Cultivation as Immanent Critique: Horticultural Metaphors in Gregory of Nyssa’s Reception of Origen and Basil

The present article asks after Gregory of Nyssa’s debts to Basil the Great, and this by re-examining two texts the former wrote shortly after the latter’s death: De hominis opificio and Apologia in Hexaemeron. It does so on the premise, mostly promissory for now, that Gregory’s efforts to sort throu...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Ross Taylor
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: De Gruyter 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/dc09f1f6fad6471f84ac6f384e031e4b
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:The present article asks after Gregory of Nyssa’s debts to Basil the Great, and this by re-examining two texts the former wrote shortly after the latter’s death: De hominis opificio and Apologia in Hexaemeron. It does so on the premise, mostly promissory for now, that Gregory’s efforts to sort through Basil’s legacy in his late brother’s wake was part and parcel of the Nyssen’s career-long project to reprise Origen of Alexandria under a “pro-Nicene” banner. Defending his elder sibling’s apparently incomplete Homiliae in Hexameron while also disputing their basic premise, that is, gave Gregory an opportunity to negotiate the dialectic of dependence and distinction that ultimately determined his reception of earlier authorities, including the great Alexandrian they both revered. With that much longer story in sight, this article focuses on Gregory’s deployment of horticultural metaphors, especially in the Apologia in Hexaemeron, to describe his stance toward both Basil and Origen. Closer scrutiny of these images alongside his more technical means of differentiating between himself and Basil suggests that Gregory considered his own work to be both a natural development of his predecessors and, precisely thereby, the immanent perfection of their thought.