Introduction
The history of the Catholic Church is full of apparitions of various saints to Christians here on earth, usually as a means to encourage, warn, and/or direct/teach them. These apparitions are yet more proof that heaven is not detached from earth and its concerns.
Perhaps the most famous type of apparition are those of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, which have been taking place since ancient times. One such apparition–the most ancient we have been able to find (with patristic evidence)–took place alongside an apparition of St. John, both of whom appeared to the great eastern Church Father, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (c. 213-270), also known as the “Miracle Worker,” in order to instruct him on the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Roadmap
With that background in mind, our Roadmap is as follows:
- Our thesis is that this apparition of Our Lady and St. John to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus in the 200s is a wonderful and inspiring example of an ancient apparition that provides evidence the saints in heaven are concerned with our affairs on earth, and are sometimes used by God to assist us. We will show this by:
- Providing a brief bit of historical context about St. Gregory; then
- Quoting the ancient source that describes the apparition of Our Lady and St. John to him; then
- Analyzing the details of the apparition; then
- Summarizing the various ways in which the apparition provides evidence of the truth of the Catholic Faith.
Historical Context
Ordained when he was around 40 years old, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus served as a bishop for thirty years in Neocaesarea, in modern day Turkey. He played a key role in defending the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity against various heresies in the decades leading up to the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325. One such heresy was Sabellianism, which taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were not three persons, but three “modes” of one divine person.
St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395), a great eastern Church Father who wrote the main ancient account of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus’s life in the 4th century, is our source for the apparition of Our Lady and St. John. In this apparition, they delivered a creed to St. Gregory that laid out an orthodox formulation of Trinitarian doctrine, which was no doubt a great help to him in defending the faith against heretics.
The Apparition of Our Lady and St. John to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus
The apparition of Our Lady and St. John to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus is reported by St. Gregory of Nyssa in his Life of St. Gregory the Wonderworker, which he wrote sometime between 379 and the 380s. It apparently took place right after St. Gregory Thaumaturgus was ordained a bishop. Since he died in 270, and was a bishop for the last 30 years of his life, that means the apparition took place sometime around the year 240.
The details of the apparition are recorded as follows (§§28-33)1:
(§28) So when he [St. Gregory Thaumaturgus] had thus willy-nilly come under the yoke, and later all the proper ceremonies had been carried out on him [his ordination as bishop], and having requested a little time from the one who had 52 | 53 summoned him to the priesthood to come to an understanding of the exact purpose of the mystery, he no longer, as the Apostle says, thought it right to pay heed “to flesh and blood” (Gal. 1:16), but asked that he be given by God a manifestation of what is hidden. And he did not feel confident in preaching the word until the truth had been revealed to him in some visible way.
(§29) For while he was concentrating during the night on the doctrine of faith, and turning over all sorts of thoughts in his mind (for even then there were those who were falsifying the true doctrine, and through the plausibility of their proposals often making the truth unclear even to experts)–to him, then, as he was lying awake and pondering, someone appeared in a vision, in human shape, elderly looking, very dignified in garb, displaying every virtue in the grace of his countenance and the calmness of his appearance. Astonished at the sight, he got up from his bed to learn who this might be and why he had come. When the latter calmed his distress of mind with a quiet voice and said that he had appeared to him by divine command on account of the matters about which he was uncertain, so that the truth of the orthodox faith might be disclosed, he took heart at the word and looked to him with joy and amazement.
(§30) Then as the figure suddenly extended his hand and by the line of his fingers indicated to him what appeared at his side, he turned his eyes to where the hand was pointing and saw, across from the one he had seen, another vision, in female form, larger than human size. Astonished once again, he lowered his eyes to himself and was at a loss at the sight, not able to bear to look at the manifestation. For the paradox of the vision lay precisely in this, that although the night was far advanced, light illuminated the appearances for him, like something bright lighting a lamp. Therefore since he was not able with his eye to bear the vision, he heard through a kind of word those who had appeared to him discussing with each other the doctrine about which he was pondering, so that he not only was instructed as to the true knowledge of the faith but also recognized the 53 | 54 ones who had appeared by their names, since each of them addressed the other by their proper name.
(§31) For he is said to have heard from the one who appeared in female form as she urged the evangelist John to show the young man the mystery of the truth; and that the latter said that he was ready to indulge the mother of the Lord also in this, since it pleased her. And when he had thus uttered the doctrine, balanced and clearly defined, they again vanished from view. And he is said to have written down that divine initiation [“mystagogy”] as soon as possible, and afterwards to have used it as the basis for his preaching in the church and to have left that God-given teaching to his successors as a kind of inheritance, by which the people there are initiated to this day, thus remaining unaffected by every heretical wickedness.
(§32) Now the words of the initiation [“mystagogy”] are these:
One God: Father of the living Word, subsistent wisdom and power and eternal impress [Heb. 1:3]; perfect begetter of perfect; Father of only-begotten Son.
One Lord: only from only; God from God; impress and image of the Godhead; effective Word; wisdom embracing the structure of the universe, and power which makes the entire creation; true Son of true Father; invisible of invisible, and incorruptible of incorruptible, and immortal of immortal, and eternal of eternal.
One Holy Spirit; holding existence from God, and manifested through the Son (namely to human beings); perfect image of the perfect Son; life the cause of living things; holiness who makes sanctification possible; by whom is manifested God the Father, who is over all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all.
Perfect Trinity; in glory and eternity and sovereignty neither divided nor estranged.
Therefore there is nothing created or subservient in the Trinity, nor anything introduced which did not exist before but came later. Therefore neither did the Son fall short of the Father, nor the Spirit of the Son; but the same Trinity remains always undisturbed and unaltered. 54 | 55
Whoever would like to be convicted of this should listen to the church, in which he proclaimed the doctrine, where the very inscription of that blessed hand are preserved to this very day. Do these not rival in the marvelous nature of their grace those divinely fashioned tablets of stone? I refer to those tablets on which the legislation of the divine will was engraved. For just as the word says that Moses, having left the world of appearances and calmed his soul within the invisible shrines (for this is what “the darkness” stands for) (Ex. 24:12-15), learned the divine mysteries, and in person instructed the whole people in the knowledge of God, the same dispensation is to be seen in the case of this Great One. He had not some visible mountain of earth [Sinai] but the pinnacle of ardent desire for the true teachings; for darkness, the vision which others could not comprehend; for writing-tablet, the soul; for the letters graven on the stone tablets, the voice of the one he saw; through all of which both he and those initiated by him enjoyed a manifestation of the mysteries.
(§33) He was filled with a certain boldness and confidence through that vision, like an athlete who, since he has enough experience from competition and strength from training, strips confidently for the race and prepares for combat against his competitors; now he likewise, suitably anointed in soul by his care for himself and by the assistance of the favor which was revealed to him, thus undertook his struggles–for his whole life in 55 | 56 the priesthood deserves to be called nothing less than struggles or contests in which through faith he combated every power of the Adversary.
There are numerous fascinating and revealing details in the account of this ancient apparition.
First, St. Gregory asks God for help in order to better understand the mystery of the Christian faith (particularly given how many heretics were challenging it), and (according to St. John), God commanded both Our Lady and St. John assist him.
Second, St. John appears both dignified and elderly. This makes sense if in fact he did write the Apocalypse toward the end of his life (likely the end of the first century). The Gospels describe him as very youthful, but his appearance to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus as dignified and elderly is further evidence of his enduring to old age.
Third, Our Lady appeared “larger than human size.” On earth, it is virtually impossible to imagine Our Lady being physically larger than any of the Apostles–certainly not larger than “human size” itself. The fact that she appears larger in this apparition to St. Gregory implies that she possesses greater authority or stature in heaven–more so than St. John–which would indeed align with Catholic doctrine about the Queenship and role of Our Lady in the mystery of salvation.
Fourth, despite her greater prominence, it was St. John who gave St. Gregory a creedal “mystagogy” explaining the mystery of the Holy Trinity–but he did so at the request of Our Lady. Indeed, “he was ready to indulge the mother of the Lord also in this, since it pleased her.” This seems to indicate that the requests (i.e. prayers) of Our Lady receive particular attention and possess unique power. It may also have been a sign of respect and reverence by Our Lady for a priest of Her Son.
Fifth, the “mystagogy” delivered to St. Gregory is not only completely orthodox with respect to the Trinity, but was delivered nearly a century before the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325, which formally defined the doctrine of the Trinity for the whole Church (or at least began to do so). Not only that, but the “mystagogy” addresses the details of each of the three Persons of the Trinity. The Council of Nicaea, for example, did assert a belief in the Holy Spirit–but that was it. The details about the Holy Spirit were left to be filled in by the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople I in 381–approximately 140 years after Our Lady and St. John appeared to St. Gregory. And yet, the “mystagogy” they delivered to him perfectly accorded with the revised creed issued by the second Ecumenical Council, which is now known as the “Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed” that is said at mass every Sunday.
Sixth, the “mystagogy” of Our Lady and St. John, when speaking of the Holy Spirit, says He is “manifested through the Son,” and that He is the “perfect image of the perfect Son. In doing so, it gestures toward what would later be called the “filioque,” or the line “and [from] the Son” later added to the creed to describe the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, and often used to justify schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox. Thus, we have an eastern Church Father–St. Gregory of Nyssa–reporting a Marian/Johannine apparition to another eastern Church Father–St. Gregory Thaumaturgus–which he declares is thoroughly orthodox, and yet seems to also support the filioque. A more complete treatment of this thorny subject would be more appropriate elsewhere, but surely any such treatment should consider the significance of this apparition.
Seventh, St. Gregory Nyssa tells us that the words of this “mystagogy” delivered to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus were engraved in stone and could still be seen in his own day at the very same church in which St. Gregory taught.
Conclusion
The main takeaways from this apparition of Our Lady and St. John to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus are as follows:
- The saints in heaven are aware of the persons and events on earth.
- God sometimes permits–or in this case, commands–saints to appear to Christians on earth in order to encourage, warn, and/or direct/teach them. In this case, after his request for help, God commanded Our Lady and St. John to appear to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus in order to help him understand the truth of the Holy Trinity. This in turn empowered him to defend this great doctrine against many and various heretics, particularly the Sabellians.
- This apparition likewise shows that the prayers of Our Lady are given special attention, as it was She who requested St. John to teach St. Gregory the proper doctrine. Indeed, St. John said “he was ready to indulge the mother of the Lord also in this, since it pleased her.”
- This ancient apparition–the first we have found specifically of Our Lady–offer evidence of the truth of the Catholic Faith, not only in its teachings about the Holy Trinity, but about the communion of saints, particularly the involvement of the saints in the Church Triumphant with the lives of those of us who are here on earth in the Church Militant.
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