A Re-evaluation of Marriage, Celibacy, and Irony in Gregory of Nyssa's On Virginity

Abstract

In a 1992 article, "Gregory of Nyssa's Ironic Praise of the Celibate Life," Mark Hart challenges the traditional view that Gregory's treatise On Virginity is a straightforward paean of virginity that emphasizes the virtues and benefits of the single life in part by pointing out the pitfalls and disadvantages of marriage.1 Noting apparent internal contradictions in some of the Cappadocian's arguments, Hart, both in this article and in an earlier one,2 re-interprets On Virginity as an example of rhetorical irony. He believes that Gregory's purpose was not, in fact, "to encourage people to join the celibate communities being organized by his brother Basil."3 Rather, Hart argues that, far from denigrating marriage and considering it vastly inferior to celibacy, Gregory's deliberate exaggeration of the pains and problems of marital and family life served a deeper end, namely, to extol the superiority of marriage through a nontraditional understanding of its virtues. Hart's work is important in focusing attention on the treatise's positive aspects of marriage, particularly its nontraditional virtues. Closer examination of the [End Page 111] text itself, however, reveals that his argument that Gregory is using irony in his criticisms of marital life has little foundation. Irony (to say one thing while implying its opposite) is associated far more with oratorical works than with speculative theological treatises, and its use by someone versed in rhetoric should be identifiable, consistent, and contained.4 Thus, an ironic statement would not be followed by one or more entire chapters providing extensive nonironic support for the statement, which, as ironic, is not supposed to be true.5 In fact, Hart's rationale for when Gregory is using irony seems to be based largely on a commitment to sustaining his thesis that Nyssen must really be extolling marriage rather than on an impartial application throughout the work of a set of norms for discerning irony. Thus, Hart has inconsistently interpreted the Cappa-docian's criticisms of marital life as ironic, while simultaneously taking at face value his criticisms of celibate life. In reality, Gregory's treatment of marriage is part of a larger framework, of which Hart has grasped the marital aspect without recognizing its position within the broader whole. On Virginity deconstructs both the traditional late antique virtues attached to marriage6 (companionship and procreation) and what Nyssen considers to be the misconceptions attached to Christian virginity (i.e., that the virgin's removal from concerns for family and worldly life automatically makes him or her impervious to spiritual passions such as pride and envy). Moreover, Gregory then reconstructs both marriage—as the context for a virtuous life of service (leitourgia)7 —and virginity, through the encomium to Basil's selfless, service-oriented celibacy, which Gregory still favors over even a properly oriented marriage. In other words, the bishop of Nyssa creates a hierarchy of lifestyles, with a properly oriented virginity accorded highest place and properly oriented marriage a close second. The unifying thread between the two reconstructed lifestyles is an ethical spirituality that allows for the exercise of true virtue in noninstinctual, passionless activity for God and others that duplicates the pure act of Trinitarian love.8 [End Page 112] In his article on ironic praise, Hart points out four major inconsistencies or difficulties in On Virginity that he proposes may be resolved through recognition of Gregory's use of rhetorical irony: an exaggeration in chapter 3 of the hardships and sufferings within marriage; the assertion in chapter 4 that marriage is the origin of vice; what Hart considers an illogical argument in chapter 14 that we overcome death by ending procreation; and the inconsistency of the general point of the treatise–namely, an exhortation to the monastic life—with Gregory's assertion in chapters 8 and 9 that spiritual contemplation can exist within a...