¹ Brown, Peter, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in the Late Antiquity,” JRomS 61 (1971) 96.Google Scholar

² Perkins, Judith, The Suffering Self (New York: Routledge, 1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar A related study of suffering in the modern world is Scarry's, ElaineThe Body in Pain (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

³ , Perkins, The Suffering Self, 8–12.Google Scholar

⁴ My choice to employ this grammatically correct but slightly unconventional use of genitive names for the Gregories follows Jaroslav Pelikan's standard practice in his study of the , Cappadocians, Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); esp. p. 6Google Scholar.

⁵ In some manuscripts, περ Φιλοπτωχαѕis titledπερ πτωχοτροΦαѕ, “On the Feedings of the Poor.”. A critical edition is wanting; I use the Greek text PG 35.855-910. Unless noted, I follow the English translation by Toal, M. F., The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers (London: Longmans, 1963) 4. 43-64Google Scholar.

⁶ Nyssa, Gregory ofDe pauperibus amandis: Oratio duo (ed. Heck, Arie van; Leiden: Brill, 1964) 1–37Google Scholar = Gregorii Nysseni Opera (Leiden: Brill, 1967) 9.1Google Scholar (hereafter GNO); De beneficentia; vulgo De pauperibus amandis 1: GNO 9.1 (1967) 93–108;Google ScholarIn illud: Quatenus uni ex his fecistis mihi fecistis; vulgo De pauperibus amandis 2: GNO 9.1 (1967) 111–27.Google Scholar All translations are mine.

⁷ I will use this phrase to mean specifically these three homilies traditionally titled “On the Love of the Poor.” Gregory of Nazianzus delivered several other sermons concerned with the social effects of involuntary poverty, which will not be discussed here.

⁸ Gregory of Nyssa's first sermon describes destitute poverty in general.

⁹ Greg. Naz. Or. 43.63. The famine may be significant since acute malnutrition, particularly long-term vitamin deficiencies, often manifest as skin disorders.

¹⁰ Greg. Naz. Or. 43.63; ET NPNF².7, 416.

¹¹ He does this, for example, in his treatise against Eunomius, which continues Basil's argument against Arianism after Basil's death. In his sermon against usury, Nyssen openly admits his dependence on Basil's sermon on the same topic. Nyssen is most infamous for forging three reconciliation letters that successfully (if temporarily) tricked Basil into believing they were from an older bishop with whom Basil had a theological quarrel.

¹² , Nazianzen'sOratio 11Google Scholar is generally believed to be a discourse delivered on the occasion of Nyssen's ordination in the summer of 372. For the critical edition, see SC 405 (ed. and trans., M-A Calvet-Sebasti, 1995). Reginald Weijenborg has challenged the authenticity of this homily by suggesting that it is a highly ironic and slightly indecent forgery by Maximus the Cynic, writing against Nazianzen; Weijenborg, Reginald, “Some Evidence of Unauthenticity for the ‘Discourse XI in Honour of Gregory of Nyssa’ Attributed to Gregory of Nazianzus,” StPatr 17 (1982) 1145–48.Google Scholar Calvet-Sebasti finds that Weijenborg' s reasons “” (SC 405, 93).

¹³ , JeromeDe viris inlustribus 128.Google Scholar For Latin see O. Gebhardt and A. Harnack, TU 14.1 (Leipzig: Hinrichs'sche, 1896) 54. For Sophronius's Greek translation see p. 60 in the same volume.

¹⁴ While Jean Bernardi, Jean Daniélou, and others assume that these sermons were preached, they also have a long and complex manuscript history, indicating a substantial audience of readers.

¹⁵ For this view see Brown, Peter, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Curti Lectures; Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992) 71–117.Google Scholar A study of leprosy language as it may have related to ascetic monks has not been done, to my knowledge, and would add an interesting dimension to this topic.

¹⁶ , OribasiusCollect. Méd. 45.27–29.Google Scholar I use the Greek text of Bussemaker, Ulco Cats and Daremberg, Charles (Œuvres d'Oribase [Paris: Impr. National, 1862] 4. 59-82)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Aretaeus 4.13 (description and discussion of cause) and 8.13 (treatment and cure). I use the Greek text of Hude, Carolus, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 2 (Berlin, 1923)Google Scholar and the English translation by Moffat, John, Aretaeus: Consisting of Eight Books, On the Causes, Symptoms and Cure ofAcute and Chronic Diseases, Translated From the Original Greek (London: W. Richardson, 1786) 273–88, 493-502.Google Scholar I am grateful to Harvard's Houghton library for access to this text from which I was unable to locate Francis Adams's more recent English translation (1856). Most scholars date Aretaeus to the first or second century CE, but he may be later since, as Steven Oberhelman argues, Philagrius's fourth or early fifth-century reference is the first clear testimony to his existence. For research on Aretaeus see esp. Oberhelman, Steven M., “On the Chronology and Pneumatism of Aretaios of Cappadocia ANRW 2.37.2 (1994) 941–66Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Grmek, Mirko D., Diseases in the Ancient Greek World (trans. , Mireille and Muellner, Leonard; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989) 171.Google Scholar

¹⁹ , Grmek, Diseases in the Ancient Greek World, 157.Google Scholar One wonders whether this Vedic term is etymologically related to the Syriac kharsâ, since an anonymous Syriac medical compendium from late antiquity refers several times to “the elprosy that is called kharsâ,” which Budge translates “scabies.” Budge, Ernest A. Wallis, The Syriac Book of Medicines (1913; reprinted London: Oxford University Press, 1976) 2. 694Google Scholar.

²⁰ , Grmek, Diseases in the Ancient Greek World, 152–209.Google Scholar

²¹ , JosephusAp. 1.31Google Scholar (esp. sections 281-82).

²² Herodotus 1.38.

²³ , Gal. Prorrheticon 2.43;Google Scholar for Galen's comment see Littré IX, 74, n. 7; for discussion see , Grmek, Diseases in the Ancient Greek World, 165–67Google Scholar.

²⁴ , OribasiusCollect. Méd. 45.28.2.Google Scholar Aretaeus identifies these same subcategories of the disease in Aretaeus 4.13.8.

²⁵ , Oberhelman, “Chronology and Pneumatism of Aretaios,” 941.Google Scholar

²⁶ , PhilagriusFrag. ap. Aetium 8.47; 11.1.Google Scholar

²⁷ , Oberhelman, “Chronology and Pneumatism of Aretaios,” 946–50.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ibid., 959.

²⁹ Aretaeus 3.5; ET Moffat, 116.

³⁰ No one else, to my knowledge, has related this reference to early Christianity, but it hardly fits Greek or Roman religious practices. If this text truly predates Christian ascetic practices, might it refer to an Alexandrian familiarity with Josephus's and/or Philo's description of the Essenes?

³¹ δοѕ κα μΦ μεταδοιοѕ тоῡ κακοῡ, my emphasis.

³² Aretaeus 4.13.10, 15-19; ET Moffat, 280-87.

³³ For the development of this idea I am indebted to Vinne, Michael J. De, “The Advocacy of Empty Bellies: Episcopal Representations of the Poor in the Late Empire” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1995)Google Scholar.

³⁴ Cuesta, José Janini, La Antropologia y la medicina pastoral de San Gregorio de Nisa (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1946) 31.Google Scholar See also Daniélou, Jean, Le IVième siècle: Grégoire de Nysse et son milieu (Paris: Institute Catholique, 1960) 37–38.Google Scholar Although Caesareus was a medical doctor, he also authored at least one theological text, if Photius is correct in attributing to Caesareus a book of two hundred ecclesiastical questions and answers (Phot. Bibliotheca 210). I thank Nick Constas for the discussion that led me to Photius.

³⁵ For an overview of causation theory see esp. Frede, Michael, “The original notion of cause in Schofield, Malcolm, Burnyeat, Myles, and Barnes, Jonathan, eds., Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980) 217–49;Google ScholarHankinson, R. J., “Galen's Theory of Causation ANRW 2.31.2 (1994) 1757–74; andGoogle ScholarSorabji, Richard, “Causation, Laws and Necessity, in , Schofield et al., Doubt and Dogmatism, 250–82.Google Scholar Causes were not necessarily related to activities in ancient texts. For Aristotle an idea might be a cause. This view had changed somewhat by the early Christian period, in that the role of an active agent became more dominant in causation theory. Cause is active, for example, in Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1.17.82.3 and 8.9.25.5) and the Neoplatonists continued to regard it as active. In terms of disease etiology, however, this theory would merely imply that humors and environmental imbalance might be seen as active agents. The transmission of undesirable properties from one person to another was understood largely in terms of religious purity and pollution, not ordinary pathology.

³⁶ Gal. De sectis; for text see Marquardt, J., Müller, I., and Helmreich, G., eds., Claudii Galeni Pergameni scripta minora (1893; reprinted Leibzig: Teubner, 1967) 3. 12-32.Google Scholar For discussion see , Hankinson, “Galen's Theory of Causation,” 1759–60Google Scholar.

³⁷ , Hankinson, “Galen's Theory of Causation,” 1762.Google Scholar

³⁸ Ibid., 1763.

³⁹ For a brief summary of humoral theory see Majno, Guido, The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975) 176–83Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Paulus of Aegina retains this teaching found in Galen and Oribasius in his sixth-century CE description of elephantiasis: “It arises either from the melancholic and feculent part, and, as it were, dregs of the blood, or from yellow bile, both being overheated.…black bile produces reddish elephantiasis, which is the less malignant variety…ulceration of the whole body and falling off of the extremities are produced…from yellow bile overheated.…those already overpowered by the disease must be abandoned.” Paulus Aegineta 4.1; ET Adams, Francis, The Seven Books of Paulus Aegineta (London: The Sydenham Society, 1844) 2. 1.Google Scholar In 4.2 Paulus similarly identifies leprosy as a melancholic disorder rooted in excessive black bile.

⁴¹ , OribasiusCollect. Méd. 45.27.1.Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid. 45.27.12.

⁴³ The Syriac Book of Medicines, Fol. 8a-9b, 2.14-15.

⁴⁴ Ibid., Fol. 23b; ET Budge, 2. 47.

⁴⁵ Aretaeus 4.13.19-21.

⁴⁶ , OribasiusCollect. Méd. 45.29.26.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Ibid., 45.29.29.

⁴⁸ πολεμιωττηѕ πρѕ тѕ διΦεσιν, in , OribasiusCollect. Méd. 45.29.79Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Ibid. The argument to be made here is that sex will make one's symptoms worse, not that one will transmit the disease to another person, although this fear was perhaps present as well.

⁵⁰ Stephanus of Athens says that all diseases originate in the seasons insofar as these affect body moisture and other properties. Atheniensis, Stephani, in Hippocratis Aphorismos Commentaria 3.22Google Scholar (Corpus medicorum graecorum XI 1,3,1; trans. Westerink, Leendert G.; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1985) 130–31Google Scholar.

⁵¹ The Syriac compendium, which Budge dates to the same period as Stephanus's commentary, reflects a popular belief that lepers were fated by certain astrological predelictions: a man is likely to develop “lepra on his head” if he is born in the beginning of Nisân, any time during Tammûz, or in the middle or the end of the month of Shebât. The Syriac Book of Medicines, Fol. 243b; ET Budge, 2. 618-19.

⁵² Aretaeus 4.13.19; ET Moffat, 286.

⁵³ Ibid.; ET Moffat, 493.

⁵⁴ Nyss, Greg.. De pauperibus amandis 2;Google ScholarGNO 9.1, 124: νυν δ μετδοσν τινα κα κοινωνí αν τοῡ πθουѕ διενλαβεîται

⁵⁵ Ibid.: . The parentheses are part of the Greek text.

⁵⁶ Nyss, Greg.. Ctr. Eunom. 1.4.28Google Scholar; Hall, ET Stuart G., El ‘Contra Eunomium I’ en produccion literaria de Gregorio de Nisa, VI coloquio internacional sobre Gregorio de Nisa (ed. Mateo-Seco, Lucas F. and Bastero, Juan L.; Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, S.A., 1988) 39. Basil speaks of this in his Homily on Psalm 1 (PG 29.225B): ἂλοѕ уρ ἄλλψτѕ νσου μεταδντεѕ συνοσοσιν άλλλοιѕGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁷ Greg. Naz. Or. 14.27; ET Toal, 57; my emphasis. The Greek μεταλαμβνω has generally the same positive meaning as μεταδδωμι.

⁵⁸ For example, , Aesch. Choeph. 279–82Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Hector Avalos, personal communication.

⁶⁰ The text survives only in an abbreviated Slavic translation and some Greek fragments. For discussion see Patterson, L. G., Methodius of Olympus: Divine Sovereignty, Human Freedom, and Life in Christ (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997) 235–39.Google Scholar Patterson notes that Origen's allegorical approach clearly influenced this treatise, which consists of a discussion of the prescriptions in Lev 13 and interprets leprosy as sin in the church.

⁶¹ Naz, Greg.. Or. 14.37; PG 35.908.Google Scholar

⁶² Nyss, Greg.. De pauperibus amandis 1;Google ScholarGNO 9.1,106: προσεδεουσι τῷ πυλνι μυρíοι.

⁶³ Naz, Greg.. Or. 14.6.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ibid.; PG 35.865; ET Toal, 45-46.

⁶⁵ Job 2:8. Several centuries later Sophronius of Jerusalem similarly identifies elephantiasis as ή íερà óσοѕ in his Miracula Cyri et Joannis 15 (PG 87.3469C).

⁶⁶ Naz, Greg.. Or. 14.34; PG 35.904.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Ibid. 14.8; PG 35.868.

⁶⁸ Ibid. 14.9; PG 35.865.

⁶⁹ Greg. Nyss. Dialogus de anima et resurrectione; ET and note see NPNF² 5.462.

⁷⁰ Nyss, Greg.. De pauperibus amandis 2;Google ScholarGNO 9.1,113.

⁷¹ , Chrys. “Sixth Sermon on Lazarus and the Rich Man/On the Earthquake,” in Saint John Chrysostom: On Wealth and Poverty (trans. Roth, Catherine P.; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Press, 1984) 108.Google Scholar

⁷² Nyss, Greg.. De pauperibus amandis 1;Google ScholarGNO 9.1,98; literally “They have put on the face of our Saviour” (τοϋ Σωτῇροѕ μὡν τò πρóσωπον ένεδσαντο).

⁷³ Ibid.; GNO 9.1, 106: οιν εωτnþοσ øιλοι των εντολων το κεøαλαιον.

⁷⁴ Ibid. 2; GNO 9.1, 114: νν αντιβαινειν τν σιαταεει τον πνενüατοσ.

⁷⁵ Ibid.; GNO 9.1, 115: .

⁷⁶ Winslow, Donald F., “Gregory of Nazianzus and Love for the Poor,” ATR 47 (1965) 348–59; andGoogle ScholarRuether, Rosemary Radford, Gregory of Nazianzus: Rhetor and Philosopher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969),Google Scholar following Gallay, Paul, La vie de Saint Grégoire de Nazianze (Lyon: E. Vitte, 1943)Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ The Benedictine opinions in Migne cite the later date as does Haeuser, Philip in Die Übersetzung der Reden ist entnommen aus: Gregor von Nazianz, Reden (München: Kösel, 1983) 33–68Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ , Gallay, La vie de saint Grégoire de Nazianze, 87; quoted inGoogle ScholarBernardi, Jean, La prédication des pères cappadociens: Le prédicaleur et son auditoire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968) 104Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ Naz, Greg.. Or. 14.10-17;Google ScholarPG 35.869-77.

⁸⁰ Ibid. Or. 43.63.

⁸¹ Coulie, Bernard, Les richesses dans I'œwvre de saint Grégoire de Nazianz: Étude littéraire et historique (Publications de l'lnstitut Orientaliste de Louvain 32; Louvain: Universite Catholique de Louvain, 1985) 171.Google Scholar

⁸² This date is likely only if one assumes that he never preached in church during his years as a rhetor (3657–371) but took the pulpit for the very first time only after being ordained bishop of Nyssa, since the opening of the first oration places it quite securely within a “pulpit” setting rather than that of a rhetorical lecture delivered outside of a church context. I do not know how sure one can be that Gregory was never liturgically permitted to deliver a sermon—for example under Basil at Caesarea or under Gregory, father or son, at Nazianzus—prior t o his ordination.

⁸³ Daniélou, Jean, “La chronologie des sermons de Grégoire de Nysse,” RevScRel 29 (1955) 360–61.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Nyss, Greg.. De pauperibus amandis 1;Google ScholarGNO 9.1, 96-97: πλθοѕ γàρ αίχαλώτων πρѕ.

⁸⁵ , Bernardi, La prédication, 276.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Ibid., 275, citing PG 46.737A and 748B.

⁸⁷ Nyss, Greg.. De pauperibus amandis 2;Google ScholarGNO 9.1, 119-20: μ γρ δ τοῡτο λεγτ τιѕ.

⁸⁸ Rousseau, Philip, Basil ofCaesarea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994) 68–76.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ For a limited study of Basil's method in addressing the problem of usury, see my chapter, “‘You speculate on the misery of the poor’: Usury as Civic Injustice in Basil of Caesarea's Second Homily on Psalm 14,” in Hopwood, Keith, ed., Organized Crime in Antiquity (London: Duckworth/Classical Press of Wales, 1999, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

⁹⁰ Nyss, Greg.. Depauperibus amandis 2;Google ScholarGNO 9.1, 122-23: χείρ ἠκρωτηρασται, άλλ ούκ.

⁹¹ Ibid.; GNO 9.1, 124: .

⁹² Ibid.; GNO 9.1, 124-25: .

⁹³ Ibid.; GNO 9.1, 123: ει øεþαπενται των αναþτιων τανüατα, τοντο και αοντι τοισ αωναοι τω κεκακωνενων ποινοωνεν.

⁹⁴ Ibid.; GNO 9.1, 122: the text here is a paraphrase of Gregory's comment, αλλ' οταν ελενøεþωøν τnσ πþοσ το øøαþτον τε και λνινον οννπλοκnσ n ψνν, τοτε τω ισιω καλλει ενωþαισετααι.

⁹⁵ The classic study on the philosophical influences on Nyssen's thought is Harold Fredrik Cherniss , The Platonism of Gregory of Nyssa (University of California Publications in Classical Philology 11.1; 1930; reprinted New York; Johnson Reprint Corp., 1971) 1–92Google Scholar . For a thorough but necessarily limited study of Nyssen's view of the human person see Young, Robin Darling, “Gregory of Nyssa's Use of Theology and Science in Constructing Theological Anthropology,” Pro Ecclesia 2 (1993) 345–63Google Scholar . For a more extensive discussion of Gregory's “abandonment” of Platonic dualism for a Christian view of body and spirit see Mosshammer, Alden A., “The Created and Uncreated in Gregory of Nyssa Contra Eunomium 1, 105-113,” in , Mateo-Seco and , Bastero.eds., El 'Contra Eunomium I' en la Produccion Literaria, 353–79Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ Greg. Nyss. Depauperibus amandis 1; GNO 9.1, 103: ασήψασα τλοѕ ἕχει τν άΦεδρνα.

⁹⁷ That is, the case of Christ, here assuming the uniqueness of Christ's incarnation.

⁹⁸ Greg. , Nyss. Oratio catechetica magna 25Google Scholar ; ET Srawley, J. H., The Catechetical Oration of St. Gregory of Nyssa (London: SPCK, 1917) 79–80Google Scholar.

⁹⁹ , Greg. Nyss. Oratio catechetica magna 9Google Scholar ; ET Srawley, 53.

¹⁰⁰ Ibid. 28; ET Srawley, 86-87.

¹⁰¹ Ibid. 37; ET Srawley, 107.

¹⁰² This discussion is reminiscent of Clement of Alexandria's description of the conversion of breast milk into blood and its theological implications in his Paed. 1.6.

¹⁰³ , Greg. Nyss. Oratio catechetica magna 37Google Scholar; ET Srawley, 109-10. I am indebted to Robert. Daly, S.J., for first directing me to this text.