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586 J O U R NA L O F R E L I G I O U S H I S TO RY
In light of the spate of recent scholarship on this great Cappadocian Father, Alexander
L. Abecina’s monograph attempts to contribute something altogether fresh: the rela-
tionship between St Gregory of Nyssa’s views on time and sacramentality in his three
volumes against Eunomius of Cyzicus, the radical anomoean and opponent of the
Nicene faith in the fourth century. The introduction gives a brief background to the
theological positions of both authors before contextualising the Contra Eunomium
and giving an outline of the Nyssen’s methodology. Abecina’s interesting thesis
then unfolds through the three main chapters of the work. Chapter 1 is on “Time and
Ontology” and is subdivided into three sections. The first deals with “Ontological
First Principles” and begins with an outline of the Nyssen’s perception of reality as
divided between the “intelligible” and the “sensible” (p. 20), a Platonic presupposi-
tion further qualified by the Christian distinction between the “created” and the
“uncreated” (p. 21). Both the intelligible and sensible realms, the former angelic/
noetic and the latter material, constitute the created realm for Gregory, whereas the
uncreated refers to God’s nature, which Abecina describes as “intelligible” (p. 24); a
description which is, however, not found in the Nyssen. In fact, this assertion of
God’s “intelligibility” is later contradicted when the author affirms that the uncreated
and created are fixed on either side of an ontological divide, which he discerns in
Gregory’s use of the term διστημα / diastema, meaning “temporal measure” (p. 26).
The Nyssen’s frequent use of this term helped him to express the difference between
created beings, which can be spatially and temporally qualified and quantified (p. 27),
and God who cannot be (and is hence adiastemic — p. 103). In the next section,
“Double Antithesis or Dualism?,” Abecina suggests that Gregory’s worldview is
ontologically dualistic insofar as he posited the radical difference between God and
his creation (p. 33). The final section, “Time, Ontology, and Sacramentality,” mainly
addresses the created intelligible and sensible natures; for, whilst both are circum-
scribed by a definite beginning and end, the intelligible creation, made up of angels
and souls (p. 36), can forever exist by virtue of a participation in God, who is himself
uncircumscribed and without limit. Hence, although the author does not mention it
here, temporal diastematic existence can lead to epektasis, which he describes else-
where as “an everlasting communion with God” (p. 14). What is problematic is the
way the author defines this communion, both here and in the hereafter, as an “onto-
logical participation”; for, as he rightly acknowledges elsewhere (p. 52), St Gregory’s
emphasis on the diastematic nature of created beings makes a participation in God’s
nature impossible.
The second chapter, on “Time, Language, and Thought,” organically follows the first
by observing the way that Gregory’s view of the diastema shapes thought and language.
In the first and second sections on “Thought, Language, and the Διστημα” and “Time
and Language” respectively, it is demonstrated that both thought and language are
diastematic by nature and therefore cannot measure God (p. 48). The next section, on
“Time and Thought,” consists mainly in a prudent critique of Morwena Ludlow’s
analysis of St Gregory’s interpretation of Abraham’s “pilgrimage of faith” (p. 60) where
Ludlow sees the historical or earthly journey of the Old Testament figure as taking
precedence over his ascent of faith that has to do with his contemplation of “intelligible
realities” (p. 63). This is tantamount to participation in an “intelligible temporality” or
an epektatic journey (p. 65). What follows is an excursus on “Union with God,” which
picks up this participatory track by addressing the mind’s union with God in relation
MARIO BAGHOS
University of Sydney