Musings on Gregory of Nyssa, who is entirely confusing if you ask me...
The West has always been made just a bit uncomfortable by the East. The two halves of Christendom share their roots but differ in customs, theological emphasis, and approaches to the faith. Perhaps the most agitating difference is the language barrier. I do not merely mean Greek versus Latin; I mean completely variant theological languages spoken by each side. The questions of the largely intellectual West do not even compute with the values of the mystical and liturgical East. How much more does the Evangelical mind struggle to comprehend the Eastern Fathers! The following is my experience in reading Gregory of Nyssa, who has challenged my thinking, stretched my attitudes, and, more often than not, completely puzzled me. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his treatments of biblical interpretation and theories of salvation.
Gregory’s hermeneutic, at first observation, is somewhat repugnant to the post-Enlightenment mind. His fluid and dynamic, even esoteric and hermetic workings of the text offend Modern sensibilities, which often prefer wooden historical readings of biblical narratives and form and functional approaches to poetry and wisdom literature. As especially evidenced in his Life of Moses and Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles, Gregory has few qualms about allegorizing and spiritualizing texts that often seem to be straightforward historical narratives (e.g. the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness) or ancient Near-Eastern love poetry (e.g. the Song of Songs). Gregory often refers to this process as mining for the “spiritual meaning” of a text. He says, “Everything spoken and done in the gospel has a higher, divine meaning.”[1] As an example, Gregory exposits the Exodus from Egypt in a fluid, allegorical way, explaining that themes such as the washing away of sin through the passing through the waters of baptism (i.e. the Red Sea) are clearly evident in the text; for Gregory, the symbolism need only be translated into “clearer language.”[2] Note also that Gregory does not discount the ordinary, surface reading of a text; he merely intends to search for a more hidden, mystical interpretation that is useful for edification in one’s spiritual journey and is also accountable to the Church, which serves as the boundary for Gregory’s allegorical readings. For Gregory, the task of exegesis often centers on questions of typology and archetype. For, while characters in a narrative are literal historical figures, they can also serve as symbols for a higher spiritual reality, as can objects and locations. Gregory’s motivating interpretive question is “What spiritual realities do [features of the text] represent?”[3] Herein lays the mystical and mysterious element of inspiration for Gregory as he invites the Church to step inside the story and see themselves in it. Overall, this approach to the biblical text is refreshing as it recovers a lost piety and devotion in worship that had been discarded with the advent of the Enlightenment. For this reason, it is a valuable and entirely appropriate hermeneutic for the Church to employ today. However, I offer one caveat: when interpreting the biblical text, allegorically or otherwise, we must always remember that these documents express the real and literal joys, sorrows, victories, defeats, successes and plights of actual peoples; we must never reduce their experiences to a spiritual fable for our own benefit.
Perhaps it is this fluid and forgiving hermeneutic that results in a view of salvation in Gregory that is murky to the Western mind. It seems, through a survey of pertinent Christological musings, that the Protestant notion of a forensic justification is entirely foreign to Gregory’s thought. The question is not one of guilt and punishment; it is rather a question of sickness and cure. To understand this more fully, we must begin with Gregory’s conception of the imago dei. Gregory’s conception of human nature is extremely high, even in humanity’s postlapserian state. He contends that humankind was created in the likeness of God, sharing many of his attributes to a very high degree in order that we may partake in Him. Chief among these attributes are immortality and free will. Yet, through his own carelessness, says Gregory, man has forfeited these rights and immortality is swallowed in death, impassibility has given way to slavery to passion, self-determination has been erased.[4] Humanity, as it is now, is clothed in the “garment of skin,”[5] a symbol of all that is imperfect and incorruptible. This makeshift garment is both a curse and a remedy for the Fall; though imperfect, it grants humanity the capacity for good and redemption. Thus, for Gregory, atonement, salvation, Incarnation are all attempts to recover and restore what has been tarnished. Salvation is the return from this exile, a restoration of all that has been lost. In this way, Gregory’s soteriology can be understood as a modified theosis, by which Christ, through his Incarnation, death, and Resurrection, facilitates the union of the soul with the incorruptible body. Though it is Christ, the vanquisher of sin and death, who achieves a sort of monergistic victory over Satan,[6] it seems that the individual soul bears some responsibility in its own deification. Though it seems that salvation is neither purely monergistic or synergistic, what is evident is that Christ, by virtue of his very appearing and especially through the Resurrection, has achieved a way for humanity to regain its fallen likeness to God that would have otherwise been unattainable. By uniting with humanity, Christ gives humanity the capacity to reunite with God. He writes, “In the one case he is united to us in so far as sustains existing things. In the other case he united himself with our nature, in order that by its union with the Divine it might become divine, being rescued from death and freed from the tyranny of the adversary. For with his return from death, our mortal race begins its return to immortal life.”[7] For Gregory, this return, restoration, revival is best illustrated in the life of the Church. Just as Christ has recreated the human soul, he leaves the task of the recreation of the world to the Church. So, as the Church labors and grows, the redemptive work of God is made evident in a collective recovery of what humanity was intended to be, through the Church: “The establishment of the Church is a re-creation of the world.” [8] As is made clear here, redemption is cosmic in its dimension; and, through the work of Christ, Gregory suspects that evil itself is to be redeemed in the end.
If you are reading this, and you have an idea of what Jesus actually does for Gregory, please let me know. Thanks.
[1] Gregory of Nyssa, “Address on Religious Instruction” in Christology of the Later Fathers. Edited by Edward R. Hardy (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954), 310.
[2] Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory 1.6. Edited by Jean Danielou (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1961), 92. Similar examples can be found in Gregory’s treatment of the wilderness wanderings (93-94), the lives of Abraham and Moses (119), and the Tabernacle and priestly vestments (129-135), among many others.
[3] Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory 1.18, 131.
[4] Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory 1.5, 89.
[5] Ibid, 11.
[6] See Gregory of Nyssa, “Address on Religious Instruction,” 300-301.
[7] Gregory of Nyssa, “Address on Religious Instruction,” 302.
[8] Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory 1.77, 273.
Gregory’s hermeneutic, at first observation, is somewhat repugnant to the post-Enlightenment mind. His fluid and dynamic, even esoteric and hermetic workings of the text offend Modern sensibilities, which often prefer wooden historical readings of biblical narratives and form and functional approaches to poetry and wisdom literature. As especially evidenced in his Life of Moses and Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles, Gregory has few qualms about allegorizing and spiritualizing texts that often seem to be straightforward historical narratives (e.g. the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness) or ancient Near-Eastern love poetry (e.g. the Song of Songs). Gregory often refers to this process as mining for the “spiritual meaning” of a text. He says, “Everything spoken and done in the gospel has a higher, divine meaning.”[1] As an example, Gregory exposits the Exodus from Egypt in a fluid, allegorical way, explaining that themes such as the washing away of sin through the passing through the waters of baptism (i.e. the Red Sea) are clearly evident in the text; for Gregory, the symbolism need only be translated into “clearer language.”[2] Note also that Gregory does not discount the ordinary, surface reading of a text; he merely intends to search for a more hidden, mystical interpretation that is useful for edification in one’s spiritual journey and is also accountable to the Church, which serves as the boundary for Gregory’s allegorical readings. For Gregory, the task of exegesis often centers on questions of typology and archetype. For, while characters in a narrative are literal historical figures, they can also serve as symbols for a higher spiritual reality, as can objects and locations. Gregory’s motivating interpretive question is “What spiritual realities do [features of the text] represent?”[3] Herein lays the mystical and mysterious element of inspiration for Gregory as he invites the Church to step inside the story and see themselves in it. Overall, this approach to the biblical text is refreshing as it recovers a lost piety and devotion in worship that had been discarded with the advent of the Enlightenment. For this reason, it is a valuable and entirely appropriate hermeneutic for the Church to employ today. However, I offer one caveat: when interpreting the biblical text, allegorically or otherwise, we must always remember that these documents express the real and literal joys, sorrows, victories, defeats, successes and plights of actual peoples; we must never reduce their experiences to a spiritual fable for our own benefit.
Perhaps it is this fluid and forgiving hermeneutic that results in a view of salvation in Gregory that is murky to the Western mind. It seems, through a survey of pertinent Christological musings, that the Protestant notion of a forensic justification is entirely foreign to Gregory’s thought. The question is not one of guilt and punishment; it is rather a question of sickness and cure. To understand this more fully, we must begin with Gregory’s conception of the imago dei. Gregory’s conception of human nature is extremely high, even in humanity’s postlapserian state. He contends that humankind was created in the likeness of God, sharing many of his attributes to a very high degree in order that we may partake in Him. Chief among these attributes are immortality and free will. Yet, through his own carelessness, says Gregory, man has forfeited these rights and immortality is swallowed in death, impassibility has given way to slavery to passion, self-determination has been erased.[4] Humanity, as it is now, is clothed in the “garment of skin,”[5] a symbol of all that is imperfect and incorruptible. This makeshift garment is both a curse and a remedy for the Fall; though imperfect, it grants humanity the capacity for good and redemption. Thus, for Gregory, atonement, salvation, Incarnation are all attempts to recover and restore what has been tarnished. Salvation is the return from this exile, a restoration of all that has been lost. In this way, Gregory’s soteriology can be understood as a modified theosis, by which Christ, through his Incarnation, death, and Resurrection, facilitates the union of the soul with the incorruptible body. Though it is Christ, the vanquisher of sin and death, who achieves a sort of monergistic victory over Satan,[6] it seems that the individual soul bears some responsibility in its own deification. Though it seems that salvation is neither purely monergistic or synergistic, what is evident is that Christ, by virtue of his very appearing and especially through the Resurrection, has achieved a way for humanity to regain its fallen likeness to God that would have otherwise been unattainable. By uniting with humanity, Christ gives humanity the capacity to reunite with God. He writes, “In the one case he is united to us in so far as sustains existing things. In the other case he united himself with our nature, in order that by its union with the Divine it might become divine, being rescued from death and freed from the tyranny of the adversary. For with his return from death, our mortal race begins its return to immortal life.”[7] For Gregory, this return, restoration, revival is best illustrated in the life of the Church. Just as Christ has recreated the human soul, he leaves the task of the recreation of the world to the Church. So, as the Church labors and grows, the redemptive work of God is made evident in a collective recovery of what humanity was intended to be, through the Church: “The establishment of the Church is a re-creation of the world.” [8] As is made clear here, redemption is cosmic in its dimension; and, through the work of Christ, Gregory suspects that evil itself is to be redeemed in the end.
If you are reading this, and you have an idea of what Jesus actually does for Gregory, please let me know. Thanks.
[1] Gregory of Nyssa, “Address on Religious Instruction” in Christology of the Later Fathers. Edited by Edward R. Hardy (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954), 310.
[2] Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory 1.6. Edited by Jean Danielou (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1961), 92. Similar examples can be found in Gregory’s treatment of the wilderness wanderings (93-94), the lives of Abraham and Moses (119), and the Tabernacle and priestly vestments (129-135), among many others.
[3] Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory 1.18, 131.
[4] Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory 1.5, 89.
[5] Ibid, 11.
[6] See Gregory of Nyssa, “Address on Religious Instruction,” 300-301.
[7] Gregory of Nyssa, “Address on Religious Instruction,” 302.
[8] Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory 1.77, 273.
posted by ryan tafilowski at 2:04 PM
1 Comments:
"when interpreting the biblical text, allegorically or otherwise, we must always remember that these documents express the real and literal joys, sorrows, victories, defeats, successes and plights of actual peoples; we must never reduce their experiences to a spiritual fable for our own benefit."
very well put, friend.
i enjoyed this. i'm not entirely sure what i am supposed to say here. i'm also still not entirely sure why exactly we have to go and give a book report on our blogs when it seems to be what we also do in class, but as far as book reports go, yours was well done.
danielle
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