Theology of St.

Gregory of Nyssa

Philosophy and Theology

He likens philosophy to the Bride in the Canticle of Canticles, because it teaches us

what attitude to take towards the Divine. But he criticizes pagan philosophy and he compares
it with the childless and barren daughter of the Egyptian king.

As a follower of Origen Gregory knows very well that philosophy cannot be absolute
and independent: ‘we are not allowed to affirm what we please. We make Holy Scripture the
rule and the measure of every tenet. We approve of that alone which may be made to
harmonize with the intention of those writings’

Holy Writ is for him ‘the guide of reason’, ‘the criterion of truth’ and ‘an advantage
over the wisdom of the pagans.’

In all his attempts to penetrate faith with mind, he lets himself be guided by the
tradition of the Fathers: ‘If our reasoning be found unequal to the problem, we must keep
forever firm and unmoved the tradition which we received by succession from the Father.’

Trinitarian Doctrine

Gregory tries to reconcile the Trinity and the Unity. He says, ‘there are not three
Gods”.

Here Gregory seems to admit under the influence of the platonic doctrine of ideas,
even in finite things, the numerical unity of essence or nature. He confuses the abstract that
excludes plurality with the concrete that exacts plurality, when he states that ‘man’
designates nature but not the individual, and that Peter, Paul and Barnabas should be called
one man not three men. Thus he attributes reality to the universal idea in order to explain the
divine Trinity better and to refute the accusation of tri-theism.

For him, the distinction of the three divine Persons consists exclusively in their
immanent mutual relations. For this reason their activity ad extra can only be one and the
divine Persons have it in common. However, there is a difference between their activity ad
extra and their mutual and immanent relations.

Gregory with the other Greek Fathers conceives the Holy Spirit as proceeding from
the Father through the Son. He compares the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost to three
torches, the first of which imparts its light to the second, and through the second it imparts its
light to third.
Christology

His Christology is characterized by a sharp differentiation of the two natures; ‘our

contemplation of the respective properties of the flesh and of the Godhead remains free from
confusion, so long as each of these is contemplated by itself, as for example, “the word was
made before the ages, but the flesh came into being in the last times.”

Despite the two natures in Christ, there are not two Persons in him, but one; ‘This is
our doctrine, which does not, as Eunomius charges against it, preach a plurality of Christ, but
the union of the Man with the Divinity.’ Thus there is one Person.

Mariology

It is against Apollonaris and his followers that Gregory defends the completeness of the
human nature in Christ. In his Antirrgetecus he declares that Christ had a real human soul and
that he possessed a free will. Otherwise His life could neither be a real example and moral
pattern for us, nor could it redeem the human race.

The Son of God formed for Himself a human nature out of the flesh of the Virgin. Therefore,
she must be called Mother of God.

Her virginity broke the power of death: ‘In the age of Mary, the Mother of God, he (death)
who had reigned from Adam to her time, found, when he came to her and dashed his forces
against the fruit of her virginity as against the fruit of her virginity as against a rock, that he
was shattered to pieces upon her.’

He testifies to her virginetas in partu: ‘In the same strain the womb of the Holy Virgin, which
ministered to an Immaculate Birth, is pronounced blessed in Gospel (Luke 11:27). For that
birth did not annul the virginity, nor did the virginity impede so great a birth.’

Eschatology

His eschatological views prove that he is the disciple of Origen.

He agrees with the Alexandrian in maintaining that the pains of hell are not eternal but
temporary, because they are only medicinal.

Although he speaks repeatedly of the inextinguishable fire and the immortality of the worm,
of an ‘eternal sanction’, although he threatens the sinner with eternal suffering and eternal
punishment, he could not imagine an eternal estrangement from God of his intellectual
creatures and explains elsewhere these expressions as referring only ‘to long periods of time’.

He believes with Origen in the universal restoration at the end of time, and in the complete
victory of good over evil.
Creation

Man was honored by God and placed above every other creature.

Man therefore recognizes in himself the reflection of the divine light: by purifying his heart
he is once more, as he was in the beginning, a clear image of God, exemplary Beauty.

How can we get perfection?

The perfection we desire to attain is not acquired once and for all; perfection means
journeying on; it is continuous readiness to move ahead because we never attain a perfect
likeness to God; we are always on our way.

Likeness to the Divinity is not our work at all; it is not the achievement of any faculty of
man; it is the great gift of God bestowed upon our nature at the very moment of our birth. For
the soul, therefore, it is not a question of knowing something about God but of having God
within.

How can God be within us?

Divinity is purity, it is liberation from the passions and the removal of every evil; if all these
things are in you, God is truly in you.

Through prayer we succeed in being with God.

Why do infants die?

Nothing happens without God; we know this from many sources. And everyone who realizes
that God is Reason, Wisdom, Perfect Goodness, and Truth—and that He could not admit of
anything that is not good and not consistent with His Truth—everyone who realizes this will
admit that God’s dispensations have no element of chance and confusion… It befits us, then,
to acknowledge that these things happen for the best.

Baptism

In taking on human flesh, Christ made human flesh divine. And in order that everything
related to that flesh may be saved, it was necessary that something in the baptismal process
should produce a kind of resemblance between those who follow and Him who leads the way.

He, the Man from above, took death upon Himself. He was buried in the earth, and He
returned back to life on the third day. So everyone who is joined to Him by virtue of His body
may look forward to the same happy ending—I mean he may arrive at life by having water,
instead of earth, poured over him. Submerged in that element three times represents for him
the three-days-delayed grace of the resurrection.

We have the power to be in the water and to rise out of it. So, we must come to learn
that it is the same thing for us to be baptized with water and to rise again from death.