Gregory of Nyssas Christological Exegesis

Christopher A. Beeley
Yale University

DRAFT April 2017

Suggestions welcome: christopher.beeley@yale.edu

Since the mid twentieth century Gregory of Nyssa has been widely celebrated for
his Christian mysticism, his philosophical theology, his biblical interpretation, and his
Trinitarian doctrine. Yet, while his popularity has risen on the modern scene, several
puzzles in Gregorys work have become apparent, and some readers have even
questioned the systematic coherence of his thought.1 With regard to his Christology,
scholars have debated whether Gregory evinces a dualist, a unitive, or a monophysite
scheme, and several have disputed the adequacy of his doctrine.2 In this chapter I aim to
show that Gregorys doctrine and exegesis concerning the person of Christ are more
consistent than is often maintained, and that they bear a distinctive, hybrid quality.
The study of Gregorys exegesis has typically focused on his allegorical, or
anagogical, interpretation in The Life of Moses and his Homilies on the Song of Songs,
which he wrote near the end of his life. Yet Gregory established the principles of his
Christological exegesis long before these late works, in the throes of dogmatic
controversy with Eunomius and Apollinarius, beginning in the early 380s at the latest.
Although Gregorys Christology is best known for being anti-Apollinarian, his doctrine
of Christ was well formed before he encountered Apollinarian teaching in any detail, and
it is already on full exhibit in the Contra Eunomium. In order to test the consistency of
Gregorys Christological exegesis, I propose to compare his argumentation in Contra
Eunomium book 3, his two works against Apollinarius, and his late Homilies on the Song
of Songs, with brief glimpses at The Life of Moses and the Catechetical Orationa range
of texts from the height of Gregorys episcopal career through his final years. Each of
these works is replete with biblical interpretation: the question at hand is often how to

1
See, e.g., Anthony Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa. The Early Church Fathers (London: Routledge, 1999),
pp. 15-17; and Rowan A. Greer, Christian Life and Christian Hope (New York: Crossroad, 2001), p. 69:
Gregory made no attempt to create a system of doctrine. For an overview of the varied reception of
Gregory in twentieth-century scholarship, see J. Warren Smith, Passion and Paradise: Human and Divine
Emotion in the Thought of Gregory of Nyssa (New York: Crossroad, 2004), pp. 11-13.
2
From Tixeront to Grillmeier to Kelly, as discussed in Brian E. Daley, Divine Transcendence and Human
Transformation: Gregory of Nyssas Anti-Apollinarian Christology, in Sarah Coakley, ed., Re-thinking
Gregory of Nyssa ((Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), p. 67. See also Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa, p. 47:
Gregorys anti-Apollinarian works have a certain basic incoherence in their general bearing, and the
conclusion of Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, Contra Eunomium III 3, in Johan Leemans and Matthieu Cassin,
eds., Gregory of Nyssa Contra Eunomium III: An English Translation with Commentary and Supporting
Studies. Proceedings of the 12th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (Leuven, 14-17 September
2010). Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 124 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 293-312, at 312.
interpret what a given biblical text says about Christs identity and his work of creation or
salvation. I will argue that Gregorys Christology and his exegetical method remained
essentially the same over time, despite differences of style and genre, even if they do
possess certain liabilities when viewed in a broader, catholic perspective, as many have
suspected. I will also highlight some key connections between Gregorys Christology and
his general metaphysical commitments.

Contra Eunomium Book 3

Written sometime between 381 and 383,3 Gregorys Contra Eunomium book 3 is
an extended exegetical argument concerning several points of contention between
Eunomius and Gregorys late brother Basil. Where Gregory picks up the argument in
book 3, section 3, Eunomius has accused Basil of denying the cross by dividing the
divine and human references to Christ found in the Scriptures between what appear to be
two different referents. Basil had made this exegetical distinction in order to avoid the
suggestion that the human sufferings of Christ somehow compromised his divinity. To
press his case, Eunomius points to several biblical texts that plainly refer Christs human
or economic activities to the divine Son of God; he invokes the communicatio idiomatum
of divine and human qualities found in the Scriptures, appealing to the unity of Christ
against what he believes is Basils overly divisive Christology. In his reply to Eunomius,
Gregory seeks to defend Basils exegesis, and to advance his own, by arguing that the
various biblical texts in question must indeed be predicated of two different referents.
Commenting on Proverbs 8.22 earlier in book 3, section 1, Gregory had argued
that Wisdoms statement that God created () her applies not to the begetting of
the Son by God the maker of all things, as Eunomius maintains,4 and which, we may
note, the biblical text suggests more literally, but to the humanity ( ) as
distinct from the divinity of Christ.5 Gregory recognizes that the text predicates both
divine and human things of the same figure (it speaks in one voice),6 yet he argues that
the proper way to interpret such passages is to refer the human or creaturely statements to
Christs humanity and the more noble ones to his divinity. In an interesting turn of
phrase, Gregory maintains that the two sorts of expression do not apply to one and the
same figure,7 a phrase that Gregory Nazianzen affirmed around the same time, in his
first Letter to Cledonius,8 and which would be taken up at the council of Chalcedon. For

3
And possibly edited in spring 383. Matthieu Cassin, Contre Eunome III: Une introduction, in Leemans
and Cassin, eds., Gregory of Nyssa Contra Eunomium III, pp. 3-5. Anna Silvas estimates winter 382-83,
Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters. Introduction, translation, and commentary by Anna M. Silvas. Supplements
to Vigiliae Christianae 83 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), p. 50.
4
Eun. 3.1.21. I have cited Contra Eunomium book 3 by book, part, and section number in the critical
edition, Gregorii Nysseni Opera vol. II, ed. Werner Jaeger (Leiden: Brill, 1960).
5
Eun. 3.1.52.
6
Eun. 3.1.50.
7
Eun. 3.1.52-3.
8
Ep. 101.13.

2
Gregory of Nyssa, only the method () that looks to the economy and protects what
is fitting concerning the conception of the divine and the human is truly pious, and only
by distinguishing the referents in this way can one preserve thoughts befitting God9
The key to understanding the varied biblical witness to Christ, then, is to keep the
different status of God and humanity clear and distinct in ones interpretation. It is a
pattern that he will execute with a fair degree of consistency for the rest of his career.
The illuminating section of the work is Gregorys extended defense of Basils
exegesis of Acts 2.36, Peters statement that God has made him Lord and Christ, this
Jesus whom you crucified. Eunomius approach to this verse was to ascribe the term he
made () to the divine generation of the Son before the ages,10 along the same
lines as his interpretation of the word created in Proverbs 8.22. When Basil denied that
the word made could refer to the divine Son, Eunomius accused Basil of being
ashamed of the cross of Christ, that is, ashamed of confessing that the Son of God was
crucified, and he charged Basil with positing two Christs and two Lords.11 And is the
lowly sayings to not refer to the divine Son, Eunomius, asks, how could a slave (the
humanity) empty himself to become the form of a slave, or a human creature become a
human creature? Surely it must be the divine Son who empties himself to take on the
form of a slave.12 Eunomius concludes that, according to Basils Christology, Christians
are saved by a mere creature, which is impossible.13 In short, by disallowing Peters
statement from referring to the Son of God in himself, Basil has, in Eunomius view,
introduced two sons and severed believers from the divine Lord, who alone can save
them.14
If Eunomius complaint is that Basil has severed the unity of Christ, the cause of
Basils and Gregorys alarm was that Eunomius had relegated the Son to a less-than-fully
divine status. For Eunomius, Christs passion shows that he is not equal in divinity with
God the Father, whereas for Gregory Christs equality with God the Father demands that
the sufferings of the cross not be predicated of the divine Son. According to the terms of
debate as Gregory presents them, there appear to be only two options: either the divine
Son himself suffers in a way that that Father cannot, thus preserving the unity of Christ at
the cost of subordinationism, or the divine Son does not himself suffer, even humanly,
because his divine nature is no less impassible than the Fathers, thus preserving the
equality of the Trinity at the expense of the unity of Christ. Gregory attempts to resolve
the conundrum in such as way that will uphold the Sons equality with the Father without
opening himself to the charge of Christological dualism that Basil had faced.

9
Eun. 3.1.54.
10
Eun. 3.3.12.
11
Eun. 3.3.15, 22, 26.
12
Eun. 3.3.17-18.
13
Eun. 3.3.18-19.
14
Two Christs and two Lords, Eun. 3.3.22.

3
 Gregory begins his argument by first acknowledging the plain sense of Scripture:
The word of Scripture says that two things have been done to a single person
(prosopon), the passion by the Jews, the honor by Godthough not as if there was one
who suffered and another who was honored by his exaltation.15 Gregory recognizes that
the Scriptures do in fact predicate both divine and human things to one and the same
figure, Jesus, as though the same subject experienced both things. In order to resolve
the dilemma, Gregory then distinguishes two referents within the single referent of the
biblical text. Surely the one who was exalted after being crucified (Ac. 2.33) cannot be
not the lofty one ( ) or the Deity ( ); it must be the lowly one (
), or Christs humanity ( ).16 For Gregory it is crucial that Christs
suffering, humiliation, and exaltation not be experiences of the divine Son of God, but
only of the human Jesus. Similarly, when Scripture speaks of the only-begotten God as
Son of Man, we must understand that this designation actually belongs to the true
Man ( ), not to God himself.17 Faced with the charge of
Christological dualism, Gregory defends an exegetical method of double predication, and
the distinction between the two referents is the revelation of the ineffable economy of
the mystery.18 Where the Eunomians are in error is their failure to see that Christs
divinity and humanity remain unconfused.19 No one would say either that the flesh is
pretemporal, or that the Word was born recently, and, likewise, the flesh does not
design the existence of things, nor does the Divinity have the power to be passive. The
communicatio idiomatum of Scripture, in other words, must be untangled and the divine
and human referents kept straight: the human is not from eternity, nor is the divine
mortal regardless of what the Scriptures say literally.20
In the course of his argument for double predication, Gregory signals three
doctrinal corollaries. The first concerns how he understands Christs unity. Gregory
famously speaks of the mixture, mingling, or unity of God and humanity in Christ,
language that has led some scholars to suspect Gregory of inconsistently holding
miaphysite views alongside the dualist tendencies we have been examining. In Gregorys
case, the terms can be misleading, for he uses them in a very different way than one
might be accustomed to hearing them used by Cyril and the later miaphysites, or even by
Gregorys colleague Gregory of Nazianzus. It is possible that Gregory adopted the term
because other pro-Nicenes in Constantinople were now using it, as Gregory of Nazianzus
did,21 who was the appointed leader of the pro-Nicene group in the capital until the
council of 381. As Andrew Radde-Gallwitz notes, Gregory of Nyssas use of the

15
Eun. 3.3.42.
16
Eun. 3.3.43.
17
Eun. 3.1.99.
18
Eun. 3.3.44.
19
Eun. 3.3.63.
20
Eun. 3.3.64.
21
In the third Theological Oration (Or. 30.4) from the summer of 380, also against the Eunomians, and,
quite strongly, in On the Theophany (Or. 38.13) from winter 380-81.

4
language of mixture makes an advance on the anti-homoian tradition of interpretation of
Acts 2.36 that Gregory largely follows.22 The language of unity, on the other hand, is less
idiosyncratic and is patient of an even wider range of meaning, having been used long
before by Origen in another sort of dualizing Christological scheme.23
In Gregorys usage, Christs unity or mixture refers not to the entire Christ event,
from conception onward, but specifically to the transformation of Christs humanity into
divinity at the resurrection.24 Gregory argues that he and Basil do not teach two sons
because Christs humanity is transformed into divinity after the resurrection, so that there
is only one thing remaining when he is made Lord and Christ (Ac. 2.36). Gregory then
illustrates this transformation with his famous comparison of a drop of vinegar being
absorbed in an infinite sea.25
The second corollary is the theological principle that lies behind Gregorys
approach to Christs suffering. Gregory labors to keep Jesus human suffering distinct
from the divine life of the Son of God in large part to preserve the impassibility of God.
His chief concern is not to proclaim or defend the communicatio idiomatum in Scripture,
but to avoid the suggestion that God suffered in the incarnation. For Gregory, it is
imperative that God not suffer in any sense. By arguing that the crucified Christ is a
single subject of both divine and human acts, Eunomius is violating the clean separation
between the impassible God and passible creatures, and subject[ing] the Divinity itself
to passion.26
The third corollary is an expansion of the second into a Trinitarian framework.
Gregorys desire to protect the divine nature from undue involvement in human suffering
is motivated by a Trinitarian concern as well. If the only-begotten Son suffers on the
cross while the divinity of the Father remains in total impassibility, then that would
mean that the impassible nature is different in essence from the one who undertakes the
passion,27 and the unity and equality of the Trinity would be violated. One must
therefore refer the divine and human sayings about Christ in scripture to different
referents in order to preserve correct Trinitarian doctrine.

22
Particularly the pseudo-Athanasian De incarnatione et contra Arianos, whose influence on Gregory has
been established by Reinhard M. Hbner, Die Einheit des Leibes Christi bei Gregor von Nyssa. Philosophia
Patrum 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1974). Discussion of Acts 2.36 increased dramatically with the homoian
ascendency in 357-60, and Eunomius cites the verse in his Apology (26.12-16). Radde-Gallwitz, Contra
Eunomium III 3, p. 299.
23
Christopher A. Beeley, The Unity of Christ: Continuity and Conflict in Patristic Tradition (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2012), p. 41.
24
A point stressed by Bernard Pottier, Dieu et le Christ selon Grgoire de Nysse: tude systmatique du
Contre Eunome avec traduction indite des extraits d'Eunome. Srie Ouvertures 12 (Namur: Culture et
vrit, 1994), pp. 241-60.
25
Eun. 3.3.67-68.
26
Eun. 3.4.3-4. Note also Gregorys exasperation in 3.2.62-63: They ought, then, perhaps, to exclude from
the divine nature both creation and begetting, so as to preserve Gods impassibility in both, and they ought
to reject belief in the Only-begotten entirely from their doctrine, so as to keep the Father free from passion
.
27
Eun. 3.4.5.

5
 Accordingly, Gregory works to ensure that no one misunderstand the many
biblical statements that suggest the contrary. When Paul writes that God did not spare
his only Son (Rom. 8.32), for example, we must realize the divine nature was not in the
economy of the passion, but only the human nature, which Gregory takes Paul to be
indicating in his statements elsewhere that God condemned sin in the flesh (Rom. 8.3),
and since by a human being came death, by a human being also came the resurrection of
the dead (1 Cor. 15.21). In Gregorys mind the distinction between God and humanity
should be applied to all such statements: the human being tasted death, but the immortal
nature did not admit the suffering of death.28 Whenever the scriptures proclaim the
mingling of the human with the divine, they nevertheless observe the distinctive
character of each, so that human weakness is changed for the better through its
communion with the unmixed [nature], while the divine power does not collapse through
the conjunction () of its nature with the lowly.29 As these remarks indicate,
Gregory views Christs suffering as a potential threat to the divine nature, so that it must
be literally protectedthe term occurs frequently in the Contra Eunomiumfrom such
defilement, much as Origen had also taught. Pauls statement that Jesus is the mediator
of God and human beings (1 Tim. 2.5) illustrates the same protective function: to show
that Christ not only mediates God to human beings but also mediates human beings to
God, protecting God from the defilement of our nature and our mortal condition and
preserving the proper conception concerning each one: impassibility for the divine and
the economy of suffering for the human.30 The correct theologian will therefore realize
that the experience of death is not referred to the one who had communion with the
passible nature.31

The Anti-Apollinarian Works

When Gregory turned to face a very different opponent in Apollinarius, he
repeated many of the same doctrinal and exegetical points, amplifying them even further.
Despite the differences between Eunomius and Apollinarius views, there are several
commonalities in the two exchanges. Like Eunomius, Apollinarius appealed to the
biblical communicatio idiomatum in defense of his doctrine, and he too accused Gregory
of teaching two sons. In Gregorys mind, Apollinarius handling of the biblical text poses
some of the same risks as Eunomius: above all, he absurdly teaches that the Word is
fleshly, the Son of Man is the creator of the ages, and the divinity of the Son is mortal.32
Gregorys anti-Apollinarian works present the fullest expression of his technical
Christology.

28
Eun. 3.4.9-10.
29
Eun. 3.4.13.
30
Eun. 3.4.14.
31
Eun. 3.4.16.
32
Theoph. 120.

6
 Gregory defines his Christology against Apollinarius in two key documents. In his
Letter to Theophilus of Alexandria (385 or later), Gregory seeks Theophilus support in
opposing Apollinarians who were accusing him of teaching two sons. At this stage
Gregory does not seem to have read Apollinarius own works. Gregorys longer
Antirrheticus adversus Apollinariam, written most likely after the Letter to Theophilus,33
then gives a phrase-by-phrase reply to Apollinarius Demonstration (Apodeixis) of the
Divine Incarnation in Human Likeness, which Gregory has by now studied. In this work
Gregory defends himself against the charge of teaching that Christ is merely an inspired
human being (an anthropos entheos) and of holding that the crucified savior had nothing
divine in his own nature.34 As in the case of Basil, Gregory again faces accusations of
holding a Christology that is insufficiently unified, and consequently of teaching a Christ
who is not really divine. The Letter to Theophilus contains a clearer and more
straightforward statement of his Christology, since he makes his case directly and in his
own terms, whereas in the Antirrheticus he adheres more closely to the sequence of
Apollinarius text.
Gregory makes several arguments in reply to Apollinarius charges. He first
argues from the notion of the incarnation as a theophany: the economic epiphany of the
only-begotten Son of God through flesh. In order to accommodate himself to the
requirements of our limited knowledge, the Son appeared in the flesh to our fleshly
species. Had there been two sons, Gregory reasons, there would have been two
theophanies; and the multiple theophanies in the Old Testament would indicate multiple
sons, which is absurd. There is, therefore, only one Son because there was one
incarnation.35
Secondly, Gregory argues that there cannot be two sons because Jesus humanity
has been transformed into divinity in the resurrection, as he had against Eunomius.
Gregory clarifies further that Christs unity and singularity ( ) consist specifically in
the fact that his human qualities have been transformed into divine ones in his risen state.
The Apollinarians charge of duality in the Son of God would be fair if Christ had not
been so transformed;36 but, as it stands, the risen Christ shows forth as a single divinity,
since God has made him Lord and Christ (Ac. 2.36) in the resurrection, and he cannot
be distinguished into a double signification as he could before.37 Here Gregory describes

33
Although the case for a date before or after Theoph. is difficult to establish conclusively, I am persuaded
by the arguments of Lietzmann and Mhlenberg, based on Gregorys lack of detailed acquaintance with
Apollinarius teaching in Theoph. For the pros and cons of each, see Robin Ortons discussion in St.
Gregory of Nyssa, Anti-Apollinarian Writings, translated, with an introduction, commentary, and notes by
Robin Orton. The Fathers of the Church 131 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of American
Press, 2015), pp. 35-38.
34
Antirrh. 135, 169, 172 (GNO III.1). I have cited the Antirrheticus adversus Apollinarium and the Ad
Theophilum adversus Apollinaristas by page number of the critical edition, Gregorii Nysseni Opera vol.
III.1, ed. Frederic Mueller (Leiden: Brill, 1958).
35
Theoph. 121-23.
36
Theoph. 125.
37
Theoph. 127.

7
Jesus post-resurrection transformation in even stronger terms than he had in the Contra
Eunomium: it more clearly involves not only qualities that are aspects of sin but also
those that are simply creaturely, such as weight, form, color, and so on.38 Here again
Gregory compares the suffusion of Jesus human qualities with divine ones to a drop of
vinegar absorbed in an infinite sea, so that the human now exists only in the divinity39
and the natural qualities of humanness no longer remain.40 When he returns in the glory
of the Father, Christ will thus be purified of all form that can be contemplated visually,
beyond every bodily conception.41 In a striking passage, Gregory adds that Christ is
not a human being either beforehand or afterward, but only during the time of the
economy,42 a statement that bears a striking similarity with the doctrine of Marcellus of
Ancyra, for whom the humanness of Christ only exists in the economy and will
eventually come to an end,43 and who, in the vicinity of Cappadocia, was one of
Gregorys sources.
Thirdly, Gregory continues the practice of double-subject predication, and he
further emphasizes what is at stake theologically. In response to theopaschite statements
by Apollinarius, Gregory denies that such statements should be made in any serious
sense. For it is important, he says, not to imagine that God the Son was born or hungered
or was ignorant, let alone was nailed to the cross.44 As before, God cannot suffer in the
incarnation, in any sense whatsoever.45 Gregory thus continues to oppose the realistic
sense of the communicatio idiomatum,46 to the point that he distinguishes biblical names
for Christ along divine-human lines: Jesus is thus a name for the human nature, while
the divine nature has no name.47 Gregorys main concern is that to ascribe human
experiences or qualities to the divine Son would violate his divine qualities, and the
human death of God would, again, threaten Gods existence.48 When pressed with the
central question of who the main subject of Jesus human experiences is, Gregory replies
that it cannot be the divine Son, but only the human Jesus.49 And here too the Trinitarian
concern appears: if the Son of God had human experiences, they would divide the Father
and the Son and violate the equality of the Trinity. This dualist structure persists again
despite the continued use of unitive language, as before.

38
Antirrh. 201.
39
Antirrh. 126.
40
As before in Eun. 3.3.67-68. It does appear to be complete absorption of the lesser by the greater
element, with Karl Holl and J.-R. Bouchet: see the discussion in Radde-Gallwitz, pp. 306-08.
41
Antirrh. 230. For an account of Gregorys Christology as a powerful vision of human salvation through
transformation in Christ, see Daley, Divine Transcendence and Human Transformation, pp. 70-72.
42
Antirrh. 222.
43
Frag. 5, 100-101, 104.
44
Antirrh. 167.
45
As also Anthony Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa, p. 49: God did not die in Jesus in any way shape or
form.
46
Antirrh. 155, 168, 170, 182.
47
Antirrh. 161.
48
Antirrh. 223.
49
Antirrh. 168.

8
 Like Eunomius, Apollinarius also questioned whether Gregorys Christology gave
sufficient account of the belief that only God can save human beings. Since Gregorys
Christ does not appear to be God living, dying, and rising in human form (even with a
human mind, to correct Apollinarius), he appears to be proposing that we are saved by a
mere human being, however graced or inspired (an entheos anthropos). In his reply
Gregory essentially reverses the charge: the death of God (alone) would not save either,
but only the death of a (complete) human being, which Apollinarius Christ is not
because he does not possess a human mind. What is notable about Gregorys reply is not
that he upholds Jesus full humanity against Apollinarius, as one would expect him to do,
but rather that Gregory accepts the either-or logic of the question. He agrees with
Apollinarius that Jesus cannot be both fully and personally God and also a complete
human being; their only difference is that they lobby for opposite sides of the same
problem. In a similar vein, Gregory argues that Jesus can say or do things either as God
or as a human, but not both.50 This logical principle of mutual exclusion runs throughout
Gregorys understanding of Jesus prior to his resurrection. Gregory thus does not appear
to have adequately answered the charge of two sons by either Eunomius or
Apollinarius.51

Homilies on the Song of Songs and Other Late Works

While the style of Gregorys exegesis and the genre of his writing shift from the
polemical argumentation to the allegorical exegesis of his late works, the Christological
principles remain basically the same. In his late Homilies on the Song of Songs (c. 391-c.
394)52 Gregory interprets the romantic interplay between the Bride and the Bridegroom
as the relationship between Christ, or the Word of God, and the church or the human
soul. Acknowledging his debt to Origen, who pioneered the Christian interpretation of the
book, Gregory gives his own interpretations according to his distinctive moral theology
and, especially, his metaphysical commitments and their corresponding epistemology of
the divine darkness. Throughout the work Gregory likens the Bridegroom to the heavenly
Word, who calls the soul toward a life of continual transformation into the divine image
and likeness. Echoing the idea of theophany from his earlier works, Christ in the
Homilies is God manifested in flesh,53 who reveals transmits divine mysteries54 through
the great economy of the theophany that came about in the flesh.55
Particularly striking in Gregorys Homilies is the variety of Christological
expression that he offers. Notably for our purposes, there are a number of passages that

50
Antirrh. 178-82.
51
Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa, p. 50: Gregory has hardly solved the problem.
52
Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Song of Songs. Translated with an introduction and notes by Richard
A. Norris, Jr. Writings from the Greco-Roman World 13 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), pp.
xx-xxii.
53
Hom. 5.141.
54
Hom. pref.8.
55
Hom. 8.254.

9
seem uncharacteristically unitive by contrast with Gregorys earlier works. In an
extended discussion of the biblical names for Christ, for examplean exegetical practice
that follows Origens treatment of epinoiai, which Basil too had adopted and which
Frances Young calls a form of symbolic theology56Gregory speaks of a single figure,
and it sounds at times as though the divine Word were the direct subject of Christs
human acts. In one passage Christ is being Truth, Wisdom, and Power by his own nature
(as the divine Word) as well as the King of Israel (Mt. 27.37) and the seed of David after
the flesh (Rom. 1.3).57
A clue to Gregorys rationale comes in the eighth and ninth Homilies, where he
explicitly addresses the fact that the Bridegroom is a single literary subject.58 Here
Gregory gives a description of the incarnation that sounds more like Cyril of Alexandria
than the theologian we have been studying thus far:

The powers above the cosmos were brought to a clear knowledge of the
manifoldness of wisdom, which consists in the knitting together of contraries:
how the Word becomes flesh; life is mingled with death; by his own stripes our
calamity is healed; by the weakness of the cross the power of the Adversary was
overthrown; the invisible was revealed in flesh; how he redeemed the captives,
being himself both the purchaser and the price, for he gave himself as a ransom to
death on our account; he died and did not depart from life; and he shared in the
condition of a slave and remained in his kingly state. For all of these things, and
whatever is like them, are multiform, not simple, works of Wisdom, and learning
of them through the church, the friends of the Bridegroom were heartened,
grasping in the mystery another mark of the divine wisdom.
(Hom. 8.255-256)

Throughout this passage Gregory speaks of a single subject, and it appears that the
knitting together of contraries entails a union of the sort that Cyril advocated.
Gregorys immediate argument is that there is a kind of simplicity amidst the multiplicity
of biblical names, much as Origens method had assumed; his meaning beyond that calls
for further examination.
This is just the sort of passage whose unitive sense might suggest inconsistency in
Gregorys Christology, but the contradiction is only apparent. When Gregory is working
closely with the biblical text, as he is herewhether that of the Song or the many other
books that he discusses in his fifteen homilieshe naturally represents the unitive force
of the communicatio idiomatum that one finds throughout Scripture. On the other hand,
when Gregory analyzes or explains the text in any detail, his more usual, dualizing

56
Frances M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), p. 141.
57
Hom. 7.201-204.
58
Hom. 8.252; 9.275.

10
framework appears, as he often explains what can and cannot be said about God despite
the plain sense of the text. In the Homilies Gregory continues to stress Gods
impassibility in the incarnation, as he did before. More distinctive, however, is the way in
which Gregory minimizes the incarnate Christ, and at times even gives him a dispensable
role in the allegory of divine union. In Gregorys reading, the believer ascends not to the
knowledge of God in the crucified and risen Christ, but to the vision of God, or the Word,
beyond the incarnate Lord.59 For Gregory the goal is to pass beyond the Bridegroom, to
Wisdom itself,60 as the soul learns to love transcendent Beauty61 which exists only in the
realm of incorporeal reality,62 just as Christs own body is transformed in the
resurrection. Having put to sleep every corporeal notion, the soul is awakened by the
divine and embraces the revelation of God by pure and naked thought,63 and believers
eventually become like angels64a cluster of themes that resonates strongly with
Origens view of spiritual progress.
The Christology of the Homilies operates on the same exegetical principles as
Gregorys earlier works; even more visibly, it is informed by a distinct metaphysical
scheme. As several scholars have observed, Gregorys constant aim in the Homilies is to
transpose the literal and material into the spiritual and intelligible under the tuition of the
divine Logos. The entire exegetical and Christological scheme, and what Gregory calls
his philosophy,65 is governed by a distinctive Christian Platonist cosmology that
Gregory adopted early in his career.66 For Gregory, reality is divided between intelligible
and sensible realms, with God being both intelligible67 and also transcending of all
reality.68 The cosmology of the Homilies is based on a distinction similar to that between
the passion of human begetting and the passionless begetting of the divine Son that
Gregory argued in the Contra Eunomium; in both texts the absoluteness of the distinction
renders problematic the ability of bodily language to refer to divine realities.69 Why
verbalize the incorporeal with the passions of the body? Do not discuss the nature of
things above on the basis of those below, Gregory warns,70 as though the divine life
were so disconnected from the realities of bodily existence, and the inspired language of
Scripture, that there is no reliable signification from the one to the other. It is this twofold

59
E.g., Hom. 2.68.
60
Hom. 1.23.
61
Hom. 6.173.
62
Hom. 11.333.
63
Hom. 10.314.
64
Hom. 4.134.
65
Hom. pref.4, 11.
66
Richard Norris, in Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Song of Songs, pp. xxiv-xxv.
67
Hom. 5.157.
68
Hans Boersma comments that Gregorys strong sense of duality governs his entire exegetical and
spiritual enterprise, and that Gregory consistently shows a fairly drastic subordination of the physical to
the spiritual senses of scripture. Embodiment and Virtue in Gregory of Nyssa: An Anagogical Approach.
Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 93, 96.
69
Eun. 3.2.1-27.
70
Eun. 3.2.24.

11
order that provides the main framework for the spiritual development of human beings.71
The narrative logic () of the Song of Songs and its main theme are the Brides
progress toward union with God as she passes through the structure of perceptible and
intelligible reality in order to be united with the infinite God who ultimately transcends
both. The souls movement from the perceptible to the intelligible and thence to the
infinite God, with corresponding growth in virtue, represents for Gregory the souls
transformation into the image and likeness of God.72 The point of Gregorys allegory is
precisely to bridge this gap73in the souls movement toward union with God and in
Christ, the Bride who enables that movementand it has functioned thus since Gregorys
early works.74
The same themes can be traced in Gregorys other late exegetical works. In The
Life of Moses (early 390s?), the spiritual goal is similarly transcendent of creaturely
reality, in the movement from the light of knowledge to the divine darkness of
unknowing. Although The Life of Moses is not a distinctly Christological work,
Gregorys metaphysical scheme can still be seen to affect his Christology, for example,
when he interprets Pauls statement that Christ was in the form of God (Phil. 2.6) to
signify not Christs positive revelatory function as the incarnate Lord, or Christs equality
or similarity with God the Father, but the ineffability of the divine nature.75
Gregorys Catechetical Oration (c. 385), a work in yet another style and mode of
discourse, maintains the same the Christological pattern, even as it accentuates the
tension between Gregorys seemingly unitive and dualist approaches. While the works
title might suggest a neutral exposition of the faith, Gregory addresses himself to yet
another sort of audience, those who object to the Christian faith on Greek philosophical
grounds. Despite his initial mention of both Jewish and Hellenistic opponents, Gregorys
real interest is plainly in the latter. The main question at hand, which drives most of the
works theological exposition, is whether the incarnation, and especially the indignities

71
Richard Norris, in Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Song of Songs, p. xlvi.
72
Ibid., pp. li-lii. Boersma, Embodiment and Virtue, p. 97: for Gregory, the goal of the Christian life is for
the soul to be transposed away from the sensible or material and toward the intelligible and spiritual, which
represents a sharp disjunction from the former to the latter (see Hom. 6.190.15-18); and p. 9: for all his
appreciation of the importance of bodily reality and his real concerns for social justice in this age,
Gregorys theology has a profoundly otherworldly cast. Verna E. F. Harrison, Allegory and Asceticism
in Gregory of Nyssa, Semeia 57 (1992), pp. 113-30: Gregorys spiritual interpretation of the Song is
meant to support an ascetic practice that moves from material to intelligible realities. On the multiple
themes that Gregory uses to describe the process of salvation, see Smith, Passion and Paradise, chap. 6.
See also Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 360-61: the programmatic metaphysical distinction between
the unknowable divine nature and Gods knowable operations and powers, exemplified the Song, is the
cosmological and ontological foundation of Gregorys Trinitarian theology and is fundamental to the
structure of the creation itself.
73
Richard Norris, in Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Song of Songs, p. xlvii.
74
Gregory similarly interprets Genesis 1 as a tool to lead human beings away from slavery to sense
perception to the transcendent (Apologia in Hexaemeron, PG 44.69D); Norris, in Gregory of Nyssa:
Homilies on the Song of Songs, p xlv.
75
V. Mos. 3.86.

12
and suffering of his life, violate sound philosophical theology as being unbefitting of
God: in brief, the transcendent nature ought never to have experienced death (32).
Gregory aims to show, in reply, that the Christian faith does not violate the attributes of
Gods goodness, righteousness, wisdom, power, incorruption, eternity, and divine unity
(pref.).
The Christology that Gregory develops in response to this philosophical objection
is remarkable for the extent to which it expresses unitive principles. He confesses that
the one we preach is God (13); he speaks of Gods intimate union with human nature
(27); he argues against separating the divine from the human in Christ (10); and he can
say, in an uncharacteristically theopaschite vein, that God submitted to a bodily nature,
entered life through birth, passed through the various stages of development, and finally
tasted death (15). Gregory also affirms that there is no ontological conflict between God
and any creature, since the only thing opposed to God is evil (9). Here again Gregory
bears in mind the biblical basis of his doctrine, referring several times to the New
Testament witness (e.g., 13).
Despite the impression given by such statements, Gregorys detailed account of
the incarnation continues to play on the logic of mutual exclusion, whereby God
represents only life and strength and weakness and death belong only to human nature.
The divinity that Gregory urges his interlocutors to perceive in the incarnation lies only in
displays of divine power, such as miracles, the virgin birth, and the resurrection. While
this is a natural place to begin in the order of knowledge, just as the resurrection served to
convince the initial disciples of the divine identity of the one they had been following all
along, Gregory locates Christs divinity only in these places and does not extend his
vision beyond them, to include the entirety of Jesus earthly existence, let alone the most
fragile and vulnerable aspects of it. The argument here is that his birth and death were
free from weakness (13) because the birth was from a virgin and the death resulted in
resurrection.
In metaphysical terms, Gregory makes a case that Christs divinity is above
nature. Whereas previously he tended to speak of divine and human nature, he now
aligns Christs humanity and divinity with the natural versus the supernatural. Gregorys
apology for the incarnation is to see Christs divinity not in his humanness or his
crucifixion, but only in his supernatural birth and resurrection (13). Gregorys treatment
of the crucifixion follows the same logic. In an anagogical interpretation of the biblical
narratives of Christs human death, Gregory identifies the divinity of the crucifixion in
the symbolically unifying quality of the crosss shape, whose members extended in four
directions represent the fact that God pervades everything and the Word unifies all of
creation (32). In this account, Christs divinity stands as pure activity against the
passivity of his humanity. Despite his language to the contrary, Gregory thus causes
Christs human nature and his passion to remain logically extrinsic to the incarnational
union. We might say that Gregorys Christology in the Catechetical Oration is to some

13
extent plainly unitive in intent and confession, but that Gregory does not actually
embrace the exegetical and doctrinal meaning of that confession. Assuming a late date for
the work, as most scholars do, it appears that this is as far as Gregory got in assimilating
these two dimensions of his thought, and that, in the end, he never did so fully.

Conclusion
Gregory of Nyssas Christological exegesis is remarkably consistent across the
period of his major works, despite their differences in style, purpose, and intended
audience, and there is a high degree of interconnection between his Christology, exegesis,
and metaphysics. As Brian Daley observes, Gregory rarely uses the more technical
language of his Trinitarian doctrine for speaking about Christ;76 nevertheless, his
Christology is, by and large, systematically coherent. Structurally speaking, it operates
according to a two-stage model that moves from a dualist scheme prior to Christs
resurrection to a kind of unitive picture afterward.77 Prior to the resurrection, Christs
divinity and humanity remain distinct as exegetical referents and, for all intents and
purposes, as acting subjects.78 As Gregorys opponents were quick to point out, by
restricting Christs unity to his risen state, once the conflict with sin and death has been
won, Gregory avoids, and in a sense reverses, the typical logic of unitive Christology,
which is to see God involved in Christs suffering and death as closely as possible.
Gregory maintains this dualist scheme both to preserve the completeness of Christs
humanity, especially against the Apollinarius yet also against Eunomius, but above all to
protect the divine nature from creaturely suffering. Inherent in Gregorys doctrine is an
either-or logic whereby Christ can say and do things either as God or as a human being
but not as both: he does not tend to understand Christ as a divine subject acting or
suffering humanly. At its most immediate, exegetical level, Gregorys Christology resists
the realistic sense of the communicatio idiomatum, denying it outright prior to the
resurrection and nullifying it after the resurrection by fusing the human into the divine so
as to make a single term of reference; consequently, Gregory has little use for
theopaschite statements. The end result is a kind of distancing from the plain sense of the
biblical witness to Christ.

76
Daley, Divine Transcendence and Human Transformation, p. 68: Gregory tends to speak instead in a
variety of scriptural and philosophical images.
77
Anthony Meredith concludes similarly: Gregorys is a two stage Christology, which begins as
dyophysite and ends in a unitary fashion, a consistent, if not systematically airtight program, rather than an
inconsistent adaptation merely for the sake of controversy. Contra Eunomium III,3 in Jesus Christ in St.
Gregory of Nyssas Theology: Minutes of the Ninth International Conference on St. Gregory of Nyssa
(Athens, 7-12 September 2000) (Athens: Eptalofos, 2005), pp. 169-70.
78
Pace Radde-Gallwitz, Contra Eunomium III 3, p. 294, I see no evidence that Gregorys exegesis is
merely dual-focus as opposed to dual-subject. In order to read it that way, one would have to assume that
Gregory means what he does not say (that the Word is the constant subject of the humanity) and does not
mean what he does say (that the divinity is not the subject or referent of the human sayings about Christ,
especially Christs sufferings).

14
 While Gregorys approach was not unique among theologians who opposed the
homoian ascendency in the 350s and 360s, it was not the only option for an orthodox
rebuttal of Eunomius and Apollinarius, as we see by contrast in Gregory of Nazianzus,
Cyril of Alexandria, and Augustine, who adopted clear single-subject Christologies
against Eunomians and Apollinarians, as well as Antiochenes. By contrast with these
figures, Gregory of Nyssas efforts to rebut the charge of dualism that he and Basil faced
do not succeed.79 The prevailing modern assessment of Gregorys Christology, from
Tixeront through Grillmeier and Kelly, is therefore correct: it is, for all intents and
purposes, divisive, despite Gregorys distinctive doctrine of the resurrection,80 with the
important disclaimer that, when he works closely to the biblical text, Gregory can offer
teaching that is otherwise strikingly unitive. Gregorys dualist Christology and exegetical
method place him in some ways close to the Antiochene approach of Diodore and his
followers. Gregory is of course not an actual student of Diodore and he was much more
favorable to unitive language than Diodore was, but their approaches do have several
similarities, above all their aversion to any sense of divine suffering and the central place
that divine transcendence play in both mens systems. It is fitting that Gregory was more
closely involved with the Antiochene network of Meletius and Diodore than Basil or
Gregory Nazianzen were, and that he became an arbiter of the catholic faith, along with
Diodore, under the Antiochene-dominated settlement of 381-82. It is therefore not
surprising to see a high concentration of quotations from Gregorys Contra Eunomium
book 3 among the works of the Cappadocians in the florilegia of Theodorets Eranistes.81
For the same reason, Gregorys Christology fairly easily supports the two-nature scheme
of Chalcedon, as Leontius of Byzantium discovered in his efforts to assemble the
metaphysical system that later came to define the councils work.
Seen in this light, Gregorys Christology bears several similarities, and a few key
differences, with that of Origen.82 Origens Christology and exegesis resolves the
communicatio idiomatum in much the same way as Gregory does; he shares Gregorys
worry that God might be threatened or contaminated by subjective contact with the
human sufferings of Jesus; and he too finds even the popular confession of divine
suffering wrong-headed. Both men likewise envisage a Jesus who is often more
superhero than incarnate Savior, one for whom experiences such as fear and pain have
little place in his overwhelming triumph over the power of death. Both also subscribe to a
dualist cosmology that formats their Christologies and theological anthropologies in
significant ways. Like Origen, Gregory uses the language of mixture and union for the

79
A conclusion shared by Meredith, with respect to both the Contra Eunomium and the anti-Apollinarian
works. Contra Eunomium III,3, p. 165; Gregory of Nyssa, p. 49.
80
Adolf Martin Ritter likewise warns against the overly harmonistic tendency in some scholarship that
dismisses the evident tensions in Gregorys work: The Christology of Gregory of Nyssa according to his
Oratio Catechetica, in Jesus Christ in St. Gregory of Nyssas Theology, pp. 217-18.
81
Eun. 3.1.44, 3.3.64, and 3.1.50 in Eranist. 1.50-52; Eun. 3.10.4 and 3.3.43-44 in Eranist. 2.52-53; Eun.
3.3.65-66 and 3.4.4-5 in Eranist. 3.48-49.
82
On Origens Christology, see Beeley, The Unity of Christ, chap. 1.

15
relationship between divinity and humanity in Christ, and he envisions a union that grows
over timeafter the resurrection for Gregory, prior to the incarnation for Origenuntil it
becomes inseparable, although they differ on who is responsible for the union, Origen
pointing to Jesus human soul and Gregory to the action of the divine Word.
Gregorys Christological exegesis is also Origenist (and Iamblichan)83 not only in that he
favors anagogical interpretation, but in his partial remove from the literal sense of the
text.
Gregory is a notable example of a patristic theologian whose biblical
interpretation is heavily influenced by metaphysical commitments of a distinctly
philosophical variety, taken both from pagan philosophers and from Christian writers like
Origen.84 Gregorys philosophical metaphysics applied to the person of Christ and to the
Trinity made him especially attractive to Leontius of Byzantium in his efforts to provide
a metaphysical framework for Chalcedonian doctrine in the sixth century, and it was
Gregorys Christian Platonism that attracted the attention of Jean Danilou and others,
helping to bring him to a wider readership in the second half of the twentieth century.85

83
Ronald E. Heine, Gregory of Nyssas Apology for Allegory, Vigiliae Christianae 38 (1984), pp. 360-
70, on Gregorys indebtedness to Origen for his allegorical method articulated in the preface to the Song
Homilies; Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssas Treatise on the Inscriptions of the Psalms, intro., trans.,
and notes by Ronald E. Heine. Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 29-49,
on the influence of Iamblichus on Gregorys exegesis.
84
Sarah Coakley likewise stresses the importance of taking seriously the metaphysical connections in
Gregorys exegetical works, particularly the late commentaries. IntroductionGender, Trinitarian
Analogies, and the Pedagogy of The Song, in Rethinking Gregory of Nyssa, ed. Sarah Coakley (Malden,
MA: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 6-7.
85
Jean Danilou, Platonisme et thologie mystique: essai sur la doctrine spirituelle de Saint Grgoire de
Nysse. Thologie, tudes publie sous la direction de la Facult de Thologie S. J. de Lyon-Fourvire 2
(Paris: ditions Montaigne, 1944).

16