Dogmatic Treatises, etc. (NPNF Series II, Vol. V)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Selection or partial work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text · 8 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~680,000 words · 3,210 passages
Cite this work
- APAGregory of Nyssa. (n.d.). Dogmatic Treatises, etc. (NPNF Series II, Vol. V). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/gregory-of-nyssa/dogmatic-treatises-etc-npnf-series-ii-vol-v
- MLAGregory of Nyssa. "Dogmatic Treatises, etc. (NPNF Series II, Vol. V)." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/gregory-of-nyssa/dogmatic-treatises-etc-npnf-series-ii-vol-v.
- ChicagoGregory of Nyssa. Dogmatic Treatises, etc. (NPNF Series II, Vol. V). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/gregory-of-nyssa/dogmatic-treatises-etc-npnf-series-ii-vol-v.
What it is about
Gregory of Nyssa's dogmatic treatises in the English Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series: the controversy against Eunomius and the Great Catechism.
Context and history
The dispute with Eunomius turns on whether the essence of God can be known, and Gregory holds that it cannot: the names we use to speak of it are ours and do not reach what God is. That argument is the foundation of later Greek negative theology. As throughout the series, the volume is a grouping made by nineteenth-century editors and not a unit Gregory conceived: the works in it were not written together, nor for the same audience.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
The sophistry which he employs to prove our acknowledgment that he had been tried, and that the confession of his faith had not been unimpeached, is feeble. His charge of cowardice is baseless: for Basil displayed the highest courage before the Emperor and his Lord-Lieutenants. Résumé of his dogmatic teaching. Objections to it in detail. He did wrong, when mentioning the Doctrines of Salvation, in adopting terms of his own choosing instead of the traditional terms Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He does wrong in making the being of the Father alone proper and supreme, implying by his omission of the Son and the Spirit that theirs is improperly spoken of, and is inferior. Examination of the meaning of 'subjection:' in that he says that the nature of the Holy Spirit is subject to that of the Father and the Son. It is shewn that the Holy Spirit is of an equal, not inferior, rank to the Father and the Son. Discussion as to the exact nature of the ‘energies’ which, this man declares, ‘follow’ the being of the Father and of the Son. that the language used by the great Basil on the subject of the generation of the Only-begotten has been grievously slandered by Eunomius, and so ends the book. Book V 330 The fifth book promises to speak of the words contained in the saying of the 330 Apostle Peter, but delays their exposition. He discourses first of the creation, to the effect that, while nothing therein is deserving of worship, yet men, led astray by their ill-informed and feeble intelligence, and marvelling at its beauty, Vil deified the several parts of the universe. And herein he excellently expound
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