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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 43
But if, as is the case, prophets, evangelists, and Apostles proclaim aloud the Godhead of the Only-begotten, and if the name of goodness is attested by the Lord Himself to belong to God, how is it possible that He Who is partaker of the Godhead should not be partaker of the goodness too? For that both prophets, evangelists, disciples and apostles acknowledge the Lord as God, there is none so uninitiated in Divine mysteries as to need to be expressly told. For who knows not that in the forty-fourth [978] Psalm the prophet in his word affirms the Christ to be God, anointed by God? And again, who of all that are conversant with prophecy is unaware that Isaiah, among other passages, thus openly proclaims the Godhead of the Son, where he says: "The Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and shall be servants unto thee: they shall come after thee bound in fetters, and in thee shall they make supplication, because God is in thee, and there is no God beside thee; for thou art God [979] ." For what other God there is Who has God in Himself, and is Himself God, except the Only-begotten, let them say who hearken not to the prophecy; but of the interpretation of Emmanuel, and the confession of Thomas after his recognition of the Lord, and the sublime diction of John, as being manifest even to those who are outside the faith, I will say nothing. Nay, I do not even think it necessary to bring forward in detail the utterances of Paul, since they are, as one may say, in all men's mouths, who gives the Lord the appellation not only of "God," but of "great God" and "God over all," saying to the Romans, "Whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, Who is over all, God blessed for ever [980] ," and writing to his disciple Titus, "According to the appearing of Jesus Christ the great God and our Saviour [981] ," and to Timothy, proclaims in plain terms, "God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit [982] ." Since then the fact has been demonstrated on every side that the Only-begotten God is God [983] , how is it that he who says that goodness belongs to God, strives to show that the Godhead of the Son is alien from this ascription, and this though the Lord has actually claimed for Himself the epithet "good" in the parable of those who were hired into the vineyard? For there, when those who had laboured before the others were dissatisfied at all receiving the same pay, and deemed the good fortune of the last to be their own loss, the just judge says to one of the murmurers [984] , "Friend, I do thee no wrong: did I not agree with thee for a penny a day? Lo, there thou hast that is thine [985] : I will bestow upon this last even as upon thee. Have I not power to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am good?"
[978] Ps. xlv. 7, 8. (The Psalm is the 44th in the LXX. numeration, and is so styled by S. Gregory.)
[979] Cf. Is. xlv. 14, 15 (LXX.).
[980] Rom. ix. 5.
[981] Cf. Tit. ii. 13. The quotation is not verbal; and here the rendering of the A.V. rather obscures the sense which it is necessary for S. Gregory's argument to bring out.
[982] 1 Tim. iii. 16 (reading Theos, or, if the citation is to be considered as verbal, ho Theos).
[983] Reading tou Theon einai ton monogene Theon for tou Theou einai k.t.l. The reading of the texts does not give the sense required for the argument.
[984] Compare with what follows S. Matt. xx. 13, 15. S. Gregory seems to be quoting from memory; his Greek is not so close to that of S. Matthew as the translation to the A.V.
[985] Cf. S. Matt. xxv. 25, from which this phrase is borrowed, with a slight variation.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius-3.asp?pg=43
