Peripheretic Communion

Gregory of Nyssa rarely uses the specific language of perichoresis , but Daniel Stramara argues in a 1998 Vigiliae Christianae article that he uses different language to make very similar claims about the communion that is the Triune God. Specifically, he uses the words periphero and anakuklesis , “carry” or “whirl” about on the one hand and “resumptively encompassing” on the other.

In one passage in Adversus Macedonianos , Gregory writes of the mutual glorification of the Persons:

“You see the revolving circle ( egkulion ) of the glory moving round ( periphoron ) from like to like. The Son is glorified by the Spirit; the Father is glorified by the Son; again the Son possesses glory from the Father; and the Only-begotten becomes the glory of the Spirit. For with what shall the Father be glorified, if not with the true glory of the Only-begotten; and again with what shall the Son be glorified, if not with the majesty of the Spirit? In like manner, again, the relation ( logos ) completes the circle ( anakuloumenos ), and glorifies the Son by means of the Spirit, and the Father by means of the Son” (260).

Stramara comments: “Their relationships are not static but ‘revolve around’ one another. The glory, the loving praise which they share and bestow upon one another, is ’ perpheretic ’ if I may coin a word. The verb means to carry around or whirl about . . . .The Persons whirl ‘about’ each other and inside of each other. The depiction is one of mutual admiration, each Person ‘falling all over’ the other, glorying in the other. In a sense, the Persons are continually ‘falling in love’” (261). Later he adds the term “anacyclic” to capture Gregory’s idea of “admixture and intermingling” among the Persons (261).

This phenomenon is imprinted also on creation: “According to Gregory, creation itself reflects Divine Nature, when the Only-begotten made creation, ‘at that time, with the body of heaven and by means of the circumambient essence ( kuklophoroumenes ousias ), he surrounded that whole universe which is measured off within its compass.’ This created ‘circumambient essence’is the perpetually rotating spherical structure encircling the cosmos as envisioned by the ancients. All the same, because created being mirrors the Uncreated, for Gregory, God, anagogically, is a kuklophoroumenes ousias , circulatory Being” (262-3).

He concludes: “while Gregory does not use the word perichoresis , he explicitly employs two other equally evocative and dynamic terms: perpheresis and anacycksis , as well as one which is implicit: cyclophoroumene . To synthesize Gregory’s imagery and conceptions throughout his works, one could validly say that the Father embosoms the Son and envelops the Spirit within Himself; the Son enthrones the Father and enfolds the Spirit within Himself; and the Spirit enshrines the Father and encompasses the Son within Himself. Each participates in the utter fuliness of mutual inclusivity and co-extensive existence.”

“Gregory of Nyssa’s Terminology for Trinitarian Perichoresis,” Vigiliae Christianae 52 (1998) 257-63.