Gregory of Nazianzus

“ The aged bishop of Nazianzus having yielded to the imperial threats, a great storm arose among the monks of the diocese, which was only quelled by the influence of the younger Gregory, who shortly afterwards (about 361) was ordained to the priesthood. After a vain attempt to evade his new duties and responsibilities by flight, he appears to have continued to act as a presbyter in his father’s diocese without interruption for some considerable time ”

“ Gregory left Constantinople in June 381, repaired to Nazianzus, and after finding a suitable man to occupy the see, retired to Arianzus, but was pressed to return and take a leading post in order to check Apollinarian heretics. His health broke down, and he wished to retire. He would have voted in the election of his successor, but his opponents objected on the ground that he either was bishop of Nazianzus, or not ”

“ Julian. And what, then, is madness? How did our forefathers conceive of it? What was the doctrine of the Egyptian priests? And what says Maximus the Mystic and the other philosophers of the East? They say that the divine enigma reveals itself in the brainsick. Our Gregory—in setting himself up against the Emperor—is thus in special league with Heaven.—Make libations of wine to the Cappadocian; sing songs to our Gregory’s praise;—a statue of honour for Gregory of Nazianzus! ”

“ More faithful to the tradition of the schools was Gregory of Nazianzus. But, owing to the fact that he generally employed antiquated versification and very erudite language, his poems failed to reach the people or to find a place in the services of the church. Just as little could the artificial paraphrase of the Psalms composed by the younger Apollinaris, or the subtle poems of Synesius, become popular. It became more and more patent that, with the archaic metre which was out of keeping with the character of the living language, no genuine poetry suited to the age could possibly be produced. ”

“ Gregory Nazianzen was in some respects the opposite, or the complement, to his friend Basil in nature and disposition. An indefatigable student, retiring and unambitious, he would never have come out into a position of responsibility if this course had not been forced upon him, or at all events reluctantly accepted by him under a strong sense of duty. He was born in the year 325, or a little later, at Nazianzus in Cappadocia, where his father, the elder Gregory was bishop, honourably illustrating as late as the fourth century the right of bishops to live in the married state. ”

“ Gregory wrote his brother a letter of most affectionate though earnest remonstrance; with the result that Cæsarius soon made up his mind to retire, and put his resolution in practice on the opportunity afforded by the departure of the Emperor from Constantinople to assume the direction of his campaign against the Persians. Nazianzus was not allowed to remain without attempts being made against its Christianity, for the Prefect of the Province was sent with an armed escort of considerable strength to demand possession of the Church. ”

“ The deaconess Olympias to whom seventeen of Chrysostom’s extant letters are addressed was the most eminent of his female friends. She belonged to a Pagan family of high rank, and was born about 368. Her father Seleucus who was a count of the Empire died when she was a young girl and she was brought up under the guardianship of an uncle Procopius, who has a devout Christian and a friend of Gregory of Nazianzus. Gregory took great interest in her, speaking of her in his letters as “his own Olympias” and delighting to be addressed by her as “father.” ”

“ His father, also named Gregory, had lately become bishop of the diocese; his mother, Nonna, exercised a powerful influence over the religious convictions of both father and son. Gregory visited successively the two Caesareas, Alexandria and Athens, as a student of grammar, mathematics, rhetoric and philosophy; at Athens he had for fellow-students Basil (q.v.) , who afterwards became bishop of Caesarea, and Julian, afterwards emperor. Shortly after his return to his father’s house at Nazianzus (about the year 360) Gregory received baptism. He resolved to give himself to the service of religion ”

“ He kissed the emperor's hand, and did not know that he was kissing his own murderer! And those who did know it were none the better off; when once involved in the mischief, and taking for an inviolable law their own original inadvertence. What myriads of Persians, what archers, what slingers had effected this! What soldier of steel, in armour of proof, what battering engines had brought about what was effected by a single hand, a single moment, and a vile trick! ”

“ On the other hand, it is possible that Basil, in his eagerness for the settlement of his exarchate, too little consulted the character and taste of Gregory; and, above all, the feelings of duty which bound him to Nazianzus....Henceforth no letters, which are preserved, passed between the two friends; nor are any acts of intercourse discoverable in their history. Anthimus appointed a rival bishop to Sasima; and Gregory, refusing to contest the see with him, returned to Nazianzus. Basil laboured by himself. ”

“ Who, of the mad behaviour of the people of Gaza----those that were praised and rewarded by that man because they had properly appreciated his magnificence? Who has not heard of the insanity of the Arethusians, a place previously unknown, but ever since that time only too notorious? for it is not only distinguished conduct that renders people famous, but also any wickedness that surpasses other people's reputation for evil. ”

“ But in the latter part of his note Valesius suggests that τὰ τελευταῖα may refer to the episcopate of Gregory at Nazianzus in his last days, after his abdication of the see of Constantinople,—“Atque hic sensus magis placet, magis enim convenire videtur verbis Theodoreti;” “Recent feeder,” then, or “he who most recently fed,” will mean “he who after the events at Constantinople which I am about to relate, acted as bishop of Nazianzus.” ”

“ Crates is a great man with you; and certainly it was philosophic conduct for a sheep-farmer to have cast away his fortune----conduct quite like that of our own philosophers. But then he makes too much parade of his liberty in his preaching, whereby he shows himself not so much a lover of wisdom as a lover of fame. A great man is he of the tempest-tossed ship, and all the goods thrown overboard, who returned thanks to dame Fortune for reducing him again to the bare cloak. ”

“ A great man too is Antisthenes, who when he had had his face battered by some mischievous and impudent fellow, wrote upon his forehead, like the maker of a statue, the name of the man who had beaten him----perhaps in order to accuse him more forcibly. ”

“ He was led along by every age and condition, with no exception, alike by men and women, old and young, by all who held public offices, and by all people of rank. All had but one object of emulation, how to surpass each other in atrocity towards the aged man; and it was considered by them a pious deed to do the most mischief, and to conquer the ancient champion who was fighting against the whole town. ”

“ The most excellent qualities were in Gregory mingled with faults; he was not quite free from vanity, he was very irritable and sensitive, but also readily forgave and cherished no grudges. He was a man feeling after holiness, and striving after the highest good, but not perfect, as no man upon earth is.”
Before leaving Constantinople he made his will, in which he bequeathed all his property to the Deacon Gregory for life, with reversion to the poor of Nazianzus. ”

“ If speaking Greek belongs to the religion, pray show where it is the rule, and amongst what sort of priests (like particular sorts of sacrifices) , and in honour of what kind of diction? Since all nations have not the same doctrines, nor any single one the sole possession of them; nor yet the same ceremonial, as it is laid down by your own sacred interpreters and directors of sacrifice. For in some places, with the Sindians for instance, it is a religious action to curse the "Bull-eater," and this is a way of doing honour to the god, namely, the reviling of him ”

“ The friends started together with a train of slaves and mules to collect the produce of the monastery of St. Orestes, in Cappadocia Secunda, which was the property of the see of Cæsarea. Anthimus blocked the defiles with his retainers and in the vicinity of Sasima [2] there was an unseemly struggle between the domestics of the two prelates. [3] The friends proceeded to Nazianzus, and there, with imperious inconsiderateness, Basil insisted upon nominating Gregory to one of the bishoprics which he was founding in order to strengthen his position against Anthimus. ”

“ Or, to speak more correctly, they did not suffer themselves to be the only Martyrs to be insulted, whilst the others were interred and cared for by pious Lands; nor wonld they give the Sophist of Wickedness the pleasure of exulting over the insults done them, in order that by the same hand some monuments of the Martyrs should be set up, and others pulled down; and that some Martyrs should be honoured, but others dishonoured; whilst the honour in semblance anticipated by but a little while the dishonour in reality ”

“ The result was that he abandoned his position and retired to Nazianzus in 381. Deprived by death of his life-long friend, and of his brother Caesarius, to whom he was bound by more than brotherly love, he retired from the world and penned those poems, some of which are among the treasures of the Church Catholic. He died in 390.
The hymns of Gregory are found in the second volume of the Benedictine Edition of his works which was published in Paris in 1842. A selection can be seen in Daniel’s Thesaurus, and in the Anthologica Graeca, Carminum Christianorum. ”

“ Basil and Gregory alone, by a special dispensation of Divine Providence, being on account of their eminent piety exempted from this punishment. The former of these individuals was bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia; while Gregory presided over Nazianzus, [4]
a little city in the vicinity of Cæsarea. But we shall have occasion to mention both Basil and Gregory again in the course of our history. [5]
Footnotes ↑ 367 a.d. ”

“ They are always easy and natural; and there is nothing forced in the manner in which their acute, witty and profound sayings are introduced. Those to Basil introduce us to the story of a most romantic friendship, those to Cledonius have theological value for their bearing on the Apollinarian controversy. As an orator he was so facile, vigorous and persuasive, that men forgot his small stature and emaciated countenance. Forty-five orations are extant. Gregory was less an independent theologian than an interpreter. ”

“ What voice or what force of speech shall he find equal to the miracle? Who hath broken the shield, the sword, and the battle? Who hath bruised the heads of the dragon upon the waters, and given him for food unto the nations to whom Thou hast delivered him up? Who hath stilled the whirlwind into a breeze? Who hath said unto the sea, Be thou silent, be thou muzzled, and thy waves shall break themselves within thee? ”

“ Or, if you will, it is like a battle at night by the faint light of the moon, when none can discern the faces of friends or foes; or like a sea fight on the surge, with the driving winds, and boiling foam, and dashing waves, and crashing vessels, with the thrusts of poles, the pipes of boatswains, the groans of the fallen, while we make our voices heard above the din, and not knowing what to do, and having, alas! no opportunity for showing our valour, assail one another, and fall by one another’s hands. ”

“ Gregory Nazianzen ought to be represented as an old man wasted by fasting and vigils, with a bald head, a long beard of a reddish colour, and eyebrows the same. He is always the last in a series of the Four Greek Fathers, and, though often occurring in Greek Art, the popularity [Pg 342] of St. Gregory the Great has completely banished St. Gregory the Poet from Western Art. ”

“ Gregory Nazianzen, in the Greek MS. of his sermons preserved in the Imperial Library at Paris, and adorned with Byzantine miniatures, which must once have been beautiful and brilliant: ruined as they are, they present some of the most ancient examples which remain to us of the treatment of many sacred subjects from the Old and the New Testament, and give a high idea of the classic taste and the skill of the Byzantine limners of the ninth century. Besides the sacred subjects, we have numerous scenes interspersed from the life of Gregory himself, his friend St. Basil, and the Emperor Theodosius. ”

“ A. Bénoit, St Grégoire de Nazianze; sa vie, ses œuvres, et son époque (1877) ; Montaut, Revue critique de quelques questions historiques se rapportant à St Grégoire de Nazianze (1879) ; F. W. Farrar, Lives of the Fathers, i. 491-582, and F. Loofs in Hauck-Herzog’s Realencyk. für prot. Theologie, vii. 138.
GREGORY, ST, OF NYSSA (c. 331-c. 396) , one of the four great fathers of the Eastern Church, designated by one of the later ecumenical councils as “a father of fathers,” was a younger brother of Basil (the Great) , bishop of Caesarea, and was born (probably) at Neocaesarea about A.D. 331. ”

“ There is a famous manoeuvre in the Spanish bull-fights, which may prove successful once, but which means death to the torreador should he attempt to repeat it. The result of Gregory's second bann was not unlike it. A storm of indignation rose against the pope, and the Lombard and German bishops rallied to Henry. First in Bamberg, then in Mainz, and finally in Brixen (see No. 13) , Gregory was declared deposed. Wibert of Ravenna was made pope in his stead. Gregory's letter of justification, written to Bishop Herrmann of Metz (see No. 14) , shows a power of reasoning worthy of the Jesuits. ”