Gregory of Nyssa — Commentary on Scripture

Psalms 1:1

The goal of the virtuous life is blessedness.… This is the summation and object of everything conceived in relation to the good. What is truly and properly contemplated and apprehended in this sublime concept, then, would reasonably be called the divine nature. For so the great Paul designated God when he put “blessed” before all the other words about God in one of his letters. He wrote in the following words, “The blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no human being has seen or can see. To him be honor and rule forever.” All these sublime concepts about the divine would, then, in my opinion, constitute a definition of blessedness. For if someone were asked what beatitude is, he would give a properly pious answer if he followed Paul’s statement and said that the nature that transcends everything is first and properly called blessed. Among humans, however, that beatitude, which is the nature of the one participated in, occurs to a certain extent and is specified by participation in true being…

The goal of the virtuous life is blessedness.… This is the summation and object of everything conceived in relation to the good. What is truly and properly contemplated and apprehended in this sublime concept, then, would reasonably be called the divine nature. For so the great Paul designated God when he put “blessed” before all the other words about God in one of his letters. He wrote in the following words, “The blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no human being has seen or can see. To him be honor and rule forever.” All these sublime concepts about the divine would, then, in my opinion, constitute a definition of blessedness. For if someone were asked what beatitude is, he would give a properly pious answer if he followed Paul’s statement and said that the nature that transcends everything is first and properly called blessed. Among humans, however, that beatitude, which is the nature of the one participated in, occurs to a certain extent and is specified by participation in true being. Likeness to God, therefore, is a definition of human blessedness.

ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 1:1.5-6

Psalms 2:1-2

The first psalm lacks an inscription. For the aim of what is said in it is obvious to the readers, namely, that it is an introduction to philosophy in that it advises separation from evil, coming to be in the good and becoming like God so far as possible.… The second psalm, which predicts the mystery of the gospel, is then appended, that we might be without impiety. Consequently, in a sense, the first psalm is an inscription of the second, for the latter speaks of the one who through flesh was begotten today because of us. (Now “today” is a division of time, but because the Son is always from the Father and in the Father, he is also God.) It also speaks of those not ruled by a king, who had been listed among the Gentiles because they did not serve God. These lived under their own laws, or rather without laws, since they did not accept the divine law but cast the yoke from themselves. (Now by “yoke” he means the commandment.) But when the kingdom that excels everything comes on them, those who once were without a master become the inheritance of God through faith in the one who was be…

The first psalm lacks an inscription. For the aim of what is said in it is obvious to the readers, namely, that it is an introduction to philosophy in that it advises separation from evil, coming to be in the good and becoming like God so far as possible.… The second psalm, which predicts the mystery of the gospel, is then appended, that we might be without impiety. Consequently, in a sense, the first psalm is an inscription of the second, for the latter speaks of the one who through flesh was begotten today because of us. (Now “today” is a division of time, but because the Son is always from the Father and in the Father, he is also God.) It also speaks of those not ruled by a king, who had been listed among the Gentiles because they did not serve God. These lived under their own laws, or rather without laws, since they did not accept the divine law but cast the yoke from themselves. (Now by “yoke” he means the commandment.) But when the kingdom that excels everything comes on them, those who once were without a master become the inheritance of God through faith in the one who was begotten today. I mean this one who was appointed king over them. And when they themselves have been begotten, they too become kings. When the rod of iron, that is, the unchangeable power, smashed that which was made of earth and clay, it transformed them into the undefiled nature, having taught them that trusting in him alone is blessed. Although this is the meaning that we have expounded of this psalm, one who wishes can test our opinion by means of the divine words themselves to see if what we have said fits with the inspired Scripture.

ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 2:8.74-75

Psalms 3:1-2

When the great David served as interpreter for the Spirit, he related in his song the things that he had previously learned, and if he was taught something additional while he was speaking, he submitted to the Spirit who was making the hearing of his soul resound and stopped the music, and when he was filled with these thoughts he related these matters, again entwining the words with the melody. One who has comprehended the term in a definition might say, then, that diapsalma is a pause that occurs suddenly in the midst of the singing of a psalm in order to receive an additional thought that is being introduced from God. Or, one might rather define it as follows. diapsalma is a teaching from the Spirit that occurs in a mysterious manner in the soul, when the attention given to this new thought impedes the continuity of the song.… In the third psalm he spoke first about the distress and hardship that occurred when his enemies “rose up against” him. Then he separated that part with the diapsalma and put his trust in the one who was causing that sound of salvation to resound mysteriousl…

When the great David served as interpreter for the Spirit, he related in his song the things that he had previously learned, and if he was taught something additional while he was speaking, he submitted to the Spirit who was making the hearing of his soul resound and stopped the music, and when he was filled with these thoughts he related these matters, again entwining the words with the melody. One who has comprehended the term in a definition might say, then, that diapsalma is a pause that occurs suddenly in the midst of the singing of a psalm in order to receive an additional thought that is being introduced from God. Or, one might rather define it as follows. diapsalma is a teaching from the Spirit that occurs in a mysterious manner in the soul, when the attention given to this new thought impedes the continuity of the song.… In the third psalm he spoke first about the distress and hardship that occurred when his enemies “rose up against” him. Then he separated that part with the diapsalma and put his trust in the one who was causing that sound of salvation to resound mysteriously in him and said, “But you, Lord, are my protector, my glory, and the lifter up of my head.” Again, when he has stopped the music, saying, in accordance with that gracious voice that he has made his own, “I cried to the Lord with my voice, and he heard me from his holy mountain,” he is taught what the solution is for the hardship that is common to human ills. And after he has been taught the mystery related to the passion of the Lord in the sudden illumination of the Spirit, he assumes the character of the Lord and says, “I lay down and slept, and I was raised, because the Lord will help me.”

ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 2:10.115-16, 121-22

Psalms 6:5

For he who has made the inheritance known has also mentioned the octave, which becomes both the boundary of the present time and the beginning of the age to come. Now the characteristic feature of the octave is that it no longer affords those who are in it opportunity to procure things good or bad, but one hands over instead the sheaves from whatever seeds he has sown for himself through his works. For this reason he prescribes here that the one who is exercised in the same victories effect repentance, as such zeal is idle in hades.

ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 2:11.146-47

Psalms 7:1-17

That same adversary, Absalom, as if he has been born again from ourselves, prepares the war against us. Our sound judgment concerning the matter, or rather our alliance with God, turns him who is bloodthirsty against us back. For because he attributes the cause of the good things that have been accomplished for him through “the words of Cush” to God, he composes this thanksgiving.… It would be worthwhile to apply the figures of the story to the virtuous life, how the advice that saves us becomes the strangling of the adversary; and this saving advice has been recorded, on the one hand, in the history, and on the other, in the psalm.

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 2:11.148-49

Psalms 7:6

The mass of adversaries cannot otherwise be destroyed, if the Lord has not risen on our behalf, and death must by all means precede the resurrection. He, then, who has revealed the resurrection of the Lord has, at the same time, shown that which is bound up together with the resurrection, I mean, of course, the mystery related to the passion. For this reason, having been inspired by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, he says, “Rise up, O Lord, in your anger; be exalted in the ends of my enemies.” By “anger” he indicates the retributive power of the just judge, and by the rest he indicates the destruction of evil. For that which is perceived as contrary to the good, being only hostile by nature, is the evil whose end is destruction and a passing over into nonexistence. He, then, who said, “Be exalted in the ends of my enemies,” predicts, through the evil of his enemies “being brought to an end,” that the course to evil no longer remains in [his] life.

ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 2:10.125-26

Psalms 10:16

Therefore we define him to be earlier than any beginning and exceeding any end.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1:42

Psalms 16:9

[Christ’s] Godhead, alike before taking flesh and in the flesh and after his passion, is immutably the same, being at all times what it was by nature and so continuing forever. But in the suffering of his human nature the Godhead fulfilled the dispensation for our benefit by severing the soul for a season from the body, yet without being itself separated from either of those elements to which it was once for all united, and by joining again the elements that had been thus parted, so as to give to all human nature a beginning and an example that it should follow of the resurrection from the dead, that all the corruptible may put on incorruption, and all the mortal may put on immortality, our firstfruits having been transformed to the divine nature by its union with God … the Lord, reconciling the world to himself by the humanity of Christ, apportioned his work of benevolence to people between his soul and his body, willing through his soul and touching them through his body.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2:13

Psalms 19:3

The accord and affinity of all things with one another that is controlled in an orderly and sequential manner is the primal, archetypal, true music. It is this music that the conductor of the universe skillfully strikes up in the unspoken speech of wisdom through these ever-occurring movements.

ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 1:3.21

Psalms 19:4

Yet, how can such declaring and showing forth be other than words, and how is it that no voice addresses itself to the ear? Is the prophet contradicting himself, or is he stating an impossibility, when he speaks of words without sound, and declaration without language and announcement without voice? Or, is there not rather the very perfection of truth in his teaching, which tells us, in the words that I have quoted, that the declaration of the heavens and the word shouted forth by the day, is no articulate voice or language of the lips but is a revelation of the power of God to those who are capable of hearing it, even though no voice is heard?… The very heavens, he says in displaying the wisdom of him who made them, all but shout aloud with a voice, and, though without voice, proclaim the wisdom of their Creator. For we can hear as it were words teaching us: “O mortals, when you gaze on us and behold our beauty and magnitude and this ceaseless revolution, with its well-ordered and harmonious motion, working in the same direction and in the same manner, turn your thoughts to him who…

Yet, how can such declaring and showing forth be other than words, and how is it that no voice addresses itself to the ear? Is the prophet contradicting himself, or is he stating an impossibility, when he speaks of words without sound, and declaration without language and announcement without voice? Or, is there not rather the very perfection of truth in his teaching, which tells us, in the words that I have quoted, that the declaration of the heavens and the word shouted forth by the day, is no articulate voice or language of the lips but is a revelation of the power of God to those who are capable of hearing it, even though no voice is heard?… The very heavens, he says in displaying the wisdom of him who made them, all but shout aloud with a voice, and, though without voice, proclaim the wisdom of their Creator. For we can hear as it were words teaching us: “O mortals, when you gaze on us and behold our beauty and magnitude and this ceaseless revolution, with its well-ordered and harmonious motion, working in the same direction and in the same manner, turn your thoughts to him who presides over our system, and, by aid of the beauty that you see, imagine to yourselves the beauty of the invisible Archetype. For in us there is nothing without its Lord, nothing that moves of its own proper motion, but all that appears or that is conceivable in respect to us depends on a Power who is inscrutable and sublime.” This is not given in articulate speech but by the things which are seen, and it instills into our minds the knowledge of divine power more than if speech proclaimed it with a voice.

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS’ SECOND BOOK

Psalms 19:12

So wicked and hard to cure and strong are those things possessed in the depths of our souls that it is not possible to rub them out and to remove them through human efforts and virtue alone unless through prayer we take the power of the Spirit as an ally and, in this way, conquer the evil that is playing the tyrant within us, as the Spirit teaches us through the voice of David: “Cleanse me from my unknown faults.”

ON THE CHRISTIAN MODE OF LIFE

Psalms 24:1

The foolish person counts as his own possession that which never actually belongs to him, seemingly ignorant in his greed that “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof,” for “God is king of all the earth.” It is the passion of having that gives people a false title of lordship over that which can never belong to them. “The earth,” says the wise preacher, “abides forever,” ministering to every generation, first one, then another, that is born on it. But people, though they are so little even their own masters that they are brought into life without knowing it by their Maker’s will, and before they wish are withdrawn from it, nevertheless in their excessive vanity think that they are its lords; that they, now born, now dying, rule that which remains continually.

ON VIRGINITY 4

Psalms 27:1

He is called a light by David, and from there the light of knowledge shines in people who are enlightened.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2:15

Psalms 31:20

God’s abounding goodness aids us in a hidden way, and in the present life it is not clearly evident. For every objection of unbelievers would be removed, could we actually see what we only hope for. But our hopes await the ages to come, so that there may then be revealed what at present our faith alone apprehends.

ADDRESS ON RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 17

Psalms 33:9

The psalm bids us to exult in the one who has come to earth from heaven, as in one who is set over the entirety, and who has brought the entirety into being from not being and who maintains all things in being, whose command becomes reality. For this is the meaning of the divine words, “He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created.”

ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 2:8.79

Psalms 41:1

The Word defines blessedness for us in another way than at the beginning. For in the first psalms, to depart from evil was blessed, but here to know the good more fully is pronounced blessed. Now the nature of the good … is the “only-begotten God,” “who, though he was rich, for our sake became poor.” The Word here predicts his “poverty” in the flesh, which is pointed out to us through the Gospel account, pronouncing the one who has recognized that “poverty” with understanding blessed. He was “poor” in relation to the “form of a servant” but blessed in relation to the nature of deity. For in the opening words of the psalm the Word calls him “needy and poor”; at the end of the section he says, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from eternity to eternity. So be it. So be it.”

ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 2:12.157-58

Psalms 42:2

The person, however, who has once tasted virtue and has come to understand its nature by his own experience of the good is no longer the kind of person who must be dragged away from his passionate attachment to evil by necessity and warning and compelled to look to virtue. On the contrary, he has an excessive thirst for what is superior.… [He] “thirsts” for participation in God more than “the hart” longs for “the fountains of water.” And it follows that the person who finds the fountain after this excessive thirst draws in as much water as the abundance of his desire draws off. But he who has received what he desired in himself is full of what he desired. For that which has become full is not again emptied on the model of physical satiety, nor does that which was drunk remain inactive in itself. In whomever the divine fountain has come into existence, it transforms the one who has embraced it to itself and imparts to this person a portion of its own power.

ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 1:5.40-41

Psalms 77:5-10

Sufficient defense has been offered on these points, and as for that which Eunomius says by way of calumny against our doctrine, that “Christ was emptied to become himself” there has been sufficient discussion in what has been said above, where he has been shown to be attributing to our doctrine his own blasphemy. For a person who believes that the unchangeable [divine] nature has put on the created and perishable [human nature] is not one who speaks of the transition from like to like but one who believes that the divine nature does not change into the more lowly [human nature]. For if, as their doctrine asserts, he is created, and a human being is created also, the wonder of the doctrine disappears, and there is nothing marvelous in what is alleged, since the created nature comes to be in itself. But we who have learned from prophecy of “the change of the right hand of the Most High”—and by the “Right Hand” of the Father we understand that power of God, which made all things, which is the Lord (not in the sense of depending on him as a part upon a whole but as being indeed from him…

Sufficient defense has been offered on these points, and as for that which Eunomius says by way of calumny against our doctrine, that “Christ was emptied to become himself” there has been sufficient discussion in what has been said above, where he has been shown to be attributing to our doctrine his own blasphemy. For a person who believes that the unchangeable [divine] nature has put on the created and perishable [human nature] is not one who speaks of the transition from like to like but one who believes that the divine nature does not change into the more lowly [human nature]. For if, as their doctrine asserts, he is created, and a human being is created also, the wonder of the doctrine disappears, and there is nothing marvelous in what is alleged, since the created nature comes to be in itself. But we who have learned from prophecy of “the change of the right hand of the Most High”—and by the “Right Hand” of the Father we understand that power of God, which made all things, which is the Lord (not in the sense of depending on him as a part upon a whole but as being indeed from him and yet contemplated in individual existence)—say thus: that neither does the right hand vary from him whose right hand it is, in regard to the idea of its nature, nor can any other change in it be spoken of besides the accommodation to the flesh. For truly the right hand of God was God himself; manifested in the flesh, seen through that same flesh by those whose sight was clear; as he did the work of the Father, being, both in fact and in thought, the right hand of God, yet being changed, in respect of the veil of the flesh by which he was surrounded, as regarded that which was seen, from that which he was by nature, as a subject of contemplation. Therefore he says to Philip, who was gazing only at that which was changed, “Look through that which is changed to that which is unchangeable, and if you see this, you have seen that Father, whom you seek to see; for he that has seen me—not him who appears in a state of change, but my very self, who am in the Father—will have seen that Father in whom I am, because the very same character of Godhead is beheld in both.” If, then, we believe that the immortal and impassible and uncreated nature came to be in the nature of the creature that is capable of suffering, and conceive the “change” to consist in this, on what grounds are we charged with saying that he “set aside his divine powers to become incarnate,” by those who keep presenting their own statements about our doctrines? For the participation of the created with the created is no “change of the right hand.” To say that the right hand of the uncreated nature is created belongs to Eunomius alone and to those who adopt such opinions as he holds. For the person with an eye that looks on the truth will discern the right hand of the Highest to be such as he sees the Highest to be—Uncreated of Uncreated, Good of Good, Eternal of Eternal without prejudice to its eternity by its being in the Father by way of generation. Thus our accuser has unawares been employing against us reproaches that properly fall on himself.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS 6:3

Psalms 91:1-6

When the great David heard and understood this, he [David] said to him “who dwells in the shelter of the most High; He will overshadow you with his shoulders,” which is the same as being behind God (for the shoulder is on the back of the body). Concerning himself David says, “My soul clings close to you, your right hand supports me.” You see how Psalms agree with the history. For as the one says that the right hand is a help to the person who has joined himself close behind God, so the other says that the hand touches the person who waits in the rock on the divine voice and prays that he might follow behind.

LIFE OF MOSES 250

Psalms 103:6-14

God is not an expression, and he does not have his essence in voice or utterance. God is of himself what also he is believed to be. He is named by those who call on him, not what he is essentially (for the nature of him who alone is unspeakable), but he receives his names from what are believed to be his works in regard to our life. To take an instance ready at hand, when we speak of him as God, we so name him from his overlooking and surveying all things and seeing through the things that are hidden. But if his essence is prior to his works, and if we understand his works by our senses and express them in words as we are best able, why should we be afraid of calling things by words of later origin than themselves? For if we stop interpreting any of the attributes of God until we understand them, and if we understand them only by what his works teach us, and if his power precedes its exercise and depends on the will of God, while his will resides in the spontaneity of the divine nature, are we not clearly taught that the words that represent things are of later origin than the things…

God is not an expression, and he does not have his essence in voice or utterance. God is of himself what also he is believed to be. He is named by those who call on him, not what he is essentially (for the nature of him who alone is unspeakable), but he receives his names from what are believed to be his works in regard to our life. To take an instance ready at hand, when we speak of him as God, we so name him from his overlooking and surveying all things and seeing through the things that are hidden. But if his essence is prior to his works, and if we understand his works by our senses and express them in words as we are best able, why should we be afraid of calling things by words of later origin than themselves? For if we stop interpreting any of the attributes of God until we understand them, and if we understand them only by what his works teach us, and if his power precedes its exercise and depends on the will of God, while his will resides in the spontaneity of the divine nature, are we not clearly taught that the words that represent things are of later origin than the things themselves and that the words that are framed to express the operations of things are reflections of the things themselves? And that this is so, we are clearly taught by holy Scripture, by the mouth of great David, when, as by certain peculiar and appropriate names, derived from his contemplation of the works of God, he thus speaks of the divine nature: “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, long-suffering, and of great goodness.” Now what do these words tell us? Do they indicate his operations or his nature? No one will say that they indicate anything but his operations. At what time, then, after showing mercy and pity, did God acquire his name from the display of his works? Was it before a person’s life began? But who was there to be the object of pity? Was it, then, after sin entered into the world? But sin entered after humankind. The exercise, therefore, of pity, and the name itself, came after humanity. What then? Will our adversary [Eunomius], wise as he is above the prophets, convict David of error in applying names to God derived from his opportunities of knowing him? Or, in contending with him, will he use against him the pretense in his stately passage as out of a tragedy, saying that “he glories in the most blessed life of God with names drawn from human imagination, whereas it gloried in itself alone, long before people were born to imagine them”? The psalmist’s advocate will readily admit that the divine nature gloried in itself alone even before the existence of human imagination but will contend that the human mind can speak only so much in respect of God as its capacity, instructed by his works, will allow. “For,” as says the Wisdom of Solomon, “by the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the Maker of them is seen.”

ANSWER TO EUNOMIUS’S SECOND BOOK