Thursday, March 11, 2010

Patristic Quote for the Day

"It is therefore clear that these are metaphors, which contain a deeper meaning than the obvious one: so that there is no reason from them that any suspicion that our Lord was created should be entertained by reverent inquirers, who have been trained according to the grand words of the evangelist, that "all things that have been made were made by Him" and "consist in Him." "Without Him was not anything made that was made." The evangelist would not bare so defined it if he had believed that our Lord was one among the things made. How could all things be made by Him and in Him consist, unless their Maker possessed a nature different from theirs, and so produced, not Himself, but them? If the creation was by Him, but He was not by Himself, plainly He is something outside the creation. And after the evangelist has by these words so plainly declared that the things that were made were made by the Son, and did not pass into existence by any other channel, Paul follows and, to leave no ground at all for this profane talk which numbers even the Spirit amongst the things that were made, he mentions one after another all the existencies which the evangelist's words imply: just as David in fact, after having said that "all things" were put in subjection to man, adds each species which that "all" comprehends, that is, the creatures on land, in water, and in air, so does Paul the Apostle: expounder of the divine doctrines, after saying that all things were made by Him, define by numbering them the meaning of "all." He speaks of "the things that are seen" and "the things that are not seen:" by the first he gives a general name to all things cognizable by the senses, as we have seen: by the latter he shadows forth the intelligible world."


--- Gregory of Nyssa : His Teaching on the Holy Trinity

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