Monday, February 12, 2024

Gregory of Nyssa on the imago Dei

Anim Shrest
"'Have a care to yourself, for this is the sure safeguard of <your> good things.  Know how much you have been honored by the Maker above the rest of the creation.  Heaven did not become the image of God, nor the moon, nor the sun, nor the beautiful stars—nor a single other one of the things that appear in the created order.  Only you came into existence as a copy of the Nature that transcends every intellect, a likeness of the incorruptible Beauty, an impress of the true Deity—a model of that true Light in the contemplation of which you become what it is, imitating that which shines within you by the ray that shines forth in response from your purity.  None of the things that exist is so great as to be compared to your greatness.  The whole heaven is contained in the span of God’s hand; earth and sea are encompassed by his hand.  But at the same time this One, being such as he is and so great as he is, grasping the whole creation in the palm of his hand, becomes limited for your sake and dwells in you and is not confined as he penetrates your nature.  For he is the One who says, 'I will dwell within them and will walk about among them' (2 Cor 6:16).  If you see these things, you will not set your eye on anything earthly. . . .  For how shall you marvel at the heavens, O human, when you see that you yourself are more lasting than the heavens?'"  Etc.

     St. Gregory of Nyssa, Homily 2 on the Song of songs, trans. Richard A. Norris, Jr. (Gregory of Nyssa:  homilies on the Song of songs, Writings from the Greco-Roman world 13 (Atlanta, GA:  SBL Press, 2012)), 76-77 =GNO 6.1.68.  I was put onto this by Gabrielle Thomas, "The Status of vulnerability in a theology of the Christian life:  Gregory of Nyssa on the 'wound of love’ in conversation with Sarah Coakley," Modern theology 38, no. 4 (2022): 791 (777–795).

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