Gregory of Nyssa

In his own words on Romans

• Romans 3:25

  Christ, being an "expiation by his blood," teaches each one thinking of this to become himself a propitiation, sanctifying his soul by the mortification of his members.

  ON PERFECTION

• Romans 8:7

  As long as the flesh lives … it is not possible for the pleasing and perfect will of God to be done expeditiously in the life of the believer.

  ON PERFECTION

• Romans 8:29

  For when the Arians say that the "only begotten" God, the Creator of all, … is the work and creation and product of God and therefore interpret the phrase "firstborn of every creature" to mean that he is the brother of every creature, taking precedence because of the rights of primogeniture, as Reuben did over his brothers, and that he is placed first not because of his nature but because of the rights of the eldest, this must be said to them first of all—it is not possible for the same person to be the only begotten and the firstborn as well.

  ON PERFECTION

• Romans 11:33

  Paul examined … the unclear and hidden aspects of the divine mysteries and through suggestive phrases revealed the illuminations which came to him from God concerning the understanding of what is incomprehensible and unsearchable.

  ON PERFECTION

• Romans 11:36

  What person who believes that he lives "from him and through him and to him" will dare to make the One who encompasses in himself the life of each of us a witness of a life which does not reflect him?

  ON PERFECTION

• Romans 12:1

  How can you obey Paul when he exhorts you "to present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God," when you are "conformed to this world," and not transformed by the renewing of your mind, when you are not "walking" in this "newness of life," but still pursuing the routine of "the old man"? How can you be a priest unto God, anointed though you are for this very office, to offer a gift to God; a gift in no way another's, no counterfeited gift from sources outside yourself, but a gift that is really your own, namely, "the inner man," who must be perfect and blameless, as it is required of a lamb to be without spot or blemish? How can you offer this to God, when you do not listen to the law forbidding the unclean to offer sacrifices?

  ON VIRGINITY 23

• Romans 12:2

  The perfect will of God is that the soul be changed by reverence, having been brought to the full flower of its beauty by the grace of the Spirit, which attends to the sufferings of the person who undergoes the change.

  ON THE CHRISTIAN MODE OF LIFE

• Romans 14:23

  Every word or deed or thought which does not look to Christ looks completely to the adversary of Christ. For it is not possible for what is outside of light or life not to be completely in darkness or death.… The person outside of Christ rejects him by what he thinks, does or says.

  ON PERFECTION