GREGORY OF NYSSA: Gregory of Nyssa, a leading Greek theologian of the fourth century and younger brother of Basil the Great (q.v.), died after 394. The date of his birth is unknown, as are the details of his early life, except that he attended pagan schools. That he seems for a while in his youth to Life. have officiated as a lector makes it probable that he was baptized at an early age; but it does not necessarily follow that he was always destined for a clerical career. Later, perhaps between 380 and 365, he was apparently devoting himself to secular business to an extent that gave scandal to some. He certainly married; the Theosebia on whose death Gregory Nazianzen condoles with him (after 381) was evidently his wife, with whom he seems to have lived in conti nence after he became a bishop. The assertion fre quently made that he gave up his calling as a rhet orician and retired to a contemplative life is possible but not demonstrable; nor are the circumstances known under which he became bishop of the small Cappadocian town of Nyasa, on the river Halys and the road from Cæsarea to Ancyra. This oc curred, indeed, before Gregory Nazianzen became bishop of Sasima, and thus before Easter, 372; and he is said to have accepted the episcopal office under pressure. As a bishop, he was one of the Homoousians who had to undergo personal unpleasantness in that difficult time-probably be cause his orthodoxy gave the court party a handle against him which they used in order to get posses sion of his see for one of their own kind. When Demosthenes, the imperial vicar of the province of Pontus, came to Cappadocia in the winter of 375, an obscure person appeared before him with charges against Gregory of malversation of church prop erty, coupled with doubts as to the validity of his appointment. Gregory was arrested and ordered to be brought before Demosthenes; but his suffer ings on the way were so great that he decided to escape. He was condemned in absence by a synod of Pontic and Galatian bishops in the following spring, and was unable to return to Nyssa until after the death of Valens (hug. 9, 378). In the autumn of 379 he was present at a synod in An tioch, and in 381 at the Council of Constantinople, where he preached at the enthronization of Greg ory Nazianzen as bishop of that see, and also at the funeral of Meletius of Antioch. His promi nence among the members of the council appears from the fact that the imperial edict of July 30, 381, names him among the bishops with whom others must be in communion if they wish to be left undisturbed in the administration of their churches. This position of importance entailed difficulties and struggles, and probably led to the journey to Arabia for the purpose of setting in order the ecclesiastical conditions there. He was most likely present at the conferences of 383 in Constan tinople, and in the autumn of 385 or 386 preached at the funeral of the little princess Pulcheria and shortly after at that of the Empress Flacilla. He was present once more at the synodal discussion of an Arabian matter in Constantinople in 394; but no further facts of his life can be traced.

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No final discussion of Gregory's works is possible until more critical labor has been expended upon them than they have yet received. References to the personal history of the author demonstrate the authenticity of a considerable number

Works. of them, including, besides several let ters, the "Hexaerleron," the "Ma king of Man," the "Life of Moses," "Against Usu rers," "Against Eunomius," "On the Soul and the Resurrection," "Eulogy of Basil," "Letter to Peter," and the "Life of the Holy Macrina." An cient external testimony comes to the support of internal evidence in the uses of others, such as "On the Song of Songs," "On Prayer" (five homilies, the last four a careful exposition of the Lord's Prayer), "On the Beatitudes," the "Great Cate chetical Oration," "Against Apollinaris," and the "Antirrhetio against Apollinares." But, on the other hand, the works either omitted or marked as doubtful by Migne are by no means all the spurious ones which have passed under Gregory's name.

Among his dogmatic works special attention is deserved by the "Great Cathechism," an apologeticdogmatic treatise on the Trinity and the Incarnation with instructions on baptism and the Lord's Supper; the "Soul and the Resurrection"; the treatise against Eunomius, his most extensive work; and the "Antirrhetic," the most important of the extant anti-Apollinarian treatises. Of the exegetical writings, the "Hexaemeron" and the "Making of Man" are the most sober and valuable; in the ethically interesting "Life of Moses" and "On the Superscriptions of the Psalms" the allegorizing tendency runs riot. Among the sermons, those on the lives of Basil and Macrina are the most interesting.

The personality of the man Gregory is difficult to grasp; his works are too rhetorical and too little individual to give a clear conception of it. As far, however, as is determinable, he seems to have had a more harmonious, calm, and

Person- self-controlled character than his ality and brother or Gregory Nazianzen, and to Teaching. have been less forceful but more amia ble than either of them. His theo logical position stands out more clearly than his personal character, though it, too, is lacking in dis tinction. He has few new thoughts, and the form which he gives to the old bears little mark of ge nius. But he was an accomplished theologian, who succeeded in reconciling to a certain extent the Ori genistic traditions with the demands of a theology which had grown narrower and more realistic. He had sufficient acuteness to work among his formulas with technical correctness while satisfying the tend encies of a mystical nature by avoiding precise definition at the right time and rising above the terminology in which the dogmatic controversies of his age expressed themselves. His teaching on the Trinity is so similar to that of Basil and Greg ory Nazianzen that in the case of three works it is safe to predicate the authorship of one of the three men, but impossible to determine which. For his doctrine of the Lord's Supper, see Lord's Supper, II. His Christology also is substantially the same as that reached by Gregory Nazianzen in his later life. A fuller investigation of his whole Christo logical doctrine would need to go deeply into the connection of his thought with those of Origen and Athanasius. It is worth mentioning that he held the Origenistic belief in the final restoration of all things, so that the patriarch Germ anus of Constan tinople in the eighth century imagined his "Soul and the Resurrection" to have been interpolated by the heretics, instead of containing, as it does, genuine Origenism; and here, as with Origen, the foundation of this doctrine is;,o be sought not in the "generic" conception of the humanity of Christ but in his idea of God.

(F. Loofs.)

Bibliography: The earlier Latin editions of the Opera were Cologne, 1537, Basel, 1582 and 1571, Paris, 1578, all surpassed by that of Paris, 2 vols., 1803. The Greek text, with Let. transl., appeared 2 vols., Paris, 1615, with appendix, 1618 2d ed., ib. 1638, the 2d edition inferior, however, to the first in many respects (contents see given in Hauck-Herzog, RE, vii. 146-147). New material was discovered and included in the collection in A. Gallandi, Bibliotheca veterum patrurn, vi. 515-716, Venice, 1770. MPG, xliv.-xivi. included all that had then ben discovered except what the editor rejected as of doubtful authenticity. An excellent edition, .with critical apparatus, was begun by G. H. Forbes, but only two parts ap peared, Burntieland, 1855-81. A selection of the works has been edited by F. Oehler, with Germ. transl., Halle, 1864, and in the Bibliothek der Kirchenvater, vols. i. iv., Leipsic, 1858-59. An Eng. transl. of selected treatises and letters, with a sketch of the life, activities and characteristics, is in NPNF, 2d ser., vol. v., and the CatecAdical Oration, ed. J. H. Srawley, appeared London, 1903.

Consult: J. Rupp, Grepore du Bischofs won Nyssa Loben and Meinungen, Leipsic, 1834; E. W. Moller, Gregorii Nymeni doctrinam de homisis natura, Halle, 1854; J. N. Stigler, Die Psychologie des heiligen Gregor von Nyssa, Regensburg, 1857; J. Huber, Die Philosophie der Kirchenvoter, Munich, 1859; L. Kleinheidt, Sancti Gregorii . doetrina de anpeiis exposita, Freiburg, 1860; P. Bouedron, Doctrines psychologiquea de 8. Grégoire, Paris, 1861; F. BShringer, Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeupen, trol. viii., Stuttgart, 1876; S. P. Heyne, Diaputatio de Gregorio Nysseno, Leyden, 1885; F. W. Farrar, Lives of the Fathers ii. 57-82, New York, 1889; A. Krampf, Der Ursustand des Menschen nach der LeAre des ... Gregor von Nyssa, W6reburg, 1889; F. Hilt, Des ... Gregor van Nyssa Lehre vom Afenachen, Cologne, 1890; W. Meyer, Die Gottealehre des Gregor von Nywa, Leipsic, 1894; F. Diekamp, Die Gotteelehre des . . . Gregor von Nysea, Münster, 1896; F. Preger, Die Grundlagen der Ethik des Gregor von Nywa, Leipsic, 1897; W. Vollert, Die Lahre Gregor# von Nyssa vom Guten and Bdsen, ib. 1897; F. Loofs, Eustathius, Halle, 1898; Ceillier, Auteurs sacrés, vi. 119-258, cf. iv. passim and v. passim; DCB, ii. 781-768; Neander, Christian Church, vol. ii. passim, of. Index; Schaff, Christian Church, iii. 903-908 et passim.