Early years as bishop, 371–378
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appeal on behalf of the citizens the city in the aftermath of a disastrous flood of the river Halys.
The positive contributions of a profession in rhetoric towards Gregory's spiritual vocation and his work for the Church should be owned and applauded. The first benefit is obvious, namely that Gregory was very highly practised in discourse and argument. Secondly, and very importantly, his life of teaching necessarily kept him conversant with the Greek philosophical writers. Gregory's skills were well honed for his future emergence both as a demonstrative and a speculative theologian. Thirdly, his deeply imbibed Hellenic culture prepared him to operate with authority in those echelons of secular society which prized such attainments.
Early years as bishop, 371–378 At last Basil won his brother for the episcopate. The occasion was the emperor Valens' partition of Cappadocia into two provinces in the year 371.54 Bishop Anthimus of Tyana unilaterally arrogated metropolitan status over the churches of Cappadocia Secunda. Basil attempted to maintain the area of his own metropolitan sway, regarding it as material to the orthodox cause. He appointed new bishops to strategic towns along the border of the new division. One of these towns was Nyssa, in western Cappadocia, some three days journey from Caesarea on the way to Ancyra.55 Gregory accepted his ordination and appointment to Nyssa in great reluctance and self-doubt—
'under every necessity' as Basil says in letter 225.6. Yet once he accepted it, he did so conscientiously. He does not seem to have maintained any grudge against the constraint that had been put upon him, as was the case with Gregory Nazianzen.
Gregory's ordination as bishop took place in late 371, possibly at the annual synod of Caesarea in September. It was precisely at this period, after he had been ordained at Basil's hands, that Gregory
54 Cf. Basil's letters 74–76, 97–98, Gregory Nazianzen Oration 43.58–59.
55 The site of Nyssa today is about 1 km north of the town of Harmandali, which is some 28 km SSW of Kirsehir, c. 30 km NNW of Ortaköy through Agaçoren.
See F. Hild and M. Restle, Tabula Imperii Byzantini Band II Kappadokien, 246–248.
For the history of the localisation of Nyssa, see P. Maraval, 'Nysse en Cappadoce',
Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religeuses 55 (1975), 237–242.
biography visited his sister Macrina for the second-last time. He was not to see her again until her death-bed nearly eight years later. In the VSM
Gregory reckons up his previous visit to his sister as 'a little short of eight years'.56 If we accept the date of Macrina's death as July
19, 379,57 backdating brings us to late 371/early 372.
That he must have presented himself as a newly minted priest and bishop to his sister on this second-last visit is suggested in the VSM where Lampadion mentions 'your priesthood which she always honoured'.58 This was also the occasion, one might suggest, that Macrina thought of a spiritual vademecum for her brother in his new situation: to send south with him their younger sister Theosebia, a virgin of the community at Annisa. She would be his syzygos, a spiritual 'yolk-fellow' in his household or at least in close association with him, whose presence would help reassure him as he matured into his new vocation, and who on her own account might be expected to strengthen the right ideals of monastic life at Nyssa. She may well have founded or reformed the house of virgins there.59
Certainly, according to Nazianzen's letter 197 she exercised a leading role among the women of Gregory's church. Alternatively one might wonder if Theosebia had been sent to Gregory's side at an earlier stage, even before his episcopate. That would explain both his and her absence from Emmelia's death-bed.
The documentation for the early phase of Gregory's episcopacy is very sketchy. The first note of him as bishop may be in the list of subscribers to Basil's letter 92 to the bishops of the West. Basil's misgivings about his brother's political savvy were to be confirmed.
In his letter 100 we learn of 'the actions meditated against us by Gregory of Nyssa in his simplicity, who convenes synods regarding
Ancyra and leaves nothing undone to plot against us.' The ecclesiastical problem seems to concern not Arians but the Old Nicenes who had gravitated around Marcellus of Ancyra.60 Gregory evidently
56 VSM 17.2 (GNO 8.1.386–387, Maraval 190–192).
57 See the conclusions below in 'A problem of dating'.
58 VSM 31.6, GNO 8.1, 402–403, Maraval 238.
59 On the house of virgins at Nyssa see letter 6.10.
60 That the issue was with Marcellians rather than Arians, see G. May, 'Gregor von Nyssa in der Kirchenpolitik seiner Zeit', Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinischen
Gesellschaft 15 (1966), 107–109.
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initiated some dialogue with them, but in such a way that Basil considered that his own name was compromised.
In letter 215, as already mentioned, Basil entertains for a moment the prospect of sending Gregory with Dorotheus as an envoy to Pope
Damasus on behalf of the eastern Neo-nicenes, but decides the better of it. On the other hand, though Gregory did not show promise as a church politician, he seems to have been a pastoral success with the ordinary people, if the widespread and enthusiastic welcome reported in letter 6 is anything to go by.
The major event of this period for Gregory was his exile from Nyssa in the winter of 375/376. There is no need here to discuss in detail what happened—that can be followed in Basil's letters
225, 231, 232, 237, 239 and notes. Suffice it to say that several meetings had taken place between the emperor Valens or his highranking deputies with Basil, but all their attempts to intimidate the prelate of Caesarea had failed signally. Such was his personal moral force that the Arian emperor did not visit him with any of the penalties of exile, imprisonment or work in the mines which he readily employed against other Neo-nicene bishops and leaders. Hence when
Demosthenes became the vicar of the 'Pontic' diocese, i.e. a kind of deputy emperor over a bloc of provinces which included Bithynia,
Galatia, Paphlagonia, Pontus, Cappadocia and Armenia, he set about harassing the Neo-nicenes, not by targeting Basil but his brother instead. From Gregory's statement in the VSM: 'the Emperor Valens drove me out on account of the faith',61 it is clear that whatever the pretexts, Gregory and Basil were sure that Valens' religious policy was the driving force behind Demosthenes' activities. On the basis of a single informant Gregory was summoned to answer a charge of financial mismanagement. Some discussion has been mooted as to whether Gregory really was at some fault, but it is doubtful.
Compare his care over the costing of the building of the martyrion in letter 20. Adding to the confusion of the moment, Demosthenes' actions were abetted by Eustathius of Sebasteia. That the latter could lend himself to such vicious politicking despite his ancient friendship with Gregory's family: this, and his leadership of those called
Pneumatomachoi—neo-homoiousians who refused all definitions of the 61 VSM 23.1, GNO 8.1.393, Maraval 208.