Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T20:47:48.085Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 13 - Regulation Time

Gregory’s Christmas Day

from Part II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2022

Simon Goldhill
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

Gregory of Nazianzus also had stars in his eyes. Some seventy years before Nonnus depicted Demeter having a horoscope cast for Persephone, in both sermons and theological poetry Gregory was setting the agenda for a Christian understanding of astrology. It was a project that deeply influenced the discourse of Nonnus’ epics, not just on the stars but also on temporality. For, in Gregory’s hands, astrology opened a broad vista onto the theological conflicts of the post-Nicaean era, and the active heritage of Greek learning in Christian culture. The collection of hexameter poems known as the Aporrhēta in Greek (and Poemeta Arcana in Latin) – the ‘ineffable’, or ‘secret’ matters – takes on astrology as a subject for debate along with such weighty topics as the Cosmos or the Soul, which gives an immediate indication of astrology’s importance in Gregory’s thinking; but it is first in one of his Theological Orations, the sermons which were one primary cause of Gregory being known in Byzantium simply as ‘The Theologian’, that we will trace the significance of looking at the heavens for Gregory’s understanding of how a Christian inhabits time.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Christian Invention of Time
Temporality and the Literature of Late Antiquity
, pp. 314 - 336
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Regulation Time
  • Simon Goldhill, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Christian Invention of Time
  • Online publication: 13 January 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009071260.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Regulation Time
  • Simon Goldhill, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Christian Invention of Time
  • Online publication: 13 January 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009071260.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Regulation Time
  • Simon Goldhill, University of Cambridge
  • Book: The Christian Invention of Time
  • Online publication: 13 January 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009071260.014
Available formats
×