Gregory of Nyssa

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

Under “thrones” [Paul] includes the cherubim, giving them this Greek name, as more intelligible than the Hebrew name for them. He knew that “God sits upon the cherubim,” and so he calls these powers the thrones of him who sits on them. In the same way there are included in the list of Isaiah’s seraphim, by whom the mystery of the Trinity was clearly proclaimed, when they uttered that marvelous cry “holy,” being awestruck with the beauty in each person of the Trinity. They are named under the title of “powers” both by the great Paul and by the prophet David—the latter says, “Bless you the Lord all you his powers, you ministers of his that do his pleasure,” and Isaiah instead of saying “Bless you” has written the very words of their blessing, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory,” and he has revealed by what one of the seraphim did [to him] that these powers are ministers that do God’s pleasure, effecting the “purging of sin” according to the will of him who sent them: for this is the ministry of these spiritual beings, namely, to be sent forth for the salvation of those who are being saved.