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The companion volume provides a sharp account of how to make sense of Gregory’s letters, guided by the central question: “What authorial identity or identities did Gregory craft in his letter collection?” (EA, 99; throughout the review EA designates Self-Portrait in Three Colors: Gregory of Nazianzus’s Epistolary Autobiography and TCT designates Gregory of Nazianzus’s Letter Collection: The Complete Translation). Through positioning Gregory alongside figures such as the classical autobiographer Libanius of Antioch who, like Gregory, speaks of stonings by opponents, sea storms, and bouts of illness, this methodology confirms further Elm’s earlier appraisal of Gregory as a man who “fashioned himself a life that embodied and presented authority, even power” (Susanna Elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012], 9). The accompanying themes which ensure “philosophical expertise” (EA, 135) are vast, ranging from illness, bodily suffering, parrhe\sia, virtue, ascetic exercises, silence, and “any hardship” (EA, 142); consequently it is beyond the scope of the book to analyze these in great depth. Since Gregory’s letters are short, the themes are brought to the fore by reading them alongside the orations and poetry, strengthening Storin’s case that the three should be read together. [...]Chapter Five establishes that Gregory designed his letter collection to prove his own friendship with Basil and to present himself as the primary competitor for Basil’s legacy as a “theological giant” (EA, 173; Ep. 52.2; TCT, 55). |
