Crossings

8 October 2022

Gregory of Nyssa came to Avanos.

(For those of you whose ears I haven’t yet talked off with church history, Gregory is one of Macrina’s younger brothers. He’s a significant theologian, arguably the first mystic, and the one who gave us Life of Macrina and On the Soul and Resurrection, the two major works we have on Macrina.)

I learned about his visit on night we got back from hiking. Becca clocked out before eight pm, leaving me to my own devices at the cheery night-life poolside. I was the only at said chilly poolside, and my devices consisted of one smartphone with data and a well-worn map of 4th century Cappadocia. Wikipedia told me that Avanos used to be called Vanessa. My map told me that Vanessa also went by the name of Vanota. The Kizilirmak River that bisects the town was once known as the Halys, a name I knew I had come across somewhere in Gregory’s writing. I searched “Gregory of Nyssa Halys.”

“I write you this letter from the sacred Vanota,” begins Greogry’s Epistle 15, addressed to his friend Adelphius the lawyer. I laughed to the night-whispering walnuts overhead. Here! I was giddy with seven hours of hiking and unexpected nearness of my people, and it was some time before I could attend to his words.

“Vanota” sounds a bit unpolished to Gregory, and he opens his letter by musing on the contrast between the rough speech and the town’s loveliness. The river Halys runs gold and purple with its load of clay. (A hydroelectric dam has since cleared the water, but potters still dig clay from the river’s banks.) Gregory sees the mountain above the town densely covered in oaks. (These have vanished, but the hill on which we’re staying is one of the few remaining patches of forest, greened with willows, poplars, walnuts and pines.)

Between forest and town, Gregory’s Vanota is mantled in vineyards. Apples are there too, “approaching to the hue of [their] own blossom with the brilliance of [their] coloring” and pears “whiter than new polished ivory.” Peaches, almonds and walnuts are also in abundance, so beautifully arranged that Gregory wonders whether to call it gardening or drawing. Individual grape vines twine with roses against the walls.  

I think he must have been here in September or October, because nearly every fruit he mentions is now in season. Vineyards are still everywhere. Becca and I glean grapes when we walk down the mountain into town. In the city proper, every other house has its own grapevine. The hotel’s walnut trees rattle nuts on our heads during breakfast. Roses are widely used in public landscaping, and I can pick apples from any number of trees outside our room.

Gregory is writing this delightful letter because he arrived at Adelphius’s villa and found him absent. He goes into great detail to praise the house, but what really seizes his attention is the fish.

The house attracted us to itself; and again, the portico on the pool was a unique sight. For the excellent fish would swim up from the depths to the surface, leaping up into the very air like winged things, as though purposely mocking us creatures of the dry land. For showing half their form and tumbling through the air, they plunged once more into the depth.

I’ve not seen any such fish, but Cappadocia has found new ways to mock the creatures of dry land. The hot air balloons ascend at six o’clock every morning. From the terrace of our hotel, they’re smaller than children’s toys, a school of minnows drifting toward the horizon.

To read Gregory’s letter in its entirety, click here.