To the Greeks, on Common Notions

Ad Graecos ex communibus notionibus · Πρὸς Ἕλληνας ἐκ τῶν κοινῶν ἐννοιῶν

1Gregory argues that "God" names the one divine essence, not the persons, so that while we say "Father and Son and Holy Spirit" we never say "God and God and God," and the three are one God as they are one essence.
2We say "three men" only by a loose habit caused by human births, deaths, and changing numbers and by each man's coming from a different parent; none of this applies to the Trinity, whose persons never increase or decrease and come from the one person of the Father, so the three are one God.
3Scripture calls God one and never three, while it speaks of "three men" by condescension to human habit, as it speaks of God's eyes and ears; Gregory then states the opponents' argument that "God differs from God only as such a God" and begins to expose it as a sophism by distinguishing essence from hypostasis.
4"Such" distinguishes either essences (man from horse) or hypostases (Paul from Peter by baldness, height, sonship); since "man" names the common essence, "such a man" and hence "two" or "three men" are not proper speech, and much less may one say "such a God and such"; the Maker of all is one God in three persons or hypostases.

About this work

Author: Gregory of Nyssa
Attribution: authentic · Accepted as Gregory's.
Standing: Honoured by the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. Honoured as a saint or in a church calendar by: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant.
Date: ca. 380–394 (approximate) · Not securely dated.
Written at: Cappadocia (disputed)
Language: Greek
Genre: treatise
Reference system: Migne prints no chapter numbers: parts are consecutive stretches of about 450 words, broken at the end of a sentence, numbered in order (provisional; replace by a standard division if one is adopted).
SBL abbreviation: Graec.Not yet checked
Clavis: CPG (number not yet checked)
Text from: J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca 45 (Paris: Migne, 1863), cols. 175–186 (Printed edition in the public domain; Greek text from the Internet Archive OCR of a library scan (Greek lines only; Migne's Latin translation not used))
Critical editions: Friedrich Müller, ed., Gregorii Nysseni Opera Dogmatica Minora 1, Gregorii Nysseni Opera 3.1 (Leiden: Brill, 1958) (cited only; not reproduced) (cited, not reproduced)