08 — Catechetical and Social Works
Gregory of Nyssa as catechist and preacher: the Great Catechism, his systematic summary of the faith with its famous “ransom and deception” image of the atonement; and the preaching — the homilies on the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer, the homilies on the love of the poor, and the fourth homily on Ecclesiastes, which contains the most unequivocal condemnation of slaveholding in all of antiquity. These files show the speculative theologian as a teacher of the whole Church.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)
The Oratio Catechetica presents the economy of salvation as a manual for catechists; its account of the Incarnation as the divine “hook” baited with flesh, by which the deceiver is caught, is one of the most discussed images in patristic soteriology. Gregory’s preaching turns the same theological depth to the formation of Christians and to the demands of justice — most strikingly in the fourth homily on Ecclesiastes, where the bare fact that a human being bears the image of God is made the ground for declaring slaveholding an affront to God.
Files in this Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Great Catechism | The Oratio Catechetica; the economy of salvation; the Trinity, creation, fall, Incarnation, and sacraments; the ransom-and-deception atonement image (the fishhook) and its later debate. |
| Preaching and the Poor | The homilies on the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer; On the Love of the Poor; and the fourth homily on Ecclesiastes — a striking patristic anti-slavery text. |
See Also
- Trinitarian Theology — the doctrine of God summarized in the Catechism
- The Universal Restoration — the restoration touched by the Catechism’s atonement chapter
- St. Basil the Great — the brother’s parallel social preaching and the Basiliad
- The Church and the World — the Church’s social teaching in which Gregory’s anti-slavery homily stands
- The Church Fathers — Gregory’s place in the patristic witness
References
- Gregory of Nyssa. Catechetical Oration (Oratio Catechetica Magna) [PG 45:9–106]. Translated by J. H. Srawley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903; and NPNF II/5.
- Gregory of Nyssa. Homilies on Ecclesiastes (In Ecclesiasten) [GNO V; PG 44:615–754]. Translated by Stuart George Hall and Rachel Moriarty. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993.
- Gregory of Nyssa. The Lord’s Prayer; The Beatitudes. Translated by Hilda C. Graef. Ancient Christian Writers 18. New York: Newman Press, 1954.