Change ). Later on, Gregory writes again to the effect that he is speculating on an opinion that is not accepted by most: But He that becomes all things will be in all things too; and herein it appears to me that Scripture teaches the complete annihilation of evil. It is within this context we must understand the whole work. For others, it makes them afraid to read Gregory. Christians, who were once “enemies” and at “enmity with God” (cf Rom 8:7) have been reconciled so that death no longer has authority over them. He does this without postulating that any rational creature will cease existence. After speculating about the soul and the passions, the work begins to speculate about how “every knee shall bow” and every tongue confess Jesus Christ. Gregory of Nyssa on future punishment. Total garbage! Hence, the text says, “The glory which you have given me, given through the Holy Spirit to me might be given to you through me.”, e continues in the same vein in the next paragraph, quoting, For it cannot be otherwise – “that all may be one as we, , being separated from everything dividing them from each other, are united together “as we are one,”, e are one.” How can it be that “I am in them?” For “I alone cannot be in them unless you also. Questioning Gregory of Nyssa’s Universalism: Life of Moses (an Addendum) Book II of Life of Moses contains Saint Gregory of Nyssa’s exegesis of the Book of Exodus. Unity then means to be one body with him as Paul state, ything, then the entirety of Christ’s body will be subjected to God’s vivifying power, Thus, the subjection of this body will be said to. People so universally and consistently assume Gregory of Nyssa is a universalist, it unsettles the faith of many. ( Log Out / Get this from a library! When faith is added, the apostle says, “Let us attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” [Eph 2.13]. (The Greek Anthology, book I … But while the latter proceeded, on the subject of the soul, as far in the direction of supposed consequences as the thinker pleased, we are not entitled to such licence, I mean that of affirming what we please; we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings…we will adopt, as the guide of our reasoning, the Scripture, which lays it down as an axiom that there is no excellence in the soul which is not a property as well of the Divine nature…we will speak upon these points by making our study of them so far as we can follow the chain of Scriptural tradition. It is not proper for God to be present in evil; thus, , he will not be in everything as long as some evil remains, If it compels us to truly believe that God is in everything, then, wickedness as His goodness neither increases or decreases (as we stated previous, od is only such to one whose will cooperates with God, In the same paragraph as both preceding passages, Gregory, Paul shows, by the words quoted above, that, or as examples for partaking in the divinity, the sacraments or quasi-sacramental realities], oper to understand him as being eaten; the same applies to drink, clothing, shelter, beauty, health, strength, prudence, glory, blessedness and anything else judged good which our human nature needs. imple moral lesson we can glean from the preceding, ord for anything. Within the context, it is clear that “all persons” is a reference to the “we” (i.e. In the same paragraph as both preceding passages, Gregory immediately continues: Paul shows, by the words quoted above, that God becomes all things for us. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. If it is too rigidly “reactionary” in its interpretation, this is because in this day and age we have failed to get enough people seriously interacting with the work under the presumption it is actually orthodox and internally consistent. Gregory continues in his exegesis to the same effect: Those, then, whose reasoning powers have never been exercised and who have never had a glimpse of the better way soon use up on gluttony in this fleshly life the dividend of good which their constitution can claim, and they reserve none of it for the after life; but those who by a discreet and sober-minded calculation economize the powers of living are afflicted by things painful to sense here, but they reserve their good for the succeeding life, and so their happier lot is lengthened out to last as long as that eternal life. One body has been formed with the good as predominant; our body’s entire nature is united to the divine, pure nature. We therefore learn by the examples mentioned above that the person in God has everything which God himself has. We can literally see that those who follow an evil example lose more and more goodness (because evil has no actual being, something Gregory points out at the treatise’s beginning) while the formerly evil can rectify this by following a good example and growing in sanctity. But what does Gregory actually means takes place when evil is “completely annihilated.” Does this mean universalism? Paul looked to the true good al. Saint Gregory of Nyssa’s On the Soul and Resurrection is perhaps his most strongly argued universalist work. Interpreters often skip over the obvious fact that Gregory teaches eternal damnation. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395) (also known as Gregory Nyssen) was bishop of Nyssa from 372 to 376, and from 378 until his death. Such things had their origin in God; what was made in the beginning did not receive evil, t make sin – the prophet says, “No deceit was found in his mouth” [Is 53.9]. Lastly, just because Gregory does not teach universalism in this work, that does not mean he does not teach it elsewhere. This requires a long. Current Issue It, hrist receives in himself all who are joined to him through the fellowship of. gregory of nyssa universalism. In the next paragraph, Gregory makes this even more explicit: Christ eternally builds himself up by those who join themselves to him in faith. one, and by it made himself submissive and obedient. –Gregory of Nyssa (332-398 A.D.), leading theologian of the Eastern Church In the present life God is in all, for His nature is without limits, but he is not all in all. In, ul mentions this in his Epistle to the Romans: “For if we have been enemies, we have been re, conciled to God” [Rom 5.10]. God’s energy]. Such things had their origin in God; what was made in the beginning did not receive evil…It is through this [divinized] Man that all mankind is joined to the divinity. The ellipses (“…”) are original to the translation. Not coincidentally, this is the same exact conclusion Gregory gives in his Nativity Homily. It is the Christian whose goodness goes up and down. The fire of this life is extinguished in various ways, whereas the fire of the next life remains unextinguished." I wanted to show that I was twisting nothing out of context. d to himself, Christ hands it over to God and the Father who unites everything to himself. In discussing this, the conclusion is obviously drawn that it is the Christian who is in subjection to God and this pertains to his reconciliation. Decrease of the good always results by straying from its principle, while, found closer to us insofar as it lies in each one’s dignity and powe. When the good pervades everything, then the entirety of Christ’s body will be subjected to God’s vivifying power [i.e. completely separated himself from sin and has utterly denied in himself the power of deat, ed its lordship and authority and might…if anyone like Paul may be, found who became a mighty imitator of Christ in his rejection of evil…, such a person will fall in behind the first fruits at Christ’s coming, Gregory wrote in what was previously quoted, he contrasts the preceding gr. It is in this vain the treatise begins. Evil is not found among the faithful, because God does not unite to Himself wickedness as His goodness neither increases or decreases (as we stated previously). As we can see, it is Paul’s repentance and turning towards God that is proof of the “grace of Christ dwelling within him.” This is not something true for just Paul, but all of us through repentance after hearing the Gospel. Gregory immediately continues on the same subject: According to the promise made in the Gospel, we are no longer slaves of the Lord; but once reconciled, we are numbered among his friends. Read and weep https://books.google.com/books?id=oUxMt6N18p0C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA76#v=onepage&q&f=false, How many lay scholars in modern academia have been canonized by the Church? This is the traditional, Orthodox teaching. For some, it encourages their authoritatively condemned heresy. om the whole preceding discussion, there is not a whiff that universalism is being seriously discussed or even implied. It is the Christian whose goodness goes up and down. He continues in the same vein in the next paragraph, quoting that “they may be one as we are one” (John 17:21): For it cannot be otherwise – “that all may be one as we are one”- unless the disciples, being separated from everything dividing them from each other, are united together “as we are one,” that “they might be one, as we are one.” How can it be that “I am in them?” For “I alone cannot be in them unless you also are in them, since both I and you are one. …when the complete whole of our race shall have been perfected from the first man to the last — some having at once in this life been cleansed from evil, others having afterwards in the necessary periods been healed by the Fire, others having in their life here been unconscious equally of good and of evil — to offer to every one of us participation in the blessings which are in Him, which, the Scripture tells us, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor thought ever reached. The Case for Orthodoxy, The Orthodox Doctrine of Justification: The Patristic and Conciliar Teaching, Tertullian, Baptismal Regeneration, and the Danger of Presuppositions, Ephrem the Syrian's Hymns on Paradise: Highlights, Saint Peter Mogila's Confession and the 1642 Synod, Debunking James White on the Latria and Dulia Distinction. It is not coincidence that Orthodox universalist tend to also be ecumenists and western in their epistemological orientation. Really makes you think…. If the Father loves the Son. Therefore, Paul says that such enemies are to be subjected to God and the Father; death no longer is to have authority. If we take this interpretation, it makes sense that his apparent “universalist passages” are actually consistent with his eternal damnation passages, where he faithfully re-presents the teaching of the Church. In speaking of this purgation, which we can agree from the above parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is not applicable literally to every individual, the vagaries of language certainly give off an air of universalism. In short, God is infinitely good and can only create good. The work styles itself as highly Biblicist and critical of Hellenistic syllogistic philosophy. Once man’s life had but one character; and by that I mean that it was to be found only in the category of the good and had no contact with evil…God divided the life of man into two parts, namely, this present life, and that out of the body hereafter; and He placed on the first a limit of the briefest possible time, while He prolonged the other into eternity; and in His love for man He gave him his choice, to have the one or the other of those things, good or evil, I mean, in which of the two parts he liked: either in this short and transitory life, or in those endless ages, whose limit is infinity. In this story of the Rich and the Poor Man we are taught another doctrine also, which is intimately connected with our former discoveries. About "If one should ask what we are worshipping and adoring, the answer is ready: we are honouring love." It is not proper for God to be present in evil; thus, he will not be in everything as long as some evil remains. r; thus, a result follows from the action preceding it. In the preceding, we see the universalist exegesis of this treatise destroyed. Further proof of, they will receive a trace of divinity in themselves, Once death has been destroyed – for if there are no persons, will die, not even death would exist – then, of God, the Christians themselves. No longer does he lack anything added to his body by buil, ding, since he is wholly constructed upon the foundation of prophets and, of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, , to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of t, are in the Church and therefore united to God Himself. m the dead once the pangs of death have been loosened. The church of North Africa, in the person of Augustine, enters the field. This requires a long slog through all his works, one I will partake in by the grace of God, the prayers of Gregory, and I hope your own. The passage is now exceedingly clear.
Wow, that passage of Ecclesiastes really throws a new light on the whole thing. Words such as these signify what is proper to God. . Saint Gregory of Nyssa’s On the Soul and Resurrection is perhaps his most strongly argued universalist work. Two paragraphs later, we have another passage which the universalists will cling to, because (when taken out of context) it can be consistent with their false doctrine: Christ’s body, as it is often said, consists of human nature in its entirety to which he has been united. universalist and proponent of apokatastasis. However, “it is necessary for him to reign, until he places his enemies under his feet.” We reverently take this, I believe, as Christ valiantly holding sway in his power. This is important, because this is the context behind him giving an exegesis of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Later on, he also rejects reincarnation and the pre-existence of souls on the principle a rational soul like a man’s cannot come from or become later an irrational soul, thereby contradicting Origen. His goodness neither goes up or down—it is constant. He does not make any menti, on of anything that pertains to universalism. Archived. y Saint Gregory of Nyssa which concerns itself with. Unity then means to be one body with him as Paul states, for all who are joined to the one body of Christ by participation are one body with him. Let’s take a look. Universal salvation : eschatology in the thought of Gregory of Nyssa and Karl Rahner. 100, 101) where, in speaking of the punishment by fire assigned to souls after death, he compares it to the process whereby gold is refined in a furnace, through being separated from the dross with which it is alloyed. The highest of all good things is salvation effected in us through estrangement from evil. We will see this be elaborated as the book unfolds. is taken to mean that because Christ died, Christ assumed from death both the beginning of evil’, s destruction and the dissolution of death; then, as it were, a certain order was consequently added. ( Log Out / Hence, they see these statements about “trace of divinity” and become utterly lost. Or something else? The serpent’s power is now dead, since its head has been rendered useless, but as time passes and things endowed with motion come a standstill at the awaited consummation of this life, then the tail, the enemy’s last remaining part, that is, death, is annulled. By conforming oneself to God, one is vivified by God’s goodness. However, is this the only way to read the work? Explicitly, the “Church” is the subject being discussed. So then, after this person has completely separated himself from sin and has utterly denied in himself the power of death and destroyed its lordship and authority and might…if anyone like Paul may be found who became a mighty imitator of Christ in his rejection of evil…such a person will fall in behind the first fruits at Christ’s coming. When he argues that God pervades all things “and by this penetration of the whole keeps the world in a state of being,” he uses this as a leaping off point on how God restores everything to goodness. Get this from a library! As we have already shown, his purpose is to extol the spiritual and ascetic life of the Christian and that it shares concerns with the Great Catechism. Christians) from earlier in this paragraph and the one preceding it. As every being is capable of attracting its like, and humanity is, in a way, like God, as bearing within itself some resemblances to its Prototype, the soul is by a strict necessity attracted to the kindred Deity. orks, one I will partake in by the grace of God, the prayers of Gregory, and I hope your own. Hence, from the whole preceding discussion, there is not a whiff that universalism is being seriously discussed or even implied. ( Log Out / The fact there are “those” or one class means that “those who have decorated themselves in the Resurrection” are also a class of people. We are the Son’s body. The primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that St. Gregory of Nyssa was a proponent of the doctrine of universal restoration and believed that it was truly a Christian doctrine established in Scripture. The paragraph continues on a universalist note: [I]t shall be that every will rests in God, evil will be reduced to complete annihilation, owing to no receptacle being left for it. St John the Ladder had my view, is my response. Decrease of the good always results by straying from its principle, while the good is found closer to us insofar as it lies in each one’s dignity and power; thus, a result follows from the action preceding it. It is a disservice to everyone that no one interprets Gregory’s own words according to his own teaching on the same topic. However, in the end of this discussion he makes an important point which is necessary to understand in order to avoid misreading his conclusion. As a simple moral lesson we can glean from the preceding is that we must not simply take another’s word for anything. It is time now to quote the apostle himself on these matters. No amount of “consulting the scholarship” comes remotely close to replacing even a small fraction of any of the preceding individually. Yet, Gregory has no issue with reflecting upon the issue in this sense. Gregory’s interest in the salvation of Christians. by the following words: “I have loved them as you have loved me” [Jn 17.23]. The traditional view of Gregory is that he was an orthodox Trinitarian theologian, who was influenced by the neoplatonism of Plotinus and believed in universal salvation following Origen. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Gregory of Nyssa went as far as saying that the punishments in hell are purgatorial instead of judicial. Christian Universalism in the Bible. This is, those obsessed with universalism spend more time, the introduction (which is longer than the treatise) and focusing on a few lines, than actually reading the work itself. As we can see, Gregory is openly expressing a minority (or at the very least unsettled) opinion and only wants it accepted to the extent that it is “in accord with the doctrine of the Resurrection.” It appears Gregory is engaging in some sort of thought or rhetorical experiment in an attempt to answer how evil can be completely annihilated and only God’s goodness remain. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, .” But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then, ory is speaking of Christians, not the universal salvation of M. thras worshippers, Hindus, Buddhists, and whatever else. Thus, they might be perfectly one, having been perfected in us, for we are one.”, In the next paragraph he is even clearer that those who are in Christ’s body have “faith in Him:”. Posted by 8 years ago. On this note, Gregory immediately continues: Once Paul has been subjected to God, he is brought to the One who lives, speaks and effects good things.
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