Anti-Apollinarian Writings

by Gregory of Nyssa

Publisher:

Catholic University of America

, 2015

Overview

St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote two works during the 380s attacking the Christological teaching of Apolinarius of Laodicea and his followers. These are the substantial treatise Refutation of the Views of Apolinarius (the Antirrheticus) and the short letter to the Bishop of Alexandria, To Theophilus, Against the Apollinarians. The Antirrheticus is a hostile commentary on Apolinarius’s work entitled The Demonstration (Apodeixis) of the Divine Enfleshment according to the Likeness of a Human Being. The Apodeixis has not survived independently, and our knowledge of it depends almost completely on Gregory. The Antirrheticus is a neglected work, and this is the first English translation to be published. It has had a poor reputation among many modern scholars. Gregory is accused of being prolix and repetitive and of having misrepresented or misunderstood many of Apolinarius’s Christological ideas. It is argued here that the work is nevertheless of considerable theological interest. It is able in fact successfully to identify the principal problems raised by Apolinarius’s central concept of Christ as an “enfleshed mind,” and also provides an essential insight into Gregory’s own Christology and soteriology. The translation is interweaved with a commentary to provide the reader with some guidance through the complexities of Gregory’s arguments. The introduction includes an overview of the history of Apollinarianism and discusses the extent to which it is possible to reconstruct, from the fragments quoted by Gregory, the arguments of Apolinarius’s Apodeixis to which he is responding. It also examines the background to and the chronology of both of Gregory’s anti-Apollinarian works, and looks critically at the arguments that they deploy.

Contents

Top Highlights

“He wants the person who is perfect in virtue not only to provide evidence of this in the highest part of his life but also to look towards God when he performs some bodily function and not to abandon God when he does something of an intermediate nature.⁴⁵³ For, he says, ‘whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God’;⁴⁵⁴ that is, do not let your gaze slip away from the glory of God even when you are performing bodily functions.” (Page 222)

“He himself was highly exalted in eternity, and in this way he exalted highly that which was lowly; for he who was exalted above all things had no need of [J.222] exaltation himself. The Word was both Christ and Lord, and that is what he who was combined with him and taken up⁵⁰⁸ into the divinity became. The Word is Lord already; he is not re-ordained into lordship, but rather the form of the slave⁵⁰⁹ becomes the Lord.” (Page 241)

“As we shall see, Apolinarius seems from the outset to have been firmly in the Nicene, anti-Arian camp” (Page 4)

“Having, as the Apostle says, become sin⁴⁹ and a curse on account of us,⁵⁰ and having taken, according to Isaiah’s words, our weaknesses upon himself,⁵¹ he did not leave the sin and the curse and the weakness unhealed, but ‘what is mortal’ was ‘swallowed up by life,’⁵² and he who ‘was crucified in weakness lives by power’;⁵³ the curse was transformed into a blessing,⁵⁴ and everything in our nature that is weak and mortal, having been mixed⁵⁵ with the Godhead, became that which the Godhead is.” (Pages 265–266)

“As has been already stated, the divine nature came to dwell in an appropriate way in the soul and the body, and was made one with both through the union; because, as Scripture says, ‘the gifts of God are irrevocable,’⁵²⁶ it does not leave either of them but remains with them permanently. Nothing but sin can dissolve anyone’s bond with God; if anyone’s life is without sin, his union with God is completely indissoluble.” (Page 245)

Product Details

• Title: Anti-Apollinarian Writings
• Author: Gregory of Nyssa
• Series: The Fathers of the Church
• Volume: 131
• Publisher: Catholic University of America
• Print Publication Date: 2015
• Logos Release Date: 2018
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Jesus Christ › History of doctrines--Early church, ca. 30-600; Gregory, of Nyssa, Saint, approximately 335-approximately 394 › Correspondence; Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, -approximately 390 › Correspondence; Theophilus, patriarch, Archbishop of Alexandria,-412 › Correspondence
• ISBNs: 9780813228075, 0813228077
• Resource ID: LLS:NTPLLNRNWRTNGS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T20:29:42Z

About Gregory of Nyssa

St. Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394) was a Christian bishop and saint. He was a younger brother of Basil the Great and a good friend of Gregory of Nazianzus. His significance has long been recognized in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Roman Catholic branches of Christianity. Some historians identify Theosebia the deaconess as his wife, others hold that she, like Macrina the Younger, was actually a sister of Gregory and Basil.