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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 69
For that which is signified in these words by the oneness of Father and Son is nothing else but what belongs to them on the score of their actual being; all the other moral excellences which are to be observed in them as over and above [178] their nature may without error be set down as shared in by all created beings. For instance, Our Lord is called merciful and pitiful by the prophet [179] , and He wills us to be and to be called the same; "Be ye therefore merciful [180] ," and "Blessed are the merciful [181] ," and many such passages. If, then, any one by diligence and attention has modelled himself according to the divine will, and become kind and pitiful and compassionate, or meek and lowly of heart, such as many of the saints are testified to have become in the pursuit of such excellences, does it follow that they are therefore one with God, or united to Him by virtue of any one of them? Not so. That which is not in every respect the same, cannot be one' with him whose nature thus varies from it. Accordingly, a man becomes one' with another, when in will, as our Lord says, they are perfected into one [182] ,' this union of wills being added to the connexion of nature. So also the Father and Son are one, the community of nature and the community of will running, in them, into one. But if the Son had been joined in wish only to the Father, and divided from Him in His nature, how is it that we find Him testifying to His oneness with the Father, when all the time He was sundered from Him in the point most proper to Him of all?
[178] osa epitheoreitai te phusei.
[179] Psalm ciii. 8.
[180] Luke vi. 36.
[181] Matthew v. 7.
[182] John xvii. 23. "I in them, and thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one." (R.V.)
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius.asp?pg=69
