Healing the social leper in Gregory of Nyssa's and Gregory of Nazianzus's [Text not reproducible in ascii]

Harvard Theological Review

Volumn 92, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 283-309

  Holman, Susan R ^a  

^a American Journal of Archaeology ^*

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EID: 62449238366     PISSN: 00178160     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0017816000003400     Document Type: Review

References (128)

1. Peter Brown, "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity," JRomS 61 (1971) 96
2. Judith Perkins, The Suffering Self (New York: Routledge, 1995)
3. A related study of suffering in the modern world is Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985)
4. Perkins, The Suffering Self, 8-12
5. My choice to employ this grammatically correct but slightly unconventional use of genitive names for the Gregories follows Jaroslav Pelikan's standard practice in his study of the Cappadocians, Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); esp. p. 6
6. In some manuscripts, is titled, "On the Feeding of the Poor." A critical edition is wanting; I use the Greek text PG 35.855-910
7. Unless noted, I follow the English translation by M. F. Toal, The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers (London: Longmans, 1963) 4. 43-64
8. Gregory of Nyssa De pauperibus amandis: Oratio duo (ed. Arie van Heck; Leiden: Brill, 1964) 1-37 = Gregorii Nysseni Opera (Leiden: Brill, 1967) 9.1 (hereafter GNO); De beneficentia
9. vulgo De pauperibus amandis 1: GNO 9.1 (1967) 93-108
10. In illud: Quatenus uni ex his fecistis mihi fecistis
11. vulgo De pauperibus amandis 2: GNO 9.1 (1967) 111-27. All translations are mine
12. I will use this phrase to mean specifically these three homilies traditionally titled "On the Love of the Poor." Gregory of Nazianzus delivered several other sermons concerned with the social effects of involuntary poverty, which will not be discussed here
13. Gregory of Nyssa's first sermon describes destitute poverty in general
14. Greg. Naz. Or. 43.63. The famine may be significant since acute malnutrition, particularly long-term vitamin deficiencies, often manifest as skin disorders
15. Greg. Naz. Or. 43.63
16. 2.7, 416
17. He does this, for example, in his treatise against Eunomius, which continues Basil's argument against Arianism after Basil's death. In his sermon against usury, Nyssen openly admits his dependence on Basil's sermon on the same topic. Nyssen is most infamous for forging three reconciliation letters that successfully (if temporarily) tricked Basil into believing they were from an older bishop with whom Basil had a theological quarrel
18. Nazianzen's Oratio 11 is generally believed to be a discourse delivered on the occasion of Nyssen's ordination in the summer of 372
19. For the critical edition, see SC 405 (ed. and trans., M-A Calvet-Sebasti, 1995)
20. Reginald Weijenborg has challenged the authenticity of this homily by suggesting that it is a highly ironic and slightly indecent forgery by Maximus the Cynic, writing against Nazianzen; Reginald Weijenborg, "Some Evidence of Unauthenticity for the 'Discourse XI in Honour of Gregory of Nyssa' Attributed to Gregory of Nazianzus," StPatr 17 (1982) 1145-48
21. Calvet-Sebasti finds that Weijenborg's reasons "ne nous semblent pas convaincantes" (SC 405, 93)
22. Jerome De viris Inlustribus 128
23. For Latin see O. Gebhardt and A. Harnack, TU 14.1 (Leipzig: Hinrichs'sche, 1896) 54
24. For Sophronius's Greek translation see p. 60 in the same volume
25. While Jean Bernardi, Jean Daniélou, and others assume that these sermons were preached, they also have a long and complex manuscript history, indicating a substantial audience of readers
26. For this view see Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Curti Lectures; Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992) 71-117. A study of leprosy language as it may have related to ascetic monks has not been done, to my knowledge, and would add an interesting dimension to this topic
27. Oribasius Collect. Méd. 45.27-29. I use the Greek text of Ulco Cats Bussemaker and Charles Daremberg (Œuvres d'Oribase [Paris: Impr. National, 1862] 4. 59-82)
28. Aretaeus 4.13 (description and discussion of cause) and 8.13 (treatment and cure). I use the Greek text of Carolus Hude, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 2 (Berlin, 1923)
29. and the English translation by John Moffat, Aretaeus: Consisting of Eight Books, On the Causes, Symptoms and Cure of Acute and Chronic Diseases, Translated From the Original Greek (London: W. Richardson, 1786) 273-88, 493-502. I am grateful to Harvard's Houghton library for access to this text from which I was unable to locate Francis Adams's more recent English translation (1856). Most scholars date Aretaeus to the first or second century CE, but he may be later since, as Steven Oberhelman argues, Philagrius's fourth or early fifth-century reference is the first clear testimony to his existence
30. For research on Aretaeus see esp. Steven M. Oberhelman, "On the Chronology and Pneumatism of Aretaios of Cappadocia," ANRW 2.37.2 (1994) 941-66
31. Mirko D. Grmek, Diseases in the Ancient Greek World (trans. Mireille and Leonard Muellner; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989) 171
32. Grmek, Diseases in the Ancient Greek World, 157
33. One wonders whether this Vedic term is etymologically related to the Syriac kharsâ, since an anonymous Syriac medical compendium from late antiquity refers several times to "the leprosy that is called kharsâ," which Budge translates "scabies." Ernest A. Wallis Budge, The Syriac Book of Medicines (1913; reprinted London: Oxford University Press, 1976) 2. 694
34. Josephus Ap. 1.31 (esp. sections 281-82)
35. Herodotus 1.38
36. Gal. Prorrheticon 2.43; for Galen's comment see Littré IX, 74, n. 7
37. Oribasius Collect. Méd. 45.28.2. Aretaeus identifies these same subcategories of the disease in Aretaeus 4.13.8
38. Oberhelman, "Chronology and Pneumatism of Aretaios," 941
39. Philagrius Frag. ap. Aetium 8.47; 11.1
40. Aretaeus 3.5; ET Moffat, 116
41. No one else, to my knowledge, has related this reference to early Christianity, but it hardly fits Greek or Roman religious practices. If this text truly predates Christian ascetic practices, might it refer to an Alexandrian familiarity with Josephus's and/or Philo's description of the Essenes?
42. Aretaeus 4.13.10, 15-19; ET Moffat, 280-87
43. For the development of this idea I am indebted to Michael J. De Vinne, "The Advocacy of Empty Bellies: Episcopal Representations of the Poor in the Late Empire" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1995)
44. José Janini Cuesta, La Antropologia y la medicina pastoral de San Gregorio de Nisa (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1946) 31
45. See also Jean Daniélou, Le IVième siècle: Grégoire de Nysse et son milieu (Paris: Institute Catholique, 1960) 37-38
46. Although Caesareus was a medical doctor, he also authored at least one theological text, if Photius is correct in attributing to Caesareus a book of two hundred ecclesiastical questions and answers (Phot. Bibliotheca 210). I thank Nick Constas for the discussion that led me to Photius
47. For an overview of causation theory see esp. Michael Frede, "The original notion of cause," in Malcolm Schofield, Myles Burnyeat, and Jonathan Barnes, eds., Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980) 217-49
48. R. J. Hankinson, "Galen's Theory of Causation," ANRW 2.37.2 (1994) 1757-74
49. and Richard Sorabji, "Causation, Laws and Necessity," in Schofield et al., Doubt and Dogmatism, 250-82. Causes were not necessarily related to activities in ancient texts. For Aristotle an idea might be a cause. This view had changed somewhat by the early Christian period, in that the role of an active agent became more dominant in causation theory. Cause is active, for example, in Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1.17.82.3 and 8.9.25.5) and the Neoplatonists continued to regard it as active. In terms of disease etiology, however, this theory would merely imply that humors and environmental imbalance might be seen as active agents. The transmission of undesirable properties from one person to another was understood largely in terms of religious purity and pollution, not ordinary pathology
50. Gal. De sectis; for text see J. Marquardt, I. Müller, and G. Helmreich, eds., Claudii Galeni Pergameni scripta minora (1893; reprinted Leibzig: Teubner, 1967) 3. 12-32
51. For discussion see Hankinson, "Galen's Theory of Causation," 1759-60
52. Hankinson, "Galen's Theory of Causation," 1762
53. For a brief summary of humoral theory see Guido Majno, The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975) 176-83
54. Paulus of Aegina retains this teaching found in Galen and Oribasius in his sixth-century CE description of elephantiasis: "It arises either from the melancholic and feculent part, and, as it were, dregs of the blood, or from yellow bile, both being overheated. . . . black bile produces reddish elephantiasis, which is the less malignant variety.... ulceration of the whole body and falling off of the extremities are produced . . . from yellow bile overheated. . . . those already overpowered by the disease must be abandoned." Paulus Aegineta 4.1
55. ET Francis Adams, The Seven Books of Paulus Aegineta (London: The Sydenham Society, 1844) 2. 1. In 4.2 Paulus similarly identifies leprosy as a melancholic disorder rooted in excessive black bile
56. Oribasius Collect. Méd. 45.27.1
57. The Syriac Book of Medicines, Fol. 8a-9b, 2.14-15
58. Aretaeus 4.13.19-21
59. Oribasius Collect. Méd. 45.29.26
60. Oribasius Collect. Méd. 45.29.79
61. Stephanus of Athens says that all diseases originate in the seasons insofar as these affect body moisture and other properties. Stephani Atheniensis, in Hippocratis Aphorismos Commentaria 3.22 (Corpus medicorum graecorum XI 1,3,1
62. trans. Leendert G. Westerink; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1985) 130-31
63. The Syriac compendium, which Budge dates to the same period as Stephanus's commentary, reflects a popular belief that lepers were fated by certain astrological predelictions: a man is likely to develop "lepra on his head" if he is born in the beginning of Nisân, any time during Tammûz, or in the middle or the end of the month of Shebât. The Syriac Book of Medicines, Fol. 243b; ET Budge, 2. 618-19
64. Aretaeus 4.13.19; ET Moffat, 286
65. Greg. Nyss. De pauperibus amandis 2
66. GNO 9.1, 124:
67. Greg. Nyss. Ctr. Eunom. 1.4.28
68. ET Stuart G. Hall, El 'Contra Eunomium l' en la production literaria de Gregorio de Nisa, VI coloquio international sobre Gregorio de Nisa (ed. Lucas F. Mateo-Seco and Juan L. Bastero; Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, S.A., 1988) 39. Basil speaks of this in his Homily on Psalm 1 (PG 29.225B):
69. Greg. Naz. Or. 14.27
70. ET Toal, 57; my emphasis. The Greek has generally the same positive meaning as
71. For example, Aesch. Choeph. 279-82
72. Hector Avalos, personal communication
73. The text survives only in an abbreviated Slavic translation and some Greek fragments. For discussion see L. G. Patterson, Methodius of Olympus: Divine Sovereignty, Human Freedom, and Life in Christ (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997) 235-39. Patterson notes that Origen's allegorical approach clearly influenced this treatise, which consists of a discussion of the prescriptions in Lev 13 and interprets leprosy as sin in the church
74. Greg. Naz. Or. 14.37
75. PG 35.908
76. Greg. Nyss. De pauperibus amandis 1
77. GNO 9.1,106:
78. Greg. Naz. Or. 14.6
79. ET Toal, 45-46
80. Job 2:8. Several centuries later Sophronius of Jerusalem similarly identifies elephantiasis as in his Miracula Cyri et Joannis 15 (PG 87.3469C)
81. Greg. Naz. Or. 14.34
82. PG 35.904
83. PG 35.868
84. PG 35.865
85. Greg. Nyss. Dialogus de anima et resurrectione
86. 2 5.462
87. GNO 9.1,113
88. Chrys. "Sixth Sermon on Lazarus and the Rich Man/On the Earthquake," in Saint John Chrysostom: On Wealth and Poverty (trans. Catherine P. Roth; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Press, 1984) 108
89. GNO 9.1, 98
90. literally "They have put on the face of our Saviour"
91. GNO 9.1, 106:
92. GNO 9.1, 114:
93. GNO 9.1, 115:
94. Donald F. Winslow, "Gregory of Nazianzus and Love for the Poor," ATR 47 (1965) 348-59
95. and Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gregory of Nazianzus: Rhetor and Philosopher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969)
96. following Paul Gallay, La vie de Saint Grégoire de Nazianze (Lyon: E. Vitte, 1943)
97. The Benedictine opinions in Migne cite the later date as does Philip Haeuser in Die Übersetzung der Reden ist entnommen aus: Gregor von Nazianz, Reden (München: Kösel, 1983) 33-68
98. Gallay, La vie de saint Grégoire de Nazianze, 87
99. quoted in Jean Bernardi, La prédication des pères cappadociens: Le prédicateur et son auditoire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968) 104
100. Greg. Naz. Or. 14.10-17
101. PG 35.869-77
102. Bernard Coulie, Les richesses dans l'œuvre de saint Grégoire de Nazianz: Étude lilléraire et historique (Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain 32; Louvain: Université Catholique de Louvain, 1985) 171
103. This date is likely only if one assumes that he never preached in church during his years as a rhetor (365?-371) but took the pulpit for the very first time only after being ordained bishop of Nyssa, since the opening of the first oration places it quite securely within a "pulpit" setting rather than that of a rhetorical lecture delivered outside of a church context. I do not know how sure one can be that Gregory was never liturgically permitted to deliver a sermon - for example under Basil at Caesarea or under Gregory, father or son, at Nazianzus - prior to his ordination
104. Jean Daniélou, "La chronologie des sermons de Grégoire de Nysse," RevScRel 29 (1955) 360-61
105. GNO 9.1, 96-97:
106. Bernardi, La prédication, 276
107. GNO 9.1, 119-20:
108. Philip Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994) 68-76
109. For a limited study of Basil's method in addressing the problem of usury, see my chapter, "'You speculate on the misery of the poor': Usury as Civic Injustice in Basil of Caesarea's Second Homily on Psalm 14," in Keith Hopwood, ed., Organized Crime in Antiquity (London: Duckworth/Classical Press of Wales, 1999, forthcoming)
110. GNO 9.1, 122-23:
111. GNO 9.1, 124-25:
112. GNO 9.1, 123:
113. GNO 9.1, 122: the text here is a paraphrase of Gregory's comment
114. The classic study on the philosophical influences on Nyssen's thought is Harold Fredrik Cherniss, The Plalonism of Gregory of Nyssa (University of California Publications in Classical Philology 11.1; 1930; reprinted New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1971) 1-92
115. For a thorough but necessarily limited study of Nyssen's view of the human person see Robin Darling Young, "Gregory of Nyssa's Use of Theology and Science in Constructing Theological Anthropology," Pro Ecclesia 2 (1993) 345-63
116. For a more extensive discussion of Gregory's "abandonment" of Platonic dualism for a Christian view of body and spirit see Alden A. Mosshammer, "The Created and Uncreated in Gregory of Nyssa Contra Eunomium 1, 105-113," in Mateo-Seco and Bastero, eds., El 'Contra Eunomium l' en la Produccion Literaria, 353-79
117. Greg.Nyss. De pauperibus amandis 1
118. GNO 9.1, 103:
119. That is, the case of Christ, here assuming the uniqueness of Christ's incarnation
120. Greg. Nyss. Oratio catechetica magna 25
121. ET J. H. Srawley, The Catechetical Oration of St. Gregory of Nyssa (London: SPCK, 1917) 79-80
122. Greg. Nyss. Oratio catechetica magna 9
123. ET Srawley, 53
124. ET Srawley, 86-87
125. ET Srawley, 107
126. This discussion is reminiscent of Clement of Alexandria's description of the conversion of breast milk into blood and its theological implications in his Paed. 1.6
127. Greg. Nyss. Oratio catechetica magna 37
128. ET Srawley, 109-10. I am indebted to Robert J. Daly, S.J., for first directing me to this text