Endnotes

1. Proverbs 17:6 (Septuagint). The clause is not found in the English version. ↩

2. Reading (with Forbes’ marginal note), ὑποβολῆς. ↩

3. A Bodleian MS. of the Latin version, cited by Forbes, which gives independent titles, has here:⁠—“Of the perfection and beauty of the world and of the harmonious discord of the four elements.” ↩

4. Genesis 2:4 (Septuagint). ↩

5. ὑπερβόλη apparently means “intensity” or “a high degree of force,” not “excess of force,” since, though the force in each is augmented, it does not exceed that in the other, which is augmented also pari passu. ↩

6. Genesis 1:1. ↩

7. Genesis 2:1. ↩

8. The title in the Bodleian Latin MS. is:⁠—“That it was reasonable that man should be created last of the creatures.” ↩

9. The title in the Bodleian Latin MS. is:⁠—“That God created man with great deliberation.” ↩

10. Genesis 1:26, not exactly from the Septuagint. ↩

11. The title in the Bodleian Latin MS. is:⁠—“Of the kingly dignity of the human form.” ↩

12. It is not clear whether the reference here is to painting or to sculpture, of which the product was afterwards painted. The combination of ἀναμάσσονται and συμπαραγράφουσι suggests the latter. ↩

13. In the Bodleian Latin MS. the title is:⁠—“How the human soul is made in the image of God.” ↩

14. λαμπρότης. The old Latin version translates this by purpurissus. ↩

15. St. John 1:1. ↩

16. Cf. 1 Corinthians 2:16; and 2 Corinthians 13:3. ↩

17. 1 John 4:7⁠–⁠8. ↩

18. St. John 13:35 (not verbally). ↩

19. The Bodleian Latin MS. gives:⁠—“That God has not human limbs, and that the image of the Father and of the Son is one, against the Eunomians.” ↩

20. Psalm 94:9. ↩

21. Genesis 1:26. ↩

22. The Bodleian Latin MS. gives:⁠—“Why man was not created with horns and other defences like certain other animals.”

    The argument of this and the following chapter seems to be derived to a great extent from Origen (Contra Celsum, IV. 75 et sqq.). ↩

23. The Latin version divides the chapters somewhat differently at this point. The Bodleian MS. gives this section the title, “Of the dignity of the human form, and why man was created after the other creatures.” ↩

24. “Vegetative”:⁠—reading (with several MSS. of both classes of those cited by Forbes) φυτικὴ for φυσικὴ (the reading which Forbes follows in his text). A similar reading has been adopted in some later passages, where the MSS. show similar variations. It seems not unlikely that the less common φυτικὸς should have been altered by copyists to φυσικός. But Gregory seems in this treatise to use the word φύσις for the corporeal nature: and he may have employed the adjectival form in a corresponding sense. ↩

25. Earlier, i.e. earlier than the animal life, or “sensitive” soul. ↩

26. The reference is really to 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Apparently all Forbes’ MSS. read πρὸς τοὺς Ἐφεσίους: but the Latin version of Dionysius Exiguus corrects the error, giving the quotation at greater length. ↩

27. Cf. St. Mark 12:30. ↩

28. ψυχικὴν: “psychic” or “animal:”⁠—the Authorised Version translates the word by “natural.” ↩

29. Cf. 1 Corinthians 3:3. ↩

30. Cf. 1 Corinthians 2:14⁠–⁠15. ↩

31. The Latin versions make ch. IX begin at this point. The Bodleian MS. gives as its title:⁠—“That the form of the human body agrees with the rationality of the mind.” ↩

32. It is not absolutely clear whether λόγος in the following passage means speech or reason⁠—and whether λογικὸς means “capable of speech,” or “rational.” But as λογικὸς in the previous paragraph clearly has the force of “rational,” it would seem too abrupt a transition to make it mean “capable of speech” in the first line of this paragraph, and this may determine the meaning of λόγος. ↩

33. Reading τῶν for τὸν, with some of Forbes’ MSS. ↩

34. This and part of the next chapter, according to the division of the Greek, are included in the ninth chapter of the Latin Version. ↩

35. Here the Latin version begins chapter X. The title in the Bodleian MS. is:⁠—“Of the five bodily senses.” ↩

36. That is, of the mind, in connection with reason. ↩

37. Cf. Ecclesiastes 1:8. The quotation is not from the Septuagint: it is perhaps not intended to be verbal. ↩

38. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version gives as the title:⁠—“The definition of the human mind.” ↩

39. Romans 11:34. ↩

40. Genesis 1:26. ↩

41. In the Latin version chap. XII includes only the first eight paragraphs, to which the Bodleian MS. gives the title:⁠—“That the principle of man does not all reside in the brain, but in the whole body.” ↩

42. This view of the position of the heart is perhaps shared by Gregory himself: see here. ↩

43. διὰ τῶν κατὰ τὴν βάσιν πόρων. The meaning of this is obscure. If we might read τῶν κατὰ τὴν ὀψιν πόρων, we should have a parallel to τοῦ κατὰ τὸ στόμα πόρου below. But there seems to be no variation in the MSS. ↩

44. Psalm 7:10. ↩

45. The inflammation causing swelling in the neighbouring parts, and so leaving no room for the mind. ↩

46. The Latin version (as well as several of the Greek MSS.) makes this the beginning of chap. XIII. The Bodleian MS. gives as the title:⁠—“That as the mind is governed by God, so is the material life of the body by the mind.” ↩

47. καλὸν and τὸ καλὸν seem in the following passage to be used of goodness, alike moral and aesthetic: once or twice καλὸν seems to be used as equivalent to ἀγαθὸν or as opposed to κακὸν, in a sense capable of being rendered simply by “good”; it also seems to carry with it in other phrases the distinct idea of aesthetic goodness, or “beauty,” and the use of κάλλος and καλλωπίζειν, in other phrases still, makes it necessary to preserve this idea in translation. The phrases “beautiful and good,” or “beauty and goodness,” have therefore been here adopted to express the single adjective καλὸν. ↩

48. Omitting τοῦ, which Forbes inserts before κατακοσμεῖσθαι: it appears to be found in all the MSS., but its insertion reduces the grammar of the passage to hopeless confusion. Perhaps the true reading is τοῦ πρωτοτύπου καλλιστοῦ. ↩

49. Reading ᾧ, with several of Forbes’ MSS., for the ἥ of the Paris ed., and the ὅ of Forbes’ text. ↩

50. The Latin version (and with it several of the Greek MSS.) makes this the fourteenth chapter. The Bodleian MS. gives as its title:⁠—“That our body is always in motion.” ↩

51. Life is represented as a succession of opposite states (τῶν ἐναντίων διαδοχὴ), which yet recur again and again in the same sequence (διὰ τῶν ὁμοίων). This is illustrated in the following section. ↩

52. Reading μηχανῆς with the earlier editions and (apparently) a large number of Forbes’ MSS. in place of μηχανικῆς. But μολυβδίνης may be for μολυβδαίνης. ↩

53. Reading δείκνυσιν, as Forbes does (apparently from all the MSS. and agreeing with the earlier editt.). The Latin translation points to the reading δείκνυται. ↩

54. Reading ἐπιδιστάζουσα with several of Forbes’ MSS. ↩

55. “The holy men,” Joseph and Daniel, who were enabled, by the authority they obtained through their interpretation of dreams, to benefit the state. ↩

56. This is chapter XV in the Latin version and some Greek MSS. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin gives the title:⁠—“That the mind is sometimes in servitude to the body, and of its three differences, vital, spiritual, and rational.” ↩

57. Otherwise chap. XVI. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version gives the title:⁠—“That the vital energy of the irrational creatures is not truly but equivocally called ‘soul,’ and of the unspeakable communion of body and soul.” ↩

58. τῇ τῆς ψυχῆς κλήσει συγκεκριμένη. The meaning is apparently something like that given; but if we might read συγκεχρημένη the sense of the passage would be much plainer. ↩

59. Reading φυτικής for φυσικῆς as before (see note 24). ↩

60. Cf. Genesis 9:3. The quotation, except the last few words, is not verbally from the Septuagint. ↩

61. It does not seem of much consequence whether we read περιλαμβάνεται with Forbes and the MSS., and treat it as of the middle voice, or περιλαμβάνει τι with the Paris Editt. The reading περιλαμβάνεται, taken passively, obscures the sense of the passage. ↩

62. Otherwise chap. XVII. The title in the Bodleian MS. of the Latin Version is:⁠—“That the excellence of man does not consist in the fact that, according to philosophers, he is made after the image of the world, but in the fact that he is made in the image of God, and how he is made in the image of God.” ↩

63. Genesis 1:26. ↩

64. Genesis 1:27. ↩

65. Genesis 1:27. ↩

66. Cf. Galatians 3:28. ↩

67. Genesis 1:27. ↩

68. Genesis 1:27. ↩

69. Genesis 1:27. ↩

70. Cf. St. Matthew 22:20⁠–⁠21. ↩

71. Susanna 42. ↩

72. The punctuation followed by Forbes here does not seem to give a good sense, and also places St. Gregory in the position of formally stating that one passage of Genesis contradicts another. By substituting an interrogation after ἡ ἱστορία φησίν, the sense given is this:⁠—we know from a later statement in Genesis that the name Adam was given “in the day that they were created” (Genesis 5:2), but here the name given is general, not particular. There must be a reason for this, and the reason is, that the race of man, and not the individual, is that spoken of as “created in the image of God.” With this view that all humanity is included in the first creation may be compared a passage near the end of the De Anima, where the first man is compared to a full ear of corn, afterwards “divided into a multitude of bare grain.” ↩

73. With this passage, again, may be compared the teaching of the De Anima on the subject of the Resurrection. ↩

74. The explanation of the reason, however, is deferred; see here. ↩

75. Otherwise Chap. XVIII. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version has the title:⁠—“Against those who say that sin was a useful introduction for the propagation of the human race; and that by sin it deserved animal generation.” ↩

76. St. Luke 20:35⁠–⁠36. ↩

77. Psalm 8:6. ↩

78. Psalm 49:13 (Septuagint). ↩

79. Otherwise Chap. XIX. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version has the title:⁠—“That our other passions also are common to us and to the irrational animals, and that by the restraint of them we are said to be like to God.” ↩

80. Reading with Forbes διαγλύφους. The reading διγλύφους of the earlier editt. gives a better sense, but is not supported by any of Forbes’ MSS. ↩

81. Colossians 3:2. ↩

82. Romans 14:17. ↩

83. St. Matthew 4:4. ↩

84. Otherwise Chap. XX. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version has the title:⁠—“How the food ought to be understood with which man was fed in Paradise and from which he was prohibited.” ↩

85. Proverbs 9:5. ↩

86. Cf. Isaiah 12:3. ↩

87. Amos 8:11. ↩

88. Genesis 2:16. ↩

89. Psalm 37:4. ↩

90. Proverbs 3:18. ↩

91. Otherwise Chap. XXI. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version gives as the title:⁠—“Why Scripture calls the tree, ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.’ ” ↩

92. The reference is to Genesis 2:9 (in Septuagint), where the tree is called, τὸ ξύλον τοῦ εἰδέναι γνωστὸν καλοῦ καὶ πονηροῦ. St. Gregory proceeds to ascertain the exact meaning of the word γνωστὸν in the text; the eating is the “knowing,” but what is “knowing”? He answers, “desiring.” ↩

93. Cf. Hebrews 5:14. ↩

94. 1 Thessalonians 5:21. ↩

95. Cf. 1 Corinthians 2:15. ↩

96. 2 Timothy 2:19. ↩

97. Exodus 33:12 (Septuagint). ↩

98. St. Matthew 7:23. ↩

99. 1 Timothy 6:10. ↩

100. Genesis 3:5⁠–⁠6 (Septuagint). ↩

101. Psalm 144:4 (Septuagint). ↩

102. Otherwise Chap. XXII. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version gives as the title:⁠—“That the Divine counsel is immutable.” ↩

103. Otherwise Chap. XXIII. The title in the Bodleian MS. of the Latin version is:⁠—“That when the generation of man is finished, time also will come to an end.” Some MSS. of the Latin version make the first few words part of the preceding chapter. ↩

104. Genesis 1:26⁠–⁠27. ↩

105. This realism is expressed even more strongly in the De Anima et Resurrectione. ↩

106. 1 Corinthians 15:47. ↩

107. Psalm 95:4. ↩

108. Cf. Susanna 42. ↩

109. Genesis 1:28. ↩

110. 1 Corinthians 15:51⁠–⁠52. ↩

111. 1 Thessalonians 4:17. ↩

112. Hebrews 11:40. ↩

113. Hebrews 11:13. ↩

114. Hebrews 11:11. ↩

115. Psalm 84:3. ↩

116. Psalm 84:11 (Septuagint). ↩

117. Psalm 84:10. ↩

118. Psalm 84:12. ↩

119. Acts 1:7. ↩

120. Otherwise Chap. XXIV. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version has a title corresponding to that of the following chapter in the other MSS.:⁠—“Against those who say that matter is coeternal with God.” ↩

121. Cf. Hebrews 11:3. The MSS. give somewhat the same variations which are observable in the N.T. Codices. The reading which Forbes adopts coincides with the Textus Receptus. ↩

122. Reading, with some of Forbes’ MSS., ἄποσος, which seems on the whole the better reading so far as sense is concerned. ἄποιος may be the result of a sense of the awkwardness of employing both ἄποσος and ἀμεγέθης: but further on in the section we find ἄποσος where the MSS. seem to agree. Further, the connecting particles seem to show a closer connection of sense between ἀποσὸς and ἀμεγέθης than between ἀμεγέθης and ἀσύνθετος. ↩

123. Otherwise Chap. XXV. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version has the title:⁠—“That all matter exists in certain quantities.” ↩

124. With this passage may be compared the idealistic doctrine of the De Anima et Resurrectione. ↩

125. Otherwise Chap. XXVI. The title in the Bodleian MS. of the Latin version is:⁠—“Of faith in the resurrection, and of the three dead persons whom the Lord Jesus raised.” ↩

126. Cf. St. Mark 13:1. ↩

127. Cf. St. Luke 23:27⁠–⁠29. ↩

128. St. Luke 4:39. ↩

129. St. John 4:49. ↩

130. Cf. St. Luke 7:13⁠–⁠15. ↩

131. Omitting, as several of Forbes’ MSS. do, and as the MS. employed by Dionysius seems to have done, the words ἀποδίδοναι πάλιν τῷ ζῆν. If these words are retained, βιαζομένης must be taken passively, and the πρᾶγμα φευκτόν understood not of the condition of the corpse, but of the resurrection of Lazarus. ↩

132. 1 Thessalonians 4:16. ↩

133. St. Luke 4:23. ↩

134. Cf. St. John 20:27. ↩

135. 1 Corinthians 15:12. ↩

136. Colossians 2:8. ↩

137. Psalm 104:29⁠–⁠30 (Septuagint). Cf. also with what follows vv. 31⁠–⁠35. ↩

138. Otherwise Chap. XXVII. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version has the title:⁠—“That however much the human body may have been consumed, the Divine power can easily bring it together.” ↩

139. ἀναλυσέως, in St. Gregory, seems to be frequently used in the sense of “return.” Cf. Philippians 1:23, εἰς τὸ ἀναλῦσαι, καὶ σὺν Χριστῳ εἶναι, where Tertullian translates “cupio recipi,” (De Patientia). ↩

140. Otherwise Chap. XXVIII. The title in the Bodleian MS. of the Latin version is:⁠—“That although bodies rise together they will yet receive their own souls.” ↩

141. Cf. St. Luke 16:24⁠–⁠31. ↩

142. The word, that is of the Prophet, or of the Saviour, as in the cases cited. ↩

143. The “form” seems to be regarded as a seal, which, while taking its pattern from the combination of elements, yet marks those elements which have been grouped together under it; and which at the same time leaves an impression of itself upon the soul. The soul is thus enabled to recognize the elemental particles which make up that body which belonged to it, by the τύπος imprinted on them as well as on itself. ↩

144. Otherwise Chap. XXIX. The title in the Bodleian MS. of the Latin version is:⁠—“Of different views of the origin of the soul.” ↩

145. Cf. Genesis 2:7. ↩

146. St. Matthew 6:25. ↩

147. That is, the life of the spirit before its incorporation. ↩

148. In the discourse that is contained in the next chapter. The point has been mentioned, but the conclusions were not drawn from it in the opening section of this chapter. ↩

149. Otherwise Chap. XXX. But in the Latin translation of Dionysius, the new chapter does not begin till the end of the first sentence of the Greek text. As Forbes remarks, either place is awkward: a better beginning would be found here in the preceding chapter. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version gives as the title:⁠—“That God equally made the soul and the body of man.” ↩

150. Susanna 42. ↩

151. The reading αὐτῆς μεθισταμένης, “itself being transformed,” seems to give a better sense, but the weight of MS. authority seems to be against it. ↩

152. Altering Forbes’ punctuation. ↩

153. Deuteronomy 4:23. ↩

154. Reading φυτικὸν for φυσικόν, see note 24. ↩

155. Otherwise Chap. XXXI. The Bodleian MS. of the Latin version gives the title:⁠—“Of the threefold nature of the body.” ↩

156. Cf. St. John 10:5. ↩

157. Reading (with Forbes’ marginal suggestion) ἐκπνοήν. ↩

158. Or perhaps “fresher,” the heart seeking as it were for fresher and cooler air, and the breath being thus accelerated in the effort to obtain it. ↩

159. 1 Corinthians 13:11. ↩

160. Colossians 3:9⁠–⁠10. ↩