the passionless power A weeps for the fallen; but tears are the property of man, while those things which are truly Life belong to the Life. Nor does human nature give life to Lazarus, nor does the impassible power weep for the fallen: but the tear is proper to man, while to Life belong those things which are truly of life. But this passage must be corrected also by the action of the Sixth Ecumenical Synod, where it is cited from book V *Against Eunomius*, p. 127 of the Vatican edition, [Greek: ἡ δὲ ζωὴ τῆς ὄντως ζωῆς, vita vero ejus qui vere vita est]: for this edition sets forth the whole passage thus in the oration, p. 161. You have the sixth citation from the Sixth Ecumenical Synod, session 4, p. 39 of the Vatican edition. Greek: Ἐκ τοῦ δευτέρου βιβλίου τοῦ κατὰ Εὐνομίου. Πῶς ὁ Κύριος τὸν κόσμον ἑαυτῷ καταλλάσσων ἐπεμέριζε τῇ ψυχῇ τε καὶ τῷ σώματι τὴν παρ' αὐτοῦ γινομένην τοῖς ἀνθρώποις εὐεργεσίαν? θέλων μὲν διὰ τῆς ψυχῆς, ἀπτόμενος δὲ διὰ τοῦ σώματος. And the first book of this edition presents this to you, from which it is also evident B that it is to be numbered as secondary, p. 56. How the Lord, reconciling the world to Himself through the humanity of Christ, distributes to men the benefit flowing from Himself to soul and body, intending [it] indeed through the soul, but touching [it] through the body. Finally, the same Sixth Synod in the same session 10, p. 127 of the Vatican edition, [cites] Greek: τέως δὲ μαθεῖν ἄξιον παρὰ τῶν προφερόντων ἡμῖν τὰς τοιαύτας φωνάς, ὅτι τὸ ἀναβαῖνον: Which words Gulonius interprets thus on p. 280: "Meanwhile, however, it is worth the labor to learn from those who bring forward such expressions to us, whether that which ascends, etc." As for the tears caused by the lacunae, they will easily be pardoned by you, as also the too frequent lapses of the busy printers, which scarcely even an Argus, with his many eyes, could note entirely. [Greek: Παρὰ δύναμιν δ' οὐκ ἔστι καὶ ἐσσύμενον μαχέσασθαι.] Fare well, and favor the common utility of fellow students like yourself.
PREFACE ON GREGORY, BISHOP OF NYSSA, AND HIS WORKS
[a] Divine Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, the own brother of Saint Basil, and indeed the younger by birth, as may be conjectured from his writings—most especially from the *Hexaemeron*, where, speaking of Basil, he always calls him his teacher—was most eloquent, as Suidas and most of the ancients relate, which his writings also declare, and as the sacred histories abundantly testify. At first he practiced the arts of speech, and advanced so far in these that he eventually turned out to be an illustrious rhetorician, and was not inferior to the praised orators of antiquity. But having left these studies of eloquence and following monastic discipline, as Theodoret writes (book IV, cap. 28), he betook himself to theology, and applied diligent labor to the study of the Holy Scriptures. Later, however, when he had already been designated to the episcopacy of the city of Nyssa, from which the name "Nyssen" is derived, he neglected the holy books of the Bible, which he was accustomed to read and interpret in church, and turned his mind again to practicing rhetoric. Saint Gregory Nazianzen rebukes this levity and changeableness of purpose in his 34th epistle, written to him at some length. In what year, however, he arrived at that episcopacy is uncertain; but he was already holding that prefecture in the time of the Emperor Valens, when the bishopric of Sasima was decreed for Nazianzen by Saint Basil. For the latter, on the day after he had been created bishop, in an oration held before Nyssen, calls him a prelate and extols him with such praises that his recommendation, even if others should remain silent, could stand as the equal of all the Greeks. But when, in the year 384, the Emperor Theodosius had convened a synod of bishops in Constantinople against the Macedonians, and it had been decreed that no bishop should leave his own diocese to migrate to another, then, the Churches having been distributed by provinces, Caesarea, after Basil had died, fell to his brother Gregory, who was previously bishop of Nyssa, as Socrates writes (book V, cap. 8). He had a wife, as Nicephorus committed to history (book XI, cap. 19). Which, however, can scarcely be proved, as some think, from Nazianzen’s oration on the praises of Basil; for when he shows that their parents were noble by the procreation of such excellent offspring, "This," he says, "is demonstrated by the blessed company of priests and virgins, and those who lived in the married state, etc." Beyond doubt, Basil, Gregory, and Peter, bishop of Sebaste—whom Basil himself initiated into the sacred rites and promoted to the dignity of the presbyterate—were priests; but their sister Macrina and their brother Naucratius embraced a solitary and needy life, as is contained in the life of Macrina, the epistle which, ascribed to the Nyssen, is read in the histories of the saints gathered by Surius on the 19th day of July, from the translation of Peter Francis Zinus; yet it does not sufficiently and clearly appear from this who among those others remained virgins and devoid of marriage, or who observed matrimony (since, if credit is to be given to that epistle, ten children were born to the same parents). Gregory himself, in the book which he left written *On Virginity*, seems more openly
A to hint that he was a husband, not a celibate, when he says in chapter 3: "Now, to me, the understanding of virginal praises is in some way vain and by no means fruitful," etc. But granted that he embraced the married life, that manner of living brought him no impediment to struggling strenuously for the Catholic faith and aspiring to an equal glory of virtue. For in order to disperse the shadows of heretical depravity throughout the churches with his sermons, and to shine like a light of truth for men, he undertook frequent journeys and completed difficult paths. Since he bore these with difficulty, and lamented his own inconsistency, as it were, Nazianzen comforted him in epistle 34 and encouraged him to deserve well of many and to hope for grace from God. Finally, in what year he departed from the living, and that he was later than Basil (as Socrates testifies, book IV, chapter 8, and as Nazianzen's 37th epistle, a consolation on the death of a brother, makes manifest), is not clear from histories; but he himself mentions in many places that he writes when he is already advanced in age and an old man, especially in the epistle *On the Christian Profession*, in the last chapter of the book *On Virginity*; and in the oration he published *On Infants who are Snatched Away Prematurely from the Womb*, and he often excuses his old age in other places as well. This alone is noted regarding his demise in the Martyrology of Usuard on the 9th of March: "At the city of Nicaea, the deposition of St. Gregory, bishop, brother of the blessed Basil of Caesarea, most renowned as much for his life as for his eloquence." And let these things said briefly suffice regarding Gregory of Nyssa, concerning whose praises we shall later append the eulogies of the ancients more fully. B
Now, truly, because we could not follow in this edition the natural and legitimate order in which each of the books was written, we have instituted an artificial one: namely, that those things which seemed able to be referred to the Old Testament should obtain the first place; then those which look to the instruction, structure, and profession of the Christian religion, and in which some testimonies of evangelical doctrine are treated, should hold the second place; afterwards, with some sermons disposed according to the reason and series of festivals following the custom of the Church, we have added funeral orations concerning the praises of certain saints. And let this be premised concerning all of the works of this doctor. However, it is not convenient to treat of individual things at greater length, but whatever occurs to us as needing to be advised regarding some of them, we will add here in a few words. C
Therefore, at the request of his brother Peter, bishop of Sebaste, he completed the book on the *Hexaemeron*, which Socrates affirms (book IV, chapter 21) was left imperfect by Basil due to his death preventing him. We have wished for this to take the first place in our edition, according to the translation of Zinus: because in that book *On the Work of Six Days*, he arranges in order and concord things that seem at first glance to be diffused and contrary to one another regarding the creation of the world, and elegantly shows Moses himself to be consistent and constant with himself. But because in that small commentary he contemplates the structure of the world in such a way that he explains only the natural order congruent with history in created things, we have immediately subjoined to it two orations on the creation of man, which are quite pious and elegant, which, says Zinus who rendered them into Latin, although they seem to be distant from the writing style of the same author, and even more so from that of Basil the Great, to whom I hear they are falsely attributed by some (perhaps he understands Gottfried Tilmann, who translated them among the works of the same Basil, and spread them abroad as a paraphrase in place of the original), they are nevertheless most ancient, or were perhaps composed by Gregory himself while still a youth, before he had written that most absolute book *On the Making of Man*; or by someone of the same age, both pious and by no means unlearned. We ourselves, however, conjecture from the beginning of the first oration, where it is written: "It would be unjust, when we have learned those things which pertain to the wild beasts, both the swimming, and the walking, and the flying, and those things which pertain to the vault of heaven and to those things which are in heaven, and to the earth and to those things which are on the earth," etc., that they are not by our Gregory: for he did not treat of these things, but Basil did in his *Hexaemeron*. Both, however, if they were not delivered to the people, yet seem to have been written at home and recited before others. But let the judgment of these be that of others. That book *On the Making of Man*, which Johannes Leunclavius gave to Latin ears, is called an admirable work by Suidas. If the reason of the order in which it was written is followed, it ought to precede. For, says Nyssen in the *Hexaemeron*, "We have sent the book *On the Making of Man* before this one." Here we give first, from the translation of Gentianus Hervetus, eight sermons on Ecclesiastes, in the former of which he testifies immediately on the threshold that he had also written on Proverbs, while he says: "When the meanings of the Proverbs have already exercised the mind before, whose reasonings are obscure, the ascent arises to this Scripture, which is truly exalted." But this commentary has not yet come into the public eye. We have appended the fifteen homilies on the *Canticle of Canticles*, full of mere enigmas, partly from the same translation of Hervetus—which has seemed purer and easier to learned men—or rather, we have completed the final four, which the exemplar of Hervetus reached, from the interpretation of Leunclavius. At the end of the preface which Gregory himself prefixed to these same homilies, he renders the reason for the instituted commentary, where he speaks thus: "This book was not written by me for the sake of ostentation; but because many of those things which were spoken in the churches were noted down by some of those who associate with us, I have set these forth in the form of homilies during the days of the fasts: for the sake of these, this book was fashioned by us for the ears of the people." And he recited individual orations on individual days: for he says the third one is of the third day, and so on for the rest. D There follows a most elegant oration, in which the formula of the Christian man is handed down: the same is also brought forward in the book *On the Life of Moses*, which Trapezuntius donated to the Latin language. But we have placed here that which was published separately by Franciscus Zinus, as also the Catechetical oration, called the greatest, from the translation of
Hervetus; for since it was already read in a Latin rendering by Petrus Morellus, it was decided also to propose here an edition not yet printed. Therein, however, especially in chapter 37, many things are brought forward concerning the transmutation or transubstantiation of the Lord's body and blood; and in chapter 58, he narrates that he has explained more on the Eucharist in other places, which, however, is not as frequent in the copies that are commonly circulated. To this Catechetical book (for so Gregory himself very often calls it), as well as to that disputation on the soul and resurrection with his sister Macrina, certain heretics, as in most of the works of the ancients, have introduced some dogmas, especially indeed those of Origen, as Nicephorus attests in book 11, chapter 19. But one could also demonstrate that false opinions of this kind were inserted from the fact that in the Catechetical [work], chapter 35, near the end, one finds, according to the opinion of Origen, that nature must be preserved pure for God after long ages: and that contrary to this error is held in the oration *On the Day of the Nativity of the Lord*, when it is written: “That through the resurrection those who are just will attain to heavenly rest; but those who are subject to sins will be cast into the fire of hell,” etc. For such a great man neither felt nor taught contradictory things.
And that we may comprise the rest briefly, other small works have been added in this edition, namely the orations *On Fleeing Fornication*, *To Those Who Defer Baptism*, and *To Those Who Take Reproof Ill*, first translated by Hervetus. But the sermons *On the Ascension* and *On Pentecost* were already being circulated as published: the former indeed from the version of Sifanus, as also most of the writings of Nyssen; but since on the Wednesday after the Ascension the same sermon is read from the translation of Zinus in the Roman Breviary, lately restored according to the decree of the Council of Trent: for this reason we have printed as select, both this one and any others we could obtain from the same translator, who seemed to be approved by the Church, such as *On Loving the Poor*, *On the Sinful Woman*, *On the Sleeping*, and *On the Nativity* and the resurrection of Christ. Besides, we have inserted some things published separately from the version of others, as the book *On Virginity* translated by Petrus Galesinius and printed at Rome: in which he discourses on virginal virtue, in which alone all the rest are contained, so embracing the majesty of evangelical doctrine that he discourses not only with the Stoics concerning the honorable, but even with the remaining honorable disciplines of the philosophers, and undertakes the defense of those actions in which the splendor of virtue shines. And, lest we seem to pass over or disguise anything in silence, what is held printed here under the name of Gregory of Nyssa to his brother Peter, *On the Difference of Substance and Hypostasis*, the same is read in St. Basil, epistle 43, to Gregory, bishop and brother of Nyssen. Let the learned decide to which of them they should assign this disputation.
Furthermore, among the *Lives* of the saints published not long ago in Latin by Aloysius from various authors, and recently digested by Surius for each day of every month, a certain oration, truly pious and elegant, *On the Meeting of the Lord* and *On the Mother of God*, and *On the Just Simeon*, bears the title of Gregory of Nyssa: but since Simeon Metaphrastes, who first collected the scattered Greek writings, seems to have changed something not a little in this, or even to have added something, while he explained [it] more copiously according to his own custom, and narrated it in wider words: therefore, as if it were an illegitimate fetus, we have not wished it to stand with the truly genuine ones. However, if anyone perhaps judges otherwise, he has it meanwhile, so that it is not repeated here, printed there, just as [he has] that epistle to the monk Olympius, *On the Life of Macrina*. But as to the various titles of certain books, we have for the most part noted them in the margin, or we will indicate them in the *Catalogue* of works which we shall subjoin.
Yet there are desired, besides these, other monuments of this man, either lost through the malice of time or of men, or not yet brought to light; for that book which he is recorded to have written *Against Ablabius, on the Divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit* is not to be found, unless perhaps someone suspects it to be that which he sent to Ablabius, *That One Should Not Say There Are Three Gods* (page 447 of volume II), but nevertheless the passage cited by Euthymius in part 1, title 2, of the *Panoplia* is not found in it at all.
Nor have *Commentaries on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Philippians* yet been brought to light, which, as Sixtus Senensis, the author of the *Bibliotheca Sancta*, has taught, Cyril cites in his book to his brother Evoptius against Theodoret. In the end of whose book it is read thus: *Of St. Gregory, Bishop, on the Epistle to the Philippians*: of which [this is] a fragment: “*Let this,*” he says, “*be understood, which is in Christ Jesus, who, when he was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.*” What is more lowly in God than the form of a servant? What is more humble in the King of all than to come voluntarily to the communion of our poor nature? The King of kings and Lord of lords is clothed with the form of a servant; the judge of all becomes subject to the powers of a creature, the Lord is placed in a cave: he who contains all things finds no place in the inn, but is cast into a manger for beasts; the pure and immaculate [one] takes upon himself the filth of human nature, and passing through our poverty in all things, comes even to the experience of death. Consider the measure of spontaneous poverty: life tastes death, the judge is led to judgment, the Lord of the life of all who exist is subjected to the sentence of one who judges, the King of all virtues, which are above the world, does not refuse the hands of lictors. So far Bishop Gregory: who indeed seems to be our Nyssen, since Nazianzen is not recorded to have written professionally on this epistle nor on any book of the Old or New Testament. In the beginning of the first oration *On Loving the Poor*, where it is written: “*Since in the two previous days we have chastised that greed which follows the pleasure of the throat and belly, and have said much about them, etc.,*” it is clear that Gregory himself had delivered orations on this matter.
Those orations, which are no longer found, as is the case with many others which he wrote especially against the Eunomians, Arians, and the remaining heretics of that age, against whom he struggled with an unyielding spirit for the Catholic truth, as Theodoret indicates (lib. iv, cap. 28), and from whom he was driven into exile on account of the faith, suffering many things everywhere, as he himself relates in his *Life of Macrina*. But it has been permitted to bring forward these things here, which have been briefly recapitulated, collected from his own writings and the histories of the Fathers, so that if any studious seeker of antiquity should discover the treasures of such books, he might at length draw them forth and bring them into the clear light for public utility.
OF OUR HOLY FATHER GREGORY, BISHOP OF NYSSA, APOLOGETIC EXPLANATION ADDRESSED TO PETER, HIS BROTHER, CONCERNING THE SIX DAYS OF CREATION.
PROOEMIUM [A]
What are you doing, O man of God? Why do you compel us to undertake tasks that exceed human strength, and to assume a burden which, in my judgment, cannot be sustained, nor even assumed, without blame? For you desire that I should arrange in a certain order those things which the great Moses, inspired by divine power, committed to writing concerning the creation of the world—things which at first sight appear contradictory—and that I should demonstrate that holy Scripture is consistent and constant with itself. And this is to be done after that divine commentary on the same subject by our father, which all who have read it admire no less than those things written by Moses himself—and deservedly so, in my opinion. For the same ratio that the ear of corn has to the seed—which comes forth from it, yet is not that seed; or rather, which, while it is that very thing, differs from it in size, in beauty, and in the variety of its form—you would say this same ratio holds between the discourse of the great Moses and those things which have been elaborated with more precise study by the great Basil; for those things which he B encompassed in a few words and