(Ebook) Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God by St. Gregory of Nyssa, John Behr (Editor) ISBN 9780192843975, 0192843974

(Ebook) Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God by St. Gregory of Nyssa, John Behr (Editor) ISBN 9780192843975, 0192843974

‘Every logos’—word, argument, treatise—‘is like a living being, with a body of itsown’, so that each member is ‘composed in fitting relation to each other and to thewhole’ (Phaedr. 264c2–5). These words of Plato are certainly true of the treatisepresented here, On the Human Image of God by Gregory of Nyssa (otherwiseknown as On the Making of Man). It is one of the most remarkable treatises fromthe golden era of Patristic literature, presenting a sophisticated analysis of thehuman being that draws upon both Scripture and the prior Christian tradition,above all Origen, and also the tradition of philosophical and medical reflectiongoing back to Anaxagoras, and above all Plato’s Timaeus. Although attention israrely given to the treatise as a whole, it is, like its subject, a skilfully composed andarranged complex work, with its own economy, that is, the working together of thedifferent parts of the text (paralleling, I argue, those of Timaeus’ speech); aneconomy, moreover, which reflects, and so contributes to, the economy of Godthat is the growth of human being, in the workshop of nature, towards the finalrealization of God’s project from the beginning, that of making the human being,individually and collectively, in his image and likeness.