Jennifer Jamer: Gregory of Nyssa and the Christian Response to Later Pagan Thinkers: A Consideration of On the Soul and Resurrection

In On the Soul and Resurrection, one of Gregory of Nyssa's most sophisticated and intriguing texts, several features surprise modern readers and provoke questions about the Cappadocian father's motivations for writing and the needs of his audience.   Among these features are Gregory's representation of himself as being almost enslaved by grief in the wake of his brother Basil's death, his choice of his sister as his more learned instructor and interlocutor, and his extraordinary concern about physical disintegration after death and the reality of the bodily resurrection.

This paper argues that these rhetorical strategies make On the Soul and Resurrection a sophisticated  response to the anti-Christian criticisms that were posed by popular pagan philosophers such as Porphyry of Tyre – whose language Nyssa occasionally echoes – and Julian the Apostate.  Surviving epistles reveal that Gregory of Nyssa was well-aware of the philosophical temptations of contemporary neo-platonist philosophy for many educated Christians.  This text is meant to refute some of the more persuasive pagan arguments against Christianity, such as the imperfection of Christian revelation and learning in comparison with Hellenistic education and the idea that Christianity promoted and gave license to the passions (in contrast with the “Stoicizing Platonism” that was fashionable among fourth-century pagans). Gregory uses a self-conscious reversal of expectations; it is philosophy which enslaves Gregory with grief, passion which motivates right action when rightly harnessed and pagan education which is imperfect and incapable of promoting virtue.