James Wellington: Love Intensified: Exploring Gregory of Nyssa's Noetic-Erotic Revolution

The last quarter of a century has witnessed some important presentations on the relationship between desire and the rational faculty in Gregory of Nyssa’s ascetical theology. The purpose of this paper is to move the focus of the discussion away from the anthropological issue and to take up the challenge contained within Hans Boersma’s Embodiment and Virtue in Gregory of Nyssato explore Gregory’s understanding of love, longing and desire from the perspective of anagogical transposition.This exploration will involve an analysis of the triad,ἔρως,πόθος,ἐπιθυμίαand their derivatives in those Gregorian works in which they appear most frequently. These include, most strikingly, In canticum canticorum,but alsoDe virginitate, De oratione dominica, De beatitudinibus, De anima et resurrectione, De vita Moysis, In Ecclesiasten homiliaeand De institutio Christiano.It will draw parallels between this triad and an antecedent in pagan mythology. It will compare and contrast the deployment of the three words in the Gregorian corpus with their usage in the Septuagint and the New Testament. It will move from the opening salvo of De virginitate, ‘The aim of this discourse is to create in the reader a desire for the life of virtue’, to the climax of In canticum canticorum, ‘forἀγάπηwhen intensified is calledἔρως’. And it will demonstrate how Gregory’s appropriation of overtly erotic terminology is driven by his determination to lead his readers into a more vibrant and dynamic devotion to Christ.