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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 113
Perhaps, however, it is waste of time to linger long over such follies. Let us pass to the next point of his statement. He adds to what he had already said, "Not standing in need, in the act of creation, of matter or parts or natural instruments: for He stands in need of nothing." This proposition, though Eunomius states it with a certain looseness of phrase, we yet do not reject as inconsistent with godly doctrine. For learning as we do that "He spake the word and they were made: He commanded and they were created [317] ," we know that the Word is the Creator of matter, by that very act also producing with the matter the qualities of matter, so that for Him the impulse of His almighty will was everything and instead of everything, matter, instrument, place, time, essence, quality, everything that is conceived in creation. For at one and the same time did He will that that which ought to be should be, and His power, that produced all things that are, kept pace with His will, turning His will into act. For thus the mighty Moses in the record of creation instructs us about the Divine power, ascribing the production of each of the objects that were manifested in the creation to the words that bade them be. For "God said," he tells us, "Let there be light, and there was light [318] :" and so about the rest, without any mention either of matter or of any instrumental agency. Accordingly the language of Eunomius on this point is not to be rejected. For God, when creating all things that have their origin by creation, neither stood in need of any matter on which to operate, nor of instruments to aid Him in His construction: for the power and wisdom of God has no need of any external assistance. But Christ is "the Power of God and the Wisdom of God [319] ," by Whom all things were made and without Whom is no existent thing, as John testifies [320] . If, then, all things were made by Him, both visible and invisible, and if His will alone suffices to effect the subsistence of existing things (for His will is power), Eunomius utters our doctrine though with a loose mode of expression [321] . For what instrument and what matter could He Who upholds all things by the word of His power [322] need in upholding the constitution of existing things by His almighty word? But if he maintains that what we have believed to be true of the Only-begotten in the case of the creation, is true also in the case of the Son--in the sense that the Father created Him in like manner as the creation was made by the Son,--then we retract our former statement, because such a supposition is a denial of the Godhead of the Only-begotten. For we have learnt from the mighty utterance of Paul that it is the distinguishing feature of idolatry to worship and serve the creature more than the Creator [323] , as well as from David, when He says "There shall no new God be in thee: neither shalt thou worship any alien God [324] ." We use this line and rule to arrive at the discernment of the object of worship, so as to be convinced that that alone is God which is neither "new" nor "alien." Since then we have been taught to believe that the Only-begotten God is God, we acknowledge, by our belief that He is God, that He is neither "new" or "alien." If, then, He is God, He is not "new," and if He is not new, He is assuredly eternal. Accordingly, neither is the Eternal "new," nor is He Who is of the Father and in the bosom of the Father and Who has the Father in Himself "alien" from true Deity. Thus he who severs the Son from the nature of the Father either absolutely disallows the worship of the Son, that he may not worship an alien God, or bows down before an idol, making a creature and not God the object of his worship, and giving to his idol the name of Christ.
[317] Ps. cxlviii. 5, or xxxiii. 9 in LXX.
[318] Gen. i. 3.
[319] 1 Cor. i. 24.
[320] Cf. S. John i. 3
[321] Reading en atonouse te lexei for enatonouse te lexei (the reading of the Paris edition, which Oehler follows).
[322] Cf. Heb. i. 3. The quotation is not verbally exact.
[323] Cf. Rom. i. 26
[324] Ps. lxxxi. 10, LXX. The words prosphatos ("new") and allotrios ("alien") are both represented in the A.V. by "strange," and so in R.V. The Prayer-book version expresses them by "strange" and "any other." Both words are subsequently employed by Gregory in his argument.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius.asp?pg=113
