Goads and transitions, 365–372
biography
implicitly committed to celibacy, it was under the freelance regime of male ascetics of earlier times, a regime that was now obsolete, at least where Basil's reforming influence was in the ascendant.
Gregory then established his career and married, possibly late in 364 or in the spring of 365. Tragedy soon followed however, and it is a fair guess that his wife, whose name we shall never know, died at her first confinement, which we might tentatively date to late
365/366. It is uncertain whether, as in the graphic description in On Virginity 3, the child also died. If not, it might be possible to admit Daniélou's suggestion after all and consider Cynegius as his natural son and date his birth accordingly. Gregory met Libanius in Antioch in 379 and almost certainly broached the possibility of his taking on Cynegius as a student who was then approaching the age for higher studies. Letters 13 and 14 show a situation in 380/381 where Cynegius has commenced his studies under Libanius. If we put his age in 380 at about 14/15 years, that would date his birth to about 365/366.45
Goads and transitions, 365–372 If one takes the point of view of the Hound of Heaven, there were other goads to Gregory's spirit during this phase of his life which kept him mindful of a higher spiritual purpose.
When Gregory went down to Caesarea he left Basil behind as the preacher and promoter of the ascetic life in Pontus. It was a moment rich with ironies when he found his masterful brother returning to Caesarea at the end of 365 as bishop Eusebius' right hand man.
Gregory observed Basil increasingly assume the leadership of the church under Eusebius, inculcating the care of the poor and hospitality to strangers, guiding and promoting the ascetic communities, and addressing the doctrinal problems of the church by organising what can now be called the Neo-nicene front among the bishops of Eastern Anatolia and Syria.
From about 369 onwards a series of events fostered renewed contacts with his other ascetic siblings in Annisa. The first of these was
45 According to P. Petit, Les étudiants de Libanius (Paris, 1957), 139–144, Libanius took students between about 15–20 years old. Intriguingly, in the years 388–389
Libanius had another student called Cynegius, p. 57.
biography the severe famine that beset central Anatolia in about 369 or 370.
There are several hints of exchanges between Pontus and Cappadocia at this period, such as Basil's two sermons on the famine and his mission to disturb the wealthy into Christian generosity towards their poor, taken together with the prominent role played by the monastery at Annisa at that period. Peter organised famine relief 46 and Macrina in particular left her seclusion to scour the roadsides for abandoned children.47 Gregory himself tells us of these episodes. Twice he had cause to recall Basil's toils to provide relief through the famine, in his Eulogy on Basil 48 and Contra Eunomium 1.103.49
Also at 'about that time', more precisely, in mid September 370, Basil was elected bishop to succeed Eusebius.50 It was an interesting position for Gregory to find himself in: he a prominent Christian rhetorician in the secular schools of Caesarea, and his brother the new metropolitan bishop. Basil appears to have promptly advanced
Peter to the presbyterate, which event must also have given Gregory pause for thought. From all these influences but from Basil in particular, the pressure on Gregory subtly and not so subtly worked, a pressure beckoning him towards wholesale commitment to service of the church. Here the historical obscurity lifts a little and we can verify a few features of this period.
Gregory had acquired his own dignity and social status as a sought after professor of rhetoric in Caesarea. Basil recognized his brother's gifts and the excellent qualities of his person and wished they might be put to serve the Church's needs. Basil's esteem for his brother can be traced in remarks sprinkled throughout his early letters, not the least in the very Letter which otherwise is no great monument to brotherly concord: letter 58, the only communication of Basil to Gregory that has survived.
46 VSM 14.6, GNO 8.1.384, Maraval 184.
47 VSM 28.5, GNO 8.1.401, Maraval 232.
48 GNO 10.1, 122.
49 GNO 1, 57.
50 Gregory Nazianzen, in Oration 43.36–37 follows his account of Basil's labours during the famine with Basil's episcopal election. The sequence of the narrative means either that the famine immediately preceded that event, or that it was still in progress. The latter is more likely, to judge from Basil's letter 31 to Eusebius of Samosata, written in early-mid 371, where he mentions that 'the famine has not yet released us', suggesting that it was in its later stages and that recruitment of resources was underway.
biography
Basil shrewdly read Gregory's character at this stage, and we have his famous remarks on the 'naïvité' and 'simplicity' of his brother's sense of politics. In letter 215.3 Basil pictures to himself what a meeting between Pope Damasus of Rome and Gregory as an envoy might be like, and decides to retire the thought from service. Basil's worry over Gregory's aptitude as a man of affairs is confirmed by Macrina's comments on Gregory's current prominence, as Gregory tells it against himself in the VSM: 'Do you not recognise the cause of such great blessings, that the prayers of your parents are lifting you on high, since you have nothing in you, or very little, to prepare you for this?'51 Poor Gregory, caught in a sort of spiritual pincer movement between the likes of Basil on the one hand and Macrina and Peter on the other. He had little prospect of being left to paddle in the spiritual shallows.
Then, again at 'about that time' their mother, Emmelia, died, i.e. in late 370 or early 371.52 Such a family watershed occasioned visits to Annisa and exchanges with Macrina, Peter and the monks and virgins there. In letter 19 he fervently and sincerely calls Macrina a 'mother in place of my mother', which surely means that his sister used the grief of the moment to steer her brother to higher spiritual realities, just as she had once done with Emmelia herself after the shock of Naucratius' death. Gregory came to Annisa, saw with chastened eyes, listened with fresh ears, and pondered.
Basil began to have some success in enlisting his brother's gifts.
It is from this period, in the year between Basil's accession to the episcopate and Gregory's own episcopate that Gregory's first work survives: On Virginity, discussed at length above, written in the interval between the first and the later editions of Basil's Asketikon. Gregory's thoughts on his own spiritual situation had been maturing through the events of the past few years, and they culminated in this work, which marked for him personally a moment of passage. It synthesizes the fruits of his observations at Annisa in recent years and of spiritual conversations with his sister Macrina. She is the living ideal
51 VSM 23.4, GNO 8.1, 392, Maraval 212–213.
52 See Basil, letter 30 to Eusebius of Samosata, written in early-mid 371. Emmelia must have died then between Eusebius' presence at Basil's election in September
370, and Basil's correspondence with Eusebius after the long winter of 370–371. If Emmelia was about 17/18 when she gave birth to Macrina in c. 327, she was about 60/61 when she died.
biography of parthenia that underpins the discourse. Once the reader is alerted to the possibility, allusions to his sister quietly shine from the page.
The work is a reprise of the spiritual transformations of the family household at Annisa under his sister's guidance. In the following passage Gregory rereads the spiritual history of his own family and reeducates himself about the whole meaning of family as he does so, by looking at Macrina:
The person courting a spiritual marriage will, through the renewal of his mind (Eph 4.22–23), first show himself young and without any sign of age. Next he will show that he is from a wealthy family, but wealthy in the way that is most desirable, a family respected not because of its earthly possessions, but because of the abundance of its heavenly treasures. Such a person will not pride himself on having a family that is looked up to because of the good fortune which comes willy-nilly to many, even to the foolish, but the good fortune that comes from the toil and effort of one's own accomplishments, which only they achieve who are sons of the light (1 Thess 5.5) and children of God (cf. Jn
1.12) and called well-born from the risings of the sun (Is 41.25), through their illuminated deeds. He will not busy himself with his bodily strength or his appearance or with exercising his body or fattening his flesh, but quite the opposite; he will perfect the power of the spirit in the weakness of the body. I know the dowry in this wedding does not consist of corruptible things but of what is given us as a gift from the special wealth of the soul . . . It is clear that the eagerness for this kind of marriage is common to men and women alike, for since, as the apostle says: There is neither male nor female (Gal 3.28) and Christ is all things to all human beings (cf. 1 Cor 28), the true lover of wisdom has as his goal the Divine One who is true wisdom, and the soul, cleaving to its incorruptible Bridegroom, has a love of true wisdom which is God.53
Meanwhile, Gregory was still detained in the engagements of his life as a rhetorician, and perhaps in the care of his son. If there is any possibility of Gregory's authorship of letter 365, to the Emperor among Basil's letters, included here as letter 37, the natural setting of the letter is this period when he was still a secular professional man.
The political circumstances were not such as to recommend appeals to the Arian emperor Valens from the leaders of Neo-nicene orthodoxy in Caesarea, and it may be that Basil, taking his brother's presence and profession as an opportunity, prompted him to write an 53 GNO 8.1, 247–343, Callahan, 63–4, slightly adapted.