§ 165. GREGORY OF NYSSA. 903
first, from fear of Sabellianism, recoiled from th^i strong dootrine of tlie Komoousia j but the persecution of the Ariana di'ove him to a decided confession. Of importance in the East is the Liturgy ascribed to him, which, with that of St. Chrysostom, is still in use, but has undoubtedly reached its present form by degrees. We have also from St. Basil nine Homiliea on tlie history of the Creation, which are full of allegorical fancies, but enjoyed the highest esteem in the ancient church, and were extensively used by Ambrose and somewhat by Augustine, in similar works ; * Homilies on the Psalms ; Homilies on various subjects ; several ascetic and moral treatises ; ^ and three hundred and sixty-five Epistles,' which furnish much Information concerning his life and times.
§ 165. Gregory of Nyssa.
r. S.' Gbegoeius Nyssenus : Opera omnia, quas reperiri potuerunt, Gr. et Lat., nunc prirauni e mss. codd. edita, stud. Front. DucoBi (Fronto ..e Due, a learned Jesuit). Paris, 1615, 2 vols. fol. To be added to this. Appendix Gregorii ex ed. Jac.Gretscri, Par. 1618, fol.; and the Autirrhetoricus adv. Apollinar., first edited by L. Al. Zacagni, Collectanea monum. vet. eccl. Gra^c. et Lat. Rom. 1698, and in Galli •■ lUf Bibliotheca, torn. vi. Later editions of the Opera by JEg. Morel., 1 ar. 1638, 3 vols. fol. (" moins belle que celle de 1615, mais plus ample e plus commode . . . pen correcte," according to Brunet) ; by Migne., Petit-Montrouge (Par.), 1858, 3 vols. ; and by Franc. Oelder^ Halis Saxonum, 1865 sqq. (Tom. i. continens libros dogmaticos, but only in the Greek original.) Oehler has also commenced an edition of select treatises of Gregory of Nyssa in the original with a German version. The Benedictines of St. Maur had prepared the critical apparatus for an edition of Gregory, but it was scattered during the French Eevolution. Angelo Mai, in the Nov. Patrum Biblioth. torn. iv. Pars i. pp. 1-53 (Rom. 1847), has edited a few writings of Gregory unknown before, viz., a sermon Adversus Arium et Sabelliuni, a sermon De
' "E.^a-r]jxfpov, or Ilomilice ix. in Hexaemeron. Opera, i. pp. 1-125, ed. Garniel (new ed.). An extended analysis of these sermons is given by Schrockh, xiii. pp 168-181.
^ Moralia, or short ethical rules, Coastitutiones monasticae, &c., in torn. ii.
' Including some spurious, some doubtful, and some from other persons. Tom, ni. pp. 97-681. The numbering of Garniar differs from th we of former editors.
904 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Spiritu Sancto adv. Macedonianos, and a fragment Do procession* Spiritus S. a Filio (doubtful). IL Lives in the Acta Sanctoecm, and in Butlee, sub Mart. 9. Tillemont: M6m. torn. ix. p. 561 sqq. Schhockh: Part xiv. pp. 1-147 Jul. Kui'p: Gregors des Blscbofs von Nyssa Leben und Meinnngeii. Leipz. 1834 (unsatisfactory). W. Mollee: Gregorii Nyss. doctriua da hominis natura, etc. Halis, 1854, and article in Eerzog^s Encykl. vol. v. p. 354 sqq.
Geegoky of Nyssa was a younger brother of Basil, and the third son of his parents. Of his honorable descent he made no account. Blood, wealth, and splendor, says he, we should leave to the friends of the world ; tlie Christian's lineage is his affinity with the divine, his fatherland is virtue, his freedom is the sonsliip of God. He was wealily and timid, and born not so much for practical life, as for study and speculation. He formed his mind chiefly npon the writings of Origen, and under the direction of his brother, whom he calls his father and preceptor. Further than this his early life is unknown.
After spending a short time as a rhetorician he broke away from the world, retired into solitude in Pontus, and became enamored of the ascetic life.
Quite in the spirit of the then widely-spread tendency towards the monastic life, lie, though himself married, commends virginity in a special work, as a liigher grade of perfection, and depicts ;he happiness of one who is raised above the incumbrances and snares of marriage, and thus, as he thinks, restored to the original state of man in Paradise.' " From all the evils of marriage," he says, " virginity is free ; it has no lost children, no lost husband to bemoan ; it is always with its Bridegroom, and delights in its devout exercises, and, when death comes, it is not separated from him, but united Avith him forever." The essence of spiritual virginity, however, in
' That he was married appears from his own concession, De virginitate, c. 3, where by Theosebia ho means his wife (not, as some carher Konian scliolars, and Bupp, 1. 0. p. 25, suppose, his sister), and from Gregory Nazianzen's letter of ecudolcnce, Ep. 95. He laments that his eulogy of -napbtvla can uo longer bnng him the desired fruit. Theosebia seems to have lived till 384. Gregory Nazianzcn, in his short eulogy of her, says that she rivalled her brothers-in-law (Basil and I'et^r) who were in the priesthood.