ABSTRACT
In his first sentence, Gregory seems to contradict Geertz's statement that hearing a religious truth in a ritual context 'produces' belief. Gregory, however, does not indicate that he had heard the story in a ritual context: he simply says that he had 'very often heard' about the oil overflowing 'by divine power'. Gregory's upbringing in the Christian tradition also precluded a 'scientific' doubt as to the possibility of such a miracle. Gregory looked for the sensation of something happening that he did not expect: he wanted awed wonder to 'open up' his closed, 'hard' mind - an experience that he, by his strung-out description, is also trying to induce in the reader or auditor. The verbal inexpressibility of religious truth is a commonplace in late Antiquity, and occurs also in Gregory's writings. Gregory felt deeply reassured and even exhilarated by what he stayed to watch in reverence as the effluence of the divine power of the Cross.
