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St Gregory of Nyssa Resources Online and in Print
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40 Pages
Page 16
In treating the Sacrament of the Eucharist, Gregory was the first Father who developed the view of transformation, for which transubstantiation was afterwards substituted to suit the mediaeval philosophy; that is, he put this view already latent into actual words. There is a locus classicusin the Oratio Catechetica, c. 37.
"Therefore from the same cause as that by which the bread that was transformed in that Body was changed to a divine potency, a similar result takes place now. For as in that case, too, the grace of the Word used to make holy the Body, the substance of which came of the bread and was in a manner itself bread, so also in this case the bread, as says the Apostle, is sanctified by the word of God and prayer:' not that it advances by the process of eating to the stage of passing into the body of the Word, but it at once is changed into the Body, by the Word, as the Word Himself said, This is My Body;'" and just above he had said: "Rightly do we believe that now also the bread which is consecrated by the word of God is changed into the body of God the Word." This way of explaining the mystery of the Sacrament, i.e. from the way bread was changed into the Word when Christ was upon earth, is compared by Neander with another way Gregory had of explaining it, i.e. the heightened efficacy of the bread is as the heightened efficacy of the baptismal water, the anointing oil [19] , &c., a totally different idea. But this, which may be called the metabatic view, is the one evidently most present to his mind. In a fragment of his found in a Parisian ms. [20] , quoted with the Liturgies of James, Basil, Chrysostom, we also find it; "The consecrated bread is changed into the body of the Word; and it is needful for humanity to partake of that."
Again, the necessity of the Incarnation, drawn from the words "it was necessary that Christ should suffer," receives a rational treatment from him. There must ever be, from a meditation on this, two results, according as the physical or the ethical element in Christianity prevails, i.e. 1. Propitiation; 2. Redemption. The first theory is dear to minds fed upon the doctrines of the Reformation, but it receives no countenance from Gregory. Only in the book in which Moses' Life is treated allegorically does he even mention it. The sacrifice of Christ instead of the bloody sacrifices of the Old Testament is not his doctrine, He develops his theory of the Redemption or Ransom (i.e. from the Devil), in the Oratio Catechetica. Strict justice to the Evil One required it. But in his hands this view never degenerates, as with some, into a mere battle, e.g. in Gethsemane, between the Rescuer and Enslaver.
[19] In Sermon On the Baptism of Christ.
[20] A. 1560 fol.; also Antwerp, p. 1562 (Latinè).
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/life-works.asp?pg=16
