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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 104
"Not honouring Him," he says, "with a lying title, for He cannot lie." By that phrase I pray that Eunomius may abide, and so bear witness to the truth that it cannot lie. For if he would be of this mind, that everything that is uttered by the Lord is far removed from falsehood, he will of course be persuaded that He speaks the truth Who says, "I am in the Father, and the Father in Me [271] ,"--plainly, the One in His entirety, in the Other in His entirety, the Father not superabounding in the Son, the Son not being deficient in the Father,--and Who says also that the Son should be honoured as the Father is honoured [272] , and "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father [273] ," and "no man knoweth the Father save the Son [274] ," in all which passages there is no hint given to those who receive these declarations as genuine, of any variation [275] of glory, or of essence, or anything else, between the Father and the Son.
"Really existent," he says, "one God in nature and in glory." Real existence is opposed to unreal existence. Now each of existing things is really existent in so far as it is; but that which, so far as appearance and suggestion go, seems to be, but is not, this is not really existent, as for example an appearance in a dream or a man in a picture. For these and such like things, though they exist so far as appearance is concerned, have not real existence. If then they maintain, in accordance with the Jewish opinion, that the Only-begotten God does not exist at all, they are right in predicating real existence of the Father alone. But if they do not deny the existence of the Maker of all things, let them be content not to deprive of real existence Him Who is, Who in the Divine appearance to Moses gave Himself the name of Existent, when He said, "I am that I am [276] :" even as Eunomius in his later argument agrees with this, saying that it was He Who appeared to Moses. Then he says that God is "one in nature and in glory." Whether God exists without being by nature God, he who uses these words may perhaps know: but if it be true that he who is not by nature God is not God at all, let them learn from the great Paul that they who serve those who are not Gods do not serve God [277] ." But we "serve the living and true God," as the Apostle says [278] : and He Whom we serve is Jesus the Christ [279] . For Him the Apostle Paul even exults in serving, saying, "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ [280] ."
[271] S. John xiv. 10
[272] Cf. S. John v. 23
[273] S. John xiv. 9
[274] S. Matt. xi. 27
[275] parallage (Cf. S. James i. 17).
[276] Or "I am He that is," Ex. iii. 14.
[277] The reference seems to be to Gal. iv. 8.
[278] 1 Thess. i. 10.
[279] There is perhaps a reference here to Col. iii. 24.
[280] Rom. i. 1.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius.asp?pg=104
