In the opening of
his homilies on the Beatitudes, Gregory of Nyssa asks his congregation, “Who
among those present is a disciple of the Word, and sufficiently so to ascend
with Him from the low ground—from the superficial and ignoble thoughts to the
spiritual mountain of sublime contemplation?”[1] At
first, Gregory’s question appears to be merely a reference to the Jesus’
ascension to the “sublime mountain” from which he would deliver his sermon, but
in fact Gregory is signaling to his listeners an important declaration about
the Beatitudes themselves. Building upon
the Hellenistic concept of paideia
(παιδεία), Gregory is going to interpret the Beatitudes as a ladder on which
one might “have communion with the Godhead, to which the Lord raises us by His
sayings.”[2] Greek paideia, or education, derives “its norms of
human and social behavior from the divine norms of the universe.”[3] Depending heavily on a Hellenistic
philosophical foundation while creating something distinctly Christian, Gregory
of Nyssa uses the Beatitudes as the paideia
(training) for the imitatio Christi
(imitation of Christ) leading to theosis
(deification).
In Hellenistic
culture, education was far more than just the system by which children are
prepared for adulthood and vocation.
Instead, paideia is the
lifelong pursuit “to realize ever more perfectly the human ideal.”[4] Central to the Greek educational system was
the question, “What type of education leads to areté?”[5]
The Greek culture was obsessed with the formation of the virtuous person or areté—that is, the highest human
flourishing. In Hellenistic culture this
transcends the concern for individual betterment as the trinity of “poet,
statesmen, and sage” represents the culture’s standard for excellence in
leadership.[6]
The kind of
culture imparted by classical education is considered the highest good, even to
the point that one’s intellectual attainments were engraved as epitaphs.[7] On a pragmatic level, Hellenistic education
places emphasis on morality especially based on the imitation of the epic
heroes.[8] The template of early Greek paideia was Homer, and as time passed
the canon was enlarged to include all the major Greek poets.[9] In his Republic
however, Plato discards Homer and Hesiod not as poetry but as paideia, which
for him meant a communication or illustration of truth.[10] In reaction, the Stoics maintain Homer and
Hesiod as foundational texts, but in order to do so they create an allegorical
schema of meaning.[11] With the decline of the Olympic cult, Greek
philosophical paideia, in the
oftentimes opposed hands of the Stoics and the Epicureans, becomes more dogmatic
and begins to fulfill a religious function, “primarily aimed at guiding human
life by the teachings of philosophy and giving it an inner security no longer
to be found in the outside world.”[12]
Serving as a
transition to the Christian context, Origen seeks to do for the
Bible—especially the Old Testament—what the Stoics did for the poets.[13] In
Origen’s pedagogical model, the study of philosophy serves to build up a
foundation for the student whose goal is to study theology and the Bible.[14] Origen distinguished between three types of
readings of scripture: “a literal, a historical, and a spiritual [allegorical] meaning
of the texts.”[15] What apparently justified such a method was
the assumption that even some of the authors of books of the Bible, including
the Apostle Paul, had used allegorical interpretation.[16] For instance, in Galatians, Paul interprets
the Genesis story of Sarah and Hager saying, “Now this is an allegory: these
women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing
children for slavery” (Gal. 4:24 NRSV).
Origen’s
pedagogics probably moves to Asia Minor through his Cappadocian student,
Gregory Thaumaturgus, who is a bridge between Origen and the Cappadocian
fathers: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa.[17] Though not trained in the academy at Athens
like his older brother Basil and namesake Gregory Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa’s
early training was that of a rhetor.[18] His early intellectual interests had been in
Hellenistic philosophy and poetry, and his work shows a careful consideration
as to how one might square Hellenistic thought with his commitment to
Christianity.[19] Such an amalgamation of thinking represents an
innovative effort toward a Christian paideia. More than just a dogmatic Christian education,
this conception would seek to reconcile the “two great traditions: the biblical
doctrine of man’s creation and reformation after the image and likeness of God,
and the Greek philosophical conception of paideia
and askesis[20]
as means toward the assimilation of man to God [theosis].”[21]
Gregory of Nyssa’s
paideia extends far beyond a concern
for the propagation of doctrine. It
might be stated that he sought a philosophical and theological conception of
human personhood grounded in Christian scriptures, but meeting the benchmarks
of Greek philosophy. For the Cappadocian fathers, part of physiology is a
mystical practice wherein one seeks union with the divine. In the same way that Origen elevated the
spiritual meaning of a text above the literal, so Gregory of Nyssa promotes the
contemplative exercise. This spiritual
process of education however was not spontaneous, but rather a discipline
requiring continual attention. The goal
was to develop virtues, “be they moral or intellectual,” which were understood
to be, “the fruit of both a man’s nature and his training.”[22]
Unlike the Greek
conception of areté, the perfect
embodiment of the virtues is seen as much further removed from reality in the
Christian insight into the inner life of humans. Gregory would maintain that Christian virtue
is impossible to foster without aid from God.
In a syncretic move, Gregory finds it essential “to stress this ancient
idea of divine assistance, which we find expressed so often in Greek poetry from
Homer on and later in Greek philosophy.”[23] He uses this concept as point of intersection
with the Christian concept of grace. The
spiritual exercise is conceived of “as the cooperation of the divine Spirit
with the effort of man himself.”[24] This theme is prevalent throughout Gregory’s
work, and it is grounded in his understanding of humanity as inherently
rational. Given this understanding, evil
must be equated with ignorance because it is the height of irrationality to choose
what is harmful for oneself. For
Gregory, as for Plato, paideia does
not end in the temporal world, but in the world to come. Gregory’s theology conceives of a Christian paideia, then, in metaphysical
terminology visualizing its continuation out to the cosmic sphere. Differing from Platonism, Gregory pictures paideia reaching its utmost conclusion
in God’s restoration of the goodness of the original creation in the
resurrection.[25]
In thinking
through the anthropological questions of his paideia, Gregory is left with an important tension between humankind
as created in the image of God and the human condition as the occasion of evil
and suffering.[26]
Gregory understands the image of God in humanity as something interminable that
cannot be lost. He uses the analogy of
human nature as a mirror that can “move either toward or away from its
archetype in the divine nature.”[27] Therefore,
paideia is seen as the will of God by
which one moves closer to God and comes to resemble the divine beauty. This is not simply a discipline taken up by
those of a spiritual vocation, but is the call for all Christians to practice
the “continuous and lifelong effort to achieve that end and to approach
perfection, in so far as that was possible for man.”[28]
It is impossible
to understand Gregory of Nyssa’s paideia
without first giving attention to the concept of theosis (θέωσις). In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, theosis, sometimes translated as
deification, is the term “for the end point in the process of sanctification,
in which the believer is a participant in the communion of the holy trinity.”[29]
Theosis
is the eventual goal of becoming like God.[30] This is a
soteriological goal concerning itself not only with saving the human, but
restoring the image of God in humanity. Gregory
of Nyssa’s own reflection on this concept is most evident in his On the Soul and the Resurrection. Gregory
envisages the Divine as “the beautiful” that is somehow irresistibly
attractive. He describes the soul’s
reflection of the Divine saying,
…if the soul, freed from such [evil] impulses, turns back
upon itself and sees itself clearly (that is, what its nature is) and looks
towards the archetype because of its own beauty as if looking into a mirror and
image. It is possible to say that in our
soul’s imitation of the nature above it, there is complete assimilation to the
divine.[31]
It is
important to note that for Gregory, theosis
happens when the soul is freed from all evil, either due to the development of
virtue in this life or because of purgation in the afterlife. In this way, paideia and theosis are inseparable.
The link between paideia and theosis is also evident in Gregory’s On Perfection that is also titled, “On What It is Necessary for a
Christian to be.” Here Gregory compares Christ to a stream. As the water of the stream represents
Christ’s nature, he wants to maintain that when Christ’s nature is taken into
the life of a Christian, it remains the same “water” that was in Christ
himself. Concluding his thoughts, Gregory
writes,
For the purity in Christ and the purity seen in the
person who has a share in Him are the same, the One being the stream and the
other drawn from it…This, therefore, is perfection in the Christian life in my
judgment, namely, the participation of one’s soul and speech and activities in
all of the names by which Christ is signified, so that the perfect holiness,
according to the eulogy of Paul, is taken upon oneself in ‘the whole body and
soul and spirit,’ continuously safeguarded against being mixed with evil...For
this is truly perfection: never to stop growing towards what is better and
never placing any limit on perfection.[32]
This image of drawing from the stream is a metaphor for theosis, wherein one becomes like God
because one is filled with God. Gregory
grounds this in the practical part of a person’s life, referencing the
sanctification that occurs through “soul and speech and activities.”
Having
laid the philosophical and theological foundation, the attention of this paper
will now shift to Gregory of Nyssa’s homilies on the Beatitudes, specifically
the first and fourth sermons. Gregory’s
meditations reflect his understanding of the purpose of the Beatitudes in the
Christian life, namely that each of the beatitudes leads the Christian to the
virtues that each build upon one
another, ascending toward perfection. Through
carefully examining Gregory’s argument in his first and fourth sermons, it will
be clear that Gregory intends for the Beatitudes to be paideia for the life of the Christian.
The
first sermon is on, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom
of God” (Matt. 5:3). Gregory opens the oration by interpreting Jesus’ ascent up
the mountain as symbolic for the rise out of “the low ground—from superficial
and ignoble thoughts to the spiritual mountain of sublime contemplation.”[33] Before even considering the beatitudinal qualities,
Gregory pictures that from the heights of contemplation one might be able to
see the end results of virtue. Imagining
a blessed landscape Gregory imagines Jesus pointing out, “here the Kingdom of
Heaven, there the inheritance of the earth that is above, then mercy, justice,
consolation, kinship with the God of all creation, and the fruit of
persecution, that is, to become a friend of God.”[34] Remembering that these were sermons to be
delivered orally, Gregory pricks his listeners’ attention. He draws them in first by emphasizing the
desirable before explaining the path.
In a
notable contrast to the first beatitude’s commitment to poverty, Gregory
envisions the goal as being “treasure” and “pure gold.”[35] Distinct from earthly gold however, “the
distribution of virtue is such that it is shared out to all who seek after it,
and yet it is wholly present to each, without being diminished by those who
share in it.”[36] While the contemplative life is often imagined
as one of solitude, Gregory emphasizes its egalitarian nature. The sufficiency of virtue for all who seek it
is critical for Gregory’s exhortation toward poverty, but before moving on to
explain the meaning of “poor in spirit,” Gregory first must define “Beatitude.”
He does
so by comparing beatitude with its opposite, which he supposes to be misery, or
“being afflicted unwillingly with painful sufferings.”[37] He explains that it is natural for a man to
savor the things that are enjoyable and distress over those things that make
him unhappy. In a possible nod toward aesthetic
philosophy, Gregory describes beatitude as the indescribable beauty of the Divine. Because humans are created in the image of
God, they are able to reflect the divine beauty inasmuch as they reflected
God’s attributes. The role of Christ in
this beatification is necessary because “the filth of sin has disfigured the
beauty of the image” and Jesus has come to “wash us with His own water, the
living water that springs up unto eternal life.”[38]
For
Gregory, this is the vital starting point of the life of virtue. Christ’s
soteriological significance is, firstly, his removing impediments from
sanctification. Surely Gregory has
baptism in mind in his description and it is important to note that the “water gushing
up to eternal life” (John 4:14b) is a beginning. Gregory always speaks of theosis as an eschatological reality, but an assured one, indeed. The perfection of humanity “is an absolute
futurity, rising up from nothingness to the infinite, forever.”[39]
Gregory
moves to a discussion of how it is that poverty can be called blessed. He distinguishes between two types of riches:
the wealth of virtue to be desired and material wealth to be rejected.[40] It is striking that, though he is apparently
working with the gospel of Matthew, Gregory interprets this blessedness of the
poor to be, at least in part, a material poverty. Considering the spiritual nature of Gregory’s
writings it comes as somewhat of a shock that the poor is not interpreted
purely as those who have some sort of spiritual poverty. Gregory also expounds
upon “a twofold poverty” calling blessed the person who “is voluntarily poor in
all that has to do with wickedness” in addition to the one who abandons
material wealth.[41] The idea that one would be poor to vice, but
rich in virtue seems similar to the Pauline notion of being “dead to sin and
alive to God” (Rom. 6:11).
Gregory
does not stop at encouraging his hearers to take up the “twofold poverty,” he
explains why it is beneficial. Being “poor in spirit,” as he has interpreted it,
is practical toward acquiring humility.
Christians are to follow the example of Jesus who was rich, but became
poor (2 Cor. 8:9). Gregory expounds upon
the magnitude of Christ’s kenosis
whereby, “Life tastes death; the Judge is brought to judgment; the Lord of life
of all creatures is sentenced by the judge; the King of all heavenly powers
does not push aside the hands of the executioners. Take this…as an example by which to measure
your humility.”[42] This exultation of humility is clearly in
contrast with Hellenistic philosophy.
Far from a self-induced servitude, Aristotle describes the “great-souled
man” (megalopsuchia)
who, “looks down on others with justification, because he has the right opinion
of himself.”[43]
Meekness is not simply absent from the Aristotelian virtues, it is outright denounced.
Far from
lifting up a prideful “great-souled man,” Gregory turns to explicating pride’s
emptiness. In an allusion to humanity
being made from the dust (Gen. 2:7) Gregory humorously denounces any human
arrogance writing, “But even if one would flatter our condition and greatly
vaunt the human nobility, he will have to trace the pedigree of our nature to
clay, and so the high dignity of the proud is related to bricks.”[44] Gregory accuses youth of being the most
prideful, but he also critiques those whose profession would cause them to
think more highly of themselves than they ought (Rom. 12:3). Those who would consider themselves above
anyone else are asked, “How then can a man be master of another’s life, if he
is not even the master of his own?”[45] It is clear in this context that Gregory is
comparing the mastery of servants with the mastery of the virtues.
Gregory’s
prescription for combatting pride is to consider, “Him who for our sake became
poor of His own will,” and also to not, “disregard the other interpretation of
poverty which begets the riches of Heaven.”[46]
Gregory then makes specific references to Jesus’ words to the rich young ruler
(Matt. 19:21) to sell his possessions, and to Peter’s wondering what the
disciples’ reward will be for leaving everything for Christ’s sake (Matt.
19:27). Gregory sees voluntarily
destitution as shaking “off earthly riches like a burden so that he may be
lightly lifted into the air and be borne upwards.”[47] The poor in spirit are blessed with the
Kingdom of Heaven because material wealth is onerous, but virtue is light. Using the ascent metaphor again Gregory
pictures virtue raising one upwards toward likeness with God.[48] This is significantly different than Clement
of Alexandria’s examination of the Beatitudes where he remarked, “For God
dispenses to all according to desert, His distribution being righteous. Despising, therefore, the possessions which
God apportions to thee in thy magnificence, comply with what is spoken by me;
haste to the ascent of the Spirit.”[49] Clement clearly sees spiritual concerns to be
primary, but he does not see it necessary to abandon one’s possessions.
Gregory
ends the sermon by encouraging his listeners with an eschatological
promise. Gregory transitions from advocating
the imitatio Christi as the model of
Christian life to advocating the vocation of Christ. He promises, “if you become poor because He
became poor, you will also reign because He is reigning.”[50] In his first sermon, Gregory sets two
premises for the whole of his sermons on the Beatitudes. First, the Beatitudes are the Christian paideia: one builds upon another in the
ascent toward theosis. Second, the Beatitudes embrace an emulation
of Jesus who is the perfect embodiment of each.
It is
important to now consider Gregory of Nyssa’s fourth sermon on, “Blessed are
they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill.”[51] The term that the New Revised Standard
Version translates as “righteousness”—dikaiosune (δικαιοσυνη)—is clearly used in Gregory’s text
to mean “justice.” This is an important
distinction because, as will be seen later, Gregory links the terms “justice”
and “virtue” very closely together.
Gregory begins his fourth sermon not with a definition of
justice, but with a discussion of appetite.
He appeals to medical science to discuss the behaviors of healthy and
unhealthy appetites. As Jesus has
declared blessed those who have a craving, Gregory finds it necessary to
analyze physical hunger. He observes
that, “It is a sign of health that the patients take food no longer because
they are forced to do so, but with desire and relish.”[52] He explains his seemingly odd introduction by
asserting that hunger is related to the “steps of the ladder of the
Beatitudes.”[53] As Christians ascend and remove sinful
habits—presumably through the previous beatitudes of poverty of spirit,
gentleness, and sorrow over sin—they will desire to be filled with good things
of God. However, if a person is
afflicted with some sort of disease, “it often happens that person’s taste is
not for the things that are good for him.”[54]
Obviously, there are many appetites that need to be sated,
but the Beatitude aims the Christian’s desire toward justice. Gregory now moves to discuss his
understanding of justice. He first
examines the common understanding of justice as “the disposition to distribute
equally to each, according to his worth.”[55] While not necessarily denigrating this
conception, Gregory claims that justice cannot be merely distributive “for only
a few are called to reign or govern.”[56] Furthermore, this previous definition of
justice would exclude those who are poor, which obviously cannot be since voluntary
poverty has already been espoused as blessed.[57]
Gregory’s argument takes a foray into a discussion of the
wrong sorts of hunger that he sees in Jesus’ temptation by Satan to “command
these stones to become loaves of bread” (Matt. 4:3). Gregory interprets Satan’s words as
transgressive of God’s natural laws.
Such abuse occurs when human “desire goes beyond the limits of lawful
need…to things beyond the limits of nature.”[58] In
Gregory’s mind this abuse of God’s parameters is most evident in
overindulgence. In a seemingly ascetic
manner, Gregory limits hunger to “the desire for the food one needs.”[59] Desire for more than one requires leads
people to desire things that cannot sustain them. Gregory offers that Jesus, “does not
eliminate hunger, since it is needed to preserve our life; but He does sift out
and cast away the superfluous things that have become mixed up with this need,”
and, “He says that He knows a bread that nourishes indeed [the Word of God].”[60]
In
a roundabout way, Gregory finds it necessary to discern what it is that we should
be hungry for; this should be reveal the true meaning of justice. Gregory understands that Jesus declares his
food is “to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work” (John
4:34). In addition, God’s will is for
“everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim
2:4). Therefore, in imitating Jesus, Christians
should hunger “for the Divine Will, which is precisely that we should be
saved.”[61] Gregory is thereby interpreting the justice
of God as being humanity’s salvation.
Gregory
counsels that it is not only blessed to desire justice, but rather
justice—being one of the virtues—is used by Jesus to imply all the virtues.[62] Gregory notes that in the same way that
scripture uses one name of God to represent the whole Divine Nature, in the
case of the fourth beatitude justice is meant to represent “temperance or
wisdom, prudence or any other kind of virtue.”[63] Gregory teaches that, “we learn from the Lord
this sublime doctrine that the only truly and solidly existing thing is our
zeal for virtue.”[64] One could imagine that Gregory is drawing
very close to Paul’s teaching that Christians are “to do good, to be rich in
good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for
themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may
take hold of the life that really is life”
(1 Tim. 6:18-19 [emphasis added]). There
is an ontological substantiality in Gregory’s depiction of virtue; it is satisfying
and every other desire is found wanting.
Gregory
continues to a “bolder interpretation,” namely that “through the ideas of
virtue and justice the Lord proposes Himself to the desire of His hearers.”[65] Here again is evidence of Gregory’s theosis.
Gregory’s logic follows that justice is equivalent with human salvation,
justice is also representative of all the virtues, and finally true fulfillment
of the desire for virtue and justice is Jesus himself. To Gregory, these conceptions all are
complementary. The final image in this sermon is the practice of only taking in
what is nourishing for the body such that the body would grow. In the same way, “If, what is eaten in the
way of spiritual food be not ejected, it will by constant additions continually
increase the stature of those partaking of it.”[66] Beatitude builds upon beatitude and virtue
upon virtue as the Christian moves toward perfection.
As evidenced in these two sermons, Gregory
plainly understands the Beatitudes to be educational for the Christian life. His analysis contains elements of Hellenistic
philosophy, but as it is centered on the imitatio
Christi, it represents a distinctly Christian effort. For Gregory, contemplation of God is the crux
of the Christian life. Virtue is
accessible through Christ’s work and example.
Gregory’s paideia is not the
effort to create some new proto-human, but rather it “is the return of the soul
to God and to man’s original nature.”[67] Gregory blurs the line between justice,
virtue, and Christ himself declaring that, “He became for us wisdom from God.”[68] As one moves up the ladder of the Beatitudes
sin is purged in such a manner that people desire godliness. In his On
the Soul and the Resurrection, Gregory speaks of the future goal saying,
However, once
such souls have been purified by fire and sanctified, the other qualities will
enter into them in place of the evil ones, namely, incorruptibility, life,
honor, grace, glory, power, and whatever else we conjecture to be discerned in
God and that image of Him which is human nature.[69]
Such a
consideration of Gregory’s work is important for two major reasons. First, in contemporary theology and
philosophy, “virtue theory” is enjoying resurgence in the work of Stanley
Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and N.T. Wright.[70] Gregory serves as a rich resource to examine
the interplay between the Greek philosophy of virtue ethics and Christian
theology in his work. Along these same
lines, Gregory’s thought—especially his Beatitudes—would
be helpful for anyone considering ancient conceptions of spiritual formation. 21st-century Christianity has
often had a difficult time explaining what the Christian is supposed to do “After You Believe.”[71] The Christian paideia that emerges from Gregory’s work is far from ambiguous on
this subject.
Secondly, Gregory offers a rich
resource in a positive Christian syncretism.
Oftentimes, syncretism is treated pejoratively as it is seen as
threatening orthodoxy. In his Early Christianity and Greek Paideia—which has been more than pivotal for this paper—Werner
Jaeger makes the bold claim that if it were not for the “postclassical
evolution of Greek culture [that propagated paideia]
the rise of a Christian world-religion would have been impossible.”[72] Jaeger is far from overstating the point that
Christianity’s strongest asset has been its ability to be relevant to whatever
context it has entered. Jaeger holds
Gregory to be one of the finest embodiments of this sort of Christian
syncretism.[73] For these reasons Gregory’s writings should
and will continue to be a resource for philosophy, theology, and spirituality even
1600 years after his death.
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[1]
Hilda C. Graef trans., Gregory of Nyssa:
The Lord’s Prayer; The Beatitudes (Mahwah, NJ: Newman Press, 1954), 85.
[2]
Ibid., 130.
[3]
Werner Jaeger, Early Christianity and
Greek Paideia (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1961), 18.
[4]
H.I. Marrou, A History of Education in
Antiquity (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956), 98.
[5]
Werner Jaeger, Paideia: the ideals of
Greek culture (New York: University of Oxford Press, 1944), 1:286.
[6]
Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of
Greek Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960), 1:xxvi
[7]
Marrou, Education, 100.
[8]
Jason St. John Oliver Campbell, “Eros, Paideia, and Arete: The Lesson of
Plato’s symposium” (MA thesis, University of South Florida, 2005), 9.
[9]
Jaeger, Early Christianity, 91.
[10]
Jaeger, Paideia, 2:213.
[11]
Jaeger, Early Christianity, 48.
[12]
Ibid., 41.
[13]
Frances M. Young, “Towards a Christian paideia,”
in The Cambridge History of
Christianity: Origins
to Constantine, edited by Margaret M. Mitchell et al. (Cambridge:
University of Cambridge Press, 2006), 500.
[14]
Ibid., 490.
[15]
Jaeger, Early Christianity, 48.
[16]
Ibid., 52.
[17]
Ibid., 52.
[18]
Graef, 3.
[19]
Harold Fredrik Cherniss, The Platonism of
Gregory of Nyssa (New York: Burt Franklin, 1971), 4.
[20]
Askesis is exercise or
discipline. This is the Greek word from
which ascetic is derived. The scope of this paper does not permit a more
thorough examination of askesis in
Gregory’s work. For a helpful
introduction to the theme consult: Teresa M. Shaw, “Askesis and the Appearance
of Holiness,” Journal of Early Christian
Studies 6:3 (1998): 485-499.
[21]
Gerhart B. Ladner, “The Philosophical Anthropology of Saint Gregory of Nyssa,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12 (1958): 61.
[22]
Jaeger, Early Christianity, 87.
[23]
Jaeger, Early Christianity, 88.
[24]
Ibid.
[25]
Ibid, 89.
[26]
Ladner, 62.
[27]
Robin D. Young, “Gregory of Nyssa’s Use of Theology and Science in Constructive
Theological Anthropology,” Pro Ecclesia
2:3 (1993): 351.
[28]
Jaeger, Early Christianity, 90.
[29]
Rosemary Goring, ed., Dictionary of
Beliefs and Religions, s.v. “Theosis” (Herefordshire: Wordsworth Editions
Ltd., 1995), 526.
[30] Karl-Heinz Uthemann ,"Theosis," The Oxford Dictionary of
Byzantium, 1991,
http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t174.e5458
(21 April 2012).
[31]
Virginia Woods Callahan, trans., Saint
Gregory of Nyssa: Ascetical Works, The Fathers of the Church 58
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1967), 237-38.
[32]
Callahan, 121-22.
[33]
Graef, 85.
[34]
Ibid.
[35]
Graef, 86.
[36]
Graef, 86-87.
[37]
Ibid., 87.
[38]
Ibid., 88.
[39]
David Bentley Hart, “The Mirror of the Infinite,” in Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa, ed. Sarah Coakley (Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2003), 126.
[40]
Graef, 89.
[41]
Ibid.
[42]
Graef, 91.
[43]
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans.
Roger Crisp (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 70.
[44]
Graef, 92.
[45]
Ibid., 94-95.
[46]
Ibid., 95.
[47]
Graef, 95.
[48]
Ibid.
[49]
William Wilson trans., The Writings of
Clement of Alexandria (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2010), 152.
[50]
Graef, 96.
[51]
Graef, 117.
[52]
Ibid., 117.
[53]
Ibid.
[54]
Ibid., 118.
[55]
Graef, 119.
[56]
Ibid.
[57]
Ibid., 120.
[58]
Ibid., 121.
[59]
Ibid., 122.
[60]
Ibid., 123.
[61]
Graef, 124.
[62]
Ibid., 125.
[63]
Ibid.
[64]
Ibid., 126.
[65]
Ibid., 128.
[66]
Graef, 129.
[67]
Jaeger, Early Christianity, 99.
[68]
Graef, 128.
[69]
Callahan, 272.
[70]
Some helpful resources by these authors are: Stanley Hauerwas, Christians Among the Virtues: Theological
Conversations in Modern Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1997. Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings
Need the Virtues (Chicago: Open Court, 2001). N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York:
HarperOne, 2010).
[71]
This is the impetus for N.T. Wright’s book by this name.
[72]
Jaeger, Early Christianity, 5.
[73]
Jaeger, Early Christianity, 82.
