To the Hellenes. Based on general concepts

Composition by St. Gregory of Nyssa “To the Hellenes. Based on General Concepts” is dedicated to the defense of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Saint Gregory refutes accusations of tritheism on the basis of logical arguments and proves that the recognition of the trinity of Persons does not destroy the unity of God: “Scripture... absolutely forbids calling three Gods, recognizing polytheism as wickedness and everywhere preaching one God, without confusing the persons, without dividing the Divinity, and moreover preserving the identity of the Divinity in the distinctive properties of the hypostases, or three Persons.” “Our teaching is confirmed by a word consistent with science, to call God, the Creator of all things, one, although He is conceived in three Persons, or hypostases, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” *The title of the work in Greek is Πρὸς τοὺς ῞Ελληνας ἀπὸ τῶν κοινῶν ἐννοιῶν. *The title of the work in Latin is Ad Graecos ex communibus notionibus. If the naming: God served to designate Persons, then by naming three Persons, we would, of necessity, name three Gods. If the name: God means essence, then, confessing the one essence of the Holy Trinity, it is not without reason that we glorify the one God, because the word: God is the one name of the one essence. Why, in accordance with both the essence and the name, there is one God, and not three Gods. For we do not call: God, and God, and God, as we call: Father and Son and Holy Spirit, to names meaning persons, adding the conjunction and; because the faces are not the same, and what’s more, they are different, differing from one another in the meaning of their names. To the name: God, as signifying an essence by some property belonging to it, we do not add the conjunction and, so that we can say: God and God and God, while the same is the essence that is in Persons, and which the name means: God, why one and the same is God. And one and the same and an explanation of the same are never connected by the union and. But if we call the Father God, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, or God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; then, in accordance with the concept, we add a conjunction to the names of Persons, that is, to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so that there is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that is, Person, and Person and Person; why three faces. The name God is pronounced detachedly and equally about each Person without the conjunction and, so that we cannot say: God and God and God, but we understand the name, although pronounced three times by voice, due to the subject persons, but appended a second and third time without the conjunction and, because there is no other God. For the Father is not God because he maintains otherness with the Son; in that case the Son would not be God. And if, because the Father is the Father, He is also God; then, since the Son is not the Father, the Son is no longer God. If the Son is God not because He is the Son, and likewise the Father is God not because He is the Father, but because He is such and such an essence; then One is the Father, and the Son is God, and for this reason the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Since the essence is not divided in each Person, so that, like the Persons, there are three essences; it is clear that neither the name, which signifies essence, nor God will be divided, so that He may be three Gods. But as the essence - the Father, the essence - the Son, the essence - the Holy Spirit, but not three essences; so God is the Father, God is the Son, God is the Holy Spirit, and not three Gods. For there is one God and He is one and the same, since the essence is one and it is the same; although each Person is called both essential and God. Otherwise, since each Person is an essence, it is necessary to call the essences of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit three, which is contrary to reason. For we do not call Peter, Paul and Barnabas three essences; On the contrary, calling the one and only essence that which is in the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as a result of this we call one God, although we believe that each Person is essential and is God. For, just as by the difference of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit we say that there are three Persons; so, since they do not differ in essence, but in relation to it there is identity in Persons; then, without a doubt, this identity will also exist in relation to the name God; because it signifies essence, not only by imagining what it is (this is incomprehensible), but by pointing to it, as borrowed from some property belonging to the essence. The distinctive property of the eternal essence, common to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is to oversee everything, to see and know everything, even the most secret. Hence the borrowed name: God, used in the proper sense, means this essence. Therefore, since there is one such essence and the name that signifies it is also one, namely the name: God; then, in accordance with the concept of essence, in the proper sense there will be only one God; because the name: God does not mean a person, but an essence. And if the name: God pointed to a Person, then the one and only Person, which would be signified by such and such a name, would be called God, just as the Father alone is called Father; because this name means Person. And if someone says that we call Peter, Paul, Barnabas three essences, obviously private, that is, special (for, speaking in the proper sense, when we talk about a private essence, that is, special, we do not want to mean anything else, as indivisible, which is a person; the name God, as has been proven, has no resemblance to the names of persons): what should answer this? That we call Peter, Paul, and Barnabas three people is not like three persons; Persons are not signified by a name showing a general essence, and the so-called private or special essence itself is not the same thing as a person. Therefore, we call three people having one essence, signified by the name: man. If not because these are persons, and not because a particular or special essence is signified, we say this; then we affirm that we express ourselves this way due to imprecise usage of words, and not in the proper sense, due to some habit that, from necessary reasons, has gained force in what does not relate to the Holy Trinity. These reasons are the following: what is meant by the word: a person is not always seen in the same indivisible, or persons; because when the former persons die, others take their place; and often the same ones remain again, and some others are born again, so that this is sometimes seen in these, sometimes in others, sometimes in a larger number, sometimes in a smaller number. And in the case of decrease, and death, and birth of the indivisible, in which we see what we understand by the word: man, we are forced to say: there are many people and there are few people; Moreover, the change and otherness of persons violates the general custom; and this is said contrary to the very concept of essence, so that in some way essences are also included in persons. But in the discourse of the Holy Trinity nothing like this ever happens, because the same persons are named, and not different and different, persons containing the same and identical contents; and She does not allow any increase to quaternary, nor any decrease to binary; because a still new Person is not born, or does not proceed, from the Father, or from one of the Persons, so that the Trinity ever becomes a quaternity, nor does one of these three Persons cease to exist over time, so that the Trinity becomes a duality. since in the three Persons there is never any increase or decrease, transformation or change; then it is in no way consistent with three Persons to name three Gods. Again, all human faces do not have their existence directly from one and the same person, but some from this, and others from another, even many and different, arising from a cause, are themselves the cause. But not so in the Holy Trinity. For one and the same is the Person of the Father, from whom the Son is born and the Holy Spirit proceeds. Therefore, we call Him who, in the proper sense, is the only author of those who came from Him, is one God, because He is co-essential with Them. For the Persons of the Divine are inseparable from each other neither in time, nor in place, nor in will, nor in undertakings, nor in activity, nor in undergoing anything similar to what is seen in man, except for one thing only, that the Father is the Father, and not the Son, the Son is not the Father; and similarly, the Holy Spirit is neither Father nor Son. Why does no necessity force us to call the Three Persons three Gods, as we call many persons many people, for the reasons stated above, and not according to the necessary law, according to which one and the same in relation to the same cannot be one and many. And Peter, Paul, Barnabas by name: man are one person, and by the same name: man cannot be many, but they are called many people, due to inaccurate usage of words, and not in the proper sense. But what is said in the inaccurate sense is not preferred by sensible people to what is said in the proper sense. Why should it not be said that in the three persons of the Divine essence there are three Gods, by the very name God; but God is one and one in the identity of essence, the meaning of which, as we have said, is the name: God. And if someone says: how can the Scripture clearly number three men (Gen. 18:2); then let him see that Scripture, showing us the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaches that God is the Word, God is not the Word (that is, God the Father) and God the Holy Spirit is God, and completely forbids calling three Gods, recognizing polytheism as wickedness and everywhere preaching one God, neither confusing persons nor dividing the Divinity, and moreover preserving the identity of the Divinity in the distinctive properties of the hypostases, or three Persons. If anyone, saying something like this, wants to find out the truth; then let him know that Scripture says: three, although he recognizes one man in all, according to what was said: man is like the grass of his days (Ps. 102:15). Like a good nurse, Scripture recognizes people as its own children, sometimes babbles with them, and like them uses some names, although it does not err in knowing what is perfect. For when he says that God has ears, eyes and other members of the body, he does not teach such a teaching in the form of a definition that the Divinity is complex, but sets out the dogmas in the said way, from the figurative meaning of what we have to the understanding of the incorporeal, raising people who cannot approach this directly. It says that God is Spirit and is present wherever anyone goes, teaching us His simplicity and indescribability. So, following custom, he calls it three men, so as not to deviate from the general, from what is used by many; and precisely calls it one, so as not to overstep the limit when it comes to the nature of things. And we honor one as condescension shown for the benefit and benefit of infants, and the other we call a dogma set forth to affirm and communicate perfection. But others will also say: We say: hypostasis, like hypostasis, does not differ in the least from hypostasis, but it does not follow from this that all hypostases are one hypostasis; and essence does not differ in any way from essence, but it does not follow from this that all essences are one essence: so we can say: God does not differ from God, but it does not follow from this that the three hypostases in which God is revealed are one God. And again, saying: man does not differ from man, we do not deny that Peter, Paul and Barnabas are three people; because essence differs from essence, not as essence in general, but as such and such an essence, and hypostasis from hypostasis, as such and such a particular hypostasis; and man is from man, as such and such a man, and also God is from God, as such and such a God. And such and such is usually said about two or many. But this is what the objectors say: and we will prove that all this is false thinking, using what they themselves have said, and proving that it is not such and such a God who should speak, or such and such a person, but such and such a hypostasis of God, and such and such a human hypostasis. For we rightly affirm that one person has many hypostases, and the one God has three hypostases. Therefore, what is called such and such requires that something be distinguished from something that has communication with this something, by the name to which the word is attached: such and such. For example, about a person we say: such and such a living being, intending to distinguish him, let’s put it this way, from a horse, because they have the same name: living being, but they differ in the gift of speech and dumbness. Something is distinguished from something else, either as essence, or as hypostasis, or in essence, or in hypostasis. They differ, as essences, between man and the horse, and according to hypostasis, Paul from Peter, and in essence and according to hypostasis, for example, the hypostasis of man from the hypostasis of the horse. But with the revelation of the concept of what differs simply in essence, and what differs in hypostasis, and not in essence, there will clearly be a concept of what is distinguished by essence. For that things that differ in essence are called two or three essences, and those that differ in hypostasis are also called two and three hypostases, this is recognized by both them and us. We differ in that, as they claim, it should be said about Peter and Paul: two people, but we do not accept this in its own sense and not in a scientific concept. For now there is no word about general and imprecise use of words; because it has no power to either abolish or establish anything. Therefore, let us first explain why we say that a man and a horse, or a horse and a dog, differ as such and such an essence, or it will become clear that we are saying this, since they differ from each other in what usually separates essences, for example, the gift of speech, dumbness, neighing, barking, and the like. For when we call an essence such and such, we mean nothing more than an existence that is involved in life, in contrast to another that is not similar to it, or an existence that is not devoid of the gift of speech, in contrast to one characterized by dumbness, or an existence that has neighing as its distinctive feature, and the like, since instead of these differences and characteristics, the word is attached to the essence, or to any genus, in contrast to the species under it: such and such an essence, or such and such animal, that is, verbal or dumb. And we also say: Peter differs from Paul, since such and such a hypostasis is in each of them, because they differ from each other in something that usually constitutes a hypostasis, and not an essence, such as, for example: lack of hair, height, fatherland, sonship, and the like. For it is clear that the species and the indivisible are not the same thing, nor the essence and the hypostasis. The word: hypostasis directly leads the listener's thought to look for a forehead covered with scars, blue, father, son, and the like. I name the species, that is, the essence, in order to cognize precisely the living being that is verbal, mortal, possessing intelligence and intelligence, and the living being that is wordless, mortal, neighing, and the like. If the essence and the indivisible are not the same, that is, hypostasis, then the features that distinguish both are not the same. And if one and the same thing is not distinguished by the same thing, then it is impossible to give it the same names, but one must call something predicable in essence, or belonging to the essence, and another must be called predicate about the indivisible. Therefore, there are three names that the question is about: essence, indivisible, man. We conjugate the essence with the name and combine the word such and such to distinguish, as I said, the types that fit under it, differing from each other in essence. With the naming of hypostasis, in a similar way, we again connect the word such and such to the division of persons related to each other by this common naming, that is, the naming of hypostasis, differing from one another in features that do not distinguish essence, but are called accidental. Therefore, how do they want to combine the word such and such with the name person? For it is dubious to find a solution for oneself in something that is recognized by everyone. For what is essentially underneath it to be distinguished by an essential difference from one another is impossible; because Paul and Peter, to whom the name man is given, do not differ in essence; They differ in the hypostasis of their faces. And that the name man does not mean essence, this would be absurd to say, because the name man means the general essence, and not a special person, say, for example, Paul, or Barnabas. Therefore, the name man, according to the rules of science, is in no way accompanied by the word such and such. But if general usage has a need for this, and incorrectly uses the names of essence to mean persons, then this is not done according to the exact rule of logical knowledge. But why do I attack ordinary word usage, which has such shortcomings, hiding from myself the fact that often, due to the lack of names that truly mean a thing, we ourselves use other names that do not accurately express the predicate? At least, let it be clear to us that if we said: in Peter and Paul, man differs from man, not as a man in general, but as such and such a man; then they could say this about them: essence differs from essence, not as essence, but as such and such an essence. And if it is impossible to say this, since the same essence is in Peter and Paul, then both the latter and the former are impossible; because the name man indicates the essence. If the words such and such should not be combined with the name man; This means that we are not actually expressing ourselves by saying: two or three people, and if this is proven about a person, then isn’t this much more and more directly befitting of the eternal and Divine essence - not to say about each hypostasis: this is such and such a God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, not to proclaim only God, God and God, not to affirm even mentally that there are three Gods? Thus, our teaching is confirmed by a fair, consistent word, consistent with science, to call God, the Creator of all things, one, although He is conceived in three Persons, or hypostases, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. You might be interested in: