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The controversy between Gregory of Nyssa and Eunomius of Cyzicus over the origin and nature of human language might profitably be mapped across the tension between the two creation narratives in the opening chapters of Genesis. Eunomius, emphasizing the hexaemeron, finds the world a place of order divinely structured; Gregory reveling in Paradise, theologizes in a more mytho-poetic mode. Eunomius places great weight on the text’s assertion that God verbally calls the light “day” and the dark “night”—a clear indicator for him of the divine origin of language.1 In contrast, Gregory calls upon the moment in the Paradise narrative where …