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Introduction
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INTRODUCTION f'!'IlI"!!:.'!'l;l'1!i F THE THREE CAPPADOCIAN FATHERS of the Church, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa, the last is the least well-known and until recently the most neglected. His brother, St. Basil, called the Great, is famous as the founder of monasticism in the East and as a forceful opponent of the Arian heresy. Their close friend, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, is renowned for the glory of his eloquence and the sweetness of his poetry. And yet at the Ecumenical Council of 787, St. Gregory of Nyssa was given the title 'Father of the Fathers.' Modern writers agree that 'he surpassed the other Cappadocians as a philosopher and theologian ,'l that he was 'more learned and profound'2 than the others, that he was 'possibly the most versatile theologian of the century,'3 and that 'as a speculative theologian and mystic he is certainly the most gifted of the three:4 The importance of St. Gregory of Nyssa is attested to particularly by the fact that Werner Jaeger, the great Hellenist of our time, devoted much of the last twenty years of his life to the editing of the first critical edition of his complete works and that the distinguished theologian, Jean Danielou, S.]., has returned again and again to a consideration of his life and work. In the Christian world of the fourth century, the family of St. Gregory of Nyssa was distinguished for its leadership in civic and religious affairs in the region of the Roman Empire known as the Pontus. Cardinal Newman, in an essay on the 1 B. Altaner, Patrology (New York 1960) 352. 2 J. M. Campbell, The Greek Fathers (New York 1963) 62. 3 H. V. Campenhausen, The Fathers of the Greek Church (New York 1955) 109. 4 J. Quasten, Patrology 3 (Westminster 1963) 254. IX x SAINT GREGORY OF NYSSA trials of St. Basil, refers to the family circle which produced these two eminent Fathers as 'a sort of nursery of bishops and saints.'5 From St. Gregory's life of his sister, St. Macrina, a work included in this volume,6 we learn of the fortitude of the three preceding generations. On her death-bed, St. Macrina, recalling details of their family history, speaks of a greatgrandfather martyred and all his property confiscated and grandparents deprived of their possessions at the time of the Diocletian persecutions. Their father, Basil of Caesarea, a successful rhetorician, outstanding for his judgment and wellknown for the dignity of his life, died leaving to his wife, Emmelia , the care of four sons and five daughters. St. Gregory praises his mother for her virtue and for her eagerness to have her children educated in Holy Scripture. After managing their estate and arranging for the future of her children, she was persuaded by St. Macrina to retire from the world and to enter a life in common with her maids as sisters and equals. This community of women would have been a counterpart of the monastery founded nearby by St. Basil on the banks of the Iris River. In a moving scene, St. Gregory tells of his mother's death at a rich old age in the arms of her oldest and youngest children, Macrina and Peter. Blessing all of her children, she prays in particular for the sanctification of these two who were, indeed, later canonized as saints. Newman notes the strong influence of the women in the family,7 and in one of his letters, St. Basil gives credit to his mother and his grandmother , the elder Macrina, for his clear and steadfast idea of God.s Of all the qualities of his oldest sister singled out by St. Gregory, none is more striking than her ability to influence the other members of her family. Betrothed at the age of twelve to a young lawyer who died before they could marry, 5 J. H. Newman, Historical Sketches 2 (London 1906) 17. 6 Cf. 'The Life of St. Macrina: p. 159 II. 7 Newman, op. cit., 18. 8 St. Basil, Letters, translated by Sister Agnes Clare Way in The Fathers of the Church Series, Vol. 28 (1955), 76. INTRODUCTION xi St. Macrina persuaded her father that it would be wrong for her to consider marriage to another because the young man was not dead but living in God because of the hope of the resurrection. After her father's death, she became the inseparable companion of her...