Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection (review)

Rarely does a work combine the virtues of theological insight, historical sensitivity and careful literary criticism as masterfully as Carole Straw's Gregory the Great. The book examines the paradoxical relation between "oppositional contrasts" in Gregory's moral theology. His underlying vision of complementarity, Straw argues, enabled Gregory to reconcile such opposites as sin and virtue, adversity and prosperity, active and contemplative life. The result is a theology of equilibrium embracing the totality of human experience.

The fundamental distinction in Gregory's theology, Straw suggests, is between carnal and spiritual. She explores this contrast in the first two chapters, which treat Gregory's understanding of the human being and the world. In his sacramental vision of the cosmos, carnal signs mediate between the world of flesh and blood and the transcendent world of the spirit. Despite antitheses, there is a continuity between this world and the next. Gregory's Christianity neither renounces nor ignores the world. Straw describes his universe as "an organic whole," comprising a mixture of carnal and spiritual elements.

Chapters five and six examine the Christian beset by the curse of mutability. Physical needs and desires, particularly the appetite for pleasure, draw men and women away from God. Yet the body becomes a focal point of Gregory's spirituality. In her discussion of his asceticism, Straw shows how human mutability functions for Gregory as both a curse and a blessing. The body is both the cause of sin and the vehicle of discipline and purgation that leads to the health of the soul. Through such a "logic of antithesis," God uses evils to teach good by contrast. For example, vengeance on the reprobate teaches the elect to live uprightly; experience of pain increases enjoyment of pleasure; and judgment of sin leads to the mercy of redemption.

In the center of all antitheses is Christ, who reverses the effects of the Fall and reconciles such opposites as spirit and flesh, heaven and earth, God and humankind. In an insightful treatment of Gregory's Christology, Straw discerns his variation on the traditional communicatio idiomatum. Gregory speaks of Christ's mediation effecting a transfer of power between divinity and humanity by which spiritual becomes carnal, making carnal spiritual. This transfer of qualities restores humanity's spiritual health. Yet redemption must also be "activated" by the Christian's willing assumption of the sufferings of Christ through the sacrifice of the mass and a corresponding self-offering in penitence and obedience.

The theme of sacrifice, analyzed in chapter nine, is central to Gregory's spirituality, especially to his ideal of "perfection in imperfection" (the subtitle of the book). He considers as sacrifice both renunciation of carnality and return to the carnal life one has renounced in obedience to God's command of charity. Departing slightly from earlier tradition which tended to posit the antagonism of flesh and spirit, Gregory describes a cyclical return to the carnal element. In this connection Straw elucidates the relation of contemplative and active life in Gregory's spiritual system. He views the return to active life as a type of sacrifice. Gregory emphasizes complementarity between active and contemplative life, Straw suggests, in order to justify his own involvement in worldly affairs.

The final chapter focuses on the need for proper balance or stability amidst both the trials and blessings of life. It is precisely such polarities as adversity and prosperity, vice and virtue, carnal and spiritual, which, when rightly used, help the Christian maintain constantia mentis. Gregory perceives the Christian's equilibrium "as a mean between extremes, a point of balance between the spirit and flesh of which man is a composite" (244). Straw demonstrates a parallel system of complementarity in Gregory's view of relationships within the Church and between the Church and the secular powers. She argues that this elaborate pattern of complementarity arises from the fundamental paradoxes of Christ's Incarnation, particularly the exchange of spiritual and carnal that Christ enacts.

The conclusion includes a helpful...