ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA wrote many learned works extant in three volumes in
folio, published by the learned Jesuit, Fronto le Duc, at Paris, an.
1615 and 1638. They are eternal monuments of this father's great zeal,
piety, and eloquence. Photius commends his diction, as surpassing that
of all other rhetoricians, in perspicuity, elegance, and a pleasing turn
of expression, and says, that in the beauty and sweetness of his
eloquence, and the copiousness of his arguments in his polemic works
against Eunomius, he far outwent the rest who handled the same subjects.
He wrote many commentaries on holy scripture. The first is his
Hexaemeron, or book on the six days' work of the creation of the world.
It is a supplement to his brother Basil's work on the same subject, who
had omitted the obscurer questions, above the reach of the vulgar, to
whom he preached. Gregory filled up that deficiency, at the request of
many learned men, with an accuracy that became the brother of the great
Basil. He shows in this work a great knowledge of philosophy. He
finishes it by saying, The widow that offered her two mites did not
hinder the magnificent presents of the rich, nor did they who offered
skins, wood, and goats' hair towards the tabernacle, hinder those who
could give gold, silver, and precious stones. "I shall be happy," says
he, "if I can present hairs; and shall rejoice to see others add
ornaments of purple, or gold tissue." His book, On the Workmanship of
Man, may be looked upon as a continuation of the former, though it was
written first. He shows it was suitable that man, being made to command
in quality of king all this lower creation, should find his palace
already adorned, and that other things should be created before he
appeared who was to be the spectator of the miracles of the Omnipotent.
His frame is so admirable, his nature so excellent, that the whole
Blessed Trinity proceeds as it were by a council, to his formation. He
is a king, by his superiority and command over all other creatures by
his gift of reason; is part spiritual, by which he can unite himself to
God; part material, by which he has it in his power to use and even
enslave himself to creatures. Virtue is his purple garment, immortality
his sceptre, and eternal glory his crown. His resemblance to his Creator
consist in the soul only, that is, in its moral virtues and God's grace;
which divine resemblance men most basely efface in themselves by sin. He
speaks of the dignity and spiritual nature of the soul, and the future
resurrection of the body, and concludes with an anatomical description
of it, which shows him to have been well skilled in medicine, and in
that branch of natural philosophy, for that age. The two homilies on the
words, _Let us make man_, are falsely ascribed to him. When {554}
desired by one Caesarius to prescribe him rules of a perfect virtue, he
did this by his Life of Moses, the pattern of virtue. He closes it with
this lesson, that perfection consists not in avoiding sin for fear of
torments, as slaves do, nor for the hope of recompense, as mercenaries
do; but in "fearing, as the only thing to be dreaded, to lose the
friendship of God; and in having only one desire, viz., of God's
friendship, in which alone man's spiritual life consists. This is to be
obtained by fixing the mind only on divine and heavenly things." We have
next his two treatises, On the Inscriptions of the Psalms, and An
Exposition of the sixth Psalm, full of allegorical and moral
instructions. In the first of these, extolling the divine sentiments and
instructions of those holy prayers, he says, that all Christians learned
them, and thought that time lost in which they had them not in their
mouths: even little children and old men sung them; all in affliction
found them their comfort sent by God those who travelled by land or sea,
those who were employed in sedentary trades; and the faithful of all
ages, sexes, and conditions, sick and well, made the Psalms their
occupation. These divine canticles were sung by them in all times of
joy, in marriages and festivals; by day, and in the night vigils, &c.
His eight homilies, On the three first Chapters of Ecclesiastes, are an
excellent moral instruction and literal explication of that book. He
addressed his fifteen homilies, On the Book of Canticles, which he had
preached to his flock, to Olympias, a lady of Constantinople, who, after
twenty months' marriage, being left a widow, distributed a great estate
to the church and poor, a great part by the hands of our saint, whom she
had settled an acquaintance with in a journey he had made to the
imperial city. St. Gregory extols the excellency of that divine book,
not to be read but by pure hearts, disengaged from all love of
creatures, and free from all corporeal images. He says the Holy Ghost
instructs us by degrees; by the book of Proverbs to avoid sin; by
Ecclesiastes to draw our affections from creatures; by this of Canticles
he teaches perfection, which is pure charity. He explains it mystically.
He has five orations On the Lord's Prayer. In the first, he elegantly
shows the universal, indispensable necessity of prayer, which alone
unites the heart to God, and preserves it from the approach of sin.
Every breath we draw ought also to be accompanied with thanksgiving, as
it brings us innumerable benefits from God, which we ought continually
to acknowledge. But we must only pray for spiritual, not temporal
things. In the second, he shows that none can justly call God Father,
who remain in sin, without desires of repentance, and who consequently
bear the ensigns of the devil. Resemblance with God is the mark of being
his son; that title further obliges us to have our minds and hearts
always in heaven. By the next we pray that God alone may reign in us,
and his will be ever done by us; and that the devil or self-love never
have any share in our hearts or actions. By the fourth we ask bread,
_i.e._, absolute necessaries, not dainties, not riches, or any thing
superfluous, or for the world, and even bread only for today, without
solicitude for to-morrow, which perhaps will never come: all irregular
desires and all occasions of them must be excluded. "The serpent is
watching at your heel, but do you watch his head: give him no admittance
into your mind: from the least entrance he will draw in after him the
foldings of his whole body. If Eve's counsellor persuades you that any
thing looks beautiful and tastes sweet, if you listen you are soon drawn
into gluttony, and lust, and avarice, &c." The fifth petition he thus
paraphrases, "I have forgiven my debtors, do not reject your suppliant.
I dismissed my debtor cheerful and free. I am your debtor, send me not
away sorrowful. May my dispositions, my sentence prevail with you. I
have pardoned, pardon: I have showed compassion, imitate your servant's
mercy. My offences are indeed far more grievous; but consider how much
you excel in all good. It is just that you manifest to sinners a mercy
suiting your infinite greatness. I have given proof of mercy in little
things, according to the capacity of my nature; but your bounty is not
to be confined by the narrowness of my power, &c." His eight sermons, On
the Eight Beatitudes, are written in the same style. What he says in
them on the motives of humility, which he thinks is meant by the first
beatitude, of poverty of spirit, and on meekness, proves how much his
heart was filled with those divine virtues.
Besides what we have of St. Gregory on the holy scripture, time has
preserved us many other works of piety of this father. His discourse
entitled, On his Ordination, ought to be called, On the Dedication. It
was spoken by him in the consecration of a magnificent church, built by
Rufin, (praefect of the praetorium,) ann. 394, at the Borough of the Oak,
near Chalcedon. His sermon, On loving the Poor, is a pathetic
exhortation to alms, from the last sentence on the wicked for a neglect
of that duty. "At which threat," he says, "I am most vehemently
terrified, and disturbed in mind." He excites to compassion for the
lepers in particular, who, under their miseries, are our brethren, and
it is only God's favor that has preserved us sound rather than them; and
who knows what we ourselves may become? His dialogue Against Fate was a
disputation with a heathen philosopher, who maintained a destiny or
overruling fate in all things. His canonical epistle to Letoius, bishop
of Melitine, metropolis of Armenia, has a place among the canons of
penance in the Greek church, published by Beveridge. He condemns
apostacy to perpetual penance, deprived of the sacraments till the
article of death: if only extorted by torments, for nine years; the same
law for witchcraft; nine years for simple fornication; eighteen for
adultery; twenty-seven for {555} murder, or for rapine. But he permits
the terms to be abridged in cases of extraordinary fervor. Simple theft
he orders to be expiated by the sinner giving all his substance to the
poor; if he has none, to work to relieve them.
His discourse against those who defer baptism, is an invitation to
sinners to penance, and chiefly of catechumens to baptism, death being
always uncertain. He is surprised to see an earthquake or pestilence
drive all to penance and to the font: though an apoplexy or other sudden
death may as easily surprise men any night of their lives. He relates
this frightful example. When the Nomades Scythians plundered those
parts, Archias, a young nobleman of Comanes, whom he knew very well, and
who deferred his baptism, fell into their hands, and was shot to death
by their arrows, crying out lamentably, "Mountains and woods, baptize
me; trees and rocks, give me the grace of the sacrament." Which
miserable death more afflicted the city than all the rest of the war.
His sermons, Against Fornication, On Penance, On Alms, On Pentecost, are
in the same style. In that against Usurers, he exerts a more than
ordinary zeal, and tells them: "Love the poor. In his necessity he has
recourse to you to assist his misery, but by lending him on usury you
increase it; you sow new miseries on his sorrows, and add to his
afflictions. In appearance you do him a pleasure, but in reality ruin
him, like one who, overeome by a sick man's importunities, gives him
wine, a present satisfaction, but a real poison. Usury gives no relief,
but makes your neighbor's want greater than it was. The usurer is no way
profitable to the republic, neither by tilling the ground, by trade,
&c.; yet idle at home, would have all to produce to him; hates all he
gains not by. But though you were to give alms of these unjust
exactions, they would carry along with them the tears of others robbed
by them. The beggar that receives, did he know it, would refuse to be
fed with the flesh and blood of a brother; with bread extorted by
rapine, from other poor. Give it back to him from whom you unjustly took
it. But to hide their malice, they change the name usury into milder
words, calling it interest or moderate profit, like the heathens, who
called their furies by the soft name Eumenides." He relates that a rich
usurer of Nyssa, so covetous as to deny himself and children
necessaries, and not to use the bath to save three farthings, dying
suddenly, left his money all hid and buried where his children could
never find it, who by that means were all reduced to beggary. "The
usurers answer me," says he, "then we will not lend; and what will the
poor do? I bid them give, and exhort to lend, but without interest; for
he that refuses to lend, and he that lends at usury, are equally
criminal;" viz. if the necessity of another be extreme. His sermon On
the Lent Fast displays the advantage of fasting for the health of both
body and soul; he demands these forty days' strenuous labor to cure all
their vices, and insists on total abstinence from wine at large, and
that weakness of constitution and health is ordinarily a vain pretence.
Saint Gregory's great Catechistical Discourse is commended by Theodoret,
(dial. 2 & 3;) Leontius, (b. 3;) Enthymius, (Panopl. p. 215;) Germanus,
patr. of Constantinople, (in Photius, cod. 233, &c.) The last lines are
an addition. In the fortieth chapter he expounds to the catechumens the
mysteries of the Unity and Trinity of God, and the Incarnation: also the
two sacraments of baptism and the body of Christ, in which latter
Christ's real body is mixed with our corruptible bodies, to bestow on us
immortality and grace.
In his book upon Virginity he extols its merit and dignity.
St. Gregory was much scandalized in his journey to Jerusalem to see
contentions reign in that holy place; yet he had the comfort to find
there several persons of great virtue, especially three very devout
ladies, to whom he afterwards wrote a letter, in which he says, (t. 3,
pp. 655, 656:) "When I saw those holy places, I was filled with a joy
and pleasure which no tongue can express." Soon after his return, he
wrote a short treatise on those who go to Jerusalem, (t. 3. app. p. 72,)
in which he condemns pilgrimages, when made an occasion of sloth,
dissipation of mind, and other dangers; and observes that they are no
part of the gospel precepts. Dr. Cave (p. 44) borrows the sophistry of
Du Moulin to employ this piece against the practice of pilgrimages; but
in part very unjustly, as Gretser (not. in Notas Molinei) demonstrates.
Some set too great a value on pilgrimages, and made them an essential
part of perfection: and by them even many monks and nuns exchanged their
solitude into a vagabond life. These abuses St. Gregory justly reproves.
What he says, that he himself received no good by visiting the holy
places, must be understood to be a Miosis, or extenuation to check the
monks' too ardent passion for pilgrimages, and only means, the presence
of those holy places, barely of itself, contributes nothing to a man's
sanctification: but he does not deny it to be profitable by many devout
persons uniting together in prayer and mortification, and by exciting
hearts more powerfully to devotion. "Movemur locis ipsis in quibus eorum
quos admiramur aut diligimus adsunt vestigia," said Atticas in Cicero.
"Me quidem illae ipsae nostrae Athenae, non tam operibus magnificis
exquisitisque antiquorum artibus delectant, quam recordatione summorum
virorum, ubi quis habitare, ubi sedere, ubi disputare sit, solitus,
studiuseque eorum sepulchra contemplor." Much more must the sight of the
places of Christ's mysteries stir up our sentiments and love. Why else
did St. Gregory go over Calvary, Golgotha, Olivet, Bethlehem? What was
the unspeakable (spiritual, certainly, not corporal) pleasure he was
filled with at their sight? a real spiritual {556} benefit, and that
which is sought by true pilgrims. Does he not relate and approve the
pilgrimages of his friend, the monk Olympius? Nor could he be ignorant
of the doctrice and practice of the church. He must know in the third
century that his countryman Alexander, a bishop in Cappadocia,
admonished by divine oracle, went to Jerusalem to pray, and to visit the
holy places, &c., as Eusebius relates; (Hist. lib. 6, cap. 11, p. 212,)
and that this had been always the tradition and practice; "Longum est
nuns ab ascensu Domini usque ad praesentem diem per singulas aetates
currere, qui episcoporum, qui martyrum, qui eloquentium in doctrine
ecclesiastica, virorum venerint Hierosolymam, putantes se minus
religionis, minus habere scientiae, nec summam ut dicitur manum accepisse
virtutum, nisi in illis Christum adorassent locis de quibus primum
Evangelium de patibulo coruscaverat." St. Jerom, in ep. Paulae et
Eustochii ad Marcellam, (T. 4, p. 550, ed. Ben) As for the abuses which
St. Gregory censures, they are condemned in the canon law, by all
divines and men of sound judgment. If with Benedict XIV. we grant this
father reprehended the abuses of pilgrimages, so as to think the
devotion itself not much to be recommended, this can only regard the
circumstances of many who abuse them, which all condemn. He could not
oppose the torrent of other fathers, and the practice of the whole
church. And his devotion to holy places, relics, &c. is evident in his
writings, and in the practice of St. Macrina and his whole family.
His discourse On the Resurrection is the dialogue he had with his sister
St. Macrina the day before her death. His treatise On the Name and
Profession of a Christian, was written to show no one ought to bear that
name, who does not practise the rules of this profession, and who has
not its spirit, without which, a man may perform exterior duties, but
will upon occasions betray himself, and forget his obligation. When a
mountebank at Alexandria had taught an ape dressed in woman's clothes to
dance most ingeniously, the people took it for a woman, till one threw
some almonds on the stage; for then the beast could no longer contain,
but tearing off its clothes, went about the stage picking up its dainty
fruit, and showed itself to be an ape. Occasions of vain-glory,
ambition, pleasure, &c., are the devil's baits and prove who are
Christians, and who hypocrites and dissemblers under so great a name,
whose lives are an injury and blasphemy against Christ and his holy
religion. His book On Perfection teaches, that that life is most perfect
which resembles nearest the life of Christ in humility and charity, and
in dying to all passions and to the love of creatures that in which
Christ most perfectly lives, and which is his best living image, which
appears in a man's thoughts, words, and actions; for these show the
image which is imprinted on the soul. But there is no perfection which
is not occupied in continually advancing higher. His book On the
Resolution of Perfection to the monks, shows perfection to consist in
every action being referred to God, and done perfectly conformable to
his will in the spirit of Christ. St. Gregory had excommunicated certain
persons, who instead of repenting, fell to threats and violence. The
saint made against them his sermon, entitled, Against those who do not
receive chastisement submissively; in which, after exhorting them to
submission, he offers himself to suffer torments and death, closing it
thus: "How can we murmur to suffer, who are the ministers of a God
crucified? yet under all you inflict, I receive your insolences and
persecutions as a father and mother do from their dearest children, with
tenderness." In the discourse On Children dying without Baptism, he
shows that such can never enjoy God; yet feel not the severe torments of
the rest of the damned. We have his sermons On Pentecost, Christ's
Birth, Baptism, Ascension, and On his Resurrection, (but of these last
only the first, third, and fourth are St. Gregory's) and two On St.
Stephen, three On the forty Martyrs: the lives of St. Gregory
Thaumaturgus, St. Theodorus, St. Ephrem, St. Meletius, and his sister,
St. Macrina: his panegyric on his brother St. Basil the Great, the
funeral oration of Pulcheria, daughter to the Emperor Theodosius, six
years old, and that of his mother, the empress Flaccilla, who died soon
after her at the waters in Thrace. St. Gregory was invited to make these
two discourses, in 385, when he was at Constantinople. We have only five
of St. Gregory's letters in his works. Zacagnius has published fourteen
others out of the Vatican library. Caraccioli of Pisa, in 1731, has
given us seven more with tedious notes.
Saint Gregory surpasses himself in perspicuity and strength of
reasoning, in his polemic works against all the chief heretics of his
time. His twelve books against Eunomius, were ever most justly valued
above the rest. St. Basil had refuted that heresiarch's apology; nor
durst he publish any answer till after the death of that eloquent
champion of the faith. Then the Apology of his Apology began to creep
privately abroad. St. Gregory got at last a copy, and wrote his twelve
excellent books, in which he vindicates St. Basil's memory, and gives
many secret histories of the base Eunomius's life. He proves against him
the Divinity and Consubstantiality of God the Son. Though he employs the
scripture with extraordinary sagacity, he says, tradition, by succession
from the apostles, is alone sufficient to condemn heretics. (Or. 3,
contra Eunom. p. 123.) We have his treatise To Ablavius, that there are
not three gods. A treatise On Faith also against the Arians. That On
Common Notions is an explication of the terms used about the Blessed
Trinity. We have his Ten Syllogisms against the Manichees, proving that
evil cannot be a God. The heresy {557} of the Apollinarists beginning to
be broached, St. Gregory wrote to Theophilus patriarch of Alexandria,
against them, showing there is but one Person in Christ. But his great
work against Apollinaris is his Antirretic, quoted by Leontius, the
sixth general council, &c. Only a fragment was printed in the edition of
this father's works; but it was published from MSS. by Zacagnius,
prefect of the Vatican Library, in 1698. He shows in it that the
Divinity could not suffer, and that there must be two natures in Christ,
who was perfect God and perfect man. He proves also, against
Apollinaris, that Christ had a human soul with a human understanding.
His book of Testimonies against the Jews is another fruit of his zeal.
St. Gregory so clearly establishes the Procession of the Holy Ghost from
the Son, that some Greeks, obstinate in that heresy, erased out of his
writings the words _out of_, as they confessed in a council at
Constantinople, in 1280. He expressly condemned Nestorianism before it
was broached, and says, "No one dare call the holy Virgin and mother of
God, mother of man." (Ep. ad Eustath. p. 1093.) He asserts her virginity
in and after the birth of Christ. (Or. contr. Ennom. p. 108, and Serm.
in natale Christi, p. 776.) He is no less clear for transubstantiation
in his great catechistical discourse (c. 37, pp. 534, 535,) for the
sacrifice and the altar. Or in Bapt. Christi, p. 801. Private confession
of sins is plain from his epistle to Letoius, (p. 954,) in which he
writes thus: "Whoever secretly steals another man's goods, if he
afterwards discovers his sins by declaration to the priest, his heart
being changed, he will cure his wound, giving what he has to the poor."
This for occult theft, for which no canonical penance was prescribed. He
inculcates the authority of priests of binding and loosing before God,
(Serm. do Castig. 746, 747,) and calls St. Peter "prince of the
apostolic choir," (Serm. 2, de Sancto Stephano edito a Zacagnio, p.
339,) and (ib. p. 343,) "the head of the apostles;" and adds, "In
glorifying him all the members of the church are glorified, and that it
is founded on him." He writes very expressly and at length on the
invocation of saints, and says they enjoy the beatific vision
immediately after death, in his sermons on St. Theodorus, on the Forty
Martyrs, St. Ephrem, St. Meletius, &c.