132 Chapter 3 Gregory’s departure his mother went searching for him. Following that encounter, his family connections became a decisive factor in Gregory’s choices for monastic settlements, before moving to the cave. He is first said to have gone to a monastery in which his brother resided, and subsequently, to another one headed by his uncle. Also when residing in the cave he kept contact with his monastic relatives, sending a letter to his brother and receiving his uncle in the cave. The divine revelation urging Gregory to leave his land and his kinship thus specifically calls for a break with his personal family connections (ἐκ τῆς συγγενείας σου), which he so far had still maintained. He needs to do this, as is suggested by the divine revelation, if he wants to reach perfection. The breakaway from his family is considered necessary for spiritual growth.432 It is clear why, according to the represented divine revelation, Gregory needs to move away from his current surroundings. It is less clear, however, where it is that he needs to go to. His destination is just referred to as ‘a land, in which you will be rightly pleasing to God’. Because the phrase is non-specific and open to various interpretations (how should Gregory please God, and what surroundings are suitable for that?) the following journeys – for which the specific motivation is lacking – may be interpreted as a continuous search for finding the right destination, like a quest. Because the divine command is explicitly compared to the divine instruction that Abram received, a parallel is also drawn between Gregory’s many journeys, including many dangerous events, and the long search for Canaan by the Israelites. How Gregory should please God is hinted at in the hagiographer’s comment aiming to explain (γάρ) why he received this divine revelation. Ignatius does this by paraphrasing a saying from the Sermon of the Mount in the Gospels: ‘For God judged that it is not right that the lamp be hidden under the modius, but that it be placed on the worldly lampstand enlightening befittingly the dwelling of the souls’. Here the ‘lamp’ (or ‘light’) could be interpreted as Gregory, or God’s workings through Gregory, who should not stay hidden in a cave, for no-one to see. Instead he should go in the world (‘worldly lampstand’) and thereby be of benefit to others, specifically benefitting their souls.433 From the passage it is not immediately clear how the author understands that Gregory should ‘enlighten’ others: through his exemplary way of life, by spreading the (theologically) right ideas, or through miracles? Possibly the hagiographer and the audience may have thought about all these things. Because the interpretation of the biblical reference is left open, it is also possible 432 Scholars have also termed this ideal of breaking with family or leaving one’s familiar surroundings by travelling to another place as xeniteia. Bitton-Ashkelony (2005), pp. 148–149; McGuckin (2000); Mitrea (2023a), p. 3. 433 We already saw a similar discourse in the Life of Euthymius the Younger in the previous chapter (see pp. 97-98), in the example of the divine revelation that urges Euthymius to change his mode of solitary life to one that serves other people (other monks in this case): ‘Euthymius, go away […] make it [the designated place] into a monastery for souls […] [f]or it is not good for you to continue to dwell alone in the wilderness and try to contend with demons, who fled long ago after being defeated by your virtue’. Life of Euthymius 27, translation by Talbot in Alexakis (2016), p. 83. Also in this Life Euthymius is presented to have reached a state of spiritual maturation, by having defeated demons and living virtuous, similar to Gregory who also previously in the narrative is stressed to master all kinds of virtues in his monastic training and then fought with demons during his solitary stay in the cave.
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