other · 379 · Neocaesarea
Gregory of Nyssa arrived at Annisa to find his sister lying on a board on the floor of the community she had made, and he wrote down what happened over the next two days. What makes it unusual in this dataset is the form: On the Soul and the Resurrection is a philosophical dialogue in which Macrina holds the position and answers the objections, and Gregory casts himself as the one who keeps getting it wrong — he calls her the Teacher throughout and never once uses her name in it. She had turned the family estate into a common life years before Basil came home from Athens to write a rule for it, had freed the household slaves and eaten with them, and had refused marriage at twelve on the ground that her dead betrothed was not dead but away. She died in the same year as Basil, and Gregory buried her beside their parents.
Nothing. Her brother came to see her and found her dying.
The Life of Macrina and the dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection — two books in which a fourth-century woman does the arguing.