Gregory of Nyssa Search This Resource     in this Authorin this Sectionin all Sections   Navigator (Page 1 of 3) Previous Next   Page2   Book VI §1. 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 an Human Flesh, and Becoming a Mediator Between God and Man, on Whom We Believe, as Subject to Suffering 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(1) . 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 investigations 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 misapprehension. 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 anathema(2) ." 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(4) :-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. And while this is more openly maintained in the last part of their argument, it is also clearly shown in their present discourse(5) . 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 becomes 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 ofdoctrinal pravity, it would seem right that ourreaders should require in our reply not so much brevity as soundness. We, then, neither attribute 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 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 concerning 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 corruption: and whatever suffering is asserted concerning Him in the Gospel, He assuredly wrought by means of His Human Nature which admitted of such suffering. For verily the Godhead 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 Sons,(8) ," 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(10) ," and, "God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh(11) " (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(12) " (while he indicates by "power" the Divine Nature); and, "He died unto sin" (that is, with regard to the body), "but liveth unto God(13) " (that is, with regard to the Godhead, so that by these words it is established 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(14) ," 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 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 Arguments, 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(15) ," and again, when the Apostle Paul says to the Hebrews that He made Him a priest(16) , Eunomius catches at the word "made" as being applicable to His pre-temporal existence, and thinks thereby to establish his doctrine that the Lord is a thing made(17) , let him now listen to Paul when he says, "He made Him to be sin for us, Who knew not sin(18) ." 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 together 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 contradiction, 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 argument 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 imperishable, 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 adopted(19) (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 men(20) " and "man(21) ," and "God(22) ," 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 proclaiming that nature which transcends and surpasses all intelligence, the more exalted order of names, calling Him "God over all(23) ," "the great God(24) ," "the power" of God, and "the wisdom". of God(25) , and the like; but when he is alluding to all that experience of suffering which, by reason of our weakness, was necessarily assumed with our nature, he gives to the union of the Natures(26) that name which is derived 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 sufferings, while working, through Its Divine power, the resurrection of that which suffered. And thus the experience of death is not(27) 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(28) ," 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 theOnly-begotten God is held to be impassible, and Christ to be capable of suffering; nor does his discourse speak falsely in these opposing statements, 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 Epistle to the Hebrews we may learn the same truth from Paul, when he says that Jesus was made an Apostle and High Priest by God, "being faithful to him that made Him so(29) ." 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(30) ), Who offered up his own lamb, that is, His own Body, for the sin of the world; Who, by reason of the children that arc partakers of flesh and blood, Himself also in like manner took part with them in blood(31) (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(32) . Surely a reader who has more than a casual acquaintance 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 dispensation 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 more(33) ," in the sense that the one knowledge manifests 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 argument 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 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 he fits together "statements that are mutually conflicting." Why, this is actually our statement which Eunomius repeats, who says that "the Word that was in the beginning 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 according 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 Godhead (for the Nature of the Godhead is acknowledged to be lacking in no good), but by bringing the Human Nature to theft 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 Thee 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 attributing to our doctrine his own blasphemy.(34) For it is not one who confesses that the immutable Nature has put on the created and perishable, 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 itself(35) . But we who have learnt from prophecy of "the change of the right hand of the Most High(36) ,"-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 depending upon Him as a part upon a whole, but as being indeed from Hint, 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 unchangeable, 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 Himself in Whom I am, because the very same character of Godhead is beheld in both(37) ." If, then, we believe that the immortal and impossible 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 emptied to become Himself," by those who keep prating their own statements about our doctrines? 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 Eunomius 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 Right Hand of the Highest to be such as he sees the Highest to be,-Uncreated of Uncreated, 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. FOOTNOTES: The passage in S. Peter's speech (Acts ii. 36) discussed in the preceding book. Cf. Gal. i. 8, Gal. i. 9. 1 Cor. i 13. The sense of this passage is rather obscure. S. Gregory intends, it would seem, to point out that, although an acknowledgment that the suffering Christ was more than man may seem at first sight to support the Elmomian view of the passibility of the Godhead of the Son, this is not its necessary effect. Apparently either ou mhn must be taken as equivalent to ou mhn alla, or a clause such as that expressed in the translation must be supplied before toiv men gar ktl. Altering Oehler's punctuation, which here follows that of the earlier editions. Cf. S. John i. 1. Cf. Bar. iii. 37. Rom. viii. 32. Cf. Rom. viii. 3. 1 Cor. xv. 21. Cf. Rom. viii. 3. 2 Cor. xiii. 4. Rom. vi. 10. 2 Cor. v. 21. Acts ii. 36. Cf. Heb. v. 5. Altering Oehler's punctuation. 2 Cor. v. 21. Reading, as Gulonius seems to have done, and according to Oehler's suggestion (which he does not himself follow), uioqethqeisi or aqethsasi. In the latter reading the mss. seem to agree, but the 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. 1 Tim. ii. 5. 1 Tim. ii. 5. The reference is perhaps to 1 Tim iii. 16, but more probably to 1 Tim. ii. 5. Rom ix. 5. Tit. ii. 13. 1 Cor. i. 24. to sunamfoteron. Reading oute, in favour of which apparently lies the weight of mss. The reading of the Paris edition gives an easier connection, but has apparently no ms. authority. The distinction S. Gregory draws is this:-"You may not say `God died,0' for human weakness does not attach to the Divine Nature; you may say `He who died is the Lord of glory,0' for the Human Nature is actually made partaker of the power and majesty of the Divine." 1 Cor. ii. 8. Cf. Heb. iii. 1, Heb. iii. 2. Cf. Zech. iii. 1. Cf. Heb. ii. 14. Cf. Heb. vii. 21. 2 Cf. Cor. v. 16. See above, Book V. §4. That is, in a nature created like itself. Ps. lxxvii. 10 (LXX.). This application of the passage is also made by Michael Ayguan (the "Doctor Incognitus"), who is the only commentator mentioned by Neale and Littledale as so interpreting the text. Cf. S. John xiv. 9, John xiv. 10.