Gregory of Nyssa: “[...]it is a sacred duty to use of Him names privative of the things abhorrent to His Nature[...]”

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“But if it be part of our religion to attribute to Him none of these things, then it is a sacred duty to use of Him names privative of the things abhorrent to His Nature, and to say all that we have so often enumerated already, viz. that He is imperishable, and unending, and ungenerate, and the other terms of that class, where the sense inherent in each only informs us of the privation of that which is obvious to our perception, but does not interpret the actual nature of that which is thus removed from those abhorrent conditions.” (CE 2, NPNF p. 308)

"εἰ δὲ τούτων εὐαγές ἐστιν οὐδὲν περὶ αὐτὸν ἐννοεῖν, εὐσεβὲς ἂν εἴη πάντως τοῖς χωριστικοῖς τῶν ἀπεμφαινόντων ῥήμασιν ἐπ' αὐτοῦ κεχρῆσθαι καὶ λέ γειν ταῦτα ἃ ἤδη πολλάκις εἰρήκαμεν, ἄφθαρτόν τε καὶ ἀτελεύτητον καὶ ἀγέννητον καὶ ὅσα τοῦ τοιούτου εἴδους ἐστί, τῆς ἐγκειμένης ἑκάστῳ τούτων τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐμφά σεως μόνον τὸν χωρισμὸν τῶν ἡμῖν προχείρων εἰς κατα νόησιν διδασκούσης, οὐκ αὐτὴν τὴν φύσιν τὴν τῶν ἀπεμφαι νόντων κεχωρισμένην ἑρμηνευούσης." (PG 2.1.581-582), (Con. Eun. II 581), (GNO I. 396.3-4).

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