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Translated by W. Moore and H. A. Wilson
St Gregory of Nyssa Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 20
Let our speech-writer, while he reminds himself of his youthful doings in his native land, and afterwards at Constantinople, hear from those who can tell him what they know of the man whom he slanders. But if any would inquire into their subsequent occupations, let such a person tell us which of the two he considers to deserve so high a reputation; the man who ungrudgingly spent upon the poor his patrimony even before he was a priest, and most of all in the time of the famine, during which he was a ruler of the Church, though still a priest in the rank of presbyters [91] ; and afterwards did not hoard even what remained to him, so that he too might have made the Apostles' boast, Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought [92] ;' or, on the other hand, the man who has made the championship of a tenet a source of income, the man who creeps into houses, and does not conceal his loathsome affliction by staying at home, nor considers the natural aversion which those in good health must feel for such, though according to the law of old he is one of those who are banished from the inhabited camp because of the contagion of his unmistakeable [93] disease.
Basil is called hasty' and insolent,' and in both characters a liar' by this man who would in patience and meekness educate those of a contrary opinion to himself;' for such are the airs he gives himself when he speaks of him, while he omits no hyperbole of bitter language, when he has a sufficient opening to produce it. On what grounds, then, does he charge him with this hastiness and insolence? Because he called me a Galatian, though I am a Cappadocian;' then it was because he called a man who lived on the boundary in an obscure corner like Corniaspine [94] a Galatian instead of an Oltiserian; supposing, that is, that it is proved that he said this. I have not found it in my copies; but grant it. For this he is to be called hasty,' insolent,' all that is bad. But the wise know well that the minute charges of a faultfinder furnish a strong argument for the righteousness of the accused; else, when eager to accuse, he would not have spared great faults and employed his malice on little ones. On these last he is certainly great, heightening the enormity of the offence, and making solemn reflections on falsehood, and seeing equal heinousness in it whether in great or very trivial matters. Like the fathers of his heresy, the scribes and Pharisees, he knows how to strain a gnat carefully and to swallow at one gulp the hump-backed camel laden with a weight of wickedness. But it would not be out of place to say to him, refrain from making such a rule in our system; cease to bid us think it of no account to measure the guilt of a falsehood by the slightness or the importance of the circumstances.' Paul telling a falsehood and purifying himself after the manner of the Jews to meet the needs of those whom he usefully deceived did not sin the same as Judas for the requirement of his treachery putting on a kind and affable look. By a falsehood Joseph in love to his brethren deceived them; and that too while swearing by the life of Pharaoh [95] ;' but his brethren had really lied to him, in their envy plotting his death and then his enslavement. There are many such cases: Sarah lied, because she was ashamed of laughing: the serpent lied, tempting man to disobey and change to a divine existence. Falsehoods differ widely according to their motives. Accordingly we accept that general statement about man which the Holy Spirit uttered by the Prophet [96] , Every man is a liar;' and this man of God, too, has not kept clear of falsehood, having chanced to give a place the name of a neighbouring district, through oversight or ignorance of its real name. But Eunomius also has told a falsehood, and what is it? Nothing less than a misstatement of Truth itself. He asserts that One who always is once was not; he demonstrates that One who is truly a Son is falsely so called; he defines the Creator to be a creature and a work; the Lord of the world he calls a servant, and ranges the Being who essentially rules with subject beings. Is the difference between falsehoods so very trifling, that one can think it matters nothing whether the falsehood is palpable [97] in this way or in that?
[91] eti en to klero ton presbuteron ierateuon
[92] 2 Thess. iii. 8.
[93] According to Ruffinus (Hist. Eccl. x. 25), his constitution was poisoned with jaundice within and without.
[94] en anonumo tini Korniaspines eschati& 139;. Cf. mega chrema hu& 232;s (Herod.) for the use of this genitive. In the next sentence ei anti, though it gives the sense translated in the text, is not so good as he anti (i.e. eschatia), which Oehler suggests, but does not adopt. With regard to Eunomius' birthplace, Sozomen and Philostorgius give Dacora (which the former describes as on the slopes of Mt. Argaeus: but that it must have been on the borders of Galatia and Cappadocia is certain from what Gregory says here): Probably Dacora was his paternal estate: Oltiseris the village to which it belonged' (Dict. Christ. Biog.; unless indeed Corniaspa, marked on the maps as a town where Cappadocia, Galatia and Pontus join, was the spot, and Oltiseris the district. Eunomius died at Dacora.
[95] Gen. xlii. 15.
[96] Psalm cxv. 11.
[97] epseusthai dokein.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius.asp?pg=20
