“Put down beside me a shining angel

To lead me by the hand to the place of refreshment…”

From the Life of St Macrina

“On the Soul and the Resurrection”

A Dialogue between Gregory Nyssa and his sister,
St. Macrina

Part One

Macrina is one of the most beloved of the early Holy Mothers in the Eastern Church,
although her Life was eventually translated into Latin and introduced to the West in the
11th century. Her brother, Basil the Great (330-379) is highly regarded in both East and
West, and is generally known as the founder of Greek monasticism. He was in debt to his
grandmother for first instructing him in religious ideas, his mother for being such a living
example that she gave birth to three saints, and to his sister, Macrina, who was
responsible for his conversion.

He was educated in Constantinople and Athens and later went to visit the monks of Nitra
(in Egypt), who lived a hermit life in the ‘cells’ carved out of the mountains which
separated the desert from Alexandria. When Palladius wrote his Lausiac History, there
were 5000 monks there, living alone, in pairs, or small groups. They were self-sufficient,
lived in utter simplicity, and daily sang the Psalter: “One can stand and hear the divine
psalmody issuing forth from each cell and imagine one is high above in paradise.” (1)

Basil, Macrina, and the other saint in the family, Gregory of Nyssa, were born into a
wealthy family of aristocrats in Cappadocia. The ‘Cappadocian Fathers’ are perhaps the
most famous of the early Church Fathers in Eastern Christianity. They wrote
voluminously, and most of what we know about Macrina comes from Gregory’s writings
about her.

Before embarking on his career as a bishop, writer and rhetorician, Basil traveled and
studied in both city and desert, during which he endured a period of intense asceticism
and soul-searching. The solitary desert life never seems to have appealed to Basil,
although he felt that he had some kind of religious calling. On returning home, he found
that Macrina had organized the family unit (her mother and her 4 younger sisters, along
with all of their handmaidens) and withdrawn from the world to a form a monastery in a
remote property in the forest. His brother Gregory tells us that while he had been
traveling, Basil had been won over to the “pursuit of virtue” by letters from Macrina. (2)
He decided, like her, to give his life over to asceticism in community, and thus became
perhaps the most influential monastic Father in history. However, as Carolyn Connor
explains, it was Macrina who was his model:

“On Basil’s return to the family Macrina becomes his mentor and wins him over to the
same ideal of philosophy, one in which he too assumes a life of self-deprivation and
poverty.” (3)
We will never know the kind of thinking that Macrina used to woo her brother to the
religious life because none of her letters have survived. We do know from Gregory that
she was simultaneously persuasive and gentle, brilliant and humble.

For Basil’s cenobitic Rule, he took as his motto the evocative text in Mat. 19:21: “If you
would be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor,” combined with the ideal
of the wandering desert ascetic to “Pray constantly.” (1 Thes. 5:17) These are the
principles by which Macrina was destined to live her life. The other text which was to be
foundational for this early monastic model was Acts 2:44: “And all who believed were
together and had all things in common.” In Gregory’s vita, he tell us that Macrina was
influential in helping Basil to see the necessity of a balanced program of poverty and
manual labor for a true religious life to flourish. His Rule thus sought to unite the active
and contemplative life and he restricted the severe austerities practiced in the desert,
because he felt that work, especially charitable, was more important than intense fasting.
Withdrawal from the world, however, was essential, as were fixed times of prayer, light
meals, and broken sleep (i.e., arising in the middle of the night to pray.) By the middle of
the 6th century, Basilian monasticism had spread among the monks of Palestine and Syria
to become the prevailing Rule of the East.

What were the forces shaping Macrina’s life that caused her, in turn, to become such a
profound influence on her brother? Her grandfather had been a Christian martyr, and her
own father died when she was young. Her grandmother, Marcrina the Elder, (who had
been a disciple of the legendary Gregory the Wonder-worker) was undoubtedly a strong
influence. Like Macrina, she was a devout and scholarly Christian. Her mother bore 10
children, of whom Macrina was the eldest. Macrina recieved a sound classical education,
but very early was attracted to Biblical studies, while Basil, the next oldest, was
interested in rhetoric.

At age 12, around the time of her father’s death, she became betrothed, but when her
bridegroom also died, she refused any further offers of marriage. At the time, this was a
significantly unusual request. It was because of her deep-seated belief in the resurrection,
in fact, that Macrina, as a young girl, had refused further offers of marriage when her
betrothed died, for, she explained, he had really not died; he had only departed. In her
belief, being betrothed to someone who had died was the same as being widowed. ‘“He is
not dead, but alive in God, through the hope of the resurrection.’ Persistent, she thought it
indecent not to keep faith and prudence with her bridegroom, who was away.”(4)

She then shared with her mother the upbringing and education of her younger siblings.
When her brothers went off to pursue their own destinies, she organized one of the first
nunneries in Asia Minor, starting with only her family members and her servants, whom
she insisted on treating like sisters and equals instead of servants. Eventually she and
Basil had a double monastery, (on each side of the Iris river) much like Jerome and Paula,
and Rufinus and Melania were to do in Jerusalem. Gregory explains:

“One might dare say that the difference between them and the angels was rather slight,
because though living in the flesh, the virgins resembled the incorporeal powers and were
not weighed down by the burden of the body.” (5)

A monastery that included both women and men (housed separately) had its occasional
scandal, but provided significant security. Women’s monasteries often profited from the
agricultural work performed by the males, as well as protection from raids by barbarians
and bandits. When later women’s monasteries sprung up throughout the Christian world,
they were quite revolutionary, in that they learned to deal with these dangers alone as
well as contend with the social prejudices of choosing such an unusual lifestyle. Not
surprisingly, a number of their contemporaries asserted that they were so valiant, they
had acquired a true ‘male ethos.’ In Gregory’s view, Macrina transcended any
characterization of a woman according to gender.

Macrina embodied this ethos, much like the ‘New Thekla’ after whom she was named.
Thekla was the young virgin and faithful disciple to whom Paul entrusted much of his
apostolic ministry. Macrina’s mother gave her this title because she was told to do so in a
vision prior to her daughter’s birth. This presages the great mission of Macrina’s life: that
she will be a great teacher, a charismatic leader, and a fine Scripture scholar.

As a child, her favorite texts were the Wisdom of Solomon and the Psalms. The psalms,
which were prayed over and over again from the origin of the monastic movement until
today, are a means of using prayer to permeate the inner being of the ascetic, and
reverenced as a source of life. At a tender young age Macrina was already reciting the
Psalter, “when she rose from her bed, performed or rested from her duties, sat down to
eat or rose up from the table...” (6) Macrina’s decision to pray and recite the Psalms at
regular intervals marked the beginning of her own Prayer Rule. She then began doing
another highly unusual activity: she began to bake bread for the family. For Macrina’s
social class and rank, this was a revolutionary act, because it was a service performed
only by slaves. This act of humility demonstrates a tangible rupture with the conventions
that marked her time.

It is unclear how long it took for Macrina to convince her mother to join her in a life of
asceticism. Gregory tells us that “ she provided great guidance to her mother towards the
same goal...drawing her on little by little to the immaterial, more perfect life.” (7) One of
the younger brothers in the family, Naucratius, gave up his life of law and rhetoric at age
21 and retired to the forests to pursue the life of a hermit. By this time, Macrina had
already given away many of her possessions and organized the family unit (which was
probably quite large, considering the number of servants a family of that status would
have had) into a structured life of work and prayer at her mother’s estate in Annesi. She
had been living a monastic life some 10 years before Basil returned.

Cappadocia and the surrounding area were ravaged by severe famine around the year
368, and Macrina adopted many young girls orphaned by the disaster into her
community. Macrina’s family used the assets they had to feed all who came to their gate,
and rumors began to circulate that the food supplies, even when the monastery pantries
were empty, were being miraculously replenished. The monastery began to draw
numerous slave-girls into this new life of ‘angelic virginity.’ Once she was a virgin, a
woman need no longer be treated as a servant, for Macrina held fervently to her rule of
total equality. She set her whole task on re-creating an earthly environment that, as
closely as possible, resembled Eden. In this sense, the early monastic tradition was
incarnational, as Christ was perceived to dwell in the heart of each individual.

“And such was the order of their life, such was the high level of philosophy and the holy
conduct of their living...that it exceeds the power of words to describe it. For just as souls
are freed from their bodies and at the same time liberated from the cares of this life, so
was their existence seperated from these things, removed from all of life’s vanity and
fashioned in harmonious imitation of the life of the angels.” (8)

Macrina was to be grieved from the depths of her soul over the deaths of three members
of her family; first her brother Naucratius who met an untimely death while hunting in
the wilderness. This was also a terrible blow to her mother, whom Macrina continued to
support, while hiding her own grief. It must have been very difficult when not long
afterward, her mother died, as Gregory tells us that she was so devoted to her, she never
left her mother’s side. Then eight years later, Basil died. Like the figure of Job in the Old
Testament, Gregory compares Macrina to an “undefeated athlete” (9) who bore her trials
with equanimity.

It was about that time that Gregory came to visit his sister, who had herself taken ill. On
the way there, Gregory “had a vision in a dream which made me apprehensive for the
future.” (10) He saw himself holding the relics of some martyrs, which gleamed so
brightly that he was nearly blinded by its light. When he arrived, he found Macrina nearly
on her deathbed (although it was only a bed of boards). They had some time (perhaps
days or weeks) to talk, however, as Macrina refused to be pampered nor was she
downcast about her illness. Rather, she lifted Gregory’s spirit “unveiling to reason the
divine providence hidden in sad events....[speaking] about the higher philosophy...she
expounded arguments of such excellence...that my soul seemed to be almost outside of
human nature, uplifted as it were by her words.” (11)

Before we examine Macrina’s teachings, it is interesting to note that, in the vita, Gregory
tells us that “Macrina lent her hands in service to the liturgies.” (12) This could mean that
she was a deaconess; but more probably means that she prepared the breads for the
Eucharist, since it is mentioned nowhere else that she was ordained a deaconess. During
at least part of their community life together, another deaconess named Lampadia lived at
the monastery and she assisted at Macrina’s funeral. Patricia Cox Miller has noted that
deaconesses were charged “with care for women who were ill and with helping to
maintain decorum during church services.” (13)

When Gregory asked her where some clean clothes were to re-dress Macrina’s deceased
body, Lampodia told him that Macrina had given everything away and did not have a
change of clothes. She told him, “Behold...look at her vesture. Look at her cloak. Look at
her worn shoes. This is her...fortune...she had only one storehouse for her treasure and
that is in heaven.” (14) Thereupon, Gregory himself clothed her with his shroud, and she
still seemed to give off a ghostly light. He then remembered his dream about carrying the
holy relics, as he carried her body to the funeral march, and thence to the Church of the
Holy Martyrs. The community spent the whole night singing hymns around her body
“just as they do in celebrating the deaths of martyrs” (15) and throngs of people came to
join Macrina’s maidens for the final funeral rites. Gregory makes note of a small scar
which Macrina had on her breast and, although her sisters had to cover her body with a
dark robe because of its shining brilliance, the scar remained, in death as in life. As we
will explore in the next section, Gregory seems to indicate by this that the body of
Macrina, now healed and made immortal, was “yet marked by its own particular
experience…the resurrected body is both the ascetic who becomes a relic while still alive
and the relic that continues after death the changelessness acquired through asceticism.”
(16)

Stories began to circulate about miracle healings and “other similar miracles.” (17)
Gregory says he will not spend too much time on them, since “they are considered to be
outside the realm of what can be accepted, that is, by those who do not know that the
distribution of graces is in proportion to one’s faith”. (18) He does mention, however
(referring to the famine) how:

“the grain was distributed according to need and showed no sign of diminishing, how the
volume remained the same both before it was given out to those who asked for it and
after the distribution...and other miracles still more extraordinary, the cure of sicknesses,
the casting out of demons, true prophecies of things to come; all of these are believed to
be true by those who knew the detail of them.” (19)

When they were dressing her, Gregory asked what it was that Macrina wore as a necklace
under her clothing. He discovered that close to her breast she kept an iron cross and a ring
with a seal that contained a relic of the true cross.

Macrina became, according to Suzanne Elm, a new kind of being while still in the flesh,
for she “combined in herself all that was most female with all that was quintessentially
male. Gregory created in her an exemplum for a complete human being through the
creation of a new female image: that of an ascetic, the virgin of God, in short, a true
saint.” (20)
Part Two, the Dialogue “On the Soul and the Resurrection”

The texts that we have which introduce us to this great woman-soul are Gregory’s Life of
Macrina, and On the Soul and the Resurrection, two philosophical biographies written
after her death (a common genre of literature in that era). He had recently experienced
the death of his brother Basil, and in deep grief, sought out his sister, a distinguished
philosopher and spiritual guide in his eyes. He had often turned to Macrina in the past for
advice, even in the midst of his most pressing theological problems. In his translation and
commentary on the Life, Kevin Corrigan tells us:

“In the dialogue (so reminiscent of Socrates’ death bed scene and his arguments for the
immortality of the soul in the Phaedo), Macrina is presented as the Christian Socrates,
equal to, or even surpassing, that profound intelligence.” (21)

The whole Cappadocian family came from a living tradition, in keeping with the genre of
Christian philosophers of the period, of perfecting the best of Greek Platonic thought for
the sake of Christianity. (22) During this time period, ‘philosophy’ often meant a call to
ascetic life. In this treatise, we will see that for Macrina and Gregory, philosophy is not a
dead academic discipline separated from Christian life; it is the living wisdom which
inspires it.

This family of philosophers was greatly influenced by Origen, as his teachings were
transmitted from his pupil, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (the Wonderworker) to Macrina
and Gregory’s grandmother, Macrina the Elder.
Origen is often said to be the author of Christian mysticism, since he was the first
Christian scholar to systematically apply an allegorical interpretation of Scripture (for
example, the famous Song of Songs.) For Origen, there are hidden relations between the
seen and the unseen, between heaven and earth. Scripture has a literal meaning (the body)
and a secret or symbolic meaning (the soul.) So spiritual is his approach that much of his
theology is open to misinterpretation (as we will see in Paula’s teacher, Jerome.)
Although influential in both East and West from the earliest Church traditions until today,
Origen’s teaching on the pre-existence of the soul was condemned 300 years after his
death, in the 5th century, at the Council of Constantinople. His writings on the soul and
the resurrection undoubtedly impacted the discussion on these topics held between
Gregory and Macrina on her deathbed. They were not aware, of course, that some of his
theology would later be anathematized.

Christian philosophers of this era sought answers to the very questions Gregory proposed
to his ‘Teacher,’ Macrina, in his last encounter with her. Why, if we believe in eternal
life, do we inevitably shrink from death? What is the nature of the resurrected body and
how can it be reconstituted after it has fallen into dust? How does the soul survive after
the body dies; and how is it possible for a disembodied soul to feel pain in the fires of
hell? How, in fact, do we sing praises to God in heaven without mouths?

This conversation, which he reconstructed in his treatise On the Soul and the
Resurrection was written the same year that Macrina died. Gregory said that he learned
more from her during this last interaction than he ever learned from any other teacher. In
order to appreciate the philosophical meanderings of this brother and sister during their
last days together, it is helpful to understand the concept of the resurrection of the body
as it was explained by various theologians up until the era when they were living.

The legacy of the monastic era offered its own unique contribution to resurrection
theology, which continued to mature from how Christians thought about it during the age
of martyrdom. The 2nd and 3rd century apologists generally fell into two camps. On the
one hand (which we will term the “change” model) the soul is compared to a grain of
wheat which sprouts as we rise at the end of time. But, then the question becomes: how is
the wheat sheaf—in its new matter and structure—the same as the seed from which it
sprung?

The other model was the “statue” model, where the body is compared to a broken pot,
which is reassembled by God during the last days. But if this was the case, will the new
statue (body) be the same in design, and how is such similarity salvation? The paradox,
as Caroline Bynum explains it, is this: “…if there is change [of the body], how can there
be continuity and hence identity? If there is continuity, [the statue model] how will there
be change and hence glory?” (23)

Irenaus and Tertullian (1st and 2nd centuries) believed that the same flesh that was torn
apart in the arena or digested in the grave would be transmuted at the resurrection.
However, this did not solve the problem of identity, which so puzzled the later apologists.
The resurrection of the body at the end of time had been believed by the Jews for
generations; the salvation of the soul (without the body) was believed by the Greek pagan
culture in which the Christian apologists lived. How was Christian resurrection different?

Cyril of Jerusalem said that the body is in perpetual change—it turns into food for
animals or the earth: how can the atoms separated from it then be reassembled? Ambrose
asked, who would want it back anyway, since it is only a wretched prison? (24)

In this understanding, (i.e., the ‘change’ model) identity is what survives and takes on a
resurrected body, which may or may not be composed of the same bits of flesh that were
the ‘self’ at the moment of death. Origen tackled the identity problem most successfully
during the 2nd and 3rd centuries by first posing the question: “[W]hy would God
arbitrarily decide to reanimate those bits [of flesh] as opposed to all the others that have
flowed through the body?” (25) He was fond of using the analogy “the river is not a bad
name for the body.” (26) Rather, the resurrected body is not subject to this mutation; it is
an identity of the self which changes and evolves as the body ages, and this identity
continues to change after death, following Paul’s idea, “it is raised a spiritual body…for
“flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom.” (1 Cor.15: 44,50)

What ‘survives’ is similar to the Platonic ‘eidos’, and as Bynum points out, would today
more properly be called “genetic code.” (27) Therefore, for Origen, the body that
survives is not the “statue” model—for that would be too static—it is rather the “seed”
model, having within it the potential for growth, but nonetheless not divorced from its
original identity. (A mustard seed will never be an oak tree.)

Methodius, who opposed Origen and the idea that there would be any dynamic sense of
change, asserted the materialistic position. He rejected Origen’s use of the Pauline seed
metaphor, and even denied that digestion really occurred. (Plants do not really ‘eat’ the
earth; food only ‘passes through’ our bodies.)Even though the current Greek scientific
understanding of the body was that it was composed of elements that decomposed, for
Methodius and his school, the body was not subject to change. He believed that neither
nutrition nor excrement ever altered the body in any way.

The general trend of the East, was to be the seed model of Origen. It was adapted by the
monks of the Egyptian and Syrian desert and influenced numerous theologians of the
next few centuries. The general trend of the West (following Jerome and Augustine) was
to be the ‘statue’ model, i.e., the ‘rebuilt temple’ which emphasizes, not so much identity
and evolution of consciousness, but rather material continuity: but somehow ‘frozen in
time.’

It is within this context that we must understand this discussion of the Soul and the
Resurrection. Gregory and Macrina, as mentioned earlier, were influenced by Origin, not
only because they were familiar with his works as a theologian, but most probably
because his teachings had been directly disseminated through their family line via the
great miracle worker, Gregory Thaumaturgus, who once wrote of his master, Origen:

“He kindled in our hearts the love of the divine Logos, the supreme object of love, who
by his unspeakable loveliness draws all irresistibly to himself.” (28)

It was this last idea which would be viewed as most heretical in the West (Jerome will
fight it fiercely), since it results in a doctrine of universal salvation. This doctrine will be
apparent in Macrina’s teaching. As the discussion begins, Gregory, who was despondent
not only over the death of his brother Basil, but also of the prospect of his sister’s illness
and approaching death, is rebuked by Macrina, who says: “It is not right to grieve for
those who are asleep, since we are told that sorrow belongs only to those who have no
hope.” (29)
Gregory then asks, why is the art of healing so honored among men then? And his
teacher answers with another question, “What is it about death itself which seems
especially fearful to you?” (30) Gregory responds.
“Hearing about the departure of the soul, we see what is left, but we do not know what
has gone away, what its nature is, or where it has gone, and neither earth nor air nor water
nor any of the elements indicates what force has left the body once it has gone out and the
corpse is left behind already prey to corruption.” (31)

Macrina tells him that he is too influenced by pagan ideas; he should, rather:

“Look at the harmony of everything, the heavens and the wonders beneath the earth, the
elements so different from each other, woven together through some ineffable
relationship for the same purpose, each contributing its own power to the permanence of
all…” (32)

Orchestrating this universal sense of harmony and beauty Macrina sees, “a divine power,
skillful and wise…going through everything, harmonizing the parts with the whole and
completing the whole.” (33)

But, Gregory counters, how does the existence of God (whom the Jews surely believed
in) prove that there is a human identity which survives death (which the Jews did not
believe in)? Macrina replies that the soul is itself the teacher about these things, because
it is immaterial and incorporeal, “acting and moving according to its own nature,” often
“indicating its own movements through the bodily organs.” (34) Macrina is here offering
a fairly sophisticated understanding of the autonomous functions of the body, such as
breathing and heartbeat. And Gregory presses on: What is the nature of the soul, if we
only understand it through the observation of the body?

Macrina slyly reminds him that senses alone do not tell us about it: mind figures it out.
God’s gift of human reasoning allows us to move beyond an understanding of the planets,
for example, which is simply based on sense impressions. For instance, we know that the
moon reflects the sun’s rays, but “those who look at it thoughtlessly think that the light
comes from the moon itself.” (35) Macrina then embarks upon a number of scientific
discourses which lead one to doubt the notion that the senses alone can ever be trusted
and finally concludes with a (Socratic) question, “[I]f a definition of being does not come
from non-being, how is the human mind saved from being used up in the dispersal of the
bodily properties?” (36)

She makes it clear, however, that she rejects all Platonic notions of the soul (“the Platonic
chariot and the team of horses yoked to it”), for “we rely on Holy Scripture as a rule of
dogma.” (37) Using as an example the gospel story of the good seed and the weeds (Mat
13:24) she praises the positive value of the emotions—the weeds being the “desiring
element”; for “if love is taken away, how shall we be joined to God? If our anger is
quenched, what weapon shall we have against the Adversary?” (38) She reminds him, of
course, that passions must not be allowed to come into their own power, lest “like slaves
rising against their masters, [they] carry him off into slavery…” (39)
When Gregory approaches her with the topic of hell, she says at first that she refuses to
argue about the nature of that place, although she seems to hint that her personal belief is
that it designates “nothing else than a change into the unseen and invisible” (40) (a
somewhat gnostic notion). Gregory asks for an explanation of Phil.2:10, where at the
restoration of the universe “every knee will bow before him of those in the heavens and
on the earth and below the earth” (i.e., in hell). (41) Macrina confesses that, as far as she
can understand it,

“the divine apostle in the depths of his wisdom is looking at every condition observed
among souls and indicating an ultimate harmony on the side of the good…By this he
means that when evil is blotted out by the long period of the ages nothing will be left
except the good beings, and that among them, there will be agreement in the lordship of
Christ.” (42)

In addressing the problem of the soul’s relationship to the body, Macrina explains:
“…the soul is not prevented from being equally present in the elements of the body, both
when they are mingled with each other and when they are separated from each other…the
intelligible nature of the soul exists in the union of the elements and is not separated
when they are dissolved.” (43)

Gregory then broaches a topic which seems to disturb him (and the prevailing culture) the
most. If the soul identifies with the body during life and even afterward (for example, as
demonstrated by the then prevalent cult of the relics) how will it recognize it once the
elements which once composed the body have completely decomposed, or passed into a
different form entirely (e.g. a fish or other animal that ate the remains) ?

Macrina uses the analogy of a painter which has different elements (colors) at his
disposal to compose a picture. Certainly, even though the colors have dissolved into new
ones by being mixed, still the painter knows each individual color (element) that he used
originally. Likewise:

“the soul knows the individual elements which formed the body…even after the
dissolution of those elements. Even if nature drags them far apart from each other…the
soul will, nevertheless…fasten upon what is its own by its power of knowing it…until the
union of the separated parts occurs again in the reforming of the dissolved being which is
properly called the resurrection.” (44)

Here we see Macrina expounding the distinct Christian teaching held by apologists since
the early 1st century: that the human person does not give up its individuality during any
part of the process of death, separation, body decay, or reconstitution. It does not cease
consciousness till the resurrection at the End-time (the older, Jewish belief). It does not
melt into a monistic universal soul (the Platonic model). It does not become someone else
through reincarnation, or fish or rocks through transmigration. These were the prevalent
alternative theories then, (and have regained popularity in our current age, we may add.)
These latter teachings in particular, Macrina explains, “insult the human race…those who
make the soul migrate to different natures seem to me to confuse the peculiarities of
nature and to mix everything up…” (45) Neither does she hold to the Origenist teaching
of the pre-existence of souls. “Every false and unstable opinion on these matters should
be excluded from the true dogmas,” (46) she tells us. The Christian salvation is always a
salvation of the whole human person, and has nothing in common with theories that say
“that there are no individual traits distinguishing one thing from another.” (47)

On the other hand, this consciousness can indeed become a type of ‘hell’ for the soul, if it
has become too attached to fleshly things while it was in the body. And herein lies the
specific form of ascetic teaching which will lie at the heart of monastic practices for
many ages to come. Taking the gospel story of the rich man in hell as an example, (Luke
16) Macrina gives her interpretation of the story: since he does not have a body, how
indeed would he have a ‘tongue’ that longs to be cooled by a drop of water from the
bosom of Abraham? The reason is that he suffers from the illusion that he has a body, for
if someone:

“uses every movement of the soul and all its energy for his fleshly desires, he will not be
separated from experiences involving the flesh, even when he is out of it…[A]fter the
form has been dissolved…it longingly wanders about material places and returns to
them…” (48)

This explains the common Greek notion of the ghostly wandering soul, hovering above
graves. Macrina therefore stresses the intense commitment to the ascetic life, for
“the Lord teaches that those living in the flesh must somehow be separated from it
through a life of virtue, and be freed from the habit of it, in order that after death they
may not be in need of a second death to purify them from the remains of the fleshly
glue.” (49)

This “second death” is obviously what hell is to Macrina (hence Gregory): a place where
the soul not only suffers for the bad choices it made during life, but where it “relives” the
attachments it could not free itself from during earthly existence. Only when the soul has
completely died to the body, in other words, can it be reunited to it for eternal life. An
important element which emerges in all of Gregory’s mystical theology, which he no
doubt shared with Macrina, was the concept of ‘kindred Deity.’ There is a relationship
between our nature and God’s nature, and it is this which illuminates a person’s life: it is
the ‘inner eye’ through which we are capable of glimpsing the transcendent Godhead. In
this teaching, when the soul is separated from all other emotions, it “becomes god-like
and goes beyond desire” (50) and therefore has no need for hope, since its whole being is
fixed on the love of God:

“When the soul, having become simple and uncomplex and entirely god-like, discovers
the good that is truly simple and incorporeal, the only thing in existence which is
absolutely delectable and loveable, it clings to it and mingles itself with it through its
affectionate movement and activity.” (51)

In answering the question about the fate of those who do not desire good and do evil,
Macrina gives the classic explanation that many of the Eastern Fathers have formulated
which stresses choice rather than divine wrath. For “divine judgment does not inflict
punishment upon those who have sinned.” (52) Rather, it is caused by the purgation
which “is entirely necessary for the soul” as it reflects upon its choices: it is the choice
which causes the pain for those who then experience separation. “Furthermore, since it is
the nature of evil not to exist apart from choice, when all choices reside in God, evil will
disappear completely because there will be nothing left to contain it.” (53)

Carolyn Bynum has summed up Gregory’s understanding of the resurrected body:

“To Gregory…the body of the ascetic begins already one earth to live the life, beyond
procreation and nutrition, it will have in heaven…on earth, we have many needs…we are
seduced by material things…But we must begin the journey toward the purity of heaven,
shaking off uncleanness.” (54)

Whatever we may think about these speculations—which certainly are not held by the
universal Church—they reveal the state of theological teaching of the period which took
as its first model, 1 Cor. 15: “everything is subjected to him…so that God may be all in
all.” This doctrine is called ‘apokatastasis’ and is particular not only to Origen, who
believed that all rational beings would be restored to their original state of purity and
equality, but will creep up in the Latin mystics during the Middle Ages, eg., Eckhart and
Julian of Norwich.

In this teaching, observable in Gregory Nyssa’s other writings, and lovingly imparted to
us by Macrina, the soul first develops a sense to discern the real from the temporal. As it
continues to be illuminated by the Logos (the Incarnation) it advances forward in
eagerness to unite itself with God. However, the soul requires the aid or grace of the
Logos, since it is unable to obtain union with God through its own study and insight,
through its own efforts, or even by imitating the life of Christ. Throughout this discourse,
Macrina has gently been leading Gregory (and through Gregory,us) through the
eschatological doctrine of the individual soul and its various levels of participation in the
divine life, an Origenist teaching that will actually serve as the foundation for the
doctrine of the later Fathers on the nature of Grace. (55)

The treatise on The Soul and the Resurrection insists that we will survive in the same
atoms as we had on earth (purified) but that there will inevitably be growth and change.
Like the seed, the body may undergo corruption (it rots under the earth) but a new plant
will come from the disintegration. All impurities of the body (caused by normal processes
like eating and elimination, as well as the inevitable process of disease, death and decay)
are sloughed off by the resurrection body. The resurrected body does not have the
characteristics of being tall or short, fat or thin. It will not have sexual characteristics,
since in heaven we put on the angelic life. Yet, individual traits that create identity are
heaven-borne. Resurrection, (in this and other of Gregory’s writings), meant that
Macrina would still be Macrina; Basil would still be Basil.

This thinking—the heart of the identity problem and the clear response of Christianity to
a pagan age—will be central to resurrection theology down through the ages. The treatise
addresses many philosophical problems which no doubt were important to Gregory and it
is impossible to know how much of the work is Gregory, not Macrina. However, Gregory
was overwhelmed by the philosophy of love, and the loving life which he beheld in his
sister. In the final analysis, for Macrina, as well as for many of the mystics of both East
and West throughout the evolution of Christianity, love was the ultimate answer to all
philosophical questions, for love alone takes us beyond all other desires:

“..and when he [the apostle Paul] says that faith and hope remain with love (I Cor. 13:8)
he …places love above these and rightly so. For hope motivates a person as long as he is
not enjoying what is hoped for. In the same way, faith is a support of the uncertainty of
what is hoped for. This is the way he defines it: ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped
for.’ (1 Cor. 13:13) When what is hoped for arrives, the other emotions desist, and what
remains is the activity connected with love which finds nothing to succeed it.” (56)

Macrina knows that her life-long struggle with asceticism is not alone sufficient to win
for her the reward for which her soul longs. As she lifts her head to say her final prayer,
Gregory heard her say these words:

“You have released us, O Lord, from the fear of death.

You have made the end of life here on earth a beginning of true life for us…
God Eternal, upon whom I have cast myself
From my mother’s womb,
Whom my soul has loved with all its strength…
Put down beside me a shining angel
To lead me by the hand to the place of refreshment
Where is the water of repose
Near the lap of the holy fathers.

Let not my sin be discovered before your eyes

If I have been overcome in any way because of our nature’s weakness
And have sinned in word or deed or thought.
You who have to power to forgive sins
Forgive me….[and] may my soul be received
Blameless and immaculate into your hands
As an incense offering before your face.” (57)
Endnotes

1. Palladius. “The Monks of Nitra,” in, The Lausiac History. Trans. & annotated by
Robert Meyer. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1965, p. 41.
2. Vita, Peterson, Joan, Trans. & ed., ‘On the Life of St. Macrina” in, Handmaids of
the Lord; Holy Women in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Kalamazoo,
Mich.: Cistercian Publications, Inc., 1996,p.56. Sections of Macrina’s vita are
also taken from: Corrigan, Kevin, trans & intro., The Life of Saint Macrina by
Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa. Toronto, Ontario: Peregrina Pub. Co., 1995.
3. Connor, Carolyn. Women of Byzantium. Yale University Press, 2004, p. 23.
4. in Life, Holy Apostles Convent Sisters. The Lives of the Spiritual Mothers, Trans.
& compiled from the Great Synaxaristes of the Orthodox Church. Buena Vista,
Co.: Holy Apostles Convent, 1991, p. 191.
5. Peterson, p. 60.
6. Corrigan, Kevin, trans & intro.,The Life of Saint Macrina by Gregory, Bishop of
Nyssa. Toronto, Ontario: Peregrina Pub. Co., 1995, p.11.
7. Corrigan, p. 24.
8. Corrigan , pp. 27-28.
9. Spiritual Mothers, p. 198.
10. Corrigan, p.31.
11. ibid, p. 33.
12. ibid. p. 57.
13. Miller, Patricia C. Women in Early Christianity. Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University of America Press. 2005, p. 8.
14. Spiritual Mothers, p. 209.
15. Corrigan, p. 46.
16. Bynum, Carolyn W. The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity.
Columbia University Press. 1996, p. 86.
17. Corrigan, p. 51.
18. ibid.
19. ibid.
20. Elm, Susanna. Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity.
Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1966, p.102.
21. Corrigan, p. 12.
22. For a good overview, see Meredith, Anthony. The Cappadocians. Crestwood,
N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. 1995.
23. Bynum, Resurrection, p.59-60.
24. quoted in Bynum. p. 61.
25. quoted in ibid, p.65.
26. quoted in ibid, p. 113.
27. Bynum, p. 66. The “Eidos” has often been compared to an image of the body
similar to the one encountered in dreams. For Plato, it was one of the eternal,
transcendent Forms apprehended by human reason.
28. quoted in Cox, Michael. A Handbook of Christian Mysticism. Great Britain:
 Crucible. 1986, p. 65.
29. Callahan, Virginia, trans. “On the Soul and the Resurrection,” in St. Gregory
Nyssa, Ascetical Works. Wash. D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. 1996,
p. 198.
30. ibid, p. 199.
31. ibid.
32. ibid. p 203.
33. ibid. p. 204.
34. ibid. p.205.
35. ibid. p.207.
36. ibid. p. 211.
37. ibid. p. 216.
38. ibid. p. 224.
39. ibid.
40. ibid. p. 225.
41. ibid.
42. ibid. p. 227.
43. ibid. p. 215.
44. ibid. p. 229.
45. ibid. p. 246-47.
46. ibid. p. 249.
47. ibid. p. 247.
48. ibid. p. 236.
49. ibid.
50. ibid. p. 239.
51. ibid.
52. ibid. p. 242.
53. ibid.
54. Bynum, Resurrection, p. 84
55. See for example, Tripolitis, Antonia. Origen: A Critical Reading. N.Y.: Peter
Lang, 1985.
56. Callahan, p. 240.
57. Corrigan, Life, p. 39-40.