Gregory of Nyssa's Pneumatology in Context: The Spirit as Anointing and the History of the Trinitarian Controversies

Abstract

The biblical language that associated the Spirit with the "anointing" of Christ and of believers proved intriguing to early Christian writers. From Irenaeus in the late second century C.E. until the rise of controversy about the Spirit around 360 C.E. , this language was interpreted primarily for its christological associations. Beginning with Athanasius's Letters to Serapion , it was read by a number of anti-Eunomian, pro-Nicene authors as a way of defending the Spirit's divinity. This article shows the dependence of Gregory of Nyssa's pneumatology upon this tradition. Gregory's use of the theme of "anointing" is particularly extensive: it appears in many of Gregory's works for a variety of purposes. Here, it is demonstrated that Gregory interpreted the language of "anointing" through the "hermeneutical category" of dignity, which he drew from Basil. By treating the anointing of Christ with the Spirit as an eternal exchange of glory within the Trinity, a glory that is then given by Christ to his disciples, Gregory both drew on and departed from the anti-Eunomian tradition. This article corrects an overemphasis on Gregory's argument from the Spirit's activities, showing that this was just one category Gregory used in his pneumatological doctrine.