Macrina: Virgin and Teacher

Gregory of Nyssa lauded his older sister Macrina as "the common glory of our family" and acclaimed her as "the great Macrina" who had achieved the highest summit of human virtue. Indeed, in two works, the Life of Macrina and The Dialogue on the Soul and the Resurrection, he portrayed her as the ideal Christian teacher and philosopher, seeking God with her whole heart and mind.' In these two works, Gregory models her portrait on two major figures: Socrates of pagan antiquity; and Thecla, who according to popular legend was a disciple of the apostle Paul. As he develops the character of Macrina as equal to and even surpassing Socrates, Gregory shows her as the true lover of a life of wisdom, a philosopher greater than the best that classical antiquity can offer. In his exposition of Macrina as a second Thecla, Gregory presents her as a teacher, evangelist, and leader following a pattern validated by apostolic authority. Although Gregory is careful to delineate his sister's individuality, Socrates and Thecla serve as models through whom her own character and life are interpreted and modeled into a literary form. By writing about Macrina in the Life and Dialogue-the first of whch is, as Pierre Maraval notes, hagiography of the type of the philosophical biography: and the other a philosophical dialogue-Gregory weaves together the traits of the ideal Christian sage, one who leads and teaches and is the fulfillment of the best in pagan and Christian hopes. The two works are interdependent: The Life gives the story of