More on St. Gregory and his sister, St. Macrina

While I had learned that St. Macrina was given a good deal of credit for the conversion and inspiration of both St. Basil and St. Gregory, I had not realized that St. Gregory's work "On the Soul and the Resuurection" was written by him as a dialogue between himself and his sister - and that furthermore it is his sister who plays the role of the wise christian teacher, while St. Gregory humbles himself into the position of playing "devil's advocate" or mopre nicely put: St. Macrina's student. In the introduction, the paralleles between this work and Plato's Phaedo and Symposium are well noted. Catharine Roth, author of the forward, reminds us that in Symposium "Socrates becomes the not-so-apt pupil of the wise woman teacher Diotima. Gregory similarly makes himself the pupil of his older sister, putting the stubborn and foolish questions into his own mouth."

I remind myself that this book was written in the 4th century. A time when I do not think we can say that women had anything remotely similar to what we moderners call "equal rights"...and yet who is the teacher here? (Of course Plato wrote much earlier, but since he was not an ancient Christian we needn't expect him to be sexist.) What was it that C.S. Lewis called our prejudice against things not modern, you know that notion that we are so much more enlightened than those who lived in the past.(Add in Christianity - as opposed to paganism - and you get an even greater zeal for modernity.)

The introduction has had me salivating, and I am just now delving into the dialogue intself. I'll keep you posted.

Comments

fdj said…
P.S. I would be remiss in not mentioning that St. Gregory of Nyssa believed that EVRYONE would be reconciled to God eventually, which of course is a rather controversial topic.

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