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47 It is best to keep ara: ara is Krabinger's correction from four Codd.: and he reads o for ei above: but only one class of Codd. support these alterations.
48 I mean the sensation of pleasure. This (nohma) is Krabinger's reading: but Oehler reads from his Codd. noshma: and H. Schmidt suggests kinhma, comparing (205 A) below, "any other such-like emotion of the soul."
49 have some relation to the soul, and yet they are not the soul. Macrina does not mean that the Passions are altogether severed from the soul, as the following shows: and so Oehler cannot be right in reading and translating "Das Alles hat nichts mir der Seele zu schaffen." The Greek peri thn yuxhn is to be parallelled by oi peri ton Periklea, "Pericles' belongings," or "party"; passing, in later Greek, almost into "Pericles himself."
50 Reading kata fusin authn, kai thj qeoeidouj xaritoj, k. t. l. with Sifanus.
51 osa de thj yuxhj en meqoriw keitai. Moller (Gregorii Nysseni doctrina de hominis natura) remarks rightly that Krabinger's translation is here incorrect: "quaecunque autem in animae confinio posita sunt"; and that thj yuxhj should on the contrary be joined closely to osa. The opposition is not between elements which lie in, and on the confines of the soul, but between the divine and adventitious elements within the soul: meqoriw refers therefore to "good and bad," below.
52 This is no contradiction of the passage above about Moses: there it was stated that the Passions did not belong to the essence (ousia) of man.
53 ode dh. The Teacher introduces this logoj with some reserve. "We do not lay it down ex cathedra, we put it forward as open to challenge and discussion as we might do in the schools (wj en gumnasiw)." It is best then to take diafugoi as a pure optative. Gregory appears in his answer to congratulate her on the success of this "exercise." "To any one that reflects ...your exposition ...bears sufficiently upon it the stamp of correctness, and hits the truth." But he immediately asks for Scripture authority. So that this logoj, though it refers to Genesis, is not yet based upon Scripture. It is a "consecutive" and consistent account of human nature: but it is virtually identical with that advanced at the end of Book I. of Aristotle's Ethics. It is a piece of secular theorizing. The sneers of cavillers may well be deprecated. Consistent, however, with this view of the logoj here offered by Macrina, there is another possible meaning in wj en gumnasiw, k. t. l., i.e. "Let us put forward the following account with all possible care and circumspection, as if we were disputing in the schools; so that cavillers may have nothing to find fault with": wj an expressing purpose, not a wish. The cavillers will thus refer to sticklers for Greek method and metaphysics: and Gregory's congratulation of his sister's lucidity and grasp of the truth will be all the more significant.
54 Following the order and stopping of Krabinger, amikton esti kai idiazon epi tauthj thj fusewj, ef eautou, k. t. l.
55 Reading dia tou enoj kai proj ta sunhmmena toutw (for toutwn), with Sifanus.
56 Cf. De Hom. Opif. c. xviii. 5. "So, on the contrary, if reason instead assumes sway over such emotions, each of them is transmuted to a form of virtue: for anger produces courage; terror, caution; fear, obedience; hatred, aversion from vice; the power of love, the desire for what is truly beautiful, &c." Just below, the allusion is to Plato's charioteer, Phaedrus, p. 253 C, and the old custom of having the reins round the driver's waist is to be noticed.
57 are implanted. All the Codd. have egkeimenhj here, instead of the egkwmiazomenhj of the Paris Edition, which must be meant for egkwmazomenhj (itself a vox nihili), "run riot in them."
58 we were agreed. wmologeito: cf. 201 D, "If on the other hand any one will accept a disussion which is in a naked unsyl-logistic form, we will speak upon these points by making our study of them as far as we can follow the chain of Scriptural tradition."
59 There is a variety of readings from the Codd. here; sunegkataleih, sunektalh, sunektaleih, snektalaih, sugkataluh: in two (and on the margins of two others), sunektilh, which Krabinger has adopted. The Paris Editt. have ounektinei.
60 parenesparh, the idea of badness being contained in para, which in such cases is always the first compound. One Cod. has the curious inversion enparesparh.
61 ecandrapodisqeih; this is adopted by Krabinger from the Haselman Cod. for the common ec wn drapodisqeih.
64 kakeinon en autw, H. Schmidt's reading, on the authority of 3 Codd. The reading of Krabinger is en eautw te kakeinon. But the underworld is the only habitation in question.-outw legesqai, above, must mean, "is rightly so named."
65 ei gar alhqhj o logoj o kata se, kai to sunexh te proj, k. t. l., Krabinger's reading, following the majority of Codd.; o kata oe being thus opposed to the next words, which others say. But Schmidt points out that the conclusion introduced below by anagkh pasa does not follow at all from the first, but only from the second of these suppositions, and he would await the evidence of fresh Codd. Sifanus and Augentius would read ei kai <\=85_kata se. Tw gar, k. t. l., which would certainly express the sense required.
66 pantwn twn kukloforoumenwn, i. e. the heavenly bodies moving as one (according to the ancient astronomy) round the central earth.
67 proballoito. This is the proper meaning of the middle: "should object," as Oehler translates (einwerfen wollte), would require the active.
69 lapsed from he nobler view (upolhewj). This is the common reading: but Krabinger prefers lhcewj, which is used by Gregory (De Hom. Opif c. 17, "the sublime angelic lot"). and is a Platonic word. The other word, "lapsed," is also Platonic.
70 from those evil spirits. So Great Catechism, c. 26 (fin.). Here too Gregory follows Origen (c. Cels. vi. 44), who declares that the Powers of evil are for a purpose (in answer to Celsus' objection that the Devil himself, instead of humanity, ought to have been punished). "Now it is a thing which can in no way cause surprise, that the Almighty, Who knows how to use wicked apostates for His own purposes, should assign to such a certain place in the universe, and should thus open an arena, as it were, of virtue, for those to Contend in who wish to "strive lawfully" for her prize: those wicked ones were to try them, as the fire tries the gold, that, having done their utmost to prevent the admission of any alloy into their spiritual nature, and having proved themselves worthy to mount to heaven, they might be drawn by the bands of the Word to the highest blessedness and the summit of all Good." These Powers, as reasoning beings, shall then themselves be "mastered by the word." See c. Cels. viii. 72.
71 The conclusion of which was drawn, 199 C. "Therefore the soul exists in the actual atoms which she has once animated, and there is no force to tear her away from her cohesion with them." It is to the line of reasoning (akolouqia) leading up to this conclusion that Gregory would revert, in order to question this conclusion. What both sides are agreed on is, the existence merely of the soul after death. All between this conclusion and the present break in the discussion has been a digression on the Passions and on Hades. Now Gregory asks, how can the soul possibly recognize the atoms that once belonged to her? Oehler therefore does not translate aright, "ich bitte nut den gef_hrten Beweis ...in derselben Folge zu wiederholen:" but Krabinger expresses the true sense, "ut rursus mihi ad eandem consequentiam reducatur oratio," i. e. the discussion (not the proof), which is here again, almost in Platonic fashion, personified.
72 has assumed, analabontwn. The construction is accommodated to the sense, not the words; thj twn stoixeiwn enwsewj having preceded.
73 tint, morfhj. Certainly in earlier Greek morfh is strictly used of "form," "shape" (or the beauty of it) only, and colours cannot be said to be mixed in imitation of form. It seems we have here a late use of morfh as = "outward appearance"; so that we may even speak of the morfh of a colour, or combinations of colours. So (214 A) the painter "works up (on his palette) a particular tint of colour" (morfhn.) Here it is the particular hue, in person or picture, which it is desired to imitate. Akin to this question is that of the proper translation of proj thn omoiothta tou prokeimenou, which Sifanus and Krabinger translate "ad similitudinem argumenti," and which may either mean (1) "to make the analogy to the subject matter of our question as perfect as possible," i. e. as a parenthesis. or (2) "in imitation of the thing or colour (lying before the painter) to be copied." The last seems preferable ("to form the given tint").
75 amigej tou suggenouj apokrifhnai. Krabinger's and Oehler's reading. But Krabinger, more correctly than Oehler, opposes en to de to en tw kaf olou (quod est hic calidum, si fuerit in universo): though neither he, nor Oehler, nor Schmidt himself appears to have any suspicion that twde may mean "so and so:" and yet it is quite in accordance with Gregory's usage, and makes better sense, as contrasting the particular and universal heat more completely. =Amigej is proleptic: the genitive may depend either on it or on the verb. Just below anaplassomenon is read by 5 of Krabinger's Codd. (including the Hasselmann). This is better than Migne's apallassomenon, which is hardly supported by 1 Cor. xv. 51.
76 same moment. kata tauton: on the authority of 2 Codd. Mon.
77 Reading oti to men to ek tou pifou, poion de to ek tou pothriou, k. t. l.
78 proj to akatergaston thj twn stoixeiwn ulhj.. There is the same sort of distinction above, 215 A, i. e. between the kindred dust first, and then the universe (to pan) into which the atoms may stream back.
80 ek kataxrhsewj tinoj: not as usually "by a misuse of words."
81 There is an anacoluthon here, for tw agaqw kolpw follows w above; designed no doubt to bring the things compared more closely together. Oehler, however, would join agaqw with the relative, and translates as if tw = kai.
82 ton dikaion. Most of Krabinger's Codd. read ton plousion.
83 is occupied with his present blessings (asxoloj toij parousin); surely not, with Oehler, "is not occupied with the present world"!
84 kollhj. The metaphor is Platonic. "The soul ...absolutely bound and glued to the body" (Phaedo, p. 82 E).
85 her soaring. Plato first spoke (Phaedrus, p. 248 c) of "that growth of wing, by which the soul is lifted." Once these natural wings can get expanded, her flight upwards is a matter of course. This image is reproduced by Plotinus p. 769 A (end of Enneads); Libanius, Pro Socrate, p. 258; Synesius, De Providentia, p. 90 D, and Hymn i. III, where he speaks of the alma konfon of the soul, and Hymm iii. 42. But there is mixed here with the idea of a flight upwards (i. e. anadromh), that of the running-gronnd as well (cf. Greg. De scopo Christian. III. p. 299, toij thj arethj dromoij), which, as sanctioned in the New Testament Chrysostom so often uses.
86 outwj answers to kaqaper, not to wj above.
87 shadowy phantoms of the departed are often seen. Cf. Origen c. Cels. ii. 60 (in answer to Celsus' "Epicurean" opinion that ghosts are pure illusion): "He who does believe this (i. e. in ghosts) necessarily believes in the immortality, or at all events the long continuance of the soul: as Plato does in his treatise on the soul (i. e. the Phaedo) when he says that the shadowy apparitions of the dead hover round their tombs. These apparitions, then, have some substance: it is the so-called `radiant 0' frame in which the soul exists. But Celsus, not liking this, would have us believe that people have waking dreams and `imagine as true, in accordance with their wishes, a wild piece of unreality. 0' In sleep we may well believe that this is the case: not so in waking hours, unless some one is quite out of his senses, or is melancholy mad." But Origen here quotes Plato in connection with the reality of the Resurrection body of Christ: Gregory refers to ghosts only, with regard to the filoswmatoi, whose whole condition after death he represents very much in Plato's words. See Phaedo, p. 81 B.
88 prolabwn; on the authority of five Codd., for proslabwn.
90 any particular good, not as Oehler, "jenseits alles Guten." The Divine Being is the complement, not the negation, of each single good.
91 en eauth blepousa. But Augentius and Sifanus seem to have read eauthn: and this is supported by three Codd.
92 to monon tw onti agaphton kai erasmion.
93 katastolhn. Cf. 1 Cor. xiii. 8-13.
94 Schmidt well remarks that there lies in legwn here not a causal but only a concessive force: and he puts a stop before eikotwj. Oehler has not seen that agaph is governed by the preposition sun in the verb "by the side of love," and quite mistranslates the passage.
97 reduced to quiescence, atremountwn. This is the reading adopted by Krabinger, from four Codd., instead of the vex nihili of the editions, euthremontwn. The contrast must be between "remaining in activity (energeia)," and "becoming idle," and he quotes a passage from Plotinus to show that atremein has exactly this latter sense. Cf. 1 Cor. xiii. 8, 1 Cor. xiii. 10, katarghfhsontai, katarghfhsetai.
98 whereby alone, kaf o dokei monon pwj authj, k. t. l, the reading of Sifanus.
99 the insolence of satiety cannot touch. Krabinger quotes from two of his Codd. a scholium to this effect: "Then this proves to be nonsense what Origen has imagined about the satiety of minds, and their consequent fall and recall, on which he bases his notorious teaching about the pre-existence and restoration of souls that are always revolving in endless motion, determined as he is, like a retailer of evil, to mingle the Grecian myths with the Church's truth." Gregory, more sober in his idealism, certainly does not follow on this point his great Master. The phrase ubristhj koroj is used by Gregory Naz. also in his Poems (p. 32 A), and may have been suggested to both by some poet, now lost. "Familiarity breeds contempt" is the modern equivalent.
100 But suppose, &c. Moller (Gregorii doctrina de hom. natur., p. 99) shows that the following view of Purgatory is not that taught by the Roman Church.
101 by the nails of propension. This metaphor is frequently used by Gregory. Cf. De Virginit. c 5: "How can the soul which is riveted (proshlwfeisa) to the pleasures of the flesh, and busied with merely human longings, turn a disengaged eye upon its kindred intellectual light ?" So De Beatitud. Or. viii. (I. p. 833), &c.
102 purgatorial, kafarsiw. Five of Krabinger's Codd. and the versions of Augentius and Sifanus approve this reading. That of the Editions is akoimhtw. [This last epithet is applied to God's justice () by Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. 90: and to the "worm," and, on the other hand, the Devil, by Cyril Alexand. Act. Ephes., p. 252. Cf. S. S. Math. iii. 12; S. Mark ix. 48.] It is the same with aiwniw before puri just below. The Editions have it; the Codd. and Latin versions have not: Krabinger therefore has not hesitated to expunge it.
103 h tou puroj dapanh These words can have no other meaning to suit the sense. Krabinger's reproduction of Sifanus' Latin, "ignis ille consumens," makes the sentence a tautology.
104 proj olon aiwna. But cf. Plato, Timaeus, 37, 39 D.
105 Macrina's answer must begin here, though the Paris Editt. take no notice of a break. Krabinger on the authority of one of his Codd. has inserted fhsin h didaskaloj after pronohteon.
106 distuinguishes between. The word here is oiden, which is used of "teaching," "telling," after the fashion of the later Greek writers, in making a quotation.
107 of a farthing. No mention is made of this in the Parable (S. Matt. xviii. 23; S. Luke vii. 41). The "uttermost farthing" of S. Matt. v. 26does not apply here.
108 dia thj basanou.. Of course dia cannot go with ofeilhn, though Krabinger translates "per tormenta debita." He has however, with Oehler, pointed the Greek right, so as to take oflhma as in opposition to ofeilhn.
109 a state which owns no master and is self-regulating, &c. He repeats this, De Hom. Opif. c. 4: "For the soul immediately shows its royal and exalted character, far removed from the lowliness of private station, in that it owns no master, and is self-governed, swayed autocratically by its own will,-for to whom else does this belong than to a king?" and c. 16: "Thus, there is in us the principle of all excellence, all virtue, and every higher thing that we conceive: but pre-eminent among all is the fact that we are free from necessity, and not in bondage to any natural force, but have decision in our power as we please: for virtue is a voluntary thing, subject to no dominion:" and Orat. Catech. c. 5: "Was it not, then, most right that that which is in every detail made like the Divine should possess in its nature a self-ruling and independent principle, such as to enable the participation of the good to be the reward of its virtue?" It would be possible to quote similar language from the Neoplatonists (e.g. Plotinus vi. 83-6): but Gregory learnt the whole bearing and meaning of moral liberty from none but Origen, whose so-called "heresies" all flowed from his constant insistence on its reality.
110 This (1 Cor. xv. 28) is a text much handled by the earlier Greek Fathers. Origen especially has made it one of the Scripture foundations upon which he has built up theology. This passage in Gregory should be compared with the following in Origen, c. Cels. iv. 69, where he has been speaking of evil anti its origin, and its disappearance: "God checks the wider spread of evil, and banishes it altogether in a way that is conducive to the good of the whole. Whether or not there is reason to believe that after the banishment of evil it will again appear is a separate question. By later corrections, then. God does put right some defects: for although in the creation of the whole all the work was fair and strong, nevertheless a certain healing process is needed for those whom evil has infected, and for the world itself which it has as it were tainted; and God is never negligent in interfering on certain occasions in a way suitable to a changeful and alterable world," &c. "He is like a husbandman performing different work at different times upon the land, for a final harvest." Also viii. 72: "This subject requires much study and demonstration: still a few things must and shall be said at once tending to show that it is not only possible, but an actual truth, that every being that reasons 'shall agree in one law (quoting Celsus' words) Now while the Stoics hold that when the strongest of the elements has by its nature prevailed over the rest, there shall be the Conflagration, when all things will fall into the fire, we hold that the Word shall some day master the whole of `reasoning nature, 0' and shall transfigure it to its own perfection, when each with pure spontaneity shall will what it wishes, and act what it wills. We hold that there is no analogy to be drawn from the case of bodily diseases, and wounds, where some things are beyond the power of any art of healing. We do not hold that there are any of the results of sin which the universal Word, and the universal God, cannot heal. The healing power of the Word is greater than any of the maladies of the soul, and, according go the will, He does draw it to Himself: and so the aim of things is that evil should be annihilated: whether with no possibility whatever of the soul ever turning to it again, is foreign to the present discussion. It is sufficient now to quote Zephaniah" (iii. 7-13, LXX.).
111 But, when A. Jahn, as quoted by Krabinger asserts that Gregory and Origen derived their denial of the eternity of punishment from a source "merely extraneous," i. e. the Platonists, we must not forget that Plato himself in the Phaedo, 113 F (cf. also Gorgias, 525 C, and Republic, x. 615), expressly teaches the eternity of punishment hereafter, for he uses there not the word aiwn or aiwnioj, but oupote.. They were influenced rather by the late Platonists.
112 Reading sumforaij,, i. e. death especially.