The last month has been a remarkably busy time for my family and me, and I have strayed quite far from the schedule I had initially set for myself with this blog. In the interest of having at least one post this month, then, I present another portion of my thesis.
Gregory understands creation to be a united whole because of its dependence upon a single origin. As a result of this, all the various parts of creation harmonize and interact with each other in a way comparable to music. This reciprocal interconnectedness Nyssen terms sympnoia, a word that literally means “a breathing together,” and harmonia, from which the English word “harmony” is derived. Sympnoia has medical overtones and is used by writers such as Hippocrates to indicate the harmonious relationship between the different parts of the body.[1] Gregory himself employs it in this sense when describing the relationships of the various elements of the body.[2] This is merely one instance of the word, however, and Nyssen ultimately sees the highest realization of sympnoia in the harmonious relations of the Trinity, in which perfect unity is achieved without destroying difference.[3] The harmony of all things in the cosmos is, therefore, a reflection of the perfect harmony in God. Or, to put it another way, the music of creation is a reflection of the infinite and perfect music of the Godhead.
The universe as a whole, then, is described by Gregory as a harmonia and sympnoia, a harmonious “co-breathing” of all the parts within the greater unity of the whole: “the ordered disposition of the universe constitutes a type of musical harmony, in tune with itself in a multiform and various fashion, according to a certain order [taxis] and a certain rhythm, singing in concert with itself.”[4] This manifests itself in different ways on the sensible and intelligible levels of reality, and yet both may be described in terms of the interactions of contraries, particularly between rest and motion. This blending of opposites with each other constitutes “such a rhythm as the concert of the whole creation with itself.”[5] Opposites are blended through an intermediary being that acts as a methorios, or “border,” that unites contraries by blending their qualities within itself.
On the level of the sensible, this mixing of opposites is displayed by the relationship between the heavens and the earth, which represent movement and rest, respectively. “We see the universal harmony in the wondrous sky and on the wondrous earth; how elements essentially opposed to each other are all woven together in an ineffable union to serve one common end.”[6] The stars display the greatest degree of movement in that they perpetually turn while the earth displays the greatest degree of stability in that it is always at rest beneath our feet. The stars themselves are made of fire, which is itself the most movable of elements. Below the fiery realm of the stars is the domain of air, which is
no more in a state of continual flux and dispersion than in a permanent state of immobility, but becomes, in its affinity to each, a kind of borderland [methorios] of the opposition between operations, at once uniting in itself and dividing that which are naturally distinct.[7]
Water forms an intermediary between earth and air, as it displays the heaviness and coldness of the former while also sharing the qualities of mutability and moistness with air. Thus, air is the methorios between fire and water, while water is the methorios between air and earth. These two elements together combine the qualities of rest and movement in intermediate ways so as to unite the opposites of heaven and earth.
Besides this mixing through bordering elements, the contrary natures of heaven and earth themselves display a kind of mutual interpenetration, for all things on the earth are subject to qualitative change, while the stars are ever moving but always the same:
Hence the earth is stable without being immutable, while the heavens, on the contrary, as it has no mutability, so has not stability either, that the Divine power, by interweaving change in the stable nature and motion with that which is not subject to change, might, by the interchange of attributes, at once join them both closely to each other.[8]
The elements themselves also display a remarkable confluence with each other in being combined into bodies, which must combine opposing qualities in themselves in order to be capable of realizing higher degrees of sentience. Because the “hard and resistant does not admit the action of the senses” and “the impress [of the senses] would not remain in moist substance,” it is necessary that bodies be “in a state between softness and hardness, in order that the living being might not be destitute of the fairest of all the operations of nature—I mean the motion of sense.”[9] This necessarily entails the combination of various elements.
On the intelligible plane, Gregory finds a similar harmony between motion and rest. This has already been described to some extent in the case of angels, who participate ever more in the good. The situation is identical for human beings, who are able to achieve stability in the good through constantly growing towards it. Nyssen often puts this process in terms of an ascent towards God:
this is the most marvelous thing of all, how the same thing is both a standing still and a moving . . . here the ascent takes place by means of the standing. I mean by this that the firmer and more immovable one remains in the Good, the more he progresses in the course of virtue.[10]
This particular doctrine, which Nyssen refers to as epektasis, will be examined in more detail below. Suffice it to say here that this represents a harmony between movement and rest on the intelligible plane and thus indicates a sympnoia between these two forces.
Yet there is another way in which the intelligible is harmonized with itself: through the alignment of the wills and minds of intelligible beings, human and angelic, with each other. This is particularly true of the Church, in which the harmony of the various members within the body of Christ are likened to “one thread and one cord, woven together out of different strands.”[11] Thus, whenever a bishop is to be elected, it must be done by the consent of all in sympnoia.[12] So, too, must the various vocations within the Church be harmonized with each other for the benefit of the whole: “since, however, the whole Church is one body of Christ, but in the one body, as the apostle says, there are many members, and all the members do not have the same function.”[13] It is by being subservient to Christ that the Church may achieve this harmony and in this harmony that the Church partakes of Christ, for “the body participates in the properties of the head in virtue of the consubstantiality that exists between them.”[14]
Gregory goes yet further in his use of sympnoia, however, and applies it to the relationship between God and creation as a whole. The unity of all things, and thus their harmonization, is essentially a function of being born of a single principle, of being the work of the one God. As will be made clear, this is not simply the dependence of a self-subsisting reality on a previously inaugurated creative act but the continual dependence of all things on God; the “common character of all that is created is to exist only by an ongoing [actuelle] participation with that which is existence itself.”[15] All things are related to each other, then, in that they are constantly united in their dependence on God as their creator and sustainer.
For since it is the property of the Godhead to pervade all things, and to extend itself through the length and breadth of the substance of existence in every part — for nothing would continue to be if it remained not within the existent; and that which is this existent properly and primarily is the Divine Being . . . it is He Who binds together all things into Himself, and by Himself brings to one harmonious agreement [sympnoia and harmonia] the diverse natures of actual existences.[16]
Viewed in this way, creation is akin to a musical blending in which all things are united in a harmony of difference. Even the most contrary natures are brought together in mutual sympathy, and the whole structure is maintained and organized into this harmony by the omnipresence of the creator. Yet this description of reality can hardly be said to apply to the cosmos as we generally experience it, and the perfect sypmnoia of all things with each other and with God is a reality that has been distorted and broken by sin; the intended sympnoia of creation has been violated, and the harmony that is meant to exist between the human and angelic worlds has been destroyed: there was once
a time when all the intellectual creation formed a choir, and turned around a unique coryphe [choir leader] of the choir and unfolded its dance according to the rhythm given by the commandment of the leader. But sin, in creeping in, broke this inspired symphony [synodia] and, by causing the feet of the first men who danced with the angles to slip . . . broke the chain.[17]
The lack of harmony is apparent in all of creation, especially between the sensible and intelligible worlds, whose relationship Gregory never describes as being characterized by sympnoia.[18] Indeed, even the Church is not immune from this disorder, for the presence of heresy and antagonism destroys the mutual concord of its members.[19] Ultimately, evil is seen as the breaking away of creation from God and thus as a violation of being and the unity of the whole. In seceding from its founding and sustaining principle, a sinful being breaks from its relationship to the rest of creation, and the result is a disharmony that damages both he integrity of creation and the ontological reality of the being in question.
Since this is the state of the fallen world, we must expect that all sympnoia is at best a flawed instantiation of God’s intentions. Indeed, the true sympnoia is an eschatological reality, which will only be realized when the whole of creation has been united to Christ.[20] In being reoriented towards Christ, all things are reunited to their foundation and to each other. It is only in the concordance of all things in the eschatological sympnoia that the healing of the divisions within creation will be accomplished. Then, too, the cosmos and the supracosmos (the sensible and the intelligible) will be “reharmonized in an identical praise of God.”[21] Gregory describes this reunion of creation as the coming together of the two halves of a cymbal uniting in the common praise of God.[22]
[1] Daniélou, L’être et Le Temps Chez Grégoire de Nysse, 52.
[2] Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity XXII, NPNF V: 367–368
[3] Daniélou, L’être et Le Temps Chez Grégoire de Nysse, 60.
[4] Gregory of Nyssa, Inscriptions on the Psalms I.3.6, SC 466: 175. (My translation).
[5] Ibid. III.3.7, SC 466: 177. (My translation).
[6] Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and Resurrection, NPNF V: 432
[7] Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Humanity I, NPNF V: 389
[8] Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Humanity I, NPNF V: 389
[9] Ibid. XXX, NPNF V: 423.
[10] Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses II.243, trans. Ferguson and Malherbe, 117.
[11] Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on the Song of Songs VII, trans. Norris, 239.
[12] Daniélou, L’être et Le Temps Chez Grégoire de Nysse, 58.
[13] Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on the Song of Songs VII, trans. Norris, 227.
[14] Daniélou, L’être et Le Temps Chez Grégoire de Nysse, 59. (My translation.)
[15] Daniélou, L’être et Le Temps Chez Grégoire de Nysse, 61. (My translation.)
[16] Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Oration XXXII, NPNF V: 500.
[17] Gregory of Nyssa, Inscriptions on the Psalms II.6.37, SC 466: 307. (My translation).
[18] Daniélou, L’être et Le Temps Chez Grégoire de Nysse, 69.
[19] Ibid., 59.
[20] Gregorios, Cosmic Man, 30–32.
[21] Daniélou, L’être et Le Temps Chez Grégoire de Nysse, 73. (My translation).
[22] Gregory of Nyssa, Inscriptions on the Psalms I.9.27, SC 466: 259.