Monday, August 31, 2020

An infamous homily on the Resurrection (and Jews)

Gregory Nyssene (and his sister Macrina) came to our attention when modern Catholics, fellow Christians, and friends unearthed the Nyssene family antagonism to late-classical (chattel) slavery. Gregory is exactly the sort of Church Father I mean when I praise such as having been guided by God to guide our Church. Kevin MacDonald cites Gregory instead on the Jews, which comments I prefer not to repeat here.

MacDonald quotes a translation by Moshe Lazar, "The Lamb and the Scapegoat: The Dehumanization of the Jews in Medieval Propaganda Imagery" ed. Sander Gilman and Steven Katz, Anti-Semitism in Times of Crisis (New York and London: New York University Press, September 1991), 2.36f; 47. Lazar fn. 36 puts this to Homilies on the Resurrection #5. JP Migne had it in PG 46.685 and... yeah, in In Christi Resurrectionem orat. quin., 683f: patroni diaboli, progenies viperarum and the rest of it.

Gregory of Nyssa had rather a lot of pseudepigraphic "testimonies against the Jews" foisted upon him. I find this particular text among those Patristic quotes disputed in scholarship - although, of course, not all late-antique quotes on this theme are so disputed, cf. Chrysostom. This one is also known by the fourth Easter Sermon (out of three!); and by "In luciferam sanctam domini resurrectionem". Our scholars reassign it to Amphilochius of Iconium. Although I haven't yet uncovered why.

As to how this Fifth Homily ended up with Gregory: its comments about "vipers" features also in an authentic sermon against usury (pdf) although here, our man does not attack the Jews but rather cites them. Just like Michael Hudson.

None of this much goes against MacDonald's point which is the state of antiJewish discourse in fourth-century orthodox Christendom. But let us leave Saint Gregory out of it.

REF 9/5: Roger Pearse points to Cardinal Jean Daniélou in Recherches de Science Religieuse 55 (1967), 151. So, "Bulletin D'Histoire des Origines Chrétiennes", 88-151.

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