gregory of nyssa

Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, article Gregory of Nyssa 1

Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335–96) I. Life and Work

Most of the information about Gregory’s life comes from his own writings, especially

his Life of Macrina. Gregory was born into an upper class Cappadocian family,

brother of Basil of Caesarea (ca. 300-379). Gregory had two more brothers, Peter,

later bishop of Sebasteia, and Naucratius, and a sister, Macrina, who was a model of

piety for Gregory and appears as a character in his dialogue On the Soul and

Resurrection. Their father was member of the Hypsistarians, a widespread sect in the

Mediterranean venerating the cult of the highest God (theos hypsistos). Gregory did

not study with famous teachers like Himerius and Prohaeresius as his brother, Basil,

did, but he was of rare intellectual gifts, as his writings manifest. As Gregory

acknowledges with gratitude (On the Creation of Man 125B), his main teacher was

his brother, Basil. Gregory married a woman called Theoseveia (On Virginity 3, GNO

256.15), who died in 381. It is likely that Gregory became a professional teacher of

rhetoric between 362 and 371 and about 372 he was appointed by his brother Basil

bishop of the small diocese of Nyssa, between Caesarea and Ancyra. He was paused

and brought to trial by partisans of Arianism (ca. 375-6), but he was restored to his

see after the death of the pro-Arian emperor Valens (378). Gregory took part in the

synods of Antiocheia (379) and in the second ecumenical synod in Constantinople

(381), where he defended the Nicene view of God’s nature against the neo-Arian

doctrine of Eunomius. Gregory’s writings, which mostly stem from the later part of

his life, include treatises critical of the Arian doctrine, as had been revised by the neo-

Arian, Eunomius, such as the voluminous Against Eunomius, a follow up to his

brother’s work of the same title, ethical treatises such as On the Life of Moses, On

Virginity, The Catechetical Oration. They also include his two philosophical

masterpieces, On the Making of Man and On the Soul and Resurrection, which

contain Gregory’s views on human nature, on the status of the human soul, but also

on the structure of reality, a number of exegetical works, on the Psalms, the

Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, and the Genesis, such as the Homilies on the Six

Days of Creation, as well as several letters and speeches. In what follows I will focus

on his philosophical views, not on his ecclesiastical ones or on his exegesis.


II. Physics and Metaphysics

One central question in the agenda of the early Christian thinkers was that concerning

the principles accounting for the world. These are principles that account both for the

being of the world as well as for its generation. From a very early stage, Christian

thinkers denied that matter should qualify as a principle of the world and instead

maintained a strong monism, according to which God is the sole principle accounting

for the world. On this view God creates and shapes matter in such a way that the

variety of natural entities come into being at the world’s creation. This is the kind of

view that we find in Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Clement, and Tertullian (see

Karamanolis ch. 2). What is missing from their arguments, however, is a theory of

matter. More specifically, they do not quite explain how in their view God brings

matter about and how this is at all possible given the ontological disparity between

God and matter, since on their admission God is an intellect, intrinsically good and

provident, while matter is disorderly and as such identified with badness. One answer

that is standardly offered is that God creates the world through the intervention of

Logos, so that God does not come in direct contact with matter, but this view requires

further elaboration in order to justify a strict monism. Besides, if God is the sole

principle of the world, he is ultimately responsible for all features of the world

including badness or evil, and this does not fit to God. Origen tried to tackle this set of

issues taking as a starting point that God is the sole principle of the world (On

Principles II.9.1, IV.4.8) in the sense that God is the singular cause accounting for the

being of the world, which has never actually come into being (ibid. II.1.3, II.3.4-5).

Yet Origen still speaks of matter as a kind of substrate that admits of qualities and is

shaped accordingly (On Principles II.4.1) without explaining what the ontological

status of this substrate is. He only suggests that God is responsible for the ability of

matter to take different forms and transform in ways that make the world beautiful

(ibid. II.1.4). Origen denied that God is responsible for badness, and he advanced an

elaborate argument to the effect that the only cause of it is man (see Karamanolis ch.

4). The question of the status of matter and God’s relation to it was addressed by Basil

and in more depth by Gregory.

Basil on the one hand denies the existence of formless matter while on the

other he takes issue with those who argue that God is the creator of the world only in

the sense that he is the cause of its being and not of its generation. Thus Basil denies

both the coeternity of God and matter and the coeternity of God and the world; for the


former thesis undermines God’s omnipotence and freedom, while the latter

undermines God’s ontological status as a unique entity. Basil argues instead first that

matter in so far as it is privation, is bad, which means that matter cannot be a principle

of something as ordered and good as the world, and, second, he argues against those

who portray God as a cause of coeternal creation that they thus deny God’s

willingness to create the world, which, he claims, is suggested by the relevant

vocabulary of Genesis (On Hexaemeron I.17, 17C). The question that Basil leaves

unanswered, however, is how exactly we should understand God’s creation of the

world including matter, which in his view occurred in a timeless moment and all at

once (On Hexaemeron I.1, I.6). Basil argues that there is no need to assume a

substrate, as Origen did, for, he claims, the world is the ordered totality of the

qualities we find in it; these qualities make up all things in the world (ibid. I.8, 21B).

Basil, however, does not explain how this is the case and especially what keeps these

qualities together. Gregory will address precisely these questions and offer some

interesting answers, which I sketch below.

Gregory maintains that matter as such does not exist, either as a formless

substrate that pre-exists creation or as a substrate that God brings about and then

shapes in order to create the world. What rather exists, Gregory argues, are qualities

such as hot, cold, light, heavy and so on, and their convergence or combination

constitutes what we call matter (Apology for Hexaemeron 69C). The qualities

themselves are not of material nature either; rather, Gregory argues, they are concepts

(ennoiai) or thoughts (noêmata) in God’s intellect, where they have always existed

(Apology 69C). On this view, God did not actually create matter in order to create the

world but rather he created the world and everything in it out of his own thoughts and

through an act of will. The implication of this view is that material bodies are not

made up of matter but of intelligible entities, the qualities, the logoi.

Gregory has an interesting argument in support of this view. Material entities,

he claims, are constantly transformed: the water of the rain makes the earth humid,

the sun makes humidity evaporate, that is, it turns humidity into air and so on

(Apology 93B-96A). When fire burns oil, for instance, Gregory argues, it is not only

that fire consumes the humid element and turns it dry, but the mass of oil is also

diffused into the air as dry dust, and this is why the smoke of a lantern blackens

anything that lies above it (ibid. 97B). This means, Gregory continues, that the oil

does not disappear but rather becomes transformed into different material elements,


such as dust, which in his view shows that matter consists of the qualities that emerge

in the body’s dissolution (97CD). Instances of dissolution of material bodies show

that from one body several different elements come about, such as air, water, dust,

and so on. Gregory argues that this is precisely what constitutes a body (Against

Eunomius II.949, GNO 259.26-260.25).

This view has an epistemological aspect. In Gregory’s view, our perception of

bodies is nothing more than one kind of dissolution of them. We, humans, Gregory

suggests, come to know material entities by distinguishing and by combining the

logoi that constitute them. When we get to know an object around us, Gregory claims,

this happens by sense-perceiving distinct aspects of it, such as its color, its weight, its

size, its texture etc. (On the Making of Man 212D-213A). These distinct aspects

amount to distinct qualities (logoi) that make up each object. We distinguish the

various qualities of an object, Gregory claims, despite the fact that these are presented

to us united and we never confuse the quality of color with that of weight, for instance.

The epistemic distinctiveness of logoi is not an illusion, Gregory suggests, but rather

the consequence of their being distinct in reality, and this is so because ultimately

qualities are distinct in God’s mind as distinct thoughts. The fact that sensible entities

are made up of combination of qualities does not mean, according to Gregory, that

creation amounts to the combination of the logoi, the qualities or reasons, in God’s

mind. The logoi are rather combined when they are outside God’s mind and they give

rise to what we call matter. In this sense the constituents of matter have their patterns

in God’s mind but matter as such does not. This does not mean, however, that God is

not responsible for the combination of logoi; rather, God is responsible for their

combination in the sense that he is the one who established them (On the Soul and

Resurrection 124CD); as soon they were established in God’s mind, they were

projected out of it, and this projection amounts to the world’s creation (Apology for

Hex. 72A-73A, 77CD). In this sense God is the creator of the material world without

being creator of matter. Matter is for Gregory not an entity but rather an

epiphenomenon resulting from the combination of qualities that constitute bodies. In

this way Gregory answers the question of how an immaterial, intelligible, entity like

God gives rise to matter. In his view, the question is misguided because the world is

not material but rather is constituted of intelligible entities, the reasons or qualities

(logoi) that stem from the divine mind.

Gregory’s theory has ostensible affinities with Plotinus’ and especially


Porphyry’s relevant views (see Karamanolis 105-106). There has been much

discussion as to whether Gregory’s theory is close to Berkeley’s idealism, according

to which everything that exists is mental and material entities are not-existent or

closer to the position of John Locke, who holds that material entities are made up of

qualities and all we know of them are their nominal essences, that is, their attributes,

not their real essences (see Sorabji 287-294, Hibbs, Hill). Gregory, however, did not

deny the existence of material entities, but he only denied the existence of matter. He

is thus closer to John Locke’s position. However, Gregory’s theory serves aims quite

distinct of those of other ancient or modern philosophers. His metaphysical theory

allows him to defend the possibility of the resurrection of the body, because the

human body, like all bodies, is also made up of qualities, which constitute its

corporeal nature (On the Soul and Resurrection 45AC). If the qualities of the human

body can be combined and dissolved, they can also be recombined, and in this sense

the human body is restored The resurrected human body will be more refined that our

original one, as it will be purified from the non-rational side, what Gregory calls

“non-rational life” (On the Soul and Resurrection 148BC). Gregory thus replies to

pagan critics such as Celsus and Porphyry who criticized the Christian doctrine of the

resurrection of the body as absurd.

Gregory was much concerned with the question of the nature of Christian God.

Early Christians since Justin Martyr were speaking of the mediation of God-the Son,

the Logos, in the creation of the world by God-the Father, and they tried to argue that

the three persons of the divine trinity, God, Son, and Spirit are one substance in three

persons (Tertullian, Apologeticum 21.11-13, Adversus Praxean 3.8). The question,

however, was how exactly the unity of the three divine entities is to be understood.

Gregory follows his brother Basil in advocating Athanasius’ view that God is one

substance (homoousios) and yet exists in three hypostaseis or divine persons, Father,

Son, and Spirit. To understand that, we need first to realize that Basil and Gregory

distinguish sharply between substance (ousia) and hypostasis; the latter is an entity

ontologically depended on substance, such as the heating effect of fire (e.g. Plotinus,

Enn. V.1.6.30-34). Basil makes that clear when he argues that “the difference between

substance (ousia) and hypostasis is the same as that between the common (koinon)

and the particular (idion), as for instance between the living being and the particular

man (Basil, Letter 236, Loeb vol. III, p. 400-402). Gregory argues along the same

lines that all men share the same account of substance (logos tês ousias), while they


have different features (idiômata) that make them different hypostaseis (Against

Eunomius I.227, GNO 93.8-10). Another example he uses in this regard is that of gold

vis-à-vis golden objects. We speak of gold in singular (chrysos), Gregory suggests,

even when we deal with many golden objects (chryseoi). There is one gold despite the

fact that there are many golden objects and there are many individuals who have the

nature of man, like Peter, John, and Mary for instance, but only one substance, man,

that is manifested in them (To Ablabius 132B; see further Maspero 1-27). Similarly

with God, there is one substance, God, existing in three individuals, Father, Son, and

Spirit. The fact that each one of the hypostaseis is God does not mean that we deal

with three Gods, because the substance is one, in the same sense that we do not have

three “manhoods” or three “golds” when we are confronted with three men or three

golden objects (see further Zachhuber 70-92, Turcescu) . Gregory argues for the unity

of the divine substance by also pointing out that God acts in a unified way, which

represents the unified divine will (thelêma; To Ablabius 128A), without which there

would not be unity and order in the world.

Much as he speaks about the substance of God, Gregory is nevertheless eager

to highlight the infinite nature of God, of which we are bound to have only a limited

knowledge, and he insists that we can only do justice to God’s infinity only if we use

negative terms (Against Eunomius II.953–6, GNO 263.21–265.10; Life of Moses

376D–377B). Gregory indeed fosters negative theology stressing the infinity of God

in many of his writings (e.g. Against Eunomius II.554; see further Dörrie 877-882).

Gregory contrasts the beings of the creation that exist in space and time with God who

transcends them all In Gregory’s terminology creation and created beings exist in

extension or space (diastêma), while God does not (Against Eunomius II.368).

II. Fate and Free Will

One question that puzzled early Christians and their pagan contemporaries alike was

that of the existence of badness in the world. Instances of badness include disease and

death, accidents that can impair humans, natural catastrophes, and also vice. If God is

the sole principle of reality, then he must also be the author of all evils, but that does

not fit to God, whose essential feature is goodness and whom Platonists identified

with the Form of the Good of the Republic. The problem emerges in different form

even for those who maintain that God is the highest but not the sole source of reality,

because in such a case God is still responsible for allowing the existence of principles


such as matter from which evils possibly stem and for collaborating with them.

Gregory of Nyssa takes up the line of earlier Christian thinkers, mainly Origen and

Basil, according to which God is not the author of evils and that badness is simply a

privation of goodness. Gregory argues at length in favor of this view in his work

Against Fate. Gregory denies that badness or evil exists naturally as an element

inherent in the constitution of beings (On the Soul and Resurrection 116C, 120AB),

because, he argues, this would mean that God allowed for that, and this is impossible

given that God´s nature is good (ibid. 120A). For Gregory badness comes into being

only with man’s choices (ibid. 120C), which means that Gregory objects to Origen’s

theory according to which the human soul descends into the body because already in

its disembodied state, as an intellect, can opt for badness. Gregory argues that man

has to power to choose (prohairetikê dynamis) only when the soul is embodied. This

power (prohairesis), Gregory suggests, handles our impressions and oversees

everything we do (On the Song of Songs, GNO VI.345-6). Thanks to prohairesis, man

is ‘father of himself’, as Gregory puts it, that is, he or she decides about the kind of

self, virtuous of vicious, one would like to have in the same way that natural birth

brings about different kinds of animals, male and female (Life of Moses 328B). In this

sense man can realize in his intellect everything he wants, as God is also able to do

(On the Soul and Resurrection 124B). Gregory actually speaks as if the power to

choose, our prohairesis, is what eventually choses the kind of life we lead and the

kind of character we have and in this sense it amounts to one’s fate (Against Fate

GNO III.2, 56.17-18). Gregory argues that against the fatalism of his interlocutor,

according to which there is a connection of all things in the world (sympatheia) such

that the movements of the planets determine human characters and lives (ibid. 37.14-

38.10).

Gregory’s argument against the fatalist position focuses on the role of natural

causes. He claims that human nature and astral nature are completely distinct and

their natural movements are equally distinct and independent (Against Fate, GNO

III.2, 40.23-41.5). Gregory goes on arguing that the movement of celestial spheres is

like any other movement in nature and as such it does not create time more than any

other, let alone fate (45.11-46.5). If we want to predict someone’s future, Gregory

suggests, we do not have to look at the heavenly bodies but at one’s individual

features, which result from natural causes that are in operation in humans and often

leave signs in them (ibid 49.20-50.11). Astrologists, Gregory claims, eliminate natural


causes and instead attribute natural phenomena to causes foreign to their nature.

Gregory adduces the example of an earthquake, which, he claims, has nothing to do

with fate or with the movements of heavenly bodies, but rather is a geological

phenomenon with specific natural, i.e. geological, causes (ibid. 54.12-55.17).

By taking this line, Gregory joins the pagan tradition of explaining natural

phenomena with reference to their corresponding natural causes rather than a

Christian one that often favors a theological explanation of them, as is that we find in

Scripture, where earthquakes are often presented as events suggesting the presence or

the wrath of God (Exodus 19:18, Isaiah 2:29, Matthew 24:7-8). Gregory resembles

Seneca who also argues that geological phenomena are governed by natural laws (Nat.

Quaest. III.16.4) and that such phenomena contribute to cosmic harmony (ibid.

III.29.4). Like natural phenomena, Gregory suggests, human behavior should also be

explained in terms of natural, human, causes, and in Gregory’s view the main cause

involved in explaining human behavior and human choices is prohairesis, the

intellectual ability to choose. It is this that shapes human lives and which is ultimately

responsible for happiness or misery in life.

III. Epistemology Gregory defended his theory of the divine persons and divine substance also from an

epistemological point of view in response to challenges advanced by the neo-Arian,

Eunomius. Eunomius apparently claimed that the difference in substance between the

persons of the divinity is suggested by the different names applying to them, such as

Father, Son, and Spirit (Basil, Against Eunomius II.1.5-9). For in his view the name

“Son” suggests that this is a created kind of substance. Eunomius advocated the more

general view that names reveal essences of things, since they are provided by God and

fit to the natures of things (Gregory, Against Eunomius II.198, GNO 282.30-283.2).

Gregory accuses Eunomius of drawing on the naturalistic theory of names outlined by

Hermogenes in Plato’s Cratylus (ibid. II.404-406, GNO 344.13-17). Gregory argues

that Eunomius’ view makes God a grammarian who teaches the names of things to

the first humans, but this, he continues, is an impossible view, since names according

to Scripture are human creations (Genesis 2.19-20; Against Eunomius II.402, GNO

342.26-344.3) and the evidence of different languages corroborates that (ibid. II.406-

8; see further Karfikova). In the case of God, Gregory argues, names such as ‘Father’


and ‘Son’ but also ‘unbegotten’ (agennêtos) and ‘begotten’ (gennêtos) do not

designate different substances but only different properties (Against Eunomius II.916-

7, GNO 232.19-26, From Common Notions 180CD). The names we apply to God

form part of our own concept of God, which cannot be grasped by one name, since

God, Gregory claims, is a cluster concept, consisting of many properties (Against

Eunomius II.145, GNO 267.21-7). We name God differently depending on the

perspective we take at a given moment (ibid. II.475-6, GNO 364.23-365.24). The

application of many names to God does not contradict the simplicity of his substance

(ibid. II.148, II.163-4). God is infinite and no names will ever exhaust his properties

(II.192-5).

Gregory’s conception of God’s nature informs further his epistemology.

Gregory maintains that that secure knowledge can be attained only with regard to true

beings (On Fate 161D) or real beings (Life of Moses 333C) and such a being is only

God (ibid.). This knowledge is not through the senses but through the intellect.

Knowledge of sensible, created, entities cannot be secure since such beings are

subject to change. Gregory speaks about this kind of knowledge that is achieved

through sense perception. As we will see below (psychology), Gregory holds that

human soul is of intellectual nature, that is, an intellect, which shapes the entire

human nature. Human intellect, Gregory argues, unlike God’s, operates through

bodily organs, that is, through the senses, which Gregory likens to the many entrances

a city have (On the Making of Man 152CD). The point of the comparison is that all

senses lead to the intellect and all sense date are brought to the intellect. Gregory

makes the stronger claim that occurs also in the Theaetetus (184d-185b), according to

which it is the intellect that knows through the senses (On the Making of Man 152A).

Gregory appears to maintain that sense perception is intellectual in two senses, first

insofar as the intellect makes a judgment on the basis of the sense data that receives

from the senses, and, second, insofar as the body including the sense organs are

shaped by the intellect in ways proper to each member of the body. This is suggested

by the analogy of the musical instrument that Gregory uses (ibid. 149BC). A musical

instrument is shaped by music and it can function properly only by a musician.

Similarly the human body has been shaped by the intellect and functions properly

when guided by the intellect (cf. 161AD, 168CD; see also below, psychology). An

ethical implication that follows is that if we neglect our intellect, this amounts to an

alienation from our human nature (ibid. 164A).


Psychology Gregory investigates systematically the nature of soul in and its function in the body

in two of his main works, namely On the Making of Man and On the Soul and

Resurrection. Both works were written the same period of Gregory’s life, in 379 and

381 respectively. The aim of the latter, a dialogue between his sister Macrina and

Gregory, is to demonstrate that the soul survives the death of the body and

reincarnates in a resurrected body. The setting of the work is strongly reminiscent of

Plato’s Phaedo – Macrina, like Socrates in the Phaedo, speaks of the soul and its

immortality while facing death (see Apostolopoulos). The aim of On the Making of

Man on the other hand is to show that the human nature is essentially rational, since

the human soul that shapes human nature is an essentially rational entity.

Gregory embraces the view that the human soul consists of three parts, reason,

spirit and appetite, and indeed he uses the Platonic imagery of the charioteer in the

Phaedrus (253c-254d) to underscore that (Life of Moses 36CD, On the Soul and

Resurrection 49BC, On Virginity 404D). Gregory actually defends the partite model

of soul in On the Soul and Resurrection and claims that the two non-rational parts

play an important role in life, which is, among other things, to contribute to attaining

virtue if they let being guided by reason (On the Soul and Resurrection 57A). For he

argues, in accordance with Republic IV, the appetitive and the spirited part of the soul

are driven by non-rational desire, not by the good, but they can be educated by reason

and steered towards the good (ibid. 64D-65A). But, as with Plato’s tripartite soul, the

question is what maintains the unity of the soul that accounts for the unity of our

experiences.

Gregory argues that it is the intellect (nous) that holds human nature together

unifies it (synechei; On the Making of Man 164AB) and shapes it (ibid. 149BC).

Gregory considers the intellect as the form of the body, the absence of which results

in formlessness (amorphia; ibid. 161D). The intellect, Gregory argues, permeates the

entire body, which is its instrument, as a power (dynamis) and applies to each of its

parts through activities that are proper to it (161B), that is, bodily activities are

determined by intellect (164BC). This means that the intellect is not locally present in

the body, and Gregory indeed criticizes those who localize the soul or its parts in the

body, as is the case with Plato in the Timaeus. In his On the Soul and Resurrection

Gregory, or more precisely Macrina, also criticizes the materialist models of the


soul’s nature and existence in the body of Stoics and Epicureans, and sets out to

present an alternative view regarding the manner in which exists in the soul. Macrina

argues that the soul exists in the human body in the same sense in which God exists in

the world. God, she claims, is present in the world by arranging together (synarmozei)

the whole world through a power that goes through it and maintains everything (28A),

which is reminiscent of the way God is presented in ps-Aristotle’s De mundo (398b7-

11); similar, she argues, is the case with the soul, for man is a small world

(mikrokosmos) that contains all elements and each part complements the others in

making up a whole (28BC).

Macrina defines the soul as “a created substance, living, intellectual, which

through itself provides a faculty of life and a faculty of cognition of perceptible things

in a body equipped with organs and potentially perceiving as far as nature can admit

(On the Soul and Resurrection 29B). This definition makes clear that soul does not

pre-exist the body, but rather exists together with the body, which the soul informs

and qualifies. In On the Making of Man Gregory claims that there is no point in which

the soul exists without body or the body without soul, for, he argues, the soul is

already contained in the male sperm (ibid. 253BD). Gregory actually claims that there

is no way of separating soul and body as there is no way of separating form and

matter in an artifact (ibid. 253C). Embryos too have a soul, as their movement and

nourishment shows (On the Soul and Resurrection 125B-128B). Gregory suggests

that the soul comes into being together with a suitable body that the soul shapes and

develops. Gregory illustrates his thought with the analogy of a sculptor. The sculptor,

Gregory claims, starts carving form on matter but he does not impose that form all at

once; rather, he gradually improves on it until its perfection (On the Making of Man

253BC). What guides the perfection of the form is the form itself, which has already

shaped the body partly and which exists in the sculptor’s intellect. The soul then is for

Gregory the form of the body, a view reminiscent of Aristotle’s thesis in De anima.

The question of how Gregory understands this form is partly answered by the

definition given by Macrina and cited earlier (On the Soul and Resurrection 29B),

which suggests that for Gregory the soul is of intellectual nature. He speaks of the

soul proper (kyriôs psychê) or true soul (alethês psychê) as an intellectual one (noera;

On the Making of Man 176BD). This soul Gregory argues, mixes with the body

through the senses and it is ultimately the soul i.e. the intellect that perceives through

the senses (138D-140A, On the Soul and Resurrection 29D-32A). Gregory argues that


the soul qua intellect shapes the body in two main ways; first, it shapes the body so

that it can be used as an instrument of reason (On the Making of Man 148C). The

human body has a certain posture, hands instead of another set of feet, etc. This

arrangement is due to the shaping effect of reason (136B, 144AC), which makes man

similar to God (136C). The second way in which the intellect shapes the body is by

informing the senses. Our senses operate by means of concepts, by means of which

we cognize. Macrina suggests that when we perceive the sun, a vessel floating, our

perceptions are shaped by concepts and responsible for this is the intellect that hosts

the concepts (37B). The intellect for Gregory translates sense data in a conceptual

form. This is not a transformation of them, since these are already reasons (logoi), yet

the human conceptualization adds to them aspects absent in sense perception (e.g. a

cake is enticing). The sense organs would not serve the intellect unless the human

body as a whole had not been shaped so as to be the body of a rational creature. The

intellect is not actually in or mixed with the body, since it is incorporeal but is present

in it as form and through its activities.

Ethics and Politics

Like all early Christian thinkers, Gregory is much concerned with the question of how

man should live in order to attain happiness and salvation and his psychological and

metaphysical views outlined above have ethical implications. This becomes clear in

Gregory’s On the Making of Man where he speaks at length about the universal

human nature and he outlines its main features (On the Making of Man 178D-185D).

All men, he argues, equally share God’s image, which means that they all have an

equal share in the intellect. This involves the ability we all have to be, like God,

masters of ourselves and able to choose (to autokrates kai autexousion), which is an

ability that is not affected by the difference in sex that pertains only to men (185AC).

This view that all men share the same human nature has the interesting corollary that

no man is slave by nature. This is a view we already find in Justin (Dial. 134. Cf. 2

Apol. 1), in Clement (Paed. I.6.31, Strom. V.5.30.4) and in Basil (On Holy Spirit 20),

and is in accordance with with Paul’s statement that there is neither slave nor free,

neither woman nor man in Christ (Galatians 3:28). Yet it was first Gregory who

explicitly condemned slavery as an established practice in his contemporary society.

Gregory does this at length in his fourth homily on the book of Ecclesiastes (GNO

V.336.10-20). He argues that this practice indicates excessive arrogance, since some


people assume that they are masters of humans, which is only fit to God, and

ultimately goes against God’s law, which wants all men equal (antinomothetein; ibid.

335.7).

Gregory maintains that man is made in the image of God and that has

consequences for the kind of life that humans should live (On Virginity XII.2, p. 408

S.C.). Two of Gregory’s most important ethical works are On the Life of Moses and

On the Inscriptions of Psalms. In the latter he describes man’s end as beatitude

(makariotes; 25), which he understands as likeness to God (homoiôsis tô theô; On the

Inscriptions 26), an ideal that is suggested already by Plato (Theaetetus 176ab; see

further Merki). This, however, Gregory claims, can be achieved only through the

corroboration by divine grace (On Virginity XII.2, p. 410 S.C.). Gregory maintains

that ethical life consists of three stages, separation from evil, ascent towards

intelligible matters, and finally likeness to God (On the Inscriptions 26), a view

reminiscent of the degrees of virtue and ethical life that we find in Plotinus (Enn. I.4-

5) and Porphyry (e.g. Sentences 32). Gregory adopts the Platonist distinction of an

inner and an outer man, namely the man as soul/intellect and as a compound of soul

and body (Plato, Republic 533d, Plotinus, Enn. I.2.1, I.4.16, Porphyry, On Knowing

Yourself fr. 274-5 Smith, On the Creation of Man 236A). Gregory claims, however,

that when we ascend to virtue and ultimately to God, we cease being a duality of soul

and body and become one, for both soul and body are then united to the good (On the

Beatitudes GNO p. 165). Gregory conceives this ascent as an effort on the part of man

to reach out to God (On the Song of Songs 15, GNO p. 6). This ‘reaching out’

(epektasis) of man towards God is paralleled with Abraham’s search for God (Against

Eunomius GNO II.89, 253.17).

Gregory followed Origen in holding that all humans will be finally restored

and their punishment will not be eternal. Origen held that ultimately God’s Logos will

prevail in the world and will bring everything to perfection, including the sinful souls

of humans (Against Celsus VIII.72). Gregory maintains that God’s punishment aims

only to remove badness from the world and in this sense it is only a means of

education and cannot be everlasting (On the Soul and Resurrection 100BC, 108A,

148A; see the extensive study of Ramelli).


Reception

Gregory’s work exercised considerable influence in later generations of Christian

thinkers. Some of his works were translated into Syrian and Arabic, quite early on,

and later also in Latin (see Dörrie 871-873). It is an indication of Gregory’s profound

influence on Byzantium that the patriarch Germanos (715-30) suggested that

Gregory’s writings should be cleansed from aspects of Origen’s doctrines, such as in

particular the doctrine of restoration (apokatastasis), which Gregory maintains in

several of his works (see above).

George Karamanolis

Bibliography

Editions

Migne, J., Patrologia Graeca, vols. 44-46

Jaeger, W. et al., Gregorii Nysseni Opera, Leiden 1960-

Editions Sources Chrétiennes (various editors)

Bibliographical list

Altenburger, M. – Mann, F., Bibliographie zu Gregor von Nyssa, Leiden/N.York

1988

Secondary Literature

Apostolopoulos, Ch. Phaedo Christianus. Studien zur Verbindung und Abwägung des

Verhältnisses zwischen dem platonischen Phaidon und dem Dialog Gregors von

Nyssa Über die Seele und die Auferstehung, Frankfurt a.M. 1986

Cavarnos, J., ‘The Relation of Body and Soul in the Thought of Gregory of Nyssa’, in H.

Dörrie, M. Altenburger, U. Schramm (ed.), Gregor von Nyssa und die

Philosophie, Leiden 1976, 60-78

Corrigan, K., Evagrius and Gregory. Mind, Soul and Body in the 4th Century, Surrey 2009

Dörrie, H., ‘Gregor von Nyssa’, Reallexikon für Antike un Christentum, vol. 12 (1983),


63-895

Drobner, H. R., ‘Gregory of Nyssa as Philosopher: De anima et resurrectione and De

hominis opificio’, Dionysius 18 (2000), 69-101

Cherniss, H., The Platonism of Gregory of Nyssa, N.York 1930

Gaith, J., La conception de la liberté chez Grégoire de Nysse, Paris 1953

Hibbs, D., ‘Was Gregory of Nyssa a Berkelyan Idealist?’, British Journal for the History

of Philosophy 13.3 (2005), 425-435

Hill, J., ‘Gregory of Nyssa, Material Substance and Berkeleyan Idealism’, British Journal

for the History of Philosophy 17 (2009), 653-683

Karamanolis, G., The Philosophy of Early Christianity, Durham/London 2013

Karfikova, L., ‘Der Ursprung der Sprache nach Eunomius und Gregor vor dem

Hintergrund der Antiken Sprachtheorien (CE II 387-444 ; 543-553)’, in L.

Karfikova, S. Douglas, J. Zachhuber (ed.), Gregory of Nyssa : Contra

Eunomium II, Leiden/Boston 2007, 279-305 (Suppl. to VC 82)

Köckert, Ch., Christliche Kosmologie und Kaiserzeitliche Philosophie, Tübingen 2009

Ludlow, M., Gregory of Nyssa Ancient and (post)modern, Oxford 2007

Maspero, G., Trinity and Man: Gregory of Nyssa’s Ad Ablabium, Leiden/Boston 2007

(Suppl. to VC 86)

Mateo-Seco L. F. and G. Maspero (ed.), The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa,

Leiden/Boston 2010

Meredith, A., Gregory of Nyssa, London 1999

Peroli, E., Il Platonismo e l’anthropologia filosofica di Gregorio di Nissa, Milano 1993

Peroli, E., ‘Gregory of Nyssa and the Neoplatonic Doctrine of the Soul’, Vigiliae

Christianae 51 (1997), 117-139

Ramelli, ‘Gregory of Nyssa’s Position in Late Antique Debates on Slavery and

Poverty, and the Role of Asceticism’, Journal of Late Antiquity 5 (2012), 87-118


Ramelli, I., The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis, Leiden 2013 (Suppl. to VC vol.

120)

Rist, J., ‘On the Platonism of Gregory of Nyssa’, Hemarthena 169 (2000), 129-151

Sorabji, R., Time, Creation and the Continuum, Ithaca New York 1983

Streck, M., Das schönste Gut. Der menschliche Wille bei Nemesius von Emesa und

Gregor von Nyssa, Göttingen 2005

Turcescu, L., Gregory of Nyssa and the Concept of the Divine Persons, Oxford 2005

Zachhuber, J., Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa, Leiden/Boston/Köln 1999

gregory of nyssa

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