Mind-Body Unity: Gregory of Nyssa and a Surprising

Fourth-Century CE Perspective

Jeffrey P. Bishop

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Volume 43, Number 4, Summer 2000,

pp. 519-529 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/pbm.2000.0036

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/25994

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MIND-BODY UNITY: GREGORY OF NYSSA AND A
SURPRISING FOURTH-CENTURY CE PERSPECTIVE

JEFFREY P. BISHOP*

Can we really reduce the mind to the functioning of the brain, as we do

so often in the United States? One can imagine the ancients, who believed
that the liver was the seat of the soul, scratching their right sides when
perplexed by such a question, just as we scratch our heads when in a
conundrum. Are questions of mind-body even relevant any more? Cer-
tainly they are, for we in the West define death as whole-brain death.
Technologically advanced Japan performs few transplants, because the
Japanese notion of mind-body does not fit into the neat package of the
Western paradigm: they cannot bring themselves to define “death” as
brain death [1, p. 578].
Like many ancient philosophers, Gregory of Nyssa, a fourth-century CE
bishop in the recently legitimated Christian church, thought and wrote on
questions of mind-body unity that still plague us today. What is the inter-
action of the mind and body? Where does the mind reside? What influ-
ence does the body have over the soul? Gregory was very much a man of
his era. However, he did not shrink from asking and attempting to answer
some of the most pertinent questions about mind and body. While
Gregory’s anthropology may limit our appreciation of his answers, his
questions remind us that we are not nearly so advanced as we think. In fact,
his philosophical anthropology challenges us to reexamine both the mod-
ernist and postmodernist interpretation of mind-body interaction. Where
the modern person wants to divide things into ever smaller and smaller
components, Gregory, in On the Making of Man, attempts a philosophical
inquiry that preserves the whole. His unique conclusion insists on a unity
of mind-body that does not appear to be present in many of his contem-
poraries or his predecessors.

*Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at

Dallas, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390.
Email: JEFFREY.BISHOP@email.swmed.edu.

PBM 43, 4 (2000):519–529 © 2000 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 43, 4 • Summer 2000 | 519

 Influences on Gregory
One of the primary influences on Gregory was the third-century Chris-
tian thinker, Origen, one of the first and greatest Christian intellectuals.
Extensively trained in Platonic philosophy, Origen interpreted Christian
and Jewish Scripture from a Platonic framework. In his system, the God of
Jews and Christians became the Good as discussed by Plato. The body,
because it was material, was sinful and worthless, while the soul—the
immaterial—was the highest element of human existence [2]. Concurrent
with Origen was a group of thinkers known as the Neoplatonists. This
philosophical school was influenced by Plotinus and Porphyry [3]. The
Neoplatonists shared Origen’s disdain for the body, preferring the ideal
immateriality of the soul or the mind.
However, the greatest influence on Gregory was his brother, Basil of
Caesarea, also a bishop. Gregory states from the outset of On the Making of
Man that his goal was to complete the work of Basil as delivered in the
Hexameron. In these homilies, Basil attempts an explanation of the six days
of creation, but he ends without an in-depth analysis of the creation of the
human. Although Basil was trained in philosophy in Athens, his attitude
toward Greek philosophy in general and natural philosophy in particular
differs greatly from that of Gregory, who was never formally trained in phi-
losophy. While it is indisputable that Basil’s world view is largely Greek, and
therefore very much dependent on Greek philosophy, E. A. de Mendieta
points out that the official position of Basil as a bishop of the church is
somewhat more antagonistic to the use of philosophy.
De Mendieta argues that the official position of Basil as shepherd of his
church is one of disdain for Greek philosophy and natural philosophy.
Basil uses several arguments to show that nothing is necessary outside
scripture. De Mendieta rather convincingly shows that Basil views the
Greek philosophers as contradictory of each other, as well as foolish, sin-
fully vain, useless, and futile [4]. This dislike for philosophy contrasts with
Basil’s view of the simplicity of Holy Scripture. The certainty of the
Christian faith far exceeds the demonstrations of reason, according to his
reading. Basil even asks the more philosophically minded in his congrega-
tion to “put then a limit to your thought” and look to Scripture for answers
[5, p. 57].
This admonishment is rather ironic coming from a man who studied
philosophy in Athens. Reason is too easily deceived, and this is perhaps the
basis for Basil’s hesitancy to speculate beyond revelation. In the final hom-
ily, we begin to see the starting point of Gregory’s On the Making of Man. In
his discussion of the sixth day of creation, Basil rather reluctantly begins
with a discussion of the creation of humankind. He gives a very short sin-
gle paragraph to the human [5, p. 106]. He then moves rather abruptly to
a discussion of the trinity of persons in the Godhead and the folly of peo-
ple who do not see this in the words of God, “Let us make man in our

520 | Jeffrey P. Bishop • Gregory of Nyssa and a Surprising Fourth-Century CE Perspective

image.” As he does not speculate further on the human person, he leaves
his hearers unsatisfied.

Gregory’s Purpose in Writing

Because Basil left his hearers and subsequent readers ungratified,
Gregory comes to the defense of his beloved brother, who is accused of
producing in his hearers no “habit of intelligence” [6, p. 387]. Gregory
acknowledges that his task of treating humans is no small feat. He states
early in the work his willingness to use all sources at his disposal, not only
Scripture, but also the tools of human reason. He explains:

For it is our business, I suppose, to leave nothing unexamined of all that concerns
man,—of what we believe to have taken place previously, of what we now see, and
of the results which are expected afterwards to appear. . . . and, moreover, we must
fit together, according to the explanation of Scripture and to that derived from rea-
soning, those statements concerning him which seem, by a kind of necessary
sequence, to be opposed, so that our whole subject may be consistent in train of
thought and in order, as the statements that seem to be contrary are brought . . .
to one and the same end. [6, p. 387]

Gregory is optimistic about what philosophical inquiry into the natural

order can offer the Christian people. He seeks a complete and integrated
picture of the human world, and he is willing to use new material: “what
we now see.” This contrasts starkly with the official opinion of Basil on nat-
ural philosophy and its observations of humankind. Gregory utilizes ear-
lier sources such as Galen, but like many of his contemporaries—notably
Nemesius of Emesa, and Caesarius, the brother of our Gregory’s fellow
Cappadocian Gregory of Naziansus—he goes beyond Galen, drawing on
sources that are more contemporary to him [7, 8]. Gregory of Nyssa uses
non-religious sources for his treatise so that he can come to a fuller under-
standing of the wisdom of God in creating humankind in God’s image.
Gregory’s description of the workings of the human body demonstrates
his willingness to use knowledge acquired from sources other than reli-
gious texts. Gregory is optimistic that human beings can learn from sense
experience. He argues:

Any one too may learn everything accurately who takes up the researches which
those skilled in such matters have worked out in books, and of these writers some
learnt by dissection the position of our individual organs; others also considered and
expounded the reason for the existence of all the parts of the body; so that the knowl-
edge of the human frame which hence results is sufficient for students. [6, p. 422]

Gregory goes on to say that, if some are unwilling to accept the teachings
of those outside the Church, he will venture to discuss the human body as
a bishop and shepherd of the Church. An examination of his understand-
ing of anatomy and physiology allows us to see exactly how Gregory uses

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 43, 4 • Summer 2000 | 521

his sources. Moreover, a thorough analysis of his view of the body allows us
to achieve a better understanding of Gregory’s insight into the interaction
between mind and body.

Anatomy and Physiology: The Corporeal Existence

According to Gregory, the nature of the human person is divided into
two aspects: that which is corporeal and that which is incorporeal or intel-
lectual [6, p. 393]. For the moment I shall examine the corporeal and
leave the incorporeal or intellectual for later. The corporeal is divided into
that which is not living and that which is living. That which lives is further
divided into the non-sentient and the sentient. The sentient is again
divided into the irrational and the rational [6]. The human person is a
rational, sentient, and living being.
According to Gregory, there are three aspects to human biological life.
The first pertains to those things without which life would be impossible:
the brain, the heart, and the liver. Second, nature bestows additional bless-
ings by giving the sense organs through which a person enjoys “participa-
tion in the pleasures of life” [6, p. 422]. Lastly, the sex organs serve to sup-
ply future generations of humans. The stomach and lungs act solely as
support organs for these three aspects of human bodily existence.
After describing the various aspects of human life, Gregory then
explains the interaction of the elements of the material world and their
utilization by the body. The body is a perfect balance of heat and cold and
of moisture and dryness. If a thing is too dry, it “does not admit the action
of the senses”; if it is too moist, the impress of the form “would not remain
in moist substance” [6, p. 423]. The wisdom of nature was to take the hard
and the soft together to make a person mobile. If too soft, the body would
have been like immobile mollusks; if too hard, the human would likewise
have been immobile because the body would have been like columns or
trees that have no articulation or soft muscles to cause motion [6, p. 423].
The brain—or rather the “tissue surrounding” it—holds special signifi-
cance. It is the nervous tissue that is the “principle of the motions,” work-
ing by the spirit of the will. Gregory states:
For if the tissue surrounding it [the brain] receives any wound or lesion, death
immediately follows the injury, nature being unable to endure the hurt even for a
moment; just as, when a foundation is withdrawn, the whole building collapses with
the part; and that member, from an injury to which the destruction of the whole
living being clearly follows, may properly be acknowledged to contain the cause of
life. [6, p. 423]

For Gregory, the brain, while it is the cause of life, is not the seat of the soul.
As will be seen later, he is unwilling to have the soul housed in this organ.
The heart is the source of heat in the body, since the nature of heat is
motion and the heart is in perpetual motion. The lungs serve as the bel-

522 | Jeffrey P. Bishop • Gregory of Nyssa and a Surprising Fourth-Century CE Perspective

lows, bringing air into the body for consumption by the heart to produce
heat. However, some matter must be consumed in order to generate more
heat, and the stomach’s role is to bring in more material. Gregory sees the
hand of the Divine in the anatomy because the openings for bringing air
and food into the body approximate one another and are in close prox-
imity to the heart where they are consumed [6, pp. 424–25].
The liver receives the food and moisture from the stomach to create the
blood, and the blood is the means by which the warmth of the heart is dis-
tributed throughout the entire body. The blood empties directly into the
heart by the “twin channels,” where it is warmed and then moves to the rest
of the body. The mixture of the fluid with the different parts of the body
allows for each part to take on its own specific qualities. Just as the very
same moisture takes on the quality of “bitterness in wormwood, and is
changed into a deadly juice in hemlock, and becomes different in differ-
ent other plants,” so it is true of the moisture of the body. In other words,
if the moisture is in the eye, it “blends with the visual part”; if it is in the
ear, it blends with the auditory parts [6, p. 426]. Gregory sees the unity and
balance of the natural elements in the body as an image of the unity and
balance of the link between body and mind.

The Forms of the Soul: The Incorporeal Existence

The incorporeal existence of the human consists of the three forms of
soul. Like plants, which are vegetative, humans too have a vegetative part to
their soul. Like the animal, human beings are also “regulated by the senses,”
and this sense perception is another part of the soul. Lastly, the rational
form of the soul mingles with the other two parts, forming the complete
human soul. Gregory notes that the order of the creation story itself moves
from the vegetative, to the sense perceiving, to the rational [6, pp. 393–94].
Gregory, like his intellectual predecessor Origen, sees in the scriptural
letter to the Ephesians an allusion by Paul to these three parts of the
human: body, soul, and spirit [2]. He states that Paul uses the word body
for the “nutritive part” and denotes “the sensitive by the word ‘soul,’ and
the intellectual by ‘spirit’” [6, p. 394]. Moreover, Gregory understands all
of scripture as showing this same difference, “naming the more corporeal
existence, ‘heart,’ the intermediate, ‘soul,’ and the higher nature, the
intellectual and mental faculty, ‘mind’” [6, p. 394]. While Gregory uses
Origen’s trichotomy of body, soul, and spirit, he seems to differ from his
predecessor in one key area. Where Origen sees the mind as the higher
element of the soul, Gregory here equates the mind with the spiritual.
Unfortunately, he does not expound on this point, and this is the only
place in his treatise where the highest element of the soul, the intellect, is
equated with the spirit—throughout the rest of this work, the mind is the
higher element of the soul.

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 43, 4 • Summer 2000 | 523

 That the mind is the highest element is without question. Gregory thinks
of the mind as an incorporeal or immaterial receptacle receiving informa-
tion from the corporeal sense organs. He questions:
What is the extent of that inner receptacle into which flows everything that is
poured in by our hearing? who are the recorders of the sayings that are brought in
by it? what sort of storehouses are there for the concepts that are being put in by
our hearing? and how is it, that when many of them, of varied kinds, are pressing
one upon another, there arises no confusion and error in the relative position of
the things that are laid up there? [6, pp. 395–96]

This ability of the mind leaves Gregory in awe. He continues in this same
line of inquiry by noting the oneness of the mind. He refers to the mind
as a “spacious territory:”
for often the knowledge which we gather from the different organs of sense is one,
as the same object is divided into several parts in relation to the sense. . . . For when
one sees honey, and hears its name, and receives it by taste, and recognizes its
odour by smell, and tests it by touch, he recognizes the same thing by means of
each of his senses. [6, p. 396]

Because of this ability of the mind to provide unity to the world of the
senses, Gregory proclaims the mind’s unity. There is only one soul:
The true and perfect soul is naturally one, the intellectual and immaterial, which
mingles with our material nature by the agency of the senses; but all that is of mate-
rial nature, being subject to mutation and alteration, will, if it should partake of the
animating power, move by way of growth: if, on the contrary, it should fall away
from the vital energy, it will reduce its motion to destruction. Thus, neither is there
perception without material substance, nor does the act of perception take place
without the intellectual faculty. [6, p. 403]

We see here, not only a mingling of the corporeal and incorporeal exis-
tence’s, but a unity. There is a notion that neither can exist without the
other and be truly human.

Human Existence: The Two Natures Unified

Gregory’s insights are intriguing and anticipate problems that remain
unresolved to this day. He explains:
For there is one faculty, the implanted mind itself, which passes through each of the
organs of sense and grasps the things beyond: this it is that, by means of the eyes,
beholds what is seen; this it is that, by means of hearing, understands what is said;
that is content with what is to our taste, and turns from what is unpleasant; that uses
the hand for whatever it wills, taking hold or rejecting by its means, using the help
of the organ for this purpose precisely as it thinks expedient. [6, pp. 391–92]

Gregory illuminates the unity and incorporeality of the soul. For Gregory
there can be but one faculty that interprets all the inputs from the corpo-

524 | Jeffrey P. Bishop • Gregory of Nyssa and a Surprising Fourth-Century CE Perspective

real world. Thus, he entertains a question that still confounds all of mod-
ern science: “What then is, in its own nature, this mind that distributes
itself into faculties of sensation, and duly receives, by means of each, the
knowledge of things?” [6, p. 396]. In other words, how can the mind,
which is one faculty, receive information from the various senses, and,
moreover, how can it bring about, from the various perceptions of the
external object, a single object as a unity perceived in the mind? Gregory
concludes that the mind is “something else besides a sensitive thing”—
something else besides a thing able to be sensed [6, p. 396]. Where Basil
does not want to speculate on the mind, Gregory asserts that the mind,
being part of the image of God, is true to its archetype in that, like God,
the mind is incomprehensible and a unity [6, p. 397]. Yet the mind, which
is incorporeal, receives input from the corporeal world.
He explores further the interaction of the mind with the body. The
Origenistic influences begin to emerge here. While in Origen’s system the
soul is divided into a higher, intellectual element, and a lower, unnamed
element, Gregory’s soul, following Porphyry, is made up of three ele-
ments—the vegetative, the animal (sense perceiving), and the rational [3,
pp. 243–46]. As in Origen, the rational is the higher and remains incom-
prehensible precisely because it is the image of God. Gregory names the
lower element of the soul the vegetative part [6, p. 394], and he most fully
discusses this lower element in his analysis of dreams:

Hence the mind of man clearly proves its claim to connection with his nature, itself
also co-operating and moving with the nature in its sound and waking state, but
remaining unmoved when it is abandoned to sleep, unless any supposes that the
imagery of dreams is a motion of the mind exercised in sleep. We for our part say
that it is only the conscious and sound action of the intellect which we ought to
refer to mind; and as to the fantastic sense which occurs to us in sleep, we suppose
that some appearances of the operations of the mind are accidentally molded in
the less rational part of the soul; for the soul, being by sleep dissociated from the
senses, is also of necessity outside the range of the operations of the mind; for it is
through the senses that the union of mind with man takes place. [6, pp. 400–401]

What is this less rational part of the soul? Very likely Gregory refers to the
vegetative form of the soul. This is interesting because the mind, the high-
est faculty of the soul, connects to the vegetative faculty through the ani-
mal (sense perceiving) faculty. In this discussion we see that when at rest,
the higher element of the soul is inactive. Thus, the vegetative and sensi-
tive faculties are operative in dreams, whereas the rational faculty is inac-
tive. However, the reminiscent part of the mind remains somewhat active,
though clouded by the state of rest in the body. Dreams relate to the situ-
ation of the person in the wakeful state. This relationship shows that the
reminiscent part of the mind is active. If thirsty, one may dream of water
or, if hungry, of food. Because the senses are at rest, the mind is not able
to control the body. In this discussion we see that the control of the high-

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 43, 4 • Summer 2000 | 525

est element depends upon the activity of the lower element. Not only does
mind affect body, but body affects mind.

The Relation of Mind to God and Mind to Body

The question arises for Gregory: if the mind is the incorporeal image of
God and yet is the link with the corporeal, where in the body does the
mind reside? Gregory explores several possibilities of thought contempo-
rary to his time. The most obvious choice for a person of his era is the
heart. The heart sits in the center of the body, and its perpetual motion is
analogous to the motion of the will. The next possible option is the brain.
The reason for this possibility is that the “head has been built by nature as
a kind of citadel of the whole body . . . in it the mind dwells like a king” [6,
p. 397]. Moreover the proximity of the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth to the
brain makes it a likely seat of the mind. These sense organs that serve as
conduits are in a position to deliver information from the senses directly
to the brain. Gregory is also astute enough to note that the nerves connect
via the spinal cord to the brain, therefore allowing sensory input from the
extremities to the brain. Another bit of evidence for the brain as the seat
of the mind comes from the experience that death ensues immediately
after the brain receives an injury.
However, while Gregory is quite aware of the interaction of body and
mind, he is not willing to allow the mind to be corporeal or to reside in any
particular part of the material body. In an earlier work, Gregory argues
against the materialism of Stoicism and Epicureanism [3, p. 187]. He con-
tinues this theme here:
I admit it to be true that the intellectual part of the soul [the mind] is often dis-
turbed by prevalence of passions; and that the reason is blunted by some bodily
accident so as to hinder its natural operation; and that the heart is a sort of source
of the fiery element in the body, and is moved in correspondence with the impulses
of passion; and moreover, in addition to this I do not reject (as I hear very much
the same account from those who spend their time on anatomical researches) the
statement that the cerebral membrane (according to the theory of those who take
such a physiologic view) enfolding in itself the brain, and steeped in the vapours
that issue from it, forms a foundation for the senses; yet I do not hold this for a
proof that the incorporeal nature is bounded by any limits. [6, p. 397]

Again drawing on unnamed contemporaries “who spend their time on

anatomical researches,” Gregory asserts that the mind permeates the
whole without being limited to any part. Yet the link remains obvious:
The mind is not restricted to any part of the body, but is equally in touch with the
whole, producing its motion according to the nature of the part which is under its
influence. There are cases, however, in which the mind even follows the bodily
impulses, and becomes, as it were, their servant; for often the bodily nature takes
the lead by introducing either the sense of that which gives pain or the desire for
that which gives pleasure, so that it may be said to furnish the first beginnings, by

526 | Jeffrey P. Bishop • Gregory of Nyssa and a Surprising Fourth-Century CE Perspective

producing in us the desire for food, or, generally, the impulse towards some pleas-
ant thing; while the mind, receiving the impulse, furnishes the body by its own
intelligence with the proper means towards the desired object. [6, pp. 402–3]

Therefore the mind permeates the entirety of the physical body for the
good of the whole.
J. P. Cavarnos, examining On the Making of Man and another of Gregory’s
works called On the Soul and Resurrection, concludes that Gregory, like his
predecessors, sees the body as a “hindrance to the full and unimpeded
exercise of the soul’s power” [10, p. 78]. However, in my examination of
On the Making of Man I have not found this to be the case. Gregory is writ-
ing to larger issues of Christian theology, and therefore his language about
mind-body unity perhaps changes between the two treatises [11]. On the
Resurrection and the Body is a slightly earlier work and appears to be a much
more pastoral and moral treatise. In contrast, On the Making of Man is a
much more systematic work of early Christian anthropology, even though
it is influenced by issues affecting other areas of Christian theology, specif-
ically Trinitarian theology. In this more systematic work, the mind, like
God, is incomprehensible. As in Origen, if the mind continues to partake
of God in its likeness to God, it remains beautiful. However, Gregory does
not stop here with regard to the person’s relation to God. Connected
through the mind, the material portion of the person—the body—
becomes, likewise beautiful. Gregory states:
And as we said that the mind was adorned by the likeness of the archetypal beauty,
being formed as though it were a mirror to receive the figure of that which it
expresses, we consider that the nature which is governed by it is attached to the mind
in the same relation, and that it too is adorned by the beauty that the mind gives,
being, so to say, a mirror of the mirror; and that by it is swayed and sustained the
material element of that existence in which the nature is contemplated. [6, p. 399]

The mind then is the link between God and the body. This link is part of
the existence of the person, and the participation of the mind in the image
of God elevates the whole nature, corporeal and incorporeal, of the per-
son. For Gregory, contrary to Origen and the Neo-Platonists, there are no
negative aspects of the body simply because it is material, but rather mat-
ter, or body, becomes formless if it lacks participation in God through the
mind. Gregory acknowledges the necessity of the body and insists that
without it the person is not complete. The mind has no “perception with-
out the material” body, but neither can there be perception without the
“intellectual faculty” [6, p. 403].

A Possible System
While Gregory’s primary purpose in launching his treatise On the Making
of Man was to complete and expand his brother’s sermons in the Hexa-

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 43, 4 • Summer 2000 | 527

meron, he goes well beyond his brother. Unlike Basil, he uses the entirety
of the knowledge at his disposal in order to formulate a complete picture
of the human person. Unlike Origen or the Neoplatonists, Gregory
acknowledges the necessity of the body, and contrary to Stoicism and
Epicureanism, he insists that because mind is a unity, it must permeate the
whole: it cannot be housed in a particular organ. He insists on the unity of
the person as body and soul, corporeal and incorporeal: the “seminal
cause of our constitution is neither a soul without body, nor a body with-
out soul” [6, p. 426]. The above discussion of moisture becomes a
metaphor for the interaction of the soul and body. Just as the moisture,
when mingled with the different parts of the body, elicits different natures,
so the soul when mingled with the body forms the perfect nature of the
human person. Gregory further uses the analogy of a sculptor working a
piece of stone to describe this interaction: “And as the form follows upon
the gradual working of the stone, at first somewhat indistinct, but more
perfect after the completion of the work, so too in the molding of its
instrument [the body] the form of the soul is expressed in the substratum,
incompletely in that which is still incomplete, perfect in that which is per-
fect” [6, p. 426]. Thus, the struggle for the soul is to manifest its own image
of God in the body. In other words, the vegetative, sensitive, and rational
forms must bring forth their individual images in the whole of the body.
Gregory, in On the Making of Man, parts company with his predecessors,
choosing rather to insist on the unity of the human person. He draws some
striking and unique conclusions. Origen and Neoplatonism leave the
human person in discord: mind/soul against body. A strict materialism
would reduce the mind to the body. Gregory insists on a different view.
The person is not a body without soul, nor a soul without body. Rather it
is a whole, unified substance that, in order to be beautiful as the Creator
is beautiful, must of necessity be one and reflect the image of God in the
whole, soul and body.

Conclusions
I have shown the eclecticism of a thinker like Gregory. He is able to draw
from the perspectives of very different sources, and his brilliance lies in
resisting the tendency to idealize the human person into Platonic or
Neoplatonic categories or to reduce the human being to matter. He avoids
a position that would have an organ as the seat of the soul, which would
reduce the mind to the body. Gregory chooses to synthesize the two posi-
tions and ends in an affirmation of his religious commitments.
Today, in biology and medicine, we tend to reduce mind to body rather
than to idealize the mind opposing the body, as Gregory’s contemporaries
did. Today, we equate mind and brain. For the most part, we reduce
thoughts to an identity with the processes of the brain. Mind or awareness

528 | Jeffrey P. Bishop • Gregory of Nyssa and a Surprising Fourth-Century CE Perspective

is an epiphenomenon of the brain. We understand consciousness to dan-
gle from the mechanisms of the brain. If we understand mind in this man-
ner, we who practice medicine are in danger of further alienating our
patients by insisting on the mechanisms of the meat rather than the unity
of the whole, including intangible and immaterial consciousness. We have
divided ourselves. Gregory instructs us: “being thus divided, we have care-
fully to mark that our faculty for life is not supported in any one way by
some single organ, but nature, while distributing the means for our exis-
tence among several parts, makes the contribution of each individual nec-
essary for the whole” [6, p. 422]. Gregory refuses to fall into the traps of
reductionism or idealism—a valuable lesson from the fourth century.

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