Gregory of Nyssa 335 AD – 395 AD

Gregory of Nyssa was a fourth-century Cappadocian bishop and theologian and one of the architects of orthodox Trinitarian theology. The younger brother of Basil the Great and friend of Gregory of Nazianzus, he played a decisive role at the Council of Constantinople in 381. His writings on the Trinity, the soul, and the spiritual life, especially the Life of Moses and the Commentary on the Song of Songs, develop a deeply Platonic mystical theology of unending ascent toward an infinite God. He remains one of the most important fathers of Eastern Christianity.

Gregory of Nyssa was born around 335 in Cappadocia, a younger brother of Basil the Great and of Macrina the Younger, in a remarkable family of the Christian aristocracy of Roman Asia Minor. After secular studies and an early career as a teacher of rhetoric he was drawn back into ecclesiastical life by his brother and was reluctantly consecrated bishop of the small Cappadocian town of Nyssa in 372.

His writings include the long Catechetical Oration, summarizing Christian doctrine for teachers; the great trilogy Against Eunomius, defending the Cappadocian settlement of the Trinitarian controversy; the Life of Moses and the Homilies on the Song of Songs, his most developed mystical theology; the philosophical dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection, in which the dying Macrina plays the role of Socrates; and treatises On the Making of Man, On Virginity, and On Not Three Gods. He played a central role at the Council of Constantinople in 381.

Gregory developed the most metaphysically ambitious theology of the Greek Fathers: the doctrine of the divine infinity, of the soul's endless ascent into the darkness of God (epektasis), and of the universal restoration of all rational creatures. His writings have been recovered in modern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology and in the philosophical-theological work of figures from Hans Urs von Balthasar to David Bentley Hart. He died around 395.