St Gregory the Wonderworker and Liquid Modernity

1. Bible & Fathers: “Metaphrase on Ecclesiastes 3” by St Gregory Thaumaturgus

St Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians 4:18-5:10 and Luke 16:1-9. Online here.

Since Tuesday the 17th was the feast day of St Gregory Thaumaturgus (the Wonderworker; d. Nov 17, 379)), today’s patristic word comes from his short treatise “Metaphrase on Ecclesiastes.” Here’s a short sample:

I am convinced that the greatest goods for a human being are cheerfulness and kindness, and one receives even this transitory blessing from God only if justice directs one’s actions. But one can neither subtract from nor add to those eternal and incorruptible matters which God has definitively decreed. Is there anyone, then, who does not regard them with both fear and wonder? For what has happened is settled, while what is to come already exists in foreknowledge. But one who has been unjustly treated has a helper in God. In the regions down below I have seen a pit of punishment which awaits the impious, but there is another place reserved for the good.

Read the whole metaphrase on Ecclesiastes 3 here.

2. Books & Culture: “Carl Trueman Explains Liquid Modernity” by Rod Dreher

Here’s the introduction to a recent interview with Carl Trueman on an important book he just released:

A book that I’ve been waiting on for a long time has finally been published: The Rise And Triumph Of The Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution [available for purchae at Eighth Day Books], by church historian Carl R. Trueman. It was my privilege to write the foreword for the book. Excerpt:

Trueman’s book is in no way a standard conservative Christian polemic against modernity. Those are a dime a dozen. Nor is it a pietistic exhortation to prayer, study, and sober living, of which we have countless examples. Rather, it is a sophisticated survey and analysis of cultural history by a brilliant teacher who is not only an orthodox Christian but also a pastor who understands the actual needs of the flock — and who, unlike so many intellectuals, can write like a dream. I can’t emphasize strongly enough how practical this book is and how useful it will be to pastors, priests, and intellectually engaged Christians of all denominations.

Read the full interview here.

3. Essays et al: “The Mystery of the Cross in the Vision of Gregory Thaumaturgus”

In his oratorical presentation of the life of St Gregory Thaumaturgus (Wonderworker), St Gregory of Nyssa describes a vision experienced by the Wonderworker in which the Mother of God and St John the Evangelist appear and revealed to him a creed-like statement of doctrine. You can read that brief account, with the creed, here. In a scholarly examination of this vision, "The Mystery of the Cross in the Vision of Gregory Thaumaturgus," Megan Martha Carlisle argues

that the pairing of John the Evangelist and the Mother of God is a clear reference to the Crucifixion, and, as such, the vision can be linked to important motifs in Origenist and Cappadocian theology, including the wisdom of the Cross and the soul’s mystical ascent toward the unknowable things of God. As shown below, the basic account of the vision predated Gregory of Nyssa; he did not invent it for his own purposes. However, Nyssa did interpret the encounter through an Origenist lens. The vision of Gregory Thaumaturgus as described by Nyssa is not merely an expansion of local folklore or an attempt to lend extra support to Nyssa’s own beliefs by appealing to a revered spiritual authority. Rather, it forms a natural theological link between Origen and the Cappadocian fathers.

You can read the whole article here.

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In Christ,

Erin John