Gregory Nyssa Quotes & Sayings

If we truly think of Christ as our source of holiness, we shall refrain from anything wicked or impure in thought or act and thus show ourselves to be worthy bearers of his name. For the quality of holiness is shown not by what we say but by what we do in life. — Gregory Of Nyssa

GREGORY OF NYSSA. How vain moreover is prayer for those who live by fate; Divine Providence is banished from the world together with piety, and man is made the mere instrument of the sidereal motions. For these they say move to action, not only the bodily members, but the thoughts of the mind. In a word, they who teach this, take away all that is in us, and the very nature of a contingency; which is nothing less than to overturn all things. For where will there be free will? but that which is in us must be free. — Thomas Aquinas

Just as at sea those who are carried away from the direction of the harbor bring themselves back on course by a clear sign, on seeing a tall beacon light or some mountain peak coming into view, so Scripture may guide those adrift on the sea of the life back into the harbor of the divine will. — Gregory Of Nyssa

The silent painting speaks on the walls and does much good. — Gregory Of Nyssa

God's name is not known; it is wondered at. — Gregory Of Nyssa

The soul's unquenchable eros for the divine, of which Plotinus and Gregory of Nyssa and countless Christian contemplatives speak, Sufism's 'ishq or passionately adherent love for God, Jewish mysticism's devekut, Hinduism's bhakti, Sikhism's pyaar - these are all names for the acute manifestation of a love that, in a more chronic and subtle form, underlies all knowledge, all openness of the mind to the truth of things. This is because, in God, the fullness of being is also a perfect act of infinite consciousness that, wholly possessing the truth of being in itself, forever finds its consummation in boundless delight. The Father knows his own essence perfectly in the mirror of the Logos and rejoices in the Spirit who is the "bond of love" or "bond of glory" in which divine being and divine consciousness are perfectly joined. God's wujud is also his wijdan - his infinite being is infinite consciousness - in the unity of his wajd, the bliss of perfect enjoyment. The — David Bentley Hart

So when did these last two originate? They transcend "whenness," but if I must give a naive answer - when the Father did. When was that? There has not been a "when" when the Father has not been in existence. This, then, is true of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Put another question and I will answer it. Since when has the Son been begotten? Since as long as the Father has not been begotten. — Gregory Of Nyssa

But desire must also be cultivated; the beautiful does not always immediately commend itself to every taste; Christ's beauty, like that of Isaiah's suffering servant, is not expressed in vacuous comeliness or shadowless glamor, but calls for a love that is charitable, that is not dismayed by distance or mystery, and that can repent of its failure to see; this is to acquire what Augustine calls a taste for the beauty of God (Soliloquia 1.3-14). Once this taste is learned, divine beauty, as Gregory of Nyssa says, inflames desire, drawing one on into an endless epektasis, a stretching out toward an ever greater embrace of divine glory. And, — David Bentley Hart

The first theological insight I learned from Gregory of Nyssa - and I suspect the last to which I shall cling when all others fall away - is that the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is not merely a cosmological or metaphysical claim, but also an eschatological claim about the world's relation to God, and hence a moral claim about the nature of God in himself. In the end of all things is their beginning, and only from the perspective of the end can one know what they are, why they have been made, and who the God is who has called them forth from nothingness.

(from Radical Orthodoxy 3.1 (2015): 1-17) — David Bentley Hart

It is impossible that one who has turned to the world and feels its anxieties, and engages his heart in the wish to please men, can fulfill that first and great commandment of the Master, 'You shall love God with all your heart and with all your strength' (Mt. 22:37). — Gregory Of Nyssa

The new ideal of virginity and widowhood opened up a new era of sympathetic collaboration between men and women, and for male-female friendship. By establishing a category of women who were understood to be off-limits with respect to romantic entanglements, writers like Gregory were able to support and even celebrate a feminine version of Christianity without being afraid to seem as if they had fallen under the influence of feminine charms. — Kate Cooper

May we never risk the life of our souls by being resentful or by bearing grudges. — Gregory Of Nyssa

But if one wishes to be absolute master of all, to obtain the entire inheritance, and to exclude his brothers from even a third or fifth part, he is not a brother, but a harsh tyrant, a rude savage, nay, more, an insatiable beast that would devour the whole sweet banquet with his own gaping mouth. — Gregory Of Nyssa

Feast of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, & his sister Macrina, Teachers, c.394 & c.379 Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue. — Saint John Chrysostom

Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees. — Gregory Of Nyssa

SOCIAL ANIMAL ALWAYS COME ACROSS SEVERAL COMPLICATIONS — Gregory Of Nyssa

The three most ancient opinions concerning God are Anarchia, Polyarchia, and Monarchia. The first two are the sport of the children of Hellas, and may they continue to be so. For Anarchy is a thing without order; and the Rule of Many is factious, and thus anarchical, and thus disorderly. For both these tend to the same thing, namely disorder; and this to dissolution, for disorder is the first step to dissolution. But Monarchy is what we hold in honor. — Gregory Of Nyssa

There is one antidote for evil passions: the purification of our souls which takes place through the mystery of godliness. The chief act of faith in this mystery is to look to Him who suffered the passion for us. The cross is the passion, so that whoever looks to it? is not harmed by the poison of desire. To look to the cross means to render one's whole life dead and crucified to the world. — Gregory Of Nyssa

It is impossible for one to live without tears who considers things exactly as they are. — Gregory Of Nyssa

Concepts create idols of God, of whom only wonder can tell us anything. — Gregory Of Nyssa

Since with all my soul I behold the face of my beloved, therefore all the beauty of his form is seen in me. — Gregory Of Nyssa

Truly barren is a secular education. It is always in labor, but never gives birth. — Gregory Of Nyssa

[Jews are] murderers of the Lord, assassins of the prophets, rebels against God, God haters, ... advocates of the devil, race of vipers, slanderers, calumniators, dark-minded people, leaven of the Pharisees, sanhedrin of demons, sinners, wicked men, stoners, and haters of righteousness. — Gregory Of Nyssa

Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again ... Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior ... Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state? — Gregory Of Nyssa

Peace is defined as harmony among those who are divided. When, therefore, we end the civil war within our nature and cultivate peace within ourselves, we become at peace. — Gregory Of Nyssa

Just as many questions might be started for debate among people sitting up at night as to the kind of thing that sunshine is, and then the simple appearing of it in all its beauty would render any verbal description superfluous, so every calculation that tries to arrive conjecturally at the future state will be reduced to nothingness by the object of our hopes, when it comes upon us. — Gregory Of Nyssa

That we may merge into the deep and dazzling darkness, vanish into it, dissolve in it forever in an unbelievable bliss beyond imagination, for absolute nothingness represents absolute bliss. — Gregory Of Nyssa

Mine is to chew on the appropriate texts and make them delectable. — Gregory Of Nyssa

Concepts create idols; only wonder grasps anything. — Gregory Of Nyssa

We are not entitled to such licence, I mean that of affirming what we please; we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings — Gregory Of Nyssa

I got me slave-girls and slaves.' For what price, tell me? What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? What price did you put on rationality? How many obols did you reckon the equivalent of the likeness of God? How many staters did you get for selling that being shaped by God? God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness. If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God, who is his buyer, tell me? Who is his seller? To God alone belongs this power; or, rather, not even to God himself. For his gracious gifts, it says, are irrevocable. God would not therefore reduce the human race to slavery, since he himself, when we had been enslaved to sin, spontaneously recalled us to freedom. But if God does not enslave what is free, who is he that sets his own power above God's? — Gregory Of Nyssa

Gregory of Nyssa, in contrast, tries to advance philosophical and theological arguments to prove that the pains of hell cannot be co-eternal with God. His main argument is based on the essential superiority of good over evil; for evil, in its essence, can never be absolute and unlimited. The sinner inevitably reaches a limit when all his evil is done and he cannot go farther, just as the night, after having reached its peak, turns toward the day.18 This reasoning corresponds to the example of a physician who allows a boil to mature until it can be lanced. Thus the Incarnation, too, occurred only when evil had reached its climax.19 Gregory's position has never been condemned. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

And the creation, in the world and above the world, that once was at variance with itself, is knit together in friendship: and we ... are made to join in the angels' song, offering the worship of their praise. — Gregory Of Nyssa

For truly barren is profane education, which is always in labor but never gives birth. For what fruit worthy of such pangs does philosophy show for being so long in labor? Do not all who are full of wind and never come to term miscarry before they come to the light of the knowledge of God, although they could as well become men if they were not altogether hidden in the womb of barren wisdom? — Gregory Of Nyssa

Gregory of Nyssa points out that Moses's vision of God began with the light, with the visible burning bush, the bush which was bright with fire and was not consumed; but afterwards, God spoke to him in a cloud. After the glory which could be seen with human eyes, he began to see the glory which is beyond and after light. The shadows are deepening all around us. — Madeleine L'Engle

For when one considers the universe, can anyone be so simple-minded as not to believe that the Divine is present in everything, pervading, embracing and penetrating it? — Gregory Of Nyssa

Where Solomon says that 'Wisdom has built herself a house' (Prov. 9:1), he refers darkly in these words to the preparation of the flesh of the Lord: for the true Wisdom did not dwell in another's building, but built for Itself that dwelling-place from the body of the Virgin. — Gregory Of Nyssa

There have been delivered to us in the Gospel three Persons and names through Whom the generation of the birth of believers takes place, and he who is begotten by this Trinity is equally begotten of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ? for thus does the Gospel speak of the Spirit, that 'that which is born of the Spirit is spirit' (Jn. 3:6), and it is 'in Christ' (I Cor. 4:15) that Paul begets, and the Father is the 'Father of all.' — Gregory Of Nyssa

Today the darkness begins to grow shorter and the light to lengthen, as the hours of night become fewer ... Realize that the true light is now here and, through the rays of the gospel, is illumining the whole earth. — Gregory Of Nyssa

Hope always draws the soul from the beauty which is seen to what is beyond, always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived. Therefore, the ardent lover of beauty, although receiving what is always visible as an image of what he desires, yet longs to be filled with the very stamp of the archetype. — Gregory Of Nyssa

For virtue is a light and buoyant thing, and all who live in her way fly like clouds as Isaiah says, and as doves with their young ones; but sin is a heavy affair, as another of the prophets says, sitting upon a talent of lead. — Gregory Of Nyssa

He who gives you the day will also give you the things necessary for the day. — Gregory Of Nyssa

Anger is a perversion of courage, as lust is a perversion of love. — Gregory Of Nyssa

If custom is to avail for proof of soundness, we too, surely, may advance our prevailing custom; and if they reject this, we are surely not bound to follow theirs. Let the inspired Scripture, then, be our umpire, and the vote of truth will surely be given to those whose dogmas are found to agree with the Divine words. — Gregory Of Nyssa

Concepts create idols; only wonder understands anything. — Gregory Of Nyssa

As no darkness can be seen by anyone surrounded by light, so no trivialities can capture the attention of anyone who has his eyes on Christ. — Gregory Of Nyssa