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Translated by W. Moore and H. A. Wilson
St Gregory of Nyssa Resources Online and in Print
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70 Pages
Page 13
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 sense is again divided into rational and irrational. For this reason the lawgiver says that after inanimate matter (as a sort of foundation for the form of animate things), this vegetative life was made, and had earlier [1611] 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 themselves even apart from the intellectual nature, while the rational principle could not be embodied 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 intellectual 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 [1612] , 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 [1613] : 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 [1614] ," 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 [1615] ," and incapable of receiving the more perfect doctrine; while elsewhere, 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 [1616] ." As, then, the natural man is higher than the carnal, by the same measure also the spiritual man rises above the natural.
[1611] Earlier, i.e. earlier than the animal life, or "sensitive" soul.
[1612] The reference is really to 1 Thess. v. 23. Apparently all Forbes' mss. read pros tous 'Ephesious: but the Latin version of Dionysius Exiguus corrects the error, giving the quotation at greater length.
[1613] Cf. S. Mark xii. 30
[1614] psuchiken: "psychic" or "animal:"--the Authorised Version translates the word by "natural."
[1615] Cf. 1 Cor. iii. 3.
[1616] Cf. 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/making-man.asp?pg=13
