On the Life And Works of St Gregory of Nyssa

St Gregory of Nyssa Resources Online and in Print

40 Pages

Page 31

S. Gregory's reply to the difficulty may be found in the letter, or short dissertation, addressed to Ablabius (Quod non sunt tres Dei), and in his treatise peri koinon ennoion. In the latter he lays it down that the term theos is a term ousias semantikon, not a term prosopon delotikon: the Godhead of the Father is not that in which He maintains His differentiation from the Son: the Son is not God because He is Son, but because His essential Nature is what it is. Accordingly, when we speak of "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost," the word and is employed to conjoin the terms expressive of the Persons, not the repeated term which is expressive of the Essence, and which therefore, while applied to each of the Three Persons, yet cannot properly be employed in the plural. That in the case of three individual "men" the term expressive of essence is employed in the plural is due, he says, to the fact that in this case there are circumstances which excuse or constrain such a use of the term "man" while such circumstances do not affect the case of the Holy Trinity. The individuals included under the term "man" vary alike in number and in identity, and thus we are constrained to speak of "men" as more or fewer, and in a certain sense to treat the essence as well as the persons numerically. In the Holy Trinity, on the other hand, the Persons are always the same, and their number the same. Nor are the Persons of the Holy Trinity differentiated, like individual men, by relations of time and place, and the like; the differentiation between them is based upon a constant causal relation existing among the Three Persons, which does not affect the unity of the Nature: it does not express the Being, but the mode of Being [51] . The Father is the Cause; the Son and the Holy Spirit are differentiated from Him as being from the Cause, and again differentiated inter se as being immediately from the Cause, and immediately through that which is from the Cause. Further, while these reasons may be alleged for holding that the cases are not in such a sense parallel as to allow that the same conclusion as to modes of speech should be drawn in both, he urges that the use of the term "men" in the plural is, strictly speaking, erroneous. We should, in strictness, speak not of "this or that man," but of "this or that hypostasis of man"--the "three men" should be described as "three hypostases" of the common ousia "man." In the treatise addressed to Ablabius he goes over the same ground, clothing his arguments in a somewhat less philosophical dress; but he devotes more space to an examination of the meaning of the term theos, with a view to showing that it is a term expressive of operation, and thereby of essence, not a term which may be considered as applicable to any one of the Divine Persons in any such peculiar sense that it may not equally be applied also to the other two [52] . His argument is partly based upon an etymology now discredited, but this does not affect the position he seeks to establish (a position which is also adopted in the treatise, De S. Trinitate), that names expressive of the Divine Nature, or of the Divine operation (by which alone that Nature is known to us) are employed, and ought to be employed, only in the singular. The unity and inseparability of all Divine operation, proceeding from the Father, advancing through the Son, and culminating in the Holy Spirit, yet setting forth one kinesis of the Divine will, is the reason why the idea of plurality is not suffered to attach to these names [53] , while the reason for refusing to allow, in regard to the three Divine Persons, the same laxity of language which we tolerate in regard to the case of the three "men," is to be found in the fact that in the latter case no danger arises from the current abuse of language: no one thinks of "three human natures;" but on the other hand polytheism is a very real and serious danger, to which the parallel abuse of language involved in speaking of "three Gods" would infallibly expose us.

[51] This statement strikes at the root of the theory held by Eunomius, as well as by the earlier Arians, that the agennesia of the Father constituted His Essence. S. Gregory treats His agennesia as that by which He is distinguished from the other Persons, as an attribute marking His hypostasis. This subject is treated more fully, with special reference to the Eunomian view, in the Ref. alt. libri Eunomii.

[52] S. Gregory would apparently extend this argument even to the operations expressed by the names of "Redeemer," or "Comforter;" though he would admit that in regard of the mode by which these operations are applied to man, the names expressive of them are used in a special sense of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, yet he would argue that in neither case does the one Person act without the other two.

[53] See Dorner, ut sup., pp. 317-18.

Previous Page / First / Next Page of St Gregory - HIS LIFE AND WORKS

St Gregory of Nyssa Home Page / Works ||| More Church Fathers

Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons

Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/life-works.asp?pg=31