One of the interesting things about Gregory of Nyssa's work are the things one does not find in the English translations of Gregory's works:
"pope"
"papacy"
"papal"
"pontiff"
"bishop of bishops"
"vicar"
"cardinal"
"legate"
"penance" (One might argue that the concept is there in Gregory of Nyssa the concept of penance, though not the term.)
"rosary"
"purgatory"
"holy water"
"queen of heaven"
"blessed virgin"
"transubstantiation"
"icons" (in the religious art sense - the Greek word from which "icon" comes is, of course, found in Gregory's writings in other contexts)
Sorry that there are not a lot of quotations in this section, but that's the nature of this particular topic of words Gregory of Nyssa doesn't use - words he doesn't use because his beliefs were not that close to the views of modern Rome.
-TurretinFan
Sunday, July 12, 2009
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2 comments:
OK- I'm going to do the Catholic response:
The terms aren't there because they are part of oral Tradition. They only said them to each other. So you fail, once again Turretinfan, unless you can prove they never spoke these words out loud.
Alternate answer from a smarter Catholic: You fail to realize that these terms are the result of doctrinal development. You do realize the word "Trinity" isn't in the Bible? This clearly refutes you.
The former response hopefully is obviously mistaken.
The second response is one of the things that I would expect to see. I suppose that kind of thing is "possible," but if the word is missing, someone needs a good reason to think that the concept was nevertheless there. As far as I can see, in many cases not only the word but also the concept is missing.
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