The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa. Edited by LUCAS FRANCISCO MATEO-SECO and GIULIO MASPERO.

Abstract

The, by my count, 193 entries in this handsomely presented anglophone dictionary cover all Gregory’s writings individually together with themes, personalities, and background relevant to the author. It is a companion volume to a Lexicon Gregorianum and to a bibliography promised to appear soon in a revised version. The 41 contributors are drawn from a wide range of universities, including three from Tbilisi, indicative of a welcome enrichment in international scholarly appreciation of Gregory. Only two are from France: Raymond Winling, now emeritus professor at Strasburg, offering here a straightforward account of the Oratio Catechetica which he edited and translated for Sources chrétiennes; and Pierre Maraval of the Sorbonne, with substantial and useful entries on Gregory’s life and the order of his writings. I regret this apparent absence of current French academic concern for Gregory when I recall the massive, even perhaps overwhelming, contribution of Daniélou and his circle to the re-awakening of interest in the tradition represented by Gregory and Origen. A temporary blip, I hope, for the volume could well have done with an extra dose of clarté cartésienne, especially to the Italian contributions which clearly presented challenges to the translator. The general editing has been slack. I will forbear to dwell on useless negative critique of a work which will certainly become a standard resource for students at all levels. The following defects, partly editorial partly sub-editorial, will suffice to illustrate the point. Articles overlap in theme: e.g. too much in different places about agennesia which has an entry of its own and which in La Matina’s article on ‘Philosophy of Language’ becomes aghennesia, evidently because the transliteration was from the original Italian. Some overlap is inevitable but most of it in this dictionary could have been avoided with due editorial oversight of the contributions. Again, Balas, magisterial of course, on ‘Deification’ cannot sustain any Greek type whereas in ‘Participation’ he manages a good deal of it (a subeditorial fault, surely). Again, there is no separate article on the important word ‘Epinoia’ for which the reader is invited to consult ‘Philosophy of Language’ and ‘Divine Names’. Vainly, because the word does not appear in either article though it fleetingly manifests itself in Drecoll’s ‘Agennesia’ (were the editors nodding?).