Tracing the Spirit: Christology in Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra Eunomium III

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 212-235
Author(s):  
Alexander L Abecina
Keyword(s):  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Explicit Reference ◽  
Spirit Christology

Abstract While Gregory of Nyssa formulated a Spirit-based account of the unity of Christ in Antirrheticus adversus Apolinarium (c.383) I argue that he already held this view when he wrote Ad Eustathium (c.381) and hence when he wrote Contra Eunomium III (c.382). That Gregory makes no explicit reference to Christ’s anointing by the Spirit in Contra Eunomium III is best explained by his need to adapt his Christology to the Eunomian context where any appeal to a Spirit-based Christology would be useless and, worse, self-defeating. I propose criteria for detecting probable traces of a Spirit-based Christology in Contra Eunomium III and analyse two texts found in Parts 3 and 4 that satisfy these criteria. How we understand Gregory’s account of Christ’s unity in Contra Eunomium III therefore needs to be reframed.

Body and Desire

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphael A. Cadenhead
Keyword(s):  
Full Range ◽  
The Body ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ethical Discourse ◽  
Sex And Sexuality ◽  
Diachronic Analysis

Although the reception of the Eastern father Gregory of Nyssa has varied over the centuries, the past few decades have witnessed a profound awakening of interest in his thought, particularly in relation to the contentious issues of gender, sex, and sexuality. The Body and Desire sets out to retrieve the full range of Gregory’s thinking on the challenges of the ascetic life through a diachronic analysis of his oeuvre. Exploring his understanding of the importance of bodily and spiritual maturation in the practices of contemplation and virtue, Raphael Cadenhead recovers the vital relevance of this vision of transformation for contemporary ethical discourse.

The Concept of Imago Dei as a Symbol of Religious Inclusion and Human Dignity

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-36
Author(s):  
Wojciech Szczerba
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Imago Dei ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Relational Concept ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
Protestant Theologian ◽  
Inclusive Theology

This article aims to examine how the concept of Imago Dei can serve as a symbol for the broadly understood idea of religious inclusion and human dignity. The article explores the concept of Imago Dei primarily from a protological perspective, analyzing its usage in biblical writings, theological tradition and modern philosophy. The substantial, relational and functional—which three usages of the concept can be found in the inclusive theology of Gregory of Nyssa—are analyzed in this article. Arguably, in the context of religious inclusion, the relational angle of Imago Dei seems to be the most important. Similarly contemporary Protestant theologian, Jürgen Moltmann states in his book, God in the Creation, that the “relational” concept of Imago Dei underscores the fundamental dignity of every person. In his book, God for Secular Society, Moltmann states that properly understood human rights should include democratic relationships between people, cooperation between societies, concern for the environment in which people live, and responsibility for future generations. From these perspectives, the concept of Imago Dei can be utilized as a symbol indicating the dignity of every person and human community, but also a symbol against any types of racism, nationalism or xenophobia.

Gregory of Nyssa on the Soul (and the Restoration)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilaria L. E. Ramelli
Keyword(s):  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Immortality Of The Soul

In this chapter, Gregory’s treatment of the soul is examined against the backdrop of philosophical treatises On the Soul and in conversation with Origen’s psychology and On the Resurrection (while Origen never wrote On the Soul, for reasons that are here clarified). Tertullian composed both On the Soul and On the Resurrection; Gregory combined the two discussions in a remake of Plato’s Phaedo on the immortality of the soul—here analysed in many of its philosophical components and their treatment until Plotinus and Proclus, and in light of Gregory’s definition of soul and relation between resurrection and restoration. The chapter examines the role of the soul in Gregory’s ‘theology of freedom’—rooted in Plato’s philosophy—and the influence Gregory exerted on Evagrius’ theories of the threefold resurrection and of the subsumption of body into soul and soul into ‘unified nous’: Eriugena was right to trace the latter theory back to Gregory.

St Gregory of Nyssa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Anthony McGuckin
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Family Members ◽  
General Outline ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Christian Leaders ◽  
Close Family

Chapter 1 gives Biographical background and studies the historical context(s) of Gregory of Nyssa and his close family members, situating them as aristocratic and long-established Christian leaders of the Cappadocian area. It offers along with the course of Gregory’s Vita a general outline of the main philosophical and religious controversies of his era, particularly his ecclesiastical involvement in the Neo-Nicene apologetical movement associated with the leadership of his brother Basil (of Caesarea), which he himself inherited in Cappadocia, with imperial approval, after 380. It concludes with a review of Gregory’s significance as author: in terms of his style as a writer, his work as an exegete, his body of spiritual teaching, and lastly, the manner in which his reputation waxed and waned from antiquity to the present.

Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-Century Christian Authors

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morwenna Ludlow
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Active Response ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Shared Practice ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Literary Techniques ◽  
Applied Arts

Ancient authors commonly compared writing with painting. The sculpting of the soul was a common philosophical theme. This book takes its starting-point from such figures to recover a sense of ancient authorship as craft. The ancient concept of craft (ars, technē) spans ‘high’ or ‘fine’ art and practical or applied arts. It unites the beautiful and the useful. It includes both skills or practices (like medicine and music) and productive arts like painting, sculpting, and the composition of texts. By using craft as a guiding concept for understanding fourth-century Christian authorship, this book recovers a sense of them engaged in a shared practice which is both beautiful and theologically useful, which shapes souls but which is also engaged in the production of texts. It focuses on Greek writers, especially the Cappadocians (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa) and John Chrysostom, all of whom were trained in rhetoric. Through a detailed examination of their use of two particular literary techniques—ekphrasis and prosōpopoeia—it shows how they adapt and experiment with them, in order to make theological arguments and in order to evoke an active response from their readership.

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Zachhuber
Keyword(s):  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Eastern Christianity ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Full Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Problems ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
First Time

It has rarely been recognized that the Christian writers of the first millennium pursued an ambitious and exciting philosophical project alongside their engagement in the doctrinal controversies of their age. This book offers for the first time a full analysis of this Patristic philosophy. It shows how it took its distinctive shape in the late fourth century and gives an account of its subsequent development until the time of John of Damascus. The book falls into three main parts. The first of them starts from an analysis of the philosophical project underlying the teaching of the Cappadocian fathers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. This philosophy, arguably the first distinctively Christian theory of being, soon becomes near-universally shared in Eastern Christianity. A few decades after the Cappadocians, all sides in the early Christological controversy take its fundamental tenets for granted. Its application to the Christological problem thus appeared inevitable. Yet it created substantial conceptual problems. Parts II and III of the book describe in detail how these problems led to a series of increasingly radical modifications of the Cappadocian philosophy. The chapters of Part II are dedicated to the miaphysite opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, while Part III discusses the defenders of the Council from the early sixth to the eighth centuries. Through this overview, the book reveals this period as one of remarkable philosophical creativity, fecundity, and innovation.

scholarly journals Eastern Church Fathers on Being Human—Dichotomy in Essence and Wholeness in Deification

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 575
Author(s):  
Olga Chistyakova
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Anthropology ◽  
Church Father ◽  
Byzantine Church ◽  
God's Image ◽  
Maximus The Confessor

The article traces the formation of Eastern Christian anthropology as a new religious and philosophical tradition within the Early Byzantine culture. The notion “Patristics” is reasoned as a corpus of ideas of the Church Fathers, both Eastern and Western. The term “Eastern Patristics” means the works by Greek-Byzantine Church Fathers, who in the theological disputes with the Western Church Fathers elaborated the Christian creed. Based on an analysis of the texts of Greek-Byzantine Church Fathers, the most important provisions of Eastern Patristics are deduced and discussed, which determined the specificity of Christian anthropology. In this context, different approaches of the Eastern Fathers to the explanation of the Old Testament thesis on the creation of man in God’s image and likeness and the justification of the duality of human essence are shown. Particular attention is paid to considering the idea of deification as overcoming the human dualism and the entire created universe, the doctrine of the Divine Logoi as God’s energies, and the potential elimination of the antinomianism of the earthly and Divine worlds. The article reflects the anthropological ideas of the pre-Nicene Church Father Irenaeus, the non-canonical early Christian work The Shepherd of Hermas, and the teachings on the man of the classical Eastern Patristics period by Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor.

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