To Simplicius, on faith

A small treatise by St. Gregory of Nyssa “To Simplicius, on the Faith” is addressed to the tribune Simplicius. The work was written in defense of the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit and Their consubstantiality with the Father against the teachings of the Arians. St. Gregory denounces their misinterpretation of certain Trinitarian passages of Holy Scripture. The introduction and ending of the treatise have been lost. *The title of the work in Greek is Πρὸς Σιμπλίκιον περὶ πίστεως. *The title of the essay in Latin is Ad Simplicium de fide. Through the prophet, God commands not to recognize any “new God” as God, and not to worship a “foreign God” (Psalm 80:10). New, as is clear, is called what is not from eternity, and vice versa, again what is called eternal is what is not new. Therefore, whoever does not believe that the only-begotten God from eternity has existence from the Father does not deny that He is new; because what is not eternal is, without a doubt, new, and everything new is not God, as Scripture said: “Let God not be new to you” (Psalm 80:10). Therefore, whoever says that He once did not exist denies His Divinity. Again it is forbidden to worship a foreign God, who says: “Thou shalt bow down to a strange God”; the alien is presented in contrast to our own God; So, who is our own God? It is clear that God is true. Who is the stranger? Of course, one that is alien to the nature of the true God. So, if the true God is our own, then the only begotten God, if He, as the heretics say, does not have the nature of the true God, will be an alien God, not ours; The Gospel says that the sheep will not obey the “stranger” (John 10:5). And whoever says that He was created proves that He is alien to the nature of the true God. Therefore, what do those who claim that the Only Begotten is created do? Is He worshiped as a created being or not? If they do not worship, then they Judaize, refusing to worship Christ. If they worship, they worship idols; because they worship someone who is alien to the true God. But it is equally wicked not to worship the Son and to worship a “foreign God.” Therefore, the Son of the true Father must be called true in order to worship Him, and not be condemned for worshiping a “foreign God.” And to those who repeat the words of the book of Proverbs: “The Lord created Me” (Prov. 8:22), and recognize in this some solid proof that the Creator and Maker of the universe was created, it must be said that for our sake the only begotten God became many; being the Word, He became flesh, being God, becoming a man, being incorporeal, He became a body, and besides this He became sin, and a curse, and a stone, and an ax, and bread, and a sheep, and a way, and a door, and a stone, and many other things like that, not being any of these things by nature, but for our sakes being made according to the economy. Therefore, just as for our sake, being the Word, he was made flesh, and being God, he was made man, so, being the Creator, for our sake he became a creature; because flesh was created. Therefore, he said, both through the prophet: “Thus says the Lord, who created Me from the womb of His servant” (Is. 49:5), and through Solomon: “The Lord created Me at the beginning of His ways for His works” (Prov. 8:22). So, in what was said by the Prophet, he who was created in the womb of a virgin is a slave, and not the Lord, that is, a man according to the flesh, in whom God appeared; and here the one created at the beginning of God’s ways is not God, but man, in whom God appeared to us in order to again renew the corrupt path of human salvation. Therefore, since we know both about Christ - both Divine and human, in the Divine nature, and in the economy that which is according to man, then as a result of this we attribute eternity to the Divinity, and attribute creatureliness to human nature. For just as, according to the word of the prophet, he was created a slave in the womb, so, according to the word of Solomon, he appeared to this creature as a slave in the flesh. When they say: if he was, he was not born; and if born, he was not; - then let them learn that the characteristics of carnal birth should not be added to the nature of God; because bodies, having not existed before, are born; God creates non-existent things to exist, but He Himself does not come from non-existent things. Therefore, Paul also calls Him “the radiance of glory” (Heb. 1:3), for our teaching that, like the light from a lamp and from the luminous nature, even together with them (for as soon as the lamp appears, the light from it also shines): so the Apostle commands us to understand here too that the Son is from the Father, and the Father was never without the Son. For it is impossible for glory not to be brilliant, just as it is impossible for a lamp to be without radiance. It is obvious that how to be radiance serves as evidence of being according to glory, because if there is no glory, then there will be no one shining from it: so to assert that there is no radiance serves as proof that there was no glory when there was no radiance; because it is impossible for glory to exist without radiance. Therefore, just as it is impossible to say about the radiance that, if it existed, it did not happen; and if it happened, then it was not there; so it is in vain to assert this about the Son, because the Son is radiance. Let those who apply the concepts of the lesser and the greater to the Son and the Father learn from Paul to immeasure the immeasurable; for the Apostle calls the Son “the image of the Father’s hypostasis” (Heb. 1:3). From this it is clear that whatever the hypostasis of the Father is, such is the “image” of the hypostasis. For it is impossible for an image to be less than the hypostasis contemplated in it. But the great John also teaches this, saying: “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word came to God” (John 1:1). By saying: “in the beginning was,” and not “after the beginning,” he showed that the beginning was never without the Word: and by saying: “The Word was to God,” he meant that the Son, in comparison with the Father, lacks nothing: because together with the wholly God, the Word is wholly contemplated. If the Word were deficient in His greatness, so that He could not be “to” the entire “God”; then, of all necessity, it would be necessary to admit that in God the excess over the Word no longer has the Word. On the contrary, in all the greatness of God the greatness of the Word is also contemplated. So for Divine dogmas the expression does not apply: this is more, and this is less. Let those who claim that what is born by nature is not like the unbegotten, learn from the example of Abel and Adam not to reason absurdly. For Adam, by natural human birth, was not born, but Abel was born from Adam, and the unborn is called unborn - but Adam was not in the least prevented from being a man by the fact that he was not born, and birth did not make Abel anything different in human nature; on the contrary, both are human, although one was born and the other was not born. Therefore, according to divine dogmas, this - being unborn and born - does not produce a difference in nature; but as in Adam and Abel humanity is one; so in the Father and in the Son there is one Divinity. And the detractors say about the Holy Spirit the same as about the Lord, that is, that He is a creature: the Church, equally, both about the Son and about the Holy Spirit, believes that He is not created, and that every creature through the participation of the highest good is made good (the Holy Spirit has no need for goodness given, because He is good by nature, as Scripture testifies); and the creature is guided by the Spirit, and the Spirit gives guidance; the creation is controlled, and the Spirit controls: the creature requires consolation, and the Spirit consoles; the creature remains in bondage, but the Spirit liberates; the creature becomes wise, and the Spirit gives the grace of wisdom; the creature accepts gifts, but the Spirit distributes them with authority. For “all this operates in one and the same Spirit, dividing with power as each one wills” (1 Cor. 12:11). And in the Scriptures one can find thousands of other proofs that all the lofty and magnificent names that Scripture gives to the Father and the Son are also read about the Holy Spirit, such as: incorruptibility, blessedness, goodness, wisdom, power, truth, holiness: every venerable name is also used about the Holy Spirit, as it is used about both the Father and the Son, except for those names that are clear and the hypostases are indistinctly different from one another, I mean that the Holy Spirit is not called either Father or Son; all other names, by which the Father and the Son are called, are appropriated by Scripture and the Holy Spirit. As a result of this, we understand that the Holy Spirit is higher than creation; and therefore, where the Father is understood, and where the Son is understood, there the Holy Spirit is also understood; for the Father and the Son are above creation, and this sequence of words also testifies to the Holy Spirit. Therefore, whoever exalts the Holy Spirit above creation, he, therefore, accepts the right and sound teaching; for he confesses one uncreated nature, contemplated in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. If, as proof of how they think that the Holy Spirit was created, they present us with a prophetic word in which it is said: “establish the thunder and the creating spirit” 1 “and proclaim among men your Christ” (Am. 4:13); then it must be understood that the prophet speaks of the creation of another spirit to confirm thunder, and not the Holy Spirit, for the mysterious teaching calls the Gospel thunder. Therefore, those in whom faith in the Gospel becomes firm and immutable, having previously been flesh, through faith pass into another state, become spirit, as the Lord says that “what is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). So, by affirming the word of the Gospel in believers, God creates the believer in spirit; and whoever is born of the Spirit, and whom such thunder makes into a spirit, he proclaims Christ, because, as the Apostle says, “no one can speak of the Lord Jesus” Christ, “but by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). Πνέυμα. According to the Slavic translation here, “creator of the wind” You might be interested in: