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The Body and Desire
Gregory of Nyssa's Ascetical Theology
Raphael A. Cadenhead
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The Body and Desire
Gregory of Nyssa's Ascetical Theology
Raphael A. Cadenhead
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Although the reception of the Eastern Father Gregory of Nyssa has varied over the centuries, the past few decades have witnessed a profound awakening of interest in his thought. The Body and Desire sets out to retrieve the full range of Gregory'sthinking on the challenges of the ascetic life by examining within the context of his theological commitments his evolving attitudes on what we now call gender, sex, and sexuality. Exploring Gregory's understanding of the importance of bodily and spiritual maturation for the practices of contemplation and virtue, Raphael A. Cadenhead recovers the vital relevance of this vision of transformation for contemporary ethical discourse.
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PART ONE
The Early Phase, 371âSeptember 378
The Integrative Significance of the Body in the Life of Virtue
OUR DISCUSSIONS OF THE EARLY PHASE of Gregoryâs literary career will be focused, for the main part, on the much-contested meanings of marriage and virginity in Gregoryâs very first writing, the De virginitate. This is partly because of the De virginitateâs uniqueness within the pagan and Christian worlds, and partly because it represents the theological touchstone, for Gregory, of a distinctive set of reflections on the body and desire. After I have headed off significant misinterpretations of the De virginitate, I find myself returning to this early treatise when discussing other ascetic themes, otherwise not ostensibly related to that of erotic transformation. As will become clear, our discussion of the body and desire would be incomplete if we focused exclusively on sexual renunciation. Doing so would close us off to the richness of Gregoryâs integrationist ethic, in which the various bodily disciplines of the ascetic life are reciprocally interdependent.
Part One will be structured in the following way. First, I shall discuss the De virginitate and its teaching on marriage and virginity, and explain why, for Gregory, the life of virginity is intended to supersede the chaste pederasty elaborated in Platoâs writings. Second, I shall situate Gregoryâs attitudes toward sexual desire within the wider context of his reflections on bodily vices and virtues. Third, as a postscript to Part One and a transition to Part Two, I shall adumbrate Gregoryâs emerging theory of desire in counterpoint with these foregoing areas of reflection.
1
Marriage, Celibacy, and Pederasty
MARRIAGE AND CELIBACY
Why Is Marriage Problematic?
The comparative worth of marriage and virginity in Gregoryâs De virginitate is a highly contested area of discussion.1 Mark Hartâs thesis that Gregoryâs descriptions of the trials of marriage are ironic has been particularly influential. For Hart, âmarriageâ and âvirginityâ must not be taken literally. The former signifies a life of âpassionate attachmentâ to material pleasures, whereas the latter represents a life of ânonattachmentâ and thus undivided devotion to God.2 As such, physical marriage is compatible with the life of contemplation as long as spouses have virginal desires for God. Hart goes so far as claiming that the conjugal life can bear a âgreater resemblance to divine life than celibacy in its role as benefactor and provider for the community and its willingness to assume bodily burdens.â3
Without reproducing all the arguments that inveigh against Hartâs reading of the De virginitate, I wish here to make two exegetical observations that call his thesis into question. First, Gregoryâs remarks at the start of chapter XVIIIââTherefore, let what has been said here by the Lord [âBe wise as serpents and guileless as dovesâ (Matthew 10:16; Luke 10:3)] be the conviction in the life of everyone, especially among those who are approaching God through virginityâ (De virginitate XVIII:1:1â3; emphasis mine)4âindicate that there is a specific subset of Christians who have embraced physical virginity. Virginity is not, therefore, so capacious in its application that it includes anyone who practices detachment from material pleasure. Second, I believe Hart misreads a crucial passage from the De virginitate (IV:1:8â17) to support his thesis that marriage is a âmetaphor for passionate attachment in general,â just as virginity supposedly refers to âa general attitude of nonattachment possible also in marriage.â5 A close reading of the text reveals that Gregory is not identifying marriage with âhuman evils . . . greed, envy, anger, hatred, the desire for empty fame, and all such things,â but placing marriage alongside these other forms of worldliness.
The mistake Hart makes is to overstate Gregoryâs insistence on the wider demands of moral purity in the life of virginity. Hart is not wrong to emphasize the importance of this theme for Gregory. Even if âeagerness for virginityâ is âthe foundation for the life of virtue,â the ultimate goal is to ensure that âall the products of virtueâ are built upon it (De virginitate XVIII:1:27â29; emphasis mine).6 Physical virginity is not, in other words, an end in itself, but the means of accruing the virtues in toto: âit is fitting for the one aiming at the great goal of virginity to be uniformly virtuous and for purity to be evident in every aspect of his lifeâ (De virginitate XVIII:5:9â12).7 For Gregory, moral purity is more than just bodily continenceâbut this is not to say, as Hart does, that virginity no longer refers to lifelong sexual abstinence and can be applied to married Christians. To claim, as Hart does, that virginity and marriage are metaphors undermines the specific demands and difficulties associated separately with marriage and celibacy in the De virginitate. This is an area of discussion to which I now turn.
The Moral Challenges of Marriage
As noted in the prelude, Gregory admits to not having fulfilled the goals of virginity in its classic sense. No sooner does he mention his inadequacy in this regard than he discusses the sundry calamities that assail marriage. So what is problematic about marriage? Whereas Peter Brown thinks that Gregoryâs concerns are primarily linked to his preoccupation with death,8 I think that this is one concern among many. It is equally false to claim that Gregoryâs espousal of virginity is an avoidance of family life, in which there is âone darn thing after anotherâ and thus no time or space for âcontemplative quiet.â9 In this section, I shall enumerate the full range of moral and spiritual challenges of marriage and then show that for Gregory, these challenges are not totally insurmountable.
One of Gregoryâs worries about the conjugal life relates to the transience of human life, which constantly threatens the companionship of spouses. Unlike Clement of Alexandria,10 Gregory sees companionship, not procreation, as the principal purpose of marriage: âTruly, what is chiefly [to kephalaion] sought after in marriage is the joy of living with someone [symbiĆsis]â (De virginitate III:2:7â9).11 It was Musonius Rufus (ca. 30â62 C.E.), the Roman Stoic philosopher of the first century, who argued that âperfect companionship [symbiĆsis] and mutual love of husband and wifeâ are the primary goals of marriage. He reasoned that children could be born from âany other sexual union, just as in the case of animalsâ (Discourses XIIIa).12 However for Gregory, whilst symbiĆsis is a source of joy in marriage, it is also problematic. Whoever seeks security and stability in human symbiĆsis, rather than the âincorruptible Bridegroomâ (De virginitate III:8:19),13 will be disappointed. A manâs wife may die, resulting in turmoil and discontent (De virginitate III:6:19â8:13).14 If one simply concedes the possibility of such misfortune, one cannot even look at the face of oneâs spouse without feeling dread for the future (De virginitate III:3:24â41).15 Children may also die in tragic circumstances (De virginitate III:5:3â28).16 Confronted with the transience of life, Gregory believes that oneâs only hope is in the life hereafter. At least there, the torments of the body will be overcome, and widowhood (chÄreia) and orphanhood (orphania) will be no more (De mortuis, GNO IX/1 37:5â6). The life of virginity, by contrast, is immune to all these tragedies (De virginitate III:8:17â25).17
The second difficulty with marriage is that it competes with God for oneâs time and energy. At one point, Gregory asks, âHow is it possible for anyone passionately in love [prospathein] with anything in this life finally to achieve what he longs for [pothein]?â (De virginitate IV:7:12â13).18 Later he asserts, âwe should not squander our power of desire [epithymia] on any of the things that distract us and are considered beautifulâ (De virginitate XI:3:2â4).19 The problem is that everything but God is mutable (De virginitate IV:8:1â4),20 including oneâs spouse. The desire for mutable things takes our attentions away from loving God. When oneâs concerns for mutable things gain precedence in oneâs life, âthe measure of desireââas Gregory later remarks in the In Basilium fratremâis âreduced from God to material thingsâ (11:23â25).
Michel Aubineau argues that Gregoryâs discussion of the tragedies of marriage is a sophistic rhetorical strategy. But Michel RenĂ© Barn...