Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T06:52:51.370Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gregory of Nazianzus' Poemata Arcana: ἄϱϱητα and Christian persuasion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Fabian Meinel
Fabian Meinel*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge, FU Berlin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

When Gregory of Nazianzus composed the Poemata Arcana in the early 380s AD, he had long been through the ‘moral and intellectual boot camp’ of Greek paideia. He was both a man of (Greek) culture and a Christian. He had plucked the ‘roses from the thorny field’ of paganism, and could now turn to the pressing issues of the day: the impieties of heretics. It is important to keep this in mind when reading Gregory's Poemata Arcana. Written in the form of didactic epic, these poems set forth the orthodox doctrine of the ineffable nature of Godhead and its manifestation in this world. In 713 hexameters, they expound the essential unity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (poems 1 to 3), Christian cosmology (poem 4), Providence (poem 5), the relationship to God of human beings and angels (poem 6), the soul (poem 7), and finally the unity of the two Testaments and (the circumstances surrounding) the incarnation of Christ (poem 8). Because of this peculiar combination of Greek literary form with Christian content many modern critics have felt encouraged to pit Christian (content) against pagan (form) and locate the Arcana in the context of an on-going struggle of Christian writers anxious to appropriate Greek culture. But this entails not only a misplaced historical emphasis which overplays ‘struggle’ and ‘antagonism’. It has also led to an impoverished and truncated sense of the poems' literary style: a sizing up of Gregory against the didactic tradition of which to these critics he seems so anxious to be thought part.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Cambridge Classical Journal , Volume 55 , 2009 , pp. 71 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Athanassakis, A. N. (1977) The Orphic Hymns, Missoula.Google Scholar
Balogh, J. (1927) ‘Voces Paginarum. Beiträge zur Geschichte des lauten Lesens und Schreibens’, Philologus 82, 84–109, and 202–40.Google Scholar
Beeley, C. A. (2008) Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the knowledge of God. In your light we shall see light, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernardi, J. (1983) Grégoire de Nazianze. Discours 4–5, Contre julien, Paris.Google Scholar
Brown, P. (1992) Power and persuasion in late antiquity. Towards a Christian empire, Madison, Wis.Google Scholar
Cameron, Alan (1969) ‘Gregory of Nazianzus and Apollo’, JTS 20, 240–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Averil (1991) Christianity and the rhetoric of empire. The development of Christian discourse, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daly, C. B. (1969) ‘Metaphysics and the limits of language’ in High, D. M. (ed.) New essays on religious language, New York, 97–126.Google Scholar
Deichgräber, R. (1967) Gotteshymnus und Christushymnus in der frühen Christenheit. Untersuchungen zur Form, Sprache und Stil der fru hchristlichen Hymnen, Göttingen.Google Scholar
Demoen, K. (1998) ‘Metaphor and the ancient Trinitarian debate. Analogical language in the theological orations of Gregory Nazianzen’, in Biebuyck, B., Dirven, R., Ries, J. (eds.) Faith and fiction. Interdisciplinary studies on the interplay between metaphor and religion, Frankfurt am Main, 137–53.Google Scholar
Florovsky, G. (1987) The Eastern Fathers of the fourth century, Vaduz.Google Scholar
Gallay, P. (1978) Grégoire de Nazianze. Discours 27–31, Paris.Google Scholar
Götz, I. L. (2002) Faith, humour, and paradox, Westport, Conn. Google Scholar
Goldhill, S. (1991) The poet's voice. Essays on poetics and Greek literature, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hall, S. G. (1991) Doctrine and practice in the early Church, London.Google Scholar
Harrison, V. E. F. (1988) ‘Word as icon in Greek patristic theology’, Sobornost 10, 38–49.Google Scholar
Iser, W. (1980) ‘The interaction between text and reader’ in Suleiman, S. R., Crosman, I. (eds.) The reader in the text, Princeton, 106–19.Google Scholar
Jaeger, W. (1962) Early Christianity and Greek Paideia, Cambridge, Mass. Google Scholar
Jaeger, W. ed. (1960) Gregorii Nysseni Opera. Contra Eunomium libri I, Leiden.Google Scholar
Kelly, J. N. D. (1985) Early Christian doctrines, London.Google Scholar
Keydell, R. (1950) ‘Die literaturhistorische Stellung der Gedichte Gregors von Nazianz’, Studi Biz. e Neoell. 7, 134–43 ( = Kleine Schriften [1982] 291–300).Google Scholar
Keydell, R. (1951) ‘Ein dogmatisches Lehrgedicht Gregors von Nazianz’, ByzZ 44, 315–21 (= Kleine Schriften [1982] 306–12).Google Scholar
Knox, B. M. W. (1968) ‘Silent reading in antiquity’, GRBS 9, 421–35.Google Scholar
Kondothera, G. (1985) ‘The word – human and divine. An approach of Gregory Nazianzen’, Stud. Pair. 16/3, 385–8.Google Scholar
Krueger, D. (2004) Writing and holiness. The practice of authorship in the early Christian East, Philadelphia.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laeuchli, S. (1965) The language of faith. An introduction to the semantic dilemma of the early church, London.Google Scholar
Lossky, V. (1963) The vision of God, London.Google Scholar
Marrou, H. (1956) A history of education in antiquity, London.Google Scholar
McLynn, N. (2006) ‘Among the hellenists. Gregory and the sophists’ in Børtnes, J. Hägg, T. (eds.) Gregory of Nazianzus. Images and reflections, Copenhagen, 213–38.Google Scholar
Musurillo, H. (1970) ‘The poetry of Gregory of Nazianzus’, Thought 45, 45–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Narkevics, E. (2006) ‘Skiagraphia. Outlining the conception of God in Gregory's Theological Orations’ in Børtnes, J., Hägg, T. (eds.) Gregory of Nazianzus. Images and reflections, Copenhagen, 83–112.Google Scholar
Norris, F. W. (1991) Faith gives fullness to reasoning. The five theological orations of Gregory Nazianzen, Leiden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norris, F. W. (2006) ‘Gregory contemplating the beautiful. Knowing human misery and divine mystery through and being persuaded by images’ in Børtnes, J., Hägg, T. (eds.) Gregory of Nazianzus. Images and reflections, Copenhagen, 19–35.Google Scholar
Parke, H. W. (1988) Sibyls and Sibylline prophecy in classical antiquity, London.Google Scholar
Ramsey, I. (1957) Religious language. An empirical placing of theological phrases, London.Google Scholar
Ramsey, I. (1969) ‘Paradox in religion’, in High, D. M. (ed.) New essays on religious language, New York, 138–61.Google Scholar
Rappe, S. (2001) ‘The new math. How to add and subtract pagan elements in Christian education’ in Too, Y. L. (ed.) Education in Greek and Roman antiquity, Leiden, 405–32.Google Scholar
Ricœur, P. (1991) From text to action. Essays in hermeutics II, London.Google Scholar
Roberts, M. (1989) The jeweled style. Poetry and poetics in late antiquity, Ithaca, NY. Google Scholar
Ruether, R. R. (1969) Gregory of Nazianzus. Rhetor and philosopher, Oxford.Google Scholar
Soskice, J. M. (1985) Metaphor and religious language, Oxford.Google Scholar
Stiver, D. R. (1996) The philosophy of religious language. Sign, symbol and story, Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Sykes, D. A. (1970) ‘The Poemata Arcana of St. Gregory Nazianzen’, JTS 21, 32–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sykes, D. A. (1979) ‘The Poemata Arcana of St. Gregory Nazianzen. Some literary questions’, ByzZ 72, 6–15.Google Scholar
Sykes, D. A. (1982) ‘The Bible and Greek classics in Gregory Nazianzen's verse’, Stud. Patr. 17/3, 1127–30.Google Scholar
Sykes, D. A. (1985) ‘Gregory Nazianzen as didactic poet’, Stud. Patr. (Berlin) 16/2, 433–7.Google Scholar
Sykes, D. A. and Moreschini, C. (1997) St Gregory of Nazianzus. Poemata Arcana, Oxford.Google Scholar
Toohey, P. (1996) Epic lessons. An introduction to ancient didactic poetry, London.Google Scholar
Versnel, H. (1981) ‘Religious mentality in ancient prayer’ in Versnel, H. (ed.) Faith, hope and worship, Leiden, 1–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, F. M. (1979) ‘The God of the Greeks and the nature of religious language’ in Schoedel, W. R. Wilken, R. L. (eds.) Early Christian literature and the classical intellectual tradition. In honorem R. M. Grant, Paris, 45–74.Google Scholar
Wyss, G. (1949) ‘Gregor von Nazianz. Ein griechisch-christlicher Dichter des vierten Jahrhunderts’, Museum Helveticum 6, 177–210.Google Scholar