Links -- St. Gregory of Nyssa ** UPDATED ** w/ NEW LINK AND FRESH TRANSLATION

St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – after 394), along with his brother Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus, was one of Cappadocian Fathers. of the early Christian Church. A bishop in Asia Minor, he was theologian and (mostly neo-Platonic) philosopher who helped set the doctrine of the Trinity in its enduring form. He is also known for an acute observation on the theological debates of the day in the Eastern Roman Empire:

Everywhere, in the public squares, at crossroads, on the streets and lanes, people used to stop you and discourse at random about the Trinity. If you asked something of a moneychanger, he would begin discussing the question of the Begotten and the Unbegotten. If you questioned a baker about the price of bread, he would answer that the Father is greater and the Son is subordinate of Him. If you went to take a bath, the Anomoean (semi-Arian) bath attendant would tell you that in his opinion the Son simply comes from nothing. Must we say these people were out of their heads? At any rate heresy had upset their minds.

The heresies he referred to were offshoots of the Arian heresy, which in its various forms denied the divinity of Christ. St. Gregory's Anomoean bath attendant would have believed a doctrine that was in general agreement with the Arians and semi-Arians on Christology but differed on obscure points of theology.

Good bio of Gregory of Nyssa online in the 1910 edition of Catholic Encyclopedia at NewAdvent.org.

LATER (March 2, 2014): Googled into it, tried the links, found a dead one and went searching for a new one. Found some good ones at Roger Pearse, an epinonymous blog about " Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, freedom of speech, information access, and more." In this post on June 19, 2009, he asked "A famous passage from Gregory of Nyssa … but where from?" Pearse's blog specializes in early Christian texts, and he has some informed responses in the comments section.

Including this one posted by Dioscorus Boles:

I found this in The Orthodox Church – Church History by Kallistos Ware:

Gregory of Nyssa describes the unending theological arguments in Constantinople at the time of the second General Council:

The whole city is full of it, the squares, the market places, the cross-roads, the alleyways; old-clothes men, money changers, food sellers: they are all busy arguing. If you ask someone to give you change, he philosophizes about the Begotten and the Unbegotten; if you inquire about the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Father is greater and the Son inferior; if you ask “Is my bath ready?” the attendant answers that the Son was made out of nothing (On the Deity of the Son [P.G. xlvi, 557b]).

He includes a citation to Ware at http://www.synaxis.org/catechist/Orthodox_Church, and adds, "I don’t have the reference which Ware gives (On the Deity of the Son [P.G. xlvi, 557b]), but somebody may have it."

[I've changed the indents to make clear that St. Gregory is a quote within a quote.]