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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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11 Pages
Page 5
Now our God and Saviour, in fulfilling the Dispensation for our sakes, went beneath the fourth of these, the earth, that He might raise up life from thence. And we in receiving Baptism, in imitation of our Lord and Teacher and Guide, are not indeed buried in the earth (for this is the shelter of the body that is entirely dead, covering the infirmity and decay of our nature), but coming to the element akin to earth, to water, we conceal ourselves in that as the Saviour did in the earth: and by doing this thrice we represent for ourselves that grace of the Resurrection which was wrought in three days: and this we do, not receiving the sacrament in silence, but while there are spoken over us the Names of the Three Sacred Persons on Whom we believed, in Whom we also hope, from Whom comes to us both the fact of our present and the fact of our future existence. It may be thou art offended, thou who contendest boldly against the glory of the Spirit, and that thou grudgest to the Spirit that veneration wherewith He is reverenced by the godly. Leave off contending with me: resist, if thou canst, those words of the Lord which gave to men the rule of the Baptismal invocation. What says the Lord's command? "Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost [2126] ." How in the Name of the Father? Because He is the primal cause of all things. How in the Name of the Son? Because He is the Maker of the Creation. How in the Name of the Holy Ghost? Because He is the power perfecting all. We bow ourselves therefore before the Father, that we may be sanctified: before the Son also we bow, that the same end may be fulfilled: we bow also before the Holy Ghost, that we may be made what He is in fact and in Name. There is not a distinction in the sanctification, in the sense that the Father sanctifies more, the Son less, the Holy Spirit in a less degree than the other Two. Why then dost thou divide the Three Persons into fragments of different natures, and make Three Gods, unlike one to another, whilst from all thou dost receive one and the same grace?
As, however, examples always render an argument more vivid to the hearers, I propose to instruct the mind of the blasphemers by an illustration, explaining, by means of earthly and lowly matters, those matters which are great, and invisible to the senses. If it befel thee to be enduring the misfortune of captivity among enemies, to be in bondage and in misery, to be groaning for that ancient freedom which thou once hadst--and if all at once three men, who were notable men and citizens in the country of thy tyrannical masters, set thee free from the constraint that lay upon thee, giving thy ransom equally, and dividing the charges of the money in equal shares among themselves, wouldst thou not then, meeting with this favour, look upon the three alike as benefactors, and make repayment of the ransom to them in equal shares, as the trouble and the cost on thy behalf was common to them all--if, that is, thou wert a fair judge of the benefit done to thee? This we may see, so far as illustration goes [2127] , for our aim at present is not to render a strict account of the Faith. Let us return to the present season, and to the subject it sets before us.
[2126] S. Matt. xxviii. 19.
[2127] The meaning of this clause may be, either that Gregory does not propose to follow this point out, as the subject of his discourse is Baptism, not the doctrine of the Trinity; or, that the example he has given is not to be so pressed as to imply tritheism, being merely an illustration of moral obligation, not a parallel from which anything is to be inferred as to the exact relation between the Three Persons.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/baptism-of-christ.asp?pg=5
