Gregory's marriage: a scenario
biography Gregory's marriage: a scenario It is time to synthesize from the evidences, possibilities and probabilities considered above a scenario for Gregory's marriage.
Firstly, early in 364 Gregory departed Annisa in Pontus for Caesarea in Cappadocia on a wave of enthusiasm for traditional Hellenism.
There he would pursue a career as a professor of the higher curriculum.
He had every intention of maintaining his Christian faith, and insofar as he was already committed to the ascetic life in Pontus, perhaps he persuaded himself that he could continue as a secular ascetic like Caesarius. It did not take long however for this somewhat invidious situation to be worn down. The passage cited above where he pictures the bereaved husband ruing those who had persuaded him to marry or did not prevent the marriage is suggestive. His maternal family in Cappadocia seems unlikely to have favoured marriage over asceticism. Recall that the young Emmelia's aspiration to virginity was not supported by her guardians.41 In one of those painful episodes of family strife, his uncle Gregory the bishop was no supporter of Basil the teacher of ascetics in his election as of metropolitan bishop.42
In this connection it is worth recalling Basil's provision of the first specific vow of virginity/celibacy for male ascetics in Longer Responses
15, which may be dated to c. 370, and the penance he proposes for the forswearing of celibacy by monks in letter 199, Canon 19,43 where he held it equivalent to the sin of fornication, and in letter
21744 written in c. 376, where he treated it more seriously as equivalent to the offence of forsworn virgins, i.e. adultery. Basil was responsible for elevating the profession of celibacy by male ascetics from its earlier more empiric status to the echelon of an ecclesiastically witnessed, canonically recognized state in life equivalent to that of professed virgins. The private commitment of secular male ascetics had no particular standing in the church. Only they would be recognized who made their vow properly in the context of a monastic community. One may wonder whether the experience of his own brother may have contributed to this elaboration of a discipline of vows for monks. It would appear that if Gregory had once been
41 VSM 2.2, GNO 8.1.371–372, Maraval 142–143.
42 See Basil letters 60, 58.
43 Deferrari 3.111.
44 Deferrari 3.251.