Nature and art types of reunion: Nyssen's quicksilver; potter, glass, chemistry
But to the thing: concerning which Gregory of Nyssa, who wrote three most learned orations on Christ's resurrection, in the book which the ancients called On Structure, On the Making of Man chapters 25, 26, and 27, teaches that the soul by affection and love from a singular nature pursues the body in whose quasi-companionship it was, and by an ineffable pull of nature is carried to its conjunction; and he declares that by the example of quicksilver.
But the types of art are various. The first is of the potter's art, which Gregory of Nyssa uses in his third oration On the Resurrection. For just as the potter forms a vessel from clay and dries it in the sun, but if by chance it is broken and reduced to clay he reshapes and restores it: so also God our bodies. The second is the golden Achilles who formerly had been bronze. The third is of the glassmaker's art: for from sand and nitre transparent glass is made, and there are also glasses from ashes. The fourth finally is of chemical art: if a lye prepared from the ashes of nettles is exposed to cold, in that ice the nettles offer themselves to be seen. Hitherto we have seen that the resurrection of the flesh is possible.
Latin
Ad rem vero, de quo Gregorius Nyssenus, qui de resurrectione Christi tres doctissimas scripsit orationes, libro quem Structurae veteres dixerunt, de structura hominis cap. 25. 26. & 27. docet, animam affectione & amore a natura singulari corpus, in cujus quasi contubernio fuit, prosequi, & ineffabili naturae tractu ad ejus conjunctionem ferri; idque hoc exemplo declarat vivum argentum. Artis vero typi sunt varii. Primus est figulinae artis, quo utitur Gregorius Nyssenus orat. 3. de resurrectione. Sicut enim figulus vas e luto fingit & ad solem exsiccat, forte autem confractum & redactum in lutum refingit restituitque: ita & Deus corpora nostra. Secundus est Achilles aureus qui prius fuerat aeneus. Tertius est artis vitriariae: nam ex arena & nitro perspicuum vitrum efficitur, sunt etiam vitra e cineribus. Quartus denique est artis chymicae: e cineribus urticarum paratum lixivium si frigori exponatur, in glacie illa urticae conspiciendae sese praebent. Hactenus vidimus resurrectionem carnis esse possibilem.