Gendered voices of philosophical analysis: The ascetic teacher Makrina (†379) and her brother Gregory

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Panagiotis Agapitos (Mainz)

The talk examines the way in which Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395) presents his older sister Makrina (c. 327–379) in two interconnected works as a teacher and philosopher—the one work ‘biographical’ (Letter on the Life of Holy Makrina, Spring 382), the other ‘theological’ (Inquiry About the Soul Conducted With His Own Sister Makrina, Winter 383/84). It has been generally assumed by previous scholars (primarily theologians, but also philologists) that the voice of Makrina in these two works is, in fact, the voice of Gregory, who was a philosophically trained orator and mystical theologian. However, a closer literary and stylistic analysis of the texts reveals that this assumption is erroneous, and that Gregory actually conveyed a particular philosophical voice for Makrina distinct from his own. We are thus in a position to appreciate the role of Makrina in the philosophical and theological debates in the Greek East of the Roman Empire at the end of the fourth century, and to grasp the philosophical relation of Gregory to Makrina within these two works.