Smith: CH750-a
Above, Below, Beyond, and Within
Gender, Virtue, and Transcendence in Gregory's Life of Macrina
Originally written for CH750 Paper 1, October 5, 2012
In Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Macrina, the author attempts to explain the journey of his sister along the path of human virtue. His hope is to articulate how the virtuous philosophical life is accessible not exclusively to men. Virtue, it was thought in his day, was the domain of persons, not non-persons like women or children. The very nature of philosophy demanded a rational capacity that women were not thought to possess. His love for his sister compels him, however, to insist that even women could raise themselves to that highest peak of human nature; philosophy. His attempt is commendable and groundbreaking for his time, but modern reflection finds it lacking. Here I will attempt to read his treatise sympathetically and ascertain what Nyssen elements of virtue, philosophy, and gender our contemporary theological frame can absorb and retain. To accomplish the task of unfolding the manifold nature of both gender and virtue, I focus first on the nature of the Nyssen's philosophy. Determining what constitutes the philosophical life for him is necessary to understand and extrapolate what gender means in his theological anthropology (his understanding of the nature of humankind in light of the Gospels). Clarifying his philosophy necessitates diagnosing notions of philosophy he does not share with the modern reader, though exploring what, for him, distinguishes things "womanish" from things philosophical is critical. Finally, a modernizing synthesis of gender, virtue, and philosophy will be attempted.
The foremost concern is what exactly the Nyssen means by "philosophy?" In his Life of Macrina, his sister transcends her gender by "having raised herself to the highest peak of human virtue through philosophy."[1] Philosophy draws Macrina's mother "little by little to the immaterial and simpler life"[2] and leads her brother Basil "to withdraw from the worldly show and [begin] to look down upon acclaim."[3] For their brother Naucratius, philosophizing includes "making his way to God by following divine injunctions"[4] and regulating "his own life through moderation." Prior to her death, philosophizing leads Macrina herself away from "cowardice"[5] as well as "the world of men."[6] The philosophical way of life indeed is "unworldly,"[7] giving those who lead it "additional aids for discovering goods leading them to greater purity."[8] In fact, Macrina's companions in death were "led… to hope for greater good for herself."[8]
The text makes little effort to distinguish between philosophy and virtue. Gregory, however, would not have been ignorant that Roman virtues name the excellences that help the city, the polis, to thrive. These additional aids, the human virtues that Macrina's companions discover, are correlative to the polis they serve, which is the church, not "the world of men." Human virtues like temperance, prudence, and chastity litter the path to God, and Gregory suggests that "philosophizing" is the movement toward God. Philosophizing describes the work that enables virtue to flourish in the lives of those who pursue a deeper knowledge of and love for God. It is for this reason that it makes sense that Macrina and Naucratius both actually descend the overt social order and live lives of "poverty"[9] in common with slaves and nomads, for poverty is "a mode of living that [leads] to virtue."[10] In a world flipped upside down by the paradoxical cross, "the highest peak of virtue"[11] is an unworldly descent in the eyes of the world of men.
That Macrina's life was "always exalted by virtue"[12] is made especially clear by her chaste virginity and prudent sobriety. Prudence was clearly the "highest peak of human virtue" for the Nyssen, as evident by his repeated appeal to reason over emotion, suggesting a strong stoic influence. Roman philosophy is also evident in Macrina's urging that she and her mother "[enter] into a common life with their maids."[13] Stoicism scandalously advocated for the equality of slaves and masters, one reason it melded well with the developing Christian faith. Another major tenet of stoic philosophy was that emotion represented an error in judgment, a slip to imprudence. Gregory reveals a stoic influence with the intense caution he treats the emotion of grief. His chastisement of attendant nuns for wailing at his dead sister's wake was perhaps a disguise for his own failure to retain stoic calm. "Reason over passion," after all, was the struggle particularly of "ignoble,"[14] "distraught,"[15] and "disorderly"[16] women, not rational men.
How then does 'ordered and graceful' philosophy contrast with "womanish" things? Macrina conquered her own passions and guided other women toward prudence by instructing them in "order and graciousness in everything."[17] "[C]onstant prayer and unceasing singing of hymns" represented the victory of rational stoic order over emotional chaos. When one nun bursts out in grief, only "the orderly and sacred singing"[18] restores the sobriety of the moment. However, this struggle is apparently not particular to women, as Gregory himself is overcome with grief numerous times during his visit to his sister Superior. He is "dejected by… grief"[19] and, though he blames the 'unrestrained, impulsive' virgins, he eventually gives himself "over wholly to lamentation."[20] Later, as he leaves Macrina's body in the tomb and departs the area of her burial, he is "downcast and tearful."[21] Did Gregory lower himself to female emotion?
Does the Nyssen's philosophy rise above and leave gender, or rise to embrace it? The notion of the soul held in socio-political thought of his day was that souls took three basic forms: the vegetative child, the sentient adolescent, and the rational mature soul. Women were thought of being incomplete men who could endeavor to depart their sentient, emotional shortcomings by pursuing reason and thereby become more like God. Virtue made that journey possible, but the Latin virtus itself was marked as masculine (vir meaning Man). Gender did not exist for the ancient world as it does for us. Emotional sentimentality, irrational lapses in judgment, were unquestionably "womanish." Rational, masculine virtus held the keys to Godliness, through the man Jesus (who was the incarnation of the divine reason, or logos). Women had less to ascend to manliness than they did from their own emotional state. Becoming more like men was merely a point of process, as one passes by (manly) James Duke on their way toward (godly) Duke Chapel from (womanly) Duke Gardens. By this effort, they seem to 'transcend' their own "womanish" nature without any interest in entering mannishness. Becoming like God included philosophizing by rising above womanhood, though the ascent accidentally included (sur)passing manly nature as well.
Gregory's theological anthropology follows this model, explaining why Gregory need only "seem obedient to"[22] his sister Macrina, instead of actually obey her. Men had less to rise above their manliness (virtus was not considered "gendered") than they did their corrupt human nature. Their rational, gendered nature may have been corrupt, but not so corrupt as to be merely sentient. The nature of women was below that of men, explaining why Gregory never considers whether his gender must be overcome and transcended as well. In his ascent toward God, Gregory would not pass any gendered (i.e. "womanish") traits; he would be leaving the weakness of his human nature, not his masculine gender.
That emotional women were not considered as complete as their rational male counterparts explains why Macrina must rise above her "womanish" nature on the way to divine reason. However, Gregory's treatise does suggest that men have some transcending to do. Take the example of Naucratius, who is another brother who "surpasses"[23] his siblings in every apparent way, but who eventually turns to "a life of monasticism and poverty."[24] His five years of "philosophizing" in the woods near the Iris River includes "[taming] his youthful vigor" and "controlling his young manhood" by hunting game and caring for the elderly. Naucratius' transcendence of his vigorous manhood is Gregory's sign that all men, in their own manly natures, must also surpass their own gender in their philosophical pursuit of stoic virtue. Troublingly, Nyssen gives no defense for his slips into imprudent emotion, though he must see them as a slide down the upward track of manly virtue, disguising his vice once or twice by berating the women in the community.
The question this leaves us with is whether this rising is to abandon womanliness, or to embrace a wider, more inclusive understanding of gender. However, making sense of Gregory's view of gender is not cut and dry. The case of his and Macrina's father is particularly illustrative. The patriarch of their family is not even named, but described only as "a man well known and recommended for the dignity of his life."[25] By comparison, Gregory's mother is described in great detail, most noticeably in giving the deathbed blessing usually reserved for the pater familias. In a surprising reversal of gender roles, instead of the birthrights and blessing being issued upon the death of the father (i.e. the tale of Isaac, Jacob, and Esau), the responsibility is left to the matriarch. She especially blesses those children able to be with her at her demise, but "suitably [remembers] each of the absent ones so that none would be without blessing."[26]
The Nyssen view of virtue must be simultaneously above and within gender, for Macrina becomes both "father" and "mother"[27] to her youngest sibling, Peter. In fact, in nearly every case, the path of philosophy toward virtue is described as being an upward journey. Besides being "the highest peak,"[28] and "looking down" upon such things as acclaim, the virtuous path leads people to be "borne upwards"[29] to become "more than human." But more is not simply above, or higher. More is full; it is to be less incomplete. Similarly, transcendence is not a departure from, but an entering more fully into and around. Even Macrina still has her feet on the mountain, and if on the peak then not in the clouds. Our feet remain firmly planted in virtue, in gender, in the incarnate love of God. Like a fountain, Macrina rises above her gender only insofar as her trajectory is to return once more, again and again.
A modern reader might synthesize contemporary notions of gender with Nyssen's attempt to justify his sister's exemplification of the virtuous philosophical life by starting at the beginning. On the sixth day of creation, "God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good."[30] Therefore, that God "created them male and female"[31] is part and parcel to the goodness and likeness in which what we now call gender was created. Gender is good, and if good then it is possessed by God. God lacks nothing good, and therefore cannot be seen to lack gender, but to encompass it more fully than we human creatures can express or understand. Transcendence of gender is an amalgamation of both gender's qualities. Emotion, contra stoicism, is not something God lacks. God expresses anger, grief, and other emotions in testaments both new and old. Instead of devaluing emotion in following Christ, God's logos, we should consider how emotion compliments, informs, and enriches reason. Making a sharp distinction between reason and emotion leaves us with binary ways of thinking about God. God transcends our ability to grasp both logos and pathos just as God transcends our categories of male and female.
In the same way, virtues of the philosophic life exist within and without gender. In the Roman pantheon as well as contemporary culture, the paradigmatic masculine god is Mars[32] and the feminine god is Venus.[33] Mars and men are cold and violent, while Venus and women are tempestuous and vain. But Mars is also marked by the virtue of justice, and Venus by wisdom. Troublingly, Gregory identifies vices with women, virtues with men. Venetian vanity is not solely expressed by women, and Martian violence is not expressed exclusively by men. Women can be courageous or arrogant. Men can be nurturing or vain. Gregory's fault is in identifying grief as a fault, then failing to confess it himself when he is overtaken thereby. Even if a fault, grief is an experience common to both men and women, both ancient and modern.
Indeed, "transcend" is neither an ascent or a descent, but an activity that infuses itself throughout; both above and below, beyond as well as within. To transcend gender properly is to reflect both man and woman, "male and female;" everything in between and beyond. Transcendence is to have your personhood, standing in the gardens, become so full as to touch not just James Duke, but also the Chapel itself. The self is found not merely in the body, whose toes wiggle in the grass and whose eyes gaze upon the statue, but whose heart, soul, and mind sit before the altar. To transcend is to become more genderful, not genderless. This is precisely why it is right and good to call God not just Father, but Mother as well, recognizing that even those titles pale in comparison to God's true nature. The philosophical life itself is therefore fully virtuous and genderful, as is the Godhead.
Footnotes
[1] Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Macrina, 163
[2] Ibid, 167
[3] Ibid, 167
[4] Ibid, 169
[5] Ibid, 179
[6] Ibid, 170
[7] Ibid, 171
[8] Ibid, 177
[9] Ibid, 168
[10] Ibid, 170
[11] Ibid, 168
[12] Ibid, 169
[13] Ibid, 170
[14] Ibid, 182
[15] Ibid, 183
[16] Ibid, 183
[17] Ibid, 171
[18] Ibid, 187
[19] Ibid, 176
[20] Ibid, 182
[21] Ibid, 188
[22] Ibid, 176 (emphasis added)
[23] Ibid, 168
[24] Ibid, 169
[25] Ibid, 164
[26] Ibid, 172
[27] Ibid, 172
[28] Ibid, 163
[29] Ibid, 171
[30] Genesis 1:31
[31] Genesis 1:27, 5:2
[32] The areopagus, the hill of Mars, is the location of the Greek supreme court. It is also where Paul preaches his sermon on the unknown god.
[33] Aphrodite, Venus' Greek counterpart, was god over both wisdom and war.
