ABSTRACT

Gregory of Nyssa was convinced of the limitless capacities of human freedom. He says in The Life of Moses that people make choices at every moment and can choose what they will become. “We are in some manner our own parents,” he writes, “giving birth to ourselves by our own free choice in accordance with whatever we wish to be” (II.3). As he explains throughout the book, people either choose to be trapped in a vicious circle by their own compulsions toward impulses such as greed, anger, or sensual pleasure, or they break the cycle and ascend toward God, toward sharing in God’s infinite life.