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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 97
When therefore he says, "He spared not His own Son," he contrasts the true Son with the other sons, begotten, or exalted, or adopted [765] (those, I mean, who were brought into being at His command), marking the specialty of nature by the addition of "own." And, to the end that no one should connect the suffering of the Cross with the imperishable nature, he gives in other words a fairly distinct correction of such an error, when he calls Him "mediator between God and men [766] " and "man [767] ," and "God [768] ," that, from the fact that both are predicated of the one Being, the fit conception might be entertained concerning each Nature--concerning the Divine Nature, impassibility, concerning the Human Nature, the dispensation of the Passion. As his thought, then, divides that which in love to man was made one, but is distinguished in idea, he uses, when he is proclaiming that nature which transcends and surpasses all intelligence, the more exalted order of names, calling Him "God over all [769] ," "the great God [770] ," "the power" of God, and "the wisdom" of God [771] , and the like; but when he is alluding to all that experience of suffering which, by reason of our weakness, was necessarily assumed with our nature, he gives to the union of the Natures [772] that name which is derived from ours, and calls Him Man, not by this word placing Him Whom he is setting forth to us on a common level with the rest of nature, but so that orthodoxy is protected as regards each Nature, in the sense that the Human Nature is glorified by His assumption of it, and the Divine is not polluted by Its condescension, but makes the Human element subject to sufferings, while working, through Its Divine power, the resurrection of that which suffered. And thus the experience of death is not [773] referred to Him Who had communion in our passible nature by reason of the union with Him of the Man, while at the same time the exalted and Divine names descend to the Man, so that He Who was manifested upon the Cross is called even "the Lord of glory [774] ," since the majesty implied in these names is transmitted from the Divine to the Human by the commixture of Its Nature with that Nature which is lowly. For this cause he describes Him in varied and different language, at one time as Him Who came down from heaven, at another time as Him Who was born of woman, as God from eternity, and Man in the last days; thus too the Only-begotten God is held to be impassible, and Christ to be capable of suffering; nor does his discourse speak falsely in these opposing statements, as it adapts in its conceptions to each Nature the terms that belong to it.
[765] Reading, as Gulonius seems to have done, and according to Oehler's suggestion (which he does not himself follow), huiothetetheisi for athetesasi. In the latter reading the mss. seem to agree, but the sense is doubtful. It may be rendered, perhaps, "Who were begotten and exalted, and who rejected Him." The quotation from S. Paul is from Rom. viii. 32.
[766] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
[767] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
[768] The reference is perhaps to 1 Tim iii. 16, but more probably to 1 Tim. ii. 5.
[769] Rom. ix. 5.
[770] Tit. ii. 13.
[771] 1 Cor. i. 24.
[772] to sunamphoteron
[773] Reading oute, in favour of which apparently lies the weight of mss. The reading of the Paris edition gives an easier connection, but has apparently no ms. authority. The distinction S. Gregory draws is this:--"You may not say God died,' for human weakness does not attach to the Divine Nature; you may say He who died is the Lord of glory,' for the Human Nature is actually made partaker of the power and majesty of the Divine."
[774] 1 Cor. ii. 8.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius-2.asp?pg=97
