Philosophy at the Festival: The Festal Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus and the Classical Tradition 9789004521407, 9004521402

Table of contents :
Untitled
9789004521407-63171
‎Contents
‎Acknowledgements
‎Introduction
‎1. Gregory’s Life and Education
‎2. Gregory’s Philosophical Culture
‎Chapter 1. Mediterranean Festival Culture and Imperial Greek Rhetoric
‎Chapter 2. Festival Spectatorship and Philosophical Theoria
‎1. The Origins of Philosophical Theoria
‎Chapter 3. The Prooemia of Gregory’s Orations and Traditions of Exegesis
‎1. Platonic Preludes: Or. 2 and Gregory’s “Apology”
‎2. Platonic Preludes at the Festival: Or. 38 “On Theophany” and the Timaeus
‎3. Preludes Continued: The Divine Arrangement of Or. 40 “On Holy Baptism”
‎4. The Influence of Gregory’s Prooemia: Gregory of Nyssa on Easter
‎Chapter 4. Performing Philosophy: Purification, Contemplation, and Assimilation to the Divine
‎1. Katharsis at the Festival
‎2. Theosis at the Festival
‎3. Katharsis, Theoria, and Theosis: The Nativity Oration (38.7)
‎Chapter 5. The Rhetor’s Art: The Audience as Theoroi
‎1. New Sunday and Contemplation of the Heavenly Festival
‎2. The Holy Spirit and the Rhetor: Enargeia and the Feast of Pentecost
‎Chapter 6. Gregory’s Festival Theoria in Byzantium: From Pseudo-Dionysius to Photius
‎Conclusion
‎Bibliography
‎Index of Passages
‎General Index

Citation preview

Philosophy at the Festival

Mnemosyne Supplements late antique literature

Editors David Bright (Emory) Scott McGill (Rice) Joseph Pucci (Brown)

Editorial Board Laura Miguélez-Cavero (Madrid) Stratis Papaioannou (Crete) Aglae Pizzone (Odense) Karla Pollmann (Bristol)

volume 461

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mns‑lal

Philosophy at the Festival The Festal Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus and the Classical Tradition

By

Byron MacDougall

leiden | boston

Cover illustration: Parthenon at Night, Athens by Frederic Edwin Church. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Public Domain cc0. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov lc record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2022024673

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill‑typeface. issn 2214-5621 isbn 978-90-04-52139-1 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-52140-7 (e-book) Copyright 2022 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

For Elsa

∵

Contents Acknowledgements

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Introduction 1 1 Gregory’s Life and Education 4 2 Gregory’s Philosophical Culture 13 1 Mediterranean Festival Culture and Imperial Greek Rhetoric 2 Festival Spectatorship and Philosophical Theoria 1 The Origins of Philosophical Theoria 50

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3 The Prooemia of Gregory’s Orations and Traditions of Exegesis 58 1 Platonic Preludes: Or. 2 and Gregory’s “Apology” 71 2 Platonic Preludes at the Festival: Or. 38 “On Theophany” and the Timaeus 75 3 Preludes Continued: The Divine Arrangement of Or. 40 “On Holy Baptism” 84 4 The Influence of Gregory’s Prooemia: Gregory of Nyssa on Easter 95 4 Performing Philosophy: Purification, Contemplation, and Assimilation to the Divine 98 1 Katharsis at the Festival 99 2 Theosis at the Festival 105 3 Katharsis, Theoria, and Theosis: The Nativity Oration (Or. 38.7) 107 5 The Rhetor’s Art: The Audience as Theoroi 120 1 New Sunday and Contemplation of the Heavenly Festival 122 2 The Holy Spirit and the Rhetor: Enargeia and the Feast of Pentecost 126 6 Gregory’s Festival Theoria in Byzantium: From Pseudo-Dionysius to Photius 143 Conclusion

160

Bibliography 163 Index of Passages 178 General Index 183

Acknowledgements Such a long gestation period is not usually so welcome. However, the years that have passed since the material presented here first took shape have indebted me to an ever-expanding circle of people and institutions. Their support and inspiration have not only made this book possible, but also enriched my life beyond measure. It was a dream come true to complete my dissertation with a Junior Fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks. The name of that institution had been all but synonymous in my mind with Byzantine Studies for as long as I had known that such a field existed, and I remain all the more grateful that my stay there coincided with Margaret Mullett’s justly celebrated stewardship of the Byzantine program and the atmosphere of warm collegiality and intellectual excitement she helped cultivate. Much of the research for the book was made possible thanks to a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University’s Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies. I remain grateful to Dimitri Gondicas for the chance to be a part of the community he has built there, as well as to Emmanuel Bourbouhakis for his scholarly support and friendship. The Classics Department at Brown University provided not just a home but an academic family during my graduate studies and then again for a two-year stint as visiting faculty. That I can count so many wonderful teachers as dear friends and colleagues is an extraordinary blessing. Ever since this book’s beginnings as a dissertation, the wisdom and guidance of Susan Harvey have been simply indispensable. My warm gratitude goes to Harald Buchinger, Douglas Cairns, and Sophia Xenophontos for being such generous hosts at conferences in Regensburg, Nicosia, and Oxford. Susanna Elm’s work on the intellectual world of Gregory and his peers has been an inspiration to me, and for her encouragement I remain personally grateful. The collegiality and patient expertise of Giulia Moriconi as well as the careful work of Millie Gall have been crucial in getting this book ready for publication. To Christophe Erismann, who has influenced my understanding of Late Antique and Byzantine philosophical culture even more deeply than will be apparent from the opening pages of the introduction, I owe more than I can say here, so I will limit myself to a heartfelt merci to a cherished friend and colleague. The idea for my first conference paper on Gregory took shape in a seminar on ancient literary criticism taught by Johanna Hanink. This project has bene-

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fitted from her brilliance and generosity from literally its very beginning. As a Hellenist and as a friend, she is a star to hitch your wagon to. To Thomas Clay and Edward O’Neal, I am grateful for true friendship— adding anything else would be to gild the lily. Joe Pucci’s reputation for deeply humane teaching and scholarship sold me on Brown before I ever set foot on College Hill. With this book, as with so much else, his guidance and encouragement have meant the world to me. For years, Patricia Barbeito and Vangelis Calotychos have made both Rhode Island and Naxos feel like home for me. They make dreams come true. The academic life wouldn’t be one worth living without friends and colleagues like John Bodel, Scott DiGiulio, Garrett Hardee, Łukasz Jasina, Peter Jeffreys, Scott Johnson, David Konstan, Kostis Kornetis and Margarita Markoviti, Dirk Krausmüller, Yorgos Makris, Adam Bremer-McCollum, Graham Oliver, Michael and Mirjam Paninski, Georgios Papageorgiou and Tasoula Koskina, Stéphanie Ravillon, Jay Reed, Dasha Resh, Wendy Schiller and Bob Kalunian, Carey Seal, George Syrimis, Alex Tipei, Yvona Trnka-Amrhein, Philippe Vallat, Marko Vitas, Anna Uhlig, Elvira Wakelnig, Jonathan Waldrop, and Ryan York. To Tara, Preston, Devon, Claire, Ishbel, Chris, Aurora, Eleni, Tasos, Dora, Athina, Giannis, and all of my family in Canada, California, and Greece: thank you for teaching me the most important lessons of all. It was the late Ihor Ševčenko who made me want to become a scholar, and Stratis Papaioannou who shaped me into one. I still pinch myself when I think how fortunate I am to have had those two Byzantinists as mentors and friends. To Stratis, who has shared so unstintingly of his tremendous learning and skill, and whose example in teaching and scholarship remains the gold standard, I am of course especially indebted for his insistence that I learn Modern Greek. Most of all, I am grateful to and for Elsa, το ταίρι μου.

Introduction When my cheek was yet undarkened, a burning desire for literature took hold of me …

∵ These revealing lines are taken from an autobiographical poem by the fourthcentury Cappadocian Father Gregory of Nazianzus that he wrote in retirement towards the end of his life.1 Gregory begins the account of his education and career by tracing his love affair with Greek literature back to the days of his childhood. That “burning desire” (ἔρως … θερμός) for literature would take him from his family home in Cappadocia to the great centers of education in the Greek-speaking half of the Roman Empire, from Caesarea in Palestine to Alexandria and finally to Athens.2 There he spent a full ten years studying rhetoric and philosophy, and he was pressured by friends and teachers to remain for longer. Had he done so, his career might have followed a trajectory similar to those of his purported teachers Himerius and Prohaeresius, who like Gregory left their homelands in the provinces of Asia Minor to study in Athens but who stayed on to become two of the city’s most celebrated professors of rhetoric.3 Instead, Gregory went home to Cappadocia. There, after a period spent teaching and indulging local audiences with rhetorical performances, he embarked upon the career in the Church that would ensure his name would not languish among the hundreds of those of his peers and fellow teachers whose lives are dutifully catalogued in modern prosopographical reference works on

1 C. Jungck (ed.), Gregor von Nazianz: De Vita Sua (Heidelberg 1974) 58, vv. 112–113. 2 For how Gregory’s eros or desire for rhetoric led him to Caesarea in Palestine for the sake of his studies, see also Or. 7.6, in the funeral oration for his brother Caesarius. 3 The standard English biography of Gregory is J. McGuckin, St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (Crestwood, NY 2001). For other accounts of Gregory’s education, see C. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In your Light We Shall See Light (Oxford 2008) 5–9, S. Elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome (Berkeley 2012) 21–25; for Gregory studying under Himerius and Prohaeresius, see Socrates, HE 4.26 and Sozomen, HE 6.17. Elm notes that a late epigram of Gregory’s confirms Prohaeresius was his teacher (23). For Himerius, see R. Penella (tr.), Man and the Word: The Orations of Himerius (Berkeley 2007).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/978900452140

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the educational establishment during the Second Sophistic and Late Antiquity.4 The trained rhetor who returned home from Athens—and who might have been expected to pursue the hoary honors of a post in the regional educational establishment—would instead become known to posterity as Gregory the Theologian, an influential if short-tenured Bishop of Constantinople, and a saint whose works became, after the Bible, the most imitated in Byzantine ecclesiastical literature.5 During that short-lived but fateful episcopacy in Constantinople, Gregory delivered a series of orations for the most important public celebrations in the Church’s liturgical calendar, including the great feasts of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost. These orations, which Gregory subsequently had arranged for publication, played a key role in shaping his legacy in later centuries, as they were counted among the most popular works of this most popular of Church Fathers. Their significance as cultural and literary touchstones is underscored by the fact that by the tenth century, these festal orations were selected to be read aloud every year during the liturgical services for their respective feasts.6 When they were first heard in Constantinople, however, these homilies were not experienced as the pronouncements of a Church Father, but rather as the public festival orations of a rhetor who, as his audience was well aware, had studied extensively in Athens before becoming a priest. That Gregory, the Athens-trained rhetor who had been in love with Greek literature since his childhood, learned how to produce orations for public festivals within what was already a well-established tradition with its own conventions, generic markers, and wider literary concerns. One such concern of festival orations had to do with philosophy, or rather with the act of participating in philosophical discourse. Gregory and his audience belonged to a culture that for centuries had privileged the discussion of philosophical themes—whether in terms of natural, ethical, or metaphysical

4 P. Janiszewski, K. Stebnicka, and E. Szabat, Prosopography of Greek Rhetors and Sophists of the Roman Empire (Oxford 2015). See entry no. 430 for a summary of Gregory’s teaching activity. See De Vita Sua vv. 265–276 for how Gregory characterized the rhetorical activity he engaged in upon returning home to Cappadocia as “dancing” that he put on for his friends. 5 See J. Noret, “Grégoire de Nazianze, l’ auteur le plus cité, après la Bible, dans la littérature ecclésiastique byzantine,” in J. Mossay (ed.), ii. Symposium Nazianzenum: Louvain-la-Neuve, 25–28 août 1981 (Paderborn 1983) 259–266. For the Byzantine reception of Gregory in general see S. Papaioannou, Michael Psellos: Rhetoric and Authorship in Byzantium (Cambridge 2013) 56–63, as well as Chapter 6 below. 6 N.V. Harrison, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: Festal Orations (Crestwood, NY 2008) 12; 191–192 and Papaioannou, Michael Psellos 57.

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philosophy—at festival celebrations. For an Athens-trained rhetor to broach philosophical themes at a public festival—including a Christian festival like Christmas or Pentecost—meant something special for a fourth-century audience. This book is about Gregory’s performance of philosophy in his festival orations, and how that performance influenced the subsequent development of Byzantine literature. It contextualizes Gregory’s rhetorical project against the wider backdrop of the literary and philosophical culture of his time. Gregory was the product of a system of rhetorical education that flourished with remarkable continuity in the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean throughout the early Roman Imperial centuries and the Late Antique period. He participated in the culture of what has been called the “long Second Sophistic”7 or even the “Third Sophistic”8 in recognition of the abiding concerns and social structures that connect the worlds of a Dio Chrysostom or an Aelius Aristides—stalwarts of the rhetorical culture of the period from the late first to early third century that has been the focus of the field of Second Sophistic studies—with those of a Libanius of Antioch or the Cappadocian Fathers in the late fourth century.9 Gregory’s festal orations were directed towards participants in this same culture, and one of the goals of this book is to explore how what Gregory explicitly characterizes as festival “philosophizing” would have been received by those first Constantinopolitan audiences, peers as they were of figures like Themistius and Libanius. For those contemporaries of Gregory, Themistius, and Libanius, as well as for the cultural tradition they all belonged to, public festivals were coded as settings for the pepaideumenoi—shareholders in the cultural enterprise of paideia or literary education—to participate in philosophical discourse. While athletic competitions and performances of epideictic rhetoric feature prominently in our understanding of Hellenic festival culture in the Imperial period, festivals were tightly associated with philosophical discussion, and this was an association that went back hundreds of years. When Gregory declares to his festival audiences that they are in the business of “philosophizing” together, this

7 P. Rousseau, “Can Late Antiquity Be Saved?” Marginalia https://marginalia.lareviewofbooks​ .org/can‑late‑antiquity‑be‑saved‑by‑philip‑rousseau/. posted: 9/15/2015; T. Geue, Author Unknown: The Power of Anonymity in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, MA 2019) 254. 8 R. Fowler and A.J. Quiroga Puertas, “A Prolegomena to the Third Sophistic,” in R. Fowler (ed.), Plato in the Third Sophistic (Boston 2014) 1–30, as well as A.J. Quiroga Puertas, “From Sophistopolis to Episcopolis: the case for a Third Sophistic,” JLARC 1 (2007) 31–42. 9 For discussion see W.A. Johnson and D.S. Richter, “Periodicity and Scope,” in W.A. Johnson and D.S. Richter (eds.), The Oxford Handbook to the Second Sophistic (Oxford 2017) 1–10.

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should not be taken simply as an unmarked use of philosophia in the familiar way it was used by Christian intellectuals to refer, approximately, to the cultivation of Christian virtues and the pursuit of a Christian life.10 The “philosophizing” that Gregory and his audiences engage in is characterized by a much greater degree of continuity with ancient traditions of philosophical discourse. This book will be taking a closer look at Gregory’s “philosophizing” in the festival orations, and will show how they align not merely with what audiences of pepaideumenoi expected regarding the forms of epideictic oratory, but also that they reflect a firmly established habitus of Greek philosophical culture. A pepaideumenos expected to participate in a public festival by engaging in some way with philosophy, and the opportunity to do so is exactly what Gregory’s festal orations afforded him. Like other Christian preachers, Gregory presents the discursive manner of celebrating Christian festivals as a marked improvement upon the sensuality of “pagan” festivals, but this cerebral approach to festival celebration, with its focus on philosophy as the festival activity most proper to the educated members of his audience, in fact represents one of the most important points of continuity with pre-Christian festival culture.

1

Gregory’s Life and Education

Gregory was born in 330 ce to a prominent family of the land-owning provincial gentry in Cappadocia.11 His father, Gregory of Nazianzus the Elder, was significantly older, and indeed comes across as hailing from an earlier era. He had first belonged to a monotheistic religion influenced by Judaism known as the Hypsistarians, so called after their belief in a hypsistos or “highest” God, before then marrying into a Christian family. He converted to the faith of his wife, Nonna, and in short order became the bishop of the Christian community in the local market town, Nazianzus. Their children—Gregory, his older sister Gorgonia, and his younger brother Caesarius—would thus be brought up in one of the leading Christian families in Cappadocia. Eventually all of them would become recognized as saints, largely thanks to the funeral orations that Gregory delivered for his father, sister, and brother, as well as the cycle of poems he composed

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See for example A.M. Malingrey, Philosophia: étude d’une groupe des mots dans la littérature grecque, des présocratiques au ive siècle après J.C. (Paris 1961); Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 72. For Gregory’s biography see above n. 3.

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in honor of his mother.12 Gregory had buried his entire family before becoming Bishop of Constantinople.13 The education that Gregory and his brother Caesarius received indicates that they were both groomed for high-profile careers befitting their status as members of the provincial elite.14 As it had for generations, education in the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean (as indeed in the Latin-speaking parts of the Empire as well) in the fourth century essentially consisted of three main stages: first, basic lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic either with a tutor at home or a low-status teacher known as a grammatistes; then, as a pre- or early-teen, a student would go to study at the school of a professional called a grammatikos or “grammarian”, often having to travel away from their hometown to a larger city in order to find one. Study with the grammarian focused on learning to read and appreciate Classical Greek poetry, mainly Homer (especially the Iliad) and the three great tragedians (especially Euripides), as well as the works of other poets including Hesiod, Pindar, Callimachus, and even Menander. Towards the end of their time with the grammarian, students would begin writing short preliminary exercises in prose composition called progymnasmata. After finishing with the grammarian—around their mid-teens— those with the means to continue their education would then move on to study with a rhetor, a professor of rhetoric who often held an endowed municipal chair and was recognized as a figure of high social standing. Once again, in order to study with such a teacher, students would often have to travel and find room and board in a city of significant size and importance, such as a provincial capital. During their time with the rhetor, students began working in earnest through the complete set of progymnasmata before moving on to the composition and performance of full-length speeches in the various divisions and subdivisions of rhetoric.15 It was during this period that the rhetorical curriculum 12

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For the funeral orations see Or. 7 (on Caesarius); Or. 8 (on Gorgonia); Or. 18 (on Gregory the Elder). Of the 254 funerary epigrams by Gregory that were collected to form Book viii of the Greek Anthology, fully 51 are in honor of Nonna, far more than were included for any other member of his family; see Anthologia Graeca viii.24–74. See Anthologia Graeca viii.78, which Gregory wrote after all four of his immediate family members had died. For treatments of education in this period see for example E. Watts, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria (Berkeley 2006) 24–47; G. Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton 1983); R. Cribiore, The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch (Princeton 2007); A. Markopoulos, “Education,” in R. Cormack, J. Haldon, and E. Jeffreys (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (Oxford 2008) 785–795. See G. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta 2003).

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was solidifying into what eventually became known as the Corpus of Hermogenes. After completing the preliminary progymnasmata, students would hone their skills in composition and argumentation by being introduced to specialized topics in rhetorical theory: how to divide up a speech into its constituent parts, arrange them properly, and produce material for each (“invention” or εὕρησις);16 how to zero in on the specific point of contention in any courtroom situation and then marshal the corresponding set of arguments in favor of or against that point—so-called stasis theory17—and how to analyze any text in terms of its literary style and also reproduce any particular style—including that of an individual author—by manipulating variables of language like diction, rhythm, figures of speech, the length of clauses, and so forth.18 These subject headings reflect the ultimate arrangement, established by the beginning of the fifth century, of the first four treatises of the Corpus of Hermogenes, which begins not with the set of progymnasmata by Hermogenes himself (second century) but that of Aphthonius (fourth century).19 Classroom interest in these topics however significantly predates and indeed seems to have prompted that process of standardization. This rhetorical curriculum— leavened throughout with the study of Classical and more recent models of prose and poetry—not only encouraged spoken and written fluency in a register of the language significantly removed from that used in everyday life. It also trained students in the construction and analysis of arguments, and provided them with a framework for thinking about the aesthetic and affective aspects of language itself.

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G. Kennedy, Invention and Method: Two Rhetorical Treatises from the Hermogenic Corpus (Leiden 2005). For stasis theory and its role in education, see M. Heath, Hermogenes: On Issues. Strategies of Argument in Later Greek Rhetoric (Oxford 1995). For stasis theory in Gregory, see F. Norris, “The Theologian and Technical Rhetoric: Gregory of Nazianzus and Hermogenes of Tarsus,” in J. Petruccione (ed.), Nova et Vetera: Patristic Studies in Honor of Thomas Patrick Halton (Washington 1998) 84–95. For Hermogenes’ treatment of style see C. Wooten, Hermogenes: On Types of Style (Chapel Hill 1987). For Gregory’s interest in the concept of individual literary style as it had been developed in rhetorical theory, see Ep. 180, in which he cites Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s essay on the style of Lysias. For the formation of the Corpus of Hermogenes, including the Progymnasmata of Aphthonius, see M. Patillon (ed.), Corpus Rhetoricum. Anonyme: préambule à la rhétorique; Aphthonios: progymnasmata (Paris 2008) v–xxiii, and G. Kustas, Studies in Byzantine Rhetoric (Thessaloniki 1973) 5–26; on the rationale behind the choice of Aphthonius to introduce the corpus, see G. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta 2003) 89.

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Beyond this three-tiered system of education that culminated in advanced rhetorical studies, those with the means and interest could continue their schooling by studying philosophy. By Gregory’s day, the lower levels of the philosophical curriculum had become relatively standardized.20 Regardless of a given student’s specific interests in philosophy, they began with a foundation in Aristotelian logic and the texts constituting the Organon, which was recognized as an ideal tool for all subsequent philosophical inquiry. The widespread use of the Organon as the basis for the philosophical curriculum is reflected in the fact that it was a Platonist, namely Porphyry, the student of Plotinus, who wrote the work that became the canonical introduction to the Organon itself— the Eisagoge. For Porphyry in the third century, just as for the later Alexandrian Neoplatonist Ammonius and his many illustrious students in the fifth and sixth centuries, it was axiomatic that the study of philosophy should begin with training in logic, and that meant the works of the Organon—above all the Categories, the De Interpretatione, and the first seven chapters of the Prior Analytics.21 Porphyry’s Eisagoge ensured that a student possessed a firm grasp of the technical logical terms known as the “five predicables”—genus, species, difference, accident, and property—before continuing with the Organon. It was only after having completed this course in logic that students interested in Plato— and by the fourth century the prestige of Platonism in terms of cultural capital was unchallenged—would proceed to the Platonic curriculum proper. Here too a favored sequence of readings was taking shape, one beginning with the Gorgias and the First Alcibiades and leading up to the Timaeus and the Parmenides, the two dialogues considered the pinnacles of natural philosophy and metaphysics, respectively.22 From the grammarian to the rhetor, and then perhaps on to the classroom of the philosopher: regardless of what career path a fourth-century student getting an elite education might have in mind, he was in for a long apprenticeship. It then comes as no surprise when we consider that Gregory spent roughly two decades as a student, from when he began studying with a grammarian as a young adolescent to around the age of thirty. His studies would take him to several of the major educational centers of the Eastern Mediterranean. After introductory lessons with the local grammarian in Nazianzus itself, he and his brother went on to study in the provincial capital Caesarea,

20 21 22

On the structure of the philosophical curriculum, see R.T. Wallis, Neoplatonism (Indianapolis 1995) 19 and 24. C. Erismann, “Logic in Byzantium,” in A. Kaldellis and N. Siniossoglou (eds.), The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium (Cambridge 2017) 362–380, at 363. Wallis, Neoplatonism 19.

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where they completed the next tier of their education under a grammarian and began the study of more advanced rhetoric. Afterwards, Gregory traveled to Caesarea in Palestine, renowned since the days of Origen in the third century as a center for Christian scholarship, to study with the rhetor Thespesios.23 Gregory then continued on to Alexandria, still the greatest city in the wider world of the Eastern Mediterranean, though it would soon be surpassed by Constantinople.24 In addition to being built on an exponentially grander scale than anything Gregory had seen in his life so far, Alexandria was a major educational center, especially in medicine and philosophy, as indeed it would continue to be for several generations after the closing of the Academy in Athens in 529.25 Gregory did not stay long in Alexandria, however, and soon he would continue on to Athens itself, the venerable university town whose famous schools of rhetoric and philosophy had attracted students from all over the Mediterranean for hundreds of years.26 Gregory would stay in his “Golden Athens” (Or. 43.14) for almost a decade, a period he regarded as the happiest in his life, especially since it was there that he and Basil were reunited and spent the formative years of their friendship. During his final years in Athens Gregory became active as a teacher himself, and in one of his autobiographical poems he indicates that after Basil returned home to Caesarea, he gave in to his students’ insistent request that he stay on for a while.27 Unlike Himerius and Prohaeresius, his fel23 24

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Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 7; Elm, Sons of Hellenism 21–22. For the growth of Constantinople and the difficulty in establishing accurate population estimates, see Cyril Mango’s entry on “Constantinople” in A. Kazhdan (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (Oxford 1991). For the circumstances surrounding the end of teaching activity at the Academy, see Watts, City and School 111–142. Watts, City and School 24–47. Cf. Or. 43.24; De Vita Sua 256. Relying on these passages, especially the latter, Gregory’s seventh-century hagiographer and namesake Gregory Presbyter will say that Gregory’s students in Athens begged him to accept the “sophistic throne” (καὶ παιδεύειν αὐτοὺς ἐκλιπαροῦσι, τόν τε σοφιστικὸν θρόνον παρακαλοῦσι δέχεσθαι, Vita Greg. Naz. 5.10). This in turn has led some modern scholars to believe that Gregory was offered one of the three publicly funded municipal chairs in Athens; see for example Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 9, following Frank Norris, Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning: The Five Theological Orations of Gregory of Nazianzen (Leiden 1991) 5, who is however more circumspect. What Gregory actually says in his autobiographical poem is that his students promised “to give him authority in rhetoric by vote”, (ὡς δὴ λόγων δώσοντες ἐκ ψήφου κράτος, 256). Gregory seems to be saying that his students promised that they would support him vociferously as a candidate for those municipal chairs, especially at the public rhetorical competitions between prospective candidates that played an important role in deciding who would receive such an appointment; see for example Jungck, Gregor von Nazianz 163.

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low rhetors from the provinces of Asia Minor who had first come to Athens to study but then became teachers and settled there for good, Gregory returned home sometime in 358 or 359 to Cappadocia. However, the name of Athens would forever elicit from him notes of deep nostalgia.28 From Cappadocia to Palestine to Alexandria to Athens, Gregory’s travels across the Eastern Mediterranean in pursuit of his studies and that broader process of cultural formation known as paideia are perhaps remarkable for their extent, but they nevertheless reflect trends that were common in education of the time. Young men studying rhetoric traveled from city to city and from teacher to teacher, and often marked their return to their hometown by giving a series of performances to advertise the skill and learning they had acquired during their travels abroad—and in the process attract potential pupils.29 In this respect too Gregory’s activities align him with other students of rhetoric who went on to become teachers in their own right. Both Gregory’s autobiographical poem and the funeral oration for Basil allude to the rhetorical performances that he delivered for local audiences upon his return to Cappadocia. In the poem he even goes so far as to characterize those performances as “dances” he put on for his friends.30 These performances marked the beginning of a period in which Gregory was primarily engaged in teaching rhetoric in Nazianzus, a period which Susanna Elm has argued would most likely have lasted at least until his ordination to the priesthood in 361 or 362, and perhaps for even longer.31 Regardless of exactly when his priestly responsibilities made extensive teaching no longer practicable, Gregory would maintain for the rest of his life close relations with a wide network of professional teachers, former students, as well as fellow ecclesiastics and government officials with an abiding interest in education and literary culture.32 Right up until his ordination, 28 29

30 31

32

The classic passage here is in Gregory’s funeral oration for Basil and his account of their days together in what Gregory calls his “truly golden Athens” (Or. 43.14). Watts, City and School 9. See e.g. Libanius, Or. 1.27–28 on how Libanius accompanied his school friend Crispinus on his journey home from Athens to Heraclea Pontica in Bithynia, where they gave rhetorical performances to show off what Crispinus had learned in Athens. De Vita Sua 265–276; Or. 43.25. See Elm, Sons of Hellenism 26: “There is little doubt among scholars that Gregory became a teacher of rhetoric. It is very probable, however, that he held the position longer than the few months or one year that have usually been assumed, at least until his ordination in late 361 or early 362 and potentially even to mid-363. Gregory’s social status and that of his family support this probability.” Elm further argues that, as Caesarius did by moving to Constantinople, Gregory evaded curial tax duties by becoming a teacher (28). See N. McLynn, “Among the Hellenists: Gregory and the Sophists,” in J. Børtnes and T. Hägg (eds.), Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections (Copenhagen 2006) 213–238; Elm,

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Gregory followed a path that might have led him to become a Christian Libanius or Himerius—or another Prohaeresius for that matter. After being ordained by his father, Gregory began to assume ever expanding roles in the administration of the local church and in the theological controversies which were then roiling the wider Christian community.33 The period of warm cooperation and shared intellectual growth with Basil, the bosom companion of his days in Athens, came to an abrupt end after 370, when Basil was elected bishop of the Cappadocian capital Caesarea, which gave him authority over the other sees in the province. In 372, in a tactical move designed to shore up his own position, Basil named Gregory, without his prior knowledge or consent, to the bishopric of Sasima, an obscure town, thus making Gregory one of his subordinate suffragan bishops. Gregory balked at this, and seems to have never made even a show of taking up residence in his nominal see. In the previous years he and Basil had been quite close, nurturing their mutual scholarly interests and keeping up a lively correspondence—a correspondence that Gregory later carefully curated to ensure that his friendship with Basil be remembered as a key part of his own personal legacy.34 Those letters chronicle a visit that Gregory made to the new monastic retreat that Basil had recently established at his family’s property in Annesi in Pontus.35 The wit, learning and warm feeling that mark those letters offer tantalizing suggestions of what their days as students in Athens together might have been like. They seem to have grown apart after the Sasima affair, and in any event their paths soon diverged. Gregory’s parents died in 374 shortly after one another. Both his brother and sister had died a few years earlier, and it is at this point, recently orphaned and with his close friend engrossed in the affairs of his province and monasteries, that Gregory left Cappadocia. He went to Isauria and installed himself in the monastic and pilgrimage complex that had grown up around the shrine of the martyr Thekla in Seleucia. He would spend the next several years there in contemplative retreat, a retreat that can in hindsight be considered as the immediate preparation for what would be the most high-profile role of Gregory’s career.36

33 34 35 36

Sons of Hellenism 25; 150–153; B. Storin, Gregory of Nazianzus’s Letter Collection (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019) 4–6. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 10–16. Storin, Gregory of Nazianzus’s Letter Collection 9. Eps. 4–6. For the classic theme of philosophical retreat as preparation for undertaking roles of leadership, see especially Elm, Sons of Hellenism 160–162 on an earlier period in Gregory’s career when he was first ordained as a priest.

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The catastrophic Roman defeat at Adrianople in 378 set off a chain of events that would bring Gregory to Constantinople. To replace Valens, who had been killed in the battle, a military officer named Theodosius was installed as emperor in the eastern half of the empire in January 379. Valens had supported what is known as Homoian Christian theology, named for the belief that God the Father is “similar” to the Son, and he left behind in the capital a church hierarchy staffed by like-minded Homoian allies.37 For Gregory and his fellow adherents of Nicene theology who held to the Homoousian position—namely that God the Father and God the Son are of the “same substance”—the regime change opened up new possibilities. A network of Homoousian bishops and theologians tapped Gregory to travel to Constantinople in order to oversee the Nicene community there in anticipation of Theodosius’s imminent visit to the eastern capital. The fondest hopes of the Homoousians came to fruition. In February 380 Theodosius issued a declaration in support of the Nicene position, and Demophilos, the Homoian bishop of Constantinople, would be forced to relinquish control of the city’s churches to Gregory and his allies.38 It was as bishop of the imperial capital that Gregory welcomed the new emperor to Constantinople in November. Gregory would not hold his seat for long though. At the council of bishops that was called at Constantinople in the spring of 381, and which would become known as the Second Ecumenical Council, Gregory resigned his position, and after taking his leave of Theodosius and the city—a leave-taking memorialized in his forty-second oration—he returned to Nazianzus in Cappadocia. Gregory would spend much of the next decade attending to his own historical and literary legacy.39 It was during this period that he wrote most of his vast corpus of poetry, in addition to selecting and arranging the definitive collection of his correspondence.40 It was also during this final decade of his life that he edited a set of his orations for publication. The texts included showcase the range of themes that he engaged with as well as a variety of occasions from different periods in his career: polemics against Julian first published in the wake of his death on the battlefield (Ors. 4 and 5); funeral orations for members of his family (Ors. 7, 8, and 18) and for Basil (Or. 43); the suite of five theological treatises known as the Theological Orations that he wrote in Con-

37 38 39 40

Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 25–26. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 36. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 60–61. For Gregory’s aims in producing and disseminating this collection of letters, see now B. Storin, Self-portrait in Three Colors: Gregory of Nazianzus’s Epistolary Autobiography (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019).

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stantinople and which were instrumental in securing for him the title of “the Theologian” for posterity (Ors. 27–31); an exegetical homily on a verse of Scripture (Or. 37 on Matthew 19:1); encomia delivered for the feast days of saints, whether well established (Or. 24 for Cyprian of Carthage), more recently recognized (Or. 21 for Athanasius of Alexandria), or those for whom Gregory’s work marks the first attestation of Christian cult (Or. 15 on the Maccabees).41 Finally, there are the orations that Gregory performed for what were in the process of becoming the chief festivals of the Christian liturgical calendar: the Nativity and Baptism of Christ (Ors. 38–40), Easter (Ors. 1 and 45), New Sunday or the first Sunday after Easter (Or. 44), and Pentecost (Or. 41).42 The most significant of these—including the Pentecost Oration and the three orations stretching from the Nativity to Epiphany (Ors. 38–40)—were performed in a state closely approximating that in which they have come down to us during Gregory’s tenure in Constantinople.43 Just as with his letters and his poetry, Gregory’s orations would help define whole genres of Byzantine literary production,44 and in particular these festal orations became in later centuries the most widely studied and translated of Gregory’s works. While the orations composed for the feasts of individual saints draw extensively on rhetorical forms such as the enkomion, epitaphios logos and the basilikos logos in narrating the life, conduct, and accomplishments of their honorands, the orations for Christmas, Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost were composed for festivals celebrating divine subjects.45 It is these orations, held for the great feasts of the liturgical calendar, and their adaptation of Classical philosophy for festival performance that form the subject of this book.

41 42 43

44 45

M. Vinson (tr.), St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Select Orations (Washington DC 2003) 72 n. 2. For the historical development of these and other feasts see P.F. Bradshaw and M.E. Johnson, The Origins of Feasts, Fasts and Seasons in Early Christianity (Collegeville, MN 2011). The first oration for Easter, Or. 1, a much shorter text than the other orations, was delivered in 362 after he was first ordained as a priest. The second Easter oration, Or. 45, was delivered on Easter 383 in Cappadocia, and incorporates extensive passages verbatim from Or. 38. The oration for New Sunday, Or. 44 may have been delivered the following Sunday, as suggested by Vinson, St. Gregory of Nazianzus 230 n. 1, although this is unclear; see B. Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus (London 2006) 154–155. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 61. For an introduction to the martyr encomia of the period and their literary background, see J. Leemans et al., “Let Us Die that We May Live”: Greek Homilies on Christian Martyrs from Asia Minor, Palestine, and Syria c. ad 350–450 (London 2003) 22–38: “The structure of the panegyric is often (however loosely) modeled after Menander’s basilikos logos, the oration in praise of the emperor” (27). For general description of the activities at the saint’s festival, see pp. 15–22. For Gregory’s epitaphios logos on Basil, see D. Konstan, “How to Praise

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Gregory’s Philosophical Culture

Before exploring what I am calling the performance of philosophy in these festival orations, it will be useful to provide a sense of Gregory’s philosophical culture in general, in particular as it reflects the curriculum sketched above.46 It should be noted here at the outset that this extended above and beyond the deft skill in wielding familiar Platonic allusions that would have been expected of all the members of the educated class who were interested in literature more generally, the pepaideumenoi. To be sure, those cherished tags are there: in a letter to Themistius, the great philosopher-statesman and pagan luminary, Gregory alludes to the prediction from the Republic that good government will never appear until philosophers become kings or vice versa;47 the famous line from the Timaeus that “to know the divine is difficult, but to express it is impossible” gets trotted out appropriately if predictably in one of the Theological Orations, where it is even attributed to “one of the theologians among the pagans”;48 and another oration from that same set features the Phaedo’s classic characterization of philosophy as a “practice for death”, a quotation which Gregory redeploys in a letter of consolation where he pairs it with the play on σῶμα (“body”) and σῆμα (“barrow” or “tomb”) from the Cratylus.49 All these allusions reflect the practiced ease with the most eminently quotable pieces of the Platonic tradition that was meant to adorn the language of all those interested in paideia. It is exactly what one would expect of someone with Gregory’s long background in rhetoric. Gregory’s writings however reveal his deeper philosophical training, and they allow us to see that it began with a curriculum similar in many respects to that described above. From his use of

46

47 48 49

a Friend: St. Gregory of Nazianzus’ Funeral Oration for St. Basil the Great,” in T. Hägg and P. Rousseau (eds.), Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 2000) 160– 179, at 166–169. For the massive theme of the influence of Classical philosophy on Gregory and his fellow Cappadocians, see for example J. Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism (New Haven 1993), C. Moreschini, Filosofia e letteratura in Gregorio di Nazianzo (Milan 1997); A. Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys (2nd edition) (Oxford 2007); D. Bradshaw, “Plato in the Cappadocian Fathers,” in R. Fowler (ed.), Plato in the Third Sophistic (Boston 2014) 193–210. For a recent treatment of Gregory’s self-presentation as a philosopher, see Storin, Self-Portrait in Three Colors 121–145. Ep. 131; cf. Resp. 473c–d. Or. 28.4: Θεὸν νοῆσαι μὲν χαλεπόν, φράσαι δὲ ἀδύνατον, ὥς τις τῶν παρ’ Ἕλλησι θεολόγων ἐφιλοσόφησεν. Cf. Tim. 28c. Phaed. 81a; Crat. 400c; Or. 27.7; Ep. 31. For the significance of the Cratylus in debates of the time see Elm, Sons of Hellenism 247–249.

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logic and the Organon, to the wider Aristotelian tradition, to Platonic philosophy both in the form of Plato’s own dialogues and the more recent elaboration of Platonism represented by the Enneads of Plotinus, it is clear that Gregory’s decade in Athens was not spent in vain. Gregory’s background in logic is on prominent display for example in the Theological Orations. There we see the same application of Aristotelian and Porphyrian terminology—especially the “five predicables” treated in Porphyry’s Eisagoge—that becomes so closely associated with Gregory of Nyssa, the youngest of the Cappadocians and the one who is today considered the most philosophically oriented.50 The Theological Orations of Gregory of Nyssa’s older namesake draw on Porphyry to distinguish between “accident” (συμβεβηκός) and “substance” (οὐσία) as they are used with respect to the divine, and Gregory employs a formula that he uses elsewhere to make it clear that he is drawing on technical philosophical terminology.51 The same oration’s discussion of what are known as nominalist versus realist understandings of universals— that is, whether words like “divinity” and “humanity” are simply abstract terms or if they refer to really existing entities comparable to some extent to Platonic forms—is clearly meant for an audience with a similar background in Porphyry.52 Furthermore, Gregory gives the textbook Aristotelian definition of the species “human”—animal, rational, mortal—and his discussion of homonyms in the Aristotelian sense of “equivocal” words shows his careful study of the doctrine of the opening treatise of the Organon, the Categories, which begins

50

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52

For the Cappadocian synthesis of Porphyry, especially on the part of Gregory of Nyssa, see in particular C. Erismann, “L’individualité expliquée par les accidents: remarques sur la destinée “chrétienne” de Porphyre,” in C. Erismann and A. Schniewind (eds.), Compléments de substance. Etudes sur les propriétés accidentelles offertes à Alain de Libera (Paris 2008) 51–66; id. “Catachrestic Plural Forms: Gregory of Nyssa and Theodore Abū Qurrah on Naming and Counting Essences,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 22.1 (2014) 39–59, and id. “Logic in Byzantium,” 365–366. Or. 31.6: τὸ μὲν οὐσίαν καλοῦσιν οἱ περὶ ταῦτα δεινοί, τὸ δὲ συμβεβηκός (“those especially skilled at such matters call the one substance, the other accident”). For Gregory’s use of the formula “those especially skilled at such matters” (οἱ περὶ ταῦτα δεινοί) to refer to technical philosophical discussions, see also Or. 42.16 (Αὐτοὶ δὲ τὴν μέσην βαδίζοντες καὶ βασιλικὴν, ἐν ᾧ καὶ τὸ τῶν ἀρετῶν ἕστηκεν, ὡς δοκεῖ τοῖς ταῦτα δεινοῖς), a passage which alludes to the Aristotelian doctrine of the Golden Mean (cf. Aristotle’s μέσον τε καὶ ἄριστον, ὅπερ ἐστὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς, at EN 1106b11). Or. 31.15 For the Cappadocian adaptation of Aristotelian and Porphyrian terminology and doctrine regarding the ontological status of universals, see Erismann, “Catachrestic Plural Forms”, and J. Zachhuber, “Universals in the Greek Church Fathers,” in R. Chiaradonna and G. Galluzzo (eds.), Universals in Ancient Philosophy (Pisa 2013) 436–447, as well as id. The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics (Oxford 2020).

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with Aristotle’s treatment of homonymy.53 Perhaps more than any of his other works, Gregory’s Theological Orations helped to ensure that he would be known as “the Theologian”.54 They represent the fruit of a long training in the logical curriculum and a well-practiced application of that curriculum to theological problems, and they are directed towards an audience with a similar background.55 As extensive as Gregory’s use of Porphyry and the Organon may be, it is however his interest in another area of the Aristotelian corpus—namely the ethical tradition—that reveals the depth of his philosophical culture. In Gregory’s time, and indeed throughout Late Antiquity in general, the curriculum for the most part treated Aristotelian logic as a kind of preliminary discipline for approaching the real goal of philosophical education, Platonism. The Aristotelian legacy, apart from the logical works, enjoyed comparatively little cultural prestige for its own sake. The exception that proves the rule here is Gregory’s contemporary (and correspondent) Themistius, whose fame in the history of philosophy derives in large part from the fact that he was seriously engaged with aspects of the Aristotelian tradition as a committed Peripatetic (perhaps the last) at a time when the study of Aristotle was increasingly subordinated as a tool to prepare to study Plato.56 Like Themistius, Gregory was not merely interested in the Aristotelian tradition for the sake of using the Organon and Porphyry as prefatory material for the study of Platonism. He also knew well the Aristotelian tradition of moral 53 54

55

56

For the definition of the species “human”, see Or. 31.24. For Aristotelian homonyms, see Or. 29.13, as well as Norris, Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning 148–151. He was being cited as “the Theologian” already at the Council of Chalcedon in 451; see Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus vii on how Gregory shares this distinction only with John the Evangelist and Symeon the New Theologian, and how the latter’s epithet presupposes Gregory as the “original” theologian. For the philosophical paideia Gregory presupposes of his audiences, especially in the Theological Orations, see Norris, Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning 17–39; Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 77–78, and Elm, Sons of Hellenism 403–413. For Gregory’s letters to Themistius see Eps. 24 and 38. For Themistius and the noteworthiness of the depth of his interest in Aristotelianism, see R. Penella, The Private Orations of Themistius (Berkeley 2000) 13–14; P. Heather and D. Moncur (trs.), Politics, Philosophy and Empire in the Fourth Century: Select Orations of Themistius (Liverpool 2001) 2; and especially H. Blumenthal, “Themistius: the last Peripatetic Commentator on Aristotle?” in R. Sorabji (ed.), Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators and their Influence. 2nd Edition (London 2016) 119–132 at 131: “Thus both the content of Themistius’ works, and such evidence as we have of the commentators’ attitudes to him, show that he was predominantly a Peripatetic. In this he stood out against the tendencies of his time … Themistius may rightly claim to have been the last major figure in Antiquity who was a genuine follower of Aristotle.”

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philosophy, in particular as represented by the Nicomachean Ethics. In a letter of consolation to Philagrios, a frequent correspondent and old friend from his student days in Athens, Gregory discusses at length Aristotle’s treatment of happiness in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, citing Aristotle by name and criticizing his argument that happiness is to some degree contingent upon “external” factors like physical health and material prosperity.57 On the one hand, Gregory’s use of Aristotle here is representative of the sort of philosophical reflection we would expect to find in a learned letter adhering to the conventions of the consolatio genre. However, we can see from other passages that Gregory knew the Nicomachean Ethics not just from anthologies of philosophical quotations for example, but intimately enough to be able to incorporate into his own work the very structure of Aristotle’s approach to ethical problems. Thus, to turn once again to the Theological Orations, Gregory begins the first treatise by discussing the question of how theology should be conducted, and he does so by invoking a set of qualifications famously used by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. Just as for Aristotle emotions like anger or fear are not good or bad in and of themselves, but must be directed at the right people, to the right extent, and at the right time in order to be virtuous, so for Gregory the act of performing theology and philosophizing about God is not good or bad in and of itself, but must be performed “with the right people, to the right extent, and at the right time”.58 Gregory’s application of the approach of the Nicomachean Ethics—an approach designed to identify the “Golden Mean” of virtuous action or behavior in a given scenario—is apparent both at the macro level of finding a virtuous middle by avoiding vicious extremes and at the micro level in his use of characteristic Aristotelian phrases and formulas.59 When it comes to Platonism as well, both in its ancient form and in its more recent Plotinian incarnation, we find that Gregory drank deep from the source. The following chapters will show in particular how he draws extensively

57 58

59

Ep. 32, citing EN 1.7–8, especially 1099b8. For Gregory’s adaptation in Or. 27 of the language and ideas of the Nicomachean Ethics, especially passages like EN 1106b18–23 and EN 1109a26–30, see B. MacDougall, “The Ethos of a Theologian: Gregory of Nazianzus and the Reception of Classical Ethics,” in S. Xenofontos and A. Marmodoro (eds.), The Reception of Greek Ethics in Late Antiquity and Byzantium (Cambridge 2021) 161–173. The theme of achieving a desired mean between two extremes is a leitmotif across Gregory’s literary output; see for example its appearance in a famous epistle to Nikoboulos (Ep. 51), a letter about letter writing. For another of Gregory’s letters that engages closely with material from the Nicomachean Ethics, namely Aristotle’s treatment of happiness at EN 1097b20–1099b8, see also Ep. 32.

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from dialogues like the Symposium, the Phaedrus, and the Timaeus in his performance of philosophy in the festal orations. For the purposes of a general introduction to Gregory’s philosophical culture, we can point here to another set of passages in the Theological Orations. Thus for example in the second treatise, “On Theology”, Gregory cites “one of the pagans” (τις τῶν ἀλλοτρίων, literally “one of the others”) on how God is to the intelligible world what the sun is to the world of the senses.60 The pagan in question is of course Plato, and Gregory has in mind the Analogy of the Sun at Republic 507b–509c. It is just one of many moments when Gregory draws on what continued to be a foundational text in the philosophical curriculum.61 The Enneads may not have secured such a place in the curriculum by Gregory’s time, but he seems nevertheless to have been intimately familiar with Plotinus’s language and ideas. In the first of the Theological Orations, Gregory adapts an image from Ennead i.6 (“On Beauty”), the most famous essay in the entire collection. Plotinus encourages the reader to take care of his soul and “go back and look at yourself, and if you see that you are not yet beautiful, then ⟨act⟩ like the sculptor of a statue that needs to be made beautiful who carves away at this and polishes that … until he makes the appearance of the statue beautiful”.62 Gregory takes Plotinus’s account of the care of the self and adapts it into a recommendation for would-be theologians to first cultivate their own virtue, declaring that he and his audience should “look to themselves and polish their theologian, like a statue, into a beautiful form” (πρὸς ἡμᾶς αὐτοὺς ἴδωμεν, καὶ ξέσωμεν εἰς κάλλος, ὥσπερ ἀνδριάντα τὸν θεολόγον, Or. 27.7).63 In another passage in the Theological Orations, Gregory seems to be referring to Plotinus again when he discusses the theory of “a certain pagan philosopher” (τῶν παρ’ Ἕλλησι φιλοσοφησάντων … τις) on the divinity overflowing with goodness “like a wine bowl that has spilled over” (οἷον κρατήρ τις ὑπερρύη, Or. 29.2).64 Whether the philosopher in question is indeed to be identified with Plotinus, or if Gregory has some unknown source in mind, passages like these show how Gregory engaged extensively with the wider Platonic tradition. We can further deduce that, especially in these Theological Orations, Gregory was addressing an audience equipped with the requisite philosophical culture 60 61

62 63 64

Or. 28.30. Gregory was fond of the analogy and makes use of it also at Or. 21.1; see further Or. 2.74 for a passage similarly indebted to Plato’s Republic—through however many intermediaries— comparing the image of God to a reflection of the sun in the water (cf. Rep. 516b). Plotinus, Enneads i.6.9: Ἄναγε ἐπὶ σαυτὸν καὶ ἴδε· κἂν μήπω σαυτὸν ἴδῃς καλόν, οἷα ποιητὴς ἀγάλματος, ὃ δεῖ καλὸν γενέσθαι, τὸ μὲν ἀφαιρεῖ, τὸ δὲ ἀπέξεσε … Cf. Gallay, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 27–31 87 n. 3. Gallay, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 27–31 181 n. 4 cites Ennead v.1.6.

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to engage with him in turn. That set of treatises was composed during Gregory’s stay in Constantinople, and while they would eventually become widely disseminated, they were originally written with a specific Constantinopolitan audience in mind, consisting both of Gregory’s own supporters and his theological opponents, the Neo-Arian Eunomians named in the title of the first oration of the set.65 These communities would have overlapped to a large extent, if not entirely, with Gregory’s audiences for the great series of festal orations that he delivered in Constantinople and which form the main focus of this book. In the first chapter, “Mediterranean Festival Culture and Imperial Greek Rhetoric,” Gregory’s festal orations are situated within the tradition of epideictic rhetoric that flourished within the festival culture of the Eastern Mediterranean under the Roman Empire. The proliferation of civic and cultural festivals in the second and third centuries, particularly under first Hadrian and then the Severans, has been a major theme in recent scholarship on the Second Sophistic. An indispensable feature of these festivals was the performance of a thematic oration by an official representative of literary culture, a rhetor. These institutions, both the festivals themselves and the orations performed at them, loom large in what has become by the time of Gregory and his audience an established rhetorical tradition. Belonging squarely to this tradition are Gregory’s festal orations, in which he plays not only the role of the priest officiating at the liturgy, but also that of the philosopher-rhetor performing at the festival. Growing alongside the festival culture of the Eastern Mediterranean is a literary tradition that characterizes festivals as settings for philosophical discussion. The origins of this tradition can be traced back to the Classical period, when philosophers like Plato and Aristotle developed the concept of theoria as abstract philosophical contemplation by exploiting the word’s older association with festival spectatorship.66 The second chapter uncovers the significance of “Festival Spectatorship and Philosophical Theoria” for the wider literary atmosphere in which Gregory and his audience came of age. From Sec-

65 66

For the audience of the Theological Orations see e.g. Gallay, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 27–31 10–15; Norris, Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning 9–10, 56–58. See A.W. Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy: Theoria in its Cultural Context (Cambridge 2004) as well as “The Philosopher at the Festival: Plato’s Transformation of Traditional Theōria,” in J. Elsner and I. Rutherford (eds.), Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods (Oxford 2007) 151–180. See also I. Rutherford, “Theoria and Darśan: Pilgrimage and Vision in Greece and India,” Classical Quarterly 50 (2000) 133–146, as well as the section on “Philosophy and Theoria” in his State Pilgrims and Sacred Observers in Ancient Greece: A Study of Theōriā and Theōroi (Cambridge 2013) 324–338. Finally, see now J. Ward, Searching for the Divine in Plato and Aristotle: philosophical theoria and traditional practice (Cambridge 2021).

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ond Sophistic orations to Late Antique classroom progymnasmata to the Greek novel, the literature of the Imperial and Late Antique periods is characterized by depictions of festivals as settings for the performance of philosophy. Gregory’s festal orations were delivered before audiences whose education had prepared them to associate festivals with a key component of Late Antique paideia, namely the Classical philosophical tradition. The subsequent chapters explore how Gregory performs philosophy in these orations by adopting techniques or discussing topics that enjoyed pride of place in the philosophical culture of Late Antiquity and the Long Second Sophistic. Continuing to play a key role here is theoria, particularly as it is used to refer to a range of activities extending from the linguistic and philosophical exegesis of texts to the abstract contemplation of metaphysical truths and divine entities. The former is discussed in the third chapter, “The Prooemia of Gregory’s Orations and Traditions of Exegesis,” which shows how Gregory applies techniques of philosophical exegesis to the organization of his orations. A major concern in classroom exegesis of philosophical and rhetorical texts was to identify how the main theme or idea of a given text was somehow prefigured or foreshadowed in its introductory section, the prooemium. This practice was popular among the Neoplatonists, who applied it rigorously to their studies of Platonic dialogues. Gregory organizes his festival orations according to the same compositional principle which philosophical exegetes detected in the texts they studied: the opening words of his orations foreshadow the theological material that is subsequently discussed, in some cases even alluding to Platonic prooemia and the philosophical themes of their respective dialogues. For Gregory’s audience, the oration itself becomes an object for theoria, an opportunity to engage in the exegesis of Gregory’s words to observe how the theological themes of a given oration are prefigured in its prooemium. The intellectual dynamics of theoria—of exegesis, contemplation, and the mind’s ascent to the divine—are themselves a major topic for Gregory and his audience. Chapter 4, “Performing Philosophy: Purification, Contemplation, and Assimilation to the Divine”, explores how Gregory draws upon several of the most privileged themes in what one might call the “universal grammar” of Imperial and Late Antique philosophical culture among both Christian and non-Christian communities. This “universal grammar” of philosophy laid special emphasis on katharsis or purification as a prerequisite for being able to perform theoria, either in the form of exegesis of valorized texts or the contemplation of abstract truth. Furthermore, this common philosophical culture emphasized how this process of purification and contemplation helped one achieve the ultimate aim of philosophy, indeed how one could realize what had become standardized as one of the very definitions of philosophy itself,

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namely the goal of making oneself as similar to the divine as humanly possible. These themes all come together in Gregory’s oration for the Feast of the Nativity, or Christmas, which offers Gregory an occasion for expounding upon the supreme difficulty of comprehending God. This discussion, which will prove highly influential in the subsequent development of apophatic or negative theology, in fact belongs to a storied tradition in Classical literature concerned with depicting the mental processes involved in contemplating the divine. Gregory’s Nativity Oration is in fact most closely indebted to an earlier festival oration, indeed one of the most famous orations of Antiquity: the “Olympic Discourse” of Dio Chrysostom, one of the major figures of the Second Sophistic. Both Dio at the Olympics and Gregory at Christmas lead their respective festival audiences in discussions of theoria and the mental contemplation of the divine whose literary influences can be traced back to the Platonic dialogues themselves. Chapter Five, “Theoria and the Rhetor’s Art: The Audience as Theoroi,” shows how Gregory links his audience’s performance of philosophy at the festival with the goal of rendering them spectators or theoroi of the scenes and images evoked through his oration. He achieves this by drawing upon a suite of techniques that were recognized by rhetorical theory for their efficacy in making audiences seem to see what they heard or read. Through concepts like ekphrasis, or descriptive language, and enargeia, the literary quality of evocative vividness, Gregory harnesses his rhetorical training from his days in Athens to assist his audience in contemplation. This in turn serves a larger theological purpose: Gregory promotes the doctrine of theosis, quite literally the deification, as far as possible, of himself and his audience, which is achieved through mimesis or imitation of the divine. Because the paradigmatic divine activity, since the Classical period, had been considered to be the divine’s theoria or contemplation of itself, Gregory’s audience can most effectively work towards divine mimesis by contemplating the images evoked by his orations. In this way, the ideas developed by Classical rhetorical theory take on a new active role in Christian religious life. Before becoming a priest, Gregory belonged to a type of elite Roman male familiar from the Imperial and Late Antique periods. He was a philosopherrhetor who had been trained in Athens and had even taught Classical rhetoric and literature intermittently before being ordained. By the middle Byzantine period, his legacy had undergone a process of cultural canonization, through which he became known as a defender of Nicene Orthodoxy, an authority invoked at ecclesiastical councils to define points of doctrine, and a legendary preacher whose orations were selected to be read aloud during the liturgy at the most important feasts of the ecclesiastical calendar. The book’s final chapter,

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“Gregory’s Festival Theoria in Byzantium: from Pseudo-Dionysius to Photius,” shows how Gregory’s depiction of theoria becomes a major strand in the texture of Byzantine literature and theology. It traces a series of key moments in Gregory’s Byzantine reception among several representative authors, including his younger namesake and fellow Cappadocian Gregory of Nyssa, the mysterious Christian Neoplatonist known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the seventh-century theologian Maximus the Confessor, the innovative hymnographer and homilist Andrew of Crete, and finally Photius, the ninth-century polymath and Patriarch of Constantinople. Gregory’s lyric account of the contemplation of the divine was versatile enough to be adapted in a variety of different contexts, and through these successive adaptations we can observe his transformation from an Athenian-trained rhetor of the Long Second Sophistic to Saint Gregory the Theologian.

chapter 1

Mediterranean Festival Culture and Imperial Greek Rhetoric Long before Gregory’s time, festivals had become the main vehicles for the propagation of a self-conscious Hellenism throughout the urban centers of the Eastern Mediterranean. Many of these festivals were agonistic celebrations of athletics and culture, and their proliferation in the second and third centuries, particularly under first Hadrian and then the Severans, constitutes a major theme in scholarship on the Second Sophistic.1 The ubiquity of these festivals throughout the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean is reflected in the literature of the period, and one could point, for example, to the lovingly elaborated ekphraseis of festivals in the novels of Xenophon of Ephesus and “Longus”, and in particular that of Heliodorus, which takes the former’s account of a festival held at Ephesus and reworks it on a grand scale into a scene at Delphi.2

1 For an overview of Hellenic festivals during this period see F. Graf, Roman Festivals in the Greek East: From the Early Empire to the Middle Byzantine Era (Cambridge 2015) 11–59. For athletics and paideia during this period see J. König, Athletics and Literature in the Roman Empire (Cambridge 2005). Much of the scholarship on festival culture during the Second Sophistic was stimulated through the publication by Michael Wörrle of a lengthy second-century ce inscription from Oenoanda in Lycia. The inscription records in detail the establishment of a festival devoted to athletic and cultural contests and called the Demostheneia after its founder C. Iulius Demosthenes; see M. Wörrle, Stadt und Fest im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien: Studien zu einer agonistischen Stiftung aus Oinoanda (Munich 1988). For a review of Wörrle’s monograph as well as an English translation and discussion of the inscription, see S. Mitchell, “Festivals, Games and Civic Life in Roman Asia Minor,” Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990) 183–193. See also O. Van Nijf, “Athletics, Festivals and Greek Identity in the Roman East,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 45 (January 2000) 176–200. 2 Walter Burkert, the great scholar of religion in Greek Antiquity, characterizes the ancient city as a “festival community”; see his “Die antike Stadt als Festgemeinschaft,” in P. Hugger, W. Burkert, and E. Lichtenhahn (eds.), Stadt und Fest. Zur Geschichte und Gegenwart europäischer Festkultur (Stuttgart 1987) 25–44. See also Burkert’s essay “Ancient Views on Festivals: A Case of Near Eastern Mediterranean Koine,” in J.R. Brandt and J.W. Iddeng (eds.), Greek and Roman Festivals: Content, Meaning, and Practice (Oxford 2012) 39–52. See Daphnis and Chloe 2.1–2 for a festival celebrating the wine vintage, as well as 2.30–37 for a rustic celebration of Pan and the nymphs that reads like a pastoral miniature of a great panegyris. For the depictions of festivals in Xenophon and Heliodorus see Graf, Roman Festivals in the Greek East 16–18, and Heliodorus, Aethiopica 2.34–3.6 for the Delphic festival. Finally see Ruther-

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/978900452140

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Despite the disruptions caused by political instability during the third century and the adoption by the state of Christianity in the fourth century, many of the Eastern Mediterranean’s traditional festivals continued to be celebrated for centuries.3 Though the original Olympic Festival in the Peloponnese was banned in 392 ce, the Antiochene Olympics held at Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, continued until the sixth century.4 Other traditional festivals, like the Kalends and the Brumalia, would survive until the very end of the seventh century, when they were banned at the Council in Trullo (692), a ban which did not seem to have had much effect, however, as the Brumalia continued to be celebrated for much longer.5 Throughout the Imperial and Late Antique periods, these festivals were not only publicly celebrated, but they were also an object of intense interest on the part of scholars and intellectuals. From Ovid to the fourth-century aristocrat Valentinus, who commissioned an illustrated calendar for the year 354 ce, Romans felt a deep fascination for their own fasti and the various festivals of the year.6 A similar interest can be detected in the colorful details regarding festivals in the ethnographic sections of texts ranging from Herodotus’s Histories to the Lucianic De Dea Syria to Plutarch’s On Isis and Osiris.7 However,

3 4 5

6 7

ford, State Pilgrims and Sacred Observers 349–354 on the use of festivals, throughout Greek literature and especially in the novels, as settings where hero and heroine fall in love at first sight. See especially Graf, Roman Festivals in the Greek East 306–313. R. Webb, Demons and Dancers: Performance in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA 2008) 35. For the Council in Trullo, see G. Nedungatt and M. Featherstone, The Council in Trullo Revisited (Rome 1995). For the bans on festivals imposed there, see also Michael Maas’s preface to Anastasius Bandy (ed.), John Lydus: On the Months (Lewiston, NY 2013) xxiii. For the Kalends in the early Imperial period see M. Meslin, La fête des kalendes de janvier dans l’Empire romain: étude d’ un rituel de Nouvel An (Brussels 1970). For the survival of the Kalends festival in Late Antiquity and Byzantium, see especially A. Kaldellis, “The Kalends in Byzantium, 400–1200 ad: A New Interpretation,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 13 (2012) 187–203. For the Brumalia, which despite being banned at Trullo seems to have continued to be celebrated within the Imperial palace into the tenth century, see Graf, Roman Festivals in the Greek East 217–218 and E.B. Recchi-Fraceschini, “Winter in the Great Palace: The Persistence of Pagan Festivals in Christian Byzantium,” Byzantinische Forschungen 21 (1995) 117–132, at 127–130. M.R. Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 1990). For Herodotus’s treatment of Egyptian festivals in Book 2 of the Histories, see I. Rutherford, “Down-Stream to the Cat-Goddess: Herodotus on Egyptian Pilgrimage,” in J. Elsner and I. Rutherford (eds.), Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods (Oxford 2007) 131–150. For the festivals of the De Dea Syria, see in the same volume J. Lightfoot, “Pilgrims and Ethnographers: In Search of the Syrian Goddess,” 333–352, who plumps for the text’s authenticity within the Lucianic corpus and also argues that to describe the work in terms of satire is to apply “the wrong set of problematics” (339). For Plutarch’s

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scholarly inquiry in festivals was conducted on an even larger scale and with greater intensity than one might have expected were one to judge from surviving texts alone. For example, in John Lydus’s compendium on the Roman calendar and its festivals, the sixth-century antiquarian mentions a number of his own sources.8 The numerous authors and titles he cites demonstrate that there existed a distinct branch of inquiry devoted to what one might call “heortology”, or the study of festivals.9 Throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, the importance of festivals in cultural life was reflected in this long tradition of scholarship devoted to their study. A key feature of many of these festivals was the custom for a rhetor, as an official representative of literary culture, to deliver an oration in honor of the festival.10 Apart from inscriptions testifying to performances and competitions of these festival orations, some of the most helpful sources for reconstructing the culture of festival oratory can be found in the tradition of rhetorical handbooks that were produced throughout the Imperial and Late Antique period. These include the two treatises on epideictic rhetoric attributed to Menander Rhetor, particularly a full-length oration for the festival of Sminthian Apollo

8

9

10

treatment of Egyptian festivals see J.G. Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride (Cambridge: University of Wales Press 1970) 62–69. For the text and first English translation of the De Mensibus, see Bandy, John Lydus: On the Months. For John Lydus and background to the De Mensibus, see Michael Maas, John Lydus and the Roman Past: Antiquarianism and Politics in the Age of Justinian (London 1992) 53– 66. For Lydus’s source material in De Mensibus and his other treatises, see Maas’s appendix at 119–137. These sources include: the second-century ce writer Phlegon of Tralles and his three books on Roman festivals Περὶ τῶν παρὰ Ῥωμαίοις ἑορτῶν (De Mens. 1.12=1.21 Wachsmuth ed.; Bandy p. 58; cf. Suda s.v. “φ” 527); a monograph on festivals (Περὶ Ἑορτῶν) by an otherwise unknown Elpidianus (De Mens. 4.4; Bandy p. 122.5); a work “On Festivals” (Περὶ Ἑορτῶν) by the famous third-century bce Egyptian writer Manetho (De Mens. 4.119=4.135 Wachsmuth ed.; Bandy p. 238.9–10); and the De Fastis of the Augustan-era historian and grammarian Cincius Alimentus (De Mens. 4.128=4.144 Wachsmuth ed.; Bandy p. 240). Moreover, according to the Suda, the antiquarian Polemo of Ilion “the Periegete” (second century bce) devoted an entire monograph to the festival of Heracles at Thebes, entitled Περὶ τῶν Θήβησιν Ἡρακλείων, and it has been suggested that a work having to do with Egypt by a certain Hermaeus mentioned by Plutarch should in fact be titled περὶ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων ⟨ἑορτῶν⟩. For Polemo the Periegete’s monograph on the Theban festival of Heracles, see PW 21.2.1299. For the shadowy figure of Hermaeus (perhaps first or second century ce) and his work as a source for Plutarch, see Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride 442. See for example the contest in prose encomia stipulated in lines 39–40 of the Oenoanda inscription for the fifth day of the Demostheneia festival. For the text, see Wörrle, Stadt und Fest 8–9, as well as 248–250 for discussion of these encomia and the rhetors who performed them.

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contained in the second handbook.11 Another manual—or rather a collection of manuals—on epideictic rhetoric, falsely attributed in the manuscript tradition to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, includes a section entitled “A Handbook on Festival Orations” (τέχνη περὶ τῶν πανηγυρικῶν), which can be dated to sometime between the third and the fifth centuries.12 Apart from the rhetorical handbooks, the prose hymns of Aelius Aristides represent a corpus of orations that appear to have been performed at festivals, and Dio Chrysostom’s famous Olympicus oration—which will be discussed at length in Chapter 4—purports to have been delivered at the Olympic festival in the Peloponnese itself.13 For other festival orations or descriptions of festivals, one can point to Libanius’s prose hymn on Artemis, his oration on the Kalends, and, among his progymnasmata, an ekphrasis on the Kalends as well as another ekphrasis, falsely attributed to Libanius but included in his progymnasmata, on an unspecified panegyris.14 Among the extant texts of Himerius, the great fourth-century professor of rhetoric in Athens, is a festival oration on the Panathenaic Festival, which will be discussed in detail in the following chapter.15 These institutions—festivals and the speeches performed at them— loom large in what has become by the fourth century a particularly ripe rhetorical tradition indeed.16

11 12

13

14

15 16

See Menander Rhetor i.1.333–344 (“Hymns to the Gods”) and ii.17.437.5–446.13 (description of the Sminthiakos logos). See the appendix at D. Russell and N. Wilson (eds.), Menander Rhetor (Oxford 1981) 362– 381, which provides a translation of the collection attributed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus. For the text itself see L. Radermacher and H. Usener (eds.), Dionysii Halicarnasei quae exstant, vol. 6 (Leipzig 1905) 255–260. For the dating of the section on festival speeches see Russell and Wilson, Menander Rhetor 362. For these prose hymns and the circumstances of their production and performance, see J. Goeken, Aelius Aristide et la rhétorique de l’ hymne en prose (Turnhout 2012). For text and commentary of Dio’s Olympicus, see D. Russell (ed.), Dio Chrysostom: Orations vii, xii and xxxvi (Cambridge 1992). Hymn to Artemis: R. Foerster (ed.), Libanii Opera Vol. i.1: Orationes i–v (Leipzig 1913 [repr. Hildesheim 1963]) 305–320 (= Or. 5). See also J. Martin (ed.), Libanios: Discours Tome ii (Discours ii–x) (Paris 1988); Oration on the Kalends: R. Foerster (ed.), Libanii Opera Vol. i.2: Orationes vi–xi (Leipzig 1913 [repr. Hildesheim 1963]) 391–398 (= Or. 9); Ekphrasis on the Kalends: R. Foerster (ed.), Libanii Opera Vol. viii: Progymnasmata, Argumenta Orationum Demosthenicarum (Leipzig 1915 [repr. Hildesheim 1963]) 472–477 (= Progymnasmata 12.5); ekphrasis on a panegyris: id. 538–540 (= Progymnasmata 12.29). For Himerius see Penella, Man and the Word. The rhetor at the festival even makes an appearance in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses 11.17, at the Ploiaphesia or “Releasing of the Ships” festival in honor of Isis in the climactic book, where a highlight of the program is an oration of thanksgiving performed by a grammateus in honor of the festival.

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This body of literature remains underappreciated in studies of Gregory’s orations partly because the vast majority of orations produced for public festivals in the Imperial period do not survive, even though these orations would have been among the most commonly produced and experienced forms of public discourse. To adopt a phrase which Averil Cameron applied to early Christian homilies, festival oratory is the “iceberg” whose hidden bulk must be acknowledged if we are to understand how Gregory’s orations for Christian festivals worked in their fourth century context.17 This rhetorical tradition was the formative matrix in which Christian festival oratory developed, as the new state religion played an ever more prominent role in public life over the course of the fourth century.18 That organic relationship between Christian and pagan festival oratory, much cited but rarely explored in depth, can be seen at the level of the individual motifs and phrases that make up the texture of this discourse.19 We can take for example a motif that makes its first appearance in Plato’s Laws, where the Athenian stranger describes how the gods first instituted festivals: τούτων γὰρ δὴ τῶν ὀρθῶς τεθραμμένων ἡδονῶν καὶ λυπῶν παιδειῶν οὐσῶν χαλᾶται τοῖς ἀνθρώποις καὶ διαφθείρεται κατὰ πολλὰ ἐν τῷ βίῳ, θεοὶ δὲ οἰκτίραντες τὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐπίπονον πεφυκὸς γένος, ἀναπαύλας τε αὐτοῖς τῶν

17

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19

See A. Cameron’s Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley 1991) 79 for a description of Christian sermons as the “hidden iceberg” in the life of Christian communities. If the implication of her remark is that it requires historical imagination to accommodate the influence, hidden to our eyes, of that bulk of weekly homiletic activity, then we must we take the same care to acknowledge the unseen presence of a vast discourse—traditional festival rhetoric—which survives in microscopic quantities compared to the number of transmitted fourth- and fifth-century Christian sermons. There is a long bibliography on the influence of the Classical festal or panegyric tradition on Christian festal oratory. See for example E. Norden, Antike Kunstprosa ii (Stuttgart 1958) 556; C. Klock, “Gregors Osterpredigten in ihrer literarhistorischen Tradition,” in A. Spira and C. Klock (eds.), The Easter Sermons of Gregory of Nyssa: Translation and Commentary (Cambridge, MA 1981) 319–354, at 321–322; M. Harl, “L’éloge de la fête de pâques dans le prologue du Sermon In Sanctum Pascha de Grégoire de Nysse,” in Spira and Klock, The Easter Sermons of Gregory of Nyssa 81–100 at 81; A. Spira, “Volkstümlichkeit und Kunst in der griechischen Väterpredigt des 4. Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 35 (1985) 55–73; and F. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Peabody, MA 2002) 112. For a dismissive attitude towards the relationship between Classical and Christian festal oratory, see for example C. Schäublin, “Zum paganen Umfeld der Christlichen Predigt,” in E. Mühlenberg and J. van Oort (eds.), Predigt in der alten Kirche (Kampen 1994) 25–49, at 26.

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πόνων ἐτάξαντο τὰς τῶν ἑορτῶν ἀμοιβὰς τοῖς θεοῖς, καὶ Μούσας Ἀπόλλωνά τε μουσηγέτην καὶ Διόνυσον συνεορταστὰς ἔδοσαν, ἵν’ ἐπανορθῶνται, τάς τε τροφὰς γενομένας ἐν ταῖς ἑορταῖς μετὰ θεῶν. Leg. ii 653c–d

For since the instruction of children consists in pleasures and pains being correctly reared, and among mankind ⟨this instruction⟩ grows slack and deteriorates significantly over a lifetime, the gods took pity on the human race, born as it was to toil, and arranged as periods of rest from their labors the alternation of festivals for the gods, and gave them the Muses and Apollo the leader of the Muses and Dionysus to be their fellowcelebrants at these festivals, so that they might be corrected in their upbringing and culture, since this would now take place at festivals with the gods.20 Plato’s language here lends itself naturally to the tradition of festival oratory. For example, the rhetorical handbook formerly attributed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus begins its discussion of festival speeches with an explicit reference to this passage from the Laws: Πανηγύρεις εὕρημα μὲν καὶ δῶρον θεῶν εἰς ἀνάπαυσιν τῶν περὶ τὸν βίον αἰεὶ πόνων παραδιδόμεναι, ὥς που ὁ Πλάτων φησίν, οἰκτειράντων τῶν θεῶν τὸ ἀνθρώπειον ἐπίπονον γένος· συνήχθησαν δὲ ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπων σοφῶν, κατεστάθησαν δὲ ὑπὸ πόλεων κοινῇ κοινῷ δόγματι εἰς τέρψιν καὶ ψυχαγωγίαν τῶν παρόντων. συντέλεια δὲ ἡ εἰς τὰς πανηγύρεις ἄλλη ἄλλων …21 Festivals are a discovery and a gift of the gods that are passed on as a relief from the never-ending labors of life, as Plato says somewhere, when the gods took pity on the human race, born as it was to toil: festivals were arranged by wise men and established by cities in common with common teaching for the delight and amusement of those in attendance. And different people make different contributions to festivals … The motif of festivals offering people a respite from toil becomes widespread in the tradition. Thus when Libanius opens his ekphrasis on the Kalends with

20 21

Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. Usener and Radermacher (eds.), Dionysii Halicarnasei quae exstant 255.

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the same sentiment, the question of whether he is drawing directly from Plato or adapting a later iteration of the same idea is irrelevant: Τὰς ἑορτὰς οἱ ἄνθρωποι φιλοῦσιν, ὅτι αὐτοὺς ἀπαλλάττουσι μὲν πόνων τε καὶ ἱδρώτων, παρέχουσι δὲ παίζειν καὶ εὐωχεῖσθαι καὶ ὡς ἥδιστα διάγειν.22 People love festivals because they relieve them from labors and toil, and offer them the chance to play and feast and pass the time as sweetly as possible. Christian festival oratory will draw on precisely the same tradition. In the fifth century, we find a variation of the same motif in Proclus, the Bishop of Constantinople, in the prooemium to his oration on the Incarnation (Or. 3.1):23 Πολλαὶ καὶ διάφοροι πανηγύρεις τὸν ἀνθρώπινον φαιδρύνουσι βίον, τῷ κύκλῳ τῶν ἑορτῶν τῆς ἐπιμόχθου ζωῆς τὸ λυπηρὸν μεταβάλλουσαι. ὥσπερ γὰρ οἱ μετὰ ζάλης ἐκ πελάγους καταβάντες χαίρουσι τοῖς λιμέσιν ὡς ζωῆς ἀγκάλαις, οὕτως μετὰ πολλὰς πραγμάτων περιστάσεις ἑορτάζων ἄνθρωπος, χαίρει τῇ πανηγύρει ὡς ἀμεριμνίας μητρί. Many different festivals brighten our manner of living, transforming by festive cycles the pain of the hardships of life. For just as those who come from stormy seas rejoice in harbors as if in the arms of life, so too do we, distressed by many circumstances, rejoice in a festival as if it were a mother who frees us from care. This set of examples, which could be continued at length, can be concluded here with a sixth-century Christian rhetor, Choricius of Gaza, who follows closely the model offered in the handbook attributed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as indicated by the highlighted phrases:24

22 23

24

Libanius, Prog. 12.5.1 (= Foerster 472). For both text and translation, I use Maximos Constas, Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity: Homilies 1–5, Texts and Translations (Leiden 2003) 198– 203. Note in particular the verb ἐξευρέθη and “Dionysius’s” εὕρημα θεῶν as well as Choricius’s phrase “this is the contribution (συντέλεια) of festivals” and the phrase “different people make difference contributions to festivals” (συντέλεια δὲ ἡ εἰς τὰς πανηγύρεις ἄλλη ἄλλων) in “Dionysius”.

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πολλαὶ κατὰ τὸν βίον περιέχονται φροντίδες καὶ μόλις ὄψεταί τις οἰκίαν πάντα θέουσαν ἐξ οὐρίας ἄλλων ἄλλοις ἐνοχλουμένων ἀνιαροῖς. ἵνα δὲ γίνηταί τις ἐκεχειρία τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων κακῶν καί πως αἱ λῦπαι παύωνται κατατείνουσαι καὶ χαλῶσι, τὸ χρῆμα τῶν πανηγύρεων ἐξευρέθη δεινὸν ἀποσβέσαι συμφορὰς καὶ πραῧναι. τοῦτο τῶν ἑορτῶν ἡ συντέλεια. Or. 1.2.12–13

Life is beset with many cares, and one will hardly see a house continue on a prosperous course forever, as different people are troubled by different causes of distress. But so that there might be some armistice from human evils and that somehow our troubles might cease from intensifying and relax, the idea of festivals was discovered [cf. Dionysius’s “festivals are a discovery”] as a terrific method of extinguishing or mitigating our misfortunes. This is the contribution of festivals. Festival rhetoric—both pagan and Christian—is rich in topoi like this.25 Thanks to their familiarity, and the way they can be adapted or manipulated by a given rhetor to suit his purposes, they lend this corpus of material a high degree of intertextuality. Thus, after seeing how the motif of the “institution of festivals” could pass from Plato’s Laws and into festival texts by Libanius, “Dionysius”, Proclus, and Choricius, it will not be surprising if its familiarity can be exploited by a Christian rhetor writing a hagiography in which he describes the institution of martyr cults by a local saint.26 In the chapters that follow, we will see how a variety of similar motifs—including several from other Platonic dialogues— not only offer rhetors a rich body of material to work with, but also show that pagan and Christian festival rhetoric together constitute a particular discourse. The performance and experience of this discourse at festivals represents one of the major points of continuity between pre-Christian and Christian Mediterranean culture. What do the traditions of festival rhetoric have to teach us about Gregory’s orations? Would it even have occurred to Gregory’s original audiences to associate his orations with the traditions of speeches that had been performed 25

26

To the examples cited above we could also add Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica 5.22.8 (cited at Constas, Proclus of Constantinople 205) as well as the late fourth/early fifth-century Cappadocian bishop Asterius of Amasea in Or. 10 (“On the Holy Martyrs”) where, like Proclus, he includes the motifs of the martyrs’ festivals as “harbors” (λιμένες) from care and the relief from “human circumstances” (ἀνθρωπικαῖς περιστάσεσιν); cf. C. Datema (ed.), Asterius of Amasea: Homilies i–xiv (Leiden 1970) 137.1–8. For further discussion see B. MacDougall, “Gregory Thaumaturgus: A Platonic Lawgiver,” DOP 70 (2016) 25–42, at 32–36.

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at festivals throughout the Eastern Mediterranean for previous centuries? To gain some purchase on these questions, we can turn to what Gregory presents as the starkest point of contrast between Christian celebrations of Easter and Christmas on one hand and traditions of pagan festivals on the other. In his oration for the Nativity (Christmas), Gregory gives a catalogue of sensual activities associated with pagan festivals, and concludes that the Christian celebration of the Nativity festival will be of a different character: Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν Ἕλλησι παρῶμεν, καὶ Ἑλληνικοῖς κόμποις, καὶ πανηγύρεσιν· οἳ καὶ θεοὺς ὀνομάζουσι κνίσσαις χαίροντας, καὶ ἀκολούθως τὸ θεῖον τῇ γαστρὶ θεραπεύουσι, πονηροὶ πονηρῶν δαιμόνων, καὶ πλάσται, καὶ μυσταγωγοὶ, καὶ μύσται τυγχάνοντες. Ἡμεῖς δὲ, οἷς Λόγος τὸ προσκυνούμενον, κἄν τι δέῃ τρυφᾷν, ἐν λόγῳ τρυφήσωμεν, καὶ θείῳ νόμῳ, καὶ διηγήμασι, τοῖς τε ἄλλοις, καὶ ἐξ ὧν ἡ παροῦσα πανήγυρις· ἵν’ οἰκεῖον ᾖ τὸ τρυφᾷν, καὶ μὴ πόῤῥω τοῦ συγκαλέσαντος. Or. 38.6

But this we may leave to the pagan Greeks with their pagan bombast and festivals, who even call gods those that take pleasure in the savor of burnt sacrifice, and who accordingly worship the divine with their stomachs, wicked creators—as well as mystagogues and initiates—of wicked demons. We however—in as much as that which we worship is the Logos—if we should have to take pleasure in something, let us take our pleasure in logos, and in the divine law, and in narratives, both in general and those with which our present festival is concerned, so that in this way our pleasure may be appropriate to Him who invited us together here and not alien in spirit to him. This differentiation between the sensuality of pagan festivals and the sober, cerebral virtue of their Christian counterparts is consistently presented throughout Christian literature, from Clement of Alexandria to John Chrysostom. These authors are the inheritors of an earlier polemic against the sensuality of public festivals that developed in several strands of Platonic, Stoic and Cynic discourse.27 The festival as a cesspool of pagan sensuality, lust, and vain 27

See for example Philo, Cher. 27, cited at Constas, Proclus of Constantinople 207. For this polemical tradition see especially M.-H. Quet, “Remarques sur la place de la fête dans le discours de moralists grecs et dans l’ éloge des cites et des évergètes aux premiers siècles de l’ Empire,” in La fête, pratique et Discours (Paris 1981) 41–84; and in the same volume M. Harl, “La dénonciation des festivités profanes dans le discours épiscopal et monastique en Orient chrétien à la fin du ive s.,” 123–147.

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idolatry becomes one of the most familiar tropes of Christian apologetic literature, and texts that trafficked in these tropes played a key role in shaping subsequent cultural memory of public expressions of paganism. Unlike pagan festivals with their sensuous trappings—so this characterization goes—a Christian festival is dedicated to the Logos, to God the Word, and for that reason such a festival is most properly celebrated not with incense or blood sacrifices but with logoi themselves, such as the study of the divine law or the biblical narratives mentioned in the passage examined above. This idea runs throughout Gregory’s festival orations. Thus in his oration on the Feast of Pentecost (Or. 41), Gregory begins in a similar vein: Περὶ τῆς ἑορτῆς βραχέα φιλοσοφήσωμεν, ἵνα πνευματικῶς ἑορτάσωμεν. ἄλλη μὲν γὰρ ἄλλῳ πανήγυρις. Τῷ δὲ θεραπευτῇ τοῦ Λόγου λόγος, καὶ λόγων ὁ τῷ καιρῷ προσφορώτατος. Καὶ οὐδὲν οὕτως εὐφραίνει καλὸν τῶν φιλοκαλῶν οὐδένα, ὡς τὸ πανηγυρίζειν πνευματικῶς τὸν φιλέορτον. Or. 41.1

Let us philosophize about the feast a little, so that we may celebrate the festival spiritually. Different people have different festivals. For the devotee of the Word there is word, and of words those most suitable to the occasion. And no fine thing so delights any lover of fine things as the spiritual celebration of the festival delights the lover of festivals. Likewise in Or. 45 (“On Easter”), Gregory says that while everyone brings his own gifts to the festival, the rhetor makes a gift of his logoi:28 Ἡμεῖς δὲ λόγον εἰσοίσομεν, ὧν ἔχομεν τὸ κάλλιστόν τε καὶ τιμιώτατον, ἄλλως τε καὶ Λόγον ὑμνοῦντες, ἐπ’ εὐεργεσίᾳ τῆς λογικῆς φύσεως. Or. 45.2

We however shall offer logos, the most beautiful and esteemed of all our possessions, especially since we are hymning the Logos for its good service on behalf of logos-endowed nature. Here Gregory plays on the multivalency of the word logos, which in a Christian context can refer to God the Word, to human reason, to discourse in general or to an individual oration in particular. According to Gregory, Christian festival

28

See also Ors. 4.4 and 24.1.

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celebration differs from its pagan counterpart primarily through its focus on true logos instead of on sensuality and false logoi. The scholarly tradition has essentially reproduced Gregory’s own characterization of how his mode of festal celebration differs from that of pagan festivals.29 However, in taking what Gregory says at face value, such an approach privileges what Gregory says over what he does.30 A reappraisal of these passages—which all describe how a Christian festival in honor of Christ the Logos is celebrated chiefly by means of the rhetor’s logoi—must take into consideration the cultural background and expectations of Gregory’s learned audience. To appreciate how passages such as those cited above would have been received in their original context, we need to turn to earlier examples of festival rhetoric, including both rhetorical handbooks and orations by figures such as Libanius and Aelius Aristides. These texts show that, far from staking out fresh festal ground for a Christianity still in its formative period as a public religion, Gregory presents himself as performing precisely the same role as that played by earlier generations of rhetors at public festivals. One can begin by considering the treatise on different types of epideictic speeches falsely attributed in the manuscript tradition to Dionysius of Halicarnassus.31 As mentioned above, the first section of the treatise is devoted to the composition of speeches for festivals, and the structure is usefully summarized by Russell and Wilson. First the rhetor must praise the god to whom the festival is dedicated, next he will move on to praise of the host city, then offer a description of the origin of the festival and of the types of competition it features as

29

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See e.g. Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 38–41 113 n. 5, as well as Harrison, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus 22, who underscores Gregory’s focus on “the discourse itself, the finely wrought hymnic prose and its solemn oral presentation as the centerpiece of the feast’s liturgical celebration. In Gregory’s thought, these and other related meanings of λόγος are inextricably woven together. His words of proclamation and praise have become sacred because they speak forth the divine word and the human gift of reasoned speech that manifests God’s image and likeness. In his Christmas homily at Constantinople he observes that in contrast to the excesses common at winter holidays, a discourse is the best way to celebrate the feast …”. In contrasting what Gregory says with what he does, I am indebted here to Ihor Ševčenko’s formulation in “A Shadow Outline of Virtue: The Classical Heritage of Greek Christian Literature (Second to Seventh Century)” in K. Weitzmann (ed.), Age of Spirituality: A Symposium (New York 1980) 53–73 (repr. in Ideology, Letters and Culture in the Byzantine World [Ashgate 1982]). Regarding the Cappadocian Fathers, he calls attention to “the discrepancy between their literary practice and their theoretical pronouncements on literature”, and notes that “the former is all of a piece; the latter are ambivalent. The fathers speak out of both sides of their mouths” (60). See above n. 12.

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well as the types of crowns awarded, and he will conclude with praise of the emperor himself.32 In the introduction, the author describes the rhetor’s role at a festival as follows: Συντέλεια δὲ ἡ εἰς τὰς πανηγύρεις ἄλλη ἄλλων· παρὰ μὲν τῶν πλουσίων δαπάναι χρημάτων, παρὰ δὲ τῶν ἀρχόντων κόσμος περὶ τὴν πανήγυριν καὶ τῶν ἐπιτηδείων εὐπορία· οἱ δὲ ἀθληταὶ τῇ ῥώμῃ τῶν σωμάτων κοσμοῦσι τὴν πανήγυριν, καὶ ὅσοι γε δὴ Μουσῶν καὶ Ἀπόλλωνος ὀπαδοί, τῇ μουσικῇ τῇ παρ’ ἑαυτῶν. ἀνδρὶ δὲ περὶ λόγους ἐσπουδακότι καὶ σύμπαντα τὸν ἑαυτοῦ βίον ἀνατεθεικότι τούτοις πρέποι ἂν οἶμαι τοῖς τοιούτοις λόγοις κοσμεῖν τὴν πανήγυριν, τέχνῃ μετιόντι τὸν λόγον, ὡς μὴ κατὰ τοὺς πολλοὺς εἴη αὐτῷ γινόμενος. And different people make different contributions to festivals. From the wealthy there is the expenditure of money, from the magistrates the adornment of the festival and plentiful supply of necessities, the athletes adorn the festival with the strength of their bodies, and those who are servants of the Muses and Apollo do so with their music. But for a man dedicated to literature (ἀνδρὶ δὲ περὶ λόγους ἐσπουδακότι), and who has devoted all his life to it, it would be fitting I think to adorn the festival with such words as these, going about his speech with craft, so that it might not be made after the manner of the many. If Gregory identifies himself as anything, it is as one of those “dedicated to literature” (περὶ λόγους ἐσπουδακότι), as he characterizes himself with precisely those words in both his second oration and in the famous funeral oration for his friend Basil.33 His own prooemia to festival speeches offer several of the motifs included in the handbook: just as “different people make different contributions” (συντέλεια δὲ ἡ εἰς τὰς πανηγύρεις ἄλλη ἄλλων) to pagan festivals, with literary men offering logoi, so Gregory in the second Easter oration calls for everyone to contribute gifts to the “festival of all festivals” in accordance with their ability: Ἄλλος μὲν οὖν ἄλλο τι τῷ καιρῷ καρποφορείτω, καὶ δωροφορείτω δῶρον ἑόρτιον, ἢ μικρὸν, ἢ μεῖζον, τῶν πνευματικῶν τε καὶ Θεῷ φίλων, ὅπως ἂν ἕκαστος ἔχῃ δυνάμεως Or. 45.2=PG 36.625

32 33

Russell and Wilson, Menander Rhetor 362. Or. 2.6; Or. 43.1.

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Let each person make a different offering for the occasion, and bring a festal gift, whether small or greater, of what is spiritual and dear to God, in accordance with each person’s ability. The motif of making an offering “in accordance with one’s ability” appears throughout festival rhetoric, and can be traced back to Hesiod.34 And of course, just as the author of the handbook prescribes, the gift that Gregory will contribute as a rhetor is that of logoi: Ἡμεῖς δὲ λόγον εἰσοίσομεν, ὧν ἔχομεν τὸ κάλλιστόν τε καὶ τιμιώτατον, ἄλλως τε καὶ Λόγον ὑμνοῦντες, ἐπ’ εὐεργεσίᾳ τῆς λογικῆς φύσεως. We however shall offer logos, the most beautiful and esteemed of all our possessions, especially since we are hymning the Logos for its good service on behalf of logos-endowed nature. Gregory is behaving exactly as his audience would have expected a festal rhetor to act, and his language maps closely onto that of his predecessors, including for example Aelius Aristides. In the prose hymn to his own patron deity Asclepius, which seems to have been delivered in the Temple of Zeus Asclepius in Pergamum, perhaps at a local celebration known as the Night Festival, Aristides emphasizes the appropriateness of his contribution to the deity’s festival.35 Even more so than incense and sacrifice, a gift of logoi would be the most fitting offering he could make to the god: ἡ δ’ ἐπὶ τοῦ λόγου μοι πολὺ δὴ μάλιστα προσήκειν φαίνεται. εἰ γὰρ οὖν ὅλως μὲν κέρδος ἀνθρώπῳ τοῦ βίου καὶ ὡσπερεὶ κεφάλαιον ἡ περὶ τοὺς λόγους διατριβὴ, τῶν δὲ λόγων οἱ περὶ τοὺς θεοὺς ἀναγκαιότατοι, φαίνεται δὲ ἡμῖν γε καὶ τὸ κατ’ αὐτοὺς τοὺς λόγους παρ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ γενόμενον, οὔτε τῷ θεῷ καλλίων χάρις, οἶμαι, τῆς ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων οὔτε τοῖς λόγοις ἔχοιμεν ἂν εἰς ὅ τι κρεῖττον χρησαίμεθα. but the expression of gratitude through logos appears particularly proper for me. For if in general the study of logoi means for man the point and, as it were, the sum of life, and of logoi those concerning the gods are the 34 35

Hesiod, Works and Days 336. C. Behr, P. Aelius Aristides: the complete works, vol. ii, Orations xvii–liii (Leiden 1981) 416. For the dating and circumstances of the oration see also Goeken, Aelius Aristide 475–479, who follows Behr.

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most necessary and just, and our career in logoi clearly is a gift of the god himself, there is no fairer means of showing gratitude to the god, I think, than through logoi, nor would we have a better use to which to put our logoi.36 Aristides’s dedication of his logos to the god who made possible his career in logoi—this might be translated a career “in rhetoric”—is revealing, because it shows there is no Christian monopoly on the motif of a festal rhetor delivering an oration in honor of a deity with an essential relationship to logos. In other words, Gregory is not borrowing a motif from the rhetorical tradition— the rhetor’s contribution of logoi to a festival—only to one-up that motif by dedicating his logoi to Christ the Logos and thereby elevating the Christian festival above the sensuousness of its pagan counterparts. For pagan rhetors too, logos as both discourse and reason constituted man’s closest link with the divine. Throughout the tradition, the rhetor’s logoi are characterized as the most appropriate gift for a god to whom humans owe their capacity for speech and reason. Particularly striking in its similarity to Gregory is the following passage from Menander Rhetor’s sample festival oration for Sminthian Apollo, which, it has been suggested, was composed by a rhetor in Athens for a student imagined as having to deliver an oration at a festival in Alexandria Troas, possibly during the reign of Diocletian (r. 284–305):37 δεῖ μὲν ὁμολογεῖν σε εὐθὺς ἐν προοιμίῳ τῷ πρώτῳ ὅτι δεῖ τὸν λόγους κτησάμενον ἀποδοῦναι λογίῳ θεῷ τὰς χάριτας διὰ τῶν λόγων οὓς δι’ αὐτὸν τὸν μουσηγέτην κεκτήμεθα. ii.17, 437.6–9, pg. 207

You should acknowledge straightaway at the beginning of your prooemium that he who has acquired logoi should render thanks to the god of logos by means of the logoi that we have acquired thanks to the Leader of the Muses himself. The author is presenting a (literally) textbook example of the sort of festival oration in honor of a deity that a public rhetor could be called upon to produce. For him it is an established feature of the genre for the rhetor to characterize his logos as the most appropriate offering at a festival in honor of a god so 36 37

Or. 42.3. I cite Behr’s translation but leave untranslated the instances where Aristides uses the word λόγος. Russell and Wilson, Menander Rhetor xxxix–xl. For text and translation see 207–225.

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closely connected to logoi. Thus, Apollo is referred to here as both the logios theos, which might be translated as “god of logos” or “god of logoi”, as well as the means by which humankind acquires logoi. The rhetor uses logoi to honor the god that is responsible for the very thing that links the human and divine, logos. Gregory might claim that the Festival for Christ’s Nativity is distinguished from the sensuality of pagan festivals by the fact that it is celebrated chiefly through words—the words of the rhetor offered in honor of the Living Word of God. However, an insistence on the rhetor’s logoi as the most appropriate centerpiece of a festival for gods who grant humankind the power of logos had been a prominent feature of the idea of the festival since long before Gregory’s time. To later readers it might have seemed a markedly Christian act for Gregory to dedicate his logoi to the Logos, but as we have seen, within Gregory’s original fourth-century context, his language was completely in keeping with the practices of festival oratory, and members of his audience who were invested in paideia and literary culture would have experienced his oration as participating in that tradition. That tradition devoted special emphasis to the performance of philosophy. Festival orations frequently featured content that was marked as philosophical, and rhetors explicitly characterized their own role and rhetorical activity at the festival as “philosophizing” or “performing philosophy” (φιλοσοφεῖν). Menander Rhetor’s template for a festival oration in honor of Sminthian Apollo can once again serve to show how Gregory’s performance of philosophy at a Christian festival is part of a larger tradition.38 To begin the Sminthiakos logos, the author recommends a traditional invocation of the god’s names and cosmological roles: ὦ Σμίνθιε Ἄπολλον, τίνα σε χρὴ προσειπεῖν; πότερον ἥλιον τὸν τοῦ φωτὸς ταμίαν καὶ πηγὴν τῆς οὐρανίου ταύτης αἴγλης, ἢ νοῦν, ὡς ὁ τῶν θεολογούντων λόγος, διήκοντα μὲν διὰ τῶν οὐρανίων, ἰόντα δὲ δι’ αἰθέρος ἐπὶ τὰ τῇδε; 438.11–15

Sminthian Apollo, how should we address thee? As the sun that is the dispenser of light and source of the brilliance of heaven? Or as Mind, as the theologians say, penetrating all heavenly things and passing through the aether to this world of ours? p. 209 38

For text and translation, cited here, see Russell and Wilson, Menander Rhetor 207–225 (= 437.5–446.13).

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The author then invokes other deeds of Apollo, including how he “destroyed darkness, and imposed order on everything” (ἀπολέσαι δὲ τὸν ζόφον, τάξιν δ’ ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἅπασιν, 438.24), before saying he will leave this to others to “philosophize about” (ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν σοφῶν παισὶ φιλοσοφεῖν παραλείπω, “But this I leave to the children of the wise to philosophize about,” 438.24–29).39 The way Menander signals how he passes over some material and leaves it to the children of the wise to discuss at greater length is a motif that we meet throughout festival rhetoric. We encounter it for example in Libanius’s oration for Artemis, in which he uses the device of a priamel to allude to learned etymologies for the names of Artemis and Apollo that can be traced back to Plato’s Cratylus.40 Like Libanius, Menander Rhetor is also hinting at learned etymologies, as the latter’s expression “destroyed darkness” (ἀπολέσαι δὲ τὸν ζόφον) alludes to the etymology of Apollo’s name from the verb “destroy” (ἀπόλλυμι),41 while the phrase “imposed order on everything” (τάξιν δ’ ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἅπασιν) nods towards a tradition that interpreted Apollo’s name in accordance with the god’s role in overseeing order and harmony in the cosmos. As Plato puts it in the Cratylus, Apollo “oversees everything by moving all things together in harmony” (ἐπιστατεῖ … τῇ ἁρμονίᾳ ὁμοπολῶν αὐτὰ πάντα).42 When Menander says that he is 39

40

41 42

Menander is particularly fond of this phrase; see also 442.29–30 (φιλοσόφων παῖδες). For the Platonic character of this periphrasis see Russell and Wilson, Menander Rhetor 354. See also 443.1–2 for a similar expression when he leaves certain material “for the theologians”: ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ ταῦτα τοῖς θεολόγοις παρεῖναι δεῖ. Libanius for example uses this device of the priamel in the same way in his Hymn to Artemis, where he bids “others sing” of how Artemis and Apollo Loxias received their names: Καὶ ὡς μὲν καὶ εὐθὺς ἐν ταῖς πρώταις ἡμέραις ἀνδρειοτέρα ἦν τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος πρὸς τὰ ἐκ τῆς Ἥρας δείματα, ὅθεν δὴ καὶ ὀνόματα τῇ μὲν Ἄρτεμιν, τῷ δὲ γενέσθαι Λοξίαν, ταυτὶ μὲν ἑτέροις ᾄδειν ἀφείσθω. (Or. 5.6) (“And as for the fact that straight away in the first days she proved braver than Apollo towards the terrors of Hera, whence she received the name Artemis and he Loxias—let others sing of this”). Libanius here hints at a tradition, notably represented by Plato’s Cratylus (406b), that derived Artemis’s name from ἀρτεμής (“safe and sound”). For a discussion of this etymology of Artemis’s name see Martin, Libanios 143. For Plato’s Cratylus in the context of fourth-century intellectual currents, see Elm, Sons of Hellenism 246–255. This was a popular etymology of Apollo, and Plato has Socrates push back against it at Crat. 405e. This tradition, relying on the fact that “together” was an archaic meaning of an alpha prefix, explained “Apollo” as meaning “motion together”; see Cratylus 405c–d: τὸ ἄλφα σημαίνει πολλαχοῦ τὸ ὁμοῦ, καὶ ἐνταῦθα τὴν ὁμοῦ πόλησιν καὶ περὶ τὸν οὐρανόν, οὓς δὴ ‘πόλους’ καλοῦσιν, καὶ τὴν περὶ τὴν ἐν τῇ ᾠδῇ ἁρμονίαν, ἣ δὴ συμφωνία καλεῖται, ὅτι ταῦτα πάντα, ὥς φασιν οἱ κομψοὶ περὶ μουσικὴν καὶ ἀστρονομίαν, ἁρμονίᾳ τινὶ πολεῖ ἅμα πάντα: ἐπιστατεῖ δὲ οὗτος ὁ θεὸς τῇ ἁρμονίᾳ ὁμοπολῶν αὐτὰ πάντα καὶ κατὰ θεοὺς καὶ κατ’ ἀνθρώπους (“The letter alpha often signifies the sense of “together”, and here ⟨Apollo’s name means⟩ ‘movement together’, that is both the movement of things together about the heavens, which they call the poles,

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passing over this material and leaves it “to the children of the wise to philosophize about”, he is referring to discussions of etymology and natural philosophy in texts like the Cratylus. This is a characteristic topic of festival rhetoric, and Gregory makes precisely the same move in his own festival orations. In exegetical texts, etymologizing is a common practice. In Gregory’s festival orations, he frequently performs such exegesis by offering historical or etymological glosses on names and words associated with the festival in question.43 Thus, in his festival oration for Pentecost he discusses the etymology of the word “Sabbath”: Τὸ μὲν πρόδηλον, ὅτι ἐν ἓξ ἡμέραις ὁ Θεὸς τὴν ὕλην ὑποστήσας τε καὶ μορφώσας, καὶ διακοσμήσας παντοίοις εἴδεσι καὶ συγκρίμασι, καὶ τὸν νῦν ὁρώμενον τοῦτον κόσμον ποιήσας, τῇ ἑβδόμῃ κατέπαυσεν ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων, ὡς δηλοῖ καὶ ἡ τοῦ Σαββάτου προσηγορία, κατάπαυσιν Ἑβραϊκῶς σημαίνουσα. Or. 41.2

It is clear that in six days God brought matter into existence and gave it shape, and that he worked it into all manner of forms and structures, and that he made this visible world, and that on the seventh day he rested from his works, as is clear also from the word for the “Sabbath”, which signifies “rest” in Hebrew. After offering this etymology, Gregory goes on to echo the treatise of Menander by alluding to different possible interpretations that he leaves to others to

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and the movement about the harmony in song, which is called symphonia, because all these things, as those people say who are expert in music and astronomy, all move around together by means of some harmony: and this god presides over all, moving all these things together in harmony both among gods and among men”). The influence of this passage becomes clearer in a subsequent section of Menander’s oration: Εἰ δὲ δεῖ καὶ τὸν ἀπορρητότερον λόγον εἰπεῖν, ὃν φιλοσόφων παῖδες πρεσβεύουσι, λέγουσιν αὐτὸν [μὲν] ὄντα τὸν ἥλιον μουσικῇ μὲν αὐτὸν κινεῖσθαι, κατὰ μουσικὴν δὲ περιδινεῖν περὶ αὑτὸν τὸν πόλον, καὶ δι’ ἁρμονίας ἅπαντα τὸν κόσμον διοικεῖν. Οὐ μὴν ἀλλ’ἐπειδὴ ταῦτα τοῖς θεολόγοις παρεῖναι δεῖ … (442.28– 443.2) (“If I may utter the more secret doctrine, which the children of the philosophers hold in esteem, they say that he is the sun, and that it is by music that he moves, by music that he makes the heaven revolve about him and by harmony that he controls the whole universe. But we must leave this to the theologians …”, tr. Russell and Wilson, p. 217). See for example Or. 38.3 on θεοφάνια; Or. 40.5 on φῶς; 44.2–5 on ἐγκαίνια; Or. 45.10 on the meaning of Πάσχα. Among the Theological Orations see also Or. 30.18 on the etymology of θεός, where he cites the authority of “those who are clever in such matters (τοῖς περὶ ταῦτα κομψοῖς)”, to which we might compare Cratylus 405d (ὥς φασιν οἱ κομψοὶ), as well as Menander’s “children of the wise”.

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“philosophize” over: “If there is a more elevated explanation for this, let others philosophize (ἄλλοι φιλοσοφείτωσαν) about it,” (Or. 41.2). In expounding upon the name of the festival at hand, in performing learned etymologies, and in hinting at material that he leaves to others to “philosophize”, Gregory’s role as a Christian preacher maps precisely onto that of the festival rhetor.44 To be sure, etymologizing was an important feature of Christian exegetical traditions that were far removed from the public arena of festival oratory. However, when Gregory bids “others philosophize” on the etymological material he has alluded to, he collapses the distance between Christian exegetical traditions and the festival rhetoric exemplified by Menander’s Sminthiakos logos. Those members of Gregory’s audience who had received a rhetorical education would have seen these motifs as another sign that this aspect, at least, of traditional festival culture had not changed all that much under Christianity. In fact, at the beginning of this section on the etymology of the word “Sabbath”, Gregory seems to signal that he has precisely these members of his audience in mind: ῥητέον γάρ καὶ εἰ μικρόν τι παρεκβατικώτερος ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος, καὶ φιλοπονητέον τοῖς φιλολόγοις, ἵν’ ὥσπερ ἥδυσμά τι τῇ πανηγύρει συγκαταμίξωμεν. Or. 41.2

For it must be discussed, even if our speech digresses a little, and we must indulge in the undertaking on behalf of the philologoi, so that we might, as it were, mix a little sweetness into the festival. When Gregory refers to philologoi here, we should not think of those primarily interested in Hebrew terms for their own sake, but rather “lovers of logoi”— those educated members of the audience who were invested in having Gregory perform learned etymologies, precisely because that was what was expected of a festival rhetor. From Gregory’s dedication of his logos to God the Logos to his excursus on the Hebrew meaning of the word Sabbath, the salient characteristics of his festal orations are seen in a new light when read against the wider tradition of festival oratory. For a rhetor to associate his vocation with the divinity, or to dwell on the significance of names related to the festival, were not coded as 44

On this see especially Ps.-Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On Epideictic Speeches 256: “A god is always the leader and namegiver of any festival: Olympian Zeus of Olympia, Apollo of the festival at Pytho. So let the beginning of the speech be the praise of this god, whoever he is” (tr. Russell and Wilson, p. 363).

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Christian acts, but rather as the proper duties of a festival rhetor. They were in accordance with the expectations of all educated members of Gregory’s festival audiences, regardless of their confessional background. In the following chapters we shall see how a main principle governing these expectations was the deeply rooted cultural understanding of festivals as settings for the performance of philosophy.

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Festival Spectatorship and Philosophical Theoria Gregory belonged to a literary culture that for centuries had associated festivals with the performance of philosophy. This connection might not seem an obvious one to make, especially if one were to judge from prominent moralizing discourses in both the Classical and the Christian traditions that inveighed against public festivals for their supposed sensuality and physicality.1 However, such negative attitudes—common to Christian sermons and philosophical diatribes alike—offer only one side of the story. For a rhetor like Gregory, festivals were particularly apt settings for philosophical discussion. In a way, they had been so since the time of Plato, several of whose dialogues, including those depicted in the Republic, the Timaeus, the Symposium, and the Parmenides for instance, all take place either during a festival or immediately following one.2 Gregory and the educated members of his audiences were steeped in a literary tradition that followed Plato’s example, as one finds, in a variety of different kinds of texts produced during the Imperial and Late Antique periods, philosophical discussions staged conspicuously against the backdrop of festival celebrations. We begin our exploration of this particular role of festivals in literature with an ekphrasis that was included among the progymnasmata of Libanius, though it was probably the work of another Late Antique rhetor.3 The ekphrasis describes an unnamed panegyris, and it features an account of the

1 See for example Gregory’s Pentecost Oration, Or. 41.1 and above, Chapter 1 n. 27. 2 The conversation reported in the Republic is set at the Bendideia in the Peiraeus; that of the Symposium immediately after the City Dionysia; the main dialogue of the Parmenides takes place during the Greater Panathenaea, which in fact is what the titular philosopher and his companion Zeno of Elea had traveled to Athens to attend. The festival setting of the Timaeus (cf. 26e3) been variously identified; according to Proclus it was the Lesser Panathenaea, while A.E. Taylor, A Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus (Oxford 1928) 45 suggests the Plynteria. Precise identification depends of course on whether one agrees with the traditional interpretation that the discussion which Socrates says (Tim. 17c1) was held on the previous day refers to Socrates’s narration of the dialogue he held at the Festival of Bendis (i.e., the dialogue narrated in the Republic). F.M. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato (New York 1952) 5 thinks it by no means obvious that this is the conversation referred to at Tim. 26e3, and suggests instead as a setting for the Timaeus the Greater Panathenaea. 3 R. Foerster (ed.), Libanii Opera Vol. viii: Progymnasmata, Argumenta Orationum Demosthenicarum (Leipzig 1915 [repr. Hildesheim 1963]) 538–540 (= Progymnasmata 12.29).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/978900452140

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festival’s climactic public sacrifice, which is followed by general feasting throughout the city: ἑστιῶνται δὲ οἱ μὲν ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς, οἱ δὲ οἴκοι. καὶ δέονται πολῖται ξένων παρὰ σφίσιν εὐωχεῖσθαι. καὶ ἐν τῷ πότῳ φιλίαι μὲν ἀρχαῖαι βεβαιοῦνται μειζόνως, αἱ δὲ ἀρχὴν λαμβάνουσιν. ἐξανιστάμενοι δὲ οἱ μὲν τοὺς ξένους παραλαμβάνοντες δεικνύουσιν ὅτι ἐν τῇ πόλει θέας ἄξιον, οἱ δὲ ἐν ἀγορᾷ συγκαθήμενοι διαλέγονται σὺν φαιδρότητι … Progym. 12.29.8

Some feast in the temples, others at home. And citizens invite foreign visitors to dine together with them. And amidst their cups old friendships are reaffirmed and strengthened while new ones are begun. And then after getting up from dinner some take the visitors around and show them what is worth seeing in the city, while others sit together in the agora and converse in joyousness. The final activity listed in this description of festival participation deserves closer inspection. To sit in the agora and engage in dialogue (ἐν ἀγορᾷ συγκαθήμενοι διαλέγονται) is not so much the behavior one expects at a festival so much as the activity proverbially characteristic of Socratic dialogues.4 Moreover, the act of “sitting down” as a preliminary to engaging in philosophical dialogue is almost obligatory when evoking a Platonic atmosphere. For example, the verb καθίζομαι features no less than four times in the opening of the Phaedrus when Socrates and the title character journey outside the city walls to talk.5 In fact, such a Platonic atmosphere is precisely the aim in this Late Antique ekphrasis: this entire section is based on the opening scene of Plato’s Republic, a passage which was famous already in Antiquity.6 The description of festival activity takes its inspiration from the account of the Bendideia festival in the Piraeus at the beginning of Book i. Polemarchus, the son of Cephalus, has spotted Socrates and his friend Glaucon (Plato’s brother) returning to Athens, 4 See J. Doyle, “On the first eight lines of Plato’s Gorgias,” CQ 56.2, 599–602 on “dialogue in the agora” as a characteristically Socratic activity (601). 5 228e5, 229a2, 229a7 and 229b2. Note also that when Achilles Tatius recreates this scene from the Phaedrus, he makes sure to have his two speakers “sit down together” before beginning their tale. See Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Cleitophon, ed. Ebbe Vilborg (Stockholm 1955) 1.2.3. 6 See for example Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De Compositione Verborum vi 25.32–33, on the anecdote regarding the multiple drafts of the first sentence of the Republic that were found among Plato’s papers after his death.

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and Polemarchus entreats them to stay and dine with him and his father and then attend the night spectacle afterwards: καὶ πρός γε παννυχίδα ποιήσουσιν, ἣν ἄξιον θεάσασθαι· ἐξαναστησόμεθα γὰρ μετὰ τὸ δεῖπνον καὶ τὴν παννυχίδα θεασόμεθα. καὶ συνεσόμεθά τε πολλοῖς τῶν νέων αὐτόθι καὶ διαλεξόμεθα. ἀλλὰ μένετε καὶ μὴ ἄλλως ποιεῖτε. 328a6–b1

“Furthermore they will celebrate a night-festival, which is worth watching. For we will get up after dinner and watch the night-festival. And we will join many of the young men there and converse. Just stay and don’t do otherwise.” my translation

In each of the two passages the order of events is exactly parallel. First, the sacrifice: the ekphrasis describes a processional train with sons following fathers towards the temple, where “after having sacrificed each participant departs as the next approaches to do the same”.7 In the Republic, after accepting Polemarchus’s invitation to come dine with him, Socrates arrives at his house to find Polemarchus’s father Cephalus just as he has completed the sacrifice before the banquet (328c3). After the sacrifice the meal or banquet is to follow, and in the Republic just as in the ekphrasis the locals—in the Republic these are Polemarchus and Cephalus, who live in the Piraeus—invite the visitors—Socrates and his Athenian friend Glaucon—to dine with them. After the meal everyone is to “get up” (ἐξανιστάμενοι Progym. 12.29.8; cf. ἐξαναστησόμεθα Rep. 328a7), as the hosts take the visitors around to see the sights of the city (ὅτι ἐν τῇ πόλει θέας ἄξιον; cf. παννυχίδα ποιήσουσιν, ἣν ἄξιον θεάσασθαι Rep. 328a6–7); alternatively, the guests and hosts are to “converse together” (ἐν ἀγορᾷ συγκαθήμενοι διαλέγονται; cf. συνεσόμεθά τε πολλοῖς τῶν νέων αὐτόθι καὶ διαλεξόμεθα Rep. 328a8–9).8 As the festival-goers of the ekphrasis sit down and talk with one another, so Socrates sits down next to Cephalus and begins the conversation that we know as the Republic. It takes little imagination to think of the festival guests of the

7 p. 539 12.29.5–6: καὶ πατράσι συνομαρτοῦσιν υἱεῖς, οἱ μὲν ἤδη αἰσθανόμενοι θεῶν ἰσχύος, οἱ δὲ κομιδῆ νέοι. ὁ μέν τις ἄπεισι τεθυκώς, ὁ δὲ ἔρχεται τοῦτο δράσων. 8 It seems also that the remark in the ekphrasis about how “old friendships are reaffirmed and strengthened” (φιλίαι μὲν ἀρχαῖαι βεβαιοῦνται μειζόνως) looks back to the exchange between Socrates and Cephalus, whom Socrates says he “had not seen for some time” (διὰ χρόνου γὰρ καὶ ἑωράκη αὐτόν) and who chides Socrates for not visiting him more often (νῦν δέ σε χρὴ πυκνότερον δεῦρο ἰέναι … 328c1–d7).

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ekphrasis imitating their literary ancestors in the Republic by engaging in philosophical dialogue. No imagination at all however is needed to see festival guests involved in philosophical discussion in another depiction of a festival from roughly the same period, the famous and highly-wrought account of a festival at Delphi in Heliodorus’s Aethiopica.9 Towards the end of Book 2, the Egyptian priest Kalasiris, a major supporting character as well as one of the principal internal narrators of the novel’s convoluted plot, describes his visit to Delphi. There he met the hero and heroine of the story, Theagenes and Charikleia, for the first time. His stated reason for traveling to Delphi—that a city dedicated to temples and the performance of sacred rites would be an appropriate place for a member of the priestly caste to visit—seems to cast him in the traditional role of a theoros, a “pilgrim” or “sacred observer” who has travelled to a foreign city to attend a spectacle or festival.10 Upon arriving in Delphi, Kalasiris takes in the sights: Ἐπαινέσας οὖν τῶν τε δρόμων καὶ ἀγορῶν καὶ κρηνῶν τὸ ἄστυ καὶ Κασταλίαν αὐτήν, ἣν δὴ καὶ περιρραντήριον ἐποιησάμην, ἐπὶ τὸν νεὼν ἔσπευδον, καὶ γάρ με καὶ θροῦς τῶν πολλῶν ἀνεπτέρωσεν ὥραν εἶναι κινεῖσθαι τὴν θεοπρόπον λέγοντες. 2.26.4

And so, after praising the city for its streets and its open squares and fountains, as well as the Castalian Spring itself, which I used to sprinkle myself with its lustral water, I hastened to the temple, for the voices of the crowd stirred me on, saying that it was the appropriate time when the oracle would be moved to prophecy. Kalasiris duly receives an oracle from the Delphic priestess, and this special favor shown to him moves the citizens of Delphi to grant his request to be set up in one of the temples. There he will stay on to witness the theoric delegation sent by the Thessalians to celebrate a cultic festival in honor of their local hero Neoptolemus, who according to myth was killed and buried at Delphi. In the

9

10

On this scene, which features a Thessalian delegation performing a theoria on behalf of their home polis, see Rutherford, State Pilgrims and Sacred Observers in Ancient Greece 351–354, who notes that it represents “the most elaborate account of theoria in any literary source” (352). 2.26.1: ἁρμόδιον τῷ προφητικῷ καταγώγιον τὴν ἱεροῖς καὶ τελεταῖς ἀνακειμένην ὁριζόμενος. For the theoros, see Rutherford, State Pilgrims and Sacred Observers in Ancient Greece.

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meantime, however, Kalasiris engages in an activity that, as we have seen, has a particularly close association with festivals: Καὶ συνελόντι λέγειν ἀγαθῶν ἀπέλιπεν οὐδέν· ἢ γὰρ πρὸς ἱεροῖς ἦν ἢ πρὸς θυσίαις ἐξηταζόμην, ἃς πολλὰς καὶ παντοίας ἀνὰ πᾶσαν ἡμέραν ξένος τε καὶ ἐγχώριος λεὼς τῷ θεῷ χαριζόμενοι δρῶσιν, ἢ φιλοσοφοῦσι διελεγόμην· οὐκ ὀλίγος δὲ ὁ τοιοῦτος βίος συρρεῖ περὶ τὸν νεὼν τοῦ Πυθίου καὶ μουσεῖόν ἐστιν ἀτεχνῶς ἡ πόλις ὑπὸ μουσηγέτῃ θεῷ φοιβαζομένη. 2.27.2

And in sum there was no good thing I lacked. For either I would make enquiries into the temples and the sacrificial ceremonies, which both foreigners and locals performed every day in honor of the god with great abundance and variety, or I would converse with those engaged in philosophy. For no small number of people in pursuit of this manner of life flowed to the Pythian’s temple, and the city, seeing as it was inspired by the god who leads the Muses, became a veritable Mouseion. Kalasiris’s engagement in philosophical dialogue (φιλοσοφοῦσι διελεγόμην) is reminiscent of a seminar on Egyptian theology, anthropology, and natural science, as he fields questions put to him by other philosophically-minded guests in the temple: At first our discussions would arise about different topics, and one person would ask us how we Egyptians worship our local gods, and another would ask why among different peoples different animals are divinized and what the explanation for each is; another asked about the construction of the pyramids, still another about the mazes of our burial vaults, and in short they left no matter pertaining to Egypt unexplored. For every report and tale of Egypt is most alluring to a Greek audience. Eventually one of the more cultivated members of the gathering asked me about the Nile: what its sources are, how its nature is unique compared to other rivers, and why during the summer months it alone of all rivers floods. And I told them what I knew, including everything regarding this river that is recorded in holy books and permissible only to members of the prophetic caste to know and to read. 2.27.3–2.28.1

During his stay in Delphi, then, and before he attends the festival put on by the Thessalian theoric delegation, Kalasiris occupies himself in visiting the

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local sites, learning about the various ceremonies performed by local and visiting theoroi, and engaging in dialogue with other devotees of wisdom on subjects ranging from comparative theology to geography. Just as in the ekphrasis attributed to Libanius, philosophical dialogue (cf. φιλοσοφοῦσι διελεγόμην)—in Kalasiris’s narrative all disciplines are grist to the mill of the lover of wisdom— is grouped alongside local sightseeing and the spectatorship of festival performances. And again, just as in the ekphrasis attributed to Libanius, the pursuit of philosophy is implicitly characterized here as an appropriate or expected activity for a festival participant. In this passage in a Greek novel, a link is suggested between theoria as festival spectatorship and theoria as philosophical contemplation, and in Kalasiris’s narrative these activities of the theoros are associated with one another almost organically. In fact, it seems that Kalasiris’s actions gesture to that performer of festival philosophy more at home in centuries subsequent to the dramatic date of the Aethiopica, namely the festival rhetor. Kalasiris’s philosophical conversation with his fellow pilgrims (φιλοσοφοῦσι διελεγόμην) about the gods and culture of Egypt takes the place in the narrative, as it were, of a festival oration. Key here is Kalasiris’s discussion first of the pyramids and their underground mazes and then of the Nile and its peculiar qualities. We should read Kalasiris’s discussion of the Pyramids and the Nile in the light of the instructions for performing a festival oration in the treatise attributed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus. In addition to describing the city where the festival is held, the rhetor should also add material about its decoration: ὅσα περὶ κόσμου, οἷον ἱερῶν ἢ τῶν ἐν τούτοις ἀναθημάτων, δημοσίων οἰκοδομημάτων, ἰδιωτικῶν, ὥς που καὶ Ἡρόδοτος πεντώροφα καὶ ἑξώροφα φησὶν εἶναι ἐν Βαβυλῶνι· ἂν ποταμὸς ᾖ μέγας ἢ καθαρὸς ἢ συμβαλλόμενος τοῖς ἐνοικοῦσι τὴν χώραν· Ps.-Dionysius 257, ed. Radermacher

[Add material] regarding the adornment of the city, either of temples or the dedications within them, and of public and private buildings, like how Herodotus says there are five- and six-story buildings in Babylon. Also if there is a river that is big or clear or contributes to the inhabitants of the region. Compare Pseudo-Dionysius’s language here to Kalasiris’s description of the Nile: κἀκ τούτου λάβρων ὑετῶν ῥηγνυμένων ὀργᾷ τε ὁ Νεῖλος καὶ ποταμὸς εἶναι οὐκ ἀνέχεται ἀλλὰ κατεξανίσταται τῆς ὄχθης καὶ θαλασσώσας τὴν Αἴγυπτον

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τῇ παρόδῳ γεωργεῖ τὰς ἀρούρας, διὸ πιεῖν τέ ἐστι γλυκύτατος ἅτε ἐξ ὄμβρων οὐρανίων χορηγούμενος… 2.28.19-23

The Nile swells as heavy rains burst forth and it is no longer content to be a river but overflows its banks and turns Egypt into a sea, and through its arrival it cultivates the fields of grain. It is also most sweet to drink in as much as it is supplied with rain from heaven … Kalasiris discusses the Pyramids and their mazes, and he goes on to describe how the Nile overflows its banks, becomes as big as the sea, and in doing so creates the conditions necessary for Egyptian agriculture. He does a fair job of following the advice of “Dionysius” to describe the festival city’s temples, dedications, and buildings, as well as any river that is big and clear and “contributes to the inhabitants of the region”. In “engaging in dialogue with philosophers” (φιλοσοφοῦσι διελεγόμην) and expounding upon the gods, culture and geography of Egypt, Kalasiris takes the role of a rhetor performing philosophy at the festival. In both the ekphrasis attributed to Libanius and the novel of Heliodorus, which represent different literary genres but belong to the same highly-educated stratum of Imperial Greek discourse, engagement in philosophical dialogue is presented as a particularly appropriate festival activity. Talking about philosophy is at home at the festival. Parody can serve as a reliable indicator of the currency of a particular literary convention, and this is no less true in the case of the association between festivals and philosophy in the Imperial and Late Antique periods.11 Thus, a satirical text like Lucian’s Erotes can draw our attention to traditional literary motifs by lampooning or subverting them. The text consists of a dialogue within a dialogue, and it stages a debate over the relative merits of heterosexual and homosexual sex. In typically Lucianic fashion, it traffics in allusions to dialogues like the Phaedrus and the Symposium, but whereas the hallmark of these Platonic texts is their elevation of eros from the physical to the intellectual sphere, the Lucianic dialogue drags the Platonic form back down to earth. As is only fitting for a faux-philosophical dialogue, the characters ostentatiously

11

For the debate over the authorship of this dialogue, which is unequivocally attributed to Lucian in the manuscript tradition and whose Lucianic authorship only began to be widely doubted (wrongly in my view) in the twentieth century, see J. Elsner, Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton 2007) 117–119; J. Jope, “Interpretation and Authenticity of the Lucianic Erotes,” Helios 38.1 (2011) 103–120, 111–116; and Papaioannou, Michael Psellos 189.

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announce that they will be conducting their debate at a festival setting, namely a feast day in honor of Herakles: Καὶ γὰρ ἄλλως ἑορταστικὴν ἄγομεν ἡμέραν Ἡράκλεια θύοντες· οὐκ ἀγνοεῖς δὲ δήπου τὸν θεὸν ὡς ὀξὺς ἦν πρὸς Ἀφροδίτην· ἥδιστα οὖν δοκεῖ μοι τῶν λόγων τὰς θυσίας προσήσεσθαι. Erotes 1

Moreover we are honoring a day of festival today in celebrating the Herakleia. You are not unaware I suppose of how keen the god is when it comes to matters of Aphrodite, so I expect that he will most gladly accept our sacrifice of speeches. The festival setting is one of the elements that helps establish the Platonic atmosphere, an atmosphere that will be continuously undercut by the unapologetically physical interests of the disputants participating in the dialogue. For Lucian’s audience, the motif of philosophical discussion set against a festival backdrop is recognizable enough to contribute to parody. From Heliodorus’s novel to a rhetor’s progymnasmata to Lucianic satire, festivals are depicted as settings for philosophical discussion and performance in different types of literary texts from the Imperial and Late Antique periods. For philosophers themselves, festivals played the same role. The biographies of Plotinus and Proclus, written by their students Porphyry and Marinos respectively, both relate how their circles celebrated annual festivals in honor of the birthdays of Plato and Socrates.12 As at other festivals, some sort of rhetorical performance in honor of the occasion was included in the order of ceremonies. For these Neoplatonists, it was clearly expected that that performance would be philosophical. Thus, for the Platoneia—a festival in honor of Plato’s birthday—Porphyry claims to have recited a philosophical poem of his own composition:13 Ἐμοῦ δὲ ἐν Πλατωνείοις ποίημα ἀναγνόντος “Τὸν ἱερὸν γάμον”, καί τινος διὰ τὸ μυστικῶς πολλὰ μετ’ ἐνθουσιασμοῦ ἐπικεκρυμμένως εἰρῆσθαι εἰπόντος μαίνεσθαι τὸν Πορφύριον, ἐκεῖνος εἰς ἐπήκοον ἔφη πάντων· “ἔδειξας ὁμοῦ καὶ τὸν ποιητὴν καὶ τὸν φιλόσοφον καὶ τὸν ἱεροφάντην.” Life of Plotinus 15, eds. henry and schwyzer

12 13

For translations of these biographies, which I cite here, see Mark Edwards (tr.), Neoplatonic Saints: The Lives of Plotinus and Proclus by their Students (Liverpool 2000). For the Platoneia cf. also Life of Plotinus 2.

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At the feast of Plato I read a poem entitled The Sacred Marriage, and because many things were mystically and enigmatically stated in a rapturous style, someone exclaimed that Porphyry was raving; but [Plotinus] said in the hearing of all, “You have proved yourself simultaneously a poet, a philosopher and a teacher of sacred truth.”14 Two centuries later, the Platoneia and Sokrateia festivals are still celebrated by the performance of philosophy through oratory. In a passage most likely informed by the account of Porphyry just cited, Marinos describes the powerful effect of the philosophical orations his teacher Proclus performed in honor of Plato and Socrates: ὁ δὲ ἐντυγχάνων εἴσεται ὡς καὶ τὰ πρότερα ἀληθῆ πάντα περὶ αὐτοῦ ἱστόρηται, ἔτι δὲ μᾶλλον εἴ τις εἶδεν αὐτόν, ἐπέτυχέ τε τῆς ἐκείνου θέας, ἐξηγουμένου τε ἤκουσεν καὶ διεξιόντος λόγους παγκάλους, Πλατώνειά τε καὶ Σωκράτεια κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν ἄγοντος. οὐ γὰρ ἄνευ θείας ἐπιπνοίας ἐφαίνετο διαλέγεσθαι καὶ τὰ ταῖς νιφάδε⟨σ⟩σιν ὄντως ἐοικότα ῥήματα προχέειν τοῦ σωφρονοῦντος ἐκείνου στόματος. Life of Proclus 23

And one who encounters them will know that the whole of the foregoing narrative concerning him is true, and all the more so if anyone has seen him and enjoyed the spectacle of him, hearing his exposition and his delivery of the most exquisite discourses, as year by year he celebrated the festivals of Plato and Socrates. For it seemed that he spoke under divine inspiration, and that words truly fell like snow from that wise man’s mouth.15 For these Neoplatonist circles from the third to the fifth century, festivals in honor of the founding figures of their tradition were occasions for the rhetorical performance of philosophy. From rhetorical classroom exercises to the biographies of Neoplatonist sages, texts from across the literary spectrum attest to a widely recognized cultural association: festivals were sites to perform philosophy. For the educated classes, festival participation could not be reduced to the caricature of sensuality and physical pleasure known from the Classical and Christian moralizing traditions. Engaging in philosophical discussion and

14 15

Edwards, Neoplatonic Saints 26. Edwards, Neoplatonic Saints 94.

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performance was how pepaideumenoi like Gregory and his Christian and pagan peers were expected to celebrate festivals.

1

The Origins of Philosophical Theoria

The tight association between festivals and philosophy in Greek literature is partly related to a shared lexical connection. The Greek word for “contemplation” in the philosophical sense, theoria, is also the word for “spectatorship” in the sense of spectatorship at festivals. The two fields of activity, philosophical contemplation and festival spectatorship, thus enjoyed a special relationship that can be traced back to developments in the history of philosophy during the Classical period. In Ancient Greece, the term theoria originally referred to the state-sponsored delegations that were sent to serve as representatives to oracles or spectators at festivals held throughout the Greek world.16 The word thus came to refer to “spectatorship” in the physical sense. Then over the course of the fourth century, due especially to the work of Plato, theoria took on a more philosophical meaning. As Nightingale and Rutherford have shown, the dynamics involved in state-sponsored festival spectatorship and the ritual viewing of mystery celebrations were exploited by Plato and other philosophers in order to delineate a new, privileged realm of philosophical activity, the contemplation or theoria of abstract ideas.17 Instead of investigations into the natural world or discussions about morals, Plato took philosophy in a new direction by developing a metaphor around the actions of ritual pilgrimage and spectatorship to describe the contemplation or theoria of metaphysical truths. In dialogues like the Phaedrus, the Symposium, the Phaedo, the Timaeus and especially the Republic, Plato uses the institution of traditional theoria— festival pilgrimage and spectatorship—to characterize the ideal philosopher’s contemplative activity. In traditional civic theoria as it was practiced throughout Antiquity, theoroi traveled abroad to serve their communities as spectators at festivals in other cities before returning to their homes to report on what they had seen and experienced. In Plato’s scheme, the philosopher is a new kind of theoros—a “spectator” or “pilgrim”—who engages in the ritual spectatorship of truth itself: The fourth-century philosophers favored this paradigm [traditional theoria] for several reasons. First, they sought to conceptualize a mode of 16 17

Rutherford, State Pilgrims and Sacred Observers in Ancient Greece. See above, Introduction n. 66.

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apprehension that took the form of “seeing” divine essences or truths. Theoria at religious festivals—in which the pilgrim viewed icons, sacred images, and spectacles—offered a good model for this conception of philosophical “vision”. As we have seen, theoria at religious sanctuaries and festivals was characterized by a sacralized, “ritualized” visuality.18 Thus, for example, in Socrates’s second speech in the Phaedrus, the description of the soul’s contemplation of the forms and the revolutions of divine beings is constructed in such a way as to evoke spectatorship at a grand chariot procession (246a–249c).19 In the Symposium, Diotima’s speech as reported by Socrates draws on ritual spectatorship at the Eleusinian Mysteries to characterize the soul’s ascent to the contemplation of the beautiful.20 Perhaps most influentially, the dynamic of festival theoria and the return of the theoros to his home community defines the Republic, stretching from the opening scene with Socrates and Glaucon going to the Piraeus to see the Bendideia and getting involved in a philosophical discussion—a discussion that takes place in lieu of being a spectator at the festival’s torch relay on horseback—to the model of philosophical vision discussed in the Allegory of the Cave, to the Myth of Er at the end of the dialogue and its insistent characterization of the myth’s titular character and his sojourn in the afterlife as a spectator at a festival who reports what he has seen upon his return to the land of the living.21 The Republic’s central metaphor, that of the philosopher as a theoros who returns home to share the visions he acquired during his journey “abroad” in the realm of the intellect, would remain one of Plato’s most enduring legacies. Together with the dialogues actually set at festivals like the Republic, Timaeus, and Parmenides, Plato’s iconic characterization of contemplation as an act of spectatorship cemented the association between philosophy and festivals for the subsequent Greek tradition. Aristotle would follow his teacher by famously likening philosophical theoria to spectatorship at festivals such as the Olympics or the City Dionysia in Athens.22 Another member of Plato’s Academy, Philip of Opus, adapted Platonic theoria to characterize the study of astronomy. In the Epinomis, designed as a sequel to Plato’s Laws, Philip casts the astronomer as a theoros of the spectacle of the heavenly stars, which dance

18 19 20 21 22

Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth 69. Nightingale, Spectators of Truth 157–168. Nightingale, Spectators of Truth 83–89 on Symp. 210a–212c. Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth 74–83 and 94–138. In the Protrepticus, as reconstructed from Iamblichus (fr. B44 ed. Düring). See Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth 18 and 187–252.

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together in the great chorus of the cosmos.23 In later centuries the Platonic model of philosophical contemplation as festival spectatorship became widely popular in Greek learned discourse.24 Thus the author of On the Sublime writes that nature, “as if she were inviting us to some great festival … has called us into life, into the whole universe, there to be spectators of all that she has made …”.25 The motif of contemplation as festival spectatorship became especially popular in the Alexandrian tradition of Christian philosophy represented by Clement and his student Origen, as well as their Jewish predecessor Philo, as all three adapted the metaphorical field associated with ritual spectatorship to characterize philosophical contemplation.26 With Philo and Origen, we arrive at two figures who would wield profound influence on the Cappadocian Fathers in general and Gregory of Nazianzus in particular.27 While Gregory and Basil may never have actually edited the anthology of Origen’s writings known as the Philokalia, as was once widely believed, Gregory’s intellectual debt to Origen was nevertheless so extensive that he has been characterized as “the most faithful disciple Origen had among the Nicene fathers of the fourth century, and possibly the later patristic period as a whole”.28 As will be made clear over the following chapters, the scheme of contemplation developed first by Plato and then Aristotle and subsequently adapted in later centuries becomes one of the features of Hellenism with the widest and longest-lasting cultural currency.

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For Philip’s authorship of the Epinomis and its account of astronomical theoria, see Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth 180–186. For the choros of heavenly stars, see Epinomis 982e. See for example Rutherford, State Pilgrims 326 n. 11 on Epictetus, Discourses 2.14.23–24. See Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth 266 on On the Sublime 35.2–5 (I quote here Nightingale’s translation). For Philo and Clement see C. Riedweg, Mysterienterminologie bei Platon, Philon und Klemens von Alexandrien (Berlin 1987); on Origen, see D.-A. Giulea, “Seeing Christ through Scriptures at the Paschal Celebration: Exegesis as Mystery Performance in the Paschal Writings of Melito, Pseudo-Hippolytus, and Origen,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 74.1 (2008). For Philo and the Cappadocians, see e.g. D. Runia, “Platonism, Philonism, and the Beginnings of Christian Thought” in id., Philo and the Church Fathers: A Collection of Papers (Leiden 1995) 1–24, as well as S. Papaioannou, “Byzantine Enargeia and Theories of Representation,” Byzantinoslavica-Revue international des Études Byzantines 69.3 (2011) 48–60. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 273: “Gregory’s achievement, like that of other pro-Nicene theologians, is in no small measure the completion, refinement, and adaptation of Origen’s basic system in a new cultural, intellectual, and ecclesial environment.” For Gregory and Origen, see also Elm, Sons of Hellenism 22–23. For the Philokalia and how Gregory did not edit it himself but rather seems to have purchased a copy of this anthology during his time in Caesarea, where Origen had his famous library, see N. McLynn, “What Was the Philocalia of Origen?”, Meddelanden från Collegium Patristicum Lundense 20 (2005) 32–43.

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For rhetors interested in performing philosophy before their festival audiences, the dynamics of Platonic theoria were readily available and familiar. Illuminating in this respect are the autobiographical Sacred Tales of Aelius Aristides, a rhetor who exploits the connection between theoria as festival spectatorship and theoria as philosophical contemplation. Throughout the Sacred Tales, Aristides develops narrative parallels between physical pilgrimage and festival experience on the one hand and his own rhetorical performance in honor of a god on the other.29 At the conclusion of the second book, Aristides describes how at Asclepius’s orders he had traveled to Ephesus to convalesce and practice rhetoric (κατὰ τοὺς λόγους), a major component of his health regimen. While there, he was joined by a group of pilgrims who had been on their way to Pergamum to attend the great festival of Asclepius (τῶν θεωριῶν ἕνεκα), but who changed course to Ephesus when they heard that Aristides would be in residence there.30 At a local gymnasium, Aristides offered himself as a spectacle for contemplation when Asclepius ordered him paradoxically to bathe in cold water, even though he was wet and chilled after a rainstorm: εἰσὶ γὰρ οἱ βαδίζοντες εἰς Πέργαμον τῶν θεωριῶν ἕνεκα, καὶ ὡς εἶδον ἡμᾶς, ἀνέστρεψαν εἰς τὴν Ἔφεσον δρόμῳ. καὶ ταῦτα μὲν οὕτως εἶχεν. ὑσθέντος δέ μου καὶ ἀγωνιῶντος οὐ πολλαῖς ὕστερον ἡμέραις ἐπειδὴ ἐν τῇ Ἐφέσῳ ἐγενόμην, ἐπιτάττει ψυχρὸν λουτρόν, καὶ ἐλουσάμην ἐν τῷ γυμνασίῳ τῷ πρὸς τῷ Κορησσῷ. Οἱ δ’ ὁρῶντες οὐχ ἧττον τὸ λουτρὸν ἢ τοὺς λόγους ἐθαύμαζον· τὰ δ’ ἀμφότερ’ ἦν παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ. ii.81–8231 There were some people traveling to Pergamum for the festivals there, and when they saw us, they changed their course back to Ephesus. Such then was the situation. But then after it had rained on me and I was suffering, not many days after I had arrived in Ephesus [the god] bade me take a cold bath, and I bathed in the gymnasium at Koressos. Those who beheld 29

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See Sacred Tales iv.16–18: during “a certain splendid festival” (θεωρία … πάνυ λαμπρὰ) or “bull-hunting spectacle” (ταύρων θήρα) Aristides gives a miraculous extemporaneous performance to fellow convalescents in the Asclepieion; see also iv.31: while staying in Rome he receives a dream commanding him to compose a paean to Apollo. Just after completing the final strophe, he receives word that the citizens were conducting the great festival for Apollo, the Ludi Apollinares Circenses. See C. Behr (tr.), P. Aelius Aristides: the complete works, vol. ii, Orations xvii–liii (Leiden 1981) 432. For the text see B. Keil (ed.), Aelii Aristidis Smyrnaei Quae Supersunt Omnia (Berlin 1898 [repr. Hildesheim 1958]).

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the scene marveled no less at my bath than at my oratory. And both came from the god. Aristides delivers a divinely inspired rhetorical performance that, together with his paradoxical bathing, becomes a new object of theoria for the pilgrims that takes the place of the festival in Pergamum that they had originally planned to attend. Aristides’s rhetorical performance functions as a means to commune with the divine.32 This privileged access to the divine realm, which is what Aristides is implicitly claiming for himself throughout the Sacred Tales, receives explicit discussion in Book Four:33 Λόγον δέ ποτε ἤκουσα τοιόνδε φέροντα εἰς λόγους καὶ ὁμιλίαν θείαν. ἔφη χρῆναι κινηθῆναι τὸν νοῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ καθεστηκότος, κινηθέντα δὲ συγγενέσθαι θεῷ, συγγενόμενον δὲ ὑπερέχειν ἤδη τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ἕξεως· καὶ οὐδέτερόν γε εἶναι θαυμαστὸν, οὔτε ὑπερέχειν θεῷ συγγενόμενον οὔθ’ ὑπερσχόντα συνεῖναι θεῷ. iv.52

I once heard a story having to do with rhetoric and divine intercourse, and it went like this: that the nous must move from its current state, and having moved come together with god, and having come together then to rise above its mortal condition. And that neither was remarkable, neither that the nous after coming together with god should rise above [its mortal condition], nor that having risen above it should be with god. The “story” which Aristides heard about the connection between rhetoric and the divine is a reformulation—adjusted for Aristides’s oversized ego—of the soul’s ascent from earthly reality to communion with god. The anagogic ascent of the mind was an inescapable motif in the philosophical discourse of Aristides’s day, and the metaphor and the language surrounding it can be traced back especially to Plato’s Republic and to Diotima’s speech as related by Socrates in Plato’s Symposium. For Aristides, the nous must move from its current state, rising above human nature to associate with god. Plato’s true lover of beauty in the Symposium must, as if he were climbing steps (ὥσπερ ἐπαναβασμοῖς χρώμενον, 211d), progress from loving physical beauty to the contem-

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See A. Petsalis-Diomidis, Truly Beyond Wonders: Aelius Aristides and the Cult of Asklepios (Oxford 2010) 139: “Aristides is implicitly presented as a theios aner whose religious charisma, whose channel of communication to the divine, render him a rival of established locations of religious favour both spatially (sanctuaries) and temporally (festivals).” Behr, P. Aelius Aristides 437 n. 90 notes as a similar passage Or. xxviii.116.

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plation of the idea of beauty itself. This true beauty is untainted by anything human or mortal in nature (μὴ ἀνάπλεων σαρκῶν τε ἀνθρωπίνων καὶ χρωμάτων καὶ ἄλλης πολλῆς φλυαρίας θνητῆς, 211e; cf. Aristides’s ὑπερέχειν ἤδη τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ἕξεως), and the lover of beauty will join it in contemplative communion (θεωμένου καὶ συνόντος αὐτῷ 212a; cf. Aristides’s συνεῖναι θεῷ). Aristides’s oblique way of introducing this tale (Λόγον δέ ποτε ἤκουσα τοιόνδε) also recalls the way Socrates begins Diotima’s speech: τὸν δὲ λόγον τὸν περὶ τοῦ Ἔρωτος, ὅν ποτ’ ἤκουσα γυναικὸς Μαντινικῆς Διοτίμας (201d). Aristides presents his oratory as the means whereby he achieves the same sort of contemplative union with the divine that Diotima describes in the Symposium. Through his rhetorical exercises and performances—which in the above account he juxtaposes with actual festivals—Aristides participates in theoria, the contemplative communion with the gods.34 Aristides is instructive for approaching Gregory, as the former’s interest in performing through oratory the ascent of the soul and its union with the divine aligns closely with Gregory’s performance of theoria. For Aristides and his audiences, the link between theoria as spectatorship at festivals and theoria as contemplation of the divine was strongly felt. This is especially clear in the case of the would-be spectators of the festival in Pergamum in the passage discussed above from Book ii of the Sacred Tales who abandoned their original destination in order to watch Aristides perform oratory in honor of his god. For these audience members, listening to and watching a rhetor’s performance as he discusses the divine takes the place of acting as a theoros or spectator at a festival. From the Classical period into Late Antiquity, festivals were closely linked with the performance of philosophy. A widely familiar motif likened philosophical contemplation itself to the act of festival spectatorship, and across a variety of different literary traditions festivals served as settings for philosophical performance and discussion. For audiences at public festivals—especially the pepaideumenoi—it was expected that a festival rhetor would discuss philo34

For another passage where Aristides adopts an attitude of strikingly Platonic theoria, see Philostratus’s Lives of the Sophists 2.582 (tr. Wright): “The Emperor addressed him, and inquired, ‘Why did we have to wait so long to see you?’ To which Aristides replied: ‘A subject on which I was meditating kept me busy, and when the mind is absorbed in meditation it must not be distracted from the object of its search’” (προσειπὼν δὲ αὐτὸν ὁ αὐτοκράτωρ “διὰ τί σε” ἔφη “βραδέως εἴδομεν;” καὶ ὁ Ἀριστείδης “θεώρημα”, ἔφη “ὦ βασιλεῦ, ἠσχόλει, γνώμη δὲ θεωροῦσά τι μὴ ἀποκρεμαννύσθω οὗ ζητεῖ”). The depiction of Aristides here as a sage lost in thought can be compared to Socrates’s behavior at the beginning of Plato’s Symposium, where despite being repeatedly summoned, he remains frozen in contemplation outside of Agathon’s house and arrives late to the banquet (175a–c).

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sophical themes in orations in honor of the occasion at hand. This is the cultural background against which Gregory’s project in his festal orations must be considered. Throughout these orations, Gregory uses the verb φιλοσοφεῖν to characterize the work that he and his audience perform together. When considered out of context, this might seem unremarkable, as the use of this term in Christian circles to refer to Christian spiritual or ethical practice was well established.35 However it is precisely in context that Gregory’s use of this term reveals its true significance. As will be discussed at greater length in Chapter 4 below, at the Festival of the Nativity Gregory draws heavily on Platonizing imagery—in particular the “ocean of beauty” described in the Symposium and the process of anamnesis recounted in the Phaedrus—to characterize the contemplation of the divine, and he refers to what he is doing as “philosophizing about God” (περὶ Θεοῦ πεφιλοσοφήσθω, Or. 38.8).36 He then presents an account of the creation of humankind that owes just as much to Plato’s Timaeus and the tradition that followed it as it does to the Book of Genesis—referring for example to the second person of the Trinity as the “Demiurge Logos” (τοῦ Δημιουργοῦ Λόγου, Or. 38.11) and the “artisan Logos” (ὁ τεχνίτης … λόγος).37 Gregory prefaces this account by saying that he will be obliging with his audience’s request to “philosophize about the present festival” (τὰ τῆς ἑορτῆς ἡμῖν φιλοσόφει, Or. 38.10). At the Festival of the Holy Lights (Epiphany) held a few days later, Gregory expounds upon the themes of purification and illumination with markedly Platonic language. His goal, as he says beforehand, is to “philosophize about God and the divine” (φιλοσοφήσωμεν τὰ περὶ Θεοῦ καὶ τὰ θεῖα, Or. 39.8).38 He begins the oration on Pentecost by declaring to his audience, “Let us philosophize about the feast a

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See A.-M. Malingrey, “Philosophia”. Gregory’s references to his own “philosophizing” are often characterized as only invoking this general ethical sense; see especially Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 72–74: “While Gregory occasionally speaks of philosophy as involving both practical and speculative dimensions, or practice and contemplation … he mainly focuses on the practical discipline of conducting one’s life in light of one’s highest values” (73). See also Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 163 n. 4. For Gregory’s Platonizing language in this section, see Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 70–81. See Moreschini’s note at 115 n. 5 comparing Gregory’s characterization of the Divine as “like an ocean of being” (οἷόν τι πέλαγος οὐσίας) with Plato’s τὸ πολὺ πέλαγος τοῦ καλοῦ (Symp. 210d). In the same passage of Gregory’s oration, his description of a momentary, fleeting conception of the divine, which “flashes like lightning” upon the sight of the mind, also recalls the famous moment in the Phaedrus when the “lightning flash” of a beautiful boy prompts a momentary recollection of the heavenly Form of beauty itself (Phaedrus 254b4). On the influence of the Timaeus in this section of Or. 38, see Chapter 3 n. 50. Cf. Or. 39.9 and Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 165 n. 2.

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little, so that we may celebrate the festival spiritually” (Or. 41.1). What follows is a learned discussion on the origins and significance of the Pentecost festival, including the etymologizing of the Hebrew word “Sabbath” discussed in the previous chapter. Originally the Hebrew Feast of Weeks, celebrated seven weeks or seven-times-seven days after Passover, Pentecost (from the Greek for “fifty”) is an opportunity to dwell at length on the symbolic significance of the number seven in the Bible, and Gregory draws an analogy between the Hebrew reverence for the hebdomad and the Pythagorean tetraktys. Together with his fellow Cappadocian Basil of Caesarea, Gregory inherits this interest in number symbolism from the Christian Platonist Origen and his Jewish Platonist model Philo of Alexandria.39 All of these learned discourses—discourses having to do with etymologies, number symbolism, the dynamics of illumination through purification and the assimilation to the divine, the formation of the cosmos and the process of contemplation—constitute well-recognized elements of philosophical culture for Gregory and his contemporaries. As he explicitly reminds us again and again, Gregory’s project in these orations is to “philosophize”, to perform philosophy at the festival, which is just what educated audiences had associated with festival culture for centuries. In the following chapter, we will see how in the very prooemia or openings of his orations, Gregory primes his audience to engage in a specific type of philosophical activity, one that consists in applying theoria to philosophical texts themselves and using the tools of exegesis to identify how their opening sections prefigure or symbolize their larger themes and ideas. 39

For early Christian interest in numbers, see J. Kalvesmaki, The Theology of Arithmetic: Number Symbolism in Platonism and Early Christianity. Hellenic Studies 59 (Washington, DC 2013). As so often, Philo is a key figure in the transmission of these ideas to the Church Fathers; see J. Rogers, Didymus the Blind and the Alexandrian Christian Reception of Philo (Atlanta 2017) 143–154.

chapter 3

The Prooemia of Gregory’s Orations and Traditions of Exegesis For Gregory and his fellow Cappadocians—as for the Alexandrian figures Philo (d. after 40 ce), Clement (b. ca. 150), and Origen (184/5–254/5) who were so influential upon them—theoria referred to a set of related philosophical activities. To begin with, theoria could be used as shorthand for the “contemplative life” in its ancient juxtaposition with the “active life”, though both elements in the pairing could now carry a specifically Christian meaning.1 More frequently, theoria meant the exegesis or interpretation of holy texts in such a way as to uncover meaning beneath the literal or historical exterior.2 To use a prominent Cappadocian example, Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses is divided into two parts: the first part summarizing the biblical account of Moses’s life is called the narrative or historia, while the second part, which explores the allegorical, typological or mystical significance of every aspect of the “literal” narrative, is

1 For the relationship between the bios praktikos and the bios theoretikos in Gregory of Nazianzus, see T. Špidlík, “La theoria et la praxis chez Grégoire de Nazianze,” Studia Patristica 14 (1976) 358–364. See also A.-M. Malingrey, “Philosophia” 253–254 on the Cappadocians and their concern with the philosophia theoretike and philosophia praktike, which now designate the understanding of Christian truth on one hand and the practice of Christian virtue (askesis) on the other. For theoria as the contemplation of spiritual truths in Gregory of Nazianzus, see for example see C. Moreschini, Filosofia e letteratura in Gregorio di Nazianzo (Milan 1997) 100– 105. For contemplative theoria in general in the Platonic and Patristic traditions, see Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition. For the debate regarding the vita activa and the vita contemplativa and the development of this topos in Classical literature, see A.W. Nightingale, “Plato’s Gorgias and Euripides’ Antiope: A Study in Generic Transformation,” CA 11.1 (1992) 121–141, especially 122. 2 For Origen’s famous tripartite approach to exegesis, through which a text can be read according to “body, soul, and spirit”, corresponding to “the plain historical sense, the typological sense, and the spiritual sense”, see J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (San Francisco 1978) 73. For the debate between what has been reductively referred to as Alexandrian allegory and Antiochene typology, see F. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Peabody, MA 1997) 161–185. The so-called “Antiochene school” react against what they consider the allegorical excesses of the Alexandrians and award the label of theoria to their own method of exegesis. We should not, however, let ancient or modern accounts of the controversy blind us to practices that both sides had in common; see Young, Biblical Exegesis 183: “Their common ground and common practices were very considerable, and they are certainly not to be distinguished by the simple opposition ‘allegorical’ and ‘literal.’”

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called the theoria. Closely connected to this exegetical theoria—or rather an extension of it—was the idea of theoria as the contemplation of spiritual truths, which are frequently arrived at through exegesis. Behind Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses and behind Gregory of Nazianzus’s use of Moses as an exemplum of the Platonic theoros—a theme developed at greater length in the following chapter—there ultimately stands the treatment of the same material from Exodus by Philo.3 All these figures treat the Moses story (the “literal” meaning of the text) as a Platonic parable for the soul’s ascent through the use of symbols to the contemplation of the divine (the “spiritual” meaning behind the text). Gregory of Nazianzus’s assimilation of his own rhetorical persona to the figure of Moses the theoros in for example the second of the Theological Orations (Or. 28.2–3) is of decisive influence for the subsequent tradition:4 Gregory [of Nazianzus] is largely responsible for creating the image of Moses as a primary model of Christian growth and the vision of God. There are brief statements in Origen that hint at such a use of Moses. In Comm.Jn.32.338–343 Origen refers to the glory that shone in Moses’ face ‘when he was conversing with the divine nature’ on Mount Sinai [Ex. 34:19], to which he adds a summary comment on purification and contemplation … Gregory, however, makes Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai paradigmatic for Christians. Through Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses and the Pseudo-Dionysius’ Mystical Theology as well—both of which follow Gregory Nazianzen’s work—the motif becomes standard in Eastern and Western spirituality.5 Given the Platonic pedigree of their activity as exegetes, it will come as no surprise that the privilege of engaging in theoria as exegesis leading to con-

3 For Philo’s Platonic exegesis of the Burning Bush, the ascent of Sinai, and Moses’s glimpse of the “hindparts of God” (Exodus 3:14; 19:1–24 and 33:17–23), see D. Runia, “Platonism, Philonism, and the Beginnings of Christian Thought” in id., Philo and the Church Fathers: A Collection of Papers (Leiden 1995) 1–24, who singles out these passages as the decisive texts in Philo’s selection of the “Platonist paradigm” to show how “insights from the Greek philosophical tradition could be localized in the authoritative words of scripture” (15). 4 Besides Or. 28.2–3 above, see also for example Ors. 2.92 and 45.11–12. 5 C. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 65 n. 6. Beeley compiles a catalogue of passages in Gregory of Nazianzus referring to Moses at 65 n. 5. Besides Or. 28, see also Or. 2.92 and Or. 45.11–12. For the figure of Moses in the Patristic tradition in general, see C. Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition (Berkeley 2005) 125–136, which discusses how Moses was constructed as an episcopal exemplar in terms of spiritual, ascetic and pragmatic authority.

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templation is accorded only to those whose souls have undergone the requisite training or askesis in philosophy—a training regimen which is often cast in terms of “purification.”6 For a representative passage we can turn to Gregory of Nazianzus’s festival oration for Christmas (Or. 38.12): Τὸ δὲ ἦν τὸ ξύλον τῆς γνώσεως, οὔτε φυτευθὲν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς κακῶς, οὔτε ἀπαγορευθὲν φθονερῶς (μὴ πεμπέτωσαν ἐκεῖ τὰς γλώσσας οἱ θεομάχοι, μηδὲ τὸν ὄφιν μιμείσθωσαν)· ἀλλὰ καλὸν μὲν εὐκαίρως μεταλαμβανόμενον (θεωρία γὰρ ἦν τὸ φυτὸν, ὡς ἡ ἐμὴ θεωρία, ἧς μόνοις ἐπιβαίνειν ἀσφαλὲς τοῖς τὴν ἕξιν τελεωτέροις), οὐ καλὸν δὲ τοῖς ἁπλουστέροις ἔτι, καὶ τὴν ἔφεσιν λιχνοτέροις, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ τροφὴ τελεία λυσιτελὴς τοῖς ἁπαλοῖς ἔτι καὶ δεομένοις γάλακτος. Or. 38.12

It was the tree of knowledge, which had neither been originally planted to an evil purpose nor forbidden to us out of a spirit of envy—may those who choose to fight with God cast no such aspersions, nor imitate the serpent—instead it is a good thing if partaken of at the proper time (for the tree is theoria, as my theoria has it, which is safe only for those who have arrived at a more perfect state to embark upon), while it is not a good thing for those still of a more simple understanding and gluttonous in their appetite, in the same way that adult nourishment is not beneficial to those still young and soft and in need of milk. As the would-be Platonic sage cannot bear to look immediately upon the sun because of the weakness of his eyes, and must first condition them by gazing at images and reflections of the sun (Resp. 516a5–b6), so the deeper mysteries of exegesis are not for the newly-initiated. The right to engage in exegetical theoria and to pronounce authoritative interpretations of texts was hotly contested among Christian and pagan intellectuals alike. Susanna Elm has richly illustrated the literary battles that raged in the fourth century between Christian and Pagan, Nicene and Neo-Arian, over the proper theoria of key terms in culturally significant texts:

6 On the intimate connection between purification or katharsis and theoria in Gregory of Nazianzus see J. Plagnieux, Saint Grégoire de Nazianze théologien (Paris 1951) 81–111; see also Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 107: “Beginning with purification and fear, one is moved by desire for the transcendent God and is raised … to the heights of illumination by the light of divine knowledge.”

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What was such a term’s dynamis, or signifying power, vis-à-vis the divine? To arrive at that dynamis required allegory and logical abstraction, the rhetorical wherewithal to use synonyms, homonyms, and syllogistic logic —that is, the hermeneutical tool kit provided by Greek logoi.7 Readers in Late Antiquity began their training in interpretative theoria long before they embarked upon careers as polemicizing bishops and/or Neoplatonic exegetes. A staple feature in the rhetorical curriculum was a critical approach to reading that sought moral or otherwise secondary literary meaning in the primary coordinates of a text—an approach owing much to Stoic criticism (or “Stoically-inflected” Platonism) but which by the Imperial period had become the pedagogical lingua franca.8 Thanks to the ubiquity of the rhetorical curriculum, virtually all educated audience members would have received a basic introduction to the critical theoria of texts. Critical overviews, such as the following from the treatise on epideictic speeches falsely attributed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, would have provided generations of readers with a common experience in theoria, the critical examination of texts:9 Αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ θεωρία, καθ’ ἣν ἐξετάζεται ⟨κατὰ⟩ βυβλίων ἀκροάσεις πᾶς λόγος μετὰ ἀσφαλείας πορευομένης τῆς ἐξετάσεως. Ζητήσεις γὰρ τί ὠφελεῖ ἢ βλά-

7 Elm, Sons of Hellenism 397. For the social context of contests for interpretative authority in Late Antiquity, see R. Lim, Public Disputation, Power and Social Order in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 1995). 8 Frequently juxtaposed in this context are Plutarch’s De Audiendis Poetis (Mor. 14d–37b) and a similar exhortation by Basil of Caesarea. For Plutarch see R. Hunter and D. Russell (eds.), Plutarch: De Audiendis Poetis (Cambridge 2011); for Basil, N. Wilson (ed.), Saint Basil on the Value of Greek Literature (London 1975). Basil follows Plutarch in the practice of “ethical criticism”: useful moral content is to be extracted from otherwise questionable poetry (or pagan literature writ large in Basil’s case). Young, Biblical Exegesis 173 offers useful perspective on Basil’s methods: “He advises Christian parents and pupils to allow the usual (that is, the pagan) educational curriculum to train the mind while discriminating between the morally useful and the harmful. This was an ancient educational tradition, not some curious Christian double-think.” For a brief survey of Stoic approaches to “ethical” literary criticism, see the introduction in Hunter and Russell, Plutarch: De Audiendis Poetis 12–15. They also note the difficulty of differentiating between Stoic and Platonic material in literary prose of the Imperial period: “… it is not always easy, particularly in a non-technical essay such as How to study poetry, to draw firm distinctions between positions held by Stoics and those of Middle Platonism” (12). 9 For the text itself see L. Radermacher and H. Usener (eds.), Dionysii Halicarnasei quae exstant, vol. 6 (Leipzig 1905) 255–260. For the compilation of the Ps.-Dionysian Art of Rhetoric from originally disparate pieces, see Malcom Heath’s “Pseudo-Dionysius Art of Rhetoric 8–11: Figured Speech, Declamation and Criticism”, American Journal of Philology 124 (2003) 81–105.

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πτει τὰ ἀνεγνωσμένα ἢ εἰρημένα ἢ ἠκουσμένα εἰς ἦθος, γνώμην, τέχνην, λέξιν. τὸ ἦθος διπλοῦν, κοινὸν καὶ ἴδιον. κοινὸν μὲν τὸ εἰς ἀρετὴν προτρέπον καὶ κακίας ἀποτρέπον· ἴδιον δὲ τὸ προσήκοντας καὶ πρέποντας τοὺς λόγους τῷ τε λέγοντι καὶ τοῖς ἀκούουσι καὶ περὶ ὧν ὁ λόγος καὶ πρὸς οὓς ὁ λόγος παρέχεσθαι· γίνεται δὲ τοῦτο ἐν τοῖς ἀριθμοῖς οἷς εἴπομεν, τοῖς ἑπτά … οὗτος ὁ περὶ ⟨τῆς⟩ τῶν λόγων ἐξετάσεως λόγος. 11.10

This is the theoria through which one can examine—with critical soundness as the examination proceeds—any kind of discourse encountered [⟨κατὰ⟩ ἀκροάσεις] in books. For you will inquire how what you have read or declaimed or heard is either beneficial or harmful with respect to character, thought, technique and diction [as they are revealed in the text]. Character in two senses, the public and the personal, the public being that which directs us towards virtue and away from vice; the personal with respect to the need for speech to be fitting and appropriate for both speaker and audience as well as concerning what and towards whom the speech is directed. This is generated in the seven ways I mentioned … This then is our logos regarding the examination of logoi. Common then to Late Antique readership was a background with the exegesis or theoria of texts—including sacred texts and school texts. In this chapter I show how the prooemia of Gregory’s festival speeches engage his audiences in a familiar type of interpretative theoria. This introductory interpretive activity serves as a primer for the work performed together by rhetor and audience throughout the rest of the oration, as the rhetor leads the audience in realizing theological truths from scriptural texts and from the circumstances of the festival itself—a performance of theoria cast in explicitly Platonic terms. This chapter is about the introductions or prooemia of Gregory’s orations and how they offer the audience the opportunity to perform theoria by contemplating the significance of Gregory’s opening words and their relationship to the larger themes of the oration. Like the famous opening scenes of Platonic dialogues—which were also known as prooemia—Gregory foreshadows the themes of his orations in their opening sentences, on occasion even alluding to the “first words” of Platonic dialogues themselves. These prooemia or “preludes” do not merely function, as it were, like musical overtures which give a sampling of the major themes to be developed over the course of the work. Rather, the dynamic of the prelude itself—which directs our attention from the symbol to the symbolized—represents in microcosm the whole enterprise of Gregory’s

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festival rhetoric. In these orations Gregory performs the Platonic leap from ritual spectatorship of the festival itself and of related texts and images to the contemplation of theological mysteries, or the ascent from Biblical source text to exegesis.10 The prelude initiates the metaphorical mindset—our first opportunity, as members of the audience, to move the mind’s eye from shadow to object. A Late Antique audience versed in philosophical exegesis would have known the use of the word προοίμιον to refer to the introductory scenes in Platonic dialogues, but the term would have been more widely familiar as the general term for the introductory section of a poem or prose work, particularly that of a rhetorical speech.11 As such, the prooemium received its share of attention in rhetorical treatises, and constituted an object of general interest among those invested in paideia. Texts such as Philostratus’s Lives of the Sophists depict rhetors of the second and third centuries vigorously debating the merits of one another’s prooemia. A single ill-turned prooemium could tarnish a rhetor’s otherwise sterling reputation, as in the case of the celebrity rhetor Aelius Aristides, who was criticized long after his death for having once uttered a particularly insipid prooemium.12 On the other hand, an ambitious sophist could use the prooemium of his inaugural lecture as the holder of the municipal chair of rhetoric in Athens to mark his arrival on the scene—and he could correctly count on it being remembered.13 For rhetors of the fourth century as well, the

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See J. Rexer, Die Festtheologie Gregors von Nyssa: ein Beispiel der reichskirchlichen Heortologie (Frankfurt 2002) 215 on how Gregory of Nyssa’s own festival orations (which carefully imitate those of Gregory of Nazianzus) work in exactly this way, by leading the audience in a Platonic ascent through sensible reflections of the truth to a spiritual vision of the truth itself. In referring to the opening or framing scenes of Platonic dialogues as prooemia, exegetes were in fact following the lead of Socrates himself, who at Rep. ii 357a refers to the introductory scene of Book i as a προοίμιον. For a history of thought—ancient and modern—on the significance and etymological origin of the word προοίμιον see B. Maslov, “The Real Life of the Genre of Prooimion,” CP 107.3 (2012) 191–205. For a survey of the literary significance of prooemia across a variety of Classical genres and representative texts, see the essays collected in F. Dunn and T. Cole (eds.), Beginnings in Classical Literature (= YCS 29) (Cambridge 1992). For Philosostratus and Eunapius I use here and throughout the Loeb Classical Library text and translation: W.C. Wright, Philostratus and Eunapius: The Lives of the Sophists (Cambridge, MA 1968) 583.28–30. Lives of the Sophists 586.31–587.2: “So full of self-confidence was Hadrian when he ascended the chair of rhetoric at Athens, that in the prooemium of his address to the Athenians he dilated not on their wisdom but on his own, for he began by announcing, ‘Once again letters have come from Phoenicia.’ ”

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prooemium of a particular oration can serve as the climax of an anecdote about a rhetor’s life and form an important part of his legend.14 This interest in the prooemium as a particularly memorable and charged part of an oration began for both rhetorical professionals and audiences during their schooldays. Rhetorical education included formal training in the development of prooemia according to the needs of the given situation. This training— geared mostly to the production of declamations in either the deliberative or judicial mode—can be seen at work in the treatise On Invention, long attributed to Hermogenes and included in the five-part Corpus of Hermogenes along with the Progymnasmata of Aphthonius and the genuine works of Hermogenes.15 The text begins with a discussion of the composition and use of prooemia, and with a characteristically schematic approach the author recommends that the rhetor generate prooemia by following one of four strategies. A prooemium can anticipate and defuse a “preconception” or “supposition” (ὑπόληψις) held by the audience and which the opposing side may be expected to exploit;16 a prooemium can be generated by amplifying the charge at hand by associating or rhetorically “subordinating” (ὑποδιαίρεσις) it to a previous deed, general behavior, or the possibility of the repetition of the offense17—and so on. As mentioned above, the treatise focuses on deliberative and judicial orations and does not give much advice specific to the production of speeches in the panegyric or epideictic mode, merely suggesting that it can be made more panegyric through the use of “harmonious rhythms”, by speaking ἐπιφωνηματικῶς (i.e., through the interjection of “personal opinions, exclamations, or value judgements”18) or through the use of “compressed and simpler” cola (συνεστραμμένοις καὶ εὐκόλοις).19

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Eunapius relates the story of how as a young man the famous Christian rhetor Prohaeresius delivered a speech on behalf of his teacher Julian before the Roman prefect’s tribunal, when Julian’s students were involved in a suit over disorderly conduct with the students of a rival master: “Then, he lengthened his speech into a second prooemium as follows (for this part Tuscianus [Eunapius’ source] remembered): ‘If, then, men may with impunity commit any injustice and bring accusations and win belief for what they say, before the defence is heard, so be it! Let our city be enslaved to Themistokles!’ Then up jumped the proconsul, and shaking his purple-edged cloak … that austere and inexorable judge applauded Prohaeresius like a schoolboy” (Lives of the Philosophers 2.17). For translation see G. Kennedy (tr.), Invention and Method. Two Rhetorical Treatises from the Hermogenic Corpus (Atlanta 2005), which includes the text of H. Rabe (ed.), Hermogenis Opera (Leipzig 1913). Kennedy, Invention and Method 5 (Rabe 93.1). Kennedy, Invention and Method 17 (Rabe 101.8). Kennedy, Invention and Method 27 n. 46. Kennedy, Invention and Method 27 (Rabe 107.7–12).

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Theoretical or pedagogical discussions of prooemia, such as the above outline from On Invention, tend to make prooemia seem rather formulaic. In actual practice, however, the rhetor was afforded more room for creativity, especially in the case of panegyric or epideictic speeches, whose prooemia as mentioned receive little in the way of theoretical differentiation in On Invention. A common strategy for prooemia was to lead with a Classical allusion, and Gregory follows this convention in his Second Invective against Julian (Or. 5) when he famously alludes to the Odyssey. This allusion in turn sets the agenda for the entire oration.20 Less well known is the prooemium to the festal oration On New Sunday (Or. 44), in which Gregory incorporates an allusion to the prooemium of Herodotus’s Histories:21 Ἐγκαίνια τιμᾶσθαι, παλαιὸς νόμος, καὶ καλῶς ἔχων· μᾶλλον δὲ, τὰ νέα τιμᾶσθαι δι’ Ἐγκαινίων· καὶ τοῦτο, οὐχ ἅπαξ, ἀλλὰ καὶ πολλάκις, ἑκάστης τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ περιτροπῆς τὴν αὐτὴν ἡμέραν ἐπαγούσης, ἵνα μὴ ἐξίτηλα τῷ χρόνῳ γένηται τὰ καλὰ, μηδὲ παραῤῥυῇ λήθης βυθοῖς ἀμαυρούμενα. Or. 44.1

The celebration of feasts of reconsecration is an old custom, and a good one. Or rather, the celebration of the new through feasts of reconsecration, and not once, but often, every time the turning of the year brings round the same day, so that good things do not grow faint with time nor fade and dissolve in the depths of forgetfulness.

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Or. 5.1: “This first contest of my words is now accomplished and completed” (οὗτος μὲν δὴ τῶν ἐμῶν λόγων ὁ πρῶτος ἄεθλος ἐκτετέλεσται καὶ διήνυσται). Gregory’s “first contest” against Julian—the first invective (Or. 4)—is complete, and he prepares to launch the second strike of Or. 5. Gregory alludes here to Odysseus’s words at Od. xxii 5 when he has killed the first of the suitors. Julian had attempted to deprive Gregory of his rightful patrimony— Classical literature. See Elm, Sons of Hellenism 433: “… Gregory’s opening sentence encapsulates everything he represents. The context of the seemingly innocuous remark Gregory quotes from Homer—my first strike is complete—is the brief pause before Odysseus’s second and final attack on the suitors who were still alive. Having already demonstrated his superior fighting skill in his first strike, Gregory as Odysseus will now kill all who have usurped his house: Julian and his followers.” See F. Haensel, Gregorii Nazianzeni Oratio in novam Dominicam: illustrata introductione et commentario perpetuo (Leipzig 1836) 30, who notes Cassius Dio’s allusion (lvii 16) to the same Herodotean passage. Haensel also draws attention to the Homeric flavor of the phrase τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ περιτροπῆς (cf. Il.ii.295: ἡμῖν δ’ ἔνατός ἐστι περιτροπέων ἐνιαυτὸς). For the high classicizing style of the oration’s ekphrasis of spring see Ševčenko, “A Shadow Outline of Virtue,” 57–58.

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In this oration for the Festival of New Sunday, the first Sunday after Easter, Gregory leads the audience in commemorating the one-week “anniversary” of the salvation they had celebrated the week before: “That Sunday was our salvation, this the anniversary of that salvation.”22 In the prooemium, Gregory reworks Herodotus by announcing that the festival is meant to rededicate specifically “good” things. This puts a Christian spin on Herodotus’s hopes for his own commemorative work, which he undertook “so that the deeds of men might not fade with time” (ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται).23 Gregory’s echo (μὴ ἐξίτηλα τῷ χρόνῳ γένηται τὰ καλὰ) of Herodotus is unmistakable, but over the course of the oration we learn that he has a very different idea of what ought to be preserved from oblivion. Gregory develops the themes of rededication and reconsecration, and as the physical world is renewed during Spring, the “Queen of the Seasons” that itself is the subject of an extended ekphrasis at the end of the oration at Or. 44.10–12, so the festival of “New Sunday” celebrates the renewal of the soul: “Now become new instead of old, and celebrate the reconsecration of your soul!” (καὶ γενοῦ καινὸς ἀντὶ παλαιοῦ, καὶ ψυχῆς ἑόρταζε τὰ Ἐγκαίνια, Or. 44.6).24 In the prooemium Gregory had declared it proper “to celebrate festivals of reconsecration” so that “good things do not fade with time”, and in the rest of the oration he expands on what exactly the festival is meant to renew. Gregory alludes to the famous passage from Herodotus in order to introduce the themes of the oration to come, which is, of course, exactly how we might expect a prooemium to work. However, the relationship between a prooemium and the subsequent sections of a given oration can also be significantly more involved, and a rhetor can arrange his material so as to have the prooemium gradually acquire new layers of meaning as the oration progresses. In an epideictic oration the prooemium could take on the sort of programmatic significance that might be associated with the first lines of an epic poem. We can see how intricately an opening line can interact with the overall themes of a given festival oration by examining an oration by the fourth-century rhetor Himerius, the famous professor of rhetoric in Athens who is said to have taught

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Ἐκείνη τὸ σωτήριον ἦν, αὕτη δὲ τὸ τῆς σωτηρίας γενέθλιον (Or. 44.5). For discussion see Vinson, St. Gregory of Nazianzus 230. The bibliography on Herodotus’s proem is vast; see for example M. Weçowski, “The Hedgehog and the Fox: Form and Meaning in the Prologue of Herodotus,” JHS 124 (2004) 143–164. For the role of the spring-ekphrasis in depicting a physical symbol of a spiritual renewal, see Or. 44.12: “now is the worldly spring, the spiritual spring, spring for our souls, spring for our bodies, a visible spring and an invisible spring” (νῦν ἔαρ κοσμικὸν, ἔαρ πνευματικὸν, ἔαρ ψυχαῖς, ἔαρ σώμασιν, ἔαρ ὁρώμενον, ἔαρ ἀόρατον).

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Gregory, in which he celebrates an official’s visit to the Panathenaea festival in 382 or 383.25 The oration begins with a quotation from Anacreon:26 “Χαῖρε φίλον φάος χαρίεντι μειδιῶν προσώπῳ”· μέλος γάρ τι λαβὼν ἐκ τῆς λύρας, εἰς τὴν σὴν ἐπιδημίαν προσᾴσομαι, ἡδέως μὲν ἂν πείσας καὶ αὐτοὺς τοὺς λόγους λύραν μοι γενέσθαι καὶ ποίησιν, ἵνα τι κατὰ σοῦ νεανιεύσωμαι, ὁποῖον Σιμωνίδης ἢ Πίνδαρος κατὰ Διονύσου καὶ Ἀπόλλωνος· Or. 47.1

“Hail dear light, who in your smile display such beauty of face!” Having taken a song from lyric, I shall sing it to you at your arrival. I would have gladly persuaded my words to become lyrical and poetic, so that I could say something about you that has a youthful verve to it, as Simonides or Pindar did about Dionysus and Apollo. Himerius goes on to describe how the arrival of the proconsul Basilius marks the beginning of spring, embellishing his theme with the familiar topoi of melodious nightingales and singing swans, flowers blooming, and choruses dancing in honor of the gods. Himerius concludes his oration with an ekphrasis describing the course of the Panathenaic ship—a sacred vessel mounted on wheels and an iconic feature of the festival—as it makes its way along the processional route up to the Acropolis:27 These wheels bring her, without hindrance, to the hill of Pallas, from where, I think, the goddess watches the festival and the whole festal

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For the Panathenaea in Late Antiquity, see Julia Shear, Polis and Panathenaea: The History and Development of Athena’s Festival, (diss. University of Pennsylvania 2001) 656–660. For Himerius’s description, see W. Leopold, “Himerius and the Panathenaea,” The Ancient World 12 (1985) 121–127. For the topography of Athens in Late Antiquity see A. Frantz, The Athenian Agora, Late Antiquity: a.d. 267–700 (Princeton 1988). For the text see A. Colonna (ed.), Himerii Declamationes et Orationes (Rome 1951). For English translation, cited here, see Penella, Man and the Word 253. For Himerius’s life and work, as well as German translation and commentary, see H. Völker, Himerius Reden und Fragmente (Wiesbaden 2003); for the dating of Or. 47 and other orations delivered before public officials see id. 48–49. In the manuscripts, Or. 47 carries the title “To the Same Basilius during the Panathenaea at the Beginning of the Spring” (Εἰς Βασίλειον Παναθηναίοις ἀρχομένου τοῦ ἔαρος). Like the title, the content of the oration seems to indicate that the festival that year took place, for whatever reason, during the spring and not, as it traditionally should have, during the summer. For discussion see Penella, Man and the Word 253–254. For the festival’s sacred ship-on-wheels, see S. Wachsmann, “Panathenaic Ships: The Iconographic Evidence,” Hesperia 81.2 (2012) 237–266.

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period. The ship’s cables will be loosened by a song that the sacred chorus of Athenians sing as they summon the wind to the vessel, asking it to be present and to fly along with the sacred ship. The wind, aware, I suppose, of the song of Ceos that Simonides sang to it after [singing to] the sea, immediately follows upon the Athenians’ songs … The greatest marvel, though, is the evening star itself shining forth along with the sun … lighting a torch with its father [the sun] over the ship. You too have appeared to us, “of all stars most beautiful” [Sappho frag. 104b Campbell]. For the Athenians call you Hesperus.28 Himerius’s ekphrasis of the procession of the sacred trireme connects his lyricinfused oratory—which the prooemium had anticipated in its prayer for his rhetoric to become song—to the songs sung by Athenian choruses that accompany the progress of the ship: the wind, summoned by the chorus’s songs, is said to know a poem of Simonides, whom Himerius had mentioned in the prooemium together with Pindar at the beginning of the oration as one of the poets he hoped to imitate. Furthermore, Himerius’s description of the chorus singing to the ship explicitly recalls his language in the prooemium, with the same specific verb for “singing in accompaniment to” featuring in each case. Just as Himerius had announced that he would “sing a lyric song” in honor of Basilius’s visit to Athens (μέλος γάρ τι λαβὼν ἐκ τῆς λύρας, εἰς τὴν σὴν ἐπιδημίαν προσᾴσομαι), so the chorus will “sing an ode” (προσᾴδουσιν) to loosen the ship’s cables and symbolically launch it on its course through the city. Finally, the oration ends with a description of how the light of Hesperus joins with that of his father, the sun, to shine over the festival,29 and Himerius associates the appearance of the evening star with Basilius’s appearance in the city. The light of the evening star—to which Basilius is then compared—is to shine over the festival, just like the light of Basilius’s brilliant face which Himerius had hailed in the first line of the oration. We can see then that both the form— a quotation from lyric poetry—and the words of the prooemium (“Hail dear light, who in your smile display such beauty of face!”) anticipate the major themes of the oration: a lyric verse is “sung” to herald the arrival of Basilius like the choral songs that accompany the arrival of the sacred ship to the Acropolis. In hailing the beaming face of the official presiding over the festival in the prooemium, Himerius prefigures the final image of the poem, in which the

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Penella, Man and the Word 257. This seems to allude to Basil’s consular father; cf. Or. 46.8: “O offspring of a consular father! … You are an evening star, I think, ‘of all stars the most beautiful.’”

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evening star that sheds its light over the festival is compared to Basilius. Members of Himerius’s audience thus needed to draw a connection between the content of the speech and its beginning in order to appreciate fully the significance of the prooemium: Himerius’s lyric oratory welcomes—and may have attracted—Basilius to Athens, as the songs of the Athenian choruses welcome and draw the ship along its path, and Basilius shines over the festival like the evening star shines above the Acropolis. In this Late Antique festival oration, we see how a prooemium can develop in significance and interact with subsequent material as the oration unfolds— even up to the final image, when the comparison of Basilius to the light of the evening star recalls the opening line of the oration. For Himerius’s Athenian audience, we should imagine the same sort of rhetorical connoisseurs that populate the pages of Philostratus—and who can recall the peculiar qualities or failings of individual prooemia years after the fact. The oration for Basilius is a work of art, not a handbook, and the critical tools required to appreciate the relationship between its prooemium and its content are not taught in a rhetorical textbook such as the On Invention treatise in the Corpus of Hermogenes. Himerius crafts his prooemium with the level of artistry that Late Antique readers were in fact trained to appreciate in the case of a different group of highly-wrought texts with elaborate prooemia, namely the dialogues of Plato. The introductory frames or prooemia of dialogues such as the Phaedrus or Symposium were as famous among students of literature in Antiquity as they are today, and they were widely imitated.30 They were the object of careful study both by literary critics and philosophers, many of whom saw the prooemia as playing a crucial philosophical role in the dialogues. The commentary on the Parmenides by the fifth-century Neoplatonist Proclus offers us a glimpse at the sort of training in interpretation or exegesis that was applied to Plato’s prooemia in the philosophical classroom:

30

For a study of how Imperial texts like Lucian’s Symposium and Plutarch’s Amatorius re-imagine and weave together the prooemia of the Phaedrus, the Symposium, and the Theaetetus, see R. Hunter, Plato and the Traditions of Ancient Literature: The Silent Stream (Cambridge 2012) 191–204. The opening of the Phaedrus was of course one of the most influential and widely commented-upon passages in Classical literature. In his treatise On the Forms of Style, Hermogenes constantly refers to the dialogue and cites its opening scene twice in his discussion of the rhetorical virtue of “sweetness” at Rabe, Hermogenis Opera 332–333 (230b and 230d). The opening frame is famously invoked, for example, at the beginning of Achilles Tatius’s Leukippe and Kleitophon (1.2.3). For a Christianized reconstitution of the Phaedrus’s locus amoenus, see The Life and Miracles of Thekla 26.3 in Alice-Mary Talbot, and Scott Fitzgerald Johnson (trs.), Miracle Tales from Byzantium (Cambridge, MA 2012).

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The ancient commentators have held varying opinions regarding the preludes to Plato’s dialogues. Some have not condescended to examine them at all, saying that hearers who are genuinely interested in the doctrines must come with a previous knowledge of these preliminaries … Others demand that the interpreter bring the matter of the prologue into relation with the nature of the dialogue’s subject. We agree with the last group and shall begin by showing how the subject of the dialogue relates to the matter in the introduction. Not that we shall neglect the moral stances represented in the dialogue, but in studying any Platonic dialogue we must look especially at the matters that are its subject and see how the details of the prologue prefigure [ἐνεικονίζεται] them. In this way we should show that each of them is perfectly worked out, a living being harmonious in all its parts, as Plato says in the Phaedrus (264c).31 Here Proclus cites a passage from the Phaedrus which has been held up both by his fellow Neoplatonists and rhetorical theorists as well as by some modern scholars as a heuristic key to understanding Platonic dialogues, namely that a text is like a living being “harmonious in all its parts”.32 It is most likely this same insistence, inspired by the Phaedrus, on viewing the prooemium as being of organic importance to the rest of the dialogue that ultimately lies behind the famous anecdote regarding the multiple drafts of the first sentence of the Republic found among Plato’s papers after his death.33 Thus what one scholar has called the “cult of beginnings in the appreciation of ancient literature” only intensifies in the study of Platonic dialogues.34 The formal study of these prooemia frequently conformed to a familiar pattern. Teachers of philosophy, when leading a course on a particular dialogue, prefaced their lectures with an introductory discussion outlining approaches to the dialogue.35 Thanks to this prefatory discussion, also called a theoria, students of Plato were taught to read a given dialogue and its prooemium with a

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I cite here G. Morrow and J. Dillon (trs.), Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides (Princeton 1987) 658.34–659.23. Phaedrus 264c; See also Proclus, In Platonis Rempublicam 1.6.26. The passage has led a vigorous afterlife not only in Platonic studies but in both ancient and modern literary criticism. For studies of how Plato’s prologues prefigure the content of the dialogue, see for example D. Clay, “Plato’s First Words,” YCS 29 (1992) 113–130 and M. Burnyeat, “First Words,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 43 (1997) 1–20. See for example Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De Compositione Verborum vi 25.32–33. Clay, “Plato’s First Words” 113. See J. Mansfield, Prolegomena: Questions to be Settled before the Study of an Author or a Text (Leiden 1994).

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set of questions in mind to guide their interpretations. Thus in his commentary on the Gorgias, one of the basic texts in the philosophical curriculum, the sixth-century Alexandrian Neoplatonist Olympiodorus uses this introductory theoria section to prepare his students for an engaged reading of the text: “Prior to the dialogue we must examine its dramatic setting; second its aim; third its structure; fourth the characters and what they symbolize …”36 For these educators and exegetes, theoria included such overviews of the dialogues as well as the actual act of exegesis of any part of the text, including the prooemium and its relationship to the rest of the dialogue. We have seen how participants in Late Antique literary culture devoted careful study and interest to prooemia in various kinds of texts. Gregory is a product of this culture, and we should expect him to craft his own prooemia with the exquisite care of the rhetor he was trained to be. Beginning in his first major public work and then throughout his festival orations, Gregory writes prooemia that prefigure the themes he will treat and that offer the audience the opportunity to engage in an initial act of theoria.

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Platonic Preludes: Or. 2 and Gregory’s “Apology”

We begin our investigation of Gregory’s preludes with his second oration, the Apologetikos. Though not one of his festival orations—in fact it was most likely never delivered in the form in which it comes down to us—it nevertheless constitutes one of Gregory’s most important discussions of theoria, which in turn will play a major role in the festival orations.37 The text is a powerful manifesto timed to mark his return to Nazianzus to perform the Easter service of 363 after a lengthy retreat to his friend Basil’s estate further north in Pontus. The Apologetikos, a book-length treatise which Elm describes as Gregory’s “inaugural oration”,38 purports to offer a justification for Gregory’s flight from Nazianzus and his belated return to take up his duties as a priest alongside his father, Gregory of Nazianzus the Elder, the local bishop. Gregory presents his audience as having been offended and confused by his precipitous flight after he was forcibly 36

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See R. Jackson, K. Lycos and H. Tarrant (eds.), Olympiodorus: Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias (Leiden 1998) section 0.2. For the Gorgias as a basic text in the curriculum, traditionally read second in sequence after Alcibiades i, see Wallis, Neoplatonism 19. For detailed discussion regarding the probable circumstances of composition of Or. 2 as well as its dissemination, influence, and appreciation in modern scholarship, see Elm, Sons of Hellenism 153–181. Elm, Sons of Hellenism 254. See her arguments pp. 153–154 for dating Gregory’s retreat and the composition of the speech to the period from the summer of 362 to Easter 363.

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ordained by his father. However, as Elm has shown, Gregory may have taken his retreat precisely in order to compose this oration, “the earliest systematic discussion of the theoretical and practical foundations of Christian leadership”.39 She shows how Gregory offers up his period of anchoretic retirement at Basil’s retreat as an example of just the kind of philosophical contemplation or theoria that he sets forth in the oration as a prerequisite for the priestly office. In the second paragraph of the oration Gregory promises that he “will heal through his apologia” those whom he had offended by having delayed the assumption of his priestly duties:40 καὶ τοὺς ἤδη πεπληγότας, εἴπερ τινές εἰσι, διὰ τῆς ἀπολογίας ἰάσομαι. In other words, he who had wounded the audience is also to prove to be their healer. Gregory constructs the scenario so as to allude to the myth of Telephus, who after being wounded by Achilles’s spear received an oracle that stated that “he who caused his wound will also heal it” (ὁ τρώσας καὶ ἰάσεται). For Telephus, whose story was popularized by Euripides and in turn twice lampooned by Aristophanes, it turned out that his wound could only be healed by rust from the spear of Achilles that had caused it in the first place.41 This maps neatly onto Gregory’s situation. Gregory was the one who originally offended his congregation, but he is also the one who will “heal them through his apology”. That Gregory has in mind here the saying derived from the Telephus myth as a parallel to his own situation is guaranteed by the fact that in one of his letters he quotes the saying more fully: ἡ μὲν παροιμία φησίν: “ὁ τρώσας ἰάσεται.” (Ep. 165.7). An allusion to this saying crops up at the beginning of another text that traffics in the apologetic mode. This is Plato’s Gorgias, which, partly thanks to its defense of the contemplative life against the active life, has been seen as Plato’s apology or justification of his own life.42 As the dialogue opens, Socrates and his companion Chaerephon had just been in the agora passing the time in discussion, or διατριβή—the word is picked again up by Callicles at 484c—and that “first word” hints at the philosophical activity that has preceded Socrates’s per-

39 40 41

42

Elm, Sons of Hellenism 155. Gregory also addresses his belated return to Nazianzus in Or. 1, Εἰς το Πάσχα καὶ εἰς τὴν βραδύτητα. For the figure of Telephus as well as the collected fragments of Euripides’s Telephus see C. Collard and M. Cropp (eds.), Euripides, Fragments: Oedipus-Chrysippus (Cambridge, MA 2008) 185–223. Aristophanes parodies Euripides’s Telephus at Acharnians 204–625 and Women at the Thesmophoria 466–764. Cf. E.R. Dodds (ed.), Gorgias: A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford 1959) 31, who notes that Schleiermacher first made the observation. For the allusion to the Telephus myth see id. 189.

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formance.43 As a consequence of that philosophical discussion in the agora, the pair show up late to an evening of oratory offered by the visiting celebrity Gorgias. Chaerephon tells Socrates not to worry: for as he had caused the offense, so too will he heal it: ἐγὼ γὰρ καὶ ἰάσομαι. On the surface this allusion to the Telephus myth looks like just the sort of cultivated pleasantry that we find sprinkled generously throughout the dialogues, but modern readers of Plato— just like their Neoplatonic predecessors—know that these opening gambits often offer some sort of prelude to major themes subsequently developed over the course of the dialogue.44 This hunch is confirmed by Olympiodorus, who describes how Chaerephon’s remark here prefigures one of the dialogue’s dominant metaphors, namely the image of philosophy as a kind of medicine or ἰατρεία for the soul.45 At the end of the dialogue, Socrates makes amends for having missed out on Gorgias’s rhetorical feast or ἑορτή—another of the “first words” of the dialogue, whose importance is underscored by the fact that it is repeated—by offering his own speech, a myth of the underworld and the judgment of the dead. Unlike Gorgias’s display speech, Socrates’s mythos is not meant to provide pleasure but is rather intended to stir the souls of its audience to virtue. The scheme of the Gorgias, according to which rhetoric is depicted as intellectual quackery or cookery while philosophy or “true” rhetoric (cf. Phaedrus 270b) constitutes a form of medicine for the soul, was to have lasting currency, thanks to the massive importance of the dialogue for later traditions. As discussed above, it became a staple in the Neoplatonic classroom, and according to the sequence of dialogues making up the curriculum described by Iamblichus it featured second, after Alcibiades i.46 For Gregory, too, the contrast

43

44 45

46

For the symbolic significance of Socrates’s διατριβή in the agora, see J. Doyle, “On the First Eight Lines of Plato’s Gorgias,” CQ 56.2 (2006) 599–602, at 601: “Chaerephon made Socrates linger in the market-place: not only just now, but for the whole of his philosophical life. That life in the market-place was devoted to the dialectical questioning Socrates champions in the Gorgias against the worthless pretensions of rhetoric.” For further discussion and bibliography on this scene see D. Sansone, “Once Again the Opening of Plato’s ‘Gorgias’ ” CQ 59.2 (2009) 631–633. Cf. Burnyeat, “First Words”. “For his ‘I will also make amends’ is a saying that comes from the story of Telephos and Achilles, who wounded him and also healed him; here it is said ‘The wounder will also be the healer’. So Chaerephon introduces a saying about a problem being cured, because he occupies, as I said, an intermediate position … For it belongs to Socrates alone, and to his students, to heal the passions in the soul properly,” Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias 1.7 (trs. Jackson, Lycos and Tarrant). Cf. Wallis, Neoplatonism 19 as well as Dodds, Gorgias 58. Iamblichus also quoted extensively from the Gorgias in his Protrepticus, as did Eusebius in the Praeparatio Evangelica; see Dodds, Gorgias 64–65.

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between philosophy’s medicine of the soul and rhetoric’s intellectual quackery will serve as the major theme of his Apologetikos oration. The art that the Christian priest must practice is referred to as “the medicine of souls” (ἡ τῶν ψυχῶν ἰατρεία, Or. 2.16).47 Immediately before closing his oration with an allegorical interpretation of Jonah and the whale (as Socrates had concluded the Gorgias with a mythos of his own), Gregory contrasts the true rhetoric of his Christian discourse with the narcotic quackery of pagan rhetoric, drawing on tropes familiar in characterizations of the power of persuasive discourse: … οἷον ἀκοῆς τι δέλεαρ μέχρι τῆς ἡδονῆς ἱστάμενον. Ταῦτα μὲν παιζόντων μῦθοι καὶ Ἕλληνες, οἵ, τῆς ἀληθείας ὀλίγα φροντίζοντες, τῷ κομψῷ τῶν πλασμάτων καὶ τῷ λίχνῳ τῶν λέξεων καὶ ἀκοὴν καὶ ψυχὴν γοητεύουσιν. Or. 2.104

… ⟨Rhetoric⟩ is like a snare for our sense of hearing, which only extends as far as pleasure is concerned. Let the pagan Greeks and their myths play at such things, who care little for the truth and beguile both our hearing and our soul with the adornments of their creations and the sensuousness of their words. Like Plato’s philosopher in possession of justice, Gregory’s priest will wield his discourse in order to heal other people’s souls, having already purified his own through theoria. Taking his cue from Plato, Gregory hints at the beginning of his oration that he will offer a specimen of just that sort of salubrious rhetoric; Gregory himself will do the healing. In the Gorgias, Chaerephon apologizes for detaining Socrates in discussion in the agora, yet it is precisely that διατριβή— that passage of time in discourse with his fellow citizens—that symbolizes Socrates’s philosophical life and which enables him to use discourse to heal souls. Through his allusion to Telephus, Chaerephon is made to hint at this healing role of Socrates. Gregory has constructed his situation so that it exactly parallels the Gorgias: he “apologizes” for his flight, but it is precisely his period of retreat and contemplation at Basil’s estate that equips him with the philosophical wherewithal to wield a healing rhetoric. Like Chaerephon’s allusion to the Telephus myth (ἐγὼ γὰρ καὶ ἰάσομαι), Gregory’s declaration that after having hurt his audience he will also heal them with his apology (καὶ τοὺς ἤδη πεπλη-

47

For a discussion of the philosophy as medicine for the soul in Or. 2, cf. Elm, Sons of Hellenism 166–171, “The Philosopher as Physician of the Soul.” Note though that the metaphor is developed throughout the oration, cf. in particular 18–19, 30–32, and 54.

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γότας … διὰ τῆς ἀπολογίας ἰάσομαι) looks both backward to his philosophical preparation and forward to his healing role as a philosophical rhetor.

2

Platonic Preludes at the Festival: Or. 38 “On Theophany” and the Timaeus

With his second oration, Gregory wove a Platonic prelude into the prooemium of his first major public work. Throughout his career, and especially in his festival orations, Gregory will use the prooemium of an oration to prefigure its thematic material. Just as Late Antique students of philosophy began their studies of any Platonic dialogue by asking “how the subject of the dialogue relates to the matter in the introduction”, so Gregory constructs his orations so that they too become sites for his audiences to exercise their faculties of contemplation. For an instructive example we can turn to Gregory’s festival oration for Nativity or Christmas, Or. 38 “On Theophany,” which includes a Christian creation story in Platonizing guise.48 The oration features a prominent cosmogony, in which Gregory includes a description of the Trinity, and proceeds to narrate the creation of the intelligible world and the angelic powers followed by that of the material world and of man, continues with the account of man’s fall and concludes with the birth of Christ.49 Gregory’s account of the formation of the cosmos naturally invites comparison with earlier examples of the genre, in particular Basil’s homilies on the Hexaemeron, Philo’s De Opificio Mundi, and ultimately Plato’s Timaeus. By the fourth century, the influence of the Timaeus was so firmly entrenched in the worldview of the educated classes of whatever creed that it all but dictated discourse about cosmology or creation. This was especially true of the Cappadocians.50 At Or. 38.11 Gregory can refer famil48

49 50

The bibliography on Platonism in Gregory is large; in general see the chapter “Il platonismo cristiano di Gregorio Nazianzeno” in C. Moreschini, Filosofia e letteratura in Gregorio di Nazianzo (Milan 1997) 22–68. For Platonic influence on this oration in particular see Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 70–81 (“Le Platonisme Chrétien”), as well as his characterization of the introductory chapters of Or. 38: “exposition et interprétation platoniciennes de la cosmogonie chrétienne” (23). For overviews of the influence of Classical and particularly Platonic ideas on the Cappadocians see Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture. Or. 38.8–13. For the influence of the Timaeus on Gregory of Nazianzus and the other Cappadocians, see Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture 20: “As became evident in the cosmology of the Cappadocians, moreover, there was probably no writing within the Platonic corpus that stood above the Timaeus for sheer importance in Cappadocian thought, and not only because both Basil and Gregory of Nyssa were authors of Christian cosmogonies bearing

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iarly to the Son as “the magnificence of the Demiurge Logos” (τὸ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ Λόγου μεγαλεῖον) though the word “demiurge” is never applied to God the Creator in the Septuagint at all and only appears in the New Testament once, at Hebrews 11:10.51 In this case, however, the Epistle to the Hebrews seems to be the exception that proves the rule, as the sophistication of its language and philosophy sets it apart from other New Testament texts.52 The rarity of the word in Biblical texts did not matter to Gregory, since the Son, as creative principle and Logos, was clearly to be associated with the role of the Demiurge of the Platonic tradition.53 However, instead of tracing all the points of contact between Gregory’s account of creation and the Timaeus and his other models, here the focus will rather turn to how he uses the motifs of feast and festival spectatorship to illustrate the act of contemplating the creation of the cosmos. As in the case of Or. 2, Gregory follows Plato in foreshadowing the great themes of his orations in their preludes. Here in Or. 38 he does so before beginning the cosmogony proper. In particular, Gregory alludes to a tradition, notably represented by the Timaeus, in which the act of creation is likened to a festival banquet hosted by the Creator in the guise of a symposiarch. In the Timaeus, this metaphor takes its cue in part from the dialogue’s festival setting, and it plays a major role in Plato’s characterization of philosophical contemplation as an act of spiritual pilgrimage or theoria.54 Gregory’s allusion to this tradition signals to his audience that they are about to receive an account of Christian cosmic truths in the guise of a rhetorical feast. After introducing his theme, the birth of Christ, he addresses the audience as follows: ἢ βούλεσθε—καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ σήμερον ἑστιάτωρ ὑμῖν—ἐγὼ τὸν περὶ τούτων παραθῶ λόγον τοῖς καλοῖς ὑμῖν δαιτυμόσιν, ὡς οἷόν τε δαψιλῶς τε καὶ φιλοτίμως, ἵν’

51 52 53 54

the title Hexaemeron, in which Timaeus and Genesis were played off against each other in continuing dialogue.” For general influence of Classical cosmological theories on the Cappadocians see also id. 94–106 as well as J. Callahan, “Greek Philosophy and the Cappadocian Cosmology,” DOP 12 (1958) 29–57. ἐξεδέχετο γὰρ τὴν τοὺς θεμελίους ἔχουσαν πόλιν, ἧς τεχνίτης καὶ δημιουργὸς ὁ θεός. For the demiurge in the Timaeus see 28a6 and passim. See J. Thompson, The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy: The Epistle to the Hebrews (Washington 1982) 1; see also H. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Philadelphia 1989) 1. For the role of the Logos as creative principle in Christianity and Platonism, see Moreschini, Filosofia e letteratura 107. For Plato’s depiction of philosophical contemplation as an act of ritual pilgrimage or festival spectatorship see Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth. For the festival setting of the Timaeus cf. 26e3 and above, Chapter 2 n. 2.

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εἰδῆτε πῶς δύναται τρέφειν ὁ ξένος τοὺς ἐγχωρίους καὶ τοὺς ἀστικοὺς ὁ ἄγροικος καὶ τοὺς τρυφῶντας ὁ μὴ τρυφῶν, καὶ τοὺς περιουσίᾳ λαμπροὺς ὁ πένης τε καὶ ἀνέστιος; Or. 38.6

As I am your host today, shall I present you, my fine guests, with an oration on this theme, an oration most rich and generous, so that you might know how a foreigner can entertain locals, how someone from the country can host the inhabitants of the city, how those accustomed to sumptuous living might be fed by one not so accustomed, and how the wealthy in all their brilliance might be feted by a homeless pauper? The image of Gregory as a banquet host (ἑστιάτωρ) addressing his audience as banquet guests (δαιτυμόνες) might seem innocuous enough. However, the motif has a particular resonance in the context of festival speeches and the literary traditions associated with accounts of the creation of the cosmos. Philo—who through Origen as we saw exercised a profound influence upon the Cappadocians55—uses the image of a host inviting guests to a banquet in order to depict the act of creation in the De Opificio Mundi (78): καθάπερ οὖν οἱ ἑστιάτορες οὐ πρότερον ἐπὶ δεῖπνον καλοῦσιν ἢ τὰ πρὸς εὐωχίαν πάντα εὐτρεπίσαι καὶ οἱ τοὺς γυμνικοὺς ἀγῶνας καὶ σκηνικοὺς τιθέντες, πρὶν συναγαγεῖν τοὺς θεατὰς εἴς τε τὰ θέατρα καὶ τὰ στάδια, εὐτρεπίζουσιν ἀγωνιστῶν καὶ θεαμάτων καὶ ἀκουσμάτων πλῆθος, τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον καὶ ὁ τῶν ὅλων ἡγεμὼν οἷά τις ἀθλοθέτης καὶ ἑστιάτωρ ἄνθρωπον καλεῖν μέλλων ἐπί τε εὐωχίαν καὶ θεωρίαν τὰ εἰς ἑκάτερον εἶδος προευτρεπίσατο, ἵν’ εἰς τὸν κόσμον εἰσελθὼν εὐθὺς εὕρῃ καὶ συμπόσιον καὶ θέατρον ἱερώτατον … As then, those who make a feast do not invite their guests to the entertainment before they have provided everything for festivity, and as those who celebrate gymnastic or dramatic contests, before they assemble the spectators, provide themselves with an abundance of competitors and spectacles, and sweet sounds, with which to fill the theatres and the stadia; so in the same manner did the Ruler of all, as a man proposing games, or giving a banquet and being about to invite others to feast and to behold the spectacle, first provide everything for every kind of entertainment, in

55

For Philo as “a dominant voice in late antique writing,” cf. Papaioannou, “Byzantine Enargeia” 48–60.

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order that when man came into the world he might at once find a feast ready for him, and a most holy theatre …56 The metaphor of creation as a feast, developed here at length by Philo, enters Greek philosophical discourse through the Timaeus. This metaphor is hinted at already in the dialogue’s opening scene. Ancient readers of Plato took an interest in how the introductory sentence in that scene foreshadows one of the work’s major topics: the demiurge’s creation of the world. The opening scene of the dialogue functions as a “prelude” to the philosophical themes that follow: ΣΩ. Εἷς, δύο, τρεῖς· ὁ δὲ τέταρτος ἡμῖν, ὦ φίλε Τίμαιε, ποῦ τῶν χθὲς δαιτυμόνων, τὰ νῦν δὲ ἑστιατόρων; ΤΙ. Ἀσθένειά τις αὐτῷ συνέπεσεν, ὦ Σώκρατες· οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἑκὼν τῆσδε ἀπελείπετο τῆς συνουσίας. ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν σὸν τῶνδέ τε ἔργον καὶ τὸ ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἀπόντος ἀναπληροῦν μέρος; ΤΙ. Πάνυ μὲν οὖν, καὶ κατὰ δύναμίν γε οὐδὲν ἐλλείψομεν· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἂν εἴη δίκαιον, χθὲς ὑπὸ σοῦ ξενισθέντας οἷς ἦν πρέπον ξενίοις, μὴ οὐ προθύμως σὲ τοὺς λοιποὺς ἡμῶν ἀνταφεστιᾶν. 17a

SOC: One, two, three—but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth of those guests of yesterday who were to entertain me today? TIM: He suddenly felt unwell, Socrates; he would not have failed to join our company if he could have helped it. SOC: Then it will fall to you and to your companions to supply the part of our absent friend as well as your own. TIM: By all means; we will not fail to do the best we can. Yesterday you entertained us with the hospitality due to strangers, and it would not be fair if the rest of us were backward in offering you a feast in return.57 Socrates’s question begins a conceit that is developed at first throughout the introductory scene, namely that the participants in the discussion are to feast on one another’s speeches as ἑστιάτορες or hosts and δαιτυμόνες or guests

56 57

I cite here the translation of C.D. Yonge (tr.), The Works of Philo Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA 1993). For text and translation of the Timaeus I use F.M. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato (New York 1952).

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against the appropriate backdrop of the festival of the goddess. It is later revealed that the opening scene is also of programmatic significance for the rest of the dialogue.58 During the title character’s long speech, Timaeus describes how the demiurge created human souls from what is called the “soul-mixture”: Ταῦτ’ εἶπε, καὶ πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸν πρότερον κρατῆρα, ἐν ᾧ τὴν τοῦ παντὸς ψυχὴν κεραννὺς ἔμισγεν, τὰ τῶν πρόσθεν ὑπόλοιπα κατεχεῖτο μίσγων τρόπον μέν τινα τὸν αὐτὸν, ἀκήρατα δὲ οὐκέτι κατὰ ταὐτὰ ὡσαύτως, ἀλλὰ δεύτερα καὶ τρίτα. Συστήσας δὲ τὸ πᾶν διεῖλεν ψυχὰς ἰσαρίθμους τοῖς ἄστροις, ἔνειμέν θ’ ἑκάστην πρὸς ἕκαστον … 41d4–e1

Having said this, he turned once more to the same mixing bowl wherein he had mixed and blended the soul of the universe, and poured into it what was left of the former ingredients, blending them this time in somewhat the same way, only no longer so pure as before, but second or third in degree of purity. And when he had compounded the whole, he divided it into souls equal in number with the stars, and distributed them, each soul to its several star. This is a key passage for the thematic unity of the dialogue and its relationship with the prooemium. Timaeus casts the demiurge as a symposiarch—the traditional role of the host at a symposium—who has performed the ceremonial office of mixing water and wine in the krater or mixing bowl on behalf of his guests, in this case the lesser gods who are to fashion human beings after receiving the soul mixture from the demiurge. The demiurge’s next act is to mount the newly created human souls into stars as if into chariots and to reveal to them “the nature of the universe” (τὴν τοῦ παντὸς φύσιν ἔδειξεν 41e1–e2). The demiurge is here being characterized as performing the same role for human souls as Timaeus himself performs on behalf of the guests whom he entertains with his “feast of speeches”. In the introduction, Socrates says he is looking forward to enjoying “the feast of speeches” (τὴν τῶν λόγων ἑστίασιν) which will begin with Timaeus’s speech about the nature of “the universe”: ἡμᾶς δὲ τοὺς περὶ τοῦ παντὸς λόγους ποιεῖσθαί πῃ μέλλοντας (27c4–5). Timaeus, the ἑστιάτωρ or

58

On the development of the feast metaphor at the beginning of the Timaeus, cf. S. SlavevaGriffin, “ ‘A Feast of Speeches’: Form and Content in Plato’s Timaeus,” Hermes 133.3 (2005) 312–327. On the imagery of feasting and rhetoric in Plato generally, cf. Dodds, Gorgias 189.

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host who feasts his guests to a discourse on the creation of the universe (τοὺς περὶ τοῦ παντὸς λόγους), prefigures the demiurge who, after playing the role of symposiarch in mixing the world soul, reveals to them the nature of the universe (τὴν τοῦ παντὸς φύσιν ἔδειξεν). Thus the dialogue’s first words as well as Socrates’s reference to “yesterday’s feasters, today’s hosts” (τῶν χθὲς δαιτυμόνων, τὰ νῦν δὲ ἑστιατόρων) foreshadow the use of the feast metaphor to characterize both the cosmogony itself and the contemplation of the cosmos as feasts. The prooemium also foreshadows the characterization of the demiurge as a symposiarch who reveals to his guests the nature of the universe. It is this same association between the language of feasts and feasting and the creation of the cosmos that Philo taps into in the passage from the De Opificio Mundi quoted above, and it will likewise be available to Aelius Aristides in his festival oration for the god Sarapis: … θεῷ διαφερόντως κοινωνοῦσιν ἄνθρωποι τὴν ἀκριβῆ κοινωνίαν, καλοῦντές τε ἐφ’ ἑστίαν καὶ προϊστάμενοι δαιτυμόνα αὐτὸν καὶ ἑστιάτορα, ὥστε ἄλλων ἄλλους ἐράνους πληρούντων κοινὸς ἁπάντων ἐράνων οὗτός ἐστι πληρωτὴς, συμποσιάρχου τάξιν ἔχων τοῖς ἀεὶ κατ’ αὐτὸν συλλεγομένοις. Or. xlv.27

People join in close association with this god in particular, inviting him to their public tables and setting him before themselves as both guest and host, so that while other gods patronize various different feasts, he is the common patron for all feasts, fulfilling the role of symposiarch for all those who ever gather together in his name. In this passage Aristides draws on the Timaeus on several levels. The motifs of the guest (δαιτυμόνα) and host (ἑστιάτορα) clearly look to the opening of the dialogue, as does Gregory’s use of the same words at Or. 38.6.59 Moreover, in “inviting” Sarapis to their feast or table (καλοῦντές τε ἐφ’ ἑστίαν) as both guest and host, Aristides recalls the injunction given by Socrates to Timaeus to “invoke” the gods (καλέσαντα κατὰ νόμον θεούς) as is customary before their feasting (ἑστίασιν).60 If the influence of the Timaeus is in fact behind these phrases, then Aristides’s characterization of Sarapis as a symposiarch confirms the interpretation presented above of Timaeus 41d4. That is, the demiurge mix59

60

Thus both Behr, P. Aelius Aristides 421 and Goeken, Aelius Aristide 577 n. 77 cite Tim. 17a2– 3 in addition to giving bibliography on the so-called “banquets of Sarapis” (cena Serapica) and the familiar figure of the god reclining on a banquet couch. 27b7–9.

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ing the world-soul in a krater evokes the role of a symposiarch. Finally, just as one of the crowning achievements in the demiurge’s act of creation in the Timaeus was enabling humankind to contemplate that creation and the demiurge himself, so Aristides praises Sarapis for granting to humankind the ability to conceive of the divine:61 τὴν μὲν ψυχὴν σοφίᾳ κοσμῶν ἡμῶν, ἣ μόνη τὴν πρὸς θεοὺς συγγένειαν ἀνθρώποις δείκνυσι καὶ ᾗ τῶν ἄλλων θνητῶν διαφέρομεν ἣ θεῶν τε αὐτῶν ἔννοιαν ἔδωκεν ἀνθρώποις … Or. xlv.17

He fashions our souls with wisdom, which is the only thing capable of showing our kindred with the gods, and which is what differentiates us from other mortal creatures, and it is that wisdom which has endowed mankind with an understanding of the gods themselves. The association in the rhetorical tradition between the act of creation and the feast metaphor of the Timaeus is continued by the Cappadocians. Basil of Caesarea begins the ninth of his homilies on the six days of creation, a series known as the Hexaemeron, by incorporating this same motif.62 Basil, the host (ἑστιάτωρ), has been entertaining the congregation as his guests (δαιτυμόνες) with a feast of exegetical discourse: Πῶς ὑμῖν ἡ ἑωθινὴ τῶν λόγων τράπεζα κατεφάνη; Ἐμοὶ μὲν γὰρ ἐπῆλθεν εἰκάσαι τὰ ἐμαυτοῦ πένητός τινος ἑστιάτορος φιλοφροσύνῃ, ὃς τῶν εὐτραπέζων τις εἶναι φιλοτιμούμενος, ἀπορίᾳ τῶν πολυτελεστέρων ἀποκναίει τοὺς δαιτυμόνας, τὴν πενιχρὰν παρασκευὴν δαψιλῶς ἐπιφέρων τῇ τραπέζῃ· Hex. ix.1.1–11

61 62

For the demiurge’s role in giving mankind the ability to contemplate creation and the demiurge himself, see Tim. 47b6–c4 and infra. For the significance of these homilies within the larger context of Basil’s career and thought see P. Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea (Berkeley 1994) 318–349. For the text of the first nine of these homilies see S. Giet (ed.), Basile de Césarée: homélies sur l’Hexaéméron (Paris 1949), who cites Timaeus 17a and 27b for this passage (478). For Gregory of Nyssa’s supposed “editing” of the Hexaemeron after Basil’s death see Socrates’s Historia Ecclesiastica 4.26; for the disparate quality and authenticity of the 10th and 11th homilies see A. Smets and M. Van Esbroeck (eds.), Basile de Césarée: sur l’origine de l’homme (hom. x et xi de l’ Hexaéméron) (Paris 1970) 13–21, who view as likely the attribution of the texts to Basil.

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What did you think of the rhetorical spread I set before you this morning? For I thought that, as far as my own efforts were concerned, in my attempt at hospitality I was like a poor host who aspires to be counted among the lords of rich banquets, but who lacking more sumptuous fare only irritates his guests by piling his humble cooking all too abundantly on the table. Basil then proceeds to develop a Christian cosmology which he explicitly juxtaposes with the theories of the philosophers, which variously liken the shape of the universe to a sphere, cylinder, disc, or winnowing basket. His mention of the “form of a winnowing basket” (λικνοειδής) makes it clear that one of the cosmographers Basil has in mind is Plato, whose Timaeus compares the chaos before the world’s creation to a winnowing-basket, which Plato calls πλόκανον but which also goes by the name λίκνον.63 Basil rejects these various theories and makes it clear that for a Christian the purpose of cosmology and of the study of creation is to reveal truths about God and his economy. Basil discusses instances of intelligent design in the natural world in order to affirm the working of Providence in human lives.64 Like other Christian writers, Basil uses the term theoria to refer to the study of the natural world in order to glean theological truths.65 The universe in Basil’s view has been characterized as “a school in which the souls of men come to know God.”66 But Basil’s insistence on contrasting the theological purpose of Christian cosmology with the vain speculations of natural philosophers is misleading, as Plato makes it clear in the Timaeus that the purpose of the study of the cosmos (again, this is theoria) is to arrive at a deeper understanding of the divine—and thereby to become closer to the divine ourselves: … the god invented and gave us vision in order that we might observe the circuits of intelligence in the heaven and profit by them for the revolutions of our own thought, which are akin to them … and that, by learning to know them and acquiring the power to compute them rightly accord63

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52d4–e7. For the identification of Plato’s πλόκανον with the λίκνον cf. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology 201: “But the πλόκανον, as its name implies, is ‘woven’ of basketwork, not a perforated sieve. It is the liknon or vannus … a wide, shovel-shaped basket, high at one end and flattened out at the other, held by two handles projecting from the upper rim at the sides.” ix.3. Cf. ix.5.1: “But let us return to the spectacle of creation” (ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τὴν θεωρίαν τῆς κτίσεως ἐπανιῶμεν). Callahan, “Greek Philosophy and the Cappadocian Cosmology” 34.

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ing to nature, we might reproduce the perfectly unerring revolutions of the god and reduce to settled order the wandering motions in ourselves. Tim. 47b6–c4

Basil concludes his homily by returning to the feasting metaphor with which he began, encouraging his audience to furnish their tables with the memory of his words instead of fancy dishes.67 Again, in framing his cosmology with the conceit of the rhetor performing a discursive feast, Basil looks back ultimately to the scheme of the Timaeus.68 With these passages from Philo, Aristides and Basil in mind, we can see more clearly that in the preface to Gregory’s account of creation in Or. 38, the image of the rhetor as banquet host and his audience as guests announces to the reader that Gregory’s theme will be God’s act of creation and the contemplation of that creation. Gregory’s subject is God as host and humankind as his guests in the manner that these motifs were developed in Plato’s Timaeus. In the Timaeus, the key opening words ἑστιάτωρ and δαιτυμόνες prefigure the demiurge’s role as a symposiarch who creates human soul by “pouring out and mixing” (κατεχεῖτο μίσγων) the soul of the universe he had “blended” (κεραννὺς ἔμισγεν) in the krater of creation (41d5–6). Likewise, Gregory’s use of the same motif of the ἑστιάτωρ preparing discourse for δαιτυμόνες signals a parallel act of creation on the part of God and what Gregory calls the “demiurge Logos”: God “pours forth” in goodness (χεθῆναι τὸ ἀγαθὸν 38.9), and the Logos—God the Son—creates mankind through a “blend and a mix” of the material and the divine (κρᾶμα ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων … μῖξις τῶν ἐναντίων 38.11). A second act of “mixing and blending” marks the creation of the “New Adam”, i.e., the incarnation of Jesus that is the subject of the Christmas festival: ὢ τῆς καινῆς μίξεως, ὢ τῆς παραδόξου κράσεως (38.13). The symposiastic language is maintained through-

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ix.6.104–107. For other instances of the rhetor and his audience described as ἑστιάτωρ and δαιτυμόνες, cf. Themistius Or. 26.313b1 and Or. 33.367a5; in a homily on the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste (PG 46.757), Gregory of Nyssa alludes to the Timaeus (τοὺς χθὲς μὲν ἑστιάτορας, σήμερον δὲ δαιτυμόνας) to indicate that he and his audience, who had been “guests” of the saints at their feast on the day before, are now to play the role of hosts in extending a welcome to the saints; in his De Opificio Mundi (133), Gregory of Nyssa, closely following the Philo passage quoted above, compares God to a host (ἑστιάτωρ) who has brought mankind as his guests (δαιτυμόνες) to the banquet of creation; and John Chrysostom makes use of the motif in his 13th homily on Genesis (PG 53.105.21) (and thus in a context exactly parallel to Basil’s homilies on the Hexaemeron) to refer to his own work as a Christian rhetor offering his humble fare to an audience hungry for exegesis.

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out, from God’s goodness “pouring forth” to the “blending and mixing” that creates man to the “paradoxical mixture” of the Incarnation. Gregory takes his cue from Plato’s “first words”, and by alluding to this metaphorical scheme from the Timaeus, Gregory indicates that he is about to offer a creation account to sit alongside Plato’s, which had held such pride of place in the philosophical curriculum.

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Preludes Continued: The Divine Arrangement of Or. 40 “On Holy Baptism”

Gregory’s Byzantine readers much admired his prefaces and the way they foreshadow his subsequent themes. Michael Psellos’s considered judgment on Gregory’s dispensation of material is illuminating in this respect: “unlike the many who do not anticipate the theme of a speech by their own thinking, Gregory arranges his speeches like the god who according to Plato created the forms.”69 Psellos adds that Gregory “includes several prefaces, whenever he is forced to prefigure certain things”.70 We can discover an example of this “divine arrangement” in the opening words to Or. 40 “On Baptism”, where once again Gregory uses the preface to prefigure the various themes of the oration: Χθὲς τῇ λαμπρᾷ τῶν Φώτων ἡμέρᾳ πανηγυρίσαντες—καὶ γὰρ ἔπρεπε χαρμόσυνα θέσθαι τῆς σωτηρίας τῆς ἡμετέρας, καὶ πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ γαμήλια καὶ γενέθλια καὶ ὀνομαστήρια τοῖς σαρκὸς φίλοις, κουρόσυνά τε καὶ κατοικέσια καὶ ἐτήσια, ὅσα τε ἄλλα πανηγυρίζουσιν ἄνθρωποι … Or. 40.1

Yesterday we celebrated the festival of the brilliant Day of Lights—for it was proper to dedicate a festival of thanksgiving on behalf of our salvation, and far more proper to do so than it is for friends of the flesh to celebrate weddings or birthdays or namedays, or celebrations marking a 69

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“Discourse Improvised by the hypertimos Psellos, addressed to the bestarchês Pothos who requested of him to write about the style of the Theologian”, citing the translation here by Stratis Papaioannou in S. Papaioannou and C. Barber (eds.), Michael Psellos on Literature and Art: A Byzantine Perspective on Aesthetics (Notre Dame 2017) 136–137. For the text see P. Levy (ed.), Michaelis Pselli de Gregorii Theologi charactere iudicium, accedit eiusdem de Ioannis Chrysostomi charactere iudicium ineditum (Leipzig 1912): Οἰκονομεῖ δὲ τοὺς λόγους οὐχ ὥσπερ οἱ πολλοὶ μὴ προλαβόντες τὰς ὑποθέσεις τοῖς λογισμοῖς, ἀλλ’ ὡς Πλάτων φησί, τὸν ἐκείνου θεὸν τὰς ἰδέας συστήσασθαι. id. 42: τὰ δὲ προοίμια νῦν μὲν πολλὰ τίθησιν ὁπότε τινὰ προοικονομεῖν ἠνάγκασται.

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coming of age or a new home and anniversaries and all the other festive occasions that people celebrate … Here Gregory claims that the earlier celebrations for the feast known to this day in Greek as τὰ Φῶτα, to which the previous oration (Or. 39) was devoted, surpassed all the earthly festivals that people celebrate, including births, weddings, and a variety of other celebrations such as namedays, coming of age ceremonies and celebrations in honor of new homes or settlements. Gregory goes on to explain that his current oration will deal with baptism, an event of central importance in the life of a Christian. In fact, as Gregory’s subsequent elaboration of baptism’s meaning will make clear, it is an event that is to replace and take on the significance of those same celebrations—birthdays, weddings, coming-of-age ceremonies, etc.—that together define how an individual relates to and is integrated within a community. The individual items in Gregory’s catalogue of earthly festivals together form a cipher that anticipates particular meanings he attributes to baptism. It functions as a kind of table of contents that indicates how baptism is to assume the importance of earthly festivals for individuals living in the Christian community. The second item in the catalogue, birthday celebrations (γενέθλια), has an important connection to baptism. Baptism, after all, represents a rebirth in Christ, as Gregory immediately explains, citing scripture on how humans have three births: the physical birth of the body, the rebirth as a Christian in baptism, and rebirth to a new life in the resurrection. He announces that his present theme will be about the second birth, the rebirth of the soul in baptism: Περὶ μὲν δὴ τῶν δύο γεννήσεων, τῆς πρώτης τέ φημι καὶ τῆς τελευταίας, φιλοσοφεῖν οὐ τοῦ παρόντος καιρου· περὶ δὲ τῆς μέσης καὶ τῆς νῦν ἡμῖν ἀναγκαίας, ἧς ἐπώνυμος ἡ τῶν φώτων ἡμέρα, φιλοσοφήσωμεν. Or. 40.3

It does not belong to the present occasion to philosophize about the other two births, I mean the first one and the final one. Let us instead philosophize about the birth that takes place in between, which is what we are in need of now, and which gives its name to the Day of Lights. The role of baptism as a spiritual “birthday celebration” or γενέθλια thus becomes quickly apparent. However, it is not until the peroration that we discover what possible significance “wedding celebrations” (γαμήλια) could have for our understanding of baptism. Here Gregory, as he “philosophizes” about

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the significance of the festival, explains that through baptism Christians arrive at a glimpse of their future union with Christ the mystical bridegroom: the lamps and candles that the newly baptized will light after the ceremony “are a mystic symbol for the procession of light in heaven with which our brilliant virgin souls will go to meet their bridegroom” (τῆς ἐκεῖθεν φωταγωγίας μυστήριον, μεθ’ ἧς ἀπαντήσομεν τῷ νυμφίῳ φαιδραὶ καὶ παρθένοι ψυχαί, Or. 40.46). Gregory devotes the entire final section of the oration to characterizing baptism as a prelude to the mystic marriage of the soul to Christ the heavenly bridegroom. In his conclusion he takes to a daring new level the eroticized symbolism that Christianity had inherited and developed from the Song of Songs and its exegetical traditions: “when we enter into the heavenly bridal chamber, the bridegroom will know then what he will instruct us in and how he will join together with the souls who go in together with him” (ὅταν ἔνδον γενώμεθα, τότε οἶδεν ἃ διδάξει καὶ ἃ συνέσται ταῖς συνελθούσαις ψυχαῖς, Or. 40.46). The “wedding celebrations” (γαμήλια) included in the catalogue of festival types in the prooemium thus foreshadow this discussion of baptism as a mystic marriage between the Christian soul and Christ. The third type of celebration mentioned in the prooemium, “namedays” (ὀνομαστήρια), would seem in the context of a list of different types of festivals to refer to ceremonies celebrating the bestowal of a new name upon an individual or institution.71 Within the catalogue, however, this item foreshadows Gregory’s long discussion of the significance of the many names given to the celebration of baptism, a discussion which immediately follows the section on baptism as rebirth: Καλεῖται δέ, ὥσπερ Χριστὸς ὁ τούτου δοτήρ, πολλοῖς καὶ διαφόροις ὀνόμασιν, οὕτω δὲ καὶ τὸ δώρημα· εἴτε διὰ τὸ περιχαρὲς τοῦ πράγματος τοῦτο παθόντων ἡμῶν—φιλοῦσι γὰρ οἱ σφόδρα περί τι ἐρωτικῶς διακείμενοι ἡδέως συνεῖναι καὶ τοῖς ὀνόμασιν—εἴτε τοῦ πολυειδοῦς τῆς εὐεργεσίας πολλὰς καὶ τὰς κλήσεις ἡμῖν δημιουργήσαντος. Δῶρον καλοῦμεν, χάρισμα, βάπτισμα, φώτισμα, χρῖσμα, ἀφθαρσίας ἔνδυμα, λουτρὸν παλιγγενησίας, σφραγῖδα, πᾶν ὅ τι τίμιον Or. 40.4

The gift is called by many different names, just as Christ who gives it, whether on account of our abundant joy when we experience it—for those who feel great desire for something are wont to feel pleasure even

71

In Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 199, the translator Gallay renders it “les anniversaries … de la prise de nom”.

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in its names—or because the variegated nature of the benefits it confers has also provided us with a variety of names. We call it gift, grace, baptism, illumination, anointing, garment of immortality, “washing of rebirth” (Ep. Tit. 3.5), seal, and all manner of honorable things.72 Gregory then expands on the significance of each of these names and why they are used to refer to baptism. It is this section of the oration, with its emphasis on the many names for baptism and their meanings, that is foreshadowed by the inclusion of “namedays” or “naming celebrations” (ὀνομαστήρια) in the catalogue of the prooemium. The remaining two types of festivals mentioned in the prooemium require a little more in the way of unpacking. The final item in the list, κατοικέσια, which the LSJ defines as the “anniversary festival of a colony”, is not attested before Gregory, and it appears thereafter only in lexica or direct quotations of this passage.73 It is at first unclear why Gregory would have included such a rare word in his list in the first place. In fact, the term κατοικέσια—which, for a reader encountering the word for the first time in this context, would have suggested something along the lines of “a celebration marking a new dwellingplace”—is meant to look ahead to Gregory’s discussion of how baptism marks the moment when Satan is quite literally “evicted” from a Christian soul and in his place Christ “moves in” as a new inhabitant or tenant—in other words a κάτοικος. Gregory develops at length the biblical metaphor of the soul as a dwelling place hotly contested over between Satan and Christ: Ἐξῆλθεν ἀπὸ σοῦ τὸ ἀκάθαρτον καὶ ὑλικὸν πνεῦμα, διωχθὲν τῷ βαπτίσματι. Οὐ φέρει τὸν διωγμόν, οὐ δέχεται ἄοικον εἶναι καὶ ἀνέστιον. Πορεύεται δι’ ἀνύδρων τόπων καὶ ξηρῶν θείας ἐπιρροῆς· ἐκεῖ φιλοχωρῆσαι βούλεται, πλανᾶται ζητοῦν ἀνάπαυσιν, οὐκ εὑρίσκει· βεβαπτισμέναις ἐντυγχάνει ψυχαῖς, ὧν τὴν κακίαν τὸ λουτρὸν ἐξέκλυσιν· φοβεῖται τὸ ὕδωρ· ἐμπνίγεται τῇ καθάρσει, καθάπερ ὁ λεγεὼν τῇ θαλάσσῃ. Πάλιν ὑποστρέφει πρὸς τὸν οἶκον, ὅθεν ἀνεχώρησεν … Ἐὰν μὲν εὕρῃ Χριστὸν εἰσοικισθέντα καὶ πληρώσαντα τὴν χώραν ἣν αὐτὸς ἐκένωσεν, ἀπεκρούσθη πάλιν … Ἐὰν δὲ “σεσαρωμένον καὶ κεκοσμημένον” τὸν ἐν σοὶ τόπον εὕρῃ, κενὸν καὶ ἄπρακτον, ἕτοιμον ἐπίσης πρὸς ὑποδοχὴν τοῦδε ἢ τοῦδε προκαταλαβόντος, εἰσεπήδησεν, εἰσῳκίσθη μετὰ πλείονος τῆς παρασκευῆς … Or. 40.35

72 73

Translations in quotation marks taken from the RSV. At Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 199, Gallay translates it as “l’inauguration d’une maison”.

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The unclean material spirit has departed from you, driven out through baptism. It cannot endure its banishment, nor is it willing to remain without a hearth and home. It makes its way through dry and desert places, unwatered by the grace that flows from the divine. There it looks for a place to haunt, and wanders in search of rest, without finding any. When it comes upon souls that have been baptized, whose wickedness has been washed away by the cleansing, it is in terror of the water, and drowns in the purifying stream like Legion in the sea. Once again it returns to the dwelling place whence it came … If he finds that Christ has moved in and filled the place that he had left empty, he is driven away again … But if he finds that place in you “swept and put in order”, but unoccupied, idle, and available to receive whoever moves in to claim it first, he rushes in and settles together with an even greater household. Baptism thus celebrates the settling of Christ as a permanent “inhabitant” or κάτοικος in our souls; and of course, a major motif in baptismal texts is the expulsion of Satan from the soul and its consecration as a temple or dwellingplace for the Spirit. The image of the soul as a dwelling place for demons or Christ features prominently throughout the New Testament and Christian literature, and Gregory himself employs it elsewhere in his orations, including in the previous oration on the “Holy Lights”, a festival which celebrates the Baptism of Christ (Or. 39.10).74 In the present passage in Or. 40, Gregory is closely following a set of verses in the Gospel of Luke: Ὅταν τὸ ἀκάθαρτον πνεῦμα ἐξέλθῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, διέρχεται δι’ ἀνύδρων τόπων ζητοῦν ἀνάπαυσιν, καὶ μὴ εὑρίσκον, τότε λέγει, Ὑποστρέψω εἰς τὸν οἶκόν μου ὅθεν ἐξῆλθον· καὶ ἐλθὸν εὑρίσκει σεσαρωμένον καὶ κεκοσμημένον. Τότε πορεύεται καὶ παραλαμβάνει ἕτερα πνεύματα πονηρότερα ἑαυτοῦ ἑπτά, καὶ εἰσελθόντα κατοικεῖ ἐκεῖ, καὶ γίνεται τὰ ἔσχατα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκείνου χείρονα τῶν πρώτων. Luke 11:24–26

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest; and finding none he says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” And when he comes he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than

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ὅλον Χριστὸν ἢ ὅτι μάλιστα ἑαυτοῖς εἰσοικίσαντες. Cf. also Or. 2.22.

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himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. tr. RSV

Another New Testament text that is representative of the tradition and relevant for Gregory’s passage is the Epistle to the Ephesians, a book which Gregory quotes several times in this oration:75 ἵνα δῷ ὑμῖν κατὰ τὸ πλοῦτος τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ δυνάμει κραταιωθῆναι διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον, κατοικῆσαι τὸν Χριστὸν διὰ τῆς πίστεως ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν … Eph 3:16–17

that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith … tr. RSV

Here again we find a reference to Christ taking up residence in human souls. The image of Christ settling in human souls (κατοικῆσαι τὸν Χριστὸν) would have been familiar to a Christian audience. Moreover, Gregory’s successors in festival oratory will continue to use baptismal contexts to commemorate God finding new homes to dwell in, as congregation after congregation of human souls were opened up for Christ to inhabit. In the prooemium of his own oration on Christ’s baptism, Gregory of Nyssa shows how Isaiah prophesied the growth of the church as God’s dwelling-place: “Στενός μοι ὁ τόπος, ποίησόν μοι τόπον, ἵνα κατοικήσω.” ταῦτα γὰρ ἡ τοῦ πνεύματος δύναμις εἰς τὴν πολυάνθρωπον τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκκλησίαν ἐθέσπισεν, ἣ χρόνοις ὕστερον ἔμελλεν ἀπ’ ἄκρων εἰς ἄκρα πληρώσειν τὴν οἰκουμένην ἅπασαν. In diem luminum/In baptismum Christi oratio 222.9–12

“The place is too narrow for me: make room for me to dwell in.” [Isaiah 49.20 RSV] Thus did the power of the Spirit prophesy regarding God’s populous church, which in later times would come to fill the entire inhabited world from one end to the other.

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Eph 2:6 and 6:16 quoted at Or. 40.9–10; 5:14 quoted at Or. 40.13.

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Both Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa were dealing with audiences that were familiar with the image of God settling in human souls, especially as a marked motif in discussions of the significance of baptism. It is this familiarity that would have made it possible for Gregory’s audience to connect his inclusion of “celebrations for a new dwelling-place” (κατοικέσια) in the prooemium of his oration to his subsequent explanation of how through baptism the devil is evicted from the soul as Christ moves in as a new tenant. The remaining item in Gregory’s catalogue, a type of festival he refers to as κουρόσυνα, represents something of a tour de force on Gregory’s part. In order to appreciate the significance of this item for Late Antique society and the Classical festival it alludes to, it is necessary first to address Gregory’s use of a particular metaphorical field to describe the dynamics of baptism, namely, that of inscription and impression. Elm has drawn attention to the importance of these images to Gregory’s teachings on baptism throughout Orations 38–40: The ancient authors studied here employed the vocabulary of ‘inscription’ and ‘imprinting’ with its wide range of associated meanings to denote the moment initiating the process of shifting religious affiliation, that is, the process of conversion.76 For Gregory, a crucial component of baptism is the spiritual act of inscribing the correct words or beliefs onto the souls of the people being baptized. Whatever previous heretical “writing” they may already have on their souls, for example if they have been baptized into a false creed, is to be erased: Εἰ μὲν ἄλλως ἐγγέγραψαι ἢ ὡς ὁ ἐμὸς ἀπαιτεῖ λόγος, δεῦρο καὶ μετεγγράφηθι. Ἐγὼ τούτων οὐκ ἀφυὴς καλλιγράφος, γράφων ἃ γέγραμμαι καὶ διδάσκων ἃ καὶ μεμάθηκα καὶ τετήρηκα ἐξ ἀρχῆς εἰς τήνδε τὴν πολιάν … Ἀλλ’ οὔπω τύπος οὐδεὶς ἐν τῇ σῇ ψυχῇ, οὔτε χείρονος γράμματος οὔτε βελτίονος, σήμερον δέ σε γραφῆναι δεήσει καὶ παρ’ ἡμῶν τυπωθῆναι πρὸς τελειότητα. Or. 40.44–45

If you have been inscribed in any way other than as my speech requires, come and be reinscribed. I am not unskilled as a calligrapher, since I write what has been written upon me and I teach just what I have learned and

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S. Elm, “Inscriptions and Conversions. Gregory of Nazianzus on Baptism (or. 38–40),” in K. Mills and A. Grafton (eds.), Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Seeing and Believing (Rochester 2003) 1–35 at 1.

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preserved from my beginnings to this gray old age of mine … But as there is not yet any carving in your soul, whether of a base or a noble text, today you must be inscribed and carved upon at our hands for your perfection. These acts of inscription symbolize an initiate’s official incorporation into the body of neo-Nicene Christians. Baptism therefore, and instruction in the γράμματα or letters of the creed that Gregory gives at Or. 40.45, is an act that defines membership in a community. It is because baptism is such a potent symbol of communal identity that Gregory requires “re-inscription” of those who have been baptized into a competing doctrine. The association of acts of inscribing with notions of community and identity was particularly tight, as Elm has shown. Regarding official Imperial or municipal inscriptions made in bronze, she writes: Such bronze tablets also contained some of the most crucial inscriptions of the late antique world, those by which all inhabitants were “inscribed” into their social status, and thus their very humanitas. Inscription into the census list or roster of citizenship (politographos), regulated by many of the laws inscribed into bronze tablets, not only defined a person’s status but also that of his offspring in subsequent generations, and this (hereditary) status, the precise place inscribed into the roster, governed virtually every aspect of a person’s life.77 Baptism, then, entails having one’s soul inscribed to indicate membership in a religious community in the same way that individuals were inscribed into the memberships of various social or political communities. Elm is right to bring out the importance of the act of inscription for Gregory’s understanding of baptism and membership in the Christian community. As we will see, Gregory goes further and is able to use a specific Classical Greek festival as a social parallel for baptism and the “inscription” of an individual into the Christian community. It is this inscriptional aspect of baptism that is foreshadowed by the remaining item in Gregory’s catalogue of festivals, the κουρόσυνα or “celebrations marking a coming of age”.78 Gallay’s translation, plausibly enough, suggests “l’entrée dans la jeunesse”—meaning presumably the occasion when youth in the ancient world were officially inducted into a social group such as a phratry.

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Elm, “Inscriptions and Conversions” 10. Cf. Harrison, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus 99: “a coming of age”.

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However, the adjective itself—τὰ κουρόσυνα is implied—presents some difficulties. It occurs elsewhere only in a poem included in the Palatine Anthology, where it is used to describe a dedicatory lock of hair.79 In Ancient Greek culture, the occasion for the dedication of that lock of hair would indeed have been understood as referring to a specific type of coming-of-age ceremony. The festival in question would have been the ancient Apatouria, an important festival of Ionian origin and widely celebrated at Athens and elsewhere. On the third day of the festival, a day called Κουρεῶτις, male children dedicated a lock of their hair and were ceremonially inducted into their phratry or clan. This is presumably how the poet of the Palatine Anthology was able to employ the adjective κουρόσυνον to refer to a dedicatory lock of hair. According to all surviving descriptions of the Apatouria, the youth were inscribed (ἐγγράφονται) into the citizen rolls of their respective phratries as full members of their communities.80 In the Classical period the festival was so widely celebrated at Athens and other Ionian centers that Herodotus (i.147) could even define the Ionians as “those who derive from Athens and celebrate the festival Apatouria”.81 Its importance is reflected in Greek literature more widely, as it features prominently for example in the Timaeus, as well as in a speech attributed to Demosthenes, the Contra Boeotum, where the inscription at the Apatouria of an individual’s name into the phratry and citizen lists forms a central point of contention.82 For Gregory’s audience, his mention of κουρόσυνα festivals would 79

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Anthologia Palatina 6.156, of Theodoridas. See A.S.F. Gow and D.L. Page (eds.), The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams Vol. ii (Cambridge 1965) 539, who note that the adjective does not occur elsewhere, although κουροσύνη “is a good Hellenistic noun”. For the Apatouria, see L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin 1956) 232–234 and H.W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (Ithaca 1977) 88–92. For the third day known as Κουρεῶτις, Deubner cites among many other examples the entry in the Suda: “Koureotis is the third festival day of the Apatouria, when the youths have their hair cut and are inscribed in their phratries” (Κουρεῶτις δὲ ἑορτὴ τῶν Ἀπατουρίων ἡ τρίτη, ἐν ᾗ οἱ κοῦροι ἀποκειρόμενοι εἰς τοὺς φράτορας ἐγγράφονται). See also as the entry for κουρεῶτις in the Etymologicum Magnum: “On the third day, they lead the youths into the festival, and they present them to their relatives and peers, and inscribe them into the citizenry. The festival is called koureotis” (Τῇ δὲ τρίτῃ, τοὺς κούρους εἰσάγουσιν εἰς τὴν ἑορτὴν, καὶ συνιστᾶσι τοῖς συγγενέσι καὶ γνωρίμοις, καὶ ἐγγράφουσιν εἰς τὴν πολιτείαν. Ἡ δὲ ἑορτὴ καλεῖται κουρεῶτις). Similarly Deubner, Attische Feste 232 n. 3 cites scholia to Aristophanes’s Acharnians on Athenian youth being inscribed into their fratries on the day of Koureotis: “the third day is called Koureotis from the fact that the young men and maidens are inscribed into their fratries” (τὴν δὲ τρίτην Κουρεῶτιν, ἀπὸ τοῦ τοὺς κούρους καὶ τὰς κόρας ἐγγράφειν εἰς τὰς φρατρίας). See OCD4 s.v. “Apatouria.” See Tim. 21b and Demosthenes, Contra Boeotum i.4–5: “At the Apatouria, my father inscribed the defendant as Boiotos in the phratry list, and the other as Pamphilos. I however had been inscribed as Mantitheos. Since my father’s death took place before the inscriptions

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have naturally brought to mind the Apatouria and the day known as Koureotis, when young men had their names ceremoniously inscribed into the citizen rolls. For Gregory too, the official entrance of an individual into the community is marked by a ceremonial act of inscribing. In baptism, however, it is the individual himself who is inscribed and not his name that is inscribed in a registry, though the state of having been inscribed in one way or another is still of decisive importance for the concerned individual’s identity.83 To sum up: the word κουρόσυνα in Gregory’s preface to Or. 40 must refer to a ceremony at which youths dedicate a lock of their hair and are inscribed into the citizen rolls of their clan. We should interpret this as a reference to the third day of the Apatouria festival, the Κουρεῶτις. Gregory’s inclusion of this specific type of festival in the prooemium is meant to foreshadow a particular significance of baptism upon which he elaborates over the course of the oration: baptism offers a new type of community for which one is inscribed, just as it represents a new birth—in Christ—and a more elevated conception of wedlock—union with Christ the bridegroom. A festival at which a community celebrates baptism—and the baptism of Christ in particular—is to assume the communal significance once accorded to ceremonies celebrating and commemorating births, marriages, and coming-of-age rituals. Returning to the prooemium, we see now how the various items in Gregory’s catalogue of earthly festivals prefigure different significances of the mystery of baptism. Gregory’s mention of γενέθλια looks forward to his discussion of baptism as a new birth (40.2–3); γαμήλια to the union with Christ the mystical bridegroom (40.46); ὀνομαστήρια to his discussion of the various names given to baptism (4.4); κατοικέσια to baptism as a celebration of Christ’s “inhabitation” of a new soul (40.35); and κουρόσυνα to baptism as inscription of the Christian creed onto a soul and its enrollment in the Christian community (40.44–45). Moreover, the prefigurative quality of this catalogue of festivals types casts a new light on the final sentence of the prooemium:

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in the demes list were made, the defendant came and inscribed himself in the demes list as Mantitheos instead of Boiotos.” (ἐγγράφει τοῖς Ἀπατουρίοις τουτονὶ μὲν Βοιωτὸν εἰς τοὺς φράτερας, τὸνδ’ ἕτερον Πάμφιλον· Μαντίθεος δ’ ἐνεγεγράμμην ἐγώ. Συμβάσης δὲ τῷ πατρὶ τῆς τελευτῆς πρὶν τὰς εἰς τοὺς δημότας ἐγγραφὰς γενέσθαι, ἐλθὼν εἰς τοὺς δημότας οὑτοσὶ ἀντὶ Βοιωτοῦ Μαντίθεον ἐνέγραψεν ἑαυτόν.) We can compare how Gregory asks if his audience “has been inscribed differently”, that is heretically (Εἰ μὲν ἄλλως ἐγγέγραψαι ἢ ὡς ὁ ἐμὸς ἀπαιτεῖ λόγος, Or. 40.44) with the way Demosthenes’s speaker affirms that it was he who had first been inscribed as “Mantitheos” (Μαντίθεος δ’ ἐνεγεγράμμην ἐγώ, Con. Boeot. 1.4).

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Προσέχειν δὲ ἄξιον τοῖς λεγομένοις, καὶ μὴ παρέργως, ἀλλὰ προθύμως τὸν περὶ τηλικούτων δέξασθαι λόγον· ἐπειδὴ καὶ τοῦτό ἐστι φωτισμός, τὸ γνῶναι τοῦ μυστηρίου τὴν δύναμιν. Or. 40.1

It is important to pay attention to the words spoken here, and to do so not indifferently, but to listen to my account of such weighty matters with zeal, since this too is illumination, namely to understand the meaning of the mystery. In advising his audience of the importance of paying attention “not indifferently” to what he is saying, Gregory seems to invite or challenge us to study his prooemium with particular care in order to understand the δύναμις—the “force” or “meaning”84—of the names of festivals he has collected for us. Here we must compare a similar admonishment by Proclus on the importance of approaching the prooemia of Platonic dialogues “not indifferently”: Τοὺς προλόγους τῶν Πλατωνικῶν διαλόγων ὅπως χρὴ διατιθέναι τὸν μὴ παρέργως αὐτῶν ἁπτόμενον δηλῶσαι βουλόμενος, ἐνδείξομαι καὶ ὑμῖν ἐφ’ ἑνὸς τοῦ τῆς Πολιτείας συγγράμματος. In Platonis Rempublicam ed. Kroll 1.5.6–9

In the intent to clarify how one must dispose of the prologues of Platonic dialogues if one is not going to treat them indifferently, I shall make a demonstration to you using one dialogue, the Republic, as an example. Gregory composed his own prooemia with the same care that students of philosophy applied to the interpretation of Platonic preludes. For Proclus, the act of engaging thoughtfully with the prooemia of Platonic dialogues meant, in and of itself, to do philosophy. So, too, for Gregory: to reflect on the relationship between the types of celebration listed in the prooemium and the theme of his oration is to “philosophize”, as he himself puts it (φιλοσοφήσωμεν, Or. 40.3), about the significance of baptism.

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See LSJ iiia for δύναμις as the “force” or “meaning” of a word.

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The Influence of Gregory’s Prooemia: Gregory of Nyssa on Easter

As a “postlude” to this discussion of Gregory’s “preludes”, we can turn to how one of his most prominent successors in festival oratory, his fellow Cappadocian Gregory of Nyssa, followed Gregory’s example in crafting prooemia that prefigure the major themes and images of the oration that follows. We can take here the prooemium from one of the younger Gregory’s Easter orations, an oration known as “De Tridui Spatio” from the three-day period of Christ’s katabasis between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.85 Gregory here refers to the sight of the candles and torches held by his congregation at the vigil: καὶ ὥσπερ κατὰ τὸ προκείμενον τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν θέαμα ἓν φῶς περιαστράπτει τὰς ὄψεις ἐκ μυρίων λαμπάδων ἐρανιζόμενον, οὕτω πᾶσα ἡ τοῦ Χριστοῦ εὐλογία πυρσοῦ δίκην καθ’ ἑαυτὴν λάμπουσα τοῦτο ἡμῖν τὸ μέγα φῶς ἀπεργάζεται τὸ ἐκ πολλῶν τε καὶ ποικίλων τῶν τῆς γραφῆς ἀκτίνων συγκεραννύμενον· De Trid. Spat. 273.10–274.16

And just as in the case of the spectacle that lies before our eyes—one light produced from countless torches that dazzles our vision—so all the blessing of Christ, shining by itself like a beacon, produces this great light for us which is mixed together from the various and manifold beams of Scripture. As we have seen, prooemia in festival orations are often used to lay the groundwork for themes developed subsequently in the oration, and Gregory’s evocation here of the torch procession that produces one light from many prefigures his treatment of several of the oration’s major ideas: Easter is timed in such a way (the Sunday after the Paschal full moon on the 14th day of the lunar month, which Gregory helpfully reminds us lasts 29 ½ days)86 that the full moon rises just as the sun is setting. Thus, they appear in the sky together, “mixing the light of their torches” so that “the continuity of light is never broken in the succession of the elements” (τοῦ φωτὸς ταῖς αὐγαῖς τῆς ἡμέρας τὰς παρ’ ἑαυτῆς λαμπηδόνας 85

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For the text see the edition of E. Gebhardt in W. Jaeger (ed.), Gregorii Nysseni Opera 9.1 (Leiden 1967) 273–306. For discussion of this oration see Rexer, Die Festtheologie 66–79, as well as A. Spira, “Der Descensus ad inferos in der Osterpredigt Gregors von Nyssa De Tridui Spatio,” in A. Spira and C. Klock (eds.), The Easter Sermons of Gregory of Nyssa: Translation and Commentary (Cambridge, MA 1981) 195–259. For translation and commentary see H.R. Drobner, Gregor von Nyssa: Die drei Tage zwischen Tod und Auferstehung unseres Herrn Jesus Christus (Leiden 1982). 297.6–7.

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συμμῖξαι, ὡς μήτε … διακόψαι τοῦ φωτὸς τὴν συνέχειαν ἐν τῇ διαδοχῇ τῶν στοιχείων, 297.14–18). The darkness is lit up by the succession of the luminaries. Gregory then explicitly describes how these physical characteristics of the festival are meant to serve as what one might call a “contemplative aide” for those celebrating the festival spiritually: τοῦτο βούλεται ὁ πνευματικὸς νόμος σύμβολον γενέσθαι τοῖς πνευματικῶς ἑορτάζουσιν, ὥστε διὰ πάσης τῆς κατὰ τὴν ζωὴν ἑβδομάδος ἓν πάσχα φωτεινὸν καὶ ἀσκότιστον ὅλον τὸν χρόνον αὐτοὺς τῆς ζωῆς ἀπεργάσασθαι. 298.6–9

The spiritual law intends that this be an aide to those who celebrate the festival spiritually, so that through the entire week of life they render the entire span of their life a single luminous and undarkened Pascha. When Gregory says that his audience is to “render” (ἀπεργάσασθαι) all the stages of their life into “a single luminous Pascha”, he recalls the prooemium’s image of how the blessing of Christ “renders” (ἀπεργάζεται) a single “great light from the various and manifold beams of Scripture”. Over the course of the oration Gregory moves from the spectacle of the torch procession with “one light produced from countless torches”, to Christ’s great light from manifold scriptural beams, to the light of the sun and moon mixing their torches in unbroken succession, to the seven divisions or ages of life lived like one luminous Pascha. Thanks to the prooemium and the way it prefigures the themes of the oration, the spectacle of the festival torch procession becomes a productive image with which Gregory of Nyssa can perform theoria. In this respect, as in so many others, he follows the example of his older namesake Gregory of Nazianzus in performing philosophy for his festival audience. To adapt what Proclus says of Plato’s dialogues, the prooemia of the festal orations of Gregory of Nazianzus present an εἰκών or image of the oration’s subject matter.87 We should not be surprised that they are wrought with such care. The prooemium itself occupied a significant space in the literary horizons of Gregory and other Late Antique rhetors. The form and purpose of rhetorical prooemia were analyzed in endlessly ramifying schemes by theorists of discourse, literary connoisseurs would debate the success or failure of the prooemium of a given rhetor’s performance, and the basic philosophical curriculum which was a mainstay in any rhetor’s education included formal

87

Proclus, In Plat. Parm. 659.

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instruction in the analysis of the prooemia to Platonic dialogues. We should approach Gregory’s prooemia with the same interest that Late Antique literary culture took in these texts, and that Gregory himself explicitly asks his audience to take. If they follow his advice and listen to his words “not indifferently”, then they will have begun their performance of theoria at the festival.

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Performing Philosophy: Purification, Contemplation, and Assimilation to the Divine Gregory’s prooemia are moments for his audience to think about how meaning is built up over the course of an oration, and about how themes are prefigured and developed. They are his audience’s first opportunity to practice philosophy through theoria, here in the sense of the critical exegesis of text and language. As an oration unfolds, Gregory draws upon a variety of philosophical discourses. This chapter explores a major theme of the festival orations, a sequence of related processes including purification (κάθαρσις), contemplation (θεωρία), and leading ultimately to what is explicitly characterized as deification (θέωσις), a doctrine that would enjoy a long afterlife in Orthodox theology.1 These three processes together form one of the basic structures of Gregory’s thought.2 In these texts, one of Gregory’s roles as the festival rhetor is often to perform purification and contemplation and their goal of deification for his audience. Gregory’s various meditations upon these topics would become some of the most influential texts in the Christian theological and devotional traditions. However, for Gregory’s fourth-century audiences, the processes of purification, contemplation, and deification, as well as the sequence they formed, were well-known elements of the universal grammar of Late Antique philosophy. The themes of κάθαρσις, θεωρία, and the assimilation to the divine were just as central to the common philosophical culture of Gregory’s society as they were to the theological doctrines he and his fellow Cappadocians expounded. For Gregory’s peers in Constantinople, these discussions in his orations were moments when Gregory performed philosophy for his festival audiences. This chapter explores the role of purification, contemplation and deification in Gregory’s festival orations by recontextualizing them against the wider back-

1 For Gregory on theosis see: T.T. Tollefsen, “Theosis according to Gregory,” in J. Børtnes and T. Hägg (eds.), Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections (Copenhagen 2006) 257–270; Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 116–122; B. Maslov, “The Limits of Platonism: Gregory of Nazianzus and the Invention of theōsis,” GRBS 52 (2012) 440–468; and G. Thomas, The Image of God in the Theology of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge 2019) 118–153. 2 For Gregory on katharsis leading to knowledge of God, see Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 65– 113.

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drop of Late Antique philosophical culture. That Christians like Gregory shared these concerns with their non-Christian peers is clear from the long tradition of scholarship on Platonism in the Cappadocian Fathers.3 Here the focus will not be on whether Gregory’s discussion of purification and contemplation would have seemed to his audience to draw more decidedly and recognizably from Platonic or Christian discourses—since for Gregory and his tradition these discourses were inextricably intertwined4—but rather on how such discussion was integral to the performance of philosophical culture, and how philosophical performance was what audiences consisting of pepaideumenoi expected at festivals.

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Katharsis at the Festival

Gregory himself declares that the best place to begin the practice of philosophy is with the process of katharsis. In the oration for the Festival of Holy Lights, he explains how purification and the liberation of the soul from the earthly constraints of the flesh are prerequisites for engaging in theoria and gazing upon the light of the divine: Φιλοσοφήσωμεν δὲ ἀρχόμενοι ὅθεν ἄρχεσθαι ἄμεινον· ἄμεινον δὲ ὅθεν Σολομὼν ἡμῖν ἐνομοθέτησεν· ἀρχή, φησί, σοφίας, κτῆσαι σοφίαν. Τί τοῦτο λέγων ἀρχὴ σοφίας; τὸν φόβον. Οὐ γὰρ ἀπὸ θεωρίας ἀρξαμένους εἰς φόβον χρὴ καταλήγειν —θεωρία γὰρ ἀχαλίνωτος τάχα ἂν καὶ κατὰ κρημνῶν ὤσειεν—ἀλλὰ φόβῳ στοιχειουμένους καὶ καθαιρομένους καὶ, ἵν’ οὕτως εἴπω, λεπτυνομένους, εἰς ὕψος αἴρεσθαι. Οὗ γὰρ φόβος, ἐντολῶν τήρησις, οὗ δὲ ἐντολῶν τήρησις, σαρκὸς κάθαρσις, τοῦ ἐπιπροσθοῦντος τῇ ψυχῇ νέφους καὶ οὐκ ἐῶντος καθαρῶς

3 See for example: J. Daniélou, Platonisme et Théologie Mystique. Essai sur la doctrine spirituelle de Saint Grégoire de Nysse (Paris 1944); E. Ivánka, Plato Christanus: Übernahme und Umgestaltung des Platonismus durch die Väter (Einsiedeln 1964); Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture; Bradshaw, “Plato in the Cappadocian Fathers”; Moreschini, Filosofia e Letteratura 22– 64 and Grégoire de Nazianze 70–81; Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 65–90. 4 See Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 75: “Scholars have been too quick to assume that such parallels indicate a predominance of Platonic doctrine over biblical Christianity in Gregory’s work, based on modern theories about the purity and incommensurability of the two.” I would agree with Beeley that we should not think of one tradition predominating over the other, since framing the issue in such a way presents a false choice, but the significance of passages where Gregory explicitly draws on Platonic discourses should not be minimized just because similar concerns also feature in Biblical texts which Gregory also knows well.

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ἰδεῖν τὴν θείαν ἀκτῖνα, οὗ δὲ κάθαρσις, ἔλλαμψις … διὰ τοῦτο καθαρτέον ἑαυτὸν πρῶτον, εἶτα τῷ καθαρῷ προσομιλητέον … Or. 39.8–9

Let us then philosophize, beginning where it is better to begin. And it is better to begin where Solomon instructs us to: “the beginning of wisdom,” he says, “acquire wisdom.” What does he mean by “beginning of wisdom”? Fear. For one must not begin with contemplation and end up at fear—for unbridled contemplation would perhaps even drive us over a cliff—but rather one must through first be instructed in the basic principles through fear, then purified and, so to speak, refined, and then ascend on high. For where there is fear, there is adherence to the commandments, and where there is adherence to the commandments, there is purification of the flesh—that cloud that veils the soul and does not permit it to see clearly the divine ray—and where there is purification, there is illumination … therefore one must first purify oneself, and then hold intercourse with the pure. Gregory’s description here in the oration for the Festival of Lights of the purification that is necessary before “ascending” (εἰς ὕψος αἴρεσθαι) to contemplate “the divine beam of light” (ἰδεῖν τὴν θείαν ἀκτῖνα) maps closely onto other works of his devoted to the same theme. One can consider here in particular passages in the Theological Orations, the set of five treatises produced in Constantinople in the summer or fall of 380, and which as a group have become famous as the definitive exposition of Gregory’s theology, especially of his teaching on the Holy Spirit as fully and equally God.5 One of Gregory’s main targets in these orations are a group of his theological opponents known as “Eunomians” after Eunomius of Cyzicus, who together with his teacher Aëtius was a leading thinker of the Anomean branch of the Arian theological tradition.6 The first of the theological orations is addressed 5 Throughout I cite the Greek text of Gallay, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 27–31. For commentary and English translation see Norris, Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning. For general discussion of the Theological Orations, see also Elm, Sons of Hellenism 403–413 as well as Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 39–40 and 183–186. 6 For the Neo-Arian or Anomean movement in general, see T. Kopecek, A History of NeoArianism. 2 volumes. (Cambridge, MA 1979), R. Lim, Public Disputation, Power and Social Order in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 1995) 109–148 and R. Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution (Oxford 2000). For Gregory’s engagement with the Anomeans, especially the work of the movement’s leading figure Aetius, see also B. MacDougall, “Theologies under Persecution: Gregory of Nazianzus and the Syntagmation of Aetius,” in É. Fournier and

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directly to the followers of Eunomius, whom Gregory accuses of turning the mystery of the faith into a technydrion, a petty craft based on the abusive application of logic to theology, and who in the Nicene tradition would be famously characterized as “logic-choppers”.7 Gregory is exercised in particular by the Anomean claim that the essence of God is knowable and in fact is denoted by the term agenneton, which distinguishes his essence from that of the Son, making the Son and God “unlike” (anomoios), and leading to the group themselves becoming known as “Anomeans”.8 Gregory goes after both the theology of the Eunomians as well as their theological qualifications, and a main focus for Gregory is the question of what sort of person the theologian ought to be. The privilege of “philosophizing about God” does not belong to just anybody, but only to those who have been “purified” in soul and body: Οὐ παντός, ὦ οὗτοι, τὸ περὶ θεοῦ φιλοσοφεῖν, οὐ παντός· οὐχ οὕτω τὸ πρᾶγμα εὔωνον καὶ τῶν χαμαὶ ἐρχομένων … οὐ πάντων μέν, ὅτι τῶν ἐξητασμένων καὶ διαβεβηκότων ἐν θεωρίᾳ, καὶ πρὸ τούτων καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα κεκαθαρμένων, ἢ καθαιρομένων, τὸ μετριώτατον. Μὴ καθαρῷ γὰρ ἅπτεσθαι καθαροῦ τυχὸν οὐδὲ ἀσφαλές, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ ὄψει σαθρᾷ ἡλιακῆς ἀκτῖνος. Or. 27.3

It does not belong to everyone, I say to you all, to philosophize about God, not to everyone indeed. It is not something so cheap, nor does it belong to those so lowly … It does not belong to everyone, because it belongs to those who have been proven and who have progressed in theoria, and who beforehand have been purified in soul and body, or who at the very least are in the process of being purified. For it is not perchance even safe for the impure to touch the pure, just as it is not safe for weak eyesight to lay hold of the beams of the sun.

W. Mayer (eds.), Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian and Para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity (Abingdon 2019) 79–94. 7 Or. 27.2; see Norris, Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning 87. For Nicene criticism of the “logicchopping” of Neo-Arian discourse see especially Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus 93 and Elm, Sons of Hellenism 405–407. 8 For the theory of language espoused by Aetius and Eunomius and the ancient theory, notably represented by Plato’s Cratylus, that names indicate essence, see L.R. Wickham, “The ‘Syntagmation’ of Aetius the Anomoean,” Journal of Theological Studies 19.2 (1968) 532–569, on pp. 540 and 559–560; Elm, Sons of Hellenism 245–258; and S. Douglass, Theology of the Gap: Cappadocian Language and the Trinitarian Controversy (New York 2005) 94–106.

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As in the oration for the Festival of Holy Lights, here too katharsis or purification is a prerequisite for engaging in theoria and the act of philosophizing about God.9 Again, as in the oration, purification is the process that enables one to converse with the pure and gaze directly at the beam (ἀκτῖνα) of the light of the sun.10 Gregory’s more expansive discussion here in the Theological Orations provides helpful context for his comments in the festival oration. In the oration for the Festival of Holy Lights, he says that one “must first purify oneself before conversing with the pure” (διὰ τοῦτο καθαρτέον ἑαυτὸν πρῶτον, εἶτα τῷ καθαρῷ προσομιλητέον, Or. 39.9), and in the Theological Orations he explains that that purification is necessary because “it is not safe for the impure to touch the pure” (Μὴ καθαρῷ γὰρ ἅπτεσθαι καθαροῦ τυχὸν οὐδὲ ἀσφαλές, Or. 27.3). Here Gregory is closely reproducing a famous and much-quoted line from Plato’s Phaedo: “for it is not permitted for the impure to touch the pure” (μὴ καθαρῷ γὰρ καθαροῦ ἐφάπτεσθαι μὴ οὐ θεμιτὸν ᾖ, Phaed. 67b2).11 As mentioned above, this quotation and the principle behind it form part of the universal grammar of philosophical culture in the Imperial and Late Antique periods. When it comes to the major strands of Platonism in the generations preceding Gregory, katharsis and purification are of fundamental importance to the systems of both Plotinus and Iamblichus, whose Protrepticus to philosophy cites the Phaedo quotation prominently.12 Gregory’s near-contemporary, the Platonist-turnedChristian bishop Synesius of Cyrene, quotes the Phaedo line verbatim on three separate occasions.13 Moreover, thanks to the Platonization of the Aristotelian curriculum in Late Antique Alexandria, the Phaedo quotation would become ubiquitous in the teaching of Aristotle as well. Thus, the passage came to play

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For katharsis as a prerequisite for theoria in Gregory of Nazianzus, see for example Moreschini, Filosofia e Letteratura 100–101 and Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 107. For Gregory’s performed ethos and its connection to katharsis and theoria in these and similar passages where he assimilates his own persona to that of Moses, see Norris, Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning 108–109: “Moses’ ascent up the mount provides the Biblical basis for Nazianzen’s description of his own ‘character’, ἦθος, in terms of ‘contemplation,’ θεωρία. Gregory mentioned Elijah, Moses and Paul within a similar discussion of ἦθος in 27.9. Ascending involves the level of purification and contemplation already achieved.” This idea is key to Gregory’s thought and appears throughout his works, see Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 67 n. 1. Gallay, Grégoire de Nazianze; Discours 27–31 76 n. 3; See also Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 75. For Plotinus see for example Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 165 n. 2 and Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 75, as well as H. Barnes, “Katharsis in the Enneades of Plotinus,” TAPA 73 (1942) 358–382. For Iamblichus see Prot. 65.6. Dion 9.56, Ep. 41.294 and Ep. 137.50.

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a key role in prominent Late Antique discussions of the qualifications necessary for engaging with the basic texts of the philosophical tradition, namely the commentaries on Aristotle by the Alexandrian Neoplatonists of the fifth and sixth centuries, in particular their Prolegomena to Aristotle’s Categories.14 These Prolegomena feature stereotyped sets of ten questions to be treated before beginning the study of Aristotelian texts. Included among them are questions regarding the ideal student of Aristotle and the ideal teacher, and here katharsis is necessary for the former. Thus, the great fifth-century Platonist Ammonius treats what for him is the sixth question of the scheme as follows:15 Ἕκτον ζητήσωμεν πῶς δεῖ παρασκευάσασθαι τὸν μέλλοντα ἀκροάσασθαι τῶν Ἀριστοτελικῶν συγγραμμάτων. καὶ λέγομεν ὅτι πεπαιδευμένον τὰ ἤθη εἶναι καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν κεκαθαρμένον· μὴ καθαρῷ γὰρ καθαροῦ ἐφάπτεσθαι οὐχὶ θεμιτὸν ὁ Πλάτων ἔφησε …16 Sixth, let us inquire into how the would-be student of Aristotle’s writings ought to prepare. And we say that he ought to be educated in his character and purified in his soul. For it is not right for the impure to lay hands on the pure, as Plato says.17 Ammonius’s student Olympiodorus closely follows the example of his teacher: Ἕκτον κεφάλαιον, ἐν ᾧ ζητοῦμεν ὁποῖον δεῖ εἶναι τὸν ἀκροώμενον τῶν Ἀριστοτέλους συγγραμμάτων. λέγω τοίνυν ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὸν ἐχέφρονα εἶναι, δριμύν, κεκαλλωπισμένον τοῖς ἤθεσιν, κεκαθαρμένον τὴν ψυχήν (‘μὴ καθαρὸν γὰρ καθαροῦ ἐφάπτεσθαι μὴ οὐχὶ θεμιτόν ἐστιν’, ὡς ὁ θεῖος Πλάτων φησί.)18 The sixth chapter, in which we inquire into what sort of person the student of Aristotle’s writings ought to be. I say then that he must be sensible, sharp, well-groomed in his character and purified in his soul (“For it is not right that the impure lay hands on the pure,” as the divine Plato says.).19 14

15 16 17 18 19

For the prolegomena to the Alexandrian commentaries on the Categories see Kustas, Studies in Byzantine Rhetoric (Thessaloniki 1973) 101–126; for ancient prolegomena in general see Mansfield, Prolegomena. Cf. Kustas, Studies in Byzantine Rhetoric 102. Ammonius, In Aristotelis Categorias 6.21–24 (ed. Busse 1895). My translation; for translation of the entire prolegomena and commentary see M. Cohen and G. Matthews (trs.), Ammonius: On Aristotle’s Categories (Ithaca 1991). Olympiodorus, Prolegomena et in Categorias 10.3–8 (ed. Busse 1902). My translation; for translation of Olympiodorus’s Prolegomena to logic and the Categories,

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Ammonius and Olympiodorus use the quote from the Phaedo to emphasize the moral prerequisites, especially that of being purified in soul, that are required of anyone intending to approach the works of Aristotle, whose works formed the first stages of the philosophical curriculum. We can compare the practice of Ammonius and Olympiodorus with Gregory’s use of the Phaedo quote, and his own injunction that those who would philosophize about God must first be purified in soul. Both the Neoplatonic Prolegomena and Gregory’s Theological Orations reflect common Late Antique concerns regarding the practice of philosophy, particularly the philosophical exegesis of texts, and how the privileges associated with those texts are to be policed. In the Theological Orations Gregory dons for himself a familiar role, namely that of a guardian of philosophical language. By declaring to his festival audience in the oration for the Feast of Lights that they must first purify themselves before conversing with the pure, Gregory is tapping into a philosophical discourse with a long history, and one which is of a piece with his preceding statement that without purification it is impossible to “gaze at the beam of divine light” (ἰδεῖν τὴν θείαν ἀκτῖνα). This language also draws upon a storied philosophical discourse, which Gregory develops at greater length in the first of the Theological Orations, where he warns that for the impure to touch the pure is as dangerous as if one were to gaze at “the beam of the sun with weak vision” (ὥσπερ οὐδὲ ὄψει σαθρᾷ ἡλιακῆς ἀκτῖνος).20 Here too Gregory invokes Platonic language that had become ubiquitous in the philosophical culture of the Imperial and Late Antique periods, namely that of the light of the Sun in the Allegory of the Cave in the Republic. This is not just material that Gregory has absorbed from his environment as if through osmosis; he knows the passage intimately. In the second of the Theological Orations, he refers directly to the Republic’s Analogy of the Sun when he writes that “the sun is to the perceptible world what God is to the intelligible world, as one of the pagans said” (τοῦτο ἐν αἰσθητοῖς ἥλιος, ὅπερ ἐν νοητοῖς Θεός, ἔφη τις τῶν ἀλλοτρίων, Or. 28.30), and he quotes the same statement verbatim without suggesting its source in the festival oration “On Baptism” (Or. 40.5).21 For Gregory and audience members invested in paideia, it was a wellestablished principle of philosophical culture that katharsis was first required of anyone intending to engage in theoria and “gaze upon the beam of divine

20 21

see S. Gertz (tr.), Elias and David: Introductions to Philosophy; Olympiodorus: Introduction to Logic (London 2018). See Gallay, Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 27–31 78 n. 1, who notes that this entire paragraph could be characterized as an “anthology” of the Platonism of the Church Fathers. See Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 204 n. 3. See also Or. 21.1.

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light”. When Gregory declares to his festival audience that they should “philosophize” (φιλοσοφήσωμεν) by first purifying themselves, and quotes the Phaedo to remind them that it is not permitted for the impure to touch the pure, he is performing for them the same philosophical culture that they knew from their time in the classroom. Or to put it another way, he and his Christian audience are celebrating the festival in the same way that pepaideumenoi had done for generations, that is, by engaging in philosophy.

2

Theosis at the Festival

For modern readers, perhaps the most arresting passages in Gregory’s festival orations are those in which he declares that he and his Christian audiences are to become, quite explicitly, gods.22 His first oration for the Festival of Easter is representative here: Χθὲς συνεσταυρούμην Χριστῷ, σήμερον συνδοξάζομαι· χθὲς συνενεκρούμην, συζωοποιοῦμαι σήμερον· χθὲς συνεθαπτόμην, σήμερον συνεγείρομαι … Γενώμεθα ὡς Χριστὸς, ἐπεὶ καὶ Χριστὸς ὡς ἡμεῖς· γενώμεθα θεοὶ δι’ αὐτὸν, ἐπειδὴ κἀκεῖνος δι’ ἡμᾶς ἄνθρωπος. Or. 1.4–5

Yesterday I was being crucified together with Christ, today I am glorified with Him. Yesterday I was made dead with Him, today I am made alive. Yesterday I was buried with him, today I rise with Him … Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become gods on his account, since he became human on ours. Scholarship has emphasized how the concept of mimesis that is at work in this passage “permeates” the structures and thought patterns of early Christianity, from baptism to the Eucharist to the emulation of saintly exemplars.23 Gregory’s familiar exhortation to his audience to imitate Christ—to “become like Christ”—is followed by the more startling formulation, “Let us become gods” (γενώμεθα θεοὶ). Here Gregory is invoking his doctrine of theosis, a word which Gregory was not only the first Christian writer to employ but also seems in fact 22 23

Or. 1.4–5, citing the edition of J. Bernardi (ed.), Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 1–3 (Paris 1978). See N.V. Harrison, “Gregory of Nazianzus’ Festal Orations: Anamnesis and Mimesis,” Journal of Philosophy and Theology 18 (2006) 27–51, at 41.

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to have coined.24 The doctrine has a rich history in the Orthodox tradition, and it is an idea central to Gregory’s thought, who characteristically states in his oration on the Festival of Holy Lights that people “have been made … for the mimesis of God, as far as is attainable”: πεποιημένους … εἰς θεοῦ μίμησιν, ὅσον ἐφικτόν (Or. 39.7). Gregory’s formula—especially the phrase “as far as is attainable”— recalls the famous line from Plato’s Theaetetus on the philosopher’s flight from the world and from all earthly things. There philosophy is characterized as nothing less than “assimilation to God, as far as is possible” (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν, Theat. 176a). This passage, like that from the Phaedo on the impure not touching the pure, would also enjoy a rich subsequent history. It became an exemplary description of the philosophical life, and the phrase “assimilation to God, as far as is possible” in particular would be included among the six canonical definitions of philosophy that were taught at the beginning of the philosophical curriculum from Late Antiquity through the Byzantine period. It would also feature in discussions of the process of definition itself in commentaries on Porphyry’s Isagoge, the first text taught in the philosophical sequence.25 It was familiar enough to serve as shorthand for the philosophical life, as it does for example in an oration that the philosopher-statesman Themistius delivered to a Constantinopolitan audience only a couple years after Gregory performed his Festival Orations there.26 After stepping down from the office of Urban Prefect, which he had held at some point between 383–385, Themistius delivered an apologetical oration in defense of his career and his pursuit of philosophy, and closes by invoking the Theaetetus: “But Plato and whoever follows him is ever on high, pursuing assimilation to God” (Πλάτων δὲ ἄνω ἀεί, καὶ ὅστις ἕπεται Πλάτωνι, τὴν πρὸς θεὸν ὁμοίωσιν μεταδιώκων, Or. 34.30). Themistius expects his audience to recognize “assimilation to God” as an encapsulation of philosophical culture and education. For Gregory’s audience as well—which like that of Themistius consisted of Constantinopolitans with a claim to paideia—the “mimesis of God” represented the ultimate goal of their philosophizing. The Festival of Holy Lights commemorates an occasion of 24 25

26

Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 117; see also Maslov, “The Limits of Platonism” 441. For Gregory on theosis see above n. 1 in this chapter. See Ammonius, In Porphy. Eisag. 3.8; Elias, Introduction to Philosophy 8.10; David, Introduction to Philosophy 20.25. For these definitions and their prominence in Late Antique and Byzantine philosophical education, especially the commentators of the Alexandrian school such as David and Elias, see I. Ševčenko, “The Definition of Philosophy in the Life of Saint Constantine,” in M. Halle, H.G. Lunt, H. McLean, C.H. Van Schooneveld (eds.), For Roman Jakobson: Essays on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday, 11 October 1956 (The Hague 1956) 449–457. Penella, The Private Orations of Themistius 34–40.

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profound significance for Christianity—the Baptism of Christ Himself—yet at the same time, for Gregory’s audience his account of theosis is in keeping with his traditional role of performing philosophy at the festival.27

3

Katharsis, Theoria, and Theosis: The Nativity Oration (38.7)

The complex of ideas surrounding purification, contemplation, and deification is never more lyrically or memorably depicted than in a passage that features in Gregory’s Nativity Oration as well as in another oration for Easter. Before his audience assembled for the Festival of the Nativity, in a passage which is partially recycled in the smaller-scale second oration for Easter (Or. 45), Gregory stresses the paradox of the divine, which is at once the object of the soul’s desire and yet beyond all comprehension:28 οἷόν τι πέλαγος οὐσίας ἄπειρον καὶ ἀόριστον, πᾶσαν ὑπερεκπίπτον ἔννοιαν, καὶ χρόνου καὶ φύσεως· νῷ μόνῳ σκιαγραφούμενος, καὶ τοῦτο λίαν ἀμυδρῶς καὶ μετρίως, οὐκ ἐκ τῶν κατ’ αὐτὸν, ἀλλ’ ἐκ τῶν περὶ αὐτὸν, ἄλλης ἐξ ἄλλου φαντασίας συλλεγομένης, εἰς ἕν τι τῆς ἀληθείας ἴνδαλμα, πρὶν κρατηθῆναι, φεῦγον, καὶ πρὶν νοηθῆναι, διαδιδράσκον· τοσαῦτα περιλάμπον ἡμῶν τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν, καὶ ταῦτα κεκαθαρμένον, ὅσα καὶ ὄψιν ἀστραπῆς τάχος οὐχ ἱσταμένης … Ἄπειρον οὖν τὸ θεῖον καὶ δυσθεώρητον, καὶ τοῦτο πάντη καταληπτὸν αὐτοῦ μόνον, ἡ ἀπειρία. Or. 38.7

Like some sea of being without limit or end, surpassing every conception of time and nature, which can be sketched in outline by the mind alone, and even then only very faintly and modestly so, drawn not according to what belongs to it, but according to what is around it, as different conceptions are collected from different sources in order to form a certain single mental image of the truth, which flees before it can be fully grasped and escapes without being fully understood. It shines forth upon our rational faculty, even if that should be purified, like a swift lightning bolt, ever in motion, upon our sight … The divine therefore is without limit and diffi-

27 28

For theosis and the assimilation of the divine in the context of “philosophizing” at a festival, see also Gregory’s Or. 21.2. Gregory repeats this passage as well as the entirety of Or. 38.7–15 in Or. 45 “On Easter” at 2–9 and 26–27; see Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze, 115 n. 3.

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cult to contemplate, and this in fact is the only absolutely comprehensible thing about it, namely its limitlessness. This is a dense passage.29 To begin with, it should be noted that Gregory’s language is closely related to an earlier discussion by his friend Basil of Caesarea, namely a passage from his treatise against the Apology of the leading thinker of the “Anomean” branch of theology, Eunomius of Cyzicus, which Basil had composed between 363 and 365.30 In response to the claims of Eunomius and his followers to be able to define the essence of God—and in such a way as to be “unlike” that of Christ—Basil emphasized the difficulty of contemplating the divine: οὕτω καὶ εἰς τὸ ἄνω τῶν αἰώνων τοῖς λογισμοῖς ἀναβαίνοντες, καὶ οἷον εἴς τι πέλαγος ἀχανὲς ἐπὶ τὸ ἄπειρον τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ ζωῆς διακύπτοντες, οὐδεμιᾶς ἀρχῆς ἀφ’ ἧς γέγονε λαβέσθαι δυνάμενοι, ἀλλὰ τοῦ νοουμένου ἐξωτέραν ἀεὶ καὶ ὑπερεκπίπτουσαν τοῦ Θεοῦ τὴν ζωὴν ἐννοοῦντες, τοῦτο τὸ ἄναρχον τῆς ζωῆς, ἀγέννητον προσειρήκαμεν.31 Thus in ascending in our thoughts to that which is above eternity, and peering as it were into some gaping sea at the limitlessness of God’s life, without being able to take hold of any beginning from which it came into being, but by realizing that the life of God is outside of and extends beyond that which can be understood, we pronounced this lack of a beginning of life “unbegotten”. There is good reason for the similarity between the two passages. Both Gregory and his friend Basil are treating a similar theme, namely the incompre-

29

30

31

This section can also be usefully compared with similar passages in one of the Theological Orations, including Or. 28.13 and, especially, Or. 30.17. For skiagraphia in the latter passage and in Or. 38 see E. Narkevics, “Skiagraphia: Outlining the conception of God in Gregory’s Theological Orations,” in J. Børtnes and T. Hägg (eds.), Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections (Copenhagen 2006) 83–112. For the background and composition of Basil’s Adversus Eunomium, see B. Sesboüé et al. (eds.), Basil de Césarée. Contre Eunome, Vol. 1, Sources Chrétiennes, 299 (Paris 1982) 15– 49; see also M. DelCogliano and A. Radde-Gallwitz (trs.), St. Basil of Caesarea: Against Eunomius (Washington 2011) 18–38, as well as M. DelCogliano, “Basil of Caesarea versus Eunomius of Cyzicus on the Nature of Time: A Patristic Reception of the Critique of Plato,” Vigiliae Christianae 68.5 (2014) 498–532, at 500–503. Basil, Adversus Eunomium 1.16 (PG 29 548.21–38). I cite here the edition of Sesboüé, Basil de Césarée, p. 228.

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hensibility of God, and they are dealing with the same theological opposition. Both are responding to Eunomius and his followers, directly in Basil’s case and indirectly in Gregory’s, and in particular to what we have seen was the major Anomean claim that the essence of God is, in fact, comprehensible, and that it is denoted by none other than the term agenneton.32 The theme of the incomprehensibility of God and His nature is thus a topic closely connected with the theological debates of the late fourth century. Accordingly, when we turn to another preacher in the Nicene tradition of Gregory and Basil arguing against the Anomean followers of Eunomius, namely John Chrysostom in his series of homilies “On the Incomprehensibility of God”, which were delivered in Antioch between 386 and 387, we find John using what is by now familiar language:33 θαυμάζομεν πάλιν τῆς θαλάσσης τὸ πέλαγος καὶ τὸν ἄπειρον βυθόν, ἀλλὰ μετὰ φόβου, ὅταν πρὸς τὸ βάθος κατακύψωμεν. Οὕτω τοίνυν καὶ ὁ προφήτης πρὸς τὸ ἄπειρον καὶ ἀχανὲς πέλαγος τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ κατακύψας σοφίας καὶ ἰλιγγιάσας. Again, we marvel at the expanse of the sea and its limitless depth, but we do so with fear when we stoop down to gaze into the deep. So too did the prophet swoon when he gazed down into the limitless, gaping sea of God’s wisdom. Further passages could be adduced from Basil’s brother Gregory of Nyssa, whose work would become influential in the subsequent development of apophatic or negative theology.34 Thus, the passage in the Nativity Oration by Gre-

32 33

34

See above n. 8 in this chapter. On the Incomprehensibility of God i. 200–208; A.-M. Malingrey (ed.), Jean Chrysostome. Sur l’ incompréhensibilité de Dieu: homélies i–v, Sources Chrétiennes, 28 bis (Paris 2000) 116– 118. For background on this and Chrysostom’s other homilies against the Anomeans, which were originally performed in the first year of Chrysostom’s priesthood, see P. Harkins (tr.), St. John Chrysostom: On the Incomprehensible Nature of God (Washington 1984) 19–24. For theoria in Gregory of Nyssa’s festal homilies see for example Rexer, Die Festtheologie Gregors von Nyssa: 212. For Gregory of Nyssa’s treatment of theoria in general see especially Jean Daniélou’s classic Platonisme et Théologie Mystique. Essai sur la doctrine spirituelle de Saint Grégiore de Nysse (Paris 1944), especially pp. 145–151 in the chapter ‘La nuée ou De la Contemplation’ (119–172), with extensive discussion of Moses’s theoria in Gregory’s Life of Moses. Gregory of Nyssa was deeply indebted to Gregory of Nazianzus’s own paradigmatic treatment of Moses and theoria; see Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus, p. 65 n. 5. For Gregory of Nyssa’s influence on the tradition of negative theology, see for example Douglass, Theology of the Gap and C. Stang, “Negative Theology from Gregory of Nyssa to Dionysius the Areopagite,” in J. Lamm (ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism (Chichester 2013) 161–176.

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gory of Nazianzus on the difficulty of contemplating God is, on the one hand, very much a part of the Nicene discourse of his time. On the other hand, Gregory develops this theme to a greater extent than one sees in the respective passages of Basil or John Chrysostom. Furthermore, as one might expect of someone with Gregory’s extensive training, his treatment here is deeply engaged with the Greek rhetorical and philosophical tradition, and his adaptation and reworking of that tradition will enjoy a long afterlife in subsequent theological discourse. In what follows, we will see how Gregory draws from another festival oration about the contemplation of the divine, an oration performed almost three centuries earlier at a festival in the northwestern Peloponnese. That earlier festival oration is the so-called “Olympic Discourse” of Dio Chrysostom (b.40/50–d. 110/120), a major figure of the Second Sophistic who was well known as both a philosopher and a sophist.35 One of his most famous speeches—indeed one of the most famous speeches of Antiquity—was delivered in most likely 97 ce at the Olympic festival and in front of the statue of Olympian Zeus, the work of the fifth-century sculptor Phidias and one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Dio’s oration is a meditation, occasioned by the speaker’s proximity to the sublime representation of Zeus, on human conceptions of the divine. In other words, his oration’s theme is theoria in the sense of philosophical contemplation, and its setting is the great center for theoria in the sense of “festival pilgrimage”, Olympia itself with its legendary statue of Zeus.36 Over the course of the oration, Dio imagines an assembly of local Ancient Greeks questioning Phidias about how he dared to represent Zeus in the great statue. They are made to describe their own attempts to envision the divine:

35 36

For text and commentary of Or. 12 see D. Russell (ed.), Dio Chrysostom: Orations vii, xii and xxxvi (Cambridge 1992). See for example B. MacDougall, “Spectatorship in City and Church in Late Antiquity: Theoria Returns to the festival,” in N. Matheou, T. Kampianaki, and L. Bondioli (eds.), From Constantinople to the Frontier: The City and the Cities (Leiden 2016) 127–141, as well as Rutherford, State Pilgrims (2014) 330, who shows how before Dio, Epictetus, Discourses 1.6.23–25 had drawn a contrast between the theoroi of Phidias’s famous statue at Olympia and the philosophical contemplation of the divine: “the purpose of man is to be a spectator (theates) of god and his works and an exegetes of them (together, the words theates and exegetes suggest the context of a sanctuary where exegetai explain the sights to visitors). Human life begins where animal life ends, and the ends of human life are theoria, understanding and an existence in harmony with nature. ‘Take heed lest you die without ever having been spectators of such things’ [1.6.21–22]. He contrasts this with the popular view that the thing most worth seeing before one dies is Olympia and the ‘work of Pheidias’, i.e., his famous chryselephantine statue of Zeus.”

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Πρότερον μὲν γάρ, ἅτε οὐδὲν σαφὲς εἰδότες, ἄλλην ἄλλος ἀνεπλάττομεν ἰδέαν, κατὰ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ δύναμιν καὶ φύσιν ἕκαστος ἰνδαλλόμενοι καὶ ὀνειρώττοντες. Εἴ τέ πού τινα μικρὰ καὶ ἄσημα συλλέγομεν τῶν ἔμπροσθεν εἰκάσματα τεχνιτῶν, οὐ πάνυ τούτοις οὔτε πιστεύοντες οὔτε προσέχοντες τὸν νοῦν. Or. 12.53

For earlier, when we knew nothing clearly, we fashioned different ideas of the divine by forming mental images and dreaming, each according to his ability and nature. And if we collected by chance some small undistinguished likeness by earlier artists, we didn’t entirely credit or pay attention to them. Dio has Phidias respond to this imagined assembly, and during his response Phidias has occasion to contrast his own methods of depicting the divine with the less constrained means available to the poets. He describes the fragility of the latter’s mental conceptions of the divine as follows: μιᾷ γὰρ ἐπινοίᾳ καὶ ὁρμῇ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐνεχθεὶς ὁ ποιητὴς πολύ τι πλῆθος ἐπῶν ἤρυσεν, ὥσπερ ἐκ πηγῆς ὕδατος ὑπερβλύσαντος, πρὶν ἐπιλιπεῖν αὐτὸν καὶ διαρρυῆναι τὸ φάντασμα καὶ τὴν ἐπίνοιαν ἣν ἔλαβε. Or. 12.70

For the poet, caught up by a single thought and impulse of the soul, draws forth a great abundance of words, like water overflowing from a spring, before the image and the thought he conceived escape him and flow away. In returning to Gregory’s account of theoria in the Nativity Oration, we see how he draws from both of these passages in Dio—the assembly of Greeks on how they collected images of the divine, and Phidias’s account of the inspired attempts of poets—and refashions them to describe the difficulty of contemplating God’s essence: οἷόν τι πέλαγος οὐσίας ἄπειρον καὶ ἀόριστον, πᾶσαν ὑπερεκπίπτον ἔννοιαν, καὶ χρόνου καὶ φύσεως· νῷ μόνῳ σκιαγραφούμενος, καὶ τοῦτο λίαν ἀμυδρῶς καὶ μετρίως, οὐκ ἐκ τῶν κατ’ αὐτὸν, ἀλλ’ ἐκ τῶν περὶ αὐτὸν, ἄλλης ἐξ ἄλλου φαντασίας συλλεγομένης, εἰς ἕν τι τῆς ἀληθείας ἴνδαλμα, πρὶν κρατηθῆναι, φεῦγον, καὶ πρὶν νοηθῆναι, διαδιδράσκον· τοσαῦτα περιλάμπον ἡμῶν τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν, καὶ ταῦτα κεκαθαρμένον, ὅσα καὶ ὄψιν ἀστραπῆς τάχος οὐχ ἱσταμένης. Or. 38.7

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Like some great sea of being without limit or end, surpassing every conception of time and nature, which can be sketched in outline by the mind alone, and even then only very faintly and modestly so, drawn not according to its own attributes, but according to qualities to which it is circumstantially related, as different conceptions are collected from different sources in order to form a certain single mental image of the truth, which flees before it can be fully grasped and escapes without being fully understood. It shines forth upon our rational faculty, even if that should be purified, like a swift lightning bolt, ever in motion, upon our sight.37 To begin with, Gregory compares the divine to “some great sea of being”, which echoes a famous description of “the great sea of beauty” in Plato’s Symposium, and which sets the philosophical tone for Gregory’s subsequent language.38 Gregory’s Christmas audience strain for some mental image or ἴνδαλμα of the truth, while Phidias’s imagined audience describe their attempts to form such mental pictures—ἰνδαλλόμενοι—each according to his own ability. Gregory’s “conceptions [of the divine] are collected from different sources” (ἄλλης ἐξ ἄλλου φαντασίας συλλεγομένης) as Phidias’s audience described how they “collected likenesses [of the divine]” made by older artists (συλλέγομεν τῶν ἔμπροσθεν εἰκάσματα τεχνιτῶν). Gregory describes the difficulty in retaining these images of God, which escape like lightning before they are caught and take to flight before they are fully conceived, and we should compare this to how, according to Phidias, poets must rush to give expression to their inspired conceptions of the divine before they escape them and flow away like gushing springs of water. In each case it proves difficult to hold on to these images of the divine, which are both characterized with an elemental swiftness. Note how the two passages share several parallels in both diction and structure. Compare Gregory on the contemplation of God: … ἄλλης ἐξ ἄλλου φαντασίας συλλεγομένης, εἰς ἕν τι τῆς ἀληθείας ἴνδαλμα, πρὶν κρατηθῆναι, φεῦγον, καὶ πρὶν νοηθῆναι, διαδιδράσκον … (Or. 38.7), with Dio on poets and their conceptions of the divine: πρὶν ἐπιλιπεῖν αὐτὸν καὶ διαρρυῆναι τὸ φάντασμα καὶ τὴν ἐπίνοιαν ἣν ἔλαβε. Dio’s liquid phantasma and Gregory’s lightning-like indalma, which itself is collected from various phantasiai, are ever on the verge of escaping the mind and dissipating.39 Finally, Gregory’s phrase πρὶν … φεῦγον … πρὶν … διαδιδράσκον answers

37 38 39

See above n. 28 on how Gregory repeats this passage as well as the entirety of Or. 38.7–15 in Or. 45 “On Easter” at 2–9 and 26–27. See P. Gallay in Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze, p. 115 n. 5 on Plato’s Symposium (210d): ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ πέλαγος τετραμμένος τοῦ καλοῦ καὶ θεωρῶν πολλοὺς καὶ καλοὺς λόγους … For Gregory’s use of such images in his attempts to depict the divine, his warnings regard-

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to Dio’s πρὶν ἐπιλιπεῖν … διαρρυῆναι, even going so far as to echo Dio’s pair of synonymous infinitives with a pair of synonymous participles, the second of which, like Dio’s διαρρυῆναι, being a compound formed with the same prefix. Dio’s larger project in his oration has to do with elaborating the Stoic doctrine of theologia tripartita, namely a division of theology among poets, philosophers, and statesmen.40 In these passages however, both Gregory and Dio participate in a particular literary tradition of depicting the elusive apprehension, recollection or revelation of the divine. When describing the contemplation of the divine, both Dio and Gregory draw heavily upon classic Platonic depictions of contemplative theoria, such as the Symposium’s account of the soul’s ascent to contemplation of the beautiful (210a–212c), the Allegory of the Cave in Republic vii (516a5–b7), and finally the Phaedrus with its description of the soul’s contemplation and subsequent recollection of the divine chariot procession (246a–249c). The tradition of the Phaedrus is particularly important for the festival orations of both Gregory and Dio, especially in its description of ἀνάμνησις or “recollection” and of how “a human being must understand what is said with respect to form, as it goes from many perceptions to a unity brought together through reasoning” (δεῖ γὰρ ἄνθρωπον συνιέναι κατ’ εἶδος λεγόμενον, ἐκ πολλῶν ἰὸν αἰσθήσεων εἰς ἓν λογισμῷ συναιρούμενον· τοῦτο δ’ ἐστὶν ἀνάμνησις … 249b6–c2).41 Plato’s form brought together “from … many sense perceptions into a unity” (εἶδος λεγόμενον … ἐκ πολλῶν ἰὸν αἰσθήσεων εἰς ἓν) lies behind, at however many removes, Gregory’s description of “different phantasiai collected to form a single image of the truth” (ἄλλης ἐξ ἄλλου φαντασίας συλλεγομένης, εἰς ἕν τι τῆς ἀληθείας ἴνδαλμα), as it also behind Dio’s description of “the collection of likenesses of older artists” to form an image of the divine (συλλέγομεν τῶν ἔμπροσθεν εἰκάσματα). Similarly, Gregory’s account of the understanding of the divine and how it “flashes like lightning” upon our sight (ὅσα καὶ ὄψιν ἀστραπῆς τάχος οὐχ ἱσταμένης) nods subtly but unmistakably to another famous passage in the Phaedrus. Socrates describes how the soul, conceived as a chariot driven by a pair of horses, suddenly beholds the beauty of a boy “flashing like lightning”, which directs the memory of the soul’s “charioteer” back towards the recollection of the nature of beauty itself (εἶδον τὴν ὄψιν τῶν παιδικῶν ἀστράπτουσαν. ἰδόντος δὲ τοῦ ἡνιόχου ἡ μνήμη πρὸς τὴν τοῦ κάλλους φύσιν ἠνέχθη, 254b). The lightning-

40 41

ing their relative efficacy, as well as his development of what might be called an ‘epistemology of images’, see Narkevics, “Skiagraphia: Outlining the conception of God” 109–122. Russell, Dio Chrysostom 14. This is a famous and famously fraught passage; I quote here the text and translation of H. Yunis (ed.), Plato: Phaedrus (Cambridge 2011) 146.

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like nature (ἀστραπῆς) of the revelation of a single mental image of the divine in Gregory’s account of theoria, and in particular how that image is formed by collecting various conceptions, looks back over the centuries to the Phaedrus and the lightning flash of a boy’s beauty that shocks the soul into a sudden recollection or anamnesis of the divine Form of Beauty itself. The festival orations of Gregory and Dio thus draw upon a broader philosophical discourse, the currency of which is on display in a text by the latter’s close contemporary, Plutarch, in his treatise On Isis and Osiris.42 Throughout this text Plutarch interprets Egyptian religious customs and festivals as “a means of achieving philosophical truth”.43 A good example of Plutarch’s method here is his discussion of how Egyptian priests regularly used a set of robes in honor of Isis, but maintained a special robe designated for Osiris, which is worn only once and immediately taken off. For Plutarch this serves as an occasion for commenting in Platonic fashion on the difficulty of contemplating the divine: ἐν χρήσει γὰρ τὰ αἰσθητὰ καὶ πρόχειρα ὄντα πολλὰς ἀναπτύξεις καὶ θέας αὑτῶν ἄλλοτ’ ἄλλως ἀμειβομένων δίδωσιν. ἡ δὲ τοῦ νοητοῦ καὶ εἰλικρινοῦς καὶ ἁγίου νόησις ὥσπερ ἀστραπὴ διαλάμψασα τῆς ψυχῆς ἅπαξ ποτὲ θιγεῖν καὶ προσιδεῖν παρέσχε. De Is. et Os. 77

For perceptible things, being in use and at hand, provide explanations and glimpses of themselves as they interchange variously at different times. But the understanding of the intelligible and pure and holy flashes through the soul like lighting, and occasionally offers in the space of a single moment the chance to touch and glimpse it. Plutarch’s account of how understanding of the divine—in his formula “intelligible, pure and holy”—“flashes through the soul like lightning” (ὥσπερ ἀστραπὴ διαλάμψασα τῆς ψυχῆς) exactly recalls in form and function Gregory’s description of an image of the divine “flashing upon our rational faculty … like lightning” (περιλάμπον ἡμῶν τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν … ὅσα καὶ ὄψιν ἀστραπῆς). Once again we are dealing with an elevated and Platonizing discourse that looks back to the Phaedrus.

42 43

For text and commentary see J.G. Griffiths (ed.), Plutarch: De Iside et Osiride (Cambridge: University of Wales Press 1970). Griffiths, Plutarch 70.

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To these accounts of the contemplation of the divine, one can also add a passage from the De Deo Socratis of Apuleius, which does not seem to represent a treatise so much as an epideictic oration similar to those from which his anthology, the Florida, was compiled.44 The De Deo Socratis takes as its subject the celestial hierarchy of gods and demigods, and characterizes Socrates’s personal god as one of the daimones that make up the intermediate ranks of being between gods and men. With Apuleius’s subject we should compare Gregory’s account in the Nativity oration of the celestial hierarchy—the intermediary ranks of which are called not daimones but “angelic and heavenly powers” (τὰς ἀγγελικὰς δυνάμεις καὶ οὐρανίους, Or. 38.9). Like Gregory, Apuleius dwells on the ineffable nature of the divine, and like both Gregory and Plutarch, he compares the fleeting apprehension of God to a flash of light that passes briefly and then is gone: cum Plato caelesti facundia praeditus, aequiperabilia diis inmortalibus disserens, frequentissime praedicet hunc solum maiestatis incredibili quadam nimietate et ineffabili non posse penuria sermonis humani quavis oratione vel modice conprehendi, vix sapientibus viris, cum se vigore animi, quantum licuit, a corpore removerunt, intellectum huius dei, id quoque interdum, velut in artissimis tenebris rapidissimo coruscamine lumen candidum intermicare? 3.5–6

… since Plato, gifted with heavenly eloquence, his words matching the immortal gods, most frequently proclaims that this god alone, such is the amazing and ineffable excess of his majesty, cannot be comprehended, even to a limited extent, in any discourse, owing to the poverty of human speech; and that even for wise men, when, by vigor of mind they have removed themselves from the body as far as they can, the comprehension of this god is like a bright light fitfully flashing with the swiftest flicker in the deepest darkness, and that only from time to time?45 The ineffability of the divine, the difficulty even for wise men who have freed themselves of the constraints of the body to comprehend it, and the way that its

44

45

For the De Deo Socratis as a philosophical lecture, see Stephen Harrison’s introduction to his translation in S. Harrison, J. Hilton, and V. Hunink (trs.), Apuleius: Rhetorical Works (Oxford 2001) at 185. I cite here the translation of Harrison et al., Apuleius 197.

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revelation flashes forth like a bright light in darkness—the details of Apuleius’s account echo those of Plutarch’s, and they anticipate even more closely Gregory’s account of theoria in the Nativity Oration.46 Apuleius helps us see even more clearly that Gregory is reproducing philosophical discourse that rhetors for generations had been performing before audiences invested in paideia— and here the possibility should be considered that Apuleius’s epideictic display was in fact performed at a festival. None of this should surprise us. Gregory, Dio, Plutarch and Apuleius have all learned how to discuss the divine and how to characterize language appropriate to theology from the same tradition of Platonism that served as the philosophical lingua franca of the cultural elite, both Christian and pagan.47 The four passages discussed above all work with a set of motifs drawn from various Platonic passages on contemplation. Again, a key point of reference for the motif of the elemental flash of lightning is the Phaedrus and the “lightning flash” of a boy’s beauty that makes the lover recall for an instant the form of True Beauty (254b5). Similarly, for the difficulty of speaking about the supreme divinity, the tradition looks back ultimately to the locus classicus at Timaeus 28c: “thus, to discover the maker and father of the universe is a difficult task, and having discovered this it is impossible to describe to everyone.”48 Moreover, in the same Nativity Oration, Gregory follows Dio by likening the contemplation of the natural order, in which the hand of the creator can be seen, to the ritual spectatorship involved in the celebration of mystery cults, particularly the Eleusinian mysteries. During the Nativity Oration’s Platonizing cosmogony, Gregory describes the creation of humankind, who are to see evidence of divine providence in the visible world, itself a reflection of a more perfect cosmos accessible to the intellect alone:

46

47 48

Plutarch may in fact have been a source for Apuleius here; for his use of the De Iside et Osiride elsewhere see for example E. Finkelpearl, “Egyptian Religion in Met. 11 and Plutarch’s DIO: Culture, Philosophy, and the Ineffable,” in W. Keulen and U. EgelhaafGaiser (eds.), Aspects of Apuleius’ Golden Ass: Vol. iii, The Isis Book; A Collection of Original Papers (Leiden 2012) 183–201. For the difficulty of distinguishing between “Stoic” and “Platonic” discourse in philosophical material of this period see above Chapter 3 n. 8. τὸν μὲν οὖν ποιητὴν καὶ πατέρα τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς εὑρεῖν τε ἔργον καὶ εὑρόντα εἰς πάντας ἀδύνατον λέγειν. Harrison, Apuleius 197 cites this passage. Gregory alludes to this passage at Or. 28.4, noting that “to understand God is difficult, but to express him is impossible, as one of the Pagan theologians philosophized” (Θεὸν νοῆσαι μὲν χαλεπόν, φράσαι δὲ ἀδύνατον, ὥς τις τῶν παρ’ Ἕλλησι θεολόγων ἐφιλοσόφησεν).

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… τῆς γῆς ἵστησιν, ἄγγελον ἄλλον, προσκυνητὴν μικτὸν, ἐπόπτην τῆς ὁρατῆς κτίσεως, μύστην τῆς νοουμένης … Or. 38.11

he placed man upon the earth, a second angel, a worshipper of mixed form, an observer of the visible creation, and an initiate of the intelligible …49 Gregory is using the language of ritual spectatorship at the mysteries to characterize humanity’s role in contemplating God’s creation. Of crucial importance in the development of this kind of discourse was Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium, in which Diotima instructs Socrates in the contemplation of the Form of the Beautiful as if he were an initiate at the Eleusinian mysteries. Nightingale has demonstrated the significance of this passage in Plato’s development of the metaphor of contemplative theoria, and the metaphor was taken up by Philo, Clement of Alexandria, and then the Cappadocians to describe the contemplation of theological truths arrived at through the exegesis of sacred texts.50 It is a metaphor that Dio also made use of in his description of the origin of man’s innate understanding of the divine: So it is very much the same as if anyone were to place a man, a Greek or a barbarian, in some mystic shrine of extraordinary beauty and size to be initiated, where he would see many mystic sights and hear many mystic voices, where light and darkness would appear to him alternately, and a thousand other things would occur; and further, if it should be just as in the rite called enthronement, where the inducting priests are wont to seat the novices and then dance round and round them … and not suspect that all which was taking place was the result of a more than wise intention and preparation … impossible too that the whole human race, which is receiving the complete and truly perfect initiation, not in a little building erected by the Athenians for the reception of a small company,

49 50

See Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 126 who cites other passages in Gregory where he uses the term “initiate” or μύστης; see Symp. 209e5–210a2. For Diotima’s use of the language of the mysteries to characterize philosophical theoria, see Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth 83–86. For the adoption of the metaphor and its development in Philo, Clement, and Origen, see above Chapter 2 n. 26. On the vocabulary of the mystery religions in Philo and the Christian Fathers see also Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition 21. See also O. Alieva, “Theology as Christian Epopteia in Basil of Caesarea,” JECS 20.3 (2020) 373–394.

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but in this universe, a varied and cunningly wrought creation, in which countless marvels appear at every moment … Or. 12.33–3451 It was this act of applying the processes of ritual spectatorship to the contemplation of the divine order and of divine truths that contributed to the development of theoretical philosophy in the first place. The educated members among Dio’s audience at Olympia and Gregory’s audience in Constantinople would have been trained to recognize the festival as a rhetorical space for the performance of Platonic theoria. Gregory’s orations on Christmas, Epiphany and Pentecost represent in fact a Christian counterpart to Dio’s activity in the Olympicus: the performance of theoria at a festival setting. The festivals of the new religion are treated as a venue for performing a familiar, Platonically-inflected theoria. This familiarity, then, might have gone some way towards forging a sense of cultural continuity among the members of the audience who, like Gregory, were products of the tradition of paideia. The Nativity Oration’s account of the difficulty of securing a single, fleeting impression of the divine leads immediately to an evocative description of theosis, one which nicely captures how the philosophical processes of contemplation, purification, and deification are intertwined with one another. Gregory explains that the difficulty of contemplating the divine instills in humankind a desire to know it better; the reason it is difficult to know is precisely so that it … τῷ δὲ ἀλήπτῳ θαυμάζηται, θαυμαζόμενον δὲ ποθῆται πλέον, ποθούμενον δὲ καθαίρῃ, καθαῖρον δὲ θεοειδεῖς ἀπεργάζηται, τοιούτοις δὲ γενομένοις, ὡς οἰκείοις, ἤδη προσομιλῇ, τολμᾷ τι νεανικὸν ὁ λόγος, Θεὸς θεοῖς ἑνούμενός τε καὶ γνωριζόμενος, καὶ τοσοῦτον ἴσως, ὅσον ἤδη γινώσκει τοὺς γινωσκομένους. Or. 38.7

… may be marveled at for its incomprehensibility, and being marveled at that it be desired more, and being desired that it purify, and purifying that it render us God-like, and when we have now become thus that He may

51

I cite here the translation of J.W. Cohoon (ed.), Dio Chrysostom (Cambridge, MA 1961). See Russell, Dio Chrysostom 182 on how behind this passage there lies a long tradition of comparing the visible cosmos to a place of initiation to the mysteries: “The analogy between the kosmos and a place of initiation into mysteries is widely used, but D.’s elaboration of it owes much to his own vivid setting. It probably goes back to Aristotle’s picture of the wonder felt by men who dwelt long underground on suddenly seeing the upper world … but it was particularly popular with the Stoics …” (182).

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communicate with us, as with His own, (my speech makes a bold utterance), God made one with gods and made known to them, and to such a degree perhaps as He now knows those who are known by Him. Gregory’s audience are to be rendered god-like, to become gods, through a combination of pothos or desire for the divine, theoria or contemplation of the divine, and katharsis or purification. As he says in the oration for the Festival of Holy Lights before beginning to “philosophize about God” (φιλοσοφήσωμεν τὰ περὶ Θεοῦ, Or. 39.8), humankind was created “for the mimesis of God, to the extent attainable” (Θεοῦ μίμησιν, ὅσον ἐφικτόν, Or. 39.7). This “mimetic assimilation” to the divine, as Halliwell calls it, was a “goal … shared by pagan and Christian thinkers” alike, and while with the passage of time it would develop into the specifically Orthodox doctrine of theosis, for pepaideumenoi of the fourth century it was a central theme that was expected to be handled by a rhetor giving a philosophical performance at a festival.52 52

See Stephen Halliwell, The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems (Princeton 2002) 315 on how for the philosopher, “an especially active engagement in mimetic ‘assimilation’ … is to be understood above all as the goal, by this date shared by pagan and Christian thinkers, of fashioning oneself ‘in the likeness of God’”.

chapter 5

The Rhetor’s Art: The Audience as Theoroi We have seen how Gregory’s festival rhetoric must be placed within a wider tradition that exploited a literary association between festivals and the performance of philosophy. If philosophy is at home at the festival, what then does it mean to perform it? Key to Gregory’s approach to festival theoria is the idea that the festival rhetor produces mental images for his audience to contemplate. As the exarch of the festival (Or. 39.14), he offers his audience an example of the performance of festival theoria. It is in this role as “contemplator-in-chief”, as it were, that Gregory’s training in rhetorical theory comes to the fore. Gregory’s rhetorical goal in these orations is to enable his audience to share in his vision of the divinity. That is to say, he must create the spectacle at which they are theoroi. This chapter will focus on two of the festal orations in particular to examine how Gregory draws on the rhetorical tradition to assist his audience in performing theoria. A unifying motif throughout the orations is the idea that the contemplation of divine images is a key goal of festival philosophy. Gregory relies on his rhetorical training to produce these images for his audience. We shall see him employing rhetorical strategies for the production of vivid images—chief among these being the concept of enargeia and a constellation of ideas concerned with the power of language. The rhetorical tradition thus plays a key role in the performance of festival theoria. That role is on prominent display in Gregory’s oration for the festival of “New Sunday”, with its evocation of heavenly images through a set-piece ekphrasis of spring, and it is set in highest relief in Gregory’s Pentecost oration. In as much as this oration is devoted to a festival that commemorates the proliferation of tongues among the Apostles under the influence of the Holy Spirit—which thus gave them the ability to communicate the Gospel to the nations—it represents the moment when Gregory deals most explicitly with the theme of communication between festival rhetor and audience. The performance of theoria is the key link for connecting Gregory’s rhetorical tools and training with his aim to celebrate festivals through philosophy. As we saw in the previous chapter, the ultimate goal in philosophy for Gregory is to achieve theosis or “deification”.1 The doctrine has a rich later history in the Orthodox tradition, and it is central to Gregory’s thought. Members of

1 See above Chapter 4 n. 1.

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his audience are to commune “as gods with God” (Or. 38.7; cf. also Or. 1.5) by becoming as similar to the divine as possible through the imitation or μίμησις of God (πεποιημένους … εἰς θεοῦ μίμησιν, ὅσον ἐφικτόν, Or. 39.7). As we saw, Gregory’s formula—especially the phrase “as far as is attainable”—puts us in mind of the famous tag from Plato’s Theaetetus on the philosopher’s flight from the world, which eventually became widely known throughout both the Classical and the Christian traditions as one of the definitions of philosophy: it is the “assimilation to God, as much as possible” (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν, Theat. 176a).2 For Gregory, as for the entire philosophical tradition before him, the God-like activity par excellence is the contemplation of the divine, since self-contemplation is God’s original and characteristic activity.3 It follows that man can best imitate God by engaging in contemplation of the divine. Gregory and his audience are to “come to know and philosophize upon matters concerning God and the divine” (οὕτω καὶ εἰδῶμεν καὶ φιλοσοφήσωμεν τὰ περὶ Θεοῦ καὶ τὰ θεῖα 39.8). The way of philosophy is to proceed from fear of God through purification and from there to ascend to the heights of contemplation (Or. 38.9). Accordingly, Gregory spends the next two paragraphs discussing his doctrine of κάθαρσις or purification before beginning properly his performance of the philosophy of the festival: ἐπεὶ δὲ ἀνεκαθήραμεν τῷ λόγῳ τὸ θέατρον, φέρε τι περὶ τῆς ἑορτῆς ἤδη φιλοσοφήσωμεν, καὶ συνεορτάσωμεν ταῖς φιλεόρτοις καὶ φιλοθέοις καρδίαις. Or. 39.11

Since we have cleansed the theater with logos, come then, let us philosophize now a little about the festival, and let us celebrate the feast together with festival-loving and God- loving hearts. Gregory’s “philosophizing” takes the form of an exposition of his Trinitarian theology (39.11–13) and an account of the divine economy at work in the events of Christ’s life and symbolized particularly in his baptism (39.14–19). This is how Gregory performs for his audience a “recollection” of God, which at the beginning of this section he had called “the chief part of the festival” (ἐπεὶ δὲ κεφάλαιον ἑορτῆς μνήμη Θεοῦ, Θεοῦ μνημονεύσωμεν 39.11). We find a similar definition for the goal of the festival in his Pentecost oration, and this particular 2 See above Chapter 4 n. 25. 3 Cf. Or. 38.9 on how in the beginning the divine’s sole activity consists in its self-contemplation: τὸ κινεῖσθαι μόνον τῇ ἑαυτῆς θεωρίᾳ; cf. Aristotle’s famous description of God’s activity at Metaphysics 1074b.

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definition will shed light on how Gregory conceptualizes his performance of the “recollection of God”: “And this is what it means for us to celebrate a festival, namely to store in our soul something lasting and that will abide …” (καὶ τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ ἑορτάζειν ἡμῶν, ψυχῇ τι θησαυρίσαι τῶν ἑστώτων καὶ κρατουμένων … Or. 41.1). Gregory’s “philosophizing” (φιλοσοφήσωμεν), his performance of the “recollection of God” (Θεοῦ μνημονεύσωμεν), and his festival celebration by means of “storing something lasting in our soul” (ψυχῇ τι θησαυρίσαι) are all of a piece. Rhetorical theory and particularly the quality of enargeia are at the heart of Gregory’s performance of festival theoria. Festival rhetors like Gregory conceive of themselves as producing a verbal spectacle at which their audiences are to act as spectators or theoroi. We look now at one of these spectacles to see how Gregory uses rhetorical theory to turn his audience into spectators of divine images.

1

New Sunday and Contemplation of the Heavenly Festival

Gregory’s oration for the festival of New Sunday (Or. 44) offers an instructive example of how a set-piece ekphrasis, with its proper virtue of enargeia or “vividness” in language that makes an audience seem to see what they hear or read, can serve his festival philosophy.4 The festival of New Sunday, held on the Sunday after Easter, celebrates the “reconsecration” (Ἐγκαίνια) of Creation following its rebirth at Easter. After an initial discussion of the meaning of the word Ἐγκαίνια and its appearances in the Old Testament (Or. 44.1–2), Gregory gives an account of the first Creation, which God illuminated first with intelligible light and then with the visible sun itself: “that light was not solar light, according to my interpretation, but incorporeal and not of the sun, then afterwards it was given to the sun as well to illuminate all the world” (οὐδὲ ἡλιακὸν, ὡς ὁ ἐμὸς λόγος, ἀλλ’ ἀσώματον, καὶ ἀνήλιον· ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ ἡλίῳ δοθὲν, καταφωτίζειν πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην, Or. 44.4). The contrast between the visible and the intel4 In what follows I am indebted in particular to the following studies: R. Webb, Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice (Farnham 2009) and Papaioannou, “Byzantine Enargeia and Theories of Representation.” On enargeia in general see N. Otto, Enargeia: Untersuchung zur Charakteristik alexandrinischer Dichtung (Stuttgart 2009). On the role of enargeia in Gregory’s theory of language, cf. S. Papaioannou, “Gregory and the Constraint of Sameness,” in J. Børtnes and T. Hägg (eds.), Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections (Copenhagen 2006) 59–81: “this mediating power of logos is conceived by Gregory along the lines of what ancient rhetorical theorists call enargeia (in Latin, evidentia)” (65).

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ligible aspects of creation is picked up again in the peroration, where Gregory gives a full-blown ekphrasis of spring in the visible world. The constituent elements of this ekphrasis make it clear that the spring of the visible world has an analogue in the spring of the spiritual world, and indeed Gregory concludes by describing how the festival of New Sunday celebrates the renewal of these twin aspects of creation. This very ekphrasis has been characterized as overly reminiscent of schoolroom exercises.5 However, unlike the stand-alone treatments of spring included in the classroom progymnasmata of Libanius, this ekphrasis serves a particular purpose within the economy of the composition as a whole. As we will see, this evocation of spring in the material world is meant to assist in the contemplation of its spiritual counterpart, which as Gregory notes is otherwise intelligible only to the few.6 He begins his ekphrasis of spring by bidding his audience to “behold” the visible world: Ἀλλ’ ἀπίωμεν ἤδη, καὶ τῷ καιρῷ τὰ εἰκότα συνεορτάσοντες. Πάντα γὰρ εἰς καλὸν τῇ πανηγύρει συντρέχει καὶ συναγάλλεται · ἴδε γὰρ οἷα τὰ ὁρώμενα. Ἡ βασίλισσα τῶν ὡρῶν τῇ βασιλίδι τῶν ἡμερῶν πομπεύει… Or. 44.10

Let us go now so that we may celebrate the festival in a manner appropriate to the occasion. For everything gathers together and rejoices for the good of the festival. For behold what the visible world is like: the queen of seasons escorts the queen of days … Here the processional language (πομπεύει) used in the description of the season anticipates how the relics of the martyrs “process forth” at the festival: Νῦν μάρτυρες αἰθριάζουσι καὶ πομπεύουσι, καὶ λαμπροῖς τοῖς βήμασι συγκαλοῦσι λαὸν φιλόχριστον (Or. 44.11). Similarly, Gregory describes how birdsong evokes the very hymns that he and the audience perform for God: Ἄρτι δὲ καλιὰν ὄρνις πήγνυται, καὶ ὁ μὲν ἐπανέρχεται, ὁ δὲ εἰσοικίζεται, ὁ δὲ περιίπταται, καὶ καταφωνεῖ τὸ ἄλσος, καὶ περιλαλεῖ τὸν ἄνθρωπον. Πάντα Θεὸν ὑμνεῖ καὶ δοξάζει φωναῖς ἀλαλήτοις· ἐπὶ πᾶσι γὰρ εὐχαριστεῖται δι’ ἐμοῦ Θεός· καὶ οὕτως ὁ ἐκείνων ὕμνος, ἡμέτερος γίνεται, παρ’ ὧν ἐγὼ τὸ ὑμνεῖν λαμβάνω. Or. 44.11

5 Ševčenko, “A Shadow Outline of Virtue” 57–58. 6 Or. 44.3: ὀλίγοις ὅσον ἐστὶ θεωρούμενον, οἶμαι δὲ, οὐδὲ ὀλίγοις …

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And now the bird builds his nest, and one returns and another moves in, and the next flies about, and makes the forest echo, and twitters at people. Everything hymns God and glorifies Him with speechless voices. For in all things I give thanks to God. And thus the hymn of those from whom I take my singing becomes our own. Finally, the visible sun and its chorus of attendant stars (ἀστέρων χορός, Or. 44.10) recall the divine light of God from earlier in the oration (Or. 44.3). That divine light was itself attended by “lights of the second order, reflections of the first light, the powers that surround it and its attendant spirits” (φῶτα δεύτερα, τοῦ πρώτου Φωτὸς ἀπαυγάσματα, αἱ περὶ αὐτὸν δυνάμεις, καὶ τὰ λειτουργικὰ πνεύματα, Or. 44.3). This characterization of the angelic orders as “lights of the second order” is familiar from Gregory’s Nativity Oration, where he describes how “in this way the secondary brilliances came into being, attendants of the first brilliance, whether they are intelligible spirits or like some immaterial and incorporeal fire” (καὶ οὕτως ὑπέστησαν λαμπρότητες δεύτεραι, λειτουργοὶ τῆς πρώτης λαμπρότητος, εἴτε νοερὰ πνεύματα εἴτε πῦρ οἷον ἄυλον καὶ ἀσώματον, Or. 38.9). Moreover, Gregory frequently characterizes the angelic orders as dancing in heavenly choruses.7 Thus his description in the oration for New Sunday of a “chorus of stars”, especially in a passage describing the visible and invisible worlds joining in festival celebration, is calibrated to recall the heavenly chorus of angels. As in the Christmas oration, in which Gregory bids his audience celebrate in “a common festival of heavenly and earthly powers” (ἔστω κοινὴ πανήγυρις οὐρανίων καὶ ἐπιγείων δυνάμεων, Or. 38.17), the members of the audience are meant to become theoroi of a divine spectacle. The ekphrasis of creation joining in festival celebration—led by the sun and its chorus of stars—helps the audience contemplate the divine festival in heaven.8 Thus Gregory’s ekphrasis of Spring is not an inert or dispensable flourish of schoolroom rhetoric. Through its individual elements that recall analogues in the invisible or spiritual realm, the ekphrasis serves Gregory’s larger purpose of depicting all of creation joining in festival celebration: “now the worldly spring and the spiritual spring; the spring for souls and spring for bodies, the visible

7 Cf. in particular Or. 38.17: μετὰ ἀγγέλων ὕμνησον, μετὰ ἀρχαγγέλων χόρευσον. Ἔστω κοινὴ πανήγυρις οὐρανίων καὶ ἐπιγείων δυνάμεων. 8 For festival rhetoric invoking the choruses, song and dance of the heavenly festival, see Menander Rhetor’s Sminthiac Oration at 446.1–7. Particularly influential for subsequent depictions of the dancing choruses of the heavens is the cosmology of the Timaeus at 40c– d5.

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spring and the invisible spring” (νῦν ἔαρ κοσμικὸν, ἔαρ πνευματικὸν, ἔαρ ψυχαῖς, ἔαρ σώμασιν, ἔαρ ὁρώμενον, ἔαρ ἀόρατον Or. 44.12). The subjects of the earthly ekphrasis stand in for the subjects of heavenly theoria, which are δυσθεώρητον or “difficult-to-contemplate” and accessible only for the few, and perhaps not even for them.9 The more vivid Gregory makes his ekphrasis of the visible spring, the easier it will be for his audience to contemplate the invisible spring. Gregory’s role as a rhetor in the oration for New Sunday, as elsewhere, is to create a spiritual spectacle at which his audience act as theoroi. In using his ekphrasis of spring to evoke visions of celestial beings participating in the festival, he offers his audience the ability to participate in philosophical spectatorship: χθὲς τὸ δοκεῖν τις ἐτίμας, σήμερον τὸ εἶναι προτίμησον· Μέχρι ποῦ τὰ ἐνύπνια; καὶ ἡ ἀλήθειά ποτε σπουδασθήτω σοι. Χθὲς ἦσθα θεατρικὸς, σήμερον φάνηθι θεωρητικός. Or. 44.9

Yesterday you held it honorable to seem to be someone. Today instead prefer to be someone. For how long will you be content with dreams alone? At some point be eager for the truth as well. Yesterday you were a devotee of the theater, today reveal yourself a devotee of theoria. Here Gregory explicitly defines his idea of festival spectatorship over and against that of physical spectacles. As we saw in the previous chapter, this association between festivals and contemplative philosophy is not unique to Gregory or to Christianity. It was an association that had been a part of philosophical and rhetorical discourse since Plato. An understanding of the festival as a space for the contemplation of philosophical visions is well suited to Gregory’s own rhetorical profile, with his arsenal of strategies for rendering an audience into spectators. This process in fact constitutes the main theme of the festival oration for Pentecost, Gregory’s richest meditation on his own role as a rhetor and the power of vivid language.

9 Or. 44.3: ὀλίγοις ὅσον ἐστὶ θεωρούμενον, οἶμαι δὲ, οὐδὲ ὀλίγοις. For the divine as δυσθεώρητον see Or. 38.7.

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The Holy Spirit and the Rhetor: Enargeia and the Feast of Pentecost

The Christian Feast of Pentecost commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles as described at Acts 2: 1–31. The Apostles begin speaking in tongues and are suddenly able to communicate with the linguistically diverse community of Jews who have assembled in Jerusalem for the Festival of Weeks, which is celebrated seven weeks or fifty days (hence “Pentecost” from the Greek for “fiftieth”) after Passover. The Christian Feast of Pentecost would thus over time come to celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit and its role in spreading the Christian message among the nations.10 Appropriately enough, Gregory’s oration for this festival represents his most significant discussion of the role of communication—and by extension the roles of rhetoric and the festival rhetor—in the wider Christian community. Along with Or. 31, the fifth and final of his Theological Orations, the Pentecost Oration would help establish Gregory’s legacy as the preeminent architect of Trinitarian doctrine and defender of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Gregory’s conception of the dynamics between Spirit, prophet, rhetor and festival audience is shaped by his training in rhetorical theory. In particular, the rhetorical concept of enargeia, the vividness in language as it is produced by the speaker and interpreted by the audience, informs his understanding of the activity of the Spirit on the one hand and his own role as a festival rhetor on the other. Gregory announces to his congregation the purpose of their gathering on the Feast of Pentecost as follows: καὶ τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ ἑορτάζειν ἡμῶν, ψυχῇ τι θησαυρίσαι τῶν ἑστώτων καὶ κρατουμένων …. Or. 41.1

And this is what it means for us to celebrate a festival, namely to store in our soul something lasting and that will abide … Gregory thus defines festival celebration as the “storing up in one’s soul” of something that will last forever. This definition, which comes at the end of the first paragraph of the oration, serves to gloss Gregory’s initial call a few lines earlier to “philosophize about the feast a little, so that we may celebrate the festival spiritually”:

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Bradshaw and Johnson, The Origins of Feasts 69–74.

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Περὶ τῆς ἑορτῆς βραχέα φιλοσοφήσωμεν, ἵνα πνευματικῶς ἑορτάσωμεν. ἄλλη μὲν γὰρ ἄλλῳ πανήγυρις. Τῷ δὲ θεραπευτῇ τοῦ Λόγου λόγος, καὶ λόγων ὁ τῷ καιρῷ προσφορώτατος. Καὶ οὐδὲν οὕτως εὐφραίνει καλὸν τῶν φιλοκαλῶν οὐδένα, ὡς τὸ πανηγυρίζειν πνευματικῶς τὸν φιλέορτον. Or. 41.1

Let us philosophize about the feast a little, so that we may celebrate the festival spiritually. Different people have different festivals. For the devotee of the Word there is word, and of words those most suitable to the occasion. And no fine thing so delights any lover of fine things as the spiritual celebration of the festival delights the lover of festivals. To “philosophize about the feast” or to “celebrate the festival spiritually” is to indulge in the kind of logos that will allow the audience to store up in their souls something permanent and lasting. Here Gregory has in mind the contemplation of images that the rhetor’s vivid language evokes and which are in turn stored in the souls of the audience. Fundamental to this process are qualities of language that render the audience into spectators so that they seem to “see” what they hear, and foremost in this respect is the rhetorical concept of enargeia.11 Papaioannou and Børtnes have demonstrated the importance of the rhetorical concept of enargeia for Gregory’s understanding of the power of language.12 Although he never refers to the term explicitly, it is clear from the numerous formal examples of ekphrasis scattered throughout his orations that Gregory knew by heart the techniques prescribed by the textbooks for the production of this quality of “vividness in language”: from the so-called ekphrasis of creation in the second theological oration to the tableau of the unwittingly idolatrous soldiers in the first invective against Julian, Gregory the rhetorician gives us a master-class in “how-to-achieve enargeia”, the proper virtue of ekphrasis, to adapt Simon Goldhill’s helpful formulation.13 Ruth Webb reminds us that this enargeia or vividness is a virtue not limited to ekphrases of works of art or dramatic scenes, as is often nowadays assumed, but was conceived of as belonging

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See above n. 4 in this chapter. J. Børtnes, “Rhetoric and Mental Images in Gregory” in Børtnes and Hägg (eds.), Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections (Copenhagen 2006) 50–51, and Papaioannou, “Gregory and the Constraint of Sameness” 65. For Gregory’s ekphrasis of creation, see Or. 28.23–29. For the anagnorisis of the Christian soldiers who had mistakenly committed idolatry, see Or. 4.82–84. For enargeia’s role in ekphrasis, see S. Goldhill, “What is Ekphrasis For?” CP 102 (2007) 1–19 (7).

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properly to any language that “brings the subject before the eyes of the audience”. This of course is the definition of ekphrasis as it was understood by the ancient rhetoricians and as we find it in the Progymnasmata of Aphthonius: “ekphrasis is descriptive language that vividly brings the depicted before the eyes of the audience” (ἔκφρασίς ἐστι λόγος περιηγηματικὸς ὑπ’ ὄψιν ἄγων ἐναργῶς τὸ δηλούμενον).14 It is this understanding of enargeia—vivid, quickening language that brings the subject to life in our mind’s eye—that interests us in Gregory’s oration. Contemplation of “vivid images” is not just a device Gregory uses in this speech, but constitutes in fact his primary theme. The Pentecost Oration is devoted to two parallel processes of communication: from the Holy Spirit to the prophets, the Apostles, and Gregory on the one hand, and from Gregory to his audience on the other. Each of these processes operates according to the same set of dynamics inherited from the rhetorical tradition and associated with enargeia. Gregory relies on enargeia to communicate his vision of the Spirit for his audience to contemplate, and he depicts the Spirit communicating to himself and the Biblical prophets in exactly the same way. In what follows, we will be exploring how processes of communication and the quality of enargeia are discussed in the ancient philosophical and rhetorical traditions. As we do so, we will see how Gregory draws from those traditions to reconceptualize his own work as a rhetor performing theoria and mediating between the Holy Spirit and his festival audience. A crucial device for the production of enargeia—or evidentia in Latin— widely discussed in the rich tradition of criticism preserved in Greek scholia, as Nünlist describes, is the use of the historical present tense in narrative, called μετάστασις or μετάθεσις. In the Latin tradition that derived extensively from the Greek this was known as translatio temporum.15 Quintilian discusses this strategy in Book 9 of his Institutio Oratoria while treating the Ciceronian figure known as sub oculos subiectio. The purpose of this device is to “make the audience feel present at past or future events”16 so that, as Quintilian puts it, the “event discussed seems not to be narrated but in fact acted out”: 14 15

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Prog. 36.22–23, ed. Rabe. R. Nünlist, The Ancient Critic at Work: Terms and Concepts of Greek Literary Criticism in Greek Scholia (Cambridge 2011) 196. Nünlist cites in particular the helpful (but apparently misapplied) formula of one scholiast (school. bTIl. 1.163b ex.) ἐναργοῦς δὲ ἀπαγγελίας τὰ γεγονότα ὡς γινόμενα ἀπαγγέλλειν. Cf. also A. Walker, “Enargeia and the spectator in Greek historiography,” TAPA 123 (1993) 353–377: “Historians frequently narrate events in the present tense in order to give a measure of immediacy to the action described, a phenomenon known as metastasis to the Greek rhetoricians” (359). Webb, Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion 100.

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Illa vero, ut ait Cicero, sub oculos subiectio tum fieri solet cum res non gesta indicatur sed ut sit gesta ostenditur, nec universa sed per partis: quem locum proximo libro subiecimus evidentiae … Habet haec figura manifestius aliquid: non enim narrari res sed agi videtur. Inst. Orat.9.2.40, 9.2.43

As for what Cicero calls “putting something before the eyes,” this happens when, instead of stating that an event took place, we show how it took place, and that not as a whole, but in detail. In the last book I classified this under evidentia … This figure has something particularly vivid about it; the facts seem not to be told us, but to be happening.17 Key then to the production of evidentia or enargeia is the narration of past events in the present tense. In the Pentecost Oration, Gregory adopts this figure of translatio temporum while recounting a long catalogue of Biblical figures whom the Spirit used as its agents, so that his audience may imagine the activities of the Spirit taking place in the present: Τοῦτο τὸ Πνεῦμα—σοφώτατον γὰρ καὶ φιλανθρωπότατον—ἂν ποιμένα λάβῃ, ψάλτην ποιεῖ, πνευμάτων πονηρῶν κατεπᾴδοντα, καὶ βασιλέα τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ ἀναδείκνυσιν. Ἐὰν αἰπόλον συκάμινα κνίζοντα, προφήτην ἐργάζεται. Τὸν Δαβὶδ καὶ τὸν Ἀμὼς ἐνθυμήθητι. Ἐὰν μειράκιον εὐφυὲς λάβῃ, πρεσβυτέρων ποιεῖ κριτὴν καὶ παρ’ ἡλικίαν. Μαρτυρεῖ Δανιὴλ, ὁ νικήσας ἐν λάκκῳ λέοντας. Ἐὰν ἁλιέας εὕρῃ, σαγηνεύει Χριστῷ, κόσμον ὅλον τῇ τοῦ λόγου πλοκῇ συλλαμβάνοντας. Πέτρον λαβέ μοι καὶ Ἀνδρέαν καὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῆς βροντῆς, τὰ πνευματικὰ βροντήσαντας. Ἐὰν τελώνας, εἰς μαθητείαν κερδαίνει καὶ ψυχῶν ἐμπόρους δημιουργεῖ. Or. 41.14

If this spirit (for it is most wise and benevolent) take a shepherd, it renders him a psalmist who charms wicked spirits, and sets him forth as a king of Israel. If it take a goatherd “gathering sycamore fruit”, it makes him a prophet. Recall David and Amos. If it take a well-grown youth, it makes him a judge of elders even beyond his years. Daniel witnesses to this, who conquered the lions in their den. If it catches fishermen, it gathers them in for Christ, collecting all the world in the net of the Word. Take Peter and

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Text and translation from D. Russell (ed.), Quintilian: The Orator’s Education Books 9–10 (Cambridge, MA 2001) 57–59.

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Andrew for example, and the sons of thunder who thundered spiritually. If it take tax-collectors, it turns them to profit in discipleship, and creates merchants of souls … After having his audience “recall to mind” the exempla of this catalogue, which goes on to include several of Christ’s disciples, Gregory concludes by saying that the Spirit who performed all these activities is one of mildness but also of anger towards sinners. By employing the historical present throughout the catalogue, he has had his audience “see” with their mind’s eye the Spirit’s past gentle activities as taking place in the present. Gregory now warns his audience that they should “not wish to see the Spirit become angry to the point where it does not grant forgiveness” (μὴ βουλήθωμεν ἰδεῖν ὀργιζόμενον ἀσυγχώρητα, Or. 41.14). This device of having his audience call to mind the benevolent activities of the Spirit, and of then suggesting that they might see that same Spirit become inexorably angry, complements in this same passage another muchdiscussed strategy for the production of enargeia: the inclusion of attendant circumstances and the accumulation of detail. In ancient discussions of enargeia, the importance of attendant circumstances for achieving vividness is consistently stressed. In both the treatise on style attributed to Demetrius and in the work of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, enargeia is said to be produced by thoroughness in narration and the inclusion of attendant detail or circumstances.18 It is this capturing of picturesque “attendant details” that Gregory is aiming at by adapting scripture to have the Spirit take possession of the herdsman Amos “as he gathers sycamore fruit”. It is precisely specific details like this, “visually, acoustically, [or] conceptually” striking, that were considered key ingredients in producing the desired effects of enargeia.19 Moreover, these little snapshots or vignettes20 of the Spirit electing to work through a human vessel (David the shepherd chosen to be king, Daniel in the lions’ den, etc.) together produce a cumulative effect that itself contributes to the production of enargeia. Ruether has described precisely this device, in which “references or allusions from any part of the Bible can be compressed together as so many alternative typologies of the same idea”, as the

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Dem. On Style 209: γίνεται δὲ ἐνάργεια πρῶτα μὲν ἐξ ἀκριβολογίας καὶ τοῦ παραλείπειν μηδὲν μηδ’ ἐκτέμνειν (“Enargeia comes about first and foremost from precision in speech and from leaving nothing out or cutting anything”); Dion. Hal. Lys. 7: γίγνεται [sc. ἐνάργεια] δ’ ἐκ τῆς τῶν παρακολουθούντων λήψεως (“[Enargeia] comes about from the inclusion of attendant details”). For Amos “gathering sycamore fruit” when the Lord took him up, see Amos 7.14. Cf. Nünlist, The Ancient Critic at Work 196.

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literary equivalent of a “mosaic of Biblical images”.21 In our passage at Or. 41.14, thanks to the combined effects of the use of the historical present on the one hand and the inclusion of attendant detail on the other, the overall impression is that of a series of panels depicting the Spirit working timelessly in the lives of the prophets and disciples. Gregory has a particular reason for wanting his audience to see the Spirit “in action” across these narratives. One of Gregory’s goals in this oration is to press his case for the full divinity of the Spirit. Gregory’s opponents, which included groups such as the so-called Pneumatomachians (literally “fighters-againstthe-spirit”) under Macedonius and Neo-Arians under Eunomius of Cyzicus, denied the divinity of the Spirit, and their systems were in turn attacked by Gregory and his fellow Cappadocians, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa.22 To promote his doctrine on the Holy Spirit was one of Gregory’s main objectives during his stay in Constantinople between 379 and the summer of 381.23 Gregory’s Eunomian opponents considered the Spirit to be no more than an ἐνέργεια or “activity” of God, and throughout the Pentecost oration, Gregory is at pains to show how Biblical texts that apparently depict the Spirit in a subordinate or servile role with respect to God are in fact misinterpreted by his theological opponents.24 Gregory wants his audience to share in his conception of the Spirit as a Person of the Trinity, fully participating in the godhead and making manifest the will of God among men. What Gregory does at Or. 41.14 in fact is to induce his audience to imagine a “timeline” or partial history of the Spirit’s activities—and in many of these events there is in fact no Biblical support for the involvement of the Spirit. Gregory makes the Spirit the subject

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R.R. Ruether, Gregory of Nazianzus: Philosopher and Rhetor (Oxford 1969) 103. For Gregory’s activities in Constantinople against the Pneumatomachians, who considered the Holy Spirit not God but instead a creature or “activity”, see Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 84–88. For the Neo-Arian or Anomean movement in general and Eunomius in particular, see Kopecek, A History of Neo-Arianism; Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity 109–148 and Vaggione, Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution. On the contested dating of Or. 41, cf. Moreschini, Grégoire de Nazianze 82–83. He favors a dating of 379, following Gallay and Bernardi. Cf. however Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 156 who dates it to 380. For Eunomian teaching on the Spirit as an “activity” of God see Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity 156. Cf. Or. 41.3, in which Gregory explains that the “seven Spirits” mentioned in Isaiah refer in fact to the seven ἐνέργειαι of the Spirit, therefore implying that this passage cannot be used to suggest that the Spirit is something less than fully God; cf. also Or. 41.5, where he says that “the Spirit will ever be present in the role of a Master, never in that of a servant, nor does it wait upon orders, as some people think” (Πάντως δὲ παρέσται δεσποτικῶς, ἀλλ’ οὐ δουλικῶς, οὐδὲ ἀναμένον ἐπίταγμα, ὥς τινες οἴονται).

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of these narratives—it takes a goatherd gathering sycamore figs and turns him into a prophet, it catches fishermen at sea and turns them into fishers of men, it takes a tax-collector and makes him a merchant of souls25—but in fact in none of the instances just mentioned is the Spirit named in the Biblical text as taking part in the event. What has happened is that the “Spirit-friendly” tradition of exegesis to which Gregory belongs conceives of the Spirit as the person of the Trinity that works the will of God among men, and therefore already reads the Spirit’s involvement into any incident in which someone is chosen to be spiritually transformed into a vessel of God. Gregory wants his audience to share in this understanding of Scripture, which he has arrived at thanks to his exegetical training, and so he has depicted for them these scenes involving Amos, Peter, Andrew, James, John and Matthew, and he has done so in such a way that the Spirit is not only presented as explicitly involved but indeed as the principal actor. In doing so, Gregory has gone some way towards planting in the minds of his audience a memory or image of the Spirit acting as an agent in scenes in which his audience might not have previously imagined the Spirit to have been involved at all. It is Gregory’s way of fleshing out for his audience an image of the Spirit as a full person of the Trinity, just as the Spirit had already been defined in Gregory’s exegetical tradition. What I have described as Gregory’s way of implanting images in the minds of his audience is absolutely central to his project in this oration. In the first paragraph, as we have seen, he states that festival celebration consists in “storing in our soul something lasting and that will abide” (καὶ τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ ἑορτάζειν ἡμῶν, ψυχῇ τι θησαυρίσαι τῶν ἑστώτων καὶ κρατουμένων). The idea that Gregory and his audience are to celebrate the festival by “storing something” in their souls will be crucial in showing us how Gregory conceives of the relationship between him and his audience on the one hand and between the Spirit and its agents on the other. The act of “treasuring” or “storing” something in the soul (ψυχῇ τι θησαυρίσαι) suggests a particular way of thinking about memory, language and perception that we find at work throughout Gregory’s oration.26 According to ancient accounts, sensory information is “stored” in the soul, which acts like a wax tablet that receives the “impressions” (τύπωσις) of things heard or seen just as, in Aristotle’s famous and much-cited formulation, wax receives the impression

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Amos 7:14; Matt. 4:18–22 and Mark 1:16–17; Matt. 9:9. For how these strands come together in ancient rhetorical theory, see Ruth Webb’s Ekphrasis, in particular the chapter “Phantasia: Memory, Imagination and the Gallery of the Mind” (107–130).

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of a signet ring.27 Discussions of this process also note that stored in the form of such an impression is a φαντασία, or mental image formed “either by perception or by internal mental activity caused by the hegemonikon”, that is, the seat of rational thought.28 The term phantasia has a long history in Classical philosophy, beginning with Plato and Aristotle and playing a key role in Stoic epistemology.29 When it comes to reconstructing the discourse in which Gregory’s language participates, a key passage can be found in an essay by Philo of Alexandria, who as we have seen has been called a “dominant voice in late antique writing”, and who via Origen exercises a great deal of influence over Gregory:30 τούτῳ γάρ, ἐπειδὴ μέγιστόν ἐστι ταμεῖον καὶ πανδεχές, πάνθ’ ὅσα δι’ ὁράσεως καὶ ἀκοῆς καὶ τῶν ἄλλων αἰσθητικῶν ὀργάνων ἐντίθεται καὶ ἐναποθησαυρίζεται. Φαντασία δέ ἐστι τύπωσις ἐν ψυχῇ· ὧν γὰρ εἰσήγαγεν ἑκάστη τῶν αἰσθήσεων, ὥσπερ δακτύλιός τις ἢ σφραγὶς ἐναπεμάξατο τὸν οἰκεῖον χαρακτῆρα· Quod Deus sit immutabilis 42–44

… for in the mind, since that is the greatest storehouse and receptacle for all things, is everything placed and treasured up which comes under the operation of the sense of seeing or hearing, or the other organs of the outward senses. And imagination is an impression of figures in the soul; for the things which each of the outward senses has brought in, like a ring or a seal, on them it imprints its own character.31 The understanding of the formation of “mental impressions” as represented here by Philo will be adopted by the literary and rhetorical traditions to explain

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On Memory and Recollection, 450a 25–32; on the afterlife of this image cf. Webb, Ekphrasis 112. Cf. also Aristotle’s discussion of phantasia at De Anima iii.3. On memory, the storage of information in the soul, and τὸ φανταζόμενον in Plato, cf. Phil. 39a. S. Bartsch, “ ‘Wait a Moment, Phantasia’: Ekphrastic Interference in Seneca and Epictetus,” CP 102 (2007) 83–95 (88). For the widespread definition φαντασία δὲ τύπωσις ἐν ψυχῇ, see e.g. Diogenes Laertes Lives of the Philosophers 7.45. For the development of the concept of phantasia in these and other key passages in Plato and Aristotle, see G. Watson, Phantasia in Classical Thought (Galway 1988). For the history of phantasia in the thought of the Church Fathers from Clement to the Cappadocian Fathers and Nemesius, see especially A. Pizzone, “Late-Antique ΦΑΝΤΑΣΙΑ and the Greek Fathers: A Survey,” in D. Hernandez de la Fuente (ed.), New Perspectives on Late Antiquity (Newcastle upon Tyne 2011) 416–432. Papaioannou, “Byzantine Enargeia and Theories of Representation” 52. C.D. Yonge (tr.), The Works of Philo Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA 1993).

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how orators use language to create and activate stored memories—ἐναποθησαυρίζεται, compare Gregory’s θησαυρίσαι—in the minds of their audience.32 The formation of mental impressions constitutes a major motif in the discourse related to the production and use of enargeia: a good orator will use “vivid” language to create a “vivid image” (ἐναργὴς φαντασία) in the minds of his audience so that their minds receive the same sort of mental impression (τύπωσις) they would receive if they were actually present at the scene described and were receiving real sensory perceptions of it.33 In addition, other terms related to τύπωσις—thanks to their use in semantic fields related to painting and drawing—figure prominently in discussions of ἐνάργεια. Thus for example an orator who describes a scene with ἐνάργεια is thought to give a verbal “sketch” of the scene so that his audience seems to see rather than hear it. Quintilian tells us that the figure of evidentia (again, his translation of ἐνάργεια) “is called by others ὑποτύπωσις, that is, a certain figure that is put forward when the appearance of things is sketched out with words in such a way that they seem rather to be perceived with sight than heard” (Ab aliis hypotyposis dicitur, proposita quaedam forma rerum ita expressa verbis ut cerni potius videantur quam audiri, Inst. Or. 9.2.40). Quintilian’s description of ὑποτύπωσις as speech that makes the audience seem to see what they are hearing maps so closely onto the notion of ἔκφρασις that one is not surprised when the two (along with διατύπωσις) function as exact synonyms and are defined in the rhetorical handbooks in nearly identical language. A common element then throughout these discussions is that the depicted is brought before the sight of the audience: so Quintilian as we have just seen; so also Nikolaos, the fifth-century author of progymnasmata, on ὑποτύπωσις and ἔκφρασις, and Aphthonios on ἔκφρασις.34 Dionysius of Halicarnassus uses similar language on the 32

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On the appropriation by the literary tradition of this set of ideas and images developed in the philosophical schools, cf. G. Zanker, “Enargeia in the Ancient Criticism of Poetry,” Rheinisches Museum N.F. 124 (1981) 297–311, who suggests “that Hellenistic literary critics borrowed it from contemporary philosophy and that its use by the Epicureans, with its emphasis on sight, made it particularly attractive to them” (309). See also Webb, Ekphrasis 121. See Roos Meijering, Literary and Rhetorical Theories in Greek Scholia (Groningen 1987) 30: “therefore it was quite legitimate to say that a writer aims at ἐνάργεια by means of his text, trying to provide his words with the capacity to ‘show’ the subject matter ἐναργῶς, i.e., to produce an ἐναργὴς φαντασία. In due course, this quality of the text also came to be called enargeia, but the substantive is of later date and remains less frequent than the adjective and the adverb.” Cf. Aphthonios’ definition of ἔκφρασις (a definition which would become the standard): ἔκφρασίς ἐστι λόγος περιηγηματικὸς ὑπ’ ὄψιν ἄγων ἐναργῶς τὸ δηλούμενον (Progymnasmata 36.22–23, ed. Rabe); in Nikolaos’ set of progymnasmata, his definition of ἔκφρασις (68.8

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effects of ἐνάργεια in Lysias (τὰ δηλούμενα ὁρᾶν Lys. 7), as does “Longinus” (On the Sublime 15.2–3) on the effects of φαντασία; so finally Plutarch on ἐνάργεια in Thucydides.35 Not only does the audience seem to see what is described, but they are made to feel physically present at the scene, especially when the rhetor himself experiences that same feeling.36 Thus according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the effect of enargeia in Lysias is so powerful that the reader is made to feel “as if conversing with the persons introduced by the orator as if they were present” (ὥσπερ παροῦσιν οἷς ἂν ὁ ῥήτωρ εἰσάγῃ προσώποις ὁμιλεῖν, Lys. 7). Demetrius envisions a similar effect for the use of enargeia, by which the writer can again compel the reader to participate together in the emotions of the characters depicted.37 All of these individual motifs—the “impressions” of memory, the power of vivid and inspired discourse to turn audience members into spectators, and the feeling of being present at the scene described—will become part of the literary tool-kit with which later writers engage with the tropes of phantasia and enargeia, especially thanks to the inclusion of ekphrasis among the classroom progymnasmata. We can take two representative examples from the Imperial and Late Antique periods to show how the dynamics of enargeia as outlined in the theoretical tradition are put to use in narrative literature. The collocation in each passage of a set of particular motifs will help us recognize how Gregory draws upon that same rhetorical discourse of vividness and presence in his Pentecost oration. A famous depiction of the power of “enargetic” discourse appears in the longest and most ambitious of the ancient novels, the Aethiopica of Heliodorus. After the Egyptian priest Kalasiris describes how the main characters Charikleia and Theagenes first met one another in Delphi, his Athenian interlocutor Knemon is amazed at the vividness of Kalasiris’s description: “Knemon said, ‘O Father, I thought that I was actually looking at them, even though they are not here, since your tale had presented them with such vividness and exactly as I remember having seen them before’” (Ὁ δὲ “ὦ πάτερ, θεωρεῖν αὐτοὺς καὶ ἀπόν-

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ed. Felten) matches exactly that of Aphthonios; cf. his definition of ὑποτύπωσις (45.9 ed. Felten): ἔστι δὲ ὑποτύπωσις κεφάλαιον εἰς ὄψιν ἄγον τὸ γεγενημένον καὶ δι’ ἐκφράσεως θεατὰς τῶν ἀτόπων ἐργαζόμενον ἡμᾶς. De glor.Ath. 347a: ὁ γοῦν Θουκυδίδης ἀεὶ τῷ λόγῳ πρὸς ταύτην ἁμιλλᾶται τὴν ἐνάργειαν, οἷον θεατὴν ποιῆσαι τὸν ἀκροάτην. For this passage see Walker, “Enargeia and the Spectator” 356– 357. For the producer of discourse imagining himself present at the scene he describes, see e.g., Plato, Ion 535c2–3; Quintilian 6.2.29; and “Longinus” 15.2. Dem. On Style 216: τὸν ἀκροάτην καὶ ἀναγκάζοντα συναγωνιᾶν.

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τας ᾠήθην, οὕτως ἐναργῶς τε καὶ οὓς οἶδα ἰδὼν ἡ παρὰ σοῦ διήγησις ὑπέδειξεν”, Aeth. 3.2.7).38 This is a textbook example of enargeia in action, as Kalasiris’s account of Charikleia and Theagenes is so vivid and powerful that Knemon thinks he actually sees them in front of him. The motif of absent things rendered present through the power of rhetoric is the hallmark of this tradition. For our second example we turn to the Narrationes of Pseudo-Nilus, variously dated from the fourth to the sixth century, which describe a Bedouin attack on a monastic community on Mt. Sinai.39 At the beginning of the text, the narrator is asked by bystanders to recount his harrowing tale, and he describes the effect worked upon him by the very act of retelling his experience: “Narrating the drama compelled my mind to see again the events as if they were present, forming impressions in my thought of the very things the actual experience of which had transmitted to my physical senses” (Λογισμὸν αὖθις ἠνάγκασεν ἰδεῖν ὡς παρόντα τὰ πράγματα ἡ ἀπαγγελία τοῦ δράματος, ἐκεῖνα τῇ ἐννοίᾳ τυπώσασα ἅπερ ἡ πεῖρα τῇ αἰσθήσει παρέδωκε, 1.2).40 The narrator uses a variety of what are by now familiar motifs to describe how language is able to conjure in his mind a vivid image of the events reported. Note how the act of narration “molds” or “forms impressions” (τυπώσασα) on his mind, so that he seems to see absent things as if they were present. This is the language of phantasia, which as we saw earlier in the Philo excerpt was famously defined as an “impression” (τύπωσις) made upon the soul. We will see the same mix of motifs, drawn from the intermingling of the philosophical and rhetorical traditions, in Gregory’s description of how the Spirit communicates with humankind. Gregory describes the course of the Spirit’s activity, first in the beginning of time among the powers of heaven and then on earth among humankind: Τοῦτο ἐνήργει, πρότερον μὲν ἐν ταῖς ἀγγελικαῖς καὶ οὐρανίοις δυνάμεσι, καὶ ὅσαι πρῶται μετὰ Θεὸν, καὶ περὶ Θεόν … Ἔπειτα ἐν τοῖς Πατράσι, καὶ ἐν τοῖς προφή-

38

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On this celebrated passage see e.g. J. Grethlein, “World and Words: The Limits to Mimesis and Immersion in Heliodorus’Ethiopica,” in J. Grethlein, L. Huitink, and A. Tagliabue (eds.), Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece: Under the Spell of Stories (Oxford 2019) 127–147, at 132. For background on the dating, authorship, and literary quality of the text, as well as English translation, see D. Caner, History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai (Liverpool 2010) 73–135. See in particular his discussion of the author’s literary models, including Achilles Tatius, Fourth Maccabees, and Gregory of Nazianzus himself. For a review of scholarship on dating and authorship, see also W. Ward, Mirage of the Saracen: Christians and Nomads in the Sinai Peninsula in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 2014) xviii–xix. F. Conca (ed.), Nilus Ancyranus: Narratio (Leipzig 1983).

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ταις, ὧν οἱ μὲν ἐφαντάσθησαν Θεὸν, ἢ ἔγνωσαν, οἱ δὲ καὶ τὸ μέλλον προέγνωσαν τυπούμενοι τῷ Πνεύματι τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν, καὶ ὡς παροῦσι συνόντες τοῖς ἐσομένοις. Τοιαύτη γὰρ ἡ τοῦ Πνεύματος δύναμις. Or. 41.11

It was the Spirit that was acting, first among the angelic and heavenly powers, and all those that are first after God and about God … then among the Fathers, and among the prophets, some of whom beheld a vision of God, or perceived Him, while others even foresaw the future, having the guiding part of their mind molded by the Spirit, and they were together with what would come to be as if it were present. For such is the power of the Spirit. The prophets are represented as experiencing phantasiai of God thanks to the activity and intermediation of the Spirit. Through the Spirit they receive “impressions” (τυπούμενοι) upon their “rational faculty” or ἡγεμονικόν—in the Stoic tradition represented by the Philo passage examined earlier this is a technical term for the seat of mental activity where φαντασίαι are formed—so that they seem to be present among things that are still to come (ὡς παροῦσι συνόντες τοῖς ἐσομένοις).41 We can compare a similar passage from one of the Theological Orations, where Gregory suggests a similar process of prophetic inspiration: εἴτε φαντασία τις ἦν ἡμερινή, μόνοις θεωρητὴ τοῖς ἁγίοις, εἴτε νυκτὸς ἀψευδὴς ὄψις, εἴτε τοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ τύπωσις συγγινομένη τοῖς μέλλουσιν ὡς παροῦσιν, εἴτε τι ἄλλο προφητείας εἶδος ἀπόρρητον, οὐκ ἔχω λέγειν· ἀλλ’ οἶδεν ὁ τῶν προφητῶν Θεός, καὶ οἱ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἐνεργούμενοι. Or. 28.19

Whether this was some daytime phantasia, visible to the saints alone, or a truthful vision of the night, or whether an impression of the hegemonikon that associated with things to come as if they were present, or if it were some other ineffable form of prophecy, I cannot say. But the God of the prophets knows, as do those who were acted upon in this way.

41

On the ἡγεμονικόν and the Stoic conception of the soul, cf. A.A. Long, Stoic Studies (Cambridge 1996) 233–234. On the ἡγεμονικόν, the production of φαντασία and the mechanism of τύπωσις, cf. M. Graver, Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago 2007) 21–26. For Gregory’s use of this model of Stoic epistemology in his poem Ὅροι παχυμερεῖς (“Cursory Definitions”, Carm.i.2.34), cf. Børtnes, “Rhetoric and Mental Images in Gregory” 50–51.

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Key for our purposes is Gregory’s definition of the power of the Spirit at Or. 41.14 (τοιαύτη γὰρ ἡ τοῦ Πνεύματος δύναμις). It communicates to the prophets visions of God and of future events through precisely the same processes by which a rhetor communicates his own vision or phantasia to his audience so that they seem to see and contemplate it in person. We should recall how at the beginning of the oration Gregory described the celebration of a festival as the act of “storing up in our souls something permanent and lasting” (καὶ τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ ἑορτάζειν ἡμῶν, ψυχῇ τι θησαυρίσαι τῶν ἑστώτων καὶ κρατουμένων). We can now see that he was referring to the formation and storing of mental images, just as Philo described how images and impressions derived from the senses themselves are “stored up” (ἐναποθησαυρίζεται) in the soul. This is what Gregory was doing when he had his audience contemplate the Spirit taking part in several narratives for which there was no explicit Biblical authority for the Spirit having a role. Gregory conceives of himself as communicating to the minds of his audience a vision of God through the same processes by which the Spirit gave visions to the prophets. Just as the prophets here in the Pentecost Oration receive impressions from the Spirit (τυπούμενοι τῷ Πνεύματι), so in the second theological oration we find Gregory describing himself as being molded or receiving impressions from Scripture that he in turn to passes on to his congregation: τυπωθέντες καὶ τυπώσαντες (Or. 28.1). The image of receiving and passing on impressions of the soul is in fact one of Gregory’s favorite metaphors, and he uses it throughout the orations to describe his work as a festival rhetor.42 However, the image of the musician and his instrument demonstrates perhaps most clearly the way Gregory views as two parallel processes his work as a rhetor with respect to his festival audience and that of the Spirit visà-vis the prophets. At the beginning of the twelfth oration he calls himself the Spirit’s instrument, and proclaims that “today it plays my mind” (Or. 12.1), while in the second oration he is the musician and the congregation his instrument (Or. 2.39). Gregory the rhetor plays his audience like an instrument just as the Spirit plays him.43 Gregory casts himself as a prophet receiving inspiration from the Spirit just as his Old Testament predecessors did: at Or. 41.13, he says that the Spirit was “heralded” by the prophets (τοῦτο ἐκηρύχθη μὲν ὑπὸ προφητῶν), and later at Or. 41.14 that the same Spirit “today makes him a bold herald” before his audience (τοῦτο κἀμὲ ποιεῖ σήμερον ὑμῖν τολμηρὸν κήρυκα). Gregory, like those prophets of 42 43

Cf. Or. 1.6 and the image of the Spirit carving its message as well as Gregory’s words on the tablets of human hearts. Or. 12.1. Cf. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity 158–159, who notes that this oration presents “the first explicit declaration in extant patristic literature that the Spirit is God”.

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old, receives inspiration directly from the Spirit: at Or. 41.5, before embarking upon an extended description of the nature of the Spirit, he invokes the aid of the Spirit, just as a pagan writer might have invoked the aid of the Muse: “Let the Spirit be here with me, and let it grant me as much speech as I desire” (παρέστω μοι τὸ Πνεῦμα καὶ διδότω λόγον, ὅσον καὶ βούλομαι). It is only in a state of “inspiration” that he can comprehend and discuss the Spirit: “thus we are inspired both to understand and to speak about the Spirit” (Οὕτως ἡμεῖς καὶ νοεῖν καὶ λέγειν ἐμπνεόμεθα περὶ τοῦ Πνεύματος). This is an important point: Gregory needs the inspiration of the Spirit not only in order to be able to communicate his vision of the Spirit to his audience (just as the prophets had communicated their visions of God to Israel); he also requires the inspiration of the Spirit in order to “think” about the Spirit, that is, to read the scriptures, perform exegesis, and construct a coherent theology of the Spirit from the obscurities of the text. He in fact needs the Spirit’s help to help him find its presence in the text, for as Beeley puts it, “in an important sense the text of scripture does not state that the spirit is God”.44 Gregory would respond that the text does in fact show that the Spirit is God, but it does so through what theorists of language, following the Stoic tradition, called ἔμφασις, that is, when a text “means” something it does not say, or when it means more than it says.45 Christian exegetes had to look for the hidden meaning of the text, as Gregory in Or. 31.21 reminds those who cast in his teeth the absence in scripture of any clinching proof text on the divinity of the spirit. That the Spirit is God, as he says … Δέδεικται μὲν ἤδη πολλοῖς τῶν περὶ τούτου διειληφότων, ὅσοι μὴ ῥᾳθύμως μηδὲ παρέργως ταῖς θείαις Γραφαῖς ἐντυχόντες, ἀλλὰ διασχόντες τὸ γράμμα καὶ εἴσω παρακύψαντες, τὸ ἀπόθετον κάλλος ἰδεῖν ἠξιώθησαν καὶ τῷ φωτισμῷ τῆς γνώσεως κατηυγάσθησαν. Or. 31.21

… has already been demonstrated by many who have treated this subject, those who have not read the holy scriptures idly or disinterestedly, but

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Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity 167. On Stoicism’s interest in allegory and its development of critical terms like ἔμφασις, cf. G. Kennedy and D. Innes, “Hellenistic Literary and Philosophical Scholarship,” in G. Kennedy (ed.), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Vol. 1: Classical Criticism (Cambridge 1989) 200–219 at 209–211. On ἔμφασις in the rhetorical tradition and as a key element in allegorical exegesis, especially as practiced by Philo, cf. Kustas, Studies in Byzantine Rhetoric 159–199.

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have gone past the letter and entered inside, and who have been deemed worthy of beholding the hidden beauty and illuminated with the light of understanding. In Or. 41 he writes that the goal of exegesis is to find something “deeper than what appears in the text”: τι τοῦ φαινομένου βαθύτερον (41.4). However, in order to “see the hidden beauty of the text”, he requires the inspiration of the Spirit, “through whom the Father is known and the Son is glorified” (δι’ οὗ Πατὴρ γινώσκεται καὶ Υἱὸς δοξάζεται, 41.9) and, as he puts it elsewhere, “by whom alone God is understood and interpreted and heard preached” (τὸ πνεῦμα ᾧ μόνῳ θεὸς καὶ νοεῖται καὶ ἑρμηνεύεται καὶ ἀκούεται, Or. 2.39). As the orator in producing ἐνάργεια aims to get his audience to see what is not there, so the Spirit is the key by which the exegete sees—note Gregory’s insistence above at Or. 31.21 of how the exegete “sees” the hidden beauty of the text—meanings which are not explicitly there.46 For Gregory, the Holy Spirit is the means by which prophets are afforded visions of God, as it is also the means by which the Christian orator finds the inspiration to communicate to his audience his own vision of God, as it is also the means by which the difficulties and the allegory of Scripture are interpreted. Gregory has written for the Spirit a role similar to that played by enargeia itself in rhetorical theory. As we have seen, the concept of enargeia, of image-inducing vividness, underlies those established dynamics of communication and vision according to which Gregory conceives of his activity with respect to his audience and that of the Spirit with respect to its prophets. Also, as the Spirit is the key to Gregory’s exegesis and his understanding of God, so enargeia, particularly in Stoic thought, is that key concept by which the truth of a text or of perception is made manifest.47 Gregory has the Spirit communicate to the Prophets in the same way that the rhetor communicates to his audience, namely by molding their minds with

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Cf. Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity 169 on how the exegete extracts τὰ νοούμενα from τὰ λεγόμενα. Again, this conception of ἐνάργεια has Stoic roots and in particular is connected to the Stoa’s idea of καταληπτικὴ φαντασία; cf. Otto, Enargeia 42–59. For this concept cf. also Bartsch, “What a Minute, Phantasia” 91 on how in Stoicism enargeia appears “as a truth criterion of a phantasia or presentation; some images are apparently so clear and powerful in their impact that an argument can thereby be made for their truth value”. As Papaioannou, “Byzantine Enargeia” 52 notes, Philo of Alexandria—Gregory’s master, via Origen, in exegesis—writes of “that which is truly real [God] being understood through ἐνάργεια rather than established in proof through words”: τοῦ ὄντως ὄντος ἐναργείᾳ μᾶλλον καταλαμβανομένου ἢ λόγων ἀποδείξει συνισταμένου (De Posteritate Caini 167).

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vivid phantasiai. Gregory makes the Spirit act as a verbal artist just as the philosophical tradition informed by Plato’s Timaeus made God the creator behave like a material artist: thus Philo has God create the visible world in the same way that a craftsman builds a city by following a preconceived plan in his mind.48 Gregory proclaims in the peroration that he and his congregation will soon celebrate spiritually what they have just celebrated corporeally. At that heavenly festival, of which their present gathering is but a shadowy reflection, they will once again celebrate by engaging in theoria, in particular the contemplation of hitherto unrevealed mysteries. At that heavenly festival, Gregory declares that “we shall come to know with more purity and clarity the logoi for these things as well” (ἔνθα καὶ τοὺς λόγους τούτων εἰσόμεθα καθαρώτερον καὶ σαφέστερον, Or. 41.18). As at the earthly festival his audience participates in the contemplation of Gregory’s logoi, so at the heavenly festival they will contemplate the divine logoi. Gregory promises a realization of the communicative potential theorized for enargeia, a perfected version of the dynamic by which he creates a verbal spectacle for his audience. At that divine festival they will learn the divine logoi with greater purity and clarity. Here the rhetorical virtues of καθαρότης and σαφήνεια—both of special importance for ekphrasis—are elevated into qualities particular to perfect contemplation, to a transcendent vision of God.49 In Gregory’s treatment of the Spirit and enargeia, we not only find a case study in how rhetorical theory influences the content of theological discourse, but also the key dynamic in how Gregory transforms his audience into theoroi of his rhetorical spectacles. Whether sketching a history of the Holy Spirit’s activities in the Old Testament or developing a full-blown spring ekphrasis, Gregory has a specific motive to draw upon his arsenal of rhetorical techniques for the production of enargeia. Throughout his festival orations, Gregory casts his audience in the role of spectators. For them, festival participation consists in philosophical contemplation aided by visions conjured by Gregory’s vivid language. Their minds are molded in the act of contemplation, and by storing those mental images—just as Philo described sensory perceptions being “stored” (ἐναποθησαυρίζεται) in the mind—they accomplish what Gregory, as we have seen, calls

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Cf. Philo, De Opificio Mundi 18. Both σαφήνεια and καθαρότης were included among Hermogenes’ forms of style. For σαφήνεια and ἐνάργεια as virtues of ekphrasis, cf. Theon’s Progymnasmata 118.6. Cf. also for example John of Sardis in his commentary on Aphthonius’s Progymnasmata (p. 216 ed. Rabe): ἐναργὴς οὖν λόγος ὁ σαφὴς καὶ καθαρὸς καὶ οἷον ἔμπνους; see Webb, Ekphrasis 205– 206.

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the true purpose of the festival. By practicing theoria, by becoming spectators of Gregory’s words, they are able “to store in their souls” something that will last forever (ψυχῇ τι θησαυρίσαι τῶν ἑστώτων καὶ κρατουμένων, Or. 41.1).

chapter 6

Gregory’s Festival Theoria in Byzantium: From Pseudo-Dionysius to Photius As we saw in the previous chapter, Gregory employs various rhetorical strategies in order to turn his audience into spectators or theoroi. This is one of the ways that he conceives of his audience as performing philosophical theoria at the festival. The performance of philosophy at festivals constitutes one of the major points of continuity between non-Christian festival culture and the performative context of the Christian homily. This final chapter will offer a new perspective on Gregory’s extraordinarily rich afterlife in Byzantium by examining how later authors adapt his philosophical performance in the festal orations to their own needs and contexts. In particular, we will trace the influence of Gregory’s seminal account of theoria in the Nativity oration on subsequent Byzantine philosophical and theological discourse. Gregory’s evocative description in that oration of the difficulty of collecting impressions from various sources to form a single fleeting conception of the divine had a profound effect on later readers and listeners. We will see how his language runs through the texts of later centuries like a chain connecting some of the most important figures in Byzantine literature, from the mysterious Christian Neoplatonist known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite to Patriarch Photius himself. The passages in question are drawn from a period stretching across several centuries, and appear in a variety of contexts—homilies, theological treatises, exegetical commentaries—but the echo of Gregory’s philosophical performance at the Nativity festival remains unmistakable throughout. Together they offer new and eloquent testimony to Gregory’s status as “the Theologian” in Byzantine literary culture. First however it will be useful to provide an overview of the reception of Gregory and his festival orations in Byzantium.1 Gregory’s legacy in the Byzantine world was enormous. Long before a group of his orations had become incorporated into festal liturgy by the tenth century, he already enjoyed the status of a cultural hero. He is cited in the acts of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 as “the Theologian”, a title previously reserved otherwise only for John the Evan-

1 For a general overview see especially Papaioannou, Michael Psellos 56–63, a fundamental treatment.

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gelist, and Gregory continues to be known by this designation to the present day.2 In the seventh century, a namesake known as Gregory Presbyter composed a Life in his honor, and further hagiographical encomia continued to be written into the late Byzantine period.3 Gregory’s various writings, including the orations as well as the poems, began to receive close treatment as the subject of specialized commentaries and lexica already in Late Antiquity, and new commentaries on his works continued to be produced for centuries.4 Some of these commentaries have impressive transmission histories in their own right: an early sixth-century commentary on four of the orations enjoyed such popularity that it survives in over 160 Greek manuscripts and was itself translated into Syriac, Armenian and Georgian.5 Gregory’s orations were not only widely copied and commented upon but also extensively illustrated, and some of these illuminated manuscripts rank today among the most famous of all works of Byzantine art.6

2 Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum ii 1, 3, pg. 114 (ed. Schwartz). For the history of Gregory’s designation in Byzantium as “the Theologian,” see especially Andreas Rhoby, “Aspekte des Fortlebens des Gregor von Nazianz,” in M. Grünbart, Theatron. Rhetorische Kultur in Spätantike und Mittelalter/Rhetorical Culture in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Berlin 2007) 409–417, at 410–411. 3 For Gregory Presbyter’s Vita see PG 35 243–304. Later encomia include especially those by Niketas David (late ninth/early tenth century) and Theodore Metochites (fourteenth century). See J.J. Rizzo (ed.), The Encomium for Gregory Nazianzen by Niketas the Paphlagonian (Brussels 1976). For a study of Metochites’s encomium see Ihor Ševčenko, “The Logos on Gregory of Nazianzus by Theodore Metochites,” in W. Seibt (ed.), Geschichte und Kultur der Palaiologenzeit. Referate des Internationalen Symposions zu Ehren von Herbert Hunger (Wien, 30. November bis 3. Dezember 1994) (Vienna 1996) 221–233; see now also the edition by I. Polemis and E. Kaltsogianni (eds.), Theodorus Methochites. Orationes (Berlin 2019) 176– 267. 4 For Byzantine commentaries on Gregory, the classic study is J. Sajdak, Historia critica scholiastarum et commentatorum Gregorii Nazianzeni, Pars i (Krakow 1914); for further bibliography see Papaioannou (2013) 59. 5 Though the author of the commentary is unknown, he is referred to as “Pseudo-Nonnus” since a tenth-century manuscript attributed the text to a certain “Abbot Nonnus”, which in the early modern period led to a false identification with the famous poet Nonnus of Panopolis. See J. Nimmo-Smith, A Christian’s Guide to Greek Culture: The Pseudo-Nonnus Commentaries on Sermons 4, 5, 39 and 43 by Gregory of Nazianzus (Liverpool 2001) xlv. 6 Particularly popular subjects for illumination were those orations that had been selected to be read aloud during the liturgy itself, the so-called “liturgical orations”. For these see especially G. Galavaris, The Illustrations of the Liturgical Homilies of Gregory Nazianzenus (Princeton 1999). For illuminated copies of those orations that were not so chosen, see K. Krause, “Celebrating Orthodoxy: Miniatures for Gregory the Theologian’s ‘Unread’ Orations (ms. Basiliensis AN I 8),” JÖB 68 (2018) 133–186. Perhaps most famous of all illuminated manuscripts of Gregory’s homilies is Parisinus Graecus 510, the “Paris Gregory,” for which see L. Brubaker,

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Another phenomenon that began in Late Antiquity was the widespread incorporation of passages from Gregory’s festal orations into a new form of Christian hymnography known as the kanon. In the late seventh and eighth century, hymnographers including Andrew of Crete, Kosmas of Jerusalem and John of Damascus adapted extensive passages from Gregory’s festal orations for use in hymns composed for the corresponding festal liturgy.7 This offered a new way for audiences to become intimately familiar with Gregory, even if it may not have been immediately clear that they were listening to his very words. Finally, it was also during this early period that Gregory’s legacy took on new dimensions thanks to the translation of his orations into a wide variety of languages. Shortly after his death, nine of his orations were translated into Latin by Rufinus of Aquileia, and over the following centuries there followed translations of the orations as a complete corpus or in groups into Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Syriac, Arabic, Old Church Slavonic, and Ethiopic.8 These translations rendered Gregory accessible to readers and audiences throughout almost the entire Christian world. In the tenth century, this multi-faceted engagement with Gregory’s legacy would be underscored when Emperor Constantine vii arranged for the translation of Gregory’s relics from Cappadocia to Constantinople and had them Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge 1999). 7 P. Karavites “Gregory Nazianzinos and Byzantine Hymnography” JHS 113 (1993) 81–98; P. Jeffery, “Παράδoξov µυστήριov: The Thought of Gregory the Theologian in Byzantine and Latin Liturgical Chant,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 39 (1994) 187–198; and A. Louth, St. John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford 2002) 59–68. On Gregory’s Easter Orations as a source for hymns discussed in a commentary by the sixthcentury Palestinian archimandrite Dorotheus, see O. Strunk, “St. Gregory Nazianzus and the proper hymns for Easter” in Late Classical and Medieval Studies in Honour of A.M. Friend Jr. (Princeton 1955) 82–87. 8 For Rufinus’s Latin translation see A. Engelbrecht (ed.), Tyrannii Rufini orationum Gregorii Nazianzeni novem interpretatio (Vienna 1910), as well as B. MacDougall, “Callimachus and the Bishops: Gregory of Nazianzus’ Second Oration,” Journal of Late Antiquity 9.1 (2016) 171–194 at 185–190. For introductions to the various translation histories of Gregory’s orations, see the set of essays collected in J. Mossay (ed.), ii. Symposium Nazianzenum (Paderborn 1983) 63–133, which treat Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Syriac, Arabic, Old Church Slavonic, and Ethiopic. For more detailed studies, see the following: for Coptic: “La version copte des Discours de Grégoire de Nazianze,” Le Muséon 94 (1981) 37–45; Armenian: see the introduction by J. Mossay in B. Coulie (ed.), Sancti Gregorii Nazianzeni Opera, Versio Armeniaca i, Orationes ixii, ix (Turnhout 1994) ix–x; for Georgian, see H. Metreveli, Sancti Gregorii Nazianzeni Opera, Versio Iberica i, Orationes i, xlv, xliv, xli (Turnhout 1998) viii–xi; Syriac, J.-C. Haelewyck (ed.), Sancti Gregorii Nazianzeni Opera, Versio Syriaca i, Oratio xl (Turnhout 2001) v–vi; for Arabic, L. Tuerlinckx (ed.), Sancti Gregorii Nazianzeni Opera, Versio Arabica Antique ii, Orationes i, xlv, xliv (Turnhout 2001) vi–viii.

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ceremoniously deposited in the Church of the Holy Apostles. Constantine even had a ghost-writer prepare an oration to commemorate the occasion in the emperor’s own voice.9 Another translation, as it were, of Gregory’s legacy—one endowed with comparable symbolism—occurred later that century or early in the next. A shadowy figure named John Sikeliotes prepared a new commentary on what had been for centuries the standard textbook on literary style in the Byzantine rhetorical curriculum, the treatise On Forms of Style by Hermogenes of Tarsus (second century ce). In this popular textbook, Hermogenes quotes again and again from the orations of Demosthenes, the master rhetor of Classical Antiquity, in order to provide examples for the various forms or modes of rhetorical and literary style outlined in his system. In his new commentary, Sikeliotes updated On Forms of Style by providing new examples for each of Hermogenes’s forms, this time drawing instead from the orations of Gregory of Nazianzus, now established as the master rhetor of Byzantine literary culture.10 Particularly illuminating in this respect is how the position of Demosthenes’s On the Crown, which along with Plato’s Apology represented the most widely studied specimen of apologetic literature in the Greek tradition, came to be supplanted by passages from its counterpart in Gregory’s corpus.11 This was Or. 42 (Syntakterios), a farewell address that presents itself as having been delivered after Gregory resigned his position as bishop of Constantinople. It is an oration written largely in the apologetic mode to present a defense of Gregory’s own life and decisions, and, just like On the Crown, it became widely studied and imitated in Byzantium as a model for “autobiographical” discourse. In the same way that Hermogenes cites On the Crown more than any other text in On Forms of Style, so Sikeliotes relies more heavily on Or. 42 than any other of Gregory’s orations. Thus, one of Gregory’s most important legacies in Byzantium is his role, as Papaioannou describes, as “a model of self-representation”.12 If Gregory taught Byzantine authors how to employ the apologetic mode to talk about themselves, he also taught them how to talk about God. It was,

9 10

11 12

B. Flusin, “Constantin Porphyrogénète. Discours sur la translation des reliques de saint Grégoire de Nazianze (BHG 728)”, Revue des études byzantines 57 (1999) 5–97. See T.M. Conley, “Demosthenes Dethroned: Gregory of Nazianzus in Sikeliotes’ Scholia on Hermogenes’ Περὶ ἰδεῶν,” ICS 27/8 (2002/3) 145–152. The syntakterios (Or. 42) is the most frequently cited (p. 148). For Sikeliotes see also S. Papaioannou, “Sicily, Constantinople, Miletos: The Life of a Eunuch and the History of Byzantine Humanism,” in Th. Antonopoulou, S. Kotzabassi, and M. Loukaki (eds.), Myriobiblos: Essays on Byzantine Literature and Culture (Boston 2015) 261–284. For the Byzantine tradition of self-representation, see especially Papaioannou, Michael Psellos 132–140. Papaioannou, Michael Psellos 136.

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after all, not for nothing that he was dubbed “the Theologian”. The rest of this chapter will turn to one of Gregory’s most memorable passages on the difficulty of contemplating the divine to show how his language inspires a chain of subsequent meditations on theoria in Byzantine theological discourse. The passage in question is the account in his Nativity Oration (Or. 38.7) of the difficulty of collecting faint hints from various sources in order to fashion a single fleeting image of the divine. We have already seen how in this passage Gregory draws on an earlier philosophical tradition in which Dio Chrysostom and his discussion of theoria at Olympia as well as Plato’s Phaedrus feature particularly prominently. In what follows we will see how that tradition passes into major currents of Byzantine literature through Gregory and his festival oration. The influence of Gregory’s account of theoria in his Nativity Oration can be seen most clearly if we study its early reception in theological texts rather than homilies. This is not to say that Gregory was not an important figure for homilists of his own and subsequent generations, especially those with connections to Gregory’s Cappadocian circle. The festal orations of Gregory of Nyssa in particular owe much in terms of their form and thematic content to those of Gregory of Nazianzus.13 In fact, if we may believe a letter of Gregory of Nazianzus, then he seems to have been at least partly responsible for Gregory of Nyssa’s decision to forgo a career as a professional sophist in order to enter the church.14 He came very close to being ranked “among the Hellenists”, to adopt a phrase coined by Neil McLynn to describe the wider network of teachers, sophists and rhetorically trained bishops that Gregory of Nazianzus continued to interact with over the course of his career.15 We should assume that it was with such a readership in mind—bishops who could have become professional sophists, sophists who could have become bishops—that both Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa produced their festal orations. Also to be ranked “among the Hellenists” was Gregory’s own cousin Amphilochius, who studied with Libanius in Antioch.16 Like Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, he also seems to have been involved in teaching rhetoric before eventually being tapped by Basil to become bishop of Iconium. As a member of Gregory’s extended family with a similar educational background and career trajectory, it is no surprise that the Cappadocian Fathers seem to

13 14 15 16

For Gregory of Nyssa’s festal homilies see Rexer, Die Festtheologie Gregors von Nyssa. P. Gallay (ed.), Saint Grégoire de Nazianze Lettres Tome 1 (Paris 1964), Ep. 11, pp. 16–17 n. 1. See N. McLynn, “Among the Hellenists: Gregory and the Sophists,” in Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections (Copenhagen 2006) 213–238. For details on Amphilochius’s career see P. Janiszewski, K. Stebnicka and E. Szabat (eds.), Prosopography of Greek Rhetors and Sophists of the Roman Empire (Oxford 2015) s.v. 65.

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have left their mark on his surviving works,17 as they have on another Cappadocian bishop, Asterius of Amasea.18 Their orations share Gregory’s Cappadocian doctrine and rhetorical polish, but do not engage with Gregory’s account of theoria and the anagogic ascent of the soul. Much the same could be said of the one fifth-century homilist who has been most closely identified with Gregory’s rhetorical legacy, Proclus of Constantinople, who has been characterized as “a popular preacher in the rhetorical style of Gregory of Nazianzus”.19 However, it is not Gregory’s treatment of theoria but a different aspect of his language that scholars have seen reflected in the festal homilies attributed to Proclus, namely their elaborate use of rhetorical figures and poetic rhythms.20 Gregory is seen as a master stylist, known for rhetorical figures and poetic rhythms, and homilists working in a high rhetorical style are considered to be following in his footsteps. Proclus indeed draws heavily on these aspects of Gregory’s language,21 and while his festal orations abound with Gregorian echoes that give the impression of a pair of orators wielding similar rhetorical styles, it is not in Proclus’s festal homilies that we will find adaptations of our Nativity passage in which Gregory describes the act of contemplative theoria and the formation of fleeting images of the divine. 17

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M. Bonnet (ed.), Amphiloque d’Iconium: Homélies (Paris 2012) includes a commentary by S. Voicu that denies the authenticity of several orations traditionally attributed to him (including Ors. 1–3 and 7). The question of the dependence of Amphilochius on the rhetorical style of Gregory of Nazianzus will need to be reconsidered. Among older studies, see K. Holl, Amphilochius von Ikonium in seinem Verhältnis zu den grossen Kappadoziern (Tübingen 1904). For the influence of the Cappadocian Fathers, particularly Gregory of Nyssa, on Asterius of Amasea, see C. Datema (ed.), Asterius of Amasea: Homilies i–xiv (Leiden 1970) xxviii– xxxii; see also V. Marinis, “Asterios of Amaseia’s Ekphrasis on the Holy Martyr Euphemia”, JLA 13.2 (2020) 285–307. N. Constas, “Proclus Constantinopolitanus,” in S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth and E. Eidinow (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th Edition (Oxford 2012). See for example J.H. Barkhuizen, Proclus, Bishop of Constantinople: Homilies on the Life of Christ (Brisbane, 2001), p. 14: “Proclus, like Gregory of Nazianzus, emphasized the three postulates laid down by the Sophists for a good style, namely, ‘Schmuck durch Figuren, Annäherung an die Poesie, Rhythmus,’” (citing F.X. Bauer, Proklos von Konstantinopel: Ein Beitrag zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte des 5. Jahrhunderts [Munich, 1919], p. 138). Constas for example in his edition of Proclus’s five homilies on the Virgin has drawn close parallels between Gregory’s Pentecost oration and Proclus’s third homily, “On the Incarnation”: N. Constas, Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity (Leiden 2003) 206, citing Gregory of Nazianzus Or. 41.1 for Proclus, Or. 3.iii.18–20. For another marked example of the clear borrowing of Gregory’s style in the Proclean corpus, albeit in a homily of dubious attribution, cf. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 39.14 with Proclus, Or. 28.7.51 (“On Theophany”) in F.J. Leroy (ed.), L’ Homilétique de Proclus de Constantinople. Tradition manuscrite, inédits, études connexes, ST 247 (Rome 1967) 201–202.

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Instead of the homiletic tradition represented by the festal orations of Gregory’s Cappadocian peers and the orators of the next generations, it will instead be a theological treatise that first engages more deeply with Gregory’s Nativity Oration and its account of theoria. As is so often the case with Gregory’s works over the course of their “sacralization”, that passage will serve as a conduit for transmitting an older literary discourse into the Byzantine theological tradition.22 We turn first to the mysterious figure known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a Christian Neoplatonist of the late fifth or early sixth century.23 Heavily influenced by the system of Proclus of Athens, this Pseudo-Dionysius wrote a series of treatises in which he adopted the persona of Dionysius the Areopagite, a character in the New Testament Book of Acts who converts to Christianity after listening to Paul the Apostle during the latter’s visit to Athens. The unknown author’s use of this persona was quite convincing, and until the modern period his writings were indeed believed to be the work of Paul’s first-century convert. Now, however, his close dependence not only on the Neoplatonism of Proclus but also on Patristic authorities such as the Cappadocian Fathers has been made abundantly clear. Of the various works in the Dionysian Corpus, the treatise On the Divine Names in particular has been noted for its strong Cappadocian features.24 In what follows, we will see how On the Divine Names reworks Gregory’s account of theoria in the Nativity Oration to describe how knowledge of the divine is formed. 22

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For Gregory’s transformation into “The Theologian” and the sacralization of his orations in Late Antiquity, see A. Louth, “St. Gregory the Theologian and Byzantine Theology,” in C. Beeley (ed.), Re-reading Gregory of Nazianzus: Essays on History, Theology, and Culture (Washington 2012) 252–266. See also N. Constas’s discussion of how Gregory’s orations came to be treated as “sacred texts” in id. Maximos the Confessor: On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, (Cambridge, MA 2014) xiii–xv. For exhaustive bibliography on the “Dionysian Question”, see Y. de Andia (ed.), PseudoDenys l’ Aréopagite. Les Noms Divins i–iv (Paris 2016), 245–251. For overviews of the earliest testimonies to the Dionysian Corpus as well as history of the scholarly discussion since the nineteenth century, see C. Stang, Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite: “No Longer I” (Oxford 2012), 11–40; as well as A. Golitzin, Mystagogy: A Monastic Reading of Dionysius Areopagita (Collegeville, MN 2013) xix–xxxiii. For the strong influence of the Cappadocians on Pseudo-Dionysius, see for example de Andia, Pseudo-Denys l’ Aréopagite 142 as well as Golitzin, Mystagogy 60, who cites David Bradshaw on how “the work of Dionysius that most clearly shows his affinity to the Cappadocians is The Divine Names”; see D. Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom (Cambridge 2004) 180. For the influence of the Cappadocians upon another aspect of On the Divine Names, see also B. MacDougall, “Hierotheus at the ‘Dormition’: Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite on his Teacher’s Rhetorical Performance in On Divine Names,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 28.2 (2020) 233–253.

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The longest work in the Dionysian Corpus, On the Divine Names comprises thirteen chapters examining the significance of words that are said of the Divinity. These are the “names” of the title, and it is in the discussion of the name “light” that we find the following description of how the light of the divine leads to true knowledge: ἡ τοῦ νοητοῦ φωτὸς παρουσία συναγωγὸς καὶ ἑνωτικὴ τῶν φωτιζομένων ἐστὶ καὶ τελειωτικὴ καὶ ἔτι ἐπιστρεπτικὴ πρὸς τὸ ὄντως ὂν ἀπὸ τῶν πολλῶν δοξασμάτων ἐπιστρέφουσα καὶ τὰς ποικίλας ὄψεις ἤ, κυριώτερον εἰπεῖν, φαντασίας εἰς μίαν ἀληθῆ καὶ καθαρὰν καὶ μονειδῆ συνάγουσα γνῶσιν καὶ ἑνὸς καὶ ἑνωτικοῦ φωτὸς ἐμπιπλῶσα.25 The presence of the intelligible light brings together and unites those who are being illuminated, it perfects them and effects their return by turning them away from their many beliefs back to what is really real, and bringing together their various visions, or, more properly, their phantasiai, into a single true, pure, and uniform knowledge, filling them with light that is both one and unifying. The Cappadocian influence that scholars have highlighted in On the Divine Names plays a key role in this passage, as it is carefully modeled on the passage in Gregory’s Nativity Oration on the difficulty of forming a single fleeting image of the divine. In particular, Gregory’s formulation of “phantasiai collected together into a single indalma of the truth” lies behind Dionysius’s account of the “gathering together of various fantasies into a single true and pure and uniform knowledge”. For Gregory, when attempting to contemplate the essence of God, one first “collects phantasiai from various sources” (ἄλλης ἐξ ἄλλου φαντασίας συλλεγομένης), just as for Pseudo-Dionysius it is the presence of Divine Light itself that “brings together various phantasiai” (τὰς ποικίλας ὄψεις ἤ … φαντασίας … συνάγουσα). Gregory has these collected phantasiai to form “a certain single image of the truth” (εἰς ἕν τι τῆς ἀληθείας ἴνδαλμα), just as for Pseudo-Dionysius the phantasiai are brought together to form “a single true, pure and uniform understanding”, (εἰς μίαν ἀληθῆ καὶ καθαρὰν καὶ μονειδῆ … γνῶσιν). Pseudo-Dionysius has altered the focus—Gregory was emphasizing the fragility of human agency in forming a single image of the truth, whereas Dionysius emphasizes the presence of the divine light and how it guarantees a

25

On Divine Names iv.6 (PG 3 701B); B.R. Suchla (ed.), Corpus Dionysiacum I. De Divinis Nominibus (Berlin 1990) 150.

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single pure gnosis—but the dynamic, the diction and even the sentence structure of Gregory’s original are still recognizable. In our next passage, those traces from Gregory’s formulation are more readily apparent. We turn now to the seventh century and another major figure in the Byzantine theological tradition, Maximus the Confessor.26 Famously learned in Greek philosophy as well as the works of earlier Church Fathers, Maximus was also deeply influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.27 In what follows the focus will be on a passage in Maximus the Confessor’s Ambigua, a set of essays devoted to explaining difficult passages in the works of Gregory of Nazianzus (and, in one instance, of Pseudo-Dionysius).28 The tenth of these essays ranges far from where it begins, namely as an explanation of a difficult phrase in Gregory’s encomium on Athanasius of Alexandria (Or. 21), to eventually become an almost book-length study of contemplative theoria in all its guises. In his characterization of the contemplation of natural law, Maximus draws straight from the Nativity Oration and Gregory’s account of the contemplation of the divine. That Maximus was deeply interested in this passage is clear from the fact that he devotes to it a separate essay of its own later in the collection.29 In Ambigua 10, Maximus’s discussion of theoria brings him to the difficulty of forming an idea of God. When it comes to the concept of the divine, Maximus writes that τὴν ὅτι μόνον ἐστίν, οὐχ ὅ, τι ποτὲ δέ ἐστιν οἱανοῦν ἔννοιαν, καὶ διὰ τῆς εὐσεβοῦς τῶν διαφόρων φαντασιῶν συλλογῆς (1) εἰς μίαν τοῦ ἀληθοῦς εἰκασίαν (2) ἐνάγων, ἀναλόγως ἑαυτὸν διὰ τῶν ὁρατῶν ὡς γενεσιουργὸς ἐνορᾶσθαι, διδούς.30 [God] … communicat[es] to us solely the concept that He exists, and not what He is, for through the reverent combination of multiple impressions

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As with Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the bibliography on Maximus the Confessor is vast. For an introduction, see P. Booth, “Maximos the Confessor,” in A. Kaldellis and N. Siniossoglou (eds.), The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium (Cambridge 2017) 414–430, as well as P. Allen and B. Neil (eds.), The Oxford Handbook to Maximus the Confessor (Oxford 2015). For the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius on Maximus, see especially Y. de Andia, “PseudoDionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor,” in The Oxford Handbook to Maximus the Confessor, ed. P. Allen and B. Neil (Oxford 2015) 177–193. N. Constas (ed.), Maximos the Confessor: On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua. 2 Vols. (Cambridge, MA, 2014). Maximus discusses Gregory’s Or. 38.7 in Ambigua 34, see Constas, Maximos, Vol. 2, pp. 64– 67. Ambigua 10.18; I cite here the text and translation of Constas, Maximos, Vol. 1, pp. 193–195.

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gathered from nature, He leads us to a unitary idea of the truth, allowing Himself to be seen by analogy through visible things as their Creator. In conception and detail this passage is based again on the familiar language in Gregory’s Nativity Oration: … νῷ μόνῳ σκιαγραφούμενος, καὶ τοῦτο λίαν ἀμυδρῶς καὶ μετρίως, οὐκ ἐκ τῶν κατ’ αὐτὸν, ἀλλ’ ἐκ τῶν περὶ αὐτὸν, ἄλλης ἐξ ἄλλου φαντασίας συλλεγομένης (1), εἰς ἕν τι τῆς ἀληθείας ἴνδαλμα (2) … [the divine is] can be sketched in outline by the mind alone, and even then only very faintly and modestly so, drawn not according to what belongs to it, but according to what is around it, as different conceptions are collected from different sources in order to form a certain single mental image of the truth … Maximus is explaining Gregory through Gregory, so to speak. He has adapted the language from the Nativity Oration to expound on the meaning of another passage in a different oration. Gregory’s account has become the template for discussing the formation of conceptions of the divine. We should pause to take stock and examine the close relationship between these passages in Gregory, Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus: first, images of some sort, which are without exception in these cases termed phantasiai, are ‘collected’ (συλλεγομένης in Gregory; συλλογῆς in Maximus) or brought together (συνάγουσα in Pseudo-Dionyius) from various sources (ἄλλης ἐξ ἄλλου; ποικίλας; τῶν διαφόρων). Those disparate images are then formed into what is described in all three cases as a “single” concept: in Gregory a “single image of the truth” (εἰς ἕν τι … ἴνδαλμα), for Dionysius “a single true knowledge” (εἰς μίαν ἀληθῆ … συνάγουσα γνῶσιν) and for Maximus “a single likeness of what is true” (εἰς μίαν … εἰκασίαν ἐνάγων). Gregory’s account of the mental mechanics, as it were, of contemplating the divine thus enjoys a vigorous afterlife in subsequent Patristic theology. His formulation creates a model for the mind’s anagogic ascent from the many towards the one that is reused and adapted again and again. For festal orations that embrace what we might call the lyric apophaticism of Gregory’s account of theoria in the way that Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor rework the Nativity Oration, we can turn to Andrew of Crete, a major figure known especially as a composer of the elaborate new type of hymn known as the kanon, but who was also famed for his polished festal orations. Born in Damascus around 660, Andrew joined the Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem at a young age. In the last quarter of the seventh century,

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he traveled to Constantinople, where he was ordained and served as a deacon in Hagia Sophia before being sent to Crete, eventually becoming archbishop there.31 In Andrew, we find a homilist that can be said to follow in Gregory’s footsteps not only with respect to poetic rhythms and rhetorical figures but also in his account of theoria and the process of forming concepts of the divine. This can be seen most clearly in the following passage, taken from Andrew’s homily on the Feast of the Transfiguration:32 ἧς τὸ ἄπειρον καὶ τὸ ἀόριστον πέλαγος ἑλεῖν ἀδυνατοῦσα τῇ θεωρίᾳ, τὴν ἀκαταληψίαν τῆς θεότητος, ἀρχὴν ποιεῖται μείζονος θεωρίας καὶ ἀναβάσεως. Τοῦτο καὶ αὐτοὶ νῦν ἐξυμνεῖν βουλόμεθα μὲν, οὐ δυνάμεθα δὲ ὅσον ἄξιον. Πῶς γάρ; … ὑφ’ οὗ πολλάκις, οὐδὲ ἀμυδράν τινα φαντασίαν τῶν μακαρίων καὶ νοητῶν θεαμάτων εἰσδέξασθαι συγχωρούμεθα, τῇ προσπαθείᾳ τῶν ὁρωμένων κρατούμενοι τὴν διάνοιαν, κἀντεῦθεν περὶ τὸ ἔσχατον ὀρεκτὸν, δυσόρεκτον καὶ τὴν ὄρεξιν ἔχοντες. 933C5–10; 936Α1–6

Since ⟨the celestial powers⟩ are unable to comprehend in contemplation the limitless, boundless sea of the Word’s benevolence, they make the very incomprehensibility of the divinity the beginning of greater contemplation and ascent. This is what we too intend to praise in song, though we are unable to do so fittingly. For how could we? … ⟨Because of our body,⟩ it is often the case that we are not even permitted to receive some faint image of the blessed intelligible visions, as our mind is held by our attachment to the visible, and here concerning that which is the ultimate object of desire, it is even difficult to achieve the capacity of desire. In addition to the larger theme of the incomprehensibility of God that is shared between this passage and Gregory’s Nativity Oration, our attention is drawn

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For Andrew’s biography see M.-F. Auzépy, “La carrière d’André de Crète,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 88 (1995) 1–12; as well as the useful survey of scholarship in D. Krueger, Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium (Philadelphia 2004) 132. CPG 8176; PG 97, 932–957. For Andrew of Crete’s homilies see M. Cunningham, “Andrew of Crete: A High-Style Preacher of the Eighth Century,” in M. Cunningham and P. Allen (eds.), Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics (Leiden 1998) 267–293, who describes this particular homily as “a remarkable text which is packed with mystical ideas and vocabulary” (272). For English translation see B. Daley (tr.), Light on the Mountain: Greek Patristic and Byzantine Homilies on the Transfiguration of the Lord (Yonkers, NY 2013) 179–201.

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first in particular to the phrase “the limitless, boundless sea of the Word’s benevolence” (τὸ ἄπειρον καὶ τὸ ἀόριστον πέλαγος), which we should compare with Gregory’s description of the “great sea of being without limit or end” (πέλαγος οὐσίας ἄπειρον καὶ ἀόριστον). While this language may at first sound formulaic, it is key to note that before Andrew of Crete there is only one attestation for the words “limitless” (ἄπειρον), “boundless” (ἀόριστον), and “sea” (πέλαγος) being grouped together in this way, and it occurs in fact in our passage in Gregory. Gregory was almost certainly Andrew’s source here, and as we examine Andrew’s oration we will continue to find echoes and adaptations of Gregory’s language. For example, in that same passage Andrew refers to the heavenly powers as the theoroi or “contemplators of the first splendour” (τοῖς θεωροῖς τῆς πρώτης λαμπρότητος, 933C11). This phrase too is drawn from Gregory, who refers to the heavenly powers a couple of sections later as “servants of the first splendour” (λειτουργοὶ τῆς πρώτης λαμπρότητος, Or. 38.9). Again this points clearly to Andrew’s adaptation of Gregory: the phrase “first splendour” (πρώτη λαμπρότης) is first attested in Gregory, and it does not appear again in the corpus of the TLG until after Andrew’s time. Finally, we can compare Andrew’s description of the “ineffable quality that cannot be contemplated” of the mystery of the transfiguration (τὸ ἀνέκφραστον τοῦ μυστηρίου καὶ ἀθεώρητον, 936A8) with Gregory on how the divine is “limitless and difficult-to-contemplate” (ἄπειρον οὖν τὸ θεῖον καὶ δυσθεώρητον). There are additional close lexical parallels between other passages in the respective orations of Andrew and Gregory,33 but most important for our purposes is how Andrew describes the difficulty of acquiring “some faint phantasia of the intelligible visions”: ἀμυδράν τινα φαντασίαν τῶν νοητῶν θεαμάτων. Here as well we can identify a reworking of Gregory’s account of theoria in the Nativity oration: ἀμυδρῶς … φαντασίας συλλεγομένης, εἰς ἕν τι τῆς ἀληθείας ἴνδαλμα. Gregory describes the difficult and imperfect process of how individual phantasiai are collected to form some image of the truth (ἕν τι τῆς ἀληθείας ἴνδαλμα), and we should note the use of the vague indefinite adjective “some”. Andrew has reworked this to describe how through the corporeality of our bodies we are prevented from forming “some phantasia of the intelligible visions” (τινα φαντασίαν τῶν νοητῶν θεαμάτων), again with the indefinite “some”. Andrew’s phrase “some phantasia of the intelligible visions” is inspired both in its syntax and meaning by Gregory’s phrase “some image of the truth”.

33

Cf. for example Gregory at Or. 38.6 (καί μοι καθήρασθε καὶ νοῦ καὶ ἀκοὴν καὶ διάνοιαν) with Andrew at PG 940B9–11 (καί μοι καθήρασθε πρότερον … καὶ ἀκοὴν καὶ διάνοιαν).

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Andrew describes the heavenly powers contemplating the incomprehensibility of the Divine, and presents their activity as a model for his own undertaking as a homilist. He bases this account on Gregory’s description of theoria in the Nativity oration. That Andrew should draw on Gregory in a passage like this is not surprising, as Andrew assuredly belongs to the tradition that has been traced here from the Cappadocians onwards. He is famous for his highly wrought style and his affinity for the works of Dionysius the Areopagite,34 and Mary Cunningham has called attention to the elevated, mystical vocabulary of this homily in particular.35 Both here in the Transfiguration oration, as well as in Andrew’s other festal homilies, including especially his triptych of homilies on the Dormition, Gregory’s example is formative.36 Andrew, whose activity in Constantinople just precedes the patriarchate of Germanos (715–730) and the beginning of the Iconoclasm under Emperor Leo iii (717–741), will be in the vanguard during a century in which interest in Gregory’s legacy receives fresh impetus from a new direction. This is the period when both Iconoclasts and Iconophiles drew heavily upon authoritative figures such as the Cappadocians in compiling florilegia of proof texts in order to support their respective positions.37 This polemical engagement with the works of the Cappadocians, and with Gregory’s orations in particular, leads to a revival of interest in their accounts of the contemplation of the divine, conceived of now especially in the context of contemplation of the divine in and through images. The debate over who could rightly claim the support of figures like Gregory of Nazianzus for their own side served to enhance their authority even further, 34

35 36

37

See especially Andrew’s triptych of homilies on the Feast of the Dormition (PG 97 1045– 1109), which quote and expound at length upon a famous scene in On Divine Names iii.2 that is traditionally associated with the Virgin’s Dormition. For translation see B. Daley (tr.), On the Dormition of Mary: Early Patristic Homilies (Crestwood, NY 1998) 103–152. See above n. 32. For the three homilies on the Dormition, see PG 97 1045–1109. For translation of the triptych see B. Daley, On the Dormition of Mary: Early Patristic Homilies (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998) 103–152. See K. Demoen, “The Theologian on Icons: Byzantine and Modern Claims and Distortions,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 91 (1998) 1–19, at 2 n. 4 for bibliography on the use of Gregory and the other Cappadocians during the Iconoclast debates. For the reception of Gregory during the debates over Iconoclasm see also B. MacDougall, “Living Images and Authors of Virtue: Theodore of Stoudios on Plato of Sakkoudion and Gregory of Nazianzus on Basil,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 110.3 (2017) 691–712, as well as Papaioannou, Michael Psellos 56: “Gregory became an authoritative voice almost immediately after his death. Yet the catalysts for his elevation to canonical authority were texts produced during the period of the Iconoclastic debate (second half of the eighth and first half of the ninth centuries). These texts formed a basic corpus for Byzantine Orthodoxy, and Gregory was a major protagonist within them.”

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and prompted intense arguments over the correct interpretation of individual passages. This extends even to the very passage in the Nativity oration we have been discussing, which the Iconoclasts seem to have adapted in order to argue against the veneration of images.38 Thus, interest in Gregory’s account of the contemplation of the divine only increases over the course of the debates over Iconoclasm. In what follows we turn to a famous meditation on the power of icons, found in a homily composed by Patriarch Photius a generation after the ultimate triumph of the Iconophile cause in 843. Once again we will be able to trace the influence of Gregory’s account of theoria, this time in the intellectual background to an oration that Photius delivered in Hagia Sophia itself. For Photius, even though the last Iconoclast patriarch had been deposed almost a generation before he began the first of his two reigns as Patriarch, the anagogic ascent of the soul through the contemplation of images remained a subject of intense interest. It forms a key theme in what is perhaps his most famous oration, a homily composed to celebrate the unveiling of the new mosaic icon of the Virgin Mary and Child in the apse of Hagia Sophia.39 The icon offers Photius an opportunity to meditate with deeply resonant language on the soul’s anagogic ascent to the divine: Before our eyes stands motionless the Virgin carrying the Creator in her arms as an infant, depicted in painting as she is in writings and visions, an interceder for our salvation and a teacher of reverence to God, a grace of the eyes and a grace of the mind, carried by which the divine love in us is uplifted to the intelligible beauty of truth (καὶ χάρις μὲν ὀφθαλμῶν, χάρις δὲ διανοίας, αἷς εἰς τὸ νοητὸν τῆς ἀληθείας κάλλος ὁ ἐν ἡμῖν θεῖος ἔρως ὀχούμενος ἀναφέρεται).40 Photius pronounced these words in front of the mosaic of Virgin and Child, a fact which lends a feeling of immediacy to his description of how the divine

38

39

40

See S. Gero, Byzantine Iconoclasm during the Reign of Constantine v, with Particular Attention to the Oriental Sources (Louvain 1977) 51 n. 71. While the case is not straightforward— an Iconophile source puts Gregory’s language into the mouth of an Iconoclast emperor— it does however clearly show that Iconophiles were interested in the significance of the passage in the context of the Iconoclast dispute. For background and English translation, see Cyril Mango, The Homilies of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople (Cambridge, MA 1958) 279–296. For an extensive discussion of this celebrated homily see Roland Betancourt, Sight, Touch and Imagination in Byzantium (Cambridge 2018) 111–195. Mango, The Homilies of Photius 295. For the text see B. Laourdas (ed.), ΦΩΤIΟΥ OΜΙΛIΑΙ (Thessaloniki 1966) 171.26–27.

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love in us is uplifted to the intelligible beauty of truth through the “grace of the eyes”. Much of the rest of the homily is concerned with glossing the other phrase, “grace of the mind”, by mapping out how sensory perception is processed mentally. Roland Betancourt has devoted an exhaustive study to demonstrating how Photius offers here a rich synthesis of earlier thought on vision, memory, and the imaginative faculties.41 In what follows, we will “read Photius through Photius” by bringing into conversation with this homily another text of his that deals more explicitly and systematically with the contemplation of the divine. Although the text in question focuses on processes that may be more accurately described as cognitive rather than as sensory, the ultimate object it works toward is exactly parallel to the goal described in the homily. As the audience of the homily is uplifted “to the intelligible beauty of truth” (εἰς τὸ νοητὸν τῆς ἀληθείας κάλλος), here the reader learns how to gaze up “to the ineffable beauty of the godhead” (εἰς τὸ … ἀνέκφραστον κάλλος τῆς … θεότητος). This second text, which again is of a more explicitly philosophical nature, can thus offer a kind of control for studying the homily, one that allows us to trace the influence of Gregory’s account of theoria on ninth-century discourse. The text in question is a short theological treatise included in Photius’s Amphilochia (Amph. 180), a collection of essays on a variety of topics.42 It consists of a brief exposition of apophatic or negative theology in which Photius reworks traditional territory. He begins his account of contemplation through negation by invoking the traditional analogy of the visible and the noetic sun (ll. 14–16), a Platonic image that had become a mainstay of Christian theological discourse thanks in particular to Gregory of Nazianzus. Gregory employs the analogy on several occasions, including two passages that would become highly influential in the subsequent development of apophatic theological discourse.43 Photius is thus participating in a long tradition, key figures for which

41 42

43

See especially Betancourt, Sight, Touch, and Imagination in Byzantium. For the text of Amph. 180 see L.G. Westerink (ed.), Photii patriarchae Constantinopolitani Epistulae et Amphilochiae Vol. 5 (Leipzig 1986) 232–234. For general discussion of the collection see e.g. N. Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium (London 1996) 114–119 as well as C. Erismann and B. MacDougall, “The Byzantine Reception of Porphyry’s Isagoge,”Medioevo: Rivista di storia della filosofia medievale 43 (2018) 42–72 at 52–72. For analysis of Amphilochia 180 in particular as well as an English translation see Theodoros Alexopoulos, “Areopagitic Influence and Neoplatonic (Plotinian) echoes in Photius’s Amphilochia: Question 180,”BZ 107.1 (2014) 1–36. Here I use my own translation. See Or. 28.30; Or. 40.5 and Or. 21. For background on Gregory and apophaticism, see for example Beeley, Gregory of Nazianzus 198–201; Douglass, Theology of the Gap 165; McGuckin, St. Gregory of Nazianzus 17–18 and Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture 40–56.

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are, once again, the usual suspects of the Cappadocians, Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor, and much of Photius’s essay draws heavily from this material. The text concludes with a summary description of the contemplation of the divine and of how, through the method just described, the mind can gaze toward the “ineffable beauty of the godhead” (ἀνέκφραστον κάλλος τῆς … θεότητος). Again, this should be compared to how the anagogic ascent described in the homily culminates in the “intelligible beauty of the truth” (νοητὸν κάλλος τῆς ἀληθείας). In the Amphilochia Photius describes a process that will be familiar from the tradition we have been tracing from Gregory through PseudoDionysius and Maximus the Confessor to Andrew of Crete: καὶ ἄλλων δ’ ὥσπερ ἰνδαλμάτων τινῶν καὶ εἰκασμάτων, καθάπερ ἐξ ἀρχῆς εἴρηται, δυναμένων ἀπὸ τῶν ὑστέρων παραληφθῆναι, δι’ ὧν ἐστιν εἰς τὸ ἀμήχανον ἐκεῖνο καὶ ἀνέκφραστον κάλλος τῆς ὑπερουσίου καὶ ὑπερφυοῦς θεότητος ἐνατενίζειν, μάλιστά γε καὶ ὅτι μηδὲ χαλεπὸν διὰ τῆς προειρημένης μεθόδου τοιαῦτα συλλέγειν. 69–72

It is possible as if through certain other images and likeness, as was said at the beginning of this account, which can be drawn from what is posterior to them, to gaze at that impossibly ineffable beauty of the divinity that is beyond essence and nature, and indeed it is not difficult to collect such ⟨images⟩ through the method described above. The two phrases describing the mental movement towards divine beauty are exactly parallel: in the Amphilochia passage, the gaze “towards the ineffable beauty of the divinity” (εἰς τὸ … ἀνέκφραστον κάλλος τῆς … θεότητος) echoes the ascent “towards the intelligible beauty of the truth” (εἰς τὸ νοητὸν κάλλος τῆς ἀληθείας) described in the homily. This suggests that the process Photius describes in the Amphilochia passage can be used as an additional gloss on his understanding of the “grace of the mind” mentioned in the homily. First, though, the description in the Amphilochia passage requires a little unpacking. We begin with lower-order concepts or images, here referred to simply as “posterior” (τῶν ὑστέρων); and from these there are “collected” (συλλέγειν) “certain indalmata or eikasmata”, and it is through these higher-order concepts or images that one can gaze at the ineffable beauty of the divinity. We should compare Photius’s terms for these higher class of images—indalmata and eikasmata—with Gregory’s “a certain indalma” or Maximus’s “a single eikasia”. Indeed, earlier in the Amphilochia essay, Photius himself describes this same step in the cognitive process as “the ascent to a certain concept and phan-

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tasia” of the divine (εἰς ἔννοιάν τινα καὶ φαντασίαν θεοπρεπῆ … ἀνάγεσθαι, l. 12). We should notice that, when it comes to describing the higher concepts and images, Photius is decidedly indifferent in his terminology. Thus, entities corresponding to the same level in his process are referred to variously as “a kind of ennoia or phantasia” (ἔννοιάν τινα καὶ φαντασίαν) earlier in the same text (l. 12) as well as “certain indalmata and eikasmata” (ἰνδαλμάτων τινῶν καὶ εἰκασμάτων) in this passage. This lack of precision in terminology reflects what we have seen already from Gregory onwards: Gregory himself has “a certain indalma”, Dionysius “single gnosis”, Maximus “a single eikasia”, and Andrew has “some faint phantasia”. The names change, but remaining the same is the ascent—still recognizably Platonic—from lower conceptions or images that are collected together to form a higher conception of the divine. From Gregory’s Nativity Oration through the theological treatises of Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor to Photius’s Amphilochia, we can trace a continuous thread in Late Antique and Byzantine accounts of theoria and the contemplation of the divine. It is this background that we should keep in mind when we turn back to Photius’s homily on the icon of the Virgin and Child and its description of the soul’s ascent to “the intelligible beauty of the truth”. That divine ascent is accomplished not only by the grace of the eyes, but also through “the grace of the mind”. Photius’s more expansive and philosophical treatment of theoria and the soul’s ascent in the Amphilochia provides additional context to the mental and sensory dynamics that he describes in the homily and whose influences Betancourt has so carefully traced. Among those influences, we have now seen that behind the homily’s account of anagogic ascent through “the grace of the mind” there lies a long tradition in Byzantine theological discourse that goes back to Gregory’s performance of philosophy at the Feast of the Nativity. Gregory’s was not the only account of the formation of conceptions of the divine that was available to Byzantine audiences. It was his authority as “the Theologian” and the popularity of his festal orations—orations that became canonized—that caused this particular passage from the Nativity oration to wield the kind of influence we have seen at work in the texts of PseudoDionysius, Maximus the Confessor, Andrew of Crete and Photius. These figures constitute a major stream in Byzantine theological discourse, and their representations of the contemplation of the divine look back to a rhetor of the long Second Sophistic and his performance of philosophy at a festival.

Conclusion In the same autobiographical poem written towards the end of his life in which Gregory describes how “a burning desire for literature” took hold of him as he was beginning his education, he also declares that he deliberately set himself the goal of using the tools of Classical literature to promote the cause of Christian literature or logoi. … καὶ γὰρ ἐζήτουν λόγους δοῦναι βοηθοὺς τοὺς νόθους τοῖς γνησίοις, ὡς μήτ’ ἐπαίροινθ’ οἱ μαθόντες οὐδὲ ἕν πλὴν τῆς ματαίας καὶ κενῆς εὐγλωττίας, τῆς ἐν ψόφοις τε καὶ λάρυγξι κειμένης, μήτ’ ἐνδεοίμην πλεκτάναις σοφισμάτων.1 Indeed, I sought to offer the false logoi as helpmates to the true logoi, both so that those who knew nothing besides vain and empty eloquence—that eloquence which extends only so far as noise and human throats—would not exalt themselves, and also so that I myself would not be entangled in the snares of sophistries. It is through Gregory’s major festal orations, which in Byzantium become so widely studied and popular that the reading of them was actually incorporated into liturgical services, that Gregory’s project of using Classical literature to assist Christian literature reaches perhaps its widest audience. In these orations Gregory plays on the one hand the familiar role of a festival rhetor, one who uses the celebrated forms of a rhetorical tradition developed in handbooks and treatises, such as those attributed to Menander Rhetor and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and given consummate expression by rhetors like Aelius Aristides and Libanius. On the other hand, Gregory’s explicit goal in these same orations is to perform philosophy for and with his audience. Whether having “philosophized about God” (περὶ Θεοῦ πεφιλοσοφήσθω) by describing His “ocean of being” in the Nativity Oration (Or. 38.7–8), or announcing to the audience at the Feast of the Holy Lights that they are to “philosophize about God and the Divine” (Or. 39.8), or “philosophizing about the feast” at Pentecost by offering a learned account of etymologies and number

1 De Vita Sua 113–118 (ed. Jungck).

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symbolism, at all of these festivals Gregory foregrounds the performance of philosophy and philosophical discourse. His deliberately composed prooemia that foreshadow the themes of his orations; the account of the creation of the cosmos and its clear echoes of the grand cosmogony of the Timaeus; his reworking of Dio Chrysostom and the tradition begun by Plato’s Phaedrus on the struggle to collect various images to form a single, fleeting conception of the divine; his description of the process of theosis or his discussion of the need for katharsis or purification as a prerequisite for engaging in contemplation—these major concerns of his orations all draw upon the common philosophical grammar of the period. At Christian festivals celebrated in Constantinople during his time there as bishop, Gregory offered precisely what audiences of pepaideumenoi had come to associate with festivals for generations: the performance of philosophy. From Dio Chrysostom at the Olympics, to characters in fictional works by Lucian or Heliodorus, to Aelius Aristides’s account of his privileged access to the divine in the Sacred Tales, and to the orations delivered by Neoplatonists in honor of the birthdays of Socrates and Plato, when it comes to festival celebration, it is a mark of paideia to participate in learned and philosophical discourse. Those pepaideumenoi in Gregory’s audiences, whether they were committed Christians or only beginning to properly acquaint themselves with the young religion, would have found much that was familiar in Gregory’s approach in the festival orations. For him and his audience, the object was theoria: the careful exegesis of texts and discourse, the contemplation of conceptions of the divine, and the rhetorically induced transformation of the audience into theoroi or spectators of the events narrated in the orations themselves. To engage in theoria was to engage in what had been, since the time of Plato and Aristotle, the divine activity par excellence, and in thus imitating that quintessential divine action one was fulfilling the ultimate goal of philosophy for pagan and Christian alike: the imitation and assimilation to the divine to the extent that is humanly possible. For all the noise Gregory and his fellow bishops make about how Christianity’s discursive, intellectual, and spiritual approach to festival celebration set it apart from pagan sensuality, it is precisely that interest in discursive and philosophical celebration that constitutes one of the most important points of continuity between Hellenic culture of the long Second Sophistic and the Christian paideia of Gregory and his peers. Gregory’s focus on philosophical discourses in the festal orations, especially those delivered in Constantinople, guaranteed that their Classically-inflected treatment of theoria and the contemplation of the divine would become widely influential. After the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century, the philosophical discourse of the festal orations was understood as being performed by none other than “the Theologian” himself. His festal orations, which traffic so heav-

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ily in the traditions of Classical philosophy, become classics in their own right. The formation by the tenth century of the corpus of sixteen so-called “Liturgical Homilies” meant that Gregory’s festival orations were performed aloud in liturgical services throughout the Byzantine world for specific festivals throughout the year, every year. It is worth lingering on that fact for a moment, as it means that on Christmas, the Feast of Nativity, every year, audiences were instructed, in Platonic language that can be traced back through Dio Chrysostom to the Phaedrus and the Symposium, on how the divinity’s “great sea of being” can only be contemplated “according to qualities to which it is circumstantially related, as different conceptions are collected from different sources in order to form a certain single mental image of the truth”. As shown in the last chapter, however, one does not have to wait until the tenth century to see the influence of Gregory’s festival oratory pervade Byzantine literary and theological culture. For seminal figures such as PseudoDionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, Andrew of Crete, and Patriarch Photius, Gregory’s festal orations provide the template and very language for how one approaches the contemplation of the divine. Among the most lasting consequences of the adoption of this Athenian-trained rhetor as “the Theologian” is this long and unexpected afterlife of the centuries-old Classical association between festival spectatorship and philosophical contemplation. With Gregory established as the favorite author already in the fifth century, the Christian festival becomes a space for the performance of theoria. In the goal he had set out for himself as a young man filled with a burning desire for literature, Gregory was perhaps more successful than he ever might have imagined. Thanks to his efforts, the old logoi of the Classical philosophical tradition would continue to serve as helpmates to Christian logoi for centuries to come.

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Index of Passages Achilles Tatius Leucippe and Cleitophon 1.2 42n5 Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum ii.1.3 144n2 Aelius Aristides Ors. 28.116 42.3 45.17 45.27 Sacred Tales ii.81–82 iv.16–18 iv.31 iv.52

54n33 35n36 81 80 53 53n29 53n29 54, 55

Ammonius Hermiae In Aristotelis Categorias 6.21–24 103n16 In Porphyrii Isagogen 3.8 106n25 Andrew of Crete On the Transfiguration (PG 97 933C5–10, 936A1–6) 153 Anthologia Graeca vi.156 92n79 viii.24–74 5n12 viii.78 5n13 Aphthonius Progymnasmata 36.22–23 128n14, 134n34 Apuleius De Deo Socratis 124 115 Metamorphoses 11.17 25n16

Aristophanes Acharnians 204–625 72n41 Women at the Thesmophoria 466–764 72n41 Aristotle De Anima 427a18–429a9 (=iii.3) 133n27 Metaphysics 1074b 121n3 Nicomachean Ethics 1097a15–1099b8 16n57 1097b20–1099b8 16n59 1106b18–23 16n58 1198a26–30 16n58 On Memory and Recollection 450a 25–32 133n27 Protrepticus 51n22 Asterius of Amasea Or. 10 29n25 Basil of Caesarea Adversus Eunomium 1.16 (PG 29 548.21–38) 108n31 Hex. ix.1.1 81–82 ix.5.1 82n65 ix.6.104–107 83n67 Cassius Dio Roman History lvii 16 65n21 ps.-Demetrius of Phalerum On Style 209 130n18 216 135n37 Demosthenes Contra Boeotum 1.4–5 92 1.4 93n83

179

index of passages Dio Chrysostom Or. 12 110n35 12.53 111 12.70 111 Dionysius of Halicarnassus De Compositione Verborum vi.25 42n6 De Lysia 7 130n18, 135 ps.-Dionysius of Halicarnassus Art of Rhetoric 39n44, 46, 62 ps.-Dionysius the Areopagite On Divine Names iii.2: 155; iv.6 150n25

4–5 4 5 7 8 9.2 12.1 15 18 21 24 27–31 27 28

Elias Introduction to Philosophy 106n25 Epictetus Discourses 1.6: 110n36; 2.14 52n24 Etymologicum Magnum 92 Gregory of Nazianus De Vita Sua 112–113 1n1 113–118 160n1 256 8n27 265–276 2n4, 9n30 Funerary Epigrams (= Anthologia Palatina, Book viii) 5n12 Letters 4–6 10n35 24 15n56 32 16n57, 16n59 38 15n56 51 16n59 131 13n47 165.7 72 Orations 1 12, 72n39; 1.4–5: 105; 1.5: 121; 1.6: 138n42 2 71n37, 76; 2.6: 33n33; 2.16: 74; 2.22: 88; 2.39: 138; 2.74:

30.17 31 34.30 37 38–40 38

39

40

17n61; 2.92: 59n4, 59n5; 2.104: 74 11 65n20; 4.4: 31n28 65; 5.1: 65n20 5n12, 11 5n12, 11 134 138, 138n43; 12.33–34: 117– 118 12 5n12, 11 12, 151, 157n43; 21.1: 17n61 12; 24.1: 31n28 12 16n58; 27.2: 101n7; 27.3: 101, 102; 27.7: 13n49, 17 59n5; 28.1: 138; 28.2–3: 59, 59n4; 28.4: 13n48, 116n48; 28.13: 108n29; 28.19: 137; 28.30: 17n60, 104, 157n43 108n29; 30.18: 38n43 126; 31.6: 14n51; 31.15: 14n52; 31.21: 139n45 106 12 12, 90 56n47, 75, 75n48, 76, 83, 108n29; 38. 3: 38n43; 38.6: 30, 76–77, 80, 154; 38.7: 107, 111, 112, 118, 121, 125n9, 147, 151; 38.7–8: 16; 38. 7–15: 112n37; 38.7–25: 107; 38.8: 56; 38. 8–13: 75n49; 38.9: 83, 115, 121, 121n3, 124, 154; 38.10: 56; 38.11: 56, 75, 83; 38.12: 60; 38.13: 83; 38.17: 124, 124n7 85; 39.7: 106, 119, 121; 39.8: 119, 121; 39.8–9: 100; 39. 8: 56, 160; 39.9: 56n38, 102; 39.10: 88; 39.11: 121; 39.11–13: 121; 39.14: 120; 39.14–19: 121 84, 88, 93; 40.1: 84, 94; 40.2–3: 93; 40.3: 85, 94; 40.4: 86, 93; 40.5: 38n43, 104, 157n43; 40.6: 86; 40.35: 87, 93; 40.44: 93n83; 40.44– 45: 90, 93; 40.45: 91; 40.46: 86, 93

180 Orations (cont.) 41

42 43 44

45

index of passages

12, 31, 131n23; 41.1: 31, 41n1, 57, 122, 126, 127, 142; 41.2: 38, 39; 41.3: 131n24; 41.5: 131n24, 139; 41.11: 137; 41.13: 138; 41.14: 129, 130, 131, 138; 41.18: 141 146; 42.16: 14n51 11; 43.1: 33n33; 43.14: 8, 9; 43.24: 8n27; 43.25: 9n30 12, 65, 122; 44. 1: 65; 44.1– 2: 122; 44.2–5: 38n43; 44.3: 123, 124, 125n9; 44.4: 122; 44.5: 66n22; 44.6: 66; 44.9: 125; 44.10: 123, 124; 44.10– 12: 66; 44.11: 123, 124; 44.12: 66n24, 125 12, 107; 45.2: 31; 45. 2– 9: 107n28, 112n38; 45.9: 135n34; 45.10: 38n43; 45.11– 12: 59n4, 59n5; 45.26–27: 107n28, 112n38

Gregory of Nyssa De Tridui Spatio 273.10–274.16 95 297b7 95n86 298.6–9 96 In diem luminum 222 89 On the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste i 757 83n68 Gregory Presbyter Vita Greg. Naz. 5.30 8n27

Hesiod Op. 336

34n34

Himerius Ors. 46.8 47

68n29 67

Homer Il.ii.295 Od. xxii.5

65n21 65n20

Iamblichus Protrepticus 65.6 102n12 John Chrysostom In Genesim Homilia 13 (PG 53.105) 83n68 On the Incomprehensibility of God 1.200–208 109n33 John Lydus De mensibus Libanius Or. 1.27–28 5 9 Progymnasmata 12.5 12.29

ps.-Longinus On the Sublime 15.2 15.2–3 32.2–5

24n9

9n29 25n14; 5.6: 37n40 25n14 25n14 25n14; 12.29.5–6: 43n7; 12.29.8: 42, 43

135n36 135 52n25

Heliodorus Aethiopica 2.24–3.6 2.26.1 2.26.4 2.28.19–23 2.34–3.6

22n2 44n10 44 47 22n2

Longus Daphnis et Chloe 2.1–2 22n2 2.30–37 22n2

Herodotus 1.147

92

Marinos Life of Proclus 23 49

181

index of passages Maximus the Confessor Ambigua 10 151 18 151n30 34 151n29 Menander Rhetor i.1.333–344 25n11 ii.17.437.5–446.13 25n11 ii.17.437.6–9 35 Sminthiakos logos 438. 11–15 36 438. 24 37 438. 24–29 37 442. 28–443.2 38n42 442. 29–30 37n39 443. 1–2 37n39 446. 1–7 124n8 New Testament Matthew Mt 4.18–22 Mt 9.9 Mt 19.1 Mark Mk 1.16–27 Luke Lk 11.24–26 Ephesians Eph. 3.16–17 Hebrews Heb. 11.10

132n25 132n25 12 132n25 88 89 76

Olympiodorus Prolegomena in Categorias 10.3–8 103n18 Origen Comm. Jn. 32.338–343 59 Philostratus Lives of the Sophists 2.582 55n34 Philip of Opus Epinomis 982e

52n23

Philo of Alexandria De Cherubim 27 30n27 De Opificio Mundi 18 141n48 78 77 De Posteritate Caini 167 140n47 Quod Deus sit immutabilis 42–44 133 Photius of Constantinople Amphilochia 180 157–159 Homily 17 156–159 Plato Crat. 400c 405c–d 405d 405e 406b Ion 535c2–3 Leg. 653c–d Phaed. 67b2 81a Phdr. 228e–229b 246a–249c 249b6–c2 254b 264c 270b Phil. 39a Resp. 328a–c 437c–d 484c 507b–509c 516a–b Symp. 201d 209e–212a Theat. 176a Tim. 17a 17c1 21b

13n49 37n42 38n43 37n41 37n40 135n36 26–27 102 13n49 42n5 51 113 56n36, 113 70, 70n32 73 133n27 43 13n47 72 17 17n61, 60, 113 55 51n20, 54n33, 55, 56n36, 113, 117n49 106, 121 80n59, 81n62 41n2 92n8

182

index of passages

Tim. (cont.) 26e 27b 27c 28a6 28c 40c–d5 41d–e 47b6–c4 52d4–e7

41n2, 76n54 80n60, 81 79 76n51 13n48 124n8 79–80, 83 81n61, 82–83 82n63

Plotinus Enneads 1.6

17

Plutarch De glor. Ath. 347a 135n35 De Is. et Os. 77 114 Mor. 14d–37b 61n8 Porphyry Life of Plotinus 2: 48n13; 15 48 Proclus of Athens Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 658.34– 659.23 70n31 Commentary on Plato’s Republic 1.5.6–9 94 1.6.26 70n32 Proclus of Constantinople Ors. 3.1 28, 29 3.18–20 148n21 28.7 148n21 Quintilian Inst. Orat. 6.2.29

135n36

9.2.40 9.2.43

129 129

Sappho Frag. 104B Campbell 68 Septuaginta Exodus Ex. 3.14 Ex. 19.1–24 Ex. 33.17–23 Isaiah Isa. 49.20 Amos Amos 7.14

59n3 59n3 59n3 89 130n19; 132n25

Socrates Scholasticus Historia Ecclesiastica 4.26 81n62 5.22. 29n25 Synesius of Cyrene Dion 9.56 102n13 Epistulae 41.294 102n13 137.50 102n13 Themistius Ors. 26.313b1 33.367a5

83n68 83n68

Theon Progymnasmata 118.6 141n49

General Index Academy (Athens) 8, 8n25, 51 accident (συμβεβηκός) 7, 14 Achilles 72, 73 Achilles Tatius 42n5, 69n30, 73n45, 136n39 Acropolis, Athenian 67, 68, 69 Acts of the Apostles 126, 149 Adrianople 11 Aelius Aristides 3, 25, 32, 34, 53–55, 63, 80, 81, 83, 160, 161 Sacred Tales 53–55, 161 Aethiopica (Heliodorus) 22n2, 44–47, 135 Aëtius 100, 100n6, 101n8 agora 42, 42n4, 72–74 agriculture 47 Alexandria 1, 7–9, 12, 30, 52, 57, 58n2, 71, 102, 103, 103n14, 106n25, 117, 133, 140n47, 151 Alexandrian allegory 58n2 Alexandria Troas 35 allegory 58, 58n2, 61, 74, 139n45 Allegory of the Cave 51, 104, 113 allusion 13, 47, 62, 65, 65n21, 72n42, 73, 74, 76, 130 Amasea 29n25, 148, 148n18 Ammonius (Hermiae) 7, 103, 103n16, 103n17, 104 Amos 129, 130, 130n19, 132 Amphilochia (Photius) 157–159 Amphilochius of Iconium 147–148 Anacreon 67 anagogic ascent 54, 148, 152, 156, 158, 159 analogy 57, 118n51, 123, 124, 152, 157 Analogy of the Sun 17, 104 anamnesis 56, 113, 114 Andrew (Apostle) 130, 132 Andrew of Crete 21, 145, 152–155, 158, 159, 162 Transfiguration Oration 155 anecdote 42n6, 64, 70 Annesi (Pontus) 10 Anomean (branch of the Arian theological tradition) 100, 100n6, 101, 108, 109, 109n33, 131n22 Antioch 23, 109, 147 Antiochene Olympics 23 Antiochene school 58n2

Antiochene typology 58n2 Apatouria 92–93 Aphrodite 48 Aphthonius 6, 64, 128, 134, 134n34, 135, 141n49 apologia 72, 106 Apology (Eunomius) 108 Apology (Plato) 146 Apollo 27, 33, 36, 37, 37n41–42, 53n29, 67 Loxias 37n40 of the festival of Pytho 39n44 Pythian 45 Sminthian A. 24, 35, 36 apophatic theology 109, 109n34, 157, 157n43 Apuleius 25n16, 115, 116 De Deo Socratis 115, 115n44 Florida 115 Aquileia 145 Arabic 145, 145n8 Arianism (theological tradition) 100 Aristophanes 72, 72n41, 92n80 Acharnians 72n41, 92n80 Women at the Thesmophoria 72n41 Aristotle 7, 15, 15n56, 16, 18, 51, 52, 102–104, 118n51, 132, 133, 133n27, 133n29, 161 Categories 7, 14, 103, 103n14 Prolegomena to C. 103, 103n14, 104 corpus 15 curriculum 102 De Interpretatione 7 logic 7, 15 Nicomachean Ethics 16 Organon 7, 14, 15 phrases and formulas 16 Prior Analytics 7 terminology 14, 14n52 tradition 14 Armenian 144, 145, 145n8 Artemis 25, 37, 37n40 Asclepieion 53n29 Asclepius 34, 53 Asia Minor 1, 9 askesis 58n1, 60 Asterius of Amasea 29n25, 148, 148n18 astronomy 38n42, 51, 52n23 Athanasius of Alexandria 12, 151

184 Athens 1–3, 8–10, 14, 16, 20, 21, 25, 26, 35, 41n2, 42, 43, 51, 63, 63n13, 66–69, 92, 117, 135, 149, 162 athletics 22, 22n1, 33 audience 62, 63, 77, 83n68, 116, 120, 134, 135, 138, 140, 157 Aelius Aristides’ a. 55 Basil’s a. 83 Byzantine 159 Christian 89, 105 Constantinopolitan 18, 106, 118 Dio Chrysostom’s a. 118 Gregory’s a. 2–4, 15, 15n55, 17–20, 29, 32, 34, 36, 39–41, 56, 57, 62, 71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 90, 92–94, 97, 98, 105, 107, 112, 118– 125, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 145, 160, 161 Gregory of Nyssa’s a. 83n68, 90, 96 festival 20, 63n10, 98, 99, 105 Himerius’s a. 69 Lucian’s a. 48 of the Theological Orations 18n65 authenticity (of a text) 23n7, 81n62, 148n17 autobiography 1, 8, 8n27, 9, 53, 146, 160 Babylon 46 banquet host see symposiarch baptism 84–94, 104, 105, 107, 121 Basil of Caesarea 8–12, 33, 52, 57, 61n8, 71– 75, 81–83, 108–110, 131, 147 Adversus Eunomium 108n30, 108n31 Hexaemeron 75, 76n50, 81, 81n62, 83n68 basilikos logos 12 Basilius (proconsul) 67–69 Bedouins 136 Bendideia 41n2, 42, 51 Bendis 41n2 Bible 2, 31, 57, 58, 63, 76, 87, 99n4, 102n9, 128–132, 138 biography 48, 49 bios praktikos 58n1 bios theoretikos 58n1 birthday 84, 85, 93, 161 bishop 2, 4, 10, 11, 28, 29n25, 61, 71, 102, 146– 148, 161 Bithynia 9n29 Brumalia 23, 23n5 Burkert, Walter 22n2 Burning Bush 59n3

general index Byzantine accounts of theoria 159 art 144 commentaries on Gregory 144n4 ecclesiastical literature 2 literature 3, 12, 21, 143, 146, 147 Orthodoxy 155 philosophical and theological discourse 143, 147, 159, 162 philosophical education 106n25 reception of Gregory 2n5, 84 rhetorical curriculum 146 theological tradition 149, 151 tradition of self-representation 146n11 Byzantium 21, 23n5, 143, 144n2, 146, 160 Caesarea (Cappadocia) 7, 8, 10, 57, 61n8, 81, 108, 131 Bishop of C. 10 Caesarea (Palestine) 1, 1n2, 8, 52n28 Caesarius (brother of Gregory of Nazianzus) 1n2, 4, 5, 9n31 Callicles (character in Plato’s Gorgias) 72 Callimachus 5 Cameron, Averil 26 Cappadocia 1, 2n4, 4, 9–14, 21, 29n25, 52n27, 57, 58, 58n1, 75–77, 81, 95, 98, 117, 131, 145, 147, 149, 149n24, 155, 155n37, 158 C. Bishop 29n25, 148 C. Father 1, 3, 32n30, 52, 99, 133n29, 147, 148n18, 149 C. influence 150 Carthage 12 Cassius Dio 65n21 Castalian Spring 44 celebration, public see festival, public Cena Serapica 80n59 Ceos 68 Cephalus (in Plato’s Republic) 42, 43, 43n8 Chaerephon (character in Plato’s Gorgias) 72–74 Chalcedon (Fourth Ecumenical Council) 15n54, 143, 161 Charikleia (character in the Aethiopica) 44, 135, 136 Choricius of Gaza 28, 29 choros/chorus 52n23, 67, 68, 69, 124n8

general index Christ 32, 36, 75, 76, 83–90, 93, 95, 96, 105, 107, 108, 121, 129, 130 Christian 50, 56, 57, 57n39, 59, 66, 82, 85, 86, 99, 102, 161 apologetic literature 31 discourse 74, 99, 157 exegetes 139 festivals 26, 161, 162 intellectuals 4, 60, 116, 119n52 leadership 72 life 4 literature 88, 160 parents and pupils 61n8 philosophy 52 preachers 4, 39 priest 74 rhetor 64n14, 83n68, 140 sermons 26, 41 tradition 41, 49, 98, 121 truth 58n1, 76 virtues 4, 30, 58n1 world 145 Christianity 23, 32, 39, 76n53, 86, 99n4, 105, 107, 125, 126, 149 Christmas 2, 3, 12, 20, 30, 32n29, 60, 75, 83, 112, 118, 124, 162 Christmas or Nativity Oration (Or. 38 of Gregory of Nazianzus) 124 Church 1, 2, 10, 35, 89, 147 Father 2, 57n39, 104n20, 133n29, 137, 151 of the Holy Apostles 146 Cicero 128, 129 Cincius Alimentus 24n9 City Dionysia 41n2, 51 clause 6 Clement of Alexandria 30, 52, 52n26, 58, 117, 117n50, 133n29 cola 64 commentators 15n56, 70, 71, 103, 103n14, 106, 141n49, 143–146 consolatio (genre) 16 Constantine vii (emperor) 145, 146 Constantinople 2, 8, 8n24, 9n31, 11, 12, 18, 32n29, 96, 98, 100, 106, 118, 131, 131n22, 145, 148, 153, 155, 161 Bishop of 2, 5, 28, 146, 161 Patriarch of 21 contemplation 96, 98, 100, 102n9, 107–117, 121, 138, 141, 147, 151, 155–162

185 self-contemplation 121, 121n3 contest athletic 22n1 dramatic 77 gymnastic 77 in prose encomia 24n10 Coptic 145, 145n8 Corpus of Hermogenes see Hermogenes cosmogony 75, 76, 80, 116, 161 cosmology 75, 82, 83, 124n8 Council ecclesiastical 20 Chalcedon 15n54, 143, 161 in Trullo 23, 23n5 Second Ecumenical (First Council of Constantinople) 11 Creation 75–78, 80–84, 117, 118, 122–124, 127, 127n13, 161 Creator 76, 116, 141, 152, 156 Crispinus (acquaintance of Libanius) 9n29 curriculum logical 15 philosophical 7, 7n20, 13, 15, 17, 71, 71n36, 73, 84, 96, 104, 106 rhetorical 5, 6, 61, 146 Cynic discourse 30 Cyprian (of Carthage) 12 Cyrene 102 Cyzicus 100, 108, 131 daimon 115 Damascus 145, 152 Daniel (prophet) 129, 130 Daphne (suburb of Antioch) 23 David 129, 130 David (commentator of Aristotle) 106n25 deification 20, 98, 107, 118, 120 Delphi 22, 44, 45, 135 Demetrius of Phaleron 130, 135 demigod 115 Demiurge 56, 76, 76n51, 78, 79, 80, 81, 81n61, 83 Demophilos (Homoian bishop of Constantinople) 11 Demostheneia festival 22n1, 24n10 Demosthenes 146 On the Crown 146 Demosthenes, C. Iulius 22n1 ps.-Demosthenes 92, 93n83

186 dialogue (philosophical) 7, 14, 17, 19, 20, 29, 41–48, 51, 62, 63, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 78, 96 prelude to a d. 70, 79, 94, 97 diatribe 41 diction 6, 62, 112, 151 Dio Chrysostom 3, 6, 20, 25, 42n6, 110–118, 147, 161, 162 Olympic Discourse 20, 25, 110–118 Diocletian 35 Dionysia, City (Athenian festival) 41n2, 51 Dionysius of Halicarnassus 70n33, 130, 134, 135 ps.-Dionysius of Halicarnassus 25, 25n12, 27, 28, 29, 32, 39, 46, 47, 59, 61, 160 On Epideictic Speeches 24, 25, 39n44, 61 ps.-Dionysius the Areopagite 20, 21, 143, 149–152, 155, 158, 159, 162 Mystical Theology 59 On the Divine Names 149–152, 155n34 Dionysus 27, 67 Diotima 51, 54, 55, 117 Dormition of the Virgin 155, 155n34, 155n36 Dorotheus (Palestinian archimandrite) 145n7 dynamis 61 Easter 2, 12, 30, 31, 66, 71, 71n38, 95, 105, 107, 107n28, 112n37, 122, 145n7 ecclesiastical calendar 20 education 61, 147, 160 Gregory’s 1, 1n3, 3, 147, 160 literary 3 philosophical 8, 15, 19, 106 rhetorical 3, 7, 8, 39, 64, 96 Egypt 24n9, 44–47, 114, 135 ekphrasis 20, 22, 25, 27, 41–47, 65–68, 120, 122, 123–128, 134, 134n34, 135, 141 Elea 41n2 Eleusinian Mysteries 51, 116, 117 Elias (Neoplatonist) 106n25 Elijah (Prophet) 102n9 Elm, Susanna 60, 65n20, 71, 72, 74n47, 90, 91 emperor 11, 12n45, 33, 55n34, 145, 146, 155 emphasis 139n45 enargeia 20, 120, 122n4, 126–130, 134n33, 135, 136, 140, 140n47, 141

general index encomia 12, 24n10, 144, 144n3, 151 Ephesus 22, 53 epic poetry 66 Epicureans 134n32 Epinomis 51, 52n23 Epiphany 2, 12, 56, 118 Epistle to the Ephesians 89 Epistle to the Hebrews 76 epitaphios logos 12 Er, myth of (in Plato’s Republic) 51 eros 1n2, 47 Erotes (of Lucian) 47, 48 Ethiopic (language) 145, 145n8 ethos 102n9 etymology 37–39, 57, 63n11, 160 Eucharist 105 Eunapius 63n12, 64n14 Eunomians 18, 100, 101, 101n8, 131, 131n24 Eunomius of Cyzicus 100, 101, 108, 109, 131, 131n22 Euripides 5, 72, 72n41 Telephus 72n41 Eusebius of Caesarea 73n46 Praeparatio Evangelica 73n46 evidentia 122n4, 128, 129, 134 exarch 120 Exodus 59, 59n3 exegesis 19, 38, 39, 57, 58–63, 69, 71, 83n68, 86, 98, 104, 110n36, 117, 132, 139, 140, 140n46, 140n47, 143, 161 exemplum 59, 130 fasti 23 Feast of the Dormition 155n34 Feast of the Nativity 20, 159, 162 Feast of the Transfiguration 153 Feast of the Weeks 57 festal oration see festival oration festival anniversary f. of a colony 87 audience see spectatorship banquet 76 community 22n2 Delphic 22n2 descriptions of 25 Egyptian 23n7, 24n7 festival oration 2, 3, 4, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 25, 25n12, 29, 31, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 46, 56, 62, 63n10, 65, 69, 71, 77, 89, 95, 102, 106,

187

general index 107, 110, 120, 125, 126, 145, 147, 148, 149, 152, 161 Christian 26n18, 26n19, 29, 35 Classical 26n18, 26n19 performance of 46 heavenly f. 141 in Pergamum 54, 55 f. liturgy 145 night f. 43 of Easter 105, 107 of Heracles at Thebes 24n9 coming of age festivals 91, 92, 93 of the Holy Lights (Epiphany) 56, 88, 99, 100, 102, 104, 106, 119, 160 of the Nativity 56, 107, 143 of New Sunday 12, 66, 120, 122, 123, 124, 125 of Pentecost 126 of the Weeks 126 Olympic (original) 23, 25, 110 pagan 4, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36 spectatorship 18, 46, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 63, 76n54, 96, 98, 125, 126, 128 torch procession 96 figures of speech 6, 128, 134, 148, 153 Florida (of Apuleius) 115 florilegia 155 form (Platonic) 51, 56n36, 84, 112, 113, 117 Gaza 28 Genesis 56, 76n50, 83n68 genre 12, 35, 47, 63n11, 75 geography 46, 47 Georgian 144, 145, 145n8 Germanos (Patriarch of Constantinople) 155 Glaucon (Plato’s brother in the Republic) 42, 43, 51 glosses 38 gnosis 151, 159 Golden Mean 14n51, 16 Good Friday 95 Gorgias 73 Gorgonia (sister of Gregory of Nazianzus) 4, 5n12 Gospel 88, 120 grammatikos/grammaticus 5, 25n16 grammatistes 5 Gregory of Nazianus

audience 2–4, 15, 15n55, 17–20, 29, 32, 34, 36, 39, 40, 41, 56, 57, 62, 71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 90, 92, 93n83, 94, 97, 98, 105, 107, 112, 118–132, 138–145, 160, 161 career 1 childhood 1 education 1, 1n3, 3, 5, 7, 8, 147, 160 philosophical training 13, 15 preludes 71 Or. 2 Apologetikos 71–74 Or. 4 First Invective Against Julian 127 Or. 28 On Theology 17 Or. 38 On the Nativity 75–83, 107–119, 124, 143, 147–149, 151–156, 159, 160 Or. 40 On Baptism 84–94, 104 Or. 41 On Pentecost 12, 31, 38, 41n1, 56, 118, 120, 126–142, 148n21 Or. 42 Syntakterios 146 Or. 44 On New Sunday 12, 65, 66, 122–126 Theological Orations 13–15, 15n55, 16, 17, 38n43, 59, 100, 102, 104, 108n29, 126, 137, 138 Gregory of Nazianus the Elder 4, 71 Gregory of Nyssa 14, 14n50, 21, 58, 59, 63n10, 75n50, 81n62, 83n68, 89, 90, 92, 95, 96, 109, 109n34, 131, 147, 147n13, 148n18 De Tridui Spatio 95 De Opificio Mundi 83n68 Life of Moses 58, 59 On the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste 83n68 Gregory the Presbyter 8n27, 144, 144n3 gymnasium 53 habitus 4 Hadrian 18, 22, 63n11 Hagia Sophia 153, 156 hagiography 8n27, 29, 144 hebdomad 57 Hebrew 38, 39, 57 hegemonikon 133, 137, 137n41 Heliodorus 22, 22n2, 44, 47, 48, 135, 161 Hellenic see Greek Hellenism 22, 52 Hellenistic Period 134n32 Hellenists 147 heortology (study of festivals) 24 Hera 37n40 Heraclea Pontica 9n29

188 Herakleia 48 Herakles 48 heresy 90, 93n83 Hermaeus 24n9 hermeneutics 61 Hermogenes 6, 64, 65, 69n30, 141n49, 146 Corpus of Hermogenes 6, 64, 69 On the Forms of Style 69n30, 146 On Invention (falsely attributed to Hermogenes) 64, 65, 69 hero 44, 143 Herodotus 23, 23n7, 46, 65, 66, 66n23, 92 Hesiod 5, 34 Hesperus (evening star) 68, 69 Himerius 1, 1n3, 8, 10, 25, 25n15, 66–69 historia 58 Holy Spirit 88, 89, 100, 120, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 131n22, 131n24, 132, 136, 137, 138, 138n42, 138n43, 139, 140, 141 Homer 5, 65n20 homiletic tradition 149 Homoian theology 11 homonymy 14, 15, 15n53, 61 Homoousians 11 humanitas 91 hymn 123, 145, 152 prose 25, 25n13, 32n29, 34 hymnography 21, 145 Hypsistarians 4 Iamblichus 51n22, 73, 73n46, 102, 102n12 icon 51, 156 of Virgin Mary and Child 156, 159 Iconium 147 Iconoclasm 155, 155n37, 156, 156n38 Iconophiles 155, 156, 156n38 idea (Plato) 55 Imperial period 3, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 41, 47, 48, 61, 61n8, 69n30, 91, 102, 104, 135 Incarnation 28, 83, 84, 148n21 indalma 112, 150, 158, 159 initiate 30, 60, 91, 117n49 initiation 117, 118n51 inscription 22n1, 24, 90, 91, 92, 93 invention (εὕρησις) 6, 64, 65, 69 Ionia 92 Isaiah 89, 131n24 Isauria 10 Isis 23, 25n16, 114

general index Israel 129, 139 James (Apostle) 132 Jerusalem 126, 145, 152 Jews 126 John Chrysostom 30, 83n68, 109, 109n33, 110 On the Incomprehensibility of God 109 John Lydus 24, 24n8 De Mensibus 24n8 John of Damascus 145 John of Sardis 141n49 John Sikeliotes 146, 146n10 John the Evangelist 15n54, 132, 143–144 Jonah and the whale 74 Judaism 4, 52 Julian (emperor) 11, 65, 65n20, 127 Julian (teacher of Prohaeresius) 64n14 Kalasiris (character in the Aethiopica) 44– 47, 135, 136 Kalends 23, 23n5, 25, 25n12, 27 kanon 145, 152 katabasis 95 katharsis 19, 60n6, 98n2, 99, 102, 102n9, 103, 104, 119, 121, 161 Knemon (character in the Aethiopica) 135, 136 Koressos 53 Kosmas of Jerusalem 145 koureotis 92n80, 93 Late Antiquity 2, 3, 15, 19, 20, 23, 23n5, 24, 41, 42, 47, 48, 55, 61, 61n7, 62, 63, 67n25, 69, 71, 75, 77n55, 90, 91, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 103, 104, 106, 106n25, 133, 135, 144, 145, 149n22, 159 Latin 5 tradition 128 translations into L. 145, 145n8 Leo iii 155 Leucippe and Cleitophon 42n5, 69n30 lexica 87, 144 Libanius 3, 9n29, 10, 25, 27, 29, 32, 37, 37n40, 41, 46, 47, 123, 147, 160 Hymn to Artemis 37n40, 63 Life of Gregory of Nazianzus (Gregory the Presbyter) 144, 144n3 Life and Miracles of Thekla 69n30

general index liturgical calendar 2, 12 Liturgical Orations (Byzantine selection of orations of Gregory of Nazianzus) 2, 144n6 liturgy 18, 20, 143, 144n6, 145, 160, 162 locus amoenus 69n30 logic 61, 101 logos 31, 32–36, 39, 61, 62, 122n4, 127, 141, 160, 162 Logos (God the Word) 30, 31, 32, 32n29, 34, 35, 39, 56, 76, 76n53 ps.-Longinus 135 On the Sublime 52, 135 Longus 22 Lucian 47, 47n11, 48, 69n30, 161 De Dea Syria 23, 23n7 Symposium 69n30 Lucianic 23, 47, 47n11, 48 corpus 23n7 Ludi Apollinares Circenses 53n29 lyric poetry 67, 68, 69 Lysias 135 Maccabees 12 Maccabees, Fourth Book of 136n39 Macedonius 12, 131, 136n39 Manetho 24n9 manuscripts 67n26, 144n5 illuminated 144, 144n6 tradition 25, 32, 47n11 Marinos 48, 49 martyr 10, 12, 29, 83n68, 123 Matthew (Apostle) 132 Maximus the Confessor 21, 151, 151n26, 151n27, 152, 158, 159, 162 Ambigua 149n22, 151 Mediterranean 18, 29 Eastern 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 18, 22, 23, 24, 30 Menander 5 Menander Rhetor 24, 25n11, 25n12, 35, 36, 37, 38n42, 39, 124n8, 160 metaphor 50, 51, 52, 54, 63, 73, 74n47, 76, 78, 79n58, 80, 81, 83, 84, 87, 90, 117, 137, 138 metastasis 128n15 Metochites, Theodore 144n3 mimesis 20, 105, 106, 119, 119n52, 121 Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre 152 monasticism 10, 136 Moses 58, 59, 59n5, 102n9, 109n34

189 Mount Sinai 59, 136 Mouseion 45 Muses 27, 33, 35, 45, 139 mystagogue 30 mysteries 49, 50, 51, 60, 63, 93, 94, 101, 116, 117, 117n50, 118n51, 141, 154 mystery religions 117n50 mysticism 58, 86, 153n32, 154 myth 44, 51, 72, 72n42, 73, 74 mythos 73 nameday 84, 85, 86, 87, 93 Narrationes (pseudo-Nilus) 136 Nativity 12, 20, 30, 36, 56, 75, 107, 109, 111, 115, 116, 124, 150 Feast of 20, 107 for Gregory’s oration see “Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 38” Nemesius 133n29 Neo-Arian 60, 100, 101n7, 131, 131n22 Neo-Arian Eunomians 18, 100, 101n7 Neoplatonism 7, 19, 21, 48, 49, 61, 69, 70, 71, 73, 103, 104, 143, 149, 157n42, 161 Neoptolemus 44 New Sunday 12, 65, 66, 120, 122, 123, 124, 125 New Testament 76, 88, 89, 149 Nicene 11, 60, 110 criticism of Neo-Arian discourse 101n7 Fathers 52 neo-Nicene Christians 91 Orthodoxy 20 theology 11, 101 tradition 109 Night Festival (Pergamum) 34 Niketas David 144n3 Nikolaos (author of progymnasmata) 134, 134n34 Nile 45, 46, 47 ps.-Nilus 136 Nonna (mother of Gregory of Nazianzus) 4, 5n12 ps.-Nonnus 144n5 Nonnus of Panopolis 144n5 novel (Greek) 19, 22, 23n2, 44, 46, 47, 48, 135 nous 54 number symbolism 57 nymphs 22n2

190 Odysseus 65n20 Odyssey 65 Oenoanda in Lycia 22n1, 24n10 Old Church Slavonic 145, 145n8 Old Testament 122, 138, 141 Olympia 39n44, 110, 118, 147 Olympics 20, 23, 25, 51, 161 Olympicus oration see Dio Chrysostom, Olympic Discourse Olympiodorus 71, 71n36, 73, 103, 103n18, 103n19, 104 Opus 51 oracle 44, 50, 72 oration 13, 19, 56, 57, 58, 62, 64, 65n21, 66, 67n26, 68, 71, 74, 74n47, 77, 84, 85, 88, 93, 95n85, 96, 98, 102, 106, 115, 120, 124, 127, 132, 138, 143, 144, 145, 146, 152, 161 deliberative 64 festival 2, 3, 4, 24, 25, 29 funeral 4, 33 inaugural 71 judicial 64 thanksgiving 25n16 thematic 18 Origen 8, 52, 52n26, 52n28, 57, 58, 58n2, 59, 77, 117n50, 133, 140n47 Orthodox theology 98, 106, 119, 120 Osiris 23, 114 Ovid 23 paean 53n29 pagan 4, 13, 17, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 50, 61n8, 74, 104, 116n48, 139, 161 intellectuals 60, 116, 119n52 paideia 3, 9, 13, 15n55, 19, 22n1, 36, 63, 104, 106, 116, 118, 161 Palatine Anthology 92 Palestine 1, 8, 9, 145n7 Pallas 67 Pan 22n2 Panathenaea, Greater 41n2 Panathenaea, Lesser 41n2 Panathenaic Festival 25, 67, 67n25, 67n26 Panathenaic ship 67, 67n27, 68, 69 panegyris 22n2, 25, 41, 64, 65 Papaioannou, S. 127, 146 parody 47, 48, 72n41 Pascha 95, 96 Passover 57, 126

general index patristic authorities 149 literature 138n43 period 52 theology 152 tradition 58n1, 59n5 Paul 102n9, 149 Peiraeus 41n2, 42, 43, 51 Peloponnese 23, 25, 110 Pentecost 2, 3, 12, 31, 38, 41n1, 56, 57, 118, 120, 121, 125, 126, 128, 129, 160 pepaideumenoi 3, 4, 13, 50, 55, 99, 105, 119, 161 Pergamum 34, 53, 54, 55 Peripatetic 15, 15n56 periphrasis 37n39 peroration 85, 123, 141 persona 149 Peter (Apostle) 129, 132 phantasia 112, 113, 133, 133n27, 133n29, 134n33, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140n47, 141, 150, 152, 154, 158, 159 phantasma 112 Phidias 110, 110n36, 111, 112 Philagrios (Gregory’s old friend from Athens) 16 Philip of Opus 51, 52n23 Philo (of Alexandria) 52, 52n26, 52n27, 57, 57n39, 58, 59, 59n3, 75, 77, 77n55, 78, 80, 83, 83n68, 117n50, 133, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140n47, 141 De Opificio Mundi 75, 77, 80, 141n48 Philokalia (Origen) 52 philologoi 39 philosopher 7, 13, 17, 18, 19, 38n42, 41n2, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 64n14, 69, 74, 82, 106, 110, 113, 119n52, 121, 133n28 philosophia 4 philosophical contemplation 18, 46, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 55n34, 56n35, 57, 59, 60, 75, 76, 76n54, 110, 110n36, 125, 141, 162 philosophical culture 13, 17, 19, 57, 98, 99, 102, 104, 128 philosophical discourse 2, 3, 4, 54, 78, 98, 104, 114, 116, 125, 161 philosophical life 73n43, 74, 106 philosophizing 3, 4, 16, 31, 36, 37, 38, 40, 56, 56n35, 57, 85, 94, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107n27, 116n48, 119, 121, 122, 126, 160

general index philosophy 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 45, 46, 47, 50, 56n35, 70, 73, 73n43, 74, 76, 78, 94, 103, 104, 105, 106, 112, 117n50, 121, 134n32 Classical 12, 13n46, 19, 133, 162 festival 120 natural 2, 7, 38, 82 ethical 2, 15–16 metaphysical 2, 7 pagan 161 performance of 3, 13, 17, 19, 20, 36, 40, 41, 47, 48, 49, 53, 55, 57, 96, 98, 99, 105, 107, 119, 120, 121, 143, 159, 160, 161 philosophia praktike 58n1 philosophia theoretike 58n1 theoretical 118 Philostratus 55n34, 63, 63n12, 69 Lives of the Sophists 55n34, 63, 63n13 Phlegon of Tralles 24n9 Phoenicia 63n13 Photius 21, 143, 156, 157, 158, 159, 162 phratry 91, 92, 92n82 pilgrim 10, 44, 46, 50, 51, 53, 54, 76, 76n54, 110 pilgrimage see pilgrim Pindar 5, 67, 68 Piraeus 41n2, 42, 43, 51 Plato 7, 14, 17, 17n61, 18, 26, 28, 29, 37, 37n40–41, 41, 42n6, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55n34, 56, 69, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79n58, 82, 82n63, 83, 84, 101n8, 103, 106, 112, 112n38, 113, 117, 121, 125, 133, 133n27, 133n29, 141, 146, 147, 161 dialogues 14, 69, 69n30, 70, 70n32, 72, 73, 96 prologues 70n32, 76, 78, 94 Alcibiades i 7, 71n36, 73 Apology 146 Cratylus 13, 37, 37n40, 38, 101n8 Gorgias 7, 71, 71n36, 72, 73n43, 73n46, 74 Laws 26, 27, 29, 51 Parmenides 7, 41, 51, 69 Phaedo 13, 50, 102, 102n11, 104, 105, 106 Phaedrus 17, 42, 47, 50, 51, 54n36, 56, 69, 69n30, 70, 113, 114, 116, 147, 161, 162 Republic 13, 17n61, 41, 41n2, 42, 42n6, 43, 44, 50, 51, 54, 70, 104, 113 Symposium 17, 41, 41n2, 47, 50, 51, 54, 55,

191 55n34, 56, 69, 69n30, 112, 112n38, 113, 117, 162 Timaeus 7, 13, 17, 41, 50, 51, 56, 56n37, 75, 75n50, 76, 78, 79, 79n58, 80, 81, 82, 83, 83n68, 84, 92, 116, 124n8, 141, 161 Theaetetus 69n30, 106, 121 Platoneia 48, 49 Platonic 13, 14, 37n39, 52, 56n36, 60, 61n8, 62, 63, 63n6, 70n32, 114, 159 atmosphere 42, 48 dialogues 19, 20, 29, 47, 62, 63, 63n11, 70, 75, 94, 97 discourse 30, 99, 116 doctrine 99n4 exegesis 59n3 influence 75n48 language 56, 104, 162 parable 59 pedigree 59 prelude 75 theoria 51, 53, 55n34, 118 theoros 59 tradition 17, 58n1, 76 Platonization 102, 114, 116 Platonism 7, 14, 15, 16, 61, 75n48, 76n53, 99, 102, 104n20, 116 Platonist 57, 59n3, 103 Ploiaphesia 25n16 Plotinus 7, 14, 17, 48, 49, 102, 102n12 Enneads 14, 17 Plotinian 16 Plutarch 23, 23n7, 24n9, 61n8, 69n30, 114, 115, 116, 135 Amatorius 69n30 De Audiendis Poetis 61n8 On Isis and Osiris 23, 114, 116n46 Plynteria 41n2 Pneumatomachians 131, 131n22 poet 5, 49, 68, 92, 111, 112, 113, 144n5 poetic rhythms 148, 153 Polemarchus (son of Cephalus) 42, 43 Polemo of Ilion 24n9 politographos 91 Pontus 10, 71 Porphyry 7, 14, 14n50, 15, 48, 49, 106 Eisagoge 7, 14, 106 The Sacred Marriage (lost poem) 49 Porphyrian terminology 14, 14n52

192 Pothos (Byzantine official) 84n69 pothos 119 predicables 7, 14 prefect 64n14, 106 priamel 37, 37n40 Proclus of Athens 41n2, 48, 69, 70, 94, 96 Proclus of Constantinople 28, 29, 29n25, 148n20, 148n21, 149 proconsul 64n14, 67 progymnasmata 5, 6, 19, 25, 41, 48, 64, 123, 128, 134, 134n34, 135, 141n49 Prohaeresius 1, 1n3, 8, 10, 64n14 prooemium 19, 28, 33, 35, 57, 58, 62, 63, 63n11, 63n13, 64, 64n14, 65, 66, 66n23, 68, 69, 69n30, 70, 71, 75, 79, 80, 86, 87, 89, 90, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 161 prophecy 44, 45, 89, 109, 126, 128, 129, 131, 132, 137, 138, 139, 140 Protrepticus (Iamblichus) 51n22, 73n46, 102 psalmist 129 Psellos, Michael 84, 84n69 purification 19, 56, 57, 59, 60, 60n6, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102n9, 104, 105, 107, 118, 119, 121, 161 pyramids 45, 46, 47 Pythagorean 57 Pytho 39n44 Quintilian 128, 134, 135n36 Institutio Oratoria 128 reconsecration 65, 66, 122 rededication 66 rhetor 5, 24, 25, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 46, 47, 53, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 71, 75, 83, 83n68, 96, 98, 116, 120, 126, 127, 128, 128n15, 134, 135, 138, 140, 149, 160, 162 rhetoric 1, 5, 8, 35, 53, 63, 66, 68, 69, 73, 74, 79n58, 120 curriculum 61, 146 culture of the Second Sophistic 3 education 64, 96 epideictic 3, 4, 18, 24, 25, 32, 39n44, 61, 64, 65, 66, 115, 116 exercises 49, 55, 122, 123 figures 148, 153 Gregory’s background in 13 handbook 24, 25, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, 134, 160

general index Imperial Greek 18 performance 53, 54, 55 persona 59 prooemia 96 spectacle 141 strategies 120, 143 style 148n17 theory 6, 20, 70, 122, 126, 132n26, 140, 141 tradition 25, 26, 35, 128, 136, 139n45, 160 treatises 63 rhythm 6, 64, 148, 153 ritual 50, 51, 52, 63, 76n54, 93 spectatorship 50, 116, 117, 118 Roman calendar 24 Roman Empire 1, 18 Rome 53n29 Rufinus of Aquileia 145, 145n8 Sabbath 38, 39, 57 Sacred Tales (Aelius Aristides) 53, 54, 55, 161 The Sacred Marriage (poem by Porphyry) 49 Sarapis (god) 80, 80n59, 81 Sasima 10 Satan 87, 88 satire 23n7, 47, 48 scholia 92n80, 128, 128n15 Seven Wonders of the World 110 science, natural 45 Seleucia 10 Septuagint 76 Severans 18, 22 Simonides 67, 68 skiagraphia 108n29 Sminthiakos logos 25, 36, 39, 124n8 Socrateia 49 Socrates 37n41, 41n2, 42, 43, 43n8, 48, 49, 51, 54, 55, 55n34, 63n11, 72, 73, 73n43, 73n45, 74, 78, 79, 80, 113, 117, 161 Socrates (author of Historia Ecclesiastica) 1n3, 29n25, 81n62 Solomon 100 Song of Songs 86 sophist 63, 110, 147, 148n20 Sophistic 8n27 long Second 3, 19, 21, 159, 161

193

general index Second 2, 18, 18–19, 20, 22, 110 Third 3 soul 17, 51, 54, 55, 58n2, 59, 60, 66, 66n24, 73, 73n45, 74, 74n47, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 107, 113, 114, 122, 124, 126, 127, 130, 132, 133, 136, 137n41, 138, 142, 148, 156, 159 stasis theory 6 state religion 26 Stoic 61n8, 118n51 conception of the soul 137n41 criticism (of texts) 61 discourse 30, 116n47 doctrine 113 epistemology 133, 137n41 thought 140 tradition 137, 139 Stoicism 139n45, 140n47 sub oculos subiectio (rhetorical figure) 128 substance (οὐσία) 11, 14 Suda 24n9, 92n80 sycamore fruit 129, 130, 131 Symeon the New Theologian 15n54 symphonia 38n41 symposiarch 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 83 Synesius of Cyrene 102 synonym 61, 113, 134 Syriac 144, 145, 145n8 Tarsus 146 technydrion 101 Telephus 72, 72n41, 72n42, 73, 73n45, 74 Telephus (Euripides) 72n41 tetraktys 57 Theagenes (character in the Aethiopica) 44, 135, 136 Thebes 24n9 Thekla 10, 69n30 Themistius 3, 13, 15, 15n56, 83n68, 106 Theodosius 11 theologia tripartita 113 “Theologian, The” (epithet of Gregory of Nazianzus) 2, 12, 15, 15n54, 21, 84n69, 143, 144n2, 147, 149n22, 159, 161, 162 theology 16, 45, 62, 63, 100, 101, 116, 139, 143

apophatic/negative 20, 109, 157 Byzantine 21 comparative 46 Homoian 11 Nicene 11 Orthodox 98 Patristic 152 theoria 18, 19, 20, 21, 44n9, 45, 46, 50, 51, 52n23, 53, 54, 55, 55n34, 57, 58, 58n1, 58n2, 59, 60, 60n6, 61, 62, 72, 74, 76, 82, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 102n9, 104, 109n34, 111, 114, 116, 117n50, 119, 120, 122, 125, 128, 141, 142, 143, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 155, 156, 159, 162 theoria (as a prefatory discussion to a philosophical lecture) 70, 71 theoros 44, 46, 50, 51, 55, 59, 110n36, 120, 122, 124, 125, 141, 143, 154, 161 theosis 20, 98n1, 105, 106n24, 107, 107n27, 118, 119, 120, 161 Thesmophoria 72n41 Thessaly 44, 45 Timaeus 78, 79, 80 Themistocles 64n14 Theophany 75, 148n21 Thespesios 8 Thucydides 135 topos 29, 58n1, 67 tragedians 5 Transfiguration, Oration on the (Andrew of Crete) 155 translatio temporum 128, 129 Trinitarian theology 121, 126 Trinity 56, 75, 131, 132 Trullo (Quinisext Council) 23, 23n5 Tuscianus 64n14 universals 14, 14n52 Urban Prefect 106 Valens 11 Valentinus 23 Virgin 148n21, 155n34, 156, 159 vita activa 58n1, 72 vita contemplativa 58n1, 72 Webb, Ruth 127, 128n16, 132n26, 133n27 wedding celebration 84, 85, 86, 93

194 Wörrle, Michael 22n1 Xenophon of Ephesus 22, 22n2 Zeno of Elea 41n2

general index Zeus Olympian 39n44, 110 statue of 110, 110n36 temple of Z. Asclepius 34