Gregory of Nyssa

From OrthodoxWiki
Revision as of 04:42, May 13, 2006 by Pistevo (talk | contribs) (quotes)
Jump to: navigation, search

Our father among the saints Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335 – after 394) was bishop of Nyssa and a prominent theologian of the fourth century. The younger brother of Basil the Great and friend of Gregory the Theologian, his influence on Church doctrine has remained important, even after the Origenist influence on his thought left him suspect in the wake of the Fifth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople.


This article or section is a stub (i.e., in need of additional material). You can help OrthodoxWiki by expanding it.


Quotes

"When we lay bare the hidden meaning of the history, scripture is seen to teach that the birth which distresses the tyrant is the beginning of the virtuous life. I am speaking of the kind of birth in which free will serves as the midwife, delivering the child amid great pain. For no one causes grief to his antagonist unless he exhibits in himself those marks which give proof of his victory over the other." -- The Life of Moses

"A greedy appetite for food is terminated by satiety and the pleasure of drinking ends when our thirst is quenched. And so it is with the other things... But the possession of virtue, once it is solidly achieved, cannot be measured by time nor limited by satiety. Rather, to those who are its disciples it always appears as something ever new and fresh."

"The soul has followed Moses and the cloud, both of these serving as guides for those who would advance in virtue; Moses her represents the commandments of the Law; and the cloud that leads the way, its spiritual meaning. The soul has been purified by crossing the Sea; it has removed from itself and destroyed the enemy army. It has tasted of the waters of Marah, that is, of life deprived of all sinful pleasure; and this at first had seemed bitter and unpleasant to the taste but offered a sensation of sweetness to those who accepted the wood. Next it enjoyed the beauty of the palm trees of the gospel and the springs; it filled itself with the living water, that is, the rock. It took within itself the bread of heaven. It overwhelmed the foreign host—a victory due to the extended arms of the Lawgiver, which thus foreshadowed the mystery of the Cross. Only then can the soul go on to the contemplation of transcendent Being."