Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The rising generation can get it wrong

"By rights it is you, who are in the prime of all your inner powers, who ought to continue the war against the enemies of truth and not to shrink from the task.  Thus we fathers may be gladdened by the noble efforts of our children.  For this is what the law of nature presupposes.  But since you have turned your ranks and direct toward us the assaults of those darts which are hurled by the opponents of truth, and bid us old men to quench with the shield of faith their 'hot, burning coals' and their missiles sharpened by knowledge (as they falsely call it), we accept the challenge."

Gregory of Nyssa, "An answer to Ablabius:  that we should not think of saying there are three gods," ed. and trans. Cyril C. Richardson.  Christology of the later Fathers, Library of Christian classics 3, ed. Edward Rochie Hardy in collaboration with Cyril C. Richardson (Philadelphia, PA:  The Westminster Press, 1954), 256.

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