Gregory of Nyssa: The Eucharist as Antidote
Excerpt
What, then, is this remedy to be? Nothing else than that very Body which has been shown to be superior to death, and has been the First-fruits of our life. For, in the manner that, as the Apostle says, a little leaven assimilates to itself the whole lump, so in like manner that body to which immortality has been given it by God, when it is in ours, translates and transmutes the whole into itself. For as by the admixture of a poisonous liquid with a wholesome one the whole draught is deprived of its deadly effect, so too the immortal Body, by being within that which receives it, changes the whole to its own nature. Yet in no other way can anything enter within the body but by being transfused through the vitals by eating and drinking. More
Gregory of Nyssa. “The Great Catechism.” Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, Etc. Ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Trans. William Moore. Vol. 5. New York: Christian Literature Company, 1893. 504. Print. A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series.
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