Embodiment and Virtue in Gregory of Nyssa

Embodiment and Virtue in Gregory of Nyssa
Author: Hans Boersma
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2013-03-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 019165132X

Embodiment in the theology of Gregory of Nyssa is a much-debated topic. Hans Boersma argues that this-worldly realities of time and space, which include embodiment, are not the focus of Gregory's theology. Instead, embodiment plays a distinctly subordinate role. The key to his theology, Boersma suggests, is anagogy, going upward in order to participate in the life of God. This book looks at a variety of topics connected to embodiment in Gregory's thought: time and space; allegory; gender, sexuality, and virginity; death and mourning; slavery, homelessness, and poverty; and the church as the body of Christ. In each instance, Boersma maintains, Gregory values embodiment only inasmuch as it enables us to go upward in the intellectual realm of the heavenly future. Boersma suggests that for Gregory embodiment and virtue serve the anagogical pursuit of otherworldly realities. Countering recent trends in scholarship that highlight Gregory's appreciation of the goodness of creation, this book argues that Gregory looks at embodiment as a means for human beings to grow in virtue and so to participate in the divine life. It is true that, as a Christian thinker, Gregory regards the creator-creature distinction as basic. But he also works with the distinction between spirit and matter. And Nyssen is convinced that in the hereafter the categories of time and space will disappear-while the human body will undergo an inconceivable transformation. This book, then, serves as a reminder of the profoundly otherworldly cast of Gregory's theology.

Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith

Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith
Author: Martin S. Laird
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2004
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0199267995

Scholars of Gregory of Nyssa have long acknowledged the centrality of faith in his theory of divine union. To date, however, there has been no sustained examination of this key topic. The present study fills this gap and elucidates important auxiliary themes that accrue to Gregory's notion of faith as a faculty of apophatic union with God. The result adjusts how we understand the Cappadocian's apophaticism in general and his so-called mysticism of darkness in particular. After a general discussion of the increasing value of faith in late Neoplatonism and an overview of important work done on Gregorian faith, this study moves on to sketch a portrait of the mind and its dynamic, varying cognitive states and how these respond to the divine pedagogy of scripture, baptism, and the presence of God. With this portrait of the mind as a backdrop we see how Gregory values faith for its ability to unite with God, who remains beyond the comprehending grasp of mind. A close examination of the relationship between faith and mind shows Gregory bestowing on faith qualities which Plotinus would have granted only to the `crest of the wave of intellect'. While Gregorian faith serves as the faculty of apophatic union with God, faith yet gives something to mind. This dimension of Gregory's apophaticism has gone largely unnoticed by scholars. At the apex of an apophatic ascent faith unites with God the Word; by virtue of this union the believer takes on the qualities of the Word, who speaks (logophasis) in the deeds and discourse of the believer. Finally this study redresses how Gregory has been identified with a `mysticism of darkness' and argues that he proposes no less a `mysticism of light'.

Gregory of Nyssa's Tabernacle Imagery in Its Jewish and Christian Contexts

Gregory of Nyssa's Tabernacle Imagery in Its Jewish and Christian Contexts
Author: Ann Conway-Jones
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2014-09-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191024600

Integrating patristics and early Jewish mysticism, this book examines Gregory of Nyssa's tabernacle imagery, as found in Life of Moses 2. 170-201. Previous scholarship has often focused on Gregory's interpretation of the darkness on Mount Sinai as divine incomprehensibility. However, true to Exodus, Gregory continues with Moses's vision of the tabernacle 'not made with hands' received within that darkness. This innovative methodology of heuristic comparison doesn't strive to prove influence, but to use heavenly ascent texts as a foil, in order to shed new light on Gregory's imagery. Ann Conway-Jones presents a well-rounded, nuanced understanding of Gregory's exegesis, in which mysticism, theology, and politics are intertwined. Heavenly ascent texts use descriptions of religious experience to claim authoritative knowledge. For Gregory, the high point of Moses's ascent into the darkness of Mount Sinai is the mystery of Christian doctrine. The heavenly tabernacle is a type of the heavenly Christ. This mystery is beyond intellectual comprehension, it can only be grasped by faith; and only the select few, destined for positions of responsibility, should even attempt to do so.

Gregory of Nyssa as Biographer

Gregory of Nyssa as Biographer
Author: Allison L. Gray
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2021-05-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 316157558X

La 4e de couverture indique : "The theologian Gregory of Nyssa wrote biographies of his sister, a local bishop, and Moses. Allison L. Gray shows that he adapts techniques from Greco-Roman biographical writing in these texts to create narratives that are suited to a specifically Christian form of education, focused on virtue and scriptural interpretation."

Exploring Gregory of Nyssa

Exploring Gregory of Nyssa
Author: Anna Marmodoro
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2018-11-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0192568825

Exploring Gregory of Nyssa: Philosophical, Theological, and Historical Studies brings together an interdisciplinary team of historians, classicists, philosophers, and theologians to offer a holistic exploration of the thought of Gregory of Nyssa. The volume considers Gregory's role in the main philosophical and religious controversies of his era, such as his ecclesiastical involvement in the Neo-Nicene apologetical movement. It looks at his complex relationships-for example with his brother Basil of Caesarea and with Gregory of Nazianzus. Contributors highlight Gregory's debt to Origen, but also the divergence between the two thinkers, and their relationships to Platonism. They also examine Gregory of Nyssa's wider philosophy and metaphysics; deep questions in philosophy of language such as the nature of predication and singular terms that inform our understanding of Gregory's thought; and the role of metaphysical concepts such as the nature of powers and identity. The study paints a picture of Gregory as a ground-breaking philosopher-theologian. It analyses the nature of the soul, and connection to theological issues such as resurrection; questions that are still of interest in the philosophy of religion today, such as divine impassibility and the nature of the Trinity; and returning to more immediately humane concerns, Gregory also has profound thoughts on topics such as vulnerability and self-direction. The volume will be of primary interest to researchers, lecturers, and postgraduate students in philosophy, classics, history, and theology, and can be recommended as secondary reading for undergraduates, especially those studying classics and theology.

The Body and Desire

The Body and Desire
Author: Raphael A. Cadenhead
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2018-11-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0520297962

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. The Body and Desire sets out to retrieve the full range of Gregory’s thinking on the challenges of the ascetic life by examining within the context of his theological commitments his evolving attitudes on what we now call gender, sex, and sexuality. Exploring Gregory’s understanding of the importance of bodily and spiritual maturation for the practices of contemplation and virtue, Raphael A. Cadenhead recovers the vital relevance of this vision of transformation for contemporary ethical discourse.

Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality

Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality
Author: Thomas Arentzen
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2022-11-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0823299694

Sex is a difficult issue for contemporary Christians, but the past decade has witnessed a newfound openness regarding the topic among Eastern Orthodox Christians. Both the theological trajectory and the historical circumstances of the Orthodox Church differ radically from those of other Christian denominations that have already developed robust and creative reflections on sexuality and sexual diversity. Within its unique history, theology, and tradition, Orthodox Christianity holds rich resources for engaging challenging questions of sexuality in new and responsive ways. What is at stake in questions of sexuality in the Orthodox tradition? What sources and theological convictions can uniquely shape Orthodox understandings of sexuality? This volume aims to create an agora for discussing sex, and not least the sexualities that are often thought of as untraditional in Orthodox contexts. Through fifteen distinct chapters, written by leading scholars and theologians, this book offers a developed treatment of sexuality in the Orthodox Christian world by approaching the subject from scriptural, patristic, theological, historical, and sociological perspectives. Chapters devoted to practical and pastoral insights, as well as reflections on specific cultural contexts, engage the human realities of sexual diversity and Christian life. From re-thinking scripture to developing theologies of sex, from eschatological views of eros to re-evaluations of the Orthodox responses to science, this book offers new thinking on pressing, present-day issues and initiates conversations about homosexuality and sexual diversity within Orthodox Christianity.

Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute

Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute
Author: Frances M. Young
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2024-08-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467466298

How did Scripture function in early arguments about doctrine? Historical criticism has revealed a gap between scripture and the mainstream doctrines that define Christianity today. Not the least of these are the Trinity and two natures of Christ—widely accepted since the fifth century, but seemingly unfounded in historical readings of Scripture. How did these dogmas become so integral to the faith in the first place? Frances M. Young tackles this monumental question in a culmination of decades of biblical and patristic research. The second of two volumes, Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute illuminates the role of biblical hermeneutics in the debates that forged Christian dogma on the nature of God. Young shows how the theological commitments to God as the sole creator of all else from nothing shaped fourth- and fifth-century disputes over Christology and the Trinity. Played out in the great councils of the fourth century and beyond, these conflicts drove the need to discern doctrinal coherence in scripture. The different sides relied on different prooftexts, and the rule of faith served as the criterion by which scriptural interpretation was measured—thereby forming the basis of the creeds. Nuanced and ecumenical, Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute completes Young’s magnum opus, closing the gap between scripture and Christian tradition. Young’s magisterial study holds widespread implications for not only patristics but also exegesis and systematic theology.

Patristic Spirituality

Patristic Spirituality
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2022-09-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004526986

Patristic Spirituality explores the divine-human synergy active in the path of Divine ascent in early Christianity, examined through the eyes of notable early Church Fathers and Mothers with 22 patristics scholars as guides.

Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism

Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism
Author: Andrei A. Orlov
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2020-06-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004429530

The essays collected in Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism intend to honor Alexander Golitzin, a scholar known for his keen attention to the Jewish matrix of Eastern Orthodox spirituality. Following Golitzin's insights, this Festschrift explores influences of Jewish apocalypticism and mysticism on certain early and late Christian authors, including Irenaeus, Origen, Evagrius of Pontus, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Symeon the New Theologian. Special attention is given to Jewish theophanic traditions regarding the beatific vision of the divine Glory (Kavod), which profoundly shaped Eastern Christian theology and liturgy. This volume demonstrates that recent developments in the study of apocalyptic literature, the Qumran Scrolls, Gnosticism, and later Jewish mysticism throw new and welcome light on the sources and continuities of Orthodox theology, liturgy, and spirituality