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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 96
ยง2. Then he again mentions S. Peter's word, "made," and the passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which says that Jesus was made by God "an Apostle and High Priest": and, after giving a sufficient answer to the charges brought against him by Eunomius, shows that Eunomius himself supports Basil's arguments, and says that the Only-begotten Son, when He had put on the flesh, became Lord.
And although we make these remarks in passing, the parenthetic addition seems, perhaps, not less important than the main question before us. For since, when St. Peter says, "He made Him Lord and Christ [761] ," and again, when the Apostle Paul says to the Hebrews that He made Him a priest [762] , Eunomius catches at the word "made" as being applicable to His pre-temporal existence, and thinks thereby to establish his doctrine that the Lord is a thing made [763] , let him now listen to Paul when he says, "He made Him to be sin for us, Who knew not sin [764] ." If he refers the word "made," which is used of the Lord in the passages from the Epistle to the Hebrews, and from the words of Peter, to the pretemporal idea, he might fairly refer the word in that passage which says that God made Him to be sin, to the first existence of His essence, and try to show by this, as in the case of his other testimonies, that he was "made", so as to refer the word "made" to the essence, acting consistently with himself, and to discern sin in that essence. But if he shrinks from this by reason of its manifest absurdity, and argues that, by saying, "He made Him to be sin," the Apostle indicates the dispensation of the last times, let him persuade himself by the same train of reasoning that the word "made" refers to that dispensation in the other passages also.
Let us, however, return to the point from which we digressed; for we might gather together from the same Scripture countless other passages, besides those quoted, which bear upon the matter. And let no one think that the divine Apostle is divided against himself in contradiction, and affords by his own utterances matter for their contentions on either side to those who dispute upon the doctrines. For careful examination would find that his argument is accurately directed to one aim; and he is not halting in his opinions: for while he everywhere proclaims the combination of the Human with the Divine, he none the less discerns in each its proper nature, in the sense that while the human weakness is changed for the better by its communion with the imperishable, the Divine power, on the other hand, is not abased by its contact with the lowly form of nature.
[761] Acts ii. 36.
[762] Cf. Heb. v. 5
[763] Altering Oehler's punctuation.
[764] 2 Cor. v. 21.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius-2.asp?pg=96
