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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 109
Who indeed could count the utterances 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 communion 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 maintained 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 signification 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 "essence," 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 resolve this irrefragable necessity of demonstration? The word "Lord," he says, is spoken of the essence. How does he maintain it? Because the Apostle says, "The Lord is the Spirit." Well, what has this to do with essence? 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 suppose "the Spirit" was put by him for the Essence of the Only-begotten!
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius-2.asp?pg=109
