Supplementary Collection

SUPPLEMENTARY COLLECTION

The letters in this selection are presented in the order of their recognition, or their being proposed for recognition as works of Gregory of Nyssa. The edition from which each translation has been made is noted in the prefatory note to each letter.

Letter 31 To Letoius bishop of Melitene Gregory's authorship of the letter to Letoius has always been acknowledged.

It was due to a decision by Pasquali (ix) and by other editors following him, that it was not included in recent editions of his letters, a decision based on a narrow conception of the epistolary genre. Because the letter was taken up so soon into the body of Eastern church canons, Pasquali and others left it to editors of canonical literature. However it is clear that it was originally a genuine letter, called forth in the same sort of circumstances as Basil's letters 188, 199 and 217 to Amphilochius, i.e. it is the considered response of an authoritative senior bishop to the questions of a new and inexperienced bishop on the Church's administration of penance.

It has as much right to be included here among Gregory's letters as Basil's 'canonical' letters have been among his. Moreover, this important letter has never appeared before in English.

That this letter was preserved, such as it is, is due to a decision by an unknown canonist in Constantinople who in late 6th century (c. 580) revised

John Scholasticus' pioneering work in codiﬁcation of Church law, the Synagoge L titulorum. Scholasticus had added certain letters of Basil to Amphilochius to the decisions of church councils. The unknown canonist took a cue from this and in his own work, the Synagoge in XIV titles (also called Syntagma

XIV titulorum), added excerpts from a wider range of Church Fathers.1

One of these was Gregory of Nyssa's letter to Letoius in the form we now know it, minus its original introduction and divided into eight 'canons'. All the subsequent transmission of the letter stems from this edition.

Professor Ekkehard Mühlenberg of Gottingen's critical edition of this letter is forthcoming in GNO, but he sent me his text to use and invited my queries—a relationship of senior to junior not unlike that of Gregory and Letoius.

There have been three notable earlier editions of the letter:

1 See Gallagher, Church Law and Church Order in Rome and Byzantium, 38.

supplementary collection 1. The edition published by A. Morell in Paris in 1638, and republished by Migne in Patrologia Graeca 45, 221–236.

2. Joannes Baptista Pitra, Iuris Ecclesiastici Graecorum Historia et Monumenta, Tom. I a primo p. C. n. ad VI saeculum, pp. 619–629 (with correction on page 668), Romae 1864 (reprinted 1963).

3. Périclès Pierre Joannou (ed. with French translation): Discipline générale antique (IV e–IX e s.), tome 2: Les canons des Pères Grecs, published in the series Fonti, Fascicolo IX, by Pontiﬁca Commissione per la Redazione del Codice di Diritto Canonico Orientale (Grottaferrata: Tipograﬁa Italo—

Orientale, 1963), pp. 203–226.

Mühlenberg found many corrigenda in Pitra's apparatus and more than 300 in Joannou's apparatus, which he considers useless. The establishment of a reliable edition therefore is greatly needed. The text he used was ﬁrst edited by Hilda Polack in 1962. It was reviewed by Jaeger, but since Polack never submitted a praefatio it was not printed. Subsequent attempts to complete the work in the 1970s were also defeated. Finally Mühlenberg undertook the task, beginning with correcting errors in Polack's manuscript. He found it necessary to re-collate all the manuscripts, and is now ﬁnishing the praefatio in which some 130 manuscripts are surveyed. The selection of the witnesses for use in the apparatus is Hilda Pollack's, with three later additions (F, M, T) to represent the spectrum of the early text tradition.

Mühlenberg's forthcoming critical edition of the letter to Letoius is based on the following manuscripts, listed in the order of their antiquity:

P Patmensis 172, parchment, 9th cent.

V Vaticanus graecus 843, parchment, 9th cent.

D Dublinensis Collegii Trinitatis 200, parchment, 10th cent.

F Romanus Vallicellianus graecus F. 10, parchment, 10th cent.

H Hierosolymitanus monasterii toË StauroË 2, parchment, 10th cent.

R Vaticanus graecus 1589, parchment, 10th cent.

M Mediolanensis Ambrosianus C 135 inf., parchment, 11th cent.

T Oxoniensis Bodleianus Auct. T.2.6, parchment, 11th cent.

B Mediolanensis Ambrosianus B 107 sup., parchment, 12th cent.

L Londinenis Musei Britannici graecus Old Royal 16.D.1, parchment, 12th cent.

S Vaticanus graecus 1907, paper, 12th cent. v the vulgate text of the 1638 Paris edition, republished in P.G. 45, 221–236.

Manuscripts L and S, and two other mss. not included in the apparatus, are collections of Gregory of Nyssa's treatises. Mühlenberg thinks that the text type preserved in them is a revised form of an uncial ms. which was scarcely legible. The oldest form of the letter, i.e. as it appears in the Synagoge in XIV titles appears in P, but it is also found in the Nomocanon XIV titulorum, originating c. 630 AD and later revised by Photius in 883 AD.

At the time of writing Mühlenberg had not yet articulated the text families. He was not intending to present a stemma because of the sheer abundance of mss. of the 10th (16) and 11th (15+) centuries.

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Ekkehard Mühlenberg's edited text occupies pp. 47–61. In translating, I essentially trusted his text, taking special note to observe the diﬀerences from v. The titles at the head of each section and the alphabetic subversiﬁcation are my own.

The letter as it stands clearly lacks its original epistolary introduction, which is a loss since Gregory was such a specialist in writing captivating introductions. Compare the loss of introduction and conclusion in letter

24 and in the Syriac translation of letter 32. The epistolary conclusion however has been preserved, and this allows us, together with the contents of the letter to build some picture of the letter's provenance and purpose.

The addressee, Letoius, was Otreius' successor as bishop of Melitene.

Gregory wrote letters 10 and 18 to Otreius, who was a participant in the council of 381 and was named with Gregory and Helladius in the imperial edict Cod. Theod 16.1.3 as a guarantor of orthodoxy in eastern Anatolia and Syria. Gregory surely felt his passing deeply and very probably mentioned him in the lost introduction. Letoius wrote a letter to Gregory which included a series of questions on the administration of penance in the Church. This letter is Gregory's reply. The exchange gives the impression of coming early, even very early in Letoius' term as bishop. From the opening remarks (1a), it might be guessed that Letoius is yet to face his ﬁrst

Easter as bishop. He was seeking authoritative help in fulﬁlling his duties at that focal point of the Church's year. These duties included the conferral of baptism and the readmission to communion of penitents who had completed their due penance (1b).

The dating of Letoius' accession to the episcopate is a matter of some conjecture. He appears in Theodoret Church History 4.10 in association with Amphilochius of Iconium and Flavian of Antioch in combating the spread of Messalianism among the monks. He is mentioned also in Theodoret's

Haereticarum fabularum compendium PG 83, 335–556 at 432, and by Photius in Bibl. Cod. 52. Photius reports his reading of a letter sent to Flavian from a synod convened at Side in Lycaonia by Amphilochius at which Messalianism was condemned as heretical. Karl Holl, Amphilochius von Ikonium in seinem

Verhältnis zu den grössen Kappadoziern, Tübingen, 1904, dated this synod of Side as early as 383, with Flavian's synod at Antioch following afterward.

More recently however, Klaus Fitschen, in Messalianismus und Antimessalianismus,

FKDG 71 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 29–37 places Flavian's council ﬁrst, and dates the Synod of Side well into the 390s.

The maturity of doctrine and phraseology in this letter and Gregory's mention of his old age in relation to his protégé points perhaps to a later rather than an earlier dating for this letter, so that the year 390 or thereabouts it might be reasonably nominated. The phrase so characteristically

Gregory's, 'erotic power and disposition' (1k) also appears in letter 36, which Pouchet dates to Gregory' ﬁnal years. Another common element in these two letters is 'the brothers' (8d, 36.3). In fact letter 36 oﬀers a plausible scenario for the writing of this letter too. Gregory has been visited by 'brothers', i.e. monks, who bear a letter and a verbal message from Letoius.

The 'haste' with which Gregory writes is explained if the brothers are

supplementary collection waiting to take back a written reply with them. Gregory quickly consults the Church documents he has to hand concerning the penances assigned to various sins.

What to make of Gregory's 'begetting' of Letoius 'according to God'

(8d)? This language of spiritual fatherhood is in accord with several NT passages, and means that Gregory had been instrumental in bringing Letoius to Christ, in Baptism, monastic life or priestly orders or in some combination of the same. Compare two contemporaries, Ambrose of Milan and Nectarius of Constantinople, both advanced to the episcopate from the catechumenate. It is possible that Gregory persuaded Letoius to service of the church and brought him through Baptism to priestly orders. Basil had earlier exercised a similar fatherhood towards Amphilochius, and even towards

Gregory himself, for in letter 30.6 Peter reminds Gregory how Basil once brought him to the light through his spiritual travail.

One of the admirable features of this letter is the preamble in which Gregory succinctly and eloquently sketches a spiritual anthropology which is the perspective in which to approach the administration of penance in the church. The ruling idea is not that of enacting the legal decisions of a tribunal but that of a spiritual physician diagnosing and treating spiritual illnesses and verifying progress by appropriate signs of spiritual health. This is seen most of all in terms of the penitent's own prohairesis, his choice or will. The process of penance is meant to be a spiritual education. It is set squarely in terms of the human vocation to resist the slide into vice and to contend for virtue and beyond that in terms of the Christian vocation to transformation in Christ that is valid for all Christians at all times.

Unfortunately no pagination of the forthcoming critical edition is available as yet. The headings and the subversiﬁcation using letters of the alphabet are mine.

Canonical Letter of the holy Gregory to Letoius among the saints, bishop of Melitene2 1. The psychology of vice and the rationale of repentance a. This too is one of the contributions to the holy festival,3 that we understand the lawful and canonical dispensation concerning those who have erred, so that every inﬁrmity of the soul arising from whatever sin is cured. b. For since this universal feast of creation, which is celebrated every year throughout the whole world at the return

2 'among the saints' omitted in S, 'concerning the deﬁnition of penalties' added at the end in v.

3 The Pasch, or Easter, when catechumens were admitted to Baptism, Chrismation and Holy Communion, and penitents who had completed their appointed time of penance were readmitted to Holy Communion.

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of the annual cycle also celebrates the resurrection of him who has fallen—for sin is a fall and resurrection is the raising up again from the fall of sin—it would be well that on this day that we bring forward4 not only those who are transformed5 by the grace of God through the washing of regeneration (Tit. 3.5), but lead also those who through repentance and conversion are rising up again from dead works to the living way (Heb. 9.14), to the saving hope from which they had been estranged. c. It is no minor task to dispense with a correct and approved judgment the words regarding such as these, in accordance with the announcement of the prophet that we should dispense words with judgment (Ps 111.5), so that as the saying has it, he may not be shaken forever but the righteous be in eternal remembrance (cf. Ps 111.6). d. Just as in the cure of the body the medical art has but one aim,6 to restore the patient to health, although the form of treatment will vary—for since there is a variety of inﬁrmities the method of cure is adapted to each disease—so also, since there is a great variety of passions in the disease of the soul, the cure undertaken will necessarily take many forms, the healing being accomplished in a way that corresponds to the passion. Whatever the skilled method necessary for the present problem is the approach we shall employ. e. According to the primary division there are three aspects in what concerns the soul: reason, desire and spiritedness.7 In these three consist all the upright deeds of those who live according to virtue, and the falls of those who lapse into vice. It therefore behoves anyone who intends to apply the appropriate cure to the diseased part of the soul, to examine ﬁrst in what the condition consists, and then to apply the cure to the patient accordingly. f. Otherwise through ignorance of the method of cure, the diseased part may be left aside while the cure is applied to another part, as we surely see in the 4 I.e. reconcile qualiﬁed penitents by absolution and participation in Holy

Communion.

5 metastoixeioum°nouw. Gregory uses the same term for the transformation of the elements of bread and wine in the Divine Liturgy, in Catechetical Discourse 37.

6 On Gregory's esteem of the medical art, see letter 13.1 and note.

7 tÚ te logikÚn ka‹ tÚ §piyumhtikÚn ka‹ tÚ yumoeid°w, or 'the rational, the concupiscible and the irascible', though the latter concerns something more elemental than anger as such. The source of this psychology is Plato's The Republic 440, especially 440e–441a. Compare also other expressions of a tripartite soul in the image of a charioteer commanding two horses, Phaedrus 246a–b, 253d–254e.

supplementary collection case of many physicians who aggravate the disease they are attempting to cure through their ignorance of the primary condition.8 g.

Inﬁrmity, for example, often comes through a diminution of heat, since those who are badly aﬀected by an excess of cold are beneﬁted by whatever warms and foments. Yet if they injudiciously apply the same remedy which is applied reasonably to these, to those instead who are inﬂamed with immoderate heat, they only bring about a condition more diﬃcult to cure. It is therefore considered most necessary for physicians that they understand the speciﬁc elements, so that whatever is against nature in each of those elements that are disposed for good or for ill may be corrected. h. So then, having recourse to the same distinction in what regards the soul, we shall take this general idea as the principle and basis for the appropriate cure of the passions. Accordingly, the particular character of the soul's movements is divided into three as we said: reason, desire and spiritedness. i. The uprightness of the reasoning part of the soul consists in a pious conception in what concerns the divine, a discerning estimate of what is beautiful and what is sordid,9 and a clear and unconfused view concerning the nature of subsistent realities: what is worthy of choice among the things that exist and what is to be abhorred and rejected. j. Yet again, vice is contemplated in this part when there is impiety in what concerns the divine, a failure to judge that which is truly beautiful, a muddled and erring conception of the nature of things, with the result that, as the Scripture says, one takes the light for darkness and the darkness for light (Is 5.20). k. That movement of the desiring part is virtuous which leads the yearning upwards to the really desirable and the truly beautiful,10 so that if there is in us any erotic power and disposition11 it is wholly engaged in that direction, persuaded that nothing else is worth seeking in one's own nature except virtue and a nature that overﬂows

8 Cf. Basil's discussions on the pathologies of vice and sin, SR 29, 81, 229, 289,

301. In SR 289, he stresses that the primary cause of a behaviour is sometimes hidden and must be probed and properly diagnosed before an eﬀective cure of the soul be undertaken.

9 toË kaloË te ka‹ kakoË, or 'the good and the bad', thought the 'beautiful' aspect of tÚ kalÒw, has full weight in Gregory's thinking.

10 énãgesyai tÚn pÒyon, i.e. the movement of virtue is always anagogical, leading upward.

11 §rvtikØ dÊnam¤w te ka‹ diãyesiw.

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with virtue. l. Now the aberration of this part is sin, when someone transfers his desire towards an insubstantial vanity12 or towards the superﬁcial bloom of bodies, from which comes the love of money, the love of honours, the love of pleasure and all such things that are associated with this kind of vice. m. Yet again, the uprightness of the spirited disposition is enmity towards vice and warfare against the passions, and the stirring of the soul to bravery so that it does not shrink from the things considered by the many to be fearful, but resists sin even unto blood (Heb.

12.4) and despises the threat of death and painful punishments. By parting itself from the keenest of pleasures it rises superior once and for all to those things which through custom and opinion detain the many in pleasure, because it wages battle for faith and for virtue. n. The falling away of this part is evident in all these things: in envy, hatred, rage, insults, brawls, and an inclination to quarrel with and ﬁght oﬀothers and to prolong the memory of injury received which leads to many murders and much bloodshed. Since undisciplined reasoning ﬁnds no way to use its weapon13 with advantage, it turns the sharp edge of the iron against itself14 and the weapon given us by God for defence is used viciously for destruction.

2. The vices of reason: those who desert the faith in Christ Once we have made these distinctions in the manner outlined above, those sins which pertain to the reasoning part of the soul are judged more sternly by the Fathers and merit a greater and longer and more arduous conversion, as in the case of someone who denies the faith in Christ, whether in favour of Judaism or idolatry or Manichaeism, or by openly deserting15 to some other such form of atheism.

One who has run oﬀto such a wickedness of his own accord, but then condemns himself, has for the period of his repentance the rest of his life. When the mystic prayer is celebrated16 he shall not at any stage be allowed to do homage to God together with the people, but shall pray alone and shall be wholly excluded from the communion

12 énupÒstaton kenodoj¤an, ﬂeeting/frivolous vainglory.

13 I.e. the gift of the spirited part of the soul, as appears shortly.

14 I.e. in spiritual self-destruction.

15 I.e. publicly known apostasy.

16 mustik∞w §piteloum°n∞§ux∞w, i.e. the Divine Liturgy, the Eucharist.

supplementary collection of the sacraments.17 Only in the hour of his exodus shall he be allowed a share in the Sacrament. If he happens unexpectedly to survive, he shall resume living under the same judgment, not partaking of the mystic sacraments until his exodus.

Those however who were tormented by tortures and harsh punishments18 shall receive a penalty for a set period, for the holy Fathers treated them with loving kindness in this way because their fall was not of the soul, but due rather to the weakness of the body which did not hold out against the torments. This is why desertion under duress and pain is allotted the same period of conversion as those who have sinned through fornication.

3. The vices of reason: those who resort to sorcerers and mediums a. Those who go oﬀto sorcerers,19 mediums or to some uncleanness of demons and who undertake to practice certain spells, shall be closely questioned and examined whether they remained believers in Christ but were constrained by some necessity to that sin, some aﬄiction or unbearable loss having implanted this impulse in them, or whether they ran oﬀto an alliance with the demons wholly contemptuous of the testimony of our faith. b. For if they did this in rejection of the faith and because they no longer believed that the one to whom the Christians do homage is God, then clearly they shall incur the penalty of deserters. c. But if some insupportable necessity cowed their weakness of soul and led them on, so that they were beguiled by some delusory hope, in such a case the same loving-kindness shall be shown them as for those who in the time of confession were unable to hold out against torment.

4. The vices of desire and pleasure a. Of those who fall into sin through desire and pleasure, this is the division: the one is called adultery and the other fornication. But it pleases some who think more accurately20 to consider the oﬀence of 17 t∞w de xoinvn¤aw t«n ègiasmãtvn. Though it is in the plural, the sacrament is meant, the the Eucharistic communion. Such a penitent remained at most in the vestibule petitioning the prayers of the faithful for the rest of his life.

18 I.e. who denied their faith in Christ unwillingly, under severe duress.

19 goÆtaw, covering practitioners of witchcraft and magic.

20 Gregory seems to tacitly mean himself. He goes on to interpret the concept of adultery, as any union which is alien to the integrity of one's bodily nature.

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fornication also as adultery, since there is only one legitimate union, that of a wife with a husband, and a husband with a wife.21 b.

Accordingly all that is not legitimate certainly transgresses the law, and anyone who lays claim to what is not proper to himself,22 clearly lays claim to something alien. For one helpmate is given to man by God (cf. Gen 2.20–22) and one head is assigned to a woman (cf. 1

Cor 11.3). Therefore if someone possesses his own vessel, as the divine Apostle calls it, that is proper to himself (1 Thess 4.4),23 the law of nature concedes a just use.24 c. But if someone turns aside from what is proper to himself, he shall become something wholly alien. For all that is not proper to each person is alien to him, even if he does not acknowledge what it is that is mastering him. d. Fornication therefore is shown to be not far from the oﬀence of adultery by those who look more accurately into its character, for the divine Scripture says, do not be intimate with the stranger25 (Prov

5.20). But since there has been some indulgence by the Fathers towards the weaker, the oﬀence is therefore judged according to the generic division, with the result that any satisfaction of desire which occurs without injury to someone else26 is reckoned as fornication, whereas adultery is a plot and an injury against another.27 e. Yet both bestiality and pederasty are also reckoned in this latter division,28 because these are also an adultery against nature. For the injury is in regard to what is alien and contrary to nature. Since this is the division assigned to this type of sin too, the general cure applies, that a person is puriﬁed from the passionate craving for pleasures of these kinds through penitence.

21 m¤a §stin ± nÒmimow suzug¤a, ka‹ gunaik‹ prÚw êndra, ka‹ éndr‹ prÚw guna›ka.

Since the Greek terms do double duty, the latter part may also be translated: 'that of a woman with a man, and a man with a woman'. This principle of heterosexual monogamy as the only form of legitimate sexual union, rules out not only polygamy and heterosexual unions outside marriage but also and especially acts of homosexuality and bestiality as Gregory goes on to explain (31.4e).

22 ı mØ tÚ ‡dion ¶xvn, ‡dion = what pertains to oneself, one's own.

23 'Vessel' refers to sexual organ; i.e. he maintains his sexual faculties in integrity and self-control. In other words, he is committed to the virtue of chastity.

24 I.e. in heterosexual monogamy.

25 prÚw éllotr¤an, lit. alien, meaning a woman not one's wife. Gregory also interprets it to mean anything alien to the integrity of one's nature.

26 I.e. a third party.

27 Again, meaning a third party, namely a spouse.

28 I.e. the division of adultery just mentioned.

supplementary collection f. But with regard to those polluted by fornication29 a certain injury is lacking in this sin. This is why the time of conversion prescribed for those deﬁled by adultery is double and for the other forbidden vices too, that is, bestiality and craving for the male, since the sin in these cases, as I was saying is doubled. For one sin consists in the unlawful pleasure and another in the injury with regard to what is alien. g. There is also a certain variation in the measure of repentance for those who sin through pleasure and it is this. If someone is prompted of his own accord to declare his sin, that is, of his own impulse he willingly becomes the accuser of his hidden activities, he has already begun the cure of his passion and shown evidence of a change for the better, and consequently ﬁnds lenience in the penalties assigned. h. But one who is caught out in his vice, or who is exposed unwillingly through some suspicion or accusation shall be assigned a prolonged conversion, so that he is admitted to the communion of the sacraments only when he is thoroughly puriﬁed. i. Well then, the canon is this:30 those polluted by fornication are entirely excluded from the prayer31 for three years, participate in the hearing only32 for three years, and for another three years pray with those who prostrate during their conversion,33 and then they partake of the sacraments. j. In the case of those who apply themselves more earnestly to their conversion and who demonstrate their return to the good through their manner of life, it is permitted the one who dispenses according to what is ﬁtting34 to shorten the time of hearing by ecclesiastical dispensation and advance them more quickly to conversion, and again to shorten this time and grant the communion more quickly, as he by his own examination ascertains the condition of the one undergoing treatment. For if it is forbidden to cast

29 I.e. heterosexual acts between the unmarried.

30 ı kãnΔn, 'rule', hence 'Canon' or church law.

31 I.e. not be admitted to assembly at all, but remain in the vestibule asking the prayers of the faithful.

32 I.e. leave the Divine Liturgy after the readings and homily. They become the equivalent of catechumens again.

33 'Conversion' seems to be used for that stage of the penance in which penitents stay for the entire Divine Liturgy but as non-communicant prostrators. Thus there are in all three stages of penance before ﬁnal readmission to Holy Communion.

34 I.e. normally the bishop, or a worthy presbyter appointed by him to preside over the administration of penance; cf. Sozomen's interesting account in H.E. 7.16.

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the pearl before swine (Matt 7.5), it is also absurd to withhold the pearl of great price (Matt 13.46) from one who is already puriﬁed and freed from passion. k. But the lawless deeds of adultery and the other kinds of uncleanness discussed above shall all be cured with the same sentence that applies to the deﬁlement of fornication, only the time is doubled.

But in this case too, the disposition of the one being cured shall be monitored in the same way that applies to those snared in the pollution of fornication, to see whether their participation in the good35 takes place more quickly or slowly.

5. Vices of the spirited part of the soul a. Besides these it remains to bring the spirited part of the soul under examination, when it has strayed from the good and fallen into sin through the use of anger. b. Though there are many acts of anger which give eﬀect to sin, and all of them bad, it has somehow pleased our Fathers not to make too close a reckoning of them or to consider the cure of all the faults that come of anger worthy of much attention, although

Scripture forbids not only the blow, but also all insult and blasphemy and any other such acts perpetrated by anger. They only made provision in their penalties for the deﬁlement of murder. c. This kind of vice is divided by the diﬀerence between the voluntary and the involuntary. Among these murder is voluntary in the ﬁrst instance when someone brazenly premeditates and prepares the execution of this deﬁling deed. d. Next, it is also considered among voluntary acts when someone in a brawl and a ﬁght strikes and is struck, and inﬂicts a mortal blow on another by his own hand. For someone already mastered by anger and gratifying the impulse of wrath would not admit into mind at the moment of passion anything that could cut oﬀthe evil. Therefore the murder that results from a brawl is regarded as a deed of choice and not as arising by chance. e. Those acting involuntarily however have clear signs, as 35 From 4j and the next sentence, the 'good' refers to virtue. It is also used in this sense in VSM 13.8 (GNO 8.1, 383, Maraval, 180). Yet it also shades into partaking of Holy Communion (5h), the common element being that God alone is good, and that participation in the good by virtue and by the Sacrament is participation in God.

supplementary collection when someone is engaged in something else and perpetrates a fatal act by accident. f. Among these cases, the time of penance assigned to murder is extended threefold for those who through conversion are being cured of a voluntary deﬁlement. There are three times nine years, a nine year period being ﬁxed for each rank, so that a nine year period is spent in complete segregation, barred from the Church. Just as many years continue in hearing, when he listens only to the teachers and the Scriptures, and then after he is deemed worthy of being among the people, he prays with those who prostrate during their conversion, and so he attains to participation in the Sacrament. g. Yet even in such a case, there will be the same monitoring by the one dispensing the Church,36 and in proportion to his conversion the duration of his penalty shall be shortened, so that instead of nine years for each rank, it may become eight or seven or six, or even ﬁve years, if the magnitude of his conversion outstrips the time, and if in his zeal for amendment he surpasses those who have undertaken to purify themselves from their stains more easily in the lengthy period prescribed. h. The involuntary deed is judged pardonable, but hardly commendable. I have said this to make it clear that because he has been involved in the taint of murder even if unwillingly, the canon declares him already contaminated by the deﬁling deed and expelled from the priestly grace. It was judged ﬁtting that the same time of puriﬁcation assigned to simple fornication also be assigned to those who have committed murder involuntarily. In this case too the will of the penitent is assessed, so that if his conversion proves credible, the number of years is not strictly observed and he is led through a shortened time to restoration with the church and to a participation in the Good. i. But if someone is departing this life without having fulﬁlled the time ﬁxed by the canons, the loving-kindness of the Fathers bids that he participate in the sacraments lest he be sent on that last and great journey deprived of viaticum. But if he has partaken of the Sacrament and then returns again to life, let him continue in the appointed time at the stage he had reached when in view of necessity he was granted Communion.

36 toË oﬁkonomoËntow tØn §kklhs¤an.

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6. A compound vice: avarice a. But as to that alternative species of idolatry—for this is what the divine Apostle calls avarice (Eph 5.5, Col 3.5)—I do not know why it has been overlooked by our Fathers and not assigned a cure.

Indeed this vice seems to be a passion of the threefold state of the soul. The reasoning, erring in its judgment of the beautiful, imagines that the beautiful is in material things and hence it does not look above to the immaterial for the beautiful, and the desire inclines to what is below and falls away from that which truly is worth wanting, and the combative and spirited disposition too ﬁnds many opportunities in this kind of sin. b. In a word then, this disease corresponds to the apostolic deﬁnition of avarice. For the divine Apostle not only declares it idolatry, but even the root of all evils (1 Tim 6.10). Nevertheless, this kind of disease has been overlooked, not been examined and not assigned treatment. Hence this kind of inﬁrmity has ﬂourished in the churches, and no-one is concerned whether any of those being advanced to the clergy are themselves tainted with this kind of idolatry.37 c. But since such cases have been passed over by our Fathers, we deem it suﬃcient on the principle of public teaching, that in purifying the inﬁrmities of avarice through the word we treat them, as far as possible, as a kind of compound condition, and consider only theft, grave-robbing and sacrilege as morbid conditions, for such is the tradition that has come down to us from the succession of the Fathers. d. Nevertheless in the divine Scripture both usury (Lev. 25.37) and ﬁnancial oppression (Ps 72.14) are among the things forbidden, and drawing oﬀanother's property as one's own through being in a dominant position, even if such a practice happens to be under cover of a business transaction. e. If we for our part are worthy of belief in what concerns the authority of canons, we will add to what has already been said the canonical sentence for acts acknowledged to be forbidden. f. Theft then is divided into robbery38 and burglary. Though the aim of both is to carry oﬀwhat belongs to others, there is a great

37 For a conspicuous case of episcopal simony (bartering church oﬃce) which had repercussions in Gregory's own life, see the introduction to letter 17.

38 l˙ste¤an, i.e. theft by direct violence, as in banditry, highway robbery and piracy.

supplementary collection diﬀerence of approach between the two. For the robber even takes the taint of murder as an ally of his purpose, and prepares for it with arms and assistants and opportunities of place, so that if through repentance such a one brings himself back to the church of God he must be subject to the sentence for those who commit homicide. g. But if anyone by secret pilfering appropriates what is another's and then declares his oﬀence in confession to the priest, his inﬁrmity is cured through zeal for the opposite of this passion, I mean through bestowing what he has on the poor, in order that by the relinquishing of what he has he may show himself puriﬁed of the disease of avarice.

And if he has nothing, the Apostle bids him expiate such a passion through bodily labour. For we have this saying: Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labour, doing honest work, that he may able to give to those who have need (Eph 4.28).

7. The vices of avarice: grave-robbing a. Grave-robbing is divided into what is pardonable and what is not pardonable. If someone spares what deserves respect and leaves the interred body intact, so that the shame of our nature is not exposed to the sun, and only makes use of stones from the facing of the tomb in order to build something else, this of course is not commendable. Custom however treats it as pardonable, when the material has been transferred to something more important and of common beneﬁt. b. But raking through the ash of the body returned to dust and shifting the bones in the hope of ﬁnding some valuable buried along with them, this is condemned with the same sentence as simple fornication, according to the distinction set out in the foregoing discussion. The dispenser of course may shorten the time of the penalty ﬁxed in the canons if he observes from his life the healing of the one undergoing treatment.

8. The vices of avarice: sacrilege a. In the ancient Scripture, sacrilege was assigned no lighter condemnation than that for murder, inasmuch as one found guilty of murder and one who purloined the things dedicated to God incurred the same punishment of stoning. b. But in the custom of the church there has come about, I do not know how, a certain condescension and accommodation, so that a lighter puriﬁcation is ﬁxed for such

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a disease, for the tradition of the Fathers has assigned to such as these a penalty of lesser duration than for adultery. c. Always in dealing with this kind of fault it is ﬁtting before all else to note what may be the disposition of the one undergoing cure and not suppose that the time itself is adequate for the cure—for what healing is eﬀected merely through time?—but rather the will of the one who is healing himself through his own conversion.

Conclusion d. These things which we have sent to you, O man of God, were put together in great haste from what was at hand, since we had to respond to the instructions of the brothers with haste. Do not cease to oﬀer the customary prayers to God for us. e. For as a noble son you owe it to one who begot you according to God (cf. 1 Cor

4.15, 2 Cor 7.9) to sustain him in his old age with your prayers, according to the commandment of him who charged us to honour our parents, that it may go well with you and that may live long in the land

(Ex 20.12 + Deut 5.16). You will surely then receive this letter as a priestly token and not dishonour a hospitable oﬀering, though it may fall somewhat short of the measure of your noble nature.

Letter 32 To the monk Philip The existence of an otherwise lost letter of St Gregory of Nyssa To the monk

Philip was long known from three surviving fragments: the title, the incipit, and a short theological passage preserved by the outstanding 6th century defender of Chalcedon, Leontius of Jerusalem (Contra Monophysitas, P.G. 86.2,

1828B) and in the 8th century by St John Damascene (Contra Jacobitas, P.G.

94.1496C). Gollandi included Damascene's version among Gregory's works at P.G. 46.1112C.

The recovery of a full text of this letter is a marvel of gradual collaborative research over two centuries. In the early 18th cent. the father of modern Syriac studies, Joseph Assemani, discovered in a ms. (Paris. Syr.

303) a copy of the Exposition of the Faith by John Maron, a monk of Beit Maroun in Apamea who in c. 686 was elected the ﬁrst Maronite patriarch of Antioch (d. 707). In his treatise Maron included a Syriac translation of much of this letter, introducing it as 'From Gregory brother of Mar Basil, in the letter he sent to the monk Philip on the objection the Arians bring against us'. It covers 32.4–14a (. . . free of error) below. Gustave Bardy drew renewed attention to the Syriac version of the letter in 'Saint Grégoire de Nysse, Ep. ad Philippum', Recherches de Science Religieuse 11 (1921), 220–222,

supplementary collection where he republished a French translation by M. Nau of the Syriac translation.

Alerted to the existence of this letter, the indefatigable researcher of manuscripts and library inventories, Giovanni Mercati, located in the Biblioteca

Aragonese in Naples a Latin translation of the whole letter in Ottoboniani lat. 70, ﬀ. 57–58, a mid 16th century manuscript which once belonging to the Dominican house of S. Marco in Florence. The Ottoboniani ms. contains a collection of Latin translations of Greek fathers: St Athanasius, the three Cappadocian Fathers, St John Chrysostom, St Cyril of Alexandria and Proclus of Constantinople, all meant as material for the controversy with Protestants in that period. Mercati subsequently identiﬁed the source, direct or mediated, of the Ottoboniani ms. in the description of a manuscript by the 17th cent. Jesuit, Zaccaria. He ﬁnally located this ms. on 7 May

1936 in Florence: Laurenzio di San Marco 584. This is a 9th cent. ms. which had came into the library of S. Marco in 1437 through Nicolò Niccoli and from there had passed to the Laurentian Library in 1808. The Laurenzio ms. is written in an elegant Carolingian hand, with Greek words appearing here and there in the text, well rendered and without accents. This ms. in its turn had been copied from a much older ms. which transcribed the forms of the Greek as it found them. According to Mercati (187) very few Latin translations of St Athanasius were transmitted in the Carolingian era. But, thanks to the Catalogi bibliothecarum antiqui by Becker, he identiﬁed a ms. of Bobbio which contained the Librum Athanasii contra Apollinarem (Book of Athanasius against Apollinaris) which is also found in the Laurenzio ms.

Mercati's study of Laurenzio di San Marco 584 is found in 'Di alcuni manoscritti Ottoboniani non consciuti', Codici latini Pico Grimani e di altra bilioteca ignota del secolo XVI esistente greci di Pio di Modena, Studi e Testi 75 (Città del

Vaticano, 1938), 169–202 at 191–196. This translation is made from his edition of the letter on pp. 194–195.

Despite the unanimous testimony of Leontius, Damascene and Maron, the assignment of this letter to Gregory of Nyssa has been queried. Mercati

(192–193) has no doubts that its Christology is of the late 4th century, but proposes Amphilochius of Iconium as the author instead, but only by a rather strained exercise of recasting Seleucus as the addressee and not the occasion of the letter.39 J.-R. Pouchet40 considers that it comes from the ﬁfth century, and even from a Nestorian provenance, but this is surely anachronistic. Maraval is non committal about its authenticity. The above doubts do not oﬀer enough warrant to set aside the unanimous attribution to Gregory by the three ancient witnesses.

39 He bases himself (192, n. 3) on fragments of a letter by Amphilochius, e.g.

P.G. 39, 112–113 addressed to a Seleucus. But the argument is very conjectural and seems far-fetched.

40 In 'Le vocabulaire de l'union et du rapport des natures chez saint Grégoire de Nysse', Revue Thomiste 68 (1968), 533–582 at 577 note.

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The Syriac translation, as far as can be judged from the French, appears to be rather free (indeed making a glaring error in oﬀering 'substances' as a synonym of 'persons'), though it did help elucidate some points.

The Latin translation however, takes a very diﬀerent approach. The translator is critically aware that he is dealing with terms fraught with dogmatic signiﬁcance and that he must not misrepresent them. Hence he translates his Greek source very scrupulously, on only one obvious occasion resorting to ampliﬁcatio when he oﬀers a Latin synonym of the term sunalifÆn—which he transcribes anyway. He transliterates one important

Greek term synusiaste that has no easy Latin correlate, given the use of consubstantialis to translate ımooÊsiow. He uses subsistentia as the exact Latin correlate of hypostasis, while reserving persona to translate its precise Greek equivalent, prÒsvpon. He renders §pe¤sakton exactly as 'subintroductum'.

He is even careful to replicate conjunctions, prepositions and 'colouring' particles, as is proved in a comparison of the surviving Greek fragment and his translation. He turned out a Latin translation in whose testamentary reliability anyone not literate in Greek could aﬀord to place full conﬁdence.

Where would one ﬁnd a Latin translator with such a brief for exactitude in Greek and Latin and with such theological scupulosity between the period of Jerome and Ruﬁnus c. 400, and that of John Scotus Eriugena, c. 800? Both the linguistic expertise and the ecclesiastical career of Dionysius

Exiguus (465–550) are suggestive.41 Dionysius was a highly educated bilingual monk from the western shores of the Black Sea, the Dobrudja region of modern Romania (as St John Cassian had been). He appears to have been a monk in a monastery of Latin speaking 'Scythian' monks in Constantinople, whose concern at the confusion in Church aﬀairs put them into contact with Rome. Pope Gelasius 'head-hunted' Dionysius and invited him to Rome in 496 for his much needed services in the papal chancery.

Rome and Constantinople were then in their ﬁrst schism over imperial and patriarchal appeasement of the Monophysites, the so-called 'Acacian' schism.

Dionysius' work as a mediator between the Greek speaking and Latin speaking churches, in which, inter alia, he remedied problems arising from previous bad translations, was instrumental in bringing the schism to an end.

The milieu of Christological crisis in which he worked would explain his interest in the doctrinal contents of this letter. Dionysius' familiarity with Gregory of Nyssa is shown by his translation of Gregory's On the Making of Man (PL 67, 345–408), which is important to Christology since Gregory's account of the Incarnation is profoundly informed by his anthropological understanding.

Doctrinally the present letter is especially interesting in that it canvasses a nexus between Arian theology and Christology. The whole spectrum of Arianizing theology, from the Anomoians to the Homoiousians, concurred with Nicene and orthodox doctrine that Jesus Christ was the incarnation

41 On Dionysius, see Gallagher, op. cit., 1–18.

supplementary collection of the pre-existent 'divine' Logos. The dispute was over what it meant to call the Logos 'divine', not so much with the dynamic of the Incarnation as such. Thus the Arian Christ was not God but a creature, not because he was an 'inspired man' like a prophet, but because the pre-existent Logos itself of which he was the incarnation was not really divine but created, however sublime in rank.

The addressee, Philip, has some kind of pastoral responsibility for 'the faithful' (32.1). Given his title as 'monk', he was either the superior or a senior of a monastic community ('you and those who are with you' 32.2).

From the fact that the three ancient witnesses of the letter were all located in the Levant, one might infer that Philip and his community were in Syria, with which region Gregory of Nyssa had many contacts as his brother Basil had. Philip has written to tell Gregory of a certain Seleucus who has attempted to bait the community with what he thinks are new objections to the doctrine of the Homoousians (the Nicene orthodox). It seems safe to say that Seleucus is a follower of the rationalist theologian Eunomius.

He is, in short, an Anomoian, or ultra-Arian, which party was still causing much trouble in the 380s. He appears to be of the educated class and of some social rank. Philip and his circle are either intimidated, or, if not, at least seek the assurance of an authoritative exposition from Gregory, as did many others throughout the 380s. As Gregory summarizes Philip's report (32.2–3), Seleucus had brashly misapplied considerations from oikonomia concerning the incarnate Christ, to theologia on the nature of the preexistent Logos and the Trinity.

It is no diﬃcult task for Gregory to sort out the ineptitudes of such argumentation, steering clear as he does so of the Christological pitfalls of both

Apollinarism which shortchanged the integrity of Christ's humanity, and Eunomianism which was militantly opposed to the truly divine nature of the Logos. The result is as exact an account of Christ as one person existing in two integral natures as can be found before the Christological deﬁnitions of the 5th century—perhaps not even excepting Nazianzen's famous Christological letters 101, 102, 202, of which the author of this letter is surely well aware. Leontius, John Damascence and John Maron at any rate fastened on 32.8–9 as patristic support for their refutation of Monophysitism, hence the survival of the Greek fragments and the Syriac translation. The letter nevertheless reveals the Antiochene Word/Man

Christology typical of Gregory which can be seen in this volume in letter 3. While this type of Christology was very clear on the integrity of Christ's two natures, its account of the unity, the 'single entity' (32.13) in Christ did not ultimately prove suﬃcient. It was uncertain whether the Greek term prÒsvpon had suﬃcient theological weight at that time to denote this unity— compare its use for example in letter 35.8d. This together with the inadequacy of 'blending' and 'becoming' terminology in 32.8 (as also in letter

3.19) invited the eventual clariﬁcation of the dogma of the hypostatic union in the following century.

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To the monk Philip, on the objections of the Arians 1. Malice is something begotten in the soul,42 and those who incline themselves to it conceive a disdain for all that is good. Let me say this with reference to the noble43 Seleucus. For I realized from what you have written the kind of evils he is causing the faithful in these strange times, and the kind of memory he has of us on account of the hope which is in us (1 Pet 3.15).

2. But to leave that aside, I will come to the subject of your enquiry. Your worthy letter recalled how that absurd man, languishing in the Arian sickness, brought an objection to you and those who are with you, that if the Son is subject to passion44 and the Father is not subject to passion,45 then consubstantiality46 is dissolved and has no basis. 3. Secondly, if the diﬀerence between persons in the Trinity separates what is greater from what is lesser, then manifestly the Father pre-exists the Son and is the maker, whereas the latter is a creature and something made, he the greater, the latter the lesser, he the one sending, the latter the one sent, and other things of this kind. You ask me pressingly for a suﬃcient answer to these objections.

4. Brieﬂy then, with God as our co-worker, we take up the ﬁrst objection. If the Son—which is an astonishing thing—is subject to passion in his nature,47 and were said to be also subject to passion in his divine nature—which is impossible—the things said by that gentleman Seleucus might perhaps have some basis. 5. But if he is subject to passion in his human nature and is not subject to passion in his divine nature—which is what the faithful confess—the scope of consubstantiality48 is preserved, I consider, inviolate. 6. For we do not say that he is of one nature in his divinity and ﬂesh, as in the 42 The Greek of the title and the incipit is: prÚw F¤lippon monãzonta per‹ t«n

ÉAreian«n éntiy°sevn. ÉH kak¤a g°nnhmã §sti cux∞w . . .

43 propter bonum virum Seleucum. The French of the Syriac later in the occurrence of this phrase in 32.4 has 'du venerable Seleucus'. Either this reﬂects Seleucus' age and social standing, or perhaps there is an ironical edge to Gregory's use of it.

44 passibilis, = §npãyhw.

45 impassibilis, = épayÆw.

46 consubstantialitas, = ımoousiÒthw. I.e. of the pre-existent Logos with God.

47 The force of the antithesis would seem to require 'divine' nature here, but it is not in the text.

48 I.e. the consubstantiality of the divine Logos with God the Father.

supplementary collection absurdities of those who say he is of 'blended substance',49 but that he has a twofold existence50 and is susceptible to passion in the one and not subject to it in the other.

7. Let us solve also the second objection. We acknowledge a diﬀerence of hypostases or of persons,51 so we do not introduce a coalescing52 of persons as did Sabellius. And we confess that the holy

Trinity has but one substance53 admitting neither addition nor diminution. 8. Since in truth the Father does not precede the Son, but is co-equal with him in all things except causality, how can we in view of this speculate whether there was a time when the Father was unoccupied with being Father, and the Son unoccupied with being

Son?54 9. If, on the contrary, the Father ‹is› always and the Son ‹is› always, it is clear that the being and substance55 of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is one, although indeed the Son assumed for us a created nature. 10. For he alone, being made man,56 par49 Synusiaste; the Greek term is transliterated. sunousiastÆw was used by Diodorus of Tarsus, Leontius of Byzantium, Cyril of Alexandria, Eustathius the monk and Leontius of Jerusalem for those who asserted Christ's ﬂesh to be of the same substance as his divinity. In Gregory's time synousia was a badge of Apollinarian doctrine. See the account of Apollinarian Christology by Gregory Nazianzen, Letter

202.10–15, especially 202.12: 'As though even before he came down he was the Son of Man, and when he came down he brought with Him that ﬂesh which apparently he had in Heaven, as though it had existed before the ages and been joined with his substance.'

50 sed duplex existens.

51 subsistentiarum sive personarum; one might be tempted to think the Latin translator is glossing hypostases, but a doublet also exists in the French translation of the Syriac version, and person appears in the Greek text in 32.13. Gregory also uses the term 'person' in Trinitarian theology in letter 34.4g, 8c, d.

52 sunalifÆn id est . . . commixtionem; the Latin translator transcribes the Greek term and then glosses it with a synonym.

53 essentiam, i.e. oÈs¤a, here translated to keep the terminology consistent as it would have been in Gregory's Greek.

54 I have cast the sentence as a question to make sense of the Latin text as it stands. Otherwise, a negative, which seems to be present in John Maron's translation, may have dropped out (Bardy 1921, 221C). The sense then would be: 'Since the Father in truth . . ., hence we should not speculate . . .'

55 existentia et essentia; existentia must translate something like Ïparjiw, which usually has a connotation of existence in a subject (cf. Èpãrxvn in 32.13). Otherwise one might think that the Latin translator is glossing oÈs¤a (essentia); however a doublet also appears in the Syriac translation.

56 inhumanatus. Lewis and Short, Latin Dictionary, attest Cassiodorus (5th/6th cent.) for this term; Cassiodorus was a friend of Dionysius Exiguus, the proposed translator of this letter. The word also appears in the Codex Iustinianus 1.1.6.1. The Greek original is §nanyrvpÆsaw.

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took of both created and uncreated nature, mortal and immortal, circumscribed and uncircumscribed, and he did not, because in these last times he was made man, cease to be God or quit his consubstantiality with the Father. The voice of the Lord provides ﬁrm assurance of this where he says I and the Father are one ( Jn 10.30), I in the Father and the Father in me (cf. Jn 10.38 14.10 17.21) and other similar passages.

11. But since they bring up against the Son his creatureliness, his diminishment,57 his being sent and other such things, they should know very well that these things are predicated of him in the ﬂesh, and that he was not thereby banished at some time from the Father's substance as some think, but that the one Son existent in his own ﬂesh,58 is both consubstantial with the Father, and the same himself not consubstantial with what is not in accord with itself.59

12. For who among the wise does not know that the60 things which are consubstantial possess identity, but that is otherwise with things of diﬀerent substance?61 For even if the two together are one in an ineﬀable and indescribable unity,62 yet they are not so in nature,

I say, with regard to what is unconfusible:63 for what is divine is other, apart from the body, for it is brought in from without.64 13.

Christ then, existing65 in two natures and truly made known in them, 57 As in his kenosis, his self-emptying, in the imagery of Phil 2.7.

58 sed unus existens Filius cum propria carne.

59 et non consubstantialis idem ipse non secundum id ipsum; a diﬃcult passage, evidently meaning that Christ's created human nature is not consubstantial with the divine nature, which Apollinarians had apparently advanced with their notions of Christ as the heavenly man based on 1 Cor 15.45–49), so that even his humanity had pre-existence.

60 The Greek fragment anthologised by Leontius and Damascence commences at this point.

61 tå m¢n ımooÊsia tautÒthta k°kthtai, tå d¢ §teroous¤a tÚ énãpalin. tautÒthta here cannot mean subjective identity but objective identity: the qualities of the divine nature in each of the Trinity are identical.

62 Kín går érrÆtƒ ka‹ éfrãstƒ •n≈sei tå sunamfÒtera ßn, . . .

63 (Continuing from Greek above) éllÉ oÈ tª fÊsei diå tÚ ésÊgkutÒn.

64 (Continuing from Greek above) ßteron går tÚ ye›on para tÚ s«ma, §pe¤sakton gãr, the Latin: 'aliud est enim id quod divinum est praeter corpus, subintroductum est enim'. This is not perhaps the happiest formulation in the light of later deﬁnitions. It does however accord with Gregory's Christology as expressed in letter 3.19, where he attempts to account for the moment of Christ's conception in the womb of Mary.

65 XristÚw dÊo Ípãrxvn fÊse¤w.

supplementary collection has the person of his sonship as a single entity,66 yet bears in himself the unconfusible67 and indivisible distinction between the Word and the ensouled ﬂesh, through which the principle of the properties is preserved integrally.68

14. We have brieﬂy written these things in order to refute the foolishness of the noble Seleucus, and to conﬁrm you and those who love the truth. For I want you to preserve your conscience free of error (cf. 1 Tim 3.9) and to shun the snares of the more widespread and malign heresies. Oﬀer up supplications for us always to him who dispels evils and is our saviour, Christ, to whom be the glory unto ages of ages.69 Amen.

Letter 33 To Eustathius the physician70 A shorter version of present letter appears as letter 189 in the Benedictine edition (ed. P. Maran) of the letters of St Basil. The longer version is transmitted among the works of Gregory of Nyssa. Some passages appear only in the longer version, and there are several variants distinguishing the texts of the two transmissions.

Giovanni Mercati was the ﬁrst in modern times to argue Gregory's authorship of this letter, in 'La lettere ad Eustazio de Sancta Trinitate ossia la 189 tra le lettere di S. Basilio', Varia Sacra, fascicolo I, Studi e Testi 11 (Roma:

Tipograﬁa Vaticana, 1903), 57–70 (study), 71–82 (ﬁrst edition of the complete form of the letter under Gregory's name).71 In this study Mercati

66 monadikÚn ¶xei t∞w uﬂÒthtow tÚ prÒsvpon. Given the ambivalences of prÒsvpon (person, face, mask) in Greek, it will be seen that this formulation, excellent for its time, needed to be sharpened with use of hypostasis and divine hypostasis.

67 The Greek text ceases at this point, rounding oﬀthe citation in this form: 'a unique person as Son, yet unconfused.' One can only conjecture that the immediate mention of the 'undivisible' did not serve the anti-Monophysite purpose of the anthologists.

68 inconfusibilem tamen et indivisibilem portat in semetipso Verbi et animatae carnis diﬀerentiam per quam intiger proprietatum conservator sermo.

69 That Gregory addresses prayer to Christ is noteworthy. Origen had taught that prayer to Christ was insuﬃcient, for Christian prayer was properly addressed to the Father. For a profound justiﬁcation of prayer to Christ from a Trinitarian perspective, see letter 33.41.

70 Ed.: (F. Müller) GNO 3.1, 3–16, tr. NPNF ser. 2, vol 5, 326–330. Also transmitted as Basil Letter 189, mss.: VPBM, LC, ed. & tr.: Courtonne 2.132–141, Def.

3.48–69; tr.: NPNF ser. 2, vol. 8, 228–232. On the textual transmission see GNO 3.1, xi–xxiv, '**EustArc 2/189', BBV 1.613–615.

71 It may be pointed out that there is some bibliographical confusion with regard to this article. It seems to stem from a mix of Arabic and Roman numeration in the title page, which has 'Studi e Testi 11 (two or eleven?)', and 'Varia Sacra, fas-

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analysed the ancient testimonies which unanimously attest Gregory's authorship, beginning with Lateran Council I72 and Constantinople III,73 neither of which councils had been considered by Maran. There was also the Syriac version in the codex British Museum Add. 14, 618, 7/8th cent.74 and the author, possibly Anastasius of Sinai, of Antiquorum Patrum Doctrina de Verbi

Incarnatione on the incarnation of the Word.75

Mercati built his case on evaluations of previously unpublished sections of the letter (above all 33.9). In considering the two diﬀerent versions, one

'Basilian', the other 'Nyssen', of a concluding passage of 8c ('but the commonality consisting of nature is manifestly proved through the identity of operations') he proved that the Greek text used by the Lateran council of 649 was deﬁnitely of the 'Nyssen' type. And one may also note the exactitude of the Latin translation in the acts of that council.

This is also the case in the acts of the sixth ecumenical council, which declared that the Greek text of 6a (let them show then . . .)–6d received from Rome agreed with the Patriarch of Constantinople's codex. Mercati proved from the type of variants used that the Greek text in both Rome and Constantinople was again of the 'Nyssen' recension. Similarly with the same from of 8b also shared between Rome and Constantinople. No such lineage can be demonstrated for the Basilian recension.

In addition, St Maximus the Confessor, who was a contemporary of the Lateran council, in his diversae deﬁnitiones sanctorum divinorum Patrum de duabus operationibus . . . Iesu Christi76 cites four passages from this letter to Eustathius the physician, under St Gregory of Nyssa's name and according to the Nyssen recension. These passages are 7h, 8b (yet through . . . the operator), 8c (but the . . . of operations) and 6d.

Turning to internal evidence, a new passage that appears only in the Nyssen recension, 7e–g, can be shown to belong intrinsically to the sequence of the argument. Without it there is a sudden leap, a jolt, from the suggestion that 'clear evidence from his own life' is about to be considered, to the doctrinal conclusion in 7h.

Similarly with the last long section 33.9 which appears only in the Nyssen recension. 8c speaks of those names surrounding substance 'which take their names from some operation or dignity', and in 8b examples of names indicating operation, such as benefactor and judge have been discussed. It is only in the new passage 9a, that the argument can be seen to continue without a break, when it begins to deal with names which denote dignity. cicolo I'. It needs almost a magnifying glass to establish that on balance, 1 and not l is used and eleven is meant. In Müller's edition (and elsewhere) Mercati's article is dated 1924, whereas the actual book I have before my eyes declares 1903.

72 AD 649, Mansi X 1073–6.

73 The sixth ecumenical council, 680–681, Mansi XI 425–428.

74 W. Wright, Catalogue of Syriac Mss II, 682.

75 D. Serruys, 'Anastasiana', Mélanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire 22 (1902), 157ﬀ.,

170 ﬀ.

76 P.G. 91, 284.

supplementary collection Contra Maran, not only can no opposition to Gregory's authorship be maintained on stylistic grounds, Mercati points out some striking correspondences of 33.9 with phraseology in Gregory's other works. The extended treatment of the name Christ ('anointed') and the Holy Spirit as anointing can be found nowhere else in Basil's writing, but is paralleled with almost identical expressions in Gregory's On the Christian Profession,77 On Perfection78 and especially in Against the Macedonians 16.79

The aﬃnity with Gregory's other writings can also be demonstrated with the known parts of the letter. To give just one example: much of what is said in 5e about the sorceress who called up Samuel's spirit and about Balaam can be closely paralleled with passages in Gregory's small treatise de Pythonissa, or on the Sorceress.80

Gregory's classic epistolary pattern is clearly observable in this letter. As in letter 1, both his typical opening ambits are found, a pithy sententia, and a graphic image (2a), followed by a transitional sentence and the detailed application to the case in hand (2b). Stylistic features and themes found in Gregory's other works also occur in 2b, 5e.

In conclusion there can be little doubt that the longer version of the letter transmitted among Gregory's works and under his name is the full and original form of the letter.

In 1958 Friedrich Müller published a new edition of the letter.81 The following are the codices collated:

A Venetus Marcianus gr. 68, parchment, 12th cent.

L Leidensis Gronovianus 12, paper 16th cent.

S Vaticanus gr. 1907, paper, 12th cent.

E Vaticanus gr. 446, parchment, 12th cent.

J Vindobonensis theol gr. 35, paper, 13th cent.

O Monacensis gr. 370, parchment, 10th cent.

M Ambrosianus C 135 inf., parchment, 11th cent.

K Venetus Marcianus gr. 67, parchment, 11th cent. syr (the Syriac version) Musei Britannici 768 Add. 14 618, 7th/8th cent. b marginal readings in L, taken from a 'copy of Basil', i.e. from the Frobeniana Basilii Magni, printed in 1532. v the Benedictine edition of 'Basil Letter 189,' i.e. the 'Basilian' recension. m Mercati's edition of 1924 (1903 in reality).

The codices grouped into three textual families: ALS, EJ, OMK. Pasquali did not include this letter in his edition, and so it did not appear in the

77 P.G. 46 241C, GNO 8.1.134.3–6.

78 Ibid., 253D, GNO 8.1.253.

79 P.G. 45, 1320–1, GNO 3.1.102.17–103.5.

80 GNO 3.2.101–108 at 102 and 104–106.

81 GNO 3.1, Opera Dogmatica Minora, xi–xxiv ( praefatio) 1–16 (text).

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GNO republication of his edition. Müller published it instead in a volume of minor dogmatic works (GNO 3.1 xi–xxiv, 1–17). But since it has been published for so long among St Basil's letters, it is not unreasonable, now that its true authorship is acknowledged, to include it in the present collection of St Gregory's letters.

Basil's Letter 151 is addressed to the same Eustathius, a physician and an orthodox Christian. The relationship evidently continued after his death with Gregory, whom Eustathius regards as a public defender of orthodox doctrine. The physician has written to Gregory to urge him speak up against those who libel him with advocating three gods.

Is it tempting to date this letter early in the period after Gregory's restoration, 378–379, when Eustathius of Sebasteia may have still been alive. For although the inscriptions in the Gregorian transmission all describe the letter as 'on the Trinity', its focus is really on the Holy Spirit as one of the Trinity. Gregory is attempting to deal with the prejudices and correct the misunderstandings of the Pneumatomachoi ('Spirit-ﬁghters'), whose leader was, or had been Eustathius, once the great friend of Emmelia's family.

His partisans, however, continued to foment trouble in the see of Sebasteia after their leader's death, as can be seen in letters 18, 19, 22, and it is doubtful that Peter became bishop there until the Council of Constantinople of 381 began to take aﬀect in the churches of the east. So the letter is better dated to a period after 381.

Ever since the council of Alexandria in 362 the Neo-nicenes had made the clariﬁcation of the terms used for the Holy Trinity part of their mission. This forms the doctrinal backdrop of the letter. See the prefatory note to letter 35. The letter is especially important for its exposition of the terms oÈs¤a (here, 'substance') and §n°rgeia (here, 'operation') in relation to God in 33.6e–g, 7f–h, 8d. On energeia see also letter 24.14, letter

35. Here Gregory argues in characteristic fashion that the identical operations of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that are demonstrated in Scripture establish that the whole Trinity is involved in all saving acts. Cf. letter

5.5c, where the same doctrine is rehearsed, also in the context of Pneumatomachian accusations, with the use of the term hypostasis.

The eight sections of the Basilian editions are re-employed here, with subversiﬁcation added using letters of the alphabet. The ninth and last section, found only in the Nyssen recension, is an exercise in scriptural exegesis, explaining that if the Holy Spirit bestows the anointing of the Christ

(the Anointed), he must of necessity partake of the royal dignity that he confers. The translation is from Müller's edition in GNO 3.1, and his pagination is indicated in square brackets.

supplementary collection To Eustathius the physician on the Holy Trinity and against the Pneumatomachoi, that the Spirit is God 82

1a. All you who practice medicine surely have philanthropy for your profession.83 And it seems to me that one who preferred your science to all pursuits of this life would hit upon the proper judgment and not miss the mark—that is if that which is valued above all else, life, is repugnant and full of pain if one cannot have it with health, and it is health which your art procures. 1b. But with you the science is especially dextrous and you enlarge for yourself the scope of its philanthropy, since you do not limit the bestowal of your art to bodies, but also give thought to remedying the inﬁrmities of the mind.84

1c. I say this not only because I echo what many report, but also because of what I myself have learned from experience on several other occasions and especially now in this unaccountable85 malice of our enemies. For it had swept over our life like a destructive ﬂood, when skilfully you dispersed it, allaying the intense inﬂammation of our heart [GNO 3.1, 4] by the irrigation of your soothing words.

1d. For when I considered the repeated and varied attempts of our enemies against us, I deemed it right to remain silent and bear their attacks quietly rather than contradict those armed with the lie, that vicious weapon, which sometimes drives home its point even with the truth. You did well however in urging me not to surrender the truth, but to refute the slanderers, lest harm come to many through a triumph of the lie over the truth.

2a. Those therefore who took up this causeless hatred against us seemed to be behaving somewhat as in Aesop's fable. For just as he

82 'From Gregory bishop of Nyssa to Eustathius on the Holy Trinity' AL, 'From the same to Eustathius (on the Holy Trinity K, om. O) and against the pneumatochoi, that the Spirit is God' OK, 'To Eustathius the physician concerning enquiries about 'the three [gods] advocated by us', and against the pneumatomachoi', S.

The title in all Basilian mss. is 'To Eustathius the chief physician', with one ms. adding a thematic description. Müller follows AL. To distinguish the Eustathius, I have added in 'the physician', supported by S in the Nyssen transmission, and add the thematic description in OK.

83 On Gregory's esteem of the medical profession see letter 13.1 and note.

84 cux¤k«n érrvsthmãtvn, not 'spiritual' illnesses, but maladies of the psyche, emotional disturbances.

85 Especially hard to understand because the protagonist of the Pneumatomachoi was Eusthathius of Sebasteia, in years past a close friend to Gregory of Nyssa's family.

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has the wolf bring certain charges against the lamb—being ashamed evidently of appearing to destroy without just cause one who had done him no harm, yet when the lamb easily refutes all the slanderous charges brought against him, has the wolf in no way slacken his attack. Instead, when defeated by justice, he conquers with his teeth. 2b. So it is with those who have pursued their hatred against us as if it were one of the good works.86 Blushing perhaps at appearing to hate without a cause, they invent charges and complaints against us, while they do not abide by in any of their assertions. As the reason for their enmity against us they allege now one thing, and after a little while another, and then again something else. Their malice has no ﬁrm ground. When they are thrown oﬀone charge

[GNO 3.1, 5.] they cling to another, and from that again they seize on a third, and if all their charges are refuted, still they do not desist from their hatred.

2c. They accuse us of advocating87 three gods and din this slander into the ears of the many, never ceasing to deck it out persuasively. But then the truth ﬁghts for us, for we make it plain both publicly to all and privately to those we meet, that we anathematise anyone who says that there are three gods. Indeed we do not even regard such a one a Christian. 2d. But when they hear this, they have Sabellius to hand to use against us, noisily detecting in our argument the plague that came from him. So again, we confront this too with our habitual armour, the truth, and make it plain that we shudder at this heresy as equivalent to Judaism.

3a. What then? After all these attempts did they grow weary and hold their peace? No indeed! Now they accuse of innovation, supporting the charge against us as follows. They claim that though we confess three hypostases, we assert that there is one goodness and one power and one deity. And in saying this they do not depart from the truth, for we do so assert. But in making this charge, they argue that their custom does not condone it and Scripture does not support it.

86 The same sentiment occurs in letter 1.1.

87 presbeÊesyai, not 'honouring', since this verb was not used by the Cappadocian fathers for worship, but 'acting as ambassador for'. Gregory treated this issue at greater length in later life, writing in response to a query by a friend, in To Ablabius, that there are not three gods, GNO 3.1, 37–57, tr. NPNF 2nd ser. 5.331–336.

supplementary collection 3b. What then is our reply to this? We do not consider it right to make the custom that prevails among them the law and rule of sound doctrine. For if custom is valid as a proof of soundness,88 surely we too may put forward [GNO 3.1, 6] in our defence the custom that prevails among us, and if they reject this, we surely do not have to follow theirs. Let the God-inspired Scripture therefore decide between us, and the verdict of the truth will surely go to those whose teachings are found to be in harmony with the divine words.

3c. What then is their charge? They bring forward two charges against simultaneously: ﬁrst, that we divide the hypostases, and second, that we do not number in the plural any of the God-beﬁtting names, but, as said above, proclaim the goodness as one and the power and the deity and all such attributes in the singular. With regard to the division of the hypostases, they cannot well object who themselves decree89 the diﬀerence of substances90 in the divine nature.

For it is improbable that they who say there are three substances do not also assert emphatically that there are three hypostases. 3e.

This therefore is the only charge: that we proclaim in the singular the names applied to the divine nature.

4a. But we have a prompt and clear argument in reply to this.91

For anyone who condemns those who say that the deity is one, must either support those who say that there are more than one or those who say that there is none. For it is not possible to conceive of a third alternative.92 But the teachings of Scripture do not allow us to say that there are more than one, because whenever it mentions deity it uses it in the singular: [GNO 3.1, 7] in Him dwells all the fullness of the deity (Col 2.9); and, elsewhere, his invisible qualities, namely his eternal power and deity, have been perceived from the foundation of the world, being inferred from the things that are made (Rom 1.20). 4b. If extending the number of deities to multiplicity is proper only to those in the 88 ÙryÒthtow, or 'orthodoxy'.

89 dogmat¤zontew, i.e., those who theologise in this way and teach accordingly.

90 tØn •terÒthta ('otherness') t«n oÈsi«n. Gregory here refers to all theologising of an arianizing stamp, from the anomoians who baldly asserted the unlikeness of Father and Son, up to an including the homoiousians, of which the pneumatomachoi were a late variant, who, though stressing likeness of substance, stopped short of confessing the same divine substance in each of the Persons.

91 A negation of the statement occurs in OMK, but is corrected in OM.

92 This sentence is missing in b, v.

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sickness of polytheistic error, whereas to deny the deity altogether would be the part of atheists, what is the doctrine that slanders us for confessing that the deity is one?

4c. But they reveal more clearly the object of their argument when they accept that the Father is God and agree that the Son is likewise to be honoured with the name of deity, but beyond that, do not agree that the Spirit who is numbered together with the Father and the Son93 is to be included in the conception of deity, but that the power of the deity, issuing from the Father as far as the Son, excludes the nature of the Spirit from the divine glory.

Consequently we must brieﬂy make a defence, as best we can, against this conception also.

5a. What then is our doctrine? The Lord, in delivering the saving faith to the disciples in the word, joins the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son (cf. Mt 28.19). We aﬃrm that what has once been conjoined maintains that conjunction in all respects, for it is not joined in one aspect and sundered in others. But in that lifegiving power by which our nature is transferred from the perishable life to immortality the power of the Spirit is included with the Father and the Son (cf. Jn 5.21 6.63), and in many other instances, as in the concepts of the good, the holy and eternal, the wise, the upright, the governing, the mighty. Indeed in every case he shares inseparability with them in all the [GNO 3.1, 8] names reserved for the higher powers. Therefore we consider it right to hold that what is joined to the Father and the Son in such sublime and God-beﬁtting conceptions is set apart from them in none.

5b. For we do not know of any distinction of superiority and inferiority in the names conceived of for the divine nature, that it might be thought pious to allow to the Spirit communion in the inferior attributes while judging him unworthy of the more elevated. For all the God-beﬁtting names and concepts have the same honour with each other, for they are in no way distinguishable with regard to the subject that they signify. The title 'the good' does not lead the mind to one subject, and 'the wise' or 'the mighty' or 'the righteous' to another. No, whatever names you use, the thing signiﬁed by them all is one, and if you speak of God, you denote the same whom you understood by the other names.

93 I.e. in the dominical formula of Baptism, Mt 28.19.

supplementary collection 5c. If indeed all the names ascribed to the divine nature are equally valid with each other for denoting the subject, because they lead our mind to the same subject under this aspect or that, what is the reason for allowing to the Spirit communion with the Father and the Son in the other names, but excluding him from the godhead alone? It is entirely necessary either to allow him communion in this also or not to concede it [GNO 3.1, 9] in the others. For if he is worthy in the other attributes, surely he is not less worthy in this. 5d. But if, according to their argument he is of a lesser degree, and so is excluded from communion with the Father and the Son in the name of deity, he is also unworthy to share any other of the God-beﬁtting names. For when the names are contemplated and compared according to the aspect contemplated in each, none will be found to imply less than the title of 'God'. 5e. Evidence of this is that many inferior things also are called by this very name.

Moreover, the divine Scripture does not shrink from using this name ambiguously even of realities that contradict it, as when it names idols by the title of 'god'. For Let the gods, it says, that have not made the heavens and the earth perish, and be cast down beneath the earth ( Jer 10.11

Sept), and, the gods of the heathens are demons (Ps 95.5), and when the sorceress in her necromancies conjures up for Saul the spirits he asked for, she says that she saw gods (1 Sam 28.13).94 And again

Balaam who was an augur and a seer and had in hand the divinations (as Scripture says) and acquired for himself the instruction of demons through his augur's magic, [GNO 3.1, 10] is said in Scripture to receive counsel from God (cf. Num 22.20, 23.5).

5f. Many such examples can be selected from the divine Scriptures to prove that this name has no primacy over the other God-beﬁtting titles, since, as has been said, we ﬁnd it used equivocally95 even of things that oppose it, whereas we are taught in Scripture that the names of 'the holy' and 'the incorruptible' and 'the righteous' and 'the good', are nowhere bestowed indiscriminately where they are not due. 5g. If therefore they do not deny that the Holy Spirit has

94 Gregory probes this episode at greater length, citing also Ps 95.5 and the Balaam story, in On the Sorceress, ed.: GNO 3.2, 101–108, tr.: C. McCambley,

'Gregory of Nyssa: Letter concerning the Sorceress, to Bishop Theodoxios', GOTR 35 (1990), 129–137 at 134–137.

95 ım≈num«w.

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communion with the Father and the Son in those names which especially are predicated piously only of the divine nature, for what reason do they make him out to be excluded from communion in this one alone, in which it was shown that, through an equivocally usage, even demons and idols share?

6a. But they say that this title is indicative of nature, and that since the Spirit has no communion with the Father and the Son in nature, neither does he partake of the communion implied by this name. Let them show then by what means they discover this variation of nature. 6b. For if it were possible to contemplate the divine nature in itself and to discover manifestly what is proper to it and what is alien, we should surely have no need of arguments or other evidences in order to comprehend the object of our enquiry.

6c. But because this is too sublime for the grasp of enquirers and we must infer carefully96 from certain evidences [GNO 3.1, 11] about those matters which elude our knowledge, it is wholly necessary that we are guided in our investigation of the divine nature by its operations.97

6d. Therefore if we see that the operations accomplished by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit diﬀer one from each other, we shall deduce from the diﬀerentiation of operations that the operative natures also are diﬀerent. For it cannot be that things which deviate in their very nature are assimilated to each other in the form of their operation—ﬁre does not chill, or ice warm—but due to the diﬀerence of their natures the operations deriving from them are also distinct one from the other.

6e. But if we perceive that the operation of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is one, diﬀering or varying in no respect whatever, we must deduce the oneness of their nature from the identity of their operation. 7a. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit alike sanctify, and give life,98 and console, and all such operations.

And let no-one who has heard the Saviour in the Gospel saying to the Father concerning his disciples, Father, sanctify them in your name

96 stoxãstik«w (attentively, intently, tentatively, sensitively) énalog¤zomeya (reason from).

97 t«n §nergei«n, lit. 'energies', activities, workings. Gregory is enunciating a classic principle of Cappadocian theological method.

98 And give light, added in v.

supplementary collection ( Jn 17.11, 17), [GNO 3.1, 12] assign the power of sanctifying in a special sense to the operation of the Spirit. So too all the other operations are accomplished in the worthy by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit equally: every grace and power, guidance, life, consolation, the change to immortality, the passage to freedom, and whatever other blessings there are that come down to us.

7b. But the dispensation of things above us concerning creatures both intellectual and perceptive99—if we may at all speculate from the things we know to the things that lie above us—is not established without the operation and power of the Holy Spirit, each partaking of his help according to its own dignity and need. 7c. For even if the ordering and governance of what is above our nature is obscure to our sense, nevertheless one may more reasonably conclude from what we know that the power of the Spirit is also operative in those beings, than that it is banished from the dispensation of what lies above us. For anyone who asserts the latter proposes a bare and groundless blasphemy, being unable to support the absurdity with any reasoning. 7d. But anyone who concludes that the things above us are also ordered by the power of the Spirit together with the Father and the Son strengthens his case with the support of clear evidence from his own life. 7e.100 For inasmuch as human nature is compounded of body and soul and the angelic nature has for its portion the bodiless life, then if the Holy Spirit were operative only [GNO 3.1, 13] in the case of bodies and the soul were insusceptible of the grace that comes from him, one might perhaps deduce from this that if the intellectual and bodiless nature which is in us is above the power of the Spirit, so too the angelic life has no need of his grace.

7f. But if the gift of the Holy Spirit is primarily a grace of the soul, and if the constitution of the soul is in some way associated by its intellectuality and invisibility with the angelic and bodiless life, what person who knows how to see the consequence would not agree that every intellectual nature is governed by the ordering of the Holy

Spirit? 7g. For since it is said their angels always behold the face of my 99 §n tª nohtª kt¤sei ka‹ §n t∞. aﬁsyhtª the higher echelon of created beings: the pure spirits of the angelic order. It is unusual to use aﬁsyhtª in this connection, which would usually mean 'sensate', 'sentient', 'with the senses' etc.

100 33.30–31 is missing in b, v, and the Basilian recension except for slightly diﬀerent beginning and ending points in each.

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Father who is in heaven (Mt 18.10) and it is not possible to behold the hypostasis of the Father otherwise than by ﬁxing the gaze upon it through his impress, and the impress of the hypostasis (Heb 1.3)101 of the Father is the Only-begotten ( Jn 1.14,18), and again to him102 noone can draw near whose mind has not been illumined by the Holy

Spirit (cf. 2 Cor 3.18, 4.6), what else is shown by this but that the Holy Spirit is not separate from the one operation worked by the Father?103

7h. Thus the identity of operation in Father and Son and Holy Spirit proves clearly the indistinguishability104 of their substance.

Consequently, even if the name of deity does signify nature, the commonality of substance105 indicates that this title also will be properly applied to the Holy Spirit.

8a. Yet I do not know how they with all their ingenuity maintain [GNO 3.1, 14] that the title of deity is indicative of nature, as if they had not heard from the Scripture that nature does not result from appointment.106 For Moses was appointed as a god to the Egyptians when he who gave him the oracles said to him I have given you as a god to Pharaoh (Ex 7.1). The title therefore is indicative of a certain power, whether of supervision or of operation. 8b. But the divine nature remains as it is under all the names conceived for it, inexpressible,107 this is our doctrine. For in learning that he is benefactor and judge, and both good and just, and other such titles, we are taught the diversity of his operations—yet through our comprehension of the operations we are not in any way better able to come to a knowledge of the nature of the operator. For anyone who gives a deﬁnition of each of these names and of the nature itself to which the names refer does not give the same deﬁnition of both, and where the deﬁnition of things diﬀers, the nature of those things also is

101 ı de xaraktØr (lit. character, stamp, impress) t∞w toË pãtrow ÍpÒstãsevw.

Gregory discusses Heb 1.3 at length in 34.6–8.

102 toÊtƒ, i.e. to the Father; at 33.28 Gregory uses §ke¤nƒ to refer to the latter of two preceding terms. As access to the Father is through the Son, so also is it through the Spirit.

103 The third class of mss. and the Syriac version add 'and of the son'.

104 tÚ . . . éparãllakton, invariability; Courtonne: l'absolue ressemblance.

105 ≤t∞w oÈs¤aw koinÒthw t∞w oÈs¤aw, this is Gregory's nearest approach to predicating the ımooÊsiow of the Holy Spirit.

106 Gregory later revisited and developed his arguments on this question in On Common Notions, and To Ablabius, that there are not three gods, op. cit.

107 ésÆmantow, a synonym for 'incomprehensible'.

supplementary collection distinct. 8c. Therefore the substance is one thing for which no intelligible deﬁnition has yet been discovered, but another is the signiﬁcance of those names surrounding it which take their names from some operation or dignity. We do not discover in the communion of the names any diﬀerence in the operations, but the commonality consisting of nature is manifestly proved through the identity of operations.108 [GNO 3.1, 15]

8d. If deity is a name of operation, because the operation of Father and Son and Holy Spirit is one, so we aﬃrm the deity is one. And even if, according to the opinion of the many, the name of deity is indicative of nature, then because we cannot discover any variation in their nature because of the identity of operations,109 we not unreasonably deﬁne the Holy Trinity to be of one deity.

9a. 110Yet if someone wishes to deﬁne this title as indicative of dignity, I do not know by what reasoning he holds the name to this signiﬁcance. But alas, one hears many saying this kind of thing.

Therefore, that the zeal of opponents may ﬁnd no ground for attacking the truth, we will accommodate such a supposition and say to those who are of this opinion that even if the name does signify dignity, in this case too the title will be properly applied to the Holy

Spirit.

9b. For consider: the name of kingship denotes all dignity, and our God, it says, is King from everlasting (Ps 73.12). But the Son, who possesses all that the Father has ( Jn 16.15), is himself proclaimed king by Holy Scripture (cf. Jn 18.36). Now the divine Scripture says that the Holy Spirit is the anointing111 of the Only-Begotten (cf. Acts

10.38, Lk 4.18), intimating the dignity of the Spirit by a metaphor from the terms commonly used here below. 9c. For in ancient times, the symbol of this dignity for those who were being advanced to kingship was the anointing bestowed on them. Once this took place there was a change thereafter from a private humble estate to the pre-eminence of rule, and [GNO 3.1, 16] he who was deemed wor108 v has a diﬀerent text: 'but of the diﬀerence in respect of nature we ﬁnd no clear proof, the identity of operations indicating instead, as we have said, commonality of nature'.

109 'due . . . operations' missing in v, and the Basilian recension.

110 All that follows, which is an argument for the equal dignity of the Spirit with the Son, is missing in the Basilian transmission.

111 xr›sma, lit. chrism.

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thy of this grace received after his anointing another name, being called, instead of an ordinary man, the Lord's Anointed (cf. 1 Sam

16.6, Ps 2.2 etc.). 9d. For this reason, in order that the dignity of the Holy Spirit might be more clearly manifest to human beings, he was named by the Scripture as the symbol of kingship, that is anointing, from which we are taught that the Holy Spirit shares in the glory and the kingship of the Only-begotten Son of God. 9e. For just as in Israel112 it was not permitted to enter upon the kingship without the bestowal of anointing beforehand, so the Word, by a metaphor of the names in use among us indicates the equality of power, showing that not even the kingship of the Son is assumed without the dignity of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore he is properly called Christ,113 since this name furnishes proof of his inseparable and unshakable conjunction with the Holy Spirit.

9f. If therefore the Only-begotten God ( Jn 1.18) is the Christ, and the Holy Spirit is his anointing, and the title of Anointed indicates his kingly authority, and the anointing is the symbol of his kingship, then the Holy Spirit also shares in his dignity. If they say, therefore, that the name of deity refers to dignity, and the Holy Spirit is shown to share in this quality, it follows that he who shares in the dignity will certainly also share in the name which represents it.

Letter 34 To Xenodorus the grammaticus In the notes prefacing the preceding letter, reference was made to the patristic testimonies of Christ's two operations collected by St Maximus the Confessor,114 speciﬁcally to a sub-collection called From Gregory of Nyssa. This comprises a string of six deﬁnitions of the term §n°rgeia, which in their terse form as culled by Maximus, do not as such prove Gregory's style.

Mercati identiﬁed several of Gregory's works from which these deﬁnitions were culled: letter 33 to Eustathus the physician, to Ablabius, and on the Lord's prayer. Some excerpts he could not identify. The fourth deﬁnition was subsequently sourced by Franz Diekamp who came upon it in a longer

Greek passage which he found in an anthology of Christological texts preserved in codex Vaticanus 1142 (13th cent.) and codex Casanatensis 1357

(16th cent.). He published his ﬁndings in 'Gregor von Nyssa', Analecta Patristica, Texte und Abhandlungen zur grieschishen Patristik, Orientalia Christiana

112 OMK: ényrvpo›w (among men) instead of 'in Israel'.

113 I.e. 'Anointed'.

supplementary collection Analecta 117 (Roma: Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studium 1938) pp.

13–15. The sentence corresponds to 34.2 below.

In the anthology discovered by Diekamp the authorship and the provenance of the fragments are identiﬁed: 'By the holy Gregory bishop of Nyssa, from a discourse to the grammaticus Xenodorus [or Zenodoros], of which the beginning (is): There is nothing is more saving for Christians than true theology'. Diekamp saw no reason in the style of the accompanying text for doubting the reliability of the ascription. It therefore constitutes the only credible notice of an otherwise lost letter from Gregory to an otherwise unknown grammaticus or lower school teacher. It is true that Anastasius of Sinai also reported the passage,115 but in so paraphrased a form Diekamp could not use it for establishing the text. The translation here is made from Diekamp's edition of the fragments based on the two mss. mentioned above and the text from Maximus the Confessor.

It seemed appropriate here to transliterate §n°rgeia as energeia rather than translate it as operation/activity/active force, since the actual word is so much the focus of attention. The title of the letter is extracted from the caption reported above; versiﬁcation is added. Since we have only these fragments, one do not know the context in which Gregory introduced his deﬁnition of energeia, but was almost certainly in connection with the theology of the Trinity. The term energeia is a cornerstone of his discussion of the Trinity in letter 33.6e–7a. See also letter 24.14.

One of the ways Gregory typically began a letter was to use a brief pungent aphorism. Though so little of this letter survives, it glories in its incipit which is surely one of Gregory's most brilliant 'one-liners'.

To Xenodorus the grammaticus116 1. There is nothing more saving for Christians than true theology117 . . .

. . . 2. For we say that energeia is the natural power and movement of each substance without which a nature neither exists nor is recognized. 3. For intelligence is of intellectual beings, sensation of sensate beings—by which the same lay hold of things outside them and are subject to things outside them—ﬂight of that which ﬂies, swimming of that which swims, crawling of that which crawls, walking of that which walks, sprouting of that which sprouts. To speak comprehensively, the identifying characteristic of each nature we call its

114 Maximus Confessor, Opuscula theologica et polemica, P.G. 91.280D–291B.

115 Anastasius Sinaita, Hodegos chapter 2, P.G. 89.65BC.

116 By the holy Gregory bishop of Nyssa, from the discourse to the grammaticus Xenodorus, of which the beginning is: There is nothing more salviﬁc for Christians than true theology.'

117 oÈden Xristiano›w yeolog¤aw élhyoËw svthrivdesÄteron.

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natural energeia, of which only that which does not exist was deprived.

4. For that which shares in any substance will also share naturally and completely in the power that manifests it. For the true Word presides over the natural limits of substances…

Letter 35 TO PETER HIS OWN BROTHER ON THE DIVINE OUSIA

AND HYPOSTASIS 118

This letter is found in some 36 mss. of St Basil's works, where it bears the title: (Basil) To his brother Gregory on the diﬀerence between ousia and hypostasis. It is letter 38 in the Benedictine numeration of Basil's letters. It is also found in some 10 mss of St Gregory of Nyssa's works, divided into two text families: Group A, comprising the mss: Vat. 446, Old Royal XVI, D I, Par.

503; and Group B, comprising the mss: Mon. 370, Mon 107, Par. 585, 586, Matr. 4864, Urb. 9. The title in the group A mss. is: (Gregory) To his own brother Peter, on the divine ousia and hypostasis, and in Group B: (Gregory)

To his own brother Peter, on the diﬀerence between ousia and hypostasis.

Anders Cavallin demonstrated in his 1944 thesis119 that Gregory was not the recipient of this letter but its author. S. Rudberg, H. Dörries, and J. Quasten all accepted Cavallin's arguments, which were based on a study not of the theological contents of the letter, in which Basil and Gregory are in complete accord, but of particular ways of wording and expression which indicate Gregory's authorship. Paul J. Fedwick reviewed, corroborated and extended Cavallin's ﬁndings; these notes are mostly taken from his article.120

Although no critical edition of this letter has appeared in GNO to date, Fedwick, in the above article, 41–46, collated Courtonne's edition of the Basilian text with Vat. 446 (= 'E' in the introduction to letter 33) prototype of Group A, and Mon. 370 (= 'O', idem) as the archetype of Group

B. Group A was shown to have more aﬃnity with the Basilian transmission. The readings of these two groups are shorter and more diﬃcult, and so carry a greater warrant of authenticity. In particular Fedwick found that the omissions in E coincide with one Basilian ms.: Laur. Med. IV, 16

(10th/11th cent). He also noted examples in Group B of liberal editorializing on the part of the scribe, especially in the form of the drastically recast introduction. He concludes that 'the text of Mon. 370 should be

118 Mss.: VPBM, LC, ed.: Courtonne II, 29–30, Def. 2.256–259, cf. Fedwick in OCP article shortly cited, 41–46; tr.: NPNF 2nd ser. 8.137–141.

119 Studien zu den Briefen des Hl. Basilius (Lund: Gleerupska universitetsbokhandeln,

1944), pp. 71 ﬀ.

120 'A commentary of Gregory of Nyssa or the 38th Letter of Basil of Caesarea', Orientalia Christiana Periodica 44 (1978), 31–51. For Fedwick's deﬁnitive summary of the textual transmission see '**GrNys 2/38', BBV 1.620–623.

supplementary collection considered a gloss from the use of which . . . one should prescind in the literary and doctrinal study' of this letter. In working on this translation, I found that almost none of the omissions in E were corroborated in O.

Other variants in E proved too insigniﬁcant to aﬀect the translation.

Consequently Courtonne's edition, with the exception of the title, is followed here.

As with letter 33, the present letter may be readily classed as a small dogmatic treatise. But also like that letter it is not unreasonable that having been so long published among Basil's letters, it should now be given a place here among Gregory's letters. Of special interest is the fact that, according to the inscription, Gregory sent this letter to his brother, Peter.

But what are we to make of: 'For this reason, that even you may not succumb to similar notions' (35.1c)?121 Can such a caution apply to Peter?

Letters 5 and 33 furnish some background. Eustathius of Sebasteia had for many years been a friend of Emmelia's family, and a great spiritual inﬂuence on her children and on monastic communities throughout Pontus, being as frequent a visitor to Annisa as his travels along the Via Pontica allowed. The drawn-out rupture with Eustathius over his doctrinal dissembling was possibly the most painful event of Basil's troubled episcopate.

Basil himself visited Annisa for the last time in 375/376, and it is not diﬃcult to discern that part of his agenda was to explain to his own siblings the theological and political issues of this new situation with respect to Eustathius, and to secure and conﬁrm their allegiance. Meanwhile, in Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa became the special target of Eustathius' politicking.

It is tempting to date this letter to the period after Gregory's restoration to his see, 378–380, while Peter was still the monastic superior at Annisa, for there is no particular sign in this letter that Gregory is writing to a bishop. Alternatively Gregory may have furnished his brother with this letter when he became bishop in Sebasteia, in order to arm himself in dealing with the legacy of disputatiousness left behind by Eusthathius. Whether the letter is dated earlier or later, Gregory at any rate means to fortify his brother doctrinally and theologically, by providing this short treatise as a doctrinal vademecum. Regrettably, the original opening has probably dropped out.

This letter has been called 'the locus classicus for the Cappadocian analysis of the terms oÈs¤a and ÍpÒstasiw'.122 The distinctions between these terms had by no means been clear at an earlier period, the two words sometimes being thought of as synonymous, e.g., St Athanasius' usage in Against the Arians 3.65, 4.33, To the Bishops of Africa 4. Indeed the whole history of the Arian conﬂict to no small extent reﬂects the vicissitudes of 121 In itself, this sentence is enough to cast doubt on Gregory as the recipient.

Basil may have had certain worries over his brother, but a fear that he was insuﬃciently trained in discourse or lacked precision in theological analysis, was not one of them. Indeed Gregory of Nyssa surpassed his brother in powers of theological speculation.

122 M. V. Anastos, 'Basil's Katå EÈnom¤ou, a critical analysis', p. 107, n. 135.

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semantics concerning these two terms. The turning point came at the synod at Alexandria presided over by Athanasius in 362, when this confusion was admitted, and it was recognized that parties who bristled at each other over terms (Old Nicenes v. Easterners working with a Greek terminology formed by Origen) were really confessing the same faith. It was proposed eirenically that all talk of either one or three hypostases should be avoided.

That of course could only be a stopgap measure. The Neo-nicene front, consolidated by Basil, Meletius and Eusebius of Samosata in the late 360s and 370s, recognized that amid ongoing misunderstandings and controversies these terms required clariﬁcation. Basil articulated the distinction of the terms in 373 in letter 225, worked out in relation to Eustathius of Sebasteia, and in 375 in letter 214 to Count Terentius, worked out in relation to the strife between old Nicenes and Neo-nicenes in Antioch. Thereafter, the Neo-nicenes made these clariﬁed deﬁnitions its special platform. The present letter is the culmination of the doctrinal development that followed the council of 362 and triumphed in the council of 381, in which Gregory of Nyssa was prominent. Compare Gregory's treatment of hypostasis in letter 5, and of ousia and hypostasis in letter 24. In Gregory's exposition here, oÈs¤a refers to 'essence' or 'substance', in the same register as 'nature',

ÍpÒstasiw refers to 'subsistence', an individual subject or identity, assimilated in the West and eventually in the East to the term 'person'. Henceforth in speaking of the Holy Trinity, the formula is one ousia of the divine nature, and three hypostases under the names of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. In this translation oÈs¤a is rendered 'substance', and ÍpÒstasiw is transliterated as 'hypostasis'. Gregory himself scarcely adverts to the historical problems of terminology (35.1a–b). Consequently, in 35.6–8, he has to resort to other means, not without value, to explain the potential ambiguity of Heb 1.3.

The eight divisions of the letter appearing in the earlier editions are maintained here; sub-versiﬁcation is supplied using letters of the alphabet.

To Peter his own brother on the divine ousia and hypostasis123 1a. Since many fail to distinguish in the mystic dogmas124 the substance, which is common, from the principle of the hypostases, they fall into ambivalent notions and think that it makes no diﬀerence at all whether they say 'substance' or 'hypostasis'. 1b. Consequently some125 who accept such notions uncritically are happy to speak of 123 This is more 'diﬃcult' title in the mss. of Group A: toË aÈtoË prÚw P°tron tÚn ‡dion édelfÚn per‹ t∞w ye¤aw oÈs¤aw ka‹ Ípostãsevw. It to refer to the terms of Heb 1.3 discussed at length in 33.6–8.

124 t«n mustik«n dogmãtvn, i.e. of the holy Trinity, rooted in the liturgy of Baptism.

125 E.g. some old Nicenes, and 'Marcellans', whose premise is God's one substance.

supplementary collection 'one hypostasis' in the same breath as 'one substance', while others who accept three hypostases126 think that they are bound by this confession to assert an equal number of substances. 1c. For this reason, so that you too may not succumb to similar notions,127 I have put together a short treatise for you as a memorandum on this topic.

1d. Now the meaning of the expressions, to put it brieﬂy, is as follows:

2a. In the whole class of nouns,128 expressions used for things which are plural and numerically diverse have a more general sense, as for example 'man'. For anyone who employs this noun indicates the common nature, not limiting it to any particular man known by such a term. For 'man' has no more reference to Peter than it has to Andrew, John or James. The commonality of what is signiﬁed extends alike to all ranked under the same name and requires some further distinction129 if we are to understand not 'man' in general, but Peter or John.

2b. But other nouns have a more individual signiﬁcation, in that what is contemplated in the thing signiﬁed is not the commonality of nature but a circumscription of a some reality, which, as far as its individuality goes, has no communion with what is of the same kind, as for example,130 Paul or Timothy. For such an expression no longer has reference to what is common in the nature, but by separating certain circumscribed conceptions from the general idea, expresses them by means of their names. 2c. When several are taken together, as for example, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, and one seeks a deﬁnition of the substance of these human beings, no-one will give one deﬁnition of substance131 for Paul, another for Silvanus, and yet another for Timothy. No, whatever the terms used to indicate the substance of Paul they will also apply these to the others, and they are consubstantial with one another132 who are designated by the 126 Including those whose starting point is two (or three) persons, i.e. Arianizers of all stamps, and Neo-nicenes, who risk falling into tritheism if they do not clarify their terms.

127 …w ìn mØ ka‹ su tå ˜moia pãyoiw. The second person singular is qualiﬁed with emphasis.

128 ÙnÒmata, lit. 'names'.

129 t∞w Ípodiastol∞w, or 'subdivision'.

130 'in that the commonality . . . of the same kind' missing in M.

131 'of substance' missing in M.

132 éllÆlouw ımooÊsioi, thus Gregory aﬃrms that the Spirit is homoousios with

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same deﬁnition of substance. But when someone who has ascertained what is common turns his attention to the individual properties by which the one is distinguished from the other, the deﬁnition by which each is known will no longer tally in all particulars with the deﬁnition of another, even though it may be found to have certain points in common.

3a. This then is what we aﬃrm: what is spoken of individually is indicated by the expression 'hypostasis'. For when someone says

'a human being', it strikes upon the ear as a somewhat diﬀuse concept due to the indeﬁniteness of its meaning. Though the nature is indicated, that thing which subsists and is indicated by the noun individually is not made clear. But if someone says 'Paul', he shows the nature as subsisting in that which is indicated by the noun.

3b. This therefore is the hypostasis:133 not the indeﬁnite notion of the substance, which ﬁnds no instantiation134 because of the commonality of what is signiﬁed, but that conception which through the manifest individualities gives stability and circumscription in a certain object to the common and uncircumscribed. 3c. It is the custom of Scripture to make distinctions of this kind in many other passages as it does in the history of Job. When he begins to narrate the events of his life, Job ﬁrst mentions what is common and says

'a man'. Then he immediately individualizes by adding 'a certain'

( Job 1.1).135 As to the description of the substance, he is silent, for it has no bearing on the scope of his work. But by means of particular identifying notes, by mentioning the place and identiﬁable habits and such external marks that would distinguish him and mark him oﬀfrom the common signiﬁcation, he characterizes the 'certain man'. Thus by means of the name, the place, the particular qualities of soul, and the external circumstances, the description of him whose story is to be told is made in all respects perfectly clear. 3d.

Now if he had been giving an account of the substance there would not have been any mention at all of these matters in his exposition of the nature. For the same account would have been given in the the Father and the Son. This goes somewhat beyond Basil's oikonomia in the terms to be used of the Holy Spirit and hence conﬁrms Gregory's authorship.

133 Hypo-stasis, is that which 'stands under'.

134 stãsiw, ﬁrm basis, rootedness, stability.

135 The verbal sequence in Greek is that of a noun followed by enclitic: ÖAnyrvpÒw tiw ∑n.

supplementary collection case of Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Minaean and each of the men mentioned there (cf. Job 2.11 Sept.).

3e. Transpose136 then to the divine dogmas the same principle of diﬀerentiation which you acknowledge with regard to substance and hypostasis in our aﬀairs, and you will not go wrong. Whatever your thought suggests to you as the Father's mode of being—for it is idle for the soul to insist on any discrete conception because of the conviction that it is above all conception—you will think also of the Son, and likewise of the Holy Spirit. 3f. For the principle of the uncreated and of the incomprehensible is one and the same, whether in regard to the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit. For one is not more incomprehensible and uncreated and another less so. 3g.

And since it is necessary that the distinction in the Trinity be kept unconfused by means of the notes of diﬀerentiation, we, in our assessment of that which diﬀerentiates, shall not adduce what is contemplated in common, as for example the uncreated that I mentioned or what is beyond all comprehension or any such quality. We shall seek only the means by which the conception of each shall be separated lucidly and in an unconfusing manner from that which is contemplated in common.

4a. Now a good way to trace out this argument seems to me as follows. We say that every good which comes upon us by God's power is an operation of the grace which works all things in all (1 Cor

12.6), as the apostle says: But all these are the work of the one and the self same Spirit who distributes to each as he wills (1 Cor 12.11). 4b. If we ask whether the supply of the good which comes to the worthy in this way takes its origin from the Holy Spirit alone, again we are guided by Scripture to believe that the author and cause of the supply of the good things which are worked in us through the Holy

Spirit is the Only-begotten God ( Jn 1.18), for we are taught by Holy Scripture that through him all things came to be ( Jn 1.3) and subsist in him (Col 1.17).

4c. When we have been elevated to this conception, again we are led on by God-inspired guidance and taught that through this power all things are brought from non-being into being—yet not even by this power without a principal, for there is a certain power subsist136 The second person singular is used.

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ing without generation and without origin137 which is the cause of the cause of all that exists. For the Son, through whom are all things, and with whom the Holy Spirit is always conceived of inseparably, is from the Father. For it is not possible for anyone to conceive of the Son if he has not been illumined beforehand by the Spirit (cf.

2 Cor 3.18, 4.6).138

4d. Since the Holy Spirit, from whom the whole supply of good things ﬂows forth upon creation, is attached to the Son with whom he is comprehended inseparably, and has his being dependent139 on the Father as cause, from whom indeed he issues, he therefore has this distinguishing sign of its individual hypostasis, that he is known after the Son and with him,140 and that he has his subsistence from the Father.

4e. The Son who makes known the Spirit who issues from the Father ( Jn 15.26) through himself and with himself, and who alone shines forth as the only begotten from the unbegotten light,141 has no communion with the Father or the Holy Spirit in the distinguishing marks of individuality. He alone is known by the signs just stated.

4f. But the God who is over all (Eph 4.6) has as a special mark of his own hypostasis that he is Father and that he alone has his subsistence from no cause, and again it is by this sign that he is recognized individually.

4g. For this reason we say that the distinguishing marks contemplated in the Trinity are incompatible and incommunicable with the commonality of substance,142 those marks by which the individuality of the Persons143 is set forth as they are delivered in the faith,144 each

137 égennÆtvw ka‹ énãrxvw Ífest«sa.

138 For similar argument concerning the Spirit see letter 33.7g.

139 §jhmm°non, from §japÄtv.

140 metå tÚn Uﬂon ka‹ sÁn aÈt". The pneumatology in 34.4d is as close to the sound sense of the western ﬁlioque as can be found in the Greek fathers while maintaining the Father's monarché. In all Gregory's formulations, the Spirit does not issue from the Father without an inherent relation to the Son. For this understanding there was precedent in his own family's tradition; cf. the short creed of Gregory

Thaumaturgus (313–370), recorded by Gregory of Nyssa in his Life of the saint:

'one Holy Spirit, having his subsistence from God and made manifest through the Son'. For other formulas concerning the relation of the Spirit to Father and Son see letter 24.15.

141 mÒnow monogen«w §k toË égennÆtou f≈tow. A brilliant use of paronomasia.

142 ésumbatã (disparate, irreconcilable, 'unconﬂatable') . . . ékoin≈nhta.

143 pros≈pvn. Cf. 34.8c, d. The term is also used in letter 33.2, 7, 13 (in Greek).

144 I.e. in the dominical baptismal formula and the liturgical tradition.

supplementary collection of them being apprehended separately by his own distinguishing marks. 4h. Accordingly, it is through the signs stated above that the distinction of the hypostases is discovered. But when it comes to being inﬁnite, incomprehensible, uncreated, uncircumscribed by any place and all such qualities, there is no variation in the life-giving nature—of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit I mean. Rather, the communion contemplated in them is in a way continuous and inseparable.

4i. By whatever considerations one conceives of the majesty of any one of the Holy Trinity in whom we believe, through these same considerations one will approach without variation the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and behold their glory, since between Father, Son and Holy Spirit there is no interstice into which the mind might step as into a void. This is because nothing intrudes itself between them and no other reality subsists beyond the divine nature able to divide that nature from itself by the interposition of some alien element. There is no void of some interstice, lacking subsistence, which could cause the harmony of the divine substance with itself to ﬁssure, by breaching the continuity through the insertion of a void.

4j. But one who has given thought to the Father and given thought to him as he is in himself, has also embraced the Son in his understanding, and one who has received him does not portion oﬀthe

Spirit from the Son. Instead, in sequence as far as order is concerned, conjointly as far as nature is concerned, he forms an image in himself of the faith that holds the three together.145

4k. Anyone who mentions only the Spirit also embraces in this confession the one of whom he is the Spirit. And since the Spirit is of Christ (Rom 8.9) and from God (1 Cor 2.12)146 as Paul says, then just as anyone who catches hold of one end of a chain pulls also on the other end, so one who draws the Spirit (Ps 118.131) as the prophet says, also draws through him the Son and the Father. 4l.

And if anyone truly receives the Son, he will hold to him on both sides, since the Son draws with him on one side his own Father and on the other his own Spirit. For neither can he who exists eternally

145 t«n tri«n katå taÈtÚn sugkekram°nhn §n •aut" tØn p¤stin énetupÄvsato.

146 Gregory seems to have in mind Rom 8.9 which presents synoptically the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, but he also seems to have consciously or unconsciously brought in the preposition from from 1 Cor 2.12.

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in the Father (cf. Jn 10.38 14.10 17.21) ever be cut oﬀfrom him, nor he who works all things by the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 12.11) ever be disjoined from his own Spirit.

4m. Likewise anyone who receives the Father, in eﬀect receives with him both the Son and the Spirit as well, for in no way is it possible to conceive of a severance or division, such that the Son should be thought of apart from the Father or the Spirit be disjoined from the Son. Yet both the communion and the distinction apprehended in them are, beyond a certain point ineﬀable and inconceivable, in which neither the distinction of the hypostases ever sunders the continuity of nature, nor the commonality of substance ever dissolves the distinguishing notes.

4n. Do not wonder then that we speak of the same thing as being at once conjoined and separated, and that we think, as though in riddles (cf. 1 Cor 13.12), of a new and strange kind of conjoined separation and separated conjunction.147 For unless one is attending to the argument in a disputatious and truculent spirit, one can ﬁnd something similar even in things perceptible to the senses.

5a. Even so, receive what we say as at best an intimation and a shadow of the truth, not as the actual truth itself. For it is impossible that there should be correspondence in all respects between what is contemplated by means of examples and that for which the use of examples has been compassed. Why then do we say that an analogy of what is both separate and connatural can be drawn from things evident to the senses?

5b. From time to time during the Spring you have seen the brightness of the rainbow in the cloud—that rainbow, I mean, which in the custom of our common speech is called Iris. Those expert in such matters say it is formed when a certain moisture is mingled with the air, and when the dense and the moist in the vapours has become cloudy, the force of the winds compresses it into rain. 5c.

The rainbow, they say, is formed like this. When the sunbeam, after obliquely passing through the dense and opaque portion of the cloudformation, has directly cast its own circle on some cloud, there occurs a kind of bending and return of the light upon itself, for the radiance reﬂects back from what is moist and shiny. For it is the nature

147 An excellent use of oxymoron (concentrated antithesis) to serve a theological truth.

supplementary collection of ﬂame-like vibrations that if they fall on any smooth surface that they recoil upon themselves. 5d. Now the shape formed by the sunbeam on the moist and smooth part of the air is round, so that the air next to the cloud is necessarily circumscribed by the shimmering brilliance in accord with the shape of the sun's disk. This brilliance is both consistent with itself and divided. For because it is composed, in some sense, of many-colours and aspects, it steeps itself invisibly in the various bright hues148 of its dye, stealing imperceptibly from our sight the junction of the diﬀerent colours with each other. 5e. Accordingly, no intervening space, no mixing or partitioning of the variety of colours within itself can be discerned either between the blue-green and the orange, or between the orange and the deep red, or between this colour and the yellow. For when all the rays are seen in ensemble, they are simultaneously luminous yet steal away the signs of their junction with each another. They so elude our scrutiny that it is impossible to discover how far the scarlet or the green portion of the light extends and at what point each begins to cease being at full luminosity.

5f. Just as in this example we distinguish clearly the diﬀerences of the colours, and yet we are unable to apprehend by our senses the separation between one and the other, reason, I beg you, that it possible also to draw an analogy in the same way concerning the divine dogmas.149 5g. Thus the individual traits of the hypostases, like the bright hues that appear in the Iris, illumine each of those in the Holy Trinity in whom we believe, while no diﬀerence of individuality as to nature can be perceived between one and the other.

Instead, the distinguishing individual traits shine on each in the commonality of substance. Even in our example, the substance which displays that many-coloured ray is one, refracted as it is through the sunbeam, but the bright hue of what appears is multiform.

148 ênyesi, ênyow = ﬂower, bloom, brightness, eﬄorescence. The term becomes important at the end of 33.5g.

149 The manner of analogy is very much in Gregory's style: ﬁrst a graphic description of some natural phenomenon, then a transitional sentence querying the example followed by the application to the requires case. Gregory endeavours to provide a metaphysical probability for even the loftiest of revealed truths (34.5h). Compare the study of the cycles of the moon and the sun in On the Soul and the Resurrection

2.11–16 (Krabinger 20–22) to show the power of the intellect/spirit surpassing the mere senses.

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5h. In this way reason teaches us even by means of creation not to feel uneasy at discussions of dogma whenever we are faced with questions hard to understand and we begin to baulk at assenting to the ideas expressed. For as in the case of things which appear before our eyes, experience appears to be stronger than argument concerning causality, so in matters transcending all knowledge, faith is stronger than comprehension through reasonings, for it teaches us both the distinction in hypostasis and the conjunction in substance.

Therefore, since reason has contemplated in the Holy Trinity both that which is common and that which is distinctive, the principle of commonality is to be referred to substance, while hypostasis is the distinguishing mark of each.

6a. But perhaps someone may think that the account given here of the hypostasis does not tally with the conception in the apostle's writing where he says of the Lord that He is the brightness of his glory and the impress of his hypostasis (Heb 1.3). For if we have given it out that hypostasis is the conﬂuence of the individual qualities of each and if it is confessed that, as in the case of the Father, something individual is contemplated by which he alone is recognized, and in the same way it is also believed equally of the Only-begotten, 6b. how then does Scripture in this place attribute the name of the hypostasis to the Father alone, and speak of the Son as a form of that hypostasis, not characterized by his own distinguishing marks but by those of the Father? 6c. For if the hypostasis is the individualizing sign of each one's existence and it is confessed that the Father's individual note is unbegotten being, and the Son is formed to the Father's individual qualities, then unbegottenness can no longer be predicated of the Father as special to him alone, since the existence of the Only-begotten is also characterized by what individualizes the Father.

7a. But what we would say is this, that for the apostle the statement in this passage is directed to another end, and it is in view of this that he uses the expressions brightness of glory, and impress of hypostasis. Whoever keeps this carefully in mind will ﬁnd that nothing clashes with what we have said, but that the statement is made in a certain individualizing sense.

7b. For the apostolic argument is not concerned with distinguishing the hypostases from one another by their manifest signs, but with appreciating the genuineness, inseparability, and intimacy of relationship of the Son in respect of the Father. For he does not say

supplementary collection 'who being the glory of the Father'—though in truth he is that— but bypasses this as acknowledged. 7c. To teach us not to think of a certain form of glory for the Father and of another for the Son, he deﬁnes the glory of the Only-begotten as the brightness of the glory of the Father, ensuring by this example of the light that the Son is to be conceived of inseparably with the Father. 7d. For just as the radiance does not come after the ﬂame but from the ﬂame itself, the ﬂame ﬂaring and the light shining simultaneously, so he wishes the Son to be thought of as from the Father, the Only-begotten not divided oﬀfrom the Father's existence by any kind of interval, so that the caused is always conceived of together with the cause.

7d. Then in the same manner, as if to interpret the preceding thought, he goes on to say impress of the hypostasis, guiding us to the conception of things invisible by means of bodily examples. 7e. For as the body is found wholly in a shape150 and yet the principle of the shape is one thing and that of the body another, and no-one in giving the deﬁnition for the one would give the equivalent for the other—with the proviso that even if in theory you distinguish the shape from the body, nature does not admit of the distinction, and the one is always understood inseparably with the other—just so the apostle thinks that even if the doctrine of the faith teaches that the diﬀerence of the hypostases is unconfused and distinct, he ought also by his utterances set forth the continuous and as it were congenital relation of the Only-begotten to the Father. 7f. He speaks thus, not as if the Only-begotten did not also have being as an hypostasis, but as not admitting of any gap in his unity with the Father. Accordingly, one who with the eyes of the soul gazes on the impress151 that is the Only-begotten also becomes aware of the hypostasis of the Father,

7g. not as if the individuality contemplated in them were transferred or commingled so as to ascribe either begottenness to the Father or unbegottenness to the Son, but as being inadmissible to disjoin the one from the other and comprehend the one remaining alone. For in naming the Son it is impossible not to become aware also of the Father, since the very title connotes the Father inherently.

150 sxÆmati, outward form.

151 Parallel in meaning to the schema, 'outward form', in the analogy of the body above.

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8a. Because he who has seen the Son also sees the Father, as the Lord says in the Gospels ( Jn 14.9), he therefore says that the Only-begotten is the impress of His Father's hypostasis (Heb 1.3). That the thought may be understood more clearly we shall also invoke other utterances of the apostle where he speaks of the image of the invisible God

(Col 1.15) and again image of his goodness (Wis 7.26), not to distinguish the image from the archetype with regard to the principle of invisibility and goodness, but that it may be shown that it is the same as its prototype,152 even though it is other. For the principle of the image would not be maintained if it were not manifest and invariable in all aspects.

8b. Consequently anyone who discerns the beauty of the image also comes to know the archetype. Indeed one who conceives in thought the form, as it were, of the Son, forms an image153 the impress of the Father's hypostasis, beholding the latter through the former, not beholding the unbegottenness of the Father in the copy

(for this would be complete identity and no distinction), but discerning the unbegotten beauty in the begotten. 8c. Just as someone who observes in a pure mirror the reﬂection of the form that appears there has a vivid knowledge of the face154 represented, so one who has knowledge of the Son, receives in his heart the impress of the Father's hypostasis through his knowledge of the Son. For all that the Father has, is discerned in the Son, and all that the Son has is the Father's (cf. Jn 16.15), because the Son abides wholly in the Father and in turn has the Father wholly in himself (cf. Jn 14.10).

8d. Thus the hypostasis of the Son becomes as it were the form and face155 of the knowledge of the Father, and the hypostasis of the Father is known in the form of the Son, while the individuality which is contemplated in them remains as the clear distinction of the hypostases.

152 M recasts: 'image of his Goodness, image of the archetype, image in the principle of invisibility . . .

153 énetup≈sato, devises, depicts for himself (more active in sense), or sustains in himself an impress (of the impress of the Father's hypostasis).

154 pros≈pou, otherwise 'person' as in 33.4g.

155 prÒsvpon, which proves the inadequacy of translating ÍpÒstasiw as 'person'.

'Person' is also used at 34.4g, 8c, and frequently in the Christological letter 32.

supplementary collection Letter 36 To Theodore156 This letter is listed among Basil's letters as letter 124. J.-R. Pouchet argued a case for reassigning the authorship of this letter to St Gregory of Nyssa in 'Une Lettre Spirituelle de Gregoire de Nysse identiﬁee: L'Epistula 124 du corpus Basilien', Vigilianae Christianae 42 (1988), 28–46.157 The present author is quite persuaded both by Pouchet's arguments, and through her own familiarity with Gregory's epistolary style, which can be readily perceived in this letter.

Pouchet points out that aspects of external evidence indicate caution with regard to the supposed Basilian authorship of this letter. The present numbering of this letter, 124, is that of the Benedictine 'chronological' order.

Yet in the most authoritative text family, Aa, it appears much later as no.

273, i.e. in the traditional place for dubia. Mss. of some sub-branches of A place letters 40, 41 and 366 (all spurious) immediately after Letter 124. In Branch Bz, letter 124 is assigned to the last or second-last rung. In Bu letter 124 is in the immediate vicinity of Letter 38, now recognized as spuriously attributed to Basil and securely reassigned to Gregory's authorship.

My own initial response to the letter is as follows. The author is clearly someone who is both steeped in Hellenism and so committed as a Christian that he is either a monk or one very closely associated with monks. The Hellenism is seen here especially in the use of erotic language with its source in Plato's Symposium.158 At the same time, the epithets given to Theodore: goodness, guileless, pure, together with 'our most pious brothers (= monks)' and their holy 'rivalry' in charity, reveal a communion of ascetic and spiritual ideals. The title 'your Sincerity', used of persons of rank, together with another expression, 'your sacred . . . soul' (ﬂerån . . . sou cuxÆn) suggest the addressee may be a bishop, presbyter or monastic superior. The author of the letter is currently cut oﬀfrom fellowship with Theodore and with the brothers, and ﬁnds life burdensome without it. But some 'brothers' have recently visited the author, and this has occasioned the present letter, which was written so that they could take it back with them to Theodore.

The above stylistic aspects are enough to rule out Basil as the author.

Except for his earliest period (Letters 1, 2, 14), it is a conspicuous feature 156 Mss.: VPBM, LC, ed.: Courtonne II, 29–30, Def. 2.256–259, tr.: NPNF 2nd ser. 8.194. On textual transmission see BBV 1.585–586.

157 Fedwick remains unpersuaded; see BBV 1.675 n. 34.

158 Pouchet (33) sources 'erotic disposition' in §rvtik«w diatiy°mena, §rvtik«w diat¤yesyai, Platon, Oeuvres Complètes, t. IV, 2e partie, Le Banquet, intro. L. Robin and ed. P. Vicaire (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1949, 1989 repr.), 207b and 207c, p. 62; Platonis Opera, ed. J. Burnett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901, 1946 repr.),

SUMPOSION 207b, 207c.

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of Basil's discourse that he avoids or limits the use of Hellenism in his discourse to Christian ascetics.159

There is also the particular emotionality of the author shown in a raft of aﬀective terms, and especially the daring use of erotic language where

Basil and Nazianzen would have conﬁned themselves to the language of friendship and aﬀection, or at least used it more moderately. Pouchet pertinently asks: 'Cette hypersensibilité sans retenue, a supposer même qu'elle vibre pour un ami intime, est-elle la marque de Basile?'160 No indeed. But it is characteristic of Gregory of Nyssa. Compare the use of erotic language in letter 28.

Other aspects point to Gregory's authorship. The phrase diãyesiw §rvtikÆ ('erotic disposition') is at the heart of Gregory's mature spirituality; c'est une expression typiquement nyséene'.161 It does not appear in either Basil or Gregory, though the two elements separately do. All the parallels in Gregory of Nyssa's writings cited by Pouchet are found in his spiritual writings.162 To those we can now add the phase in letter 31.1k. In the phrase

§nargestãth eﬁkvn t∞w égayÒthtow ('most distinct image of your Goodness'), Gregory follows Origen's and Athanasius' use of a phrase from Wisdom

7.6, but the addition of §nargestãth is uniquely his, with other examples of its use occurring elsewhere in his writings.163 Pouchet associates ≤ per‹ toË ple¤onow filoneik¤a 'rivalry for surpassing' with Gregory's spiritual doctrine of epectasis, the perdurance of holy desire, so well elucidated by Danielou.164

Pouchet argues that diãyesiw §rvtikÆ is the strongest pointer to a late dating for the letter, perhaps the early 390s. It was only with on the Song of Songs (390) and the Life of Moses (392) that Gregory came into the maturity of his spiritual discourse. The phrase at v. 5 'if he leaves me any span of life' also hints at Gregory's waning years.

Another persuasive feature is the conformity of the present letter to the classic pattern of many of Gregory's letters: introductory vivid image, transitional sentence (usually a question) on the meaning of the opening image, subsequent explanation and application to what Gregory really wishes to say to his correspondent.165

159 See Silvas, 'The Revolution in Basil's Ascetic Discourse', The Asketikon of St Basil the Great (Oxford: OUP, 2005), 86–89.

160 Pouchet, op. cit., p. 30.

161 Pouchet, op. cit., p. 32.

162 Pouchet's list on p. 32 begins with Gregory's earliest work: metayÆsei tØn §rvtikØn dÊnamin . . . §p‹ tØn . . . toË kaloË yevr¤an (On Virginity, GNO 8.1, 277.

26). But the two closest parallels are from the great mystical works at the end of his life: tØn ervtikØn éntixarizom°nvn diãyesin (On the Song of Songs (GNO 6,

461.11), §rvtik∞tini diay°sei prÚw tÚ . . . kalÚn (Life of Moses, GNO 8.1, 114.5–6).

163 Basil Letter 38.8 (by Gregory of Nyssa), Courtonne 1.92, ln 5–6; Gregory of Nyssa, Letter 18.2, Letter 19.3, On the Song of Songs GNO 4.439.10.

164 J. Daniélou, 'Introduction', From Glory to Glory (Crestwood: St Vladimir's Press,

1995, repr. of 1961 edition), esp. 57–59; see Pouchet, op. cit., 34–35, 38.

165 See note to Letter 1.3.

supplementary collection The addressee, Theodore, does not appear in any other of Gregory's writings and is otherwise unknown.166 Pouchet judges that he is a presbyter–superior of a community of monks (and virgins). In accounting for the distance and the 'urgent necessity' that imposes a separation, he suggests very plausibly that the hostility nursed against Gregory by Helladius,

Basil's successor in Caesarea, through the 380s has led to a complete rupture between the two. Compare Gregory's painful experiences in letter 16.

He is now a persona non grata in Helladius's church. If Theodore's community was in Caesarea itself (at the Basileiad?) any animosity of the Metropolitan towards Gregory might adversely aﬀect the possibilities of contact. Location of Theodore's community at Caesarea would help explain how a copyist or compiler might mistakenly attribute a letter to Basil that had been found in the archives of a community once founded by Basil.

Even from an early stage Gregory was engaged with ascetics in the mould of his sisters Macrina and Theosebia and his brothers Basil and Peter— witness his On Virginity and his references to the 'choir of virgins' at Nyssa in letter 6.10 and the 'brothers' at Nyssa in letter 18.5. He continued

Basil's role as spiritual father to the monastic communities, being concerned above all in the deepening of spirituality. From the years 388–390, after the deaths of Theosebia, Gregory Nazianzen and other friends, and the departure of Theodosius for the West, Gregory became more and more taken up in the spiritual life and his ministry to the ascetic communities who sought him out for spiritual doctrine and counsel.167 In the context of a shared enthusiasm for the loftiest conceptions of union with God, the ideals of spiritual eros that ﬁll Gregory's mind and heart in the evening of his life, percolate almost naturally in the discourse he uses to cherished friends. There is no embarrassment, because he is sure the usage will be understood—Theodore and his circle are steeped in the metaphor.

To Theodore168 1. They say that when those who are seized with the passion of love,169 are through some more urgent necessity dragged away from the object of their desires, they soothe the vehemence of their pas166 Cf. the early Treatise and Letter of St John Chrysostom, written in the 370s,

To the fallen Theodore (later bishop of Mopsuestia), who was wanting to abandon his monastic vow for marriage. Chrysostom's remonstrance was successful. The letter is especially interesting in that it applies spousal spirituality to the dedicated male celibate: he too is a 'bride' of Christ.

167 Pouchet, op. cit., p. 46, n. 12).

168 M adds éspastikØ ('friendly', 'welcoming').

169 t" pãyei toË ¶rvtow, the passion of eros, the craving for what is considered the beautiful. Plato's Symposium lies behind the usage here.

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sion by looking on an image of the beloved form170 and feasting their eyes on it.171

2. Now whether this is true or not I cannot say, but what has happened to me with regard to your Goodness is not far from that description.172 3. For since I have conceived for your sacred and guileless soul a disposition of—if I may so speak—passionate love,173 yet to enjoy the object of this desire, as with any number of other good things, we ﬁnd diﬃcult through the hindrance of our sins, I thought that I saw a most distinct image of your Goodness174 in the arrival of our most pious brothers. 4. And if, in their absence, I had fallen in with your Sincerity,175 I would have considered that I had also seen them in you, since the measure of love176 in each one of you, I say, is so great, that there appears in each an evenly balanced rivalry for still more.

5. For this I gave thanks to the holy God and indeed I pray that if any span of life is left to me, my life be sweetened through you, since for the present at least, I consider life a painful business and repugnant, sundered as it is from the company of those most dear.

For in my judgment there is nothing in which to ﬁnd élan when cut oﬀfrom those who truly love us.

Letter 37 To the great Emperor177 This letter is familiarly known as letter 365, Basil to the great Emperor Theodosius

(Def. 4.346–351). Basil's chronology, even the received dating of his death to 1 Jan 379, precludes his writing to Theodosius, who was not proclaimed

Augustus of the East until January 19, 379. However, the title in all but one of the mss. is simply to the great emperor. 'Theodosius' was added by the Benedictine editors, from a single ms. copied in 1377 by the Athonite monk

170 Cf. letter 19 which also opens by evoking the painter of images.

171 This turgid, highly complex sentence is reminiscent of Gregory Nyssen not of Nazianzen.

172 This is the transitional sentence connecting a colourful opening image and its application to the present case, that marks Gregory of Nyssa's epistolary style.

173 tiw diãyesiw . . . §rvtikÆ, literally 'erotic' love.

174 eﬁkona t∞w égayÒthtow sou §nargestãthn. The phrase occurs in Letter 18.2, and 'most distinct proof' in Letter 19.1, 'image of your goodness' in Basil, Letter 38.

175 tª sª . . . gnhsiÒthti, genuineness, unfeignedness, purity.

176 t∞w égãphw.

177 Mss.: V, L, ed. and tr.: Courtonne 2.226–227, Def. 4.346–351; see BBV 1.661, for detailed information on the ms. record.

supplementary collection Ignatius, i.e., Maran and Garnier's 'Regius 2' manuscript.178 But we may even question the accuracy of the shorn title. The content suggests that the letter was sent rather to a governor or high oﬃcial with ﬁscal authority to mandate the construction of a bridge.

But did Basil write it at all? The Benedictine editors Maran and Garnier, Deferrari, Fedwick—and with the latter the best of recent scholarship—are all agreed that this letter is not by Basil. The external evidence against his authorship begins ﬁrst of all with the patchiness of its transmission in the Basilian corpus. Fedwick records some 10 mss. where a full copy survives, only two of which are earlier than 13th century (used by Courtonne for his edition of Basil's letters). Secondly, in all the older mss. it appears very late in the enumeration, precisely in the place traditionally reserved for dubia. As to internal evidence, straightaway the overt rhetorical manner and the vocabulary are against Basil's authorship, even taking him in his most

Hellenist. It might also be conﬁrmed that it is very unlike Nazianzen's style.

So it is accepted that Basil was not the author.

The writer is evidently resident not only in the province of Cappadocia but in the metropolis of Caesarea itself, below the bulk of great Mt Argaeus

(37.6). He reveals himself as both candidly Christian and a rhetorician well versed in traditional Hellenism.

Tillemont, in arguing for Basil's authorship (5.739), thought the style of the letter not unworthy of a young man and a rhetorician, and conjectured that it was written early in Basil's life and not to the great emperor, but to some magistrate of Cappadocia. Taking these suggestions, and knowing that Basil was not the author, might it be possible that Gregory of Nyssa himself wrote the letter as a young rhetorician? Gregory practised the profession of rhetoric in the city of Caesarea from early 364 to 371/2, when ﬁnally won over by Basil to service of the Church as a bishop. As to his youth, he was at least six years younger than Basil if not more, so he was about 29 to 38 during this period and possibly younger by a very few years. Valens was the Emperor of the East throughout these years, and he, it will be remembered was unequivovally Arian, and, being an Illyrian brought up to the army, not very literate in Greek.

I submitted the letter to a former teacher of mine, Alan James, an erudite Hellenist for an opinion on its stylistic character. Part of his reply to me was: 'I have ﬁnally got round to reading and reﬂecting on the style of your Letter 36 [as I then had it]. It strikes me as self-consciously clever, both for its unusual, ornate expressions and also for its drawing of rather far-fetched parallels. I should be inclined to attribute this to a youthful writer keen to show oﬀ.'179 Which amply bears out Tillemont's observations.

This letter describes in graphic fashion the ﬂooding of the river Halys.

It is true that both Basil and Gregory Nazianzen were, through their 178 The fullest technical information on the manuscript transmission may be found in Fedwick's BBV 1.661.

179 E-mail to the author of 18/2/05, 12:39 PM.

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rhetorical training, expert users of metaphors and graphic imagery, both much called for in the contemporary period of rhetoric called the Second

Sophistic, dominated by the great rhetorician Libanius. However evocative descriptions of nature are an altogether special feature of Gregory's style.

Gregory dwelt often and sensitively on the imagery of water, weather, the ﬂooding of rivers and the onset of rain and storms. For powerful evocations of gathering and breaking storms, see also letters 1.25–26 and especially 6.2–4. A long passage highly reminiscent of the description of ﬂooding in this letter occurs in his Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus (GNO 10.1, 32–34), where he describes as only a local can the havoc wrought on the surrounding countryside by the 'wild and turbulent river' Lycus when it overﬂows its banks.180 He describes the ﬂooding of the Lycus as 'powerless to human intentions' (GNO 10.1, 33 line 11), just as here the ﬂooding of the Halys is described as 'obeying no laws'. The readiness with which Gregory compares Gregory Thaumaturgus to Moses, and his frequent use of Moses as an example in other works culminating in the Life of Moses, may be compared with the reference to Moses in this letter (37.7). Compare also the same scriptural analogy used in 6.3.

Instances of redundancy and the somewhat disorderly structure (which contrast with the terseness characteristic of Nazianzen's letter-writing) also accord with Gregory's style, e.g. the second description of the river's ﬂood in 37.8 which had already been dealt with in 37.2. Compare the hyperbolic comparison 'outstripping the tongue and the eyes' (37.2) with letter

19.8: 'incredible even to the eyes' and 'how indeed could one bring before the eyes a reality that transcends description in words', with VSM 13.6:181

'what human eloquence could bring such a life before the eyes?', with The Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus:182 'outstripping by far written reports and verbal accounts' and with letter 6.2, which happens also to be a graphic description of nature, in this case of a cold damp wind described as 'threatening a deluge as never before'. But examples of this type of hyperbolic comparison can be readily multiplied in Gregory's works.

180 'A river courses through that country which by its very name indicates its wild and turbulent ﬂow. For it is called Lykos [= wolf ] by those who dwell there due to its destructiveness. For this formidable watercourse bears down from its sources in Armenia through the lofty mountains, bringing with it an abundant ﬂow.

Its current, ﬂowing everywhere beneath the base of the cliﬀs, is made much wilder by the winter torrents when it gathers into itself all the streams ﬂowing down from the mountains. In the ﬂatlands through which it courses it is most often constrained by the banks on either side, but in certain parts it overﬂows the embankment on the side and inundates all the low-lying area with its streams, so that with its unlooked for ﬂood, it brings the inhabitants there into danger, whether by its sudden onset during the night or, often, by the river's overrunning the ﬁelds during the day. Hence not only crops and seeds and cattle are destroyed by the onrush of the waters, but the danger unexpectedly assails the dwellers there, bringing them shipwreck by inundating their houses with the water.' [GNO 10.1, 32–33]

181 GNO 8.1, 381–383, Maraval 174–180.

182 GNO 10.1, 44, lines 12–13.

supplementary collection The brief statement 'But I will explain how this came about', gives one pause. It recalls those many transitional sentences in Gregory's letters that serve to connect a graphic opening image with its subsequent explanation.

They are often in the form a question, such 'What then, do I mean?' (letter 1.3), or 'What do I mean by beginning my letter in this way?' in letter 14.2. Sometimes they are statements of explanation: 'I write this as my introduction because of the sad tragedy which some malign power has been staging among those of longstanding worth' in letter 7.2, and 'But leaving that aside, I will come to the subject of your enquiry' in letter

32.2. Once alerted to the possibility of Gregory's classic formula for letter writing, the opening of this letter reveals itself as one of those pungent, dramatic statements with which Gregory frequently began his letters. Letter

1, for example, begins with such a statement, followed up with a graphic description and then the transitional question. Letter 12 is somewhat similar, and so are letters 32 and 33. In this latter case, the pungent statement is ﬁrst, the transitional sentence next, and the graphic description follows.

The vocabulary of the letter invites comparison with Gregory's manner with words, which set a premium on variety, dexterity, and inventiveness.

He expressed ﬁne nuances by using or inventing words with compound preﬁxes, most frequently with the preﬁx sun. He coined nealogisms: not infrequently one comes across hapax words in Lampe's Patristic Lexicon that are cited from his works, sometimes the very word one is looking up.

It is remarkable that this short letter contains three verbs with double preﬁxes: sunepimignmena, §nepãrhsan, §kdusvpÆyeiw. The rarity of the ﬁrst two words and of another word éenãƒ parallel the Gregory's recherché vocabulary. So rare is §nepãrhsan it was not easy to determine its meaning in the context, as discussed below. The most striking item of vocabulary is of course éstrapobrontoxalazoreiyrodamãstou, all one word (36.5).

It recalls the bombastic phrase-words that appear in Aristophanes' comedies, though here humour can hardly be the intent, but rather a clever aural imitation of the turbulence it describes. Gregory's makes use of the Aristophanic manner in letter 1.12 and VSM 40.1183 (and cf. letter 27.4).

'Bodily misfortune' (36.1) is a characteristically Gregorian idiom.

Perhaps the most suggestive feature of the letter is the prompt, almost casual mention of the Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia.184 It is true that Basil

183 GNO 8.1, 410, Maraval 258.

184 The Forty martyrs of Sebasteia were among the most popular Christian saints of late Antiquity. The earliest surviving documents are the homily by St Basil, the three homilies by St Gregory of Nyssa and an anonymous Passio XL Martyrum,

O. von Gebhardt (ed.), Acta martyrum selecta: Ausgewählte Märtyreracten und andere Urkunden aus der Verfolgungszeit der christlichen Kirche (Berlin: 1903), 171–181. For more recent analysis of the Passio and the state of the tradition see P. Karlin-Hayter, 'Passio of the XL Martyrs of Sebasteia. The Greek Tradition: The Earliest Account (BHG

201)', Analecta Bollandiana 109 (1991), 249–304.

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preached a famous homily on these martyrs in the martyrion dedicated to their memory in Caesarea (PG 31.507–526). Yet Gregory of Nyssa himself was an altogether special client of these martyrs. He seems almost haunted by their memory. He left two, or strictly three, homilies preached on their feast day.185 There was a martyrion to these martyrs at the family estate at Annisa in which an urn of their ashes were kept. There he buried his sister, Macrina, in their parents' grave next to the relics.186 At the end of his second address, he mentions how once when he was a neos, i.e. a student in his early teens, his mother pressed him to take part in the synod for the martyrs. He fulﬁlled her request very grudgingly to say the least. During the vigil he was visited by an apparition or dream of the soldiers, who chastised him for his impiety, at which he wept repentantly over the urn of their ashes. Most intriguingly, we also ﬁnd at the beginning of his ﬁrst address on these Martyrs, a description of a river making havoc in the surrounding countryside, just as we read it in this letter, only it refers to the Lycus not the Halys. As mentioned above, the brewing of storms and the ﬂooding of rivers are highly characteristic motifs of Gregory's imagery. At the other end of his life, in letter 1.5 we ﬁnd Gregory celebrating the Forty

Martyrs on their feast-day in Sebasteia itself, invited by his brother Peter now the bishop there.

There is some question concerning the account of the Martyrs' torture.

Deferrari claims that this letter 'contradicts Basil's statement, made elsewhere, about the forty martyrs'.187 The best I can understand this to mean is that because Deferrari has interpreted the text at v. 3 to say that the martyrs 'were drowned' in the lake, he thinks it contradicts the account in Basil's homily according to which the soldiers were coralled on the surface of the frozen lake to freeze to death in the piercing north wind. The relevant text is: tª ﬂervtãt˙ l¤mn˙ t«n Sebasthn«n eﬁw ªn (Courtonne) / ¥n

(Deferrari) . . . §nepãrhsan. The trouble is this obscure last word. Initially I took it as a form of §mpãreimi, meaning to be together in/on/by something. Courtonne however translates it as 'furent gelés', i.e. 'were frozen'.

In that case §nepãrhsan may be a copyist's corruption of §nepãghsan, aorist passive third person plural of §mpÆgnumi, 'to freeze into/onto', which would explain Courtonne's translation. If such is the case, it would have to be removed from the class of double preﬁx verbs. But either way there is no discrepancy here with Basil's description of way the martyrs were put to death.

Finally, one needs to propose a plausible account of the circumstances in which this letter may have been written and how it might have found its way into the corpus of Basil's letters.

185 Sermones Pars II, GNO 10.1, 137–169.

186 Second Homily on the Forty Martyrs, GNO 10.1,166, VSM 37.1 (GNO 8.1, 409, Maraval 254–256.

187 St Basil: the Letters, Def. 4.346 n. 2.

supplementary collection Two possible scenarios for the writing of this letter might be suggested, taking as our time-span Gregory's professional career as a rhetorician in Caesarea, 364–372. First that Gregory wrote this letter in the spring of 370, after the great drought of 369–370188 followed by a great ﬂood in the Halys valley near Caesarea. The Forty Martyrs' feast-day was March 9, and it is likely that Gregory himself had already heard his brother preaching on that day in Caesarea. As we know from Basil's letters 60 and 58,

Basil esteemed his brother's gifts, and was nudging him to put them at the service of the Church. Perhaps in this civil necessity his brother's secular avocation was an advantage to be exploited, given the unfavourable religio-political situation. Basil even before he became bishop was the eﬀective leader of the Church of Caesarea and a key organizer of the Neo-nicene alliance. This did not create the political circumstances favourable to petitions from its bishop or clergy to the Arian Emperor Valens, who indeed backed the Arian bishop of Constantinople, Eudoxius, in thwarting a proposed meeting of the Neo-nicenes in 368. Gregory, rather than Basil himself or a member of Caesarea's clergy might more plausibly undertake such a petition to the Emperor Valens or preferably to a relevant imperial oﬃcer able to mandate major bridge construction. Gregory probably had more of a reputation as a rhetorician of note in Caesarea than we know. Since the military route from Constantinople to Melitene through Iconium and Caesarea lay south of the Halys, a bridge over the river to the north would not have been a priority until now except to locals. One may wonder whether the mention of the martyrs, put to death under the Emperor Licinius, was a discreet reminder of imperial persecution. There is no great diﬃculty in it if a letter from Gregory, living in Caesarea at the same time as Basil and in regular communication with him, found its way into Basil's ﬁles of letters, specially if Basil had instigated it. One problem with this scenario is that in 370 Gregory was beyond being a young and enthusiastic rhetorician, and coming into his maturity in his mid to late thirties. Would that seemingly juvenile phrase-word and a certain 'show-oﬀ' quality of the letter beﬁt Gregory at this stage?

A second possibility is that Gregory wrote this letter in 364, the very year he took up his teaching post in Caesarea.189 On his own admission in letter 13.4 to the master rhetorician of the age, Libanius, he was enamoured of the beauty of rhetoric. He was clearly caught up in the enthusiasm for Hellenism stirred up by Julian which lasted well after he died. In 364 Gregory; was still young(ish), new in undertaking this profession, with everything to prove. But, as mentioned above, the emperor of the East,

Valens, was not very literate in Greek. Either Gregory did not know this and assumed the he would be so, or he addressed the letter to a senior

188 See Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 43.34.

189 Cod. Theod. 13.3.6 of January 11, 364, ascribed to Valentinian and Valens, may be Jovian's response to Julian's edicts on education or at least to the state of aﬀairs which had arisen in various locales as a result of Julian's pro-pagan policies.

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imperial oﬃcer who might be expected to be of this cultural echelon.

Moreover, the religious/political circumstances advanced in the previous scenario are not relevant at this date. Basil did not come to Caesarea till late autumn of the following year, 365. The unsolved problem in this scenario is to account for the later inclusion of the letter among Basil's letters.

The above considerations scarcely constitute a 'proof' that Gregory is the author of this letter. Yet the raft of quite speciﬁc correspondences with Gregory's literary style and especially the mention of the Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia establish a certain possibility that a young or youngish Gregory of Nyssa, a professional rhetorician in the city of Caesarea between 364–372 who strove to combine the Hellenism of the cultural elite with a manifestly

Christian commitment, was the writer of this letter.

The editions do not contain versiﬁcation which is supplied here.

To the great Emperor190 1. A disaster has come upon our country, not because of some bodily misfortune but because of a great deluge of waters.

2. But I will explain how this came about. There was a heavy fall of snow in our marshlands. It had not yet compacted in a frozen state when a warm breeze blew in and along with it there fell a southerly rain. At the sudden thaw that followed immense streams were set in motion which merged with the permanent river, the Halys,191 till it become an inundation outstripping the tongue and the eye.192 3. This is the neighbouring river that is our lot, gushing out of Armenia and taking its source in the most sacred lake of the Sebasteians, upon which the so-called 'Forty' noble soldiers of Christ were frozen193 during the blast of a ﬁerce north wind.

4. Since then—believe that I speak the truth, most excellent sir— this river that encircles us like a hostile and fearsome tribe has caused us no little fear. 5. For it cannot yet be crossed on foot in any manner at any time, and hence it does not allow the homelands which are indispensable and proﬁtable for us194 to transport across it the 190 Basile¤ow t" megãlƒ basile› V, L, Basile¤ow t" megãlƒ basile› Yeodos¤ƒ

Benedictine editors.

191 The name itself means 'agitation'.

192 I.e. beyond the power of description and incredible to see.

193 tª ﬂervtath l¤mn˙ t«n Sebasthn«n eﬁw ªn (Courtonne)/¥n (Deferrari) . . .

§nepãrhsan. For discussion see the notes prefacing the letter. The fact that the Forty are described as frozen in the north wind, not in the icy waters removes any ambiguity whether 'in', 'into' or 'upon' the lake is appropriate.

194 tåw énagka¤aw Ím›n ka‹ lusitele›w patr¤daw.

supplementary collection customary merchandise. I mean, of course, the lands of the Galatians and Paphlagonians and Hellenopontians, through which and from which we have our necessities, especially suﬃciency of bread, since the land surrounding here is subject to frosts and constrained by the prevailing climate and by the conquering wrath of lightning, thunder, hail and ﬂood combined.195 6. And besides, there is no slight threat from Mount Argaeus,196 the grief of our fathers, which looks down upon us.

7. Be moved therefore, most excellent sir, and consent to win honour in your tributary land, so that by equipping this river with the muniﬁcence of a bridge by which it may be crossed, you may reveal it as a new Red Sea, able to be traversed on foot. For the Lord, having compassion on the life of the Jews, so full of groaning, deigned that they should walk with unmoistened feet in the Red

Sea as on dry land, having given them Moses as their leader (cf. Ex 14.22).

8. The behaviour of our river was already erratic: now it has become a destruction to human beings, and when it rises and forms a sea and ﬂattens all the grass-bearing land and the ﬁelds for ploughing are covered with mud, then must the plough-ox go hungry and all the beasts of burden in the surrounding country too.

9. Now if it had been a human being who injured another human being, we would not have ceased having recourse to the law-courts.

But that which obeys no laws, a mighty river—how is one to deal with it? To you, therefore, most excellent sir, we must pray, to you who are able in one moment of time to check this danger to travellers.

195 éstrapobrontoxalazvreiyrodamãstou Ùrg∞w, an extraordinary coinage of the author.

196 The tallest mountain in Asia Minor, at c. 4000m, overlooking Caesarea from the south.

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