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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

ALEXANDER L. ABECINA: Time and Sacramentality in Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra


Eunomium. Strathfield, NSW: St Paul’s Publications, 2013; pp. viii + 132.

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

© 2014 The Authors


Journal of Religious History © 2014 Religious History Association
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to the Abraham allegory; especially the problem posed by the implication that the
diastema is finally overcome in a creature’s ascent to God (pp. 66–67). The final section,
“Language, Thought, and the Sacramentality of Time,” demonstrates that, whilst the
diastematic nature of thought and language serve to “differentiate and distance human-
ity from God” (p. 69), nevertheless they also act as the means whereby humanity comes
into communion with him.
The final chapter, on “Time and Christology,” weaves all of the preceding topics
together and frames them within the person of Christ (see “The Divinity of the Son”
pp. 76–79). In the section on “Eternity and Economy,” Abecina asserts that in the
Nyssen’s debate with Eunomius he criticised the latter’s interpretation of Proverbs
8:22 and 9:1 in order to the affirm the uncreated divinity of the Son; showing that
references to “creation” in these verses concern not the creation of the Son by the
Father in time (as Eunomius had asserted), but the eternal Son’s creation of his own
flesh in the Incarnation (pp. 80–81). Abecina states that the Incarnation was described
by St Gregory as a “commingling” of the two natures in order to avoid participatory
language which is relevant for creatures only (pp. 80–83), before moving to a section
called “Divine and Human Nature.” Here, he distinguishes between a vertical
participation language used in regard to creatures, and a horizontal participation
language (“assumption,” “commingling,” “combination,” “union,” etc.) denoting the
Son’s assumption of humanity (pp. 88–90). In the next section, on “Kenosis and
Deification,” Abecina shows that in some cases St Gregory avoids participation
language altogether in order to highlight the kenotic “descent of the Son to human
nature” which is “matched by the elevation of the human nature to divinity”; thereby
resulting in the deification of Christ’s flesh (p. 95). That this deification has ramifi-
cations for both time and eternity is demonstrated in the final section on “Time,
Sacramentality, and  Αποκατστασις,” where Abecina shows that whilst in the
Incarnation Christ completely overcomes “the temporal diastematic limitations that
are proper to the human creature” (p. 103), nevertheless the human being’s “onto-
logical” (but which should read “existential”) assimilation to Christ is based precisely
on the Incarnation — the sacrament par excellence (p. 104). This is because Christ
has already restored (through  ποκατστασις) humanity to its “original paradisal
state” (p. 105) and, whilst this restoration will only be fulfilled eschatologically,
it is nonetheless offered to all by grace (p. 108); a grace that the author describes
as being experienced temporally on account of Gregory’s close association of the
apokatastasis with the α  ν, “a term designating a temporal, measurable, and hence
diastematic age to come” (p. 109).
In concluding his main argument, the author seeks to prove the sacramental char-
acter of time by reiterating that the Son’s deification of his own creaturely flesh and
blood into the “adiastematic infinity of God” acts as the basis for the eschatological
trajectory of sacred time, and of our own experience of salvation (p. 110). It is this
existential dimension that underlines the intrinsic value of this volume, which suc-
ceeds in drawing our attention to St Gregory of Nyssa’s view of a sacred temporality
founded upon Jesus Christ. As such, the author works commendably towards his
intended goal, mentioned in his “Preface,” which is to bring patristic literature,
represented here by the Nyssen, into conversation with “contemporary Christian
theological reflection on the nature of time, our existence as historical beings, and our
own relation to God’s eternity” (p. vii).

MARIO BAGHOS
University of Sydney

© 2014 The Authors


Journal of Religious History © 2014 Religious History Association

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