|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE |
LIBRARIES |
BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | BOOKSTORE | FREEWARE |
|
|
Translated by W. Moore and H. A. Wilson
St Gregory of Nyssa Resources Online and in Print
|
This Part: 128 Pages
Page 79
But perhaps a man would be more easily led into the true view by personal illustrations; so let us leave this looking backwards and forwards and this twisting of false premisses [203] , and discuss the matter in a less learned and more popular way. Your father, Eunomius, was certainly a human being; but the same person was also the author of your being. Did you, then, ever use in his case too this clever quibble which you have employed; so that your own father,' when once he receives the true definition of his being, can no longer mean, because of being a man,' any relationship to yourself; for he must be one of two things, either a man, or Eunomius' father?'--Well, then, you must not use the names of intimate relationship otherwise than in accordance with that intimate meaning. Yet, though you would indict for libel any one who contemptuously scoffed against yourself, by means of such an alteration of meanings, are you not afraid to scoff against God; and are you safe when you laugh at these mysteries of our faith? As your father' indicates relationship to yourself, and at the same time humanity is not excluded by that term, and as no one in his sober senses instead of styling him who begat you your father' would render his description by the word man,' or, reversely, if asked for his genus and answering man,' would assert that that answer prevented him from being your father; so in the contemplation of the Almighty a reverent mind would not deny that by the title of Father is meant that He is without generation, as well as that in another meaning it represents His relationship to the Son. Nevertheless Eunomius, in open contempt of truth, does assert that the title cannot mean the having begotten a son' any longer, when once the word has conveyed to us the idea of never having been generated.'
Let us add the following illustration of the absurdity of his assertions. It is one that all must be familiar with, even mere children who are being introduced under a grammar-tutor to the study of words. Who, I say, does not know that some nouns are absolute and out of all relation, others express some relationship. Of these last, again, there are some which incline, according to the speaker's wish, either way; they have a simple intention in themselves, but can be turned so as to become nouns of relation. I will not linger amongst examples foreign to our subject. I will explain from the words of our Faith itself.
God is called Father and King and other names innumerable in Scripture. Of these names one part can be pronounced absolutely, i.e. simply as they are, and no more: viz.. "imperishable," "everlasting," "immortal," and so on. Each of these, without our bringing in another thought, contains in itself a complete thought about the Deity. Others express only relative usefulness; thus, Helper, Champion, Rescuer, and other words of that meaning; if you remove thence the idea of one in need of the help, all the force expressed by the word is gone. Some, on the other hand, as we have said, are both absolute, and are also amongst the words of relation; God,' for instance, and good,' and many other such. In these the thought does not continue always within the absolute. The Universal God often becomes the property of him who calls upon Him; as the Saints teach us, when they make that independent Being their own.
[203] to katenkulomenon tes ton suphismaton plokes. See c. 38, note 7. The false premisses in the syllogisms have been-- 1. Father (partly) means 'Agennetos Things which mean the same in part, mean the same in all (false premiss). ? Father means 'Agennetos (false). 2. Father means 'Agennetos (false). 'Agennetos does not mean having a Son.' ? Father does not mean having a Son' (false).
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius.asp?pg=79
