15

Gregory of Nyssa, Canonical Letter to Letoius

Translated by Andrew Radde-Gallwitz

I n t ro d u c t i o n

The younger brother of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335–

ca. 394) was one of the most prolific theorists of Christian practice and
doctrine in late antiquity. He is best known today for philosophical works
such as the dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection, mystical treatises such
as The Life of Moses, and works on Christian doctrine such as To Ablabius,
the Catechetical Oration, and Against Eunomius. His most-copied work in
the manuscript tradition, however, is the Canonical Letter to Letoius, which
has been unjustly neglected in modern study. Like Basil’s canonical letters,
Gregory’s was written at the request of a friend. At some point after 381,
Letoius, the bishop of Melitene, seems to have requested general guidance
from Gregory on the canons, rather than rulings on a list of cases, as we
see in Basil’s letters to Amphilochius. In this letter, written in haste as an
Easter gift to Letoius, Gregory provides a systematic rationale for sin and
its treatment through the same pattern of exclusion from the sacraments
and gradual reconciliation that we see in Basil’s letters.
Gregory’s letter provides evidence for the association of the Paschal feast
not only with the baptism of catechumens but also with penitential d ­ iscipline
for those already baptized. While Gregory is deferent to t­radition, he also
laments surprising omissions in the canonical tradition. For instance, he
maintains that the lack of any canonical regulation for the sin of greed has
led to abuses of the clerical and episcopal office. These ranks had come
to be handed out based on social status rather than spiritual devotion, a
­situation Gregory deplores here and in his Letter 17.
The true originality of the Canonical Letter to Letoius lies in Gregory’s
correlation of types of sin with the three parts of the soul, echoing Plato’s
Republic. For Gregory, any instance of sin stems from a disease or passion of
the soul, and this disease must lie in one of its three powers: reason, spirit,

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 Gregory of Nyssa, Canonical Letter to Letoius

or desire. While each of these powers is intended for a good use, each
is susceptible to its own characteristic failure or illness. To know which
power has misfired in a given sin is to know a lot about eradicating that sin.
Gregory’s motive for developing this etiology of sin is therapeutic, since,
he reminds Letoius, a regimen of healing based on an incorrect diagnosis
can do more harm than good. With Gregory’s treatment of the soul here,
the reader might compare his dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection and
his treatise On the Making of Humanity.
The Greek text translated here can be found in Ekkehard Mühlenberg,
ed., Gregorii Nysseni Epistula Canonica, Gregorii Nysseni Opera III.V (Opera
Dogmatica Minora, Pars V) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008). As with Basil’s
canonical letters, the enumeration below indicates the numbers of the canons.

T r an s lat i o n

This also is one of the contributions to the holy feast: that we understand
the lawful and canonical management of sinners, so that every sickness of
the soul that results from any sin might be healed. This universal feast of
creation,1 observed annually throughout the whole world at the ordained
point in the yearly cycle, is devoted to the resurrection of the fallen one.
Now, sin is a falling and restoration from the fall of sin is a resurrection.
So, it is fitting that on this day we bring to God not only those being
transformed by regeneration through the grace of the washing, but also
those who through repentance and penance2 are again returning to the
living way “from dead works.”3 [It is also fitting] that we lead them to the
saving hope from which they had been exiled through their sin. Now, it is
no insignificant task to manage our words on these matters with right and
examined discretion in accordance with the prophet’s proclamation, which
commands that we must “manage our words with discretion,” so that, as
the text has it, “he never wavers,” and “the just person is remembered for-
ever.”4 Now, in the case of bodily treatment, although the goal of medical
care is single – to make the sick healthy – the form of the care is diverse
(after all, the method of treatment is applied to each illness in a way that
corresponds with the various diseases). So too, with such a great diversity
of passions ailing the soul, the healing care must be multifaceted, doing

1 That is, the Paschal feast. 2 In Greek, epistrophēs.

3 Heb 9:14. 4 Ps 111:5–6.

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 part iii: forming communities

its healing work in a way that is appropriate to the passion. So that there
might be a technical method for the problem before us, we will divide the
treatise as follows.
There are three aspects in our soul, according to the primary division:
the rational, the desiring, and the spirited.5 In these are found both the good
deeds of those who live virtuously and the faults of those who decay into vice.
So, anyone who would apply the appropriate healing must first examine the
diseased part of the soul where the passion dwells, and then apply healing
that matches the passion. Otherwise, due to ­inexperience with the method
of healing, the sick part might be different from the part that receives the
treatment, just as we certainly see many physicians, ­inexperienced with the
root cause of the disease, aggravating the diseases by their treatment. For
instance, often an illness is a matter of excessive heat, but since heating
and warming are useful for those harmed by excessive cold, [some phy-
sicians] carelessly apply the very same treatment – ­reasonably beneficial
to these latter cases – to people burning up with immoderate heat, and
thereby make the passion incurable. Therefore, an understanding of [each
of] the elements’ distinctive feature is regarded as absolutely necessary for
physicians, so that, given that each element is in either a good or bad condi-
tion, the one that is in an unnatural state may be the one to be restored. In
the same way also, by having recourse to this division of the aspects in the
soul, we will make the examination of these kinds6 the starting-point and
presupposition of the appropriate healing of the passions.
So, as we said, the soul’s motions are divided into three distinctive
­features, the rational, desiring, and spirited. Accordingly, right action for
the soul’s reasoning part is a pious notion about the divine and knowledge
that discriminates good and evil, while holding a clear and unconfused
opinion about the nature of objects: among things that exist, which should
be chosen, and which condemned and rejected. Conversely, of course, vice
is observed in this part whenever there is impiety concerning the divine,
indecision concerning what is really good, and a backward and errant

5 See Plato, Republic 4:435c–441a. Introducing his theme in this sentence, Gregory uses not
“parts,” but the vaguer term “aspects” (ta . . . theōroumena). It is not that he is opposed to
speaking of parts, however. He in fact goes on to use the term “part” (meros) repeatedly
throughout the treatise. Yet Gregory’s terminology is fluid: at times he refers to the soul’s
three motions instead of three parts. He also uses terms such as “state” (katastasis) and
“disposition” (diathesis) in place of “part.”
6 In Greek, genikēn theōrian. This refers to the analysis of the soul into generic kinds or
parts, which will underlie the following analysis of sin.

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 Gregory of Nyssa, Canonical Letter to Letoius

notion about the nature of things, such that one maintains that light is dark
and dark light, as the scripture says.7 The virtuous movement of the desir-
ing part is orientating one’s longing toward what is really worthy of desire
and truly good, and, since there is in us an erotic power and disposition,
making this power entirely occupied in the belief that nothing is worthy of
desire in its own nature except for virtue and the nature from which virtue
flows.8 For such a part [of the soul], deviance and sin occur when one trans-
fers desire to insubstantial vainglory or to bodies’ skin-deep bloom. From
these come love of money, love of glory, love of pleasure, and everything
like this, everything that belongs in this kind of vice. Right action for the
spirited state, in turn, is hatred of evil, war against the passions, and steel-
ing the soul into courage by not recoiling from what the masses consider
to be fearful. Instead, it is resisting sin to the point of blood; despising the
threat of death, of painful punishments, and of separation from delights;
and becoming stronger than all the things that keep the masses bound to
pleasure through habits and preconceived notions, while fighting on behalf
of faith and virtue. The faults of such a part are obvious to all: envy, hatred,
wrath, insults, fights, competitive and vengeful attitudes, which cause one to
dwell on injuries for too long and which incite9 many to murder and blood-
shed. Truly, when untrained calculation does not discover how to use this
weapon10 profitably, it turns the sword’s blade on itself, and the ­defensive
weapon given to us by God becomes deadly for the one who uses it badly.
1. And so, with these distinctions arranged in accordance with the afore-
mentioned plan, all the sins that belong to the rational part of the soul were
judged by the fathers as more serious and deserving of a greater, longer-­
lasting, and more laborious penance. For instance, if someone has denied
the faith in Christ, and it is clear that he has changed sides to Judaism, or
idolatry, or Manichaeism, or any similar type of atheism, having volun-
tarily rushed to such an evil but later accused himself, the length of his
repentance is the whole of his life. He will never be worthy of ­worshiping
God with the people during the celebration of the mystical prayer, but will
pray all alone, since he is entirely a foreigner to the communion in the
sacraments. But at the hour of his departure he will be judged worthy of
a share of the sacraments. And if, contrary to expectation, it happens that
he lives, he will pass his life once more in the same judgment [as before],

7 Is 5:20. 8 That is, the divine nature.

9 Reading katathēgousai for katalēgousai.
10 That is, the spirited part (to thymoeides) and its characteristic attitude of anger (thymos).

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 part iii: forming communities

­ aving no share of the mystical sacraments until death. But as for those
h
who [denied the faith] while suffering tortures and horrible torments, they
were ­punished for a set time-period, and thus the fathers showed them
leniency, since it was not the soul that led to sin, but the body’s weakness,
unable to bear its anguishes. So, with respect to penance, transgression
committed under coercion and duress receives the same measure as those
who have sinned through fornication.
2. As for those who resort to sorcerers, seers, or those who claim the
ability to enact various purifications and apotropaic spells with the help
of demons: these people must be interrogated scrupulously and examined
as to whether they were engaged in that sin under some kind of coercion
while continuing in the faith in Christ, or whether it was some affliction or
an unbearable loss that produced this impulse in them, or an utter disdain
for the mystery confessed by us that led them to join the demons’ alliance.
Now, if they did this in order to reject the faith and not believe that the one
worshiped by Christians is God, clearly they shall be subject to the pen-
alty for the lapsed.11 But if an insufferable force overwhelmed their faint-­
heartedness and brought them, misled by an errant hope, to this, then leniency
will be similarly extended to them in the same way as for those who, at the
moment of their confession, were unable to stand firm in the face of torture.
3. The division of sins that occur because of desire and pleasure is as
follows. One is called adultery, another fornication. Now, it pleases some
of the more rigorous to consider the sin of fornication to be adultery, since
there is one lawful union between wife and husband, and husband and wife.
So, everything that is not lawful is surely illicit and he who has what is not
his own clearly has what belongs to another. Now, to man12 has been given
one “helpmate”13 by God and to woman one “head” has been affixed.14 If
someone “has mastery of his own vessel,”15 as the divine apostle names
it, then the law of nature allows a just use of it. But if someone were to
turn away from what is his own, he would surely come to what belongs to
another. For each person, everything that is not his own belongs to another,
even if there is no agreed-upon owner. Therefore, those who approve the
more rigorous line of thinking have shown that fornication is not too far
from the sin of adultery, as the divine scripture also says, “Do not spend
much time with another’s wife.” Nevertheless, since our fathers granted a

11 In Greek, parabantōn. See Canon 11 of the Council of Nicaea.

12 In Greek, anthrōpōi. 13 
Gn 2:20. 14 1 Cor 11:3. 15 1 Thes 4:4.

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 Gregory of Nyssa, Canonical Letter to Letoius

certain accommodation to those who are weaker, the sin is distinguished

with the following division into kinds: fulfillment of one person’s desire
without injury to another person is called “fornication,” while scheming
and injury against what belongs to another is called “adultery.” Bestiality
and pederasty are also reckoned to fall in the latter category, since they
constitute adultery against nature. For the injury is against nature and
directed toward what belongs to another. Accordingly, the universal treat-
ment for this division and for the sin of this kind is for the person through
penitence to become clean of the impassioned frenzy for such pleasures.
But in the case of those stained by fornication, there is no injury mixed in
with this sin. Therefore the time period of the penance is set at double for
those defiled by adultery and by the other forbidden vices, bestiality and
frenzy for men. For, as I have said, the sin is double in such instances: one
consists in the illicit pleasure, the other in the injury committed against
what belongs to another. Even in the case of those who sin for pleasure,
there is a certain distinction in the reckoning of repentance and it is as
follows. Regarding someone who of his own accord has hurried to con-
fess the sin, by the very fact that he has allowed himself through his own
impulse to become the accuser of his hidden deeds, and thus has already
begun the treatment of the passion and has shown a sign of change for
the better, he will be subject to more lenient penalties. But as for someone
caught in the vicious act and exposed involuntarily either through vague
suspicion or accusations, he will be subject to the assigned penance so that,
when he has been cleansed through the severity, he will then be admit-
ted to the communion of the sacraments. And so the canon is this: those
stained by fornication are entirely cast out from the prayer for three years,
then for three years they may participate as hearers only, then for another
three years they will pray with those who prostrate themselves in penance,
and then they will partake of the sacraments. For those who handle their
penance more earnestly and who in their lifestyle demonstrate a return to
the good, it is possible for the administrator to cut short the time spent
as hearers in the interest of ecclesiastical order and to bring them more
quickly into the period of penance,16 and once again to cut this time short

16 “Penance” (epistrophē) typically names the entire period of ecclesiastical discipline.

Here Gregory uses it specifically for the period one spends in prostration; the term
“­repentance” (metanoia) functions similarly in Basil, Canon 22. Although penance is a
general category including weeping, hearing, and standing, Gregory closely associates
prostration and penance, twice referring to the time penitents spend “with those who
prostrate themselves in penance.”

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 part iii: forming communities

and grant ­communion more quickly, so that he in his own examination

might approve the patient’s restoration. For just as it is forbidden to cast
pearls to swine,17 so too is it absurd for a person already purified and free
from passion to be deprived of the pearl of great price.18 The transgression
of adultery, which conforms to the other forms of impurity, as has been said
above, will be completely treated with the same punishment as the pollu-
tion of fornication is subject to, but the time period alone is doubled. But
in this case also, the disposition of the patient shall be closely monitored, as
it is for those joined in the stain of fornication, so that their participation in
the good thing19 might occur more quickly or more slowly.
4. In addition to these two kinds, it remains to propose for examination
the spirited part of the soul, whenever it falls into sin by straying from
the good use of anger. Although there are many sins committed in anger,
and all of them wicked, our fathers, it seems, thought it best neither to be
very precise in the other cases [besides murder], nor to regard treating all
the sins that arise out of anger as worthy of much attention, even though
scripture forbids not only a mere punch, but also every insult, slander, and
any other act of anger like these! Instead, it was only against the crime of
murder that the fathers constructed a bulwark through penalties. Now, this
kind of vice is divided by the distinction between voluntary and involuntary.
Of these two, a murder is voluntary, first of all, when someone is so brazen
as to prepare and plot for this very deed, namely, how he might commit the
crime. Secondly, that murder is considered among the voluntary ones when
someone, giving and receiving blows in a struggle and a fight, lands a blow
of [his] hands on a vital part of the body. Surely, once he was mastered by
anger and indulged the impulse of rage, for the duration of his passion, he
would not allow into his mind any thought that could prevent this wicked
deed. Consequently, the accomplishment of the murder in the struggle
implies a work of choice and not an accident. Involuntary ones have obvi-
ous markers: [they occur] whenever someone accidentally commits a fatal
act when his intention is something else. In these cases, therefore, for those
treating a voluntary crime through penance, the time period for murder
is extended threefold. In fact, there are three nine-year periods, with a set
of years defined for each stage, so that in the entire reckoning, a nine-year
period will pass with him excluded from the church. But he will remain

17 See Mt 7:6. 18 See Mt 13:46.

19 
In Greek, tēn tou agathou metousian, referring to reception of the Eucharist, as it does in
Basil’s canonical letters.

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 Gregory of Nyssa, Canonical Letter to Letoius

for the same number of years merely among the hearers of the teachers
and the scriptures, and then will be deemed worthy of standing with the
people. But in the third set of years, he will pray with those who prostrate
themselves in penance and thus come to partake of the sacrament. Clearly,
even for such a person, the church administrator will perform the same
close observation and the length of the punishment will be cut short by
him in proportion to the penance, such that instead of nine years in each
stage, there may be eight, seven, six, or even a mere five, provided that the
magnitude of the penance outdoes the time period and in his zeal for pen-
ance he surpasses those who are more flippant about cleansing themselves
of the stain over such a long period of time.
Involuntary [murder] is forgivable, though it is not deemed praisewor-
thy. I say this to make it clear that even if someone involuntarily becomes
defiled by murder, the canon declares him cast out from the priestly grace,
since the crime has already made him impure. It is considered appropriate
that the time period of purification for those who have committed murder
involuntarily is the same as that for simple fornication. Clearly, in this case
also the intention of the repentant one is examined, so that if his penance
is credible, the number of years is not completely kept, but in a shortened
period he is brought to restoration with the church and to participation in
the good thing.
5. If someone who has not fulfilled the time period decreed by the can-
ons departs from life, the fathers’ leniency commands that he partake of
the sacraments so that he is not sent out upon that final and long journey
devoid of provisions. But if, after partaking of the sacrament, he once again
returns to life, he must remain for the assigned length of time in that stage
where he was before communion was given to him under constraint.
6. As for the other kind of idolatry – after all, this is the name the divine
apostle gives to greed20 – I do not understand how it was overlooked and
left untreated by our fathers. Yet, this kind of vice seems to belong to the
third state in the soul. In fact, when reasoning errs in its judgment of the
good, it imagines that the good lies in matter and does not look upwards
to the immaterial beauty. And desire flows downwards and away from what
is truly desirable. Now, the contentious and spirited disposition receives
many impulses from this sort of error.21 And, speaking generally, such a

20 Eph 5:5.
21 That is, while greed belongs properly to the spirited part of the soul, it relies on errant
judgment from the rational part and misdirected desire from the desiring part.

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 part iii: forming communities

disease conforms to the apostolic definition of greed. For the divine apos-
tle not only labeled it as idolatry, but also as the “root of all evils.”22 And
yet this form of disease was neglected and left uninvestigated and uncared
for. This is indeed why such an illness is growing in the churches and no
one scrutinizes those who are brought to become clergy to prevent them
from being defiled with this form of idolatry. But regarding these matters,
because our fathers let them slip, we believe it sufficient to treat them with
the public proclamation of the teaching, such as it is, through the word
that purges the illnesses of greed as if they were certain congestive dis-
eases. Now only theft, grave robbing, and temple robbery do we consider
passions, because this is how the tradition on this topic has come down to
us from the succession of the fathers.23 However, from the divine scripture,
usury and charging interest count as forbidden acts, as does using one’s
power to transfer another’s goods to one’s own possession, even if, as the
case may be, such an act is done under the pretext of business. So, even
though what we say is not to be credited with the authority of the canons,
we will add to what has already been said the canonical judgment in the
case of things forbidden by common consent.
Theft is divided into robbery and grave robbing. Although there is a sin-
gle aim for both, namely, taking away what belongs to another, there is a
great difference between them according to their intention. For one robber
may even embrace murder as an ally for his endeavor, preparing weapons,
accomplices, and suitable places for this very act. Accordingly, such a person
is subjected to the penalty for manslaughter if he through penitence brings
himself back to the church of God. But another robber may take what
belongs to someone else through an act of theft that escapes notice, but later
through confession reveals his sin to the priest. He shall treat his illness by
striving for the passion’s opposite, I mean, through providing his property
to the poor, so that by giving away what he owns it will become clear that he
is purged of the disease of greed. But if he has nothing but his body alone,
the apostle commands that such a passion be cured through bodily labor.
The text goes like this: “Let the thief thieve no longer, but rather labor at
doing what is good, so that he can give a share to those in need.”24
7. As for grave robbing, it too is divided into what is pardonable and
unpardonable. Say someone respects the holy law and leaves the covered

22 1 Tm 6:10.
23 See Basil, Canon 61 and 66 (pp. 163 and 164, above).
24 Eph 4:28.

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 Gregory of Nyssa, Canonical Letter to Letoius

body unviolated, lest he expose nature’s obscenity to the sun, but uses some
stones placed on the tomb’s façade to furnish another building.25 While
this deed is not praiseworthy, nonetheless custom has made it pardonable
in cases where the material changes to something more honorable and of
greater common benefit. But as for sifting through the dust from the flesh
that has become earth and disturbing the bones in hope of pilfering some
ornament from what is buried with them, this is condemned with the same
penalty as applies to simple fornication, as we distinguished in our earlier
account. However, clearly the administrator will base his oversight of a
patient’s treatment on his way of life, so that he may cut short the fixed time
of the penalty as decreed by the canons.
8. In the ancient scripture, temple robbery was regarded as no less wor-
thy of condemnation than murder, since they subjected the one convicted
of murder and the one who carried off things consecrated to God to the
punishment of stoning.26 By contrast, I do not understand how a certain
condescension and indulgence crept into the church’s custom to the extent
that the purification of such a disease is lighter. Indeed, the tradition of
the fathers has ordained that the penalty for such things should be shorter
than the penalty for adultery. Still, in any kind of sin and before anything
else one must observe this: the condition of the one being treated. One
must not think that the length of time alone is satisfactory for treatment
(for when is healing merely a matter of a length of time?), but rather the
devotion of the one curing himself through penance.
O man of God, having composed these things for you quite hastily and
quickly, we are sending them off hastily because one must obey the com-
mands of brothers. For your part, do not neglect to offer the customary
prayers to God on our behalf. For as a grateful son, you owe to the one who
begot you in God to care for your elder through your prayers in accord-
ance with the law bidding us to honor our parents “so that it will go well
for you and you will live for many years on the earth.”27 It is clear, then, that
you will receive the letter as a priestly token and not disrespect the friendly
gift, inferior though it is to your high birth.

25 For the “shame of nature” see Gregory’s reading of Lv 18:7 and the Ham story of Gn
9:20–27 as a prohibition of uncovering corpses, particularly the bodies of one’s parents,
in his Life of Macrina (V. Woods Callahan, ed., Gregorii Nysseni Opera Ascetica, Gregorii
Nysseni Opera VIII.I [Leiden: Brill, 1952], 409).
26 See Jo 7:1–46. 27 Ex 20:12.

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