Book Note | Gregory of Nyssa’s Doctrinal Works: A Literary Study

Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, Gregory of Nyssa’s Doctrinal Works: A Literary Study, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Why do Gregory of Nyssa’s writings dedicated to “the understanding of faith” (to ho tes pisteos logos) look the way they do? In his latest book, Andrew Radde-Gallwitz argues that readers must first appreciate the literary qualities of Gregory’s doctrinal writing. Only then, he claims, will audiences grasp Gregory’s “doctrine.”

Gregory is not writing “doctrine” in the sense of legislated belief composed and transported easily across space and time. Even “creeds,” often pieces in larger imperial projects, assume a ritual life and improvised, local instruction. Radde-Gallwitz encourages readers to scrutinize doctrines hammered into shape on opponents or simply happened upon in the performance of homilies. To this end, he examines the “literary qualities” (i.e., the images and metaphors) and the persuasive rhetoric constitutive of theological discourse. Not only do these “surface features” need to be examined alongside conceptual arguments (p. 8), but Radde-Gallwitz also draws attention to how rituals (especially baptism) and the liturgical calendar (Christmas, Epiphany, etc.) are inseparable from doctrinal work. The rhythms of Christian communal worship illuminate the ways “doctrine achieves this fervor” (p. 227).

Read from this angle Gregory was not a “systematic” thinker. He did not respond to “prepopulated” questions as a modern systematic theologian would. Instead, Gregory constructed coherent, persuasive narratives and images only to achieve particular ends (pp. 10, 234-35). In one letter he might knock down a heretical claim; in another, explicate baptism. Theological explanations might take different forms at Christmas than they do at Pascha, and therefore readers must be “sensitive to temporal and aesthetic correspondences” to understand Gregory’s thinking (p. 243).

Radde-Gallwitz’s book follows a division found throughout Gregory’s writing: Trinitarian Confession and Saving Economy.[1] This distinction also contextualizes Gregory’s writing career. Just before, and especially after, his powerful brother Basil of Caesarea died in 379, Gregory came under scrutiny as he defended his brother’s legacy, especially regarding teachings about the Trinity. Gregory produced a series of creeds, giving rise to questions that remained unresolved until the Council of Constantinople in 381. Then, at the council and the two years following, Gregory’s political and theological clout increased, and his focus shifted from the Trinity to the incarnation and economy. The writings from this period became an archive from which he would draw for the rest of his career. Years of theological battles formed the ruts in which Gregory’s words flowed until, by 383, Gregory became almost “incapable of writing about the Trinity without reverting to familiar terrain, such as self-defense against charges of heresy” (p. 256).

The introduction and Chapter 1 highlight the centrality of “Christ’s creed,” the baptismal formula—baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19)—to Gregory’s thinking. Gregory consistently framed his teaching on the Trinity as a reading of this “ur-creed” (p. 31). His emphasis on the unity of activity among the persons of the Trinity, the Trinity’s “life-giving power,” and the continuity between creation and grace always assumed a ritual to undergird them. Aligning his teaching with the baptismal formula was a constantly evolving task, and one that called for greater and lesser degrees of precision depending on the audience.

In Chapter 2 and 3, Radde-Gallwitz turns to Gregory’s writings against his theological adversary, Eunomius of Cyzicus. Eunomius, a generation after Nicaea, held that the Father and Son were radically and essentially “unlike” (heteroousia).[2] The book’s focus on the literary draws our attention to an often-misinterpreted reference in Gregory’s work to Plato’s Cratylus. The Cratylus is a famously difficult book that posits reasons about the nature of words and what makes them “fitting.” Readers often assume that the Cratylus is therefore Eunomius’s source for his claim that the name “unbegotten” (agenetos) originates with God and literally is the “divine nature.” Gregory’s mention of Eunomius’s “Platonic expression” (lexis), on this reading, is a critique: Eunomius is “Platonic” not “Christian.” Gregory’s point, however, is not that Eunomius is too “Platonic.” Rather, Gregory accuses Eunomius of cherry-picking Platonic terms instead of doing the work of understanding a difficult text. After all, no one in the Cratylus claims that humans hold no responsibility for name-giving. The implication here is not just about Eunomius. It also clarifies the aesthetic coherence of Gregory moving into a discussion of etymology and the “correctness of names” (p. 143). That is, Gregory aligns his work with Plato. As Radde-Gallwitz writes, “behind each theological term is a perception of God’s activity” (p. 146). Theology requires discipline, following the logical trail from perception of divine activity to divine nature.

Chapter 4 tests Radde-Gallwitz’s larger claim about why literary study matters for Gregory’s doctrinal works. Discussing the Christology in Against Eunomius 3, Radde-Gallwitz argues that judging Gregory by fifth- (or twenty-first-) century Christological standards is anachronistic, and misunderstands how Gregory produces Christological formulations. Gregory writes in a visual idiom because his images constitute his Christology. Gregory produces no “single systematic or creedal claim.… The whirl of allusions and imagery is not an epiphenomenon riding upon a foundational, literal claim…. In explicating the saving economy of Christ, figurative language (images, metaphors, models) is all we have” (p. 188).

Chapter 6 also highlights the complexity of Gregory’s writing practices within his doctrinal works, insisting on contextualizing doctrine with ritual and rhetoric. Gregory does not compose for “blank slates” since his audiences “hold views that can be ascertained and reasoned with” (p. 236). For example, Radde-Gallwitz asks why there are two discussions of Trinitarian faith in the Catechetical Oration. The answer: Gregory tells stories for two imagined audiences. The first are people who “believe inchoately” and need instruction on getting to a more specifically Trinitarian deity (p. 249). Gregory labels this group “Greeks and Jews”—stock “characters” here, not real people—by which he signifies people who believe in God or gods but not the Trinity. Those who “object to the teachings of the faith” (p. 236) form a second audience. These groups require different arguments and modes of persuasion. For the first, Gregory prescribes “the Socratic midwife” (p.255); ignorance is their issue, and with leading questions they will move toward different conclusions. The second group requires an apologist to toss up an objection and knock it down with a response.

In conclusion, Radde-Gallwitz suggests that those looking for “Gregory’s doctrine” (in the singular) should read more and synthesize less. This is not simple gatekeeping; the variety of images, metaphors, and structuring devises has a theological point. While Gregory sees a hard line between “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” he could be self-critical and sensitive to the needs of his audiences within the boundaries of “correct belief” (p. 260). As an imagistic writer, Gregory builds rhetorical momentum through the accumulation of images which push beyond the bounds of any specific doctrinal position. Radde-Gallwitz even sees a method in the variety: the “chain of images and approaches is a way of ensuring that no single approach causes the whole enterprise to veer off course. Correction occurs not by a single model, but by the elaboration of a treasury of approaches and models sufficiently rich that the paradoxes of inseparable distinction not be resolved, but lived with” (p. 262). Gregory will often push ideas to their extremes, but these various positions often reflect specificities of Christian practice; they make sense for their ritual context and audience.

With this steadily growing interest in Gregory, specialization in particular texts has become the norm. Radde-Gallwitz, having done some of that slow, careful work in his previous books, translations, and articles, argues that there is value in panning back to look at broader patterns, parallels, and divergences. Within early Christian scholarship, Gregory of Nyssa might not have the scholarly following of Augustine of Hippo, but there is a growing interest in his works. For instance, twenty-five of the short presentations at the 2019 Oxford Patristics Conference included Gregory of Nyssa in their title while Augustine boasted almost three times as many papers. Gregory—who at least until the mid-twentieth century was surely the third of “the Cappadocians”—now has an “international society” dedicated to him, and his own dictionary.[3] Despite this book’s broad approach, it is highly technical and primarily addresses specialists. Surveying Gregory’s entire doctrinal corpus allows Radde-Gallwitz, for example, to date texts, to resolve unsatisfactory theological arguments by appealing to other writings in the corpus, to include often-overlooked treatises, and even to argue convincingly that Gregory is not the author of To the Greeks (pp. 123-28). Readers less familiar with Gregory will still appreciate how Radde-Gallwitz brings together close readings of primary texts with a corpus-wide approach.

Radde-Gallwitz’s focus on the interpenetration of literary and theological discourses, moreover, bridges the divide between patristic emphases on the formation of orthodox doctrine and broader scholarly interest in the production of late ancient knowledge. While the book concerns itself with the former, researchers of the latter will also find layers of complexity beneath the smooth categories ascribed to “the Cappadocians” or Nicene Christianity. Literary approaches to doctrinal writings show how these debates involved far more than professional theologians: writing doctrine shaped ritual and aesthetic sensibilities, senses of time, group belongings, and even the structuring metaphors of everyday life.

[1] The “Saving Economy” refers to God’s plan and work in bringing humanity to salvation in the Incarnation. Gregory often uses the word theologia to refer to God in Godself and oikonomia to refer to how God interacts in time with humanity, even though each term is inseparable from the other (e.g., God’s work reveals God’s nature).

[2] Against both Nicene formula that the Son has the same essence as the Father and others who argued that the Son was “similar” (homoios) or similar in essence (homoiousios) to the Father; Eunomius’s emphasis on divine simplicity led him to argue that God’s essence is the same thing as God’s “unbegottenness,” and that, therefore, the “only-begotten” Son does not share in the divine essence because the Son is not “unbegotten.” The name “Unbegotten” therefore is not one of many names applied to God; it is the very essence of God. See Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, Basil of Caesarea Gregory of Nyssa, and the Transformation of Divine Simplicity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 87-112.

[3] Lucas Francisco Mateo-Seco and Giulio Maspero, eds., The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa, trans. Seth Cherney (Leiden: Brill, 2010).

Michael Motia is an associate lecturer in the Religion and Classics department at University of Massachusetts Boston