186 Chapter 4 The conceptualisation of Gregory’s politeia, virtue or asceticism as a journey thus has implications for the conceptualisation of sainthood. Firstly, virtue, as an essential manifestation of sainthood, can be developed: it is not something one possesses immediately, but which takes time (journey as a process) and effort (obstacles as difficulties). As Gregory is presented as an example for the audience of the Life, others may also follow the same path of virtue, i.e. also develop a lifestyle of asceticism, improving over time and overcoming obstacles. This aspect of Gregory’s constructed sainthood, his ascetic lifestyle and his function as an exemplar, may thus also be achievable by others. However, the metaphorical language also indicates that cultivating an ideal lifestyle is difficult: roads have to be evened out, obstacles overcome. The impressiveness of Gregory’s achievement, with regard to his politeia, is expressed by another conceptual metaphor, manifested in various linguistic metaphorical expressions: spiritual progress is running up to a height. This conceptual metaphor stands in a long metaphorical tradition as well and is also expressed in non-metaphorical ways: as we saw in chapter 2, heights are represented as privileged spaces to reach hesychia and thus spiritually advance oneself. Moreover, heights have a long tradition of being associated with divine presence or a closer connection to the divine (which is also reflected in language use through the widespread conceptual metaphor divine is up).629 The instances of spiritual progress is running up to a height in the Life of Gregory include ‘he ran up to such height of way of living’ (prologue),630 ‘to how great a height he ran up to’ (chapter 66)631 and ‘he ran up to that summit of the things longed for’ (chapter 67).632 The destinations, the summits or heights, are all linked to spiritual purposes. The expression in the prologue refers to the hagiographer’s previous elaboration on the virtuous and ascetic lifestyle of Gregory. The purpose of this lifestyle is framed in the prologue as reaching the divine (τῆς τριάδος οἰκητήριον: ‘the abode of the Trinity’), by being like divine beings (ἀγγελοφανέστατος: ‘appearing like angels’).633 With this framing, the author drew 629 See e.g., Whalin (2021); König (2022), pp. 3–92; 283–304. Perhaps the non-metaphorical connection between heights and spiritual progress and divine presence might even have been the origin for the metaphorical language use (or vice versa). 630 ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον πολιτείας ὕψος ἀνέδραμεν, Life of Gregory prologue, line 46. 631 πρὸς πόσον ὕψος ἀνέδραμε, Life of Gregory 66, line 4. 632 εἰς ἐκείνην ἀνέδραμε τὴν τῶν ὀρεκτῶν κορυφήν, Life of Gregory 67, line 2-3. 633 The full passage is: Τοιοῦτος καὶ ὁ τῆς ἀσκητικῆς παλαίστρας ἀγγελοφανέστατος ὅμιλος πᾶσαν τὴν τοῦ κόσμου διαπτύσας προσπάθειαν καὶ ὅλην πρὸς οὐρανὸν μεταθεὶς τὴν διάνοιαν καὶ θέατρον ἐπὶ γῆς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ βίον στηλώσας ἀνέθηκεν, ἐν ᾧ πᾶς τις ὠφελείας ἰδέαν συναγηγερκὼς τῆς ὑπερθέου τριάδος ἑαυτὸν οἰκητήριον δείκνυσιν. Life of Gregory prologue, lines 35-39.
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