Gregory of Nyssa’s Treatment of Ancient Beliefs in his Homilies

Abstract

In his many homilies, Gregory of Nyssa contrasts Christian belief to earlier forms of belief that were still very present in the Roman empire during the fourth century, namely the classical polytheistic faith and Judaism, with the explicit intention of showing its superiority over them. Even though Gregory is clearly against any belief that is not Christian orthodoxy, he presents these other beliefs from two different perspectives: at times, he presents them as the enemies of Christianity, showing clearly how they seek to harm the true faith; at other times, he also seeks to show how, in a way, they are of benefit to Christianity because their very presence and the behaviour of their followers help to show how much the Christian way of life outshines any other. This discussion on other faiths in relation to Christian belief is present in many contexts; however, attacks on paganism are more evident in the sermons in honour of martyrs, while invectives addressed to Jews are present mainly in his sermons on biblical books. In this paper, an attempt will be made to present in detail what Gregory has to say about these other faiths and their relation to Christianity (desired and factual), concluding with how his attitude towards other faiths can be classified and described.

1. Introduction

When Christ told his disciples “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:20) immediately after speaking of the beatitudes, he set what later Christians would consider as the rule of life that they should follow. With his words, Christ made it clear that his followers should be a cut above the Jews, who in turn had always believed that they were better than pagans. One of the first witnesses to this was Stephen, who, when arrested and accused by the Jews, was seen by them with the “face of an angel” (Acts 6:15). This detail given by Luke immediately puts the Christian Stephen on the good side, and the Jews on the other. In the years that followed, as proven from texts coming from the early the second century, Christians consistently affirmed their belief in the superiority of their faith over other religious systems, with some rare exceptions where pagans are honoured for their heroism (Clement of Rome 1962, p. 5), or when an opportunity for repentance is offered to them as well (Hermas 1962, p. 240); but these are but exceptional cases. Ignatius exhorts the Trallians (Ignatius of Antioch 1962, p. 104) and Polycarp exhorts the Philippians (Polycarp of Smyrna 1962, p. 141) to live in peace in order not to give pagans occasions to calumniate them; in the martyrdom of Polycarp, pagans are presented as “lawless” and both them and the Jews are presented as the enemies of “the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the destroyer of our gods”; (Polycarp of Smyrna 1962, pp. 155 and 157) Hermas criticizes them for consulting fortune tellers (Hermas 1962, p. 285) and exhorts his readers not to imitate even their good actions (Hermas 1962, p. 289) because those who live in the manner of the pagans will eventually fall away from God (Hermas 1962, pp. 316–17). Later on, writers like Tertullian did not hold back from openly insulting pagans, accusing them for the calamities that the empire was facing due to their scorn towards the Christian God (Tertullian 2008, p. 105). The Letter to Diognetus goes a step further, without insults, presenting the Christian way of life as that which keeps the world together (Walsh 1962, p. 362).

Nevertheless, the struggle between divinely revealed truth and idol worship was not something that only the first Christians experienced. The Old Testament is full of stories about the conflict between the Jews and the Gentile nations who worshipped their own gods. Relations with such nations through marriage were expressly prohibited in the Bible, first with regards to the Canaanites1 and then extended to all Gentiles,2 for the reason that such intermingling would bring the people to abandon God and adopt pagan customs. A classic example of this is king Solomon, who had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, many of whom were Gentiles, and he started worshiping their gods and building them temples.3 In his homilies, Gregory of Nyssa makes some references to Old Testament figures, such as Ahab, who made this mistake, and who eventually led the entire nation to apostatize (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990c, p. 112, linn. 19–20).4

In the late fourth century, paganism was still present among the inhabitants of Cappadocia and its neighbouring regions. Direct references can be found in texts such as the second homily on the Forty MartyrsI (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990e), where Gregory mentions a festival in honour of Mars celebrated some days before the feast of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste; other times, the issue of the continued presence of pagans among the now Christianized province, and the alleged problems they caused, can be apprehended through Gregory’s references and attacks on idolatry and pagan worship. Only two decades before Gregory delivered his sermons on the Forty Martyrs, the emperor Julian tried to revive paganism and put in place some hostilities against Christianity, not by organising bloody persecutions as before, but by seeking to drive the religion out of the governing classes of the empire, issuing laws that targeted wealthy and educated Christians (Wiemer 2020, pp. 215–17). This situation prompted questions regarding whether the prominence afforded to Christianity by Constantine could have been revoked at the discretion of subsequent emperors, and maybe it was for this reason that Gregory from time to time hurls harsh invectives against paganism and idol worship. This is best, but not only, seen in the homilies in honour of the martyrs (Leemans 2007, pp. 15–33).

2. Gregory vs. Pagans

The treatment pagans receive in Gregory’s homilies is ample, and it is negative throughout. They are collaborators with devils, have no sexual morality, and are lawless fools; hence, they deserve to be put to shame and their temples and idols ought to be destroyed since they pollute Christian cities.

Gregory does not hesitate to equate idols to demons, calling pagan traditions μῦθοι καὶ πλάσματα, καὶ δαιμόνων ἀπάται συναναμεμιγμέναι τοῖς μυθικοῖς διηγήμασιν5, and states clearly that the source of persecutions, where evil men insanely compete with each other to create the worst kinds of cruelties (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990b, p. 46, linn. 3–5), is the work of evil as best seen through paganism. This is explicitly put forward in several passages of the hagiographical homilies, such as in the following examples from the second homily on the Forty Martyrs and the Life of St Gregory the Wonderworker.

The governor at that time, who practiced polytheism (it was by the stimulus of demons that he took this horrible decision), persecuted Christians by a new legislation and a decree, ordering all his subjects to offer incense to demons, or else, if they refuse, they would be condemned to death, but before dying they would be subjected to a thousand tortures all over their bodies.

(Gregorius Nyssenus 1990e, p. 160, linn. 24–29)6

Anger and envy entered the man in charge of the Roman Empire at that time because the ancestral cults of error were falling into neglect, while the mystery of the Christians was growing and the church was swelling to a multitude everywhere in the civilized world, increasing to great size through those constantly devoted to the word. Thinking his own bitterness strong enough to withstand the divine power and to check the preaching of the mystery while destroying the congregations of the churches, and then to bring those who had progressed in the Word back to idols again, he sent the governors of the provinces an edict decreeing a fearful threat of punishment against them if they would not mutilate with manifold tortures those who worship the name of Christ, and lead them by fear and the coercion of tortures back to their ancestral worship of demons.

(Gregorius Nyssenus 1990b, p. 44, lin. 22–p. 45, lin. 10; Gregory of Nyssa 1998)

A description of idolatry and its effects on man is found in one of Gregory’s last works, the homilies on the Song of Songs. In the first place, idolaters are identified as lawless people who strive without rest in order to keep this “right” to do whatever they want: “You see the wicked guardians of idolatry, which works itself out in impiety and greed, how they keep their watch unsleeping, because they deem it a punishment to be deprived of their lawlessness” (Gregorius Nyssenus 1960, p. 58, lin. 20–p. 59, lin. 4; Norris 2012, p. 66).

Gregory goes on to explain how idolatry is harmful to human nature, not only because it turns man away from God, but because it freezes life in persons, who in turn become “stone” just like the idols they worship, no longer being able to improve their condition. Here, he uses an image that is frequently used in this set of homilies, that of the soul as a mirror. Since a mirror takes on the form of what it beholds, so does the soul. Looking at idols will make the beholder become just like them: lifeless, unchangeable, and non-human (Gregorius Nyssenus 1960, p. 147, linn. 6–14). In other words, what he is saying here is that idolaters in some way lose the divine image engraved in them. This is proven by his comment on them becoming something that is not human; since the divine image is imprinted in human nature, if this nature is in any way altered, consequently, the person loses what is stamped in it. Human nature can be “re-acquired” if the person lets themself be unfrozen and melted by the rays of the Sun of righteousness (Christ) who acts through the Spirit (Gregorius Nyssenus 1960, p. 147, linn. 18–19).

Paganism is also presented as an occasion for humiliation when compared to Christianity. First and foremost, Gregory always presents idolaters as misled fools (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990a, p. 67, linn. 13–14), people with childish minds (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990a, p. 66, lin. 21; 1992a, p 12, linn. 19–20), and compares them to animals such as the donkey in the cave where Christ was born (Gregorius Nyssenus 1996, p. 258, lin. 2). The myths of the classical religions are ridiculed on several occasions: in Theod, the goddess Cybele is compared to a hare or a sow due to her abundant fertility (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990a p. 66, lin. 23–p. 67, lin. 2), while in the first homily on the Our Father, a passing criticism is made of a handful of myths:

And there are some who are captivated by a still more childish version of the same vanity, even exceeding the boundaries of our nature: they either grow wings or shine like the stars or carry mountains in their hand or traverse the heaven by themselves or survive ten thousand years, renewing their youth or many other similarly effervescent and hollow ideas that the heart begets in more infantile people.7

(Gregorius Nyssenus 1992a, p. 12, linn. 15–20; Del Cogliano and Radde-Gallwitz 2021, p. 116)

More often than not, Christians were enticed to sin or to deny their faith because their exemplary behaviour put sinners (usually pagans) to shame. One particular sin which Gregory connects to idolatry is lust, and this is one of the pagans’ favourite temptations to crush a Christian’s virtue. We see this best in the life of Gregory the Wonderworker: the virtuous and chaste Gregory (of Neo-Caesarea) attracted the wrath of his colleagues in Alexandria because they made themselves slaves of lust (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990b, p. 10, linn. 17–18) and, therefore, they tried to ruin his reputation with the help of a harlot (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990b, p. 10, lin. 21–p. 12, lin. 13).

A similar example is found in the homily against the lustful. The pagan Egyptian woman tries to win the favours of her husband’s slave Joseph using the art of seduction (Gregorius Nyssenus 1967a, p. 214, lin. 19–p. 215, lin. 3). Here, Gregory says that the young man preserved himself from “Egyptian fornication”, equating the Gentile woman to the sexual act, making her a personification of this sin. The choice of the pagan woman might have more to it than just a reference to a biblical text, as in the Bible there are many tales of Jews who were guilty of sexual immorality,8 but none of them are used in the homilies as personifications of lust. Gregory is probably using a pagan figure here to represent lust on purpose, in order to better show the dignity of those who follow God’s laws (here represented by Joseph) when contrasted with the ignominy of idol worshippers.

Gregory even presents a negative opinion regarding the presence of pagan temples and practices in cities, because such edifices corrupt people and keep them from joining the true faith. He does not say it in so many words, but it transpires from the adverse way he speaks about the temples in his homilies on the saints. In the life of Gregory the Wonderworker, he states that the city to which the Wonderworker was appointed bishop was under the yoke of demonic deceit due to the large number of pagan temples and shrines erected, and because of the cult which was kept strong by sacrifices and processions (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990b, p. 20, linn. 9–16); this was the reason why there were only seventeen Christians in that city (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990b, p. 15, lin. 25–p. 16, lin. 3). In the panegyric in honour of Theodore, there is mention of the temple of the mother-goddess Cybele built close to a river in Amasea where misled persons (οἰ πλανώμενοι) paid her homage (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990a, p. 67, linn. 12–14). While the Wonderworker exorcised the temple in Neo-Caesarea (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990b, p. 20, lin. 24–p. 21, lin. 3), Theodore set Cybele’s temple on fire (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990a, p. 67, lin. 14–19). I believe we have here a covert exhortation to encourage Christians to object to the building of any new temples in their cities and to try and have the present ones pulled down. This happens to be very close to the Western contemporary Martin of Tours’ motivation to have pagan temples destroyed without any scruples (Sulpicius Severus 2017, pp. 108–10).

Idol worship was seen as a further curse because it brought the sin of division within families. In his narration of the persecutions during the Wonderworker’s life, Gregory mentions the sad stories of Christians who were reported to the authorities by their own relatives who still upheld the ancestral faith (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990b, p. 46, linn. 13–17). The worst aspect of all this is that it shows that sin, in this case idolatry, damages and does away with even natural bonds such as the love and respect of family members. Could Gregory have been setting a hypothetical scenario here of what might happen in families should paganism be restored, as had been the project of the emperor Julian?

Christians who follow pagan practices are harshly criticized, since idolatry is compared to spiritual prostitution (Gregorius Nyssenus 1960, p. 318, lin. 9). In the homily against usurers, presumably delivered to a more or less Christian audience with some men in this profession present, these are compared to pagans on two occasions. First, he condemns them because they give honourable names to their sins, calling their profits “philanthropy” rather than merciless theft, just as the Greeks call the Erinyes (the Furies, goddesses of vengeance) “Eumenides” (“kind ones”) (Gregorius Nyssenus 1967b, p. 202, linn. 14–17). Secondly, he states that, whenever they have to come to terms with their vile actions, which sometimes leads to the death of their clients, they become disciples of Egyptian astrologers in order to justify the result of their wickedness by the reading of the heavens (Gregorius Nyssenus 1967b, p. 203, lin. 28–p. 204, lin. 1). Apart from criticizing Christians who adopt pagan ways, such texts present the followers of pagan cults as hypocrites who have no scruples when it comes to presenting facts in the way most convenient to them.

Gregory does see a positive point in pagans, however, because thanks to their hostility to the truth, Christians are made more steadfast and therefore they keep their honour. If these enemies of the faith were to become friends of a follower of Christ, they might cause him the dishonour of giving in to their lures (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990e, p. 168, lin. 20–p. 169, lin. 5),9 so friendship with pagans is categorically forbidden.

3. Gregory vs. Jews

The other enemies of the Christian faith, as presented in these homilies, are the Jews. These do not feature as protagonists in any of his works, but appear as minor antagonists in a small number of them (Reynard 2001, pp. 260–62). Despite this, Gregory does not shy away from showing his lack of sympathy for them, stating in one of his letters that it is lawful and God-pleasing to hate Jews because they are the enemies of the Lord since they deny Him glory (Ep 3, 8; Gregorius Nyssenus 1998, p. 130, linn. 1–7). From the little we find, it can be concluded that Gregory found fault in them in their theology (namely because they did not believe in the Son of God and his incarnation, nor in the Trinity), not in them as a race; hence, he can hardly be labelled as an anti-Semitist. This can be understood from the difference Gregory makes between the terms “Hebrew” and “Jew”, as Reynard aptly explained:

À la différence du terme ‘hébreu’ qui a, en général, un sens neutre, quasi scientifique et s’emploie dans des contextes où il est question de l’histoire, de la géographie ou de la langue du peuple hébreu, le terme ‘juif’ est, lui, le plus souvent péjoratif dans l’œuvre de Grégoire de Nysse. Terme injurieux, et comme tel associé à ceux d’incrédulité et de malice, il désigne les auteurs de la souillure du crime de Jésus, les adversaires traditionnels des chrétiens. Il a donc un rôle de marquer dans la polémique, encore vive au IVe siècle.

(Reynard 2001, p. 257)

This leads us to understand that, for Gregory, Judaism was the other column, together with paganism, against which true doctrine was to be contrasted. Reason and devotion necessitate that what the Jews deny—namely that the Word of God was truly incarnated, is alive and active, that it is through Him that all was brought into being and that He is not of a different nature from Him whence he came—is to be confirmed.

In the homilies, Jews are presented mainly as fools who misunderstand the Bible and the signs sent by God, hypocrites, and misanthropes; at times, they are equated to pagans because they are presented as collaborators of the devil.

One of the first mentions the Jews receive in the homilies is at the very beginning of Sext Ps; while discussing the meaning of the octave, Gregory says bluntly that it is not to be interpreted according to the way of the Jews, who disgrace it by linking it to bodily iniquities such as circumcision and female purification (Gregorius Nyssenus 1962, p. 187, lin. 15–p. 188, lin. 1). They are labelled as people who were not able to understand its true higher meaning—namely the purification of human nature, rather than of the body—not even after Paul had instructed them about its spiritual significance. I believe that, here, Gregory is offering two distinct criticisms of the Jews through a single example, which can be likened to a coin with two sides. On one side, he portrays the Jews as ignorant of the sacred mysteries and as misguided interpreters of Scripture, understanding it only on a superficial and literal level. On the other side, he depicts them as obstinate for refusing to accept revelation even when it is clearly presented to them. Both these themes will resurface in later homilies. The description of Jews as “unbelievers” (ἀπίστοι) is found also in the third homily on the Our Father (Gregorius Nyssenus 1992a, p. 43, lin. 25–p. 44, lin. 1), where they are targeted for not believing that Jesus was the Son of God since he had the authority to forgive sins. Another reference to Israel’s refusal of salvation is found in the seventh homily on the Song of Songs; this time, they are contrasted with the Gentiles (represented in the following text by the Ethiopian queen who visited Solomon) who, in turn, accept the complete revelation of the Son.

We notice a reversal of states in this text: in the time before the coming of Jesus, the Gentiles had “dark skin” due to their sinful state and their ignorance, while the Jews were in the light; upon the coming of Jesus, the Gentiles approached Christ and his light, losing their darkness, while the Jews estranged themselves from him, shutting their eyes and ending up in darkness and ignorance themselves:

For who does not know that because of idolatry the Gentile church was dark to begin with and before it became church was far removed, by a great intervening space of ignorance, from the knowledge that leads to the true God? But when the grace of God was revealed and Wisdom shone forth and the true light transmitted its radiance to those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, then, while Israel closed its eyes to the light and banished itself from sharing in the good things, the Ethiopians come […]

(Gregorius Nyssenus 1960, p. 205, linn. 6–14; Norris 2012, p. 217)

Other times, the Jews are presented as collaborators of the devil (see Gregorius Nyssenus 1990d, p. 82, linn. 4–10) (therefore equating them to idolaters as I mentioned earlier), as people who are incapable of understanding the mysteries of the Incarnation and of Easter (Gregorius Nyssenus 1996, p. 259, linn. 4–5; 1967c, p. 287, linn. 7–9), while, in other occasions, they are compared to pagans because their eyes were shielded from seeing the truth (Gregorius Nyssenus 1992b, p. 382, linn. 9–11). This can best be seen in the homily on the nativity of Christ when Gregory speaks of the ox and the donkey (Gregorius Nyssenus 1996, p. 257, lin. 16–p. 258, lin. 3). He explains that Christ was born in the dwelling place for animals in order to bring together two kinds of “irrational” human beings in order to make of them a new creation. These are the ox, which represents those who live under the law (the Jews), and the donkey, which represents the Gentiles, since they worship idols. Christ’s presence between them shows that all human beings are invited to share in the freedom from sin brought about by the Incarnation. It is interesting that, here, Gregory places the Jews on the same level as the Gentiles, not in the sense that both are equally called to benefit from the Incarnation, but in the sense that both carry a burden: the yoke of the Law and idolatry. Is Gregory here suggesting that the Jews were guilty of sin because they gave more importance to God’s law than to the fulfilment of His promise that He would send His anointed One? The way the passage is constructed seems to suggest this10 because, here, Gregory is criticizing the Jews specifically because they accepted lifting the heavy yoke of the Law rather than delving deeper into it to understand its true meaning. In this scenario, the bishop might be implying that the excessive adherence to the Law which stopped the Jews from recognizing the Son of God turned the Law itself into an idol, and its adherers into idolaters, since their faith was placed in the Law when its proper place was to be in God. In any case, both Jews and Gentiles needed to be set free from their burdens in order to become the creation which was God’s intention when he created mankind.

Hypocrisy is a particular quality of the Jews which Gregory likes to underline. In the homily on charity, he says that fasting has to be coupled with abstinence from evil and carrying out good deeds in order to be useful for salvation (Gregorius Nyssenus 1967e, p. 94, linn. 6–8). Here, he encourages the followers of Christ not to emulate the Jews who fast accordingly but then do not keep back from fighting and quarrelling. In the life of Gregory the Wonderworker, two Jews seek to deceive the saint by pretending one of them was dead and had no means of having a proper burial (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990b, p. 41, lin. 21–p.42, lin. 8). After saying that the one who played dead actually died when the Wonderworker covered him with his mantle, Gregory brings examples from the Acts of the Apostles of other Jews who were condemned to death for telling lies (Gregorius Nyssenus 1990b, p. 43, linn. 3–7). He does not seem to have felt any remorse for them.

Apart from this, Jews are also presented as misanthropes. In the homily on Mt 25, Gregory mentions the priest and the deacon from the parable of the Good Samaritan as examples of people who have no love for others, not even for those who are in dire need of assistance. He takes this occasion to tell the people not to imitate these who are condemned by the gospel for their lack of love, and be generous in their relations with others (Gregorius Nyssenus 1967d p. 114, linn. 3–11). Gregory does not pull back from misinterpreting Scripture in order to prove his point: the Jews’ lack of love is presented again in the mention of Simon the Leper, who did not kiss Christ when he invited Him to his house. Here, the leprosy of his body is used as an image of the corruption of his soul, which had turned away from God and from his love (Gregorius Nyssenus 1960, p. 33, linn. 5–10).

There is, however, one occasion where the law of the Jews is praised: this is in the fifth homily on the Song of Songs, where it is compared to a wall that gives the shadow of truth, in a way anticipating the good things that will eventually come with the arrival of the gospel (Gregorius Nyssenus 1960, p. 161, lin. 9–p. 162, lin. 6). The Law is of course presented as inferior to the gospel, but, in this case, it is not presented as an obstruction but rather as one of the paths that will eventually lead to the truth and that, at some point, it has to be overpassed as well. Later in the same homily, the synagogue, representing the Jewish faith, is described as a “sister” from whence came the Good Shepherd. The motif of moving on from the Jewish faith to the Church is again re-proposed when Gregory states that the Shepherd no longer feeds his flock with grass (food for non-rational beings) but gives them lilies (Himself) instead (Gregorius Nyssenus 1960, p. 168, lin. 15–p. 169, lin. 5).

4. Conclusions

In conclusion, we can say that Gregory was aware of the presence in his society of people and forces that were opposed to the Christian faith. Sometimes, especially in the anti-pagan sections in the panegyrics in honour of the martyrs, he appears to be over-zealous in promoting the hatred of religious practices other than the Christian faith because he praises saints who destroyed temples and ridiculed gods. Regarding the Jews, I believe that his attitude was more in line with a lack of trust rather than with true and proper hatred, as in the case of pagans. This distrust is evident in the way Jews are predominantly addressed in homilies commenting on Scripture, suggesting that, although they should know what is right thanks to revelation, they nevertheless choose what is wrong, rendering them untrustworthy. Additionally, further grounds for this mistrust stem from their perceived inability or unwillingness to comprehend the truth revealed to them by God. Gregory’s treatment suggests that those who are hard-headed or hard-hearted cannot be trusted, as they do not seek the truth, and fools are similarly unreliable due to their unpredictability. Nevertheless, it is evident that he perceived paganism as a far greater threat to Christianity and orthodoxy than Judaism for several reasons. The two most obvious are, first, that, while Judaism constituted a minority, paganism remained strong and was the official religion of the empire until 380. Secondly, although Christians from an early stage sought to demonstrate that Christianity was not a sect of Judaism, they could not deny that they worshipped the same God as the Jews, whereas pagans followed an entirely different—and, supposedly, fictitious—pantheon. Pagans, therefore, posed a greater threat due to their continued strength in resisting Christians and their adherence to a religious system that was entirely foreign. In contrast, Jews lacked the capacity to present a significant danger, and their beliefs shared certain commonalities with those of Christians.