Macrina the Younger, philosopher of God / Anna M. Silvas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Silvas, Anna.

Contributor:

Gregory, of Nyssa, Saint, approximately 335-approximately 394.

Series:

Medieval women--texts and contexts ; v. 22.

Medieval women ; v. 22

Language:

English

Greek, Ancient (to 1453)

Subjects (All):

Macrina, the Younger, Saint, approximately 330-379 or 380.

Macrina.

Macrina, the Younger, Saint, approximately 330-379 or 380--Sources.

Christian women saints--Biography--Sources.

Christian women saints.

Christian saints--Biography--Sources.

Christian saints.

Christian saints--Biography.

Christian women saints--Biography.

Genre:

Sources.

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiii, 262 pages : map ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Turnhout : Brepols, [2008]

Language Note:

Translated from the Ancient Greek.

Summary:

Medieval Women: Texts & Contexts

This series provides a venue for work in one of the most exciting and fast-growing fields in medieval studies, the history of women's contributions to western culture. The series title contains a deliberate and productive ambiguity. Since women's literary culture is a history of reading, hearing, and patronage as well as of composition, the series will consider medieval women's texts as texts for and about, as well as by, medieval women. Broader comparative analyses and detailed work on particular texts are both needed in the development of this field, and so is international scholarly co-operation. The series is especially interested in making more accessible to each other scholarship on medieval women undertaken in the English-speaking world and mainland Europe respectively.

Macrina the Younger, Philosopher of God

This book presents St Macrina the Younger (c. 327-379), eldest sister of Ss Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. All the sources of Macrina's life are gathered together, translated afresh into English, and provided with up-to-date introductions and notes. Documents include: Testimonies of St Basil, St Gregory Nazianzen's epigrams on Macrina and her siblings; Gregory of Nyssa's letter 19 which appears in English for the first time; The Life of Macrina, a jewel of fourth-century Christian biography; and the dialogue On the Soul and Resurrection in which Macrina appears as the Teacher expounding Christian doctrine with reasoned argument. The introduction shows how Macrina gradually changed the family household of Annisa into the proto-monastic community that became the model of the monasticism that has come down under Basil's name. A specially commissioned icon, a map of Central Anatolia, and a report of the author's expeditions to ancient Pontus are included.

`In contrast with those works that seek to translate the ancient texts into colloquial English with a pedestrian tone, Silvas' translations have a grand and noble quality about them that is fully fitting Gregory's rhetoric and that conveys to the reader the seriousness of the lofty subject. Silvas does not "over translate"; her translation preserves those points of ambiguity in Nyssen's writing that should be resolved (if possible) not in the translation itself but in scholarly debate.' Warren Smith, Duke University

Contents:

Testimonies of St Basil the Great 55

Epigrams of St Gregory the Theologian 79

Gregory of Nyssa, Letter 19 83

The Life of Macrina, Introduction 93

Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Macrina 109

On the Soul and the Resurrection, Introduction 149

Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection 171

Macrina, A Letter Writer? 247.

Notes:

Translations by the author from the Ancient Greek.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Related Work:

Gregory, of Nyssa, Saint, approximately 335-approximately 394. Vita Sanctae Macrinae. English

Gregory, of Nyssa, Saint, approximately 335-approximately 394. De anima et resurrectione. English

ISBN:

9782503523903

2503523900

OCLC:

191244670