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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 103
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 uncontrivable," and calls us "most miserable [794] ,"--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 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." It may be that the judgment 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 much to overthrow his blundering sophism, which indeed is overthrown by itself for those who have ears to hear, as to avoid the appearance of passing his allegation by without discussion, under the pretence of contempt for the worthlessness of his argument. Let us accordingly look at the point in this way. What are the Apostle's words? "Be it known," he says, "that God made Him Lord and Christ [795] ." 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 discourse 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 commixture to that which is exalted and Divine, becoming Christ and Lord, being transferred and changed to that which He was, Who manifested 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."
[794] Oehler's punctuation here seems to require correction.
[795] Acts ii. 36.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius-2.asp?pg=103
