essence is ungenerate, I agree with
what is said, and do not oppose his doctrine :
for not one of the orthodox maintains that the
Father of the Only-begotten is Himself begotten.
But if, while the form of his expression indicates
only this, he maintains that the ungeneracy
itself is the essence, I say that we ought not to
leave such a position unexamined, but expose
his attempt to gain the assent of the unwary to
his blasphemy.

Now that the idea 7 of ungeneracy and the
belief in the Divine essence are quite different
things may be seen by what he himself has put
forward. God, he says, is indestructible and
ungenerate by His very essence, as being un-
mixed and pure from all diversity and difference.
This he says of God, Whose essence he declares
to be indestructibility and ungeneracy. There
are three names, then, that he applies to God,
being, indestructibility, ungeneracy. If the
idea of these three words in respect of God is
one, it follows that the Godhead and these
three are identical. Just as if any one, wanting
to describe a man, should say that he was a
rational, risible, and broad-nailed creature ;
whereupon, because there is no essential varia-
tion from these in the individuals, we say that
the terms are equivalent to each other, and
that the three things seen in the subject are
one thing, viz. the humanity described by these
names. If, then, Godhead means this, un-
generacy, indestructibility, being, by doing
away with one of these he necessarily does
away with the Godhead. For just as we should
say that a creature which was neither rational
nor risible was not man either, so in the case
of these three1 terms (ungeneracy, indestructi-
bility, being), if the Godhead is described by
these, should one of the three be absent, its
absence destroys the definition of Godhead.
Let him tell us, then, in reply, what opinion he
holds of God the Only-begotten. Does he
think Him generate or ungenerate ? Of course
he must say generate, unless he is to contradict
himself. If, then, being and indestructibility
are equivalent to ungeneracy, and by all of
these Godhead is denoted, to Whom ungener-
acy is wanting, to Him being and indestructi-
bility must needs be wanting also, and in that
case the Godhead also must necessarily be
taken away. And thus his blasphemous logic
brings him to a twofold conclusion. For if
being, and indestructibility, and ungeneracy
are applied to God in the same sense, our new
God-maker is clearly convicted of regarding the

' to fo>,/ia. There is a lacuna in the Paris Editt., beginning
here, and exti riding to " ungenerate," just below. Oehlcr's Codices
have Slipplil 1I1'

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

2S9

Son created by Him as destructible, by his not
regarding Him as ungenerate, and not only so,
but altogether without being, through his in-
ability to see Him in the Godhead, as one
in whom ungeneracy and indestructibility are
not found, since he takes the ungeneracy
and indestructibility to be identical with the
being. But since in this there is manifest per-
dition, let some one counsel these unhappy folk
to turn to the only course which is left them,
and, instead of setting themselves in open op-
position to the truth, to allow that each of these
terms has its own proper signification, such as
may be seen still better from their contraries.
For we find ungenerate set against generate,
and we understand the indestructible by its
opposition to the destructible, and being by
contrast with that which has no subsistence.
For as that which was not generated is called
ungenerate, and that which is not destructible
is called indestructible, so that which is not
non-existent we call being, and, conversely, as
we do not call the generate ungenerate, nor the
destructible indestructible, so that which is
non-existent we do not call being. Being, then,
is discernible in the being this or that, good-
ness or indestructibility in the being of this
or of that kind, generacy or ungeneracy in the
manner of the being. And thus the ideas of
being, manner, and quality are distinct from
each other.

But it will be well, I think, to pass over his
nauseating observations (for such we must term
his senseless attacks on the method of concep-
tion), and dwell more pleasurably on the sub-
ject matter of our thought. For all the venom
that our disputant has disgorged with the view
of overthrowing our Master's speculations in
regard to conception, is not of such a kind as
to be dangerous to those who come in its way,
however stupid they may be and liable to be
imposed on. For who is so devoid of under-
standing as to think that there is anything in
what Eunomius says, or to see any ingenuity in
his artifices against the truth when he takes our
Master's reference to corn (which he meant
simply by way of illustration, thereby providing
his hearers with a sort of method and introduc-
tion to the study of higher instances), and
applies it literally to the Lord of all ? To think
of his assertion that the most becoming cause
for God's begetting the Son was His sovereign
authority and power, which may be said not
only in regard to the universe and its elements,
but in regard to beasts and creeping things ; and
of our reverend theologian teaching that the
same is becoming in our conception of God the
Only-begotten — or again, of his saying that God
was called ungenerate, or Father, or any other
name, even before the existence of creatures to
vol. v. u

call Him such, as being afraid lest, His name not
being uttered among creatures as yet unborn,
He should be ignorant or forgetful of Him-
self, through ignorance of His own nature be-
cause of His name being unspoken ! To think,
again, of the insolence of his attack upon our
teaching ; what acrimony, what subtlety does he
display, while attempting to establish the ab-
surdity of what he (Basil) said, namely that He
Who was in a manner the Father before all
worlds and time, and all sensitive and intel-
lectual nature, must somehow wait for man's
creation in order to be named by means of
man's conception, not having been so named,
either by the Son or by any of the intelligent
beings of His creation ! Why no one, I imagine,
can be so densely stupid as to be ignorant that
God the Only-begotten, Who is in the Father 8,
and Who seeth the Father in Himself, is in no
need of any name or title to make Him known,
nor is the mystery of the Holy Spirit, Who
searcheth out the deep things of God 9, brought
to our knowledge by a nominal appellation, nor
can the incorporeal nature of supramundane
powers name God by voice and tongue. For,
in the case of immaterial intellectual nature,
the mental energy is speech which has no need
of material instruments of communication. For
even in the case of human beings, we should
have no need of using words and names if we
could otherwise inform each other of our pure
mental feelings and impulses. But (as things
are), inasmuch as the thoughts which arise in us
are incapable of being so revealed, because our
nature is encumbered with its fleshly surround-
ing, we are obliged to express to each other
what goes on in our minds by giving things
their respective names, as signs of their
meaning.

But if it were in any way possible by some
other means to lay bare the movements of
thought, abandoning the formal instrumentality
of words, we should converse with one another
more lucidly and clearly, revealing by the mere
action of thought the essential nature of the
things which are under consideration. But
now, by reason of our inability to do so, we
have given things their special names, calling
one Heaven, another Earth, and so on, and as
each is related to each, and acts or suffers, we
have marked them by distinctive names, so
that our thoughts in regard to them may not
remain uncommunicated and unknown. But
supramundane and immaterial nature being free
and independent of bodily envelopment, requires
no words or names either for itself or for that
which is above it, but whatever utterance on the
part of such intellectual nature is recorded in

e S. John xiv. 9.

9 1 Cor. ii. 10.

290

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

Holy Writ is given for the sake of the hearers,
who would be unable otherwise to learn what
is to be set forth, if it were not communicated
to them bv voice and word. And if David in
the spii it speaks of something being said by the
Lord to the Lord r, it is David himself who is
the speaker, being unable otherwise to make
known to us the teaching of what is meant,
except by interpreting by voice and word his
own knowledge of the mysteries given him by
Divine inspiration.

All his argument, then, in opposition to the
doctrine of conception I think it best to pass
•over, though he charge with madness those
who think that the name of God, as used by
mankind to indicate the Supreme Being, is the
result of this conception. For what he is think-
ing of when he considers himself bound to
revile that doctrine, all who will may learn from
his own words. What opinion we ourselves
hold on the use of words we have already
stated, viz. that, things being as they are in
■regard to their nature, the rational faculty im-
planted in our nature by God invented words
indicative of those actual things. And if any
•one ascribe their origin to the Giver of the
faculty, we would not contradict him, for we too
'maintain cnat motion, and sight, and the rest of
the operations carried on by the senses are
effected by Him Who endowed us with such
faculties. So, then, the cause of our naming
God, Who is by His nature what He is, is refer-
able by common consent to Himself, but the
liberty of naming all things that we conceive of
in one way or another lies in that thing in our
nature, which, whether a man wish to call it
conception or something else, we are quite
indifferent. And there is this one sure evidence
in our favour, that the Divine Being is not
named alike by all, but that each interprets his
idea as he thinks best. Passing over, then, in
silence his rubbishy twaddle about conception,
let us hold to our tenets, and simply note by
the way some of the observations that occur in
the midst of his empty speeches, where he pre-
tends that God, seating Himself by our first
parents, like some pedagogue or grammarian,
gave them a lesson in words and names ;
wherein he says that they who were first formed
by God, or those who were born from them in
continuous succession, unless they had been
taught how each several thing should be called
and named, would have lived together in dumb-
ness and silence, and would have been unequal
to the discharge of any of the serviceable func-
tions of life, the meaning of each being uncertain
through lack of interpreters, — verbs forsooth, and
nouns. Such is the infatuation of this writer ;

1 Ps. ex. i.

he thinks the faculty implanted in our nature
by God insufficient for any method of reasoning,
and that unless it be taught each thing severally,
like those who are taught Hebrew or Latin
word by word, one must be ignorant of the
nature of the things, having no discernment of
fire, or water, or air, or anything else, unless
one have acquired the knowledge of them by
the names that they bear. But we maintain
that He Who made all things in His wisdom,
and Who moulded this living rational creature,
by the simple fact of His implanting reason in his
nature, endowed him with all his rational facul-
ties. And as naturally possessing our faculties
of perception by the gift of Him Who fashioned
the eye and planted the ear, we can of ourselves
employ them for their natural objects, and have
no heed of any one to name the colours, lor
instance, of which the eye takes cognizance, for
the eye is competent to inform itself in such
matters ; nor do we need another to make us
acquainted with the things which we perceive
by hearing, or taste, or touch, possessing as we
do in ourselves the means of discerning all of
which our perception informs us. And so,
again, we maintain that the intellectual faculty,
made as it was originally by God, acts thence-
forward by itself when it looks out upon realities,
and that there be no confusion in its knowledge,
affixes some verbal note to each several thing as
a stamp to indicate its meaning. Great Moses
himself confirms this doctrine when he says2
that names were assigned by Adam to the brute
creation, recording the fact in these words :
"And out of the ground God formed every
beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and
brought them unto Adam to see what he would
call them, and whatsoever Adam called every
living creature, that was the name thereof.
And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to an
the beasts of the field."

But, like some viscous and sticky clay, the
nonsense he has concocted in contravention of
our teaching of conception seems to hold us
back, and prevent us from applying ourselves
to more important matters. For how can one
pass over his solemn and profound philosophy,
as when he says that God's greatness is seen
not only in the works of His hands, but that
His wisdom is displayed in their names also,
adapted as they are with such peculiar fitness
to the nature of each work of His creation * ?

2 Gen. ii. 19, so.

3 Compare with this view of Eunomius on the sacredness of
names, this striking passage from Ongen (c. Cels. v. 43). "We
hold, then, that I he origin of names is not to be found in any formal
agreements on the part of those who gave them, as Aristotle thinks.
Human language, in fact, did not have its beginning from man.
Any one can see this who reflects upon the real nature of the in-
cantations which in the different languages are associated with the
patriarchal names of those languages. The names which have their
native power in such and such a language cease In have this mflu-
ence of then pcouli ir sound when they are changed into another

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

291

Having perchance fallen in with Plato's Cratylus,
or hearing from some one who had met with it,
by reason, I suppose, of his own poverty of ideas,
he attached that nonsense patchwise to his own,
acting like those who get their bread by begging.
For just as they, receiving some trifle from each
who bestows it on them, collect their bread
from many and various sources, so the discourse
of Eunomius, by reason of his scanty store of
the true bread, assiduously collects scraps of
phrases and notions from all quarters. And
thus, being struck by the beauty of the Platonic
style, he thinks it not unseemly to make Plato's
theory a doctrine of the Church. For by how
many appellations, say, is the created firmament
called according to the varieties of language ?
For we call it Heaven, the Hebrew calls it
Samaim, the Roman ccelum, other names are
given to it by the Syrian, the Mede, the Cappa-
docian, the African, the Scythian, the Thracian,
the Egyptian : nor would it be easy to enumer-
ate the multiplicity of names which are applied
to Heaven and other objects by the different
nations that employ them. Which of these,
then, tell me, is the appropriate word wherein
the great wisdom of God is manifested? If
you prefer the Greek to the rest, the Egyptian
haply will confront you with his own. And if
you give the first place to the Hebrew, there is
the Syrian to claim precedence for his own
word, nor will the Roman yield the supremacy,
nor the Mede allow himself to be outdone ;
while of the other nations each will claim the
prize. What, then, will be the fate of his
dogma when torn to pieces by the claimants
for so many different languages ? But by
these, says he, as by laws publicly promulgated,
it is shown that God made names exactly suited
to the nature of the things which they repre-
sent. What a grand doctrine ! What grand

language. This has been often observed in the names given even to
living men : one who from his birth has been called so and so in Greek
will never, if we change his name into Egyptian or Roman, be made to
feel or act as he can when called by the first name given. ... If
this is true in the case of names given to men, what are we to think
of the names connected in some way or other with the Deity ? For
instance, there must be some change in translating Abraham's name
into Greek : some new expression given to 'Isaac,' and 'Jacob' :
and, while he who repeats the incantation or the oath names the
' God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,' he produces those par-
ticular effects by the mere force and working of those names : be-
cause the daemons are mustered by him who utters them : but if on
the other hand he says, ' God of the chosen Father of the Crowd,'
' of the Laughter,' ' of the Supplanter,' he can do nothing with
the names so expressed, any more than with any other powerless
instrument. . . . We can say the same of ' Sabaoth,' which is
used in many exorcisms : if we change it to ' Lord of Powers,' or,
' Lord of Hosts,' or, ' Almighty,' we can do nothing . . ." — and (46),
" This, too, is the reason why we ourselves prefer any degradation
to that of owning Zeus to be Deity. We cannot conceive of Zeus as
the same as Sabaoth : or as Divine in any of all possible meanings.
... If the Egyptians offer us ' Ammon,' or death, we shall take
the latter, rather than pronounce the divinity of 'Ammon.' The
Scythians may tell us that their Papoeus is the God of the Universe,
we shall not listen : we firmly believe in the God of the Universe,
but we must not call him Papoeus, making that a name for absolute
Deity, as the Being who occupies the desert, the nation, and the
language of the Scythians would desire : although, indeed, it cannot
be sin for any to use the appellation of the Deity in his own mother
iongue, whether it be the Scythian way or the Egyptian."

views our theologian allows to the Divine teach-
ings, such indeed as men do not grudge even
to bathing-attendants ! For we allow them
to give names to the operations they engage
in, and yet no one invests them with Divine
honours for the invention of such names as
foot-baths, depilatories, towels, and the like —
words which appropriately designate the articles
in question.

But I will pass over both this and their
reading of Epicurus' nature-system, which he
says is equivalent to our conception, maintain-
ing that the doctrine of atoms and erfipty space,
and the fortuitous generation of things, is akin
to what we mean by conception. What an
understanding of Epicurus ! If we ascribe
words expressive of things to the logical faculty
in our nature, we thereby stand convicted of
holding the Epicurean doctrine of indivisible
bodies, and combinations of atoms, and the
collision and rebound of particles, and so on.
I say nothing of Aristotle, whom he takes as his
own patron, and the ally of his system, whose
opinion, he says, in his subsequent remarks,
coincides with our views about conception.
For he says that that philosopher taught that
Providence does not extend through all nature,
nor penetrate into the region of terrestrial
things, and this, Eunomius contends, corre-
sponds to our discoveries in the field of con-
ception. Such is his idea of determining a
doctrine with accuracy ! But he goes on to
say that we must either deny the creation of
things to God, or, if we concede it, we must
not deprive Him of the imposition of names.
And yet even in respect to the brute creation,
as we have said already, we are taught the very
opposite (of both these alternatives) by Holy
Scripture — that neither did Adam make the
animals, nor did God name them, but the
creation was the work of God, and the naming
of the things created was the work of man,
as Moses has recorded. Then in his own
speech he gives us an encomium of speech in
general (as though some one wished to dis-
parage it), and after his eminently abusive and
bombastic conglomeration of words, he says
that, by a law and rule of His providence, God
has combined the transmission of words with
our knowledge and use of things necessary for
our service ; and after pouring forth twaddle of
this kind in the profundity of his slumbers, he
passes on in his discourse to his irresistible and
unanswerable argument. I will not state it in
so many words, but simply give the drift of it.
We are not, he says, to ascribe the invention of
words to poets, who are much mistaken in their
notions of God. What a generous concession
does he make to God in investing Him with
the inventions of the poetic faculty, so that

U 2

292

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

God may thereby seem to men more sublime
and august, when the disciples of Eunomius
believe that such expressions as those used by
Homer for "side-ways," "rang out," "aside,"
"mix4," "clung to his hand," "hissed,"
"thumped," "rattled," "clashed," "rang ter-
ribly," "twanged," "shouted," "pondered," and
many others, are not used by poets by a certain
arbitrary licence, but that they introduce them
into their poems by some mysterious initiation
from God ! Let this, too, be passed over, and
withal that clever and irresistible attempt, that
it is not in our power to quote Scriptural in-
stances of holy men who have invented new
terms. Now if human nature had been imper-
fect up to the time of such men's appearance,
and not as yet completed by the gift of reason,
it would have been well for them to seek that
the deficiency might be supplied. But if from
the very first man's nature existed self-sufficing
and complete for all purposes of reason and
thought, why should any one, in order to estab-
lish this doctrine of conception, humour them
so far as to seek for instances where holy men
initiated sounds or names? Or, if we cannot
adduce any instances, why should any one
regard it as a sufficient proof that such and
such syllables and words were appointed by
God Himself?

But, says he, since God condescends to com-
mune with His servants, we may consequently
suppose that from the very beginning He en-
acted words appropriate to things. What, then,
is our answer ? We account for God's willing-
ness to admit men to communion with Himself
by His love towards mankind. But since that
which is by nature finite cannot rise above its
prescribed limits, or lay hold of the superior
nature of the Most High, on this account He,
bringing His power, so full of love for humanity,
down to the level of human weakness, so far as
it was possible for us to receive it, bestowed on
us this helpful gift of grace. For as by Divine
dispensation the sun, tempering the intensity of
his full beams with the intervening air, pours
down light as well as heat on those who receive
his rays, being himself unapproachable by reason
of the weakness of our nature, so the Divine
power, after the manner of the illustration I
have used, though exalted far above our nature
and inaccessible to all approach, like a tender
mother who joins in the inarticulate utterances
of her babe, gives to our human nature what it
is capable of receiving ; and thus in the various
manifestations of God to man He both adapts
Himself to man and speaks inhuman language,

4 Reading Kt'paipe, according to Oehler's conjecture, from Iliad
ix. 203. All the Codd. and Editt., read xe'icaipe, however. The
Editt., in the Homeric words which follow, show a strange ignorance,
which Guloniushas reproduced, viz. Phocheiri, Poudese, Ische ! (for
t>0 xtlPl> Aouirrjcre, *Iax«).

and assumes wrath, and pity, and such-like
emotions, so that through feelings correspond-
ing to our own our infantile life might be led
as by hand, and lay hold of the Divine nature
by means of the words which His foresight has
given. For that it is irreverent to imagine that
God is subject to any passion such as we see
in respect to pleasure, or pity, or anger, no one
will deny who has thought at all about the truth
of things. And yet_ the Lord is said to take
pleasure in His servants, and to be angry with
the backsliding people, and, again, " to have
mercy on whom He will have mercy, and to
show compassion — the word teaching us in
each of these expressions that God's providence
helps our infirmity by using our own idioms of
speech, so that such as are inclined to sin may
be restrained from committing it by fear of
punishment, and that those who are overtaken
by it may not despair of return by the way of
repentance when they see God's mercy, while
those who are walking uprightly and strictly
may yet more adorn their life with virtue, as
knowing that by their own life they rejoice Him
Whose eyes are over the righteous. But just
as we cannot call a man deaf who converses
with a deaf man by means of signs, — his only
way of hearing, — so we must not suppose speech
in God because of His employing it by way of
accommodation in addressing man. For we
ourselves are accustomed to direct brute beasts
by clucking and whistling and the like, and yet
this, by which we reach their ears, is not our
language, but we use our natural speech in
talking to one another, while, in regard to
cattle, some suitable noise or sound accom-
panied with gesture is sufficient for all purposes
of communication.

But our pious opponent will not allow of God's
using our language, because of our proneness to
evil, shutting his eyes (good man !) to the fact
that for our sakes He did not refuse to be made
sin and a curse. Such is the superabundance of
His love for man, that He voluntarily came to
prove not only our good, but our evil. And if
He was partaker in our evil, why should He
refuse to be partaker in speech, the noblest of
our gifts ? But he advances David in his sup-
port, and declares that he said that names were
imposed on things by God, because it is thus
written, " He telleth the number of the stars ;
He calleth them all by their names 5." But I
think it must be obvious to every man of sense
that what is thus said of the stars has nothing
whatever to do with the subject. Since, how-
ever, it is not improbable that some may un-
warily give their assent to his statement, I will
briefly discuss the point. Holy Scripture often-

s Ps.

cxlvn. 4.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

293

times is wont to attribute expressions to God
such that they seem quite accordant with our
own, e. g. " The Lord was wroth, and it repented
Him because of their sins6" ; and again, " He
repented that He had anointed Saul king 1 " ;
and again, "The Lord awaked as one out of
sleep 8 " ; and besides this, it makes mention of
His sitting, and standing, and moving, and the
like, which are not as a fact connected with
God, but are not without their use as an ac-
commodation to those who are under teaching.
For in the case of the too unbridled, a show
of anger restrains them by fear. And to those
who need the medicine of repentance, it says
that the Lord repenteth along with them of the
evil, and those who grow insolent through pros-
perity it warns, by God's repentance in respect
to Saul, that their good fortune is no certain
possession, though it seem to come from God.
To those who are not engulfed by their sinful
fall, but who have risen from a life of vanity as
from sleep, it says that God arises out of sleep.
To those who steadfastly take their stand upon
righteousness, — that He stands. To those who
are seated in righteousness, — that He sits. And
again, in the case of those who have moved from
their steadfastness in righteousness, — that He
moves or walks ; as, in the case of Adam, the
sacred history records God's walking in the
garden in the cool of the day9, signifying thereby
the fall of the first man into darkness, and, by
the moving, his weakness and instability in regard
to righteousness.

But most people, perhaps, will think this too
far removed from the scope of our present in-
quiry. This, however, no one will regard as out
of keeping with our subject ; the fact that many
think that what is incomprehensible to them-
selves is equally incomprehensible to God, and
that whatever escapes their own cognizance is
also beyond the power of His. Now since we
make number the measure of quantity, and
number is nothing else than a combination of
units growing into multitude in a complex way
(for the decad is a unit brought to that value
by the composition of units, and again the
hundred is a unit composed of decads, and in
like manner the thousand is another unit, and
so in due proportion the myriad is another by
a multiplication, the one being made up to its
value by thousands, the other by hundreds, by
assigning all which to their underlying class
we make signs of the quantity of the things
numbered), accordingly, in order that we may
be taught by Holy Scripture that nothing is
unknown to God, it tells us that the multitude
of the stars is numbered by Him, not that their
numbering takes place as I have described, (for

6 Ps. cvi. 40.
8 Ps. lxxviii. 65.

1 1 Sam. xv. 35.
9 Gen. iii. 8.

who is so simple as to think that God takes
knowledge of things by odd and even, and that
by putting units together He makes up the
total of the collective quantity?) but, since in
our own case the exact knowledge of quantity
is obtained by number, in order, I say, that we
might be taught in respect to God that all
things are comprehended by the knowledge of
His wisdom, and that nothing escapes His
minute cognizance, on this account it represents
God as " numbering the stars," counselling us
by these words to understand this, viz. that we
must not imagine God to take note of things
by the measure of human knowledge, but that
all things, however incomprehensible and above
human understanding, are embraced by the
knowledge of the wisdom of God. For as the
stars on account of their multitude escape
numbering, as far as our human conception is
concerned, Holy Scripture, teaching the whole
from the part, in saying that they are numbered
by God attests that not one of the things un-
known to us escapes the knowledge of God.
And therefore it says, " Who telleth the multi-
tude of the stars," of course not meaning that
He did not know their number beforehand; for
how should He be ignorant of what He Himself
created, seeing that the Ruler of the Universe
could not be ignorant of that which is com-
prehended in His power ; which includes the
worlds in its embrace ? Why, then, should He
number what He knows ? For to measure
quantity by number is the part of those who
want information. But He Who knew all
things before they were created needs not
number as His informant. But when David
says that He " numbers the stars," it is evident
that the Scripture descends to such language
in accordance with our understanding, to teach
us emblematically that the things which we
know not are accurately known to God. As,
then, He is said to number, though needing no
arithmetical process to arrive at the knowledge
of things created, so also the Prophet tells us
that He calleth them all by their names, not
meaning, I imagine, that He does so by any
vocal utterance. For verily such language
would result in a conception strangely unworthy
of God, if it meant that these names in common
use among ourselves were applied to the stars
by God. For, should any one allow that these
were so applied by God, it must follow that the
names of the idol gods of Greece were applied
by Him also to the stars, and we must regard
as true all the tales from mythological history
that are told about those starry names, as
though God Himself sanctioned their utterance.
Thus the distribution among the Greek idols
of the seven planets contained in the heavens
will exempt from blame those who have erred

294

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

in respect to them, if men be persuaded that
such an arrangement was God's. Thus the
fables of Orion and the Scorpion will be be-
lieved, and the legends respecting the ship
Argo, and the Swan, and the Eagle, and the
Dog, and the mythical story of Ariadne's crown.
Moreover it will pave the way for supposing
God to be the inventor of the names in the
zodiacal circle, devised after some fancied re-
semblance in the constellations, if Eunomius is
right in supposing that David said that these
names were given them by God.

Since, then, it is monstrous to regard God as
the inventor of such names, lest the names
even of these idol gods should seem to have
had their origin from God, it will be well not to
receive what has been said without inquiry, but
to get to the meaning in this case also after the
analogy of those things of which number in-
forms us. Well, since it attests the accuracy
of our knowledge, when we call one familiar to
us by his name, we are here taught that He
Who embraces the Universe in His knowledge
not only comprehends the total of the aggregate
quantity, but has an exact knowledge of the
units also that compose it. And therefore the
Scripture says not only that He " telleth the
number of the stars," but that "He calleth
them all by their names," which means that
His accurate knowledge extends to the minutest
of them, and that He knows each particular
respecting them, just as a man knows one who
is familiar to him by name. And if any one
say that the names given to the stars by God
are different ones, unknown to human language,
he wanders far away from the truth. For if
there were other names of stars, Holy Scripture
would not have made mention of those which
are in common use among the Greeks, Esaias
saying1, "Which maketh the Pleiads, and
Hesperus, and Arcturus, and the Chambers of
the South," and Job making mention of Orion
and Aseroth 2 ; so that from this it is clear that
Holy Scripture employs for our instruction
such words as are in common use. Thus we
hear in Job of Amalthea's horn 3, and in Esaias
of the Sirens +, the former thus naming plenty

1 The words here attributed to Isaiah are found in Job ix. q
(LXX.) : and Orion in Isaiah xiii. 10 (LXX), with "the stars of
heaven : " and in Amos v. 8 with " the seven stars."

2 For Aseroth perhaps Mazaroth should be read. Cf. Job
xxxviii. 32, " Canst thou lead forth the Mazaroth in their season?"
(K.V.)and 2 Kings xxiii. 5, "to the planets (toi<: /loujbvpwO)," i.e.
the twelve signs of the Zodiac.

3 'AfiaA8eias Ke'pac. So LXX. forthename of Job's third daugh-
ter, Keren-happuch, for which Symmachus and Aquila have Kapva-
<1>ovk, i. e. Horn of purple (fucus). The LXX. translator of Job
was rather fond of classical allusions, and so brought in the Greek
liorn (of plenty). Amalthea's goat, that suckled Jupiter, broke it*
horn.

" Sustulit hoc Nymphe, cinctumque recentibus herbis

Et plenum pomis ad Jovis ora tulit." — Ovid, Fasti, v. 123.

* Isaiah xiii. 21. »cai avanainroi'Ttu exei aeipjji'es, icai Stup.ovia
e«€t bpxnvovTai., " and ostriches shall dwell there, and satyrs shall
dance there" (R. V.). The LXX. render the Hebrew (baih-jaana)

after the conceit of the Greeks, the latter re-
presenting the pleasure derived from hearing,
by the figure of the Sirens. As, then, in these
cases the inspired word has made use of names
drawn from mythological fables, with a view to
the advantage of the hearers, so here it freely
makes use of the appellations given to the stars
by human fancy, teaching us that all things
whatsoever that are named among men have
their origin from God — the things, not their
names. For it does not say Who nameth, but
" Who maketh Pleiad, and Hesperus, and Arc-
turus." I think, then, it has been sufficiently
shown in what I have said that David supports
our opinion, in teaching us by this utterance,
not that God gives the stars their names, but
that He has an exact knowledge of them, after
the fashion of men, who have the most certain
knowledge of those whom they are able, through
long familiarity, to call by their names.

And if we set forth the opinion of" most com-
mentators on these words of the Psalmist, that
of Eunomius regarding them will be still more
convicted of foolishness. For those who have
most carefully searched out the sense of the
inspired Scripture, declare that not all the
works of creation are worthy of the Divine
reckoning. For in the Gospel narratives of
feeding the multitudes in the wilderness, women
and children are not thought worthy of enumer-
ation. And in the account of the Exodus of
the children of Israel, those only are enumerated
in the roll who were of age to bear arms against
their enemies, and to do deeds of valour. For
not all names of things are fit to be pronounced
by the Divine lips, but the enumeration is only
for that which is pure and heavenly, which, by
the loftiness of its state remaining pure from all
admixture with darkness, is called a star, and
the naming is only for that which, for the same
reason, is worthy to be registered in the Divine
tablets. For of His adversaries He says, " I
will not take up their names into my lips 5."

But the names which the Lord gives to such
stars we may plainly learn from the prophecy
of Esaias, which says, " I have called thee by
thy name ; thou art Mine 6." So that if a man
makes himself God's possession, his act becomes

by <ret.pr)ve<; also in Isaiah xxxiv. 13, xliii. 20 : and in Micah i. 8 :
Jeremiah i. 39. Cyril of Alexandria has on the first passage,
" Birds that have a sweet note : or, according to the Jewish inter-
pretation, the owl." And this is followed by the majority of
commentators. Cf. Gray —

" The moping owl doth to the moon complain."

But Bochart has many and strong arguments to prove that the
ostrich, i. e. the <TTpov0o-Kap.r\Ko<;, or " large sparrow with the long
neck," is meant by bath-jaana : it has a high sharp unpleasant note.
Cf. Job xxx. 29, "I am a companion to ostriches" (R. V.). speaking
of his bitter cry. — Jeiome also translates " habitabunt ibi struthi-
ones ; " and the LXX. elsewhere than above by <npov9la. Gregory
follows the traditional interpretation, of some pleasant note ; and
somehow identifies the Gr;ek word with the Hebrew.

5 Ps. xvi. 4. 6 Is. xliii. 1.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

295

his name. But be this as the reader pleases.
Eunomius, however, adds to his previous state-
ment that the beginnings of creation testify to
the fact, that names were given by God to the
things which He created ; but I think that it
would be superfluous to repeat what I have
already sufficiently set forth as the result of my
investigations ; and he may put his own arbitrary
interpretation on the word Adam, which, the
Apostle tells us, points prophetically to Christ 7.
For no one can be so infatuated, when Paul,
by the power of the Spirit, has revealed to us
the hidden mysteries, as to count Eunomius a
more trustworthy interpreter of Divine things —
a man who openly impugns the words of the
inspired testimony, and who by his false inter-
pretation of the word would fain prove that the
various kinds of animals were not named by
Adam. We shall do well, also, to pass over
his insolent expressions, and tasteless vulgarity,
and foul and disgusting tongue, with its accus-
tomed fluency going on about our Master as "a
sower of tares," and about " a deceptive show s
of grain, and the blight of Valentinus, and his
grain piled in our Master's mind " : and we will
veil in silence the rest of his unsavoury talk as
we veil putrefying corpses in the ground, that
the stench may not prove injurious to many.
Rather let us proceed to what remains for us to
say. For once more he adduces a dictum of
our Master 9, to this effect. " We call God in-
destructible and ungenerate, applying these
words from different points of view. For when
we look to the ages that are past, finding the
life of God transcending all limitation, we call
Him ungenerate. But when we turn our
thoughts to the ages that are yet to come, Him
Who is infinite, illimitable, and without end, we
call indestructible. As, then, that which has
no end of life is indestructible, so that which
has no beginning we call ungenerate, represent-
ing things so by the faculty of conception."

I will pass over, then, the abuse with which
he has prefaced his discussion of these matters,
as when he uses such terms as " alteration of
seed," and " teacher of sowing," and " illogical
censure," and whatever other aspersions he
ventures on with his foul tongue. Let us rather
turn to the point which he tries to establish by
his calumnious accusation. He promises to
convict us of saying that God is not by His

? Rom. xvi. 25. — On Eunomius' knowledge of Scripture, see
Socrates iv. 7. " He had a very slender knowledge of the letter of
Scripture : he was wholly unable to enter into the spirit of it. Yet
he abounded in words, and was accustomed to repeat the same
thoughts in different terms without ever arriving at a clear explanation
of what he had proposed to himself. Of this his seven books on the
Apostle's Fpisile to the Romans, on which he expended a quantity
of vain labour, is a remarkable proof." But see c. Eunom. 11. p. 107.

8 npojoiliiv, the reading of Oehler's MSS. : also of Pithoeus' MS ,
which John the Franciscan changed into the vox nihili Trpoa.^iiv
Cputredinem), which appears in the Paris Erlitt. of i6?8.

9 The e words are in S. Basil's first Bonk against Eunomius.

nature indestructible. But we hold only such
things foreign to His nature as may be added
to or subtracted from it. But, in the case of
things without which the subject is incapable
of being conceived by the mind, how can any
one be open to the charge of separating His
nature from itself? If, then, the indestructibility
which we ascribe to God were adventitious, and
did not always belong to Him, or might cease
to belong to Him, he might be justified in his
calumnious attack. But if it is always the
same, and our contention is, that God is always
what He is, and that He receives nothing by
way of increase or addition of properties, but
continues always in whatsoever is conceived and
called good, why should we be slanderously
accused of not ascribing indestructibility to
Him as of His essential nature ? But he pre-
tends that he grounds his accusation on the
words of Basil which I have already quoted, as
though we bestowed indestructibility on God by
reference to the ages. Now if our statement
were put forward by ourselves, our defence
might perhaps seem open to suspicion, as if we
now wanted to amend or justify any question-
able expressions of ours. But since our state-
ments are taken from the lips of an adversary,
what stronger demonstration could we have of
their truth than the evidence of our opponents
themselves? How is it, then, with the state-
ment which Eunomius lays hold of with a view
to our prejudice ? When, he says, we turn our
thoughts to the ages that are yet to be, we
speak of the infinite, and illimitable, and un-
ending, as indestructible. Does Eunomius
count such ascription as identical with bestow-
ing ? Yet who is such a stranger to existing
usage as to be ignorant of the proper meaning
of these expressions? For that man bestoivs
who possesses something which another has
not, while that man ascribes who designates
with a name what another has. How is it, then,
that our instructor in truth is not ashamed of
his plainly calumnious impeachment? But as
those who, from some disease, are bereft of sight,
are unseemly in their behaviour before the eyes
of the seeing, supposing that what is not seen by
themselves is a thing unobserved also by those
whose sight is unimpaired, just such is the case
of our sharp-sighted and quick-witted opponent,
who supposes his hearers to be afflicted with the
same blindness to the truth as himself. And
who is so foolish as not to compare the words
which he calumniously assails with his charge
itself, and by reading them side by side to de-
tect the malice of the writer? Our statement
ascribes indestructibility ; he charges it with
bestowing indestructibility. What has this to
do with our statement ? Every man has a right
to be judged by his own deeds, not to be blamed

296

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

for those of others ; and in this present case,
while he accuses us, and points his bitterness
at us, in truth he is condemning no one but
himself. For if it is reprehensible to bestow
indestructibility on God, and this is done by no
one but himself, is not our slanderer his own
accuser, assailing his own statements and not
ours? And with regard to the term indestruc-
tibility, we assert that as the life which is end-
less is rightly called indestructible, so that
which is without beginning is rjghtly called
ungenerate. And yet Eunomius says that we
lend Him the primacy over all created things
simply by reference to the ages.

I pass in silence his blasphemy in reducing
God the Only-begotten to a level with all created
things, and, in a word, allowing to the Son of
God no higher honour than theirs. Still, for
the sake of my more intelligent hearers, I will
here give an instance of his insensate malice.
Basil, he says, lends God the primacy over all
things by reference to the ages. What unintel-
ligible nonsense is this ! Man is made God's
patron, and gives to God a primacy owing to the
ages ! What is this vain flourish of baseless ex-
pressions, seeing that our Master simply says that
whatever in the Divine essence transcends the
measurable distances of the ages in either
direction is called by certain distinctive names,
in the case of Him Who, as saith the Apostle,
hath neither beginning of days nor end of life r,
in order that the distinction of the conception
might be marked by distinction in the names.
And yet on this account Eunomius has the
effrontery to write, that to call that which is
anterior to all beginning ungenerate, and again
that which is circumscribed by no limit, im-
mortal and indestructible, is a bestowing or
lending on our part, and other nonsense of the
kind. Moreover, he says that we divide the
ages into two parts, as if he had not read the
words he quoted, or as if he were addressing
those who had forgotten his own previous state-
ments. For what says our Master ? " If we
look at the time before the Creation, and if
passing in thought through the ages we reflect
on the infinitude of the Eternal Life, we signify
the thought by the term ungenerate. And if
we turn our thoughts to what follows, and con-
sider the being of God as extending beyond all
ages, we interpret the thought by the word
endless or indestructible." Well, how does
such an account sever the ages in twain, if by
such possible words and names we signify that
eternity of God which is equally observable from
every point of view, in all things the same, un-
broken in continuity? For seeing that human
life, moving from stage to stage, advances in its

1 Hcb. vii. 3.

progress from a beginning to an end, and our
life here is divided between that which is past
and that which is expected, so that the one is
the subject of hope, the other of memory ; on
this account, as, in relation to ourselves, we
apprehend a past and a future in this measur-
able extent, so also we apply the thought,
though incorrectly, to the transcendent nature
of God ; not of course that God in His own
existence leaves any interval behind, or passes
on afresh to something that lies before, but
because our intellect can only conceive things
according to our nature, and measures the
eternal by a past and a future, where neither
the past precludes the march of thought to the
illimitable and infinite, nor the future tells us
of any pause or limit of His endless life. If,
then, it is thus that we think and speak, why
does he keep taunting us with dividing the
ages ? Unless, indeed, Eunomius would main-
tain that Holy Scripture does so too, signifying
as it does by the same idea the infinity of the
Divine existence ; David, for example, making
mention of the "kingdom from everlasting,"
and Moses, speaking of the kingdom of God as
"extending beyond all ages," so that we are
taught by both that every duration conceiv-
able is environed by the Divine nature, bounded
on all sides by the infinity of Him Who
holds the universe in His embrace. For
Moses, looking to the future, says that " He
reigneth from generation to generation for ever-
more." And great David, turning his thought
backward to the past, says, "God is our King
before the ages 2," and again, " God, Who was
before the ages, shall hear us." But Eunomius,
in his cleverness taking leave of such guides as
these, says that we talk of the life that is with-
out beginning as one, and of that which is
without end as quite another, and again, of
diversities of sundry ages, effecting by their
own diversity a separation in our idea of God.
But that our controversy may not grow to a
tedious length, we will add, without criticism or
comment, the outcome of Eunomius' labours
on the subject, well fitted as they are by his
industry displayed in the cause of error to
render the truth yet more evident to the eyes
of the discerning.

For, proceeding with his discourse, he asks
us what we mean by the ages. And yet we
ourselves might more reasonably put such
questions to him. For it is he who professes
to know the essence of God, defining on his
own authority what is unapproachable and in-
comprehensible by man. Let him, then, give
us a scientific lecture on the nature of the ages,
boasting as he does of his familiarity with tran-

a Cf. Ps. xliv. 4, and xlviii. 14, with Ixxiv. 12.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

297

scendental things, and let him not so fiercely
brandish over us, poor ignorant individuals, the
double danger of the dilemma involved in our
reply, telling us that, whether we hold this or
that view of the ages, the result must be in
either case an absurdity. For if (says he) you
say that they are eternal, you will be Greeks,
and Valentinians 3, and uninstructed 4 : and if
you say that they are generate, you will no
longer be able to ascribe ungeneracy to God.
What a terribly unanswerable attack ! If, O
Eunomius, something is held to be generate,
we no longer hold the doctrine of the Divine
ungeneracy ! And pray what has become of
your subtle distinctions between generacy and
ungeneracy, by which you sought to establish
the dissimilarity of the essence of the Son from
that of the Father? For it seems from what
we are now being taught that the Father is not
dissimilar in essence when contemplated in
respect of generacy, but that, in fact, if we hold
His ungeneracy, we reduce Him to non-exist-
ence ; since " if we speak of the ages as generate,
we are driven to relinquish the Ungenerate.
But let us examine the force of the argument
by which he would compel as to allow this
absurdity. When, says he, those things by
comparison with which God is without begin-
ning are non-existent, He Who is compared
with them must be non-existent also. What
a sturdy and overpowering grip is this ! How
tightly has this wrestler got us by the waist
in his inextricable grasp ! He says that God's
ungeneracy is added to Him through com-
parison with the ages. By whom is it so
added? Who is there that says that to Him
Who hath no beginning ungeneracy is added
as an acquisition through comparison with
something else? Neither such a word nor
such a sense will be found in any writings of
ours. Our words indeed carry their own justi-
fication, and contain nothing like what is
alleged against us ; and of the meaning of
what is said, who can be a more trustworthy
interpreter than he who said it? Have not we,
then, the better title to say what we mean when
we speak of the life of God as extending beyond
the ages ? And what we say is what we have
said already in our previous writings. But,
says he, comparison with the ages being im-
possible, it is impossible that any addition
should accrue from it to God, meaning of

3 Valentinns " placed in the pleroma (so the Gnostics called the
habitation of the Deity) thirty teons (ages), of which one half were
male, and the other female" (Mosheim), i.e. these aeons were
co-ettrrnal with the Deity.

* fid.pfia.poi here being not opposed to "Greeks" must imply
mere inability to speak aright : amongst those who claimed to use
Catholic language another " barbarism," or "jargon," had arisen
(;. e. that of heresy, whether Platonist or Gnostic), different from
that which separated the Greeks from the Jews, Africans, Romans
alike. Hesychius ; fia.pfia.poi oi a.7rai6euT0i. So to S. Paul "the
peop e" of Malta Acts xxviii. 2 — 4), as to others the Apostles, were
birbarian.

course that ungeneracy is an addition. Let
him tell us by whom such an addition has been
made. If by himself, he becomes simply
ridiculous in laying his own folly to our charge:
if by us, let him quote our words, and then we
will admit the force of his accusation.

But I think we must pass over this and all
that follows. For it is the mere trifling of
children who amuse themselves with beginning
to build houses in sand. For having composed
a portion of a paragraph, and not yet brought
it to a conclusion, he shows that the same life
is without beginning and without end, thus in
his eagerness working out our own conclu-
sion. For this is just what we say ; that the
Divine life is one and continuous in itself,
infinite and eternal, in no wise bounded by any
limit to its infinity. Thus far our opponent
devotes his labours and exertions to the truth
;is we represent it, showing that the same life
is on no side limited, whether we look at that
part of it which was before the ages, or at that
which succeeds them. But in his next re-
marks he returns to his old confusion. For
after saying that the same life is without be-
ginning and without end, leaving the subject
of life, and ranging all the ideas we entertain
about the Divine life under one head, he
unifies everything. If, says he, the life is with-
out beginning and without end, ungenerate and
indestructible, then indestructibility and un-
generacy will be the same thing, as will also the
being without beginning and without end. And
to this he adds the aid of arguments. It is not
possible, he says, for the life to be one, unless
indestructibility and ungeneracy are identical
terms. An admirable "addition " on the part of
our friend. It would seem, then, that we may
hold the same language in regard to righteous-
ness, wisdom, power, goodness, and all such
attributes of God. Let, then, no word have a
meaning peculiar to itself, but let one signifi-
cation underlie every word in a list, and one
form of description serve for the definition of all.
If you are asked to define the word judge,
answer with the interpretation of "ungeneracy";
if to define justice, be ready with " the incor-
poreal " as your answer. If asked to define in-
corruptibility, say that it has the same meaning
as mercy or judgment. Thus let all God's attri-
butes be convertible terms, there being no special
signification to distinguish one from another.
But if Eunomius thus prescribes, why do the
Scriptures vainly assign various names to the
Divine nature, calling God a Judge, righteous,
powerful, long-suffering, true, merciful, and so on?
For if none of these titles is to be understood in
any special or peculiar sense, but, owing to this
confusion in their meaning, they are all mixed
up together, it would be useless to employ so

298

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

many words for the same thing, there being no
difference of meaning to distinguish them from
one another. But who is so much out of his
wits as not to know that, while the Divine
nature, whatever it is in its essence, is simple,
uniform, and incomposite, and that it cannot
be viewed under any form of complex forma-
tion, the human mind, grovelling on earth, and
buried in this life on earth, in its inability to
behold clearly the object of its search, feels
after the unutterable Being in divers and many-
sided ways, and never chases the mystery in
the light of one idea alone. Our grasping of
Him would indeed be easy, if there lay before
us one single assigned path to the knowledge
of God : but as it is, from the skill apparent in
the Universe, we get the idea of skill in the
Ruler of that Universe, from the large scale of
the wonders worked we get the impression of
His Power ; and from our belief that this Uni-
verse depends on Him, we get an indication that
there is no cause whatever of His existence ;
and again, when we see the execrable character
of evil, we grasp His own unalterable pureness
as regards this : when we consider death's dis-
solution to be the worst of ills, we give the name
of Immortal and Indissoluble at once to Him
Who is removed from every conception of that
kind : not that we split up the subject of such
attributes along with them, but believing that
this thing we think of, whatever it be in sub-
stance, is One, we still conceive that it has
something in common with all these ideas.
For these terms are not set against each other
in the way of opposites, as if, the one existing
there, the other could not co-exist in the same
subject (as, for instance, it is impossible that
life and death should be thought of in the same
subject) ; but the force of each of the terms
used in connection with the Divine Being is
such that, even though it has a peculiar signifi-
cance of its own, it implies no opposition to
the term associated with it. What opposition,
for instance, is there between "incorporeal"
and "just," even though the words do not
coincide in meaning : and what hostility is
there between goodness and invisibility? So,
too, the eternity of the Divine Life, though
represented under the double name and idea
of "the unending" and "the unbeginning," is
not cut in two by this difference of name ; nor
yet is the one name the same in meaning as
the other ; the one points to the absence of
beginning, the other to the absence of end, and
yet there is no division produced in the subject
by this difference in the actual terms applied to it.
Such is our position ; our adversary's, with
regard to the precise meaning of this term s, is

'if. aytwrfroi.

such as can derive no help from any reasonings ;
he only spits forth at random about it these
strangely unmeaning and bombastic expres-
sions6, in the framework of his sentences and
periods. But the upshot of all he says is this ;
that there is no difference in the meaning of
the most varied names. But we must most
certainly, as it seems to me, quote this passage
of his word for word, lest we be thought to be
calumniously charging him with something that
does not belong to him. " True expressions,"
he says, " derive their precision from the sub-
ject realities which they indicate ; different
expressions are applied to different realities, the
same to the same : and so one or other of these
two things must of necessity be held : either
that the reality indicated is different (if the
expressions are), or else that the indicating
expressions are not different." With these and
many other such-like words, he proceeds to
effect the object he has before him, excluding
from the expression certain relations and affini-
ties7, such as species, proportion, part, time,
manner : in order that by the withdrawal of all
these " Ungeneracy " may become indicative of
the substance of God. His process of proof is
in the following manner (I will express his idea
in my own words). The life, he says, is not a
different thing from the substance ; no addition
may be thought of in connection with a simple
being, by dividing our conception of him into
a communicating and communicated side ; but
whatever the life may be, that very thing, he
insists, is the substance. Here his philosophy
is excellent ; no thinking person would gainsay
this. But how does he arrive at his contem-
plated conclusion, when he says, "when we
mean the unbeginning, we mean the life, and
truth compels us by this last to mean the sub-
stance"? The ungenerate, then, according to
him is expressive of the very substance of God.
We, on the other hand, while we agree that the
life of God was not given by another, which is
the meaning of " unbeginning," think that the
belief that the idea expressed by the words
" not generated " is the substance of God is a
madman's only. Who indeed can be so beside
himself as to declare the absence of any gener-
ation to be the definition of that substance (for
as generation is involved in the generate, so is
the absence of generation in the ungenerate) ?
Ungeneracy indicates that which is not in the
Father ; so how shall we allow the indication
of that which is absent to be His substance ?
Helping himself to that which neither we nor
any logical conclusion from the premises allows

6 aAAoKOTtus avTov Ta? TOiavTas o"ro/Li$i65ei? Kai olSiolvotitovs

<tnol'n<. . . . TTpO? TO (TV^Lj3ai' aTTOTTTVOl'TO?

7 £Kj3aAu>i> tou A070U cryeVfi? Tira? *cai 7rapa#e'<7€is. Gulonius*
Latin is wrong ; " proiulit in medium."

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

299

him, he lays it down that God's Ungeneracy is
expressive of God's life. But to make quite
plain his delusion upon this subject, let us look
at it in the following way ; I mean, let us
examine whether, by employing the same
.method by which he, in the case of the Father,
has brought the definition of the substance to
ungeneracy, we may not equally bring the
substance of the Son to ungeneracy.

He says, "The Life that is the same, and
thoroughly single, must have one and the same
outward expression for it, even though in mere
names, and manner, and order it may seem to
vary. For true expressions derive their pre-
cision from the subject realities which they
indicate ; different expressions are applied to
different realities, the same to the same ; and
so one or other of these two things must of
necessity be held ; either that the reality in-
dicated is quite different (if the expressions
are), or else that the indicating expressions. are
not different ; " and there is in this case no
other subject reality besides the life of the Son,
" for one either to rest an idea upon, or to cast a
different expression upon." Is there, I may ask,
any unfitness in the words quoted, which would
prevent them being rightly spoken or written
about the Only-begotten ? Is not the Son Him-
self also a " Life thoroughly single " ? Is there
not for Him also " one and the same " befitting
" expression," " though in mere names, and
manner, and order He may seem to vary " ?
Must not, for Him also, " one or other of these
two things be held" fixed, "either that the
reality indicated is quite different, or else that
the indicating expressions are not different,"
there being no other subject reality, besides his
life, " for one either to rest an idea upon, or to
cast a different expression upon " ? We mix
up nothing here with what Eunomius has said
about the Father ; we have only passed from
the same accepted premise to the same conclu-
sion as he did, merely inserting the Son's name
instead. If, then, the Son too is a single life,
unadulterated, removed from every sort of com-
positeness or complication, and there is no
subject reality besides this life of the Son (for
how in that which is simple can the mixture of
anything foreign be suspected? what we have
to think of along with something else is no
longer simple), and if the Father's substance
also is a single life, and of this single life, by
virtue of its very life and its very singleness,
there are no differences, no increase or decrease
in quantity or quality in it creating any varia-
tion, it needs must be that things thus coincid-
ing in idea should be called by the same appella-
tion also. If, that is, the thing that is detected
both in the Father and the Son, I mean the
singleness of life, is one, the very idea of single-

ness excluding, as we have said, any variation,
it needs must be that the name befitting the (me
should be attached to the other also. For as
that which reasons, and is mortal, and is capable
of thought and knowledge, is called " man "
equally in the case of Adam and of Abel, and
this name of the nature is not altered either by
the fact that Abel passed into existence by gen-
eration, or by the fact that Adam did so with-
out generation, so, if the simplicity1 and incom-
positeness of the Father's life has ungeneracy
for its name, in like manner for the Son's life
the same idea will necessarily have to be attached
to the same utterance, if, as Eunomius says,
" one or other of these two things must of neces-
sity be held ; either that the reality indicated is
quite different, or else that the indicating ex-
pressions are not different."

But why do we linger over these follies,
when we ought rather to put Eunomius' book
itself into the hands of the studious, and so,
apart from any examination of it, to prove at
once to the discerning, not only the blasphemy
of his opinion, but also the nervelessness of his
style 2 ? While in various ways, not going upon
our apprehension of it, but following his own
fancy, he misinterprets the word Conception,
just as in a night-battle nobody can distinguish
friend and foe, he does not understand that he
is stabbing his own doctrine with the very
weapons he thinks he is turning upon us. For
the point in which he thinks he is most removed
from the church of the orthodox is this ; that
he attempts to prove that God became Father
at some later time, and that the appellation of
Fatherhood is later than all those other names
which attach to Him ; for that He was called
Father from that moment in which He purposed
in Himself to become, and did become, Father.
Well, then, since in this treatise he is for proving
that all the names applied to the Divine Nature
coincide with each other, and that there is no
difference whatever between them, and since
one amongst these applied names is Father (for
as God is indestructible and eternal, so also He
is Father), we must either sanction, in the case
of this term also, the opinion he holds about
the rest, and so contravene his former position,
seeing that the idea of Fatherhood is found to
be involved in any of these other terms (for it
is plain that if the meaning of indestructible and
Father is exactly the same, He will be believed
to be, just as He is always indestructible, so
likewise always Father, there being one single
signification, he says, in all these names) : or
else, if he fears thus to testify to the eternal

1 Reading elwep to ottAoCi' with the editt., which is manifestly
required by the sense.

2 <rvv7)0eias, lit. usage of language. Cf. Plato, Theaet. 168 B, £k
<rvv7)dniii<; pr\fia.ruiv Te ko.\ ovofuiTutv. It is used absolutely, by tlie-
Grammarians, for the "Vulgar dialect."

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

Fatherhood of God, he must perforce abandon
his whole argument, and own that each of these
names has a meaning peculiar to itself; and
thus all this nonsense of his about the Divine
names bursts like a bubble, and vanishes like
smoke.

But if he should still answer with regard to
this opposition (of the Divine names), that it is
only the term Father, and the term Creator,
that are applied to God as expressing produc-
tion, both words being so applied, as he says,
because of an operation, then he will cut short
our long discussion of this subject, by thus
conceding what it would have required a labori-
ous argument on our part to prove. For if the
word Father and the word Creator have the
same meaning (for both arise from an opera-
tion), one of the things signified is exactly
equivalent to the other, since if the signification
is the same, the subjects cannot be different.
If, then, He is called both Father and Creator
because of an operation, it is quite allowable to
interchange the names, and to turn one into
the other and say that God is Creator of the
Son, and Father of a stone, seeing that the
term Father is to be devoid of any meaning of
essential relation 3. Well, the monstrous con-
clusion that is hereby proved cannot remain
doubtful to those who reflect. For as it is
absurd to deem a stone, or anything else that
exists by creation, Divine, it must be agreed
that there is no Divinity to be recognized in
the Only-begotten either, when that one identi-
cal meaning of an operation, by which God is
•called both Father and Creator, assigns, accord-
ing to Eunomius, both these terms to Him. But
let us hold to the question before us. He
abuses our assertion that our knowledge of God
is formed by contributions of terms applied to
different ideas, and says that the proof of His
simplicity is destroyed by us so, since He must
partake of the elements signified by each term,
and only by virtue of a share in them can com-
pletely fill out His essence. Here I write in
my own language, curtailing his wearisome pro-
lixity; and in answer to his foolish and nerveless
redundancy no sensible person, I think, would
make any reply, except as regards his charging
us with " senselessness." Now if anything of
that description had been said by us, we ought
of course to retract it if it was foolishly worded,
or, if there was any doubt as to its meaning, to
put an irreproachable interpretation upon it.
But we have not said anything of the kind, any
more than the consequences of our words lead
the mind to any such necessity. Why, then,
linger on that to which all assent, and weary
the reader by prolonging the argument ? Who

3 Trjt Kara (bvaiv crxeTticjj? <rr\y.a.<riaG.

is really so devoid of reflection as to imagine,
when he hears that our orthodox conceptions
of the Deity are gathered from various ways of
thinking of Him, that the Deity is composed
of these various elements, or completes His
actual fulness by participating in anything at
all ? A man, say, has made discoveries in geo-
metry, and this same man, let us suppose, has
made discoveries also in astronomy, and in
medicine as well, and grammar, and agricul-
ture, and sciences of that kind. Will it follow,
because there are these various names of sciences
viewed in connection with one single soul, that
that single soul is to be considered a com-
posite soul ? Yet there is a very great differ-
ence in meaning between medicine and as-
tronomy ; and grammar means nothing in
common with geometry, or seamanship with
agriculture. Nevertheless it is within the
bounds of possibility that the idea of each of
these sciences should be associated with one
soul, without that soul thereby becoming com-
posite, or, on the other hand, without all those
terms for sciences blending into one meaning.
If, then, the human mind, with all such terms
applied to it, is not injured as regards its sim-
plicity, how can any one imagine that the Deity,
when He is called wise, and just, and good,
and eternal, and all the other Divine names,
must, unless all these names are made to mean
one thing, become of many parts, or take a
share of all these to make up the perfection of
His nature?

But let us examine a still more vehement
charge of his against us ; it is this : " If one
must proceed to say something harsher still, he
does not even keep the Divine substance pure
and unadulterated from inferior and contradic-
tory elements." This is the charge, but the
proof of it is, — what ? Observe the strong pro-
fessional attack ! " If He is imperishable only
by reason of the unending in His Life, and
ungenerate only by reason of the unbeginning,
then wherein He is not imperishable He is
perishable, and wherein He is not ungenerate
He is generated." Then returning to the charge,
he repeats, " He will then be, as unbeginning,
at once ungenerate and perishable, and, as
unending, at once imperishable and generated."
Such is his "harsher" statement, which, accord-
ing to his threat, he has discharged against us,
to prove that we say that the Divine substance
is mingled with contradictory and even inferior
elements. However, I think it is plain to all
who keep unimpaired within themselves the
power of judging the truth, that our Master has
given no handle at all, in what he has said, to
this calumniator, but that the latter has garbled
it at will, and then, playing at arguing, has
drawn out this childish sophistry. But that

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS* SECOND BOOK.

301

it may be plainer still to all my readers, I
will repeat that statement of the Master word
for word, and then confront Eunomius' words
with it. " We call the Universal Deity " (he
says) "imperishable and ungenerate, using these
words with different applications 4 of thought ;
for when we concentrate our view upon the
ages behind us, we find the life of the Deity
transcending every limit, and so name Him
' ungenerate ' ; but when we turn our thoughts
upon the ages to come, we call the infinite in
Him, the boundless, the absence of all end to
His living, 'imperishability.' As, then, this
endlessness is called imperishable, so too this
beginninglessness is called ungenerate ; and we
arrive at these names by Conception." Such
are the Master's words, and by them he teaches
us this : that the Divine Life is essentially single
and continuous with Itself, starting from no
beginning, circumscribed by no end ; and that
the intuitions which we possess regarding this
Life it is possible to make clear by words.
That is, we express the never having come from
any cause by the term unbeginning or ungener-
ate ; and we express the not being circumscribed
by any limit, and not being destroyed by any
death, by the term imperishable, or unending ;
and this absence of cause, he defines, makes it
right for us to speak of the Divine life as exist-
ing ungenerately ; and this being without end
we are to denote as imperishable, since anything
that has ceased to exist is necessarily in a state
of annihilation, and when we hear of anything
annihilated, we at once think of the destruction
of its substance. He says then, that One Who
never ceases to exist, and is a stranger to all
destruction and dissolution, is to be called
imperishable.

What, then, does Eunomius say to this ?
" If He is imperishable only by reason of the
unending in His Life, and ungenerate only by
reason of the unbeginning, then wherein He is
not imperishable He is perishable, and wherein
He is not ungenerate He is generated." Who
conceded to you this, Eunomius, that the im-
perishability is not to be associated with the
whole life of God ? Who ever divided that Life
into two parts, and then put particular names
to each half of the Life, so that to the division
which the one name fitted the other could not
be said to apply ? This is the result of your
dialectic sharpness ; to say that the Life which
has no beginning is perishable, and that what
is imperishable cannot be associated with what
is unbeginning ! It is just as if, when one had
said that man was rational, as well as capable
of speculation and knowledge, attaching each
phrase to the subject of them according to a

4 €7ri/3oAas.

different application and idea, some one was to
jeer, and to go on in the same strain, " If man
is capable of speculation and knowledge, he
cannot, as regards this, be rational, but wherein
he is capable of such knowledge, he is this and
this only, and his nature does not admit of his
being the other" ; and reversely, if rational
were made the definition of man, he were to
deny in this case his being capable of this
speculation and knowledge ; for " wherein he
is rational, he is proved devoid of mind." But
if the ridiculousness and absurdity in this case
is plain to any one, neither in that former case
is it at all doubtful. When you have read
the passage from the Master, you will find that
his childish sophistry will vanish like a shadow.
In our case of the definition of man, the cap-
ability of knowledge is not hindered by the
possession of reason, nor the reason by the
capability of knowledge : no more is the eternity
of the Divine Life deprived of imperishability,
if it be unbeginning, or of beginninglessness, if
we recognize its imperishability. This would-
be seeker after truth, with the artifices of his
dialectic shrewdness, inserts in our argument
what comes from his own repertoire ; and so
he fights with himself and overthrows himself,
without ever touching anything of ours. For
our position was nothing but this ; that the
Life as existing without beginning is styled, by
means of a fresh Conception, as ungenerate :
is styled, I say, not, is made such ; and that we
mark the Life as going on into infinity with the
appellation of imperishable ; mark it, I say, as
such, not, make it such ; and that the result is,
that while it is a property of the Divine Life,
inherent in the subject, to be infinite in both
views, the thoughts associated with that subject
are expressed in this way or in that only as
regards that particular term which indicates the
thought expressed. One thought associated
with that life is, that it does not exist from any
cause ; this is indicated by the term " ungener-
ate." Another thought about it is, that it is
limitless and endless ; this is represented by the
word imperishable. Thus, while the subject
remains what it is, above everything, whether
name or thought, the not being from any cause,
and the not changing into the non-existent, are
signified by means of the Conception implied
in the aforesaid words.

What, then, out of all that we have said, has
stirred him up to this piece of childish folly, in
which he returns to the charge and repeats
himself in these words : " He will, then, be, as
unbeginning, at once ungenerate and perishable,
and, as unending, at once imperishable and
generated." It is plain to any possessing the
least reflection, without our testing this logical y,
how absurdly foolish it is, or rather, how con-

302

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

demnably blasphemous. By the same argu-
ment as that whereby he establishes this union
of the perishable and the unbeginning, he can
make sport of any proper and Worthily con-
ceived name for the Deity. For it is not these
two ideas only that we associate with the Divine
Life, I mean, the being without beginning, and
the not admitting of dissolution ; but It is called
as well immaterial and without anger, immut-
able and incorporeal, invisible and formless,
true and just ; and there are numberless other
ways of thinking about the Divine Life, each
one of which is announced by an expressive
sound with a peculiar meaning of its own.
Well, to any name — any name, I mean, expres-
sive of some proper conception of the Deity —
it is open for us to apply this method of un-
natural union devised by Eunomius. For
instance, immateriality and absence of anger
are both predicated of the Divine Life ; but not
with the same thought in both cases ; for by
the term immaterial we convey the idea of
purity from any mixture with matter, and by
the term "without anger" the strangeness to
any emotion of anger. Now in all probability
Eunomius will run trippingly over all this, and
have his dance, just as before, upon our words.
Stringing together his absurdities in the same
way, he will say : " If wherein He is separated
from all mixture with matter He is called im-
material, in this respect He will not be without
anger ; and if by reason of His not indulging
in anger He is without anger, it is impossible
to attribute to him immateriality, but logic will
compel us to admit that, in so far as He is
exempt from matter, He is both immaterial and
wrathful ; " and so you will find the same to be
the case in respect to his other attributes. And
if you like we will propound another pairing of
the same, i. e. His immutability and His in-
corporeality. For both these terms being used
of the Divine Life in a distinct sense, in their
case also Eunomius' skill will embellish the
same absurdity. For if His being always as
He is is signified by the term immutable, and
if the term incorporeal represents the spirituality
of His essence, Eunomius will certainly say the
same here also, that the terms are irreconcil-
able, and alien to each other, and that the
notions which our minds attach to them have
no point of contact one with the other ; for in
so far as God is always the same He is immut-
able, but not incorporeal ; and in regard to the
spirituality and formlessness of His essence,
while He possesses attributes of incorporeality,
He is not immutable ; so that it happens that
when immutability is considered with respect
to the Divine Life, along with that immut-
ability it is established that It is corporeal;
but if spirituality is the object of search,

you prove that It is at once incorporeal and
mutable.

Such are the clever discoveries of Eunomius
against the truth. For what need is there to go
through all his argument with trifling prolixity ?
For in every instance you may see an attempt to
establish the same futility. For instance, by an
implication such as that above, what is true
and what is just will be found opposed to each
other ; for there is a difference in meaning be-
tween truth and justice. So that by a parity
of reasoning Eunomius will say about these
also, that truth is not injustice, and that justice
is absent from truth ; and it will happen that,
when in respect of God we think of His being
alien to injustice, the Divine Being will be
shown to be at once just and untrue, while if
we regard His being alien to untruth, we prove
Him to be at once true and unjust. So, too,
of His being invisible and formless. For ac-
cording to a wise reasoning similar to that which
we have adduced, it will not be permissible to
say either that the invisible exists in that which
is formless, or to say that that which is formless
exists in that which is invisible ; but he will
comprise form in that which is invisible, and so
again, conversely, he will prove that that which
is formless is visible, using the same language
in respect of these as he devised in respect to
that which is imperishable and unbeginning, to
the effect that when we regard the incomposite
nature of the Divine Life, we confess that it is
formless, yet not invisible ; and that when we
reflect that we cannot see God with our bodily
eyes, while thus admitting His invisibility, > we
cannot admit His being formless. Now if these
instances seem ridiculous and foolish, much more
will every sensible man condemn the absurdity
of the statements, starting from which his argu-
ment has logically brought him to such a pitch
of absurdity. Yet he carps at the Master's
words, as wrong in seeing that which is im-
perishable in that which is unending, and that
which is unending in that which is imperishable.
Well, then, let us also have our sport, in a
manner something like this cleverness of Euno-
mius. Let us examine his opinion about these
two names aforesaid, and see what it is.

Either, he says, that which is endless is dis-
tinct in meaning from that which is imperish-
able, or else the two must make one But if
he call both one, he will be supporting our
argument. But if he say that the meaning of
the imperishable is one thing, and that that of
being unending is another, then of necessity,
in the case of things differing from each other,
the force of the one cannot be equivalent to
the force of the other. If, then, the idea of
the imperishable is one, and that of being end-
less is another, and each of these is what the

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

30}

other is not, neither will he grant that the im-
perishable is unending, nor that the unending
is imperishable, but the unending will be perish-
able, and the imperishable will be termin-
able. But I must beg my readers not to turn
a ridiculous method of condemnation against
us. We have been compelled to adopt such a
sportive vein against the mockeries of our op-
ponent, that we might thereby break through the
puerile toil of his sophistries. But if it would
not be too wearisome to my readers, it would
not be out of place again to set forth what
Eunomius says in his own words. " If," says
he, " God is imperishable only by reason of the
unending in His Life, and ungenerate only by
reason of the unbeginning, then wherein He is
not imperishable He is perishable, and wherein
He is not ungenerate He is generated." Then
returning to the charge, he repeats, " He will
then be, as unbeginning, at once ungenerate
and perishable : and, as unending, at once im-
perishable and generated ; " for I pass over the
superfluous and unseasonable remarks which
he has interspersed here, as in no way contribut-
ing to the proving of his point. Now I think
it is easy for any one to see, by his own words,
that the drift of our argument has no connec-
tion whatever with the accusation which he lays
against us. " For we call the God of the uni-
verse imperishable and ungenerate," says the
Master, "using these words with different ap-
plications." " His transcending," he continues,
"every limit of the ages, and every distance in
temporal extension, whether we consider the
previous or the subsequent, this absence of
limit or circumscription on either hand in the
Eternal Life we mark in the one case with the
name of imperishability, and in the other case
with the name of ungeneracy." But Eunomius
would make out that we say that the being
without beginning is His essence, and again
that the being without end is His essence, as
though we brought forward two contradictory
segments of essence ; and in this way he estab-
lishes an absurdity, and while laying down, and
then fighting against, positions of his own, and
reducing notions of his own concoction to an
absurdity, he lays no hold on our argument in
any single point. For that God is imperishable
only wherein His Life is unending, is his state-
ment, not ours. In like manner, that the im-
perishable is not without beginning, is an in-
vention of that same subtle cleverness which
would constitute a negative attribute an essence ;
whereas we do not define any such negative
attribute as an essence. Now it is a negative
attribute of God, that neither does the Life
cease in dissolution, nor did It have a com-
mencement in generation ; and this we express
by these two words, imperishability and un-

generacy. But Eunomius, mixing up his own
folly with our teaching, does not seem to under-
stand that he is publishing his own disgrace by
his calumnious accusations. For, in defining
ungeneracy as an essence, he will logically
arrive at the same pitch of absurdity which he
ascribes to our teaching. For as beginning
means s one thing, and end means another, by
virtue of an intervening extension, if any one
allow the privation of the first of these to be
essence, he must suppose His Life to be only
half subsisting in this being without beginning,
and not to extend further, by virtue of His
nature, to the being without end, if ungeneracy
be regarded as itself His nature. But if any
one insist that both are essence, then, according
to the definition put forward by Eunomius, each
of these terms must necessarily, by virtue of its
inherent meaning, be counted as essence, being
just as much as, and no more than, is indicated
by the meaning of the term ; and thus the
argument of Eunomius will not be without
force, inasmuch as that which is without be-
ginning does not involve the notion of being
without end, and vice versa, since according to
his account each of the things mentioned is an
essence, and there is no confusion between the
two in their relation to each other, the notion
of beginning being different to that of ending,
while the words which express privation of
these also differ in their significations.

But that he himself also maybe brought to
the knowledge of his own trifling, we will
convict him from his own statements. For
in the course of his argument he says that
God, in that He is without end, is ungener-
ate, and that, in that He is ungenerate, He
is without end, as if the meanings of the two
terms were identical. If, then, by reason of
His being without end He is ungenerate, and
the being without end and ungenerate are
convertible terms, and he admits that the Son
also is without end, by a parity of reasoning
he must necessarily admit that the Son is un-
generate, if (as he has said) His being without
end and His being without beginning are
identical in meaning. For just as in the un-
generate he sees that which is without begin-
ning, so he allows that in that which is without
end also he sees that which is without beginning.
For otherwise he would not have made the
terms wholly convertible. But God, he says, is
ungenerate by nature, and not by contrast with
the ages. Well, who is there that contends
that God is not by nature all that He is said to
be? For we do not say that God is just, and

5 The Latin is wrong here, " secundum rerum intellectarum dis-
tinctricem significationem . " for uoov^eviov without the article must
be the gen. absol. Besides this the MSS. read iropdrourti/ (not
napa<TTa<Tt.v).

304

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

almighty, and Father, and imperishable, by
contrast with the ages, nor by His relation to
any other thing that exists. But in connection
with the subject itself, whatever He may be in His
nature, we entertain every idea that is a reverent
idea ; so that supposing neither ages, nor any
other created thing, had been made, God would
no less be what we believe Him to be, being in
no need of the ages to constitute Him what He
is. " But, " says Eunomius, " He has a Life that
is not extraneous, nor composite, nor admitting
of different, es ; for He Himself is Life eternal,
by virtue of that Life itself immortal, by virtue
of that immortality imperishable." This we are
taught respecting the Only-begotten as well ;
nor can any one impugn this teaching without
openly opposing the declaration of S. John.
For life was not brought in from without upon
the Son either (for He says, " I am the Life 6 "),
nor is His Life either composite, nor does it
admit difference, but by virtue of that life itself
He is immortal (for in what else but in life can
we see immortality?), and by virtue of that
immortality He is imperishable. For that
which is stronger than death must naturally be
incapable of corruption.

Thus far our argument goes with him. But
the riddle with which he accompanies his words
we must leave to those trained in the wisdom
of Prunicus 7 to interpret : for he seems to have
produced what he has said from that system.
"Being incorruptible without beginning, He is
ungenerate without end, being so called abso-
lutely, and independently of aught beside Him-
self." Now whoever has purged ears and an
enlightened understanding knows, even without
my saying it, that beyond the jingle of words
produced by their extraordinary combination,
there is no trace of sense in what he says ; and
if any shadow of an idea could be found in
such a din of words, it would prove to be either
profane or ridiculous. For what do you mean
when you say that He is without beginning as
being without end, and without end as being
without beginning ? Do you think beginning
identical with end, and that the two words are
employed in the same sense, just as the appella-
tions Simon and Peter represent one and the
same subject, and on this account, in accord-
ance with your thinking beginning and end the
same, did you, combining under one significa-
tion these two words which denote privation of
each other, — end, I mean, and beginning, —
and taking the being without end as convertible
with the being without end, blend and con-
found one word with the other ; and is this the
meaning of such a mixing up of words, when

8 S. John xi 25

' This may mean " short-hand " i. e. something difficult to
decipher. See Book I. vi. note 10.

you say that He is ungenerate as being without
end, and that He is without end as being un-
generate? Yet how is it that you did not see
the prolanity as well as the ridiculous folly of
your words? For if by this novel confusion of
the words they are made convertible, so that
ungenerate means ungenerate without end, and
that which is without end is such ungenerately,
it follows by necessity that that which is without
end must needs be so as being ungenerate :
and thus it comes to pass, my good friend, that
your much-talked-of ungeneracy, which you say
is the only characteristic of the Father's essence,
will be found to be shared with whatever is
immortal, and to be making all things con-
substantial with the Father, because it is alike
apparent in all things whose life, by reason of
their immortality, goes on to infinity, archangels,
that is, angels, human souls, and, it may be
also, in the Apostate host, the Devil and his
daemons. For if that which is without end, and
imperishable, must also by your argument be
ungenerately imperishable, then in whatsoever
is without end and imperishable there must be
connoted ungeneracy. These are the absurd-
ities into which those men fall who, before they
have learnt what it is fitting for them to learn,
only publish their own ignorance by what they
attempt to teach. For if he had any faculty of
discernment, he would not be ignorant of the
peculiar sense inherent in his terms, " without
beginning," and "without end," and that the
term without end is common to all things
whose life we believe capable of extension to
infinity, while the term without beginning be-
longs to Him alone Who is without originating
cause. How, then, is it possible for us to re-
gard that which is common to them all, as
equivalent to that which is believed by all to
be a special attribute of the Deity alone, so
that we thereby either extend ungeneracy to
everything that shares in immortality, or else
must not allow immortality to any one of them,
seeing that the being without end is to belong
only to the ungenerate, and vice versa, the
being ungenerate is to belong only to that
which is without end ? Thus everything without
end would have to be regarded as ungenerate.

But let us leave this, and along with it
the usual foul deluge of calumny in his words ;
and let us go on to his subsequent quota-
tions (of Basil). But I think it would per-
haps be well to pass without examination over
most of these subsequent words. For in
all of them he shows himself the same, not
grappling with that which we have really said,
but only inventing for himself points for refu-
tation which he pretends are taken from our
statement. To go carefully through these
would be pronounced useless by any one

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

305

possessed of judgment ; for any understanding
reader of his book can from his very words
perceive his scurrility. He says that God's
Glory is prior to our leader's "conception."
We too do not deny that. For God's glory,
whatever we are to think of it. is prior not only
to this present generation of ours, but to all
creation ; it transcends the ages. What, then,
is gained for his argument from this fact, that
God's glory is conceded to be superior not
only to Basil, but to all the ages? ''Yes, but
this name is His glory, " he says. But pray
tell us, in order that we may assent to this
statement, who has proved that the appellation
is identical with the glory? "A law of our
nature," he replies, " teaches us that, in naming
realities, the dignity of the names does not
depend on the will of those who give them."
What is this law of nature ? And how is it
that it is not in force amongst all ? If nature
had really enacted such a law, it ought to have
authority amongst all who share the common
nature, just as the other things peculiar to
that nature have. If, in fine, it was the law
of nature that caused the appellations to
spring up for us from the objects, just as her
plants spring up from seeds and roots, and she
did not entrust the significant naming of each
of the subjects to the choice of those who had
to indicate the objects, then all mankind would
be of one tongue. For if the names imposed
upon these objects did not vary, we should
not differ from one another in the department
of speech. He says it is "a holy thing, and
most closely connected with the designs of
Providence, that their sounds should be imposed
upon realities from a source above us." How
is it, then, that the Prophets were ignorant of
this holy thing, and were not instructed in this
design of Providence, who according to your
account did not make God at all of this Un-
generacy ? How, too, is it that the Deity
Himself never knew of this kind of holiness,
when He did not give names from above to
the animals which He had formed, but gave
away this power of name-giving to Adam ? If
it is closely connected with the designs of
Providence, as Eunomius says, and a holy
thing, that their sounds should be imposed from
above upon realities, it is certainly an unholy
thing, and an unfitting thing, that these names
should have been fitted to the things that are
by any here below. " But the universal
Guardian," he says, "thought it right to engraft
these names in our minds by a law of His
creation." And how was it, then, if these were
engrafted in the minds of men, that from Adam
onward to your transgression no fruits of this
folly were produced, grafted as they were, ac-
cording to you, in those minds, so that un-
vol. v.

generacy should be the name of the Father's
essence? Adam and all in succession after him
would have pronounced this word, if such had
been grafted by God in his nature. For as all
that now grows upon the earth continues always,
owing to a transmission of its seed from the-
first creation, and not one single seed at the
present time innovates upon the natural form,
so this word, if it had been, as you say, grafted
by God in our nature, would have sprung up
along with the first utterances of the first-formed
human beings, and would have accompanied
the line of their posterity. But seeing that this
word did not exist at the first (for no one in
former generations and up to the present ever
uttered such a word, except this man), it is
plain that it is a bastard invention, that has
sprung up from the seed, of tares, not from that
good seed which God has sown, to use evan-
gelic words, in the field of our nature. For all
the things that characterize ourcommon nature
do not have their beginning now, but appeared
with that nature at its first formation ; such, for
instance, as the operation of the senses, the
appetitive, or contrary, instinct of the man with
regard to anything, and other generally acknow-
ledged accompaniments of his nature, none of
which a particular epoch has introduced amongst
those born in it ; but our humanity is preserved
continually, from first to last, within the same
circle of qualities, losing none which it had at
the beginning, any more than it acquires any
which it had not then. But just as, while sight
is a faculty common to our nature, scientific
observation comes by training to those who
have devoted themselves to some science (it is
not every one, for instance, who can observe
with the theodolite, or prove a theorem by
means of lines in geometry, or do anything
else, where art has introduced, not mere sight,
but a special use of sight), so too, while one
might pronounce the possession of reason
to be a common property of humanity united
to the very essence of our nature from above,
the invention of terms significative of realities
is the work of men who, possessing from above
the power of reason, are continually finding out,
according as they wish for them towards the
elucidation of that which they plainly see,
certain words expressive of these things. " But
if these views are to prevail," says he, " one of
two things is proved ; either that conception is
anterior to those who conceive, or that the
names naturally befitting the Deity, and pre-
existent to everything, are posterior to the
beginning of man." Ought we to continue the
fight against such assertions, and join issue with
such manifest absurdity ?

But who, pray, is so simple as to be harmed
by such arguments, and to imagine that if

306

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

names are once believed to be an outcome of
the reasoning faculty, he must allow that the
utterance of names is anterior to those who
utter them, or else that he must think he is
sinning against the Deity, in that every man
continues to name the Deity, according as each
after birth is capable of conceiving Him ? As
to this last supposition, it has been already
explained that the Supreme Being has no need
Himself of words as delivered by a voice and
a tongue ; and it would be superfluous to repeat
what would only encumber the argument. In
fine, a Being Whose nature is neither lacking
nor redundant, but simply perfect, neither fails
to possess anything that is necessary, nor
possesses what is not necessary. Since, then,
we have proved previously, and all thinking
men unanimously agree, that the calling by
names is not a necessity of the Deity, no one
can deny the extreme profanity of thus assign-
ing to Him what is not a necessity.

But I do not think that we need linger on this,
nor minutely examine that which follows. To the
more attentive reader, the argument elaborated
by our opponent will itself appear in the light
of a special pleader on the side of orthodoxy.
He says, for instance, that imperishability and
immortality are the very essence of the Deity.
For my part I see no need to contend with
him, no matter whether these qualities afore-
said only accrue to the Deity, or whether they
are, by virtue of their signification, His essence ;
whichever of these two views is adopted, it will
completely support our argument. For if the
being imperishable only accrues to the essence,
the not being generated will also most certainly
only accrue to it ; and so the idea of ungeneracy
will be ejected from being the mark of the
essence. If, on tne other hand, because God
is not subject to destruction, one affirms im-
perishability to be His essence, and, because
He is stronger than death, one therefore de-
fines immortality to be His very essence, and
if the Son is imperishable and immortal (as
He is), imperishability and immortality will
also be the essence of the Only-begotten. If,
then, the Father is imperishability, and the
Son imperishability, and each of these im-
perishabilities is the essence, and no difference
exists between them as regards the idea of im-
perishability, one essence will differ from the
other essence in no way at all, seeing that in
both equally the nature is a stranger to any
corruption. Even if he should resume the same
method as before, and place us on the horns
of his dilemma from which, as he thinks, there
is no escape, saying that, if we distinguish
that which accrues from that which is, we make
the Deity composite, whereas if we acknowledge
His simplicity, then the imperishability and the

ungeneracy are seen at once to be significative
of His very essence — even then again we can
show that he is fighting for our side. For if
he will have it that God is made composite by
our saying that anything accrues to Him, then
he certainly cannot eject the Fatherhood either
from the essence, but must confess that He is
Father by His nature as much as He is im-
perishable and immortal ; and so without in-
tending it he must admit the Son also to par-
take of that intimate nature ; for it will not be
possible, if God is essentially Father, to exclude
the Son from a relationship to Him thus essen-
tial. But if he says that the fatherhood
accrues to God, but is outside the circle of the
substance, then he must concede to us that we
may say anything we like accrues to the Deity,
since the Divine simplicity is in no way marred,
if His quality of ungeneracy is made to mean
something outside the essence. If, however,
he declares that the imperishability and the
ungeneracy do mean the essence, and if he
insists that these two words are equivalent,
since, by reason of the same meaning lying in
each, there is no difference between them, and
if he thus assert that the very idea of imperish-
ability and ungeneracy is one and the same,
the One who is the first of these must neces-
sarily be the second too. But that the Son is
imperishable, let us observe, even mese men
entertain no doubt ; therefore, by Eunomius'
argument, the Son also is ungenerate, if im-
perishability and ungeneracy are to mean tb~
same thing. So that he must accept one of
two alternatives ; either he must agree with us
that ungeneracy is other than imperishability,
or, if he abides by his assertions, he must in
various ways speak blasphemy about the Only-
begotten, making Him, for instance, perishable,
in order that he may not have to say that He
is ungenerate ; or ungenerate, in order that
he may not prove Him perishable.

But now I do not know which it is best to
do ; to pursue step by step this subject, or to
put an end here to our contest with such folly.
Well, as in the case of those who are selling
destructive drugs, a very slight experiment
guarantees to the purchasers the destructive
power latent in all the drug, and no one doubts,
after he has found out by an experiment its
partial deadliness, that the drug sold is entirely
of this deadly character, so I think it can be
no longer doubtful to reflecting persons that
this poisonous dose of argument, of which a
specimen has been shown in what we have
already examined, will continue throughout to
be such as that which we have just refuted.
For this reason I think it better not to prolong
this detailed dwelling upon his absurdities.
Nevertheless, seeing that the champions of this

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

307

error discover plausibility for it from many
quarters, and there is reason to fear lest to
have overlooked any of their efforts will be
made a specious pretext for misrepresenting us
as having shirked their strongest point, I beg for
this reason those who follow us out in this work
to accompany our argument still, without charg-
ing us with prolixity, while it expands itself to
meet the attacks of error along the whole line.
Observe, then, that he has scarcely ceased
weaving in the depths of his slumber this dream
about conception before he arms himself again
from his storehouse with those monstrous and
senseless methods, and turns his argument into
another dream much more meaningless than
his previous illusion. But we may best know
how absurd his efforts are by observing his
treatment of "privation"; though to grapple
with his nonsense in all its range would require
a Eunomius, or one of his school, men who
have never spent a thought on serious realities.
We will, however, in a concise way run over
the heads of it, that while none of his charges
is omitted, no meaningless item may help to
prolong the discussion to an absurd length.

When, then, he is on the point of introducing
this treatment of terms of "privation," he takes
upon himself to show "the incurable absurdity,"
as he calls it, of our teaching, and its " simu-
lated and culpable caution8." Such is his
promise ; but the proof of these accusations is,
what? "Some have said that the Deity is
ungenerate by virtue only of the privation of
generation ; but we say, in refutation of these,
that neither this word nor this idea is in any
way whatever applicable to the Deity." Let
him point out the maintainer of such a state-
ment, if any from the first creation of man to
the present day, whether in foreign or in Greek
lands, has ever committed himself to such an
utterance ; and we will be silent. But no one
in the whole history of mankind will be found
to have said such a thing, except some mad-
man. For who was ever so reeling from intoxi-
cation, who was ever so beside himself with
madness or delirium, as to say, in so many
words, that generation belongs naturally to the
ungenerate God, but that, deprived of this
natural condition, He becomes ungenerate in-
stead of generated? But these are the shifts
of rhetoric ; namely, to escape when they are
refuted from the shame of their refutation by
means of some supposititious characters. It
was in this way that he has apologized for that
celebrated "Apology" of his, transferring as
he did the blame for that title to jurymen and
accusers?, though unable to show that there
were any accusers, any trial, or any court at

' ScS Hook I vii. , ix., xi

all. Now, too, with the air of one who would
correct another's folly, he pretends that he is
driven by necessity to speak in this way. This is
what his proof of our " incurable absurdity," and
our "simulated and culpable caution," amounts
to. But he goes on to say that we do not know
what to do in our present position, and that to
cover our perplexity we take to abusing him for
his worldly learning, while we ourselves claim a
monopoly of the teaching of the Holy Spirit.
Here is his other dream, namely, that he has got
so much of the heathen learning, that he appears
by means of it a formidable antagonist to Basil.
Just so there have been some men who have
imagined themselves enthroned with basilicals,
and of an exalted rank, because the deluded
vision of their dreams, born of their waking
longings, puts such fancies into their hearts.
He says that Basil, not knowing what to do
after what has been said, abuses him for his
worldly learning. He would indeed have set a
high value on such abuse, that is, on being
thought formidable because of the abundance
of his words even by any ordinary hearer, not
to mention by Basil, and by men like him
(if any are entirely like him, or ever have
been). But, as for his intervening argument,
if such low scurrility, and such tasteless buf-
foonery, can be called argument, by which he
thinks he impugns our cause, I pass it all over,
for I deem it an abominable and ungracious
thing to soil our treatise with such pollutions ;
and I loathe them as men loathe some swollen
and noisome ulcer, or turn from the spectacle
presented by those whose skin is bloated by
excess of humours, and disfigured with tuberous
warts. And for a while our argument shall be
allowed to expand itself freely, without having
to turn to defend itself against men who are
ready to scoff at and to tear to pieces every-
thing that is said.

Every term — every term, that is, which is
really such — is an utterance expressing some
movement of thought. But every operation
and movement of sound thinking is directed
as far as it is possible to the knowledge and
the contemplation of some reality. But then
the whole world of realities is divided into two
parts ; that is, into the intelligible and the sensible.
With regard to sensible phaenomena, know-
ledge, on account of the perception of them being
so near at hand, is open for all to acquire ; the
judgment of the senses gives occasion to no
doubt about the subject before them. The
differences in colour, and the differences in all
the other qualities which we judge of by means
of the sense of hearing, or smell, or touch, or
taste, can be known and named by all possess-
ing our common humanity ; and so it is with
all the other things which appear to be more

X 2

3oS

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

obvious to our apprehension, the things, that is,
pertaining to the age in which we live, designed
for political and moral ends. But in the con-
templation of the intelligible world, on account
of that world transcending the grasp of the
senses, we move, some in one way, some in
another, around the object of our search ; and
then, according to the idea arising in each of
us about it, we announce the result as best we
can, striving to get as near as possible to the
full meaning of the thing thought about through
the medium of expressive phrases. In this,
though it is often possible to have achieved the
task in both ways, when thought does not
fail to hit the mark, and utterance interprets
the notion with the appropriate word, yet it
may happen that we may fail even in both, or
in one, at least, of the two, when either the
comprehending faculty or the interpreting
capacity is carried beside the proper mark.
There being, then, two factors by which every
term is made a correct term, the mental exacti-
tude and the verbal utterance, the result which
commands approval in both ways, will certainly
be the preferable ; but it will not be a lesser
gain, not to have missed the right conception,
even though the word itself may happen to
be inadequate to that thought. Whenever,
then, our thought is intent upon those high and
unseen things which sense cannot reach (I
mean, upon that divine and unspeakable world
with regard to which it is an audacious thing
to grasp in thought anything in it at random,
and more audacious still to trust to any chance
word the representing of the conception arising
from it), then, I say, turning from the mere
sound of phrases, uttered well or ill according
to the mental faculty of the speaker, we search
for the thought, and that alone, which is found
within the phrases, to see whether that itself be
sound, or otherwise ; and we leave the minutiae
of phrase and name to be dealt with by the
artificialities of grammarians. Now, seeing
that we mark with an appellation only those
things which we know, and those things which
are above our knowledge it is not possible to
seize by any distinctive terms (for how can one
put a mark upon a thing we know nothing
about ?), therefore, because in such cases there
is no appropriate term to be found to mark the
subject adequately, we are compelled by many
and differing names, as there may be oppor-
tunity, to divulge our surmises as they arise
within us with regard to the Deity. But, on
the other hand, all that actually comes within
our comprehension is such that it must be of
one of these four kinds : either contemplated
as existing in an extension of distance, or sug-
gesting the idea of a capacity in space within
which its details are detected, or it comes with-

in our field of vision by being circumscribed
by a beginning or an end where the non-existent
bounds it in each direction (for everything
that has a beginning and an end of its existence,
begins from the non-existent, and ends in the
non-existent), or, lastly, we grasp the pheno-
menon by means of an association of qualities
wherein dying, and sufferance, and change, and
alteration, and such-like are combined. Con-
sidering this, in order that the Supreme Being
may not appear to have any connection what-
ever with things below, we use, with regard to
His nature, ideas and phrases expressive of
separation from all such conditions ; we call,
for instance, that which is above all times
pre-temporal, that which is above beginning
unbeginning, that which is not brought to an
end unending, that which has a personality
removed from body incorporeal, that which is
never destroyed imperishable, that which is
unreceptive of change, or sufferance, or alter-
ation, passionless, changeless, and unalterable.
Such a class of appellations can be reduced to
any system that they like by those who wish for
one ; and they can fix on these actual appel-
lations other appellations "privative," for in-
stance, or "negative," or whatever they like.
We yield the teaching and the learning of
such things to those who are ambitious for it ;
and we will investigate the thoughts alone,
whether they are within or beyond the circle of
a religious and adequate conception of the
Deity.

Well, then, if God did not exist formerly, or
if there be a time when He will not exist, He
cannot be called either unending or without
beginning ; and so also neither inalterable, nor
incorporeal, nor imperishable, if there is any
suspicion of body, or destruction, or alteration
with regard to Him. But if it be part of our
religion to attribute to Him none of these
things, then it is a sacred duty to use of Him
names privative of the things abhorrent to His
Nature, and to say all that we have so often
enumerated already, viz. that He is imperish-
able, and unending, and ungenerate, and the
other terms of that class, where the sense in-
herent in each only informs us of the privation
of that which is obvious to our perception, but
does not interpret the actual nature of that
which is thus removed from those abhorrent
conditions. What the Deity is not, the signifi-
cation of these names does point out ; but what
that further thing, which is not these things, is
essentially, remains undivulged. Moreover, even
the rest of these names, the sense of which does
indicate some position or some state, do not
afford that indication of the Divine nature itself,
but only of the results of our reverent speculations
about it. For when we have concluded gener-

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

309

ally that no single thing existing, whether an
object of sense or of thought, is formed spon-
taneously or fortuitously, but that everything
discoverable in the world is linked to the Being
Who transcends all existences, and possesses
there the source of its continuance, and we
then perceive the beauty and the majesty of the
wonderful sights in creation, we thus get from
these and such-like marks a new range of
thoughts about the Deity, and interpret each
one of the thoughts thus arising within us by a
special name, following the advice of Wisdom,
who says that " by the greatness and beauty of
the creatures proportionately the Maker of them
is seen V We address therefore as Creator
Him Who has made all mortal things, and as
Almighty Him Who has compassed so vast a
creation, Whose might has been able to realize
His wish. When too we perceive the good
that is in our own life, we give in accordance
with this the name of Good to Him Who is
our life's first cause. Then also having learnt
from the Divine writings the incorruptibility of
the judgment to come, we therefore call Him
Judge and Just, and to sum up in one word,
we transfer the thoughts that arise within us
about the Divine Being into the mould of a
corresponding name ; so that there is no appel-
lation given to the Divine Being apart from
some distinct intuition about Him. Even the
word God (6eoc) we understand to have come
into usage from the activity of His seeing ; for
our faith tells us that the Deity is everywhere,
and sees (dtarrdai) all things, and penetrates all
things, and then we stamp this thought with this
name (Qeoc), guided to it by the Holy Voice.
For he who says, " O God, attend unto me 2,"
and, "Look, O Gods," and, " God knoweth
the secrets of the heart plainly4," reveals the
latent meaning of this word, viz. that Gaoc is so
called from Otaadai. For there is no difference
between saying "Attend unto," "Look," and
"See." Since, then, the seer must look to-
wards some sight, God is rightly called the
Seer of that which is to be seen. We are
taught, then, by this word one sectional opera-
tion of the Divine Being, though we do not
grasp in thought by means of it His substance
itself, believing nevertheless that the Divine
glory suffers no loss because of our being at a
loss for a naturally appropriate name. For this
inability to give expression to such unutterable
things, while it reflects upon the poverty of our
own nature, affords an evidence of God's glory,
teaching us as it does, in the words of the
Apostle, that the only name naturally appropri-
1 ate to God is to believe Him to be "above
every name s." That he transcends every effort

1 Wisdom xiii. 5.

4 Ps. xliv. ai.

3 PS. IV. 2.

3 Ps. cxix. 132.
5 Philip, ii. 9.

of thought, and is far beyond any circumscrib-
ing by a name, constitutes a proof to man of
His ineffable majesty 6.

Thus much, then, is known to us about the
names uttered in any form whatever in reference
to the Deity. We have given a simple explan-
ation of them, unencumbered with argument,
for the benefit of our candid hearers ; as for
Eunomius' nerveless contentions about these
names, we judge it a thing disgraceful and
unbecoming to us seriously to confute them.
For what could one say in answer to a man
who declares that we "attach more weight to
the outward form of the name than to the value
of the thing named, giving to names the pre-
rogative over realities, and equality to things
unequal " ? Such are the words that he gives
utterance to. Well, let any one who can do so
considerately, judge whether this calumnious
charge of his against us has anything in it
dangerous enough to make it worth our while
to defend ourselves as to our " giving to names
the prerogative over realities " ; for it is plain
to every one that there is no single name that
has in itself any substantial reality, but that
every name is but a recognizing mark placed
on some reality or some idea, having of itself
no existence either as a fact or a thought.

How it is possible, then, to assign one's
gratuities to the non-subsistent, let this man, who
claims to be using words and phrases in their
natural force, explain to the followers of his
error. I would not, however, have mentioned
this at all, if it had not placed a necessity
upon me of proving our author's weakness
both in thought and expression. As for all the
passages from the inspired writings which he
drags in, though quite unconnected with his
object, formulating thereby a difference of im-
mortality 7 in angels and in men, I do not know
what he has in his eye, or what he hopes to

6 The theology of Gregory and his master Origen rises above the
unconscious Stoicism of Tertullian, and even that of Clement,
which has an air of materialistic pantheism about it, owing to his
attempt, like that of Eunomius, to base our knowledge of God upon
abstractions and analogies drawn from nature. The result, indeed,
of the " abstraction process " of Clement is only a multiplication of
negative terms, " immensity," " simplicity," " eternity," &c. But
they will lead to nothing, if there is not already behind them all
some positive idea which we have received from a different source.
Faith is this source; it is described by Origen as "an ineffable
grace of the soul which comes from God in a kind of enthusiasm ; "'
which formula expresses the primary fact of religious consciousness
such as Leibnitz demonstrated it : and the positive idea supplied by
this faculty is with Origen Goodness (rather than he Good). He
would put Will as well as Mind into the Central Idea of Metaphysics,
and would have the heart governed as well as the reason. All that
he says about the "incomprehensibility " of God does not militate
against this : for we must have some idea of that which is incompre-
hensible to us : and the Goodness of the Deity is the side on which
we gain this idea.

7 But there are two meanings of a0dva.To<;, — and of these perhaps
Eunomius was thinking, — i. e. 1. Not dead ; 2. Immortal. In
Plato's P/urdo there is an argument for the immortality of the soul,
certainly not the strongest one, drawn from this. It is assumed
there that the thing, whose nature is such that so long as it exists it
neither is nor can be dead, can never cease to exist, i. e. the soul by
virtue of not actually dying, though capable of death, is immortal.
Perhaps this accounts lor Eunomius saying (lower down) that " the
perishable is not opposed to the imperishable."

3io

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

prove by them, and I pass them by. The
immortal, as long as it is immortal, admits of
no degrees of more and less arising from com-
parison. For if the one member of the com-
parison is, by the force of contrast, to suffer a
diminution or privation as regards its immor-
tality, it must needs be that such a member is
not to be called immortal at all ; for how can
that be called absolutely immortal in which
mortality is detected by this juxtaposition and
comparison? And to think of that fine hair-
splitting of his, in not allowing the idea of
privation to be unvarying and general, but in
asserting, on the contrary, that while separation
from good things is privation, the absence of
bad things is not to be marked by that term !
If he is to get his way here, he will take the
truth from the Apostle's words, which say that
He " only hath immortality 8," which He gives
to others. What this newly-imported dictum
of his has to do with his preceding argument,
neither we nor any one else amongst reflecting
people are able to understand. Yet because
we have not the mental strength to take in
these scientific subtleties, he calls us " unscien-
tific both in our judgment as to objects, and
in our use of terms " ; those are his very words.
But all this, as having no power to shake the
truth, I pass over without further notice ; and
also how he misrepresents the view we have
expounded of the imperishable, and of the
unembodied, namely, that of these terms the
latter signifies the undimensional, where the
threefold extension belonging to all bodies is
not to be found, and the former signifies that
which is not receptive of destruction : and also
how he says, that " we do not think it right to
let the shape of these words be lost by extend-
ing them to ideas inapplicable to them, or to
imagine that each of them is indicative of
something not present or not accruing ; but
rather we think they are indicative of the actual
essence " ; all this I deem worthy only of silence
and deep oblivion, and leave to the reader to
detect for himself their mingled folly and blas-
phemy. He actually asserts that the perishable
is not opposed to the imperishable, and that
the privative sign does not mark the absence of
the bad, but that the word which is the subject
of our inquiry means the essence itself!

Well, if the term imperishable or indestruc-
tible is not considered by this maker of an
empty system to be privative of destruction,
then by a stern necessity it must follow that
this shape given to the word indicates the very
reverse (of the privation of destruction). If,
that is, indestructibility is not the negation of
destruction, it must be the assertion of some-

• i Tim. vL t6.

thing incongruous with itself ; for it is the very
nature of opposites that, when you take away
the one, you admit the other to come in in its
place. But as for the bitter task which he
necessitates of proving that the Deity is un-
receptive of death, as if there existed any one
who held the contrary opinion, we leave it to
take care of itself. For we hold that in the
case of opposites, it makes no difference at all
whether we say that something is A, or that it
is not the opposite of A ; for instance, in the
present discussion, when we have said that God
is Life, we implicitly forbid by this assertion the
thought of death in connection with Him, even
though we do not express this in speech ; and
when we assert that He is unreceptive of death,
we in the same breath show Him to be Life.

"But I do not see," he rejoins, "how God
can be above His own works simply by virtue
of such things as do not belong to Him 9." And
on the strength of this clever sally he calls it a
union of folly and profanity, that our great Basil
has ventured on such terms. But I would
counsel him not to indulge his ribaldry too
freely against those who use these terms, lest he
should be unconsciously at the same moment
heaping insults on himself. For I think that
he himself would not gainsay that the very
grandeur of the Divine Nature is recognized in
this, viz. in the absence of all participation in
those things which the lower natures are shown
to possess. For if God were involved in any
of these peculiarities, He would not possess
His superiority, but would be quite identified
with any single individual amongst the beings
who share that peculiarity. But if He is above
such things, by reason, in fact, of His not
possessing them, then He stands also above
those who do possess them ; just as we say that
the Sinless is superior to those in sin. The
fact of being removed from evil is an evidence
of abounding in the best. But let him heap
these insults on us to his heart's content. We
will only remark, in passing, on a single one of
the points mentioned under this head, and will
then return to the discussion of the main
question.

He declares that God surpasses mortal beings
as immortal, destructible beings as indestruc-
tible, generated beings as ungenerate, just in
the same degree. Is it not, then, plain to all

' The reasoning, which precedes and follows, amounts to this.
Basil had said that the terms ungenerate, imperi-hable, immortal,
are privative, i. e. express the absence of a quality. Eunomius
objects that — No term expressive of the absence of a quality can
be God's Name : the Ungenerate (which includes the others) is God's
Name, therefore It does not express a privation. You mean to say,
Gregory replies, that Ungenerate, &c. does not mean not-generated,
&c Hut what is not not-generated is generated (by your own l.iw
of dichotomy) ; therefore, Ungenerate means generated ; and you
prove G >d perishable and mortal. Here, the fallacy arises from
Gregory's assuming more thin Kunomius' conclusion: i. e. "the
Ungenerate means not only the not-generated," changes into " the
Ungenerate does not mean," &c

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

what this blasphemy of a fighter against God
would prove ? or must we by verbal demonstra-
tion unveil the profanity ? Well, who does not
know the axiom, that things which are distanced
to the same amount (by something else) are
level with one another? If, then, the destruc-
tible and the generated are surpassed in the
same degree by the Deity, and if our Lord is
generated, it will be for Eunomius to draw the
blasphemous conclusion resulting from these
data. For it is clear that he regards generation
as the same thing as destruction and death,
just as in his previous discussions he declares
the ungenerate to be the same thing as the
indestructible. If, then, he looks upon destruc-
tion and generation as upon the same level,
and asserts that the Deity is equally removed
from both of them, and if our Lord is generated,
let no one demand from ourselves that we
should apply the logical conclusion, but let him
draw it for himself ; if indeed it is true, as he
says, that from the generated and from the
destructible God is equally removed. " But,"
he proceeds, " it is not allowable for us to call
Him indestructible and immortal by virtue of
any absence of death and destruction." Let
those who are led by the nose, and turn in
any direction that each successive teacher
pleases, believe this, and let them declare that
destruction and death do belong to God, to
make it possible for Him to be called im-
mortal and indestructible ! For if these terms
of privation, as Eunomius says, "do not indi-
cate the absence of death and destruction,"
then the presence in Him of the things oppo-
site to, and estranged from, these is most cer-
tainly proved by this treatment of terms. Each
one amongst conceivable things is either absent
from something else, or it is not absent : for
instance, light, darkness; life, death; health, dis-
ease, and so on. In all these cases, if one asserts
that the one conception is absent, he will neces-
sarily demonstrate that the other is present.
If, then, Eunomius denies that God can be
called immortal by reason of the absence of
death, he will plainly prove the presence of
death in Him, and so deny any immortality in
the case of the universal Deity. But perhaps
some one will say that we fix unfairly on his
words ; for that no one is so mad as to affirm
that God is not immortal. But then, when
none of mankind possess any knowledge of
that which certain people secretly imagine, it is
by their words that we have to make our guess
about those secret things.

Therefore let us again handle this dictum
of his : " God is not called immortal by virtue
of the absence of death." How are we to
accept this statement, that death is not absent
from the Deity though He be called immortal ?

If he really commands us to think like this,
Eunomius' God will be certainly mortal, and
subject to destruction ; for he from whom
death is not absent is not in his essence im-
mortal. But again ; if these terms signify the
absence neither of death nor of destruction,
either they are applied falsely to the God over
all, or else they comprise within themselves
some different meaning. What this meaning
is, our system-maker must explain to us.
Whereas we, the people who according to
Eunomius are unscientific in our judgment of
objects and in our use of terms, have been
taught to call sound (for instance), not the man
from whom strength is absent, but the man
from whom disease is absent ; and unmutilated,
not the man who keeps away from drinking-
parties, but the man who has no mutilation
upon him ; and other qualities in the same way
we name from the presence or the absence of
something ; manly, for instance, and unmanly ;
sleepy and sleepless; and all the other terms
like that, which custom sanctions.

Still I cannot see what profit there is in
deigning to examine such nonsense. For a
man like myself, who has lived to gray hairs x,
and whose eyes are fixed on truth alone, to
take upon his lips the absurd and flippant
utterances of a contentious foe, incurs no slight
danger of bringing condemnation on himself.
I will therefore pass over both those words
and the adjoining passage ; this, for instance,
" Truth gives no evidence of any union of
natures with God." Well, if these words had
not been spoken, who ever was there (except
yourself) who mentioned a double nature in the
Deity at all? You, however, unite each idea
of each name with the essence of the Father,
and deny that anything externally accrues to
Him, centering every one of His names in
that essence. Again, " Neither does she write
in the statute-book of our religion any idea
that is external and fabricated by ourselves."
With regard to these words again I shall depre-
cate the idea that I have quoted them with a
view of amusing the reader with their absurdity ;
rather I have done so with a view to show with
what a slender equipment of arguments this
man, after rating us for our want of system,
advances to take these audacious liberties with
the name of Truth. What is he in reasoning,
and what is he in speech, that he should thus
revel in showing himself off before his hide-
bound readers, who applaud him as victorious
over everybody by force of argument when
he has brought these disjointed utterances

1 This cannot have been written earlier than 384. The preceding
twelve books, of which an instalment only was read to Gregory the
Nazianzene and others during the Council of Constantinopk, 381,
must have occupied him a considerable time : and there may have
been an interval after that before this essay was composed.

3'I2

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

of his dry bombastic jargon to an end 2.
" Immortality," he says, " is the essence itself."
But what, then, do you assert to be the
essence of the Only-begotten? I ask you
that : is it immortality, or is it not ? For
remember that in His essence also the single-
ness admits, as you say, of no complexity of
nature. If, then Eunomius denies that im-
mortality is the essence of the Son, it is clear
what he is aiming at ; for it does not require
an exceedingly penetrating understanding to
discover what is the direct opposite to the im-
mortal. Just as the logic of dichotomy exhibits
the destructible instead of the indestructible,
and the mutable instead of the immutable, so
it exhibits the mortal instead of the immortal.
What, therefore, will this setter forth of new
doctrine do ? What proper name will he give
us for the essence of the Only-begotten ? Again
I put this question to our author. He must
either grant that it is immortality, or deny
it. If, then, he will not assent to its being
immortality, lie must assent to the contradictory
proposition ; by negativing the superior term
he proves that it is death. If, on the other
hand, he shrinks from anything so monstrous,
and names the essence of the Only-begotten
also as immortality, he must perforce agree
with us that there is in consequence no differ-
ence whatever, as to essence, between them.
If the nature of the Father and the nature of
the Son are equally immortality, and if immor-
tality does not divide itself by any manner of
difference, then it is confessed by our foes
themselves, that on the score of essence no
manner of difference is discoverable between
the Father and the Son.

But it is time now to expose that angry
accusation which he brings against us at the
close of his treatise, saying that we affirm the
Father to be from what is absolutely non-exist-
ent. Stealing an expression from its context,
from which he drags it, as from its surrounding
body, into a naked isolation, he tries to carp at
it by worrying the word, or rather covering it
with the slaver of his maddened teeth. I will
therefore first give the meaning of the passage
in which our Master explained this point to
us ; then I will quote it word for word : by so
doing the man who intrudes upon 3 the exposi-
tory work of orthodox writers, only to under-
mine the truth itself, will be revealed in his
true colours. Our Master, in introducing us
in his own treatise to the true meaning of un-
generate, suggested a way to arrive at a real

2 Ta9 <TTOfi<p.uSe<.s . . . f jjpo<rrofAta? tcaxocrvvBeTuis SianepaivovTa.
The eclitt. Iiave £iaift;paii'oi'Tc?, which Oulonius' Latin follows,
" arrogautes ha.-, sioci oris voces mala compositione trajicientes/'z. e.
his hearers get through them with had pronunciation.

3 *ia<f>8tip6fi.fv<x.

knowledge of the term in dispute somewhat as
follows, pointing out at the same time that it
had a meaning very far removed from any
idea of essence. He says that the Evangelist 4,
in beginning our Lord's lineage according to
the flesh from Joseph, and then going back to
the generation continually preceding, and then
ending the genealogy in Adam, and, because
there was no earthly father anterior to this first-
formed creature, saying that he was " the son
of God," makes it obvious to every reader's
intelligence with regard to the Deity, that He,
from Whom Adam was, has not Himself His
subsistence from another, after the likeness of
the human lives just given. When, having
passed through the whole of it, we at last grasp
the thought of the Deity, we perceive at the
same moment the First Cause of it all. But if
anysuch cause be found dependent on something
else, then it is not a first cause. Therefore,
if God is the First Cause of the Universe, there
will be nothing whatever transcending this cause
of all things. Such was our Master's exposition
of the meaning of ungenerate ; and in order
that our testimony about it may not go beyond
the exact truth, I will quote the passage.

"The evangelist Luke, when giving the
genealogy according to the flesh of our God
and Saviour Jesus Christ, and stepping up from
the last to the first, begins with Joseph, saying
that he was 'the son of Heli, which was the
son of Matthat,' and so by ascending brings
his enumeration up to Adam ; but when he
has come to the top and said, that Seth ' was
the son of Adam, which was the son of God,'
then he stops this process. As, then, he has
said that Adam was the son of God, we will
ask these men, ' But God, who is He the son
of? ' Is it not obvious to every one's intelligence
that God is the son of no one ? But to be the
son of no one is to be without a cause, plainly ;
and to be without a cause is to be ungenerate.
Now in the case of men, the being son of some-
body is not the essences ; no more, in the case
of the Deity Who rules the world, is it possible
to say that the being ungenerate is the essence."

With what eyes will you now dare to gaze
upon your guide? I speak to you, O flock6

4 S. Luke iii 23, sqq.

5 ovk fa ovala. to e< tiko?. This is Oehler's reading from the MSS.

6 O flock. This could not have been written earlier than 384,
and there is abundant testimony that Eunomius still had his " flock.
Long before this, even soon after he had left his see of Cyzicus, and
had taken up his abode with F.udoxius, he separated himself from
that champion of the Homoean party, and held assemblies apart
because he had repeatedly entreated that his preceptor Aetius might
be received into communion (Socrates iv. 13). This must have been
about 366, before his banishment by Valens for favouring the rebel-
lion of Procopius. Sozoinen says(vi. 29), " The heresy of Eunomius
was spread from Cilicia and the Mountains of Taurus as far as the
Hellespont and Constantinople." In 380 at Bithynia near Constanti-
nople " multitu 'es resorted to him. some also gathered from other
quarters, a few with the design of testing his principles, and others
merely from the desire of listening to his discourses. His reputation
reached the ears of the Emperor, who would g'adly have had a

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS' SECOND BOOK.

3'3

of perishing souls ! How can you still turn to
listen to this man who has reared such a monu-
ment as this of his shamelessness in argument ?
Are ye not ashamed now, at least, if not before,
to take the hand of a man like this to lead you
to the truth ? Do ye not regard it as a sign of
his madness as to doctrine, that he thus shame-
lessly stands out against the truth contained in
Scripture ? Is this the way to play the champion
of the truth of doctrine — namely, to accuse
Basil of deriving the God over all from that
which has absolutely no existence? Am I to
tell the way he phrases it ? Am I to transcribe
the very words of his shamelessness ? I let the
insolence of them pass ; I do not blame their
invective, for I do not censure one whose
breath is of bad odour, because it is of bad odour;
or one who has bodily mutilation, beause he is
mutilated. Things such as that are the mis-
fortunes of nature ; they escape blame from
those who can reflect. This strength of vitu-
peration, then, is infirmity in reasoning; it is
an affliction of a soul whose powers of sound
argument are marred. No word from me, then,
about his invectives. But as to that syllogism,
with its stout irrefragable folds, in whose con-
clusion, to effect his darling object, he arrives
at this accusation against us, I will write it out
in its own precise words. " We will allow him
to say that the Son exists by participation in
the self-existent 7 ; but (instead of this), he has
unconsciously affirmed that the God over all
comes from absolute nonentity. For if the
idea of the absence of everything amounts to
that of absolute nonentity8, and the trans-
position of equivalents is perfectly legitimate,
then the man who says that God comes from
nothing says that He comes from nonentity."
To which of these statements shall we first
direct our attention? Shall we criticize his
opinion about the Son "existing by participa-
tion " in the Deity, and his bespattering those
who will not acquiesce in it with the foulness
of his tongue ; or shall we examine the sophism
so frigidly constructed from the stuff of dreams ?
However, every one who possesses a spark
of practical sagacity is not unaware that it
is only poets and moulders of mythology who
father sons " by participation " upon the Divine

conference with him. But the Empress Flacilla studiously pre-
vented an interview taking place between them ; for she was the
most faithful guard of the Nicene doctrines" (vii. 17). At the con-
vention, however, of all the sects at Theodosius' palace in 382,
Eunomius was present (Socrates v. 10). His eicdecns ttjs irt'o-rems (to
which he added learned notes) was laid before Theodosius in 383.
It was not till 391 that the Emperor condemned him to banishment
— the sole exception to Theodosius' toleration. "This heretic,"
says Sozomen again, " had fixed his residence in the suburbs of Con-
stantinople, and held frequent assemblies in private houses, where
he read his own writings. He induced many to embrace his senti-
ments, so that the sectarians who were named after him became very
numerous. He died not long after his banishment, and was interred
at Dacora, his birthplace, a village of Cappadocia."

'/ TOU OVTOS. ^ TO fJ.T]8*V TOJ ffO-VTr] fATJ OVTL TO.VTOV.

Being. Those, that is, who string together
the myths in their poems, fabricate a Dionysus,
or a Hercules, or a Minos, and such-like, out
of the combination of the superhuman with
human bodies ; and they exalt such person-
ages above the rest of mankind, representing
them as of greater estimation because of their
participation in a superior nature. Therefore,
with regard to this opinion of his, carrying
as it does within itself the evidence of its
own folly and profanity, it is best to be
silent ; and to repeat instead that irrefragable
syllogism of his, in order that every poor ignor-
amus on our side may understand what and
how many are the advantages which those who
are not trained in his technical methods are
deprived of. He says, " If the idea of the
absence of everything amounts to that of abso-
lute nonentity, and the transposition of equi-
valents is perfectly legitimate, then the man
who says that God comes from nothing, says
that He comes from nonentity." He brandishes
over us this Aristotelian weapon, but who has
yet conceded to him, that to say that any one
has no father amounts to saying that he has
been generated from absolute nonentity ? He
who enumerates those persons whose line is
recorded in Scripture is plainly thinking of a
father preceding each person mentioned. For
what relation is Heli to Joseph ? What relation
is Matthat to Heli? And what relation is
Adam to Seth ? Is it not plain to a mere child
that this catalogue of names is a list of fathers ?
For if Seth is the son of Adam, Adam must be
the father of one thus born from him ; and so
tell me, who is the father of the Deity Who is
over all? Come, answer this question, open
your lips and speak, exert all your skill in ex-
pression to meet such an inquiry. Can you
discover any expression that will elude the
grasp of your own syllogism ? Who is the
father of the Ungenerate? Can you say? If
you can, then He is not ungenerate. Pressed
thus, you will say, what indeed necessity com-
pels you to say, — No one is. Well, my dear
sir, do you not yet find the weak seams of
your sophism giving way? Do you not per-
ceive that you have slavered upon your own
lap? What says our great Basil? That the
Ungenerate One is from no father. For the
conclusion to be drawn from the mention of
fathers in the preceding genealogy permits the
word father, even in the silence of the evange-
list, to be added to this confession of faith.
Whereas, you have transformed " no one " into
"nothing at all," and again "nothing at all"
into "absolute nonentity," thereby concocting
that fallacious syllogism of yours. Accordingly
this clever result of professional shrewdness
shall be turned against yourself. I ask, Who is

314

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

the father of the Ungenerate One? " No one,"
you will be obliged to answer ; for the Un-
generate One cannot have a father. Then, if
no one is the father of the Ungenerate, and
you have changed " no one " into " nothing at
all," and "nothing at all" is, according to your
argument, the same as "absolute nonentity,"
and the transposition of equivalents is, as you
say, perfectly legitimate, then the man (/. e.
you) who says that no one is the father of the
Ungenerate One, says that the Deity Who is
over all comes from absolute nonentity !

Such, to use your own words, is the " evil,"
as one might expect, not indeed "of valuing
the character for being clever before one is
really such " (for perhaps this does not amount
to a very great misfortune), but of not knowing
oneself, and how great the distance is between
the soaring Basil and a grovelling reptile. For
if those eyes of his, with their divine penetra-
tion, still looked on this world, if he still swept

over mankind now living on the pinions of
his wisdom, he would have shown you with
the swooping rush of his words, how frail is
that native shell of folly in which you are en-
cased, how great is he whom you oppose with
your errors, while, with insults and invectives
hurled at him, you are hunting for a reputation
amongst decrepit and despicable creatures.
Still you need not give up all hope of feeling
that great man's talons?. For this work of
ours, while, as compared with his, it will be a
great thing for it to be judged the fraction of
one such talon, has, as regards yours, ability
enough to have broken asunder the outside
crust of your heresy, and to have detected the
deformity that hides within.

° nAijf dAA' oiiK afeATriorc of 0"Oi ko\ toiv btnixiov eKfCvov. Vigei
(De Idioiismis, p. 474), " Tl\rv aAAa interdum repellentis est, inter-
dum concedentis" as here ironically, and in Book I. p. 8j, n-Arii»
dAAd koX cortf ev flrjpiois Kpiats, still there is some distinction
between animals ,"

ON THE HOLY SPIRIT.

AGAINST THE FOLLOWERS OF MACEDONIUS".

It may indeed be undignified to give any
answer at all to the statements that are foolish ;
we seem to be pointed that way by Solomon's
wise advice, " not to answer a fool according to
his folly." But there is a danger lest through
our silence error may prevail over the truth,

1 Macedonius had been a very eminent Semi-Arian doctor. He
was deposed from the See of Constantinople, a.d. 360: and it was
actually the influence of the Eunomians that brought this about.
He went into exile and formed his sect. He considered the Holy
Spirit as " a divine energy diffused throughout the universe : and
not a person distinct from the Father and the Son " (Socrates, H.
E. iv. 4). This opinion had many partizans in the Asiatic provinces,
" hut," says Mosheim. " the Council of Constantinople crushed it."
However, that the final clauses of the Nicene Creed which express dis-
tinctly, amongst other truths, the deity and personality o the Third
Person of the Trinity were added at that Council to the original
form, is extremely doubtful. For — 1. We find the expanded form
(the Creed of Nicsea end' d, "And we believe in the Holy Ghost.")
which we now use in the Nicene Creed, in a work written by
Epiphanius seven years before the Council of Constantinople. So
that at all events the enlarged Creed was not prepared by the
Fathers then assembled,. 2. It is extremely doubtful if any symbol
at all was set forth at Con-tantinople. Neither Socrates, nor
Sozomen. nor Theodoret makes mention of one : but all speak of
adherence to the evangelic faith ratified at Nicaea. It is significant
too that the expanded form was entirely ignored by the Council of
Ephesus, 431. But at the Council of Chalcedon, 451, it was brought
forward : though even then it appears that it was far from attaining
general acceptance. By 540 it had become the accepted form (ac-
cording to a letter of Pope Viglius). " It seems most likely there-
fore that it was a profession received amongst the churches in the
patriarchate of Constantinople, but at first not more widely cir-
culated "(J. R. Lumby, Commentary on Prayer-Book, S. P. C. K.,
p. 66). F. J. A. Hort, however, (see Two Dissertations by) regards
this " Constantinopolitan " Creed as the old Creed of Jerusalem en-
larged and expanded ; and he suggests that S. Cyril of Jerusalem
may have produced it before the Council, which gave it some sort of
approval. The addition, moreover, of the later clauses was not, as
Mosheim seems to imagine, the only difference between the Nicene
Creed and this Creed.

That this lateness of accepted definition on a vital point should
not excite our wonder, Neander shows "the apprehension of the
idea (of the 6fiooii<rioi> of the Holy Spirit) had been so little per-
meated as yet by the Christian consciousness of the unity of God,
that Gregory of Nazianzum could still say in 380, ' Some of our
theologians consider the Holy Spirit to be a certain mode of the
Divine energy, others a creature of God, others God Himself.
Others say they do not know which opinion they ought to accept,
out of reverence for the Scriptures which have not clearly explain d
this point.' Hilary of Poictiers says in his own original way that
' he was well aware that nothing could be foreign to God's nature,
which searches into the deep things of that nature. Should one be
displeased at being told that He exists by and through Him, by and
from Whom are all things, that He is the Spirit of God, but also
God's gift to believers, then will the apostles and prophets displease
him ; for they affirm only that He exists.' " There can be little
doubt, however, that Gregory, in the follow ng fragment, is defending
a statement already in existence. He seems even to follow the
order of the words, " Lord and giver of Life." " Who with the
Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified." Doubt-
less the next clause. " Who spake by the Prophets," was dealt with
in what is lost. But, essentially a creed-maker as he was, his claim
to have himself added these fin.il clauses cannot he su tantiated
For the MSS- of this treatise, see p. 31.

and so the rotting sore2 of this heresy may
invade it, and make havoc of the sound word
of the faith. It has appeared to me, therefore,
to be imperative to answer, not indeed accord-
ing to the folly of these men who offer objec-
tions of such a description to our Religion, but
for the correction of their depraved ideas. For
that advice quoted above from the Proverbs
gives, I think, the watchword not for silence,
but for the correction of those who are display-
ing some act of folly ; our answers, that is, are
not to run on the level of their foolish concep-
tions, but rather to overturn those unthinking
and deluded views as to doctrine.

What then is the charge they bring against
us ? They accuse us of profanity for entertain-
ing 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 3. 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 as-
cribe to a Divine nature. We confess that,
save His being contemplated as with peculiar
attributes in regard of Person, the Holy Spirit
is indeed from God, and of the Christ, ac-
cording to Scripture4, but that, while not to
be confoundec^mth the Father in being never
originateo%nor Wti the Son in being the Only-
begotten, wB Bnle to be regarded separately
in certain dilwctive properties, He has in
all else, as I have just said, an exact identity s

8 <rriiri5ova>&j)S . . . yayypaxva : both used by Galen.

3 €is aatfieiav ypafeiv. This is Mai's reading. Cf. aatfltias
ypa<f>rj. The active (instead of middle) in this sense is found in
Aristoph. Av. 1053 : the passive is not infrequent in Demosthenes
and iEschines.

4 From God, and of the Christ, according to Scripture. This
is noticeable. The Greek is ck tou ©tow tcrri, «oi to5 XpioToG €<tti,
koSui<; yeypairrai. Compare the words below " proceeding from the
Father, receiving from the Son."

5 to oiTrapaAAoucToi' (but there is something lost before this ;
perhaps to ^I'lojifVov). This word is used to express substantial
identity. Origen uses it in alluding to the "Stoic resurrection,"

3io

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

with them. But our opponents aver that He
is a stranger to any vital communion with the
Father and the Son ; that by reason of an
essential variation He is inferior to, and less
than they in every point ; in power, in glory,
in dignity, in fine in everything that in word
or thought we ascribe to Deity ; that, in con-
sequence, in their glory He has no share, to
equal honour with them He has no claim ;
and that, as for power, He possesses only so
much of it as is sufficient for the partial activi-
ties assigned to Him ; that with the creative
force He is quite disconnected.

Such is the conception of Him that possesses
them ; and the logical consequence of it is
that the Spirit has in Himself none of those
marks which our devotion, in word or thought,
ascribes to a Divine nature. What, then, shall
be our way of arguing? We shall answer
nothing new, nothing of our own invention,
though they challenge us to it ; we shall fall
back upon the testimony in Holy Scripture
about the Spirit, whence we learn that the
Holy Spirit is Divine, and is to be called so.
Now, if they allow this, and will not contradict
the words of inspiration, then they, with all
their eagerness to fight with us, must tell us
why they are for contending with us, instead
of with Scripture. We say nothing different
from that which Scripture says. — But in a Divine
nature, as such, when once we have believed
in it, we can recognize no distinctions suggested
either by the Scripture teaching or by our own
common sense ; distinctions, that is, that would
divide that Divine and transcendent nature
within itself by any degrees of intensity and
remission, so as to be altered from itself by
being more or less. Because we firmly believe
that it is simple, uniform, incomposite, because
we see in it no complicity or composition of
dissimilars, therefore it is that, when once our
minds have grasped the idea of Deity, we
accept by the implication of that very name
the perfection in it of every conceivable thing
that befits the Deity. Deity, in fact, exhibits
perfection in every line in which the good can
be found. If it fails and comes short of per-
fection in any single point, in that point the
conception of Deity will be impaired, so that
it cannot, therein, be or be called Deity at
all ; for how could we apply *hat word to a
thing that is imperfect and deficient, and re-
quiring an addition external to itself?

We can confirm our argument by material
instances. Fire naturally imparts the sense of

i. e. the time when the "Great Year" shall again begin, and the
world's history be literally repeated, i. e. the " identical Socrates
shall marry the identical Xantippe, and teach the identical philo-
sophy, &c." This expression was a favourite one also with Chry-
sostom and Cyril of Alexandria to express the identity of Glory,
of Liodhead, and of Honour, in the Blessed Trinity.

heat to those who touch it, with all its com-
ponent parts 6 ; one part of it does not have the
heat more intense, the other less intense ; but
as long as it is fire at all, it exhibits an in-
variable oneness with itself in an absolutely
complete sameness of activity ; if in any part
it gets cooled at all, in that part it can no
longer be called fire ; for, with the change of
its heat-giving activity into the reverse, its
name also is changed. It is the same with
water, with air, with every element that under-
lies the universe ; there is one and the same
description of the element, in each case, ad-
mitting of no ideas of excess or defect ; water,
for instance, cannot be called more or less
water ; as long as it maintains an equal standard
of wetness, so long the term water will be
realized by it ; but when once it is changed
in the direction of the opposite quality7 the
name to be applied to it must be changed
also. The yielding, buoyant, " nimble "8 nature
of the air, too, is to be seen in every part of
it ; while what is dense, heavy, downward
gravitating, sinks out of the connotation of
the very term "air." So Deity, as long as it
possesses perfection throughout all the proper-
ties that devotion 9 may attach to it, by virtue
of this perfection in everything good does not
belie its name ; but if any one of those things
that contribute to this idea of perfection is
subtracted from it, the name of Deity is falsified
in that particular, and does not apply to the
subject any longer. It is equally impossible to
apply to a dry substance the name of water, to
that whose quality is a state of coolness the
name of fire, to stiff and hard things the name
of air, and to call that thing Divine which does
not at once imply the idea of perfection ; or
rather the impossibility is greater in this last
case.

If, then, the Holy Spirit is truly, and not '
in name only, called Divine both by Scripture
and by our Fathers, what ground is left for
those who oppose the glory of the Spirit ? He
is Divine, and absolutely good, and Omnipo-
tent, and wise, and glorious, and eternal ; He
is everything of this kind that can be named
to raise our thoughts to the grandeur of His
being. The singleness of the subject of these
properties testifies that He does not possess
them in a measure only, as if we could imagine
that He was one thing in His very substance,
but became another by the presence of the
aforesaid qualities. That condition is peculiar*

6 Reading /xopi'019 (cf. the same word below) for u-opCav.
1 irpbj ttji' evavrlav 7roion)Ta.
8 nimble, <ov<pbi/ ; compare Macbeth, I. vi.

" The air

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our senses."
' Reading evae/Hm. * Reading ISiov yap tovto.

ON THK HOLY SPIRIT.

3*7

to those beings who have been given a com-
posite nature ; whereas the Holy Spirit is single
and simple in every respect equally. This is
allowed by all ; the man who denies it does
not exist. If, then, there is but one simple and
single definition of His being, the good which
He possesses is not an acquired good ; but,
whatever He may be besides, He is Himself
Goodness, and Wisdom, and Power, and Sanc-
tification, and Righteousness, and Everlasting-
ness, and Imperishability, and every name that
is lofty, and elevating above other names. What,
then, is the state of mind that leads these men,
who do not fear the fearful sentence passed
upon the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, to
maintain that such a Being does not possess
glory ? For they clearly put that statement for-
ward ; that we ought not to believe that He
should be glorified : though I know not for
what reason they judge it to be expedient not
to confess the true nature of that which is
essentially glorious.

For the plea will not avail them in their self-
defence, that He is delivered by our Lord to
His disciples third in order, and that there-
fore He is estranged from our ideal of Deity.
Where in each case activity in working good
shows no diminution or variation whatever,
how unreasonable it is to suppose the nu-
merical order to be a sign of any diminution
or essential variation 2 ! It is as if a man were
to see a separate flame burning on three torches
(and we will suppose that the third flame is
caused by that of the first being transmitted to
the middle, and then kindling the end torch 3),
and were to maintain that the heat in the first
exceeded that of the others ; that that next it
showed a variation from it in the direction of
the less ; and that the third could not be called
fire at all, though it burnt and shone just like
fire, and did everything that fire does. But if
there is really no hindrance to the third torch
being fire, though it has been kindled from a
previous flame, what is the philosophy of these
men, who profanely think that they can slight
the dignity of the Holy Spirit because He is
named by the Divine lips after the Father and
the Son ? Certainly, if there is in our concep-
tions of the substance of the Spirit anything that
falls short of the Divine ideal, they do well in
testifying to His not possessing glory ; but if
the highness of His dignity is to be perceived
in every point, why do they grudge to make the

2 Reading €A.aTT<o<7eci>s tipo? rj Kara (frvaiv irapaWayris, k. t. A.

3 " The Ancient Greek Fathers, speaking of this procession,
mention the Father only, and never, I think, express the Son, as
sticking constantly in this to the language of the Scriptures (John
*v. 26*" — Pearson. The language of the above simile 01" Gregory
would be an illustration of this. So Greg. Naz., Oral. I. de Filio,
'■' standing on our definitions, we introduce the Ungenerate, the
Generated, and that which proceeds from the Father." This last
expression was so known and public, that it is recorded even by
Lucian in his Pkilopatris, § 12.

confession of His glory ? As if any one after
describing some one as a man, were to consider
it not safe to go on to say of him as well that
he is reasoning, mortal, or anything else that
can be predicated of a man, and so were to
cancel what he had just allowed ; for if he is
not reasoning, he is not a man at all ; but if the
latter is granted, how can there be any hesita-
tion about the conceptions already implied in
" man "? So, with regard to the Spirit, if when
one calls Him Divine one speaks the truth,
neither when one defines Him to be worthy of
honour, to be glorious, good, omnipotent, does
one lie ; for all such conceptions are at once
admitted with the idea of Deity. So that they
must accept one of two alternatives ; either not
to call Him Divine at all, or to refrain from
subtracting from His Deity any one of those
conceptions which are attributable to Deity. We
must then, most surely, comprehend along with
each other these two thoughts, viz. the Divine
nature, and along with it a just idea, a devout
intuition \ of that Divine and transcendent
nature.

Since, then, it has been affirmed, and truly
affirmed, that the Spirit is of the Divine Essence,
and since in that one word " Divine " every
idea of greatness, as we have said, is involved,
it follows that he who grants that Divinity has
potentially granted 5 all the rest ; — the glorious-
ness, the omnipotence, everything indicative of
superiority. It is indeed a monstrous thing to
refuse to confess this in the case of the Spirit ;
monstrous, because of the incongruity, as applied
to Him, of the terms which in the list of oppo-
sites correspond to the above terms. I mean,
if one does not grant gloriousness, one must
grant the absence of gloriousness ; if one sets
aside His power, one must acquiesce in its
opposite. So also with regard to honour, and
goodness, and any other superiority, if they are
not accepted, their opposites must be conceded.

But if all must shrink from that, as going
even beyond the most revolting blasphemy,
then a devout mind must accept the nobler
names and conceptions of the Holy Spirit, and
must pronounce concerning Him all that we
have already named, that He has honour,
power, glory, goodness, and everything else
that inspires devotion. It must own, too,
that these realities do not attach to Him in
imperfection or with any limit to the quality of
their brilliance, but that they correspond with
their names to infinity. He is not to be re-
garded as possessing dignity up to a certain
point, and then becoming different ; but He is

4 Reading ical Trjs eii<re/3oV9 cvvolas.

5 The edition of Cardinal Mai has o €Ketfo Soi/i rjj Suva/met,
<rui'u)fj.oAoyj)(7e, k. T. A. But the sense requires the comma to be
pi iced after Soil's. . •

3»*

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

always such. If you begin to count behind the
ages, or if you fix your gaze on the Hereafter6,
you will find no falling off whatever in dignity,
or glory, or omnipotence, such as to constitute
Him capable of increase by addition, or of
diminution by subtraction. Being wholly and
entirely perfect, He admits diminution in
nothing. Whereinsoever, on such a supposition
as theirs, He is lessened, therein He will be
exposed to the inroad of ideas tending to dis-
honour Him. For that which is not absolutely
perfect must be suspected on some one point
of partaking of the opposite character. But if
to entertain even the thought of this is a sign
of extreme derangement of mind, it is well to
confess our belief that His perfection in all that
is good is altogether unlimited, uncircumscribed,
in no particular diminished.

If such is the doctrine concerning Him when
followed out 7, let the same inquiry be made
concerning the Son and the Father as well.
Do you not confess 8 a perfection of glory in the
case of the one as in the case of the other ? I
think that all who reflect will allow it. If, then,
the honour of the Father is perfect, and the
honour of the Son is perfect, and they have
confessed as well the perfection of honour for
the Holy Spirit, wherefore do these new theorists
dictate to us that we are not to allow in His
case an equality of honour with the Father and
the Son ? As for ourselves, we follow out the
above considerations and find ourselves unable
to think, as well as to say, that that which re-
quires no addition for its perfection is, as com-
pared with something else, less dignified ; for
when we have something wherein, owing to its
faultless perfection, reason can discover no
possibility of increase, I do not see either
wherein it can discover any possibility of dimin-
ution. But these men, in denying the equality
of honour, really lay down the comparative
absence of it ; and so also when they follow out
further this same line of thought, by a diminu-
tion arising from comparison they divert all
the conceptions that devotion has formed of
the Holy Spirit ; they do not own His perfec-
tion either in goodness, or omnipotence, or in
any such attribute. But if they shrink from
such open profanity and allow His perfection
in every attribute of good, then these clever
people must tell us how one perfect thing can
be more perfect or less perfect than another
perfect thing ; for so long as the definition of
perfection applies to it, that thing can not admit
of a greater and a less in the matter of perfection.

If, then, they agree that the Holy Spirit is
perfect absolutely, and it has been admitted in
addition that true reverence requires perfection

6 Reading to «<f>e{rjs. 7 «<£<ff}s. 8 Reading onoAoytU.

in every good thing for the Father and the Son
as well, what reasons can justify them in taking
away the Father ° when once they have granted
Him ? For to take away " equality of dignity "
with the Father is a sure proof that they do not
think that the Spirit has a share in the perfec-
tion of the Father. And as regards the idea
itself of this honour in the case of the Divine
Being, from which they would exclude the
Spirit, what do they mean by it? Do they
mean that honour which men confer on men,
when by word and gesture they pay respect
to them, signifying their own deference in the
form of precedence and all such-like practices,
which in the foolish fashion of the day are
kept up in the name of "honour." But all
these things depend on the goodwill of those
who perform them ; and if we suppose a
case in which they do not choose to perform
them, then there is no one amongst mankind
who has from mere nature any advantage, such
that he should necessarily be more honoured
than the rest ; for all are marked alike with the
same natural proportions. The truth of this is
clear ; it does not admit of any doubt. We
see, for instance, the man who to-day, because
of the office which he holds, is considered by
the crowd an object of honour, becoming to-
morrow himself one of those who pay honour,
the office having been transferred to another.
Do they, then, conceive of an honour such as
that in the case of the Divine Being, so that, as
long as we please to pay it, that Divine honour
is retained, but when we cease to do so it
ceases too at the dictate of our will ? Absurd
thought, and blasphemous as well ! The Deity,
being independent of us, does not grow in
honour ; He is evermore the same ; He cannot
pass into a better or a worse state ; for He has
no better, and admits no worse.

In what sort of manner, then, can you honour
the Deity ? How can you heighten the Highest ?
How can you give glory to that which is above
all glory? How can you praise the Incom-
prehensible? If "all the nations are as a drop
of a bucket1," as Isaiah says, if all living
humanity were to send up one united note of
praise in harmony together, what addition will
this gift of a mere drop be to that which is
glorious essentially? The heavens are telling
the glory of God2, and yet they are counted
poor heralds of His worth ; because His
Majesty is exalted, not as far as the heavens.

9 i. e. from fellowship with the Spirit. The text is ti's 6 A070*
KO.B' hv euAoYOy Kpivovcriv trarepa avatpetv, Sf&ioKaai ; (for which
bt&uiKoai is a conjecture). But perhaps nni i«i avatpelv, SiiatTKuxji,
or SiSafwo-i, would be a more intelligible reading ; though the ex-
amples of the hortatory subjunctive other than in the first person
are, according to Porson (ad Eurip. Hec. 430), to be reckoned among
solecisms in classical Greek.

' Is xl. 15. But Mai's text has crafyib?, not <nayu>v (LXX.|

3 Ps. xix. 1.

ON THE HOLY SPIRIT.

319

but high above those heavens, which are them-
selves included within a small fraction of the
Deity called figuratively His "span3." And
shall a man, this frail and short-lived creature,
so aptly likened to "grass," who "to-day is,"
and to-morrow is not, believe that he can
worthily honour the Divine Being ? It would
be like some one lighting a thin fibre from some
tow and fancying that by that spark he was
making an addition to the dazzling rays of the
By what words, pray, will you honour

sun.

the Holy Spirit, supposing you do wish to
honour Him at all? By saying that He is
absolutely immortal, without turning, or vari-
ableness, always beautiful, always independent of
ascription from others, working as He wills all
things in all, Holy, leading, direct, just, of true
utterance, " searching the deep things of God,"
"proceeding from the Father," " receiving *
from the Son," and all such-like things, what,
after all, do you lend to Him by these and
such-like terms? Do you mention what He
has, or do you honour Him by what He has
not? Well, if you attest what He has not,
your ascription is meaningless and comes to
nothing ; for he who calls bitterness " sweet-
ness," while he lies himself, has failed to
commend that which is blamable. Whereas,
if you mention what He has, such and such a
quality is essential, whether men recognize it
or not ; He remains the object of faith 5, says
the Apostle, if we have not faith.

What means, then, this lowering and this ex-
panding of their soul, on the part of these men
who are enthusiastic for the Father's honour,
and grant to the Son an equal share with Him,
but in the case of the Spirit are for narrowing
down their favours ; seeing that it has been
demonstrated that the intrinsic worth of the
Divine Being does not depend for its contents
upon any will of ours, but has been always
inalienably inherent in Him? Their narrow-
ness of mind, and unthankfulness, is exposed
in this opinion of theirs, while the Holy Spirit
is essentially honourable, glorious, almighty, and
all that we can conceive of in the way of exalt-
ation, in spite of them.

"Yes," replies one of them, "but we have
been taught by Scripture that the Father is the
Creator, and in the same way that it was
' through the Son 6 ' that * all things were
made' ; but God's word tells us nothing of this
kind about the Spirit; and how, then, can it
be right to place the Holy Spirit in a position
of equal dignity with One Who has displayed such
magnificence of power through the Creation?"

What shall we answer so this ? That the
thoughts of their hearts are so much idle talk,

3 Is. xl. 12. Tts e/weVprjcTe . . . tov ovpixvov a-ni8au.fi.

4 Aatx^avoixevov. 5 rrtOTOS. 2 Tim. ii. 13.

S. John L 3.

when they imagine that the Spirit was not al-
ways with the Father and the Son, but that, as
occasion varies, He is sometimes to be con-
templated as alone, sometimes to be found in
the closest union with Them. For if the
heaven, and the earth, and all created things
were really made through the Son and from
the Father, but apart from the Spirit, what was
the Holy Spirit doing at the time when the
Father was at work with the Son upon the
Creation? Was He employed upon some
other works, and was this the reason that He
had no hand in the building of the Universe?
But, then, what special work of the Spirit have
they to point to, at the time when the world
was being made? Surely, it is senseless folly
to conceive of a creation other than that which
came into existence from the Father through
the Son. Well, suppose that He was not em-
ployed at all, but dissociated Himself from the
busy work of creating by reason of an inclina-
tion to ease and rest, which shrank from toil ?

May the gracious Spirit Himself pardon this
baseless supposition of ours ! The blasphemy
of these theorists, which we have had to follow
out in every step it takes, has caused us unwit-
tingly to soil our discussion with the mud of
their own imaginings. The view which is .con-
sistent with all reverence is as follows. We
are not to think of the Father as ever parted
from the Son, nor to look for the Son as sepa-
rate from the Holy Spirit. As it is impossible
to mount to the Father, unless our thoughts
are exalted thither through the Son, so it is
impossible also to say that Jesus is Lord except
by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit are to be known only in a
perfect Trinity, in closest consequence and
union with each other, before all creation, be-
fore all the ages, before anything whatever of
which we can form an idea 7. The Father is
always Father, and in Him the Son, and with
the Son the Holy Spirit. If these Persons,
then, are inseparate from each other, how great
is the folly of these men who undertake to
sunder this indivisibility by certain distinctions
of time, and so far to divide the Inseparable as
to assert confidently, " the Father alone, through
the Son alone, made all things " ; the Holy
Spirit, that is, being not present at all on the
occasion of this making, or else not working.
Well, if He was not present, they must tell us
where He was ; and whether, while God em-
braces all things, they can imagine any separate
standing-place for the Spirit, so that He could
have remained in isolation during the time
occupied by the process of creating. If, on
the other hand, He was present, how was it

7 ?rpb TraoTjs /caTaA*}7rTrJ? zttlvo'ios.

3-u

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

that He was inactive? Because He could not,
or because He would not, work? Did He
abstain willingly, or because some strong neces-
sity drove Him away ? Now, if He deliberately
embraced this inactivity, He must reject work-
ing in any other possible way either; and He
Who affirmed that " He worketh all things in
all, as He wills8," is according to them a liar.
If, on the contrary, this Spirit has the impulse
to work, but some overwhelming control hinders
His design, they must tell us the wherefore of
this hindrance. Was it owing to his being
grudged a share in the glory of those oper-
ations, and in order to secure that the admir-
ation at their success should not extend to a
third person as its object ; or to a distrust of
His help, as if His co-operation would result in
present mischief? These clever men most
certainly furnish the grounds for our holding
one of these two hypotheses ; or else, if a
grudging spirit has no connection with the
Deity, any more than a failure can be conceived
of in any relation to an Infallible Being, what
meaning of any kind is there in these narrow
views of theirs, which isolate the Spirit's power
from all world-building efficiency ? Their duty
rather was to expel their low human way of
thinking, by means of loftier ideas, and to make
a calculation more worthy of the sublimity of
the objects in question. For neither did the
Universal God make the universe " through the
Son," as needing any help, nor does the Only-
begotten God work all things "by the Holy
Spirit," as having a power that comes short of
His design ; but the fountain of power is the
Father, and the power of the Father is the Son,
and the spirit of that power is the Holy Spirit ;
and Creation entirely, in all its visible and
spiritual extent, is the finished work of that
Divine power. And seeing that no toil can be
thought of in the composition of anything con-
nected with the Divine Being (for performance
being bound to the moment of willing, the
Plan at once becomes a Reality), we should be
justified in calling all that Nature which came
into existence by creation a movement of Will,
an impulse of Design, a transmission of Power,
beginning from the Father, advancing through
the Son, and completed in the Holy Spirit.

This is the view we take, after the unprofes-
sional way usual with us ; and we reject all these
elaborate sophistries of our adversaries, believing
and confessing as we do, that in every deed
and thought, whether in this world, or beyond
this world, whether in time, or in eternity, the
Holy Spirit is to be appiehended as joined to
the Father and Son, and is wanting in no wish
or energy, or anything else that is implied in a

• I Cor. xiii. 6.

devout conception of Supreme Goodness 9 ;
and, therefore, that, except for the distinction
of order and Person, no variation in any point
is to be apprehended ; but we assert that while
His place is counted third in mere sequence
after the Father and Son, third in the order of
the transmission, in all other respects we acknow-
ledge His inseparable union with them ; both
in nature, in honour, in godhead, and glory, and
majesty, and almighty power, and in all devout
belief.

But with regard to service and worsh ip, and
the other things which they so nicely calculate
about, and bring into prominence, we say this ;
that the Holy Spirit is exalted above all that
•we can do for Him with our merely human
purpose ; our worship is far beneath the honour
due ; and anything else that in human customs
is held as honourable is somewhere below
the dignity of the Spirit ; for that which in its
essence is measureless surpasses those who
offer their all with so slight and circumscribed
and paltry a power of giving. This, then, wc
say to those of them who subscribe to the
reverential conception of the Holy Spirit that
He is Divine, and of the Divine nature. But
if there is any of them who rejects this state-
ment, and this idea involved in the very name
of Divinity, and says that which, to the de-
struction of the Spirit's greatness, is in circu-
lation amongst the many, namely, that He be-
longs, not to making, but to made, beings, that
it is right to regard Him not as of a Divine,
but as of a created nature, we answer to a pro-
position such as this, that we do not understand
how we can count those who make it amongst
the number of Christians at all. For just as it
would not be possible to style the unformed
embryo a human being, but only a potential
one, assuming that it is completed so as to come
forth to human birth, while as long as it is
in this unformed state, it is something other
than a human being ; so our reason cannot
recognize as a Christian one who has failed to:
receive, with regard to the entire mystery, the
genuine form of our religion *. We can hear
Jews believing in God, and our God too : even
our Lord reminds 2 them in the Gospel that they
recognize no other God than the Father of the
Only-begotten, " of Whom ye say that he is your
God." Are we, then, to call the Jews Chris-
tians because they too agree to worship the
God Whom we adore? I am aware, too, that
the Manichees go about vaunting the name of
Christ. Because they hold revered the Name
to which we bow the knee, shall we therefore
number them amongst Christians? So, too,

9 (toTa to iiyadov ; probably here in its Platonic, rather than its
ordinary sense. l tt)i- aA-qHri fxnp^nucriv tvs ev<re|9e(as.

a ivTitifrat : arwiiOfrai, " concedes to," would perhaps be better.

ON THE HOLY SPIRIT.

32>

he who both believes in the Father and re-
ceives the Son, but sets aside the Majesty of
the Spirit, has " denied the faith, and is worse
than an infidel," and belies the name of Christ
which he bears. The Apostle bids the man of God
to be " perfects." Now, to take only the general
man, perfection must consist in completeness
in every aspect of human nature, in having
reason, capability of thought and knowledge, a
share of animal life, an upright bearing, risi-
bility, broadness of nail ; and if any one were
to term some individual a man, and yet were
unable to produce evidence in his case of the
foregoing signs of human nature, his terming
him so would be a valueless honour. Thus, too,
the Christian is marked by his Belief in Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost ; in this consists the form
of him who is fashioned4 in accordance with
the mystery of the truth. But if his form is
arranged otherwise, I will not recognize the
existence of anything whence the form is ab-
sent ; there is a blurring out of the mark, and
a loss of the essential form, and an alteration
of the characteristic signs of our complete
humanity, when the Holy Spirit is not included
in the Belief. For indeed the word of Eccle-
siastes says true ; your heretic is no living man,
but " bones," he says s, " in the womb of her
that is with child 6 " ; for how can one who does
not think of the unction along with the Anointed
be said to believe in the Anointed? "Him,"
says (Peter), " did God anoint with the Holy
Spirit i*

These destroyers of the Spirit's glory, who
relegate Him to a subject world, must tell us
of what thing that unction is the symbol. Is
it not a symbol of the Kingship ? And what ?
Do they not believe in the Only-begotten as in
His very nature a King ? Men who have not
once for all enveloped their hearts with the
Jewish "vail8" will not gainsay that He is this.
If, then, the Son is in His very nature a king,
and the unction is the symbol of His kingship,
what, in the way of a consequence, does your
reason demonstrate? Why, that the Unction
is not a thing alien to that Kingship, and so
that the Spirit is not to be ranked in the
Trinity as anything strange and foreign either.
For the Son is King, and His living, realized,
and personified Kingship is found in the Holy
Spirit, Who anoints the Only-begotten, and so
makes Him the Anointed, and the King of all
things that exist. If, then, the Father is King,
and the Only-begotten is King, and the Holy

3 2 Cor. xiii. n. Cf. i Cor. xiv. 20.

4 Cf. 2 Tim. i. 13 (viroTviruMTiv) ; Rom. ii. 20 (ju.6pcp<o<7i.i') ; vi. 17
(tvttov), all referring to truth as contained in a formula. Cf. also
Gal. iv. 19.

5 Reading Ka6to<; e/ceii'os <^t)o-Iv.

6 Eccles. xi. 5 (LXX.). ovk Ioti yivuurKuv tU 17 oSbs tov
TrvevfAOLToi;, to? oct<x ev yatrrpX Kvo<f)opova~rj?.

7 Acts x. 38. Cf. iv. 27. 8 2 Cor. iii. 14, 15.

VOL. V.

Ghost is the Kingship, one and the same
definition of Kingship must prevail throughout
this Trinity, and the thought of "unction"
conveys the hidden meaning that there is no
interval of separation between the Son and the
Holy Spirit. For as between the body's sur-
face and the liquid of the oil nothing inter-
vening can be detected, either in reason or in
perception, so inseparable is the union of the
Spirit with the Son ; and the result is that who-
soever is to touch the Son by faith must needs
first encounter the oil in the very act of touch-
ing ; there is not a part of Him devoid of the
Holy Spirit. Therefore belief in the Lordship
of the Son arises in those who entertain it, by
means of the Holy Ghost ; on all sides the
Holy Ghost is met by those who by faith
approach the Son. If, then, the Son is essen-
tially a King, and the Holy Spirit is that
dignity of Kingship which anoints the Son,
what deprivation of this Kingship, in its essence
and comparing it with itself, can be imagined ?
Again, let us look at it in this way. King-
ship is most assuredly shown in the rule over
subjects. Now what is "subject" to this
Kingly Being? The Word includes the ages
certainly, and all that is in them ; " Thy King-
dom," it says, "is a Kingdom of ages," and, by
ages, it means every substance in them created
in infinite space 9, whether visible or invisible ;
for in them all things were created by the
Maker of those ages. If, then, the Kingship
must always be thought of along with the King,
and the world of subjects is acknowledged to
be something other than the world of rulers,
what absurdity it is for these men to contradict
themselves thus, attributing as they do the
unction as an expression for the worth of Him
Whose very nature it is to be a King, yet de-
grading that unction Itself to the rank of a
subject, as if wanting in such worth ! If It is a
subject by virtue of its nature, then why is It
made the unction of Kingship, and so associ-
ated with the Kingly dignity of the Only-be-
gotten ? If, on the other hand, the capacity to
rule is shown by Its being included in the
majesty of Kingship, where is the necessity of
having everything dragged down to a plebeian *
and servile lower condition, and numbered with
the subject creation ? When we affirm of the
Spirit the two conditions, we cannot be in both
cases speaking the truth : i. e. that He is ruling,
and that He is subject. If He rules, He is not
under any lord, but if He is subject, then He
cannot be comprehended with the Being who is
a King. Men are recognized as amongst men,

9 ex tow Trepiex0VT°s- This expression of Anaxagoras is repeated
more than once in the Treatise " On the Soul."

1 tSiioTi/crji'. On i Cor. xiv. 16, 'O ai>a7rAr)p(ui' rbv tottov tou I&iwtov,
Theodoret says, " iSitonqv kolKc I TOi/erTw \oukw Ta.yfi.a.Tt.TtTayp.ei'uv.''
Theophylact also renders the word by the same equivalent.

322

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

angels amongst angels, everything amongst its
kind ; and so the Holy Spirit must needs be be-
lieved to belong to one only of two worlds ; to
the ruling, or to the inferior world ; for between
these two our reason can recognize nothing ; no
new invention of any natural attribute on the
borderland of the Created and the Uncreated
can be thought of, such as would participate in
both, yet be neither entirely ; we cannot imagine
such an amalgamation and welding together of
opposites by anything being blended of the
Created and the Uncreated, and two opposites
thus coalescing into one person, in which case
the result of that strange mixture would not
only be a composite thing, but composed of
elements that were unlike, and disagreeing as
to time ; for that which receives its personality
from a creation is assuredly posterior to that
which subsists without a creation.

If, then, they declare the Holy Ghost to be
blended of both, they must consequently view
that blending as of a prior with a posterior
thing; and, according to them, He will be
prior to Himself; and reversely, posterior to
Himself; from the Uncreated He will get the
seniority, and from the Created the juniority.
But, in the nature of things, this cannot be ;
and so it must most certainly be true to affirm
of the Holy Spirit one only of these alterna-
tives, and that is, the attribute of being Un-
created; for notice the amount of absurdity
involved in the other alternative ; all things
that we can think of in the actual creation
have, by virtue of all having received their
existence by an act of creation, a rank and
value perfectly equal in all cases, and so what
'reason can there be for separating the Holy
Spirit from the rest of the creation, and ranking
Him with the Father and the Son? Logic,
then, will discover this about Him ; That which
is contemplated as part of the Uncreated, does
mot exist by creation ; or, if It does, then It
has no more power than its kindred creation,
It cannot associate itself with that Transcendent
Nature ; if, on the other hand, they declare that
He is a created being, and at the same time
has a power which is above the creation, then
the creation will be found at variance with it-
self, divided into ruler and ruled, so that part
of it is the benefactor, part the benefited, part
the sanctifier, part the sanctified ; and all that
fund of blessings which we believe to be provided
for the creation by the Holy Spirit are present
in Him, welling up abundantly, and pouring
forth upon others, while the creation remains
in need of the thence -issuing help and grace,
and receives, as a mere dole, those blessings
which can be passed to it from a fellow-creature !
That would be like favouritism and respecting
of persons; when we know that there is no

such partiality in the nature of things, as
that those existences which differ in no way
from each other on the score of substance
should not have equal power ; and I think
that no one who reflects will admit such
views. Either He imparts nothing to others,
if He possesses nothing essentially ; or, if we
do believe that He does give, His possession
beforehand of that gift must be granted ; this
capacity of giving blessings, whilst needing one-
self no such extraneous help, is the peculiar and
exquisite privilege of Deity, and of no other.

Then let us look to this too. In Holy
Baptism, what is it that we secure thereby ? Is
it not a participation in a life no longer subject
to death ? I think that no one who can in
any way be reckoned amongst Christians will
deny that statement. What then ? Is that
life-giving power in the water itself which is
employed to convey the grace of Baptism?
Or is it not rather clear to every one that this
element is only employed as a means in the ex-
ternal ministry, and of itself contributes nothing
towards the sanctification, unless it be first
transformed itself by the sanctification ; and
that what gives life to the baptized is the
Spirit ; as our Lord Himself says in respect to
Him with His own lips, " It is the Spirit that
giveth life ; " but for the completion of this
grace He alone, received by faith, does not give
life, but belief in our Lord must precede, in
order that the lively gift may come upon the be-
liever, as our Lord has spoken, " He giveth life to
whom He willeth." But further still, seeing that
this grace administered through the Son is
dependent on the Ungenerate Source of all,
Scripture accordingly teaches us that belief in
the Father Who engendereth all things is to
come first ; so that this life-giving grace should
be completed, for those fit to receive it, after
starting from that Source as from a spring pour-
ing life abundantly, through the Only-begotten
Who is the True life, by the operation of the
Holy Spirit. If, then, life comes in baptism,
and baptism receives its completion in the
name of Father, Son, and Spirit, what do these
men mean who count this Minister of life as
nothing ? If the gift is a slight one, they must
tell us the thing that is more precious than
this life. But if everything whatever that is
precious is second to this life, I mean that
higher and precious life in which the brute
creation has no part, how can they dare to
depreciate so great a favour, or rather the
actual Being who grants the favour, and to
degrade Him in their conceptions of Him to
a subject world by disjoining Him from the
higher world of deity2. Finally, if they will

2 " Whether or not the Macedonians explicitly denied the Divinity
of the Holy Ghost i-. uncei lain . Out they viewed Him as essentially

ON THE HOLY SPIRIT.

323

have it that this bestowal of life is a small
thing, and that it means nothing great and
awful in the nature of the Bestower, how is it
they do not draw the conclusion which this
very view makes inevitable, namely, that we
must suppose, even with regard to the Only-
begotten and the Father Himself, nothing great
in Their life, the same as that which we have
through the Holy Spirit, supplied as it is from
the Father through the Son ?

So that if these despisers and impugners of
their very own life conceive of the gift as a
little one, and decree accordingly to slight the
Being who imparts the gift, let them be made
aware that they cannot limit to one Person
only their ingratitude, but must extend its pro-
fanity beyond the Holy Spirit to the Holy
Trinity Itself. For like as the grace flows
down in an unbroken stream from the Father,
through the Son and the Spirit, upon the
persons worthy of it, so does this profanity
return backward, and is transmitted from the
Son to the God of all the world, passing from
one to the other. If, when a man is slighted.
He Who sent him is slighted (yet what a
distance there was between the man and the
Sender !), what criminality 3 is thereby implied
in those who thus defy the Holy Spirit ! Per-
haps this is the blasphemy against our Law-giver4
for which the judgment without remission has
been decreed ; since in Him the5 entire Being,
Blessed and Divine, is insulted also. As the
devout worshipper of the Spirit sees in Him the
glory of the Only-begotten, and in that sight
beholds the image of the Infinite God, and by
means of that image makes an outline, upon his
own cognition 6, of the Original, so most plainly
does this contemner ' (of the Spirit), whenever
he advances any of his bold statements against
the glory of the Spirit, extend, by virtue of the
same reasoning, his profanity to the Son, and
beyond Him to the Father. Therefore, those
who reflect must have fear lest they perpetrate
an audacity the result of which will be the
complete blotting out of the perpetrator of it ;
and while they exalt the Spirit in the naming,
they will even before the naming exalt Him in
their thought, it being impossible that words can
mount along with thought ; still when one shall
have reached the highest limit of human faculties,
the utmost height and magnificence of idea
to which the mind can ever attain, even then

separate from, and external to, the One Indivisible Godhead. The
' Nicene' Creed declares that He is the Lord, or Sovereign Spirit,
because the heretics considered Him to be a minister of God ; and
the Supreme Gi" er of Life, because they considered Him a mere
instrument by which we receive the gift." — Newman's Arians, note
p. 420. 3 Ka-ra.Kpi.crii'.

* Kara, tov vo^oOerov is Mai's reading. But Kara rbv vofLoOertjv,
i. e. according to S. Mark iii. 29, S. Luke xii. 10, would be prefer-
able. Migne reads wapa. in this sense.

5 rb has probably dropped out.

one must believe it is far below the glory that
belongs to 8 Him, according to the words in
the Psalms, that "after exalting the Lord our
God, even then ye scarcely worship the foot-
stool beneath His feet " : and the cause of this
dignity being so incomprehensible is nothing
else than that He is holy.

If, then, every height of man's ability falls
below the grandeur of the Spirit (for that is
what the Word means in the metaphor of " foot-
stool"), what vanity is theirs who think that
there is within themselves a power so great that
it rests with them to define the amount of value
to be attributed to a being who is invaluable !
And so they pronounce the Holy Spirit un-
worthy of some things which are associated
with the idea of value, as if their own abilities
could do far more than the Spirit, as estimated
by them, is capable of. What pitiable, what
wretched madness ! They understand not what
they are themselves when they talk like this,
and what the Holy Spirit against Whom they
insolently range themselves. Who will tell
these people that men are " a spirit that goeth
forth and returneth not again 9," built up in
their mother's womb by means of a soiled
conception, and returning all of them to a
soiled earth ; inheriting a life that is likened
unto grass ; blooming for a little during life's
illusion x, and then withering away, and all the
bloom upon them being shed and vanishing;
they themselves not knowing with certainty
what they were before their birth, nor into
what they will be changed, their soul being
ignorant of her peculiar destiny as long as she
tarries in the flesh ? Such is man.

On the contrary the Holy Spirit is, to begin
with, because of qualities that are essentially
holy, that which the Father, essentially Holy, is ;
and such as the Only-begotten is, such is the
Holy Spirit ; then, again, He is so by virtue of
life-giving, of imperishability, of unvariableness,
of everlastingness, of justice, of wisdom, of
rectitude, of sovereignty, of goodness, of power,
of capacity to give all good things, and above
them all life itself, and by being everywhere,
being present in each, filling the earth, residing
in the heavens, shed abroad upon supernatural
Powers, filling all things according to the
deserts of each, Himself remaining full, being
with all who are worthy, and yet not parted
from the Holy Trinity. He ever "searches
the deep things of God," ever "receives" from
the Son, ever is being "sent," and yet not
separated, and being "glorified," and yet He has
always had glory. It is plain, indeed, that one
who gives glory to another must be found himself
in the possession of superabundant glory ; for

rn yvatcrei saurou.

7 Something has dropped out here.

8 en-i0aAAdv(T»j9. Cf. Ps. xcix. 5 ; 1 Chron. xxviij. 2.

9 Wisdom xvi. 14. ' jSutfTucrjs anariy;

Y 2

3^4

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

how could one devoid of glory glorify another ?
Unless a thing be itself light, how can it dis-
play the gracious gift of light? So the power
to glorify could never be displayed by one who
was not himself glory2, and honour, and
majesty, and greatness. Now the Spirit does
glorify the Father and the Son. Neither does
He lie Who saith, "Them that glorify Me I
glorify " 3 ; and " I have glorified Thee V is said
by our Lord to the Father ; and again He says,
" Glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had
with Thee before the world was s." The Divine
Voice answers, " I have both glorified, and will
glorify again6." You see the revolving circle
of the glory moving from Like to Like. The
Son is glorified by the Spirit ; the Father is
glorified by the Son ; again the Son has His
glory from the Father ; and the Only-begotten
thus becomes the glory of the Spirit. For with
what shall the Father be glorified, but with the
true glory of the Son : and with what again shall
the Son be glorified, but with the majesty of
the Spirit ? In like manner, again, Faith com-
pletes the circle, and glorifies the Son by means
of the Spirit, and the Father by means of the
Son.

If such, then, is the greatness of the Spirit,
and whatever is morally beautiful, whatever is
good, coming from God as it does through the
Son, is completed by the instrumentality of the
Spirit that "worketh all in all," why do they
set themselves against their own life? Why
do they alienate themselves from the hope
belonging to " such as are to be saved " ?
Why do they sever themselves from their cleav-
ing unto God? For how can any man cleave1
unto the Lord unless the Spirit operates with-
in us that union of ourselves with Him ? Why
do they haggle with us about the amount of
service and of worship? Why do they use
that word " worship " in an ironical sense,
derogatory to a Divine and entirely Independent
Being, supposing that they desire their own
salvation ? We would say to them, " Your
supplication is the advantage of you who ask,
and not the honouring of Him Who grants it.
Why, then, do you approach your Benefactor as
if you had something to give ? Or rather, why
do you refuse to name as a benefactor at all
Him Who gives you your blessings, and slight
the Life-giver while clinging to Life? Why,
seeking for His sanctification, do 'you miscon-
ceive of the Dispenser of the Grace of sancti-
fication ; and as to the giving of those bless-
ings, why, not denying that He has the power,
do you deem Him not worthy to be asked to

2 It is worth noticing that Gregory maintains (Horn. xv. on
Canticles) that A6£a in Scripture means the Holy Ghost.

3 Cf. i Sam. ii. 30. * S. John xvii. 4.
5 S. John xvii. 5. ' S. John xii. 28.

give, and fail to take this into consideration,
viz. how much greater a thing it is to give some
blessing than to be asked to give it ? The
asking does not unmistakably witness to great-
ness in him who is asked ; for it is possible that
one who does not have the thing to give might
be asked for it, for the asking depends only on
the will of the asker. But one who actually
bestows some blessing has thereby given un-
doubted evidence of a power residing in him.
Why then, while testifying to the greater thing
in Him, — I mean the power to bestow every-
thing that is morally beautiful 7 — do you de-
prive Him of the asking, as of something of
importance ; although this asking, as we have
said, is often performed in the case of those
who have nothing in their power, owing to the
delusion of their devotees ? For instance, the
slaves of superstition ask the idols for the
objects of their wishes ; but the asking does
not, in this instance of the idols, confer any
glory ; only people pay that attention to them
owing to the deluded expectation that they will
get some one of the things they ask for, and
so they do not cease to ask. But you, per-
suaded as you are of what and how great things
the Holy Spirit is the Giver, do you neglect
the asking them from Him, taking refuge in
the law which bids you 'worship God and
serve Him only 8 ? ' Well, how will you worship
Him only, tell me, when you have severed Him
from His intimate union with His own Only-
begotten and His own Spirit ? This worship is
simply Jewish.

But you will say, "When I think of the
Father it is the Son (alone) that I have included
as well in that term." But tell me ; when you
have grasped the notion of the Son have you
not admitted therein that of the Holy Spirit too ?
For how can you confess the Son except by the
Holy Spirit? At what moment, then, is the
Spirit in a state of separation from the Son,
so that when the Father is being worshipped,
the worship of the Spirit is not included along
with that of the Son? And as regards their
worship itself, what in the world do they
reckon it to be? They bestow it, as some
exquisite piece of honour, upon the God over
all, and convey it over, sometimes, so as to
reach the Only-begotten also ; but the Holy
Spirit they regard as unworthy of such a
privilege. Now, in the common parlance of
mankind, that self-prostration of inferiors upon
the ground which they practise when they
salute their betters is termed worship. Thus,
it was by such a posture that the patriarch
Jacob, in his self-humiliation, seems to have
wished to show his inferiority when coming to

7 xa\bv.

* Deut. vi. 13 ; x. 20.

ON THE HOLY SPIRIT.

325

meet his brother and to appease his wrath ; for
" he bowed himself to the ground," says the
Scripture, "three times"?; and Joseph's
brethren, as long as they knew him not, and
he pretended before them that he knew them
not, by reason of the exaltation of his rank
reverenced his sovereignty with this worship ;
and even the great Abraham himself " bowed
himself1 " "to the children of Heth,"a stranger
amongst the natives of that land, showing, I
opine, by that action, how far more powerful
those natives were than sojourners. It is
possible to speak of many such actions both
in the ancient records, and from examples be-
fore our eyes in the world now 2.

Do they too, then, mean this by their
worship? Well, is it anything but absurdity
to think that it is wrong to honour the Holy
Spirit with that with which the patriarch
honoured even Canaanites ? Or do they con-
sider their "worship" something different to
this, as if one sort were fitting for men, another
sort for the Supreme Being? But then, how
is it that they omit worship altogether in the
instance of the Spirit, not even bestowing
upon Him the worship conceded in the case
of men ? And what kind of worship do they
imagine to be reserved especially for the Deity ?
Is it to be spoken word, or acted gesture?
Well, but are not these marks of honour
shared by men as well ? In their case words
are spoken and gestures acted. Is it not, then,
plain to every one who possesses the least
amount of reflection, that any gift worthy of
the Deity mankind has not got to give ; for the
Author of all blessings has no need of us. But
it is we men who have transferred these indica-
tions of respect and admiration, which we adopt
towards each other, when we would show by
the acknowledgment of a neighbour's superiority
that one of us is in a humbler position than
another, to our attendance upon a Higher
Power ; out of our possessions we make a gift
of what is most precious to a priceless Nature.
Therefore, since men, approaching emperors
and potentates for the objects which they wish in
some way to obtain from those rulers, do not

9 The LXX. has irpo<reKvvr)<rev eiri rqv yr)v iirTaKis, Gen. xxxiii. 3.
1 ■npoaticivr\<Ti t tjjs yqs, tois viols tov Xct, Gen. xxiii. 7.
* toO filov . This is a late use of (Hot.

bring to them their mere petition only, but em-
ploy every possible means to induce them to feel
pity and favour towards themselves, adopting a
humble voice, and a kneeling position 3, clasping
their knees, prostrating themselves on the
ground, and putting forward to plead for their
petition all sorts of pathetic signs, to wake that
pity, — so it is that those who recognize the
True Potentate, by Whom all things in existence
are controlled, when they are supplicating for
that which they have at heart, some lowly in
spirit because of pitiable conditions in this
world, some with their thoughts lifted up be-
cause of their eternal mysterious hopes, seeing
that they know not how to ask, and that their
humanity is not capable of displaying any
reverence that can reach to the grandeur of
that Glory, carry the ceremonial used in the
case of men into the service of the Deity. And
this is what " worship " is, — that, I mean, which
is offered for objects we have at heart along with
supplication and humiliation. Therefore Daniel
too bends the knees to the Lord, when asking
His love for the captive people ; and He Who
" bare our sicknesses," and intercedes for us, is
recorded in the Gospel to have fallen on His
face, because of the man that He had taken
upon Him, at the hour of prayer, and in this
posture to have made Plis petition, enjoining
thereby, I think, that at the time of our petition
our voice is not to be bold, but that we are to
assume the attitude of the wretched ; since the
Lord "resisteth the proud, but giveth grace
unto the humble ; " and somewhere else (He
says), " he that exalteth himself shall be abased."
If, then, " worship " is a sort of suppliant state,
or pleading put forward for the object of the
petition, what is the intention of these new-
fashioned regulations? These men do not
even deign to ask of the Giver, nor to kneel to
the Ruler, nor to attend upon the Potentate.

3 Still the word irpovicvvtZv became consecrated to the highest
Christian worship, while 6epaireveiv was employed for address to
the angels. " Every supplication, every prayer, every entreaty,
and every giving of thanks must be offered to the Almighty through
the High Priest who is over all the angels, the incarnate Word and
God. And we shall make supplication and prayer to the Word
Himself also, and we shall give Him thanks if we can distinguish
prayer in its proper meaning from the wrong use of the word,"
Origen c Cels. v. 4 (Cf, viii. 13, where he answers the question
whether Gabriel, Michael, and the rest of the archangels should be
addressed, Oepaitevio-Oau^

ON THE HOLY TRINITY, AND OF THE GODHEAD

OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
TO EUSTATHIUS*.

All you who study medicine have, one may
say, humanity for your profession : and I think
that one who preferred your science to all the
serious pursuits of life would form the proper
judgment, and not miss the right decision, if it
be true that life, the most valued of all things,
is a thing to be shunned, and full of pain, if it
may not be had with health, and health your
art supplies. But in your own case the science
is in a notable degree of double efficacy ; you
enlarge for yourself the bounds of its humanity,
since you do not limit the benefit of your art
to men's bodies, but take thought also for the
cure of troubles of the mind. I say this, not
only following the common reports, but be-
cause I have learnt it from experience, as in
many other matters, so especially at this time
in this indescribable malice of our enemies,
which you skilfully dispersed when it swept
like some evil flood over our life, dispelling
this violent inflammation of our heart by your
fomentation of soothing words. I thought it
right, indeed, in view of the continuous and
varied effort of our enemies against us, to keep
silence, and to receive their attack quietly,
rather than to speak against men armed with
falsehood, that most mischievous weapon, which
sometimes drives its point even through truth.
But you did well in urging me not to betray
the truth, but to refute the slanderers, lest, by
a success of falsehood against truth, many might
be injured.

I may say that those who conceived this
causeless hatred for us seemed to be acting
very much on the principle of ^Esop's fable.
For just as he makes his wolf bring some
charges against the lamb (feeling ashamed, I

' The greater part of this treatise is found also among the Letters
of S. B i-il [ Ep. 189 180) : Ed. Gaume, Tom. iii. p. 401 (276 c.)J. The
Benedictine edition of S. Basil notes that in one MS. a marginal
note attributes the letter to Gregory. It may be added that those
parts which appear to be found only in the MSS. of Gregory make
the argument considerably clearer than it is if they are excluded, as
they >re from the Benedif.iue text ol S Basil.

suppose, of seeming to destroy, without just
pretext, one who had done him no hurt), and
then, when the lamb easily swept away all the
slanderous charges brought against him, makes
the wolf by no means slacken his attack, but
carry the day with his teeth when he is van-
quished by justice ; so those who were as keen
for hatred against us as if it were something good
(feeling perhaps some shame of seeming to hate
without cause), make up charges and complaints
against us, while they do not abide consistently
by any of the things they say, but allege, now
that one thing, after a little while that another,
and then again that something else is the cause
of their hostility to us. Their malice does not
take a stand on any ground, but when they are
dislodged from one charge they cling to another,
and from that again they seize upon a third,
and if all their charges are refuted they do not
give up their hate. They charge us with
preaching three Gods, and din into the ears of
the multitude this slander, which they never
rest from maintaining persuasively. Then truth
fights on our side, for we show both pub-
licly to all men, and privately to those who
converse with us, that we anathematize any
man who says that there are three Gods, and
hold him to be not even a Christian. Then,
as soon as they hear this, they find Sabellius a
handy weapon against us, and the plague that
he spread is the subject of continual attacks
upon us. Once more, we oppose to this
assault our wonted armour of truth, and show
that we abhor this form of heresy just as much
as Judaism. What then ? are they weary after
such efforts, and content to rest ? Not at all.
Now they charge us with innovation, and frame
their complaint against us in this way : — They
allege that while we confess 2 three Persons we
say that there is one goodness, and one power,

2 Reading bfioAoyoui'Ta? with Oehler. The Paris Edit, reads
bjioAoyoui/Tuii/, and so also the Benedictine S. Basil. The Latin
translator of 1615, however, Fenders as it he had read ofioAoynvvrac .

ON THE HOLY TRINITY.

327

and one Godhead. And in this assertion they
do not go beyond the truth ; for we do say so.
Hut the ground of their complaint is that their
custom does not admit this, and Scripture does
not support it. What then is our reply ? We
do not think that it is right to make their pre-
vailing custom the law and rule of sound
doctrine. For if custom is to avail for 3 proof
of soundness, we too, surely, may advance our
prevailing custom ; and if they reject this, we
are surely not bound to follow theirs. Let the
inspired Scripture, then, be our umpire, and
the vote of truth will surely be given to those
whose dogmas are found to agree with the
Divine words.

Well, what is their charge ? There are two
brought forward together in the accusation
against us ; one, that we divide the Persons ;
the other, that we do not employ any of the
names which belong to God in the plural
number, but (as I said already) speak of the
goodness as one, and of the power, and the
Godhead, and all such attributes in the singular.
With regard to the dividing of the Persons,
those cannot well object who hold the doctrine
of the diversity of substances in the Divine
nature. For it is not to be supposed that
those who say that there are three substances
do not also say that there are three Persons.
So this point only is called in question : that
those attributes which are ascribed to the
Divine nature we employ in the singular.

But our argument in reply to this is ready
and clear. For any one who condemns those
who say that the Godhead is one, must neces-
sarily support either those who say that there
are more than one, or those who say that there
is none. But the inspired teaching does not
allow us to say that there are more than one,
since, whenever it uses the term, it makes
mention of the Godhead in the singular ; as, —
" In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the God-
head 4 " ; and, elsewhere, — " The invisible things
of Him from the foundation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even His eternal power and God-
head s." If, then, to extend the number of the
Godhead to a multitude belongs to those only
who suffer from the plague of polytheistic error,
and on the other hand utterly to deny the God-
head would be the doctrine of atheists, what
doctrine is that which accuses us for saying
that the Godhead is one? But they reveal
more clearly the aim of their argument. As
regards the Father, they admit the fact that He
is God 6, and that the Son likewise is honoured

3 Reading ei? of0OT>)TOS awdSeifti', with Oehler and the Bene-
dictine S. Basil. The Paris Edit, of 1615 reads eis bpOoTqra \6yov.

4 Col. ii. 9 S Rom. i. 20.
6 Reading, with Oehler, to 6tbv eiuat..

with the attribute of Godhead ; but the Spirit,
Who is reckoned with the Father and the Son,
they cannot include in their conception of God-
head, but hold that the power of the Godhead,
issuing from the Father to the Son, and there
halting, separates the nature of the Spirit from
the Divine glory. And so, as far as we may in a
short space, we have to answer this opinion also.
What, then, is our doctrine? The Lord, in
delivering the saving Faith to those who be-
come disciples of the word, joins with the
Father and the Son the Holy Spirit also ; and
we affirm that the union of that which has once
been joined is continual ; for it is not joined in
one thing, and separated in others. But the
power of the Spirit, being included with the
Father and the Son in the life-giving power, by
which our nature is transferred from the cor-
ruptible life to immortality, and in many other
cases also, as in the conception of " Good," and
"Holy," and "Eternal," "Wise," "Righteous,"
" Chief," " Mighty," and in fact everywhere, has
an inseparable association with them in all the
attributes ascribed in a sense of special excel-
lence. And so we consider that it is right to
think that that which is joined to the Father
and the Son in such sublime and exalted con-
ceptions is not separated from them in any.
For" we do not know of any differences by way
of superiority and inferiority in attributes which
express our conceptions of the Divine nature,
so that we should suppose it an act of piety
(while allowing to the Spirit community in the
inferior attributes) to judge Him unworthy of
those more exalted. For all the Divine attri-
butes, whether named or conceived, are of like
rank one with another, in that they are not
distinguishable in respect of the signification of
their subject. For the appellation of " the
Good " does not lead our minds to one sub-
ject, and that of "the Wise," or "the Mighty,"
or "the Righteous" to another, but the thing
to which all the attributes point is one ; and,
if you speak of God, you signify the same
Whom you understood by the other attributes.
If then all the attributes ascribed to the Divine
nature are of equal force as regards their desig-
nation of the subject, leading our minds to the
same subject in various aspects, what reason is
there that one, while allowing to the Spirit
community with the Father and the Son in the
other attributes, should exclude Him from the
Godhead alone? It is absolutely necessary
either to allow to Him community in this also,
or not to admit His community in the others.
For if He is worthy in the case of those attri-
butes, He is surely not less worthy in this.
But if He is "less," according to their phrase 7,

1 Reading with Oehler ei AV imcpoTtpov . . . i<TT\v, too-re
Kt xwpiVflai The Paris Edit, and the Benedictine S. Basil read ti

328

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

so that He is excluded from community with
the Father and the Son in the attribute of God-
head, neither is He worthy to share in any other
of the attributes which belong to God. For
the attributes, when rightly understood and
mutually compared by that notion which we
contemplate in each case, will be found to im-
ply nothing less than the appellation of "God."
And a proof of this is that many even of the
inferior existences are called by this very name.
Further, the Divine Scripture is not sparing in
this use of the name even in the case of things
incongruous, as when it names idols by the
appellation of God. For it says, " Let the
gods that have not made the heavens and the
earth perish, and be cast down beneath the
earth 8 " ; and, " all the gods of the heathen are
devils 9 " ; and the witch in her incantations,
when she brings up for Saul the spirits that he
sought for, says that she " saw gods 1." And
again Balaam, being an augur and a seer, and
engaging in divination, and having obtained for
himself the instruction of devils and magical
augury, is said in Scripture to receive counsel
from God 2. One may show by collecting many
instances of the same kind from the Divine
Scripture, that this attribute has no supremacy
over the other attributes which are proper to
God, seeing that,' as has been said, we find it
predicated, in an equivocal sense, even of
things incongruous ; but we are nowhere taught
in Scripture that the names of "the Holy,"
"the Incorruptible," "the Righteous," "the
Good," are made common to things unworthy.
If, then, they do not deny that the Holy Spirit
has community with the Father and the Son in
those attributes which, in their sense of special
excellence, are piously predicated only of the
Divine nature, what reason is there to pretend
that He is excluded from community in this
only, wherein it was shown that, by an equivocal
use, even devils and idols share ?

But they say that this appellation is indicative
of nature, and that, as the nature of the Spirit is
not common to the Father and the Son, for
this reason neither does he partake in the com-
munity of this attribute. Let them show, then,
whereby they discern this diversity of nature.
For if it were possible that the Divine nature
should be contemplated in its absolute essence,
and that we should find by appearances what
is and what is not proper to it, we should surely
have no need of other arguments or evidence
lor the comprehension of the question. But

• KpoTtpov . . . iariv, f) wore . . . xtopiijtrai. "If, according

to their phrase, He is too small to be capable of community," &c.

i crs reading seems to fit better in the argument. If the new

ide i of " capacity " had been introduced at this point, we should

i .in • ..trier phrase than /neTf'^eti' a$iov at the end of the

sentence. 8 Cf. Jer. x. n. 9 IJs. xcvi. 5 (LXX.).

1 1 Sam. xxviii. 13. 2 Num. xxii.

since it is exalted above the understanding of
the questioners, and we have to argue from
some particular evidence about those things
which evade our knowledge 3, it is absolutely
necessary for us to be guided to the investiga-
tion of the Divine nature by its operations. If,
then, we see that the operations which are
wrought by the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit differ one from the other, we shall
conjecture from the different character of the
operations that the natures which operate are
also different. For it cannot be that things
which differ in their very nature should agree
in the form of their operation : fire does not
chill, nor ice give warmth, but their operations
are distinguished together with the difference
between their natures. If, on the other hand,
we understand that the operation of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, differing or
varying in nothing, the oneness of their nature
must needs be inferred from the identity of their
operation. The Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit alike give sanctification, and life, and
light, and comfort, and all similar graces. And
let no one attribute the power of sanctification
in an especial sense to the Spirit, when he
hears the Saviour in the Gospel saying to the
Father concerning His disciples, " Father,
sanctify them in Thy name 4." So too all the
other gifts are wrought in those who are worthy
alike by the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit : every grace and power, guidance, life,
comfort, the change to immortality, the passage
to liberty, and every other boon that exists,
which descends to us.

But the order of things which is above us,
alike in the region of intelligence and in that of
sense (if by what we know we may form con-
jectures about those things also which are above
us), is itself established within the operation
and power of the Holy Spirit, every man re-
ceiving the benefit according to his own desert
and need. For although the arrangement and
ordering of things above our nature is obscure to
our sense, yet one may more reasonably infer,
by the things which we know, that in them too
the power of the Spirit works, than that it is
banished from the order existing in the things
above us. For he who asserts the latter view
advances his blasphemy in a naked and un-
seemly shape, without being able to support his
absurd opinion by any argument. But he who
agrees that those things which are above us are
also ordered by the power of the Spirit with the
Father and the Son, makes his assertion on this
point with the support of clear evidence from

3 Oehler and Migne's edit, of S. Basil here read yvuxriv, the
Paris Edit, and the Benedictine S. Basil have nvrjiir)v.

4 Cf. S. John xvii. it and 17.

ON THE HOLY TRINITY.

329

his own life. Fors as the nature of man is
compounded of body and soul, and the angelic
nature has for its portion life without a body,
if the Holy Spirit worked only in the case of
bodies, and the soul were not capable of receiv-
ing the grace that comes from Him, one might
perhaps infer from this, if the intellectual and
incorporeal nature which is in us were above
the power of the Spirit, that the angelic life too
was in no need of His grace. But if the gift of
the Holy Spirit is principally a grace of the
soul, and the constitution of the soul is linked
by its intellectuality and invisibility to the
angelic life, what person who knows how to see
a consequence would not agree, that every
intellectual nature is governed by the ordering
of the Holy Spirit? For since it is said "the
angels do alway behold the Face of My Father
which is in heaven 6," and it is not possible to
behold the person of the Father otherwise than
by fixing the sight upon it through His image ;
and the image of the person of the Father is
the Only-begotten, and to Him again no man
can draw near whose mind has not been illu-
mined by the Holy Spirit, what else is shown
from this but that the Holy Spirit is not separ-
ated from any operation which is wrought by
the Father and the Son ? Thus the identity of
operation in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shows
plainly the undistinguishable character of their
substance. So that even if the name of God-
head does indicate nature, the community of
substance shows that this appellation is properly
applied also to the Holy Spirit. But I know
not how these makers-up of all sorts of argu-
ments bring the appellation of Godhead to be
an indication of nature, as though they had not
heard from the Scripture that it is a matter of
appointment 7, in which way nature does not
arise. For Moses was appointed as a god of
the Egyptians, since He Who gave him the
oracles, &c, spoke thus to him, " I have given
thee as a god to Pharaoh8." Thus the force
of the appellation is the indication of some
power, either of oversight or of operation. But
the Divine nature itself, as it is, remains un-
expressed by all the names that are conceived
for it, as our doctrine declares. For in learning
that He is beneficent, and a judge, good, and
just, and all else of the same kind, we learn

5 This sentence, and the passage following, down to the words,
" is wrought by the Father and the Son," are omitted in the editions
ofS. Basil.

6 S. Matt, xviii. 10.

' Reading on xe'POTO,"!'n5' V ^°"1* °" Y'Verat. The Paris Edit,
and Migne's S. Basil read oti xeiP0T0V'-a V 0^o-is °" ytverai : the
Ken. S. Basil and Oehler read oti yeipoTOvni^i ^vais ov 71'veTat.
The point of the argument seems to be that ' Godhead " is spoken
of hi Scripture as being given by appointment, which excludes the
idea of its being indicative of " nature." Gregory shows that it is
so spolcen of: but he does not show that Scripture asserts the
distinction between nature and appointment, which the reading of
the P.enodictine text and Oehler would require him to do.

8 Ex. vii. 1.

diversities of His operations, but we are none
the more able to learn by our knowledge of
His operations the nature of Him Who works.
For when one gives a definition of any one of
these attributes, and of the nature to which the
names are applied, he will not give the same
definition of both : and of things of which the
definition is different, the nature also is distinct.
Indeed the substance is one thing which no
definition has been found to express, and the
significance of the names employed concerning
it varies, as the names are given from some
operation or accident. Now the fact that there
is no distinction in the operations we learn from
the community of the attributes, but of the
difference in respect of nature we find no clear
proof, the identity of operations indicating
rather, as we said, community of nature. If,
then, Godhead is a name derived from opera-
tion, as we say that the operation of the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, so we
say that the Godhead is one : or if, according
to the view of the majority, Godhead is indica-
tive of nature, since we cannot find any diversity
in their nature, we not unreasonably define the
Holy Trinity to be of one Godhead 9.

But if any one were to call this appellation
indicative of dignity, I cannot tell by what
reasoning he drags the word to this significance.
Since however one may hear many saying things
of this kind, in order that the zeal of its oppo-
nents may not find a ground for attacking the
truth, we go out of our way with those who
take this view, to consider such an opinion,
and say that, even if the name does denote
dignity, in this case too the appellation will
properly befit the Holy Spirit. For the attri-
bute of kingship denotes all dignity ; and " our
God," it says, "is King from everlasting1."
But the Son, having all things which are the
Father's, is Himself proclaimed a King by Holy
Scripture. Now the Divine Scripture says that
the Holy Spirit is the unction of the Only-Be-
gotten 2, interpreting the dignity of the Spirit
by a transference of the terms commonly used
in this world. For as, in ancient days, in those
who were advanced to kingship, the token of
this dignity was the unction which was applied
to them, and when this took place there was
thenceforth a change from private and humble
estate to the superiority of rule, and he who
was deemed worthy of this grace received after
his anointing another name, being called, in-
stead of an ordinary man, the Anointed of the
Lord : for this reason, that the dignity of the
Holy Spirit might be more clearly shown to
! men, He was called by the Scripture " the sign
I of the Kingdom," and " Unction," whereby we

9 The treatise, as it appears in S. Basil's works, ends here.

Ps. lxxiv. 12.

a Acts x. 38.

330

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

are taught that the Holy Spirit shares in the
glory and kingdom of the Only-begotten Son
of God. For as in Israel it was not permitted
to enter upon the kingdom without the unction
being previously given, so the word, by a trans-
ference of the terms in use among ourselves,
indicates the equality of power, showing that
not even the kingdom of the Son is received
without the dignity of the Holy Spirit. And
for this reason He is properly called Christ,
since this name gives the proof of His insepar-
able and indivisible conjunction with the Holy
Spirit If, then, the Only-begotten God is the

Anointed, and the Holy Spirit is His Unction,
and the appellation of Anointed 3 points to the
Kingly authority, and the anointing is the token
of His Kingship, then the Holy Spirit shares
also in His dignity. If, therefore, they say that
the attribute of Godhead is significative of
dignity, and the Holy Spirit is shown to share in
this last quality, it follows that He Who partakes
in the dignity will also partake in the name
which represents it

3 Reading with Oehler Xptorov in place of Btov (the reading of
the Paris edition).

ON "NOT THREE GODS."

TO ABLABIUS.

Ye that are strong with all might in the
inner man ought by rights to carry on the
struggle against the enemies of the truth, and
not to shrink from the task, that we fathers
may be gladdened by the noble toil of our
sons ; for this is the prompting of the law of
nature : but as you turn your ranks, and send
against us the assaults of those darts which are
hurled by the opponents of the truth, and de-
mand that their " hot burning coals" J and their
shafts sharpened by knowledge falsely so called
should be quenched with the shield of faith by
us old men, we accept your command, and
make ourselves an example of obedience 2, in
order that you may yourself give us the just
requital on like commands, Ablabius, noble
soldier of Christ, if we should ever summon
you to such a contest.

In truth, the question you propound to us
is no small one, nor such that but small harm
will follow if it meets with insufficient treat-
ment. For by the force of the question, we
are at first sight compelled to accept one or
other of two erroneous opinions, and either to
say " there are three Gods," which is unlawful,
or not to acknowledge the Godhead of the Son
and the Holy Spirit, which is impious and
absurd.

The argument which you state is something
like this : — Peter, James, and John, being in
one human nature, are called three men : and
there is no absurdity in describing those who
are united in nature, if they are more than one,
by the plural number of the name derived
from their nature. If, then, in the above case,
custom admits this, and no one forbids us to
speak of those who are two as two, or those
who are more than two as three, how is it that
in the case of our statements of the mysteries
of the Faith, though confessing the Three
Persons, and acknowledging no difference of
nature between them, we are in some sense at
variance with our confession, when we say that
the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and

1 Ps. cxx. 3 ; the phrase is rendered in A. V. by " coals of
juniper," in the Vulg. by " carbonibus desolatoriis."
a Reading, vith Oehler, evireitfriaf.

of the Holy Ghost is one, and yet forbid men
to say " there are three Gods " ? The question
is, as I said, very difficult to deal with : yet, if
we should be able to find anything that may
give support to the uncertainty of our mind, so
that it may no longer totter and waver in this
monstrous dilemma, it would be well : on the
other hand, even if our reasoning be found
unequal to the problem, we must keep for ever,
firm and unmoved, the tradition which we re-
ceived by succession from the fathers, and seek
from the Lord the reason which is the advocate
of our faith : and if this be found by any of
those endowed with grace, we must give thanks
to Him who bestowed the grace ; but if not, we
shall none the less, on those points which have
been determined, hold our faith unchangeably.
What, then, is the reason that when we count
one by one those who are exhibited to us in
one nature, we ordinarily name them in the
plural and speak of " so many men," instead
of calling them all one : while in the case of
the Divine nature our doctrinal definition rejects
the plurality of Gods, at once enumerating the
Persons, and at the same time not admitting the
plural signification ? Perhaps one might seem
to touch the point if he were to say (speaking
offhand to straightforward people), that the
definition refused to reckon Gods in any
number to avoid any resemblance to the
polytheism of the heathen, lest, if we too were
to enumerate the Deity, not in the singular, but
in the plural, as they are accustomed to do;
there might be supposed to be also some com-
munity of doctrine. This answer, I say, if
made to people of a more guileless spirit, might
seem to be of some weight : but in the case of
the others who require that one of the alterna-
tives they propose should be established (either
that we should not acknowledge the Godhead
in Three Persons, or that, if we do, we should
speak of those who share in the same Godhead
as three), this answer is not such as to furnish
any solution of the difficulty. And hence we
must needs make our reply at greater length,
tracing out the truth as best we may ; for the
question is no ordinary one.

1 -> f

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

We say, then, to begin with, that the practice
of calling those who are not divided 3 in nature
by the very name of their common nature in
the plural, and saying they are "many men,"
is a customary abuse of language, and that it
would be much the same thing to say they are
"many human natures." And the truth of
this we may see from the following instance.
When we address any one, we do not call him
by the name of his nature, in order that no
confusion may result from the community of
the name, as would happen if every one of
those who hear it were to think that he himself
was the person addressed, because the call is
made not by the proper appellation but by the
common name of their nature : but we separate
him from the multitude by using that name
which belongs to him as his own ; — that, I mean,
which signifies the particular subject. Thus
there are many who have shared in the nature —
many disciples, say, or apostles, or martyrs —
but the man in them all is one ; since, as has
been said, the term " man " does not belong to
the nature of the individual as such, but to that
which is common. For Luke is a man, or
Stephen is a man ; but it does not follow that
if any one is a man he is therefore Luke or
Stephen : but the idea of the persons admits
of that separation which is made by the peculiar
attributes considered in each severally, and
when they are combined is presented to us by
means of number ; yet their nature is one, at
union in itself, and an absolutely indivisible
unit, not capable of increase by addition or of
diminution by subtraction, but in its essence
being and continually remaining one, insepar-
able even though it appear in plurality, con-
tinuous, complete, and not divided with the
individuals who participate in it. And as we
speak of a people, or a mob, or an army, or an
assembly in the singular in every case, while
each of these is conceived as being in plurality,
so according to the more accurate expression,
" man " would be said to be one, even though
those who are exhibited to us in the same
nature make up a plurality. Thus it would
be much better to correct our erroneous habit,
50 as no longer to extend to a plurality the
name of the nature, than by our bondage to
habit to transfer * to our statements concerning
God the error which exists in the above case.
But since the correction of the habit is im-
practicable (for how could you persuade any
one not to speak of those who are exhibited in
the same nature as "many men"? — indeed, in
every case habit is a thing hard to change), we

3 Reading toi>« p.ij 6ti)p»)neVovs, as Sifanus seems to have read.
The Paris Edit, of 1615 reads tous Sirjpjj^LeVou?, which Oehler leaves
uncorrected.

4 Reading with Oehler p.tTa/3i0afe<.K, for the htj ii.iTafii.fia^ti.v of
<he Paris Edit.

are not so far wrong in not going contrary to
the prevailing habit in the case of the lower
nature, since no harm results from the mistaken
use of the name : but in the case of the state-
ment concerning the Divine nature the various
use 5 of terms is no longer so free from danger :
for that which is of small account is in these
subjects no longer a small matter. Therefore
we must confess one God, according to the
testimony of Scripture, "Hear, O Israel, the
Lord thy God is one Lord," even though the
name of Godhead extends through the Holy
Trinity. This I say according to the account
we have given in the case of human nature, in
which we have learnt that it is improper to
extend the name of the nature by the mark of
plurality. We must, however, more carefully
examine the name of "Godhead," in order to
obtain, by means of the significance involved
in the word, some help towards clearing up
the question before us.

Most men think that the word "Godhead"
is used in a peculiar degree in respect of nature :
and just as the heaven, or the sun, or any other
of the constituent parts of the universe are de-
noted by proper names which are significant
of the subjects, so they say that in the case of
the Supreme and Divine nature, the word
" Godhead " is fitly adapted to that which it
represents to us, as a kind of special name.
We, on the other hand, following the suggestions
of Scripture, have learnt that that nature is un-
nameable and unspeakable, and we say that
every term either invented by the custom 6 of
men, or handed down to us by the Scriptures,
is indeed explanatory of our conceptions of the
Divine Nature 7, but does not include the
signification of that nature itself. And it may
be shown without much difficulty that this is
the case. For all other terms which are used
of the creation may be found, even without
analysis of their origin, to be applied to the
subjects accidentally, because we are content
to denote the things in any way by the word
applied to them so as to avoid confusion in
our knowledge of the things signified. But
all the terms that are employed to lead us to
the knowledge of God have comprehended in
them each its own meaning, and you cannot
find any word among the terms especially ap-
plied to God which is without a distinct sense.
Hence it is clear that by any of the terms we
use the Divine nature itself is not signified, but
some dne of its surroundings is made known.
For we say, it may be, that the Deity is incor-
ruptible, or powerful, or whatever else we are

5 Sifanus seems to have read tj a£ia</>opos XP>)<r'S> as he translates
" promiscnus et indifferens nominuin nsns."

6 Reading with Oehler cri>f7|0ei'as for the .oiVt'as of the Paris Edit.
1 Reading with Oehler n>v Tttpi rqv fcioi' <j>v<rt.v vo< UjneVuie, for

twk ti Trfpi tt)v 6. <j>. fooupc'i'iui' in the Paris Edit.

ON "NOT THREE GODS."

333

accustomed to say of Him. But in each of
these terms we find a peculiar sense, fit to be
understood or asserted of the Divine nature,
yet not expressing that which that nature is in
its essence. For the subject, whatever it may
be, is incorruptible : but our conception of in-
corruptibility is this, — that that which is", is not
resolved into decay : so, when we say that He
is incorruptible, we declare what His nature
does not suffer, but we do not express what
that is which does not suffer corruption. Thus,
again, if we say that He is the Giver of life, though
we show by that appellation what He gives, we
do not by that word declare what that is which
gives it. And by the same reasoning we find
that all else which results from the significance
involved in the names expressing the Divine
attributes either forbids us to conceive what
we ought not to conceive of the Divine nature,
or teaches us that which we ought to conceive
of it, but does not include an explanation of
the nature itself. Since, then, as we perceive
the vdried operations of the power above us,
we fashion our appellations from the several
operations that are known to us, and as we
recognize as one of these that operation of
surveying and inspection, or, as one might call
it, beholding, whereby He surveys all things
and overlooks them all, discerning our thoughts,
and even entering by His power of contempla-
tion into those things which are not visible, we
suppose that Godhead, or deorqc, is so called
from (9c'o, or beholding, and that He who is our
Oiuri'ie or beholder, by customary use and by
the instruction of the Scriptures, is called BtoQ,
or God. Now if any one admits that to behold
and to discern are the same thing, and that the
God Who superintends all things, both is and is
called the superintender of the universe, let
him consider this operation, and judge whether
it 1) -'ongs to one of the Persons whom we
believe in the Holy Trinity, or whether the
ypower extends 8 throughout the Three Persons.
For if our interpretation of the term Godhead,
or BtoTTjc, is a true one, and the things which
are seen are said to be beheld, or dtara, and
that which beholds them is called Otoe, or God,
no one of the Persons in the Trinity could
reasonably be excluded from such an appella-
tion on the ground of the sense involved in the
word. For Scripture attributes the act of see-
ing equally to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
David says, "See, O God our defender?" : and
from this we learn that sight is a proper oper-
ation of the idea * of God, so far as God is
conceived, since he says, " See, O God." But
Jesus also sees the thoughts of those who con-

8 Reading with Oehler Snjicei for Trpoo-qicet..

9 Ps. lxxxiv. g.

1 Reading with Oehler ISeat for iSe'ai/.

demn Him, and questions why by His own
power He pardons the sins of men ? for it says,
"Jesus, seeing their thoughts2." And of the
Holy Spirit also, Peter says to Ananias, " Why
hath Satan filled thine heart, to lie to the Holy
Ghost ?3" showing that the Holy Spirit was a
true witness, aware of what Ananias had dared
to do in secret, and by Whom the manifestation
of the secret was made to Peter. For Ananias
became a thief of his own goods, secretly, as
he thought, from all men, and concealing his
sin : but the Holy Spirit at the same moment
was in Peter, and detected his intent, dragged
down as it was to avarice, and gave to Peter
from Himself 4 the power of seeing the secret,
while it is clear that He could not have done
this had He not been able to behold hidden
things.

But some one will say that the proof of our
argument does not yet regard the question.
For even if it were granted that the name of
" Godhead " is a common name of the nature,
it would not be established that we should not
speak of " Gods " : but by these arguments,
on the contrary, we are compelled to speak
of " Gods " : for we find in the custom of
mankind that not only those who are par-
takers 5 in the same nature, but even any who
may be of the same business, are not, when
they are many, spoken of in the singular ;
as we speak of " many orators," or " sur-
veyors," or "farmers," or "shoemakers," and
so in all other cases. If, indeed, Godhead
were an appellation of nature, it would be
more proper, according to the argument laid
down, to include the Three Persons in the
singular number, and to speak of "One God,"
by reason of the inseparability and indivisibility
of the nature : but since it has been established
by what has been said, that the term " God-
head " is significant of operation, and not of
nature, the argument from what has been
advanced seems to turn to the contrary con-
clusion, that we ought therefore all the more
to call those " three Gods " who are contem-
plated in the same operation, as they say that
one would speak of " three philosophers " or
" orators," or any other name derived from a
business when those who take part in the same
business are more than one.

I have taken some pains, in setting forth this
view, to bring forward the reasoning on behalf
of the adversaries, that our decision may be the
more firmly fixed, being strengthened by the
more elaborate contradictions. Let us now
resume our argument.

As we have to a certain extent shown by our

2 S. Matt. ix. 4. 3 Acts v. 3.

4 Reading with Oehler Trap' eauroC for Si' eavrov.

5 Reading Koivwvoix; for KOiwioi/t'a?, with Oehler.

334

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

statement that the word " Godhead " is. not
significant of nature but of operation, perhaps
one might reasonably allege as a cause why, in
the case of men, those who share with one
another in the same pursuits are enumerated
and spoken of in the plural, while on the other
hand the Deity is spoken of in the singular as
one God and one Godhead, even though the
Three Persons are not separated from the sig-
nificance expressed by the term " Godhead,"
— one might allege, I say, the fact that men,
even if several are engaged in the same form
of action, work separately each by himself at
the task he has undertaken, having no par-
ticipation in his individual action with others
who are engaged in the same occupation.
For instance, supposing the case of several
rhetoricians, their pursuit, being one, has the
same name in the numerous cases : but each of
those who follow it works by himself, this one
pleading on his own account, and that on his
own account. Thus, since among men the
action of each in the same pursuits is discrimin-
ated, they are properly called many, since each
of them is separated from the others within his
own environment, according to the special
character of his operation. But in the case of
the Divine nature we do not similarly learn that
the Father does anything by Himself in which
the Son does not work conjointly, or again that
the Son has any special operation apart from
the Holy Spirit; but every operation which
extends from God to the Creation, and is named
according to our variable conceptions of it, has
its origin from the Father, and proceeds through
the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit.
For this reason the name derived from the
operation is not divided with regard to the
number of those who fulfil it, because the action
of each concerning anything is not separate and
peculiar, but whatever comes to pass, in refer-
ence either to the acts of His providence for us,
or to the government and constitution of the
universe, comes to pass by the action of the
Three, yet what does come to pass is not three
things. We may understand the meaning of
this from one single instance. From Him, I
say, Who is the chief source of gifts, all things
which have shared in this grace have obtained
their life. When we inquire, then, whence this
good gift came to us, we find by the guidance
of the Scriptures that it was from the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet although we set
forth Three Persons and three names, we do
not consider that we have had bestowed upon
us three lives, one from each Person separately ;
but the same life is wrought in us by the Father,
and prepared by the Son, and depends on the
will of the Holy Spirit. Since then the Holy
Trinity fulfils every operation in a manner

similar to that of which I have spoken, not by
separate action according to the number of the
Persons, but so that there is one motion and
disposition of the good will which is communi-
cated from the Father through the Son to the
Spirit (for as we do not call those whose opera-
tion gives one life three Givers of life, neither
do we call those who are contemplated in one
goodness three Good beings, nor speak of them
in the plural by any of their other attributes) ;
so neither can we call those who exercise this
Divine and superintending power and operation
towards ourselves and all creation, conjointly
and inseparably, by their mutual action, three
Gods. For as when we learn concerning the
God of the universe, from the words of Scrip-
ture, that He judges all the earth 6, we say that
He is the Judge of all things through the Son :
and again, when we hear that the Father judgeth
no man 7, we do not think that the Scripture is
at variance with itself, — (for He Who judges all
the earth does this by His Son to Whom He
has committed all judgment ; and everything
which is done by the Only-begotten has its
reference to the Father, so that He Himself is
at once the Judge of all things and judges no
man, by reason of His having, as we said,
committed all judgment to the Son, while all
the judgment of the Son is conformable to
the will of the Father; and one could not
properly say either that They are two judges, or
that one of Them is excluded from the author-
ity and power implied in judgment) ; — so also'
in the case of the word " Godhead," Christ is
the power of God and the wisdom of God,
and that very power of superintendence and
beholding which we call Godhead, the Father
exercises through the Only-begotten, while the
Son perfects every power by the Holy Spirit,
judging, as Isaiah says, by the Spirit of judg-
ment and the Spirit of burning8, and acting by
Him also, according to the saying in the Gospel
which was spoken to the Jews. For He says,.
" If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils 9 " •,
where He includes every form of doing good
in a partial description, by reason of the unity
of action : for the name derived from opera-
tion cannot be divided among many where the
result of their mutual operation is one.

Since, then, the character of the superintend-
ing and beholding power is one, in Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, as has been said in our previous
argument, issuing from the Father as from a
spring, brought into operation by the Son, and
perfecting its grace by the power of the Spirit ;.
and since no operation is separated in respect
of the Persons, being fulfilled by each indi-
vidually apart from that which is joined with

6 Rom. iii. 6.
8 1?>. iv. 4.

1 S. John v. 22.
9 S. Matt. xii. 28.

ON "NOT THREE GODS."

335

Him in our contemplation, but all providence,
care, and superintendence of all, alike of things
in the sensible creation and of those of supra-
mundane nature, and that power which preserves
the things which are, and corrects those which
are amiss, and instructs those which are ordered
aright, is one, and not three, being, indeed,
directed by the Holy Trinity, yet not severed
by a threefold division according to the number
of the Persons contemplated in the Faith, so
that each of the acts, contemplated by itself,
should be the work of the Father alone, or of
the Son peculiarly, or of the Holy Spirit l separ-
ately, but while, as the Apostle says, the one
and the selfsame Spirit divides His good gifts
to every man severally2, the motion of good
proceeding from the Spirit is not without be-
ginning ; — we find that the power which we
conceive as preceding this motion, which is
the Only-begotten God, is the maker of all
things ; without Him no existent thing attains to
the beginning of its being : and, again, this same
source of good issues from the will of the Father.

If, then, every good thing and every good
name, depending on that power and purpose
which is without beginning, is brought to per-
fection in the power of the Spirit through the
Only-begotten God, without mark of time or
distinction (since there is ho delay, existent or
conceived, in the motion of the Divine will
from the Father, through the Son, to the Spirit) :
and if Godhead also is one of the good names
and concepts, it would not be proper to divide
the name into a plurality, since the unity exist-
ing in the action prevents plural enumeration.
And as the Saviour of all men, specially of
them that believe 3, is spoken of by the Apostle
as one, and no one from this phrase argues
either that the Son does not save them who
believe, or that salvation is given to those who
receive it without the intervention of the Spirit ;
but God who is over all, is the Saviour of all,
while the Son works salvation by means of the
/grace of the Spirit, and yet they are not on this
account called in Scripture three Saviours
(although salvation is confessed to proceed
from the Holy Trinity) : so neither are they
called three Gods, according to the signification
assigned to the term " Godhead," even though
the aforesaid appellation attaches to the Holy
Trinity.

It does not seem to me absolutely neces-
sary, with a view to the present proof of our
argument, to contend against those who oppose
us with the assertion that we are not to conceive
" Godhead " as an operation. For we, believ-
ing the Divine nature to be unlimited and in-
comprehensible, conceive no comprehension of

1 Reading with Oehler, tj tou ayiov ni/eufxnro? for q Siar. ay. Hi>.
* i Cor. xii. ix. ) i Tim iv 10.

it, but declare that the nature is to be conceived
in all respects as infinite : and that which is
absolutely infinite is not limited in one respect
while it is left unlimited in another, but infinity
is free from limitation altogether. That there-
fore which is without limit is surely not limited
even by name. In order then to mark the
constancy of our conception of infinity in the
case of the Divine nature, we say that the Deity
is above every name : and " Godhead " is a
name. Now it cannot be that the same thing
should at once be a name and be accounted
as above every name.

But if it pleases our adversaries to say that the
significance of the term is not operation, but
nature, we shall fall back upon our original
argument, that custom applies the name of a
nature to denote multitude erroneously since
according to true reasoning neither diminution
nor increase attaches to any nature, when it is
contemplated in a larger or smaller number.
For it is only those things which are contem-
plated in their individual circumscription which
are enumerated by way of addition. Now this
circumscription is noted by bodily appearance,
and size, and place, and difference in figure
and colour, and that which is contemplated
apart from these conditions is free from the
circumscription which is formed by such cate-
gories. That which is not thus circumscribed
is not enumerated, and that which is not
enumerated cannot be contemplated in multi-
tude. For we say that gold, even though it be
cut into many figures, is one, and is so spoken
of, but we speak of many coins or many staters,
without finding any multiplication of the nature
of gold by the number of staters ; and for this
reason we speak of gold, when it is contem-
plated in greater bulk, either in plate or in
coin, as " much," but we do not speak of it
as "many golds" on account of the multitude
of the material, — except when one says there
are "many gold pieces" (Darics, for instance,
or staters), in which case it is not the material,
but the pieces of money to which the signifi-
cance of number applies : indeed, properly, we
should not call them "gold" but "golden."

As, then, the golden staters are many, but
the gold is one, so too those who are exhibited
to us severally in the nature of man, as Peter,
James, and John, are many, yet the man in them
is one. ' And although Scripture extends the
word according to the plural significance, where
it says " men swear by the greater +," and " sons
of men," and in other phrases of the like sort,
we must recognize that in using the custom of
the prevailing form of speech, it does not lay
down a law as to the propriety of using the

4 He.b. vi. 16.

356

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

words in one way or another, nor does it say
these things by way of giving us instruction
about phrases, but uses the word according to
the prevailing custom, with a view only to this,
that the word may be profitable to those who
receive it, taking no minute care in its manner
of speech about points where no harm can
result from the phrases in respect of the way
they are understood. •

Indeed, it would be a lengthy task to set
out in detail from the Scriptures those con-
structions which are inexactly expressed, in
order to prove the statement I have made ;
where, however, there is a risk of injury to any
part of the truth, we no longer find in Scriptural
phrases any indiscriminate or indifferent use of
words. For this reason Scripture admits the
naming of " men " in the plural, because no one
is by such a figure of speech led astray in his
conceptionsto imagine amultitude of humanities,
or supposes that many human natures are in-
dicated by the fact that the name expressive of
that nature is used in the plural. But the word
" God " it employs studiously in the singular
form only, guarding against introducing the idea
of different natures in the Divine essence by
the plural signification of " Gods." This is the
cause why it says, "the Lord our God is one
Lord 5," and also proclaims the Only-begotten
God by the name of Godhead, without dividing
the Unity into a dual signification, so as to
call the Father and the Son two Gods, although
each is proclaimed by the holy writers as God.
The Father is God : the Son is God : and yet
by the same proclamation God is One, because
no difference either of nature or of operation is
contemplated in the Godhead. For if (accord-
ing to the idea of those who have been led
astray) the nature of the Holy Trinity were
diverse, the number would by consequence be
extended to a plurality of Gods, being divided
according to the diversity of essence in the
subjects. But since the Divine, single, and
unchanging nature, that it may be one, rejects
all diversity in essence, it does not admit in its
own case the signification of multitude ; but as
it is called one nature, so it is called in the
singular by all its other names, " God," " Good,"
" Holy," " Saviour," " Just," "Judge," and every
other Divine name conceivable : whether one
says that the names refer to nature or to
operation, we shall not dispute the point.

If, however, any one cavils at our argument,
on the ground that by not admitting the differ-
ence of nature it leads to a mixture and con-
fusion of the Persons, we shall make to such
a charge this answer ; — that while we confess
the invariable character of the nature, we do not
deny the difference in respect of cause, and that

5 Deut. vi. 4.

which is caused, by which alone we apprehend
that one Person is distinguished from another; —
by our belief, that is, that one is the Cause, and
another is of the Cause ; and again in that which
is of the Cause we recognize another distinction.
I For one is directly from the first Cause, and
another by that which is directly from the first
Cause ; so that the attribute of being Only-
begotten abides without doubt in the Son, and
the interposition of the Son, while it guards His
attribute of being Only-begotten, does not shut
out the Spirit from His relation by way of
nature to the Father.

But in speaking of "cause," and "of the
cause," we do not by these words denote nature
(for no one would give the same definition of
" cause " and of " nature "), but we indicate the
difference in manner of existence. For when
we say that one is " caused," and that the other
is " without cause," we do not divide the nature
by the word " cause 6 ", but only indicate the
fact that the Son does not exist without gener-
ation, nor the Father by generation : but we
must needs in the first place believe that some-
thing exists, and then scrutinize the manner of
existence of the object of our belief: thus the
question of existence is one, and that of the
mode of existence is another. To say that any-
thing exists without generation sets forth the
mode of its existence, but what exists is not
indicated by this phrase. If one were to ask a
husbandman about a tree, whether it were planted
or had grown of itself, and he were to answer
either that the tree had not been planted or
that it was the result of planting, would he by
that answer declare the nature of the tree ?
Surely not ; but while saying how it exists he
would leave the question of its nature obscure
and unexplained. So, in the other case, when
we learn that He is unbegotten, we are taught
in what mode He exists, and how it is fit that
we should conceive Him as existing, but what
He is we do not hear in that phrase. When,
therefore, we acknowledge such a distinction in
the case of the Holy Trinity, as to believe that
one Person is the Cause, and another is of the
Cause, we can no longer be accused of con-
founding the definition of the Persons by the
community of nature.

Thus, since on the one hand the idea of
cause differentiates the Persons of the Holy
Trinity, declaring that one exists without a
Cause, and another is of the Cause ; and since
on the one hand the Divine nature is appre-
hended by every conception as unchangeable
and undivided, for these reasons we properly
declare the Godhead to be one, and God to be
one, and employ in the singular all other names
which express Divine attributes.

6 Tl>«: Paris Fdit. omits aniov.

ON THE FAITH.

TO SIMPLICIUS.

God commands us by His prophet not to
esteem any new God to be God, and not to
worship any strange God *. Now it is clear that
that is called new which is not from everlasting,
and on the contrary, that is called everlasting
which is not new. He, then, who does not
believe that the Only-begotten God is from
everlasting of the Father does not deny that
He is new, for that which is not everlasting is
confessedly new ; and that which is new is not
God, according to the saying of Scripture,
" there shall not be in thee any new God l."
Therefore he who says that the Son " once was
not2," denies His Godhead. Again, He Who
says " thou shalt never worship a strange God 3,"
forbids us to worship another God ; and the
strange God is so called in contradistinction to
our own God. Who, then, is our own God?
Clearly, the true God. And who is the strange
God ? Surely, he who is alien from the nature
of the true God. If, therefore, our own God
is the true God, and if, as the heretics say, the
Only-begotten God is not of the nature of the
true God, He is a strange God, and not our God.
But the Gospel says, the sheep " will not follow a
stranger *." He that says He is created will
make Him alien from the nature of the true
God. What then will they do, who say that
He is created? Do they worship that same
created being as God s, or do they not ? For
if they do not worship Him, they follow the
Jews in denying the worship of Christ : and if
they do worship Him, they are idolaters, for
they worship one alien from the true God. But
surely it is equally impious not to worship the
Son, and to worship the strange God. We
must then say that the Son is the true Son of
the true Father, that we may both worship Him,
and avoid condemnation as worshipping a
strange God. But to those who quote from the

1 Cf. Ps. lxxxi. 9 ; Ex. xxxiv. 14.

8 Reading with Oehler, 6 Ae'-ycoi' on n-ore ovk Jivb vibs ; not as the
Paris editions, 6 \eywv ort 7roT6 ovk f/v, oCtos.

3 Cf. Ex. xx. 3. 4 S. John x. 5.

5 Adding to the text of the Paris edit, ftw, with Oehler

Proverbs the passage, "the Lord created me6,"
and think that they hereby produce a strong
argument that the Creator and Maker of all
things was created, we must answer that the
Only-begotten God was made for us many
things. For He was the Word, and was made
flesh ; and He was God, and was made man ;
and He was without body, and was made a
body; and besides, He was made "sin," and
" a curse," and " a stone," and " an axe," and
"bread," and "a lamb," and "a way," and "a
door," and "a rock," and many such things;
not being by nature any of these, but being
made these things for our sakes, by way of
dispensation. As, therefore, being the Word,
He was for our sakes made flesh, and as, being
God, He was made man, so also, being the
Creator, He was made for our sakes a creature ;
for the flesh is created. As, then, He said by
the prophet, "Thus saith the Lord, He that
formed me from the womb to be His servant7 ; "
so He said also by Solomon, "The Lord
created me as the beginning of His ways, for
His works 6." For all creation, as the Apostle
says, is in servitude8. Therefore both He
Who was formed in the Virgin's womb, accord-
ing to the word of the prophet, is the servant,
and not the Lord (that is to say, the man
according to the flesh, in whom God was mani-
fested), and also, in the other passage, He Who
was created as the beginning of His ways is not
God, but the man in whom God was manifested
to us for the renewing again of the ruined way
of man's salvation. So that, since we recognize
two things in Christ, one Divine, the other
human (the Divine by nature, but the human
in the Incarnation), we accordingly claim for
the Godhead that which is eternal, and that
which is created we ascribe to His human
nature. For as, according to the prophet, He
was formed in the womb as a servant, so also,
according to Solomon, He was manifested in

6 Prov. viii. 28. 7 Is. xlix 5.

8 Cf. Rom. viii. 31. This clause is omitted in the Paris editions.

VOL. V.

338

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

the flesh by means of this servile creation.
But when they say, "if He was, He was not
begotten, and if He was begotten He was not,"
let them learn that it is not fitting to ascribe
to His Divine nature the attributes which be-
long to His fleshly origin 9. For bodies which
do not exist, are generated, and God makes,
those things to be which are not, but does not
Himself come into being from that which is
not. And for this reason also Paul calls Him
" the brightness of glory V that we may learn
that as the light from the lamp is 6f the nature
of that which sheds the brightness, anl is united
with it (for as soon as the lamp appears the
light that comes fromut shines out simultane-
ously), so in this placfe the Apostle would have
us consider both that the Son is of the Father,
and that the Father is never without the Son ;
for it is impossible that glory should be without
radiance, as it is impossible that the lamp
should be without brightness. But it is clear
that as His being brightness is a testimony to
His being in relatioif with the glory (for if the
glory did not exist, the brightness shed from it
would not exist), so, to say that the brightness
" once was not 2 " is a declaration that the glory
also was not, when the brightness was not ; for
it is impossible that the glory should be without
the brightness. As therefore it is not possible
to say in the case of the brightness, " If it was,
it did not come into being, and if it came into
being it was not," so it is in vain to say this of the
Son, seeing that the Son is the brightness. Let
those also who speak of "less" and "greater,"
in the case of the Father and the Son, learn
from Paul not to measure things immeasurable.
For the Apostle says that the Son is the ex-
press image of the Person of the Fathers. It
is clear then that however great the Person of
the Father is, so great also is the express image
of that Person ; for it is not possible that the
express image should be less than the Person
contemplated in it. And this the great John
also teaches when he says, " In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God 4."
For in saying that he was " in the beginning,"
and not "after the beginning," he showed that
the beginning was never without the Word ;
and in declaring that "the Word was with
God," he signified the absence of defect in the
Son in relation to the Father ; for the Word is
contemplated as a whole together with the whole
being of God. For if the Word were deficient
in His own greatness so as not to be capable of
relation with the whole being of God, we are
compelled to suppose that that part of God

9 Reading yevecritiK with Oehler. The Paris editions read
ytvvncretas : but Oehler's reading seems to give a better sense.

* Heb. i. 3.

* Heading with Oehler irort tor the re of the Paris Editt.
3 Heb i. 3 * S J'.hn i i

which extends beyond the Word is without the
Word. But in fact the whole magnitude of
the Word is contemplated together with the
whole magnitude of God : and consequently
in statements concerning the Divine nature, it
is fiOt admissible to speak of "greater" and
-*less."

As for those who say that the begotten is in
its nature unlike the unbegotten, let them learn
from the example of Adam and Abel not to
talk nonsense. For Adam himself was not be-
gotten according to the natural generation of
men ; but Abel was begotten of Adam. Now,
surely, he who was never begotten is called un-
begotten, and he who came into being by
generation is called begotten 5; yet the fact that
he was not begotten did not hinder Adam from
being a man, nor did the generation of Abel
make him at all different from man's nature,
but both the one and the other were men,
although the one existed by being begotten,
and the other without generation. So in the
case of our statements as to the Divine nature,
the fact of not being begotten, and that of
being begotten, produce no diversity of nature,
but, just as in the case of Adam and Abel the
manhood is one, so is the Godhead one in the
case of the Father and the Son.

Now touching the Holy Spirit also the
blasphemers make the same statement as they
do concerning the Lord, saying that He too
is created. But the Church believes, as con-
cerning the Son, so equally concerning the
Holy Spirit, that He is uncreated, and that the
whole creation becomes good by participation
in the good which is above it, while the Holy
Spirit needs not any to make Him good (seeing
that He is good by virtue of His nature, as the
Scripture testifies) 6 ; that the creation is guided
by the Spirit, while the Spirit gives guidance ;
that the creation is governed, while the Spirit
governs ; that the creation is comforted, while
the Spirit comforts; that the creation is in
bondage, while the Spirit gives freedom ; that
the creation is made wise, while the Spirit gives
the grace of wisdom ; that the creation par-
takes of the gifts, while the Spirit bestows them
at His pleasure : " For all these worketh that
one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every
man severally as He will 7." And one may
find multitudes of other proofs from the Scrip-
tures that all the supreme and Divine attributes
which are applied by the Scriptures to the
Father and the Son are also to be contemplated
in the Holy Spirit : — immortality, blessedness,
goodness, wisdom, power, justice, holiness —

5 Inserting with Oehler the clause, <cal 6 yswifliis ytwiyrfc,
which is not in the text of the Paris Editt., though a corresponding
clause appears in the Latin translation.

6 The reference may be to Ps. cxliii to. 1 i Cor. xii. n.

ON THE FAITH.

339

every excellent attribute is predicated of the
Holy Spirit just as it is predicated of the Father
and of the Son, with the exception of those by
which the Persons are clearly and distinctly
divided from each other; I mean, that the
Holy Spirit is not called the Father, or the
Son ; but all other names by which the Father
and the Son are named are applied by Scrip-
ture to the Holy Spirit also. By this, then,
we apprehend that the Holy Spirit is above
creation. Thus, where the Father and the Son
are understood to be, there the Holy Spirit
also is understood to be ; for the Father and
the Son are above creation, and this attribute
the drift of our argument claims for the Holy
Spirit. So it follows, that one who places the
Holy Spirit above the creation has received the
right and sound doctrine : for he will confess
that uncreated nature which we behold in the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be
one.

But since they bring forward as a proof,

according to their ideas, of the created nature
of the Holy Spirit, that utterance of the prophet,
which says, " He that stablisheth the thunder
and createth the spirit, and declareth unto man
His Christ8," we must consider this, that the •
prophet speaks of the creation of another Spirit,
in the stablishing of the thunder, and not of the
Holy Spirit. For. the name of "thunder" is
given in mystical language to the Gospel.
Those, then, in whom arises firm and unshaken
faith in the Gospel, pass from being flesh to
become spirit, as the Lord says, " That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is
born of the Spirit is spirits'." It is God, then,
Who by stablishing the voice of the Gospel
makes the believer spirit : and he who is born
of the Spirit and made spirit by such thunder,
" declares " Christ ; as the Apostle says, " No
man can say that Jesus Christ is Lord but by
the Holy Spirit1."

8 Cf. Amosiv. i3(LXX.).

9 S. John iii. 6.

I Cor. xii. v

I a

II. ASCETIC AND MORAL

PREFACE.

A FEW words are necessary to explain the scope and aim of this remarkable treatise. It is not the work of one
who held a brief for monasticism. Gregory deals with the celibate life in a different way from other Catholic
writers upon this theme. Athanasius and Basil both saw in it the means of exhibiting to the world the Christian
life definitely founded on the orthodox faith ; and, for each celibate himself, this visible imitation of Christ would
be more concentrated, when secular distractions and dissipations had been put aside for ever. Their aims were
entirely moral and ecclesiastical. But Gregory deals with the entire human development in things spiritual. He
has given the history of the struggle for moral and intellectual perfection, and the conditions of its success. He had
his own inner Christian experience, the result of a recluse youth, on the one hand ; he had the systems of heathen
and Christian philosophy on the other. The ideal life that he has sketched is as lofty in its aspiration as the latter,
and is couched in philosophic rather than in Scriptural language ; but its scientific ground-work is entirely peculiar
to himself. That groundwork is briefly this ; spirit must be freed, so as to be drawn to the Divine Spirit ; and to
be so freed a " virginity " of the soul is necessary. He comes in this way to blame marriage, because in most of the
marriages that he has known, this virginity of the soul is conspicuously absent. But he does not blame the
married state in itself ; as he himself distinctly tells us. The virginity he seeks may exist even there ; and it is not
by any means the same thing as celibacy. It is disengagrdness of heart ; and is, as many passages in this treatise
indicate, identical with philosophy, whose higher manifestations had long ago been defined as Love, called forth by
the sight of the immaterial Beauty. Where this sight is not interrupted, or not treated with indifference, there
Virginity exists. With Gregory philosophy had become Life, and it is virginity that keeps it so, and therein keeps
it from being lost. Another word with which Gregory identifies virginity is " incorruptibility," in language
sometimes which recalls the lines —

" What, what is Virtue, but repose of mind ?
A pure ethereal calm that knows no storm,
Above the reach of wild ambition's wind,
Above the passions that this world deform,
And torture man, a proud malignant worm."

Yet no one would imagine that here the poet, any more than S. Paul in Ephes. vi. 24 (see p. 343, note 3),
meant celibacy per se. But it may be asked, how came Gregory to use the word Virginity at all for pure disengage-
ment of soul ? The answer seems to be, that he was very fond of metaphors and elaborate comparisons, ever
since the days that he was a student of Rhetoric ; this treatise itself is full of similes from nature, and they
are not so much poetry or rhetoric, as necessary means of bringing his meaning vividly before readers.
Virginity, then, is one of these bold and telling figures ; and in his hands it is a very suggestive metaphor ; though
certainly at times it runs away with him. The accusation, then, that when he identifies Piety and Virginity, he
makes the former consist in a mere externality, is unfounded. He uses the one word for the other without
apprising us that it is a metaphor, and he omits to give any dietary rules by which this virginity is secured.
Therefore he appears to mean celibacy. But on the other hand no arguments can be drawn from this treatise
against the monastic life ; only Gregory is busied with other matters. Rather, if the actual marriages of his
time are such as he describes, it is a silent witness to the reasonableness, if not to the necessity, of such a life within
the church. For this view of virginity as solving the question of Gregory's supposed marriage, see Prolegomena,
p. 3-

ON VIRGINITY.

INTRODUCTION. I

The object of this treatise is to create in its
readers a passion for the life according to ex-
cellence. There are many distractions ', to use
the word of the Divine Apostle, incident to the
secular life ; and so this treatise would suggest,
as a necessary door of entrance to the holier
life, the calling of Virginity ; seeing that, while
it is not easy in the entanglements of this
secular life to find quiet for that of Divine con-
templation, those on the other hand who have
bid farewell to its troubles can with promptitude,
and without distraction, pursue assiduously their
higher studies. Now, whereas all advice is in
itself weak, and mere words of exhortation will
not make the task of recommending what is
beneficial easier to any one, unless he has first
given a noble aspect to that which he urges on
his hearer, this discourse will accordingly begin
with the praises of Virginity ; the exhortation
will come at the end ; moreover, as the beauty
in anything gains lustre by the contrast with its
opposite, it is requisite that some mention should
be made of the vexations of everyday life. Then
it will be quite in the plan of this work to intro-
duce a sketch of the contemplative life, and to
prove the impossibility of any one attaining it
who feel's the world's anxieties. In the devotee
bodily desire has become weak ; and so there
will follow an inquiry as to the true object of
desire, for which (and which only) we have re-
ceived from our Maker our power of desiring.
When this has received all possible illustration,
it will seem to follow naturally that we should
consider some method to attain it ; and the true
virginity, which is free from any stain of sin,
will be found to fit such a purpose. So all the
intermediate part of the discourse, while it
seems to look elsewhere, will be really tending
to the praises of this virginity. All the particular
rules obeyed by the followers of this high calling
will, to avoid prolixity, be omitted here ; the
exhortation in the discourse will be introduced

* wepurnicrnoiv. The allusion must be to I Cor. vii. 35 ; but the
actual word is not found in the whole of the N. T., though irepie-
<riraTO is used of Martha, S. Luke x. 40.

only in general terms, and for cases of wide
application ; but, in a way, particulars will be
here included, and so nothing important will be
overlooked, while prolixity is avoided. Each
of us, too, is inclined to embrace some course
of life with the greater enthusiasm, when he sees
personalities who have already gained distinc-
tion in it ; we have therefore made the requisite
mention of saints who have gained their glory
in celibacy. But further than this ; the ex-
amples we have in biographies cannot stimulate
to the attainment of excellence, so much as a
living voice and an example which is still work-
ing for good ; and so we have alluded to that
most godly bishop 2, our father in God, who
himself alone could be the master in such in-
structions. He will not indeed be mentioned
by name, but by certain indications we shall say
in cipher that he is meant. Thus, too, future
readers will not think our advice unmeaning,
when the candidate for this life is told to school
himself by recent masters. But let them first
fix their attention only on this : what such a
master ought to be ; then let them choose for
their guidance those who have at any time by
God's grace been raised up to be champions of
this system of excellence ; for either they will
find what they seek, or at all events will be no
longer ignorant what it ought to be.

CHAPTER L

The holy look of virginity is precious indeed
in the judgment of all who make purity the test
of beauty ; but it belongs to those alone whose
struggles to gain this object of a noble love are
favoured and helped by the grace of God. Its
praise is heard at once in the very name which
goes with it ; " Uncorrupted 3 " is the word

2 Basil ; rather than Gregory Thaumaturgus, as some have
conjectured.

3 to aipGopov ; this is connected just below with the Divine
atftOapcria. In commenting on the meaning of this latter word at
the close of the Epistle to the Ephesians, Bishop Ellicott prefers to
take it with aYoffuii'Tui', " in a manner and an element that knows
neither change, diminution, nor decay " (" in uncorruptness " R.V.) :
although in the six other passages where it occurs in S. Paul " it
refers directly or indirectly to a higher sphere than the present,"

344

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

commonly said of it, and this shows the kind
of purity that is in it ; thus we can measure by
its equivalent term the height of this gift, seeing
that amongst the many results of virtuous en-
deavour this alone has been honoured with the
title of the thing that is uncorrupted. And if
we must extol with laudations this gift from the
great God, the words of His Apostle are suffi-
cient in its praise ; they are few, but they throw
into the background all extravagant laudations ;
he only styles as " holy and without blemish * "
her who has this grace for her ornament. Now
if the achievement of this saintly virtue consists
in making one "without blemish and holy,"
and these epithets are adopted in their first and
fullest force to glorify the incorruptible Deity,
what greater praise of virginity can there be
than thus to be shown in a manner deifying
those who share in her pure mysteries, so that
they become partakers of His glory Who is in
actual truth the only Holy and Blameless One ;
their purity ai»d their incorruptibility being the
means of bringing them into relationship with
Him ? Many who write lengthy laudations in
detailed treatises, with the view of adding some-
thing to the wonder of this grace, unconsciously
defeat, in my opinion, their own end ; the ful-
some manner in which they amplify their sub-
ject brings its credit into suspicion. Nature's
greatnesses have their own way of striking with
admiration ; they do not need the pleading of
words : the sky, for instance, or the sun, or any
other wonder of the universe. In the business
of this lower world words certainly act as a
basement, and the skill of praise does impart a
look of magnificence ; so much so, that man-
kind are apt to suspect as the result of mere art
the wonder produced by panegyric. So the
one sufficient way of praising virginity will be
to show that that virtue is above praise, and to
evince our admiration of it by our lives rather
than by our words. A man who takes this
theme for ambitious praise has the appearance
of supposing that one drop of his own perspira-
tion will make an appreciable increase of the
boundless ocean, if indeed he believes, as he
does, that any human words can give more
dignity to so rare a grace ; he must be ignorant
either of his own powers or of that which he
attempts to praise.

CHAPTER II.

Deep indeed will be the thought necessary to
understand the surpassing excellence of this
grace. It is comprehended in the idea of the

i e. of immortality above, and mi.^ht so, if the construction allowed,
be tat en with vdoit. This il ustrates Gregory's use of a<t>OapiTia in
its human relation.

4 L[jh. v ii of the chur h

Father incorrupt ; and here at the outset is a
paradox, viz. that virginity is found in Him,
Who has a Son and yet without passion has
begotten Him. It is included too in the nature
of this Only-begotten God, Who struck the first
note of all this moral innocence ; it* shines forth
equally in His pure and passionless generation.
Again a paradox ; that the Son should be known
to us by virginity. It is seen, too, in the in-
herent and incorruptible purity of the Holy
Spirit ; for when you have named the pure and
incorruptible you have named virginity. It
accompanies the whole supramundane exist-
ence ; because of its passionle,ssness it is always
present with the powers above ; never separated
from aught that is Divine, it never touches the
opposite of this. All whose instinct and will
have found their level in virtue are beautified with
this perfect purity of the uncorrupted state ; all
who are ranked in the opposite class of character
are what they are, and are called so, by reason
of their fall from purity. What force of expres-
sion, then, will be adequate to such a grace?
How can there be no cause to fear lest the
greatness of its intrinsic value should be im-
paired by the efforts of any one's eloquence ?
The estimate of it which he will create will be
less than that which his hearers had before. It
will be well, then, to omit all laudation in this
case ; we cannot lift words to the height of our
theme. On the contrary, it is possible to be
ever mindful of this gift of God ; and our lips
may always speak of this blessing ; that, though
it is the property of spiritual existence and of
such singular excellence, yet by the love of God
it has been bestowed on those who have received
their life from the will of the . flesh and from
blood ; that, when human nature has been de-
based by passionate inclinations, it stretches *
out its offer of purity like a hand, to raise it up
again and make it look above. This, I think,
was the reason why our Master, Jesus Christ
Himself, the Fountain of all innocence, did not
come into the world by wedlock.* It was, to
divulge by the manner of His Incarnation this
great secret ; that purity is the only complete
indication 5 of the presence of God and of His
coming, and that no one can in reality secure
this for himself, unless he has altogether es-
tranged himself from the passions of the flesh.
What happened in the stainless Mary when the
fulness of the Godhead which was in Christ
shone out through her, that happens in every
soul that leads by rule the virgin life. No
longer indeed does the Master come with bodily
presence ; " we know Christ no longer accord-

5 6eifa<r0ai. Livineius conjectures Se'fourflat ; so also Cod. Reg.
Cf. Sedulius :

" Donuis pudici pectoris

Templum repente fit Dei."

ON VIRGINITY.

345

ing to the flesh 6" ; but, spiritually, He dwells in
us and brings His Father with Him, as the Gospel
somewhere 7 tells. Seeing, then, that virginity
means so much as this, that while it remains in
Heaven with the Father of spirits, and moves
in the dance of the celestial powers, it neverthe-
less stretches out hands for man's salvation ;
that while it is the channel which draws down

•

the Deity to share man's estate, it keeps wings
for man's desires to rise to heavenly things, and
is a bond of union between the Divine and
human, by its mediation bringing into harmony
these existences so widely divided — what words
could be discovered powerful enough to reach
this wondrous height ? But still, it is monstrous
to seem like creatures without expression and
without feeling ; and we must choose (if we are
silent) one of two things ; either to appear
never to have felt the special beauty of virginity,
or to exhibit ourselves as obstinately blind Jo
all beauty : we have consented therefore to
speak briefly about this virtue, according to the
wish of him who has assigned us this task, and
whom in all things we must obey. But let no
one expect from us any display of style ; even
if we wished it, perhaps we could not produce it,
for we are quite unversed in that kind of writing.
Even if we possessed such power, we would not
prefer the favour of the few to the edification
of the many. A writer of sense should have,
I take it, for his chiefest object not to be ad-
mired above all other writers, but to profit both
himself and them, the many.

CHAPTER III.

Would indeed that some profit might come
to myself from this effort ! I should have
undertaken this labour with the greater readi-
ness, if I could have hope of sharing, according
to the Scripture, in the fruits of the plough and
the threshing-floor ; the toil would then have
been a pleasure. As it is, this my knowledge
of the beauty of virginity is in some sort vain
and useless to me, just as the corn is to the
muzzled ox that treads 8 the floor, or the water
that streams from the precipice to a thirsty man
when he cannot reach it. , Happy they who
have still the power of choosing the better way,
and have not debarred themselves from it *by
engagements of the secular life, as we have,
whom a gulf now divides from glorious virginity :
no one can climb up to that who has once
planted his foot upon the secular life. We
are but spectators of others' blessings and wit-
nesses to the happiness of another 9 class.

6 2 Cor. v. 16. 7 S. John xiv. 23.

8 im(TTpe(j)oiJ.evu> rr)U dKutva. This word is used for
over, ' in Hesiod, Theogon. 753, yalav e-nia-rpefytTOX.

9 erepuiv, following Cod. Reg., for exaTepiov.

' walking

Even if we strike out some fitting thoughts
about virginity, we shall not be better than the
cooks and scullions who provide sweet luxuries
for the tables of the rich, without having any
portion themselves in what they prepare. What
a blessing if it had been otherwise, if we had
not to learn the good by after- regrets ! Now
they are the enviable ones, they succeed even
beyond their prayers and their desires, who
have not put out of their power the enjoyment
of these delights. We are like those who have
a wealthy society with which to compare their
own poverty, and so are all the more vexed and
discontented with their present lot. The more
exactly we understand the riches of virginity,
the more we must bewail the other life ; for we
realize by this contrast with better things, how
poor it is. I do not speak only of the future
rewards in store for those who have lived thus
excellently, but those rewards also which they
have while alive here ; for if any one would
make up his mind to measure exactly the differ-
ence between the two courses, he would find it
well-nigh as great as that between heaven and
earth. The truth of this statement may be
known by looking at actual facts.

But in writing this sad tragedy what will be a
fit beginning ? How shall we really bring to view
the evils common to life ? All men know them
by experience, but somehow nature has con-
trived to blind the actual sufferers so that they
willingly ignore their condition. Shall we begin
with its choicest sweets ? Well then, is not the
sum total of all that is hoped for in marriage to
get delightful companionship ? Grant this ob-
tained ; let us sketch a marriage in every way
most happy ; illustrious birth, competent means,
suitable ages, the very flower of the prime of
life, deep affection, the very best that each can
think of the other \ that sweet rivalry of each
wishing to surpass the other in loving ; in
addition, popularity, power, wide reputation,
and everything else. But observe that even
beneath this array of blessings the fire of an in-
evitable pain is smouldering. I do not speak
of the envy that is always springing up against
those of distinguished rank, and the liability to
attack which hangs over those who seem pros-
perous, and that natural hatred of superiors
shown by those who do not share equally in
the good fortune, which make these seemingly
favoured ones pass an anxious time more full
of pain than pleasure. I omit that from the
picture, and will suppose that envy against them
is asleep ; although it would not be easy to find
a single life in which both these blessings were
joined, i. e. happiness above the common, and

1 virep tov dAAov (a late use of aAAo?). This was Livineius' con-
jecture for ritv aXKutv : the interchange of u and v is a common
mistake.

346

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

escape from envy. However, let us, if so it is
to be, suppose a married life free from all such
trials ; and let us see if it is possible for those
who live with such an amount of good fortune
to enjoy it. Why, what kind of vexation is left,
you will ask, when even envy of their happiness
does not reach them ? I affirm that this very
thing, this sweetness that surrounds their lives,
is the spark which kindles pain. They are
human all the time, things weak and perishing ;
they have to look upon the tombs of their pro-
genitors ; and so pain is inseparably bound up
with their existence, if they have the least power
of reflection. This continued expectancy of
death, realized by no sure tokens, but hang-
ing over them the terrible uncertainty of the
future, disturbs their present joy, clouding it
over with the fear of what is coming. If only,
before experience comes, the results of experi-
ence could be learnt, or if, when one has
entered on this course, it were possible by some
other means of conjecture to survey the reality,
then what a crowd of deserters would run from
marriage into the virgin life ; what care and
eagerness never to be entangled in that retentive
snare, where no one knows for certain how the
net galls till they have actually entered it ! You
would see there, if only you could do it without
danger, many contraries uniting ; smiles melting
into tears, pain mingled with pleasure, death
always hanging by expectation over the children
that are born, and putting a finger upon each
of the sweetest joys. Whenever the husband
looks at the beloved face, that moment the fear
of separation accompanies the look. If he
listens to the sweet voice, the thought comes
into his mind that some day he will not hear it.
Whenever he is glad with gazing on her beauty,
then he shudders most with the presentiment
of mourning her loss. When he marks all those
charms which to youth are so precious and
which the thoughtless seek for, the bright eyes
beneath the lids, the arching eyebrows, the
cheek with its sweet and dimpling smile, the
natural red that blooms upon the lips, the
gold-bound hair shining in many-twisted masses
on the head, and all that transient grace, then,
though he may be little given to reflection, he
must have this thought also in his inmost soul,
that some day all this beauty will melt away
and become as nothing, turned after all this
show into noisome and unsightly bones, which
wear no trace, no memorial, no remnant of that
living bloom. Can he live delighted when he
thinks of that? Can he trust in these treasures
which he holds as if they would be always his ?
Nay, it is plain that he will stagger as if he were
mocked by a dream, and will have his faith in
life shaken, and will look upon what he sees as
no longer his. You will understand, if you

have a comprehensive view of things as they
are, that nothing in this life looks that which it
is. It shows to us by the illusions of our im-
agination one thing, instead of something else.
Men gaze open-mouthed at it, and it mocks
them with hopes ; for a while it hides itself
beneath this deceitful show ; then all of a
sudden in the reverses of life it is revealed as
something different from that which men's hopes,
conceived by its fraud in foolish hearts, had
pictured. Will life's sweetness seem worth
taking delight in to him who reflects on this ?
Will he ever be able really to feel it, so as to
have joy in the goods he holds ? Will he not,
disturbed by the constant fear of some reverse,
have the use without the enjoyment ? I will
but Mention the portents, dreams, omens, and
such-like things which by a foolish habit of
thought are taken notice of, and always make
men fear the worst. But her time of labour
comes upon the young wife ; and the occasion
is regarded not as the bringing of a child into
the world, but as the approach of death ; in
bearing it is expected that she will die; and,
indeed, often this sad presentiment is true, and
before they spread the birthday feast, before
they taste any of their expected joys, they
have to change their rejoicing into lamentation.
Still in love's fever, still at the height of their
passionate affection, not yet having grasped
life's sweetest gifts, as in the vision of a dream,
they are suddenly torn away from all they
possessed. But what comes next ? Domes-
tics, like conquering foes, dismantle the bridal
chamber ; they deck it for the funeral, but it is
death's 2 room now ; they make the useless
wailings3 and beatings of the hands. Then
there is the memory of former days, curses on
those who advised the marriage, recriminations
against friends who did not stop it ; blame
thrown on parents whether they be alive or
dead, bitter outbursts against human destiny,
arraigning of the whole course of nature, com-
plaints and accusations even against the Divine
government ; war within the man himself, and
fighting with those who would admonish ; no
repugnance to the most shocking words and
acts. In some this state of mind continues,
and their reason is more completely swallowed
up by grief; and their tragedy has a sadder
ending, the victim not enduring to survive the
calamity. But rather than this let us suppose
a happier case. The danger of childbirth is
past ; a child is born to them, the very image
of its parents' beauty. Are the occasions for
grief at all lessened thereby ? Rather they are

2 There is a play on the words OaAajios and Savant : " the one is
changed into the other."

3 enl toutwi' afaxAvjocif : " amongst these ", i. e. the domestic*.
Livlneius reads toutoh, and renders " Succedunt inutilis revocatio,
inanis manuuni plausiis," j. e. as the last funeral act.

ON VIRGINITY.

34?

increased ; for the parents retain all their former
fears, and feel in addition those on behalf of
the child, lest anything should happen to it in
its bringing up ; for instance a bad accident, or
by some turn of misfortunes a sickness, a fever «,
any dangerous disease. Both parents share
alike in these ; but who could recount the
special anxieties of the wife ? We omit the
most obvious, which all can understand, the
weariness of pregnancy, the danger in childbirth,
the cares of nursing, the tearing of her heart in
two for her offspring, and, if she is the mother
of many, the dividing of her soul into as many
parts as she has children ; the tenderness with
which she herself feels all that is happening to
them. That is well understood by every one.
But the oracle of God tells us that she is not
her own mistress, but finds her resources only
in him whom wedlock has made her lord ; and
so, if she be for ever so short a time left alone,
she feels as if she were separated from her head,
and can ill bear it ; she even takes this short
absence of her husband to be the prelude to
her widowhood ; her fear makes her at once
give up all hope ; accordingly her eyes, filled
with terrified suspense, are always fixed upon the
door ; her ears are always busied with what
others are whispering ; her heart, stung with
her fears, is well-nigh bursting even before any
bad 5 news has arrived ; a noise in the door-
way, whether fancied or real, acts as a mes-
senger of ill, and on a sudden shakes her very
soul ; most likely all outside is well, and there
is no cause to fear at all ; but her fainting spirit
is quicker than any message, and turns her
fancy from good tidings to despair. Thus even
the most favoured live, and they are not alto-
gether to be envied ; their life is not to be
compared to the freedom of virginity. Yet this
hasty sketch has omitted many of the more
distressing details. Often this young wife too,
just wedded, still brilliant in bridal grace, still
perhaps blushing when her bridegroom enters,
and shyly stealing furtive glances at him, when
passion is all the more intense because modesty
prevents it being shown, suddenly has to take
the name of a poor lonely widow and be called
all that is pitiable. Death comes in an instant
and changes that bright creature in her white and
rich attire into a black-robed mourner. He takes
off the bridal ornaments and clothes her with
the colours of bereavement. There is darkness
in the once cheerful room, and the waiting-
women sing their long dirges. She hates her
friends when they try to soften her grief; she
will not take food ; she wastes away, and in her

4 Reading Trvpuxriv, with Galesinius : the Paris Editt. read
n7Jpto<nv.

5 veanepov, in a bad sense. So Zosinius, lib. i. p. 658, npa.yp.aTa
'Pm/iaicus veuirepa /ii)\aiii(roo'9oi.

soul's deep dejection has a strong longing only
for her death, a longing which often lasts till it
comes. Even supposing that time puts an end to
this sorrow, still another comes, whether she has
children or not. If she has, they are fatherless,
and, as objects of pity themselves, renew the
memory of her loss. If she is childless, then
the name of her lost husband is rooted up, and
this grief is greater than the seeming consola-
tion. I will say little of the other special!
sorrows of widowhood ; for who could enumer-
ate them all exactly ? She finds her enemies,
in her relatives. Some actually take advantage
of her affliction. Others exult over her loss,,
and see with malignant joy the home falling to
pieces, the insolence of the servants, and the
other distresses visible in such a case, of which
there are plenty. In consequence of these,
many women are compelled to risk once more
the trial of the same things, not being able to
endure this bitter derision. As if they could
revenge insults by increasing their own suffer-
ings ! Others, remembering the past, will put
up with anything rather than plunge a second
time into the like troubles. If you wish to
learn all the trials of this married life, listen to
those women who actually know it. How they
congratulate those who have chosen from the
first the virgin life, and have not had to learn
by experience about the better way, that vir-
ginity is fortified against all these ills, that it
has no orphan state, no widowhood to mourn ;
it is always in the presence of the undying
Bridegroom ; it has the offspring of devotion
always to rejoice in ; it sees continually a home
that is truly its own, furnished with every trea-
sure because the Master always dwells there ;
in this case death does not bring separation,
but union with Him Who is longed for; for
when (a soul) departs 6, then it is with Christ,
as the Apostle says. But it is time, now that
we have examined on the one side the feelings
of those whose lot is happy, to make a revela-
tion of other lives, where poverty and adversity
and all the other evils which men have to suffer
are a fixed condition ; deformities, I mean, and
diseases, and all other lifelong afflictions. He
whose life is contained in himself either escapes
them altogether or can bear them easily, posses-
sing a collected mind which is not distracted
from itself; while he who shares himself with
wife and child often has not a moment to be-
stow even upon regrets for his own condition,
because anxiety for his dear ones fills his heart.
But it is superfluous to dwell upon that which
every one knows. If to what seems prosperity

6 avaXvof) : Philip, i. 33. Tertullian (De Patient. 9) translates,
" Cupis recipi (»'. e. to flit, depart) jam et esse cum Domino." ISeza,
however, says that the metaphor is taken from unharnessing after
a race. Chrysostom and Jerome seem to take it of loosing off the
cable.

348

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

such pain and weariness is bound, what may
we not expect of the opposite condition?
Every description which attempts to represent
it to our view will fall short of the reality. Yet
perhaps we may in a very few words declare
the depths of its misery. Those whose lot is
contrary to that which passes as prosperous
receive their sorrows as well from causes contrary
to that. Prosperous lives are marred by the ex-
pectancy, or the presence, of death ; but the
misery of these is that death delays his coming.
These lives then are widely divided by opposite
feelings ; although equally without hope, they
converge to the same end. So many-sided,
then, so strangely different are the ills with
which marriage supplies the world. There is
pain always, whether children are born, or can
never be expected, whether they live, or die.
One abounds in them but has not enough
means for their support ; another feels the want
of an heir to the great fortune he has toiled for,
and regards as a blessing the other's misfortune ;
each of them, in fact, wishes for that very thing
which he sees the other regretting. Again, one
man loses by death a much-loved ? son ; another
has a reprobate son alive ; both equally to be
pitied, though the one mourns over the death,
the other over the life, of his boy. Neither will
I do more than mention how sadly and disas-
trously family jealousies and quarrels, arising
from real or fancied causes, end. Who could
go completely into all those details ? If you
would know what a network of these evils
human life is, you need not go back again to
those old stories which have furnished subjects
to dramatic poets. They are regarded as myths
on account of their shocking extravagance ;
there are in them murders and eating of children,
husband-murders, murders of mothers and
brothers, incestuous unions, and every sort of
disturbance of nature ; and yet the old chronicler
begins the story which ends in such horrors
with marriage. But turning from all that, gaze
only upon the tragedies that are being enacted
on this life's stage ; it is marriage that supplies
mankind with actors there. Go to the law-
courts and read through the laws there; then
you will know the shameful secrets of marriage.
Just as when you hear a physician explaining
various diseases, you understand the misery of
the human frame by learning the number and
the kind of sufferings it is liable to, so when
you peruse the laws and read there the strange
variety of crimes in marriage to which their
penalties are attached, you will have a pretty
accurate idea of its properties ; for the law does

1 i\ya.m\y.evos Trot?. Cod. Reg. has 6 (caraflujiios, a favourite
word with Gregory. Livineius reads 6 Ka0)7/u.ei/os. which he renders
" nanus " (i. e of low stature), and cites Pollux Onomast. lib. 3, c. 24
(where aTroicaflij/aei/os = iners) ; it might also iear the meaning of
" stay-at-home," in contrast to the prodigal in the next sentence.

not provide remedies for evils which do not
exist, any more than a physician has a treatment
for diseases which are never known.

CHAPTER IV.

But we need no longer show in this narrow
way the drawback of this life, as if the number
of its ills was limited to adulteries, dissensions,-
and plots. I think we should take the higher
and truer view, and say at once that none
of that evil in life, which is visible in all its
business and in all its pursuits, can have any
hold over a man, if he will not put himself in
the fetters of this course. The truth of what
we say will be clear thus. A man who, seeing
through the illusion with the eye of his spirit
purged, lifts himself above the struggling world,
and, to use the words of the Apostle, slights it
all as but dung, in a wayexiling himself altogether
from human life by his abstinence from mar-
riage,— that man has no fellowship whatever
with the sins of mankind, such as avarice, envy,
anger, hatred, and everything of the kind. He
has an exemption from all this, and is in every
way free and at peace ; there is nothing in him
to provoke his neighbours' envy, because he
clutches none of those objects round which
envy in this life gathers. He has raised his
own life above the world, and prizing virtue as
his only precious possession he will pass his
days in painless peace and quiet. For virtue
is a possession which, though all according to
their capacity should share it, yet will be always
in abundance for those who thirst after it ; un-
like the occupation of the lands on this earth,
which men divide into sections, and the more
they add to the one the more they take from
the other, so that the one person's gain is his
fellow's loss ; whence arise the fights for the
lion's share, from men's hatred of being cheated.
But the larger owner of this possession is never
envied ; he who snatches the lion's share does
no damage to him who claims equal participa-
tion ; as each is capable each has this noble
longing satisfied, while the wealth of virtues in
those who are already occupiers8 is not exhausted.
The man, then, who, with his eyes only on
such a life, makes virtue, which has no limit
that man can devise, his only treasure, will
surely never brook to bend his soul to any of
those low courses which multitudes tread. He
will not admire earthly riches, or human power,
or any of those things which folly seeks. If,
indeed, his mind is still pitched so low, he is
outside our band of novices, and our words

8 iv toi? npo\afioi<Tii'. Galesinius' Latin seems wrong heie,
" rebus iis quas supra meminimus," though the words very often
have that force in Gregory.

ON VIRGINITY.

349

do not apply to him. But if his thoughts are
above, walking as it were with God, he will be
lifted out of the maze of all these errors , for
, the predisposing cause of them all, marriage,
has not touched him. Now the wish to be
before others is the deadly sin of pride, and
one would not be far wrong in saying that this
is the seed-root of all the thorns of sin ; but.it
is from reasons connected with marriage that this
pride mostly begins. To show what I mean, we
generally find the grasping man throwing the
blame on his nearest kin ; the man mad after
notoriety and ambition generally makes his
family responsible for this sin : " he must not be
thought inferior to his forefathers ; he must be
deemed a great man by the generation to come
by leaving his children historic records of him-
self" : so also the other maladies of the soul,
envy, spite, hatred and such-like, are connected
with this cause ; they are to be. found amongst
those who are eager about the things of this
fife. He who has fled from it gazes as from
some high watch-tower on the prospect of
humanity, and pities these slaves of vanity for
their blindness in setting such a value on bodily
well-being. He sees some distinguished person
giving himself airs because of his public
honours, and wealth, and power, and only
laughs at the folly of being so puffed up. He
gives to the years of human life the longest
number, according to the Psalmist's computa-
tion, and then compares this atom-interval with
the endless ages, and pities the vain glory of
those who excite themselves for such low and
petty and perishable things. What, indeed,
amongst the things here is there enviable in
that which so many strive for, — honour? What
is gained by those who win it? The mortal
remains mortal whether he is honoured or not.
What good does the possessor of many acres
gain in the end ? Except that the foolish man
thinks his own that which never belongs to
him, ignorant seemingly in his greed that " the
earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof 9,"
for " God is king of all the earth 9." It is the
passion of having which gives men a false title
of lordship over that which can never belong to
them. "The earth," says the wise Preacher,
" abideth for ever l," ministering to every gener-
ation, first one, then another, that is born upon
it ; but men, though they are so little even
their own masters, that they are brought into
life without knowing it by their Maker's will,
and before they wish are withdrawn from it,
nevertheless in their excessive vanity think
that they are her lords; that they, now born,
now dying, rule that which remains continually.
One who reflecting on this holds cheaply all

9 Ps. xxiv. i ; xlvii. 7.

Eccles.

that mankind prizes, whose only love is the
divine life, because "all flesh is grass, and all
the glory of man as the flower of grass2," can
never care for this grass which " to-day is and
to-morrow is not " ; studying the divine ways,
he knows not only that human life has no
fixity, but that the entire universe will not keep
on its quiet course for ever ; he neglects his
existence here as an alien and a passing thing;
for the Saviour said, " Heaven and earth shall
pass away 3," the whole of necessity awaits its re-
fashioning. As long as he is " in this tabernacle4,"
exhibiting mortality, weighed down with this
existence, he laments the lengthening of his
sojourn in it ; as the Psalmist-poet says in
his heavenly songs. Truly, they live in dark-
ness who sojourn in these living tabernacles ;
wherefore that preacher, groaning at the con-
tinuance of this sojourn, says, " Woe is me that
my sojourn is prolonged V' and he attributes
the cause of his dejection to "darkness"; for
\^e know that darkness is called in the Hebrew
language "kedar." It is indeed a darkness as
of the night which envelops mankind, and
prevents them seeing this deceit and knowing
that all which is most prized by the living, and
moreover all which is the reverse, exists only in
the conception of the unreflecting, and is in
itself nothing ; there is no such reality any-
where as obscurity of birth, or illustrious birth,
or glory, or splendour, or ancient renown, or
present elevation, or power over others, or
subjection. Wealth and comfort, poverty and
distress, and all the other inequalities of life,
seem to the ignorant, applying the test of
pleasure, vastly different from each other. But
to the higher understanding they are all alike ;
one is not of greater value than the other ; be-
cause life runs on to the finish with the same
speed through all these opposites, and in the
lots of either class there remains the same power
of choice to live well or ill, " through armour
on the right hand and on the left, through evil
report and good report6." Therefore the clear-
seeing mind which measures reality will journey
on its path without turning, accomplishing its
appointed time from its birth to its exit ; it is
neither softened by the pleasures nor beaten
down by the hardships ; but, as is the way with
travellers, it keeps advancing always, and takes
but little notice of the views presented. It is
the travellers' way to press on to their journey's
end, no matter whether they are passing through
meadows and cultivated farms, or through
wilder and more rugged spots ; a smiling land-
scape does not detain them, nor a gloomy one
check their speed. So, too, that lofty mind
will press straight on to its self-imposed end,

2 1 Pet. i. 24. 3 S- Matt. xxiv. 35. * a Cor. v. 4.

5 Ps exx s 6(LXX.). 6 2 Cor. vi. 7.

35Q

GREGORY OF NYSSA;

not turning aside to see anyttvng on the way.
It passes through life, but its gaze is fixed on
heaven ; it is the good steersman directing the
bark to some landmark there. But the grosser
mind looks down ; it bends its energies to bodily
pleasures as surely as the sheep stoop to their
pasture ; it lives for gorging and still lower
pleasures 7 ; it is alienated from the life of God 8,
and a stranger to the promise of the Covenants ;
it recognizes no good but the gratification of
the body. It is a mind such as this that " walks
in darkness V' and invents all the evil in this
life of ours ; avarice, passions unchecked, un-
bounded luxury, lust of power, vain-glory, the
whole mob of moral diseases that invade men's
homes. In these vices, one somehow holds
closely to another ; where one has entered all
the rest seem to follow, dragging each other in
a natural order, just as in a chain, when you
have jerked the first link, the others cannot
rest, and even the link at the other end feels
the motion of the first, which passes thence by
virtue of their contiguity through the interven-
ing links; so firmly are men's vices linked to-
gether by their very nature ; when one of them
has gained the mastery of a soul, the rest of
the train follow. If you want a graphic picture
of this accursed chain, suppose a man who
because of some special pleasure it gives him is
a victim to his thirst for fame ; then a desire to
increase his fortune follows close upon this
thirst for fame ; he becomes grasping ; but only
because the first vice leads him on to this.
Then this grasping after money and superiority
engenders either anger with his kith and kin,
or pride towards his inferiors, or envy of those
above him ; then hypocrisy comes in after this
envy ; a soured temper after that ; a misan-
thropical spirit after that ; and behind them all
a state of condemnation which ends in the dark
fires of hell. You see the chain ; how all
follows from one cherished passion. Seeing,
then, that this inseparable train of moral
diseases has entered once for all into the world,
one single way of escape is pointed out to us
in the exhortations of the inspired writings ;
and that is to separate ourselves from the life
which involves this sequence of sufferings. If
we haunt Sodom, we cannot escape the rain of
fire ; nor if one who has fled out of her looks
back upon her desolation, can he fail to become
a pillar of salt rooted to the spot. We cannot
be rid of the Egyptian bondage, unless we leave
Egypt, that is, this life that lies under water ',
and pass, not that Red Sea, but this black and
gloomy Sea of life. But suppose we remain in

1 toi* (i«ro yoxnipa. (not, yaoripos). Cod. Reg. ; cf. Gregor.
Nazian. orat. xvi. p. 250, ioCAot ya<TTpo?, xat tcoi' iiirb yaarrtpa.
Euseb. lib. 7, c 20, tois vrrb yaaripa. Tr\r\<rp.ovaii<;.

8 Eph. ill ia; iv. 18 9 S. John xil 35.

' imofipvxiov ; referring to the floods of the Nile.

this evil bondage, and, to use the Master's words,
" the truth shall not have made us free," how can
one who seeks a lie and wanders in the maze off
this world ever come to the truth ? How can one'
who has surrendered his existence to be chained
by nature run away from this captivity ? An
illustration will make our meaning clearer. A
winter torrent2, which, impetuous in itself, be-
comes swollen and carries down beneath its--
stream trees and boulders and anything that
comes in its way, is death and danger to those
alone who live along its course ; for those who'
have got well out of its way it rages in vain.
Just so, only the man who lives in the turmoil
of life has to feel its force ; only he has to
receive those sufferings which nature's stream,
descending in a flood of troubles, must, to be
true to its kind, bring to those who journey
on its banks. But if a man leaves this torrent,,
and these "proud waters 3," he will escape from
being " a prey to the teeth " of this life, as the
Psalm goes on to say, and, as " a bird from the
snare," on virtue's wings. This simile, then,.
of the torrent holds ; human life is a tossing
and tumultuous stream sweeping down to find
its natural level ; none of the objects sought
for in it last till the seekers are satisfied ; all
that is carried to them by this stream comes-
near, just touches them, and passes on ; so
that the present moment in this impetuous flow
eludes enjoyment, for the after-current snatches-'
it from their view. It would be our interest
therefore to keep far away from such a stream,,
lest, engaged on temporal things, we should
neglect eternity. How can a man keep for ever
anything here, be his love for it never so passion-
ate? Which of life's most cherished objects
endures always ? What flower of prime ? What
gift of strength and beauty ? What wealth, or
fame, or power ? They all have their transient
bloom, and then melt away into their opposites.
Who can continue in life's prime? Whose
strength lasts for ever? Has not Nature made
the bloom of beauty even more shortlived than
the shows of spring ? For they blossom in their
season, and after withering for a while again
revive ; after another shedding they are again,
in leaf, and retain their beauty of to-day to a
late prime. But Nature exhibits the human
bloom only in the spring of early life ; then she
kills it; it is vanished in the frosts of age.
All other delights also deceive the bodily eye for
a time, and then pass behind the veil of oblivion.
Nature's inevitable changes are many ; they
agonize him whose love is passionate. One way
of escape is open : it is, to be attached to none
of these things, and to get as far away as

9 Iliad, v. 87. ,¥VV* •

3 Ps cxxiv. 5, 6, 7 : to vSuip TO OrVTTOO-TaTOV (LXX.), 1 t.
unsupport.ilil'-

ON VIRGINITY.

351

possible from the society of this emotional and
sensual world ; or rather, for a man to go out-
side the feelings which his own body gives rise
to. Then, as he does not live for the flesh, he
will not be subject to the troubles of the flesh.
But this amounts to living for the spirit only,
and imitating all we can the employment of
the world of spirits. There they neither marry,
nor are given in marriage. Their work and
» their excellence is to contemplate the Father
of all purity, and to beautify the lines of their
own character from the Source of all beauty, so
far as imitation of It is possible.

CHAPTER V.

Now we declare that Virginity is man's
" fellow-worker " and helper in achieving the
aim of this lofty passion. In other sciences
men have devised certain practical methods for
cultivating the particular subject ; and so, I take
it, virginity is the practical method in the science
of the Divine life, furnishing men with the powqr
of assimilating themselves with spiritual natures.
The constant endeavour in such a course is to
prevent the nobility of the soul from being
lowered by those sensual outbreaks, in which
the mind no longer maintains its heavenly
thoughts and upward gaze, but sinks down to
the emotions belonging to the flesh and blood.
How can the soul which is riveted* to the
pleasures of the flesh and busied with merely
human longings turn a disengaged eye upon i^s
kindred intellectual light ? This evil, ignorant,
and prejudiced bias towards material things will
prevent it. The eyes of swine, turning naturally
downward, have no glimpse of the wonders of
the sky ; no more can the soul whose body
drags it down look any longer upon the beauty
above; it must pore perforce upon things
which though natural are low and animal. To
look with a free devoted gaze upon heavenly
delights, the soul will turn itself from earth ; it
will not even partake of the recognized indulg-
ences of the secular life ; it will transfer all its
powers of affection from material objects to the
intellectual contemplation of immaterial beauty.
Virginity of the* body is devised to further such
a disposition of the soul ; it aims at creating in
it a complete forgetfulness of natural emotions ;
it would prevent the necessity of ever descending
to the call of fleshly needs. Once freed from
such, the soul runs no risk of becoming, through
a growing habit of indulging in that which seems
to a certain extent conceded by nature's law, in-
attentive and ignorant of Divine and undefiled
delights. Purity of the heart, that master of our
lives, alone can capture them.

* Cf. De Anima et Resurr., p. 225, D for the metaphor.

CHAPTER VI.

This, I believe, makes the greatness of the
prophet Elias, and of him who afterwards ap-
peared in the spirit and power of Elias, than
whom " of those that are born of women there
was none greater s." If their history conveys any
other mystic lesson, surely this above all is taught
by their special mode of life, that the man whose
thoughts are fixed upon the invisible is neces-
sarily separated from all the ordinary events of
life ; his judgments as to the True Good cannot
be confused and led astray by the deceits arising
from the senses. Both, from their youth ur>
wards, exiled themselves from human society,
and in a way from human nature, in their
neglect of the usual kinds of meat and drink,
and their sojourn in the desert. The wants oi
each were satisfied by the nourishment that
came in their way, so that their taste might
remain simple and unspoilt, as their ears were
free from any distracting noise, and their eyfes
from any wandering look. Thus they attained
a cloudless calm of soul, and were raised «to
that height of Divine favour which Scriptyre
records of each. Elias, for instance, became
the dispenser of God's earthly gifts ; he had
authority to close at will the uses of the s1<y
against the sinners and to open them to the
penitent. John is not said indeed to have done
any miracle ; but the gift in him was pronounced
by Him Who sees the secrets of a man greater
than any prophet's. This was so, we may pre-
sume, because both, from beginning to end, so
dedicated their hearts to the Lord that they
were unsullied by any earthly passion ; because
the love of wife or child, or any other humafn
call, did not intrude upon them, and they did
not even think their daily sustenance wortfiy
of anxious thought ; because they showed them-
selves to be above any magnificence 6 of dness,
and made shift with that which chance offered
them, one clothing himself in goat-skins,, the
other with camel's hair. It is my belief, that
they would not have reached to this loftmess
of spirit, if marriage had softened them. This
is not simple history only ; it is " written for
our admonition 7," that we might direct our
lives by theirs. What, then, do we learn there-
by ? This : that the man who longs for union
with God must, like those saints, detach his ^
mind from all worldly business. It is impossible
for the mind which is poured into many channels
to win its way to the knowledge and the love
of God.

grav

5 S. Matt, xii. 11.

* o-e/u.i'dnjros ; not as Galesinius renders, '

7 1 Cor. x. 11.

1 asperitate quadam

352

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

CHAPTER VII.

An illustration will make our teaching on this
subject clearer. Imagine a stream flowing from
a spring and dividing itself off into a number of
accidental channels. As long as it proceeds so,
it will be useless for any purpose of agriculture,
the dissipation of its waters making each par-
ticular current small and feeble, and therefore
slow. But if one were to mass these wandering
and widely dispersed rivulets again into one
single channel, he would have a full and col-
lected stream for the supplies which life de-
mands. Just so the human mind (so it seems
to me), as long as its current spreads itself in
all directions over the pleasures of the sense,
has no power that is worth the naming of
making its way towards the Real Good ; but
once call it back and collect it upon itself, so
that it may begin to move without scattering
and wandering towards the activity which is
congenital and natural to it, it will find no
obstacle in mounting to higher things, and in
grasping realities. We often see water contained
in a pipe bursting upwards through this con-
straining force, which will not let it leak ; and
this, in spite of its natural gravitation : in the
same way, the mind of man, enclosed in the
compact channel of an habitual continence, and
not having any side issues, will be raised by
virtue of its natural powers of motion to an
exalted love. In fact, its Maker ordained that
it should always move, and to stop is impossible
to it ; when therefore it is prevented employing
this power upon trifles, it cannot be but that it
will speed toward the truth, all improper exits
being closed. In the case of many turnings we
see travellers can keep to the direct route, when
they have learnt that the other roads are wrong,
and so avoid them ; the more they keep out of
these wrong directions, the more they will pre-
serve the straight course ; in like manner the
mind in turning from vanities will recognize the
truth. The great prophets, then, whom we have
mentioned seem to teach this lesson, viz. to
entangle ourselves with none of the objects of
this world's effort ; marriage is one of these, or
rather it is the primal root of all striving after
vanities.

CHAPTER VIII.

Let no one think however that herein we
depreciate marriage as an institution. We are
well aware that it is not a stranger to God's
blessing. But since the common instincts of
mankind can plead sufficiently on its behalf,
instincts which prompt by a spontaneous bias

to take the high road of marriage for the pro-
creation of children, whereas Virginity in a way
thwarts this natural impulse, it is a superfluous
task to compose formally an Exhortation to
marriage. We put forward the pleasure of it
instead, as a most doughty champion on its be-
half. It may be however, notwithstanding this,
that there is some need of such a treatise, occa-
sioned by those who travesty the teaching of
the Church. Such persons 8 " have their con-
science seared with a hot iron," as the Apostle
expresses it ; and very truly too, considering
that, deserting the guidance of the Holy Spirit
for the " doctrines of devils," they have some
ulcers and blisters stamped upon their hearts,
abominating God's creatures, and calling them
"foul," "seducing," "mischievous," and so on.
" But what have I to do to judge them that are
without??" asks the Apostle. Truly those persons
are outside the Court in which the words of
our mysteries are spoken ; they are not installed
under God's roof, but in the monastery of the
Evil One. They "are taken captive by him
at his will1." They therefore do not understand
that all virtue is found in moderation, and that
any declension to either side 2 of it becomes a
vice. He, in fact, who grasps the middle point
between doing too little and doing too much
has hit the distinction between vice and virtue.
Instances will make this clearer. Cowardice
and audacity are two recognized vices opposed
to each other; the one the defect, the other
the excess of confidence ; between them lies
courage. Again, piety is neither atheism nor
superstition ; it is equally impious to deny a
God and to believe in many gods. Is there
need of more examples to bring this principle
home ? The man who avoids both meanness
and prodigality will by this shunning of extremes
form the moral habit of liberality ; for liber-
ality is the thing which is neither inclined to
spend at random vast and useless sums, nor
yet to be closely calculating in necessary ex-
penses. We need not go into details in \the
case of all good qualities. Reason, in all of
them, has established virtue to be a middle state
between two extremes. Sobriety itself there-
fore is a middle state, and manifestly involves
the two declensions on either side towards vice ;
he, that is, who is wanting in firmness of soul,
and is so easily worsted in the combat with
pleasure as never even to have approached the
path of a virtuous and sober life, slides into
shameful indulgence ; while he who goes be-
yond the safe ground of sobriety and overshoots
the moderation of this virtue, falls as it were

8 l Tim. iv. 2. 9 I Cor. v. 12.

1 2 Tim. ii. 16.

2 en-i ra nupuKtifxtva. Galesinius wrongly renders " in contraries
partes." Cf. Arist iMh. ii. 5.

ON VIRGINITY.

353

from a precipice into the " doctrines of devils,"
"having his conscience seared with a hot iron."
In declaring marriage abominable he brands
himself with such reproaches; for "if the tree
is corrupt " (as the Gospel says), " the fruit
also of the tree will be like it 3" ; if a man is the
shoot and fruitage of the tree of marriage, re-
proaches cast on that turn upon him who
casts theml These persons, then, are like
branded criminals already ; their conscience is
covered with the stripes of this unnatural teach-
ing. But our view of marriage is this ; that,
while the pursuit of heavenly things should be
a man's first care, yet if he can use the advan-
tages of marriage with sobriety and moderation,
he need not despise this way of serving the
state. An example might be found in the
patriarch Isaac. He married Rebecca when
he was past the flower of his age and his prime
was well-nigh spent, so that his marriage was
not the deed of passion, but because of God's
blessing that should be upon his seed. He
cohabited with her till the birth of her only
children5, and then, closing the channels of the
senses, lived wholly for the Unseen ; for this is
what seems to be meant by the mention in his
•history of the dimness of the Patriarch's eyes.
But let that be as those think who are skilled
in reading these meanings, and let us proceed
with the continuity of our discourse. What,
then, were we saying ? That in the cases where
it is possible at once to be true to the diviner
love, and to embrace wedlock, there is no reason
for setting aside this dispensation of nature and
misrepresenting as abominable that which is
honourable. Let us take again our illustration
of the water and the spring. Whenever, the
husbandman, in order to irrigate a particular
spot, is bringing the stream thither, but there
is need before it gets there of a small outlet,
he will allow only so much to escape into that
outlet as is adequate to supply the demand,
and can then easily be blended again with
the main stream. If, as an inexperienced and
easy-going steward, he opens too wide a
channel, there will be danger of the whole
stream quitting its direct bed and pouring
itself sideways. In the same way, if (as life
does need a mutual succession) a man so treats
this need as to give spiritual things the first
thought, and because of the shortness 6 of the
time indulges but sparingly the sexual passion
and keeps it under restraint, that man would

3 Cf. S. Matt. vii. 18 ; from which it will be seen that Gregory
confirms the Vulgate " malum" for aanpov, since he quotes it as
Kaxbv here.

4 tov irpofopovTOs ; not " of their Creator," or " of their father "
(Livineius).

5 (me'xpi /omxs tiSifOs. So perhaps Rom. ix. 10 : "Pe/3e'fc/<a ef eras
Koirrfv 6^ov<ra, i. e. ex uno concubitu. Below, c. 9 (p. 139, c. 11),
Gregory uses the same expression of one birth.

6_ JCGUpoO 0"V<7T0At)P.

realize the character of the prudent husband
man to which the Apostle exhorts us.- About
the details of paying these trifling debts of
nature he will not be over-calculating, but the
long hours of his prayers7 will secure the purity
which is the key-note of his life. He will always
fear lest by this kind of indulgence he may
become nothing but flesh and blood ; for in
them God's Spirit does not dwell. He who is
of so weak a character that he cannot make
a manful stand against nature's impulse had
better8 keep himself very far away from such
temptations, rather than descend into a combat
which is above his strength. There is no small
danger for him lest, cajoled in the valuation of
pleasure, he should think that there exists no
other good but that which is enjoyed along
with some sensual emotion, and, turning alto-
gether from the love of immaterial delights,
should become entirely of the flesh, seeking
always his pleasure only there, so that his char-
acter will be a Pleasure-lover, not a God-lover.
It is not every man's gift, owing to weakness of
nature, to hit the due proportion in these
matters ; there is a danger of being carried
far beyond it, and "sticking fast in the deep
mire 9," to use the Psalmist's words. It would
therefore be for our interest, as our discourse
has been suggesting, to pass through life without
a trial of these temptations, lest under cover
of the excuse of lawful indulgence passion
should gain an entrance into the citadel of the
soul.

**>'

CHAPTER IX.

Custom is indeed in everything hard to resist.
It possesses an enormous power of attracting
and seducing the soul. In the cases where a
man has got into a fixed state of sentiment, a
certain imagination of the good is created in him
by this habit ; and nothing is so naturally vile
but it may come to be thought both desirable
and laudable, once it has got into the fashion1.
Take mankind now living on the earth. There
are many nations, and their ambitions are not
all the same. The standard of beauty and of
honour is different in each, the custom of each
regulating their enthusiasm and their aims.
This unlikeness is seen not only amongst
nations where the pursuits of the one are in no

7 rtfv ix <rvfi4>u>vov Ka9apoTT)Ta rr" a\o\rj Tu>r 7rpo(rev\a)i' a<t>opiCu>v y
"durch haufiges Gebet die innige Reiuheit festzustellen siicht." J.
Rupp. The Latin fails to give the full force, " ex convenientia
quadam munditiam animi in orationum studio consthuit :" <tx<>At) is
abundant time from the business of lite.

8 KpeiTTtoe, k. t. A., "melius " Livineius), not "validior.".

9 ikvv, a better reading than vAtji'. Cf. Ps. lxix. 2, " the mire of
depth " (ikiiv fivGov).

1 ov&iv owtu> rrj (pvcrei (pevKTor 1<ttiv, cos. k. t. A. Both Livineius
and Galesinius have missed the meaning here. Jac Billius has rightly
interpreted, "Nihil natura tarn tuipe ac fnj;iendum est, gum, si,' &c.

VOL. V.

A A

354

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

repute with the other, but even in the same
nation, and the same city, and the same family ;
we may see in those aggregates also much differ-
ence existing owing to customary feeling. Thus
^brothers born from the same throe are separated
widely from each other in the aims of life. Nor
;is this to be wondered at, considering that each
single man does not generally keep to the same
•opinion about the same thing, but alters it as
■fashion influences him. Not to go far from our
present subject, we have known those who have
shown themselves to be in love with chastity
all through the early years of puberty ; but in
taking the pleasures which men think legitimate
and allowable they make them the starting-
point of an impure life, and when once they
have admitted these temptations, all the forces
•of their feeling are turned in that direction, and,
to take again our illustration of the stream,
they let it rush from the diviner channel into
low material channels, and make within them-
selves a broad path for passion ; so that the
stream of their love leaves dry the abandoned
channel of the higher way 2 and flows abroad
iin indulgence. It would be well then, we take
lit, for the weaker brethren to fly to virginity as
into an impregnable fortress, rather than to de-
scend into the career of life's consequences and
invite temptations to do their worst upon them,
•entangling themselves in those things which
through the lusts of the flesh war against the
!law of our mind ; it would be well for them to
consider that herein they risk not broad acres,
■or wealth, or any other of this life's prizes, but
the hope which has been their guide. It is
impossible that one who has turned to the
world and feels its anxieties, and engages his
Iheart in the wish to please men, can fulfil that
first and great commandment of the Master,
" Thou shalt love God with all thy heart and
with all thy strength4." How can he fulfil that,
when he divides his heart between God and
the world, and exhausts the love which he owes
to Him alone in human affections? "He that
is unmarried careth for the things of the Lord ;
but he that is married careth for the things that
are of the world s." If the combat with pleasure
seems wearisome, nevertheless let all take heart.
Habit will not fail to produce, even in the
seemingly most fretful 6, a feeling of pleasure
through the very effort of their perseverance ;
and that pleasure will be of the noblest and
purest kind ; which the intelligent may well be
•enamoured of, rather than allow themselves,
with aims narrowed by the lowness of their
objects, to be estranged from the true greatness
which goes beyond all thought.

2 erri -ra avio, Reg. Cod., better than to.

3 Reading t)>poi>Ti£ovTas, with Reg. Cod.

* S. Matt. xxii. 37. 5 1 Cor. vii. 32 (RV.V

* rot? etuicoAwnxTon : better tl «n to t.iki tins a> .1 neuter.

^K CHAPTER X.

What words indeed could possibly express
the greatness of that loss in falling away from
the possession of real goodness ? What con-
summate power of thought would have to be
employed ! Who could produce even in out-
line that which speech cannot tell, nor the
mind grasp ? On the one hand, if a man has
kept the eye of his heart so clear that he can
in a way behold the promise of our Lord's
Beatitudes realized, he will condemn all human
utterance as powerless to represent that which
he has apprehended. On the other hand, if a
man from the atmosphere of material indul-
gences has the weakness of passion spreading
like a film over the keen vision of his soul, all
force of expression will be wasted upon him ;
for it is all one whether you understate or
whether you magnify a miracle to those who
have no power whatever of perceiving it7. Just
as, in the case of the sunlight, on one who has
never from the day of his birth seen it, all
efforts at translating it into words are quite
thrown away ; you cannot make the splendour
of the ray shine 8 through his ears ; in like
manner, to see the beauty of the true and in-
tellectual light, each man has need of eyes of
his own ; and he who by a gift of Divine in-
spiration can see it retains his ecstasy unex-
pressed in the depths of his consciousness;
while he who sees it not cannot be made to
know even the greatness of his loss. How should
he ? This good escapes his perception, and it
cannot be represented to him ; it is unspeak-
able, and cannot be delineated. We have not
learnt the peculiar language expressive of this
beauty. An example of what we want to say
does not exist in the world ; a comparison for
it would at least be very difficult to find. Who
compares the Sun to a little spark ? or the vast
Deep to a drop ? And that tiny drop and that
diminutive spark bear the same relation to the
Deep and to the Sun, as any beautiful object
of man's admiration does to that real beauty
on the features of the First Good, of which we
catch the glimpse beyond any other good.
What words could be invented to show the
greatness of this loss to him who suffers it ?
Well does the great David seem to me to
express the impossibility of doing this. He
has been lifted by the power of the Spirit out
of himself, and sees in a blessed state of ecstacy
the boundless and incomprehensible Beauty ;
he sees it as fully as a mortal can see who has
quitted his fleshly envelopments and entered,
by the mere power of thought, upon the con-
templation of the spiritual and intellectual

7 dpuiirfrriTutf i\6vriuv ; Ue_'. Cod. B air\a£tiv ; intrans. in N. T,

ON VIRGINITY.

355

world, and in his longing to speak a word
worthy of the spectacle he bursts forth with
that cry, which all re-echo, " Every man a liar? ! "
I take that to mean that any man who entrusts
to language the task of presenting the ineffable
Light is really and truly a liar ; not because
of any hatred on his part of the truth, but be-
cause of the feebleness of his instrument for
expressing the thing thought of1. The visible
beauty to be met with in this life of ours, showing
glimpses of itself, whether in inanimate objects
or in animate organisms in a certain choice-
ness of colour, can be adequately admired by
our power of aesthetic feeling. It can be illus-
trated and made known to others by descrip-
tion ; it can be seen drawn in the language as
in a picture. Even a perfect type2 of such
beauty does not baffle our conception. But
how can language illustrate when it finds no
media for its sketch, no colour, no contours,
no majestic size, no faultlessness of feature ;
nor any other commonplace of art ? The Beauty
which is invisible and formless, which is desti-
tute of qualities and far removed from every-
thing which we recognize in bodies by the eye,
can never be made known by the traits which
require nothing but the perceptions of our senses
in order to be grasped. Not that we are to de-
spair of winning this object of our love, though
it does seem too high for our comprehension.
The more reason shows the greatness of this
thing which we are seeking, the higher we must
lift our thoughts and excite them with the great-
ness of that object ; and we must fear to lose
our share in that transcendent Good. There
is indeed no small amount of danger lest, as we
can base the apprehension of it on no knowable
qualities, we should slip away from it altogether
because of its very height and mystery. We
deem it necessary therefore, owing to this weak-
ness of the thinking faculty, to lead it towards
the Unseen by stages through the cognizances
of the senses. Our conception of the case is
as follows.

/
CHAPTER XL

Now those who take a superficial and unre-
flecting view of things observe the outward
appearance of anything they meet, e.g. of a
man, and then trouble themselves no more
about him. The view they have taken of the
bulk of his body is enough to make them think
that they know all about him. But the pene-

' Ps. cxvi. ii.

1 ou^l tw /aiVet tt)9 aATjOei'as aAAd rfj acrOeveiei rrj? 8i7ry»/<re<us,
the reading of Codd. Vatican. & Reg.

2 ot'Se to apx*Tuirov, k. t. A.

3 These are evidently the elements of beauty as then recognized
by the eye ; it is still the Hellenic standard.

trating and scientific mind will not trust to the
eyes alone the task of taking the measure of
reality ; it will not stop at appearances, nor count
that which is not seen amongst unrealities. It
inquires into the qualities of the man's soul. It
takes those of its characteristics which have
been developed by his bodily constitution, both
in combination and singly ; first singly, by
analysis, and then in that living combination
which makes the personality of the subject. As
regards the inquiry into the nature of beauty, we
see, again, that the man of half-grown intelligence,
when he observes an object which is bathed in
the glow of a seeming beauty, thinks that that
object is in its essence beautiful, no matter what
it is that so prepossesses him with the pleasure
of the eye. He will not go deeper into the
subject. But the other, whose mind's eye is
clear, and who can inspect such appearances,
will neglect those elements which are the
material only upon which the Form of Beauty
works ; to him they will be but the ladder by
which he climbs to the prospect of that Intel-
lectual Beauty, in accordance with their share
in which all other beauties get their existence
and their name. But for the majority, I take
it, who live all their lives with such obtuse
faculties of thinking, it is a difficult thing to
perform this feat of mental analysis and of
discriminating the material vehicle from the
immanent beauty, and thereby of grasping the
actual nature of the Beautiful ; and if any one
wants to know the exact source of all the false
and pernicious conceptions of it, he would find
it in nothing else but this, viz. the absence, in
the soul's faculties of feeling, of that exact
training which would enable them to distinguish
between true Beauty and the reverse. Owing
to this men give up all search after the true
Beauty. Some slide into mere sensuality.
Others incline in their desires to dead metallic
coin. Others limit their imagination of the
beautiful to worldly honours, fame, and power.
There is another class which is enthusiastic
about art and science. The most debased make
their gluttony the test of what is good. But
he who turns from all grosser thoughts and all
passionate longings after what is seeming, and
explores the nature of the beauty which is
simple, immaterial, formless, would never make
a mistake like that when he has to choose be-
tween all the objects of desire ; he would never
be so misled by these attractions as not to see
the transient character of their pleasures and
not to win his way to an utter contempt for
every one of them. This, then, is the path to
lead us to the discovery of the Beautiful. All
other objects that attract men's love, be they
never so fashionable, be they prized never so
much and embraced never so eagerly, must be
a 2

356

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

left below us, as too low, too fleeting, to employ
the powers of loving which we possess ; not
indeed that those powers are to be locked up
within us unused and motionless ; but only that
they must first be cleansed from all lower
longings ; then we must lift them to that
height to which sense can never reach. Admir-
ation even of the beauty of the heavens, and
of the dazzling sunbeams, and, indeed, of any
fair phenomenon, will then cease. The beauty
noticed there will be but as the hand to lead
us to the love of the supernal Beauty whose
glory the heavens and the firmament declare,
and whose secret the whole creation sings.
The climbing soul, leaving all that she has
grasped already as too narrow for her needs,
will thus grasp the idea of that magnificence
which is exalted far above the heavens. But
how can any one reach to this, whose ambitions
creep below ? How can any one fly up into
the heavens, who has not the wings of heaven
and is not already buoyant and lofty-minded by
reason of a heavenly calling ? Few can be such
strangers to evangelic mysteries as not to know
that there is but one vehicle on which man's
soul can mount into the heavens, viz. the self-
made likeness in himself to the descending
Dove, whose wings 4 David the Prophet also
longed for. This is the allegorical name used
in Scripture for the power of the Holy Spirit ;
whether it be because not a drop of galls is
found in that bird, or because it cannot bear
any noisome smell, as close observers tell us.
He therefore who keeps away from all bitterness
and all the noisome effluvia of the flesh, and
raises himself on the aforesaid wings above all
low earthly ambitions, or, more than that, above
the whole universe itself, will be the man to
find that which is alone worth loving, and to
become himself as beautiful as the Beauty which
he has touched and entered, and to be made
bright and luminous himself in the communion
of the real Light. We are told by those who
have studied the subject, that those gleams
which follow each other so fast through the air
at night and which some call shooting stars6,
are nothing but the air itself streaming into the
upper regions of the sky under stress of some

* Ps. lv. 6.

5 Cf. Augustine, Tract 6 in Joann. : "Columba fel non h^bet.
Simon habebat ; ideo separatus est a columbae visceribus." Aristotle
asserts the contrary ; but even Galen denies that it possesses a
bladder [lib. de atr. bit. sub Jin.).

b Siarrovra<; , corrected by Livineius, the transcriber of the Vatican
MS., for SiaTarrovTas. Cf. Arist. Meteor. I. iv : icai ofioi'ux Kara
irAaTO? icai fia0o<; oi Sokovvtcs atrrepfs Siarmv yCvovrai : and, in the
same chapter, SiaBeovTts acrre'pes. Cf. Seneca, Nat. Qucest. iii. 14 :
" Videmus ergo ' Stellarum longos a tergo albescere tractus.' Haec
velut Stella; exsiliunt et trtnsvolant." This and much else, in the
preceding and following notes to this treatise, is taken from those
of Fronlo Duczus, printed in the Paris Edit. The Paris Editors,
Fronto Ducaeus and Claude Morell, used Livineius' edition (1574)
cf this treatise, which is based on the Vatican Cod. and Bricman's
(of Cologne) ; and they corrected from the Cod of F. Morell,
Regiui Professor of Theology ; and from the Cod. Regius.

particular blasts. They say that the fiery track
is traced along the sky when those blasts ignite
in the ether. In like manner, then, as this air
round the earth is forced upwards by some
blast and changes into the pure .splendour of
the ether, so the mind of man leaves this murky
miry world, and under the stress of the spirit
becomes pure and luminous in contact with the
true and supernal Purity; in such an atmosphere
it even itself emits light, and is so filled with
radiance, that it becomes itself a Light, according
to the promise of our Lord that " the righteous
should shine forth as the sun V We see this
even here, in the case of a mirror, or a sheet of
water, or any smooth surface that can reflect
the light ; when they receive the sunbeam they
beam themselves ; but they would not do this
if any stain marred their pure and shining surface.
We shall become then as the light, in our near-
ness to Christ's true light, if we leave this dark
atmosphere of the earth and dwell above ; and
we shall be light, as our Lord says somewhere
to His disciples 8, if the true Light that shineth
in the dark comes down even to us ; unless,
that is, any foulness of sin spreading over our
hearts should dim the brightness of our light.
Perhaps these examples have led us gradually
on to the discovery that we can be changed into
something better than ourselves ; and it has
been proved as well that this union of the soul
with the incorruptible Deity can be accom-
plished in no other way but by herself attaining
by her virgin state to the utmost purity possible, —
a state which, being like God, will enable her to
grasp that to which it is like, while she places
herself like a mirror beneath the purity of God,
and moulds her own beauty at the touch and
the sight of the Archetype of all beauty. Take
a character strong enough to turn from all that
is human, from persons, from wealth, from the
pursuits of Art and Science, even from what-
ever in moral practice and in legislation is
viewed as right (for still in all of them error
in the apprehension of the Beautiful comes
in, sense being the criterion) ; such a character
will feel as a passionate lover only towards that
Beauty which has no source but Itself, which
is not such at one particular time or relatively
only, which is Beautiful from, and through, and
in itself, not such at one moment and in the
next ceasing to be such, above all increase and
addition, incapable of change and alteration.
I venture to affirm that, to one who has cleansed
all the powers of his being from every form of'
vice, the Beauty which is essential, the source
of every beauty and every good, will become
visible. The visual eye, purged from its blinding
humour, can clearly discern objects even on the.

7 S. Matt. xiii. 4>

8-S. Jobn.ix..5 ; i. 9.

ON VIRGINITY.

357

distant sky 9; so to the soul by virtue of her
innocence there comes the power of taking in
that Light ; and the real Virginity, the real zeal
for chastity, ends in no other goal than this, viz. .
the power thereby of seeing God. No one in
fact is so mentally blind as not to understand
that without telling ; viz. that the God of the
Universe is the only absolute, and primal, and
unrivalled x Beauty and Goodness. All, maybe,
know that ; but there are those who, as might
have been expected, wish besides this to dis-
cover, if possible, a process by which we may
be actually guided to it. Well, the Divine
books are full of such instruction for our guid-
ance ; and besides that many of the Saints cast
the refulgence of their own lives, like lamps,
upon the path for those who are " walking with
God2." But each may gather in abundance for
himself suggestions towards this end out of
either Covenant in the inspired writings ; the
Prophets and the Law are full of them; and also
the Gospel and the Traditions of the Apostles.
What we ourselves have conjectured in follow-
ing out the thoughts of those inspired utterances
is this.

CHAPTER XII.

This reasoning and intelligent creature, man,
at once the work and the likeness of the Divine
and Imperishable Mind (for so in the Creation
it is written of him that "God made man in
His image 3"), this creature, I say, did not in
the course of his first production have united
to the very essence of his nature the liability
to passion and to death. Indeed, the truth
about the image could never have been main-
tained if the beauty reflected in that image had
been in the slightest degree opposed4 to the
Archetypal Beauty. Passion was introduced
afterwards, subsequent to man's first organiza-
tion ; and it was in this way. Being the image
and the likeness, as has been said, of the Power
which rules all things, man kept also in the
matter of a Free-Will this likeness to Him
whose Will is over all. He was enslaved to
"no outward necessity whatever ; his feeling to-
wards that which pleased him depended only
on his own private judgment ; he was free to
choose whatever he liked ; and so he was a

9 T<x iv t<«) ovpavw Tr)kavyu>'; KaBopazai. The same word in S.
Mark viii. 25 ("clearly") evidently refers to the second stage of
recovered sight, the power of seeing the perspective. The M SS.
reading is iv rw ayCui, for which aepi and r)\Ct±> have been conjec-
tured; ovpavw is due to Galesinius ; there is a similar place in Dio
Chrys.fdV regno et tyrann.): " impaired sight," he says, "cannot see
even what is quite close, tryies 8e ofi<ra /lie'xpi? ovpavov re ical
acrrepioe JfucveiTai, i. e. the distant sky. Just above, anoppv\l/ap.cv<j>
(purged) is a better reading than a.TToppt\(iafii.evio, and supported bv
F. Morell's MS.

1 fim„is 2 Gen. v. 24 ; vi. 9.

3 Gen. i. 27. * virevavriuts ; 1. e. even as a sub-contrary.

free agent, though circumvented with cunning,
when he drew upon himself that disaster which
now overwhelms humanity. He became him-
self the discoverer of evil, but he did not there-
in discover what God had made ; for God did not
make death. Man became, in fact, himself the
fabricator, to a certain extent, and the craftsman
of evil. All who have the faculty of sight may
enjoy equally the sunlight ; and any one can if
he likes put this enjoyment from him by shut-
ting his eyes : in that case it is not that the
sun retires and produces that darkness, but the
man himself puts a barrier between his eye and
the sunshine ; the faculty of vision cannot in-
deed, even in the closing of the eyes, remain
inactive5, and so this operative sight necessarily
becomes an operative darkness6 rising up in
the man from his own free act in ceasing to
see. Again, a man in building a house for
himself may omit to make in it any way of
entrance for the light ; he will necessarily be in
darkness, though he cuts himself off from the
light voluntarily. So the first man on the
earth, or rather he who generated evil in man,
had for choice the Good and the Beautiful
lying all around him in the very nature of
things ; yet he wilfully cut out a new way for
himself against this nature, and in the act of
turning away from virtue, which was his own
free act, he created the usage of evil. For, be
it observed, there is no such thing in the world
as evil irrespective of a will, and discoverable
in a substance apart from that. Every creature
of God is good, and nothing of His " to be re-
jected" ; all that God made was "very good7."
But the habit of sinning entered as we have de-
scribed, and with fatal quickness, into the life of
man ; and from that small beginning spread into
this infinitude of evil. Then that godly beauty
of the soul which was an imitation of the Arche-
typal Beauty, like fine steel blackened8 with
the vicious rust, preserved no longer the glory
of its familiar essence, but was disfigured with
the ugliness of sin. This thing so great and
precious 9, as the Scripture calls him, this being
man, has fallen from his proud birthright. As
those who have slipped and fallen heavily into
mud, and have all their features so besmeared
with it, that their nearest friends do not recog-
nize them, so this creature has fallen into the
mire of sin and lost the blessing of being an
image of the imperishable Deity ; he has clothed
himself instead with a perishable and foul re-
semblance to something else ; and this Reason

5 apyelv. 6 oxotous ive'pyeiav.

7 I Tim. iv. 4 ; Gen. i. 31. 8 KaTep.fXa.v9ri.

9 Cf. Prov. XX. 6. fie'ya avOpwnos, Kal Tip.(.ov, avr]p i\erjfi.wv ;
and Ambrose {de obitu T/ieodosii), " Magnum et honorabiie est
homo misericors ; " and the same on Ps. cxix. 73, " Grande homo,
et preciosum vir misericors, et vere magnus est, qui divini opens
interpres est, et imitator Dei."

358

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

counsels him to put away again by washing it
off in the cleansing water of this calling1. The
earthly envelopment once removed, the soul's
beauty will again appear. Now the putting off'
of a strange accretion is equivalent to the re-
turn to that which is familiar and natural ; yet
such a return cannot be but by again becoming
that which in the beginning we were created. In
fact this likeness to the divine is not our work at
all ; it is not the achievement of any faculty of
man ; it is the great gift of God bestowed upon
our nature at the very moment of our birth ;
human efforts can only go so far as to clear
away the filth of sin, and so cause the buried
beauty of the soul to shine forth again. This
truth is, I think, taught in the Gospel, when
our Lord says, to those who can hear what
Wisdom speaks beneath a mystery, that "the
Kingdom of God is within you 2." That word 3
points out the fact that the Divine good is not
something apart from our nature, and is not
removed far away from those who have the will
to seek it ; it is in fact within each of us, ignored
indeed, and unnoticed while it is stifled beneath
the cares and pleasures of life, but found again
whenever we can turn our power of conscious
thinking towards it If further confirmation of
what we say is required, I think it will be found
in what is suggested by our Lord in the search-
ing for the Lost Drachma 4. The thought, there,
is that the widowed soul reaps no benefit from
the other virtues (called drachmas in the
Parable) being all of them found safe, if that
one other is not amongst them. The Parable
therefore suggests that a candle should first be
lit, signifying doubtless our reason which throws
light on hidden principles ; then that in one's
own house, that is, within oneself, we should
search for that lost coin ; and by that coin the
Parable doubtless hints at the image of our
King, not yet hopelessly lost, but hidden be-
neath the dirt ; and by this last we must under-
stand the impurities of the flesh, which, being
swept and purged away by carefulness of life,
leave clear to the view the object of our search.
Then it is meant that the soul herself who finds
this rejoices over it, and with her the neigh-
bours, whom she calls in to share with her in
this delight. Verily, all those powers which
are the housemates of the soul, and which the
Parable names her neighbours for this occa-
sion 5, when so be that the image of the mighty
King is revealed in all its brightness at last
(that image which the Fashioner of each in-
dividual heart of us has stamped upon this
our Drachma6), will then be converted to that

1 Ttjs jroAiTec'as : used in the same sense in " On Pilgrimages."
* S. 1 .like xvila 21.

3 6 Ao-yoc, i. e. Scripture. So to karyiov in Gregory passim, and
Clement. Al:x. \Slromtila * S. Luke xv. 8.

5 vvv. 6 t re <rrj/i.i7 far. 'j tj, "if Tfj 6pa^/i.rJ.

divine delight and festivity, and will gaze upon
the ineffable beauty of the recovered one.
"Rejoice with me," she says, "because I have
found the Drachma which I had lost." The
neighbours, that is, the soul's familiar powers,
both the reasoning and the appetitive, the affec-
tions of grief and of anger, and all the rest that
are discerned in her, at that joyful feast which
celebrates the finding of the heavenly Drachma
are well called her friends also ; and it is
meet that they should all rejoice in the Lord
when they all look towards the Beautiful and
the Good, and do everything for the glory of
God, no longer instruments of sin 7. If, then,
such is the lesson of this Finding of the lost,
viz. that we should restore the divine image
from the foulness which the flesh wraps round
it to its primitive state, let us become that
which the First Man was at the moment when
he first breathed. And what was that? Des-
titute he was then of his covering of dead skins,
but he could gaze without shrinking upon
God's countenance. He did not yet judge of
what was lovely by taste or sight ; he found in
the Lord alone all that was sweet; and he
used the helpmeet given him only for this
delight, as Scripture signifies when it said that
"he knew her not8" till he was driven forth
from the garden, and till she, for the sin which
she was decoyed into committing, was sentenced
to the pangs of childbirth. We, then, who in
our first ancestor were thus ejected, are allowed
to return to our earliest state of blessedness by
the very same stages by which we lost Paradise.
What are they ? Pleasure, craftily offered, be-
gan the Fall, and there followed after pleasure
shame, and fear, even to remain longer in the
sight of their Creator, so that they hid them-
selves in leaves and shade ; and after that they
covered themselves with the skins of dead
animals ; and. then were sent forth into this
pestilential and exacting land where, as the
compensation for having to die, marriage was
instituted 9. Now if we are destined "to de-
part hence, and be with Christ 1," we must
begin at the end of the route of departure
(which lies nearest to ourselves) ; just as those
who have travelled far from their friends at
home, when they turn to reach again the place
from which they started, first leave that district
which they reached at the end of their outward
journey. Marriage, then, is the last stage of
our separation from the life that was led in
Paradise ; marriage therefore, as our discourse
has been suggesting, is the first thing to be
left ; it is the first station as it were for our
departure to Christ. Next, we must retire from
all anxious toil upon the land, such as man was

7 Rom. vi. ij.
9 Gen. iii. 16.

8 Gen. iv. i.
1 Philip, i. 23.

ON VIRGINITY.

359

I 'ound to after his sin. Next we must divest
ourselves of those coverings of our nakedness,
the coats of skins, namely the wisdom of the
flesh ; we must renounce all shameful things
done in secret 2, and be covered no longer with
the fig-leaves of this bitter world ; then, when
we have torn off the coatings of this life's perish-
able leaves, we must stand again in the sight
of our Creator ; and repelling all the illusion
of taste and sight, take for our guide God's
commandment only, instead of the venom-
spitting serpent. That commandment was, to
touch nothing but what was Good, and to leave
what was evil untasted ; because impatience to
remain any longer in ignorance of evil would
be but the beginning of the long train of actual
evil. For this reason it was forbidden to our
first parents to grasp the knowledge of the
opposite to the good, as well as that of the good
itself; they were to keep themselves from "the
knowledge of good and evil V' and to enjoy the
Good in its purity, unmixed with one particle
of evil : and to enjoy that, is in my judgment
nothing else than to be ever with God, and to
feel ceaselessly and continually this delight,
unalloyed by aught that could tear us away
from it. One might even be bold to say that
this might be found the way by which a man
could be again caught up into Paradise out of
this world which lieth in the Evil, into that
Paradise where Paul was when he saw the un-
speakable sights which it is not lawful for a
man to talk of4.

CHAPTER XIII.

But seeing that Paradise is the home of
living spirits, and will not admit those who are
dead in sin, and that we on the other hand are
fleshly, subject to death, and sold under sin 5,
how is it possible that one who is a subject of
death's empire should ever dwell in this land
where all is life ? What method of release from
this jurisdiction can be devised ? Here too the
Gospel teaching is abundantly sufficient. We
hear our Lord saying to Nicodemus, "That
which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit6." We know
too that the flesh is subject to death because of
sin, .but the Spirit of God is both incorruptible,
and life-giving, and deathless. As at our
uhysical birth there comes into the world with
us a potentiality of being again turned to dust,
plainly the Spirit also imparts a life-giving
potentiality to the children begotten by Him-

8 2 Cor. iv. 2. 3 Gen. ii. 17.

4 2 Cor. xii. 4.

s itnb ti)« d/iapTiW should perhaps be restored from Rom. vii. 14;
though the Pans Edit, has U7rb ttjs a/iapn'a?.
fr S. John iii. 6.

self. What lesson, then, results from these
remarks ? This : that we should wean ourselves
from this life in the flesh, which has an inevit-
able follower, death ; and that we should search
for a manner of life which does not bring death
in its train. Now the life of Virginity is such a
life. We will add a few other things to show
how true this is. Every one knows that the
propagation of mortal frames is the work which
the intercourse of the sexes has to do ; whereas
for those who are joined to the Spirit, life and
immortality instead of children are produced
by this latter intercourse; and the words of the
Apostle beautifully suit their case, for the joyful
mother of such children as these " shall be
saved in child-bearing 7 ;" as the Psalmist in his
divine songs thankfully cries, " He maketh the
barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful
mother of children8." Truly a joyful mother
is the virgin mother who by the operation of
the Spirit conceives the deathless children, and
who is called by the .Prophet barren because of
her modesty only. This life, then, which is
stronger than the power of death, is, to those
who think, the preferable one. The physical
bringing of children into the world — I speak
without wishing to offend — is as much a start-
ing-point of death as of life ; because from the
moment of birth the process of dying com-
mences. But those who by virginity have
desisted from this process have drawn within
themselves the boundary line of death, and by
their own deed have checked his advance ; they
have made themselves, in fact, a frontier between
life and death, and a barrier too, which thwarts
him. If, then, death cannot pass beyond vir-
ginity, but finds his power checked and shattered
there, it is demonstrated that virginity is a
stronger thing than death ; and that body is
rightly named undying which does not lend its
service to a dying world, nor brook to become
the instrument of a succession of dying crea-
tures. In such a body the long unbroken
career of decay and death, which has intervened
between 9 the first man and the lives of virginity
which have been led, is interrupted. It could
not be indeed that death should cease working
as long as the human race by marriage was
working too ; he walked the path of life with
all preceding generations ; he started with
every new-born child and accompanied it to
the end : but he found in virginity a barrier, to
pass which was an impossible feat. Just as, in
the age of Mary the mother of God, he who
had reigned from Adam to her time found,
when he came to her and dashed his forces
against the fruit of her virginity as against a

1 i Tim. ii. 15. 8 Ps. cxiii. 9.

9 81a /neVou ov ■ye'yoi'ei'. So Codd. Reg. Vat. ; but the oil is
manifestly a corruption arising from ptaou.

360

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

rock, that he was shattered to pieces upon her,
so in every soul which passes through this life
in the flesh under the protection of virginity,
the strength of death is in a manner broken
and annulled, for he does not find the places
upon which he may fix his sting. If you do
not throw into the fire wood, or straw, or
grass, or something that it can consume, it has
not the force to last by itself; so the power
of death cannot go on working, if marriage
does not supply it with material and pre-
pare victims for this executioner. If you have
any doubts left, consider the actual names of
those afflictions which death brings upon man-
kind, and which were detailed in the first part
of this discourse. Whence do they get their
meaning? "Widowhood," "orphanhood,"
"loss of children," could they be a subject for
grief, if marriage did not precede? Nay, all
the dearly-prized blisses, and transports, and
comforts of marriage end in these agonies of
grief. The hilt of a sword is smooth and
handy, and polished and glittering outside ; it
seems to grow to the outline of the hand l ; but
the other part is steel and the instrument of
death, formidable to look at, more formidable
still to come across. Such a thing is marriage.
It offers for the grasp of the senses a smooth
surface of delights, like a hilt of rare polish and
beautiful workmanship ; but when a man has
taken it up and has got it into his hands, he
finds the pain that has been wedded to it is in
his hands as well ; and it becomes to him the
worker of mourning and of loss. It is marriage
that has the heartrending spectacles to show
of children left desolate in the tenderness of
their years, a mere prey to the powerful, yet
smiling often at their misfortune from ignor-
ance of coming woes. What is the cause of
widowhood but marriage? And retirement
from this would bring with it an immunity from
the whole burden of these sad taxes on our
hearts. Can we expect it otherwise ? When
the verdict that was pronounced on the delin-
quents in the beginning is annulled, then too
the mothers' " sorrows 2 " are no longer " multi-
plied," nor does " sorrow " herald the births of
men ; then all calamity has been removed from
life and " tears wiped from off all faces 3 ; " con-
ception is no more an iniquity, nor child-bearing
a sin ; and births shall be no more " of bloods,"
or "of the will of man," or "of the will of the
flesh 4 ", but of God alone. This is always
happening whenever any one in a lively heart
conceives all the integrity of the Spirit, and
brings forth wisdom and righteousness, and
sanctification and redemption too. It is pos-
sible for any one to be the mother of such a

1 e/i<J>wo/ieV> ; cf. the Homein <>i <J>u %• tpi, k. t A.

2 Gen. lii. ij J Is. xxv. 8 4 S. John i. 13.

son ; as our Lord says, " He that doeth my
will is my brother, my sister, and my mother V
What room is there for death in such parturi-
tions ? Indeed in them death is swallowed up
by life. In fact, the Life of Virginity seems to
be an actual representation of the blessedness
in the world to come, showing as it does in
itself so many signs of the presence of those
expected blessings which are reserved for us
there. That the truth of this statement may
be perceived, we will verify it thus. It is so,
first, because a man who has thus died once
for all to sin lives for the future to God ; he
brings forth no more fruit unto death ; and
having so far as in him lies made an end 6 of
this life within him according to the flesh, he
awaits thenceforth the expected blessing of the
manifestation ? of the great God, refraining
from putting any distance between himself and
this coming of God by an intervening posterity :
secondly, because he enjoys even in this present
life a certain exquisite glory of all the blessed
results of our resurrection. For our Lord has
announced that the life after our resurrection
shall be as that of the angels. Now the
peculiarity of the angelic nature is that they
are strangers to marriage ; therefore the blessing
of this promise has been already received by him
who has not only mingled his own glory with the
halo of the Saints, but also by the stainlessness
of his life has so imitated the purity of these
incorporeal beings. If virginity then can win
us favours such as these, what words are fit to
express the admiration of so great a grace?
What other gift of the soul can be found so great
and precious as not to suffer by comparison
with this perfection ?

A* CHAPTER XIV.

But if we apprehend at last the perfection of
this grace, we must understand as well what
necessarily follows from it ; namely that it is
not a single achievement, ending in the subjuga-
tion of the body, but that in intention it reaches
to and pervades everything that is, or is con-
sidered, a right condition of the soul. That
soul indeed which in virginity cleaves to the true
Bridegroom will not remove herself merely from
all bodily defilement ; she will make that abs-
tension only the beginning of her purity, and
will carry this security from failure equally into
everything else upon her path. Fearing lest,
from a too partial heart, she should by contact
with evil in any one direction give occasion for
the least weakness of unfaithfulness (to suppose

5 S. Mat', xii. 50.

6 owTcActae. Cf. S. Matt, xiii 39 ; and Heb. ix. 15.

7 eirii^ai'Ciaj' ; lit. li. 13

ON VIRGINITY.

361

such a case : but I will begin again what I was
going to say), that soul which cleaves to her
Master so as to become with Him one spirit,
and by the compact of a wedded life has staked
the love of all her heart and all her strength on
Him alone — that soul will no more commit any
other of the offences contrary to salvation, than
imperil her union with Him by cleaving to for-
nication ; she knows that between all sins there
is a single kinship of impurity, and that if she
were to defile herself with but one8, she could no
longer retain her spotlessness. An illustration
will show what we mean. Suppose all the
water in a pool remaining smooth and motion-
less, while no disturbunce of any kind comes
to mar the peacefulness of the spot ; and then
a stone thrown into the pool ; the movement
in that one part 9 will extend to the whole, and
while the stone's weight is carrying it to the
bottom, the waves that are set in motion round
it pass in circles r into others, and so through
all the intervening commotion are pushed on
to the very edge of the water, and the whole
surface is ruffled with these circles, feeling the
movement of the depths. So is the broad
serenity and calm of the soul troubled by, one
ifivading passion, and affected by the injury of
a single part. They tell us too, those who have
investigated the subject, that the virtues are not
disunited from each other, and that to grasp
the principle of any one virtue will be impossible
to one who has not seized that which underlies
the rest, and that the man who shows one
virtue in his character will necessarily show
them all. Therefore, by contraries, the deprav-
ation of anything in our moral nature will ex-
tend to the whole virtuous life ^ and in very
truth, as the Apostle tells us, the^hole is af-
fected by the parts, and "if one member2
suffer, all the members suffer with it," "if one
be honoured, all rejoice."

CHAPTER XV.

But the ways in our life which turn aside
towards sin are innumerable ; and their number
is told by Scripture in divers manners. " Many
are they that trouble me and persecute," and
*' Many are they that fight against me from
on highs"; and many other texts like that.
We may affirm, indeed, absolutely, that many
are they who plot in the adulterer's fashion to

8 The text is here due to the Vatican Codex : kou, el Si'epd? nvo<:
jioKvvOtii), k. t. A.

9 Toj pepei. I his is the reading of Cod. Morell. and of the frag-
•ninu used by Livineius ; preferable to ra fiepiKw <r<iA<f> crvyKvtxaTov-
jj.^i/of, as in Cod. Reg. r KuicAoTefKos, Plutarch, ii. 892, F.

* /ue'Ao? (not as Galesinius, juie'po;), 1 Cor. xii. 26.

3 Ps. lvi. 3 (from LXX. according to many MSS. : others join
i7rb v<]jov<; ific'pa? ow <£o/3r)0>jero/u.ai, ab altitudine diei non timebo).
But Aquila has ii<//t<7Te, agreeing with the Hebrew ; so also Jerome.

destroy this truly honourable marriage, and to
defile this inviolate bed ; and if we must name
them one by one, we charge with this adulterous
spirit anger, avarice, envy, revenge, enmity,
malice, hatred, and whatever the Apostle puts
in the class of those things which are contrary
to sound doctrine. Now let us suppose a lady,
prepossessing and lovely above her peers, and
on that account wedded to a king, but besieged
because of her beauty by profligate lovers. As
long as she remains indignant at these would-
be seducers and complains of them to her law-
ful husband, she keeps her chastity and has no
one before her eyes but her bridegroom ; the
profligates find no vantage ground for their
attack upon her. But if she were to listen to a
single one of them, her chastity with regard to
the rest would not exempt her from the retribu-
tion ; it would be sufficient to condemn her,
that she had allowed that one to defile the
marriage bed. So the soul whose life is in God
will find her pleasure4 in no single one of those
things which make a beauteous show to deceive
her. If she were, in some fit of weakness, to
admit the defilement to her heart, she would
herself have broken the covenant of her spiritual
marriage ; and, as the Scripture tells us, " into
the malicious soul Wisdom cannot come5."
It may, in a word, be truly said that the Good
Husband cannot come to dwell with the soul
that is irascible, or malice-bearing, or harbours
any other disposition which jars with that
concord. No way has been discovered of
harmonizing things whose nature is antagonistic
and which have nothing in common. The
Apostle tells us there is "no communion of
light with darkness6," or of righteousness with
iniquity, or, in a word, of all the qualities which
we perceive and name as the essence of God's
nature, with all the opposite which are perceived
in evil. Seeing, then, the impossibility of any
union between mutual repellents, we under-
stand that the vicious soul is estranged from
entertaining the company of the Good. What
then is the practical lesson from this? The
chaste and thoughtful virgin must sever herself
from any affection which can in any way impart
contagion to her soul ; she must keep herself
pure for the Husband who has married her,
"not having spot or blemish or any such
thing 7."

4 ovSevi apetr9ri<reTai. The Vatican Cod. has epaOijcreTou,, which
would require the genitive.

5 Wis. i. 4. * 2 Cor. vi. 14.

7 Eph. v. 27. — Origen (c. Cels. vii. 48, 49), comparing Pagan and
Christian virginity, says, "The Athenian hierophant, distrusting
his power of self-control for the period of his regular religious duties,
uses hemlock, and passes as pure. But you may see among the
Christians men who need no hemlock. The Faith drives evil from
their minds, and ever fits them to perform the service of prayer.
Belonging to some of the gods now in vogue there are certainly
virgins here and there — watch d or not I care not now to inquire—
who seem not to break down in the course of chastitv which the
honour of their god requires. But amongst Christians, for no repute

362

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

CHAPTER XVI.

There is only one right path. It is narrow
and contracted. It has no turnings either on
the one side or the other. No matter how we
leave it, there is the same danger of straying
hopelessly away. This being so, the habit
which many have got into must be as far as
possible corrected ; those, I mean, who while
they fight strenuously against the baser plea-
sures, yet still go on hunting for pleasure in
the shape of worldly honour and positions which
will gratify their love of power. They act like
some domestic who longed for liberty, but
instead of exerting himself to get away from
slavery proceeded only to change his masters,
and thought liberty consisted in that change.
But all alike are slaves, even though they should
not all go on being ruled by the same masters,
as long as a dominion of any sort, with power
to enforce it, is set over them. There are
others again who after a long battle against
all the pleasures8, yield themselves easily on
another field, where feelings of an opposite
kind come in ; and in the intense exactitude of
their lives fall a ready prey to melancholy and
irritation, and to brooding over injuries, and
to everything that is the direct opposite of
pleasurable feelings; from which they are
very reluctant to extricate themselves. This
is always happening, whenever any emotion,
instead of virtuous reason, controls the course
of a life. For the commandment of the Lord
is exceedingly far-shining, so as to "enlighten
the eyes " even of "the simple 9," declaring that
good cleaveth only unto God. But God is not
pain any more than He is pleasure ; He is not
cowardice any more than boldness ; He is not
fear, nor anger, nor any other emotion which
sways the untutored soul, but, as the Apostle
says, He is Very Wisdom and Sanctification,
Truth and Joy and Peace, and everything like
that. If He is such, how can any one be said
to cleave to Him, who is mastered by the very
opposite ? Is it not want of reason in any one
to suppose that when he has striven successfully
to escape the dominion of one particular passion,
he will find virtue in its opposite ? For instance,
to suppose that when he has escaped pleasure,
he will find virtue in letting pain have posses-
sion of him ; or when he has by an effort re-
mained proof against anger, in crouching with

amongst men, for no stipend, for no mere show, they practise an
absolute virginity ; and as they 'liked to retain Cod in their know-
ledge,' so God has kept them in that liking mind, and in the per-
formance of fitting works, filling them with righteousness and good-
ness. I say this without any depreciation of what is beautiful in
Greek thought, and of what is wholesome in their teachings. I
wish only to show that all they have said, and things more noble,
more divine, have been said by those men of God, the prophet and
apostles."

P to* TiSovds ». t. the whole class. 9 Ps. xix. 6, 7, 8.

fear. It matters not whether we miss virtue, or
rather God Himself Who is the Sum of virtue,
in this way, or in that. Take the case of great
bodily prostration ; one would say that the
sadness of this failure was just the same, whether
the cause has been excessive under-feeding,
or immoderate eating ; both failures to stop
in time end in the same result. He therefore
who watches over the life and the sanity of
the soul will confine himself to the moder-
ation of the truth ; he will continue without
touching either of those opposite states which
run along-side virtue. This teaching is not
mine ; it comes from the Divine lips. It is
clearly contained in that passage where our
Lord says to His disciples, that they are as
sheep wandering amongst wolves r, yet are not
to be as doves only, but are to have something
of the serpent too in their disposition ; and
that means that they should neither carry to
excess the practice of that which seems praise-
worthy in simplicity 2, as such a habit would
come very near to downright madness, nor on
the other hand should deem the cleverness
which most admire to be a virtue, while un-
softened by any mixture with its opposite ; they
were in fact to form another disposition, by a
compound of these two seeming opposites,
cutting off its silliness from the one, its evil
cunning from the other; so that one single
beautiful character should be created from the
two, a union of simplicity of purpose with
shrewdness. "Be ye," He says, "wise as
serpents, and harmless as doves."

CHAPTER XVII.

Let that which was then said by our Lord
be the general maxim for every life ; especially
let it be the maxim for those who are coming
nearer God through the gateway of virginity, that
they should never in watching for a perfection
in one direction present an unguarded side in
another and contrary one ; but should in all
directions realize the good, so that they may
guarantee in all things their holy life against
failure. A soldier does not arm himself only on
some points, leaving the rest of his body to take
its chance unprotected. If he were to receive his
death-wound upon that, what would have been
the advantage of this partial armour? Again,,
who would call that feature faultless, which from
some accident had lost one of those requisites
which go to make up the sum of beauty ? The
disfigurement of the mutilated part mars the
grace of the part untouched. The Gospel im-

1 S. Matt. x. 36.

s According to the emendation of Livineius : fijjre to K<na tt)«-
aTrAoTTjTa Sokovv ttraii'e 7i'i.

ON VIRGINITY.

3^3

plies that he who undertakes the building of
a tower, but spends all his labour upon the
foundations without ever reaching the com-
pletion, is worthy of ridicule ; and what else do
we learn from the Parable of the Tower, but to
strive to come to the finish of every lofty pur-
pose, accomplishing the work of God in all the
multiform structures of His commandments?
One stone, indeed, is no more the whole edifice
of the Tower, than one commandment kept will
raise the soul's perfection to the required height.
The foundation must by all means first be laid ;
but over it, as the Apostle says 3, the edifice of
gold and precious gems must be built ; for so is
the doing of the commandment put by the
Prophet who cries, " I have loved Thy com-
mandment above gold and many a precious
stone4." Let the virtuous life have for its sub-
structure the love of virginity ; but upon this
let every result of virtue be reared. If virginity
is believed to be a vastly precious thing and to
have a divine look (as indeed is the case, as
well as men believe of it), yet, if the whole life
does not harmonize with this perfect note, and
it be marred by the succeeding5 discord of
the soul, this thing becomes but " the jewel
of gold in the swine's snout 6," or " the pearl that
is trodden under the swine's feet." But we
have said enough upon this.

CHAPTER XVIII.

If any one supposes that7 this want of
mutual harmony between his life and a single
one of its circumstances is quite unimportant,
let him be taught the meaning of our maxim
by looking at the management of a house.
The master of a private dwelling will not allow
any untidiness or unseemliness to be seen in
the house, such as a couch upset, or the table
littered with rubbish, or vessels of price thrown
away into dirty corners, while those which serve
ignobler uses are thrust forward for entering
guests to see. He has everything arranged
neatly and in the proper place, where it stands
to most advantage ; and then he can welcome
his guests, without any misgivings that he need
be ashamed of opening the interior of his
house to receive them. The same duty, I take
it, is incumbent on that master of our " taber-
nacle," the mind ; it has to arrange everything
within us, and to put each particular faculty of
the soul, which the Creator has fashioned to
be our implement or our vessel, to fitting and
noble uses. We will now mention in detail

3 1 Cor. iii. 12.

4 Ps. cxix. 127, LXX. (xpvaiov koX Toiraftoi').

5 rrj Aotnov.

6 For the gold, see Prov. xi. 22 ; for the pearl, S. Matt. vii. 6.
' TO fxri <rvvr]pn6<T9ai Tlvi Sta twj' Kara\\rf\ioy Tor /Sioy.

the way in which any one might manage his
life, with its present advantages,' to his improve-
ment, hoping that no one will accuse us of
trifling 8, or over-minuteness. We advise, then,
that love's passion be placed in the soul's
purest shrine, as a thing chosen to be the first
fruits of all our gifts, and devoted 9 entirely to
God ; and when once this has been done, to
keep it untouched and unsullied by any secular
defilement. Then indignation, and anger, and
hatred must be as watch-dogs to be roused
only against attacking sins ; they must follow
their natural impulse only against the thief and
the enemy who is creeping in to plunder the
divine treasure-chamber, and who comes only
for that, that he may steal, and mangle, and
destroy. Courage and confidence are to be
weapons in our hands to baffle any sudden
surprise and attack of the wicked who advance.
Hope and patience are to be the staffs to lean
upon, whenever we are weary with the trials of
the world. As for sorrow, we must have a
stock of it ready to apply, if need should
happen to arise for it, in the hour of repentance
for our sins ; believing at the same time that it
is never useful, except to minister to that.
Righteousness will be our rule of straightfor-
wardness, guarding us from stumbling either in
word or deed, and guiding us in the disposal
of the faculties of our soul, as well as in the
due consideration for every one we meet. The
love of gain, which is a large, incalculably
large, element in every soul, when once applied
to the desire for God, will bless the man whc
has it ; for he will be violent * where it is right
to be violent. Wisdom and prudence will be
our advisers as to our best interests ; they will
order our lives so as never to suffer from any
thoughtless folly. But suppose a man does not
apply the aforesaid faculties of the soul to their
proper use, but reverses their intended purpose ;.
suppose he wastes his love upon the basest ob-
jects, and stores up his hatred only for his own
kinsmen ; suppose he welcomes iniquity, plays
the man only against his parents, is bold only in
absurdities, fixes his hopes on emptiness, chases
prudence and wisdom from his company, takes
gluttony and folly for his mistresses, and uses
all his other opportunities in the same fashion,
he would indeed be a strange and unnatural
character to a degree beyond any one's power
to express. If we could imagine any one put-
ting his armour on all the wrong way, reversing
the helmet so as to cover his face while the
plume nodded backward, putting his feet into
the cuirass, and fitting the greaves on to his

8 aSoAefrxtct^ ToC Aoyov T15 KaTayivtiXTKOi.

9 uienrep ti ai/aflijjao ; so Gregory calls the tongue of S. Meletius
the ai'd0T)fia of Truth.

1 Gregory seems to allude to S. Matt. xi. 13.

364

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

breast, changing to the right side all that ought
to go on the left and vice versa, and how such
a hoplite would be likely to fare in battle, then
we should have an idea of the fate in life which
is sure to await him whose confused judgment
makes him reverse the proper uses of his soul's
faculties. We must therefore provide this
balance in all feeling ; the true sobriety of
mind is naturally able to supply it ; and if one
had to find an exact definition of this sobriety,
one might declare absolutely, that it amounts to
our ordered control, by dint of wisdom and
prudence, over every emotion of the soul.
Moreover, such a condition in the soul will
be no longer in need of any laborious method
to attain to the high and heavenly realities ; it
will accomplish with the greatest ease that
which erewhile seemed so unattainable ; it will
grasp the object of its search as a natural con-
sequence of rejecting the opposite attractions.
A man who comes out of darkness is neces-
sarily in the light ; a man who is not dead is
necessarily alive. Indeed, if a man is not to
have received his soul to no purpose2, he
will certainly be upon the path of truth ; the
prudence and the science employed to guard
against error will be itself a sure guidance along
the right road. Slaves who have been freed
and cease to serve their former masters, the
very moment they become their own masters,
direct all their thoughts towards themselves ;
so, I take it, the soul which has. been freed
fr?m ministering to the body becomes at once
cognizant of its own inherent energy. But this
liberty consists, as we learn from the Apostle 3,
in not again being held in the yoke of slavery,
and in not being bound again, like a runaway
or a criminal, with the fetters of marriage.
But I must return here to what I said at first ;
that the perfection of this liberty does not con-
sist only in that one point of abstaining from
marriage. Let no one suppose that the prize
of virginity is so insignificant and so easily won
as that ; as if one little observance of the flesh
could settle so vital a matter. But we have
seen that every man who doeth a sin is the
servant of sin ♦ ; so that a declension towards
vice in any act, or in any practice whatever,
makes a slave, and still more, a branded slave,
of the man, covering him through sin's lashes
with bruises and seared spots. Therefore it
behoves the man who grasps at the transcendent
aim of all virginity to be true to himself in
every respect, and to manifest his purity equally
in every relation of his life. If any of the in-
spired words are required to aid our pleading,
the Truth s Itself will be sufficient to corroborate

a eVi (ioratu) Aa3oi. Gregory evidently alludes to Ps. xxiv. 4,
and agrees with the Vulgate ' in vano acceperit."

3 GaL v. x. 4 S. John viii. 34. 5 S. John xiv. 6.

the truth when It inculcates this very kind of
teaching in the veiled meaning of a Gospel
Parable : the good and eatable fish are separ-
ated by the fishers' skill from the bad and
poisonous fish, so that the enjoyment of the
good should not be spoilt by any of the bad
getting into the " vessels " with them. The
work of true sobriety is the same ; from all
pursuits and habits to choose that which is
pure and improving, rejecting in every case
that which does not seem likely to be useful,
and letting it go back into the universal and
secular life, called " the sea 6," in the imagery of
the Parable. The Psalmist 7 also, when ex-
pounding the doctrine of a full confession 8, calls
this restless suffering tumultuous life, " waters
coming in even unto the soul," " depths of
waters," and a " hurricane " ; in which sea in-
deed every rebellious thought sinks, as the
Egyptian did, with a stone's weight into the
deeps °. But all in us that is dear to God, and
has a piercing insight into the truth (called
" Israel " in the narrative), passes, but that alone,
over that sea as if it were dry land, and is
never reached by the bitterness and the brine
of life's billows. Thus, typically, under the
leadership of the Law (for Moses was a type
of the Law that was coming) Israel passes un-
wetted over that sea, while the Egyptian who
crosses in her track is overwhelmed. Each
fares according to the disposition which he
carries with him ; one walks lightly enough,
the other is dragged into the deep water. For
virtue is a light and buoyant thing, and all who
live in her way "fly like clouds1," as Isaiah
says, "and as doves with their young ones";
but sin is a heavy affair, " sitting," as another
of the prophets says, "upon a talent of lead2."
If, however, this reading of the history appears
to any forced and inapplicable, and the miracle
at the Red Sea does not present itself to him
as written for our profit, let him listen to the
Apostle : " Now all these things happened unto
them for types, and they are written for our
admonition 3."

CHAPTER XIX.

But besides other things the action of Miriam
the prophetess also gives rise to these surmisings
of ours. Directly the sea was crossed she took
in her hand a dry and sounding timbrel and
conducted the women's dance 4. By this timbrel

6 S. Matt. xiii. 47, 48. 7 Ps. Ixix. 1.

8 HiSacrietLkiav efofioAo-yTJirecos ix/)T)yovfiefOS. ' Exod. XV. 10.

1 Is. Ix, 8. The I. XX. has irepicrrepiiv crvv vetxraoi?.

2 Zech. v. 7, " this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the
ephah : " erri p-etrov roii p.erpov (LXX.). Origen and Jerome as
well as Gregory make her sit upon the lead itself. Vatablus
explains that the lead was in an amphora.

3 i Cor. x. 11 : Rom. xv. 6. * Exod. xv. 20.

ON VIRGINITY.

365

the story may mean to imply virginity, as first
perfected by Miriam ; whom indeed I would
believe to be a type of Mary the mother of God s.
Just as the timbrel emits a loud sound because
it is devoid of all moisture and reduced to the
highest degree of dryness, so has virginity a
clear and ringing report amongst men because
it repels from itself the vital sap of merely
physical life. Thus, Miriam's timbrel being a
dead thing, and virginity being a deadening of
the bodily passions, it is perhaps not very far
removed from the bounds of probability6 that
Miriam was a virgin. However, we can but
guess and surmise, we cannot clearly prove, that
this was so, and that Miriam the prophetess led
a dance of virgins, even though many of the
learned have affirmed distinctly that she was
unmarried, from the fact that the history makes
no mention either of her marriage or of her
being a mother ; and surely she would have
been named and known, not as " the sister of
Aaron V' but from her husband, if she had had
one ; since the head of the woman is not the
brother but the husband. But if, amongst a
people with whom motherhood was sought after
and classed as a blessing and regarded as a
public duty, the grace of virginity, nevertheless,
came to be regarded as a precious thing, how
does it behove us to feel towards it, who do not
" judge " of the Divine blessings 8 " according
to the flesh " ? Indeed it has been revealed in
the oracles of God, on what occasion to conceive
and to bring forth is a good thing, and what
species of fecundity was desired by God's saints ;
for both the Prophet Isaiah and the divine
Apostle have made this clear and certain. The
one cries, " From fear of Thee, O Lord, have I
conceived';" the other boasts that he is the
parent of the largest family of any, bringing to
the birth whole cities and nations ; not the Corin-
thians and Galatians only whom by his travailings
he moulded for the Lord, but all in the wide
circuit from Jerusalem to Illyricum ; his children
filled the world, "begotten" by him in .Christ
through the Gospel r. In the same strain the
womb of the Holy Virgin, which ministered to
an Immaculate Birth, is pronounced blessed in
the Gospel2; for that birth did not annul the
Virginity, nor did the Virginity impede so great
a birth. When the " spirit of salvation 3," as

5 Si' j\rore Maria loquar, quae foeminei dux agminis pede transmisit
peHgi freta," when speaking " de gloria virginitatis."

6 tov etKoros . . . aire<rxolvi<rrai. ? Exod. xv. 20.

8 S. John viii. 15. "Ye judge after the flesh." It is Gregory's
manner to make such passing allusions to Scripture, and especially
toS. Paul.

9 Gregory here quotes from LXX. Cf. Is. xxvi. 18, and also
below, ereKOixev nveufia erwrr/pia? crov, o eTroiTJ<rajAei> en-trr)? yijs.

1 1 Cor. iv. 15 : Philemon 10. S. Luke xi. 27.

3 Is. xxvi. 18 (LXX.). See above. But R. V. " We have as it
were brought forth wind : we have not wrought any deliverance in
the earth."

Isaiah names it, is being born, the willings of
the flesh are useless. There is also a particular
teaching of the Apostle, which harmonizes with
this ; viz. each man of us is a double man*;
one the outwardly visible, whose natural fate it
is to decay ; the other perceptible only in the
secret of the heart, yet capable of renovation.
If this teaching is true, — and it must be true s
because Wisdom is speaking there, — then there
is no absurdity in supposing a double marriage
also which answers in every detail to either
man ; and, maybe, if one was to assert boldly
that the body's virginity was the co-operator and
the agent of the inward marriage, this assertion
would not be much beside the probable fact

CHAPTER XX.

Now it is impossible, as far as manual exer-
cise goes, to ply two arts at once ; for instance,
husbandry and sailing, or tinkering and car-
pentering. If one is to be honestly taken in
hand, the other must be left alone. Just so,
there are these two marriages for our choice,
the one effected in the flesh, the other in the
spirit ; and preoccupation in the one must
cause of necessity alienation from the other.
No more is the eye able to look at two objects
at once ; but it must concentrate its special atten-
tion on one at a time ; no more can the tongue
effect utterances in two different languages,
so as to pronounce, for instance, a Hebrew
word and a Greek word in the same moment ;
no more can the ear take in at one and the
same time a narrative of facts, and a hort-
atory discourse ; if each special tone is heard
separately, it will impress its ideas upon the
hearers' minds; but if they are combined and
so poured into the ear, an inextricable con-
fusion of ideas will be the result, one meaning
being mutually lost in the other : and no more,
by analogy, do our emotional powers possess
a nature which can at once pursue the pleasures
of sense and court the spiritual union ; nor,
besides, can both those ends be gained by the
same courses of life ; continence, mortification
of the passions, scorn of fleshly needs, are the
agents of the one union ; but all that are the
reverse of these are the agents of bodily co-
habitation. As, when two masters are before us
to choose between, and we cannot be subject to
both, for " no man can serve two masters6," he
who is wise will choose the one most useful to
himself, so, when two marriages are before us to
choose between, and we cannot contract both,
for " he that is unmarried cares for the things of

4 2 Cor. iv. 16.

5 Trai/TO)? Se dArjfWis, k. t. A. So Codd. Reg. and Morell., for
naa/Tutv. Gregory alludes to 2 Cor. xiii. 3. 6 S Mm. vi. 24.

366

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

the Lord, but he that is married careth for the
things of the world 7," I repeat that it would be
the aim of a sound mind not to miss choosing
the more profitable one ; and not to be ignorant
either of the way which will lead it to this, a
way which cannot be learnt but by some such
comparison as the following. In the case of a
marriage of this world a man who is anxious to
avoid appearing altogether insignificant pays the
greatest attention both to physical health, and
becoming adornment, and amplitude of means,
and the security from any disgraceful revelations
as to his antecedents or his parentage ; for so
he thinks things will be most likely to turn out
as he wishes. Now just in the same way the
man who is courting the spiritual alliance will
first of all display himself, by the renewal of his
mind 8, a young man, without a single touch of
age upon him ; next he will reveal a lineage
rich in that in which it is a noble ambition to
be rich, not priding himself on worldly wealth,
but luxuriating only in the heavenly treasures.
As for family distinction, he will not vaunt that
which comes by the mere routine of devolution
even to numbers of the worthless, but that
which is gained by the successful efforts of his
own zeal and labours ; a distinction which only
those can boast of who are " sons of the light "
and children of God, and are styled "nobles
from the sunrise 9 " because of their splendid
deeds. Strength and health he will not try to
gain by bodily training and feeding, but by all
that is the contrary of this, perfecting the spirit's
strength in the body's weakness. I could tell
also of the suitor's gifts to the bride in such a
wedding T ; they are not procured by the money
that perishes, but are contributed out of the
wealth peculiar to the soul. Would you know
their names ? You must hear from Paul, that
excellent adorner of the Bride2, in what the
wealth of those consists who in everything
commend themselves. He mentions much
else that is priceless in it, and adds, " in
chastity 3 " ; and besides this all the recognized
fruits of the spirit from any quarter whatever
are gifts of this marriage. If a man is going to
carry out the advice of Solomon and take for
helpmate and life-companion that true Wisdom
of which he says, " Love her, and she shall
keep thee," " honour her, that she may embrace
thee V'then he will prepare himself in a manner
worthy of such a love, so as to feast with all the
joyous wedding guests in spotless raiment, and

7 i Cor. vii. 32. 8 See Eph. iv. 22, 23.

9 See S. Matt. viii. 11 ; S. Luke xiii. 29. The same expression
(ev-yt fif? rwv a<f> TjAt'ou avarofUov) is used of Meletius, in Gregory's
funeral oration on him.

1 Tii i&va ToCl ya.1j.0v, i. e. given by the bridegroom. The Juris-
cunsults called it Donatio propter nuptias, or simply Donatio. The
human soul here espouses Wisdom, i. e. Christ, as its Bride. See
below, where Prov. iv. 6 is quoted.

3 yvfi<t>oo~r6\ou. 3 2 Cor. vi. 6. 4 Prov. iv. 6.

not be cast forth, while claiming to sit at that
feast, for not having put on the wedding gar-
ment. It is plain moreover that the argument
applies equally to men and women, to move
them towards such a marriage. "There is
neither male nor female 5," the Apostle says ;
" Christ is all, and in all 6 " ; and so it is equally
reasonable that he who is enamoured of wisdom
should hold the Object of his passionate desire,
Who is the True Wisdom : and that the soul
which cleaves to the undying Bridegroom should
have the fruition of her love for the true Wisdom,
which is God. We have now sufficiently re-
vealed the nature of the spiritual union, and the
Object of the pure and heavenly Love.

CHAPTER XXI.

It is perfectly clear that no one can come
near the purity of the Divine Being who has
not first himself become such ; he must there-
fore place between himself and the pleasures of
the senses a high strong wall of separation, so
that in this his approach to the Deity the purity
of his own heart may not become soiled again.
Such an impregnable wall will be found in a
complete estrangement from everything wherein
passion operates.

Now pleasure is one in kind, as we learn
from the experts ; as water parted into various,
channels from one single fountain, it spreads
itself over the pleasure-lover through the various
avenues of the senses ; so that it has been on
his heart that the man, who through any one
particular sensation succumbs to the resulting
pleasure, has received a wound from that sensa-
tion. This accords with the teaching given
from the Divine lips, that " he who has satisfied
the lust of the eyes has received the mischief
already in his heart 7 " ; for I take it that our
Lord was speaking in that particular example
of any of the senses ; so that we might well
carry on His saying, and add, " He who hath
heard, to lust after," and what follows, " He
who hath touched to lust after," " He who hath
lowered any faculty within us to the service of
pleasure, hath sinned in his heart."

To prevent this, then, we want to apply to
our own lives that rule of all temperance, never
to let the mind dwell on anything wherein
pleasure's bait is hid ; but above all to be
specially watchful against the pleasure of taste.
For that seems in a way the most deeply
rooted, and to be the mother as it were of all
forbidden enjoyment. The pleasures of eating
and drinking, leading to boundless excess, in-
flict upon the body the doom of the most

5 Gal. .1

t Col. lii. 1 j.

7 S. Malt. v. 28.

ON VIRGINITY.

3rV

dreadful sufferings 3 ; for over-indulgence is the
parent of most of the painful diseases. To
secure for the body a continuous tranquillity,
unstirred by the pains of surfeit, we must
make up our minds to a more sparing regimen,
and constitute the need of it on each occasion,
not the pleasure of it, as the measure and
limit of our indulgence. If the sweetness will
nevertheless mingle itself with the satisfaction
of the need (for hunger knows how to sweeten
everything 9, and by the vehemence of appetite
she gives the zest of pleasure to every dis-
coverable supply of the need), we must not
because of the resulting enjoyment reject the
satisfaction, nor yet make this latter our leading
aim. In everything we must select the ex-
pedient quantity, and leave untouched what
merely feasts the senses r.

CHAPTER XXII.

We see how the husbandmen have a method
for separating the chaff, which is united with
the wheat, with a view to employ each for its
proper purpose, the one for the sustenance of
man, the other for burning and the feeding of
animals. The labourer in the field of temper-
ance will in like manner distinguish the satis-
faction from the mere delight, and will fling this
latter nature to savages2 "whose end is to be
burned 3," as the Apostle says, but will take the
other, in proportion to the actual need, with
thankfulness. Many, however, slide into the
very opposite kind of excess, and unconsciously
to themselves, in their over-preciseness, labori-
ously thwart their own design ; they let their
soul fall down the other side from the heights
of Divine elevation to the level of dull thoughts
and occupations, where their minds are so bent
upon regulations which merely affect the body,
that they can no longer walk in their heavenly
freedom and gaze above ; their only inclination
is to this tormenting and afflicting of the flesh.
It would be well, then, to give this also careful
thought, so as to be equally on our guard against
either over-amount 4, neither stifling the mind
beneath the wound of the flesh, nor, on the
other hand, by gratuitously inflicted weakenings

8 avayKrjv tyuroiouox rutv aBovKriTiav kok£>v, jrArjoytOfijs cot to
iroAAd «TucTou<r»)s, »c. t. K., removing the comma from ir\7)<r/ioiWj?
(Paris Edit.) to kokup.

9 Cf. Cicero, 2 De Fin. Bon. : " Socratem audio dicentem cibi
condimentum esse famem ; potionis sitim ; " so Antiphanes (apud
Stobaeum), o.Tra.v9 6 Aifj.6? ykvicea, ir\.T)i> avrov, Troiec.

1 Kara to Trportyovp.evov, principaliter. Cf. Clem. Alexand.
Strom., ra bi'6fj.ara o~up.Boka Ttov votih&tiov Kara, to irporryou/u.ei'oi',
t. e. of general concepts.

2 Tots aAoywTe'pois. Fronto Ducaeus translates "bardis objiciat,"
i.e. "savages," not "beasts."

3 Heb. vi. 8. " The Apostle" here is to be noticed. The same
teaching, as to there being no necessity for pleasure, is found in
Clement of Alexandria. He says it is not our o-kotto?, 2 Peed. c. i.
and 2 Strom., Ka06\ov yap ovk avayicilov t> ttjs r)Sovr]<; naBos,
kiraxoKo<Siy.ov 8e \petat5 Tai? (pucrLKais, k.t.A..

* €7rifieTpi'as. Cf. eV im.fi.tTpu>, Polyb., " into the bargain."

sapping and lowering the powers, so that it
can have no thought but of the body's pain 5 ;
and let every one remember that wise precept,
which warns us from turning to the right hand
or to the left. I have heard a certain physician
of my acquaintance, in the course of explaining
the secrets of his art, say that our body consists
of four elements, not of the same species, but
disposed to be conflicting ; yet the hot penetrated
the cold, and an equally unexpected union of
the wet and the dry took place, the contra-
dictories of each pair being brought into con-
tact by their relationship to the intervening pair.
He added an extremely subtle explanation of
this account of his studies in nature. Each of
these elements was in its essence diimetrically**
opposed to its contradictory ; but then it had
two other qualities lying on each side of it, and
by virtue of its kinship with them it came into
contact with its contradictory ; for example,
the cold and the hot each unite with the wet,
or the dry ; and again, the wet and the dry
each unite with the hot, or the cold : and so
this sameness of quality, when it manifests itself
in contradictories, is itself the agent which
affects the union of those contradictories.
What business of mine, however, is it to
explain exactly the details of this change from
this mutual separation and repugnance of nature,
to this mutual union through the medium of
kindred qualities, except for the purpose for
which we mentioned it ? And that purpose
was to add that the author of this analysis of
the body's constitution advised that all possible
care be taken to preserve a balance between
these properties, for that in fact health consisted
in not letting any one of them gain the mastery
within us. If his doctrine has truth in it, then,
for our health's continuance, we must secure
such a habit, and by no irregularity of diet
produce either an excess or a defect in any
member of these our constituent elements.
The chariot-master, if the young horses which
he has to drive will not work well together, does
not urge a fast one with the whip, and rein in a
slow one ; nor, again, does he let a horse that

5 ical mpi rovs (TtaixaTLKoin! jroeous r)<TXokrni.4vov (»". e. " busied ") :
Galesinius' translation must here be wrong, "ad corporis labore*
prorsus inutilem."

6 Cold. Dry.

Wet.

Hot

Cold can unite with Wet or Dry which " lie on each side of" it,
and are "kindred " to it : and so through one or the other (which
are also " kindred " to Hot) can come "in contact with " Hot. (So
of all ) A wet thing becomes the medium in which both cold and
heat can be manifested.

368

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

shies in the traces or is hard-mouthed gallop
his own way to the confusion of orderly driving ;
but he quickens the pace of the first, checks the
second, reaches the third with cuts of his whip,
till he has made them all breathe evenly to-
gether in a straight career. Now our mind in
like manner holds in its grasp the reins of this
chariot of the body ; and in that capacity it
will not devise, in the time of youth, when heat
of temperament is abundant, ways of heightening
that fever ; nor will it multiply the cooling and
the thinning things when the body is already
chilled by illness or by time ; and in the case
of all these physical qualities it will be guided
by the Scripture, so as actually to realize it :
" He that gathered much had nothing over ;
and he that had gathered little had no lack ?."
It will curtail immoderate lengths in either
direction, and so will be careful to replenish
where there is much lack. The inefficiency of
the body from either cause will be that which it
guards against; it will train the flesh, neither
making it wild and ungovernable by excessive
pampering, nor sickly and unstrung and nerve-
less for the required work by immoderate
mortification. That is temperance's highest
aim ; it looks not to the afflicting of the body,
but to the peaceful action of the soul's functions.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Now the details of the life of him who has
chosen to live in such a philosophy as this, the
things to be avoided, the exercises to be en-
gaged in, the rules of temperance, the whole
method of the training, and all the daily regimen
which contributes towards this great end, has
been dealt with in certain written manuals of
instruction for the benefit of those who love
details. Yet there is a plainer guide to be
found than verbal instruction ; and that is
practice: and there is nothing vexatious in
the maxim that when we are undertaking a
long journey or voyage we should get an in-
structor. " But," says the Apostle 8, " the word
is nigh thee ; " the grace begins at home ;
there is the manufactory of all the virtues ;
there this life has become exquisitely refined
by a continual progress towards consummate
perfection ; there, whether men are silent or
whether they speak, there is large opportunity
for being instructed in this heavenly citizen-
ship through the actual practice of it. Any
theory divorced from living examples, however
admirably it may be dressed out, is like the

1 eAorroi^oT) (for LXX. Exod. xvi. 18, and also 2 Cor. viii. 15,
have i\(mo\H\atv\ not iKarrioaj) with Livineius.

8 Rom. x. 8 : fyV'S irov to pw» earif, tv rw errd/maTt <rov «rai tv
rfj KtLp&ta (row. Cf. Deut. xxx. 14.

unbreathing statue, with its show of a blooming,
complexion impressed in tints and colours ;.
but the man who acts as well as teaches, as the
Gospel tells us, he is the man who is truly
living, and has the bloom of beauty, and is
efficient and stirring. It is to him that we must
go, if we mean, according to the saying 9 of
Scripture, to "retain" virginity. One who wants
to learn a foreign language is not a competent
instructor of himself; he gets himself taught by
experts, and can then talk with foreigners. So,
for this high life, which does not advance in
nature's groove, but is estranged from her by
the novelty of its course, a man cannot be in-
structed thoroughly unless he puts himself into
the hands of one who has himself led it in per-
fection ; and indeed in all the other professions
of life the candidate is more likely to achieve
success if he gets from tutors a scientific know-
ledge of each part of the subject of his choice,
than if he undertook to study it by himself ;
and this particular profession * is not one where
everything is so clear that judgment as to our
best course in it is necessarily left to ourselves ;
it is one where to hazard a step into the
unknown at once brings us into danger. The
science of medicine once did not exist ; it has
come into being by the experiments which men
have made, and has gradually been revealed
through their various observations ; the healing
and the harmful drug became known from the
attestation of those who had tried them, and this
distinction was adopted into the theory of the
art, so that the close observation of former prac-
titioners became a precept for those who suc-
ceeded; and now anyone who studies to attain
this art is under no necessity to ascertain at his
own peril the power of any drug, whether it be
a poison or a medicine ; he has only to learn
from others the known facts, and may then
practise with success. It is so also with that
medicine of the soul, philosophy, from which
we learn the remedy for every weakness that
can touch the soul. We need not hunt after
a knowledge of these remedies by dint of
guess-work and surmisings ; we have abundant
means of learning them from him who by a long
and rich experience has gained the possession
which we seek. In any matter youth is generally
a giddy 2 guide ; and it would not be easy to

9 Kcrra rbv epowTa Xoyov (Codd. Reg. and Mor. aipovvra). This
alludes to Prov iii. 18, rather than Prov iv; 6.

1 ov yip ivapyes «<tti to ennri&tvua. touto, uxrrf tear' avdyityv,
k.t.A. The alternative reading is iv ap\aU- It has been suggested
to read, St* yap . . . tot* (for touto). and understand an aposiopesis
in the next sentence ; thus—" For when our undertaking is clear
and simple, then we must entrust to ourselves the decision of what
is best. But when the attempt at the unknown is not unattended
with risk— (then we want a guide)." Billius. But this is very
awkward.

' Livineius had conjectured that «7r«<r<£aAi)s must be supplied,
from a quotation of th s pa-sage in Antonins Monachus, Srntentier,
term. 20, and in Abbas Maximus. Capita, serm. 41 ; and this is
confirmed by Codd. Reg and Morell.

ON VIRGINITY.

3O9

find anything of importance succeeding, in
which gray hairs have not been called in to
share in the deliberations. Even in all other
undertakings we must, in proportion to their
greater importance, take the more precaution
against failure ; for in them too the thoughtless
designs of youth have brought loss ; on property,
for instance ; or have compelled the surrender
of a position in the world, and even of renown.
But in this mighty and sublime ambition it is
not property, or secular glory lasting for its
hour, or any external fortune, that is at stake ;
— of such things 3, whether they settle themselves
well or the reverse, the wise take small account; —
here rashness can affect the soul itself ; and we
run the awful hazard, not of losing any of those
other things whose recovery even may perhaps
be possible, but of ruining our very selves and
making the soul a bankrupt. A man who has
spent or lost his patrimony does not despair, as
long as he is in the land of the living, of per-
chance coming again through contrivances into
his former competence ; but the man who has
ejected himself from this calling, deprives him-
self as well of all hope of a return to better
things. Therefore, since most embrace virginity
while still young and unformed in understand-
ing, this before anything else should be their
employment, to search out a fitting guide and
master of this way, lest, in their present ignor-
ance, they should wander from the direct route,
and strike out new paths of their own in track-
less wilds 4. " Two are better than one," says
the Preacher s ; but a single one is easily van-
quished by the foe who infests the path which
leads to God ; and verily " woe to him that is
alone when he falleth, for he hath not another
to help him up 6." Some ere now in their en-
thusiasm for the stricter life have shown a
dexterous alacrity ; but, as if in the very moment
of their choice they had already touched per-
fection, their pride has had a shocking fall7, and
they have been tripped up from madly deluding
themselves into thinking that that to which
their own mind inclined them was the true
beauty. In this number are those whom Wisdom
calls the "slothful ones8," who bestrew their
"way" with "thorns"; who think it a moral loss
to be anxious about keeping the commandments ;
who erase from their own minds the Apostolic
teaching, and instead of eating the bread of their
own honest earning fix on that of others, and
make their idleness itself into an art of living.

3 u)v teat. Kara yvu>fjLrjv k<ll cos CT€pu>s SiOiKOVfjL€i/ojv oAryos tois
<ri0<t>povov<Tiv 6 A6705. The Latin here has " quas quidem res ego
sane despicio, exiguamque harum tanquam extrinsecus venientium,"
&c. ; evidently KaTayi/oiTje must have been in the text used.

4 apoScas rivas Kau'OTO/xijcrcoo'ii' (ai>oSia, apoStacs, is frequent in
Polybjus ; the word is not found elsewhere in other cases).

5 Ecclesiastes iv. 9.

6 Ecclesiastes iv. 10. Gregory supports the Vulgate, which has
"quia cum ceciderit, non habet sublevantem se."

7 eJTepu) »rTco/uaTi, euphemistically. 8 Prov. xv. 19.

VOL. V. £

From this number, too, come the Dreamers, who
put more faith in the illusions of their dreams 9
than in the Gospel teaching, and style their own
phantasies "revelations." Hence, too, those who
" creep into the houses " ; and again others who
suppose virtue to consist in savage bearishness,
and have never known the fruits of long-suffer-
ing and humility of spirit. Who could enumer-
ate all the pitfalls into which any one might
slip, from refusing to have recourse to men of
godly celebrity ? Why, we have known ascetics
of this class who have persisted in their fasting
even unto death, as if "with such sacrifices God
were well pleased1 ;" and, again, others who rush
off into the extreme diametrically opposite,
practising celibacy in name only and leading a
life in no way different from the secular; for
they not only indulge in the pleasures of the
table, but are openly known to have a woman
in their houses2; and they call such a friendship
a brotherly affection, as if, forsooth, they could
veil their own thought, which is inclined to evil,
under a sacred term. It is owing to them that
this pure and holy profession of virginity is
" blasphemed amongst the Gentiles 3."

CHAPTER XXIV.

It would therefore be to their profit, for the
young to refrain from laying down « for them-
selves their future course in this profession ; and
indeed, examples of holy lives for them to
follow are not wanting in the living generation 5.
Now, if ever before, saintliness abounds and
penetrates our world ; by gradual advances it
has reached the highest mark of perfectness ;
and one who follows such footsteps in his daily
rounds may catch this halo ; one who tracks
the scent of this preceding perfume may be
drenched in the sweet odours of Christ Himself.
As, when one torch has been fired, flame is trans-
mitted to all the neighbouring candlesticks, with-
out either the first light being lessened or blazing
with unequal brilliance on the other points
where it has been caught ; so the saintliness of
a life is transmitted from him who has achieved
it, to those who come within his circle ; for there

9 The alternative reading is tuiv (fypCwv ; but bveipuiv is confirmed
by three of the Codd. Cf Theodoret, lib. 4, Haretic. fab , of the
Messaliani ; and lib. 4, Ilistor. c. 10, virvu hi <r<j>as aiiTOus.
citSi'SofTes Tas tcoi> oveiputv tpavracrtas irpo(j>r)Te i'as dwofcaAoueri.

1 Heb. xiii. 16.

2 See Chrysostom, Lib. npbs tovs trvveitrcucTovs exoiras.

3 t£>v t£u>0fv. Cf. Rom. ii. 24.

4 The negative (p-r; i/o/u.ofleTeiv) is found in Codd. Reg. and
Morell. •

5 rqv $tor\v. So /3i'os also is used in Greek after 2nd century.
" They (the monks) make little show in history before the reign of
Valens(A.D. 364). Paul of Thebes, Hilanon of Gaza, and even the
great Antony, are only characters in the novels of the day. Now,
however, there was in the East a real movement towards monas-
ticism. All parties favoured it. The Semi-arians were busy inside
Mt. Taurus ; and though Acacians and Anomceans held more aloof,
they could not escape an influence which even Julian felt. But the
Nicene party was the home of the ascetics." Gwatkin's Ariatis.

370

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

is truth in the Prophet's saying 6, that one who
lives with a man who is "holy" and "clean"
and " elect," will become such himself. If you
would wish to know the sure signs, which will
secure you the real model, it is not hard to take
a sketch from life. If you see a man so standing
between death and life, as to select from each
helps for the contemplative course, never letting
death's stupor paralyze his zeal to keep all the
commandments, nor yet placing both feet in the
world of the living, since he has weaned himself
from secular ambitions ; — a man who remains
more insensate than the dead themselves to
everything that is found on examination to be
living for the flesh, but instinct with life and
energy and strength in the achievements of
virtue, which are the sure marks of the spiritual
life ; — then look to that man for the rule of
your life ; let him be the leading light of your
course of devotion, as the constellations that
never set are to the pilot ; imitate his youth
and his gray hairs : or, rather, imitate the old
man and the stripling who are joined in him ;
for even now in his declining years time has
not blunted the keen activity of his soul, nor
was his youth active in the sphere of youth's
well-known employments ; in both seasons of
life he has shown a wonderful combination of
opposites, or rather an exchange of the peculiar
qualities of each ; for in age he shows, in
the direction of the good, a young man's
energy, while, in the hours of youth, in the
direction of evil, his passions were powerless.
If you wish to know what were the passions of
that glorious youth of his, you will have for
your imitation the intensity and glow of his god-
like love of wisdom, which grew with him from
his childhood, and has continued with him into
his old age. But if you cannot gaze upon him,
as the weak-sighted cannot gaze upon the sun,
at all events watch that band of holy men who
are ranged beneath him, and who by the illu-
mination of their lives are a model for this age.
God has placed them as a beacon for us who
live around ; many among them have been
young men there in their prime, and have grown
gray in the unbroken practice of continence and
temperance ; they were old in reasonableness
before their time, and in character outstripped
their years. The only love they tasted was that
of wisdom ; not that their natural instincts were
different from the rest ; for in all alike " the
flesh lusteth against the spirit 7 ; " but they
listened to some purpose to him who said that
Temperance "is a tree of life to them that lay hold
upon her8 ;" and they sailed across the swelling
billows of existence upon this tree of life, as
upon a skiff, and anchored in the haven of the

6 Ps. xviii. 25, a6(LXX).

7 Gal. v. 17

8 Prov. iii. 18 ; but said of Wisdom.

will of God ; enviable now after so fair a voyage,
they rest their souls in that sunny cloudless
calm. They now ride safe themselves at the
anchor of a good hope, far out of reach of the
tumult of the billows ; and for others who will
follow they radiate the splendour of their "lives
as beacon-fires on some high watch-tower. We
have indeed a mark to guide us safely over the
ocean of temptations ; and why make the too
curious inquiry, whether some with such thoughts
as these have not fallen nevertheless, and why
therefore despair, as if the achievement was be-
yond your reach ? Look on him who has suc-
ceeded, and boldly launch upon the voyage with
confidence that it will be prosperous, and sail
on under the breeze of the Holy Spirit with
Christ your pilot and with the oarage of good
cheer 9. For those who "go down to the sea
in ships and occupy their business in great
waters " do not let the shipwreck that has be-
fallen some one else prevent their being of good
cheer ; they rather shield their hearts in this
very confidence, and so sweep on to accomplish
their successful feat. Surely it is the most
absurd thing in the world to reprobate him who
has slipped in a course which requires the
greatest nicety, while one considers those who
all their lives have been growing old in failures
and in errors, to have chosen the better part. If
one single approach to sin is such an awful
thing that you deem it safer not to take in hand
at all this loftier aim, how much more awful a
thing it is to make sin the practice of a whole
life, and to remain thereby absolutely ignorant
of the purer course ! How can you in your full
life obey the Crucified ? How can you, hale in
sin, obey Him Who died to sin ? How can
you, who are not crucified to the world, and will
not accept the mortification of the flesh, obey
Him Who bids you follow after Him, and Who
bore the Cross in His own body, as a trophy
from the foe ? How can you obey Paul when
he exhorts you " to present your body a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God1," when you
are " conformed to this world," and not trans-
formed by the renewing of your mind, when
you are not " walking " in this " newness of life,"
but still pursuing the routine of "the old man"?
How can you be a priest unto God 2, anointed
though you are for this very office, to offer a
gift to God ; a gift in no way another's, no
counterfeited gift from sources outside yourself,
but a gift that is really your own, namely, " the
inner man 3," who must be perfect and blameless,
as it is required of a lamb to be without spot or
blemish ? How can you offer this to God, when
you do not listen to the law forbidding the

9 tu< 7rr)8aAi'u) ttjs f\«frpo<rvin)<; l Rom. xii. I, I ; vi 4.

1 Gregory alludes to Rev. i. 6 : iwoirjaev ^fias- flaaikels «ai tejxtt
Ta> 0eu> K<ii Trarpt auTOU. 3 Eph. ill. 16.

ON VIRGINITY.

37i

unclean to offer sacrifices ? If you long for God
to manifest Himself to you, why do you not
hear Moses, when he commands the people to
be pure from the stains of marriage, that they
may take in the vision of God 4 ? If this all
seems little in your eyes, to be crucified with
Christ, to present yourself a sacrifice to God, to
become a priest unto the most high God, to
make yourself worthy of the vision of the Al-
mighty, what higher blessings than these can
we imagine for you, if indeed you make light
of the consequences of these as well? And the
consequence of being crucified with Christ is that
we shall live with Him, and be glorified with
Him, and reign with Him; and the consequence
of presenting ourselves to God is that we shall
be changed from the rank of human nature and
human dignity to that of Angels ; for so speaks
Daniel, that " thousand thousands stood before
him s." He too who has taken his share in the
true priesthood and placed himself beside the
Great High Priest remains altogether himself a
priest for ever, prevented for eternity from

4 Exod. xix. 15.

S Dan. vii (A

remaining any more in death. To say, again,
that one makes oneself worthy to see God,
produces no less a result than this ; that one is
made worthy to see God. Indeed, the crown
of every hope, and of every desire, of every
blessing, and of every promise of God, and of
all those unspeakable delights which we believe
to exist beyond our perception and our know-
ledge,— the crowning result of them all, I say,
is this. Moses longed earnestly to see it, and
many prophets and kings have desired to see
the same : but the only class deemed worthy
of it are the pure in heart, those who are, and
are named " blessed," for this very reason, that
"they shall see God6." Wherefore we would
that you too should become crucified with
Christ, a holy priest standing before God, a
pure offering in all chastity, preparing yourself
by your own holiness for God's coming ; that
you also may have a pure heart in which to
see God, according to the promise of God, and
of our Saviour Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory
for ever and ever. Amen.

* S. Matt. w.

B B 2

ON INFANTS' EARLY DEATHS'.

Every essayist and every pamphleteer will
nave you, most Excellent, to display his elo-
quence upon ; your wondrous qualities will be
a broad race-course wherein he may expatiate.
A noble and suggestive subject in able hands
has indeed a way of making a grander style,
lifting it to the height of the great reality. We,
however, like an aged horse, will remain outside
this proposed race-course, only turning the ear
to listen for the contest waged in celebrating
your praises, if the sound of any literary car
careering in full swing through such wonders
may reach us. But though old age may com-
pel a horse to remain away from the race, it
may often happen that the din of the trampling
racers rouses him into excitement, that he lifts
his head with eager looks, that he shows his
spirit in his breathings, and prances and paws
the ground frequently, though this eagerness is
all that is left to him, and time has sapped his
powers of going. In the same way our pen
remains outside the combat, and age compels it
to yield the course to the professors who flourish
now ; nevertheless its eagerness to join the con-
test about you survives, and that it can still evince,
even though these stylists who flourish now
are at the height of their powers 2. But none of
this display of my enthusiasm for you has any-
thing to do with sounding your own praises :
no style, however nervous and well-balanced,
would easily succeed there ; so that any one,
who attempted to describe that embarrassing
yet harmonious mixture of opposites in your
character, would inevitably be left far behind
your real worth. Nature, indeed, by throwing
out the shade of the eye-lashes before the glar-
ing rays, brings to the eyes themselves a weaker
light, and so the sunlight becomes tolerable to
us, mingling as it does, in quantities propor-

1 This treatise is written for Hierius, in Gregory's old age.
It has been thought to be spurious (Oudin, p. 605), because
"I I'ronto Ducaeus' insertion (p. 374) about the Purgatorial Fire.
But Tillemont, Sem'er, and Schroeckh have shown that there are
no grounds for this opinion. Anastasius Sinaita mentions it (Quasi.
xvi.).

2 eiircp ^/3u><7ti/ oi (caro tovs viv rots \6yots aKiid^omes- The
Latin translator Laurent. Sifanus, I. U. Doct. (Basle, 1562), must

liad a different text to this of the Paris Edit. : "si quidem ita
floreret utqui nunc eloquentia vigent."

tionate to our need, with the shadows which
the lashes cast. Just so the grandeur and the
greatness of your character, tempered by your
modesty and humbleness of mind, instead of
blinding the beholder's eye, makes the sight on
the contrary a pleasurable one ; wherein this
humbleness of mind does not occasion the
splendour of the greatness to be dimmed, and
its latent force to be overlooked ; but the one
is to be noticed in the other, the humility of
your character in its elevation, and the grandeur
reversely in the lowliness. Others must describe
all this; and extol, besides, the many-sighted-
ness of your mind. Your intellectual eyes are
indeed as numerous, it may perhaps be said, as
the hairs of the head ; their keen unerring gaze
is on everything alike ; the distant is foreseen ;
the near is not unnoticed ; they do not wait for
experience to teach expedience ; they see with
Hope's insight, or else with that of Memory ;
they scan the present all over ; first on one
thing, then on another, but without confusing
them, your mind works with the same energy
and with the amount of attention that is re-
quired. Another, too, must record his admira-
tion of the way in which poverty is made rich
by you ; if indeed any one is to be found in
this age of ours who will make that a subject of
praise and wonder. Yet surely now, if never
before, the love of poverty will through you
abound, and your ingotten wealth 3 will be envied
above the ingots of Croesus. For whom has sea
and land, with all the dower of their natural
produce, enriched, as thy rejection of worldly
abundance has enriched thee ? They wipe the
stain from steel and so make it shine like
silver : so has the gleam of thy life grown
brighter, ever carefully cleansed from the rust
of wealth. We leave that to those who can
enlarge upon it, and also upon your excellent
knowledge of the things in which it is more
glorious to gain than to abstain from gain.
Grant me, however, leave to say, that you do

3 irAii/floTijs, playing upon ir\ivduiv just above : a word seemingly
peculiar to Gregory. We cannot help thinking here of Plato's
definition of the good man, Ttrpd-yiuros avtv ipuyov : though the idea
here is that of richness rather than shape.

ON INFANTS' EARLY DEATHS.

3/" 3

not despise all acquisitions ; that there are some
which, though none of your predecessors has
been able to clutch, yet you and you alone have
seized with both your hands ; for, instead of
dresses and slaves and money, you have and hold
the very souls of men, and store them in the
treasure-house of your love. The essayists and
pamphleteers, whose glory comes from such laud-
ations, will go into these matters. But our pen,
veteran as it now is, is to rouse itself only so far as
to go at a foot's pace through the problem which
your wisdom has proposed ; namely, this — what
we are to think of those who are taken pre-
maturely, the moment of whose birth almost
coincides with that of their death. The cul-
tured heathen Plato spoke, in the person of one
who had come to life again 4, much philosophy
about the judgment courts in that other world ;
but he has left this other question a mystery, as
ostensibly too great for human conjecture to be
employed upon. If, then, there is anything in
these lucubrations of ours that is of a nature to
clear up the obscurities of this question, you
will doubtless welcome the new account of it ;
if otherwise, you will at all events excuse this
in old age, and accept, if nothing else, our wish
to afford you some degree of pleasure. History s
says that Xerxes, that great prince who had
made almost every land under the sun into one
vast camp, and roused with his own designs the
whole world, when he was marching against the
Greeks received with delight a poor man's gift ;
and that gift was water, and that not in a jar,
but carried in the hollow of the palm of his
hand. So do you, of your innate generosity,
follow his example ; to him the will made the
gift, and our gift may be found in itself but a
poor watery thing. In the case of the wonders
in the heavens, a man sees their beauty equally,
whether he is trained to watch them, or whether
he gazes upwards with an unscientific eye ; but
the feeling towards them is not the same in the
man who comes from philosophy to their con-
templation, and in him who has only his senses
of perception to commit them to; the latter
may be pleased with the sunlight, or deem the
beauty of stars worthy of his wonder, or have
watched the stages of the moon's course through-
' out the month ; but the former, who has the soul-
insight, and whose training has enlightened him
so as to comprehend the phenomena of the
heavens, leaves unnoticed all these things which
delight the senses of the more unthinking, and
looks at the harmony of the whole, inspecting
the concert which results even from opposite
movements in the circular revolutions ; how the
inner circles of these turn the contrary way to

4 i. e. Er the Armenian. See Plato, Repub. x. § 614, &c.

5 An anecdote resembling what follows, but not quite the same,
is told of Xerxes in ./Elian's Var. Hist. xii. 40. Erasmus also
refers to it in his Adagio..

that in which the fixed stars are carried round b ;
how those of the heavenly bodies to be observe <1
in these inner circles are variously grouped in
their approachments and divergements, their
disappearances behind each other and their
flank movements, and yet effect always precisely
in the same way that notable and never-ending
harmony ; of which those are conscious who do
not overlook the position of the tiniest star, and
whose minds, by training domiciled above, pay
equal attention to them all. In the same way
do you, a precious life to me, watch the Divine
economy ; leaving those objects which unceas-
ingly occupy the minds of the crowd, wealth, I
mean, and luxury ? and vain-glory — things which
like sunbeams flashing in their faces dazzle the
unthinking — you will not pass without inquiry
the seemingly most trivial questions in the
world ; for you do most carefully scrutinize the
inequalities in human lives ; not only with re-
gard to wealth and penury, and the differences
of position and descent (for you know that they
are as nothing, and that they owe their exist-
ence not to any intrinsic reality, but to the
foolish estimate of those who are struck with
nonentities, as if they were actual things ; and
that if one were only to abstract from somebody
who glitters with glory the blind adoration 8 of
those who gaze at him, nothing would be left
him after all the inflated pride which elates him,
even though the whole mass of the world's
riches were buried in his cellars), but it is one
of your anxieties to know, amongst the other
intentions of each detail of the Divine govern-
ment, wherefore it is that, while the life of one
is lengthened into old age, another has only so
far a portion of it as to breathe the air with one
gasp, and die. If nothing in this world happens
without God, but all is linked to the Divine
will, and if the Deity is skilful and prudential,
then it follows necessarily that there is some
plan in these things bearing the mark of His
wisdom, and at the same time of His provi-
dential care. A blind unmeaning occurrence
can never be the work of God ; for it is the
property of God, as the Scripture says °, to
" make all things in wisdom." What wisdom,
then, can we trace in the following ? A human
being enters on the scene of life, draws in the
air, beginning the process of living with a cry
of pain, pays the tribute of a tear to Nature r,
just tastes life's sorrows, before any of its sweets
have been his, before his feelings have gained

6 T)7 o.nka.vf'i nepupopu This is of course the Ptolemaic system
which had already been in vogue two centuries. Sun, and moon,
and all, were "planets" round the earth as a centre: until the
8th sphere, in which the stars were fixed, was reached ; and
above this was the crystalline sphere, under the -firimum mobile.
Cf. Milton, Par. Lost, iii. 481 : " They pass the planets seven, and
pass \\\ttjix'd; " and see note p. 257.

7 Reading Tpv(pr;v. The Paris Edit has n''<t>ov.

8 tijc niiijcrif. 9 ps. civ. 24. * eAeiTOiipyijtre to Sdicpvov.

374

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

any strength ; still loose in all his joints, tender,
pulpy, unset; in a word, before he is even
human (if the gift of reason is man's peculiarity,
and he has never had it in him), such an one,
with no advantage over the embryo in the
womb except that he has seen the air, so short-
lived, dies and goes to pieces again ; being
either exposed or suffocated, or else of his own
accord ceasing to live from weakness. What
are we to think about him ? How are we to
feel about such deaths ? Will a soul such as
that behold its Judge? Will it stand with the
rest before the tribunal ? Will it undergo its
trial for deeds done in life ? Will it receive the
just recompense by being purged, according to
the Gospel utterances, in fire, or refreshed with
the dew of blessing 2 ? But I do not see how
we can imagine that, in the case of such a soul.
The word " retribution " implies that something
must have been previously given ; but he who
has not lived at all has been deprived of the
material from which to give anything. There
being, then, no retribution, there is neither good
nor evil left to expect. " Retribution " purports
to be the paying back of one of these two
qualities ; but that which is to be found neither
in the category of good nor that of bad is in no
category at all ; for this antithesis between good
and bad is an opposition that admits no middle ;
and neither will come to him who has not made
a beginning with either of them. What there-
fore falls under neither of these heads may be
said not even to have existed. But if some one
says that such a life does not only exist, but exists
as one of the good ones, and that God gives,
though He does not repay, what is good to such,
we may ask what sort of reason he advances for
this partiality ; how is justice apparent in such
a view ; how will he prove his idea in concord-
ance with the utterances in the Gospels ? There
(the Master) says, the acquisition of the King-
dom comes to those who are deemed worthy of

2 There is introduced at these words in the text of the Paris
Edition the following '* Explicatio," in Greek. " Here it is manifest
that the father means by the ' purging fire ' the torments and
agonies suffered by those who having sinned have not completed a
worthy and adequate repentance, according to the Gospel parable
of the Rich Man and Lazarus. For it is clear that he is thinking
of this paiable when he says, ' either purged in fire ' (». e. the Rich
Man), ' or refreshed with the dew of blessing ' [i, e. Lazarus). But
that sentence of the Judgment, 'They shall go, these into ever-
lasting punishment, but the just into life everlasting,' has no place
asyet\n these sufferings." In other words, the commentator sees
here the doctrine of Purgatory, as held by the Roman Church.
And when we compare the other passages in Gregory about the
" cleansing fire," especially that De Anima et Resurrectione, 247 B,
we shall see that he contemplates the judgment (" the incorruptible
tribunal ") as coming not only after the Resurrection, but also after
the chastising process. Not till the Judgment will the moral value
of each lile be revealed ; the chastising is a purely natural process.
But then the belief in a Judgment coming after everything rather
contradicts the Universalism with which he has been charged, for
what necessity would there be for it, if the chastising was successful
in every instance? With regard to the nature of this "fire," it is
spiritual or material with hiin according to the context. The in-
visible natures will be punished with the one. the visible (i. e. the
World) with the other : although this destruction is not always
pieserved by him. See E Moeller (on Gregory's Doctrine on
Human Nature), p. 100.

it, as a matter of exchange. " When ye have
done such and such things, then it is right that
ye get the Kingdom as a reward." But in this
case there is no act of doing or of willing be-
forehand, and so what occasion is there for
saying that these will receive from God any
expected recompense? If one unreservedly
accepts a statement such as that, to the effect
that any so passing into life will necessarily be
classed amongst the good, it will dawn upon
him then that not partaking in life at all will be
a happier state than living, seeing that in the
one case the enjoyment of good is placed be-
yond a doubt even with barbarian parentage, or
a conception from a union not legitimate ; but
he who has lived the span ordinarily possible to
Nature gets the pollution of evil necessarily
mingled more or less with his life, or, if he is
to be quite outside this contagion, it will be at
the price of much painful effort. For virtue is
achieved by its seekers not without a struggle ;
nor is abstinence from the paths of pleasure a
painless process to human nature. So that one
of two probations must be the inevitable fate of
him who has had the longer lease of life ; either
to combat here on Virtue's toilsome field, or
to suffer there the painful recompense of a life
of evil. But in the case of infants prematurely
dying there is nothing of that sort ; but they
pass to the blessed lot at once, if those who
take this view of the matter speak true. It
follows also necessarily from this that a state of
unreason is preferable to having reason, and
virtue will thereby be revealed as of no value :
if he who has never possessed it suffers no loss,
so, as regards the enjoyment of blessedness, the
labour to acquire it will be useless folly ; the
unthinking condition will be the one that comes
out best from God's judgment. For these and
such-like reasons you bid me sift the matter,
with a view to our getting, by dint of a closely-
reasoned inquiry, some firm ground on which
to rest our thoughts about it.

For my part, in view of the difficulties of the
subject proposed, I think the exclamation of
the Apostle very suitable to the present case,
just as he uttered it over unfathomable ques-
tions : " O the depth of the riches both of
the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how un-
searchable are His judgments, and His ways
past finding out ! For who hath known the
mind of the Lord 3 ? " But seeing on the other
hand that that Apostle declares it to be a
peculiarity of him that is spiritual to "judge
all things*," and commends those who have
been "enriched5" by the Divine grace "in
all utterance and in all knowledge," I venture
to assert that it is not right to omit the

3 Rom. xi. 33, 34.

Cor

tS-

5 1 Cor. i. 5.

ON INFANTS' EARLY DEATHS.

375

examination which is within the range of our
ability, nor to leave the question here raised
without making any inquiries, or having any
ideas about it ; lest, like the actual subject of
our proposed discussion, this essay should have
an ineffectual ending, spoilt before its maturity
by the fatal indolence of those who will not
nerve themselves to search out the truth, like a
new-born infant ere it sees the light and ac-
quires any strength. I assert, too, that it is
not well at once to confront and meet ob-
jections, as if we were pleading in court, but
to introduce a certain order into the discussion,
and to lead the view on from one point to
another. What, then, should this order be?
First, we want to know the whence of human
nature, and the wherefore of its ever having
come into existence. If we hit the answer to
these questions, we shall not fail in getting the
required explanation. Now, that everything
that exists, after God, in the intellectual or
sensible world of beings owes that existence to
Him, is a proposition which it is superfluous to
prove ; no one, with however little insight into
the truth of things, would gainsay it. For
every one agrees that the Universe is linked to
one First Cause ; that nothing in it owes its
existence to itself, so as to be its own origin
and cause ; but that there is on the other hand
a single uncreate eternal Essence, the same for
ever, which transcends all our ideas of distance,
conceived of as without increase Or decrease, and
beyond the scope of any definition ; and that
time and space with all their consequences, and
anything previous to these that thought can
grasp in the intelligible supramundane world,
are all the productions of this Essence. Well,
then, we affirm that human nature is one of these
productions ; and a word of the inspired Teach-
ing helps us in this, which declares that when
God had brought all things else upon the
scene of life, man was exhibited upon the earth,
a mixture from Divine sources, the godlike in-
tellectual essence being in him united with the
several portions of earthly elements contributed
towards his formation, and that he was fashioned
by his Maker to be the incarnate likeness of
Divine transcendent Power. It would be better
however to quote the very words : "And God
created man, in the image of God created He
him 6." Now the reason of the making of this
animate being has been given by certain writers
previous to us as follows. The whole creation
is divided into two parts ; that "which is seen,"
and that "which is not seen," to use the
Apostle's words (the second meaning the intelli-
gible and immaterial, the first, the sensible
and material) ; and being thus divided, the

6 Gen. i. 27.

angelic and spiritual natures, which are among
"the things not seen," reside in places above
the world, and above the heavens, because
such a residence is in correspondence with
their constitution ; for an intellectual nature is
a fine, clear, unencumbered, agile kind of
thing, and a heavenly body is fine and light,
and perpetually moving, fand the earth on the
contrary, which stands last in the list of things
sensible, can never be an adequate and con-
genial spot for creatures intellectual to sojourn
in. For what correspondence can there possibly
be between that which is light and buoyant, on
the one hand, and that which is heavy and gravit-
ating on the other ? Well, in order that the earth
may not be completely devoid of the local in-
dwelling of the intellectual and the immaterial,
man (these writers tell us) was fashioned by
the Supreme forethought, and his earthy parts
moulded over the intellectual and godlike
essence of his soul ; and so this amalgamation
with that which has material weight enables the
soul to live on this element of earth, which
possesses a certain bond of kindred with the
substance of the flesh. The design of, all that
is being born ?, then, is that the Power which is
above both the heavenly and the earthly uni-
verse may in all parts of the creation be glorified
by means of intellectual natures, conspiring to
the same end by virtue of the same faculty in
operation in all, I mean that of looking upon
God. But this operation of looking upon God
is nothing less than the life-nourishment appro-
priate, as like to like, to an intellectual nature.
For just as these bodies, earthy as they are,
are preserved by nourishment that is earthy,
and we detect in them all alike, whether brute
or reasoning, the operations of a material kind
of vitality, so it is right to assume that there is
an intellectual life-nourishment as well, by
which such natures8 are maintained in exist-
ence. But if bodily food, coming and going
as it does in circulation, nevertheless imparts a
certain amount of vital energy to those who
get it, how much more does the partaking of
the real thing, always remaining and always the
same, preserve the eater in existence ? If, then,
this is the life-nourishment of an intellectual
nature, namely, to have a part in God, this
part will not be gained by that which is of an
opposite quality; the would-be partaker must
in some degree be akin to that which is to be
partaken of. The eye enjoys the light by
virtue of having light within itself to seize its

7 twv yivoiifvuiv. The Latin has overlooked this ; *' Haec autem
omnia hue spectant ut," &c. (Sifanus).

8 r) 0VO-1?, i. e. the intellectual <f>vas mentioned above If this
were translated " Nature," it would contradict what has just been
said about the body. It is plain that </>u<ri<r contains a much larger
meaning always than our sole equivalent for it ; 0u<m is applied
even to the Divine essence.

376

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

kindred light, and the finger or any other limb
cannot effect the act of vision because none of
this natural light is organized in any of them.
The same necessity requires that in our par-
taking of God there should be some kinship in
the constitution of the partaker with that which
is partaken of. Therefore, as the Scripture
says, man was made in the image of God ; that
like, I take it, might be able to see like ; and
to see God is, as was said above, the li e of the
soul. But seeing that ignorance of the true
good is like a mist that obscures the visual
keenness of the soul, and that when that mist
grows denser a cloud is formed so thick that
Truth's ray cannot pierce through these depths
of ignorance, it follows further that with the
total deprivation of the light the soul's life
ceases altogether ; for we have said that the
real life of the soul is acted out in partaking of
the Good ; but when ignorance hinders this
apprehension of God, the soul which thus
ceases to partake of God, ceases also to live.
But no one can force us to give the family
history 9 of this ignorance, asking whence and
from what father it is ; let him be given to
understand from the word itself that " ignor-
ance" and "knowledge" indicate one of the
relations of the soul ; x but no relation, whether
expressed or not, conveys the idea of substance ;
a relation and a substance are quite of different
descriptions. If, then, knowledge is not a
substance, but a perfected2 operation of the
soul, it must be conceded that ignorance must
be much farther removed still from anything in
the way of substance ; but that which is not
in that way does not exist at all ; and so it
would be useless to trouble ourselves about
where it comes from. Now seeing that the
Word 3 declares that the living in God is the life
of the soul, and seeing that this living is know-
ledge according to each man's ability, and that
ignorance does not imply the reality of any-
thing, but is only the negation of the operation
of knowing, and seeing that upon this partaking
in God being no longer effected there follows
at once the cancelling of the soul's life, which
is the worst of evils, — because of all this the
Producer of all Good would work in us the
cure of such an evil. A cure is a good thing,
but one who does not look to the evangelic
mystery would still be ignorant of the manner
of the cure. We have shown that alienation
from God, Who is the Life, is an evil ; the cure,
then, of this infirmity is, again to be made
friends with God, and so to be in life once more.
When such a life, then, is always held up in hope
before humanity, it cannot be said that the

9 yti'taAoytU'. l rutf irpos Tt nut<; even* tt)v tpv\rjv.

2 TrtpiTrrj Sifanns must have had n-epi ti in his Coci. ; " sell
mentis circa aliquam rem actio." 3 S. John i. 4.

winning of this life is absolutely a reward of a
good life, and that the contrary is a punish-
ment (of a bad one) ; but what we insist on
resembles the case of the eyes. We do not
say that one who has clear eyesight is rewarded
as with a prize by being able to perceive the
objects of sight ; nor on the other hand that
he who has diseased eyes experiences a failure
of optic activity as the result of some penal
sentence. With the eye in a natural state sight
follows necessarily ; with it vitiated by disease
failure of sight as necessarily follows. In the same
way the life of blessedness is as a familiar
second nature to those who have kept clear the
senses of the soul ; but when the blinding
stream of ignorance prevents our partaking in
the real light, then it necessarily follows that
we miss that, the enjoyment of which we
declare to be the life of the partaker.

Now that we have laid down these premisses,
it is time to examine in the light of them the
question proposed to us. It was somewhat of
this kind. " If the recompense of blessedness
is assigned according to the principles of justice,
in what class shall he be placed who has died
in infancy without having laid in this life any
foundation, good or bad, whereby any return
according to his deserts may be given him ? "
To this we shall make answer, with our eye
fixed upon the consequences of that which we
have already laid down, that this happiness in
the future, while it is in its essence a heritage
of humanity, may at the same time be called in
one sense a recompense ; and we will make
clear our meaning by the same, instance as
before. Let us suppose two persons suffering
from an affection of the eyes ; and that the one
surrenders himself most diligently to the process
of being cured, and undergoes all that Medicine
can apply to him, however painful it may be ;
and that the other indulges without restraint
in baths 4 and wine-drinking, and listens to no
advice whatever of his doctor as to the healing
of his eyes. Well, when we look to the end of
each of these we say that each duly receives in
requital the fruits of his choice, the one in de-
privation of the light, the other in its enjoyment;
by a misuse of the word we do actually call
that which necessarily follows, a recompense.
We may speak, then, in this way also as regards
this question of the infants : we may say that
the enjoyment of that future life does indeed
belong of right to the human being, but that,
seeing the plague of ignorance has seized almost
all now living in the flesh, he who has purged
himself of it by means of the necessary courses
of treatment receives the due reward of his dili-
gence, when he enters on the life that is truly

4 For an explanation of such a restriction, see Bingham, vol. viii.
p. 109 (ed. 1720).

ON INFANTS' EARLY DEATHS.

377

natural ; while he who refuses Virtue's purga-
tives and renders that plague of ignorance,
through the pleasures he has been entrapped
by, difficult in his case to cure, gets himself into
an unnatural state, and so is estranged from
the truly natural life, and has no share in the
existence which of right belongs to us and is
congenial to us. Whereas the innocent babe
has no such plague before its soul's eyes ob-
scuring s its measure of light, and so it continues
to exist in that natural life ; it does not need
the soundness which comes from purgation,
because it never admitted the plague into its
soul at all. Further, the present life appears
to me to offer a sort of analogy to the future life
we hope for, and to be intimately connected
with it, thus ; the tenderest infancy is suckled
and reared with milk from the breast ; then
another sort of food appropriate to the subject
of this fostering, and intimately adapted to his
needs, succeeds, until at last he arrives at full
growth. And so I think, in quantities con-
tinually adapted to it, in a sort of regular pro-
gress, the soul partakes of that truly natural life ;
according to its capacity and its power it re-
ceives a measure of the delights of the Blessed
state ; indeed we learn as much from Paul, who
had a different sort of food for him who was
already grown in virtue and for the imperfect
*' babe." For to the last he says, " I have fed
you with milk, and not with meat : for hitherto
ye were not able to bear it6." But to those
who have grown to the full measure of intellec-
tual maturity he says, " But strong meat be-
longeth to those that are of full age, even those
who by reason of use have their senses exer-
cised. . . . 7 " Now it is not right to say that
the man and the infant are in a similar state,
however free both may be from any contact of
disease (for how can those who do not partake
of exactly the same things be in an equal state
of enjoyment ?) ; on the contrary, though the
absence of any affliction from disease may be
predicated of both alike as long as both are out
of the reach of its influence, yet, when we come
to the matter of delights, there is no likeness in
the enjoyment, though the percipients are in
the same condition. For the man there is a
natural delight in discussions, and in the man-
agement of affairs, and in the honourable dis-
charge of the duties of an office, and in being
distinguished for acts of help to the needy ;
in living, it may be, with a wife whom he
loves, and ruling his household ; and in all
those amusements to be found in this life in
the way of pastime, in musical pieces and the-
atrical spectacles, in the chase, in bathing, in
gymnastics, in the mirth of banquets, and any-

* iwiirftoadovoTis.

6 2 Cor. iii. 2.

7 Heb. v. 14.

thing else of that sort. For the infant, on the
contrary, there is a natural delight in its milk,
and in its nurse's arms, and in gentle rocking
that induces and then sweetens its slumber.
Any happiness beyond this the tenderness of
its years naturally prevents it from feeling. In
the same manner those who in their life here
have nourished the forces of their souls by a
course of virtue, and have, to use the Apostle's
words, had the " senses " of their minds " exer-
cised," will, if they are translated to that life
beyond, which is out of the body, proportion-
ately to the condition and the powers they have
attained participate in that divine delight ; they
will have more or they will have less of its
riches according to the capacity acquired. But
the soul that has never felt the taste of virtue,
while it may indeed remain perfectly free from
the sufferings which flow from wickedness,
having never caught the disease of evil at all,
does nevertheless in the first instance 8 partake
only so far in that life beyond (which consists,
according to our previous definition, in the
knowing and being in God) as this nursling can
receive ; until the time comes that it has thriven
on the contemplation of the truly Existent as
on a congenial diet, and, becoming capable of
receiving more, takes at will more from that
abundant supply of the truly Existent which is
offered.

Having, then, all these considerations in our
view, we hold that the soul of him who has
reached every virtue in his course, and the soul
of him whose portion of life has been simply
nothing, are equally out of the reach of those
sufferings which flow from wickedness. Never-
theless we do not conceive of the employment
of their lives as on the same level at all.
The one has heard those heavenly announce-
ments, by which, in the words of the Prophet,
" the glory of God is declared?," and, travelling
through creation, has been led to the apprehen-
sion of a Master of the creation ; he has taken
the true Wisdom for his teacher, that Wisdom
which the spectacle of the Universe suggests ;
and when he observed the beauty of this material
sunlight he had grasped by analogy the beauty
of the real sunlight * ; he saw in the solid firm-

8 irapa ttjc TrpuJTTjp (1. e. iapav). 9 Ps. xix. 1.

1 This mysticism of Gregory is an extension of Origen's view
that there are direct affinities or analogies between the visible and
invisible world. Gregory here and elsewhere proposes to find in the
facts of nature nothing less than analogies with the energies, and so
with the essence, of the Deity. The marks stamped upon the Creation
translate these energies into language intelligible to us : just as the
energies in their turn translate the essence, as he insists on in his
treatise against Eunomius. This world, in effect, exists only in
order to manifest the Divine Being. But the human soul, of all that
is created, is the special field where analogies to the Creator are to
be sought, because we feel both by their energies alone ; both the
soul and God are hid from us, in their essence. ". Since," he says
(De Horn. Opif. c. xi.), " one of the attributes we contemplate in the
Divine nature is incomprehensibility of essence, itis clearly necessary
that in this point ' the image ' should be able to show its resem-
blance to the Archetype. For if, while the Archetype transcends
comprehension, the essence of ' the image' were comprehended, the

378

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

ness of this earth the unchangeableness of its
Creator ; when he perceived the immensity of
the heavens he was led on the road towards the
vast Infinity of that Power which encompasses
the Universe ; when he saw the rays of the sun
reaching from such sublimities even to ourselves
he began to believe, by the means of such
phenomena, that the activities of the Divine
Intelligence did not fail to descend from the
heights of Deity even to each one of us ; for if
a single luminary can occupy everything alike
that lies beneath it with the force of light, and,
more than that, can, while lending itself .to all
who can use it, still remain self-centred and
undissipated, how much more shall the Creator
of that luminary become "all in all," as the
Apostle speaks, and come into each with such
a measure of Himself as each subject of His
influence can receive ! Nay, look only at an
ear of corn, at the germinating of some plant,
at a ripe bunch of grapes, at the beauty of early
autumn, whether in fruit or flower, at the grass
springing unbidden, at the mountain reaching
up with its summit to the height of the ether,
at the springs on its slopes bursting from those
swelling breasts, and running in rivers through
the glens, at the sea receiving those streams
from every direction and yet remaining within
its limits, with waves edged by the stretches
of beach and never stepping beyond those
fixed boundaries of continent : look at these
and such-like sights, and how can the eye of
reason fail to find in them all that our education
for Realities requires ? Has a man who looks
at such spectacles procured for himself only a
slight power for the enjoyment of those delights
beyond? Not to speak of the studies which
sharpen the mind towards moral excellence,
geometry, I mean, and astronomy, and the
knowledge of the truth that the science of
numbers gives, and every method that furnishes
a proof of the unknown and a conviction of the
known, and, before all these, the philosophy
contained in the inspired Writings, which affords
a complete purification to those who educate
themselves thereby in the mysteries of God.
But the man who has acquired the knowledge
of none of these things and has not even been
conducted by the material cosmos to the per-
ception of the beauties above it, and passes
through life with his mind in a kind of tender,
unformed, and untrained state, he is not the

contrary character of the attributes we behold ir. them would prove
the delect of 'the image' ; but since the essence of our Mind
eludes our knowledge, it has an exact resemblance to the Supreme
essence, figuring as it does by its own unknowableness the incompre-
hensible Being. ' Therefore, Gregory goes to the interior facts of
our nature (or the actual proof of theological doctrine God is
" spirit " because of the spirituality of the soul. The " generation "
of the Son is proved by the Will emanating from the Reason.
Gieenry follows this line even more resolutely than Origen. He
v. is the first Father who sought to explain the Trinity by the triple
divisions ol the soul which Platonism offered. Cf. his treatise De
to guoU sit ad inintutabilitatem , &c. , p. 26.

man that is likely to be placed amongst the
same surroundings as our argument has indi-
cated that other man, before spoken of, to be
placed ; so that, in this view, it can no longer
be maintained that, in the two supposed and
completely opposite cases, the one who has
taken no part in life is more blessed than the
one who has taken a noble part in it. Cer-
tainly, in comparison with one who has lived
all his life in sin, not only the innocent babe
but even one who has never come into the
world at all will be blessed. We learn as
much too in the case of Judas, from the sent-
ence pronounced upon him in the Gospels2;
namely, that when we think of such men, that
which never existed is to be preferred to that
which has existed in such sin. For, as to the
latter, on account of the depth of the ingrained
evil, the chastisement in the way of purgation
will be extended into infinity 3 ; but as for what
has never existed, how can any torment touch
it? — However, notwithstanding that, the man
who institutes a comparison between the in-
fantine immature life and that of perfect virtue,
must himself be pronounced immature for so
judging of realities. Do you, then, in conse-
quence of this, ask the reason why so and so,
quite tender in age, is quietly taken away from
amongst the living? Do you ask what the
Divine wisdom contemplates in this ? Well, if
you are thinking of all those infants who are
proofs of illicit connections, and so are made
away with by their parents, you are not justified
in calling to account, for such wickedness, that
God Who will surely bring to judgment the
unholy deeds done in this way. In the case,
on the other hand, of any infant who, though
his parents have nurtured him, and have with
nursing and supplication spent earnest care
upon him, nevertheless does not continue in
this world, but succumbs to a sickness even
unto death, which is unmistakably the sole
cause of it, we venture upon the following con-
siderations. It is a sign of the perfection of God's
providence, that He not only heals maladies4
that have come into existence, but also provides
that some should be never mixed up at all in
the things which He has forbidden ; it is
reasonable, that is, to expect that He Who
knows the future equally with the past should
check the advance of an infant to complete
maturity, in order that the evil may not be
developed which His foreknowledge has de-
tected in his future life, and in order that a
lifetime granted to one whose evil dispositions
will be lifelong may not become the actual

3 S. Matt. xxvi. 34.

3 fis airnpov ■napa.Tf Cvtrat. Such passages as these must he set
against others in Gregory, such as the concluding part of the
De Anima et Resurrectiotu, in arriving at an exact knowledge of
his views about a Universal 'AiroxoTa<rToo-i». * noBt).

CN INFANTS' EARLY DEATHS.

379

material for his vice. We shall better explain
what we are thinking of by an illustration.
Suppose a banquet of very varied abundance,
prepared for a certain number of guests, and
let the chair be taken by one of their
number who is gifted to know accurately the
peculiarities of constitution in each of them,
and what food is best adapted to each tempera-
ment, what is harmful and unsuitable ; in
addition to this let him be entrusted with a
sort of absolute authority over them, whether
to allow as he pleases so and so to remain at
the board or to expel so and so, and to take
every precaution that each should address him-
self to the viands most suited to his constitu-
tion, so that the invalid should not kill himself
by adding the fuel of what he was eating to his
ailment, while the guest in robuster health
should not make himself ill with things not good
for him s and fall into discomfort from over-
feeding 6. Suppose, amongst these, one of those
inclined to drink is conducted out in the middle
of the banquet or even at the very beginning of
it ; or let him remain to the very end, it all
depending on the way that the president can
secure that perfect order shall prevail, if possible,
at the board throughout, and that the evil sights
of surfeiting, tippling, and tipsiness shall be
absent. It is just so, then, as when that indi-
vidual is not very pleased at being torn away
from all the savoury dainties and deprived of
his favourite liquors, but is inclined to charge
the president with want of justice and judg-
ment, as having turned him away from the
feast for envy, and not for any forethought for
him ; but if he were to catch a sight of those
who were already beginning to misbehave them-
selves, from the long continuance of their
drinking, in the way of vomitings and putting
their heads on the table and unseemly talk, he
would perhaps feel grateful to him for having
removed him, before he got into such a con-
dition, from a deep debauch. If our illustra-
tion ^ is understood, we can easily apply the
rule which it contains to the question before us.
What, then, was that question ? Why does
God, when fathers endeavour their utmost to
preserve a successor to their line, often let the
son and heir be snatched away in earliest in-
fancy 8 ? To those who ask this, we shall reply
with the illustration of the banquet ; namely,
that Life's board is as it were crowded with a
vast abundance and variety of dainties ; and it
must, please, be noticed that, true to the
practice of gastronomy, all its dishes are not
sweetened with the honey of enjoyment, but in
some cases an existence has a taste of some

5 Read with L. Sifanus, jit) (taraAAijAo) Tpo<p/).

6 eis 7rA.r)#ajp»cT)i/ ar)Siav « KiriVrcoi/. 7 0ttopr)fu>-
" Reading iv tw aTe'Aei rrjs r)\iKiat.

especially harsh mischances 9 given to it : just
as experts in the arts of catering desire how they
may excite the appetites of the guests with
sharp, or briny, or astringent dishes. Life, I
say, is not in all its circumstances as sweet as
honey ; there are circumstances in it in which
mere brine is the only relish, or into which an
astringent, or vinegary, or sharp pungent flavour
has so insinuated itself, that the rich sauce
becomes very difficult to taste : the cups of
Temptation, too, are filled with all sorts of
beverages ; some by the error of pride 1 produce
the vice of inflated vanity ; others lure on those
who drain them to some deed of rashness ;
whilst in other cases they excite a vomiting in
which all the ill-gotten acquisitions of years are
with shame surrendered 2. Therefore, to pre-
vent one who has indulged in the carousals to
an improper extent from lingering over so pro-
fusely furnished a table, he is early taken from
the number of the banqueters, and thereby
secures an escape out of those evils which
unmeasured indulgence procures for gluttons.
This is that achievement of a perfect Providence
which I spoke of; namely, not only to heal
evils that have been committed, but also to
forestall them before they have been committed ;
and this, we suspect, is the cause of the deaths
of new-born infants. He Who does all things
upon a Plan withdraws the materials for evil in
His love to the individual, and, to a character
whose marks His Foreknowledge has read,
grants no time to display by a pre-eminence in.
actual vice what it is when its propensity to evil
gets free play. Often, too, the Arranger of this
Feast of Life exposes by such-like dispensations
the cunning device of the " constraining cause "~
of money-loving 3, so that this vice comes to the
light bared of all specious pretexts, and no-
longer obscured by any misleading screen ♦.
For most declare that they give play s to their
cravings for more, in order that they may make
their offspring all the richer ; but that their vice
belongs to their nature, and is not caused by
any external necessity, is proved by that inexcus-
able avarice which is observed in childless,
persons. Many who have no heir, nor any
hope of one, for the great wealth which they-
have laboriously gained, rear a countless brood
within themselves of wants instead of children,
and they are left without a channel into which to
convey this incurable disease, though they cannot
find an excuse in any necessity for this failing 6.
But take the case of some who, during their
sojourn in life, have been fierce and domineering

9 Reading <ruti.TTTojfia.TiDv (for o-vfnrofidTtov. Morell).

1 t6cI>ov (tou o-nicpov, Paris Edit. i. e. " of their astringency ")

a 6ta ttjs a'tcrxpa*; aTTOTt'cTftos toc CfiCTOV avcKivritrav.

3 ttjv <reco</>i<7-jie'^i)i' ttjs (piAapyvpias avayicr)v.

* 7T€TrKavr}u\€Vu). 5 cn-i7rAaTwe<T0ai.

6 ovk exoires irov rr)v avayiaiv ttjs appaxTTi'as raunjs iTravei/fyicuicri*.

38o

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

in disposition, slaves to every kind of lust, pas-
sionate to madness, refraining from no act even
of the most desperate wickedness, robbers and
murderers, traitors to their country, and, more
execrable still, patricides, mother-killers, child-
murderers, mad after unnatural intercourse ;
suppose such characters grow old in this wicked-
ness ; how, some one may ask, does this har-
monize with the result of our previous investiga-
tions ? If that which is taken away before its
time in order that it may not continuously glut
itself, according to our illustration of the
banquet, with Life's indulgences, is providentially
removed from that carouse, what is the special
design in so and so, who is of that disposition,
being allowed to continue his revels 7 to old
age, steeping both himself and his boon com-
panions in the noxious fumes of his debauchery ?
In fine, you will ask, wherefore does God in
His Providence withdraw one from life before
his character can be perfected in evil, and leave
another to grow to be such a monster that it
had been better for him if he had never been
born? In answer to this we will give, to those
who are inclined to receive it favourably, a
reason such as follows : viz. that oftentimes the
existence of those whose life has been a good
one operates to the advantage of their offspring ;
and there are hundreds of passages testifying to
this in the inspired Writings, which clearly teach
us that the tender care shown by God to those
who have deserved it is shared in by their
successors, and that even to have been an
obstruction, in the path to wickedness, to any
one who is sure to live wickedly, is a good
result8. But seeing that our Reason in this
matter has to grope in the dark, clearly no one
can complain if its conjecturing leads our mind
to a variety of conclusions. Well, then, not
only one might pronounce that God, in kind-
ness to the Founders of some Family, withdraws
a member of it who is going to live a bad life
from that bad life, but, even if there is no ante-
cedent such as this in the case of some early
deaths, it is not unreasonable to conjecture that
they would have plunged into a vicious life with
a more desperate vehemence than any of those
who have actually become notorious for their
wickedness. That nothing happens without
God we know from many sources ; and, re-
versely, that God's dispensations have no ele-
ment of chance and confusion in them every
one will allow, who realizes that God is Reason,
and Wisdom, and Perfect Goodness, and Truth,
and could not admit of that which is not good
and not consistent with His Truth 9. Whether,

efi7rapoti^t.

8 Kc^aAatop ; lit. "a sum total : '

cf. below, eiri KC<f>aKai<n avvanreov, " we must summarize.

9 The text is in confusion here : but the Latin supplies : " Nothing
reasonable fails in reason ; nothing wise, in wisdom ; neither virtue
nor truth could admit of that which is not good," &c.

then, the early deaths of infants are to be attri-
buted to the aforesaid causes, or whether there
is some further cause of them beyond these, it
befits us to acknowledge that these things
happen for the best. I have another reason
also to give which I have learnt from the
wisdom of an Apostle ; a reason, that is, why
some of those who have been distinguished for
their wickedness have been suffered to live on
in their self-chosen course. Having expanded
a thought of this kind at some length in his
argument to the Romans r, and having retorted
upon himself with the counter-conclusion, which
thence necessarily follows, that the sinner could
no longer be justly blamed, if his sinning is a
dispensation of God, and that he would not
have existed at all, if it had been contrary to
the wishes of Him Who has the world in His
power, the Apostle meets this conclusion and
solves this counter-plea by means of a still
deeper view of things. He tells us that God,
in rendering to every one his due, sometimes
even grants a scope to wickedness for good in
the end. Therefore He allowed the King of
Egypt, for example, to be born and to grow up
such as he was ; the intention was that Israel,
that great nation exceeding all calculation by
numbers, might be instructed by his disaster.
God's omnipotence is to be recognized in every
direction ; it has strength to bless the deserving ;
it is not inadequate to the punishment of
wickedness 2 ; and so, as the complete removal
of that peculiar people out of Egypt was neces-
sary in order to prevent their receiving any in-
fection from the sins of Egypt in a misguided
way of living, therefore that God-defying and
infamous Pharaoh rose and reached his maturity
in the lifetime of the very people who were
to be benefited, so that Israel might acquire
a just knowledge of the two-fold energy of
God, working as it did in either direction ;
the more beneficent they learnt in their own
persons, the sterner by seeing it exercised upon
those who were being scourged for their wicked-
ness ; for in His consummate wisdom God can
mould even evil into co-operation with good.
The artisan (if the Apostle's argument may be
confirmed by any words of ours) — the artisan
who by his skill has to fashion iron to some
instrument for daily use, has need not only of
that which owing to its natural ductility lends
itself to his art, but, be the iron never so hard,
be it never so difficult to soften it in the fire, be
it even impossible owing to its adamantine re-
sistance to mould it into any useful implement,
his art requires the co-operation even of this ;
he will use it for an anvil, upon which the soft

1 Rom. iii. 3 — 9 : vi. 1, 2 : ix. 14 — 24 ; xi. 22 — 36.
3 This sentence is not in the Greek of the Paris Edition, and is
not absolutely necessary to the sense.

ON INFANTS' EARLY DEATHS.

3^i

workable iron may be beaten and formed into
something useful. But some one will say, "It
is not all who thus reap in this life the fruits of
their wickedness, any more than all those whose
lives have been virtuous profit while living by
their virtuous endeavours ; what then, I ask, is
the advantage of their existence in the case of
these who live to the end unpunished?" I
will bring forward to meet this question of yours
a reason which transcends all human arguments.
Somewhere in his utterances the great David
declares that some portion of the blessedness of
the virtuous will consist in this ; in contemplat-
ing side by side with their own felicity the
perdition of the reprobate. He says, "The
righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the ven-
geance ; he shall wash his hands in the blood
of the ungodly 3 " ; not indeed as rejoicing over
the torments of those sufferers, but as then
most completely realizing the extent of the
well-earned rewards of virtue. He signifies by
those words that it will be an addition to the
felicity of the virtuous and an intensification of
it, to have its contrary set against it. In saying
that " he washes his hands in the blood of the
ungodly" he would convey the thought that
" the cleanness of his own acting in life is
plainly declared in the perdition of the ungodly."
For the expression " wash " represents the idea
of cleanness ; but no one is washed, but is
rather defiled, in blood ; whereby it is clear
that it is a comparison with the harsher forms
of punishment that puts in a clearer light the
blessedness of virtue. We must now sum-
marize our argument, in order that the thoughts
which we have expanded may be more easily
retained in the memory. The premature deaths

S Ps. Iviii. to.

of infants have nothing in them to suggest the
thought that one who so terminates his life is
subject to some grievous misfortune, anymore
than they are to be put on a level with the
deaths of those who have purified themselves
in this life by every kind of virtue ; the more
far-seeing Providence of God curtails the im-
mensity of sins in the case of those whose lives
are goi ng to be so evil. That some of the wicked
have lived on4 does not upset this reason which
we have rendered ; for the evil was in their case
hindered in kindness to their parents ; whereas,
in the case of those whose parents have never
imparted to them any power of calling upon
God, such a form of the Divine kindness5,
which accompanies such a power, is not trans-
mitted to their own children ; otherwise the
infant now prevented by death from growing
up wicked would have exhibited a far more
desperate wickedness than the most notorious
sinners, seeing that it would have been un-
hindered. Even granting that some have
climbed to the topmost pinnacle of crime, the
Apostolic view supplies a comforting answer to
the question ; for He Who does everything
with Wisdom knows how to effect by means of
evil some good. Still further, if some occupy
a pre-eminence in crime, and yet for all that
have never been a metal, to use our former
illustration, that God's skill has used for any
good, this is a case which constitutes an addi-
tion to the happiness of the good, as the
Prophet's words suggest ; it may be reckoned
as not a slight element in that happiness, nor,
on the other hand, as one unworthy of God's
providing.

4 em^uavai tipo? tu>v kokuiv : or, " That some have lived on in
their sins."

5 i» t. as letting them live, and mitigating the evil of their lives.

ON PILGRIMAGES".

Since, my friend, you ask me a question in
your letter, I think that it is incumbent upon
me to answer you in their proper order upon
all the points connected with it. It is, then,
my opinion that it is a good thing for those who
have dedicated themselves once for all to the
higher life to fix their attention continually upon
the utterances in the Gospel, and, just as those
who correct their work in any given material
by a rule, and by means of the straightness of
that rule bring the crookedness which their
hands detect to straightness, so it is right that
we should apply to these questions a strict and
flawless measure as it were, — I mean, of course,
the Gospel rule of life 2, — and in accordance with
that, direct ourselves in the sight of God. Now
there are some amongst those who have entered
upon the monastic and hermit life, who have
made it a part of their devotion to behold those
spots at Jerusalem where the memorials of our
Lord's life in the flesh are on view ; it would
be well, then, to look to this Rule, and if the
finger of its precepts points to the observance
of such things, to perform the work, as the
actual injunction of our Lord ; but if they lie
quite outside the commandment of the Master,
I do not see what there is to command any one
who has become a law of duty to himself to be
zealous in performing any of them. When
the Lord invites the blest to their inheritance
in the kingdom of heaven, He does not include
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem amongst their good

1 The modern history of this Letter is curious Its genuineness,
though suspected by Bellarmine, is admitted by Tillemont, and
even by Caesar Baronius. After having been edited by Morel in
Greek and Latin. 1551. it was omitted from his son's edition of the
works of Gregory by the advice of Fronto Ducaeus, lest it should
seein to reflect upon the practice of pilgrimages. But in 1607 it was
again edited (Haunov.) by Du Moulin, with a de ence of it, and a
translation into French by R. Stephen : this is the only instance of
a vernacular version of Gregory at this time, and shows the import-
ance attached to this Letter. It appears in the second Paris Edition,
but with the vehement protests, printed in the notes, of the Jesuit
Gretser, against Du Moulin's interpretation of its scope, and even
against its genuineness. He makes much of its absence from the
Bavarian (Munich) Cod., and of the fact that even "heretical
printers " had omitted it from the Basle Edition of 1562 : and he is
very angry with Du Moulin for not having approached the Royal
Library while in Paris, and while he had leisure from his " Calvin-
istic evening communions." But why should he, when the Librarian,
no less a person than I. Casaubon (appointed 1598), h .d assured him
that the Letter was in the Codex Regius? It is in Migne iii. col.
1000. See Letter to Eitstathia, &c.

TroAiTft'ai/, " Vivendi rationem." Cf. Basil, Homil. xiii.

deeds ; when He announces the Beatitudes,
He does not name amongst them that sort of
devotion. But as to that which neither makes
us blessed nor sets us in the path to the king-
dom, for what reason it should be run after,
let him that is wise consider. Even if there
were some profit in what they do, yet even so,
those who are perfect would do best not to be
eager in practising it ; but since this matter,
when closely looked into, is found to inflict
upon those who have begun to lead the stricter
life a moral mischief, it is so far from being
worth an earnest pursuit, that it actually re-
quires the greatest caution to prevent him who
has devoted himself to God from being pene-
trated by any of its hurtful influences. What
is it, then, that is hurtful in it? The Holy
Life is open to all, men and women alike. Of
that contemplative Life the peculiar mark is
Modesty 3. But Modesty is preserved in societies
that live distinct and separate, so that there
should be no meeting and mixing up of persons
of opposite sex ; men are not to rush to keep
the rules of Modesty in the company of women,
nor women to do so in the company of men.
But the necessities of a journey are continually
apt to reduce this scrupulousness to a very in-
different observance of such rules. For instance,
it is impossible for a woman to accomplish
so long a journey without a conductor ; on
account of her natural weakness she has to
be put upon her horse and to be lifted down
again; she has to be supported4 in difficult
situations. Whichever we suppose, that she
has an acquaintance to do this yeoman's
service, or a hired attendant to perform it,
either way the proceeding cannot escape being
reprehensible ; whether she leans on the help
of a stranger, or on that of her own servant,
she fails to keep the law of correct conduct ;
and as the inns and hostelries and cities of the
East present many examples of licence and of
indifference to vice, how will it be possible for
one passing through such smoke to escape

3 j) ei>(TX7]fio<rwr).

* irapaKfjaTOVtifvt) ; cf. Epict. (cited by Diosc.) raf Tpiyo? p'nvaat
napaxpartlv, " to stop the hair Iroin falling off."

ON PILGRIMAGES.

383

without smarting eyes ? Where the ear and
the eye is defiled, and the heart too, by receiv-
ing all those foulnesses through eye and ear,
how will it be possible to thread "without infec-
tion such seats of contagion ? What advantage,
moreover, is reaped by him who reaches those
celebrated spots themselves? He cannot imagine
that our Lord is living, in the body, there at
the present day, but has gone away from us
foreigners ; or that the Holy Spirit is in
abundance at Jerusalem, but unable to travel
as far as us. Whereas, if it is really possible
to infer God's presence from visible symbols,
one might more justly consider that He dwelt
in the Cappadocian nation than in any of the
spots outside it. For how many Altars 5 there
are there, on which the name of our Lord is
glorified ! One could hardly count so marry
in all the rest of the world. Again, if the
Divine grace was more abundant about Jerusa-
lem than elsewhere, sin would not be so much
the fashion amongst those that live there ; but
as it is, there is no form of uncleanness6 that
is not perpetrated amongst them ; rascality,
adultery, theft, idolatry, poisoning, quarrelling,
murder, are rife ; and the last kind of evil is
so excessively prevalent, that nowhere in the
world are people so ready to kill each other as
there ; where kinsmen attack each other like
wild beasts, and spill each other's blood, merely
for the sake of lifeless plunder. Well, in a
place where such things go on, what proof, I
' ask, have you of the abundance of Divine
grace ? But I know what many will retort to
all that I have said ; they will say, " Why did
you not lay down this rule for yourself as well ?
If there is no gain for the godly pilgrim in
return for having been there, for what reason
did you undergo the toil of so long a journey ? "
Let them hear from me my plea for this. By
the necessities of that office in which I have
been placed by the Dispenser of my life to live,
it was my duty, for the purpose of the correction
which the Holy Council had resolved upon, to
visit the places where the Church in Arabia is ;
secondly, as Arabia is on the confines of the
Jerusalem district, I had promised that I would
confer also with the Heads of the Holy Jerusa-
lem Churches, because matters with them were
in confusion, and needed' an arbiter ; thirdly,
our most religious Emperor had granted us
facilities for the journey, by postal conveyance,
so that we had to endure none of those incon-
veniences which in the case of others we*have

5 tJvcn.a<mjpia, the sanctuaries (with the Altar), into which at
this time no layman except the Emperor might enter (Balsamon's
note to decrees of Council of Laodicaea).

6 Cyril's Catecheses in the year 348 had combated the practical
immorality of the Holy City.

noticed ; our waggon was, in fact, as good as a
church or monastery to us, for all of us were
singing psalms and fasting in the Lord during
the whole journey. Let our own case therefore
cause difficulty to none ; rather let our advice
be all the more listened to, because we are
giving it upon matters which came actually
before our eyes. We confessed that the Christ
Who was manifested is very God, as much
before as after our sojourn at Jerusalem ; our
faith in Him was not increased afterwards any
more than it was diminished. Before we saw
Bethlehem we knew His being made man by
means of the Virgin ; before we saw His Grave
we believed in His Resurrection from the dead ;
apart from seeing the Mount of Olives, we con-
fessed that His Ascension into heaven was real.
We derived only thus much of profit from our
travelling thither, namely that we came to know
by being able to compare them, that our own
places are far holier than those abroad. Where-
fore, O ye who fear the Lord, praise Him in
the places where ye now are. Change of place
does not effect any drawing nearer unto God,
but wherever thou mayest be, God will come to
thee, if the chambers of thy soul be found of
such a sort that He can dwell in thee and
walk in thee. But if thou keepest thine inner
man full of wicked thoughts, even if thou wast
on Golgotha, even if thou wast on the Mount
of Olives, even if thou stoodest on the memorial-
rock of the Resurrection, thou wilt be as far
away from receiving Christ into thyself, as one
who has not even begun to confess Him. There-
fore, my beloved friend, counsel the brethren
to be absent from the body to go to our Lord,
rather than to be absent from Cappadocia to go
to Palestine ; and if any one should adduce the
command spoken by our Lord to His disciples
that they should not quit Jerusalem, let him be
made to understand its true meaning. Inas-
much* as the gift and the distribution of the
Holy Spirit had not yet passed upon the
Apostles, our Lord commanded them to
remain in the same place, until they should
have been endued with power from on high.
Now, if that which happened at the beginning,
when the Holy Spirit was dispensing each of
His gifts under the appearance of a flame,
continued until now, it would be right for all
to remain in that place where that dispensing
took place ; but if the Spirit "bloweth " where
He' "listeth," those, too, who have become
believers here are made partakers of that gift ;
and that according to the proportion of their
faith, not in consequence of their pilgrimage to
Jerusalem.

■j.

III. PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS.

Vfi*. ¥. c C

NOTE ON THE TREATISE "ON THE MAKING OF MAN."

THIS work was intended to supplement and complete the Hexaemeron of S. Basil, and presupposes an
acquaintance with that treatise. The narrative of the creation of the world is not discussed in detail : it is referred
to, but chiefly in order to insist on the idea that the world was prepared to be the sphere of man's sovereignty.
On the other hand, Gregory shows that man was made "with circumspection," fitted by nature for rule over the
other creatures, made in the likeness of God in respect of various moral attributes, and in the possessian of reason,
while differing from the Divine nature in that the human mind receives its information by means of the senses and
is dependent on them for its perception of external things. The body is fitted to be the instrument of the mind,
adapted to the use of a reasonable being : and it is by the possession of the "rational soul," as well as of the
" natural " or " vegetntive " and the "sensible" soul, that man differs from the lower animals. At the same
time, his mind works by means of the senses : it is incomprehensible in its nature (resembling in this the Divine
nature of which it is the image), and its relation to the body is discussed at some length (chs. 12—15). The con-
nection between mind and body is ineffable : it is not to be accounted for by supposing that the mind resides in any
particular part of the body : the mind acts upon and is acted upon by the whole body, depending on the corporeal and
material nature for one element of perception, so that perception requires both body and mind. But it is to the
rational element that the name of "soul" properly belongs : the nutritive and sensible faculties only borrow the
name from that which is higher than themselves. Man was first made "in the image of God :" and this conception
excludes the idea of distinction of sex. In the first creation of man all humanity is included, according to the
Divine foreknowledge: " our whole nature extending from the first to the last " is " one image of Him Who is."
But for the Fall, the increase of the human race would have taken place as the increase of the angelic race takes
place, in some way unknown to us. The declension of man from his first estate made succession by generation
necessary : and it was because this declension and its consequences were present to the Divine mind that God
"created them male and female." In this respect, and in respect of the need of nourishment by food, man is not
" in the image of God," but shows his kindred with the lower creation. But these necessities are not permanent :
•they will end with the restoration of man to his former excellence (chs. 16— 18). Here Gregory is led to speak
(chs. 19 — 20) of the food of man in Paradise, and of the " tree of the knowledge of good and evil." And thus,
having made mention of the Fall of man, he goes on to speak of his Restoration. This, in his view, follows from
the finite nature of evil : it is deferred until the sum of humanity is complete. As to the mode in which the present
state of things will end, we know nothing: but that it will end is inferred from the non-eternity of matter (chs. 21 —
24). The doctrine of the Resurrection is supported by our knowledge of the accuracy with which other events
have been predicted in Scripture, by the experience given to us of like events in particular cases, in those whom
our Lord raised to life, and especially in His own resurrection. The argument that such a restoration is impossible
is met by an appeal to the unlimited character of the Divine power, and by inferences from parallels observed in
nature (chs. 25 — 27). Gregory then proceeds to deal with the question of the pre-existence of the soul, rejecting
that opinion, and maintaining that the body and the soul come into existence together, potentially in the Divine
will, actually at the moment when each individual man comes into being by generation (chs. 28 — 29). In the course
of his argument on this last point, he turns aside to discuss at some length, in the last chapter, the structure of the
human body : but he returns once more, in conclusion, to his main position, that man " is generated as a living
and animated being," and that the power of the soul is gradually manifested in, and by means of, the material
substratum of the body ; so that man is brought to perfection by the aid of the lower attributes of the soul. But
the true perfection of the soul is not in these, which will ultimately be "put away," but in the higher attributes
which constitute for man "the image of God."

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, to his brother
Peter, the servant of God.

If we had to honour with rewards of money
those who excel in virtue, the whole world of
money, as Solomon says ', would seem but small
to be made equal to your virtue in the balance.
Since, however, the debt of gratitude due to
your Reverence is greater than can be valued
in money, and the holy Eastertide demands the
accustomed gift of love, we offer to your great-
ness of mind, O man of God, a gift too small
indeed to be worthy of presentation to you,
yet not falling short of the extent of our power.
The gift is a discourse, like a mean garment,
woven not without toil from our poor wit, and
the subject of the discourse, while it will perhaps
be generally thought audacious, yet seemed not
unfitting. For he alone has worthily considered
the creation of God who truly was created after
God, and whose soul was fashioned in the
image of Him Who created him, — Basil, our
common father and teacher, — who by his own
speculation made the sublime ordering of the
universe generally intelligible, making the world
as established by God in the true Wisdom
known to those who by means of his under-
standing are led to such contemplation : but
we, who fall short even of worthily admiring
him, yet intend to add to the great writer's
speculations that which is lacking in them, not
so as to interpolate his work by insertion 3 (for
it is not to be thought of that that lofty mouth
should suffer the insult of being given as authority
for our discourses), but so that the glory of the
teacher may not seem to be failing among his
disciples.

For if, the consideration of man being lacking
in his Hexaemeron, none of those who had
been his disciples contributed any earnest effort
to supply the defect, the scoffer would perhaps
have had a handle against his great fame, on the
ground that he had not cared to produce in his
hearers any habit of intelligence. But now that
we venture according to our powers upon the ex-

1 Prov. xvii. 6 (LXX.). The clause is not found in the English
•version. 2 Reading (with Forbes' marginal note), ii7ro£oAjj?.

position of what was lacking, if anything should
be found in our work such as to be not unworthy
of his teaching, it will surely be referred to our
teacher : while if our discourse does not reach
the height of his sublime speculation, he will
be free from this charge and escape the blame
of seeming not to wish that his disciples should
have any skill at all, though we perhaps may be
answerable to our censurers as being unable to
contain in the littleness of our heart the wisdom
of our instructor.

The scope of our proposed enquiry is not
small : it is second to none of the wonders of
the world, — perhaps even greater than any of
those known to us, because no other existing
thing, save the human creation, has been made
like to God : thus we shall readily find that al-
lowance will be made for what we. say by kindly
readers, even if our discourse is far behind the
merits of the subject. For it is our business, I
suppose, to leave nothing unexamined of all that
concerns man, — of what we believe to have
taken place previously, of what we now see, and
of the results which are expected afterwards to
appear (for surely our effort would be convicted
of failing of its promise, if, when man is pro-
posed for contemplation, any of the questions
which bear upon the subject were to be omitted);
and, moreover, we must fit together, according
to the explanation of Scripture and to that
derived from reasoning, those statements con-
cerning him which seem, by a kind of necessary
sequence, to be opposed, so that our whole
subject may be consistent in train of thought
and in order, as the statements that seem to be
contrary are brought (if the Divine power so
discovers a hope for what is beyond hope, and
a way for what is inextricable) to one and the
same end : and for clearness' sake I think it
well to set forth to you the discourse by
chapters, that you may be able briefly to know
the force of the several arguments of the whole
work.

i. Wherein is a partial inquiry into the
nature of the world, and a more minute ex-
position of the things which preceded the genesis
of man.

C C 2

388

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

2. Why man appeared last, after the creation.

3. That the nature of man is more precious
than all the visible creation.

4. That the construction of man throughout
signifies his ruling power.

5. That man is a likeness of the Divine
sovereignty.

6. An examination of the kindred of mind to
nature : wherein by way of digression is refuted
the doctrine of the Anomceans.

7. Why man is destitute of natural weapons
and covering.

8. Why man's form is upright, and that hands
were given him because of reason ; wherein also
is a speculation on the difference of souls.

9. That the form of man was framed to serve
as an instrument for the use of reason.

10. That the mind works by means of the
senses.

11. That the nature of mind is invisible.

12. An examination of the question where
the ruling principle is to be considered to
reside; wherein also is a discussion of tears
and laughter, and a physiological speculation as
to the inter-relation of matter, nature, and mind.

13. A rationale of sleep, of yawning, and of
dreams.

14. That the mind is not in a part of the
body; wherein also is a distinction of the
movements of the body and of the soul.

15. That the soul proper, in fact and name,
is the rational soul, while the others are called
so equivocally : wherein also is this statement,
that the power of the mind extends throughout
the whole body in fitting contact with every
part.

16. A contemplation of the Divine utterance
which said, — "Let us make man after our
image and likeness ; " wherein is examined what
is the definition of the image, and how the
passible and mortal is like to the Blessed and
Impassible, and how in the image there are
male and female, seeing these are not in the
Prototype.

17. What we must answer to those who raise
the question — " If procreation is after sin, how
would souls have come into being if the first of
mankind had remained sinless ? "

18. That our irrational passions have their
rise from kindred with irrational nature.

19. To those who say that the enjoyment of
the good things we look for will again consist
in meat and drink, because it is written that by
these means man at first lived in Paradise.

20. What was the life in Paradise, and what
was the forbidden tree.

21. That the resurrection is looked for as a
consequence, not so much from the declaration
of Scripture as from the very necessity of things.

22. To those who say, "If the resurrection

is a thing excellent and good, how is it that it
has not happened already, but is hoped for in
some periods of time ? "

23. That he who confesses the beginning of
the world's existence must necessarily agree
also as to its end.

24. An argument against those who say that
matter is co-eternal with God.

25. How one even of those who are without
may be brought to believe the Scripture when
teaching of the resurrection.

26. That the resurrection is not beyond
probability.

27. That it is possible, when the human
body is dissolved into the elements of the uni-
verse, that each should have his own body
restored from the common source.

28. To those who say that souls existed
before bodies, or that bodies were formed before
souls : wherein there is also a refutation of the
fables concerning transmigrations of souls.

29. An establishment of the doctrine that the
cause of existence of soul and body is one and
the same.

30. A brief consideration of the construction
of our bodies from a medical point of view.

I. Wherein is a partial inquiry into the nature
of the world, and a more minute exposition
of the things which preceded the genesis of
man 3.

1. "This is the book of the generation of
heaven and earth ♦," saith the Scripture, when
all that is seen was finished, and each of the
things that are betook itself to its own separate
place, when the body of heaven compassed all
things round, and those bodies which are heavy
and of downward tendency, the earth and the
water, holding each other in, took the middle
place of the universe ; while, as a sort of bond
and stability for the things that were made, the
Divine power and skill was implanted in the
growth of things, guiding all things with the
reins of a double operation (for it was by rest
and motion that it devised the genesis of the
things that were not, and the continuance of
the things that are), driving around, about the
heavy and changeless element contributed by
the creation that does not move, as about some
fixed path, the exceedingly rapid motion of the
sphere, like a wheel, and preserving the indis-
solubility of both by their mutual action, as the
circling substance by its rapid motion com-
presses the compact body of the earth round
about, while that which is firm and unyielding,

3 A Bodleian MS. of the Latin version, cited by Forbes, which
gives independent titles, has here : — " Of the perfection and beauty
of the world and of the harmonious discord of the four elements."

* Gen. H. 4 (LXX.).

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

389

by reason of its unchanging fixedness, con-
tinually augments the whirling motion of those
things which revolve round it, and intensity s is
produced in equal measure in each of the
natures which thus differ in their operation, in
the stationary nature, I mean, and in the mo-
bile revolution ; for neither is the earth shifted
from its own base, nor does the heaven ever
relax in its vehemence, or slacken its motion.

2. These, moreover, were first framed before
other things, according to the Divine wisdom,
to be as it were a beginning of the whole
machine, the great Moses indicating, I suppose,
where he says that the heaven and the earth
were made by God "in the beginning6," that
all things that are seen in the creation are the
offspring of rest and motion, brought into being
by the Divine will. Now the heaven and the
earth being diametrically opposed to each other
in their operations, the creation which lies be-
tween the opposites, and has in part a share in
what is adjacent to it, itself acts as a mean be-
tween the extremes, so that there is manifestly
a mutual contact of the opposites through the
mean ; for air in a manner imitates the per-
petual motion and subtlety of the fiery sub-
stance, both in the lightness of its nature, and
in its suitableness for motion ; yet it is not
such as to be alienated from the solid substance,
for it is no more in a state of continual flux and
dispersion than in a permanent state of immo-
bility, but becomes, in its affinity to each, a kind
of borderland of the opposition between opera-
tions, at once uniting in itself and dividing
things which are naturally distinct.

3. In the same way, liquid substance also is
attached by double qualities to each of the
opposites ; for in so far as it is heavy and of
downward tendency it is closely akin to the
earthy ; but in so far as it partakes of a certain
fluid and mobile energy it is not altogether
alien from the nature which is in motion ; and
by means of this also there is effected a kind
of mixture and concurrence of the opposites,
weight being transferred to motion, and motion
finding no hindrance in weight, so that things
most extremely opposite in nature combine with
one another, and are mutually joined by those
which act as means between them.

4. But to speak strictly, one should rather
say that the very nature of the contraries them-
selves is not entirely without mixture of pro-
perties, each with the other, so that, as I think,
all that we see in the world mutually agree,
and the creation, though discovered in proper-
ties of contrary natures, is yet at union with

S fpir€pj3oX7j apparently means " intensity " or " a high degree of
force," not "excess of force," since, though the force in each is
augmented, it does not exceed that in the other, which is augmented
also pari passu. 6 Gen. i. 1.

itself. For as motion is not conceived merely
as local shifting, but is also contemplated in
change and alteration, and on the other hand
the immovable nature does not admit motion
by way of alteration, the wisdom of God has
transposed these properties, andjsyought un-
changeableness in that which' is ever moving,
and change in that which is immovable ; doing
this, it may be, by a providential dispensation,
so that that property of nature which constitutes
its immutability and immobility might not, when
viewed in any created object, cause the creature
to be accounted as God ; for that which may
happen to move or change would cease to ad-
mit of the conception of Godhead. Hence the
earth is stable without being immutable, while
the heaven, on the contrary, as it has no muta-
bility, so has not stability either, that the Divine
power, by interweaving change in the stable
nature and motion with that which is not sub-
ject to change, might, by the interchange of
attributes, at once join them both closely to
each other, and make them alien from the con-
ception of Deity ; for as has been said, neither
of these (neither that which is unstable, nor
that which is mutable) can be considered to
belong to the more Divine nature.

5. Now all things were already arrived at
their own end : " the heaven and the earth ?,"
as Moses says, " were finished," and all things
that lie between them, and the particular things
were adorned with their appropriate beauty ;
the heaven with the rays of the stars, the sea
and air with the living creatures that swim and
fly, and the earth with all varieties of plants
and animals, to all which, empowered by the
Divine will, it gave birth together; the earth
was full, too, of her produce, bringing forth
fruits at the same time with flowers; the
meadows were full of all that grows therein, and
all the mountain ridges, and summits, and every
hill-side, and slope, and hollow, were crowned
with young grass, and with the varied produce
of the trees, just risen from the ground, yet
shot up at once into their perfect beauty ; and
all the beasts that had come into life at God's
command were rejoicing, we may suppose, and
skipping about, running to and fro in the
thickets in herds according to their kind, while
every sheltered and shady spot was ringing
with the chants of the song-birds. And at
sea, we may suppose, the sight to be seen was
of the like kind, as it had just settled to quiet
and calm in the gathering together of its depths,
where havens and harbours spontaneously hol-
lowed out on the coasts made the sea recon-
ciled with the land ; and the gentle motion of
the waves vied in beauty with the meadows,

1 Gen. ii. t.

39Q

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

rippling delicately with light and harmless
breezes that skimmed the surface ; and all the
wealth of creation by land and sea was ready,
and none was there to share it

II. Why man appeared last, after the creation 8.

i. For not as yet had that great and precious
thing, man, come into the world of being; it
was not to be looked for that the ruler should
appear before the subjects of his rule ; but when
his dominion was prepared, the next step was
that the king should be manifested. When, then,
the Maker of all had prepared beforehand, as
it were, a royal lodging for the future king (and
this was the land, and islands, and sea, and
the heaven arching like a roof over them), and
when all kinds of wealth had been stored in
this palace (and by wealth I mean the whole
creation, all that is in plants and trees, and all
that has sense, and breath, and life ; and — if we
are to account materials also as wealth — all
that for their beauty are reckoned precious in
the eyes of men, as gold and silver, and the
substances of your jewels which men delight
in — having concealed, I say, abundance of all
these also in the bosom of the earth as in a
royal treasure-house), he thus manifests man
in the world, to be the beholder of some of the
wonders therein, and the lord of others ; that
by his enjoyment he might have knowledge of
the Giver, and by the beauty and majesty of the
things he saw might trace out that power of the
Maker which is beyond speech and language.

2. For this reason man was brought into the
world last after the creation, not being rejected
to the last as worthless, but as one whom it
behoved to be king over his subjects at his
very birth. And as a good host does not
bring his guest to his house before the prepar-
ation of his feast, but, when he has made all
due preparation, and decked with their proper
adornments his house, his couches, his table,
brings his guest home when things suitable for
his refreshment are in readiness, — in the same
manner the rich and munificent Entertainer of
our nature, when He had decked the habitation
with beauties of every kind, and prepared this
great and varied banquet, then introduced man,
assigning to him as his task not the acquiring
of what was not there, but the enjoyment of the
things which were there ; and for this reason He
gives him as foundations the instincts of a two-
fold organization, blending the Divine with the
earthy, that by means of both he may be
naturally and properly disposed to each enjoy-
ment, enjoying God by means of his more

8 The title in the Bodleian Latin MS. is : — "That it was reason-
able that man should be created last of the creatures."

divine nature, and the good things of earth by
the sense that is akin to them.

III. That the nature of man is more precious
than all the visible creation 9.

i. But it is right that we should not leave
this point without consideration, that while the
world, great as it is, and its parts, are laid as an
elemental foundation for the formation of the
universe, the creation is, so to say, made off-
hand by the Divine power, existing at once on
His command, while counsel precedes the mak-
ing of man ; and that which is to be is fore-
shown by the Maker in verbal description, and
of what kind it is fitting that it should be, and
to what archetype it is fitting that it should bear
a likeness, and for what it shall be made, and
what its operation shall be when it is made,
and of what it shall be the ruler, — all these
things the saying examines beforehand, so that
he has a rank assigned him before his genesis,
and possesses rule over the things that are be-
fore his coming into being ; for it says, " God
said, Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness, and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and the beasts of the earth, and
the fowls of the heaven, and the cattle, and all
the earth «."

2. O marvellous ! a sun is made, and no coun-
sel precedes ; a heaven likewise ; and to these
no single thing in creation is equal. So great a
wonder is formed by a word alone, and the
saying indicates neither when, nor how, nor
any such detail. So too in all particular cases,
the aether, the stars, the intermediate air, the
sea, the earth, the animals, the plants, — all are
brought into being with a word, while only to
the making of man does the Maker of all draw
near with circumspection, so as to prepare be-
forehand for him material for his formation,
and to liken his form to an archetypal beauty,
and, setting before him a mark for which he is to
come into being, to make for him a nature
appropriate and allied to the operations, and
suitable for the object in hand.

IV. That the construction of man throughout
signifies his ruling power *.

i. For as in our own life artificers fashion a
tool in the way suitable to its use, so the best
Artificer made our nature as it were a formation
fit for the exercise of royalty, preparing it at
once by superior advantages of soul, and by the
very form of the body, to be such as to be

9 The title in the Bodleian Latin MS. is :— " That God created
man with great deliberation "

1 Oen i. 26, not exactly from the LXX.

2 The title in the Bodleian Latin MS. is :— Of the kingly dignity
of the human form."

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

39i

adapted for royalty : for the soul immediately
shows its royal and exalted character, far re-
moved as it is from the lowliness of private
station, in that it owns no lord, and is self-
governed, swayed autocratically by its own will;
for to whom else does this belong than to a
king ? And further, besides these facts, the fact
that it is the image of that Nature which rules
over all means nothing else than this, that our
nature was created to be royal from the first.
For as, in men's ordinary use, those who make
images 3 of princes both mould the figure of
their form, and represent along with this the
royal rank by the vesture of purple, and even
the likeness is commonly spoken of as "a
king," so the human nature also, as it was made
to rule the rest, was, by its likeness to the King
of all, made as it were a living image, partaking
with the archetype both in rank and in name,
not vested in purple, nor giving indication of
its rank by sceptre and diadem (for the arche-
type itself is not arrayed with these), but in-
stead of the purple robe, clothed in virtue,
which is in truth the most royal of all raiment,
and in place of the sceptre, leaning on the bliss
of immortality, and instead of the royal diadem,
decked with the crown of righteousness; so
that it is shown to be perfectly like to the
beauty of its archetype in all that belongs to
the dignity of royalty.

V. That man is a likeness of the' Divine soz>e-
reignty *.

1. It is true, indeed, that the Divine beauty is
not adorned with any shape or endowment of
form, by any beauty of colour, but is con-
templated as excellence in unspeakable bliss.
As then painters transfer human forms to their
pictures by the means of certain colours, laying
on their copy the proper and corresponding tints,
so that the beauty of the original may be accur-
ately transferred to the likeness, so I would have
you understand that our Maker also, painting
the portrait to resemble His own beauty, by
the addition of virtues, as it were with colours,
shows in us His own sovereignty : and manifold
and varied are the tints, so to say, by which
His true form is portrayed : not red, or white 5,
or the blending of these, whatever it may be
called, nor a touch of black that paints the eye-
brow and the eye, and shades, by some com-
bination, the depressions in the figure, and all
such arts which the hands of painters contrive,

3 It is not clear whether the reference here is to painting or to
sculpture, of which the product was afterwards painted. The com-
bination of avafidcrrrovraL and (Tvixnapaypa^tovcri suggests the latter.

4 In the Bodleian Latin MS. the title is: — " How the human
soul is made in the image of God."

5 Aa/u.7rpdrT)s. The old Latin version translates this by " pur-
purissus."

but instead of these, purity, freedom from
passion, blessedness, alienation from all evil,
and all those attributes of the like kind which
help to form in men the likeness of God : with
such hues as these did the Maker of His own
image mark our nature.

2. And if you were to examine the other
points also by which the Divine beauty is
expressed, you will find that to them too the
likeness in the image which we present is
perfectly preserved. The Godhead is mind
and word: for "in the beginning was the
Word6," and the followers of Paul "have the
mind of Christ " which " speaks " in them i :
humanity too is not far removed from these :
you see in yourself word and understanding, an
imitation of the very Mind and Word. Again,
God is love, and the fount of love : for this the
great John declares, that "love is of God," and
" God is love8" : the Fashioner of our nature has
made this to be our feature too : for " hereby,"
He says, " shall all men know that ye are my
disciples, if ye love one another 9 " : — thus, if
this be absent, the whole stamp of the likeness
is transformed. The Deity beholds and hears
all things, and searches all things out : you too
have the power of apprehension of things by
means of sight and hearing, and the under-
standing that inquires into things and searches
them out

VI. An examination of the kindred of mind to
nature: wherein, by way of digression, is re-
futed the doctrine of the Anomoeans '.

1. And let no one suppose me to say that
the Deity is in touch with existing things in a
manner resembling human operation, by means
of different faculties. For it is impossible to
conceive in the simplicity of the Godhead the
varied and diverse nature of the apprehensive
operation : not even in our own case are the
faculties which apprehend things numerous,
although we are in touch with those things
which affect our life in many ways by means of
our senses ; for there is one faculty, the im-
planted mind itself, which passes through each
of the organs of sense and grasps the things
beyond : this it is that, by means of the eyes,
beholds what is seen ; this it is that, by means
of hearing, understands what is said ; that is
content with what is to our taste, and turns
from what is unpleasant ; that uses the hand
for whatever it wills, taking hold or rejecting

6 S. John i. 1.

7 Cf. 1 Cor. ii. 16 ; and 2 Cor. xiii. 3.

6 1 S. John iv. 7, 8. 9 S. John xiii. 35 (not verbally).

1 The Bodleian Latin MS. gives: — '"That God has not human
limbs, and that the image of the Father and of the Son is one,
against the Eunomians."

392

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

by its means, using the help of the organ for
this purpose precisely as it thinks expedient.

2. If in men, then, even though the organs
formed by nature for purposes of perception
may be different, that which operates and moves
by means of all, and uses each appropriately for
the object before it, is one and the same, not
changing its nature by the differences of opera-
tions, how could any one suspect multiplicity
of essence in God on the ground of His varied
powers ? for " He that made the eye," as the
prophet says, and " that planted the ear 2,"
stamped on human nature these operations to
be as it were significant characters, with refer-
ence to their models in Himself: for He says,
"Let us make man in our image3."

3. But what, I would ask, becomes of the
heresy of the Anomceans ? what will they say
to this utterance ? how will they defend the
vanity of their dogma in view of the words
cited? Will they say that it is possible that
one image should be made like to different
forms ? if the Son is in nature unlike the Father,
how comes it that the likeness He forms of the
different natures is one? for He Who said,
" Let us make after our image," and by the
plural signification revealed the Holy Trinity,
would not, if the archetypes were unlike one
another, have mentioned the image in the
singular : for it would be impossible that there
should be one likeness displayed of things which
do not agree with one another : if the natures
were different he would assuredly have begun
their images also differently, making the appro-
priate image for each : but since the image is
one, while the archetype is not one, who is so
far beyond the range of understanding as not
to know that the things which are like the same
thing, surely resemble one another ? Therefore
He says (the word, it may be, cutting short this
wickedness at the very formation of human life),
" Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness."

VII. Why 7iian is destitute of natural weapons
and covering*.

1. But what meanstheuprightness of his figure?
and why is it that those powers which aid
life do not naturally belong to his body? but
man is brought into life bare of natural covering,
an unarmed and poor being, destitute of all
things useful, worthy, according to appearances,
of pity rather than of admiration, not armed
with prominent horns or sharp claws, nor with
hoofs nor with teeth, nor possessing by nature

2 Ps. xciv. 9. 3 Gen. i. 26.

4 The liodleian Latin MS gives: — "Why man was not created
with horns and other defences like certain other animals."

The argument of this and the following chapter seems to be de-
rived to a great extent from Origen [Contra Cetsum, iv. 75 et sqq.).

any deadly venom in a sting, — things such as
most animals have in their own power for
defence against those who do them harm : his
body is not protected with a covering of hair : and
yet possibly it was to be expected that he who
was promoted to rule over the rest of the crea-
tures should be defended by nature with arms
of his own so that he might not need assistance
from others for his own security. Now, how-
ever, the lion, the boar, the tiger, the leopard,
and all the like have natural power sufficient
for their safety : and the bull has his horn, the
hare his speed, the deer his leap and the cer-
tainty of his sight, and another beast has bulk,
others a proboscis, the birds have their wings,
and the bee her sting, and generally in all there
is some protective power implanted by nature :
but man alone of all is slower than the beasts
that are swift of foot, smaller than those that
are of great bulk, more defenceless than those
that are protected by natural arms ; and how,
one will say, has such a being obtained the
sovereignty over all things ?

2. Well, I think it would not be at all hard
to show that what seems to be a deficiency of
our nature is a means for our obtaining do-
minion over the subject creatures. For if man
had had such power as to be able to outrun the
horse in swiftness, and to have a foot that,
from its solidity, could not be worn out, but was
strengthened by hoofs or claws of some kind, and
to carry upon him horns and stings and claws,
he would be, to begin with, a wild-looking and
formidable creature, if such things grew with his
body : and moreover he would have neglected
his rule over the other creatures if he had no
need of the co-operation of his subjects ; where-
as now, the needful services of our life are
divided among the individual animals that are
under our sway, for this reason — to make our
dominion over them necessary.

3. It was the slowness and difficult motion of
our body that brought the horse to supply our
need, and tamed him : it was the nakedness of
our body that made necessary our management
of sheep, which supplies the deficiency of our
nature by its yearly produce of wool : it was
the fact that we import from others the supplies
for our living which subjected beasts of burden
to such service : furthermore, it was the fact
that we cannot eat grass like cattle which
brought the ox to render service to our life,
who makes our living easy for us by his own
labour ; and because we needed teeth and biting
power to subdue some of the other animals by
grip of teeth, the dog gave, together with his
swiftness, his own jaw to supply our need, be-
coming like a live sword for man ; and there
has been discovered by men iron, stronger and
more penetrating than prominent horns or sharp

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

393

claws, not, as those things do with the beasts,
always growing naturally with us, but entering
into alliance with us for the time, and for the
rest abiding by itself : and to compensate for
the crocodile's scaly hide, one may make that
very hide serve as armour, by putting it on his
skin upon occasion : or, failing that, art fashions
iron for this purpose too, which, when it has
served him for a time for war, leaves the man-
at-arms once more free from the burden in time
of peace : and the wing of the birds, too, ministers
to our life, so that by aid of contrivance we are
not left behind even by the speed of wings : for
some of them become tame and are of service
to those who catch birds, and by their means
others are by contrivance subdued to serve our
needs : moreover art contrives to make our
arrows feathered, and by means of the bow
gives us for our needs the speed of wings :
while the fact that our feet are easily hurt and
worn in travelling makes necessary the aid
which is given by the subject animals : for
hence it comes that we fit shoes to our feet.

VIII. IVJiy marts form is upright ; and that
hands were given him because of reason ;
wherein also is a speculation on the difference
of souls*.

i. But man's form is upright, and extends
aloft towards heaven, and looks upwards : and
these are marks of sovereignty which show his
royal dignity. For the fact that man alone
among existing things is such as this, while all
others bow their bodies downwards, clearly
points to the difference of dignity between those
which stoop beneath his sway and that power
which rises above them : for all the rest have
the foremost limbs of their bodies in the form
of feet, because that which stoops needs some-
thing to support it: but in the formation of
man these limbs were made hands, for the
upright body found one base, supporting its
position securely on two feet, sufficient for its
needs.

2. Especially do these ministering hands
adapt themselves to the requirements of the
reason : indeed if one were to say that the
ministration of hands is a special property of
the rational nature, he would not be entirely
wrong ; and that not only because his thought
turns to the common and obvious fact that we
signify our reasoning by means of the natural
employment of our hands in written characters.
It is true that this fact, that we speak by writing,
and, in a certain way, converse by the aid of our

5 The Latin version divides the chapters somewhat differently at
this point. The Bodleian MS. gives this section the title, " Of the
d ;■"'>", "f the human form, and why man was created after the other
creatures."

hands, preserving sounds by the forms of the
alphabet, is not unconnected with the endow-
ment of reason ; but I am referring to some-
thing else when I say that the hands co-operate
with the bidding of reason.

3. Let us, however, before discussing this
point, consider the matter we passed over (for
the subject of the order of created things almost
escaped our notice), why the growth of things
that spring from the earth takes precedence,
and the irrational animals come next, and then,
after the making of these, comes man : for it
may be that we learn from these facts not only
the obvious thought, that grass appeared to the
Creator useful for the sake of the animals, while
the animals were made because of man, and
that for this reason, before the animals there
was made their food, and before man that
which was to minister to human life.

4. But it seems to me that by these facts
Moses reveals a hidden doctrine, and secretly
delivers that wisdom concerning the soul, of
which the learning that is without had indeed
some imagination, but no clear comprehension.
His discourse then hereby teaches us that the
power of life and soul may be considered in
three divisions. For one is only a power of
growth and nutrition supplying what is suitable
for the support of the bodies that are nourished,
which is called the vegetative 6 soul, and is to
be seen in plants ; for we may perceive in
growing plants a certain vital power destitute of
sense ; and there is another form of life besides
this, which, while it includes the form above
mentioned, is also possessed in addition of the
power of management according to sense ; and
this is to be found in the nature of the irrational
animals : for they are not only the subjects of
nourishment and growth, but also have the
activity of sense and perception. But perfect
bodily life is seen in the rational (I mean the
human) nature, which both is nourished and
endowed with sense, and also partakes of reason
and is ordered by mind.

5. We might make a division of our subject
in some such way as this. Of things existing,
part are intellectual, part corporeal. Let us
leave alone for the present the division of the
intellectual according to its properties, for our
argument is not concerned with these. Of the
corporeal, part is entirely devoid of life, and
part shares in vital energy. Of a living body,
again, part has sense conjoined with life, and
part is without sense : lastly, that which has

6 " Vegetative " : — reading (with several MSS. of both classes of
those cited by Forbes) <f>uTi<c>j for $1/0-110) (the reading which Forbes
follows in his text). A similar reading has been adopted in some
later passages, where the MSS. show similar variations. It seems
not unlikely that the less common ijwrticb? should have been altered
by copyists to (^uctiko?. But Gregory seems in this treatise to use
the word <^>ucri; for the corporeal nature : and he may have employed
the adjectival form in a corresponding sense.

394

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

sense is again divided into rational and irrational.
For this reason the lawgiver says that after in-
animate matter (as a sort of foundation for the
form of animate things), this vegetative life was
made, and had earlier 7 existence in the growth
of plants : then he proceeds to introduce the
genesis of those creatures which are regulated
by sense : and since, following the same order,
of those things which have obtained life in the
flesh, those which have sense can exist by them-
selves even apart from the intellectual nature,
while the rational principle could not be em-
bodied save as blended with the sensitive, — for
this reason man was made last after the animals,
as nature advanced in an orderly course to
perfection. For this rational animal, man, is
blended of every form of soul ; he is nourished
by the vegetative kind of soul, and to the faculty
of growth was added that of sense, which stands
midway, if we regard its peculiar nature, between
the intellectual and the more material essence,
being as much coarser than the one as it is
more refined than the other : then takes place
a certain alliance and commixture of the intel-
lectual essence with the subtle and enlightened
element of the sensitive nature : so that man
consists of these three : as we are taught the
like thing by the apostle in what he says to the
Ephesians 8, praying for them that the complete
grace of their " body and soul and spirit " may
be preserved at the coming of the Lord ; using
the word " body " for the nutritive part, and
denoting the sensitive by the word "soul," and
the intellectual by "spirit." Likewise too the
Lord instructs the scribe in the Gospel that he
should set before every commandment that love
to God which is exercised with all the heart
and soul and mind 9 : for here also it seems to
me that the phrase indicates the same difference,
naming the more corporeal existence "heart,"
the intermediate " soul," and the higher nature,
the intellectual and mental faculty, " mind."

6. Hence also the apostle recognizes three
divisions of dispositions, calling one "carnal,"
which is busied with the belly and the pleasures
connected with it, another "natural '," which
holds a middle position with regard to virtue
and vice, rising above the one, but without
pure participation in the other ; and another
"spiritual," which perceives the perfection of
godly life : wherefore he says to the Corinthians,
reproaching their indulgence in pleasure and
passion, " Ye are carnal 2," and incapable of
receiving the more perfect doctrine ; while else-

1 Earlier^ L e. earlier than the animal life, or " sensitive " soul.
8 The reference is really to I Thess. v. 23. Apparently all Forbes'

MSS. read n-jjos tous 'E^eo-i'ous : but the Latin version of Dionysius
Exiguus corrects the error, giving the quotation at greater length.

' Cf. S. Mark xiL 30.

' tyvx<.ia\v : "psychic" or "animal:" — the Authorised Version
translates the word by " natural."

2 Cf. 1 Cor. iii. 3.

where, making a comparison of the middle kind
with the perfect, he says, " but the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit : for they
are foolishness unto him : but he that is spiritual
judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of
no man 3." As, then, the natural man is higher
than the carnal, by the same measure also the
spiritual man rises above the natural.

7. If, therefore, Scripture tells us that man
was made last, after every animate thing, the
lawgiver is doing nothing else than declaring to
us the doctrine of the soul, considering that
what is perfect comes last, according to a certain
necessary sequence in the order of things : for
in the rational are included the others also,
while in the sensitive there also surely exists the
vegetative form, and that again is conceived only
in connection with what is material : thus we
may suppose that nature makes an ascent as it
were by steps — I mean the various properties
of life — from the lower to the perfect form.

8 4. Now since man is a rational animal, the
instrument of his body must be made suitable
for the use of reason 5 ■ as you may see musicians
producing their music according to the form of
their instruments, and not piping with harps nor
harping upon flutes, so it must needs be that
the organization of these instruments of ours
should be adapted for reason, that when struck
by the vocal organs it might be able to sound
properly for the use of words. For this reason
the hands were attached to the body ; for though
we can count up very many uses in daily life for
which these skilfully contrived and helpful instru-
ments, our hands, that easily follow every art
and every operation, alike in war and peace 6,
are serviceable, yet nature added them to our
body pre-eminently for the sake of reason. Foi
if man were destitute of hands, the various parts
of his face would certainly have been arranged
like those of the quadrupeds, to suit the purpose
of his feeding : so that its form would have been
lengthened out and pointed towards the nostrils,
and his lips would have projected from his
mouth, lumpy, and stiff, and thick, fitted for
taking up the grass, and his tongue would either
have lain between his teeth, of a kind to match
his lips, fleshy, and hard, and rough, assisting
his teeth to deal with what came under his
grinder, or it would have been moist and hanging
out at the side like that of dogs and other car-
nivorous beasts, projecting through the gaps in

3 Cf. 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15.

* The Latin versions make ch. ix. begin at this point. The
Bodleian MS. gives as its title: — "That the form of the human
body agrees with the rationality of the mind."

5 It is not absolutely clear whether Aoyos in the following passage
means speech or reason — and whether Ao-yixos means " capable of
speech," or " rational." But as Ao-yiKo? in § 7 clearly has the force
of " rational," it would seem too abrupt a transition to make it mean,
"capable of speech " in the first line of § 8, and this may determine:
1 hi meaning ol \6yos.

c Reading 7u>i< lor rov, with some of Forbes' MSS.

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

395

his jagged row of teeth. If, then, our body had
no hands, how could articulate sound have
been implanted in it, seeing that the form of
the parts of the mouth would not have had the
configuration proper for the use of speech, so
that man must of necessity have either bleated,
or "baaed," or barked, or neighed, or bellowed
like oxen or asses, or uttered some bestial
sound ? but now, as the hand is made part of
the body, the mouth is at leisure for the service
of the reason. Thus the hands are shown to be
the property of the rational nature, the Creator
having thus devised by their means a special
advantage for reason.

IX. That the form of man was framed to seme
as an instrument for the use of reason ?.

i. Now since our Maker has bestowed upon
our formation a certain Godlike grace, by im-
planting in His image the likeness of His own
excellences, for this reason He gave, of His
bounty, His other good gifts to human nature ;
but mind and reason we cannot strictly say that
He gave, but that He imparted them, adding
to the image the proper adornment of His
own nature. Now since the mind is a thing
intelligible and incorporeal, its grace would have
been incommunicable and isolated, if its motion
were not manifested by some contrivance. For
this cause there was still need of this instru-
mental organization, that it might, like a
plectrum, touch the vocal organs and indicate
by the quality of the notes struck, the motion
within.

2. And as some skilled musician, who may
have been deprived by some affection of his
own voice, and yet wish to make his skill
known, might make melody with voices of others,
and publish his art by the aid of flutes or of
the lyre, so also the human mind being a dis-
coverer of all sorts of conceptions, seeing that
it is unable, by the mere soul, to reveal to those
who hear by bodily senses the motions of its
understanding, touches, like some skilful com-
poser, these animated instruments, and makes
known its hidden thoughts by means of the
sound produced upon them.

3. Now the music of the human instrument
is a sort of compound of flute and lyre, sound-
ing together in combination as in a concerted
piece of music. For the breath, as it is forced up
from the air-receiving vessels through the wind-
pipe, when the speaker's impulse to utterance
attunes the harmony to sound, and as it
strikes against the internal protuberances which
divide this flute-like passage in a circular
arrangement, imitates in a way the sound

1 This and part of the next chapter, according to the division of
the Greek, are included in the ninth chapter of the Latin Version.

uttered through a flute, being driven round
and round by the membranous projections.
But the palate receives the sound from below
in its own concavity, and dividing the sound
by the two passages that extend to the
nostrils, and by the cartilages about the per-
forated bone, as it were by some scaly pro-
tuberance, makes its resonance louder; while
the cheek, the tongue, the mechanism of the
pharynx by which the chin is relaxed when
drawn in, and tightened when extended to a
point — all these in many different ways answer
to the motion of the plectrum upon the strings,
varying very quickly, as occasion requires, the
arrangement of the tones ; and the opening and
closing of the lips has the same effect as players
produce when they check the breath of the
flute with their fingers according to the measure
of the tune.

X, That the mind works by means of the senses.

1. As the mind then produces the music of
reason by means of our instrumental con-
struction, we are born rational, while, as I think,
we should not have had the gift of reason if
we had had to employ our lips to supply the
need of the body — the heavy and toilsome part
of the task of providing food. As things are,
however, our hands appropriate this ministration
to themselves, and leave the mouth available
for the service of reason.

28. The operation of theinstrument?, however,
is twofold ; one for the production of sound,
the other for the reception of concepts from
without ; and the one faculty does not blend
with the other, but abides in the operation for
which it was appointed by nature, not inter-
fering with its neighbour either by the sense of
hearing undertaking to speak, or by the speech
undertaking to hear ; for the latter is always
uttering something, while the ear, as Solomon
somewhere says, is not filled with continual
hearing x.

3. That point as to our internal faculties
which seems to me to be even in a special
degree matter for wonder, is this : — what is
the extent of that inner receptacle into which
flows everything that is poured in by our hear-
ing? who are the recorders of the sayings
that are brought in by it ? what sort of store-
houses are there for the concepts that are being
put in by our hearing? and how is it, that
when many of them, of varied kinds, are press-
ing one upon another, there arises no confusion
and error in the relative position of the things

8 Here the Latin version begins chapter x. The title in the
Bodleian MS. is : — " Of the five bodily senses."

9 That is. of the mind, in connection with reason.

1 Cf. Eccles. i. 8. The quotation is not from the LXX. : it is
perhaps not intended to be verbal.

306

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

that are laid up there ? And one may have the
like feeling of wonder also with regard to the
operation of sight ; for by it also in like manner
the mind apprehends those things which are
external to the body, and draws to itself the
images of phenomena, marking in itself the
impressions of the things which are seen.

4. And just as if there were some extensive
city receiving all comers by different entrances,
all will not congregate at any particular place,
but some will go to the market, some to the
houses, others to the churches, or the streets,
or lanes, or the theatres, each according to his
own inclination, — some such city of our mind
I seem to discern established in us, which the
different entrances through the senses keep
filling, while the mind, distinguishing and
examining each of the things that enters, ranks
them in their proper departments of knowledge.

5. And as, to follow the illustration of the
city, it may often be that those who are of the
same family and kindred do not enter by the
same gate, coming in by different entrances, as
it may happen, but are none the less, when
they come within the circuit of the wall, brought
together again, being on close terms with each
other (and one may find the contrary happen ;
for those who are strangers and mutually un-
known often take one entrance to the city, yet
their community of entrance does not bind
them together ; for even when they are within
they can be separated to join their own kindred) ;
something of the same kind I seem to discern in
the spacious territory of our mind ; for often
the knowledge which we gather from the different
organs of sense is one, as the same object is
divided into several parts in relation to the
senses; and again, on the contrary, we may
learn from some one sense many and varied
things which have no affinity one with another.

6. For instance — for it is better to make
our argument clear by illustration — let us sup-
pose that we are making some inquiry into the
property of tastes — what is sweet to the sense,
and what is to be avoided by tasters. We find,
then, by experience, both the bitterness of gall
and the pleasant character of the quality of
honey; but when these facts are known, the
knowledge is one which is given to us (the
same thing being introduced to our understand-
ing in several ways) by taste, smell, hearing, and
often by touch and sight. For when one sees
honey, and hears its name, and receives it by
taste, and recognizes its odour by smell, and
tests it by touch, he recognizes the same thing
by means of each of his senses.

7. On the other hand we get varied and
multiform information by some one sense, for
as hearing receives all sorts of sounds, and our
visual perception exercises its operation by be-

holding things of different kinds — for it lights
alike on black and white, and all things that
are distinguished by contrariety of colour, — so
with taste, with smell, with perception by touch ;
each implants in us by means of its own per-
ceptive power the knowledge of things of every
kind.

XI. That the nature of mi?id is invisible3

1. What then is, in its own nature, this mind
that distributes itself into faculties of sensation,
and duly receives, by means of each, the know-
ledge of things? That it is something else
besides the senses, I suppose no reasonable
man doubts ; for if it were identical with sense,
it would reduce the proper character of the
operations carried on by sense to one, on the
the ground that it is itself simple, and that in
what is simple no diversity is to be found.
Now however, as all agree that touch is one
thing and smell another, and as the rest of the
senses are in like manner so situated with re-
gard to each other as to exclude intercom-
munion or mixture, we must surely suppose,
since the mind is duly present in each case,
that it is something else besides the sensitive
nature, so that no variation may attach to a
thing intelligible.

2. "Who hath known the mind of the
Lord 3 ? " the apostle asks ; and I ask further,
who has understood his own mind ? Let those
tell us who consider the nature of God to be
within their comprehension, whether they
understand themselves — if they know the nature
of their own mind. " It is manifold and much
compounded." How then can that which is
intelligible be composite ? or what is the mode
of mixture of things that differ in kind ? Or,
"It is simple, and incomposite." How then
is it dispersed into the manifold divisions of
the senses? how is there diversity in unity?
how is unity maintained in diversity?

3. But I find the solution of these difficulties
by recourse to the very utterance of God ; for
He says, " Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness V The image is properly an
image so long as it fails in none of those
attributes which we perceive in the archetype ;
but where it falls from its resemblance to the
prototype it ceases in that respect to be an
image ; therefore, since one of the attributes
we contemplate in the Divine nature is incom-
prehensibility of essence, it is clearly necessary
that in this point the image should be able to
show its imitation of the archetype.

4. For if, while the archetype transcends

2 The P.odleian MS. of the Latin version gives as the title:—
The definition of the human mind."

3 Rom. xi. 34. 4 Gen. i. 26.

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

397

comprehension, the nature of the image were
comprehended, the contrary character of the
attributes we behold in them would prove the
defect of the image ; but since the nature of
our mind, which is the likeness of the Creator,
evades our knowledge, it has an accurate re-
semblance to the superior nature, figuring by
its own unknowableness the incomprehensible
Nature.

XII. An examination of the question where the
ruling principle is to be considered to reside ;
wherein also is a discussion of tears and
laughter, and a physiological speculation as to
the inter-relation of matter, nature, and minds.

i. Let there be an end, then, of all the vain
and conjectural discussion of those who confine
the intelligible energy to certain bodily organs ;
of whom some lay it down that the ruling
principle is in the heart, while others say that
the mind resides in the brain, strengthening
such opinions by some plausible superficialities.
For he who ascribes the principal authority to
the heart makes its local position evidence of
his argument (because it seems that it somehow
occupies the middle position in the body6), on
the ground that the motion of the will is easily
distributed from the centre to the whole body,
and so proceeds to operation ; and he makes
the troublesome and passionate disposition of
man a testimony for his argument, because
such affections seem to move this part sym-
pathetically. Those, on the other hand, who
consecrate the brain to reasoning, say that the
head has been built by nature as a kind of
citadel of the whole body, and that in it the
mind dwells like a king, with a body-guard of
senses surrounding it like messengers and
shield-bearers. And these find a sign of their
opinion in the fact that the reasoning of those
who have suffered some injury to the membrane
of the brain is abnormally distorted, and that
those whose heads are heavy with intoxication
ignore what is seemly.

2. Each of those who uphold these views
puts forward some reasons of a more physical
character on behalf of his opinion concerning
the ruling principle. One declares that the
motion which proceeds from the understanding
is in some way akin to the nature of fire, be-
cause fire and the understanding are alike in
perpetual motion ; and since heat is allowed
to have its source in the region of the heart,
he says on this ground that the motion of mind
is compounded with the mobility of heat, and

5 In the Latin version chap. xii. includes only §§ i— 8 (inch), to
which the Bodleian MS. gives the title: — "That the principle of
man does not all reside in the brain, but in the whole body."

6 This view of the position of the heart is perhaps shared by
Gregory himself: see e.g. ch. xxx. J 15.

asserts that the heart, in which heat is enclosed,
is the receptacle of the intelligent nature. The
other declares that the cerebral membrane (for
so they call the tissue that surrounds the brain)
is as it were a foundation or root of all the
senses, and hereby makes good his own argu-
ment, on the ground that the intellectual energy
cannot have its seat save in that part where the
ear, connected with it, comes into concussion
with the sounds that fall upon it, and the sight
(which naturally belongs to the hollow of the
place where the eyes are situated) makes its
internal representation by means of the images
that fall upon the pupils, while the qualities of
scents are discerned in it by being drawn in
through the nose, and the sense of taste is tried
by the test of the cerebral membrane, which
sends down from itself, by the veterbrse of the
neck, sensitive nerve-processes to the isthmoidal
passage, and unites them with the muscles
there.

3. I admit it to be true that the intellectual
part of the soul is often disturbed by prevalence
of passions ; and that the reason is blunted by
some bodily accident so as to hinder its natural
operation ; and that the heart is a sort of
source of the fiery element in the body, and is
moved in correspondence with the impulses of
passion ; and moreover, in addition to this, I
do not reject (as I hear very much the same
account from those who spend their time on
anatomical researches) the statement that the
cerebral membrane (according to the theory
of those who take such a physiological view),
enfolding in itself the brain, and steeped in the
vapours that issue from it, forms a foundation
for the senses ; yet I do not hold this for a
proof that the incorporeal nature is bounded
by any limits of place.

4. Certainly we are aware that mental aber-
rations do not arise from heaviness of head
alone, but skilled physicians declare that our
intellect is also weakened by the membranes
that underlie the sides being affected by disease,
when they call the disease frenzy, since the
name given to those membranes is <pphe^. And
the sensation resulting from sorrow is mis-
takenly supposed to arise at the heart ; for
while it is not the heart, but the entrance of
the belly that is pained, people ignorantly refer
the affection to the heart. Those, however,
who have carefully studied the affections in
question give some such account as follows :
— by a compression and closing of the pores,
which naturally takes place over the whole
body in a condition of grief, everything that
meets a hindrance in its passage is driven
to the cavities in the interior of the body, and
hence also (as the respiratory organs too are
pressed by what surrounds them), the drawing

398

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

of breath often becomes more violent under
the influence of nature endeavouring to widen
what has been contracted, so as to open out
the compressed passages ; and such breathing
we consider a symptom of grief and call it
a groan or a shriek. That, moreover, which
appears to oppress the region of the heart is a
painful affection, not of the heart, but of the
entrance of the stomach, and occurs from the
same cause (I mean, that of the compression
of the pores), as the vessel that contains the
bile, contracting, pours that bitter and pungent
juice upon the entrance of the stomach ; and a
proof of this is that the complexion of those in
grief becomes sallow and jaundiced, as the bile
pours its own juice into the veins by reason
of excessive pressure.

5. Furthermore, the opposite affection, that,
I mean, of mirth and laughter, contributes to
establish the argument; for the pores of the
body, in the case of those who are dissolved in
mirth by hearing something pleasant, are also
somehow dissolved and relaxed. Just as in
the former case the slight and insensible ex-
halations of the pores are checked by grief, and,
as they compress the internal arrangement of
the higher viscera, drive up towards the head
and the cerebral membrane the humid vapour
which, being retained in excess by the cavities
of the brain, is driven out by the pores at its
base 7, while the closing of the eyelids expels
the moisture in the form of drops (and the
drop is called a tear), so I would have you
think that when the pores, as a result of the
contrary condition, are unusually widened, some
air is drawn in through them into the interior,
and thence again expelled by nature through
the passage of the mouth, while all the viscera
(and especially, as they say, the liver) join in
expelling this air by a certain agitation and
throbbing motion ; whence it comes that nature,
contriving to give facility for the exit of the
air, widens the passage of the mouth, extending
the cheeks on either side round about the
breath ; and the result is called laughter.

6. VVe must not, then, on this account as-
cribe the ruling principle any more to the liver
than we must think, because of the heated
state of the blood about the heart in wrathful
dispositions, that the seat of the mind is in the
heart ; but we must refer these matters to the
character of our bodily organization, and con-
sider that the mind is equally in contact with
each of the parts according to a kind of
combination which is indescribable.

7. Even if any should allege to us on this

7 61a Tuif learo rqv Pacnv ir6pu>v. The meaning of this is obscure.
If we might read rwv kotcl riji/ oi(iiv nopu>v, we should have a parallel
to tou Kara to (TTo/xa irdpou below. But there seems to be no
variation in the MSS.

point the Scripture which claims the ruling
principle for the heart, we shall not receive the
statement without examination ; for he who
makes mention of the heart speaks also of the
reins, when he says, " God trieth the hearts and
reins"8; so that they must either confine the
intellectual principle to the two combined or
to neither.

8. And although I am aware that the intel-
lectual energies are blunted, or even made al-
together ineffective in a certain condition of
the body, I do not hold this a sufficient evidence
for limiting the faculty of the mind by any
particular place, so that it should be forced out
of its proper amount of free space by any in-
flammations that may arise in the neighbouring
parts of the body 9 (for such an opinion is a
corporeal one, that when the receptacle is al-
ready occupied by something placed in it, no-
thing else can find place there) ; for the intel-
ligible nature neither dwells in the empty spaces
of bodies, nor is extruded by encroachments of
the flesh ; but since the whole body is made
like some musical instrument, just as it often
happens in the case of those who know how to
play, but are unable, because the unfitness of
the instrument does not admit of their art, to
show their skill (for that which is destroyed by
time, or broken by a fall, or rendered useless
by rust or decay, is mute and inefficient, even
if it be breathed upon by one who may be an
excellent artist in flute-playing) ; so too the
mind, passing over the whole instrument, and
touching each of the parts in a mode corre-
sponding to its intellectual activities, according
to its nature, produces its proper effect on those
parts which are in a natural condition, but re-
mains inoperative and ineffective upon those
which are unable to admit the movement of
its art ; for the mind is somehow naturally
adapted to be in close relation with that which
is in a natural condition, but to be alien from
that which is removed from nature.

9. z And here, I think there is a view of the
matter more close to nature, by which we may
learn something of the more refined doctrines.
For since the most beautiful and supreme good
of all is the Divinity Itself, to which incline all
things that have a tendency towards what is
beautiful and good 2, we therefore say that the

8 Ps. vii. 10.

9 The inflammation causing swelling in the neighbouring parts,
and so leaving no room for the mind.

1 The Latin version (as well as several of the Greek MSS.)
makes this the beginning of chap. xiii. The Bodleian MS. gives as
the title : — "That as the mind is governed by God, so is the material
life of the body by the mind."

x.iAor and to koAoi seem in the following passage to be used of
goodness, alike moral and aesthetic : once or twice KaAbv seems
to be used as equivalent to d-ya#6i' or as opposed to mwnr. in a
sense capable of being rendered simply by "good " ; it also seems to
carry with it in other phrases the distinct idea of trsthttic goodness,
or " beauty," and the use of koAAos and KaAAu>irt't,'«ii>, in other
phrases still, makes it necessary to preserve this idea in translation.

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

399

mind, as being in the image of the most beauti-
ful, itself also remains in beauty and goodness
so long as it partakes as far as is possible in its
likeness to the archetype ; but if it were at all
to depart from this it is deprived of that beauty
in which it was. And as we said that the mind
was adorned 3 by the likeness of the archetypal
beauty, being formed as though it were a mirror
to receive the figure of that which it expresses,
we consider that the nature which is governed
by it is attached to the mind in the same re-
lation, and that it too is adorned by the beauty
that the mind gives, being, so to say, a mirror
of the mirror; and that by it is swayed and
sustained the material element of that existence
in which the nature is contemplated-

10. Thus so long as one keeps in touch with
the other, the communication of the true beauty
extends proportionally through the whole series,
beautifying by the superior nature that which
comes next to it ; but when there is any inter-
ruption of this beneficent connection, or when,
on the contrary, the superior comes to follow
the inferior, then is displayed the misshapen
character of matter, when it is isolated from
nature (for in itself matter is a thing without
form or structure), and by its shapelessness is
also destroyed that beauty of nature with which «
it is adorned through the mind ; and so the
transmission of the ugliness of matter reaches
through the nature to the mind itself, so that
the image of God is no longer seen in the figure
expressed by that which was moulded according
to it; for the mind, setting the idea of good
like a mirror behind the back, turns off the in-
cident rays of the effulgence of the good, and
it receives into itself the impress of the shape-
lessness of matter.

ii. And in this way is brought about the
genesis of evil, arising through the withdrawal
of that which is beautiful and good. Now all
is beautiful and good that is closely related to
the First Good ; but that which departs from
its relation and likeness to this is certainly
devoid of beauty and goodness. If, then, ac-
cording to the statement we have been con-
sidering, that which is truly good is one, and
the mind itself also has its power of being
beautiful and good, in so far as it is in the
image of the good and beautiful, and the nature,
which is sustained by the mind, has the like
power, in so far as it is an image of the image,
it is hereby shown that our material part holds
together, and is upheld when it is controlled by

The phrases "beautiful and good," or '* beauty and goodness," have
therefore been here adopted to express the single adjectivejcaAbi'.

3 Omitting toO, which Forbes inserts before KaraKocrtielaOau. : it
appears to be found in all the MSS., but its insertion reduces the
grammar of the passage to hopeless confusion. Perhaps the true
reading is tow npuiTo-rvnov koAAicttou.

* Reading £, with several of Forbes' MSS., for the 7} of the
Paris ed. , and the 6 of Forbes' text.

nature ; and on the other hand is dissolved and
disorganized when it is separated from that which
upholds and sustains it, and is dissevered from
its conjunction with beauty and goodness.

12. Now such a condition as this does not
arise except when there takes place an over-
turning of nature to the opposite state, in which
the desire has no inclination for beauty and
goodness, but for that which is in need of the
adorning element ; for it must needs be that
that which is made like to matter, destitute as
matter is of form of its own, should be assimi-
lated to it in respect of the absence alike of
form and of beauty.

13. We have, however, discussed these points
in passing, as following on our argument, since
they were introduced by our speculation on the
point before us ; for the subject of enquiry was,
whether the intellectual faculty has its seat in
any of the parts of us, or extends equally over
them all ; for as for those who shut up the
mind locally in parts of the body, and who
advance for the establishment of this opinion
of theirs the fact that the reason has not free
course in the case of those whose cerebral
membranes are in an unnatural condition, our
argument showed that in respect of every part
of the compound nature of man, whereby every
man has some natural operation, the power of
the soul remains equally ineffective if the part
does not continue in its natural condition. And
thus there came into our argument, following
out this fine of thought, the view we have just
stated, by which we learn that in the compound
nature of man the mind is governed by God, and
that by it is governed our material life, provided
the latter remains in its natural state, but if it is
perverted from nature it is alienated also from
that operation which is carried on by the mind.

14. Let us return however once more to the
point from which we started — that in those who
are not perverted from their natural condition
by some affection, the mind exercises its own
power, and is established firmly in those who
are in sound health, but on the contrary is
powerless in those who do not admit its oper-
ation ; for we may confirm our opinion on these
matters by yet other arguments : and if it is not
tedious for those to hear who are already wearied
with our discourse, we shall discuss these matters
also, so far as we are able, in a few words.

XIII. A Rationale of sleep, of yawning, and of
dreams \

1. This life of our bodies, material and subject
to flux, always advancing by way of motion,

5 The Latin version (and with it several of the Greek MSS.)
makes this the fourteenth chapter. The Bodleian MS. gives as its
title : — " That our body is always in motion."

400

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

finds the power of its being in this, that it never
rests from its motion : and as some river, flow-
ing on by its own impulse, keeps the channel
in which it runs well filled, yet is not seen in
the same water always at the same place, but
part of it glides away while part comes flowing
on, so, too, the material element of our life here
suffers change in the continuity of its succession
of opposites by way of motion and flux, so that
it never can desist from change, but in its in-
ability to rest keeps up unceasingly its motion
alternating by like ways 6 : and if it should ever
cease moving it will assuredly have cessation
also of its being.

2. For instance, emptying succeeds fulness,
and on the other hand after emptiness comes
in turn a process of filling : sleep relaxes the
strain of waking, and, again, awakening braces
up what had become slack : and neither of these
abides continually, but both give way, each at
the other's coming ; nature thus by their inter-
change so renewing herself as, while partaking
of each in turn, to pass from the one to the
other without break. For that the living creature
should always be exerting itself in its operations
produces a certain rupture and severance of the
overstrained part ; and continual quiescence of
the body brings about a certain dissolution and
laxity in its frame : but to be in touch with each
of these at the proper times in a moderate
degree is a staying-power of nature, which, by
continual transference to the opposed states,
gives herself in each of them rest from the
other. Thus she finds the body on the strain
through wakefulness, and devises relaxation for
the strain by means of sleep, giving the percep-
tive faculties rest for the time from their oper-
ations, loosing them like horses from the chariots
after the race.

3. Further, rest at proper times is necessary
for the framework of the body, that the nutri-
ment may be diffused over the whole body
through the passages which it contains, without
any strain to hinder its progress. For just as
certain misty vapours are drawn up from the
recesses of the earth when it is soaked with
rain, whenever the sun heats it with rays of any
considerable warmth, so a similar result happens
in the earth that is in us, when the nutriment
within is heated up by natural warmth ; and
the vapours, being naturally of upward tendency
and airy nature, and aspiring to that which is
above them, come to be in the region of the
head like smoke penetrating the joints of a
wall : then they are dispersed thence by exhal-
ation to the passages of the organs of sense,

6 Life is represented as a succession of opposite states (rur
ivamiuiv SiaSoxy), which yet recur again and again in the same
sequence (Sia tup 6^01'ui/). This is illustrated in the following
section.

and by them the senses are of course rendered
inactive, giving way to the transit of these
vapours. For the eyes are pressed upon by
the eyelids when some leaden instrument?, as
it were (I mean such a weight as that I have
spoken of), lets down the eyelid upon the
eyes ; and the hearing, being dulled by these
same vapours, as though a door were placed
upon the acoustic organs, rests from its natural
operation : and such a condition is sleep, when
the sense is at rest in the body, and altogether
ceases from the operation of its natural motion,
so that the digestive processes of nutriment may
have free course for transmission by the vapours
through each of the passages.

4. And for this reason, if the apparatus of
the organs of sense should be closed and sleep
hindered by some occupation, the nervous
system, becoming filled with the vapours, is
naturally and spontaneously extended so that
the part which has had its density increased by
the vapours is rarefied by the process of extension,
just as those do who squeeze the water out of
clothes by vehement wringing : and, seeing that
the parts about the pharynx are somewhat
circular, and nervous tissue abounds there,
whenever there is need for the expulsion from
that part of the density of the vapours — since
it is impossible that the part which is circular
in shape should be separated directly, but only
by being distended in the outline of its circum-
ference— for this reason, by checking the breath
in a yawn the chin is moved downwards so as
to leave a hollow to the uvula, and all the
interior parts being arranged in the figure of a
circle, that smoky denseness which had been
detained in the neighbouring parts is emitted
together with the exit of the breath. And often
the like may happen even after sleep when any
portion of those vapours remains in the region
spoken of undigested and unexhaled.

5. Hence the mind of man clearly proves
its claim 8 to connection with his nature, itself
also co-operating and moving with the nature
in its sound and waking state, but remaining
unmoved when it is abandoned to sleep, unless
any one supposes that the imagery of dreams is
a motion of the mind exercised in sleep. We
for our part say that it is only the conscious
and sound action of the intellect which we
ought to refer to mind ; and as to the fantastu
nonsense which occurs to us in sleep, we sup-
pose that some appearances of the operations
of the mind are accidentally moulded in the
less rational part of the soul ; for the soul, being

1 Reading fitjxcu/ijs with the earlier editions and (apparently'' a
large number of Forbes' MSS. in place of jiTj^ai'iiojs. Bui /ioAu/36uij»
may be for /AoAu/36aiVr)s.

8 Reading Seixwaiv, as Forbes does (apparently from all (he
MSS. and agreeing with the earlier editt.). The Latin translation
points to the reading Stixwrai.

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

401

by sleep dissociated from the senses, is also of
necessity outside the range of the operations of
the mind ; for it is through the senses that the
union of mind with man takes place ; therefore
when the senses are at rest, the intellect also
must needs be inactive ; and an evidence of
this is the fact that the dreamer often seems to
be in absurd and impossible situations, which
would not happen if the soul were then guided
by reason and intellect.

6. It seems to me, however, that when the
soul is at rest so far as concerns its more ex-
cellent faculties (so far, I mean, as concerns
the operations of mind and sense), the nutritive
part of it alone is operative during sleep, and
that some shadows and echoes of those things
which happen in our waking moments— of the
operations both of sense and of intellect — which
are impressed upon it by that part of the soul
which is capable of memory, that these, I say,
are pictured as chance will have it, some echo
of memory still lingering in this division of the
soul.

7. With these, then, the man is beguiled,
not led to acquaintance with the things that
present themselves by any train of thought, but
wandering among confused and inconsequent
delusions. But just as in his bodily operations,
while each of the parts individually acts in
some way according to the power which natur-
ally resides in it, there arises also in the limb
that is at rest a state sympathetic with that
which is in motion, similarly in the case of the
soul, even if one part is at rest and another in
motion, the whole is affected in sympathy with
the part ; for it is not possible that the natural
unity should be in any way severed, though
one of the faculties included in it is in turn
supreme in virtue of its active operation. But
as, when men are awake and busy, the mind is
supreme, and sense ministers to it, yet the
faculty which regulates the body is not dis-
sociated from them (for the mind furnishes the
food for its wants, the sense receives what is
furnished, and the nutritive faculty of the body
appropriates to itself that which is given to it),
so in sleep the supremacy of these faculties is
in some way reversed in us, and while the less
rational becomes supreme, the operation of the
other ceases. indeed, yet is not absolutely ex-
tinguished ; but while the nutritive faculty is
then busied with digestion during sleep, and
keeps all our nature occupied with itself, the
faculty of sense is neither entirely severed from
it (for that cannot be separated which has once
been naturally joined), nor yet can its activity
revive, as it is hindered by the inaction during
sleep of the organs of sense ; and by the same
reasoning (the mind also being united to the
sensitive part of the soul) it would follow that

we should say that the mind moves with the
latter when it is in motion, and rests with it
when it is quiescent.

8. As naturally happens with fire when it is
heaped over with chaff, and no breath fans the
flame — it neither consumes what lies beside it.
nor is entirely quenched, but instead of flame
it rises to the air through the chaff in the form
of smoke ; yet if it should obtain any breath
of air, it turns the smoke to flame — in the same
way the mind when hidden by the inaction of
the senses in sleep is neither able to shine out
through them, nor yet is quite extinguished,
but has, so to say, a smouldering activity, operat-
ing to a certain extent, but unable to operate
farther.

9. Again, as a musician, when he touches
with the plectrum the slackened strings of a
lyre, brings out no orderly melody (for that
which is not stretched will not sound), but his
hand frequently moves skilfully, bringing the
plectrum to the position of the notes so far as
place is concerned, yet there is no sound, ex-
cept that he produces by the vibration of the
strings a sort of uncertain and indistinct hum ;
so in sleep the mechanism of the senses being
relaxed, the artist is either quite inactive, if the
instrument is completely relaxed by satiety or
heaviness ; or will act slackly and faintly, if the
instrument of the senses does not fully admit of
the exercise of its art.

10. For this cause memory is confused, and
foreknowledge, though rendered doubtful 9 by
uncertain veils, is imaged in shadows of our
waking pursuits, and often indicates to us
something of what is going to happen : for by
its subtlety of nature the mind has some ad-
vantage, in ability to behold things, over mere
corporeal grossness ; yet it cannot make its
meaning clear by direct methods, so that the
information of the matter in hand should be
plain and evident, but its declaration of the
future is ambiguous and doubtful, — what those
who interpret such things call an " enigma."

1 1 . So the butler presses the cluster for
Pharaoh's cup : so the baker seemed to carry
his baskets ; each supposing himself in sleep to-
be engaged in those services with which he was
busied when awake : for the images of their
customary occupations imprinted on the pre-
scient element of their soul, gave them for a
time the power of foretelling, by this sort of
prophecy on the part of the mind, what should
come to pass.

1 2. But if Daniel and Joseph and others like
them were instructed by Divine power, without
any confusion of perception, in the knowledge
of things to come, this is nothing to the present.

9 Reading e7riSi(rra£ou<ra with several of Forbes' MSS.

VOL. V.

D D

402

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

statement ; for no one would ascribe this to the
power of dreams, since he will be constrained
as a consequence to suppose that those Divine
appearances also which took place in wakeful-
ness were not a miraculous vision but a result
of nature brought about spontaneously. As
then, while all men are guided by their own
minds, there are some few who are deemed
worthy of evident Divine communication ; so,
while the imagination of sleep naturally occurs
in a like and equivalent manner for all, some,
not all, share by means of their dreams in some
more Divine manifestation : but to all the rest,
even if a foreknowledge of anything does occur
as a result of dreams, it occurs in the way we
have spoken of.

13. And again, if the Egyptian and the As-
syrian king were guided by God to the know-
ledge of the future, the dispensation wrought by
their means is a different thing : for it was
necessary that the hidden wisdom of the holy
men * should be made known, that each of
them might not pass his life without profit to
the state. For how could Daniel have been
known for what he was, if the soothsayers and
magicians had not been unequal to the task of
discovering the dream ? And how could Egypt
have been preserved while Joseph was shut up
in prison, if his interpretation of the dream had
not brought him to notice ? Thus we must
reckon these cases as exceptional, and not class
them with common dreams.

14. But this ordinary seeing of dreams is
common to all men, and arises in our fancies in
different modes and forms : for either there
remain, as we have said, in the reminiscent part
of the soul, the echoes of daily occupations ; or,
as often happens, the constitution of dreams is
framed with regard to such and such a condition
of the body : for thus the thirsty man seems to
be among springs, the man who is in need of
food to be at a feast, and the young man in the
heat of youthful vigour is beset by fancies cor-
responding to his passion.

15. I also knew another cause of the fancies
of sleep, when attending one of my relations
attacked by frenzy ; who being annoyed by
food being given him in too great quantity for
his strength, kept crying out and finding fault
with those who were about him for filling intes-
tines with dung and putting them upon him :
and when his body was rapidly tending to
perspire he blamed those who were with him
for having water ready to wet him with as he
lay : and he did not cease calling out till the
result showed the meaning of these complaints :
for all at once a copious sweat broke out over

1 "The holy men," Joseph and Daniel, who were enabled, by
the authority they obtained through their interpretation of dreams,
to benefit the state.

his body, and a relaxation of the bowels ex-
plained the weight in the intestines. The same
condition then which, while his sober judgment
was dulled by disease, his nature underwent,
being sympathetically affected by the condition
of the body— not being without perception of
what was amiss, but being unable clearly to
express its pain, by reason of the distraction
resulting from the disease — this, probably, if
the intelligent principle of the soul were lulled
to rest, not from infirmity but by natural sleep,
might appear as a dream to one similarly
situated, the breaking out of perspiration being
expressed by water, and the pain occasioned by
the food, by the weight of intestines.

16. This view also is taken by those skilled
in medicine, that according to the differences
of complaints the visions of dreams appear differ-
ently to the patients : that the visions of those of
weak stomach are of one kind, those of persons
suffering from injury to the cerebral membrane
of another, those of persons in fevers of yet
another ; that those of patients suffering from
bilious and from phlegmatic affections are
diverse, and those again of plethoric patients,
and of patients in wasting disease, are different ;
whence we may see that the nutritive and vege-
tative faculty of the soul has in it by commix-
ture some seed of the intelligent element, which
is in some sense brought into likeness to the
particular state of the body, being adapted in
its fancies according to the complaint which has
seized upon it.

17. Moreover, most men's dreams are con-
formed to the state of their character : the
brave man's fancies are of one kind, the coward's
of another ; the wanton man's dreams of one
kind, the continent man's of another ; the
liberal man and the avaricious man are subject
to different fancies ; while these fancies are
nowhere framed by the intellect, but by the less
rational disposition of the soul, which forms
even in dreams the semblances of those things
to which each is accustomed by the practice of
his waking hours.

XIV. That the mind is not in a part of the
body ; wherein also is a distinction of the move-
ments of the body and of the soul'1.

•

1. But we have wandered far from our subject,
for the purpose of our argument was to show
that the mind is not restricted to any part of
the body, but is equally in touch with the
whole, producing its motion according to the
nature of the part which is under its influence.

2 This is chapter xv. in the Latin version and some Greek MSS.
The Bodleian MS of the Latin gives the title :— "That the mind is
sometimes in servitude to the body, and of its three differenres,
vital, spiritual, and rational."

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

403

There are cases, however, in which the mind
even follows the bodily impulses, and becomes,
as it were, their servant ; for often the bodily
nature takes the lead by introducing either the
sense of that which gives pain or the desire for
that which gives pleasure, so that it may be
said to furnish the first beginnings, by produc-
ing in us the desire for food, or, generally, the
impulse towards some pleasant thing ; while the
mind, receiving such an impulse, furnishes the
body by its own intelligence with the proper
means towards the desired object. Such a
■condition, indeed, does not occur in all, save
in those of a somewhat slavish disposition,
■who bring the reason into bondage to the im-
pulses of their nature and pay servile homage
to the pleasures of sense by allowing them the
alliance of their mind ; but in the case of more
perfect men this does not happen ; for the
mind takes the lead, and chooses the expedient
course by reason and not by passion, while their
nature follows in the tracks of its leader.

2. But since our argument discovered in our
vital faculty three different varieties — one which
receives nourishment without perception, an-
other which at once receives nourishment and
is capable of perception, but is without the
reasoning activity, and a third rational, perfect,
and co-extensive with the whole faculty — so
that among these varieties the advantage belongs
to the intellectual, — let no one suppose on this
account that in the compound nature of man
there are three souls welded together, contem-
plated each in its own limits, so that one should
think man's nature to be a sort of conglomera-
tion of several souls. The true and perfect
soul is naturally one, the intellectual and im-
material, which mingles with our material nature
by the agency of the senses ; but all that is of
material nature, being subject to mutation and
alteration, will, if it should partake of the
animating power, move by way of growth : if, on
the contrary, it should fall away from the vital
energy, it will reduce its motion to destruction.

3. Thus, neither is there perception without
material substance, nor does the act of percep-
tion take place without the intellectual faculty.

'XV. That the soul proper, in fact and name, is
the rational soul, while the others are called so
£quivocally ; wherein also is this statement,
/hat the power of the mind extends throughout
the whole body in fitting contact with every
fart 3.

1 . Now, if some things in creation possess the
nutritive faculty, and others again are regulated

3 Otherwise chap. xvi. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version
gives the title : — " That the vital energy of the irrational creatures
is not truly but equivocally called 'soul', and of the unspeakable
communion of body and soul"

by the perceptive faculty, while the former have
no share of perception nor the latter of the
intellectual nature, and if for this reason any
one is inclined to the opinion of a plurality of
souls, such a man will be positing a variety of
souls in a way not in accordance with their
distinguishing definition. For everything which
we conceive among existing things, if it be
perfectly that which it is, is also properly called
by the name it bears : but of that which is not
in every respect what it is called, the appellation
also is vain. For instance : — if one were to
show us true bread, we say that he properly
applies the name to the subject : but if one
were to show us instead that which had been
made of stone to resemble the natural bread,
which had the same shape, and equal size, and
similarity of colour, so as in most points to
be the same with its prototype, but which yet
lacks the power of being food, on this account
we say that the stone receives tfee name of
" bread," not properly, but by a misnomer,
and all things which fall under the same de-
scription, which are not absolutely what they
are called, have their name from a misuse of
terms.

2. Thus, as the soul finds its perfection in
that which is intellectual and rational, every-
thing that is not so may indeed share the name
of " soul," but is not really soul, but a certain
vital energy associated with the appellation of
"soul4." And for this reason also He Who
gave laws on every matter, gave the animal
nature likewise, as not far removed from this
vegetative life 5, for the use of man, to be for
those who partake of it instead of herbs : — for
He says, " Ye shall eat all kinds of flesh even
as the green herb 6 ; " for the perceptive energy
seems to have but a slight advantage over that
which is nourished and grows without it. Let
this teach carnal men not to bind their intellect
closely to the phenomena of sense, but rather
to busy themselves with their spiritual advant-
ages, as the true soul is found in these, while
sense has equal power also among the brute
creation.

3. The course of our argument, however, has
diverged to another point : for the subject of
our speculation was not the fact that the energy
of mind is of more dignity among the attributes
we conceive in man than the material element
of his being, but the fact that the mind is not
confined to any one part of us, but is equally in
all and through all, neither surrounding any-
thing without, nor being enclosed within any-

4 tt; rrj? ij/ux « «Aij<rei (ruyict'icpi/uiei'n. The meaning is apparently
something like that given ; but if we might read (rvyKexp^fxeirr) the
sense of the passage would be much plainer.

5 Reading (/»btiki/s for (pu<7iK7Js as before, ch. 8, § 4 (where se<"
noteV

0 Cf. Gen. ix. 3 The quotation, except the last few words, a
not vetbally from the LXX

D D 2

404

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

thing : for these phrases are properly applied to
casks or other bodies that are placed one inside
the other ; but the union of the mental with the
bodily presents a connection unspeakable and
inconceivable, — not being within it (for the in-
corporeal is not enclosed in a body), nor yet
surrounding it without (for that which is incor-
poreal does not include 7 anything), but the
mind approaching our nature in some inex-
plicable and incomprehensible way, and coming
into contact with it, is to be regarded as both
in it and around it, neither implanted in it nor
enfolded with it, but in a way which we cannot
speak or think, except so far as this, that while
the nature prospers according to its own order,
the mind is also operative ; but if any misfortune
befalls the former, the movement of the intellect
halts correspondingly.

XVI. A contemplation of the Divine utterance
which said*—" Let us make man after our image
and likeness " ; wherein is examined what is
the definition of the image, and how the passible
and mortal is like to the Blessed and Impas-
sible, and hmv in the image there are male and
female, seeing these are not in the Prototype 8.

i. Let us now resume our consideration of
the Divine word, " Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness 9." How mean and
how unworthy of the majesty of man are the
fancies of some heathen writers, who magnify
humanity, as they supposed, by their comparison
of it to this world ! for they say that man is a
little world, composed of the same elements
with the universe. Those who bestow on
human nature such praise as this by a high-
sounding name, forget that they are dignifying
man with the attributes of the gnat and the
mouse : for they too are composed of these four
elements, — because assuredly about the ani-
mated nature of every existing thing we behold
a part, greater or less, of those elements without
which it is not natural that any sensitive being
should exist. What great thing is there, then,
in man's being accounted a representation and
likeness of the world, — of the heaven that
passes away, of the earth that changes, of all
things that they contain, which pass away with
the departure of that which compasses them
round ?

2. In what then does the greatness of man
consist, according to the doctrine of the Church ?

7 It does not seem of much consequence whether we read
TTtpiAa/xPaveTat with Forbes and the RISS., and treat it as of the
middle voice, or irtpiAa/i^ai/ci ti with the Paris Editt. The reading
TrtpiAa^Pai/eTai, taken passively, obscures the sense of the passage.

8 Otherwise chap. xvii. The title in the Bodleian MS. of the
Latin Version is : — That the excellence of man does not consist in
the fact t/.-at, according to philosophers, be is made after the image of
the world, but in the fact that he is made in the image of God, and
how he is made in the image of God." 9 Gen. i. 26.

Not in his likeness to the created world, but in his
being in the image of the nature of the Creator.

3. What therefore, you will perhaps say, is
the definition of the image? How is the in-
corporeal likened to body ? how is the temporal
like the eternal? that which is mutable by
change like to the immutable ? that which is sub-
ject to passion and corruption to the impassible
and incorruptible ? that which constantly dwells
with evil, and grows up with it, to that which is
absolutely free from evil ? there is a great differ-
ence between that which is conceived in the
archetype, and a thing which has been made in
its image : for the image is properly so called
if it keeps its resemblance to the prototype ; but
if the imitation be perverted from its subject,
the thing is something else, and no longer an
image of the subject.

4. How then is man, this mortal, passible,
shortlived being, the image of that nature which
is immortal, pure, and everlasting? The true
answer to this question, indeed, perhaps only
the very Truth knows : but this is what we,
tracing out the truth so far as we are capable
by conjectures and inferences, apprehend con-
cerning the matter. Neither does the word of
God lie when it says that man was made in the
image of God, nor is the pitiable suffering of
man's nature like to the blessedness of the im-
passible Life : for if any one were to compare
our nature with God, one of two things must
needs be allowed in order that the definition of
the likeness may be apprehended in both cases
in the same terms, — either that the Deity is
passible, or that humanity is impassible : but if
neither the Deity is passible nor our nature free
from passion, what other account remains
whereby we may say that the word of God
speaks truly, which says that man was made
in the image of God?

5. We must, then, take up once more the
Holy Scripture itself, if we may perhaps find
some guidance in the question by means of
what is written. After saying, " Let us make
man in our image," and for what purposes it
was said "Let us make him," it adds this
saying : — "and God created man ; in the image
of God created He him ; male and female
created He them \" We have already said in
what precedes, that this saying was uttered for
the destruction of heretical impiety, in order
that being instructed that the Only-begotten
God made man in the image of God, we should
in no wise distinguish the Godhead of the
Father and the Son, since Holy Scripture gives
to each equally the name of God, — to Him
Who made man, and to Him in Whose image
he was made.

1 Gen. i. ?7.

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

405

6. However, let us pass by our argument
upon this point : let us turn our inquiry to the
question before us, — how it is that while the
Deity is in bliss, and humanity is in misery, the
latter is yet in Scripture called " like " the
iformer ?

/ 7. We must, then, examine the words care-
' fully : for we find, if we do so, that that which
was made "in the image " is one thing, and
that which is now manifested in wretchedness
is another. " God created man," it says ; " in
the image of God created He him 3." There is
an end of the creation of that which was made
" in the image " : then it makes a resumption
of the account of creation, and says, " male
and female created He them." I presume
that every one knows that this is a departure
from the Prototype : for " in Christ Jesus,"
as the apostle says, " there is neither male
nor female2." Yet the phrase declares that
man is thus divided.

8. Thus the creation of our nature is in a
sense twofold : one made like to God, one
divided according to this distinction : for some-
thing like this the passage darkly conveys by its
arrangement, where it first says, " God created
man, in the image of God created He him 3,"
and then, adding to what has been said, " male
and female created He them 3," — a thing which
is alien from our conceptions of God.

9. I think that by these words Holy Scripture
conveys to us a great and lofty doctrine ; and
the doctrine is this. While two natures — the
Divine and incorporeal nature, and the irrational
life of brutes — are separated from each other as
extremes, human nature is the mean between
them : for in the compound nature of man we
may behold a part of each of the natures I have
mentioned, — of the Divine, the rational and
intelligent element, which does not admit the
distinction of male and female ; of the irrational,
our bodily form and structure, divided into
male and female : for each of these, elements is
certainly to be found in all that partakes of
human life. That the intellectual element, how-
ever, precedes the other, we learn as from one
who gives in order an account of the making of
man; and we learn also that his community
and kindred with the irrational is for man a pro-
vision for reproduction. For he says first that
" God created man in the image of God "
(showing by these words, as the Apostle says,
that in such a being there is no male or female) :
then he adds the peculiar attributes of human
nature, " male and female created He them 3."

10. What, then, do we learn from this? Let
no one, I pray, be indignant if I bring from far
an argument to bear upon the present subject.

God is in His own nature all that which our
mind can conceive of good ; — rather, transcend-
ing all good that we can conceive or compre-
hend. He creates man for no other reason
than that He is good ; and being such, and
having this as His reason for entering upon the
creation of our nature, He would not exhibit
the power of His goodness in an imperfect form,
giving our nature some one of the things at His
disposal, and grudging it a share in another :
but the perfect form of goodness is here to be
seen by His both bringing man into being from
nothing, and fully supplying him with all good
gifts : but since the list of individual good gifts

, is a long one, it is out of the question to appre-
hend it numerically. The language of Scripture
therefore expresses it concisely by a compre-
hensive phrase, in saying that man was made

I " in the image of God " : for this is the same
as to say that He made human nature partici-

| pant in all good ; for if the Deity is the fulness
of good, and this is His image, then the image
finds its resemblance to the Archetype in being
filled with all good.

11. Thus there is in us the principle of all
excellence, all virtue and wisdom, and every
higher thing that we conceive : but pre-eminent
among all is the fact that we are free from
necessity, and not in bondage to any natural

| power, but have decision in our own power as
we please ; for virtue is a voluntary thing,
subject to no dominion : that which is the
result of compulsion and force cannot be virtue.

12. Now as the image bears in all points the
semblance of the archetypal excellence, if it had
not a difference in some respect, being abso-
lutely without divergence it would no longer be
a likeness, but will in that case manifestly be
absolutely identical with the Prototype. What
difference then do we discern between the Divine
and that which has been made like to the Divine ?
We find it in the fact that the former is un-
create, while the latter has its being from crea-
tion : and this distinction of property brings
with it a train of other properties ; for it is very
certainly acknowledged that the uncreated
nature is also immutable, and always remains
the same, while the created nature cannot exist
without change ; for its very passage from non-
existence to existence is a certain motion and
change of the non-existent transmuted by the
Divine purpose into being.

13. As the Gospel calls the stamp upon the
coin "the image of Caesar -»," whereby we learn
that in that which was fashioned to resemble
Caesar there was resemblance as to outward
look, but difference as to material, so also in
the present saying, when we consider the attri-

a Cf. Gal. iii. 28.

3 Gen. i. 27.

4 Cf. S. Matt. xxii. 20, 21,

406

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

butes contemplated both in the Divine and
human nature, in which the likeness consists, to
be in the place of the features, we find in what
underlies them the difference which we behold
in the uncreated and in the created nature.

14. Now as the former always remains the
same, while that which came into being by
creation had the beginning of its existence from
change, and has a kindred connection with the
like mutation, for this reason He Who, as the
prophetical writing says, " knoweth all things
before they be5," following out, or rather per-
ceiving beforehand by His power of foreknow-
ledge what, in a state of independence and
freedom, is the tendency of the motion of man's
will, — as He saw, I say, what would be, He
devised for His image the distinction of male
and female, which has no reference to the
Divine Archetype, but, as we have said, is an
approximation to the less rational nature.

15. The cause, indeed, of this device, only
those can know who were eye-witnesses of the
truth and ministers of the Word ; but we, im-
agining the truth, as far as we can, by means of
conjectures and similitudes, do not set forth
that which occurs to our mind authoritatively,
but will place it in the form of a theoretical
speculation before our kindly hearers.

16. What is it then which we understand
concerning these matters? In saying that
"God created man" the text indicates, by the
indefinite character of the term, all mankind ;
for was not Adam here named together with
the creation, as the history tells us in what
follows 6 ? yet the name given to the man
created is not the particular, but the general
name : thus we are led by the employment of
the general name of our nature to some such
view as this — that in the Divine foreknowledge
and power all humanity is included in the first
creation ; for it is fitting for God not to regard
any of the things made by Him as indetermin-
ate, but that each existing thing should have
some limit and measure prescribed by the
wisdom of its Maker.

17. Now just as any particular man is limited
by his bodily dimensions, and the peculiar size
which is conjoined with the superficies of his
body is the measure of his separate existence,
so I think that the entire plenitude of humanity

5 Hist. Sus. 42.

6 The punctuation followed by Forbes here docs not seem to
nive a good sense, and also places S. Gregory in the position of
formally statin; that one passage of Genesis contradicts another.
J!y substituting an interrogation after tj ia-ropia <pr)<riv, the sense
given cs this :— We know from a later statement in Genesis that the
name Adam was given " in the day that they were created " (Gen.
v. 2), but here the name given is general, not particular. There
must be a reason for this, and the reason is, that the race of man,
and not the individual, is that spoken of as "created in the image
Ol God.' With this view that all humanity is included in the: first
Creation may becompared a passage near the end of the De AttitnA,
where the first man is compared 10 .1 iull ear of com, afterwards
"divided into a multitude of bare grain."

was included by the God of all, by His power
of foreknowledge, as it were in one body, and
that this is what the text teaches us which says,
" God created man, in the image of God created
He him." For the image is not in part of our
nature, nor is the grace in any one of" the things
found in that nature, but this power extends
equally to all the race : and a sign of this is
that mind is implanted alike in all : for all have
the power of understanding and deliberating,
and of all else whereby the Divine nature finds
its image in that which was made according to
it : the man that was manifested at the first
creation of the world, and he that shall be after
the consummation of all, are alike : they equally
bear in themselves the Divine image 7.

18. For this reason the whole race was
spoken of as one man, namely, that to God's
power nothing is either past or future, but even
that which we expect is comprehended, equally
with what is at present existing, by the all-
sustaining energy. Our whole nature, then,
extending from the first to the last, is, so to say,
one image of Him Who is ; but the distinction
of kind in male and female was added to His
work last, as I suppose, for the reason which
follows 8.

XVII. What we must answer to those ivho raise
the question — " If procreation is after sin, how
would souls have come into being if the first of
mankind had remained sinless 9 ?"

i. It is better for us however, perhaps, rather
to inquire, before investigating this point, the
solution of the question put forward by our
adversaries ; for they say that before the sin
there is no account of birth, or of travail, or of
the desire that tends to procreation, but when
they were banished from Paradise after their
sin, and the woman was condemned by the
sentence of travail, Adam thus entered with his
consort upon the intercourse of married life, and
then took place the beginning of procreation.
If, then, marriage did not exist in Paradise,
nor travail, nor birth, they say that it follows as
a necessary conclusion that human souls would
not have existed in plurality had not the grace
of immortality fallen away to mortality, and
marriage preserved our race by means of de-
scendants, introducing the offspring of the de-
parting to take their place, so that in a certain
way the sin that entered into the world was
profitable for the life of man : for the human

1 With this passage, again, may be compared the teaching of the
De Anima on the subject of the Resurrection.

8 The explanation of the reason, however, is deferred ; see
xvii. 4.

9 Otherwise Chap, xviii. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin
version has the title: — "Against those who say that sin was a
useful introduction for the propagation of the human race; and that
by sin it deserved animal generation. "

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

407

race would have remained in the pair of the
first-formed, had not the fear of death impelled
their nature to provide succession.

2. Now here again the true answer, whatever
it may be, can be clear to those only who, like
Paul, have been instructed in the mysteries of
Paradise ; but our answer is as follows. When
the Sadducees once argued against the doctrine
of the resurrection, and brought forward, to
establish their own opinion, that woman of
many marriages, who had been wife to seven
brethren, and thereupon inquired whose wife
she will be after the resurrection, our Lord
answered their argument so as not only to in-
struct the Sadducees, but also to reveal to all
that come after them the mystery of the resur-
rection-life : " for in the resurrection," He says,
"they neither marry, nor are given in marriage ;
neither can they die any more, for they are
equal to the angels, and are the children of
God, being the children of the resurrection 1."
Now the resurrection promises us nothing else
than the restoration of the fallen to their ancient
state ; for the grace we look for is a certain
return to the first life, bringing back again to
Paradise him who was cast out from it. If
then the life of those restored is closely re-
lated to that of the angels, it is clear that the
life before the transgression was a kind of an-
gelic life, and hence also our return to the
ancient condition of our life is compared to the
angels. Yet while, as has been said, there is
no marriage among them, the armies of the
angels are in countless myriads ; for so Daniel
declared in his visions : so, in the same way, if
there had not come upon us as the result of
sin a change for the worse, and removal from
equality with the angels, neither should we
have needed marriage that we might multiply ;
but whatever the mode of increase in the an-
gelic nature is (unspeakable and inconceivable
by human conjectures, except that it assuredly
exists), it would have operated also in the case
of men, who were " made a little lower than
the angels 2," to increase mankind to the measure
determined by its Maker.

3. But if any one finds a difficulty in an inquiry
as to the manner of the generation of souls, had
man not needed the assistance of marriage, we
shall ask him in turn, what is the mode of the
angelic existence, how they exist in countless
myriads, being one essence, and at the same
time numerically many ; for we shall be giving
a fit answer to one who raises the question how
man would have been without marriage, if we
say, " as the angels are without marriage ; " for
the fact that man was in a like condition with
them before the transgression is shown by the
restoration to that state.

1 S. Luke xx. 35, 36.

8 Ps viii. 6.

4. Now that we have thus cleared up these
matters, let us return to our former point, —
how it was that after the making of His image
God contrived for His work the distinction of
male and female. I say that the preliminary
speculation we have completed is of service for
determining this question ; for He Who brought
all things into being and fashioned Man as a
whole by His own will to the Divine image, did
not wait to see the number of souls made up
to its proper fulness by the gradual additions
of those coming after ; but while looking upon
the nature of man in its entirety and fulness by
the exercise of His foreknowledge, and bestow-
ing upon it a lot exalted and equal to the
angels, since He saw beforehand by His all-
seeing power the failure of their will to keep a
direct course to what is good, and its conse-
quent declension from the angelic life, in order
that the multitude of human souls might not
be cut short by its fall from that mode by which
the angels were increased and multiplied, — for
this reason, I say, He formed for our nature
that contrivance for increase which befits those
who had fallen into sin, implanting in mankind,
instead of the angelic majesty of nature, that
animal and irrational mode by which they now
succeed one another.

5. Hence also, it seems to me, the great
David pitying the misery of man mourns over
his nature with such words as these, that,
" man being in honour knew it not " (meaning
by "honour" the equality with the angels),
therefore, he says, "he is compared to the
beasts that have no understanding, and made
like unto them 3." For he truly was made like
the beasts, who received in his nature the
present mode of transient generation, on account
of his inclination to material things.

XVIII. That our irrational passions have their
rise from kindred with irrational nature.*

1. For I think that from this beginning all
our passions issue as from a spring, and pour
their flood over man's life ; and an evidence of
my words is the kinship of passions which
appears alike in ourselves and in the brutes ;
for it is not allowable to ascribe the first be-
ginnings of our constitutional liability to passion
to that human nature which was fashioned in
the Divine likeness ; but as brute life first entered
into the world, and man, for the reason already
mentioned, took something of their nature (I
mean the mode of generation), he accordingly
took at the same time a share of the other

3 Ps. xlix. 13 (LXX.)

4 Otherwise Chap. xix. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version
has the title : — " That our other passions also are common to us
and to the irrational animals, and ;hat by the restraint of them we
are said to be like to God."

4o8

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

attributes contemplated in that nature ; for the
likeness of man to God is not found in anger,
nor is pleasure a mark of the superior nature ;
cowardice also, and boldness, and the desire of
gain, and the dislike of loss, and all the like,
are far removed from that stamp which indicates
Divinity.

2. These attributes, then, human nature took
to itself from the side of the brutes ; for those
qualities with which brute life was armed for
self-preservation, when transferred to human
life, became passions ; for the carnivorous
animals are preserved by their anger, and those
which breed largely by their love of pleasure ;
cowardice preserves the weak, fear that which
is easily taken by more powerful animals, and
greediness those of great bulk ; and to miss
anything that tends to pleasure is for the
brutes a matter of pain. All these and the
like affections entered man's composition by
reason of the animal mode of generation.

3. I may be allowed to describe the human
image by comparison with some wonderful
piece of modelling. For, as one may see in
models those carved5 shapes which the arti-
ficers of such things contrive for the wonder of
beholders, tracing out upon a single head two
forms of faces ; so man seems to me to bear
a double likeness to opposite things — being
moulded in the Divine element of his mind
to the Divine beauty, but bearing, in the
passionate impulses that arise in him, a likeness
to the brute nature ; while often even his reason
is rendered brutish, and obscures the better
element by the worse through its inclination and
disposition towards what is irrational ; for when-
ever a man drags down his mental energy to
these affections, and forces his reason to be-
come the servant of his passions, there takes
place a sort of conversion of the good stamp in
him into the irrational image, his whole nature
being traced anew after that design, as his
reason, so to say, cultivates the beginnings of
his passions, and gradually multiplies them ;
for once it lends its co-operation to passion, it
produces a plenteous and abundant crop of
evils.

4. Thus our love of pleasure took its begin-
ning from our being made like to the irrational
creation, and was increased by the transgressions
of men, becoming the parent of so many varie-
ties of sins arising from pleasure as we cannot
find among the irrational animals. Thus the
rising of anger in us is indeed akin to the im-
pulse of the brutes ; but it grows by the alliance
of thought : for thence come malignity, envy,
deceit, conspiracy, hypocrisy ; all these are the

5 Reading with Forbes SiayAu^ovs. The reading 8iyAv<f>ow; of
tt t eai liei editt. L'ives a better sense, but is not supported by any of
Forbes' MSS

result of the evil husbandry of the mind ; for if
the passion were divested of the aid it receives
from thought, the anger that is left behind is
short-lived and not sustained, like a bubble,
perishing straightway as soon as it comes into
being. Thus the greediness of swine introduces
covetousness, and the high spirit of the horse be-
comes the origin of pride ; and all the particular
forms that proceed from the want of reason in
brute nature become vice by the evil use of the
mind.

5. So, likewise, on the contrary, if reason
instead assumes sway over such emotions,
each of them is transmuted to a form of
virtue ; for anger produces courage, terror
caution, fear obedience, hatred aversion from
vice, the power of love the desire for what is
truly beautiful ; high spirit in our character
raises our thought above the passions, and
keeps it from bondage to what is base ; yea,
the great Apostle, even, praises such a form of
mental elevation when he bids us constantly to
" think those things that are above 6 ; " and so
we find that every such motion, when elevated
by loftiness of mind, is conformed to the beauty
of the Divine image.

6. But the other impulse is greater, as the
tendency of sin is heavy and downward ; for
the ruling element of our soul is more inclined
to be dragged downwards by the weight of the
irrational nature than is the heavy and earthy
element to be exalted by the loftiness of the
intellect ; hence the misery that encompasses
us often causes the Divine gift to be forgotten,
and spreads the passions of the flesh, like some
ugly mask, over the beauty of the image.

7. Those, therefore, are in some sense ex-
cusable, who do not admit, when they look
upon such cases, that the Divine form is there ;
yet we may behold the Divine image in men
by the medium of those who have ordered their
lives aright. For if the man who is subject to
passion, and carnal, makes it incredible that
man was adorned, as it were, with Divine beauty,
surely the man of lofty virtue and pure from
pollution will confirm you in the better con-
ception of human nature.

8. For instance (for it is better to make our
argument clear by an illustration), one of those
noted for wickedness — some Jechoniah, say, or
some other of evil memory — has obliterated the
beauty of his nature by the pollution of wicked-
ness ; yet in Moses and in men like him the
form of the image was kept pure. Now where
the beauty of the form has not been obscured,
there is made plain the faithfulness of the saying
that man is an image of God.

9. It may be, however, that some one feels

6 Col. iii. 2.

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

409

shame at the fact that our life, like that of the
brutes, is sustained by food, and for this reason
deems man unworthy of being supposed to
have been framed in the image of God ; but
he may expect that freedom from this function
will one day be bestowed upon our nature in
the life we look for ; for, as the Apostle says,
" the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink 7 ; "
and the Lord declared that "man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God8."
Further, as the resurrection holds forth to us a
life equal with the angels, and with the angels
there is no food, there is sufficient ground for
believing that man, who will live in like fashion
with the angels, will be released from such a
function.

XIX. To those who say that the enjoyment of
the good things we look for will again consist
in meat and drink, because it is written that
by these means man at first lived in Paradise 9.

1. But some one perhaps will say that man
will not be returning to the same form of life, if,
as it seems, we formerly existed by eating, and
shall hereafter be free from that function.
I, however, when I hear the Holy Scripture, do
not understand only bodily meat, or the pleasure
of the flesh ; but I recognize another kind of
food also, having a certain analogy to that of
the body, the enjoyment of which extends to
the soul alone : " Eat of my bread V' is the
bidding of Wisdom to the hungry ; and the
Lord declares those blessed who hunger for
such food as this, and says, " If any man thirst,
let him come unto Me, and drink " : and
"drink ye joy 2," is the great Isaiah's charge to
those who are able to hear his sublimity. There
is a prophetic threatening also against those
worthy of vengeance, that they shall be punished
with famine ; but the " famine " is not a lack of
bread and water, but a failure of the word : —
" not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord ."

2. We ought, then, to conceive that the fruit
in Eden was something worthy of God's planting
(and Eden is interpreted to mean "delight"),
and not to doubt that man was hereby nourished :
nor should we at all conceive, concerning the
mode of life in Paradise, this transitory and
perishable nutriment : " of every tree of the
garden," He says, " thou mayest freely eat4."

3. Who will give to him that has a healthful
hunger that tree that is in Paradise, which in-

7 Rom. xiv. 17. 8 S. Matt. iv. 4.

9 Otherwise Chap. xx. The Bodleian MS. nf the Latin version
has the title : — " How the food ought to be understood with which
man was fed in Paradise and from which he was prohibited."

1 Prov. ix. 5. 2 Cf. Is. xii. 3.

Amos viii. n. * Gen. ii. 16.

eludes all good, which is named " every tree,"
in which this passage bestows on man the right
to share ? for in the universal and transcendent
saying every form of good is in harmony with
itself, and the whole is one. And who will keep
me back from that tasting of the tree which is
of mixed and doubtful kind ? for surely it is
clear to all who are at all keen-sighted what that
"every" tree is whose fruit is life, and what
again that mixed tree is whose end is death :
for He Who presents ungrudgingly the enjoy-
ment of " every " tree, surely by some reason
and forethought keeps man from participation
in those which are of doubtful kind.

4. It seems to me that I may take the great
David and the wise Solomon as my instructors
in the interpretation of this text : for both under-
stand the grace of the permitted delight to be
one, — that very actual Good, which in truth is
" every " good ; — David, when he says, " Delight
thou in the Lord s," and Solomon, when he
names Wisdom herself (which is the Lord) " a
tree of life 6."

5. Thus the "every" tree of which the pas-
sage gives food to him who was made in the
likeness of God, is the same with the tree of
life ; and there is opposed to this tree another
tree, the food given by which is the knowledge
of good and evil : — not that it bears in turn as
fruit each of these things of opposite signifi-
cance, but that it produces a fruit blended and
mixed with opposite qualities, the eating of
which the Prince of Life forbids, and the
serpent counsels, that he may prepare an en-
trance for death : and he obtained credence for
his counsel, covering over the fruit with a fair
appearance and the show of pleasure, that it
might be pleasant to the eyes and stimulate the
desire to taste.

XX. What was the life in Paradise, and what
was the forbidden tree7?

1. What then is that which includes the
knowledge of good and evil blended together,
and is decked with the pleasures of sense ? I
think I am not aiming wide of the mark in
employing, as a starting-point for my specula-
tion, the sense of "knowable8." It is not, I
think, " science " which the Scripture here means
by " knowledge " ; but I find a certain distinc-
tion, v according to Scriptural use, between
" knowledge " and " discernment " : for to " dis-

5 Ps. xxxvii. 4. 6 Prov. iii. 18.

7 Otherwise Chap. xxi. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version
gives as the title : — " Why Scripture calls the tree, ' the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil.' "

* The refer nee is to Gen. ii. 9 (in LXX), where the tree is
called, to £v\ov rov eifieVcu yvuxnbv koAou /cat Trourjpov. S. Gregory
proceeds to ascertain the exact meaning of the word yvuiarbv in the
text ; the eating is the " knowing," but what is " knowing " ? He
answers, "desiring."

410

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

cern " skilfully the good from the evil, the
Apostle says is a mark of a more perfect con-
dition and of " exercised senses 9," for which
reason also he bids us " prove all things T," and
says that " discernment " belongs to the spiritual
man2: but " knowledge " is not always to be
understood of skill and acquaintance with any-
thing, but of the disposition towards what is
agreeable, — as "the Lord knoweth them that
are His 3 " ; and He says to Moses, " I knew
thee above all 4 " ; while of those condemned
in their wickedness He Who knows all things
says, "I never knew you 5."

2. The tree, then, from which comes this
fruit of mixed knowledge, is among those things
which are forbidden ; and that fruit is combined
of opposite qualities, which has the serpent to
commend it, it may be for this reason, that the
evil is not exposed in its nakedness, itself ap-
pearing in its own proper nature — for wicked-
ness would surely fail of its effect were it not
decked with some fair colour to entice to the
desire of it him whom it deceives — but now
the nature of evil is in a manner mixed, keeping
destruction like some snare concealed in its
depths, and displaying some phantom of good
■n the deceitfulness of its exterior. The beauty
of the substance seems good to those who love
money : yet " the love of money is a root of all
evil 6 " : and who would plunge into the un-
savoury mud of wantonness, were it not that
he whom this bait hurries into passion thinks
pleasure a thing fair and acceptable? so, too,
the other sins keep their destruction hidden,
and seem at first sight acceptable, and some
deceit makes them earnestly sought after by
unwary men instead of what is good.

3. Now since the majority of men judge the
good to lie in that which gratifies the senses,
and there is a certain identity of name between
that which is, and that which appears to be
" good," — for this reason that desire which arises
towards what is evil, as though towards good, is
called by Scripture " the knowledge of good and
evil ;" "knowledge," as we have said, expressing
a certain mixed disposition. It speaks of the
fruit of the forbidden tree not as a thing abso-
lutely evil (because it is decked with good), nor
as a thing purely good (because evil is latent in
it), but as compounded of both, and declares
that the tasting of it brings to death those who
touch it; almost proclaiming aloud the doctrine
that the very actual good is in its nature simple
and uniform, alien from all duplicity or con-
junction with its opposite, while evil is many-
coloured and fairly adorned, being esteemed to

9 Cf. Heb. v. 14.

s Cf. 1 Cor. ii. 15.

4 Ex. xxxiii. 12 (LXX_).

m. vi. 10.

* 1 Thess. v. ar.

3 2 Tim. ii. 19.
5 S. Matt. vii. 23.

be one thing and revealed by experience as
another, the knowledge of which (that is, its
reception by experience) is the beginning and
antecedent of death and destruction.

4. It was because he saw this that the serpent
points out the evil fruit of sin, not showing the
evil manifestly in its own nature (for man would
not have been deceived by manifest evil), but
giving to what the woman beheld the glamour
of a certain beauty, and conjuring into its taste
the spell of a sensual pleasure, he appeared to
her to speak convincingly : " and the woman
saw," it says, "that the tree was good for
food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes to
behold, and fair to see ; and she took of the
fruit thereof and did eat V' and that eating be-
came the mother of death to men. This, then,
is that fruit-bearing of mixed character, where
the passage clearly expresses the sense in which
the tree was called " capable of the knowledge
of good and evil," because, like the evil nature
of poisons that are prepared with honey, it ap-
pears to be good in so far as it affects the senses
with sweetness : but in so far as it destroys him
who touches it, it is the worst of all evil. Thus
when the evil poison worked its effect against
man's life, then man, that noble thing and
name, the image of God's nature, was made, as
the prophet says, " like unto vanity 8."

5. The image, therefore, properly belongs to
the better part of our attributes ; but all in our
life that is painful and miserable is far removed
from the likeness to the Divine.

XXI. That the resurrection is looked for as a
consequence, not so much from the declaration of
Scripture as from the very necessity of things'*.

1. Wickedness, however, is not so strong as
to prevail over the power of good ; nor is the
folly of our nature more powerful and more
abiding than the wisdom of God : for it is im-
possible that that which is always mutable
and variable should be more firm and more
abiding than that which always remains the
same and is firmly fixed in goodness : but it
is absolutely certain that the Divine counsel
possesses immutability, while the changeable-
ness of our nature does not remain settled even
in evil.

2. Now that which is always in motion, if its
progress be to good, will never cease moving
onwards to what lies before it, by reason of the
infinity of the course to be traversed : — for it
will not find any limit of its object such that
when it has apprehended it, it will at last cease

7 Gen. iii. s, 6 (LXX). « Ps. cxliv. 4 (I.XX.).

9 Otherwise Chap. xxii. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version
gives as the title : — " That the Divine counsel is immutable."

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

411

its motion : but if its bias be in the opposite
direction, when it has finished the course of
wickedness and reached the extreme limit of
evil, then that which is ever moving, finding no
halting point for its impulse natural to itself,
when it has run through the lengths that can
be run in wickedness, of necessity turns its
motion towards good : for as evil does not
extend to infinity, but is comprehended by
necessary limits, it would appear that good once
more follows in succession upon the limit of evil ;
and thus, as we have said, the ever-moving
character of our nature comes to run its course
at the last once more back towards good, being
taught the lesson of prudence by the memory
of its former misfortunes, to the end that it may
never again be in like case.

3. Our course, then, will once more lie in
what is good, by reason of the fact that the
nature of evil is bounded by necessary limits.
For just as those skilled in astronomy tell us
that the whole universe is full of light, and that
darkness is made to cast its shadow by the inter-
position of the body formed by the earth ; and
that this darkness is shut off from the rays of
the sun, in the shape of a cone, according to
the figure of the sphere-shaped body, and be-
hind it ; while the sun, exceeding the earth by
a size many times as great as its own, enfolding
it round about on all sides with its rays, unites
at the limit of the cone the concurrent streams
of light ; so that if (to suppose the case) any
one had the power of passing beyond the
measure to which the shadow extends, he would
certainly find himself in light unbroken by dark-
ness ; — even so I think that we ought to under-
stand about ourselves, that on passing the limit
of wickedness we shall again have our con-
versation in light, as the nature of good, when
compared with the measure of wickedness, is
incalculably superabundant.

4. Paradise therefore will be restored, that
tree will be restored which is in truth the tree
of life ; — there will be restored the grace of the
image, and the dignity of rule. It does not
seem to me that our hope is one for those things
which are now subjected by God to man for the
necessary uses of life, but one for another
kingdom, of a description that belongs to
unspeakable mysteries.

XXII. To those who say, " If the resurrection
is a thing excellent and good, hmv is it that it
has not happened already, but is hoped for in
some periods of time ? " x

1. Let us give our attention, however, to the
next point of our discussion. It may be that

1 Otherwise Chap, xxiii. The title in the Bodleian MS. of the
Latin version is : — "That when the generation of man is finished,
time also will come to an end." Some MSS of the Latin version
make the first few words part of the preceding chapter.

some one, giving his thought wings to soar
towards the sweetness of our hope, deems it a
burden and a loss that we are not more speedily
placed in that good state which is above man's
sense and knowledge, and is dissatisfied with
the extension of the time that intervenes be-
tween him and the object of his desire. Let
him cease to vex himself like a child that is
discontented at the brief delay of something
that gives him pleasure ; for since all things are
governed by reason and wisdom, we must by
no means suppose that anything that happens
is done without reason itself and the wisdom
that is therein.

2. You will say then, What is this reason, in
accordance with which the change of our pain-
ful life to that which we desire does not take
place at once, but this heavy and corporeal
existence of ours waits, extended to some de-
terminate time, for the term of the consumma-
tion of all things, that then man's life may be
set free as it were from the reins, and revert
once more, released and free, to the life of
blessedness and impassibility?

3. Well, whether our answer is near the truth
of the matter, the Truth Itself may clearly
know ; but at all events what occurs to our
intelligence is as follows. I take up then once
more in my argument our first text : — God says,
"Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness, and God created man, in the image
of God created He him2." Accordingly, the
Image of God, which we behold in universal
humanity, had its consummation then 3 ; but
Adam as yet was not ; for the thing formed
from the earth is called Adam, by etymological
nomenclature, as those tell us who are acquainted
with the Hebrew tongue — wherefore also the
apostle, who was specially learned in his native
tongue, the tongue of the Israelites, calls the
man " of the earth * " \oiimc, as though trans-
lating the name Adam into the Greek word.

4. Man, then, was made in the image of
God ; that is, the universal nature, the thing
like God ; not part of the whole, but all the
fulness of the nature together was so made by
omnipotent wisdom. He saw, Who holds all
limits in His grasp, as the Scripture tells us
which says, " in His hand are all the corners
of the earth 5," He saw, " Who knoweth all
things "even "before they be6," comprehending
them in His knowledge, how great in number
humanity will be in the sum of its individuals.
But as He perceived in our created nature the
bias towards evil, and the fact that after its
voluntary fall from equality with the angels it
would acquire a fellowship with the lower

3 Gen. i. 26, 27.

3 This Realism is expressed even more strongly in the De
Annua et l.esitrrectione. 4 i Cor. xv. 47.

5 Ps. xcv. 4. 6 Cf. Hist. Sus. 42.

412

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

nature, He mingled, for this reason, with His
own image, an element of the irrational (for
the distinction of male and female does not
exist in the Divine and blessed nature) ; — trans-
ferring, I say, to man the special attribute of
the irrational formation, He bestowed increase
upon our race not according to the lofty cha-
racter of our creation ; for it was not when He
made that which was in His own image that
He bestowed on man the power of increasing
and multiplying; but when He divided it by
sexual distinctions, then He said, " Increase
and multiply, and replenish the earth?." For
this belongs not to the Divine, but to the
irrational element, as the history indicates when
it narrates that these words were first spoken
by God in the case of the irrational creatures ;
since we may be sure that, if He had bestowed
on man, before imprinting on our nature the
distinction of male and female, the power for
increase conveyed by this utterance, we should
not have needed this form of generation by
which the brutes are generated.

5. Now seeing that the full number of men
pre-conceived by the operation of foreknowledge
will come into life by means of this animal
generation, God, Who governs all things in a
certain order and sequence, — since the inclina-
tion of our nature to what was beneath it (which
He Who beholds the future equally with the
present saw before it existed) made some such
form of generation absolutely necessary for man-
kind,— therefore also foreknew the time co-
extensive with the creation of men, so that
the extent of time should be adapted for the
entrances of the pre-determined souls, and
that the flux and motion of time should halt at
the moment when humanity is no longer pro-
duced by means of it ; and that when the
generation of men is completed, time should
cease together with its completion, and then
should take place the restitution of all things,
and with the World-Reformation humanity also
should be changed from the corruptible and
earthly to the impassible and eternal.

6. And this it seems to me the Divine apostle
considered when he declared in his epistle to
the Corinthians the sudden stoppage of time,
and the change of the things that are now
moving on back to the opposite end where he
says, " Behold, I show you a mystery ; we shall
not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trump8." For when, as I suppose, the full
complement of human nature has reached the
limit of the pre-determined measure, because
there is no longer anything to be made up in
the way of increase to the number of souls, he

7 Gen. i. 28.

8 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52-

teaches us that the change in existing things
will take place in an instant of time, giving to
that limit of time which has no parts or ex-
tension the names of "a moment," and "the
twinkling of an eye " ; so that it will no more
be possible for one who reaches the verge
of time (which is the last and extreme point,
from the fact that nothing is lacking to the
attainment of its extremity) to obtain by death
this change which takes place at a fixed period,
but only when the trumpet of the resur-
rection sounds, which awakens the dead, and
transforms those who are left in life, after the
likeness of those who have undergone the
resurrection change, at once to incorruptibility ;
so that the weight of the flesh is no longer
heavy, nor does its burden hold them down to
earth, but they rise aloft through the air — for,
"we shall be caught up," he tells us, "in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so
shall we ever be with the Lord 9."

7. Let him therefore wait for that time which
is necessarily made co-extensive with the de-
velopment of humanity. For even Abraham and
the patriarchs, while they had the desire to see
the promised good things, and ceased not to seek
the heavenly country, as the apostle says, are
yet even now in the condition of hoping for
that grace, " God having provided some better
thing for us," according to the words of Paul,
" that they without us should not be made
perfect I." If they, then, bear the delay who
by faith only and by hope saw the good things
"afar off" and "embraced them2," as the
apostle bears witness, placing their certainty
of the enjoyment of the things for which they
hoped in the fact that they "judged Him faith-
ful Who has promised 3," what ought most of
us to do, who have not, it may be, a hold upon
the better hope from the character of our lives ?
Even the prophet's soul fainted with desire, and
in his psalm he confesses this passionate love,
saying that his " soul hath a desire and longing
to be in the courts of the Lord 4," even if he
must needs be rejected 5 to a place amongst
the lowest, as it is a greater and more desirable
thing to be last there than to be first among
the ungodly tents of this life ; nevertheless he
was patient of the delay, deeming, indeed, the
life there blessed, and accounting a brief par-
ticipation in it more desirable than " thousands "
of time — for he says, " one day in Thy courts
is better than thousands6" — yet he did not
repine at the necessary dispensation concerning
existing things, and thought it sufficient bliss
for man to have those good things even by way
of hope ; wherefore he says at the end of the

9 t Thess. iv. 17. * Heb. xi. 40. 2 Heb. xL 13.

3 Heb. xi. 11. * Ps. lxxxiv. 3.

5 Ps. lxxxiv 11 (LXX.l 6 Ps. lxxxiv. IO»

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

413

Psalm, "O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man
that hopeth in Thee 7."

8. Neither, then, should we be troubled at the
brief delay of what we hope for, but give
diligence that we may not be cast out from the
object of our hopes ; for just as though, if one
were to tell some inexperienced person before-
hand, " the gathering of the crops will take
place in the season of summer, and the stores
will be filled, and the table abundantly supplied
with food at the time of plenty," it would be a
foolish man who should seek to hurry on the
coming of the fruit-time, when he ought to be
sowing seeds and preparing the crops for him-
self by diligent care ; for the fruit-time will
surely come, whether he wishes or not, at the
appointed time ; and it will be looked on
differently by him who has secured for himself
beforehand abundance of crops, and by him
who is found by the fruit-time destitute of all
preparation. Even so I think it is one's duty,
as the proclamation is clearly made to all that
the time of change will come, not to trouble
himself about times (for He said that "it is
not for us to know the times and the seasons 8 "),
nor to pursue calculations by which he will be
sure to sap the hope of the resurrection in the
soul ; but to make his confidence in the things
expected as a prop to lean on, and to purchase
for himself, by good conversation, the grace
that is to come.

XXIII. That he who confesses the beginning of
the world's existence must necessari/y also agree
as to its end 9.

But if some one, beholding the present course
of the world, by which intervals of time are
marked, going on in a certain order, should
say that it is not possible that the predicted
stoppage of these moving things should take
place, such a man clearly also does not believe
that in the beginning the heaven and the earth
were made by God ; for he who admits a be-
ginning of motion surely does not doubt as to
its also having an end ; and he who does not
allow its end, does not admit its beginning
either ; but as it is by believing that " we
understand that the worlds were framed by the
word of God," as the apostle says, " so that
things which are seen were not made of things
which do appear z," we must use the same
faith as to the word of God when He foretells
the necessary stoppage of existing things.

^ Ps. lxxxiv. 12. 8 Acts i. 7.

9 Otherwise Chap. xxiv. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version
has a title corresponding to that of the following chapter in the other
MSS. : — " Against those who say that matter is co-eternal with God."

1 Cf. Heb. xi. 3. The MSS. give somewhat the same variations
which are observable in the N. T. Codices. The reading which
Forbes adopts coincides with the Textns Receptus

2. The question of the "bow" must, how-
ever, be put beyond the reach of our meddling ;
for even in the case mentioned it was "by
faith" that we admitted that the thing seen
was framed from things not yet apparent,
omitting the search into things beyond our
reach. And yet our reason suggests difficulties
on many points, offering no small occasions for
doubt as to the things which we believe.

3. For in that case too, argumentative men
might by plausible reasoning upset our faith,
so that we should not think that statement
true which Holy Scripture delivers concerning
the material creation, when it asserts that all
existing things have their beginning of being
from God. For those who abide by the con-
trary view maintain that matter is co-eternal
with God, and employ in support of their own
doctrine some such arguments as these. If
God is in His nature simple and immaterial,
without quantity 2, or size, or combination, and
removed from the idea of circumscription by
way of figure, while all matter is apprehended
in extension measured by intervals, and does
not escape the apprehension of our senses, but
becomes known to us in colour, and figure, and
bulk, and size, and resistance, and the other
attributes belonging to it, none of which it is
possible to conceive in the Divine nature, — what
method is there for the production of matter from
the immaterial, or of the nature that has dimen-
sions from that which is unextended? for if
these things are believed to have their existence
from that source, they clearly come into exist-
ence after being in Him in»some mysterious
way ; but if material existence was in Him, how
can He be immaterial while including matter
in Himself? and similarly with all the other
marks by which the material nature is differ
entiated ; if quantity exists in God, how is God
without quantity? if the compound nature
exists in Him, how is He simple, without parts
and without combination ? so that the argu-
ment forces us to think either that He is
material, because matter has its existence from
Him as a source ; or, if one avoids this, it is
necessary to suppose that matter was imported
by Him ab extra for the making of the universe.

4. If, then, it was external to God, something
else surely existed besides God, conceived, in
respect of eternity, together with Him Who
exists ungenerately ; so that the argument sup-
poses two eternal and unbegotten existences,
having their being concurrently with each other

2 Reading, with some of Forbes' MSS., an-oo-o?, which seems on
the whole the better reading so far as sense is concerned. a7rotos
may be the result of a sense of the awkwardness of employing both
oiTrocros and a/me-ye'07j; : but further on in the section we finil a7roa-os
where the MSS. seem to agree. Further, the connecting particles
seem to show a closer connection of sense between imoao^ and
aneye(h)<; than between a.fi ye'flrjs and aavvBeros.

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

— that of Him Who operates as an artificer,
and that of the thing which admits this skilled
operation ; and if any one under pressure of
this argument should assume a material sub-
stratum for the Creator of all things, what a
support will the Manichaean find for his special
doctrine, who opposes by virtue of ungenerate-
ness a material existence to a Good Being.
Yet we do believe that all things are of God,
as we hear the Scripture say so ; and as to the
question how they were in God, a question
beyond our reason, we do not seek to pry into
it, believing that all things are within the ca-
pacity of God's power — both to give existence
to what is not, and to implant qualities at His
pleasure in what is.

5. Consequently, as we suppose the power
of the Divine will to be a sufficient cause to
the things that are, for their coming into exist-
ence out of nothing, so too we shall not repose
our belief on anything beyond probability in
referring the World-Reformation to the same
power. Moreover, it might perhaps be possible,
by some skill in the use of words, to persuade
those who raise frivolous objections on the sub-
ject of matter not to think that they can make
an unanswerable attack on our statement.

XXIV. An argument against those who say
that matter is co-eterjial with God3.

1. For after all that opinion on the subject
of matter does not turn out to be beyond what
appears consistent, which declares that it has its
existence from Him Who is intelligible and im-
material. For we shall find all matter to be
composed of certain qualities, of which if it is
divested it can, in itself, be by no means
grasped by idea. Moreover in idea each kind
of quality is separated from the substratum ;
but idea is an intellectual and not a corporeal
method of examination. If, for instance, some
animal or tree is presented to our notice, or any
other of the things that have material existence,
we perceive in our mental discussion of it many
things concerning the substratum, the idea of
each of which is clearly distinguished from the
object we contemplate : for the idea of colour
is one, of weight another ; so again that of
quantity and of such and such a peculiar quality
of touch : for " softness," and " two cubits long,"
and the rest of the attributes we spoke of, are
not connected in idea either with one another
or with the body : each of them has conceived
concerning it its own explanatory definition
according to its being, having nothing in common
with any other of the qualities that are contem-
plated in the substratum.

3 Otherwise Chap. xxv. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version
has the title :— " That all matter exists in certain quantities."

2. 4 If, then, colour is a thing intelligible, and
resistance also is intelligible, and so with qur.ntity
and the rest of the like properties, while if
each of these should be withdrawn from the
substratum, the whole idea of the body is
dissolved ; it would seem to follow that we may
suppose the concurrence of those things, the
absence of which we found to be a cause of the
dissolution of the body, to produce the material
nature : for as that is not a body which has not
colour, and figure, and resistance, and extension,
and weight, and the other properties, while each
of these in its proper existence is found to be
not the body but something else besides the
body, so, conversely, whenever the specified
attributes concur they produce bodily existence.
Yet if the perception of these properties is a
matter of intellect, and the Divinity is also
intellectual in nature, there is no incongruity in
supposing that these intellectual occasions for
the genesis of bodies have their existence from
the incorporeal nature, the intellectual nature
on the one hand giving being to the intellectual
potentialities, and the mutual concurrence of
these bringing to its genesis the material nature.

3. Let this discussion, however, be by way
of digression : we must direct our discourse
once more to the faith by which we accept tht
statement that the universe took being from
nothing, and do not doubt, when we are taught
by Scripture, that it will again be transformed
into some other state.

XXV. How one even of those who are without
may be brought to believe the Scripture when
teaching of the resurrection 5.

1. Some one, perhaps, having regard to the
dissolution of bodies, and judging the Deity by
the measure of his own power, asserts that the
idea of the resurrection is impossible, saying
that it cannot be that both those things which
are now in motion should become stationary,
and those things which are now without motion
should rise again.

2. Let such an one, however, take as the
first and greatest evidence of the truth touching
the resurrection the credibility of the herald
who proclaims it. Now the faith of what is
said derives its certainty from the result of the
other predictions : for as the Divine Scripture
delivers statements many and various, it is
possible by examining how the rest of the utter-
ances stand in the matter of falsehood and truth
to survey also, in the light of them, the doctrine
concerning; the resurrection. For if in the other

4 With this passage may be compared the idealistic doctrine of
the D, Artiw. at Resurr.

5 Otherwise Chap. xxvi. The title in the Bodleian MS. of the
Latin version is : — " Ol faith in ihe resurrection, and of the three
dead persons whom the Lord Jesus raised."

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

415

matters the statements are found to be false
and to have failed of true fulfilment, neither is
this out of the region of falsehood ; but if all
the others have experience to vouch for their
truth, it would seem logical to esteem as true,
on their account, the prediction concerning the
resurrection also. Let us therefore recall one
or two of the predictions that have been made,
and compare the result with what was foretold,
so that we may know by means of them whether
the idea has a truthful aspect.

3. Who knows not how the people of Israel
flourished of old, raised up against all the
powers of the world ; what were the palaces in
the city of Jerusalem, what the walls, the towers,
the majestic structure of the Temple? things
that seemed worthy of admiration even to the
disciples of the Lord, so that they asked the
Lord to take notice of them, in their disposition
to marvel, as the Gospel history shows us,
saying, " What works, and what buildings 6 ! "
But He indicates to those who wondered at its
present state the future desolation of the place
and the disappearance of that beauty, saying
that after a little while nothing of what they
saw should be left. And, again, at the time of
His Passion, the women followed, bewailing the
unjust sentence against Him, — for they could
not yet see into the dispensation of what was
being done : — but He bids them be silent as to
what is befalling Him, for it does not demand
their tears, but to reserve their wailing and
lamentation for the true time for tears, when
the city should be compassed by besiegers, and
their sufferings reach so great a strait that they
should deem him happy who had not been
born : and herein He foretold also the horrid
deed of her who devoured her child, when He
said that in those days the womb should be
accounted blest that never bare 7. Where then
are those palaces ? where is the Temple ? where
are the walls? where are the defences of the
towers? where is the power of the Israelites?
were not they scattered in different quarters
over almost the whole world? and in their
overthrow the palaces also were brought to
ruin.

4. Now it seems to me that the Lord foretold
these things and others like them not for the
sake of the matters themselves — for what great
advantage to the hearers, at any rate, was the
prediction of what was about to happen ? they
would have known by experience, even if they
had not previously learnt what would come ; —
but in order that by these means faith on their
part might follow concerning more important
matters : for the testimony of facts in the former
cases is also a proof of truth in the latter.

6 Cf. S. Mark xiii. x.

' Cf. S. Luke xxiii. 27 — 29.

5. For just as though, if a husbandman were
explaining the virtue of seeds, it were to happen
that some person inexperienced in husbandry
should disbelieve him, it would be sufficient as
proof of his statement for the agriculturist to
show him the virtue existing in one seed of
those in the bushel and make it a pledge of the
rest — for he who should see the single grain of
wheat or barley, or whatever might chance to
be the contents of the bushel, grow into an ear
after being cast into the ground, would by the
means of the one cease also to disbelieve con-
cerning the others — so the truthfulness which
confessedly belongs to the other statements
seems to me to be sufficient also for evidence
of the mystery of the resurrection.

6. Still more, however, is this the case with
the experience of actual resurrection which we
have learnt not so much by words as by actual
facts : for as the marvel of resurrection was
great and passing belief, He begins gradually by
inferior instances of His miraculous power, and
accustoms our faith, as it were, for the reception
of the greater.

7. For as a mother who nurses her babe with
due care for a time supplies milk by her breast
to its mouth while still tender and soft ; and
when it begins to grow and to have teeth she
gives it bread, not hard or such as it cannot
chew, so that the tender and unpractised gums
may not be chafed by rough food ; but softening
it with her own teeth, she makes it suitable and
convenient for the powers of the eater ; and
then as its power increases by growth she
gradually leads on the babe, accustomed to
tender food, to more solid nourishment ;
so the Lord, nourishing and fostering with
miracles the weakness of the human mind, like
some babe not fully grown, makes first of all a
prelude of the power of the resurrection in the
case of a desperate disease, which prelude,
though it was great in its achievement, yet was
not such a thing that the statement of it would
be disbelieved : for by " rebuking the fever "
which was fiercely consuming Simon's wife's
mother, He produced so great a removal of the
evil as to enable her who was already expected to
be near death, to " minister 8 " to those present.

8. Next He makes a slight addition to the
power, and when the nobleman's son lies in
acknowledged danger of death (for so the history
tells us, that he was about to die, as his father
cried, "come down, ere my child die 9"), He
again brings about the resurrection of one who
was believed about to die ; accomplishing the
miracle with a greater act of power in that He
did not even approach the place, but sent life
from afar off by the force of His command.

8 S. Luke iv. 39.

' S. John iv. 49.

416

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

9. Once more in what follows He ascends to
higher wonders. For having set out on His
way to the ruler of the synagogue's daughter,
he voluntarily made a halt in His way, while
making public the secret cure of the woman
with an issue of blood, that in this time death
might overcome the sick. When, then, the
soul had just been parted from the body, and
those who were wailing over the sorrow were
making a tumult with their mournful cries, He
raises the damsel to life again, as if from sleep,
by His word of command, leading on human
weakness, by a sort of path and sequence, to
greater things.

10. Still in addition to these acts He exceeds
them in wonder, and by a more exalted act of
power prepares for men the way of faith in the
resurrection. The Scripture tells us of a city
called Nain in Judaea : a widow there had an
only child, no longer a child in the sense of
being among boys, but already passing from
childhood to man's estate : the narrative calls
him " a young man." The story conveys much in
few words : the very recital is a real lamentation :
the dead man's mother, it says, " was a widow."
See you the weight of her misfortune, how the
text briefly sets out the tragedy of her suffering ?
for what does the phrase mean ? that she had
no more hope of bearing sons, to cure the loss
she had just sustained in him who had departed ;
for the woman was a widow : she had not in
her power to look to another instead of to him
who was gone ; for he was her only child ; and
how great a grief is here expressed any one may
easily see who is not an utter stranger to natural
feeling. Him alone she had known in travail,
him alone she had nursed at her breast ; he
alone made her table cheerful, he alone was the
cause of brightness in her home, in play, in
work, in learning, in gaiety, at processions, at
sports, at gatherings of youth ; he alone was all
that is sweet and precious in a mother's eyes.
Now at the age of marriage, he was the stock
of her race, the shoot of its succession, the staff
of her old age. Moreover, even the additional
detail of his time of life is another lament : for
he who speaks of him as " a young man " tells
of the flower of his faded beauty, speaks of him
as just covering his face with down, not yet
with a full thick beard, but still bright with the
beauty of his cheeks. What then, think you,
were his mother's sorrows for him? how would
her heart be consumed as it were with a flame ;
how bitterly would she prolong her lament over
him, embracing the corpse as it lay before her,
lengthening out her mourning for him as far as
possible, so as not to hasten the funeral of the
dead, but to have her fill of sorrow ! Nor does
the narrative pass this by : for Jesus "when He
saw her," it says, "had compassion"; "and He

came and touched the bier ; and they that bare
him stood still;" and He said to the dead,
" Young man, I say unto thee, arise 1," "and He
delivered him to his mother" alive. Observe
that no short time had intervened since the
dead man had entered upon that state, he was
all but laid in the tomb ; the miracle wrought
by the Lord is greater, though the command is
the same.

11. His miraculous power proceeds to a still
more exalted act, that its display may more
closely approach that miracle of the resurrection
which men doubt. One of the Lord's com-
panions and friends is ill (Lazarus is the sick
man's name) ; and the Lord deprecates any
visiting of His friend, though far away from the
sick man, that in the absence of the Life, death
might find room and power to do his own work
by the agency of disease. The Lord informs
His disciples in Galilee of what has befallen
Lazarus, and also of his own setting out to him
to raise him up when laid low. They, however,
were exceedingly afraid on account of the fury
of the Jews, thinking it a difficult and dangerous
matter to turn again towards Judaea, in the
midst of those who sought to slay Him : and
thus, lingering and delaying, they return slowly
from Galilee : but they do return, for His
command prevailed, and the disciples were led
by the Lord to be initiated at Bethany in the
preliminary mysteries of the general resurrection.
Four days had already passed since the event ;
all due rites had been performed for the de-
parted ; the body was hidden in the tomb : it
was probably already swollen and beginning to
dissolve into corruption, as the body mouldered
in the dank earth and necessarily decayed : the
thing was one to turn from, as the dissolved
body under the constraint of nature changed to
offensiveness 2. At this point the doubted fact
of the general resurrection is brought to proof
by a more manifest miracle ; for one is not
raised from severe sickness, nor brought back
to life when at the last breath — nor is a child
just dead brought to life, nor a young man
about to be conveyed to the tomb released from
his bier ; but a man past the prime of life, a
corpse, decaying, swollen, yea already in a state
of dissolution, so that even his own kinsfolk
could not suffer that the Lord should draw
near the tomb by reason of the offensiveness of
the decayed body there enclosed, brought into
life by a single call, confirms the proclamation
of the resurrection, that is to say, that expecta-
tion of it as universal, which we learn by a par-

1 Cf. S. Luke vii. 13 — 15.

2 Omitting, as several of Forbes' MSS. do, and as the MS.
employed by Dionysius seems to have done, the words anoSCSorai
iraAii> T<j) £»ji>. If these words are retained, &ia$onevr\<; must be
taken passively, and the irpdyna (J^vktov understood not of the
condition of the corpse, but of the resurrection of Lazarus.

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

417

ticular experience to entertain. For as in the
regeneration of the universe the Apostle tells
us that "the Lord Himself will descend with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel 3," and by
a trumpet sound raise up the dead to incorrup-
tion — so now too he who is in the tomb, at the
voice of command, shakes off death as if it were
a sleep, and ridding himself from the corruption
that had come upon his condition of a corpse,
leaps forth from the tomb whole and sound,
not even hindered in his egress by the bonds
of the grave-cloths round his feet and hands.

12. Are these things too small to produce
faith in the resurrection of the dead ? or dost
thou seek that thy judgment on this point
should be confirmed by yet other proofs ? In
truth the Lord seems to me not to have spoken
in vain to them of Capernaum, when He said
to Himself, as in the person of men, " Ye will
surely say unto me this proverb, ' Physician,
heal thyself*.'" For it behoved Him, when
He had accustomed men to the miracle of the
resurrection in other bodies, to confirm His
word in His own humanity. Thou sawest the
thing proclaimed working in others — those
who were about to die, the child which had just
ceased to live, the young man at the edge of the
grave, the putrefying corpse, all alike restored
by one command to life. Dost thou seek for
those who have come to death by wounds and
bloodshed? does any feebleness of life-giving
power hinder the grace in them ? Behold Him
Whose hands were pierced with nails : behold
Him Whose side was transfixed with a spear ;
pass thy fingers through the print of the nails ;
thrust thy hand into the spear-wound 5 ; thou
canst surely guess how far within it is likely
the point would reach, if thou reckonest the
passage inwards by the breadth of the external
scar ; for the wound that gives admission to a
man's hand, shows to what depth within the
iron entered. If He then has been raised, well
may we utter the Apostle's exclamation, " How
say some that there is no resurrection of the
dead 6 ? " ,

13. Since, then, every prediction of the Lord
is shown to be true by the testimony of events,
while we not only have learnt this by His words,
but also received the proof of the promise in
deed, from those very persons who returned to
life by resurrection, what occasion is left to
those who disbelieve ? Shall we not bid fare-
well to those who pervert our simple faith by
"philosophy and vain deceit7," and hold fast
to our confession in its purity, learning briefly
through the prophet the mode of the grace, by
his words, " Thou shalt take away their breath

and they shall fail, and turn to their dust.
Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit and they shall
be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of
the earth 8 ; " at which time also he says that
the Lord rejoices in His works, sinners having
perished from the earth : for how shall any
one be called by the name of sin, when sin
itself exists no longer ?

XXVI. That the resurrection is not beyond
probability 9.

1. There are, however, some who, owing to
the feebleness of human reasoning, judging the
Divine power by the compass of our own, main-
tain that what is beyond our capacity is not
possible even to God. They point to the dis-
appearance of the dead of old time, and to the
remains of those who have been reduced to
ashes by fire ; and further, besides these, they
bring forward in idea the carnivorous beasts,
and the fish that receives in its own body the
flesh of the shipwrecked sailor, while this again
in turn becomes food for men, and passes by
digestion into the bulk of him who eats it : and
they rehearse many such trivialities, unworthy
of God's great power and authority, for the
overthrow of the doctrine, arguing as though
God were not able to restore to man his own,
by return I through the same ways.

2. But we briefly cut short their long circuits
of logical folly by acknowledging that dissolu-
tion of the body into its component parts does
take place, and not only does earth, according
to the Divine word, return to earth, but air and
moisture also revert to the kindred element,
and there takes place a return of each of our
components to that nature to which it is allied ;
and although the human body be dispersed
among carnivorous birds, or among the most
savage beasts by becoming their food, and al-
though it pass beneath the teeth of fish, and
although it be changed by fire into vapour and
dust, wheresoever one may in argument suppose
the man to be removed, he surely remains in
the world ; and the world, the voice of inspira-
tion tells us, is held by the hand of God. If
thou, then, art not ignorant of any of the things
in thy hand, dost thou deem the knowledge of
God to be feebler than thine own power, that it
should fail to discover the most minute of the
things that are within the compass of the Divine
span ?

3 1 Thess. iv. 16.
5 Cf. S. John xx. 27.
1 Col. ii. 8.

VOL. V.

4 S. Luke iv. 23.
6 1 Cor. xv. 12.

8 Ps. civ. 2Q, 30 (LXX.). Cf. also with what follows vv. 31 — 35.

9 Otherwise Chap, xxvii. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin
version has the title : — "That however much the human body may
have been consumed, the Divine power can easily bring it together."

1 acaAvcre'uf, in S. Gregory, seems to be frequently used in the
sense of " return." Cf. Phil. i. 23, ei? to ayaAvaat, /cat ai)v
Xoio-to) elvm, where Tertullian translates " cupio recipi" ', (De
Patieutia).

E E

4i3

GREGORY OF NVSSA.

XXVII. That it is possible, when the human
body is dissolved into the elements oj the
universe, that each should have his own body
restored from the common source a.

i. Yet it maybe thou thinkest, having regard
to the elements of the universe, that it is a hard
thing when the air in us has been resolved into
its kindred element, and the warmth, and mois-
ture, and the earthy nature have likewise been
mingled with their own kind, that from the
common source there should return to the in-
dividual what belongs to itself.

2. Dost thou not then judge by human ex-
amples that even this does not surpass the
limits of the Divine power? Thou hast seen
surely somewhere among the habitations of men
a common herd of some kind of animals col-
lected from every quarter : yet when it is again
divided among its owners, acquaintance with
their homes and the marks put upon the cattle
serve to restore to each his own. If thou con-
■ceivest of thyself also something like to this,
thou wilt not be far from the right way : for
as the soul is disposed to cling to and long
for the body that has been wedded to it, there
also attaches to it in secret a certain close
relationship and power of recognition, in virtue
of their commixture, as though some marks had
been imprinted by nature, by the aid of which
the community remains unconfused, separated
by the distinctive signs. Now as the soul attracts
again to itself that which is its own and properly
belongs to it, what labour, I pray you, that is
involved for the Divine power, could be a
hindrance to concourse of kindred things when
they are urged to their own place by the un-
speakable attraction of nature, whatever it may
be ? For that some signs of our compound
nature remain in the soul even after dissolution,
is shown by the dialogue in Hades 3, where the
bodies had been conveyed to the tomb, but
some bodily token still remained in the souls by
•which both Lazarus was recognized and the rich
man was not unknown.

3. There is therefore nothing beyond proba-
bility in believing that in the bodies that rise
again there will be a return from the common
stock to the individual, especially for any one
who examines our nature with careful attention.
For neither does our being consist altogether in
flux and change — for surely that which had by
nature no stability would be absolutely incom-
prehensible— but according to the more accurate
statement some one of our constituent parts is
stationary while the rest goes through a process

2 Otherwise Chap, xxviii. The title in the Bodleian M.S. of the
Latin version is: — ''That although bodies rise together they wi 1
yet receive their own souk "

3 Cf. S. Luke xvi. 24 — 31.

of alteration : for the body is on the one hand
altered by way of growth and diminution,
changing, like garments, the vesture of its suc-
cessive statures, while the form, on the other
hand, remains in itself unaltered through every
change, not varying from the marks once im-
posed upon it by nature, but appearing with its
own tokens of identity in all the changes which
the body undergoes.

4. We must except, however, from this state-
ment the change which happens to the form as
the result of disease : for the deformity of sick-
ness takes possession of the form like some
strange mask, and when this is removed by the
word4, as in the case of Naaman the Syrian, or
of those whose story is recorded in the Gospel,
the form that had been hidden by disease is
once more by means of health restored to sight
again with its own marks of identity.

5. Now to the element of our soul which is
in the likeness of God it is not that which is
subject to flux and change by way of alteration,
but this stable and unalterable element in our
composition that is allied : and since various
differences of combination produce varieties of
forms (and combination is nothing else than
the mixture of the elements — by elements we
mean those which furnish the substratum for
the making of the universe, of which the human
body also is composed), while the form neces-
sarily remains in the soul as in the impression
of a seal, those things which have received from
the seal the impression of its stamp do not fail
fco be recognized by the soul, but at the time of
the World-Reformation, it receives back to itself
all those things which correspond to the stamp
of the form : and surely all those things would so
correspond which in the beginning were stamped
by the form ; thus it is not beyond probability
that what properly belongs to the individual
should once more return to it from the common
source 5.

6. It is said also that quicksilver, if poured
out from the vessel that contains it down a
dusty slope, forms small globules and scatters
itself over the ground, mingling with none of
those bodies with which it meets : but if one
should collect at one place the substance dis-
persed in many directions, it flows back to its
kindred substance, if not hindered by anything
intervening from mixing with its own kind.
Something of the same sort, I think, we ought
to understand also of the composite nature of

4 The word, that is of the Prophet, or of the Saviour, as in the
cases cited.

^ l lie "form" seems to be tegarded as a seal, which, while
taking its pattern from the combination of elements, yet marks thove
elements which have been grouped together under it ; and which at
the same tune leaver an impression of itself upon the soul. The
soul is thus enabled to recognize the elemental particles which make
up thai body which belonged to it, by the tvhos imprinted on ihein

i, well .is on itself.

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

419

man, that if only the power were given it of
God, the proper parts would spontaneously
unite with those belonging to them, without
any obstruction on their account arising to Him
Who reforms their nature.

7. Furthermore, in the case of plants that
grow from the ground, we do not observe any
labour on the part of nature spent on the wheat
or millet or any other seed of grain or pulse, in
changing it into stalk or spike or ears ; for the
proper nourishment passes spontaneously, with-
out trouble, from the common source to the
individuality of each of the seeds. If, then,
while the moisture supplied to all the plants is
common, each of those plants which is nourished
by it draws the due supply for its own growth,
what new thing is it if in the doctrine of the
resurrection also, as in the case of the seeds, it
happens that there is an attraction on the part
of each of those who rise, of what belongs to
himself ?

8. So that we may learn on all hands, that
the preaching of the resurrection contains no-
thing beyond those facts which are known to
us experimentally.

9. And yet we have said nothing of the most
notable point concerning ourselves ; I mean the
first beginning of our existence. Who knows
not the miracle of nature, what the maternal
womb receives — what it produces ? Thou seest
how that which is implanted in the womb to
be the beginning of the formation of the body
is in a manner simple and homogeneous : but
what language can express the variety of the
composite body that is framed ? and who, if he
did not learn such a thing in nature generally,
would think that to be possible which does take
place — that that small thing of no account is
the beginning of a thing so great? Great, I
say, not only with regard to the bodily formation,
but to what is more marvellous than this, I
mean the soul itself, and the attributes we
behold in it

XXVIII. To those who say that souls existed
before bodies, or that bodies were formed before
souls ; wherein there is also a refutation of the
fables concerning transmigration of souls 6.

1. For it is perhaps not beyond our present
subject to discuss the question which has been
raised in the churches touching soul and body.
Some of those before our time who have dealt
with the question of " principles " think it right
to say that souls have a previous existence as
a people in a society of their own, and that
among them also there are standards of vice
and of virtue, and that the soul there, which

6 Otherwise Chap. xxix. The title in the Bodleian MS. of the
Latin version is : — " Of different views of the origin of the soul"

abides in goodness, remains without experience
of conjunction with the body ; but if it does
depart from its communion with good, it falls
down to this lower life, and so comes to be in a
body. Others, on the contrary, marking the
order of the making of man as stated by Moses,
say, that the soul is second to the body in order
of time, since God first took dust from the earth
and formed man, and then animated the being
thus formed by His breath ' : and by this argu-
ment they prove that the flesh is more noble
than the soul ; that which was previously formed
than that which was afterwards infused into it :
for they say that the soul was made for the
body, that the thing formed might not be with-
out breath and motion ; and that everything
that is made for something else is surely less
precious than that for which it is made, as the
Gospel tells us that "the soul is more than
meat and the body than raiment 8," because the
latter things exist for the sake of the former —
for the soul was not made for meat nor our
bodies for raiment, but when the former things
were already in being the latter were provided
for their needs.

2. Since then the doctrine involved in both
these theories is open to criticism — the doctrine
alike of those who ascribe to souls a fabulous
pre-existence in a special state, and of thqse who
think they were created at a later time than the
bodies, it is perhaps necessary to leave none of
the statements contained in the doctrines with-
out examination : yet to engage and wrestle
with the doctrines on each side completely, and
to reveal all the absurdities involved in the
theories, would need a large expenditure both
of argument and of time ; we shall, however,
briefly survey as best we can each of the views
mentioned, and then resume our subject.

3. Those who stand by the former doctrine,
and assert that the state of souls is prior to their
life in the flesh, do not seem to me to be clear
from the fabulous doctrines of the heathen
which they hold on the subject of successive
incorporation : for if one should search carefully,
he will find that their doctrine is of necessity
brought down to this. They tell us that one of
their sages said that he, being one and the same
person, was born a man, and afterwards as-
sumed the form of a woman, and flew about
with the birds, and grew as a bush, and ob-
tained the life of an aquatic creature ; — and he
who said these things of himself did not, so far
as I can judge, go far from the truth : for such
doctrines as this of saying that one soul passed
through so many changes are really fitting for
the chatter of frogs or jackdaws, or the stupidity
of fishes, or the insensibility of trees.

1 Cf. Gen. ii. 7.

8 S. Matt vi. 25.

E E 2

*20

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

4. And of such absurdity the cause is this —
the supposition of the pre-existence of souls :
for the first principle of such doctrine leads on
the argument by consequence to the next and
adjacent stage, until it astonishes us by reaching
this point. For if the soul, being severed from
the more exalted state by some wickedness,
after having once, as they say, tasted corporeal
life, again becomes a man, and if the life in the
flesh is, as may be presumed, acknowledged to
be, in comparison with the eternal and incor-
poreal life, more subject to passion, it naturally
follows that that which comes to be in a life
such as to contain more occasions of sin, is both
placed in a region of greater wickedness and
rendered more subject to passion than before
(now passion in the human soul is a conformity
to the likeness of the irrational) ; and that being
brought into close connection with this, it de-
scends to the brute nature : and that when it
has once set out on its way through wickedness,
it does not cease its advance towards evil even
when found in an irrational condition : for a
halt in evil is the beginning of the impulse
towards virtue, and in irrational creatures virtue
does not exist. Thus it will of necessity be
continually changed for the worse, always pro-
ceeding to what is more degraded and always
finding' out what is worse than the nature in
which it is : and just as the sensible nature is
lower than the rational, so too there is a descent
from this to the insensible.

5. Now so far in its course their doctrine,
even if it does overstep the bounds of truth, at
all events derives one absurdity from another
by a kind of logical sequence : but from this
point onwards their teaching takes the form of
incoherent fable. Strict inference points to the
complete destruction of the soul ; for that which
has once fallen from the exalted state will be
unable to halt at any measure of wickedness,
but will pass by means of its relation with the
passions from rational to irrational, and from
the latter state will be transferred to the insensi-
bility of plants ; and on the insensible there
borders, so to say, the inanimate ; and on this
again follows the non-existent, so that absolutely
by this train of reasoning they will have the
soul to pass into nothing : thus a return once
more to the better state is impossible for it :
and yet they make the soul return from a
bush to the man : they therefore prove that the
life in a bush is more precious than an incor-
poreal state?.

6. It has been shown that the process of
deterioration which takes place in the soul will
probably be extended downwards ; and lower '
than the insensible we find the inanimate, to

9 That is, the lif» of the spirit before its incorporation.

which, by consequence, the principle of their
doctrine brings the soul : but as they will not.
have this, they either exclude the soul from
insensibility, or, if they are to bring it back to
human life, they must, as has been said, declare
the life of a tree to be preferable to the original
state — if, that is, the fall towards vice took
place from the one, and the return towards
virtue takes place from the other.

7. Thus this doctrine of theirs, which main-
tains that souls have a life by themselves before
their life in the flesh, and that they are by
reason of wickedness bound to their bodies,
is shown to have neither beginning nor con-
clusion : and as for those who assert that the
soul is of later creation than the body, their
absurdity was already demonstrated above r.

8. The doctrine of both, then, is equally to
be rejected ; but I think that we ought to direct
our own doctrine in the way of truth between
these theories : and this doctrine is that we are
not to suppose, according to the error of the
heathen that the souls that revolve with the
motion of the universe, weighed down by some
wickedness, fall to earth by inability to keep
up with the swiftness of the motion of the
spheres.

XXIX. An establishment of the doctrine that the
cause of the existence of soul and body is one
and the same.'1

1. Nor again are we in our doctrine to begin
by making up man like a clay figure, and to
say that the soul came into being for the sake
of this ; for surely in that case the intellectual
nature would be shown to be less precious
than the clay figure. But as man is one, the
being consisting of soul and body, we are to
suppose that the beginning of his existence is
one, common to both parts, so that he should
not be found to be antecedent and posterior to
himself, if the bodily element were first in
point of time, and the other were a later
addition ; but we are to say that in the power
of God's foreknowledge (according to the
doctrine laid down a little earlier in our dis-
course), all the fulness of human nature had
pre-existence (and to this the prophetic writing
bears witness, which says that God "knoweth
all things before they be 3 "), and in the creation
of individuals not to place the one element
before the other, neither the soul before the

1 In the discourse that is contained in the next chapter. The
point has been mentioned, but the conclusions were not drawn from
it in the opening section of this chapter.

2 Otherwise Chap. xxx. But in 'the Latin translation of Dio-
nysius, the new chapter does not begin till the end of the first
sentence of the Greek text. As Forbes remarks, either place is
awkward : a better beginning would be found at § 8 of the preceding
chapter. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version gives as the title : —
" That God equally made the soul and the body of man."

3 Hist. Sus. 4.

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

421

body, nor the contrary, that man may not be
at strife against himself, by being divided by
the difference in point of time.

2. For as our nature is conceived as twofold,
according to the apostolic teaching, made up
of the visible man and the hidden man, if the
one came first and the other supervened, the
power of Him that made us will be shown to
be in some way imperfect, as not being com-
pletely sufficient for the whole task at once,
but dividing the work, and busying itself with
each of the halves in turn.

3. But just as we say that in wheat, or in
any other grain, the whole form of the plant is
potentially included — the leaves, the stalk, the
joints, the grain, the beard — and do not say in
our account of its nature that any of these
things has pre-existence, or comes into being
before the others, but that the power abiding
in the seed is manifested in a certain natural
order, not by any means that another nature
is infused into it — in the same way we suppose
the human germ to possess the potentiality of
its nature, sown with it at the first start of its
existence, and that it is unfolded and mani-
fested by a natural sequence as it proceeds to
its perfect state, not employing anything ex-
ternal to itself as a stepping-stone to perfection,
but itself advancing its own self in due course
to the perfect state ; so that it is not true to
say either that the soul exists before the body,
or that the body exists without the soul, but
that there is one beginning of both, which
according to the heavenly view was laid as
their foundation in the original will of God ;
according to the other, came into existence on
the occasion of generation.

4. For as we cannot discern the articulation
of the limbs in that which is implanted for the
conception of the body before it begins to take
form, so neither is it possible to perceive in the
same the properties of the soul before they
advance to operation; and just as no one
would doubt that the thing so implanted is
fashioned into the different varieties of limbs
and interior organs, not by the importation of
any other power from without, but by the power
which resides in it transforming « it to this mani-
festation of energy, — so also we may by like
reasoning equally suppose in the case of the
soul that even if it is not visibly recognized by
any manifestations of activity it none the less
is there ; for even the form of the future man
is there potentially, but is concealed because it
is not possible that it should be made visible
before the necessary sequence of events allows
it ; so also the soul is there, even though it is

4 The reading <xuT-fj« y.tdi.(TTOn).4vr)<;, "itself being transformed,"
seems to give a better sense, but the weight of MS. authority seems
to be against it.

not visible, and will be manifested by means
of its own proper and natural operation, as it
advances concurrently with the bodily growth.

5. For since it is not from a dead body
that the potentiality for conception is secreted,
but from one which is animate and alive, we
hence affirm that it is reasonable that we should
not suppose that what is sent forth from a
living body to be the occasion of life is
itself dead and inanimate ; for in the flesh that
which is inanimate is surely dead ; and the
condition of death arises by the withdrawal of J
the soul. Would not one therefore in this case
be asserting that withdrawal is antecedent to
possession — if, that is, he should maintain that
the inanimate state which is the condition of
death is antecedent to the soul s ? And if any
one should seek for a still clearer evidence of
the life of that particle which becomes the be-
ginning of the living creature in its formation,

it is possible to obtain an idea on this point
from other signs also, by which what is animate
is distinguished from what is dead. For in the
case of men we consider it an evidence of life
that one is warm and operative and in motion,
but the chill and motionless state in the case
of bodies is nothing else than deadness.

6. Since then we see that of which we are
speaking to be warm and operative, we there-
by draw the further inference that it is not in-
animate ; but as, in respect of its corporeal
part, we do not say that it is flesh, and bones,
and hair, and all that we observe in the human
being, but that potentially it is each of these
things, yet does not visibly appear to be so ; so
also of the part which belongs to the soul, the
elements of rationality, and desire, and anger,
and all the powers of the soul are not yet
visible ; yet we assert that they have their place
in it, and that the energies of the soul also
grow with the subject in a manner similar to
the formation and perfection of the body.

7. For just as a man when perfectly developed
has a specially marked activity of the soul, so
at the beginning of his existence he shows in
himself that co-operation of the soul which is
suitable and conformable to his existing need,
in its preparing for itself its proper dwelling-
place by means of the implanted matter; for
we do not suppose it possible that the soul is
adapted to a strange building, just as it is not
possible that the seal impressed on wax should
be fitted to an engraving that does not agree
with it.

8. For as the body proceeds from a very
small original to the perfect state, so also the
operation of the soul, growing in correspondence
with the subject, gains and increases with it.

5 Altering Forbes' punctuation.

422

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

For at its first formation there comes first of
all its power of growth and nutriment alone, as
though it were some root buried in the ground ;
for the limited nature of the recipient does not
admit of more ; then, as the plant comes forth
to the light and shows its shoot to the sun, the
gift of sensibility blossoms in addition, but when
at last it is ripened and has grown up to its
proper height, the power of reason begins to
shine forth like a fruit, not appearing in its whole
vigour all at once, but by care increasing with the
perfection of the instrument, bearing always as
much fruit as the powers of the subject allow.

9. If, however, thou seekest to trace the
operation of the soul in the formation of the
body, "take heed to thyself 6," as Moses says,
and thou wilt read, as in a book, the history
of the works of the soul ; for nature itself ex-
pounds to thee, more clearly than any discourse,
the varied occupations of the soul in the body,
alike in general and in particular acts of con-
struction.

10. But I deem it superfluous to declare at
length in words what is to be found in our-
selves, as though we were expounding some
wonder that lay beyond our boundaries : — who
that looks on himself needs words to teach him
his own nature? For it is possible for one
who considers the mode of his own life, and
learns how closely concerned the body is in
every vital operation, to know in what the
vegetative ? principle of the soul was occupied
on the occasion of the first formation of that
which was beginning its existence ; so that
hereby also it is clear to those who have given
any attention to the matter, that the thing which
was implanted by separation from the living
body for the production of the living being
was not a thing dead or inanimate in the
laboratory of nature.

11. Moreover we plant in the ground the
kernels of fruits, and portions torn from roots,
not deprived by death of the vital power which
naturally resides in them, but preserving in
themselves, hidden indeed, yet surely living,
the property of their prototype ; the earth that
surrounds them does not implant such a power
from without, infusing it from itself (for surely
then even dead wood would proceed to growth),
but it makes that manifest which resides in
them, nourishing it by its own moisture, per-
fecting the plant into root, and bark, and pith,
and shoots of branches, which could not happen
were not a natural power implanted with it,
which drawing to itself from its surroundings
its kindred and proper nourishment, becomes
a bush, or a tree, or an ear of grain, or some
plant of the class of shrubs.

6 Dent. iv. 23.

' Reading ^utiicoc for <j>v<ti.k6v, see note 6 on ch. 8, § 4.

XXX. A brief exatnination of the construction of
our bodies from a medical point of view8.

1. Now the exact structure of our body each
man teaches himself by his experiences of sight
and light and perception, having his own
nature to instruct him ; any one too may learn
everything accurately who takes up the re-
searches which those skilled in such matters
have worked out in books. And of these writers
some learnt by dissection the position of our
individual organs ; others also considered and
expounded the reason for the existence of all
the parts of the body ; so that the knowledge
of the human frame which hence results is
sufficient for students. But if any one further
seeks that the Church should be his teacher on
all these points, so that he may not need for
anything the voice of those without (for this
is the wont of the spiritual sheep, as the Lord
says, that they hear not a strange voiced), we
shall briefly take in hand the account of these
matters also.

2. We note concerning our bodily nature
three things, for the sake of which our particular
parts were formed. Life is the cause of some,
good life of others, others again are adapted with
a view to the succession of descendants. All
things in us which are of such a kind that
without them it is not possible that human life
should, exist, we consider as being in three
parts; in the brain, the heart, and the liver.
Again, all that are a sort of additional blessings,
nature's liberality, whereby she bestows on man
the gift of living well, are the organs of sense ;
for such things do not constitute our life, since
even where some of them are wanting man is
often none the less in a condition of life ; but
without these forms of activity it is impossible
to enjoy participation in the pleasures of life.
The third aim regards the future, and the
succession of life. There are also certain other
organs besides these, which help, in common
with all the others, to subserve the continuance
of life, importing by their own means the
proper supplies, as the stomach and the
lungs, the latter fanning by respiration the fire
at the heart, the former introducing the
nourishment for the internal organs.

3. Our structure, then, being thus divided,
we have carefully to mark that our faculty for
life is not supported in any one way by some
single organ, but nature, while distributing the
means for our existence among several parts,
makes the contribution of each individual neces-
sary for the whole ; just as the things which natute
contrives for the security and beauty of lifearealso
numerous, and differ much among themselves.

8 Otherwise Chap. xxxi. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin ver-
sion gives the title : — " Of the threefold nature ol the hody."
» Cf. S. John x. 5.

CN THE MAKING OF MAN.

423

4. We ought, however, I think, first to dis-
cuss briefly the first beginnings of the things
which contribute to the constitution of our life.
As for the material of the whole body which
serves as a common substratum for the par-
ticular members, it may for the present be left
without remark ; for a discussion as to natural
substance in general will not be of any assist-
ance to our purpose with regard to the con-
sideration of the parts.

5. As it is then acknowledged by all that
there is in us a share of all that we behold as
elements in the universe— of heat and cold,
and of the other pair of qualities of moisture
and dryness — we must discuss them severally.

6. VVe see then that the powers which control
life are three, of which the first by its heat
produces general warmth, the second by its
moisture keeps damp that which is warmed, so
that the living being is kept in an intermediate
condition by the equal balance of the forces
exerted by the quality of each of the opposing
natures (the moist element not being dried up
by excess of heat, nor the hot element quenched
by the prevalence of moisture) ; and the third
power by its own agency holds together the
separate members in a certain agreement and
harmony, connecting them by the ties which it
itself furnishes, and sending into them all that
self-moving and determining force, on the failure
of which the member becomes relaxed and
deadened, being left destitute of the determining
spirit

7. Or rather, before dealing with these, it is
right that we should mark the skilled workman-
ship of nature in the actual construction of the
body. For as that which is hard and resistent
does not admit the action of the senses (as we
may see in the instance of our own bones, and
in that of plants in the ground, where we re-
mark indeed a certain form of life in that they
grow and receive nourishment, yet the resistent
character of their substance does not allow
them sensation), for this reason it was necessary
that some wax-like formation, so to say, should
be supplied for the action of the senses, with
the faculty of being impressed with the stamp
Of things capable of striking them, neither be-
coming confused by excess of moisture (for the
impress would not remain in moist substance),
nor resisting by extraordinary solidity (for that
which is unyielding would not receive any mark
from the impressions), but being in a state
between softness and hardness, in order that
the living being might not be destitute of the
fairest of all the operations of nature — I mean
the motion of sense.

8. Now as a soft and yielding substance, if it
had no assistance from the hard parts, would
certainly have, like molluscs, neither motion nor

articulation, nature accordingly mingles in the
body the hardness of the bones, and uniting
these by close connection one to another, and
knitting their joints together by means of the
sinews, thus plants around them the flesh which
receives sensations, furnished with a somewhat
harder and more highly-strung surface than it
would otherwise have had.

9. While resting, then, the whole weight of
the body on this substance of the bones, as on
some columns that carry a mass of building,
she did not implant the bone undivided
through the whole structure : for in that case
man would have remained without motion or
activity, if he had been so constructed, just like
a tree that stands on one spot without either the
alternate motion of legs to advance its motion
or the service of hands to minister to the
conveniences of life : but now we see that she
contrived that the instrument should be rendered
capable of walking and working by this device,
after she had implanted in the body, by the
determining spirit which extends through the
nerves, the impulse and power for motion. And
hence is produced the service of the hands, so
varied and multiform, and answering to every
thought. Hence are produced, as though by
some mechanical contrivance, the turnings of
the neck, and the bending and raising of the
head, and the action of the chin, and the separ-
ation of the eyelids, that takes place with a
thought, and the movements of the other joints,
by the tightening or relaxation of certain nerves.
And the power that extends through these ex-
hibits a sort of independent impulse, working
with the spirit of its will by a sort of natural
management, in each particular part ; but the
root of all, and the principle of the motions of
the nerves, is found in the nervous tissue that
surrounds the brain.

10. We consider, then, that we need not
spend more time in inquiring in which of the
vital members such a thing resides, when the
energy of motion is shown to be here. But
that the brain contributes to life in a special
degree is shown clearly by the result of the
opposite conditions : for if the tissue sur-
rounding it receives any wound or lesion, death
immediately follows the injury, nature being
unable to endure the hurt even for a moment ;
just as, when a foundation is withdrawn, the
whole building collapses with the part ; and that
member, from an injury to which the destruction
of the whole living being clearly follows, may
properly be acknowledged to contain the cause
of life.

11. But as furthermore in those who have
ceased to live, when the heat that is implanted
in our nature is quenched, that which has be-
come dead grows cold, we hence recognize the

424

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

vital cause also in heat : for we must of necessity
acknowledge that the living being subsists by
the presence of that, which failing, the condition
of death supervenes. And of such a force we
understand the heart to be as it were the
fountain-head and principle, as from it pipe-like
passages, growing one from another in many
ramifications, diffuse in the whole body the
warm and fiery spirit.

12. And since some nourishment must needs
also be provided by nature for the element of
heat — for it is not possible that the fire should
last by itself, without being nourished by its
proper food — therefore the channels of the
blood, issuing from the liver as from a fountain-
head, accompany the warm spirit everywhere in
its way throughout the body, that the one may
not by isolation from the other become a disease
and destroy the constitution. Let this instruct
those who go beyond the bounds of fairness, as
they learn from nature that covetousness is a
disease that breeds destruction.

13. But since the Divinity alone is free from
needs, while human poverty requires external
aid for its own subsistence, nature therefore, in
addition to those three powers by which we said
that the whole body is regulated, brings in im-
ported matter from without, introducing by
different entrances that which is suitable to
those powers.

14. For to the fount of the blood, which is
the liver, she furnishes its supply by food : for
that which from time to time is imported in
this way prepares the springs of blood to issue
from the liver, as the snow on the mountain by
its own moisture increases the springs in the
low ground, forcing its own fluid deep down to
the veins below.

15. The breath in the heart is supplied by
means of the neighbouring organ, which is called
the lungs, and is a receptacle for air, drawing
the breath from without through the windpipe
inserted in it, which extends to the mouth.
The heart being placed in the midst of this
organ (and itself also moving incessantly in
imitation of the action of the ever-moving fire),
draws to itself, somewhat as the bellows do in
the forges, a supply from the adjacent air, filling
its recesses by dilatation, and while it fans its
own fiery element, breathes upon the adjoining
tubes ; and this it does not cease to do, drawing
the external air into its own recesses by dilata-
tion, and by compression infusing the air from
itself into the tubes.

16. And this seems to me to be the cause of
this spontaneous respiration of ours ; for often
the mind is occupied in discourse with others,
or is entirely quiescent when the body is relaxed
in sleep, but the respiration of air does not
cease, though the will gives no co-operation to

this end. Now I suppose, since the heart is
surrounded by the lungs, and in the back part
of its own structure is attached to them, moving
that organ by its own dilatations and compres-
sions, that the inhaling and exhaling « of the air
is brought about by the lungs : for as they are
a lightly built and porous body, and have all
their recesses opening at the base of the wind-
pipe, when they contract and are compressed
they necessarily force out by pressure the air
that is left in their cavities ; and, when they
expand and open, draw the air, by their dis-
tention, into the void by suction.

17. This then is the cause of this involuntary
respiration — the impossibility that the fiery
element should remain at rest : for as the
operation of motion is proper to heat, and we
understand that the principle of heat is to be
found in the heart, the continual motion going
on in this organ produces the incessant inspira-
tion and exhalation of the air through the lungs :
wherefore also when the fiery element is un-
naturally augmented, the breathing of those
fevered subjects becomes more rapid, as though
the heart were endeavouring to quench the
flame implanted in it by more violent 2 breathing.

18. But since our nature is poor and in need
of supplies for its own maintenance from all
quarters, it not only lacks air of its own, and
the breath which excites heat, which it imports
from without for the preservation of the living
being, but the nourishment it finds to fill out
the proportions of the body is an importation.
Accordingly, it supplies the deficiency by food
and drink, implanting in the body a certain
faculty for appropriating that which it requires,
and rejecting that which is superfluous, and for
this purpose too the fire of the heart gives
nature no small assistance.

19. For since, according to the account we
have given, the heart which kindles by its warm
breath the individual parts, is the most import-
ant of the vital organs, our Maker caused it to
be operative with its efficacious power at all
points, that no part of it might be left ineffectual
or unprofitable for the regulation of the whole
organism. Behind, therefore, it enters the
lungs, and, by its continuous motion, drawing
that organ to itself, it expands the passages to
inhale the air, and compressing them again it
brings about the exspiration of the imprisoned
air ; while in front, attached to the space at the
upper extremity of the stomach, it warms it and
makes it respond by motion to its own activity,
rousing it, not to inhale air, but to receive its
appropriate food : for the entrances for breath

1 Reading (with Forbes' marginal suggestion) (K-nvor)V.

3 Or perhaps " fresher," the heart seeking as it were for fresher
and cooler air, and the breath being thus accelerated in the effort to
obtain it.

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

425 '

and food are near one another, extending
lengthwise one alongside the other, and are
terminated in their upper extremity by the same
boundary, so that their mouths are contiguous
and the passages come to an end together in
one mouth, from which the entrance of food is
•effected through the one, and that of the breath
through the other.

20. Internally, however, the closeness of the
connection of the passages is not maintained
throughout ; for the heart intervening between
the base of the two, infuses in the one the
powers for respiration, and in the other for
nutriment. Now the fiery element is naturally
inclined to seek for the material which serves
as fuel, and this necessarily happens with regard
to the receptacle of nourishment ; for the more
it becomes penetrated by fire through the
•neighbouring warmth, the more it draws to
itself what nourishes the heat. And this sort
of impulse we call appetite.

21. But if the organ which contains the food
should obtain sufficient material, not even so
does the activity of the fire become quiescent :
but it produces a sort of melting of the material
just as in a foundry, and, dissolving the solids,
pours them out and transfers them, as it were
from a funnel, to the neighbouring passages :
then separating the coarser from the pure sub-
stance, it passes the fine part through certain
•channels to the entrance of the liver, and expels
the sedimentary matter of the food to the wider
passages of the bowels, and by turning it over
in their manifold windings retains the food for
a time in the intestines, lest if it were easily got
rid of by a straight passage it might at once
excite the animal again to appetite, and man,
like the race of irrational animals, might never
cease from this sort of occupation.

22. As we saw, however, that the liver has
especial need of the co-operation of heat for the
conversion of the fluids into blood, while this
organ is in position distant from the heart (for
it would, I imagine, have been impossible that,
being one principle or root of the vital power,
it should not be hampered by vicinity with
another such principle), in order that the
system may suffer no injury by the distance at
which the heat-giving substance is placed, a
muscular passage (and this, by those skilled in
such matters, is called the artery) receives the
heated air from the heart and conveys it to
the liver, making its opening there somewhere
beside the point at which the fluids enter, and,
as it warms the moist substance by its heat,
blends with the liquid something akin to fire,
.and makes the blood appear red with the fiery
tint it produces.

23. Issuing thence again, certain twin chan-
nels, each enclosing its own current like a pipe,

disperse air and blood (that the liquid substance
may have free course when accompanied and
lightened by the motion of the heated substance)
in divers directions over the whole body, break-
ing at every part into countless branching
channels ; while as the two principles of the
vital powers mingle together (that alike which
disperses heat, and that which supplies moisture
to all parts of the body), they make, as it were,
a sort of compulsory contribution from the
substance with which they deal to the supreme
force in the vital economy.

24. Now this force is that which is considered
as residing in the cerebral membranes and the
brain, from which it comes that every move-
ment of a joint, every contraction of the
muscles, every spontaneous influence that is
exerted upon the individual members, renders
our earthen statue active and mobile as though
by some mechanism. For the most pure form
of heat and the most subtle form of liquid,
being united by their respective forces through
a process of mixture and combination, nourish
and sustain by their moisture the brain, and
hence in turn, being rarefied to the most pure
condition, the exhalation that proceeds from
that organ anoints the membrane which encloses
the brain, which, reaching from above down-
wards like a pipe, extending through the succes-
sive vertebrae, is (itself and the marrow which is
contained in it) conterminous with the base of the
spine, itself giving like a charioteer the impulse
and power to all the meeting-points of bones
and joints, and to the branches of the muscles,
for the motion or rest of the particular parts.

25. For this cause too it seems to me that it
has been granted a more secure defence, being
distinguished, in the head, by a double shelter
of bones round about, and in the vertebrae of
the neck by the bulwarks formed by the pro-
jections of the spine as well as by the diversified
interlacings of the very form of those vertebrae,
by which it is kept in freedom from ail harm,
enjoying safety by the defence that surrounds it.

26. So too one might suppose of the heart,
that it is itself like some safe house fitted with
the most solid defences, fortified by the enclos-
ing walls of the bones round about ; for in rear
there is the spine, strengthened on either side
by the shoulder-blades, and on each flank the
enfolding position of the ribs makes that which
is in the midst between them difficult to injure ;
while in front the breast-bone and the juncture
of the collar-bone serve as a defence, that
its safety may be guarded at all points from
external causes of danger.

27. As we see in husbandry, when the rain-
fall from the clouds or the overflow from the
river channels causes the land beneath it to be
saturated with moisture (let us suppose for

426

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

our argument a garden, nourishing within its
own compass countless varieties of trees, and
all the forms of plants that grow from the
ground, and whereof we contemplate the figure,
quality, and individuality in great variety of
detail) ; then, as these are nourished by the
liquid element while they are in one spot, the
power which supplies moisture to each individual
among them is one in nature ; but the individu-
ality of the plants so nourished changes the
liquid element into different qualities ; for the
same substance becomes bitter in wormwood,
and is changed into a deadly juice in hemlock,
and becomes different in different other plants,
in saffron, in balsam, in the poppy : for in one
it becomes hot, in another cold, in another it
obtains the middle quality : and in laurel and
mastick it is scented, and in the fig and the
pear it is sweetened, and by passing through
the vine it is turned into the grape and into
wine ; while the juice of the apple, the redness
of the rose, the radiance of the lily, the blue of
the violet, the purple of the hyacinthine dye,
and all that we behold in the earth, arise from
one and the same moisture, and are separated
into so many varieties in respect of figure and
aspect and quality ; the same sort of wonder is
wrought in the animated soil of our being by
Nature, or rather by Nature's Lord. Bones,
cartilages, veins, arteries, nerves, ligatures, flesh,
skin, fat, hair, glands, nails, eyes, nostrils, ears,
— all such things as these, and countless others
in addition, while separated from one another
by various peculiarities, are nourished by the
one form of nourishment in ways proper to
their own nature, in the sense that the nourish-
ment, when it is brought into close relation
with any of the subjects, is also changed accord-
ing to that to which it approaches, and becomes
adapted and allied to the special nature of the
part. For if it should be in the neighbourhood
of the eye, it blends with the visual part and is
appropriately distributed by the difference of
the coats round the eye, among the single
parts ; or, if it flow to the auditory parts, it
is mingled with the auscultatory nature, or if
it is in the lip, it becomes lip ; and it grows
solid in bone, and grows soft in marrow, and is
made tense with the sinew, and extended with
the surface, and passes into the nails, and is
fined down for the growth of the hair, by cor-
respondent exhalations, producing hair that is
somewhat curly or wavy if it makes its way
through winding passages, while, if the course
of the exhalations that go to form the hair lies
straight, it renders the hair stiff and straight.

28. Our argument, however, has wandered
far from its purpose, going deep into the works
of nature, and endeavouring to describe how
and from what materials our particular organs

are formed, those, I mean, intended for life and
for good life, and any other class which we
included with these in our first division.

29. For our purpose was to show that the
seminal cause of our constitution is neither a
soul without body, nor a body without soul,
but that, from animated and living bodies, it is
generated at the first as a living and animate
being, and that our humanity takes it and
cherishes it like a nursling with the resources
she herself possesses, and it thus grows on both
sides and makes its growth manifest correspond-
ingly in either part : — for it at once displays,
by this artificial and scientific process of forma-
tion, the power of soul that is interwoven in it,
appearing at first somewhat obscurely, but after-
wards increasing in radiance concurrently with
the perfecting of the work.

30. And as we may see with stone-carvers —
for the artist's purpose is to produce in stone
the figure of some animal ; and with this in his
mind, he first severs the stone from its kindred
matter, and then, by chipping away the super-
fluous parts of it, advances somehow by the
intermediate step of his first outline to the
imitation which he has in his purpose, so that
even an unskilled observer may, by what he
sees, conjecture the aim of his art ; again, by
working at it, he brings it more nearly to the
semblance of the object he has in view ; lastly,
producing in the material the perfect and
finished figure, he brings his art to its con-
clusion, and that which a little before was a
shapeless stone is a lion, or a man, or whatso-
ever it may be that the artist has made, not by
the change of the material into the figure, but
by the figure being wrought upon the material.
If one supposes the like in the case of the soul
he is not far from probability ; for we say that
Nature, the all-contriving, takes from its kindred
matter the part that comes from the man, and
moulds her statue within herself. And as the
form follows upon the gradual working of the
stone, at first somewhat indistinct, but more
perfect after the completion of the work, so
too in the moulding of its instrument the form
of the soul is expressed in the substratum, in-
completely in that which is still incomplete,
perfect in that which is perfect ; indeed it
would have been perfect from the beginning had
our nature not been maimed by evil. Thus our
community in that generation which is subject
to passion and of animal nature, brings it about
that the Divine image does not at once shine
forth at our formation, but brings man to perfec-
tion by a certain method and sequence, through
those attributes of the soul which are material,,
and belong rather to the animal creation.

31. Some such doctrine as this the great
apostle also teaches us in his Epistle to the

ON THE MAKING OF MAN.

427

Corinthians, when he says, " When I was a
child, I spake as a child, I understood as a
child, I thought as a child ; but when I became
a man 1 put away childish things 3 " ; not that
the soul which arises in the man is different
from that which we know to be in the boy,
and the childish intellect fails while the manly
intellect takes its being in us ; but that the
same soul displays its imperfect condition in
the one, its perfect state in the other.

32. For we say that those things are alive
which spring up and grow, and no one would
deny that all things that participate in life
and natural motion are animate, yet at the
same time one cannot say that such life par-
takes of a perfect soul, — for though a certain
animate operation exists in plants, it does not
attain to the motions of sense ; and on the
other hand, though a certain further animate
power exists in the brutes, neither does this
attain perfection, since it does not contain in
itself the grace of reason and intelligence.

3 I Cor. xiii, iv

33. And even so we say that the true and
perfect soul is the human soul, recognized by
every operation ; and anything else that shares
in life we call animate by a sort of customary
misuse of language, because in these cases the
soul does not exist in a perfect condition, but
only certain parts of the operation of the soul,
which in man also (according to Moses' mysti-
cal account of man's origin) we learn to have
accrued when he made himself like this sensuous
world. Thus Paul, advising those who were
able to hear him to lay hold on perfection,
indicates also the mode in which they may
attain that object, telling them that they must
"put off the old man," and put on the man
" which is renewed after the image of Him that
created him V

34. Now may we all return to that Divine
grace in which God at the first created man,
when He said, " Let us make man in our image
and likeness " ; to Whom be glory and might
for ever and ever. Amen.

4 Col. iii. 9, 10.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

ARGUMENT.

The mind, in times of bereavement, craves a certainty gained by reasoning as to the
existence of the soul after death.

First, then : Virtue will be impossible, if deprived of the life of eternity, her only advantage.

But this is a moral argument. The case calls for speculative and scientific treatment.

How is the objection that the nature of the soul, as of real things, is material, to be met?

Thus ; the truth of this doctrine would involve the truth of Atheism ; whereas Atheism is
refuted by the fact of the wise order that reigns in the world. In other words, the spirituality of
God cannot be denied : and this proves the possibility of spiritual or immaterial existence : and
therefore, that of the soul.

But is God, then, the same thing as the soul?

No : but man is " a little world in himself ; " and we may with the same right conclude from
this Microcosm to the actual existence of an immaterial soul, as from the phenomena of the*
world to the reality of God's existence.

A Definition of the soul is then given, for the sake of clearness in the succeeding discussion.
It is a created, living, intellectual being, with the power, as long as it is provided with organs, of
sensuous perception. For " the mind sees," not the eye ; take, for instance, the meaning of
the phases of the moon. The objection that the " organic machine " of the body produces all
thought is met by the instance of the water-organ. Such machines, if thought were really an
attribute of matter, ought to build themselves spontaneously : whereas they are a direct proof
of an invisible thinking power in man. A work of Art means mind : there is a thing perceived,
and a thing not perceived.

But still, what is this thing not perceived ?

If it has no sensible quality whatever — Where is it?

The answer is, that the same question might be asked about the Deity (Whose existence is
not denied).

Then the Mind and the Deity are identical?

Not so : in its substantial existence, as separable from matter, the soul is like God ; but this
likeness does not extend to sameness ; it resembles God as a copy the original.

As being " simple and uncompounded " the soul survives the dissolution of the composite
body, whose scattered elements it will continue to accompany, as if watching over its property
till the Resurrection, when it will clothe itself in them anew.

The soul was defined " an intellectual being." But anger and desire are not of the body
either. Are there, then, two or three souls? — Answer. Anger and desire do not belong to the
essence of the soul, but are only among its varying states ; they are not originally part of ourselves,
and we can and must rid ourselves of them, and bring them, as long as they continue to mark
our community with the brute creation, into the service of the good. They are the " tares " of
the heart, while they serve any other purpose.

But where will the soul " accompany its elements " ? — Hades is not a particular spot ; it means
the Invisible ; those passages in the Bible in which the regions under the earth are alluded to
are explained as allegorical, although the partizans of the opposite interpretation need not be
combated.

But how will the soul know the scattered elements of the once familiar form ? This is
answered by two illustrations (not analogies). The skill of the painter, the force that has united
numerous colours to form a single tint, will, if (by some miracle) that actual tint was to fall back
into those various colours, be cognizant of each one of these last, e.g. the tone and size of the

ARGUMENT. 429

drop of gold, of red, &c. ; and could at will recombine them. The owner of a cup of clay
would know its fragments (by their shape) amidst a mass of fragments of clay vessels of other
shapes, or even if they were plunged again into their native clay. So the soul knows its elements
amidst their " kindred dust " ; or when each one has flitted back to its own primeval source
on the confines of the Universe.

But how does this harmonize with the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus?

The bodies of both were in the grave : and so all that is said of them is in a spiritual sense.
But the soul can suffer still, being cognizant, not only of the elements of the whole body, but of
those that formed each member, e. g. the tongue. By the relations of the Rich Man are meant
the impressions made on his soul by the things of flesh and blood.

But if we must have no emotions in the next world, how shall there be virtue, and how shall
there be love of God ? For anger, we saw, contributed to the one, desire to the other.

We shall be like God so far that we shall always contemplate the Beautiful in Him. Now,
God, in contemplating Himself, has no desire and hope, no regret and memory. The moment
of fruition is always present, and so His Love is perfect, without the need of any emotion. So
will it be with us. God draws " that which belongs to Him " to this blessed passionlessness ; and
in this very drawing consists the torment of a passion-laden soul. Severe and long-continued
pains in eternity are thus decreed to sinners, not because God hates them, nor for the sake alone
of punishing them ; but " because what belongs to God must at any cost be preserved for Him."
The degree of pain which must be endured by each one is necessarily proportioned to the
measure of the wickedness.

God will thus be " all in all " ; yet the loved one's form will then be woven, though into a
more ethereal texture, of the same elements as before. (This is not Nirvana.)

Here the doctrine of the Resurrection is touched. The Christian Resurrection and that of
the heathen philosophies coincide in that the soul is reclothed from some elements of the
Universe. But there are fatal objections to the latter under its two forms :

Transmigration pure and simple ;
The Platonic Soul-rotation.

The first — 1. Obliterates the distinction between the mineral or vegetable, and the spiritual,
world.
2. Makes it a sin to eat and drink.
Both — 3. Confuse the moral choice.

4. Make heaven the cradle of vice, and earth of virtue.

5. Contradict the truth that they assume, that there is no change in heaven.

6. Attribute every birth to a vice, and therefore are either Atheist or Manichaean.

7. Make a life a chapter of accidents.

8. Contradict facts of moral character.
God is the cause of our life, both in body and soul.
But ivhen and how does the soul come into existence ?
The how we can never know.

There are objections to seeking the material for any created thing either in God, or outside
God. But we may regard the whole Creation as the realized thoughts of God. (Anticipation of
Malebranche.)

The when may be determined. Objections to the existence of soul before body have been
given above. But soul is necessary to life, and the embryo lives.

Therefore soul is not born after body. So body and soul are born together.

As to the number of souls, Humanity itself is a thought of God not yet completed, as these
continual additions prove. When it is completed, this " progress of Humanity " will cease, by
there being no more births : and no births, no deaths.

Before answering objections to the Scriptural doctrine of the Resurrection, the passages that
contain it are mentioned : especially Psalm cxviii. 27 (LXX.).

The various objections to it, to the Purgatory to follow, and to the Judgment, are then stated ;
especially that

A man is not the same being (physically) two days together. Which phase of him, then, is
to rise again, be tortured (if need be), and judged ?

They are all answered by a Definition of the Resurrection, i. e. the restoration of man to his
original state. In that, there is neither age nor infancy ; and the " coats of skins " are laid aside.

When the process of purification has been completed, the better attributes of the soul appear —
imperishability, life, honour, grace, glory, power, and, in short, all that belongs to human nature
as the image of Deity.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

Basil, great amongst the saints, had departed
from this life to God ; and the impulse to
mourn for him was shared by all the churches.
But his sister the Teacher was still living ; and
so I journeyed to her x, yearning for an inter-
change of sympathy over the loss of her brother.
My soul was right sorrow-stricken by this
grievous blow, and I sought for one who could
feel it equally, to mingle my tears with. But
when we were in each other's presence the sight
of the Teacher awakened all my pain ; for she
too was lying in a state of prostration even unto
death. Well, she gave in to me for a little
while, like a skilful driver, in the ungovernable
violence of my grief; and then she tried to
check me by speaking, and to correct with the
curb of her reasonings the disorder of my soul.
She quoted the Apostle's words about the duty
of not being " grieved for them that sleep " ;
because only "men without hope" have such/
feelings. With a heart still fermenting with my
pain, I asked —

2 How can that ever be practised by mankind ?

1 Gregory himself tells us, in his life of S. Macrina, that he
went to see her after the Council of Antioch. (This and Basil's
death occurred in the year 379 : so that this Dialogue was probably
composed in 380.; "The interval during which the circumstances
of our times of trials prevented any visits had been long." He goes
on to say (p. 189 B.) ; " And that she might cause me no depression of
spirits, she somehow subdued the noise and concealed the difficulty
of her breathing, and assumed perfect cheerfulness : she not only
started pleasant topics herself, but suggested them as well by the
questions which she asked. The conversation led naturally to the
mention of our great Basil. While my very soul sank and my
countenance was saddened and fell, she herself was so far from
going with me into the depths of mourning, that she made the
mention of that saintly name an opportunity lor the most sublime
philosophy. Examining human nature in a scientific way, disclos-
ing the divine plan that underlies all afflictions, and dealing, a» if
inspired by the Holy Spirit, with all the questions relating to a
future life, she maintained such a discourse that my soul seemed to
be lifted along with her words almost beyond the compass of
humanity, and, as I followed her argument, to be placed within the
sanctuary of heaven." Again ([> iqo B) : " And if my tract would
not thereby be extended to an endless length, 1 would have reported
everything in its order ; i. e. how her argument lifted her as she
went into the philosophy both of the soul, and of the causes of our
life in the Hi 1/ and of the final cause of Man and his mortality, and
of death and the return thence into life again. In all of it her
1 .1 oning continued clear and consecutive: it flowed on so easily
and naturally that it was like the water from some spring falling
unimpeded downward

* I wo grounds are here triven why lhis practice of grief for the
departed is difficult to give up. One lies in the natural abhorrence
of death, showing itself in two ways, viz. in our grief over others
dying, and in recoiling from our own death, expressed by two
evenly balanced sentences, owt* to>i> opwvTuiv . , . ois rt av . . .; in
the latter a second vint might have been expected ; but such an

There is such an instinctive and deep-seated
abhorrence of death in all ! Those who look
on a death-bed can hardly bear the sight ; and
those whom death approaches recoil from him
all they can. Why, even the law that controls
us puts death highest on the list of crimes, and
highest on the list of punishments. By what
device, then, can we bring ourselves to regard
as nothing a departure from life even in the
case of a stranger, not to mention that of
relations, when so be they cease to live ? We
see before us the whole course of human life
aiming at this one thing, viz. how we may
continue in this life ; indeed it is for this that
houses have been invented by us to live in ;
in order that our bodies may not be prostrated
in their environment 3 by cold or heat. Agri-
culture, again, what is it but the providing of
our sustenance ? In fact all thought about how
we are to go on living is occasioned by the fear
of dying. Why is medicine so honoured amongst
men ? Because it is thought to carry on the com-
bat with death to a certain extent by its methods.
Why do we have corslets, and long shields, and
greaves, and helmets, and all the defensive
armour, and inclosures of fortifications, and iron-
barred gates, except that we fear to die ? Death
fhen being naturally so terrible to us, how can
it be easy for a survivor to obey this command
to remain unmoved over friends departed ?

Why, what is the especial pain you feel,
asked the Teacher, in the mere necessity itself
of dying? This common talk of unthinking
persons is no sufficient accusation.

What ! is there no occasion for grieving, I
replied to her, when we see one who so lately
lived and spoke becoming all of a sudden life-
less and motionless, with the sense of every
bodily organ extinct, with no sight or hearing
in operation, or any other faculty of appre-
hension that sense possesses ; and if you apply
' 1 — — — i _ — . — . .

anacoluthon is frequent in dialogue, (rehler is wrong in giving to
the second Tt an intensive force, I. e. " much more." The other
ground lies in the attitude of the law towards death.
, 3 Beading Trtpit^oi'Ti : the same word is used below, " as long
as the breath within was held in by the enveloping substance "
(see p. 432, note 8;. Here it means " the air" : as in Marcus An-
tiiiiiniis, Lib. iv. 3Q.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

43i

tire or steel to him, even if you were to plunge
a sword into the body, or cast it to the beasts
of prey, or if you bury it beneath a mound,
that dead man is alike unmoved at any treat-
ment ? Seeing, then, that this change is ob-
served in all these ways, and that principle of
life, whatever it might be, disappears all at
once out of sight, as the flame of an extinguished
lamp which burnt on it the moment before
neither remains upon the wick nor passes to
some other place, but completely disappears,
how can such a change be borne without
emotion by one who has no clear ground to
rest upon? We hear the departure of the
spirit, we see the shell that is left ; but of the
part that has been separated we are ignorant,
both as to its nature, and as to the place
whither it has fled ; for neither earth, nor air,
nor water, nor any other element can show as
residing within itself this force that has left the
body, at whose withdrawal a corpse only remains,
ready for dissolution.

Whilst I was thus enlarging on the subject,
the Teacher signed to me with her hand *, and
said : Surely what alarms and disturbs your
mind is not the thought that the soul, instead
of lasting for ever, ceases with the body's
dissolution !

I answered rather audaciously, and without
due consideration of what I said, for my pas-
sionate grief had not yet given me back my
judgment. In fact, I said that the Divine utter-
ances seemed to me like mere commands com-
pelling us to believe that the soul lasts for ever ;
not, however, that we were led by them to this
belief by any reasoning. Our mind within us
appears slavishly to accept the opinion enforced,
but not to acquiesce with a spontaneous im-
pulse. Hence our sorrow over the departed is
all the more grievous ; we do not exactly know
whether this vivifying principle is anything by
itself; where it is, or how it is; whether, in
fact, it exists in any way at all anywhere. This
uncertainty 5 about the real state of the case
balances the opinions on either side ; many
adopt the one view, many the other ; and in-
deed there are certain persons, of no small
philosophical reputation amongst the Greeks,
who have held and maintained this which I
have just said.

Away, she cried, with that pagan nonsense !

* Reading Karao-eLo-cura. rfj X€lPL< instead of the vox nihili
tteTa.(reiVa<ra of the two Paris Editions, which can be accounted for
by jxera being repeated in error from /ueTafu. The question which
this gesture accompanied is one to which it would be very appro-
priate. The reading adopted is that of the Codex Uffenbach, and
this phrase, KaracreUiv rrj xeiPl> is unimpeachable for " commanding
silence," being used by Polybius, and Xenophon (without x€tP')-
Wolf and Krabinger prefer this reading to that of most ol the Codd.,
«xTa(T(.yjja-acra : and doubtless Silanus read it (" manu silentio
imperato ").

5 !<ras . . . aSrjAia- This is JCrabinger's reading (for i<rujs .
i) SeiAia in the Parisian Editions) with abundant MS. authority.

For therein the inventor of lies fabricates false
theories only to harm the Truth. Observe
this, and nothing else ; that such a view about
the soul amounts to nothing less than the
abandoning of virtue, and seeking the pleasure
of the moment only ; the life of eternity, by
which alone virtue claims the advantage, must
be despaired of.

And pray how, I asked, are we to get a firm
and unmovable belief in the soul's continu-
ance? I, too, am sensible of the fact that
human life will be bereft of the most beautiful
ornament that life has to give," I mean virtue,
unless an undoubting confidence with regard
to this be established within us. What, indeed,
has virtue to stand upon in the case of those
persons who conceive of this present life as the
limit of their existence, and hope for nothing
beyond ?

Well, replied the Teacher, we must seek
where we may get a beginning for our discus-
sion upon this point ; and if you please, let the
defence of the opposing views be undertaken
by yourself ; for I see that your mind is a little
inclined to accept such a brief. Then, after
the conflicting belief has been stated, we shall
be able to look for the truth.

When she made this request, and I had de-
precated the suspicion that I was making the
objections in real earnest, instead of only wish-
ing to get a firm ground for the belief about
the soul by calling into court 6 first what is
aimed against this view, I began —

Would not the defenders of the opposite
belief say this : that the body, being composite,
must necessarily be resolved into that of which
it is composed ? And when the coalition of
elements in the body ceases, each of those
elements naturally gravitates towards its kindred
element with the irresistible bias of like to like ;
the heat in us will thus unite with heat, the earthy
with the solid, and each of the other elements
also will pass towards its like. Where, then,
will the soul be after that ? If one affirm that
it is in those elements, one will be obliged to
admit that it is identical with them, for this
fusion could not possibly take place between
two things of different natures. But this being
granted, the soul must necessarily be viewed as
a complex thing, fused as it is with qualities
so opposite. But the complex is not simple,
but must be classed with the composite, and
the composite is necessarily dissoluble ; and

6 avrmiiTTOi'TiDv rrpbt; tom vkottov toutov vnoK\iq&evTuii> : he
reading of the Parisian Editions. But the preponderance of MS.
authority is in favour 01 VTrtxAuflefTcoc, "si qua; ad hoc proposit in
opponuntur soluta fuerint," Krabinger The lorce of iiiro will then
be " by way of rejoinder." The idea in okottov seems to be that
of a butt set up to be shot at. All the MSS.. but not the
Paris Editions, have the article before ai'TmcnTovTrnv : but it is
not absolutely necessary, for Gregory not unfrequently omits it
before participles, when his meaning is general, i. e. " Everything
that," &c.

432

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

dissolution means the destruction of the com-
pound ; and the destructible is not immortal,
else the flesh itself, resolvable as it is into its
constituent elements, might so be called im-
mortal. If, on the other hand, the soul is
something other than these elements, where
can our reason suggest a place for it to be,
when it is thus, by virtue of its alien nature, not
to be discovered in those elements, and there
is no other place in the world, either, where it
may continue, in harmony with its own peculiar
character, to exist? But, if a thing can be
found nowhere, plainly it has no existence.

The Teacher sighed gently at these words of
mine, and then said ; Maybe these were the
objections, or such as these, that the Stoics and
Epicureans collected at Athens made in answer
to the Apostle. I hear that Epicurus carried
his theories in this very direction. The frame-
work of things was to his mind a fortuitous 7 and
mechanical affair, without a Providence pene-
trating its operations ; and, as a piece with this,
he thought that human life was like a bubble,
existing only as long as the breath within was
held in by the enveloping substance 8, inasmuch
as our body was a mere membrane, as it were,
encompassing a breath ; and that on the collapse
of the inflation the imprisoned essence was
extinguished. To him the visible was the limit
of existence ; he made our senses the only
means of our apprehension of things ; he com-
pletely closed the eyes of his soul, and was
incapable of seeing anything in the intelligible
and immaterial world, just as a man, who is
imprisoned in a cabin whose walls and roof
obstruct the view outside, remains without a
glimpse of all the wonders of the sky. Verily,
everything in the universe that is seen to be an
object of sense is as an earthen wall, forming
in itself a barrier between the narrower souls
and that intelligible world which is ready for
their contemplation ; and it is the earth and
water and fire alone that such behold ; whence
comes each of these elements, in what and by
what they are encompassed, such souls because
of their narrowness cannot detect. While the

1 J)5 tvx<"«, k. t. A. It is better to connect this directly with
Epicurus himself, than to refer it, by bracketing the preceding
sentence (with Oehler), to his followers. Macrina infers from the
opinions known to her of Epicurus, what he must I ave said about
the human soul : i. s. that it was a bubble ; and then what his
followers probably said. There is no evidence that Epicurus used
this actual figure : still Gregory may be recording his very words. —
Lucian (Charon, 68) enlarges on such a simile : and his uxup.opoi'
<t>v<n}iJLa, as a description of mm, is reproduced by Gregory himself
in Orat. de 1 eatitud. p. 768 D.

8 tu> 7rcpie'xoi'Ti. Sifanus takes this of the surrounding atmo-
sphere. So also Krabinger, " aere circumfuso," just as above
(182 A.) it does certainly mean the air, and Wolf quotes a passage
to that effect from Marcus Antoninus and the present instance also
Still there is no reason that it should not here mean the body of the
man, which is as it were a case retentive of the vital breath within ;
and the sense seems to require it. As to the construction, although
wofiiJioAuj is sometimes masculine in later Greek, yet it is much
more likely that JreptTaOeVros (not TrfpntSevTOt of the Paris Fditt.)
is the genitive .'bsolute with too o-ujfiaTos : to! wfpitxovTt would
then very naturally refer to this.

sight of a garment suggests to any one the
weaver of it, and the thought of the shipwright
comes at the sight of the ship, and the hand of
the builder is brought to the mind of him who
sees the building, these little souls gaze upon the
world, but their eyes are blind to Him whom all
this that we see around us makes manifest ; and so
they propound their clever and pungent doctrines
about the soul's evanishment ; — body from ele-
ments, and elements from body, and, besides,
the impossibility of the soul's self-existence (if it
is not to be one of these elements, or lodged in
one) ; for if these opponents suppose that by
virtue of the soul not being akin to the elements
it is nowhere after death, they must propound,
to begin with, the absence of the soul from the
fleshly life as well, seeing that the body itself is
nothing but a concourse of those elements ; and
so they must not tell us that the soul is to be
found there either, independently vivifying
their compound. If it is not possible for the
soul to exist after death, though the elements
do, then, I say, according to this teaching our
life as well is proved to be nothing else but
death. But if on the other hand they do not
make the existence of the soul now in the body
a question for doubt, how can they maintain its
evanishment when the body is resolved into its
elements ? Then, secondly, they must employ
an equal audacity against the God in this
Nature too. For how can they assert that the
intelligible and immaterial Unseen can be dis-
solved and diffused into the wet and the soft, as
also into the hot and the dry, and so hold to-
gether the universe in existence through being,
though not of a kindred nature with the things
which it penetrates, yet not thereby incapable
of so penetrating them? Let them, therefore,
remove from their system the very Deity Who
upholds the world.

That is the very point, I said, upon which
our adversaries cannot fail to have doubts ; viz.
that all things depend on God and are encom-
passed by Him, or, that there is any divinity at
all transcending the physical world.

It would be more fitting, she cried, to be
silent about such doubts, and not to deign to
make any answer to such foolish and wicked
propositions ; for there is a Divine precept
forbidding us to answer a fool in his folly ; and
he must be a fool, as the Prophet declares, who
says that there is no God. But since one needs
must speak, I will urge upon you an argument
which is not mine nor that of any human being
(for it would then be of small value, whosoever
spoke it), but an argument whic'i the whole
Creation enunciates by the medium of its
wonders to the audience 9 of the eye, with a

9 But Dr. Hermann Schmidt seeseven more than this in this bold
figure. The Creation preaches, as it were, and its tones are first

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

433

skilful and artistic utterance that reaches the
heart. The Creation proclaims outright the
Creator ; for the very heavens, as the Prophet
says, declare the glory of God with their un-
utterable words. We see the universal harmony
in the wondrous sky and on the wondrous earth ;
how elements essentially opposed to each other
are all woven together in an ineffable union to
serve one common end, each contributing its
particular force to maintain the whole; how
the unmingling and mutually repellent do not
fly apart from each other by virtue of their
peculiarities, any more than they are destroyed,
when compounded, by such contrariety ; how
those elements which are naturally buoyant
move downwards, the heat of the sun, for in-
stance, descending in the rays, while the bodies
which possess weight are lifted by becoming
rarefied in vapour, so that water contrary to its
nature ascends, being conveyed through the air
to the upper regions ; how too that fire of the
firmament so penetrates the earth that even its
abysses feel the heat ; how the moisture of the
rain infused into the soil generates, one though
it be by nature, myriads of differing germs, and
animates in due proportion each subject of its
influence ; how very swiftly the polar sphere re-
volves, how the orbits within it move the contrary
way, with all the eclipses, and conjunctions, and
measured intervals * of the planets. We see all
this with the piercing eyes of mind, nor can we
fail to be taught by means of such a spectacle
that a Divine power, working with skill and
method, is manifesting itself in this actual world,
and, penetrating each portion, combines those
portions with the whole and completes the
whole by the portions, and encompasses the
universe with a single all-controlling force, self-
centred and self-contained, never ceasing from
its motion, yet never altering the position which
it holds.

And pray how, I asked, does this belief in
the existence of God prove along with it the
existence of the human soul ? For God, surely,
is not the same thing as the soul, so that, if the
one were believed in, the other must necessarily
be believed in.

She replied : It has been said by wise men
that man is a little world 2 in himself and con-
tains all the elements which go to complete the
universe. If this view is a true one (and so it
seems), we perhaps shall need no other ally
than it to establish the truth of our conception

heard in our hearts (evTjxouiros rjj KapSia) : and these tones are
then reflected back from the heart to the contemplating eye, which
thus becomes not a seeing only, but a hearing (<iicpoaTT)s •yu/eTat)
organ, in its external activity.

1 evapfiovCovs dTnxrratreis, *• ?• to which the music of the pheres
was due : see Macrobius, Somnium Scipionis, c. 4 : for the " retro-
grade " motion of the planets above, see Joannes de Sacro Bosco,
Spheera (1564), p. 47, sqq.

8 See On the Making of Man, c. viii. 5.

VOL. V. F F

of the soul. And our conception of it is this ;
that it exists, with a rare and peculiar nature of
its own, independently of the body with its
gross texture. We get our exact knowledge of
this outer world from the apprehension of our
senses, and these sensational operations them-
selves lead us on to the understanding of the
super-sensual world of fact and thought, and
our eye thus becomes the interpreter of that
almighty isdom which is visible in the universe,
and points in itself to the Being Who encom-
passes it. Just so, when we look to our inner
world, we find no slight grounds there also, in
the known, for conjecturing the unknown ; and
the unknown there also is that which, being the
object of thought and not of sight, eludes the
grasp of sense.

I rejoined, Nay, it may be very possible to
infer a wisdom transcending the universe from
the skilful and artistic designs observable in this
harmonized fabric of physical nature ; but, as
regards the soul, what knowledge is possible to
those who would trace, from any indications
the body has to give, the unknown through the
known ?

Most certainly, the Virgin replied, the soul
herself, to those who wish to follow the wise
proverb and know themselves, is a competent 3
instructress ; of the fact, I mean, that she is
an immaterial and spiritual thing, working and
moving in a way corresponding to her peculiar
nature, and evincing these peculiar emotions
through the organs of the body. For this
bodily organization exists the same even in
those who have just been reduced by death to
the state of corpses, but it remains without
motion or action because the force of the soul
is no longer in it. It moves only when there is
sensation in the organs, and not only that, but
the mental force by means of that sensation
penetrates with its own impulses and moves
whither it will all those organs of sensation.

What then, I asked, is the soul? Perhaps
there may be some possible means of delineat-
ing its nature ; so that we may have some com-
prehension of this subject, in the way of a
sketch.

Its definition, the Teacher replied, has been
attempted in different ways by different writers,
each according to his own bent ; but the follow-
ing is our opinion about it. The soul is an
essence created, and living, and intellectual,
transmitting from itself to an organized and
sentient body the power of living and of grasp-
ing objects of sense, as long as a natural
constitution capable of this holds together.
3 Saying this she pointed to the physician*

3 iKavr). This is the reading of Codd. A and B (of Krabinger .
but the common reading is ei kolv -q !

4 It may be noticed that besides the physician several others
were present. Cf. 242 D, rois woAAots TrapaKaOrinivois.

434

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

who was sitting to watch her state, and said :
There is a proof of what I say close by us.
How, I ask, does this man, by putting his
fingers to feel the pulse, hear in a manner,
through this sense of touch, Nature calling
loudly to him and telling him of her peculiar
pain ; in fact, that the disease in the body is an
inflammatory one s, and that the malady origin-
ates in this or that internal organ ; and that
there is such and such a degree of fever ? How
too is he taught by the agency of the eye other
facts of this kind, when he looks to see the
posture of the patient and watches the wasting
of the flesh? As, too, the state of the com-
plexion, pale somewhat and bilious, and the
gaze of the eyes, as is the case with those in
pain, involuntarily inclining to sadness, indicate
the internal condition, so the ear gives informa-
tion of the like, ascertaining the nature of the
malady by the shortness of the breathing and
by the groan that comes with it. One might
say that even the sense of smell in the expert
is not incapable of detecting the kind of dis-
order, but that it notices the secret suffering of
the vitals in the particular quality of the breath.
Could this be so if there were not a certain
force of intelligence present in each organ of
the senses ? What would our hand have taught
us of itself, without thought conducting it from
feeling to understanding the subject before it ?
What would the ear, as separate from mind, or
the eye or the nostril or any other organ have
helped towards the settling of the question, all
by themselves ? Verily, it is most true what
one of heathen culture is recorded to have said,
that it is the mind that sees and the mind that
hears 6. Else, if you will not allow this to be
true, you must tell me why, when you look at
the sun, as you have been trained by your in-
structor to look at him, you assert that he is not
in the breadth of his disc of the size he appears
to the many, but that he exceeds by many
times the measure of the entire earth. Do you
not confidently maintain that it is so, because
you have arrived by reasoning through phe-
nomena at the conception of such and such a
movement, of such distances of time and space,
of such causes of eclipse ? And when you look
at the waning and waxing moon you are taught

5 Krabinger's Latin " in intentione," though a literal translation,
hardly represents the full force of this passage, which is interesting
because, the terms being used specially, if not only, of fevers or
inflammation, it is evident that the speaker has her own illness in
mind, and her words are thus more natural than if she spoke of
patients generally. If iv e7UTa<7ei is translated 'at its height,"
this will verv awkwardly anticipate what follows, eiri rotrovhe . . . tj
erriTaais. The doctor is supposed simply to class the complaint as
belonging to the order of those which manifest themselves St'
«7riTo<rf<u9, as opposed to those which do so 5c' (ii/e(rea>s : he then
descends to particulars, i. e. irrl Totroi'Se. The demonstrative in
Ttui'Se twv <TTT^ay\v*x>v has the same force as in to kv rdSe dep^iov,
214 G ''such and such;" the nobler organs (viscera thoracis) of
course are here meant. Gregory himself g.ves a list of them, 250 C.

* A trochaic line to this effect from the comedian Epicharmus is
quoted by Theodoret, De I- id*, p. 15.

other truths by the visible figure of that heavenly
body, viz. that it is in itself devoid of light, and
that it revolves in the circle nearest to the earth,
and that it is lit by light from the sun ; just as
is the case with mirrors, which, receiving the
sun upon them, do not reflect rays of their own,
but those of the sun, whose light is given back
from their smooth flashing surface. Those who
see this, but do not examine it, think that the
light comes from the moon herself. But that
this is not the case is proved by this ; that when
she is diametrically facing the sun she has the
whole of the disc that looks our way illumin-
ated ; but, as she traverses her own circle of
revolution quicker from moving in a narrower
space, she herself has completed this more than
twelve times before the sun has once travelled
round his ; whence it happens that her sub-
stance is not always covered with light. For
her position facing him is not maintained in
the frequency of her revolutions ; but, while
this position causes the whole side of the moon
which looks to us to be illumined, directly she
moves sideways her hemisphere which is turned
to us necessarily becomes partially shadowed,
and only that which is turned to him meets his
embracing rays ; the brightness, in fact, keeps
on retiring from that which can no longer see
the sun to that which still sees him, until she
passes right across the sun's disc and receives
his rays upon her hinder part ; and then the
fact of her being in herself totally devoid of
light and splendour causes the side turned to
us to be invisible while the further hemisphere
is all in light ; and this is called the completion 7
of her waning. But when again, in her own
revolution, she has passed the sun and she is
transverse to his rays, the side which was dark
just before begins to shine a little, for the rays
move from the illumined part to that so lately
invisible. You see what the eye does teach ;
and yet it would never of itself have afforded
this insight, without something that looks
through the eyes and uses the data of the senses
as mere guides to penetrate from the apparent
to the unseen. It is needless to add the methods
of geometry that lead us step by step through
visible delineations to truths that lie out of sight,
and countless other instances which all prove
^'that apprehension is the work of an intellectual
essence deeply seated in our nature, acting
hrough the operation of our bodily senses.
But what, I asked, if, insisting on the great

1 owep St; trai/TeXr|? tow cttoiv^ioi/ p.eiw<n? Ae'yeTcu., "perfects
elementi diminutio ; " orrep referring to the dark " new " moon just
described, which certainly is the consummation of the waning of the
moon : though it is not itself a fici'iotrif. — This last consideration,
and the use of Sij, and the introduction of tou <ttoix*ioi/, favour
another meaning which might be given, c, f. by joining Trou/TeATis
with toO oToixciov. and making oTrep refer to the whole passage of
the moon from full to new, " which indeed is commonly (but er-
roneously) spoken of as a substantial diminution of the elementary
body itself," as if it were a true and real decrease of bulk

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

435

differences which, in spite of a certain quality
of matter shared al(ke by all elements in their
visible form, exist between each particular kind
of matter (motion, for instance, is not the same
in all, some moving up, some down ; nor form,
nor quality either), some one were to say that
there was in the same manner incorporated in,
and belonging to, these elements a certain force 8
as well which effects these intellectual insights
and operations by a purely natural effort of
their own (such effects, for instance, as we often
see produced by the mechanists, in whose
hands matter, combined according to the rules
of Art, thereby imitates Nature, exhibiting re-
semblance not in figure alone but even in
motion, so that when the piece of mechanism
sounds in its resonant part it mimics a human
voice, without, however, our being able to per-
ceive anywhere any mental force working out
■the particular figure, character, sound, and
movement) ; suppose, I say, we were to affirm
that all this was produced as well in the organic
machine of our natural bodies, without any
intermixture of a special thinking substance,
but owing simply to an inherent motive power
•of the elements within us accomplishing 9 by
itself these operations — to nothing else, in fact,
'but an impulsive movement working for the
•cognition of the object before us ; would not
then the fact stand proved of the absolute non-
existence ' of that intellectual and impalpable
Being, the soul, which you talk of?

Your instance, she replied, and your reason-
ing upon it, though belonging to the counter-
argument, may both of them be made allies of
our statement, and will contribute not a little
to the confirmation of its truth.

Why, how can you say that ?

Because, you see, so to understand, manipu-
late, and dispose the soulless matter, that the
art which is stored away in such mechanisms
becomes almost like a soul to this material, in
all the various ways in which it mocks move-
ment, and figure, and voice, and so on, may
be turned into a proof of there being something
in man whereby he shows an innate fitness to
think out within himself, through the contem-
plative and inventive faculties, such thoughts,

8 ei riva TovTojf Kara, tov olvtov \6yov trvvovtriioixeirriv tc? sii'ai
Ae'yoi Syva^iv, k. t. A. The difficulty here is ill tovtu>v, which
Krabinger takes as a partitive genitive after eli/ai, and refers to
*he " elements "; and this is perhaps the best way of taking it.
I nit still, as Schmidt points out, it is rather the human body than

rthe elements themselves that ought here to be spoken of as the
efficient cause of thought : and so he would either refer tovtuiv to
Tor aiirbi/ (" in the same way as these instances just given "), and

•compares Eurip Helen., bvop.aSi tovt'ov rijs eM-Jjs e\ov<xa.Ti<; Sd/xapTO';

-oaAtj i Matt. Or. p. 706); or else would join toutoji/ with the preceding

.^.Ws <w th Cndd. Mon. D, E).

v Cod. Mon. D, a7rOTeAov<r>)s. This seems a better reading than

ithal preferred by Krabinger, an-oTeAeoTia eii/ai : for a7roTe'Aea"|u.a

imust be pressed to mean, in order to preserve the sense, "a mere

result," i. e. something secondary, and not itself a principle or cause :
the following ij, besides, cannot without awkwardness be referred

to lvipytia.1-

1 Reading oviT'dv oiiK a.v a7roSec«ci^iot.TO ^ to |ar)S' dAcuf tu"u ;

and having prepared such mechanisms in
theory, to put them into practice by manual
skill, and exhibit in matter the product of his
mind. First, for instance, he saw, by dint of
thinking, that to produce any sound there is
need of some wind ; and then, with a view to
produce wind in the mechanism, he previously
ascertained by a course of reasoning and close
observation of the nature of elements, that
there is no vacuum at all in the world, but that
the lighter is to be considered a vacuum only
by comparison with the heavier ; seeing that
the air itself, taken as a separate subsistence, is
crowded quite full. It is by an abuse of
language that a jar is said to be " empty " ; for
when it is empty of any liquid it is none the
less, even in this state, full, in the eyes of the
experienced. A proof of this is that a jar
when put into a pool of water is not imme-
diately filled, but at first floats on the surface,
because the air it contains helps to buoy up its
rounded sides ; till at last the hand of the
drawer of the water forces it down to the
bottom, and, when there, it takes in water by
its neck ; during which process it is shown not
to have been empty even before the water
came ; for there is the spectacle of a sort of
combat going on in the neck between the
two elements, the water being forced by its
weight into the interior, and therefore stream-
ing in ; the imprisoned air on the other hand
being straitened for room by the gush of the
water along the neck, and so rushing in the
contrary direction ; thus the water is checked
by the strong current of air, and gurgles and
bubbles against it. Men observed this, and
devised in accordance with this property of the
two elements a way of introducing air to work
their mechanism 2. They made a kind of cavity
of some hard stuff, and prevented the air in it
from escaping in any direction ; and then in-
troduced water into this cavity through its
mouth, apportioning the quantity of water ac-
cording to requirement ; next they allowed an
exit in the opposite direction to the air, so that
it passed into a pipe placed ready to hand, and
in so doing, being violently constrained by the
water, became a blast; and this, playing on
the structure of the pipe, produced a note. Is
it not clearly proved by such visible results
that there is a mind of some kind in man,
something other than that which is visible,
which, by virtue of an invisible thinking nature'
of its own, first prepares by inward invention
such devices, and then, when they have been
so matured, brings them to the light and ex-
hibits them in the subservient matter? For if

2 According to an author quoted by Athena:us (iv. 75), the first
organist t i/6p iuAfjt), or rather organ-builder, was Ctesibius of
Alexandria, about B.C. 200.

F F 2

436

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

it were possible to ascribe such wonders, as the
theory of our opponents does, to the actual
constitution of the elements, we should have
these mechanisms building themselves spon-
taneously ; the bronze would not wait for the
artist, to be made into the likeness of a man,
but would become such by an innate force ;
the air would not require the pipe, to make a
note, but would sound spontaneously by its
own fortuitous flux and motion ; and the jet of
the water upwards would not be, as it now is,
the result of an artificial pressure forcing it to
move in an unnatural direction, but the water
would rise into the mechanism of its own
accord, finding in that direction a natural
channel. But if none of these results are pro-
duced spontaneously by elemental force, but,
on the contrary, each element is employed at
will by artifice ; and if artifice is a kind of move-
ment and activity of mind, will not the very
consequences of what has been urged by way
of objection show us Mind as something other
than the thing perceived ?

That the thing perceived, I replied, is
not the same as the thing not perceived, I
grant ; but I do not discover any answer to
our question in such a statement ; it is not yet
clear to me what we are to think that thing
not-perceived to be ; all I have been shown
by your argument is that it is not anything
material ; and I do not yet know the fitting
name for it. I wanted especially to know what
it is, not what it is not.

We do learn, she replied, much about many
things by this very same method, inasmuch as,
in the very act of saying a thing is " not so and
so," we by implication interpret the very nature
of the thing in question 3. For instance, when
we say a "guileless," we indicate a good man ;
when we say " unmanly," we have expressed
that a man is a coward ; and it is possible to
suggest a great many things in like fashion,
wherein we either convey the idea of goodness
by the negation of badness 4, or vice versa.
Well, then, if one thinks so with regard to the
matter now before us, one will not fail to gain
a proper conception of it. The question is, —
What are we to think of Mind in its very essence?
Now granted that the inquirer has had his
doubts set at rest as to the existence of the
thing in question, owing to the activities which
it displays to us, and only wants to know what
it is, he will have adequately discovered it

3 Remove comma after C^av^ivov, in Paris Editt.

4 or vice versA, i. e. the idea of badness by the negation of good-
ness Krabinger appositely quotes a passage from Plotinus : Who
could picture to himself evil as a specific thing, appearing as it does
only in the absence of each good ? ... it will be necessary for all
who are to know what evil is to have a clear conception about good :
since even in dealing with real species the better take precedence of
the worse ; and evil is not even a species, but rather a negation."
Cf Oi igen, In Johan. p. 66 A, noura. r\ icaxia ouSeV ea"rii>, ejrei xai ovk
of rvyxavf « See also Gregory s Great Catechism, cap. v. and vii.

by being told that it is not that which our
senses perceive, neither a colour, nor a form,
nor a hardness, nor a weight, nor a quantity,
nor a cubic dimension, nor a point, nor any-
thing else perceptible in matter ; supposing,
that is,5 that there does exist a something beyond
all these.

Here I interrupted her discourse : If you
leave all these out of the account I do not see
how you can possibly avoid cancelling along
with them the very tiling which you are in
search of. I cannot at present conceive to
what, as apart from these, the perceptive activity
is to cling. For on all occasions in investigating
with the scrutinizing intellect the contents of
the world, we must, so far as we put our hand 6
at all on what we are seeking, inevitably touch,
as blind men feeling along the walls for the
door, some one of those things aforesaid ; we
must come on colour, or form, or quantity, or
something else on your list ; and when it comes
to saying that the thing is none of them, our
feebleness of mind induces us to suppose that
it does not exist at all.

Shame on such absurdity ! said she, in-
dignantly interrupting. A fine conclusion this
narrow-minded, grovelling view of the world
brings us to ! If all that is not cognizable by
sense is to be wiped out of existence, the all-
embracing Power that presides ever things is
admitted by this same assertion not to be.;
once a man has been told about the non-
material and invisible nature of the Deity, he
must perforce with such a premise reckon it
as absolutely non-existent. If, on the other
hand, the absence of such characteristics in
His case does not constitute any limitation of
His existence, how can the Mind of man be
squeezed out of existence along with this with-
drawal one by one of each property of matter?

Well, then, I retorted, we only exchange one
paradox for another by arguing in this way ;
for our reason will be reduced to the conclusion
that the Deity and the Mind of man are
identical, if it be true that neither can be
thought of, except by the withdrawal of all the
data of sense.

Say not so, she replied ; to talk so also is
blasphemous. Rather, as the Scripture tells
you, say that the tone is like the other. For
that which is " made in the image " of the
Deity necessarily possesses a likeness to its
prototype in every respect ; it resembles it in
being intellectual, immaterial, unconnected

5 supposing, that is. This only repeats what was said above .
" granted thai the inquirer has had his doubts set at rest as to the
existence of the thing." It is the reading of Krabinger (et Srj ti),
and the best. Sifanus follows the less supported reading ol&ev cm,
which is open to the further objection that it would be absurd to say,
" when a man learns that A is not P. he knows that it is something
else " The reading of the Paris. Editt. i6n is unintelligible.

6 («a0') ocoy tc . . . Oiyydvontv.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

437

)

with any notion of weight 7, and in eluding any
measurement of its dimensions8; yet as re-
gards its own peculiar nature it is something
different from that other. Indeed, it would be
no longer an "image," if it were altogether
identical with that other ; but 9 where we have
A in that uncreate prototype we have a in the
image ; just as in a minute particle of glass,
when it happens to face the light, the complete
disc of the sun is often to be seen, not repre-
sented thereon in proportion to its proper size,
but so far as the minuteness of the particle
admits of its being represented at all. Thus
do the reflections of those ineffable qualities of
Deity shine forth within the narrow limits of
our nature ; and so our reason, following the
leading of these reflections, will not miss grasp-
ing the Mind in its essence by clearing away
from the question all corporeal qualities ; nor
on the other hand will it bring the pure * and
infinite Existence to the level of that which is
perishable and little ; it will regard this essence
of the Mind as an object of thought only, since
it is the "image" of an Existence which is
such ; but it will not pronounce this image to
be identical with the prototype. Just, then, as
we have no doubts, owing to the display of a
Divine mysterious wisdom in the universe,
about a Divine Being and a Divine Power exist-
ing in it all which secures its continuance
(though if you required a definition of that Be-
ing you would therein find the Deity completely
sundered from every object in creation, whether
of sense or thought, while in these last, too,
natural distinctions are admitted), so, too, there
is nothing strange in the soul's separate existence
as a substance (whatever we may think that sub-
stance to be) being no hindrance to her actual
existence, in spite of the elemental atoms of the
world not harmonizing with her in the definiton
of her being. In the case of our living bodies,
composed as they are from the blending of these
atoms, there is no sort of communion, as has been
just said, on the score of substance, between
the simplicity and invisibility of the soul, and
the grossness of those bodies ; but, notwith-
standing that, there is not a doubt that there is
in them the soul's vivifying influence exerted
by a law which it is beyond the human under-

' weight (oyicov). This is a Platonic word : it means the weight,
and then (morally) the burden, of the holy : not necessarily con-
nected with the idea of swelling, even in Empedocles, v. 220 ; its
Latin equivalent is "onus" in both meanings. Cf. Heb. xii. 1;
Vy/coy airo#eVte,/oi iravra, " every weight," or " all cumbrance."

8 Reading 5ia<m)/u.aTi/cr)j'. Cf. 239 A.

9 aAA' kv ol$ . . . etcetvo . . . tovto.

1 pure (a/cT)pa.Ta>). perishable (tirCKiqpov) The first word is a
favourite one with the Platonists ; such as Plotinus, and Synesius.
Gregory uses it in his funeral speech over Flacilla, " she passes with
a soul unstained to the pure and perfect life"; and both in his
treatise De Mortuis. " that man's grief is real, who becomes con-
scious of the blessings he has lost ; and contrasts this perishing and
soiled existence with the perfect blessedness above.''

standing to comprehend 2. Not even then,
when those atoms have again been dissolved 3
into themselves, has that bond of a vivifying in-
fluence vanished ; but as, while the framework
of the body still holds together, each individual
part is possessed of a soul which penetrates
equally every component member, and one
could not call that soul hard and resistent
though blended with the solid, nor humid, or
cold, or the reverse, though it transmits life to
all and each of such parts, so, when that frame-
work is dissolved, and has returned to its
kindred elements, there is nothing against pro-
bability that that simple and incomposite
essence which has once for all by some in-
explicable law grown with the growth of the
bodily framework should continually remain
beside the atoms with which it has been
blended, and should in no way be sundered
from a union once formed. For it does not
follow that because the composite is dissolved
the incomposite must be dissolved with it +.

That those atoms, I rejoined, should unite
and again be separated, and that this constitutes
the formation and dissolution of the body, no
one would deny. But we have to consider
this. There are great intervals between these
atoms ; they differ from each other, both in
position, and also in qualitative distinctions
and peculiarities. When, indeed, these atoms
have all converged upon the given subject, it is
reasonable that that intelligent and undimen-
sional essence which we call the soul should
cohere with that which is so united ; but once
these atoms are separated from each other, and
have gone whither their nature impels them,
what is to become of the soul when her vessel 5
is thus scattered in many directions ? As a
sailor, when his ship has been wrecked and
gone to pieces, cannot float upon all the pieces
at once6 which have been scattered this way

2 Aoycu tlvI KpeiTTOvi Trjs avdpunr Cinqs KaTavorj(T€bi%. So just
below dpp>)Tu> tw\ Adyu>. The mode of the union of soul and body is
beyond our comprehension. To refer these words to the Deity
Himself ("incomprehensible cause"), as Oehler, would make of
them, as Schmidt well remarks, a " mere showy phrase."

3 avaXyBevTuiv. Krabinger reads ava\v<ravTu>v, i. e. " return-
ing " ; as frequently in this treatise, and in N. T. usage.

4 i.e. a" we have alreidy seen (p. 4331. The fact of the con-
tinuity of the soul was there deduced from its being incomposite.
So that the yap here doe:-, not give the ground for the statement
immediately preceding.

Gregory (p. 431) had suggested two alternatives: — 1. That the
soul dissolves with the body. This is answered by the souls
" incompositeness." 2. That the union of the immaterial soul with
the still material atoms after death cannot be maintained. This is
answered by the analogy given in the present section, of God's
presence in an uncongenial universe, and that of the soul in ihe
still living body. The yap therefore refers to the answer to 1, with-
out which the question of the soul continuing in the atoms could not
have been discussed at all.

5 her vessel. Of course this is not the "vehicle" of the soul
(after death) which the later Platonists speak of, but ihe body itself.
The word o\t\p.o. is used in connection with a ship, Soph. Track.
656 ; and though in Plato {Tunceus, p. 69), whose use of this word
for the body was afterwards followed, it is not clear whether a car or
a ship is mqst thought of, yet that the latter is Gregory's meaning
appears from his next words.

6 ut ouci . Reading (with Ccdd. A, B, C, and Uff.)icaTo tovtoj'.

438

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

and that over the surface of the sea (for he
seizes any bit that comes to hand, and lets all
the rest drift away), in the same way the soul,
being by nature incapable of dissolution along
with the atoms, will, if she finds it hard to be
parted from the body altogether, cling to some
one of them ; and if we take this view, consist-
ency will no more allow us to regard her as im-
mortal for living in one atom than as mortal
for not living in a number of them.

But the intelligent and undimensional, she
replied, is neither contracted nor diffused i
(contraction and diffusion being a property of
body only) ; but by virtue of a nature which is
formless and bodiless it is present with the body
equally in the contraction and in the diffusion
of its atoms, and is no more narrowed by the
compression which attends the uniting of the
atoms than it is abandoned by them when they
wander off to their kindred, however wide the
interval is held to be which we observe between
alien atoms. For instance, there is a great
difference between the buoyant and light as
contrasted with the heavy and solid ; between
the hot as contrasted with the cold ; between
the humid as contrasted with its opposite ;
nevertheless it is no strain to an intelligent
essence to be present in each of those elements
to which it has once cohered ; this blending
with opposites does not split it up. In locality,
in peculiar qualities, these elemental atoms are
held to be far removed from each other ; but an
undimensional nature finds it no labour to cling
to what is locally divided, seeing that even now
it is possible for the mind at once to contem-
plate the heavens above us and to extend its
busy scrutiny beyond the horizon, nor is its
contemplative power at all distracted by these
excursions into distances so great. There is
nothing, then, to hinder the soul's presence in
the body's atoms, whether fused in union or
decomposed in dissolution. Just as in the
amalgam of gold and silver a certain methodical
force is to be observed which -has fused the
metals, and if the one be afterwards smelted
out of the other, the law of this method never-
theless continues to reside in each, so that while
the amalgam is separated this method does not
suffer division along with it (for you cannot
make fractions out of the indivisible), in the
same way this intelligent essence of the soul is
observable in the concourse of the atoms, and
does not undergo division when they are dis-
solved ; but it remains with them, and even in
their separation it is co-extensive with them, yet

7 out* fiiaxeirou. Oehler translates wrongly " noch dehnt es sich
aus " ; because the faculty of extension is ascribed to the intelligence
(cf. fKTeiveaBai, SiaTfivo^fvov, 7rapncTni>onM'T). below), bnt liiffusinti
is denied of it, both here, and in the words 6ia<r^i£tTai (above and
Vrlow), £idxpt<ri'>, and StaairaTai, i. e. separation in space.

not itself dissevered nor discounted8 into sections
to accord with the number of the atoms. Such
a condition belongs to the material and spacial
world, but that which is intelligent and un-
dimensional is not liable to the circumstances
of space. Therefore the soul exists in the
actual atoms which she has once animated, and
there is no force to tear her away from her
cohesion with them. What cause for melan-
choly, then, is there herein, that the visible is
exchanged for the invisible ; and wherefore is it
that your mind has conceived such a hatred of
death ?

Upon this I recurred to the definition which
she had previously given of the soul, and I said
that to my thinking her definition had not
indicated 9 distinctly enough all the powers of
the soul which are a matter of observation. It
declares the soul to be an intellectual essence
which imparts to the organic body a force of
life by which the senses operate. Now the soul
is not thus operative only in our scientific and
speculative intellect ; it does not produce results
in that world only, or employ the organs of sense
only for this their natural work. On the con-
trary, we observe in our nature many emotions
of desire and many of anger ; and both these
exist in us as qualities of our kind, and we see
both of them in their manifestations displaying
further many most subtle differences. There
are many states, for instance, which are occa-
sioned by desire ; many others which on the
other hand proceed from anger ; and none of
them are of the body ; but that which is not
of the body is plainly intellectual. Now « our
definition exhibits the soul as something intel-
lectual ; so that one of two alternatives, both
absurd, must emerge when we follow out this

9 efSefieivflai. Gregory constantly uses evSeii<vv<rOax (middle)
transitively, e. g. 202 C, 203 A, C, 208 B, and above, 189 A, so that
it is possible that we have here, in the passive form, a deponent
(transitive) perfect : moreover the sense seems to require it.
Gregory object* that in what has been said alt the powers which
analysis finds in the soul have not been set forth with sufficient
fulness : an exhaustive account of them has not been given ; and
he immediately proceeds to name other Sveooxci; and eve'pveiat which
have not been taken into consideration. That this view of the
passage is correct is further shown by 202 C, where, the present
objection having been treated at length, it is concluded that there
is no real ground for quarrelling with the definition of soul uk
eAAtc7rais tVSeifajxeVw tiji' fyxioiv. Krabinger therefore is right in
dropping evvoovfiivw, which two of his MSS. exhibit, and which
Sifanus translates as governing to? . . . Swa/tei?, as if the sense
were, " When I consider all the powers of the soul, I do not think
that your definition has been made good."

1 The syllogism implied in the fo. lowing words is this : —

The emotions are something intellectual (because incorporeal).

Therefore the emotions are soul (or souls).

This conclusion is obviously false ; logically, by reason of the
fallacy of " the undistributed middle"; ontologically, because it
requires a false premise additional (/. e. "everything intellectual
is soul ") to make it true. Macrina directly alter this piece of bad
logic deprecates the use of the syllogism. Is this accidental? It
looks almost like an excuse for not going into technicalities and
exposing this fallacy, which she has detected in her opponent's
Statement. Macrina actually answers as if Gregory had urged his
objection thus. " The emotions are not purely intellectual, but are
conditioned by the bodily organism : but they do belong to the
expression and the substance of the soul : the soul therefore is
dependent on the organism and will perish along with it."

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

439

view to this end ; either anger and desire are
both second souls in us, and a plurality of souls
must take the place of the single soul, or the
thinking faculty in us cannot be regarded as a
soul either (if tliey are not), the intellectual
element adhering equally to all of them and
stamping them all as souls, or else excluding
every one of them equally from the specific
qualities of soul^-

You are quite justified, she replied, in raising
this question, and it has ere this been discussed
by many elsewhere ; namely, what we are to
think of the principle of desire and the principle
of anger within us. Are they consubstantial
with the soul, inherent in the soul's very self
from her first organization 2, or are they some-
thing different, accruing to us afterwards ? In
fact, while all equally allow that these principles
are to be detected in the soul, investigation has
not yet discovered exactly what we are to think of
them so as to gain some fixed belief with regard
to them. The generality of men still fluctuate
in their opinions about this, which are as erro-
neous as they are numerous. As for ourselves,
if the Gentile philosophy, which deals method-
ically with all these points, were really adequate
for a demonstration, it would certainly be super-
fluous to add3 a discussion on the soul to
those speculations. But while the latter pro-
ceeded, on the subject of the soul, as far in the
direction of supposed consequences as the
thinker pleased, we are not entitled to such
licence, I mean that of affirming what we please ;
we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the
measure of every tenet ; we necessarily fix our
eyes upon that, and approve that alone which
may be made to harmonize with the intention
of those writings. We must therefore neglect
the Platonic chariot and the pair of horses of
dissimilar forces yoked to it, and their driver,
whereby the philosopher allegorizes these facts
about the soul ; we must neglect also all that
is said by the philosopher who succeeded him
and who followed out probabilities by rules of
art *, and diligently investigated the very ques-
tion now before us, declaring that the soul was
mortal s by reason of these two principles ; we

3 irapa tt|v itpun-qv (i. e. mpav understood). This is the reading
of all the Codd. for the faulty irapa rrjv av-rqv of the Editions.

3 irpooridceai. Sifanus translates " illorum commenlationi de
anima adjicere sermonem," which Krabinger wonders at. The
Greek could certainly bear this meaning: but perhaps the other
reading is better, i. e. npoTiBevai, " to propose for consideration."

4 i. e. the syllogism.

5 that the soul -was mortal. Aristotle, guided only by proba-
bilities as discoverab e by the syllog.sm, does indeed define the
soul, " the first entelechy of a phys cal, potent ally living, and
organic body," Entelechy is more than mere potentiality : it is
"developed force" (''dormant activity:" see W. Archer Butler's
Lectures, ii. p. 393), capable of manifestation. The human soul,
uniting in itself all the faculties of the other orders of animate
existence, is a Microcosm. The other parts of the soul are in-
separable from the body, and are hence perishable [De Anima, ii.
2) ; but the vovs exists before the body, into which it enters irom
without as something divine and immortal (De Gen. Animal, ii. 3).
But he makes a distinction between the form-receiving, and the

must neglect all before and since their time,
whether they philosophized in prose or in
verse, and we will adopt, as the guide of our
reasoning, the Scripture, which lays it down
as an axiom that there is no excellence in
the soul which is not a property as well of
the Divine nature. For he who declares the
soul to be God's likeness asserts that anything
foreign to Him is outside the limits of the soul ;
similarity cannot be retained in those qualities
which are diverse from the original. Since,
then, nothing of the kind we are considering
is included in the conception of the Divine
nature, one would be reasonable in surmising that
such things are not consubstantial with the soul
either. Now to seek to build up our doctrine
by rule of dialectic and the science which draws
and destroys conclusions, involves a species of
discussion which we shall ask to be excused
from, as being a weak and questionable way of
demonstrating truth. Indeed, it is clear to
every one that that subtle dialectic possesses a
force that may be turned both ways, as weil for
the overthrow of truth 6 as for the detection of
falsehood ; and so we begin to suspect even
truth itself when it is advanced in company with
such a kind of artifice, and to think that the
very ingenuity of it is trying to bias our judg-
ment and to upset the truth. If on the other
hand any one will accept a discussion which is
in a naked unsyllogistic form, we will speak
upon these points by making our study of them
so far as we can follow the chain 7 of Scriptural
tradition. What is it, then, that we assert ? We
say that the fact of the reasoning animal man
being capable of understanding and knowing
is most surely8 attested by those outside our
faith ; and that this definition would never have
sketched our nature so, if it had viewed anger
and desire and all such-like emotions as con-
substantial with that nature. In any other case,
one would not give a definition of the subject
in hand by putting a generic instead of a speci-
fic quality ; and so, as the principle of desire
and the principle of anger are observed equally
in rational and irrational natures, one could not

form-giving i>ous : substantial eternal existence belongs only to the
latter (De Anima, iii. 5). The secret of the difference between him
and Plato, with whom "all the soul is immortal" (Phtrdrus, p.
245 C), lies in this ; that Plato regarded the soul as always in motion,
while Aristotle denied it, in itself, any motion at all. " It is one of
the things that are impossible that motion should exist in it " (De
Animd, i. 4). It cannot be moved at all ; therefore it cannot move
itself. Plotinusana Porphyry, as well as Nemesius the llatonizing
Bishop of Emesa (whose treatise De Animd is wrongly attributed to
Gregory), attacked this teaching of an "entelechy." Cf. also
Justin Martyr (ad Grcec. cohort, c. 6, p. 12) ; " Plato declares that
all the soul is immortal; Aristotle calls her an 'entelechy,' and
not immortal. The one says she is ever-moving, the other that she
is never-moving, but prior to all motion." Also Gregory Naz. , Oral.
xxvii. "Away with Aristotle's calculating Providence, and his art
of logic, and his dead reasonings about the soul, and purely human
doctrine ! "

6 for the overthrow of the tru.'h. So c. Eunom. iii. (ii. 500).

? CtpjUOL'.

8 most surely, t5. This is the common reading : but the Codd.
have mostly *ai.

440

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

rightly mark the specific quality by means of
this generic one. But how can that which, in
defining a nature, is superfluous and worthy of
exclusion be treated as a part of that nature,
and, so, available for falsifying the definition ?
Every definition of an essence looks to the
specific quality of the subject in hand ; and
whatever is outside that speciality is set aside
as having nothing to do with the required
definition. Yet, beyond question, these facul-
ties of anger and desire are allowed to be
common to air reasoning and brute natures;
anything common is not identical with that
which is peculiar ; it is imperative therefore
that we should not range these faculties
amongst those whereby humanity is exclusively
meant : but just as one may perceive the prin-
ciple 9 of sensation, and that of nutrition and
growth in man, and yet not shake thereby the
given definition of his soul (for the quality A
being in the soul does not prevent the quality
B being in it too), so, when one detects in
humanity these emotions of anger and desire,
one cannot on that account fairly quarrel with
this definition, as if it fell short of a full
indication of man's nature.

What then, I asked the Teacher, are we to
think about this? For I cannot yet see how
we can fitly repudiate faculties which are actually
within us.

You see, she replied, there is a battle of the
reason with them and a struggle to rid the soul
of them ; and there are men in whom this
struggle has ended in success ; it was so with
Moses, as we know ; he was superior both to
anger and to desire; the history testifying of him
in both respects, that he was meek beyond all
men (and by meekness it indicates the absence
of all anger and a mind quite devoid of resent-
ment), and that he desired none of those things
about which we see the desiring faculty in the
generality so active. This could not have been
so, if these faculties were nature, and were refer-
able to the contents of man's essence '. For it
is impossible for one who has come quite out-
side of his nature to be in Existence at all. But
if Moses was at one and the same time in Exist-
ence and not in these conditions, then 2 it follows
that these conditions are something other than
nature and not nature itself. For if, on the
one hand, that is truly nature in which the
essence of the being is found, and, on the other,

9 Aristotle, Ethic i. 13, dwells upon these principles. Of the last
he says, i.e. the common vegetative, the principle of nutrition and
growth : "One would assume such a power of the sold in every-
t ang that grows, even in the embryo, and just this very same
power in the perfect creatures : for this is more likely than that it
should be a different one " Sleep, in which this power almost alone
is i tive, levels a I.

1 oiiaia.

3 It is best to keep apa : apa. is Krabinger's correction from
four Codd : and he reads 0 for ei above : but only one class of Codd.
support these alterations

the removal of these conditions is in our power,
so that their removal not only does no harm, but
is even beneficial to the nature, it is clear that
these conditions are to be numbered amongst ex-
ternals, and are affections, rather than the essence,
of the nature ; for the essence is that thing only
which it is. As for anger, most think it a fer-
menting of the blood round the heart ; others an
eagerness to inflict pain in return for a previous
pain ; we would take it to be the impulse to hurt
one who has provoked us. But none of these
accounts of it tally with the definition of the
soul. Again, if we were to define what desire
is in itself, we should call it a seeking for that
which is wanting, or a longing for pleasurable
enjoyment, or a pain at not possessing that upon
which the heart is set, or a state with regard
to some pleasure which there is no opportunity
of enjoying. These and such-like descriptions
all indicate desire, but they have no connection
with the definition of the soul. But it is so
with regard to all those other conditions also
which we see to have some relation to the soul,
those, I mean, which are mutually opposed to
each other, such as cowardice and courage,
pleasure and pain, fear and contempt, and so
on ; each of them seems akin to the principle
of desire or to that of anger, while they have a
separate definition to mark their own peculiar
nature. Courage and contempt, for instance,
exhibit a certain phase of the irascible impulse ;
the dispositions arising from cowardice and fear
exhibit on the other hand a diminution and
weakening of that same impulse. Pain, again,
draws its material both from anger and desire.
For the impotence of anger, which consists in
not being able to punish one who has first given
pain, becomes itself pain ; and the despair of
getting objects of desire and the absence of
things upon which the heart is set create in
the mind this same sullen state. Moreover,
the opposite to pain, I mean the sensation of
pleasure 3, like pain, divides itself between anger
and desire ; for pleasure is the leading motive
of them both. All these conditions, I say, have
some relation to the soul, and yet they are not
the soul 4, but only like warts growing out of the
soul's thinking part, which are reckoned as parts
of it because they adhere to it, and yet are not
that actual thing which the soul is in its essence.
And yet, I rejoined to the virgin, we see no
slight help afforded for improvement to the

3 / mean the sensation of pleasure. This [v6r\p.a) is Krabinger's
reading : but Oehler reads from his Codd. i/oo-r/jxa : and H Schmidt
Suggests tcimipLa, comparing (205 A) below, " any other suchlike
emotion of the soul."

4 have some relation to the soul, ana' yet they are not the soul.
Macrina does not mean that the Passions are altogether severed
from the soul, as the following shows : ami so Oehler cannot be
right in reading and translating "' DasAlles hat nichts mit der Seele
zu schaffen." The Greek TTtpt rrfv ^o\t)i' is to be parallel. ed by oi
irepi tiii> IKpiKAea, " Pericles belongings," or " party " ; passing, in
later Greek, almost into " Pericles himself."

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

441

virtuous trom
desire was his p

all these conditions. Daniel's as a mere exercise (in interpretation). I pray
lory ; and Phineas' anger pleased that it may escape the sneers of cavilling hearers.

the Deity. We have been told, too, that fear
is the beginning of wisdom, and learnt from
Paul that salvation is the goal of the "sorrow
after a godly sort." The Gospel bids us have a
contempt for danger ; and the "not being afraid
with any amazement " is nothing else but a de-
scribing of courage, and this last is numbered by
Wisdom amongst the things that are good. In
all this Scripture shows that such conditions are
not to be considered weaknesses ; weaknesses
would not have been so employed for putting
virtue into practice.

I think, replied the Teacher, that I am myself -and
responsible for this confusion arising from
different accounts of the matter ; for I did not
state it as distinctly as I might have, by intro-
ducing a certain order of consequences for our
consideration. Now, however, some such order
shall, as far as it is possible, be devised, so that
our essay may advance in the way of logical
sequence and so give no room for such contra-
dictions. We declare, then, that the speculative,
critical, and world-surveying faculty of the soul
is its peculiar property by virtue of its very
nature 5, and that thereby the soul preserves
within itself the image of the divine grace ; since
our reason surmises that divinity itself, whatever
it may be in its inmost nature, is manifested in
these very things, — universal supervision and
the critical discernment between good and evil.
But all those elements of the soul which lie
on the border-land 6 and are capable from their
peculiar nature of inclining to either of two
opposites (whose eventual determination to the
good or to the bad depends on the kind of use
they are put to), anger, for instance, and fear,
and any other such-like emotion of the soul
divested of which human nature 7 cannot be
studied — all these we reckon as accretions from
without, because in the Beauty which is man's
prototype no such characteristics are to be found.
Now let the following statement 8 be offered

5 Reading icaTa <j>v<Ttv avTrjv, Kal ttj? 0eoei6oOs vapiros, «. T. A.
-with Sifanus.

6 otra Se ttJs i/fvx*)S iv /neSopi'ai KtiTat. Moller (Gregorii Nvsseni
doctrina dehominis naturd) remarks rightly that Krabinger's trans-
lation is here incorrect: " qua:cunque autem in animae confinio
posita sunt " ; and that nijs i/»uxijs should on the contrary be joined
closely to 3<ra. The opposition is not between elements which lie
in, and on the confines of the soul, but between the divine and
adventitious elements within the soul : |ueflopia> refers therefore to
" good and bad," below.

7 This is no contradiction of the passage above about Moses :
there it was stated that the Passions did not belong to the essence
(ou<ri'a) of man.

8 oSe 6jj. The Teacher introduces this A070? with some reserve.
" We do not lay it down ex cathedra, we put it forward as open to
challenge and discussion as we might do in the schools (cos iv
yufn-acrutf). " It is best then to take &t,a<t>vyot as a pure optative.
Gregory appears in his answer to congratulate her on the success of
this "exercise." "To anyone that reflects . . . your exposition
. . . bears sufficiently upon it the stamp of correctness, and hits the
truth." But he immediately asks for Scripture authority. So that
this Aayos, though it refers to Genesis, is not yet based upon Scrip-
ture. It is a "consecutive" and consistent account of human
mature : but it is virtually identical with that advanced at the end of

Scripture informs us that the Deity proceeded
by a sort of graduated and ordered advance to
the creation of man. After the foundations of
the universe were laid, as the history records,
man did not appear on the earth at once ; but
the creation of the brutes preceded his, and the
plants preceded them. Thereby Scripture
shows that the vital forces blended with the
world of matter according to a gradation ; first,
it infused itself into insensate nature ; and in
continuation of this advanced into the sentient
world ; and then ascended to intelligent
rational beings. Accordingly, while all
existing" things must be either corporeal or
spiritual, the former are divided into the
animate and inanimate. By animate, I mean
possessed of life : and of the things possessed
of life, some have it with sensation, the rest
have no sensation. Again, of these sentient
things, some have reason, the rest have not.
Seeing, then, that this life of sensation could
not possibly exist apart from the matter which
is the subject of it, and the intellectual life could
not be embodied, either, without growing in the
sentient, on this account the creation of man
is related as coming last, as of one who took
up into himself every single form of life, both
that of plants and that which is seen in brutes.
His nourishment and growth he derives from
vegetable life ; for even in vegetables such
processes are to be seen when aliment is being
drawn in by their roots and given off in fruit
and leaves. His sentient organization he de-
rives from the brute creation. But his faculty
of thought and reason is incommunicable °, and
is a peculiar gift in our nature, to be considered
by itself. However, just as this nature has the
instinct acquisitive of the necessaries to material
existence — an instinct which, when manifested
in us men, we call Appetite — and as we admit
this appertains to the vegetable form of life,
since we can notice it there too like so many
impulses working naturally to satisfy themselves
with their kindred aliment and to issue in
germination, so all the peculiar conditions of the
brute creation are blended with the intellectual
part of the soul. To them, she continued,
belongs anger ; to them belongs fear ; to them
all those other opposing activities within us ;

Book I. of Aristotle's Ethics. It is a piece of secular theorizing.
The sneers ot caviller? may well be deprecated. Consistent, how-
ever, with this view of the Aayos here offered by Macrina, there is
another possible meaning in cus iv yyixvacita, k. t. A., i.e. " Let us
put forward the following account with all possible care and circum-
spection, as if we were disputing in the schools ; so that cavillers
may have nothing to find fault with" : <iis Jk expressi g purpose,
not a wish. The cavillers will thus refer to sticklers for Greek
method and metaphysics : and Gregory's congratulation of his
sister's lucidity and grasp of the truth will be all the more
significant.

9 Following the order and stopping of Krabinger, d/uuicTOi/ eon.
ical ISia^ov 67ri TavTTjs tt)« 4>u<re(, e<p" kavTov, K. T. A.

442

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

everything except the faculty of reason and
thought. That alone, the choice product, as
has been said, of all our life, bears the stamp of
the Divine character. But since, according to
the view which we have just enunciated, it is
not possible for this reasoning faculty to exist
in the life of the body without existing by
means of sensations, and since sensation is al-
ready found subsisting in the. brute creation,
necessarily as it were, by reason of this one
condition, our soul has touch with the other
things which are knit up with it1; and these are
all those phsenomena within us that we call
" passions " ; which have not been allotted to
human nature for any bad purpose at all (for
the Creator would most certainly be the author
of evil, if in them, so deeply rooted as they are
in our nature, any necessities of wrong-doing
were found), but according to the use which
our free will puts them to, these emotions of
the soul become the instruments of virtue or of
vice. They are like the iron which is being
fashioned according to the volition of the
artificer, and receives whatever shape the idea
which is in his mind prescribes, and becomes a
sword or some agricultural implement. Sup-
posing, then, that our reason, which is our
nature's choicest part, holds the dominion over
these imported emotions (as Scripture allegori-
cally declares in the command to men to rule
over the brutes), none of them will be active in
the ministry of evil ; fear will only generate
within us obedience2, and anger fortitude,
and cowardice caution ; and the instinct of
desire will procure for us the delight that is
Divine and perfect. But if reason drops the
reins and is dragged behind like a charioteer
who has got entangled in his car, then these
instincts are changed into fierceness, just as
we see happens amongst the brutes. For
since reason does not preside over the natural
impulses that are implanted3 in them, the
more irascible animals, under the generalship
of their anger, mutually destroy each other;
while the bulky and powerful animals get no
good themselves from their strength, but become
by their want of reason slaves of that which has
reason. Neither are the activities of their
desire for pleasure employed on any of the
higher objects ; nor does any other instinct to
be observed in them result in any profit to
themselves. Thus too, with ourselves, if these

* Reading 8id toO ckos »cai irpbs rd avvrjtifiei a toutui (for tovtoip),
with Sifanus.

* Cf. De Horn. Opif. c. xviii. 5 " So. on the contrary, if reason
instead assumes sway over such emotions, each of them is trans-
muted to a form of virtue : for anger produces courage ; terror,
caution ; fear, obedience ; hatred, aversion from vice ; the power of
love, the desire for what is truly beautiful, &c." Just below, the
allusion is to Plato's charioteer, Phtrdms, p. 253 C, and the old
custom of having the reins round the driver's waist is to be noticed.

3 are implanted. All the Codd. have ryKn/xenjs here, instead
of the «yKu>ni"fofi«'n)s of the Paris Edition, which must be meant for
«-y<cw/xa£op.tiT)s ;itself a vox nihili), "run ri t in them."

instincts are not turned by reasoning into the
right direction, and if our feelings get the
mastery of our mind, the man is changed from
a reasoning into an unreasoning being, and
from godlike intelligence sinks by the force of
these passions to the level of the brute.

Much moved by these words, I said : To any
one who reflects indeed, your exposition, ad-
vancing as it does in this consecutive manner,
though plain and unvarnished, bears sufficiently
upon it the stamp of correctness and hits the
truth. And to those who are expert only in
the technical methods of proof a mere demon-
stration suffices to convince ; but as for our-
selves, we were agreed 4 that there is something
more trustworthy than any of these artificial
conclusions, namely, that which the teachings
of Holy Scripture point to : and so I deem
that it is necessary to inquire, in addition to
what has been said, whether this inspired teach-
ing harmonizes with it all.

And who, she replied, could deny that truth
is to be found only in that upon which the seal
of Scriptural testimony is set ? So, if it is
necessary that something from the Gospels
should be adduced in support of our view, a
study of the Parable of the Wheat and Tares
will not be here out of place. The House-
holder there sowed good seed ; (and we are
plainly the " house "). But the " enemy," hav-
ing watched for the time when men slept, sowed
that which was useless in that which was good
for food, setting the tares in the very middle of
the wheat. The two kinds of seed grew up
together ; for it was not possible that seed
put into the very middle of the wheat should
fail to grow up with it. But the Superin-
tendent of the field forbids the servants to
gather up the useless crop, on account of their
growing at the very root of the contrary sort ;
so as not to root up5 the nutritious along with
that foreign growth. Now we think that Scrip-
ture means by the good seed the corresponding
impulses of the soul, each one of which, if
only they are cultured for good, necessarily
puts forth the fruit of virtue within us. But
since there has been scattered 6 amongst these
the bad seed of the error of judgment as to
the true Beauty which is alone in its intrinsic
nature such, and since this last has been thrown
into the shade by the growth of delusion which
springs up along with it (for the active principle

4 we -were a reed. eofioAoyecro : cf. 201 D, " If on the other
hand any one will accept a discussion which is in a naked unsyl-
logistic form, we will speak upon these points by making our study
of them as far as we can follow the chain of Scriptural tradition."

5 There is a variety of readings from the Codd. here ;
ffwe-yKaToAeiT), <rvvtKTa\f), o-vvcKraAci'i), crwtfCTaAatn, triryicaTaAyj) :
in two (and on the margins of two others), ovvcktLK-q, which
Krabinger has adopted. The Paris Editt. have avveierlvei.

6 Traps vKTirafn), the idea of badness being contained in irapa,
which in such cases is always the first compound. One Cod. ha*
the curious inversion cpirape<rirdpi).

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

443

of desire does not germinate and increase in the
direction of that natural Beauty which was the
object of its being sown in us, but it has changed
its growth so as to move towards a bestial and
unthinking state, this very error as to Beauty
carrying its impulse towards this result ; and in
the same way the seed of anger does not steel
us to be brave, but only arms us to fight with
our own people ; and the power of loving deserts
its intellectual objects and becomes completely
mad for the immoderate enjoyment of pleasures
of sense ; and so in like manner our other
affections put forth the worse instead of the
better growths), — on account of this the wise
Husbandman leaves this growth that has been
introduced amongst his seed to remain there,
so as to secure our not being altogether
stripped of better hopes by desire having been
rooted out along with that good-for-nothing
growth. If our nature suffered such a mutila-
tion, what will there be to lift us up to grasp
the heavenly delights ? If love is taken from
us, how shall we be united to God ? If anger
is to be extinguished, what arms shall we possess
against the adversary ? Therefore the Husband-
man leaves those bastard seeds within us, not
for them always to overwhelm the more precious
crop, but in order that the land itself (for so, in
his allegory, he calls the heart) by its native
inherent power, which is that of reasoning, may
wither up the one growth and may render the
other fruitful and abundant : but if that is not
done, then he commissions the fire to mark the
distinction in the crops. If, then, a man indulges
these affections in a due proportion and holds
them in his own power instead of being held in
theirs, employing them for an instrument as a
king does his subjects' many hands, then efforts
towards excellence more easily succeed for him.
But should he become theirs, and, as when any
slaves mutiny against their master, get enslaved i
by those slavish thoughts and ignominiously
bow before them, a prey to his natural inferiors,
he will be forced to turn to those employments
which his imperious masters command. This
being so, we shall not pronounce these emotions
of the soul, which lie in the power of their
possessors for good or ill, to be either virtue or
vice. But, whenever their impulse is towards
what is noble, then they become matter for
praise, as his desire did to Daniel, and his
anger to Phineas, and their grief to those who
nobly mourn. But if they incline to baseness,
then these are, and they are called, bad passions.
She ceased after this statement and allowed
the discussion a short interval, in which I re-
viewed mentally all that had been said ; and
reverting to that former course of proof in

7 i(avSpaTtoSi(rd€ iij ; this is adopted by Krabinger from the
Haselman Cod. for the common ef u>v Spawoo'io-OeiT).

her discourse, that it was not impossible that
the sou] after the body's dissolution should
reside in its atoms, I again addressed her.
Where is that much-talked-of and renowned
Hades 8, then ? The word is in frequent cir-
culation both in the intercourse of daily life,
and in the writings of the heathens and in our
own ; and all think that into it, as into a place
of safe-keeping, souls migrate from here.
Surely you would not call your atoms that
Hades.

Clearly, replied the Teacher, you have not
quite attended to the argument. In speaking
of the soul's migration from the seen to the
unseen, I thought I had omitted nothing as
regards the question about Hades. It seems
to me that, whether in the heathen or in the
Divine writings, this word for a place in which
souls are said to be means nothing else but a
transition to that Unseen world of which we
have no glimpse.

And how, then, I asked, is it that some think
that by the underworld 9 is meant an actual
place, and that it harbours within itself1 the
souls that have at last flitted away from human
life, drawing them towards itself as the right
receptacle for such natures ?

Well, replied the Teacher, our doctrine will
be in no ways injured by such a supposition.
For if it is true, what you say 2, and also that the
vault of heaven prolongs itself so uninter-
ruptedly that it encircles all things with itself,
and that the earth and its surroundings are
poised in the middle, and that the motion of
all the revolving bodies 3 is round this fixed and
solid centre, then, I say, there is an absolute
necessity that, whatever may happen to each
one of the atoms on the upper side of the
earth, the same will happen on the opposite
side, seeing that one single substance encom-
passes its entire bulk. As, when the sun shines
above the earth, the shadow is spread over its
lower part, because its spherical shape makes it
impossible for it to be clasped all round at one
and the same time by the rays, and necessarily,
on whatever side the sun's rays may fall on
some particular point of the globe, if we follow
a straight diameter, we shall find shadow upon
the opposite point, and so, continuously, at the
opposite end of the direct line of the rays

8 SSov bvop.a. ' toi/ vno\86viov.

1 KaKelvov iv aiiTai, H. Schmidt's reading, on the authoiity of
3 Codd. The reading of Krabinger is iv eaurw tc Kattfivov. Put
the underworld is the only habitation in question. — ovtiu Ae'yeo-0<u,
above, must mean, " is rightly so named."

" el yap aAijSrjs 6 A0705 6 Kara <re', <ccu to avvexv Te fpbs, k. t. A ,
Krabinger's reading, following the majority of Codd. ; o tcaTci ai
being thus opposed to the next words, which others say. But
Schmidt points out that the conclusion introduced below by avdyicj)
iraaa does not follow at all from the first, but only from the second
of these suppositions, and he would await the evidence of Iresh
Codd. Sifanus and Augentius would read et xai . . . Komi <r«. T<o
yap, K.T.A., which would certainly express the sense required.

3 irdvTtov tu>i/ KVKho<f>opovp.ei'u>v, i. e. the heavenly bodies moving
as one (according to the ancient astronomy) round the central earth.

444

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

shadow moves round that globe, keeping pace
with the sun, so that equally in their turn both
the upper half and the under half of the earth
are in light and darkness ; so, by this analogy,
we have reason to be certain that, whatever in
our hemisphere is observed to befall the atoms,
the same will befall them in that other. The
environment of the atoms being one and the
same on every side of the earth, I deem it right
neither to contradict nor yet to favour those
who raise the objection that we must regard
either this or the lower region as assigned to the
souls released. As long as this objection does
not shake our central doctrine of the existence
of those souls after the life in the flesh, there
need be no controversy about the whereabouts,
to our mind, holding as we do that place is a
property of body only, and that soul, being
immaterial, is by no necessity of its nature
detained in any place.

But what, I asked, if your opponent should
shield himself4 behind the Apostle, where he
says that every reasoning creature, in the resti-
tution of all things, is to look towards Him Who
presides over the whole? In that passage in
the Epistle to the Philippianss he makes mention
of certain things that are " under the earth " ;
" every knee shall bow " to Him " of things in
heaven, and things in earth, and things under
the earth."

We shall stand by our doctrine, answered the
Teacher, even if we should hear them adducing
these words. For the existence of the soul
(after death) we have the assent of our opponent,
and so we do not make an objection as to the
place, as we have just said.

But if some were to ask the meaning of the
Apostle in this utterance, what is one to say ?
Would you remove all signification of place
from the passage?

I do not think, she replied, that the divine
Apostle divided the intellectual world into
localities, when he named part as in heaven,
part as on earth, and part as under the earth.
There are three states in which reasoning
creatures can be : one from the very first re-
ceived an immaterial life, and we call it the
angelic : another is in union with the flesh, and
we call it the human : a third is released by
death from fleshly entanglements, and is to be
found in souls pure and simple. Now I think
that the divine Apostle in his deep wisdom
looked to this, when he revealed the future con-
cord of all these reasoning beings in the work
of goodness ; and that he puts the unembodied
angel-world " in heaven," and that still involved
with a body " on earth," and that released from a

4 7rpo/3aAAotTO. This is the proper meaning of the middle :
" should ohject," as Oehler translates (einwerfen wollte), would
require the active. 5 Philip, li. 10.

body " under the earth " ; or, indeed, if there is
any other world to be classed under that which
is possessed of reason (it is not left out) ; and
whether any one choose to call this last
''demons" or "spirits," or anything else of
the kind, we shall not care. We certainly be-
lieve, both because of the prevailing opinion,
and still more of Scripture teaching, that there
exists another world of beings besides, divested
of such bodies as ours are, who are opposed to
that which is good and are capable of hurting
the lives of men, having by an act of will lapsed
from the nobler view 6, and by this revolt from
goodness personified in themselves the contrary
principle ; and this world is what, some say,
the Apostle adds to the number of the " things
under the earth," signifying in that passage that
when evil shall have been some day annihilated
in the long revolutions of the ages, nothing shall
be left outside the world of goodness, but that
even from those evil spirits7 shall rise in harmony
the confession of Christ's Lordship. If this is
so, then no one can compel us to see any spot
of the underworld in the expression, " things
under the earth " ; the atmosphere spreads
equally over every part of the earth, and there
is not a single corner of it left unrobed by this
circumambient air.

When she had finished, I hesitated a moment,
and then said : I am not yet satisfied about the
thing which we have been inquiring into ; after
all that has been said my mind is still in doubt ;
and I beg that our discussion may be allowed
to revert to the same line of reasoning as
before 8, omitting only that upon which we are
thoroughly agreed. I say this, for I think that
all but the most stubborn controversialists will

6 lapsed from he nobler view (u7roAijt^eu>s). This is the common
reading : but Krabinger prefers X^feoj?, which is used by Gregory
(De Horn. Opif. c. 17, " the sublime angelic lot "), and is a Platonic
word. The other word, " lapsed," is also Platonic.

1 from those evil spirits . So Great Catechism, c. 26 (fin.). Here
too Gregory follows Origen (c. Cels. vi. 44), who declares that the
Powers of evil are for a purpose (in answer to Celsus' objection that
the Devil himself, instead of humanity, ought to have been punished).
" Now it is a thing which can in no way cause surprise, that the
Almighty, Who knows how to use wicked apostates for His own
purposes, should assign to such a certain place in the universe, and
should thus open an arena, as it were, of virtue, for those to contend
in who wish to " strive lawfully " for her prize : those wicked ones
were to try them, as the fire tries the gold, that, having done their
utmost to prevent the admission of any alloy into their spiritual
nature, and having proved themselves worthy to mount to heaven,
they might be drawn by the bands of the Word to the highest
blessedness and the summit of all Good." These Powers, as
reasoning beings, shall then themselves be " mastered by the
Word." See c. Cels. viii. 72.

8 The conclusion of which was drawn, 199 C. " Therefore the
soul exists in the actual atoms which she has once animated, and
there is no force to tear her away from her cohesion with them."
It is to the line of reasoning (axoAouOi'a) leading up to this conclusion
that Gregory would revert, in order to question this conclusion.
What both sides are agreed on is, the existence merely of the soul
after death. All between this conclusion and the present break in
the discussion has been a digression on the Passions and on Hades.
Now Gregory asks, how can the soul possibly recognize the atoms
that once belonged to her? Oehler therefore does not translate
aright, " ich bitte nur den gefiihrten Beweis ... in derselben
Folge zu wiederholen : " but Krabinger expresses the true sense,
" ut rursus mihi ad eandem consequentiam reducatur oratio," i. e.
the discussion (not the proof), which is here again, almost in
Platonic fashion, personified.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

445

have been sufficiently convinced by our debate
not to consign the soul after the body's dissolu-
tion to annihilation and nonentity, nor to argue
that because it differs substantially from the
atoms it is impossible for it to exist anywhere in
the universe ; for, however much a being that
is intellectual and immaterial may fail to coin-
cide with these atoms, it is in no ways hindered
(so far) from existing in them ; and this belief
of ours rests on two facts : firstly, on the soul's
existing in our bodies in this present life,
though fundamentally different from them : and
secondly, on the fact that the Divine being, as
our argument has shown, though distinctly
something other than visible and material sub-
stances, nevertheless pervades each one amongst
all existences, and by this penetration of the
whole keeps the world in a state of being ; so
that following these analogies we need not
think that the soul, either, is out of existence,
when she passes from the world of forms to the
Unseen. But how, I insisted, after the united
whole of the atoms has assumed 9, owing to their
mixing together, a form quite different — the
form in fact with which the soul has been
actually domesticated — by what mark, when
this form, as we should have expected, is
effaced along with the resolution of the atoms,
shall the soul follow along (them), now that
that familiar form ceases to persist ?

She waited a moment and then said : Give
me leave to invent a fanciful simile in order to
illustrate the matter before us : even though
that which I suppose may be outside the range
of possibility. Grant it possible, then, in the
art of painting not only to mix opposite colours,
as painters are always doing, to represent a
particular tint r, but also to separate again this
mixture and to restore to each of the colours its
natural dye. If then white, or black, or red, or
golden colour, or any other colour that has been
mixed to form the given tint, were to be again
separated from that union with another and
remain by itself, we suppose that our artist will
none the less remember the actual nature of
that colour, and that in no case will he show
forgetfulness, either of the red, for instance, or
the black, if after having become quite a differ-

9 has assumed, a.va\a^6vriav. The construction is accommodated
to the sense, not the words ; tt/s tuiv (rroixeitov ivuxTews having
preceded.

1 tint, fiop^Tj?. Certainly in earlier Greek nop(pri is strictly used
of" form," " shape " (or the beauty of it) only, and colours cannot be
said to be mixed in imitation of form. It seems we have here a late
use of p-optfr'r} as = "outward appearance " ; so that we may even
;peak of the|uop<pr] of a colour, or combinations of colours. So (214 A)
the painter " works up (on his palette) a particular tint of colour "
<jiop4>T)v). Here it is the particular hue, in person or picture, which
it is desired to imitate. Akin to this question is that of the proper
translation of 7rpbs rr\v onotonjTa tov 7rpoKet/weVov, which Sifanus
and Krabinger translate " ad similitudinem argument?'," and which
may either mean (1) " to make the analogy to the subject matter of
our question as perfect as possible," i. e. as a parenthesis or
(2) " in imitation of the thing or colour (lying before the painter) to
be copied." The last seems preferable (" to form the given tint ").

ent colour by composition with each other
they each return to l licit natural dye. We
suppose, I say, that our artist remembers the
manner of the mutual blending of these colours,
and so knows what sort of colour was mixed
with a given colour and what sort of colour was
the result, and how, the other colour being
ejected from the composition, (the original
colour) in consequence of such release resumed
its own peculiar hue ; and, supposing it were
required to produce the same result again
by composition, the process will be all the
easier from having been already practised in his
previous work. Now, if reason can see any
analogy in this simile, we must search the
matter in hand by its light. Let the soul stand
for this Art of the painter2 ; and let the natural
atoms stand for the colours of his art ; and let
the mixture of that tint compounded of the
various dyes, and the return of these to their
native state (which we have been allowed to
assume), represent respectively the concourse,
and the separation of the atoms. Then, as we
assume in the simile that the painter's Art tells
him the actual dye of each colour, when it has
returned after mixing to its proper hue, so that
he has an exact knowledge of the red, and of
the black, and of any other colour that went to
form the required tint by a specific way of unit-
ing with another kind — a knowledge which in-
cludes its appearance both in the mixture, and
now when it is in its natural state, and in the
future again, supposing all the colours were
mixed over again in like fashion — so, we assert,
does the soul know the natural peculiarities of
those atoms whose concourse makes the frame
of the body in which it has itself grown, even
after the scattering of those atoms. However
far from each other their natural propensity and
their inherent forces of repulsion urge them, and
debar each from mingling with its opposite,
none the less will the soul be near each by its
power of recognition, and will persistently cling
to the familiar atoms, until their concourse after
this division again takes place in the same
way, for that fresh formation of the dissolved
body which will properly be, and be called,
resurrection.

You seem, I interrupted, in this passing re-
mark to have made an excellent defence of the
faith in the Resurrection. By it, I think, the
opponents of this doctrine might be gradually
led to consider it not as a thing absolutely
impossible that the atoms should again coalesce
and form the same man as before.

That is very true, the Teacher replied. For
we may hear these opponents urging the follow-
ing difficulty. "The atoms are resolved, like

446

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

to like, 'nto the universe ; by what device, then,
does the warmth, for instance, residing in such
and such a man, after joining the universal
warmth, again dissociate itself from this con-
nection with its kindred 3, so as to form this man
who is being ' remoulded ' ? For if the identical
individual particle does not return and only
something that is homogeneous but not identical
is fetched, you will have something else in the
place of that first thing, and such a process will
cease to be a resurrection and will be merely
the creation of a new man. But if the same
man is to return into himself, he must be the
same entirely, and regain his original formation
in every single atom of his elements."

Then to meet such an objection, I rejoined,
the above opinion about the soul will, as I said,
avail ; namely, that she remains after dissolu-
tion in those very atoms in which she first grew
up, and, like a guardian placed over private
property, does not abandon them when they
are mingled with their kindred atoms, and by
the subtle ubiquity of her intelligence makes
no mistake about them, with all their subtle
minuteness, but diffuses herself along with
those which belong to herself when they are
being mingled with their kindred dust, and
suffers no exhaustion in keeping up with the
whole number of them when they stream back
into the universe, but remains with them, no
matter in what direction or in what fashion
Nature may arrange them. But should the
signal be given by the All-disposing Power for
these scattered atoms to combine again, then,
just as when every one of the various ropes
that hang from one block answer at one
and the same moment 4 to the pull from that
centre, so, following this force of the soul which
acts upon the various atoms, all these, once so
familiar with each other, rush simultaneously
together and form the cable of the body by
means of the soul, each single one of them
being wedded to its former neighbour and
embracing an old acquaintance.

The following illustration also, the Teacher
went on, might be very properly added to those
already brought forward, to show that the soul
has not need of much teaching in order to
distinguish its own from the alien amongst the
atoms. Imagine a potter with a supply of clay ;
and let the supply be a large one ; and let part

3 a/xi-y«s tov o~uyyevou$ ttoAii/ anoKpiOrjvai. Krabinger's and
Oeh!er's reading. But Krabinger, more correctly than Oehlei,
opposes iv tiTSc to iv tu> ko.8' oKov (quod est hie calidum, si fuerit in
universo) : though neither he, nor Oehler, nor Schmidt himself
appears to have any suspicion that rwSe may mean " so and so " :
and yet it is quite in accordance with Gregory's usage, and makes
better sense, as contrasting the particular and universal heat more
completely. 'Afiives is proleptic : the genitive may depend either
on it or on the verb. Just below,<li'a7rAa<rcr6|un'oi' is read by 5 of
Krabinger's Codd. (including the Hasselmann). This is better than
Migne's anaWaoaiixevov, which is hardly supported by 1 Cor.
xv. 51

4 same mome it. Kara raiivov : on the authority of 2 Codd. Mon.

of it have been already moulded to form finished
vessels, while the rest is still waiting to be
moulded ; and suppose the vessels themselves
not to be all of similar shape, but one to be a
jug, for instance, and another a wine-jar, another
a plate, another a cup or any other useful
vessel ; and further, let not one owner possess
them all, but let us fancy for each a special
owner. Now as long as these vessels are un-
broken they are of course recognizable by their
owners, and none the less so, even should they
be broken in pieces ; for from those pieces each
will know, for instance, that this belongs to a
jar5, and, again, what sort of fragment belongs
to a cup. And if they are plunged again into
the unworked clay, the discernment between
what has been already worked and that clay
will be a more unerring one still. The indi-
vidual man is as such a vessel ; he has been
moulded out of the universal matter, owing to
the concourse of his atoms ; and he exhibits in
a form peculiarly his own a marked distinction
from his kind ; and when that form has gone
to pieces the soul that has been mistress of this
particular vessel will have an exact knowledge
of it, derived even from its fragments ; nor will
she leave this property, either, in the common
blending with all the other fragments, or if it
be plunged into the still formless part of the
matter from which the atoms have come 6 ; she
always remembers her own as it was when
compact in bodily form, and after dissolution
she never makes any mistake about it, led by
marks still clinging to the remains.

I applauded this as well devised to bring out
the natural features of the case before us ; and
I said : It is very well to speak like this and to
believe that it is so; but suppose some one
were to quote against it our Lord's narrative
about those who are in hell, as not harmonizing
with the results of our inquiry, how are we to
be prepared with an answer?

The Teacher answered : The "expressions of
that narrative of the Word are certainly material ;
but still many hints are interspersed in it to
rouse the skilled inquirer to a more discriminat-
ing study of it. I mean that He Who parts the
good from the bad by a great gulf, and makes
the man in torment crave for a drop to be con-
veyed by a finger, and the man who has been
ill-treated in this life rest on a patriarch's bosom,
and Who relates their previous death and con-
signment to the tomb, takes an intelligent
searcher of His meaning far beyond a superficial
interpretation. For what sort of eyes has the

5 Reading on to itiv to ck tou ttiSou, irolov &e to ck tou wonipiov,

K.T.A.

6 jrpbs to aKOLTfpyauTTOv T»js t£ii> o"Toiyeiu>i' vArjs. There is the
same sort of distinction above, 215 A, I. e. between the kindred iiu.\t
first, and then the universe (to irav) into which the atoms may
stream back.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

447

Rich Man to lift up in hell, when he has left
his bodily eyes in that tomb ? And how can a
disembodied spirit feel any flame? And what
sort of tongue can he crave to be cooled with
the drop of water, when he has lost his tongue
of flesh ? What is the finger that is to convey
to him this drop ? What sort of place is the
" bosom " of repose ? The bodies of both of
them are in the tomb, and their souls are dis-
embodied, and do not consist of parts either ;
and so it is impossible to make the framework
of the narrative correspond with the truth, if
we understand it literally ; we can do that only
by translating each detail into an equivalent in
the world of ideas. Thus we must think of the
gulf as that which parts ideas which may not
be confounded from running together, not as a
chasm of the earth. Such a chasm, however
vast it were, could be traversed with no diffi-
culty by a disembodied intelligence ; since
intelligence can in no time 7 be wherever it will.

What then, I asked, are the fire and the gulf
and the other features in the picture? Are
they not that which they are said to be ?

I think, she replied, that the Gospel signifies
by means of each of them certain doctrines with
regard to our question of the soul. For when
the patriarch first says to the Rich Man, "Thou
in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things," and
in the same way speaks of the Poor Man, that
he, namely, has done his duty in bearing his
share of life's evil things, and then, after that,
adds with regard to the gulf that it is a barrier
between them, he evidently by such expressions
intimates a very important truth ; and, to my
thinking, it is as follows. Once man's life had
but one character ; and by that I mean that it
was to be found only in the category of the
good and had no contact with evil. The first
of God's commandments attests the truth of
this ; that, namely, which gave to man unstinted
enjoyment of all the blessings of Paradise, for-
bidding only that which was a mixture of good
and evil and so composed of contraries, but
making death the penalty for transgressing in
that particular. But man, acting freely by a
voluntary impulse, deserted the lot that was
unmixed with evil, and drew upon himself that
which was a mixture of contraries. Yet Divine
Providence did not leave that recklessness of
ours without a corrective. Death indeed, as
the fixed penalty for breaking the law, neces-
sarily fell upon its transgressors ; but God
divided the life of man into two parts, namely,
this present life, and that "out of the body"
hereafter; and He placed on the first a limit
•of the briefest possible time, while He pro-
longed the other into eternity ; and in His love

7 axpovuii;.

for man He gave him his choice, to have the
one or the other of those things, good or evil, I
mean, in which of the two parts he liked : either
in this short and transitory life, or in those end-
less ages, whose limit is infinity. Now these
expressions " good " and " evil " are equivocal ;
they are used in two senses, one relating to
mind and the other to sense ; some classify
as good whatever is pleasant to feeling : others
are confident that only that which is perceptible
by intelligence is good and deserves that name.
Those, then, whose reasoning powers have
never been exercised and who have never had
a glimpse of the better way soon use up on
gluttony in this fleshly life the dividend of good
which their constitution can claim, and they
reserve none of it for the after life ; but those
who by a discreet and sober-minded calculation
economize the powers of living are afflicted by
things painful to sense here, but they reserve
their good for the succeeding life, and so their
happier lot is lengthened out to last as long as
that eternal life. This, in my opinion, is the
"gulf"; which is not made by the parting of
the earth, but by those decisions in this life
which result in a separation into opposite char-
acters. The man who has once chosen pleasure
in this life, and has not cured his inconsiderate-
ness by repentance, places the land of the good
beyond his own reach ; for he has dug against
himself the yawning impassable abyss of a
necessity that nothing can break through. This
is the reason, I think, that the name of Abra-
ham's bosom is given to that good situation of
the soul in which Scripture makes the athlete
of endurance repose. For it is related of this
patriarch first, of all up to that time born, that
he exchanged the enjoyment of the present for
the hope of the future ; he was stripped of all
the surroundings in which his life at first was
passed, and resided amongst foreigners, and
thus purchased by present annoyance future
blessedness. As then figuratively 8 we call a
particular circuit of the ocean a " bosom," so
does Scripture seem to me to express the idea
of those measureless blessings above by the
word " bosom," meaning a place into which all
virtuous voyagers of this life are, when they
have put in from hence, brought to anchor in
the waveless harbour of that gulf of blessings 9.
Meanwhile the denial of these blessings which
they witness becomes in the others a flame,
which burns the soul and causes the craving for
the refreshment of one drop out of that ocean
of blessings wherein the saints are affluent ;
which nevertheless they do not get. If, too,

8 £k KaTaxprjo-ecuf tii/os ! not, as usually, "' by a misuse of words."

9 There is an anacolmhon here, for ra aya.8w koKttw follow* <L
above ; designed no doubt to bring the things compared mo e
closely together. Oehler, however, would join ayiidm with the
relative, and translates as if to> = xal.

448

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

you consider the " tongue," and the " eye," and
the "finger," and the other namer of bodily
organs, which occur in the conversation between
those disembodied souls, you will be persuaded
that this conjecture of ours about them chimes
in with the opinion we have already stated
about the soul. Look closely into the meaning
of those words. For as the concourse of atoms
forms the substance of the entire body, so it is
reasonable to think that the same cause oper-
ates to complete the substance of each member
of the body. If, then, the soul is present with
the atoms of the body when they are again
mingled with the universe, it will not only be
cognizant of the entire mass which once came
together to form the whole body, and will be
present with it, but, besides that, will not fail
to know the particular materials of each one
of the members, so as to remember by what
divisions amongst the atoms our limbs were
completely formed. There is, then, nothing
improbable in supposing that what is present
\ in the complete mass is present also in each
^ division of the mass. If one, then, thinks
of those atoms in which each detail of the
body potentially inheres, and surmises that
Scripture means a "finger" and a "tongue"
and an "eye" and the rest as existing, after
dissolution, only in the sphere of the soul, one
will not miss the probable truth. Moreover, if
each detail carries the mind away from a material
acceptation of the story, surely the " hell " which
we have just been speaking of cannot reason-
ably be thought a place so named ; rather we
are there told by Scripture about a certain un-
seen and immaterial situation in which the soul
resides. In this story of the. Rich and the Poor
Man we are taught another doctrine also, which
is intimately connected with our former dis-
coveries. The story makes the sensual pleasure-
loving man, when he sees that his own case is
one that admits of no escape, evince forethought
for his relations on earth ; and when Abraham
tells him that the life of those still in the flesh
is not unprovided with a guidance, for they
may find it at hand, if they will, in the Law
and the Prophets, he still continues entreating
that Just » Patriarch, and asks that a sudden
and convincing message, brought by some one
risen from the dead, may be sent to them.

What then, I asked, is the doctrine here ?

Why, seeing that Lazarus' soul is occupied 2
with his present blessings and turns round to
look at nothing that he has left, while the rich
man is still attached, with a cement as it were,
even after death, to the life of feeling, which he
does not divest himself of even when he has

* rbv SCxaiov. Most of Krabinger's Codd. read iw w\ov<riov.
2 is occupied with Itis present blessings (acrvoAos tois irtipovaiv) ;
surely not, with Oehler, " is not occupied with the present world " !

ceased to live, still keeping as he does flesh and
blood in his thoughts (for in his entreaty that
his kindred may be exempted from his suffer-
ings he plainly shows that he is not freed yet
from fleshly feeling), — in such details of the
story (she continued) I think our Lord teaches
us this ; that those still living in the flesh must
as much as ever they can separate and free
themselves in a way from its attachments by
virtuous conduct, in order that after death they
may not need a second death to cleanse them
from the remnants that are owing to this cement 3
of the flesh, and, when once the bonds are loosed
from around the soul, her soaring 4 up to the
Good may be swift and unimpeded, with no-
anguish of the body to distract her. For if any
one becomes wholly and thoroughly carnal in
thought, such an one, with every motion and
energy of the soul absorbed in fleshly desires,
is not parted from such attachments, even in
the disembodied state ;'■ just as those who have
lingered long in noisome places do not part
with the unpleasantness contracted by that
lengthened stay, even when they pass into a
sweet atmosphere. So5 it is that, when the
change is made into the impalpable Unseen,
not even then will it be possible for the lovers
of the flesh to avoid dragging away with them
under any circumstances some fleshly foulness ;
and thereby their torment will be intensified,
their soul having been materialized by such sur-
roundings. I think too that this view of the
matter harmonizes to a certain extent with the
assertion made by some persons that around
their graves shadowy phantoms of the departed
are often seen 6. If this is really so, an inordin-
ate attachment of that particular soul to the life
in the flesh is proved to have existed, causing
it to be unwilling, even when expelled from the
flesh, to fly clean away and to admit the com-

3 ledXAr)?. The metaphor is Platonic. " The soul . . . abso-
lutely bound and glued to the body " (Phado, p. 82 E).

4 her soaring. Plato first spoke [Phadrus, p. 248 C) of "that
growth of wing, by which the soul is lifted." Once these natural'
wings can get expanded, her flight upwards is a matter of course.
This image is reproduced by Plotinus p. 769 A (end of Enneads) ;
Libanius, Pro Socrate, p. 258 ; Synesius, De Providentid, p. 90 D,
and Hymn i. 111, where he speaks of the oAfia Kov<f>ov of the soul,
and Hymn iii. 42. But there is mixed here with the idea of a flight
upwards (i. e. avaSpo/jir)), that of the running-ground as well (cf.
Greg. De scope Christian. III. p. 299, tois ttjs aperijs Spojiois),
which, as sanctioned in the New Testament, Chrysostom so often
uses. 5 out<u? answers to Ka0dnep, not to <os above.

6 shadowy phantoms 0/ the departed are often >een. Cf. Origen
C. Cels. ii. 60 (in answer to Celsus' " Epicurean " opinion that ghosts
are pure illusion): "He who does believe this (1. e. in ghosts)
necessarily believes in the immortality, or at all events the long
continuance of the soul : as Plato does in his treatise on the soul
(/. e. the Phcedo) when he says that the shadowy apparitions of the
dead hover round their tombs. These apparitions, then, have some
substance: it is the so-called 'radiant' frame in which the soul
exists. But Celsus, not liking this, would have us believe that
people have waking dreams and ' imagine as true, in accordance
with their wishes, a wild piece of unreality.' In sleep we may well
believe that this is the case : not so in waking hours, unless some
one is quite out of his senses, or is melancholy mad." But Origen
here quotes Plato in connection with the reality of the Resurrection
body of Christ ; Gregory refers to ghosts only, with regard to the
<pi.\o(Tw(iaT0i, whose whole condition after death he represents very
much in Plato's words. See Phwdo, p. 81 B.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

4<; 9

plete change of its form into the impalpable ; it
remains near the frame even after the dissolution
of the frame, and though now outside it, hovers
regretfully over the place where its material is,
and continues to haunt it.

Then, after a moment's reflection on the
meaning of these latter words, I said : I think
that a contradiction now arises between what
you have said and the result of our former
examination of the passions. For if, on the
one hand, the activity of such movements within
us is to be held as arising from our kinship with
the brutes, such movements I mean as were
enumerated in our previous discussion 7, anger,
for instance, and fear, desire of pleasure, and so
on, and, on the other hand, it was affirmed that
virtue consists in the good employment of these
movements, and vice in their bad employment,
and in addition to this we discussed the actual
contribution of each of the other passions to a
virtuous life, and found that through desire
above all we are brought nearer God, drawn
up, by its chain as it were, from earth towards
Him, — I think (I said) that that part of the
discussion is in a way opposed to that which
we are now aiming at.
How so ? she asked.

Why, when every unreasoning instinct is
quenched within us after our purgation, this
principle of desire will not exist any more than
the other principles ; and this being removed,
it looks as if the striving after the better way
would also cease, no other emotion remaining
in the soul that can stir us up to the appetence
of Good.

To that objection, she replied, we answer
this. The speculative and critical faculty is
fthe property of the soul's godlike part ; for it is
\by these that we grasp the Deity also. If, then,
whether by forethought here, or by purgation
hereafter, our soul becomes free from any emo-
tional connection with the brute creation, there
will be nothing to impede its contemplation of
the Beautiful ; for this last is essentially capable
of attracting in a certain way every being that
looks towards it. If, then, the soul is purified
of every vice, it will most certainly be in the
sphere of Beauty. The Deity is in very sub-
stance Beautiful ; and to the Deity the soul will
/in its state of purity have affinity, and will em-
I brace It as like itself. Whenever this happens,
\\then, there will be no longer need of the im-
pulse of Desire to lead the way to the Beautiful.
Whoever passes his time in darkness, he it is
who will be under the influence of a desire for
the light; but whenever he comes into the
light, then enjoyment takes the place of desire,
and the power to enjoy renders desire useless

7 irpo\a.f}u)v ; on the authority of five Codd. , for npo<r\a.fiu>v.

VOL. V. G G

arul out of date. It will therefore be no detri-
ment to our participation in the Good, that the
soul should be free from such emotions, and
turning back upon herself should know herself
accurately what her actual nature is, and should
behold the Original Beauty reflected in the
mirror and in the figure of her own beauty.
For truly herein consists the real assimilation
to the Divine ; viz. in making our own life in
some degree a copy of the Supreme Being.
For a Nature like that, which transcends all
thought and is far removed from all that we
observe within ourselves, proceeds in its exist-
ence in a very different manner to what we do
in this present life. Man, possessing a con-
stitution whose law it is to be moving, is carried
in that particular direction whither the impulse
of his will directs : and so his soul is not affected
in the same way towards what lies before it 8,
as one may say, as to what it has left behind ;
for hope leads the forward movement, but it is
memory that succeeds that movement when it
has advanced to the attainment of the hope ;
and if it is to something intrinsically good that
hope thus leads on the soul, the print that this
exercise of the will leaves upon the memory is
a bright one ; but if hope has seduced the soul
with some phantom only of the Good, and the
excellent way has been missed, then the memory
that succeeds what has happened becomes
shame, and an intestine war is thus waged in
the soul between memory and hope, because
the last has been such a bad leader of the will.
Such in fact is the state of mind that shame
gives expression to ; the soul is stung as it were
at the result ; its remorse for its ill-considered
attempt is a whip that makes it feel to the quick,
and it would bring in oblivion to its aid against
its tormentor. Now in our case nature, owing
to its being indigent of the Good, is aiming
always at this which is still wanting to it, and
this aiming at a still missing thing is this very
habit of Desire, which our constitution displays /
equally, whether it is baulked of the real Good,
or wins that which it is good to win. But a
nature that surpasses every idea that we can
form of the Good and transcends all other
power, being in no want of anything that can
be regarded as good, is itself the plenitude cf
every good ; it does not move in the sphere of
the good by way of participation in it only, but
it is itself the substance of the Good (whatever
we imagine the Good to be) ; it neither gives
scope for any rising hope (for hope manifests
activity in the direction of something absent ;
but "what a man has, why doth he yet hope
for ? " as the Apostle asks), nor is it in want of
the activity of the memory for the knowledge

8 «aTo to tjiirpoafltv avrqs.

45o

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

of things; that which is actually seen has no
need of being remembered. Since, then, this
Divine nature is beyond any particular good 9,
and to the good the good is an object of love,
it follows that when It looks within Itself1, It
wishes for what It contains and contains that
which It wishes, and admits nothing external.
Indeed there is nothing external to It, with the
sole exception of evil, which, strange as it may
seem to say, possesses an existence in not
existing at all. For there is no other origin of
evil except the negation of the existent, and
the truly-existent forms the substance of the
Good. That therefore which is not to be found
in the existent must be in the non-existent.
Whenever the soul, then, having divested itself
of the multifarious emotions incident to its
nature, gets its Divine form and, mounting above
Desire, enters within that towards which it was
once incited by that Desire, it offers no harbour
within itself either for hope or for memory. It
holds the object of the one ; the other is ex-
truded from the consciousness by the occupa-
tion in enjoying all that is good : and thus the
soul copies the life that is above, and is con-
formed to the peculiar features of the Divine
nature ; none of its habits are left to it except
that of love, which clings by natural affinity to
the Beautiful. For this is what love is ; the
inherent affection towards a chosen object.
When, then, the soul, having become simple
and single in form and so perfectly godlike,
finds that perfectly simple and immaterial good
which is really worth enthusiasm and love 2, it
attaches itself to it and blends with it by means
of the movement and activity of love, fashioning
itself according to that which it is continually
finding and grasping. Becoming by this as-
similation to the Good all that the nature of
that which it participates is, the soul will con-
sequently, owing to there being no lack of any
good in that thing itself which it participates,
be itself also in no lack of anything, and so will
'.expel from within the activity and the habit of
IlDesire ; for this arises only when the thing missed
is not found. For this teaching we have the
authority of God's own Apostle, who announces
a subduing3 and aceasing of all other activities,
even for the good, which are within us, and finds
no limit for love alone. Prophecies, he says,
shall fail ; forms of knowledge shall cease ; but
" charity never faileth ;" which is equivalent to its
being always as it is : and though * he says that

' any particular good, not as Oehler, "jenseits alles Guten."
The Divine Being is the complement, not the negation, of each
single good.

ev eavrfj fik4irov<Ta. But Augentius and Sifanus seem to have
read tavrnv : and this is supported by three Codd.

2 t6 p.ovov tu> 6iti ayairqiov Kat epd<7p.L0v.

3 (taTaoToAiji/. Cf. i Cor. xiii. 8 — 13.

* Schmidt well remarks that there lies in \eyoiv here not a causal
but only a concessive force : and he puts a stop before eixoTUK.

faith and hope have endured so far by the side
of love, yet again he prolongs its date beyond
theirs, and with good reason too ; for hope is
in operation only so long as the enjoyment of
the things hoped for is not to be had ; and
faith in the same way is a support5 in the un-
certainty about the things hoped for ; for so he
defines it — "the substance6 of things hoped
for " ; but when the thing hoped for actually
comes, then all other faculties are reduced to
quiescence 7, and love alone remains active, find-
ing nothing to succeed itself. Love, therefore,
is the foremost of all excellent achievements and
the first of the commandments of the law. If
ever, then, the soul reach this goal, it will be in
no need of anything else ; it will embrace that
plenitude of things which are, whereby alone 8
it seems in any way to preserve within itself the
stamp of God's actual blessedness. For the
life of the Supreme Being is love, seeing that
the Beautiful is necessarily lovable to those
who recognize it, and the Deity does recognize
it, and so this recognition becomes love, that
which He recognizes being essentially beautiful.
This True Beauty the insolence of satiety
cannot touch ° ; and no satiety interrupting this
continuous capacity to love the Beautiful, God's
life will have its activity in love ; which life is
thus in itself beautiful, and is essentially of a
loving disposition towards the Beautiful, and
receives no check to this activity of love. In
fact, in the Beautiful no limit is to be found so
that love should have to cease with any limit of
the Beautiful. This last can be ended only by
its opposite ; but when you have a good, as
here, which is in its essence incapable of a
change for the worse, then that good will go on
unchecked into infinity. Moreover, as every
being is capable of attracting its like, and
humanity is, in a way, like God, as bearing within
itself some resemblances to its Prototype, the
soul is by a strict necessity attracted to the
kindred Deity. In fact what belongs to God
must by all means and at any cost be preserved

Oehler has not seen that aydwt] is governed by the preposition aiiv
in the verb " by the side of love," and quite mistranslates the
passage.

5 epei<Tjaa. * iWotTTOTH. Heb. xi I.

7 reduced to quiescence, aTptp.ovvTtov. This is the reading
adopted by Krabinger, from four Codd., instead of the vox nihili of the
editions, e>' TT)pe|uoi/Tu>i/ The contrast must be between " remaining
in activity (evepyeia)." and " becoming idle," and he quotes a
passage from Plotimts to show that arpeixelv has exactly this latter
sense. Cf. 1 Cor. xiii. 8, 10, Karapyrft-riaovTai., Karopyr)S-q<mai.

8 -whereby alone, xaff 6 Sokci p.6vov ttus avTrjs, k. t. A, the
reading of Sifanus.

9 the insolence of satiety cannot touch. Krabinger quotes from
two of his Codd. a scholium to this effect : " Then this proves to l>e
nonsense what Origen has imaeined about the satiety of minds, and
their consequent fall and recall, on which he bases his notorious
teaching about the pre existence and restoration of souls that are
always revolving in end'ess motion, determined as he is, Uke a re-
tailer of evil, to mingle the Grecian myths with the Church's truth."
Gregory, more sober in his idealism, certainly does not follow op
this point his great Master. The phrase i)Ppi<rri)s icdpos is used by
Gregory Naz. also in his Poems (p. 32 A), and may have been
suggested to both by some poet, now lost. " Familiarity breeds
contempt" is the modern equivalent.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

451

for Him. If, then, on the one hand, the soul
is unencumbered with superfluities and no
trouble connected with the body presses it down,
its advance towards Him Who draws it to
Himself is sweet and congenial. But suppose ',
on the other hand, that it has been transfixed
with the nails of propension -' so as to be held
down to a habit connected with material things,
— a case like that of those in the ruins caused
by earthquakes, whose bodies are crushed by the
mounds of rubbish ; and let us imagine by way
of illustration that these are not only pressed
down by the weight of the ruins, but have been
pierced as well with some spikes and splinters
discovered with them in the rubbish. What,
then, would naturally be the plight of those
bodies, when they were being dragged by rela-
tives from the ruins to receive the holy rites of
burial, mangled and torn entirely, disfigured
in the most direful manner conceivable, with
the nails beneath the heap harrowing them by
the very violence necessary to pull them out ? —
Such I think is the plight of the soul as well,
when the Divine force, for God's very love of
man, drags that which belongs to Him from the
ruins of the irrational and material. Not in
hatred or revenge for a wicked life, to my
thinking, does God bring upon sinners those
painful dispensations ; He is only claiming and
drawing to Himself whatever, to please Him,
came into existence. But while He for a noble
end is attracting the soul to Himself, the Foun-
tain of all Blessedness, it is the occasion neces-
sarily to the being so attracted of a state of
torture. Just as those who refine gold from the
dross which it contains not only get this base
alloy to melt in the fire, but are obliged to
melt the pure gold along with the alloy, and
then while this last is being consumed the gold
remains, so, while evil is being consumed in the
purgatorial 3 fire, the soul that is welded to this
evil must inevitably be in the fire too, until the
spurious material alloy is consumed and an-
nihilated by this fire. If a clay of the more
tenacious kind is deeply plastered round a rope,
and then the end of the rope is put through a
narrow hole, and then some one on the further
side violently pulls it by that end, the result
must be that, while the rope itself obeys the

1 But suppose, &c. Moller [Gregorii doctrina de horn, natur.,
p 99) shows that the following view of Purgatory is not that taught
by the Roman Church.

2 by the nails of profusion. This metaphor is frequently used
by Gregory. Cf. De Virginit. c 5 : " How can the soul which is
riveted (;rpocr7)A.co0eicra) to the pleasures of the flesh, and busied with
merely human longings, turn a disengaged eye upon its kindred
intellectual light?" So De Beatitud. Or. vtii. (I. p. 833), &c.

3 purgatorial, Ka.0a.paiu>. Five of Krabinger's Codd. and the
versions i( Augentiusand Srfanus approve this reading. That of the
Editions is d<cot/a>}Tu> . [This last epithet is applied to God's justice
(6tKJ)) by Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. 90 : and to the " worm," and, on
the other hand, the Devil, by Cyril Alexand. Act. Ephes., p. 252. Cf.
S. Math. iii. 12 ; S. Mark ix. 48.] It is the same with aiutvCtti before
irupi just below. The Editions have it ; the Codd and Latin v ;rsions
have not : Krabinger therefore has not hesitated to expunge L

force exerted, the clay that has been plastered
upon it is scraped off it with this violent pulling
and is left outside the hole, and, moreover, is
the cause why the rope does not run easily
through the passage, but has to undergo a
violent tension at the hands of the puller. In
such a manner, I think, we may figure to our-
selves the agonized struggle of that soul which
has wrapped itself up in earthy material passions,
when God is drawing it, His own one, co Him-
self, and the foreign matter, which has somehow
grown into its substance, has to be scraped
from it by main force, and so occasions it
that keen intolerable anguish.

Then it seems, I said, that it is not punish-
ment chiefly and principally that the Deity, as
Judge, afflicts sinners with; but He operates,
as your argument has shown, only to get the
good separated from the evil and to attract it
into the communion of blessedness.

That, said the Teacher, is my meaning j and
also that the agony will be measured by the
amount of evil there is in each individual. For
it would not be reasonable to think that the
man who has remained so long as we have /
supposed in evil known to be forbidden, and,
the man who has fallen only into moderate sins,
should be tortured to the same amount in the
judgment upon their vicious habit; but accord-
ing to the quantity of material will be the longer
or shorter time that that agonizing flame will be
burning ; that is, as long as there is fuel to feed it.
In the case of the man who has acquired a heavy
weight of material, the consuming fire must
necessarily be very searching ; but where that
which the fire has to feed upon * has spread less
far, there the penetrating fierceness of the
punishment is mitigated, so far as the subject
itself, in the amount of its evil, is diminished.
In any and every case evil must be removed
out of existence, so that, as we said above,
the absolutely non-existent should cease to
be at all. Since it is not in its nature that
evil should exist outside the will, does it not'
follow that when it shall be that every will
rests in God, evil will be reduced to complete,
annihilation, owing to no receptacle being left!
for it?

But, said I, what help can one find in this
devout hope, when one considers the greatness
of the evil in undergoing torture even for a
single year ; and if that intolerable anguish be
prolonged for the interval of an age, what grain
of comfort is left from any subsequent expect-
ation to him whose purgation is thus commen-
surate with an entire age ? 5

4 r> tov Trvpo? Sa.ira.vj These words can have no other meaning
to suit the sense. Krabinger's reproduction of Sifanus' Latin, " ignis
ille consumens," makes the sentence a tautology.

5 npoi SAov auii/a. But cf. Plato, J imaus, 37, 39 D.

G G 2

452

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

Why6, either we must plan to keep the
soul absolutely untouched and free from any
slain of evil ; or, if our passionate nature makes
that quite impossible, then we must plan
that our failvres in excellence consist only in
mild and easily-curable derelictions. For the
Gospel in its teaching distinguishes between 7 a
debtor of ten thousand talents and a debtor of
five hundred pence, and of fifty pence and of
a farthing8, which is "the uttermost" of coins; it
proclaims that God's just judgment reaches to
all, and enhances the payment necessary as the
weight of the debt increases, and on the other
hand does not overlook the very smallest debts.
But the Gospel tells us that this payment of
debts was not effected by the refunding of money,
but that the indebted man was delivered to the
tormentors until he should pay the whole debt ;
and that means nothing else than paying in the
coin of torment 9 the inevitable recompense, the
recompense, I mean, that consists in taking the
share of pain incurred during his lifetime, when
he inconsiderately chose mere pleasure, un-
diluted with its opposite ; so that having put off
from him all that foreign growth which sin is,
and discarded the shame of any debts, he might
stand in liberty and fearlessness. Now liberty
is the coming up to a state which owns no
master and is self-regulating " ; it is that with
which we were gifted by God at the beginning,
but which has been obscured by the feeling of
shame arising from indebtedness. Liberty too
is in all cases one and the same essentially ; it
has a natural attraction to itself. It follows,
then, that as everything that is free will be
united with its like, and as virtue is a thing that
has no master, that is, is free, everything that is
free will be united with virtue. But, further,
the Divine Being is the fountain of all virtue.

* Macrina's answer must begin here, though the Paris Editt.
take no notice of a break. Krabinuer on the authority of one of his
Cdld. has inserted tyno'iv r) SifidoxaAos after irpovoT)T(ov.

7 distinguishes between. The word here is ol&ev, which is used
of " teaching." " telling," after the fashion of the later Greek
writers, in making a quotation.

8 of a ft rt king. No mention is made of this in the Parable
(S. Matt, xviii. 23; S. Luke vii 41). The "uttermost farthing"
of S. Matt. v. 26 does not apply here.

' Sia T>js fSacravov. Of course Sia cannot go with 6<j>fiKr)i>, though
Krabinger translates "per tormenta debita." He has however,
with Oehler, pointed the Greek right, so as to take o<J>Arj(xa as in
opposition to 6</>eiAfj»'.

1 a state which owns no master and is self -regulating, &c.
He repeats this, De Horn. Opif. c. 4 : " For the soul immediately
shows its royal and exalted character, far removed from the lowli-
ness of private station, in that it owns no master, and is self-governed,
swayed autocratically by its own will, — for to whom else does this
belong than to a king ?" and c. 16 : " Thus, there is in us the principle
of all excellence, all virtue, and every higher thing that we conceive :
but pre-e ninent among all is the fact that we are free from necessity,
and not in bondag to any natural force, but have decision in our
power as we please : for virtue is a voluntary thing;, subject to no
dominion :" and Oral. Catech. c. 5 : "Was it not, then, most right
that that which is in every detail made like the Divine should
possess in its nature a self-ruling and independent principle, such as
to enable the participation of the good to be the reward of its virtue ? "
It would be possible to quote similar language from the Neoplato-
nists (e. g. Plotinus vi. 83-6) : but Gregory learnt the whole bearing
and meaning of moral liberty from none but Origen, whose so-called
"heresies " all flowed from his constant insistence on its reality.

Therefore, those who have parted with evil will
be united with Him ; and so, as the Apostle
says, God will be " all in all 2 " ; for this utter-
ance seems to me plainly to confirm the opinion
we have already arrived at, for it means that
God will be instead of all other things, and
in all. For while our present life is active
amongst a variety of multiform conditions, and
the things we have relations with are numerous,
for instance, time, air, locality, food and drink,
clothing, sunlight, lamplight, and other neces-
sities of life, none of which, many though they
be, are God, — that blessed state which we hope
for is in need of none of these things, but the
Divine Being will become all, and instead of all,
to us, distributing Himself proportionately to
every need of that existence. It is plain, too,
from the Holy Scripture that God becomes, to
those who deserve it, locality, and home, and
clothing, and food, and drink, and light, and
riches, and dominion, and everything thinkable
and nameable that goes to make our life happy.
But He that becomes "all" things will be "in
all " things too ; and herein it appears to me
that Scripture teaches the complete annihilation
of evil 3. If, that is, God will be "in all" existing
things, evil, plainly, will not then be amongst
them ; for if any one was to assume that it did
exist then, how will the belief that God will be
" in all " be kept intact ? The excepting of that
one thing, evil, mars the comprehensiveness of

8 This (1 Cor. xv. 28) is a text much handled by the earlier Greek
Fathers. Origen especially has made it one of the Scripture found-
ations upon which he has built up theology. This passage in Gregory-
should be compared with the following in Origen, c. Cels. iv. 69,
where he has been speaking of evil and its origin, and its disappear-
ance : " God checks the wider spread of evil, and banishes it alto-
gether in a way that is conducive to the good of the whole. Whether
or not there is reason to believe that after the banishment of evil 11
will again appear is a separate question. By later corrections, then.
God does put right some defects : for although in the creation of the
whole all the work was fair and strong, nevertheless a certain heal-
ing process is needed for those whom evil has infected, and for the
world itself which it has as it were tainted ; and God is never
negligent in interfering on certain occasions in a way suitable to a
changeful and alterable world." &c. " He is like a husbandman
perlorming different work at different times upon the land, for a
final harvest." Also viii. 72: "This subject requires much study
and demonstration : still a few things must and shall be said at once
tending to show that it is not only possible, but an actual truth, that
every bung that reasons 'shall agree in one law (quoting Celsus'
words) Now while the Stoics hold that when the strongest of the
elements has by its nature prevailed over the rest, there shall be the
Conflagration, when all things will fall into the fire, we hold that
the Word shall some day master the whole of 'reasoning nature,'
and shall transfigure it to its own perfection, when each with pure
spontaneity shall will what it wishes, and act what it wills. We hold
that there is no analogy to be drawn from the case of bodily diseases,
and wounds, where some things are beyond the power of any art of
healing. We do not hold that there are any of the results of sin
which the universal Word, and the universal God, cannot heal.
The healing power of the Word is greater than any of the maladies
of the soul, and, according to the will. He does draw it to Himself :
and so the aim of things is that evil should be annihilated : whether
with no possibility whatever of the soul ever turning to it again, is
foreign to the present discussion. It is sufficient now to quote
Zephaniah " (iii. 7 — 13, LXX.).

3 But, when A. Jahn, as quoted by Krabinger, asserts that
Gregory and Origen derived their denial of the eternity of punish-
ment from a source " merely extraneous," i. e. the Platonists, we
must not forget that Plato himself in the Phado, 113 F (cf. also
Gorgias. 525 C, and Republic, x. 615), expressly teaches the eternity
of punishment hereafter, for he uses there not the word aiuiv or
aiwet'of, but ouitotc. They were influenced rather by the later
Platonists.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

453

the term " all." But He that will be " in all "
I will never be in that which does not exist.

What then, I asked, are we to say to those
whose hearts fail at these calamities4?

We will say to them, replied the Teacher,
this. "It is foolish, good people, for you to
fret and complain of the chain of this fixed
sequence of life's realities ; you do not know
the goal towards which each single dispensation
of the universe is moving. You do not know
that all things have to be assimilated to the
Divine Nature in accordance with the artistic
plan of their author, in a certain regularity and
order. Indeed, it was for this that intelligent
beings came into existence ; namely, that the
riches of the Divine blessings should not lie
idle. The All-creating Wisdom fashioned these
souls, these receptacles with free wills, as vessels
I as it were, for this very purpose, that there
\ should be some capacities able to receive His
[blessings and become continually larger with
the inpouring of the stream. Such are the
wonders s that the participation in the Divine
blessings works : it makes him into whom they
come larger and more capacious ; from his
capacity to receive it gets for the receiver an
actual increase in bulk as well, and he never
stops enlarging. The fountain of blessings wells
up unceasingly, and the partaker's nature, find-
ing nothing superfluous and without a use in
that which it receives, makes the whole influx
an enlargement of its own proportions, and be-
comes at once more wishful to imbibe the
nobler nourishment and more capable of con-
taining it ; each grows along with each, both
the capacity which is nursed in such abund-
ance of blessings and so grows greater, and
the nurturing supply which comes on in a
flood answering to the growth of those in-
creasing powers. It is likely, therefore, that
this bulk will mount to such a magnitude as6
there is no limit to check, so that we should
not grow into it. With such a prospect
before us, are you angry that our nature is ad-

4 Reading <rvf*<J>opais, i. e. death especially.

5 Such are the wonders. There is here, Denys (De la Philo-
sophic a" Origene, p. 48.1) remarks, a great difference between
Gregory and Origen. Both speak of an " eternal sabbath," which
willend the circle ot our destinies. But Origen, after all the progress
and peregrinations of the soul, which he loves to describe, estab-
lishes " the reasoning nature '* at last in an unchangeable quiet and
repose ; while Gregory sets before the soul an endless career of
perfections and ever-inc easing happiness. This is owing to their
different conceptions of the Deity. ' >rigen cannot understand how
He can know Himself or be accessible to our thought, if He is
Infinite: Gregory on the contrary conceives Him as Infinite, as
beyond all real or imaginable boundaries, iraarijs Trepiypa^rjs «ktos
(Oral. Cat. viii. 65) ; this is the modern, rather than the Greek
view. In the following description of the life eternal Gregory
hardly merits the censure of Ritter that he " introduces absurdity
into it.

6 such a magnitude as. Reading, e<p' '6, with Schmidt. The
"limit" is the present body, which must be laid aside in order to
cease to be a hindrance to such a growth. Krabinger reads e<f> &v
on the authority of six Codd., and translates "ii in quibus nullus
terminus interrumpit incrementum." But toctovtov can answer to
nothing before, a-i manifestly refers to the relative clause.

vancing to its goal along the path appointed for
us ? Why, our career cannot be run thither-
ward, except that which weighs us down, I
mean this encumbering load of earthiness, be
shaken off the soul ; nor can we be domiciled
in Purity with the corresponding part of our
nature, unless we have cleansed ourselves by a
better training from the habit of affection which
we have contracted in life towards this earthi-
ness. But if there be in you any clinging to this
body7, and the being unlocked from this darling
thing give you pain, let not this, either, make
you despair. You will behold this bodily en-
velopment, which is now dissolved in death,
woven again out of the same atoms, not indeed
into this organization with its gross and heavy
texture, but with its threads worked up into
something more subtle and ethereal, so that
you will not only have near you that which you
love, but it will be restored to you with a brighter l
and more entrancing beauty 8."

But it somehow seems to me now, I said,
that the doctrine of the Resurrection necessarily
comes on for our discussion ; a doctrine which
1 think is even at first sight true as well as
credible 9, as it is told us in Scripture ; so that
that will not come in question between us :
but gince the weakness of the human under-
standing is strengthened still farther by any
arguments that are intelligible to us, it would
be well not to leave this part of the subject,
either, without philosophical examination. Let
us consider, then, what ought to be said about
it.
C-As for the thinkers, the Teacher went on,
outside our own system of thought, they have,
with all their diverse ways of looking at things,
one in one point, another in another, approached
and touched the doctrine of the Resurrection :
while they none of them exactly coincide with us,
they have in no case wholly abandoned such an
expectation. Some indeed make human nature
vile in their comprehensiveness, maintaining
that a soul becomes alternately that of a man
and of something irrational ; that it trans-
migrates into various bodies, changing at pleasure
from the man into fowl, fish, or beast, and
then returning to human kind. While some
extend this absurdity even to trees x and shrubs,

7 Macrina may be here alluding to Gregory's brotherly affectioD
for her.

8 But on high
A record lives of thine identity !

Thou shalt not lose one charm of lip or eye ;
The hues and liquid lights shall wait for thee,
And the fair tissues, whereso'er they be !
Daughter of heaven ! our grieving hearts repose
On the dear thought that we once more shall see
Thy beauty — like Himself our Master rose.

C. Tennyson Turner. — Anastasu.

9 iStiv . . . 'iva. (Lr\ a/u.$i/3aAAT). This is the reading of the Paris
Editt. : iStiv seems to go closely with oAtjOcj : so that Krabinger s
Setf is not absolutely necessary.

1 some extend this absurdity even to trees : Empedocles for
instance Cf. Philosophumena (of Hippolytus, falsely attributed to

454

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

so that they consider their wooden life as cor-
responding and akin to humanity, others of
them hold only thus much — that the soul ex-
changes one man for another man, so that the
life of humanity is continued always by means
of the same souls, which, being exactly the
same in number, are being born perpetually
first in one generation, then in another. As
for ourselves, we take our stand upon the
tenets of the Church, and assert that it will
be well to accept only so much of these
speculations as is sufficient to show that those
who indulge in them are to a certain extent
in accord with the doctrine of the Resur-
rection. Their statement, for instance, that the
soul after its release from this body insinu-
ates itself into certain other bodies is not abso-
lutely out of harmony with the revival which we
hope for. For our view, which maintains that
the body, both now, and again in the future, is
composed of the atoms of the universe, is held
equally by these heathens. In fact, you cannot
imagine any constitution of the body independ-
ent of a concourse 2 of these atoms. But the
divergence lies in this : we assert that the same
bodyagainas before, composed of the sameatoms,
is compacted around the soul ; they suppose
that the soul alights on other bodies, not only
rational, but irrational and even insensate ; and
while all are agreed that these bodies which the
soul resumes derive their substance from the
atoms of the universe, they part company from
us in thinking that they are not made out of
identically the same atoms as those which in
this mortal life grew around the soul. Let,
then, this external testimony stand for the
fact that it is not contrary to probability that
the soul should again inhabit a body ; after that,
however, it is incumbent upon us to make a
survey of the inconsistencies of their position,
and it will be easy thus, by means of the conse-
quences that arise as we follow out the consist-

Origen), p. 50. where two lines of his are quoted. Chrysostom's
words (I iv. p. 196), "There are those amongst them who carry
souls into plants, into shrubs, and into dogs," are taken by Matthaeus
10 refer to Empedocles. Cf. Celsus also (quoted in Origen, c. Cels.
viii. 5-;). "Seeing then men are born bound to a body — no matter
whether the economy of the world required this, or that they are
paying the penalty for some sin, or that the soul is weighted with
certain emotions till it is purified from them at the end of its destined
cycle, three myriad hours, according to Empedocles, being the
necessary period of its wanderings far away from the Hlessed Ones,
during which it passes successively into every perishable shape — we
must believe any way that there exist certain guardians of this
prison-house." See De Horn. Qpif. c. 28. Empedocles can be no
other, then, than " the philosopher who asserts that the same thing
may be born in anything : " below (p. 232 D). An.ixagoras, however,
seems to have indulged in the same dictum (ira-v iv n-ai/ri), but with
a difference: as Nicetas explains in his commentary on Gregory
Naz., Orations: "That everything is contained in everything
Empedocles asserted, and Anaxagoras asserted also: but not with
the same meaning. Empedocles said it of the four elements,
namelv, that they are not only divided and self-centred, but are also
mingle I with each other. 'I his is clear from the fact that every
an 1 1 11. 1 1 is engendere I by all four. But Anaxagoras, finding an old
proverb that nothing can be produced out of nothing, did away with
creation, anil introduced ' differentiation ' instead, &c." See also
Gre^. N.17., Poems, p. 1 70.
'* yv»>5pon.rjs.

ent view, to bring the truth to light. What,
then, is to be said about these theories ? This
that those who would have it that the soul
migrates into natures divergent from each other
seem to me to obliterate all natural distinctions;
to blend and confuse together, in every possible
respect, the rational, the irrational, the sentient,
and the insensate ; if, that is, all these are to
pass into each other, with no distinct natural
order ^ secluding them from mutual transition.
To say that one and the same soul, on account
of a particular environment of body, is at one
time a rational and intellectual soul, and that
then it is caverned along with the reptiles, or
herds with the birds, or is a beast of burden, or a
carnivorous one, or swims in the deep ; or even
drops down to an insensate thing, so as to strike
out roots or become a complete tree, producing
buds on branches, and from those buds a flower,
or a thorn, or a fruit edible or noxious — to say
this, is nothing short of making all things the
same and believing that one single nature runs
through all beings ; that there is a connexion
between them which blends and confuses hope-
lessly all the marks by which one could be dis-
tinguished from another. The philosopher who
asserts that the same thing may be born in any-
thing intends no less than that all things are to
be one ; when the observed differences in things
are for him no obstacle to mixing together things
which are utterly incongruous. He makes it
necessary that, even when one sees one of the
creatures that are venom-darting or carnivorous,
one should regard it, in spite of appearances, as
of the same tribe, nay even of the same family,
as oneself. With such beliefs a man will look
even upon hemlock as not alien to his own
nature, detecting, as he does, humanity in the
plant. The grape-bunch itself4, produced though
it be by cultivation for the purpose of sustaining
life, he will not regard without suspicion ; for it
too comes from a plant s : and we find even the
fruit of the ears of corn upon which we live are
plants ; how, then, can one put in the sickle to
cut them down ; and how can one squeeze the
bunch, or pull up the thistle from the field, or
gather flowers, or hunt birds, or set fire to the
logs of the funeral pyre : it being all the while

3 elpij.a>, i. e. as links in a chain which cannot be altered. Sifanus'
"carcere et clanstro " is due to eipyficp against all the MSS. Kra-
binger's six have fjioreixi^onei'a for 8ia<rrotxi£6jiei'a of the Eclitt.

* ovSe . . . toi/ (i'Wpvv. The intensitive need not surprise us,
though a grape-bunch does seem a more fitting body for a human
soul than a stalk of hemlock : It is explained by the sentence in
apposition, " produced . . . for the purpose of sustaining life," i, e.
it is eaten, and so a soul might be eaten ; which increases the horror.

5 Kti't. yap Kai o.vto<; rdv <^v^p.fvit>v e<TTiV, i. e. the iruit, and not
the tree only, belongs to the kingdom of plants . ijiura in the next
sentence is exactly equivalent to rd <£vo/nei>a, i. . plants. The
probability that this is the meaning is strengthened by Krabinger's
reading ourot, from five of his Codd. Hut still if ai'irbs be retained,
it might have been t ken to refer to the man who must needs look
suspiciously at a bunch of grapes ; " for what, according to this
theory, is he himself, but a vegetable !" since all things aie mixed,
n-airci ou.uu.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

455

uncertain whether we are not laying violent
hands on kinsmen, or ancestors, or fellow-
country-men, and whether it is not through the
medium of some body of theirs that the fire is
being kindled, and the cup mixed, and the food
prepared? To think that in the case of any
single one of these things a soul of a man has
become a plant or animal 6, while no marks are
stamped upon them to indicate what sort of
plant or animal it is that has been a man, and
what sort has sprung from other beginnings, —
such a conception as this will dispose him who
has entertained it to feel an equal amount of
interest in everything : he must perforce either
harden himself against actual human beings who
are in the land of the living, or, if his nature
inclines him to love his kindred, he will feel
alike towards every kind of life, whether he
meet it in reptiles or in wild beasts. Why, if
the holder of such an opinion go into a thicket
of trees, even then he will regard the trees as a
crowd of men. What sort of life will his be,
when he has to be tender towards everything
on the ground of kinship, or else hardened
towards mankind on account of his seeing no
difference between them and the other creatures?
From what has been already said, then, we must
reject this theory : and there are many other
considerations as well which on the grounds of
mere consistency lead us away from it. For I
have heard persons who hold these opinions7
saying that whole nations of souls are hidden
away somewhere in a realm of their own, living
a life analogous to that of the embodied soul ;
but such is the fineness and buoyancy of their
substance that they themselves roll round along
with the revolution of the universe ; and that
these souls, having individually lost their wings
through some gravitation towards evil, become
embodied ; first this takes place in men ; and
after that, passing from a human life, owing to
brutish affinities of their passions, they are re-
duced 8 to the level of brutes ; and, leaving that,
drop down to this insensate life of pure nature 9
which you have been hearing so much of; so
that that inherently fine and buoyant thing that
the soul is first becomes weighted and down-
ward tending in consequence of some vice, and
so migrates to a human body ; then its reason-
ing powers are extinguished, and it goes on

6 Two Codd. Mon. (D, E) omit <$>vtov i) ftoov, which is repeated
below.

7 i. e. Pythagoreans and later Platonists. Cf. Origen, c. Cels.
iii. 8o. For the losing of the wings, cf. c. Cels iii. 40: "The coats
of skins also, which God made for those sinners, the man and the
woman cast forth from the garden, have a mystical meaning far
deeper than Plato's fancy about the soul shedding its wings, and
moving downward till it meets some spot upon the solid earth."

8 a.TroKTr)vov<rQai.

9 ttjs <f>v(T<-Kris TauTTjs. This is the common reading : but <t>vo-ts
and 4>voi.k6s have a rather higher meaning than our equivalent for
them : cf. just below, "that inherently (177 <t>v<rei.) fine and buoyant
thing " : and Krabinger is probably right in reading <£utiktjs from
four Codd.

living in some brute ; and then even this gift of
sensation is withdrawn, and it changes into th>f
insensate plant life ; but after that mounts up
again by the same gradations until it is restored
to its place in heaven. Now this doctrine will
at once be found, even after a very cursory
survey, to have no coherency with itself. For,
first, seeing that the soul is to be dragged down
from its life in heaven, on account of evil there,
to the condition of a tree, and is then from this
point, on account of virtue exhibited there, to
return to heaven, their theory will be unable to
decide which is to have the preference, the life
in heaven, or the life in the tree. A circle, in
fact, of the same sequences will be perpetually
traversed, where the soul, at whatever point it
may be, has no resting-place. If it thus lapses
from the disembodied state to the embodied,
and thence to the insensate, and then springs
back to the disembodied, an inextricable con-
fusion of good and evil must result in the
minds of those who thus teach. For the life in
heaven will no more preserve its blessedness
(since evil can touch heaven's denizens), than
the life in trees will be devoid of virtue (since
it is from this, they say, that the rebound of the
soul towards the good begins, while from there
it begins the evil life again). Secondly ', seeing
that the soul as it moves round in heaven is there
entangled with evil and is in consequence dragged
down to live in mere matter, from whence, how-
ever, it is lifted again into its residence on high,
it follows that those philosophers establish the
very contrary 2 of their own views ; they establish,
namely, that the life in matter is the purgation
of evil, while that undeviating revolution along
with the stars 3 is the foundation and cause of
evil in every soul : if it is here that the soul by
means of virtue grows its wing and then soars
upwards, and there that those wings by reason
of evil fall off, so that it descends and clings to
this lower world and is commingled with the
grossness of material nature. But the unten-
ableness of this view does not stop even in this,

1 With the yap here (unlike the three preceding) begins the
second " incoherency " of this view. The first is, — ' it confuses the
ideas of good and evil." The second, — " it is inconsistent with a view
already adopted by these teachers." The third (beginning with
icai O" y."XPL toutojp, k. r. V), — ''it contradicts the truth which it
assumes, i e. that there is no change in heaven "

2 See just above : " For I have heard persons who hold these
opinions saying that whole nations of souls are hidden away some-
where in a realm of their own," &c, and see next note.

3 that undeviating revolution along wi.'h the stars, Tt)v ajrAawij
irepifyopav. Cf. Origen, De Priucifi. ii 3 — 6 (Rufinus' translation1,
" Sed et ipsum supereminentem, quern dicunt airKavfi, globum
proprie nihilominus mundum appellari volnnt : " Cicero. De A e/>ub.
vi. 17 : " Novem tihi orbibus ve. potius globis connexa sunt omnia :
quorum unus est coelestis, extimus, qui reliquos omnes complectitur ;
in quo infixi sunt illi, qui volvuntur, stellarum cursus sempiterni."
i. e. they roll, not on their axes, but only as turning round with the
general revolution. They are literally fixed in that heaven (cf.
Virg. : " tacito volvuntur sidera lapsu") : and the spiritual beings in
it areas fixed and changeless: in fact, with Plato it is the abode
only of Divine intelligences, not of the bo.ly.ovts : but the theorists,
whom Gregory is refuting, confuse this distinction which their ov>n
mastei drew.

456

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

namely, that it contains assertions diametrically
opposed to each other. Beyond this, their
fundamental conception 4 itself cannot stand
secure on every side. They say, for instance,
that a heavenly nature is unchangeable. How,
then, can there be room for any weakness in the
unchangeable ? If, again, a lower nature is
subject to infirmity, how in the midst of
this infirmity can freedom from it be achieved ?
They attempt to amalgamate two things that
can never be joined together : they descry
strength in weakness, passionlessness in passion.
But even to this last view they are not faithful
throughout ; for they bring home the soul from
its material life to that very place whence they
had exiled it because of evil there, as though
the life in that place was quite safe and uncon-
taminated ; apparently quite forgetting the fact
that the soul was weighted with evil there, before
it plunged down into this lower world. The
blame thrown on the life here below, and the
praise of the things in heaven, are thus inter-
changed and reversed ; for that which was once
blamed conducts in their opinion to the brighter
life, while that which was taken for the better
state gives an impulse to the soul's propensity
to evil. Expel, therefore, from amongst the
doctrines of the Faith all erroneous and shifting
suppositions about such matters ! We must not
follow, either, as though they had hit the truth,
those who suppose that souls pass from women's
bodies to live in men s, or, reversely 6, that
souls that have parted with men's bodies exist
in women : or even if they only say that they
pass from men into men, or from women into
women. As for the former theory ?, not only has
it been rejected for being shifting and illusory,
and for landing us in opinions diametrically op-
posed to each other ; but it must be rejected
also because it is a godless theory, maintaining
as it does that nothing amongst the things in
nature is brought into existence without de-
riving its peculiar constitution from evil as its
source. If, that is, neither men nor plants nor
cattle can be born unless some soul from above
has fallen into them, and if this fall is owing to

5 Such theories are developed in the Phiedo of Plato ; and con-
stitute 6 «T€pos tu>k K6yu>v, criticized more fully below.

6 Reading Soxel, jj to efura\iv, instead of the corrupt ooKet'7; to
e/j.n-aAii'.

7 0 n-poTepos (Ao-yos). The second is mentioned below. " The
same absurdity exists in the other of the two theories as well."
Obviously these two theories are those alluded to at the beginning
of this las/ speech of Macrina, where, speaking of the heathen trans
migratiot., she siys, " While some ol them extend this absurdity even
to C^es mJ shrubs, so that they consider their wooden life as cor-
resp^-L.ig and akin to humanity It. e. 6 TrpOTe'pus Adyos), others of
them opine only thus much, that the soul exchanges one man for
another man," &c. [i.e. 6 tTepos). In either case the soul is supposed
to return from the dead body to heaven, and then by a fresh fall
into sin there, to sink down again. The absurdity and the godless-
ness is just as glaring, Macrina says, in the last case (the Platonic
soul-rotation) as in the first (Transmigration pure and simple). But
the one point in both in contact with the Christian Resurrection is
this, that the soul of the departed does assn?ne another body

some tendency to evil, then they evidently think
that evil controls the creation of all beings. In
some mysterious way, too, both events are to
occur at once ; the birth of the man in conse-
quence of a marriage, and the fall of the soul
(synchronizing as it must with the proceedings
at that marriage). A greater absurdity even
than this is involved : if, as is the fact, the large
majority of the brute creation copulate in the
spring, are we, then, to say that the spring brings
it about that evil is engendered in the revolving
world above, so that, at one and the same
moment, there certain souls are impregnated
with evil and so fall, and here certain brutes
conceive ? And what are we to say about the
husbandman who sets the vine-shoots in the
soil ? How does his hand manage to have
covered in a human soul along with the plant, and
how does the moulting of wings last simultane-
ously with his employment in planting ? The
same absurdity, it is to be observed, exists in
the other of the two theories as well ; in the
direction, I mean, of thinking that the soul
must be anxious about the intercourses of those
living in wedlock, and must be on the look-out
for the times of bringing forth, in order that it
may insinuate itself into the bodies then pro-
duced. Supposing the man refuses the union,
or the woman keeps herself clear of the neces-
sity of becoming a mother, will evil then fail
to weigh down that particular soul ? Will it be
marriage, in consequence, that sounds up above
the first note of evil in the soul, or will this
reversed state invade the soul quite independ-
ently of any marriage ? But then, in this last
case, the soul will have to wander about in the
interval like a houseless vagabond, lapsed as it
has from its heavenly surroundings, and yet, as
it may happen in some cases, still without a
body to receive it. But how, after that, can
they imagine that the Deity exercises any super-
intendence over the world, referring as they
do the beginnings of human lives to this casual
and meaningless descent of a soul. For all that
follows must necessarily accord with the begin-
ning ; and so, if a life begins in consequence of
a chance accident, the whole course of it 8 be-
comes at once a chapter of accidents, and the
attempt to make the whole world depend on a
Divine power is absurd, when it is made by
these men, who deny to the individualities in it
a birth from the fiat of the Divine Will and re-
fer the several origins of beings to encounters
that come of evil, as though there could never
have existed such a thing as a human life, un-
less a vice had struck, as it were, its leading
note. If the beginning is like that, a sequel
will most certainly be set in motion in accord-
's rj kolt' avrbv («. e. fiiov) fiie'foSos. The Editions have<caT' avTuiv.
Krabinger well translates by " percursatio." Cf. Pkardrus, p. 247 A.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

457

ance with that beginning. None would dare to
maintain that what is fair can come out of what
is foul, any more than from good can come its
opposite. We expect fruit in accordance with
the nature of the seed. Therefore this blind
movement of chance is to rule the whole of life,
and no Providence is any more to pervade the
world.

Nay, even the forecasting by our calculations
will be quite useless ; virtue will lose its value ;
and to turn from evil will not be worth the
while. Everything will be entirely under the
control of the driver, Chance ; and our lives
will differ not at all from vessels devoid of
ballast, and will drift on waves of unaccountable
circumstances, now to this, now to that incident
of good or of evil. The treasures of virtue will
never be found in those who owe their consti-
tution to causes quite contrary to virtue. If
God really superintends our life, then, con-
fessedly, evil cannot begin it. But if we do
owe our birth to evil, then we must go on living
in complete uniformity with it. Thereby it will
be shown that it is folly to talk about the
" houses of correction " which await us after
this life is ended, and the "just recompences,"
and all the other things there asserted, and
believed in too, that tend to the suppression of
vice : for how can a man, owing, as he does,
his birth to evil, be outside its pale ? How can
he, whose very nature has its rise in a vice, as
they assert, possess any deliberate impulse to-
wards a life of virtue ? Take any single one of
the brute creation ; it does not attempt to speak
like a human being, but in using the natural
kind of utterance sucked in, as it were, with its
mother's milk 9, it deems it no loss to be deprived
of articulate speech. Just in the same way
those who believe that a vice was the origin
and the cause of their being alive will never
bring themselves to have a longing after virtue,
because it will be a thing quite foreign to their
mature. But, as a fact x, they who by reflecting
have cleansed the vision of their soul do all of
them desire and strive after a life of virtue.
Therefore it is by that fact clearly proved that
vice is not prior in time to the act of beginning
to live, and that our nature did not thence
derive its source, but that the all-disposing
wisdom of God was the Cause of it : in short,
that the soul issues on the stage of life in the
manner which is pleasing to its Creator, and
then (but not before), by virtue of its power of
billing, is free to choose that which is to its
mind, and so, whatever it may wish to be, be-
comes that very thing. We may understand
this truth by the example of the eyes. To see

9 KTVVTpOtJHO.

1 <iAA<i ju.r/i/ introduces a fact into the argument (cf. icai nr)v) ;
Lat. " verum enimvero."

is their natural state ; but to fail to see results
to them either from choice or from disease.
This unnatural state may supervene instead of
the natural, either by wilful shutting of the eyes
or by deprivation of their sight through disease.
With the like truth we may assert that the soul
derives its constitution from God, and that,
as we cannot conceive of any vice in Him,
it is removed from any necessity of being
vicious ; that nevertheless, though this is the
condition in which it came into being, it can
be attracted of its own free will in a chosen
direction, either wilfully shutting its eyes to the
Good, or letting them be damaged2 by that
insidious foe whom we have taken home to live
with us, and so passing through life in the dark-
ness of error ; or, reversely, preserving un-
dimmed its sight of the Truth and keeping far
away from all weaknesses that could darken it.
— But then some one will ask, " When and how
did it come into being ? " Now as for the
question, how any single thing came into exist-
ence, we must banish it altogether from our
discussion. Even in the case of things which
are quite within the grasp of our understanding
and of which we have sensible perception, it
would be impossible for the speculative reason 3
to grasp the "how" of the production of the
phenomenon ; so much so, that even inspired
and saintly men have deemed such questions
insoluble. For instance, the Apostle says,
" Through faith we understand that the worlds
were framed by the word of God, so that things
which are seen are not made of things which
do appear 1" He would not, I take it, have
spoken like that, if he had thought that the
question could be settled by any efforts of the
reasoning powers. While the Apostle affirms
that it is an object of his faith 5 that it was by
the will of God that the world itself and all
which is therein was framed (whatever this
" world " be that involves the idea of the whole
visible and invisible creation), he has on the
other hand left out of the investigation the
" how " of this framing. Nor do I think that
this point can ever be reached by any inquirers.
The question presents, on the face of it, many
insuperable difficulties. How, for instance, can
a world of movement come from one that is at
rest ? how from the simple and undimensional
that which shows dimension and compositeness ?
Did it come actually out of the Supreme Being ?
But the fact that this world presents a difference
in kind to that Being militates against 6 such a

3 rbv b<j)0a\fj.bv fik<nrTOii.evr\v . 3 K6y<o. * Heb. xi. 3.

5 that it is an object of his faith, &c. In the Greek the nev
contrasts the Apostle's declaration on this point with his silence as
to the "how."

6 militates against, &c. 'AAA' ovj( OftoAoyeiTcu (reading then,
on to eTepoyeve1; exeL Tp°s eKeivr)v to. ovra). Cf. Plato, Tim. 29 C,
avTol auTOis ov\ 6/woAoyoi pevoi \6yoi, " theories that contradict eac 1
other." This world cannot come out of the Supreme Being : its

458

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

supposition. Did it then come from some
other quarter ? Yet Faith ? can contemplate
nothing as quite outside the Divine Nature ; for
we should have to believe in two distinct and
separate Principles, if outside the Creative
Cause we are to suppose something else, which
the Artificer, with all His skill, has to put
under contribution for the formative processes
of the Universe. Since, then, the Cause of
all things is one, and one only, and yet the
existences produced by that Cause are not of
the same nature as its transcendent quality,
an inconceivability of equal magnitude 8 arises
in both our suppositions, i. e. both that the
creation comes straight out of the Divine
Being, and that the universe owes its exist-
ence to some cause other than Him \ for if
created things are to be of the same nature
as God, we must consider Him to be invested
with the properties belonging to His creation ;
or else a world of matter, outside the circle of
God's substance, and equal, on the score of the
absence in it of all beginning, to the eternity of
the Self-existent One, will have to be ranged
against Him : and this is in fact what the
followers of Manes, and some of the Greek
philosophers who held opinions of equal bold-
ness with his, did imagine ; and they raised this
imagination into a system. In order, then, to
avoid falling into either of these absurdities,
which the inquiry into the origin of things
involves, let us, following the example of the
Apostle, leave the question of the "how" in
each created thing, without meddling with it at
all, but merely observing incidentally that the
movement of God's Will becomes at any moment
that He pleases a fact, and the intention becomes
at once realized in Nature 9 ; for Omnipotence
does not leave the plans of its far-seeing skill
in the state of unsubstantial wishes : and the
actualizing of a wish is Substance. In short,
the whole world of existing things falls into two
divisions : i. e. that of the intelligible, and that
of the corporeal : and the intelligible creation
does not, to begin with, seem to be in any way
at variance with a spiritual Being, but on the
contrary to verge closely upon Him, exhibit-
ing as it does that absence of tangible form and
of dimension which we rightly attribute to His
transcendent nature. The corporeal creation ',

alien nature contradicts that. Krabnger's translation is therefore
wrong, " sed non constat:" and Oehler's, " Aber das ist nicht
uigemacht." 7 » A670?.

8 Reading lot) 617. * ^ <t>v<rt.s.

' The long Greek sentence, which begins here with a genitive
absolute (ttjs Se (Tw/xaTiKij; jcn'oxus-, »c. t. A.), leading up to nothing
but the anacoluthon n-epl iv toctoCtoi", k. t. A., has been broken up
in translating. Doubtless this anacoluthon can be explained by the
sentences linked on to the last words (t<j> A6y<u) of the genitive
cl iiise, which are so long as to throw that clause quite into the back-
ground. There is no need therefore to take the words where this
anacoluthon begins, down to <roj/oia yiVerai, as a parenthesis, with
Krabinger and Oehler ; especially as tin- words that follow ylvtrcu
are a direct recapitulation of what immediately precedes.

on the other hand, must certainly be classed
amongst specialities that have nothing in
common with the Deity ; and it does offer this
supreme difficulty to the Reason ; namely, that
the Reason cannot see how the visible comes
out of the invisible, how the hard solid comes
out of the intangible, how the finite comes out
of the infinite, how that which is circumscribed
by certain proportions, where the idea of
quantity comes in, can come from that which
has no size, no proportions, and so on through
each single circumstance of body. But even
about this we can say so much : /'. e. that not
one of those things which we attribute to body
is itself body ; neither figure, nor colour, nor
weight, nor extension, nor quantity, nor any
other qualifying notion whatever; but every
one of them is a category ; it is the combination
of them all into a single whole that constitutes
body. Seeing, then, that these several qualifi-
cations which complete the particular body are
grasped by thought alone, and not by sense,
and that the Deity is a thinking being, what
trouble can it be to such a thinking agent to
produce the thinkables whose mutual combina-
tion generates for us the substance of that body ?
All this discussion, however, lies outside our
present business. The previous question was, —
If some souls exist anterior to their bodies,
when and how do they come into existence ?
and of this question 2, again, the part about the
how has been left out of our examination and
has not been meddled with, as presenting im-
penetrable difficulties. There remains the
question of the when of the soul's commence-
ment of existence : it follows immediately on
that which we have already discussed. For if
we were to grant that the soul has lived previous
to its body 3 in some place of resort peculiar to
itself, then we cannot avoid seeing some force
in all that fantastic teaching lately discussed,
which would explain the soul's habitation of the
body as a consequence of some vice. Again,
on the other hand, no one who can reflect will
imagine an after-birth of the soul, i. e. that it is
younger than the moulding of the body ; for
every one can see for himself that not one
amongst all the things that are inanimate or

* Reading, as Dr. H. Schmidt conjectures, ko\ toutov waAiv,
cf. 205 C.

3 Origen. Gregory's master in most of his theology, did teach this
very thing, the preexistence of the soul : nor did he attempt to
deny that some degree of transmigration was a necessary accom-
paniment of such teaching ; only he would adjust the moral meaning
of it. Cf. c. Ce/suiii, Lib. iii. 75. "And even if we should treat
(/' e. medically) those who have caught the lolly of the transmigra-
tion of souls from doctors who push down a reasoning nature into
any of the unreasoning natures, or even into that which is insensate,
how can any say that we shall not work improvement in their
souls by teaching them that the bad do not have allotted to them
by way of punishment that insensate or unreasoning state, but that
what is inflicted by God upon the bad. be it pain or affliction, is only
in the way of a very efficacious cure for them? This is the teaching
of the wise Christian be attempts to teach the simpler of his flock
as fathers do the merest infants." Not the theory itself, but the
exaggeration of it, is here combated.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

459

soulless possesses any power of motion or of
growth ; whereas there is no question about
that which is bred in the uterus both growing
and moving from place to place. It remains
therefore that we must think that the point of
commencement of existence is one and the
same for body and soul. Also we affirm that,
just as the earth receives the sapling from the
hands of the husbandman and makes a tree of
it, without itself imparting the power of growth
to its nursling, but only lending it, when placed
within itself, the impulse to grow, in this very
same way that which is secreted from a man
for the planting of a man is itself to a certain
extent a living being as much gifted with a soul
and as capable of nourishing itself as that from
which it comes4. If this offshoot, in its diminu-
tiveness, cannot contain at first all the activities
and the movements of the soul, we need not be
surprised ; for neither in the seed of corn is
there visible all at once the ear. How indeed
could anything so large be crowded into so
small a space ? But the earth keeps on feeding
it with its congenial aliment, and so the grain
becomes the ear, without changing its nature
while in the clod, but only developing it and
bringing it to perfection under the stimulus of
that nourishment. As, then, in the case of
those growing seeds the advance to perfection
is a graduated one 5, so in man's formation the
forces of his soul show themselves in proportion
to the size to which his body has attained.
They dawn first in the foetus, in the shape of
the power of nutrition and of development :
after that, they introduce into the organism that
has come into the light the gift of perception :
then, when this is reached, they manifest a
certain measure of the reasoning faculty, like
the fruit of some matured plant, not growing
all of it at once, but in a continuous progress
along with the shooting up of that plant. See-
ing, then, that that which is secreted from one
living being to lay the foundations of another
living being cannot itself be dead (for a state of
deadness arises from the privation of life, and it
cannot be that privation should precede the
having), we grasp from these considerations the
fact that in the compound which results from
the joining of both (soul and body) there is a
simultaneous passage of both into existence ;
the one does not come first, any more than the
other comes after. But as to the number of
souls, our reason must necessarily contemplate
a stopping some day of its increase ; so that
Nature's stream may not flow on for ever, pour- 1
ing forward in her successive births and never j
staying that onward movement. The reason
for our race having some day to come to a

* *k Tpe^o/ueVou Tfie^xSfievor.

I Kara, \6yov.

standstill is as follows, in our opinion : since
every intellectual reality is fixed in a plenitude
of its own, it is reasonable to expect that hu-
manity 6 also will arrive at a goal (for in this
respect also humanity is not to be parted from
the intellectual world 7) ; so that we are to
believe that it will not be visible for ever only
in defect, as it is now : for this continual addition
of after generations indicates that there is some-
thing deficient in our race.

Whenever, then, humanity shall have reached
the plenitude that belongs to it, this on-stream-
ing movement of production will altogether
cease ; it will have touched its destined bourn,
and a new order of things quite distinct from
the present procession of births and deaths will
carry on the life of humanity. If there is no
birth, it follows necessarily that there will be
nothing to die. Composition must precede dis-
solution (and by composition I mean the coming
into this world by being born) ; necessarily,
therefore, if this synthesis does not precede, no
dissolution will follow. Therefore, if we are to
go upon probabilities, the life after this is shown
to us beforehand as something that is fixed and
imperishable, with no birth and no decay to
change it.

: The Teacher finished her exposition ; and to
the many persons sitting by her bedside the
whole discussion seemed now to have arrived
at a fitting conclusion. Nevertheless, fearing
that if the Teacher's illness took a fatal turn
(such as did actually happen), we should have
no one amongst us to answer the objections of
the unbelievers to the Resurrection8, I still
insisted.

The argument has not yet touched the most
vital of all the questions relating to our Faith.
I mean, that the' inspired Writings, both in the
New and in the Old Testament, declare most
emphatically not only that, when our race has
completed the ordered chain of its existence
as the ages lapse through their complete
circle 9, this current streaming onward as gener-
ation succeeds generation will cease altogether,
but also that then, when the completed
Universe no longer admits of further increase,
all the souls in their entire number will come
back out of their invisible and scattered con-
dition into tangibility and light, the identical

6 This seems like a prelude to the Realism of the Middle Ages.

7 Each individual soul represents, to Gregory's view, a " thought"
of God, which becomes visible by the soul being born. There will
come a time when all these " thoughts," which complete, and do not
destroy, each other, will have completed the wAripui/xa (Humanitvi
which the Deity contemplates. This immediate apparition of a soul,
as a "thought" of God, is very unlike the teaching of his master
Origen : and yet more sober, and more scriptural.

8 The situation here is. as Dr. H. Schmidt points out, just like
that in the Phcedo of Plato, where all are satisfied with Socrates'
discourse, except Kebes and Simmias, who seize the precious
moments still left, to bring forward an objection which none but their
great Teacher could remove.

9 irepioSiKt)!' : a better reading than irapo&iieriv, which most Codd.
have.

460

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

atoms (bel mging to each soul) reassembling
together in the same order as before ; and this
reconstitutbn of human life is called, in these
Writings which contain God's teaching, the
Resurrection, the entire movement of the
atoms receiving the same term as the raising
up of that which is actually prostrate on the
ground T.

But, said she, which of these points has been
left unnoticed in what has been said ?

Why, the actual doctrine of the Resurrection,
I replied.

And yet, she answered, much in our long
and detailed discussion pointed to that.

Then are you not aware, I insisted,* of all
the objections, a very swarm of them, which
our antagonists bring against us in connection
with that hope of yours ?

And I at once tried to repeat all the devices
hit upon by their captious champions to upset
the doctrine of the Resurrection.

She, however, replied, First, I think, we
if must briefly run over the scattered proclama-
tions of this doctrine in Holy Scripture; they
shall give the finishing touch to our discourse.
Observe, then, that I can hear David, in the
midst of his praises in the Divine Songs, saying
at the end of the hymnody of the hundred and
third (104th) Psalm, where he has taken for
his theme God's administration of the world,
"Thou shalt take away their breath, and they
shall die, and return to their dust : Thou shalt
send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created :
and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth."
He says that a power of the Spirit which works
in all vivifies the beings into whom it enters,
and deprives those whom He abandons of
their life. Seeing, then, that the dying is de-
clared to occur at the Spirit's departure, and
the renewal of these dead ones at His appear-
ance, and seeing moreover that in the order of
the statement the death of those who are to
be thus renewed comes first, we hold that in
these words that mystery of the Resurrection is
proclaimed to the Church, and that David in
the spirit of prophecy expressed this very gift
which you are asking about. You will find
this same prophet in another place 2 also saying

1 receiving the same term (<7vvovoiLa^Ofj.evr)<;) as the raising up
0/ that "which is actuall- prostrate on the ground (rot) yeui&ow;) ,
i. e. the term ai/daratrt? is extended by analogy to embrace the
entire movement of the atoms. Though there is here of course an
allusion to the elevation of the nature from the "earthly " to the
"heavenly," and perhaps to the raising of the body from the tomb,
yet the primary meaning is that the term ctiacrTacri? is derived from
its special use of raising from the ground one who lies prostrate (as
a suppliant). Some of the elements of the body are supposed to be
■yeuiSr), /'. e. mingled with their kindred earth. But though strictly
the word avdcrracris should apply to them alone, it does not do so,
but denotes more generally the movement of all the atoms to reform
the body.

2 Gr gory quotes as usual the LXX. for this Psalm (cxviii. 27) :
dtb? Kupiov, icai eirc't^ayc!/ r\{i!i.V <TV<Trr\<jo.aSt rr^v iop-rr\v iv TO19 irvKa-
£ov<riv i'uc T^v KtJaTuiv rod 8v(TiacrTr]piov. [Krabinger has replaced
rv<rTi)<ra<r8c from jne of his Codd. for the common <rv<m}<Ta<7-#a.i ;

that "the God of the world, the Lord of every-
thing that is, hath showed Himself to us, that
we may keep the Feast amongst the decorators ; "
by that mention of " decoration " with boughs,
he means the Feast of Tabernacle-fixing, which,
in accordance with Moses' injunction, has been
observed from of old. That lawgiver, I take
it, adopting a prophet's spirit, predicted therein
things still to come ; for though the decoration
was always going on it was never finished.
The truth indeed was foreshadowed under the
type and riddle of those Feasts that were al-
ways occurring, but the true Tabernacle-fixing
was not yet come ; and on this account " the
God and Lord of the whole world," according
to the Prophet's declaration, "hath showed
Himself to us, that the Tabernacle-fixing of
this our tenement that has been dissolved may
be kept for human kind " ; a material decor-
ation, that is, may be begun again by means
of the concourse of our scattered atoms. For
that word 7ruvM07.de in its peculiar meaning
signifies the Temple-circuit and the decoration
which completes it. Now this passage from
the Psalms runs as follows : " God and Lord
hath showed Himself to us ; keep the Feast
amongst the decorators even unto the horns
of the altar ; " and this seems to me to pro-
claim in metaphors the fact that one single
feast is to be kept by the whole rational
creation, and that in that assembly of the
saints the inferiors are to join the dance with
their superiors. For in the case of the fabric
of that Temple which was the Type it was not
allowed to all who were on the outside of its
circuit 3 to come within, but everything that was
Gentile and alien was prohibited from entering;
and of those, further, who had entered, all were
not equally privileged to advance towards the
centre ; but only those who had consecrated
themselves by a holier manner of life, and by
certain sprinklings ; and, again, not every one
amongst these last might set foot within the
interior of the Temple ; the priests alone had
the right of entering within the curtain, and
that only for the service of the sanctuary ;
while even to the priests the darkened shrine
of the Temple, where stood the beautiful Altar
with its jutting horns, was forbidden, except to
one of them, who held the highest office of the

but if this is retained line must be understood. Cf. Matt., Gr.
Gr. §532.] The LXX. is rendered by the Psalterium Romanum
"constitute diem in con/requentatiomhus." So also Kusebius,
Theodorct.and Chrysostom interpret. But the Psalterium Gallicanum
reproduces the LXX. otherwise, i.e. in condensis, as Apollinaris and
Jerome (in Jrondosis) also understand it. "Adorn the feast with
green houghs, even to the horns of the altar" : Luther. " It is true
that during the time of the second temple the altar of burnt offering
was planted round about at the Feast of Tabernacles with large
branches of osiers, which leaned over the edge of that altar " :
Delitzsch (who however says that this is, linguistically, untenable).
Gregory's rendering differs from this only in making miica£ou<rir
masculine.

3 Reading tois efwfler n-epi/SoAtjs.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

461

priesthood, and who once a year, on a stated
day, and unattended, passed within it, carrying
an offering more than usually sacred and
mystical. Such being the differences in con-
nection with this Temple which you know of,
it was clearly 4 a representation and an imitation
of the condition of the spirit-world, the lesson
taught by these material observances being this,
that it is not the whole of the rational creation
that can approach the temple of God, or, in
other words, the adoration of the Almighty ;
but that those who are led astray by false
persuasions are outside the precinct of the
Deity ; and that from the number of those
who by virtue of this adoration have been pre-
ferred to the rest and admitted within it, some
by reason of sprinklings and purifications have
still further privileges ; and again amongst these
last those who have been consecrated priests
have privileges further still, even to being ad-
mitted to the mysteries of the interior. And,
that one may bring into still clearer light the
meaning of the allegory, we may understand
the Word here as teaching this, that amongst
all the Powers endued with reason some have
been fixed like a Holy Altar in the inmost
shrine of the Deity ; and that again of these
last some jut forward like horns, for their
eminence, and that around them others
are arranged first or second, according to a
prescribed sequence of rank ; that the race of
man, on the contrary, on account of indwelling
evil was excluded from the Divine precinct,
but that purified with lustral water it re-enters
it ; and, since all the further barriers by which
our sin has fenced us off from the things within
the veil are in the end to be taken down, when-
ever the time comes that the tabernacle of our
nature is as it were to be fixed up again in the
Resurrection, and all the inveterate corruption
of sin has vanished from the world, then a
universal feast will be kept around the Deity
by those who have decorated themselves in the
Resurrection ; and one and the same banquet
will be spread for all, with no differences cut-
ting off any rational creature from an equal
participation in it ; for those who are now ex-
cluded by reason of their sin will at last be
admitted within the Holiest places of God's
blessedness, and will bind themselves to the
horns of the Altar there, that is, to the most
excellent of the transcendental Powers. The
Apostle says the same thing more plainly
when he indicates the final accord of the
whole Universe with the Good : " That "
to Him "every knee should bow, of things
in heaven, and things in earth, and things
under the earth : And that every tongue

* Reading Sr)\6von.

should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
glory of God the Father " : instead of the
" horns," speaking of that which is Angelic and
" in heaven," and by the other terms signifying
ourselves, the creatures whom we think of next to
that ; one festival of united voices shall occupy
us all ; that festival shall be the confession and
the recognition of the Being Who truly Is.
One might (she proceeded) select many other
passages of Holy Scripture to establish the
doctrine of the Resurrection. For instance,
Ezekiel leaps in the spirit of prophecy over all
the intervening time, with its vast duration ;
he stands, by his powers of foresight, in the
actual moment of the Resurrection, and, as if
he had really gazed on what is still to come,
brings it in his description before our eyes.
He saw a mighty plain s, unfolded to an endless
distance before him, and vast heaps of bones
upon it flung at random, some this way, some
that ; and then under an impulse from God these
bones began to move and group themselves with
their fellows that they once owned, and adhere
to the familiar sockets, and then clothe them-
selves with muscle, flesh, and skin (which was
the process called "decorating " in the poetry of
the Psalms) ; a Spirit in fact was giving life
and movement to everything that lay there.
But as regards our Apostle's description of the
wonders of the Resurrection, why should one
repeat it, seeing that it can easily be found and
read ? how, for instance, " with a shout " and
the " sound of trumpets " (in the language of
the Word) all dead and prostrate things shall
be "changed6 in the twinkling of an eye" into
immortal beings. The expressions in the
Gospels also I will pass over ; for their mean-
ing is quite clear to every one ; and our Lord
does not declare in word alone that the bodies
of the dead shall be raised up again ; but He
shows in action the Resurrection itself, making
a beginning of this work of wonder from things
more within our reach and less capable of
being doubted. First, that is, He displays His
life-giving power in the case of the deadly
forms of disease, and chases those maladies by
one word of command ; then He raises a little
girl just dead ; then He makes a young man,
who is already being carried out, sit up on his
bier, and delivers him to his mother ; after that
He calls forth from his tomb the four-days-dead
and already decomposed Lazarus, vivifying the
prostrate body with His commanding voice ;
then after three days He raises from the dead
His own human body, pierced though it was

5 Ezek. xxxvii. 1 — 10.

6 Gregory, as often, seems to quote from memory (ii7raji.eic|>0>j<recr(?ai,
but 1 Cor. xv. 52 aAAayTjcrojueSa ; and St P.iul says T)/ueis &c, i.e.
" uie shall be changed," in distinction from the dead generally , who
" shall be raised incorruptible "). But the doctrine of a general
resurrect on, with or without change, is quite in harmony with the
end of this treatise. Cf. p. 468.

462

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

with the nails and spear, and brings the print
of those nails and the spear-wound to witness
to the Resurrection. But I think that a de-
tailed mention of these things is not necessary ;
for no doubt about them lingers in the minds
of those who have accepted the written
accounts of them.

But that, said I, was not the point in question.
Most of your hearers will assent to the fact
that there will some day be a Resurrection, and
that man will be brought before the incor-
ruptible tribunal ? ; on account both of the
Scripture proofs, and also of our previous
examination of the question. But still the ques-
tion remains 8 : Is the state which we are to ex-
pect to be like the present state of the body ?
Because if so, then, as I was saying 9, men had
</ better avoid hoping for any Resurrection at all.
For if our bodies are to be restored to life
again in the same sort of condition as they are
in when they cease to breathe, then all that
man can look forward to in the Resurrection
is an unending calamity. For what spectacle
is more piteous than when in extreme old age
our bodies shrivel up 1 and change into some-
thing repulsive and hideous, with the flesh all
wasted in the length of years, the skin dried
up about the bones till it is all in wrinkles, the
muscles in a spasmodic state from being no
longer enriched with their natural moisture,
and the whole body consequently shrunk, the
hands on either side powerless to perform their
natural work, shaken with an involuntary
trembling ? What a sight again are the bodies
of persons in a long consumption ! They differ
from bare bones only in giving the appearance
of being covered with a worn-out veil of skin.
What a sight too are those of persons swollen
with the disease of dropsy ! What words could
describe the unsightly disfigurement of sufferers
from leprosy2? Gradually over all their limbs

1 the incorruptible tribunal. The JiHgment comes after the
Resurrection (cf. 250 A, 254 A, 258 D), and after the purifying and
chastising detailed above. The latter is represented by Gregory as
a necessary process of nature : but not till the Judgment will the
moral value ot each life be revealed. There is no contradiction,
such as Moler tiies to find, between this Dialogue and Gregory's
Oratio Catcchetica. There too he is speaking of chastisement
after the Resurrection and before the Judgment " For not
everything that is granted in the resurrection a return to existence
will return to the same kind of life. There is a wide interval be-
tween those who have been purified (t. e. by baptism) and those
who still need purification." ..." But as for those whose weak
nesses have become inveterate, and to whom no purgation of theii
defilement has been applied, no mystic water, no invocation of the
Divine power, no amendment by repentance, it is absolutely necessary
that they should be submitted to something proper to their case," i. f.
to compensate for Baptism, which they have never received (c. 35).

& <t>rioii> should probably be struck out (as the insertion of a
copyist encouraged by elnov below) : five of Krabinger's Codd.
omit it.

5 ettroK Cf. 243 C : icai ap.a AtYeii/ tne\tipovy 60a. irpbs avarpo-
irqv tt]s avaaraaeuit; trapa tu>v 'tpitniKuiv f$ci»pi'axeTcu. So that this
>l the first occasion on which objections to the Resurrection
have been started by Gregory, and there is no occasion to adopt the
conjecture of Augentius and Sifanus, av eltroi/m, " dixerim ",
especially as eliroe is found in all Codd. without exception.

1 Reading K<xTo.ppiKvu>6tvTa..

2 iepa votrtu. That these words can mean leprosy, as well as.
epilepsy . eems clear from Eusebius.

and organs of sensation rottenness spreads and
devours them. What words could describe
that of persons who have been mutilated in
earthquake, battle, or by any other visitation,
and live on in such a plight for a long time
before their natural deaths ? Or of those who
from an injury have grown up from infancy with
their limbs awry ! What can one say of them ?
What is one to think about the bodies of new-
born infants who have been either exposed, or
strangled, or died a natural death, if they are to
be brought to life again just such as they were ?
Are they to continue in that infantine state?
What condition could be more miserable than
that? Or are they to come to the flower of
their age? Well, but what sort of milk has
Nature got to suckle them again with? It
comes then to this : that, if our bodies are to
live again in every respect the same as before,
this thing that we are expecting is simply a
calamity ; whereas if they are not the same,
the person raised up will be another than he
who died. If, for instance, a little boy was
buried, but a grown man rises again, or re-
versely, how can we say that the dead in his
very self is raised up, when he has had some one
substituted for him by virtue of this difference
in age ? Instead of the child, one sees a grown-
up man. Instead of the old man, one sees a
person in his prime. In fact, instead of the
one person another entirely. The cripple is
changed into the able-bodied man ; the con-
sumptive sufferer into a man whose flesh is
firm ; and so on of all possible cases, not to
enumerate them for fear of being prolix. If, i
then, the body will not come to life again just
such in its attributes as it was when it mingled
with the earth, that dead body will not rise
again ; but on the contrary the earth will be
formed into another man. How, then, will the
Resurrection affect myself, when instead of me
some one else will' come to life ? Some one else,
I say ; for how cduld I recognize myself when,
instead of what was once myself, I see some one
not myself? It cannot really be I, unless it is
in every respect the same as myself. Suppose,
for instance, in this life I had in my memory
the traits of some one ; say he was bald, had
prominent lips, a somewhat flat nose, a fair
complexion, grey eyes, white hair, wrinkled
skin ; and then went to look for such an one,
and met a young man with a fine head of hair,
an aquiline nose, a dark complexion, and in all
other respects quite different in his type of
countenance ; am I likely in seeing the latter
to think of the former ? But why dwell longer
on these the less forcible objections to the
Resurrection, and neglect the strongest one of
all ? For who has not heard that human life
is like a stream, moving from birth to death at

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

463

a certain rate of progress, and then only ceasing

from that progressive movement when it ceases
also to exist ? This movement indeed is not
one of spacial change ; our bulk never exceeds
itself; but it makes this advance by means of
internal alteration ; and as long as this alter-
ation is that which its name implies, it never
remains at the same stage (from moment to
moment) ; for how can that which is being
altered be kept in any sameness ? The tire on
the wick, as far as appearance goes, certainly
seems always the same, the continuity of its
movement giving it the look of being an un-
interrupted and self-centred whole ; but in
reality it is always passing itself along and
never remains the same ; the moisture which
is extracted by the heat is burnt up and changed
into smoke the moment it has burst into flame,
and this alterative force effects the movement
of the flame, working by itself the change of
the subject-matter into smoke ; just, then, as it
is impossible for one who has touched that
flame twice on the same place, to touch twice
the very same flame 3 (for the speed of the alter-
ation is too quick ; it does not wait for that
second touch, however rapidly it may be
effected ; the flame is always fresh and new ;
it is always being produced, always transmitting
itself, never remaining at one and the same
place), a thing of the same kind is found to be
the case with the constitution of our body.
There is influx and efflux going on in it in an
alterative progress until the moment that it
ceases to live ; as long as it is living it has no
stay; for it is either being replenished, or it is
discharging in vapour, or it is being kept in
motion by both of these processes combined.
If, then, a particular man is not the same even
as he was yesterday 4, but is made different by
this transmutation, when so be that the Resur-
rection shall restore our body to life again, that
single man will become a crowd of human
beings, so that with his rising again there will
be found the babe, the child, the boy, the
youth, the man, the father, the old man, and
all the intermediate persons that he once was.

3 to touch tivice tlie very same Jlame . Albert Jahn (quoted
by Krabinger) here remarks that Gregory's comparison rivals that
of Heraclitus: and that there is a deliberate intention of improv-
ing on the expression of the latter, " you cannot step twice in 10
the same stream." Above (p. 459), Gregory has used directly
Heraclitus' imase, "so that Nature's stream may not flow on lor
ever, pouring forward in her successive Urths," &c. See also De
Horn. OpiJ. c. 13 (beginning'.

* not the same even as he was yesterday. Cf. Gregory's Oratio
de Mortuis, t. III. p. 633 A. " It is not exaggeration to say that I
death is woven into our life. Practically such an idea will be found
by any one to be based on a reality : for experiment would confirm
this belief that the man of yesterday is not the same as ihe man of ]
to-day in material substance, but that something of him must be I
alway becoming dead, or be growing, or being destroyed, or ejected : |
. . . Wherefore, according to the expressi n of the mighty Paul,
'we die da:ly' : we are not always the same people remaining in
the same homes of the body, but each moment we change from what
we wer • bv reception and ejectment, altering continually into a
fresti body."

But further s ; chastity and profligacy are both
carried on in the flesh ; those also who endure
tin most painful tortures for their religion, and
those on the other hand who shrink from such,
both one class and the other reveal their
character in relation to fleshly sensations; how,
then, can justice be done at the Judgment6?
Or take the case of one and the same man first
sinning and then cleansing himself by repent-
ance, and then, it might so happen, relapsing
into his sin ; in such a case both the defiled
and the undefiled body alike undergoes a
change, as his nature changes, and neither of
them continue to the end the same ; which
body, then, is the profligate to be tortured in?
In that which is stiffened with old age and is
near to death? But this is not the same as
that which did the sin. In that, then, which
defiled itself by giving way to passion ? But
where is the old man, in that case? This last,
in fact, will not rise again, and the Resurrection
will not do a complete work ; or else he will
rise, while the criminal will escape. Let me
say something else also from amongst the ob-
jections made by unbelievers to this doctrine.
No part, they urge, of the body is made by
nature without a function. Some parts, for
instance, are the efficient causes within us of
our being alive ; without them our life in the
flesh could not possibly be carried on ; such
are the heart, liver, brain, lungs, stomach, and
the other vitals ; others are assigned to the
activities of sensation ; others to those of
handing and walking 7 ; others are adapted for
the transmission of a posterity. Now if the
life to come is to be in exactly the same
circumstances as this, the supposed change in
us is reduced to nothing ; but if the report is
true, as indeed it is, which represents marriage
as forming no part of the economy of that
after-life, and eating and drinking as not then
preserving its continuance, what use will there
be for the members of our body, when we are
no longer to expect in that existence any of the
activities for which our members now exist?
If, for the sake of marriage, there are now
certain organs adapted for marriage, then, when-
ever the latter ceases to be, we shall not need
those organs : the same may be said of the

5 A liesh objection is here started It is answered (254 A, B).

6 Which succeeds (and is buuud up with/ the Resurrection.
The argument is, " the flesh has behaved differently in diff rent
persons here ; how then can it be treated alike in all by being
allowed to r.se again? Even before the judgment an injustice has
been done by all rising in the same way to a new life." — In what
follows, f)rov ai toO vuv fiev, k.t.A., the d.fficulty of different dis-
positions In the same person is c nsidered.

^ TrapeKTLKTjir tai ^i.irTa)3aTiK»j? evepyeias. To the latter expres-
sion, which s mply means walking, belong the words below, cat
n-pcK roe Spo/xov 01 7roSes (p. 464) Schmidt well remarks that 1
simpler lorm than fiera ioTiKo? does not exist, because 111 all waUuie.
the notion of putting one foot in the place o! the other (jneTrii is
implied ; and shows that Krabinger's translation " traiiseuudi
officium " makes too much of the word.

464

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

hands for working with, the feet for running
with, the mouth for taking food with, the teeth
for grinding it with, the organs of the stomach
for digesting, the evacuating ducts for getting
rid of that which has become superfluous. When,
therefore, all those operations will be no more,
how or wherefore will their instruments exist?
So that necessarily, if the things that are not
going to contribute in any way to that other
life are not to surround the body, none of the
parts which at present constitute the body would8
exist either. That life 9, then, will be carried
on by other instruments ; and no one could
call such a state of things a Resurrection, where
the particular members are no longer present
in the body, owing to their being useless to
that life. But if on the other hand our Resur-
rection will be represented in every one of these,
then the Author of the Resurrection will fashion
things in us of no use and advantage to that
life. And yet we must believe, not only that
there is a Resurrection, but also that it will not
be an absurdity. We must, therefore, listen
attentively to the explanation of this, so that,
for every part of this truth we may have its
probability saved to the last io.

When I had finished, the Teacher thus re-
plied, You have attacked the doctrines con-
nected with the Resurrection with some spirit,
in the way of rhetoric as it is called ; you have
coursed round and round the truth with plausibly
subversive arguments ; so much so, that those
who have not very carefully considered this
mysterious truth might possibly be affected in
their view of it by the likelihood of those argu-
ments, and might think that the difficulty started
against what has been advanced was not alto-
gether beside the point. But, she proceeded,
the truth does not lie in these arguments, even
though we may find it impossible to give a
rhetorical answer to them, couched in equally
strong language. The true explanation of all
these questions is still stored up in the hidden
treasure-rooms of Wisdom, and will not come
to the light until that moment when we shall
be taught the mystery of the Resurrection by
the reality of it ; and then there will be no more
need of phrases to explain the things which we

8 Reading (I>? av avdyxriv tlvat, el /ktj eirj it pi to aiafia ra Trp'x;
oi&iv, k.tA. The av seems requ red by the protasis ei /xtj fir),
and two C"dd. supply it. The interrogative sentence ends with
f<rrai. — Below (ware rra.0tlv av), av is found with the same force
with the infinitive ; " so that those . . . might possihly be affected."

9 Reading eV dAAois dp' r) £u»), as Schmidt suggests, and as the
sense seems to require, although there is no MS. authority except
for yap.

10 saved to the last. The word here is 8ta(T(o£(tv ; lit. to "preserve
through dang'-r," hut .t is used by later writers mostly of dialectic
battles, and Plato himself uses it so (e. g. Tifmeus, p. 56, 68, Polit.
P 395) always of " probability." It is used by Gregory, literally,
in Ins letter to Flavian, "wc at last arrived alive in our own
distiii t," and, with a slight difference, On Pilgrimages, "it is im-
possible for a woman to accomplish so long a journey without a
conductor, on account of her natural weakness." Hence the late
word Sioo-aio-njs, dux itineris.

now hope for. Just as many questions might
be started for debate amongst people sitting up
at night as to the kind of thing that sunshine
is, and then the simple appearing of it in all its
beauty would render any verbal description
superfluous, so every calculation that tries to
arrive conjectural ly at the future state will be
reduced to nothingness by the object of our
hopes, when it comes upon us. But since it is
our duty not to leave the arguments brought
against us in any way unexamined, we will ex-
pound the truth as to these points as follows.
First let us get a clear notion as to the scope of
this doctrine ; in other words, what is the end
that Holy Scripture has in view in promulgating
it and creating the belief in it. Well, to sketch
the outline of so vast a truth and to embrace it
in a definition, we will say that the Resurrection
is " the reconstitution of our nature in its original
form '." But in that form of life, of which God
Himself was the Creator, it is reasonable to
believe that there was neither age nor infancy
nor any of the sufferings arising from our present
various infirmities, nor any kind of bodily afflic-
tion whatever. It is reasonable, I say, to be-
lieve that God was the Creator of none of these
things, but that man was a thing divine before
his humanity got within reach of the assault of
evil ; that then, however, with the inroad of evil,
all these afflictions also broke in upon him.
Accordingly a life that is free from evil is under
no necessity whatever of being passed amidst
the things that result from evil. It follows that
when a man travels through ice he must get his
body chilled ; or when he walks in a very hot
sun that he must get his skin darkened ; but if he
has kept clear of the one or the other, he escapes
these results entirely, both the darkening and
the chilling ; no one, in fact, when a particular
cause was removed, would be justified in look-
ing for the effect of that particular cause. Just
so our nature, becoming passional, had to
encounter all the necessary results of a life of
passion : but when it shall have started back to
that state of passionless blessedness, it will no
longer encounter the inevitable results of evil
tendencies. Seeing, then, that all the infusions
of the life of the brute into our nature were not
in us before our humanity descended through
the touch of evil into passions, most certainly,
when we abandon those passions, we shah
abandon all their visible results. No one,
therefore, will be justified in seeking in that
other life for the consequences in us of any
passion. Just as if a man, who, clad in a ragged
tunic, has divested himself of the garb, feels no

1 The actual language of this definition is Platonic (cf. Sympos.
p. 193 D) but it is Gregory's constant formula for the Christi hi
Resurrection : see De //our. O if. c. 17 ; In Ecclesiast. I. p 385 A ;
Funeral Oration for /'iilelieria. III. p. 523 C; l rat. de AJorluu,
III. p. 632 C; De Virgtnita.c, c. xii. p. J58.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

465

more its disgrace upon him, so we too, when
we have cast off that dead unsightly tunic made
from the skins of brutes and put upon us (for I
take the " coats of skins " to mean that con-
formation belonging to a brute nature with
which we were clothed when we became familiar
with passionate indulgence), shall, along with
the casting off of that tunic, fling from us all
the belongings that were round us of that skin
of a brute ; and such accretions are sexual
intercourse, conception, parturition, impurities,
suckling, feeding, evacuation, gradual growth
to full size, prime of life, old age, disease, and
death. If that skin is no longer round us, how
can its resulting consequences be left behind
within us? It is folly, then, when we are to
expect a different state of things in the life to
come, to object to the doctrine of the Resurrec-
tion on the ground of something that has nothing
to do with it. I mean, what has thinness or
corpulence, a state of consumption or of ple-
thora, or any other condition supervening in a
nature that is ever in a flux, to do with the
other life, stranger as it is to any fleeting and
transitory passing such as that? One thing,
and one thing only, is required for the operation

)f the Resurrection ; viz. that a man should
lave lived, by being born ; or, to use rather the

iospel words, that "a man should be born2 into
the world " ; the length or briefness of the life,
the manner, this or that, of the death, is an
irrelevant subject of inquiry in connection with
that operation. Whatever instance we take,
howsoever we suppose this to have been, it is
all the same ; from these differences in life there
arises no difficulty, any more than any facility,
with regard to the Resurrection. He who has
once begun to live must necessarily go on having
once lived 3, after his intervening dissolution in
death has been repaired in the Resurrection. As
to the how and the when of his dissolution, what
do they matter to the Resurrection ? Consider-
ation of such points belongs to another line of
inquiry altogether. ' For instance, a man may
have lived in bodily comfort, or in affliction,
virtuously or viciously, renowned or disgraced ;
he may have passed his days miserably, or
happily. These and such-like results must be
obtained from the length of his life and the
manner of his living ; and to be able to pass a
judgment on the things done in his life, it will
be necessary for the judge to scrutinize his in-
dulgences, as the case may be, or his losses, or
his disease, or his old age, or his prime, or his
youth, or his wealth, or his poverty : how well

a eyevnTJOr). S. John xvi. ai.

3 toi/ yip Toi) £tJv ap^dfitvov, £i}(Tai ypr) ttolvtux;. The present
infinitive heie expresses only a new state of existence, the aorist a
continued act. The aorist may have this force, if (as a whole) it is
viewed as a single event in past time. Cf. Appian, Bell. Civ. ii. gi,
3\\Qov, dSov, fvixricra.

or ill a man, placed in either of these, concluded
his destined career ; whether he was the recipi-
ent of many blessings, or of many ills in a length
of life ; or tasted neither of them at all, but
ceased to live before his mental powers were
formed. But whenever the time come that God
shall have brought our nature back to the primal
state of man, it will be useless to talk of such
things then, and to imagine that objections based
upon such things can prove God's power to be
impeded in arriving at His end. His end is
one, and one only ; it is this : when the com-
plete whole of our race shall have been per-
fected from the first man to the last, — some
having at once in this life been cleansed from
evil, others having afterwards in the necessary
periods been healed by the Fire, others having
in their life here been unconscious equally
of good and of evil, — to offer to every one
of us participation in the blessings which are
in Him, which, the Scripture tells us, " eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard," nor thought ever
reached. But this is nothing else, as I at least
understand it, but to be in God Himself; for
the Good which is above hearing and eye and
heart must be that Good which transcends the
universe. But the difference between the vir-
tuous and the vicious life led at the present
time 4 will be illustrated in this way ; viz. in the
quicker or more tardy participation of each in
that promised blessedness. According to the
amount of the ingrained wickedness of each
will be computed the duration of his cure.
This cure consists in the cleansing of his soul,
and that cannofbe achieved without an excruci-
ating condition, as has been expounded in our
previous discussion. But any one would more
fully comprehend the futility and irrelevancy of
all these objections by trying to fathom the
depths of our Apostle's wisdom. When ex-
plaining this mystery to the Corinthians, who,
perhaps, themselves were bringing forward the
same objections to it as its impugners to-day
bring forward to overthrow our faith, he pro-
ceeds on his own authority to chide the audacity
of their ignorance, and speaks thus : " Thou wilt
say, then, to me, How are the dead raised up,
and with what body do they come? Thou
fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened,
except it die ; And that which thou sowest, thou
sowest not that body that shall be, but bare
grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other
grain ; But God giveth it a body as it hath
pleased Him." In that passage, as it seems to

4 Reading with Krabinger, ev t*> vvv xaipa> instead of iv tuj
liHTa. TavTa, which cannot possibly refer to what immediately pre-
cedes, f, e. the union with God, by means of the Resurrection. If
jiem ravra is retained, it must = fiem touto^ toc fiiov. Gregory
here implies that the Resurrection is not a single contemporaneous
act, but differs in time, as individuals differ ; carrying out the Scrip-
tural distinction of a first and second Resurrection.

VOL. V.

H H

466

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

me, he gags the mouths of men who display
their ignorance of the fitting proportions in
Nature, and who measure the Divine power by
their own strength, and think that only so much
is possible to God as the human understanding
can take in, but that what is beyond it surpasses
also the Divine ability. For the man who had
asked the Apostle, " how are the dead raised
up?" evidently implies that it is impossible
when once the body's atoms have been scattered
that they should again come in concourse to-
gether ; and this being impossible, and no other
possible form of body, besides that arising from
such a concourse, being left, he, after the fashion
of clever controversialists, concludes the truth
of what he wants to prove, by a species of
syllogism, thus : If a body is a concourse of
atoms, and a second assemblage of these is
impossible, what sort of body will those get
who rise again ? This conclusion, involved
seemingly in this artful contrivance of premisses,
the Apostle calls " folly," as coming from men
who failed to perceive in other parts of the
creation the masterliness of the Divine power.
For, omitting the sublimer miracles of God's
hand, by which it would have been easy to
place his hearer in a dilemma (for instance he
might have asked "how or whence comes a
heavenjy body, that of the sun for example, or
that of the moon, or that which is seen in the
constellations ; whence the firmament, the air,
water, the earth ? "), he, on the contrary, con-
victs the objectors of inconsiderateness by
means of objects which grow alongside of us
and are very familiar to all. " Does not even
husbandry teach thee," he asks, "that the man
who in calculating the transcendent powers of
the Deity limits them by his own is a fool ? "
Whence do seeds get the bodies that spring up
from them ? What precedes this springing up ?
Is it not a death that precedes 5 ? At least, if

5 Dr. H. Schmidt has an admirable note here, pointing out the
great and important difference between S Paul's use of this analogy
of the grain of wheat, and that of our Saviour in S. John xii. 23,
whence S. Paul took it. In the words, "The hour is come that the
Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily I say unto you,
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (A. V.), the fact
and the similitude exactly correspond. To the corn with its life-
engendering shoot, answers the man with his vivifying soul. The
shoot, when the necessary conditions are fulfilled, breaks through
the corn, and mounts up into an ear, exquisitely developed : so the
soul, when the due time is come, bursts from the body into a nobler
form. Again, through the death of the integument a number of new
corns are produced : so through the death of the body that encases
a perfect soul (: e. that of Jesus), an abundance of blesMngs is pro-
duced for mankind. Everything here exactly corresponds ; the
principle of life on th<- one hand in the corn, on the other hand in
the human bodv, breaks, by dying, into a more beautiful existence.
But this comparison in S. Paul becomes a simititude rather than an
analogy. Wilh him the lifeless body is set over against the life-
containing corn ; he does not compare the lifeless body with the
lifeless corn : because out of the latter no stalk and ear would
ever grow. The comparison, therefore, is not exact : it is not pre-
tended that the rising to life of the dead human body is not a process
transcendently above the natural process of the rising of the ear of
wheat. But the similitude serves to illustrate the form and the
quality of the risen body, which has been in question since v. 35
(iCor xv.), "with what body do they come?" and the salient point is
that the risen body will be as little like the buried body, as the ear

the dissolution of a compacted whole is a death ;
for indeed it cannot be supposed that the seed
would spring up into a shoot unless it had been
dissolved in the soil, and so become spongy
and porous to such an extent as to mingle its
own qualities with the adjacent moisture of the
soil, and thus become transformed into a root and
shoot ; not stopping even there, but changing
again into the stalk with its intervening knee-
joints that gird it up like so many clasps, to
enable it to carry with figure erect the ear with
its load of corn. Where, then, were all these
things belonging to the grain before its dissolu-
tion in the soil? And yet this result sprang
from that grain ; if that grain had not existed
first, the ear would not have arisen. Just,
then, as the " body " of the ear comes to light
out of the seed, God's artistic touch of power
producing it all out of that single thing, and
just as it is neither entirely the same thing as
that seed nor something altogether different, so
(she insisted) by these miracles performed on
seeds you may now interpret the mystery of the
Resurrection. The Divine power, in the super-
abundance of Omnipotence, does not only re-
store you that body once dissolved, but makes
great and splendid additions to it, whereby the
human being is furnished in a manner still more
magnificent. " It is sown," he says, " in cor-
ruption ; it is raised in incorruption : it is sown
in weakness ; it is raised in power : it is sown
in dishonour ; it is raised in glory : it is sown
a natural body ; it is raised a spiritual body."
The grain of wheat, after its dissolution in the
soil, leaves behind the slightness of its bulk and
the peculiar quality of its shape, and yet it has
not left and lost itself, but, still self-centred,
grows into the ear, though in many points it
has made an advance upon itself, viz. in size,
in splendour, in complexity, in form. In the
same fashion the human being deposits in death
all those peculiar surroundings which it has
acquired from passionate propensities ; dis-
honour, I mean, and corruption and weakness
and characteristics of age ; and yet the human
being does not lose itself. It changes into an
ear of corn as it were ; into incorruption, that is,
and glory and honour and power and absolute
perfection ; into a condition in which its life is
no longer carried on in the ways peculiar to
mere nature, but has passed into a spiritual and
passionless existence.^ For it is the peculiarity
of the natural body to be always moving on a
stream, to be always altering from its state for
the moment and changing into something else ;
but none of these processes, which we observe

of wheat is like its corn. The possibility of the Resurrection has
been already proved by S. Paul in this chapter by Christ's own
Resurrection, which he states from the very commencement as a
fact : it is not proved by tins similitude.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION.

467

not in man only but also in plants and brutes,
will be found remaining in the life that shall be
then. Further, it seems to me that the words
of the Apostle in every respect harmonize with
our own conception of what the Resurrection
is. They indicate the very same thing that we
have embodied in our own definition of it,
wherein we said that the Resurrection is no
other thing than " the re-constitution of our
nature in its original form." For, whereas we
learn from Scripture in the account of the first
Creation 6, that first the earth brought forth
" the green herb " (as the narrative says), and
that then from this plant seed was yielded, from
which, when it was shed on the ground, the
same form of the original plant again sprang
up, the Apostle, it is to be observed, declares
that this very same thing happens in the Resur-
rection also; and so we learn from him the
fact, not only * that our humanity will be
then changed into something nobler, but also
that what we have therein to expect is nothing
else than that which was at the beginning. In
the beginning, we see, it was not an ear rising
from a grain, but a grain coming from an ear,
and, after that, the ear grows round the
grain : and so the order indicated in this simili-
tude 8 clearly shows that all that blessed state
which arises for us by means of the Resurrec-
tion is only a return to our pristine state of
grace. We too, in fact, were once in a fashion
a full ear 9 ; but the burning heat of sin
withered us up, and then on our dissolution
by death the earth received us : but in the
spring of the Resurrection she will reproduce
this naked grain • of our body in the form of an

6 The Resurrection being the second. The ineiSr) here does not
give the reason for what precedes : that is given in the words, <J>rj<j-i
&r< tovto 6 ijrooToAo?, to which the leading yap therefore belongs :
the colon should be replaced (after avi&pafiev) by a comma.

7 Reading ov p.6vov Se tovto, k.t.K. The Se is not found in
two Codd.

• 8 i. e. of grain, adopted by the Apostle.

** <rra.\v<; here might be the nom. plur. Any way it is a " nomin-
ativus pendens."

' This " naked grain " is suggested by the words of S. Paul, not
so much i Cor. xv. 37, as 2 Cor. v. 4 : For we that are in this
tabernacle do groan, being burdened : not for that we would be
usiclothed, but clothed upon." Tertullian's words (de resnrr. carnis
c. 52) deserve to be quoted, " Seritur granum sine folliculi veste,
sine fund.uncnto spicas, sine munimento aristae, sine superbia culmi.
Etsurgit copia feneratum, compagine aedificatum, ortline structum,
ctiku munitum, et usquequaque vestitum." In allusion to this
passage (2 Cor. v 4), Origen says, " Our theory of the Resurrection
teaches that the relations of a seed attach to that which the Scrip-
tures call the ' tabernacle of the soul,' in which the righteous ' do
groin being burdened.' not wishing to put it off, but ' to be clothed
upon ' (with something else). We do not, as Celsus thinks, mean by
the resurrection anything like the transmigration of souls. The
soul, in its essence unbodied and invisible, when it comes into
material space, requires a body fitted to the conditions of that par-
ticular space : which body it wears, having either put off a former
body, or else having put it on over its former body. . . For instance,
when it conies to the actual birth into this world, it lays aside the
envi uii'iieut (\iapiov) which was needed as long as it is in the womb
of her that is with child : and it clothes itself with that which is
necessary for one destined to pass through life. Then there is a
' tabernacle,' and ' an earthly house,' as well : and the Scriptures
tell us that this ' earthly house' of the tabernacle is to be dissolved,
but that the tabernacle itself is to surround itself with another house
not made with hands. The men of God declare that the corruptible
must put on incorruption (which is a different thing from the incor-

H H 2

ear, tall, well-proportioned, and erect, reaching
to the heights of heaven, and, for blade and
beard, resplendent in incorruption, and with all
the other godlike marks. For " this corruptible
must put on incorruption " ; and this incorrup-
tion and glory and honour and power are those
distinct and acknowledged marks of Deity
which once belonged to him who was created
in God's image, and which we hope for here-
after. The first man Adam, that is, was the
first ear; but with the arrival of evil human
nature was diminished into a mere multitude2;
and, as happens to the grain 3 on the ear, each
individual man was denuded of the beauty of
that primal ear, and mouldered in the soil : but
in the Resurrection we are born again in our
original splendour ; only instead of that single
primitive ear we become the countless myriads
of ears in the cornfields. The virtuous life as
contrasted with that of vice is distinguished
thus : those who while living have by virtuous
conduct exercised husbandry on themselves are
at once revealed in all the qualities of a perfect
ear, while those whose bare grain (that is the
forces of their natural soul) has become
through evil habits degenerate, as it were, and
hardened by the weather (as the so-called
" hornstruck " seeds ♦, according to the experts
in such things, grow up), will, though they
live again in the Resurrection, experience very
great severity from their Judge, because they
do not possess the strength to shoot up into
the full proportions of an ear, and thereby
become that which we were before our earthly
fall1 5. The remedy offered by the Over-

niptible), and the mortal must put on immortality (which is different
fiom the immortal : just as the relative quality of wisdom is different
from that which is absolutely wise). Observe, then, where this
system leads us. It says that the souls put on incorruption and
immortality like garments which keep their wearer from corruption,
and their inmate (t'ov irepuceifLevov avra) from death " (c. Celt. vii.
32). We see at once this is another explanation of the Resurrection,
by the a-Trepnini-ncos Adyos of the soul, and not Gregory's ; with him
the soul re-collects its scattered atoms, and he thus saves the true
scriptural view.

2 I his connection of "evil" and "multitude" is essentially
Platonic. Cf. also Plotinus, vi. 6. i : "Multitude, then, is a revolt
from unity and infinity a more complete revolt by being infinite
multitude : and so infinity is bad, and we are bad, when we are a
multitude" (cf. " Legion " in the parable).

3 as happens to the • rain, i. e. to become bare, as compared
with the beautiful envelopments of the entire ear.

* " iiornstrnck " seeds, i. e. those which have been struck by, or
have struck, the horns of the oxen, in the process of sowing : accord-
ing to the rustic superstition, which Gregory Nazianz. in some very
excellent hexameters alludes to (Opp. t. II. pp. 66 — 163) : "There
is," he says, "a dry unsoakable seed, which never sinks into the
ground, or fattens with the rain ; it. is harder than horn ; its
horn has struck the horn of the ox, what time the ploughman's hand
is scattering the grain over his land." Ruhnken (ad Timceum, p.
155) has collected the ancient authorities on this point. The word
is used by Plato of a " hard, " " intractable " person. The " bare
grain " of the wicked is here compared to these hard seeds, which
even though they may sink into the earth and rise again, yet have
a poor and stunted blade, which may never grow.

5 Reading en-i. njs yi}?, instead of •riji' yrjv : for a fall " on to the
earth." instead of "on tbe earth," agrees neither with what Gregory
speaking by Macrina) has urged against the heathen doctrine of
Transmigration, nor with the words of Scripture which he follows.
The " earthly fall " is compared with the heavenly rising :
/tai-ddTiocri.?, ill the sen~e of a " moral fall," is used in 3 Maccab. Li.
14 (quoted by Schmidt.

468

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

seer of the produce is to collect together the
tares and the thorns, which have grown up with
the good seed, and into whose bastard life all
the secret forces that once nourished its root
have passed, so that it not only has had to
remain without its nutriment, but has been
choked and so rendered unproductive by this
unnatural growth. When from the nutritive
part within them everything that is the re-
verse or the counterfeit of it has been picked
out, and has been committed to the fire that
consumes everything unnatural, and so has dis-
appeared, then in this class also their humanity
will thrive and will ripen into fruit-bearing,
owing to such husbandry, and some day after
long courses of ages will get back again that
universal form which God stamped upon us at
the beginning. Blessed are they, indeed, in
whom the full beauty of those ears shall be
developed directly they are born in the Resur-
rection. Yet we say this without implying that
any merely bodily distinctions will be manifest
between those who have lived virtuously and
those who have lived viciously in this life, as if
we ought to think that one will be imperfect as
regards his material frame, while another will
win perfection as regards it. The prisoner and
the free, here in this present world, are just alike
as regards the constitutions of their two bodies ;
though as regards enjoyment and suffering the
gulf is wide between them. In this way, I take
it, should we reckon the difference between the
good and the bad in that intervening time6.

'■'■■• Between the Resurrection and the Afro«aT<t<rTa<Tn.

For the perfection of bodies that rise from that
sowing of death is, as the Apostle tells us, to
consist in incorruption and glory and honour
and power ; but any diminution in such excel-
lences does not denote a corresponding bodily
mutilation of him who has risen again, but a
withdrawal and estrangement from each one of
those things which are conceived of as belong-
ing to the good. Seeing, then, that one or the
other of these two diametrically opposed ideas,
I mean good and evil, must any way attach to
us, it is clear that to say a man is not included
in the good is a necessary demonstration that
he is included in the evil. But then, in con-
nection with evil, we find no honour, no glory,
no incorruption, no power ; and so we are
forced to dismiss all doubt that a man who has
nothing to do with these last-mentioned things
must be connected with their opposites, viz.
with weakness, with dishonour, with corruption,
with everything of that nature, such as we spoke
of in the previous parts of the discussion, when
we said how many were the passions, sprung
from evil, which are so hard for the soul to get
rid of, when they have infused themselves into
the very substance of its entire nature and be-
come one with it. When such, then, have
been purged from it and utterly removed by
the healing processes worked out by the Fire,
then every one of the things which make up
our conception of the good will come to take
their place ; incorruption, that is, and life, and
honour, and grace, and glory, and everything
else that we conjecture is to be seen in God,
land in His Image, man as he was made.

IV. APOLOGETIC.

THE GREAT CATECHISM'

SUMMARY.

The Trinity.

Prologue and Chapter I. — The belief in God rests on the art and wisdom displayed in the
order of the world : the belief in the Unity of God, on the perfection that must belong to Him
in respect of power, goodness, wisdom, etc. Still, the Christian who combats polytheism has
need of care lest in contending against Hellenism he should fall unconsciously into Judaism.
For God has a Logos : else He would be without reason. And this Logos cannot be merely an
attribute of God. We are led to a more exalted conception of the Logos by the consideration
that in the measure in which God is greater than we, all His predicates must also be higher than
those which belong to us. Our logos is limited and transient ; but the subsistence (uTroaraois)
of the Divine Logos must be indestructible ; and at the same time living, since the rational
cannot be lifeless, like a stone. It must also have an independent life, not a participated life,
else it would lose its simplicity ; and, as living, it must also have the faculty of will. This will
of the Logos must be equalled by his power : for a mixture of choice and impotence would,
again, destroy the simplicity. His will, as being Divine, must be also good. From this ability
and will to work there follows the realization of the good ; hence the bringing into existence of
the wisely and artfully adjusted world. But since, still further, the logical conception of the
Word is in a certain sense a relative one, it follows that together with the Word He Who speaks
it, i. e. the Father of the Word, must be recognized as existing. Thus the mystery of the faith
avoids equally the absurdity of Jewish monotheism, and that of heathen polytheism. On the
one hand, we say that the Word has life and activity ; on the other, we affirm that we find in
the Adyoc, whose existence is derived from the Father, all the attributes of the Father's nature.

Chapter II. — By the analogy of human breath, which is nothing but inhaled and exhaled
fire, *". e. an object foreign to us, is demonstrated the community of the Divine Spirit with the
essence of God, and yet the independence of Its existence.

Chapter III. — From the Jewish doctrine, then, the unity of the Divine nature has been
retained : from Hellenism the distinction into hypostases.

Chapter IV. — The Jew convicted from Scripture.

Reasonableness of the Incarnation.

Chapters V. and VI. — God created the world by His reason and wisdom ; for He cannot have
proceeded irrationally in that work ; but His reason and wisdom are, as above shown, not to be
conceived as a spoken word, or as the mere possession of knowledge, but as a personal and
willing potency. If the entire world was created by this second Divine hypostasis, then certainly
was man also thus created ; yet not in view of any necessity, but from superabounding love, that
there might exist a being who should participate in the Divine perfections. If man was to be recep-
tive of these, it was necessary that his nature should contain an element akin to God ; and,
in particular, that he should be immortal. Thus, then, man was created in the image of God.

1 It is not exactly clear why this Instruction for Catechizers is called the " Great " : perhaps with reference to some lesser manual.
For it.' apoiogetic intention, see Prolegomena, p. is. Its genuineness, which has been called in question by a few merely on the
ground of opinions in it Origenistic and even Eutychian, is confirmed by Theodoret, Dial. ii. 3, contr. Eutych Aubertin ano Casaubon
both recognize Gregory as its author. The division, however, of the chapters, by whoever made, is far from a correct guide to the
contents ; but, by grouping them, the main argument can be made clear.

472 GREGORY OF NYSSA.

He could not therefore be without the gifts of freedom, independence, self-determination ; and
his participation in the Divine gifts was consequently made dependent on his virtue. Owing to
this freedom he could decide in favour of evil, which cannot have its origin in the Divine will,
but only in our inner selves, where it arises in the form of a deviation from good, and so a
privation of it. Vice is opposed to virtue only as the absence of the better. Since, then, all
that is created is subject to change, it was possible that, in the first instance, one of the created
spirits should turn his eye away from the good, and become envious, and that from this envy
should arise a leaning towards badness, which should, in natural sequence, prepare the way for
all other evil. He seduced the first men into the folly of turning away from goodness, by disturb-
ing the Divinely ordered harmony between their sensuous and intellectual natures ; and guilefully
tainting their wills with evil.

Chapters VII. and VIII. — God did not, on account of His foreknowledge of the evil that
would result from man's creation, leave man uncreated ; for it was better to bring back sinners
to original grace by the way of repentance and physical suffering than not to create man at all.
The raising up of the fallen was a work befitting the Giver of life, Who is the wisdom and
power of God ; and for this purpose He became man.

Chapter IX. — The Incarnation was not unworthy of Him ; for only evil brings degradation.

Chapter X. — The objection that the finite cannot contain the infinite, and that therefore the
human nature could not receive into itself the Divine, is founded on the false supposition that
the Incarnation of the Word means that the infinity of God was contained in the limits of the
flesh, as in a vessel. — Comparison of the flame and wick.

Chapters XI., XII., XIII. — For the rest, the manner in which the Divine nature was united
to the human surpasses our power of comprehension ; although we are not permitted to doubt
the fact of that union in Jesus, on account of the miracles which He wrought. The supernatural
character of those miracles bears witness to their Divine origin.

Chapters XIV., XV., XVI., XVII. — The scheme of the Incarnation is still further drawn out,
to show that this way for man's salvation was preferable to a single fiat of God's will. Christ
took human weakness upon Him ; but it was physical, not moral, weakness. In other words the
Divine goodness did not change to its opposite, which is only vice. In Him soul and body were
united, and then separated, according to the course of nature ; but after He had thus purged
human life, He reunited them upon a more general scale, for all, and for ever, in the Resurrection.

Chapter XVIII. — The ceasing of demon-worship, the Christian martyrdoms, and the devast-
ation of Jerusalem, are accepted by some as proofs of the Incarnation —

Chapters XIX., XX. — But not by the Greek and the Jew. To return, then, to its reasonable-
fiess. Whether we regard the goodness, the power, the wisdom, or the justice of God, it displays
a combination of all these acknowledged attributes, which, if one be wanting, cease to be Divine.
It is therefore true to the Divine perfection.

Chapters XXL, XXII., XXIII. — -What, then, is the justice in it? We must remember that
man was necessarily created subject to change (to better or to worse). Moral beauty was to be
the direction in which his free will was to move ; but then he was deceived, to his ruin, by an
illusion of that beauty. After we had thus freely sold ourselves to the deceiver, He who of His
goodness sought to restore us to liberty could not, because He was just too, for this end have
recourse to measures of arbitrary violence. It was necessary therefore that a ransom should be
paid, which should exceed in value that which was to be ransomed ; and hence it was necessary
that the Son of God should surrender Himself to the power of death. God's justice then impelled
Him to choose a method of exchange, as His wisdom was seen in executing it.

Chapters XXIV., XXV. — But how about the power ? That was more conspicuously displayed
in Deity descending to lowliness, than in all the natural wonders of the universe. It was like
flame being made to stream downwards. Then, after such a birth, Christ conquered death.

Chapter XXVI. — A certain deception was indeed practised upon the Evil one, by concealing
the Divine nature within the human ; but for the latter, as himself a deceiver, it was only a just
recompense that he should be deceived himself : the great adversary must himself at last find
that what has been done is just and salutary, when he also shall experience the benefit of the
Incarnation. He, as well as humanity, will be purged.

Chapters XXVII., XXVIII. — A patient, to be healed, must be touched ; and humanity had
to be touched by Christ. It was not in "heaven " ; so only through the Incarnation could it be
healed. — It was, besides, no more inconsistent with His Divinity to assume a human than a
"heavenly" body ; all created beings are on a level beneath Deity. Even "abundant honour"
is due to the instruments of human birth.

Chapters XXIX., XXX., XXXI. — As to the delay of the Incarnation, it was necessary that

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

473

human degeneracy should have reached the lowest point, before the work of salvation could
enter in. That, however, grace through faith has not come to all must be laid to the account
of human freedom ; if God were to break down our opposition by violent means, the praise-
worthiness of human conduct would be destroyed.

Chapter XXXII. — Even the death on the Cross was sublime : for it was the culminating and
necessary point in that scheme of Love in which death was to be followed by blessed resurrection
for the whole " lump " of humanity : and the Cross itself has a mystic meaning.

The Sacraments.

Chapters XXXIII., XXXIV., XXXV., XXXVI.— The saving nature of Baptism depends on
three things; Prayer, Water, and Faith, i. It is shown how Prayer secures the Divine Presence.
God is a God of truth ; and He has promised to come (as Miracles prove that He has come
already) if invoked in a particular way. 2. It is shown how the-JDeity gives life from water.
In human generation, even without prayer, He gives life from a small beginning. In a higher
generation He transforms matter, not into soul, but into spirit. 3. Human freedom, as evinced
in faith and repentance, is also necessary to Regeneration. Being thrice dipped in the water
is our earliest mortification ; coming out of it is a forecast of the ease with which the pure shall
rise in a blessed resurrection : the whole process is an imitation of Christ.

Chapter XXXVII. — The Eucharist unites the body, as Baptism the soul, to God. Our bodies,
having received poison, need an Antidote ; and only by eating and drinking can it enter. One
Body, the receptacle of Deity, is this Antidote, thus received. But how can it enter whole into
each one of the Faithful ? This needs an illustration. Water gives its own body to a skin-
bottle. So nourishment (bread and wine) by becoming flesh and blood gives bulk to the human
frame : the nourishment is the body. Just as in the case of other men, our Saviour's nourishment
(bread and wine) was His Body ; but these, nourishment and Body, were in Him changed into
the Body of God by the Word indwelling. So now repeatedly the bread and wine, sanctified by
the Word (the sacred Benediction), is at the same time changed into the Body of that Word;
and this Flesh is disseminated amongst all the Faithful.

Chapters XXXVIII., XXXIX — It is essential for Regeneration to believe that the Son and
the Spirit are not created spirits, but of like nature with God the Father ; for he who would
make his salvation dependent (in the baptismal Invocation) on anything created would trust to
an imperfect nature, and one itself needing a saviour.

Chapter XL. — He alone has truly become a child of God who gives evidence of bis regener-
ation by putting away from himself all vice

PROLOGUE.

The presiding ministers of the " mystery of
godliness " 2 have need of a system in their in-
structions, in order that the Church may be
' replenished by the accession of such as should
be saved 3, through the teaching of the word of
Faith being brought home to the hearing of un-
believers. Not that the same method of in-
struction will be suitable in the case of all who
approach the word. The catechism must be
adapted to the diversities of their religious
worship ; with an eye, indeed, to the one aim
and end of the system, but not using the
same method of preparation in each individual
case. The Judaizer has been preoccupied with
one set of notions, one conversant with
Hellenism, with others ; while the Anomcean,

* 1 Tim. iii. 16.

3 Acts ii. 47.

and the Manichee, with the followers of
Marcion 4, Valentinus, and Basilides s, and the
rest on the list of those who have wandered

4 Marcion, a disciple of Cerdo, added a third Principle to the
two which his master taught. The first is an unnamed, invisible,
and good God, but no creator ; the second is a visible and creative
God, i. e. the Demiurge ; the third intermediate between the in-
visible and visible God, i. e. the Devil. The Demiurge is the God
and Judge of the Jews. Marcion affirmed the Resurrection of the
soul alone. He rejected the Law and the Prophets as proceeding
from the Demiurge ; only Christ came downfrom the unnamed and
invisible Father to save the soul, and to confute this God of the
Jews. The only Gospel he acknowledged was S. Luke's, omitting
the beginning which details our Lord's Conception and Incarnation.
Other portions also both in the middle and the end he curtailed.
Besides this broken Gospel of S. Luke he retained ten of the Apos-
tolic letters, but garbled even them. Gregory says elsewhere, that
the followers of Eunomius got their "duality of Gods" from
Marcion, but went beyond him in denying essential goodness to the
Only-begotten, the " God of the Gospel.'

5 Of the Gnostics Valentinus and Basilides the truest and best
account is given in H. L. Mansel's Gnostics, and in the articles upon
them in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. It is there shown
how all their visions of celestial Hierarchies, and the romances con-
nected with them, were born of the attempt to solve the insoluble
problem, i.e. how that which in modern philosophy would be called
the Infinite is to pass into the Finite. They fell into the fatalism of
the Emanationist view of the Deity, but still the attempt was an
honest one.

474

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

into heresy, each of them being prepossessed
with their peculiar notions, necessitate a special
controversy with their several opinions. The
method of recovery must be adapted to the
form of the disease. You will not by the same
means cure the polytheism of the Greek, and
the unbelief of the Jew as to the Only-begotten
God : nor as regards those who have wandered
into heresy will you, by the same arguments
in each case, upset their misleading romances
as to the tenets of the Faith. No one could
set Sabellius6 right by the same instruction as
would benefit the Anomcean". The controversy
with the Manichee is profitless against the Jew8.
It is necessary, therefore, as I have said, to re-
gard the opinions which the persons have taken
up, and to frame your argument in accordance
with the error into which each has fallen, by
advancing in each discussion certain principles
and reasonable propositions, that thus, through
what is agreed upon on both sides, the truth
may conclusively be brought to light. «When,
then, a discussion is held with one of those who
favour Greek ideas, it would be well to make
the ascertaining of this the commencement of
the reasoning, i. e. whether he presupposes the
existence of a God, or concurs with the atheistic
view. Should he say there is no God, then,
from the consideration of the skilful and wise
economy of the Universe he will be brought to
acknowledge that there is' a certain overmaster-
ing power manifested through these channels.
If, on the other hand, he should have no
doubt as to the existence of Deity, but
should be inclined to entertain the presumption
of a plurality of Gods, then we will adopt
against him some such train of reasoning as
this : " does he think Deity is perfect or de-
fective?" and if, as is likely, he bears testi-
mony to the perfection in the Divine nature,
then we will demand of him to grant a per-
fection throughout in everything that is ob-
servable in that divinity, in order that Deity

6 Sabellius. The Sabellian heresy was rife in the century pre-
ceding ; ;. e. that Personality is attributed to the Deity only from the
exigency of human language, that consequently He is sometimes
characterized as the Father, when operations and works more
appropriate to the paternal relation are spoken of; and so in like
manner of the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; as when Redemption is
the subject, or Sanctification. In making the Son the Father, it is
the opposite pole to Ananisin.

" We see also the rise (i.e. A.D. 350I of a new and more defiant
Arian school, more in earnest than the older generation, impatient
of (heir shuffling diplomacy, and less pliant to court influences.
Aelius .... came to rest in a clear and simple form of Arianism.
Christianity without mystery seems to have been his aim. The
Anuincean leaders took their stand on the doctrine of Arius himself,
and dwelt with emphasis on its most offens ve aspects. Anus had
1 11. igo laid down the absolute unlikencss of the Son 10 the Father,
but lor years past the Arianizers had prudently softened it down.
Now. however, 'unlike' became the watchword ol Aetius and
Eunomiiis" : Gwatkin's Brians. For the way in which this school
treated the Trinity see Against Evnomius, p. 50.

8 I ' ,e. an argument against Dualism miiikI only confirm the Jew
111 his stern monotheism. Manes had taught also that " those souls
who be 11 vi Jesus ( hrist to be the Son of God renounce the worship
Go. I of the Jews, who is the Pr nee of Darkness," and that " the
< Hi I ettament was the work of this Prince, who was substituted by
the Jews in the place ol the true God."

may not be regarded as a mixture of opposites,
defect and perfection. But whether as respects
power, or the conception of goodness, or wisdom
and imperishability and eternal existence, or
any other notion besides suitable to the nature
of Deity, that is found to lie close to the sub-
ject of our contemplation, in all he will agree
that perfection is the idea to be entertained of
the Divine nature, as being a just inference
from these premises. If this, then, be granted
us, it would not be difficult to bring round
these scattered notions of a plurality of Gods
to the acknowledgment of a unity of Deity.
For if he admits that perfection is in every
respect to be ascribed to the subject before
us, though there is a plurality of these per-
fect things which are marked with the same
character, he must be required by a logical
necessity, either to point out the particularity
in each of these things which present no dis-
tinctive variation, but are found always with
the same marks, or, if (he cannot do that, and)
the mind can grasp nothing in them in the way
of particular, to give up the idea of any dis-
tinction. For if neither as regards " more and
less" a person can detect a difference (in as
much as the idea of perfection does not admit
of it), nor as regards " worse " and " better "
(for he cannot entertain a notion of Deity at all
where the term "worse" is not got rid of), nor
as regards " ancient " and " modern " (for what
exists not for ever is foreign to the notion of
Deity), but on the contrary the idea of God-
head is one and the same, no peculiarity being
on any ground of reason to be discovered in
any one point, it is an absolute necessity that
the mistaken fancy of a plurality of Gods would
be forced to the acknowledgment of a unity
of Deity. For if goodness, and justice, and
wisdom, and power may be equally predicated
of it, then also imperishability and eternal
existence, and every orthodox idea would be
in the same way admitted. As then all dis-
tinctive difference in any aspect whatever has
been gradually removed, it necessarily follows
that together with it a plurality of Gods has
been removed from his belief, the general
identity bringing round conviction to the Unity.

CHAPTER I. • . 4

But since our system of religion is wont to
observe a distinction of persons in the unity of
the Nature, to prevent our argument in our
contention with Greeks sinking to the level of
Judaism there is need again of a distinct tech-
nical statement in order to correct all error on
this point.

For not even by those who are external to

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

475

our doctrine is the Deity held to be without
Logos 9. Now this admission of theirs will
quite enable our argument to be unfolded.^ For
he who admits that God is not without Logos,
will agree that a being who is not without Logos
(or word) certainly possesses Logos. Now it is
to be observed that the utterance of man is ex-
pressed by the same term. If, then, he should
say that he understands what the Logos of God
is according to the analogy of things with us,
he will thus be led oti to a loftier idea, it being
an absolute necessity for him to believe that
the utterance, just as everything else, corre-
sponds with the nature. Though, that is, there
is a certain sort of force, and life, and wisdom,
observed in the human subject, yet no one from
the similarity of the terms would suppose that
the life, or power, or wisdom, were in the
case of God of such a sort as that, but the
significations of all such terms are lowered to
accord with the standard of our nature. For
since our nature is liable to corruption and
weak, therefore is our life short, .our strength
unsubstantial, our word unstable *. But in that
transcendent nature, through the greatness of
the subject contemplated, every thing that is
said about it is elevated with it. Therefore
though mention be made of God's Word it
will not be thought of as having its realization
in the utterance of what is spoken, and as then
vanishing away, like our speech, into the non-
existent. On the contrary, as our nature, liable
as it is to come to an end, is endued with
speech which likewise comes to an end, so that
imperishable and ever-existing nature has eternal
and substantial speech. If, then, logic re-
quires him to admit this eternal subsistence of
God's Word, it is altogether necessary to ad-
mit also that the subsistence 2 of that word

9 the Deity . . . -without Logos. In another treatise (De Fide,
p. 40) Gregory bases the argument for the eternity of the Ad-yos on
S Jchn i. 1, where it is not said, "after the beginning," but "in
the beginning." The beginning, therefore, never was without the
Adyo?.

1 unstable: ajrayrjs (the reading apirayis is manifestly wrong).
So afterwards human speech is called eTriKrjpos. Cf. Athanasius
(Contr. Avian. 3) : "Since man came from the non-existent, there-
fore his ' word' also has a pause, and does not last From man we
get, day after day, many different words, because the first abide
not, but are forgotten."

a vir6<TTa<riv. About this oft repeated word the question arises
whether we are indebted to Christians or to Platonists for the first skil-
ful use of it in expressing that which is neither substance nor quality.
Abraham Tucker (Light 0/ Nature, ii. p. 191) hazards the following
remark with regard to the Platonic Triad, i. e. Goodness, Intel-
ligence, Acti/ity, viz. that quality would not do as a general name
for these principles, because the ideas and abstract essences existed
in the Intelligence, &c, and qualities cannot exist in <>ne another,
e.g. yellowness cannot be soft : nor could substance be the term,
for then they must have been component parts of the Existent,
which would have destroyed the unity of the Godhead : "therefore,
he (Plato) styled them Hypostases or Subsistencies; which is some-
thing between substance and quality, inexisting in the one, and
serving as a receptacle for the other's inexistency within it." But he
adds, " I do not recommend this explanation to anybody " ; nor does
he state the authority for this Platonic use, so lucidly explained, of the
word. Indeed, if the word had ever been applied to the principles
of the Platonic triad, to express in the case of each of them " the
distinct subsistence in a common oixria," it would have falsified the
very conception of the first, i. e. Goodness, which was never relative.
So that this very word seems to emphasize, sc far, the antagonism

consists in a living state ; for it is an impiety
to suppose that the Word has a soulless sub-
sistence after the manner of stones. But if it
subsists, being as it is something with intellect
and without body, then certainly it lives, where-
as if it be divorced from life, then as certainly
it does not subsist ; but this idea that the Word
of God does not subsist, has been shown to be
blasphemy. By consequence, therefore, it has
also been shown that the Word is to be con-
sidered as in a living condition. And since
the nature of the Logos is reasonably believed
to be simple, and exhibits in itself no duplicity
or combination, no one would contemplate the
existence of the li\ t ig Logos as dependent on.
a mere participation of life, for such a sup-
position, which is to say that one thing is
within another, would not exclude the idea of
compositeness ; but, since the simplicity has
been admitted, we are compelled to think that
the Logos has an independent life, and not a
mere participation of life./ If, then, the Logos,
as being life, lives 3, it certainly has the faculty

between Christianity and Platonism. Socrates [E. H. iii. 7) bears
witness to the absence of the word from the ancient Greek philo-
sophy : "it appears to us that the Greek philosophers have given
us various definitions of ovcria, but have not taken the slightest notice
of vttoo-tolo-k;. ... it is not found in any of the ancients except occa-
sionally in a sense quite different from that which is att.iched to it
at the present day {i.e. fifth century). Thus Sophocles in his tragedy
entitled Phoenix uses it to signify 'treachery': in Menander it
implies ' sauces' {i.e. sediment). But although the ancient philo-
sophical writers scarcelv noticed the word, the more modern onet
have frequently used it instead of oixria." But it was, as far
as can be iraced, the unerring genius of Origen that first threw
around the Adyo? that atmosphere of a new term,/, e. iiTrdcTTao-is, as
well as 6fioov(Tio<;, avroBtos, which afterward made it possible to
present the Second Person to the Greek-speaking world as the
member of an equal and indivisible Trinity. It was he who first
selected such words and saw what they were capable of ; though he
did not insist on that fuller meaning which was put upon them when
all danger within the Church of Sabellianism had disappeared, and
error passed in the guise of Arianism to the opposite extreme.

3 lives. This doctrine is far removed from that of Philo, i. e.
from the Alexandrine philosophy. The very first statement of S. John
represents the Adyos as having a backward movement towards the
Deity, as well as a forward movement from Him ; as held there,
and yet sent thence by a force which he calls Love, so that the
primal movement towards the world does not come from the Adyo?,
but from the Father Himself. The Adyos here is the Word, and not
the Reason ; He is the living effect of a living cause, not a theory
or hypothesis standing at the gateway of an insoluble mystery.
The Adyos speaks because the Father speaks, not because the
Supreme cannot and will not speak ; and their relations are often
the reverse of those they hold in Philo ; for the Father becomes at
times the meditator between the Adyos and the world drawing men
towards Him and subduing portions of the Creation before His path,.
Psychology seems to pour a light straight into the Council-chamber
of the Eternal ; while Metaphysics had turned away from it,
with her finger on her lips. Philo may have used, as Tholuck
thinks, those very texts of the Old Testament which support the
Christian doctrine of the Word, and in the translation of which the
LXX. supplied him with the Greek word. But, however derived,
his theology eventually ranged itself with those pantheistic views of
the universe which subdued all thinking minds not Christianized,
for more than three centuries after him. The majority of recent critics
certainly lavour I he supposition that the Adyos of Philo is a being
numerically distinct from the Supreme ; but when the relation of
the Supreme is attentively traced in each, the actual antagonism of
the Christian system and his begins to be apparent. The Supreme
of Philo is not and can never be related to the world. The Adyo? is
a logical necessity as a mediator between the two ; a spiritual being
certainly, but only the head of along series of such beings, who
succeed at last in filling the passage between the finite and the
infinite. In this system there is no mission of ioveand of free will ;
such beings are but as the milestones to mark the distance between
man and the Great Unknown. It is significant that Vacherot, the
leading historian of the Alexandrine school of philosophy, doubts
whether John the Evangelist ever even heard of the Jewish philo-
sopher of Alexandria. It is pretty much the same with the
members of the Neoplatonic Triad as with the Adyos of Philo. The

476

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

of will, for no one of living creatures is without
such a faculty. Moreover that such a will has
also capacity to act must be the conclusion of
a devout mind. For if you admit not this
potency, you prove the reverse to exist. But no ;
impotence is quite removed from our con-
ception of Deity. Nothing of incongruity is
to be observed in connection with the Divine
nature, but it is absolutely necessary to admit
that the power of that word is as great as the
purpose, lest mixture, or concurrence, of con-
tradictions be found in an existence that is
incomposite, as would be the case if, in the
same purpose, we were to detect both impotence
and power, if, that is, there were power to do
one thing, but no power to do something else.
Also we must suppose that this will in its power
to do all things will have no tendency to any-
thing that is evil (for impulse towards evil is
foreign to the Divine nature), but that whatever
is good, this it also wishes, and, wishing, is
able to perform, and, being able, will not fail
to perform ♦ ; but that it will bring all its pro-
posals for good to effectual accomplishment.
Now the world is good, and all its contents are
seen to be wisely and skilfully ordered. All
of them, therefore, are the works of the Word,
of one who, while He lives and subsists, in
that He is God's Word, has a will too, in that
He lives ; of one too who has power to effect
what He wills, and who wills what is abso-
lutely good and wise and all else that con-
notes superiority. Whereas, then, the world
is admitted to be something good, and from
what has been said the world has been shown
to be the work of the Word, who both wills
and is able to effect the good, this Word
is other than He of whom He is the Word.
For this, too, to a certain extent is a term of
"relation," inasmuch as the Father of the

God of Plotinus and Proclus is not a God in three hypostases : he
is simply one, Intelligence and Soul being his necessary emanations ;
they are in God, but they are not God : Soul is but a hypostasis of
a hypostasis. The One is not a hypostasis, but above it. This
"Trinity " depends on the distinction and succession of the neces-
sary movements of the Deity ; it consists of three distinct and
separate principles of things. The Trinity is really peculiar to
Christianity. Three inseparable Hypostases make equally a part of
the Divine nature, so that to take away one would be to destroy
the whole. The Word and Spirit are Divine, not intermediaries
disposed in a hierarchy on the route of the world to God. As
Plotinus reproached the Gnostics, the Christian mysticism despises
the world, and suppressing the intermediaries who in other doctrines
serve to elevate the soul gradually to God, it transports it by one
impulse as it were into the Divine nature. The Christian goes
straight to God by Faith. The Imagination, Reason, and Con-
templation of the Neoplitonists, /'. e. the three movements of the
soul which correspond to their lower "trinity "of Nature, Soul,
Intelligence, are no longer necessary. There is an antipathy pro-
found between the two systems. How then could the one be said
to influence the other ? Neoplatonism may have tinged Christianity,
while it was still seeking for language in which to express its inner
self: but it never influenced the intrinsically morat character of the
Christian Creeds. The Alexandrine philosophy is all metaphysics,
and its rock was pantheism ; all, even matter, proceeds from God
necessarily and eternally. The Church never hesitated : she saw
the abyss that opens upon that path ; and by severe decrees she has
closed the way to pantheism.

4 7tnll not fail to perform ; /u.tj <ii/ei/epyj)Toi' eT|/ai. This is a
favourite word with Gregory, and the Platonist Synesius.

Word must needs be thought of with the Word,
for it would not be word were it not a word
of some one. If, then, the mind of the hearers,
from the relative meaning of the term, makes a
distinction between the Word and Him from
whom He proceeds, we should find that the
Gospel mystery, in its contention with the
Greek conceptions, would not be in danger of
coinciding with those who prefer the beliefs
of the Jews. But it will equally escape the
absurdity of either party, by acknowledging
both that the living Word of God is an effective
and creative being, which is what the Jew re-
fuses to receive, and also that the Word itself,
and He from whom He is, do not differ in their
nature. As in our own case we say that the
word is from the mind, and no more entirely
the same as the mind, than altogether other than
it (for, by its being from it, it is something else,
and not it ; still by its bringing the mind in
evidence it can no longer be considered as
something other than it ; and so it is in its
essence one with mind, while as a subject it is
different), in like manner, too, the Word of
God by its self-subsistence is distinct from Him
from whom it has its subsistence ; and yet by -ex-
hibiting in itself those qualities which are re-
cognized in God it is the same in nature with
Him who is recognizable by the same distinctive
marks. For whether one adopts goodness 5, or
power, or wisdom, or eternal existence, or the
incapability of vice, death, and decay, or an
entire perfection, or anything whatever of the
kind, to mark one's conception of the Father,
by means of the same marks he will find the
Word that subsists from Him.

CHAPTER II.

As, then, by the higher mystical ascent6
from matters that concern ourselves to that

5 goodness. "God is love ;" but how is this love above or equal
to the Power? " Infinite Goodness, according to our apprehension,
requires that it should exhaust omnipotence : that it should give
capacities of enjoyment and confer blessings until there were no
more to be conferred : but our idea of omnipotence requires that it
should be inexhaustible ; that nothing should limit its operation, so
that it should do no more than it has done. Therefore, it is much
easier to conceive an imperfect creature completely good, than a
perfect Being who is so. . . . Since, then, we find our understanding
incapable of comprehending infinite goodness joined with infinite
power, we need not be suiprised at finding our thoughts perplexed
concerning them ... we may presume that the obscurity rises
from something wrong in our ideas, not from any inconsistencies in
the subjects themselves." Abraham Tucker, L. of N., i. 355.

6 by the higher mystical ascent, ai/a-yioyixu?. The common
reading was di/aAoyiica>s, which Hervetus and Morell have trans-
lated. But Krabinger, from all his Codd. but one, has rightly re-
stored avayuiyiKuis. It is not " analogy," but rather "induction,"
that is here meant : i. e. the arguing from the known to the unknown,
from the facts of human nature (to. xaC r)fi.as) to those of the God-
head, or from history to spiritual events. 'Ai/aymyij is the chief
instrument in Origen's interpretation of the Bible ; it is more im^
portant than allegory. It alone gives the "heavenly" mean:ng, as
opposed to the moral and practical though stilt mystical (cf.Gu sncke,
Hist. Schol. Catech. ii. p. 60) meaning. Speaking of the Tower of
Babel, he says that there is a "riddle" in the account. "A com-
petent exposition will have a more convenient season for dealing
with this, when there is a direct necessity to explain the passage in
its higher mystical meaning" {c. Cels. iv. p. 173/. Gregory imitates

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

477

transcendent nature we gain a knowledge of
the Word, by the same method we shall be
led on to a conception of the Spirit, by ob-
serving in our own nature certain shadows and
resemblances of His ineffable power. Now in
us the spirit (or breath) is the drawing of the
air, a matter other than ourselves, inhaled and
breathed out for the necessary sustainment of
the body. This, on the occasion of uttering
the word, becomes an utterance which expresses
in itself the meaning of the word. And in the
case of the Divine nature it has been deemed
a point of our religion that there is a Spirit of
God, just as it has been allowed that there is
a Word of God, because of the inconsistency
of the Word of God being deficient as com-
pared with our word, if, while this word of
ours is contemplated in connection with spirit,
that other Word were to be believed to be
quite unconnected with spirit. Not indeed
that it is a thought proper to entertain of Deity,
that after the manner of our breath something
foreign from without flows into God, and in
Him becomes the Spirit ; but when we think
of God's Word we do not deem the Word to
be something unsubstantial, nor the result of in-
struction, nor an utterance of the voice, nor what
after being uttered passes away, nor what is
subject to any other condition such as those
which are observed in our word, but to be
essentially self-subsisting, with a faculty of will
ever-working, all-powerful. The like doctrine
have we received as to God's Spirit ; we regard
it as that which goes with the Word and mani-
fests its energy, and not as a mere effluence of
the breath; for by such a conception the
grandeur of the Divine power would be reduced
and humiliated, that is, if the Spirit that is in it
were supposed to resemble ours. But we con-
ceive of it as an essential power, regarded as
self-centred in its own proper person, yet
equally incapable of being separated from God
in Whom it is, or from the Word of God whom
it accompanies, as from melting into nothing-
ness ; but as being, after the likeness of God's
Word, existing as a person ?, able to will, self-
moved, efficient, ever choosing the good, and

his master in constantly thus dealing with the Old Testament, i.e.
making inductions about the highest spiritual truths from the
" history " So Basil would treat the prophecies (in Isai. v. p. 948).
Chrysostom, on the Songs of " Degrees" in the Psalms, says that
they are so called because they speak of the going up from Babylon,
according to history; but, according to their high mysticism, be-
cause they lift us into the way of excellence. Here Gregory uses
the facts of human nature neither in the way of mere analogy nor of
allegory : he argues straight from them, as one reality, to another
reality almost of the same class, as it were, as the first, man being
"in the image of God " ; and so ivaymyn here comes nearer induction

than anything else.

1 Ka6' vir6<TTa<TLv. Ueberweg (Hist, of Philosophy vol. 1. 329)
remarks : " That the same argumentation, which in the last analysis
reposes only on the double sense of vTrdo-Tatri? (viz. : la) real sub-
sistence ; (6) individually independent, not attributive subsistence),
could be used with reference to each of the Divine attributes, and
so for the complete restoration of polytheism, Gregory leaves un-
noticed." Yet Gregory doubtless was well aware of this, tor he

for its every purpose having its power concurrent
with its will..

CHAPTER III.

And so one who severely studies the depths
of the mystery, receives secretly in his spirit,
indeed, a moderate amount of apprehension of
the doctrine of God's nature, yet he is unable
to explain clearly in words the ineffable deptn
of this mystery. As, for instance, how the
same thing is capable of being numbered and
yet rejects numeration, how it is observed with
distinctions yet is apprehended as a monad,
how it is separate as to personality yet is not
divided as to subject matter 8. For, in person-
ality, the Spirit is one thing and the Word an-
other, and yet again that from which the Word
and Spirit is, another. But when you have
gained the conception of what the distinction
is in these, the oneness, again, of the nature
admits not division, so that the supremacy of
the one First Cause is not split and cut up into
differing Godships, neither does the statement
harmonize with the Jewish dogma, but the
truth passes in the mean between these two
conceptions, destroying each heresy, and yet
accepting what is useful to it from each. The
Jewish dogma is destroyed by the acceptance
of the Word, and by the belief in the Spirit ;
while the polytheistic error of the Greek school
is made to vanish by the unity of the Nature
abrogating this imagination of plurality. While
yet again, of the Jewish conception, let the
unity of the Nature stand ; and of the Hellen-
istic, only the distinction as to persons ; the
remedy against a profane view being thus ap-
plied, as required, on either side. For it is as
if the number of the triad were a remedy in the
case of those who are in error as to the One,
and the assertion of the unity for those whose
beliefs are dispersed among a number of
divinities.

CHAPTER IV.

But should it be the Jew who gainsays these
arguments, our discussion with him will no

says, just below, that even a severe study of the mystery can only
result in a moderate amount of apprehension of it.

8 it is separate as to personality yet is not divided as to subject
matter. The words are respectively vmtTTo.ai'i and viroKei^vov.
The last word is with Gregory, whose clearness in philosophical
distinctions makes his use of words very observable, always equiva-
lent to oixria, and ovaia generally to (pvam;. The following note of
Casaubon (Epist. ad Eustath.) is valuable: In the Holy Trinity
there is neither " confusion," nor " composition," nor " coalescing ;
neither the Sabellian 'contraction," any more than the Arian
"division," neither on the other hand '-estrangement, or differ-
ence " There is " distinction " or " distribution " without division.
This word " distribution " is used by Tertullian and others to ex-
press the effect of the "persons" (iotorrjTK, inwiweis, Trpoerwjra)
upon the Godhead which forms the definition of the substance (on*
ovcrta? Aovov).

478

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

longer present equal difficulty 9, since the truth
will be made manifest out of those doctrines
on which he has been brought up. For that
there is a Word of God, and a Spirit of God,
powers essentially subsisting, both creative of
whatever has come into being, and compre-
hensive of things that exist, is shown in the
clearest light out of the Divinely-inspired
Scriptures. It is enough if we call to mind
one testimony, and leave the discovery of more
to those who are inclined to take the trouble.
" By the Word of the Lord," it is said, " the
heavens were established, and all the power of
them by the breath of His mouth I." What
word and what breath? For the Word is not
mere speech, nor that breath mere breathing.
Would not the Deity be brought down to the
level of the likeness of our human nature, were
it held as a doctrine that the Maker of the
universe used such word and such breath
as this? What power arising from speech
or breathing could there be of such a kind as
would suffice for the establishment of the
heavens and the powers that are therein ? For
if the Word of God is like our speech, and His
Breath is like our breath, then from these
like things there must certainly come a likeness
of power; and the Word of God has just so
much force as our word, and no more. But
the words that come from us and the breath
that accompanies their utterance are ineffective
and unsubstantial. Thus, they who would
bring down the Deity to a similarity with the
word as with us render also the Divine word
and spirit altogether ineffective and unsub-
stantial. But if, as David says, " By the Word
of the Lord were the heavens established, and
their powers had their framing by His breath,"
then has the mystery of the truth been con-
firmed, which instructs us to speak of a word
as in essential being, and a breath as in
personality.

CHAPTER V.

That there is, then, a Word of God, and a
Breath of God, the Greek, with his "innate
ideas"2, and the Jew, with his Scriptures, will
perhaps not deny. But the dispensation as
regards the Word of God, whereby He became
man, both parties would perhaps equally reject,
as being incredible and unfitting to be told of
God. By starting, therefore, from another point
we will bring these gainsayers to a belief in this
fact. They believe that all things came into

9 i. t. as with the Greek.

1 Ps. xxxiii. 4, Septuagint version.

'■■ innate ideas (koiiw iwouuiv). There is a Treatise of Gregory
introducing Christianity to the Greeks "from innate ideas." J hi:,
title has been, wrongly, attributed by some to a later hand.

being by thought and skill on the part of Him
Who framed the system of the universe ; or else
they hold views that do not conform to this
opinior. . But should they not grant that reason
and wisdom guided the framing of the world,
they will install unreason and unskilfulness on
the throne of the universe. But if this is an
absurdity and impiety, it is abundantly plain
that they must allow that thought and skill rule
the world. Now in what has been previously
said, the Word of God has been shown not to
be this actual utterance of speech, or the posses-
sion of some science or art, but to be a power
essentially and substantially existing, willing
all good, and being possessed of strength to
execute all its will ; and, of a world that is
good, this power appetitive and creative of
good is the cause. If, then, the subsistence
of the whole world has been made to depend
on the power of the Word, as the train of the
argument has shown, an absolute necessity pre-
vents us entertaining the thought of there being
any other cause of the organization of the
several parts of the world than the Word Him-
self, through whom all things in it passed into
being. If any one wants to call Him Word,
or Skill, or Power, or God, or anything else
that is high and prized, we will not quarrel
with him. For whatever word or name be in-
vented as descriptive of the subject, one thing
is intended by the expressions, namely the
eternal power of God which is creative of things
that are, the discoverer of things that are not,
the sustaining cause of things that are brought
into being, the foreseeing cause of things yet
to be. This, then, whether it be God, or Word,
or Skill, or Power, has been shown by inference
to be the Maker of the nature of man, not
urged to framing him by any necessity, but in
the superabundance of love operating the pro-
duction of such a creature. For needful it
was that neither His light should be unseen,
nor His glory without witness, nor His goodness
unenjoyed, nor that any other quality observed
in the Divine nature should in any case lie
idle, with none to share it or enjoy it. If,
therefore, man comes to his birth upon these
conditions, namely to be a partaker of the good
things in God, necessarily he is framed of such
a kind as to be adapted to the participation of
such good. For as the eye, by virtue of the bright
ray which is by nature wrapped up in it, is in
fellowship with the light, and by its innate
capacity draws to itself that which is akin to it,
so was it needful that a certain affinity with the
Divine should be mingled with the nature of
man, in order that by means of this correspond-
ence it might aim at that which was native to
it. It is thus even with the nature of the un-
reasoning creatures, whose lot is cast in water or

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

479

in air; each of them has an organization adapted
to its kind of life, so that by a peculiar form-
ation of the body, to the one of them the air,
to the other the water, is its proper and
congenial element. Thus, then, it was needful
for man, born for the enjoyment of Divine
good, to have something in his nature akin to
that in which he is to participate. For this
end he has been furnished with life, with
thought, with skill, and with all the excellences
that we attribute to God, in order that by each
of them he might have his desire set upon that
which is not strange to him. Since, then, one
of the excellences connected with the Divine
nature is also eternal existence, it was altogether
needful that the equipment of our nature should
not be without the further gift of this attribute,
but should have in itself the immortal, that
by its inherent faculty it might both recognize
what is above it, and be possessed with a desire
for the divine and eternal life3. In truth this
has been shown in the comprehensive utterance
of one expression, in the description of the
cosmogony, where it is said that man was made
" in the image of God " 4. For in this likeness,
implied in the word image, there is a summary
of all things that characterize Deity ; and what-
ever else Moses relates, in a style more in the
way of history, of these matters, placing doctrines
before us in the form of a story, is connected
with the same instruction. For that Paradise
of his, with its peculiar fruits, the eating of
which did not afford to them who tasted there-
of satisfaction of the appetite, but knowledge
and eternity of life, is in entire agreement with
what has been previously considered with regard
to man, in the view that our nature at its be-
ginnings was good, and in the midst of good.
*±fut, perhaps, what has been said will be con-
tradicted by one who looks only to the present
condition of things, and thinks to convict our
statement of untruthfulness, inasmuch as man
is seen no longer under those primeval circum-
stances, but under almost entirely opposite
ones. " Where is the divine resemblance in the
soul ? Where the body's freedom from suffer-
ing ? Where the eternity of life ? Man is of
brief existence, subject to passions, liable to
decay, and ready both in body and mind for
every form of suffering." By these and the like
assertions, and by directing the attack against
human nature, the opponent will think that he
upsets the account that has been offered re-

3 Cf. Cato's Speech in Addison's Cato: —

It must be so : Plato, thou reasonest well ! —
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire
This longing after immortality?
* * « « »

' lis the divinity that stirs within us ,
'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

4 Gen L 2-

specting man. But to secure that our argument
may not have to be diverted from its course at
any future stage, we will briefly discuss these
points. That the life of man is at present subject
to abnormal conditions is no proof that man was
not created in the midst of good. For since
man is the work of God, Who through His
goodness brought this creature into being, no
one could reasonably suspect that he, of whose
constitution goodness is the cause, was created
by his Maker in the midst of evil. But there
is another reason for our present circumstances
being what they are, and for our being destitute
of the primitive surroundings : and yet again
the starting-point of our answer to this argu-
ment against us is not beyond and outside the
assent of our opponents. For He who made
man for the participation of His own peculiar
good, and incorporated in him the instincts for
all that was excellent, in order that his desire
might be carried forward by a corresponding
movement in each case to its like, would never
have deprived him of that most excellent and
precious of all goods ; I mean the gift implied
in being his own master, and having a free
will. For if necessity in any way was the
master of the life of man, the " image " would
have been falsified in that particular part, by
being estranged owing to this unlikeness to its
archetype. How can that nature which is
under a yoke and bondage to any kind of
necessity be called an image of a Master
Being ? Was it not, then, most right that that
which is in every detail made like the Divine
should possess in its nature a self-ruling and
independent principle, such as to enable the
participation of good to be the reward of its
virtue ? Whence, then, comes it, you will ask,
that he who had been distinguished throughout
with most excellent endowments exchanged
these good things for the worse ? The reason
of this also is plain. No growth of evil had
its beginning in the Divine will. Vice would
have been blameless were it inscribed with the
name of God as its maker and father. But the
evil is, in some way or other, engendered5 from
within, springing up in the will at that moment
when there is a retrocession of the soul from
the beautiful 6, For as sight is an activity of
nature, and blindness a deprivation of that
natural operation, such is the kind of opposition
between virtue and vice. It is, in fact, not
possible to form any other notion of the origin
of vice than as the absence of virtue. For as
when the light has been removed the darkness
supervenes, but as long as it is present there is

5 S. James i. 15 : f) eiri.9vfi.Ca tiktci . . . a/otapTtaf.

6 to KaKov. The Greek word for moral perfection, according to
one view of itsderivation (tcat'eiy), refers to " brightness " ; according
to another (cf xexaSaevo^), to " finish " or perfection.

480

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

no darkness, so, as long as the good is present
in the nature, vice is a thing that has no inherent
existence; while the departure of the better
state becomes the origin of its opposite. Since,
then, this is the peculiarity of the possession of
a free will, that it chooses as it likes the thing
that pleases it, you will find that it is not God
Who is the author of the present evils, seeing
that He has ordered your nature so as to be its
own master and free; but rather the reckless-
ness that makes choice of the worse in pre-
ference to the better.

CHAPTER VI.

But you will perhaps seek to know the cause
of this error of judgment ; for it is to this point
that the train of our discussion tends. Again,
then, we shall be justified in expecting to find
some starting-point which will throw light on
this inquiry also. An argument such as the
following we have received by tradition from
the Fathers; and this argument is no mere
mythical narrative, but one that naturally invites
our credence. Of all existing things there is
a twofold manner of apprehension, the con-
sideration of them being divided between what
appertains to intellect and what appertains to
the senses ; and besides these there is nothing
to be detected in the nature of existing things,
as extending beyond this division. Now these
two worlds have been separated from each
other by a wide interval, so that the sensible
is not included in those qualities which mark
the intellectual, nor this last in those qualities
which distinguish the sensible, but each receives
its formal character from qualities opposite to
those of the other. The world of thought is
bodiless, impalpable, and figureless ; but the
sensible is, by its very name, bounded by those
perceptions which come through the organs of
sense. But as in the sensible world itself,
though there is a considerable mutual opposi-
tion of its various elements, yet a certain har-
mony maintained in those opposites has been
devised by the wisdom that rules the Universe,
and thus there is produced a concord of the
whole creation with itself, and the natural con-
trariety does not break the chain of agreement ;
in like manner, owing to the Divine wisdom,
there is an admixture and interpenetration of
the sensible with the intellectual department, in
order that all things may equally have a share
in the beautiful, and no single one of existing
things be without its share in that superior world.
For this reason the corresponding locality of
the intellectual world is a subtile and mobile
essence, which, in accordance with its supramun-
dane habitation, has in its peculiar nature large
affinity with the intellectual part. Now, by a

provision of the supreme Mind there is an inter-
mixture of the intellectual with the sensible
world, in order that nothing in creation may be
thrown aside 7 as worthless, as says the Apostle,
or be left without its portion of the Divine
fellowship. On this account it is that the com
mixture of the intellectual and sensible in man
is effected by the Divine Being, as the descrip-
tion of the cosmogony instructs us. It tells us
that God, taking dust of the ground, formed the
man, and by an inspiration from Himself He
planted life in the work of His hand, that thus
the earthy might be raised up to the Divine,
and so one certain grace of equal value might
pervade the whole creation, the lower nature
being mingled with the supramundane. Since,
then, the intellectual nature had a previous
existence, and to each of the angelic powers a
certain operation was assigned, for the organiz-
ation of the whole, by the authority that presides
over all things, there was a certain power or-
dained to hold together and sway the earthly
region 8, constituted for this purpose by the
power that administers the Universe. Upon that
there was fashioned that thing moulded of earth,
an "image" copied from the superior Power.
Now this living being was man. In him, by
an ineffable influence, the godlike beauty of
the intellectual nature was mingled. He to
whom the administration of the earth has been
consigned takes it ill and thinks it not to be
borne, if, of that nature which has been sub-
jected to him, any being shall be exhibited
bearing likeness to his transcendent dignity.
But the question, how one who had been
created for no evil purpose by Him who framed
the system of the Universe in goodness fell away,
nevertheless, into this passion of envy, it is not a
part of my present business minutely to discuss ;
though it would not be difficult, and it would
not take long, to offer an account to those who
are amenable to persuasion. For the distinctive
difference between virtue and vice is not to be
contemplated as that between two actually sub-
sisting phenomena ; but as there is a logical
opposition between that which is and that

7 i Tim. iv. 4 ; " rejected " (R. V.), better than " refused " (A. V..).

8 This is not making the Devil the Demiurge, but only the
"angel of the Earth." And as the celestial regions and atmosphere
of the earth were assigned to "angelic powers," so the Earth itself
and her nations were assigned to subordinate angels. Origen had
already developed, or rather christianized, this doctrine. Speaking
of the Confusion of Tongues, he says, " And so each (nation) had to
be handed over to the keeping of angels more or less severe, and oi
this character or of that, according as each had moved a greater or
less distance from the East, and had prepared more or less bricks
for stone, and more or less slime for mortar ; and had built up more
or less. This was that they might be punished for their boldness.
These angels who had already created for each nation its peculiar
tongue, were to lead their charges into various parts according to
their deserts : one lor instance to some burning clime, another to
one which would chastise the dwellers in it with its freezing : . . .
those who retained the original speech through nut having moved
from the East are the only ones that became ' the portion of the
Lord.' . . . They, too, alone are to be considered as having been
under a ruler who did not take them in hand to be punished as the
others were ' (c. Ceh. v. 30- 1%

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

481

which is not, and it is not possible to say that,
as regards subsistency, that which is not is dis-
tinguished from that which is, but we say that
nonentity is only logically opposed to entity, in
the same way also the word vice is opposed to
the word virtue, not as being any existence in
itself, but only as becoming thinkable by the ab-
sence of the better. As we say that blindness is
logically opposed to sight, not that blindness
has of itself a natural existence, being only a
deprivation of a preceding faculty, so also we
say that vice is to be regarded as the depriva-
tion of goodness, just as a shadow which
supervenes at the passage of the solar ray.
Since, then, the uncreated nature is incapable
of admitting of such movement as is implied in
turning or change or alteration, while every-
thing that subsists through creation has connec-
tion with change, inasmuch as the subsistence
itself of the creation had its rise in change, that
which was not passing by the Divine power into
that which is ; and since the above-mentioned
power was created too, and could choose by a
spontaneous movement whatever he liked, when
he had closed his eyes to the good and the un-
grudging like one who in the sunshine lets his
eyelids down upon his eyes and sees only dark-
ness, in this way that being also, by his very
unwillingness to perceive the good, became
cognisant of the contrary to goodness. Now
this is Envy. Well, it is undeniable that the
beginning of any matter is the cause of every-
thing else that by consequence follows upon it,
as, for instance, upon health there follows a good
habit of body, activity, and a pleasurable life,
but upon sickness, weakness, want of energy, and
life passed in distaste of everything ; and so, in
all other instances, things follow by consequence
their proper beginnings. As, then, freedom
from the agitation of the passions is the be-
ginning and groundwork of a life in accordance
with virtue, so the bias to vice generated by
that Envy is the constituted road to all these
evils which have been since displayed. For
when once he, who by his apostacy from good-
ness had begotten in himself this Envy, had
received this bias to evil 9, like a rock, torn
asunder from a mountain ridge, which is driven
down headlong by its own weight, in like
manner he, dragged away from his original
natural propension to goodness and gravitating
with all his weight in the direction of vice, was

9 " We affirm that it is not easy, or perhaps possible, even for a
philosopher to know the origin of evil without its being made known
to him by an inspiration of God, whence it comes, and how it shall
vanish. Ignorance of God is itself in the list of evils ; ignorance of
His way of healing and of serving Him ariyht is itself the greatest
evil : we affirm that no one whatever can possibly know the origin
of evil, who does not see that the standard of piety recognized by
the average of established laws is itself an evil. No one, either can
know it who has not grasped the truth about the Being who is called
the Devil ; what he was at the first, and how he became such as
he is." — Origen (c. Ceis. iv. 65).

deliberately forced and borne away as by a
kind of gravitation to the utmost limit of iniquity ;
and as for that intellectual power which he had
received from his Creator to co-operate with
the better endowments, this he made his assist-
ing instrument in the discovery of contrivances
for the purposes of vice, while by his crafty
skill he deceives and circumvents man, per-
suading him to become his own murderer with
his own hands. For seeing that man by
the commission of the Divine blessing had been
elevated to a lofty pre-eminence (for he was
appointed king over the earth and all things or;
it ; he was beautiful in his form, being created an
image of the archetypal beauty ; he was without
passion in his nature, for he was an imitation of
the unimpassioned ; he was full of frankness,
delighting in a face-to-face manifestation of the
personal Deity), — all this was to the adver-
sary the fuel to his passion of envy. Yet could
he not by any exercise of strength or dint of
force accomplish his purpose, for the strength
of God's blessing over-mastered his own force.
His plan, therefore, is to withdraw man from
this enabling strength, that thus he may be
easily captured by him and open to his treachery.
As in a lamp when the flame has caught the
wick and a person is unable to blow it out, he
mixes water with the oil and by this device will
dull the flame, in the same way the enemy, by
craftily mixing up badness in man's will, has
produced a kind of extinguishment and dulness
in the blessing, on the failure of which that
which is opposed necessarily enters. For to
life is opposed death, to strength weakness, to
blessing curse, to frankness shame, and to all
that is good whatever can be conceived as
opposite. Thus it is that humanity is in its
present evil condition, since that beginning
introduced the occasions for such an ending.

CHAPTER VII.

Yet let no one ask, " How was it that, if God
foresaw the misfortune that would happen to
man from want of thought, He came to create
him, since it was, perhaps, more to his advan-
tage not to have been born than to be in the
midst of such evils?" This is what they who
have been carried away by the false teaching of
the Manichees put forward for the establishment
of their error, as thus able to show that the
Creator of human nature is evil. For if God is
not ignorant of anything that is, and yet man
is in the midst of evil, the argument for the
goodness of God could not be upheld ; that is,
if He brought forth into life the man who was
to be in this evil. For if the operating force
which is in accordance with the good is entirely

vol. v.

1 1

482

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

that of a nature which is good, then this painful
and perishing life, they say, can never be re-
ferred to the workmanship of the good, but it is
necessary to suppose for such a life as this
another author, from whom our nature derives
its tendency to misery. Now all these and the
like assertions seem to those who are thoroughly
imbued with the heretical fraud, as with some
deeply ingrained stain, to have a certain force
from their superficial plausibility. But they
who have a more thorough insight into the
truth clearly perceive that what they say is
unsound, and admits of speedy demonstra-
tion of its fallacy. In my opinion, too, it
•is well to put forward the Apostle as pleading
with us on these points for their condemnation.
In his address to the Corinthians he makes a
distinction between the carnal and spiritual dis-
positions of souls ; showing, I think, by what he
says that it is wrong to judge of what is morally
■excellent, or, on the other hand, of what is evil,
by the standard of the senses ; but that, by with-
drawing the mind from bodily phenomena, we
must decide by itself and from itself the true
;nature of moral excellence and of its opposite.
"The spiritual man," he says, "judgeth all
things r." This, I think, must have been the
reason of the invention of these deceptive doc-
trines on the part of those who propound them,
viz. that when they define the good they have
an eye only to the sweetness of the body's en-
joyment, and so, because from its composite
nature and constant tendency to dissolution
that body is unavoidably subject to suffering
and sicknesses, and because upon such con-
ditions of suffering there follows a sort of sense
of pain, they decree that the formation of man
is the work of an evil deity. Since, if their
thoughts had taken a loftier view, and, withdraw-
ing their minds from this disposition to regard
the gratifications of the senses, they had looked
at the nature of existing things dispassionately,
they would have understood that there is no
evil other than wickedness. Now all wicked-
ness has its form and character in the depriv-
ation of the good ; it exists not by itself, and
cannot be contemplated as a subsistence. For
no evil of any kind lies outside and independ-
ent of the will ; but it is the non-existence
of the good that is so denominated. Now
that which is not has no substantial exist-
ence, and the Maker of that which has no sub-
stantial existence is not the Maker of things
that have substantial existence. Therefore the
( iod of things that are is external to the causa-
tion of things that are evil, since He is not the
Maker of things that arc non-existent. He
Who formed the sight did not make blindness.

1 i Cor. ii is.

He Who manifested virtue manifested not the
deprivation thereof. He Who has proposed as
the prize in the contest of a free will the guerdon
of all good to those who are living virtuously,
never, to please Himself, subjected mankind to
the yoke of a strong compulsion, as if he would
drag it unwilling, as it were his lifeless tool,
towards the right. But if, when the light shines
very brightly in a clear sky, a man of his own
accord shuts his eyelids to shade his sight, the
sun is clear of blame on the part of him who
sees not

CHAPTER VIII.

Nevertheless one who regards only the
dissolution of the body is greatly disturbed, and
makes it a hardship that this life of ours should
be dissolved by death ; it is, he says, the ex-
tremity of evil that our being should be quenched
by this condition of mortality. Let him, then,
observe through this gloomy prospect the excess
of the Divine benevolence. He may by this,
perhaps, be the more induced to admire the
graciousness of God's care for the affairs of
man. To live is desirable to those who par-
take of life, on account of the enjoyment of
things to their mind ; since, if any one lives in
bodily pain, not to be is deemed by such an
one much more desirable than to exist in pain.
Let us inquire, then, whether He Who gives us
our outfit for living has any other object in view
than how we may pass our life under the fairest
circumstances. Now since by a motion of our
self-will we contracted a fellowship with evil,
and, owing to some sensual gratification, mixed
up this evil with our nature like some deleteri-
ous ingredient spoiling the taste of honey, and
so, falling away from that blessedness which is
involved in the thought of passionlessness, we
have been viciously transformed — for this reason,
Man, like some earthen potsherd, is resolved
again into the dust of the ground, in order to
secure that he may part with the soil which he
has now contracted, and that he may, through the
resurrection, be reformed anew after the original
pattern ; at least if in this life that now is he
has preserved what belongs to that image. A
doctrine such as this is set before us by Moses
under the disguise of an historical manner2.
And yet this disguise of history contains a
teaching which is most plain. For after, as he
tells us, the earliest of mankind were brought
into contact with what was forbidden, and
thereby were stripped naked of that primal
blessed condition, the Lord clothed these, His
first-formed creatures, with coats of skins. In
my opinion we are not bound to take these

2 t<TTOptKu>Ttpoi> Ka'i fit' alviynaiuiV.

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

4S3

skins in their literal meaning. For to what sort
of slain and flayed animals did this clothing
devised for these humanities belong? But
since all skin, after it is separated from the
animal, is dead, I am certainly of opinion that
He Who is the healer of our sinfulness, of His
foresight invested man subsequently with that
capacity of dying which had been the special
attribute of the brute creation. Not that it was
to last for ever ; for a coat is something external
put on us, lending itself to the body for a time,
but not indigenous to its nature. This liability to
death, then, taken from the brute creation, was,
provisionally, made to envelope the nature
created for immortality. It enwrapped it ex-
ternally, but not internally. It grasped the
sentient part of man, but laid no hold upon the
Divine image. This sentient part, however, does
not disappear, but is dissolved. Disappearance
is the passing away into non-existence, but dis-
solution is the dispersion again into those con-
stituent elements of the world of which it
was composed. But that which is contained
in them perishes not, though it escapes the
cognisance of our senses.

Now the cause of this dissolution is evident
from the illustration we have given of it. For
since the senses have a close connection with
what is gross and earthy, while the intellect is
in its nature of a nobler and more exalted char-
acter than the movements involved in sensation,
it follows that as, through the estimate which
is made by the senses, there is an erroneous
judgment as to what is morally good, and this
error has wrought the effect of substantiating a
contrary condition, that part of us which has
thus been made useless is dissolved by its re-
ception of this contrary. Now the bearing of
our illustration is as follows. We supposed that
some vessel has been composed of clay, and
then, for some mischief or other, filled with
melted lead, which lead hardens and remains
in " a non-liquid state ; then that the owner of
the vessel recovers it, and, as he possesses
the potter's art, pounds to bits the ware
which held the lead, and then remoulds the
vessel after its former pattern for his own special
use, emptied now of the material which had
been mixed with it : by a like process the
maker of our vessel, now that wickedness has
intermingled with our sentient part, I mean
that connected with the body, will dissolve the
material which has received the evil, and, re-
moulding it again by the Resurrection without
any admixture of the contrary matter, will re-
combine the elements into the vessel in its
original beauty. Now since both soul and
body have a common bond of fellowship in
their participation of the sinful affections, there
is also an analogy between the soul's and body's

death. For as in regard to the flesh we pro-
nounce the separation of the sentient life to be
death, so in respect of the soul we call the de-
parture of the real life death. While, then, as
we have said before, the participation in evil
observable both in soul and body is of one and
the same character, for it is through both that
the evil principle advances into actual working,
the death of dissolution which came from that
clothing of dead skins does not affect the soul.
For how can that which is uncompounded be
subject to dissolution ? But since there is a
necessity that the defilements which sin has en-
gendered in tbe soul as well should be removed
thence by some remedial process, the medicine
which virtue supplies has, in the life that now
is, been applied to the healing of such mutila-
tions as these. If, however, the soul remains
unhealed \ the remedy is dispensed in the life
that follows this. Now in the ailments of the
body there are sundry differences, some admit-
ting of an easier, others requiring a more diffi-
cult treatment. In these last the use of the
knife, or cauteries, or draughts of bitter medi-
cines are adopted to remove the disease that
has attacked the body. For the healing of
the soul's sicknesses the future judgment an-
nounces something of the same kind, and this
to the thoughtless sort is held out as the
threat of a terrible correction4, in order that
through fear of this painful retribution they
may gain the wisdom of fleeing from wickedness :
while by those of more intelligence it is believed
to be a remedial process ordered by God to
bring back man, His peculiar creature, to the
grace of his primal condition. They who use
the knife or cautery to remove certain unnatural
excrescences in the body, such as wens or
warts, do not bring to the person they are
serving a method of healing that is painless,
though certainly they apply the knife without
any intention of injuring the patient. In like
manner whatever material excrescences are
hardening on our souls, that have been sensual-
ized by fellowship with the body's affections, are,
in the day of the judgment5, as it were cut
and scraped away by the ineffable wisdom and
power of Him Who, as the Gospel says,
" healeth those that are sick 6." For, as He says
again, " they that are whole have no need of

3 "Here," says Semler, "our Author reveals himself as a
scholar of Origen, and other doctors, who had imbibed the heathen
thoughts of Plato, and wished to rest their system upon a future
(purely) moral improvement" There is certainly too little room left
here for the application to the soul and body in this life of Christ's
atonement.

4 tTKvdpmniiv £ira.v6p9u><Tt.<;, lit. "a correction consisting in
terrible (processes) " (subjective genitive). The following passage
will illustrate this : " Now this requires a deeper investigation, be-
fore it can be decided whether some evil powers have had assigned
them . . . certain duties, like the State-executioners, who hold a
melancholy (TeTay/aeVoi eirl riav <TKvdp<oniov . . . npayft.a.Tu>v) but
necessary office in the Constitution." Origen, c. Cels. vii. 70.

5 in the day 0/ the judgment. The reading (critrcws, which
Hervetus has followed, must be wrong here. » S. Matt. ix. 12.

I 2

484

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

the physician, but they that are sick ?." Since,
then, there has been inbred in the soul a
strong natural tendency to evil, it must suffer,
just as the excision of a wart8 gives a
sharp pain to the skin of the body ; for what-
ever contrary to the nature has been inbred in
the nature attaches itself to the subject in a
certain union of feeling, and hence there is pro-
duced an abnormal intermixture of our own
with an alien quality, so that the feelings, when
the separation from this abnormal growth
comes, are hurt and lacerated. Thus when
the soul pines and melts away under the cor-
rection of its sins, as prophecy sojnewhere tells
us 9, there necessarily follow, from its deep and
intimate connection with evil, certain unspeak-
able and inexpressible pangs, the description of
which is as difficult to render as is that of the
nature of those good things which are the sub-
jects of our hope. For neither the one nor the
other is capable of being expressed in words,
or brought within reach of the understanding.
If, then, any one looks to the ultimate aim of
the Wisdom of Him Who directs the economy
of the universe, he would be very unreasonable
and narrow-minded to call the Maker of man
the Author of evil ; or to say that He is ignorant
of the future, or that, if He knows it and has
made him, He is not uninfluenced by the im-
pulse to what is bad. He knew what was
going to be, yet did not prevent the tendency
towards that which actually happened. That
humanity, indeed, would be diverted from the
good, could not be unknown to Him Who
grasps all things by His power of foresight, and
Whose eyes behold the coming equally with
the past events. As, then, He had in sight
the perversion, so He devised man's recall to
good. Accordingly, which was the better
way? — never to have brought our nature into
existence at all, since He foresaw that the
being about to be created would fall away
from that which is morally beautiful ; or to
bring him back by repentance, and restore
his diseased nature to its original beauty ? But,
because of the pains and sufferings of the body
which are the necessary accidents of its un-
stable nature, to call God on that account the
Maker of evil, or to think that He is not the
Creator of man at all, in hopes thereby to pre-
vent the supposition of His being the Author

1 S. Mark ii. 17.

8 of a wart ; fivp/tijiciaf. Gregory uses the same simile in his
treatiae On the Soul (m. p. 204). 1 he following "scholium " in
Greek is found in the margin of two MSS. of that treatise, ami in
that of one MS. of this treatise : " 1 here is an affection of the
skin which is called a wart. A small fleshy excrescence projects
from the skin, which seems a part of it, and a natural growth jipon
it : but this is not really so ; and therefore it requires removal for
its cure. This illustration made use of by Gregory is exceedingly
appropriate to the matter in hand."

xxxix. (xxxviii.) n: "When thou with rebukes dost cor-
rect man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume awav "
(A. V).

of what gives us pain, — all this is an instance
of that extreme narrow-mindedness which is
the mark of those who judge of moral good and
moral evil by mere sensation. Such persons do
not understand that that only is intrinsically good
which sensation does not reach, and that the
only evil is estrangement from the good. But
to make pains and pleasures the criterion
of what is morally good and the contrary,
is a characteristic of the unreasoning nature of
creatures in whom, from their want of mind
and understanding, the apprehension of real
goodness has no place. That man is the
work of God, created morally noble and for
the noblest destiny, is evident not only from
what has been said, but from a vast number of
other proofs; which, because they are so many,
we shall here omit. But when we call God the
Maker of man we do not forget how carefully
at the outset J we defined our position against
the Greeks. It was there shown that the Word
of God is a substantial and personified being,
Himself both God and the Word ; Who has
embraced in Himself all creative power, or
rather Who is very power with an impulse to
all good ; Who works out effectually whatever
He wills by having a power concurrent with
His will ; Whose will and work is the life of all
things that exist; by Whom, too, man was
brought into being and adorned with the highest
excellences after the fashion of Deity. But
since that alone is unchangeable in its nature
which does not derive its origin through crea-
tion, while whatever by the uncreated being is
brought into existence out of what was non-
existent, from the very first moment that it
begins to be, is ever passing through change,
and if it acts according to its nature the change
is ever to the better, but if it be diverted from
the straight path, then a movement to the con-
trary succeeds, — since, I say, man was thus
conditioned, and in him the changeable element
in his nature had slipped aside to the exact
contrary, so that this departure from the good
introduced in its train every form of evil to
match the good (as, for instance, on the defec-
tion of life there was brought in the antagonism
of death ; on the deprivation of light darkness
supervened ; in the absence of virtue vice arose
in its place, and against every form of good
might be reckoned a like number of opposite
evils), by whom, I ask, was man, fallen by his
recklessness into this and the like evil state (for
it was not possible for him to retain even his
prudence when he had estranged himself from
prudence, or to take any wise counsel when he
had severed himself from wisdom), — by whom
was man to be recalled to the grace of his

1 i. t. Chapter I., throughout

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

485

original state ? To whom belonged the restor-
ation of the fallen one, the recovery of the lost,
the leading back the wanderer by the hand ?
To whom else than entirely to Him Who is the
the Lord of his nature? For Him only Who
at the first had given the life was it possible, or
fitting, to recover it when lost. This is what
we are taught and learn from the Revelation of
the truth, that God in the beginning made man
and saved him when he had fallen.

CHAPTER IX.

Up to this point, perhaps, one who has
followed the course of our argument will agree
with it, inasmuch as it does not seem to him
that anything has been said which is foreign
to the proper conception of the Deity. But
towards what follows and constitutes the
strongest part of this Revelation of the truth,
he will not be similarly disposed ; the human
birth, I mean, the growth of infancy to maturity,
the eating and drinking, the fatigue and sleep,
the sorrow and tears, the false accusation and
judgment hall, the cross of death and consign-
ment to the tomb. All these things, included
as they are in this revelation, to a certain extent
blunt the faith of the more narrow-minded,
and so they reject the sequel itself in conse-
quence of these antecedents. They will not
allow that in the Resurrection from the dead
there is anything consistent with the Deity,
because of the unseemly circumstances of the
Death. Well, I deem it necessary first of
all to remove our thoughts for a moment from
t he grossness of the carnal element, and to fix
them on what is morally beautiful in itself,
and on what is. not, and on the distinguishing
marks by which each of them is to be appre-
hended. No one, I think, who has reflected
will challenge the assertion that, in the whole
nature of things, one thing only is disgraceful,
and that is vicious weakness ; while whatever
has no connection with vice is a stranger to all
disgrace ; and whatever has no mixture in it of
disgrace is certainly to be found on the side
of the beautiful ; and what is really beautiful
has in it no mixture of its opposite. Now
whatever is to be regarded as coming within
the sphere of the beautiful becomes the cha-
racter of God. Either, then, let them show
that there was viciousness in His birth, His
bringing up, His growth, His progress to the
perfection of His nature, His experience of
death and return from death ; or, if they allow
that the aforesaid circumstances of His life
remain outside the sphere of viciousness, they
will perforce admit that there is nothing of dis-
grace in this that is foreign to viciousness. Since,

then, what is thus removed from every disgrace-
ful and vicious quality is abundantly shown to
be morally beautiful, how can one fail to pity
the folly of men who give it as their opiniork'
that what is morally beautiful is not becominj
in the case of God ?

CHAPTER X.

" But the nature of man," it is said, " is narrow
and circumscribed, whereas the Deity is infinite.
How could the infinite be included in the
atom 2 ? " But who is it that says the infinitude
of the Deity is comprehended in the envelop-
ment of the flesh as if it were in a vessel?
Not even in the case of our own life is the intel-
lectual nature shut up within the boundary of
the flesh. On the contrary, while the body's
bulk is limited to the proportions peculiar to
it, the soul by the movements of its thinking
faculty can coincide 3 at will with the whole of
creation. It ascends to the heavens, and sets
foot within the deep. It traverses the breadth
of the world, and in the restlessness of its
curiosity makes its way into the regions that
are beneath the earth ; and often it is occupied
in the scrutiny of the wonders of heaven, and
feels no weight from the appendage4 of the
body. If, then, the soul of man, although by
the necessity of its nature it is transfused
through the body, yet presents itself everywhere
at will, what necessity is there for saying that
the Deity is hampered by an environment of
fleshly nature, and why may we not, by ex-
amples which we are capable of understanding,
gain some reasonable idea of God's plan of
salvation ? (There is an analogy, for instance,
in the flame of a lamp, which is seen to em-
brace the material with which it is supplied 5.
Reason makes a distinction between the flame
upon the material, and the material that kindles
the flame, though in fact it is not possible to
cut off the one from the other so as to exhibit
the flame separate from the material, but they
both united form one single thing. But let
no one, I beg, associate also with this illustra-
tion the idea of the perishableness of the flame ;
let him accept only what is apposite in the

2 tw aTOfiLio : here, the individual body of man : " individuo cor-
pusculo," Zinus translates. Theodoret in his second (" Uncon-
fused ") Dialogue quotes this very passage about the " infiniteness
of the Deity," and a " vessel," to prove the two natures of Christ.

3 e</>affAoi/Tai. 4 €<£>oAkiu>.

5 There is a touch of Eutychianism in this illustration of the
union of the Two Natures ; as also in Gregory's answer {c. Eunom.
iii. 265 ; v. 589) to Eunomius' charge of Two Persons against the
Nicene party, viz. that "the flesh with all its peculiar marks and
properties is taken up and transformed into the Divine nature " ;
whence arose that aiTi(xe0iopTaapts t£>v oyo/uaru)!/, i. e. reciprocal
interchange of the properties human and Divine, which afterwards
occasioned the Monophysite controversy. But Origen had used
language still more incautious ; " with regard to his mortal body and
his human soul, we believe that owing to something more than
communion with Him, to actual union and intermingling, it has
acquired the highest qualities, and partakes of His Divinity, and so
has changed into God " (c. Cels. iii. 41).

486

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

image ; what is irrelevant and incongruous let
him reject. What is there, then, to prevent our
thinking (just as we see flame fastening on the
material 6, and yet not inclosed in it) of a kind
of union or approximation of the Divine nature
with humanity, and yet in this very approxim-
ation guarding the proper notion of Deity, be-
lieving as we do that, though the Godhead be
in man, it is beyond all circumscription ?

CHAPTER XI.

Should you, however, ask in what way Deity
is mingled with humanity, you will have occasion
for a preliminary inquiry as to what the coales-
cence is of soul with flesh. But supposing you
are ignorant of the way in which the soul is in
union with the body, do not suppose that that
other question is bound to come within your
comprehension ; rather, as in this case of the
union of soul and body, while we have reason
to believe that the soul is something other than
the body, because the flesh when isolated from
the soul becomes dead and inactive, we have
yet no exact knowledge of the method of the
union, so in that other inquiry of the union of
Deity with manhood, while we are quite aware
that there is a distinction as regards degree of
majesty between the Divine and the mortal
perishable nature, we are not capable of detect-
ing how the Divine and the human elements
are mixed up together. The miracles recorded
permit us not to entertain a doubt 7 that God
was born in the nature of man. But how —
this, as being a subject unapproachable by the
processes of reasoning, we decline to investigate.
For though we believe, as we do, that all the
corporeal and intellectual creation derives its
subsistence from the incorporeal and uncreated
Being, yet the whence or the how, these we
do not make a matter for examination along
with our faith in the thing itself. While we
accept the fact, we pass by the manner of the
putting together of the Universe, as a subject
which must not be curiously handled, but one
altogether ineffable and inexplicable.

CHAPTER XII.

If a person requires proofs of God's having
been manifested to us in the flesh, let him look
at the Divine activities. For of the existence
of the Deity at all one can discover no other
demonstration than that which the testimony

• fattening «>i lh.- mater at. The word {airreaBai could mean
either " fastening on," 01 "depending on," or " kindled from" (it
hai lieen u-ed in tin, last senile just above). Krabinger selects the
second, " que .< subjei i" dependet."

' otd Tutv ktt'jpovh* rut' HiLv^aTmv ovk dfi^it/SdAAof&ep.

of those activities supplies. When, that is, we
take a wide survey of the universe, and con-
sider the dispensations throughout the world,
and the Divine benevolences that operate in
our life, we grasp the conception of a power
overlying all, that is creative of all things that
come into being, and is conservative of them
as they exist. On the same principle, as re-
gards the manifestation of God in the flesh, we
have established a satisfactory proof of that
apparition of Deity, in those wonders of His
operations ; for in all his work as actually re-
corded we recognize the characteristics of the
Divine nature. It belongs to God to give life
to men, to uphold by His providence all things
that exist. It belongs to God to bestow meat
and drink on those who in the flesh have
received from Him the boon of life, to benefit
the needy, to bring back to itself, by means of
renewed health, the nature that has been per-
verted by sickness. It belongs to God to rule
with equal sway the whole of creation ; earth,
sea, air, and the realms above the air. It is
His to have a power that is sufficient for all
things, and above all to be stronger than
death and corruption. Now if in any one of
these or the like particulars the record of Him
had been wanting, they who are external to the
faith had reasonably taken exception 8 to the
gospel revelation. But if every notion that is
conceivable of God is to be traced in what is
recorded of Him, what is there to hinder our
faith ?

CHAPTER XIII.

But, it is said, to be born and to die are
conditions peculiar to the fleshly nature. I
admit it. But what went before that Birth
and what came after that Death escapes the
mark of our common humanity. If we look
to either term of our human life, we understand
both from what we take our beginning, and
in what we end. Man commenced his exist-
ence in a weakness and in a weakness
completes it. But in the instance of the
Incarnation neither did the birth begin
with a weakness, nor in a weakness did the
death terminate ; for neither did sensual plea-
sure go before the birth, nor did corruption
follow upon the death. Do you disbelieve this
marvel ? I quite welcome your incredulity.
You thus entirely admit that those marvellous
facts are supernatural, in the very way that
you think that what is related is above
belief. Let this very fact, then, that the
proclamation of the mystery did not proceed

8 7rapeypd(/)oi'TO.

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

487

in terms that are natural, be a proof to you of
the manifestation of the Deity. For if what is
related of Christ were within the bounds of
nature, where were the Godhead ? But if the
account surpasses nature, then the very facts
which you disbelieve are a demonstration that
He who was thus proclaimed was God. A
man is begotten by the conjunction of two
persons, and after death is left in corrup-
tion. Had the Gospel comprised no more
than this, you certainly would not have deemed
him to be God, the testimony to whom
was conveyed in terms peculiar only to our
nature. But when you are told that He was
born, and yet transcended our common human-
ity both in the manner of His birth, and by
His incapacity of a change to corruption, it
would be well if, in consequence of this, you
would direct your incredulity upon the other
point, so as tc refuse to suppose Him to be
one of those who have manifestly existed as
mere men ; for it follows of necessity that a
person who does not believe that such and
such a being is mere man, must be led on to
the belief that He is God. Well, he who has
recorded that He was born has related also
that He was born of a Virgin. If, therefore,
on the evidence stated, the fact of His being
born is established as a matter of faith, it is
altogether incredible, on the same evi-
dence, that He was not born in the manner
stated. For the author who mentions His
birth adds also, that it was of a Virgin ; and
in recording His death bears further testi-
mony to His resurrection from the dead. If,
therefore, from what you are told, you grant
that He both was born and died, on the same
grounds you must admit that both His birth
and death were independent of the conditions
of human weakness, — in fact, were above nature.
The conclusion, therefore, is that He Who has
thus been shown to have been born under
supernatural circumstances was certainly Him-
self not limited by nature.

CHAPTER XIV.

"Then why," it is asked, "did the Deity
descend to such humiliation? Our faith is
staggered to think that God, that incompre-
hensible, inconceivable, and ineffable reality,
transcending all glory of greatness, wraps Him-
self up in the base covering of humanity,
so that His sublime operations as well are
debased by this admixture with the grovelling
earth."

CHAPTER XV.

Even to this objection we are not at a loss for
an answer consistent with our idea of God.
You ask the reason why God was born among
men. If you take away from life the benefits
that come to us from God, you would not be
able to tell me what means you have of arriving
at any knowledge of Deity. In the kindly
treatment of us we recognize the benefactor ;
that is, from observation of that which happens
to us, we conjecture the disposition of the
person who operates it. If, then, love of man
be a special characteristic of the Divine nature,
here is the reason for which you are in search,
here is the cause of the presence of God
among men. Our diseased nature needed a
healer. Man in his fall needed one to set him
upright. He who had lost the gift of life stood
in need of a life-giver, and he who had dropped
away from his fellowship with good wanted one
who would lead him back to good. He who was
shut up in darkness longed for the presence of the
light. The captive sought for a ransomer, the
fettered prisoner for some one to take his part,
and for a deliverer he who was held in the
bondage of slavery. Were these, then, trifling
or unworthy wants to importune the Deity to
come down and take a survey of the nature
of man, when mankind was so miserably and
pitiably conditioned ? " But," it is replied,
" man might have been benefited, and yet God
might have continued in a passionless state.
Was it not possible for Him Who in His
wisdom framed the universe, and by the simple
impulse of His will brought into subsistence
that which was not, had it so pleased Him,
by means of some direct Divine command to
withdraw man from the reach of the opposing
power, and bring him back to his primal state ?
Whereas He waits for long periods of time to
come round, He submits Himself to the con-
dition of a human body, He enters upon the
stage of life by being born, and after passing
through each age of life in succession, and then
tasting death, at last, only by the rising again
of His own body, accomplishes His object, — as
if it was not optional to Him to fulfil His
purpose without leaving the height of His
Divine glory, and to save man by a single com-
mand 9, letting those long periods of time alone.

' Origen answering the same objections says, "I know not what
sort of alteration of mankind it is that Celsus wants, when he doubts
whether it were not possible to improve man by a display of Divine
power, without any one being set in the course of nature ((^>ucrei)
for that purpose. Does he want this to take place among mankind
by a sudden appearance of God destroying evil in their hearts at a
blow, and causing virtue to spring up there ? One might well in-
quire if t were fitting or possible that such a thing should happen.
But we will suppose that it is so. What then ? How will ouras^ent
to the truth be (in th:it case) praiseworthy * You yourself prolV-s
to recognize a special Providence : theiefore yo.i ought just as

488

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

Needful, therefore, is it that in answer to ob-
jections such as these we should draw out the
counter-statement of the truth, in order that no
obstacle may be offered to the faith of those
persons who will minutely examine the reason-
ableness of the gospel revelation. In the first
place, then, as has been partially discussed be-
fore ', let us consider what is that which, by the
rule of contraries, is opposed to virtue. As dark-
ness is the opposite of light, and death of life,
so vice, and nothing else besides, is plainly the
opposite of virtue. For as in the many objects
in creation there is nothing which is distin-
guished by its opposition to light or life, but only
the peculiar ideas which are their exact opposites,
as darkness and death — not stone, or wood, or
water, or man, or anything else in the world, —
so, in the instance of virtue, it cannot be said
that any created thing can be conceived of as
contrary to it, but only the idea of vice. If,
then, our Faith preached that the Deity had
been begotten under vicious circumstances, an
opportunity would have been afforded the ob-
jector of running down our belief, as that of
persons who propounded incongruous and
absurd opinions with regard to the Divine
nature. For, indeed, it were blasphemous to
assert that the Deity, Which is very wisdom,
goodness, incorruptibility, and every other ex-
alted thing in thought or word, had undergone
change to the contrary. If, then, God is real
and essential virtue, and no mere existence 2 of
any kind is logically opposed to virtue, but
only vice is so ; and if the Divine birth was not
into vice, but into human existence ; and if only
vicious weakness is unseemly and shameful —
and with such weakness neither was God
born, nor had it in His nature to be born, —
why are they scandalized at the confession that
God came into touch with human nature, when
in relation to virtue no contrariety whatever is
observable in the organization of man? For
neither Reason, nor Understanding \ nor Re-
ceptivity for science, nor any other like quality
proper to the essence of man, is opposed to the
principle of virtue.

CHAPTER XVI.

"But," it is said, "this change in our body
by birth is a weakness, and one born under
such condition is born in weakness. Now the

much to have told us, as we you, why it is that God, knowing the
affairs of men, does not correct them, and by a single stroke ofHis
power rid Himself of the whole family of evil. But we confidently
: that I l_e does send messengers for this very purpose : for His
words appealing to men's noblest emotions are amongst them. But
whereas there had been already great differences between the
various ministers of the Word, the reformation of Jesus went be-
yond them all in greatness; for He did not mean to heal the men
of <me little corner only of the world, but He came to save all ; " c.
Celt. iv. 3, 4.

*-"• *• " <fru<rn. 3 to Stai/ijqTtKbv.

Deity is free from weakness. It is, therefore,
a strange idea in connection with God," they
say, "when people declare that one who is
essentially free from weakness thus comes into
fellowship with weakness." Now in reply to
this let us adopt the same argument as before,
namely that the word "weakness" is used
partly in a proper, partly in an adapted sense.
Whatever, that is, affects the will and perverts
it from virtue to vice is really and truly a weak-
ness ; but whatever in nature is to be seen pro-
ceeding by a chain peculiar to itself of succes-
sive stages would be more fitly called a work
than a weakness. As, for instance, birth,
growth, the continuance of the underlying sub-
stance through the influx and efflux of the
aliments, the meeting together of the component
elements of the body, and, on the other hand,
the dissolution of its component parts and their
passing back into the kindred elements. Which
" weakness," then, does our Mystery assert that
the Deity came in contact with ? That which
is properly called weakness, which is vice, or
that which is the result of natural movements ?
Well, if our Faith affirmed that the Deity was
born under forbidden circumstances, then it
would be our duty to shun a statement which
gave this profane and unsound description of
the Divine Being. But if it asserts that God
laid hold on this nature of ours, the production
of which in the first instance and the subsist-
ence afterwards had its origin in Him, in what
way does this our preaching fail in the reverence
that befits Him ? Amongst our notions of God
no disposition tending to weakness goes along
with our belief in Him. We do not say that a
physician is in weakness when he is employed
in healing one who is so*. For though he touches
the infirmity he is himself unaffected by it. If
birth is not regarded in itself as a weakness, no
one can call life such. But the feeling of sensual
pleasure does go before the human birth, and as
to the impulse to vice in all living men, this is
a disease of our nature. But then the Gospel
mystery asserts that He Who took our nature
was pure from both these feelings. If, then, His
birth had no connection with sensual pleasure,
and His life none with vice, what " weakness "
is there left which the mystery of our religion
asserts that God participated in ? But should
any one call the separation of body and soul a
weakness s, far more justly might he term the

* So Origen (c. Ce/s. iv. 15) illustrates the xeVioo-is and TvyKaTd-
0ao-is of Christ : " Nor was this change one from the heights of
excellence to the depths of baseness (to noirt)p6raTOv) , for how can
goodness and love be baseness? If they were, it would be high
time to declare that the surgeon who inspects or touches grievous
and unsightly cases in order to heal them undergoes such a change
from good to bad."

5 There is no one word in English which would represent the
full meaning of ndOos. " Suff ranee " sometimes comes nearest to
it, bul not here, where Gregory is attempting to express that which
in no way whatever attached to the Saviour, i. e. moral weakness,
as opposed to physical infirmity.

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

489

meeting together of these two elements such.
For if the severance of things that have been
connected is a weakness, then is the union of
things that are asunder a weakness also. For
there is a feeling of movement in the uniting of
things sundered as well as in the separation of
what has been welded into one. The same
term, then, by which the final movement is
called, it is proper to apply to the one that initi-
ated it. If the first movement, which we call
birth, is not a weakness, it follows that neither
the second, which we call death, and by which
the severance of the union of the soul and body
is effected, is a weakness. Our position is, that
God was born subject to both movements of
our nature ; first, that by which the soul hastens
to join the body, and then again that by which
the body is separated from the soul ; and that
when the concrete humanity was formed by the
mixture of these two, I mean the sentient and
the intelligent element, through that ineffable
and inexpressible conjunction, this result in the
Incarnation followed, that after the soul and body
had been once united the union continued for
ever. For when our nature, following its own
proper course, had even in Him been advanced
to the separation of soul and body, He knitted
together again the disunited elements, cementing
them, as it were, together with the cement of His
Divine power, and recombining what has been
severed in a union never to be broken. And
this is the Resurrection, namely the return,
after they have been dissolved, of those ele-
ments that had been before linked together,
into an indissoluble union through a mutual
incorporation ; in order that thus the primal
grace which invested humanity might be recalled,
and we restored to the everlasting life, when
the vice that has been mixed up with our
kind has evaporated through our dissolution,
as happens to any liquid when the vessel
that contained it is broken, and it is spilt and
disappears, there being nothing to contain it.
For as the principle of death took its rise in
one person and passed on in succession through
the whole of human kind, in like manner the
principle of the Resurrection-life extends from
one person to the whole of humanity. For He
Who reunited to His own proper body the soul
that had been assumed by Himself, by virtue of
that power which had mingled with both of
these component elements at their first framing,
then, upon a more general scale as it were6,

6 upon a more general scale as it were. The Greek here is
somewhat obscure ; the best reading is Krabinger's ; yeviKuirepio
tlvi Ai-yuj ttjv voepav ovaiav rf) alrr8T)r(j crvyKa.Tefi.t.£ev. Hervetus'
translation is manifestly wrong ; " Is generosiorem quandatn intel-
ligentem essentiam commiscuit sensili principio." — Soul and body
have been reunited by the Resurrection, on a larger scale and to a
wider extent (Aoyco), than in the former instance of a single Person
(in the Incarnation), the new principle of life progressing to the ex-
tremities of humanity by natural consequence : yenKtoTcpoi will thus

conjoined the intellectual to the sentient nature,
the new principle freely progressing to the,,-
extremities by natural consequence. For when,
in that concrete humanity which He had taken,
to Himself, the soul after the dissolution re->
turned to the body, then this uniting of the ]
several portions passes, as by a new principle, in
equal force upon the whole human race. This,
then, is the mystery of God's plan with regard
to His death and His resurrection from the
dead ; namely, instead of preventing the dis-
solution of His body by death and the neces-
sary results of nature, to bring both back to
each other in the resurrection ; so that He
might become in Himself the meeting-ground
both of life and death, having re-established in
Himself that nature which death had divided,
and being Himself the originating principle of
the uniting those separated portions.

CHAPTER XVII.

But it will be said that the objection which has
been brought against us has not yet been solved,
and that what unbelievers have urged has been
rather strengthened by all we have said. For
if, as our argument has shown, there is such
power in Him that both the destruction of death
and the introduction of life resides in Him,
why does He not effect His purpose by the
mere exercise of His will, instead of working
out our salvation in such a roundabout way, by
being born and nurtured as a man, and even,
while he was saving man, tasting death ; when
it was possible for Him to have saved man
without subjecting Himself to such conditions ?
Now to this, with all candid persons, it were
sufficient to reply, that the sick do not dictate
to their physicians the measures for their re-
covery, nor cavil with those who do them good
as to the method of their healing ; why, for
instance, the medical man felt the diseased part
and devised this or that particular remedy for
the removal of the complaint, when they ex-
pected another; but the patient looks to the end
and aim of the good work, and receives the
benefit with gratitude. Seeing, however, as says
the Prophet7, that God's abounding goodness

refer by comparison to " the first framing of these component ele-
ments." Or else it contrasts the amount of life with that of death : and
is to be explained by Rom. v. 15, " But not as the offence, so also is
the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, muck
more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man,
Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." Krabinger's translation,
" generaliori quadam ratione," therefore seems correct. The mode
of the union of soul and body is described in Gregory's Treatise
on the Soul as KpeirTiov Aoyos, and in his Making of Man as
d$/>a.<rTOs Aoyo?, but in neither is there any comparison but with
other less perfect modes of union ; i. e. the reference is to quality,
not to quantity, as here.

7 the Prophet, i. e. David ; Ps. xxxi. n : (is -noKh to ttAtjOos
ttj? xpijtTTOT/jTOs <tou, k.t.A. Hervetus translates Gregory here
" diviti* benignitatis," as if he had found wAovtck; in the text,
which does not appear. I^rome twice trans ates the xpi/trTOTTjs of

490

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

keeps its utility concealed, and is not seen in com-
plete clearness in this present life — otherwise, if
the eyes could behold all that is hoped for, every
objection of unbelievers would be removed, —
but, as it is, abides the ages that are coming,
when what is at present seen only by the eye of
faith must be revealed, it is needful accordingly
that, as far as we may, we should by the aid of
arguments, the best within our reach, attempt
to discover for these difficulties also a solution
in harmony with what has gone before.

CHAPTER XVIII.

And yet it is perhaps straining too far for
those who do believe that God sojourned here
in life to object tothemanner of His appearance8,
as wanting wisdom or conspicuous reasonable-
ness. For to those who are not vehemently
antagonistic to the truth there exists no slight
proof of the Deity having sojourned here ; I
mean that which is exhibited now in this present
life before the life to come begins, the testimony
which is borne by actual facts. For who is
there that does not know that every part of the
world was overspread with demoniacal delusion
which mastered the life of man through the
madness of idolatry ; how this was the customary
rule among all nations, to worship demons
under the form of idols, with the sacrifice of
living animals and the polluted offerings on
their altars ? But from the time when, as says
the Apostle, " the grace of God that bringeth
salvation to all men appeared 9," and dwelt
among us in His human nature, all these things
passed away like smoke into nothingness, the
madness of their oracles and prophesyings
ceased, the annual pomps and pollutions of
their bloody hecatombs came to an end,
while among most nations altars entirely dis-
appeared, together with porches, precincts,
and shrines, and all the ritual besides which
was followed out by the attendant priest of
those demons, to the deception both of them-
selves and of all who came in their way. So
that in many of these places no memorial exists
of these things having ever been. But, instead,
throughout the whole world there have arisen
in the name of Jesus temples and altars and a

LXX. by "bonitas"; Aquilaand Symmachus have ri rto/\i> to ayoBov
<tou. 1 Ins is the later sense of xpn<noTr)$, which originally meant
" serviceableness " and then "uprightness '' (Psalm xiii. 2, 4, xxxvi.
3, cxix. 66), rather than "kindness?1

8 appearance, napovcriav. Casaubon in his notes to Gregory's Ep.
tn Hustathia, gives a list of the various terms .-i|i|>lii-d !y the Greek
Fathers to the Incarnation, viz. (besides irapouo-i'a), — tj toO Xpio-roC
t7ri#oi/«a ; i) oVcrirOTiici) eirvSrjuia ; r) fiia o-apxbs 6u.iAi'irr)<ri<; ; r) fAevo-is ; tj iccVujcrt; ; r)
<7VYicaTa0ao-is ; i) oixovofiia (none more frequent than this) ; and
others.

* 'I u. li. 11. This is the preferable rendering; not as in the
A. V., " appeared to all men."

holy and unbloody Priesthood r, and a sublime-
philosophy, which teaches, by deed and example
more than by word, a disregard of this bodily
life and a contempt of death, a contempt which
they whom tyrants have tried to force to apos-
tatize from the faith have manifestly displayed,
making no account of the cruelties done to
their bodies or of their doom of death : and
yet, plainly, it was not likely that they would
have submitted to such treatment unless they
had had a clear and indisputable proof of that
Divine Sojourn among men. And the following
fact is, further, a sufficient mark, as against the
Jews, of the presence among them 2 of Him in
Whom they disbelieve ; up to the time of the
manifestation of Christ the royal palaces in
Jerusalem were in all their splendour : there
was their far-famed Temple ; there was the
customary round of their sacrifices through-
out the year : all the things, which had been
expressed by the Law in symbols to those
who knew how to read its secrets, were up to
that point of time unbroken in their observance,
in accordance with that form of worship which
had been established from the beginning. But
when at length they saw Him Whom they were
looking for, and of Whom by their Prophets
and the Law they had before been told, and
when they held in more estimation than faith
in Him Who had so manifested Himself that
which for the future became but a degraded
superstition, because they took it in a wrong
sense 3, and clung to the mere phrases of the
Law in obedience to the dictates of custom
rather than of intelligence, and when they had

1 unbloody Priesthood, ai'aip.axTOV lepaitrvvriv, i. e. " sacer-
dotium," not "sacrificium." This, not Ovcriav, is supported by the
Codd. The Eucharist is often called by the Fathers " the unbloody
sacrifice " (e g. Chrysost. in Ps. xcv., citing Malachi), and the Priest-
hood which offers it can be called " unbloody " too. Cf. Greg.
Naz. in Poem. x\. i —

'CI 6u<ri.'as irep.n0VTfS avaifiaxTOvs iepijes.

While these terms assert the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist,
might they not at the same time supply an argument against the
Roman view of 7'ransubstantiation, which teaches that the actual
blood of Christ is received, and makes it still a bloody sacrifice ?

* of the presence among them, &c. Cf. a striking passage in,
Origen ; " One amongst the convincing proofs that Jesus was some-
thing Divine and holy is this ; that the jews after what they did to
Him have suffered so many terrible afflictions for so long. And tve
shall be bold to say that they never will be restored again. They
have committed the most impious of crimes. They plotted against
the Saviour of mankind in that city where the ceremonies they con-
tinually performed for God enshrined great mysteries. It was-
right that that city where Jesus suffered should be utterly destroyed,
and the Jewish nation expelled, and that God's call to blessedness
should be made to others, I mean the Christians, to whom have
passed the doctrines of a religion of stainless purity, and who have
received new laws fitted for any form of government that exists "
(c. Cetsum, iv. 22). The Jews, he says, will even "suffer more than,
others in the judgment which they anticipate, in addition to wh.it
they have suffered already," ii. 8. But he says, v. 43, "Woulil
that they had not committed the error of having broken their own
law ; first killing their prophets, and at last taking Jesus by stealth ;
for then we should si ill have amongst us the model of that heavenly
city which Plato attempted to sketch, though I cannot say that
his powers came up to those of Moses and his successors."

3 they took it (i. e. the religion, which for the future, &c.) in a
nutans: sense : <".km<; tK\af}6vTe<; (Hasius, ad Leon. Diacon., shows
how \atj.fi6.v<<v and p.eTaAa^/3ai/tii' also have this meaning "inter-
pret." " aoipere "). This is a better reading than cxfiaAotTct, and
is supported by two MSS.

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

49 *

thus refused the grace which had appeared, —
then even * those holy monuments of their re-
ligion were left standing, as they do, in history
alone ; for no traces even of their Temple can
be recognized, and their splendid city has been
left in ruins, so that there remains to the Jews
nothing of the ancient institutions ; while by
the command of those who rule over them
the very ground of Jerusalem which they so
venerated is forbidden to them.

CHAPTER XIX.

Nevertheless, since neither those who take
the Greek view, nor yet the leaders of Jewish
opinions, are willing to make such things the
proofs of that Divine manifestation, it may be
as well, as regards these demurrers to our state-
ment, to treat more particularly the reason by
virtue of which the Divine nature is combined
with ours, saving, as it does, humanity by
means of itself, and not working out its pro-
posed design by means of a mere command.
With what, then, must we begin, so as to con-
duct our thinking by a logical sequence to the
proposed conclusion? What but this, viz.
with a succinct detail of the notions that can
religiously be entertained of God s ?

CHAPTER XX.

It is, then, universally acknowledged that we
must believe the Deity to be not only almighty,
but just, and good, and wise, and everything
else that suggests excellence. It follows, there-
fore, in the present dispensation of things, that
it is not the case that some particular one 6 of
these Divine attributes freely displays itself in
creation, while there is another that is not
present there ; for, speaking once for all, no
one of those exalted terms, when disjoined
from the rest, is by itself alone a virtue, nor is
the good really good unless allied with what is
just, and wise, and mighty (for what is un-
just, or unwise, or powerless, is not good,
neither is power, when disjoined from the
principle of justice and of wisdom, to be con-
sidered in the light of virtue ; such species of
power is brutal and tyrannous ; and so, as to

4 then even. The apodosis begins here, and uxne must be
understood after V7roAe'Aei7TTai, to govern ixelvai, "were left stand-
ing, &c. ... so that there remains."

5 The Greek Fathers and the English divines for the most part
confine themselves to showing this moral fitness and consonance
with God's nature in the Incarnation, and do not attempt to prove
its absolute necessity. Cf. Athanasius, De Iticani. Verb. c. 6 ;
Hooker, Eccles. Pol. V. li. 3 ; Butler's Analogy, pt. ii. c. 5.

6 to fxev ti (for toi). There is the same variety of reading in
c. i. and xxi., where Krabinger has preserved the ti : he well quotes
Syuesius, de Prov. ii. 2 ; 'O \t.iv tis dtio8vr\<TKti n\rjye'ts, 6 Se k.t.A.
(and refers to his note there).

the rest, if what is wise be carried beyond
the limits of what is just, or if what is just be
not contemplated along with might and good-
ness, cases of that sort one would more
properly call vice ; for how can what comes
short of perfection be reckoned among things
that are good ?). If, then, it is fitting that all
excellences should be combined in the views
we have of God, let us see whether this Dis-
pensation as regards man fails in any of those
conceptions which we should entertain of Him.
The object of our inquiry in the case of God
is before all things the indications of His good-
ness. And what testimony to His goodness
could there be more palpable than this, viz. His
regaining to Himself the allegiance of one who
had revolted to the opposite side, instead of
allowing the fixed goodness of His nature to be
affected by the variableness of the human will ?
For, as David says, He had not come to save
us had not "goodness" created in Him such a
purpose 7 ; and yet His goodness had not
advanced His purpose had not wisdom given
efficacy to His love for man. For, as in the
case of persons who are in a sickly condition,
there are probably many who wish that a man
were not in such evil plight, but it is only they
in whom there is some technical ability oper-
ating in behalf of the sick, who bring their
good-will on their behalf to a practical issue,
so it is absolutely needful that wisdom should
be conjoined with goodness. In what way,
then, is wisdom contemplated in combination
with goodness ; in the actual events, that is,
which have taken place ? because one cannot
observe a good purpose in the abstract ; a
purpose cannot possibly be revealed unless it
has the light of some events upon it. Well,
the things accomplished, progressing as they
did in orderly series and sequence, reveal the
wisdom and the skill of the Divine economy.
And since, as has been before remarked,
wisdom, when combined with justice, then ab-
solutely becomes a virtue, but, if it be disjoined
from it, cannot in itself alone be good, it were
well moreover in this discussion of the Dispensa-
tion in regard to man, to consider attentively
in the light of each other these two qualities ; I
mean, its wisdom and its justice.

CHAPTER XXI.

What, then, is justice? We distinctly re-
member what in the course of our argument

7 Ps. cvi. (cv.) 4, 5; cxix. (cxviii.) 65, 66, 68. In the first passage
the LXX. has toO ISelv ev 17} xPWtottjti to>v eicAe/CTU)i> crov (Heb.
" the felicity of Thy chosen ") : evidently referring to God's cvSoki
in them ; He, good Himself (xprjo-Tos, v. 1), will save them. " in
order to approve their goodness." The second passage mention;,
four times this xpr)<TTOTi)<; (bonitas).

492

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

we said in the commencement of this treatise ;
namely, that man was fashioned in imi-
tation of the Divine nature, preserving his re-
semblance to the Deity as well in other excel-
lences as in possession of freedom of the will,
yet being of necessity of a nature subject to
change. For it was not possible that a being
who derived his origin from an alteration
should be altogether free from this liability.
For the passing from a state of non-existence
into that of existence is a kind of alteration ;
when being, that is, by the exercise of Divine
power takes the place of nonentity. In the
following special respect, too, alteration is neces-
sarily observable in man, namely, because man
was an imitation of the Divine nature, and un-
less some distinctive difference had been occa-
sioned, the imitating subject would be entirely
the same as that which it resembles ; but in
this instance, it is to be observed, there is a
difference between that which "was made in
the image " and its pattern ; namely this, that
the one is not subject to change, while the
other is (for, as has been described, it has
come into existence through an alteration),
and being thus subject to alteration does
not always continue in its existing state. For
alteration is a kind of movement ever advanc-
ing from the present state to another ; and
there are two forms of this movement ; the one
•being ever towards what is good, and in this
the advance has no check, because no goal of
the course to be traversed8 can be reached,
while the other is in the direction of the con-
trary, and of it this is the essence, that it has
no subsistence ; for, as has been before stated,
the contrary state to goodness conveys some
such notion of opposition, as when we say, for
instance, that that which is is logically opposed
to that which is not, and that existence is so
opposed to non-existence. Since, then, by
reason of this impulse and movement of
changeful alteration it is not possible that the
nature of the subject of this change should
remain self-centred and unmoved, but there
is always something towards which the will
is tending, the appetency for moral beauty
naturally drawing it on to movement, this
beauty is in one instance really such in its
nature, in another it is not so, only blossom-
ing with an illusive appearance of beauty ;
and the criterion of these two kinds is the
mind that dwells within us. Under these
circumstances it is a matter of risk whether we
happen to choose the real beauty, or whether
we are diverted from its choice by some de-

8 of the course to be traversed: tou 6ie£o8euo/u«Vou. Glauber
remarks that the Latin translation here, "ejus qui transit," gives no
sense, and rightly takes the word as a passive. Krabinger also
translates, " ejus quod evolvitur." Here again there is unconscious
I'latonism : aviTO to k<i*6 i , eternal

ception arising from appearance, and thus drift
away to the opposite ; as happened, we are
told in the heathen fable, to the dog which
looked askance at the reflection in the water
of what it carried in its mouth, but let go
the real food, and, opening its mouth wide to
swallow the image of it, still hungered. Since,
then, the mind has been disappointed in its
craving for the real good, and diverted to that
which is not such, being persuaded, through the
deception of the great advocate and inventor
of vice, that that was beauty which was just
the opposite (for this deception would never
have succeeded, had not the glamour of beauty
been spread over the hook of vice like a
bait), — the man, I say, on the one hand, who
had enslaved himself by indulgence to the
enemy of his life, being of his own accord in
this unfortunate condition, — I ask you to in-
vestigate, on the other hand, those qualities
which suit and go along with our conception
of the Deity, such as goodness, wisdom, power,
immortality, and all else that has the stamp of
superiority. As good, then, the Deity enter-
tains pity for fallen man ; as wise He is not
ignorant of the means for his recovery ; while
a just decision must also form part of that
wisdom ; for no one would ascribe that genuine
justice to the absence of wisdom.

CHAPTER XXII.

What, then, under these circumstances is
justice ? It is the not exercising any arbitrary
sway over him who has us in his power 9,
nor, by tearing us away by a violent exercise
of force from his hold, thus leaving some
colour for a just complaint to him who en-
slaved man through sensual pleasure. For as
they who have bartered away their freedom for
money are the slaves of those who have pur-
chased them (for they have constituted them-
selves their own sellers, and it is not allowable
either for themselves or any one else in their be-
half to call freedom to their aid, not even though
those who have thus reduced themselves to this
sad state are of noble birth ; and, if any one
out of regard for the person who has so sold
himself should use violence against him who
has bought him, he will clearly be acting un-

9 Compare a passage in Dionysius Areop. [De eccles. hierarch.
c. iii. p. 2 ,7). " The boundless love of the Supreme Goodness did
not refuse a personal providing for us, but perfectly participating in
all that belongs to us, and united to our lowliness, along with an
undiluted and unimpaired possession of its own qualities, has gifted
us for ever with a communion of kinship with Itself, and exhibited us
as partners in Its glories : undoing the adverse power of the Rebel
throng, as the secret Tradition says, " not by might, as if it was
dotiiineerii:g, but, according to the oracle secretly delivered to us,
by right and justice" (quoted by Krabinger). To the words " not
by might," S. Maximus has added the note, "This is what Gregory
of Nyssa says in the Catechetic." See next note.

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

493

justly in thus arbitrarily rescuing one who has
been legally purchased as a slave, whereas, if
he wishes to pay a price to get such a one
away, there is no law to prevent that), on the
same principle, now that we had voluntarily
bartered away our freedom, it was requisite that
no arbitrary method of recovery, but the one
consonant with justice l should be devised by
Him Who in His goodness had undertaken our
rescue. Now this method is in a measure
this ; to make over to the master of. the slave
whatever ransom he may agree to accept for
the person in his possession.

CHAPTER XXIII.

What, then, was it likely that the master of
the slave would choose to receive in his stead ?
It is possible in the way of inference to make
a guess as to his wishes in the matter, if,
that is, the manifest indications of what we
are seeking for should come into our hands.
He then, who, as we before stated in the be-
ginning of this treatise, shut his eyes to the
good in his envy of man in his happy con-
dition, he who generated in himself the murky
cloud of wickedness, he who suffered from the
disease of the love of rule, that primary and
fundamental cause of propension to the bad
and the mother, so to speak, of all the
wickedness that follows, — what would he accept
in exchange for the thing which he held,
but something, to be sure, higher and better,
in the way of ransom, that thus, by receiving
a gain in the exchange, he might foster the
more his own special passion of pride ? Now
unquestionably in not one of those who had
lived in history from the beginning of the world
had he been conscious of any such circum-
stance as he observed to surround Him
Who then manifested Himself, i. e. conception
without carnal connection, birth without im-
purity, motherhood with virginity, voices of the
unseen testifying from above to a trans-
cendent worth, the healing of natural disease,
without the use of means and of an extra-
ordinary character, proceeding from Him by the
mere utterance of a word and exercise of His
will, the restoration of the dead to life, the
absolution of the damned 2, the fear with which

1 one consonant with justice. This view of Redemption, as a
coming to terms with Satan and making him a party or defender in
the case, is rather remarkable. The Prologue to the Book of Job
furnishes a basis for it, where Satan enters into terms with God. It
appears to be the Miltonic view : asalso that Envy was the first sin
of Satan.

2 the absolution of the damned. These words, wanting in all
others Krabinger has restored from the Codex B. Morel! trans-
lates "damnatorum absolutio." The Greek is ri]v to>i' KaroHi kiov
avappvaiv. " Hsec Orieenem sapiunt, qui damnatorum pcenis finem
statuit:" Krabinger. But here at all events it is not necessary to
accuse Gregory of this, since he is clearly speaking only of Christ's
forgiveness of sins during His earthly ministry.

He inspired devils, His power over tempests,
His walking through the sea, not by the waters
separating on either side, and, as in the case
of Moses' miraculous power, making bare its
depths for those who passed through, but by
the surface of the water presenting solid ground
for His feet, and by a firm and hard resistance
supporting His steps ; then, His disregard for
food as long as it pleased Him to abstain, His
abundant banquets in the wilderness wherewith
many thousands were fully fed (though neither
did the heavens pour down manna on them,
nor was their need supplied by the earth pro-
ducing corn for them in its natural way, but
that instance of munificence 3 came out of the
ineffable store-houses of His Divine power),
the bread ready in the hands of those who
distributed it, as if they were actually reaping
it, and becoming more, the more the eaters
were filled ; and then, the banquet on the fish ;
not that the sea supplied their need, but He
Who had stocked the sea with its fish. But
how is it possible to narrate in succession each
one of the Gospel miracles ? The Enemy,
therefore, beholding in Him such power, saw
also in Him an opportunity for an advance, in
the exchange, upon the value of what he held.
For this reason he chooses Him as a ransom 4
for those who were shut up in the prison of
death. But it was out of his power to look
on the unclouded aspect of God; he must see in
Him some portion of that fleshly nature which
through sin he had so long held in bondage.
Therefore it was that the Deity was invested
with the flesh, in order, that is, to secure that
he, by looking upon something congenial and
kindred to himself, might have no fears in ap-
proaching that supereminent power ; and might
yet by perceiving that power, showing as it did,
yet only gradually, more and more splendour in
the miracles, deem what was seen an object of
desire rather than of fear. Thus, you see how
goodness was conjoined with justice, and how
wisdom was not divorced from them. For to
have devised that the Divine power should have
been containable in the envelopment of a body,
to the end that the Dispensation in our behalf
might not be thwarted through any fear inspired
by the Deity actually appearing, affords a de-
monstration of all these qualities at once— good-
ness, wisdom, justice. His choosing to save
man is a testimony of his goodness ; His
making the redemption of the captive a matter
of exchange exhibits His justice, while the

S $iAoTi/xia.

4 he chooses Him as a ransom. This peculiar teaching of
Gregory of Nyssa, that it was to the Devil, not God the Father,
that the ransom, i. e. Christ's blood, was paid, is shared by Oi i^en,
Ambrose, and Augustine. The latter says, "Sanguine Christi
diibolns non ditatus est, sed ligatus," i. e. bound by compact. On
the other hand Gregory Naz. (torn. I. Orat. 42) and John Damascene
(D- Fid. Ort/iod. ill. c. 27) give the ransom to the Father.

494

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

invention whereby He enabled the Enemy to
apprehend that of which he was before incap-
able, is a manifestation of supreme wisdom.

CHAPTER XXIV.

But possibly one who has given his attention
to the course of the preceding remarks may
inquire : " wherein is the power of the Deity,
wherein is the imperishableness of that Divine
power, to be traced in the processes you have
described ? " In order, therefore, to make this also
clear, let us take a survey of the sequel of the
Gospel mystery, where that Power conjoined
with Love is more especially exhibited. In
the first place, then, that the omnipotence of
the Divine nature should have had strength to
descend to the humiliation of humanity, furnishes
a clearer proof of that omnipotence than even
the greatness and supernatural character of the
miracles. For that something pre-eminently
great should be. wrought out by Divine power
is, in a manner, in accordance with, and con-
sequent upon the Divine nature ; nor is it
startling to hear it said that the whole of the
created world, and all that is understood to be
beyond the range of visible things, subsists by
the power of God, His will giving it existence
according to His good pleasure. But this His
descent to the humility of man is a kind of
superabundant exercise of power, which thus
finds no check even in directions which con-
travene nature. It is the peculiar property of
the essence of fire to tend upwards ; no one,
therefore, deems it wonderful in the case of
flame to see that natural operation. But should
the flame be seen to stream downwards, like
heavy bodies, such a fact would be regarded
as a miracle ; namely, how fire still remains
fire, and yet, by this change of direction in its
motion, passes out of its nature by being borne
downward. In like manner, it is not the vast-
ness of the heavens, and the bright shining of
its constellations, and the order of the universe,
and the unbroken administration over all
existence that so manifestly displays the trans-
cendent power of the Deity, as this condescen-
sion to the weakness of our nature ; the way,
in fact, in which sublimity, existing in lowliness,
is actually seen in lowliness, and yet descends
not from its height, and in which Deity, en-
twined as it is with the nature of man, becomes
this, and yet still is that. For since, as has
been said before, it was not in the nature of
the opposing power to come in contact with
the undiluted presence of God, and to undergo
His unclouded manifestation, therefore, in order
to secure that the ransom in our behalf might
bi easily accepted by him who required it, the
ty was hidden under the veil of our nature,

that so, as with ravenous fish s, the hook of
the Deity might be gulped down along with
the bait of flesh, and thus, life being introduced
into the house of death, and light shining in
darkness, that which is diametrically opposed
to light and life might vanish ; for it is not in
the nature of darkness to remain when light is
present, or of death to exist when life is active.
Let us, then, by way of summary take up the
train of the arguments for the Gospel mystery,
and thus complete our answer to those who
question this Dispensation of God, and show
them on what ground it is that the Deity by a
personal intervention works out the salvation
of man. It is certainly most necessary that in
every point the conceptions we entertain of the
Deity should be such as befit the subject, and
not that, while one idea worthy of His sublimity
should be retained, another equally belonging
to that estimate of Deity should be dismissed
from it ; on the contrary, every exalted notion,
every devout thought, must most surely enter
into our belief in God, and each must be made
dependent on each in a necessary sequence.
Well, then ; it has been pointed out that His
goodness, wisdom, justice, power, incapability
of decay, are all of them in evidence in the
doctrine of the Dispensation in which we are.
His goodness is caught sight of in His election
to save lost man ; His wisdom and justice have
been displayed in the method of our salvation ;
His power, in that, though born in the likeness
and fashion of a man, on the lowly level of our
nature, and in accordance with that likeness
raising the expectation that he could be over-
mastered by death, he, after such a birth, never-
theless produced the effects peculiar and natural
to Him. Now it is the peculiar effect of light
to make darkness vanish, and of life to destroy
death. Since, then, we have been led astray
from the right path, and diverted from that
life which was ours at the beginning, and
brought under the sway of death, what is there
improbable in the lesson we are taught by the
Gospel mystery, if it be this ; that cleansing
reaches those who are befouled with sin, and
life the dead, and guidance the wanderers, in
order that defilement may be cleansed, error
corrected, and what was dead restored to life ?

CHAPTER XXV.

That Deity should be born in our nature,
ought not reasonably to present any strangeness

5 as tvith ravenous fish. The same simile is found in John of
Damascus [De Fid. iii. 27), speaking of Death. " Therefore Death
will advance, and. gulping down the bait of the Body, be transfixed
with the hook of the Divinity : tasting that sinless and life-giving
Body, he is undone, and disgorges all whom he has ever engulphed:
for as darkness vanishes al the lilting in of light, so corruption is
chased away by the onset of life, and while there is life given to all
else, there is co ruption only for the Corrupter."

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

4V5

to the minds of those who do not take too
narrow a view of things. For who, when he
takes a survey of the universe, is so simple as
not to believe that there is Deity in every-
thing, penetrating it, embracing it, and seated
in it ? For all things depend on Him Who is 6,
nor can there be anything which has not
its being in Him Who is. If, therefore, all
things are in Him, and He in all things, why
are they scandalized at the plan of Revelation,
when it teaches that God was born among
men, that same God Whom we are convinced
is even now not outside mankind ? For al-
though this last form of God's presence amongst
us is not the same as that former presence,
still His existence amongst us equally both then
and now is evidenced; only now He Who holds
together Nature in existence is transfused in
us ; while at that other time He was transfused
throughout our nature, in order that our nature
might by this transfusion of the Divine become
itself divine, rescued as it was from death, and
put beyond the reach of the caprice of the
antagonist. For His return from death becomes
to our mortal race the commencement of our
return to the immortal life.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Still, in his examination of the amount of
justice and wisdom discoverable in this Dispens-
ation a person is, perhaps, induced to entertain
the thought that it was by means of a certain
amount of deceit that God carried out this scheme
on our behalf. For that not by pure Deity
alone, but by Deity veiled in human nature,
God, without the knowledge of His enemy, got
within the lines of him who had man in
his power, is in some measure a fraud and a
surprise ; seeing that it is the peculiar way with
those who want to deceive to divert in another
direction the expectations of their intended
victims, and then to effect something quite
different from what these latter expected. But
he who has regard for truth will agree that the
essential qualities of justice and wisdom are
before all things these ; viz. of justice, to give
to every one according to his due ; of wisdom,
not to pervert justice, and yet at the same time
not to dissociate the benevolent aim of the love
of mankind from the verdict of justice, but skil-
fully to combine both these requisites together, in
regard to justice ? returning the due recompense,
in regard to kindness not swerving from the
aim of that love of man. Let us see, then,

6 Exod. iii. 14.

7 rfj piv SiKaiocrvvji. The dative is not governed by avTiSiSovra
but corresponds to 777 Se dyaflonjTi (a dative of reference), which
has no such verb after it. Krabinger therefore hardly translates
correctly " justitiae auod datur.pro mentis tribuendo."

whether these- two qualities are not to be ob-
served in that which took place. That repay-
ment, adequate to the debt, by which the
deceiver was in his turn deceived, exhibits the
justice of the dealing, while the object aimed
at is a testimony to the goodness of Him who
effected it. It is, indeed, the property of
justice to assign to every one those particular
results of which he has sunk already the
foundations and the causes, just as the earth
returns its harvests according to the kinds of
seeds thrown into it ; while it is the property of
wisdom, in its very manner of giving equivalent
returns, not to depart from the kinder course.
Two persons may both mix poison with food,
one with the design of taking life, the other
with the design of saving that life ; the one
using it as a poison, the other only as an anti-
dote to poison ; and in noway does the manner
of the cure adopted spoil the aim and purpose
of the benefit intended ; for although a mixture
of poison with the food may be effected by
both of these persons alike, yet looking at their
intention we are indignant with the one and
approve the other ; so in this instance, by the
reasonable rule of justice, he who practised
deception receives in return that very treatment,
the seeds of which he had himself sown of his
own free will. He who first deceived man by
the bait of sensual pleasure is himself deceived
by the presentment of the human form. But as
regards the aim and purpose of what took
place, a change in the direction of the nobler
is involved ; for whereas he, the enemy,
effected his deception for the ruin of our
nature, He Who is at once the just, and good,
and wise one, used His device, in which there
was deception, for the salvation of him who had
perished, and thus not only conferred benefit
on the lost one, but on him, too, who had
wrought our ruin. For from this approxima-
tion of death to life, of darkness to light, of
corruption to incorruption, there is effected an
obliteration of what is worse, and a passing
away of it into nothing, while benefit is con-
ferred on him who is freed from those evils.
For it is as when some worthless material
has been mixed with gold, and the gold-re-
finers 8 burn up the foreign and refuse part in
the consuming fire, and so restore the more
precious substance to its natural lustre : (not
that the separation is effected without difficulty,
for it takes time for the fire by its melting force
to cause the baser matter to disappear ; but for
all that, this melting away of the actual thing
that was embedded in it to the injury of its
beauty is a kind of healing of the gold.) In

8 oi Sepa7reuTai tou XPV<T^0V On the margin of one of Kra-
binger's Codd. is written herein Latin, "This must he read with
caution : it seems to savour of Origen's opinion," i. e. the curing oi
Satan.

496

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

the same way when death, and corruption, and
darkness, and every other offshoot of evil had
grown into the nature of the author of evil,
the approach of the Divine power, acting like
fire 9, and making that unnatural accretion to
disappear, thus by purgation l of the evil becomes
a blessing to that nature, though the separa-
tion is agonizing. Therefore even the adver-
sary himself will not be likely to dispute that
what took place was both just and salutary,
that is, if he shall have attained to a perception
of the boon. For it is now as with those who
for their cure are subjected to the knife and the
cautery ; they are angry with the doctors, and
wince with the pain of the incision ; but if
recovery of health be the result of this treat-
ment, and the pain of the cautery passes away,
they will feel grateful to those who have wrought
this cure upon them. In like manner, when,
after long periods of time, the evil of our
nature, which now is mixed up with it and
has grown with its growth, has been expelled,
and when there has been a restoration of those
who are now lying in Sin to their primal state,
a harmony of thanksgiving will arise from all
creation 2, as well from those who in the process
of the purgation have suffered chastisement, as
from those who needed not any purgation at
all. These and the like benefits the great
mystery of the Divine incarnation bestows. For
in those points in which He was mingled with
humanity, passing as He did through all the
accidents proper to human nature, such as
birth, rearing, growing up, and advancing even
to the taste of death, He accomplished all the
results before mentioned, freeing both man
from evil, and healing even the introducer of
evil himself. For the chastisement, however
painful, of moral disease is a healing of its
weakness.

CHAPTER XXVII.

It is, then, completely in keeping with this,
that He Who was thus pouring Himself into
our nature should accept this commixture in all
its accidents. For as they who wash clothes do
not pass over some of the dirt and cleanse the
rest, but clear the whole cloth from all its stains,

9 Mai. iii. a, 3.

1 Tjj KoBaptrei. This is the reading of three of Krabinger's Codd.
and that of Hervetus and Zinus ; " purgatione." " purgationis " :
the context too of the whole chapter seems to require it. But
Morell's Cod. had rfj a<p6ap<ria, and Ducacus approved of retaining
it. For this Ka9ap<ri<; see especially Origen, c. Cels. vi. 44.

2 " Far otherwise was it with the great thinkers of the early
Church. . . . They realized that redemption was a means to an end,
and that end the reconsecration of the whole universe to God. And
so the very completeness of their grasp upon the Atonement led
them to dwell upon the cosmical significance of the Incarnation, its
purpose to ' gather together all things in one.' For it was an ace in
which theproblemsof the universe were keenly felt." — Lux Alutuii,
P- '34-

from one end to the other, that the cloak by
being uniformly brightened from washing may
be throughout equal to its own standard of
cleanness, in like manner, since the life of man
was defiled by sin, in its beginning, end, and
all its intermediate states, there needed an ab-
stergent force to penetrate the whole, and not
to mend some one part by cleansing, while it left
another unattended to. For this reason it is
that, seeing that our life has been included be-
tween boundaries on either side, one, I mean,
at its beginning, and the other at its ending, at
each boundary the force that is capable of cor-
recting our nature is to be found, attaching
itself to the beginning, and extending to the
end, and touching all between those two points 3.
Since, then, there is for all men only one way
of entrance into this life of ours, from whence
was He Who was making His entrance amongst
us to transport Himself into our life ? From
heaven, perhaps some one will say, who rejects
with contempt, as base and degraded, this
species of birth, ;'. e. the human. But there
was no humanity in heaven : and in that supra-
mundane existence no disease of evil had been
naturalized ; but He Who poured Himself into
man adopted this commixture with a view to
the benefit of it. Where, then, evil was not and
the human life was not lived, how is it that any
one seeks there the scene of this wrapping up
of God in man, or, rather, not man, but some
phantom resemblance of man ? In what could
the recovery of our nature have consisted if,
while this earthly creature was diseased and
needed this recovery, something else, amongst
the heavenly beings, had experienced the
Divine sojourning? It is impossible for the
sick man to be healed, unless his suffering
member receives the healing. If, therefore,
while this sick part was on earth, omnipotence
had touched it not, but had regarded only its
own dignity, this its pre-occupation with matters
with which we had nothing in common would
have been of no benefit to man. And with
regard to the undignified in the case of Deity
we can make no distinction ; that is, if it is
allowable to conceive at all of anything beneath
the dignity of Deity beside evil. On the con
trary, for one who forms such a narrow-mindea
view of the greatness of the Deity as to make
it consist in inability to admit of fellowship
with the peculiarities of our nature, the de-
gradation is in no point lessened by the Deity

3 " In order that the sacrifice might be representative. He took
upon Him the whole of our human nature, and became flesh, con-
ditioned though that fleshly nature was throughout by sin. It was
not only in His death that we contemplate Him as the sin-bearer :
but throughout His life He was as it were conditioned bv the sin-
fulness of those with whom His human nature broueht Him into
close and manifold relations." — / ux Murtdi, p. 917 (Augustine, de
AtuticA, vi. 4, quoted in note, " Hominem sine peccato, non sine
peccatoris conditionc.susccpit ").

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

497

being conformed to the fashion of a heavenly
rather than of an earthly body. For every created
being is distant, by an equal degree of inferiority,
from that which is the Highest, Who is unap-
proachable by reason of the sublimity of His
Being : the whole universe is in value the same
distance beneath Him. For that which is abso-
lutely inaccessible does not allow access to
some one thing while it is unapproachable by
another, but it transcends all existences by an
equal sublimity. Neither, therefore, is the earth
further removed from this dignity, nor the
heavens closer to it, nor do the things which
have their existence within each of these ele-
mental worlds differ at all from each other in
this respect, that some are allowed to be in
contact with the inaccessible Being, while
others are forbidden the approach. Other-
wise we must suppose that the power which
governs the Universe does not equally pervade
the whole, but in some parts is in excess, in
others is deficient. Consequently, by this
difference of less or more in quantity or quality,
the Deity will appear in the light of something
composite and out of agreement with itself; if,
that is, we could suppose it, as viewed in its
essence, to be far away from us, whilst it is a
close neighbour to some other creature, and
from that proximity easily apprehended. But
on this subject of that exalted dignity true
reason looks neither downward nor upward in
the way of comparison ; for all things sink to a
level beneath the power which presides over
the Universe : so that if it shall be thought by
them that any earthly nature is unworthy of
this intimate connection with the Deity, neither
can any other be found which has such worthi-
ness. But if all things equally fall short of this
dignity, one thing there is that is not beneath
the dignity of God, and that is, to do good to
him that needed it. If we confess, then, that
where the disease was, there the healing power
attended, what is there in this belief which is
foreign to the proper conception of the Deity ?

CHAPTER XXVIII.

But they deride our state of nature, and
din into our ears the manner of our being
born, supposing in this way to make the mystery
ridiculous, as if it were unbecoming in God by
such an entrance into the world as this to
connect Himself with the fellowship of the
human life. But we touched upon this point
before, when we said that the only thing which
is essentially degraded is moral evil or whatever
has an affinity with such evil ; whereas the
orderly process of Nature, arranged as it has been
by the Divine will and law, is beyond the reach

VOL. V. K K

of any misrepresentation on the score of wicked-
ness : otherwise this accusation would reach up
to the Author of Nature, if anything connected
with Nature were to be found fault with as de-
graded and unseemly. If, then, the Deity is
separate only from evil, and if there is no nature
in evil, and if the mystery declares that God
was born in man but not in evil, and if, for man,
there is but one way of entrance upon life, namely
that by which the embryo passes on to the stage
of life, what other mode of entrance upon life
would they prescribe for God ? these people, I
mean, who, while they judge it right and proper
that the nature which evil had weakened should
be visited by the Divine power, yet take offence
at this special method of the visitation, not
remembering that the whole organization of the
body is of equal value throughout, and that
nothing in it, of all the elements that contribute
to the continuance of the animal life, is liable
to the charge of being worthless or wicked.
For the whole arrangement of the bodily organs
and limbs has been constructed with one end
in view, and that is, the continuance in life
of humanity ; and while the other organs of the
body conserve the present actual vitality of men,
each being apportioned to a different operation,
and by their means the faculties of sense and
action are exercised, the generative organs on the
contrary involve a forecast of the future, introduc-
ing as they do, by themselves, their counteracting
transmission for our race. Looking, therefore,
to their utility, to which of those parts which
are deemed more honourable are these in-
ferior ^ ? Nay, than which must they not in all
reason be deemed more worthy of honour?
For not by the eye, or ear, or tongue, or any
other sense, is the continuation of our race
carried on. These, as has been remarked, per-
tain to the enjoyment of the present. But by
those other organs the immortality of humanity
is secured, so that death, though ever operating
against us, thus in a certain measure becomes
powerless and ineffectual, since Nature, to baffle
him, is ever as it were throwing herself into the
breach through those who come successively
into being. What unseemliness, then, is con-
tained in our revelation of God mingled with
the life of humanity through those very means
by which Nature carries on the combat against
death ?

CHAPTER XXIX.

But they change their ground and endeavour
to vilify our faith in another way. They ask,
if what took place was not to the dishonour of

* Cf. I Cor xii. 14 — 24

498

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

God or unworthy of Him, why did He delay
the benefit so long? Why, since evil was in
the beginning, did He not cut off its further
progress ? — To this we have a concise answer ;
viz. that this delay in conferring the benefit was
owing to wisdom and a provident regard for
that which would be a gain for our nature. In
diseases, for instance, of the body, when some
corrupt humour spreads unseen beneath the
pores, before all the unhealthy secretion has
been detected on the skin, they who treat dis-
eases by the rules of art do not use such medi-
cines as would harden the flesh, but they wait
till all that lurks within comes out upon the sur-
face, and then, with the disease unmasked, apply
their remedies. When once, then, the disease of
evil had fixed itself in the nature of mankind, He,
the universal Healer, waited for the time when
no form of wickedness was left still hidden in
that nature. For this reason it was that He
did not produce his healing for man's disease
immediately on Cain's hatred and murder of
his brother ; for the wickedness of those who
were destroyed in the days of Noah had not
yet burst into a flame, nor had that terrible
disease of Sodomite lawlessness been displayed,
nor the Egyptians' war against God 5, nor the
pride of Assyria, nor the Jews' bloody persecu-
tion of God's saints, nor Herod's cruel murder
of the children, nor whatever else is recorded,
or if unrecorded was done in the generations
that followed, the root of evil budding forth in
divers manners in the wilful purposes of man.
When, then, wickedness had reached its utmost
height, and there was no form of wickedness
which men had not dared to do, to the end
that the healing remedy might pervade the
whole of the diseased system, He, accordingly,
ministers to the disease ; not at its beginning,
but when it had been completely developed.

CHAPTER XXX.

If, however, any one thinks to refute our
argument on this ground, that even after the
application of the remedial process the life of
man is still in discord through its errors, let us
lead him to the truth by an example taken from
familiar things. Take, for instance, the case of
a serpent ; if it receives a deadly blow on the
head, the hinder part of the coil is not at once
deadened along with it ; but, while the head is
dead, the tail part is still animated with its own
particular spirit, and is not deprived of its vital
motion : in like manner we may see Sin struck
its deadly blow and yet in its remainders still

5 0<Ofi.ax'a, a word often applied by the Greek Fathers to the
c 5ii luct ol the Egyptians, in refereuc . of course, to Pharaoh.

vexing the life of man. But then they give up
finding fault with the account of Revelation
on these points, and make another charge
against it ; viz. that the Faith does not
reach all mankind. " But why is it," they ask,
" that all men do not obtain the grace, but that,
while some adhere to the Word, the portion
who remain unbelieving is no small one ;
either because God was unwilling to bestow his
benefit ungrudgingly upon all, or because He
was altogether unable to do so?" Now neither
of these alternatives can defy criticism. For it is
unworthy of God, either that He should not will
what is good, or that He should be unable to
do it. " If, therefore, the Faith is a good thing,
why," they ask, " does not its grace come upon
all men ? " Now 6, if in our representation of
the Gospel mystery we had so stated the matter
as that it was the Divine will that the Faith
should be so granted away amongst mankind that
some men should be called, while the rest had
no share in the calling, occasion would be given
for bringing sucha charge against this Revelation.
But if the call came with equal meaning to all
and makes no distinction as to worth, age, or
different national characteristics (for it was for
this reason that at the very first beginning of
the proclamation of the Gospel they who
ministered the Word were, by Divine inspiration,
all at once enabled to speak in the language of
any nation, viz. in order that no one might be
destitute of a share in the blessings of evangelical
instruction), with what reasonableness can they
still charge it upon God that the Word has not
influenced all mankind ? For He Who holds
the sovereignty of the universe, out of the excess
of this regard for man, permitted something to
be under our own control, of which each of us
alone is master. Now this is the will, a thing
that cannot be enslaved, and of self-determining
power, since it is seated in the liberty of thought
and mind. Therefore such a charge might
more justly be transferred to those who have
not attached themselves to the Faith, instead of
resting on Him Who has called them to believe.
For even when Peter at the beginning preached
the Gospel in a crowded assembly of the
Jews, and three thousand at once received
the Faith, though those who disbelieved were
more in number than the believers, they did
not attach blame to the Apostle on the ground
of their disbelief. It was, indeed, not in reason,
when the grace of the Gospel had been publicly
set forth, for one who had absented himself

6 The following passage is anti-Calvinistic. Gregory here, as
continually elsewhere, asserts the freedom of the will ; and is strongly
supported by Justin Martyr, i. 43 : " If it has been fixed by fate that
one man shall be good, and another bad, the one is not praiseworthy,
the other not culpable. And again, if mankind has not power by a
free choice to flee the evil and to choose the good, it is not re-
sponsible for any results, however shocking."

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

499

from it of his own accord to lay the blame of
his exclusion on another rather than himself.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Yet, even in their reply to this, or the like,
they are not at a loss for a contentious rejoinder.
For they assert that God, if He had been so
pleased, might have forcibly drawn those, who
were not inclined to yield, to accept the Gospel
message. But where then would have been their
free will ? Where their virtuous merit ? Where
their meed of praise from their moral directors ?
It belongs only to inanimate or irrational
creatures to be brought round by the will of
another to his purpose ; whereas the reasoning
and intelligent nature, if it lays aside its freedom
of action, loses at the same time the gracious
gift of intellect. For upon what is he to em-
ploy any faculty of thought, if his power of
choosing anything according to his inclination
lies in the will of another? But then, if the
will remains without the capacity of action,
virtue necessarily disappears, since it is shackled
by the enforced quiescence of the will. Then,
if virtue does not exist, life loses its value,
reason moves in accordance with fatalism, the
praise of moral guardians 7 is gone, sin may be
indulged in without risk, and the difference
between the courses of life is obliterated.
For who, henceforth, could with any reason
condemn profligacy, or praise sobriety ? since 8
every one would have this ready answer, that
nothing of all the things we are inclined to is
in our own power, but that by some superior
and ruling influence the wills of men are
brought round to the purpose of one who has
the mastery over them. The conclusion, then,
is that it is not the goodness of God that is
chargeable with the fact that the Faith is not
engendered in all men, but rather the disposition
of those by whom the preaching of the Word is
received.

CHAPTER XXXII.

What other objection is alleged by our
adversaries ? This ; that (to take the prefer-
able view 9) it was altogether needless that that
transcendent Being should submit to the ex-
perience of death, but He might independently
of this, through the superabundance of His
power, have wrought with ease His purpose ;
still, if for some ineffable reason or other it
was absolutely necessary that so it should be,

7 T('>|/ KCLTOpOovvTUiV.

8 This is hii answer to modem '" Ethical Determinants.'

9 ju..jLAi(TTa jut'r.

at least He ought not to have been subjected to
the contumely of such an ignominious kind of
death. What death, they ask, could be more
ignominious than that by crucifixion? What
answer can we make to this? Why, that the
death is rendered necessary by the birth, and
that He Who had determined once for all to
share the nature of man must pass through all
the peculiar conditions of that nature. Seeing,
then, that the life of man is determined between
two boundaries, had He, after having passed
the one, not touched the other that follows,
His proposed design would have remained
only half fulfilled, from His not having touched
that second condition of our nature. Perhaps,
however, one who exactly understands the
mystery would be justified rather in saying
that, instead of the death occurring in con-
sequence of the birth, the birth on the
contrary was accepted by Him for the sake
of the death ; for He Who lives for ever did
not sink down into the conditions of a bodily
birth from any need to live, but to call us back
from death to life. Since, then, there was
needed a lifting up from death for the whole
of our nature, He stretches forth a hand as it
were to prostrate man, and stooping down to
our dead corpse He came so far within the
grasp of death as to touch a state of deadness,
and then in His own body to bestow on our
nature the principle of the resurrection, raising
as He did by His power along with Himself the
whole man. For since from no other source
than from the concrete lump of our nature ' had
come that flesh, which was the receptacle of the
Godhead and in the resurrection was raised up
together with that Godhead, therefore just in
the same way as, in the instance of this body
of ours, the operation of one of the organs of
sense is felt at once by the whole system, as
one with that member, so also the resurrection
principle of this Member, as though the whole
of mankind was a single living being, passes
through the entire race, being imparted from
the Member to the whole by virtue of the
continuity and oneness of the nature. What,
then, is there beyond the bounds of proba-
bility in what this Revelation teaches us ; viz.
that He Who stands upright stoops to one who
has fallen, in order to lift him up from his
prostrate condition? And as to the Cross,
whether it possesses some other and deeper
meaning, those who are skilled in mysticism
may explain ; but, however that may be, the
traditional teaching which has reached us is as
follows. Since all things in the Gospel, both

1 Cf. Rom ix. 21 : </>ppau.a is used for the human body often in
the Greek Fathers, i. e. Athanasius Chrysostom, John Damascene :
by all of whom Christ is called airapxr) roO r//j.eT6pov <2>i/paM.aToc.
Cf. Gen. ii. 7 ; Job x. 9: Epictetus also calls the human body mjAoj"

K. K 2

5oo

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

deeds and words, have a sublime and heavenly
meaning, and there is nothing in it which is
not such, that is, which does not exhibit a
complete mingling of the human with the
Divine, where the utterance exerted and the
deeds enacted are human but the secret sense
represents the Divine, it would follow that in
this particular as well as in the rest we must not
regard only the one element and overlook the
Dther ; but in the fact of this death we must
contemplate the human feature, while in the
manner of it we must be anxious to find the
Divine2. For since it is the property of the
Godhead to pervade all things, and to extend
itself through the length and breadth of the
substance of existence in every part — for no-
thing would continue to be if it remained not
within the existent ; and that which is this
existent properly and primarily is the Divine
Being, Whose existence in the world the con-
tinuance of all things that are forces us to
believe in, — this is the very thing we learn from
the figure of the Cross ; it is divided into four
parts, so that there are the projections, four in
number, from the central point where the whole
converges upon itself; because He Who at the
hour of His pre-arranged death was stretched
upon it is He Who binds together all things into
Himself, and by Himself brings to one harmoni-
ous agreement the diverse natures of actual ex-
istences. Por in these existences there is the
idea either of something above, or of something
below, or else the thought passes to the confines
sideways. If, therefore, you take into your con-
sideration the system of things above the heavens,
or of things below the earth, or of things at the
boundaries of the universe on either side, every-
where the presence of Deity anticipates your
thought as the sole observable power that in
every part of existing things holds in a state
of being all those things. Now whether we
ought to call this Existence Deity, or Mind, or
Power, or Wisdom, or any other lofty term
which might be better able to express Him Who
is above all, our argument has no quarrel with
the appellation or name or form of phrase used.
Since, then, all creation looks to Him, and is
about and around Him, and through Him is
coherent with itself, things above being through
Him conjoined to things below and things
lateral to themselves, it was right that not by
hearing only we should be conducted to the

a 4v fxiv Tip $avdrto KaBopav to av8pu>irivov, iv Si ru> rpoiroi iroKv-
npayy-ovflv to Beiorepov. This is Krabinger's reading (for fv tw
a.8avaTtp . . . iv Si t<o a^poiTru)) on the authority of Theodoret's
quotation and two Codd. for the first, and of all his Codd. for the
second. Hervetus also seems to have read the same, "in morte
quidem quod est humanum intueri, in moJo autem perscrutari quod
est divinitis." Glauber, however, translates the common text,
" Man miiss&i'rfwri U tisterblichen zwardas Menschliche betrachten,
aber bei dim Menschen auch das Gottliche hervorsuchen : " not-
withstanding that he hints his preference for another reading,
o-kottij, for this last ; cf. just above. " but the secret sense repre-
sents the Divine," which would then be parallel to this Uv>t sentence.

full understanding of the Deity, but that sight
also should be our teacher in these sublime
subjects for thought ; and it is from sight that
the mighty Paul starts when he initiates 3 the
people of Ephesus in the mysteries, and imbues
them through his instructions with the power
of knowing what is that " depth and height and
breadth and length." In fact he designates each
projection of the Cross by its proper appellation.
The upper part he calls height, the lower depth,
and the side extensions breadth and length ;
and in another passage * he makes his thought
still clearer to the Philippians, to whom he says,
" that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth,
and things under the earth." In that passage
he includes in one appellation the centre and
projecting arms5, calling "things in earth " all
that is in the middle between things in heaven
and things under the earth. Such is the lesson
we learn in regard to the mystery of the Cross.
And the subsequent events which the narrative
contains follow so appropriately that, as even
unbelievers must admit, there is nothing in
them adverse to the proper conceptions of the
Deity. That He did not abide in death, that
the wounds which His body had received from
the iron of the nails and spear offered no im-
pediment to His rising again, that after His
resurrection He showed Himself as He pleased
to His disciples, that when He wished to be
present with them He was in their midst with-
out being seen, as needing no entrance through
open doors, and that He strengthened the
disciples by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost,
and that He promised to be amongst them, and
that no partition wall should intervene between
them and Him, and that to the sight He as-
cended to Heaven while to the mind He was
everywhere ; all these, and whatever like facts
the history of Him comprises, need no assistance
from arguments to show that they are signs of
deity and of a sublime and supereminent power.
With regard to them therefore I do not deem
it necessary to go into any detail, inasmuch as
their description of itself shows the supernatural
character. But since the dispensation of the
washing (whether we choose to call it baptism,
or illumination, or regeneration ; for we make
the name no subject of controversy) is a part
of our revealed doctrines, it may be as well to
enter on a short discussion of this as well.

3 Eph.

18. 4 Philip, ii. 10.

Ktpaiav. The Fathers were fond of tracing similitudes to the
form of the Cross, in nature and art : in the sail-yards of a ship, as
here, and in the flight of birds on the wing. This is the reading of
Codd. Morell., Reg., and three of Krabinger's : but yaiav in the
margin of that of J. Vulcobius (Abbot of Belpr£) has got into the
text of both Paris Editt., though the second asterisks it. Hervelus
(' ' et fastigium ") seems to have read *ai axpav.

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

501

CHAPTER XXXIII.

For when they have heard from us some-
thing to this effect — that when the mortal passes
into life it follows necessarily that, as that first
birth leads only to the existence of mortality,
another birth should be discovered, a birth
which neither begins nor ends with corruption,
but one which conducts the person begotten to
an immortal existence, in order that, as what is
begotten of a mortal birth has necessarily a
mortal subsistence, so from a birth which ad-
mits not corruption that which is born may be
superior to the corruption of death ; when, I
say, they have heard this and the like from us,
and are besides instructed as to the process, —
namely that it is prayer and the invocation of
heavenly grace, and water, and faith, by which
the mystery of regeneration is accomplished, —
they still remain incredulous and have an eye
only for the outward and visible, as if that
which is operated corporeally6 concurred not
with the fulfilment of God's promise. How, they
ask, can prayer and the' invocation of Divine
power over the water be the foundation of life
in those who have been thus initiated? In
reply to them, unless they be of a very obstinate
disposition, one single consideration suffices to
bring them to an acquiescence in our doctrine.
For let us in our turn ask them about that
process of the carnal generation which every
One can notice. H6w does that something
which is cast for the beginnings of the formation
of a living being become a Man ? In that case,
most certainly, there is no method whatever that
can discover for us, by any possible reasoning,
even the probable truth. For what correlation
is there between the definition of man and the
quality observable in that something? Man,
when once he is put together, is a reasoning and
intellectual being, capable of thought and know-
ledge ; but that something is to be observed only
in its quality of humidity, and the mind grasps
nothing in it beyond that which is seen by the
sense of sight. The reply, therefore, which we
might expect to receive from those whom we
questioned as to how it is credible that a man
is compounded from that humid element, is
the very reply which we make when questioned
about the regeneration that takes place through
the water. Now in that other case any one
so questioned has this reply ready at hand,
that that element becomes a man by a Divine
power, wanting which, the element is motion-
less and inoperative. If, therefore, in that

6 vwnaTiKus : with a general reference both to the recipient, the
words (the " form "), and the water (the " matter," in the Aris-
totelian sense). Cf. questions in Private Baptism of In/ants : and
Hamjjden's Bampton Lectures, p. 336 n.

instance the subordinate matter does not make
the man, but the Divine power changes that
visible thing into a man's nature, it would be
utterly unfair for them, when in the one case
they testify to such power in God, in this other
department to suppose that the Deity is too weak
to accomplish His will. What is there common,
they ask, between water and life? What is
there common, we ask them in return, between
humidity and God's image ? In that case there
is no paradox if, God so willing, what is humid
changes into the most rare creature ?. Equally,
then, in this case we assert that there is nothing
strange when the presence of a Divine influence
transforms what is born with a corruptible
nature into a state of incorruption.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

But they ask for proof of this presence of
the Deity when invoked for the sanctification
of the baptismal process 8. Let the person who
requires this evidence recall to mind the result
of our inquiries further back. The reasoning
by which we established that the power which
was manifested to us through the flesh was
really a Divine power, is the defence of that
which we now say. For when it has been
shown that He Who was manifested in the flesh,
and then exhibited His nature by the miracles
which He wrought, was God, it is also at the
same time shown that He is present in that
process, as often as He is invoked. For, as of
everything that exists there is some peculiarity
which indicates its nature, so truth is the dis-
tinctive peculiarity of the Divine nature. Well,
then, He has promised that He will always
be present with those that call upon Him, that
He is in the midst of those that believe, that
He remains among them collectively and has
special intercourse with each one. We can no
longer, then, need any other proof of the presence
of the Deity in the things that are done in
Baptism, believing as we do that He is God by
reason of the miracles which He wrought, and
knowing as we do that it is the peculiarity of
the Godhead to be free from any touch of false-
hood, and confidently holding as we do that
the thing promised was involved in the truthful-
ness of its announcement. The invocation by
prayer, then, which precedes this Divine Dis-
pensation constitutes an abundance of proof
that what is effected is done by God. Fo- if
in the case of that other kind of man-formation
the impulses of the parents, even though they

7 TinKoTaToi' (Tifj.r) = " price ") £aiov. So Plato, Laws, p. 766:
" Man, getting right training and a happy organization, is wont to
hecome a most godlike and cultivated creature."

a ran' -yifo/weVcoe.

502

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

do not invoke the Deity, yet by the power of
God, as we have before said, mould the embryo,
and if this power is withheld their eagerness is
ineffectual and useless, how much more will the
object be accomplished in that spiritual mode
of generation, where both God has promised
that He will be present in the process and, as
we have believed, has put power from Himself
into the work, and, besides, our own will is
bent upon that object ; supposing, that is, that
the aid which comes through prayer has at the
same time been duly called in ? For as they who
pray God that the sun may shine on them in no
way blunt the promptitude of that which is actu-
ally going to take place, yet no one will say that
the zeal of those who thus pray is useless on the
ground that they pray God for what must happen,
in the same way they who, resting on the truth-
fulness of His promise, are firmly persuaded
that His grace is surely present in those who
are regenerate in this mystical Dispensation,
either themselves make 9 an actual addition to
that grace, or at all events do not cause the
existing grace to miscarry. For that the grace
is there is a matter of faith, on account of Him
Who has promised to give it being Divine ;
while the testimony as to His Divinity comes
through the Miracles1. Thus, then, that the
Deity is present in all the baptismal process 2
admits of no question.

CHAPTER XXXV

But the descent into the water, and the trine
immersion of the person in it, involves another
mystery. For since the method of our salvation
was made effectual not so much by His precepts
in the way of teaching 3 as by the deeds of Him
Who has realized an actual fellowship with man,
and has effected life as a living fact, so that by
means of the flesh which He has assumed, and
at the same time deified 4, everything kindred

9 iroiovcTai (middle), i. e. by their prayers.

1 i\ Be i-ijs Seon/TO? fiaprvpia Sid jCtv Oavfidrutv itrriv : a note-
worthy sentence. 2 t&v yivonevutv (cf. above) being understood.

3 e<t r>)9 Kara SiSoytji' v<J>i7yr)0-e<o«. This is what Krabinger finds
in three Codd., and Morell and Hervetus have rendered in the
Latin. But the editions have StaSoviji/. 'Y</>jjy»)(ns does not refer
to any "preceding" (" praeeunte,' Hervetus) teaching; but to
" instruction " of any kind, whether " in the way of teaching," or
of example, as below.

4 the flesh -which He has assumed, and at the same time
deified. " Un terme cher aux Peres du IVe siecle, de nous dei/ier"
(Denis, Philosophie ctOrigine, p. 458). This 6fonoiri<ris or 6eoi(ri<;
is more than a metaphor even from the first ; " vere fideles vocantur
fleoi, non natura quidem, sed Tjj ofiouixxei., ait Athanasius ; " Casau-
bon, In Epist. ad Eustath. " We become ' gods ' by grasping the
Divine power and substance;" Clement, Stromata, iv. That the
Platonists had thus used the word of to n-pbs futi^ova &6£a.v avwI/ioOcv
is clear. Synesius in one of his Hymns says to his soul : —

" Soon commingled with the Father

Thou shall dance a ' god ' with God."

Just as elsewnere {in Dione. p. 50) he says, " it is not sufficient not
to be bad ; each must be even a * god.' " Cf. also Gregory Thaum.
Panegyr Origenis, § 141 When we come to the Fathers of the
4th century and later, these words are used more especially of the
work of the Holy Spirit upon man. Cf. Cyrill. Alex. : " If to be

and related may be saved along with it, it was
necessary that some means should be devised
by which there might be, in the baptismal pro-
cess, a kind of affinity and likeness between
him who follows and Him Who leads the way.
Needful, therefore, is it to see what features are
to be observed in the Author of our life, in
order that the imitation on the part of those
that follow may be regulated, as the Apostle
says, after the pattern of the Captain of our
salvation s. For, as it is they who are actually
drilled into measured and orderly movements
in arms by skilled drill-masters, who are ad-
vanced to dexterity in handling their weapons
by what they see with their eyes, whereas he
who does not practise what is shown him re-
mains devoid of such dexterity, in the same
way it is imperative on all those who have an
equally earnest desire for the Good as He has,
to be followers by the path of an exact imitation
of Him Who leads the way to salvation, and to
carry into action what He has shown them. It
is, in fact, impossible for persons to reach the
same goal unless they travel by the same ways.
For as persons who are at a loss how to thread
the turns of mazes, when they happen to fall in
with some one who has experience of them, get
to the end of those various misleading turnings
in the chambers by following him behind, which
they could not do, did they not follow him their
leader step by step, so too, I pray you mark,
the labyrinth of this our life cannot be threaded
by the faculties of human nature unless a man
pursues that same path as He did Who, though

able to ' deify' is a greater thing than a creature can do, and if the
Spirit does ' deify,' how can he be created or anything but God,
seeing that he ' deifies "I" " If the Spirit is not God," says Gregory
Naz., " let him first be deified, and then let him deify me his equal ; "
where two things are implied, 1. that the recognized work of the Holy
Spirit is to'deifv/2. that this "deification" is not Godhead. It
is " the comparative god-making" of Dionysius Areopag. whereby
we are " partakers of the Divine nature' (2 Pet. i. 4). On the
word as applied to the human nature of our Saviour Himself. H«iet
(O rineniana , ii. 3, c. 17), in discussing the statement of Ongen,
in his Commentary on S. Matthew (Tract 27), that " Christ after His
resurrection 'deified ' the human nature which He had taken," re-
marks, " If we take this word so as to make Origen mean that the
Word was changed into the human nature, and that the flesh itself was
changed into God and made of the same substance as the Word, he
will clearly be guilty of that deadly error which Apollinaris brought
into the Church (i. e. that the Saviour's soul is not ' reasonable,'
nor His flesh human) ; or rather of tlie heresy perpetrated by some
sects of the Eutychians, who asserted that the human nature was
changed into the Divine after the Resurrection. Bui if we take
him to mean that Christ's human nature, after being divested of
weakness after death, assumed a certain Divine quality, we shall
be doing Him no wrong." He then quotes a line from Gregory's
Iambics : —

" The thing ' deifying,' and the thing ' deified,' are one God : "

and this is said even of Christ's Incarnation ; how much more then
can it be said of His Resurrection state, as in this passage of
the Great Catechism? Huet adds one of Origen's answers to
Celsus: " His mortal body and the human soul in Him, by virtue
of their junction or rather union and blending with that (deity),
assumed, we assert, qualities of the very greatest kind. . . . What
incredibility is there in the quality of mortality in the body of
Jesus changing, when God so planned and willed it, into an
ethereal :md Divine " (1. e. the matter, as the receptacle of these
qualities, remaining the same)? It is in this sense that Chry-
sostom can say that "Christ came to us, and took upon Him our
nature and deified it; "and Augustine, "your humanity received
the name of that deity " (contr. Arian.i.
5 Heb. ii. 10; xii. 2.

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

503

once in it, yet got beyond the difficulties which
hemmed Him in. I apply this figure of a
labyrinth to that prison of death, which is
without an egress 6 and environs the wretched
race of mankind. What, then, have we beheld
in the case of the Captain of our salvation ? A
three days' state of death and then life again.
Now some sort of resemblance in us to such
things has to be planned. What, then, is the plan
by which in us too a resemblance to that which
took place in Him is completed ? Everything
that is affected by death has its proper and
natural place, and that is the earth in which it
is laid and hidden. Now earth and water have
much mutual affinity. Alone of the elements
' they have weight and gravitate downwards ;
they mutually abide in each other; they are
mutually confined. Seeing, then, the death of
the Author of our life subjected Him to burial
in earth and was in accord with our common
nature, the imitation which we enact of that
death is expressed in the neighbouring element.
And as He, that Man from above ?, having taken
deadness on Himself, after His being deposited
in the earth, returned back to life the third day,
so every one who is knitted to Him by virtue of
his bodily form, looking forward to the same
successful issue, I mean this arriving at life by
having, instead of earth, water poured on him8,
and so submitting to that element, has repre-
sented for him in the three movements the
three-days-delayed grace of the resurrection.
Something like this has been said in what has
gone before, namely, that by the Divine provi-
dence death has been introduced as a dispens-
ation into the nature of man, so that, sin having
flowed away at the dissolution of the union of
soul and body, man, through the resurrection,
might be refashioned, sound, passionless, stain-
less, and removed from any touch of evil. In
the case however of the Author of our Salvation
this dispensation of death reached its fulfilment,
having entirely accomplished its special purpose.
For in His death, not only were things that
once were one put asunder, but also things that
had been disunited were again brought together ;
so that in this dissolution of things that had
naturally grown together, I mean, the soul and
body, our nature might be purified, and this
return to union of these severed elements might
secure freedom from the contamination of any
foreign admixture. But as regards those who
follow this Leader, their nature does not admit
of an exact and entire imitation, but it receives
now as much as it is capable of receiving, while
it reserves the remainder for the time that comes

6 aSte'foioi' . . . (ppovodv Krabinger s excellent reading Cf.
Plato, Pfued. p. 62 B, " We men are in a sort of prison."

' S. John iii. 31 : 1 Cor. xv. 47 (avuiOev — it; ovparov).

8 em.\e6fj.evo';. This may be pressed to imply that immersion
was not absolutely necessary. So below to i/Suip Tpis im\faixfvoi.

after. In what, then, does this imitation con-
sist ? It consists in the effecting the suppression
of that admixture of sin, in the figure of mortifi-
cation that is given by the water, not certainly
a complete effacement, but a kind of break in
the continuity of the evil, two things concurring
to this removal of sin — the penitence of the trans-
gressor and his imitation of the death. By these
two things the man is in a measure freed from
his congenital tendency to evil ; by his peni-
tence he advances to a hatred of and averseness
from sin, and by his death he works out the
suppression of the evil. But had it been
possible for him in his imitation to undergo a
complete dying, the result would be not imita-
tion but identity; and the evil of our nature
would so entirely vanish that, as the Apostle
says, "he would die unto sin once for alls."
But since, as has been said, we only so far
imitate the transcendent Power as the poverty
of our nature is capable of, by having the water
thrice poured on us and ascending again up
from the water, we enact that saving burial and
resurrection which took place on the third day,
with this thought in our mind, that as we have
power over the water both to be in it and arise
out of it, so He too, Who has the universe at
His sovereign disposal, immersed Himself in
death, as we in the water, to return * to His
own blessedness. If, therefore, one looks to
that which is in reason, and judges of the results
according to the power inherent in either party,
one will discover no disproportion in these
results, each in proportion to the measure of
his natural power working out the effects that
are within his reach. For, as it is in the power
of man, if he is so disposed, to touch the water
and yet be safe, with infinitely greater ease may
death be handled by the Divine Power so as to
be in it and yet not to be changed by it injuri-
ously. Observe, then, that it is necessary for
us to rehearse beforehand in the water the grace
of the resurrection, to the intent that we may
understand that, as far as facility goes, it is the
same thing for us to be baptized with water and
to rise again from death. But as in matters that
concern our life here, there are some which take
precedence of others, as being those without
which the result could not be achieved, although
if the beginning be compared with the end, the
beginning so contrasted will seem of no account
(for what equality, for instance, is there between
the man and that which is laid as a foundation for
the constitution of his animal being ? And yet
if that had never been, neither would this be
which we see), in like manner that which happens
in the great resurrection, essentially vaster

9 etpana^. So Rom. vi. 10, " He died unto sin once" (A. V.) ;
i. e. once for all.

1 ayaAveip. Cf. Philip, i- 23 (avaAucrai)

504

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

though it be, has its beginnings and its causes
here ; it is not, in fact, possible that that should
take place, unless this had gone before ; I
mean, that without the la/er of regeneration it
is impossible for the man to be in the resurrec-
tion ; but in saying this I do not regard the mere
remoulding and refashioning of our composite
body ; for towards this it is absolutely necessary
that human nature should advance, being con-
strained thereto by its own laws according to
the dispensation of Him Who has so ordained,
whether it have received the grace of the laver,
or whether it remains without that initiation :
but I am thinking of the restoration to a blessed
and divine condition, separated from all shame
and sorrow. For not everything that is granted
in the resurrection a return to existence will
return to the same kind of life. There is a
wide interval between those who have been
purified, and those who still need purification.
For those in whose life-time here the purification
by the laver has preceded, there is a restoration
to a kindred state. Now, to the pure, freedom
from passion is that kindred state, and that in
this freedom from passion blessedness consists,
admits of no dispute. But as for those whose
weaknesses have become inveterate 2, and to
whom no purgation of their defilement has been
applied, no mystic water, no invocation of the
Divine power, no amendment by repentance, it
is absolutely necessary that they should come
to be in something proper to their case, — just
as the furnace is the proper thing for gold alloyed
with dross, — in order that, the vice which has
been mixed up in them being melted away after
long succeeding ages, their nature may be
restored pure again to God. Since, then, there
is a cleansing virtue in fire and water, they who
by the mystic water have washed away the de-
filement of their sin have no further need of the
other form of purification, while they who have
not been admitted to that form of purgation
must needs be purified by fire.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

For common sense as well as the teaching
of Scripture shows that it is impossible for one
who has not thoroughly cleansed himself from
all the stains arising from evil to be admitted
amongst the heavenly company. This is a thing
which, though little in itself, is the beginning and
foundation of great blessings. I call it little on
account of the facility of the means of amend-
ment. For what difficulty is there in this
matter ? viz. to believe that God is everywhere,
and that being in all things He is also present

with those who call upon Him for His life-
supporting power, and that, thus present, He
does that which properly belongs to Him to do.
Now, the work properly belonging to the Divine
energy is the salvation of those who need it ;
and this salvation proves effectual 3 by means of
the cleansing in the water ; and he that has been
so cleansed will participate in Purity ; and true
Purity is Deity. You see, then, how small a
thing it is in its beginning, and how easily
effected ; I mean, faith and water j the first
residing within the will, the latter being the
nursery companion of the life of man. But as
to the blessing which springs from these two
things, oh ! how great and how wonderful it is,
that it should imply relationship with Deity
itself !

CHAPTER XXXVII.

But since the human being is a twofold
creature, compounded of soul and body, it is
necessary that the saved should lay hold of4 the
Author of the new life through both their com-
ponent parts. Accordingly, the soul* being
fused into Him through faith derives from that
the means and occasion of salvation ; for the
act of union with the life implies a fellowship
with the life. But the body comes into fellow-
ship and blending with the Author of our
salvation in another way. For as they who
owing to some act of treachery have taken
poison, allay its deadly influence by means of
some other drug (for it is necessary that the
antidote should enter the human vitals in the
same way as the deadly poison, in order to
secure, through them, that the effect of the
remedy may be distributed through the entire
system), in like manner we, who have tasted
the solvent of our nature 5, necessarily need
something that may combine what has been so
dissolved, so that such an antidote entering
within us may, by its own counter-influence,
undo the mischief introduced into the body by
the poison. What, then, is this remedy to be ?
Nothing else than that very Body which has
been shown to be superior to death, and
has been the First-fruits of our life. For, in
the manner that, as the Apostle says6, a little
leaven assimilates to itself the whole lump, so
in like manner that body to which immortality
has been given it by God, when it is in ours,

3 S. John iii. 5

* e<£d7TTe(70ai. Krabinger prefers this to e<peire(rtia* (Paris Edit),
as more suitable to what follows.

5 Gregory seems here to refer to Eve's eating the apple, wh ch
introduced ;i moral and physical poison into our nature. General
Gordon's thoughts (" in Palestine") took the -ame direction as the
wiiole of this passage ; which Fronto Ducaeus (as quoted by Kra-
binger) would even regard as a proof of transubstantiation.

° 1 Cor. v. 6.

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

505

translates and transmutes the whole into itself.
For as by the admixture of a poisonous liquid
with a wholesome one the whole draught is
deprived of its deadly effect, so too the immortal
Body, by being within that which receives it,
changes the whole to its own nature. Yet in
no other way can anything enter within the
body but by being transfused through the
vitals by eating and drinking. It is, therefore,
incumbent on the body to admit this life-pro-
ducing power in the one way that its constitution
makes possible. And since that Body only which
was the receptacle of the Deity received this
grace of immortality, and since it has been shown
that in no other way was it possible for our
body to become immortal, but by participating
in incorruption through its fellowship with that
immortal Body, it will be necessary to consider
how it was possible that that one Body, being
for ever portioned to so many myriads of the
faithful throughout the whole world, enters,
through that portion, whole into each individual,
and yet remains whole in itself. In order,
therefore, that our faith, with eyes fixed on
logical probability, may harbour no doubt on
the subject before us, it is fitting to make a
slight digression in our argument, to consider
the physiology of the body. Who is there that
does not know that our bodily frame, taken by
itself, possesses no life in its own proper sub-
sistence, but that it is by the influx of a force or
power from without that it holds itself together
and continues in existence, and by a ceaseless
motion that it draws to itself what it wants, and
repels what is superfluous? When a leathern
bottle is full of some liquid, and then the con-
tents leak out at the bottom, it would not retain
the contour of its full bulk unless there entered
m at the top something else to fill up the
vacuum ; and thus a person, seeing the circum-
ference of this bottle swollen to its full size,
would know that this circumference did not
really belong to the object which he sees, but
that what was being poured in, by being in it, gave
shape and roundness to the bulk. In the same
way the mere framework of our body possesses
nothing belonging to itself that is cognizable
by us, to hold it together, but remains in exist-
ence owing to a force that is introduced into it.
Now this power or force both is, and is called,
nourishment. But it is not the same in all bodies
that require aliment, but to each of them has
been assigned a food adapted to its condition by
Him who governs Nature. Some animals feed
on roots which they dig up. Of others grass is
the food, of others different kinds of flesh,
but for man above all things bread ; and, in
order to continue and preserve the moisture of
his body, drink, not simply water, but water
frequently sweetened with wine, to join forces

with our internal heat. He, therefore, who
thinks of these things, thinks by implication 7 of
the particular bulk of our body. For those
things by being within me became my blood
and flesh, the corresponding nutriment by its
power of adaptation being changed into the
form of my body. With these distinctions we
must return to the consideration of the question
before us. The question was, how can that
one Body of Christ vivify the whole of mankind,
all, that is, in whomsoever there is Faith, and
yet, though divided amongst all, be itself not
diminished ? Perhaps, then, we are now not far
from the probable explanation. If the subsist-
ence of every body depends on nourishment, and
this is eating and drinking, and in the case of our
eating there is bread and in the case of our drink-
ing water sweetened with wine, and if, as was
explained at the beginning, the Word of God,
Who is both God and the Word, coalesced with
man's nature, and when He came in a body
such as ours did not innovate on man's physical
constitution so as to make it other than it was,
but secured continuance for His own body by
the customary and proper means, and controlled
its subsistence by meat and drink, the former of
which was bread, — just, then, as in the case of
ourselves, as has been repeatedly said already,
if a person sees bread he also, in a kind of way,
looks on a human body, for by the bread being
within it the bread becomes it, so also, in that
other case, the body into which God entered,
by partaking of the nourishment of bread, was,
in a certain measure, the same with it ; that
nourishment, as we have said, changing itself into
the nature of the body. For that which is peculiar
to all flesh is acknowledged also in the case of that
flesh, namely, that that Body too was maintained
by bread ; which Body also by the indwelling
of God the Word was transmuted to the dignity
of Godhead. Rightly, then, do we believe that
now also the bread which is consecrated by the
Word of God is changed into the Body of God
the Word. For that Body was once, by implica-
tion, bread, but has been consecrated by the in-
habitation of the Word that tabernacled in the
flesh. Therefore, from the same cause as that
by which the bread that was transformed in that
Body was changed to a Divine potency, a similar
result takes place now. For as in that case,
too, the grace of the Word used to make holy
the Body, the substance of which came of the
bread, and in a manner was itself bread, so also
in this case the bread, as says the Apostle 8, " is
sanctified by the Word of God and prayer";
not that it advances by the process of eating 9

7 Svvaftei. 8 1 Tim. iv. 5.

9 by the process of eating, Sid fipucrems. There is very little
authority for «eai no&etas which follows in some Codd. If Kra-
binger's text is here correct, Gregory distinctly teaches a trans-
mutation of the ek.T-nts very like the later transubstantiation : he

506

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

to the stage of passing into the body of the
Word, but it is at once changed into the body
by means of the Word, as the Word itself said,
" This is My Body." Seeing, too, that all flesh
is nourished by what is moist (for without this
combination our earthly part would not continue
to live), just as we support by food which is
firm and solid the solid part of our body, in
like manner we supplement the moist part from
the kindred element ; and this, when within us,
by its faculty of being transmitted, is changed
to blood, and especially if through the wine it
receives the faculty of being transmuted into
heat. Since, then, that God-containing flesh
partook for its substance and support of this
particular nourishment also, and since the God
who was manifested infused Himself into perish-
able humanity for this purpose, viz. that by this
communion with Deity mankind might at the
same time be deified, for this end it is that, by
dispensation of His grace, He disseminates
Himself in every believer through that flesh,
whose substance comes from bread and wine,
blending Himself with the bodies of believers,
to secure that, by this union with the immortal,
man, too, may be a sharer in incorruption. He
gives these gifts by virtue of the benediction
through which He transelements ' the natural

also distinctly teaches that the words of consecration effect the
change. There seems no reason to doubt that the text is correct.
The three Latin interpretations, " a verbo tran-mrtatus," " statim
a verbo transmutatus," " per verbum mutatus," of Hervetus, Morell,
and Zinus, all point to their having found rrpb? to awfia Sia tov
Aoyov /xerajroiovfiei'os in the text : and this is the reading of Cod.
Reg. (the other reading is rrpbs to o-o>i±a tow Aoyov). A passage
from Justin Mart., Apol. ii. p. 77, also supports Krabinger's text.
Justin says, " so we are taught that that food which h.is been
blessed by the pronouncing of the word that came from Him, which
food by changing nourishes our blood and flesh, is the flesh and
blood of that Incarnate Jesus." As to the nature of the change
(trpbs to <ru>fia ftcTairotovVo'o;), another passage in Gregory {In
Baptism. Chris ti, 370 A) should be compared : "The bread,
again, was for a while common bread, but when the mystic word
shall have consecrated it (iepoupyrjo-n), it is called, and moreover is,
the body of Christ." He says also at the end of this chapter, " He
gives these gifts by virtue of the benediction through which He
transelements (jui«Ta<rTOtXf"<utro«) the natural quality (cpuo-ie) of these
visible things to that immortal thing." Harnack does not attempt
to weaken the force of these and other passages, but only points out
that the idea of this change does not exactly correspond (how could
it?) with the mediaeval scholastically-philosophical " transubstan-
liation." Gregory's belief is that, just as the Word, when Christ
was here in the flesh, rendered holy His body that assimilated
bread, which still in a manner remained bread, so now the bread is
sanctified by the Word of God and by prayer. " The idea," says
Neander, "of the repetition of the consecration of the Aoyo? had
taken hold of his mind." The construction is irpoiviv(w<TTc)ytvf<T0a.i
eis to o-uifia toO Aoyov, " eo prugrediens, ut verbi corpus evadat."
1 jifTaOTOiveuuo-a*. Suicer labours, without success, to show
that the word is not equivalent to transe.i mentare or jicTovo-toOv,
but only to substautiam convtrtere, i. e. to change by an addition of
grace into another mode or use In the passages from Epiphanius
which Suicer adduces for "figure," "mode," as a meaning of
o-toiy«ioi' itself, that word means a sign of the zodiac (as in our
Gregory's De Anima et Resurr., it means the moon), only because
the heavenly bodies are the elements or first principles as it were of
the celestial alphabet. The other meaning of ficTao-Toix«iouc which
he yives, /'. e. to unteach, with a view to obscure the literati meaning
here, is quite inapplicable. Gregory ('efines more clearly than
Chrysostom (/i«Tappvfyii£eo"#ai), Theophylact (jieTanoteicrSai), and
John Damascene (fi«Taj3aAA«o-(?ai), the change that takes place : but
all ^o beyond Theodoret's [Dial, ii.), "not changing nature but
adding grace to the nature," which Suicer endeavours to read into
this word of Gregory's. It is to be noticed, too, that in Philo the
word is used of Xerxes changing in his march one element into
ano her, i. e. earth into water, not the mere use of the one into
the use of the other.

quality of these visible things to that immortal
thing.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

There is now, I think, wanting in these re-
marks no answer to inquiries concerning the
Gospel mystery, except that on Faith 3 ; which
we give briefly in the present treatise. For
those who require a more elaborate account we
have already published it in other works of
ours, in which we have explained the subject
with all the earnestness and accuracy in our
power. In those treatises we have both fought 3
controversially with our opponents, and also
have taken private consultation with ourselves
as to the questions which have been brought
against us. But in the present discussion we
have thought it as well only to say just so much
on the subject of faith as is involved in the
language of the Gospel, namely, that one who
is begotten by the spiritual regeneration may
know who it is that begets him, and what sort
of creature he becomes. For it is only this
form of generation which has in it the power to
become what it chooses to be.

CHAPTER XXXIX

For, while all things else that are born are
subject to the impulse of those that beget them,
the spiritual birth is dependent on the power of
him who is being born. Seeing, then, that here
lies the hazard, namely, that he should not miss
what is for his advantage, when to every one a
free choice is thus open, it were well, I think,
for him who is moved towards the begetting of
himself, to determine by previous reasoning
what kind of father is for his advantage, and of
what element it is better for him that his nature
should consist. For, as we have said, it is in
the power of such a child as this to choose its
parents. Since, then, there is a twofold division
of existences, into created and uncreated, and
since the uncreated world possesses within itself
immutability and immobility, while the created
is liable to change and alteration, of which will
he, who with calculation and deliberation is to
choose what is for his benefit, prefer to be the
offspring ; of that which is always found in a

9 Faith. Cf. Church Catechism ; " Faith whereby they stead-
fastly believe the promises of God made to them in that Sacrament
(of Baptism)."

3 avveirkaxjincv, i. e. against Eunomius, in defence of the equality
of the Trinity in the Baptismal symboL Often as Gregury in that
treatise opposes Eunomius for placing the essence of Christianity in
mere yvuxri'; and 6oy#iaT<oi' dxpt'^eta, as against God's incomprehensi>
bility, and knowledge only by the heart, he had yet spent his whole
life in showing the supreme importance of accuracy in the formulas
upon which the Faith rested. This helps to give a date for the
Great Catechism.

THE GREAT CATECHISM.

507

state of change, or of that which possesses a
nature that is changeless, steadfast, and ever
consistent and unvarying in goodness? Now
there have been delivered to us in the Gospel
three Persons and names through whom the
generation or birth of believers takes place, and
he who is begotten by this Trinity is equally
begotten of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost — for thus does the Gospel
speak of the Spirit, that " that which is born of
Spirit is spirit V' and it is "in Christ 5 " that
Paul begets, and the Father is the " Father of
all ; " here, then, I beg, let the mind of the
hearer be sober in its choice, lest it make itself
the offspring of some inconstant nature, when it
has it in its power to make the steadfast and
unalterable nature the founder of its life. For
according to the disposition of heart in one
who comes to the Dispensation will that which
is begotten in him exhibit its power ; so that he
who confesses that the Holy Trinity is uncreate
enters on the steadfast unalterable life ; while
another, who through a mistaken conception
sees only a created nature in the Trinity and
then is baptized in that, has again been born
into the shifting and alterable life. For that
which is born is of necessity of one kindred
with that which begets. Which, then, offers the
greater advantage ; to enter on the unchange-
able life, or to be again tossed about by the
waves of this lifetime of uncertainty and change?
Well, since it is evident to any one of the least
understanding that what is stable is far more
valuable than what is unstable, what is perfect
than what is deficient, what needs not than
what needs, and what has no further to advance,
but ever abides in the perfection of all that is
good, than what climbs by progressive toil, it is
incumbent upon every one, at least upon every
one who is possessed of sense, to make an abso-
lute choice of one or other of these two con-
ditions, either to believe that the Holy Trinity
belongs to the uncreated world, and so through
the spiritual birth to make It the foundation of
his own life, or, if he thinks that the Son or the
Holy Ghost is external to the being of the first,
the true, the good, God, I mean, of the Father,
not to include these Persons in the belief which
he takes upon him at the moment of his new
birth, lest he unconsciously make himself over
to that imperfect nature6 which itself needs
some one to make it good, and in a manner
bring himself back again to something of the
same nature as his own by thus removing his
faith? from that higher world. For whoever

4 S. John iii. 6. S T Cor. iv. 15.

6 imperfect nature: i. e. of a creature (ktkttos) ; for instance, of
a merely human Christ, which himself needs, and therefore cannot
give, perfection.

' removing his faith : i. e. as he would do, if he placed it on
beings whom he knew were not of that higher, uncieated, world

has bound himself to any created thing forgets
that, as from the Deity, he has no longer hope
of salvation. For all creation, owing to the
whole equally proceeding from non-existence
into being, has an intimate connection with
itself; and as in the bodily org;n ' ation all the
limbs have a natural and mutual coherence,
though some have a downward, some an up-
ward direction, so the world of created things
is, viewed as the creation, in oneness with it-
self, and the differences in us, as regards abund-
ance or deficiency, in no wise disjoint it from
this natural coherence with itself. For in
things which equally imply the idea of a
previous non-existence, though there be a
difference between them in other respects, as
regards this point we discover no variation of
nature. If, then, man, who is himself a created
being, thinks that the Spirit and the Only-
begotten God8 are likewise created, the hope
which he entertains of a change to a better
state will be a vain one ; for he only returns
to himself?. What happens then is on a par
with the surmises of Nicodemus ; he, when
instructed by our Lord as to the necessity of
being born from above, because he could not
yet comprehend the meaning of the mystery,
had his thoughts drawn back to his mother's
womb '. So that if a man does not conduct
himself towards the uncreated nature, but to
that which is kindred to, and equally in bond-
age with, himself, he is of the birth which is
from below, and not of that which is from
above. But the Gospel tells us that the birth
of the saved is from above.

CHAPTER XL.

But, as far as what has been already said, the
instruction of this Catechism does not seem to
me to be yet complete. For we ought, in my
opinion, to take into consideration the sequel
of this matter ; which many of those who come
to the grace of baptism 2 overlook, being led
astray, and self-deceived, and indeed only seem-
ingly, and not really, regenerate. For that
change in our life which takes place through
regeneration will not be change, if we continue
in the state in which we were. I do not see

8 and the Only-begotten God. One Cod. reads here viov (not
$eov), as it is in S. John L 18, though even there "many very
ancient authorities" (R.V.)_ read Oebv. The Latin of Hervetus
implies an oi/x here ; " et unigenitum Deum non esse existimant ; "
and Glauber would retain it, making ktuttov = 6tbv oi/x tlvai. Bud
Krabinger found no o\Ik in any of his Codd.

9 npbs iavrbv avaAvcov, as explained above, i. e. «£s to 6/uoyo'e;
eavTOi' ficrayayi). * S. John iii. 4.

2 We need not consider this passage about Regeneration as an
interpolation, with Aubertin, De Sacram. Eucharist, lib. ii. p. 487,
because Gregory has already dealt with Baptism inch. vxxv. — xvxvi.;
and then with the Eucharist : his view of the relation between the
two Sacraments, that the Eucharist unites the body, as Baptism the
soul, to God, quite explains this return to the preliminaries of this
double union.

5o8

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

how it is possible to deem one who is still in
the same condition, and in whom there has
been no change in the distinguishing features
of his nature, to be any other than he was, it
being palpable to every one that it is for a
renovation and change of our nature that the
saving birth is received. And yet human nature
does not of itself admit of any change in
baptism ; neither the reason, nor the under-
standing, nor the scientific faculty, nor any
other peculiar characteristic of man is a subject
for change. Indeed the change would be for
the worse if any one of these properties of our
nature were exchanged away 3 for something else.
If, then, the birth from above is a definite re-
fashioning of the man, and yet these properties

by the same names, a covetous person, one who
is greedy of what belongs to others, one who
lives in luxury at the cost of men's calamities.
Let such an one, therefore, who remains in the
same moral condition as before, and then
babbles to himself of the beneficial change he
has received from baptism, listen to what Paul
says : " If a man think himself to be something,
when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself7." For
what you have not become, that you are not.
" As many as received Him," thus speaks the
Gospel of those who have been born again,
" to them gave He power to become the sons
of God 8." Now the child born of any one is
entirely of a kindred nature with his parent.
j[f, then, you have received God, if you have

do not admit of change, it is a subject for|jbecome a child of God, make manifest in your
inquiry what that is in him, by the changing of disposition the God that is in you, manifest in
which the grace of regeneration is perfected. | yourself Him that begot you. By the same
It is evident that when those evil features which : marks whereby we recognize God, must this
mark our nature have been obliterated a change relationship to God of the son so born be ex-
to a better state takes place. If, then, by being j hibited. " He openeth His hand and filleth

"washed," as says the Prophet*, in that mystic
bath we become " clean " in our wills and " put
away the evil " of our souls, we thus become
better men, and are changed to a better state.
But if, when the bath has been applied to the
body, the soul has not cleansed itself from the

pleasure."
"He

every living thing with His good
" He passeth over transgressions." " tie re-
penteth Him of the evil." "The Lord is good
to all, and bringeth not on us His anger every
day." "God is a righteous Lord, and there is
no injustice in Him 9 ; " and all other sayings

our

stains of its passions and affections, but the life of the like kind which are scattered for
after initiation keeps on a level with the un- instruction throughout the Scripture; — if you live
initiate life, then, though it may be a bold thing amidst such things as these, you are a child of
to say, yet I will say it and will not shrink ; in God indeed ; but if you continue with the
these cases the water is but water, for the giftYpharacteristic marks of vice in you, it is in vain
of the Holy Ghost in no ways appears in him that you babble to yourself of your birth from
who is thus baptismally born ; whenever, that above. Prophecy will speak against you and
is, not only the deformity of anger5, or the pas- ! say, "You are a 'son of man,' not a son of the
sion of greed, or the unbridled and unseemly Most High. You ' love vanity, and seek after

thought, with pride, envy, and arrogance, dis-
figures the Divine image, but the gains, too, of
injustice abide with him, and the woman he
has procured by adultery still even after that
ministers to his pleasures. If these and the like
vices, after, as before, surround the life of the
baptized, I cannot see in what respects he has

not in what way man is
In no other way than by

been changed; for I
man as he was before.

observe him the same
The man whom he has

leasing.' Know you
' made admirable * ' ?
becoming holy."

It will be necessary to add to what has been
said this remaining statement also ; viz. that
those good things which are held out in the
Gospels to those who have led a godly life,
are not such as can be precisely described.
For how is that possible with things which

unjustly treated, the man whom he has falsely " eye hath not seen, neither ear heard, neither
accused, the man whom he has forcibly deprived
of his property, these, as far as they are con-
cerned, see no change in him though he has
been washed in the laver of baptism. They
do not hear the cry of Zacchaeus from him as
well : " If I have taken any thing from any
man by false accusation, I restore fourfold6."
What they said of him before his baptism, the
same they now more fully declare ; they call him

3 turouif iif>9elr). A word almost peculiar to this Gregory.

* Is. i. 16

5 to Kara, t'ov OvfLOV al<X)(ot. Quite wrongly the Latin translators,
"animi turpitudo,-1 i. *. baseness of mind, which is mentioned just
below. o S. Luke xix. 8

have entered into the heart of man2"? In-
deed, the sinner's life of torment presents no
equivalent to anything that pains the sense
here. Even if some one of the punishments
in that other world be named in terms that
are well known here, the distinction is still

7 Gal. vi. 3. 8 S. John i. 12.

' These quotations are from the LXX. of Ps. cxlv. 16 ; ciii ta
(Is. xliii. 25); Joel iu 13; Ps. viL it (Heb. "God is angry every
day ") ; xcii. 15.

1 Ps. iv. 2, 3. In the last verse the LXX. has idavfido-Tuxre ;
which the Vulgate follows, i e. " He hath made his Saint wonder-
ful " (the Hebrew implies, " hath wonderfully separated ")• That
flaufioaToOrai (three of Krabinger's Codd., and Morell's) is the read-
ing here (omitted in Kditt. ), is clear from the whole quotation from
the LXX. oi this Psalm. 2 Is. Imv. 4; 1 Cor. ii. g.

THE GREAT CATECHISM

509

not small. When you hear the word fire,
you have been taught to think of a fire other
than the fire we see, owing to something
being added to that fire which in this there is
not ; for that fire is never quenched, whereas
experience has discovered many ways of
quenching this ; and there is a great difference
between a fire which can be extinguished, and
one that does not admit of extinction. That
fire, therefore, is something other than this. If,
again, a person hears the word " worm," let not
his thoughts, from the similarity of the term,
be carried to the creature here that crawls upon
the ground ; for the addition that it " dieth
not" suggests the thought of another reptile
than that known here. Since, then, these
things are set before us as to be expected in
the life that follows this, being the natural out-

growth according to the righteous judgment of
God, in the life of each, of his particular dis-
position, it must be the part of the wise not to
regard the present, but that which follows after,
and to lay down the foundations for that un-
speakable blessedness during this short and
fleeting life, and by a good choice to wean
themselves from all experience of evil, now in
their lifetime here, hereafter in their eternal
recompense 3.

3 The section beginning here, which one Cod. (Vulcobius'),
used by Hervetus, exhibits, is "evidently the addition of some
blundering copyist." P. Morell considers it the portion of a preface
to a treatise against Severus, head of the heretics called Acephali.
But Severus was condemned under Justinian, a.l>. 536: and the
Acephali themselves were no recognized party till after the Council
of Ephesus (those who would follow neither S. Cyril, nor John
of Damascus, in one meaning of the term, /' e. " headless "), or after
the Council of Chalcedon (those who rejected the Henoticon of the
Emperor Zeno, addressed to the orthodox and the Monophysites,
in the other meaning). It is ouoted by Krabinger, none of whose
Codd. recognize u.

V. ORATORICAL

FUNERAL ORATION ON MELETIUS'.

The number of the Apostles has been en-
larged for us by this our late Apostle being
reckoned among their company. These Holy
ones have drawn to themselves one of like con-
versation ; those athletes a fellow athlete ; those
crowned ones another crowned like them ; the
pure in heart one chaste in soul : those ministers
of the Word another herald of that Word. Most
blessed, indeed, is our Father for this his joining
the Apostolic band and his departure to Christ.
Most pitiable we ! for the unseasonableness of
our orphaned condition does not permit us to
congratulate ourselves on our Father's happy
lot. For him, indeed, better it was by his
departure hence to be with Christ, but it was a
grievous thing for us to be severed from his
fatherly guidance. Behold, it is a time of need
for counsel ; and our counsellor is silent. War,
the war of heresy, encompasses us, and our
Leader is no more. The general body of the
Church labours under disease, and we find not
the physician. See in what a strait we, are.
Oh ! that it were possible I could nerve my
weakness, and rising to the full proportions of
our loss, burst out with a voice of lamentation
adequate to the greatness of the distress, as
these excellent preachers of yours have done,

1 Meletius, Bishop of Antioch, died at Constantinople, whither
he had gone to attend the second CEcumenical Council, a.d. 381.'
Of the " translation " of the remains to his own metropolis, described
in this oration, Sozomen (vii. 10) says, "The remains of Meletius
were at the same time conveyed to Antioch ; and deposited near
the tomb of Babylas the /Martyr. It is said that by the command
of the Emperor, the reUcs were received with honour in every city
through which they had to be conveyed, and that psalms were sung
on the occasion, a practice that was quite contrary to the usual
Roman customs. After the pompous interment of Meletius, Flavian
was ordained in his stead. . . . This gave rise to fresh troubles."
The rationale of the rising relic-worship, at all events of the sanctity
of tombs, is thus given by Origen : " A feeling such as this (of bodies
differing, as tenanted by different souls) has prompted some to go
so far as to treat as Divine the remains of uncommon men : they
feel that great souls have been there, while they would cast forth
the bodies of the morally worthless without the honour of a funeral
(aTifiao-ai). This perhaps is not the right thing to do : still it pro-
ceeds from a right instinct (ivvoias iiyiovs). For it is not to be ex-
pected of a thinking man that ha would take the same pains over
the burial of an Anytus, as he would over a Socrates, and that he
would place the same barrow or the same sepulchre over each " [c.
Cels. iv. 59). Again. "The dwelling-place of the reasoning soil is
not to be flung irreverently aside, like that of the irrational soul ;
and more than this, we Christians believe that the reverence paid to
a body that has been tenanted by a reasoning sou\ passes to hint
a/so who has received a soul which by means of such an instrument
has fought a good fight," viii. 30.

VOL. V.

who have bewailed with loud voice the mis-
fortune that has befallen them in this loss of
their father. But what can I do ? How can
I force my tongue to the service of the theme,
thus heavily weighted, and shackled, as it were,
by this calamity ? How shall I open my mouth
thus subdued to speechlessness ? How shall I
give free utterance to a voice now habitually
sinking to the pathetic tone of lamentations?
How can I lift up the eyes of my soul, veiled as
I am with this darkness of misfortune ? Who will
pierce for me this deep dark cloud of grief, and
light up again, as out of a clear sky, the bright
ray of peace ? From what quarter will that ray
shine forth, now that our star has set ? Oh !
evil moonless night that gives no hope of any
star ! With what an opposite meaning, as com-
pared with those of late, are our words uttered
in this place now ! Then we rejoiced with the
song of marriage, now we give way to piteous -
lamentation for the sorrow that has befallen
us ! Then we chanted an epithalamium, but
now a funeral dirge ! You remember the day
when we entertained you at the feast of that
spiritual marriage, and brought home the virgin
bride to the house of her noble bridegroom ;
when to the best of our ability we proffered the
wedding gifts of our praises, both giving and
receiving joy in turn 2. But now our delight
has been changed to lamentation, and our
festal garb become sackcloth. It were better,
maybe, to suppress our woe, and to hide our
grief in silent seclusion, so as not to disturb the
children of the bride-chamber, divested as we are
of the bright marriage garment, and clothed in-
stead with the black robe of the preacher. For
since that noble bridegroom has been taken from
us, sorrow has all at once clothed us in the garb
of black ; nor is it possible for us to indulge in
the usual cheerfulness of our conversation, since
Envy 3 has stripped us of our proper and be-

* This all refers to the very recent installation of Gregory of
Nazianzum in the episcopal chair of Constantinople : on which
occasion also Gregory of Nyssa seems to have preached.

3 Casaubon very strongly condemns the sentiment here expressed,
as savouring more of heathenism than Christianity. He gives other
instances, in which the loss from the death of friends and good men iv

L L

•514

GREGORY OF NVSSA.

•coming dress. Rich in blessings we came to
you ; now we leave you bare and poor. The
lamp we held right above our head, shining
with the rich fulness of light, we now carry
away quenched, its bright flame all dissolved
into smoke and dust. We held our great
treasure in an earthen vessel. Vanished is the
treasure, and the earthen vessel, emptied of its
wealth, is restored to them who gave it 4. What
shall we say who have consigned it ? What
answer will they make by whom it is demanded
back ? Oh ! miserable shipwreck ! How, even
with the harbour around us, have we gone to
pieces with our hopes ! How has the vessel,
fraught with a thousand bales of goods, sunk
with all its cargo, and left us destitute who were
once so rich ! Where is that bright sail which
was ever filled by the Holy Ghost? Where is
that safe helm of our souls which steered us
while we sailed unhurt over the swelling waves
of heresy ? Where that immovable anchor of
intelligence which held us in absolute security
and repose after our toils ? Where that excel-
lent pilot 5 who steered our bark to its heavenly
goal? Is, then, what has happened of small
moment, and is my passionate grief unreasoning?
Is it not rather that I reach not the full extent
of our loss, though I exceed in the loudness of
my expression of grief? Lend me, oh lend
me, my brethren, the tear of sympathy. When
you were glad we shared your gladness. Repay
us, therefore, this sad recompense. " Rejoice
with them that do rejoice6." This we have
done. It is for you to return it by " weeping
with them that weep." It happened once that
a strange people bewailed the loss of the patri-
arch Jacob, and made the misfortune of another
people their own, when his united family trans-
ported their father out of Egypt, and lamented
in another land the loss that had befallen them.
They all prolonged their mourning over him
for thirty days and as many nights 7. Ye, there-
fore, that are brethren, and of the same kindred,
do as they who were of another kindred did.
On that occasion the tear of strangers was shed
iin common with that of countrymen ; be it
shed in common now, for common is the grief.
Behold these your patriarchs. All these are
children of our Jacob. All these are children

attributed by Christian writers to the envy of a Higher Power.
That the disturbed state of the Church should be attributed by
Gregory Nazianzen to " Envy" is well enough, but he in the same
strain as his namesake speaks thus in connection w>th the death of
his darling brother Cae-ariu-, and of Basil. Our Gregory uses the
word also in lamenting Pulcheria and Flacilla. It only proves,
'however, how strong the habit still was of using heathen expressions.

4 The text is tois 5e6oj»co(7t" i-navturtoCeTat.. The people of
Aniioch must here be referred to, if the text is to stand.

5 Metetius was president of the Council.

6 Rom xii. 15.

7 According to Gen. I. 3, the Egyptian mourning was seventy
•days, hut there is no precise mention of the length of the Israelites'

irning, except that at Atad, beyond the Jordan, they appear to
■have re sled, on their way up, and mourned for seven days.

of the free-woman 8. No one is base born, no
one supposititious. Nor indeed would it have
become that Saint to introduce into the nobility
of the family of Faith a bond-woman's kindred.
Therefore is he our father because he was the
father of our father 9. Ye have just heard what
and how great things an Ephraim and a Man-
asses * related of their father, and how the
wonders of the story surpassed description.
Give me also leave to speak on them. For this
beatification of him from henceforth incurs no
risk. Neither fear I Envy ; for what worse evil
can it do me? Know, then, what the man
was ; one of the nobility of the East, blameless,
just, genuine, devout, innocent of any evil deed.
Indeed the great Job will not be jealous if he
who imitated him be decked with the like testi-
monials of praise. But Envy, that has an eye
for all things fair, cast a bitter glance upon our
blessedness ; and one who stalks up and down
the world also stalked in our midst, and broadly
stamped the foot-mark of affliction on our happy
state. It is not herds of oxen or sheep 2 that
he has maltreated, unless in a mystical sense
one transfers the idea of a flock to the Church.
It is not in these that we have received injury
from Envy ; it is not in asses or camels that
he has wrought us loss, neither has he excruci-
ated our bodily feelings by a wound in the
flesh ; no, but he has robbed us of our very
head. And with that head have gone away
from us the precious organs of our senses.
That eye which beheld the things of heaven is
no longer ours, nor that ear which listened to
the Divine voice, nor that tongue with its pure
devotion to truth 3. Where is that sweet serenity
of his eyes ? Where that bright smile upon his
lips ? Where that courteous right hand with
fingers outstretched to accompany the benedic-
tion of the mouth. I feel an impulse, as if I
were on the stage, to shout aloud for our cal-
amity. Oh ! Church, I pity you. To you, the
city of Antioch, I address my words. I pity
you for this sudden reversal. How has your
beauty been despoiled ! How have you been
robbed of your ornaments ! How suddenly
has the flower faded ! " Verily the grass
withereth and the flower thereof falleth away4."
What evil eye, what witchery of drunken malice
has intruded on that distant Church ? What is
there to compensate her loss ? The fountain has
failed. The stream has dried up. Again has
water been turned into blood 5. Oh ! the sad
tidings which tell the Church of her calamity !

8 Gal. iv. 31.

9 i.e. the spiritual father of Basil, the "father" (brother really)
of Gregory.

1 i e. prearhers (perhaps of the Fgyhtan Church) who had pre-
ceded Gregory, spiritual sons of Basil, and so of Meletius, in the
direct line of blessing. See Gen. -lviii. 5.

2 i. e. as those of Job. 3 TO ayvbv avaOriixa rrf<; aAijOtinv.
4 1 Pet. 1 ^4 ; fs. xl. 8. s Exod. vii. 17.

FUNERAL ORATION ON MELETIUS.

515

Who shall say to the children that they have no
more a father ? Who shall tell the Bride she
is a widow ? Alas for their woes ! What did
they send out ? What do they receive back ?
They sent forth an ark, they receive back a
coffin. The ark, my brethren, was that man
of God ; an ark containing in itself the Divine
and mystic things. There was the golden vessel
full of Divine manna, that celestial food 6. In
it were the Tables of the Covenant written on
the tablets of the heart, not with ink but by the
Spirit of the living God 7. For on that pure
heart no gloomy or inky thought was imprinted.
In it, too, were the pillars, the steps, the chapters,
the lamps, the mercy-seat, the baths, the veils
of the entrances. In it was the rod of the
priesthood, which budded in the hands of our
Saint ; and whatever else we have heard the Ark
contained 8 was all held in the soul of that man.
But in their stead what is there now? Let
description cease. Cloths of pure white linen,
scarves of silk, abundance of perfumes and
spices ; the loving munificence of a modest and
beautiful lady 9. For it must be told, so as to
be for a memorial of her \ what she did for that
Priest when, without stint, she poured the
alabaster box of ointment on his head. But
the treasure preserved within, what is it ? Bones,
now dead, and which even before dissolution
had rehearsed their dying, the sad memorials
of our affliction. Oh ! what a cry like that of
old will be heard in Rama, Rachel weeping 2,
not for her children but for a husband, and
admitting not of consolation. Let alone, ye
that would console ; let alone ; force not on us
your consolation 3. Let the widow indulge the
deepness of her grief. Let her feel the loss
that has been inflicted on her. Yet she is not
without previous practice in separation. In
those contests in which our athlete was engaged
she had before been trained to bear to be left.
Certainly you must remember how a previous
sermon to ours related to you the contests of
the man ; how throughout, even in the very
number of his contests, he had maintained the
glory of the Holy Trinity, which he ever glori-
fied ; for there were three trying attacks that he
had to repel. You have heard the whole series
of his labours, what he was in the first, what in
the middle, and what in the last I deem it

6 Ps. Ixxviii. -5: Wisd. xvi. 20: but Tpu$>}s, not rpo^njs, must
have been the reading in the MS. which Sifanus used, " plena
coelestium deliciarum."

7 Jer. xxxi. 33 ; Heb. x. 16.

8 The above description enumerates the whole furniture of the
Tabernacle. According to Heb. ix. 4, all that was actually in the
Ark was, the pot of manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the Tables
of the Covenant. See aUo Exod. xvi. 33 ; xxv. 37 — 40.

9 Flacilla, the wife of the Emperor Theodosius.

1 S. Matt. xxvi. 13 : S. Mark xiv. 9.

2 Jer. xxxi. 15.

3 This is from the LXX. of Is. xxii. 4, fit) (caTio-xvoTjre irapa-
KaXelv /lie ejri to or/i'Tpiji/u.a, k.t.A. : " Nolite contendere ut me con-
solemini super contritione : " S. Jerome. Ducaeus has rightly restored
this, for KaTiaxvaTfTOi.

superfluous to repeat what has been so well
described. Yet it may not be out of place to
add just so much as this. When that Church,
so sound in the faith, at the first beheld the man,
she saw features truly formed * after the image
of God, she saw love welling forth, she saw
grace poured around his lips, a consummate
perfection of humility beyond which it is im-
possible to conceive any thing further, a gentle-
ness like that of David, the understanding of
Solomon, a goodness like that of Moses, a strict-
ness as of Samuel, a chastity as of Joseph, the
skill of a Daniel, a zeal for the faith such as was
in the great Elijah, a purity of body like that of
the lofty-minded John s, an unsurpassable love
as of Paul. She saw the concurrence of so
many excellences in one soul, and, thrilled
with a blessed affection, she loved him, her
own bridegroom, with a pure and virtuous
passion. But ere she could accomplish her
desire, ere she could satisfy her longing, while
still in the fervour of her passion, she was left
desolate, when those trying times called the
athlete to his contests. While, then, he was
engaged in these toilsome struggles for religion,
she remained chaste and kept the marriage vow.
A long time intervened, during which one, with
adulterous intent6, made an attempt upon the
immaculate bridal-chamber. But the Bride
remained undefiled ; and again there was a
return, and again an exile. And thus it
happened thrice, until the Lord dispelled the
gloom of that heresy, and sending forth a ray
of peace gave us the hope of some respite from
these lengthened troubles 7. But when at length
they had seen each other, when there was a
renewal of those chaste joys and spiritual de-
sires, when the flame of love had again been
lit, all at once his last departure breaks off the
enjoyment. He came to adorn you as his bride,
he failed not in the eagerness of his zeal, he
placed on this fair union the chaplets of blessing,
in imitation of his Master. As did the Lord
at Cana of Galilee 8, so here did this imitator
of Christ. The Jewish waterpots, which were
filled with the water of heresy, he filled with
genuine wine, changing its nature by the power
of his faith. How often did he set before you
a chalice, but not of wine, when with that sweet

* wpocronrov dAr)0u>j fi.eft.op^>ij>ii.ivov . This is the reading of the
best MSS. Morell has oKUuk.

5 xard rovv^n)Kov ' Votdvirrjv iv rfj d</>dopia tov o*wji.aT09. Sifanus
translates " integritate corporis ornatum." Rupp rejects the idea that
the John who " should not die " is here meant : and thinks that the
epithet, and a.<f>dopia ( = the more technical a<£0apo-ta) point to the
monasticism of John the Baptist.

6 He alludes here to Paulinus and Demophilus, two Arians
mentioned by Socrates and Sozomen.

7 In 379 the Council of Antioch settled the schism of Antioch,
which seemed as if it would disturb the whole East, and even the
West. Even the Catholics of Antioch had been divided, between
Meletius and Paulinus, since the days of Julian. It was settled that,
at the death of either, the other should succeed to his "diocese."
Gregory himself was present, the ninth month after his brother
Basil's death. 8 S. John ii.

L L 2

5i6

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

voice he poured out in rich abundance the
wine of Grace, and presented to you the full
;ind varied feast of reason ! He went first with
the blessing of his words, and then his illustrious
disciples were employed in distributing his
teaching to the multitude.

We, too, were glad, and made our own the
glory of your nations Up to this point how
bright and happy is our narrative. What a
blessed thing it were with this to bring our
sermon to an end. But after these things what
follows? "Call for the mourning women I," as
says the prophet Jeremiah. In no other way
can the burning heart cool down, swelling as it
is with its affliction, unless it relieves itself by
sobs and tears. Formerly the hope of his re-
turn consoled us for the pang of separation, but
now he has been torn from us by that final
separation. A huge intervening chasm is fixed
between the Church and him. He rests indeed
in the bosom of Abraham, but there exists not
one who might bring the drop of water to cool the
tongue of the agonized. Gone is that beauty,
silent is that voice, closed are those lips, fled
that grace. Our happy state has become a tale
that is told. Elijah of old time caused grief to
the people of Israel when he soared from earth
to God. But Elisha 2 consoled them for the
loss by being adorned with the mantle of his
master. But now our wound is beyond heal-
ing; our Elijah has been caught up, and no
Elisha left behind in his place. You have heard
certain mournful and lamenting words of Jere-
miah, with which he bewailed Jerusalem as a
deserted city, and how among other expressions
of passionate grief he added this, " The ways of
Zion do mourn 3." These words were uttered
then, but now they have been realized. For
when the news of our calamity shall have been
spread abroad, then will the ways be full of
mourning crowds, and the sheep of his flock
will pour themselves forth, and like the Nine-
vites utter the voice of lamentation *, or, rather,
will lament more bitterly than they. For in
their case their mourning released them from
the cause of their fear, but with these no hope
of release from their distress removes their need
of mourning. I know, too, of another utterance
of Jeremiah, which is reckoned among the books
of the Psalms s ; it is that which he made over

9 Gregory is here addressing men of Antioch, though he said
before that that city was too distant yet to h 've heard the news.
They must have been the bishops of the neighbourhood of An-
tioch and other Christians from the diocese of Meletius, then present
in the capital. * Jer x. 17. 2 2 Kings ii.

3 Lam. 1. 4. "The ways of Zion do mourn." The best of the
three readings here is r)Kov<ra.Tt, adopted by Krabinger.

* Jonah lii. s.

5 Ps. cxxxvii. The title of this Psalm in LXX., TJi Aav'iS (Sta)
Uptliiov (which the Vulgate follows), implies that it is" a Davidic
son.: springing from Jeremiah's heart." But "beginning with per-
fects, this Psalm is evidently not written during the time of the
Exile, but in recollection of it :" Delitzsch. Some see resemblances
to Kzekiel in it. The poplar is meant, not the weeping-willow,
which is not met with wild in anterior Asia.

the captivity of Israel. The words run thus :
"We hung our harps upon the willows, and
condemned ourselves as well as our harps to
silence." I make this song my own. For
when I see the confusion of heresy, this confusion
is Babylon 6. And when I see the flood of
trials that pours in upon us from this confusion,
I say that these are " the waters of Babylon by
which we sit down, and weep " because there is
no one to guide us over them. Even if you
mention the witlozvs, and the hu-ps that hung
thereon, that part also of the figure shall be
mine. For in truth our life is among willows 7,
the willow being a fruitless tree, and the sweet
fruit of our life having all withered away.
Therefore have we become fruitless willows,
and the harps of love we hung upon those trees
are idle and unvibrating. " If I forget thee, oh
Jerusalem," he adds, " may my right hand be
forgotten." Suffer me to make a slight altera-
tion in that text. It is not we who have for-
gotten the right hand, but the right hand that
has forgotten us : and the "tongue has cleaved
to the roof of" his own " mouth," and barred the
passage of his words, so that we can never again
hear that sweet voice. But let me have all
tears wiped away, for I feel that I am indulging
more than is right in this womanish sorrow for
our loss.

Our Bridegroom has not been taken from us.
He stands in our midst, though we see him not.
The Priest is within the holy place. He is
entered into that within the veil, whither our
forerunner Christ has entered for us 8. He has
left behind him the curtain of the flesh. No
longer does he pray to the type or shadow of
the things in heaven, but he looks upon the
very embodiment of these realities. No longer
through a glass darkly does he intercede with
God, but face to face he intercedes with Him :
and he intercedes for us 9, and for the " negli-
gences and ignorances" of the people. He
has put away the coats of skin ' ; no need is
there now for the dwellers in paradise of such
garments as these ; but he wears, the raiment
which the purity of his life has woven into a
glorious dress. " Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death 2 " of such a man, or rather
it is not death, but the breaking of bonds, as it
is said, "Thou hast broken my bonds asunder."

6 Gen. xi. 9.

7 ev treats. The best MSS. support this reading, so that Kra-
binger has not dared to alter it to ire'a, as Morell's MS. Sifanus
has " plane enini in salicibus vita consistit ; " but Rupp, " Unser
Leben ist in der That ein Weidengebiische." In Bellarmine's mys-
tical interpretation the willows are the citizens ot Babylon, who
resemble willows " in being unfruitful, bitter in themselves, fnd
dwelling by choice in the midst of Babylon," to whom the instru-
ments of worldly mirth are left.

" Heb. vi. 20.

9 Doubtless an allusion to Rom. xi. 2 ; " how he (Elias) maketh
intercession to (iol against Israel; "but here Meletius departed
intercedes/^ the people, and the Intercession of Saints is clearly
intimated.

1 Gen. iii. ax. a Ps. cxvi. 15. 16.

FUNERAL ORATION ON MELET1US.

517

Simeon has been let depart 3. He has been
freed from the bondage of the body. The
"snare is broken and the bird hath flown
away4." He has left Egypt behind, this mate-
rial life. He has crossed 5, not this Red Sea
of ours, but the black gloomy sea of life. He
has entered upon the land of promise, and holds
high converse with God upon the mount. He
has loosed the sandal of his soul, that with the
pure step of thought he may set foot upon that
holy land where there is the Vision of God.
Having therefore, brethren, this consolation, do
ye, who are conveying the bones of our Joseph
to the place of blessing, listen to the exhorta-
tion of Paul : " Sorrow not as others who have
no hope 6." Speak to the people there ; relate
the glorious tale ; speak of the incredible wonder,
how the people in their myriads, so densely
crowded together as to look like a sea of heads,
became all one continuous body, and like some
watery flood surged around the procession bear-
ing his remains. Tell them how the fair 7
David distributed himself, in divers ways and
manners, among innumerable ranks of people,
and danced before that ark 8 in the midst of
men of the same and of different language 9.
Tell them how the streams of fire, from the
succession of the lamps, flowed along in an
unbroken track of light, and extended so far
that the eye could not reach them. Tell them
of the eager zeal of all the people, of his joining

3 Gen. xliii. 23 : S. Luke ii. 30. 4 Ps. cxxiv. 7.

5 Morell reads here, " Moses has left," " Moses has crossed ; "
but Krabinger has no doubt that this word is due to a gloss upon
the text. The Scholiast Nicetas (on Gregory Naz., Orat. 38) well
explains this use of " Egypt " : " Egypt is sometimes taken for this
present world, sometimes for the flesh, sometimes for sin, sometimes
for ignorance, sometimes for mischief."

0 1 Thess. iv. 13.

7 koAo?. "Atticae urbanitatis proprium," Krabinger. But
David is described as " of a fair countenance."

8 2 Sam. vi. 14. " That ark," very probably refers to the re-
mains of Meletius, not to the coffin or bier. The human body is
called by this very term {<tkt\vo<;, tabernacle), 2 Cor. v. 1 and 4, nor
was the word in this sense unknown to Plato. The body of Meletius
has been already called a kijSujtos.

' eTepovA(o<r<roiv : icai iv xeike&iv crlpoi? is added (cf. 1 Cor. xiv.
21 : Is. xxviii. 11), in the text of Morell, but none of Krabinger' s
MSS. recognize these words.

" the company of Apostles '/' and how the nap-
kins that bound his face were plucked away to
make amulets for the faithful. Let it be added
to your narration how the Emperor2 showed in
his countenance his sorrow for this misfortune,
and rose from his throne, and how the whole
city joined the funeral procession of the Saint.
Moreover console each other with the following
words ; it is a good medicine that Solomon 3
has for sorrow ; for he bids wine be given to the
sorrowful ; saying this to us, the labourers in
the vineyard : " Give," therefore, " your wine to
those that are in sorrow 4," not that wine which
produces drunkenness, plots against the senses,
and destroys the body, but such as gladdens
the heart, the wine which the Prophet recom-
mends when he says : " Wine maketh glad the
heart of man s." Pledge each other in that
liquor undiluted 6 and with the unstinted goblets
of the word, that thus our grief may be turned
to joy and gladness, by the grace of the Only-
begotten Son of God, through Whom be glory
to God, even the Father, for ever and ever.
Amen.

1 tiov a.no(TT6\ii>v rqv <ru<TKT)vCav (eijrotTe) : "Thirteenth Apostle!"
was in these times a usual expression of the highest praise. It was
even heard in the applause given to living preachers. Bui if
eiTraTe cannot bear so extended a meaning, some funeral banquet of
the "apostles" assembled at the Council is alluded to: or else
(remembering the use of (tktivos just above) " the lying in state
in an Apostle's Church," in the capital : cf. above, "his joining the
Apostolic band and his departure to Christ." 2 Theodosius.

3 It is only the Rabbis that make Lemuel, the author of the last
chapter of Proverbs, the same as Solomon : Grotius identifies him
with Hezelaah. Some German commentators regard him as the
chief of an Arab tribe, on the borders of Palestine, and brother of
Agnr, author of ch. xxx. But the suggestion of Eichhorn and
Ewald is the more probable, that Lemuel is an ideal name signifying
" for God," the true King who leads a life consecrated to Jehovah.

4 Prov. xxxi. 6. Just above n-pbs t//hos is the reading of Kra-
binger's MSS. and of the Paris Editt. : Sifanus and Ductus have
rendered 0/u.os.

5 S. Gregory has misapplied both this passage from Ps. civ.
15 and the previous one from Prov. xxxi. 6. An attentive con-
sideration of them shows that they do not lend themselves to the
use he has made of them.

6 ZiopoTe'pw. For the comparative see Lobeck, Ad Phrynich.
p. 146 : fi€i£oT€pa> is the common faulty reading. These words are
joined closely to what precedes in the MSS. Then, in what follows,
" the unstinted goblets of the word," n-i/eujiaTiicou is rightly omitted
before \6yov : "and gladness " (kou ayakkCao-is) is rightly added,
as it is joined with ev<j>po<Tvvr) in Ps. xlv. 15 : and by Gregory him-
self, In Diem Nat. Christ, (pp. 340 and 352), and In Bapt. Christi
(P- 377)-

ON THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST.

-o

A SERMON FOR THE DAY OF THE
LIGHTS.1

Now I recognize my own flock : to-day I
behold the wonted figure of the Church, when,
turning with aversion from the occupation even
of the cares of the flesh, you come together in
your undiminished numbers for the service of
God — when the people crowds the house,
coming within the sacred sanctuary, and when
the multitude that can find no place within fills
the space outside in the precincts like bees.
For of them some are at their labours within,
while others outside hum around the hive. So
do, my children : and never abandon this
zeal. For I confess that I feel a shepherd's
affections, and I wish, when I am set upon this
watch-tower, to see the flock gathered round
about the mountain's foot : and when it so
happens to me, I am filled with wonderful
earnestness, and work with pleasure at my
sermon, as the shepherds do at their rustic
strains. But when things are otherwise, and
you are straying in distant wanderings, as you
did but lately, the last Lord's Day, I am much
troubled, and glad to be silent ; and I consider
the question of flight from hence, and seek for
the Carmel of the prophet Elijah, or for some
rock without inhabitant ; for men in depression
naturally choose loneliness and solitude. But
now, when I see you thronging here with all
your families, I am reminded of the prophetic
saying, which Isaiah proclaimed from afar off,
addressing by anticipation the Church with her
fair and numerous children : — " Who are these
that fly as a cloud, and as doves with their
young to me 2 " ? Yes, and he adds moreover
this also, " The place is too strait for me ; give
place that I may dwell 3." For these predictions
the power of the Spirit made with reference to
the populous Church of God, which was after-
wards to fill the whole world from end to end
of the earth.

1 That is, for the Festival of the Epiphany or Theophany, when
the Eastern < hurch commemorates especially the Baptism of our
Lord. ' Is Ix. 3 (LXX.) 3 Is. xlix. 20.

The time, then, has come, and bears in its
course the remembrance of holy mysteries,
purifying man, — mysteries which purge out
from soul and body even that sin which is hard
to cleanse away, and which bring us back to
that fairness of our first estate which God, the
best of artificers, impressed upon us. Therefore
it is that you, the initiated people, are gathered
together ; and you bring also that people who
have not made trial of them, leading, like good
fathers, by careful guidance, the uninitiated to
the perfect reception of the faith. I for my
part rejoice over both; — over you that are
initiated, because you are enriched with a great
gift : over you that are uninitiated, because you
have a fair expectation of hope — remission of
what is to be accounted for, release from bond-
age, close relation to God, free boldness of
speech, and in place of servile subjection
equality with the angels. For these things, and
all that follow from them, the grace of Baptism
secures and conveys to us. Therefore let us
leave the other matters of the Scriptures for
other occasions, and abide by the topic set
before us, offering, as far as we may, the gifts
that are proper and fitting for the feast : for
each festival demands its own treatment. So
we welcome a marriage with wedding songs ;
for mourning we bring the due offering with
funeral strains ; in times of business we speak
seriously, at times of festivity we relax the con-
centration and strain of our minds ; but each
time we keep free from disturbance by things
that are alien to its character.

Christ, then, was born as it were a few
days ago — He Whose generation was before
all things, sensible and intellectual. To-day
He is baptized by John that He might cleanse
him who was defiled, that He might bring the
Spirit from above, and exalt man to heaven,
that he who had fallen might be raised up and
he who had cast him down might be put to
shame. And marvel not if God showed so
great earnestness in our cause : for it was with
care on the part of him who did us wrong that
the plot was laid against us ; it is with forethought

ON THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST.

519

on the part of our Maker that we are saved. And
he, that evil charmer, framing his new device
of sin against our race, drew along his serpent
train, a disguise worthy of his own intent, enter-
ing in his impurity into what was like himself, —
dwelling, earthly and mundane as he was in
will, in that creeping thing. But Christ, the
repairer of his evil-doing, assumes manhood in
its fulness, and saves man, and becomes the
type and figure of us all, to sanctify the first-
fruits of every action, and leave to His servants
no doubt in their zeal for the tradition. Baptism,
then, is a purification from sins, a remission of
trespasses, a cause of renovation and regener-
ation. By regeneration, understand regener-
ation conceived in thought, not discerned by
bodily sight. For we shall not, according to
the Jew Nicodemus and his somewhat dull
intelligence, change the old man into a child,
nor shall we form anew him who is wrinkled
and gray-headed to tenderness and youth, if we
bring back the man again into his mother's
womb : but we do bring back, by royal grace,
him who bears the scars of sin, and has
grown old in evil habits, to the innocence of
the babe. For as the child new-born is free
from accusations and from penalties, so too the
child of regeneration has nothing for which
to answer, being released by royal bounty
from accountability4. And this gift it is not
the water that bestows (for in that case it were
a thing more exalted than all creation), but the
command of God, and the visitation of the
Spirit that comes sacramentally to set us free.
But water serves to express the cleansing. For
since we are wont by washing in water to render
our body clean when it is soiled by dirt or mud,
we therefore apply it also in the sacramental
action, and display the spiritual brightness by
that which is subject to our senses. Let us
however, if it seems well, persevere in enquiring
more fully and more minutely concerning Bap-
tism, starting, as from the fountain-head, from
the Scriptural declaration, " Except a man be
born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God s." Why are both
named, and why is not the Spirit alone
accounted sufficient for the completion of
Baptism? Man, as we know full well, is com-
pound, not simple : and therefore the cognate
and similar medicines are assigned for healing
to him who is twofold and conglomerate : — for
his visible body, water, the sensible element, —
for his soul, which we cannot see, the Spirit
invisible, invoked by faith, present unspeakably.
For " the Spirit breathes where He wills, and
thou hearest His voice, but canst not tell whence

4 The language of this passage, if strictly taken, seems to imply
a denial of original sin ; but it is perhaps not in' ended to be so
understood. 5 S. John iii. 3.

He cometh or whither He goeth 6." He blesses
the body that is baptized, and the water that
baptizes. Despise not, therefore, the Divine
laver, nor think lightly of it, as a common thing,
on account of the use of water. For the power
that operates is mighty, and wonderful are the
things that are wrought thereby. For this holy
altar, too, by which I stand, is stone, ordinary
in its nature, nowise different from the other
slabs of stone that build our houses and adorn
our pavements ; but seeing that it was conse-
crated to the service of God, and received the
benediction, it is a holy table, an altar undefiled,
no longer touched by the hands of all, but of
the priests alone, and that with reverence. The
bread again is at first? common bread, but when
the sacramental action consecrates it, it is called,
and becomes, the Body of Christ. So with the
sacramental oil ; so with the wine : though be-
fore the benediction they are of little value,
each of them, after the sanctification bestowed
by the Spirit, has its several operation. The
same power of the word, again, also makes the
priest venerable and honourable, separated,
by the new blessing bestowed upon him, from
his community with the mass of men. While"
but yesterday he was one of the mass, one
of the people, he is suddenly rendered a guide,
a president, a teacher of righteousness, an
instructor in hidden mysteries ; and this he
does 8 without being at all changed in body or
in form ; but, while continuing to be in all
appearance the man he was before, being, by
some unseen power and grace, transformed in
respect of his unseen soul to the higher con-
dition. And so there are many things, which
if you consider you will see that their appear-
ance is contemptible, but the things they
accomplish are mighty : and this is especially
the case when you collect from the ancient
history 9 instances cognate and similar to the
subject of our inquiry. The rod of Moses was
a hazel wand. And what is that, but common
wood that every hand cuts and carries, and
fashions to what use it chooses, and casts as it
will into the fire ? But when God was pleased
to accomplish by that rod those wonders, lofty,
and passing the power of language to express,
the wood was changed into a serpent. And
again, at another time, he smote the waters, and
now made the water blood, now>sade to issue
forth a countless brood of frogs : arn$ again he
divided the sea, severed to its depths without
flowing together again. Likewise the mantle
of one of the prophets, though it was but a
goat's skin, made Elisha renowned in the whole
world. And the wood of the Cross is of saving

6 S. John iii. 8. 7 Or " up to a certain point of time."

8 That is. "these functions he fulfils."

9 i, e froiii the Old Testament Scr.ptures.

520

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

efficacy * for all men, though it is, as I am in-
formed, a piece of a poor tree, less valuable
than most trees are. So a bramble bush
showed to Moses the manifestation of the
presence of God : so the remains of Elisha
raised a dead man to life ; so clay gave sight
to him that was blind from the womb. And all
these things, though they were matter without
soul or sense, were made the means for the per-
formance of the great marvels wrought by them,
when they received the power of God. Now,
by a similar train of reasoning, water also, though
it is nothing else than water, renews the man
to spiritual regeneration 2, when the grace from
above hallows it. And if any one answers me
again by raising a difficulty, with his questions
and doubts, continually asking and inquiring
hmv water and the sacramental act that is per-
formed therein regenerate, I most justly reply
to him, " Show me the mode of that gener-
ation which is after the flesh, and I will explain
to you the power of regeneration in the soul."
You will say perhaps, by way of giving an ac-
count of the matter, " It is the cause of the
seed which makes the man." Learn then from
us in return, that hallowed water cleanses and
illuminates the man. And if you again object
to me your " How? " I shall more vehemently
cry in answer, " How does the fluid and form-
less substance become a man ? " and so the
argument as it advances will be exercised
on everything through all creation. How does
heaven exist ? how earth ? how sea ? how every
single thing ? For everywhere men's reason-
ing, perplexed in the attempt at discovery,
falls back upon this syllable " how," as those
who cannot walk fall back upon a seat. To
speak concisely, everywhere the power of
God and His operation are incomprehensible,
and incapable of being reduced to rule, easily
producing whatever He wills, while concealing
from us the minute knowledge of His operation.
Hence also the blessed David, applying his
mind to the magnificence of creation, and filled
with perplexed wonder in his soul, spake that
verse which is sung by all, " O Lord, how mani-
fold are Thy works : in wisdom hast Thou
made them all 3." The wisdom he perceived :
but the art of the wisdom he could not discover.
Let us then leave the task of searching into

1 The reference appears to be not to the Cross as the instrument
of that Death which was of saving efficacy, but to miraculous cures,
real or reputed, effected by means of the actual wood of the Cross.
The argument seems to require that we should understand the Cross
itself, and not only the sacrifice offered upon it, to be the means of
producing wondrous effects : and the grammatical construction
favours this view. S. Cyril of Jerusalem mentions the extensive
distribution of fragments of the Cross (Cat. x. 19), but this is probably
one of the earliest references to miracles worked by their means.

2 /. e. regeneration perceived by the mind (vot}tt\v) as distinct
from any regeneration of which the senses could lake cognizance.

3 Ps civ. 24. The Psalm is the prefatory Psalm at Vespers in
"he present service of the Eastern Church. S. Gregory seems to
indicate some such daily use in his own time.

what is beyond human power, and seek rather
that which shows signs of being partly within
our comprehension : — what is the reason why
the cleansing is effected by water ? and to what
purpose are the three immersions received?
That which the fathers taught, and which our
mind has received and assented to, is as fol-
lows : — We recognize four elements, of which
the world is composed, which every one knows
even if their names are not spoken ; but if it is
well, for the sake of the more simple, to tell
you their names, they are fire and air, earth
and water. Now our God and Saviour, in ful-
filling the Dispensation for our sakes, went
beneath the fourth of these, the earth, that He
might raise up life from thence. And we in
receiving Baptism, in imitation of our Lord and
Teacher and Guide, are not indeed buried in
the earth (for this is the shelter of the body that
is entirely dead, covering the infirmity and decay
of our nature), but coming to the element akin
to earth, to water, we conceal ourselves in that
as the Saviour did in the earth : and by doing
this thrice we represent for ourselves that grace
of the Resurrection which was wrought in three
days : and this we do, not receiving the sacra-
ment in silence, but while there are spoken over
us the Names of the Three Sacred Persons on
Whom we believed, in Whom we also hope,
from Whom comes to us both the fact of our
present and the fact of our future existence. It
may be thou art offended, thou who contendest
boldly against the glory of the Spirit, and that
thou grudgest to the Spirit that veneration
wherewith He is reverenced by the godly.
Leave off contending with me : resist, if thou
canst, those words of the Lord which gave to
men the rule of the Baptismal invocation. What
says the Lord's command ? " Baptizing them
in the Name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost 4." How in the Name of
the Father? Because He is the primal cause
of all things. How in the Name of the Son ?
Because He is the Maker of the Creation. How
in the Name of the Holy Ghost ? Because He
is the power perfecting all. We bow ourselves
therefore before the Father, that we may be
sanctified : before the Son also we bow, that the
same end may be fulfilled : we bow also before
the Holy Ghost, that we may be made what He
is in fact and in Name. There is not a dis-
tinction in the sanctification, in the sense that
the Father sanctifies more, the Son less, the
Holy Spirit in a less degree than the other
Two. Why then dost thou divide the Three
Persons into fragments of different natures,
and make Three Gods, unlike one to another,
whilst from all thou dost receive one and the
same grace ?

4 S. Matt, xxviii. 19.

ON THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST.

521

As, however, examples always render an
argument more vivid to the hearers, I propose
to instruct the mind of the blasphemers by an
illustration, explaining, by means of earthly and
lowly matters, those matters which are great,
and invisible to the senses. If it befel thee
to be enduring the misfortune of captivity
among enemies, to be in bondage and in misery,
to be groaning for that ancient freedom which
thou once hadst — and if all at once three men,
who were notable men and citizens in the
country of thy tyrannical masters, set thee free
from the constraint that lay upon thee, giving
thy ransom equally, and dividing the charges
of the money in equal shares among themselves,
wouldst thou not then, meeting with this favour,
look upon the three alike as benefactors, and
make repayment of the ransom to them in equal
shares, as the trouble and the cost on thy be-
half was common to them all— if, that is, thou
wert a fair judge of the benefit done to thee ?
This we may see, so far as illustration goes 5,
for our aim at present is not to render a strict
account of the Faith. Let us return to the
present season, and to the subject it sets be-
, fore us

I find that not only do the Gospels, written
after the Crucifixion, proclaim the grace of
Baptism, but, even before the Incarnation of
our Lord, the ancient Scripture everywhere
prefigured the likeness of our regeneration ;
not clearly manifesting its form, but fore-
showing, in dark sayings, the love of God to
man. And as the Lamb was proclaimed by
anticipation, and the Cross was foretold by
anticipation, so, too, was Baptism shown forth
by action and by word. Let us recall its types
to those who love good thoughts — for the
festival season of necessity demands their re-
collection.

Hagar, the handmaid of Abraham (whom
Paul treats allegorically in reasoning with the
Galatians 6), being sent forth from her master's
house by the anger of Sarah — for a servant
suspected in regard to her master is a hard
thing for lawful wives to bear — was wandering
in desolation to a desolate land with her babe
Ishmael at her breast. And when she was in
•straits for the needs of life, and was herself
nigh unto death, and her child yet more so —
for the water in the skin was spent (since it was
not possible that the Synagogue, she who once
dwelt among the figures of the perennial Foun-
tain, should have all that was needed to support
life), an angel unexpectedly appears, and shows

5 1 he meaning of this clause may be, either that Gregory does
not pr ipose to follow this point out, as the subject of his discourse is
Baptism, not the doctrine of the Trinity ; or, that the example he
has given is not to be so pressed as to imply tritheism, being merely
an illustration of moral obligation, not a parallel from which anything
is to be inferred as to the exact relation between the Three Persons.

6 Cf. Gal. iv. 22, &c. See Gen. xxi.

her a well of living water, and drawing thence,
she saves Ishmael. Behold, then, a sacramental
type : how from the very first it is by the means
of living water that salvation comes to him that
was perishing — water that was not before, but was
given as a boon by an angel's means. Again,
at a later time, Isaac — the same for whose sake
Ishmael was driven with his mother from his
father's home — was to be wedded. Abraham's
servant is sent to make the match, so as to
secure a bride for his master, and finds Rebekah
at the well : and a marriage that was to produce
the race of Christ had its beginning and its
first covenant in water 7. Yes, and Isaac him-
self also, when he was ruling his flocks, digged
wells at all parts of the desert, which the
aliens stopped and filled up 8, for a type of all
those impious men of later days who hindered
the grace of Baptism, and talked loudly in
their struggle against the truth. Yet the
martyrs and the priests overcame them by dig-
ging the wells, and the gift of Baptism over-
flowed the whole world. According to the
same force of the text, Jacob also, hastening to
seek a bride, met Rachel unexpectedly at the
well. And a great stone lay upon the well,
which a multitude of shepherds were wont to
roll away when they came together, and then
gave water to themselves and to their flocks.
But Jacob alone rolls away the stone, and
waters the flocks of his spouse 9. The thing is,
I think, a dark saying, a shadow of what should
come. For what is the stone that is laid but
Christ Himself? for of Him Isaiah says, "And
I will lay in the foundations of Sion a costly
stone, precious, elect * : " and Daniel likewise,
" A stone was cut out without hands 2," that
is, Christ was born without a man. For as it
is a new and marvellous thing that a stone
should be cut out of the rock without a hewer
or stone-cutting tools, so it is a thing beyond
all wonder that an offspring should appear
from an unwedded Virgin. There was lying,
then, upon the well the spiritual 3 stone,
Christ, concealing in the deep and in mystery
the laver of regeneration which needed much
time — as it were a long rope — to bring it to
light. And none rolled away the stone save
Israel, who is mind seeing God. But he both
draws up the water and gives drink to the
sheep of Rachel ; that is, he reveals the
hidden mystery, and gives living water to the
flock of the Church. Add to this also the
history of the three rods of Jacob *. For from
the time when the three rods were laid by the
well, Laban the polytheist thenceforth became
poor, and Jacob became rich and wealthy in

7 See Gen. xxiv. 8 See Gen. xxvi. 15, sqq.

9 See Gen. xxix. ' Is. xxvui. 16 (not exactly from LXX.).

2 Cf. Dan. 11. 45 3 i/oijrbi. 4 Cf. Geu. xxx. 37, sqq.

522

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

herds. Now let Laban be interpreted of the
devil, and Jacob of Christ. For after the in-
stitution of Baptism Christ took away all the
flock of Satan and Himself grew rich. Again,
the great Moses, when he was a goodly child,
and yet at the breast, falling under the general
and cruel decree which the hard-hearted Pharaoh
made against the men-children, was exposed
on the banks of the river — not naked, but laid
in an ark, for it was fitting that the Law should
typically be enclosed in a coffers. And he
was laid near the water ; for the Law, and those
daily sprinklings of the Hebrews which were
a little later to be made plain in the perfect
and marvellous Baptism, are near to grace.
Again, according to the view of the inspired
Paul 6, the people itself, by passing through the
Red Sea, proclaimed the good tidings of
salvation by water. The people passed over,
and the Egyptian king with his host was en-
gulfed, and by these actions this Sacrament was
foretold. For even now, whensoever the people
is in the water of regeneration, fleeing from
Egypt, from the burden of sin, it is set free and
saved ; but the devil with his own servants (I
mean, of course, the spirits of evil), is choked
with grief, and perishes, deeming the salvation
of men to be his own misfortune.

Even these instances might be enough to con-
firm our present position ; but the lover of good
thoughts must yet not neglect what follows. The
people of the Hebrews, as we learn, after many
sufferings, and after accomplishing their weary
course in the desert, did not enter the land of
promise until it had first been brought, with
Joshua for its guide and the pilot of its life, to
the passage of the Jordan ?. But it is clear
that Joshua also, who set up the twelve stones
in the stream 8, was anticipating the coming of
the twelve disciples, the ministers of Baptism.
Again, that marvellous sacrifice of the old Tish-
bite 9, that passes all human understanding,
what else does it do but prefigure in action the
Faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost, and redemption ? For when all the
people of the Hebrews had trodden underfoot
the religion of their fathers, and fallen into the
error of polytheism, and their king Ahab was
deluded by idolatry, with Jezebel, of ill-omened
name, as the wicked partner of his life, and
the vile prompter of his impiety, the prophet,
filled with the grace of the Spirit, coming to a
meeting with Ahab, withstood the priests of
Baal in a marvellous and wondrous contest in
the sight of the king and all the people ; and
by proposing to them the task of sacrificing
the bullock without fire, he displayed them

5 Cf. Ex. u. 6 Cf. i Cor. x. i, 2 ; and see Ex. xiv.

1 See Josh. iii. 8 See Josh. iv. 9 See 1 Kings xviii.

in a ridiculous and wretched plight, vainly
praying and crying aloud to gods that were not.
At last, himself invoking his own and the
true God, he accomplished the test proposed
with further exaggerations and additions. For
he did not simply by prayer bring down the
fire from heaven upon the wood when it was
dry, but exhorted and enjoined the attendants
to bring abundance of water. And when he
had thrice poured out the barrels upon the
cleft wood, he kindled at his prayer the fire
from out of the water, that by the contrariety
of the elements, so concurring in friendly co-
operation, he might show with superabundant
force the power of his own God. Now herein,
by that wondrous sacrifice, Elijah clearly pro-
claimed to us the sacramental rite of Baptism
that should afterwards be instituted. For the
fire was kindled by water thrice poured upon
it, so that it is clearly shown that where the
mystic water is, there is the kindling, warm,
and fiery Spirit, that burns up the ungodly,
and illuminates the faithful. Yes, and yet again
his disciple Elisha, when Naaman the Syrian,
who was diseased with leprosy, had come to
him as a suppliant, cleanses the sick man by
washing him in Jordan ', clearly indicating what
should come, both by the use of water generally,
and by the dipping in the river in particular.
For Jordan alone of rivers, receiving in itself
the first-fruits of sanctification and benediction,
conveyed in its channel to the whole world, as
it were from some fount in the type afforded
by itself, the grace of Baptism. These then
are indications in deed and act of regeneration
by Baptism. Let us for the rest consider
the prophecies of it in words and language.
Isaiah cried saying, " Wash you, make you
clean, put away evil from your souls 2 ; " and
David, " Draw nigh to Him and be enlightenedr
and your faces shall not be ashamed 3." And
Ezekiel, writing more clearly and plainly than
them both, says, "And I will sprinkle clean
water upon you, and ye shall be cleansed : from,
all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will
I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give
you, and a new spirit will I give you : and I
will take away the stony heart out of your
flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh, and
my Spirit will I put within you 4." Most mani-
festly also does Zechariah prophesy of Joshuas,
who was clothed with the filthy garment (to
wit, the flesh of a servant, even ours), and
stripping him of his ill-favoured raiment adorns
him with the clean and fair apparel ; teaching
us by the figurative illustration that verily in

* See 2 Kings v.

3 Is. i. 16 (LXX.). 3 Ps. xxxiv. 5 (LXX.).

* Ez. xxxvi. 25 — 27 (not exactly as LXX ).

5 Cf. Zech. iii. 3. It is to be remembered, of course, that the
form of the name in the Septuagint is not Joshua but lesus.

ON THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST.

523

the Baptism of Jesus6 all we, putting off our sins
like some poor and patched garment, are clothed
in the holy and most fair garment of regener-
ation. And where shall we place that oracle
of Isaiah, which cries to the wilderness, " Be
glad, O thirsty wilderness : let the desert re-
joice and blossom as a lily : and the desolate
places of Jordan shall blossom and shall re-
joice 7 " ? For it is clear that it is not to places
without soul or sense that he proclaims the
good tidings of joy : but he speaks, by the
figure of the desert, of the soul that is parched
and unadorned, even as David also, when he
says, " My soul is unto Thee as a thirsty land 8,"
and, "My soul is athirst for the mighty, for
the living God V So again the Lord says in
the Gospels, " If any man thirst, let him come
unto Me and drink J ; " and to the woman of
Samaria, " Whosoever drinketh of this water
shall thirst again : but whosoever drinketh of
the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst2." And "the excellency of Carmel "3 is
given to the soul that bears the likeness to the
desert, that is, the grace bestowed through the
Spirit. For since Elijah dwelt in Carmel, and
the mountain became famous and renowned by
the virtue of him who dwelt there, and since
moreover John the Baptist, illustrious in the
spirit of Elijah, sanctified the Jordan, therefore
the prophet foretold that "the excellency of
Carmel" should be given to the river. And
"the glory of Lebanon 3," from the similitude
of its lofty trees, he transfers to the river. For
t as great Lebanon presents a sufficient cause
of wonder in the very trees which it brings forth
and nourishes, so is the Jordan glorified by
regenerating men and planting them in the
Paradise of God : and of them, as the words
of the Psalmist say, ever blooming and bearing
the foliage of virtues, " the leaf shall not wither 4,"
and God shall be glad, receiving their fruit in
due season, rejoicing, like a good planter, in
his own works. And the inspired David, fore-
telling also the voice which the Father uttered
from heaven upon the Son at His Baptism, that
He might lead the hearers, who till then had
looked upon that low estate of His Humanity
which was perceptible by their senses, to the
dignity of nature that belongs to the Godhead,
wrote in his book that passage, " The voice of
the Lord is upon the waters, the voice of the
Lord in majesty s." But here we must make
an end of the testimonies from the Divine

6 If "the Baptism of Jesus " here means (as seems most likely)
the Baptism of our Lord by S. John, not the Baptism inst tuted by
our Lord, then we are apparently intended to understand that our
Lord, summing up humanity in Himself, represented by His Baptism
that of al who should thereafter be baptized.

1 Is. xxxv. 1, 2 (LXX.). 8 Ps. cxliii. 6 (LXX.).

9 Ps. xlii. 2 (not as LXX.). ' S. John vii. 37.

" S John iv. 13, 14. 3 Is. xxxv. 2.

4 Ps. i. 4. 5 ps. xxix. 3, 4 (LXX.).

•''

Scriptures : for the discourse would extend to
an infinite length if one should seek to select
every passage in detail, and set them forth in

single book.

But do ye all, as many as are made glad by
the gift of regeneration, and make your boast
of that saving renewal, show me, after the sacra-
mental grace, the change in your ways that
should follow it, and make known by the purity
of your conversation the difference effected by
your transformation for the better. For of
those things which are before our eyes nothing
is altered : the characteristics of the body remain
unchanged, and the mould of the visible nature
is nowise different. But there is certainly
need of some manifest proof, by which we
may recognize the new-born man, discerning
by clear tokens the new from the old. And
these I think are to be found in the inten-
tional motions of the soul, whereby it separates
itself from its old customary life, and enters
on a newer way of conversation, and will
clearly teach those acquainted with it that
it has become something different from its
former self, bearing in it no token by which
the old self was recognized. This, if you be
persuaded by me, and keep my words as a law,
is the mode of the transformation. The man
that was before Baptism was wanton, covetous,
grasping at the goods of others, a reviler, a liar,
a slanderer, and all that is kindred with these
things, and consequent from them. Let him
now become orderly, sober, content with his
own possessions, and imparting from them to
those in poverty, truthful, courteous, affable — in
a word, following every laudable course of con-
duct. For as darkness is dispelled by light,
and black disappears as whiteness is spread
over it, so the old man also disappears when
adorned with the works of righteousness. Thou
seest how Zacchaeus also by the change of his
life slew the publican, making fourfold resti-
tution to those whom he had unjustly damaged,
and the rest he divided with the poor — the
treasure which he had before got by ill means
from the poor whom he oppressed. The Evan-
gelist Matthew, another publican, of the same
business with Zacchaeus, at once after his call
changed his life as if it had been a mask. Paul
was a persecutor, but after the grace bestowed
on him an Apostle, bearing the weight of his
fetters for Christ's sake, as an act of amends
and repentance for those unjust bonds which
he once received from the Law, and bore for
use against the Gospel. Such ought you to be
in your regeneration : so ought you to blot out
your habits that tend to sin ; so ought the sons
of God to have their conversation : for after
the grace bestowed we are called His children.
And therefore we ought narrowly to scrutinize

524

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

our Father's characteristics, that by fashioning
and framing ourselves to the likeness of our
Father, we may appear true children of Him
Who calls us to the adoption according to
grace. For the bastard and the supposititious
son, who belies his father's nobility in his deeds,
is a sad reproach. Therefore also, methinks,
it is that the Lord Himself, laying down for us
in the Gospels the rules of our life, uses these
words to His disciples, " Do good to them that
hate you, pray for them that despitefully use
you and persecute you ; that ye may be the
•children of your Father which is in heaven : for
He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on
the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on
the unjust6." For then He says they are sons
when in their own modes of thought they are
fashioned in loving kindness towards their
kindred, after the likeness of the Father's
goodness.

Therefore, also, it is that after the dignity of
adoption the devil plots more vehemently
against us, pining away with envious glance,
when he beholds the beauty of the new-born
man, earnestly tending towards that heavenly
city, from which he fell : and he raises up
against us fiery temptations, seeking earnestly
to despoil us of that second adornment, as he
did of our former array. But when we are
aware of his attacks, we ought to repeat to our-
selves the apostolic words, " As many of us as
were baptized into Christ were baptized into
His death V Now if we have been conformed to
His death, sin henceforth in us is surely a corpse,
pierced through by the javelin of Baptism, as
that fornicator was thrust through by the zealous
Phinehas 8. Flee therefore from us, ill-omened
one ! for it is a corpse thou seekest to despoil,
one long ago joined to thee, one who long since
lost his senses for pleasures. A corpse is not
enamoured of bodies, a corpse is not captivated
by wealth, a corpse slanders not, a corpse lies
not, snatches not at what is not its own, reviles
not those who encounter it. My way of living
is regulated for another life : I have learnt to
despise the things that are in the world, to pass
by the things of earth, to hasten to the things
of heaven, even as Paul expressly testifies, that
the world is crucified to him, and he to the

6 S. Matt. ▼. 44.

1 Rom. ri. 3. 8 Num. xxv. 7, 8.

world 9. These are the words of a soul truly
regenerated : these are the utterances of the
newly-baptized man, who remembers his own
profession, which he made to God when the
sacrament was administered to him, promis-
ing that he would despise for the sake of love
towards Him all torment and all pleasure
alike.

And now we have spoken sufficiently for the
holy subject of the day, which the circling year
brings to us at appointed periods. We shall
do well in what remains to end our discourse
by turning it to the loving Giver of so great a
boon, offering to Him a few words as the re-
quital of great things. For Thou verily, O
Lord, art the pure and eternal fount of good-
ness, Who didst justly turn away from us, and
in loving kindness didst have mercy upon us.
Thou didst hate, and wert reconciled ; Thou
didst curse, and didst bless ; Thou didst banish
us from Paradise, and didst recall us ; Thou
didst strip off the fig-tree leaves, an unseemly
covering, and put upon us a costly garment ;
Thou didst open the prison, and didst release
the condemned ; Thou didst sprinkle us. with
clean water, and cleanse us from our filthiness.
No longer shall Adam be confounded when
called by Thee, nor hide himself, convicted
by his conscience, cowering in the thicket of
Paradise. Nor shall the flaming sword encircle
Paradise around, and make the entrance in-
accessible to those that draw near ; but all is
turned to joy for us that were the heirs of sin :
Paradise, yea, heaven itself may be trodden by
man : and the creation, in the world and above
the world, that once was at variance with it-
self, is knit together in friendship : and we men
are made to join in the angels' song, offering
the worship of their praise to God. For all
these things then let us sing to God that hymn
of joy, which lips touched by the Spirit long
ago sang loudly: "Let my soul be joyful in the
Lord : for He hath clothed me with a garment
of salvation, and hath put upon me a robe of
gladness : as on a bridegroom He hath set a
mitre upon me, and as a bride hath He adorned
me with fair array1." And verily the Adorner
of the bride is Christ, Who is, and was, and
shall be, blessed now and for evermore. Amen.

9 Cf. Gal. vL 14. * Is. lxi. 10 (not exactly from LXX.).

VI. LETTERS.

LETTERS'.

LETTER I.

TO EUSEBIUS*.

When the length of the day begins to ex-
pand in winter-time, as the sun mounts to the
upper part of his course, we keep the feast of
the appearing of the true Light divine, that
through the veil of flesh has cast its bright
beams upon the life of men : but now when
that luminary has traversed half the heaven in
his course, so that night and day are of equal
length, the upward return of human nature
from death to life is the theme of this great and
universal festival, which all the life of those
who have embraced the mystery of the Resur-
rection unites in celebrating. What is the
meaning of the subject thus suggested for my
letter to you ? Why, since it is the custom in
these general holidays for us to take every way
to show the affection harboured in our hearts,
and some, as you know, give proof of their good
will by presents of their own, we thought it
only right not to leave you without the homage
of our gifts, but to lay before your lofty and
high-minded soul the scanty offerings of our
poverty. Now our offering which is tendered
for your acceptance in this letter is the letter
itself, in which there is not a single word
wreathed with the flowers of rhetoric or adorned
with the graces of composition, to make it to be
deemed a gift at all in literary circles, but the
mystical gold, which is wrapped up in the faith
of Christians, as in a packets, must be my present

1 The first fourteen of these Letters have been once edited ; i. e.
by Zacagni (Rome, 1698), from the Vatican MS. See Prolegomena,
p. 30. They are found also in the Medicean MS., of which Bandinus
gives an accurate account, and which is much superior, on the
authority of Caraccioli, who saw both, to the Vatican. Zacagni did
not see the Medicean : but many of his felicitous emendations of
the Vatican lacunae correspond with it. They are here translated
by the late Reverend Harinan Chaloner Ogle, Fellow of Magdalen
College, Oxford (Ireland Scholar), who died suddenly (1887), to the
grief of very many, and the irreparable loss to scholarship, on the
eve of his departure to aid the Mission of the Archbishop of Canter-
bury to the Armenian Church. The notes added by him are signed
with his initials.

2 Sent as an Easter present to Eusebius, bishop of Chalcis, in
Ccele Syria, a staunch Catholic, who attended the Council of Con-
stantinople. For this custom amongst the Eastern Christians of
exchanging presents at the great festivals, cf. On the Making 0/
Man (p. 387), which Gregory sent to his brother Peter : Gregory
Naz. Letter 54 to Helladius, and J etter 87 to Theodore of Tyana.

3 a7ro5e'o7iCu.

to you, after being unwrapped, as far as possible,
by these lines, and showing its hidden brilliancy.
Accordingly we must return to our prelude.
Why is it that then only, when the night has
attained its utmost length, so that no further
addition is possible, that He appears in flesh to
us, Who holds the Universe in His grasp, and
controls the same Universe by His own power,
Who cannot be contained even by all intelligible
things, but includes the whole, even at the time
that He enters the narrow dwelling of a fleshly
tabernacle, while His mighty power thus keeps
pace with His beneficent purpose, and shows
itself even as a shadow wherever the will inclines,
so that neither in the creation of the world was
the power found weaker than the will, nor when
He was eager to stoop down to the lowliness
of our mortal nature did He lack power to that
very end, but actually did come to be in that
condition, yet without leaving the universe un-
piloted 4 ? Since, then, there is some account to
be given of both those seasons, how it is that it
is winter-time when He appears in the flesh,
but it is when the days are as long as the nights
that He restores to life man, who because of his
sins returned to the earth from whence he came,
— by explaining the reason of this, as well as I
can in few words, I will make my letter my
present to you. Has your own sagacity, as
of course it has, already divined the mystery
hinted at by these coincidences ; that the advance
of night is stopped by the accessions to the
light, and the period of darkness begins to be
shortened, as the length of the day is increased
by the successive additions? For thus much
perhaps would be plain enough even to the un-
initiated, that sin is near akin to darkness ; and in
fact evil is so termed by the Scripture. Accord-
ingly the season in which our mystery of godli-
ness begins is a kind of exposition of the Divine
dispensation on behalf of our souls. For meet
and right it was that, when vice was shed
abroad 5 without bounds, [upon this night of
evil the Sun of righteousness should rise, and

4 Evidently an allusion to the myth in Plato.

5 The Yucri? rij<r Kaxiwi is a frequent expression in Origen,

528

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

that in us who have before walked in darkness 6]
the day which we rece.ve from Him Who placed
that light in our hearts should increase more
and more ; so that the life which is in the light
should be extended to the greatest length
possible, being constantly augmented by addi-
tions of good ; and that the life in vice should
by gradual subtraction be reduced to the smallest
possible compass ; for the increase of things good
comes to the same thing as the diminution of
things evil. But the feast of the Resurrection,
occurring when the days are of equal length, of
itself gives us this interpretation of the coincid-
ence, namely, that we shall no longer fight with
evils only upon equal terms, vice grappling with
virtue in indecisive strife, but that the life of light
will prevail, the gloom of idolatry melting as
the day waxes stronger. For this reason also,
after the moon has run her course for fourteen
days, Easter exhibits her exactly opposite to
the rays of the sun, full with all the wealth of
his brightness, and not permitting any interval
of darkness to take place in its turn i : for, after
taking the place of the sun at its setting, she
does not herself set, before she mingles her own
beams with the genuine rays of the sun, so that
one light remains continuously, throughout the
whole space of the earth's course by day and
night, without any break whatsoever being
caused by the interposition of darkness. This
discussion, dear one, we contribute by way of a
gift from our poor and needy hand ; and may
your whole life be a continual festival and a
high day, never dimmed by a single stain of
nightly gloom.

LETTER II.

TO THE CITY OF SEBASTEIA 8.

Some of the brethren whose heart is as our
heart told us of the slanders that were being
propagated to our detriment by those who hate

6 A corrupt passage. Probably some lines have been lost. A
double opposition seems intended ; (1) between the night of evil and
our Saviour's coming like the Sun to disperse it ; and (2) between
walking in darkness and walking in light on the part of the in-
dividual (H. C. O.J.

1 iv tw Mfptl. or " on her part," or " at that particular season."
To support this last, Col. ii. 16, iv p-c'p" toprijs, may he compared, as
Origen interprets it, " in a particular feast," c. Cels. viii. 23: "Paul
alludes to this, when he names the feast selected in preference to
others only 'part of a feast,' hinting that the life everlasting with
the Word of God is not 'in the part 01 a feast, but in a complete
and continuous one.' Modern commentators on that passage, it is
true, interpret iv |»'|in " with regard to," "on the score ol." But
has Origen's meaning been sufficiently considered 1

8 Marcellusof Ancyra had been deposed in the Council of Con-
stantinople in 336, for teaching the doctrine of Paul of Samosata.
Basil and Athanasius successively separated from their communion
all who were united to Marcellus : and these, knowing that Valens
the Emperor had exiled several bishops of Egypt to Diocaesarea,
went to find them (375) and were admitted to their communion.
Armed with letters from them, they demanded to be received into
that of the other bishops of the East, and at length Basil and others,
having examined the matter closely, admitted them. Gregory
followed Basil's example, being assured of their Catholicity : and
to justify himself wrote this letter to the Catholics of Sebasteia.

peace, and privily backbite their neighbour,,
and have no fear of the great and terrible
judgment-seat of Him Who has declared that
account will be required even of idle words in
that trial of our life which we must all look for :
they say that the charges which are being circu-
lated against us are such as these ; that we enter-
tain opinions opposed to those who at Nicaea
set forth the right and sound faith, and that
without due discrimination and inquiry we re-
ceived into the communion of the Catholic
Church those who formerly assembled at Ancyra
under the name of Marcellus. Therefore, that
falsehood may not overpower the truth, in
another letter we made a sufficient defence
against the charges levelled at us, and before
the Lord we protested that we had neither de-
parted from the faith of the Holy Fathers, nor
had we done anything without due discrimina-
tion and inquiry in the case of those who came
over from the communion of Marcellus to that
of the Church : but all that we did we did only
after the orthodox in the East, and our brethren
in the ministry had entrusted to us the consider-
ation of the case of these persons, and had ap-
proved our action. But inasmuch as, since we
composed that written defence of our conduct,
again some of the brethren who are of one mind
with us begged us to make separately 9 with our
own lips a profession of our faith, which we
entertain with full conviction IO, following as we
do the utterances of inspiration and the tradi-
tion of the Fathers, we deemed it necessary to
discourse briefly of these heads asi well. We
confess that the doctrine of the Lord, which He
taught His disciples, when He delivered to them
the mystery of godliness, is the foundation and
root of right and sound faith, nor do we believe
that there is aught else loftier or safer than that
tradition. Now the doctrine of the Lord is
this : " Go," He said, " teach all nations, bap-
tizing them in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Since, then,
in the case of those who are regenerate from
death to eternal life, it is through the Holy
Trinity that the life-giving power is bestowed
on those who with faith are deemed worthy of
the grace, and in like manner the grace is im-
perfect, if any one, whichever it be, of the
names of the Holy Trinity be omitted in the
saving baptism — for the sacrament of regenera-

9 iStws, i. e. as a distinct matter from the previous dtroAoyia ; or
perhaps " privately."

10 7rt7rAi)po<popt)/Ll6^<1 '• a deponent, the same use as in Rom. iv.
21, of Abraham, 7rAr)po<popT)#eis in o fTnjyyeArat, k.t.A. : cf. TrAjjpo-
<popta irta"Tt"uis, Heb. x. 22 : irAT}po<popt'a tt}s «Atti'6o5, Heb. vi. 11.
The other N. T. use of this word, asan active and passive, isfound
2 Tim. iv. 5, "fulfil thy ministry;" 2 Tim. iv. 17; S. Luke i. I,
ire7rA7)poipopj)p.ci/u»i', " most surely believed " (A. V.) : in all which the
R.V. follows the Vulgate interpretation. In the Latin translation of
this passage in Gregory, " (professionem) quasacrisnos Scripturis ac
Patrum tradition! pcnitus inhasrere persuasum omnibus loret," the
meaning put upon TrArjpoipopeicrflai by A V. in the last text is adopted,,
"we are lully believed to follow." with a very harsh construction.

LETTERS.

529

tion is not completed in the Son and the Father
alone without the Spirit : nor is the perfect
boon of life imparted to Baptism in the Father
and the Spirit, if the name of the Son be sup-
pressed : nor is the grace of that Resurrection
accomplished in the Father and the Son, if the
Spirit be left out J : — for this reason we rest all
our hope, and the persuasion of the salvation
of our souls, upon the three Persons, recognized 2
by these names ; and we believe in the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Fountain
of life, and in the Only-begotten Son of the
Father, Who is the Author of life, as saith the
Apostle, and in the Holy Spirit of God, con-
cerning Whom the Lord hath spoken, " It is
the Spirit that quickeneth ". And since on us
who have been redeemed from death the grace
of immortality is bestowed, as we have said,
through faith in the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Spirit, guided by these we believe
that nothing servile, nothing created, nothing
unworthy of the majesty of the Father is to be
associated in chought with the Holy Trinity;
since, I say, our life is one which comes to us by
faith in the Holy Trinity, taking its rise from the
God of all, flowing through the Son, and working
in us by the Holy Spirit. Having, then, this full
assurance, we are baptized as we were com-
manded, and we believe as we are baptized, and
we hold as we believe ; so that with one accord
our baptism, our faith, and our ascription of
praise are to 3 the Father, and to the Son, and
to the Holy Ghost. But if any one makes
mention of two or three Gods, or of three God-
heads, let him be accursed. And if any, follow-
ing the perversion of Arius, says that the Son
or the Holy Spirit were produced from things
that are not, let him be accursed. But as many
as walk by the rule of truth and acknowledge
the three Persons, devoutly recognized in Their
several properties, and believe that there is
one Godhead, one goodness, one rule, one
authority and power, and neither make void the
supremacy of the Sole-sovereignty4, nor fall
away into polytheism, nor confound the Persons,
nor make up the Holy Trinity of heterogeneous
and unlike elements, but in simplicity receive
the doctrine of the faith, grounding all their
hope of salvation upon the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, — these according to our
judgment are of the same mind as we, and with
them we also trust to have part in the Lord.

1 There is some repetition and omission here. Gregory ought
to have said in one of the clauses, " Nor is Baptism in the name of
the Son and Holy Ghost sufficient, without the name of the Father "
(H. C. O.).

2 yvu>pi£opivriv looks as if it ought to be yv(npi(op.evais, and the
Latin translator renders accordingly (H. C. O.).

3 The same preposition eis is used after j3d7TTt<7/ua, iticttis, and
&6£a.

4 fj.ovap\ia, i. e. the One First Cause or Principle. See p. 84,
note 7.

LETTER III.

TO ABLABIUS5.

The Lord, as was meet and right, brought
us safe through, accompanied as we had been
by your prayers, and I will tell you a manifest
token of His loving kindness. For when the
sun was just over the spot which we left behind
Earsus6, suddenly the clouds gathered thick,
and there was a change from clear sky to deep
gloom. Then a chilly breeze blowing through the
clouds, bringing a drizzling with it, and striking
upon us with a very damp feeling, threatened
such rain as had never yet been known, and
on the left there were continuous claps of
thunder, and keen flashes of lightning alter-
nated with the thunder, following one crash and
preceding the next, and all the mountains be-
fore, behind, and on each side were shrouded
in clouds. And already a heavy i cloud hung
over our heads, caught by a strong wind and
big with rain, and yet we, like the Israelites of
old in their miraculous passage of the Red
Sea, though surrounded on all sides by rain,
arrived unwetted at Vestena. And when we
had already found shelter there, and our
mules had got a rest, then the signal for
the down-pour was given by God to the air.
And when we had spent some three or four
hours there, and had rested enough, again God
stayed the down-fall, and our conveyance moved
along more briskly than before, as the wheel
easily slid through the mud just moist and on
the surface. Now the road from that point to-
our little town is all along the river side, going
down stream with the water, and there is a
continuous string of villages along the banks,
all close upon the road, and with very short
distances between them. In consequence of
this unbroken line of habitations all the
road was full of people, some coming tO'
meet us, and others escorting us, mingling
tears in abundance with their joy. Now there
was a little drizzle, not unpleasant, just enough
to moisten the air ; but a little way before we

5 This Letter must have been written, either (1) After the first-
journey of Gregory to Constantinople, i. e. after the Council, 381 ;
or (2) On his return from exile at the death of Valens, 378. The
words at the end, "rejoiced and wept with my people," are against
the first view.

6 'Eap<rou. The distance prevents us conjecturing "Tarsus"
here, though, Gregory was probably coming from the sea (audi
the Holy Land). But "Garsaura" is marked on the map-, as
about 40 miles south of Nyssa with the "Morimene" mountains
(Erjash Dagh) intervening. (Nyssa lay on a southern tributary of
the Halys, N.W. of Nazianzum. ) The Medicean MS. is said by
Migne to read iavriov here — " we left behind us." Nothing is
known of Vestena below.

7 Adopting the conjecture of the Latin translator, fiapela for
Ppaxela. His translation, however, though ingenious, would re-
quire something different in the Greek. It runs "jamque nubes,
quae nostra impendebat capiti, postquam acri vehem^ntique venio
abrcpta alio delata fuit hieniem peperit " As the text stands
v-Ko\<q<p8(l(Ta cannot bear this tianslation (H C. O. )

VOL. V.

m m

53o

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

got home the cloud that overhung us was con-
densed into a more violent shower, so that our
entrance was quite quiet, as no one was aware
beforehand of our coming. But just as we got
inside our portico, as the sound of our carriage
wheels along the dry hard ground was heard,
the people turned up in shoals, as though by
some mechanical contrivance, I know not whence
nor how, flocking round us so closely that it
was not easy to get down from our conveyance,
for there was not a foot of clear space. But
after we had persuaded them with difficulty to
allow us to get down, and to let our mules
pass, we were crushed on every side by folks
crowding round, insomuch that their excessive
kindness all but made us faint. And when we
were near the inside of the portico, we see a
stream of fire flowing into the church ; for the
choir of virgins, carrying their wax torches in
their hands, were just marching in file along the
entrance of the church, kindling the whole into
splendour with their blaze. And when I was
within and had rejoiced and wept with my people
— for I experienced both emotions from witness-
ing both in the multitude, — as soon as I had
finished the prayers, I wrote off this letter to
your Holiness as fast as possible, under the
pressure of extreme thirst, so that I might when
it was done attend to my bodily wants.

LETTER IV.

TO CYNEGIUS3.

We have a law that bids us "rejoice with
them that rejoice, and weep with them that
weep " : but of these commandments it often
seems that it is in our power to put only one
into practice. For there is a great scarcity in
the world of "them that rejoice," so that it is
not easy to find with whom we may share our
blessings, but there are plenty who are in the
opposite case. I write thus much by way of
preface, because of the sad tragedy which some
spiteful power has been playing among people
of long-standing nobility. A young man of
good family, Synesius by name, not unconnected

8 Cynegius was "prefect of the praetorium," from 384 to 390.
Cod. Medic, has on the title, 'Iepi'ui 'IIvcmopi : but this must be
wrong. It was this Cynegius, not then Prefect of the East, whom
Libanius was to lead, however unwilling, to the study of eloquence
(see end of Letter xi.). The four Praetorian Prefects remained,
after- Diocletian's institution of the four Princes, under whom they
served, had been abolished by Constantine. The Prefect of the
East stretched his jurisdiction " from the cataracts of the Nile to the
banks of the 1'hasis, and from the mountains of Thrace to the
frontiers of Persia." From all inferior jurisdictions an appeal in
every matter of importance, either civil or criminal, might be
brought before the tribunal of the Prefect ; but his sentence was
final : the emperors themselves refused to dispute it. Hence
Gregory says, that, " next toGod, Cynegius had the power to remove
his young relative from danger." How intimate Gregory was, not
only v/ith the highest officers, but at the Court itself, is shown in his
orations on Pulcneria .ml II 11 ilia. He must hnve been over sixty
when this letter ua* written.

with myself, in the full flush of youth, who has
scarcely begun to live yet, is in great dangers,
from which God alone has power to rescue
him, and next to God, you, who are entrusted
with the decisions of all questions of life and
death. An involuntary mishap has taken place.
Indeed, what mishap is voluntary ? And now
those who have made up this suit against him,
carrying with it the penalty of death, have
turned his mishap into matter of accusation.
However, I will try by private letters to soften
their resentment and incline them to pity ; but
I beseech your kindliness to side with justice
and with us, that your benevolence may prevail
over the wretched plight of the youth, hunting
up any and every device by which the young
man may be placed out of the reach of danger,
having conquered the spiteful power which
assails him by the help of your alliance. I
have said all that I want in brief; but to go
into details, in order that my endeavour may
be successful, would be to say what I have
no business to say, nor you to hear from me.

LETTER V.

A TESTIMONIAL.

That for which the king of the Macedonians
is most admired by people of understanding, —
for he is admired not so much for his famous
victories 9 over the Persians and Indians, and
his penetrating as far the Ocean, as for his say-
ing that he had his treasure in his friends ; — in
this respect I dare to compare myself with his
marvellous exploits, and it will be right for me
to utter such a sentiment too. Now because
I am rich in friendships, perhaps I surpass in
that kind of property even that great man who
plumed himself upon that very thing. For
who was such a friend to him as you are to
me, perpetually endeavouring to surpass your-
self in every kind of excellence ? For assuredly
no one would ever charge me with flattery,
when I say this, if he were to look at my
age and your life : for grey hairs are out of
season for flattery, and old age is ill-suited for
complaisance, and as for you, even if you are
ever in season for flattery, yet praise would not
fall under the suspicion of flattery, as your life
shows forth your praise before words. But
since, when men are rich in blessings, it is a
special gift to know how to use what one has,
and the best use of superfluities is to let one's
friends share them with one, and since my be-

9 Sti7Y7)fia<Ti>'. " He believed in fidelity, and was capable of the
sublimest, most intimate friendships. He loved Hephasstion so
fervently, that ... he remained inconsolable for his loss." — r.
Schlecel. Achilles was his hero : for he too knew the delight of

.1 constant friendship.

LETTERS.

531

loved son Alexander is most of all a friend
united to me in all sincerity, be persuaded to
show him my treasure, and not only to show
it to him, but also to put it at his disposal to
enjoy abundantly, by extending to him your
protection in those matters about which he has
come to you, begging you to be his patron.
He will tell you all with his own lips. For it
is better so than that I should go into details
in a letter.

LETTER VI.

TO STAGIRIUS.

They say that conjurors IO in theatres contrive
some such marvel as this which I am going to
describe. Having taken some historical narra-
tive, or some old story as the ground-plot of
their sleight of hand, they relate the story to the
spectators in action. And it is in this way that
they make their representations of the narra-
tive '. They put on their dresses and masks,
and rig up something to resemble a town on
the stage with hangings, and then so associate
the bare scene with their life-like imitation of
action that they are a marvel to the spectators
— both the actors themselves of the incidents
of the play, and the hangings, or rather
their imaginary city. What do I mean, do
you think, by this allegory? Since we must
needs show to those who are coming together
that which is not a city as though it were one,
do you let yourself be persuaded to become for
the nonce the founder of our city2, by just put-
ting in an appearance there; I will make the
desert-place seem to be a city ; now it is no great
distance for you, and the favour which you will
confer is very great ; for we wish to show our-
selves more splendid to our companions here,
which we shall do if, in place of any other
ornament, we are adorned with the splendour of
your party.

LETTER VII.

TO A FRIEND.

What flower in spring is so bright, what
voices of singing birds are so sweet, what breezes
that soothe the calm sea are so light and mild,
what glebe is so fragrant to the husbandman —
whether it be teeming with green blades, or
waving with fruitful ears — as is the spring of

10 6av^ iTOiroLovi/Tas . . . OavftaTOiroua^ ; something more than
Ordinary mime pLiymg, or than the optical illusion of tab.eaux-
vivmiis, hut le s than what we should call conjuring seems to be
mea.il \ H. C O).

to. <u. aAAiyAa Tt»v UFTopovixtvuiv. z oiKKjTri'i avToa'\^8iO'i.

the soul, lit up with your peaceful beams, from
the radiance which shone in your letter, which
raised our life from despondency to gladness ?
For thus, perhaps, it will not be unfitting to
adapt the word of the prophet to our present
blessings : " In the multitude of the sorrows
which I had in my heart, the comforts of God,"
by your kindness, " have refreshed my soul," 3
like sunbeams, cheering and warming our life
nipped by frost. For both reached the highest
pitch — the severity of my troubles, I mean, on
the one side, and the sweetness of your favours
on the other. And if you have so gladdened us,
by only sending us the joyful tidings of your
coming, that everything changed for us from ex-
tremest woe to a bright condition, what will your
precious and benign coming, even the sight of
it, do? what consolation will the sound of
your sweet voice in our ears afford our soul ?
May this speedily come to pass, by the good
help of God, Who giveth respite from pain to
the fainting, and rest to the afflicted. But be
assured, that when we look at our own case we
grieve exceedingly at the present state of things,
and men cease not to tear us in pieces 4 : but
when we turn our eyes to your excellence, we
own that we have great cause for thankfulness
to the dispensation of Divine Providence, that
we are able to enjoy in your neighbourhood s
your sweetness and good-will towards us, and
feast at will on such food to satiety, if indeed
there is such a thing as satiety of blessings like
these.

LETTER VIII «.

TO A STUDENT OF THE CLASSICS.

When I was looking for some suitable and
proper exordium, I mean of course from Holy
Scripture, to put at the head of my letter,
according to my usual custom, I did not know
which to choose, not from inability to find what
was suitable, but because I deemed it super-
fluous to write such things to those who knew
nothing about the matter. For your eager
pursuit of profane literature proved incontest-
ably to us that you did not care about sacred.
Accordingly I will say nothing about Bible
texts, but will select a prelude adapted to your
literary tastes taken from the poets you love so
well. By the great master of your education
there is introduced one, showing all an old
man's joy, when after long affliction he once
more beheld his son, and his son's son as well.

3 Ps. xciv. 19.

4 8ta<l>opyvvT-'<;. This letter is probably written during his exile,
(375-8) ana to Otreius, tiie bishop of Me itene. See Letter 14. note.

3 e/c y ei tuviov. *> Peihapsto Eupatnus (Cod. Medic.).

m m 2

532

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

And the special theme of his exultation is the
rivalry between the two, Ulysses and Tele-
machus, for the highest meed of valour, though
it is true that the recollection of his own exploits
against the Cephallenians adds to the point of
his speech ?. For you and your admirable
father, when you welcomed me, as they did
Laertes, in your affection, contended in most
honourable rivalry for the prize of virtue, by
showing us all possible respect and kindness ; he
in numerous ways which I need not here mention,
and you by pelting me with 8 your letters from
Cappadocia. What, then, of me the aged one ?
I count that day one to be blessed, in which I
witness such a competition between father and
son. May you, then, never cease from ac-
complishing the rightful prayer of an excellent
and admirable father, and surpassing in your
readiness to all good works the renown which
from him you inherit. I shall be a judge
acceptable to both of you, as I shall award you
the first prize against your father, and the same
to your father against you. And we will put
up with rough Ithaca, rough not so much with
stones as with the manners of the inhabitants,
an island in which there are many suitors, who
are suitors 9 most of all for the possessions of
her whom they woo, and insult their intended
bride by this very fact, that they threaten her
chastity with marriage, acting in a way worthy of
a Melantho, one might say, or some other such
person ; for nowhere is there a Ulysses to bring
them to their senses with his bow. You see how
in an old man's fashion I go maundering off into
matters with which you have no concern. But
pray let indulgence be readily extended to me
in consideration of my grey hairs ; for garrulity
is just as characteristic of old age as to be
blear-eyed, or for the limbs to fail *. But you
by entertaining us with your brisk and lively
language, like a bold young man as you are,
will make our old age young again, supporting
the feebleness of our length of days with this
kind attention which so well becomes you.

7 The text here seems hopelessly corrupt Or the meaning may
be, " Our main text shall be his exultation at the generous rivalry
between Ulysses and Telemachus, though his mention of his ex-
ploits against the Cephallenians shall also contribute to illustrate our
discussion ; " but this can hardly be got out of the Greek. The
reference is to Cdyssey, xxiv. 514. Gregory was evidently fond of
Homer : the comparison of Diomede to a winter torrent {Iliad, v.
87) is used De Virginit. c. 4 : and Menelaus' words about the
young and old (Iliad, iii. 108), c. 23 : and in Letter II. of the seven
vdited by Caraccioli (Letter XV.) describing the gardens of Vanota,
Od. vii. us, xiii. 589. For other quotations from the classics see
Letters XL and XII. of this Series (H. C. O.).

8 fidMovres, with allusion to the darts hurled by Ulysses and
Telemachus (H. C. O.).

y Reading ji.iT)<rrfipts, for the unmeaning icpaTTJpes ; " they are
suitors not so much for the hand of Penelope as for her money "
(H. C. O.). The Medicean has /UpaKrrrjpts, " devourers." Just below
the allusion is to Melantho 's rudely threatening Ulysses, and getting
hanged for it.

vn'o t>)S toC yijpuis airovoias, an irrelevant phrase, and, as not
necessary to the sense, here omitted in translation (H. C. O.).

LETTER IX.

AN INVITATION.

It is not the natural wont of spring to shine
forth in its radiant beauty all at once, but there
come as preludes of spring the sunbeam gently
warming earth's frozen surface, and the bud
half hidden beneath the clod, and breezes
blowing over the earth, so that the fertilizing
and generative power of the air penetrates deeply
into it. One may see the fresh and tender
grass, and the return of birds which winter had
banished, and many such tokens, which are
rather signs of spring, not spring itself. Not
but that these are sweet, because they are in-
dications of what is sweetest. What is the
meaning of all that I have been saying ? Why,
since the expression of your kindness which
reached us in your letters, as a forerunner of
the treasures contained in you, with a goodly
prelude brings the glad tidings of the blessing
which we expect at your hands, we both
welcome the boon which those letters convey,
like some first-appearing flower of spring, and
pray that we may soon enjoy in you the full
beauty of the season. For, be well assured,
we have been deeply, deeply distressed by the
passions and spite of the people here, and their
ways ; and just as ice forms in cottages after
the rains that come in — for I will draw my
comparison from the weather of our part of the
world z, — and so moisture, when it gets in, if it
spreads over the surface that is already frozen,
becomes congealed about the ice, and an ad-
dition is made to the mass already existing, even
so one may notice much the same kind of thing
in the character of most of the people in this
neighbourhood, how they are always plotting
and inventing something spiteful, and a fresh
mischief is congealed on the top of that which
has been wrought before, and another one on
the top of that, and then again another, and
this goes on without intermission, and there is
no limit to their hatred and to the increase of
evils ; so that we have great need of many
prayers that the grace of the Spirit may speedily
breathe upon them, and thaw the bitterness of
their hatred, and melt the frost that is harden-
ing upon them from their malice. For this
cause the spring, sweet as it is by nature, be-
comes yet more to be desired than ever to those

2 For the climate, cf. Sozomen, H. E. vi. 34 : "I suppose that
Galatia, Cappadocia, and the neighbouring provinces contained
many other ecclesiastical philosophers at that time (/. e. reign of
Valens). These monks, for the most part, tiwelt in communities in
cities and villages, for they did not habituate themselves to the
tradition of their predecessors. The severity of the winter, which
is alwavs a nature feature of that country, would piobably make ■»•
hermit life impracticable."

LETTERS.

533

who after such storms look for you. Let not
the boon, then, linger. Especially as our great
holiday 3 is approaching, it would be more
reasonable that the land which bare you should
exult in her own treasures than that Pontus
should in ours. Come then, dear one, bringing
us a multitude of blessings, even yourself ; for
this will fill up the measure of our beatitude.

LETTER X«.

TO LIBANIUS.

I once heard a medical man tell of a wonder-
ful freak of nature. And this was his story. A
man was ill of an unmanageable complaint, and
began to find fault with the medical faculty, as
being able to do far less than it professed ; for
everything that was devised for his cure was
ineffectual. Afterwards when some good news
beyond his hopes was brought him, the occur-
rence did the work of the healing art, by putting
an end to his disease. Whether it were that
the soul by the overflowing sense of release
from anxiety, and by a sudden rebound, dis-
posed the body to be in the same condition as
itself, or in some other way, I cannot say : for
I have no leisure to enter upon such disquisi-
tions, and the person who told me did not
specify the cause. But I have just called to
mind the story very seasonably, as I think : for
when I was not as well as I could wish — now
I need not tell you exactly the causes of all the
worries which befel me from the time I was
with you to the present, — after some one told
me all at once of the letter which had arrived
from your unparalleled Erudition, as soon as
I got the epistle and ran over what you had
written, forthwith, first my soul was affected in
the same way as though I had been proclaimed
before all the world as the hero of most glorious
achievements — so highly did I value the testi-
mony which you favoured me with in your
letter, — and then also my bodily health imme-
diately began to improve : and I afford an
example of the same marvel as the story which
I told you just now, in that I was ill when I
read one half of the letter, and well when I read
the other half of the same. Thus much for
those matters. But now, since Cynegius was

3 For such invitations, cf. Greg. Naz. Epist. 99, 100, 102.

4 This and the following letter appear to have been written
when Gregory still publicly professed belles lettres. They are
addressed to one of the masters whom Basil had had at Athens.
For these see Socrates, H. E. iv. 26 : it was probably Libanius ;
rather than Prohaeresius, who did not live in Asia Minor, or
Himsrius, who according to Eunapius, Philosoph. Vit. p. 126)
bad become a Christian before the reign of Julian, and it is clear
that this Letter is written to a pagan. The Cod. Medic, has
Libanius' name as a title to both Letters. No Letter to Gregory
certainly is to be found amongst Libanius' unpublished Letters in
the Vatican Library, as Zacagni himsell testifies : but no conclusion
can be drawn from this.

the occasion of that favour, you are able, in the
overflowing abundance of your ability to do
good, not only to benefit us, but also our bene-
factors ; and he is a benefactor of ours, as has
been said before, by having been the cause and
occasion of our having a letter from you ; and
for this reason he well deserves both our good
offices. But if you ask who are our teachers, —
if indeed we are thought to have learned any-
thing,— you will find that they are Paul and
John, and the rest of the Apostles and Prophets ;
if I do not seem to speak too boldly in claiming
any knowledge of that art in which you so excel,
that competent judges declare5 that the rules
of oratory stream down from you, as from an
overflowing spring, upon all who have anv pre-
tensions to excellence in that department.
This I have heard the admirable Basil say to
everybody, Basil, who was your disciple, but my
father and teacher. But be assured, first, that
I found no rich nourishment in the precepts of
my teachers6, inasmuch as I enjoyed my brother's
society only for a short time, and got only just
enough polish from his diviner tongue to be
able to discern the ignorance of those who are
uninitiated in oratory ; next, however, that when-
ever I had leisure, I devoted my time and
energies to this study, and so became enamoured
of your beauty, though I never yet obtained the
object of my passion. If, then, on the one side
we never had a teacher, which I deem to have
been our case, and if on the other it is improper
to suppose that the opinion which you entertain
of us is other than the true one — nay, you are
correct in your statement, and we are not quite
contemptible in your judgment,— give me leave
to presume to attribute to you the cause of such
proficiency as we may have attained. For if
Basil was the author of our oratory, and if his
wealth came from your treasures, then what we
possess is yours, even though we received it
through others. But if our attainments are
scanty, so is the water in a jar ; still it comes
from the Nile.

LETTER XL

TO LIBANIUS.

It was a custom with the Romans 7 to cele-
brate a feast in winter-time, after the custom of

5 This passage as it stands is unmanageable. The Latin trans-
lator appears to give the sense required, but it is hard to see how it
can be got out of the words (H. C. O.).

6 "urdt. fie fjnqSef e^ocTa Ain-apov (MS. \vnpbv) iv tois roil' SiSa<r-
KaAuiv Snj'yjjiu.acrii' : but tou SiSaovcaAou perhaps should be read
instead of tuiv &i&aiTKa\u>v (H. C. O ).

^ The custom of New Year's gifts (strenarum commercium) had
been discontinued by Tiberius, because of the trouble it involved to
himself, and abolished by Claudius : but in these times it had been
revived. We find mention of it in the reigns of Theodosius, and of
Arcadius ; Auson. Ep. xviii. 4 ; Symmach. Ep. x. 28.

534

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

their fathers, when the length of the days begins
to draw out, as the sun climbs to the upper
regions of the sky. Now the beginning of the
month is esteemed holy, and by this day augur-
ing the character of the whole year, they devote
themselves to forecasting lucky accidents, glad-
ness, and wealth 8. What is my object in be-
ginning my letter in this way ? Why, I do so
because I too kept this feast, having got my
present of gold as well as any of them ; for then
there came into my hands as well as theirs gold,
not like that vulgar gold, which potentates
treasure and which those that have it give, —
that heavy, vile, and soulless possession, — but
that which is loftier than all wealth, as Pindar
says 9, in the eyes of those that have sense, being
the fairest presentation, I mean your letter, and
the vast wealth which it contained. For thus
it happened ; that on that day, as I was going to
the metropolis of the Cappadocians, I met an
acquaintance, who handed me this present, your
letter, as a new year's gift. And I, being over-
joyed at the occurrence, threw open my treasure
to all who were present ; and all shared in it,
each getting the whole of it, without any rivalry,
and I was none the worse off. For the letter
by passing through the hands of all, like a ticket
for a feast, is the private wealth of each, some
by steady continuous reading engraving the
words upon their memory, and others taking
an impression IO of them upon tablets ; and it
was again in my hands, giving me more pleasure
than the hard J metal does to the eyes of the
rich. Since, then, even to husbandmen — to use a
homely comparison — approbation of the labours
which they have already accomplished is a
strong stimulus to those which follow, bear with
us if we treat what you have yourself given as so
much seed, and if we write that we may provoke
you to write back. But I beg of you a public
and general boon for our life ; that you will no
longer entertain the purpose which you expressed
to us in a dark hint at the end of your letter.
For I do not think that it is at all a fair decision
to come to, that, — because there are some who
disgrace themselves by deserting from the Greek
language to the barbarian, becoming mercenary
soldiers and choosing a soldier's rations in-
stead of the renown of eloquence, — you should
therefore condemn oratory altogether, and
sentence human life to be as voiceless as that
of beasts. For who is he who will open his
lips, if you carry into effect this severe sentence
against oratory? But perhaps it will be well to
remind you of a passage in our Scriptures.
For our Word bids those that can to do good,

8 Or, not improbably, " they contrive lucky meetings, festivities,
and contributions."

9 Pindar, O I. i. I : 6 hi xfvirbs, aldopevov nvp are Siairpenei
ia.Kros', (i*YaAai/opo? «£ova jtAoutou.

~ tVajrop.op£ap.cVioi/. aiTOKpOTOV.

not looking at the tempers of those who receive
the benefit, so as to be eager to benefit only
those who are sensible of kindness, while we
close our beneficence to the unthankful, but
rather to imitate the Disposer of all, Who dis-
tributes the good things of His creation alike
to all, to the good and to the evil. Having
regard to this, admirable Sir, show yourself in
your way of life such an one as the time past has
displayed you. For those who do not see the
sun do not thereby hinder the sun's existence.
Even so neither is it right that the beams of
your eloquence should be dimmed, because of
those who are purblind as to the perceptions of
the soul. But as for Cynegius, I pray that he
may be as far as possible from the common
malady, which now has seized upon young men ;
and that he will devote himself of his own accord
to the study of rhetoric. But if he is otherwise
disposed, it is only right, even if he be unwilling,
he should be forced to it ; so as to avoid the
unhappy and discreditable plight in which they
now are, who have previously abandoned the
pursuit of oratory.

LETTER XII ».

ON HIS WORK AGAINST EUNOMIUS.

We Cappadocians are poor in well-nigh all
things that make the possessors of them happy,
but above all we are badly off for people who
are able to write. This, be sure, is the reason
why I am so slow about sending you a letter :
for, though my reply to the heresy (of Euno-
mius) had been long ago completed, there was
no one to transcribe it. Such a dearth of writers
it was that brought upon us the suspicion of
sluggishness or of inability to frame an answer.
But since now at any rate, thank God, the
writer and reviser have come, I have sent this
treatise to you ; not, as Isocrates says 3, as a
present, for I do not reckon it to be such that
it should be received in lieu of something of
substantial value, but that it may be in our
power to cheer on those who are in the full
vigour of youth to do battle with the enemy, by
stirring up the naturally sanguine temperament
of early life. But if any portion of the treatise
should appear worthy of serious consideration,
after examining some parts, especially those
prefatory to the "trials,"4 and those which are
of the same cast, and perhaps also some

a The Cod. Medic, has " to John and Maximinian." In this
letter but one person seems to be addressed. Gregory here speaks,
without doubt, of his books against Eunomitis : not of his Antir-
rhetic against Afiol/inaris, which could have been transcribed in a
very short time. Therelore we can place the date about 383, some
months after Gregory's twelve Hooks against Eunomitis, according
to Hermantius, were published. 3 Oratio ad Demonicum.

4 See Against Eunomius, I. 1—9.

LETTERS.

535

of the doctrinal parts of the book, you will
think them not ungracefully composed. But
to whatever conclusion you come, you will of
course read them, as to a teacher and corrector,
to those who do not act like the players at
ball s, when they stand in three different places
and throw it from one to the other, aiming it
exactly and catching one ball from one and one
from another, and they baffle the player who is
in the middle, as he jumps up to catch it, pre-
tending that they are going to throw with a
made-up expression of face, and such and such
a motion of the hand to left or right, and which-
ever way they see him hurrying, they send the
ball just the contrary way, and cheat his expect-
ation by a trick. This holds even now in the
case of most of us, who, dropping all serious pur-
pose, play at being good-natured 6, as if at ball,
with men, instead of realizing the favourable hope
which we hold out, beguiling to sinister 7 issues
the souls of those who repose confidence in us.
Letters of reconciliation, caresses, tokens,
presents, affectionate embrace by letters — these
are the making as if to throw with the ball to
the right. But instead of the pleasure which
one expects therefrom, one gets accusations,
plots, slanders, disparagement, charges brought
against one, bits of a sentence torn from their
context, caught up, and turned to one's hurt.
Blessed in your hopes are ye, who through all
such trials exercise confidence towards God.
But we beseech you not to look at our words,
but to the teaching of our Lord in the Gospel.
For what consolation to one in anguish can
another be, who surpasses him in the extremity
of his own anguish, to help his luckless fortunes
to obtain their proper issue? As He saith,
" Vengeance is Mine ; I will repay, saith the
Lord." But do you, best of men, go on in a
manner worthy of yourself, and trust in God,
and do not be hindered by the spectacle of our
misfortunes from being good and true, but
commit to God that judgeth righteously the
suitable and just issue of events, and act as
Divine wisdom guides you. Assuredly Joseph
had in the result no reason to grieve at the
envy of his brethren, inasmuch as the malice
of his own kith and kin became to him the
road to empire.

5 I. e. the game of <}>at.vivt>a : called also ifcrtvSa by Hesychius.

6 iv ev<j>vta.

7 It is difficult to reproduce the play upon words in Sefias, and
<r*ai6rr)Ti, which refer to the Kara, to 64t;iov f) fuiavvfiov in the de-
scription of the game of ball : the words having both a local mean-
ing, "right," and "left." and a metaphorical one, "favourable," and
" sinister" <H.C. O.).

LETTER XIII.

TO THE CHURCH AT NICOMEDIA8.

May the Father of mercies and the God of
all comfort, Who disposeth all things in wisdom
for the best, visit you by His own grace, and
comfort you by Himself, working in you that
which is well-pleasing to Him, and may the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ come upon you,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, that ye
may have healing of all tribulation and affliction,
and advance towards all good, for the perfecting
of the Church, for the edification of your souls,
and to the praise of the glory of His name.
But in making here a defence of ourselves before
your charity, we would say that we were not
neglectful to render an account of the charge
entrusted to us, either in time past, or since the
departure hence of Patricius of blessed memory;
but we insist that there were many troubles
in our Church, and the decay of our bodily
powers was great, increasing, as was natural,
with advancing years ; and great also was the
remissness of your Excellency towards us, in-
asmuch as no word ever came by letter to in-
duce us to undertake the task, nor was any
connection kept up between your Church and
ourselves, although Euphrasius, your Bishop of
blessed memory, had in all holiness bound to-
gether our Humility to himself and to you with
love, as with chains. But even though the
debt of love has not been satisfied before, either
by our taking charge of you, or your Piety's
encouragement of us, now at any rate we pray
to God, taking your prayer to God as an ally to
our own desire, that we may with all speed
possible visit you, and be comforted along with
you, and along with you show diligence, as the
Lord may direct us ; so as to discover a means
of rectifying the disorders which have already
found place, and of securing safety for the
future, so that you may no longer be distracted
by this discord, one withdrawing himself from
the Church in one direction, another in another,
and be thereby exposed as a laughing-stock to the
Devil, whose desire and business it is (in direct
contrariety to the Divine will) that no one
should be saved, or come to the knowledge of
the truth. For how do you think, brethren,
that we were afflicted upon hearing from those
who reported to us your state, that there was no
return to better things 9 ; but that the resolution

8 Euphrasius, mentioned in this Letter, had subscribed to the
first Council of Constantinople, as Bishop of Nicomedia. On his

death, clergy and laity proceeded to a joint election of a successor j
The date of this is uncertain ; Zacagni and Page think that the
dispute here mentioned is to be identified with that which Sozonien
records, and which is placed by Baronius and Basnage in 400,
401. But we have no evidence that Gregory's life was prolonged1
so far.

9 ou'oe^iia •yc-yoi't r£>v e^ecrnuTiui' «7ri<7Tpo<£i), literally, "no -eturo

536

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

of those who had once swerved aside is ever
carried along in the same course ; and — as water
from a conduit often overflows the neighbouring
bank, and streaming off sideways, flows away,
and unless the leak is stopped, it is almost im-
possible to recall it to its channel, when the
submerged ground has been hollowed out in
accordance with the course of the stream, — even
so the course of those who have left the Church,
when it has once through personal motives de-
flected from the straight and right faith, has
sunk deep in the rut of habit, and does not
easily return to the grace it once had. For
which cause your affairs demand a wise and
strong administrator, who is skilled to guide
such wayward tempers aright, so as to be able
to recall to its pristine beauty the disorderly
circuit of this stream, that the corn-fields of
your piety may once again flourish abundantly,
watered by the irrigating stream of peace. For
this reason great diligence and fervent desire
on the part of you all is needed for this matter,
that such an one may be appointed your
President by the Holy Spirit, who will have a
single eye to the things of God alone, not turn-
ing his glance this way or that to any of those
things that men strive after. For for this cause
I think that the ancient law gave the Levite no
share in the general inheritance of the land ;
that he might have God alone for the portion
of his possession, and might always be engaged
about the possession in himself, with no eye to
any material object.

[What follows is unintelligible, and some-
thing has probably been lost.]

For it is not lawful that the simple should
meddle with that with which they have no
concern, but which properly belongs to others.
For you should each mind your own business,
that so that which is most expedient may come
about [and that your Church may again prosper],
when those who have been dispersed have re-
turned again to the unity of the one body, and
spiritual peace is established by those who
devoutly glorify God. To this end it is well, I
think, to look out for high qualifications in
your election, that he who is appointed to the
Presidency may be suitable for the post. Now
the Apostolic injunctions do not direct us to
look to high birth, wealth, and distinction in
the eyes of the world among the virtues of a
Bishop ; but if all this should, unsought, accom-
pany your spiritual chiefs, we do not reject it,
but consider it merely as a shadow accident-
ally IO following the body ; and none the less

from existing (or besetting) evils." The words niiuht possibly mean
something very different ; " no concern shown on the part of those
set over yon " H. C. O.).

10 The shadow may be considered as an accidental appendage tc
the body, inasmuch as it does not always appear, but only when
there is some light, e. g. of the sun, to cast it (H. C. O.).

shall we welcome the more precious endow-
ments, even though they happen to be apart from
those boons of fortune. The prophet Amos was
a goat-herd ; Peter was a fisherman, and his
brother Andrew followed the same employment ;
so too was the sublime John ; Paul was a tent-
maker, Matthew a publican, and the rest of the
Apostles in the same way — not consuls, generals,
prefects, or distinguished in rhetoric and philo-
sophy, but poor, and of none of the learned
professions, but starting from the more humble
occupations of life : and yet for all that their
voice went out into all the earth, and their
words unto the ends of the world. " Consider
your calling, brethren, that not many wise after
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are
called, but God hath chosen the foolish things
of the world11." Perhaps even now it is thought
something foolish, as things appear to men,
when one is not able to do much from poverty,
or is slighted because of meanness of extraction l,
not of character. But who knows whether the
horn of anointing is not poured out by grace upon
such an one, even though he be less than the
lofty and more illustrious ? Which was more
to the interest of the Church at Rome, that it
should at its commencement be presided over
by some high-born and pompous senator, or by
the fisherman Peter, who had none of this
world's advantages to attract men to him2?
What house had he, what slaves, what property
ministering luxury, by wealth constantly flowing
in ? But that stranger, without a table, without
a roof over his head, was richer than those who
have all things, because through having nothing
he had God wholly. So too the people of Meso-
potamia, though they had among them wealthy
satraps, preferred Thomas above them all to the
presidency of their Church; the Cretans preferred
Titus, the dwellers at Jerusalem James, and we
Cappadocians the centurion, who at the Cross
acknowledged the Godhead of the Lord, though
there were many at that time of splendid lineage,
whose fortunes enabled them to maintain a stud,
and who prided themselves upon having the
first place in the Senate. And in all the Church
one may see those who are great according to
God's standard preferred above worldly mag-
nificence. You too, I think, ought to have an
eye to these spiritual qualifications at this time
present, if you really mean to revive the ancient
glory of your Church. For nothing is better
known to you than your own history, that
anciently, before the city near you 3 flourished,

11 I Cor. i. 26, 27.

1 o-iifiaTos £va~ycVciai', might possibly mean " bodily deform-
ity ; " but less probably (H. C. O.).

2 Reading c^oAk6v: if €<j>6\kiov, "a boat taken in tow," per-
haps still regarding S. Peter as the master of a ship : or " an ip-
pendage ; " Gregory so uses it in bis De AnimA. Some suggest
k<\»ibiov, meaning " resource," but ifyohxov is simpler.

3 i. e. Niwea. "The whirligig of time has brought about iu

LETTERS.

537

the seat of government was with you, and
among Bithynian cities there was nothing pre-
eminent above yours. And now, it is true, the
public buildings that once graced it have dis-
appeared, but the city that consists in men —
whether we look to numbers or to quality — is
rapidly rising to a level with its former splendour.
Accordingly it would well become you to enter-
tain thoughts that shall not fall below the height
of the blessings that now are yours, but to raise
your enthusiasm in the work before you to the
height of the magnificence of your city, that
you may find such a one to preside over the
laity as will prove himself not unworthy of you *.
For it is disgraceful, brethren, and utterly
monstrous, that while no one ever becomes a
pilot unless he is skilled in navigation, he who
sits at the helm of the Church should not know
how to bring the souls of those who sail with
him safe into the haven of God. How many
wrecks of Churches, men and all, have ere now
taken place by the inexperience of their heads !
Who can reckon what disasters might not have
been avoided, had there been aught of the
pilot's skill in those who had command ? Nay,
we entrust iron, to make vessels with, not to
those who know nothing about the matter, but
to those who are acquainted with the art of the
smith ; ought we not therefore to trust souls to
him who is well-skilled to soften them by the
fervent heat of the Holy Spirit, and who by the
impress of rational implements may fashion
each one of you to be a chosen and useful
vessel? It is thus that the inspired Apostle
bids us to take thought, in his Epistle to
Timothy s, laying injunction upon all who hear,
when he says that a Bishop must be without
reproach. Is this all that the Apostle cares for,
that he who is advanced to the priesthood
should be irreproachable ? and what is so great
an advantage as that all possible qualifications
should be included in one ? But he knows full
well that the subject is moulded by the character
of his superior, and that the upright walk of the
guide becomes that of his followers too. For
what the Master is, such does he make the
disciple to be. For it is impossible that he
who has been apprenticed to the art of the
smith should practise that of the weaver, or that
one who has only been taught to work at the loom
should turn out an orator or a mathematician :
but on the contrary that which the disciple sees
in his master he adopts and transfers to himself.
For this reason it is that the Scripture says,
" Every disciple that is perfect shall be as his

revenge," and Nicomedia (Ismid) is now more important than Nicaea
(Isnik). Nicomedia had, in fact, been the residence of the Kings
of Bithynia ; and Diocletian had intended to make it the rival of
Rome (cf. Lactantius, De Mori. Persec. c. 7). But it had been
destroyed by an earthquake in the year 368 : Socrates, ii. 39.
4 Reading uu.Civ (orvu.lv 5 1 Tim. iii. 2.

master6." What then, brethren ? Is it possible
to be lowly and subdued in character, moderate,
superior to the love of lucre, wise in things
divine, and trained to virtue and considerateness
in works and ways, without seeing those quali-
ties in one's master? Nay, I do not know how
a man can become spiritual, if he has been a
disciple in a worldly school. For how can they
who are striving to resemble their master fail to
be like him? What advantage is the magnificence
of the aqueduct to the thirsty, if there is no water
in it, even though the symmetrical disposition of
columns ^ variously shaped rear aloft the pedi-
ment8? Which would the thirsty man rather
choose for the supply of his own need, to see
marbles beautifully disposed or to find good
spring water, even if it flowed through a wooden
pipe, as long as the stream which it poured
forth was clear and drinkable? Even so,
brethren, those who look to godliness should
neglect the trappings of outward show, and
whether a man exults in powerful friends, or
plumes himself on the long list of his dignities,
or boasts that he receives large annual revenues,
or is puffed up with the thought of his noble
ancestry, or has his mind on all sides clouded 9
with the fumes of self-esteem, should have
nothing to do with such an one, any more
than with a dry aqueduct, if he display not
in his life the primary and essential qualities
for high office. But, employing the lamp of
the Spirit for the search IO, you should, as far as
is possible, seek for "a garden enclosed, a
fountain sealed11," that, by your election the
garden of delight having been opened and the
water of the fountain having been unstopped,
there may be a common acquisition to the
Catholic Church. May God grant that there
may soon be found among you such an one,
who shall be a chosen vessel, a pillar of the
Church. But we trust in the Lord that so it
will be, if you are minded by the grace of con-
cord with one mind to see that which is good,
preferring to your own wills the will of the Lord,
and that which is approved of Him, and perfect,
and well-pleasing in His eyes ; that there may
be such a happy issue among you, that therein

* S. Luke vi. 40. Cf. Gregory's Treatises On Perfection, What
is the Christian name and profession. Sketch of the aim of True
Asceticism.

7 17 ru>v Kioe uc e7raAAij\o? SeVis. 8 7reT<z<roi>. ' 7repiaim'feTau
t0 For humility and spirituality required in prelates, cf. Origen,
c. Ce/s. viii. 75. " We summon to the magistracies of these
churches men of ability and good life : but instead of selecting the
ambitious amongst these we put compulsion upon those whose deep
humility makes them backward in accepting this general charge of
the Church. Our best rulers, then, are like consuls compelled to
rule by a mighty Emperor : no other, we are persuaded, than the
Son of God, Who is the Word of God. If, then, these magistrates
in the assembly of God's nation rule well, or at all events strictly in
accordance with the Divine enactment, they are not because of that
to meddle with the secular law-making. It is not that the Christians
wish to escape all public responsibility, that they keep themselves
away from such things ; but they wish to reserve themselves for the
higher and more urgent responsibilities [avayKaioTepa AeiToupyi'<j) of
God's Church." " Song of Songs, iv. 12.

538

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

we may rejoice, and you triumph, and the God
of all be glorified, Whom glory becometh for
ever and ever.

LETTER XIV".

TO THE BISHOP OF MELITENE.

How beautiful are the likenesses of beautiful
objects, when they preserve in all its clearness
the impress of the original beauty ! For of your
soul, so truly beautiful, I saw a most clear image
in the sweetness of your letter, which, as the
Gospel says, " out of the abundance of the
heart " you filled with honey. And for this
reason I fancied I saw you in person, and
enjoyed your cheering company, from the affec-
tion expressed in your letter ; and often taking
your letter into my hands and going over it
again from beginning to end, I only came more
vehemently to crave for the enjoyment, and
there was no sense of satiety. Such a feeling
can no more put an end to my pleasure, than it
can to that derived from anything that is by
nature beautiful and precious. For neither has
our constant participation of the benefit blunted
the edge of our longing to behold the sun, nor
does the unbroken enjoyment of health prevent
our desiring its continuance ; and we are per-
suaded that it is equally impossible for our
enjoyment of your goodness, which we have
often experienced face to face and now by
letter, ever to reach the point of satiety. But
our case is like that of those who from some
circumstance are afflicted w^fch unquenchable
thirst ; for just in the same way, the more we
taste your kindness, the more thirsty we become.
But unless you suppose our language to be
mere blandishment and unreal flattery — and
assuredly you will not so suppose, being what
you are in all else, and to us especially good
and staunch, if any one ever was, — you will
certainly believe what I say ; that the favour
of your letter, applied to my eyes like some
medical prescription, stayed my ever-flowing
" fountain of tears," and that fixing our hopes on
the medicine of your holy prayers, we expect that
soon and completely the disease of our soul
will be healed : though, for the present at any
rate, we are in such a case, that we spare the
ears of one who is fond of us, and bury the
truth in silence, that we may not drag those
who loyally love us into partnership with our

ra To Otreius, Rishop of Melitene (in eastern Cappadocia, on or
near the upper Euphrates), to wliost- successor Letoius Gregory ad-
dressed his Canonical Efiit/ea\\<na Penitent- (Cod. Medic). Written
wh<-n Gregory was in ex le under Valen Z-icagni thinks that the
in , the ' .iri'!ii_: cr tic s'n^ here conipl un--'! i>\ re:er to the

troubles. For when we consider that, bereft
of what is dearest to us, we are involved in
wars, and that it is our children that we were
compelled to leave behind, our children whom
we were counted worthy to bear to God in
spiritual pangs, closely joined to us by the law
of love, who at the time of their own trials amid
their afflictions extended their affection to us ;
and over and above these, a fondly-loved l home,
brethren, kinsmen, companions, intimate associ-
ates, friends, hearth, table, cellar, bed, seat, sack,
converse, tears — and how sweet these are, and
how dearly prized from long habit, I need not
write to you who know full well — but not to
weary you further, consider for yourself what
I have in exchange for those blessings. Now
that I am at the end of my life, I begin to
live again, and am compelled to learn the grace-
ful versatility of character which is now in
vogue : but we are late learners in the shifty
school of knavery;2 so that we are constantly
constrained to blush at our awkwardness and in-
aptitude for this new study. But our adversaries,
equipped with all the training of this wisdom,
are well able to keep what they have learned,
and to invent what they have not learned. Their
method of warfare accordingly is to skirmish at
a distance, and then at a preconcerted signal
to form their phalanx in solid order ; they utter
by way of prelude 3 whatever suits their interests,
they execute surprises by means of exaggerations,
they surround themselves with allies from every
quarter. But a vast amount of cunning in-
vincible in power * accompanies them, advanced
before them to lead their host, like some right-
and-left-handed combatant, fighting with both
hands in front of his army, on one side levying
tribute upon his subjects, on the other smiting
those who come in his way. But if you care
to inquire into the state of our internal affairs,
you will find other troubles to match; a stifling
hut, abundant in cold, gloom, confinement, and
all such advantages; a life the mark of every one's
censorious observation, the voice, the look, the
way of wearing one's cloak, the movement of the
hands, the position of one's feet, and everything
else, all a subject for busy-bodies. And unless
one from time to time emits a deep breathing,
and unless a continuous groaning is uttered with
the breathing, and unless the tunic passes grace-
fully through the girdle (not to mention the very
disuse of the girdle itself), and unless our cloak
flows aslant down our backs — the omission of any
one of these niceties is a pretext for war against

KfvapiTw^iecos.

2 Thi passage is very corrupt, and I have put the best sense I
could on the fragmentary words preserved to us (H. C. O.).

3 npokoyi£ovTa.s. But n-poAoxi'foi'Tas would suit the context
better ; I. e. " they lay an ambush wherever their interests are c .u-

full >%vers of I-' ii^t ithiiisol S is', i . oi n M ice Ion us, » li i hid plenty cerned " (H. C. O.).

to find fault with, even in I <• gestures and >•■ c sol the Catholics 4 Or "accompanies their power:** i-jj Swo^ei may go with

(cf. Basd, De .\ in . .S., end . tuiapTei, or with a/caTayu>vi<rros 'H. C. O.).

LETTERS.

539

us. And on such grounds as these, they gather
together to battle against us, man by man 5,
township by township, even down to all sorts
of out-of-the-way places. Well, one cannot be
always faring well or always ill, for every one's
life is made up of contraries. But if by God's
grace your help should stand by us steadily, we
will bear the abundance of annoyances, in the
hope of being always a sharer in your goodness.
May you, then, never cease bestowing on us such
favours, that by them you may refresh us, and
prepare for yourself in ampler measure the~
reward promised to them that keep the com-
mandments.

LETTER XV.

TO ADELPHIUS THE LAWYER6.

I write you this letter from the sacred
Vanota, if I do not do the place injustice by
giving it its local title : — do it injustice, I say,
because in its name it shows no polish. At
the same time the beauty of the place, great as
it is, is not conveyed by this Galatian epithet :
eyes are needed to interpret its beauty. For I,
though I have before this seen much, and that
in many places, and have also observed many
things by means of verbal description in the
accounts of old writers, think both all I have
seen, and all of which I have heard, of no
account in comparison with the loveliness that
is to be found here. Your Helicon is nothing :
the Islands of the Blest are a fable : the Sicyonian
plain is a trifle : the accounts of the Peneus are
another case of poetic exaggeration — that river
which they say by overflowing with its rich
current the banks which flank its course makes for
the Thessalians their far-famed Tempe. Why,
what beauty is there in any one of these places
I have mentioned, such as Vanota can show
us of its own? For if one seeks for natural
beauty in the place, it needs none of the adorn-

5 Kar' avipas, Kai. <5>jjuous, xai e<TYaTt'a«. But the Latin, having
" solitudines," shows that eprjuovs was read for S-q^ovs. We
seem to get here a glimpse of Gregory's activity during his
exile (376-78). Rupp thinks that Macrina's words to her brother
also refer to this period : " Thee the Churches call to help them and
correct them." He moved from place to place to strengthen the
Catholic cause ; " we," he says in the longer Antirrhetic, " who
have sojourned in many spots, and have had serious conversation
upon the points in dispute both with those who hold and those
who reject the Faith." Gregory of Nazianzum consoles him during
these journeys, so exhausting and discouraging to one of his spirit,
by comparing him to the comet which is ruled while it seems to
wander, and by seeing in the seeming advance of heresy only the
last hiss of the dying snake. His travels probably ended in a visit
to Palestine : for his Letter On Pilgrimages certainly presupposes
former visits in which he had learnt the manners of Jerusalem. His
love of Origen, too, makes it likely that he made a private pilgrim-
age (distinct from the visit of 379) to the land where Origen had
chiefly studied.

' <rxoA<WTiicos, or possibly " student," but the title of Ao7«rrij«,
afterwards employed of the person to whom the letter is addressed,
rather suggests the profession of an "advocate," than the occupation
of a scholar.

ments of art : and if one considers what has
been done for it by artificial aid, there has been
so much done, and that so well, as might over-
come even natural disadvantages. The gifts
bestowed upon the spot by Nature who beautifies
the earth with unstudied grace are such as
these : below, the river Halys makes the place
fair to look upon with his banks, and gleams
like a golden ribbon through their deep purple,
reddening his current with the soil he washes
down. Above, a mountain densely overgrown
with wood stretches with its long ridge, covered
at all points with the foliage of oaks, worthy of
finding some Homer to sing its praises more
than that Ithacan Neritus, which the poet calls
"far-seen with quivering leaves7." But the
natural growth of wood, as it comes down the
hill-side, meets at the foot the planting of men's
husbandry. For forthwith vines, spread out
over the slopes, and swellings, and hollows at
the mountain's base, cover with their colour,
like a green mantle, all the lower ground : and
the season at this time even added to their beauty,
displaying its grape-clusters wonderful to behold.
Indeed this caused me yet more surprise, that
while the neighbouring country shows fruit still
unripe, one might here enjoy the full clusters,
and be sated with their perfection. Then, far
off, like a watch-fire from some great beacon,
there shone before our eyes the fair beauty of
the buildings. On the left as we entered was the
chapel built for the martyrs, not yet complete
in its structure, but still lacking the roof, yet
making a good show notwithstanding. Straight
before us in the way were the beauties of the
house, where one part is marked out from an-
other by some delicate invention. There were
projecting towers, and preparations for banquet-
ing among the wide and high-arched rows of
trees crowning the entrance before the gates 8.
Then about the buildings are the Phaeacian.
gardens ; rather, let not the beauties of Vanota
be insulted by comparison with those. Homer
never saw " the apple with bright fruit 9 " as we
have it here, approaching to the hue of its own
blossom in the exceeding brilliancy of its-
colouring : he never saw the pear whiter than
new-polished ivory. And what can one say of
the varieties of the peach, diverse and multi-
form, yet blended and compounded out of
different species ? For just as with those who
paint "goat-stags," and "centaurs," and the
like, commingling things of different kind, and
making themselves wiser than Nature, so it is
in the case of this fruit : Nature, under the
despotism of art, turns one to an almond, an-

1 Cf. Horn. Odyss. ix. 22.

8 The text is clearly erroneous, and perhaps <rre(f>a.vov<ri. is the
true reading : it seems clearer in construction than <TT6<}>avovaat
suggested by Caraccioli. 9 Cf. Horn. Od. vii. 115.

54Q

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

other to a walnut, yet another to a " Doracinus V
mingled alike in name and in flavour. And in
all these the number of single trees is more
noted than their beauty ; yet they display taste-
ful arrangement in their planting, and that
harmonious form of drawing — drawing, I call
it, for the marvel belongs rather to the painter's
art than to the gardener's. So readily does
Nature fall in with the design of those who
arrange these devices, that it seems impos-
sible to express this by words. Who could
find words worthily to describe the road under
the climbing vines, and the sweet shade of their
cluster, and that novel wall-structure where
roses with their shoots, and vines with their
trailers, twist themselves together and make a
fortification that serves as a wall against a flank
attack, and the pond at the summit of this path,
and the fish that are bred there ? As regards
all these, the people who have charge of your
Nobility's house were ready to act as our guides
with a certain ingenuous kindliness, and pointed
them out to us, showing us each of the things
you had taken pains about, as if it were your-
self to whom, by our means, they were showing
courtesy. There too, one of the lads, like a
conjuror, showed us such a wonder as one does
not very often find in nature : for he went down
to the deep water and brought up at will such
of the fish as he selected ; and they seemed no
strangers to the fisherman's touch, being tame
and submissive under the artist's hands, like
well-trained dogs. Then they led me to a
house as if to rest — a house, I call it, for such
the entrance betokened, but, when we came
inside, it was not a house but a portico which
received us. The portico was raised up aloft
to a great height over a deep pool : the base-
ment supporting the portico of triangular shape,
like a gateway leading to the delights within,
was washed by the water. Straight before us
in the interior a sort of house occupied the
vertex of the triangle, with lofty roof, lit on all
sides by the sun's rays, and decked with
varied paintings ; so that this spot almost made
us forget what had preceded it. The house
attracted us to itself; and again, the portico on
the pool was a unique sight. For the excellent
fish would swim up from the depths to the
surface, leaping up into the very air like winged
things, as though purposely mocking us creatures
of the dry land. For showing half their form
and tumbling through the air, they plunged
once more into the depth. Others, again, in
shoals, following one another in order, were a
sight for unaccustomed eyes : while in another
place one might see another shoal packed in a
cluster round a morsel of bread, pushed aside

1 The word seems otherwise unknown. It may be a Graecizing
of the L. itin "duracinus," lor wh.cli cl Plin. XV. xii. n.

one by another, and here one leaping up, there
another diving downwards. But even this we were
made to forget by the grapes that were brought
us in baskets of twisted shoots, by the varied
bounty of the season's fruit, the preparation for
breakfast, the varied dainties, and savoury
dishes, and sweetmeats, and drinking of healths,
and wine-cups. So now since I was sated and
inclined to sleep, I got a scribe posted beside
me, and sent to your Eloquence, as if it
were a dream, this chattering letter. But I
hope to recount in full to yourself and your
friends, not with paper and ink, but with my
own voice and tongue, the beauties of your
home.

LETTER XVI.

TO AMPHILOCHIUS.

I am well persuaded that by God's grace the
business of the Church of the Martyrs is in a
fair way. Would that you were willing in
the matter. The task we have in hand will
find its end by the power of God, Who is able,
wherever He speaks, to turn word into deed.
Seeing that, as the Apostle says, " He Who has
begun a good work will also perform it 2 ", I
would exhort you in this also to be an imitator
of the great Paul, and to advance our hope to
actual fulfilment, and send us so many workmen
as may suffice for the work we have in hand.

Your Perfection might perhaps be informed
by calculation of the dimensions to which the
total work will attain : and to this end I will
endeavour to explain the whole structure by
a verbal description. The form of the chapel
is a cross, which has its figure completed
throughout, as you would expect, by four
structures. The junctions of the buildings
intercept one another, as we see everywhere
in the cruciform pattern. But within the
cross there lies a circle, divided by eight
angles (I call the octagonal figure a circle in
view of its circumference), in such wise that
the two pairs of sides of the octagon which are
diametrically opposed to one another, unite by
means of arches the central circle to the ad-
joining blocks of building ; while the other four
sides of the octagon, which lie between the
quadrilateral buildings, will not themselves be
carried to meet the buildings, but upon each of
them will be described a semicircle like a shell J,
terminating in an arch above : so that the
arches will be eight in all, and by their means
the quadrilateral and semicircular buildings will
be connected, side by side, with the central

1 Cf. Phil. i. 6.

3 Reading KoyxonBox:.

LETTERS.

54i

structure. In the blocks of masonry formed
by the angles there will be an equal number
of pillars, at once for ornament and for strength,
and these again will carry arches built of equal
size to correspond with those within ♦. And
above these eight arches, with the symmetry of
an upper range of windows, the octagonal
building will be raised to the height of four
cubits : the part rising from it will be a cone
shaped like a top, as the vaulting 5 narrows the
figure of the roof from its full width to a pointed
wedge. The dimensions below will be, — the
width of each of the quadrilateral buildings,
eight cubits, the length of them half as much
again, the height as much as the proportion of
the width allows. It will be as much in the
semicircles also. The whole length between
the piers extends in the same way to eight
cubits, and the depth will be as much as will
be given by the sweep of the compasses with
the fixed point placed in the middle of the side 6
and extending to the end. The height will be
determined in this case too by the proportion
to the width. And the thickness of the wall,
an interval of three feet from inside these
spaces, which are measured internally, will run
round the whole building.

I have troubled your Excellency with this
serious trifling, with this intention, that by the
thickness of the walls, and by the intermediate
spaces, you may accurately ascertain what sum
the number of feet gives as the measurement ;
because your intellect is exceedingly quick in
all matters, and makes its way, by God's grace,
in whatever subject you will, and it is possible
for you, by subtle calculation, to ascertain the
sum made up by all the parts, so as to send us
masons neither more nor fewer than our need
requires. And I beg you to direct your at-
tention specially to this point, that some of
them may be skilled in making vaulting ? with-
out supports : for I am informed that when
built in this way it is more durable than what
is made to rest on props. It is the scarcity of
wood that brings us to this device of roofing
the whole fabric with stone ; because the place
supplies no timber for roofing. Let your un-
erring mind be persuaded, because some of the
people here contract with me to furnish thirty
workmen for a stater, for the dressed stonework,
of course with a specified ration along with the

* That is, on an inner line ; the upper row having their supports
at the angles of the inscribed octagon, and therefore at a point
further removed from the centre of the circle than those of the
lower tier, which correspond to the sides of the octagon. Or,
simply, "those inside the building," the upper tier showing in the
outside view of the structure, while the lower row would only be
visible from the interior. There is apparently a corresponding row
of windows above the upper row of arches, carrying the central
tower four cubits higher. This at least seems the sense of the
clause immediately following.

5 Reading eiArjo-e'ws, of which this seems to be the meaning.

6 i. e. of the side of the octagon.
1 Reading eiAtjcrii/.

stater. But the material of our masonry is not
of this sort 8, but brick made of clay and chance
stones, so that they do not need to spend time
in fitting the faces of the stones accurately
together. I know that so far as skill and fair-
ness in the matter of wages are concerned, the
workmen in your neighbourhood are better for
our purpose than those who follow the trade
here. The sculptor's work lies not only in the
eight pillars, which must themselves be im-
proved and beautified, but the work requires
altar-like base-mouldings 9, and capitals carved
in the Corinthian style. The porch, too, will
be of marbles wrought with appropriate orna-
ments. The doors set upon these will be
adorned with some such designs as are usually
employed by way of embellishment at the pro-
jection of the cornice. Of all these, of course,
we shall furnish the materials ; the form to be
impressed on the materials art will bestow.
Besides these there will be in the colonnade
not less than forty pillars : these also will be
of wrought stone. Now if my account has ex-
plained the work in detail, I hope it may be
possible for your Sanctity, on perceiving what is
needed, to relieve us completely from anxiety
so far as the workmen are concerned. If, how-
ever, the workman were inclined to make a
bargain favourable to us, let a distinct measure
of work, if possible, be fixed for the day, so
that he may not pass his time doing nothing, and
then, though he has no work to show for it, as
having worked for us so many days, demand
payment for them. I know that we shall appear
to most people to be higglers, in being so
particular about the contracts. But I beg you
to pardon me ; for that Mammon about whom
I have so often said such hard things, has at
last departed from me as far as he can possibly
go, being disgusted, I suppose, at the nonsense
that is constantly talked against him, and has
fortified himself against me by an impassable
gulf — to wit, poverty — so that neither can he
come to me, nor can I pass to him io. This is
why I make a point of the fairness of the work-
men, to the end that we may be able to fulfil
the task before us, and not be hindered by
poverty — that laudable and desirable evil.
Well, in all this there is a certain admixture of
jest. But do you, man of God, in such ways
as are possible and legitimate, boldly promise in
bargaining with the men that they will all meet
with fair treatment at our hands, and full pay-
ment of their wages : for we shall give all and
keep back nothing, as God also opens to us, by
your prayers, His hand of blessing.

8 i. e. not dressed stone.

9 The cnrelpa is a moulding at the base of the column, equivalent
to the Latin torus.

10 Cf. S. Luke xvi. 26.

542

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

LETTER XVII.

TO EUSTATHIA, AMBROSIA, AND BASILISSA *.

To the most discreet and devout Sisters, Eustathia
and Ambrosia, and to the most discreet and
noble Daughter, Basilissa, Gregory sends
greeting in the Lord.

The meeting with the good and the beloved,
and the memorials of the immense love of the
Lord for us men, which are shown in your
localities, have been the source to me of the
most intense joy and gladness. Doubly indeed
have these shone upon divinely festal days ;
both in beholding the saving tokens2 of the
God who gave us life, and in meeting with
souls in whom the tokens of the Lord's
grace are to be discerned spiritually in such
clearness, that one can believe that Bethlehem,
and Golgotha, and Olivet, and the scene of the
Resurrection are really in the God-containing
heart. For when through a good conscience
Christ has been formed in any, when any has
by dint of godly fear nailed down the promptings
of the flesh and become crucified to Christ,
when any has rolled away from himself the
heavy stone of this world's illusions, and coming
forth from the grave of the body has begun to
walk as it were in a newness of life, abandoning
this low-lying valley of human life, and mount-
ing with a soaring desire to that heavenly
country 3 with all its elevated thoughts, where
Christ is, no longer feeling the body's burden,
but lifting it by chastity, so that the flesh with
cloud-like lightness accompanies the ascending
soul — such an one, in my opinion, is to be
counted in the number of those famous ones
in whom the memorials of the Lord's love
for us men are to be seen. When, then, I not
only saw with the sense of sight those Sacred
Places, but I saw the tokens of places like
them, plain in yourselves as well, I was filled
with joy so great that the description of its
blessing is beyond the power of utterance. But
because it is a difficult, not to say an impossible

1 This Letter was published, Paris 1606, by R. Stephens (not
the great lexicographer), who also translated On lilgrimages into
French for Du Moulin (see p. 382): and this edition was reprinted
a year after at Hanover, with notes by Isaac Casaubon, " viro
Hoc to, sedquod dolendum,in castris Calvinianis militanti " (Gretser).
Heyns places it in 382, and Rupp also.

vuTTjfxa <rv/i/3oAa. Casaubon remarks " hoc est tou #u>TJjpos,
Salvatoris, non autem o-iu-njpi'a? 7roiT)Ti*a." This is itself doubtful ;
and he also makes the astounding statement that both Jerome,
Augustine, and the whole primitive Church felt that visits to the
Sacred Places contributed nothing to the alteration of character.
But see especially Jerome, De Pere^rinat., and Epistle to Mar-
celia. Fronto Ducseus adds, " At, velis nolis, <run)pia sunt ilia loca :
turn quia aspectu sui conla ad pcenitentiam et salutares lacrymas
non rarocommovent, ut patet de Maria jEgypliaca ; turn quia ..."

3 inovpaviov nokirtiav. Even Casaubon (against Du Moulin
here) allows this to mean the ascetic or monastic Life ; " sublimius
propositum." Cf. Macarius, Horn. v. p. 85, «i>apc>TOS iroAireio:
Isidore of Pelusium, lib. I, c. xiv, irvm/iaTiirt) troAiT«ia.

thing for a human being to enjoy unmixed with
evil any blessing, therefore something of bitter-
ness was mingled with the sweets I tasted : and
by this, after the enjoyment of those blessings,
I was saddened in my journey back to my
native land, estimating now the truth of the
Lord's words, that "the whole world lieth in
wickedness *," so that no single part of the in-
habited earth is without its share of degeneracy.
For if the spot itself that has received the foot-
prints of the very Life is not clear of the wicked
thorns, what are we to think of other places
where communion with the Blessing has been
inculcated by hearing and preaching alone s.
With what view I say this, need not be ex-
plained more fully in words ; facts themselves
proclaim more loudly than any speech, however
intelligible, the melancholy truth.

The Lawgiver of our life has enjoined
upon us one single hatred. I mean, that of
the Serpent : for no other purpose has He
bidden us exercise this faculty of hatred, but
as a resource against wickedness. " I will
put enmity," He says, "between thee and
him." Since wickedness is a complicated
and multifarious thing, the Word allegorizes
it by the Serpent, the dense array of whose
scales is symbolic of this multiformity of evil.
And we by working the will of our Adver-
sary make an alliance with this serpent, and so
turn this hatred against one another 6, and per-
haps not against ourselves alone, but against
Him Who gave the commandment ; for He
says, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate
thine enemy," commanding us to hold the foe
to our humanity as our only enemy, and declar-
ing that all who share that humanity are the
neighbours of each one of us. But this gross-
hearted age has disunited us from our neigh-
bour, and has made us welcome the serpent,
and revel in his spotted scales7. I affirm,
then, that it is a lawful thing to hate God's
enemies, and that this kind of hatred is pleasing
to our Lord : and by God's enemies I mean
those who deny the glory of our Lord, be they
Jews, or downright idolaters, or those who
through Arius' teaching idolize the creature, and
so adopt the error of the Jews. Now when
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are
with orthodox devotion being glorified and
adored by those who believe that in a distinct
and unconfused Trinity there is One Substance,
Glory, Kingship, Power, and Universal Rule, in
such a case as this what good excuse for fight-
ing can there be ? At the time, certainly, when

4 1 S. John v. 19.

5 <j/t\ri<; : this word expresses the absence of something, without
implying any contempt : cf. t/<iAb? a^puirot, i^/iAbs A<5yos iprose).

6 tar' aAAiJAuir.

7 tois 7otv Qoki&wv ariynatjiv. For aTiy^a with this meaning
and connexion see Hesiod, Scutum. 166

LETTERS.

543

the heretical views prevailed, to try issues with
the authorities, by whom the adversaries' cause
was seen to be strengthened, was well ; there
was fear then lest our saving Doctrine should
be over-ruled by human rulers. But now, when
over the whole world from one end of heaven
to the other the orthodox Faith is being
preached, the man who fights with them who
preach it, fights not with them, but with Him
Who is thus preached. What other aim, indeed,
ought that man's to be, who has the zeal for
God, than in every possible way to announce
the glory of God ? As long, then, as the Only-
begotten is adored with all the heart and soul
and mind, believed to be in everything that
which the Father is, and in like manner the
Holy Ghost is glorified with an equal amount
of adoration, what plausible excuse for fighting
is left these over-refined disputants, who are
rending the seamless robe, and parting the
Lord's name between Paul and Cephas, and
undisguisedly abhorring contact with those who
worship Christ, all but exclaiming in so many
words, "Away from me, I am holy "?

Granting that the knowledge which they be-
lieve themselves to have acquired is somewhat
greater than that of others : yet can they possess
more than the belief that the Son of the Very
God is Very God, seeing that in that article of
the Very God every idea that is orthodox, every
idea that is our salvation, is included? It in-
cludes the idea of His Goodness, His Justice,
His Omnipotence : that He admits of no
variableness nor alteration, but is always the
same ; incapable of changing to worse or
changing to better, because the first is not His
nature, the second He does not admit of; for
what can be higher than the Highest, what can
be better than the Best? In fact, He is thus
associated with all perfection, and, as to every
form of alteration, is unalterable ; He did not
on occasions display this attribute, but was
always so, both before the Dispensation that
made Him man, and during it, and after it ;
and in all His activities in our behalf He never
lowered any part of that changeless and un-
varying character to that which was out of
keeping with it. What is essentially imperish-
able and changeless is always such ; it does not
follow the variation of a lower order of things,
when it comes by dispensation to be there ; just
as the sun, for example, when he plunges his
beam into the gloom, does not dim the bright-
ness of that beam ; but instead, the dark is
changed by the beam into light ; thus also the
True Light, shining in our gloom, was not itself
overshadowed with that shade, but enlightened
it by means of itself. Well, seeing that our
humanity was in darkness, as it is written,
' They know not, neither will they understand,

they walk on in darkness8," the Illuminator of
this darkened world darted the beam of His
Divinity through the whole compound of our
nature, through soul, I say, and body too, and
so appropriated humanity entire by means of
His own light, and took it up and made it just
that thing which He is Himself. And as this
Divinity was not made perishable, though it in-
habited a perishable body, so neither did it
alter in the direction of any change, though it
healed the changeful in our soul : in medicine,
too, the physician of the body, when he takes
hold of his patient, so far from himself contract-
ing the disease, thereby perfects the cure of the
suffering part. Let no one, either, putting a
wrong interpretation on the words of the Gospel,
suppose that our human nature in Christ was
transformed to something more divine by any
gradations and advance : for the increasing in
stature and in wisdom and in favour, is recorded
in Holy Writ only to prove that Christ really was
present in the human compound, and so to leave
no room for their surmise, who propound that
a phantom, or form in human outline, and not
a real Divine Manifestation, was there. It is
for this reason that Holy Writ records unabashed
with regard to Him all the accidents of our
nature, even eating, drinking, sleeping, weari-
ness, nurture, increase in bodily stature, growing
up — everything that marks humanity, except
the tendency to sin. Sin, indeed, is a miscarriage,
not a quality of human nature : just as disease
and deformity are not congenital to it in the
first instance, but are its unnatural accretions,
so activity in the direction of sin is to be
thought of as a mere mutilation of the goodness
innate in us ; it is not found to be itself a real
thing, but we see it only in the absence of that
goodness. Therefore He Who transformed the
elements of our nature into His divine abilities,
rendered it secure from mutilation and disease,
because He admitted not in Himself the de-
formity which sin works in the will. " He did
no sin," it says, " neither was guile found in his
mouth 9." And this in Him is not to be regarded
in connection with any interval of time : for at
once the man in Mary (where Wisdom built
her house), though naturally part of our sensu-
ous compound, along with the coming upon her
of the Holy Ghost, and her overshadowing with
the power of the Highest, became that which
that overshadowing power in essence was : for,
without controversy, it is the Less that is blest
by the Greater. Seeing, then, that the power
of the Godhead is an immense and immeasur-
able thing, while man is a weak atom, at the
moment when the Holy Ghost came upon the
Virgin, and the power of the Highest over-

8 Ps. Ixxxii. 5.

» 1 Pet. ii. 23.

544

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

shadowed her, the tabernacle formed by such
an impulse was not clothed with anything of
human corruption ; but, just as it was first con-
stituted, so it remained, even though it was man,
Spirit nevertheless, and Grace, and Power ; and
the special attributes of our humanity derived
lustre from this abundance of Divine Power *.
There are indeed two limits of human life : the
one we start from, and the one we end in : and
so it was necessary that the Physician of our
being should enfold us at both these extrem-
ities, and grasp not only the end, but the
beginning too, in order to secure in both the
raising of the sufferer. That, then, which we
find to have happened on the side of the finish
we conclude also as to the beginning. As at
the end He caused by virtue of the Incarnation
that, though the body was disunited from the
soul, yet the indivisible Godhead which had
been blended once for all with the subject (who
possessed them) was not stripped from that
body any more than it was from that soul, but
while it was in Paradise along with the soul,
and paved an entrance there in the person of
the Thief for all humanity, it remained by
means of the body in the heart of the earth, and
therein destroyed him that had the power of
Death (wherefore His body too is called " the
Lord 3" on account of that inherent Godhead) —
so also, at the beginning, we conclude that the
power of the Highest, coalescing with our entire
nature by that coming upon (the Virgin) of the
Holy Ghost, both resides in our soul, so far as
reason sees it possible that it should reside
there, and is blended with our body, so that
our salvation throughout every element may be
perfect, that heavenly passionlessness which is
peculiar to the Deity being nevertheless pre-
served both in the beginning and in the end of
this life as Man 3. Thus the beginning was not
as our beginning, nor the end as our end. Both
in the one and in the other He evinced His

1 Compare Gregory against Apollinaris (Ad Theophil. iii. 265) :
"The first-fruits of humanity assumed by omnipotent Deity were,
like a drop of vinegar merged in a boundless ocean, found still in
that Deity, but not in their own distinctive properties : otherwise
we should be obliged to think of a duality of Sons." In Orat. Cat.
c 10, he says that the Divine nature is to be conceived as having
been so united with the human, as flame is with its fuel, the
former extending beyond the latter, as our souls also overstep
the limits of our bodies The first of these passages appeared to
Hooker (V. liii. 2) to be "so plain and direct for Eutyches," that
he doubted whether the words were Gregory's. But at the Council
of Ephesus, S. Cyril (of Alexandria), in his contest with the Nes-
toiians, had showed that these expressions were capable of a
Catholic interpretation, and pardonable in discussing the difficult
and mysterious question of the union of the Two Natures.

a S Matt, xxviii. 6. " Come see the place where the Lord lay."
Cf. S. John xx. 2, 13.

3 " Here is the tnie vicariousness of the Atonement, which
< 'insisted not in the substitution of His punishment for ours, but in
1 1: 'ilTering the sacrifice which man had neither the purity nor the
1 to offer. From out of the very heart or centre of human
nature . . . there is raised the sinless sacrifice of perfect humanity
by the God Man. ... It is a representative sacrifice, for it consists
of no unheard-of experience, of no merely symbolic ceremony, but
of just those universal incidents of suffering, which, though he must
have felt them with a bitterness unknown to us, are intensely
human. " Lux Mundi, p. 218.

Divine independence ; the beginning had no
stain of pleasure upon it, the end was not the
end in dissolution.

Now if we loudly preach all this, and
testify to all this, namely that Christ is the
power of God and the wisdom of God,
always changeless, always imperishable, though
He comes in the changeable and the perish-
able ; never stained Himself, but making clean
that which is stained ; what is the crime that
we commit, and wherefore are we hated ? And
what means this opposing array* of new Altars?
Do we announce another Jesus ? Do we hint
at another ? Do we produce other scriptures ?
Have any of ourselves dared to say " Mother of
Man " of the Holy Virgin, the Mother of God s :
which is what we hear that some of them say
without restraint ? Do we romance about three
Resurrections 6? Do we promise the gluttony of
the Millennium ? Do we declare that the Jewish
animal -sacrifices shall be restored? Do we
lower men's hopes again to the Jerusalem below,
imagining its rebuilding with stones of a more
brilliant v material? What charge like these
can be brought against us, that our company
should be reckoned a thing to be avoided, and
that in some places another altar should be
erected in opposition to us, as if we should
defile their sanctuaries ? My heanb jfras & -a
state of burning indignation ^algou* mis : and
now that I have set foot if the City ? again, I
am eager to unburden my soul of its bitterness,
by appealing, in a letter, to your love. Do ye,
whithersoever the Holy Spirit shall lead you,
there remain ; walk with God before you ;
confer not with flesh and blood ; lend no occa-
sion to any of them for glorying, that they may
not glory in you, enlarging their ambition by
anything in your lives. Remember the Holy
Fathers, into whose hands ye were commended
by your Father now in bliss 8, and to whom we

* djrefayioy?).

5 As early as 250, Dionysius of Alexandria, in his letter to Paul
of Samosata, frequently speaks of 17 Seoroicos Mapt'a. Later, in the
Council of Ephesus (430), it was decreed that " the immaculate and
ever-Virgin mother of our Lord should be called properly (icvpiws)
and really fleo-roicos," against the Nestorian title xP'totokos. Cf.
Theodoret. Anath. I. torn. iv. p. 709. "We call Alary not Mother
of Man, but Mother of God ; " and Greg. Naz. Or. li. p. 738, " If
any one call not Mary Mother of God he is outside 'divinity.' "

6 fxrj rpets avaGrdaeis fxvOoirot.ovfji€v ; For the first Resurrection
(of the Soul in Baptism) and the second (of the Body), see Rev.
xx. 5, with Bishop Wordsworth's note.

1 i. e. Csesarea in Cappadocia.

8 Basil, probably : who after Cyril's exile had been called in to
heal the heresy of Apollinaris, which was spreading in the convents
at Jerusalem. The factious purism, however, which Gregory de-
plores here, and which led to rival altars, seems to have evinced
itself amongst the orthodox themselves, "quo niajorem apud omnes
opinionemde sua praestantia belli isti cathariexcitarent " (Casaubon).
Cyril, it is true, had returned this year, 382 ; and spent the last
years of his life in his see ; but with more than twenty years inter-
val of Arian rule (Herennius, Heraclius, and Hilarius, according to
Sozomen) the communities of the Catholics must have suffered from
want of -a constant control : and unity was always difficult to main-
tain in a city frequented by all the ecclesiastics of the world. Gregory
must have " succeeded " to this charge in his visit to Jerusalem after
the Council of Antioch in 379, to which he refers in his letter On
Pilgrimages : but it is possible that he had paid even an earlier
visit : set Letter XIV. p. 539, note 5.

LETTERS.

545

by God's grace were deemed worthy to succeed :
and remove not the boundaries which our
Fathers have laid down, nor put aside in any
way the plainness of our simpler proclamation
in favour of their subtler school. Walk by the
primitive rule of the Faith : and the God of
peace shall be with you, and ye shall be strong
in mind and body. May God keep you uncor-
rupted, is our prayer.

LETTER XVIII.

TO FLAVIAN?.

Things with us, O man of God, are not in
a good way. The development of the bad
feeling existing amongst certain persons who
have conceived a most groundless and un-
accountable hatred of us is no longer a matter
of mere conjecture ; it is now evinced with an
earnestness and openness worthy only of some
holy work. You meanwhile, who have hither-
to been beyond the reach of such annoyance,
are too remiss in stifling the devouring con-
flagration on your neighbour's land ; yet those
who are well-advised for their own interests
really do take pains to check a fire close to
them, securing themselves, by this help given
to a neighbour, against ever needing help in like
circumstances. Well, you will ask, what do I
complain of? Piety has vanished from the
world ; Truth has fled from our midst ; as for
Peace, we used to have the name at all events
going the round upon men's lips ; but now not
only does she herself cease to exist, but we do
not even retain the word that expresses her.
But that you may know more exactly the things
that move our indignation, I will briefly detail
to you the whole tragic story.

Certain persons had informed me that the
Right Reverend Helladius had unfriendly feel-
ings towards me, and that he enlarged in convers-
ation to every one upon the troubles that I had
brought upon him. I did not at first believe what
theysaid, judging onlyfrom myself,and the actual
truth of the matter. But when every one kept
bringing to us a tale of the same strain, and
facts besides corroborated their report, I thought
it my duty not to continue to overlook this ill-
feeling, while it was still without root and de-
velopment. I therefore wrote by letter to your
piety, and to many others who could help me

9 The date of this letter is probably as late as 393. Flavian's
authority at Antioch was now undisputed, by his reconciliation,
after the deaths of Paulinus and Evagrius, with the Bishops of
Alexandria and Rome, and, through them, with all his people.
Gregory writes to him not only as his dear friend, but one who had
known how to appease wrath, and to check opposition from the
F.mperor downward. He died in 404. The litigiousness of Hella-
dius is described by Greg. Naz., Letter ccxv. He it was who
a few years later, against Ambrose's authority, and for mere private
interest, consecrated the physician Gerontius (Sozomen, viii. 6).

in my intention, and stimulated your zeal in
this matter. At last, after I had concluded the
services at Sebasteia in IO commemoration of
Peter 1 of most blessed memory, and of the holy
martyrs, who had lived in his times, and whom
the people were accustomed to commemorate
with him, I was returning to my own See, when
some one told me that Helladius himself was
in the neighbouring mountain district, holding
martyrs' memorial services. At first I held on
my journey, judging it more proper that our
meeting should take place in the metropolis
itself. But when one of his relations took the
trouble to meet me, and to assure me that he
was sick, I left my carriage at the spot where
this news arrested me ; I performed on horse-
back the intervening journey over a road that
was like a precipice, and well-nigh impassable
with its rocky ascents. Fifteen milestones
measured the distance we had to traverse.
Painfully travelling, now on foot, now mounted,
in the early morning, and even employing some
part of the night, I arrived between twelve and
one o'clock at Andumocina ; for that was the
name of the place where, with two other bishops,
he was holding his conference. From a shoulder
of the hill overhanging this village, we looked
down, while still at a distance, upon this out-
door assemblage of the Church. Slowly, and
on foot, and leading the horses, I and my
company passed over the intervening ground,
and we arrived at the chapel 2 just as he had
retired to his residence.

Without any delay a messenger was de-
spatched to inform him of our being there ;
and a very short while after, the deacon in
attendance on him met us, and we requested
him to tell Helladius at once, so that we
might spend as much time as possible with
him, and so have an opportunity of leaving
nothing in the misunderstanding between us
unhealed. As for myself, I then remained
sitting, still in the open air, and waited for the
invitation indoors ; and at a most inopportune
time I became, as I sat there, a gazing stock to
all the visitors at the conference. The time
was long ; drowsiness came on, and languor,
intensified by the fatigue of the journey and
the excessive heat of the day; and all these
things, with people staring at me, and pointing
me out to others, were so very distressing that
in me the words of the prophet were realized :
" My spirit within me was desolate 3." I was kept

10 Sebasteia {Sivtis) was in Pontus on the upper Halys : and the
"mountain district" between this and Helladius' "metropolis"
(Caesarea, ad Argaeum) must have been some offshoots of the Anti-
Taurus.

1 His brother, who had urged him to write the books against
Eunomius, and to whom he sent On the Making of Man.

2 /uapTuptu). »'■ *• dedicated in this case to Peter; but the word is
used even of a chapel dedicated to Christ.

3 T)/o)6iacT6V. Ps. cxliii. 4 (LXX.).

VOL. V.

N N

546

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

in this state till noon, and heartily did I repent of
this visit, and that I had brought upon myself
this piece of discourtesy ; and my own reflection
vexed me worse than this injury done me by
my enemies *, warring as it did against itself,
and changing into a regret that I had made the
venture. At last the approach to the Altars
was thrown open, and we were admitted to the
sanctuary ; the crowd, however, were excluded,
though my deacon entered along with me, sup-
porting with his arm my exhausted frame. I
addressed his Lordship, and stood for a moment,
expecting from him an invitation to be seated ;
but when nothing of the kind was heard from
him, I turned towards one of the distant seats,
and rested myself upon it, still expecting that
he would utter something that was friendly, or
at all events kind ; or at least give one nod of
recognition.

Any hopes I had were doomed to com-
plete disappointment. There ensued a silence
dead as night, and looks as downcast as in
tragedy, and daze, and dumbfoundedness,
and perfect dumbness. A long interval of
time it was, dragged out as if it were in the
blackness of night. So struck down was I by
this reception, in which he did not deign to
accord me the merest utterance even of those
common salutations by which you discharge the
courtesies of a chance meetings, — "welcome,"
for instance, or " where do you come from ? "
or " to what am I indebted for this pleasure ? "
or "on what important business are you here?"
— that I was inclined to make this spell of silence
into a picture of the life led in the under-
world. Nay, I condemn the similitude as in-
adequate. For in that underworld the equality
of conditions is complete, and none of the
things that cause the tragedies of life on
earth disturb existence. Their glory, as the
Prophet says, does not follow men down
there ; each individual soul, abandoning the
things so eagerly clung to by the majority here,
his petulance, and pride, and conceit, enters
that lower world in simple unencumbered
nakedness ; so that none of the miseries of
this life are to be found among them. Still 6,
notwithstanding this reservation, my condition
then did appear to me like an underworld, a
murky dungeon, a gloomy torture-chamber ;
the more so, when I reflected what treasures
of social courtesies we have inherited from
our fathers, and what recorded deeds of it we
shall leave to our descendants. Why, indeed,
should I speak at all of that affectionate dispo-

4 \a.\enuiTepov rij? napa Tutv e\8pCov fioi yevo/acVrjs >i/3peu)?.
The Latin does not express this, "quam si ah hostibus pro.'ecta
fuisset."

5 tuiv (caTTj/uafeufie'ccoi' (so Pars Editt. and Migne, hut it must
be Ka0i7fxa^eup<V(jif , from a^iafa) toutuji>ttji> <rvvni\itiv a'/joo-iovixei/aji'.

0 rrAijc aAA' e/xoi, k. r. A. Sec note, | >. J13.

sition of our fathers towards each other? No
wonder that, being all naturally equal ?, they
wished for no advantage over one another, but
thought to exceed each other only in humility.
But my mind was penetrated most of all with
this thought ; that the Lord of all creation, the
Only-begotten Son, Who was in the bosom of
the Father, Who was in the beginning, Who
was in the form of God, Who upholds all things
by the word of His power, humbled Himself
not only in this respect, that in the flesh He
sojourned amongst men, but also that He wel-
comed even Judas His own betrayer, when he
drew near to kiss Him, on His blessed lips ;
and that when He had entered into the house
of Simon the leper He, as loving all men, up-
braided his host, that Pie had not been kissed
by him : whereas I was not reckoned by him
as equal even to that leper ; and yet what was
I, and what was he? I cannot discover any
difference between us. If one looks at it from
the mundane point of view, where was the
height from which he had descended, where
was the dust in which I lay? If, indeed, one
must regard things of this fleshly life, thus much
perhaps it will hurt no one's feelings to
assert that, looking at our lineage, whether as
noble or as free, our position was about on a
par ; though, if one looked in either for the
true freedom and nobility, i. e. that of the soul,
each of us will be found equally a bondsman
of Sin ; each equally needs One Who will take
away his sins ; it was Another Who ransomed
us both from Death and Sin with His own
blood, Who redeemed us, and yet showed no
contempt of those whom He has redeemed,
calling them though He does from deadness
to life, and healing every infirmity of their
souls and bodies.

Seeing, then, that the amount of this con-
ceit and overweening pride was so great,
that even the height of heaven was almost
too narrow limits for it (and yet I could see
no cause or occasion whatever for this diseased
state of mind, such as might make it excusable
in the case of some who in certain circum-
stances contract it ; when, for instance, rank
or education, or pre-eminence in dignities of
office may have happened to inflate the vainer
minds), I had no means whereby to advise my-
self to keep quiet : for my heart within me was
swelling with indignation at the absurdity of
the whole proceeding, and was rejecting all the
reasons for enduring it. Then, if ever, did I
feel admiration for that divine Apostle who so
vividly depicts the civil war that rages within
us, declaring that there is a certain "law of sin
in the members, warring against the law of [he

1 if o(jiotiVw tji tjivtTei. Cf oi tytdrijioi, the peers of the Persian
kingdom.

LETTERS.

547

mind," and often making the mind a captive,
and a slave as well, to itself. This was the
very array, in opposition, of two contending
feelings thr.t I saw within myself: the one, of
anger at the insult caused by pride, the other
prompting to appease the rising storm. When,
by God's grace, the worse inclination had
failed to get the mastery, I at last said to him,
"But is it, then, that some one of the things
required for your personal comfort is being
hindered by our presence, and is it time that
we withdrew?" On his declaring that he had
no bodily needs, I spoke to him some words
calculated to heal, so far as in me lay, his ill-
feeling. When he had, in a very few words,
declared that the anger he felt towards me was
owing to many injuries done him, I for my
part answered him thus : " Lies possess an
immense power amongst mankind to deceive :
but in the Divine Judgment there will be no
place for the misunderstandings thus arising.
In my relations towards yourself, my conscience
is bold enough to prompt me to hope that I
may obtain forgiveness for all my other sins,
but that, if I have acted in any way to harm
you, this may remain for ever unforgiven."
He was indignant at this speech, and did not
suffer the proofs of what I had said to be added.
It was now past six o'clock, and the bath had
been well prepared, and the banquet was being
spread, and the day was the sabbath 8, and a
martyr's commemoration. Again observe how
this disciple of the Gospel imitates the Lord of
the Gospel : He, when eating and drinking with
publicans and sinners, answered to those who
found fault with Him that He did it for love
of mankind : this disciple considers it a sin and
a pollution to have us at his board, even after
all that fatigue which we underwent on the
journey, after all that excessive heat out of
doors, in which we were baked while sitting at
his gates ; after all that gloomy sullenness with
which he treated us to the bitter end, when we
had come into his presence. He sends us off
to toil painfully, with a frame now thoroughly
exhausted with the over-fatigue, over the same

8 Cf. Dies Dominica (by Thomas Young, tutor of Milton the
poet): 'It's without controversie that the Oriental Christians, and
others, did at that time hold assemblies on the Sabbath day. . . .
Yet did they not hold the Sabbath day holy," p. 35. Again,
" Socrates doth not record that they of Alexandria and Rome did
celebrate those mysteries on the Sabbath. While Chrysostom re-
quireth it of the rich Lords of Vil 'ages, that they build Churches in
them {Horn. 18 in Act.), he distinguished those congregations that
were on other days from those that were held upon the Lord's day.
'Upon those congregations (a-wa^ti?) Prayers and hymns were
had, in these an oblation was made on every Lord's day,' and for
that cau>e the Lord's day is in Chrysostom called, ' dies panis '.
Athanasius purgeth himself of a calumny imputed to him for
breaking the cup, because it was not the time of administering the
holy mysteries ; ' for it is not,' saith he, ' the Lord's day.'" A law
of Constantine had enacted that the first day of the week, " the
Lord's day," should be observed with greater solemnity than
formerly ; which shows that the seventh day, the Sabbath, still
held its place; and it does not follow that in remoter places, as
here, both were kept. The hour of service was generally " in the
evening aftersunset ; orin the morning before the dawn," Mosheim.

distance, the same route : so that we scarcely
reached our travelling company at sunset, after
we had suffered many mishaps on the way.
For a storm-cloud, gathered into a mass in the
clear air by an eddy of wind, drenched us to
the skin with its floods of rain ; for owing to
the excessive sultriness, we had made no pre-
paration against any shower. However, by
God's grace we escaped, though in the plight
of shipwrecked sailors from the waves : and
right glad were we to reach our company.

Having joined our forces we rested there that
night, and at last arrived alive in our own
district ; having reaped in addition this result
of our meeting him, that the memory of all that
had happened before was revived by this last
insult offered to us ; and, you see, we are
positively compelled to take measures, for the
future, on our own behalf, or rather on his be-
half ; for it was because his designs were not
checked on former occasions that he has pro-
ceeded to this unmeasured display of vanity.
Something, therefore, I think, must be done on
our part, in order that he may improve upon
himself, and may be taught that he is human,
and has no authority to insult and to disgrace
those who possess the same beliefs and the
same rank as himself. For just consider ; sup-
pose we granted for a moment, for the sake of
argument, that it is true that I have done some-
thing that has annoyed him, what trial 9 was
instituted against us, to judge either of the fact
or the hearsay? What proofs were given of
this supposed injury? What Canons were
cited against us? What legitimate episcopal
decision confirmed any verdict passed upon
us? And supposing any of these processes
had taken place, and that in the proper way,
my standing1 in the Church might certainly
have been at stake, but what Canons could
have sanctioned insults offered to a free-born
person, and disgrace inflicted on one of equal
rank with himself? "Judge righteous judg-
ment," you who look to God's law in this matter ;
say wherein you deem this disgrace put upon
us to be excusable. If our dignity is to be
estimated on the ground of priestly jurisdiction,
the privilege of each recorded by the Council 2
is one and the same ; or rather the over-
sight of Catholic correction 3, from the fact
that we possess an equal share of it, is so. But
if some are inclined to regard each of us by
himself, divested of any priestly dignity, in

Pa9u.b

y (CpiTTJptOf.

1 Tor /3a0fibi/ i.e. "a grade of honour": cf. i Tim. iii. 13.
,6v JauT0i9 koA'ov nepnroiovvTai. So in the Canons often.
The Council of Constantinople.
3 the oversight of Catholic collection. "On July 30. 381, the
Bishop of Nyssa received the supreme honour of being named by
Theodosius as one of the acknowledged authorities in all matters of
theological orthodoxy : and he was appointed to regulate the affairs
ot the Church in Asia Minor, conjointly with Helladius of Caesarea,
and Otreius of Melitene : " Farrar's Lives of the Fathers, 1889.

N N 2

548

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

what respect has one any advantage over the
other; in education for instance, or in birth
connecting with the noblest and most illustrious
lineage, or in theology? These things will be
found either equal, or at all events not inferior,
in me. " But what about revenue?" he will say.
I would rather not be obliged to speak of this in
his case; thus much only it will suffice to say,
that our own was so much at the beginning,
and is so much now ; and to leave it to others
to enquire into the causes of this increase of
our revenue 4, nursed as it is up till now, and
growing almost daily by means of noble under-

4 He is speaking of the funds of his Diocese, which at one period
certainly he bad been accused of mismanaging.

takings. What licence, then, has he to put an
insult upon us, seeing that he has neither
superiority of birth to show, nor a rank exalted
above all others, nor a commanding power of
speech, nor any previous kindness done to me ?
While, even if he had all this to show, the fault
of having slighted those of gentle birth would
still be inexcusable. But he has not got it ;
and therefore I deem it right to see that this
malady of puffed-up pride is not left without a
cure ; and it will be its cure to put it down to
its proper level, and reduce its inflated dimen-
sions, by letting off a little of the conceit with
which he is bursting. The manner of effecting
this we leave to God

APPENDIX.

The other Treatises of Gregory are as follows
(the order is that of the first Paris Edition, 1615,
and Gretser's Appendix, 161 8).

1. Apologetic on the Seven Days.

So called because it was a defence of the words of
Moses ; and aiso an explanation of Basil's " Seven
Days."

It was translated into Latin by L. Sifanus (Basle,
1562), and P. F. Zinus (Venice, 1553). It is in 9 Paris
MSS. and one at Leyden (not older than cent. 15).

2. On the words " Let us make man in our

image and likeness."

Two Homilies. He explains what this creation
was, and thence proves the pre-eminence of man ;
lastly, some moral truths are based on this manner
of creation, different to that of brutes.

They are found after Basil's " Seven Days," and
on the strength of this Tilman edited them under
his name (Paris, 1666). But this work of Basil's
was itself incomplete, as Jerome, Photius, Suidas,
testify ; and Fabricms defends these homilies as
Gregory's : so also Zinus (who translated them) and
others.

3. On the Life of Moses.

A mystical treatise, exhorting to Christian Per-
fection, the type of which is to be found in Moses ;
but perfection is infinite, and in this life unattainable.
There is a fine passage at the end on the disinterested
love of God.

It was translated by G. Trapezuntius, and edited
by J. Gremperius (Basle, 15 17) : translated by J.
Leunclavius, and edited with notes by D. Hoeschel
(Leyden, 1593).

4. On the titles of the Psalms.

"Contains subtle allegorizing and fancies " (Du
Pin).

It was translated by Jacob Gretser, the Jesuit
(Ingoldstadt, 1600, 1617) : and had been previously
edited by Maximus Margunius (Venice, 1585),
Bishop of Cylhera. Many MSS. of the Escurial
have it.

5. Homily on the Eighth Day (Circumcision),

and Sixth Psalm.

Sifanus and Maximus Maiguntus translated it.

6. An accurate exposition of Ecclesiastes.

Eight Homilies (the last imperfect). Partly
practical, partly allegorical. Septuagint used.

A translation by Gentian Hervetus is corrected by
F. Ducaeus in his notes.

P. Pos-anus asserts (Prologue to Thesaur. Ascetic.
Paris, 1684), that he has ready for publishing this
Commentary of Gregory complete, copied from the
Roman MS., much superior to the Paris : but this
edition never appeared.

7. An accurate exposition of the Song of

Songs.
Fifteen Homilies. In the Preface he determines
that the sense must be allegorical.

Translated by Hervetus and Leunclavius. Zinus
and Livineius translated an exposition of the Song
of Songs, collected from the commentaries of
Gregory, Nilus, and Maximus.

8. On Prayer.

Five Homilies. The last four are a careful ex-
planation of the Lord's Prayer (" lectu dignissimae,"
P"abricius).

Translated by Sifanus ; and by Galesinius, with
a Preface (Rome, 1565). Translated and edited by
J. Krabinger (Munich, 1832). Leo Allatius thinks
a passage in them on the Procession of the Holy
Ghost has been corrupted by the Greeks.

9. On the Beatitudes.

These Homilies are cited in the acts of the
Council of Ephesus, by Theodoret, and by John of
Damascus.

Translated by Sifanus and Galesinius.

10. On 1 Corinthians xv. 28.

Written at the request of a friend. He defends
the "subjection of the Son" from any Arian in-
terpretation. Oudin judges the treatise spurious, or
interpolated, because it is full of Origen's thought,
and seems inconsistent with Gregory's other treatises;
but without reason.

Translated by Hervetus.

11. On Genesis i. 26 (See No. 2).

It explains why the Angels are not said to be
created in the ' image ' of God. Methodius' opinions
about Adam and Eve, and about the origin of souls
are cited. Some have attributed it to Anastasius
Sina'ita.

Translated by Fronto Ducseus with notes (In-
goldstadt, 1596).

12. To Theodosius (the Bishop), on the Ven-

triloquist.

He asserts that a demon, and not Samuel (there
is a gulf between the good and bad), appeared to
Saul. This was an opinion of many ancient
Doctors.

Translated by Ducaeus (Ingoldstadt, 1596).

13. On his Ordination.

This title is wrong. He was made bishop in
372 : this was preached in 394. John of Damascus
cites it as "On the appointment of Gregory in Con-
stantinople," i. e. to have the rights of a Metro-
politan. See ' Prolegomena,' p. 7.

Translated by Ducaeus.

14. Against Apollinaris.

A fragment. Refutes the charge of Apollinaris,
that the orthodox make the Trinity quadruple ; and
defends the Angels serving man.

15. On love of the Poor.

A pathetic description of the vagabond poor, and
a moving exhortation to liberality.

Translated by Zinus ; and edited by Gretser (from
the Vienna Ms.), Ingoldstadt, 1617, wiih ix't-'s by
Fronto Ducaeus.

55o

APPENDIX.

1 6. Against Fate.

A dispute with a heathen philosopher in 382 at
Constantinople. Gregory shows that if Fate is the
influence of the stars, which are always changing
their position, on a man's natal hour, then that in-
fluence ought to change when their position is
chnnged. A reduction to an absurdity.

It was edited in Latin at Strasbourg, 1512 ; and
at Ingoldstadt (by Fronto Ducaeus), 1600.

17. To the Greeks, from Universal Ideas.

It deals with all the expressions used in explaining
the Trinity.

F. Morel's Latin accompanies it in the Paris
Editions.

18. On the Soul.

This is the second and third chapters of Nemesius
"On the Nature of Man." Christ. F. Matthaeus,
in his edition of Nemesius, has collected many
authorities to show that it is not Gregory's. Schroeckh,
in his history, contradicts himself on this point. It
was inserted in Gregory by some copyist who
thought his Making of Man was not complete with-
out it.

19. Letter to Letoius, Bishop of Melitene (in

Cappadocia).

"A canonical Epistle." So called because it
gives eight rules for as many classes of penitents.
Letoius is exhorted to ascertain above all things the
disposition and behaviour of the penitent.

This has been more than once edited, with or
without the canonical Epistles of the Fathers, with
the scholia of Balsamon, Zonaras, and Aristenus
(Paris, 1561, 1618, 1620).

It was edited separately by Antonius Augustinus,
with notes (Venice, 1589); and with Hervetus'
translation (Augsburg, 1 591).

20. Against those who defer Baptism.

An earnest effort to dissuade Catechumens from
the danger of dying in their sins.
Translated by Hervetus.

21. On 1 Corinthians vi. 18.

Translated by Hervetus.

22. On the Woman who was a sinner.

This, according to Fabricius, is the work of
Asterius of Amasea, not Gregory's. It is so cited
by Photius (Codex cclxxi. ).

Translated by Zinus.

23. On Pentecost.

Only in the Latin of Zinus, in Paris Editions.

Zacagni first edited the Greek (Collectanea Monu-
ment, vet., Rome, 1699), with his own version ;
from three Vatican MSS.

24. Against the Usurers.

The Divine prohibitions of usury cited : usury
breaks all the laws of charity.

25. Against the Jews, on the Trinity.

All the critics pronounce this spurious, for the
single reason that the name of Chrysostom is found
in it. Zacagni has nevertheless reported from the
inspection of one Vatican MS., that the words about
Chrysostom are imported into the text. If, then,
the witness of MSS. is doubtful, the question must
still be decided by the evidence of style : and this is
distinctly too poor and meagre to be Gregory's.

In Latin only, in Paris Editions: the Greek
edited by Zacagni (as above, No. 23).

26. On the Difference of Oiinia and 'Xiruaraaiq.

" The style proclaims that it is Basil's" (Fabricius).

Three Paris MSS., one Venice, and one Vienna
also attest this. The Council of Chalcedon also
acknowledged it to be Basil's. Basil sent it to his
brother (Basil, T. iii. p. 23. Letter 38).

It was translated by Johan. Cono (Cologne, 1537),
and by Sifanus.

27. Ten Syllogisms against the Manichees.

To prove that evil is not an ovma, but a nonentity;
and that its father the Devi! is not Un^enerate
(Ayfi'i'»/roc).

Translated with notes by Fronto Ducaeus.

28. Against Apollinaris.

To Theophilus of Alexandria. Proves that the
Word, who appeared to the Patriarchs, really be-
came flesh : in such a manner that the Divine
properties were ascribed to the complete human
nature.

Translated with notes by Fronto Ducaeus.

29. What is the Christian name and profession?

He defines it the " imitation of God," and
answers the objection that we cannot imitate God.

Translation by Maximus Margunius (Venice, 1585),
and Sifanus (Leyden, 1593).

30. On Perfection.

To the monk Olympius. A distinction, in passing,
is drawn between First-born and Only-begotten.

Translation by Maximus Margunius. It was
edited with Zinus' translation (Venice, 1574; Leyden,

1593)-

31. Sketch of the aim of true Ascetism.

The Christian virtues are enumerated and shown
to be intimately united. Mutual intercourse is
especially dwelt upon.

This sketch was first edited and translated by F.
Morel, separately (Paris, 1606).

32. To those who resent reproof.

A bishop's severity must not be complained of.
It proceeds from the whole Church. He (Gregory)
had to suffer many injuries himself from the
reprobate.

Translated by Herveti'.s ; first edited, Paris,
Sebast. Nivell., 1573.

33. On the Birth of Christ.

The Sermon begins upon the way to keep the
Day. Old Testament prophecies noticed : and also
some apocryphal legends, about the Virgin's mother,
and her own training by the Priests : also about
Zacharias' death. The murder of the Innocents
vividly described. Reproduced in parts in Cyril
against the Anthropomorphites.

Translated by Zinus ; Joach. Camerarius' trans-
lation (Leipsic, 1564) appeared in Hoeschel's edition
(Leipsic, 1587). Notes by Ducaeus in Paris Editions.

34. On St. Stephen.

The Divinity of the Holy Spirit cleared from
the objection that the Martyr, at the moment of his
death, saw only the Two Persons : the Divinity of
the Son, from the objection that He was seen
"standing at the right hand of God." Suidas de-
fends the authenticity of this striking sermon.

Translated by Zinus and Sifanus. Edited by
Hoeschel (Augsburg, 1587) ; notes by Ducaeus in
Paris Editions.

35. On the Holy Passover.

On the great importance of the Feast (of Easter).
The "three days" discussed, and allegorized from
Isaiah. An account of the Resurrection.

Translated by Sifanus and Ducaeus. Edited by
Joach. Camerarius (Leipsic, 1564).

APPENDIX.

551

36. On Christ's Resurrection.

Reconciles the Evangelists' accounts of the Resur-
rection. An early instance of a Harmony. Com-
beficius thought it must be by another hand than the
preceding sermon, because 6\pl (To/3f3arwv (S. Matt,
xxviii. 1) is, as he thought, differently explained in
the two'. But Gregory does not in the first, any
more than in the second, explain 6i//i by ^<T7rtpac.

Translated by Ducaeus.

37. On the Great Lord's Day.

A fine discourse on the importance of Easter.
The possibility, and then the necessity of the
Resurrection shown.

38. On the Passover.

An exhortation to the right keeping of Easter.

Translated by Sifnnus. Edited by Joach. Came-
rarius (Leipsic, 1563), and by Henric. Oeschlegel,
with explanatory and theological notes (Dresden,
1628).

39. On the Light-bringing and Holy Resur-

rection.

The humility of Christ expounded from Isaiah ;
and then His triumph. From the way in which
the subject is handled Tillemont (p. 275) has
thought that this Homily was written by a late
Greek academic ; but all the MSS. give it to
Gregory.

Translated by F. Morel : edited separately (Paris,
1600).

40. On the Ascension.

Quotes from Psalms xxiii. and xxiv., and praises
the Sacred Poet for his help in the right keeping of
the Great Feasts.

Translated by Sifanus and Zinus.

41. On the Meeting of the Lord.

This is spurious, because this Festival (of the
vircnravrfi, or "meeting of the Lord," by Simeon
in the Temple) was not instituted till the year 542,
under Justinian ; Cedrenus (p. 366) is the authority
for this. See Bingham's ' Origines,' vol. ix. p. 184
(1722).

42. On the Deity of the Son, and of the Spirit.

He compares some men of his own time to the
Athenians who were eager "to tell, or to hear some
new thing ; " and Heretics, to the Stoics and Epicu-
reans of S. Paul's time, refuting some of their
opinions upon the Trinity, and ending with an
encomium of Abraham (quoted by Theodoret, John
Damasc., Adrian I., and Euthymius). Preached at
Constantinople.

Translated by Sifanus, Joach. Camerarius, and
Hervetus (Augsburg, 1591).

43. Funeral Oration on Basil.

He compares his great brother to S. John the
Baptist, and S. Paul. Though extravagant at times
in its language, this oration contributes much to the
knowledge of Basil's character.

44. Praise of the Forty Martyrs.

Two Sermons. The first does not deal with the
subject, but is an address to the overflowing congre-
gation in the Martyrium. The second, next day in
the Cathedral of Nyssa, tells the story of these
Martyrs, and calls their mothers blest. The Day of
these Martyrs is connected with an incident in
Gregory's early life.

45. Funeral Oration on Pulcheria.

He consoles Theodosius and Flacilla for the loss
of their daughter, universally beloved. It is clear
from this that Gregory was very intimate with the
Emperor and Empress.

46. Funeral Oration on Flaccilla.

Bewails " the shrine of chastity, the majestic
gentleness, the noble humility, the free-spoken
modesty (r) TrurafjpriaKKj/xl-i't) m't'oic) . . . the orna-
ment of the Altars . . . the common refuge of the
afflicted," lost in the Empress. She died 384.

47. On the Life of Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus.

Mentions his great attainments in theology, philo-
sophy, and rhetoric ; his integrity of life ; his educa-
tion by Firmilian. Compares him to Moses, except
only in celibacy. Narrates his visions, and the
wonders that he worked. This Life was written as a
counterfoil to the Neoplatonic 'Lives of Saints,'
and must not be judged altogether by a modern
standard. It is called by Suidas "a very admirable
encomium," and for the facts about Thaumaturgus,
see Socrates, H. E. iv. 27.

Gerard Voss' translation and notes on this are found
in the Works of Thaumaturgus (Mayence, 1604).
Hervetus also translated it.

48. Praise of Theodore the Martyr.

The Martyr, a soldier who suffered under Diocle-
tian, is called upon to save the Empire from another
" Scythian " invasion, as he had already done in the
past. This is certainly an Invocation, not a mere
Apostrophe, of the Saint. For this invasion (of
Armenia) in the time of Gregory, which has been
doubted, see Jerome, Letter 30. Tillemont (1. c.
p. 275) answers objections rising from difference of
style.

Translated by Sifanus and Zinus.

49. Praise of our Holy Father Ephraem.

He extols this illustrious saint of an obscure
country for his excellences both of mind and heart;
and compares him to Basil.

Asseman, in his preface to Ephraem Syrus' Works,
has gone carefully into the question of genuineness.
A translation with the notes of G. Voss was prefixed
to Ephraem's Works (Rome, 1589).

50. To Mourners for the Departed.

Death is only a change to a Life that is really
blest ; its good things are infinite ; Death is not an
evil.

51. On Repentance.

This is considered spurious on the authority of
Photius, who attributes it to Asterius of Amasea
(Cod. cclxxi. ).

52. On the Life of the Holy Macrina.

A letter to Olympius. It describes his sister's
girlhood, and her care for her brother's education ;
her docility and piety, and her death.

Written about 380. Translated by Zinus.

53. Praise of the Forty Martyrs.

Narrates further details (see No. 44) of the
dreadful treatment which they received from the
Emperor. Seems part of the former Sermons ; but
Fabricius says " In addition to the two former."

54. On the Beginning of the Fasts.

Cited by Photius under the name of Asterius of
Amasea (Cod. cclxxi.).

The Paris Editions omit the longer —

55. Antirrhetic against Apollinaris.

Begins with a vehement invective against his book
on the Incarnation of the Word. This Antirrhetic
sees the light in order to refute the charges made by
the people of Sebaste against their Bishop, Gregory's
brother ; and to avert the danger to the true Faith.

552

APPENDIX.

It ranks Apollinaris with Arius and Eunomius ; he
even surpasses them in blasphemy. The fragment
ahove (No. 14) seems part of this.

Zacagni edited this (Collect. Monum. vet. pp. 123
— 237. Rome, 1699) from a Vatican MS. of the 7th
century. The style, the thoughts, the very same
words as in other Polemics of Gregory, prove it to be
his. It is also quoted as his. There is no clue to
the date, except that the author says (c. iv. ) that lie
had heard, by travelling (probably during his exile,
374-78) in various localities, the religious opinions
of many orthodox, and of many heretics. Zacagni
places it between 373 and the Council of Constanti-
nople ; Schroeckh much later. This work also
exists in two Florence MSS. " A remarkable
work" (P'abricius).

56. Another Praise of St. Stephen.

It begins with a tribute to the surpassing excel-
lence of the First Martyr ; and finds many' al-
legories in his name. It goes on to commemorate
SS. Peter, James, and John. " Bodily weakness
did not allow of the completion " of the discourse
on S. Stephen the day before (No. 32) ; and so, on
the Day of these three Apostles, he completes it.
S. Stephen's Day, therefore, just preceded this
Saints' Day.

Edited by Zacagni from the Vatican MS.

57. Letter to the Monk Evagrius.

A discourse on 'Deity.' Commonly attributed
to the Nazianzene ; but many Vienna MSS. give it
to the Nyssene ; and Euthymius in his Panoplia
cites it as his.

58. Letter to a certain John on certain Questions,

and on the Life and Disposition of
his sister Macrina, so much beloved.

There are no words sufficient to describe his
present misery ; troubles in Galatia ; discord and im-
morality at Babylon. He exhorts John (probably a
bishop), together with his people, to have services
of intercession. Macrina's death delayed the sending
of this letter : her life described.

This and the four following were edited by J. B.
Caraccioli. See ' Prolegomena,' p. 31.

59. Letter to Bishop Ablabius.

A most courteous exhortation that he should alter
his licentious life.

60 and 61. To the Bishops.

Two very short letters in which he complains of
some men of the time : and calls upon one to give
an account of himself.

62. To the Heretic Heracleanus.

Expounds the nature of the Trinity: without
separation, difference, confusion. Opinions about
the Faith must harmonize with the truths of Holy
Baptism. The Divine properties enumerated.

63. Against Arius and Sabellius.

Edited by Angelo Mai from the Vatican MS.
(Script. Vet. Nova Collectio, Rome, 1833).

64. On the Procession of the Holy Spirit from

the Son (see No. 63).
The style throws doubts upon its genuineness.
Edited by A. Mai.

The chief groups, then, of these translations
and editions which preceded the two Paris
Editions, are as follows. It will be seen that it
was long before the complete works of Gregory-
were collected.

1. Several Moral Treatises, translated by Zinus,
were printed by Vascosanus (Venice, 1550).

2. Several Treatises translated by Sifanus were

printed at Basle, 1562 : and, with the
Canticles and Letter to Flavian, reprinted
at Basle, 1567.

3. Some Orations were edited by Hoeschel

(Augsburg, 1564).

4. Almost all Gregory's Works, with the

versions (Sebast. Nivell., Paris, 1573).

5. Eight Treatises, including the Antirrhetic
against Apollinaris, and against Fate, trans-
lated by Fronto Ducaeus (Ingoldstadt,
1600).

The Editions of parts or whole, after the
Paris, are as follows : —

6. Zacagni's collection, viz. Fourteen Letters,
the Antirrhetic against Apollinaris, and
Another Praise of St. Stephen (Rome,
1698).

7. Caraccioli's collection, viz. Seven Letters

(Florence, 1731).

8. Cardinal Angelo Mai's edition, viz. Against

Macedonius, and Against Arius and Sa-
bellius (Rome, 1833).

9. Krabinger's Editions : On the Soul and the

Resurrection, Leipsic, 1837 ; Great Cate-
chism, and On Meletius(see Edit.), Munich,
1838; On Prayer, Landshut, 1840.

10. Forbes's Edition : Hexaemeron and The

Making of Man (Burntisland, 1855, 1861).

11. Opera Omnia. Migne. Paris, 1858.

3 Vols.

12. Opera Omnia. Ceillier. Paris, i860.

13. Oehler published in four vols (1858, 1859)
an Edition of the Greek text, with a German
version of the following treatises : — On
the Soul and the Resurrection ; Life of
Macrina; The Great Catechism; On Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost; To Simplicius; On
the Trinity ; To Eustathius ; On Universal
Ideas ; On the Making of Man ; five
sermons on Prayer ; On Virginity, and On
the Beatitudes. This is independent of
his First Vol. of all the Works, published
at Halle, 1865.

GENERAL INDEX TO GREGORY OF NYSSA.

Abel, 81, 92, 145, 299.

Ahimelech, 282.

Ablabius, question put by, 331.

Abraham, 52, 94; history of, alle-
gorized, 259 ; faithful, 282 ;
"father of the crowd," 291 ; a
sojourner, 325, 447; bosom of,

447-

Acephali, 509.

Activities (see Energies).

Adam, 81, 92, 145, 290 sq., 299, 313 ;
Humanity created in, 41 1 sq.,4.67.

Adelphius, 439.

Adoption, son of God by, 163, 183 sq.

/Eon, 50, 297.

Aetius, a serf, 39 ; avocations of, 39
sq. ; an Aristotelian, 39 ; with
Gallus, 40 ; with George, 40 ;
Eunomius compared to, 238 ; his
aim, 474.

Affusion. 503.

Ahab, 522.

Alexander the Great, his love of
friendship, 530.

Alexandria, synod of, 24.

Alexandrine philosophy, 475.

Allegory, higher and lower, 476.

Altar, "horns" of the, 461 ; conse-
crated, 519.

Amalthea, horn of, 294.

Ambrosia, 542.

Ancyra (Angora), 5.

Anlumocina, 545-

Angel, name of, used of Moses and
John the Baptist, 234 ; in what
sense used of the Son, 235 ; the
Angel " of the earth," 480.

Angels, perfections of, II ; place of,
444 ; " guardian," 480 ; lapsed,
444, 4S0 ; orders of, 199 ; the
Son placed on a level with, by
Eunomius, 156, 237; in what
sense eternal, 209 sq. ; immortal,
309 ; address to the, 325 ; equal-
ity with, 360, 371, 518 ; the Son
superior to, 235 ; how multiplied,
407.

Anger, uses of, 363, 443; is it a second
soul ? 439 ; definitions of, 440,
441.

Animals, kinds of, 76.

Annesi, 6, 7.

Anointed, the, 321

Anomceans, 39, 47, 56, 75, 80 sq., 96,

474-

Anthropomorphic language in Scrip-
ture, 63, 93, 204, 274, 293.

Antioch, burial of Meletius at, 513;
Church of, 514 sq.; Council of,
43°, 544-

Ants, questions as to the nature of,

220.
Apollinaris, 18, 544.
Apology, the " Great Catechism " an,

12 ; why Eunomius wrote his,

41.
Apostle, author of the epistle to the

Hebrews called the, 94.
Aquinas, 9.

Arabia, church in, 6, 383.
Architecture of a church described,

540-41.
Argseus, Mt., 46.
Ariadne, crown of, 294.
Arianism, akin to Gnosticism, 50 ;

the later, 474 ; repudiated, 529 ;

alliance of world-powers with,

543-
Aristotle, 39, 50, 96, 97, 269, 29 1,

439, 441-
Anus, 39, 81, 238, 542.
Ark, contents of the, 515; use of the

word, 517.
Armenia, 33.
Art implies mind, 436.
Asceticism, Elijah and the Baptist,

models of, 351.
Aseroth, 294.
Assyria, pride of, 498.
Astringent flavour in Life, 379.
Astronomy, the Ptolemaic, 257, 373,

433. 434-.
Athanasius, bishop of Ancyra, 39.
Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, 17,

24, 28^., 54, 60, 70, 547.
Atheist, 270 ; how to deal with an,

474-
Athenians, Anomoeans compared to,

171.
Athens, 2.
Atonement, too little room in this

life left by Gregory for the,

483-
Attic Greek, Eunomius attempts, 41,

79-

Attributes, the Divine, common to the
Three Persons, 51, 57, 60 sq., 69,
78,82^., 131,317,327, 542; in
reference to God's dealing with
the Creation, 119 sq. , 298, 476 ;
and human, 180 sq. ; expressive
of operation, 329 ; not expressive
of the Divine Nature, 333 ; per-
fection in all, proves the Unity,
474 ; evinced in the Incarnation,
491.

Augentius, 32, 450.

Augustine, S., 23, 356.

Avarice, a sign that Baptism has effect-
ed no change, 508.

Babylon, 6, 516.

Babylonians, the religion of, 172 sq.,
283.

Bamlinus, 31.

Baptism, the Holy Spirit in, 12, 322,
507, 519 ; why not to be deferred,
13 ; why trine immersion in,
502-3, 520; " for the dead, " 62 ;
of Christ, 158, 322 ; Eunomius
on, 239 ; terms expressive of,
500 ; regeneration in analogous
or bodily generation, 501 ; proof
of the presence of Deity in, 501-2;
a mortification, 503, 519 ; neces-
sary cause of a blessed Resurrec-
tion, 504 ; faith at, 506 ; free
choice in, 506 ; not the facul-
ties of mind, but the bad will
changed in, 508; effect of, 519,
520 ; types and prdphecies of, in
O. T., 521 sq.

Baptismal regeneration, 62, 65, 159,
501, 508, 519, 520.

Baptismal formula, the, a rule of
saving doctrine, 101 sq., 1 17,
321, 507, 528, 529.

Baronius, 382.

Baruch, 101.

Basil the Great, author of Gregory';
style, 2, 533; his prophecy about
his brother, 3 ; defends him, 3 ;
of the newer Nicene school, 24 ;
defines inroaTaaiq, 25; treatises of,
sometimes attributed to Gregory,
32 ; attempts to save Eunomius,
35; "no deep divine," 43;
charges the jury against Euno-
mius, 43 ; courage against Valens,
48, 49 ; rejects the term Un-
generate, 85, 86 ; objects to
Eunomius' teem " follow," 96 ;
Liturgy of, apparently cited, 104,
113, 177 ; defence of, by S.
Gregory, 172 sq., 1 75 sq., 187
sq., 249 ; his exposition of Acts
ii. 36, 171 sq., 187 sq. ; his teach-
ing on essence and individuals,
193 ; his argument on the eternal
generation, 207 ; fights in the
van, 251 ; on the significance of
the names of God, 263, 301, 303 ;
accused of being a pagan as to
the origin of language, 269 ; his
account of a certain species of
mental conception, 284, 285 ; il-

1 lustrates the Divine nature by
the analogies of "corn," 286,
289 ; shows the true meaning of
Ungenerate, 312, 313 ; compared
to an eagle, 314; his character.

554

GENERAL INDEX TO GREGORY OF NYSSA.

as a pattern, 370 ; Hexaemeron
of, 387 ; his testimonial to Li-
banius, 533 ; sainted, 35, 314,

544-
Basil of Ancyra, 38, 41.
Basilical, 307.
Basil ides, 238, 473.
Basilissa, 542.
Bavarian Codex, 30.
Beautiful, the, 9, 11 ; retrocession

from, 355, 479 ; no limit to,

450-
Beauty, a perfect type of, 355, 449 ;

intellectual, in man, 480.
Beginning, of the Son's existence,

involves — (1) beginning of the

Father's, 68 ; (2) an end of the

Son's, 207-10.
Beginninglessness of the Son, 99,

140, 213, 319 ; of the Holy

Spirit, 319.
" Being," no greater and less in, 52 ;

Eunomius' idea of, 65 ; held by

him to be a "dignity," 228;

how a misleading term, 253.
Bellarmine, 7, 382, 516.
Benedictine Edition, 31.
Benjamin, tribe of, 221.
Berkeley, 19.
Bethlehem, 383, 542.
Bishops, marriage of, 3 ; election of,

by people, 536 sg. ; spirituality

in, 537- .

Bithynia, 48.

Bodleian Codex, 31.

Body, contents of the, 71 ; its struc-
ture discussed, 393-5, 422-6.

Bostra, 7.

Brain, relation of, to mind, 397 sg.

Bubble, a, illustrations from, 181,
194 ; life in the body compared
to, 432.

Bull, Bishop, 2, 100.

Bush, the Burning, 520.

Csesarea, 1, 4

Caesareus Codex, the, 31.

Camel, swallowing the, 46.

Canonical Letter, 550.

Canons of the Church, 547.

Cappadocia, 1, 46, 49 ; climate of,
532 ; boors of, 532, 534 ; the
first bishop of, 536.

Caraccioli, 31, 539.

Casaubon, Isaac, 382, 477, 490, 513,
542.

Catechism, the Great, genuineness of,
471.

Catechumen, 15.

Cause, the First, 84, 375, 477.

Celibacy not in itself Virginity, 364

Cerinthus, 238.

Ghanaan (in Galatia), 39, 40.

"Change" in the Resurrection, 461.

Cherubim, 64.

Children, illustrations from the con-
duct of, 98, 193, 224, 258.

Christ, the baptism of, 158 ; in what
sense He refuses the title of
"Good," 231 sg. ; the Good*
Husband, 361 ; miracles of, 415-
17; Captain of our salvation,
503 ; assumes manhood in its
fulness, 519, 544, but still a

sinless manhood from the very
beginning, 543-44; sanctifies all
Christian action, 519; His God-
head was present in His burial
both with soul and with body,
544 (see God t fie Soti).

Church, the teaching of the, on the
Trinity, 57, 84-5 ; on the peculi-
arities of each Person, 6j, 323
sg.

Circe, legend of, 161.

Circumcision, 59.

Clement of Alexandria, 23, 309.

Codices, 30, 31.

Coeternity of the Son, 100, 140, 213,
475 sg.

Cold, theory of, 367.

Colours in painting, 445.

Coluthus, 238.

Comforter, meaning of the term, 128,
129.

Communicatio idiomatum, 180 — 190,
485.

Conception (mental), results of, 268 ;
definition of, 268, 284 ; meta-
phor a species of, 285 ; names
spring from, not from nature,

305-
Concision, school of the, 59.
Conjunction, 96.
Consecration, effect of, 519.
Constantinople, 7, 43.
Constantius, 47.
Consubstantiability, 61, 79, 80, 84,

253, 288, 323, 327 sg., 338, 542

(see God).
Continence, proves that the passions

are not of the soul's essence, 440
Contradict ionless, appellative of Deity,

II.
Contradictories, 86, 98.
Conversion (logical), 86.
Corniaspa, 38, 46.
Cornseed, S. Paul's use of analogy

from the, 466.
Correlative terms, misuse of, 164.
Corruption, belongs to composite

natures, 199, 437.
Council, of Constantinople, 315, 547 ;

of Antioch, 430 ; of Ephesus,

544-

Creation, the, changeable 9, 60, 61,
507 ; time and space background
of, 69 sg. ; by 'the Word, in,
476 ; no comparison between the
things of, 166 ; over against the
Creator, II, 194; not eternal,
208 sg. ; twofold division of,
375, 458 ; of the Universe, 388,
389 ; of man, 480 ; of man, why
delayed, 390, 391, 441; the result
of a double operation, 388, 389 ;
paradox of, 458 ; preaching of,
432 ; harmony of, 480.

Creationism, 19.

Creator, n, 69, 70; not identical
with Father, 287.

Cross, the form of, explained, 176,
499, 500 ; charge of being
ashamed of, 174 sg. • regarded
by Eunomius as a sign of in-
feriority, 176; sign of, 238;
wood of, 519, 520.

Cynegius, 530, 533, 534

Cyril, S., of Jerusalem. 315, 383, 544.
Cyril, S., of Alexandria, 509, 544.
Cyzicus, 46, 47.

Dacora, 46.

Damascene, S. John, 249, 494, 509.

Damasus, 5.

Daniel, 282, 283, 325, 371, 401 ;
desire of, 443 ; skill of, 515.

Danube, the, 49.

David, 52, 63, 67 ; not changed in
nature by being made king, 190,
272 ; patience of, 282, 296 ; in
ecstacy, 354; the "Prophet,"
64, 356, 377. 489; the great,
381 ; gentleness of, 515.

Death, spiritual, 210 ; abhorrence of,
430 ; in life, 463 ; Christ's, pre-
arranged, 500.

Definition of 'Eirivota, 268.

"Deify," to, 344, 502.

Demiurge, the, of Marcion, 473 ; not
Satan, 480.

Democritus, on the origin of lan-
guage, 269.

Demophilus, 515.

Demosthenes the cook, 49 ; the
orator, 247.

Desire, nature of, 403, 407, 410 ;
not consubstantial with the soul,
439 ; definitions of, 440 ; uses of,
442, 443 ; to pass into Love, 449,

450-

Devil, the, fell by envy, 480, 481 ;
corrupts man's will, 481 ; ran-
som paid to, 492, 493 ; is de-
ceived, 494 ; salvable, 444, 495.

Diametric opposition, law of, 99 ;
applied in medicine, 367.

Dionysiu-- of Alexandria, 544.

Dionysius Exiguus, 32.

Distinction, not division, in the Trin-
ity, 477-

Divine attributes, the (see Attributes').

Docetism, prevention of, 543.

Doctrine of the Church (see Church).

"Doctrines of devils," 352.

Domitianus, 40.

" Door," meaning of the name, 221.

Dorner, 23.

Dreams, phenomena of, 400 sg.

Du Moulin, P., 382, 542.

Dualism, 82, 231, 458, 474

Ducseus, Fronto, 31, 32, 342, 372,
382, 504.

Earsus, $29.

Easter, whv after the vernal equinox,

527, 528.
Ecclesiastes, 260, 321.
Economy, the, of the Incarnation,

484-94.
Egypt, the land of sorrow, 350.
Egyptians, the, religion of, 172, 291 ;

mourning of, 514.
Elijah, his greatness, 351.
Elisha, 519, 520, 522.
Emanations, 15, 17, 50, 60, 473.
Emmelia, 3.
Empedocles, 453, 454.
" Emptying," 178 sg.
End or, Wi'tch of, 328, 549.
Energies, the Divine, 50, 55, 58, 65,

124,287^., 377, 486.

GENERAL INDEX TO GREGORY OF NYSSA.

555

Envy, the first sin, 481 ; personified
by Gregory, 513, 514.

Ephesus, burning of the Temple of,
41.

Ephraem Syrus, 551.

Epicharmus, 434.

Epicurus, his atoms, 262 ; on the
origin of words, 269 ; his nature-
system, 291 ; thought that the
soul was a bubble, 432.

Epiphany, the, Feast of, 5 1 8.

Eschatology, 452, 496.

Essence of God, incomprehensible,
103, 146, 262 sq., 377 ; ineffable,
103, 146, 147, 260 sq., 308;
difference in, involves polytheism,
163 ; not divided by generation,
109 sq. ; distinct from generation
and ungeneracy, 143 sq., 169,
267, 298.

Eternal Generation, the, 70, 94, 207
sq., 288,

Eternity, 97, 200, 296.

Eucharist, the, unites the body with
the Author of salvation, 504 ;
how myriads can partake of the
Body of Christ in, 505-6 ; the
bread changed by the Word in,
506, 519.

Eudoxius, 47, 312.

Euippius, 48.

Eunomius, his birthplace, 38, 46;
early life, 40 ; addiction to Aetius,
40; logic, 38 ; style, 37, 41, 79,
263, 266, 286, 311 ; three written
attacks upon the Trinity, 33, 35 ;
terms of abuse for, and charges
against, Basil of Csesarea, 45, 85,
96, 171, 182, 207, 216, 217,
269, 270, 281, 286, 295, 307;
abuse of Basil of Galatia, 38 ;
abuse of Eustathius, 38; " Trials"
of, 41, 43, 307 ; bishop of Cyzicus,
47 ; resting of his teaching, 49,
50 ; his new terms for the Per-
sons, 51 ; holds relative inferior-
ity, plurality of beings, in Trinity,
51, 53, 108, 131, 134; talks of
energies and works in Trinity,
54, 58, 65, 71 ; his "series of
natures," "natural order," 72,
74, 135 sq.; attacks consubstan-
tiality, 79, 199, 255 ; his syllo-
gisms about the Ungenerate, 86,
88, 89 ; central point of his sys-
tem, 97, 100, 256 ; strangeness of
his term Ungenerate, 51,276, 277,
281 ; his further arguments to
prove that the Father's essence
is ungeneracy, 252, 256, 298 ;
contends that ungeneracy is not
predicated as a conception, 254

sq.;

affects horror at human

conception naming God, 265,
286, 296, 309 ; implies that the
Son is not eternal, 94, 105, 222 ;
his teaching on the "likeness"
of the Son to the Father, 76, 123;
his theories of Divine generation,
55. 93. 94, "5 ^., 152 sq.,
207 sq., 214 ; his attacks on
Basil cited, 79, 86, 174-175, 2S6,
313 ; his teaching as to the " one
and only true God," 104-5 ; his

teaching as to the indivisibility of
the Divine essence, 105, 256 ;
denies that the Son shares in
Father'sglory, 106, 107, 1 18; his
teaching on the created Nature of
the Son, 111,251, 287 sq.; asserts
a beginning of the Son's existence,
Il8 sq., 211 sq., 255 ; his view
of the " obedience " of the Son,
121, 122 ; his teaching on the
Incarnation, 126, ij&sq., 1855^.;
claims the "use of the saints"
in support of his opinions, 136,
137 ; reproaches the orthodox
with ignorance of the " Divine
Nature," 147, 256 ; his tendency
to deny the Generation of the
Son, 153, 155 ; represents the
Son as a part of Creation, 155,
156 ; his view of the meaning of
" Only-begotten," 167 ; his view
of the KEi/iuffic examined, 178 sq.,
185 sq. ; holds the Godhead of
the Son to be passible, 182, that
the term "Lord" signifies es-
sence, 191, that the term "Spirit"
signifies the essence of the Son,
193 ; his views of the relation and
origin of names, 193, 195, 196,
282 sq., 290, 305 ; his reply to
Basil's argument on the Eternal
Generation, 207^.; teaches that
the Father determined the time
of the Son's existence, 211 sq.,
255; his dictum "that God has
authority over His own power,"
212 ; holds that Divine genera-
tion has an end, 214 ; his theory
of the dominant Essence, 226
sq. ; his teaching on Sacraments,
238 ; says that Baptism is " into
a Creator and Artificer," 239;
his contrast between "generate"
and " ungenerate " Lights, 242
sq. ; makes generation the essence
of the Son, 252 ; his account of
Conception, 267, 268 ; a new
God-maker, 270, 283, 288 ; con-
tends that names are prior to
those who use them, 277 ; his
argument about the names of
Christ in Scripture, 279, 280,
285 sq.; compares Basil's account
of names to that of Epicurus, and
of Aristotle, 29 1; asserts that un-
generacy, and indestructibility are
identical, 288, 297, 301, 303,
306, and not privative terms, 310
sq. ; makes Plato's theory a doc-
trine of the Church, 291 ; point
at issue between him and the
Church, 299; says that the Son
"exists by participation " in the
Deity, 313 ; his knowledge of
Scripture, 295; his flock, 312;
arguments of, from particular
passages of Scripture, examined,
viz. from Prov. viii. 22, 63, 117
sq., 137 sq., from Acts ii. 36,
172-190, from S. John xx. 1 7,
240 sq., from Genesis i. 3-26,
271 sq., from Psalm cxlvii. 4,
292-4; arguments of, censured on
various grounds, viz. for misuse

of terms, 101,114, 124,131,135,
142, 151, 158, 170, 195, 228, 252,
287, 300, for inconsistency, 55>
57, 159, 160, 161, 216, 223,
253, 281, for logical errors, or
erroneous method, 52, 56, 74. 87,
89, 163, 164, 165, 167, 105,
213-4, 242, 247-8, 267, 285, 286,
302, 306, for solecisms in ex-
pression, 65, 71, 72, 77, 97, 132,
230, 233 ; doctrines of, censured
on various grounds, viz., as in-
volving, either denial of the God-
head of the Son, or the idea of
plurality in the Godhead, 107,
the assertion that the Son is evil,
62, a dualism more pronounced
than that of Marcion, 231, or of
Manes, 82, 83, the assertion that
the Divine Nature is composite,
62, 247 ; compared to, or called,
Antichrist, 239, Arius, 238,
Bardesanes, 231, Coluthus, 238,
Demosthenes, 247, 248, a Gnos-
tic, 283, Goliath, 250, a Jew,
52, 59, 105, 108, 223, 234,
Manes, 83, 230, 231, 238, Mar-
cion, 231, Nicolaus, 238, Philo,
212, Plato, 108, Sabellius, 223,
229, 254.

Euphrasius, 535.

Eusebius of Chalcis, 527.

Eustathia, 542.

Eustathius of Sebasteia, 24, 38, 41,

538-

Euthymius, 32.

Eutychianism, 485, 502, 544.

Evagrius, 545.

Eve, temptation of, 410, 5*9-

Evil, genesis of, 9, 15, 83, 398 ; com-
pared to the shadow of an eclipse,
41 1; non-existent, 436, 480,481 ;
finite, 410 sq.; not the occasion
of our birth, 456 ; connected
with multitude, 467, 542.

Existence may be real, though not
independent, 225.

" Existent," title of, withheld from
the Son, 223.

Exodus, miracle of language in the,
276.

Ezekiel, his vision of the bones, 461.

Faith at Baptism, 506.

Fall, the, 9, 10, 20, 126, 409, 411,

481, 518, 519.
Falsehood, different kinds of, 46.
Father (see God).
Feast of Life, the, 379.
Fiat, why Redemption not effected

by a, 487.
" Filioqtie," 1 00.

Finite, the, II ; problems as to, 458.
Fire, the purgatorial, 451, 468, 495,

496.
Firmilian, I.
First-born, discussion of the term, 112-

13. 157 sq. '

First-fruits, meaning of the term as
applied to Christ, 1 13, 241.

Flacilla, 7, 313, 514, 595.

Flavian, Bishop of Anlioch, 545.

Food not necessary in the future state,
409, 463.

556

GENERAL INDEX TO GREGORY OF NYSSA.

Forbes, G., 3 1.

Free-will, in sinning, 357, 457.
Funeral of Meletius, 517.
Furniture of the Tabernacle, 515.

Galatia, 38, 46, 48.

Galen, JI.

Galesinius, 32, 357.

Gallus, 40.

Gardens, description of, 539, 540.

Genealogy of Christ in S. Luke, 313.

Generate, the, 95, 100, 247 ; classed
by Eunomius with the destruct-
ible, 311.

•Generation, Eunomius' views of, 76
sq., 109 sq., 115 sq., 152 sq., 159,
160, 169, 202, 206, 223, 224;
does not divide the substance,
109 sq. ; various modes of nat-
ural, 114, 204; natural, how
employed to illustrate Divine,
114, 115, 204, 205; Divine,
admits of no material or temporal
ideas, 93, 94, 114, "5- *44,
152, 214, 215 ; not identical
with essence, 143, 223, 252 ;
does not involve alienation of
essence, 143 ; implies identity of
■essence, 146, 160 ; contrast be-
tween Divine and material, 93,
152 ; does not always involve
passion, 94, 155, 159, 488 ;
Divine, is " without interven-'
lion," 165, 166 ; term used by
Eunomius as equivalent to
"making," 170; said by Eu-
nomius to alienate from the
Father, 78, 223 sq., 256 ; of the
Son, regarded by Eunomius as
following an act of will, 202,
eternal, 70, unique, 206, 271,
denotes a difference in attribute
only, 254, does not imply differ-
ence of Nature, 338.

Geometry, origin of, 268.

George of Cappadocia, 40.

George of Laodicasa, 39.

German MSS., 365.

(Jermanicia, 47.

Germanus, 14.

Ghosts, 448.

Glauber, 32.

Glory, revolving circle of, in the
Trinity, 324.

Gnosticism, Eunomius teaches, 50,
283 ; aim of, 473.

Gnostic phraseology, 214.

God, relation of, to matter, 413 sq. ;
penetrates the world, 432 ; con-
templation of, the reward here-
after, 354 sq., 375 sq., 453; is
Uncreate Spirit, 253 ; not Sub-
stance, 253 ; never (fXovoc, 475 ;
incapable of change, 543 ; His
goodness the cause of the Incar-
nation, 491 sq. ; shall be "all
in all," 452 ; name of, used in
the singular in Scripture, 336,
and not to be used in the plural,
331 sq. ; the word applied to
inferior existences, 328.

God, the Father, called by Eunomius
" a supreme and absolute Being,"
50; distinctions of, 61 ; "prior-

ity" of, would contravene the
eternity, 67, 68 ; " native dig-
nity" of, 78 ; ungenerate, 84, 85,
92, 242, 252 sq., 267; is always
Father, 89, 90, 102, 144, 299 ;
use of the name implies belief in
the Son, 102, 169 ; co-operates
in the Incarnation, 186 ; non-
existence of, involved in non-
existence of the Son, 207 ; said
by Eunomius to be alien from
generation, 223 sq. ; exists "in
the Son," 225 ; essence of, said
by Eunomius to attract to itself
the conception of the Existent,
226 sq., simplicity of, not iden-
tical with ungeneracy, 252-54,
as unknowable as that of the
soul, 263 ; orthodoxy does not
consist in naming, 263 ; ineffable
and incomprehensible, 99, 256,
260, 264 ; still not unnameable,
265 sq., 309 ; has no vocal utter-
ance, 271, 272, 306, 478.
God, the Son, called by Eunomius
"another Being," 50, 51, " in-
ferior," 52, 176, "product of an
energy," 58, 288, "product of
generation," 135, "seal of the
energy of the Father," 124 sq. ;
honouring means loving, 67 ; dis-
tinctions of, 61, 208 ; creation
by, 63, 66, in, 136, 140, 158,
237> 476, 478 ; separate from
creation, 63, 69 ; of providential
power equal to the Father's, 76 ;
Light of Light, 70, 84, 94, 100 ;
is always in the Father, 70, 94,

99, 102, 213, 475 ; "oneness"
of, with the Father, more than
a union of wills, 81 ; generated,
91, 92, 206, 253, 254, 2S8 ; His
identity of will with Father, 76,
272 ; has the power and glory of
the Father, 107 ; His relation to
the Father, 61, no, 145, 169,
202 ; names applied to Him in
a special sense, 136, 137, 150,
280 ; as Wisdom, is Creator and
coeternal with the Father,- 140,
476 ; inoriginate and eternal,

100, 105, 140, 173, 201, 251 ;
said by Eunomius to owe His
existence to "the mere will of
the Generator," 155 ; held by
Eunomius to be liable to change
(and therefore to sin), 156 ; is
not son by adoption, 163 ; His
generation is "without interven-
tion," 165, 166 ; His essence
" not compared with things made
after it," 166 ; said to " vary " in
essence from the Father, 66, 72,
168 ; is " in harmony " with the
Father, 169; "made" Christ and
Lord, 173 sq., 185; "emptied
Himself" to become Man, 178
sq. ; Godhead of, not subject to
passion, 182 sq. ; contrasted with
other "sons,' 183, 184, 206;
"made" Priest, 184; in what
sense made subject to passion,
186; Eunomius supposes Him to
have been always in subjection,

187 ; Godhead of, not changed
by the Incarnation, 190,484; His
immediate conjunction does not
exclude the "willing" of the
Father, 202 ; held by Eunomius
to be "before all things," 203 ;
non-existence asserted of Him
by Eunomius, 59, 203, 204, 224
sq. ; His non-existence is in-
credible, 206, 207, 218, 219,
288 ; His essence said by Euno-
mius to be "controlled" by the
Father, 226 sq. ; excluded by
Eunomius from the title of
"Good," 62, 230 sq.; called
by Eunomius the "Angel of the
Existent," 233 sq. ; in what
sense He is called " Angel,"
235 ; if created, must be His
own creator, 237 ; in what sense
acknowledged by Eunomius as
creator, 237, 238 ; in what sense
He is subject, 277 ; simple in
essence, and the consequences of
this, 252 sq. ; names of, in
Scripture, formed l.y conception,
280, 283, 285 ; implied by Eu-
nomius to be incomparable with
the Father, 287 ; very God of
very God, 28S, 543 ; a " Life
thoroughly single "as the Father,
299 ; His human nature created,
Hi, 337, complete, 145, 543,
exalted, 177-190 ; natures con-
joined in, 141, 183 sq., 544; if
not eternal, must be a newGod, 337.
God, the Holy Ghost, invocation of,
50; called by Eunomius "a
third being," 50, "subject," 53,

54, "the Son's work," 74; made
by Eunomius an unreality, 59 ;
has no substantiated "work,"
74; procession of, 54, 100, 317;
distinctions of, 61 ; regenerating,
62, 519; not made, 63; does
not reside in creation, 64, 130,
332, 338 ; another Light, 85 ;
always contemplated in the Son,
102, 103, 321, 477 ; Eunomius'
teaching concerning, 128-134;
one with the Father and the Son
in essence, power, and operation,
84, 131 sq., 317, 323, 327, 329,
338, 542 ; inspiration, the work
of, 193 ; Scripture affirms the
existence of, 315, 478 ; Mace-
donius' teaching concerning "not
to be glorified," 317, "not equal
in honour," 318, "not a Creator,"
319, 320, "not to be worship-
ped," 324, 325 ; unction of,
equivalent to the Kingship, 321,
329 ; unimaginable, as blended
of the Created and Uncreate,
322 ; Giver of Life, 65, 322,
323, 325 ; the blasphemy against,

55, 3'7, 323; glorifies, and is
glorified by, the Son and the
Father, 324, 543 ; Godhead be-
longs to, 329 ; co-operates with
the Father and the Son, 65, 328-
9, 520; gives grace to the soul,
329 ; accompanies the Word, as
breath speech, 477 ; not a mere

GENERAL INDEX TO GREGORY OF NVSSA.

55i

effluence, 477 ; Creator, 478 ;
operation of, in Baptism, 519 ;
aid of, in election of a bishop,

536, 537- . .

Godhead, eternity involved in the
conception of, 173, 328 sq. ; be-
longs to the Holy Spirit, 329.

Golgotha, 383, 542.

Good, title of, in what sense refused
by Christ, 231.

Goodness, supposed by Eunomius to
belong to the Father only, 230^/.;
in what sense predicated of men,
247 ; belongs to Christ, 232 sq.;
to the Word, 476; a positive
idea of the infinite, 309; infinite,
compared with infinite power,
476 ; the motive of the Incarna-
tion, 4 ,1, 493.

Gospel, simplicity of the, 70; preached
to, but not believed in by, all, 498.

Grace, 23, 329.

Grain ol corn, analogy of a, 466.

Gratian, 6.

Greek, philosophy, 15, 269 ; poly-
theism, 251, 474; dialectic, speci-
men of, 441.

Gregory Nazianzen, 3, 7 ; on eternal
punishment, 22 ; on the nature
of the Holy Spirit, 315 ; his in-
stallation, 513.

Gregory of Nyssa, early life of, 2, 3 ;
retires to a monastery, 4 ; des-
cribes natural scenery, 4 ; made
bishop of Nyssa, 4; wishes to go
on a mission to Rome, 5 ; sum-
moned by Arians at Ancyra, 5 ;
banished by Valens, 6 ; his suf-
ferings and annoyances in exile,
538, 539 ; his return to Nyssa,
529 sq. ; praises S. Basil, 6; at
Jerusalem, 6 ; at the Council of
Constantinople, 7; funeral orations
of, 7; treatment of, by Helladius,
545 sq.; last sermon of, 7 ; cha-
racter of, by Tillemont, 8; ration-
alizes, within limits, 8 ; no Plato-
nist, 8 ; questions treated with
originality by, 9, IO ; writes a
Defence of Christianity, 12 ; on
the sacraments, 12 ; inconsisten-
cies of, 13 ; style, 14 ; agree-
ments with Origen, 15, 16, 21,
22 ; divergencies from Origen,
17, 18, 19; idealism, 20; in-
herits S. Basil's method in the
Trinity controversy, 24 ; precise
views of the relations of the Per-
sons, 24 ; argument for names
expressive of the Divine Nature
being in the singular, 26 ; illustra-
tion from " man " due to his real-
ism, 27 ; defends and makes more
definite the Eastern use of iiiro-
(Traffic, 27, 28; compared with S.
Athanasius as an antagonist of
Arianism, 28, 29 ; text of, in an
imperfect state, 32 ; refers to his
own patience, 33 ; claims the
right of defending Basil, 36; his
explanation of the Scripture doc-
trine of created and uncreate, 60
sq. ; explanation of the relations
of the Persons, 84, 323, 324, of

thi- nature and origin of language,
266 sq., of eternity, 97, of the
force of names for the Infinite,
307-9, of the union of the two
Natures in Christ, 179 sq., 543-
44 ; charged with Sabellianism
and Montanism, 223 ; compares
himself to David with his sling,
250 ; charged with Tritheism and
Sabellianism, 326 ; uses Plato's
psychology to explain the Trinity,
378 ; speaks of his work against
Eunomius, 534-5.

Gregory Thaumaturgus, 1, 2, 12, 343.

Gretser, the Jesuit, 30, 382.

Guericke, 476.

" Gulf," meaning of, 447.

Gulonius, 32, 298, 312.

Hades, locality of, 443.
Hadrianople, battle of, 6.
Hagar, 521.

Ha'lys, the " Red River," 539.
Hands, minister to reason, 393-5.
Hasselman Codex, 30, 443, 446.
Hebrew language, origin of the, 276.
Heli, 313.

Helladius, 7, 445 sq.
Hellenic type of beauty, 355.
Hellenism, may mean atheism or
polytheism, 474 ; vnoordous of,

477-

Heresy, a mutilation of the truth. 73.

Heretics, a list of, 473, 474.

Hervetus, Gentian, 32, 5°9-

Heth, 325.

Hexaemeron, the, 2.

Heyns, 32, 542.

Hierius, his character and praises,
372 sq.

Hierophant, the Athenian, 361.

Hilary, S., 315.

Homer, reference to, 4, 161, 532, 539.

Homceans, 29, 474.

Humanity, definition of, 74, 81 ; sum-
med up in first creation, 406, 41 1,
467 ; fulness of, foreseen, 407,
41 1 -12,. 459; Christ's Resurrec-
tion extends to the whole of, 489.

Hypostasis, origin of the use of the
word, 475.

Hypsistiani, 106.

Iamblichus, 12.

Ideal Man, the, IO, 467, 481.

Idealism, 19, 20.

Idolatry, tendency of Eunomius's teach-
ing to, 167; madness of, 490;
Greek, 293-94.

Ignatius, S., 100.

Ignorance, nature of, 376, 481.

"Image of God," 10, 391, 404 sq.,
437, 467, 479, 515.

Immortality in man proved by his
longing for it, 479.

Incarnation, the, 13 ; motives of, 101,
145, 241, 485, 487, 491, 493-96;
a proof of Divine power, 176,
494 ; union of the Natures in,
176, I79—I90, 485, 486, 543;
effects of, 241, 489, 496, 519, 544;
supposed by Eunomius to involve
inieriority, 244 sq.; not un-
worthy of God, 4 5-89; does not

mean that the infinity of God was
contained in the limits of the
flesh as 111 a vessel, 485, 527, 544;
manner of, incomprehensible, 486;
scheme of, preferable to a single
fiat for man's salvation, 487 ; in-
volves physical, not moral, weak-
ness, 488, 497, 543 ; tact of,
proved by the Miracles, 486, 502 ;
other proofs of, 490; evince,
God's justice and wisdom, as well
as His goodness, 491-94; is a
greater proof of His power than
any natural wonder, 494 ; d<
of, explained, 498; cosm
nificance of, 496 ; terms used of,
490 ; why at the winter solstice,

527-
Incomprehensibility of God, 99, 100,

264, 309.
Indestructibility of the Father, how

made use of by Funomius. 287 .sy.
Infants, deaths of, discus>ed, 373 sq.
Infinite, the, thought catches the

glimpse of, as of an ocean, 69 ;

compared to a circle, 97, 458 ;

how united to the Finite, 485 ;

force of the names for, 307 sq.
Innate Ideas, 478.
Inspiration the work of the Holy

Spirit, 193.
Intellectual world, twofold division of

the, 11, 60, 63, 458, 480.
Intercession of S. Paul, 36.
Interpretation, two kinds of mystical,

476.
Intuition, 70, 78.
Invocation of Saints, 36, 5J6.
Isaac, no, 286, 521.
Isaiah, Seraphim of, 64.
Ishmael, no, 521.
Isoc rates, 534.

Jacob, no, 279,324, 514, 521-2.

JaTrus, daughter of, 416.

Jechoniah. 408.

Jehoiakim. 222-23.

Jeremiah, 222 ; lamentations of, 516;

in the Psalms, 516.
Jerome, S., 33.
Jerusalem, present wickedness of, 383;

prediction of its fall, 415 ; now

forbidden to the Jews, 491; Arian

bishops of, 544.
Jews, the, hope that Christ will come,

59 ; recognize the Father, 320 ;

took the Law in a wrong sense,

490.
Jezebel, 522.
Job, 278, 294.
John, S., the Baptist, his asceticism,

351. 515-

John, S., the Evangelist, his gradual
method of proclaiming the doc-
trine of the Word, 153 sq., 205 ;
rises above earlier preaching, 262.

John, the Franciscan, 31, 32.

Joseph, 46, 325, 401 sq.. 515, 535.

Joseph, the carpenter, 313.

Joshua, 522,

Judaism, a living, 12; contrast of,
with Manicheisin, 474; how
destroyed, 477.

558

GENERAL INDEX TO GREGORY OF NYSSA.

Judas, 46, 378.

Judgment, the Last, after the Resur-
rection and purgatory, 374, 462.

Justice shewn in giving a ransom to
Satan, 491-93.

Justin, S., 17.

Justinian, 17.

Knowledge, of God, what is the, 309;

Tree of, 409 sq.
Krabinger, 30, 31, 435, 436, 438, 476,

509, 552.

Laban, 521.

Latin terms for Trinity, 24.

Lazarus, parable of, 418, 447, 448 ;

raising of, 416-17, 461.
Leprosy, 462.
Leiinclaius, 32.
Levite, the, landless, 536.
Libanius, 2, 59, 533. *
Life belongs to God alone, 210 ; the

Word is, 475.
Likeness, discussion of the term, 123.
Livineius, 32, 356, 362.
Logos, the, eternal, 475 ; living, 475 ;

not the Reason, 475 ; wills and

acts, 476 ; goodness of, proved

by Creation, which is good, 476 ;

has all Divine attributes, 476 ;

faith in, destroys Judaism, 477 ;

description of, 478; created man,

478. "
Lord's Day, the, 547.
Lordship, not a term expressive of

essence, 190 sq. ; belongs to the

Son, 226 sq.
Love, definition of, 450.

Macedonius, 315, 322, 538.
Macrina, S., I, 2, 6; deathbed of,

43°-
Mai, Cardinal, 30, 317.

Making of Man, the, why delayed,
393 '■> passion subsequent to, 357.

Man, properties of, 321, 393, 467, 481,
488 ; made in the image of God,
357 sq., 390, 404 sq., 479, 480;
superior t<> the rest of creation,
390 ; why destitute of natural
weapons, 392 sq. ; framed for the
use of reason, 393 sq., 478 ; the
universal nature of, 411 (see
Humanity).

Manes, 83, 474.

Manichees, 9, 81 sq., 230 sq., 238, 320,

414, 473. 48i.

Manoah, 200.

Maicellus of Ancyra, 528.

Marcion, 231, 238, 473.

Marriage, a "sad tragedy," 345-8,
360 ; the heavenly, 361 ; the
occasion of love of notoriety, 349
sq., 361, 366 ; does not need a
hortatory treatise, 352 ; of Isaac,
353 ; institution of, 358.

Martyrium, 545.

Martyrs, relics of, 513 ; commemora-
tion of, 545 ; churches of, 539,
540.

Mary, S., the Virgin, 344, 365 ; con-
ception of, 543-44.

Matter, 9 ; relation of, to God, 413 ;
theory of its eternity, 413 sq.

Matthew, S. , conversion of, 523.
Mazeroth, 294.

Mean, the virtuous, 352, 362.
Mechanical laws compared with free

will, 73.
Mediation, exposition of the term,

122, 123.
Medical congresses, 39.
Medicine aims ?t a balance, 367 ;

growth of, 368.
Melancholy, not virtue, 362.
Melchisedek, 184.
Meletius, his death. 513 ; personality,

514 ; character, 515 ; eloquence,

516; " translation," 513 ; funeral,

5"7- .

Messaliani, the dreamers, 369.

Metempsychosis, 453-55.

Methodius, 11.

Microcosm, man a, 433.

Milk, and its results, 71.

Millennium, the, repudiated, 544.

Milton, his view of Redemption, 493.

Mind, relation of, to Nature, 391 sq.;
to the body and the senses, 393
sq., 402 sq.; collects and orders
information given by the senses,
395-6 ; incomprehensible, 396 ;
question where in the body it
resides, 397 sq., 402 517.; good-
ness of, depends on likeness to
its Archetype, 399 (see Soul).

Miracles, place of, in Gregory's dog-
matic, 12, 486, 502.

Miriam, the timbrel of, allegorized,

364-5-
Model of saintliness, 370.

Modestus, 49.

Modesty, the mark of ascetics, 382.
Monasticism, how far Gregory an
advocate for. 328, 338 ; rise of,

369-

Montius, 40.

Moon, the phases of, 257, 434 ; why
full at Easter, 528.

Morellius, F., 31, 342.

Moses, called angel, 234 ; inspired in
writing the cosmogony, 273 ;
heads of the writings of, 277 ;
language used by, 276 sq. ; name
of, 279 ; a witness to the human
origin of words, 290 sq. ; longed
to see God, 371 ; meekness of,
282, 440 ; continence of, 440 ; his
Paradise, 479 ; " coats of skins,"
482-83 ; rod, 519, 522.

Mosheim, on the Council of Con-
stantinople, 315.

Mount of Olives, 383, 542.

Munich Codex, 30, 31.

Murmureus, 30.

Mysticism, 22, 377-8.

Mythology, gave names to the stars,
294 ; opposed to Christian doc-
trine, 313 ; horrors of, equalled
in real life, 348.

Nabal, 282.

N.iliueardan, 40.

Nain, miracle at, 416, 461.

Names, applied to the Divine Nature,
197 sq., 263, 332; of God, not
used in plural, 327 ; none known
which can express the Divine

Nature, 197 sq. , 298 ; relation of,
to things, 269, 275, 308 ; sacred-
ness of, 290 ; of Christ, 206 sq.t
283, from His dealings with man-
kind, 221, 280 sq.

Nature, the interpreter of God, 309,
377-8 ; the word not equivalent
to <t>vtrig, 375.

Nature, the Divine, infinite, 215, 303,
332, 485 ; known by its activities
(energies), 328-9, 474, 486 ; in-
effable, 335 ; Scripture silent
upon, 261.

Nature, human, of Christ, created,
141, 487 ; complete, 145, 496,
543 ; conjunction of, with the
Divine, 1 76—190, 337, 488-9, 543-
44 ; exaltation of, 177, 184, 188,
190.

Nature of man, composite, 329. 480.

Neander, 13, 315, 506.

Nebel, a measure, 274.

Nectarius, 7.

Negations, positive ideas in, 436.

Nemesius, 439.

Neo-Nicene writers, 24.

Neo-platonists, 12, 253, 256, 476.

Neritus, 539.

New Year's gifts, 533.

Nicaea, prosperity of the city of^ 536.

Nicene Creed, 315, 52S.

Nicodemus, 153, 507, 519.

Nicolaus, 238.

Nicomedia, city of, 535, 536.

Number, definition of, 293.

Nuns, 530.

Nyssa, 4, 529.

Oath, of Joseph, 46.

Obedience, in what sense asserted of
Christ, 121, 122.

Oehler, 30, 264.

Olivet, 383, 542.

Oltiseris, 38, 46, 247.

Olympius, 550.

Only-begotten, the term refers to pre-
temporal existence, 113; Euno-
mius' view of its meaning, 167
(see God the Son).

Operation, of the Divine Persons, not
separate, 334.

Ophthalmia, treatment of, 376.

Optative, Gregory's use of the, 78.

Oracles, ceasing of, 490.

Ordination, grace conveyed by, 519.

Organs, invention of, 435.

Origen, founder of theology, 15 ;
champion against fatalism, 15 ;
settles the meaning of great texts,
16; teaches pie-existence, 17;
adopts the trichotomy of the soul,
18; how far followed by Gregory,
17, 18, 20, 21, 483 ; on the
"procession," 54 ; combats stoic-
ism, 287 ; his description of Faith,
309 ; his teaching on the Divine
essence, 60, 253, 309 ; on the
sacredness of names, 290 ; on the
origin of Hebrew, 276 ; his use
of iTroffraffjc, 475 note 3 ; his
higher allegory, 476; on the Kfv-
uktic. 488 ; on the restoration of
the Jews, 490; on "deifying,"
502.

GENERAL INDEX TO GREGORY OF NYSSA.

559

Original sin, IO, 488, 508.
Orion, 294.
Ostrich, the, 294.

Otreius, bishop of Melitene, 531, 538,
547-

Paganism, evidence from the ceasing
of, 490.

Parable, of the Tares, 93, 442 *?•»
of Children sitting in the market-
place, 98, 258; of the Lost Sheep,
127, 241 ; of the Lost piece of
Silver, 358; of the Vineyard, 232 ;
of the Tower, 363 ; of the Net,
364; of Dives and Lazarus, 418,
447 jjr.; of the Unmerciful Servant,

452.

Paraclete, 128, 129.

Paiadise, 409 sq., 447, 479.

Passion, the, of Christ, 23, 93, 186,
499.

Passionlessness, the Divine, 93, 488,
544; human, 328, 330,481; bless-
edness consists in, 504.

Passions, the, as instruments for good,
363, 443, 449 ; not of the essence
of the soul, 440 sq.

Patriarchs, the hope of the, 412.

Paul, S., "genuine Minister," 37;
"expounder of the Divine de-
crees," 63; "divine Apostle,"
64, 444; "follower of Christ,"
86; "hierophant of mysteries,"
117; " parent of the largest
family," 365; "adorner of the
Bride," 366 ; " the mighty," 463;
" initiates in mysteries," 500.

Paulinus, 513, 515, 545.

Perceptions, the irresistible, 55.

Persecution of Valens, extent of the,
49.

Persons, the Three, one in power,
107 ; one in operation, 132, 319,
322, 328, 334, 520; are to be
alike honoured, 520-1; how differ-
entiated, 61, 336, 339 ; do not
split up the supremacy of the
One First Cause, 477 (see
Trinity).

Peter, Bishop of Sebasteia, consulted
as to publishing the books against
Eunomius, 33, 34, 387-8; sainted,

545-
Peter.S., preaching of, 498 ; a stranger

in Rome, 536 ; a spiritual fisher-
man, 536.
Phaedo, the, of Plato, 309, 448, 452,

459-
Phsedrus, the, of Plato, 442.
Pharaoh, 282, 380, 522 ; daughter of,

279.
Pharez, 279.

Philo, 194, 212 ; his " Word," 475.
Philosophers, on the destinies of the

soul, 453^.
Philosophy of Christianity, 8, 12.
Philostorgius, 35.
Philostratus, 12.
Pluneas, 34, 44, 524.
Photius, on the style of Eunomius, 36;

praises Gregory, 250.
Pigmies, 267.
Pilgrimages, dangers of,38l-2; benefits

of, 542.

Plants, illustrations from, 419, 421-2,
425-6.

Plato, made use of by Gregory apolo-
getically, 8 ; his division of the
universe, II, 15 ; his "two
souls," 18 ; his ideas, 22 ; holds
oppositcs identical, 97 ; his Cra-
tylus " nonsense," 291 ; on a
futurejudgment, 373 ; on eternity
of punishment, 452 ; his soul-
rotation, 456 ; his two-horse
chariot, 439, 442 ; differs from
Aristotle on the immortality of
the soul, 439 ; his Trinity, 475.

Pleasures, one in kind, 366.

Plotinus, 100, 439, 467, 476.

Pneumatomachi, 319-21.

Poets, the "participation" of the
human in the superhuman due to,

3'3-
Polytheism, development of, 172 sq.;

destruction of, 477.
Pontus, I.
Poor, the, S. Basil's kindness to, 45 ;

care for, insisted on, 549.
Porphyry, 12, 439.
Prayer, power of, in baptism, 501-2.
Predestination, 23, 498.
Pre-existence, denied by Gregory, 17,

438.
Presbyters, 45.
Presence of God now, and in the

Incarnation, compared, 495.
Priesthood, an " unbloody," 490.
" Principalities," 64.
Priscus, grandfather of Eunomius, 38.
Privation, terms of, why applied to

the Deity, 308.
Prize, meaning of the word, 47.
Procession of the Holy Ghost, 54, 110.
" Product of creation," 162 sq.
" Proper," use of the word, 162.
Prophecy, evidence from, 12.
"Prophet," the Psalmist a, 64, 81,

91, 99, 265, 272, 276, 489. 5o8.
Propitiation, 13.
Protoplast, the, 72.
"Proverbs," meaning of the title,

137^.; the book prophetic, 140.
Providence, 74, 75-
Prunicus, 40, 214, 304.
Psalms, help of, on Festivals, 551.
Psychology of Gregory, 18, 378, 393

sqq-, 433-
Pulcheria, 7, 514.
Punishment, Eternal, passages in

Gregory bearing on, 16, 378,451,

496.
Purgatory, 374, 45 1, 462, 483, 495,

496, 504.
Purity is Deity, 504.

Quibbles of Eunomius, 86, 87, 88,
163, 213-4, 247-8, 303, 310, 313.
Quicksilver, illustration from, 418.

Rachel, 515, 521.

Ransom from Satan, a matter of

justice, 492 95.
Rationalist, Gregory not a, but a

rationalizer, 8, 9.
Reader, office of, 3.
Realism, Gregory's, 11, 27, 459.
" Reasonable soul," 18.

Red Sea, passage of the, 350, 529.

Redemption, Gregory's theory 01,493.

Redepenning, on Origen, 21,

Resurrection, the, of Christ, 417, 462;
effects a union which reacts upon
mankind, 489, 499.

Resurrection, the Christian, how
necessary, 410 sq. ; why deferred,
411 sq. ; argument as to, 414 sq.;
a return from the common stock
to the individual, 418 ; a reunion
of the same elements unto a more
ethereal texture, 453, 483 ; coin-
cides in one point with that of
heathen philosophies, 454 ; pas-
sages containing doctrine of, 460-
61 ; objections to, stated, 417,
462-64, answered, 46466 ; de-
finition of, 464, 467 ; baptism a
forecast of, 503.

Resurrections, three, repudiated, 544.

Revolutions, the cause of, 84.

Right hand, "change" of the, 185^.;
of God, 178.

Risibility, a property of man, 74, 256,
288.

Rome, Church of, presided over by a
fisherman, 536.

Rotundity of the earth, 443 sq.

Rufinus the Prefect, 7.

Rufinus the Presbyter, 45.

Rupp, Julius, on Origen, 16 ; trans-
lator, 32, 516 ; on Arianism, 50.

Sabbath, argument from the, 215 ;

the eternal, 453 ; a holy day, 547.

Sabellianism, 24, 56, 223, 229, 254,

474-
Sacraments, Gregory's treatment of,

12, 13, 504^.
Sacrifice, the, of Christ, 13; Gregory's

view of, 499.
Sacrifices, ceasing of the Jewish, 49a
Salamander, the, 71, 204.
Samaim, 291.
Samaritans, 147.
Sanctification through the spirit, 329,

519-
Sarah, 46.
Sasima, 5.
Satan, fall of, 61, 481 ; Gregory's

view of, Miltonic, 493.
Saul, 145, 293.

Schmidt, Herman, 32, 432, 450, 466.
"Scholastic," 539.
Scripture, Gregory seeks the spirit of,

16 ; appeals to, 441, 442, 460.
Sculpture, illustrations from, 408,426.
Scythian name of God, 291.
Sebasteia, 33, 528, 545.
Semi-Arians, 38, 369.
Sensation, the basis of thought, IO,

19, 441-

Seraphim, 64.

Sermons, of Gregory, 7, 513 ; his feel-
ings on commencing, 518.

Serpent, Sin compared to a, 34, 498,
542.

Sex, theory of, 10, 412..

Shorthand writing, 40, 304.

Sicyon, plain <6f, -539.

Sifanus, Laurentius, 32, 372, 376.

Simile, of an ape, 8 ; a peacock, 8,
138; a leather cutter, 58; two

S6o

GENERAL INDEX TO GREGORY OF NYSSA

unequal rulers, 68 ; an immense
ocean. 69 ; a circle, 97 ; making
shadow-figures, 161 ; a seal and
wax, 169 ; bubbles, 194 ; children
grasping sunbeams, 258 ; smoke,
284 ; the muzzled ox, 345; travel-
ling, 349 ; a winter torrent, 350;
a chain, 350 ; a polished hilt,

360 ; a stone thrown into a pool,

361 ; of putting on armour, 363-
4 ; chariot driving, 367-8 ; a race
horse, 372 ; eyelashes and sun-
light, 372 ; a banquet, 379 ; an
anvil, 380 ; a musician, 395, 401 ;
a city, 396; the shadow of eclipse,
41 1; mixing colours in painting,
445 ; fragments of vessels of
various shapes, 446 ; a block -
pulley, 446 ; a scraped rope, 451;
putting water in oil, 481 : a vessel
filled with melted lead, 482 ;
ravenous fish, 161, 494 ; bees,
518; shepherds, 518; a panto-
mime, 531 ; balking in a game,
535 ; a dl7 aqueduct, 537.

"Skins," "coats of," 20, 455, 483.

516.
Sky, substance of the, 75.
Socrates, the historian, on vTroaracrig,

475-

Solomon, advice of, 315; understand-
ing of, 515.

" Son of Man," argument from the
title, 145.

Soul, the, attitude of, more precious
than phrases, 85 ; connexion of,
with matter, 393 sq., 420 sq., 432,
441, 442 ; divisions of, 393 sq.,
403 sq., 449 ; genesis of, 406,
419, 426, 458, 459; in what
sense attributed to the lower
creation, 427 ; where is ruling
principle of. 397 sq., 441; pre-
existence of. 419 sq., 458; the
mind craves certainty about im-
mortality of, 431 ; objection "that
it is a material thing " met, 435.
436 ; God not the same as, 433,
436; definition of, 433; compared
to the painter's art, 445 ; accom-
panies scattered elements of its
body, 438; where it will do so,
and how, 443-46 ; relation of, to
anger and desire, 438-42 ; can
suffer after death, even in each
member of the body, 448 ; tor-
ment of, 451; will recombine its
elements, 446 ; how it came into
existence, 458, and when, 419,
426, 458 ; purification of, 451,
453 ; better attributes of, will
some day appear, 468.

Souls, transmigration of, 453-55; Pla-
tonic rotation of, 456 ; number

of, 459-
Sozomen on Eunomius, 40, 43, 313.
Spirit, the Holy (see God).
Spirit world, the, divided, II, 60, 444,

481.
Spirits, evil, destiny of, 444,
Spring, description of, 534,

Stars, "retrograde" revolutions of
the, 72, 257, 433 ; the "fixed,"
173,373,455 I numbering of the,
293 ; heaveri!\ minds called, 294 ;
shooting, 356.

Stoic, terms, 55,62; corporeal spirit,
287 ; resurrection, 315 ; confla-
gration, 452.

Style, Eunomius', compared to singing
with castanets, 37.

Subject, 477.

Subjection, Scripture meaning of, 53,
130 ; in what sense asserted of
the Son, 130, 227.

Subsistence, use of the term, 475.

Substance, Eastern and Western use
of the term, 24; not divided l>y
generation, 109 sq. ; God does
not partake of, 253 ; inquiry into,
superfluous, 2^62 ; theory of, 458 ;
distinguished from subsistence,
475 (see also Essence).

Suicer, 506.

Sun, size of the, 434.

Sunday, 547.

Synod, Arian, at Ancyra, 5.

"Tabernacle," the human body a,
467, 517, 544.

Tabernacles, Eeast of, allegorized,
460, 461.

Tears, phenomena of, 398.

Telemachus, 532.

Temple, no traces of the, left, 491.

Tertullian, 19, 309; on the Resur-
rection, 467.

Theodoret, 7, 506.

Theodosius, the Emperor, 7, 517.

Theognostus, 166.

Theophilus, the Indian, 40.

Theosebeia, 3.

Thomas, S., the Apostle of Mesopo-
tamia, 536.

" Thrones," meaning of, 64.

Thunderstorm, a, 529, 547.

Tilleinont, 7, 8.

Tinkering of Aetius, 39.

Traciucianism, 19, 459.

Translation of the remains of Meletius,

5I3-
rransmigration of souls, 419-20, 453-

56, 458.

Trees of Paradise, 409, 41 1, 447.

Trinity, the Holy, proof of, from con-
sciousness, 8, 22 ; clearer faith
in, 18 ; Origen's method applied
to, 22 ; not three Gods, 25, 26,
129, 474, 477, 529; illustrated
from the rainbow, 27 ; defence
of, against Eunomius, 29 ; no
plurality of Beings in, 55 ; rela-
tion of, to polytheism, 477; no
division in, 477 ; no confusion in,
542 ; baptism a placing faith on,
507, 529 (see God).

Tritheism, repudiated, 129, 474, 477,
529-

Ueberweg, 8, 477.
Uffenbach Codex, 30,437.
Ulysses, the bow of, 532.

Unbaptized, the, must be purified by
fire, 504.

Ungeneracy, why put foremost by
Eunomius, 78 sq. ; not the same
as essence, 143, 2S8 sq. ; not a
scriptural term, 281 sq. ; includes,
according to Eunomius, all Divine
attributes, 250, 288 sq.

Ungenerate, the, iod ; opposed by
Eunomius to the Son, 115, 254
sq. , 288 ; true meaning of the
word, 312, 313.

Unity of God, proved from the belief
in perfection, 474.

Universalism, 16, 22, 444, 452, 495.

Universe, the, 62.

Unoriginateness, of the Son, 78.

Vncherot, 475.

Valens, 4, 6, 48, 49, 528.

Valentinus, 297, 473.

Vanota. description of, 539-40.

" Variation,' meaning of, 168.

Various readings, 348, 363, 369, 376,

.379-

Vatican Codices, 30, 31, 35.

Venice Codex, 30 ; preferable read-
ings of, 42, 43, 80, 99.

Vestiana, b.

Vienna, Library of, 31.

Viger's Idioms. 42, 87, 314.

Virgin, Christ born of a, 487.

Virginity, meaning of the term, 3,
342-43; stronger than death, 352,
371 ; absolute, 361 ; a vastly
precious thing, 363 ; not to be
won by one observance, 364 ; the
young must take a guide in, 369
sq. _

Virtue, inseparable from freedom, 499.

Vital forces, 423 sq.

Vulcobius, 31, 500, 509.

Vulgate, the, 161, 353, 364, 369, 516.

Water of Baptism, why enjoined. 503,
519 ; hallowetl by the Spirited,

519-

Weakness, Christ's birth not a, 4S8.

Wickedness, instances of, 498.

Widowhood, 347, 360.

Willing, of the Father, consistent with

eternity of the Son, 202 sq.
Windpipe, the, 270.
Wings, of the Soul, 448, 455.
" Wisdom," in what sense "created,"

63, 137 sq. (see God the Sett).
Women, fortitude of, 48.
Word, the (see Logos).
World, the, must have an end, 413 sq.
World-reformation, the, 414, 418.
" W'orship," meaning of, 325.

Xerxes, story about, 373 ; " changed
elements," 506.

Yawning, 400.

Zacagni, 30, 527, 538.
Zacchaeus, 508, 523.
Zinus, 32.
Zodiac, the, 257, 294,

INDEX OF- SCRIPTURES CITED.

A. Old Testament Books.

GENESIS.

PAGE

i. i • •

. 388, 389

xiv. .

•

I sq. , .

• 277

•

. Ill

XV. 10 .

•

26 . 123, 28

o, 39°, 392,

20 .

•

)6, 404, 411

xvi. 18 .

•

27 • 357. 35

5, 404, 405,

xix. 15 ,

•

479

xx. 3 .

•

28 .

143. 412

xxxii. 34 .

•

• 357

xxxiii. 2 .

•

ii. 1 . .

. • 389

•

. . 388

15 •

•

• 419

17 .

•

. 409

20 .

•

16 .

. 409

xxxiv. 9 .

•

. 127, 359

•

19, 20

• . 290

xxxv. 30 .

•

iii. 5, 6 .

. . 410

• 293

LEVITICUS.

16 .

358, 360

ii. 5 sq. .

•

. .110

21 . . ,

. • 516

. • 358
i . 406

NUMBERS.

iv. 1 . . .

v. 2 • • 1

xxii. .
xxv. 7, 8 .

•

. 123

T). 9

. 357
• 357

DEUTERONOMY.

viii. 21 . .

• 274

iv. 23

ix. 3 . .

. 403

vi. 13

•

xi. 7 • • •

, 276

x. 20

•

xiv. 18 . . ,

. 94

•

xv. 6 . . 1

• 259

xxx. 14 .

•

xviii. 12 . . ,

, . .286

xxxii. 6 .

•

. 259

•

xxi. ■ .

. 521

3°

•

xxiii. 7 . .

• 325

xxiv. . . ,

. 521

JOSHUA.

xxv 26 , . <

• 279

iii. .

•

xx vi. 15 sq. . . ,

. 521

iv.

•

xxix. . . <

. 521

xxiii. 10 .

•

32-35

• 279

xxx. 37

. 521

JUDGES.

xxxiii. 3 . .

• 325

xiii. 18 .

•

xxxviii. 29 . • <

. . 279

xx. 16 .

•

xlii 15 . . 1

. 46

xliii. 23 • • <

• 517
. 128

I. SAMUEL.

xlvi. 27 . . (
xlix. 9 • • <

. 2S0

ii. 12 .
30
xv. 35

•

1.3 • •

. 5*4

•
•

EXODUS.

xix. 24

•

ii. • • 1

. 522

. • 279

10 . . ,

II. SAMUEL.

iii. 2 . .

• 235

vi. 14

•

200, 201

105. 405

I. KINGS.

vii. 1

234- 32lJ

xviii.

•

364.-

522
277
364
365
368

371

*? 1 "7

337
235
235
410

235
235
221

235
537
237

274

328
524

422
324
324

128

368
231
201
250

522
522
250

201
221

148
324
293
145

517

52-

II. KINGS.

>AGB

ii.

15 •

516

•

• • « 522

I. CHRONICLES

xxviii.

. 323

JOB.
ix.

. 294

xiv.

. 280

xxvi.

. 278

xxxviii.

32 •

. 294

» . . 268

xli.

. . . 294

PSALMS.

• 523

ii.

• 190, 235

iv.

2, 3

. 508

vi.

• 134

vii.

1
8
10
11

• 67
. 198

• 398
. 508

viii.

6, 8
7,8

• 53
. 130

. 98

xiii.

. 167

xvi.

4
8

. 265

• 294

• 127

xviii.

25, 26

• 37o

xix.

1—3
6-8

• 3 l

S. 377
. 272

• 362

xxiii.

1
2

. 284

. 221

, - ,

• 134

xxiv.

1
4

• 349
. 364

xxvii.

• 133
. 4^9

xxviii.

. 133

xxix.

3: 4

. 148

• 523
. 98

XXX.

• 274

xx xi.

3 <

■9

3. 22.

. 48g
. 221

xxxii.

. 167

xxxiii.

4
6

. 47S
. 116

108, u

1, 155

xxxiv.

. 522

XX iV.

. 161

xxxv:.

8. 141

562

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

PAGE

PAG 6

xxxvi. 9 ,

284

cviii. 9 .

• . . 204

CANTICLES.

xxxvii. 24 . ,

134

ex. I .

> • . 290

i. 3 . . 114, 205, 206

xxxix. 5 , ,

, . 262,

274

, . . I90

iv. 12 . . . 537

II •

484

cxiii. 9 „

• 359

xl. 20 , ,

134

cxiv. 4 ,

. 116

ISAIAH.

xliv. 4 ,

296

. 118

_ i. 16 „ . . 508, 522

21 .

309

cxv. 11 .

. 46

iv. 4

• 334

xlv. 7, 8 .

232

cxvi. 1 1

. 355

v. 20

. . 2S2

138

15. 16.

. . . 516

. 119

xs •

517

cxviii. 13

. 134

vi. 1

. 129

xlvii. 3 . ,

. 53.

. . . 460

6, 7

. . 64

349

cxix. 65, 66, 68

. 491

ix. 6

■ 141. 235

xlviii. 14 .

296

127

• 363

xii. 3

. 409

xlix. 13

407

132 .

. 3°9

xiii. 10

. 294

li. 12, r4. ,

. 103,

J3o

cxx. 3

. 33i

. 294

liii. 6

165

5.6 .

. 49

xxii. 4

• 515

lv. 2 . ,

309

exxiv. 5 — 7 .

. 35o

xxv. 8

. 360

356

. 517

xxvi. 18

- • 365

120

exxvi. I „

. 134

• 134

lvi. 2

36i

. . . 216

xxviii. 16

. 521

Iviii. IO . ,

381

exxxv. 6 .

> • . 107

xxix. 4

. 119

lx. 8

204

exxxvii. I — 6 .

. . . 516

. 85, 167

Ixi. 3

221

.. 9

. . . 36

XXXV. I, 2

• 523

lxii. I

130

exxxviii. 6 . ,

. 125

xl. 8

. 514

523

cxli. 3 . ,

. . . 221

• 3^9

lxv. 2

127

cxliii. 4 .

. 545

12, 24

. 120

lxvi. 6 .

. 137. 171,

179

• 523

12—22

. 125

10, ix.

134

10 .

- 13". 133. 338

15 •

. . 3i8

lxviii. 26 .

118

cxliv. I . ,

. 251

xli. 4 ,

. 173

35 •

133

. 410

. 134

lxix. I .

364

cxiv. 3 . ,

, . 146, 198

xiii. 8

.' 118

2 . (

. 141,

353

. 508

xliii. 1

. . 29/1

141

cxlvi. 8 . ,

. 134

. 508

Ixxii. 3

141

cxlvii. 4 . ,

> » . 292

xliv. 6 ,

. 173

Ixxiv. 12 .

98, 1 88, 296,

329

... 5 •

, . . 262

xlv. 14, 15

. 232

lxxvi. 17 . ,

128

cxlviii. 2 — 10 „

. 121

xlix. 5

• 337

lxxvii. IO . ,

185

5 . 10

8, in, 114 121,

. 518

20 . ,

133

155. 205

li. 7

. 147

Lxxviii. 24 . ,

515

PROVERBS.

lix. 5

109

129

i. 2 . ,

. 138

. . . 138

• • 138

368, 370, 409

lx. 8

. 364. 5!8

65 •

293

6 .

Ixi. 10

. 524

lxxx. I . ,

• 133.

284

lxiv. 4 ,

. 508

Ixxxi. 5 . ,

276

iii. 18

lxvi. I ,

. 125

337

iv. 6 . ,

■ . . 366
105, 169

2 ,

. 194

10 . ,

. in,

201

viii. 5 . ,

134

12 . ,

140

JEREMTAH.

Ixxxii. 5 • ■

. 226,

543

12 sq. . .

• 138

'»• 3 .... 45

lxxxiv. 3 . ,

412

63, 117, 137 sq.

ix. 17

. 516

259

22—28 ,

• 139

x. II ,

. 328

333

23—25

. 117

xvii. 1 1 ,

. 241

10, 11. ,

412

. 63

xxxi. ^

• 5i5

12 . ,
Ixxxvi. 15 . ,

413
283

32
ix. 1 . ,

5 •

• 337
• . 142
. . 140

. 409

LAMENTATIONS.

Ixxxix. 6 . ,
xcii. 15 . ,

.' 283,

260
508

i. 4 .... 516

iv. 20 . . . . 128

xciv. 9 . ,

392

xi. 22 . a

• 363

xcv. 4 . ,

411

xv. 19 . ,

. 369

EZEKIEL.

xcvi. 5 .
6

328

xvii. 6 . <

. . 387

x viii. 20 . . .126

104

xx. 6 . ,

• 357

xxxvi. 25 — 27 . , . 522

xcviii. IO .

. 113.

157

xxvii. 2 . a

. 48

xxxvii. I — IO. • • . 461

xcix. 5 . ,

9
cii. 25, 26. ,

ciii. 8 . ,

91. 99.
. 81,

323

128

157
201

265

xxx. 3 . ,

15 .
xxxi. I . ,
6

. . 140
. 168

• • 140
. 5i7

DANIEL

ii. 45 • • • • 52-'
vii. 10 • . • .37'

508
64

ECCLESIASTES.

21 .

l • •

L 4

. 349

HOSEA.

Civ. 15

1 •

517

. 395

xiii. 3 . . . . 280

7 • • • 28o

. 373-

520

iv. 9, 10 . ,

• 369

29 -35

• .

417

v. 2 . ,

. . . 260

cvi. 4, 5 .

1 • »

491

vii. 16 .

. 5'

JOEL.

■ • .

293

viii. 5 .

. . . 69

ii. 13 . . . . 508

CVlil 1-7 .

■ . .

134

xi. 5

. 321

► t

t 4

. 119

INDEX OF SCRIPTURES CITED.

5'>3

AMOS.
iv. 13
viii. II

JONAH,
iii. 8

PAGE

339
409

516

IIABAKKUK.

111. 3

ii 15

•

. 239

v. 7
vii. 9

ZECHARIAH.

ix. 17

iii. I

•

. 184

522
364
174
288

B. Non-Canonical Books.

i- 4

•

. 361

xiii. 5

•

251,

265, 309

▼ii. 18

•

. 209

xvi. 14

•

• 323

•

"5. 205

•

• 5*5

BARUCH.

iii. 37 . IOI, 177, 182, 189
HISTORY OF SUSANNAH.

42 . . 406, 461, 420

C. New Testament Books.

S. MATTHEW.
i. 20
ii. 18
20
iii. 7

9
10

IV. 4

v- 3
7
8

44
vi. 24

25
vii. 6
8
18

23
viii. 17

26
ix. 4

X. 16

xi. 27

xii. 11

50
xiii. 27

47, 48.
xv. 8
xvii. 5
xviii. 6

23
xix. 17

xx. 13, 15,

xxi. 42

xxii. 15

20, 21

37
xxiii. 8 — 10
xxiv. 35
xxv. I

xxvi. 24

xxviii. 6

• •

155

• •

515

•

127

. 146

148

• •

284

• •

409

• •

138

• •

371

• •

242

• •

366

• •

524

• •

365

• •

419

• •

363

• •

119

• •

353

• •

410

• •

121

• •

134

•

333

120

483

362

77, 105,

208

•

35i

. 133

334

360

• •

356

• •

364

• •

155

• •

329

• •

452

• *

231

•

232

•

284

. 3

92-3

■ •

405

354

• •

226

• •

349

• •

216

• •

232

283

• •

378

a .

146

544

IOI,

520

S. MARK.

I 12

•

. 508

ii. 17

. 483

i .

• 159, 3'>o

iii. 29

1 323

. 113,

127, 175, 176,

vi. 50

• 134

244

viii. 38

. 107, "9

■

129

ix. 25

• 133

. 102,

104, 125, 140,

. • 85

198, 221, 240

xii. 30

• 394

ii. 6, 7

1 •

• 5 ' 5

xiii. I

. 4i5

19 -

•

122, 127

xiv. 38

. 178

111. 3

1 •

159, 238. 519

95, 507

S. LUKE.

. 238,

339, 359, 5°7

i. 2 ,

• 177

. 107,

!3°, 133, 519

ii. 6, 7

- 155

• 1 5 3

3°

- 5i7

• 5°3

, 190

. 223

iii. 23 sq. ,

, 312

iv. 13, 14

• 523

iv. 23

, 417

. 223

4i5

22 ,

. 147

v. 20, 23

. 127

128, 193, 240

vi. 36

, 81

• 415

- 537

57 -

. 94

vii. 13—iS

416

v. 14 ,

. 127

x. 16 ,

144

17 .

. 132

. 107, 245

xi. 27 ,

. 365

,126,186,232,334

xii. 36

. 67

66,

, 105, 171, 245

xv. 8

358

• 223

xvi. 24 — 31

418

. 104

54i

37 ■

• '24,

xvii. 21 ,

358

. 119

xix. 8 ,

508

vi. 27 ,

. . 169

126

32 sq. .

. 284

xx. 35, 36

407

51, 54.

. 238

xxn. 35

216

.. 63 ■

. 193

27 — 29

4i5

vii. 20

. 127

xxiii. 43

122

. 205

46 .

181

37 •

281, 1523

xxiv. 39

240

viii. 15

. • 3*5

xxvi. 13

5i5

34 .

. 364

. 127

S. JOHN.

. 101

i. I •

104, 113, 115, 125,

ix. 5

• 356

154, 173, 174, 182,

*• 5

. . 422

205, 206, 211, 225,

. 221

245, 338, 391

17, 18.

127

. 104

122. iSr

58,66,111,112,116,

54,

104, 107. 233

13°, !36, *39, 319

• 255

22,2, 225, 244, 376

38 .

I76, 244

xi. 25

. 304

[8, 24

5, 28

4, 356

. 162

564

GREGORY OF NYSSA.

PAGE

xii. 26 .

. 113

viii. 6 .

. 241

xv. 20

. . "3

. 324

. 192

. 183

30 •

. 275

. 191

. 452

35 •

. 350

129, 148

, 62

, . .129

. 227

36 .

, 466

xiii. 13

, . . 226

. 191

. 107

35 •

. 391

19—23

. 158

, 411

xiv. 3

. 113

20, 21.

■ "7

5'. 52.

, 412

6 . 1

05, 108, 117, 364

• 137.

179. 337

461

. 201

. 259

9 . IC

»5, 107, no, 160,

• 277

185, 208, 289

29 .11

2, 157 (

see 158 n)

II. CORINTHIANS.

10 . IC

»S, 116, 169, 185,

109

i- 3, 4 .

128, 134

208, 21 % 245

ix. 5 .11

7, I20,

184, 232,

ii. 9

• 327

. 105, 225

2 54

iii. 2

• 377

16 .

1 . . I2->

• 113

. 270

• 345

x. 8

. 3<^

14, 15-

. 321

• 134

. 167

. 192

zv. 15

. 227

xi. 2 .

. 516

. 192

22 .

• . . 226

122, 241

• 175.

129

. H7

iv. 2 .

• 359

xvi. 15 .

90, 119, 120, 201

33. 34-

. 374

• 349

21 .

. 143, 465

. 396

- .365

33 •

• 134

. 36 •

. 125

, 71, 222

xvii. 3

. 223, 245

xii. i, 2

. 37o

v. 4

• 467

• 324

. 147

. 184, 345

• 324

• 5'4

. 113, 158

10 . .

, . 107, 22S

xiii. 14 .

117, 141

129

11, 17.

, . . 328

xiv. 9 . ,

. 158

21 . 1:

!I, l8l, 183, 188,

. 148

. 409

2<H

. Si

xv. 6 .

. 364

vi. 6

366

xviii. 5, 6 . .

, . . 122

xvi. 25 . ,

. 295

349

xix. 23, 24 .

. . • 107

. 126

36l

XX. 2, 13 .

• 544

15. 16.

107

. 113. 240

I CORINTHIAN

127

21 . ,

> . .129

i. 5 •

•

• 374

vii. 6

128

. 417

. 182

viii. 15

368

xxi. 25 . ,

. . 262

1 4

. 177

xii. 4 .

64, 359

. 226

xiii. 3

. 226, 365, 391

ACTS.

24 . 6

6, 105,

iii, 125,

36, 174. 183, 188

i-7 .

. 107, 413

184,

207, 245

. 321

ii. 17 . •

. 119

26, 27.

• 536

• 54

. "3. 158

ii. 8

'• 175-

181, 184

27,31-

. 127

• 5°8

GALATIANS.

36 . .

127, 172—190

10 . ,

•

272, 289

i. 8, 9 .

. 182

in. 15 . .

• 113

11 . <

• 191

iii. M • I

21, l8l, 24I, 280

v. 3 •

• 333

14. 15-

• 394

122

▼ii. 14 * <

. 128

374,

410, 482

. 366, 405

ix. 5 .

. 284

. 391

iv. 8

I05, 113, 24I

x 38

. 321, 329

iii. 3

. 394

• 138

XVli. l8 . .

. 171

11 .

. 117

22 sq. . ,

. 521

21 . ,

. 171

12 . ,

. 3<>3

. 5H

. 70

. 250

v. 1

. 364

xxvii. 27 . ,

. . 240

• 193

. 227

xxviii. 25, 26 . a

. 129, 192

iv. 15 . .

365. 5°7

. 138, 370

v. 6

• 5°4

. 191

ROMANS.

12 . ,

• 352

vi. 3 •
14

. 508

L i . .

• 105

vii. 32

354, 366

• 177. 524

. 187

• 343

20 . .

. 272, 327

viii. 6 . .

194, 226

. 117

. 86

EPIIESIANS.

26 .

. in

X. II . .

35'- 364

i. 21

. 19)

ii. 24 . ,

. 369

XI. 2 . ,

. 250

ii. 3

. 14

ui. 3-9 •

. . 380

xii. 3

84, 339

- 127

• 334

103, 107

. 24 1

iv. 22 . ,

. 259

II . (

107,

335, 338

iii. 16

• 370

vi. 3 •

• 524

xiii. 6 . ,

. 320

. 177- r°0

• 37o

8-13. .

. 45°

iv. 6 . .

. I 26

10 . ,

. 183, 5^3

. 427

• 3"l>

. . • 358

12 . ,

. 101

22, 23.

• :•<<

vii. 7

. . . 104

xiv. 2 . ,

. 170

24 . I

17, 141, 158, 2+1

. 104

XV. 12 . ,

. 417

v. 27

. 344- ,!'i

viii. 3

. 183

. 222

VI. 12

134

INDEX OF SCRIPTURES CITED.

5r>:

PAGE

PHILIPPIANS

i 17

• •

. 119

ii. 14 .

, I84, 2IO, 242

i. 6

•

• •

. 540

ii. 4

» •

I03, 245, 275

iii. 1, 2

. 184

•

• •

347, 358

» •

113, 122, 184

, . 129, 192

"• 5

•

• 125

> •

. 242

iv. 15

. 145, > 86

•

KM, 158,

169, 231

... js >

» •

. 359

*• 5

• , • J'3

•

117, 169,

173, 174

iii. 2

1 •

• 537

. . . 276

7,8

•

• 175

» •

130

. 377, 4io

•

„ •

. 121

16 ,

1 101,

155, 176, 210,

vi. 8

• 367

•

99, 189,

190, 236,

232

• 335

309

iv. 2 ,

» •

i>, • 252

20 ,

. 242, 516

•

120, 157,

190, 444,

> •

86, 357, 480

vii. 3

201, 296

500

I •

• 505

9, 10 ,

10, IX.

. 105,

"3, 130

> •

. 189

. 1S4

•

• •

. 181

10 ,

1 •

• 335

viii. 13

• . . 112

iii. 13

•

• •

. 210

vi. 10 ,

► •

. 410

ix. 4

• 515

•

• •

. 174

16 .

105,

198, 221, 240,
242, 243, 310

13
x. 20

. 280
. 141

COLOSSIANJ

xi. 1

62, 71, 450

i. IS

• •

"2, 157

II.

TIMOTHY.

• 413, 457

•

60, 63, 64,

108, I30,

ii. 5

•

. 135, 145

. 208

136,

190, 24O

13 -

» •

• 319

224, 260

•

70, 108,

126, 24O

16 .

•

. 352

. 259

•

112, 113,

137, 157

19 «

•

. . 410

11 .

. . . 412

a 8

•

• 417

20 ,

•

• 93

13 ■

> . . 412

•

• t

129, 24I

iii. 8

•

. 165

27 ■

. 259

Hi. 1

•

. 107

16 .

•

• . 192

. ' . .412

•

m 1

. 408

xii. 2 ,

. 231, 502

•

• <

. "3

TITI

15 «

, . . 200

•

• t

. 158

a 9 a

•

. 130

. 179

9, 10

•

0 i

. 427

1 •

. 490

xiii. 16

• 369

•

. 101

13 .

•

184, 232, 360

•

. 366

I. PETER.

•

• i

. 105

PHILE

i. 24 . ,

• 249 514

• 365

ii. 8 .

• 154

I. THESSAD

22 . ,

, . 186, 543

i. 10

•

. 105

HEB

iv. 16

• <

242, 417

i. 1

•

. 260

JAMES.

•

• 517

•

107, 119, 258

i. 15 • «

. 479

•

. 412

108, in, 114,

▼• 5

■

•

. 148

6,121,125,133,

I. JOHN.

•>

■

. 410

169,201,205,206,

i. 1 . 1

> . . 104

207, 338

ii. I . 1

. 128

II, THESSALONIANS.

4 j?. .

• 157

iv. 7, 8 .

. 391

iii. 8

« ♦

. 45

6
6—12

. "2, II3

• 234

v. 19 . ,

. 542

I TIMOTHY

• 234

REVELATION.

i- 7

no, 115,

199, 224,

H <

. 112, 234

i. 5 •

. 112

258

ii 10

• 5°2

. 37o

■

•

. 56

. 24I

xx. 5 ,

. 544

566

III.

INDEX OF GREEK WORDS DISCUSSED OR ILLUSTRATED.

iyyeKos, 234.
aytvvTjTos, 86, IOO,
aSeAcpos, 3-
oStjs, 443.
dOdvaros, 309.
affpdos, II.
atviyua, 482.
oiria, lOO.
alwvios, 451.
d/foi'uT)Tor, 451.

O %HV(JlV1)TOV, l60.
OAAOS, 345.

ava04SvKe, 1 32.

01/070)77;, 476.

Ai/oflTj/ua, 363. 5*4

d> aifiaKTos, 49°-

avaKpadelaa, I40, 180, cf. l8l.

diaAufi^, dvoAucm, 67, 75> 347>

503. 507-
&vapxos, IOO.
dvei'ep'yr/Tor, 476.
&v0jq)ttos (in MSS.), 264.

avdpCDTTOT^KOS, 544
OJ'9ii7rn0f'p«ii', 277-
dvoSi'o, 369.
avTf£aywyri, 544
dyTiSiacrroArj, 77-
avTiKfifj-tva, 86, 98.
d^TijuedrffTatris, 485.
avrnr'nTTOVTa (to), 43!'
dvT«rTpo(pT), 86.
bvun6(TTa.Tos, 350.

OVO)0€I', 159.
a7rapa\Aa/fT0j, 3I5-
direuipaieeie, 78, 83.
dir\a^s, 373, 455.
diroSpaVres, 277.
d7ro/caTa<TTa<Tir, 16.
airOKA-hpuxTis, 36, 44, 84.

O.ITOKpLTI.Kh'!, fl.

&iro(Tos 413
ipX^C*'", 276.
orrx^Aos, 448.

&TOfjLOV, 485.

dTp«jue7f, 450.

ou7aC«'«', 354-
a<p0apff(a, 343, 515.
a<p6op'ia, 515.

0a«Mbs, 547.
/3op/9opos, 297.
Ba<TiAei/s, 87.
flios, 325.

7o7-ypaii/a, 3 1 5.
■y6VT)TJ)5, yewrfrbs, IOO.
^SKfrrua. 143, 170.
•ytvwcbs, 42. 489.
•yi'mfT-rbi', 409.
-y >a<p«iv, 315. ,
71/uvdrrioi', 441.

417.

Sairdi'i;, 45 1.
5<aj9dAAeo-0ai, 281.
Sia-yAu^ooi, 408.

5(a»coi'T)<Ta<7-a, 242.
5iao~a>£eiv, 464.
SioTTtof, 356.
SiatrTrjjUOTt/c^s, 114.
Siax^'fl'tfo", 437-
S^a, 324.
Sopvtpopelv, 166.
Su^a/m, 505.

iyya(TTpi/j.vdos, 1 2$,

eoVa, 366.

i6i\o0p7)(TKiia, 95.

efATjeri*, 541.

etpjubs, 454.

ElenppricrdvTcev, 41.

iic\afj.fidv*iv, 490.

i\arTove1v . 363.

iKevOepia, 87.

ifxirapoiveTp, 380.

4fj.(pv€a6ai, 360.

eV5e5e(X#ai, 438.

ivepyeia, 124.

JWoio, 19, 76, 78, 249, 478, 513.

ivrideffdai, 320.

eloj/uX'C"", 79-
^aiOei/, 269, 369.
^Tri/Sia^a!, 381.
eirt/fTjpos, 437.
eirifxtrpia, 367.
'Ettii/oio, 78, 249, 268.
e7UTa<ns, 434.

eTrixe^"0*. 5°3-
imffTpecpeadai, 345.
eiriffTpo^T), 535-
eVepos, 369.
Ei><T€/8eio, evffefiuis, 2$t»
EiHrxVUocrvvri, 382.
€<paTra{, 503.
e>«£f/s, 268, 318.
€(p<$A.ifioi', 536. .

C7)". Cw0', 46$.
^a>070i'€ri', 71.
£a>poTepos, 517.

T)7ep.oeiKOV, to, IO3, 13OL

Oau/uaffTrtwr, 508.

(teoAo^nr, 58.

fleofiax'Ct, 498.

debs (derivation), 241, 309, 333.

0eor6Kos, 365, 544-

Oepaireveiv, 325.

OepoTreuTTjs, 495-

0ea>pia, 1 5 2.

0«axm, 502, cf. 17&

0v(7ia<TTr}piov, 383.

tepd v<i(Tos, 462.
j€pai(TUCT), 490.

icdOapiris, 496.
Ka0T)fxa^evfiivos, 546.
Ka0T)/j.tvos, 348.
KaOiaTaaOai (with gen.), 21S.
Kaflixjxei'cu, 42.

*aA}>s, 398, 479, 517.
xardStKos, 4Q3.
Ka.Ta0vfi.ios, 348.
KaTaKptats, 323.
/cotoAtji^u, 55.

KOTOTTTaXT-lJ, 467.

(fOTatreieic, 431.
(fOTOff/feur), 170.

KOTaxpwis, 447.
/coTe'Aa/3e, 244

KOTT)X7)(rts, 133.

KtVUKTls, I78, 185.

Kcpaia, 5°°-
Kepocr/Sd'Aa, 467.
Ke<pd\aiov, 380.
/cAf)poy, 45.
Koii<pos, 316.
Kri(eiv, 117.
Krifffia, 170.
Kpn-hpLOv, 547.

KVplOS, 70.

Aa/u/SdVeii', 490.
AetT«up76ri/, 373.
A.f)|ts, 444.
KoytKbs, 394.

\<*7ioi/, 344. 358.

A.o7i<ttt)s, 539-

\<$7os, 99, 118, 156, 222, £81, 358,

363, 394, 437, 489.
A070S, 475.
Xox<*7bs, 64.

fie'pos, 528.

fierafSaTiicbs, 463,

/ieroTroietcrOai (of the Eucharist), 506-

/i€Ta<rToixe«oC<r0cu (of the Eucharist),

506.
fiovapx'ta, 84.
Mop(pTj, 445.
/u<5p(pa>(Tij, 320, 321.
fivyais, 373.

flVp(J.T)Kld, 484,

vtvpov, 71.
vecvrepos, 347-
Wfj.<po<Tr6\ot, 366.

{€fIC««", 95-

o7(coi, 437.
oi irept, 440.
o?S«f, 472.
o'tKovofila, 49Q,
OKToSts, 214
5Ao (to), 62, tOZ.
6Aoo-x«pT7i, 249.
6/uo7€»<t)s, 131.

OU /UT)«', l82.

Ovo-la, 65, 199, 2SJ.

1xif«, 437-
o+e, 551.

trdfloy, 186, 488I
tie (t6), 62.
wavTeAT)!, 434.

INDEX OF GREEK WORDS DISCUSSED OR ILLUSTRATED.

wapa ttji/ irpuTTjv, 377, 439.
wapaKaKeTv, 1 28.
lrapaKparelv, 382.
waofveffirap-qv, 442.
irop7j\Aax^«', 168, c£ 3*7-
-irapOevia, 3, 342.
irapouffia, 490.
irfparefa, 237-

repiexoc (rb), 321, 43O, 43a
•irepioS'jtbj, 459-
irtpi<nrafffj.bs, 343-
irAV 4U^ 83, 313, 546.
ir\ripo<popeiffOai, 528.
nkripu>fj.a, 459-
7r\ti/fluT7jj, 372.
xo\.T6ia, 358, 382.
irpetrBevftP, 79-
lrpoBaKAeffOat, 444
irpo\a/Sdi'Ta (to), 34^. 449*
irpo&epeiv, 40, 353.
irpcxTKWilv, 325.
frp($<roif"S> 295.
irpdc^OTOS, III.
ripovi'eiK'OJ, 40, 214, 304,
■kp<iit6tokos, 5°» 157-
WKa<Tfx,bs, 460.
jrCp Kaddpffiov, 45*'

(retypes, 294.
o-e/u^TTjy, 351.
rvnuov, 543.

<TKT)VOS, $IJ.

<TKv8p'Dirbs, 483.
<r6<pi<Tnat 88.
irn-el^a, 541.
ariy^a, 543.
ffTotxetoi/, 434, 506.

<TTOjJL<pdlt)T]S, 298, 312.
(TTpOvU'lOV, 294.

<rrucf>bs 379.
<ru")«aTdtia(ris, 490.
<ru7«()0T«rc, 42.
(Tuva^is. 96, 547.
ffu^SffTiuos, 96.
(rufT/fleia, 299, cf. 168.
Tui'TeAeia, 36°-
<rv(TKT)vla, 517.
(ruo-ToAi), 353.
(T^pa^ls, 238.
(TXfT"f^s, 3°°-
<TX°^otrT"f^s> 539-
ffxo^, 353-

ffu>/j.a, 87.
(TconariKcos, $Ol.
ffan-rjpjos, 543.

T»;A.ai/7<2s, 357.
Tt^ur), rifiios, 50I«
rb fivbtv, 313.

T<$ Tt, 49I.

rpeirrbs, 1 561
TpiM^, 515.

vBpl<JT))S, 45O.

frypbs, 72.

vbpavKrn, 4 55-

u(07raTi>^6s, 254

inra/xtiQetv, 46 1, 5°8-

uTraTrai/TT), 55 I .

VTrin\vfif, 4JI.

urrei'di Tir>\, S2.

uvepti'tf-h, 389.

vnoBpvX'oS, 35°-

uiri)-ypa<pr), 43.

67r^flf(Tij, 41.

wiM7|iJ/is, 444-

1'nrdi'oia, 93.

r/7r.(<TTa(Tev, 25, 262, 475, 477.

vrrorvtr axTis, 321.

llTTlXpUJvdv, 43.

utpriyrjiTis, 502.

(poii/iVSa (note), 535.
(J)iAoT(yuia, 493.
(pvpa/xa, 499.
(pi/ai/cbj, 393, 455.
(pi'xm, 269, 375.
(^^T./ebs, 393, 403, 455.

Xei^oTovT/rbs, 329.
XPV<tt6ttis, 490, 491.
<fiA.bs, 542.

<J/t/Xi«2>s, 394.

ERRATA.

Page 33, col. 2, line 31, for arms, read aims,

38.
46,

58,
59.
75.
87.
88,

94,

2, note 4, ,, iv. 23, ,, iv. 23),

1, ,, 7, ,, Enippius. read Euippius.

2, line 51, ,, Creation ,, Creation,
2, ,, 9, ,, Ingenerate ,, Ungenerate
I, note 4, ,, av&hvoiv. „ avaKvaiv.

I, „ 9, add*

1, ,, 4, for irwfnvfiirup read fropnrn&rm*

2, „ 7, „ Heb. i. ,, Heb. i. 3.

Date Due

cJ?>C

Library Bureau Cat. no. 1137 /

MAR. 19*°

WELLESLEY COLLEGE LIBRARY

3 5002 03044 4298

BR 60 . S42 1890 5

A Select library of Nicene
and post -Nicene fathers of

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