Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning: The Five Theological Orationsof Gregory of Nazianzen (review)Michel R. Barnes

Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 1993,pp. 96-97 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/earl.0.0169

For additional information about this article

Access Provided by Oxford University Library Services at 11/27/12 9:42AM GMT

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/earl/summary/v001/1.1.barnes.html

96 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

torium der Malereien [Citt del Vaticano-Mnster 1987] 29). Furthermore, there isalso a certain redundancy to the many literal citations of secondary literature (morethan 200 in the main body of text of 147 pp.!).

On the other hand, and more importantly, it must be observed that the centralpart of this book (chs. 37) in which the intricate, "never ending" relationshipbetween the many sculpted scenes decorating the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus isdiscussed, is convincingly presented. The importance of typological thinking for aproper understanding of its sculptural program is well argued. Therefore, archae-ologists and art historians, but also patristic scholars interested in the conceptualbackground of early Christian art in the fourth century, will find in Malbon's booka valuable source of information.

Leonard Victor Rutgers, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning: The Five TheologicalOrations of Gregory of NazianzenTrans. Lionel Wickham and Frederick Williams,comm. Frederick W. NorrisLeiden: E. J. Brill, 1991

In the years since Gregory of Nyssa was rediscovered and rehabilitated by JeanDanilou he has become the quintessential Cappadocian, but traditionally he didnot enjoy this status. It is Gregory of Nazianzus whom the Eastern Church called"the theologian" (giving him the same honor as John the Evangelist), and in thegreat European dogmatic histories of the late 19th century it is Gregory the theo-logian who is offered as the Greek counterpoint to the Latin Augustine. Much ofGregory's reputation and influence as a theologian is due to the Orations that arethe subject of this new English translation and commentary.

Like the other two Cappadocians, Gregory was intensely concerned with refut-ing the anti-Nicene theology of Eunomius; unlike the other Cappadocians, Grego-ry of Nazianzus never wrote a Contra Eunomium. Instead, he delivered a series ofsermons, probably in Constantinople around 380, not to respond to a written textby Eunomius (as Basil and his brother did), but in response to the polemically-motivated speeches by Eunomians that faced him in the public places of the city,from the butcher shop to the imperial court. The fact that the Orations are them-selves speeches remains a source of their power, but it has also served as an obstacleto their interpretation and appropriation by scholars. The oral structure of theworks, coupled with their heavy use of the rhetorical techniques of the era, hasmade the polemical context and doctrinal content of the orations seem diffuse andobscure. The ornateness of the original Greek has been further burdened in moderntranslations by a sort of ecclessiastical English. By contrast, the English of Wick-ham and Williams emphasizes clarity and even simplicity (cf. Or. 28.9 by Wickhamand Williams and by Browne and Swallow). Perhaps the translation could havebeen more technical (like the Apostle/Gersh Aristotle series), so that, e.g., "power"did not translate both dynamis and exousia, but at least in this edition we know thatwhat opaqueness is left in a passage is Gregory's own.

BOOK REVIEWS 97

The differences between this translation and commentary and the recent SourcesChrtiennes edition are striking, particularly in the manuscript paleography and,especially, in the discovery of scriptural allusions. Norris' technique of identifyingGregory's scriptural allusions through notes at the foot of each page of the transla-tion, while identifying philosophical allusions in the body of the commentary hasthe effect of emphasizing the scriptural foundations of Gregory's theology evenwhile acknowledging Gregory's debt to pagan paideia. If every commentary is itselfa story about the text at hand, then this story opens with the role of Hellenicrhetoric and paideia but finds the central drama in scriptural exegesis. It is this storywhich Norris summarizes in the subtitle (taken from Gregory's own words), faithgives fullness to reason.

Gregory was by training and habit a rhetor, very much a mirror of his age,making his reasoning seem artificial to the contemporary eye. Thus, few works soevidently benefit from a sense of their context as the Orations. Norris gives a vividaccount of how the Orations functioned as polemical pieces. One of his accom-plishments is to make clear Gregory's debt to traditional rhetorical strategies, aswell as the polemical role of that rhetoric. Norris' scholarship allows the reader tounderstand how Gregory uses his training in the then universal art and science ofrhetoric to discover and promote his understanding of God, and to oppose theEunomian and Macedonian understandings. It was evident at the last InternationalConference on Patristics that the scope and depth of Norris' commentary hasalready given it the status of a watershed event in Cappadocian studies, yet happilythe effect of this specialist treatment is to open the text up for a wider audience.

If there is a weakness in the commentary, it is an understating of Gregory'spressing need in the Orations to defend his doctrines against the ravages of Euno-mian criticism. Two examples will illustrate my point. Gregory's concern in Ora-tion 28 with the issue of God's corporeality is a defence against the established(since at least 358), and still effective, Eunomian criticism of the doctrine of a Fathergenerating a Son on the basis of its materialist implications. Nicene and pro-Nicenetheology was always vulnerable to the charge of materialism, and Father-Son lan-guage (even when used by a non-Nicene like Basil of Ancyra) seemed to confirm theworst fears of anti-Nicenes. Gregory attacked corporeality so thoroughly because itwas the doctrine that his critics effectively accused him of believing. A secondexample of Gregory's defensiveness is his rejection in Oration 29 of the Plotiniandescription of divine generation as an " over-flowing". While none of the Cappado-cians believed in an exact Christian parallel to this understanding of the naturalfruitfulness of God, their descriptions of the intrinsic character of God's productivecapacity did resemble Plotinus' in thought and in terminology. Furthermore, Eu-nomius had (since 360) cast his opponents as people who preached the co-eternityof the cosmos with God (because he could not understand how an eternal causecould exist without eternal effects). Gregory was walking a tightrope in his descrip-tion of God's natural productivity and the Eunomians had already cut down thesafety net.

Michel R. Barnes, Marquette University