Macrina the Younger Quotes
Macrina the Younger was a Cappadocian Christian philosopher and theologian, the elder sister of Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, who shaped the early monastic communities of fourth-century Cappadocia and exerted a decisive influence on the philosophical and theological work of her brothers. Her brother Gregory's On the Soul and the Resurrection presents Macrina, on her deathbed, as the Christian Diotima of the Phaedo, leading her brother through a sustained philosophical conversation on the immortality of the soul and the nature of the resurrection. The quotes below are attributed to Macrina the Younger, organized by topic.
Macrina the Younger on Death
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Attributed to Macrina the Younger:
“Death is the loosening, not the destruction, of what God has made.”
Macrina the Younger on Love
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Attributed to Macrina the Younger:
“Where there is love, there is the recognition that we are not yet what we are to be.”
Macrina the Younger on Mind
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Attributed to Macrina the Younger:
“The soul is not a stranger to the body; it is the form by which the body is made one.”
Macrina the Younger on Virtue
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Attributed to Macrina the Younger:
“Philosophy is not the consolation of fear; it is the school of hope.”
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Attributed to Macrina the Younger:
“The truly wise woman gives counsel even to her teachers.”