Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
207-28
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Over the last couple of decades, scholars have begun to reexamine Nyssen's
ascetic theology and specifically the place of virginity and sexuality in it. Mark
Harthas arguedthatscholarshave exaggeratedNyssen's praise of the celibatelife
as superiorto the life of marriage.2Hartclaims that the idealistic terms in which
Nyssen depicts virginity and the hyperbolicrhetoricwith which he critiquesmarriage suggest an intentionallyironic praise of celibacy. As HartinterpretsNyssen,
far frombeing superiorto the marriedlife, celibacy accommodatesweak Christians
who lack the couragenecessaryto withstandthe passionsandinsecuritiesof worldly
attachmentsthat would keep them from the contemplative life-the life which
calls to all Christians,single and married.3The absolute renunciationof marriage
remainsfor those who cannot rise above the temptationof "gratifyingsymbiosis"
thataccompaniesthe marriedlife.4Recently,JohnBehrhas soughtto supportHart's
interpretationof Nyssen's view of marriageand celibacy, arguingthatsuch a reading appearswholly consistent with Nyssen's theological anthropologyas laid out
in De hominis opificio.5By this account,God fashioned humanbeings as hybrids
possessing both the rationalnatureof God and the angels and the non-rationaland
corporealnatureof all the lower creatures.Essential to humans'kinship with the
animals,they sharethe genderand sexualityof the corporealnature.Whenordered
by the rationalsoul, the animal soul and body attainperfection,precisely because
reasongoverns them.6Behr concludesthatgiven the power of the rationalfaculties
to orderthe non-rational,Nyssen's theory of creationopens the possibility "fora
restoreduse of humansexuality, an exercise of sexuality underthe full autonomy
of reason, in an angelic mode, in which the human being fulfills its purposein
creationof upliftingand integratingthe life of the body and the senses with reason
and the divine."'
Hart'sandBehr's worksindeedhave advancedNyssen scholarshipby highlighting the dynamicrelationshipbetween the rationaland non-rationalfacultiesof the
soul-a relationshipthat,farfrombeing dualistic,reflectsNyssen's psychosomatic
2 MarkD. Hart,"Reconciliation
of Body and Soul: Gregoryof Nyssa's DeeperTheologyof
Marriage," Theological Studies 51 (1990) 450-78; and "Gregory of Nyssa's Ironic Praise of the
Celibate Life," HeythropJournal 33 (1992) 1-19. Hart'sinterpretationof Nyssen's views of marriage
474.
SHart,"Reconciliation,"
4
Ibid., 455-56.
John Behr, "The Rational Animal: A Rereading of Gregory of Nyssa's De hominis opificio,"
Ibid., 226-27.
7 Ibid.,224.
J. WARREN
SMITH
209
8 Behr objects to the "synthetic" reading of Nyssen that has led interpreters to import the
"garments of skin" allusion to Gen 3:21, which depicts sexuality and man's bestial nature as a
postlapsarian addition to human nature. This language, he rightly points out, does not appear in
De hominis opificio. We should read Nyssen's words carefully in terms of the internal logic of the
passage rather than "looking further afield for confirmation or corroboration" (Behr, "Rational
Animal," 222-23). The treatmentof the passions, virtue, the resurrection, and the images of God
is consistent within his works on ascetic theology, De hominis opificio, De vita Macrinae, and De
anime et resurrectione, which were written together between 379 and 381. Therefore, it is quite
reasonable to test one's reading of De hominis opificio against Nyssen's argumentsin De vita Macrinae and De anime et resurrectione.
9 Hom. opif 2.2 (Patrologia Graeca [PG] 44:133a).
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toIbid. 2.1 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2 [NPNF2] 5:390; PG 44:133a-b).
" Nyssen explains that the humanmind, in bearing the image of the divine, shares the inscrutable
nature of its archetype (ibid. 11.3 [PG 44:156b]).
12 Ibid. 12.3 (PG 44:157c).
' Ibid. 8.1-2 (PG 44:144b-c); 8.8 (PG 44:148d-149a); and 9.1-2 (PG 44:149b-c).
14 Ibid. 10.2-3 (PG 44:152b-c).
'5 Ibid. 4 (PG 44:136b-c). Nyssen identifies those virtues that display God's own beauty and
sovereignty and with which man is equipped as purity, freedom from passion, blessedness, and
alienation from all evil. The divine faculties are reason, rationaljudgment, and apprehension(ibid.
5.1 [PG 44:137b]).
'6Ibid. 16.11 (PG 44:184b).
17Anim. et res. (PG 46:61b-c).
J. WARREN SMITH
211
18"Thus so long as [mind] keeps in touch with [God], the communication of the true beauty
extends proportionallythroughthe whole series, beautifying by the superiornaturethat which comes
next to it; but when there is any interruptionof this beneficent connection, . . . then is displayed
the misshapen character of matter, . . . and by its shapelessness is also destroyed that beauty of
nature with which it [i.e., body] is adorned through the mind" (Hom. opif. 12.10 [NPNF2 5:399;
PG 44:161d]).
19"Let no one suppose ... that in the compound nature of man there are three souls welded
together..... The true andperfect soul is naturallyone, the intellectual and immaterial,which mingles
with our material natureby the agency of the senses .. ." (ibid. 14.2 [NPNF2 5:403; PG 44:176b]).
Although Nyssen readily describes ournatureas compound (which reflects the hierarchyof creation),
he steadfastly refuses to speak of it as a microcosm. Our dignity lies in our likeness to God, not in
our similarity to the gnat or the mouse (ibid. 16.1-2 [NPNF2 5:404; PG 44:180a]). Similarly, in De
anima et resurrectione, Nyssen insists that the essence of human naturelies in its uniqueness, what
distinguishes it from all other creatures, the rational image of God (PG 46:53a).
20
Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim 9, 3.5-6 and De civitate Dei 14.22-24.
21
Behr, "RationalAnimal," 235.
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27 "Forit is verycertainlyacknowledged
natureis alsoimmutable,
andalways
thattheuncreated
remainsthe same,whilethe creatednaturecannotexist withoutchange;for its verypassagefrom
nonexistence to existence is a certainmotion and change of the nonexistent transmutedby the Divine
purpose into being" (ibid. 16.12 [NPNF2 5:405; PG 44:184c]).
J. WARREN
SMITH
213
... is the tendency of the motion of man's will-as He saw what would be, He
devised for His image the distinctionof male andfemale, which has no referenceto
the Divine Archetype,but, as we have said, is an approximationto the less rational
Thus while God addedgender as a partof humannatureprior to the fall,
nature."28
the reason for the additionlay in God's anticipation of the fall.29
Behr contendsthatthis passage (16.14) introducesNyssen's catabaticanthropology, characterizedby the overturning(Fiutorpopif)of reason'spropergoverning of
creation.This overturningof the created orderresults from "humankind'sappropriation to the more non-rationalnature."30
Although passion certainlyoverturned
the rule of reason, humanity'sfailure to follow reason did not give our mode of
procreationits bestial character.Rather,Nyssen says, God's fashioningof humanity
as male and female, a function of our kinship with the non-rationalanimals, gave
the bestial characterto humanprocreation.One should note, however, that Nyssen does not present the account of God's creationof the double aspect of human
naturebased on Gen 1:26-27 in neutralterms. Rather,his exegesis grows out of
his concern for the discontinuitiesbetween the archetypaldivine nature and the
presentstate of humannature.He poses a question:"how then is man, this mortal,
passible, short-livedbeing, the image of that naturewhich is immortal,pure, and
He then introduceshis interpretationof Gen 1:27:
everlasting?"31
Let us turn our inquiry to the question before us-how it is that while the
28 Ibid.
without"evena hint"thatGod'sforeknowledge
of the fall influencedGod'sfashioningof humanity (Behr,"RationalAnimal,"235-36). Behris correctthatin 16.9, whereNyssen describesthe
distinctionbetweentherationalandthe non-rational
aspectsof humannature,he does not mention
of the fall as thereasonfor addinggender.Nyssendoes,however,makethis
God'sforeknowledge
pointlater,at 16.14.
30Behr,"Rational
restsuponhis translation
of
Animal,"238,emphasisoriginal.Behr'sargument
as "the distinc... i~ d&XoyuTdpa
"tiv iTpRi To ppev K Ofihu 5tagopdv .poo
eeiwa0t n oet"
tion of male and female, which ... has been appropriatedto the more non-rational nature"(237).
The word npooqKeiumcat from npoootFet6), according to Liddell and Scott, means "to assign" or
"to associate with." Therefore, the sense would be that the distinction between male and female is
associated with the non-rational nature of animals rather than the rational nature of God. This is
the more straightforwardmeaning of the term, given the contrast Nyssen is making between the
divine image and the non-rationalnature.
31
32
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34 Behr,"Rational
Animal,"239-45.
J. WARREN
SMITH
215
For [humanity]truly was made like the beasts, who received in his naturethe
presentmode of transientgeneration,on account of his inclinationto material
Tv tp6;gtr61o6Seg I otnv).
things (86t&h
For I think thatfrom this beginning all our passions issue as from a spring,
and pour their flood over man's life; and an evidence of my words is the
kinship of passions which appearsalike in ourselves and in the brutes;for it
is not allowable to ascribe the first beginnings of our constitutionalliability
to passion to that human naturewhich was fashioned in the Divine likeness;
but as brute life first enteredinto the world, and man, for the reason already
mentioned, took something of their nature(I mean the mode of generation),
he accordingly took at the same time a share of the other attributescontemplated in that nature;for the likeness of man to God is not found in anger,
nor is pleasure a mark of the superiornature;cowardice also, and boldness,
and the desire of gain, and the dislike of loss, and all the like, are far removed
from that stamp which indicates Divinity.36
Here Nyssen restates his earlier claim that God made humans like the beastsof their sensual inclinations. But he
equipped for sexual procreation-because
also asserts that the passions proceeded from this animal mode of generation. His
words at the beginning of chapter 18-'!from this beginning all our passions issue as from a spring"-suggest that the "beginning" of passion springs from the
"inclination to material things" and that this inclination arises specifically from
the animal mode of generation.
The list of impulses that constitute this "beginning" (anger, pleasure, cowardice,
boldness, desire of gain, dislike of loss, and the like) do not seem to have anything
to do with sexual procreation per se. Yet he makes the point that human beings
took "something of their nature (I mean the mode of generation)" and "a share of
the other attributes contemplated in that nature." The passions arise from those
impulses that necessarily accompany the animal mode of procreation. He does
not consider the impulses in themselves as bad; on the contrary, he regards them
as necessary for the survival of the animals. Yet in human beings, the impulses of
animals become passions precisely when they receive direction not from reason
but from the uncritical drives of the non-rational faculties:
These attributes,then, humannaturetook to itself from the side of the brutes;
for those qualitieswith which brutelife was armedfor self-preservation,when
transferredto human life, became passions; for the carnivorousanimals are
preservedby their anger,and those which breed largely by their love of pleasure. ... All these and the like affections enteredman's composition through
the animal mode of generation (8th Ti;g
KltivC)6og;yevi(E)co).37
What does Nyssen mean by saying that "all these and the like affections entered
man's composition through the animal mode of generation"? One possible reading
36
37
216
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J. WARREN
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217
218
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humannaturecannotreflect,thesewe considerexternalsbecausetheyarenot
perceivedin thebeautyof the archetype.44
In otherwords, the intellectualfaculties of the soul enable us to participatein and
enjoy the blessings of the divine nature, while the non-rationalfaculties of the
soul serve the mundanepurposeof acting in the world. When reason controlsthe
non-rationalfaculties, the resultingmoral good can serve the contemplativeends
of the soul's ascent to God.
Returningthen to Nyssen's explanation of the human mode of reproduction
in chapter 17.4-that God "formedfor our naturethat contrivance for increase
which befits those who had fallen into sin .. ."-we note the second important
point in Nyssen's statement that God "implant[ed]in mankind, instead of the
angelic majesty of nature,that animal and non-rationalmode [of procreation]."
Here Nyssen answers the question of how humanbeings would have procreated,
had they not fallen. Had God known thathumanswould remainturnedtowardthe
intelligible goods properto theirnature,he would have equippedthe humanform
with the mechanism that allows for asexual procreationamong the angels. Since
God foreknew our fall and our sensual orientationakin to the animals, however,
he gave humans a mode of procreationlike the animals: "God contrivedfor His
work the distinctionof male and female."45Nyssen's significantcontrastbetween
the animal mode of procreationand the angelic nature suggests an alternative
form of humanembodiment.Contraryto Behr's insistence that genderand sexual
reproductionremainessential to human natureas the perfect synthesis of the rational and animal natures,Nyssen says explicitly that the structureof the human
body could have and would have taken anotherform had human history been on
trackfor a differentdestiny. In otherwords, humanitycould representthe unionof
the rational,divine natureof angels with the sentient, materialnatureof animals
without incorporatinginto the humanbody all the functions and capacities of the
animals. Nyssen regardsthis as true in two ways. First, although mankindforms
the midpointbetween the divine andthe animals,God intentionallydid not give to
humanbeings the naturalpowers of speed or covering or strengthor "weaponry"
(e.g., horns or claws or venom).46Even as human beings obtain food and defend
themselves by different means than do animals, so too might they procreatedifferently. Second, and more importantly,the human body in the resurrectionwill
transforminto the angelic naturethatGod intendedfromthe beginning,while at the
same time retainthe materialcomposition of the animal-likebody. To understand
J. WARREN
SMITH
219
this point, one must examine Nyssen's treatmentof the relationshipbetween the
angelic natureand the body of the resurrection.
E
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closely relatedto thatof the angels, it is clear that the life before the transgression
was a kind of angelic life, and hence also our returnto the ancientconditionof our
life is comparedto the angels."50Nyssen repeatedlyspeaks of the resurrectionas
a "restoration"or a "return"to the angelic life.
One shouldnot, however,interpretthe languageof restoration
(dnocKa~acraut
or ird6voSo;)to mean that the resurrectionindicates simply a returnto Eden.As
Brian Daley has observed, the "restorationto our ancient state"does not referto
some prehistoricalexistence; rather,it means "the actual perfection or 'fullness'
of the rationalcreature'spossible reality,eternally presentin the mind of God, a
or
that pre-exists the human race's historicaljourney and becomes
6onog; goal
realizedin creaturesgraduallyin time."5'Thusthe resurrectionbringsthe fulfillment
of the germinallyperfect form, or nature,fashioned accordingto the divine image
that God createdpotentially at the level of his will and foreknowledge before his
actualmakingof Adam.52The only sense in which the resurrectionrepresentsa true
restorationof humanity'shistoricalpast arises from the notion that God will free
the body of the resurrectionfrom the effects of sin. Comparingthe resurrectionto
the cleansing of the leper Naamanthe Syrianin the riverJordan,Nyssen says that
"the deformity of sickness takes possession of the form [of the body] like some
strangemask, and when this is removed by the word, ... the form that had been
hiddenby disease is once more by means of health restoredto sight again with its
The form (E'i8o;)here does not referto universalhuman
own marksof identity.""53
naturebut to the distinctive form of each individualpreservedin the soul, which
ordersthe body's scatteredbits of matterto that form. He makes the criticalpoint
that the body restoredwill resemble the body of Eden only as a pristinematerial
body devoid of the effects of sin.
Nyssen elsewhere identifies aspects of Eden that God will restorein the resurrection-the tree of life, the original grace of the image and dignity of rule-yet
he says explicitly that we hope not for those things given to humanityby God for
the "necessary uses of life" but ratherfor the things of a kingdom of ineffable
As does Origen,Nyssen appealsto Paul's analogy of the grainandbody
mystery.54
of corruptionin 1 Cor 15:42. Even as the plantthatemerges from the buriedgrain
50 Hom. opif 17.2 (NPNF2 5:407; PG 44:187d).
5' Brian E. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church:A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 85-86. Morwenna Ludlow concurs: "Gregory'sidea of
the perfection of human kind is more a forward-lookingattainmentof an ideal than a retrospective
restorationto an actual previous state."(Universal Salvation: Eschatology in the Thoughtof Gregory
of Nyssa and Karl Rahner [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000] 43).
52See Johannes Zachhuber's discussion of De hominis opificio 16 and 22 in Human Nature in
Gregory of Nyssa: Philosophical and Background Theological Significance (Boston: Brill, 1999)
154-59.
opif. 27.4 (NPNF2 5:418; PG 44:225d-228a).
SHornm.
54 Ibid. 21.4 (NPNF2 5:411; PG 44:204a). Nyssen repeats the reference to the restorationof
our primal grace, i.e., the beauty of the divine image untarnishedby sin, in Anim. et res. (PG 46:
156d).
J. WARREN
SMITH
221
produces "the same species ... born again as had grown in the beginning,"but in
radically glorified appearance,so too humanityof the resurrectionreproducesits
state in Eden, but changed into something more magnificent.55Thus resurrected
humanitywill resemble humanityaccordingto the divine image as God willed it
in the beginning, free from non-rationalimpulses given in accommodationof the
impending fall. Consequently,the angelic life of the resurrectioncannot suit the
life of animals, then perfectly governed and orderedby reason, as Behr argues.
Rather,for Nyssen, the angelic life of the resurrectionmeans a life oriented not
at all to the sensual but to God, whose life-giving power sustains human beings
in body and soul.
Nyssen groundshis understandingof the transformationof our earthlybodies
into spiritualor angelic bodies upon his ontology of quality. Ratherthan basing
his anthropologyon a hylemorphictheory of substance (i.e., prime mattergiven
identity by the imposition of form), Nyssen sees human beings as a collection of
intelligiblepropertiesor qualities(0tot6tnlev).56This does not say thathe abandons
the concept of matter.As in his discussion of the incarnationin AntirrheticusadversusApollinarium54, Nyssen uses the term Xkrlto refer,notjust to the matterof
the body, but to the whole person, body and soul, which Christtook from Mary's
womb.57This ontology of quality lays the foundation for Nyssen's accounts of
the resurrectionand of our divinization in this life. As a collection of intelligible
qualities, which can change, a human being can, by contemplative participation
in God and asceticism, take on the divine qualities or attributesof God. So too in
the resurrection,the creative powers of God change the qualities of the body, and
the soul whose vision of the divine communicates the divine qualities of purity
and incorruptibilityto the body sustains it. Since "one grace will shine upon all,"
all will transforminto homogeneous bodies, which will manifest the virtues and
This understandgraceof Christ,who shinesuponus, andin whom we participate.58
of
the
communication
of
qualities by contemplativeparticipationconstitutes
ing
the central grounds for his conception of the angelic life and thus the life of the
resurrection.
At the end of chapter 18, Nyssen appeals to the model of the angelic life to
describe the characterof the divine image restoredin humanityeschatologically.
He addressesthe imagined objection of someone who "feels shame at the fact that
our [present]life, like that of the brutes, is sustainedby food, and for this reason
deems manunworthyof being supposedto have been framedin the image of God."
Such an objectionassumes an incongruitybetween our sharedlife with the beasts,
in which food sustains us, and the life characteristicof one made in the image of
55Anim. et res. (FC 58:270; PG 46:156c).
56
Richard Sorabji, Matter, Space, and Motion: Theories in Antiquity and their Sequel (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988) 52-55 quoted in Daley, "HumanForm Divine," 6.
57See Daley's very helpful discussion in "HumanForm Divine," 6-7.
58De mortuis (Gregorii Nysseni Opera 9, 65.13-66.16) in Daley, "HumanForm Divine," 16.
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a God, who does not need food. According to the logic of Behr's reading,Nyssen
should simply reply: humanity as the midpoint of creation must share with the
beasts a naturenourishedby food-for thatremainsessential to the animalnature
humanitypossesses. Unlike the beasts, however, reasoncontrolshumans'appetite
for food. Therefore,our sharedmode of sustenanceshould not cause shame.This,
however, Nyssen does not reply.To begin with, he does not dismiss the suggestion
thatwe shouldfeel shameat being like the non-rationalanimals.Rather,he accepts
the premisethatthis formof animalnaturerepresentsless thanwhatGod originally
intendedfor humanity.In fact, freedomfrom this aspect of animal natureremains
partof our eschatological destiny.
But he [i.e., the personfeeling shame]may expectthatfreedomfromthis
function[i.e., eating]will one day be bestoweduponour naturein the life
we look for;for,as theApostlesays,"theKingdomof Godis not meatand
drink;"andtheLorddeclaredthat"manshallnot live by breadalone,butby
as the resureverywordthatproceedethout of the mouthof God."Further,
rectionholdsforthto us a life equalwiththe angels(i6cyyekov),andwith
the angelsthereis no food,thereis sufficientgroundforbelievingthatman,
who will live in like fashionwiththe angels,will be releasedfromsuch a
function."9
Nyssen's position has clear logic. In the resurrectionwe shall cease resemblingthe
beasts sustainedby food; instead, as creaturesbearingthe uncompromisedimage
of God, we shall resemble the angels, sustained by the word of God, the object
of our eternal adorationand contemplation. Since human beings will derive an
immortal existence from their contemplative participationin God's eternal and
incorruptiblebeing, no need for the non-rationalfaculties currentlynecessaryfor
our survivalindividuallyand as a species will arise. Even as we shall have no need
for eating or drinkingto sustain the humanbody, neithershall we have a need for
sexual reproductionto perpetuatethe humanrace.
Nyssen's suggestion thatour contemplativeparticipationin God will sustainus
eschatologically reflects his view of the soul's mediatorialrole in relationto the
body. Earlierin De hominis opificio, he explains that as the soul acts as a mirror
thatreflects or possesses the qualities of the object of its contemplation,so too the
body functions as a "mirrorof the mirror"and reflects the qualities of the soul.
Thus the mind, when set upon God, conforms to the beauty of God's virtuesand
transmitsthat beauty to the body, which it rules.6"Nyssen may well draw on the
Plotinianview of the mediatorialrole of the soul in giving form to matter.Plotinus
explains that Mind, or vo;g, apprehendsthe unitarybeauty of the One as a multiplicity of ideas or forms. When the soul unites with voig in contemplationof the
One, it communicatesthe beautyof the One to the materialbody by imposingform
on matter.Thus the soul can rightly govern the body and give it its properform
59
60
J. WARREN
SMITH
223
and beauty, only as long as it actively participatesin the One throughcontemplation.61This may indeed reflectthe logic of Nyssen's view of directedparticipation.
When the soul unites with God in contemplation, it receives life and beauty by
participatingin God, who representslife itself. This divine life transmitsin turnto
the body.62In this way the soul's communionwith God, not physical nourishment,
sustains the body.
This view of angelic humanityof the resurrectionappearsfully consistent with
the account Nyssen gives of the resurrectionin another work, De anima et resurrectione, written about the same time as De hominis opificio. The body of the
resurrection,he says, will remainthe very body thatwe have possessed in this life,
restoredwith all the elements as well as the form it had duringthis life.63Although
Nyssen does not say explicitly, he implies that the bodies of the resurrectionwill
retain the phenotypic features that markedit for gender in this life. In the eschaton, however, when God becomes "all and in all," we shall use neitherthe sexual
organs nor the organs used for eating and digesting food; no one will need to eat
or to drink or to procreate,since our participationin God will sustain our lives.
Contrastingthis life with that to come, he writes:
Ourpresentlife is lived by us in variedand multifarious
ways.Wepartake
of manythings,suchas time,air,place,eatinganddrinking,the lightof the
sun, lamplight,andthe manyothernecessitiesof life, and God is none of
these.However,the blessednesswe look forwardto requiresnone of them
and,insteadof these,thedivinenaturewill becomeeverythingto us impartto everyneed of thatlife. This is clearfromsacred
ing itself harmoniously
whichtell us thatGod becomesa place to thosewho are
pronouncements
anddrinkandlightand
worthyanda homeanda garmentandnourishment
wealthanda kingdomandeveryideaandnamewe havefor whatmakesup
the good life.64
Following this view to its logical conclusion, he admitsthatif our directparticipation in God sustains our whole being, then we shall not need even those organs
(such as heart,liver, brain, lungs, stomach) that constitute "the life-giving cause
61
Once the soul becomes distracted and immersed in the material world, which does not inherently possess form or beauty, it can no longer communicate form and beauty to the body. See
Plotinus, Enneads 1.6.2 and 4.8.6.
62 "Thus so long as one [i.e., mind]
keeps in touch with the other [i.e., God], the communication
of the true beauty extends proportionallythrough the whole series [including the body], beautifying by the superior nature that which comes next to it; but when there is any interruptionof this
beneficent connection, or when, on the contrary, the superior [i.e., the mind] comes to follow the
inferior [i.e., the body], then is displayed the misshapen character of matter, when it is isolated
from nature (for in itself matter is a thing without form or structure), and by its shapelessness is
also destroyed that beauty of nature with which it is adorned through the mind" (Hom. opif. 12.10
[NPNF2 5:399; PG 44:161d]).
63The soul remains with all the elements of the body, dispersed though they are, so that they
may come together at the resurrection(Anim. et res. [PG 46:44c-d and 73b-77b]).
64 Ibid. (FC 58:243-44; PG 46:104b-c).
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PG 46:144c-145a).
68 Ibid.
(PG 46:89b-c).
Canticorum,
Nyssenrevisesthis view,insistingthateven eschatologicallywe will be guidedby a
with
humanity'srelationship
holy desirefor God.Eroticlonging,in fact,necessarilycharacterizes
betweenthe creatureandthe creator.See J. Warren
Godbecausetherewill alwaysbe a "distance"
Smith, Passion and Paradise: Human and Divine Emotion in the Thought of Gregory of Nyssa
J. WARREN
SMITH
225
71
226
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the contemplative life of one endowed with the imago Dei, which, for Nyssen,
representsthe essence of humannature."7
E
J. WARREN
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227
In this way, the virgin enters prolepticallyinto the angelic life of the resurrection.
This explains why the celibate life, for Nyssen, representsboth a radical break
from the ordinarylife in the world and a hopeful reorientationof that life toward
our eschatological destiny.
Second, the seeming contradictionssurroundingNyssen's discussion of gender,
the fall, and the angelic life of the resurrectionexpose a fault line in his soteriology
that he never fully overcomes. Two soteriological concerns influence Nyssen's
anthropology:first,the redemptionof the materialbody from corruptionand death,
and second, the purificationand perfection of the soul in the image of God. Yet
neitherin his earlierworks, such as De anima et resurrectioneor De hominis opificio, nor in his laterworks, such as De vita Moysis or Commentariusin Canticum
Canticorum,does he integrate his account of the resurrectionwith his account
of the soul's participationin God. Unlike Origen, for whom the material body
comprises a mere epiphenomenon,useful only as a place of convalescence for the
fallen voS;, Nyssen insists thatthe materialnatureof the body must survive in the
eschaton. One might then reasonablyexpect him to give it the same sacramental
function in the resurrectionfor which God made it in the beginning: to enable us
to see God's goodness andbeautyin creation.Nyssen, however, does not conclude
this. Unlike Augustine, who says that the saints in the eschaton will eat and enjoy
the physical fruits of Paradise(though they will not need to eat in order to live)
and will "see" God in the glorified bodies of the other saints,76 Nyssen says explicitly that no eating or drinkingor having sex or any other physical activity will
take place in the eschaton. He might have concluded that in the resurrectionGod
will become "all and in all" in the sense that in all things we shall discern God's
omnipresentindwelling and thus allow the redeemed material world to mediate
God's presence.Instead,Nyssen insists thatGod's naturewill become all things to
us, and solely ourcontemplativeparticipationin God will sustainus. Thus, Nyssen
places primaryemphasis on the spiritualredemptionof the soul, not the physical
redemptionof the body.
Interestinglyenough, Nyssen remainsconscious of this incongruitybetween his
accountof the resurrectionbody and his view of the soul's angelic participationin
God. Towardthe end of the dialogue De anima et resurrectione,Nyssen objects
thatin Macrina'saccountof the resurrection,God raises the body to little purpose.
Specifically, on the restorationof genitalia in the resurrection,he comments: "If it
is true, as it certainlyis, thatthere is no provision for marriagein the life afterthe
resurrectionand that our life then will not depend on eating or drinking,what use
will the parts of the body be, since in that life we no longer expect these activi-
76Augustine, Civ. 22.29. For an extended discussion of Augustine's eschatology, see Daley, Hope
the
Early Church, 131-50; and Rowan A. Greer, Christian Hope and Christian Life: Raids on
of
the Inarticulate (New York, N.Y.: Crossroad, 2001) 112-60.
228
HARVARD
THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
ties for whose sake the parts of the body now exist?"77While conceding that her
brother,throughskilled rhetoric,has raised reasonableobjections from a worldly
perspective, Macrina dismisses these objections on the ground that they do not
appearrooted in the hidden mysteries of the age to come: "The true reasoning
on these mattersis stored in the hidden treasuresof wisdom and will come into
the open only when we have experienced the mystery of the resurrection."78
In
other words, Nyssen confesses, throughthe voice of his sister,that for the present
time being we must accept certain necessary, though paradoxical,claims of the
faith-here, that a resurrectionof this materialbody will occur and that our lives
will derive from our participationin God-trusting that only in the resurrection
will the divine logic become apparent.
While modernreadersmay find it frustratingthatNyssen never fully integrates
his accounts of the resurrectionbody and the soul's angelic life of the eschaton, we may find it helpful to rememberthat De hominis opificio, as De anima
et resurrectione,constitutesa workof EOopia(like Origen'sDe principiis or Basil's
Hexaemeron)-a speculative work that does not offer a single, unified portrait
of human naturebut ratherexplores the many possible trajectoriessuggested by
Scripture.79In the end, Nyssen has a kaleidoscopic anthropology:by twists and
turns,it reveals strikinglydifferentinsights into a mysterytoo great to graspin its
entiretyor to express as a unity.
77
Having voiced this objection, Nyssen falls back to a posture of pious submission to the teach-