Gregory of Nyssa

In his own words on Philippians

• Philippians 2:6

  He did not say "having a nature like that of God," as would be said of [a man] who was made in the image of God. Rather Paul says "being in the very form of God." All that is the Father's is in the Son.

  ANTIRRHETICUS AGAINST APOLLINARIUS

• Philippians 2:6

  But He Who is "in the form of God" has been formed by no impression different from the Father, seeing that He is "the express image" of the Father's Person, while the "form of God" is surely the same thing as His essence. For as, "being made in the form of a servant," He was formed in the essence of a servant, not taking upon Him the form merely, apart from the essence, but the essence is involved in the sense of "form," so, surely, he who says that He is "in the form of God" signified essence by "form."

  Against Eunomius, Book 4

• Philippians 2:7

  He says of the Son that he has "come to be in the likeness and form of men." If he "came to be" in this likeness, this obviously implies that he was not invested with it from the beginning. Before coming to be in that likeness he was not fashioned according to some corporeal pattern. For no embodied form could become the pattern for what is previously not embodied.

  ANTIRRHETICUS AGAINST APOLLINARIUS

• Philippians 2:7

  These attributes no longer seem to be in either Nature by way of division, but the perishable Nature being, by its commixture with the Divine, made anew in conformity with the Nature that overwhelms it, participates in the power of the Godhead, as if one were to say that mixture makes a drop of vinegar mingled in the deep to be sea, by reason that the natural quality of this liquid does not continue in the infinity of that which overwhelms it. This is our doctrine, which does not, as Eunomius charges against it, preach a plurality of Christs, but the union of the Man with the Divinity, and which calls by the name of "making" the transmutation of the Mortal to the Immortal, of the Servant to the Lord, of Sin to Righteousness, of the Curse to the Blessing, of the Man to Christ.

  AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3.3.67

• Philippians 2:7

  He "emptied himself," as the Scripture says, so that as much as nature could hold it might receive.

  AD THEOPHILUM ADVERSUS APOLLINARISTAS 3

• Philippians 2:7

  The one who says that he "took the form of a slave"—and this form is flesh—is saying that, being himself something else according to his divine form, something else in his nature, he assumed the servile form.

  ANTIRRHETICUS AGAINST APOLLINARIUS

• Philippians 2:7

  The Word is identical with the Word, He who appeared in the flesh with Him Who was with God. But the flesh was not identical with the Godhead, till this too was transformed to the Godhead, so that of necessity one set of attributes befits God the Word, and a different set of attributes befits the "form of the servant."

  AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3.3.62

• Philippians 2:9

  The simplicity of the True Faith assumes God to be that which He is, viz., incapable of being grasped by any term, or any idea, or any other device of our apprehension, remaining beyond the reach not only of the human but of the angelic and of all supramundane intelligence, unthinkable, unutterable, above all expression in words, having but one name that can represent His proper nature, the single name of being "Above every name"; which is granted to the Only-begotten also, because "all that the Father hath is the Son's."

  AGAINST EUNOMIUS 2.587

• Philippians 2:9

  It is obvious that the highest is in need of no exaltation. Only what is lowly can be lifted to the exalted state, becoming now what it was not before. Being united to the Lord the human nature is lifted up to share in his divinity. What is exalted is that which has been lifted up from lowliness.

  ANTIRRHETICUS AGAINST APOLLINARIUS

• Philippians 2:10

  He signifies, therefore, by the phrase, the dread appearing of the Judge at the end of the ages, when He is seen no more in the form of a servant, but seated in glory upon the throne of His kingdom, and worshipped by all the angels that are around Him. Therefore He Who once entered into the world, becoming the first-born "from the dead," and "of His brethren," and "of all creation," does not, when He comes again into the world as He that judges the world in righteousness, as the prophecy saith, cast off the name of the first-begotten, which He once received for our sakes; but as at the name of Jesus, which is above every name, every knee bows, so also the company of all the angels worships Him Who comes in the name of the First-begotten, in their rejoicing over the restoration of men, wherewith, by becoming the first-born among us, He restored us again to the grace which we had at the beginning.

  Against Eunomius, Book 4

• Philippians 2:10

  This name has become superior to every name. His divinity is such that it cannot be adequately manifested merely through verbal signs, no matter how exalted they are. As the exalted One comes to be in the lowly, so the lowly One may receive in return the properties of the exalted.

  ANTIRRHETICUS AGAINST APOLLINARIUS