chapter 6
Theosis is the framework for the Cappadocians’ understanding of the spiritual life. Within it there is the goal for all of humanity to ever increasingly participate in God. The fallen virgin clearly represented the Cappadocians’ theological understanding of image and the hope of restoration. Moving through the kenosis-theosis parabola, stages three and four include: (3) Christ assumes the human nature in order to restore humanity to its original nature, and (4) In conversion one’s capacity to reflect the divine nature is once again restored. Two women within the family of Nazianzen serve, for him, as examples of restored humanity. The Cappadocians made it clear that it is Christ’s very kenotic activity, his willingness to assume human nature that makes deification possible for humanity. Christ, then, replaces Adam as the new Man. His life becomes the model for the possibility of theosis in the lives of all who would be willing to follow his example. For Nazianzen, his mother Nonna and his sister Gorgonia become expressions of this restoration, and very specifically, they represent the Cappadocians’ optimistic perspective that restoration in the original image is possible for all of humanity.
Christ assumes the human nature in order to restore humanity to its original nature
The optimistic perspective of the Cappadocians takes on a larger scale when their willingness to include women as models for their faith is considered. Traditionally, women had been blamed for the fall of humanity. It was believed that all women carried within themselves Eve,677 and she was to bear the responsibility for the fall. A century earlier Tertullian had declared:
And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert—that is, death—even the Son of God had to die.678
While the Cappadocians arrive at a more positive perspective, the optimism didn’t last long. Soon after their passing Augustine stated, “What difference does it make whether it is in a wife or in a mother, provided that we nonetheless avoid Eve in any woman?”679 It was believed that every woman seemed to reflect the image of Eve, and this image was ever viewed as corrupted. The restoration of Man was seen in Christ, but this left open the interpretation for the restoration of Woman. Therefore, by utilizing his mother and sister as the examples of restoration, Nazianzen was providing hope for all of humanity, male and female. These examples of restoration by Nazianzen infuse power into God’s restorative reach and express the optimistic perspective that deification is possible for the entirety of humankind.
Marriage vs. virginity
The theological writings of the Cappadocians led one to believe that the best path to deification was by way of a life of asceticism dedicated to virginity. However, the curious placement of married women as examples of holy living and theosis in the Cappadocians’ writings makes one suspect that their human experiences actually drove them beyond their theological writings. The use of two married women as examples of God’s restorative power provides an interesting perspective on marriage. Marriage, in and of itself, was not seen as something evil, and one could be involved in deification, even if one were married. This was possible, in part, because of Nyssen’s concept of virginity of the soul, with virginity understood as a metaphorical term.680 This means that the quality of virginity was found within the process of deification or the level of participation in the divine nature of the individual. According to Jaeger: “The quality of virginity therefore is related to the process of the perfection (τελείωσις) of the true Christian who aims at attaining the divine good.”681 Therefore, marriage could become a reflection of the future eschatological hope of the relationship of God with human kind. Nyssen made it clear that virginity was not “confined to the body.”682 He stressed that it pertained “to all things” and extended “even to thought which is considered one of the achievements of the soul.”683 The soul adheres to its true bridegroom in a desire to become of one spirit with him.684 Nazianzen also commented on this virginity which is beyond the flesh, “Let the mind also be virgin; let it not rove about; let it not wander; let it not carry in itself forms of evil things (for the form is a part of harlotry); let it not make idols in its soul of hateful things.”685 Therefore, according to Cameron, “true virginity can be claimed to be not the rejection of sexuality, but a state liberated from and above sexuality, a state beyond gender.”686 This state was capable for those who were single and married.
The Cappadocians understood that human interaction with God was required for the process of deification. For the likeness or image to be fully restored within the human, the human had to be an imitator of Christ. The human was involved in the process of deification by acts of virtue, and through these acts the human experienced ever-increasing participation in God. It is this synergistic relationship between the Triune God and people, which provided an optimistic eschatology for the Cappadocians. This concept of synergy was also to be seen within human relationships, very specifically in regard to the union of man and woman. The original intent of God in male-female relationships was to be a reflection of the relationship of Christ and the church. Thus, the illustration from marriage became powerful for understanding theosis. It was both the virgins and the married women who provided specific examples to the Cappadocians’ understanding. The virgin who had united herself to Christ alone as his bride provided the penultimate example. However, at the same time, the married women provided a profoundly earthly example of the marriage which was to come between God and people. A truly Christian marriage was to become a foretaste of the relationship of humanity united together with God in theosis.
Just as the fallen virgin in Basil’s Letter 46 has been generally overlooked in study, so too has Nazianzen’s sister Gorgonia, about whom he wrote in Οration 8. We read about Gorgonia, as well his mother, Nonna, in this funeral oration. Historically, we recognize that Oration 8 on his sister Gorgonia is the first funeral oration written honoring the life of a woman. Burrus comments, “Gregory of Nazianzus’ funeral oration for his sister Gorgonia seems to slip through the cracks of literary history, despite more than two decades of sustained interest in representations of women and rhetorics of gender in ancient Christian texts.”687 This document is unique as a panegyric dedicated in honor of Gorgonia. A decade later Nyssen would write De Vita Macrinae, but it is more hagiographic and does not belong to the same genre as does this panegyric. Burrus warns, “The persistent dubbing of Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Macrina as the first female hagiography effectively erases Nazianzen’s fraternal tribute from the history of female lives.”688 The funeral orations of Gregory’s two siblings predate De Vita Macrinae and therefore must be analyzed in light of their influence on Nazianzen’s developing theological thought. Burris suggests that “female hagiography is more helpfully understood not as the legitimate Christian daughter of biography (or of any other genre) but rather as the collective effect of particular intertextual practices that transgress boundaries between genres promiscuously, producing a field of texts at once complexly overlapped and intricately differentiated.”689 It is in this complex overlap that we again discover intersections between Cappadocian theology and life experience.
The Cappadocian fathers had known similar life experiences when it came to significant women in their lives. It was these women who would become role models for their theological thought. Nazianzen became a great leader in the church of his day and is remembered in the Eastern Church as the “Theologian.”690 His path frequently crossed with Basil of Caesarea and his family. Nazianzen spent time with the entire family at Annesi, and the two families became intertwined. The nurture and care of Basil, Nyssen and Nazianzen by strong women in environments that allowed them to flourish to the greatest extent of their potential resulted in the three Cappadocian fathers who would forever be remembered as defenders of Nicene Orthodoxy.
Marriage as a sacrament
Nazianzen honors both Nonna and Gorgonia for their faithfulness in marriage in Oration 8. It is in this recognition of the married life, which may be viewed as an alternate path to theosis as compared to virginity, that Nazianzen establishes marriage itself as an analogy for the ultimate goal of theosis, or union with God. Within Orthodoxy the marriage ceremony is seen as a sacrament or a mystery. From a civil perspective, Christians followed Roman order, accepting marriage as “an agreement between two free parties.”691 However, for Christians, there was one major difference. When the consenting parties had both accepted baptism, it was not the ceremony but rather “who was accepting the marriage contract. If the parties were Christian, their marriage was a Christian marriage . . . for them, marriage was a sacrament, not simply a legal agreement.”692 It was not until later centuries that the Orthodox Church developed the sacrament of marriage, but it is this sacramental aspect of marriage which begins to take form in Nazianzen. Today the Orthodox marriage ceremony is broken into two segments, the first of which is the betrothal, or exchange of rings. The second portion is the crowning, which is “the sacramental action that makes the wedding truly Christian, truly a means of participating in the life of the heavenly Kingdom.”693 Marriage, according to Meyendorff, is “an entrance into the Kingdom of Christ . . . [where] human love will acquire a totally new dimension by being identified with the love of Christ for His Church.”694 Nazianzen, in his Oration on Holy Baptism, spoke to the catechumens, both married and unmarried, acknowledging that both states were acceptable in the Christian life.
Are you not yet wedded to flesh? . . . You are pure even after marriage. I will take the risk of that. I will join you in wedlock. I will dress the bride. We do not dishonour marriage because we give a higher honour to virginity. . . . Only let marriage be pure and unmingled with filthy lusts.695
It is through baptism that one enters into the “realm of eternal life.”696 Therefore, when two individuals who have already entered that realm are united together, it becomes a mystery (μυστήριον)697 placed within the “eternal Kingdom.”698 “The husband becomes one single being, one single ‘flesh’ with his wife, just as the Son of God ceased to be only the Godself and became also man so that the community of His people may also become His Body.”699 It is in this marriage relationship that we see reflected the relationship between Christ and his bride. Nazianzen expresses this connection: “It is well for the wife to reverence Christ through her husband.”700 This theme of marriage is visible throughout the Scriptures where the kingdom of God is compared with a wedding feast, fulfilling “the Old Testament prophetic visions of a wedding between God and Israel, the elected people.”701 Therefore, marriage becomes an analogy for theosis, and Nazianzen is able to apply this to his understanding because of the marriages he has personally witnessed.
Nyssen also speaks out regarding the virtues of married life. While he was rather straightforward in believing that the life of virginity was certainly best, he could also see that there was joy in marriage.
Truly, what is chiefly sought after in marriage is the joy of living with someone. Grant that this is so, and let the marriage be described as blessed in every respect: good family, sufficient wealth, harmony in age, the very flower of youth, much affection, and, what is divined in each by the other, that sweet rivalry in subduing one’s own will in love.702
Nyssen has, at times, a rather negative perspective on marriage, but it appears to come more from personal experience. He personally suffered after the death of his young bride. It is this pain which seems to have had an impact on his opinions regarding virginity and marriage. He warns young people, “If only it were quite possible to examine things ahead of time, how frequent would be the race of deserters from marriage to virginity!”703 These objections seem to stem more from experience than theological analysis. Both Nyssen and Nazianzen express an appreciation for virginity but also believe that theosis is possible for those married and unmarried alike. Nazianzen believes that all are called to a high standard. “Surely, it has been made clear that obedience to the Gospel is required of all of us, both married and celibate.”704 Nyssen also clarifies his stance: “Let no one think that, for these reasons, we are disregarding the institution of marriage. We are not ignorant of the fact that this also is not deprived of God’s blessing.”705 Not only is marriage not deprived of God’s blessing; marriage is a part of God’s blessing.
In conversion one’s capacity to reflect the divine nature is once again restored: the restoration of Eve
Adam and Eve, presented as the first humans, are a married couple. Before the fall of humanity, they are both presented as being created in the image of God. One could argue, therefore, that this first, prelapsarian marriage relationship reflected God’s original intent for humanity. Nyssen argued that the differentiation of the sexes was not God’s original intent in creation but that this became necessary because of God’s foreknowledge of humanity’s sin and the resultant need for procreation.706 However, that does not preclude a relationship between Adam and Eve which existed before the fall. Nazianzen is the one who applies, with positivity, the language of Eve when describing his mother and his sister. For Nazianzen, Christ is the restored image for all of humankind. Now, he stretches beyond those bounds, again showing his optimistic hope for humanity by presenting two women as the hope of a restored Eve.
For this model of restoration Nazianzen presents both Gorgonia and Nonna as exceptional women. He writes of his mother, Nonna:
One woman is famed for her domestic labours, another for her grace and chastity, another for her pious deeds and the pains she inflicts on her body, her tears, her prayers, and her charity; but Nonna is renowned for everything, and, if we may call this death, she died while praying.707
He remarks: “Our mother, from the beginning and by virtue of descent, consecrated to God and receiving piety as a necessary heritage not for herself alone, but also for her children.”708 She had come from a Christian heritage which Gregory referred to as a “golden chain.”709 She is remembered as a woman who was deeply devoted to her Christian faith. Schaff refers to her as “one of the noblest Christian women of antiquity, [who] exerted a deep and wholesome influence.”710
Nazianzen presents Gorgonia as pure and so singularly focused that she “bloomed with virtue alone!”711 Nazianzen’s depiction of Gorgonia’s life is similar to that of Nonna’s, portraying her as perfection. However, if both Nonna and Gorgonia are to serve as models for restoration of the image as the new Eve, then this portrayal would be justified. These women, as the restored Eve, exemplify the power to overcome the gender and societal roles placed upon them yet living wholeheartedly dedicated to God.
Just as Christ is the second Adam, Nonna and Gorgonia are female figures in whom the image of Christ is restored, and through that restoration, they are able to overcome and set aright what had occurred because of Eve’s behavior. “O bitter taste, and Eve, mother of our race and our sin, and deceptive serpent and death—all overcome by her self-mastery!”712 This “self-discipline” is the praise of Gorgonia who practices a life of virtue, and when the practice of virtues are united with Christ, the result is synergistic. Therefore, Nazianzen can say that they have overcome the serpent and death by their self-discipline, for this is theosis. Nonna and Gorgonia have joined into the kenosis-theosis parabola by being united with Christ, “O emptying of Christ, and form of a servant, and suffering now honoured by this woman’s mortification!”713 The mortifications, or putting to death the things of the flesh, allow them to become for us the new Eve. According to Harrison, “Thus women are freed from Eve’s destructive pattern by the Lord’s redemptive work as well as by their own free choice.”714 This concept of restoration and perfect reflection of the image permeates Gorgonia’s life story:
There nobility consists in preserving his image and keeping one’s likeness to the archetype; there reason and virtue and pure desire, and the gift of knowing whence and who we are and where we are heading, all bring this image to full reality, as they continue to form, on God’s own pattern, genuine initiates in the sublime mysteries.715
Therefore, Nazianzen presented Gorgonia as one who understood the goal or telos of humanity and that is deification. It was within the process of deification that both Nonna and Gorgonia became, for Nazianzen, restored women and the new Eve. This speaks to the hope and potential for women who are in the process of deification.
Nyssen’s concept of apokatastasis takes us beyond this human life in the final and ultimate restoration. Frances Young praises Nyssen’s ability to recognize that in the apokatastasis humanity will return to its original androgynous nature. Therefore, it provides “justification for a discourse of gender consistency which points to gender transcendence; and gender transcendence permits the soul to be patterned on the model of Mary, both fecund and virgin.”716 The Cappadocian Marian texts are but a few, as compared to the number of texts dealing with the women in their families. The majority of the Marian texts are placed within the theological debates against Apollinarianism, and specifically deal with her role in the incarnation.717 This does not negate the fact that the Cappadocians,’ and specifically Nyssen’s, “discourse genuinely transcends gender, so that gender discourse is fluid and reversible, always pointing beyond itself.”718 The individual is always reaching higher to the eventual apokatastasis and the end of gender differentiation. Therefore, female role models are not just models for women, but for men and women alike.
Børtnes poses an important question, “How can embodied human beings be eikons of a godhead situated beyond all creation?”719 In other words, how can Nazianzen utilize his mother and sister as eikons for restored female humanity? His rationale is found in the Cappadocians’ understanding of image as a reflection of the original. Nazianzen utilizes himself as an eikon, the concept of which is transferable to the women.
With these words he took a portion of the new-formed earth and established with his immortal hands my shape, bestowing upon it a share of his own life. He infused Spirit, which is a fragment of the Godhead without form. From dust and breath I was formed, a mortal man eikon of the immortal.720
Nazianzen views himself as an eikon of the eikon, or the “mortal image of the immortal.”721 Nonna and Gorgonia have become the eikons of the image of God in the female, since that eikon has been corrupted in Eve. While modern feminism seeks to find female role models and struggle with the male representation of a savior, it appears that Nazianzen had already bridged this gap in the fourth century. It is this bridge toward women which leads one to recognize the considerable influence of Nazianzen’s women on his life, both personal and spiritual.
Prelapsarian marriage
In both Nonna and Gorgonia, we find examples of what may have been considered nontraditional marriage relationships. While Nazianzen had high regard and respect for virginity, one can see that he sees in his sister a model for one who was able to combine the best of both worlds.
Most people distinguish two patterns of living, marriage and celibacy, and consider the latter higher and more divine, but also more laborious and dangerous, and think the former less exalted but safer; she escaped the negative aspect of both states, and succeeded in garnering from both all that is best. She was able to bring both together in a single life—the loftiness of the one, the safety of the other—and to become chaste without becoming proud; she mingled the beauty of celibacy with marriage, and showed that neither of them binds us completely to God or to the world, or completely separates us from them, in such a way that one should be utterly shunned because of what it is, or the other unreservedly praised.722
We have seen previously that the Cappadocians considered virginity to be not only physical but also a state of mind or an attitude to which an individual might gravitate. “The mind, rather, must be the good supervisor of both marriage and virginity, and both must be arranged and moulded into virtue by the craft of reason.”723 Therefore, while a woman may be married, her focus or telos is on Christ, who is the ultimate head of her life. This is Nazianzen’s representation of the new Eve. Fallen humanity had placed the wife in a subordinate position to the husband. Nazianzen’s position is seen in contrast with understanding the headship of the husband as found in Eph 5:23, “For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior.” The problem is the way in which humanity has distorted this headship, which has resulted in the husband becoming “a source of oppression and division.”724 Nazianzen represents this earthly headship as one which must come under the authority of the heavenly bridegroom within Christian marriages which reflect the restored image. Nyssen confirms this: “Thus, it is necessary for us, to move our bodies in accordance with the true Head towards every action and undertaking, wherever ‘He that formed the eye’ or ‘He who shaped the ear’725 leads. Moreover, since the Head looks ‘to the things above,’ it is entirely necessary for the members being in harmony with him to follow his lead and to be inclined to the things above.”726 Therefore, the picture is of a man and woman who are equal under Christ, but in marriage, the woman is under the man but does not have to go through the man to Christ.727 Nazianzen utilizes the marriages of both Nonna and Gorgonia as examples of this type of understanding of headship.
The marriages of Nonna and Gorgonia did not fit the model of what has been defined as a Christian marriage. At the time of their marriages, neither of their husbands were baptized. Here we see Nonna juxtaposed against Eve. Eve, who was to have been a partner to her husband, a yoke-fellow, traded the relationship with her husband for “knowledge from the tree of life.”728 Nonna, however, instead of being the one to lead her husband to destruction, led him to salvation. When she married, her husband was not a Christian, but rather, from the sect of the hypsistarians,729 who worshiped one being.730 It was through her devotion to Christ and the virtue of prayer that he eventually converted to Christianity.731 Gorgonia followed the example of her mother.
For when she was joined to the flesh, she was not, by that same action, separated from the spirit; nor, because she looked on her husband as her head, did she disregard our chief head. Rather, after paying service for a little while to the world and to nature, as far as the law of flesh—or rather, as far as the one who gave flesh its laws—demanded, she then consecrated herself entirely to God.732
Gorgonia was able to win over her husband and “gained for herself a virtuous fellow servant, rather than a virtual tyrant.”733
As Nazianzen reflected on his parents’ lives, he saw their relationship as genuinely Christian and as a model of prelapsarian marriage. Their relationship did not fit the bounds of what may have been considered normal by either society or the church. Nazianzen’s understanding of the restoration of the image of God, which transcended gender, allowed for the type of partnered relationship he saw between his parents. “For the best in men and women was so united so that their marriage was more of a union of virtue than of bodies. Although they surpassed all others, they themselves were so evenly matched in virtue that they could not surpass each other.”734 For both Nonna and her husband, Gregory, the entire goal and focus of their lives was transformation into the image, and this telos usurped all else. Gregory and Nonna became a reflection of the restored marriage relationship.
But she who was given by God to my father became not only his helper,—for this would be less wonderful,—but also a leader, personally guiding him by deed and word to what was most excellent. Although she deemed it best, in accordance with the law of marriage, to be overruled by her husband in other respects, she was not ashamed to show herself his master in piety . . . While beauty, natural as well as artificial, is wont to be a source of pride and glory to other women, she is one who has ever recognized only one beauty, that of the soul, and the preservation and, to the best of her power, the purification of the divine image in her soul.735
According to Harrison this example of Nonna “is particularly interesting because she is not represented as an obedient wife in contrast to insubordinate Eve.”736 Rather, she is portrayed as a wife who, in obedience to Christ, was willing, at times, to lead her husband. Nazianzen had said the same for Gorgonia.737 As spouses, the couples were able to serve together as equal partners, adjusting their roles in the circumstances of life, for whatever drew them on to deification was considered the highest authority.
Finally, it is in the presentation of Gorgonia as the new woman of Prov 31 that we find Nazianzen’s completed picture of God’s original intent for a woman in marriage. Gorgonia becomes a combination of the woman of Proverbs mixed with the New Testament picture found in Titus 2:4–5. According to Nazianzen, she outstrips the woman of Prov 31, for after he praises her in the areas described, he goes on to say, “To praise my sister for such activities, I would be praising the statue on the basis of its shadows, or the lion on the basis of its claws, and be missing the greater, more perfect things.”738 Gorgonia is depicted as loving and caring for her household as well as for her husband, but all of this built upon the foundation of Nazianzen’s understanding of deification.739 Her reach went far beyond her own home, and being recognized as a wise woman, she counselled even men. The men of the community “accepted her advice and exhortation as absolute law.”740 Nazianzen referred to her words as being “sagacious” (συνετώτερον).741 She had become the ideal wife, and the new Eve, a woman who was just as comfortable in the home as she was being an equal partner with the men of her world, and all of this was possible by placing her life within the framework and understanding of theosis.
The practice of virtue
Not only does Gorgonia represent the perfect, prelapsarian wife, but Nazianzen also utilizes her as the role model for the practice of virtue for men and women. He speaks of her strength, “O woman’s nature, defeating that of men in our common struggle for salvation, proving that female and male are differences of body, not of soul!”742 Again, we see a reaffirmation of the location of the image, not in the physical nature of male and female but rather imprinted on the soul of humanity. The hope of salvation was equal for men and for women; therefore, the Cappadocians could use female figures as illustrations for both genders.
A very important feature in deification for the Cappadocians was the role that the individual played in the process. This has become a rather controversial aspect of their theological position. As we have seen in the Fallen Virgin, God never turns his back on humanity. In essence, this represents the grace of God ever reaching out and searching for lost humanity. However, the question is raised as to the role of human response in this process, and this has led to a debate in the last half century regarding Gregory of Nyssa’s understanding of grace and human will.743 In Nyssen we find the synergy of God and people not only in the initial process of salvation or turning toward God but also in the process of deification. The goal, as far as God and people were concerned, was to become like God and to be a reflection of God on earth. However, this did not come about by the action of God alone, but rather by the interaction of God and the human. The responsibility of humanity was to imitate Christ and, in doing so, to become more like him. Therefore, the capacity to reflect the divine image is restored in salvation, but the quality of that reflection becomes dependent upon the effort which one puts into the process of deification. This is why the Cappadocians have, at times, been labelled semi-Pelagians.744 One must bear in mind the Eastern understanding of grace, and ontology. The grace of God continuously reaches out to humanity in a desire to draw humans back into the original image. When the relationship between the human and God is restored, the grace of God continues to draw the human, in a proleptic manner, toward the image. Therefore, as the person practices virtues, there is a synergistic reaction between God and people. In essence, the human steps into the flow of God’s grace and as he or she practices the virtues, he or she is being eternally drawn toward the telos, which is theosis. Knight tells us, “Cappadocian theology brings about an ontological revolution. It is the revolution which dissolves Hellenistic metaphysics and generates a genuine Christian understanding of reality . . . in which the fall is to be understood as subjection to slavery under nature and the depersonalization of humanity.”745 It is the freedom which one experiences by having the image restored, which allows the human to become once again truly human. Human freedom allows us to be an imitator of Christ. Nyssen said, “For the aim of the life of virtue is to become like God; and this is the reason why the virtuous take great pains to cultivate purity of soul and freedom from the passions, so that the form, as it were, of transcendent Being might be revealed in them because of their more perfect life.”746
The women continued to be a resource for the Cappadocians when it came to understanding the practice of virtues. Nazianzen presents Gorgonia’s spiritual transformation as gradual. The process of deification included ever-increasing participation in God, which would include a gradual process throughout one’s lifetime, leading to the final consummation of the relationship with the bridegroom. This meant that the reflection of the image in the life of the individuals would continue to grow and develop throughout their lifetimes, as they became more and more like God. Nazianzen tells us that Gorgonia practiced the virtues, which included a life of piety, in an effort to get to know God on a higher level.747 She had been raised in a home where both of her parents were models of piety and “she was in no respect behind them in virtue.”748 She was a woman who had a full knowledge of “the things of God . . . both from the divine Scriptures, and from her own wisdom.”749
Gorgonia’s desire was that the image would be reflected in her life; therefore, one of the practices of virtue had to do with her outward appearance. She did not want anything about her outward appearance to be a distraction from the image. This meant that she did not dress or make herself up as some of the women of the day. Those who dressed with “blond braids” which were not modestly in “spirals of curls” and who wore “flowing, diaphanous robes” and adorned themselves with “the glitter of stones,” Nazianzen equated with harlots.750 When one looked upon a woman, one was to see the image of God and not the image of a harlot, for the image of God was, in Nazianzen’s mind, true humanity and beauty. Nazianzen responded: “setting forth the divine form as an idol of shame by the honors he bestows, setting forth the divine form as an idol of lewdness for hungry eyes, so that spurious beauty might steal away the natural image meant for God, and for the age to come.”751 The beauty of the bride was to be saved for the bridegroom; therefore the woman who was desiring theosis, was to adorn herself for God alone, and not for this world.
The life of virtue was one in which you were not to seek the luxuries of this world. Nyssen said, “A paradise of pomegranates to the souls of those who are attentive, teaches us that we ought never to grow soft in the indulgence and luxury of this life, but that we should choose the way of life that has become hardened by continence.”752 For the women related to the Cappadocians, this was a challenge, for they were all quite wealthy. Therefore, putting aside the life of luxury for a life of continence meant a radical change in their lifestyle. Nazianzen praised Gorgonia for not surrendering to luxury but instead practicing spiritual discipline, including a restrained appetite and long periods of fasting.753 However, just as Nyssen had warned, she did not give herself over to extremes, and continued to allow herself the benefit of adequate and good sleep.754 She showed discipline by reading and singing the Psalter, studying the Divine oracles, bending her knees as the tears flowed and as her prayers rose heavenward.755
Virtues—prayer
While Nazianzen gave his sister Gorgonia high praise in terms of her practice of virtue, he also recognized the example of his mother Nonna. The practices of virtue are the same for all, men, women, married and virgins, and according to Nazianzen, Nonna is the ornament of her sex and “not only simply ornaments, but also patterns of virtue.”756 While the practice of all virtues is important for spiritual development, it appears that prayer plays a unique role. Nonna seems to excel in the practice of prayer, and Nazianzen utilizes her as a pattern. Many of Nazianzen’s numerous epigrams devoted to his mother “concentrate on the favored manner of her death, in mid-prayer, in church.”757 As one moves on to higher levels in deification one becomes more intense in the practice of virtues, and ever-increasing participation in God. Nazianzen utilized his mother’s life of piety as an example. “Just as the sun strikes the earth most pleasantly with its morning rays and becomes hotter and more brilliant at midday, so she, who from the beginning showed marked indications of piety, shone later with a brighter light.”758 That “fuller light” gave final expression through her death, where Nazianzen referred to her transformation as “God-like.”759 Nazianzen attributed this transformation in his mother to the long hours she had spent in prayer. He described her behavior: “Thy prayers and the groans thou didst love, and sleepless nights, and the floor of the church bedewed with tears procured for thee, divine Nonna.”760 Nazianzen was able to utilize Nonna, revealing that the impetus to practice good deeds or virtue was not motivated by a desire to be a better person, but because of “love of God and Christ.”761 He stated that she had “received virtue as her patrimony.”762 Here again we see language which Nazianzen utilizes to illustrate the synergistic activity of God and humanity in the process of deification. Nonna’s patrimony, or inheritance, from the Father was virtue. It was not something she simply willed or desired; rather, it was a gift from God. In return, the gift inspired her to a life of virtue in which she imitated Christ; therefore, she ascended to higher heights in her quest for the telos.
Nazianzen presented Nonna’s prayer life as her crowning virtue, and as such gave illustrations of its efficacy. If one were to experience ever-increasing participation in God, then there were to be God-like results to prayer. Nyssen reminds that the grace of God seeks after those who are lost. Through her prayer life, Nonna’s participation in God appeared to have included participation in this grace which seeks the lost. Beagon considers Nonna’s greatest accomplishment the conversion of her husband.763 She could not bear being unequally yoked, and therefore, according to Nazianzen:
Therefore, she prostrated herself before God day and night and besought Him with many fastings and tears for the salvation of her husband, and zealously devoted herself to her husband, and strove to win him in various ways, by reproaches, admonitions, attentions, estrangements, and most of all by her own character and fervent piety, by means of which the soul is especially swayed and softened and willingly constrained to virtue. It was inevitable that the drop of water, constantly striking the rock, should hollow it out and in time accomplish its purpose, as the sequel shows.764
After years of prayer and prodding, the elder Gregory finally was baptized and soon thereafter became the bishop of Nazianzus.765
Nonna’s prayers were efficacious in the case of not only Nazianzen’s father, but also in Nazianzen’s own life and that of his siblings. He creates a comparison between God reaching out to lost humanity and a human, his mother, united with God in reaching the lost. Nonna was able to raise children who were committed to a life of virtue, and she became renowned for being the “mother of pious children.”766 Earlier in life Nonna suffered from infertility, and Nazianzen credited his very existence to his mother’s prayer life. Nazianzen equated Nonna with Hannah, who bore a son, but gave him away “to be a holy servant in the temple.”767 The results of her prayers were twofold: bringing about his birth but also drawing him into his life calling.768
The inheritance for Nazianzen included a life of ministry. Nonna had, in prayer, dedicated her son to God’s service. Nazianzen again presents his mother as participating in God’s grace, drawing him back toward the intended purpose in his life, which was ministry. However, as a young man he was not interested in a life of virtue or ministry. He literally ran away from home and his mother. Nazianzen utilized this situation to demonstrate Nonna’s ever-increasing participation in an infinite God, who is not bound by time and space. While on a journey at sea he faced a terrible storm and possible shipwreck and promised God that he would serve him, if only he would survive.769 Nazianzen credited Nonna’s prayers with bringing him to this moment of crisis in his life and it was in the midst of the “violent storm”770 that Nonna’s prayers were answered. Physical death was not to be feared, but rather spiritual death, and this was his “greater fear”771 for he had never been baptized.
My shipmates, in spite of their common danger, joined in my cries as not even many relatives would have done, being kindly strangers who had learned sympathy from their perils. Thus did I suffer, and my parents suffered with me, sharing my danger which became known to them in a dream. And they brought help from the land, calming the waves by prayer, as afterward we learned upon reckoning the time when I returned home. . . . Another one of my fellow voyagers . . . thought he saw my mother walk upon the sea and seize the ship and with no great effort draw it to land. And this vision was believed. As a result of that peril, we ourselves became an offering. We promised ourselves to God if we were saved, and, on being saved, we gave ourselves to Him.772
No longer does Nazianzen simply hint at Nonna’s uniting with Christ, but rather in this illustration, Nonna takes the place of Christ in a story from the New Testament. Through her participation in God, through Christ, it is Nonna who is seen walking on the water coming to save her son and all of those on the ship. As Nonna represents Christ reaching out to lost humanity, those on the ship are saved both physically and spiritually.
Nonna practiced other virtues besides prayer, and Nazianzen continued to utilize his mother and sister as role models for the life of piety. Just as Christ had served the poor, one imitating Christ was to serve the poor. Nazianzen presented his mother, who had been wealthy, as stripping herself of wealth “for God and the poor.”773 He also valued the virtue of hospitality and his sister Gorgonia was an example of one who would open her home and minister to others, being sympathetic to the poor and liberal to those in want.774 Nazianzen encouraged the practice of reverence in the presence of God through the example of his mother. “She honoured the sanctuary by her silence, that she never turned her back upon the holy table, not spat upon the hallowed pavement, that she never grasped the hand nor kissed the lips of any pagan woman, however honourable in other respects and however closely related.”775 It is in this final statement that one may find the perfect facade of Nonna crumbling, or perhaps a bit of her true humanity being revealed. Nonna would have considered her in-laws as heathen. Raymond Van Dam comments, “This attempt to transform Nonna’s obstinate piety into a virtue was perhaps a veiled admission that she had been unwilling to demonstrate a proper deference to her new mother-in-law and her other in-laws.”776 Little more is said on the subject, and we are left to wrestle with whether this was an act of piety or rather a moment in which Nazianzen allows us to see the real Nonna and not just the deified version.
While Nazianzen extolled many of Nonna’s virtues, we return to the greatest virtue for which Nonna was known, and that was prayer. “Another of the saints might vie with the other good works of Nonna; let it be allowed to one to vie with the extent of her prayers.”777 Nonna left the world behind and flew to her beloved Christ, where her passion for prayer and intercession continued and she took on a new role, “and now from heaven she prays aloud for mortals.”778 She is now standing in the presence of her Bridegroom and “prays in the home of the blest.”779
Conclusions
Nazianzen broke barriers when he utilized these married women as illustrations of theosis. The kenosis of Christ, his assumption of human nature, made it possible for humanity to be restored to its original nature. Nonna and Gorgonia became the avenue by which Gregory could portray the restored human nature. Specifically, he equated them with Eve and placed them in the role of the new Eve, providing an example for women in marriage and life in general. While they were living examples for the women of his time, he saw them as crossing the gender gap, at times rising above the stereotype of their gender, and becoming perfected templates for men and women alike. They were examples because they practiced a life of virtue. In conversion, their capacity to reflect the divine nature had been restored, but the intensity of the image grew when seen through the lens of a life of virtue. Transformation occurred in the lives of both of these women as they imitated Christ.
This transformation led humanity to the final goal—to be united with Christ. In the funeral oration for Gorgonia, she became a representative for all of humanity, male and female, celibate and married. Somehow Nazianzen wrapped all of these figures into his sister, so in her story, all of humanity can find themselves in the process of theosis. Gorgonia, while living here on this earth, was already a “partaker in the mysteries of life eternal.”780 She gave everything that she had in service to God, and when she died, she left nothing here on this earth because “she dedicated all on high.”781
Nonna too passed from this earth, and Nazianzen presented a portrait of her transformation. After her death, he wrote more than fifty epigrams in honor of his mother. In Epigram 26 Nazianzen expresses his grief at the loss of his mother: “How are Nonna’s goodly knees relaxed, how are her lips closed, why sheds she not fountains from her eyes?”782 The virtue of prayer had become the normal state for Nonna in a life of wholehearted devotion to the Lord and daily sacrifice.783 The result of this activity was the telos for all of humanity, theosis. In her final moments, Nonna had taken “to her bosom the great Christ,”784 having “laid aside there her body.”785 This is Nazianzen’s description of the union which awaited those who had lived a life of virtue and had always longed for the “heavenly life.”786 Her life of virtue led to purity and she became “one of the guardians of her sex.” In her death she was not only united with Christ, but she shared in the “glory of the pious women, Susanna, Mary and the two Annas.”787
These two women exemplified theosis for Nazianzen, specifically in his understanding of restoration and transformation through virtue. The goal for humanity was to be lifted to higher levels, which included incessant transformation and ever-increasing participation in God, with the resultant apokatastasis, or restoration of all things. The best path for this was to become a bride of Christ. Nonna and Gorgonia are presented as married women who transcended the barrier of marriage and were able to, in the end, become brides of Christ.
677. Clark, in History, Theory, Text, 177, states, “Nowhere is the universalizing tendency more obvious in patristic literature than in the amalgamation of all women with Eve.”
678. Tertullian, fourth part 4.2, On the Apparel of Women (ANF 4:25).
679. Augustine, Works: Letters 211–270, Ep. 243.10.
680. Jaeger, introduction to Two Rediscovered Works, 25.
681. Ibid.
682. Nyssen, DV 15 (PG 46:384) (SC 119) (GNO VIII.I) (FC, 51).
683. Ibid.
684. Ibid.
685. Nazianzen, Or. 37.10 (PG 36:293) (SC 318) (NPNF2 7:341).
686. Cameron, “Sacred and Profane Love,” 13.
687. Burrus, “Life after Death,” 153.
688. Ibid., 154.
689. Ibid., 155.
690. McGuckin, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, xxii–xxiii. Here McGuckin comments on the Eastern Church’s reference to Gregory as the Theologian, however, he finds that designation to be quite puzzling, since the majority of his works are not “dedicated to his theology proper.”
691. Meyendorff, Marriage, 16.
692. Ibid., 18.
693. Ford and Ford, Marriage as a Path to Holiness, xxi.
694. Meyendorff, Marriage, 34.
695. Nazianzen, Or. 40.18 (PG 36:381b–c) (SC 358) (NPNF2 7:256).
696. Meyendorff, Marriage, 19.
697. Eph 5:32. This terminology for mystery means “sacrament.”
698. Meyendorff, Marriage, 19.
699. Ibid.
700. Nazianzen Or. 37.7 (PG 36:289) (SC 318) (NPNF2 7:657).
701. Meyendorff, Marriage, 19.
702. Nyssen, DV 3 (PG 46:325) (SC 119) (GNO VIII.I) (FC, 13).
703. Ibid.
704. Basil, On Renunciation of the World (PG 31) (FC, 17).
705. Nyssen, DV 7 (PG 46:351) (SC 119) (GNO VIII.I) (FC, 31).
706. Nyssen, DHO.
707. Nazianzen, Epigr. 31 (Anthologia Graeca 8:10) (Paton, LCL).
708. Nazianzen, Or. 7.4 (PG 35:758) (SC 406) (FC, 7).
709. Nazianzen, De vita sua (PG 37:1029–166), trans. Meehan, 119.
710. Schaff, History, 910–11.
711. Nazianzen, Or. 8.14 (PG 35:806) (SC 406), trans. Daley, 70.
712. Ibid., 70–71.
713. Ibid., 71.
714. Harrison, Male and Female, 465.
715. Nazianzen, Or. 8.6 (PG 35:795) (SC 406), trans. Daley, 66.
716. Young, “Sexuality and Devotion.”
717. Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church, 142.
718. Young, “Sexuality and Devotion,” 93.
719. Børtnes, “Rhetoric and Mental Images,” 55.
720. Nazianzen, Carm. 1.1.8.70–77, prose trans. Sykes: St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Poemata Arcana, 37, modified and adjusted to the verses of the original by Børtnes, “Rhetoric and Mental Images,” 53–54.
721. Børtnes, “Rhetoric and Mental Images,” 55.
722. Nazianzen, Or. 8.8 (PG 35:798) (SC 406), trans. Daley, 66–67.
723. Ibid., 67.
724. Ford and Ford, Marriage as a Path to Holiness, xxxi.
725. Ps 93:9.
726. Nyssen, DP (PG 46:275) (GNO III.I) (FC, 113).
727. Albrecht, Das Leben der heiligen Makrina, 219.
728. Nazianzen, Or. 18.8 (PG 35:993) (FC, 120).
729. Ibid., 18.5 (PG 35:989) (FC, 118).
730. Schaff, History, 910–11, see also Nazianzen, Or. 18.5, where Nazianzen gives greater detail in regard to the Hypsistarii and their worship.
731. Nazianzen, Or. 18.4 (PG 35:989) (FC, 117).
732. Ibid., 8.8 (PG 35:798), trans. Daley, 67.
733. Ibid.
734. Ibid., 18.7 (PG 35:992) (FC, 120).
735. Ibid., 18.8 (PG 35:993) (FC, 121).
736. Harrison, Male and Female, 464.
737. Nazianzen, Or. 8.8 (PG 35:798).
738. Ibid., 8.9 (PG 35:798), trans. Daley, 67.
739. Albrecht, Das Leben der heiligen Makrina, 220. See also Nazianzen Or. 8.11 (PG 35:801). Gorgonia presents herself to God “as a living temple.” Albrecht says that Gorgonia is the ideal wife (Titus 2:4–5 and Prov 31) mixed with “Hellenistic moral philosophy.” However, I would argue that what Albrecht is referring to as this philosophy, is actually the Cappadocians’ Christianized view of deification. Also see Or. 8.23, trans. Daley, 75: “The light of the Trinity, which no longer eludes a mind bound and diffused by the senses but is contemplated as a whole by the whole mind, grasping us now and letting its radiance illumine our souls with the full light of the godhead. Now you enjoy all the things which, while yet on earth, you possessed only in distant distillations, through the clarity of your instinct for them.”
740. Nazianzen, Or. 8.11 (PG 35:801), trans. Daley, 68–69.
741. Ibid.
742. Ibid., 8.14 (PG 35:806), trans. Daley, 70.
743. For an extensive discussion on this debate, see Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa, locations 1515–63.
744. Jaeger, Two Rediscovered Works, 87–98, refers to this as being anachronistic, considering Pelagianism appeared at a later date. Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, 124, argues that historically any attempt to place an Eastern understanding of grace into a Western or Protestant model is futile.
745. Knight, Theology of John Zizioulas, 88.
746. Nyssen, CC, Homily 9 (PG 44:960d–961c) (GNO VI), trans. Musurillo, 226.
747. Nazianzen, Or. 8.11 (PG 35:801).
748. Ibid., trans. Daley, 68.
749. Ibid.
750. Ibid., 8.10 (PG 35:800), trans. Daley, 68.
751. Ibid.
752. Nyssen, CC, Homily 9 (PG 44:969b–972a) (GNO VI), trans. Musurillo, 232.
753. Nazianzen, Or. 8.13 (PG 35:804).
754. Ibid. Some of the more severe ascetics had given themselves to either sleeping on a board, or spending the “night erect.”
755. Nazianzen, Or. 8.13 (PG 35:804).
756. Ibid., 8.5 (PG 35:793), trans. Daley, 66.
757. Beagon, “Cappadocian Fathers,” 171–72.
758. Nazianzen, Or. 18.11 (PG 35:997) (FC, 124).
759. Nazianzen, Epigr. 36 (Anthologia Graeca 8:12) (Paton, LCL).
760. Ibid., 39 (Anthologia Graeca 8:12–13) (Paton, LCL).
761. Nazianzen, Or. 18.11 (PG 35:997) (FC, 124).
762. Ibid.
763. Beagon, “Cappadocian Fathers,” 171–72.
764. Nazianzen, Or. 18.11 (PG 35:997) (FC, 124).
765. Nazianzen, Epigr. 27 (Anthologia Graeca 8:9) (LCL, 412–13).
766. Ibid., 38 (Anthologia Graeca 8:12) (LCL, 418–19).
767. Ibid., 26 (Anthologia Graeca 8:9) (LCL, 412–13). Ibid., 79, 80 (Anthologia Graeca 8:20–21) (LCL, 434–35).
768. Nazianzen, De vita sua (PG 37:1029–66), trans. Meehan, 437–50.
769. Ibid., trans. Meehan, 195–202.
770. Nazianzen, Or. 18.31 (PG 35:1024) (FC, 140).
771. Ibid.
772. Ibid. (FC, 141).
773. Ibid., 18.8 (PG 35:993) (FC, 121).
774. Ibid., 8.12 (PG 35:801).
775. Ibid., 18.10 (PG 35:996) (FC, 122).
776. Van Dam, Families and Friends, 88.
777. Nazianzen, Epigr. 56 (Anthologia Graeca 8:16) (LCL, 426–27).
778. Ibid., 35 (Anthologia Graeca 8:11–12) (LCL, 416–17).
779. Ibid., 66 (Anthologia Graeca 8:18) (LCL, 428–29).
780. Ibid., 101 (Anthologia Graeca 8:25) (LCL, 444–45).
781. Ibid., 102 (Anthologia Graeca 8:25) (LCL, 444–45).
782. Ibid., 26 (Anthologia Graeca 8:9) (LCL, 412–13).
783. Ibid., 51 (Anthologia Graeca 8:15) (LCL, 422–23).
784. Ibid., 27 (Anthologia Graeca 8:9) (LCL, 412–13). See also Epigr. 29, where he states, “but Nonna the bearer of Christ.”
785. Ibid., 27 (Anthologia Graeca 8:9) (LCL, 412–13).
786. Ibid., 32 (Anthologia Graeca 8:11) (LCL, 414–15).
787. Ibid., 28 (Anthologia Graeca 8:10) (LCL, 412–13). Here he is referring to Hannah the mother of Samuel, Anna from Luke 2:36, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Susanna, one of the wealthy women who sponsored Jesus in Luke 8:2.