Letter 11 To Gregory
prelude 2: st gregory nazianzen Family d:
P Parasinus gr. 506, 11th cent. (Bibliothèque National, Paris) R Parasinus Suppl. gr. 763, 11th cent.
Family f:
P Patmiacus 57, 10th cent. (Monastery of St John, Patmos), = P in Courtonne's edition of St Basil's Letters.
Family g:
I Athous Iviron 355 (now 241), 10th cent. (Monastery of Iviron, Mt Athos) L Athous Lavra G 59, 10th cent. (The Great Lavra, Mt Athos)
F Laurentianus gr. LVII–7, 11th cent.
Family h:
B Athous Vatopedi 114, 12th cent. (Monastery of Vatopedi, Mt Athos) J Marcianus gr. 81, 14th cent. (The Library of St Mark, Venice)
Citations of mss. in the notes are grouped according to their text families.
Letter 11 To Gregory1 Despite some slight fluctuation in the manuscripts, both the external and internal evidence favour Gregory of Nyssa as the addressee of this letter.
He is portrayed here as having been set on the path to the priesthood, and having received the minor order of reader in the liturgy and serving as an acolyte. But some time in the recent past he has quit all this to undertake a career in rhetoric instead, much to the consternation of his friends (and family) and the glee of the gossip-mongers. Gregory Nazianzen wrote him the following letter of remonstrance, attempting to recall him from the choice of a secular career back to the clerical path. It is no surprise that even as Nazianzen attempts to recall the younger Gregory from a sophistic career, he shows himself a master of Hellenist culture.
The terminus a quo of Gregory's decision to choose a professional career in Caesarea is January 364 when Jovian abrogated Julian's edicts against the participation of Christians in the profession of rhetoric. Gregory of Nyssa at his oldest would then have been about two years short of 30 years old, the canonical age for ordination to the presbyterate.
1 Mss.: YM, LA, PR, P, IF, BJ, ed.: Gallay I, 16–18, tr. NPNF 2nd ser. 7 ('Ep.
I'), 459–460.
prelude 2: st gregory nazianzen
Gregory Nazianzen probably wrote the present letter from Pontus between 363 and 365, for it is certain that he stayed during that period with Basil,
Macrina, Peter and the monastic community at Annisa.
In sending this letter, the hope was no doubt that the younger Gregory would more likely listen to a friend than to his own siblings. But there is no evidence that he was won over again to service of the Church—and to resume the path to the presbyterate and the episcopacy—till some seven or eight years later, once his brother Basil had became metropolitan in Caesarea. Even then, Basil had to maintain a discreet pressure for some time, and a 'political' emergency provided the catalyst.
For further discussion of the background of this letter, see the section Gregory chooses a secular career in the Introduction.
To Gregory2 1. I have one good point in my nature—for even I will boast of one among the many possessed by others—I am equally displeased with myself and my friends over a bad decision. 2. Now since all are friends and kin who live according to God and walk by the same
Gospel, why should you not openly hear from us what all are saying in whispers? 3. They do not commend your inglorious glory— to use one of your expressions3—and your decline, little by little, to the lower life, and your ambition, according to Euripides, the worst of demons.4
4. What has happened to you, O wisest of men, and what do you condemn in yourself that you have tossed aside the sacred and delightful books which you once used to read to the people—do not be ashamed to hear this—or have hung them up over the chimney like the rudders and hoes in winter-time,5 and have applied yourself to salty and bitter ones instead, preferring to be called a Rhetorician rather than a Christian? 5. All thanks be to God that we would rather be the latter than the former.
Do not, excellent friend, do not continue on this path any longer, but though it is late, become sober again and return to yourself (Lk
15.17). Make your apology to the faithful and to God, and to the 2 Grhgor¤ƒ, P, IF, BJ, t" aÈt" YM, LA (i.e. Gregory of Nyssa), added in margin of A: gr. ÉAndron¤kƒ §n êllƒ (written 'to Andronicus' in another), added in margin of PR: oÈk prÚw tÚn NÊshw, éllå prÚw …mÒnumÒn tina Grhgor¤on (not to the one from Nyssa, but to another Gregory of the same name).
3 I.e. an oxymoron, one of the devices of rhetoric.
4 Euripides, Phoenician Women 531–532.
5 Allusion to Hesiod, Works and Days 629, which also appears in Letter 235.
prelude 2: st gregory nazianzen altars and mysteries from which you have distanced yourself. 6. And do not put me offin subtle rhetorical fashion: 'What, was I not practising as a Christian while a rhetorician, was I not a believer when engaged among the boys?' And you might perhaps call God to witness. No, dear friend, not as you ought to have been, even if I grant it to you in part.
7. What of the offence caused others by your present employment—as is to be expected with those who are always prone to see evil—and the occasion given them to suspect and to speak the worst of you?6 Falsely, yes, but why the necessity? For one does not live for oneself alone but also for one's neighbour: it is not enough to persuade yourself, if you do not also persuade others.
8. If you were practising boxing in public, or giving or receiving blows to the head in the shows, or writhing and twisting yourself disgracefully, would you say that you were practising wisdom of soul?7 The argument is not that of a wise man. It is shallow to accept it. 9. 'If you make a change I shall rejoice even now', said one of the Pythagorean philosophers, lamenting the defection of a companion, 'but if not', he wrote, 'you are dead to me'.8
But for your sake, I will not say 'Being a friend, he became an enemy, though still a friend', as the Tragedy says.9 10. But I shall be saddened—to speak mildly—if you yourself neither recognize what you ought to do, which is the part of those most worthy of praise, nor follow the good counsel of others, which is the next.
11. Thus far my exhortation. Forgive me if because of my friendship for you I am distressed and I burn both on your behalf and on behalf of the whole priestly order, and I may add, of all Christians.
13. And whether I ought to pray with you or for you, may God who gives life to the dead, come to the aid of your weakness.
6 I.e. that Gregory has become an apostate from Christianity, an assumption all the more likely with Julian's strictures a very recent memory.
7 The inference is to the tricks of sophistic style which are now Gregory's preoccupation.
8 The conclusion of the 3rd letter, the letters of Pythagoras' and disciples. See
R. Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci, 603.
9 Euripides, Phoenician Women 1446.