FERGUSON The Doctrine of Baptism 227
even so there is no uncertainty about the presence of the divine in all the
things done.'^20
The incarnation led to Christ's death and resurrection, and Gregory
proceeds to build his case for the effectiveness of baptism from the death
and resurrection of Christ. Even as he appealed to the incarnation (the
presence of the divine in flesh) as parallel to the invocation of the divine
power in baptism, he correlates the death and resurection with the triple
immersion. The connecting link here is mimesis, imitation. The imitation
in baptism is the means of participation in Christ's resurrection. Where
others have seen the incarnation as central for Gregory,^21 Kees sees the
death and resurrection of Christ as central to the oikonomia in Christ,^22 and
he takes imitation as the key category for Gregory's doctrine of baptism.^23
Gregory declares, 'The descent into the water and the person being
immersed three times in it involves another mystery'.^24 Christ brought
salvation not so much by his teaching as by bringing life. When he as-
sumed and deified flesh, he brought salvation to all that is akin to his flesh.
Gregory adopts the language of Heb. 2.10, 'the Pioneer [cxpxtiyos] of our
salvation'. He uses as illustrations of being led to salvation the learning of
military tactics by observing the movements of armies and the finding of
the way through a labyrinth by following an experienced guide. Similarly,
a method was contrived by which those who follow could imitate and so
share a likeness and kinship in what was done by the leader in human
salvation. To attain the goal of escape from the prison house of death, one
must follow the same path as the pioneer of our salvation. He experienced
death for three days and then came to life again. 'What then is the plan
[contrivance] through which we imitate what he did?'^25
- GNO 85.3-86.5 (PG, xlv, cols. 85B-D).
- Jean-Rene Bouchet, 'La vision de Peconomie du salut selon S. Gregoire de
Nysse', Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Theologiques 52 (1968), pp. 613-44. - Kees, Lehre, pp. 150-61.
- Kees, Lehre, pp. 162-78,264-66. Reinhard M. Hiibner, Die Einheit des Leibes
Christi bei Gregor von Nyssa: Untersuchungen zum Ursprung der 'physischen'
Erlosungslehre (Philosophia Patrum, 2; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974), pp. 168-75, sees the
connection between flesh and spirit in regard to baptism for Gregory as imitative and
not ontological. - GNO 86.6-7 (PG, xlv, col. 85D).
- GNO 87.17-18 (PG, xlv, col. 88C). Cf. Antirrheticus adversus Apollinarem
(GNO 3.1.227.4-9 [PG, xlv, col. 1260B])—'We die together with the One who died
willingly, being buried through baptism in the mystical water...in order that the
imitation of his resurrection might follow the imitation of his death.'