It is always a pleasure and an education to read Gregory's works and to observe his guidance of our thoughts, especially when, as now, one part of them, his letter collection, is presented as a whole, and from a new and most interesting angle. S.'s English translation of 242 of his letters, omitting the ‘theological letters’, Epistulae 101, 102 and 202, is a fine replacement for the collection of 100 (which includes Epp. 101, 102 and 202) translated by C.G. Browne and J.E. Swallow, N.P.N.F. 2:7, 445–82. Browne and Swallow's careful selection was a useful introduction, in its time (1894), to the chronology, contents and range of addressees of the correspondence for English speakers. While they, to some extent, varied the chronological order imposed on the letters in the Maurist edition reprinted by Migne, P.G. 37, cols 21–388, it was retained in P. Gallay's critical edition and translation, Saint Grégoire de Nazianze, Lettres, I (1964), II (1967), and the revision of their text in Gallay's Gregor von Nazianz, Briefe (1969). S.'s English version (a thorough revision of his translation of the letters from Gallay's second edition in his doctoral dissertation, ‘The Letters of Gregory of Nazianzus: Discourse and Community in Late Antique Epistolary Culture’, Ph.D. diss. Indiana University 2012) will play an important part in Gregory's reception.
It is a supplement to S.'s already published investigation into the history of the collection, its original contents and their order, and the motives behind its compilation (Self-Portrait in Three Colors. Gregory of Nazianzus's Epistolary Autobiography [2019], p. 27; reviewed in CR 70 [2020], 74–6), and the latest in a series of publications by S. on aspects of Gregory's literary activity in the later years of his life, after his resignation from the see of Constantinople in 381. Both works continue an early (from the first studies of the manuscript tradition by Thaddeus Sinko in 1917–23) and ever widening discussion on the extent to which Gregory himself was involved in the creation of his legacy.Footnote 1
As Gregory explains in Ep. 52.1, p. 55, the letters were collected for and sent to his great-nephew, Nicobulus, at his request, to help his study of rhetoric in Caesarea in Cappadocia. They ranged in date from the beginning of Gregory's career in Cappadocia to his retirement there, and originally included some letters from Basil to him (cf. Ep. 53.1, p. 56): their frank and lively exchanges with intimate friends, relations, colleagues and notables near and far in church and state were well chosen to attract the attention of more than Nicobulus. S.'s re-arrangement of the order of the letters, in line with Gregory's possible initial intentions (apart from omitting those from Basil because there was no consensus as to which they were in the tradition) and the clusters of addressees found in the manuscripts, is both challenging and convincing. To end the collection, too, with a letter of precepts to a certain Basilissa, the leader of an ascetic community (Ep. 244, pp. 201–2), echoing perhaps a letter from Basil to Gregory that comes at the beginning of one branch of the MSS tradition of Basil's letters (Ep. 2.1), which recognises Gregory's style of writing ‘just as men recognize the children of their friends by the parents’ likeness appearing in them’Footnote 2 (cf. Ep. 52.3) and then adds a list of precepts of his own, may restore some of the measure Gregory intended in Ep. 53.2.
The introduction summarises the topics in the author's previous work: Gregory's life and career, the provenance, structure and thematic coherence of his letter collection, and how its contents were intended to re-affirm his spiritual and moral authority in both Cappadocia and Constantinople. There is a useful prosopography (Hypatius, addressee of Ep. 96, is omitted) and a helpful double index to the letters, first in S.'s order and then in that of the Greek editions. Most of Gregory's literary allusions are identified, and slight variants between Gallay's editions are noted.
The translation is lively and well-suited to Gregory's many themes, though, more, I think, could be said about his enjoyment of word play (Gallay, Langue et style de Saint Grégoire de Nazianze dans sa correspondance [1943], p. 90). There are good translations of heartfelt words, as in Ep. 11, pp. 104–5, and much clarity of expression. But, to be frank, there are also a few inaccuracies. In Ep. 219.5, p. 82, καὶ τοὺς καμάτους is omitted as is ἀδελφὸν in Ep. 163.6, p. 91. The subject of the last phrases in that sentence, εἰ καὶ … ὑπελάμβανεν, ἑαυτὸν ἀπατῶν is George, not Gregory. In Ep. 162.4, p. 9, οἱ κρινόμενοι must refer to both parties to the action, rather than the women alone. In Ep. 197.5, p. 103, S.'s translation ‘diaphanous’ does not work as an adjective when applied to a person: ‘the loveliest and most illustrious among her beautiful sisters’, ἐν τοσούτῳ κάλλει τῶν ἀδελφῶν εὐπρεπεστάτην καὶ διαφανέστατην. In Ep. 29.1, p. 114, the terms of a worthless contract are written in or on water – καθ’ ὕδατος, not under it. Σκηνή is certainly a tent in Ep. 223.3, p. 197, cf. Ps. 26(27).5; in Epp. 178.10, p. 125, and 96.2, p. 189, however, it is a stage, as part of Gregory's theatrical imagery. The final verb in Ep. 179.2, p. 125, is the apodosis of a mixed future condition – do so and so, and you will not … . In Ep. 34.6, p. 130, Gregory's point, that ‘we Christians should pity the wicked more for their inner disease than the wicked should pity us, the Christians, for an external one’, is lost. Ἀσχολία in Ep. 205.1, p. 139, is not leisure, but ‘concerns’. In Ep. 145.6, p. 176, μερίζει is active: the wretched daughter of a bullying father says what he wants her to say to him, but weeps for her husband. In Ep. 125.5, pp. 176–7, ἀπολούμενοι is a future participle. There is no negative in the protasis of the remote condition in Ep. 199.3, p. 183: Gregory apotropaically admits that he would feel embarrassed before so great a man as Nemesius if the request he was making were to be against the law. The force of the double negative (οὐκ ἀμαθοῦς) is lost in Ep. 192.2, p. 188.
There is a typo in n. 1, p. 203. Note 41, p. 210, on Ep. 50.4, completely reverses Gallay's correct note 1 on 1:65. In n. 132, p. 214 on Ep. 178.12, πτερόυ is indeed the genitive of πτέρον, but it is also the present middle imperative singular of πτερόω ‘equip (your thought) with wings’.
This book is thoroughly recommended to all with an interest in Gregory's work.
