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Wednesday, July 11, 2012

St. Gregory of Nyssa The Fall of Man and the Image of God.



The Fall of Man and the Image of God.

After man's fall it became difficult to discern his original features and to recognize in him the image of God. "Where is the soul's likeness to God? Where is that which is not subject to corporeal suffering? Where is the eternal life? Man is mortal, passionate, and ephemeral, and his soul and body are inclined to passions of every kind." Similarity to God can only be seen in attributes which are eternal. In these attributes the original Divine likeness again shines forth so that we can recognize the original law of human life, the law of hierarchy and proportion. Everything should be subordinate to the soul and the intellect and express their dignity and perfection. This is the meaning of impassivity, απαθεια. That which is impassive is that which is in opposition to the passions. The true significance of the state of passion is that in it the hierarchy is upset and overturned. That which is superior in man becomes subordinate to that which is lowest in him and "the baseness of matter is transmitted to the intellect itself." Impassivity entails incorruptibility, αφθαρσια. When the hierarchy of human nature is maintained, the life-giving rays of the Divinity are communicated to man's entire being through his intellect. Before the fall this protected man from mutability and ephemerality and gave him endurance and stability, immortality and unending life.

In Gregory's understanding God's command to man at creation to rule over the earth signifies not only that man is to have power over nature but also that he is to reign over irrational beings. Reason is to control irrationality as the culmination of the hierarchic and harmonious order of the world as it was originally created. Man is called to be lord over nature and for this reason he must be independent of it. This independence and freedom from the instabilities of the cycles of nature will be realized in paradise when man will experience spiritual bliss through participation in eternal life. Gregory does not describe paradise with allegory or fables. He does not reject the world but separates man from it and liberates him. Man has been summoned not to live in the world but to live above it.

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