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Of Thorns and Roses: The Logic of Belief in Gregory Nazianzen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Frederick W. Norris
Frederick W. Norris
Affiliation:
professor of Christian doctrine in the Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee.
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Extract

In the twentieth century some significant secondary literature concerning Gregory Nazianzen has emphasized either his attacks on philosophy or the absence in his works of a rationale for the relationship between philosophy and theology. At times these apparent weaknesses are explained as integral to his rhetorical education and interests, almost as if all rhetoricians are the opposite of philosophers. Rosemary Ruether's Gregory of Nazianzus: Rhetor and Philosopher, the most influential monograph to deal specifically with these questions in the last few years, does depict Nazianzen's rationale for relating philosophy and theology. Yet she concludes that “we would be wrong if we were to suppose that Gregory either acknowledges or is aware of any dependence of Christianity on those [philosophical] traditions,” even though he loved and studied them. For her the Cappadocian stands in the line of Christian apologists who saw both Greek philosophy and religion as blasphemous.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 1984 , pp. 455 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1984

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References

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Church History in Washington, D.C. on 28 December 1982. I wish to thank the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The Catholic University of America for a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in 1981–1982 which offered the time and support for unhindered study of Nazianzen.

1. Guignet, Marcel, S. Grégoire de Nazianze et la rhétorique (Paris 1911)Google Scholar, Fleury, Eugene, S. Grégoire de Nazianze son temps (Paris, 1930)Google Scholar, and Plagnieux, Jean, S. Grégoire de Nazianze Théologien: Études de science religieuse (Paris, 1952)Google Scholar tend to describe Nazianzen as a technical rhetorician rather than a sophisticated philosopher.

2. Ruether, Rosemary, Gregory of Nazianzus: Rhetor and Philosopher (Oxford, 1969), pp. 174 and 167.Google Scholar

3. ad Seleucum 1.61. Greek text with Latin translation in Migne, Jacques Paul, Patrologiae cursus completus series graeca (Paris, 1862), vol. 37,Google Scholar col. 1581 (Hereafter cited as PG) and de vita sua 1.472; PG 37, 1062.

4. Oration (hereafter, Or.) 32.26; PG 36, 201. Or. 29.2; PG 36, 76. Or. 31.6; PG 36, 140. Or. 27.10; PG 36, 24–28. Or. 32.15; PG 36, 189–192. Or. 4.72; PG 35, 661.

5. Or. 32.25; PG 36, 201. de virtute 48–49; PG 37, 684. Or. 23.12; PG 35, 1164. Ep. 32; PG 37, 69. Or. 27.10; PG 36, 24–28.

6. Or. 4.72; PG 35, 661; Or. 27.10; PG 36, 24–28. Or. 28.8; PG 36, 33–36. Or. 29.2; PG 36, 76. Or. 4.72; PG 35, 661 Or. 27.10; PG 36, 24–28. Or. 28.4; PG 36, 29–32. Although most commentators attribute the citation in Or. 28.4 to Plato's Timaeus, 28c, Pépin, Jean, “Grégoire de Nazianzen, Lecteur de Ia Littérature hermétique,” Vigiliae Christianae 36 (1982): 251–260,Google Scholar demonstrated that the citation occurs almost word for word in the Hermetic writings. See Festugiére, André, Corpus Hermeticum vol., 3 (Paris, 1954)Google Scholar, fr. 1.1, p. 2, 1–2. Or. 4.43–44; PG 35, 568 and 570. Or. 32.25; PG 36, 201.

7. Or. 28.30; PG 36, 69–72. Or. 31.15–16; PG 36, 149–152. Or. 31.5; PG 36, 137.

8. Ibid.Or. 43.64; PG 36, 580–581. Or. 43.60; PG 36, 573–575. Or. 4.43; PG 35, 568 and 570. Or. 28.16; PG 36, 45–48.

9. Gottwald, Ricardus, De Gregorio Nazianzeno Platonica (Vratislaviae, 1906).Google ScholarDörrie, Heinrich, “Gregors [Gregor von Nyssa] Theologie auf dem Hintergrunde der neuplatonischen Metaphysik,” Gregor von Nyssa und die Philosophie (Leiden, 1976), p. 21,Google Scholar correctly criticizes Gottwald's work as improper. Gottwald did depend too heavily on single words. But parts of his investigation can be appropriated by more critical studies.

10. Or. 43.11; PG 36, 508–509. The translation is by McCauley, Leo P., Funeral Orations by S. Gregory Nazianzen and S. Ambrose, Fathers of the Church 22 (New York, 1953), pp. 35–36.Google Scholar The italics are mine.

11. See his description of what is necessary for a theologian, Or. 27.3; PG 36, 13–16 and Or. 28.1–3; PG 36, 25–29.

12. Or. 43.23 and 68; PG 36, 525–528 and 586–588.

13. Or. 29.21; PG 36, 101–104.

14. Or. 29.2 and 9; PG 36, 76 and 84–85.

15. Wickham's, Lionel, “The Syntagmation of Aetius the Anomean,” Journal of Theological Studies 19 (1968): 532–569,CrossRefGoogle Scholar offers an edition which indicates how much Aetius relied upon theological syllogisms. Richard Paul Vaggione's forthcoming edition of the pieces from Eunomius demonstrates that he also depended upon such methods.

16. Contra Eunomium 1.5 and 9; PG 29, 516 and 532. Elsewhere within this work Basil did employ Aristotelian syllogisms for his own purposes.

17. Or. 29.12; PG 36, 89. Compare Aristotle, The Categories of Interpretation 2a, 26–43, trans. Cooke, H. P., Loeb Classical Library (hereafter LCL) (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), p. 84.Google Scholar Eunomius saw the point about agennātos and did not find it telling, Apology 8; PG 30, 844. Or. 29.15; PG 36, 93. Compare Aristotle, Categories la, 20–24, LCL, p. 14. Or. 30.15; PG 36, 124. Compare Aristotle, On Sophistical Refutations 167a, 1–7, trans. E. S. Forster, LCL, p. 26. Among many examples, see Or. 29.7–8; PG 36, 84. Compare Aristotle, , Prior Analytics 64a, 33–38,Google Scholar trans. H. Tredennick, LCL, p. 482 and Aristotle, Rhetoric 1419a, trans. J. H. Freese, LCL pp. 462–466.

18. Focken, Johannes, De Gregorii Nazianzeni Orationum et Carminum Dogmaticorum Argumentandi Ratione (Numberg [sic Nurnburg], 1912).Google Scholar

19. Ibid., pp. 3–20.

20. Ibid., pp. 20–35.

21. Or. 30.4, 6–8, 10–12 PG 36, 108, 112–113, 116, 120.

22. Johannes, Leunclavius, ed., Gregorius Nazianzenus, Operum tomi tres. Aucit nunc primum Caesarii, Eliae Cretensis Episcopi, Pselli, et ipsius Gregorii librorum aliquot accessione (Basil, 1571), particularly pp. 118–119.Google Scholar The comments excerpted by Jahn and printed in PG 37 do not do justice to Elias's learning and insight as the fuller Latin translation of Leunclavius does. Vatican Green 1219, the main manuscript for Elias's commentary on Gregory, has not been edited yet.

23. Or. 29.9; PG 36, 84–85. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.196–197, trans. R.D. Hicks, LCL, pp. 308–310.

24. Rist, John M., “The Importance of Stoic Logic in the Contra Celsum,” in Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought: Essays in honour of A.H. Armstrong, eds. Blumenthal, H.G. and Markus, R.A. (London, 1981), pp. 64–78.Google Scholar

25. The strongest possible evidence for Nazianzen's dependence on Aristotelian logic would be at hand were we certain that an anonymous piece, which includes a synopsis of logic and comments on the quadrivium, had been written by him. In the seventeenth century Johannes Wegelinus edited this synopsis and the quadrivium. On the basis of Augsburg manuscripts 1600 and 1602 he placed them under Gregory's name. Omont's inventory of Greek manuscripts at Paris notes that Greek 2062 has a synopsis of the Aristotelian Organon which he describes as ex ore Gregorii Nazianzenii. The problem, however, with such a fourteenth-century Byzantine manuscript is that this late use of the phrase apo phones (from the voice of) most often designates material as after the style and thought of a famous person rather than from the hand of that authority.

Johan Heiberg published a modern critical text of the Anonymi Logica et Quadrivium, “Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser XV, 1” (Copenhagen, 1929).Google Scholar He indicated that Vatican Greek 15 from the fifteenth century and Vatican Greek 1026 from the fourteenth or fifteenth century place the synopsis under the name of Gregory, while Paris Greek 1931 from the sixteenth century and Laurentian. LVIII 20 from the fifteenth century carried the name of Gregory for the quadrivium. But Heiberg left the piece anonymous because some manuscripts attributed the quadrivium to Psellus and the two oldest manuscripts from the eleventh century, Palatin. Heidelberg Greek 281 and Mutin. Estens. III C 11, are anonymous.

While reading through Heiberg's edition I found no contents which demand that the synopsis be attributed to Nazianzen. Some enterprising student of antiquity or Byzantium might be able to identify this interesting work. The case made in this paper is enhanced by the fact that some copyists and editors have seen similarities between the work of Nazianzen and this synopsis of Aristotelian logic.

26. Or. 28.28; PG 36, 65–68. Also see Or. 28.16–17; PG 36, 45–49.

27. Or. 29.21; PG 36, 101 -104. Also see Or. 36.4; PG 36, 269.

28. Kennedy, George, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill, 1980), pp. 143–145.Google Scholar

29. Kennedy, George, Greek Rhetoric Under Christian Emperors, History of Rhetoric 3 (Princeton, 1983), pp. 215–239.Google Scholar

30. For a scathing criticism of Basil's approach, see Ernest Fortin, “Hellenism and Christianity in Basil the Great's Address Ad Adulescentes,” in Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought, pp. 189–204. His quotation of passages from Nazianzen's Ep. 58.11–12 indicates that some of the opinions which he abhors in Basil are to be found in Gregory.

31. Grimaldi, William, Studies in the Philosophy of Aristotle's Rhetoric, Hermes Einzelschriften 25 (Wiesbaden, 1972)Google Scholar, brilliantly describes the Aristotelian basis of philosophical rhetoric. For a concise, definitive discussion of “philosophical rhetoric” see Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, chap. 4.

32. Or. 27.3; PG 36, 13–16. Or. 32.26; PG 36, 204. Or. 43.23 and 68; PG 36, 525–528 and 586–588. Or. 4.70; PG 35, 592. Ep. 32; PG 37, 69.