Against Eunomius — Book Vii

St. Gregory of Nyssa

1. 0. Greeting

Since, however, Eunomius asserts that the word Lord is used in reference to the essence and not to the dignity of the Only-begotten, and cites as a witness to this view the Apostle, when he says to the Corinthians, Now the Lord is the Spirit [[2 Corinthians 3.17]], it may perhaps be opportune that we should not pass over even this error on his part without correction. He asserts that the word Lord is significative of essence, and by way of proof of this assumption he brings up the passage above mentioned. The Lord, it says, is the Spirit [[2 Corinthians 3.17]]. But our friend who interprets Scripture at his own sweet will calls Lordship by the name of essence, and thinks to bring his statement to proof by means of the words quoted. Well, if it had been said by Paul, Now the Lord is essence, we too would have concurred in his argument. But seeing that the inspired writing on the one side says, the Lord is the Spirit, and Eunomius says on the other, Lordship is essence, I do not know where he finds support for his statement, unless he is prepared to say again that the word Spirit stands in Scripture for essence. Let us consider, then, whether the Apostle anywhere, in his use of the term Spirit, employs that word to indicate essence. He says, The Spirit itself bears witness with our Spirit [[Romans 8.16]], and no one knows the things of a man save the Spirit of man which is in him [[1 Corinthians 2.11]], and the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life [[2 Corinthians 3.6]], and if you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live [[Romans 8.13]], and if we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit [[Galatians 5.25]]. Who indeed could count the utterances of the Apostle on this point? And in them we nowhere find essence signified by this word. For he who says that the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, signifies nothing else than the Holy Spirit Which comes to be in the mind of the faithful; for in many other passages of his writings he gives the name of spirit to the mind, on the reception by which of the communion of the Spirit the recipients attain the dignity of adoption. Again, in the passage, No one knows the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him, if man is used of the essence, and spirit likewise, it will follow from the phrase that the man is maintained to be of two essences. Again, I know not how he who says that the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life, sets essence in opposition to letter; nor, again, how this writer imagines that when Paul says that we ought through the Spirit to destroy the deeds of the body, he is directing the signification of spirit to express essence; while as for living in the Spirit, and walking in the Spirit, this would be quite unintelligible if the sense of the word Spirit referred to essence. For in what else than in essence do all we who are alive partake of life?— thus when the Apostle is laying down advice for us on this matter that we should live i