St. Gregory
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
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St. Gregory of Nyssa’s date of birth is unknown. He died after 385 or 386 A.D. supposedly. He was educated in Athens and influenced by the works of Origen and Plato. He was married to Theosebeia. A professor of rhetoric, he dropped out to to become a priest and hermit. His mother and sister already lived in monasteries. He is the author of the Areopagite corpus. In this work he considers the One, i.e. the “absolute Goodness” or the “Real Being,” to be the ontological foundation of every existence. The One, or Goodness Itself, is the “origin” of all goodness. The One is “eternally beautiful,” “all things possess their existence, each kind being beautiful in its own manner.” The One is the “cause” of existence. This was St. Gregory of Nyassa’s belief and teaching.
Most of his writings treat the Sacred Scriptures. As an admirer of Origen, he applied constantly the latter’s principles of hermeneutics. Gregory was a great student of allegorical interpretations and mystical meanings, which he believed were hidden in the literal sense of texts. As a rule, however, the “great Cappadocians” tried to eliminate this tendency. Gregory writes his “Treatise on the Work of the Six Days” which follows St. Basil’s Hexæmeron. Another of his works, “On the Creation of Man,” deals with the work of the Sixth Day and was translated into Latin by Dionysius Exiguus.
In his extensive writings he defends the unity of the Divine nature and the trinity of Persons. In his teaching on the Eucharist he strikes an original cord, yet his Christological doctrine is based entirely on Origen and St. Athanasius. History reveals that his most important writings are his large “Catechesis,” or “Oratio Catechetica.” This is a defense in forty chapters of Catholic teaching which is aimed at heathens and heretics. The most extensive of Gregory’s works is his refutation of Eunomius written in twelve books and is a defense of St. Basil against that heretic Eunomius, and also in support of the Nicene Creed against Arianism.