#1664: Part 4 of The Life of St. Macrina by St. Gregory of Nyssa

The Life of St. Macrina ends with an account of her funeral, and a career soldier’s story of one of her deeds.

Part 4.

28:05.

This stuff is really amazing. You don’t often get this sort of detailed personal eyewitness account of an event from the ancient world, much less of a private citizen’s family event.

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#1663: Part 3 of The Life of St. Macrina by St. Gregory of Nyssa

The Life of St. Macrina continues, as we hear about the saint’s last hours from her brother’s point of view.

Part 3.

17:20.

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#1654: Part 2 of The Life of St. Macrina by St. Gregory of Nyssa

The Life of St. Macrina continues, as she persuades her mother to turn the household into a religious community.

Part 2.

18:14.

I have to say that I really love the 4th century habit of calling the religious life or the Christian life “philosophy”, and of calling religious and hermits “philosophers”. It’s beautiful and fitting, but also very very Greek. 🙂

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#1653: Part 1 of The Life of St. Macrina by St. Gregory of Nyssa

The Life of St. Macrina is a biography — or to be exact, a panegyric or praise — of a brilliant, well-educated, well-born, rich, and beautiful lady of the Roman Empire, (from what today is Turkey) who chose the religious life over any other form of happiness. (Also, there’s a lot about her mother, St. Emmelia. That lady’s not named in the book, but you probably wanted to know.)

It was written by one of her little brothers, St. Gregory of Nyssa. He was the comparative black sheep of the ten children in this extremely Christian family descended from confessors of the faith, and yet he turned out to become a bishop and famous theologian. Some black sheep. 🙂

Part 1.

22:48.

Btw, Roger Pearse said I should record some more of his stuff soon. So now you know where I found the text of The Life of St. Macrina. 🙂

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