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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 111
And if any one say that such names were imposed by the arbitrary usage of mankind, he will be guilty of no offence against the scheme of Divine Providence. For we do not say that the nature of things was of human invention, but only their names. The Hebrew calls Heaven by one name, the Canaanite by another, but both of them understand it alike, being in no way led into error by the difference of the sounds that convey the idea of the object. But the over-cautious and timid will-worship of these clever folk, on whose authority he asserts that, if it were granted that words were given to things by men, men would be of higher authority than God, is proved to be unsubstantial even by the example which we find recorded of Moses. For who gave Moses his name? Was it not Pharaoh's daughter who named him from what had happened [1132] ? For water is called Moses in the language of the Egyptians. Since, then, in consequence of the tyrant's order, his parents had placed the babe in an ark and consigned it to the stream (for so some related concerning him), but by the will of God the ark was floated by the current and carried to the bank, and found by the princess, who happened just then to be taking the refreshment of the bath, as the child had been gained "from the water," she is said to have given him his name as a memorial of the occurrence,--a name by which God Himself did not disdain to address His servant, nor did He deem it beneath Him to allow the name given by the foreign woman to remain the Prophet's proper appellation.
In like manner before him Jacob, having taken hold of his brother's heel, was called a supplanter [1133] , from the attitude in which he came to the birth. For those who are learned in such matters tell us that such is the interpretation of the word "Jacob," as translated into Greek. So, too, Pharez was so named by his nurse from the incident at his birth [1134] , yet no one on that account, like Eunomius, displayed any jealousy of his assuming an authority above that of God. Moreover the mothers of the patriarchs gave them their names, as Reuben, and Simeon, and Levi [1135] , and all those who came after them. And no one started up, like our new author, as patron of Divine providence, to forbid women to usurp Divine authority by the imposition of names. And what shall we say of other particulars in the sacred record, such as the "waters of strife," and the "place of mourning," and the "hill of the foreskins," and the "valley of the cluster," and the "field of blood," and such-like names, of human imposing, but oftentimes recorded to have been uttered by the Person of God, from which we may learn that men may notify the meaning of things by words without presumption, and that the Divine nature does not depend on words for its evidence to itself?
[1132] Exod. ii. 10.
[1133] Gen. xxv. 26.
[1134] Gen. xxxviii. 29.
[1135] Gen. xxix. 32-35
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius-3.asp?pg=111
