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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 05 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 25.01.00c Gregory of Nyssa, His life
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With regard to the question, so much agitated, of the 'Apokatastasij, it may be said that not Gregory only but Basil and Gregory Nazianzen also have felt the influence of their master in theology, Origen. But it is due to the latter to say that though he dwells much on the "all in all" and insists much more on the sanctifying power of punishment than on the satisfaction owed to Divine justice, yet no one could justly attribute to him, as a doctrine, the view of a Universal Salvation. Still these Greek Fathers, Origen and `the three great Cappadocians,' equally showed a disposition of mind that left little room for the discussions that were soon to agitate the West. Their infinite hopes, their absolute confidence in the goodness of God, who owes it to Himself to make His work perfect, their profound faith in the promises and sacrifice of Christ, as well as in the vivifying action of the Holy Spirit, make the question of Predestination and Grace a very simple one with them. The word Grace occurs as often in them as in Augustine: but they do not make original sin a monstrous innovation requiring a remedy of a peculiar and overwhelming intensity. Passion indeed seems to Gregory of Nyssa himself one of the essential elements of the human soul. He borrows from the naturalists many principles of distinction between classes of souls and lives: he insists incessantly on the intimate connexion between the physical growth and the development of the reason, and on the correlation between the one and the other: and we arrive at the conclusion that man in his eyes, as in Clement's, was not originally perfect, except in possibility; that being at once reasoning and sentient he must perforce feel within himself the struggle of reason and passion, and that it was inevitable that sin should enter into the world: it was a consequence of his mixed nature. This mixed nature of the first man was transmitted to his descendants. Here, though he stands apart from Origen on the question of man's original perfection, he could not have accepted the whole Augustinian scheme of original sin: and Grace as the remedy with him consists rather in the purging this mixed nature, than in the introduction into it of something absolutely foreign. The result, as with all the Greek Fathers, will depend on the co-operation of the free agent in this remedial work. Predestination and the `bad will' are excluded by the Possibility and the `free will' of Origen and Gregory.
The council held at Alexandria in the year 365, during the brief restoration of S. Athanasius, shows us at once the point of contrast and the substantial agreement between the Western school, with which S. Athanasius himself is in this matter to be reckoned, and the Eastern theologians to whom has been given the title of "Neo-Nicene." The question at issue was one of language, not of belief; it turned upon the sense to be attached to the word upostasij. The Easterns, following a use of the term which may be traced perhaps to the influence of Origen, employed the word in the sense of the Latin "Persona," and spoke of the Three Persons as treij upostasij, whereas the Latins employed the term "hypostasis" as equivalent to "sub-stantia," to express what the Greeks called ousia,-the one Godhead of the Three Persons. With the Latins agreed the older school of the orthodox Greek theologians, who applied to the Three Persons the phrase tri/a pro/swpa, speaking of the Godhead as mia upostasij. This phrase, in the eyes of the newer Nicene school, was suspected of Sabellianismhyperlink , while on the other hand the Westerns were inclined to regard the Eastern phrase treij upostasij as implying tritheism. The synodal letter sets forth to us the means by which the fact of substantial agreement between the two schools was brought to light, and the understanding arrived at, that while Arianism on the one hand and Sabellianism on the other were to be condemned, it was advisable to be content with the language of the Nicene formula, which employed neither the phrase mia upostasij nor the phrase treij upostaseijhyperlink . This resolution, prudent as it may have been for the purpose of bringing together those who were in real agreement, and of securing that the reconciled parties should, at a critical moment, present an unbroken front in the face of their common and still dangerous enemy, could hardly be long maintained. The expression treij u9posta/seij was one to which many of the orthodox, including those who had formerly belonged to the Semi-Arian section, had become accustomed: the Alexandrine synod, under the guidance of S. Athanasius, had acknowledged the phrase, as used by them, to be an orthodox one, and S. Basil, in his efforts to conciliate the Semi-Arian party, with which he had himself been closely connected through his namesake of Ancyra and through Eustathius of Sebastia, saw fit definitely to adopt it. While S. Athanasius, on the one hand, using the older terminology, says that upostasijis equivalent to ou0si/a, and has no other meaninghyperlink , S. Basil, on the other hand, goes so far as to say that the terms ou0si/a and upostasij, even in the Nicene anathema, are not to be understood as equivalenthyperlink . The adoption of the new phrase, even after the explanations given at Alexandria, was found to require, in order to avoid misconstruc-lion, a more precise definition of its meaning, and a formal defence of its orthodoxy. And herein consisted one principal service rendered by S. Basil and S. Gregory; while with more precise definition of the term upostasij there emerged, it may be, a more precise view of the relations of the Persons, and with the defence of the new phrase as expressive of the Trinity of Persons a more precise view of what is implied in the Unity of the Godhead.
The treatise, De Sancta Trinitate is one of those which are attributed by some to S. Basil, by others to S. Gregory: but for the purpose of showing the difficulties with which they had to deal, the question of its exact authorship is unimportant.hyperlink The most obvious objection alleged against their teaching was that which had troubled the Western theologians before the Alexandrine Council,-the objection that the acknowledgment of Three Persons implied a belief in Three Gods. To meet this, there was required a statement of the meaning of the term upostasij, and of the relation of ousia to upostasij. Another objection, urged apparently by the same party as the former, was directed against the "novelty," or inconsistency, of employing in the singular terms expressive of the Divine Nature such as "goodness" or "Godhead," while asserting that the Godhead exists in plurality of Personshyperlink . To meet this, it was required that the sense in which the Unity of the Godhead was maintained should be more plainly and clearly defined.
The position taken by S. Basil with regard to the terms ousia and upostasij is very concisely stated in his letter to Terentiushyperlink . He says that the Western theologians themselves acknowledge that a distinction does exist between the two terms: and he briefly sets forth his view of the nature of that distinction by saying that ousia is to upostasij as that which is common to individuals is to that in respect of which the individuals are naturally differentiated. He illustrates this statement by the remark that each individual man has his being tw koinw thj ousiaj logw, while he is differentiated as an individual man in virtue of his own particular attributes. So in the Trinity that which constitutes the ousia (be it "goodness" or be it "Godhead") is common, while the upostasij is marked by the Personal attribute of Fatherhood or Sonship or Sanctifying Powerhyperlink . This position is also adopted and set forth in greater detail in the treatise, De Diff. Essen. et Hypost.hyperlink , already referred to, where we find once more the illustration employed in the Epistle to Terentius. The Nature of the Father is beyond our comprehension; but whatever conception we are able to form of that Nature, we must consider it to be common also to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: so far as the ousia is concerned, whatever is predicated of any one of the Persons may be predicated equally of each of the Three Persons, just as the properties of man, quâ man, belong alike to Paul and Barnabas and Timothy: and as these individual men are differentiated by their own particular attributes, so each Person of the Trinity is distinguished by a certain attribute from the other two Persons. This way of putting the case naturally leads to the question, "If you say, as you do say, that Paul and Barnabas and Timothy are `three men,' why do you not say that the Three Persons are `three Gods?'" Whether the question was presented in this shape to S. Basil we cannot with certainty decide: but we may gather from his language regarding the applicability of number to the Trinity what his answer would have been. Hehyperlink says that in acknowledging One Father, One Son, One Holy Spirit, we do not enumerate them by computation, but assert the individuality, so to say, of each hypostasis-its distinctness from the others. He would probably have replied by saying that strictly speaking we ought to decline applying to the Deity, considered as Deity, any numerical idea at all, and that to enumerate the Persons as "three" is a necessity, possibly, imposed upon us by language, but that no conception ot number is really applicable to the Divine Nature or to the Divine Persons, which transcend numberhyperlink . To S. Gregory, however, the question did actually present itself as one demanding an answer, and his reply to it marks his departure from S. Basil's position, though, if the treatise, De Diff. Essen. et Hyp. be S. Basil's, S. Gregory was but following out and defending the view of his "master" as expressed in that treatise.
S. Gregory's reply to the difficulty may be found in the letter, or short dissertation, addressed to Ablabius (Quod non suni tres Dei), and in his treatise peri koinwn ennoiwn. In the latter he lays it down that the term qeoj is a term ousiaj shmantikon, not a term proswpwn dhlwtikon: 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 Beinghyperlink . 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 qeoj, 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 twohyperlink . 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 kinhsij of the Divine will, is the reason why the idea of plurality is not suffered to attach to these nameshyperlink , 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.
S. Gregory's own doctrine, indeed, has seemed to some critics to be open to the charge of tritheism. But even if his doctrine were entirely expressed in the single illustration of which we have spoken, it does not seem that the charge would hold good, when we consider the light in which the illustration would present itself to him. The conception of the unity of human nature is with him a thing intensely vivid: it underlies much of his system, and he brings it prominently forward more than once in his more philosophical writingshyperlink . We cannot, in fairness, leave his realism out of account when we are estimating the force of his illustration: and therefore, while admitting that the illustration was one not unlikely to produce misconceptions of his teaching, we may fairly acquit him of any personal bias towards tritheism such as might appear to be involved in the unqualified adoption of the same illustration by a writer of our own time, or such as might have been attributed to theologians of the period of S. Gregory who adopted the illustration without the qualification of a realism as determined as his ownhyperlink . But the illustration does not stand alone: we must not consider that it is the only one of those to be found in the treatise, De Diff. Essen. et Hypost., which he would have felt justified in employing. Even if the illustration of the rainbow, set forth in that treatise, was not actually his own (as Dorner, ascribing the treatise to him, considers it to have been), it was at all events (on the other theory of the authorship), included in the teaching he had received from his "master:" it would be present to his mind, although in his undisputed writings, where he is dealing with objections brought against the particular illustration from human relations, he naturally confines himself to the particular illustration from which an erroneous inference was being drawn. In our estimate of his teaching the one illustration must be allowed to some extent to qualify the effect produced by the other. And, further, we must remember that his argument from human relations is professedly only an illustration. It points to an analogy, to a resemblance, not to an identity of relations; so much he is careful in his reply to state. Even if it were true, he implies, that we are warranted in speaking, in the given case, of the three human persons as "three men," it would not follow that we should be warranted thereby in speaking of the three Divine Persons as "three Gods." For the human personalities stand contrasted with the Divine, at once as regards their being and as regards their operation. The various human proswpa draw their being from many other proswpa, one from one, another from another, not, as the Divine, from One, unchangeably the same: they operate, each in his own way, severally and independently, not, as the Divine, inseparably: they are contemplated each by himself, in his own limited sphere, kat' idian perigrafhn, not, as the Divine, in mutual essential connexion, differentiated one from the other only by a certain mutual relation. And from this it follows that the human proswpa are capable of enumeration in a sense in which number cannot be considered applicable to the Divine Persons. Here we find S. Gregory's teaching brought once more into harmony with his "master's:" if he has been willing to carry the use of numerical terms rather further than S. Basil was prepared to do, he yet is content in the last resort to say that number is not in strictness applicable to the Divine upostaseij, in that they cannot be contemplated kat' idian perigrafhn, and therefore cannot be enumerated by way of addition. Still the distraction of the upostaseij remains; and if there is no other way (as he seems to have considered there was none), of making full acknowledgment of their distinct though inseparable existence than to speak of them as "three," he holds that that use of numerical language is justifiable, so long as we do not transfer the idea of number from the upostaseij to the ousia, to that Nature of God which is Itself beyond our conception, and which we can only express by terms suggested to us by what we know of Its operation.
Such, in brief, is the teaching of S. Gregory on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as expressed in the treatises in which he developed and defended those positions in which S. Basil appeared to diverge from the older Nicene theologians. That the terminology of the subject gained clearness and definiteness from his exposition, in that he rendered it plain that the adoption of the Eastern phraseology was a thing perfectly consistent with the Faith confessed alike by East and West in varying terms, seems beyond doubt. It was to him, probably, rather than to S. Basil, that this work was due; for he cleared up the points which S. Basil's illustration had left doubtful; yet in so doing he was using throughout the weapons which his "master" had placed in his hands, and arguing in favour of his "master's" statements, in language, it may be, less guarded than S. Basil himself would have employed, but in accordance throughout with the principles which S. Basil had followed. Each bore his own part in the common work: to one, perhaps, is due the credit of greater originality; to the other it was given to carry on and to extend what his brother had begun: neither, we may well believe, would have desired to claim that the work which their joint teaching effected should be imputed to himself alone.
So far, we have especially had in view those minor treatises of S. Gregory which illustrate such variations from Athanasian modes of expression as are to be found in the writers of the "Neo-Nicene" school. These are perhaps his most characteristic works upon the subject. But the doctrine of the Trinity, as he held it, is further set forth and enforced in other treatises which are, from another point of view, much more important than those with which we have been dealing-in his Oratio Catechetica, and his more directly polemical treatises against Eunomius. In both these sections of his writings, when allowance is made for the difference of terminology already discussed, we are less struck by the divergencies from S. Athanasius' presentment of the doctrine than by the substantial identity of S. Gregory's reasoning with that of S. Athanasius, as the latter is displayed, for example, in the "Orations against the Arians."
There are, of course, many points in which S. Gregory falls short of his great predecessor; but of these some may perhaps be accounted for by the different aspect of the Arian controversy as it presented itself to the two champions of the Faith. The later school of Arianism may indeed be regarded as a perfectly legitimate and rigidly logical development of the doctrines taught by Arius himself; but in some ways the task of S. Gregory was a different task from that of S. Athanasius, and was the less formidable of the two. His antagonist was, by his own greater definiteness of statement, placed at a disadvantage: the consequences which S. Athanasius had to extract from the Arian statements were by Eunomius and the Anomoeans either openly asserted or tacitly admitted: and it was thus an easier matter for S. Gregory to show the real tendency of Anomoean doctrine than it had been for S. Athanasius to point out the real tendency of the earlier Arianism. Further, it may be said that by the time of S. Basil, still more by the time when S. Gregory succeeded to his brother's place in the controversy, the victory over Arianism was assured. It was not possible for S. Athanasius, even had it been in his nature to do so, to treat the earlier Arianism with the same sort of contemptuous criticism with which Eunomius is frequently met by S. Gregory. For S. Gregory, on the other hand, it was not necessary to refrain from such criticism lest he should thereby detract from the force of his protest against error. The crisis in his day was not one which demanded the same sustained effort for which the contest called in the days of S. Athanasius. Now and then, certainly, S. Gregory also rises to a white heat of indignation against his adversary: but it is hardly too much to say that his work appears to lack just those qualities which seem, in the writings of S. Athanasius, to have been called forth by the author's sense of the weight of the force opposed to him, and of the "life and death" character of the contest. S. Gregory does not under-estimate the momentous nature of the questions at issue: but when he wrote, he might feel that to those questions the answer of Christendom had been already given, that the conflict was already won, and that any attempt at developing the Arian doctrine on Anomoean lines was the adoption of an untenable position,-even of a position manifestly and evidently untenable: the doctrine had but to be stated in clear terms to be recognized as incompatible with Christianity, and, that fact once recognized, he had no more to do. Thus much of his treatises against Eunomius consists not of constructive argument in support of his own position, but of a detailed examination of Eunomius' own statements, while a further portion of the contents of these books, by no means inconsiderable in amount, is devoted not so much to the defence of the Faith as to the refutation of certain misrepresentations of S. Basil's arguments which had been set forth by Eunomius.
Even in the more distinctly constructive portion of these polemical writings, however, it may be said that S. Gregory does not show marked originality of thought either in his general argument, or in his mode of handling disputed texts. Within the limits of an introductory essay like the present, anything like detailed comparison on these points is of course impossible; but any one who will take the trouble to compare the discourses of S. Gregory against Eunomius with the "Orations" of S. Athanasius against the Arians,-the Athanasian writing, perhaps, most closely corresponding in character to these books of S. Gregory,-either as regards the specific passages of Scripture cited in support of the doctrine maintained, and the mode of interpreting them, or as to the methods of explanation applied to the texts alleged by the Arian writers in favour of their own opinions, can hardly fail to be struck by the number and the closeness of the resemblances which he will be able to trace between the earlier and the later representatives of the Nicene School. A somewhat similar relation to the Athanasian position, as regards the basis of belief, and (allowing for the difference of terminology) as regards the definition of doctrine, may be observed in the Oratio Catechetica.
Such originality, in fact, as S. Gregory may claim to possess (so far as his treatment of this subject is concerned) is rather the originality of the tactician than that of the strategist: he deals rather with his particular opponent, and keeps in view the particular point in discussion more than the general area over which the war extends. S. Athanasius, on the other hand (partly, no doubt, because he was dealing with a less fully developed form of error), seems to have more force left in reserve. He presents his arguments in a more concise form, and is sometimes content to suggest an inference where S. Gregory proceeds to draw out conclusions in detail, and where thereby the latter, while possibly strengthening his presentment of the truth as against his own particular adversary,-against the Anomoean or the polytheist on the one side, or against the Sabellian or the Judaizer on the other,-renders his argument, when considered per se as a defence of the orthodox position, frequently more diffuse and sometimes less forcible. Yet, even here, originality of a certain kind does belong to S. Gregory, and it seems only fair to him to say that in these treatises also he did good service in defence of the Faith touching the Holy Trinity. He shows that alike by way of formal statement of doctrine, as in the Oratio Catechetica, and by way of polemical argument, the forces at the command of the defenders of the Faith could be organized to meet varied forms of error, without abandoning, either for a more original theology like that or Marcellus of Ancyra, or for the compromise which the Homoean or Semi-Arian school were in danger of being led to accept, the weapons with which S. Athanasius had conquered at Nicaea.
The 1st Book was not in the 1st Paris Edition in two volumes (1615); but it was published three years afterwards from the `Bavarian Codex,' i.e. that of Munich, by J. Gretser in an Appendix, along with the Summaries (these headings of the sections of the entire work are by some admirer of Gregory's) and the two introductory Letters. Both the Summaries and the letters, and also nearly three-quarters of the 1st Book were obtained from J. Livineius' transcript of the Vatican ms. made at Rome, 1579. This Appendix was added to the 2nd Paris Edition, in three volumes (1638).
In correcting these Paris Editions (for mss. of which see below), Oehler had access, in addition to the identical Munich ms. (paper, 16th century) which Gretser had used, to the following mss.:-
1. Venice (Library of S. Mark; cotton, 13 Cent., No. 69). This he says `wonderfully agrees' with the Munich (both, for instance, supply the lacunae of the Paris Edition of Book I: he concludes, therefore, that these are not due to Gretser's negligence, who gives the Latin for these passages, but to that of the printers).
2. Turin (Royal Library; cotton, 14 Cent., No. 71).
3. Milan (Library of S. Ambrose; cotton, 13 Cent., No. 225, Plut. 1; its inscription says that it was brought from Thessaly).
4. Florence (Library Medic. Laurent.; the oldest of all; parchment, 11 Cent., No. 17, Plut. vi. It contains the Summaries).
These, and the Munich ms., which he chiefly used, are "all of the same family:" and from them he has been able to supply more than 50 lacunae in the Books against Eumomius. This family is the first of the two separated by G. H. Forbes (see below). The Munich ms. (No. 47, on paper, 16 Cent.), already used by Sifanus for his Latin version (1562), and by Gretser for his Appendix, has the corrections of the former in its margin. These passed into the two Paris Editions; which, however, took no notice of his critical notes. When lent to Sifanus this ms. was in the Library of J. J. Fugger. Albert V. Duke of Bavaria purchased the treasures of Greek literature in this library, to found that in Munich.
For the treatise On the Soul and the Resurrection, the Great Catechetical Oration, and the Funeral Oration on Meletius, John George Krabinger's text has been adopted. He had mss. `old and of a better stamp' (Oehler) than were accessible to the Paris editors. Krabinger's own account of them is this:-
On the Soul. 5 mss. of 16th, 14th, and 11th Cent. All at Munich. In one of them there are scholia, some imported into the text by J. Naupliensis Murmureus the copyist; and Sifanus' corrections.
The `Hasselman,' 14th Cent. J. Christopher Wolf, who annotated this treatise (Aneedota Groeca, Hamburgh, 1722), says of this ms. "very carefully written." It was lent by Zach. Hasselman, Minister of Oldenburgh.
The `Uffenbach,' 14th Cent., with var. lect. in margin. Lent to Wolf by the Polish ambassador at Frankfort on Main, at the request of Zach. Uffenbach.
Catechetical Oration. 4 mss. of 16th Cent., 1 of 13th Cent., `much mutilated.' All at Munich.
On Meletius. 2 mss. of 16th Cent., 1 of 10th Cent. All at Munich.
His edition of the former appeared, at Leipzic, 1837; of the two latter, at Munich, 1838; all with valuable notes.
For the treatise Against Macedanius, the only text available is that of Cardinal Angelo Mai (Script. Vet. Nova Collectio, Rome, 1833). It is taken from the Vatican ms. `on silk.' The end of this treatise is not found in Mai. Perhaps it is in the ms. of Florence.
For fourteen of the Letters, Zacagni (Praefect of the Vatican Library, 1698-1713) is the only editor. His text from the Vatican ms., No. 424, is printed in his Collectan. Monument. ret. (pp. 354-400), Rome, 1698.
He had not the use oi the Medicean ms. which Caraccioli (see below) testifies to be much superior to the Vatican; there are lacunae in the latter, however, which Zacagni occasionally fills by a happy guess with the very words supplied by the Medicean.
For the Letter to Adelphius, and that (on Church Architecture) to Amphilochius, J. B. Caraccioli (Professor of Philosophy at Pisa) furnishes a text (Florence, 1731) from the Medicean ms. The Letters in this collection are seven in all. Of the last of these (including that to Amphilochius) Bandinus says non sincerâ fide ex Codice descriptas, and that a fresh collation is necessary.
For the treatise On the Making of Man, the text employed has been that of G. H. Forbes, (his first Fasciculus was published in 1855; his second in 1861; both at Burntisland, at his private press), with an occasional preference for the readings of one or other of the mss. examined by him or by others on his behalf. Of these he specifies twenty: but he had examined a much larger number. The mss. which contain this work, he considers, are of two families.
Of the first family the most important are three mss. at Vienna, a tenth-century ms. on vellum at S. Mark's, Venice, which he himself collated, and a Vatican ms. of the tenth century. This family also includes three of the four Munich mss. collated for Forbes by Krabinger.
The other family displays more variations from the current text. One Vienna ms. "pervetustus" "initio mutilus," was completely collated. Also belonging to this family are the oldest of the four Munich mss., the tenth-century Codex Regius (Paris), and a fourteenth-century ms. at Christ Church, Oxford, clearly related to the last.
The Codex Baroccianus (Bodleian, perhaps eleventh century) appears to occupy an independent position.
For the other Treatises and Letters the text of the Paris Edition of 1638 (`plenior et emendatior' than that of 1615, according to Oehler, probably following its own title, but "much inferior to that of 1615" Canon Venables, Dict. Christ. Biog., says, and this is the judgment of J. Fessler) and of Migne have been necessary as the latest complete editions of the works of Gregory Nyssene. (All the materials that had been collected for the edition of the Benedictines of St. Maur perished in the French Revolution.)
Of the two Paris Editions it must be confessed that they are based `for the most part on inferior mss.' (Oehler.) The frequent lacunae attest this. Fronto Ducaeus aided Claude, the brother of F. Morel, in settling the text, and the mss. mentioned in the notes of the former are as follows:
1. Pithoeus' "not of a very ancient hand," "as like F. Morers (No. 2.) as milk to milk" (so speaks John the Franciscan, who emended `from one corrupt mutilated manuscript,' i.e. the above, the Latin translation of the Books against Eunomius made by his father N. Gulonius.)
2. F. Morel's. ("Dean of Professors" and Royal Printer.)
3. The Royal (in the Library of Henry II., Paris), on vellum, tenth century.
4. Canter's ("ingens codex" sent from Antwerp by A. Schott; it had been written out for T. Canter, Senator of Utrecht).
5. Olivar's. "Multo emendatius" than (2.)
6. J. Vulcobius', Abbot of Belpré.
7. The Vatican.hyperlink
8. Bricman's (Cologne).hyperlink
9. Oegidius David's, I.C. Paris.hyperlink
10. The Bavarian (Munich) for Books II.-XIII. Against Eunomius and other treatises; only after the first edition of 1615.
Other important mss. existing for treatises here translated are
On Pilgrimages:ms. Caesareus (Vienna): "valde vetustus" (Nessel, on the Imperial Library), vellum, No. 160, burnt at beginning.mss. Florence (xx. 17: xvi. 8).ms. Leyden (not older than fifteenth century).
On the Making of Man:ms. Augsburgh, with twelve Homilies of Basil, the two last being wrongly attributed to Gregory (Reizer).ms. Ambrosian (Milan). See Montfaucon, Bibl. Bibliothec. p. 498.
On Infants' Early Deaths:ms. Turin (Royal Library).
On the Soul and Resurrection:mss. Augsburgh, Florence, Turin, Venice.
Great Catechetical:mss. Augsburgh, Florence, Turin, Caesareus.
Many other mss., for these and other treatises, are given by S. Heyns (Disputatio de Greg. Nyss. Leyden, 1835). But considering the mutilated condition of most of the oldest, and the still small number of treatises edited from an extended collation of theses the complaint is still true that `the text of hardly any other ancient writer is in a more imperfect state than that of Gregory of Nyssa.'
Versions of Several Treatises.
Latin.
1. Of Dionysius Exiguus (died before 556): On the Making af Man. Aldine, 1537. Cologne, 1551. Basle, 1562. Cologne, 1573. Dedicated to Eugippius.' This Dedication and the Latin of Gregory's Preface was only once printed (i.e. in J. Mabillon's Analecta, Paris, 1677).This ancient Latin Version was revised by Fronto Ducaeus, the Jesuit, and Combeficius. There is a copy of it at Leyden.It stimulated J. Leünclaius (see below), who judged it "foeda pollutum barbariâ planeque perversum," to make another. Basle, 1567.
2. Of Daniel Augentius: On the Soul. Paris 1557.
3. Of Laurent. Sifanus, I. U. Doct.: On the Soul and many other treatises. Basle, 1562 Apud N. Episcopum.
4. Of Pet. Galesinius: On Virginity and On Prayer. Rome, 1563, ap. P. Manutium.
5. Of Johann. Leünclaius: On the Making of Man. Basle, 1567, ap. Oporinum.
6. Of Pet. Morelius, of Tours: Great Catechetical. Paris, 1568.
7. Of Gentianus Hervetus, Canon of Rheims, a diligent translator of the Fathers: Great Catechetical, and many others. Paris, 1573.
8. Of Johann. Livineius, of Ghent: On Virginity. Apud Plantinum, 1574.
9. Of Pet. Fr. Zinus, Canon of Verona, translator of Euthymius' Panoplia, which contains the Great Catechetical. Venice, 1575.
10. Of Jacob Gretser, the Jesuit: I. e. Eunom. Paris, 1618.
11. Of Nicolas Gulonius, Reg. Prof. of Greek: II-XIII. c. Eunom. Paris, 1615. Revised by his son John, the Franciscan.
12. Of J. Georg. Krabinger, Librarian of Royal Library, Munich: On the Soul, Great Catechetical, On Infants' Early Deaths, and others. Leipzic, 1837.
2. Of Julius Rupp, Königsberg: On Meletius. Gregors Leben und Meinungen. Leipzic, 1834.
3. Of Oehler: Various treatises. Bibliothek der Kirchenväter I. Theil. Leipzic, 1858-59.
4. Herm. Schmidt, paraphrased rather than translated: On the Soul. Halle, 1864.
5. Of H. Hayd: On Infants' Early Deaths: On the Making of Man, &c. Kempton, 1874.
Footnotes
36 See Dorner, Doctrine of the Person of Christ, Div. I. vol. ii. p. 314 (English Trans.).
37 It is to be noted further that the use of the terms ""Persona"" and proswpon by those who avoided the phrase treij upostaseij no doubt assisted in the formation of this suspicion. At the same time the Nicene anathema favoured the sense of upostasij as equivalent to ousia, and so appeared to condemn the Eastern use.
38 S. Athanasius, Tom. ad Antioch, 5.
39 Ad Afr. Episc. §4. S. Athanasius, however, does not shrink from the phrase treij upostaseij in contradistinction to the mia ousia: see the treatise, In illud, `Omnia mihi tradita sunt.
0'§6.
40 S. Bas. Ep. 125 (being the confession of faith drawn up by S. Basil for the subscription of Eustathius)
41 It appears on the whole more probable that the treatise is the work of S. Gregory; but it is found, n a slightly different shape, among the Letters of S. Basil. (Ep. 189 in the Benedictine Edition.)
42 In what sense this language was charged with "novelty" is not very clear. But the point of the objection appears to lie in a refusal to recognize that terms expressive of the Divine Nature, whether they indicate attributes or operations of that Nature, may be predicated of each upostasij severally, as well as of the ousia, without attaching to the terms themselves that idea of plurality which, so far as they express attributes or operations of the ousia, must be excluded from them.
43 S. Bas. Ep. 214, §4.
44 The differentia here assigned to the Third Person is not, in S. Basil's own view, a differentia at all: for he would no doubt have been ready to acknowledge that this attribute is common to all Three Persons. S. Gregory, as it will be seen, treats the question as to the differentiation of the Persons somewhat differently, and rests his answer on a basis theologically more scientific.
45 S. Bas. Ep. 38 (Benedictine Ed.).
46 De Spir. Sancto, §18.
47 On S. Basil's language on this subject, see Dorner, Doctrine of the Person of Christ, Div. 1. vol. ii. pp. 309-11. (Eng. Trans.)
48 This statement strikes at the root of the theory held by Eunomius, as well as by the earlier Arians, that the agennhsia of the Father constituted His Essence. S. Gregory treats His agennhsia 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.
49 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.
50 See Dorner, ut sup., pp. 317-18.
51 Especially in the treatise, De Anima et Resurrectione, and in that De Conditione Homisis. A notable instance is to be found in the former (p. 242 A.).
52 See Dorner, ut sup., p. 315, and p. 319, note 2.
53 for the treatise On Virginity. (The Paris Editors used Liveneius' Edition, based on (7) and (8).
54 for the treatise On Virginity. (The Paris Editors used Liveneius' Edition, based on (7) and (8).
55 for the treatise On Virginity. (The Paris Editors used Liveneius' Edition, based on (7) and (8).