Writing and the liturgy of memory in Gregory of Nyssa's 'Life of Macrina' (Eucharistic models of liturgical piety and practice for Christian hagiography)

In the Life of Macrina, written shortly after his sister's death in 380, Gr egory of Nyssa establishes a theological context for hagiographical composi tion in late fourth-century liturgical piety and practice. Situating acts o f storytelling in the struggle to manage grief, Gregory uses remembering (a namnesis) as a technology for rendering the absent present. Within the text , Macrina herself stresses that the goal of biography is "thanksgiving to G od," modelling the proper method of Christian biographical narrative. Thus Gregory's literary production has analogues in evening prayer and the anaph ora of the divine liturgy. Reflecting on the relationship between spoken an d written words, and between logos and flesh, the Life of Macrina posits a complex relationship between body and text, in which Gregory's writing figu res as sacrificial offering.