NATURE MAKES AN ASCENT FROM THE LOWER TO THE HIGHER: GREGORY OF NYSSA ON HUMAN DISTINCTIVENESS

Abstract

This essay explores the way in which early Christian writers held an eschatological understanding of what it is to be human, something that is to be attained, through the transformation of death and resurrection, and something that requires our assent. In this context, the article offers a new reading of the late fourth-century work entitled On the Human Image of God (otherwise known in English as On the Making of Man) by Gregory of Nyssa. It argues that Gregory structured his text in parallel to the three parts of Timaeus’ speech in Plato's dialogue. The resulting picture sees creation as a dynamic ascent from the lower forms of life to the higher, a growth which is recapitulated in the life-span of each human being, and also the growth of the human race into the totality of human beings that together constitute the human being in the image of God, the body of Christ.