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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 9
For so too does S. Paul speak, "for to make in Himself of twain one new man [442] ." And so too He foretells that at the time of His Passion He would voluntarily detach His soul from His body, saying, "No man taketh" my soul "from Me, but I lay it down of Myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again [443] ." Yea, the prophet David also, according to the interpretation of the great Peter, said with foresight of Him, "Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption [444] ," while the Apostle Peter thus expounds the saying, that "His soul was not left in hell, neither His flesh did see corruption." For His Godhead, alike before taking flesh and in the flesh and after His Passion, is immutably the same, being at all times what It was by nature, and so continuing for ever. But in the suffering of His human nature the Godhead fulfilled the dispensation for our benefit by severing the soul for a season from the body, yet without being Itself separated from either of those elements to which it was once for all united, and by joining again the elements which had been thus parted, so as to give to all human nature a beginning and an example which it should follow of the resurrection from the dead, that all the corruptible may put on incorruption, and all the mortal may put on immortality, our first-fruits having been transformed to the Divine nature by its union with God, as Peter said, "This same Jesus Whom ye crucified, hath God made both Lord and Christ [445] ;" and we might cite many passages of Scripture to support such a position, showing how the Lord, reconciling the world to Himself by the Humanity of Christ, apportioned His work of benevolence to men between His soul and His body, willing through His soul and touching them through His body. But it would be superfluous to encumber our argument by entering into every detail.
Before passing on, however, to what follows, I will further mention the one text, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up [446] ." Just as we, through soul and body, become a temple of Him Who "dwelleth in us and walketh in us [447] ," even so the Lord terms their combination a "temple," of which the "destruction" signifies the dissolution of the soul from the body. And if they allege the passage in the Gospel, "The Word was made flesh [448] ," in order to make out that the flesh was taken into the Godhead without the soul, on the ground that the soul is not expressly mentioned along with the flesh, let them learn that it is customary for Holy Scripture to imply the whole by the part. For He that said, "Unto Thee shall all flesh come [449] ," does not mean that the flesh will be presented before the Judge apart from the souls: and when we read in sacred History that Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy-five souls [450] we understand the flesh also to be intended together with the souls. So, then, the Word, when He became flesh, took with the flesh the whole of human nature; and hence it was possible that hunger and thirst, fear and dread, desire and sleep, tears and trouble of spirit, and all such things, were in Him. For the Godhead, in its proper nature, admits no such affections, nor is the flesh by itself involved in them, if the soul is not affected co-ordinately with the body.
[442] Eph. ii. 15.
[443] Cf. S. John x. 17, 18. Here again the word psuchen is rendered in the A.V. by "life."
[444] Ps. xvi. 8. Acts ii. 27, 31.
[445] Acts ii. 36. A further exposition of Gregory's views on this passage will be found in Book V.
[446] S. John ii. 19
[447] Cf. 2 Cor. vi. 16.
[448] S. John i. 14
[449] Ps. lxv. 2.
[450] Acts vii. 14. Cf. Gen. xlvi. 27, and Deut. x. 22.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius-2.asp?pg=9
