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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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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 100
But with reference [784] 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, regarding the composite nature as it goes on its course in a kind of order and sequence. For the mutual concurrence of heterogeneous elements 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 [785] . 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 [786] ." 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 [787] "; 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 perceive His power extending through all things in heaven, and air, and earth, and sea, whatever there is in heaven, whatever there is beneath 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 enfolding 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 sufferings 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.
[784] Oehler's punctuation, while it does not exactly follow that of the earlier editions, still seems to admit of emendation here.
[785] The word pathos, like the English word "passion," has a double sense: in one sense it connotes a tendency to evil action or evil habit--and in this sense Christ was not subject to passion. In another sense it 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 this case, it may be said, the inexact use of the English word is for the most part restricted.
[786] Heb. iv. 15.
[787] 1 Pet. ii. 22.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius-2.asp?pg=100
