Gregory's return from exile and rise in Church affairs, 378–381
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proposal in 1988. It is brought forward little more than three months from the traditional dating. Most importantly, a date of late September
378 remains within the narrow window of Gratian's reign as sole ruler of the empire both west and east.
For the purposes of this chronology then, we will accept that Valens changed his attitude to the Neo-nicene exiles at about the time he left Antioch in the Spring of 378, that the return of the exiles was happening in a piecemeal fashion until given impetus by Gratian's edict in August, that Gregory returned to Nyssa sometime during the summer—certainly by the end of it, only to wait on his brother's dying weeks and days, that Basil died in late September, that the re-grouping of the Neo-nicene bishops in Antioch took place in May–June 379, and that Macrina died on 19 July 379.
Gregory's return from exile and rise in Church affairs, 378–381 'Arianism vanished in the crash of Hadrianople', it has been said.85
For a few months, the western emperor, Gratian, friend and disciple of Ambrose of Milan and a staunch Nicene, became sole emperor of west and east. One of his first acts in that capacity was to formally revoke Valens' penalties against the Nicene leaders, and to proclaim toleration for all except for a few extremist minorities.86
This was a confirmation of some kind of concession granted by Valens some months before his death, as even Tillemont and Maran recognized.87 Tillemont thought Valens might have changed his mind on the matter of the exiles as early as May 378.88
So, sometime in the summer or early autumn of 378 Gregory was free at last to return to Nyssa. Though he was often absent from Nyssa over the years, letter 6 does seem to mark a very special welcome home. It would seem to fit this occasion particularly well, though it could well mark his return in 380 from his captivity in Sebasteia, on which more below.
85 W. Moore, NPNF ser. 2 vol. 5, 6.
86 Socrates HE 5.2, Sozomen HE 7.1, Theodoret HE 5.2; cf. Codex Theod. 16.5.5.
87 Cf. Maran, Vita S. Basilii PG 29 lviiA. Both Tillemont and Maran take account of Jerome's and Rufinus' testimonies and are aware of an early return of the Edessan exiles.
88 Memoires 9.555.
biography Nazianzen's letter 76 indicates that Gregory was in Caesarea for his brother's death and funeral. From then on Gregory's own writings enter prominently—indeed one say erupt—into the historical record. Three works belong to the early months of 379, his Second homily On the Forty Martyrs, the homily Against Usurers, and the treatises On the Making of Man, followed soon after by Apologetic Defence on the Hexaemeron. In these works Gregory presents himself as the continuer of Basil's work and explains his purpose in taking up and completing themes initiated by Basil. This stance as Basil's heir in doctrinal exposition is expressed so promptly, consciously and with unaffected authority that is fair to assume that on his death-bed Basil himself had charged his brother, whom he himself had ordained bishop, to continue his defence and promotion of sound faith (see letter 29.4) and not to forget his special care, the monks and virgins (see letter 3.26). This was a new mantle of responsibility, conferred in solemn circumstances, just as Elijah towards Elisha, and Gregory took up the charge conscientiously.
Gregory's Second Homily on the Forty [Martyrs], which chronologically was his first on these martyrs, shows him publicly assuming this role as his brother's successor. He preached it on 9 March 379 in the same martyrion in Caesarea in which Basil had also once delivered his homily on the Forty Martyrs.89 Devotion to these saints was a spiritual palladium of the entire family. At Easter 379 he delivered at Nyssa his first sermon On the Pasch and the Resurrection. So in late 378 and early 379 Gregory was busy writing, speaking and travelling until his trip to Antioch. From the fact that On the Making of Man was sent (as an Easter gift) to Peter, not yet bishop in Sebasteia, and soon after Apologetic Defence on the Hexaemeron was also dedicated to him, it is clear that there was ongoing correspondence with Annisa.
Thus through Peter at least Macrina was apprised of her brother Gregory's activities since his return from exile, and he himself would have been aware if there were any serious concerns for her health.
Besides, there may have been direct correspondence between Gregory and Macrina, though nothing has survived to confirm that now.
May90 insightfully notes the intense spiritual exchange between the two brothers that appears from this time on. It was surely a two
89 See Daniélou, 'Chronologie', 347.
90 'Die Chronologie', p. 57.
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way affair. While Gregory for his part became his little brother's preceptor in forensic theological discourse, Peter to Gregory was
Macrina's most faithful disciple from infancy, a pure man wholly consecrated to God who had never compromised himself, one who had become in his own right a generous and wise father of monks and virgins. Gregory repeatedly refers to him in the VSM as 'the great Peter'.91 For both Gregory and Peter, Basil was 'our common father and teacher' (On the Making of Man, introduction). Macrina for her part was 'mother in place of our mother' (letter 19.6) and 'teacher' (throughout On the Soul and Resurrection). Basil is never portrayed in relation to Macrina as father—and indeed at one critical juncture, he is clearly portrayed as her spiritual son. Ultimately
Macrina the first-born, and Basil the first-born son, became spiritual mother and father to all their younger siblings.
And now we come to the tumultuous events of mid 379–mid 380.
Letter 19 and the VSM are our chief documents of this history.
While the general sequence of events is clear, their precise timing is not always so. The pioneer interpreter of these events was Diekamp,92 who of course was dependent on the dating of Basil's death established by Tillemont. But Pouchet's re-dating of events allows us to reconfigure the chronology without too much difficulty.
Some eight months and more after Basil's death,93 in May–June 379, Gregory took part in a conference at Antioch of the Neo-nicene
91 It is intriguing that to Socrates, writing in c. 440, Peter was Basil's inheritor as a monk, Gregory his inheritor as a theologian: 'Basil had two brothers, Peter and Gregory, the former of whom adopted his monastic way of life, while the latter emulated his eloquence in teaching', H.E. 4.26.
92 Diekamp's chronology ('Die Wahl', 392–394) may be summarized as follows:
Gregory was absent from Nyssa from August 379. The Synod of bishops in Antioch began in September or October and took about three months; Gregory only left
Antioch in December. Diekamp mentions, with a footnote to Loofs [Eustathius von Sebaste und die Chronologie der Basilius-briefe, Halle, 1898, p. 12, n. 8], that the beginning of the year in the provincial Cappadocian reckoning was 12 December. Gregory did not go to Nyssa but was in Cappadocia when he received the disturbing news about his sister, whereupon he took a ten days journey to reach his sister in Pontus where she led a monastic community. 'The death of Macrina therefore took place in December 379 or January 380.' Some days later Gregory reached Nyssa again where he took 'some weeks' to re-establish order after the depradations of the 'Galatians'. He travelled to Ibora in about March 380, where he stayed about a month. He was then called to Sebasteia only in April 379, where he spent 'at least two or three months' in Sebasteia. He would scarcely have returned to Nyssa 'before the middle of 380'.
93 VSM 17.1, GNO 8.1, 386, Maraval, 190.
biography bishops formerly exiled under Valens. Their concern was to rally their cause and discuss the re-establishment of sound faith in the civil dioceses of Pontus and the Orient. Welcomed by Basil's circle of episcopal colleagues, Gregory appears to have been confirmed or encouraged as his brother's heir in the defence of doctrine, and may have been designated a special referee for church order, a role much more formally sanctioned and extended two years later in Constantinople. Indeed they seem to have mandated him to reconcile certain Marcellians (letter 5.2). His official mission to the churches of Arabia and Jerusalem came two years later, after the council of 381.
During this time in Antioch Gregory made the personal acquaintance of the famous pagan rhetorician, Libanius, of which letters
13 and 14 are testimony. On the return journey from Antioch he had halted in 'Cappadocia', when he was suddenly spurred to visit his sister Macrina as soon as he could. Gregory's own accounts report the decision in different ways. According to the VSM he had already been intending to visit her because it had been so long since they had last met, in letter 19 he was galvanized by receiving disturbing news of her condition, in On the Soul he visited her to seek consolation over Basil's death. He says he travelled as quickly as possible, taking ten days journey to cover the distance. That it took ten days from Caesarea to Annisa 'with haste' is doubtful. But if Gregory was further south when he received the news, perhaps even at Tyana, then part of that ten days was spent reaching Caesarea and continuing his journey on from there. Allowing a month or so for the council in Antioch from late May, Gregory left Antioch late in June and reached Cappadocia no later than 8 July. He did not turn aside to Nyssa,94 but immediately continued on up to Pontus, reaching
Annisa on 18 July 378. To his measureless sorrow he found his sister Macrina on her death-bed. She died in the evening of the next day. Two days after his arrival Gregory, together with Araxius, the local bishop, led her funeral procession to the martyrion outside the village, and buried her there in their parents' grave by the relics of the Forty Martyrs.
94 Four days before Gregory's arrival Peter had left Annisa looking for his brother.
He almost certainly made directly for Nyssa in western Cappadocia, probably through Amasea, but did not find him. Thus by a strange reversal the loyal Peter was absent from his sister's death and funeral while the so long absent Gregory was present.
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Immediately he took the road south again, possibly hoping to meet Peter along the way. Taking a route through Sebastopolis95 he arrived back in Nyssa early in August, depending how long he may have stopped over in Caesarea. Alas, the 'Galatians' had sown trouble in his church from the time of his departure in late April, and he had to go to some trouble to repair the harm. This time the problem seems not to have been Marcellians but Arianizers who had once had a field-day at Nyssa in Valens' time and who now exploited
Gregory's long absence to undermine the Nio-nicene ascendency.96
Gregory had barely finished stabilizing his church when he was approached by an embassy to come to Ibora, a town in Pontus a half-day's journey from Annisa, which had long enjoyed links with Gregory's family. Their bishop had lately died, and the Neo-nicenes of the town felt that Gregory's presence would secure the election of an orthodox bishop. So sometime perhaps in mid to late January
Gregory made his way to Pontus again, where he secured the election of a devoted Neo-nicene, Pansophius,97 as the new bishop of Ibora.
This mission was barely accomplished when in late February 380 an embassy from Sebasteia arrived in Ibora seeking the same offices from him for their own city. Eustathius, who is not named, had died, it is not quite clear when. The stakes in this episcopal election, however, were far higher than in Ibora, since Sebasteia was a metropolis, and its two previous long-lived bishops, Eulalius and Eustathius had not been Nicenes. Gregory was acting as a scrutineer at the election when he was startled to find himself the one elected. Uproar followed. Then letter 19, our sole source of information on this episode, melts down in lamentation and becomes scanty on information. It is clear at any rate that Gregory was taken into some kind of custody, whether coercive or protective is uncertain. Letters 22 and 23 are piteous appeals for deliverance from the predicament in which he now found himself. Letters 10 and 17 also seem to find their proper setting in this sorry episode. The profession of faith in letter 5 may also be explained by this tense situation. It would be an attractive thought that Gregory solved the 95 VSM 39.2, GNO 8.1, 410, Maraval, 256.
96 See May, 'Die Chronologie', p. 55; P. Maraval, 'Lettres', 27.
97 See P. Maraval, 'Un correspondent de Grégoire de Nazianze identifié: Pansophios d'Ibora', Vigiliae Christianae 42 (1988), 24–26.
biography dilemma by proposing his own brother Peter as bishop for Sebasteia at that stage, but it is doubtful that such a dating is appropriate, since no further information is forthcoming. Maraval suggests very plausibly that a Pneumatomachian may have been put in place until the triumph of orthodoxy in 381. It seems to have been another case of Gregory's failure in church politics. Gregory at any rate, in unrecorded circumstances, was restored to Nyssa by about mid 380.
Thus from the time he set out for Antioch in April 379 until his final restoration to Nyssa in mid 380, Gregory experienced a relentless succession of events. That is exactly the impression that letter
19 gives: an unremitting onslaught of emergencies, one overtaking the other. If the mission to Ibora took place in the winter of 379/380, the episode in Sebasteia fits the late winter/early spring of 380, which was exactly the period of the feast-day of the Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia (March 9) and a likely occasion for the electoral synod.
One might wonder about so much travelling and activity in regions of severe winters, yet of the letters written at that period letter 18.9 testifies to the 'numbing cold', and letter 10, written some weeks later, rejoices at the signs of early spring. Letter 1.5b confirms that a very few years later Gregory did indeed celebrate the Feast of the Forty Martyrs in Sebasteia at that frigid time of year, though when he had reached Cappadocia lower in the Halys valley he seems to have encountered warmer weather.
After his release from captivity in Sebasteia, Gregory spent a period of intense literary activity lasting until the Spring of 381. During this time, the Neo-nicenes were consolidating their position, and he bent all his energies to serve the great cause. Most of his theological writings of this time are concerned with promoting an orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. Gregory was now fully exercising the role of apologist for Neo-nicene orthodoxy.
During this time he completed his very lengthy Contra Eunomium I.98
This was an answer to the first book of Eunomius' Apologia pro Apologia, in which the Anomoian theologian had finally answered Basil's Contra
Eunomium after 14 years. Gregory, in his letter 29 to Peter—who at that stage was probably still the monastic superior at Annisa— writes that on his return from Armenia he wrote the first two books
98 GNO 1.22–225; tr. NPNF ser. 2 vol. 5, 35–100. The 'two books' shortly mentioned refer to two sections of what we now know as CE I, not to CE 1 and 2.
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of his Contra Eunomium. He gives the impression that he had already been making notes for his reply while in Armenia, which means he must have been grudgingly lent Eunomius' Apologia while in Sebasteia.
Gregory felt the need of Peter's approval and encouragement before venturing to publish it, because he had resorted to a lot of heated ad hominem argument in response to Eunomius' attempted character assassination of Basil. Peter wrote back letter 30 in reply, giving his brother the go-ahead in no uncertain terms.
It is possible that Gregory travelled up to Neocaesarea to deliver a panegyric to Gregory Thaumaturgus on his feast-day, November
17, 380, which was later edited and expanded as the Life.99 It now appears that the Trinitarian creed attributed to Thaumaturgus is really the work of Gregory of Nyssa himself. Its setting is the Neonicene agenda of the time and the attempt to heal the doctrinal rift that had grown up through the 370s between Artarbius bishop of Neocaesarea and Basil of Caesarea.100
There is one date at this period on which Gregory can be located precisely from two sources. On 1 January 381, Basil's memorial day, he preached his Funeral Oration on Basil in Caesarea. In letter 14 to Libanius, Gregory says he received a letter from the rhetorician
Libanius on the 1st of January, 'in the metropolis of Cappadocia'.
So on the very day he delivered his Funeral Oration on Basil he received the letter from the famous rhetorician.
It was also about this time that he also travelled up to Euchaita, just west of Amaseia, and preached at the martyrion of St Theodore
99 It is tempting to fit the delivery of this panegyric during Gregory's visit to nearby Ibora in 379, when he was attending to the affairs of the church 'in Pontus'.
Mitchell, 'On the Life and Lives', 112–5, 128 dates it to 17 November 379, but his scenario, based on Diekamp 'Die Wahl' above, has Gregory journeying to Neocaesarea after Macrina's death to carry out a mandate of church reform, that there he somehow deals with the problems of the 'Galatians' and the embassy from Sebasteia reaches him. But what of Gregory's report that he stopped at Sebastopolis on his return journey after Macrina's death?
100 Luise Abramowski, in 'Das Bekenntnis des Gregor Thaumaturgus bei Gregor von Nyssa und das Problem seiner Echtheit', Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 87 (1976),
145–166, provides strong arguments that the creed could not have derived from Gregory Thaumaturgus. Basil, for example, when defending himself against the concerns of the Neocesareans, and of Bishop Artarbius in particular, in On the Holy
Spirit, and in Letters 204 and 210, shows no awareness of this creed which would have been such a help to his cause. In Oration 28.8 (380) Gregory Nazianzen quotes from a paragraph ostensibly concluding the creed and attributes it to an unnamed theologian who had written it 'a short time before'. This particular paragraph may have been some kind of a gloss, however, since it is not supported by all manuscripts.