Gregory Thaumaturgus: a Platonic Lawgiver

This paper offers a study of Gregory of Nyssa's "Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus" that explores its allusive engagement with Plato's Laws. Such a reading of the "Life" of the Thaumaturge—whom Gregory explicitly presents as a Lawgiver—yields a series of pronouncements regarding the position of Christianity within Gregory's cultural coordinates. The "Life" offers a glimpse of how the process of Christianization—an accomplished fact for Gregory and his late fourth-century audience—could be reimagined in such a way as to invoke and even challenge Platonic models, particularly with respect to the institutions of the episcopacy and martyr cult. The "Life" also points to the role played by Gregory and his similarly educated peers as representatives of both Classical and Christian culture.