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St. Gregory of Nyssa

All texts St. Gregory of Nyssa

On the Soul and the Resurrection

ψυχῆς

Gregory Arrives at His Dying Sister

When our great brother Basil had completed his earthly course and departed to that life which has no evening, I came to my sister Macrina under the pressure of an overwhelming grief. He was the common glory of our family, the greatest theological mind of our generation, the shepherd of Caesarea who had given his life for the Church and for the poor, and his death struck me like a physical blow. I could not pray; I could barely think; I moved through the world as a man half-asleep, aware that I was alive and aware that he was not, and unable to make sense of the disproportion. I came to Macrina because she was the eldest of us and the wisest, and because I hoped that in her presence some consolation might be found that I could not find alone.

She was lying not upon a bed or a couch, as the sick usually lie, but upon the floor, on a plank covered with sackcloth, and another plank raised a little served as a pillow to support the neck. When she saw me she raised herself on her elbow and tried to welcome me. But she could not fully rise, and her face was wasted with illness, though there remained in her eyes a light that was not diminished by the nearness of death. I wept when I saw her, not only for Basil but for her too, and for myself, and for the whole weight of mortal life. She saw my distress and began at once to lead me by the hand, through discourse, away from it: not denying the grief but redirecting it, pointing as she always did toward what she knew and loved and was about to enter.

She said: Will you weep and groan like the unbelieving? Will you show yourself unacquainted with the reasons which lead those who are wise not to grieve for those who depart this life? Come, let us investigate together the nature of death itself: what it is, whether it is among the things that are evil or among the things that merely seem evil to those who have not thought about them. For if we can establish that death is not what we fear it is -- if we can show that what we call death is in reality a passage to what we were always meant for -- then the grief will not disappear, because we are human and we love what we have loved, but it will be transfigured into something that does not break us.

Against Eunomius — St. Gregory of Nyssa

Against Heresies — St. Irenaeus of Lyons

Against Jovinianus — St. Jerome

Against Those Who Oppose Holy Icons

Against Vigilantius and Against John — St. Jerome

Against the Errors of the Latins

Answer to Eunomius

Canons of the Seven Ecumenical Councils

Catechetical Lectures — St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Contra Gentes — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

De Synodis — St. Hilary of Poitiers

Dialogue Against the Pelagians — St. Jerome

Dialogue with Trypho — St. Justin Martyr

Discourses Against the Arians — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

Ecclesiastical History — Eusebius of Caesarea

Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs

Epistle of Barnabas — Unknown

Epistle to Diognetus — Unknown

Epistles of Ignatius — St. Ignatius of Antioch

Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith — St. John of Damascus

Exposition of the Christian Faith — St. Ambrose of Milan

Festal Letters — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

Fifty Spiritual Homilies

First Epistle to the Corinthians — St. Clement of Rome

Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus

Fragments of Papias — St. Papias of Hierapolis

History of the Arians — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

Homilies on Romans

Homilies on the Gospel of John

Letters C–CLV — St. Jerome

Letters I–LI — St. Jerome

Letters LII–XCIX — St. Jerome

Letters of Leo the Great — St. Leo the Great

Letters on Nestorius · On the Unity of Christ

Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit

Letters — St. Basil the Great

Life of Constantine — Eusebius of Caesarea

Lives of the Monks — St. Jerome

Longer and Shorter Rules · Letters

My Life in Christ

Mystical Theology

On Virginity — St. Gregory of Nyssa

On the Councils — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology — Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

On the Duties of the Clergy — St. Ambrose of Milan

On the Holy Spirit — St. Ambrose of Milan

On the Holy Spirit — St. Basil the Great

On the Holy Spirit — St. Basil the Great

On the Incarnation

On the Life of Antony

On the Making of Man — St. Gregory of Nyssa

On the Mysteries and On the Sacraments — St. Ambrose of Milan

On the Priesthood — St. John Chrysostom

On the Soul and the Resurrection

On the Soul and the Resurrection — St. Gregory of Nyssa

On the Trinity — St. Hilary of Poitiers

On the Unity of the Church

Orations and Letters — St. Gregory of Nyssa

Orthodox Confession of Faith

Other Writings of Justin Martyr — St. Justin Martyr

Other Writings — St. Justin Martyr

Pastoral Rule — St. Gregory the Great

Prefaces to the Vulgate — St. Jerome

Register of Epistles — St. Gregory the Great

Select Letters — St. Gregory Nazianzen

Select Orations — St. Gregory Nazianzen

Selected Ethical Works and Letters — St. Ambrose of Milan

Sermons of Leo the Great — St. Leo the Great

The Apologetic Writings — St. Athanasius of Alexandria

The Apologies — St. Justin Martyr

The Dialogues — St. Jerome

The Didache

The Gospel of Matthew

The Great Catechism — St. Gregory of Nyssa

The Hexaemeron — St. Basil the Great

The Martyrdom of Polycarp

The Philokalia

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers — The Alphabetical Collection

The Seven Ecumenical Councils — Various

Theological Tractates — St. Gregory of Nyssa