E01660: Gregory of Nyssa composes in 381/382 his Life of *Makrina (ascetic S00899), recounting the holy life of his own elder sister, who lived as an ascetic in Pontus (northern Asia Minor). He refers to miracles she performed during her life. Written in Greek in Cappadocia as a letter addressed to a recipient in Syria or Palestine.
Creators: name: Erizos
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2016
Subjects: History

description: Gregory of Nyssa, Life of *Makrina (CPG 3166, BHG 1012)<br><br>Summary<br><br>(chapter numbers after Maraval 1971)<br><br>1. Prefatory letter: Gregory addresses a friend, apparently a cleric or monk from Antioch, with whom he had visited Jerusalem. He has composed the text in fulfilment of a promise.<br><br>2. Makrina is named after her paternal grandmother, a Christian confessor. Her mother was also a Christian, an orphan, and married a virtuous man, Basil. Makrina also has the mystical name Thekla, after the famous martyr, which was revealed to her mother by a dream vision, shortly before her birth.<br><br>3. A bright child, she receives a fine education focusing on the Christian Scriptures rather than the Classical letters.<br><br>4. She becomes very pretty and her father arranges to betroth her to a relative, but her fiancé dies before their marriage.<br><br>5. Makrina resolves to spend her life in virginity. She stays close to her mother whom she serves throughout her life.<br><br>6. Their brother, Basil [of Caesarea], returns from his studies in Athens, full of arrogance. Makrina convinces him to embrace the ascetic way of living.<br><br>7. She also convinces her mother to join her monastic community and live as an equal with her former servants.<br><br>8. The second brother of the family, Naukratios, is very handsome and talented in rhetoric. Yet he gives up a promising career, in order to live as an ascetic with one of his servants, named Chrysaphios, by the river Iris.<br><br>9. Naukratios is drowned in a river, and his premature death shocks his mother.<br><br>10. Makrina steadies their mother in her bereavement.<br><br>11. She becomes a teacher of her mother in asceticism, and their ascetic community progresses.<br><br>12. Makrina is helped by her youngest brother, Petros [the later bishop of Sebaste], whom she has reared since his birth. He initially joins his mother and sister at their ascetic retreat.<br><br>13. The mother dies, granting her special blessing on Makrina and Petros.<br><br>14. Basil becomes bishop of Caesarea, and ordains Petros to the priesthood. Basil dies nine years later, and Makrina bears the blow bravely.<br><br>15. Nine months after Basil’s death, and after having attended an episcopal council at Antioch, Gregory of Nyssa (the author who now enters the story for the first time) feels the urge to visit his sister, Makrina, whom he hasn’t seen for eight years. On his way he has an ominous dream vision.<br><br>16. Gregory arrives at the retreat where he is welcomed by the ascetics, and celebrates a service in church with them. He is led to the house of Makrina, where she lies on the floor.<br><br>17-18. Very frail, Makrina gets up with the help of Gregory, and gives thanks to God for his arrival. They talk, and, when the subject comes to the death of Basil, they have a philosophical conversation on human life and death, demonstrating Makrina’s inspiration from the Holy Spirit.<br><br>19. Gregory takes some rest, but he is dismayed by the frailty of his sister. Makrina lets him know that she feels much better.<br><br>20. They meet again, and Makrina recounts events from her childhood and the origins of the family.<br><br>21. Gregory bemoans his past tribulations and current heavy duties in the Church, and Makrina reproaches him for his ingratitude. <br><br>22. Gregory goes to the church for the evening service, and Makrina spends the night in prayer. Fever has weakened her and her end is clearly coming. She keeps philosophising loftily until her last moment.<br><br>23. Her fervour increases as she approaches her end, and turns to prayer.<br><br>24. She addresses a long prayer of thanksgiving and penance.<br><br>25. Night falls and Makrina dies quietly, while praying.<br><br>26. A great lamentation breaks out amongst the virgins and the orphans she had reared.<br><br>27. Gregory exhorts them to calm, and allows a few to stay and tend to her body.<br><br>28. Gregory suggests to a certain Ouetiane (Vetiana), a noble lady who had joined the ascetic community, that they should adorn Makrina’s body for burial. She advises him not to object to what Makrina had wished for herself.<br><br>29. The deaconess Lampadion reveals that Makrina possessed nothing but her poor clothes, and she wished her body to be prepared for burial by Gregory.<br><br>30. As they prepare the body for burial, they discover an iron cross and an iron ring with a piece of the Wood of Life [i.e. a fragment of the True Cross], which Makrina was wearing around her neck.<br><br>31. As they undress the body, in order to clothe it in a bright dress, Ouetiane shows Gregory a scar on Makrina’s breast, which is the remain of a miraculously healed disease.<br><br>32. At Ouetiane’s suggestion, they cover Makrina’s body with her mother’s dark cloak. The body shines.<br><br>33. The news spreads rapidly and a great crowd assembles. They hold a vigil of prayer for Makrina.<br><br>34. Gregory, joined by the local bishop, Araxios, and his clergy, carry Makrina’s body on a bier to the martyrs’ shrine which contains their parents’ tomb for burial. The service is interrupted by the lamentations of the virgins.<br><br>35. Gregory and Araxios place Makrina beside her mother’s body in the same sarcophagus.<br><br>36-38. On his way back to Cappadocia, Gregory meets a relative of his, who serves as a high-ranking military officer at Sebastopolis. He recounts the miraculous cure of his little daughter from an infection of her eye, when he and his wife visited the monastic retreat of Makrina.<br><br>39. Several other miracle stories are reported, like the one about Makrina distributing food supplies during a famine, which would not diminish. Gregory refrains from giving a detailed account of all her miracles.<br><br>Text: Maraval 1971. Summary: Efthymios Rizos.