Life and works (review)

This recent addition to the Fathers of the Church series provides an excellent, accessible introduction to a significant third-century Christian figure. Gregory Thaumaturgus was a bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus who had studied Christian philosophy as a young man under Origen of Alexandria when the latter was resident in Palestinian Caesarea in the 330s. Following the completion of his studies and his conversion, Gregory returned to Pontus, where he was eventually drafted into the episcopacy to evangelize his still heavily pagan home territory. As a result, he became an important early exponent of Christianity in Asia Minor, later to be celebrated by the Cappadocian Fathers, particularly by Gregory of Nyssa in his Life of Gregory the Wonderworker.

This volume provides a translation of the Life, as well as translations of several works that have been attributed with more or less persuasiveness to Gregory. Taking an admittedly “maximalist” approach to questions of attribution, Slusser includes translations of the following works that he regards as authentic: Address of Thanksgiving to Origen (an encomium of Origen composed when Gregory left Caesarea to return to Pontus), Metaphrase on Eccle-siastes (a protrepticus that encourages its readers to take up the philosophical life), the Canonical Epistle (a collection of canons, some of which address disruptions among Christian communities in northern Asia Minor caused by invading Goths in the mid-250s), To Theopompus on the Impassibility and Passibility of God (a dialogue that considers whether Christ’s Passion compromises divine impassibility), and To Philagrius on Consubstantiality (a Trinitarian treatise that discusses whether Christian belief in Father, Son, and Spirit compromises the simplicity of the divine nature).

Slusser also includes translations of three other works often associated with, though not securely attributed to, Gregory: To Tatian on the Soul (a philosophical treatise on the nature of the soul), the Glossary on Ezekiel (textual observations, some legendary information, and keys to the allegorical interpretation of the prophetic book), and the Letter of Origen to Gregory (a brief meditation on the use of pagan learning in the study of Christianity). The translations are preceded by a comprehensive bibliography of scholarship on Gregory and by an informative and lucid introduction in which Slusser reviews the biographical data on Gregory know from the Life and other sources, presents the often complicated history of attribution for the works he translates, and provides summaries of the works’ contents. The translations are literate and helpfully annotated throughout. Slusser has, moreover, presented them in a coherent order that reinforces Gregory’s approach to the Christian religion, outlined in both Slusser’s introduction and in the Life: one that is less doctrinally explicit than one might expect from a student of Origen and more focused on living an ethical life free of the passions. In general, the scholarship referenced throughout the volume reflects an expert and far-reaching mastery of the subject.

Consequently, this slim volume provides an ideal introduction to Gregory’s world and thought, which in turn illuminates the legacy of Origen and the process of Christian evangelization of both intellectuals and ordinary people in the pre-Constantinian era.