Andrew Radde-Gallwitz: Gregory on Gregory: Catechetical Oration 38

In chapter 38 of his Catechetical Oration, Gregory of Nyssa marks a transition. Up to this point in the work, he has handled objections to the Christian mystery from outsiders. In chapters 38 and 39, he will offer a brief account of the faith itself, with a particular focus on the Trinitarian gift of life in baptism. He marks this transition by signaling previous works he has written on the faith, in which he has answered objections to Trinitarian belief. He claims that what he is doing in chapters 38-39 is a compressed version of what he has done at greater length in those works. Several scholars have acknowledged that the passage is important for our understanding of Gregory's corpus as a whole: it is a rare instance of Gregory referring to his own writings. In this communication, I will argue that the passage's true interest has been missed by an overemphasis on the unanswerable question of which works Gregory is referring to; the goal motivating such readings has been to offer a developmental account of Gregory's thought. I will argue that the passage's significance lies instead in the way Gregory identifies a genre of writing on the faith. Once we see this generic distinction, we can gain a deeper appreciation for a number of Gregory's works and can see the unique character of Catechetical Oration 1-37 vis-à-vis those works.