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Translated by W. Moore and H. A. Wilson
St Gregory of Nyssa Resources Online.Please note that a bilingual edition (Greek original / English translation) is being prepared and will be published in print soon; if you are interested bookmark this page to know when it is ready and available.
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53 Pages
Page 52
For, whereas we learn from Scripture in the account of the first Creation [1924] , that first the earth brought forth "the green herb" (as the narrative says), and that then from this plant seed was yielded, from which, when it was shed on the ground, the same form of the original plant again sprang up, the Apostle, it is to be observed, declares that this very same thing happens in the Resurrection also; and so we learn from him the fact, not only [1925] that our humanity will be then changed into something nobler, but also that what we have therein to expect is nothing else than that which was at the beginning. In the beginning, we see, it was not an ear rising from a grain, but a grain coming from an ear, and, after that, the ear grows round the grain: and so the order indicated in this similitude [1926] clearly shows that all that blessed state, which arises for us by means of the Resurrection is only a return to our pristine state of grace. We too, in fact, were once in a fashion a full ear [1927] ; but the burning heat of sin withered us up, and then on our dissolution by death the earth received us: but in the spring of the Resurrection she will reproduce this naked grain [1928] of our body in the form of an ear, tall, well-proportioned, and erect, reaching to the heights of heaven, and, for blade and beard, resplendent in incorruption, and with all the other godlike marks. For "this corruptible must put on incorruption"; and this incorruption and glory and honour and power are those distinct and acknowledged marks of Deity which once belonged to him who was created in God's image, and which we hope for hereafter. The first man Adam, that is, was the first ear; but with the arrival of evil human nature was diminished into a mere multitude [1929] ; and, as happens to the grain [1930] on the ear, each individual man was denuded of the beauty of that primal ear, and mouldered in the soil: but in the Resurrection we are born again in our original splendour; only instead of that single primitive ear we become the countless myriads of ears in the cornfields. The virtuous life as contrasted with that of vice is distinguished thus: those who while living have by virtuous conduct exercised husbandry on themselves are at once revealed in all the qualities of a perfect ear, while those whose bare grain (that is the forces of their natural soul) has become through evil habits degenerate, as it were, and hardened by the weather (as the so-called "hornstruck" seeds [1931] , according to the experts in such things, grow up), will, though they live again in the Resurrection, experience very great severity from their Judge, because they do not possess the strength to shoot up into the full proportions of an ear, and thereby become that which we were before our earthly fall [1932] .
[1924] The Resurrection being the second. The epeide here does not give the reason for what precedes: that is given in the words, phesi de touto ho apostolos, to which the leading gar therefore belongs: the colon should be replaced (after anedramen) by a comma.
[1925] Reading ou monon de touto, k.t.l. The de is not found in two Codd.
[1926] i.e.of grain, adopted by the Apostle.
[1927] stachus here might be the nom. plur. Any way it is a "nominativus pendens."
[1928] This "naked grain" is suggested by the words of S. Paul, not so much 1 Cor. xv. 37, as 2 Cor. v. 4: "For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon." Tertullian's words (de resurr. carnis c. 52) deserve to be quoted, "Seritur granum sine folliculi veste, sine fundamento spicae, sine munimento aristae, sine superbiâ culmi. Exsurgit copiâ feneratum, compagine aedificatum, ordine structum, cultu munitum, et usquequaque vestitum." In allusion to this passage (2 Cor. v. 4), Origen says, "Our theory of the Resurrection teaches that the relations of a seed attach to that which the Scriptures call the tabernacle of the soul,' in which the righteous do groan being burdened,' not wishing to put it off, but to be clothed upon' (with something else). We do not, as Celsus thinks, mean by the resurrection anything like the transmigration of souls. The soul, in its essence unbodied and invisible, when it comes into material space, requires a body fitted to the conditions of that particular space: which body it wears, having either put off a former body, or else having put it on over its former body...For instance, when it comes to the actual birth into this world it lays aside the environment (chorion) which was needed as long as it is in the womb of her that is with child: and it clothes itself with that which is necessary for one destined to pass through life. Then there is a tabernacle,' and an earthly house,' as well: and the Scriptures tell us that this earthly house' of the tabernacle is to be dissolved, but that the tabernacle itself is to surround itself with another house not made with hands. The men of God declare that the corruptible must put on incorruption (which is a different thing from the incorruptible), and the mortal must put on immortality (which is different from the immortal: just as the relative quality of wisdom is different from that which is absolutely wise). Observe, then, where this system leads us. It says that the souls put on incorruption and immortality like garments which keep their wearer from corruption, and their inmate (ton perikeimenon auta) from death" (c. Cels. vii. 32). We see at once this is another explanation of the Resurrection, by the spermatikos logos of the soul, and not Gregory's; with him the soul recollects its scattered atoms, and he thus saves the true scriptural view.
[1929] This connection of "evil" and "multitude" is essentially Platonic. Cf. also Plotinus, vi. 6. 1: "Multitude, then, is a revolt from unity, and infinity a more complete revolt by being infinite multitude: and so infinity is bad, and we are bad, when we are a multitude" (cf. "Legion" in the parable).
[1930] as happens to the grain, i.e. to become bare, as compared with the beautiful envelopments of the entire ear.
[1931] "hornstruck" seeds, i.e. those which have been struck by, or have struck, the horns of the oxen, in the process of sowing: according to the rustic superstition, which Gregory Nazianz. in some very excellent hexameters alludes to (Opp. t. II. pp. 66-163): "There is," he says, "a dry unsoakable seed, which never sinks into the ground, or fattens with the rain; it is harder than horn; its horn has struck the horn of the ox, what time the ploughman's hand is scattering the grain over his land." Ruhnken (ad Timaeum, p. 155) has collected the ancient authorities on this point. The word is used by Plato of a "hard," "intractable" person. The "bare grain" of the wicked is here compared to these hard seeds, which even though they may sink into the earth and rise again, yet have a poor and stunted blade, which may never grow.
[1932] Reading epi tes ges, instead of ten gen: for a fall "on to the earth," instead of "on the earth," agrees neither with what Gregory (speaking by Macrina) has urged against the heathen doctrine of Transmigration, nor with the words of Scripture which he follows. The "earthly fall" is compared with the heavenly rising: kataptosis, in the sense of a "moral fall," is used in 3 Maccab. ii. 14 (quoted by Schmidt).
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/soul-resurrection.asp?pg=52
