Gregory of Nyssa

Greek prelate of Asia Minor

• Born: c. 335
• Birthplace: Caesarea Mazaca, Cappadocia (now Kayseri, Turkey)
• Died: c. 394
• Place of death: Constantinople (now in Istanbul, Turkey)

A profound thinker and theologian, as well as an eloquent preacher, Gregory was one of the brilliant leaders of Christian orthodoxy in the late fourth century. His influence led to the defeat of the Arian heresy and the triumph of the orthodox Nicene position at the Council of Constantinople in 381.

Early Life

One of ten children, Gregory (GREH-gor-ee of NIS-uh) was born in the city of Caesarea Mazaca, the capital of Cappadocia, to an important and wealthy Christian family that had suffered in the persecutions of the Roman emperor Diocletian. He was the third son and one of the youngest children of Basil the Elder and Amelia, the daughter of a martyr. Gregory was left fatherless at an early age and was raised largely by his older brother, Basil (later called “the Great”), bishop of Caesarea, and by his sister Macrina. Throughout his life, Gregory looked up to his brother with great affection and respect.

As a young man, Gregory was educated in his native city, attending secular pagan schools. His feeble constitution and natural shyness caused him to concentrate on scholarship rather than physical activities or public life. Thus, his intellectual prowess was enhanced by diligent private study.

While in his youth, Gregory became involved in church activities, but he did so without great conviction. Later in life, he recounted his reluctant, even unwilling, attendance at a ceremony given by his mother in honor of church martyrs. Wearied with his journey and the length of the service—which lasted far into the night—he fell asleep. A terrifying dream soon followed that filled him with a sense of remorse for his neglect of spiritual matters, and he became a lector, or reader of biblical passages in a Christian congregation.

Gregory’s youthful years coincided with the last revival of pagan culture, which reached its peak under the emperor Julian the Apostate (reigned 361-363). Gregory was completely won over to the pagan humanistic ideal. Therefore, after a time, Gregory abandoned his church position and devoted himself to secular pursuits. Sometime after the year 360, he accepted a position as a teacher of rhetoric. This desertion from the Christian cause gave his friends and family great pain and brought to him accusations of all kinds.

At about this time Gregory married a woman named Theosebeia. She is believed to have been the sister of Gregory of Nazianzus, who was a family friend. In a letter written many years later, Gregory of Nazianzus, consoling his friend on the death of Theosebeia, extolled her as a true priestess, most fair and lustrous. In fact, Gregory’s final conversion to the Christian faith undoubtedly resulted in part from the pleadings and remonstrations of both his wife and his friend.

Another contributing factor that led Gregory back to the Church was the increasing distaste he felt for teaching rhetoric. He became discouraged by the results of his efforts to inspire literary tastes among youths who, he complained, were more ready and better suited to enter the army than follow rhetorical studies.

Gregory abandoned his teaching sometime before 370. He then retired to a monastery at Pontus that was presided over by his brother Basil. There he devoted himself to the study of the Scriptures and the works of Christian commentators. He was especially influenced by Origen, as is evident from Gregory’s own theological works.

While he was at the monastery, an episode occurred that may reveal a flaw in Gregory’s judgment. A rift had arisen between Basil and an aged uncle, also named Gregory, over doctrinal matters. Acting as a self-appointed mediator, the younger Gregory forged some letters that purported to be from his uncle to his brother Basil offering peace. The deception was exposed, and Gregory received a stern but dignified rebuke from his brother.

Life’s Work

Around the year 365, Basil had been summoned by Eusebius, metropolitan of Caesarea, to aid in repelling the assaults of the Arian faction of Christianity on the Nicene orthodox faith. During the next few years, the Arian believers were assisted and encouraged by the emperor Valens. Basil greatly helped orthodox resistance and in 370 was called, by popular voice, to succeed Eusebius on the latter’s death.

To strengthen his position and surround himself with defenders of the orthodox faith in the outposts of his diocese, Basil persuaded Gregory (in spite of his protests) to accept the bishopric of Nyssa, an obscure town of Cappadocia, about ten miles from Caesarea. It was as bishop of Nyssa that Gregory achieved his greatest fame and realized his greatest accomplishments. When a mutual friend wrote to express his surprise at Basil’s choosing such an obscure place for so distinguished a man as Gregory, Basil replied that his brother’s merits did indeed make him worthy of governing the entire Church. Basil added, however, that the see should be made famous by its bishop, and not the bishop by his see.

Gregory was consecrated bishop in 372. Nevertheless, as soon as he arrived in Nyssa he faced grave difficulties. Arianism was strong in the city and was supported by the emperor. In addition, one of the emperor’s courtiers had wanted the bishopric, and Gregory’s appointment made for immediate hostility. A man named Demosthenes had been recently appointed governor of Pontus by the emperor and charged to do all in his power to crush the adherents of the orthodox Nicene faith. After some petty acts of persecution, a synod was summoned in 375 at Ancyra to examine charges made against Gregory, including embezzlement of church property and irregularities surrounding his consecration.

Though Gregory escaped from the band of soldiers sent to arrest him, his Arian enemies continued their persecution. Finally, in 376, another synod was summoned at Nyssa; this time the assembled bishops deposed Gregory. A successor was consecrated, and Valens banished Gregory from the city. For many months he traveled from place to place to avoid his enemies. Heartsick over the apparent triumph of Arianism, Gregory nevertheless encouraged his friends to be of good cheer and trust in God. This advice proved to be well-founded. In 378 Valens died, and the youthful emperor Gratian restored Gregory to his bishopric.

Soon afterward another event occurred that forever changed Gregory’s life; Basil died in 379, and Gregory fell heir to his position of leadership. Basil had been a man of action and an organizer. Gregory was forced to stand on his own, carrying out the work of his brother and bringing it to completion.

From 379 onward, Gregory’s activity was limitless. The next two years saw him preach tirelessly against heresies, Arianism especially. Named after Arius, a priest in Alexandria, Egypt, this doctrine denied the true divinity of Jesus Christ by maintaining that the Son of God was not eternal but created by the Father from nothing, that he, therefore, was not God by nature—being a changeable creature—and that his dignity as Son of God was conferred on him by the Father because of his abiding righteousness. During this time Gregory preached against Eunomius (an Arian bishop); this preaching would lay the foundation for a major theological treatise titled Contra Eunomium (382; against Eunomius).

The spring of 381 marked the pinnacle of Gregory’s career. It was then that the emperor Theodosius I convoked the Council of Constantinople. Gregory played a major role in the council. He gave the opening address, influencing many, and witnessed the complete victory of the orthodox Christian doctrines and ideas for which he and Basil had fought. Thus, the work of the Council of Nicaea (in 325) regarding the doctrine of Christ was ratified. The council condemned all varieties of Arianism and added clauses to the Nicene Creed that were supplied by Gregory himself.

After the Council of Constantinople, Gregory became one of the leading personalities of the church in the East. The council gave him jurisdiction, together with two other church leaders, over the regions of Cappadocia and Pontus. He was also sent to Arabia to mediate a dispute between two bishops, though he met with limited success. On his return, he visited the Holy Land, including the city of Jerusalem and the places associated with the life of Christ.

By the end of 381 Gregory was back in Nyssa. The following year, he produced two of his most important theological writings, Contra Eunomium and Adversus Apollinarem (382; against Apollinaris), in which he responded to heretical ideas and discussed the doctrines relating to Christ and His nature.

Gregory’s influence outside the Church was also at its peak during the years from 381 to 386, and he enjoyed the favor of the Imperial court. When Gregory visited the Holy Land, the emperor provided a public chariot for his transportation. Following the success of the Council of Constantinople, Theodosius wanted to hold a council every year; in 383 Gregory was chosen by the emperor to give a major sermon on the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit at the convocation. In 385 he was chosen to deliver the funeral eulogies in honor of Empress Flacilla and her daughter Pulcheria, who had died shortly before her mother. At Constantinople, too, Gregory enjoyed the friendship of Olympias, one of the outstanding women of the age.

After 386, Gregory’s influence began to decline. His ideas were called into question a number of times, and he had to defend himself against charges that his thinking was tainted with heretical notions. Finally, in Asia Minor, Gregory’s prerogatives began to be restricted to his own diocese, and he increasingly came into conflict with Helladius of Caesarea.

In the year 394, Gregory was invited to attend a synod at Constantinople that was called to decide once and for all the claims of two bishops over the see of Bostra. At the request of Nectarius, who was the presiding official there, Gregory delivered his last recorded sermon. It is very likely that he did not long survive the synod, dying in Constantinople the same year as the meeting.

Significance

Among church fathers and theologians, there is no more honored a name than Gregory of Nyssa. Besides receiving the accolades of his brother Basil and his friend Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa was praised by biblical scholar Jerome for the sanctity of his life, his theological learning, and his strenuous defense of the Nicene faith. Gregory came to be regarded as one of the three Cappadocian Fathers of the Church, along with Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus.

Though not considered as able an administrator as his brother, Gregory was highly appreciated for his eloquence in writing and speaking. He was chosen to deliver many discourses in the company of other theologians, and his writings show him to be well versed in the work of pagan philosophers as well as in Holy Scripture and the writings of Christian commentators. His works comprise some thirty letters; many sermons and exegetical writings; polemical treatises, including Contra Eunomium and Adversus Apollinarem; and several ascetic pieces.

Gregory’s tireless championing of the Nicene faith and his battle against heresies, especially Arianism, are his greatest legacy. Indeed, his efforts seem to have made prophetic the statement of his brother Basil, spoken at the time of Gregory’s consecration to the bishopric: Nyssa was ennobled and made famous by its bishop, and not the other way around.

Bibliography

Dunstone, Alan S. The Atonement in Gregory of Nyssa. London: Tyndale Press, 1964. Provides a succinct discussion of one of the most important themes of Gregory’s christological writings and sermons. Its value lies in its concise analysis of Gregory’s thinking on a complex theme.

Gregory of Nyssa. From Glory to Glory. Edited by Herbert Musurillo. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1979. This volume comprises texts taken from Gregory’s mystical and ascetical writings. It also contains a readable, well-organized introduction that presents a history of Gregory’s life and work as well as an analysis of some of his writing. The notes and comments on the texts by the editor are also very enlightening. The selected texts have been translated into modern idiomatic English.

Gregory of Nyssa. The Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes. Edited and translated by Hilda C. Graef. New York: Newman Press, 1954. This book is a compilation of various sermons given by Gregory on the subjects of the Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes. They give the flavor of Gregory’s style of preaching. The work contains an adequate introduction, including a sketch of the scholar’s life. Gregory’s sermons display his imaginative, rhetorical, and devotional talents.

Hardy, Edward Roche, and Cyril Richardson, eds. Christology of the Later Fathers. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1953-1966. This volume devotes almost half of its contents to the writings of Gregory of Nyssa. It provides an excellent biographical sketch of Gregory and a summary of his work. It also contains selections, translated into English, of his more important works. Its greatest value, however, lies in the bibliography of the works of Gregory as well as the biographies.

Jaeger, Werner, ed. Two Rediscovered Works of Ancient Christian Literature. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1965. A scholarly volume containing critical notes and commentary on two important treatises by Gregory, this book presents the relationships between Greek theologians and Greek philosophy and Gregory’s thought. It contains valuable commentary on the cultural context of Gregory’s work.

Meredith, Anthony. Gregory of Nyssa. New York: Routledge, 1999. A diverse range of Gregory’s writings is presented along with an accessible, well-organized introduction to Gregory’s thought.

Schaff, Philip, and Henry Wace, eds. Introduction to Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises. Vol. 5 in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdman’s, 1974-1978. This is an important and informative introduction to Gregory’s life and work, though the style is somewhat awkward. The selected texts from Gregory’s compiled major works are supplemented by scholarly notes and references.