Abstract
Makrina, whose life is transmitted to us by her brother Gregory,1 bishop of Nyssa from 371–376, was born in Neocaesarea, in the old town Kabeira which had become the metropole of the Roman province Pontus Polemoniacus in the second century. Makrina was from an aristocratic family. Basilius and Emmelia, her parents, belonged to those aristocrats who owned a big estate (latifundium) in the area of the Pontus. They survived seven years (304–311) of persecution of Christians under the government of Galerius and Maximilius Daja by hiding themselves with their whole household and servants in the wilderness. Their property was confiscated, but probably returned when Constantine, the Great, came to power. Makrina’s paternal grandmother, the famous Makrina, the Older, was a pupil of Gregory Thaumaturgos, who preached the gospel in the area of the Pontus and was a man well educated in Christian religion and Greek philosophy as well. Gregory of Nyssa tells us how his sister Makrina lived an ascetic life on the family estate Annesi, northwest from Neocaesarea, together with her mother Emmelia, former slave women, and other aristocratic lady-companions. The choice for the ascetic life was also made by Makrina’s brothers Basil and Petrus. The latter stayed in the convent when Basil thought it his duty to return to the life of active church politics.
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Notes
See F. van der Meer and G. Bartelink in the Introduction of their Dutch translation of “De vita Macrinae”, Antwerpen 1971. The Dutch translation followed the Greek text edited by W. Jaeger, Leyden 1952.
See E.R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of anxiety, Belfast 1963. See also. G. Quispel in Gnosis als Weltreligion, Zürich 1951.
Ep. ad Markellam(Nauck, pp. 283–287), in C.J. de Vogel, Greek Philosophy III„ 1444, Leyden 1964.
Cf. Epictetus, Dissertationes IV, I, 91–94, 97–104 (ed. Schenkl, Leipzig 1916 ).
Cf. Irenaeus Adv. Haer. I, ch. VIII, (PG. 7), English translation in ante-Nicene Christian Library, edited by E. Roberts and James Donalson, Edinburgh 1868.
See St. Augustine, Tractatus in Evangelium Joh. I,14 and IX, 2. (Oeuvres de Saint Augustine, Homilies sur l’évangile de Saint Jean I-XVI, Desclée de Brouwer, Brugge 1964, p. 158, n. 6 and p. 507, n. 64.)
See G. Quispel in Gnosis als Weltreligion, Zürich 1951.
G. Quispel Gnosis als Weltreligion, Zürich 1951.
Cf. Johannes Leopoldt: Das Evangelium nach Thomas, Berlin 1967, pp. 76 - 77.
Eve was associated with evil in gnostic tradition. See Epiphanius, Pan. 45, 2, 1. For a more detailed description of this concept see L. Ginzburg in The Legends of the Jews, Philadelphia 1946.
C. Quispel points to the rabbinical subordination of women in “Makarius, das Thomas Evangelium und das Lied von der Perle”, Leyden 1967, p. 32, n. 2.
See Herbert Danby, The Mishnah translated from Hebrew, with Introduction and brief Explanatory Notes, Oxford 1933, p. 446. See also StrackBillerbeck, Kommentar zum N.T. aus Talmud und Midrash,p. 438.
See Tertullian, De baptismo,ch. 17. See K. Holzey in Die Theklaakten, Münster 1905.
Women had the right to baptize until the fourth century, but lost it afterwards. (Mansi III, 952 Stat. Eccl. Antiq. Canones). See also H. Huls in his Dissertation, University of Utrecht, 1952.
Compare Philo in Mos. II, 16; Gregory of Nyssa in De virginitate ch. V, (Sources Chrétiennes, no. 119, Paris 1966).
See Didyme l’Aveugle, Sur la Genèse I, 26–28, 62–64, p. 158, éd. Sources Chrétiennes, 233, Lyon (France) 1976.
Dialexis.(Montanistou kai Orthodoxou Dialexis, Greek text and French translation edited by Pierre de Labirolle, 1913).
See H.C. Graaff, L’image de Dieu et la structure de l’âme d’après les Pères Grecs in Supplément de la Vie spirituelle, tome 5, nr. 20, 5 février 1952.
See A. Haman in Ichthus, La Philosophie passe au Christ, Literature Chrétienne, Paris 1954.
See G. Soll in Handbuch der Dogmengeschichte, Band III, fasc. 4, Mariologie, Herder-Verlag, Freiburg 1978.
See H. Chadwick, The Early Church,London 1978, p. 81; see further Epihanius of Salamis in his treatise Adversus Imagines (372), who stresses the point of God’s spirituality and that of the Saints.
See also Kari Börresen in The Patristic Use of Female Metaphors Describing God,published in the Acta of the Eighth Conference of Patristic Studies, Oxford 1979.
See Annemarie La Bonnadière, Chrétiennes des premiers siècles, Paris 1957.
See C.J. de Vogel in Plotinus’ Image of Man,in Images of Man in Ancient and Medieval Thought,Leuven 1976.
See A. von Harnack in Porphyrius, Gegen die Christen, Berlin 1916.
See R.A. Baer Jr. in Philo’s Use of the Categories Male and Female, Leyden 1970.
See Origen in De Principiis = On First Principles, English translation by H. de Lubac, ed. by G.W. Butterworth, New York 1966.
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Wolfskeel, C.W. (1987). Makrina. In: Waithe, M.E. (eds) A History of Women Philosophers. A History of Women Philosophers, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3497-9_9
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