Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series 2, Volume 5 - Enhanced Version

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series #5

by Philip Schaff

With over twenty volumes, the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers is a momentous achievement. Originally gathered by Philip Schaff, the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers is a collection of writings by classical and medieval Christian theologians. The purpose of such a collection is to make their writings readily available. The entire work is divided into two series, each with fourteen volumes. The second series focuses on a variety of important Church Fathers, ranging from the fourth century to the eighth century. This volume contains selected treatises of St. Gregory of Nyssa. A fourth century bishop, St. Gregory wrote on theology, philosophy, ethics, oration, and asceticism. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers are comprehensive in scope, and provide keen translations of instructive and illuminating texts from some of the great theologians of the Christian church. These spiritually enlightening texts have aided Christians for over a thousand years, and remain instructive and fruitful even today!

Tim Perrine
CCEL Staff Writer

This edition of the Early Church Fathers series has been optimized for use on the Kindle with a hierarchical Table of Contents that minimizes the number of page turns required to locate a section of the volume. This edition is among the most accurate electronic editions available, but Hebrew characters do not display on the Kindle.

Genres: Theology, Church History, Christianity, Reference

1909 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Philip Schaff was educated at the gymnasium of Stuttgart, and at the universities of Tübingen, Halle and Berlin, where he was successively influenced by Baur and Schmid, by Tholuck and Julius Müller, by David Strauss and, above all, Neander. At Berlin, in 1841, he took the degree of B.D., and passed examinations for a professorship. He then traveled through Italy and Sicily as tutor to Baron Krischer. In 1842 he was Privatdozent in the University of Berlin, where he lectured on exegesis and church history. In 1843 he was called to become professor of church history and Biblical literature in the German Reformed Theological Seminary of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, then the only seminary of that church in America.
On his journey he stayed in England and met Edward Pusey and other Tractarians. His inaugural address on The Principle of Protestantism, delivered in German at Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1844, and published in German with an English version by John Williamson Nevin was a pioneer work in English in the field of symbolics (that is, the authoritative ecclesiastical formulations of religious doctrines in creeds or confessions). This address and the "Mercersburg Theology" which he taught seemed too pro-Catholic to some, and he was charged with heresy. But, at the synod at York in 1845, he was unanimously acquitted.
Schaff's broad views strongly influenced the German Reformed Church, through his teaching at Mercersburg, through his championship of English in German Reformed churches and schools in America, through his hymnal (1859), through his labours as chairman of the committee which prepared a new liturgy, and by his edition (1863) of the Heidelberg Catechism. His History of the Apostolic Church (in German, 1851; in English, 1853) and his History of the Christian Church (7 vols., 1858-1890), opened a new period in American study of ecclesiastical history.
In 1854, he visited Europe, representing the American German churches at the ecclesiastical diet at Frankfort and at the Swiss pastoral conference at Basel. He lectured in Germany on America, and received the degree of D.D. from Berlin.
In consequence of the ravages of the American Civil War the theological seminary at Mercersburg was closed for a while and so in 1863 Dr. Schaff became secretary of the Sabbath Committee (which fought the “continental Sunday”) in New York City, and held the position till 1870. In 1865 he founded the first German Sunday School in Stuttgart. In 1862-1867 he lectured on church history at Andover.

Schaff was a member of the Leipzig Historical Society, the Netherland Historical Society, and other historical and literary societies in Europe and America. He was one of the founders, and honorary secretary, of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance, and was sent to Europe in 1869, 1872, and 1873 to arrange for the general conference of the Alliance, which, after two postponements on account of the Franco-Prussian War, was held in New York in October 1873. Schaff was also, in 1871, one of the Alliance delegates to the emperor of Russia to plead for the religious liberty of his subjects in the Baltic provinces.

He became a professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York City in 1870 holding first the chair of theological encyclopedia and Christian symbolism till 1873, of Hebrew and the cognate languages till 1874, of sacred literature till 1887, and finally of church history, till his death. He also served as president of the committee that translated the American Standard Version of the Bible, though he died before it was published in 1901.
His History of the Christian Church resembled Neander's work, though less biographical, and was pictorial rather than philosophical. He also wrote biographies, catechisms and hymnals for children, manuals of religious verse, lectures and essays on Dante, etc. He translated Johann Jakob Herzog's Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche into English.

Reviews

[Jacob Aitken]

As is usually the case with the Schaff editions of the Church Fathers, the individual volumes are marked both by triumph and failure (the failure always on the part of the editors). First, a few critical comments on the arrangement of the material. Then, an examination of Gregory's theology. Gregory's response to the Second Book of Eunomius does not have subsections, making it difficult to follow and impossible to cross-reference. Yet, many of the leading monographs point to key arguments in this book by subsection, which the editors left out. The same applies to On the Soul and the Resurrection. Thirdly, the editors have frequent footnotes to material and sidebars that have little to do with the current discussion. Concentrating on reading small font, double-columned pages is difficult enough without distractions. .



The Content of Gregory's Theology

Gregory's theology can be seen as a division between Uncreated reality and created reality. While capable of standing alone, it is best seen as a critique of Eunomius' heresy. The main point of contention is Eunomius maintains that the Son and the Holy Spirit are part of created reality (p. 56; all page references are to the specific pages in the Schaff edition). Eunomius would also reduce the divine essence to "Ungenerateness." He does this because he knows the Son is not Ungenerate; therefore, the Son is not of the essence of the Father and is reduced to created reality.



Gregory is at pains to respond accordingly: we cannot know the divine essence (103; 257). If we cannot know the divine essence, then Eunomius cannot define and reduce the divine essence to "Ungenerateness." Rather, we know God by his operations/energies (221--God is above every name; God's names are not interchangeable with his essence, contra later Augustinians; God's names are rather identified with his energies. Cf David Bradshaw's response to David Bentley Hart in Orthodox Readings of Augustine; see p. 265 for a very clear distinction between essence and energies; see page 328--we can only know the divine nature by the operations).



How successful was St Gregory in refuting Eunomius? In terms of clarity he wasn't very successful. St Basil was more clear and St Gregory Nazianzus had more rhetorical flair.



To be fair, there is a section early in the first response to Eunomius where Gregory identifies God with the Good.

[David Withun · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Alex]

Only read "On Virginity".

Gregory is forced in one part to acknowledge that marriage is not evil (i.e. it is God's institution). However, he so bewails the evils attending the married life and exalts the single-ascetic life, that he renders marriage and child-rearing as doomed to worldliness.

On a positive note, I do appreciate Gregory's illustrations and analogies. I find them useful for other moral lessons.

[Daniel Klawitter]

The best parts of this collection are not the extended treaties Against Eunomius, which take up the vast majority of the book. Which isn't to say there are no good insults used against Gregory's primary theological opponent, as in the following: "By mixing his heretical opinions with sound doctrines, he makes uneatable even that which is in itself nutritious, by the gravel which he has mingled with it." Pretty good snide aside by the orthodox Father.

[Jeni Enjaian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I come once again to those books where I am not nearly qualified to review nor spend enough time in detailed reading to review. These free PDFs available online and are excellent resources for those interested in the church fathers and definitely an excellent resource for those studying anything to do with the period. These few words will have to suffice.

[CJ Bowen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heroic work on the Trinity, some advances over Origen, some excellent typological work, and some astonishingly farcical allegorizing. The range of letters at the end was fascinating, but the final letter seemed petty, and the wrong way to end.

[Wyatt Houtz · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my review here:
http://houtz.tv/2013/09/11/saint-gregory-of-nyssa/