Too much of a good thing?
Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? For Gregory of Nyssa the answer is clearly "yes". Here's what he has to say: Virtue is discerned in the mean [meaning 'average' or 'centre' here]. Accordingly, all evil naturally operates in a deficiency or an excess of virtue. In the case of courage, cowardice is the lack of virtue, and rashness is its excess. What is pure of each of these is seen to lie between these corresponding evils and is virtue. Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses , Trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York: Harper One, 1978), 121. Here we begin to see some of how Gregory would describe apatheia . Often this is understood as "passionlessness", but for Gregory it is slightly nuanced. That is, apatheia is the "proper use of passions" (what we might understand better today as our desires); in this case it's not being excessive in what we are passionate about it, or at the opposite extreme com...