St Gregory of Nyssa’s rather peculiar notion of matter has been the focus of several scholarly contributions over the last decades. Why is the notion peculiar? It is peculiar because Gregory seems to deny the very existence of matter. In order to understand precisely what is meant, the term matter needs some clarification. In the passages where he comments on this notion, it seems that matter and body are treated as if the same. The matter or body he denies the existence of, is an extra-mentally existing substrate or subject for properties. What we call matter or body is simply a collection or bundle of qualities the basic reality of which is intelligible. The qualities that constitute matter or body are “in themselves thoughts and bare concepts” (ἔννοιαί εἰσι ψιλαὶ καὶ νοήματα).[1] Each of the qualities is a logos but “their concurrence (συνδρομὴ) and union with each other turns into a body.”[2] How are we to understand this doctrine? Sorabji has argued that Gregory’s notion of matter is a version of idealism and compares his doctrine with Berkeley’s position that esse est percipi.[3] I disagree with this position and shall argue that Gregory is a kind of realist.

We need first to define the two terms idealism and realism. Both terms are difficult to define precisely. For our present purposes, we can say that idealism is the doctrine that everything is in some sense mental or spiritual. There are no bodily or material beings as such; both are ideas dependent on some mind. Realism means here that things exist independently of being perceived by a mind. The world would still be there if some mind did not exist.

What Gregory says

Gregory presents his notion of matter or body in three texts. These are found in the In hexaemeron (GNO iv.i, 15-16), De anima et resurrectione (GNO iii.iii, 93-4), and De hominis opificio (PG 44: 212d-213b). In In hexaemeron he says[4]:

This being so, no one should still be concerned by the question of matter, and how and whence it arose. You hear people saying things like this: if God is matterless, where does matter come from (εἰ ἄϋλός ἐστιν ὁ θεός, πόθεν ἡ ὕλη)? How can quantity come from non-quantity, the visible from the invisible, something with limited bulk and size from what lacks magnitude and limits? And so also for the other characteristics seen in matter: how or whence were they produced by one who had nothing of the kind in his own nature? … By his wise and powerful will, being capable of everything, he established for the creation of all the things through which matter is constituted (δι᾽ ὧν ἡ ὕλη συνίσταται): light, heavy, dense, rare, soft, resistant, fluid, dry, cold, hot, colour, shape, outline, extension. All of these are in themselves (καθ’ ἑαυτὰ) thoughts and bare concepts (ἔννοιαί εἰσι ψιλαὶ καὶ νοήματα); none is matter on its own. But when they run together, they turn into matter (ἀλλὰ συνδραμόντα πρὸς ἄλληλα ὕλη γίνεται).[5]

The text from De anima et resurrectione says that

none of the things we think of as connected with body is on its own a body — not shape, not colour, not weight, not extension, not size, nor any other of the things we think of as qualities (ποιότητι). Each of these is a logos, but their concurrence (συνδρομὴ) and union with each other turns into a body. So since these qualities which fill out the body are grasped by the intellect and not by sense perception, and the divine is intelligent, what trouble is it for a thinking agent to produce intelligible things (τὰ νοητὰ) whose concurrence with each other generates corporeal nature for us?

In De hominis opificio we find that matter arises from the intelligible and immaterial (ἐκ τοῦ νοητοῦ τε καὶ ἀΰλου). It is composed of qualities (ἐκ ποιοτήτων τινῶν συνεστῶσαν) and if these were removed matter could not be grasped in definition. A quality has nothing in common with any other such quality and qua grasped by the intellect each quality is something intelligible:

Now if the conception of these distinctive properties is intelligible (εἰ νοητὴ τῶν ἰδιωμάτων τούτων ἡ κατανόησις), and the divine is intelligible in its nature, it is not strange that these intellective origins for the creation of bodies should arise from an incorporeal nature, with the intelligible nature establishing the intelligible powers (τῆς μὲν νοητῆς φύσεως τὰς νοητὰς ὑφιστώσης δυνάμεις), whose concurrence (συνδρομῆς) brings material nature to birth.

The paragraph is longer than the quotation above and I should mention that Gregory three times talks of a substrate or subject (ὑποκείμενον) for the properties. However, this subject, when all qualities are removed, “could in no way be grasped in idea (logos).” We return to this topic below.

Sketch of interpretations

Most of the recent interpretations mention an article from 1982 by Burnyeat, “Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes saw and Berkeley missed.”[6] Burnyeat says: “Greek philosophy does not know the problem of proving in a general way the existence of an external world.”[7] Berkeley’s idealism in fact presupposes and is only possible on the background of Cartesian scepticism. Against this view, Sorabji argues in 1983 that idealism could arise from many motives.[8] Gregory of Nyssa develops his ideas because of a problem, different from that of Berkeley: how could a purely immaterial creator produce matter? According to Sorabji, Gregory develops an idealistic position similar to that of Berkeley, even if different in some respects.

Hibbs responded to Sorabji’s interpretation of Gregory in 2005 and claimed that he fails to show that Burnyeat’s claim is wrong.[9] His conclusion is clear: “Gregory presupposes the existence of material bodies; they are a given feature of the world. Gregory is not arguing that material bodies do not exist – he is explaining how they come to exist.”[10] Sorabji seems to explain away Gregory’s reference to a subject in the paragraph from De hominis opificio.[11] Hibbs states[12]: “I think a better interpretation of Gregory’s reference would be to suppose that Gregory, consistent with his Neoplatonic contemporaries, assumed the existence of an extramental ‘something’ that acts as the point of confluence for qualities; that is, he is affirming the presence of an extramental subject for sensible qualities.” This indicates that according to Hibbs, Gregory is somehow a realist.

The discussion is brought further when Hill, in 2009, published the article “Gregory of Nyssa, Material Substance and Berkeleyan Idealism.”[13] Hill comments on Sorabji and Hibbs. He disagrees with Hibbs but does not accept Sorabji’s position either. He bases his interpretation on a number of texts and concludes that “there is no hyle at all in the sense of some ‘stuff’ distinct from God. Rather, God himself acts as hyle.”[14] He bases this claim on a quotation from In Illud Tunc et Ipse Filius[15]:

All things are brought to manifestation (phaenomenon) not from any underlying matter (hypokeimenes hyle) but from the divine will acting as matter (hyle) and substance (ousia) for such created things; it is easier to mould that which already exists into proper shape than to bring into being that which had no substance (hypostasis) and essence (ousia) right from the beginning.[16]

However, this does not mean that God’s will is a component of physical things. Hill says that “the sensible perceptions I experience are rooted in God’s will, but that will is not part of the object.”[17] What exactly does this mean? Hill claims, “whatever it is that does underlie bodily qualities, that is matter.”[18] It seems to me that this simply means that “matter” is God’s will sustaining a bundle of properties. In that case, I probably agree with Hill, as will be made clearer later.

Marmodoro disagrees with Hill in a paper from 2015, “Gregory of Nyssa on the creation of the world.”[19] She cannot find in Gregory that God’s activity (i.e. God’s will) is the ultimate substratum for qualities.[20] Marmodoro claims that “Gregory is not an idealist; that his qualities are not thoughts in a mind; and that his matter, which results from the combination of the qualities, is concrete.”[21] The qualities are physical aspects of material objects that we know by abstraction: “The definition shows them to be intelligible, but not thoughts in a mind. Being intelligible and immaterial, they can be generated by an immaterial being. Being physical aspects of objects, they can combine to give rise to material body.” It is not completely clear what this means and I cannot see that Marmodoro explains how the intelligible and the physical relate to one another. A central point in Marmodoro’s argument is that Gregory’s subject is an “abstract object.” She sketches in a footnote what she holds such an object to be: the subject (or substratum) is not one of the qualities that God creates. We are, therefore, left with a “something” not made by God and this seems impossible. She concludes[22]: “Rather, I submit, what remains after stripping away the qualities is their logical subject, which has no being of its own.” From all of this it seems to follow, (1) that the qualities (unlike thoughts and concepts) are concrete instances of being and that the bundle of such qualities is matter or body; (2) that when Gregory mentions a subject, the qualities qua abstract notions are intelligible items that may be predicated on a logical subject.

Comments

I turn first to comment on the positions sketched above.[23] Burnyeat may be mainly right in his paper but I agree with Sorabji that idealism may arise from many motives. Even so, I feel uneasy with the latter’s idealist interpretation of Gregory. I do not think Gregory’s doctrine is a version of Berkeleyan esse est percipi. On the other hand, I cannot agree with Hibbs that Gregory assumed the existence of an extramental subject for qualities along the lines of Aristotle’s analysis in Metaphysics 7, 3. In his quest for ousia, Aristotle says that when we remove all categorical forms, qualities and quantities, from a subject (ὑποκείμενον), then nothing remains, except “the something bounded by them.” In some interpretations, this “something” is primary matter, bare of all characteristics and a pure potentiality.[24] This seems to be much like Locke’s “something I know not what.”[25] But such a material subject, even if a shadowy thing, seems to linger on in late ancient philosophy as a presupposition for anything to turn up with properties that we may in fact experience. A shadowy thing it is indeed. In Plotinus, matter is invisible, without quality, formless, and unshaped.[26] He says “it is a shadow, and a shadow upon a shadow, a picture and an appearance.”[27] Simplicius preserves a portion of Porphyry’s work on matter.[28] Porphyry refers with approval the views of one Moderatus: sensible things do not participate in the Forms, but are ordered according to reflection (ἔμφασιν) of them. The matter in the sensibles is a shadow (σκίασμα) of the non-being that belongs to the category of quantity. Porphyry says further that Plato “called this thing formless, indivisible, and shapeless quantity (ἄμορφον καὶ ἀδιαίρετον καὶ ἀσχημάτιστον), but [said it is] receptive of form, shape, division, quality, everything of this kind.”[29] For these thinkers matter is granted the function of being the subject of categorically predicated attributes or reflections of Forms, but itself is a shadow (or a shadow of a shadow) next to nothing (or even a shadow of non-being). One probably has felt a need to have a subject for attributes however lacking of being this subject is. Despite Gregory’s use of the term subject in one of the texts referred to above, I do not think this is the proper way to understand it.

Hill’s interpretation seems a bit more promising. However, I think his claim that God, or more precisely God’s will, is the matter of creatures needs some elaboration. I hold that Marmodoro’s rejection of God’s activity (i.e. will) as the ultimate subject for qualities, is a bit too rash. In some sense, Hill has a point. I return to this below. I agree with Marmodoro that Gregory is not an idealist even if I do not find her notion of a “logical subject” as a solution to his use of “subject” convincing. To sum up, if I am not wrong, it seems that Hibbs, Hill, and Marmodoro all agree that Gregory is more of a realist than an idealist. So far, I agree with that. However, the problems are by no means solved. In the sections that follow, I try to put forward my own interpretation.

Gregory’s conception of matter

The interpretations sketched above are not entirely convincing. However, I suppose that is what some scholars will say about what follows here as well. First, we shall see what Gregory’s starting point is. All the four interpreters I have commented on above state that he takes for granted the ancient philosophical principle of “like produces like.”[30] However, it seems to me that the background is a bit more complex. The text in Genesis (1:2, LXX) says “the earth was invisible and unformed” (ἡ δὲ γῆ ἦν ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος). Gregory’s brother, St Basil, interprets these words in his In hexaemeron.[31] Basil attacks those who claim that these words are about matter. The position he criticises seems to be a mixture of gnostic and Platonist notions: uncreated, formless matter is “extreme unsightliness” and “unshapen ugliness.” Matter even resists being formed by the good God because of its deficiency. If we turn first to Gregory’s De hominis opificio, we find an echo of Basil’s critique. As far as I can see, there is a wider context to Gregory’s concept of matter than the interpreters have taken into consideration.

Whatever Gregory’s main worries are, he deduces the “like produces like”-principle from a saying in Hebrews (11:3): “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible (εἰς τὸ μὴ ἐκ φαινομένων τὸ βλεπόμενον γεγονέναι).” Gregory understands this to mean that “what is seen was framed from those [things] that did not yet appear” (τὸ βλεπόμενον ἐκ τῶν μηδέπω φαινομένων κατεδεξαμεθα).[32] As will be seen below, I claim that the term “not yet” (μηδέπω) is important for the understanding of Gregory’s concept of matter. What he says next, reminds one of Basil’s polemic: ungenerated and everlasting matter, worked upon by a good God, would play into the hands of the Manichean.[33] In order to stress the origin of material stuff from the good God, Gregory uses the terminology of creation of matter “from God” (ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ) and “from non-being” (ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος) equivalently.[34]

How then, is “what is seen” framed from “those [things] that did not appear”? Gregory contrasts the notion of God with the notion of matter. Matter is conceived through our sense organs as extended and measurable, known in colour, figure, bulk, size, resistance, etc.[35] God, on the other hand, is simple and immaterial, without quantity, size, composition, having no figurative circumscription. If visible things are created out of God, they must have been in God beforehand in accordance with some unspeakable or mysterious reason (κατὰ τὸν ἄῤῥητον λόγον) before they, as “matter” were brought from without (ἔξωθεν) into the formation of the universe. Gregory specifies how the qualities (which is the general term he uses to designate the properties) that make up matter were in God before creation. Each qualitative form that we find in matter may be conceived rationally in separation from the “substratum” or “subject” (ὑποκείμενον).[36] Each quality, as conceived, is something intelligible (νοητὸν): colour, resistance, quantity, etc.[37] I repeat Gregory’s conclusion that I quoted above: 

Now if the conception of these distinctive properties is intelligible (εἰ νοητὴ τῶν ἰδιωμάτων τούτων ἡ κατανόησις), and the divine is intelligible in its nature, it is not strange that these intellective origins for the creation of bodies should arise from an incorporeal nature, with the intelligible nature establishing the intelligible powers (τῆς μὲν νοητῆς φύσεως τὰς νοητὰς ὑφιστώσης δυνάμεις), whose concurrence (συνδρομῆς) brings material nature to birth.[38]

In his In hexaemeron Gregory says that these intelligible properties are “thoughts and bare concepts” (ἔννοιαί εἰσι ψιλαὶ καὶ νοήματα), conceived in the divine mind and brought forward for the making of the world.[39] In the act of creation, God put together the qualities through which matter exists: light, heavy, dense, rare, soft, resistant, fluid, dry, cold, hot, colour, shape, outline, extension. Bodies originate when, as we saw in the quotation above, qualities are combined or brought together to form a bundle.

So far this exposition has not solved any of the problems related to Gregory’s concept of matter. Before I try to untie the knots, I shall comment on one issue that divides the opinions of interpreters. As noted above, in the relevant paragraphs from De hominis opificio, Gregory three times mentions a “substratum” or “subject” (ὑποκείμενον). In the two other texts, he does not mention this, and he dissolves body or matter into properties with nothing remaining to be conceived. Sorabji does not think this reference to a substratum “can amount to very much,” and seems to let the notion evaporate in the discussion.[40] Hibbs argues that Gregory accepts a substratum. Hill thinks God’s will takes its place, and Marmodoro turns it into a “logical subject.”[41] A close reading of the relevant sequence in De hominis opificio suggests to me that Gregory uses the term provisionally. According to my reading, when Gregory’s argument dissolves the idea of the body by abstracting the qualities, he dissolves the idea of a shadowy substrate with it.[42]

Let me draw the loose ends together. It seems to me that the interpreters have ignored the context of the primary passages from In hexaemeron as well as from De hominis opificio. We shall first focus on the act of creation. We have seen that the properties of creatures are contained in an unspeakable or mysterious way in God’s mind as thoughts and concepts. At the act of creation, these thoughts and concepts are brought “from without,” that is from God, into the formation of the material cosmos. We may wonder exactly how they are situated as created otherness. Gregory says that in the act of creation, the intellectual nature, i.e. God, is establishing (ὑφιστώσης) the intelligible δυνάμεις, the concurrence of which with each other gave rise to material beings.[43] What are these δυνάμεις? I interpret them to be potentialities made immanent in the first act of creation, potentialities for the making of bodily beings, the latter being bundles of properties. If we turn to Gregory’s In hexaemeron, we find that he interprets the introductory words of Genesis 1:1: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς […].[44] He knows that Aquila translated the Hebrew as “in summary”, ἐν κεφαλαίῳ. Gregory equates “in the beginning” and “in summary” with “God created all the beings at once” (ἀθρόως πάντα τὰ ὄντα ὁ θεὸς ἐποίησεν). Gregory says[45]: “So the simultaneous laying of the foundations of beings, through the indescribable power of God, is called by Moses either ‘beginning’ or ‘summary’; it is from that origin that everything is said to have been composed.” He continues after a few lines: 

So what this “beginning”’ of the cosmogony invites us to think is that God laid down the starting points, the causes, and the potentialities of all beings that exist collectively and instantaneously, and that in the initial impulse of His will the substance of each being came together concurrently: heaven, ether, stars, fire, air, sea, earth, animals, and plants.[46]

There are several indications that point in the same direction: Gregory teaches that God, in the act of creation (cf. the “in the beginning,” “in summary,” “at once”), laid down “the starting points, the causes, and the potentialities of all beings” as if in a hidden storage room from which beings evolve. As we saw above, “what is seen was framed from those that did not yet appear” (τὸ βλεπόμενον ἐκ τῶν μηδέπω φαινομένων κατεδεξαμεθα).[47] They did not yet appear, since, probably, Gregory thinks they appeared in temporal succession. To me this seems to suggest rather clearly that God, in the original creation, immediately laid down all the potentialities for the evolution of all created beings. This evolvement occurs in accordance with a temporal scheme that stretches throughout the whole of world-history[48]: “His power and wisdom are laid down as foundations, and a certain necessary order follows on, according to a certain sequence […].” Gregory says that Moses set forth the order of nature, which requires a sequence among beings when they come to be.[49] Moses gives in fact a philosophical account in narrative form. In this narration he presents the stages of creation, the “days” in Genesis, successively as they follow the divine command: “And God said…”[50]

“The earth was invisible and unformed” (Genesis 1:2) and “what is seen was framed from those [things] that did not yet appear.” Gregory seems to teach, therefore, that in one way God created everything immediately in the beginning. What happens throughout the temporal sequence is that beings come to be at the appropriate time. Eventually we are confronted with the question of how we should understand the functional relation between the qualities as intelligible and the qualities as sensible or physical. We may gather from Gregory’s writings, for instance from the introductory chapter to De hominis opificio, that he adhered to the traditional world-view: the universe has the earth at its center and the starry heaven as its circumference at the extremity. Between these, God constructed the All from the elements. The properties Gregory mentions in his In hexaemeron, light, heavy, dense, rare, soft, resistant, fluid, dry, cold, hot, colour, shape, outline, extension, may all of them be connected with elemental mixtures and changes.[51] The qualities are “thoughts and bare concepts” in themselves (καθ’ ἑαυτὰ). This suggests that they are such in God, but not necessarily to us, in our immediate perception. In De hominis opificio, Gregory says that the conception (ἡ κατανόησις) of the properties is intelligible.[52] It is the intellect alone that understands that these qualities belong to the intelligible sphere. I suppose Gregory would claim that the intelligible and the sensible are not separated as if they had nothing to do with one another. I suggest that the intelligible concepts of the divine mind are imprinted as images in creation. I further suggest that these imprinted intelligibles function as codes in accordance with which the sensible qualities emerge as such for us. It seems difficult to decide what their “physical” or “sensible” character really is. The only “physical” character we can deduce that they have is their sensible perceptibility. However, I do not believe that this is enough to conclude that Gregory is a Berkeleyan idealist.

What is certain is that we actually see colours with our bodily eyes, and feel the warm and the resistant with our hands. However, since we are intellectual beings, what we experience through our senses is immediately transmitted to the intellect. Gregory put this rather more emphatically:

For there is one faculty, the implanted intellect (νοῦς) itself, which passes through each of the organs of sense and grasps the things beyond. It is this that, by means of the eyes contemplates (θεωρεῖ) what is seen; this it is that, by means of hearing, understands what is said; that is content with what is to our taste, and turns from what is unpleasant […].[53]

I suggest this means that whenever a human being perceives something sensually, what is perceived is grasped in its meaning (λόγος) and then processed intellectually.[54] We enter in this way into contact with the intelligible foundation of reality.

The subject, some final thoughts

Berkeley opens his Three dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in a remarkable way. Philonous starts praising the delightful morning scene, the purple sky, the sweet notes of the birds, the fragrance of trees and flowers, all the beauties of nature. In fact, Berkeley does not want to deny any of the wonders of nature: they are there to be admired. However, Philonous argues throughout the dialogues that there is no such thing as material substance or an “unthinking thing.” Sensible things are those that are immediately perceived by sense. Their esse est percipi. Locke’s notion of pure substance in general, of the “supposition of he knows not what it is,” is meaningless. This “matter” is indeed a shadowy thing. Plotinus’ “a shadow upon a shadow” or Porphyry’s shadow of non-being are rather thin conceptions, if conceptions at all. Since we cannot form any idea of it, one may wonder if it is a metaphysical necessity at all. On the other hand, it is a rather unusual idea that properties adhere to nothing. Are they just fleeting around? Is there no foundation that keeps them together?

In this last section, I offer a few comments on the subject (ὑποκείμενον) of the qualities in Gregory. If what we perceive as matter or body is just a bundle of properties, given that Gregory is some kind of a realist, what kind of reality is this? Does the world just consist in the coming together of qualities? Should not these qualities need a support, a subject after all? As I said above, it seems that the subject disappears in Gregory’s analysis of it.[55] However, there are at least a couple of indications that he in fact admits the existence of some kind of “subject.” One indication has to do with what he says about the function of the soul in relation to the body, and we find another in passages where he speaks of the divine activity or will.

I direct the attention to relevant passages where Gregory speaks of the soul-body relation, namely in De anima et resurrectione and De hominis opificio. In the first writing, Gregory reports Macrina to say that the soul or, more precisely, the intellectual nature is not any of those phenomena that are grasped by sensation, like colour, shape, hardness, weight, size, tri-dimensionality, being in a place, etc.[56] “Bodily” properties such as these are subject to contraction and dispersion.[57] The intellectual nature, on the other hand, is present at both the contraction (συστολή) and diffusion (διάχυσις) of these properties. When a human being dies, the elements disperse but the intellectual nature keeps a bond, as if there is the relation of a seal to an imprint, to each element. For Gregory, this gives him the clue to describe the resurrection-doctrine:

In the same way we say that, even after their dissolution, the soul knows the individual nature of the elements which joined together in the formation of the body to which it was attached. Even if their nature drives them far away from one another because of their inherent oppositions, repelling each of them from the combination with its opposite, none the less it will be present with each, holding on to its own by its cognitive power and remaining with it until the separated elements are combined again into the same body to reconstitute what was resolved. This in a true sense both is and may be properly be called resurrection.[58]

We find a similar doctrine in De hominis opificio.[59] The picture described in these texts shows sufficiently clear that the soul or the intellectual nature of the human being function as the subject or substrate for the so-called qualities. It is therefore not an unknowable material “something” that supports the bundle of qualities, it is the intelligible nature of the soul that binds them together and even after death preserves the bond necessary for the resurrection.

In the broader picture, the force that collects or binds and preserves the bundle of qualities, is God himself. In this regard, I think Hill is on the right track (see above). When Marmodoro comments on Hills’ interpretation, she says[60]: “But even if one granted that God’s activity plays the role of being the ultimate substratum in Gregory (which is a line of thinking I do not find in Gregory), Hill’s interpretation does not offer an account of matter as physical body.” I have to say that if Marmodoro offers such an account, I missed it. On the other hand, I cannot claim that I have offered such an account either. However, that she cannot find that God’s activity plays the role of (some kind of) substratum in Gregory, surprises me. In In hexaemeron, Gregory says that God’s power and will, which are identical, provide the starting point for the existence of what God has already thought of.[61] He continues: “[…] one can think at the same time about everything that is of God—His will, wisdom, power, and the being of beings.” This surprising saying gives almost the impression that created beings are somehow identified with God’s will, wisdom, and power. I do not believe, however, that Gregory simply means to identify them. If we turn to De anima et resurrectione, we find that Gregory, through Macrina, formulates the relation between God and created beings in a more nuanced way.[62] God, Gregory says, pervades (διήκειν) each being and through this mixing with “the all” keeps beings in being (καὶ τῇ πρὸς τὸ πᾶν ἀνακράσει συνέχειν ἐν τῷ εἶναι τὰ ὄντα).[63] The divine power (θεία δύναμις) permeates all things, fits parts together with whole, and fulfils the whole in the parts.[64] The ineffable wisdom of God appears in the cosmos and shows that “the divine nature and power is in all beings.”[65] It is because of this presence that all things remain in being.[66] Combined with the saying from In Illud Tunc et Ipse Filius (provided by Hill), that the divine will act as matter and substance for created things, a picture emerges.[67] The divine power or activity, not the divine essence, somehow pervades created beings, brings them together from the reservoir of potentialities, and somehow acts like a subject for the bundles that originate. The divine power also makes the soul able to function analogically like a magnetic center for such gathering of properties.

I admit that my notes above do not solve all problems, but I believe they are steps in the direction of giving a proper or sound interpretation of Gregory.

[1] In hexaemeron, GNO vi.i, 16.

[2] De anima et resurrectione, GNO iii.iii, 94.

[3] Cf. Richard Sorabji, Time, Creation and the Continuum (London 1983), 288. His chapter 18 is mainly devoted to discuss Gregory’s idealism. See also Sorabji’s Matter, Space and Motion (London 1988), chapter 4,

[4] The abbreviations GNO and PG are used respectively for the Gregorii Nysseni Opera (Brill, Leiden) and the Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris), 1857-1866.

[5] In Hexaemeron, Sorabji’s translation, Sorabji, The Philosophy of the Commentators, Volume 2, Physics (2004), 159. The Greek terms are inserted by me.

[6] Myles Burnyeat, “Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes saw and Berkeley missed,”      The Philosophical Review, vol. 91, No. 1 (1982), 3-40.

[7] Burnyeat (1982), 19.

[8] Sorabji (London 1983), 288. Cf. Sorabji (London 1988), chapter 4, in which he sketches some of the possible background for Gregory’s position.

[9] Darren Hibbs, “Was Gregory of Nyssa a Berkeleyan Idealist?,”      British Journal of Philosophy, vol. 13, no. 3 (2005), 425-435.

[10] Hibbs (2005), 432.

[11] Sorabjii (1983), 292-293.

[12] Hibbs (2005), 433.

[13] Jonathan Hill, “Gregory of Nyssa, Material Substance and Berkeleyan Idealism,”      British Journal of Philosophy, vol. 17, no. 4 (2009), 653-683.

[14] Hill (2009), 674.

[15] In Illud Tunc et Ipse Filius in GNO iii.ii (1987), 11. Translation from Hill (2009), 673-674.

[16] I think Hill could have made his translation “the divine will acting as matter” even stronger. The Greek has ἐγένετο, so I suggest “the divine will became matter.”    

[17] Hill (2009), 681.

[18] Hill (2009), 676.

[19] Anna Marmodoro, “Gregory of Nyssa on the creation of the world,”      in Anna Marmodoro and Brian D. Prince ed., Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity (Cambridge 2015), 94-110.

[20] Marmodoro (2015), 98.

[21] Marmodoro (2015), 96.

[22] Marmodoro (2015), 101, note 10.

[23] There is one more article that could be mentioned, namely Gerd Van Riel and Thomas Wauters, “Gregory of Nyssa’s Theory of Matter,”      in Journal of Early Christian Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2020), 395-421. One of the main concerns of the authors is that we should distinguish between a bundle theory of matter and a bundle theory of the individual. I am not going into that topic here but otherwise I recommend this paper. Besides that, Van Riel and Wauters do not seem to bring in anything new on the issue of Gregory’s concept of matter.

[24] It is a matter of controversy among modern scholars whether Aristotle nurtured such a concept.

[25] Cf. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, book 2, chapter 23.

[26] Cf. Enneads 2.4.12 (invisible), 2.4.10; 2.4.13; 4.7.3 (without quality), 1.8.3; 1.8.8 (formless), 1.8.8; 1.8.9 (shapeless).

[27] Ennead 6.3.8.

[28] In Aristotelis physica commentaria, CAG 9, ed. H. Diels, Berlin 1882: 230-1.

[29] I follow the translation of Balthussen, Atkinson, Share, and Mueller: Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 1.5-9, London 2014. It must be correct that ἀσχημάτιστον means “     shapeless quantity     .”

[30] Sorabji (1983), 290; Hibbs (2005), 429; Hill (2009), 656; Marmodoro (2015), 94; cf. Van Riel and Wauters (2020), 403.

[31] Basil, In hexaemeron 2.2; Greek text in Basile de Césarée, Homélies sur l’hexaéméron (Paris 1968), 142-149.

[32] De hominis opificio 23.1-2, PG 44, 209b-c.

[33] De hominis opificio 23.4, PG 44, 212a-b.

[34] De hominis opificio 23.4-5, PG 44, 212b-c.

[35] De hominis opificio 23.3, PG 44, 209d.

[36] De hominis opificio 24.1, PG 44, 212d.

[37] Cf. De hominis opificio 24.2, PG 44, 213a-b.

[38] Sorabji’s translation.

[39] In hexaemeron, GNO iv.i, 16.

[40] Sorabji (1983), 292.

[41] Hibbs (2005), 433; Hill (2009), 675; Marmodoro (2015), 101.

[42] Cf. De hominis opificio 24.2, PG 44: 213a.

[43] De hominis opificio 24.2, PG 44: 213b.

[44] In hexaemeron, GNO iv.i, 16-17.

[45] In hexaemeron, GNO iv.i, 19.

[46] In hexaemeron, GNO iv.i, 18.

[47] De hominis opificio 23.1-2, PG 44, 209b-c.

[48] In hexaemeron, GNO iv.i, 18.

[49] In hexaemeron, GNO iv.i, 19. Cf. the following pages as well.

[50] Gregory’s doctrine may be compared with the Stoic concept of “seminal reasons,”      cf. The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, 434-441.

[51] In hexaemeron, GNO iv.i, 16.

[52] De hominis opificio 24.2, PG 44: 213b.

[53] De hominis opificio 6.1, PG 44: 140a.

[54] This theory of perception/intellection may be compared with what Aristotle says in De anima (2. 12), on sensation in general: sensation is the reception of the form without the matter.

[55] Cf. De hominis opificio 24.2, PG 44: 213a.

[56] De anima et resurrectione, GNO iii.iii, 24-25.

[57] De anima et resurrectione, GNO iii.iii, 30-31.

[58] De anima et resurrectione, GNO iii.iii, 54.

[59] De hominis opificio, 27, PG 44: 225a-229a.

[60] Marmodoro (2015), 98.

[61] In hexaemeron, GNO iv.i, 15.

[62] Cf. Tollefsen (2012), 94-98 for this.

[63] De anima et resurrectione, GNO iii.iii, 52.

[64] De anima et resurrectione, GNO iii.iii, 12.

[65] De anima et resurrectione, GNO iii.iii, 27.

[66] Cf. the Oratio catechetica, GNO iii.iv, 63 as well.

[67] Hill (2009), 673-674.

Bibliography

The following works by Gregory are used:

De anima et resurrectione, GNO iii.iii, (Brill, Leiden XXX).

De hominis opificio, PG 44 (Paris 1863).

In hexaemeron, GNO iv.i (Brill, Leiden 2009).

In Illud Tunc et Ipse Filius, GNO iii.ii (Brill, Leiden 1987).

Basile de Césarée, Homélies sur l’hexaéméron (Sources chrétiennes, Paris 1968).

Berkeley, George, Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues (Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009).

Burnyeat, Myles, “Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes saw and Berkeley missed,” The Philosophical Review, vol. 91, No. 1 (1982), 3-40

Hibbs, Darren, “Was Gregory of Nyssa a Berkeleyan Idealist?,” British Journal of Philosophy, vol. 13, no. 3 (2005), 425-435.

Hill, Jonathan, “Gregory of Nyssa, Material Substance and Berkeleyan Idealism,” British Journal of Philosophy, vol. 17, no. 4 (2009), 653-683.

Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Everyman’s Library, London 1978).

Marmodoro, Anna, “Gregory of Nyssa on the creation of the world,” in Anna Marmodoro and Brian D. Prince ed., Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2015).

Plotinus, Enneads vol. 1, 2, and 4, translated by A. H. Armstrong (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, respectively 1978, 1966, 1984).

Simplicius, In Aristotelis physica commentaria, Commentaria in Aristotelem graeca vol. 9, ed. H. Diels (Berlin 1882).

Simplicius, On Aristotle Physics 1.5-9, translated by Baltussen, Han; Atkinson, Michael; Share, Michael; Mueller, Ian (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, Bloomsbury, London 2014).

Sorabji, Richard, The Philosophy of the Commentators, Volume 2, Physics (Duckworth, London 2004).

Sorabji, Richard, Time, Creation and the Continuum (Duckworth, London 1983).

Sorabji, Richard, Matter, Space and Motion (Duckworth, London 1988).

The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. K. Algra, J. Barnes, J. Mansfeld and M. Schofield (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2010, first published 2005).

Tollefsen, Torstein Theodor, Activity and Participation in Late Antique and Early Christian Thought (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012).

Van Riel, Gerd and Wauters, Thomas, “Gregory of Nyssa’s Theory of Matter,” in Journal of Early Christian Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2020), 395-421.