II. THE LIFE OF ST. MACRINA
Gregory's account of his sister's life is couched in the form of a letter addressed to |11 the monk Olympius, who had been with him at the Council of Antioch.
There is as yet no critical edition of this part of Gregory's works, and it has been necessary to use the text given in Migne's Patrologia Graeca, XLVI, pp. 960 ff.
The absence of a good text is a serious drawback in a theological treatise where much depends on niceties of language, but in the present case the narrative is so straightforward that no special inconvenience arises. With very few exceptions there is little margin for doubt as to the meaning of the Greek. To reproduce it satisfactorily in English is another matter. In the opening pages of his letter Gregory indulges his well-known rhetorical tendency so freely that it is difficult to find suitable equivalents in English for all the synonyms which he employs. Accordingly in a few places a synonym that adds nothing to the sense has been omitted in the present translation. Occasionally a sentence has been |12 recast with some freedom, in order to make a readable narrative for the English reader.
But when Gregory gets to grips with his subject and describes his arrival at the monastery, the narrative becomes so clear and straightforward as to present no difficulties to the translator. A literal version of the artless and beautiful tale is all that is needed. That Gregory's style should undergo so remarkable a transformation at this point is a convincing proof that he is giving a true account of actual facts, written down shortly after their occurrence.
It is surprising that a story of antiquity, so charmingly told and full of human interest, should have attracted so little attention. Hitherto it has not been accessible to any but scholars. The Latin version in Migne is a useful guide to the meaning of the Greek, but cannot be relied on, as in places it is merely a paraphrase. Had the story been written in the Greek of the fourth century B.C. instead of that of the fourth century A.D., it would probably have been one of the world's classics. |13
No attempt has been made to break up the matter into numbered sections; this will be the task of a future critical editor. But the pages of Migne arc given in the margin, and a number of paragraph headings provided for the convenience of the reader.
III. THE MONASTERIES OF PONTUS
The mother-land of monasticism was Egypt. The movement there assumed two main forms, the eremitic and the coenobitic.
St. Antony ( c. 250-c. 350) was the pioneer of the former, the devotees of which led solitary lives in their cells, either quite independently, or grouped around some central church, as at Nitria or Scete. In some cases there was a considerable amount of organisation, but the solitary or eremitic life lived in common was always quite different from the true common life.
Pachomius (c. 290-346) was the originator of ccenobitism, which was first put into practice at his monastery of Tabennisi.
In 357-8 Basil visited Egypt and returned |14 home, resolved to initiate the Pachomian mode of life in his own country. Eustathius of Sebaste was already working on the same lines, and the unorganised ascetic life in the world, to which Gregory of Nazianzus refers in his works, had paved the way for monasticism proper. Basil called his friend Gregory to fulfil a promise made in student days at Athens and join him in the ascetic life. This Gregory eventually did, though he was unable at first to pay more than a brief visit. Basil chose for his experiment a spot of much natural beauty on the banks of the Iris. At Annesi, on the opposite side of the river, his mother Emmelia and sister Macrina were living on the family estate. Basil put himself at the head of a community of men likeminded with himself, while Macrina, as described in the present book, began to organise a monastery on her side of the river. Basil took Pachomius' coenobium at Tabennisi for his model, with certain modifications suggested by his own original and practical mind.
In the Life of St. Macrina we find a double |15 monastery, the men presided over by Peter, the women by Macrina. This seems to have been a natural development of the earlier ascetic family life to which Macrina had drawn her mother after the death of Naucratius. We do not know to what extent it conformed to the regulations for double monasteries prescribed by Basil in his Rules. It is not clear whether Basil's monastery on the far side of the Iris was still existing when Gregory visited Macrina. It may be surmised that, when Basil became bishop of Caesarea and Peter reached man's estate, the brethren were transferred to the opposite bank and came under the joint rule of Macrina and Peter.
The subject of the Basilian coenobia and their place in the history of monasticism has been worked out in two recent monographs, St. Basil and his Rule (Oxford, 1912), by E. F. Morison, and St. Basil the Great: a Study in Monasticism (Cambridge, 1913), by the present writer. Through the Latin version of Rufinus Basil's Rules became known in the West and influenced St. Benedict. |16
The Life of St. Macrina throws a light on the arrangements of a double monastery in primitive times, and supplements the account given in the Pachomian and Basilian Rules. This subject has not yet been worked out with any completeness, so far as the writer is aware. It is not clear what influence, if any, Rufinus' version of Basil's Rules had upon the origin of double monasteries in Ireland and elsewhere. Perhaps the system arose independently in different lands and centuries under similar conditions of primitive enthusiasm. Reference may be made to a paper by Sir William Hope, The Gilbertian Priory of Watton (London, 1901, reprinted from The Archaeological Journal, LVIII, No. 229). The rules governing the relations of monks and nuns in this priory bear so close a resemblance to those found in St. Basil, that the student will probably not be far wrong if he assumes that the plan of the buildings as sketched by Dr. Hope in his monograph fairly represents the topography of the scenes described in Gregory's Life of his sister.
[Footnotes have been renumbered and placed at the end]
1. See the article on him in the Dictionary of Christian Biography, and Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, II, 349-352.
2. See Basil, Ep. 223.
3. Greg. Naz., Ep. I, translated in Nicene Fathers series, Vol. VII, p. 459.
4. For some remarks on the text of Gregory, see the introduction to Srawley, The Catechetical Oration of Gregory of Nyssa (Cambridge, 1903).
This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2003. All material on this page is in the public domain - copy freely.
Greek text is rendered using the Scholars Press SPIonic font, free from here .